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Reo had stopped talking a minute ago, opting to instead stare at the white-haired boy in front of him, a visible frown on his face as the not-very-discreet sounds of a video game echoes from the other boy’s phone.
To be fair, Reo did barge into this random guy’s life one Thursday afternoon but that’s besides the point! He promised him riches and fame, and yet he still refuses to listen to his strategies and tactics for their next (and first game) together. He can’t have Nagi on the field if he doesn't know any of their basic tactics; the rest of the team will probably turn their heads at the new guy who barely knows how to properly kick a ball and Reo can’t have that.
After all, he was the one who saw Nagi’s trapping on the staircase that Thursday afternoon. If Nagi won’t show it to the world, then Reo will take on that challenge.
“Nagi.” Reo cuts through the silence, voice stern and heavy. “Have you been listening to me?”
Nagi’s fingers stop mashing his screen for a second, before he promptly returns to whatever he was doing before. “Yeah?” he says, but it comes out more like a question than an answer.
“Okay, then,” Reo says as he places the small whiteboard down next to him as he leans back against the wall, folding his arms across his chest. “Where did I say your position will be?”
Nagi furrows his eyebrows together and he brings his knees closer to his chest, making him (a 190cm tall guy) appear smaller than normal. “Uh…” He doesn’t take his eyes off the screen. “On the field…?”
Reo sharply exhales through his nose. This is getting nowhere. Nagi won’t listen to him no matter what because Nagi isn’t like the other boys in his team; he isn’t swayed by women or meat (he’s tried, but all he gets in return is a tired look). Reo would probably whip out his credit card at this point but when he attempted to get Nagi to take his money, the only thing the latter said was “it’s too much of a hassle to go buy things” and he went back to sleep the second his head touched his desk.
Reo is out of ideas now and he isn’t taking this loss too well. He’s gotten everything he’s ever wanted in life since the moment he was born, so there was no way he was going to lose to this weird kid who doesn’t even seem like he wants to be around him.
Fine. Whatever. Don’t listen.
The young heir pouts, but he couldn’t help but lean over Nagi’s shoulder, intrigued by whatever has completely stolen the other boy’s attention.
It’s an FPS game, one that Reo has heard his classmates discuss one too many times during their study sessions together. Reo’s never touched it, though. He’s never really tried FPS games- he’s fine with puzzle games, horror games, any other game, really- but he’s never played an FPS and at this point in time, he’s a bit too afraid to try.
(“I’m going to get flamed in chat!” Reo had laughed when his classmate attempted to get him to install a popular FPS that he had never heard of before.
“No way!” was his classmate’s response. “You’re Mikage Reo! Perfect at anything. I bet you’ve been playing FPS games since your hands were big enough to wrap around a mouse.
What does being a billionaire heir have anything to do with how good one’s FPS skills are, Reo does not know- but he had felt bad if he turned his classmate down though at the same time, he also did not want his non-existent FPS skills to be the number one gossip at school the next day, so he went and sold his PC the moment he got home.
“Sorry,” Reo apologized to the boy the following day. “Turns out my dad sold my PC a few days ago, so I won’t be able to play.”
It’s a silly lie, but no one else has bothered him to play an FPS game ever since).
He watches Nagi’s fingers fly over the screen and it’s almost impossible to keep up. All Reo sees is Nagi getting headshots after headshots after all his teammates are dead.
Reo doesn’t know a thing about this game, but even he can’t deny that Nagi is good.
What catches his eye though isn’t Nagi’s gameplay, but instead the character that Nagi just one-shotted in a pink, flower onesie with three bees hanging off its shoulder.
“What was that?” Reo asks as the match reaches to an end. The word ‘ACE’ is highlighted in the middle of Nagi’s screen.
Nagi blinks at his phone as he loads another match. “It’s some exclusive skin,” he replies, tapping impatiently. “It’s expensive for something that looks like that.”
A lightbulb switches on above Reo’s head. This is it, the perfect opportunity. He just needs to seize it at the correct timing. He’s Mikage Reo, he takes every opportunity presented to him.
“Do you want that skin?” Reo asks slowly.
Nagi furrows his brows. This might be the most thinking Reo has ever seen him do. “Not really,” he finally says. “It’s ugly.”
That’s fine, Reo can work with that.
“But it’s rare, right? You said it cost a lot of money?”
Reo doesn’t know anything about in-game currency events, or skins, or whatever, so he just has to pray that his gut is right on this one and he doesn’t sound like a fool.
Lucky for him, Nagi hums in agreement. “I guess.”
Perfect. Reo slings an arm around Nagi’s shoulder, pulling him close. “These skins are good investments, right? When you get bored of the game and sell the account, the rarer skins you have means the more value your account has, right?”
Reo may not know games, but he definitely knows business.
“Yeah…?”
And not only does Reo know business, he also knows the exact words to snatch Nagi’s attention.
“And you can easily sell that account for a lot, which means a lot of money going into your pocket without you needing to do any work.”
Reo watches as Nagi’s eyes widen, as if it’s his first time having such a revelation.
But that look on his face disappears immediately. “I don’t-”
“Nope!” Reo cuts him off, already knowing what he’s going to say. “Look, I’ll buy the skin for you, alright? As well as any other skin you want from here on. What do you say?”
Nagi turns to look at him with an unreadable expression on his face. “At what price?”
“Huh?”
