Chapter Text
Seiji woke up exactly one minute before his alarm went off. The alarm was there for redundancy, truth be told. He never needed it. His body knew his schedule and woke up with sixty seconds to spare. Sixty seconds to preemptively turn off the alarm, so as not to wake his snoring roommate. Not, Seiji thought with distaste, that Nicholas would wake up even if the alarm blared long and loud. Nicholas could sleep through anything.
Alarm turned off, Seiji stepped out of bed and allowed himself a single yawn. Then he navigated through his morning routine by the light of the single lamp Nicholas never turned off, shining through the blue curtain bisecting the room. In ten minutes, Seiji was ready to leave and start his morning in earnest. As he walked to the door, Nicholas gave a particularly loud snore, and Seiji glanced to him, lip curling. He did not enjoy sharing his space with Nicholas Cox. Not at all. But, when his eyes fell on his sleeping roommate, the strangest thing happened. Instead of turning to go after a cursory glance, Seiji’s eyes lingered. Nicholas was as unruly in sleep as he was in everything else and it irritated Seiji greatly. He’d only managed to keep a single foot under his blanket, his pillow was nowhere near his head, and his shirt—an atrocious black tank top—was bunched up so high on his body that he might as well have forgone it all together. It was on this particular detail of the tableau that Seiji found his attention drawn. To the lean muscles exposed by the ill worn shirt, to all that skin glowing warm and soft in the lamplight.
“Heathen,” Seiji muttered to himself, ripping his eyes away from the sight. Another item for the endless list of reasons Nicholas was such a troublesome roommate: he couldn’t even wear a shirt correctly.
Over the next week, Seiji started to notice just how terrible at wearing shirts Nicholas really was. For one thing, Seiji noted with disapproval, Nicholas didn’t always wear a shirt. He had an affinity for bumbling about their room bare-chested, like some sort of neanderthal. Furthermore, on the occasion when he was actually wearing a shirt, it was always hiked up to show off a hip bone or varying amounts of stomach or back. Seiji hated it. Even Nicholas’s uniform seemed to be conspiring again Seiji, riding up whenever Nicholas yawned—which was frequently, or raised his hand in class—which happened less frequently, or reached an arm around Bobby’s shoulders with good-natured affection. It all made Seiji highly irritable. One would think that after sixteen years of life, wearing a shirt would be easy.
He told Nicholas as much one night as they got ready for bed. Seiji had had a long day, as he often did, and was already short-tempered. So was it any wonder that he finally snapped upon seeing Nicholas shed his clothes, right there in the middle of the room, and pull on his stupid shorts and tank top, only to leave the shirt half folded in on itself rather than pulling it down like a decent human being?
“How hard is it,” Seiji asked Nicholas with a frown, “to wear a shirt correctly?”
“Huh?” Nicholas responded, eloquent as ever. He looked down at himself blankly, then back up to Seiji. “It’s on right.”
“It most certainly is not,” Seiji was incredulous. How did the moron count that as right?
“It’s not inside out,” Nicholas seemed to answer his thoughts. “Or backward. So it’s on right.”
“You’re not meant to wear shirts like that,” Seiji informed him, glaring pointedly at the exposed skin between the band of Nicholas’s shorts and the folds of his shirt. It took Nicholas a long moment to understand, during which he just stood there looking at Seiji as if he were crazy.
“Oh,” Nicholas laughed, and, finally looking down again, he seemed to register his midriff for the first time. Deftly, he smoothed the shirt down into place before smirking at Seiji. “Is that why you’ve been glaring at me so much lately? I thought I’d seriously done something to piss you off.”
“You have,” Seiji said briskly, then turned his attention back to preparing for bed. He could feel Nicholas’s eyes fixed on him, and Seiji had the unpleasant feeling that Nicholas was amused. Seiji straightened his shoulders and ignored it. Nicholas’s entertainment would be well worth it if he’d start wearing his shirt like a civilized person.
Of course, that was asking too much. Nicholas did no such thing. In fact, it seemed to Seiji like Nicholas’s proclivity for misusing—or forgoing—shirts had increased. And he didn’t stop at that, either. Nicholas would purposefully stretch and meet Seiji’s eyes across the room, daring him to comment on the inch or two of skin that appeared. It had been going on like this for the better part of a week, and Seiji thought he might go insane. Or, at the very least, develop an eye twitch and a matching ulcer.
He shot a reproachful glance at Nicholas as he entered the room. His roommate was already installed on his bed, reading some asinine book that looked more the size of a pamphlet than a proper novel. Nicholas caught Seiji’s eye and smirked, looking down at his torso, which wasn’t covered much by his shirt. No surprises there. The surprise came, however, when Nicholas grabbed the back of his tank top and pulled it off in one swift motion, then threw it on the floor, with a wink at Seiji. A wink. The barbarian had the gull to wink at him, of all things.
