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Rei Ryuugazaki knows the last time he got a Valentine’s day card and that was back when the whole class was required to give them to each other. So the item he’s holding is...weird. Because it’s a Valentine’s day card, and it’s addressed to him. And it’s painstakingly beautiful. Whoever made it must have spent a lot of time on it.
Which is doubly weird, because Rei knows that there isn’t anyone who would like him enough to send a card. It seems like a lot of effort to go to for a prank. But it’s still there in his locker, bright and colorful with a drawing of a butterfly.
“We have a problem!” Rei says to the rest of the swim team at lunch.
Haruka blinks at him, and Makoto is staring quizzically. Nagisa is grabbing for the card in his hand and it takes an extreme maneuver to keep it out of his hands.
“I received a Valentine’s day card,” Rei says seriously. “And I need to know who sent it.”
“Whaat, Rei-chan got a card?” Nagisa asks. Rei hands the card to him, now that Nagisa is no longer lunging for it. He doesn’t want this beautiful card to get damaged.
Haruka shrugs, glancing at it briefly, before going back to his lunch. It’s not mackerel today which Rei is very glad about. He doesn’t want his card to smell like fish.
“Can I see it, Rei?” Makoto says.
Rei goes quiet briefly, because all he wants is for it be from Makoto, but--then Nagisa is handing Makoto the card and he doesn’t have to answer.
“You make my heart flutter, valentine!” Makoto reads from the card. “Wow, Rei! This person must really like you!”
Rei flushes, because he still hasn’t been considering that part very much. It says his name on it, so it’s not like it was mistakenly in his locker.
“Why would you give someone a card and not sign it?” Haruka asks, stabbing his lunch with a fork.
Rei deflates a little because he isn’t sure of that either. Maybe they are too ashamed to confess their feelings publically. He taps his fingers against the table, finding a rhythm in the groove of the wood, and tries to let that relax him.
“Maybe they are nervous!” Nagisa says, kicking him under the table. Rei jumps and then rubs at his knee, leveling a glare at Nagisa.
“It doesn’t matter,” Rei says as cheerfully as he can muster. “It’s probably a joke.” He tucks the card carefully back into his backpack, making sure not to bend it.
Rei picks up his sandwich and takes a bite, doing his best to engage in the conversation that’s moved onto the newest Kuroko no Basuke episode. Still, he can’t shake that feeling of hope that the valentine was intended to be serious.
*
I’ll make a list, Rei thinks, when he realizes he can’t get the card out of his mind. He can make a list of potential suspects and then cross them off. There’s Mina, who has been in his class for years and they talk sometimes. So she’s a maybe. The only person from the swim club he can definitively cross off is Haruka, since he and Rin are together.
Nagisa...hmm. He’s not sure, but Rei puts Nagisa on the list anyway. He hesitates before writing down Makoto’s name. Everyone has to be considered, no matter how unlikely they may be. There’s always the chance it’s a random confession, but Rei doesn’t think that’s the case. He can’t fathom someone being interested from afar.
He pauses, pen in his mouth, and tries to decide how he would confess to someone he was interested in. Images of Makoto laughing at him immediately pop into his head and he sighs, putting the pen down on the table. He might need to take a different tack with this.
*
“Rei-chan,” Nagisa says, “have you figured out who your card is from yet?”
Rei scowls, halfway out of his workout outfit and into his street clothes. “No,” he admits. “I was thinking, I always go to my locker after we have our club meeting.”
“So?” Nagisa asks.
He gets his head stuck in his shirt for one brief panicked moment, before he manages to straighten it out. It’d be horrible if he died in a freak accident before finding out who sent him the card. “So I don’t know! I get to campus pretty early, and I doubt they put it in my locker so late at night.”
Nagisa kicks away one of his shoes and laughs. “Rei-chan, it’s for Valentine’s day. It’s all about putting in special effort, so I bet getting to school early wouldn’t be that hard.” Nagisa pauses, a rare look of solemnity on his face. “They spent a lot of time on that card, so coming to campus to put a card in your locker isn’t that much more work.”
“I guess so.” Rei shrugs on his jacket, not bothering to button it up even part way. His tie is already shoved into his backpack, and all he needs now are his shoes.
“Maybe you’re thinking too hard about this,” Nagisa says, before kicking away Rei’s othershoe and running out of the locker room.