“No one just buys things for other people without expecting something in return,” Nagi mumbles, turning away. “What do you want?”
Reo grins. So Nagi does know the world of business. Perfect, that’s less for him to explain.
“I’m glad you asked!” Reo practically throws his entire weight onto Nagi. “The only thing I’m asking for is you to listen when I’m talking about strategies! Not a bad trade-off, right?”
Nagi doesn’t reply, so Reo takes it upon himself to get an answer. “Nagi~ What do you say?” He throws his head into Nagi’s lap to see his face better. “Isn’t it a good deal? You don’t even have to pay me back!”
Nagi stares down at him, before gently poking one of Reo’s cheeks. “Soft,” he mumbles. His attention returns to his phone, however, when it buzzes, signaling that a new match has begun.
“Nagi~ You have to give me an answer,” Reo frowns, lifting his head up. “Or else no skins for you.”
If Nagi is irritated by his constant pestering, he doesn’t show it. “Fine,” he says, though it sounds less like an agreement and more of a means to shut Reo up (or so Reo thinks). “After this match, though.”
Perfect! If this is the way to get Nagi to listen to his strategies, then so be it! Thank you random FPS game on Nagi’s phone!
“Okay!” Reo throws his arms around Nagi and almost sends them both toppling down the stairs. “I’ll be quizzing you after too! So you really have to pay attention!”
“Alright,” Nagi replies softly, but he makes no effort to shake the purple-haired boy off him. “What a pain…”
Reo is running out of resources. The game that Nagi plays releases skins so slowly. If they’re not releasing new skins every week, how in the world is Reo supposed to bribe Nagi to listen when he talks tactics?
“Are you sure there aren’t any new skins?” Reo asks as he hoists Nagi onto his back. Training had ended and now Nagi has returned to acting like a dead slime, sprawled all across every surface he can find himself on.
“Nope,” comes Nagi’s voice. “You already bought me all the skins. You’ll have to wait until the next season.”
“And when is that?” Reo grumbles. He spots a familiar limousine waiting for them outside the school gate and slows down his steps.
“About a month,” Nagi replies, burying his face into Reo’s neck. “Reo limousine.”
The young heir can’t help the corners of his lips from turning upwards. “Yeah, yeah,” he laughs. “Reo limousine. Exclusive for you and you only. But don’t think this will happen all the time, okay? It’s only because you played well today!” he adds on.
Nagi doesn’t reply, which doesn’t surprise Reo. They’ve been hanging out a lot more together now (more like Reo is sticking himself onto Nagi and buying him skins), and sure, it’s only been about a month since their first meeting, but Reo prides himself in being able to read Nagi like an open book despite their minimal time as friends.
Friends, huh? That has a nice ring to it. Reo considers Nagi a friend, after all, the white-haired boy has been taking up a good chunk of his time recently, but Reo wonders if Nagi considers him the same.
“Nagi?” Reo hums. What better way to know if not to directly ask?
The boy on his back makes a noise, indicating that he’s listening, so Reo continues. “Are we… friends?”
Nagi doesn’t answer immediately and Reo sort of takes that the wrong way, quickly adding on; “I mean, I consider you my friend, so I was wondering if you felt the same. Though, if not, it’s also okay. I understand that different people have different definitions of a friendship and I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable and everything, you know?” in an attempt to reassure Nagi that no matter what answer he receives, he’ll still consider Nagi a friend.
“You’re rambling,” Nagi tells him, cutting his incoming paragraph short. “It’s okay.”
Reo waits for him to continue, and to his surprise, Nagi does.
“You buy me skins and you carry me on your back. If I don’t call you my friend, I think Choki will hurt me. He’s been wanting me to make a friend for a while now, I think.”
Reo raises a brow at the unfamiliar name that dropped from Nagi’s mouth. He feels a bit mean for thinking so, but he’s shocked that Nagi is friends with someone else that isn’t him.
“Who’s Choki?” he asks, always jumping on any opportunity to learn about the other boy’s life.
“My cactus,” Nagi replies without missing a beat. “He talks to me sometimes.”
Reo smiles at that. Not in a what a loser, of course his only other friend is a cactus way, but instead a that’s so Nagi way. Maybe if it had been anyone else, Reo would have thought of the person as strange, but this is Nagi- the same Nagi on his back right now and the same Nagi who stared at him straight in the eyes when they first met, demanding money. This is Nagi, so instead of finding it weird or unsettling, Reo decides on the fact that it’s endearing.
“You didn’t tell me you had a cactus!” Reo says. “Can I meet him?”
Nagi lets out a quiet hum. “Not today,” he tells him. “Choki is shy, I’ll talk to him about you and he can decide if he wants to meet you or not.”
“You better tell him how good of a person I am, then!” Reo exclaims as they reach the limousine. He bends down to allow Nagi off his back and opens the car door for him. “You can’t ruin my chances of meeting him.”
Nagi mumbles a few words Reo is unable to catch as he crawls into his seat.
Reo enters after him and the two fall into comfortable silence as the car begins to move.
Nagi’s head falls upon Reo’s shoulder as he closes his eyes, taking a short nap before they reach his house, a routine Reo has grown familiar with.
“Nagi.” Reo lightly taps on the other boy’s hand. "You'll come to training tomorrow, right?”
Nagi’s eyes flutter open and he blinks a few times, before tilting his head upwards so he can look at Reo and sends him a look that says “Why would you ask that?”.
