Chapter Text
Butterfly
Rei flung his smart phone across his small apartment. The sleek device landed in the middle of the black sheets adorning his nearly made bed, making a small dent in the otherwise perfectly smoothed bedspread. He fell into his desk chair, head swirling in a mix of anger, fear, and frustration. Flipping through his favorite physics book, his eyes skimmed the page, looking for a distraction from his current state of anxiety. Anything. Anything at all. After thirty minutes of trying, Rei had submitted to leaning back in his chair, raking a hand through his short hair. He tried to hold back the hot tears that threatened to spill from his eyes.
Rei Ryugazaki was by no means a person who let negative emotions overtake his optimism, but at the moment he felt nothing would take him out of this rut. His thoughts jumped back to the conversation he’d had with his parents earlier, their hysteric voices piercing his confidence like dulled knives, with homophobic slurs and disappointed quips.
They weren’t wrong, he had convinced himself, since it must have been a huge disappointment to find out that not only were they not going to have a doctor for a son, but said son was a fag. So they pretty much didn’t have a son at all. It wasn’t their fault for feeling compelled to shout at him for that, but rather his own fault for not complying perfectly to their demands, the same ones that they’d put upon him since he was a child.
Rei, you’re going to become a doctor. Rei, you’re going to grow up to have a nice wife and two kids. Rei, you’re going to live in a pretty little suburban home with white picket fences around your wife’s roses.
These thoughts swirled through his head, breaking him down with every one. He didn’t want to be a doctor. He couldn’t be a doctor. He was failing biology in college. He wouldn’t be able to stand a cookie cutter house in a fakey neighborhood. Those roses wouldn’t be his wife’s. He wouldn’t have a wife.
The young man bit down on his lip, hard, as his cheeks stained with tears, slowly at first, then streaming down his face in waves of anxiety and guilt. He didn’t mean to have them know. Not now, not ever.
Since he was born, Rei had grown up in a perfect household, with a mother, a father, and an older sister. They lived in a large, spotless mansion, kept tidy by the maid, since both of his parents had other things to deal with, things much more important than taking care of their own house and their own children. Rei’s father busied himself in his work, the CEO of a large medical supply company, and his mother devoted her time to keeping up her public image, socializing in country clubs and making sure every hair on her head was kept picture perfect.
He’d never felt close to anyone in his household, not even his sister, who used all her effort on snagging the attention of rich marriage candidates and denying the existence of her nerdy little brother. The little brother that wore thick frames and always kept to himself, reading about mathematical calculations in application to the real world. The same little brother whose eyes always followed the high school's quarterback rather than the head cheerleader.
Rei was jolted out of his tears for a minute by a buzz. He crossed the room to pick up his phone off the bed, silently hoping it wasn’t his parents as he checked the lighted screen.
From: Nagisa
heyyyy reirei, meet me at the rockhopper rn, kay?
Thankful for the distraction, Rei slipped the phone into his pocket, pulled on his favorite blue blazer, and left his apartment.
Orca
“I wouldn’t have to do that if you’d fucking stayed still!” The redhead in front of Makoto playfully teased.
“You bit me.” The boy sitting adjacent to said redhead with abnormally sharp teeth blatantly pointed out, referring to the pink bite marks on his finger.
“If you’d ‘ve stayed still and let me eat it out of your hand, I wouldn’t have, Haru.” Rin stuck his tongue out childishly at his boyfriend.
Makoto awkwardly looked down, trying to focus on the homework they were supposed to be getting done. Instead, his deadpan childhood friend and shark boy were flirting in that weird way that they did and didn’t at the same time. He tried to focus his attention on the math assignment in front of him, and almost finished the problem when the two in front of him started up again.
“Hey, Haru, you make fun of my teeth, but I know you like them.” Rin crooned huskily into Haru’s ear. Makoto could see the latter’s eyes shift towards the cocky smiling face as he flushed a barely noticeable pink.
The three of them were sitting in Makoto and Haruka’s dorm room, sitting on the floor around the square coffee table, studying. However, it seemed pretty obvious that at least Rin was hardly interested in doing homework, and instead attempted to distract Haru.
“Whatever.” The dark haired boy mumbled, looking away from the source of his embarrassment.
For as long as Makoto could remember, it had always been just Haru and himself, just the two childhood friends practically attached at the hip (even though Makoto’s hips were much higher off the ground than Haru’s, technically making that near impossible), never seen without the other. That is, until the reckless and passionate Rin Matsuoka had burst into their lives, the grumpy coffee shop worker that had somehow charmed the formerly uninterested Haruka Nanase into dating him, leaving Makoto in an awkward position as the childhood friend that just happened to be there. The third wheel.
