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genderqueer questioning nagi, pre-slash nagimitsu, based on that one scene where mitsuki tries to throw out all of nagi's merch (943 words)
still looking for an i7 beta reader, esp if you have a good grasp on the character personalities! and ofc id be more than happy to beta some of your stuff in return (for any fandom or original) so message me if interested!
Nagi had thought he’d confessed something, sitting on his knees while Mitsuki stared down with a blinding vengeance from Nagi’s bed, the both of them surrounded by boxes half-filled with his prized Magical Cocona keepsakes.
Mitsuki had taken Nagi’s trademark magical stick from its place on the wall and brandished it with all the grace of a valiant knight from the stories Nagi’s father used to tell him as a child. Pointing the barrel of the wand at Nagi’s face like a steel-tipped sword, Mitsuki had said, “I know you’re more than just a womanizing anime nerd.”
The words I know filled Nagi’s ears like static.
“More than when you’re with girls or watching anime, when you’re dancing with us you smile the brightest.”
I know, I know, I know.
“I know because I’ve been watching you,” Mitsuki had said, and Nagi thought that maybe he knew, too.
Maybe he and Mitsuki were the same.
Mitsuki set aside his sword- the magical stick returned gently to Nagi’s sheets instead of the box of to-be-thrown-out things- and he kneeled, too, bringing their faces close together. All the animosity from earlier felt washed away like the evening tide and Nagi’s water-worn eyes had shone, reflecting back the sudden gentleness he was faced with.
No one who’d known had ever been gentle about it.
Mitsuki smiled.
“Man, you sure are handsome up close.”
The breath of those words on Mitsuki’s lips tipped Nagi further onto his knees like a young tree caught in the throes of a hurricane.
I know.
So Nagi steeled his trembling, windswept body and confessed. He’d confessed that he felt beautiful like the magical girl Cocona. Like elegance in velvet dresses and silk ruffles and perfectly pink princesses locked away in high towers, waiting to be rescued.
(I must confess…I am beautiful.)
Mitsuki frowned, rising suddenly to make a dumpster shot of one of the Magical Cocona figurines displayed by Nagi’s bedside.
“I was ready to listen but all you wanted to do was brag?” Mitsuki exclaimed incredulously, the words that had escaped Nagi’s lips too cowardly to confess anything at all.
“I’m a beautiful man,” Nagi tried again. Beautiful, not handsome, but the hard lines in Mitsuki’s forehead clearly said Nagi’s message wasn’t getting through. Mitsuki didn’t really know so Nagi switched tactics, trying his luck with the other truth Mitsuki might have been referring to. “I’ve had girlfriends, but never boyfriends.”
Nagi had never had this. Japanese boys crowding into his space 24/7 and admiring his face, admiring him aloud, kneeling on his bed like a specter of divine judgment and leaning closer than they’d ever really need to be.
“You’re my first,” Nagi said, hoping that this was known, at least. These secret feelings, barely beginning to bloom, expressed only in the suggestive asides Nagi’s meager vocabulary could manage.
Nagi realized too late he’d slipped into the plural you but Mitsuki didn’t hesitate in the slightest before correcting the words Nagi had placed so purposefully at his feet, so perhaps this wasn’t the truth Mitsuki knew, either.
(You mean, your first friends?)
And the members of idolish7 were Nagi’s first friends, like Mitsuki assumed, so Nagi hung his head and agreed, grateful that his cowardice and incompetence had at least allowed him to retain his dignity a little while longer.
Nagi had weathered the crashing wave of anger like he always did, misplaced as it was this time, and Mitsuki had gentled once more.
Then Mitsuki called him cute and helped Nagi right the storm of his room and he smiled when Nagi began explaining the pure perfection that was the MagiCona series and Nagi felt…warm, in a way he didn’t usually allow himself to.
He softened his body language until he felt more himself, mimicking the easy femininity of the magical anime girls he so admired, and Mitsuki never blinked. So maybe Nagi could allow himself this wordless honesty. Here, in his room spun with silk and safety that Mitsuki had stayed to help him rebuild even if he didn’t know.
And at night, after MagiCona had aired and everyone else was asleep, Nagi could allow himself- herself? Perhaps themself- to imagine that Mitsuki had known something else and stayed to help Nagi rebuild all the same.
*
Manager knew, Nagi thought. Or she at least suspected.
Somehow girls always did, and that was part of why Nagi liked them so much. Tsumugi Takanashi was a beautiful woman, and Nagi told her so often, but he didn’t desire that sort of connection from her.
“There’s a Magical Cocona themed planner being released today, isn’t there?” Manager asked as they strolled past the Zero arena. “Should we stop at a bookstore after we visit the salon?”
This connection, though- this easy friendship unafraid to wade away from masculinity was something Nagi wouldn’t trade for the world.
