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Mikage Reo, the campus prince and resident dreamboat of Hakuho High, is the stuff of fantasies.
For many of his schoolmates, both girls and boys alike, these fantasies place them at the centre of Reo’s attention, as the object of his affection. He’s attractive, charming, competent, and effortlessly skilled in seemingly anything he puts his mind to; it’s no wonder that everyone is constantly vying for even a sliver of his attention.
They want him to look at them, to take care of them; some of them want to claim him, while others want him to claim them. Love letters, flowers, chocolates, and other grand confessions are frequent occurrences in the classroom.
When it comes to fantasizing about Mikage Reo, Fujisaki Sakura is no exception. Whenever he enters the classroom, she finds her eyes drifting over toward him, taking note of how their classmates gravitate toward him as though pulled by some invisible force. He’s magnetic; it’s only natural that everyone is drawn to him.
Where she differs, however, is in the fact that these fantasies never concern herself.
“Sakura, you’re always staring at Reo-kun.”
“Hm?” Sakura blinks, drawn out of her daze by the voice of one of her classmates. “I suppose so.”
Her classmate giggles. “So honest. You must like him a lot, hm? Not that I can blame you, of course. Reo-kun’s just so dreamy…”
“I guess I do. He’s exactly my type…”
Of uke, that is.
But Sakura can’t exactly say that in front of her classmates when they’re all head over heels for Reo, so she just goes along with whatever the rest of them say. It’s much easier to let them believe she’s just one of many who are in love with the campus prince than it is to explain that Reo looks like he walked right out of one of her dream BL novels, or that she thinks the object of everyone else’s desires deserves to get railed seven ways to Sunday. That probably wouldn’t go over very well.
“Well, good luck with that,” her classmate says wistfully, patting her on the back. “I heard he turned down two more confessions just this morning.”
Sakura gives a strained laugh. “Is that so…”
“You’re pretty cute though, you know. It might still be worth trying your luck!”
“Ah, it’s really alright,” Sakura waves her off. “I’m…” Not interested, is what she wishes she could say. “I’m fine, uh, admiring Reo-kun from afar…” She tries not to cringe too hard at her own words.
“You’re so strong,” her classmate sniffs as she fakes wiping away a tear. “If I liked someone that much, I definitely wouldn’t be able to keep it to myself.”
“Haha, yeah…”
The bell rings soon after that, saving Sakura from having to endure any more mortifying interrogation about her so-called ‘crush’. She’s never been so thankful for a history class in her life; if she had to hear any more pitying remarks about how she doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell with Reo, she might have just packed up her things and left before first period even started.
That’s the thing about Mikage Reo: everyone fantasizes about him, about being with him, but nobody has managed to make those fantasies a reality. No matter how grand the confession, no matter how attractive the individual, Reo’s answer is always a gentle, but firm, rejection.
Still, that doesn’t stop the outrageous number of students who line up to ask him out, thinking that they might be different, that they might be the one who manages to catch Reo’s eye when nobody else could. Sakura has heard countless girls giggling in the hallway about how they think that they could be the one Reo’s been looking for.
But with the number of girls that Reo has turned down without so much as a second glance, Sakura can’t help but think that the problem isn’t that Reo simply hasn’t met the right girl yet.
Maybe it’s that he hasn’t met the right boy yet.
Is she biased by her own BL-fueled delusions? Probably! But what does it matter when everyone else in their school is just as delusional, if only in a slightly different manner? Not to mention that Sakura has also heard about Reo’s recent endeavours with recruiting guys for the school’s soccer team—apparently they have one, now—and it’s… thought-provoking, to say the least.
Hey, you’ve got a great build! How about joining our soccer team?
I saw the way you ran out there, and I think I could make much better use of that speed than anyone else on that team of yours could.
A favour? Haha, sure, as long as it’s something I can do.
Okay, fine, so she’s aware that Reo was probably just buttering them all up in order to get them to do what he wants, but can anybody blame her for freaking out, just a little bit, when every other sentence out of this boy’s mouth sounds like something out of the drama CD she’d just finished listening to?
Has anybody ever told you how built you are?