Reo looks away in embarrassment. “Well, since I’m not buying skins for you, I thought you wouldn’t want to come anymore.”
“I came to practice even before you bought me skins,” Nagi mumbles, closing his eyes again.
“Is that a ‘yes’?” Reo asks. “Then I’ll come and pick you up after class like always, okay? You can’t run away.”
To be fair, Nagi had only tried to run away once, but if he was willing to do it then, who knows if he’s willing to do it now.
Nagi makes a low noise of confirmation and Reo thought that was the end of their conversation, but then Nagi decides to make Reo’s life a little bit harder.
“Maybe,” he says quietly. “Not confirmed.”
Reo sharply exhales through his nose. He has to find something else to bribe Nagi with. If he’s not going to training tomorrow, that means he won’t be there to listen to the new strategies he thought of losing hours of sleep, which means he won’t be able to perform on field, which means they might lose their next match.
(They never lose, but better safe than sorry).
Nagi must have detected Reo’s reaction to his words, because he decides to add on. “I like lemon juice.”
Reo raises a brow. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Nagi doesn’t expand on it. “Reo is smart,” he says as he takes his phone out of his pocket. “I like lemon juice.”
Reo smiles as his hand finds itself upon Nagi’s head, patting down his stray pieces of hair.
Nagi’s right, Reo is smart.
The next day, Reo waits outside Nagi’s classroom with a bottle of lemon juice from the vending machine on the second floor of their building as they walk to the field together, with Nagi nodding every few minutes as Reo explains the new strategies he came up with yesterday night.
Reo isn’t sure when he started changing around Nagi. Sure, he’s always been doing things for him (to make sure he attends training, nothing more, nothing less), but recently he has been seeking out the other boy more and more outside of football and slowly, Nagi Seishiro begins to bleed into his own personal life.
Reo had invited Nagi on a whim to go to the summer festival that was being hosted near their school that his classmates were talking about all week. He had brought it up after training one day, talking to the wall because he doubted that Nagi would listen, until Nagi leaned his head against his shoulder and told him “let’s go together.”
Reo had thought he was joking at first, especially since Nagi never brought it up again, but now he’s here- standing by the entrance in a yukata, with a similarly-dressed Nagi by his side.
“Huh?”
When did he even get here?
“There’s so many people,” Nagi whines from beside him.
Reo blinks back into reality. The blinding lantern lights had started to hurt his eyes. “Well, it is a festival, there’s bound to be lots of people here…” he trails off as he sees Nagi’s frown deepen. “I’m surprised you’re even standing next to me right now. I didn’t think you’d come to places like this.”
“I don’t,” comes Nagi’s blunt reply. “But Reo looked so excited talking about it, so I thought that it would be okay.” The expression on his face doesn’t scream it’s okay though, but Reo chooses to ignore that, instead opting to wrap a hand around Nagi’s wrist and pulling him into the crowd.
“I’ve never been to a festival like this before!” Reo says excitedly, eyes wide in amazement as they walk by all the stalls. There is so much street food and small game booths with children crowding around it, and Reo looms over them to see what the fuss is all about. “It’s so nice. Have you ever been to a festival, Nagi?”
Nagi purses his lips. “Yeah, my parents used to take me to festivals when I was younger. Not anymore though, I haven’t been to one in years.”
“Then let’s have fun! Since it's your first time in a while and my first time in life!” He should have made a checklist on what to do, he didn’t realize festivals were this lively!
A stall booth catches Reo’s attention. “Are those candy apples?!” he exclaims, taking huge strides across the walkway. “I’m gonna get one! Do you want one, Nagi?”
Nagi blankly stares at him as he shifts his weight on one foot to another. “No,” he mumbles. “They’re too much of a pain to eat.”
Reo laughs, then gives Nagi a firm pat on the shoulder. “Okay, you stay here then! I know you probably wouldn’t want to go through that crowd.” He points his thumb towards the flock of people crowding around the stall. “I’ll be right back, don’t move, okay?”
Nagi looks like he wants to say something more, but to no one’s surprise, he doesn’t. “Okay,” he tells Reo.
With that single word of confirmation, Reo is gone.
As he snakes up into the line, he notices the two children in front of him each holding one half of a matching keychain. It’s cute, very cute, and he wonders if Nagi would oppose having matching keychains with him. The matching keychains were too cute to the point that Reo tapped on one of the kid’s shoulders to ask where they got said keychains from.
“It’s from a few stalls down!” the girl says with a toothy grin. “They’re super cute, right?”
“They are,” Reo replies with a smile. “You even got matching ones!”
“We did!” the boy interjects. “We’ve been dating for three days, so I thought it would be nice to buy a gift!”
Ah, young love. How cute.
“Sir! Are you planning to buy one too? For your ‘special someone’?” The boy grins. “There are lots of options! I’m sure you’ll find something suitable!”
Reo feels a blush rising to his cheeks at the thought of Nagi being his special someone. “Ah, no! It’s nothing like that!” he quickly rebuts. “We’re just friends!” But the children laugh at his flustered expression.
“That’s what I said too! But now we’re dating, so you can do it too, sir!”
And with that, the two children pay for their candy apples and disappear into the sea of faces, leaving Reo behind with his heart hammering in his chest as the implications of the children’s words sink in.
