Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He feels a little like an orphan.

Which is stupid, because his dad is still very much alive and healthy and breathing, even if it doesn't always seem that way.

Even if it can be hard to think about his father as more dimensional than what he can see in pictures hanging in the house, taken in some studio in formal wear. Flat background, flat expression, flat face, flat heart. Flat man.

He adds the layers himself.

Whether it be creating shadows with pencil, or add in highlights with white pen, he had to be the one to build up layers. The mental sculpture of “Dad” was made up of chicken wire, papier-mâché, and the most realistic surface paint job ever. The one part he knew he could get right, supported through endless nights of studying every wrinkle near his eye and every blemish in his skin.

He turns to look at the display of his portfolio behind him. The main piece: another 2D attempt at his father, smiling at the viewer. It feels fake. Make believe.

As people walk past, they point and say,

“Wow, I think that’s one of the best pieces we’ve seen. Who is it?”

And Reki smiles and tilts his head and says amicably,

“My dad.”

But is it?

Is it really?

He studies is a bit more. It slowly contorts and writhes into different shapes.

Was dad’s nose really this crooked? Was his smile ever this toothy? I think I drew the forehead a little too big, as well as his ears. And his hair, god his hair looks like a mop! Why is his head positioned on his neck like that? His skin looks like a formless blob.

...What does dad look like?

He closes his eyes and can only conjure up secondary sources.

How does he look outside of studio lights?

There’s a pressure in his chest as he can’t find an answer.

He opens his eyes and looks around him.

Sho’s dad is here, holding the clay pots he made up to the light. Hikaru’s cheeks are flushed as his dad says something and animatedly gestures as his sculptures. Hell, even Toma’s dad was able to get here in time, still in his full salary-man suit and lifting up the little sister to look at the paint-splattered canvas.

He could make art of anyone else in here. How the cracks in their skin soak in the light and the folds of their clothes drape over their frame.

He doesn’t want to though.

Reki positions himself next to the portrait of his father, his back to the display, face towards the rest of the gym, decorated for the art festival and filled with a happy buzzing.

If he removes himself enough, he can imagine his father standing behind him. He can conjure the feeling of a hand on his shoulder and the radiating warmth from a smile. The baritone of his voice would ring out and wrap around Reki as he said something along the lines of,

“Wow, what you can do is simply amazing. I had no idea you could do all of this—I’ve really been missing out!”

Then, he would lean in and whisper something to the effect of,

“Don’t tell anyone else, but I think you’re the best one here. Clearly. Nobody else’s art could measure up to yours.”

And Reki would chuckle and softly chide, saying something like,

“Don’t say something like that! These are my classmates, they put a lot of effort into their pieces too.”

“Not as much as you though. Your’s is something special. You’re so special, Reki. My son-”

He whips around and sees a two-dimensional father, hanging on a wire tri-fold by a clip.

He closes his eyes and take deep breathe. He brings himself back to reality.

For tonight, he is an orphan.

That’s okay. That’s fine. It’s nothing new.

In his peripheral he sees the clock, white quartz blinding him and flashing that there’s only an hour left of the showcase, that he was stupid to think this time would be different. Nothing has changed between then and now, so why did he ever think that the pit would fill? Why did he think the cold would leave?

Why did I think my father would come?

He sighs.

He smooths out his sweatshirt and primps his hair, pushing up the head band a bit. He looks at his display.

He repositions one of Langa. It’s stylized rather than realistic, and he isn’t sure he quite likes it right now even though he loved it when making it. He props up another one, this one a landscape, of the skatepark during dusk, when it’s not as busy but still has people there. He feels the urge to take a bucket of ink to it and drown it in it until his hands were stained midnight and the sunset wasn’t looking so red.

He resolves to just smile and nod and gesture half-heartedly for the rest of the night, to just endure it and then go home.

The rest of the family is away on a trip, so he’ll have the house all to himself.

He doesn’t know how he feels about that.

