Wanting More With You

Nagisa Shiota had gotten used to being underestimated. It happened often enough that he barely noticed anymore. The first time a new student looked at him and asked if he was really their teacher, Nagisa had smiled and introduced himself again. The second time, he had laughed. By the third time, he'd started keeping count.

"Midget-sensei," one of his students said, leaning back in his chair with all the confidence of someone who had not yet learned to fear consequences, "are you sure you're strong enough to teach us?"

The classroom went quiet. It was that heavy, expectant silence that usually preceded a disaster in a middle school environment. Nagisa looked up from the stack of papers in front of him. He didn't look annoyed. He didn't look offended.

He smiled. "Strong enough for what?"

The student hesitated. A few of his classmates snickered, sensing the shift in the air that the boy at the desk hadn't quite caught yet.

"You know. To control us."

Nagisa tilted his head, his blue hair catching the light of the afternoon sun. "I see." He placed his pen down with a soft click. "Then I suppose we'll find out."

The student swallowed hard. There was something in Nagisa’s eyes—not malice, exactly, but a terrifying sort of clarity. It was the look of someone who had seen the inside of a vacuum and walked away unscathed.

Nagisa smiled a little wider. It was almost unfair. He wasn't intimidating in the traditional sense. He was still shorter than most of his students, and certainly shorter than most of the people he knew. He had a soft, high voice, mostly wore pastels, had an approachable face, and a habit of explaining things patiently instead of raising his voice. But he'd learned a long time ago that patience and weakness were two very different things.

By the end of the semester, the students who had once called him small were among the easiest to handle. Nagisa privately called it taming. He wasn't sure his coworkers appreciated the terminology.

"I've finally tamed them," he'd said one afternoon in the faculty lounge, sipping on a lukewarm tea.

His colleague, a woman who taught mathematics and was perpetually stressed, had stared at him. "...You can't say it like that, Nagisa-kun."

"Why?"

"Y-you make it sound like they were animals!"

Nagisa had thought about it for a moment, his mind drifting back to the mountainside classroom of his youth, to the way a certain yellow creature had managed a pack of "assassins" with nothing but a few tentacles and a lot of heart. "Maybe..." Then he'd smiled and returned to grading.

Teaching suited him. That was something he had never expected to say with such certainty. His life was quieter than it had been when he was younger. There were no assassination attempts waiting around the corner. No secret missions. No impossible teachers smiling cheerfully while the entire class plotted his murder. Just lesson plans, homework, parent meetings, and students who pretended they didn't need help from a "preschooler."

And the occasional headache. It was ordinary. Nagisa liked ordinary.

After everything that had happened in Class 3-E, he had developed an appreciation for things that most people took for granted. A quiet morning, a warm meal, a familiar routine. And, well... someone to come home to.

That last one had become increasingly difficult to ignore. Nagisa wasn't embarrassed by it. When one of his coworkers eventually asked him whether he wanted to get married someday, he had answered without hesitation.

"Yeah... I do. To a person with burdens I can help with."

The answer had been so immediate that she blinked. "Really? Nagisa-kun has some very simple wishes."

Nagisa smiled. "I'd like a family."

"A family?"

"Someday." He looked down at his coffee, the steam fogging his vision slightly. "I think it'd be nice... I want to see if my heart can open up for someone. I'd like to make someone happy. And I'd like their love in return."

There was nothing particularly complicated about the dream. A gender-neutral term like "spouse" sounded just right, as Nagisa had realized that his romantic attraction did not value gender. He was panromantic; he fell for souls, for the weight of a person’s presence, for the way they carried their history. He wanted someone who would be happy to see him at the end of the day. Someone he could make feel loved. His coworker ended up wishing him the world under her breath, moved by the quiet sincerity in his voice.

He'd tried dating a few times. There had been pleasant conversations and awkward dinners. There was a very brief relationship with a kind boy twice his size who automatically assumed Nagisa needed to be protected because of his appearance. It hadn't worked. Nagisa didn't need a shield; he needed a partner. Each time, something inside him had quietly whispered that he wasn't quite there yet. It felt as though he were waiting. For what, exactly, he didn't know. So he stopped looking so hard.

---

Across the city, in the heart of the government district, Karma Akabane was being told he had twelve minutes to eat lunch. He stared at the digital schedule on his tablet.

"Twelve, huh..."

"Thirteen, if Yamabuki-san runs late," his assistant offered, leaning over his shoulder.

Karma looked up, his sharp, mercury-gold eyes pinning her in place. He was twenty-two now, and the delinquent edges of his youth had been polished into a lethal, bureaucratic shine. He stood a towering 6'4", a height he used to full advantage when looming over stubborn politicians.

