#this is one of two kaito rambles i have prepared for today to mark the occasion

[elyvorg]

Kaito Momota: The Man Who Apologised Too Much

Yes, you read that title correctly, and yes, I am 100% serious right now. There seems to be this bizarre myth in this fandom (at least from what I’ve seen, and even from people who appear to like Kaito enough to have thought about him a decent amount) that Kaito believes, out of some kind of toxic masculinity, that men shouldn’t ever apologise, and therefore he never does so himself until right at the end as a supposed sign of his growth. This could not be further from the actual truth about how Kaito feels and acts and grows with regards to the topic of apologising. I am here to thoroughly debunk that ridiculous myth and talk about what’s really going on with Kaito and apologies, which is practically the complete opposite of that and far, far more interesting.

(I should also make it clear that I’m not doing this because I’m trying to insist that Kaito is perfect and without fault. If he actually did have a toxic masculinity thing going on that he needed to unlearn, I’d be totally okay with that, because that’d be him having flaws and therefore being a perfectly good character even if he’s a somewhat less good person as a result. It’s just that these are not remotely the issues Kaito has in canon, and I want to shed some light on what’s actually going on here. It still involves him being very messed up, I promise, just in a completely different way!)

Don’t make yourself feel bad!

The best illustration of Kaito’s principles on apologising is early in chapter 1. After everyone gets emotionally beaten down by the escape tunnel, half the group proceeds to blame Kaede as if she should never have encouraged them to keep trying it in the first place. Kaede agrees that it’s all her fault and apologises to them – but Kaito immediately questions why she’s doing that when she didn’t do anything wrong. Yes, things happened to turn out badly as a result of her encouragement, but she didn’t mean for that to happen when she decided to encourage everyone. It was not a mistake for Kaede to want everyone to try and escape, and she should never be made to feel like she ought to apologise for that. So Kaito tells her, phrased like this is advice he’s regularly given to people in the past, “Listen up. Don’t apologize for something that’s not your fault! It’ll just make you feel bad!”

This line not only very clearly states what Kaito’s principles on this are, but it also shows part of why he feels so strongly about this – because it’s about self-care. Kaito is always trying to encourage people to be kind to themselves and to stay positive, to not wallow in negative feelings when they could be thinking instead about what they can do to make things better. This also extends to not blaming themselves and making themselves feel like something’s their fault when it isn’t, and apologising for said thing is liable to make someone do that. Kaito advocates not apologising when something isn’t one’s fault for the sake of the mental health of the person who would be giving the apology, which deserves to be looked out for just as much as that of the person who would be receiving the apology.

(Also note that Kaito’s saying this to Kaede despite her not being a man, and he doesn’t bring up the concept of manliness at all while doing so, because this whole thing is actually not even remotely about gender to him, as I’ll go into more in a bit.)

This is very similar in principle to the type of advice that Kaito gives Shuichi (even though he never directly mentions apologies while doing so, which is a fact that will be important later). Especially after Kaede’s death, Shuichi’s biggest problem is blaming himself for all the bad things that happened, when all he did was try his hardest to find the truth, which isn’t a bad thing to do at all. Even though his deduction was wrong and the mastermind didn’t come to the hidden door, he tried his best to figure things out with what he had and it’s not his fault he wasn’t quite correct. Even though Kaede was executed because Shuichi uncovered her crime, he sure as hell didn’t want that to happen to her and was just trying to save the maximum number of people from this killing game’s rules. Kaito’s support of Shuichi focuses on trying to stop him from blaming himself about this kind of thing, because he should be pursuing the truth, that’s what they need in a killing game like this, and so he should be proud of himself for being the one who can do that for everyone, rather than beating himself up over it.

And, to skip way ahead to a part of chapter 5 for a moment, this idea is also relevant when Kaito jumps in the way of Maki’s arrow that was meant for Kokichi. Moments later, he learns that the arrow was poisoned, that Kokichi was already dying from her first poison arrow anyway and that he just made things worse by getting himself fatally poisoned too (at least, as far as he knows until Kokichi starts explaining his plan) – but Kaito never once apologises for or shows any regret over making that jump. He didn’t and couldn’t have known the arrows were poisoned, so in that situation, leaping to protect Kokichi was the best thing he could have done and therefore not a mistake. The fact that it turned out the arrows were poisoned and his actions only (apparently) made things worse was not his fault, and at least on this occasion, Kaito understands that and doesn’t go and make himself feel bad over this.

Take responsibility!

Getting back to chapter 1 – the next morning after the tunnel incident, people are still blaming Kaede for it, and Kaito is still arguing that they shouldn’t and she shouldn’t apologise. But this time, Kaede clarifies what she actually did wrong: she got so overly focused on the tunnel that she didn’t consider how everyone was feeling. While simply trying to escape was not a mistake, getting so into it that she overlooked everyone’s exhaustion and kept pushing them past their limits was. When Kaede apologises for doing that, Kaito accepts things and drops the subject.