No way he likes Nagi! Sure, he treats Nagi differently from all his other peers, but that’s because Nagi is a friend. He’s the only person who treats him like a normal person, not a Mikage, so he should show how grateful he is to his only friend, right?
He absentmindedly pays for his candy apple and finds his way back to Nagi. It’s not hard to spot him in the crowd, his white mop of hair and 190cm build makes him easily stand out from the rest. Ignoring the burning feeling in his chest, he slides up next to the other boy.
“I’m back!” he smiles as he brings the candy apple up to his lips. It’s sweet, a bit too sweet. He makes a face and slowly puts it back into the small plastic pocket it came in. He can eat that later, not as a whole apple though, maybe Ba-Ya can smash it up into little pieces and use it in an apple pie or something.
“Not good?” Nagi asks, catching sight of the other’s expression.
“Yeah,” Reo purses his lips together. “It’s too sweet.”
Nagi nods, as if silently agreeing. “I think so too. I’ve never liked it.”
“Huh? You’ve had it before and didn't think about telling me that I might not like it? You know how I feel about super sweet things.” He playfully hits Nagi’s shoulder.
Nagi pouts as he takes Reo’s light beatings. “Reo looked so excited, though. I didn’t want to ruin it.”
It’s always the simple words that make Reo’s cheeks burn. “Okay, fine.” He turns his head towards another stall to hide his red face. “Let’s go…” He reaches out to wrap his fingers around Nagi’s wrists again, but immediately retracts them as he feels them burn.
Why are his touches suddenly so hot?
Reo sees Nagi tilt his head slightly to the left, as if questioning the sudden change in behavior. Reo, who always has an arm slung around Nagi’s shoulders, a hand in Nagi’s hair, suddenly flinching back from just a simple touch? This isn’t Reo.
“It’s nothing!” Reo quickly says, but he makes no effort to extend his hand again. “We passed by a few game booths, let’s go check them out!”
He runs away before Nagi can reply, leaving the other boy with the only option of following him.
Reo hopes he’s running in the direction of the keychain booth. He should find time to slip away without Nagi noticing, but that will probably be a challenge itself.
“Nagi, look!” Reo turns around and is met with a Nagi who is struggling to keep up with him in the crowd
Oops.
Nagi finally catches up to him, after almost disappearing into the sea twice, and he rests his head in the crook of Reo’s neck once he’s within reach, arms wrapped around his waist.
“What does Reo want?” Nagi mumbles, voice muffled. He sounds really tired, perhaps they should go home after this.
Ignoring the fireworks being set off in his stomach from the intimate contact, Reo points to the stall they’re standing in front of. It seems like it’s some sort of ring tossing game, where the players can toss a ring onto a pillar and earn the prize that shares the same number as the one attached to the pillar. It’s a silly children’s game, but what catches Reo’s eyes isn’t the mechanics of said game, but the giant seal at the back of the stall, with the number 35 stuck onto its face.
It… oddly reminds him of Nagi.
“I want that,” Reo tells him. “It looks like you.”
“Huh?”
“Come on, let’s try and get it.”
Nagi plants his feet firmly onto the floor. “No… You can probably get that easily if you asked Ba-Ya for it.”
Reo moves. He’s stronger than Nagi and Nagi’s feet end up dragging across the floor as they slowly make their way up to the stall. “That takes away the fun. Don’t you want to have fun?”
Nagi is silent for a second, before he finally straightens his back and begins to walk over himself. “Okay, if that’s what Reo wants.”
How come you can’t do that when I ask you to play on-field, huh?
The two pay for five turns each, and boy, Reo had thought his hand-eye coordination was godly, but these pillars and rings are definitely testing it. It’s fine, Reo didn’t come here with a budget, he has all the time in the world and he won’t leave unless he gets that gigantic seal plush.
Nagi, who’s already used up all five of his turns and got a plastic oni mask, watches Reo as he pays for another five. It’s his third batch in less than two minutes and there’s a growing pile of plastic under his arm. Nagi offers to help him carry some.
The 35 pillar is at the very back, two pillars from the left. It’s in an awkward position, especially from where they had to throw, but Reo isn’t going to give up.
“Reo~” Nagi whines, pulling on his sleeve. “Let’s go. You’ve been here for too long, the kids are starting to make fun of you.”
It’s then that Reo looks around him and notices that they’ve gathered a crowd of small children around him. Some were giving silent encouragement with thumbs up signs, some were laughing (hopefully not at him), and some who were there to just see a teenager blow all his allowance on a stall game.
“Reo~” The same voice whines again. “Let’s go, I’m tired.”
Finally admitting defeat, Reo sends one last look to the seal before leaving the stall, with Nagi happily trailing behind him.
“That was so rigged,” Reo exclaims as they move through the crowd. “I get that they need to earn money so they purposefully make the good things harder to get, but you’ve got to at least allow some room for success or else no one will want to play! It’s horrible business practice.”
Nagi mumbles something about how Reo would have kept playing if he wasn’t there to stop him, but Reo decides to ignore it for the sake of his own sanity.
“Then how would you make it better?” Nagi asks.
Reo halts momentarily and turns to Nagi. “You want to listen to me talk about something like this?” he says, eyeing the boy. Nagi never wants to listen to this. Or, maybe not never, but Reo knows he always tunes out when he starts talking about business and the strategies to keep a business alive.
“Why not?” Nagi shrugs. “I’m tired and Reo’s voice is nice to listen to.”
