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On Monday, Nagi goes to the grocery store.
He doesn’t have to. He has enough money to get groceries delivered for the rest of his life. But he wants to, because he likes finding things for Reo at the store. It’s different than if he’d just opened Instacart and told Reo that he’d added these little lion-shaped gummies to their cart just because. He likes saying I saw these and thought of you, Reo.
Nagi takes the bus. The loose change in his pocket jingles gently when he gets off. He has a vague grocery list for the important things, like toilet paper and batteries, but he has a good idea of Reo’s favorite recipes by now, so he can pick ingredients on the fly.
He doesn’t feel as affectless as he used to. These days, Nagi grounds himself in things like comforting routines, new volumes of manga, sunny days in the springtime. Knowing Reo’s favorite foods by heart.
He waits for the bus patiently, full bags of groceries in each hand. A cat twines herself around his ankles, and he sets one bag down to scritch her belly until the bus arrives.
When he gets home, Nagi stocks the fridge and pantry methodically. The fridge is a scrapbook of his and Reo’s lives: last year’s family Christmas card, a receipt for shoes that Nagi keeps forgetting to return, a save-the-date from Kunigami and Chigiri. A Polaroid of their first real date, both of them newly signed to Manshine City. Some hole-in-the-wall cafe that only exists in this photo now, a cradle of memory for the smidge of whipped cream at the corner of Reo’s lips that Nagi couldn’t stop staring at the entire time. He hadn’t even let Reo finish talking about - their teammates, matches, something, before finally surging forward and licking it off.
“Nagi,” Reo said, and blinked, doe-eyed and startled into quiet.
“I’ve wanted that,” Nagi returned, meeting Reo’s gaze. “For a while.”
“A kiss?” Reo’s mouth twitched.
“A kiss,” Nagi leaned forward, and Reo’s eyes fluttered shut. Like he knew it had all fallen into place. Like instinct. “And everything else.”
On Tuesday, Nagi waters the plants.
They have a sunroom in their apartment, slats of soft light across hardwood floors, an assortment of potted greenery.
Some days, Nagi misses Choki. He’d crossed the rainbow bridge a few years ago, after months of painstaking gardening work that finally culminated in Reo gently placing him into a compost bin. It was the circle of life, but Choki was the first thing Nagi had really cared about, so he’d wandered the apartment for days after, unsure of what to do with the empty space in his heart.
One afternoon, a pot with a cactus drawn in crayon on the side materialized on the windowsill. Reo bought a basket of lemons, Nagi planted a seed in the pot, and they drank freshly-squeezed lemonade.
Nagi said: “I think we could turn the study into a sunroom,” and Reo beamed.
The lemon tree isn’t the crowning jewel of the sunroom anymore. They have a monstera named after Bachira, a few philodendrons, and a fledgling tomato plant. Last (but not least), Nagi waters the tiny row of cacti on the windowsill.
Reo gets home at around 5:30. He tilts his face up for a kiss hello, and they settle into the couches in the sunroom in comfortable silence.
Reo talks all day at the football club, so he likes to sit and read for a while before the rest of the evening. Nagi isn’t as much of a reader, but he wants to keep Reo company, so usually he puts his head in Reo’s lap and curls up under their oldest, most worn blanket. Today, though, he’s rereading Bonobono. After a while, Reo glances over.
“Sei,” he places a hand on Nagi’s arm. “Do you want to go down to the river this weekend?”
Nagi closes his book, one finger in the pages to keep his place. “We haven’t been in a while,” he says slowly. “Do you have this time off?”
Reo hums. “The whole weekend.” His thumb draws circles on Nagi’s wrist. “I know it’s far, but it’d be nice to get out of the city, and the cherry blossoms are so pretty this time of year - ”
“Okay, Reo.” Nagi puts his hand over Reo’s. “We can go wherever you want.”
On Wednesday, Nagi watches Reo cook dinner.
Wednesdays are movie nights, and when Reo gets home from the football club, he puts on a vinyl and orders Nagi out of the kitchen.
He has a frilly apron that he wears for special occasions (mostly to see Nagi’s reaction) but most days, he cooks in an oversized shirt and shorts, a bandana to keep his bangs out of his face. Reo looks so adorable that Nagi generally has to be shooed away from the kitchen no less than three times before he pouts behind the counter.
