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Nazuna fidgets at the door to the handicrafts club room for a solid six and a half minutes. He isn’t intending to keep track, it’s just that he can see the clock from where he’s standing. It eventually gets to the point where if he stands at the door any longer he’s going to start feeling like the clock is judging him more than he’s already judging himself, so he takes a deep breath and reaches for the door handle.
Which moves. Before he touches it.
The door opens, and Nazuna springs backwards away from the door like it’s on fire, reacting a half-second too slow to do anything when the door opens fully to reveal an equally surprised looking Shu.
“Osh,” Nazuna starts, then backtracks rapidly, trying to ignore the way his own pose automatically mirrors Shu’s with his arm raised up in surprise, like he’s going to defend himself from some unknown evil lurking within the school building. “Itsu,” he tries again, but stumbles over the syllables, everything twisting in his mouth until he knows he’s unintelligible. He settles back on old habits – darts his hand out to grab Shu’s sleeve before things can get any further confused, before Shu can shout something in French and before Nazuna can wind up forgetting how to speak entirely.
It’s too familiar a touch, and Nazuna knows it. They aren’t close enough to do this anymore, but –
“Nito,” Shu says, finally, lowering his arm. Nazuna hesitates for a second, then releases his grip on Shu’s sleeve, withdrawing his hand back into his own space and trying not to look too embarrassed. “Why are you here?”
If Nazuna’s internal oshi-san translator is still trustworthy, that probably was meant to come across more like “did you need something” than it actually did.
“I was wondering,” Nazuna says, carefully, doing his best to manage his syllables, “if you’d design me an outfit?”
There’s a long pause that drags out between the two of them. It’s a gulf that has too much to undo; there’s too many mistakes and errors to erase.
Still, Nazuna wants to try.
“For your unit?” Shu asks. His arms cross, and it might look intimidating if Nazuna wasn’t used to that sort of body language from Shu. If anything, it’s reassuring.
“No,” Nazuna says, slowly. “Just for me.”
“Do you have a live? Even for you, I can’t just design—“
“It’s not that,” Nazuna says, and he makes the mistake of eye contact, of letting his gaze linger on Shu’s long enough that heat rushes into his cheeks and he has to look back at the doorframe to try and gather himself. “I just – miss wearing your clothes.”
There’s a sharp inhalation that Nazuna knows comes from Shu, but he doesn’t dare confirm it with his eyes. He’s almost positive that Shu will agree, that Shu will react favorably, but there’s still an eternity of uncertainty.
For starters, Nazuna isn’t even sure if he deserves to have anything Shu makes, after he left Valkyrie, but he’s tired of wearing clothes that don’t fit the way he expects, of the scratch of fabrics that aren’t as fine as what Shu would use, of wearing things that weren’t designed with him in mind.
“If there isn’t a theme you have in mind,” Shu says, and he sounds uncertain of himself, uneasy and cautious. They’re both in uncharted territory, orbiting the other without being pulled in. “Then I have some – designs.”
Reading in between the lines is a delicate art, when it comes to Shu, but Nazuna likes to think he’s pretty good at it. He’s not as good as Mika, but Mika’s got a second sense when it comes to that sort of thing – he was always able to tell what Shu really meant and what Nazuna wanted to say, without even trying.
Nazuna can’t help himself when he smiles at Shu, because the fact that Shu kept designing for him even after he’d left – well, it’s something.
“Can I see them?” Nazuna asks, and leans in a little closer, almost automatically. Shu is a sovereign, Shu is one of the oddballs, Shu is a force to be reckoned with, and Nazuna still remembers him as the man who would lose his mind if Japan ran out of croissants for a day.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that he loves Shu Itsuki, he just isn’t quite sure what that means.
“I—“ Shu starts. His hand moves in a strange way, a half-attempted motion that’s stopped before it can get anywhere, and then he turns on his heel. “Come inside.”
