Chapter Text
Reo storms out his lecture and makes his way to the dining hall. On his way he bumps into several people, but is too blinded by rage to stop and apologize. He finally arrives at the dining hall and shoves the doors open. He scans the room for a certain redhead in the crowd of students. Finally, he spots Chigiri and makes his way to him.
Instead of greeting his friend he shoves his phone in Chigiri’s face, incoherently ranting. “The nerve! We only broke up a month ago and he’s already posting his new girlfriend!”
Chigiri sighs and shakes his head. “Sure it’s a little soon, but he’s allowed to move on-“
“With the caption happy 2 months.” Reo cuts Chigiri off with a scowl on his face. The redhead’s jaw drops. “No fucking way.” He responds, shock overtaking him.
“Look at it yourself.”
Chigiri quickly snatches Reo’s phone out of his hand. There was no way what he was saying was true. He knew Reo’s ex was an asshole, but he didn’t think he would publicly admit to cheating on the Mikage Heir. His thoughts were racing a mile per minute as he scrolled through Reo’s ex’s instagram stories. Then, finally, he sees it.
The picture itself wasn’t anything too out of ordinary. It was just a picture of Reo’s ex with his arms wrapped around a woman’s shoulder. The two of them were grinning and wearing matching outfits. What made the image so enraging was the caption that accompanied it. ‘Happy 2 months babe! Ily ❤️ ’ it read.
Chigiri felt sick when he realized who accompanied Reo’s ex in the picture.
“Oh my god. It’s the girl he told you not to worry about too.”
“I know.”
Their lunch is long forgotten as they spend the next couple minutes tearing Reo’s ex to shreds. They’re so engrossed in their conversation that they don’t notice the arrival of Sae, Shidou, Kunigami, and Yukimiya. “Uh, you guys ok?” Kunigami asks like the Saint he is. The two look towards him silently for a split second before launching into enraged explanations of the current situation.
“That sucks Reo, I’m so sorry.” Yukimiya says as he rubs the young heir’s back soothingly.
“You were too good for that piece of scum anyway.” Sae says in a disdainful tone.
“Do you want me to go beat the shit out of him for you? Because I will! Just say the word and I’ll hunt him down right now purple bun!” Shidou roars, his fists clenching and his eyes full of anger. Sae nods in agreement.
“As tempting as that offer is, I’d rather you not.” Reo says, trying his best to hold back his emotions and remain composed. “I have a better idea.” He continues.
All heads turns to look at him curiously. What could possibly be better than seeing Shidou beat his ex into a bloody pulp?
“I’m going to pretend I was cheating on him this entire time too.” Reo says smugly, a shit-eating grin replacing his once upset expression. “The only thing is, I need someone to pretend to be my boyfriend for this to work.”
Chigiri flips a lock of red hair over his shoulder and arches his eyebrow. “I’m not doing it.” Kunigami opens his mouth to respond but is quickly cut off by his boyfriend. “Neither is Rensuke so don’t even think of asking.”
Reo groans and throws his head back in annoyance. He turns his gaze to his left and plasters a wide smile on his face. “Heyyy Yuki-“
“No.” Yukimiya says bluntly. “Sorry…” he adds sheepishly when Reo casts him a searing glare.
Reo looks around the room and his eyes meets Sae’s and Shidou’s. Sae raises an eyebrow and Shidou leans his head on Sae’s shoulder. He shudders and shakes his head, quickly dismissing the idea, not wanting to deal with the odd couple.
Chigiri rolls his eyes. “Why don’t you just ask Nagi?”
“What?!” Reo screeches. Chigiri wants him to ask Nagi? His best friend?
To his horror every single one of his friends all shake their head in agreement.
It’s not that Reo doesn’t like Nagi, in fact, it’s quite the opposite. He loves Nagi with all his heart and more. Nagi was there for him when nobody else was. The truth was, Chigiri’s suggestion wasn’t a bad one at all. He was sure Nagi would make an excellent partner for whatever lucky person chose him. He didn’t want to get in the way of Nagi finding true love just because he needed a fake boyfriend. Nagi deserved better than being someone’s fake boyfriend to get back at their ex.
Still, a small hidden part of him liked the idea a lot. Too much to be considered platonic in any sense. That scared Reo. To say his last relationship was a disaster would be an understatement. There were many things that went wrong and Reo couldn’t help but feel like they were all his fault. So, he had no choice but to push his feelings down for Nagi’s sake. He wasn’t going to put Nagi through the pain of dealing with him and his emotions. He had been told, after all, that his emotions and expectations were too big for anyone to deal with.
However, Reo’s self-doubt would have to be put on hold for another time. Chigiri has always been able to read Reo easily and he doesn’t like what he’s seeing at all. “I think it’s a good idea. Great even. Hayashi was always accusing you of cheating on him with Nagi, right? Prove him right.” Chigiri says in a self-assured manner, making sure to make direct eye contact with the moping heir.
It’s silent for what seems to be an eternity until Yukimiya speaks up. “Normally I’d be against proving Hayashi right in any sort of manner. I think this is a special occasion, however,” he begins, sharing a knowing look with Chigiri before turning to look at Reo again. “I think that Chigiri is right in this case. That bastard has some nerve publicly admitting to cheating when he was always throwing accusations at you.”
Kunigami nods his head in agreement and speaks up, “I think they’re both absolutely right. I believe in being the bigger person but this is a level of disrespect that you can’t just let slide either.”
“Yeah! Let the bastard think you were fucking Nagi behind his back like he always said you were! Let it hurt him real bad!” Shidou shouts excitedly, practically bouncing out of his seat.