He quickly takes down the one of Langa and flips it upside-down on the table and reaches up to do the same to the one of his father-

“Hey, Slime!”

He startles and turns around to see the typical S group coming through the door. Langa was leading the group, with Miya and Shadow trailing behind and glancing at the displays around them. Kaoru and Kojiro were just a little bit behind, Kaoru covering his mouth with his fan and looking to be saying something to Kojiro under his breath which made said man lightly hit him on the arm in admonishment.

Reki suppresses an eye roll.

Langa bounds forward, hair pulled back slightly with a clip so Reki could see his full face.

“Hi Reki! Sorry we’re late, someone over here got the time wrong-”

“Why are you blaming me! It’s not my job to get the time right anyways, I’m not your personal driver!”

Miya drawls,

“Quiet down mister chauffeur, you’re fired if you cause a scene.”

“I’m not your-!”

Kaoru sends him look, eyebrow raised and eyes relaxed warningly. Hiromi shuts his mouth. Kojiro sighs something about Kaoru being a bad influence on the kid, and his boyfriend may or may not hit him with his fan in response.

Langa giggles and turns back to Reki,

“Anyways, yeah. We’re here now. Let’s see your art!”

Langa steps to the side to see it. Reki, without thinking, steps to the side as well, blocking Langa’s view.

Miya steps forward,

“C’mon, if I had to be dragged all the way out here,”

“--the drive was only 20 minutes--”

“--whatever you say, mushroom hair—to come to your stupid show, the least you could do it actually, y’know show your art. Like, do what the name says?”

Reki turns his head to the side,

“Don’t worry about it. Go look at other people’s stuff."

Miya scowls,

“What’s got your panties in a twist?”

“Miya, quit it. And watch your language,”

Kojiro steps in.

Langa turns,

“Reki? What’s wrong?”

He tilts his head to the side in that way Reki usually finds adorable, in the way that make his hair drape across his cheek. But now, he feels like it traps him. He grumbles,

“Nothing’s ‘wrong’.”

Miya scoffs,

“Yeah, tell that to the wrinkles in your brow. You look like you could be E.T.’s cousin!”

“MIYA.”

Kaoru puts a firm, primly manicured hand on Miya’s shoulder and gives him the same look he gave Hiromi, but 100 times stronger.

“Hiromi?”

The addressed man turns toward him.

“Yes?”

“Why don’t you two go look around at some of the other displays for a bit. That’d be fun, wouldn’t it?”

Kaoru is smiling as he says this, but his eyes are a bit too crinkled and his teeth are a bit too sharp.

“Uh, uh, yeah! C’mon kiddo, those sculptures over there look cool, don’t they?”

“I’m not a ‘kiddo’!”

Miya pouts as he’s begrudgingly pushed towards Hiromi and the two begin walking away.

Back at the table, the two adults keep their distance as Langa tries again,

“Sorry about Miya, you know how he gets. I promise he was actually the most excited out of all of us to come, even if he’d rather smash his console than admit it.”

The joke falls flat as Reki stares at the ground and does not give any sort of reaction or response.

Langa’s eyebrows furrow,

“Hey, what’s up? I know you said nothing, but you’re clearly lying.”

There’s no vindication in his words, but Reki feels some anyway. He doesn’t know how his own words will come out of his mouth, so he doesn’t open it. He starts to play with his hands, picking at the cuticle.

Langa gently takes his hands and intertwines them with his,

“You shouldn’t pick at your hands. It’ll hurt.”

“Yeah, I fucking know that.”

Langa startles at the harsh tone and looks up at Reki’s face, studying it. Looking at the shadows and highlights under the gym light. Reki doesn’t know exactly what Langa sees, but he can draw up a general idea.

Reki feels that something ignited in him get fanned,

“You didn’t have to come.”

Langa shook his head,

“I know, but I wanted to. We all did, we wanted to support you.”

