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Logically, Rei knows when he's being ridiculous.
He's a teenager and he's read about what that means: hormones in constant flux, emotions running rampant, irrationality and sensitivity ruling where reason and sensibility should. He shouldn't be so upset about Rin--even though he is horrible, and Rei has been struggling since day one to figure out why the swim club is so infatuated with him--but even so, Rei fixates. A bitter obsession with Rin has been growing in him since before the night of the festival, and it just keeps growing, even after Haruka says he wants to keep swimming relay with them, even after they tell Rei about their swimming history.
Maybe it's because logically, he also knows that no matter how much of a jerk Rin might be, Rei is still the one who doesn't belong in the swim club. That's the thought that really stings, and what makes him act so embarrassingly volatile in front of all the others--he wishes he could turn it off but it keeps bubbling to the surface every time he opens his mouth, ugly and uncontrollable. It's worse when he's with Nagisa, for some reason; Nagisa perplexes Rei in the best of times, but his continual Rin-chans, the way he shrugs off everything Rin does and says with a dismissive tone of Well that's just his way, are both dumbfounding and infuriating.
Which is probably what makes Rei explode, like a giant tantrum-throwing child, on the train platform. Nagisa blinks up at him after, and Rei can feel the flush creeping up his neck, mortification already setting in. Why can't he control this?
"Rei-chan," Nagisa says, not upset exactly, but obviously confused.
"Sorry." Rei sits back down from his eruption and turns away from Nagisa's questioning stare, but he's still angry, no matter where he looks. His eyes flit from the vending machines to the train tracks to his feet before Nagisa speaks again.
"I didn't realize Rin-chan bothered you so much," he says.
Rei's hands curl into fists at his sides. "See, that's exactly--you're still calling him 'Rin-chan'! After everything!"
"But he's--" Nagisa starts, then cuts off with an "Oh!" so suddenly that Rei looks up.
"You're jealous," Nagisa says wonderingly.
The flush on Rei's neck burns hotter now, and higher, up to his cheeks. "That's not--" he stammers.
"No, it is!" Nagisa is gaping it him now, like Rei is a specimen in a lab; it's scrutinizing to the point that Rei twitches. "You think we'd rather have Rin-chan on the team than you."
The words hang there for a few moments, and whatever ill-thought out, emotional retort Rei was about to make dies before it even reaches his tongue. He deflates with a sigh and focuses on his shoes again. Hearing it said out loud makes denying it seem so pointless.
"Rei-chan," Nagisa says sympathetically. He slides over so he's in the seat next to Rei, jostling him with a shoulder bump. "We love having you on the team with us!"
"Only because you couldn't find anyone else," Rei grumbles, fully aware his pout is actually audible in the way he speaks. Being fifteen is so embarrassing. "Only because he wasn't around."
Nagisa doesn't immediately respond with a denial, and that causes Rei's stomach to knot up unpleasantly, wondering if what he already knew has just been confirmed true. Nagisa is quiet for so long, in fact, that Rei finally has to glance sideways just to see what he's doing. Naturally, Nagisa is staring at him, but instead of looking awkward or pitying, his brow is furrowed tightly, like he's considering something very, very hard.
"What," Rei says sharply. Nagisa leans in close--uncomfortably close--and Rei tries to pull away, but Nagisa stops him with a sticky ice cream-stained hand to the shoulder and kisses him with equally sticky ice cream-stained lips. Just once on the cheek, the tiniest little peck imaginable, before pulling back.
Rei can't move. He sits cold and rigid as a corpse as Nagisa smiles benignly and switches his ice cream from one hand to the other, taking one final lick before placing the stick in Rei's hand, wrapping Rei's fingers around it when they don't move of their own accord.
"I like you best, Rei-chan," Nagisa says sweetly. Rei's brain is scarcely functioning but he does note, through a haze of blood- and oxygen-deprived observation, that Nagisa looks a little pinker than usual, too, and his hands aren't entirely steady when they brush Rei's over the ice cream stick. "And we're all happy to have you on the team. Nobody would trade you for anyone, especially not Rin-chan."
The impending lights of their train's arrival provide a satisfactory enough distraction that Rei doesn't have to respond; he should, surely, but his head feels as sticky as his hand (and shoulder, and cheek) and he's grateful for any excuse not to try and formulate words. Nagisa stands first, raising eyebrows at Rei when he doesn't immediately follow, so Rei jerks to his feet and stumbles into the car and tries very hard for the rest of the ride not to think about how well the fluorescent lighting of the train must be illuminating his blush.
They're silent all the way to Nagisa's stop. Then the train is suddenly grinding to a halt and Nagisa is standing to take his place in front of the door and saying goodbye and Rei still hasn't spoken. Desperately, he runs through a catalog of things he could say before the doors open--he has to get something out--and gets as far as opening his mouth when the ice cream bar, forgotten but still clenched in his hand, collapses off the stick and onto his forearm. He curses and has to one-handedly dig through his bag for tissues to clean up the mess.
"You okay?" Nagisa asks. Rei can only see his feet, but they turn back in Rei's direction.
"Did you mean it?" Rei blurts.
There's a pause in which Rei--bravely, he thinks--forces himself to meet Nagisa's gaze, even as he unceremoniously mops pink mess off his shirt. Nagisa looks surprised for a moment, but surprise shifts quickly into a smile--warm and genuine, all the way up to his eyes.
"Of course," Nagisa says, and then the doors open and he has to step onto the platform. Even though he's never felt more mortified in his life, Rei feels the corners of his mouth start to perk up, too. "Bye, Rei-chan!"
Rei realizes belatedly he should have specified what he meant by "it," exactly, but then, he's not entirely sure he knows. He stuffs the ice cream stick and wad of soiled tissues into a plastic bag he keeps for just such emergencies and is in the process of rinsing his hands with water from his bottle when he feels his phone vibrate.
and just so you know, I've never ever kissed Rin-chan!
Nagisa's message is complete with a string of heart-eyed emoticons that Rei can only look at for half a second before he has to pocket the phone again and close his eyes out of sheer humiliation. He's grinning now, though--he can't help it--and by the time his stop arrives he's composed an adequate response in his head that he quickly keys back on his walk across the platform.
Good is the first word, and typing that alone is so nerve-wracking that he has to will his thumbs to stay steady. Then, I might not be at practice tomorrow. I have something to do.
Rei then puts his phone away before he has an accident--he's already almost walked into two people on his way toward the exit. He's still feeling a little volatile, but somehow the adrenaline pumping through his veins feels like it's channeling that in a much more productive direction; all that anger is starting to feel a little more like protectiveness, and maybe he has a right to feel protective of this team.
His phone buzzes again, and Rei is only a little surprised by Nagisa's reply:
say hi to Rin-chan for me!
He doesn't respond, but he feels almost recklessly brave all of a sudden. Just because he can, he runs all the way home, and he even lets himself look at Nagisa's emoticons one more time before bed.
He falls asleep still holding his phone, and somehow when he wakes up it doesn't feel ridiculous at all.