With waitresses topping off his mug at every turn and no realization that there had been more to that cider than just apples, the "partying" part of Nagisa's night had ended when he'd fallen asleep—or rather, passed out—at the bar with nothing but his arms and cookie crumbs for a pillow. And he, at least, had no associates of questionable intent to drag him off to unknown places. But he did come to eventually, re-roused by the ever-ongoing sounds of revelry, and that was when he discovered it:

Rei was missing, and nobody Nagisa asked had seen him leave. There was reveling, drinking, and making-out in mistletoe-hung corners to be had. Who would notice one more person slipping in or out of the crowded rooms? Not even the people nice enough to really want to help him, could. Rei was missing and Nagisa had no idea where he was.

He couldn't imagine Rei would just leave without him... not without telling him, or leaving him a note, or something. So... where was he? Had... had someone taken him? Taken... advantage of him? Just like that other blonde boy had said?

So began Nagisa's restless, frantic night. Asking everyone he saw, everyone he could find, if they'd seen anyone that looked like Rei; calling Rei's name (but who could hear anything over the din?); even running back to their own crappy little inn, their room, peeking in the window of the shop where Rei worked in the daytime, even past the fuckbakery for lack of places to check....

Nothing.

He looked all night, until he had no energy left and his feet hurt and his eyes felt made of rough stone. Nagisa couldn't stop looking but... he needed a little rest. Just a little. He'd collapse if he kept going and then he'd never find him. This wasn't like when he'd wandered out of the hotel that time. This was... this was not a good place to wander alone. Rei wouldn't have left without him if he'd had a choice. With how protective Rei was, Nagisa knew that. He was out there and Nagisa had to find him.

Just... a little sleep.

So when Rei gets back to their room, Nagisa is there to be seen, still in his clothes from the night before in all their cider-stained and cookie-crumbed disarray, still with his shoes on, and curled up on top of their bed's rough fur blanket. His head is on his own pillow and his arms clutch Rei's to his chest in much more desperate body language than his usual sleeping warmth-seeking cuddles, but then, it's only for a moment.

His sleep has been shallow and fitful, so at the squeak and close of their door and the creaking of the floorboards, Nagisa startles awake as if given an electric prod. His bedhead sticks out at all angles and his eyes are simultaneously reddened and dark-shadowed, and there's little guessing why.

There's one, maybe two seconds of staring as the sight of Rei registers to Nagisa's mind, and then the smaller boy is throwing himself off the bed and across the room in a desperate stumble, arms outstretched.

"Rei-chan!!!"

Perhaps all the cookies he ate along with the cider helped his body with having something other than alcohol to digest, or perhaps simply fear was the most sobering thing once he fumbled out of his first intoxicated nap. Either way, it doesn't matter. Rei matters, and here he is, even if he smells like sweat and bile and other unpleasantly questionable things.

Of course Nagisa is crying now, but it's a far different kind than his outbursts at swim relays and the reunion of friends. He never even cried that night Rei let his foolishness sweep him away in a storm—it was over so fast and everyone got out unharmed, it was easy to fall into his role of mood-maker and try to get everyone distracted and smiling. But last night, there was no one to amuse, no one to entertain. Just Nagisa, alone, and suddenly given reasons to be afraid.

So he's just clinging to Rei and tightly, face pressed into the other boy's chest, and is he...? Yes, Nagisa is shivering, just a little, as shock and strain and overall relief suddenly run themselves all out in his little body.

"Rei-chan! Rei-chan, I was... worried!" And Rei's already apologized and it's alright but it was a long, frantic night and an unpleasant lesson to learn for it.

Isn't that just fitting? Hugging him like this was the last significant thing Nagisa did before he just lost track of Rei and let him vanish, and now here he is again, doing the same, but far less happily. Nagisa never should have let go.

But this isn't about him. This isn't about how Rei made him worry. Nagisa's words don't lay blame. Sniffling, he lifts his head from Rei's chest and looks up at him, and there is no accusation in his eyes. Just relief. Just worry. Just guilt.

