Secret Admirer

Nagisa stood in front of his locker with his eyes and mouth wide open in surprise because he was not expecting to find a neatly packaged gift in there sitting next to his shoes. He tore his eyes away from the locker and looked around him to make sure no one was watching him; the coast was clear, so he carefully took the package out to have a closer look at it.

It was actually quite small, not too small, but small enough to fit into his palm perfectly, and it was wrapped very neatly in cute heart patterned paper and a purple ribbon. Heart patterned paper…was this a Valentine?

Well, it was Valentine's Day after all, so that was probably a stupid question to think; but...who was it from? And how did they even get it into his locker? He turned it over to see if it had any clues to who it was from, but all he found was a small tag marked only with a purple heart outlined in gold pen and no name.

Nagisa gasped. "A secret admirer?! No way!"

He had actually gotten a few gifts today and they were all given to him in person, but he never had a secret admirer before. A brilliant blush spread across his face and his swallowed dryly before he reached a hand up to open it.

"Nagisa-kun!" came a voice suddenly, causing him to jump and nearly drop the gift on the floor.

"Ah, G-Gou-chan! I'll be at practice soo—"

"Ooh, what's that?!" She interrupted and ran over to take a closer look at the gift he was holding.

"Ah, um...it's a Valentine's gift. I found it in my locker."

"Awww! It looks so pretty too!" She said with sparkling eyes. "Who's it from?"

Nagisa sighed. "I don't know, it's only marked with this heart, see?" He turned the package over to show her.

Kou gasped. "Oh, a secret admirer? That's so exciting! I wonder who it could be." She looked closer at the tag and pursed her lips. "Why don't you open it? Then we'll see if your admirer knows what kind of gift you'd like!"

Nagisa nodded and hastily pulled off the ribbon, the wrapping paper following not to long after, and underneath it was a plain white box.

"Hmm, seems boring compared to the wrapping paper." Kou complained.

"Well, that's the point of wrapping it isn't it?" Nagisa laughed.

"Yeah, but still. Why not make every bit of it fancy? Anyways, open it!"

Nagisa nodded again and all tingly inside as took slowly took the lid off of the box; but he furrowed his brows in confusion when all that was in the box was a single strawberry candy.

"That's it? One candy?" Kou scoffed, sounding offended.

"Aww, it's okay, Gou-chan. I think it's the thought that counts. And hey, looks like my admirer knows I love strawberry!"

"But who gives someone they like just one candy, though? Doesn't this kind come in a bag? Why wouldn't your admirer give you the whole bag instead of just one piece?"

"Gou-chan, it's fine." Nagisa waved it off. "Besides, it looked really cute in wrapped up in this little box. So even if they only gave me one piece, they still went through the trouble to wrap it so nicely." He smiled and took the candy out of the box to eat it, but he noticed the candy had been sitting on top of a piece of paper. "Wait, what's this?" He took the paper out and flipped it over. "Oh, it has like a poem on it or something!"

"What's it say, what's it say?!" Kou hopped closer to his side to look at the paper.

"It says, 'To find the next one you must return to a place you sit and learn'."

"It sounds like some sort of clue! Kind of like a treasure hunt!" Kou interjected.

"Yeah it does!" Nagisa agreed. "It even rhymes too, how cute!" Nagisa looked at the card and read it over again. "So, a place you sit and learn. A desk?"

"Yeah, that's gotta be it! Let's go look in your classroom!"

Nagisa nodded, shut his locker, and the two of them ran off to Nagisa's class to see what they could find.

"Okay, so if it's in a desk, it's gotta be in yours, right?" Kou suggested once they reached the classroom.

"Yeah!" Nagisa hurried over to his desk and opened it. "Ah-ha! There's another strawberry candy in here!"

Kou rushed over and looked inside of the desk as Nagisa picked up the candy.

"Well, now we know your secret admirer is in your class. Otherwise they wouldn't know which desk was yours."

"That's true!" Nagisa looked around the room and thought about his classmates. Who could it be, though? The girl who sat behind him who had asked for an eraser a few times? The girl who sat two seats to his left who always played with her hair? There were so many possibilities.

"And here's another clue!" Kou squeaked excitedly, snapping Nagisa out of his thoughts. Nagisa turned around and walked back over to her.

"What's this one say?"

She cleared her throat. "It says 'Shh, is a phrase usually heard, in this place where no one says a word'."

"So a place where people say 'shh' a lot?" Nagisa questioned. "Oh! The library!"

"Yes, to the library!"

The two friends hurried from the classroom and walked as fast as they could to get to the library. Thankfully, only a few people were still in there, so it they wouldn't get strange looks from people.

"Aw man," Nagisa groaned once he realized just how big the library actually was. "How are we supposed to find the next clue? There's so many places it could be."

"Hmmm." Kou pursed her lips in thought. "Take a look at the clue again. Maybe there's a clue hidden within the clue." She handed the paper to Nagisa who stared at it intently.

