Modern Dating: A Practical Guide

Slow Boil

There are many ways Nagisa likes to spend his downtime after work. Sometimes, that's grading, which seems counter intuitive but it's actually pretty relaxing sometimes. More recently it's being pounded into a mattress six ways to Sunday. But this? Nagisa doesn't hate cafes. It's not his first activity of choice, certainly, but there are worse places. He doesn't hate coffee either. Coffee's good most of the time.

Sitting opposite from Tsukasa with a weird blanket of tension, though? Not one of them.

Tsukasa clears his throat. "Is it just me or has it been crazy busy recently?"

Nagisa almost breathes a sigh of relief. "Yeah, it's been a lot."

The air thickens once more. There's not a lot he can do, though. He already used up talking about the weather when he asked Tsukasa to come with him here. To talk! To... inform him that he has a boyfriend? To be honest, Nagisa's not fully sure the technicalities of this situation. They went on a date one time, but he doesn't know if that entitles him to anything... An explanation at least won't hurt, though.

Taking a sip of his coffee, Tsukasa leans forward in his chair. "Seems like you're some kind of minor celebrity at this point."

He scrunches his nose. "I don't know about that."

"It's already starting to blow over."

"Maybe..." Nagisa hesitates.

Tsukasa clears his throat. "Actually, I'm glad you wanted to talk. I've been meaning to catch a good moment."

"Oh?"

Tsukasa takes another sip of his coffee, before looking kind of... pained? "There's really no good way to say this, is there?" He laughs awkwardly. "I guess we haven't really talked about it, but we went out that time so..." he hesitates. "I've been really busy recently and I just don't have time to focus on things like dating. I hope you can understand... and that this doesn't make things awkward at work."

Nagisa blinks.

Did he just get dumped before he could do the planned dumping?

A part of him wants to feel a little hurt, maybe even offended. Though... isn't this a good thing? In fact, it gets him off the hook. Now he doesn't even need to explain that he's actually had a boyfriend the whole time Tsukasa's been back, but hasn't mentioned it yet. So Nagisa should really just let this happen.

"It's not you," he says, "it's me. You know?"

Somehow that makes it worse. "Uhm," he says, "are we still friends?"

Tsukasa smiles. "Of course. Yeah."

He breathes a sigh of relief at that, founded or otherwise. Tsukasa's a nice person after all, and Nagisa doesn't want to make things awkward. In fact, it's kind of nice to have a friend he'll get to see regularly. It's not like he doesn't have any otherwise! Of course he's still close with everyone from 3E, and he has friends from high school and university. But... Nagisa tends to get distracted with things like work, and he knows he's not the best at keeping up with everyone naturally. And, well, he figures he can't count Karma as a friend anymore.

In fact, there's a slight misery to him after he says his goodbyes to Tsukasa and walks back to his own apartment alone. It's becoming increasingly clear that he doesn't know what to do with himself when he's not doing something with Karma, or else distracted by work or too tired to care. This time, though, he doesn't even have the option of texting him. Nagisa knows he's not free.

After-work drinks are normal. In fact, expected in many fields. For once, it's not some kind of self doubt thing. Nagisa's pretty confident that Karma would rather hang out with him than his colleagues. But... it's also putting him in an awkward position, isn't it? There's only so many times he can blow off an invite, and Nagisa definitely doesn't want a part of it to be for his sake.