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“Flowers,” Reo decides abruptly.
“…flowers?”
“Flowers,” Reo says again. “That’s it. That’s how I’m going to confess.”
Chigiri stares at him for a few moments before wordlessly turning back to his computer. Reo frowns. He feels like his declaration deserves some type of response.
“Flowers,” he says again. “Yeah. That’s going to work.”
Chigiri slams his computer shut with more force than probably necessary. “Then do it, Reo.”
Reo blinks at him. Chigiri throws his hands in the air.
“You’ve been saying this shit for weeks,” Chigiri fumes. “‘I’ll confess to him with chocolates,’” he continues in an awful falsetto. Is that what he thinks Reo sounds like? Is that actually what Reo sounds like? “‘I’ll confess to him with a letter,’ fucking whatever, man, just do something!”
Reo blinks at him again. He did think his initial declaration warranted a response, but maybe not this much of a response. Chigiri’s overreacting a little bit.
“Yeah,” he begins, “well, that’s why I’m going to—”
“You’re going to plan it for a few days and then make a move, yeah, I know, because I’ve heard this from you every day for weeks!” Chigiri slumps back in his chair. Reo stares at him.
“I’m not that bad—”
“Yes you are.”
Chigiri’s tone leaves no room for argument. Reo presses his lips together.
“Fine,” he mutters. “Well, I’ll do it today then. Right now.”
“Sure you will.”
“I will!” Reo insists.
“I need a nap,” Chigiri says, grabbing his laptop and shoving it into his backpack. “And you need…” He trails off. “To be honest, I don’t know what you need. Probably therapy.”
“Hey—”
Chigiri is gone before Reo’s protest can fully leave his mouth. Reo is left staring at his computer.
“I will,” Reo mutters to himself.
Since Chigiri has unceremoniously decided to cut their study session short, anyway, Reo actually does have some time to set his plan in motion. If he had more time, he’d be able to do this right, but Chigiri’s goading has gotten under Reo's skin, and now Reo just wants to make it happen at all so that Chigiri can eat his words.
Confessing to Nagi can’t be that hard. Right?
One speedy trip to the florist later, Reo is back at Hakuho. He hadn’t been able to agonize over the choice of flowers as much as he wanted to thanks to the rush—if Chigiri hadn’t so flagrantly challenged him, he might have been able to do this right. Instead, he’s left standing with a basic bouquet of white flowers because it had been the first thing Reo saw in the florist shop that reminded him of Nagi. He’s barely begun to put his plan into motion, and he’s already annoyed at himself.
If this goes wrong, I’m blaming Chigiri, Reo decides.
Because honestly. There’s no way Reo’s as bad as Chigiri makes him sound. So it’s taken him a while to confess to Nagi. It’s not like he was going to put it off forever. He just wanted to do it right.
He just wanted to do it right.
That, however, doesn’t actually explain the indecision that currently paralyzes him as he stands in front of Nagi’s locker. All he has to do is put it in. It’s easy, it’s simple, it’s something he can’t overthink.
Reo continues standing and staring at Nagi’s locker. Maybe, just maybe, this was a bad idea, though. Who cares what Chigiri thought anyway? Plus, these flowers weren’t even super fancy. Nagi deserved Reo’s best, and this certainly wasn’t it.
Yeah, Reo finally decides. This isn’t the way to do it.
Or, at least, that’s what Reo decides until he hears footsteps from around the corner and he yanks Nagi’s locker open, dumps the flowers inside, and slams it shut again.
Well, Reo thinks miserably. So much for that.
“Reo?”
Reo pastes on the most unbothered smile he can before turning to Nagi. “Yeah?”
Nagi blinks at him. “Don’t we have practice?”
“Not today,” Reo says with a shake of his head. It’s one of the few days he’s decided they can afford to take off from practice.
Nagi hums. “Okay.”
He seems unbothered by the fact that Reo is standing very conspicuously in front of his locker. Reo takes it as a small victory.