Nazuna follows. Being back in the handicrafts club is nostalgic, and Nazuna hesitates once he’s inside, inhaling the familiar smell. Nothing has really changed, he can tell; everything is still under Shu’s organized authority, aside from the small explosion where he can tell Mika has been trying to make… something. A cat, maybe?
He follows Shu after a half-second, hovering next to him as Shu withdraws one of the books he designs his outfits in. Carefully, Nazuna averts his eyes, painfully aware of the fact that he doesn’t really have the right to look at any of Shu’s plans anymore. Looking at Mika’s half-made stuffed animal is fair game, at least. Is it a bear…?
“This,” Shu says, abruptly, “is something that I – it wasn’t for Valkyrie.” He looks down at the page he’s turned to, and his grip on the book is so strong that his knuckles are turning white where he holds it. “It was only for you.”
When he turns the book over to Nazuna, he does it without making eye contact. He moves to look at the window, posture rigid and tense, and Nazuna looks over the outfit with a lump in his throat and a desperate stinging in his eyes that he hopes will go away if he doesn’t acknowledge it.
The outfit is beautiful, of course. It’s Shu; there was no way that it wouldn’t be, but Nazuna can’t help the way his breath sticks in his chest as he looks at the design, the carefully rendered mock-up of the hairpiece on a drawing of Nazuna, the delicate embroidery and detailing.
“I,” Nazuna starts, but his voice cracks in a way he wasn’t expecting, in a way he hasn’t heard in ages, and that’s all it takes. He’s going to get tears all over Shu’s design, and he brings his sleeve up to try and stem the flow, to stop it before Shu notices, because maybe Shu won’t turn around –
“Nito, what did—“ Shu starts, and Nazuna thinks that Shu not noticing was definitely too much to hope for as he tries to choke down a particularly ugly sob. “I – I shouldn’t have showed you, it’s—“
“I like it,” Nazuna says, and the syllables don’t come out right at all, mixed up and rearranged and as hopelessly tangled as the feelings between he and Shu. “I love it, I—“
“You don’t need to—“
“I want to wear it,” Nazuna bursts out, and it’s too loud, ringing in the handicrafts room like a siren. Shu sucks in a breath, his eyes wide, and Nazuna offers the book back and tries to pretend his hands aren’t shaking, that he isn’t still huffing in air as he tries to stop crying.
“Why,” Shu starts, and then stops, taking the book back. It’s a complete sentence, technically, but Nazuna can tell there was more that Shu was trying to say.
“I miss,” Nazuna says, reaching for the words he needs to say, trying to sort them out. I miss wearing your clothes, and I miss maintenance, and I miss listening to you chide Mika and I miss— “You.”
Oh, that wasn’t right at all, but it’s too late to take back now.
“I,” Shu says, slowly, much more deliberately than Nazuna, “have… missed you, as well, Nito.”
Nazuna’s breath isn’t quite working right in his lungs, coming in at a stuttering halt as he tries to steady himself. He can’t, and he isn’t even sure why, because everything is so obvious that he doesn’t know how they’ve gotten here. Of course he would miss Shu, of course he would love him – but he doesn’t regret leaving, even if he wishes he’d done it better, and that’s part of the problem, isn’t it?
They should be past this; they’ve basically forgiven each other, haven’t they – ah, but Nazuna hasn’t forgiven himself, and that’s most of the problem.
“Will you make it for me?” Nazuna asks, because all he can manage to do right now is go back to why he came here in the first place. He reaches out and brushes his fingers against he book – they rub against Shu’s, and Shu jerks like Nazuna’s touch is electric.
“It’s,” Shu says, “already made. It just needs a few adjustments.”
Nazuna almost starts crying again, but the relief isn’t quite as palpable, this time. The idea that Shu still designed for him, still made him things… He can too clearly see Shu awake at night, sewing stitches by dim lights, using a dress form with Nazuna’s measurements instead of the real thing. “Okay,” Nazuna says, letting his fingers slip back against Shu’s.
Shu doesn’t pull away, this time.
