the trick is to keep breathing

Looking back on it now, Ignis realized that there had never been a word for what he was to Noctis.

He was going to be his friend, King Regis had said, when he'd first introduced the two of them. He was an advisor, Ignis's father had said, glowering at him over a pair of spectacles, and shoving a pile of political books him, which he hadn't yet memorized to his father's satisfaction. He was a guard, his mother had told him, when she first pressed a throwing-knife into his hand, and started teaching him the art that would keep His Highness safe. He was a tutor, most people seemed to think, with how much he helped His Highness with his homework over the years—

That one happened almost by accident. When Ignis and Noctis had first met as kids, their only directive had been, get to know each other. They wound up spending a long summer afternoon rambling around the edges of the pond on the royal grounds, trying and failing to skip rocks across the surface. This was before Noct had his injury, when Noct had been more outgoing, happy to chatter away for hours and hours. He asked Ignis absolutely everything about himself—what did he like, which of the Six was the coolest, why did he need glasses, did he like the palace, what was it like outside the palace, did he have any pets? Then Noctis moved on to just asking questions about everything: "Why is grass green, anyway?" he asked, as they waded through some stamped-down grass at the pond's edge. "Why not purple or something?"

"Well," Ignis said, reflexively, because he'd just finished reading a science book the night before, and his eidetic memory made recall easy, "it's because grass contains a pigment called chlorophyll, which absorbs every wavelength of light except green, which allows it to intake a very large portion of the sun's energy. Though, if the question is, why isn't grass black, which would absorb every wavelength, that's a matter of debate among scientists who study botanical evolution, with a number of plausible hypotheses."

For a moment Noctis just stared at Ignis blankly. Ignis felt himself waver. Had he said something incorrect? Then Noctis broke into a grin: "I didn't understand all that but it sounded cool. Tell me more."

So Ignis did, at length, reciting back page after page of that chapter, until Noct started giggling too hard to hear him. "You're cool," he said, which gave Ignis a little thrill. He'd been called studious, diligent, hard-working, but never cool. He wasn't sure the Scientia family knew the word. It was new. It felt nice.

And from there on out, Ignis simply never stopped teaching Noctis about this and that, sometimes while hunched over books, but also sometimes while they roamed the palace grounds, catching crickets and climbing trees and lounging in the shade. After a while, Ignis noticed that Noct sometimes asked him about things he couldn't possibly be interested in, things chosen for the sake of obscurity or as some sort of test—"I'm not an encyclopedia, Your Highness," Ignis would say, peevish. A pause. And then he would tell Noct the answer anyway, because he knew it, and Noct knew he knew it, and Noct would laugh.

A few years later, Noctis turned seven, and entered the local public school. It was important that His Highness have as normal a life as possible, the King had apparently insisted, which meant going to school like any normal child in Insomnia. The same did not hold for Ignis, however; the Scientias had already arranged for a set of private tutors at home, so as to minimize distractions. Already old beyond his years, Ignis understood the good sense in this—but still, he had to choke down the childish impulse to whine: Why does he get to go to school and I don't?

Noctis took it in stride, at least—he seemed to like having something new to tell Ignis about every day, and liked chatting on about his classmates. (The injury wouldn't happen for another year.) The other children sounded rather silly to Ignis—and some of their behavior was downright appalling—but, well, appalling could be interesting, too.

For instance. Take this one little tale Noctis told Ignis out of nowhere, when they'd been walking together by the lake after school: "Cato and Tanya got married today."

"Pardon?"

"So there's this big wooden tent thing on the playground, that you're supposed to climb on, okay? Well, Kent said he thought this big wooden tent thing looked like a chapel. So he folded a priest hat out of paper, and he started holding weddings for anyone who wanted them. And since Cato and Tanya like-like each other, they picked all the flowers around the tent thing, and got married and had the kiss and everything, right there."

It was absurd, ridiculous—and intriguing. "What happened then?" Ignis asked.

"Oh, then Mrs. Metellus saw and broke them up and told the whole class that you can't kiss each other at school."

Ignis snorted a laugh. A fitting end.

But Noctis had a funny look on his face, faraway, fidgeting with the hem of his jacket. "I wonder what kissing is like," he murmured, after a moment.

"What kissing is like?"

"Yeah."

Ignis, who was never uncertain, confessed: "I'm not sure."

"It must be something, right? For everyone to make such a big deal out of it?"

They'd gone out of book entirely, Ignis thought. He'd never read anything describing what it was like. But the part of him that always wanted to answer everything Noctis asked, very suddenly wanted to answer this question too, and the only way to answer was—

"We could try it, if you want to find out what it's like," Ignis blurted. "Just as friends," he added, because Noctis was giving him a funny look, and because he wasn't really sure what it meant to like-like someone, or when you normally kissed. He just knew he wanted to please his friend, and also, now he had started wondering the same thing—what it was like?

"Sure," Noctis said, with a slow nod. "Let's try it, then. Just to find out."

They were standing on the far edge of the royal grounds, now, where the trees grew the thickest. No one else was around. No one could see them.

So they lined up to face each other. Then they burst into nervous laughter, as soon as they had, because it felt so silly. When they'd straightened out again, Noctis hummed the first few notes of a wedding march, which made them both laugh again.

