Chapter Text
Gen Asagiri exits stage left, finishing up his last show of the night. Technically, it was his only show of the night, but he could forgo the semantics. It was his birthday, after all.
Gen enjoys performing at bars and other such venues, despite his first and only drink of alcohol having occurred on this night 9 years ago. He had been working as a magician for longer, though, having stepped onto the stage at the young age of 17, and found out he had an appetite for applause. Gen made his way to the green room backstage to gather his things before leaving, but found someone that wasn’t his agent waiting for him.
The man standing between Gen and the doorway had his light hair pulled back in a ponytail, his eyes a deep colour, indiscernible in the low, coloured light of the bar, but one dark like wine in the branded glasses at the bar. He had a pair of dark, twin marks tracing up his eyelids to his forehead, jagged like cracked stone (a tattoo?), and contrasting the deep bags under his eyes.
“Ah… can I help you, sir?” Gen asks politely, looking to get the autograph or whatever it was the fan wanted out of the way so he could go home, untie his bowtie, and crash on the couch with a bottle of cola.
The stranger grumbled something under his breath, tugging the hair-tie out of his hair, and Gen suddenly understood why he had it tied down – consideration for the people sitting behind him at the show. He attempted not to stare at the unruly, sticking-up locks as the man speaks to him.
“Yeah, actually.” His voice was raspy, either from disuse or overuse, Gen couldn’t quiet discern, but it certainly wasn’t the rasp of a drinker or a smoker – those he knew quite well. “I’ve got a birthday gift for you. Sort of. I can help you make a trick that no one can replicate. One that’s never even been attempted. I just need a little bit of help on your part.”
Gen distantly wondered how this man he had never met knew his birthday, seeing as he had been quite tight-lipped about personal information in interviews. He was also sure that, if it was common knowledge, that he would be receiving much more than a gift from a singular stranger.
“Wow, that’s quite an argain-bay, hm? Though, I don’t know if I can trust someone who’s yet to introduce himself.” Gen teases sweetly, tilting his head, though genuinely curious.
The stranger scoffs, his hand reaching up to crack his neck. “Right, pleasantries, whatever. I’m Senkuu. Here’s my number. Call me back when you’re ready to talk.” The man – Senkuu - hands him a slip of paper, his name and number written on it, and nothing else. Gen accepts the paper despite himself, glancing at it before tucking it away into his pocket.
“Well… thank you, Senkuu-chan, for the offer. I’ll think on it.” He gives a smile to the man standing between him and going home, hoping that it would be enough to satisfy him.
“Good. Seriously, I mean it. Think about it.” Senkuu gripes at him, and glances at the right side of his head, and then just under his left eye, as if he kept expecting something to be there.
“…that haircut is seriously just as shitty as I remember it.” Gen hears him mutter under his breath, before watching him walk away, apparently having said his piece.
Gen stares at the back of his head as he steps back out into the bar, the back of his hair apparently just as frazzled as the front. After the door shuts behind Senku, Gen finally opens the door to his green room, stepping in and shutting it behind him. He pulls out the piece of paper Senku had given him, examining it closer, but eventually places it back in his inner pocket, picking up his bag and leaving the venue.
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A few weeks later, and Gen’s birthday had come and gone, with him sitting in his apartment and doing the unfortunate grown up chore of folding his clothes.
He picks up one of his suit-jackets, the deep, blooming purple one that he prefers to wear for performances in bars and places with coloured lighting. And a faint thought reminds Gen – he hadn’t called Senkuu back.
And he was genuinely curious about whatever it was that the man was trying to offer him, it just… slipped his mind. Lonely nights combined with lots of cola can do that to you sometimes.
Gen rifled through the inner pockets of the jacket (of which there were many), until he found the piece of paper that had thankfully survived the wash, the writing still barely legible. Fumbling for his phone, he repeats the number in his head, until he types it into his contacts, filling in the name: Senku. Gen internally debates the pros and cons once more, before pressing the green button with the phone icon, and listening to the dial-up noise.
