Modern Dating: A Practical Guide

Mega Curse

Nagisa's sure his sex drive will run out at some point.

It's almost as if they've been challenging that theory recently, though they didn't mutually agree on that or anything. It's just been this way ever since that night, and Nagisa can't help but feel a wedge between them. Sex is a convenient way of ignoring all of that. In fact, it's the only way Nagisa's been feeling like Karma's truly there sometimes.

There's a part of him, though, that kind of hates that it's basically all they do now. No matter how good it actually feels. It definitely seems like a shift. It's kind of more like a friends with benefits arrangement, minus the friends part. Nagisa's not that fussy. It's not like he needs a date every week to feel like Karma still likes him.

He just wishes it didn't suddenly feel like he was grating against him.

Then it starts getting even weirder. Even though Nagisa's adjusted a little bit to the fact that Karma doesn't just talk about how he feels, he can't help but think he's missing something. It's endlessly frustrating because he knows there's something. He's pretty sure Karma knows he knows too, because he seems to be doing everything he can to avoid the subject.

Nagisa has accepted that he can't force Karma to tell him anything he doesn't want to. And he's allowed to have his own life! He just... doesn't understand what could be so bad he doesn't want him to know. And the longer it goes on, the weirder it gets.

For instance, Nagisa finds himself sitting cross-legged on Karma's bed, left to his own devices for a few minutes. To his side, Karma's phone vibrates, and he glances a LINE notification. Nothing weird.

"You have a text," Nagisa says.

But Karma... pounces, awfully fast, and snatches it away from him. Kind of like he was worried the phone would explode. "Oh," he visibly relaxes, "it's just the group chat. Looks like Okajima's doing something for his birthday."

Now Nagisa's just confused. Karma's never been sensitive about this kind of thing before. Over the years, there's been a bunch of occasions when Nagisa let him know he had a message in the exact same way, and back then Karma had usually asked him to just read it aloud to him. Does the fact that they're together now really change things that much?

He had no plans to read Karma's messages. Why would he? But... should he? What kind of messages would Karma be this jumpy about him reading? Why was there a possibility it would be something he doesn't want Nagisa to see? Nagisa might not have been in a relationship himself before, but just from being around people in genera it's not exactly difficult to recognise the kind of behaviour he's thinking of. Most of his friends at the time would have described it as 'psycho', though he's not sure that's the best term.

In an effort to avoid anything like that, though, he tries to relax. Karma wouldn't cheat on him or anything. Right? He hates that he's even thinking that way.

Maybe Karma isn't used to commitment, but, well, surely he doesn't have the time to be with anyone else? There has to be a human limit to the amount of sex a person can have. If Karma's not already at that somehow, then Nagisa might be more genuinely concerned than mad about it. And at the very least, Nagisa does trust that it wouldn't be an emotional thing.

But what else would he possibly have to hide?

It's not like Nagisa has any right to press him on it. He's not entitled to his message history. And he knows, if he does ask, it's only going to make things worse. He may as well say 'I don't trust you' point blank to his face. And that's not even accurate anyway. He does trust him. With his life. But he knows Karma would take it like that regardless. It seems like the best way to make sure he never tells him anything.