After all, Kaito also strongly advocates taking responsibility, which means that you should apologise when you did genuinely make a mistake. We can see this in this same chapter 1 conversation when Kaito complains that everyone was blaming Kaede without taking responsibility themselves. Even though Kaede was the most forceful in pushing them into it, everyone else still chose to listen to her and try the tunnel of their own volition. So their resulting exhaustion was still partly on them, and they should be acknowledging their own mistake in doing that, rather than running away from their responsibility by pinning it all on Kaede.

And Kaito is perfectly capable of putting this into practice himself, as we see at the beginning of chapter 2 where he very clearly and openly apologises to Shuichi for punching him at the end of the trial the night before. At the time, Kaito’s words made it sound like he’d punched Shuichi to try and push him to stand up to Monokuma more – but really he just did it because he couldn’t deal with his own pain over Kaede’s death and lashed out. After having a night to calm down and think it over, Kaito realised that he was never going to help like that and he shouldn’t have lost control of himself, so he takes responsibility for his mistake and apologises to Shuichi as soon as he can. He even seems somewhat hesitant when Shuichi readily accepts his apology, as if he was expecting Shuichi to be more upset at his actions than this.

So: Kaito very evidently believes that you should apologise when you have made a mistake. In that circumstance, the you-feeling-bad that comes from apologising is worthwhile, because at least it’ll help you learn from that mistake in order to be able to make better choices in future and hopefully not let it happen again. After all, self-improvement is also a big thing that Kaito’s always trying to encourage! It’s only when you genuinely aren’t in the wrong that he advocates not apologising, because that’ll make you feel bad for no good reason and possibly end up inclined to avoid choices in future aren’t actually bad choices at all. This entire thing from Kaito is all about helping people, just like Kaito is always trying to do.

Since realising this about Kaito and thinking about it a lot, I’ve actually been making something of an effort in my own life to catch myself whenever I’m feeling inclined to apologise for something and ask myself if I really should be doing so according to what Kaito would say. Even if I end up concluding that I did in fact make a mistake that I should have been able to foresee and avoid, which I therefore do apologise for, this lets me properly think about what the mistake was. That way, not only can I keep that mistake in mind to try and avoid in future, but I also don’t end up feeling like anything else about the situation that I couldn’t actually help was somehow my fault as well. This is really emotionally healthy advice that I think everyone should try and follow! Kaito is so good.

(There is admittedly another angle to this. Sometimes, even if person A genuinely didn’t meant to hurt person B, person B was still hurt enough that they deserve an apology just for the sake of acknowledging that the hurt happened and that it mattered even if it was unintentional. In that type of case, I do believe that the person responsible should apologise even if it was genuinely an accident, for the sake of the mental health of the person who was hurt. But in that case, it shouldn’t be an “I’m sorry that I did this” if their actions weren’t inherently wrong; it should be an “I’m sorry that you were hurt because of something I did”. Kaito is never seen addressing this angle, but I really think that’s just because it doesn’t happen to come up, and that if you asked him about this, he’d agree with what I’m saying here.)

Be sure of yourself! (whether or not you’re literally a man)

But what does all this even have to do with manliness, then? Well, the short answer is “really not actually that much”, because the only times Kaito ever brings manliness into this apologising thing is when he’s giving this advice to Gonta.

The most notable example of this is during trial 1. After Gonta’s been cleared of suspicion, Kokichi’s dickery makes Gonta literally apologise for not being the murderer. Naturally Kaito takes issue with him doing that, so he tells Gonta, “A man shouldn’t apologize so easily!”. And the key part of this sentence which apparently some people completely overlook is the “so easily”. Kaito would never have uttered that sentence without that part, because he does not even remotely believe that a man shouldn’t apologise at all. What he’s actually saying here is exactly the same thing he was saying to Kaede – don’t apologise when you’re genuinely not in the wrong. Not being a murderer is obviously not a mistake and not something anyone should ever have to feel like they should apologise for and make themselves feel bad over for no sensible reason! Nobody else would have remotely let themselves be led by Kokichi into apologising for being innocent – but Gonta in particular is so tragically unsure of himself and of what he should be doing that when Kokichi implied he’d done something wrong, he immediately assumed he must have done and apologised without question.

Making this also about being a “man” does seem uncalled for, but Kaito does this for two reasons. One is because being sure of yourself is a big part of what his concept of manliness is about. Kaito believes that, ideally, people should think for themselves and know for themselves what’s right and wrong. If they were wrong, they should acknowledge it and own up to that (taking responsibility is also a big part of this manliness thing for Kaito) – but if they were in the right, they should be able to stand up for themselves and not back down from what they believe in. It’s exactly the same concept I’ve already talked about with regards to apologies, just framed in a way that’s about conviction instead of self-care. Gonta is an incredibly kind person who’s always trying to do the right thing, which Kaito can respect a lot, but it bothers Kaito that someone as good as that has such a hard time seeing what the right thing is in the first place. Gonta ought to be able to have enough conviction to stand up for himself and tell Kokichi, “no, I didn’t do anything wrong, stop trying to make me feel bad for not murdering anyone.”

