𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐒𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐔𝐒 | 𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘪 & 𝘳𝘦𝘰 𝘹 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳

5-A Really Bothersome Piece of Lint

A/N: Am I the only one who gets alpha male podcast listener vibes from Reo? He deff watches those cringey grindset "high value man" tik toks.

˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

I sat slumped on my desk, my head buried in my arms. It was the last period of the day and I had no willpower to even try and pay attention to my teacher preaching about the importance of political science in our day to day lives. This entire week has been horrible. I was getting home late from school from having to coach/manage extra long soccer practices just to come home and have my mom yell at me for being useless. I knew I shouldn't take anything she said to heart but it still hurt, as much as I wanted to hate her, part of me just wished that maybe my mom could learn to be proud of me. I just wanted her to be happy with how hard I was trying in school. It was at the point in the year where I was also really feeling the academic burnout as well, and I just kept getting swamped in endless school work. The worst part about the entire thing was that my brain somehow found time in between long stressful school nights and chronic leg pain to keep wandering back to two certain people. Nagi was constantly on my mind, it didn't help that now I had too see him every day during practice. Everytime we would make eye contact or when I would catch myself staring for too long my heart would skip a beat. So I did my best to distract myself, and the perfect distraction for me right now was Mikage Reo.

I had spent the entire week trying to brainstorm ways of how to talk to him. Isagi was right, I seriously needed a rebound, and Mikage Reo was just about perfect for this role. He was tall, attractive, smart, and well built. On paper he was the perfect guy but 2 years of rivalry had shown me what an insensitive brat he could be, but that didn't stop him from being eye-candy for me to distract myself with.

I rested my cheek on the palm of my hands, my gaze finding its way to Reo. Luckily Nagi wasn't in our poly sci class so nothing could break my undivided attention. I have to admit, I have a horrible tendency to zone out while staring. So that's why when Reo got up and started walking to my desk I didn't understand what was happening.

"Hello??? Earth to y/n??" I felt Reo flick my forehead as he was now standing directly in front of my desk.

"Ouchhhh what the hell was that for..."

"The teacher told us to partner up for a project dumbass"

"And...you chose me?" I stared at him in slight disbelief. Reo was supposed to hate me, he was supposed to avoid me at all costs outside of soccer practice and here he was standing in front of my desk asking me to partner up with him for a school project.

"Everyone else in this room is either too stupid to work with or practically drooling over me. So don't flatter yourself too much y/n," he says dropping the instructional packet on to my desk.

"Right...because it's so terrible to have tons of girls 'practically drooling' for you," I said, rolling my eyes. He was ridiculously full of himself but honestly I couldn't blame him. My ego would probably be massive. I had tons of people desperately trying to date me.

"Those aren't the kind of girls I want drooling for me," he said as he pulled up a seat to my desk. I looked around watching several of our classmates staring at me and Reo. I almost felt smug knowing that he had picked me over everyone else in class.

"So you're the picky type?" I said turning to him while flipping through the packet skimming over the instructions.

"Jesus y/n, for once I'm trying to have a civil conversation with you and you just can't be normal for more than 5 seconds," he said, ripping the packet out of my hands.

"Calm down Mikage. What if I'm just curious?"

"When did you become interested in my love life?" he said shooting me a glare, "and also why the fuck were you staring at me for like 20 minutes??? I could feel your eyes burning a hole in my back"

AGHHHHH. ABORT. ABORT MISSION. How the fuck did he know??? I was desperately trying to keep my face from turning into a tomato. This was a different level of embarrassment. I took a breath in trying to collect my thoughts and come up with a reasonable excuse.

"UHHH. This is gonna sound stupid-"

"Don't worry you always sound stupid"

"Shut up and let me explain. But yeah there was this big piece of lint on the back of your uniform. It looked really weird and it was bothering me."

"Right...if it's bothering you so much why don't you take off that piece of lint right now?" Reo's expression was unreadable right now. I couldn't tell if he realized I was lying or not but why would he ask me to remove it? He didn't look flushed at all either, "what did it disappear or something y/n?" he asked when I didn't immediately reach my hand over to take it off.

I reached my hand over to the back of his uniform. I let my fingers drag across his back as I pretend to be reaching for the imaginary piece of lint. Even through the thin layer of his shirt I could feel how defined the muscles in his back were, it was taking all my control not to turn bright red in the moment. I let my hand travel down his back feeling the heat radiate from his body. He seemed to be awfully still in that moment, seemingly still focused on the paper right in front of him. I finally pinched part of his shirt pretending to pluck the imaginary piece of lint on his back. I couldn't fully proccess what I had just done. it was painfully obvious there wasn't just a piece of lint, and this wasn't the kind of thing rivals were supposed to do. So then why did I like it so much? The feeling of his back against my hands feel so nice?

"Took you long enough to take off a piece of lint. Are you blind or just dumb?"

"WHAT HAPPENED TO HAVING A CIVIL CONVERSATION"