YOU'RE HERE AND THATS THE THING(NISHIMURA RIKI♡)
WHERE ─── where yn and niki finally have every reason to talk after years of silent glances, but a stubborn mix of nerves, pride, and bad timing keeps getting in the way.
genre ꨄ︎ familiar strangers to lovers ─ ʚଓ⋆ ft / soccer captain! niki x fem!reader
the college elections were announced on a tuesday afternoon, right in the middle of lunch, which meant most people were only there because attendance had been strongly encouraged and there wasn't really anywhere else to go. yn stood near the back of the courtyard with a few friends, half listening to the names being called out while scrolling through her phone, until the dean reached the sports council.
"for the position of sports captain, we have two candidates this year."
yn looked up without really thinking about it.
her thumb stopped moving.
there was an immediate reaction from the soccer crowd. a few people cheered, someone whistled, and one of niki's teammates practically shoved him forward as he walked toward the stage, looking mildly embarrassed by the amount of attention suddenly on him.
she'd never really thought of him as someone who got nervous.
from a distance, niki had always seemed quiet and composed, the kind of person who could stand in the middle of a crowded hallway without looking like he wanted to be anywhere else. but standing on a stage in front of half the college, he kept rubbing the back of his neck and glancing toward his teammates like he was silently asking them why they'd let this happen.
his introduction was short. he talked about improving the sports department, getting more students involved, and making sure the college teams had better support. nothing overly rehearsed or dramatic. just enough to get his point across before he stepped away from the microphone with an obvious look of relief.
as he walked back toward his friends, his eyes wandered through the crowd.
it happened so naturally that she almost wondered if she'd imagined it.
the rest of the election announcements passed quickly after that. yn didn't think too much about them once she left the courtyard, although niki's campaign started becoming increasingly difficult to miss over the next few days.
posters appeared around campus. the sports committee uploaded candidate graphics. people started sharing them on their stories. the soccer team seemed particularly determined to make sure every person on campus knew who niki was running for, and by the end of the week, his name had somehow become part of the background noise of college.
if anything, she found herself smiling whenever she saw another campaign poster.
it was strange seeing someone she'd spent years quietly noticing suddenly become someone everyone else was noticing too.
and she wasn't the only person who knew him through a mutual connection.
konon had still been in touch with yn since high school. they weren't the kind of friends who spoke every day, but there was enough familiarity between them that konon could randomly appear in her messages without it being weird. so when niki's campaign started picking up, it wasn't particularly surprising when konon asked yn to help spread the word.
there was no reason not to.
she wasn't particularly invested in college politics, but she knew niki. well, sort of.
she knew he'd been the quiet boy from her high school.
she knew he'd always been obsessed with soccer.
and, perhaps most embarrassingly, she knew that despite how intimidating and mysterious he seemed at school, he was apparently an absolute menace at home, courtesy of the years she'd spent seeing konon's old stories.
so when yn reposted his campaign poster to her story, it didn't feel like a big deal.
at least, it wasn't supposed to.
she added the poster, tagged the college sports page, and almost left it at that. then, after a second of hesitation, she added a tiny little 🤞 in the bottom corner.
it was barely noticeable.
she stared at it for a second before posting.
she put her phone down and went back to whatever she'd been doing.
she didn't think about whether niki would see it.
she definitely didn't think about whether he'd notice the emoji.
at least, that was what she told herself.
niki noticed it almost immediately.
not because he was constantly checking who was reposting his campaign, although his teammates would probably argue otherwise. it was mostly because he'd started getting notifications from everywhere, and while scrolling through them, her name appeared.
for a second, he genuinely thought he'd read it wrong.
there was his campaign poster, sitting neatly on her story as though it belonged there.
and at the very bottom was a tiny 🤞.
he knew it was ridiculous.
people had been reposting his campaign all week. friends, teammates, classmates, people he'd barely spoken to. there was nothing particularly special about one more person doing it.
the girl he'd spent years noticing from across hallways.
the girl he'd somehow followed into college without ever actually managing to speak to.
and now she was publicly rooting for him.
even if it was only because konon had asked.
even if the emoji meant absolutely nothing.
he still couldn't stop looking at it.
one of his teammates noticed him sitting there with his phone in his hand and immediately became suspicious.
niki looked up too quickly.
his teammate leaned over, trying to see his screen.
niki immediately turned his phone away.
"that's definitely not nothing."
niki shoved his phone into his pocket, but the smile stayed.
his teammate looked at him for a moment before realization slowly crossed his face.
niki gave him a warning look.
niki's expression was enough of an answer.
he could just like the story.
he should probably just like the story.
except he'd spent years doing normal.
normal was looking at her and then looking away.
normal was noticing when she walked into a room.
normal was convincing himself that maybe, eventually, they'd end up talking naturally.
somehow, that had never happened.
and now she had given him the smallest possible reason to say something.
his thumb hovered over the reply button.
his heart was beating faster than it had any right to.
eventually, he typed something simple enough that he could pretend it didn't mean anything.
he sent it before he could change his mind.
yn's phone buzzed later that evening.
she glanced down, expecting another notification from one of her friends.
instead, she saw niki's name.
for several seconds, she didn't open it.
there was something strangely terrifying about seeing his name sitting in her notifications after all these years.
because they'd never talked.
four years of knowing of each other and somehow never crossing that invisible line between familiar and familiar enough to speak.
and now he'd crossed it first.
her eyes immediately went to the tiny emoji she'd put on her story hours earlier.
her cheeks warmed as she stared at the screen, suddenly regretting every decision she'd made that evening.
she smiled despite herself.
then hid her face in her hands.
just the boy she'd known since high school.
except it didn't feel like just anything.
because for the first time, there was no distance between them.
no friends standing between them.
no accidental glance that lasted half a second before one of them looked away.
just his name on her screen.
and the realization that, after all these years, niki had finally decided to talk to her.
her fingers hovered over the keyboard.
she had absolutely no idea what to say.
and somewhere on the other side of campus, niki was probably staring at his phone too, wondering if he'd made the biggest mistake of his life.
for once, though, neither of them looked away.
chapter 2 and i am kinda proud of this one, the poster took me alot of time :/
taglist: @kittsnewera @zqxej
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