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The first day Karma realised he had a crush on Nagisa was an ordinary one.
Well, as ordinary as a day in the life of an assassin could be, anyway.
Karma frowned when he realised he was spending a little too much time admiring Nagisa’s eyes as they sparkled up at him, talking about their newest fixation excitedly.
He snorted when he realised he was watching Nagisa’s feet move in a poisonous dance in a fight that most adults couldn’t handle.
Karma was holding his head in his hands as he realised that he had a crush.
Now, Karma wasn’t socially inept by any definition, but he was very bad at expressing emotion. He was fiery, fierce, and he had scared many people. Just by staring at them a little too hard.
So he knew, Karma knew, that he wasn’t going to be able to resolve these feelings with a conversation. If Nagisa didn’t end up liking him back, Karma wouldn’t be able to talk himself back into a simple friendship.
Any connection they had made would be ruined.
And that wasn’t to say that he thought Nagisa would just up and abandon him, no, but it did mean that Karma had to be very, very careful.
So, like any logical, completely sane, rational person would do. Karma decided that this crush should remain a secret. A secret that he would never revisit.
How hard would it be to just… not have a crush? Surely it couldn’t be that difficult.
___________
Karma cursed his younger, more inexperienced, stupid self. Sure he had been confident that he could fight feelings only three days ago but now? Now he was sure that he jinxed himself.
Every single time they were in class together, Karma found his eyes drifting towards Nagisa. Every single time they were training together, Karma’s gaze fought to stay fixated on him.
Every single time they were in any area together Karma’s thoughts were overtaken by the blue haired boy.
Seriously, it was getting old. Not to mention the fact that he clearly had problems if the first thing he thought about when something went wrong was how Nagisa was doing.
It was affecting everything he did!
Karma needed to get these feelings as far away as possible right now.
So he went to the best love guru he knew. Google.
Okay sure, maybe Korosensei would’ve been a good person to ask, they were hyperfixated on romance novels and Karma was pretty sure they had a romantic relationship at some point in their life.
But he was not dealing with that too big octopus if he had the choice.
So he didn’t.
By the end of his late night google spree Karma was armed with eyebags and a hefty amount of information. Apparently crushes couldn’t just go away, in fact it was more likely that the people involved would just get together.
Karma debated just asking Nagisa out for a solid minute.
Then he fell back on the only foolproof method that he knew. Avoidance.
Instead of matching up their schedules, hanging out during breaks, and meeting up outside of school. Karma would be busy.
He needed excuses, however, and he wasn’t quite sure where he should look, should he even try to find one? Was this much avoidance even necessary?
He cleared his head of those thoughts and searched everywhere for valid excuses to miss hangouts with Nagisa. He was sure that it would just pop out.
He turned his gaze to the left, slightly tilted up, trying to recall anything that would help him achieve his goal.
A poster sat innocently on the wall.
He glared at it.
He ended up joining a club for a subject he had no interest in. He wasn’t being mean to the people who did like gardening, but it just wasn’t his thing.
Was he really going this far to avoid a discussion with Nagisa about his feelings? Horticulture over his best friend?
Yes. Yes he was.
Okay, so Karma wasn’t the best with emotions, so he was a little awkward when it came to social interaction. He just couldn’t believe that he was joining a gardening club.
If only this was hatred, then he could get this over with no problem. It just had to be romantic feelings.
He wiped the dirt off of his face with his forearm, carefully avoiding touching skin with any part of the dirty glove. Apparently he was late to the club, so he wasn’t taught as much as the others.
That meant that he would help with replanting the less needed plants in case he accidentally killed something. Or that was what he heard when they explained that he would be growing the non edible plants.
What were they even planting?
He had asked that question and he got what he assumed was a load of gibberish? An ‘echeveria colorata’ that had to be made up.
He hissed as he accidentally brushed against another plant, a plant that had thorns.
Why was he working next to a plant with thorns? If he asked to move the plant and its little orange pot to a place where he wouldn’t get pricked every three seconds would they let him?
Karma was too prideful to ask.
In the end, he came out of that club with way too many pricks on his arms and a new loathing for anything inedible and green. A truly deadly combination.
But at least he managed to avoid Nagisa that day, and the day after that, and the day after that.
He avoided talking to Nagisa during class time and would run off to horticulture as soon as he got the chance.
When Nagisa expressed his surprise at Karma’s interest, he only laughed and said that planting was one of the more relaxing hobbies that he liked to do in his free time.
It hurt his ego to say that he was actually beginning to enjoy the activity.
Things were looking up.
_____________
“Karma, are you avoiding me? If so, what did I do wrong?” Nagisa said it calmly but his nervousness was written all over his face. Karma awkwardly looked away as Nagisa levelled him with a stare riddled with scrutiny.
“I’m not avoiding you, I just have this new hobby that I really enjoy.” is what Karma wanted to say, what he should’ve said, what would’ve been the most logical thing to say.
Karma could only shove his hands into his pockets and grimace at the fact that he was still hopelessly in love.
He couldn’t very well just admit it could he? It could ruin their friendship, make Nagisa avoid him. It could ruin the perfect equilibrium they had just gotten back.
It could destroy what Karma had tried so hard to fix the first time.
But wasn’t he already destroying it? Wasn’t he already avoiding Nagisa for no reason? If all went wrong he could just quit horticulture.
That would take out his frustrations in a visible way and calm him down.
(He ignored the fact that he was actually beginning to think that the club was relaxing.)
He spent a long moment debating the pros and cons of each action. He knew Nagisa would be understanding if he did actually use his club as an excuse, but was this smoke and mirrors facade really worth it?
Should he just rip off the bandaid, tell his best friend something that could obliterate what they had only just managed to salvage.
Nagisa didn’t need to deal with his issues, with his complicated feelings.
But the friendship would be destroyed anyway if he kept this up.
Not to mention that he had used the evasion, many times by this point. But Nagisa was full-on confronting him now. He was being untrustworthy and he knew that.
“Yes. I am avoiding you. But you didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just… I love you.”
He blushed as he said it, purposefully avoiding any eye contact. He couldn’t see Nagisa’s reaction.
“Karma.”
He prepared himself for the rejection.
“I love you too.”
And Karma buried his face in his arms, but he was pretty sure that Nagisa was chuckling at the shade of red his face had turned.
It wasn’t funny. Shut up Nagisa.