After the fight Nick grew fond of Leon. And so he started noticing a lot of things about his Kouhai.

For starters, Leon was basically a natural at everything. He learned things really easily and got good at them really fast, even if he didn’t try, which he normally did. He’d make an effort at pretty much anything, so the boy was unusually skillful at a lot of stuff. Nick even found himself being taught how to fix a table by the younger one.

The first-year was as caring as he was a pain in the ass. He bickered about anything and everything, he liked to be especially annoying to Nick, but the older boy got surprised a lot of the time at how attentive the other was. 

The Kouhai was an introvert. Getting to know him was a step that their relationship just jumped right over because they started by fighting, but the long haired boy was just really unfriendly overall. If they were surrounded he got tired really quickly and sneaked away; if someone tried talking to him he was monosyllabic. Really, that was probably the only reason why the guy was not as popular as himself, because as Nick came to notice…

Leon was also unbelievably handsome. They had the same height and the same build, but that’s where their bodie’s similarities ended. If Nick looked like an “oppa”¹, how people liked to describe him, Leon looked like an “Ikeman”²: everything about his looks were just cool, charming and delicate. His red mane-like hair fitted very well with his cat eyes, it gave him a boyish charm that combined with the beauty mark under his left eye just made him all the more attractive. He even had earrings that the black haired boy didn’t notice before.

Not that Nick was attracted to him of course, but it just caught him off guard sometimes, as he said to himself. Lots of people tried, unsuccessfully, to flirt with the guy and when they walked around a bunch of eyes were actually on the first-year. He also noticed that Leon’s looks were one of the reasons why he was so disliked by… Well, by everyone who liked the second-year. They did not appreciate it when they hung around and the fact that the red hair refused to be respectful to the elder just made it worse.

The cherry on top was that the younger boy was utterly oblivious to both the interest and the hate directed at him.

And so Nick also found himself feeling a little protective over him.

—

Their punishment seemed endless. The two boys were constantly summoned to do all sorts of odd jobs.

They printed documents, they cleaned classrooms, they painted doors. They fixed desks, chairs and whiteboards. They fetched food for the professors and revised classes for them. They pretended brooms were swords and reenacted fights from movies when they should be sweeping. They jumped over the cones on the field when they should be collecting them. It even went as far as to feed the ducks that lived on the uni’s lake and fall inside of it themselves.

Lots of those jobs took place at the same schedule as their classes, because for it to be a punishment it had to make their lives harder. They were excused from absences, but they would have to work harder to catch up and hand over their projects on time. Today they were also crying internally from all the content they were missing as they headed to another mission.

On this particular day, they were called over to the canteen to help out in the kitchen and to hang a big poster on the ceiling in front of the food counter where the meals were served. The poster was announcing the dishes of the week together with the phrase “eat today, regret tomorrow”. They found it of dubious taste, but said nothing.

Leon went up to the kitchen and Nick went on an adventure to try and find a stair tall enough. And by adventure I mean that he looked all over ten different buildings and found nothing. He then went back, dragged a table, placed a regular stair on it and climbed.

Just to be clear, there was a stair that was prepared for them to use for this. The principal would not leave the two boys by their solo devices, but unfortunately it seemed like someone took it away, thinking it was left lying around. Anyways.

By the time he was able to nail the first corner of the poster up, Leon was done with the cooking and some people were already arriving to wait for lunch time.

“Well, that looks safe” The kouhai was full of sarcasm, leaning over a pillar at a secure distance. “I’m not catching you if you fall.”

“Fuck off” Nick was Nick’s reply as he gave him the middle finger.

“Can you please like, not die or something? I don’t want to be held responsible for that”.

“How about you come up here instead of me then?” 

“Like me dying is so much better? No thanks, I did my part already.” Leon pointed his thumb at the kitchen where he came out from.

“Stop getting in my way then, I’m trying to — Whoa!” The stairs under him wobbled when Nick extended his arms too much.

“Oh, shit!” Leon was startled. The stairs went back to its place and the elder balanced himself again “Nick, get down, that was dangerous.” He frowned, concern stamped on his face.

“Nah, it’s fine” The second-year answered as a cold streak of sweat rolled down the side of his face. “I’m almost done, just don’t distract me, go away” He had wasted too much effort on that to not finish it. It was just a little bit more anyways, what could happen.

The red head did not go away. He stayed quiet right where he was, watching as the older boy precariously did his work. As he nailed down the last corner of the poster, Leon almost relaxed. Almost.

It was like he could feel the trouble coming. The first-year looked to the side just in time to see a boy stumble on the table, it seemed like his friend had tripped him or something.

Leon was moving even before the stairs had slipped. The scene seemed to be moving in slow motion.

The stairs fell to the side throwing Nick off it and off the table entirely. Just as the black haired boy thought he was going to fall face first on the floor, Leon came into his line of sight, arms open, and Nick’s body slammed against his, fists curling into the fabric of the shirt, and they both flopped directly onto the floor with a splendorous THUD.

The time inside the canteen seemed to freeze. The boy who stumbled on the table was horrified as he watched the dust of the fall go down. No one moved or said anything for what felt like forever before a sound could be heard coming from the pile of corpses. It was like a collective sigh of relief washed over the place.

“Nng! You are heavy!” Leon whined from under the weight of Nick’s body.

The second-year laughed, despite himself “You said you weren’t going to catch me”. He tried raising his head off Leon’s neck, where it had landed.

“Oh geez, if you wanted to fall for me that badly you could at least buy me dinner first” Leon teased, his voice laced with the smug confidence that never failed to piss the elder off.

“What are you talking ab–” Nick stopped himself when he realized the position they were in.

First of all, they were on top of each other, that was a given from the way they fell. Second of all, Leon caught him in a hug so one of the boy's hands was still circling Nick’s waist as the other one was being used to push them both up. Third of all, when the second-year tried to push away to separate their bodies, his hands were met with his kouhai’s completely bare torso.

Nick himself had torn open all the buttons of Leon’s shirt on the fall. One side of the fabric was hanging for its dear life on one of his shoulders, but the other side was just gone, down the elbow of the opposite arm.

“Holy fuck?!” Nick backed off so fast his butt hit the floor painfully.

“I would not call this “holy” just because you fell from the sky” Leon joked around, sitting up. His shirt just straight up slipped off entirely from his shoulder, getting caught just above the elbow like on the other side.

The younger boy seemed to be too entertained by his Senpai's reaction to remember where he was, but Nick was very much aware as he could see every blushed cheek and naughty smile around him.

“Oh god, have some decency!” The black haired boy reached out to the ripped shirt, pulling it back up Leon's shoulders “Are you actually trying to seduce people?!” His intentions were to make the younger feel shy, to cover himself, but it had the opposite effect.

“Are you talking about yourself?” The first-year asked, holding one of Nick’s wrist, his voice going lower than normal.