Mamihlapinatapei - The look between two people in which each loves the other but is too afraid to make the first move.
Reigisa chapter! Unfortunately I can't add them as a ship to the tags of the fic, but here they are, nonetheless!
Nagisa Hazuki loves a lot of things.
He loves pink and the taste of strawberries in any form. He loves penguins and cute socks with cute characters on them in cute colors. He loves swimming and the friends he's made through it. He loves watching Haru-chan glide through water and the look that crosses his face when Nagisa invades his space. He loves Mako-chan's warm smile, and green eyes, and the way he looks at Haruka. He loves RinRin's reddish eyes (sort of like his own pink ones) and the fact that he was the first to notice him when they were little. He loves Gou's sweetness and her stubbornness; the way she fights him over her name or his unbalanced diet, and still brings him canisters of strawberry protein powder the next day.
But if there is one person he loves more than the rest, more than cute colored socks, even more than strawberry sweets, it is the stunning boy with purple hair who makes his head spin, and stomach flip, and heart flutter.
He's enamored with the way Rei slips his glasses up his nose, completely oblivious to the spectacularly dorky way he does it (or, sometimes Nagisa wonders if Rei is aware of just what a dork he is and it's all part of some grand aesthetic scheme of his) and how it never fails to make him smile. He adores Rei's purple butterfly pajamas and how they make him seem more Rei-ish. He loves how Rei lights up at the mention of numbers and practically sparkles when Nagisa asks him to explain a physics problem to him as Nagisa scoots close enough to smell the somewhat floral cologne Rei uses, even though they're in high school and "no one in high school even uses cologne yet, Rei-chan."
He loves the fact that, when he grabs Rei's hand and pulls him along through a crowd or to the convenience store, Rei not only lets him hold his hand, but holds it back, even twines his fingers with his sometimes, and when Nagisa looks back at him, he never misses Rei's rush to slide his glasses up his nose with his free hand and hide the faint blush on his cheeks.
He loves the way Rei doesn't fuss about pulling out the futon when he stays over at Nagisa's or when Nagisa stays at Rei's any more. He loves that Rei simply executes his meticulous nightly routine of flossing, and exfoliating, and moisturizing, before climbing under the covers with a far less primped Nagisa and bidding him "goodnight and sweet dreams." Most of all, he loves when he wakes up to find himself curled around Rei, whose breathing suddenly changes patterns, like pretending to be asleep will make Nagisa forget the hand that was gently running through his hair a second ago. But Nagisa pretends too, and feigns sleep for a few minutes more, relishes the feeling of soft, butterfly-patterned pajamas against his cheek, and breathes in everything Rei.
But out of all of the things Nagisa loves about Rei, he loves the way Rei looks at him the most.
Sometimes when Nagisa says something particularly funny or frustrating, Rei laughs or fumes in contrived annoyance. It's then when Rei looks at him like he's the strangest person in the world, but amazing nonetheless - that's when his head spins. Sometimes he catches Rei staring when he wasn't supposed to be, and it's a look he's seen Makoto wear when watching Haru swim, one that's gentle and admiring (that's when his stomach flips and flops, warm and bubbly but nerve-wracking all at once).
Sometimes… Sometimes he meets Rei's gaze in the middle of the most mundane things, like studying together, or waiting on the train, or picking out desserts at the cute cake shop on the way to Rei's apartment. He wants to say it looks similar to the way couples in those silly dramas Rei secretly likes to watch and critique look at one another, but it's… different. Nagisa doesn't know how to explain it because no one has ever looked at him like that before; it's soft and sweet, but unwavering in way that makes him wonder exactly who Rei thinks he's looking at because Nagisa is just Nagisa, a boy who loves too many things and is too loud for most people and is horribly bad with numbers.
But he thinks he must look at Rei like that sometimes too, because, while Nagisa has met some amazing people in his life, Rei is spectacular. No one has ever fit beside him quite like Rei does: he's the beautiful, talented, butterfly with lines of theory etched across his wings to Nagisa's rainbow colored penguin, and somehow, it makes perfect sense that Nagisa would love Rei and Rei would… love him too, Nagisa thinks.
Those are the looks that make his heart flutter and vulnerable words he's never said to anyone jump to the tip of his tongue (but never past his lips) before Rei's looking away, panicked, and erasing the last line of his homework while mumbling something about distractions and "really, how could I even write such a poorly structured sentence" while his blushing rivals the color of the strawberries Nagisa loves so much.
One day, Nagisa will tell Rei that, out of all the things and people he loves, he loves Rei most of all.
He definitely will.
Just not today.
(But maybe tomorrow would be nice.)