Nagisa read the clue over and over again, but nothing really seemed to stick out at him until he realized how different the h in 'shh' and the h in 'heard' looked. "Ah, that's it. The 'shh' part is in a different font style from the rest of the sentence."

"It is?" Kou took a closer look. "So, what's significance of the 'shh'?"

"Um…hmmm." Nagisa looked at the paper, and then around the library and then at the paper again. "Well, usually the librarian is the one who says 'shh' the most, right? So maybe the book return cart?"

"Good idea!"

The two hurried to the book return cart and Nagisa spotted a hint of red hidden underneath a book that was leaning against the side of the cart.

"Gou-chan! I found the candy!"

"What about the clue?"

Nagisa looked back at the spot where he found the candy, but he didn't see the clue. He moved the book out of the way, but it there wasn't any loose pieces of paper anywhere. "Nope. It's not there."

"Okay, let's check the books."

They started grabbing books at random and leafing through them as fast as they could; and even though there wasn't near as many to look through as there would have been if they tried looking through the entire library, it was still taking a while.

Nagisa put down his third book and reached for another one, but he spotted a book that had penguins on the cover and lowered his brows in thought. "I wonder." He whispered to himself and picked up the book to look through it. His eyes widened and his heart sped up when a piece of paper fell out of the pages and floated down to the floor.

"I found it!" He alerted to Kou.

"Shhh!" The librarian snapped and Nagisa gave her an apologetic grin; she glared at him and walked away.

Nagisa turned back to Kou. "I found it." He whispered this time.

She put down the book she was looking through to look over at Nagisa.

"It says 'Out here on a sunny day, to eat with friends and chat away'. Hmm, eat with friends on a sunny day?"

"That sounds like the roof!" Kou exclaimed in a hushed voice.

"Oh, good thinking Gou-chan."

"Of course!" She smiled confidently. "Let's go find the next clue!"

Nagisa nodded and followed her, but he took one last glance at the books. He was actually surprised that the clue was hidden in the penguin book. Well, it wasn't like his love for penguins was a secret, but only a few people actually knew how much he really loved them. So that narrowed down the suspect list to the swim team but…no…that couldn't be right, could it? No way! It was probably just a coincidence. So Nagisa shook his head and continued on his way out of the library and to the roof.

The clue on the roof was probably the easiest clue they had to find because once they got up there, Nagisa spotted the candy right away near where they always sat for lunch. The candy and the clue were both taped firmly to the wall.

"So, your secret admirer also knows where you eat lunch." Kou said as Nagisa was pealing the tape off of the wall. "Oh no, I hope they're not a stalker or something!"

"Well, the roof isn't really a secret place to eat, so it probably wouldn't be hard to figure it out or maybe even overhear if I mention it or something."

"That's true. Though it still narrows down the list of suspects though, doesn't it?"

"Aha!" Nagisa exclaimed as he finally got all of the tape off and flipped the card over and started to read it immediately. 'You've done well, there is one more clue, near the place that is wet and blue.' "

Nagisa looked up from the paper, Kou looked at him, and they both shouted, "The pool!" at the same time and ran out of the door quickly.

Nagisa made it down stairs before Kou did and ran as quickly as he could to the other side of the school. Only one more clue to find, and he wasn't quite sure what that meant, but he was excited. Would he get a final gift? Would he find out who this admirer was? He sure hoped he would; he'd almost feel cheated if he didn't find out after being sent on such an elaborate hunt to find all these clues.

Kou finally caught up to Nagisa just before they reached the pool, and the two of them stepped outside together in haste.

"There you two are!" Makoto called from the other side of the pool. "It's been 30 minutes and we were getting worried. Care to explain yourselves?"

"Not now, Mako-chan!" Nagisa called back. "We're on a treasure hunt!"

"A treasure hunt? For what?" Makoto asked.

"For Valentine's day!" Kou sighed happily. "Nagisa-kun has as secret admirer who sent him on a little hunt with these clues and stuff. Isn't that adorable?"

Makoto chuckled. "Well, try not to take too long. You don't want to lose practice time."

"No worries, Mako-chan!" Nagisa assured. "We're on the last clue now!" Makoto nodded and went back to timing Haru.

Nagisa spotted Rei staring at him from across the pool, and when Rei saw that Nagisa had noticed, he looked away and quickly dived under the water. Nagisa giggled to himself and turned back to Kou. "Okay, so where do you think the clue is?"

"Well, it couldn't be anywhere next to the pool, it would get all wet."

"So, the locker room?" Nagisa suggested.

"That's what I was thinking! Let's go look."

Once in the locker room, Nagisa went straight to his usual cubby hole and grinned widely when he found a strawberry candy sitting on top of a white card and another neatly wrapped package with the same heart paper as the first one.

"Here it is, Gou-chan!"

"Ooh, that was fast! Read the clue, read the clue!"

"I am, I am!" Nagisa laughed and picked the card up to read it. "Okay, it says 'Thank you for playing this silly game of mine, I hope you'll accept this gift and be my Valentine'."