“Well, I doubt it’s Nagisa,” he mutters to the empty room. That’s a start on his list, even though it’s a really short list to begin with.
*
Kou was a little baffled when he asked her to wait a moment after practice, but she's waiting for him in the club room. He asks her if she’ll let him look at the swim club applications, feeling sheepish, but when he explains his quest, she’s more forthcoming. He pulls the card out of his bag again, and lets her examine it.
She takes out the membership applications and they carefully compare each one to the handwriting on the card.
“I don’t think any of them are a match,” Kou says after they have examined all of them.
Rei huffs out an exasperated breath but she’s right. None of them are a match. If it was someone in the swim club, they went to great lengths to conceal their handwriting.
“Let me know if you figure it out,” Kou says with a smile.
*
This is what senpai are for, right? It’s okay for their kouhai to call and ask them questions, even in more delicate matters. He thinks Makoto would be too polite to tell him otherwise, and he really needs help with this. It’s begun to creep into his mind and Rei is certain he won’t be able to forget about it until he knows.
Rei hits call on Makoto’s contact entry before he can change his mind.
“Hello, Rei!” Makoto answers, cheerful as ever, and there’s that little flutter in his stomach again.
“I am sorry to bother you, Mako-senpai,” slipping into the old honorific, “but I was wondering if you would help me with this mystery.”
Makoto laughs, but Rei knows Makoto’s not laughing at him, so it’s okay. “
“Why don’t you bring your card and clues to my house?” Makoto pauses, and Rei can almost see the smile on his face. “I’m sure we can get the mystery solved.”
He finds himself agreeing automatically. He gets to spend time with Makoto and figure out who sent the card? It’s a pretty good way for the evening to go, considering the alternative is moping in his bedroom.
*
He’s only been to Makoto’s house a handful of times, so just being at Makoto’s house is in itself a kind of thrill.
“I made a list,” he says, “but I don’t know.” He shrugs and then pulls out the card from his backpack. “Nagisa could have sent it,” he says dubiously.
Makoto takes the card from him and opens it, tracing the butterfly illustration. Rei tries not to twitch but he’s so worried the card will get damaged. Makoto is careful like usual and Rei lets himself relax a little.
“Or,” Rei adds, “there’s a girl in one of my classes. So maybe she sent it?” The words are uncertain in his mouth.
Makoto smiles at him and sets the card down. “Could be,” he says. “I don’t know how you’re going to narrow it down.”
“Auuugh,” Rei says, flopping back onto Makoto’s bed. “I give up. I’m never going to figure it out.”
“Do you know what kind of butterfly is on the card?” Makoto asks.
Rei flushes; he thought he’d thought of all the different ways to analyze the card but he didn’t think of that one. “I don’t know,” he admits. There’s no point in lying about it.
The bed moves and Makoto has lain down beside him and Rei’s heart thumps. The last time he and Makoto were this close was probably during his swimming lessons.
Makoto laughs quietly and Rei can feel his face begin to turn bright red. “Rei,” Makoto says, touching his cheek. “Who wouldn’t want you for their valentine?”
Rei is about to protest, can feel it all bubbling inside of his throat, but then Makoto is pressing a soft kiss to his lips.
“Oh,” Rei says, because that’s the only coherent thought in his head.
Makoto kisses him again, a little more firmly, and it clicks that this is actually happening. Makoto’s hand reaches to find his and squeezes it tight.
“I sent you the card, Rei. I just...I wasn’t sure. So I didn’t put my name.”
“Wasn’t sure of what?” Rei blurts, trying to keep panic from crawling into his brain.
“If you liked me,” Makoto says, looking away, and it makes Rei weirdly angry, because how dare Makoto even think that he’s not likeable.
He reaches out to touch Makoto’s face and Makoto looks back at him, green eyes shining, and Rei kisses him again. “That’s not very logical of you,” Rei says after a moment.
They lie on the bed, faces close but not touching, and this is the one outcome Rei couldn’t have predicted even if all his thought processes had been correct. Existing quietly in the same space with Makoto, knowing he can touch Makoto, that’s beyond what Rei would have imagined.
“It’s a pale grass blue butterfly,” Makoto says, squeezing Rei’s hand. “You see those a lot around here. They...make me think of you.”
You’re beautiful, Rei thinks. “It’s beautiful,” he says. By the way Makoto smiles, he thinks Makoto knows what he really means.