Sometimes, Reo pours a glass of wine before chatting about his day. Nagi doesn’t really drink (most alcohol tastes bad), but he likes seeing the faint spots of red that appear high on Reo’s pretty cheekbones when his glass is down to the last dregs of wine.
He also likes how easy his wife is after a glass or two, but that will have to wait for another night. Tonight is movie night.
Reo is a crier. The first time they watched Blue Valentine, Reo sobbed through the last 20 minutes. He’d cried so hard, Nagi had worried that he was missing the movie, but when he said as much, Reo clung to his arm and sniffled through a nose of snot that he clearly understood the movie well enough.
They cuddle up on the couch with plates of steak (Wagyu, the necessary caliber for movie nights), and Nagi flicks through Amazon Prime until he finds Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It’s a comfort pick, perfect for a day of rain showers and wet streets.
Reo rests his head on Nagi’s shoulder and strokes his arm soothingly through the movie. He doesn’t cry this time, but when Joel and Clementine go on a date to the Charles River, he cozies up a little closer to Nagi.
“Meet me in Montauk,” he quotes. His hair is damp and he smells like their laundry softener. “Wheres’s our Montauk?”
“Mmm,” Nagi responds. “That stairwell in high school, if you want to be really technical.”
“That’s not very romantic,” Reo laughs, nuzzling into Nagi’s neck.
Nagi shifts, and Reo rises onto his knees, straddling Nagi’s lap. “Maybe we’ll pick another first, then,” he murmurs. “The field where I held your hand for the first time,” he runs his hands up the backs of Reo’s thighs. “The supply closet in Blue Lock that I kissed you in for the first time,” he slips his hands up Reo’s shirt, feeling the goosebumps that pebble smooth skin. “That first Manshine apartment, where I used my tongue to - ”
“Any of that works for me,” Reo says, breathy, and Nagi kisses him.
On Thursday, Nagi picks Reo up from the club, and they head to the neighborhood park.
A boys’ mini-football team practices there. It’s a bunch of U7s-U10s, not even old enough for 7v7s, and Nagi in particular is something of a minor legend among them, a fact he discovered when a stray ball flew his way one day and he trapped it without thinking.
“Are you the Nagi Seishiro?” One kid had said, hushed, in awe.
Nagi was no stranger to fame and recognition at that point, but he had been enjoying the relative anonymity that came with moving to a small town. “Maybe,” he had hedged.
“Holy shit,” the kid had whispered, and their coach came over and pretended he didn’t also want an autograph, and then Nagi found himself explaining why #4’s kick tended to rocket all over the place. A week later, Reo joined him, and visiting the park every Thursday became a habit.
“A little less force on the touch and you’ll get more control,” Reo explains to #2, who still goes a bit bug-eyed and starstruck every time one of them opens their mouths. “Go on, give it a shot.”
#2 runs away, and Reo cheers after him, eyes all sweet and fond. He catches Nagi looking at him and toes a ball over his shoulder. “If you’ve got time to ogle me, you’ve got time to run drills with the B team.”
“Yes, boss,” Nagi grins.
The sunset is a bruise across the sky by the time they’re done. The boys climb all over Nagi and Reo with sweaty high-fives and hugs, and scamper off when their parents’ cars pull into the parking lot.
“I think I wanna do this more,” Nagi says. Reo looks up from where he’s unlacing his cleats. “Coaching for real?”
Nagi shrugs. “Not professional teams. Kids.”
Reo’s eyes crinkle when he smiles: a wildflower breaking through the cracks of a sidewalk. “We could start a charity,” he says. “Something to sponsor more kids’ teams. You’d be good at it.”
“You think?” Nagi asks.
Reo reaches up and winds his arms around his neck. “I know.”
Nagi doesn't say anything back, just touches his forehead to Reo’s and holds him close; breathes in grass and Pocari and warmth.
It’s more than just not being affectless. Nagi cares about what happens to him and Reo, and he cares about the people who’ve drifted into their little orbit. He holds life in both hands.
On Friday, Nagi presses the love of his life into cotton sheets and swallows the words from his mouth.
