Chapter Text
“Seiji,” Nicholas says. “I need you to punch me.”
“Why?” Seiji asks, confused. He cranes his neck to try and see what’s got Nicholas so out of sorts, but he can’t see anything through the throng of people.
“I need to make sure this isn’t a nightmare.”
Seiji scrunches his nose. “The music isn’t that loud…”
Nicholas sighs and lets his head flop onto Seiji's shoulder like he’s completely lost the will to go on. Something in Seiji’s stomach flutters. “Eugene’s date is Jesse Coste. Jesse fucking Coste.” Seiji turns to look at the doors.
“Oh,” Seiji says, his voice small. That’s-- not what was supposed to happen tonight.
“I know! I told Julian and Chad and Brad that Jesse was Eugene’s date, and they were all like ‘No, Nick, you’re being ridiculous, that could never happen,’ well it’s happening!” Nicholas sounds a little bit freaked out, and Seiji hesitantly pats him on the back in what he hopes is a soothing manner.
“I’m going to cry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m going to be very upset, then, because my nemesis just showed up to ruin my first real high school dance.”
“Your nemesis?” Seiji raises an eyebrow. “If anything, Jesse is my nemesis. I lost to him at nationals, remember? You’ve never even fought him.”
“I’m about to go fight him right now,” Nicholas mumbles into Seiji’s shoulder.
From across the room, Seiji catches Harvard’s eye and waves him and Aiden over. They look surprised when they see Jesse too, glancing over their shoulders at the door as they push their way over to Seiji and Nicholas.
Aiden is fuming. “That little brat. Conspiring with the enemy! In this day and age! And during our prank war too! He probably knew Exton’s every plan and was just watching us chase our tails for fun!”
Harvard sighs. “I doubt Eugene would have sided with Exton over us. What does he always say again?”
“Bros before hos,” Nicholas says, face still pressed into Seiji’s jacket.
“Yeah,” Harvard says. “That. Although I kind of feel bad about calling Jesse a ho.”
“Do you remember the tarantulas?”
“Oh, yeah. Never mind. He’s a bitch.”
Aiden cackles, and then abruptly stops as he notices Jesse and Eugene making their way over. Nicholas picks his head up so he can properly glare at the approaching couple, but sticks close to Seiji’s side. Seiji wonders if people will think that they’re a real couple after this. For some reason, he doesn’t think he’d mind that much.
“Hey, guys!” Eugene calls out, waving at them. Jesse follows behind him, his normal haughty expression still in place. The rest of the team folds their arms and glares at him.
“Oh,” Eugene stops. “Hmm. I might not have thought this one through very well.”
“You think?” Aiden asks sarcastically. “Bring the enemy, the guy who’s been torturing us all week to the homecoming dance. As your date. Yeah, that’s a real good idea.”
“Jeez, guys, you don’t have to be that mean,” Eugene says.
“He put tarantulas in the locker room!” Nicholas says.
“Oh, yeah, I see your point,” Eugene says, and hits Jesse softly on the back of his head. “Don’t do that.”
“Rude,” Jesse says, folding his arms. “And anyways, you were the ones who put foam stuff on my car. Do you know how much time it took to get all of that stuff off? Hours!”
“Wow, tragic,” Eugene intones.
“I’m being bullied by my own boyfriend now, too. This is so unfair!”
Seiji rolls his eyes, and Nicholas snorts. Eugene drags Jesse away after that because he caught sight of the rest of the weight-lifting bros, and the team breathes a sigh of relief. Seiji in particular is glad that he’s gone. He’s mostly gotten over what had happened between them before, but old wounds and all that.
The music is still loud, but it’s not quite as loud as when they first came in, so Nicholas grins and grabs Seiji’s hand, pulling him towards the snacks table. Seiji groans, because of course the first thing that Nicholas wants to do is eat. He watches him load up a plate with potato chips and chocolate and like three strawberries, which is probably the only fruit he’s had all day. Honestly, there are times when Seiji seriously wonders how he hasn’t gotten scurvy by now.
Nicholas absolutely demolishes his snacks as if he hadn’t eaten dinner two hours ago, and then proceeds to drag Seiji out onto the dance floor.
Against all odds, Seiji finds himself actually having fun. The music is loud and there are a lot of people, but he focuses on what he’s doing and tries to tune them out. Nicholas is helpful too, keeping them as far away from the mosh pit as possible. They jump up and down in time to the music, holding hands and grinning wildly. Seiji is about to suggest they do something else for a bit because he can feel the sweat dripping down the back of his jacket, but at that moment the music suddenly shifts to a slower song.
“Oh my god,” Nicholas says.
“Oh my god?” Seiji asks.
Nicholas readjusts their position so that they’re doing some approximation of a waltz. “Oh my god, they’re playing Ed Sheeran.”
“Who’s Ed Sheeran?”
“The guy who wrote this song.”
“I’ve never heard this song before. I don’t really listen to pop music.”
“You are so, so lucky.”
They sway together until the song ends, and then split. Nicholas goes to get them drinks, and Seiji looks around for someone else he knows. He spots Dante and Bobby from across the room, and makes his way through the crowd towards them.
Nicholas returns with drinks and they’re all standing together when the DJ announces that it’s time to crown the official Homecoming court. Everybody stops dancing and starts paying attention as they first pull up the freshman, then the sophomores, and finally the juniors.
