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They walked home (well, to Rei’s home, but what was the difference?) together, still smelling of chlorine.
“My parents aren’t home yet.” Rei said as he opened his front door. “So…”
Nagisa rushed up the stairs, laughing as Rei called after him.
“Nagisa! Don’t run!”
Rei was at the bottom of the stairs looking all ruffled, and it made Nagisa feel bolder somehow. He laughed, hoping Rei could hear it.
“I’m going in your room!” He said, hearing Rei sigh as he started up the stairs.
Nagisa flung himself onto Rei’s bed out of habit, stretching himself out wide across his sheets.
“You’ll hurt yourself if you insist on running in my house.”
Nagisa sat up at the sound of Rei’s voice, and smiled widely at his friend’s half irritated/half concerned expression.
“So uninviting.” He teased as Rei put away his school things. “With all your rules. “Don’t run in the house Nagisa. Don’t lay on my bed when you still smell like the pool Nagisa.
Don’t play with that, it’s an antique, Nagisa.” Bleh.”
“…I don’t think I’m being unreasonable.”
“You totally are.” He said, flopping onto his belly and propping his chin up on his hands. “So stern, Rei-chan.”
For a moment, Rei looked nervous, and Nagisa wondered if he went too far without noticing.
“Does the rest of the swim club say that about me too?”
His voice took on an uneasy edge, reminding Nagisa of the work he put into being captain and how much the others' opinions mattered to him.
“Of course not. Your swimmers adore you, captain. They say, “Oh that Rei-chan, he’s so cool.”
He was stretching their words a little, but it was worth it to see Rei flush up to his ears.
“And so smart, and handsome…”
Rei lunged forward and clamped a hand over his mouth, effectively shutting him up. Nagisa considered licking it.
“Cut it out! Jeez…”
He pulled his hand away, baring Nagisa’s grin to him.
“I doubt they call me ‘Rei-chan.’”
“They don’t.” Nagisa pursed his lips in displeasure. “Even though I said they should.”
“D-don’t tell people to call me that!”
Rei looked absolutely mortified. Nagisa patted him on the shoulder and dropped his voice to a soothing murmur.
“There there…”
“Don’t ‘there there’ me.” Rei muttered, adjusting his glasses.
“Your swimmers love you, don’t worry.”
“They aren’t my swimmers.” Rei said, starting to rummage through his dresser drawers. “If anything they’re ours. You work just as hard as I do, maybe even harder.”
Nagisa didn’t know what to say to that. He wasn’t even sure if he was capable of speech with his throat closed so tight. Rei, across the room and completely oblivious, made a frustrated noise and shut his drawer with more aggression than necessary.
“It seems like I’m missing a sweater.” He said with his pointer finger resting across his chin. “That’s unusual.”
“Oh!” Nagisa said, snapping out of his daze. He hopped off the bed to get the book bag he had thrown to the opposite wall, unzipping the largest pocket.
“This one?” He said, holding out a rumpled white sweater that smelled faintly of chlorine. “The ‘butter’ one right?”
Rei looked at him with a confused expression, which Nagisa took as an invitation to toss the sweater to him. Rei managed to catch it before it hit him in the face.
“When did you get this?”
“Last time I slept over. Remember, I was saying how I thought it was neat so you let me borrow it?”
“But the last time you slept over was nearly a week ago.” Rei said, wrinkling his nose at the rumpled sweater. He dropped it into his clothes hamper with such delicacy that Nagisa
almost laughed.
“I just forgot to give it to you.” Really he had been using it as a pajama top for the last week, but he wasn’t going to tell Rei that, he’d probably pass out. Rei cringed as he leapt
back on to the bed. “It was really long on me.”
“Well we are very different sizes.”
“Rei-chan is so tall.” Nagisa drawled, hanging his head over the side of the bed. Rei was sitting on the floor, and Nagisa stuck his tongue out at him for not coming up on the bed
to sit with him. “I should grow so then I can steal Rei-chan’s clothes.”
He meant it to be teasing, but Rei cocked his head at him like a confused puppy.
“What do you mean? You’re fine as you are now.”
That time Rei didn’t miss the blood rushing to his cheeks.
“Nagisa?” He sounded worried, but Nagisa could only make a choked noise as he covered his face. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” He said from under his hands.
You’re fine as you are now, Nagisa.
You’re perfect just the way you are.
He was stretching things again.
“You aren’t crying are you?”
Rei sounded acutely horrified, and Nagisa shook his head violently.
“No no no no no it’s nothing, forget about it.”
