Cover image credit to XoraXIV on DeviantArt
This work is the second part in the Found You Again trilogy.
A/N: Hello, and welcome! If you're confused about what this fic is, you might want to check out Found You Again (link can be found on my page), the prequel to it. Don't worry; even though it's kinda long, it's a light read. Reading Found You Again is not necessary to enjoy this story, but it will make the events contained within here make a lot more sense.
Yuuji Norita is that one guy who developed a crush on Nagisa during the crossdressing chapter/episode in the summer island arc. Yeah, that two-shot character. I thought he had a lot of potential, and now here we are.
NOTICE: My Yuujigisa fanfiction is meant to kinda float outside of the canon timeline, but if I had to place this fic, I would put it *halfway* through the final chapter of the manga. Basically, imagine the Class E kids are all adults and taking care of their mountain, but Nagisa did not go on to become a teacher right away. He made…a different choice instead. Another 2 years went by, during which the Class E kids began to settle into their careers. Basically, this takes place during the time skip, but in a slightly AU fashion where the skip is more extended.
I am so excited to begin this new adventure, and I hope you all enjoy!
Seven years was a long time.
Yuuji Norita sat alone in his hotel room. The room was expansive and quiet around him, all of the trappings and furniture in their places, all noises hushed. The walls were a comforting shade of brown. Dim lamps lined them at certain points, sending out small halos of light. Emptiness fueled a stark silence. The air hung still around the room, dead, listless motes floating at the edge of Yuuji's vision and making it feel for just a moment as if he himself were not the only thing holding its breath.
This place was well-furnished, as lavish as any service he was used to. Without even looking, Yuuji knew he could name each and every one of the features—a coffee table, chairs with velvet cushions, a bookshelf, a full kitchen unit, this couch. As expected from a premier hotel. But it was all too quiet. The room's sole occupant had not unpacked, leaving the bedspread bare. Everything lay where it always had, tables looming lifeless, empty, waiting for somebody to breathe personality back into them with use. But Yuuji hadn't touched a thing.
Everything was dark and subdued in the low light. Yuuji hadn't bothered to turn the lights all the way up yet, having been more focused on settling in. Or not settling in, but on moving in. On just…being here. Ready. And now that he was seated, Yuuji found it impossible to move.
Yuuji took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Briefly, he had the childish thought of worrying about how he looked. He hadn't changed much over the years—at least, Yuuji didn't feel like he had. He still had short, black hair, the bangs hanging in front of his face. His eyes were dark, and slightly too narrow. He had forgone the baseball cap, at least. It wasn't even lying within view. It felt a bit strange to go without one, but he had thought that he should dress up a bit for the occasion. Yuuji picked at his collar for a moment. Thus, the white shirt and tie.
Sweat dotted the back of his neck. Yuuji's torso stayed rigid, the man's gaze focused on nothing. He blinked. Nothing. He saw nothing. His hands were clasped, elbows resting atop his knees. Beneath them, one leg began to jiggle, tapping out an unsteady rhythm.
At last, Yuuji brought one hand up to scratch the back of his head. He was nervous. Immediately, he became angry at himself for being nervous. Why the hell was he so slightly nervous, like a jumping in the stomach and a forgetful restraightening of the table doily a thousand times?
Ah, yes, his mind supplied. It was because today was the day he would finally see Nagisa.
Here, sitting alone inside the vacant hotel room, Yuuji had plenty of time to swim through the dredge of his old memories. How he had first met Nagisa, the figure of a beautiful girl in black-and-pink dancing through his memory and then fading, replaced by a person more solid and somehow, impossibly, even more stunning. The warm sight of a smile that he had been unable to ever forget. The surprise on the other boy's face when Yuuji had shown up at that fall festival. The blush on his cheeks. The steel in the boy's eyes when he told Yuuji he was training for an assassination. The words that Yuuji had said afterward, and the texts and messages that followed. The warmth always found in the other boy's hands. Nagisa and him, laughing together. Sharing their first sortof-date. Their first kiss. Nagisa and him, standing side-by-side after the world had been threatened and then saved. Nagisa. Nagisa. Always Nagisa.
