Nagisa hadn't expected much. Even if he hadn't said anything, or offered them anything but a suggestive snicker, it was pretty in-keeping with Kisumi's character to diligently matchmake anyone who stepped within a three-foot radius of him. Take Mako-chan and Haru-chan, for example. Oh sure, he hung all over Haru and pestered the both of them relentlessly, but it had only taken a New Year's party similar to this one for him to orchestrate a game of spin the bottle, strategically placing the two directly across from each other. And, lo and behold, Mako-chan and Haru-chan had been going steady ever since. Like freaking clockwork.
So it didn't come exactly as a surprise that he and Rei-chan were next on the list.
Okay, so maybe just friends didn't typically sit close enough together for their thighs to touch; maybe just friends didn't text each other good morning, or call each other at three a.m on sleepless nights, shaking in a cold sweat and just needing to hear the other's voice; maybe just friends didn't hug each other for more than five consecutive seconds, or feed each other, or sleep over in each others' beds, on occasion. Maybe a few too many long, wordless glances that resulted in stammering and blushing on both ends had clued Kisumi in to the fact that two new clients were desperately in need of a certified Love Doctor, and had self-appointed himself to fill the part. Maybe his official Ph.D and advanced training called for unceremoniously, casually shoving his afflicted patients into a closet and locking the door. Nagisa could have sworn he'd actually set a goddamn timer.
Maybe so. But Nagisa still hadn't expected much to come of it. He was well aware of Rei's tendency to be averse to anything that could be remotely referred to as "intimate contact", and suspected he may have been in possession of a claustrophobic streak on top of that. Locking him with Nagisa in a small, dark space was not likely to cause the slumbering swan of romance to suddenly burst forth from his chest.
That would be pretty alarming, in fact.
Not that the situation didn't have its appeal, he had to admit. He couldn't see Rei's expression - he could barely make out his face from the thin stripes of light filtering through the slats of the door - but he could feel his breath puffing lightly against his cheeks, probably steaming up his glasses and impairing his vision even worse. He could feel powerful lungs expanding against his hands, sandwiched awkwardly between them, and under the lilac silk dress shirt he'd worn to the party, Rei's chest was warm and toned with lean, hard muscle.
He didn't feel inclined to break the silence, but judging from the rapid pulse drumming against his fingertips, he thought it was safe to guess that Rei was segueing from shock into panic mode, and was probably about to start hyperventilating if he didn't say something to release the tension.
"He's pretty chatty, normally."
"I b-beg your pardon?" Rei sputtered, sounding aghast.
"Kisumi-chan. He just gets all mysterious and quiet when he's plotting something."
"And what," he heard Rei swallow, and unconsciously did the same, mouth going dry all of the sudden, "Is he plotting, exactly? Involving us? " His voice had practically risen to a squeak at the end, like it tended to when he had to say words like "we" and "us", Nagisa had noticed.
He tried to sit up, to push himself off of Rei's chest, anything to put even a tiny bit of distance between them, to no avail. He remained squashed right up against those powerful thighs and dynamite abs, which, well, he wasn't exactly complaining about, but Rei's comfort was more important than his own selfish enjoyment of their cramped position.
"Well, unless this closet is a magical door to another dimension -" he began.
"Multiverse theory has nothing whatsoever to do with magic," Rei pointed out, spontaneously switching to the walking talking textbook that lay just under the surface at all times.
"Right," Nagisa said patiently, shifting slightly with chagrin, stopping when he only managed to press their groins even closer together, and while that was an interesting prospect, Rei was known to startle easily, and he didn't want him to turn any more skittish and uncomfortable than he already was. Still… "Ever heard of the game 'Seven Minutes in Heaven', Rei-chan?"
Silence. Rei would probably argue that heat and sound waves were two entirely different mediums that could not intermix or influence one another, but Nagisa was fairly certain he could hear the blush emanating from his face.
"I am...familiar with the concept," he mumbled at last, scrambling quickly to add: "In theory! Not - that is - I've never…participated in such activities."
"Of course not," Nagisa grinned, picturing his scandalized expression in the dark. His eyebrows would be at his hairline, probably; his cheeks dusted with pink, his eyes wide behind the lenses of his glasses. Nagisa had always thought that he had nice eyes.