And note how in the previous paragraph when talking about Kaito’s beliefs on this, I said “people”, not “men”, because neither this nor anything else about Kaito’s concept of manliness (which I’m not going into in any more detail here, because this post is about the apology thing) has anything inherently to do with gender. Literally the only thing gendered about Kaito’s concept of manliness is the word he uses for it. It’s really more like a kind of moral code that he always tries to stick to, one which can apply to anyone regardless of gender, except for some reason or another he somehow ended up using that word to encapsulate it. Unfortunately, this has the side-effect of giving it rather less morally-sound implications to anyone who doesn’t bother to pay any attention to what Kaito’s actually talking about every time he mentions it.

However, Kaito’s concept of manliness is almost always something he only has for himself, because following that code is personally important to him. He doesn’t inflict it on others if he doesn’t think they’d buy into it – after all, the concept of conviction is a lot less important in helping people’s mental health than the concept of self-care is. So the other reason Kaito brings manliness into the apology thing in this context is only because it’s Gonta. Gonta has his own very similar thing about being a gentleman, which isn’t quite the same as Kaito’s concept of manliness, but there is a lot of overlap, especially when it comes to sincerity and integrity. Kaito mentions manliness to Gonta in particular only because he believes that idea might actually resonate with Gonta and help him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have done, just like he didn’t when telling Kaede not to apologise, and just like he almost never does to Shuichi while giving him advice, even though Shuichi is also male.

Another point at which Kaito tells Gonta that a man shouldn’t apologise so easily (again, so easily; he never omits that part) is during the investigation of case 2. Gonta apologises for being too scared to jump into the water tank to save Ryoma from the piranhas, but Kaito points out that the piranhas would just have eaten him too. Gonta staying put and keeping himself safe was the right thing to do, not a mistake that he should be apologising for and making himself feel bad over when there really wasn’t anything more he could have done to save Ryoma. Later, Gonta apologises again for not watching the tank better because he didn’t see Ryoma in there before the piranhas fell in, and Kaito gives him the same line – because Gonta is so tragically convinced that he’s wrong about everything that he automatically assumes he was mistaken in what he saw and blames himself, without considering that maybe there just genuinely wasn’t anything to see. And the last time Kaito says this to Gonta is at the beginning of chapter 3 when Kokichi tells Gonta, “Nothing good ever happens when you try to help,” and Gonta agrees and apologises… for always trying to help? Obviously that’s not something he should ever apologise for, even if his efforts don’t always work out so well. Kaito would hate it for Gonta to start thinking because of this that he really shouldn’t ever be trying to help!

There’s more on this general idea in that investigation 2 conversation when Shuichi points out that it was impossible to save Ryoma anyway because he was already dead by then according to the Monokuma File, and Gonta admits he didn’t even read the file because he doesn’t think he’s smart enough to understand it. Really, Gonta is not nearly as stupid as he thinks and would have been perfectly able to understand “the cause of death was drowning”. But because he’s so unsure of himself, he didn’t even try, which is exactly the problem with Gonta being this way! Kaito picks up on this and tells him, “If you think you can’t help, then work till you can!” – because, again, Kaito is always trying to encourage people not to wallow in the pain of what they couldn’t do but instead to focus on what they can do going forward.

And that’s exactly the kind of thing that Kaito’s apology principle is all about. Its purpose is to help people stay positive and work constructively to improve themselves. Kaito’s not-actually-gendered concept of manliness is only tangentially connected to this, only even gets brought up when Gonta’s involved, and isn’t really the point at all.

(Heck, if Kaito did consciously think about gender while considering his apology thing, he is smart enough that he’d most likely realise that, in terms of the way people are socialised to behave, it generally tends to be women who apologise too easily and men who don’t apologise enough. So, if anything, he’d frame his usual advice about when not to apologise to be a little more geared towards women, and make more of an overt point about how men should take responsibility instead. The fact that he doesn’t do this is a strong indicator that he just hasn’t taken gender into account at all when it comes to this.)

How Kaito starts to get it wrong

So, having firmly established Kaito’s principles about not apologising when you’re not in the wrong and why he feels so strongly about this, now for the fun part. As in, the part where he repeatedly breaks these principles himself. Everyone should already know how much of a delightful hypocrite Kaito is when it comes to following his own advice, and yep, that applies to this, too.

