Work Text:
mon.
When Nagi Seishiro saw Isagi Yoichi for the first time, his heart nearly stopped.
That day, Nagi had dropped into the art room after finishing his lunch, expecting it to be empty, with his backpack slung lazily over his right shoulder and his favorite game on his phone already booted up and ready.
Instead, when he opened the door, he saw the back of a boy with black hair, a paint-dirtied smock over his uniform.
The boy was sitting in front of a small, black canvas, a palette of paints resting in his left hand, a brush held delicately in his right. A sketch was already laid out on the canvas. Before the painting boy, a simple clay flower pot sat upright, a black sheet hung up behind it and another underneath it.
At the sound of the door opening, the boy turned, and Nagi’s breath was stolen away.
The boy had wide, beautiful blue eyes, and soft dark hair with an odd (adorable, actually) sprout at the top. Despite the seeming plainness of his appearance, there was something that drew Nagi in; the whole face was like a painting, really, so beautiful in its simplicity, so utterly and absolutely perfect in an elusive, indescribable way.
Nagi stood in the doorframe, still, as they stared at each other. The room’s yellowed, ambient light was cast on the boys’ faces, firmly separating them from the rest of the world, as if they were in a place far away.
Nagi did not want to move, and, from the looks of it, neither did the blue-eyed boy.
Finally, the boy opens his mouth to speak. “...hello. Would you like to paint, too?”
Nagi was not, in fact, planning to paint that day, but he nods. “Yeah.”
A smile on the boy’s face, then. “Ah, okay. We have blank canvases over there. Mrs. Legretti won’t mind.”
The words are barely heard, as Nagi’s almost entirely focused on the smile on the boy’s face, but he manages to nod dumbly, grab a canvas from the back, and set it up beside the other.
As he gets up to squeeze out paints on the plastic palette on the table, he looks back at the boy, who is enraptured in his painting, as if swallowed whole. It’s like he’s not in this oddly stuffy art room, like he’s in his own world; his blue eyes look especially warm, then, and his black hair catches the light from the hanging lanterns above, staining the strands gold and orange.
After standing still for a moment too long, Nagi refocuses and continues to pour out his paints. He’s curious, really; curious about what captivates this beautiful boy’s eyes, curious about that other dimension that the ravenette is in.
When he returns, the boy has already started to paint, the orangish-red of the pot burning on his perfectly black canvas. It’s like a fire, almost. A fire that burns in the boy’s blue eyes, that burns into his painting.
The blue-eyed painter catches him staring and smiles, and Nagi feels his heart heat up in his chest with desire.
“Hah, you should start, you know? Lunch isn’t forever, you know.”
Nagi blinks, and then nods. “...I was zoning out, I guess.”
The boy laughs at his bluntness, treating him with another smile, before returning to painting.
Nagi refocuses. He should probably start with a sketch, right?
The drawing blooms beneath his hands onto the empty white canvas before he knows what he’s doing, and it’s of the boy.
In Nagi’s rough drawing, his hands hold a paintbrush that burn fires into the canvas, his blue eyes warm and focused.
He picks up his paintbrush, but before he can start to paint it out, the boy grabs his wrist.
“Ah, you should probably paint the background first.” Then, the boy inspects the drawing further, squinting. “...is that me?”
Nagi turns to him, his face impassive, and nods. “Yeah.”
At that, a light blush grows on the boy’s cheeks, and he looks flustered as he whips around to face his own pianting. It’s cute. Nagi can feel the corners of his lips turn upwards.
“Well, uhm, thanks. Uh- ah, is this your first time painting?”
“Yeah. I don’t really know how it works.”
“Well, your drawing -” the blush appears again “- it’s really good, you know. And the composition, too. You must be some kind of genius.”
“Hm, am I?” There’s genuine curiosity in Nagi’s voice, and it’s an emotion he hasn’t felt for as long as he can remember.
The boy turns and smiles, his corners eyes crinkling. “Yeah, but don’t think you’re going to surpass me that easily, genius.”