No? I’ll be sure to appreciate you properly, then.
God, just thinking about it again is making her face hot. Reo just happens to fit too many of her favourite tropes to a tee: tall, pretty, prim and proper and put-together, seemingly perfect and almost unreachable—until he finally finds someone he wants to chase after. Once he knows what he wants, he stops at nothing to get it, pushing and prodding at times while playing coy at others. Part of the appeal lies in the chase itself—here’s someone who has everyone wrapped around his finger, now choosing to go after someone on his own.
Then, finally, that carefully crafted perfection falls apart at the hands of the very person he’s been pursuing until all that’s left is a dishevelled, pleading mess—
Ahem.
Maybe these thoughts are better left for after class; she hasn’t heard a word the teacher’s said for the last five minutes. Besides, she’s getting woefully ahead of herself: she can daydream all she wants, but the fact remains that there is an absolutely devastating lack of adequate seme candidates in their class. They’re all too short, or too full of themselves, or too desperate. Ugh, just thinking about it is giving her a headache.
It’s truly miserable, having the perfect uke right in front of her but not having anybody worth shipping him with. Must she do everything herself?
“Fujisaki, you’ve been doing an awful lot of sighing over there. Perhaps you’d like to answer this question?”
Ah, fuck.
---
Just when it seems like all hope is lost, the unthinkable happens:
Reo shows up to school with another guy.
He’s exiting his limousine just as Sakura is entering the school gates, which is nothing unusual, but then the sound of furious whispering draws her attention, making her turn around and nearly drop her phone onto the pavement.
Because then, someone else emerges from Reo’s limo, like it’s nothing. Like it isn’t absolutely insane and unheard of for Reo to bring someone else to school. Like this isn’t going to spread like a wildfire across campus the moment people manage to pick their jaws up off the floor.
And when this guy rises to his full height, Sakura feels her world tilt on its axis.
He’s tall. Like, really tall. Even standing next to Reo, slightly slouched over, their heads are at about the same level. The possibility that he might actually be taller than Reo kind of makes Sakura want to scream. She doesn’t, of course, but it’s a close thing.
As if things weren’t already crazy enough, Sakura watches as Reo completely brushes off one of the prettiest girls in their class as she’s clearly trying to flirt with him, because apparently playing soccer with this new friend of his is much more important. And then he slings his arm over the other guy’s shoulder, leaning in so close that they’re almost cheek to cheek as they make their way into the school.
What. The. Fuck.
Sakura’s never seen Reo shower anybody with that much attention. What’s more, the subject of said attention didn’t even seem to care! Does he even realize that he has Mikage Reo, the most sought-after guy at Hakuho High, wrapped around his finger?
This is better than anything Sakura could have ever imagined. She might be hyperventilating a little bit.
“Hey, who’s that shabby-looking guy,” she hears someone hiss near the school entrance. “What class is he in?”
“Dunno,” another girl says. “Why’s Reo so interested in him all of a sudden, anyway?”
If it were socially acceptable for Sakura to click her heels together in the middle of the hallway, she would. Everybody else seems to be mad—like, really mad—about this boy who’s suddenly monopolizing Reo’s attention, but Sakura’s on cloud fucking nine.
The universe must have heard her prayers. There’s still hope for Reo—and her dreams—after all!
---
The guy’s name, as it turns out, is Nagi Seishiro.
Sakura finds this out rather quickly, and a lot more easily than she thought she would. It takes almost no effort on her part, actually: she’s just settling down at her desk when she happens to overhear Reo right outside in the hallway, asking for information about someone named ‘Nagi Seishiro’. Honestly, it doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together; who else could Reo possibly be interested enough in to ask around about them?
There’s nobody else in the classroom yet, so Sakura allows herself to kick her feet a little under the table. Reo, who constantly has people flocking to him without lifting a finger, is going around asking for information about somebody? Specifically, the guy he’d given a ride to school, and then had been all over as they walked through the school gates? Maybe she should treat herself to something from the bookstore today to celebrate.
