Work Text:
Nayuta hated doing nothing.
He had been working on a new song for Gyroaxia, for the past couple of hours now, but he was taking a break right now. He didn’t want to be taking this break, but it was late and his eyes had started to burn. Despite lying down with the lights off and his eyes closed, he couldn’t make himself fall asleep. His body was too tired to do anything, but his mind was too awake to do nothing.
It was the worst.
Nayuta rolled over onto his side, trying to get his mind to shut up for a second, to shut off so he could at least pretend he could sleep tonight. But that was a dangerous prospect. If he stopped thinking about the song and he didn’t immediately pass out, his thoughts would have a chance to wander.
And if they had a chance to wander, they would wander in the direction of a certain blue haired vocalist that had, somehow, made his way into his life.
Ren Nanahoshi.
Nayuta growled a little even thinking about his name. If most people had heard this growl, they’d assume he was irritated at someone. And to be fair, it wouldn’t be a totally incorrect guess, but they probably wouldn’t have guessed that the person he was irritated at was himself. He hated thinking about the person who became his rival, who was attempting to be his friend.
He hated thinking about him because he was just reminding himself how much of a crush he had on Ren.
If Nayuta’s eyes were open (and not in pain), he would’ve rolled his eyes at himself. But it was impossible to deny, and he wasn’t going to lie to himself; he’d had feelings for Ren for a good while now. And he knew the exact moment when he fell, too; that night Ren had come into his apartment and sang for him, by Nayuta’s request. At the time, it was just to reassure himself that Ren wasn’t actually serious about being a vocalist, that when faced with a real challenge he’d either turn tail or fail miserably. He did neither; he faced him, staring directly into his eyes as he shocked Nayuta into forcing him to listen, forcing him to look at him. Nayuta had told Ren exactly what he had wanted him to do, and he did it with no hesitation. And the moment he had actually locked eyes with him, he knew his face had faltered for a moment; he knew the initial shock was obvious before he had regained himself. And in the moment his face faltered, his heart did too, allowing Ren to shake it, shake it to it’s very core.
Looking back, telling him to shake his heart was absolutely a horrible mistake, because now here he was, up late at night, reminiscing over the first time he had really, actually interacted with Ren, like he was some lovesick high schooler. But, moments like these, when he was all alone, try as he might, he couldn’t stop himself. Couldn’t stop himself from reminiscing, couldn’t stop himself from thinking about him.
He had actually accepted the fact he was in love with, or at the very least infatuated with, Ren pretty quickly. He wasn’t about to play a massive game of denial with himself, and he wasn’t emotionally hopeless. He knew what he was feeling was some sort of love. He was just hoping it would’ve gone away by now. He thought it would’ve gone away by DesFes, in the summer, but it hadn’t. And he couldn’t think about DesFes without thinking about him literally yelling out to Ren to come onto the stage. To be fair, most of that was motivated by being irritated that Argonavis had thrown away a massive opportunity, and the most direct way of forcing them to play was... well, what he did. But he couldn’t lie to himself, or rather, there was no point in lying to himself. The one moment that he kept replaying in his head at times like these was when they had briefly clasped hands when Ren had all but launched himself onto the stage. Nayuta had reached out his hand first, and had pulled Ren the rest of the way onto the stage. That brief second, that single brief second of contact... he wanted more. He wanted an excuse to touch Ren again, to feel his hand in his again.
Fuck, could he sound any more lame if he tried? He softly hit his head against his pillow. As lame as he sounded, though, there still wasn’t any point in trying to deny it. Especially when he kept being around Ren, whether backstage for LRFes, in class (just his luck Ren would have the same major as him), or even just around Tokyo. But he couldn’t say he hated it when he saw Ren. He couldn’t say he hated stealing a glance every once in a while, pretending he didn’t care but using the brief second to take in as much as he could of him. For the moment he allowed himself, he’d notice Ren’s violet eyes, the way he’d concentrate on something in class, the way his hands would move, softly. On stage was worse, especially when he wasn’t on stage with him. He would watch the way his eyes seemed to sparkle as he sang, the way his smile seemed to outshine any spotlight they put him under, his voice still somehow shaking his heart just that little bit when he least expected it.
Yeah, he was in love with him.
And he was gonna make sure he died before anyone found out.
He wasn’t even sure if he was doing a good job of hiding it. Sure, publicly he had made it seem like he didn’t care about Ren, paid him no mind. And even if anyone figured it out, it wasn’t like he cared. People could think of his character however he wanted, it was the music that mattered above all else.
And that was the main problem; the music mattered, and he couldn’t afford any other distractions. And that absolutely included any potential relationship between the two. He never even dared to entertain the thought of the two getting together, because until he had seized the world, he couldn’t let anything get in the way.
...
But of course it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t a simple, clean answer. No, there was another reason, a reason Nayuta hated to admit, but kept digging itself up during late nights like these, when he couldn’t distract himself with anything else.
He was scared.
He wished there was a better word for it, a less extreme word. But it was the only word that felt right. He had never had an actual crush on someone before, never actually felt this way about anyone before. Sure, he mostly didn’t want to pursue a relationship because of his music... but he wouldn’t even have the first clue how to do it if he could.
And he wasn’t even sure if Ren liked him the same way.
Nayuta was glad the pillow was soft so he could slam his head down harder for thinking like that. But it was the truth. Sure, he knew Ren liked him enough to keep trying to talk to him and hang out with him (and it wasn’t like Nayuta was able to keep him completely at arm’s length, with his infuriating inability to just say the word ‘no’ to Ren, and Ren’s seeming inability to take ‘do what you want’ as a no). He had seen, both on and off stage, the way Ren’s eyes seemed to light up just a little bit more around him. He had seen Ren get excited to be around him. It wouldn’t be an unfair guess to say that Ren probably did like Nayuta the same way.
But what if he was wrong?
He knew the world wouldn’t end if he was wrong, and he could move on, and Ren would probably still want to be his friend even if he didn’t feel the same way... but...
Right now, he didn’t want to move on.
He didn’t want to be wrong. He didn’t want to risk the possibility of being wrong.
He was scared of being wrong.
He pretty harshly flipped to the other side. He hated having to admit that. It was stupid, pointless to be even mildly fretting over something he wasn’t even going to act on. And yet he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop himself from worry about this, when he couldn’t distract his thoughts. No matter how much he hated moments like these, thinking about his feelings towards him, thinking about him, he couldn’t deny, he wouldn’t deny it.
He was in love with Ren Nanahoshi.
And, to his eternal irritation, there was quite literally nothing he could do about it.