“I’ll bike you home?” Reo offers.
Nagi nods. Reo lets himself let out a sigh of relief.
That relief lasts for a few blissful moments until Nagi reaches behind Reo to open his locker and throw his textbooks inside before slamming it shut again. Reo barely manages to hide his wince. On the bright side, Nagi doesn’t seem to have noticed the flowers in his locker. Reo would really rather not be around to see his reaction when he does, in case it’s one of apathy or disgust. On the other side, those flowers are now most definitely squished. So are Reo’s hopes of any sort of reciprocation. Honestly, who would want to be confessed to with crushed flowers?
It’s only when Nagi tilts his head that Reo realizes he has been strangely staring at Nagi’s locker for a few moments now. He clears his throat and looks away.
“Let’s go?”
He’ll deal with the aftermath of his impulsive decisions for tomorrow.
Needless to say, Reo is antsy the next morning. He’d already texted Nagi to say he wouldn’t be able to pick him up from his dorm room because of Ba-Ya’s schedule, another blatant lie meant to spare Reo from the embarrassment of watching Nagi open his locker to a heartfelt confession in the form of a squished bouquet.
Reo can’t believe how terribly he’s doomed his shot at this. He’s never listening to Chigiri again.
Reo is staring out the window and tapping his fingers on his desk when Nagi enters, so it’s only when he hears the thump of Nagi’s bag against his desk that he realizes the other is next to him.
“Oh,” Reo says as normally as he can. “Hey, Nagi.”
Nagi gives him a noncommittal hum that is probably supposed to be a greeting in return. Reo notes with no small sense of trepidation that he has his textbooks with him—which means he’s definitely seen the flowers in his locker. Reo taps his fingers a little faster on his desk as he waits for Nagi to inevitably bring them up.
Any minute now.
…any minute now.
…any… minute now?
Well, Reo tells himself when their teacher arrives. Maybe Nagi’s just waiting until after class to bring it up.
Except then their class ends, and they go to their next classes, and they go to lunch, and Nagi still hasn’t said a word about the flowers.
Reo guesses that’s answer enough.
He’s lying if he doesn’t say he’s at least a little hurt by Nagi’s choice of nonanswer. Even if he wasn’t interested in Reo like that, surely Nagi considered him a good enough friend to at least be direct about it? To at least give him an answer, even if it wasn’t one Reo wanted to hear?
Apparently not, Reo thinks as he morosely picks at his lunch. Nagi’s silently playing a video game on his phone next to him, and Reo lets his gaze eventually travel to the field below them. There’s Rin and Shidou in a corner on the verge of tearing out each other’s hair, Kunigami and Chigiri eating lunch together under a tree, Isagi with a bouquet of white flowers, Niko and Aryu doing various poses—
Wait.
Isagi with a bouquet of white flowers?
Reo drops his chopsticks and leans forward. That can’t be real. There’s no way that it’s—
Isagi with a bouquet of white flowers. But that is, indeed, Isagi with a bouquet of very familiar, slightly crumpled white flowers.
There’s no way. There’s no way.
Reo glances at Nagi. Nagi has not looked up from his phone. Reo looks away.
He feels a bit strange. He feels like he’s a bit far removed from himself as he continues watching Isagi walk across the field, evidently pleased with the bouquet in his hands. Reo glances at Nagi again. Nagi’s still on his phone. Distantly, Reo feels his nails dig into the palm of his hand.
He feels a bit strange. But more than that, he feels a bit—
No. No. Reo shakes his head to stop his train of thought. He was jumping to conclusions. He didn’t know how the bouquet got to Isagi. Isagi’s locker was right next to Nagi’s, anyway, wasn’t it? And Reo had been in a rush—maybe he’d simply put it in the wrong locker. Yes, that had to be it. Or, maybe Nagi hadn’t realized the flowers were meant to be a confession, and he’d just pawned them off to the first person he saw.
Or, a flat voice rings in Reo’s mind. Nagi gave it to him.