This begins in chapter 3, as Kaito becomes afflicted by his phobia of ghosts and gets so anxious and nauseous that it completely tanks his mental strength and ability to do much of anything. He apologises so many times during this part of the story: for not being able to hang out with Shuichi, for not being able to be there for him and Maki at training, for not being able to help Shuichi investigate – even though the reason why he can’t do those things is not his fault and he hasn’t done anything wrong. Sure, it sucks that he can’t be there for his sidekicks, but that is not remotely what he wanted to happen and if he had his way and wasn’t so horribly mentally ill then he absolutely would still be there for them. This thoroughly checks out, according to Kaito’s own principles about this, as Not Something To Apologise For.

(…Okay, so it’s slightly more complicated than that since his main issue in this chapter is not a literal sickness but a phobia. That’s something that it’s easier for Kaito to tell himself he should be able to fight against, since it’s all in his head, and therefore it’s his fault if he can’t, right? But, obviously Kaito is trying to fight against it in order to be there for his sidekicks. The only possible mistake here would be him not even trying at all, but Kaito is never not trying. So if he still can’t manage to overcome his phobia despite giving it his best effort, then that isn’t his fault at all.)

But Kaito apologises for it anyway, repeatedly. A lot of these are just casual “sorry”s and “my bad”s peppered into his dialogue that are easy to miss, which might read simply as something he’s doing unconsciously without really thinking about his principles at all. Yet at one point he straight-up approaches Shuichi and makes a whole point of the fact that he thinks he needs to apologise for not coming to training. So it’s not just unconscious – Kaito actively feels like he’s doing something wrong that he ought to take responsibility for and accept feeling bad about so that he can do better in future. Except, how is he ever going to be able to do better in future when his “mistake” is, effectively, “being sick”? Kaito is just going to make himself feel an obligation to be less sick, and that he’s still failing and still ought to feel bad if he continues to be sick anyway, which… well, we know how that’s going to end up for him.

Aaaaand it sure does during chapter 4 as well. Kaito doesn’t apologise nearly as much in this chapter as he did in chapter 3, presumably because he’s able to be there for his sidekicks again and appear on the surface as if he’s totally fine and isn’t doing anything “wrong” at all. But a few unnecessary apologies still slip through here and there. One is when he has to briefly leave a training session for what is totally just using the bathroom and definitely not coughing up any blood. Since using the bathroom isn’t something even Kaito’s warped logic would think of as “doing something wrong”, he’s really apologising for being sick and dying and letting that get in the way of training his sidekicks. Similarly, he apologises at the end of trial 4, after he’s coughed up blood in front of everyone and needs to head back to his room. Again, apologising simply for being visibly ill in front of them. Kaito, no.

The reason Kaito is so convinced that he apparently ought to feel bad and apologise for these things is rooted in the core of his issues, namely his unrealistically perfect standards for heroes. (If you haven’t read that other Kaito analysis post of mine I just linked, you probably should, because it’s going to get increasingly relevant to this post from here on.) A hero like Kaito must be flawlessly strong and never let his sidekicks down no matter what, and anything else is unacceptable. Being weak is a “mistake” for Kaito, even if it’s a type of weakness that isn’t rooted in his choices and is entirely outside of his control. Not being able to be there for his sidekicks is a “mistake” for Kaito, no matter how hard he’s trying to be there and never wanted to be incapable of it. He genuinely feels like he should apologise for these things, because he deserves to feel bad about it, and he needs to do better somehow, even if there’s literally no actual way for him to do so.

Just like every other bit of advice he gives to others, Kaito’s whole principle of not apologising when you’re not in the wrong is about emotional self-care – so it’s only to be expected that he’d be just as bad at following this himself as he is with every other part of his own advice. Because Kaito is horrendous at actually looking after his own well-being when he needs to, emotionally as well as physically.

(And really that’s Kaito’s only actual mistake in this situation: not looking after himself, including not telling his sidekicks what’s going on with him and letting them help. Maybe that should warrant an apology. After all, the reason he avoids them in chapter 3 is less because of his phobia of ghosts itself and more because he doesn’t want them to see that he’s afraid of ghosts. So in that sense, technically he’s skipping out on their training for reasons that actually are him being in the wrong. But that’s definitely never what Kaito thinks he’s apologising for on any of these occasions, now, is it.)

How Kaito gets it wrong in the other direction

Things get even more interesting as we move into chapter 5, in the aftermath of the nightmare that was Gonta’s trial. Shuichi is under the impression that the reason Kaito is avoiding him is because he’s angry at Shuichi for pursuing Gonta’s guilt, almost like he’s wanting Shuichi to apologise for it before talking to him again. But Shuichi asserts privately to Maki that he doesn’t think it would be right for him to apologise when it was the only thing he could do to keep everyone else alive. Of course it’s not Shuichi’s fault that Gonta being the culprit was the truth, nor that Gonta got executed as a result of his crime being uncovered. Shuichi didn’t want any of the awful things to happen and only did what needed to be done to save as many lives as possible.