While she waits for class to start, Sakura lets her mind wander. How did those two meet, anyway? It certainly wasn’t in class; heck, Sakura hadn’t known somebody like this even went here. If she had, she wouldn’t have been so concerned with the despairingly seme-less state of the school. This Nagi guy must really keep to himself.
A meet-cute, perhaps? Maybe they bumped into each other—it’s a classic shoujo trope, sure, but it’s a classic for a reason. Ooh, or a chance encounter in the fading light of the sunset? Nothing says romance like the painted glow of the sunset.
Gosh, Sakura feels like she’s floating and she’s only just found out of Nagi’s existence. Just this revelation alone is enough to feed her for the rest of her life, she thinks.
She doesn’t know all that much about Nagi Seishiro, but from the looks of it, he just might be the right type of seme for Reo: tall, quiet, slightly disinterested in a way that makes him seem mysterious, hard-to-get, and he has a nice face? If he turns out to be just a little pathetic under that impassive exterior, it’ll be perfect. Maybe he’ll be the one who can unravel Reo’s projection of perfection, little by little. With the way he’s already got Reo running around the school, it feels like it’s only a matter of time.
Yeah. Sakura’s definitely going to the bookstore later. Maybe she’ll pick up a new sketchbook while she’s at it, too.
---
For the first time in her life, Sakura watches a soccer game.
She’s not there for the soccer, of course. She’s not a sports person, like, at all. She’s allergic to sports, even. The only time sports are even remotely alright is when they feature in all those homoerotic sports animes, or something like that.
She’s not exactly there for the team, either. School spirit’s never really been her thing. She didn’t even know their school had a soccer team until maybe two weeks ago, and even then, she was more focused on the way Reo was running around seducing other guys into joining him on the—what, that’s not what happened? Pity.
No, she’s there for two people specifically. The only two people who could ever get her to even consider giving up time she could be spending flipping through the new doujinshi she bought in favour of attending a sports match.
She sighs, a little put-out. The things she does for love.
Boys’ love, that is.
The first part of the game is boring, no matter what anybody else says, no matter how hard everyone else around her is cheering and yelling. What’s so exciting about kicking a ball back and forth on the grass, anyway?
Just as she considers giving up and going home, though, Reo passes the ball to Nagi. To Sakura, it kinda just looks like he kicks it, but it must be something impressive, given the way the people around her gasp.
And then Nagi does something that’s definitely impressive, enough so that even Sakura, knowing fuck-all about soccer, can tell. He shakes off the guy that’s guarding him before launching himself into the air, kicking the ball up over his head from behind himself before spinning around and blasting the ball right into the net. His landing isn’t particularly graceful—it’s more of a crash, really—but that doesn’t matter, not when everyone in the stands is on their feet, hooting and hollering in astonishment, and certainly not when Reo all but throws himself at Nagi, toppling him right back down onto the grass.
Wow, Sakura thinks, for reasons that have nothing at all to do with soccer. She watches as Reo half-hugs, half-strangles Nagi with one arm, mussing up his hair roughly with the other, and pumps her fist in celebration.
Not for the goal, but for the ship that’s set sail in her heart.
---
Reo and Nagi seem to appear as a set, after that.
They arrive at school together, eat lunch together, go to practice together, and presumably go home together. It becomes more uncommon to see them apart outside of class than together; if Reo’s around, then there’s a good chance that Nagi is close behind.
One morning, as Sakura’s tucked away in a quiet corner of the school’s courtyard to get some reading in—something perfectly appropriate for a public setting, thank you very much—she spots Reo and Nagi taking a seat nearby. Literally, a seat. Singular. They sit back to back on the same seat, even though there’s another perfectly good, perfectly empty seat right in front of them.
Okay. That’s—okay.
Okay.
“Is it just me, or is Reo-kun always with that guy lately,” someone nearby wonders aloud. Sakura stifles a snort.
He is, she thinks smugly. It’s been wonderful for her, after being starved of any good Reo-related developments for over a year.
“Oh, you mean Nagi Seishiro?”
Sakura starts to tune out the conversation in favour of resuming her reading—there’s not a whole lot of time left before the first bell rings—until something else catches her attention.
“Well, I guess he fell hard…”
“For who, Nagi Seishiro?”