And then- Yuuji's fingers twitched. He didn't know what happened. They were dating for a while, and it seemed as if those happy days would last forever. But then the messages slowed. Life got frantically busy. Adulthood loomed, and in the face of it, Nagisa seemed to slowly vanish.
A pang shot through Yuuji's heart as it always did when he remembered this part. They were together all through high school—albeit, growing a bit distant towards the end, Yuuji would admit—but college had been a different story. Communication with Nagisa became scarcer and scarcer. Yuuji had hung on, holding faith even in the cold grasp of limbo. While everyone around him seemed to find a soulmate and fell in love, he drifted through life as if made of ice. He concentrated on schoolwork instead, earning stellar grades. Meanwhile, there was barely a text. No calls. By the end of Yuuji's senior year, it had whittled down to no contact at all.
Yuuji allowed a rare scowl to twist across his face. He had tried to discover where the boy went, of course. Nagisa never did tell him what he had ended up deciding on. But Yuuji's suspicions were confirmed once he investigated and found that Nagisa never attended Keio University, the one connected to his high school. The boy never even filled out the application.
Yuuji struggled to shake off a persistent thought—at that point, had they really even been dating?
With a sigh, he settled back against the couch seat. Their days had passed like sand through an hourglass, Yuuji reflected dimly, beautiful in their moments but always ticking down towards some inevitable, immeasurable end. Yuuji realized that now. Like many things, it had been impossible to notice while standing in the middle of it all. But looking back, he could see things all too well.
Their relationship had always been fast. And now it was just excruciatingly slow.
Dear god, when he thought of including these last couple years, it was probably more like nine years in total. Yuuji ran one hand through his hair. Nine years since they had first met, nine goddamn years. And the last five without seeing each other once. What did that do to a person? What did that do to a relationship?
A year was a long time. Being without someone meant months worth of holidays passing by, unshared. It meant staring at the weather outside, slowly watching as it shifted and cycled and knowing that the person you were thinking of probably wasn't coming back. It meant the number twelve on the calendar, then nine, six, four. And still they weren't here. It was each component of time filled to the brim with an empty ache. A year was a whole chapter in one's life. People measured their existence out in years. You only had a certain amount of them, and every time that number changed, you changed too. The weeks that passed, each of them made up of days, made up of crawling, anguishing hours, made up of minutes, made up of seconds, each one without that one specific person. The passage was agony. Until then, one morning, you managed to look back and realized that scores of time had passed. New Year's would arrive. Cold, confused, and alone. Would there be something from them this year? Who knows. Then it was time to start over and begin it all again.
Imagine doing that five times, Yuuji buried his head in both hands, rocking forward and back slightly, resting his elbows on his knees. Imagine doing that for five years straight. Upon reflection, he didn't know how he could stand it.
And yet—Yuuji's stomach flopped in recognition—he couldn't bring himself to be angry when he thought of Nagisa. In contrast, he felt… nervous. Excited, even. What little hope he had left collected into a spark and was glowing there somewhere inside his chest. It felt like anticipation.
From that change in Yuuji's thoughts, the mood shifted. A morose silence fell over the couch. Still, what would he do? Yuuji thought, wishing he could be angry instead of carrying this damned subtle eagerness. What would he say? Did the boy—no, he would be a man now—even deserve his words? Should he just be silent and hope that the illusion of anger would unearth some kind of explanation? ...Did he even want an explanation?
In the back of his head hovered the most painful question. Yuuji tried to ignore it, but the words kept coming up again and again, rising from the spot where they had always been hidden in the back of Yuuji's mind: Was I not good enough?
So many questions, filling him to the brim like water until he felt like a cup threatening to overflow. Yuuji's leg began tapping against the floor again. The questions just wouldn't stop. What have you been doing for these past five years or so? Will you be different now? Why do I still want to see you?
He reached out and adjusted the doily on the table.
Well, Yuuji knew the answer to the last one at least, he admitted. It was because he loved Nagisa. And no, Yuuji wasn't afraid to say it anymore. It took him so long to own up to it the first time that he had sworn he would never deny it again.
