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Nagisa didn’t want to admit it sometimes, in fact, most of the time he didn’t want to admit it, but when his house was empty, it wasn’t just empty. It was as though all of the life was sucked from it, and though his sisters could be quite the handful, they usually did keep him from losing his mind in boredom. But he also missed his friends and goofing around at the pool, too!
There were no doubts in anyone’s minds, not even his own that he sought affection and praise from them. He wanted people to tell him that he had done a good job, just as he had done for them. But when he was laying at home by himself, there was no one around to keep him entertained!
Okay maybe that was an over complicated way to describe his current loneliness. He really just wanted to hang out with his friends and on top of that he was bored. And when Nagisa was bored, nothing good came of it! Or at least… That was what his mom used to tell him when he was younger. He wasn’t really sure if that still held true or not…
Bzzzzzt!
Nagisa came to the sudden realization that his tie was smacking him in the face and that he had somehow managed to wiggle himself off over the edge of the bed when the sound of his doorbell ringing caught his attention.
Wait.. why was he still in his school uniform anyway? Normally he wouldn’t be, but since the swimming season was over, he had found a day to come directly home, and took advantage of it. But he forgot how uneventful things could be when it was just him. He certainly forgot how lonely it was…
Whoops! He had spaced out and suddenly whoever it was that was ringing the doorbell was now knocking. Nagisa slid up off of his bed and made a beeline to the front door.
"I’m coming, I’m comiiing!" The blonde opened the door the sight of a very familiar, yet frustrated face.
"Nagisa! It took you approximately two minutes and thirty seconds to get to the door! You shouldn’t leave your good friends standing in the doorway for so long!"
"I’m sorry, little Rei! I was thinking about things~" Nagisa grinned from ear to ear and noticed a pile of old VHSes in his friend’s arms. In fact there were so many, Rei could hardly carry them all by himself, "Whoa! That is a lot of movies! How did you ring the doorbell like that?!"
Rei didn’t answer his question, instead only making an attempt to step up into the house, but before Nagisa could let out a little word of warning, Rei’s left foot caught a hold of the doorway and he tumbled onto the ground. Nagisa sidestepped as both his friend and his large pile of VHSes went scattering across the floor of Nagisa’s home.
"Rei! You ought to be more careful!" Nagisa scolded, bending down to help him onto his feet again, "You could’ve broken all your old movies!"
The taller boy stumbled up, with a soft sigh, using Nagisa’s shoulder for support.
"Did you come to be with me, little Rei?!"
Rei pushed up his glasses, and began to gather the movies, staking them on the table.
"Yes." He nodded, glancing up as Nagisa had already gathered a large pile for himself, "I found all these videos at an old store for 60 yen a piece and I thought we could watch them together and improve our figures!"
A deep seated grin spread across Rei’s face suddenly, as if his plan was the most brilliant idea in the world.
All Nagisa was thinking was how he recovered from that fall with such ease. It was both a combination of experience and pure gracefullness. Or was it ungracefulness?
He quickly shook those thoughts away, “Yeah! We can do that! Let’s watch them together!”
Rei snickered lightly.
"That was my plan, after all. Pretty brilliant, don’t you think?"
"Yeah! I was really bored, but why didn’t you invite Haru and Mako and Gou and Miss Ama?"
Rei almost dropped the videos he was holding in embarrassment. (Again.)
"W-well I thought… We could just watch them together… Just… Me and you? No Haru.."
"Whaaaaa? But I love Haru!"
Rei looked defeated, but he plucked up his phone regardless and dropped everyone a message. Haru, Gou, Mako, and Miss Amakata as well, because somehow Nagisa had gotten their teacher’s phone number.
And within a few moments, the whole group was sitting in Nagisa’s bedroom, with the exception of Miss Ama who had sent Rei back a text message wondering how the boy had gotten her number and how this was kind of inappropriate.
But regardless of that, the group was sitting close together on the floor of Nagisa’s bedroom, and he quickly pulled out his family’s dusty VCR and together they watched video after video of old swimming trials.
Rei was devastated. His plan had completely crumbled. Haru didn’t seem to be all that interested, and Gou and Mako were idly chattering about something, of which from as far Rei could tell, was brought about by Nagisa’s restlessness.
Rei was the only one, the only one who was watching the old videos intently, his legs pulled to his chest, his head hung low.
Nagisa suddenly felt a little bad.
While he had been off, excited to have everyone here, he hadn’t really thought about how Rei felt. But wasn’t it fun to have everyone together?
Okay, maybe that wasn’t the problem.
Nagisa pursed his eyebrows together, before scooting in next to Rei, and laying his own body against the other’s, and resting his head on top of his shoulder.
"Hey Rei, do you want to get ice cream later?"
"Hmm?"
Rei looked over at him, and Nagisa smiled brightly.
"Just you and me, alright?"