Sakura nearly chokes, whipping her head around to look at the girls who are still whispering nearby, eyes wide. She doesn’t recognize any of them—oh, maybe one of them is in her class? A kindred spirit, perhaps?
“No, for soccer,” one of the other girls scoffs, and Sakura rolls her eyes. It’s obvious to anyone with eyes that Reo’s crazy for soccer, but there’s very clearly something to be said about the way he’s constantly hanging off Nagi, even when they aren’t playing soccer. There’s very clearly something to be said about the way Reo always leans in a little too close, the way his eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles at Nagi in a way that they don’t when he smiles at anybody else. He may as well be glowing whenever he’s around Nagi. Surely she’s not the only one who sees it?
Now, while Reo’s actions speak incredibly loudly, it’s hard to say the same for Nagi—at least, at first.
Initially, it seems like Nagi’s being dragged along by Reo, going along with his whims not because he wants to, but because he doesn’t have any other choice. He soaks up all of Reo’s attention like a sponge, without any regard for the precious commodity that he’s receiving so freely. While the amount of time he spends with Reo seems to point to Nagi feeling at least somewhat positively about him, the degree to which he really likes Reo remains unclear for a little while.
And then, something strange happens.
It’s hardly unusual for people to start chatting Reo up on school grounds—no, that’s not the weird part. The weird part is Nagi, standing a couple of steps behind Reo.
At first glance, Nagi seems as disinterested as usual; it would be easy to assume that he’s just staring off into space, zoning out as a group of girls fights for crumbs of Reo’s attention.
But Sakura’s seen him enough times by now—especially when he’s together with Reo—to notice that there’s something a little off about him.
He’s standing a little straighter than usual, at least compared to his usual slouched-over posture. When Sakura peers around the corner of the hallway to get a better look, she notices what appears to be the slightest downturn of Nagi’s lips—nothing like his usual lazy expression. He regards the girls chatting to Reo with what Sakura can only describe as mild disdain, while the girls themselves remain oblivious to Nagi’s presence.
Another minute passes, and the slightest narrowing of Nagi’s eyes is the only warning indicator before he steps closer to Reo, closing the already-small distance between them to plop his head on Reo’s shoulder. Gone is the disdain, the subtle glare he’d been sporting while Reo had been turned away; instead, the face he makes when Reo turns his attention to him is almost pleading. It’s kind of embarrassing to watch, actually.
Nagi seems to murmur something, though it isn’t audible, and then Reo turns to the girls he’d been talking to with an apologetic look. As soon as Reo’s no longer looking at him, Nagi’s expression shifts again. His chin still rests on Reo’s shoulder, but now he’s looking down at the girls with that same disdainful face he’d been sporting a moment ago, eyes half-lidded in a way that’s all too deliberate, a far cry from his usually half-awake disposition.
The moment the girls take notice of Nagi is palpable in the way their shoulders tense as they duck their heads in a brief imitation of a bow before swiftly walking away from the pair.
And then, as soon as the girls are gone, Nagi fully slumps against Reo, arms wrapped loosely around his middle. And Reo—Reo just laughs, one hand coming up to ruffle Nagi’s hair fondly.
Sakura’s jaw drops so hard she has to pick it up off the floor. Then, she whirls around, speedwalks down the hall, enters the nearest empty stairwell, and leans her head against the wall. Her heart is racing like she’s just run a marathon—or at least, like she’s just run the 800-metre race during their school’s sports festival against her will. If she were to run a marathon, she probably wouldn’t be alive enough by the end of it for her heart to beat at all.
What was that? What was that? What god does she need to thank for blessing her with enough material to sustain her well into the next century?
Now she feels like she owes an apology to Nagi for ever questioning his desire for Reo. Whatever the fuck she just witnessed has far exceeded any kind of expectations she might have held for them.
She would’ve been perfectly happy just seeing Reo, who usually gets everything he wants with a mere snap of his fingers, falling over himself to win Nagi’s affection while Nagi himself would remain seemingly unaffected by Reo’s advances. But knowing Nagi’s just as crazy—if not even crazier—about Reo, even if he doesn’t outwardly show it? That changes things. That’s better. That’s so much better.