He let out another sigh, staring down at the table surface. Why now? he thought, confusion twisting inside of his brain. Why do you want to see me now of all times? And do I still want to see you?
That was a pointless question too, Yuuji chided himself. Of course he did. Otherwise, he wouldn't have accepted that invitation the moment he read it, fingers closing hard around the cellphone as if he feared losing that text message to the wind, wouldn't have sent back a Yes the moment his eyes had finished reading, like an almost unconscious reaction, an instinct burned deep into his bones. He wouldn't have that very same cellphone resting out on the table right now, its black case seeming to return his gaze.
Finally, Yuuji looked aimlessly off to the side. He felt his thoughts relax at the change in focus. The tan color of the carpet spread across the floor beneath him. All was quiet. All was still. The fixtures hung silent all around.
With a slow, bittersweet lurch, the thought occurred to Yuuji that the spring break after middle school was probably the only time he had ever felt truly happy.
Clack.
At that moment, a noise sounded on the other side of the room. Yuuji's gaze whipped around.
It had come from the window. As Yuuji watched, the latch wiggled once, tilting side to side experimentally before going still. There was a slight tapping noise, as if the lock were being tested. Judging by the tone, it was done by a deft, experienced hand. Blinds hanging across the pane of glass made it impossible to tell what lay beyond. What was on the other side? Yuuji raced to recall. A ledge? The fire escape?
The sound had set Yuuji's every sense ablaze, his mind wide awake before thoughts of it had even registered. Belatedly, he shot to his feet. He didn't know what was happening. Was it a robber, come to break into the room? Or- It couldn't be. Panic tightened in his throat. No, no, this was still too fast, even with all this impossible time, he didn't feel ready-
The bottom windowsill pulled up in one smooth motion to let a blue shape tumble inside.
Nagisa Shiota crouched there against the hotel room floor. His lower body was braced, boots heavy against the carpet with the rest of him poised still. A soft expression of something almost like surprise lingered on his face, the light of concentration just beginning to fade from his eyes. Blue hair framed his face in soft tufts.
The young man was dressed all in black, the line of his shirt and pants nearly blending together. His outfit was overall practical, hugging close to his figure, yet casual enough to fit in on the streets outside if need be. Across his shoulders were the straps of a small pitch-black backpack, which he let slide to the floor in a gesture that looked almost automatic.
He looked up. Twin blue eyes met surprised brown. A light smile danced across the young man's lips. "Found you," Nagisa said, breathless.
Yuuji couldn't find the words to reply. Every action, every word, each plan, every single variation of how Yuuji imagined he might respond flew out the window in the face of the actual Nagisa.
Nagisa stood. He brushed the brick dust off of his hands with all the motion of an afterthought. For some reason, Yuuji's attention focused on that detail.
For a short while they just stood in place, with the occasional shuffle from foot to foot. One glance would be returned by another, lasting for only a moment before its owner looked away shyly. Yuuji wondered if Nagisa was thinking the same things that he was. This felt different. They looked different now, each of them projecting and possessing not quite the same feeling that they had before. They stood before each other like two puzzle pieces subtly trying to gauge whether they would still fit. A semi-awkward silence began to grow as they stood, both getting used to the other's new height, new stature, new appearance and voice.
"It's good to see you," Yuuji finally gathered together a sentence.
Nagisa nodded quietly. "It's good to see you too."
Yuuji's gaze lingered on the person that Nagisa was now. He stood short, noticeably shorter than Yuuji, when beforehand Yuuji had barely been able to see over the top of the other boy's head. His limbs were still slender, but Yuuji knew that they must hold enough strength for the other man to make his way up here. And even after all this time, Nagisa still hadn't really cut his hair. It looked much the same as Yuuji had seen it last. As if the young man, too, had stayed frozen in time. The length of it was a bit shorter perhaps, but still tied up in a fashion able to pass for either girl or guy.
A thrum shot unbidden through Yuuji's heart. Nagisa had no idea what sort of effect that would have on him, did he? Or maybe he did. Maybe that, too, was all part of his plan.
