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To be entirely honest, Reo isn't sure what they were even fighting over.
Maybe it was about stock investments. Or doing laundry. Washing the dishes. Or whoever cleaned their cat, Takara's litter box last.
Whatever it is, it was something minute.
Something small, something all couples argue about at some point or another.
In the grand scheme of things, it was by no means a big deal or anything to get upset about. This doesn't help Reo's hurt feelings in the slightest, but he's a mature adult. He knows there are more important matters.
Like getting this over with, and apologizing to Nagi.
Hours have gone by without them speaking. Which in itself isn't too uncommon given their varying schedules, but on the days they're both home, they're usually glued to one another's sides.
Seems like a waste of a good day to spend mad over a petty disagreement Reo doesn't even remember.
So, swallowing his pride, he trudges back to the living room, head held high as he leans over the back of the couch to face his lover.
At first, Nagi doesn't stir, too engrossed in whatever game he's playing on the flat-screen TV. Then Reo clears his throat and he jolts, tossing his controller away in either shock or excitement. Reo can't tell.
“Treasure…” Reo starts, words sticking to his throat like sweet caramel. “I'm sorry.”
Nagi innocently tilts his head to the side, retrieves his fallen controller, pauses the game, and looks at Reo. Then he blinks.
“Sorry for… what?”
Nagi's voice reveals nothing.
Is he asking to try and force an explanation out of Reo? Or is he genuinely so clueless he doesn't know what he's done?
Instantly, the anger Reo has traded for humility gets refunded.
Does Nagi really not care that much? Is Reo that unimportant to him he can't even tell after so much time has passed that he's upset? They've been together for years now. Reo could excuse this if this was when he was younger—not that he would've had the foresight of Nagi's abysmal communication skills, but—but Nagi should know better now, shouldn't he?
This is how it starts, Reo thinks with dread. This is how ships begin to sink. Relationships, from all he's read and all the effort that someone else can't be bothered to put in has taught him it's this right here. Little arguments overlooked and ignored. A frog put in slow boiling lukewarm water, unable to notice the shift until it's too late.
They're drowning, aren't they?
Should Reo just leave now, or go down with him?
Tensing, Reo draws his hand back, offer of placation rescinded. Nagi tries to grasp it, but is quickly slapped away. His touch burns too much right now. Reo feels too much right now.
“Nevermind. Fuck you.” Reo spits in rage, immediately regretting his words.
He's catastrophizing. Turning a molehill into a mountain, or however that saying goes. Everything is too much, and the best thing he can do right now is run.
But his feet won't seem to listen to him.
His body doesn't respond to his pleas to scatter, to hide before you can make things worse, only allowing him to take tiny steps back, hands raised like a shocked child's immediately after dropping an expensive heirloom they weren't supposed to mess with.
The metaphorical glass scatters at his feet and Nagi instantly rounds the couch to deal with the fallout.
“Reo…”
The call of his name sounds a million miles away.
Reo keeps walking, finally managing to make his body comply and turn around. He makes his way to the bedroom, not having the forethought that it's their bedroom, single minded in reaching his destination and getting the hell out of dodge.
There's an uncomfortable itch in his throat and a stinging to his eyes. He is perhaps overreacting, yes, but when, in the entire history of the world, has telling someone they're overreacting regardless of if they are or not helped?
Now certainly isn't one of those cases.
Nagi thankfully doesn't dare say that, though. He instead just calls out Reo's name once more, tinged with desperation, each step forward echoing like heavy rain on pavement, or the steps he once took when walking away from Reo, all those years ago.
Reo, to his credit, doesn't whirl around in fury. Doesn't strike the afterimage of a time long since passed. He just clenches—teeth and fists alike—trying to keep himself from shaking.
“Why the hell are you following me?!” Reo stops as he yells this, causing Nagi, still following each step he takes like a little lost duckling, to collide into his back.
Nagi steadies himself, wrapping strong arms around Reo's waist. He buries his head into the crook of Reo's neck, lips pressed to sensitive skin with each murmured, confused word.
“I thought we were heading to the bedroom now since Reo said… well…”
Now Reo whips his head around, staring at Nagi incredulously.
Seconds pass with nothing said.
The silence fills in the blanks Nagi was missing, or at least begins to. He comes to the realization he may have misread the situation. Greatly.
Lucky for him, it also dawns on Reo that his treasure hasn't a clue what's going on. That he doesn't even know they're supposed to be mad at each other right now. He just looks genuinely… lost, like Reo is uncharted territory he doesn't have a chance of navigating, let alone comprehending.
Eyes growing wet, Reo suddenly laughs.
He shifts in Nagi's arms with a bit of force, turning around and letting himself crumble, pressing his head into Nagi's chest.
That very same crazed fit of giggles mix and slowly dissolve into broken sobs, confusing Nagi even more than before.
Nagi doesn't know what to do.
He's dedicated years of his life to trying to solve the puzzle that is Reo Mikage. Nagi has put more effort into understanding Reo than anything else—even soccer. But unlike soccer, they don't have clips to watch or positions to learn for Reo. There's no book he can read to learn what every slight quivering of his jaw means, what his beautiful violet eyes shifting to the side are supposed to tell him, or how to stop the tears Nagi hates more than anything from soaking his shirt.
Reo isn't a subject that can be taught.
Reo can only be learned.
