The Encounter That Made Me Adore You

Nagisa Shiota had gotten used to being underestimated. It happened often enough that he barely noticed anymore.

The first time a new high school student looked down at him and asked if he was really their teacher, Nagisa had smiled and politely introduced himself again. The second time, he had laughed behind his hand. By the third time, he had quietly started keeping count.

"Midget-sensei," one of his students said, leaning back in his desk chair with all the casual arrogance of someone who had not yet learned that consequences rarely gave advance warnings. "Are you really sure you're strong enough to teach us?"

The classroom went dead quiet. Several desks squeaked against the linoleum as other teenagers straightened up to watch the show.

Nagisa looked up from the stack of reading comprehension quizzes in front of him. His expression remained placid, eyes bright and clear beneath his bangs. He smiled. "Strong enough for what?"

The student hesitated for a split second, thrown off by the lack of irritation, before puffing out his chest. A few classmates snickered near the lockers. "You know. To control us. You look like you'd blow away if the window opened."

Nagisa tilted his head, regarding the boy with mild, guileless interest. "I see." He placed his red grading pen down on the wood with a barely audible click. "Then I suppose we'll find out."

The student swallowed hard. He couldn't have explained why the temperature in the room seemed to drop three degrees, or why the small, pastel-clad man at the podium suddenly felt less like a lightweight substitute and more like an apex predator resting in tall grass. The silence stretched until the boy abruptly slid his heels back to the floor and dropped his gaze to his open notebook.

Nagisa smiled a little wider, picked his pen back up, and continued marking.

It was almost unfair, really. He wasn't intimidating in any traditional sense. He was still shorter than most of the teenagers he taught, shorter than practically every man he knew, with a dainty frame, a soft, boyish voice, and an affinity for soft knit sweaters. He had a habit of humming under his breath while writing vocabulary terms across the chalkboard, and he never raised his voice when a gentle whisper could carry twice as far.

Patience and weakness, however, were two very different things. A snake didn't need to roar to make its presence felt.

By the end of every semester, the rowdiest delinquents—the ones who arrived puffed up on secondhand bravado—were invariably the ones offering to carry his supplies to the faculty lounge.

"I've finally tamed them," Nagisa remarked cheerfully one afternoon, setting down an armful of corrected essays.

His desk neighbor, a flustered first-year literature teacher, stared at him over her coffee mug. "Nagisa-san... you really shouldn't say it like that."

"Why?"

"You make them sound like wild animals!"

Nagisa thought about that for a second, resting his chin lightly on his palm. "Maybe," he said, offering a serene, innocent grin. "I like to put it that way."

Teaching suited him. It was a reality he still marveled at whenever he took a moment to breathe. Once upon a time, he had lived with a serpent coiled around his spine, his hands trained in lethal precision, his days dictated by assassination timetables and an impossible, beloved monster of an educator. Compared to dodging gunfire and calculating bloodlust, managing thirty rebellious teenagers was practically leisurely.

His adult life was quiet. He liked quiet.

He loved ordinary routines: the hiss of a kettle at six in the morning, the walk through the train station, the smell of freshly printed handouts, parent-teacher conferences, and grading late into the twilight. After an adolescence carved out of chaos, stability felt like a luxury he never took for granted.

And yet, lately, a quiet life felt slightly hollow around the edges.

Nagisa wasn't oblivious to his own heart. When another coworker had asked him over lunch whether he ever thought about romance, he hadn't stammered or brushed it aside.

"Yeah," he had answered candidly, watching the steam curl from his green tea. "I do. A person whose edges I can smooth over sounds nice."

The answer had been so immediate, so clear, that she had blinked in surprise. "Really? You have such a simple way of looking at it, Nagisa-kun."

"I'd like to have them rely on me," Nagisa murmured, his smile softening into something tender and private. "Someday. I think it'd be nice to see if my heart can open up for someone like that. I'd like to make someone happy. And I'd like their love in return."

There was nothing convoluted about what he wanted. He had learned over the years that gender mattered very little to him; his heart was panromantic, drawn to the soul and warmth of an individual rather than whatever category the world assigned them. He just wanted a partner. Someone to come home to. Someone who would laugh when he burned the edges of an omelet and who wouldn't try to lock him away in cotton wool.

He had tried going on dates. A few meals here and there, some polite conversations over cafe tables. There had even been a brief, well-meaning fling with an athletic boy nearly twice his size, but the relationship had crumbled when the boy treated Nagisa like porcelain that would shatter under a gust of wind. Nagisa didn't need a bodyguard. He had spent years learning how to survive the unthinkable.

