Time Setting: Hazuki Nagisa, age 14 (Junior High 3rd Year, Winter)


When he got the same problem wrong for the fifth time in a row, he wondered how in the world he would pass the entrance exams at this rate.

Groaning in frustration, fourteen-year-old Hazuki Nagisa slumped down in his chair, throwing his head back with his hands clawing at his already-disheveled blonde hair. Math had never been his favorite subject, and now that it was exam season, he was just about done with it—his glum burgundy eyes dropped to the wastebasket next to his desk, where all the crumpled worksheets he had tossed were overflowing. Sighing, he dropped his head on his desk, his cheek pressed against an open page in his math textbook. His eyes brushed past the notebook with his chicken-scratch version of the notes he had copied off his classmate, Komura. They then moved to the Iwatobi-chan strap attached to his cell phone.

Whenever he became particularly discouraged with his prospects of passing, or just plain sick and tired of all the pre-exam studying, Nagisa had taken to looking at that phone strap. The solemnly blank eyes of Iwatobi-chan had been enough to serve as a reminder of why exactly he was studying so hard in the first place. Well, harder than the blonde had ever studied before, anyways—considering that he had never sat still for longer than five straight minutes while studying for his math tests at school, he had to be given some credit here. Now he felt like the skin on his bottom was developing calluses—even after weeks of studying, he still wasn't used to chaining himself to a desk and poring over textbooks like this. Even now, he fought the urge to bolt from his chair and escape his room, instead trying to channel his energy into his fingers as they twiddled with the Iwatobi-chan strap.

Hang in there, Hazuki. Think happy thoughts. As the alter ego in his mind spoke, Nagisa continued to stare hard at Iwatobi-chan, imagining that the inner voice was wisdom coming from the stoic bird instead of his brain. Just one more week of studying, and then it'll be over. The math might be killing you right now, but if you get through it, you'll finally be there. The place named after your favorite rock hopper penguin—the place where Haru-chan and Mako-chan are, the place where you might be able to swim with those two again after years. You can even investigate the rumor that there's an underground aquarium full of penguins beneath the gym—and even if it doesn't exist, there's still the aquarium nearby. You can go there with your new friends—or maybe even a girlfriend, if the rumored high-schooler luck rubs off on you. Everything will be all right, and everything will be better at that place. The place for your new start… As his mind spoke those last words, the blonde's burgundy eyes clouded over slightly. Despite his original intention, they had served as a reminder of his relatively recent past—one that he was sure he could never be proud of. Propping his chin on his desk, he returned his attention to the bird strap in his hands.

"Hey, Iwatobi-chan—do you really think I'll be able to change?" His voice was quiet as he asked the unanswering bird the question. "I…I already have changed, right? I've…I've picked myself up from the sorry mess I was in…even if half the people at school still hate me, I have at least a few friends…and at least I have a chance to start over…all I have to do is take that chance. I'm not wrong to think that way…right…?"

Maybe he was getting ahead of himself too much. Maybe he should wait and see if he actually passed the entrance exams before he started thinking about things like this. But one thing he knew for sure was that the unsure feelings in his heart felt familiar—they reminded him of the nervous, timid child he had used to be when he was younger. No, that wasn't accurate—he had been just as timid in junior high, the only difference being that he had been able to mask it better. People may have thought he was bold and fearless from his exterior demeanor, but Nagisa knew himself better—there had been more than a few times when he had been scared of change. It had been the same whenever his family moved, whenever he changed schools, and even when his mother had first signed him up for swimming lessons at the ITSC*. He had always felt nervous about taking those first steps, and even now that was true—though it was not as if he wanted to cling to his present, the truth couldn't be further from that. And yet…when he realized that he was getting too caught up with these depressing thoughts, the blonde shook his head and slapped his cheeks with the palms of his hands.

"Focus, focus!" Pulling himself back up, Nagisa scooted his chair forward and picked up his pencil once more. Thinking that maybe he should move on from that math problem for now, he went on to solve the next one. When ten minutes passed and his newly begun efforts still showed no fruition, the blonde dropped his pencil and his head plopped back onto his workbook.

"This is impossible!" he muttered remorsefully, pouting—he was beginning to think none of the problems in his workbook were even solvable. "Someone save meeeeee~~~~!" As the last word drew itself out in his mouth, his burgundy eyes wandered from his desk to his bedroom window, only half hidden by one side of the curtains. When he saw the light on in the window of the neighboring house, Nagisa's eyes came to a stop.

"…That's right. He probably would have been able to help me." Murmuring those words, the blonde stared at the light beyond the windowpane, his mind flooding with memories from his younger days, those which included a certain blue-haired boy with violet eyes and red spectacles. Remembering how he had used to stand at that window in the lavender house, how he had used to always listen to Nagisa when he talked—it caused a feeling of nostalgia and longing in the blonde's heart.

Oh yeah. He always used to comfort me when I was feeling like this. He recalled the last time he had seen Rei—it had been when the blue-haired boy was leaning out the window of his living room, picking a few daisies that were growing in his front yard. He had grown some since the time he was ten, and his face had lost most of its baby fat, but other than that he had been the same as Nagisa remembered him. After he had procured the daisies, Rei had disappeared back into the house, and some time later, Nagisa had heard the sound of Mrs. Ryuugazaki's delighted voice from within its walls. The memory made Nagisa smile as his heart warmed just as it had when he had witnessed the scene. Swiveling his chair towards his bedroom window, Nagisa folded his arms on one armrest and propped his chin up on them, thinking.

