(Just a little one: English is not my native language, so I'm really sorry for any mistakes!)
Kokichi was younger than them and, what was more important, just as inteligent. And Hajime was too used to Komaeda's lies, and Komaeda too fixed into his way of thnking for them to worry about his lies and try to see through them. They just took it, unimpressed. Or rather, Hajime took them unimpressed, being really fed up with caring about someone's twisted words all the time. Nagito, on the other hand, seemed to see what he wanted to see in words splitted by the younger. He was smiling, so they were smiling together, and he was pretending to buy every word and act surprised or truly ashamed when he accused him of being mean or silly or forget about the promise or anything. Yet he wasn't naive, it was in his eyes that he has a lot of fun. What could be a bit unnerving, considering that it suggested Komaeda didn't treat him seriously, but on the other hand it let him go all the way in lies and jokes and pranks. No one ended up mad, his senpais were always in the worst case scenario mildly amused or a bit inpatient.
Maybe because they treated him like a little brother. Or an adoptive son of two fathers.
or maybe it wasnt that?
And they absolutely loved him. Or at least Komaeda did. He never missed the occasion to call him "cute" and stroke his head in the most sickeningly loving way. Hajime was more serious and rarely did such things.
They met first time when Komaeda came to check out new Ultimates, filled with hope and joy and some kind of weird, sick excitement that made his presence a bit awkward, like when you are on a birthday party of someone else, but it's you who gathers the whole attention. And Oma noticed that, under the thick layer of awe and humble words, Komaeda was suspicious, if not sceptical. One couldn't be surprised about it. Some of their talents sounded far-fetched, God, especially his. Ultimate Supreme Leader, really? They couldn't just call him Ultimate Trickster or Ultimate Charismatic Little Bastard, but one could say they go all the way with naming someone Ultimate Affluen Prodigy anyway. And Komaeda was there for one more reason: there was no Ultimate Lucky student here. Only that was suspicious enough, especially with the interest of the principal in researching luck. Kokichi thought that either one of them is the lucky student, and their talent is indeed just an empty title, or that this year the student died or the letter never reached its place, which both sounded like something that had to happen eventually. Only that made their year interesting, though not more interesting than the 2-A class now: their accepted a reserve course student. Or rather: the principal and the teachers decided for it. It was ought to be an interesting year for Hope's Peak. Which was good, cause boring is bad.
So Komaeda came check them up and at the very beginning he didn't seem truly impressed. Their Ultimate Neo-Ninja tried to break his arm, but he was lucky enough to accidentally drop on her head few books from nearby shelf and knock her out in proccess. That did not make the best first impression somehow, but from really different reasons than one could think. Next was Shuichi and his shyness and lack of confidence, and then Miu, and even someone as easy-going and blissfully delighted ad Komaeda looked a bit disgusted. Then it came to him and he introduced himself partially out of curiosity, and partially that leaving a guy for first NeoNinja and then sexually insatiable patheticalness of Miu was just pointlessly cruel. Almost like killing, but more messy.
It was like a strike of lightning, cause apparently both of them see through each other a bit from the first second of talking. Maybe because Komaeda was interested in nothing else than his talent, and he was interested in nothing like some fanboy. Playing Nagito required a different tactic than usually, cause he thought very quicky and also accepted all the explanation, no matter how lousy, with the oblivious face of someone blessed with a possibility to talk with better than him. Kokichi talked with him a lot, until Nagito wasn't taken away by rest of male class. Later Kaito told Oma that he didn't really like him, cause Nagito stroke him as unsincere, so they shouldn't pair up in any world, cause it would be just a clear chaos. Then they both started to wonder if in 3-A class there are some liars to make a party with. It was a good day.
Later he got to know that Komaeda talked about nothing else than him and it was funny, especially that, as he came and confirmed with him, his senpai thought that Kokichi might be the lucky student. Good he didn't try too neatly to test his luck and it took only one ball he throw in his direction instead of, I don't know, knives. Apparently Komaeda could be really lucky with knives. Being hit by a ball at least wasn't painful.