She can just picture it now: instead of plopping his chin on Reo’s shoulder, what if Nagi were to snake his arm around Reo’s waist, pulling Reo right against his side? Subtle, but possessive, a clear message written in the hand gripping Reo’s hip: Back off. He’s mine.
Sakura really hopes the stairwell is as empty as it sounds, because she can’t stop a little squeal from escaping her throat at the mere thought of it.
Reo has already staked his claim on Nagi—the arm that’s constantly slung around his shoulder may as well be a collar. But now, seeing Nagi glare jealously at the girls who dared to steal Reo’s attention away from him, despite spending most of the day with Reo glued at the hip?
God, mutual possessiveness is so delicious. Sakura’s hand twitches at her side, itching for her pen. That kind of image deserves to be immortalized.
The door to the stairwell opens, and Sakura jumps away just in time to find herself face-to-face—okay, it’s more like face-to-collarbone—with Nagi Seishiro himself.
“Ah.”
“Hm? Why’d you stop walking?” Sakura hears Reo ask, right before he peers over Nagi’s shoulder. “Oh, hey,” he greets, with a friendly smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes the way it does when he’s looking at Nagi. “You’re in my class, aren’t you?”
Sakura can only nod stiffly, unable to bring herself to meet either of their eyes. What the heck are they even doing here?
“Sorry, boss,” Nagi says to Reo, apparently done with acknowledging Sakura’s presence, and—what the fuck, boss? Sakura feels dizzy. “This one’s usually empty.”
“I-It’s fine, I was just passing through!” Sakura stammers out in a hurry, grabbing the door handle and opening it wider so Nagi and Reo can pass through. “See, I’m leaving now! Sorry to, uh, bother you!”
She barely catches sight of Reo’s little wave and Nagi’s blank stare before she all but launches herself out of the stairwell and vigorously speedwalks back in the direction of her classroom, mind racing.
This is. A lot to take in. Not only does Nagi have a jealous streak, but he also calls Reo ‘boss’? Is that normal? That’s not normal, is it? It sounds like a line taken right out of the light novel she’d been flipping through the other day in the courtyard—by daylight, the usually-passive seme worked under the uke, his superior. But at night, the dynamic was flipped right on its head, and the seme, while still eager to please, was also much more assertive in his displays of affection—
No, no, that can wait. The novel was great, of course, but she has something a little more pressing to consider right now: why the heck was Nagi leading Reo to the stairwell? A stairwell that, according to Nagi, is usually empty? Why does the emptiness of the stairwell matter? What could Nagi and Reo possibly be doing that necessitates being in an empty—the key word, here—stairwell?
If Sakura weren’t still in the middle of the hallway, she’d probably make some kind of ungodly, embarrassing sound. She already knows she’s not going to be able to pay attention in any of her remaining classes and sends a mental apology to her teachers for prioritizing her OTP over her academics. But, in her defense, anyone in her position would do the same! How could they not, after making so many crazy discoveries in rapid succession? If anything, she deserves praise for not running right out of the building to retrieve her sketchbook and madly scribbling out a comic until the sun rises the next morning. Doesn’t anyone realise the amount of self-control she’s exercising right now?
“Fujisaki, what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in English right now?”
Sakura blinks. Looks around. Takes in the confused faces of her peers, and the teacher that is decidedly not the English teacher.
Shit. Wrong classroom.
---
Sakura sincerely hopes that the asshole who invented detention is having a terrible day, wherever they are.
At least for the first bit, she was given cleaning duty, so that gave her something to do. But now, she still has twenty minutes left before she’s allowed to leave the classroom, and the teacher wouldn’t even let her bring her sketchbook in! All she can do is sit at her desk and stare at the wall, or maybe count the spots on the ceiling.
Bo-ring.
She glances out the window, sighing wistfully as she watches the students who’ve just wrapped up with their club activities make their way through the courtyard toward the school gates. She wishes that were her.
Outside, the sun is just beginning its slow descent below the horizon, pale blue giving way to more saturated oranges and pinks that colour the edges of the clouds with their hues. At least it’s nice to look at.
