Ai and your choice with: touching foreheads after their first kiss.
This turned out so much longer than I expected, because your little shit tried to steal the show.
Anyway, here we go, two characters forcibly extracted from the groupchat as usual, let Rei say fuck agenda, you know the drill.
The thing about Haruka-senpai and Nitori-kun was that they were both absolutely fucking gorgeous. Rei knew he had a bit of an obsession when it came to beauty. He knew that physical form was important to him. He knew that there was more to romance than that, but the fact still stood that he was surrounded by obnoxiously pretty people far too often.
It didn’t help that, on top of being pretty by themselves, Haruka-senpai and Nitori-kun were pretty together. They were the world’s most attractive couple, two pairs of big blue eyes, a contrast of light and dark hair, smooth pale skin. Nitori-kun’s bubbly personality just barely disguising a depth of snark that rivaled and complemented Haruka-senpai’s.
“Fuck my entire fucking life,” Rei groaned, to no one in particular. Nagisa answered anyway.
“Not that you’re not pretty, Rei-chan, but you and I both know you gotta be at least a level twenty-three friend to unlock my unpicked flower garden.”
“Your euphemisms need work,” Rei commented.
“Excuse you, my euphemisms are perfect, and you’re deflecting,” Nagisa countered. “Why are you asking for an existential deflowering?”
“The usual,” Rei said with a shrug.
“Dude. You gotta ask them out already. This is getting hard to watch.”
“Right,” Rei said, rolling his eyes. “Because that’s the way to solve all my problems. Tell the two most beautiful men on the face of the fucking planet that I want nothing more than for one of them to suffocate me by sitting on my face while the other rails me into next week.”
“You wanna hold their hands and make them breakfast, don’t lie to me and pretend this is all sexual, Rei-chan,” Nagisa scolded.
“Feelings are disgusting,” Rei said.
“I mean, I’m not disagreeing with you there, Rei-chan. But it’s just gonna get worse if you keep this up!” Nagisa’s voice went sing-song, a clear sign to Rei that he was not getting out of this conversation unscathed.
“What do you want to make you drop this?” Rei groaned.
“You don’t really want to know.” Rei glared at him, and he put his hands up as though to calm Rei, though all it did was trigger a pavlovian rage. “I’ll drop this, if you go up to one of them right now and kiss them. Don’t care which one, just. Grow a pair and do it.”
Rei was about to tell Nagisa in no uncertain terms that he already had a pair, thank you very much, when he was interrupted by the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. It was not uncommon to hear Nitori-kun laughing. He giggled as easily as Rin-san cried. Usually it was accompanied by a smirk or even occasionally a snort from Haruka-senpai. But this time?
Oh, this time.
Haruka-senpai’s head was thrown back, his eyes scrunched shut, and music incarnate was pouring from his lips, babbling like water from a Roman fountain. Rei’s mind went blank in the center and fuzzy around the edges. He knew Nagisa was smirking at him, but he couldn’t focus on anything other than the universe dawning from Haruka-senpai’s mouth.
“Fuck,” Rei whispered. Nagisa snorted.
“You got it so bad,” he said.
“Yeah,” Rei agreed.
“So, what’re you gonna do about it?”
Rei saw it all laid out before him, the two paths diverging. One leading toward some fairy-land nonsense where all his dreams came true, and the other rooted in harsh reality. He didn’t bother answering Nagisa. They both knew he would do nothing about it.
Nagisa watched him, watched the doors shut in his eyes, watched him strengthen his resolve to live his life pathetic and unloved. He rolled his eyes and cupped his hands around his mouth, then shouted, “Ai-chan! Haru-chan! Put me out of my misery already!”
“What do we get out of it?” Nitori-kun hollered back.
“A gorgeous hunk of man?” Nagisa answered. “Or, well, another gorgeous hunk of man?”