Though he attempt to break Nagito's heart by pretending it hurt a lot and also made him lose an eye. It was really funny, when Komaeda's face turned even paler than it was normal, and even more funny when the senpai stared chasing him around, probably to kill him, and more possibly to make him suffer some tickling or something like that. The best part of being chased is that it leaves you with wondering what would happen if you were caught, and almost never made you face the actual thing. But luck was on Komaeda's side again, because when he lost him and happily walked to a vending machine, from behind the corner showed up his senpai, and it was so impossible that Oma got stunned. And Komaeda just laughted and him and then went away somewhere, waving to him cheerfully. He felt almost dissappointed.
Some time later it was the three of them. Hanging out with older guys turned out to be not only fun, but also useful. It wasn't a big difference in age, just one year, but in schools one year is always a milestone. They know a lot about this place and, more importantly, places beside "this", they knew which rules are really enforced and which are just something people say to you to discourage you and hope for you to do the rest, they obviously knew more cause they did the main course for first year already anyway, and the last thing: they were senpais. It was cool to hang out with senpais. And they were really smart and patient in a way: no matter what kind of trick he pulled, no matter what prank they got them involved, no matter the lies and acting, they still liked him and wanted him to be around. Unlike most of his classmates. But that group wasn't very integrated, there was no of the feel of a team here, unlike with 3-A or even 2-A classes. He liked Kaito and he liked Shuichi a lot, but being with them for too long often got tiresome. As for the girls, Kaede was nice if very guilable, and the rest were either in their own worlds or just obnxious to impossible level. Or, and Amami was alright and he had some suspicions that he was in fact the mysterious lucky student, but he wasn't going to sell that news to Komaeda. The five of them did not made a pack of friends. Kaede sticked with everyone, so was Amami, and Kaito was liked and listened around, and Shuichi was close with Maki and little wizard. Oh, there was Gonta of course, they liked each other, but Gods forbid, Gonta was an idiot. Nice friend, hard worked, but not smart at all. So in class it was alright, and when they were having breaks in class, eating and joking. But when lessons ended, everyone were going somewhere with someone and he either tagged along, or had just his own company (or Gonta). Now, these too were spending far too much time in common areas, like rec rooms and club rooms, and if they wanted to go out, they somehow always made enough ruckus for him to get to know about it and go after. And they seem to be genuinly happy for him. Sometimes it was only Hajime, when Komaeda dissapeared somewhere, sometimes only Nagito, when Hinata cultivated his relations with other classmates. Apparently he was quite popular, to great displeasure of Komaeda, who sometimes seemed to really hate him. All their talks - or rather Nagito's soliloquies about talents, superiority and hope and Hinata's eyes rolling - ended up with them being mildly mad and tired, but there was never any effect for longer than a few minutes. Apparently nothing was more attracting for hope-praising guy as a hopeless tryhard, and nothing was more desired for a hard worked than someone who undermines efforts of every kind.
And they both loved him.
or maybe
Komaeda had that problem, that when he was into something, he was into in completely and obviously for everyone. It started slowly, really, so slowly that with all his wits and brain he didn't notice. And just later someone told him that he was sitting with his class, smiling dreamy and being irresposive, and thinking about no one had idea what, and then he remembered about what he was thinking and couldn't help but chuckle.
And at this time he still didn't realize.
He did, however, when they had that meeting about school festival and couldn't decide what to do (in the end, they made an escape room, it was an Ultimate Success). He felt a bit feverish and scared for no particular reason. Teruteru laughed at him, told him he's hot and must fantasize, and little quarrel arose, for there still were people who couldn't take Teruteru's inpropriate comments even after more than a year and a half in the same class. Komaeda, for the other hand, didn't mind at all, his head somewhere else. Chiyaki stepped from the teachers place and sat on his desk, concerned. She even asked Mikan for medical expertise, and when they finally got rid of that walking mass of complex, they both were tired, but Komaeda was at least more in the class.
This class, to be precise.