Reo’s nails dig a little deeper into his skin.
But this was fine. Reo could still salvage this.
The ambiguity, Reo ultimately decides, must have come from the flowers themselves. He’d gotten white flowers on a whim last time, but maybe that was exactly why they ended up in Isagi’s hands, anyway. Nagi must have just thought the flowers to be a hassle rather than as a confession. Reo had to make sure there was no other possible way Nagi could interpret the bouquet this time around.
What better way to do that than to place an elegant bouquet of red roses in Nagi’s locker? And yes, this time Reo does make sure it’s in Nagi’s locker, and not in Isagi’s just below. He double checks it, and triple checks it, too.
There’s no way Nagi will mistake this for anything else. There’s no way Reo will mess this up again.
“Fuck you,” Reo seethes. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you—”
He interrupts himself with a harsh exhale. On the other end of the line, Chigiri is silent for a few moments.
“...what?”
“Fuck you,” Reo says again, making a sharp turn as he paces along his floor’s balcony. “This is all your fault, I can’t believe I’ve ever listened to a word you said—”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Chigiri interrupts. “You realize you opened this conversation by saying ‘fuck you’ five times in a row with no explanation, right? What happened to a good-old-fashioned ‘hello’?”
“Shut up,” Reo wails.
“You shut up!” Chigiri snaps. “Jesus, Reo, will you calm down and just say what happened?”
Reo stops pacing for long enough to glare at his phone. “I am calm.”
“I’m going to hang up.”
“Waitwaitwait—”
“What?”
Reo resumes pacing. “Nagi is in love with Isagi.”
“Oh,” Chigiri says. Then, “what?”
“And it’s all your fault,” Reo continues. “I could have lived in—I don’t know—blissful ignorance for a while longer, but noooo, you insisted that I just confess already, and that’s why I’m in this mess to begin with!”
“Can you—okay.” Chigiri’s silent for a few moments. “Can you maybe… start from the beginning?”
With an annoyed sigh, Reo begins recounting the events from the past few days. His pacing around the balcony speeds up the longer he continues to talk.
“So I tried again,” he’s telling Chigiri, waving his hands in the air even though he knows the other can’t see. “This time, with red roses—I mean, there’s no way to misinterpret that, right? Right?” Chigiri makes a vaguely unconvinced noise of agreement. “Then why the fuck did I see Isagi today with those same roses?”
“...are you sure they’re the same ones?”
“Of course I’m sure,” Reo cries. “It’s the size of Isagi’s head, I barely even managed to make it fit in Nagi’s locker—” He cuts himself off with a frustrated noise. “And now I just have to live with the fact that Nagi’s in love with Isagi. That’s great. Thanks a lot.”
“Reo?”
Reo sighs. “Yeah?”
“Nagi is not in love with Isagi.”
Reo frowns at his phone. “But I saw—”
“And second,” Chigiri interrupts immediately, “absolutely none of this is my fault. You’re just awful at this.”
Reo gapes at his phone. “You can’t—you can’t just say stuff like that, I’m—” Reo splutters for a few more moments. “You’re supposed to be on my side!”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Chigiri says dismissively. “Did you even put your name on the bouquet either time?”
“Of course not,” Reo says immediately. “Then, I might as well just hand it to him myself. That’s what I’m trying to avoid.”
The silence that follows is long enough for Reo to pull his phone away from his ear to make sure Chigiri hasn’t hung up.
“...Chigiri?”
“You,” Chigiri starts slowly, “are incredibly bad at this.”
“I am not—”
“In fact, I don’t even think anything you’ve done so far even counts as a confession,” Chigiri continues over Reo’s protest. “At this point, maybe you should just hand one to him yourself.”
“Why the fuck would I do that?” Reo demands. “So I can watch in real time as he hands it over to Isagi? Huh?”
“I’m telling you, that’s not what’s happening—”
“I’m telling you that it is!”
“I won’t believe you until you see the entire exchange in person.”