"Um…" Rei began tentatively, after a moment, and now he was shifting, knocking his knees into Nagisa's, rubbing their bodies together, so grievously, inescapably intimate.
"Hmm?" Nagisa managed. Breathless. He was breathless, heart beating against his ribs like a caged bird fluttering in a panic.
"Have you?"
"...Have I what?" Distracted, Nagisa couldn't recall for the life of him what they had been talking about.
"Have you ever...b-been party to an arrangement like this? In the past."
"Oh. Well yeah, actually, there was the time when -"
But Rei, apparently, was going to interrupt him before he could explain in any more depth...which was strangely unlike him. "So you know what you'd - given your way - typically….do? Have done? Under such circumstances?"
"Well...yeah, but...I mean it was different then 'cause we weren't…" He trailed off, averting his gaze, though Rei probably couldn't see it.
"It was...anonymous, then? Impersonal?"
"Yeah."
There was a pause, in which Nagisa could imagine him wrestling with himself, maybe smothering a few choice inhibitions, by which he was practically swarmed on a daily basis.
"What did you...I mean, would it trouble you terribly to…?"
"What?"
"Elaborate?"
Ah, there was the hunger for detail, for clarification and understanding, even if it had to be spelled out to him. Rei astounded him sometimes. Fluent in fields like theoretical physics and integral calculus, he could rattle off cosines and secants and other concepts that made Nagisa's head spin just to listen to, let alone try to think about, but when it came to relationships with other living, breathing human beings, he seemed totally lost, more often than not. Social interactions didn't come with a lengthy equation or formula he could break down and solve, and that lack of connection had manifested in him becoming cold and antisocial by nature, like he had been when he and Nagisa had first met, then extremely socially awkward, and now...just a little clumsy and slow when things like expressing himself emotionally came up. Even so, he seemed to want to understand, he just didn't speak the language.
"It wasn't too long ago," he murmured, "A couple months before I transferred to Iwatobi, I think…" he exhaled a short, dry laugh, "Neither of us had any idea what we were doing…"
"So did you…" Rei cleared his throat, "Osculate?"
Nagisa raised his eyebrows, and he thought Rei might have sensed his disbelief at his insistence on using inflated, practically alien words just to ask a simple question.
"...Copulate?"
"Rei-chan…" Nagisa sighed, with fond exasperation, "What are you talking about?"
He expected a stammering and possibly over-the-top response, with Rei struggling to gloss over the fact that he'd - unless he was mistaken - alluded to and even attempted toinvestigate the possibility of Nagisa having sexual encounters in the past. What he didn't expect was another rather lengthy, indecisive pause, followed by a light, almost gossamer brush of lips - lips! - against his own. It was quick, hardly a peck and certainly not enough time for Nagisa to react, or kiss back, as he might have liked to.
"R-Rei-chan…?" he blinked, drawing back slightly in shock, "Wh -"
He was interrupted, which wasn't becoming any more of a normal occurrence between them, as Rei's hand - it wasn't fair that he was still able to move his, while Nagisa's were falling asleep in their currently confined position - curled around the back of his neck, insistently guiding him closer, and then came a longer, surer press of lips. Feather soft lips.
Nagisa was fairly certain his heart had stopped a good couple seconds ago, and he should probably have been concerned about this, should probably have asked Rei what the rate of sudden, inexplicable cardiac arrest was for his age group, but that would mean using his mouth for something other than what it was currently wrapped up in, and that. ..well, that was just unthinkable.
His mind was practically exploding with other questions, though, inciting him to wish harder than he ever had before that Rei would just become a great inventor already and make telepathic communication a reality, because it was distracting to have a thousand wonderings and uncertainties and even worries bouncing around in his head like fireworks, but taking the time to talk this through was so far from the top of his current list of priorities that it was practically a footnote. He had always been the impatient one - more so than other people, to a degree, but especially out of the two of them - which was why it was surprising that Rei was the one who had skipped over the communication and "informed consent" part and cut right to the chase. Surprising...but certainly not off-putting.