And apparently she was concerned and made him think, what actually is wrong. Which was a hard question, because he never, ever felt better than now. He tried to tell her that, but either she wasn't convinced, or he just confirmed her train of thoughts. After a moment of fruitless conversation (he liked her, she was nice and the friendliest in their class, but sometimes he wondered if it really was a place for her) she asked him about his plans and he told her he was going to check on Kokichi and maybe pick him up for some festival that took place in the city. And for the whole day he was quite excited about it, but now... not so much. It wasn't that he didn't want to go or lost interest out of sudden, it was that he wasn't sure how exaclty should he approach the problem. Usually tagging along with people was easy for him, he didn't really mind being around, but right now he was wondering all the time if younger Ultimate didn't have something better to do than hang out with someone as worthless as him. Or just, maybe he just wasn't in the mood or just didn't want to. It was somewhat funny, because worring like that was not in Komaeda's style and he was perfectly aware of that. But well, sometimes you just have to consider other's feelings. That was probably what Chiyaki was doing after all, and he couldn't decide if he is grateful or mildly irritated about it. She seemed amused when he finally told her and said "he will love to see you", and that choice of words made his insides turn upside-down for a second, and it was not the most pleasant feeling, but certainly when it ended he felt like a new man. It was like, really refreshing and life changing. Because it made him consider.
And after the moment of consideration he smiled even wilder and agreed with her. She didn't realize what he was agreeing with in fact; or maybe she did, it was hard to say with girls like her sometimes, but it didn't really matter. He felt like he was blushing with weird warm feeling, so different than his usual hope-happiness and hope-joy and hope-cheerfulness. He decided to not try to decide if it's better or worse than usual. But it was definitely warmer.
And didn't change the fact that he was still afraid to go there and take the boy along.
Which, eventually, didn't stop him from doing that, many times actually. And apparently being in love with someone didn't change that much in everyday life. Or rather everyday routine. There were still classes, later some things to do with classmate, and later lunch in cafeteria, then free time and either going out, with or without Kokichi (he prefered with, but it couldn't always be the case) or learning in the library or his own room, or with classmates again. And yet, at least some of these things felt much different.
For example, the touching urge.
He always was quite tactile person, to displeasment of some of his classmates. He never had a problem with it, and needed a bit less of personal space than most. And after so much time with him no one really minded at that point, they just waited till he would be done. But it wasn't like it this time. With Oma, he had the urge to be close: touch his hand or hug him, or put his arm around him or just sit next to him, just feel him close. Usually when he wanted to embrace someone, he just did it and, as said above, people just waited for him to go away more or less patiently. But then again, it was something different this time, something much more personal and much more "just". He didn't think much about it, he "just" wanted. But usually before he did any more, he got scared, just in the same way as before even asking. It was so bizzare and to not be comprehended, he was not that kind of person, he was always a bit of just-do-it man-and-fuck-consequences, with his luck he could afford some risk, but so many things was different than usually... He was almost forgetting about Ultimates and how much he was nothing compared to them, it was second or even third train of thoughts, far away behind the touching train and being scared to do anything train.
Especially when he was thinking. Cause Kokichi was special. Specific. Put in situation he wouldn't appreciate, no one could tell what he would do. Get angry? Get mean? Run away screaming? Pretend nothing happened? Do some silly joke or prank? Sadly, same went for the situation he could appreciate. With him it was impossible to be sure from the very beginning what was going on. And Komaeda was finding himself smart enough to sometimes see through the lies and poses, and knowing what Oma had in mind, filled with smoke and mirrors. But knowing someone a little didn't equal knowing how they would react in every situation. Of course, the best way to find out was to just make things clear or make a move, but than again: the reaction would be probably undecipherable, and the outcome could destroy the cool bond they had.
Though the touch train was a Shinkansen and it was going in his mind railway so many times and taking so many passenger that statistically every person in the world went by it at least once. He really had to be on guard with himself to do nothing stupid. And it was hard, because arms were itching and something in his brain was telling him they were made just for the purpose of being wrapped around Oma. The urge of being close was terrible, but much worse was the feeling, that if he just resisted to it, he would feel the most happy in his whole life.
Life was hard for a teenage boy.
