Pre Blue Lock Setting - Tumblr Posts

the only real smile

nagi seishiro x reo mikage (pre-blue lock setting)

Nagi’s used to walking through the school gates alone, without trouble, without glances and whispers and outright cheers. 

Now, whenever he sets foot into the campus, the students around him erupt into cheers, fangirling, screams…but it’s not for him. Every time, it’s directed to the boy whose arm is slung over his neck, or the boy cycling the bike in front of him with his purple sweet-smelling hair tickling Nagi’s face. The popular top student who chanced upon Nagi sitting in a dreary stairwell, playing video games where he wouldn’t be interrupted, and convinced him to play soccer with him. 

Mikage Reo. Hakuho High’s pride and joy, top student, brilliant athlete, president of the football club. The young purple-haired boy also happens to be the heir of the Mikage Corporation. His last name screams power and wealth. Reo might as well be the most popular student in the school. 

And who wouldn’t like Reo? He’s kind, smart, generous, well-behaved, and trained in etiquette. More importantly, he pampers Nagi, he makes sure Nagi’s comfortable, he treats Nagi like, well, his treasure, which is what Reo likes to refer to him as. 

Reo says he and Nagi will become the best soccer players in the world together, and as much as Nagi thinks it’ll be a pain, he can’t help but look forward to that bright, promising future…the both of them on the world’s pedestal, the very and ultimate top. 

Nagi Seishiro and Mikage Reo. The world’s ultimate duo. 

It kind of sounds nice. Like something out of a video game. 

And so because he wants to attain that wonderful, enthralling title, he puts up with Reo’s long and methodical rituals and routines. He sticks with Reo’s training schedules, he plays exactly how he knows Reo wants him to play. It’s worth it at the end, when it’s just the two of them on the grassy field, when the sun is melting into evening, and they’re cycling home and his nose is buried in Reo’s hair, the citrusy sweet scent of lemon flooding his nose and making him want to fall asleep. 

That being said, one thing he does have to put up with is Reo’s gigantic fanclub. 

Like this one girl, he doesn’t remember her name, but she’s unnecessary and a pain and irritating when she runs up to Reo and presents him with a tacky pink handmade card and chocolate in a heart-shaped box. 

“Reo-kun, please accept this confession from me!”

And then the girl tries to show off her chest to Reo, in a pitiful attempt that doesn’t go unnoticed by Nagi. What he notices too is the legion of girls hiding behind the corner, eyeing his partner with starry eyes, eyes that he’s sure misses the real Reo behind all the fanfare and shine to his surname. 

See, these irritating girls, all they see in Reo is his Mikage name. Their dreams with him are positively drowning in the wealth of his last name, gilded in gold and adorned with jewels. They map out the fastest way to becoming Mrs. Mikage, they’re only charmed by his wealth and the smiling facade he puts on day after day for the masses. 

A pain, all of them. 

Because he knows the true Reo. He’s the only one who experienced Reo as a partner. Reo with his hands, scarred and calloused like an athlete’s, in his hair. Reo’s intoxicating lemon scent. Reo lavishing care on him, treating him like a treasure worth more than all the gold and jewels in the world. He’s the only one that gets to see that side of Reo, the soccer fanatic side who has that sparkling gleam of triumph after a match they won together, the intense side brimming with passion over his favourite sport, the hopeful side who maps out his dreams and Nagi’s dreams and unites them. 

All these other girls, they’ve never seen what he’s seen. 

An unfamiliar feeling rises up his insides; it scorches his guts and throat and rips a bitter hole in his heart. He doesn’t like this feeling. It’s very troublesome. It’s a feeling borne from all these nuisances crowding him and Reo, a feeling so dizzying it makes his head spin and his heart ache, a feeling that causes bile to itch at his tongue. 

He shouldn’t have to have Reo around all these girls. Reo shouldn’t be spending his precious time with them. Reo shouldn’t be lavishing those beautiful, sparkling smiles Nagi loves on those girls, those girls who don't deserve the pleasure of Reo’s smile, even if it’s a fake smile. 

None of it. 

So he tugs at Reo’s shirtsleeve to get his attention, and when quizzical, beautiful almond-shaped eyes turn to him in inquiry, he bodily drags him away, shouldering past all the other girls towards their classroom. He doesn’t care when they glare at him, when they whine and try to wheedle Reo into staying, but even if Reo agrees Nagi doesn’t agree, and he’s hauling Reo away from that crowd of irritations no matter what. 

Reo’s confused, to say the least. He tries to impress upon Nagi the ruination of his reputation if he leaves so abruptly when they reach a secluded corner, but the words queuing up on his tongue wither into ashes at the look on Nagi’s face. 

It’s intense. It’s the sort of look Nagi gets when he’s scoring a particularly enthralling super goal. The warm honey colour is slowly taking on a deep and hungry black, a poisonous and intoxicating sort of primal desire screaming promises of chaos and destruction. It’s at this moment when Reo is reminded of just how powerful and dangerous his treasure is, of how he lives for that look in his eyes, when Nagi’s laziness is stripped away for something dark and raw and emotional. 

“Never,” he says, and his words drip intensity, “hang out with those girls again. It’s troublesome for me.”

“E-eh?” Reo stutters, somewhat shocked. “But, you know, I really have to—”

“Please, Reo. It’s troublesome. It makes me angry.”

Nagi, who expresses everything within the lines of “it’s troublesome”, who has such pale and almost nonexistent emotions, saying that he’s angry, with such an intense look on his face?

Reo almost never sees this side of him. 

Nagi waits for his answer, the anger burning hot in him, apparent in his eyes, concentrated on Reo. He waits for argument, he waits for complaints, and maybe, maybe just a little part of him is tensed up for when Reo walks away from him, disappointed and tired with him. 

But then Reo just breaks out into a smile, one of those brilliant, raw ones without any hint of pretence—the smile only Nagi gets to see, not those girls. A part of Nagi laughs triumphantly at the fact that only he gets to see Reo’s real smile, not the fake turn of lips he puts on for the crowd…

“Okay, Nagi. Whatever my treasure wants.” 

…See that? It’s Nagi’s win.