He takes his time, like he has all the minutes in the world. He does, for Reo. Reo kisses slow and searing, lets Nagi lick into his mouth so they taste like each other. His fingers catch Nagi’s biceps and rest there, unhurried, laughing when Nagi breaks away to nose at the crook of his jaw.
“Sei,” he says, tender. Nagi’s name is a synonym for please and touch me and hold me. For i miss you, i need you, i love you.
There is nothing Nagi doesn’t revere about Reo’s body. His spine, his wrists, the smooth curve of his hipbones. His stardust eyes and the thrum of his pulse in his pale, elegant neck. The way he opens for Nagi, lithe and languid, toes curled against the sheets.
Nagi takes Reo’s body for his own; once to memorize him inside and out, twice to make sure Reo remembers him.
He falls asleep with Reo nestled on his chest, his bangs wispy with sweat. No matter how hard he listens, he can’t tell when each of his heartbeats begins and when Reo’s end.
When Nagi blinks awake, lashes soft and heavy, the moon is still visible, low and faded in the morning sky. Reo is lax in his arms, their legs tangled together. Their sheets remember the imprints of their bodies.
Reo looks young like this, cheek cupped in Nagi’s big hand. Like they’re 17, 18 again, running into the world with the waves lapping at their ankles. Reo is his constant, his compass, his weathered map at sea. His best friend.
And because Reo knows him so, so well, he blinks awake. “Mmm,” he leans into Nagi’s palm, tousled hair and tired eyes. “‘S’rare that you’re up before me.”
I don’t want to miss a single second of you, Nagi thinks.
When you’re asleep, it’s like half of me is silent, Nagi thinks.
You’re my favorite person in the whole world and I don’t have the words for that, Nagi thinks.
He opens his mouth to say something, but Reo brushes a thumb over the seam of his lips and his eyes crinkle so what Nagi does is kiss him: again and again and again.
On Saturday, Nagi goes to a pasta-making class with Reo, and they make linguini from scratch.
It’s Reo’s idea, like most of their cutesiest couple dates.
“But we could just buy noodles from the store,” Nagi had groaned.
Reo had shushed him. “Bachira highly recommends this place, he had so much fun with Isagi a few months ago.”
“Why am I paying to cook my own food,” Nagi had responded petulantly, but that was that.
The class instructor is loud and energetic and explains everything in a voice far too enthusiastic for the subject matter. Reo bounces on the balls of his feet excitedly until she gives everyone the go-ahead to get started.
“Eggs!” Reo declares. “You partition out the flour - make a little bowl for the eggs. Like that!” He brackets Nagi’s hands with his own, warmth smooshed up against Nagi’s back.
Somewhere around the mixing of the dough, flour finds its way to Reo’s tip-tilted nose and Nagi thumbs it off.
“Messy,” he says, and Reo sticks his tongue out. “You gotta knead harder,” he says. “Your hands are too slack.”
“I’ve never heard you complain about my hands before,” Nagi teases.
Reo blushes to the roots of his hair. “Sei,” he whisper-snaps.
(This time, Nagi’s name means stop and don’t stop and you’re too bold and i like it.)
Alright, maybe pasta-making isn’t a total pointless activity.
“Watch your hands, don’t get them caught in the pasta machine!”
“I’m not stupid,” Nagi mutters after the bouncy instructor, and promptly misses the cue to cut their pasta. Reo stifles a giggle.
“No laughing!” Nagi reaches over to flick Reo, and Reo dodges nimbly, and Nagi makes a real grab for him, and then they’re playfighting in pasta class like a pair of teenagers. Reo smells like lemon zest and flour and he’s the prettiest boy Nagi has ever seen.
Unfortunately, they don’t wind up with the prettiest pasta in the class, much to Reo’s chagrin. Nagi twirls a big clump of noodles on his fork, giving one end to Reo and keeping the other end to himself.
“Like Lady and the Tramp,” he explains, and Reo rolls his eyes.
“Does that make me Lady?”
“Well, you are my wife,” Nagi says matter-of-factly, slurping up his end of the pasta. Their lips meet, and Nagi’s fairly sure Reo forgets all about winning pasta-making.
On Sunday, Nagi sits on the riverbank with his face lifted to the sun and thinks: I’m happy.