I don't own Free! or its characters.
the slip-up game
He starts looking at her in their second year of high school. She now does her hair and tells Mako-chan she's started running every morning before school, wears a little bit of make-up and her skirts are shorter. There's something about the way she takes care of her body that upsets him – he knows a lot of girls of her age do it, but she doesn't particularly need it.
It is some time later when he notices the unabashed looks and barely hidden smiles. He can feel her eyes on his back every time he crouches on the starting block; it's always been there, but now it's different. He doesn't understand why, but he knows something has changed in the way she seems unable to tear her eyes away from him. She also flushes a lot, especially when he indulges her in calling her by her desired nickname, even if it annoys him – her name is cute, why does she have to be ashamed of it?
"Gou-chan," he starts one day. They're having lunch alone on the rooftop; Rei-chan has caught a cold, and Mako-chan and Haru-chan are on a third year reunion about their oncoming graduation ceremony. He tries not to think about that too much – he doesn't want to part ways with them yet.
"It's Kou."
He disregards the correction – if she could stand him calling her by her given name for two whole years then it wouldn't hurt her one more time.
"I know you like me," he says instead, looking at her out of the corner of his eye.
Her reaction is totally unsurprising, but it doesn't make it less endearing.
Her eyes widen comically and her cheeks tint with a lovely red, which spreads across her nose and reaches the tips of her ears. She sputters, trying to deny the statement that both know is true.
"Who says I like you!" she shouts, getting to her feet in an attempt to look intimidating. As expected, it doesn't work. It never works with him. "Who would like you, anyway!"
"You do," he answers, even though it isn't a question.
"I don't!"
"Do."
"Don't!"
He knows how to turn the tables on her. It's always effective because she's adorably slow.
"Don't."
"Do!"
He tries to hide soft giggles behind his hand, but as soon as she realises her mistake he bursts out laughing. While she kicks the floor with her feet, surely reprimanding herself in her head, he stands up and takes hold of her face between two of his fingers.
"It's okay, Gou-chan. I like you, too!" he tells her, taking notice of the way she looks at him through her eyelashes, a prominent blush still covering most of her face. It makes him smile to know he's the reason of the face she's making. "So you should stop trying to be like those models on the magazines you look through with your friends. It doesn't suit you because you're beautiful the way you are."
Then he does what he has been thinking of for the last couple of months: he closes his eyes and plants a kiss on her lips, sweet enough for her to remember but ending sooner than expected.
He smiles from ear to ear at her shocked expression and runs away before she catches up with what has just happened and starts chasing him with the promise of vengeance. But even though she's utterly flabbergasted, she knows what to do to get her revenge.
Her brother won't be happy when she tells him what Nagisa has done.