Now, Nagi is smiling. It’s odd, how much he feels around this boy. This feeling of desire, of curiosity, of happiness; it stains his gray world with color, as if a fire has been ignited in his chest.
“I’ll take you up on that.”
And so they paint until the bell rings, the boy guiding him through it (he still blushes every time he remembers that Nagi’s drawing him. it’s adorable.) and lightheartedly teasing Nagi every time Nagi makes a rookie mistake, but not at all mean-spirited. There’s no bite, and the brilliant smile that accompanies the words makes Nagi almost want to purposely make mistakes.
(“Hey.”
The boy looked up from his canvas, turning to Nagi. “Mm, what’s up?”
“Why’s the paint all muddled?”
The boy set down his brush to take a closer look, before a soft giggle bubbles out of his lips. “Haha, you’re so good, I sometimes forget you’ve just started today! It’s like - it’s like you’re a baby chick, or something. A hyper-talented baby chick.”
Nagi pouted a bit at that, which sends another laugh out of the other’s lips. “No, it’s not a big deal. It could’ve been, though, so pay attention, ‘kay?”
…as if Nagi wouldn’t. He couldn’t take away his attention from the beautiful boy with the beautiful eyes if he tried.
“So, essentially, you want to build up layers in a painting. Like, if you paint with wet paint over paint that hasn’t already dried, it’s going to come out looking all weird and muddy, like right here-” he gestured to the spot on the painting where Nagi’s white paint had mixed with the black he had already painted out “-so just be patient, let it dry, and then keep going!”
“Alright, thanks.”
A grin. “No problem!”
Nagi duly notes that this boy smiles a lot. Not that he minds.)
When the bell rings, the blue-eyed painter teaches him how to preserve his paints for the next time he comes and shows him where they should leave their paintings. They talk a bit on their way out, and Nagi learns that the two are in the same grade, but share no classes (“Oh, I’m the same age as you? But- but how are you so tall? )
As Nagi turns the corner to go to his next class, the boy waving and smiling as they part, Nagi realizes he still hasn’t caught the other’s name.
“Ah, wait -”
He’s already gone. Nagi sighs.
“...I’ll ask him next time.”
+++++
tue.
The next day, Nagi ate his lunch as quickly as possible before getting up to leave, much to Reo’s suspicion.
“Hm? What’s the rush? Shouldn’t you be, like, sleeping while you eat?”
“It’s nothing,” Nagi mumbles, getting up to set his tray of cafeteria food in the dispensary.
“Geez, you’re even getting up to put your tray away yourself. What, got some secret girlfriend?”
Nagi pauses, glancing back. “Maybe,” he says, turning around again.
As Nagi walks away, Reo sits perfectly still, unblinking, before rebooting. “What?! WHAT?! NAGI FUCKING SEISHIRO, GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE AND EXPLAIN YOURSELF-”
Nagi pays no mind, instead beelining to the art room, and there the boy is again.
He’s painting a flower this time. It’s a brilliant red flower - a carnation, Nagi’s seen it before - in a glass vase, the same black sheet around it as last time.
“...hey.”
The boy turns, a smile on his face. “I was waiting, you know?”
Nagi huffs. “I came as quick as I could.”
The boy fake-pouts, and it does serious damage to Nagi’s fragile heart.
Suddenly, Nagi remembers. “Oh, that’s right… what’s your name?”
“Oh! My name?” the painter places his finger under his lips, cocking his head. “Hm.”
It’s confusing. What’s he playing at here? Is his name really such a big deal?
A devious smile blooms on the boy’s face. “I won’t tell you. It’s more fun this way. Why don’t you try and figure it out, genius ?”
Nagi feels his heart clench up again with that burning, scorching desire that almost eats him alive. “Sure. Don’t be surprised when I call you your name tomorrow, boss.”
The ravenette quirks his eyebrow up. “Huh? Boss? Where’d that come from?”
Nagi doesn’t respond. Instead, he takes his painting from the spot he left it yesterday, grabs his paints, and sets himself up beside the other again.