Reki brought his shoulders up to his ears,

“You don’t even know if my stuff’s good though! What if you got here and all my art was complete shit, then what?”

Langa frowned,

“I don’t know, I didn’t think of that. I never considered that your art would ever be bad, I’ve seen some of it before and it’s good, it’s always so good. Is that what this is about,”

Langa break the hand hold to bring his own hand up to rest on Reki’s shoulders. He softly wraps his fingers around the joint and gently press down,

“Are you worried we won’t like your art? ‘Cause I don’t think that’ll be a problem. And, and even if the art is bad—which I doubt—we still would’ve come out to see it because we want to see you. We want to be here for you for something you worked so hard on.”

Reki shrugs Langa’s hands off of his shoulders,

“Okay, well, you guys weren’t even invited. So, I don’t need you here.”

Langa doesn’t get angry. He doesn’t feed the fire. He just tilts his head to the side in that way that he does. When he’s trying to figure something out. Reki feels like his guts are leaking out of him onto the floor, and Langa is taking a magnifying glass to every little section of it. His insides writhe, and he digs his nails into his palm to try and stave the feeing off.

Langa picked up one of his intestines,

“You didn’t give us a formal invite, but I thought it was implied...? Reki, you’ve been talking about this show for weeks,”

Langa picks up another, holding them in his arms,

“About how excited you were to show off your work, and that you had a specific piece you wanted to show me, because you swore I would love it,”

He twines them around his arm, playing with it absentmindedly,

“But now you won’t move? What gives? What happened?”

Langa takes a step forward and drops the pile into Reki’s hands, startling the shorter boy. He stands and waits.

Reki blinks, frantically glancing between the mess in his arms and the boy in front of him, who is standing highly. Expectantly.

Reki looks down at what he’s holding. It seems to move on its own, snaking around, traveling up his forearm and smacking against him in a gross, wet squelch. He wretches.

Two crooked, lopsided holes form at its top, and liquid is pushed up from somewhere and into the created wells. They pull in and solidify into spheres. More liquid is pushed through, creating veins, and as it fills it finally starts to take shape.

Reki looks in its eyes, and it looks right back at him. Unyielding.

Reki quickly looks away.

“Reki, you knew we were gonna come. We always do. I thought that was why you didn’t give us an invite, ‘cause we always come. If you didn’t want us coming, why didn’t you say that? Reki, I’m confused.”

Langa is now the one looking at him, wide eyes and wringing hands still covered with residue from Reki’s insides,

“What’s wrong? Do you not want us here? Did we do something wrong?”

Langa’s skin is amazing under the gym lights...revealing shadows under his cheekbones and beside his strong nose, highlights along his cupids bow and in his eyes. He looks wonderful.

Reki grits his teeth,

“Yeah, I don’t want you guys here. So, just...leave.”

He throws it all to the ground, faltering slightly because of how it tugs on him. It is still attached, after all.

He balls his hands into fists and holds his arms close to his body, closed off, getting his sweater dirty and stained from the semi-translucent slime coating him,

“Just leave!”

Langa stands still. The thing pulses at their feet.

He pushes a hand towards Reki’s.

When they touch, Reki can only focus on one thing.

The slime and blood mixture drips off of him, and its water marble is smushed into Langa’s palm as he presses it into Reki. It escapes out of the side, globs of it running down and tracing around Langa’s hands and wrist, gliding around each bump of bones and leaving a trail behind it.

I’m making Langa so dirty.

He pulls back quickly and swipes at the mess he’s created all over Langa, hoping it goes flying across the room and lands in some forgotten, dark corner somewhere.

He doesn’t register what he’s done until the red is already blooming across Langa’s fingers, spreading down in blotches. Until Langa’s already looking at him with his mouth slightly agape and his body frozen in place from shock.

He just hit Langa.

There is nothing else in the world besides them right now, and Reki never thought that would be as terribly suffocating as it is right now.

Langa pulls his hand back slowly and drops it at his side.