He still looked worried, but Nagisa could live with it if it meant Rei didn’t have to see his face.
“Alright.”
Rei’s hair was still drying from swim practice and it stuck up in all directions no matter how many times he tried to smooth it down. He had a worried furrow in his brow and a lost look in his eyes and Nagisa so wanted to kiss him.
Nagisa made a little noise like a shriek and Rei’s spiky head shot up.
“Are you sick?” He said, scrambling onto the bed. “Do you need to go home?”
“I’m fine, honest.”
Rei’s hands hovered in the air by his sides like he didn’t know what to do with them.
Nagisa so wanted to kiss him.
“If something’s wrong, you should tell me. You don’t have to be here if you don’t feel well.”
“Well now I feel like you’re trying to get rid of me.” His teasing didn’t sound convincing to his own ears, but Rei fell for it, getting that honest look in his eyes that never failed to make Nagisa a little nervous.
“Of course not! I don’t want you to leave. Even if you run up the stairs and hog my bed, I still want you here.”
Well, Nagisa had no one to blame but himself.
“Oh my God.” He groaned. “Get away from me.” Rei looked at him like he had grown a third head. “No wait, don’t.”
"Don’t…Don’t what?” Rei’s eyes were wide and confused behind his glasses; Nagisa so wanted to kiss him.
“Stay here.” Nagisa said.
“Don’t stay here?”
Nagisa fought the urge to pound his fists against the bed, but only barely.
“No, just…”
“I really don’t understand what you’re-”
Nagisa grabbed at him (and probably would’ve taken his eye out if not for his glasses) and shoved their lips together so forcefully it actually hurt them.
Rei jumped back with a yip, as though Nagisa had bitten him, and Nagisa stared down at his knees and fought the ridiculous urge to cry.
“H-hey.”
A hand against his cheek forced his head back up.
Rei had that look on his face, that soft one Nagisa sometimes caught him with when it was just the two of them.
“Settle down, okay?”
Nagisa opened his mouth to say something obnoxious, but Rei seemed to have anticipated it because he’d pressed their lips together softly and really, it was a million times better than a hand over his mouth.
Whenever Nagisa imagined kissing Rei (and he did this often) he pictured himself catching him off guard with a flirtatious comment and a sneaky kiss, and Rei flushing red as he struggled to keep up with him.
In real life Rei dragged the hand on Nagisa’s cheek down to his neck and he couldn’t breathe.
Rei pulled away much too quickly for Nagisa’s taste.
“Ah.” Rei said, letting his hand slide to Nagisa’s shoulder. “Was that okay?”
Nagisa nodded. He couldn’t trust himself to speak.
“Good.”
He looked so sure of himself that for a moment, Nagisa only stared at him.
“…I didn’t know you had it in you.”
Rei went from suave to sputtering in record time.
“Rei-chan is so smooth.” Nagisa crooned, crawling all over him when Rei face planted on the bed.
“Stop it.” He groaned, with his glasses smooshed against his face. “You kissed me first after all.”
“I guess I did.” Nagisa smiled at himself.
“You guess you did. Well, why did you?”
Nagisa put a hand on his cheek to turn his face back towards him, but Rei flinched like he was expecting to be pushed into the mattress and smothered.
“I guess I like you.”
Nagisa gave himself a mental pat on the back for being able to tease when he felt like he was close to passing out himself.
“You guess.” Rei sounded like he was choking on something, and Nagisa needed to see his face, so he tugged at his shoulders until Rei gave in to him and sat up. The look on his face was better than Nagisa could have imagined.
“…And you like me too?” He pressed, laughing in delight as some of the embarrassment fell from Rei’s expression.
“And I like you too.”
As a reward, Nagisa shuffled into his lap and looped his arms around his neck. Rei laughed, a little breathlessly, and forget food and sleep, Nagisa could live off of Rei’s laughter alone.
“So if we’re dating now, does that mean you’ll walk me home?” Nagisa said, still smiling into his neck.
“I do that anyway though?”
“And let me borrow your clothes?”
“I do that anyway!”
“And hold my hand?”
“Are you’ll keep teasing me I suppose?” Rei’s words were grumpy but his voice was warm. Nagisa kissed at his temple with a giggle.
“Yup!” He said, pulling back to bump their noses together. Rei went a bit cross-eyed.
“You’ll just have to love me teasing and all.”
Rei rolled his eyes at him and Nagisa planted a wet kiss on his cheek in retaliation.
“Obviously.” Rei said, grimacing as he wiped at his cheek.
“I do that anyway.”
Nagisa had to kiss him to keep from screaming.