Sound familiar? Yep, that’s precisely Kaito’s principles on when not to apologise right there. So it is literally not possible that Kaito could actually be expecting an apology from Shuichi; he’d understand perfectly well that Shuichi doesn’t deserve to make himself feel bad when he did what a detective should always do and saved everyone. Credit to Shuichi for being self-assured enough by this point to be able to stand up for what he did and assert that he shouldn’t apologise. The reason he’s so self-assured now is almost certainly thanks to Kaito and all the general advice Kaito has been giving him about not blaming himself and being proud of his detective work. But, because Kaito never specifically mentioned the apology thing while giving Shuichi advice, Shuichi doesn’t consciously realise that Kaito would obviously feel the same way about this. (Shuichi was there when Kaito explained these principles to Kaede in chapter 1, but apparently it didn’t stick with him, perhaps because at the time he wasn’t yet reliant on Kaito.) Which sadly leaves Shuichi floundering in the unresolvable situation of believing Kaito wants him to apologise while refusing to back down on the fact that he shouldn’t, rather than realising that Kaito’s problem is something else entirely that might potentially be fixed just by talking to him.

The problem, or part of it at least, is that Kaito is the one who should be apologising for his actions in Gonta’s trial. He lashed out at Shuichi and made reaching the truth even more difficult and painful for him than it already was, even though he knew deep down that Gonta really was the culprit and that proving this was the only way to save everyone else. Kaito had promised repeatedly before the trial that he’d always be there for Shuichi to help carry his burdens, and yet he actively did the opposite of that when it mattered most.

But Kaito doesn’t apologise for that for most of this chapter. This is the only instance in the whole story in which Kaito breaks his principles on apologising in the opposite way to normal, by not apologising when he is in the wrong. Yet it’s not remotely that he doesn’t even believe he should; of course he knows he should, given how much he cares about taking responsibility. It’s just that the pain he feels over having failed Shuichi so badly in that trial hurts so much that he can’t bear to face up to it and talk about it. He’s essentially being a coward, by running away from that pain, and there’s no way he doesn’t realise that. The reason Kaito avoids Shuichi (at least if I were to frame it in a way that’s about the topic of this post) is because he knows he needs to apologise but can’t.

How Kaito gets it wrong in two ways at once

However, Kaito does not need to apologise for everything he did in the trial. The part where he simply couldn’t bear to face the truth of Gonta’s guilt like Shuichi could is not his fault. That’s just a weakness he has that he can’t help, because he’s Kaito – of course it would be so, so hard for him to accept that someone like Gonta could have committed murder, especially without understanding why or even being able to see any indications of guilt in the amnesiac Gonta’s behaviour. And the part where he felt jealous of Shuichi for being so much stronger than him in being able to face this truth where he couldn’t is also not his fault – Kaito can’t help feeling that way, after all. Apologising for either of those things would be like apologising for being the person he is. The only part that was somewhat under Kaito’s control was the part where he allowed this pain and jealousy to cause him to lash out at Shuichi and actively make things more difficult for him. So that’s the only part which is meaningfully his fault and something he should apologise for.

But it doesn’t seem like Kaito understands that, either. Just like he did when he was apologising for being sick, he appears to believe that simply being weaker than Shuichi is something that counts as a “mistake” on his part and needs to be part of the apology he owes him. The reason I’m so sure that Kaito wants to apologise for this, even though he doesn’t actually do so for the first half of chapter 5, is that he spends the first part of the chapter fixating on a Very Heroic Plan to help everyone escape, in which he makes more of a point of it being his plan than of making it as likely as possible to succeed. Kaito is really doing this is in a desperate attempt to prove himself to Shuichi and show that he can be just as strong and heroic as him after all. An optional line of dialogue from Kaito just before they head into the escape tunnel implies that he may well finally be ready to talk to Shuichi again once they’re out of here – as if he believes that by helping them escape, that’ll be enough to make his apology worth something.

Based on this, it appears that Kaito thinks he needs to make up for being weaker than Shuichi in the trial before he can apologise to him. Which means that the weakness itself is evidently one of the things he’s intending to apologise for. He wants to prove that he’s stronger than that now, so that when he does eventually give the apology he owes, he won’t be emptily apologising for something that he’s still doing. This is the problem with believing you should apologise for things that aren’t your fault and that you couldn’t help – it makes you feel like you should be able to do better when you genuinely can’t. That just leaves you floundering helplessly in your perceived uselessness, and Kaito didn’t feel like he had the right to apologise from that position.

If Kaito didn’t believe that him simply being weaker than Shuichi was part of what he did wrong in the trial, he wouldn’t have felt the need to prove himself like this, and I really believe he might have been able to bite the bullet and apologise for his actual mistake on the first day of chapter 5. But, precisely because he’d convinced himself that he had to apologise for something that he didn’t need to and couldn’t fix, Kaito kept putting off that apology, including the part that he actually should have been apologising for, for what might even have ended up being forever if plot events hadn’t got in the way and changed things.