Nagi can hear the painter grumble something inaudibly, and the two paint in comfortable silence. Nagi focuses. He’s finished the skin - at home, he watched some skin rendering tutorials - and now, he wants to try painting the eyes.
But he can’t seem to capture that warmth that he sees. He can’t capture the passion in those blue eyes, the gentleness and the burning, burning passion, like the sun.
Nagi can’t capture the beautiful things that are left unsaid, and so (with a frown and a quiet goddamnit ), he moves onto the hair.
It’s easier. He fills the area with a deep, blackish brown, before deepening the shadows and adding highlights, scattering a few golden strands throughout.
His drawing partner peers over. “...it’s amazing. How do you have such a consistent light source and eye for colors and hue? Were you lying when you said you started out?”
Nagi shrugs. “I kind of just… paint on instinct, I suppose.”
“Well, it’s amazing. But, I suppose…”
“Hm?”
“There’s something missing. I’m not sure how to say it. But… it’s like…” the boy pauses, grasping for the right word.
“Like a voice, or a story, I guess.”
It’s true. Nagi was thinking the same thing. This drawing is nothing like how beautiful his painter is. It doesn’t burn, smolder; it doesn’t make Nagi’s heart scream and seek and want , doesn’t illuminate the gray of his aimless, purposeless life.
“I understand.”
A light laugh. “You really are a genius, huh?”
Another short pause, and then Nagi breaks it to look at his partner’s drawing. “Did you finish your pot drawing yesterday?”
“Yeah. I’m doing one flower per day for five days.”
“Flower? Yesterday, you just drew the pot.”
“Ah, yeah. I was kinda indecisive yesterday about what flower I wanted to paint. I guess, after you came - it sort of came to me, I suppose. I stayed after school and painted the rest.”
“Can I see it?”
A slight pause, and Nagi turns to see a blush crawling up the tips of the blue-eyed boy’s ears.
“...sure.”
He gets up, motioning for Nagi to follow, and Nagi places his palette and paintbrush neatly down before joining him. He opens his drawer, and it’s littered with tons of drawings. Watercolor pieces, neatly stacked; portrait practices, neatly clipped with their respective reference image; half-opened notebooks filled with environment studies.
And flowers.
So many flowers.
Most of them are done on little postcards, sketched roughly, but some are done in watercolor or gouache.
Atop them all, the most recent of them all, is a beautiful purple flower in a clay pot, painted on a 5”x7” canvas. It’s rather tall, and it has several smaller purple flowers scattered across the stem.
Nagi delicately extracts it from the pile, observing it. It’s amazing. Every color is neatly placed, and there’s that warmth within it that Nagi just can’t quite capture.
“So, do you pick the flowers randomly, or…?”
“...no, I don’t pick them randomly.”
“Oh, then how do you choose them?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
Then, the boy turns on his heel and walks over to his carnation, returning to painting the brilliant red petals, which are folded ever so slightly.
Nagi returns to his own painting and continues coloring the hair.
Maybe, when he learns how to make his paintings burn in the way that the other’s can, he’ll try to draw those eyes again.
+++++
wed.
Nagi enters, ten minutes later than usual, out of breath. The lunch period is almost over by the time he arrives. He slams the door behind him.
Those captivating blue eyes turn to him curiously, but the emotion quickly shifts to worry. The ravenette hurries up, placing the palette and the brush down, and rushes to Nagi.
“What’s wrong? What’s going on? Do you need help?”
Nagi presses his index finger to the other boy’s lips, silencing him and sending his face aflame, as he catches his breath.
(His lips are really soft. Nagi feels an unreasonable urge to give in to pull the other boy close. He wants to cradle the other’s face in his hands, run his hands through that soft, black hair, pull him up and kiss him senseless. He wants to hold the sun in his arms, be able to say that the sun is his and his alone, and burn brightly.
He restrains himself, though. No matter how much he wants not to.)
Three separate sets of footsteps can be heard outside the door, alongside three, panting voices, arguing.
