Chapter Text
Nakamura felt like the luckiest guy on the planet sitting there eating lunch with Hirose in one of the empty classrooms on the top floor of the school.
Hirose had been feeling a little tired after class and had told Nakamura he wanted to eat lunch together somewhere further away from everyone else.
When he did, Nakamura, of course, readily agreed.
The fact that he and Hirose now regularly ate lunch together at school and also had begun to hang out outside of school almost every other week… Nakamura considered that a monumental blessing in and of itself!
But eating lunch together with Hirose in a more private space away from others?
That hardly ever happened, and so Nakamura had accepted the rare opportunity to do this with much enthusiasm.
It had also warmed his heart that although Hirose had expressed that he was feeling tired - instead of choosing to eat lunch all by himself somewhere, he had chosen to ask Nakamura to still eat lunch with him but just away from the loudness and bustle of the rest of the school.
Nakamura had looked at Hirose and asked
“If you’re tired, wouldn’t you prefer eating lunch alone today? Like, as a way to decompress?”
And Hirose had replied
“Well, I’m tired, but when it comes to eating lunch with you or talking to you alone... I don’t know.
I find that it actually helps me feel less tired, whenever I am feeling tired.”
So now, here they were.
Eating lunch together alone, sitting cross-legged on the ground, side-by-side, in an empty classroom on the top floor of the school.
As they ate their lunches and chatted in that empty classroom, Nakamura was delighted to see Hirose becoming more energized with every passing minute, in real time.
Whatever sense of fatigue seemed to have been bogging him down 10 minutes earlier appeared to no longer be a weight he was carrying.
He was now cheerfully and very animatedly telling Nakamura about the latest addition of his favorite manga series - a manga series that Nakamura had taken a liking to himself after reading it shortly after Hirose first brought it up during one of their shared walks back home from school.
[This is wonderful], Nakamura thinks to himself.
[I’m so happy that spending time with Hirose in this way really does seem to help him - it makes him feel better and appears to give him more energy to get through the day.
And ME. Getting to spend time with HIM. Like this. Ahhhh, I’m so happy I could die!!]
It is while Hirose is going on about another aspect of his favorite manga that Nakamura begins daydreaming a romantic scenario involving him and Hirose in this empty classroom where they are eating lunch together (daydreaming up romantic scenes involving the two of them was still very much a habit Nakamura could not seem to shake even as their friendship grew stronger with almost every passing day. Some habits just refuse to die!).
He daydreams of noticing a piece of dust in Hirose’s light honey brown hair.
In his daydream he exclaims
“Oh - Hirose. Something got in your hair. Let me get out.”
He daydreams of Hirose replying
“Oh. Really?” and slowly moving his hand up towards his head.
In his daydream, Nakamura says
“Err- yes. Don’t worry I’ll get it out for you. So, no need to try to get it out yourself” in response;
and reaches out his left hand to brush out the piece of debris that has lodged itself in Hirose’s hair.
In the daydream, Hirose smiles, and gives him a slight nod. He then tilts his head down a little so Nakamura can get the piece of dust from his hair.
And so, Nakamura gets to lightly run his fingers through Hirose's soft brown hair in order to remove the piece of dust from it, and once he successfully removes it; he brings his left hand down to rest gently on Hirose’s right cheek and tells him with a voice filled with deep warmth and tenderness:
“There. I got it.”
And this gentle gesture and the tenderness of Nakamura’s voice cause Hirose’s eyes to widen in surprise and his cheeks to take on a lovely rosy, pink color.
He manages to stutter “O-oh ah, th-th-thanks?”
And Nakamura…
Oh, Nakamura.
Nakamura is so absolutely enamored by how cute Hirose looks in that instant; that he leans forward to kiss Hirose square on the lips without even the slightest blip of hesitation.
And kiss him, he does.
Nakamura lips make contact with Hirose’s.
And the warmth and softness of Hirose’s lips overwhelm Nakamura in the best possible way.
He presses his lips even deeper into Hirose’s to savor even more of the warmth and softness radiating from them.
[Unbelievable], Nakamura thinks.
[Amazing. This feels so real! So… beautifully, remarkably real!]
Nakamura had had quite a few daydreams of kissing Hirose before.
But in those daydreams, the kisses never felt this realistic.
Hirose’s lips never felt this real against his.
But in this daydream? The kiss felt as real as if he were really, truly, kissing him in real-life!
That’s how gloriously real this kiss with this imaginary Hirose felt.
Actually …
Now that Nakamura thought about it… how real this kiss felt was honestly a bit strange.
In fact, … It was sort of alarming.
A kiss with an imaginary version of his crush and best friend should NOT feel this real.
And yet… this kiss…
These lips his lips were planted on… yeah.
They felt very, very real.
And then it occurs to Nakamura that maybe, the reason why this kiss feels so real - is because this kiss is in fact, REAL.
It occurs to Nakamura that the person he is currently kissing right now … is NOT just a figment of his wild imagination.
The gears of Nakamura’s head begin turning at hyper speed.
Nakamura recalls that this daydream started while he was eating lunch in an empty classroom with Hirose - in real-life.
It is still lunch.
And they have not left the classroom.
Only he and Hirose are in this classroom.
So, the person he is kissing for real at this particular moment in time is—
THE REAL HIROSE???!!
With a start, Nakamura immediately opens his eyes, breaks off the kiss, scuttles 3 paces back with his arms and legs (much like a crab) from where he had been (knocking over what little of his lunch he had not eaten from his bento box in the process) and - with a growing sense of panic and terror filling his heart … looks over to see the very real, not at all imaginary Hirose Aki.
And this Hirose is looking at him - with his hazel brown eyes as wide as saucers, mouth slightly agape, and cheeks and ears a brilliant shade of crimson.
The dude is in every sense of the word, looking like an incredibly shocked and flustered mess.
Oh … what Nakamura wouldn’t give for the floor to open up below him and swallow him whole at this very moment!
[WHAT HAVE I DONE?]
Nakamura internally screams to himself,
[WHAT. HAVE. I. DONE???!!!]