Nitori-kun shrugged, said, “Mkay,” and sauntered up to Rei. Rei’s life flashed before his eyes, a series of images of his worst mistakes and most mundane triumphs. He knew his face remained utterly passive as Nitori-kun approached, planted his hands on Rei’s shoulders, and leaned in slowly. He bypassed Rei’s lips to brush his own against Rei’s ear, whispering, “Consent is sexy, Ryuugazaki-kun. Is this how you want to do this?”
“Yes.” It was a thready, breathy thing, barely there at all, but Nitori-kun heard it. He pulled back to smile at Rei, his eyes swirling with something as unnameable as it was utterly familiar. He leaned in slowly, slowly enough to give Rei time to back out, to lose the game of chicken they were apparently playing. Then Nitori-kun’s lips quirked, and then they were pressed to Rei’s.
As kisses in reality went, it was probably pretty damn average. But as kisses in Rei’s life went, this one? This one was magic. This one was fireworks and fireflies and everything that first kisses were supposed to be. And then it was ending, Rei letting out a soft whine and trying to follow Nitori-kun’s lips as they pulled away from his. Nitori-kun breathed a gentle giggle and rested his forehead against Rei’s.
“Hi,” he whispered.
“Hello,” Rei replied. Nitori-kun’s eyes were full of laughter, and light, and maybe something else, maybe something that Rei had only ever seen directed at Haruka-senpai, because he had never let himself look for it directed at him. Never let himself imagine, because his daydreams would destroy him.
A pissy huff drew Rei out of the bubble that had formed around the two of them and he looked over Nitori-kun’s shoulder at Haruka-senpai, standing with his arms crossed and his lips pouted.
“Ai,” he growled, and Rei’s blood went cold.
“Fuck off, Haru, I told you I had dibs.” Nitori-kun didn’t pull away from Rei to say it, still staring into Rei’s eyes. “You can have the next one. If he wants it.”
There was a question there, a question that Rei wanted nothing more than to answer in the affirmative. But all he could say, all his scrambled brain would let out was a distressed little, “Fuck.”
“Not yet, beautiful, but we’ll get there someday,” Nitori-kun said, giggling again. He pulled away from Rei at last, just enough to clamber into Rei’s lap and nuzzle his head against his shoulder. One hand reached out behind him and with a huff and a roll of his eyes, Haruka-senpai strolled over. He took Nitori-kun’s hand and settled in beside Rei, leaning against the shoulder not occupied. Rei closed his eyes against the onslaught of emotion welling up in him.
“Hey,” Haruka-senpai said, bumping his shoulder more firmly against Rei’s. “You good?”
Rei clutched a little harder at Nitori-kun’s back until Haruka-senpai reached out and claimed one of his hands for his own. He breathed, and it seemed all he could manage to do just then. Then, against all sense, against all knowledge that this couldn’t possibly be real, he relaxed. A snort burst out of him, and it was a breaking of the dam that held back the hysterics. By the time he realized what was happening, the laughter was mingled with tears.
“Sweetheart,” Nitori-kun said, but whatever he was going to say after that was lost in the frantic way Rei leaned up to slam their lips together again. Nitori-kun made a confused noise, but relaxed into the movements of the kiss, one hand threading through Rei’s hair. Rei pulled back only when he heard the petulant whine coming from Haruka-senpai, laughing still in little fits and stops. He turned his head, ready to say something snarky and probably profane, only to have it cut off by Haruka-senpai taking his turn.
“Finally,” Haruka-senpai said, still sounding petulant, but he was smiling. Rei found he rather liked that smile, would like to see it some more.
“You know you could have kissed me literally any time from the day we met, right?” Rei laughed. Haruka-senpai said nothing, only pouted deeper when Nitori-kun started giggling. “That goes for you too, you know,” Rei said, jostling his legs to bounce Nitori-kun a bit off-balance.
“You say that, but had I done that any earlier, you would have run,” Nitori-kun replied.
“Well,” Rei said with a shrug, “I’m not running now.”
“No,” Nitori-kun agreed. “You’re not.”
And, Rei knew in that moment, he probably never would.