Work Text:
Serizawa is still a bit drunk when he stumbles out of the train car after Reigen.
“I thought your stop was later,” Reigen says, making his way toward the turnstiles. Serizawa follows him dumbly, not really sure what he’s doing. When Reigen notices, he spins around clumsily and looks up at him. “You gotta go home, Seri, we’ve got a client at 9:15!”
“Yeah I know,” Serizawa says with a shrug. “I just wanted to say good night.” Serizawa isn’t sure what he wants.
Reigen’s face lights up, his smile big and kind. “Good night Serizawa,” he says, and Serizawa kisses him.
Or at least, he tries to. What he intended to be a quick kiss on the lips winds up on Reigen’s smiling teeth instead. Serizawa pulls back abruptly; he’s screwed up his own first kiss, like the idiot he is, he can’t take that back, can’t ever fix that-
Reigen is staring at him. His smile has fallen off his face, and now he’s just staring. Serizawa turns away, desperately ignoring the urge to throw himself onto the train tracks, when Reigen grabs his jacket and pulls him back.
Serizawa’s second kiss goes much better than the first. Reigen pulls his head down with both hands, mashing their lips together. In all honesty, it’s pretty strange and a bit slimy, but it’s Reigen, with the passion of three lemon sours. Serizawa is stuck still for a moment, not sure of how to move his lips or his too-large body. He settles his hands on Reigen’s waist, feeling sharp hipbones under the fabric.
Reigen pulls away after a moment. “Don’t overthink this,” he mutters against Serizawa’s lips, so Serizawa doesn’t. This time he pulls Reigen to him, hunching a bit lower so Reigen doesn’t have to stretch up. He moves his lips, and though he’s not sure that he’s doing it right, it feels good and Reigen is kissing him back. He breathes in as his nose brushes Riegen’s cheek.
Distantly, he hears the next train roar into the station. He leans back, and sees that Reigen’s eyes are still closed.
“Good night, Reigen-san,” he says, and gives Reigen one last kiss before going to catch the train.
The next day, they don’t mention the kiss.
Serizawa supposes that the window came and left that next morning, but they’d been running around an apartment building trying to catch a particularly slippery spirit. Then, there’d been another case of heavy shoulders only solved by an exorcism massage, and after that Tome had shown up, and Serizawa had to go to class.
He winds up talking to a friend in his economics class about it, a housewife whose kids recently moved out.
“Please,” she says, rolling her eyes, “If he just kissed you and hasn’t told you what he wanted, then he was probably just drunk.”
“But I kissed him first!” protests Serizawa, “And I’m not sure what I want.” He looks down at his clasped hands on the desk.
She sighs. “Well Kohai, you need to figure that out.”
Serizawa spends the train ride home fidgeting with the zipper on his bag. He knows some of the things he wants: spending more time with Reigen outside of work, kissing him, maybe something more. But those things, he’s pretty sure, are relationship things, and Serizawa hasn’t had a relationship so he doesn’t know if he wants one. The books he’s read and the movies he’s watched tell him that either relationships are wonderful, perfect things, where people love each other and don’t ever change their minds, or they end terribly, usually with someone dying or someone cheating or someone becoming too focused on their work to be in love. To Serizawa’s knowledge, the second one is supposed to be more “realistic” but he’s not sure if that’s true.
And, is he in love? Serizawa doesn’t know. Honestly being around Reigen makes him want to vomit from nerves sometimes, so maybe that’s what people mean when they talk about butterflies. He knows that he finds Reigen attractive and he enjoys spending time with him, but he’s not sure if that’s good enough for a relationship.
When Serizawa comes into work that morning, he gives Reigen his usual “Good morning, Reigen-san!” but all he gets in response is a bored-sounding “Good morning.” back. Reigen doesn’t even look up from his laptop to say it. Serizawa’s stomach drops.
They have a client who’s been hearing voices, and Reigen refers her to a nearby psychiatrist, claiming that doctors are well-equipped to deal with issues of possession but don’t say so publicly in order to avoid alarming civilians. Serizawa spends most of the morning working on a paper, but finds his gaze sliding over to Reigen more often than not. Reigen still isn’t looking at him.
Around noon, Reigen finally speaks.
“Oi, Serizawa, I’m gonna order take-out from that soba place. D’you want anything?”
“Can I kiss you again?” Serizawa blurts out, and then immediately slaps his hand over his mouth.
Reigen finally looks up from his laptop at him, giving him that same bewildered look he’d had in the train station. Serizawa is struck with an overwhelming urge to sprint out of Spirits and Such and never come back, but his body feels like solid lead.
The eye contact lasts for a few seconds before Reigen smiles a smile Serizawa hasn’t seen on him before. He can’t tell if it’s a smile of pity or relief, but Reigen stands from his desk and walks over to the couch.
“Are you saying you want that instead of soba?” Reigen says as he sits down next to him, slinging an arm over the back of the couch. Serizawa has spent enough time with Reigen by now to know when Reigen is trying to “act casual”. It’s something he does when a ghost shows up and he’s trying not to let the clients know that he’s scared shitless.
Serizawa shakes his head, and Reigen frowns. “You don’t want soba?” he asks.
Slowly, Serizawa removes his hand from his mouth. “No, um. I do want soba.”
Reigen sighs. “Do you want me to kiss you?”
Serizawa nods.
Reigen leans forward, and this kiss is different from the ones in the train station, a quick brush of the lips that’s over before Serizawa realizes. When they part, Reigen is looking at him again with that same expression.
“I’m sorry,” is the first thing Serizawa can think to say, and Reigen raises his eyebrows.
“What for?”
“Um,” Serizawa looks back down at his hands. “Not asking sooner. I’m sorry, I just, I haven’t done this before. I don’t really know what I’m doing.”
Reigen’s “Oh,” is quiet, and Serizawa looks up at him. “You were giving some mixed signals,” he says, “I was pretty sure you weren’t actually interested in me.”
“I didn’t know I was giving signals, what signals am I giving?”
Reigen shakes his head and smiles as he says, “It doesn’t matter, Serizawa, just keep being yourself.”
This time, when Reigen kisses him, Serizawa meets him halfway. Reigen slides a hand into his hair, leaning in closer. When they part for a moment, Reigen takes a second to straddle him on the couch and, holy shit, he has a lapful of Reigen. When they kiss again, Serizawa wonders if it’s okay to grab Reigen’s ass, but decides against it. Instead, he slides his hands along Reigen’s back, under his jacket, which causes Reigen to grip Serizawa’s shirt a bit tighter.
They’re interrupted when Reigen’s stomach growls.
Serizawa leans back. “Let’s get lunch,” he says.
Reigen gives him a smirk, “Serizawa, are you asking me on a date?”
“Um, I guess I am. We should probably go somewhere nicer than the soba place, then.”
Reigen groans. “But I was in the mood for soba!”
“Fine, fine, we can go to the soba place. But I want my first date to be somewhere nicer."