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Uh oh.Ikuya is doing the thing.Chewing his bottom lip until the inside is a raw, painful-looking pink is a habitual, instantly recognizable sign of anxiety. Maybe not universally, but definitely for Ikuya. Asahi knows this because he, uh - well, he spends a lot of time looking at Ikuya. Who wouldn’t? Everyone else? Okay, just him. Call him a loser, but being head over heels over ass for your childhood friend does have practical benefits.Point is, Ikuya is doing the thing right now, in the middle of a team meeting that overstayed its welcome about an hour ago. Paris is glittering right outside the hotel, and they’re stuck in here while their coach jaws about what could have been an email. Everyone’s mind is wandering, and Ikuya’s is wandering deeper down the rabbit hole of whatever’s eating at him.The meeting doesn’t end until eleven. Everyone makes a mad dash from the boardroom the second it does, heading for parts known and unknown. The known parts are bed. Ikuya is slower than the rest, accompanied by Hiyori, who’s instructing him to go to bed. Right, because he’ll totally be able to sleep right now.No one can sleep when they’re anxious. That’s just science. You need a pal when you’re anxious, and that’s where Asahi comes in.There’s no reasoning with Mister Glasses Man when he’s in Ikuya Gatekeeper Mode, so Asahi returns to his room and waits un-creepily until he’s reasonably sure the babysitter’s club of one is out of session. Then he hurries in a normal way at a normal speed to Ikuya’s room.“I told you I’d go to bed,” Ikuya calls when Asahi knocks. Light footsteps approach the door. “You don’t have to - oh, Asahi.”Wanting to scream and set shit on fire over how great your friend looks in literally anything - including sweats - is both a common feeling and something that wouldn’t get him thrown off the team, right? Because he’s about to do that. No, focus. More important than his own professional simping is that Ikuya’s lip is redder and slightly more swollen than before.“Do you for real want to go to bed?” he checks. “Honesty zone.”“No,” Ikuya sighs. “But you know how Hiyori is. Why - ”“Hell yeah! Get ready and meet me out front in ten.”Without waiting for an answer, he skips off. Operation Un-Anxiety Ikuya is a go.Ikuya joins him in front of the hotel exactly ten minutes later. Sweet. Even with no information to go off, he still showed. Take that, Toono.“You think about Hiyori really loudly.”Whoops. “You don’t know me,” he complains. Being perceived is terrible. “I’m a man of mystery.”Ikuya arches his brow. “Uh-huh.”Under different circumstances he’d keep arguing, but that’s not what this is about. “Anyway,” he moves on, “forget about about that. We’re going on an adventure.”“At midnight? On a Tuesday?” Ikuya asks. “Why?”“Because why not?” Asahi counters. “Because who cares if it’s midnight on Tuesday?”Because you’re going to do irreparable damage to your lip if we don’t, he refrains from saying. Thankfully, Ikuya doesn’t interrogate him further and allows Asahi to take his hand and drag him away from the hotel into the quiet late-night streets of Paris. To be honest, his plan is to fly by the seat of his pants and see where it takes them.“First stop,” he announces, pulling up in front of a liquor store because the seat of his pants deemed it so.The devil’s juice ain’t cheap here, but tonight is not a night for cheaping out. If only he were a connoisseur of anything other than his namesake beer. Ikuya looks on in surprise as Asahi grabs a bottle of champagne with a name he can’t pronounce. Even if he could the cursive is way too fancy to read, which is why he picks it. It’s above his pay grade, and that’s good enough for him.“Classy,” Ikuya says, following Asahi down a park promenade lined with perfectly manicured trees. “You - Asahi, you’re going to take your eye out.”“Am not.” Am maybe? Champagne is a bitch to open, something he didn’t know until right this second. “But I bet I could pull an eye patch off like a pro - oh, shit!” Suddenly and without warning, the cork pops off, narrowly missing his face and depriving him of a pirate’s life. What does not miss his face is the champagne. “Told you I could do it,” he grins, wiping bubbly off his face like real men do - unsuccessfully.Ikuya stares blankly at him before bursting into laughter. “Worth the price of admission,” he hiccups. “You should have seen your face.”“That was on purpose,” he lies. “Now I smell irresistible.”He hands the bottle to Ikuya, who takes an alarmingly long pull and immediately burps.“That was on purpose.”