"Nagisa is a really terrible actor." Rei would have nudged Nagisa awake from his 'sleep' to tell him that, but they weren't alone in their school van, and the team might wonder why Nagisa would pretend to sleep anyway. Which Rei already knew the answer to. It makes for a reasonable excuse to 'accidently' lean to the side during his 'sleep' and just so happen to have his shoulder and the side of his face pressed against Rei's arm.
"I mean, really, if he's going to do that, he should at least put in the effort. He doesn't even bother to breathe slower, or fully relax for that matter. You're making us look suspicious, way too suspicious, you know that Nagisa?" Part of him thought maybe Nagisa knew exactly what he was thinking, because in the dark shadows of the van, he could just make out Nagisa's lips twitching upward in his typical mischievous smile. If Rei was honest, he found Nagisa's boldness to be equally terrifying and admirable. The admirable part mostly was because Rei wished he wouldn't feel so terrified when Nagisa surprised him with these little moments of affection while still hiding their relationship from the public.
This faux sleeping was hardly the worst of Nagisa's habits though. The worst one by far has to be when Nagisa makes them wait till the last minute to head back to class from lunch. That way the roof would clear out, and then Nagisa would quickly peck him on the lips, and run inside before he had a chance to protest. Idiot! He would even run down the stairs, making Rei try to cautiously chase after him, while yelling at him to stop doing such dangerous things. Even more frustrating is that small kiss would leave a ghostly tingling on his lips for the rest of the day. "But it's not like I didn't catch on after the first time. If it really bothered me, I would just have left for class no matter what he says. Just drives me crazy how he can get away with everything."
"Captain Ryugazaki?"
Rei snapped his head forward, mentally cursing that he gotten lost staring at Nagisa with a probably too affectionate expression, in a place where his team mates could easily catch them. The current one who may have spotted his inappropriate behavior is named Bano, a boy who filled the spot of the team's free specialist. "Ah, yes?"
"You and Vice-captain Nagisa sure are close aren't you?"
"What!? You think so!?" Rei flustered with his voice raising a few octaves to the otherwise innocuous comment his underclassman made. It was possibly a miracle that Nagisa didn't break into a snicker during his false sleeping. It's also quite lucky that no one else seemed to turn their heads towards his exaggerated reaction. They were all too busy either sleeping or being plugged in to their electronics. Rei cleared his throat, hoping to somehow recover from his knee-jerk reaction. "Well, we do need to spend time together to work on practice and training schedules."
"Yeah, and your doing so well at that. But don't you think there's more than swimming involved? Don't you two take nearly all the same classes and study together after school?"
"Well we're both in our senior years. It's not a strange thing that we happen to be in the same classes. And as far as studying, it just makes sense to work together on our classes!"
"Seriously! If he's is insinuating something, he should just come out with it!" Rei thought, and yet hoped against it.
Bano was either blind to Rei's defensiveness, or else acting like he didn't notice. He actually looked kind of wistful as he spoke. "I just think it's admirable to have friends like that. I heard that before the rest of us joined, the team was only four people, and all of you were really close. The way Nagisa mentions 'Haru-chan' and 'Mako-chan' so often, it makes it sound like it was really painful to say goodbye. I know high school doesn't last forever, but looking at you and Nagisa, I don't know, but I think it's a little sad if you two couldn't spend time together anymore."
Rei sighed a sigh of relief, now that possible suspicion has been translated to good friendship, he allowed his eye's to temporarily jolt over to Nagisa still against his side, and then back forward while considering a brilliant reply. "You know, I agree with you that it's difficult when times change. Almost unfair how people get together and form something so precious, then all too quickly, it disappears. However, just because times change, that doesn't force us to let anyone go. I think if you're supposed to stay friends with someone in the long run, then you'll find a way to keep that friendship going even through the change of time."
"Do you think it'll be that way with you and Vice-captain Nagisa?"
"I don't really know…" Rei answered honestly, with a bit of doubt in his voice.
"Well I hope it does."
"I hope so too." Rei thought, once again eyeing his companion.
"Congratulations on making it through to regionals captain."
Rei snapped back to attention. "Ah. Thank you. We all really tried our best out there."
"Yeah we did." Bano paused to smile. "Your butterfly stroke is really beautiful to watch you know. You're very graceful in the water. You certainly don't look like someone who's only learned to swim a couple years ago."
"W-Who told you that!"
Off in the distance, Rei could hear Gou stifle a giggle from the front seat. He sighed and used his free hand to push his glasses up against his face, the dark surroundings mostly masking his expression of indignation.
"Anyway, thank you, for calling it beautiful." Rei turned his head to the side, and more than anything right now he wished he could get away with burying his face into Nagisa's hair to hide his blush. For the time being he could only hope that Gou wouldn't be so callous as to turn on the van lights to expose him, being as only her and Nagisa could easily guess his reaction to such a compliment.
Bano nodded with a smile, and then yawned, closing his eyes, thus releasing Rei back into his own little world. Rei once again scanned the dark van to find almost everyone else had finally forfeited their distractions or conversations to grab some precious winks of sleep on the long car trip home. Taking a carefully calculated three minutes of looking half asleep before he faked a deep yawn, lifting his arms to allow Nagisa to fall against the side of his chest. He then scanned the van again through his slightly opened eyelashes. So far either no one noticed, or if they did notice they didn't bother to think much of it. Rei once again counted in his head till two minutes passed before he allowed his arm to slip off the back of the seat, loosely resting around Nagisa's shoulder and down along his side. He would usually scan his surroundings again, but really, even if people noticed, if he corrected himself too quickly he'd be outing himself for fake sleeping almost as terribly as Nagisa!
Rei instead forced his eyes tightly closed, and breathed out a shaky nervous breath. Unfortunately unable to turn off his ears, he listened for any sort of muttering or gossiping of his name. After a minute of no response, he allowed himself to slightly relax in the silence and refocus on the boy who's probably been the focus of his mind far too much lately. While it's true that Rei's not the type to blindly believe in a romantic destiny between two people, at least for now he knew Nagisa meant too much to him for the two of them to fall apart anytime soon.
"I'd never be able to say this out loud Nagisa, but sometimes when I see that mischievous smile of yours, I get this feeling that you've already figured me out. So you probably already know the biggest reason why you fluster me so much when you sneak in these intimate moments. It's not because I'm scared of being caught, or because I think you're too pushy. It's because everything about you is so sunny and warm, that every time you touch me, that point of contact burns so deeply it leaves the rest of me feeling cold. Even now, even being this close, it's driving me crazy that I can't pull you closer. All I want to do right now is wrap myself around you, and soak in your incredible warmth."
Hi everyone! I must say I really do enjoy working with my second favorite couple. I wish I could write pairings for all the free boys but I really don't know what to do with Makoto or Sosuke! Lol I know some peoples solution is to put them together but in my view they don't interact enough for me to really make it a decent pairing. Though oddly lately I've been considering some sort of Sosuke/Nitori piece, like the two boys who loved Rin but could never have him because Rin's too busy chasing after Haru, so they take comfort in each other XD. But that will be a side project in the far future if it ever happens! Funny fact about this story, a couple months ago I was thinking to myself how fun it is to write Nagisa. Just his general personality and the way he speaks and such, from a character perspective he's just so fun to write as. So fast forward to now, what do I do? I write a fic where he has ZERO speaking lines. -Facepalm- Oh I'm sure I'll make it up later, he's already planned to show up again in Life After Swimming. Anyway folks, I hope you enjoy this little moment of fluff I've presented to you. Ja-ne!