Modern Dating: A Practical Guide

Doubt

Nagisa pours through the extensive life advice Korosensei left for him. So far, over the years, he's always managed to find just the right advice or encouragement to push him when he really needed it. Korosensei didn't include anything about choosing between his career and a relationship. Maybe because Korosensei wouldn't have considered Nagisa to be in this position. Ever. Frankly, Nagisa doesn't feel much like himself either.

In part, it's because he knows what option he's leaning towards. Even though it makes no sense. His instinct has so far remained solidly in just turning the job offer down. Admitting that to himself causes a stab like sensation to run through him.

The fact that some sort of construction work has started in his building, causing an incessant drilling at seemingly all hours of the day, is not making matters much better.

Nagisa also might have resorted to avoiding the problem. He understands that this is not the way to handle anything. In fact, the correct way to deal with this situation is clearly to just talk to Karma about it. That's something he does know. But somehow, he just can't make himself do it. If he's honest with himself, he's kind of afraid of what Karma might say, no matter which action he supports. At the same time, he can't escape this heavy guilty feeling of not saying anything.

"Nagisa," Ritsu's voice chirps from his phone, "are you still there?"

"Maybe I don't know what love really means," he mutters aloud.

"Do you want me to perform a search for the term 'love'?" Ritsu suggests.

He's not sure if that will do him any good. Nagisa has never felt so indecisive before, over something that should be simple. Maybe it is something that should be simple for him. Regardless it's pretty much why he chose to spend his time right here. In other words, he's actively avoiding any sort of confrontation lest he break and let everything spill out of him.

It's miserable, and it's self-inflicted.

He does love him, doesn't he? Sure he hasn't really said it before, but if he was forced to describe how he feels... it's the word he would choose. Maybe. Nagisa ends up raking his hands across his face in frustration. Why is he doubting it so hard now? He was so sure... He remembers that entire revelation and the fallout from it that came directly after. Admittedly that had come during the middle of sex. Nagisa would like to hope that maybe he'd grown emotionally since then. That love probably needed a bigger basis than that.

All he'd known at the time was that he couldn't bear the thought of having only a part of Karma somehow. It had to be all or nothing.

Nagisa is sure he hasn't even had feelings for another person before. He has no baseline of comparison. At what point is that supposed to become love? Even if he figures out an answer to that, it's not like they did anything else in standard order. It doesn't help that it's all wrapped up in a terrifying bundle of feelings he's had about Karma for the better part of a decade.

He feels like he must have felt it. Like sometimes when things just seem to make sense all of a sudden... Little things, here and there. The way his chest feels so overwhelmingly tight. There's a good and bad side to that. The burst is great, the hollowness not so much. It seems that Karma can distract him even without being physically present.

Nagisa is sure he couldn't cope with being that far apart. He's started to feel this intense sense of longing if he goes even a week without seeing Karma at this rate. There's also the concern that he wouldn't exactly be able to give a job his all if his heart is stuck somewhere else. He's certain they wouldn't last it. Nagisa's also not sure he would be capable of telling Karma he's breaking up with him to move to Hokkaido. Even if he tries to picture it, every inch of the scene just feels so wrong. Because it's so much of not what he wants.