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“Hiromin, lighter.”
Nanami’s the only one allowed to call Higuruma that. The only one who can make demands of him like that, too. Some would say Higuruma has a soft spot for his underclassman. Some would be correct. Don’t tell anyone that, though.
Higuruma tosses his cheap Bic lighter into Nanami’s hands. “You’d better give it back this time.” It’s a pain having to constantly buy a new one every time Nanami’s slippery fingers would steal one away.
“Perhaps I want to keep a piece of you with me,” Nanami says easily, lighting his rollie.
“Don’t be gross. Hand it back.” Higuruma stretches out a hand and Nanami gives up the small plastic thing with a playful scowl.
“Who am I gonna smoke with once you’ve graduated, Hiromi? Your company, I’ve gotten used to it.”
Ah . Higuruma had been trying to avoid this conversation all spring. Their cigarette’s been burning closer to the end. Only a month left in the school year. With exams, Higuruma will barely be at school for most of that month. He sucks in a very small cloud. Hesitates his following exhale.
“You’ll live.”
It’s not like Higuruma to get sentimental. He’ll have to try to keep it that way. He’s got a reputation to keep up, anyhow. It’s annoying when people try to talk to him, so Higuruma’s schtick has always been that of the cold, unsociable guy who’d mess someone up at the drop of a hat.
For the most part, the schtick’s been incredibly successful. Except for when one Nanami Kento decided to appear at Higuruma’s smoke spot behind the school one afternoon and never left. Higuruma tried to get him to for sure, but Nanami was strong for a junior, and after too many fights ending in the two of them sprawled out on the grass, huffing and all scratched up, Higuruma finally gave in, sticking a cigarette between his teeth and allowing Nanami to light it for him. Always lighting it for him, even when he’d blow smoke in his eye.
It’s been like that ever since.
Nanami will always be there whenever Higuruma showed up, no matter the weather, tie loosened and sweater vest sprinkled with ashdust. He was cute, and he always rolled his cigarettes thin and tight with liquorice flavoured papers, so Higuruma had to admit that he also had a certain kind of style. Nanami wasn’t good at talking to others either. Even so, he was at least not the type to lose his temper like Higuruma and was liked by a few of his classmates who’d hound him to chat and joke around with in the hallways. Higuruma would always turn away when he saw, rejecting the warming gaze Nanami would always pay him despite the company of his friends.
“No one’s easy to talk to like you.”
Higuruma snaps out of the reverie to the sound of Nanami’s gentle voice. It’s vulnerable. Even softer than usual. A voice that blows a summer warmth onto your cheeks without a hint of smog or poison. Damned cute underclassman. Higuruma laces his fingers together and stretches them out in front of him, pretending his own hands are more interesting to look at than his junior.
He bites the inside of his cheek. He’ll let him have this one. He’s feeling generous today.
“You’re easy to talk to, too.”
There’s a rustle where Nanami moves closer to him.
“I’ll miss you,” he says. Nanami’s expression is…
Higuruma rolls his eyes. There’s a burn climbing his face. A drop of sweat falls from his hairline.
“Yeah, I’ll miss ya too.”
Nanami’s close enough that Higuruma can see his lips curl in his peripheral. Nanami’s usually so cold to Gojo and the others, but with every bit of leeway Higuruma allows him, Nanami folds instantly. Rolls like a dog on its back, begging for scratches. Higuruma would be lying if he said it didn’t give him a small sense of superiority.
“Where are you going after you graduate, Hiromi? I’ll come visit you.” Nanami looks serious, eyes fixed on Higuruma’s cheek.
Higuruma finally puts his hands down, pushes them down into the grass as he leans back into it.
“Gonna go to law school.”
The huff Nanami lets out is somewhat insulting.
“You’re — are you — For real? ”
Higuruma stares back at him point blank.
“I have my reasons,” he says, darkly.
Nanami sobers up immediately, dialling his respect back in. “That’s amazing, Hiromin.”
Hiromin stays silent.
“You’ll be a great lawyer. I know it.”
Hiromi lets a cloud of smog cover his face. “Thank you.”
It’s quiet. They stay like that for a while, just smoking to the sound of horny crickets. Higuruma takes out another tailor after he finishes his first, prompting the moment to go on longer. Nanami’s licking the edge of a new paper as the silence is broken by the senior.
