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It was difficult to navigate in the mask. Apparently ‘one size fits all’ didn’t include him, and having his eyes half obscured was a little bit disorienting. That was on top of the fact that he had to wear his contacts instead of his glasses, and switching from glasses to contacts messed with his depth perception under ordinary circumstances. They should have been just like wearing his glasses, as that was how the mask was designed in order for the shape to be retained. But instead of his reasonable, thin-rimmed frames, the mask glasses were almost all frame that heavily obstructed his vision. All in all, he found himself moving much more slowly as he made his way from the train station to the science building on campus.
The party was already in full swing, if the amount of noise coming from the big lecture hall was any indication, and Rei self-consciously slipped in behind some other guests. He hadn’t been at this University very long, having just transferred last semester to do his post-graduate research under one of the professors here. He had been heavily encouraged to attend this Halloween party for the science faculty, as it would expand his social group and allow him to meet new people. Rei wasn’t much of a partier, though. He felt kind of awkward in large groups of people, especially if he didn’t know very many people.
But his friend Rin was doing research in marine biology, and he convinced Rei to sign up as his partner in the pairs costume contest. The theme this year was something related to nostalgia, and they were assigned ‘Sailor Moon’ as a costume prompt. There was only one main male figure in Sailor Moon, to Rei’s recollection, and he had won rock-paper-scissors for the right to dress as Tuxedo Mask. Whether or not that was a ‘win’, he wasn’t so sure. He adjusted the mask a little so that the eye holes sat more evenly over his actual eyes. Where was Rin? And what had he chosen as a costume?
He scanned the room, full of classic characters from television or books, but he didn’t see his friend. He was squinting down at his phone, about to text Rin, when someone in a Sailor Moon costume bounded up to him.
“I am the Pretty Guardian, who fights for love and for justice. I am Sailor Moon, and now, in the name of the moon, I’ll punish you!”
“Um,” said Rei, staring at the person. It was very clearly Sailor Moon, though the skirt had been swapped for shorts that hugged very sturdy thighs, and it had obviously been adapted for a broader masculine physique. His gaze traveled up to the uncovered, unfamiliar face and the thick, wavy golden hair that spilled over a forehead tiara and curled around the man’s ears. “You’re not Rin,” he managed, finally.
“Nope!” The Sailor Moon readily agreed to this obvious fact. “Rin-chan got called into work suddenly, and I owed him a favor, so here I am.” He resumed the Sailor Moon pose.
“But… he was my partner,” said Rei, fumbling with his phone again. Sure enough, he could see an unread message from Rin.
“I’m your partner now,” claimed the Sailor Moon.
“This party is only for science faculty,” said Rei, a tad sharply. He didn’t do so well when his plans were suddenly changed. “He can’t just invite a friend to take his place.”
“Rei-chan,” said Sailor Moon, reaching out suddenly and placing his hands on both sides of Rei’s face, holding him steady and forcing him to meet his eyes. “It’s fine. I am science faculty. Face it--he’s not coming. It’s you and me now.”
“But…” protested Rei, weakly. “I don’t even know you.”
“Oh, I’m Hazuki Nagisa.” He released Rei as he introduced himself. “I work in the astronomy and space labs. I usually come to this party, anyway, but this year I thought I was going to have a conflict, so I didn’t sign up. Lucky for you, eh, Rei-chan?”
“Rei-chan??” questioned Rei, registering that this was the second time he had been called that by this… this… stranger.
“That’s your name, right? Rin-chan told me.”
“Er--”
"Wait, one of the other guardians was named Rei!" exclaimed Nagisa. "Um… Mercury I think? No, Mars!" He grinned at Rei. "The sexy one. Maybe I should have dressed as her."
"Oh, um, no," stammered Rei. "I think this one suits you. H-how did you get a costume so quickly?" he asked.