“If you’re that eager to try it on – why wouldn’t you be, it’s handmade – then you can attend a fitting at my – home,” Shu says, and Nazuna can tell when he’s inflating his speech to cover for the fact that he feels awkward. Shu increases and Nazuna decreases and neither of them are used to saying what they actually mean, but it’s been going better, lately.
“When?” Nazuna asks, and then, before he can help himself: “Now?”
There’s a faint dusting of pink across Shu’s cheeks. “If – you’re that eager, then I won’t refuse you.”
The smile feels a little awkward on Nazuna’s face, when he can still feel the tear tracks drying on his cheeks, but he does it anyway, as wide and open as he can manage. Shu looks away and clears his throat, and that’s familiar in a way that just makes Nazuna smile more until his face hurts. His chest hurts less, though, so he’s fine with the trade off, he’s fine with the way things are going even if he’s still on a fine trigger when it comes to crying about his former unit.
“Here – come here first, you look a mess,” Shu says, and he’s striding forward with his handkerchief out and tilting Nazuna’s face up to look at him. “Nito – you’re too beautiful to cry.” Shu doesn’t quite tell him to stop crying immediately, in part because Nazuna is actually already done crying, for the most part, but Nazuna can tell that he wants to.
“I was happy,” Nazuna murmurs, carefully, letting Shu wipe at his eyes and press thumbs to the tear tracks on his cheeks.
“I haven’t done anything to make you so happy,” Shu huffs. Shu is never able to see how much Nazuna loves him, never able to see how much Mika loves him, never able to see his own worth outside of his flawless performances, but oh, Nazuna thinks he would love him even if Shu could never sing or sew again.
“You have,” Nazuna disagrees, and it’s easier to disagree these days, even against Shu.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Shu snaps, and turns away, folding the handkerchief back up to be slipped away into a pocket. He only keeps his back turned for a moment before he’s facing Nazuna again, reaching out and running his fingers carefully through the damp strands of hair that caught the worst of his unexpected tears.
It’s a lot like maintenance, and Nazuna is so overwhelmed with a sense of desire for this to continue that it almost blinds him, overwrites everything else he’s ever considered in his entire life.
He reaches out, grabs Shu’s hand by the sleeve again. Shu wavers, uncertainly, fingertips still poised at the edges of Nazuna’s face.
“Am I being—“
“I like it when you fuss over me,” Nazuna says, before Shu can think he’s done something wrong. “That’s why I – miss wearing your outfits. Even if they aren’t for lives, I liked wearing the things you made for me.”
Shu doesn’t move his hands for a long moment, lips pressed into a tight line as he looks down at Nazuna. Moving past the mistakes they’ve both made in the past isn’t as easy as they both want it to be, isn’t as easy as just performing together and confessing their poorly understood feelings. It’s a start, though.
Nazuna’s willing to keep working towards it, even if it’s hard. He hasn’t done nearly enough things that are hard, was always too content to go with what was easy… he’s learned better, now.
“I’ve always liked making outfits for you,” Shu says, softer than his usual tone. He slowly drops his hands, but doesn’t pull his sleeve out of Nazuna’s grip.
“I want to wear them for you.” Nazuna’s voice matches Shu’s, quiet in the peace of the club room, and the way Shu flushes tells Nazuna that at least they’re both embarrassed together. “Oshi-san.”
“Come on, then. Kagehira is busy with his class this afternoon, so I’ll walk with you to make sure you don’t get lost,” Shu says, and he starts to stride away, purposeful and direct, but he leaves his sleeve within Nazuna’s grasp. Nazuna trails behind him for a moment, and then speeds up, falling into an awkward step next to Shu and sliding his hand down until he can interlace his fingers.
Shu’s hand is warm in his, lightly calloused in all the same places it was before, and after a few seconds, Shu spreads his fingers to wrap them back around Nazuna’s hand.
It’s easier than Nazuna would have thought, to match their paces after all this time.