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Nishinoya returned home (well, “home” was relative at this point in their travels across the world) to find Asahi on the couch, eyes riveted to his laptop, tears streaming down his cheeks.
“Dude, what’s wrong?” Nishinoya was next to him on the couch before he knew it. Had Asahi gotten an email about a death in the family? Was he just watching one of those soldiers-come-home-to-their-dogs videos? Maybe Suga had finally pulled off his flash mob proposal to Daichi? Another ASPCA commercial?
“Three thousand years, Noya!” Asahi replied, pained. “Three thousand years!”
Nishinoya blinked in confusion. “I was gone three hours. Not three thousand years.”
“Not you!” Asahi said, though for some reason his lip started trembling the longer he looked Nishinoya in the eye. He gestured wordlessly at the laptop.
Slightly afraid of what he might find on the screen, Nishinoya followed the gesture and looked at the laptop on the coffee table. He cocked his head to the side in confusion and raised an eyebrow. “Um...bab— dude, this just looks like shonen anime to me?” He looked back at Asahi for confirmation; he knew Asahi to be a gentle soul but crying at battle anime was still unexpected. It’s not like this was on a level with Vegeta’s farewell talk with Trunks before he goes off to die or Raoh punching his soul to heaven or something.
“They’re cursed, Noya,” Asahi said. Though Nishinoya recognized the anime he still had no clue who “they” were specifically. “For three thousand years—Meliodas is immortal and Elizabeth keeps getting reincarnated with no memory. So over and over he finds her and they fall in love but as soon as she regains her memory of their past and the curse, she—” Asahi swallowed and his eyes threatened to spill over with new tears. “She dies in three days.”
Nishinoya peered more closely at the screen then bit his lower lip to keep from smiling, or worse, laughing. “Asahi,” he ground out.
“Mmm?”
“You do know that this is an anime, right? ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ is not real. Meliodas and Elizabeth aren’t real people.”
Asahi glared at him but the effect was ruined by the tears still pooled in the corners of his eyes. “I know that!” he huffed. “But— but it’s just so tragic to think about. I-I couldn’t help it. It made me wonder, what...what if...”
“What if that was us?” Nishinoya asked, unable to control his lopsided smirk.
“You’re laughing at me,” Asahi pouted.
Nishinoya did burst out laughing at that. “I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing with you.”
“But I’m not laughing!”
Nishinoya reached over and closed the laptop before straddling Asahi’s lap and taking his face in his hands. “Listen,” he said, eyes glimmering mischievously. “If I had to make you fall in love with me three thousand times—”
“Three thousand years, not three thousand times,” Asahi sulkily corrected.
“If we were cursed for a million years and I had to keep finding you and making you fall in love with me, I’d do it. As many times as it took.” He kissed a tear track on Asahi’s cheekbone.
“Are you just saying that because you think that’s what I want to hear?”
Nishinoya cocked his head. “Isn’t it?” He ducked in and gently nipped at Asahi’s protruding pouty lower lip. At first he thought maybe he’d messed up and made Asahi more upset but then he realized it wasn’t anger filling those chocolate eyes with heat. So he doubled-down on his gamble and leaned in to whisper in Asahi’s ear, “Isn’t that what you wanted to hear? That no matter how many lifetimes, I’ll find and love my hime-sama?”
It had been years since Nishinoya had seen Asahi move that quickly. He wasn’t sure he actually could. But the fact that before he knew it, he’d been flipped flat on his back on the couch with Asahi looming over him, propped up on his elbows, proved otherwise.
“That was kinda hot,” Nishinoya blurted. “But, uh, I don’t know if you’re mad at me for calling you hime-sama or if you’re incredibly turned on by the fact I’d love you for a million years.”
“You just thought that’s what I wanted to hear.” For someone who had been crying at anime moments earlier, his voice was surprisingly steady. “What if it wasn’t? What would you say?”
“Well...” Nishinoya licked his lips in thought. The proximity of their bodies and the way Asahi’s serious, deep voice rumbled through his body was too distracting. “Honestly, I was going to say that I’d just be a fucking man and kick that curse’s ass the first lifetime. Like hell someone is going to hurt you and get away with it—”
“Noyaaaa.” The charged atmosphere evaporated and Asahi collapsed on Nishinoya (gently, Nishinoya noticed—even after all this time Asahi was still unreasonably afraid of crushing him, which was simultaneously adorable and ridiculous), his forehead thumping against Nishinoya’s chest. Nishinoya wrapped his arms around Asahi’s shoulders, feeling them tremble with laughter. “You really are too cool.”