Nagisa looked up and gave him a shy smile. "So. Yuuji." The young man's voice was awkward on the syllables, unconfident and rusty with disuse. But still, Yuuji couldn't stop a trill from running through him at the sound. His name. Nagisa still remembered his name. "You look well."
Yuuji cleared his throat and dipped his head. "You too."
Nagisa stood with one hand folded over the other, gripping at the wrist. The tense grip was making his fingers tremble slightly, or maybe that was just Yuuji's imagination? Though Yuuji kept his gaze down, out of the corner of his eye he could always just barely make out the blue halo of Nagisa's hair. He watched as the young man shifted to the other foot. "Been taking care of yourself?" Nagisa asked.
Yuuji shrugged.
A frown slipped momentarily across Nagisa's face. "Look, I… I really appreciate you being here tonight."
"Wouldn't have missed it for the world."
Yuuji shut his mouth. That remark had slipped out far too quickly. Both of them paused.
"So, you did become an assassin," Yuuji ventured once a few uncomfortable seconds had passed.
"Yes," Nagisa replied. His eyes glinted. He said nothing more.
"And that's why you're here tonight."
This time Nagisa nodded to confirm. "My assignment is someone in the very high echelons of politics," he explained. "They won't be in a place like this for another few months. I needed your social rank and resources in order to reserve a prime spot." He seemed to relax a little at the restatement of his task, steepling his fingers in front of himself. "Thanks to your support, the odds of me succeeding have gone up a considerable percent."
Yuuji felt the other man's remarks slide up against his subconscious. Oh, he thought. I see. I knew it.
Yuuji remained quiet while Nagisa slowly began to take notice of the rest of the room, wandering around before drifting over to explore the bookshelves. The young man seemed fascinated with the slight traces of Yuuji's life that were already scattered throughout the area—a faint imprint left on the couch cushion, the table doily lying tilted at an angle, his luggage stowed halfway under the bed.
Eventually, Yuuji cleared his throat to catch attention. He folded his hands behind his back and straightened up. When he spoke, his voice was all-business. "What can I help you with, Nagisa?"
Nagisa flinched at the impersonal tone. And as long-awaited as that was, Yuuji found that he could derive no satisfaction from it. "'H-help me' with?" Nagisa repeated, body turning towards Yuuji. The bookshelf served as a background to his face as Yuuji watched the man's expression fall. "Oh, no. It's not like that, Yuuji," Nagisa protested, his voice growing strained. "It was never like that. That's not why I'm here."
For a moment, the look in his eyes was so fervent that Yuuji almost believed him. Yuuji tried to steel himself. But he couldn't help it. He had always been good at judging peoples' faces, at seeing right through every bit of faked emotion, every trace of deception and lies. That was something he had developed since even before his time with Nagisa.
But strangely enough, here Nagisa's desperate gaze seemed as genuine as all of his others before.
Yuuji let out a huff. He looked away, deciding to trust in their shared past for a moment. Every time he had seen this boy smile at him, every time Nagisa had said to look at his face if Yuuji thought that he was lying, things had turned out for the best. So Yuuji stayed quiet, not denying the young man's claim, simply letting those words hang empty in the air.
"True, I… I realized that I could use you as a contact in order to reach the best possible chance of success," Nagisa continued. "That was why I contacted you. And that was probably wrong of me. But that's… Oh, Yuuji, that wasn't all."
"I mean, hasn't it been long enough?" He gave a weak, breathy laugh. Nagisa dipped his head in embarrassment as a light blush rose to his cheeks. "I…wanted to see you."
The platitude was so cliché Yuuji's mind couldn't even spare a moment to consider it. "Why now?" Yuuji snapped. His voice held more bite in it than he had expected, but after a second, Yuuji decided that he welcomed the change.
Nagisa winced. He didn't answer.
Then, finally, a soft reply. "I figured you of all people would understand."
Quietness descended upon the room.
"You left." Yuuji's cracked voice broke the silence. "You left for five years." He could feel himself struggling to keep up the stern façade, his eyes shining with something that must have looked like tears and his lips pressed together in tortured, thin lines. "Not a word from you, Nagisa, for the last two. It's been two goddamn years since I heard more than a 'hello' or a 'not now'."