Reo coughs in his hand to turn his face away from Nagi. The last thing he wants is Nagi to see his red face. “Fine,” he exhales and tries to compose himself. “Where should I begin?”
“Ah, before you start…” Nagi cuts him off, leaning against Reo again. “Can you carry me? My legs are tired.”
“You want me to carry you here?” He glances around him. They’re in the middle of the walk way and most definitely not in a secluded place. “I’m not going to carry you, Nagi. I don’t know how to.”
“Lies, you carried me once.”
“That was once! And it was because you wouldn’t move from the ground and we had to go home!”
“Well, I won’t move from here then. I’m tired, my legs hurt, my arms also hurt from carrying all our stuff.”
Reo glances at the prizes they had won in Nagi’s arms. He had forgotten about those, he would have thought that Nagi would say something earlier but he surprisingly kept quiet.
After a few seconds of inner debating, Reo finally bends down. “Fine, get on.”
He ignores the stares burning through the back of his head as Nagi climbs on.
“Will you carry me more now?” Nagi breaths, too close to his ear.
Thank god he’s on his back so Reo doesn’t have to hide anything. “Maybe,” he grumbles. “You’ll have to ask nicely, though.”
“I’m always nice when it comes to Reo.”
“Why do I somewhat doubt that?” Reo shakes his head. “Anyway-”
“Wait, Reo.” Nagi cuts him off again and moves around a bit, which in turn almost makes Reo lose his balance.
“Hey! Stop moving or else we’re both going to fall!”
“Sorry.” The moving comes to a halt. “I got this for you earlier when you went to buy the candy apple.”
In front of Reo hangs a keychain, similar to the one he saw with the two kids from before but with a different design. He notices that the design is of an animated Sanrio character. He doesn’t know the name of it, but it’s cute regardless.
I got this for you.
“Thank you,” Reo says, feeling the heat travel through his body at the thought of Nagi buying something for him. “Did you… Did you get one for yourself too?”
Nagi hums. “I got a matching Cinnamon Roll one,” he tells him. “We can hang it on our phones later.”
“That would be nice.”
Nagi retracts his arm and buries his head in Reo’s hair, inhaling softly. “Now you can talk about the business strategy thing.”
“Alright,” Reo says softly, corners of his mouth still turned up from Nagi’s act of kindness. “As I was saying before…”
Nagi doesn’t do these things for just anybody and Reo can’t help but believe maybe that he’s special to Nagi too.
“Come over today.”
Reo finishes packing away the football balls and turns to Nagi with a raised brow. “Where? Your house?”
It’s a joke, Reo fully expected Nagi to shake his head and correct him saying the arcade that the boy often drags him to, but Nagi nods.
“I can’t?” Reo shakes his head. “I have to go home to think of tactics for our game next week.”
“You can do it at my house,” Nagi insists. “Also, you wanted to meet Choki, didn’t you? He’s ready to meet you now.”
That’s right. Nagi’s cactus. He had asked to meet it a while ago, but Nagi refused by telling him Choki isn’t ready yet. Reo wonders what changed the small cactus’ mind. Had Nagi been talking to it about him?
“Alright then, I’ll just let Ba-Ya know when we get in the limo.” Reo bends down to allow Nagi onto his back. Ever since that night at the summer festival, Reo has been finding himself giving into Nagi’s requests for piggyback rides more and more, and now it’s basically second nature to find Nagi hanging off Reo’s back.
“Reo limousine~” Nagi whispers in his ear and Reo shudders, making a beeline to his limousine. Ba-Ya doesn’t say anything about the compromising position the Mikage heir is in with his schoolmate, and that’s why Reo likes her so much. She doesn’t ask any questions, she just accepts things as it is.
The ride to Nagi’s house is silent. After Nagi gave Ba-Ya his address, he leaned his head on Reo’s shoulder and closed his eyes. Today’s training session was rough, so Reo decided to give Nagi a little shut-eye, his treasure deserves it after all.
They pull up to Nagi’s house. It’s a simple two story house, nothing too grand, and it’s big enough to house a whole family in. Nagi has mentioned in passing that his parents are always overseas, so he’s alone in his house most of the time.
And it’s evident by how messy his living room is. It’s not too messy to the point where you can’t see the floor, but Reo prefers things to be clean and tidy, so seeing the array of shirts all over the couch does annoy him a little. He tries to ignore it though, because it’s Nagi and Reo knows he’s trying his best.
“Let’s go say hi to Choki,” Nagi says as he guides Reo up the stairs.
They enter the first room on the right.
Nagi’s room is small, smaller than Reo’s at least. But it’s very cozy, a sense of familiarity that Reo wished his room had. There are posters of the game Reo often sees him play hanging on the wall, and on the wall in front of his desk are newspaper clippings of Hakuho’s matches.
Of him and Nagi.
Reo tears his eyes away from the pictures as Nagi walks over to the windowsill. “This is Choki,” he says, picking up the small pot.
There’s a cactus in the shape of a peace sign! It’s so cute.
“Hi Choki.” Reo waves. “I’m Reo.”
Nagi gestures to his bed. “You can sit there or at the desk.” He then pauses, as if considering another choice. “Or we can both sit on the floor.”
Reo laughs. “Let’s both sit on the floor then.”