“Well-...well if you’re going to act like that, I’ll just-…"

Langa turns,

“I’m gonna go.”

He walks away.

Reki slumps back against the display table, putting his head in his hands.

This is what I wanted.

…

It feels horrible.

He feels something rest on the bottom of his chin, and he opens his eyes to see that it’s a closed fan.

He gets pulled back up into the world, and there is Kaoru, with his stupid rectangular glasses, stupid stern expression, and stupid fucking fan.

He turns his face to the side,

“Go away.”

He can’t stand how his voice comes out quiet—on top of his forgetting to un-grit his teeth, it makes him sound like a child.

“No, I don’t think I will.”

Reki pouted slightly, but then immediately stopped because the goal here is to not seem like a baby.

“Reki, why did you do that?”

Reki rolled his eyes,

“You’re not my fucking dad, don’t try and scold me.”

Kaoru shrugged,

“I never claimed to be your father. I wasn’t trying to scold you, or bait a specific response either. I’m honestly asking—why did you do that?”

Reki’s guts twitched from their place on the floor, but if Kaoru has a reaction to that he does not show it.

“Why did you get in a fight with Langa?”

Reki throws his hands up in the air,

“I dunno, I guess I was mad at him. That’s the reason anyone gets into any fight, right?”

Kaoru messes with his fan,

“What were mad at him about?”

Reki squeezes his eyes shut,

“Ugh, I don’t know what I was mad about!”

“Really? Because, you seemed to already be upset when we arrived. So, assumably, it was something that happened before that.”

The boy grunted in acknowledgement. Why was he even entertaining this?

Kaoru leaned into his hip, and the way his pin straight, glossy hair laid in its half-up-half-down style couldn’t help but remind Reki of Langa.

“I’ve gone through this,”

He gestured vaguely with his fan,

“whole ordeal before. With that stupid macho man over there who can’t seem to leave me alone. And I don’t know exactly what is happening with you right now, but I think I know at least a little.”

He turns to stand next to Reki, back against his art.

“Someone knowing you, and what you’re going through, is scary. And overwhelming. And just generally feels a little bit like a shit show,”

He sighs,

“But...you still have to go through it. Tell him what’s bothering you. Be honest with him. You won’t hurt him.”

Reki is curled in on himself. He is staring at the only thing in the room there is to stare at, eyes boring holes at the thing around his feet.

“But what if-...what if he doesn’t like it? What if he doesn’t wanna deal with it?”

Reki wraps his arms tighter around his body, feeling a lump grow in his throat as he fights to push the words out past it,

“What if he doesn’t want to deal with me...?”

Kaoru puts his fan to the spot next to his lips,

“That would be rather terrible, wouldn’t it? It’d probably hurt like a motherfucker.”

Reki frowns deeper. What is the point here? Kaoru continues,

“It would really suck, and you’d probably feel like your world were ending...but it wouldn’t actually end.

Your world won’t end. Your life won’t end, either. So stop trying to make it happen early just so you don’t end up getting caught off-guard in the future!”

Kaoru turns to him, but he doesn’t match it. The older man continues nonetheless,

“Stop trying to fuck the relationship up in advance. You don’t know if this is going to end badly! Let Langa in! Let him help you. He cares about you, and he wants to do what he can so you feel better. Stop trying to push him away, it won’t help anything.”

Kaoru turned back out towards the crowd,

“And if you can’t bring yourself to do any of that, at least stop acting like such a dick towards him. He doesn’t deserve that.”

Reki swallows. He hasn’t cried so far tonight, but goddamn he feels pretty fucking close right now. He quickly turns toward Kaoru and opens his mouth to say something, anything, but Kaoru starts again before he manages to get anything out,

“The same goes for me, by the way. The rest of the group as well. We really do care about you. Kojiro and I-...we...”

He doesn’t quite finish the sentence—not properly anyway. He becomes light,

“He and I never even contemplated...taking care of children, but look at us now. And I wouldn’t change a single thing about it. And I get why people love it so much. I get it.