It’d be nicer to look at if she were looking at it from outside, and not from the damn classroom window.
It’s fine; even if she doesn’t have her sketchbook, she still has her brain. There are plenty of ways to keep herself occupied, especially after the day she had yesterday. She just needs to make sure to keep her expression as neutral as possible. She doesn’t particularly feel like getting called out for looking ‘far too happy to be in detention’ this time.
She’s having a particularly intense one-sided debate about whether Nagi or Reo would be the one to confess first—and how they’d go about it—when the teacher tells her that she’s free to leave. She barely remembers to bow before she’s all but flying out of the classroom—or rather, walking out of the classroom as quickly as she can without earning herself an extra day of detention.
The courtyard is practically deserted by the time she makes it outside, the sunset painting everything in warm tones that make her feel like she’s been transported to a completely different place. She doesn’t usually stay at school this late, so being here now feels almost unfamiliar.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, there’s some movement that catches her attention. She looks over toward the field and nearly faints.
There, on the soccer pitch, is Reo. He’s not alone, of course, but usually when Nagi’s around, he’s trailing a couple of paces behind Reo, or seated back-to-back with him, or something. This time, Nagi’s completely draped over Reo’s back as Reo carries him over to the bench where their training gear is lying.
Sakura blinks. Remove her glasses, wipes them, and then puts them back on, just to make sure she’s actually seeing what she thinks she’s seeing.
And yeah, there’s Reo giving Nagi—who’s taller than he is, by the way—a piggyback ride. Nagi certainly looks like he’s making himself comfortable, if the way he’s practically melting into Reo is any indication.
Do they do this often? Reo gives absolutely no sign that he’s struggling at all under Nagi’s weight, despite having probably spent at least the last hour practicing, and Nagi looks like he belongs there, draped over Reo’s back like he’s lived there his whole life. There’s something about the easy closeness, the casual intimacy that makes Sakura’s heart squeeze in her chest. For once, despite all the filth she’s read without batting an eye, she feels as though she’s looking at something she shouldn’t be.
So she averts her eyes to afford them some modicum of privacy, despite them being totally out in the open where anyone can see them, and begins her walk back to the dorms, wondering all the while if she’s even going to survive the year, if this is the kind of sight she’s going to be greeted with on a regular basis. Her heart might actually explode if this keeps up.
Well, whatever. If she dies, she’ll at least die happy, knowing her OTP is thriving. There are certainly worse ways to go.
---
If one more person passes an errand off to Sakura, she is going to bite their ankles off.
“Oh, Fujisaki, before you leave, could you bring these forms over to classroom 2-A? We got their share by mistake.”
“Are you on your way out? Do you think you could drop these papers off by the teachers’ office on the way?”
“Oh, while you’re here, could you bring this key to the Student Council meeting room? They said they needed a spare to lock up because the president’s out sick today.”
What is she, a fucking carrier pigeon? All because she happens to be in all the wrong places at all the right times? Ridiculous! She just wants to go home so she can draw in peace, is that so much to ask?
It’s only when she reaches the end of the hallway that she realizes she’s made a wrong turn. She doesn’t usually have any reason to visit the Student Council meeting room, anyhow, so she can’t be faulted for that. She can, however, be a little bit pissy about it, because she’s been ready to leave for the last fifteen minutes, back when she was so full of hope and much less covered in sweat from running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Or a carrier pigeon with its head cut off.
She turns around, mentally retracing her steps to try and figure out which turn she missed when she hears voices down the hall, just around the corner in the direction she needs to head back in.
Familiar voices.
“Seriously?” Reo’s voice is hushed, sounding mildly agitated. “Here? Anyone could walk by and see—”
“So?” That’s Nagi’s voice, sounding much calmer. “Let them see. I don’t care.”
A scoff. “Well, that’s wonderful for you, but I— mmph!”
Mmph?
The voices stop for a brief moment after that. Sakura remains frozen where she’s standing, not even daring to breathe. It’s quiet, save for a sharp inhale, and then—
And then.
