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“So, you know how it’s coming up Christmas, right?”
Ikuya raises his eyebrows. “Every year around this time. Hasn’t escaped my notice.”
Asahi shuffles awkwardly on his feet, which makes him look more like twelve-year-old middle school monkey Asahi than twenty-two-year-old, university student, hot-as-fuck Asahi, but that’s okay. Ikuya would kiss him either way.
Except, of course, that’s not what they do. Relentless flirting aside, their relationship has traversed the path from friends to strangers to best friends over the past decade, but never further than that, no matter how often Ikuya passive-aggressively stares at Asahi’s back whenever he’s not looking. How oblivious can a man really be?
“Right,” Asahi says with a quick nod, running a hand through his hair and looking for all the world like an excited, overgrown puppy. It’s not fair how he’s still the most handsome man in existence. Ikuya has stared at a fair amount of handsome men - mostly on magazine covers, or that calendar his brother got him for his birthday last year - but none of them compare. Asahi’s stupid monkey face really is in a league of its own. “So I’ve been thinking -”
“Dangerous,” Ikuya interjects, just like he always does. It’s never not funny.
Despite being faced with comedy gold, Asahi doesn’t laugh. Instead, he starts twiddling his thumbs like he’s eighty years old and spends his afternoons knitting in a rocking chair. Weird. Weirder than usual, even.
“I kind of wanted to do something special for someone… special, you know?”
Oh.
Whatever Ikuya expected from this conversation, he wasn’t expecting to be stabbed in the heart like this.
He always knew it was just a matter of time before someone else noticed that Asahi had finally grown into his big ears and that his smile lights up dusty, dark basements all by itself. And it was only a matter of time until Asahi noticed that person in return. The chances of that person being Ikuya have always been infinitesimally small. It doesn’t come as a shock but that doesn’t make it suck any less.
“Sure.” What else is he supposed to say? Asahi is always full of unconditional support that Ikuya could never fully repay him for. The least he can do is support him courting whatever dumb floozy has caught his attention. Please don’t let it be Kisumi.
Asahi swallows heavily, runs a hand through his hair, and releases the broken pieces of a fake laugh. None of this is funny. “So, I feel like I’ve been getting signals, you know? Like, those big ‘I like like you’ kind of signals. And I don’t wanna scare him off, you know, but if there’s a chance -”
“I’m sure he likes you,” Ikuya says without his permission. What the fuck? “Like likes you.”
A bright smile crosses Asahi’s face, lighting up his expression with unbridled excitement. “Yeah?” he says, like Ikuya couldn’t possibly be wrong about this. “So you think, if I waited for him outside Roppongi Station tonight at, let’s say eight, to see the Christmas lights - You think he’d come?”
The hopeful spark in Asahi’s eyes is hard to ignore, so Ikuya has to look away. “He’d be a fool not to,” he says instead of punching Asahi’s stupid monkey face and kissing him in the middle of the street right after. Ikuya was never one meant for Happily Ever After. “You’ll probably buy him taiyaki and sing off-key Christmas songs all night, won’t you?”
Asahi gasps in mock outrage. “I’m never off-key,” he insists, which is true. Asahi is a pretty good singer, as his date will be able to testify tomorrow morning. Lucky.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
Asahi punches his shoulder, and Ikuya laughs so he doesn’t have to cry. Christmas miracles happen to other people.
____________
Ikuya is known to torture himself from time to time, but this must be next level, even for him.
Roppongi Station is crowded - more so than usual, what with people from all over heading for Tokyo Midtown to see the Christmas lights, and the massive snow globe Ikuya had mentioned to Asahi just a week ago. It’s his own fault for putting first-date ideas into Asahi’s brain.
Why he feels the need to observe this nightmare in person he’s not sure, but there he is, hands in the pockets of his purple hoodie, shoulders slumped. He’s a horrible spy, but Asahi hasn’t noticed him yet, far too busy keeping an eye out for his date’s arrival.
His date, whoever it may be, is late. By ten minutes and counting. If this were his date, Ikuya would have made sure to be ten minutes early because he knows Asahi would be, too.
People keep passing and Asahi keeps waiting and nobody shows up. With every passing second Asahi looks more and more crestfallen, and Ikuya can’t take it much longer. He watches Asahi reach for his phone before pocketing it again with a disappointed sigh, then shifts his attention to the single purple-tinted rose in Asahi’s left hand. Whoever this special someone is, he doesn’t just get Ikuya’s crush, he also gets a flower in Ikuya’s favourite colour. Except, he doesn’t even bother to show up long enough to take it.
White hot rage builds inside Ikuya just long enough for him to lose track of Asahi for a second, which in turn gives Asahi just enough time to turn his way with raised eyebrows.
“Ikuya?”
Embarrassment colours his cheeks in vermillion, fingers instinctively dig into the sleeves of his hoodie. How does he explain his way out of this one? He just happened to be in the area and was absolutely and most certainly not trying to stalk Asahi and his date all night long?
“I thought you weren’t coming!”
Huh?
Looking up at Asahi, he is met with a blinding grin and an excited spark in amethyst irises. Did he know Ikuya was going to succumb to all his weaknesses and follow him here? Damn Asahi for knowing him so well.
“You’re not usually late, I really thought you stood me up.”
Asahi is making no sense and Ikuya’s head is swimming, but his fuzzy mind is slowly starting to put some pieces together. The picture they make is surreal. “You were waiting for me?”
It’s Asahi’s turn to look confused, but it’s quickly replaced by a lopsided smile and a purple rose held out for Ikuya to take. “Who else?”
Some dumb, handsome, perfect jock probably. Someone Ikuya would need to hate on principle even though there’s nothing to hate.
As if on auto-pilot, Ikuya takes the rose, turns it over in his hand, then buries his nose in the artificially painted petals like a complete idiot. What the actual fuck is going on right now?
“What about your date?”
Asahi laughs like Ikuya has never said anything funnier in his life. “And you call me the idiot.” He steps closer, puts a cold hand against Ikuya’s heated cheek and smiles. “Come watch the Christmas lights with me?”
Maybe this Christmas finally has a miracle in store for him after all.