Nagisa shrugged. "I have sisters." That was all the explanation he offered. “Come on, let’s go get some snacks before they’re all picked over!” Taking his arm, Nagisa pulled Rei along towards the crowd at the food tables. He supposed Nagisa must have been telling the truth, as he seemed to know everyone in every science department. He greeted everyone by name and introduced Rei smoothly, but it didn’t seem like he required much input from Rei, so Rei relaxed a little and focused on nibbling on some snack mix he had been handed.
He was abruptly brought back to the conversation by Nagisa’s raised voice.
“Oh yeah?? Well, Rei-chan and I are gonna kick your asses!”
Rei was taken aback by the hostile tone, and he looked between Nagisa and the antagonists with some trepidation. He may have been dressed like a crime-fighter (wait, did Tuxedo Mask ever actually do anything or did he just swoosh around??), but he had no intention of getting into any fights. He didn’t recognize the men, but their smirky responses to Nagisa’s glare were pretty irritating. Rei didn’t like to jump to conclusions, but he found himself feeling that he would like to kick their asses. Figuratively speaking, that is.
“Couldn’t cut it in the moon program, so you had to resort to dressing as a magical moon girl?” asked one of the men. The teasing tone did not feel friendly.
“People got tired of your whining, so they made you dress as a baby?” retorted Nagisa.
It was true. Rei hadn’t looked too closely at the two men’s costumes, but it looked like they had been assigned Yu Yu Hakusho. He could see the ‘jr’ written on one’s forehead, and the green clothes of the other made more sense in the context.
While Jr spluttered, the other man sneered. “You’re all talk, Hazuki. Just like always.”
“I guess being able to talk is why I’ve gotten grants the past three years, and wait, did you get any?” asked Nagisa, rubbing his chin in mock thought. “That’s right, you didn’t. And you won’t get the best score this year, either. Come on, Rei-chan.”
Nagisa huffed to himself as he pulled Rei along behind him. He was mumbling under his breath and occasionally stomping, clearly still riled up by those other scientists.
“What’s going on?” asked Rei. They had run out of stomping room and came to a halt at the far wall. There were groups congregating a little further down, but no one was near them. “Who were those guys?”
Nagisa huffed again. “Just some idiots from the space lab. They’re so cocky because they’re in astronaut training. Like that’s who we need exploring Mars.” His tone was derisive, and he snorted. “I have to work with them sometimes, and they’re always like that.”
“You… work in the space lab?” asked Rei, trying to follow this. Hadn't he said something earlier about that? Nagisa was like a whirlwind, and Rei's mind was spinning as he adjusted to the pace of the conversation.
“Oh, yeah.” Nagisa perked up a little. “I'm just organizing data from probes right now. I’m in between fields. Again.” He smiled ruefully. “I love space and all the possibilities, but that’s the problem, right? There’s too many possibilities, so I’m having trouble focusing on one thing. I’ve worked a little bit with Mars research and studies of the Moon, but now I’m trying to get into the program studying Jupiter’s moons. Astrobiology! The study of life in the universe!” His eyes were gleaming with excitement, and he was increasingly animated. This was obviously a topic he enjoyed. “There’s some speculation that the oceans on Europa and Io are not that different from our deep sea environments and could possibly support life. Isn’t that cool??”
“Er, yeah,” said Rei, completely out of his depth. “That sounds very interesting.”
“What do you do, Rei-chan?” asked Nagisa.
“Oh, I’m doing research for my thesis. I’m working with Doctor Nozaki in the psychology department.”
“Psychology, huh?” Nagisa raised an eyebrow. “Are you, like, a therapist?”
“No, no,” said Rei, shaking his head. “I’m actually focusing my research in kalology--that’s studying human standards of beauty and how they influence society. It’s a mixture of psychology, sociology, and anthropology, really.” He cut himself off before he could start to babble. “It’s… it’s fascinating.”
“Ohhh… so you look at beautiful people all day?” asked Nagisa, grinning. “That sounds like a great job!” He took Rei’s shoulders and turned him so that he could see most of the room. “Okay, expert. Who’s the most beautiful person here tonight?”