"You missed college. You missed my first year and my start at…" Yuuji took a shaky breath. "I had wanted to share those moments with you."
Yuuji screwed his eyes shut and scowled. God dammit. As much as he tried, it seemed that he was unable to say anything out of rage to Nagisa. It was all coming out sad instead. He couldn't hold anything in his heart beyond regret and a dull anguish. He had loved him. He loved him.
This was the man he still loved.
Nagisa looked at Yuuji with a mixture of sadness and something an awful lot like pity. Slowly, the young man's mouth opened. "Do you remember," he spoke, "how you once told me that you worried you might be only a distraction?"
"Yes," Yuuji mumbled. His tone said much more: And maybe I was, if you were able to just go and leave for more than five years all on your own.
"Well, it's not true." Nagisa gave a small smile, and even that tiny gesture looked to Yuuji like the sun come to wash away layers of cloud. "I never considered you that, Yuuji. You were never unimportant in my mind. It might have looked that way to an outsider—how you just showed up out of nowhere and kept getting entangled with my life. But I welcomed every moment of it. You were a calming influence on me, and, well, an endearing reminder of what I was fighting for." Nagisa's voice grew fond with thought. "It was what I needed. What I…might still need."
"I've said it once and I'll say it again, Yuuji: You were never a burden. Never a side story. Not to me. For those few months and years that we were together, you were my everything."
Nagisa narrated all this as he walked closer, gradually making his way across the room. It didn't take him all the way. But it did at least get him to the half-way point. He took one of the chairs from the nearby table and sat down. "In all of these years, you were the one thing that I couldn't get out of my head. Hell, I almost thought about you too much. I wondered how you were doing, what life was like and how you might be feeling. I promised myself that if I ever made it out, if I was ever able to do the impossible in this business, your house would be the first place that I'd run to. I wanted to send you messages, but some part of me worried that it was too dangerous. That even though I was confident in my skills, there was always someone out there who could be even better, and no matter how great my powers were, I worried that they might not be enough to protect you."
"I never forgot you, Yuuji," Nagisa said, his gaze open and honest as he looked up. "But I know that's not enough."
Yuuji's fist hung heavy at his side. No, it wasn't enough, he thought. But still, he couldn't bring himself to deny that it might be something like a start.
Nagisa smiled softly then, and before Yuuji knew it the two of them got to talking. They talked about their lives, Yuuji finding himself drawn deep into conversation. At some point, he pulled up another chair. They talked about how they had been. The things they had done. What it had been like to go away for college, and what it was like to live mostly abroad for years at a time.
"I'm a newsanchor for one of the major stations in Tokyo," Yuuji said. "It's a pretty good job. Actually, I really like it. The only tricky part is having to be on camera, but as it turns out, I kinda developed a talent for that too after so many years of living with my dad." He shrugged. "Still go by my mom's last name, though. Wouldn't want people thinking I bought my way in with my father's influence or anything."
"What? No way." Nagisa's eyes widened in a way that was almost childishly cute. "That's really cool. So you get to be on TV? I'm so happy for you."
Yuuji shrugged, unable to resist a bashful smirk. Heh. It seemed pretty funny for an assassin to be admiring a position so solidly in the limelight. Wouldn't Nagisa prefer a place swathed in shadows? "And you?" Yuuji asked. He raised an eyebrow to point out Nagisa's outfit. "Apparently you went the path of Class E after all."
Nagisa paused momentarily. "Yes," he admitted. "I became an assassin." He raised both hands, looking at them as if he were picturing something else hidden within them. "After assassinating Korosensei, I…couldn't get the idea out of my head. That one year held so many events and taught us so much. It seemed…wrong somehow to just let it all go. And so I got to thinking… Well, that this might be what I was best suited for."
He gripped his knees. "When I was given the chance, right out of high school, I took it. There was no other way I'd get to learn for real. There was no other way I'd be able to use all the skills that we worked so hard to learn."
The young man looked up for a moment. "Does that seem selfish?"
Yuuji blinked, taken aback by the question. "No," he answered truthfully. "I can understand. You were just drawn to whatever career you felt would make you most satisfied. That's what everyone tries to do, I think."
