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“That’s my foot!”
“Sorry.”
“Oww, now you’re standing on my hand!”
“Gou-chan, keep your body parts on your side.”
“This was a terrible idea.”
“Cheer up, Mako-chan!” Nagisa chirps back. He puts his eye to the crack between the door and wall, but the room beyond has grown dark and he can’t see anything. Or hear anything either, really, because Gou and Makoto won’t stop wriggling. He’s pretty sure Haru has fallen asleep, curled up on a pair of running shoes. There are lots of running shoes in here, along with a spare Iwatobi jacket and a row of carefully folded slacks. A scarf tickles Nagisa’s ear. Everything smells like Rei-chan, because this is Rei-chan’s closet, and it had been Rei-chan’s window they had shimmied through a little over an hour ago.
“I—I think…” Gou’s voice quivers. “I think there’s something alive in here!”
“No, it’s just a fuzzy hat.”
“Oh.” Gou lets out a huff of annoyance. “Rei-kun probably isn’t even going to come up here until he goes to bed! I have no idea why I let you talk me into this.”
“He’ll come up,” Nagisa says firmly. He knows Rei-chan’s evening habits well. Very well.
“Can we at least open the door a bit?” Makoto asks. “I think we’re starting to run out of oxygen.”
Nagisa shakes his head at his teammates’ lack of dedication to Operation Rescue. He slides the door open a crack, and finds himself staring at a pair of shoes. Running shoes. “Oh.” He follows the shoes up to jeans, and then further to a black shirt and a blue and white checkered vest. “Rei-chan!”
Rei pushes the closet door the rest of the way open. He surveys them, Nagisa crouched on his knees in front, Makoto and Gou squeezed together beside a couple of tennis rackets, and Haru with his head back against the wall, breathing through his mouth.
Rei adjusts his glasses. “Why are you all in my closet?”
“How long have you been standing there?” Makoto asks, sounding like he is trying to contain a laugh.
“Approximately five minutes.”
Nagisa chews on his bottom lip. Operation Rescue is not going to plan. Time to improvise.
Rei steps back and Nagisa stands up, legs seizing as the blood rushes back into them after an hour of crouching. He stumbles forward—and alright, it’s a little more clumsy than it could have been—and Rei-chan catches him before he can hit the ground. He smells like sweat and miso.
“We came to rescue you!” Nagisa exclaims, clinging to Rei’s back and gazing up at him.
“From what?”
Nagisa points behind Rei, indicating the backyard, from which lantern light, tasteful music, and the hum of polite conversation issues.
Rei looks like he is sure there’s a joke that he’s not getting. “You came to rescue me…from a garden party?” He appears to realize that he is holding onto Nagisa by the ass (probably instinct at this point) and lets him go, flushing. Nagisa considers tripping into his arms again, but that might be pushing it.
“From potential boredom,” Nagisa says. “And allergies.”
“I don’t have allergies.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Nagisa was making it sound like you were going to be tortured,” Gou says, standing up and yanking her shirt straight.
Nagisa laughs. “You just seemed so disappointed yesterday, Rei-chan! I wanted to do something that included you too.” There had been talk of taking the train into town that evening—all of them together—but Rei’s father was hosting a party for his coworkers, which he apparently did every summer. Rei was supposed to be there as well.
“I-I wasn’t disappointed!”
Nagisa pouts, because he knows Rei is powerless against it. Sure enough, Rei stammers, “B-But I appreciate all of you coming to visit me.”
Makota stands up. “You don’t have to thank us, Rei. We did break into your bedroom.”
“Like ninjas,” Nagisa adds.
“More like sloths,” Gou corrects.
“Ninja sloths.”
Rei squints past them into the shadowy closet. “Oh, Haruka-senpai is here too?”
Someone—Nagisa isn’t sure who—has put the fuzzy hat on Haru-chan. It looks like he has a badger on his head.
Rin-chan probably tired him out, Nagisa thinks. They have been especially competitive at joint practices lately, although most of the hostility is gone.
Rei looks more uncomfortable than ever. “You all didn’t have to do this.”
“Aww, sure we did, Rei-chan!” The late summer light had faded while they were in the closet, but the light from the party is enough to just see the flush painting its way across the landscape of Rei’s face, traveling his cheeks and scaling the bridge of his nose.
It makes Nagisa grin. “C’mon. I’m…hungry.” He heads for Rei’s bedroom door.