“It’s a, er, subjective science,” said Rei, somewhat taken aback. “Variations in culture and age will cause different features to be prized--there’s broad generalizations, of course, but--”
“Fine, fine, fine.” Nagisa cut him off, impatiently. “To you, though. Point out someone who’s beautiful.”
“Um…” For some reason, Rei’s gaze kept returning to Nagisa, whose smile was getting wider and wider. He was saved by the bell. Literally. One of the hosts was ringing a bell over her head to get everyone’s attention. “Oh, we should probably… go see what’s happening now,” he suggested.
“Okay, Rei-chan,” replied Nagisa, his grin splitting his face. But he didn’t say anything else as they rejoined the crowd around the entrance.
It was time for the annual scavenger hunt. According to the murmurs and squeals of the crowd, this was a big event. Nagisa whispered to Rei that the hunt was the reason most people attended the party. The winners received gift vouchers for a fancy restaurant, but the real prize was bragging rights. Rei’s eyes settled on the unpleasant faces of Nagisa’s space compatriots. They weren’t the only guests looking eager, but somehow, he felt those two would take the most advantage of any opportunity to brag that they could get. He really felt most unkindly towards them.
There was a surge of movement in the sea of people, but Nagisa had a firm grip on his arm, and they were jostled along together-- past the hosts handing out lists and right out the door into the cool October air.
“Okay,” said Nagisa, dropping his arm to unfold their list. “We’ve got two hours to find as many of these things as possible. We take a picture for proof, and we can go anywhere, as long as we make it back by the two hour mark. That’s--” He looked at his watch. “Nine-thirty.”
Taking the list from Nagisa, Rei looked it over. There were some generic items, like ‘the moon’ and ‘three red leaves’, that everyone would be able to find, but the list got progressively more specific. Accordingly, the points for the harder items were higher. “Okay,” said Rei. He removed the mask and put it in his breast pocket for safekeeping. “It’s… I don’t have much peripheral vision with that on,” explained Rei. “I won’t be much help if I can’t see.”
“Good thinking, Rei-chan,” said Nagisa. “Let’s pick a direction and go for it!”
Rei followed Nagisa away from the University buildings. Though Nagisa was about a head shorter than him, Rei found himself struggling to keep up. He was a fast walker. Before they even left the campus grounds, Nagisa had taken three pictures: the leaves, the moon, and a flyer advertising a Halloween party.
They hopped on a city bus and snuck a picture of a child in a lion costume who was asleep in a stroller. Rei didn’t feel like he was being much help, as Nagisa was always about three steps ahead of him. Still, he was the holder of the list, and he kept his eyes open for anything that Nagisa might miss. A few stops later, they got off the bus and turned down a brightly lit street. There were plenty of people milling around and shopping. Some of them were in costume, and Nagisa cheerfully bounded up to people, asking if he could take a picture.
They passed a pet store and got a picture of a black cat, as well as a dog in a costume, and not too far away, they found a café which was offering cookies decorated like ghosts. That counted as a ‘Halloween specific (non-candy) treat’.
Nagisa stuffed the rest of his cookie into his mouth and looked at his watch. “How many points do we have now, Rei-chan?” he asked, wiping crumbs away from his lips.
“Um…” Rei quickly tallied the marks he had made on the list. “Twenty-eight,” he said.
“Damn! We have to get at least fifty to have a shot at the win,” said Nagisa. “We’ve got an hour left until we have to report back.” He took the list from Rei and glanced over it. “A lot of these are decorations…” He paused, frowning down at the paper, then snapped his fingers. “Aha! I bet they wanted us to go through a residential area, looking for these things on balconies and in windows, but let’s skip that and go to the source.” His smile was pure mischief. “We’re gonna hit the Donki a couple of blocks over. They have tons of decorations!”
“Will that count?” asked Rei.
