Sex Education

Lesson Eight (improper use of a necktie)

Winter is usually a sad time for Nagisa.

He's not one of those people who gets particularly effected by the seasons, but there's something to be said, in the brightness of summer. Winter is cold, and dark, and involves watching so many of the plants around him die for a little while. Mostly, though, it's just lonely. Nagisa can feel it in the hushed discussions in his class already, about who's dating who on Christmas Eve. He sees it in news articles about arrangements for New Years, or something like that.

In fact, in just a few weeks' time, Tokyo will turn into a ghost town. Or, as much of a ghost town as the largest city in the world can be. People like him, young adults who moved to the city to pursue some kind of career goal, automatically scatter like snowflakes in the wind, back to whichever portion of the countryside they come from.

Nagisa's parents still live in Kunugigaoka, barely an hour by car from his apartment, and still only a little longer when you take all the train changes into account. It's not that Nagisa doesn't like spending New Years with them... it's just odd. They've been remarried for a while now, and his mother has been a lot better for some time, but there's still a wedge between them. Nagisa wouldn't feel particularly hollow, if he missed the usual celebration.

Also, he's never had a Christmas Eve date.

The fact that it falls on a Saturday this year hasn't escaped him. His and Karma's arrangement varies week by week, depending on work. Nagisa likes it on Fridays more, since at least there's something to distract him from not eating all day. But... maybe he could play it off like he was having an 'end of year' celebration with work, or something.

Another factor is whether their whole arrangement even lasts that long.

The thing is, Nagisa likes sex. Nowadays, he actually anticipates and actively wants to do it, which is a new and slightly inconvenient revelation. He feels strangely well versed in it now. He has a favourite position, and he knows what Karma's is, too. After the first time, too, Karma started actually giving him instructions, and Nagisa keeps notes on all of them. The only thing he wonders is how much there left there is to actually teach him. At what point are they just having sex... for fun? Can they really just go back to being normal friends at some point?

After Karma's ardent demonstration of 'doggy style' two weeks ago, Nagisa thinks any normal friendship is forever off the cards.

He's fully aware that he's overthinking it. But thinking is one of the things Nagisa just does. Unfortunately, it's not always the most useful, and tends to spiral out of control when he doesn't have much of a target to actually focus it on. And unpicking every part of his and Karma's 'relationship' certainly isn't ideal. Besides... they're friends, aren't they? They've saved the world together, they've flown to space, they've... beat each other bloody, a couple of times, sure. Regular sex isn't the weirdest thing to add to the list.

The reason his mind is running off like this is because he actually arrived at Karma's house early. It's not unusual for him to be a few minutes early for their agreed meeting time, after all he doesn't get to choose the train timetable. It doesn't usually matter, except Karma texted him five minutes ago to say he had something to do for the next fifteen or so minutes.

There's worse things he could be doing, than loitering around. Even though he's cold, and getting a little impatient, it doesn't matter. So what if they start things a little later than usual? Maybe it would do them some good. The cold, however, isn't much. He stares at the closed door, willing the time to just disappear already.

He convinces himself it's the reason why he's suddenly pacing around the balcony, as opposed to being completely lost in thought. What does he even have to think about, really? He's fine. He's happy with whatever he gets from Karma, whatever he's willing to give him. So he has no need to debate something so simple over and over. That all gets cut off by the way he suddenly clashes into something. Someone.