“Of course it was.”Traipsing through pretty buildings and parks in the dead of night is a novelty, made a trillion times better with Asahi’s present company. “You seemed distracted before,” he comments as they walk in front of a palace casually sitting in the middle of the city, as palaces do. “In the meeting. Got anything on your mind?”There are no stars to be seen through the city lights, but that doesn’t keep Ikuya’s eyes off them. “I’m just fraying at the edges,” he says. “The whole merry-go-round of cab, airport, hotel, swim meet - there’s never any time to enjoy anything. Even in the off season it’s nonstop. And all that recycled air,” he shudders. “Everything smells stale.”Considering how many countries they’ve been to since Fukuoka, you’d think they’d be well-versed in the art of tourism. But practice and team obligations take up so much time they barely ever get past the restaurant closest to their hotel. The constant repetition wears at even his own unmatched adaptability, so it stands to reason that it would eat away at someone like Ikuya that much faster.He throws an arm around Ikuya’s shoulders and squeezes. “I feel you. When was the last time we did something like this? Fukuoka?”“Barely. We were all so tied up in Haru’s drama.” Ah, yes. Nanase Deathgate. “It just gets to me. Makes me anxious.” Ikuya looks sidelong at him. “Wait, is that - ”“Why yes, this is a champagne bottle with your name on it,” he expertly redirects. “Which we should totally share outside in unrecycled air.”“You mean fresh air?”“Not enough syllables. Geniuses use long words.”Ikuya finally cracks a smile, which is all Asahi ever wants. Blowing the lid off tournament records, being in relays with his friends, and making Ikuya happy - those are his three life goals, and he intends to achieve them all as many times as humanly possible.They proceed to get lost in the city, wandering around who knows where. By now it must be obvious that Asahi has no grand plan or destination in mind, but it doesn’t seem to bother Ikuya. The farther they get from the hotel, the more relaxed he becomes. Unrecycled air looks good on him. Everything looks good on him, but he’s so pretty in the soft glow of the streetlamps, like an old-fashioned movie star. Asahi has to remind himself not to stare.“Doesn’t it feel like we’re the only ones in the city?” Ikuya remarks before taking another swig of champagne. “Like some spell made everyone but us disappear.”“Would that be bad?” he asks.Ikuya shakes his head and gives him another smile - one of his rare, fatal, heart-stopping smiles, galactically beautiful even with the slight swelling on his lip.“Nope.” Lord have mercy. “Let’s pretend we are the only people until the sun comes up,” he suggests. “You in?”Does a bear shit in the woods? “All in.”And poof, just like that, they’re in an empty city. There’s no one in the streets, shops, churches - hell, even the apartments. Paris is theirs for the night. They take unclassy sips of their classy champagne and marvel at the sights, underwhelmed only by the drab, suspiciously brown-tinted river running through the city.“We should make wishes,” Ikuya says when they reach a frankly too-fancy fountain. “Do you have any change?”Asahi gropes his pockets in search of some euros and comes back with two dull coins. “Ta-da!” As they gear up to throw their very spendable money in the water, he reminds Ikuya, “Don’t forget to make a wish.”“Way ahead of you.”Asahi closes his eyes and wishes for Ikuya’s happiness, and maybe some of his own if there’s any leftover. Although his happiness is tied to Ikuya’s, so the first half is kind of a one-stop shop.Their coins splash and sink to the bottom, where the fountain genie lives. “What did you wish for?” he asks Ikuya, hoping to catch him off guard.“If we tell each other, they won’t come true.”“Boo,” he frowns. “One of these days my sneak attacks will work.”Ikuya runs his hand through the water before unexpectedly splashing Asahi. “Mine already do,” he smirks as Asahi splutters and wipes the second deluge of the evening off his face. “Don’t worry, you’ll get there.”His next move is a far more thrilling sneak attack. He hooks their arms together and starts walking, forcing Asahi to scramble after him to avoid eating pavement. Usually it’s Asahi with a side hug or high five - he’d never be brave enough to casually get up close and personal. He’ll rock the boat in every aspect of his life but this, with the one person he refuses to lose again. Now they’re wandering arm in arm through an abandoned Paris in a boat rocked by Ikuya, and how romantic is that?They eventually make a right on a cobblestone street and tumble back in time. Their surroundings are all artsy-fartsy and look more like a village than a city. They pass cafés and galleries and funky-colored buildings covered with ivy and a whole-ass windmill. Who has windmills anymore?Rad.At this point they’ve worked their way through three quarters of the champagne, becoming increasingly giggly as it disappears. Their hips bump and their arms slip until all of a sudden they’re holding hands, and Asahi’s stomach starts fizzing with more than just their drink of choice. The shift is natural, as is the intertwining of their fingers. Asahi is still without a doubt a man with an out of control, shout it from the rooftops crush, but under the spell of an empty city occupied only by them, he’s less of a hot mess about it than usual.Right now, anything is possible.