Why was Rei gone? Why didn't Nagisa keep track of him?

"Are you... okay? Nobody...."

(He should have gone looking for Rei the moment that other boy told him that not everyone was nice. He should have put down the cider and cookies and he and Rei should have stuck together.)

"Nobody hurt you?"

And oh, the desperate look in Nagisa's eyes when he asks that. There's absolutely one answer he wants to hear over the alternative. He'll never forgive himself if Rei was hurt.

Nagisa was actually starting to pull back a little, not away but just to lean back and really look for any kind of suspicious injury anywhere on Rei that he could see, but when pulled closer the boy offers up no resistance at all. He puts his head down against his friend's shoulder instead, face turned towards the warmth at the crook of Rei's neck.

"I'm fine," he says with a sniffle, the siblings of which he is trying hard to ratchet back and silence. This isn't about him, it's about Rei... but he's just so relieved the tears are hard to stop. He is Nagisa, after all. Sometimes he's still a crybaby.

"I was just up all night, looking for you." Sniff. "Where'd you go? I looked around the party, here, your job, my job...." What does that even leave that he didn't check? Someplace that never even occurred to him to check, obviously, but... where?

Don't worry about it... boy, those words sound familiar. Nagisa should know. He says them an awful lot himself, doesn't he? Don't worry about it, and then he does all he can to deflect those worries, distract from them, because he'd rather his friends smile and be happy.

Is this what it feels like to be on the other side of those efforts? He feels the way Rei tenses and hears the shift in his tone when he speaks, too. But Rei knows where Nagisa was all night, what he was doing. He can't answer the question with something he's already said. But where was Rei?

He pulls back a little, for real this time, but not away. Rei looks exhausted, sounds it, and the bed is just over there. Nagisa tries to wriggle around in the tightness of that embrace to get under Rei's arm instead, to support and guide him a bedwards direction.

Where was Rei? And why is he keeping it a secret?

Doesn't that mean it's something bad?

Maybe even something like what the other boy warned him about?

Softly: "Don't worry... because you don't intend to get me involved?"

Nagisa's... learning. Sometimes you can't just smile and tell someone not to worry. Sometimes you wake up and can't find your best friend.

Sometimes Nagisa thinks about what might've happened if Haruka hadn't woken up when he had. He definitely thought about it a lot last night in particular. What might happen to Rei-chan if he wasn't looking? What had? He'd turned his back, gotten wrapped up in the party, and then....

Sometimes "no" doesn't make people stop.

Here, the edge of the bed. Nagisa lets go long enough to yank back the fur blanket, then does his best to get Rei turned around and lying down comfortably. He'll even bend to pull Rei's shoes off his feet before they dirty anything.

"I'm sorry, Rei-chan," he murmurs as he works, giving Rei that soft, apologetic look of his to go with it. The redness in his own eyes is still there, the tiredness and sniffles too, but he's the one who's supposed to be responsible for Rei.

"Last night, I wasn't responsible like I should have been. Whatever happened... you can tell me, okay? Because I'm already involved, too."

Because if something happened, it's my fault I wasn't there to help you.

Bending over beside the bed, Nagisa's reaching for Rei's glasses for him, and that's when one of his hands is caught and squeezed. It doesn't banish Nagisa's guilt or unhappiness as easily as that, but he sure doesn't hesitate to grip his friend's hand back, either.

He drops to a kneel, instead, sitting on his heels and wrapping his other hand around Rei's as well. It's getting a little hard to see the BFF, though, what with those would-be tears starting to well up faster than he can blink and sniff them away again.

"'Would'? Or will?" he prompts, clinging to Rei's hand like the precious thing that is is. Because 'would' implies 'if something happens'. Nagisa is certain—no, he knows, given the cagey way Rei is acting—that something already did happen, so 'will' is what he needs. He needs to know what happened so he can take care of his friend.

Does 'better late than never' even count in something like this...?