In short: during early chapter 5, Kaito manages to fuck up his own apology principles in both possible directions at once, both by not being able to apologise when he has made a mistake, and yet also by still believing that he should be apologising for something that genuinely isn’t his fault. Kaito’s issues make him into such a delightful hypocrite and I love it.

How Kaito gets it right again at last

At the end of trial 5, Kaito finally does give Shuichi the apology he’s owed him for the whole chapter. It’s great that he found the courage to do so and didn’t leave things unresolved, but that’s not the part that’s a sign of Kaito’s growth. It was always a given that Kaito would apologise in the end, because he always knew he needed to take responsibility for his mistakes.

The best part of Kaito’s final apology to Shuichi, the part that really does show how he’s grown, is the fact that, while giving it, he doesn’t unnecessarily apologise for anything he shouldn’t. The only thing he apologises for here is being too hard on Shuichi during Gonta’s trial: the lashing out that was his fault because it was under his control. He mentions being jealous of and feeling inferior to Shuichi, but he does not apologise for those feelings that he couldn’t help, because those aren’t his fault – he only brings it up to help Shuichi understand why he lashed out, and nothing else.

After two and a half chapters of internally beating himself up for not being a good enough hero, feeling like he should apologise and he should feel bad for “failing” Shuichi simply due to being an actual human being with weaknesses and struggles, Kaito has finally realised that that’s wrong. He’s accepted at last that things not going as perfectly for him and his heroism as he wished they would isn’t his fault, not if he gave it everything he had the whole way, which of course he always did. It’s an absolutely lovely sign that Kaito’s managed to make at least some progress with his issues about heroes just before the end.

…And then he goes and apologises to Maki, twice, for dying on her – not even in the sense that he’s about to be executed, which could be argued to be his fault, but simply in the sense that his illness is going to kill him no matter what. Of course Maki is hurting, but that isn’t Kaito’s fault and is the last thing he ever wanted to do to her, so it’s not something he needs to make himself feel any worse over than he already does! Granted, one of these is phrased as an “I’m sorry that you’re hurting” type of apology I mentioned earlier that doesn’t frame Kaito himself as responsible for Maki’s pain. But the other is literally, “My bad for making you cry like that,” which, no. God damn it, Kaito, you selfless idiot, you were doing so well.

[himiko-yumehellno]

Saiouma Week Day Six: Appreciation Day

Title: Three Days to Set Up a Confession is As Easy As Cookies and Roses

Summary: Shuichi employs Rantaro's help to confess to Kokichi. Rantaro's got this.

Word Count: 2260

Note: I don't really talk about other writers or artists I like (I mostly just rb their stuff on Tumblr and leave comments when I can), buuut... I chose one of my favorite saiouma artists, @natsumiheart , for this day of Saiouma Week! The piece that inspired this fic can be found here. I'll admit that this fic only briefly mentions the comic that inspired it, but I hope you enjoy anyway!

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Rantaro wasn't new to being a wingman. He'd done it for plenty of his sisters before, and he was a frequent choice for people to go to for romance advice, even if he himself was aro. Still, he can't say that he had ever been in a wingman situation quite like this before.

Because not only was Shuichi requesting help from him in confessing to someone, but he was asking for help in confessing to Kokichi Ouma. AKA, the person literally everyone knew had a crush on Shuichi.

Except, it seems, Shuichi himself.

"I'm sorry, could you please repeat that? I want to make sure I heard right." Rantaro would have pinched his nose in exasperation if he wasn't so polite. Instead, he merely crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at Shuichi, who was glancing to the side and not making eye contact. "You want my help in confessing to Kokichi?" The guy who calls you his beloved? The guy who flirts with you every other day? The guy who I hear endless talking from about how you're so amazing it should be a crime?

Shuichi shifted his weight, a frown on his face. "Er, yes, of course, if you don't want to, that's fine too, I just thought I should ask since you helped Kaede out with her and Kirumi, and, well..."

As Shuichi trailed off, Rantaro took a deep breath, letting it out and starting to plan how he could do this. Since he already knew both of them loved each other... "Alright, give me like, three days."

"What?!" Shuichi snapped his head up to look at him, jaw dropped. For once, he didn't seem to care that he was being loud, and his eyes were wide and he visibly struggled to find the words to express his surprise. "But – three?! How – I know you're friends with him, but –"

Shuichi's rambling stopped as Rantaro calmly put a hand on his shoulder, smiling at him with his trademark easygoing grin. Shuichi blinked at him, and Rantaro squeezed his shoulder reassuringly.

"Hey, don't worry about it, I'm serious. I'm gonna go find Kokichi and talk to him, so don't wait up on me, okay?"

Shuichi nodded slowly, seemingly coming out of his shock as he stepped back from Rantaro. "You... Are you sure you can help me in only three days?"