“What do you want to be, Nanami?”
‘Yours’. Nanami chuckles in his head. “Ahh, I dunno.” He seals the cigarette and lays back in the grass. “I’d like to retire early, so maybe I’ll just work in an office for a while.”
“You get good grades,” Higuruma observes, face unreadable.
Nanami can’t hide his pleased smirk even behind the smoke that gets into his eyes, prompting him to rub at them as he speaks.
“You noticed?”
“It’d be hard to talk to you if you were an idiot.”
Nanami’s smirk morphs into a smile singed with fondness. He pushes his slick hair back instinctively.
“I wanted to be a firefighter when I was little.” He rubs at his nose. “I thought, if I had nothing to do with my life, I might as well give it up for something good.”
There’s silence in the air after that, and Nanami worries he’s said something too corny. Shit. He should have been more careful around —
Hiromi chuckles, then has to cover his mouth as he full-on laughs heartily. Nanami grins, proud of himself despite not knowing what about his childish dream had made his senior laugh so hard.
“Nanamin,” (Oh my God.) “I didn’t know you were such a sweetheart.” Hiromi stubs out his half-done cigarette. “Actually, I did. But…ah, you must’ve been such a cute kid.”
Nanami butts his own unfinished cigarette, feeling giddy and heated up enough without the headspins to match. He braves another inch closer to his senior. “You would’ve been too, wouldn’t you have, Hiromin?”
Higuruma tolerates the movement, looks down at Nanami, now as neutral as possible. “I was alright.”
“Do you think we would have been friends?” He burns another inch closer.
“No.”
“You would have avoided me?” Something about Nanami’s tone suddenly indicates that he’s realised he’s got the upper hand.
“Like the plague,” Hiromi insists. Nanami’s conceited smile, it’s warm, heating up, toasty. Maybe Hiromi, maybe Hiromi is just a little bit scared as Nanami opens his mouth in a wicked grin.
“You say that yet you still come here to smoke every day even though you have another smoke spot behind the basketball court.”
They’re practically nose-to-nose now. Nanami’s on his knees, raised slightly higher so he’s looking down on him. A drop of sweat from Nanami’s nose falls onto Hiromi’s. Hiromi swallows.
“You like me,” Nanami asserts.
Is it okay to blame the blaring spring’s heat for the burning in Hiromi’s ears?
“ You like me .” Hiromi’s not one to go softly into this good night.
“I like you.” Nanami says, easily, smoothly, like creamy tobacco. Like vanilla coke. Like Yoplait yoghurt. Like his leg swinging over Hiromi’s, hovering over his lap. Like Hiromi’s hands, unconsciously finding the dips in his waist.
“I…”
Nanami’s breath doesn’t smell like cigarettes at all. His teeth are white. He hates bitter things. He prefers sweet bread and flavoured milk. He doesn’t favour smog or smoke. He just wants to be near Hiromi’s.
“...you.”
Hiromi tilts his chin up, his mouth finding Nanami’s, then his tongue. As Nanami curls a hand around Hiromi’s nape, Hiromi gauges closely the growing heat in those five fingers, squeezing his own around Nanami’s sweater. He worries that his tongue might taste bad around Nanami’s sweet mouth. This boy’s barely just started smoking. What an idiot. What a sweet, sly idiot.
Hiromi pulls back from the kiss; Nanami would have let himself suffocate otherwise. “Fuck,” he says. Inside, Nanami wants to take it as a command. Hiromi just wishes they weren’t both so sweaty, odours mixing and skin uncomfortable despite the homeliness of their mouths when attached.
Nanami huffs, nose touching Hiromi’s. His cheeks are bright roses, his hair catching yellow sun, eyes glistening with trepidation and excitement. “What,” Their breaths mingle before reaching each other’s skin, “were you saying just now, Hiromin?”
Hiromi smirks, gently moving his head so that their lips brush lightly.
“You know what I said, Nanamin.”
“Hiromin.”
His vision is blurred by both the heat in the air and the heat in their airs. In his head, he stubs out his cigarette. Rolls a new one with Nanami’s papers. Lets Nanami light it between his teeth.
He speaks around it. Eyes sucking in the smog of Nanami’s face. Says those three words, like it's easy, because it is. He leans in for another drag.