Reo stares at his phone. “Is my suffering funny to you?”
“Suffering,” Chigiri scoffs. “You’re doing this to yourself, Reo. I’ve said what I’ve said, it’s up to you to decide what you want to do about it.” He pauses. “And please, for the love of god, could you find anyone else to talk about this to?”
“I don’t talk about this that much—”
“I really am hanging up now. Bye.”
Somehow, once again, Reo has been goaded into action by Chigiri. He really does need to find someone else to complain to that would actually be sympathetic to his plight, but for now, Chigiri is all he’s got. He’s pretty sure he’s one more conversation away from being blocked, though.
Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, Reo thinks bitterly, before shaking his head. Chigiri would have no excuse not to listen to Reo bemoan his life choices if he has actual proof that Nagi’s been giving the bouquets to Isagi. That petty sense of satisfaction will be worth the embarrassment of hearing the words from Nagi himself. Probably. Hopefully. In all honesty, it’s already been embarrassing seeing how quickly Reo has crumpled in the face of rejection, even though it was a rejection he was fully expecting. This wasn’t very fitting of the super-elite Reo Mikage! Maybe after this final, definite rejection, Reo could finally move on.
Even Reo doesn’t believe himself when he thinks that.
Reo fidgets where he stands in front of Nagi’s locker, staring at the bouquet in his hands. It’s purple this time, which Reo had avoided previously because it had seemed too overt, but now—it wasn’t like he had anything left to lose. What was the best way to go about it? Damn, he should have prepared a speech or something. Or a letter. Or both. Maybe he can still come up with one on the spot—a speech, not a letter. Actually, didn’t he have some stationery in his locker? If he was quick, maybe he could—
“Reo?”
Reo startles and shoves the bouquet directly into Nagi’s arms. Nagi blinks at the flowers, then blinks at Reo. Reo opens his mouth to say something. Nothing comes out. Nagi’s gaze returns to the flowers.
“Oh,” he says after a few moments. “I get it.”
“You do?” Reo asks weakly.
Nagi hums, turning the bouquet over in his hands. “I’ll let you know what he says.” Nagi makes to turn, but Reo catches his sleeve and stops him.
“What who says?”
Nagi blinks. “Isagi?”
Reo lets out a strangled noise and drops his hand from Nagi’s sleeve. He was expecting this, he knew this would happen, but it’s still—it’s—
It hurts.
And just because it brings Reo a twisted sense of satisfaction from twisting the knife in further—
“You’ve… given all of them to him, haven’t you?”
Nagi blinks again. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Right,” Reo says faintly. “Right. Well, I hope you both are—you’re—”
I hope you both will be happy together, he wants to say. The words don’t manage to make their way out of Reo’s mouth. He presses his lips together and turns away. The silence is long enough that Reo thinks he should probably leave now, so he can find a bathroom to hide in and maybe cry in.
“Reo?”
“Yeah?” Luckily, Reo’s voice doesn’t waver.
“...why didn’t you just give it to him directly?”
Reo turns back. “Huh?”
Nagi’s still staring at the bouquet in his hand, his other hand on the back of his neck. “It’s… kind of a pain. Being a messenger.” His hand drops. “I’ll still do it, but—you know.”
Reo does not know. Reo has no idea what’s going on.
“Huh?” he asks louder. “A—a messenger?”
Nagi nods. “I’ve been doing it all week.” He wrinkles his nose. “It’s been kind of annoying.”
Reo’s head is spinning. He thinks he should probably sit down. He does not sit down. “Nagi,” he starts slowly. “Who do you think has been giving you bouquets all week?”
“I don’t know about the first one,” Nagi says with a shrug. “I think it was probably Bachira. He always forgets where Isagi’s locker is. And the second one was probably from Barou.”
“From Barou,” Reo repeats.
Nagi shrugs again. “Didn’t he dye his hair red for Isagi or something? I guess that’s their thing.” Reo makes a vaguely breathless noise. Nagi doesn’t seem to notice. “I didn’t know Reo liked Isagi, too.”