Rantaro wasn't surprised at Shuichi's surprise, since it had taken weeks for Kaede and Kirumi to get together, even with Rantaro's help. But on the other hand, what Shuichi didn't know was that his crush liked him back, and Rantaro was going to use that to his full advantage. "Yeah, I got it. I'm not a suspicious guy, remember?"

Shuichi couldn't hide his snicker at the inside joke that had come from one time the class played Clue, and Rantaro waved as he walked away, already pulling out his phone to call Kokichi and request a hang out.

Now, let's see if he can put this plan into action...

—

Day one of Rantaro's plan: a hangout where Kokichi and Shuichi baked cookies together.

Rantaro hadn't needed to say anything more than "cookies" to get Kokichi to agree, and after a quick text to Shuichi to meet them in the school kitchen, the three of them found themselves mixing batter that Rantaro bought from the store yesterday after hanging out with Kokichi.

So far, Rantaro's favorite part of this whole thing had got to be when Shuichi walked into breakfast with Kaito and Maki, and Kokichi muttered to him, "Do we even need the sun anymore?" only to find, with quickly covered up elation, that Shuichi stayed after breakfast to bake with them.

Rantaro had snorted at seeing Kokichi hide his real emotions behind a cocky attitude. Kokichi had socked him in the arm.

That said, a close second favorite would have been when Kokichi called him over to "check if the batter looked right." Of course, he only called Rantaro over to talk without Shuichi hearing.

"Alright, avocado dork," Kokichi had hissed at him; his batter was perfectly fine, and Kokichi had wasted no time getting to the point. "I know you and your weird matchmaking thing. Are you trying to set me up with Shuichi?"

Rantaro only shrugged. "Maybe," he replied nonchalantly, and Kokichi punched him again, both because there was no way to tell whether or not that was a lie, and because it could be true. Thankfully, Kokichi wasn't very strong, and Rantaro didn't see any bruises when they finished up, and he went home with two happy friends, and a bagful of cookies.

Shuichi texted him and thanked him for the help getting closer to Kokichi today. Kokichi called and said he was going to steal all his cookies at midnight for trying to set him and Shuichi up today. Rantaro just laughed, made a tick mark on his calendar, and started preparing for the next day's matchmaking event.

—

Day two of Rantaro's plan: trying to convince Kokichi to confess.

"C'mon, I'm sure nothing bad will come of telling him."

"'Nothing bad' my ass! He'll hate me even more than he normally does, obviously!"

Rantaro rubbed his forehead, giving Kokichi a deadpan look as Kokichi huffed and turned away, staring at the books laid out on the table in front of him. The few others in the school library didn't pay them much attention; their whispered debate was going nowhere, and Rantaro was starting to wonder if he should have brought Kokichi somewhere else to talk about this.

"Kokichi, Shuichi isn't really the 'hating' type. You know this. I know this. He's so far from the type of person to hate someone we have a literal fan club for him. You started it, shouldn't you know this?"

Kokichi muttered something under his breath that Rantaro couldn't hear. "Sorry, what was that?"

Kokichi picked his head up from where he had been scowling at a page about the physical geography of Mongolia. "I said, that he wouldn't believe me anyway! I'm too much of a liar; remember when I tried to warn Kaede about Miu pulling a prank on her and the dummie walked right into it anyway?"

"You're not much of a liar with me," Rantaro offered, but privately he had to admit Kokichi had a point. That hadn't been one of Kaede's better days, but oddly enough she became a little better at spotting Kokichi's lies after that incident. "And Shuichi knows you well enough to believe you when you're being serious."

"Hah!" Kokichi scoffed, just a tad too loudly, and quickly got shushed by a library assistant. Kokichi stuck his tongue out at them when their back was turned, then turned back to Rantaro with one of his more serious expressions, slumping in his chair. "I only lie less with you cause you buy me Panta – but that's a lie! ... And why should I trust that he won't start hating me after he knows a liar like me thinks of him like that? He hates liars like me; just accept it..."

Rantaro took in a slow breath as he watched Kokichi deflate. He hadn't wanted to play this card, but if Kokichi left him no choice...

"Give it a go, tomorrow afternoon, and if you do it I'll be DICE's getaway driver for the next month." Rantaro closed his eyes, but he already knew Kokichi was probably gaping at him. After months of pestering for Rantaro to join DICE or take part in their pranks, he was offering to be their driver, just like that? Rantaro held up a hand before Kokichi could say anything. "If it goes badly, you can just say your confession was a lie, right? Just make sure I'm there to see it happen."

Rantaro opened one eye, and was pleased to see Kokichi with a blank expression. That probably meant he was thinking it over; Rantaro knew he couldn't resist an offer like that, and smiled as he rested his head on one hand.

Kokichi took his time thinking. Rantaro waited patiently.

"Alright, fine!" Kokichi agreed finally, again being shushed as he had grown too loud again. Kokichi didn't stick his tongue out this time, instead grinning as he stuck a hand out at Rantaro. "You better buy me a box full of Panta too!"

