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For the old time's sake, Madara didn't ask Leo for any details about what had happened.
Leo was his best friend. A strong person Madara trusted and loved. And a terribly stubborn kid that would rather swim in an ice cold lake than let others know what was going on in his head. After all the time they've known each other, Madara has found ways to get past the walls he build around them. He couldn't call himself everyone's Mama if he couldn't even understand his own best friend.
But he seeing Leo after he got back to Japan surprised him. Just the short time he spent overseas shouldn't have left Leo looking so helpless and lost. Since Madara has seen the full extent of the mess that has started in Yumenosaki and spread all over the world, he thought he would be able to estimate the situation back home better. To see Leo look so shaken proved that he thought wrong. Leo was in no way someone that could be shocked easily, so whatever has caused this must have been Really bad.
It was more than a spontaneous idea to take Leo to Egypt. Madara had no tickets, no reservations for the hotels, nothing besides his bank card and his best friend. He chose the city to fly to based on which plane would depart the soonest.
They did discuss going to Egypt a few times before. Leo has always yearned for things that seemed to be out of this world, so of course pyramids would catch his interest. Madara just wanted to discover the world, to see every continent and country in the world; Leo-san, did you know Egyptian market places at night are pretty much like festivals? Even if this wasn't the cheerful and fun journey they planned when they were younger, Madara thought it was a great way to soothe Leo's nerves.
Leo – who held his head higher than everyone else as if he wanted to reach the stars, whose clear and loud voice would captivate everyone's attention, who possessed more pride than what could possibly fit his small body – has never looked so fragile after all.
But despite his apparent helplessness, Madara didn't feel as if he had any right to ask too many question. It was no good to act like a nagging mother and Madara knew Leo would talk to him eventually. Until then, he would be the pillar Leo needed to recover from his shock, a rope he could hold onto to get back on his feet – Madara tried his best to be supportive mother his bestie needed him to be.
The fastest flight directly to Egypt turned out to be expensive enough to make Leo's knees start shaking at the travel agency. He never fit in well with the other boy at Yumenosaki when it came to financial wealth. Neither of them mentioned it at school since it has always made Leo uncomfortable, but there, he managed to overplay it by being even more eccentric than the others. But when they were booking a flight, it wouldn't do him any good to play a crazy genius. Even if Leo wasn't empty handed and had nothing besides a dead phone in his pockets, Madara knew there was no way he could afford a flight, so he didn't hesitate to pay the trip for both of them.
Sitting in the plane was fun. Travelling through the clouds always excited Madara. It was a completely new type of freedom, something you couldn't experience anywhere else. He could clearly remember the last time they took a flight together. Leo sat right next to him and they had heated conversations about the French countryside, its people and whether or not they should give into their weird cuisine. Today, they didn't chat for too long before Leo curled up against Madara's side and fell asleep.
When they went to France, it was only with the intention to have fun. They both enjoyed their freedom and even if they couldn't try too much of the food, there were many other things to discover:
Not for the first time did Madara notice how easy it was to slip his fingers between Leo's as they walked besides each other. Even if each of them had an own bed, they would stay up late just to lay next to each other, to talk and listen to the other speak. More often then not, one of them would fall asleep, leaving the other unwilling to stumble through the cold hotel room to their own bed. But that was fine, since it didn't just make their nights warmer. Waking up next to your best friend was one of the warmest feeling in the world too.
Another thing they have noticed before, but that turned into a habit while they were sightseeing were kisses. Exploring the Normandy, they found the best places to learn how to brush their lips against each others cheeks. Pressing his lips on Madara's face wasn't easy for Leo thanks to their height difference. He has always hated to admit defeat though, so instead he came up with clever tricks to make it easier, like stepping on a box in the supermarket or running ahead of Madara when they walked up the stairs to their hotel room.
(Pulling him down by the tie was the most efficient, though it seemed hard for Leo to keep himself from blushing when his lips accidentally met Madara's lips instead of his cheek.)
In Egypt, they didn't have any reservations for hotel rooms, so they spent a good part of their days searching for places to sleep. Most hotels couldn't provide a room for longer than a few days. It was okay though, since they both liked to drive around and explore the country but after a weeks, it left Madara wondering if this wasn't too much for Leo. From what he got by then, Leo had not left his house for the past few months. The time they spent in the sun helped him to regain a healthier look, but he barely ate anything without repeated encouragement from Madara's side.
He was still full of energy though, so maybe Madara's worried were unneeded. They did a lot of improvised dancing on the streets. The people here were used to street artists and just Leo on his own was enough to attract their attention. Joining their forces together, they could attract quite a lot of people, even if Madara felt partly bad about it. The dances they learned as idols really stood out compared to the local types of dancing and entertainment. He didn't mean to steal anyone else's profit though, so he tried leave money for the street artist whenever he could. Leo didn't seem to mind either way.