“Did you do Professor Amakata’s assignment yet?” The gentle giant attempted to make his presence known to the other two in his dorm room, glancing at both of them in hope of some sort of recognition.
He was greeted by silence. Rin looked sheepish, whereas Haru looked up at him with that look that meant ‘I know you’ll help me, right?’
Makoto sighed, knowing fully that he’d have to help them both, sometime or another.
“Do you need help…?” He offered hesitantly, already predicting their responses. Haru would silently push it towards him, as to mean ‘Explain please’ and Rin would grin and rapid fire twenty questions at once…
“We’ll do it later.” Makoto hadn’t expected that response, and not from Haru, especially.
“O-okay.” He stuttered out, recovering from the rejection he was hardly used to.
“I’m hungry, let’s order a pizza.” Rin pulled his phone from his pocket, opening the Domino’s app.
“I want pineapple. And-“ Haru started.
“Mackerel, I know.” Rin finished, pecking his significant other on the lips. Makoto was perfectly okay with little displays of affection if it stopped there. But oh God, it did not stop there. It hardly ever did.
Haru grabbed Rin’s shirt, engaging in another kiss, but far from chaste. The two of them tumbled onto the floor, grasping at each other, pizza and Makoto long forgotten.
Instead of trying to intervene, Makoto just picked up a jacket, awkwardly slipping out the door without a sound, save for the click of the door behind him.
Butterfly
Rei made his way through the crowd dancing to near deafening music rumbling through the bar.
The Rockhopper was Nagisa's favorite bar. It was likely because of the lively vibe and the thrumming music, but it just as easily could have been because the mascot was a penguin. That meant that they spent an unnaturally long amount of time there, Nagisa because of obvious reasons, and Rei because he was dragged there against his will more than half of the time.
Usually, Rei would uncomfortably try to squirm past the dancing bodies, but today he just really didn't give a shit. The bespectacled man, taller than a majority of the bar's customers, stormed his way through the mass towards a familiar head of mussed blonde hair.
"Hey, Reirei!" Nagisa greeted him, with a fruity cocktail already half drunk in his hand. Rei ignored the dumb nickname, plopping himself into the cushioned barstool beside Nagisa, ordering a shot of tequila from the bartender.
"What's up?" Nagisa leaned closer to Rei, eyebrows raised. "You usually get the gay as hell drinks, so there's something too straight about you right now."
"I wish..." Rei grumbled, downing the shot in one gulp, immediately regretting it as it burned down his throat. "If only I were straight..."
"Oh. My. God. Something happened." Nagisa scooted closer to Rei, so he was staring at him eye-to-... Huge fucking eye glasses. "You're usually too gay to function."
"You shouldn't say anything." Rei quipped, turning away from the obnoxious blond and ordering another shot.
"I'm too bisexual to function." Nagisa corrected, taking a swig of his cocktail. Rei dismissed him and took another shot with the same burning regret.
"But what's up? Like, seriously." Plunking his now empty glass on the counter, Nagisa focused his eyes on Rei.
"My sister outed me..." Rei muttered, "to my parents."
"What the damn hell! What a bitch." Nagisa's eyebrows knit in the center of his forehead.
"Say no more, mi compadre, we're getting that negativity out of you tonight!" The blond vowed, causing the edges of Rei's mouth to twitch upwards, just a bit. Nagisa called over the bartender, a sort of shy looking man with a baby face and a strange looking gray bowl cut.
"Ai, My friend here will take the gayest drink you have!" The nervous bartender nodded, hands jittering a little bit as he mixed up the most colorful and fruity looking drink Rei had ever seen.
"H-here." Aiichirou shakily placed the beverage in front of Rei, chewing on his lip a little and blushing about 50 shades of red. "I-I-I hope you cheer up soon... It's... Best when you smile!"
Slightly confused, Rei thanked him, and he left to tend for another customer.
"Ooh! Let's get you laid; I bet Ai would gladly sleep with you!" Nagisa shook Rei's shoulders, causing some of the fruity monstrosity to splash on Rei's nice blazer.
"I'd rather not." Rei coughed.
"Ooh, I get it, you're a bottom. Let's see... Uh..." Nagisa scanned the bar. "That guy!"
Rei turned around on his stool to look at one of the tallest people he'd ever seen in real life.
"Oh God, no." Rei paled. If dick size was proportional to height... Not that he was even considering it.
"Oh, actually I know him!" Nagisa grinned ominously, moving his eyebrows up and down in a way that made Rei extremely uncomfortable. "Mako-chan! Over here!"