There’s a big moment of silence before they announce the seniors. Seiji doesn’t know why it’s such a big deal (Homingcoming King isn’t really something you could ever put on a resume), but everybody seems to be spilling over with excitement.
They call up Sabrina Adcock from Gladwell first. She’s wearing a fluffy blue dress and her hair is curled and falls in ringlets around her shoulders. Seiji hears half of the room stop breathing as she walks up to the teachers to accept her crown.
“And our Homecoming King,” the teacher announcing pauses, and everybody leans forward ever so slightly, “is Aiden Kane!”
Harvard cackles and shoves Aiden forward. “Karma!”
“Karma for what?” Aiden bemoans as he looks towards Sabrina.
“Karma for stealing my favorite fencing socks and then telling me that it was the sock monster that lived in the laundry machine.”
“That was six years ago!” Aiden gets shoved to the front of the room by Bobby, who’s a lot stronger than he looks. The teachers give him his crown, and he holds out a hand to Sabrina.
The DJ puts on another slow song that Seiji doesn’t know, but Nicholas evidently does because he groans. Sabrina and Aiden sway together for a few seconds, and then all of a sudden there’s a loud creaking noise from above them. They stop and look up at the ceiling, searching for the source of the noise.
Suddenly, a waterfall of red liquid pours down on them, completely soaking both of them and splattering a good chunk of the people standing around them. The rest of the team jumps in shock.
Soaked in fake blood in front of the entire school, Aiden wipes his sleeve across his face and then screams, “JESSE!”
“And that’s my cue to leave,” Jesse says from behind the group.
“I can’t believe I’m dating you,” Eugene says. “I cannot fucking believe.”
“Yup, bye babe, see you tomorrow!” Jesse says, blows Eugene a kiss, and then runs.
“GET HIM!” Aiden screams, and starts running after Jesse while all of the teachers yell at him to stop moving because he’s getting the fake blood everywhere.
Jesse escapes and everything is a madhouse from then on. Harvard alternates between worried team captain and laughing hysterically at Aiden while he fumes. Nicholas and Seiji are given towels and told to help clean up the mess while all of the lights go back on and teachers run around reassuring people that the school will cover all of the dry-cleaning expenses for any of the people who were splattered.
It’s a weird end to homecoming.
Eventually the gym is mostly clean and everybody kind of filters out. The Gladwell girls get back on their busses and everyone from King’s Row starts heading back to their dorms.
“I’m going to kill someone,” Aiden mutters as the fencing team walks together back towards their dorm building. His suit is stained completely red and he has Harvard’s jacket draped over his shoulders. His hair is matted and sticky, too, because from what Seiji can smell, part of the fake blood was pomegranate juice.
“You have to admit that it was kind of funny,” Nicholas says.
Aiden turns around and points at him. “This is all your fault. If you hadn’t made that stupid phonecall, the whole stupid competition would have ended and Jesse would have never got it into his pretty little head to completely douse me in juice!”
“Hey, hey,” Harvard said. “Don’t blame the freshman. We all make mistakes sometimes, you know?”
“I have never made a mistake in my entire life.”
Harvard’s about to contradict that statement when Nicholas jumps in. “I’m sorry. About the prank call. I didn’t think it would actually lead to anything.”
“Uh… apology accepted, I guess.”
“Speaking of it not leading to anything, Jesse is a fucking liar,” Eugene says. “He was like, ‘Yeah, Eugene, we’re totally done with the prank war’ and then he goes and pulls this shit! Can’t believe it!”
“You should break up with him,” Nicholas says.
“Can’t, I already told my mom that he’s coming over for Thanksgiving.”
“What?!” Everyone else choruses.
Eugene just waves his hand and tells them all to forget it. They’re almost back to the dorms by then, and they all split up to head back to their respective rooms.
Nicholas immediately flops down onto his bed face first while Seiji sits down in his desk chair.
“That was… a lot,” Nicholas says.
“It was,” Seiji replies. “High school is certainly interesting. I feel kind of bad for Aiden, though.”
“Why would you feel bad for him? Remember the beginning of the year when he said all those horrible things to you?”
“He didn’t even know me then,” Seiji says, thinking about how much Aiden’s attitude towards the rest of the team has changed.
“Maybe. I still can’t believe Eugene and Jesse are dating though.”
“I know,” Seiji remarks dryly. “You’ve mentioned it.”
“That’s just because it’s so weird!”
“I don’t think it’s that weird. They kind of make sense together.” He’s seen the way they look at each other, too.
“Hmm. Maybe.”
There’s a long beat of silence.
“Seiji?”
“Yes?”
Nicholas sits up, loosening his tie. “Thank you for being my date tonight. I had a really good time. Besides all the fake blood and Jesse Coste stuff, obviously.”
“I did too.”
“Umm, uh, would you want to do it again?”
“Go to homecoming and watch a giant bucket of fake blood get dumped on Aiden again?”
“No! Go on a date with me!”
“Sure,” Seiji finds himself saying, which is simultaneously surprising and not surprising at all.
Nicholas grins. “Nice.”
“You’re still not allowed to eat granola bars on my bed though.”
“I’ll have you know, I am very, very careful when I eat granola bars.”
“Sure,” Seiji replies, but he’s smiling.