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Rei stood next to the sports car in mild fascination. He was aware that, since starting several years ago, Nagisa’s pay had gone up considerably, but he hadn’t expected him to actually own such a nice car. They’d been out of highschool for nearly 7 years, and Nagisa had lived in the Americas as a SeaWorld employee for 5 of those 7. In truth, he found it hard to believe that Nagisa could afford so much. But what surprised him most was…
“Nagisa-kun, I was not aware you could drive.”
Nagisa turned around from where he’d been fussing with the passenger seat it his car. He was sporting a big grin, a smile that still hadn’t changed since their high school years back in Iwatobi.
“Of course I can drive, Rei-chan! I’ve only been living on my own for 6 years!”
In truth, it shouldn’t have been surprising at all. How else would Nagisa get around in such a wide place as America? But...in all the times he had visited Nagisa, and in all the times Nagisa had visited him in Britain, he had never so much as seen Nagisa touch a steering wheel before. This was the first thing on wheels he’d ever seen his blonde-haired friend hold the keys to.
“I mean, I haven’t been driving all that time.” Nagisa cut into Rei’s thoughts. “In fact, I just got my license in September!” So that was why Rei hadn’t seen him drive before. The last time he’d visited had been in June, and it was December, now. “It’s so much more convenient than taking a taxi to work, Rei-chan! You have no idea how hard it is to catch one here, expensive, too.”
“I see. It must be a little hard, what with around 255 thousand people. But I read a report a while ago that there are too many taxis on the streets and it is too much competition for other forms of transpo-”
“Well, that doesn’t matter anymore, anyways, Rei-chan!” Nagisa chirped, cutting off Rei’s explanation before he could drone any longer. “I can drive now. We have to get going, too. The trainers are only letting me bring you in for an hour because our manager will be back soon!” Nagisa grinned at Rei. “And I really really want to show you my surprise before you get kicked out.” Nagisa pushed himself out of the passenger seat and motioned for Rei to take his place, before he walked around to the other side of the car and hopped in. Rei took his seat and buckled up, ready for an interesting ride.
It was surely interesting, as Nagisa sped off out of the airport parking lot where he’d picked Rei up from. He managed to spin at least one donut before leaving the parking lot.
“Nagisa-kun, I think that was...uh, illegal.” Rei said from his seat, turning to look out the back window. He honestly wouldn’t have been surprised to see some flattened American pancake after that stunt. But no one was there.
“Don’t worry, Rei-chan! I was just showing off!” Nagisa dismissed, but as soon as they’d left the parking lot, he accelerated again. “We do have to hurry, though. We’re on a time limit!”
Rei yelped as the car suddenly jerked into a parking lot. “W-what? Nagisa-kun, you didn’t even turn on your blinker!” He gasped, looking over at his friend. The blonde had his tongue sticking out of his mouth, and his eyes were narrowed in concentration as suddenly, they were speeding through the parking lot of a shopping outlet. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“I told you SeaWorld, silly!” Nagisa said, not missing a beat as he drove through the parking lot. Rei’s eyes flicked around skeptically.
“But...this is a parking lot and-” He cut off as Nagisa reached the other side of the parking lot and turned a hard left.
“Short cuts!”
“Are you avoiding the lights?” Rei asked, his eyes widening with realization.
“Well, duh! It’s a shorter trip!”
Rei groaned. “Nagisa-kun! That’s illegal!” He scolded.
“I don’t do it all the time.” Nagisa defended, pouting out his lips. Though, to his credit, he didn’t take his eyes off the road. “It’s just this once, for your birthday.”
Rei felt his face flush suddenly. Today was the 14th, wasn’t it? He hadn’t even realized…
“So that’s why you wanted me to come down early for Christmas break, then?” Rei asked. He worked as a college marine biology professor during majority of the year. But his students got most of December off each year for holiday break. Rei usually spent at least half of that time in Iwatobi or, in this year’s case, America. He rarely came down this early, though.