They both pull out their respective devices, with Nagi taking out his phone and Reo taking out his laptop. He had managed to find time to watch their opposing team’s matches from last week and was able to take down some notes for his own team. Is this cheating? It can’t be, professional coaches do this all the time.
They work in silence- well, Reo does. Nagi could hardly be considered working, but he’s quiet so Reo at least hopes that some of the things he’s saying out loud finds a way into the other boy’s head.
“Their 12 has trouble receiving passes unless their 3 is passing to him and-” Reo looks up to see Nagi staring intensely at him. As much as Reo would love for Nagi to listen to him like this all the time, it’s so out of character for him that it scares Reo. “Is… something wrong?”
“I’m hungry,” Nagi pouts. “Reo, cook me something~”
Reo blinks. “Is this why you told me to come over? Because you’re too lazy to cook for yourself?”
“No~” Nagi drapes himself over Reo. “You’ve been doing this for the past two hours and Reo needs a break or else his eyes will go bad. Let’s eat~”
He’s not wrong though. Reo has been sitting in the same position for too long and his back is starting to hurt. But he decides to tease Nagi a little bit before going along with his whims. “Are you saying I won’t look good in glasses?”
Nagi looks at him, a tint of red on his cheeks before swiftly turning away. “Reo will look good in anything. Reo is handsome.”
That takes the poor guy off-guard.
“Alright!” Reo exclaims loudly, jumping onto his feet. “Let’s go make something!” He rushes out of the room before he has to look Nagi in the eyes again.
Calm yourself, it’s nothing big. Nagi always says things like that. Well. not things like that but he always says things so bluntly. It can’t have another meaning behind it, and definitely not the meaning you want it to have!
“What do you have to eat, Nagi?" Reo asks as he opens the fridge. He’s met with a sad, sad sight.
“I have instant noodles.”
“Nagi, you can’t eat that all the time,” Reo scolds, shutting the fridge. “You’re an athlete now. You have to take care of your body more.”
“Reo can cook, right? Reo is good at everything.”
Reo eyes the fridge. “Yeah,” he mumbles. “But not with an empty fridge.”
Nagi mumbles something under his breath and sits at his dining table.
“Let’s go out,” Reo decides.
Nagi’s head shoots up way too fast. There's no way his neck is okay after that.
“What?” he asks, almost breathless.
Does the thought of going grocery shopping with Reo scare Nagi that much? Reo isn’t sure if he should take offense to that or not.
“Let’s go buy some groceries. Then we can come back and make something, how does that sound?”
Nagi gives him a look that he can’t decipher and Reo nervously shifts his weight from one foot to another. “It’s fine if not though,” he adds on, quickly reaching over to grab his jacket and wallet. He wouldn’t want to let his treasure starve, after all. “I can go myself, you can stay here and-”
“Why wouldn’t I go?” Nagi asks, already rising to his feet. “Isn’t that what people do normally? How can I make you go alone?”
Reo blinks owlishly at him. Sure, he doesn’t exactly do the grocery shopping in his house, but he’s pretty sure people go shopping alone, right? It’s not like it’s against some sort of social norm to shop alone. Nagi is lucky he’s cute and he’s Reo’s favorite, or else the young heir would already be laughing at him.
Nagi’s lucky Reo likes him.
“Alright,” Reo slowly says, watching Nagi open up his closet and fish out a jacket. This is the most he’s ever seen Nagi do. “Is there anything you’ve been craving lately?”
Sending two teenagers who don’t go grocery shopping on a regular basis to a grocery store unsupervised is just a disaster waiting to happen.
The two spent an embarrassingly long time standing in front of the watermelons, with Reo knocking on all of them and Nagi searching online for which color a watermelon is meant to be when it’s ripe. It wasn’t until a nice middle-aged lady turned the corner and helped them pick a nice looking watermelon, which Reo is grateful for because if they stood there any longer, they just may have gotten kicked out.
Nagi said he wanted katsudon, which would have been fine, except Reo didn’t know what half the ingredients looked like, and whenever he asked Nagi, all he would get was a shrug in return, so their grocery run ended up with Reo embarrassingly trailing behind the really nice and patient lady, and Nagi trailing behind Reo like a lost puppy.
The two managed to haul their multiple shopping bags into Nagi’s kitchen and now Reo’s frantically looking for a recipe online that doesn’t look too hard.
If he gives Nagi food poisoning, he’d never be able to forgive himself.
“Alright,” Reo says, pressing onto a random link on the fourth page of his search. It doesn’t look too sketchy, neither does it look complicated, which is all Reo wants at the moment. He ties up his hair as he digs through the cupboards looking for a chopping board. “You can rest first, Nagi. I’ll call you when I’m done.”
Instead of heading off to the couch, Nagi walks up to Reo and wraps his arms around his waist. “I want to help,” he pouts, snuggling his head into the crook of Reo’s neck. “What if you get hurt cutting the vegetables?”
Reo stifles a laugh. “I won’t get hurt, I took home economics last year. I know how to cut vegetables. Are you sure you’re not just projecting onto me?”
“I can cut vegetables just fine,” Nagi mumbles. “I live alone, remember?”
Reo was about to push the chopping board and vegetables to Nagi, since he’s already confessed to being able to cook, before he feels a sudden sensation by the crook of his neck.
“Nagi?!” He takes a step back, but forgets that Nagi is holding him from the back, and thus pushes into Nagi and the two almost fall, if not for the fact that Nagi quickly grabbed onto the kitchen bench.