“It doesn’t say they have to be outside of someone’s house, or anything. Loopholes, Rei-chan!”
“I guess so…” But Nagisa had already taken off down the street, and Rei was forced to follow or be abandoned.
They racked up another fifteen points in the store, and fortuitously, they ran into another person dressed as Sailor Moon. Rei snapped a picture of Nagisa with the young girl, both of them in the classic magical girl pose, for a whopping ten points.
“Okay, that puts us at… fifty-three points,” said Rei.
Nagisa wrinkled his nose. “There’s still a lot we haven’t found, but I guess we should start heading back. If we’re late, we get disqualified.”
“We’ll keep looking on the way.”
They had about ten minutes to spare when they returned to campus, and when they got to the science building, they found that most of the other teams had also returned and were waiting for time to run out so a winner could be declared. There was some comparison of lists happening, and Nagisa was approached by the annoying jerks he had argued with earlier.
“What’s your score, Hazuki?” one of them asked.
“Fifty-three,” retorted Nagisa, glaring.
“We’re at fifty-seven!” crowed the other one. “So much for that ass-kicking you promised.”
“Yeah, well, we still have five minutes!” Nagisa snatched the list from Rei and scanned it quickly. “Aha!” he exclaimed, and he stabbed a finger at one of the items. “We’re gonna get this one for ten more points!”
As Nagisa’s former coworkers scoffed, he took out his phone and turned his camera on selfie-mode. “Just trust me, Rei-chan,” he murmured, handing the paper back to him. In a matter of seconds, he had pulled Rei close, wrapped an arm around his neck, and pressed up on his tiptoes to kiss Rei soundly.
Rei didn’t register the shutter sound until a moment later, when he was released, and he stared wide-eyed as Nagisa inspected the photo on his phone.
“Damn, I’m good,” said Nagisa. “Nice and steady, if not quite centered. I mean, I had my eyes closed, so it’s not perfect. But that gives us SIXTY-THREE points,” he announced, turning to the jerks and brandishing his phone triumphantly.
“What?! That so doesn’t count,” argued one. “It’s supposed to be a couple in costume kissing! You barely know that guy!” He looked Rei up and down in a derisive fashion. “You can’t count that.”
“I can so!” countered Nagisa. “A couple is two people: one, two!” He pointed at himself and Rei.
“Who are like, romantically involved!”
“We just kissed, didn’t we??” Nagisa was standing with his hands on his hips, and he didn’t look like he had any intention of backing down. “And after this, we’re going back to my place, and we’re gonna fuck! So don’t tell me we’re not a couple!”
Rei was still gaping, unsure how he got involved in this particular bit of drama. Fortunately, the argument couldn’t progress any further, as the hosts announced that time was up, and they all queued up to present their lists and the evidence of their finds. Despite the many pairs entered into the hunt, the tallying only took a few minutes, and the winner was announced.
“Sorry we didn’t win, Rei-chan,” said Nagisa, standing next to him as the party guests dispersed. “But neither did those idiots, so that’s something.”
“That’s okay,” said Rei, watching the winners chatter excitedly between themselves. The two women were from the entomology department, if he had heard correctly, and they had soundly thrashed all the other groups with a score of ninety-six. They deserved the win.
The party was over, and there was no reason for him to stay here with Nagisa, but for some reason, neither of them seemed to be in a hurry to leave. They slowly started ambling along one of the paths that cut through the campus.
“Um, Rei-chan?”
Nagisa’s fingers were gently tugging on his cape, and Rei turned to look at him. “Yeah?”
“I should apologize. For earlier.” Nagisa wore an expression of sheepish chagrin that looked out of place on his puckish features. “I’m not normally so aggressive, you know? I just got caught up in everything, and those… those guys just infuriate me, and I shouldn’t have… you know…” He waved a hand between them.
Rei raised an eyebrow. “Are you trying to say that you didn’t mean to kiss me?” he asked.