Lip service or not, at least Nagisa is not really the type to doubt something that's been said to him. He'll take answers at face value unless given reason to doubt them, but how could he ever doubt Rei-chan? He's one of the coolest, most amazing guys Nagisa knows. He could no more doubt him than he could Haru-chan or Mako-chan or Rin-chan.

So tired red eyes or not, he smiles. As long as Rei will tell him, he can be put a little more at ease for a while.

He gives Rei's hand another squeeze and then pulls his own free, reaching for the blanket and pulling it up over the other boy. He even has just enough of one of his more usual impulse-thoughts to fuss a bit over actually tucking Rei in. Could be he just wants to make sure Rei is secured in place and won't go anywhere again.

"Okay, Rei-chan. Get some rest now, okay? You can tell me later."

It's not like Nagisa was going to go to work, anyway, sheesh. Either he'd skip because he was out still looking for Rei, or he'd skip because he found Rei and had to hover over him for a while. What we have here is the hovering situation.

But... resting is good, too. Maybe he can actually sleep sleep now, knowing Rei is safe. He doesn't know for sure about... unharmed, not really, though Rei did say no one hurt him something's still not right and Nagisa can feel it. But he's safe now. Nagisa can take care of him.

So Nagisa nods, folding Rei's glasses up and putting them on the bedside table, then retreating to the door and making sure it's nice and latched. Only then does he return to the bed, kick off his shoes at last, and crawl in under the furs beside his friend.

He puts his head down on his pillow at first... but after only a few anxious moments he scoots closer and commandeers Rei's shoulder instead. There. Now he'll be woken up if Rei moves.

Wake up first? Not a chance. Rei actually got some sleep last night, in someone else's bed or not. Nagisa got his fitful little nap at best but now he can rest at ease.

In theory.

He crashes into deep, exhausted sleep at first, not quiet snoring but definitely mouth-breathing when his jaw falls slack. What began as just a shoulder-pillowed head, over the course of sleeping, turns into a total 'almost every limb flung over Rei that he can manage' mess, up to and including fingers hooked loosely in his shirt.

The shallower sleep, where dreams begin and the sleeptalk mumbles do too, comes later in the evening.

"Rei... chan...."

Moving Nagisa like that and pulling away causes the little fellow a measure of distress. He 'falls' into the space left vacant by Rei's body and groans, fingers clenching as he tries to reestablish contact.

"Rei-chan don't... don't eat... him?"

And then he really wakes up, lifting his cheek from the straw mattress and staring blindly into the dark. He shoots his hand out immediately and, though barely awake, grabs Rei by the back of his shirt.

In the blurriest and groggiest voice ever: "Rei-chan?"

You mean a smaller bed. So Nagisa doesn't have so far to reach. A bigger bed just means more mattress space gone to waste as Nagisa continues to roll towards the warmth and comfort of Rei's presence....

That moment of startled uncertainty eases with Rei identified, but Nagisa doesn't let go immediately, either, despite a 'mph!' when the other half of blanket strikes him in the dark.

"But I'm already rested," he protests and shuffles up, not letting go of Rei's shirt until Nagisa has crawled across the bed and swung his legs around to sit on the edge as well. That frees up both hands to scrub at his eyes, though his bedhead sticks out in all directions and gets no attention.

"Wh...Where are you going? I'm coming too." He's had enough of waking up and Rei not being there. No more storms or middle-of-the-night walks or vanishing or... what was he dreaming about? In these fresh-woken moments, it seems a valid concern. "There might be bats...."

An affectionate hair-ruffle like that would ordinarily send Nagisa up the walls in delight, but he's unusually subdued right now and it can't even all be blamed on the grogginess. He feels like he did before the tournament, worrying about things he usually wouldn't worry about in a manner rather uncharacteristic of himself... but the things he's now been taught to worry about here in this alien land are far worse than just messing up a dive or his breaststroke.

Rei's all he's got here, but conversely he's all Rei has too, so he forces those dreams of butterfly-eating bats out of his mind and leans his head into Rei's hand with a huff that he lifts to purposefully childish levels.

"I want to come! Besides, you always pick weird healthy things. I have to come make sure you don't get only gross stuff!"