But if Nagi knows anything about Reo, if he's remembered a singular crumb of information about the greatest treasure of his life, it's this: freezing up won't help him.
Reo responds best to action.
So Nagi does just that: he moves.
Nagi cradles the back of Reo's head, threading his fingers through purple in what he hopes is a soothing motion. Anything to get Reo to stop crying.
“This is… never going to work out, is it?” Reo mumbles into Nagi's chest, fists buried into his shirt.
For a moment, Nagi doesn't process what Reo has said. He reasons he heard him wrong from his voice being muffled. He tries to convince himself that Reo, his Reo, would never say such a thing.
Even in his own head, Nagi knows he's lying to himself.
Fear burns a hole in his chest. He tightens his hold around Reo's waist with one hand, the other gently tugging his head upwards to meet his eyes. The sight of tears mixed in violet, caused by Nagi's failures alone, makes him want to instantly drop to his knees and repent. Or die.
“...What is Reo talking about?” Nagi risks asking, hoping he's somehow way off the mark once more, even though Reo's words had been clear as glass.
Reo sniffles once more, rubbing his nose against Nagi's shirt. The feeling of wetness from his tears and snot is a gross one, but Nagi ignores it. It's nothing in comparison to how awful Reo being upset makes him feel.
Nagi has to fix it.
He might not know how, but he has to.
If Reo will only let him try.
Reo looks up at him once more, lower lip quivering from the effort of trying to speak rather than let out more sobs.
When he finally does manage to get his reply out, it tears Nagi straight in half.
“I don't understand you. You don't understand me. Maybe…” Reo chokes on his words. “...Maybe we're not meant to be.”
The sentence lands like a knife to the chest, striking right at Nagi's heart.
He falters, dizzy on once-stable feet. His vision fades out slowly, closing and reopening in a kaleidoscope of colors. The world grows blurry, but even with everything askew, he knows this scene well. He knows it like the back of his retreating hand, holding the lifeline of Reo's bare wrist for as long as time had allowed him.
24.
The number is burned into his skull even now.
The failure, the shame, the desperation—all of it once behind him, clings to his back, following his every step in a shadow, waiting for the right moment to strike, to bury its cold claws into his chest and let the fear freeze him in place once more.
He feels the bitter chill of tendrils slithering up his calves when the pained gasp of his lover thaws him.
The ice melts away, trailing down his cheeks in steady tracks.
Distantly, it occurs to Nagi that he's started crying, too.
“Reo, please. Don't do it. Anything but that. I can't… I can't lose Reo. Not again.”
Once was torture enough.
Twice was almost the death of him.
A third time? Nagi won't make it. He knows he won't. Surviving this world without Reo isn't an existence he wants to subscribe to.
Reo stays silent, teeth tugging on his lower lip. The sight usually has Nagi immediately seizing Reo by the hips and carrying him elsewhere (if time permits), but now, used to shut himself up, to dull his pitiful sounds, it somehow further breaks Nagi's heart.
“Please, Reo. Don't go. I promise I'll learn—we'll learn to do better. Please don't give up on me. Please don't give up on us…”
“Reo always gets what he wants, doesn't he? So… as long as you want me, I'll be here. And if Reo doesn't want me anymore, I…”
Nagi trails off, swallowing around the lump in his throat.
Reo clings tighter, pulling himself flush to Nagi.
“I'll always want you, my treasure. Don't you ever doubt that.”
Petulance tells Nagi to grumble back something about how Reo doubts him all the time. Instinct tells Nagi to shut the hell up.
Instinct, as always, wins out.
It's the right choice, too, as Reo tilts his head up, long lashes fluttering shut as his lips seal against Nagi's own. The usual taste is tainted with the leftover salt of tears, but Nagi has no room to make any complaints. Can't fathom a single one, not with Reo's lips melting against his own.
Reo's fingers begin to dance down Nagi's sides, trying to calm the shudders of panic. In turn, Nagi's thumbs smooth away any remaining tears stubbornly clinging to Reo's face.
He cups Reo's jaw with all the love and adoration in the world, the gentle touch of his palms expressing every bit his words fail to do.
“Reo, I love you so much.”
Nagi initiates their next kiss. It's as soft and tender as their first one had been, and just as sweet. He takes pride in the shudder that travels down Reo's spine, or in how his knees buckle, threatening to give out beneath him.
Knowing how this story goes, Nagi lifts Reo with ease, a rare grin on his face as he pulls back and toned legs tighten around his waist.
“Don't you dare go anywhere, Seishiro. I mean it. I'll track you down to the ends of the earth if you even try.” Reo attempts to sound threatening, but only manages to endear Nagi even further—if that's possible. With Reo, nothing is impossible.
Nagi snorts—another rarity only discovered and brought out by Reo.
“Where would I go when my home is right here?”
The soft smile shining bright on Reo's face is more than worth the teasing Nagi will likely get later for that cheesy line.
And the kiss that follows makes it doubly so.
It's not their first fight. Considering how couples and relationships seem to work, it probably won't be their last.
“Never let me go, Reo.”
“Yes, treasure.”
But as Nagi carries Reo to their bedroom, giggling together like two teenagers head over cleats for one another, and the door shuts behind them with a slight squeak, he knows to the deepest depths of his heart that he and Reo will be fine.
They'll figure out like they always do.
Together.