"Of course." Rantaro took the offered hand, and as Kokichi shook it with a pretend air of dignity, Rantaro chuckled. Now, to see if he could get Shuichi to confess as a bonus...

—

Day three of Rantaro's plan: picking out flowers with Shuichi.

It hadn't taken much pushing from Rantaro for Shuichi to agree to buy Kokichi flowers. Sure, he had been embarrassed about the idea at first, but they weren't arguing about confessing for a half hour (unlike with Kokichi), so Rantaro counted his wins. Plus, Kokichi was going to be stopping by Shuichi's place to confess in... Half an hour? Twenty minutes? Fifty? Kokichi was finicky like that, but Rantaro didn't mind. He just had to make sure they were done and back to the dorms by three pm.

Easy as... Oh, hey, cool, they dyed roses blue!

"Hey Shuichi, take a look at this," Rantaro called. Shuichi, a little down the aisle looking at some bellflowers, glanced up at him before heading over, eyes analytical.

"Blue... Roses?" Shuichi smiled, shaking his head as Rantaro chuckled. "Well, they do look nice. Do you think Kokichi would like them?"

"Honestly? Yes, completely." Rantaro smirked as he imagined Kokichi's face, being given blue roses by Shuichi. He didn't blush often, but Rantaro knew Kokichi's face would be bright red if Shuichi gave him something he found cool. "I think he'd find them interesting, don't you think?"

Shuichi narrowed his eyes at the flowers and tilted his head in thought; Rantaro shrugged and left him to it, checking his phone to text Kokichi and ask where he was currently.

Twenty minutes and a purchase later, Rantaro was giving Shuichi a last-minute pep talk as they headed towards the dorms of Hope's Peak. Shuichi brought up a couple of his concerns with Rantaro, but Rantaro shot them down as swiftly as they were spoken. Shuichi was nervous about what to say? "Just keep it short and simple. Offer the roses, say you like him, and wait for his answer." Shuichi was worried Kokichi would be lying if he said he liked him back? "Knowing him, he'll probably immediately declare his love was a lie, so you don't have to worry about being tricked, just accept that this is his way of turning you down. It's not the best way, but on the other hand, it's not the worst."

The pep talk was kept short, because as soon as they reached the second floor of the dorms, Rantaro paused, gave Shuichi a thumbs up, and pointed to where Kokichi was waiting with a tapping foot and an unusually sharp outfit outside Shuichi's room.

Shuichi gave a light gasp; he glanced to Rantaro once more for reassurance, and slowly, hesitantly, he made his way towards Kokichi. As Kokichi checked the watch Rantaro wasn't even aware he had, Shuichi quietly brought out the roses in front of him, seeming to shake off his nerves as he took a deep breath.

Rantaro held in a chuckle as he leaned on the wall next to the stairwell door.

C'mon... C'mon, notice hi – yes! Haha, eye contact made!

Kokichi had glanced up, and Rantaro had to try hard to hold in his giggles as he saw how red Kokichi got within a few seconds. Of course, a blink later and the blush was gone, and Kokichi was casually talking with Shuichi with his hands behind his head.

Rantaro couldn't hear them well, but that was a normal experience for him when it came to match making. He simply leaned forward a tad and strained to make out what they were saying.

"... -cy... ting you here!"

".... Wanted ... Wait, this is my room, why – nevermind."

"So? Does Shuichi ... something... say to me?"

Rantaro crossed his fingers. Do it, do it, do it, do it!

"Yeah, actually. I... you these."

Shuichi offered Kokichi the flowers, and Rantaro silently cheered as he watched Kokichi blush again, taking the flowers with what was probably a snarky comment, though Rantaro couldn't hear it from here. Shuichi went red as well, though not on the same level as Kokichi, and Rantaro inwardly happy danced.

Ooh, but it seems the show wasn't over yet. There were still the mutual feelings to confess!

"Ooh, why... Shuichi... ?

"Er... You see..."

Shuichi glanced back at Rantaro discreetly. Rantaro made sure to give him the very specific thumbs up and grin found in that HTTYD3 meme. Shuichi gave him a light nod, smiling, and turned back to Kokichi, taking a deep breath.

"I really like you, Kokichi. Romantically."

Rantaro beamed, pumped the air with his fist; he had to restrain himself from outwardly celebrating too much, but c'mon, who wouldn't be excited?! Especially when it involved a best friend? Rantaro sighed in relief as he thought about how he'd no longer have to listen to Kokichi's pining rants, and as he realized that he should probably leave and start planning how to tease Kokichi at their next hang out, he nearly missed Kokichi pull Shuichi down into their first kiss.

Rantaro chuckled and left, humming a song that played while he was at the flower shop.

Now, if only he could get Kaito and Korekiyo to stop being oblivious that easily...