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"How much would you pay me to jump in?"
"You're not going to jump in."
"I'm serious! 50 euros! Right here! Right now!"
The Seine flows on, uncaring of their conversation. It’s glittering beneath the sunlight, green and blue and gray all swirling about. Like a painting made with long, steady brushstrokes.
He wants to get a better look. Katsuki swings his feet over the churning water and-
Oh, shit.
"Kats! Kats oh my god!" Camie catches him at the last second, black, sharp nails digging into his arm to tug him back to safety. He grabs her shoulder as he scrambles back onto the bank, secure in the feeling of cool cobblestone beneath his hand.
He blinks up at the reddening sky. Takes a breath to calm his heart.
Then Camie's leaning over him, smile much too wide, brown eyes bleary and rimmed with pink.
"Duuude," she says, drawing out the 'u' with a little laugh. "You're totally crossed right now."
Is he? He's not that far gone. A blunt and a bottle of wine isn't enough to fuck him up. He's Bakugou motherfuckin' Katsuki. He's a god amongst men. He's....
Did the Seine always look like that? So free-flowing? Maybe Kaminari's right. Maybe they can jump into it and survive. There's undoubtedly a bunch of crap and, like, fish piss in there. Maybe human piss too. But he'll survive. For 50 euros, he'd make sure to survive.
"It's illegal to swim in the Seine," Sero's saying. "They'll fine you."
"But if you give me 50 euros for jumping in, I'll be able to pay the fine!"
Camie leans in close. He can smell the sharp jasmine of that perfume he bought her when she lays her head on his shoulder and swings her feet over the ledge, sneakers blurs of pink and white.
"Let's go on an adventure," she says, voice raspy from the smoke.
Katsuki agrees, letting her take his hand in hers and lift him up to standing.
"Adventure time!" she declares to them all. The other two roar their approval. In an instant, the burnt out roaches cradled between their fingers are cast away. Katsuki watches them fall. DOWN. Down. down. Till they land in the Seine. Tiny things that create huge ripples in the beautiful, shimmering sea glass green water-
"Kats, you have to work with me, fam. Stop zoning out. Let's gooo , dude! Adventure!" Camie jabs his ribs with her finger guns. "Adventureeee!" she repeats, and that gets them started.
"Adventure! Adventure! Adventure!" they chant, walking down the street like some misguided marching band.
Katsuki lets Camie ride his skateboard, holding her hands to tug her along the side of the streets. The roll of the wheels against stone is a little comfort, accompanied by the constant chatter of the other three. Gossip-mongers, the lot of them. Today's topic is Kirishima and Mina.
"They're totally hooking up," Sero says. "I mean, he only agreed to come on this trip when she said she was coming!"
"Young looooveee!" Kaminari declares.
"Young heeeaaarts!" Camie sings.
Katsuki tunes them out. His eyes are drawn to the streets once more. Paris is calm in comparison to Tokyo. There's a subtle attitude to it - a cool, devil-may-care vibe that permeates down to the cracks in the concrete.
The Seine is the only constant. Locals and tourists alike sit at its edges, sharing wine and laughter, full picnic sets or simple lunches. The river cuts the city in uneven halves, and everything always looks better on the other side. Rive droite. Rive gauche. It doesn't matter. They all want what the other has. He sees the towers of Notre Dame on the other side, tall and unyielding-
"Kats! What the fuck , man? Are you with us, bro? Here."
She's shoving a drink in his hands. They've stopped. When did they stop? Kaminari hides behind Sero's back, pouring vodka into little bottles of orange juice, giving them all well more than a shot. His sunglasses slip down his nose, revealing amber eyes narrowed in focus.
He's a good guy, Katsuki thinks suddenly. A total idiot, but some of the best times he's ever had have been with dunceface by his side.
This is the summer they become men. They leave U.A and all its bullshit behind to enter the real world. So it makes sense that he's here, with these people. The ones that tug him by the hand when he's down and out, that drag him out of isolation and into this crazy thing called life. He wouldn't leave Japan without the proper goading, wouldn't trust himself to drink chardonnay in Châtelet at two in the morning with anyone else-
"Do you guys think there are, like, sharks in there? Just swimming below the surface? Sharks in Paris?"
"Kaminari, please , shut up. Like I'm begging you, bro."
They continue on. Camie gives him his skateboard back, but only so she can suddenly hightail it, forcing them all to follow her to god-knows-where. They come upon a cherry tree in full bloom. She already has her phone out for Sero to grab and the idiot takes it, indulging her as he directs an impromptu photo shoot for the 'gram.
Katsuki's tongue is too thick to move. He can't even yell at them. He sits, with his spiked orange juice, in the small square of grass, looking up at the blooms. The chatter of the crowd falls away for the low whisper of the breeze to take its place. He’s silent as he stares up at the flowers, at the delicate pink petals as they fall through the air. He makes no move to touch them, letting them land in the grass at his feet.
"A little piece of home in Paris!" he hears Camie say. "That's the caption."
Strange. He doesn't see it like that. Home is not things; it is people. Cherry blossom or sakura or cerisier en fleur. It doesn't matter. The item can change names and places. It's not rooted in what people call it, or where it is but its essence.
People are different.
There is one Katsuki. One Camie. One Sero. One Denki. They can change whatever they like, but the memories that bind them are absolute. That is where home is: within the memories they share. And these guys....they're his-.