“You guys can’t be serious-“ Reo begins only to be cut off by Sae speaking. “Reo, ask Nagi. If he says no we’ll help you find someone else. But honestly, we all know it’ll hurt him most if it’s Nagi. Make him feel the most pain possible.”
Reo leans back in his chair and covers his face with his hands. They were right. Of course they were, when were Itoshi Sae and Chigiri Hyouma ever wrong about something? Still, he weighed his options carefully. He really didn’t want to put Nagi right in the middle of his messy break up. But he also didn’t want his ex to get away with humiliating him either. If being a Mikage taught him anything, it was to be prideful. He was taught from a young age that he deserved the world in the palm of his hand. It was because of his pride that he eventually gave in and agreed to ask Nagi.
After all, a Mikage can’t let himself be publicly humiliated and made to look like a fool. He has to be the one doing the humiliating, not the other way around.
Nagi is tending to his cactus when his phone rings loudly, Fuji Kaze’s ‘matsuri’ blasting on full volume. Barou looks up from his desk and glares at his roommate. Said roommate rolls his eyes and grabs his phone, not having to bother checking who it is. He already knows, there’s no one else with their own ringtone in his phone besides one person.
“So horrendously down bad,” Barou grumbles to himself under his breathe, shooting his roommate the side eye.
“Hey Reo.” Nagi says, facing the window as Barou shoots him a middle finger behind his back.
“Hey! I’m coming over I’m gonna be there in like five!”
“What? Now? Ok.”
“Cool. I’ll text you when I’m here.”
“Ok.”
Nagi hangs up the call and turns to look at Barou. “Reo’s coming over.” He says nonchalantly. Barou, on the other hand feels his blood pressure rise. “He can’t. I’m studying right now.” Barou says through gritted teeth. “Go do your homework somewhere else.” Nagi replies, smoothing his hair out in his phone camera. “You can’t kick me out of my own room? Tell him he can’t come over.” Barou seethes, growing angrier every second he’s forced to interact with the white-haired gamer. Nagi opens his mouth to reply with his own annoyed response but stops when he hears a knock on the door.
He gives Barou a condescending smirk as he opens the door. “Fuck you Nagi! I hope I don’t get assigned to be your roommate next year!” Barou snaps as he packs up his things and storms out the dorm, surprising Reo.
“Did I interrupt something?” The Mikage heir asks, clearly troubled by what he’d just witnessed.
Nagi shakes his head and replies, “you’re good. That’s just Barou being Barou.”
“Ok then…” Reo says uneasily as he stares in the direction Barou disappeared to. He makes his way inside the small-sized dorm and takes a seat on Nagi bed. He looks around nervously, trying his best to avoid the reason he came here. Unfortunately for him, Nagi Seishiro has always been able to read him like a book. It was hard to hide anything from his best friend of several years.
“What’s wrong? You don’t look too good?” His best friend asks, taking a seat next to him on the twin-sized bed. Suddenly, he’s all too aware of just how small Nagi’s bed was. He could practically smell his friend’s cool-scented aftershave just by how close they were to each other. This was never something he paid too much attention to before, but now things were different. He felt his palms grow sweaty and his heart race. He groaned and stood up hastily.
“I need you to be my fake boyfriend.” Reo says quietly, choosing to look at his own expensive shoes instead of Nagi’s face.
After a moment of silence Nagi finally speaks up, “Sure. Why though?”
Reo releases a sigh of relief and frowns nervously. “Well, Hayashi admitted to cheating on me. Publicly.”
“Oh. Ok.” Nagi says in shock, trying his best to hide the anger bubbling up inside him.
Nagi was not the type of person to ever get too emotional over things. In fact, he’s been heard saying feelings were a hassle many times. People automatically assumed he was incapable of feeling anything even close to anger. What few actually knew was that when it came to Mikage Reo, Nagi Seishiro had big, bold, intense emotions.
When Reo was dating his ex, Nagi would often find himself getting angry on the purple-haired heir’s behalf. He was not the violent kind of person, but there were many times where he wanted to find his ex and beat the living daylights out of him. After all, the asshole was dating the most amazing person on the planet but didn’t appreciate what he had. He’d lost count of how many times he’s had to wipe Reo’s tears and hold him as he cried.
He knew very well how much pain his best friend went through. He saw how deeply Reo’s ex hurt him throughout their entire relationship. There were no words to describe just how angry it made him.
So, yeah, to say Nagi hates Reo’s ex would be a massive understatement. He had been the one to see how it all played out from beginning to end. Still, it seems he’d underestimated just how big of an asshole Hayashi actually was. Actually, downright insane would be a better way of putting it in his opinion. Many could only dream of having a chance with Reo. Hayashi had his chance and threw it away. Publicly announcing he cheated on Reo was vile and humiliating. All Nagi wanted to do was hunt the bastard down and give him a piece of his mind.
Nagi is snapped out of his thoughts by Reo speaking again. “Anyways, he was always accusing me of cheating on him with you. So I think it’d be nice to prove him right, even if he wasn’t.”
Nagi nods but then does a double take when he processes what was just said. “He accused you of what ?”
“I know! The nerve! Anyways, enough about him. We have to come up with a plan.” Reo says as he crosses his arms and looks at Nagi mischievously.
“A plan?” Nagi asks dumbly, tilting his head in confusion.
“Well duh! How else are we going to make people believe we’re dating?” Reo says incredulously as he shakes his head in disbelief.
Nagi shrugs his shoulders and leans back on his bed.
“This is going to take a lot of work, isn’t it?” Nagi asks, choosing to stare at the ceiling and process what he’d gotten himself into.
Reo sighs and rubs his temples in frustration. “Yeah.”
“What a hassle.” Nagi groans.