“Nobody wants to see that, Nicholas,” Seiji chided, trying to keep his temper, and the red flush he felt with it, at bay.
“I figured if you find the way I wear my shirt so offensive, I’d remove the problem.” His shit-eating grin sang of the fact that he’d really just meant to further antagonize Seiji. Seiji would not rise to the bait. He was above such things. With one more look, loaded with all the disgust and contempt he could muster, aimed at the shirtless boy, Seiji stomped to his side of the curtain and firmly readjusted it so that not a single inch of Nicholas Cox was visible.
When he fell asleep, much to his irritation, he dreamt of Nicholas. Even in his dreams, Nicholas had an inability to wear his nightshirt correctly. But, in his dream, Seiji didn’t mind it. Nicholas prowled toward him, determination in his eyes. Seiji was confused, momentarily, to find that look without an épée in sight. It was a look reserved for competition. For when Nicholas loudly and defiantly declared that he would beat Seiji. That he would make Seiji see him. A shiver seemed to run through his entire body. He certainly saw Nicholas now. He was so close, close enough for Seiji to feel the heat radiating off his skin. Close enough that Seiji felt compelled to take a step back, then another, and another. He thought he ought to just punch Nicholas, rather than meekly allow himself to be backed against a wall, but there was an anticipation to this dance. Seiji wanted to see what would come next. His back hit the wall, and Nicholas’s arm fell heavily beside his head, every part of him too close now, but Nicholas had fenced him in. He couldn’t escape. He didn’t want to.
“I’ll be the one,” Nicholas growled, guttural and fierce, “I’ll be the only one…” He leaned in closer—
Seiji woke up. He jolted to attention so quickly he checked the time, expecting it to be 3:59 AM. But it was only 1:08 AM, and his heart still thundered as if he’d just fenced ten bouts in a row. It took only twenty horrifying seconds for his dream to come back to him. Seiji stared in alarm at the duck curtain, his entire body feeling uncomfortably hot. Nicholas snored once, then fell silent, unaware and uncaring that Seiji had just woken up from a nightmare.
It was that wink, Seiji decided, that wink and the practical strip tease Nicholas was so intent on giving him that had caused that dream. Nothing more. Seiji didn’t like a single thing about Nicholas. And he most definitely did not enjoy the constant glimpses of skin and muscle Nicholas’s abysmal dressing habits provided.
Seiji tried not to look at Nicholas. He’d had a terrible time trying to sleep for the remainder of the night and was in as bad a mood as they came. But even with his determination to ignore Nicholas’s very existence, Seiji’s eyes betrayed him. They trailed on Nicholas, and as they did, he tried to manage the emotions he felt. Embarrassment seemed to be the predominant one. He’d never before been quick to blush, but he found himself almost constantly heated, either at the thought of last night’s dream, or at the sight of Nicholas in the flesh.
By the time Seiji arrived in the gym for fencing practice, he was exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to fall into his bed and sleep. And dream of normal, sensible things, without any stupid boys or their stupid shirts to ruin things. But he was a long way from getting there. As he entered the locker room, the first thing Seiji saw was Nicholas in the middle of an animated discussion with Eugene. It was such an engaging conversation that it must have distracted him from dressing, because, at that moment, Nicholas stood in nothing but his fencing knickers, and they weren’t even done up all the way. Seiji thought the bundle of white in Nicholas’s hand might have been his shirt, but there was no telling for certain.
“I’ve noticed you leering at him a lot, lately,” a voice purred in Seiji’s ear. How long had he been staring at Nicholas? Surely not that long. But Aiden had seen it, anyway. Seiji turned his attention to Aiden, scowling already.
“He’s an eyesore,” Seiji said with such contempt that Aiden paused. Then he smiled and shook his head.
“No, if he were an eyesore, you wouldn’t look at him so much. Let’s be honest, you’ve got the hots for him, haven’t you?”
Seiji just gawped at Aiden, completely taken aback. Leering? Getting the hots? Seiji didn’t do those things. Least of all for Nicholas. “You’re mistaken,” Seiji said tightly. But Aiden just smiled wider.
“I could help you,” he said, and Seiji was about to just walk away. But something snagged in his brain. Nicholas, in his mind, too close, too intense, too damn much. Nicholas, passionate and determined. Nicholas, about to kiss him. In his dream, terrible and traitorous as it had been, he’d liked those things. Wanted that kiss. He had to know if any of it were real. And, when it proved to be entirely unpleasant in real life, he could dismiss the absurd notion of attraction once and for all. And then he’d be back to disliking Nicholas wholeheartedly.
“How could you help?” Seiji asked, and he didn’t miss the surprise in Aiden’s face. He recovered quickly, sly grin back in place.
“I’m a relationship guru,” he said with an easy shrug. “I’m glad my offer has caught your attention, young Padawan, because you’d be doomed without me.”