He danced as if he hasn't performed in years. It wasn't something anyone could see, but for Madara, it was easy to tell that Leo wasn't the same as usual. From time to time, his movements would get stiffer, as if he had to think about what to do next. He has never done something like this before. Usually, just moving his body around would make him free and lose all of the thoughts that held him back. But there were more things that made Madara worry about his best friend.
Even if he managed to successfully build up a strong front with his cheerful smiles and wild stories, Madara knew where to look for the small cracks in Leo's armour: how he would change the topics of their conversations whenever they his a sore spot or how his eyes stayed on every pair of siblings for a tad longer than on everyone else. He also seemed terribly aware of the fact that Madara paid for most of this journey, even when he never seemed to be bothered by it before.
It wasn't fun to see how Leo tried to reduce costs whenever it was possible. He insisted that he didn't need any bed to sleep on, he wasn't too tall anyway, so the couch or on the floor would be fine for him, no big deal, don't worry, Mikejimama, it's fine~
Yet he always fell silent when Madara refused to give in and pulled him into the bed. If you insist you're too short for a bed on your own, let me share with you, Leo-san.
To sleep in the same bed was a routine they could easily fall into again. Even before they were in France, they've spent next to each other on countless occasions when they were kids as well. Madara was aware that they both were unable to keep their hands to themselves. So even when Leo refused to open up and tell Madara about the things that had shaken him so much, of course Leo had no trouble to curl up against his chest all night.
---
Being on the road made time pass quickly, so April passed and May rolled around quickly enough.
Madara waited until Leo was sound asleep, rolling away from him to lay on his side. Eager to take the first chance he got, Madara sneaked out of their bed. He had secretly bough a few garlands and other stuff earlier that day when they split up to find a place to sleep at. He hated to deceive others, but some causes defended drastic measures, right? It wouldn't do anything good to spoil the surprise to Leo after all.
Being tall made it easy for him to hang everything up in the room himself. He made sure not to turn on the lights, as precaution in case Leo woke up. It would be no good for him to see what Madara was doing too early, even if it was just by a few hours. Illuminated by the dim light of his phone screen, it was hard to tell how the room looked like once he was done, but he assumed he had done a good job. Festivals weren't his specialty for no reason after all. Next up were the presents. He didn't manage to buy a lot of those, but that just meant he had to wrap them up even prettier.
“Madara?”
Leo's worn out voice was barely audible over the rustling of wrapping paper. It was so unusual for Leo to speak quietly. Even these days, his voice never lost its usual strength or radiance. Madara had known Leo for most of his life, so it was no lie if he claimed to have seen Leo at his worst and at his best. But even his at his worst - like when he got into a fight with his beloved Ruka or when he found the costs for a trip to the moon - he never has been this shaken. Never has it taken Leo this long to pick himself up again.
Never before did he sound as if he was begging.
(“Can you please lend me your phone? I don't have the charger for mine, but I really... I want to hear Ruka....”)
“Even if you say so, I can't just allow you to–“
“Just a few minutes!” Madara tries to soothe Keito. The autumn sun was setting outside and after a long day, Keito wants nothing but to get home quickly. “He'll be done really soon, I promise.”
“This is Tsukinaga we're talking about. We both know this could go on for hours.” Trying to keep down his irritation to a minimum, Keito takes a deep breath. “The school is closing in an hour. I have no desire to stay with you here until someone else will kick us out.”
Checked all the rooms in the building to make sure no one stayed at school overnight is part of Keito's job in the StuCo. Which might sound like a pointless task - really, who wants to stay overnight at a school anyway? - but with so many eccentric and weird people at their school, it turns out to be a quite irritating task. He has grown used to kicking out some of those weirdos before he went home. Especially the Sakuma siblings were experts at getting to his nerves.
“Even if you force me to rush,” Leo speaks up through gritted teeth, still scribbling on the sheets in his lap. Sitting on the floor with no care in the world, he looks just as always. “Inspiration doesn't care about time! It's bursting inside me right now!! You might ruin my next masterpiece, a real treasure for our whole century! It needs to be preserved!”
“Please just give us a minute, Keito-san.”
“Wahaha, isn't it a shame to rush though? A minute won't be enough! We're still young, but we'll grow old soon enough, so relax, Hasumi, sit with us and relax~”
Keito is sure that those two are way too relaxed for their own good. No matter how much they try to get him to give in, there's no reason why he would want to spend another minute of his precious free time in some vacant class room, waiting for Leo to finish the song he's writing.
“For good old time's sake?” Madara asks, tiling his head to the side as he winks at Keito. “Come on, you know it will be fun.”
“I have no recollection of what you could be referring to,” Keito
– remembers when they were all in the same class and spent all of their lessons causing troubles for their teachers, remembers how they spent their time after school coming up with plans to take over the archery halls from their lazy seniors, remembers Madara's hands in one of his hands and Leo's in the other –
Keito sighs.
“For the old time's sake," he mutters, letting himself fall to sit on the floor besides them. "I can't let idiots like you two stay here on their own after all."