There’s a wet sort of smacking sound, the kind that Sakura is all too familiar with thanks to the countless drama CDs she’s listened to, and she claps a hand over her mouth to keep the strangled noise that’s clawing its way up her throat from escaping.
There’s no way. There’s absolutely no way—
“Nagi,” Reo gasps, a pathetic attempt at scolding him, “not here, I’m serious, you can’t keep—!”
The rest of Reo’s words sound like they’ve been choked off in his throat. Then, one of them sighs—holy shit—and then there’s another smacking sound, the sound of lips coming apart, before Nagi speaks again.
“Reo, you actually like it though, don’t you? If you didn’t, you’d have pushed me off by now.”
There’s a quiet, strangled noise from Reo. He sounds really embarrassed. He’s probably a blushing mess right now. Sakura would sell her left kidney to see it for herself. “Shut up…”
Then make me, Sakura thinks, a little deliriously, filling in the blank with the line she’s read and heard countless times, one second before Nagi goes, “You’ll have to shut me up yourself, boss,” two seconds before another breathy little sound rings out in the silence of the hallway, and about two and a half seconds before Sakura’s brain short circuits as she fully processes her situation.
Nagi and Reo are making out in the hallway. There’s absolutely no other possible explanation for whatever the fuck she’s hearing just around the corner.
Wow. Wow. Is she dreaming? She must be dreaming.
She pinches her arm. There’s a shaky inhale, barely audible, followed by—was that a whimper?
She’s not dreaming.
Alright, that’s cool, Sakura can be cool about this, super cool, definitely, it’s not like the uke of her dreams is kissing another boy—the only boy good enough for him, in her opinion—a mere few feet away from her. It’s not like every daydream she’s ever had about these two has just been put to shame.
Wow, maybe being delusional is the right way to go, after all. If anything, she feels like she should start dreaming a little bigger.
It’s surreal. This might very well be the happiest Sakura’s ever felt. She’d feel even happier if she didn’t have to walk past them because she still needs to deliver that stupid key to the stupid Student Council because their stupid president is sick.
Well, people usually kiss with their eyes closed, right? Maybe if she’s really quiet, she’ll be able to tiptoe around them without alerting them to her presence, and they’ll be none the wiser. Just in case, though, she sincerely hopes they won’t remember her from their encounter in the stairwell a few days ago.
Wait a minute, does that mean when they were in the stairwell, they really were—
No, no, now’s not the time! She can focus on that after she’s successfully made her escape. The last thing she wants is to interrupt her faves when they’re about to get down and dirty—or at least, as down and dirty as they can get in a school hallway where there are probably still security cameras around. Yikes.
Okay, she can do this. She takes a breath, then quietly steps out into the next hallway—
And immediately makes eye contact with Nagi. Of course.
He has Reo backed against the wall—oh wow—with his arms caging him in on either side of his head—oh wow—while Reo clings to the front of Nagi’s uniform blazer. Reo can’t see her, thankfully; his face is buried in Nagi’s neck, which he seems to be kissing with great enthusiasm. Nagi, however, spots her as soon as she steps out into view. He meets her stare head-on, challenging, almost daring her to say something, anything.
It’s amazing. If there’s one thing Sakura hopes she’ll remember from her high school days for the rest of her life, she desperately wants it to be this.
Sakura looks back at Nagi, eyes wide, miming zipping her fingers over her lips before speedwalking as quietly as she can past them. She really, really needs to make sure Nagi knows she’s not trying to get on his bad side.
“Something wrong, treasure?” She hears Reo ask as she makes her way back down the hallway she’d come in from.
Treasure? Maybe these errands aren’t so bad, after all; today feels like a gift that keeps on giving.
“Mm, it’s nothing. Let’s keep going.”
“You’re absolutely ridiculous.”
Their voices fade as Sakura gets further and further away, and it’s only once she knows she’s in the clear that she allows herself a moment to slump against the wall, letting out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding.
Then she picks herself up, finds the hallway she’d missed earlier, drops off the key, and then skips out of the building, already drafting thumbnails for a new doujinshi in her head.
Hm. Maybe she’ll swing by the bookstore first instead, and buy herself something nice. Her favourite ship is sailing, after all!