Chapter Text
“So how’d that date go?” Nick asked as they dressed down after practice. Eugene grimaced, which was answer enough. “Really? That bad?”
“Not great,” Eugene confirmed. “Our chemistry was off.”
“Ah, so he was a bad kisser.”
“Not that kissing is all that matters,” Eugene said valiantly, “but yeah, it wasn’t great.”
“Bummer,” Nick said consolingly.
“I have some connections,” Aiden offered magnanimously. “If you need a good snog to cleanse your palate.”
“That’s generous of you,” Eugene laughed.
Aiden continued on to give a list of names with a sort of résumé-like rundown of all of them. Nick was unsure if it was a joke or not. He ducked out before coming to a conclusive answer on that; he had homework to finish. Seiji wasn’t far behind him but they didn’t walk together, even though they were going to the same place.
Their room wasn’t huge but it was large in Nick’s opinion. Really roomy for a dorm, he thought. Even sharing it with Seiji, it was beyond reasonable. They even had their own bathroom. A sweet deal all around. But Seiji always looked dissatisfied with it. Seiji was always dissatisfied with everything when Nick was involved.
Nick took their desk for once, hunching over his homework diligently. The sooner he was done with this report, the more of his Saturday he could enjoy. For once, he managed to focus on the task at hand until it was totally complete.
Tucking his computer away, Nick stood up to stretch.
“Don’t use all the hot water,” Seiji warned without even looking up as Nick made his way to their bathroom.
“Why not? You already had a shower, what do you care?”
Seiji didn’t answer, which made Nick think he was just being a tiresome nagger for fun. Seiji did enjoy his nagging.
Once out of the shower, Nick swept across the room to snag his phone and slip it in his back pocket. The door was blocked when he turned back to leave.
“Do you need something?” Nick asked suspiciously when Seiji didn’t move out of the way.
“Yes,” Seiji said imperiously. Nick waited impatiently to hear what further nagging Seiji had to offer today. “I need you to kiss me.”
Nick would have keeled over dead if dying of shock was possible.
“What?” He spluttered. Seiji raised an eyebrow at him, no more impressed by Nick’s shock than he was by anything Nick did.
“You’re good at it, aren’t you? I assume you must be, the way you talk to Eugene.”
“I—what?”
“Honestly, Nicholas, is it that your mouth or your ears have stopped working? Kissing. You’ve done it, correct?”
“Yeah…”
“And you’re good at it?”
“Um. I like to think so, yes.”
“Then teach me.”
“What?” Nick asked but when Seiji gave him an exasperated frown, he expanded his vocabulary. “You want me to teach you…how to kiss?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Is it that hard to deduce?” Seiji asked impatiently. “If you must know, I’ve got a date next week. Kissing could very well be involved and I’m not particularly experienced in that department. I don’t like being bad at things. So teach me.”
It wasn’t—none of it—said as a request. Seiji just stated it, unabashed and self-assured. Like he was only telling Nick not to use all the hot water.
“But…why me?” Nick asked, mind still whirring to try and make sense of Seiji, probably the coldest person Nick knew, demanding that Nick kiss him.
“Because you’re here,” Seiji said simply. “And it’s convenient. And because I have reason to believe you are both adequately good at kissing and unlikely to cause a fuss over this.”
Nick still couldn’t believe Seiji wasn’t at all embarrassed about this. Nick was embarrassed and he wasn’t even the one asking for a random person to kiss him out of convenience. But then his discussion with Eugene and Aiden in the locker rooms this morning came back to him and he felt a twinge of guilt. He stared hard at Seiji, trying to look for the nervousness he was now sure was at the root of all this.
“Listen,” he said. It was a touch too gently said; Seiji glared fiercely at him, not appreciating the tone at all. “I know I made it sound like kissing’s a make-or-break thing but that’s hardly the most important part of a relationship. You shouldn’t worry.”
“I’m not worried.” But Nick was pretty sure he was. “I simply don’t like being bad at things.”
“There’s more to it than just being good or bad at it,” Nick tried. “There’s other factors, like chemistry and preferences and—,”
“I didn’t ask.”
“But—,”
“But,” Seiji cut in, louder, “being good or bad at it is part of that all. Don’t patronize me by trying to relay fairytale ideals at me now when I’ve heard the way you all talk.”