“ Shit , where’d he go?”
“He’s gotta be up ahead. Come on, let’s hurry! He can’t have gone far.”
The voices and footsteps disappear into the distance, and Nagi lets out the breath he has been holding. The boy before him places his hands on his hips, raising an eyebrow.
“Okay, what the hell was that.”
Nagi runs his hand through his mess of white hair. “My friends. They’re trying to hunt me down and drag information out of me.”
“...what information do you even have?”
“Uh, my friend’s convinced I have a secret girlfriend.”
Immediately, the boy’s demeanor changes, and he looks at Nagi intently. “Well, do you?”
Nagi shakes his head. “No. And, well, I don’t think I swing that way, either.”
The painter’s tensed shoulders relax, and Nagi swears he can a smile creep up the other’s lips. A flicker of hope is struck in Nagi’s chest.
“Ah, I see,” he says, before turning to return to his painting, gesturing for Nagi to follow. Nagi notices that his canvas is already set up beside the other, as well as his paints, and walks over and sits down.
“Thanks.”
“Ah, no problem. I got out your stuff while thinking of what flower I wanted to paint, anyways.”
“What did you choose?”
The boy gestures to the flower, resting flat on its side. It’s white and elegant, and it blossoms outwards like a wedding dress of sorts.
“A gardenia.”
“...why?”
A shit-eating grin returns to the painter’s face. “That’s for me to know and you to find out, genius. And also, have you still not figured out my name?”
At that, Nagi grumbles. “I was busy trying not to get killed out there.”
“Sure, sure. I guess the genius couldn’t uphold his bet, huh? And you don’t even know the meaning of the flowers, either.”
“I’ll figure it all out tomorrow.”
The boy turns to him and grins invitingly. “It’s on.”
“Ten bucks?”
“Twenty.”
“Deal.”
The boy smiles brightly, and Nagi can feel the corners of his lips tilt up.
“Ah, you don’t smile much, do you?”
If only you knew how much I used to smile , Nagi thinks to himself.
“I guess.”
Then the ravenette turns and leans close to Nagi, close enough for Nagi to count the individual eyelashes that frame the boy’s wide blue eyes. Nagi, once again, crushes his desire to fall into his instinct.
“I bet I’ll make you smile a huge, dumb, dopey smile.”
Those blue eyes shine with resolve and determination, and Nagi knows that if he looks too deep, he’ll be swallowed whole.
“...try your best.”
The boy smiles again and leans away, a new vigor to his strokes.
They return to painting. Nagi still doesn’t start on the eyes. A minute passes.
“Why aren’t you coloring th- my eyes?”
Nagi stops detailing the other boy’s smock for a moment. “Because, I guess, I feel like I wouldn’t do them justice.”
“...what do you mean?”
“I want to paint them as beautiful as I see them, and I can’t do that yet.”
The other boy pauses, then sputters, a blush returning on his face. “Was tha- are you seriously-”
Nagi simply returns to making sure that the smock has all the right splotches of color on it in all of the right places, when he’s struck with a sudden thought.
“You know those flower paintings of yours?”
“Yeah?”
“Are they for anyone?”
A tsk. “They’re for you, dumbass. Thought I made that obvious.”
The bell rings, and Nagi’s head is spinning.
+++++
thurs.
Nagi makes it his personal mission that Thursday to figure out the painter’s name.
Reo’s popular, right. He should ask him. It’s first period, and he searches for a familiar shock of purple hair.
Ah. There. Reo stands, chatting with Kunigami and Chigiri, trading notes.
“Hey, Reo? I have questio-”
Reo turns to him, a pissed expression on his face. “Oh, so now you talk to me. Now, tell me who this girlfriend of yours is?”
“...she’s nonexistent?”
“Yeah, right. You’ve been smiling much more than usual. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
“Uh-”
“I can’t believe my lazy, loner, gamer best friend got a girlfriend before me. Let me mope. Go away.”