After a good minute or so of slowly melting into a puddle in Rei's lap, as tentative but focused lips explored his own, at turns gingerly and heedlessly, Rei abruptly pulled away. Leaving Nagisa waiting expectantly to hear what great, important reason could have come up and caused him to stop.
"My glasses…" Rei floundered, sounding distressed, "...have become askew."
Nagisa refrained from giving the most incredulous, exasperated eye-roll he could possibly muster - even if Rei probably wouldn't have been able to see it - because he got the feeling it would convey the wrong message, if Rei were to pick up the negative aura or brain waves or whatever from him.
"So?" he asked instead.
"It's not beautiful, it's not -" Rei scrambled to explain.
"Then take them off," Nagisa interrupted, with more calm and patience than he felt; they really didn't have time for such trivial matters when he could still feel the heat of Rei's breath against his cheeks, and now knew, with complete, visceral certainty, exactly what it tasted like and how soft those lips were. They had more pressing concerns here than appearances, and in the dark it shouldn't have mattered anyway.
A second of silence, and then Rei's hand lifted from his shoulder and went to his face, and there came a faint click as he folded his glasses and lowered the hand to his side. The faint puffs of air fanning against Nagisa's cheeks as Rei exhaled had sped up, but whether it was anxiety or anticipation that was causing Rei's breathing to accelerate, he couldn't be sure.
"Better?" he asked softly, testing the water, and after a slightly shakier breath that might have been a laugh, Rei replied in a surprisingly hoarse, scratchy voice.
"Better." And then his lips were on Nagisa's again; tentative now, almost shy as he changed the angle. In an attempt to bolster his confidence, Nagisa let his tongue flick out, tapping his ridiculously soft lower lip in both an invitation and a request. He wasn't sure if it worked, because Rei gasped, mouth falling open in surprise, but then those parted lips returned, and - no way - Rei's own tongue was easing gingerly into his mouth, cautiously lapping and tasting like a kitten.
If they hadn't both been smushed together in this closet with hardly enough room to move let alone stand, Nagisa thought he might have sprung up and done a very ungraceful victory dance right there. As it was, he welcomed the hot, wet tongue gliding delicately against his own, leaning up as much as he could manage to deepen the pressure and delve past Rei's lips as well. He was rewarded with a soft, breathy moan against his mouth and a light tangling of slender fingers in his hair, pulling him closer. The kiss was becoming wetter, deeper, unbroken but for the hot, shallow lungfuls of air they both snagged between eager, experimental strokes of tongues and hard meldings of lips. A trickle of saliva ran down to Nagisa's chin, his own or Rei's, or a mix of both, he didn't know, and frankly didn't care, but Rei seemed to take it as an opportunity to break away, panting audibly and stirring the stagnant, humid air that had settled between them.
"I apologize, Nagisa-kun," he said breathlessly, reaching up as if to adjust his glasses before seeming to remember he wasn't wearing them and awkwardly returning his hand to Nagisa's head, like he was patting a dog, "I seem to have...gotten carried away."
"Hm," Nagisa murmured, not quite able to refrain from pouting, as he caught his breath and tried - still futilely - to make out Rei's expression in the gloom, "...Want to get more carried away?"
He didn't get to find out what Rei might have said in response, because at that moment, there came a click and a creak as the closet door was yanked open, a wave of light flooding over them both and inciting them to squint against the sudden glare. But now Nagisa could see that Rei's cheeks were flushed rosy pink, with embarrassment as well as pleasure, and as he drowned out Kisumi's triumphant whoop and several frantic, concerned questions from Makoto, he was able to discern that even as Rei immediately turned flustered and tried to put distance between them, there was a glint in his eyes that refused to leave Nagisa's that spoke of disappointment, a flicker of desire. And he couldn't help but get the feeling that, once they were once again in private, it was entirely possible that they would be resuming their activities.
So really, it wasn't all bad. More than he'd expected, after all, when he'd initially been thrown into that closet, and as he climbed off of Rei's lap and nonchalantly stretched a kink out of his back, diligently avoiding Kisumi's prying, excited eyes and flurry of questions, he couldn't keep the smile off his face.
Fin