He hears one ring. Two. Five. Seven. Gen hangs up and lowers his phone as Senkuu’s default voicemail recording monotonously informs him that the person he is trying to call is unavailable.
Oh well.
They did always say that curiosity killed the cat.
Gen flinches as another sound resounds from his phone – his ringtone. He barely glances at the caller ID before hitting the green button and pressing the rectangular device to his ear.
Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it just happens that satisfaction brought it back.
“Hah, sorry for not picking up earlier, left my phone in the other room.” Senkuu tells him, his voice just as raspy as when they had met, and sounding slightly out of breath, as though he had run to pick up the phone.
“No, it’s no bother, Senkuu-chan! Sorry for taking so long to get back to you, I got a little caught up in some things, you know how it is being a mentalist.” Gen keeps up a smile barely a few steps off being sly, even though Senkuu couldn’t see it.
“Yeah, always keeping yourself busy, you workaholic. So, you’re interested in my suggestion, then? I can’t really see why else you’d be calling after so long has already passed.” Senkuu continued casually, his tone almost pretending to be disinterested.
“Right to then point, huh?” Gen sigh. “Well, you’re right. I mean, who wouldn’t be a little bit interested, right? A trick that nobody else has even attempted? Though, I’ve got to say, it does sound a little bit sketchy, Senkuu-chan.”
He hears the man give a huff of amusement on the other side of the line. “I guess that’s true. But I can show you, if you’d like? Are you free to meet up some time?”
“Well, I guess I’m free a little it-bay later today. Does around 3 sound good to you?” Gen asks, pressing the phone to his ear with his shoulder as he glances at the clock on his wall, reading just after 11.
“Yep! My schedule’s looking a little blank, so any time should be good.” Senkuu responds, sounding a touch overexcited, though he didn’t quite give off the impression of someone who got overexcited, at least at their first meeting. “How about at Onshi-Hakone Park? It’s not too far from your place, right?”
“Yeah, not a terribly long drive. Though, I have been wondering how you know the area I live in, Senkuu-chan, as well as my birthday. I mean, I was hoping I hadn’t been so obvious with revealing information to my fanbase, you know?” Gen provoked, a subtle probe for information that he knew Senkuu would probably relinquish to, even if he realised that he was being interrogated.
“Don’t worry, you haven’t been letting anything slip, mentalist, and I’m not about to go running my mouth to your crazy fans. It’s a bit of a stretch to call me a fan, but whatever makes you feel better about yourself.” Senkuu drawls into his phone, Gen pulling a mock-offended face at the insult.
“And yet you paid to come to my show? Sounds you’re at least a little bit of a fan.” Gen teased, though faintly relieved that he hadn’t accidentally left some message in a TV performance. Those were the ones that intimidated him the most; the ones that allowed viewers to pause and rewind.
“It’s not like it was expensive. And besides, if I didn’t care enough, I could’ve just snuck in. It’s not like you’re not already rolling in it, you’ve been on the magician scene for the past… what, 1 ten years?” Gen could almost hear the man rolling his eyes on the other end of the line.
“Hey, it’s not like I’m rich!” He retorts. “Let me tell you, if I were rich, I’d be living in a much nicer apartment than this one.”
“That’s for sure. I mean, how is it 2029 and we haven’t even solved the housing crisis yet?” Senkuu agrees disdainfully. The conversation came easily, banter between the two unserious and playful. It seems that they had just clicked. “Anyway,” Senkuu continues, “you said you were free at 3, right?” There was a sound of rustling on the other end of the line, as though Senkuu had stood up and begun to move somewhere.
“Yep!” Gen affirmed. “See you then, Senkuu-chan?”
Gen was met with the muffled sound of pieces of metal banging against each other, and what could have been Senkuu scrambling to pick them up.
“Shit- yeah, sorry. See you then, mentalist.” The man on the end of the line confirmed. Gen gave a small snicker at his misfortune of having to pick up whatever he dropped, before hanging up. He set his phone down on his couch, internally debating over whether he should continue his chores, before placing the suit-jacket back in the basket, deciding that it could wait for one more day.