“Uh-”
Reo turns around and storms off, and Chigiri starts laughing while Kunigami looks at him, an eyebrow raised. The look of parental disappointment is ruined by the smile pulling up the orange-haired boy’s lips, though.
“Oi, ‘Hyou. Don’t laugh.”
“Haha, but, it’s so funny! Reo was ranting to me for like thirty minutes yesterday! And he doesn’t even know that it’s Isa-”
Kunigami presses his hand to the other boy’s mouth, shutting him up, before turning to Nagi. “Oh, congratulations, by the way. I’d love to meet her, or him, but only when you’re comfortable to do so.”
“Uh, oh, yeah, see… I don’t actually ha-”
The bell interrupts him, and before Nagi can finish, Chigiri and Kunigami are already sitting down, and Nagi begrudgingly sits down in his own seat.
…this is going to be a whole mess of misunderstandings, huh?
What a pain.
Nagi pulls out his phone and begins to boot up his game, zoning out the monotonous sound of his math teacher talking about instantaneous speed or something, before pausing.
The game is so boring. Suddenly, all Nagi can think about is the way that his painting partner smiles, dimples etched into his cheeks, eyes crinkling. Or maybe his light, sweet voice, or maybe how soft his dark hair looks and how Nagi really, really, really wants to touch it, or maybe his really soft looking pink lips, and how good it would be to just kiss them, or -
Yeah, he should stop.
But he can’t. He can’t stop thinking about the black-haired boy who has taken over his life, who has lit a candle into the days that were dull and worthless, the days where he sought only to exist, sought only to drift. The days where the future was blurred and clouded, and when he did not try to brush the lazy haze in his mind away.
The days where he was content with nothingness, with being purposeless.
But now, blowing away the haze surrounding his desire, are a pair of piercing blue eyes.
Every time he watches the boy paint, he feels emotions boiling up in his chest. It’s a burning feeling, but Nagi doesn’t try to quash it; he lets it fester within him, nurtures it.
When he sees him, he wants him; he wants the one who can ignite that flame in his chest.
Nagi needs it.
Nagi Seishiro really, really, needs it.
He needs that boy, the boy who painted and captivated him in doing so.
Suddenly, a vibration in his hands snaps him out of his reverie, making him flinch. He glances down.
…ah, he’s died.
Nagi sighs, clicking the “respawn” button, but his mind is still on the painter.
“So, do you pick the flowers randomly, or…?”
“...no, I don’t pick them randomly.”
“Oh, then how do you choose them?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“They’re for you, dumbass. Thought I made that obvious.”
Nagi can feel a soft smile bloom on his face. He’ll figure this out. Otherwise, he really wouldn’t deserve the title of “genius,” now, would he?
So that’s what Nagi does. For the rest of the class period, in fact. What was that first flower he drew…?
→ purple flower
Yeah, okay, too broad. Maybe if he clicks on the list of purple flowers, he’ll figure it out…?
Oh. Nevermind.
Nagi might be determined, but he is not willing to scroll through the list of 101 different purple flowers.
→ purple flower with lots of flowers and stalk
He scrolls through the results. Delphinium? No, that didn’t look quite right…
It was getting closer, though. The two flowers did look similar. Except delphiniums were a bit too bluish.
→ bunch of purple flowers and leaves
Okay, colder. Shit. Well, what did he expect, really?
A couple of Google searches later, and Nagi finally figures it out.
→ pretty purple flowers smallish several
When he sees the exact flower that the painter was drawing, he feels an odd sense of immense pride.
Lilacs, huh…
→ lilacs meaning
Purple lilacs symbolize first love, as well as infatuation.
The result makes Nagi drop his phone, his hands trembling, his eyes wide. He feels a blush creep up his cheeks and up to his ears.
Nagi silently grab the phone off the floor and returns to the Google homepage.
→ carnations meaning
Carnations symbolize love and captivation.
→ gardenias meaning
Gardenias represent a secret love.
Nagi can feel his heart fluttering in his chest, as if a thousand butterflies were released in his lungs; his body is burning, burning, burning with desire and curiosity and it hurts, it hurts so fucking badly , it sends him hyperventilating and it makes his heart feel clenched and tight, but Nagi wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.
