Nitori had always managed to keep his inner thoughts as crazy and passionate as they sometimes were to himself.
It really had broken his composure to hear his senpai, the one that he'd hoped for and adored for so long, call him Ai.
He knew that it was just a cute nickname for his much longer first name, but to him, all he could see were those old lessons, Ai meant love.
Nitori knew that he was overthinking everything, because his senpai was only calling him by a cute nickname, not professing his long time love for him which only became much more clear when Rin continued what he was saying.
The butterflies in Aiichiro's stomach did not even begin to fade at that realization as suddenly he was confronted with all that he ever wanted; his fantasies refused to not come bursting forth into his mind though he worked to keep them at bay which did not stop the dusting of red that began to fill up his cheeks.
He smiled anyway and tried to make it appear other than the blushing cheeks that he didn't think of them as anything but friends.
His embarrassing reactions never did end whenever he was called Ai, mostly by Rin, as he continued to blush as his mind continued to wander.
Aiichiro took a deep breath and smiled back at him, calling him Senpai was only a marker to avoid cooing his name out in a romantically, gushy way that would reveal his inner thoughts and feelings.
Rin-senpai was almost worse or just as bad as saying his first name was like a tender drug leaving his lips.
Surely, Rin liked girls or at least someone other than Ai or that was what he told himself to lock his feelings into secret vaults as he bit his tongue from all that he wouldn't say, all that he couldn't tell him.
Aiichiro smiled as he spoke with him, trying to lock that nickname that even his mother hadn't called him far away.