He wondered what it might have been like, if his fall from the maple tree that fall had never happened. He imagined how he might have told Rei about his first day of junior high—how Rei might have comforted him once again, how he might have gotten courage from the blue-haired boy's words. No matter how many times Nagisa heard them, they never seemed to fail to cheer him up. If only that had happened…maybe he might have led a very different life during these past three years. If only…Nagisa blinked when he realized that he was on the verge of having a very selfish thought. Quickly shaking his head, he frowned at himself, not liking where his mind was going. Unconsciously, his hand traveled to the back of his head, where it rubbed the scalp underneath his hair. The scar that lay nestled under the blonde locks tingled slightly under his touch, and again he was reminded that the reason Rei had avoided him since that day was his own fault. And so was his past in junior high—he knew the blue-haired boy held no responsibility at all for the things that happened.

Now that he thought about it, maybe it was a good thing that Rei had avoided him during those years. He had been so moody, so insecure, so—so selfish…he might have ended up hurting the blue-haired boy in the end. The blonde hated to think something like that might have happened—he had already hurt enough people as it was. And even now, it had only been a few months since he finally concluded that the only way to start make amends was to mend himself first. Remembering this humbled Nagisa, and deciding that this was not the time to be wishing to change things he couldn't change, he turned his chair back towards his desk and started to redo the problem he was stuck on.

It was in that moment that he heard it.

From somewhere outside his bedroom window, a soft voice floated through the winter air. Nagisa's burgundy eyes widened when he recognized who it belonged to. Putting down the pencil, he turned his chair back towards the window and sat still, listening.

"…Sa-i-go-wa, ka-na-ra-zu (In the end, for sure)…" the voice sang. "A~i to yuu~ki de victory~! (With love and courage, there will be victory)."** Nagisa blinked. This song was old…maybe he had heard a different voice? But as the song continued, he could tell—it was definitely Rei's voice. The singing wasn't the best he had heard, the blonde found himself tapping his finger on the armrest of his chair as he listened. After a while, the song finished and it was quiet outside the window once more.

It didn't take a long time afterwards. The sound escaped Nagisa's lips, softly at first, then gradually gaining volume as it poured out. Collapsing back in his chair, the blonde burst out into laughter. When he realized a certain blue-haired boy might hear it, he clapped a hand over his hand, his head and shoulders falling back down on the top of his desk and quaking as he tried to stifle the sound.

"Ahaha—that is so like him—hahahaha!" Rei's voice had been almost mechanically on beat and in tune—altogether, it had been dorky and hilarious at the same time. Nagisa had even found it adorable, in a way. Wondering what Rei's music grades would have been like***, had he attended a public school, the blonde grinned as he wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes.

Then, it hit him all over again. The pang of loneliness and longing—all of a sudden, he really, really missed Rei. He didn't realize that he had missed hearing the brunette's voice so much, until he had heard it for the first time in years just now. For a moment, his eyes drooped forlornly as they stared in the direction of his bedroom window. Incidentally, they wandered from the window back to the Iwatobi-chan strap on his desk. They stared at the stoic bird for a while as a plan began to formulate in the blonde's head.

He would pass that entrance exam. He would get into Iwatobi High School. And when he was finally in his new school uniform, he would find a way to see Rei again. If he could get into that high school, despite his struggle with math, despite the past that weighed him down, despite his fears about starting over—then surely, certainly, he could make it happen. He would make it happen—besides an apology, there were so many things that the blonde wanted to relay to his long-separated friend. And no matter what, he had to say thank you. For the strawberry candies, for the daisies, and for everything before and after. Once he decided this, the blonde made a fist pump in the air, his face glowing with a new determination.

"All right! Let's get to work, Hazuki!" With that, he once again returned to studying for the exam. As he scribbled down calculations with his pencil, he found himself humming the song that Rei had been singing, with the fingers on his left hand tapping out an accompanying beat. He finished solving his problem just as the snow began to fall outside, blanketing the bare, elegant branches of the maple tree outside the window. Little did he know that he would see the brunette sooner than he thought. And when he did, Nagisa was 200% positive that it was fate.

Needless to say, the blonde was also extremely delighted when he heard Rei singing a certain love song at karaoke on a summer day much, much later. And when the brunette indignantly demanded to know why he was laughing, it only made Nagisa laugh harder until he was coughing and gasping for breath.


Footnotes

*Abbreviation of 'Iwatobi Swimming Club', where Nagisa first met Haru and Makoto and Rin when he was ten and first swam a relay with them.

**The song is called "Ai to Yuuki de Katsu!" (Win with Love and Courage). It came out in the drama part of Rei and Nagisa's duet CD, where Rei mentioned the song as one he knew from listening to his father's radio and sang a part of it. This cracked me up when I heard it, so I ended up putting it in this drabble as well XD

***One of the official character settings about Rei is that art and music are his worst subjects. Although he seems to sing perfectly fine to me, from the character CD's I have listened to, I thought it might be funny and kind of cute if he sang in this mechanical voice (I can see him calculating the pitch of his voice and mathematically matching the lyrics to the beat xD Rei is such a dork). I guess that rather than him being tone-deaf, I imagine his voice to be a little stiff due to all his reliance on theory and calculations. This is just my idea for the setting in this story though, so I hope you understand!

End Notes

I hope you guys enjoyed seeing a bit of middle school Nagisa's thoughts in this drabble. For those of you who want to see some events after the confession in the main story, worry not! The next drabble will deal with a future event involving both Nagisa and Rei ;)