Gou, Makoto, and Rei all make similar noises—a rising symphony of distress. Haru just snuffles in his sleep.
“You can’t go down there,” Rei says, actually getting between Nagisa and the door. “My parents wouldn’t…wouldn’t like it.”
Gou is pulling carpet fuzz out of her tights. “Yeah, why were we hiding in the closet if you’re just going to go downstairs and get caught?”
Nagisa sighs. Honestly, it’s a good thing he’s here. None of his teammates have any brain at all for strategy. “We won’t get caught,” he says “We’ll be sneaky. Blend in. Come on!” He grabs Rei’s arm, pulling him out into the hall.
“My parents know what you look like, Nagisa!” Rei protests, as they skitter down the stairs.
Nagisa feels buoyant, floating high on the summer air and the smell of flowers, his feet barely touching the ground as he and Rei arrive on the first floor. Someone comes around the hall corner, their shadow throwing itself across the wall. Rei pulls his hand out of Nagisa’s, but he need not have bothered. The man is drunk; the two of them could probably have been dressed up like geishas and he wouldn’t have noticed.
“The bathroom’s at the end of the hall!” Nagisa calls after him, before turning and tugging Rei into the hall closet.
“N-Nagisa!” Rei trips on an umbrella.
“Wow, your family has a lot of shoes.” Nagisa steps into two of them—one foot in a hiking boot, another in a woman’s heel.
“What are you doing?” Rei asks, reaching up and switching on the light. He squints against the glare of the bare bulb. “I thought you were hungry.”
“I am hungry.” He switches the light back off and drapes his arms over Rei’s shoulders. “Hungry for love.”
Rei lets out something between a laugh and a groan. Whatever sound it is, Nagisa leans up in time to catch it in his own mouth. As usual, Rei hesitates for just a moment, as if he’s unsure if this is actually allowed, before he sighs in capitulation. His hands smooth up and down Nagisa’s sides, making him shiver. Rei moves closer, stumbling slightly and stepping on Nagisa’s foot.
“Why did you drag everyone else here if you just wanted to kiss me in a closet?” he asks.
Nagisa shrugs. “I want you to feel like you’re part of the team.” He tightens his hold on Rei’s shoulders. “Even if you did let Rin-chan swim for you in the relay. It’s totally because of you that we won.” It’s too dark to see Rei’s expression, so Nagisa raises a hand to try to feel it instead, running fingertips over his cheek and down to the corner of his lips.
“We were disqualified,” Rei reminds him after a moment.
“Yeah, but we still won.” And even if they hadn’t, it would have been worth it just to see Haru-chan not look so damn depressed all the time.
Nagisa is epically glad they had formed the swim club. Best idea he’s ever had. He had not been unhappy before he came to Iwatobi—far from it—but he had felt unfocused. Unfinished. Like there were all these free-floating pieces orbiting him like satellites. He had never had enough mass to pull them all into a cohesive whole. The swim club changed that. Rei-chan changed that.
Nagisa gives him a peck on the cheek. “Alright. Now I’m really hungry.”
When they get back upstairs, Haru-chan has woken up and is no longer wearing the hat—it has been set on the back of Rei’s desk chair like a fuzzy monument.
“Cake!” Nagisa exclaims, as soon as they close the door, holding the plate over his head triumphantly.
“Careful with that!” Rei eyes the little trembling pastries with trepidation.
“I know how to handle cake, Rei-chan.”
The glow in the backyard gets brighter as more lanterns are lit, and the laughter gets louder and less polished as the night goes on. It sounds like Mr. Ryugazaki’s guests might even be having fun.
They play cards. There are too many people for it, really, and it takes forever just to get through one round. Nagisa doesn’t care. Warmth pulses inside him, making it feel like there is light mixed in with his blood, steaming through his veins. He’s surprised it doesn’t shoot out his fingertips.
Nagisa had never been a lonely child, but he had never had friends like this before. Friends who care, friends who, even if they think he’s a little strange, well, they are strange too. All of them together.
Rei is staring at his cards, eyebrows drawn down into diagonal slashes of concentration. No doubt he is planning out some epic strategy to win, never mind that he is abysmal at most card games, especially any that involve bluffing.
As if he can feel Nagisa watching him, Rei looks up. Gou and Haru-chan are arguing over the rules and Mako-chan is giving them his Big Brother look, so the three of them miss the expression on Rei’s face, but Nagisa doesn’t. It is gratitude and affection, and above all, solidarity.
They are a team.