“Yeah.” Nagisa said. Rei noticed his eyes flick over to himself for a split second, before they were on the road again. “We haven’t spent your birthday together in ages.” He murmured, almost sounding sad, albeit nostalgic. It was gone, though, a second later. “So I wanted to spend at least a couple hours of daylight celebrating it with you in person!”
“Nagisa-kun…” Rei started, but it ended in a hollar of surprise when Nagisa dipped into another parking lot and zoomed through it. “Nagisa-kun! You’re going to get us arrested!” The car jerked again, Rei could have sworn at least one wheel had left the ground. “Or maybe killed, actually. In fact, I can calculate the probability of-”
“Rei-chaaaaan, don’t talk your mathy science stuff while I’m driving!” Nagisa complained, jerking the wheel again to turn out onto the main road. “I’m trying to concentrate!”
Rei shut his mouth, afraid of what would happen if Nagisa wasn’t concentrating.
---
After several more ducks in and out of massive parking lots, and speedy races through neighborhoods that were very dangerous (and Rei decided that at this point, he may never drive with Nagisa again), the two pulled into the SeaWorld parking lot. Nagisa powered down the engine and jumped from the driver’s seat.
“Wow, we got here in 13 minutes!” Nagisa crowed, looking at his phone.
Rei stumbled from his seat, his face a nice shade of corpse-white, and held on to Nagisa’s car for support. “Remind me to never let us be late for something again when you’re driving, Nagisa-kun.” Rei stammered, holding his head in his hand.
“C’mon Rei-chan! We can’t dilly-dally now!” Nagisa said, pushing Rei out of the way so he could close his door and lock the car. He pulled his bag over his head and draped it on his shoulder, then nudged Rei again. “Let’s gooooo!” He nagged.
Rei stayed firmly in place, still a little dizzy. He felt something in his hand, and when he looked down at it, he felt even a little more dizzy. Nagisa had clasped his hand in Rei’s, and was tugging his arm. “Come oooon Rei-chan! Let’s go, I said!” Rei blindly pushed from the car and followed after his friend. He attempted to ignore the warmth flowing up his arm, and instead focus on gaining control of his body after the crazy car ride.
When Nagisa pulled away from his hand to talk to one of the employees, Rei finally looked up. His head was beginning to clear, and he could think clearly through the rush of the car ride. He watched as Nagisa flashed his ID...then another, and several others. The man smiled and waved them on after a few gestures at Rei. As the two passed a couple “employees only” gates and doors, which Nagisa continually had to unlock, Nagisa began to blabber on about the animals he worked with.
“I’ve been training dolphins, mostly. I nicknamed one Haru-chan, even though his real name is Hercules. He’s a lot like Haru, he really likes water, and he’s always so stand-offish! But he’s really fun to train when he’s not being moody. They let me train one of the penguins while our keeper was out for a bit, too! But I didn’t get to permanently. I wasn’t that good at it, anyway. Who would think that my favorite animal was that hard to train, huh?” Nagisa giggled and continued on. “Then there’s this baby whale that was born a couple weeks ago. They named him Marco, but I keep accidentally calling him Mako-chan instead of Marco-chan. He’s shy, too. He reminds me a lot of Makoto.”
Rei smiled at Nagisa’s stories, and didn’t even realize that they had been holding hands again until Nagisa tugged him to a stop in front of one of the large metal doors.
“W-where are we, Nagisa-kun?” Rei asked, backing up next to where Nagisa had stopped.
“This leads to the place I wanted to show you, Rei-chan!” Nagisa said, eyes brightening up. “See, I met all kinds of animals while I was here that reminded me of everyone in Iwatobi, right?” He began, and let go of Rei’s hand again to unlock the door. Rei slightly frowned when it was gone, but continued to listen to Nagisa. “Well, we were having a drawing to see what we would name one of our newest animals and my name won!” Nagisa’s explanation didn’t make much sense, but Rei just let it go, and when Nagisa held the door open for him, he headed inside.
Nagisa followed after and immediately latched onto Rei’s hand again. He led the taller down a rather dark hallway, until some green lights began to surround them. Nagisa moved up to one of the glass cages to their left. “The attraction’s not open yet because we just got a new shipment of fish into it and they need time to settle in before tours come through.” Nagisa explained. “But see up there?” Nagisa stretched out his arm to point at a certain creature.