Nagisa nodded quietly. "After successfully finishing the Korosensei assassination," he continued, a moment of sadness flashing across his face at the mention of the teacher's name, "we were all set for life. They gave us a huge cash reward, and while we returned most of it, each of us kept an amount that we thought would be enough to allow us to live life to the fullest. So I…" He took a breath. "That's part of why I was able to skip town. I could go travel, work around the world for a little while, buying my own equipment and doing everything I needed to do in order to ease myself into the business. Besides, some people were expecting me to come. I have….connections in that world." Yuuji tried to ignore the excited shiver that went down his spine at the young man's words.
"My pseudonym is Shoreline, or the Tide, or something like Edge," Nagisa continued, a certain amount of pride evident in his voice. "It suits me, see?"
Yuuji nodded. A wordplay off of the kanji for Nagisa's name. Clever. Most of those foreigners probably wouldn't even get it.
Nagisa bounced suddenly in his seat, all excitement. "But enough about me. Do you still have that food blog?"
Yuuji blinked. He recognized what the young man was talking about. That review site Yuuji had set up out of boredom, flying around to restaurants and doing food tasting. Diaries of a Travelling Bon-bon…now that brought back memories. "No," he admitted. "I shut that old thing down long ago. It kinda fell out of popularity, due to the fickle nature of the internet. And, well…to be honest, the useless talent of a fifteen-year-old wasn't something that should have been dragged out for long. My interests started to change."
Nagisa's smile faded. "Oh. Well, I bet you still have that amazing palate, at least."
Yuuji flashed a smirk. "If you need any recommendations, I'm your guy. Consider it a one-man review hub just for you." Try as he might, he couldn't stop the end of that sentence from reaching up in a flirtatious lilt.
"What about that funny dancing?" Nagisa said. "There might be club somewhere in this place where you can polish your moves."
"Ah, no." Yuuji coughed. "Actually…it's been a while. Since I was in a place like that."
"Oh."
Silence fell, but not for long. Whether due to his assassin training or not, Nagisa was good at picking up conversation.
The young man smiled at Yuuji. His eyes suddenly seemed to hold a gentler light. "Remember how we used to play?" his voice came. "I'm pretty sure you followed me into multiple dark alleys back then. Freerunning practice, was it?"
To his own surprise, a smile tugged at the corners of Yuuji's mouth. "Heh. Yeah, it was parkour."
"That was it! And what about that sleepover? That was fun." Nagisa frowned in thought. "Or maybe we had two…"
"I was gonna ask," Yuuji chuckled. "Which one?"
They continued, picking out memories from their childhoods and going over them. Parkour, visiting each other's houses, walking home together after school occasionally, Yuuji's hat collection, remember that one story about your dad, the tutoring session at Yuuji's house, that time you climbed a telephone pole, finding a lost cat—do you still have those allergies, by the way? man, that sucks—the whole substitute teacher fiasco, and how I bet you're much stronger now.
Their conversation was broken by occasional laughter, both of them caught up in simply enjoying each other's presence. Yuuji noticed that his posture had long since relaxed. His stomach leaped. Dear god. For a moment, this felt just like old times. He watched Nagisa in the light, the young man laughing at things just like how Yuuji remembered. In a flash, Yuuji felt suddenly so old and yet so very, very young.
At the end of it all, their words petered out into silence. "It feels like a dream," Yuuji spoke.
Nagisa looked at him with an expression both happy and sad. "No," he answered. "It was real."
Yuuji stared at the other man for a moment. He was dimly aware that his own face held a look of something akin to awe. He decided to go ahead and ask a stupid question. "Is it really you?" he breathed.
Nagisa gave a wry smile, combined with a tilt of the head. "You could come over and make sure if you want."
Without another word, Yuuji rose from his seat. He stepped across the room. Nagisa rose to meet him. Slowly, Yuuji reached out a hand. He touched the young man's shoulder, lightly brushing against his arm. Then, timidly, he drifted one hand across Nagisa's sky-blue hair. It was soft against his palm.