"Awwww, how cute!" Kou squealed. "But, it doesn't have a name anywhere. How can you agree to be their Valentine if you don't know who they are?"

Nagisa shook his head and shrugged.

"Hmm, maybe the gift will have a clue to who your admirer is. Open it!"

"Okay!" Nagisa set down the card and picked up the package to open it quickly; he almost felt bad for ripping up the paper because it was wrapped so nicely, but he was never one to carefully open gifts anyway.

As he tore off the last bit of paper, a velvety, purple colored box was revealed and his heart started to race as he thumbed over the soft texture before finally opening it.

Nagisa's eyes widened and his heart flipped in his chest when he looked at what lay inside the box. It was a beautiful silver chained bracelet adorned with purple and yellow penguin and butterfly charms. He brought a shaky hand to his mouth just as a huge blush spread across his cheeks.

"Oooh, it's so pretty, Nagisa-kun!" Kou cried out. "Your admirer really must like you a lot to buy you something like this. It looks expensive!" She took a closer look at it and frowned. "Aw, but it still doesn't say who it's from."

Nagisa felt like he couldn't breathe, but still managed to slowly remove his hand from his mouth and choke out a response. "It's okay, Gou-chan. I know who it's from."

"You do?! Who, who?!"

Nagisa giggled softly. "I can't tell you. It's a secret."

Kou scoffed. "What?! No fair! Even after going through all of that and helping you and you won't even tell me who your admirer is? What a rip!"

"Hehe, sorry, Gou-chan. I can tell you later, okay?

Kou crossed her arms and pouted. "Okay, fine." She turned to head out to the pool, but stopped and looked back at Nagisa. "Can you at least tell me if you're accepting the gift?"

Nagisa nodded happily. "I am."

Kou jumped up and gave a small squeal. "Ooh, how exciting! But don't skimp on the details when you tell me later, okay? I wanna know how it goes."

Nagisa laughed. "Of course, Gou-chan!" She smiled at him and left, leaving Nagisa to stand there holding the most wonderful Valentine's day gift ever from the very person he has had a crush on for a very long time. It felt like a dream come true!

Nagisa needed to pull him himself together; he had to go to practice, so now was no time to be day dreaming. He shook it off, closed the box, and placed it neatly into his bag before changing into his swim suit and heading out to the pool.

Nagisa tried his best to focus throughout the rest of practice, and deemed it a success that he only got distracted once, and that was only because Rei asked Nagisa to time him and his voice seemed a little anxious. Nagisa grinned at him and tried to act as normally as he could; although he probably sounded a little more flirtatious than usual, but that wasn't a bad thing at all.

Once practice was finally over, Nagisa asked Rei to wait for him in the locker room so he could do another few laps in the pool since he'd missed a bit of practice. Rei agreed and left as Nagisa did his laps slowly so he could make sure he gave the others time to get changed and leave before he finally hopped out of the pool to dry off.

He skipped into the locker room and saw Rei changing with his back facing him. Nagisa grinned and quietly reached into his bag to take out the bracelet and put it on himself. Once it was on, Nagisa snuck up behind Rei and threw his arms over his shoulders. "Rei-chaaan!"

"Ah, Nagisa-kun! You're still wet!"

"Hehe, sorry about that, Rei-chan." He purposely wriggled his wrist so the charm bracelet would make noise as is jiggled around, and Nagisa smiled widely when he felt Rei go rigid.

"Nagisa-kun..."

"It's" really pretty." Nagisa sighed happily as he rested his head on Rei's back. "Thank you." Nagisa nuzzled his head between Rei's shoulder blades. "Heh, you sent me on quite the treasure hunt, didn't you? I'm surprised I didn't catch on till the end, though. The locker should have been my first hint because you're the only one who knows my combination." He laughed. "Silly me."

Nagisa heard Rei take a shaky breath before he spoke again.

"So, does this mean you're accepting my gift?"

Nagisa smiled into Rei's shirt. "Yup!"

Nagisa felt Rei lift his arms off his shoulders and he slowly turned around to face him. His expression was almost tearful.

"So, you'll be my Valentine?"

"Of course I will, Rei-chan!"

Rei's face scrunched up and a few tears leaked out before he pulled Nagisa into a warm hug.

"Aww, Rei-chan. Don't cry! You're gonna make me cry!"

"I'm just so happy! I was very confident when I came up with this plan and when I set everything up, but then while I waited for you to find all of the clues, I started to get a little worried and then you came out of the locker room and didn't say anything, so I thought that maybe you didn't—"

Nagisa squeezed Rei tight. "I could never reject you, Rei-chan." He felt a blush creep across his face again and buried his face into Rei's chest to hide his embarrassment. "You're way too important to me and…I really like you a lot."

Rei gave a shaky laugh and brought a hand up to Nagisa's hair to stroke it. "Happy Valentine's Day, Nagisa-kun." He whispered into Nagisa's ear with a sniff.

Nagisa felt his heart well up in complete bliss and his entire body was probably completely red with embarrassment by now. "Happy Valentine's Day, Rei-chan."