“Oh, yes!” he cheered. “Magical Cocona! Yay!”
And maybe when Nagi found the words for a real confession, Manager would be the first to hear them, her gentle understanding a lighthouse in the swirling storm Nagi would finally admit existed within his head.
“Are you okay, Nagi-san? You have an odd expression on your face…”
Nagi extended his hand, fingers curling upward, while the other rested gently on his own chest. Manager carefully placed her hand in Nagi’s and laughed as she was twirled, skirt billowing out in a beautiful circle.
“I’m fantastic!”
Nagi lightly squeezed Manager’s hand before letting go.
“As long as you’re sure,” she said.
“I am,” Nagi replied, smiling. “We’re going to get Magical Cocona today!”
And the baby steps were important. The magical girl Cocona assured him of this.
-Nagi x Mitsuki, introspective Mitsuki, fluff, slight angst-
Mitsuki lay on his side in bed, idly swiping through his phone. The only light left on in the room was the small square being projected onto his weary face. Mitsuki should be sleeping at this hour but he couldn’t bring himself to settle, allowing the soft music pouring from the speaker to create a more melancholic atmosphere than the day deserved.
Mitsuki was glad to be getting so much MC work lately. Really, he was.
It was just difficult to set aside the fact that their fans thought he talked too much, knowing that Mitsuki had only made it onto i7 as part of a package deal.
But Mitsuki knew better to dwell on that, so he swiped.
Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.
-David Foster Wallace
Mitsuki lingered on this slide long enough for the music in the background to loop, then he laughed quietly.
How odd was it to go seeking a distraction and stumble across a mirror, instead?
Mitsuki held the moderation Yamato had given him close to his heart, but this- this desperation to keep a white-knuckled grip on the things he held dear- was something written into the very marrow of Mitsuki’s bones.
It was what kept him signing up for auditions- always reaching, even if it meant his hand might be slapped mercilessly away, again and again. It’s what kept him up at night when he ached from the brutal sting of rejection. It’s what had spurred Iori to glue them together in the first place, if only to spare Mitsuki the pain.
Gratitude and insecurity were glued in equal measure to that memory, but now that they were here Mitsuki knew he would never let go of i7 without engraving his desperate desire for their success beneath his fingernails, first.
The thought of ever being dragged away from the group was an uneasy one, though, so Mitsuki swiped again.
Achilles did not slur my name, as people often did, running it together as if in a hurry to be rid of it. Instead, he rang each syllable:
Pa-tro-clus.
-Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller
Again, Mitsuki paused. An image of Nagi’s shining face poked its way into his thoughts, unbidden, whining for Mitsuki to watch Magical Cocona with him.
Mit-su-ki, Nagi always said. Drawing the syllables out so the shape of Mitsuki’s name lingered on his lips.
Thoughtful, Mitsuki raised a finger to his own lips and pressed down.
Mitsuki was used to people wanting to be rid of him. Used to people batting away his outstretched hand in search of something more. Something better.
No one had ever lingered on Mitsuki, before.
The thought brought warmth to Mitsuki’s face and he slammed his phone down on the bed, throwing his room into a sudden, searing darkness.
Mitsuki’s heart pounded against his chest- a wild, fluttering thing- and he felt stripped bare, his racing thoughts thrown into sharp relief without the soft haze of the phone screen to blur them.
It was so warm, all of a sudden.
Had someone messed with the thermostat?
Surely that’s all it was, and not…
Mitsuki carefully grasped his phone, tilting the screen back towards himself.
he rang each syllable, it said. Pa-tro-clus.
A nervous smile tugged at Mitsuki’s burning cheeks, a gentle weightlessness skittering through his stomach.
Mit-su-ki, Nagi always said.
Mit-su-ki.
Surely Nagi knew the emphasis didn’t belong in the middle of his name, and yet…
And yet, he rang each syllable.
Mitsuki pressed his face into his pillow, carefully cradling the belltower resonance that had been struck each time his name was spoken with such care, building and building and building until the brass echo brought blood rushing to the surface of Mitsuki’s smile.
Mit-su-ki, Nagi always said- sparkling and golden and princelike.
“Nagi Rokuya,” Mitsuki whispered into his pillow. “Na-gi.”
The music on Mitsuki’s phone looped gently again.
Mitsuki carefully rang each syllable.
“Ro-ku-ya.”
Delighted laughter bubbled past his lips, swallowed by the walls keeping watch over Mitsuki's feelings.
Maybe…maybe that’s what Iori had meant the other day. When Mitsuki was sitting on the couch with Nagi, watching the man far more than the anime, and he’d placed a hand on Mitsuki’s shoulder, leaning down to whisper, It’s okay, onii-san.
Maybe it would be, Mitsuki thought.
Maybe Nagi Rokuya was another one of those things Mitsuki wouldn’t let go of without a fight.