Nick winced. That made it sound like he was one of those gross guys that engaged in seriously fucked locker room talk. But he did talk about kissing and old flings. And Aiden and Eugene shared their stories and escapades sometimes too. And everything any of them had ever said about romance and relationships had made it sound like there really was only one thing teenage boys cared about in the end. Nick was a little appalled to realize it. There was more to people than kissing. More to wanting to be with someone than wanting to fuck them.
“I—fuck, who knew you were so impressionable?” Nick groaned. He looked at Seiji, stubborn and standing with legs wide and arms crossed and eyes determined. He looked at the doorknob that was almost blocked from sight by Seiji’s body. Back to Seiji. “Fine, have it your way. I’ll, uh. Try to teach you the basics for your date next week.” But only because he felt responsible for putting strange ideas in Seiji’s head and easing his worries this way seemed easier and more doable than trying to have a heart-to-heart about the things more important than kissing. Seiji wouldn’t listen to all that anyway.
“Good.” Like he hadn’t even questioned that Nick would agree. “You may proceed.”
“Right now?”
“Yes. A week is a short amount of time to master something in, I won’t waste any of the time I do have.”
Seiji didn’t move or shift an inch. He just stayed planted in front of the door like a dragon guarding a castle.
“Well, the first thing about kissing,” Nick said, “is that you’ve got to look like you won’t knee anyone in the dick if they try to touch you.”
“That’s not an actionable item.”
“Not an actionable…? What the hell is wrong with you?” Nick had to laugh at the absurdity of this. “Just—here, let me…” Nick pulled Seiji’s arms from their crossed position but his stance was still all wrong so instead of letting go of the arms he’d just uncrossed, Nick used them to tug Seiji away from the door and a couple of steps into their room. “There, now you’re standing more naturally.” At the comment, Seiji immediately tried to revert back to crossing his arms but Nick held firm. “Are you even trying?”
“What now?” Seiji asked. It was a big question. Yeah, dumbass, what now?
“Well, there’s lots of stuff and also, like, nothing at all to kissing.”
“I’d like the in-depth version,” Seiji huffed. “So what comes next?”
“Let’s talk about what you can do with your arms,” Nick decided, since he was still holding Seiji’s and he could already tell they were going to be awkward, uncooked noodles through this.
“Alright.”
“So, a good bet if you want to just let your arms be somewhere and forget about them is the waist area.” Nick demonstrated by pulling Seiji’s hands to his waist. Seiji took the hold reluctantly but diligently. “And you can kind of have them anywhere here, see?” Nick pushed Seiji’s hands down to rest at his hips, then back up to his waist. “And then,” Nick stepped closer, pulled Seiji’s arms around him more. “There’s this. Like a hug.”
“Fascinating.”
“You’re the one that asked for step-by-step instructions,” Nick grumbled. “Okay, now put your arms around my shoulders instead.” Amazingly, Seiji did. Nick felt like they were running through drills. Hugging drills. Could the day get any more bizarre? “Good. You can also, like…” Nick pulled Seiji’s arms so they unwrapped from his neck and set his hands against his chest. “Basically, you can put them wherever feels natural to you. They’ll probably go somewhere on their own in the moment, I’m only bringing it up because you don’t want to let them dangle by your sides or something. You should touch your date when you kiss him. Her?”
“Him.”
“Thought so. Okay, we good on arms?”
“I should think so.”
“Then I’m going to go ahead and…”
“Kiss me?”
“Yeah. Kiss you. There’s other stuff—like, there’s things you can do with your hands but we’ll get back to that later.”
Seiji nodded seriously.
Am I really going to do this?
Nick brought a hand to Seiji’s cheek.
“I’m just going to show you this part,” Nick said. “But right now I’m taking your face so I can move it into a position that’s good for kissing. It’s not necessary, but you’re a beginner so I think it’ll be easier if I just position you.”
“Okay.”
“This is obvious, but you’ve got to tilt your face in the opposite direction as your partner. See? Just like this. You should be closing your eyes by now. And…”
Nick kissed Seiji. His lips were soft, perfectly moisturized things that emanated warmth, which shouldn’t have surprised Nick, but it did. Just because Seiji acted like a vampire didn’t mean he was one. Just because his personality was icy didn’t mean his skin would be too. It wasn’t. Seiji was as warm as anyone Nick had kissed and he let Nick tilt his head around for a string of kisses that were simple and chaste and uncomplicated. When he pulled back again, Seiji’s eyes opened swiftly.
“How was that?” He asked.
Maybe it was because he’d just been kissing Seiji and it had turned his brain to mush, but the unsure and nervous question that Seiji asked eagerly and without shame sounded kind of cute to Nick.
