Rei pushed up his glasses with a sigh. "Nagisa-kun, are you really trying to study?"

"Yeah." Nagisa stopped trying to balance a pencil on his nose and looked over at him. "You're just so smart, Rei-chan."

"I study," he said, but he looked away to hide his embarrassment. "It's nothing special."

"Are you kidding?" Nagisa said, and the earnest tone in his voice convinced Rei to turn around—the boy looked positively awestruck. "Set mass to the vector delta and calculate science?"

"None of those words made sense in that order," Rei replied. "You weren't paying attention at all, were you?"

"And your form!" Nagisa's eyes went starry. "Whether you're running or jumping or diving, you just look gorgeous."

"I can't even swim."

"And you still look better not-swimming than half the people actually-swimming at the beach." Nagisa rolled his eyes.

"Nanase-senpai is the one who makes it look natural." He tried and failed to fight down his blush.

"And you've got this incredible intensity when you're focusing." Nagisa gestured broadly with his hands, smiling off into the distance. "It's the coolest thing. You make not-swimming look good, Rei-chan."

"I—that's preposterous—"

"Preposterous how good you look? Uh, yeah. I think Gou-chan's gonna need a cold shower after she looks at those deltoids."

"That's—Nagisa-kun, there's no need to tease me!"

"Tease you?" He turned impossibly wide, innocent eyes on Rei, his hand pressed against his cheek in shock. "I would never tease anybody. I mean every word!"

The proximity of Nagisa's fingers to his soft, pink lips distorted the calculations running through the back of Rei's mind. He wetted his lips and tried to bring the conversation back to something he knew and understood—studying.

"If you calculate the acceleration of two objects going at vectors a and b, respectively, you can determine at what point the objects will collide," he said, sketching a rough diagram on some notebook paper—two circles drawn together by gravity.

Nagisa pouted, and Rei felt himself sinking—the circles on the page became too real, too tangible for his theories. Two pairs of lips drawn together.

"Both objects are affected by the pull of gravity, so we must account for that," he rushed.

"But does it matter when they end up together?" Nagisa asked. He tapped the page, smudging the graphite. "Look. They're heading right for each other."

"If they miss, inertia will carry them apart. They have one chance."

"That's so sad, though." Nagisa scooted closer, frowning briefly at the page before turning sincere eyes on Rei. "You're so smart, though. Can't you get them to turn around?"

"I—If you account for outside forces acting upon—" Rei stammered, eyes flicking between Nagisa's eyes and lips, "upon the object, then—-then there is certainly the possibility that—" The possibility that Nagisa's face was rising up to meet his—or maybe his was sinking to meet Nagisa's. "—that they could—"

Their lips connected, and Rei's brain ground to a hault. He dared to peek through his lashes at Nagisa, whose eyes had gone wide, and drew back sharply in horrified embarrassment.

"I—I don't know what came over me."

"Rei-chan." Nagisa cupped his cheek to force their eyes to meet. "I don't speak science. If you want a kiss, just say so!"

"Th-that's not—"

Nagisa rolled his eyes and put on his stodgiest voice. "And now the outside force is going to act on object a and make sure it collides a second time with object b." With that, Nagisa pulled Rei's head down and kissed him soundly on the lips. When they broke apart, he grinned. "Good thing I need science tutoring. This could be fun."