“The one with the spots? That’s a Spotted Eagle Ray.” Nagisa explained. Rei adjusted his glasses and followed Nagisa’s finger, and his eyes widened. It was a dark shade of gray, with stark white spots all over its back. It glided through the water with ease. It was like watching the night sky move through the clear water.
“Well, I never really saw a fish here that reminded me of you because you’re Rei and you’ve always reminded me of Butterflies! But when we had the contest to name her, sorry she’s a her, by the way… Well, I saw her and she reminded me of butterflies and I thought of you because she’s really beautiful!” Nagisa trailed off and his hand tightened around Rei’s. “So her name is Rei.”
“She is beautiful.” Rei said, and his eyes trailed down to Nagisa again. “But...you named her after me?” He asked, his face beginning to turn a shade of red that wasn’t very flattering against the green light.
“I come and see her every day!” Nagisa chimed, sounding a little nervous. “It kind of makes up for seeing you only twice a year…”
“Nagisa-kun…” Rei murmured. His eyes grew wide when he was suddenly embraced by Nagisa. The blonde had wrapped his arms around his torso, smushing his cheek against his chest.
“So, I mean, I guess it’s not a material object or anything. And she’s not technically yours. But I...sort of got you a ray for your birthday!” He said, chuckling. “Is she okay?”
“I love it.” Rei immediately spurted. His cheeks tinted redder. “S-she’s amazing, Nagisa-kun. Thank you.” He felt a little awkward just standing there as Nagisa hugged him longer, and so he tentatively nuzzled his nose into Nagisa’s golden locks of hair. He was sure the shorter boy could hear his heart racing.
He wished it could stay like this, really. But suddenly, a shout came from down the corridor, and Nagisa pulled away from Rei. Rei took into account that his cheeks were bright red. Maybe he wasn’t the only one flustered by the close contact.
“Nagisa! Boss’s comin’ back!” Came a voice, some man speaking English to Nagisa. He butchered the pronunciation of the blonde’s name horribly with his accent. Rei was sort of glad he knew the language from living in Britain for so long. He was sure he’d be spooked to hear some foreign language being shouted at him through the echo-y hall if he didn’t understand it. “Ya better get your boyfriend and get out!”
Rei stiffened as he followed Nagisa out. “Boyfriend?” He asked, incredulously.
“Awh, I was messin’ with ya Hazuki!” The man said, patting Nagisa on the back as the two stepped out of the darkened hallway into daylight again. The guy turned to Rei with a wide smile. “The boy talks to much about his I-wa-tow-bee buddy ‘Rei’ that sometimes it sounds like you two’re married! Assumin’ you’re Rei.”
“Yes, that...would be me.” Rei said, transitioning rather easily back into English.
“Well, nice to meetcha, Rei. I’d talk more, but boss’ll boot us all in the butt if you two don’t head out.” The guy grinned and patted Rei on the back. “Happy birthday, fella!” He cheered, before heading off in another direction.
Nagisa began leading the way towards the exit in silence after that.
“Nagisa-kun?” Rei pried after they’d finally exited the park. “What’s wrong?”
Nagisa whipped around with a pout on his lips, which surprised Rei a little. “I wanted to be the first one to do it!” Nagisa whined.
Rei’s eyebrows went up, and he tilted his head. “Eh? D-do what, Nagisa-kun?”
Nagisa stepped forward towards Rei, his pout strengthening. “It’s just, I miss you so much all the time and I wanted to be able to say it at a special time like I always have!” His eyes widened suddenly, and Rei wondered if the boy had just had an epiphany. Or maybe he saw something behind Rei?
Rei turned quickly to look, but turned back after Nagisa suddenly shouted, “I’ve got it!” He was met with hands jerking his face down, and suddenly, Nagisa’s lips were on his...his cheek.
Rei lit up in at least 10 shades of red after he was let go, and he looked down at Nagisa in surprise. The only response he received before Nagisa began skipping off to his car was…
“Happy birthday, Rei-chan!”