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LXVII

“Alright!”, Eddy said and broke the powerful spell he’d cast upon Brett, who had to shake his head a bit to gather his wits. “You said something about celebrating?”
“Uhm, yeah! If you’re up for it?” Because let’s face it, there was no one else he’d rather spend time with than Eddy. 
“Of course! I reckon you’ve had enough beer though.”
“Hey!”, Brett made with a set up, offended tone. 
“Just looking out for you. We do have a competition to play and I don’t wanna win because of you blacking out in some corner backstage.”
“What a vivid image”, Brett deadpanned, his brain taking notice of the fact that Eddy had been counting the beers Brett had downed. He felt a stupid smile bubble up and contained it just in time to throw in another suggestion. “Then there’s only one thing we can do.”
Eddy’s grin matched Brett’s in split seconds. “Yeah?”
Brett took Eddy’s left arm in a surge of courage or stupidity, he didn’t really know and also didn’t care for that matter, and pulled the other’s sleeve back to get a look at Eddy’s Mickey Mouse watch. 
“There’s still time.”
“Then let’s go!”

“Two brown sugar bubble teas, half sugar less ice please.”
“Coming right up!”
“Will you let me pay this time?”, Eddy asked and waved his wallet in front of Brett. “To celebrate your courage, you know.”
“Not sure. You paid for dinner already. We need to keep a balance.”
“You paid for what, the last five coffees I had?”
“Dinner’s worth more”, Brett meant and pulled out his card.
“With the coffee prices nowadays? Nah, it wasn’t. Trust me.” 
Eddy positioned himself demonstratively by the cashier, a twenty dollar note ready in-between his fingers while Brett shook his head, chuckling. 
“Alright then. Don’t wanna repeat the cafeteria incident in front of this bubble tea store.”
Eddy nodded with a satisfied smirk. “Wise choice. We’d get banned and then, we definitely would have a major problem.”
“Surviving this camp without bubble tea you mean?”
“Exactly!”
They were still laughing when their orders appeared.

“Now, where to?”, Eddy asked and took an impressive gulp of his drink after they toasted on Brett finally taking a stand for himself and telling Katie what she'd needed to hear.
“What time is it?”, Brett wanted to know, some kind of idea forming in his head. 
Eddy threw a glance at his watch. “Around ten, why?”
“Is there a place where we could chill out by the waters?”

It was a twenty minute walk until they reached a rocky corner by the sea, basically at one end of the botanic gardens. The waves were mellow on this moonlit evening and since this place was a bit further from all the clubs and bars, a quititude Brett had kind of missed laid itself over them like a cozy blanket, letting all the noise and worries about competitions and performances and girls and new sexualities and stuff fade out. 

“Man, this is it!”, he sighed and took a huge sip from his bubble tea, letting the pearls pop into his mouth while he carefully placed his case by a giant rock. 
“I should come here more often”, Eddy stated while letting his gaze wander over the peaceful sea.
“I would all the time if I’d live here!”
“Isn’t Brisbane by the ocean too?”
“It is, but the beach is not close enough to my house so I can enjoy this”, Brett did a grand gesture at the sea, “and still get my practice hours in on a regular basis.”
“I see… well, it took us some time to get here too.”
“True”, Brett nodded.

They sat down, an arm's length in-between them and bobas firm in hands.
“How do you feel about tomorrow?”, Brett asked after a few crushes from the waves calmed him down even more. 
Eddy tilted his head with a slight frown, looking pensive. 
“I don’t know, to be honest.”
“You don’t know?”
“Guess I’m a bit distracted at the moment”, Eddy said and winked at him. 
Brett’s eyes widened and it took all his willpower to not let his jaw drop to the bottom of the ocean.

Freaking Eddy Chen! Saying things that would eventually shatter Brett in a billion pieces!

“Wha… really?”
“Of course! You dragging me to places and into new situations constantly actually costs a lot of energy and mental capacity”, Eddy said like it was the most logical thing in the world while Brett’s heart got swallowed by the waves a few meters across. 