“Hm?” Nagi had the audacity to tilt his head to the side and look at him with big puppy eyes, as if he didn’t just bite Reo.
“What was that for?!” Reo asks, hand shooting up to massage the base of his neck. His face feels really hot, but can you blame him after the stunt Nagi just pulled?
It’s not that Reo didn’t enjoy it, but he would prefer it if he got a heads up next time.
Next time?! No, there can’t be a next time. He needs to stop this right now before he starts getting any funny ideas or his hopes up that there’s even a slither of a chance that Nagi may return his feelings too.
“Can I not do that?” Nagi’s eyes bore into him.
“No, you can! It’s just-” Reo catches himself. “No, what? Of course not! Why would you think that?!”
Nagi furrows his eyebrows. “But… sometimes I see Chigiri do that with Isagi.”
Reo sends him an exasperated look. “Yeah, but Chigiri and Isagi are dating. I don’t know what they do in the bedroom, nor do I want to, but I guess couples do that.” He shrugs. “Why are you even biting me, anyway? That was out of the blue.”
“Reo looked soft,” is the answer he gets back immediately.
“Well…” Reo turns away, back facing the other boy. “You can't do that.”
“Why not?” Nagi asks.
Reo opens his mouth to explain again why he can’t, but Nagi beats him to it:
“Aren’t we dating now?”
Reo’s head snaps back so fast that he’s certain he’s broken something.
Nagi continues. “I mean, we just went on a date, right? It wasn’t very good, and it's not what it looked like in movies but…” He catches sight of Reo’s face and quickly scrambles to fix up his sentence. “I still had fun, though. I’m not saying I didn’t have fun. After all, it’s always fun with Reo.”
Stop. Rewind. This wasn’t what Reo was talking about.
“Nagi, what do you mean we’re dating now?” Reo asks slowly. “When? How long?”
The other boy purses his lips together, as if afraid he would say something wrong. “Earlier today, right? You asked if I wanted to go out with you?”
Reo blinks. He didn’t say that. He would for sure remember if he said anything like that. Is this a prank? No, it can’t be. Nagi would rather die than go through the effort to come up with a prank like this.
“Right, Reo?” Nagi’s voice slightly trembles as he reaches out and grabs ahold of Reo’s hands. “Did I misunderstand, Reo? Did I… make you uncomfortable?”
Reo’s silence must have said enough, because he immediately lets go and his gaze falls to the floor. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Reo. I didn’t mean to-”
“No!” Reo cuts him off before his brain could comprehend anything. “That’s not- it’s not that! I was just surprised!” He takes Nagi’s hands into his own again and leans closer to him. Wasn’t what Nagi just said basically a confession? Now it’s Reo’s turn to take the reins.
“I don’t mind! Going out with you, I mean.” As Reo stares Nagi down, he can’t help but notice the creeping redness dusted across the other’s cheeks. Nagi Seishiro, known for his monotonic nature… blushing because of Reo?
“You’re… I think going out with you would be fun too!” Reo continues. He doesn’t even know what he’s saying anymore, too focused on the reddening state of Nagi in front of him. “I like you, Nagi. I would like to go out with you… too.”
For someone who assumed they were dating, Nagi sure looks flustered at the sudden confession.
“Okay,” Nagi says, lifting his gaze. “I like you too.”
Reo smiles. “Okay.” He wraps his arms around the other’s neck and brings him into a tight hug. “Now we’re dating.”
Nagi hesitatingly places his hands on Reo’s waist, as if one wrong move could make this whole thing disappear. “Does that mean that the grocery trip earlier wasn’t a date?”
Reo laughs. “It can if you want it to be.”
“No.” Nagi shakes his head. “That was a bad first date. Let’s do it again.”
Of course, if that’s what Nagi wants. Reo would give him as many chances as he wants as long as it makes him happy, because a happy Nagi is a happy Reo. And Reo is sure Nagi feels the same way.
“Does that mean you're my boyfriend now?” Nagi asks as Reo pulls away.
“As long as I’m yours.”
Nagi smiles. “Okay.”
Reo squeezes Nagi’s shoulders before turning back to the uncooked vegetables in front of them. They still have to eat, they can talk about this in more detail once they’re full and done with all their work for today.
“Reo, does this mean you’ll come over more?” Nagi asks from behind him as he rests his chin on Reo’s shoulder.
“Hm,” Reo hums. “Maybe not. You always end up distracting me when I’m trying to think of tactics.” He gestures to the kitchen bench in front of them. “Exhibit A.”
“I’ll leave you alone,” Nagi pouts. “I just like listening to you talk.”
“Yeah, but it seems like nothing ever goes into your brain when I talk tactics,” Reo laughs, cracking an egg. “You never listen to me.”
“That’s not true,” Nagi says immediately. “That’s not true,” he repeats, firmer this time. “I always listen to what Reo has to say.”
“Oh, yeah?” Reo asks, cocking a brow, a smile on his face. “Then tell me something I told you earlier today. Just one is fine.”
Reo had expected Nagi to think about it at least, if he didn’t know, but what he didn’t expect was Nagi to say; “You said that 12 can only retrieve passes from 3, so I should stay close to 3 and steal the ball off him… or something” without missing a beat.
It catches Reo so off guard and he can’t do anything but stare agape at Nagi, who’s looking up at him with a triumphant look on his face.