"Okay, okay," Noctis said. "For real now." They straightened out one last time, and then—they kissed. A short peck, to start with, and Noctis frowned. "That was hardly anything," he said, pouting, leaning in again, and well, what else was there to do? Ignis leaned in to meet him, they pressed their lips together, and for all the dozens of books he'd memorized, Ignis wasn't sure what came next, so he was just stood there—

Noctis ventured a little, though. He pulled back for a moment and tried again, from a different angle, but it didn't quite seem to fit. Noctis tried again, this time pressing his lips around Ignis's bottom lip, with a bit of pressure, and—that felt right. It was new, strange. Intriguing. Ignis was intrigued. Maybe it was even nice.

But then, Noctis pulled away. "Weird," he said, with a laugh that was not unkind. "So that's it, huh." He wiped his lips off with the back off his hand, still smiling.

Ignis's face felt hot. He hoped he wasn't blushing.

"Let's go skip rocks on the pond," Noct said, in a hurry, like he was trying to change the subject, and Ignis followed him mutely.

Maybe Noctis had sensed the same thing Ignis had—that maybe they shouldn't have done that. Friend, advisor, guard, tutor—none of those roles seemed to include "kissing lessons" in the bargain. It made sense at the time, it had felt right, but—he imagined trying to explain if his father had found out, if the king had found out, and he felt himself blanch. Maybe that had been a breach of trust, unworthy of the Scientia name.

But they'd been children, Ignis thought now with stiff remove, over a decade later. It had only happened one time. They'd never spoken of it again. It meant nothing. Probably Noctis had forgotten the whole thing entirely.

Or so Ignis had thought.

Tonight, the four of them were camping somewhere between the Alstor Slough and Lestallum. The stars were out, and they'd already eaten—so, while Ignis was cleaning up the cookware, Prompto instigated some sort of truth-or-dare game around the campfire. Ignis was only half-listening attention as it went along. There was a hot-sauce eating dare, which was foolish on Prompto's part; Gladio won those handily every time. Gladio returned fire by demanding to know the truth about Prompto's first kiss (it had been at band camp; yes Prompto had been to band camp, because he'd kind of been a loser freshman year; it was a long time ago, he didn't like to talk about it, and he muttered something indecipherable).

Then:

"Gladio, same question to you," Prompto said, with renewed vigor. "Who was your first kiss?"

Gladio didn't bother to look up from the book he was reading. "Cynthia Gabinus, behind the bleachers at a soccer game. We were thirteen."

"Wait, Crownsguard Cynthia? Cynthia the Kickass? Literally-won-that-huge-fencing-tournament-last-year Cynthia?"

Gladio smirked. "The very same." He flipped a page. "It was fun."

"Yeah. I'll bet." Prompto gave a low whistle, then turned to Noctis: "Well, okay, what about you? Who was your first kiss?"

Ignis looked up from the pot he'd been scrubbing. And in that fraction of a second, Noct met Ignis's eyes. Ignis wanted to think he was imagining it, but—no. A lifetime of watching His Highness meant that Ignis imagined nothing, and missed nothing. Noctis indeed looked directly at him, so briefly that no one would ever notice but the two of them. Which was maybe the point.

Then Noctis turned to Prompto. "What, you really think I'd kiss and tell?"

"Aw, c'mon man! I told you!"

"Yeah, well, that sounds like your problem."

"And Gladio told us about his!" Prompto considered this for a moment. "Actually, wait, nevermind, don't tell me. If it's anyone half as cool as Cynthia I'm just gonna die on the spot."

Noctis met Ignis's eyes again. Ignis wished he hadn't; his stomach felt like it'd been flipped upside down.

Then Noct turned to Prompto again. "Yeah," he said, with an exaggerated drawl, "in that case, I'd definitely better keep my mouth shut."

"Duuuuude!" Prompto wailed. "Is it better than Cynthia? Have you been holding out on me?"

Gladio folded his book shut and playfully knocked it against the side of Prompto's head. "This has been fun, but I'm heading to bed, loverboy. You should too, before you get yourself all worked up. We've gotta get up early tomorrow."

Prompto groaned, not in protest, but with resignation. He cast Noct one last peevish look before he rose, and followed Gladio to the tent.

Which left Noctis and Ignis alone. Alone by the campfire. Ignis stood on one side, stirring and extinguishing its last embers and flames. And on the other side—Noctis sat in a fold-out camping chair, watching him. The stars were bright tonight, so Ignis could see the prince's face perfectly. For the third time tonight, their eyes met.

"What are you thinking, Iggy?" Noctis asked, his voice quiet ,and carefully level.

All his life, Ignis had been so careful to only see what was there, not what he might've—hoped. Was that an error?

"I think," Ignis said slowly, "maybe I never properly answered your question. How did you put it? 'What is kissing like?'"

Noctis barked a laugh. "Yeah. I mean, we were like, seven, so."

Silence. Noctis had to stop looking him in the eyes like that, Ignis thought helplessly. They were too focused, too bright, almost hungry. That gaze made Ignis feel like he was the only other person in the whole world. That gaze made his chest so tight he could hardly breathe. And if Noct didn't look away now, Ignis was going to—

—step across the fire, lean over Noct, and whisper: "Let's try again now, then."

"I thought you'd never ask."

Then their lips touched, and the fire's last ember hissed, and Noctis smiled into their second-ever kiss.