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Nagumo is a known lightweight, a fact he had not been aware of until Akao had shoved beers into his and Sakamoto’s hands and declared that night a celebration of... something. He can’t fucking remember because of the vile effects of alcohol. It seems laughable considering his immunity to poison is one of the best in the class, and since that dreadful night paired with a dreadful headache afterwards, Nagumo had made sure not to drink himself silly in Akao’s presence ever.
However, that leaves him stuck with an absolutely hammered Akao all by himself since Sakamoto had the good sense to skip out on tonight’s outing. Nagumo envies the bastard.
It had taken every ounce of training Nagumo had ever acquired in his lifetime to wrangle Akao out of the bar and back to the dorms without attracting any unwanted attention. She had behaved like a mad cat, quite literally scratching at him when he pulled her onwards. Annoying woman.
The bathroom of Akao’s dorm room barely fits the two of them in. Nagumo pats her face dry with a towel. Now Akao doesn’t do anything, doesn’t say anything. This is rare for her, but he’s not complaining. The burning scratches on his arms and Sakamoto's absence still sting.
“Now, let’s get you to bed,” Nagumo announces cheerily, sweeping one hand toward the open door of the bathroom and laying the other hand on her bare arm to steer her in that direction. It singes his palm. But Akao doesn’t budge when he pushes at her; instead, she stands, barely sways. A moment later, she’s fixing a hand over his on her arm, her palm to the back of his hand. He flinches at the small gesture. She’s so warm. It feels so nice to be touched—
“Come on, Akao, I don’t got all day,” he taunts with his smile still plastered on his face, even though every nerve in him is jumping alight at her hand on his. This is ridiculous. He’s acting like a maiden in an old film, set in some meadow on the outskirts of a made-up fantasy land.
Akao’s eyes slice to him, golden fire. He feels a silent command in them: Don’t move. To accompany this order, she spills forward, collapsing into his chest, arms snaking around his waist. Her hair brushes against his chin, her face falling into the exposed space of his neck above the collar of his shirt. If her hand had felt warm, this feels like flame itself. Nagumo doesn’t know what to do. His hands drop to her hips instinctively. Just to steady her. Just that.
Akao tips her head up, stares into Nagumo’s face like she’s trying to memorize it. He knows he’s not smiling. He can’t put the mask back on. In all his training, nothing could have possibly prepared him for this moment. The bathroom light saturates everything it touches, but Akao lies in his arms, radiant as a sunbeam.
She’s just so fucking hot.
Akao smiles like she can hear his thoughts. It’s as wide and sharp as a wolf’s. “Do you want to kiss me, Nagumo?” she slurs, and she presses more into him, warm and firm and inviting. He stumbles back, the basin jamming into the small of his back. His hands stay on her, but he keeps his face away from hers.
“You are very drunk,” Nagumo replies slowly, mainly because the right words aren’t coming to him. It’s dangerous how Akao can render him utterly useless.
“Does that really matter?” Her teeth snag her lower lip. Her eyes rake down his face to what he assumes are his lips. Even if she isn’t looking at them, he suddenly feels very aware of how empty his mouth feels. “I want to kiss you.”
Nagumo laughs, but it feels hollow, forced out of his teeth with a strength from his last reserves. This is just like her, declaring her desires like no one else in the world has their own will or way. She has always taken what she wanted. When she wanted a cigarette, she’d rip one out of someone else’s mouth. When she wanted to ditch class even though all three of them were falling behind, they all had to ditch class just because she said so. When Nagumo had insisted that he keep his new tattoo a secret (obviously just to mess with her), Akao had cornered him against the wall and lifted up his shirt to examine the words scrawled onto his chest.
(Nagumo had liked that more than he let on.)
Nagumo isn’t used to this, the feeling of camaraderie and the necessity of physical touch that accompanies it. The warmth it zaps into Nagumo is entirely unfamiliar, but at the same time, not entirely unwelcome.
Akao seems to lose feeling in her legs for a moment, her weight doubling against him. He holds her steady, moves his hands to support her better. But now she’s practically wrapped snug in his arms, closer than ever. His fingers brush against the bare skin beneath her tank top. The tips of his fingers tuck into the dip of her spine.
“I’m serious, Nagumo.” She frowns at him, like he’s the one being the nuisance right now. “I hate it, but I want to.”
Nagumo stays silent, for once. He hates how much he wants this right now too. Akao is brash, and reckless, and downright difficult on the best of days, but damn if he’s never thought about this, fucking dreamed it so deeply that it’s the only thing he can remember from such foggy thoughts.
Nagumo isn’t a good person. He knows this and he doesn’t care. Everyone who’s said a bad thing against him has been one hundred percent correct. Based on that, he should have no problem grabbing the opportunity presented before him on a shiny silver platter.
But there is something different about Akao. Something that makes her different from everyone else, and that in turn makes him feel different about her than he has about anyone else.
For once in his life, Nagumo thinks that he’s finally met his conscience.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that he isn’t going to have a little fun with this.
Nagumo skims his fingertips over the lines of Akao’s jaw, the curves of her cheekbones. Akao’s head follows his movement, chasing after the touch. Something sparks inside Nagumo, hot and sudden and foreign. She really wants this. Wants him. He can see it in the power of her gaze, the parting of her lips.
He drags his thumb over her lower lip, and Akao jumps out and grabs hold of his thumb with her teeth. It’s borderline painful, but it’s like she’s trying to keep him close, consume him in any way she can.
He wants to kiss her so bad.
“So desperate,” he croons, half-joking because since when has Akao ever been desperate? Akao retracts her teeth, sucks his thumb into her mouth instead. Nagumo feels that heat from before creeping through his body, reaching his face, steaming him alive.
Akao releases his thumb, her mouth popping as she draws back. But her hand is gripped around his. She eliminates the space between them once more, moving with a panther-like grace. If it hadn’t been for the alcohol in her system, she might have actually succeeded in ensnaring Nagumo. But she’s drunk off her ass, stumbles in her attempt to kiss Nagumo’s mouth, gravity dragging her forward. Nagumo stumbles back a step, but manages to keep Akao in place once again.
“Nagumo, you jerk,” Akao mumbles. “Playing hard-to-get isn’t cute.”
Nagumo straightens, hitching Akao up but keeping her close because he wants to. Her skin scorches the pads of his fingers as he holds her up. “Take your own advice.”
He doesn't give Akao her wish that night. Instead, he leaves her room with Akao passed out on her bed untouched, un-kissed. He spends the rest of the night trying not to think about how her touch ignited something in him that he had long thought as dead and gone.