Work Text:
The first time Nino and Jean set foot in the cozy bar around the corner from Jean’s apartment building together is on the night of Jean’s 20th birthday.
Nino had been there once before, taking the opportunity to grab a drink to settle his nerves after a particularly harried conversation with his boss before dinner with Jean and Lotta, but it hadn’t been somewhere he wanted to spend a lot of time. A quick glass of wine or a casual beer or two with dinner alone in his apartment is one thing, but he can’t be the kind of person who regularly spends his evenings out steeped in alcohol. It’s too dangerous, the possibility that a few too many drinks a little too close to Jean could loosen his tongue far beyond where it should. He’s kept his self-control this far – he can’t let it falter now. Can’t disappoint his father, his boss, his king… everyone who’d brought him to Badon and entrusted him with his duty.
But it’s Jean’s birthday, finally old enough to buy his own drinks, and what he wants, he’d said weeks ago, is to have a night out somewhere. And who is Nino to deny him?
The apartment is quiet when Jean opens the door, no sign of the usual cheerfully childish chatter drifting from the kitchen as Jean shrugs on his jacket.
“Lotta’s having a sleepover with Mrs. B’s nieces in 4C,” Jean says, following Nino’s curious look down the hallway past him as he slides his wallet and keys into a pocket. “When I got home from work, she gave me a cupcake with a candle in it and then ran out of here with her pajamas on.”
“Did you eat the cupcake?”
Jean’s mouth twitches just the tiniest fraction at the question.
“It was very…pink,” Jean says diplomatically.
“I’m sure Lotta will be happy as long as you blew out the candle,” Nino says, cheerfully clapping Jean on the shoulder. The corner of Jean’s mouth curves up into something more like a smile, and he laughs a small puff of a laugh.
“She might be even happier that I left the cake for her.”
“Good man. So where do you want to go?”
Even as he asks, Nino dreads the answer to the question. He knows what a night out is supposed to mean in your 20s – a loud club, lots of alcohol, lights down low and music up high. Bodies pressing in close…too close. Something he can’t possibly photograph to share with the king. He can’t begrudge Jean wanting to go out, it isn’t like he’s had much time for anything but work the last few years with Lotta to think about and he is so young, but–
“Somewhere quiet. I asked at the office, and the chairman said there’s a bar in the neighborhood that’s supposed to be nice. He gave me the address, it’s just on the next block.”
Nino breathes a silent, surprised thank you to Owl for so deftly steering Jean to somewhere close and manageable, but then wonders, just for a second, why he’d ever thought that Jean – who’d spent half his senior prom on a bench outside – would be interested in a club. He regrets leaving his camera behind now, tucked away in its case at his apartment safe from the crowds he’d been steeling himself to deal with. There’d be no opportunity to capture Jean’s quiet birthday for the king now.
He smothers the tiny part of him that thrills, ever so fleetingly, with the thought that at last he has a true night out alone with his friend. He can’t disappoint now.
It’s a short walk from the apartment building, and the lights in the bar are low but warm as they go in, making the polished wood fixtures gleam. It isn’t busy, too early in the evening yet to catch the crowds of businessmen stopping in on their way home, and a pleasant hum of soft conversation wraps around them as Nino steers Jean to a quiet corner table.
“So what’s good here, do you think?” Jean asks after they get settled in, idly fiddling with a small menu of specials set out on the table. “The chairman didn’t say.”
“Mm. Can’t go wrong with a good beer.”
“Will you order for me? You’re the one who’s older and wiser, right?”
Nino looks sharply at Jean, relaxing once he sees the corner of Jean’s mouth crooking up towards a grin. Older, right – the ten months older he’d claimed to be once upon a time in high school. It had meant more then, when Jean was in school and surrounded only by people his own age that Nino needed to fit in with, but after graduation, it hadn’t mattered so much any more. Nino had long forgotten about the feigned age gap – the ten years were far more significant to him – but obviously Jean hadn’t.
“Of course,” Nino says, “let the old man guide you with his wisdom. Two good beers coming right up.”
The bar has his favorite on tap, he’s pleased to learn – he may need to thank Owl for more than one reason – and they also have a whole menu of delicious-sounding food on offer. As he returns to their table laden down with glasses and plates, Jean jumps up to share the burden.
“I couldn’t resist,” Nino says as Jean grabs the plates of bread and cheese from his hands.
“Can’t go wrong with the classics.”
As Nino slides back into his seat and picks up his drink, Jean stares contemplatively at the foam on the top of his glass, a faint hint of wariness in his eyes.
“If you don’t like it, I can get you something else.”
The wariness slips from Jean’s eyes as he glances up at Nino, the earlier half-grin returning to his face. He shakes his head just a fraction and lifts his glass towards Nino’s.
“Cheers,” says Jean, clinking their glasses together before taking a long drink and looking down into his glass far more appreciatively.
Jean is, Nino realizes two and a half beers later, a bit of a lightweight.
He’s holding himself together fine, still more than coordinated enough to reach for his glass without trouble, but there’s a telltale flush on his cheeks and his voice is picking up in volume as he talks on and on about ACCA, his job, the coworkers he likes, the superiors he respects.
“The chairman said…hmm, what did he say?”
Jean stares at his half-empty glass like it could bring him enlightenment, and Nino carefully pushes their plate of bread a little closer to him.