"You know how these things are," the assistant added with a nervous smile.

"I do... it's quite alright, though, you know." Karma picked up the bento container. Twelve minutes was plenty. He had become very good at working with very little. "Thanks for the food."

His life had changed dramatically. The boy who had once lost all faith in teachers who pretended to care had become a man who navigated the complex, often corrupt world of politics with a predator’s grace. Karma preferred it that way. He had left the angry boy behind, though the name was still there in old records. He considered himself a work in progress. Others were baffled each time he called himself "unfinished," which amused him to no end.

His schedule was a nightmare of scripts, meetings, and negotiations. He loved the chess match of it all, but it left little room for the personal. Things that didn't matter could wait. People who weren't important could wait.

And there was one person he’d been waiting for himself.

Nagisa.

The thought appeared so naturally that Karma barely noticed the pang in his chest anymore. He had known where Nagisa was for years. He knew he had become a teacher. Sometimes he saw the blue-haired boy’s name in the old Class 3-E group chat. But he never interfered.

There had been one exception. A brief, quiet fishing session seven years after the old school building was closed. It had been two years since that day at the Tama River.

Karma sighed, poking at a piece of grilled salmon with his chopsticks. "God, getting to do that again would sustain me during work for days..."

He remembered the end of that day vividly. Nagisa had stepped into his arms before they left the riverbank. It wasn't a formal hug; it was a gravitation. Nagisa’s hands had rested on Karma’s broad shoulders, and Karma’s hands had found their way around that familiar, narrow waist. They had just looked at each other for several minutes, smiling without realizing it, the height difference more pronounced than ever but the connection as level as it had been at fourteen.

Nagisa had found something he cared about in teaching. Karma knew what that meant. He deserved the chance to build his own life without someone from his past suddenly appearing and demanding a place in it. So Karma stayed away. Mostly.

But he still wondered. Whenever he passed a school, whenever he heard a soft laugh in a crowd, he wondered if he would recognize him immediately. He knew the answer was yes. Years could change a face, but Nagisa’s essence—that quiet, deadly, gentle stillness—was unmistakable. Karma had loved him for longer than he’d ever admitted aloud. That realization no longer embarrassed him. It simply existed, like his own heartbeat.

"Akabane-san?"

He looked up. His coworker was watching him with a curious expression. "You stopped eating."

Karma glanced down. He had, indeed. He picked up his fork, his smirk returning. "You seem to care a lot, don't you?"

"Y-yes... I..." She turned her head away, blushing. "Thinking about something?"

Karma’s smile turned sly, his eyes lidding in that way that usually meant he was about to say something teasing. "Nothing important."

It was a lie. He knew it. She probably did too.

---

That evening, Nagisa’s phone buzzed while he was simmering a pot of miso soup. He wiped his hands on his apron and checked the screen.

Reunion ☆☆☆

The Class 3-E group chat was exploding. Someone had finally decided that enough years had passed. There were already dozens of messages. Terasaka was complaining about the suggested restaurant, Hara was defending the menu, and Yada was jokingly suggesting they leave Okajima out of the invite list.

Nagisa smiled, scrolling through the names. It felt like opening a time capsule. Then he saw it.

Karma.

Nagisa stopped scrolling. He looked at the icon—a cartoon strawberry milk carton. It was so perfectly him that it made Nagisa’s heart skip a beat. They hadn't spoken properly in two years. Life had just... happened.

He stared at the invitation. He thought about his quiet apartment, his "ordinary" life, and the "unfinished" feeling that had been haunting his dating life. Then, without overthinking it, he typed:

"I'll be there. Hopefully, I won't be distracted by late assignments. Hello to all of you! ♡"

He hit send and went back to his soup, but his hand was shaking just a little bit.

---

Across the city, Karma was sitting in the back of a black sedan, waiting for his next briefing. His phone buzzed. He glanced down, the group chat still open.

Nagisa: I'll be there!

Karma’s eyes widened. For a second, the high-powered bureaucrat vanished, replaced by the boy who used to skip class to find the best vantage point for a prank. He stared at those words. At the little heart emoji.

"How can a text message manage to look cute...?" he muttered to the empty car. "I can picture that smile."

"Akabane-san?" The assistant opened the car door, looking at her watch. "Ready?"

Karma locked his phone, but the smile remained—a genuine, sharp, excited thing that made him look five years younger. He stepped out of the car, adjusting his suit jacket, his mind already miles away in a restaurant he hadn't visited yet, seeing a face he hadn't touched in far too long.

"Yeah," he said, his voice dropping into that confident, dangerous register. "I am now."