“Not bad,” Nick assured but Seiji frowned. “No, really, for what it was, it was good.”
“For what it was?”
“Yeah. Sweet kisses like that are nice.”
“I don’t need sweet kisses.”
“Everyone needs sweet kisses,” Nick told him.
“I need to know about whatever kind of kissing it is that you all are always talking about. Show me that.”
“If you insist, I guess.”
“I do.”
Nick considered trying to explain things but decided Seiji was right. Showing would be easier in this case.
“Just follow my lead,” Nick said before kissing Seiji again. He pressed kisses hard against Seiji’s mouth, mingling with the soft, sweet kisses they’d already been over and everything in between. “Alternating pressure,” Nick murmured against Seiji’s lips, “is one trick you should keep in your back pocket.”
Seiji nodded, the motion dragging his lips across Nick’s and bumping their noses together.
“And the other tricks?”
“Speed,” Nick listed, then showed Seiji what he meant by lingering on one kiss before readjusting and pressing a quick succession of kisses against Seiji’s mouth, breaking them up with longer ones again, continuing to offer a variety of hard and soft pressures. “And,” Nick pulled away a tiny bit to say, “then there’s mouth stuff.”
“Mouth stuff?” Seiji repeated, finally sounding somewhat effected by this lesson he’d demanded. “Isn’t it all mouth stuff?”
“Right. But, I mean, like…mouth stuff. This has all been closed-mouth kissing, which is good. But then you can have your mouth open, or you can use tongue. And teeth.”
“Teeth?”
“Yes. So then you just mix around pressure, tempo, and mouth stuff and you get a good make out.”
“How do you know when to do what?”
“You just do whatever feels good,” Nick shrugged.
“How do you…do the mouth stuff?”
“Like this.”
Once again, Nick brought his lips to Seiji’s. But, this time, he prodded gently at the seam between Seiji’s lips. Seiji had to have been expecting it. He’d literally just asked Nick how to do mouth stuff. But his head still jerked back in surprise. Nick let him have the moment he needed, let Seiji come back to him himself and hesitantly open his mouth against Nick’s.
Nick slipped inside and Seiji’s hands tightened into the front of his shirt. Not bad, Nick thought, diving deeper.
When they broke apart this time, Seiji was breathing hard and his eyes took longer to open. His mouth gleamed red and wet and was still held open invitingly.
“I really think you’ll be fine,” Nick said, swiping a thumb over Seiji’s mouth. Seiji pressed into the touch and Nick swallowed. “Yeah, you shouldn’t have a problem on your date.”
“But can you tell?” Seiji asked against Nick’s thumb. Nick finally dropped his hand. “That I’ve never kissed anyone before, can you tell?”
“Wait—no one?” Nick asked. Seiji shook his head. “At all? Never?”
“No, never. If I had any experience, do you think I’d need you to teach me?”
“I mean—shit, I knew you weren’t experienced but I didn’t mean to steal your first kiss for something so stupid.”
Seiji glowered.
“So you can tell,” he said first. Then, because Nick was still staring at him like he was crazy, “And you didn’t steal my first kiss. I gave it to you, I wanted to be rid of it anyway. Firsts are notoriously bad, aren’t they?”
“Maybe. But they’re special.”
“I don’t believe in that sort of sentimental nonsense. Now kiss me again.”
“But you’re a perfectly decent kisser, Seiji, there’s no need—,”
“Perfectly decent won’t do,” Seiji grouched. Nick had no doubt Seiji was going for ‘perfect.’ “And you just admitted you could tell I’m a novice. The best way to get better is to practice. Hence why I need you to kiss me again.”
“I—,” Nick tried to think of a way to get out of this but he didn’t entirely want to.
Seiji really was a perfectly decent kisser. He wasn’t too slobbery and he wasn’t dead-lipped and that was all a guy needed, in Nick’s estimation, to be decent to kiss. But Nick kind of liked kissing Seiji because it was obvious he didn’t know what he was doing. The clumsy kisses and stiff, stilted quality to them were endearing in a way Nick couldn’t put his finger on. It was just that he’d never kissed anyone like Seiji before and Seiji had never shown an ounce of vulnerability before and so the two things coming together—Seiji asking Nick to teach him how to kiss and then trying his best to meet the task? It was interesting. And, truthfully, it was adorably compelling.
“Let’s practice,” Nick agreed, resigned to Seiji’s insane scheme and his own dumb decision.