Oh, yeah. Of course.
“Oh, yeah. Of course!”, he croaked and thanked the heavens for the lack of proper lighting out here. 
“But about tomorrow… I’m a bit nervous about what’s going to happen. I don’t know if I’ll be able to convey enough emotion through my playing for the judges, or the type of emotion that I want.” 
He blinked helplessly at Brett. 
“It’s still new territory for me and I’ve never tried to play like this in a competition or in front of a jury.”
“You’ll be fine!”, Brett stated, “But I get that you’re nervous about trying new things in this setting. Let me tell you though, that you’ve improved every day since you’ve started to bring emotions into the whole game. Tomorrow’s not gonna be different! You gonna ace this!”
“I hope you’re right”, Eddy shook his head with a smile, “My mother would have my head if I’d mess up.”
“I’m gonna distract her too if that happens”, Brett smirked, “Take her on a tour around Sydney and stuff and by the time we’ve seen everything, she’ll have forgotten about you.”
“Oh my god!”, Eddy laughed and held his belly, the little bit that was left of his boba slushing left and right, “Nooo! Why can I picture this so well in my head?”
Brett joined Eddy's chortle. “Me and your mum? We’re a done deal, man! Haven’t we already established that our mums would like the other better than their actual sons?”
“We did!”, Eddy hit a fist into his half open, half bubble tea occupied hand.
“Maybe you should just think of that when you play tomorrow. Me and your mum on a city tour.”
“That’ll ease my nerves, thank you.”

Brett waggled his eyebrows, sipped every last bit of boba out his cup and said mischievously, “You know what else would help?”
Eddy stilled, leaning away from the smaller a bit like he was suddenly afraid to get bitten, “I don’t like the look on your face.”
“You, me, taking a dip, here!”, Brett exclaimed, both indexes stretched toward the ocean. 
“Nah!”, Eddy crossed his arms in front of him, “Not gonna happen!”
“You can’t swim?”, Brett raised an eyebrow. 
“Of course I can! But I’m not gonna-”
“It’s still hot as balls with the sun gone for five hours already and a little swim’s gonna give us just the kick we need for tomorrow! Come on! Pretty please?”
Brett fluttered with his eyebrows, well aware that the pout he put on was breaking all sorts of levels of ridiculousness but he didn’t care. He wanted to make this happen so badly! More than he'd wanted to let dancing-Eddy come to life only yesterday.
“This might come as a surprise, but I didn’t bring my trunks or anything!”
“Nothing you haven’t seen yet, no?”, Brett let out something he was going to regret later. 
Eddy’s eyes got even bigger. “When the hell did I see you naked? Nah! Brett…”
“New experience! Come on!”, Brett pressed while brushing over the naked-part like a fucking king only because he sensed the start of Eddy’s resistance crumbling with small stones rolling down the wall.
“Nah…”, Eddy had his eyes squeezed shut, a headshake of denial over the probability of this happening being a near hundred percent on loop, “No, Brett! You go ahead, I cheer you on from the exact spot I’m sitting at and where I’m very comfortable.”
“Comfortable is exactly what we don’t want! Performing isn’t comfortable either, right?” Brett’s eyes implored Eddy and despite the taller still having shut his blinds, Brett knew he sensed it.
Eddy pressed both palms against his eyes and groaned. 
“Argghhh, Brett! What the hell are you doing to me?”
“Hehe.”
Yeah, no way Eddy was gonna let that sit on him. He wasn’t the cozy type. He was the taking challenges head on kind of guy, the very least in music and developing in other parts of life as well.

Eddy opened his eyes with a shock and fixed them on Brett without blinking. An intimidating index finger appeared in front of Brett’s nose. 
“If I'm gonna get attacked by a shark and you win the competition this way, I swear to god I’m gonna haunt you till the end of your days!”
Brett grinned, triumph dripping from every pore of his body. 
“I’d actually like that.”