“Oh, no, I did,” replied Nagisa, promptly. “But like, ideally not in front of a bunch of other science grad students and faculty, and with more warning, and like, giving you a chance to decline, if you want… and, um.” He looked down at the ground and twisted the toe of his boot against the concrete of the sidewalk. “I probably shouldn’t have implied that we were going to go have sex…”
“Implied?” repeated Rei. “You outright stated that we were, and I quote, ‘going to fuck’.”
“Yeah,” agreed Nagisa. “That. Sorry.”
For a moment, Rei was silent, not wanting to forgive too readily, but he eventually sighed. “It’s fine,” he said. “I was supposed to use this party to introduce myself to other departments, and I guess they all know who I am now.”
Nagisa’s smile reappeared instantaneously. “Aw, don’t worry about that, Rei-chan! That kind of gossip is nothing. Just wait until the Christmas party! There’s no games at that one, so all people have to do is drink and socialize. And hook up in janitor’s closets and empty classrooms. People will forget about this in no time!”
“Will you?” asked Rei.
“Of course not!” Nagisa looked up at him, his eyes wide and gleaming in the low light from the lamps along the sidewalk. “I said I wanted to kiss you, didn’t I? I like you, Rei-chan. You’re interesting and smart and easy-going. And hot.”
“I, er, normally wear glasses,” blurted Rei, feeling as though this Halloween version of himself was possibly leading Nagisa to a false conclusion.
“Good,” replied Nagisa. “I like a man who can see me.”
Laughing in spite of himself, Rei shyly took Nagisa’s hand. “I like you, too.”
Grinning, Nagisa pulled him off the path and into relative seclusion behind the thick trunk of a big tree. “Then can we try that kiss again?”
Rei was the one who had to lean in, as Nagisa waited patiently with his back against the tree. He paused for a moment, looking down into Nagisa's face. It was heavily shadowed, but moonlight gleamed in his eyes and highlighted the curves of his cheeks. Studying standards of beauty had not prepared him for the perfect dream that stood before him, and he suddenly felt a little bit nervous. He reached to adjust his glasses out of habit, only to remember too late that he wasn’t wearing them.
Laughing at himself, he said, “I’m not the best at making the first move.”
“Then let me help you.” Nagisa reached up and wrapped a hand around the back of Rei's neck, sliding his fingers into the dark hair at the base of his neck, and he pulled Rei gently down into a kiss.
It was soft at first, but they grew bolder as they explored. Nagisa's mouth was hot and tasted faintly of cookie, and Rei felt like he might combust as Nagisa arched his body up against him. His hands were roaming, enjoying the contrast between the satiny feel of the (really very small) shorts and the flesh of Nagisa's thigh beneath them. He grinned as Nagisa squirmed when he ran his fingers lightly over the nearly invisible blond hairs on the back of his legs.
“No tickling,” mumbled Nagisa before pressing back in for a bruising kiss that made Rei focus on finding the right angle to prevent clashing teeth or accidental biting.
Several minutes later, they were both flushed and sweaty despite the cold November night, and Rei pulled back to catch his breath. Nagisa's forehead tiara was askew, and his costume was rumpled. Rei was sure he wasn't looking much better, but it didn't matter much right now. He rested his forehead against Nagisa’s, smiling as Nagisa tilted his face to nuzzle their noses together and press soft tiny kisses to his mouth.
“Shit, Rei-chan,” said Nagisa, after a quiet moment. “Maybe we should go fuck.”
“Not on the first date!” protested Rei with a laugh. “What kind of guy do you think I am?”
“Hopefully the kind of guy that likes cheap dates and poor perpetual grad students,” replied Nagisa, giving him a squeeze around the middle.
Rei nodded. “Sounds about right, honestly.”
“Why don’t I walk you home?” suggested Nagisa. “And you can tell me about the kinds of things you like so I can plan an amazing, sex-worthy second date.”
Rei adjusted his top hat and held his arm out to Nagisa. "Pretty Guardian… I can't wait."