“That’s why you fell for me, right?” Nishinoya teased.
Asahi groaned in embarrassment and buried his face in Nishinoya’s chest. With a laugh, Nishinoya reached over and teased loose Asahi’s already precariously messy bun. For a moment they both just lay there, Asahi’s head resting on Nishinoya’s chest as Nishinoya combed his fingers through long brown hair, short fingernails lightly scratching seemingly random trails against the scalp underneath.
“Why am I automatically the princess?” Asahi asked, sounding more relaxed than plaintive.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Against his chest, Asahi moved his head slightly so he could look up and make eye contact. “You’re tall with long hair and I’m shor— less tall and always ogling you. So you’d have to be Elizabeth and I’d be Meliodas.”
“You ogle me?” Asahi asked, brow furrowed.
For a moment Nishinoya thought he was being facetious—that he had to be—but realized that no, Asahi’s question was entirely genuine. With a slightly frustrated groan, he hugged Asahi’s head—
“Noya! You’re going to squeeze my head off!”
—before letting out a resigned sigh and giving Asahi’s forehead a quick peck.
Asahi wrapped a hand around Nishinoya’s arm but didn’t pull it away. “I thought you were going to make fun of me for crying,” he mumbled into Nishinoya’s arm.
“Huh?”
“Well, I can’t imagine you crying. Kiyoko’s banner presentation notwithstanding,” he tried for a lighter tone.
“What are you talking about?” Nishinoya asked. “You made me cry.”
“What?!” Asahi sat up in shock. Nishinoya didn’t want to be the only one lying on the couch if they weren’t going to mess around, so he sat up as well, giving a little stretch for good measure. “W-when? How?”
“Back in high school.” Nishinoya sighed. “I was so mad at you, I couldn’t help it.”
“Ah,” Asahi said uncomfortably, biting his lower lip and looking away.
“I wasn’t mad at you for not winning,” Nishinoya pressed. “I was mad at you for giving up. I was mad at you for not trusting me. And—” he punched Asahi in the arm “—I was mad at you for not seeing how amazing you were. Are.”
“Sorry,” Asahi said quietly. He scratched his neck nervously. “I— uh, even if it’s angry tears, I’m sorry you—”
“’s fine,” Nishinoya said with a shrug. “Kinda stupid, in the scheme of things, right? I mean, how many years ago was that?” He gave an empty laugh. “Kinda embarrassing.”
“I don’t think so,” Asahi said slowly. “I mean—” his lips twisted in a too-familiar self-deprecating smile. “For a long time I remembered...well, Daichi came to me and said that you had told him if I didn’t come back, you weren’t coming back either. That you didn’t want to win without me.” His gaze flickered very briefly to Nishinoya. “I mean, I knew he made that up to get me to come back, or maybe to tease me, but I still thought about it for years when I needed a pep talk—”
“I did say that.”
Asahi looked at him, shocked. “What?”
Golden eyes stared steadily back at him. “I did say that. If you didn’t come back, I wasn’t going to either. I refused to win without you. Daichi-san didn’t make that up.”
“Oh. Well.” Asahi cringed. “That’s really embarrassing then. To just admit that something you said back in high school made me so happy.”
“Why is that embarrassing? You say shit all the time that makes me happy.” Nishinoya climbed into Asahi’s lap, ignoring his squeak of surprise. “Like when you proposed to me.” He flashed a bright, if slightly wicked, grin. “That made me really, super, stupidly happy.”
“And that’s embarrassing too.” Asahi was too distracted by Nishinoya’s lips getting closer and and closer to his own for his tone to match his words. “I still can’t believe I did that.”
“Does that mean you wanna take it back?” Nishinoya’s face lingered just inches away.
Asahi’s eyes went wide. “N-no! What? I love you—”
“Good.” Nishinoya closed the gap and their lips met. They indulged for a moment, kissing slowly, until Nishinoya pulled slightly back much to Asahi’s obvious disappointment. Nishinoya smirked mischievously. “Because you’re stuck with me for the next million years.”
Asahi regarded him, pained expression on his face. “I think three thousand will be plenty. Just this lifetime might be more than I can handle.”
“Hey!” Nishinoya laughed and Asahi laughed with him.