“See, I listen to everything Reo says.”
“I guess you’re right…”
“So, will Reo come over more now?”
“Maybe if you pull it off in the next game, I will.”
Seated on the bench facing their football field, Reo is furiously writing down new notes in the familiar ‘ROAD TO WORLD CUP With Nagi’ notebook of his. Nagi is silently sitting beside him, waiting patiently with his head on Reo’s shoulder for his boyfriend to finish getting his brain juices out after their match.
The team has already left, all too eager to go home and rest after this exhausting day, but not Reo- never Reo. Reo has always liked to stay back after matches to note down new tactics that could be used for their next matches.
“You done?” Nagi asks, once the sound of scribbling comes to a halt.
Reo doesn’t reply, too caught up in his thoughts as he bites on his bottom lip, brows furrowed in frustration as if he couldn’t come up with the perfect words to write down onto the page.
Nagi can’t help but think Reo looks very kissable like this.
They haven’t kissed yet, no. Nagi understands that Reo wants to take it slow so he doesn’t push, but he wants to kiss Reo. He always wants to kiss Reo, but there are some times where he extra-wants to kiss Reo. Like now.
He wonders what kissing Reo will feel like. He’s sure that Reo’s lips are soft, he uses chapstick that tastes of lemon after all. He wonders what Reo’s reaction to him kissing him would be. Would he get flustered and turn into that beautiful shade of red Nagi loves? He hopes so. He loves seeing that color dusted across Reo’s face, especially knowing that he’s the cause of it.
“- do you think this will work?”
Nagi blinks back into reality and is met with Reo staring expectantly at him.
“Uh.” He makes the mistake of hesitating. “Anything Reo comes up with will work.” He hopes he sounds convincing enough to fool Reo into thinking his mind wasn’t wandering off to what kissing him would be like.
Alas, his boyfriend isn’t the top scorer in their year level for nothing, and he pouts.
(Nagi so badly wants to kiss him).
“You weren’t listening, were you?”
“I was distracted.”
Reo heaves out a heavy sigh.
“You’re not gonna ask what I was distracted by?” Nagi probes, poking Reo’s arm.
“No,” Reo mumbles, returning to his notebook. “I just want you to listen to me when I talk tactics with you.”
Nagi pulls himself away from Reo’s neck and pulls on his arm, so that Reo’s facing him. “You have to give me something in return for me to listen,” Nagi says.
Reo’s eyes flicker. “Like what?” he frowns. “I’ve already given you everything since we’ve met. There can’t be anything else you want, right?”
Nagi doesn’t say anything, but he slowly brings a finger up and taps on his bottom lip, a small pout on his face.
Reo’s face goes up in flames. “Huh?!”
Does he not understand? That can’t be, Reo is smart. But Nagi decides to just flat-out say it, to avoid any misunderstandings (and because he really wants this).
“I want a kiss, Reo.”
“What?!” Reo pokes his head out, trying to see if they were truly alone on the field and looks back at Nagi. “You want a what?!”
Nagi thought he had been very clear about what he wanted. “A kiss, Reo. A kiss.” He points to his lips again to emphasize his point.
“I-” The blush on Reo’s cheeks become more prominent the longer Nagi stares at him. “You don’t need to use that sort of excuse to kiss me,” he begins softly. “You can just… kiss me, you know?”
Nagi hums, as an indicator that he’s listening, but he doesn’t reply.
“You’ll listen after this, right?” Reo asks as he scoots forward.
“Mhm,” Nagi nods. “I was distracted by how kissing Reo would feel like when you were talking before too.”
Ah, that pink blush is absolutely beautiful on Reo.
“Okay, you promise?”
Nagi can feel Reo’s breath fanning on his own lips. “Promise.”
And when Reo closes the gap between them, Nagi feels as if he’s on cloud nine. It’s everything he’s ever wanted and more, and everything he had expected and more. Reo’s lips are so soft against his, and the taste of his lemon chapstick lingers on every corner Reo touches. It’s light and innocent, but it makes Nagi feel as if something exploded in his chest. It’s perfect, and he’s sure that it’s because it’s Reo.
His boyfriend pulls away and Nagi chases his lips, but he’s met with a notebook between him and Reo.
Nagi catches Reo’s eyes and Reo’s smile shouldn’t be legally allowed to be that blinding. He’s perfect, every single part of him.
“You promised!” Reo laughs as he opens up the notebook and lands on the most recent page. “Here, this is-”
“Reo~” Nagi cuts him off, clinging onto his arm. “I don’t want to~”
He wouldn’t get mad at that, Reo wouldn’t get mad at him for this, and Nagi knows Reo best because he laughs at his antics as he tries to gently shake Nagi off.
“You promised, treasure,” he says with that sweet voice of his. “You can’t go around breaking your promises.”
“Mm.”
“Hey.” Reo shakes him so he’s sitting upright, and before Nagi could ask why or do anything, he feels Reo’s lips on his again.
Nagi melts into the kiss.
They part and Reo rests their foreheads against each other. “You said you’d listen,” Reo whispers.
What is Nagi supposed to do? Say no?
“I will.”
He receives a smile that Nagi doesn't think he’ll ever want to go a day without seeing. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
And as Reo begins talking and explaining his newfound tactics to him once again, all that Nagi can think of is how he will never get bored of kissing Reo.
(Guess Reo will just have to kiss him more to make him listen then).