What he wanted was an equal. Someone whose rough patches he could soften, and someone who would look at his small hands and recognize their strength without being afraid of them.

Every time a date ended with a polite bow and no second invitation, a tiny voice in Nagisa's chest whispered that he was already looking for someone specific. He simply hadn't allowed himself to name who it was.

---

Across Tokyo, in the sleek, brightly lit break lounge of an upscale department store, Sugino Tomohito stared at a crumpled schedule and laughed.

"Twelve minutes, huh?"

"Thirteen, if Yamabuki-san runs late with the inventory tags," his coworker replied, adjusting a rack of linen overcoats with a sympathetic grimace. "You know how she gets when the barcode scanner desyncs."

Sugino leaned his head back against the locker door, stretching his long legs out until they occupied half the narrow walkway. "I do. It's totally fine, though! Besides, I was just thinking about how cute your hair looks today."

The girl froze, her cheeks instantly flushing pink. "Wh-what?! Tomohito-kun..."

"Hehe! It's true," Sugino said with an easy, boyish grin, giving her a quick wink that held no arrogance, only genuine cheer. "It suits you really well. Make sure you smile a bit more on the sales floor, okay, Mitsuko-chan? People will love it."

"Um... okay...!" Mitsuko stammered, covering the lower half of her face with a clipboard as she speed-walked toward the stockroom, unable to suppress a giddy grin.

Left alone, Sugino popped the lid off his bento box. Twelve minutes. He could easily conquer a meal in twelve minutes. He was an expert at making the absolute most out of fleeting seconds.

At twenty-three, Sugino barely resembled the scrappy middle school pitcher who had once despaired over being demoted to the bottom rung of Kunugigaoka. Koro-sensei had rebuilt his faith wrist by wrist, curveball by curveball, and now he was carving out a real path in the sport he lived for.

Currently, he was on an off-season detour, picking up shifts in visual merchandising and apparel retail to keep his mind sharp and his body moving. Standing a towering six-foot-two, broad across the shoulders and lean through the torso, he carried himself with an effortless, sunlit charm. Whenever people called him handsome or finished, he would laugh and wave a hand, insisting he was still very much a "work in progress."

He liked being busy. He liked the hustle. But running from practice fields to retail floors left remarkably little room for anything superficial.

Things that didn't matter were easily discarded. People who didn't matter were forgotten.

And the one person who mattered most... Sugino had spent years keeping at an arm's length.

Nagisa.

The name slipped into his consciousness as effortlessly as drawing breath. It had been there for seven years, persistent and quiet, like a favorite song played at low volume in an empty house.

Sugino knew where Nagisa was. He kept tabs through the scattered fragments of news that trickled through their old class network. He knew Nagisa had taken his license, that he was teaching high schoolers in an inner-city district, that he was thriving. Sometimes Nagisa's soft-spoken text would pop up in the inactive Class 3-E group chat, and Sugino would stare at the screen until the display timed out.

He hadn't reached out. Nagisa had fought so hard for normalcy. He deserved to live an unburdened life without a loud, overbearing baseball player barging through the front door demanding affection.

Still, there was that afternoon two years ago by the Tama River.

They had met up spontaneously on a brisk autumn afternoon, just tossing an old leather ball back and forth until the sun turned the water to copper. When it had come time to part ways, Nagisa hadn't offered a simple handshake.

He had stepped right up to Sugino, close enough that his fresh, soapy scent cut through the cold river wind, and laid both of his small hands flat against Sugino's broad shoulders. Sugino's hands had found their way around Nagisa's slender waist on pure instinct, pulling him flush.

They had just stood there. Neither of them had spoken. Nagisa had looked up into his eyes with an unreadable, open warmth, a faint smile gracing his lips, letting Sugino feel every line of his ribcage beneath his coat. Sugino had swallowed every confession he owned right then, terrified that speaking would shatter the fragile, sacred peace of the moment.

Sugino prodded at an onigiri with his chopsticks, letting out a heavy, fond sigh. "Man... getting to hold him like that again would sustain me for a month of double shifts."

"Tomohito-kun?"

Sugino blinked, looking up to find Mitsuko standing in the doorway with an empty hanger in hand.

"Oh! Hey, Mitsuko."

"You stopped eating," she noted, tilting her head. "Are you alright?"

Sugino looked down at his half-eaten lunch and gave a bright, self-deprecating chuckle. "You pay too much attention, you know that?"

"I—well, I just..." She shifted her weight, blushing again. "You looked like you were thinking about something really far away."