“No,” Reo blurts out. “No, I don’t, I—” Reo gestures wildly at the bouquet in Nagi’s hand. “It’s for you, Nagi.”
“To give to Isagi,” Nagi finishes. Reo shakes his head so fast that his vision blurs.
“No, no, it’s—it’s for you. It’s just for you. They’re all for you.”
Nagi’s expression does something strange. “All of them?” He finally looks up at Reo. “How do you…” He trails off. “Were they all from you?”
Reo lets out a helpless laugh. “Yeah.”
“...you didn’t accidentally put them in my locker?”
Reo shakes his head.
“Oh,” Nagi says. His brows furrow slightly. “Why?”
“Why?” Reo repeats incredulously. “You can’t tell?”
“I don’t think I’ve been doing that well at practice recently,” Nagi mutters quietly.
“I’m in love with you,” Reo blurts out.
“Oh,” Nagi says again. He blinks. “Really?”
“I’ve—I’ve spent this entire week trying to confess to you, I’m—” Reo abruptly cuts himself off when he realizes what he’s saying. This is possibly the most embarrassing situation Reo has ever been in.
“Cool,” Nagi says. “Me too.”
“What,” Reo croaks out.
“I’m also in love with you,” Nagi says, like that makes any more sense. Reo gapes at him for a few moments. Nagi goes back to inspecting his bouquet. “I guess that means I can keep this. Yay.” He plays with one of the petals. “Now Choki can have some company.”
“Are you serious?”
“Well, yeah,” Nagi hums. “Choki’s been all alone this entire—”
“No, no, the—the part before that. You’re—” Reo can’t even get himself to repeat it. He swallows and tries again. “You’re in love with me?”
“Yeah,” Nagi says simply. “You couldn’t tell?”
Reo’s mouth flaps open and closed a few times. “You—you were giving bouquets to Isagi every day for a week—!”
“Oh,” Nagi says. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”
“It’s…” Reo trails off. “Nagi, you really… never even considered that the flowers could be for you?”
Nagi shrugs. “I didn’t think anyone would put in the time or effort to do something like that for someone as uninteresting as me.”
Reo grabs Nagi’s hands. “You can’t say that.” Nagi blinks. “I only like cool and interesting guys, and—” Reo coughs. His face is burning, but he refuses to tear his eyes away from Nagi’s. “I only like cool and interesting guys, and I like you. Okay?”
Nagi hums, his expression turning a bit pleased. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Reo repeats with a squeeze of Nagi’s hands. “And—and I’ll buy you as many flowers as you want to prove it to you. Okay?”
Nagi’s response is a quick press of his lips against Reo’s. It’s so fleeting that Reo barely has time to react, leaving him gaping at Nagi.
“Sorry,” Nagi says, almost shyly. Reo faintly wonders if he’s dreaming. “I didn’t ask if—”
Reo grabs Nagi’s face and pulls him forward in what is more of a collision than a kiss. Nagi makes a noise of surprise, but it takes only a few moments before he’s cupping Reo’s face and leaning in. Reo can’t help his giddy grin as his hand goes to curl a lock of Nagi’s hair at the back of his neck, and the smile lasts even when he finally, reluctantly pulls away. Nagi is all but pressing him against his locker, and—
“Oh, shit,” Reo says. “We squished the bouquet.”
“That’s okay,” Nagi hums. “Reo’s nicer to look at anyway, anyway.”
“You’re—” Reo buries his face in the crook of Nagi’s neck. “Sorry,” he murmurs. “I’ll get you a bouquet that’s not squished one of these days.”
“Okay,” Nagi says. “A wedding bouquet?”
Reo pulls back. “That’s… moving a little fast, no?” Nagi only shrugs. Reo laughs. “Okay, treasure. I’ll think about it.”
“Yay,” Nagi cheers quietly.
Alright, Reo decides. Maybe Chigiri’s suggestion wasn’t so bad after all.