“We should do this in every city,” Ikuya says.Asahi almost jumps for joy, but he’s cooler than that. Allegedly. “Done,” he agrees. “Let’s see…we’ll get sangria in Spain, beer in Germany - ”“Don’t forget whiskey in Scotland,” Ikuya adds. “We’ll be so worldly. And no one else is invited.”A light hip check makes Ikuya laugh. “This is my first secret society.”They round the corner and an absolutely epic church comes into view, all white and tall and beautiful, and buildings like this actually exist? This is the end of the road, he realizes, the tippy-top of the hill they’ve been climbing. The view is positively sickening, overlooking what feels like the whole city. For a moment, they just stand there and take it all in.The Eiffel Tower is lit up in the distance, illuminating the streets and buildings they’ve claimed for themselves. Between the champagne, the view, and Ikuya’s hand in his, Asahi’s inner romantic is in overdrive.“This is like something out of a movie,” he observes.In lieu of a response, Ikuya downs half of what’s left of the champagne and hands the bottle over. “Kill this.” Far be it from him to say no - he drains the rest under the satisfied gaze of his childhood friend, who makes a proposition as soon as he’s done. “Let’s dance.”“Without music?”“You don’t hear it?” Ikuya asks as he takes Asahi’s other hand. “Come on, put those genius ears to work.”“Huh, you’re right,” he says, playing ball because this is a literal dream come true, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to pass it up. “I don’t know how I missed it.”Rendered wonderfully unselfconscious by the champagne, they try their hand at their very own movie moment. Neither of them are natural talents. Ikuya dips Asahi and nearly drops him, their attempt at a waltz is a spectacular, lovely failure, and Asahi lets Ikuya do all the ungraceful, beautiful twirls he wants. The contrast of shadows and moonlight on Ikuya’s face is captivating, his laughter even more so. You’d never know he was self-soothing by way of lip biting only a few hours earlier - in this moment he’s the most at ease Asahi’s ever seen him, and he’s perfect.Ikuya finishes another twirl and falls against him. “We should do this in every city too,” he says, wrapping his arms around Asahi’s neck. Their dancing becomes a gentle swaying as the music slows, allowing them to really look at each other. Ikuya’s eyes are as beautiful as ever, sparkling with a new, wild kind of brightness. “What are you thinking right now?” he asks, tilting his head and giving Asahi a small smile.“That I wish tonight wouldn’t end.”Puffs of warm breath ghost over his lips. “Does it have to?”Not if Asahi had his way. But tonight is about the unexpected - a few hours ago even imagining something like this would have been absurd, so maybe having his way isn’t so unthinkable.“You tell me.”Ikuya says nothing, and he says nothing because his mouth is pressed to Asahi’s, warm and sweet and sure. Asahi says nothing back, preoccupied with the light, fruity taste of champagne on Ikuya’s tongue and the soft hair tangled in his fingers. They kiss at the top of the city that belongs to them with an audience miles wide and nonexistent.“More secret societies should be like this one,” Ikuya murmurs when they part to catch their breath.Asahi dips back in for another kiss, and another, and another, simply because he can. Without a doubt, this is his newest addiction. “Should we have meetings between swim meets or…?” he asks hopefully.“We’ll have to,” Ikuya says. “Or else we’ll get out of practice.” Without warning, he lowers Asahi into another clumsy dip. “Just like swimming.”“That’s a lot of joint practice,” he replies, doing internal cartwheels and back handsprings like an Olympic gymnast. “Count me in.”The magic of an unpeopled Paris will fade at dawn, but it’s only one of two spells cast tonight. The second won't break once daylight comes and the city is brimming with life. But for now, both spells hang heavy around them, and their personal playground is still theirs.“Good,” Ikuya says. “Now, back to official business.”And so, in the unrecycled air and privacy of the city of light - and possibly more - the only two members of a newly formed secret society find magic in each other.