Kunigami and Chigiri, who have been discreetly peering at him, snap pictures and send them to Reo. Kunigami can’t bite down his smile anymore.
chigiri → reo
pink power ranger:
< click to open >
looks like nagicchi got a message from that gf of his ;)
rich purple kid:
stop.
pink power ranger:
single mf imagine
rich purple kid:
leave me the fuck alone.
shut the hell up.
Chigiri laughs, before stealing a glance at Nagi again. He knew Isagi wasn’t brave enough to text him, but it was fun to mess around with Reo, really.
As he watches Nagi cling onto his phone like a lifeline, he feels a smile creep up his face.
Chigiri clicks out of his and Reo’s messages and switches to him and Nagi’s.
chigiri → nagi
chigi:
good luck, nagicchi <3
isagi’s been waiting for you to finally catch on to his message.
Upon receiving the text, Nagi whirled around to see Chigiri and Kunigami waving at him and smiling. Nagi opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water before, at last, settling on texting Chigiri back.
nagicchi
thanks, chigi
(Unfortunately, that day, Nagi has to leave school after third period because of a doctor’s appointment. The amount of cursing and hissing and complaints was ridiculous. Chigiri had volunteered to drive, hoping to ditch class, but immediately regretted it.
“Chigiri, turn back. Stop driving. Turn back. Turn back. Stop. Stop,“ Nagi slams his fists against the window as he watched the school get further and further away.
Hell, when they finally arrived at the clinic, Nagi tried to run back to the school, and Chigiri just barely managed to snag him by the shoulder and drag him back.)
+++++
fri.
Nagi didn’t even eat his lunch that day. He ran straight from his fourth period class to the art room, slamming the door open.
“Isagi.”
When Nagi says it, it’s like Isagi’s name is the most beautiful thing in the world.
Isagi turns, his eyes glimmering. He was already waiting for Nagi a couple feet away from the door, and a wide grin creep onto his face. Nagi wastes no time in gently taking Isagi’s face in his hands, running his thumbs under the other’s azure eyes and admiring them up-close, as he always wanted to. They’re a deep, unbelievable blue, like the ocean, and Nagi lets himself drown.
His hair is even softer than he imagined, and smells of freshly washed towels. His skin is soft, smooth; his eyelashes long and fluttering.
He is even more perfect than Nagi could ever envision, even more perfect than Nagi could ever paint.
Finally, the word to describe Isagi is not elusive; the word is there, it’s there, and Nagi says it like a prayer, filled with worship. He says it softly, over and over again, like it’s his lifeline.
“Isagi, Isagi, Isagi.”
Isagi’s smiles, looking up into Nagi’s clouded, gray eyes that are now alight. “Finally, genius. I was waiting for so damn long for you to catch on, you know?”
“Sorry,” Nagi murmurs, eyes settling on Isagi’s lips, a huge smile blossoming on his face.
Isagi’s breath is taken away.
“...so that’s what you smiling looks like, huh…”
Nagi presses their lips together, and they burn.
+++++
sat.
The eyes on Nagi’s painting of Isagi are never finished. Nagi’s discovered that he’ll never be able to replicate the real deal, and he doesn’t mind it at all.
Now, Isagi rests in between Nagi’s legs, leaning his head against the taller boy’s chest, a fluffy blanket draped over their legs. Isagi holds Nagi’s phone in his hands, his tongue sticking out slightly as he plays Nagi’s games.
Nagi rests his chin on top of Isagi’s head, and, whenever it feels necessary, peppers the other boy’s face and hair with kisses. Which turns out to be quite often.
On the wall behind them, Isagi’s five flower paintings are hung neatly in a row.
The last one, for which Isagi gave to Nagi when he first arrived at the white-haired boy’s house that lazy Saturday morning, stands out the most.
It’s a yellow iris. A note is attached to the back of it, written neatly in Isagi’s handwriting.
yellow iris: a love that burns.