Sugino flashed his trademark, blinding smile, letting his eyes crinkle with good humor. "Nothing bad! Just an old memory. I promise I'm fully here. Look, food's almost gone!"

It was a lie, and he knew it, but it went down smoother than cold rice.

---

That evening, the smell of simmered dashi and soy sauce filled Nagisa's tiny apartment.

He wore a pale baby-blue apron over his slacks, humming a tune as he adjusted the flame beneath a pot of miso soup. His apartment was spotless, arranged with deliberate minimalism—books stacked neatly by subject, lesson plans filed by grade, a small potted succulent catching the evening light on the windowsill.

On the low counter, his phone buzzed. Once. Twice. Then three times in rapid succession.

Wiping his hands on a kitchen towel, Nagisa picked up the device.

The notification banner across the top read: Class 3-E Alumni (28).

Nagisa raised an eyebrow and unlocked the phone. A massive block of text sat in the center of the screen, sent by Isogai, crowned with a string of star emojis:

Reunion☆☆☆ It's been way too long since we've all been in the same room. Next Saturday at the izakaya near Kunugigaoka station. Who's in?

Below it, the chat was already descending into chaos.

Terasaka: Why the hell are we going to that cheap place? It smells like stale cabbage.

Hara: Because the food is delicious, Terasaka-kun, and unlike you, some of us appreciate good portion sizes!

Yada: Everyone has to come! No excuses! Except Okajima, maybe we should tell him the wrong address.

Okajima: HEY! I HEARD THAT! I'VE MATURED! I'M RESPECTABLE NOW!

Nagisa chuckled softly, leaning against the kitchen counter. A warm, nostalgic wave rolled through his chest. It had been nearly a decade since they were children holding rubber knives on the mountain, yet watching their chatter made it feel like they had walked out of the old campus only yesterday.

He scrolled upward, glancing over the list of members who had read the message.

His thumb froze.

There, just a few icons down, was an avatar he hadn't seen in far too long: a simple, worn leather baseball glove.

Sugino.

Nagisa's breath caught slightly in his throat. He stared at the little pixelated icon, his thumb hovering above the glass.

Sugino Tomohito. The boy who had sat beside him. The boy who had offered him cheerful words when the world seemed too heavy, whose laugh had always been loud enough to chase away shadows. They hadn't exchanged a private message in months. Life had simply pulled them into different orbits—practices, matches, teaching certifications, parent conferences.

Yet, whenever Nagisa closed his eyes and tried to picture what safety felt like, he remembered the smell of worn leather and autumn leaves by the Tama River. He remembered looking up into wide, earnest brown eyes, feeling massive, warm hands resting against his waist, steady and unmoving.

Nagisa looked down at his simmered soup, then back at the phone. A quiet flutter stirred in the pit of his stomach—an anticipation he hadn't felt in years.

He tapped the text box, his slender fingers dancing across the screen:

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

He hit send.

---

In the brightly lit showroom across the district, Sugino was leaning against a display pillar, waiting for the evening floor change to begin. His phone was held loosely in his right palm.

He had been staring at the reunion chat for ten straight minutes.

Next Saturday. He could make it. He was off next weekend. But would Nagisa even show? Nagisa was busy; he was a teacher now, buried under the responsibilities of molding young minds. Maybe he wouldn't want to revisit the past. Maybe he had a partner by now. Maybe—

His phone vibrated in his grip.

A new message popped onto the screen.

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

Sugino's heart did an absurd, violent leap directly into his throat.

The noise of the bustling department store faded into white static. He stared at the little heart at the end of the sentence, his eyes wide. He could practically hear the melody of Nagisa's voice reading the words out loud. He could picture the exact way Nagisa's eyes would curve into soft crescents, the subtle tilt of his head, the delicate slope of his shoulders.

"How does a text message manage to look that cute...?" Sugino muttered under his breath, a slow, helplessly giddy grin breaking across his face.

"Sugino-san?"

Sugino snapped out of his daze. The floor manager was standing a few feet away, holding a stack of clipboards and pointing toward the center displays. "We're ready to swap the autumn mannequins. Can you take the heavy fixtures?"

Sugino locked his phone, sliding it smoothly into his back pocket. The exhaustion from his twelve-minute lunch break vanished entirely, replaced by an electric, pulsing warmth that settled right in his chest.

"Yeah," Sugino said, rolling up his shirt sleeves and flashing a brilliant, unstoppable grin. "I'm ready. Let's do it."

Saturday couldn't come fast enough.