"Check it ouuuuut!" Kaminari fully plops down on his lap. He's got a bag of books, plastic straining from the weight of them all. "They're all in English, which kinda sucks, but I'm fluent enough that I think I can handle it. I found a Ginsberg, a Kerouac, a Mishima,"
"I love you guys."
Silence. They all turn to look at him. Sero scrabbles with Camie's phone. The little thing nearly slips through his fingers from his haste. His face is screwed up into something strange, lips wobbling and voice strained when he says, "I'm sorry. Could you repeat that? Just one more time." He holds up his phone, and though his hand covers his mouth, there's no hiding the watering in the eyes and shallow gasp of laughter between, " For the camera please."
In a flash, the spell is broken. Katsuki is self-aware enough to feel the familiar flush of embarrassment, heated annoyance simmering in his blood as he flips the camera off. Camie comes in just as the flash goes off, because it's her. The camera pulls her in like a flame does a moth, forcing her to wrap her arms around his shoulders, leaning up against his head with a cheery smile that counteracts his scowl.
(She's warm, covered in the scent of cherry blossoms and sweet perfume.)
"Let's gooo, fam! Adventure, remember? You lead Sero!"
It's a sly way to diffuse the situation before it blows up. Katsuki's not dumb, but he's too high to start shit, so he settles like a disgruntled cat, taking his time to rise and follow the others out of this little nook.
"Hey." Camie's pinkie intertwines with his, swinging softly. "Love you too, bestie.”
"I hate you."
“You just said you wuvvvv us.”
“ En Cannibas Veritas!” Kaminari exclaims, and it’s all Katsuki can do not to shoot off an explosion in his face.
She laughs, and suddenly it's not so mortifying anymore. He lets her keep a hold on him, walking pinky-to-pinky, shoulder-to-shoulder, through the haze that is the Latin Quarter on a lazy afternoon, past the faceless strangers, past that endless rocking river, into the streets that seem to thrum with life.
Till he can hear it.
There are musicians, standing before the fountain of the archangel.
A great many of them gathered in a little plaza with their golden trumpets and thunderous drums and all kinds of strings. He can feel the music take root in him, the tinktinktink of cymbals in his ear and trumpets that shake the air, overpowering the rush of water.
He can feel Camie's hand is in his. She's tugging him between people, gently but insistently making their way to the front of it all, where they can see the shining golds and brass, the rag-tag group of musicians and those daring enough to walk up and throw a couple euros in their collection box.
Camie's never been one for convention, so it's with a certain fearlessness that she walks right up to them, unfolds bills and tosses it into their box, before spinning on her heel. Her skirt billows out around her, long and white, swaying in the breeze she creates with her feet.
An angel beneath the archangel.
Katsuki has no choice but to take her into his arms and step with her. He's not much of a 'dance-guy', but he can two-step. He can grab her by the hand and spin her around, watch the toothy smile on her face stretch into a laugh as they do their own little thing. Moving and jamming in broad daylight, shoulder shimmying beneath the watchful gaze of the Archangel Michael cast in stone.
Katsuki tilts his head back, takes in the wings of him, how his iron sword glints in the bright summer sunlight, hovering above the rushing waters of the fountain...the fountain...where Kaminari is hopping over the ledge into the water, stripping off his shirt and twirling it around in the air.
It's as if it happens in slow motion. He sees Kaminari's feet leave the ground, skating shoes leaping high over the little stone ledge. He sees the crash, how drops of water gleam in the light like shards of broken glass, bright and crystalline. He sees Sero's wild grin, mouth open in uproarious laughter, his eyes hidden behind his phone as he records all of it.
It would go viral on tik-tok. A classic ' banger ' as the youth say. An award-winning short film that reaches its climax when the men in blue and black come to take him away, forcing Kaminari's hands behind his back and tugging him out of the fountain.
Katsuki, like a dumbass, runs after them. His French isn't bad , but it's not the best , so it doesn't really surprise him when he ends up in quirk-nullifying cuffs.
But that doesn't mean he doesn't struggle. He hates being restrained. Camie and Sero try talking these guys down. They're speaking the same language, all slick-tongued and beautiful, smoky little lilts in their tones. They could be talking about the weather or ten years in prison and Katsuki wouldn't know the difference.
When they, too, end up piling into the little white Peugeot, he doesn't get his hopes up.
"...I'm going to kill you," Katsuki whispers. Kaminari bats his lashes, blonde flickering over red-rimmed eyes. Katsuki can't use his hands, so he tries to bite him, leading Sero to laugh and Camie admonishing them all.
This is how they are found hours later when Kirishima and Mina come to pick them up: practically sitting atop each other on a tiny police station bench, bickering like children as Kirishima, the best French speaker of them all, negotiates their release.
An empty bottle of vodka wielded as evidence, and a horribly high fine for 'public intoxication' later, and they’re out.
Empty pockets but full hearts is what Kaminari says.
Katsuki is once again held back from trying to erase him from existence, chasing him down the street till the girls manage to get a hold on him.
"You're all too reckless," Mina, of all people, scolds. "Have some respect in a country that isn't your own."
She's right. Katsuki knows she's right, but he can't help but bark in laughter when Kaminari ends up tripping over his own feet, crashing to the ground.
He's lost his high. There are no clouds filling his head with cotton, but there's still that lingering light feeling in his chest. He puts his hands in his pockets, shoulders brushing up against Camie's, watching the other's chase after that mad lad. Their footsteps are clattering against the cobblestone, laughter ringing out like the tolling of church bells.
The churning of the Seine carries them into the night. He watches its waters once more, and wonders if this levity is what it would feel like to dive in.