Work Text:
It was a Thursday night and Nanami found himself hunched over his laptop fruitlessly typing away at his first graded assignment of the term. He’d been sat in the same position, working on the same cell of code for far too long and was getting no closer to finding a solution. He had started his computing coursework at 9pm, not expecting the questions to take more than 2 hours to complete. The first few questions had lulled him with a false sense of ease because he’d now been tirelessly working through the last one long enough for Friday to arrive, the digits in the corner of his screen reading half past 2.
After rewriting, editing and running the same lines of code over and over just to be met with various errors each time, he could feel himself reaching his breaking point. The lecture notes and tutorials were proving themselves to be useless and he was starting to lose it. There was no end in sight. He might’ve screamed, if he could summon the will to.
Not for the first or last time, Nanami berated himself for not doing more research on his course. If he had known that he would be forced to learn code he would’ve reconsidered his application.
With a tenacity that rivalled Sisyphus, he was once again trying another variation of the command he was trying to execute, when he heard strange shuffling and thumping sounds. He was content to ignore whatever it was in favour of conquering his impossible task, had it not been followed by the slam of a door that made him pause.
At first he thought it was one of his flatmates, it sounded like it was coming from next door. He assumed that a wasp or something of the sort had gotten into Yuu’s room again but that thought was quickly dismissed. If there was something wrong with Yuu, not only would he know but the entire student body would know. Honestly it baffled him how loud he could be; he wasn’t aware that human vocal cords were capable of making the noises that he’s heard come out of him.
He looked towards his door and sighed. There was no harm in checking, even if it wasn’t Yuu, maybe it was one of their other flatmates. At the very least, it was an excuse for him to get up and stretch his legs.
He opened his door and was temporarily blinded by the bright corridor lights. Once his eyes adjusted he found himself standing face to face with a short, brown haired girl he’d never seen before, holding the door to the flat open. She turned to the side, exposing a small mole beside her eye. noticing him standing awkwardly in the doorway of his room, then looked back to the corridor.
His mind spun as he attempted to make sense of the stranger at the entrance of the flat. Half delirious from the lack of sleep and staring at a screen for the past few hours, he tried to reason with himself that she must be a friend of Utahime or Yuki’s that he hadn’t met yet.
That theory was quickly discarded when he turned to where she was looking expecting to see someone he recognised, just to be met with another stranger, male this time, stumbling in the middle of the corridor. He had unusually light hair and his eyes were obscured by sunglasses - an odd choice considering the sun had been setting as early as 4 lately.
“Satoru” the girl called out, “We’re in the wrong flat.”
‘Satoru’ turned at the address. The LEDs in the corridor illuminated him in a bright light that seemed to shine through him, resembling some kind of apparition.
Nanami stared blankly as he staggered over towards his friend with the grace of a baby giraffe taking its first steps. He wasn’t entirely sure that this wasn’t just a figment of his imagination. Maybe his coursework had driven him insane and he was experiencing hyper-realistic, visual hallucinations as a result.
Too caught up questioning his sanity, he couldn’t process what he was witnessing fast enough, and had no time to even think about moving as ‘Satoru’ abandoned his path to his friend, in favour of flinging himself at Nanami instead.
Before he could even begin to react, the boy had wrapped his long limbs around him, clinging onto him with a grip strong enough to rival a snake constricting. He hadn’t noticed how tall he was from afar but now that he was draped over him, caging him between his own doorway, the height he had over him was enough to make him feel small.
Now that he was near, Nanami could see that he had on what he could only describe as an attempt at cowboy attire, and he noticed that the girl was also wearing some sort of costume. They must’ve been coming from one of the student union’s theme nights or the club.
“You’re pretty”, an involuntary blush warming his cheeks, their proximity enhancing his reaction to his words.
‘Satoru’ seemed to be examining his features, looking right into his eyes, scanning his face. He was barely an inch away from him. He could almost make out the colour of his eyes from this distance, it was some shade of blue.
“I don’t know you though” He said it with such a pitiful look on his face that Nanami could believe he was genuinely upset about that fact.
“Your hair!” He stood up suddenly and gasped, “It looks so weird”, as if his own head of pure white hair wasn’t also odd.
He would’ve said as much but the boy’s hands suddenly left their place on his shoulders, putting some well needed distance between them. The relief didn’t last long as they headed straight to his head instead, his fingers raking through his hair and tugging at his strands almost painfully.
“It’s so soft, I like it”
He cleared his throat, trying not to seem as flustered as he felt. Making eye contact with the girl over his shoulder, desperately he tried to convey his discomfort. She was thankfully sober enough to take pity on him and reached forward, tugging at her friend’s arm.
“Satoru come on this isn’t our flat”
He stumbled towards her, tripping over his feet and would’ve most likely hit his face on the open door if not for Nanami pulling him by the back of his shirt, steadying him.
He turned towards her, “Where do you guys live?”
“A floor or two above you I think”
“And you have your keycard with you?” She waved it between two fingers in response, “Do you want some help with him?”
“yeah that would be nice, the lanky idiot’s about to crash”, they both looked to where he was leaning against her, barely managing to stand on his own.
“Okay” He gave a nod of his head, “Just give me a second”
He walked into his room, grabbed two bottles of water from under his bed and his keycard from his desk, stuffing it into his pocket. Heading back out he handed her the water bottles and took her friend from her hands.
Nanami slung his arm around his shoulders, holding on to it and wrapped his own arm around his waist. They all made their way through the door and she began to lead the way up the stairs.
He paused on the landing, already giving up on dragging the boy. They’d only made it up one flight but he was already struggling to keep him propped up against his side. The position they were in was uncomfortable and unsustainable, even for their short journey. He bent slightly at the knee in front of him, guiding him backwards and lifted him properly onto his back. With his hold secured, they continued.
They walked in near silence, stopping at each floor to check for their flat, neither him nor the girl saying a single word. The quiet was accompanied by the mindless chatter, the boy at his back mumbled unintelligibly into his ear. Nanami managed to make out something about smelling nice and his hair again before deciding it was best to just tune him out. Every word he mumbled was felt on the side of his neck as a puff of air. It made his ears warm.
Their flat turned out to be 3 floors above his. After stopping at each floor, and trying every door they finally found the right one.
The girl used the keycard to opened the door, led him what he assumed to be her friends room and pointed, “Just dump him on the bed”
As gently as he could manage, he lowered the boy that felt a few seconds away from moulding into his back onto the duvet. He must’ve finally exhausted all his energy because he passed out almost instantly.
“Thanks for the help“ she said whilst placing one of the bottles on the bedside table.
He shook his head, “It was no problem”
“I’m Shoko by the way, the lightweight over there is Satoru”
“I’m Kento and I’ll be going now. Have a good night.”
As he turned to leave, she called out, “See you around, maybe”
“Yeah maybe” He shut the door behind him and returned to his flat.
Back in his room, he emptied his pockets and looked at the time. It was far too late for him to rationalise continuing his work and walking up 6 flights of stairs with the weight of an approx 6’3-4 man draped across his back, had taken too much out of him. He saved his work, shut down his computer and put it to charge.
Making a note to himself to contact maintenance about the faulty door and collapsed into bed with a huff. His mind clung to the lingering pressure in his back, warmth in his neck and drunk musings as he was taken by sleep.