In their moment of connection, Nagisa looked up at Yuuji. He flashed him a quick smile, finally wide enough to show some teeth. At the sight of it, Yuuji's entire body flushed with warmth. God. It was one of those smiles. One of those that felt made of pure sunlight and always seemed to be able to steal his heart away, melting it right inside of his chest. The kind that made him fall in love with Nagisa in the first place. He hadn't seen one in the longest time.
The sight was magic, as it always was. Contained within it was genuineness, relief, joy, and yet in Nagisa's eyes, a hint of the exact same kind of sadness that had been weighing down on Yuuji for years. In the space of a moment, everything aligned around it. The world was right again.
"You don't have to believe me," Nagisa whispered. "Or even forgive me. But believe me when I say one thing: I missed you."
His voice was a soft whisper inside the room, a rush of breath filled with a quiet, deep longing. Yuuji nodded, his throat suddenly too full to speak.
He brought one hand to Nagisa's cheek. Their faces were no more than a few centimeters apart. "May I?" Yuuji mumbled.
Nagisa nodded.
They came together for a kiss. Yuuji melted into it, both of his hands resting at the back of Nagisa's head, swaying his body and just letting his mind go blank for a moment as Nagisa did the same. Five goddamn years. But Nagisa was here, with his dark outfit and supple limbs, making soft noises as his own hands rested warm on Yuuji's arms, with his quiet strength, smooth face, light blue hair tied up in pigtails. He was right here. And in the moment, Yuuji didn't care, because nothing had ever felt so real.
When the two of them were done, they broke away. They were left breathless, staring into each other's eyes. Yuuji couldn't explain it, but he had the feeling that he suddenly understood. They were the same people from back then. Adults, yes, and changed by the years, but ultimately the same. Nagisa kissed him just the same, with all the bashfulness and surprising warmth that Yuuji had come to expect. And when they parted, he still blinked those soft lashes until Yuuji could see his eyes again.
A smile is gender-neutral, Yuuji's own voice rang out from his memories. I didn't fall in love with your clothes. It was with you, Nagisa, always with you. And when I look at you I guess…those feelings are still there somewhere?
A strong emotion swept through Yuuji's heart. That realization had always been there to lead him through.
Yuuji tugged Nagisa into an embrace. He closed his eyes, the blue strands of Nagisa's hair tickling his nose. So many feelings were swelling up within him, along with words, as if he wanted to say them, needed to say them, things that he hadn't said in so long.
"I love you."
In his arms, Nagisa closed his eyes as well. "Oh, Yuuji," he said. "I love you too."
.
They stood together locked in an embrace.
"You know," said Nagisa after they had stayed there for a minute, "I have some time before the show begins." He traced a slow circle on Yuuji's chest with one finger. He smiled up at Yuuji. "Keep me company?"
Yuuji nodded before even really processing what Nagisa was asking. He felt ever-so-slightly unreal, completely caught up in the presence of the young man next to him. "Stay with me," he answered, his voice holding a bit of a breathless edge to it that even Yuuji himself was surprised by.
Nagisa nodded. When they locked eyes again, Yuuji thought he could sense a strange sort of heat in the man's stare.
They came together for another kiss, pressing deeper this time. Slowly, Yuuji realized that he was being gently pushed backwards. He let it happen. Together, the two of them shuffled across the room, lost in each other until the edge of the bed came up against the back of Yuuji's knees and he fell, pulling Nagisa along with him.
The rest of the evening was theirs alone.
Afterword: This chapter was edited in order to comply with FF net's rating policy. An alternate (aka Explicit) version is available on the AO3 version of this fic. If you'd like to read it, just search for my username (it's also BlackRitual on there) on that site and follow through to the story link from my works list. For my longtime readers, I guess you can consider this a bonus for waiting through a 17-chapter fluff fic. ;)
DISCLAIMER it's not a good idea to sleep with someone the moment you're both adults; that was not my intention to endorse here! The two boys both have years of experience with each other in my mind, considering the prequel fic. Also, this scene had to happen sometime and unfortunately this was the single best place for me to put it. :p
Also, future chapters will definitely not be as long. This one kinda got away from me. ^^;