“Oh! He said that I’d be helping with audits soon. Maybe go with the vice chairman on his first inspection next year.” Jean finishes off his sentence with a bite of bread and his cheeks flush a little brighter. “I hope I can go to Rokkusu. The branch director there is… I respect him. I respect him a lot. He’s done so much for ACCA and for…and he looks so–”
Jean cuts himself off, face growing redder by the second, and looks forlornly at the newly empty dish in front of him. He takes a long, steady gulp from his glass while Nino considers ordering more food to sop up the alcohol in Jean’s system. In all his worry about this night, he’d never once been concerned that Jean would be the one to open his mouth and let secrets out.
Nino isn’t sure he even realized that Jean had secrets of his own.
“Do you remember that time in high school? With the wine cooler?”
Jean’s cheeks are bright red now, his eyes bluer than Nino has ever seen them before. He leans over to grab a chunk of cheese off the plate in front of Nino, and Nino takes a slow sip of his own drink. Yes, he remembers that time in high school – a Saturday evening alone together at Jean’s apartment while everyone else was away visiting an Otus cousin on the other side of Badon, a bad action movie ready on the tv, and a single bottle of a suspiciously pink beverage surreptitiously taken from the bottom drawer of the Otus refrigerator. They’d only taken a few sips each before Jean had tapped out, the dubiously fruit-flavored taste obviously unable to blot out the guilt he felt for sneaking it behind his parents’ backs. Nino had been the one to carefully hide the evidence deep in the apartment’s recycling bin and Jean’s small grateful smile when he got back to the living room with two bottles of soda in hand had burned itself into his mind’s eye more surely than a picture.
Three months later was the train accident. The next time they’d been alone together at the apartment, there’d been nothing in the fridge but Lotta’s juice.
“Strawberry Fruit Paradise, wasn’t it?” he asks lightly, rubbing at a drop of condensation on his glass.
“I hated it,” Jean says in what he obviously thinks is a whisper, leaning in close to Nino like he’s confessing his deepest secret. “It didn’t taste like strawberry at all.”
“It didn’t, no,” Nino agrees gamely. More like cough syrup, if he was honest.
“This beer doesn’t taste like strawberry either, but it’s still pretty good. Better than I thought it would. I knew I could trust you.”
Jean leans in even closer and Nino’s glass drops with a thud on the table as a soft kiss is pressed to the corner of his mouth.
“Thank you, Nino.”
Jean is smiling that same small grateful smile he’d worn back in high school as Nino turns to stare at him, shock reverberating deep in his core. Jean’s eyes are such a deep, intense blue and they’re sparkling with such –
Nino pulls himself back together and leans away from Jean. He grabs the last bit of cheese off his plate, throwing it into his mouth more forcefully than strictly necessary, and stands, Jean left leaning all alone.
“Those beef skewers at the next table smell good, I’m ordering some. Do you want more bread?”
Nino pretends not to see the way the sparkle in Jean’s eyes dulls a fraction as he nods agreeably.
“And another drink, please.”
Jean doesn’t complain when Nino brings him water instead of beer when he returns laden with fresh snacks, just picks up a skewer while animatedly telling him about Lotta’s latest obsession (“it’s some kind of transforming teddy bear. Mrs. B’s nieces told her about it last week after school and now she wants one for Christmas”) and about the new mystery problem with the side entrance lights at the apartment building (“one of them only turns on when it rains”). He’s nowhere near sober yet, but the flush of his cheeks lightens just a fraction as he and Nino work their way companionably through the rest of the food.
But Jean is oddly subdued on the walk back to the Otus apartment building. He’s as close as he usually is, yet his hand doesn’t brush against Nino’s at all, and the silence that falls between them is less companionable than usual. When they reach the super’s entrance, Jean doesn’t seem tipsy any more, but Nino follows him upstairs all the same, just to make sure.
“Hey, Nino.” Jean’s voice abruptly breaks the silence between them as they reach the apartment door. “Why didn’t you take any pictures tonight?”
Framed by the doorway, Jean looks oddly small, jacket hanging loose around him. The flush in his cheeks isn’t half as bright as it had been, but it’s still red enough to make his eyes look so, so blue under his ridiculously mussed blond hair.
“I left my camera at home. I thought it might get in the way.”
“Oh,” Jean says, quiet disappointment transparent in his voice.
“But I could…”
Nino pulls his phone out of his pocket and flips it open. He never uses it for this, its only purpose is to keep in touch with the handful of people who need to talk to him as Nino and the only photo he’d taken with it before was a blurry shot of his hand, an accidental fumble, but it’ll work.
“Say ‘cheese’,” he says to Jean, whose eyes widen in surprise before his face brightens with a pleased smile that Nino’s phone captures with a soft click. “Happy birthday, Jean.”
Nino had only had the one beer himself, nursed it quietly over the whole evening even as he grabbed fresh pints for Jean. But after he leaves the apartment, he feels almost tipsy as Jean had been, a mix of emotions he can’t identify bubbling up inside as he rides the elevator back down to the street, walks out to the parking garage with his waiting motorcycle, pulls his phone back out of his pocket.
He taps out a quick text to Jean – “don’t forget to drink some water!” – but after he sends it, he finds himself pulling up his photos and looking at the picture from tonight. It’s grainy, the quality of the phone’s camera nowhere near as nice as his professional gear, and the lighting is terrible, but Jean’s smile is unmistakable. Its warmth is palpable through the screen, his eyes bright with happiness, and Nino can feel a ghost of the kiss at the corner of his lips just looking at it.
For the first time, Nino saves his photo just for himself.
He also saves the quiet knowledge that a drunk Jean is a surprisingly talkative Jean. He can’t disappoint everyone who entrusted him with his duty now, no matter how much the guilt twists in his stomach at the thought.