You...you are so amazing, Reki. Your art is beautiful, I can’t imagine how much work you’ve put into perfecting it like that. My ‘art’--if you can call it that, next to yours—is black and white, simple lines. But you-…you combine so many things together, so many elements-...it’s simply amazing. Incredibly impressive. I pity everyone who does not know you, who is missing out on the miracle that is you.”

Kaoru opens up his fan in one swift motion and shields his mouth from view before turning to Reki with a twinkle in his eye,

“Don’t tell anyone else I said this—especially not Kojiro, that gorilla would just chide me for being ‘rude’, or whatever other word he likes to use for ‘telling the truth’—”

He lowers his voice,

“—but I think you’re the best artist here, by far. It’s so obvious. We were walking in here, and I stopped myself looking at anyone else’s about halfway through because I was scared I’d go blind before getting to see your art.”

Reki rolls his eyes but can’t help the way his lips quirk up and the way a small laugh escapes him,

“That’s so rude, Kaoru! Everyone here has something good, and they tried hard on it all.”

Kaoru smiled,

“Not as much as you though. Definitely nowhere near. Your art is something special. You are something special, god, you’re so special Reki. Truly unmatched. I can’t imagine anyone else...being like this to me. So important to me...”

Kaoru lowers the fan from his face slowly.

Reki can’t help it. He throws himself into Kaoru. Never mind that he’s absolutely disgusting right now, and they’re still technically in the middle of the showcase. He doesn’t care, doesn’t even think to care.

Kaoru freezes for a moment, but lowers his arms to wrap around Reki’s back.

Reki sniffles into Kaoru’s shoulder, and may or may not have slipped a few tears out onto the fabric.

Reki smiles against the man’s shoulder.

“Thank you, Kaoru.”

Kaoru brings a hand up to Reki’s hair and ran his fingers through it a couple times,

“Of course, Reki. Anytime. I... I care about you. So much. You would never believe...”

In lieu of finishing his sentence, he just pulls Reki in closer, and tighter, and doesn’t let go.

Reki takes a couple of deep breathes. He focuses on the freshly laundered smell of Kaoru’s clothes, and how soft and smooth they feel against his rough palm.

He slowly feels his heart rate drop, the sound of his heart beat leaves his ears, the feeling of his guts twisting lessen.

He slowly pulls back, silently lamenting the loss of pressure. He sniffles a couple of times, wipes at his eyes a few times, fixes his headband. His eyes find the mess all over Kaoru’s clothes and his eyes widen—

“Don’t worry about it Reki. I truly don’t mind. It’s nothing a quick wash won’t fix.”

Reki pulls his arms in close to his chest and nods,

“Yeah, yeah. Okay,”

He breathes in and smiles slightly, gathering himself up from off the ground and putting it back where it belongs. Just, for now.

“Okay.”

Kaoru smiles back at him. Then, something catches his eye, something behind Reki, it seems like.

“Hey, Kaoru!”

Kojiro is waving from a little way away, Langa trailing behind him.

Reki looks over his shoulder, sees Langa, and then immediately turns back to Kaoru. His body is completely rigid.

“Kaoru, dude, what do I say? He’s probably still mad at me and—hey, don’t laugh, this isn’t funny!”

Kaoru’s slight giggling ceases and he says lightly,

“Just apologize. I’m sure he’s not furious—he would’ve said so if he was. You don’t know anything until you ask him.”

Reki nods a couple times, although he doesn’t fully absorb the information. Kaoru’s eyebrows raise,

“Watch out lover boy, here they come~.”

Reki scurries over to is display and started straightening things that aren’t crooked and smoothing things that aren’t wrinkled. He can hear the conversation behind him,

“Hello rotisserie chicken, is everything all right?”

“Oh, come off it. If I’m rotisserie chicken, you're uncooked and raw and probably full of salmonella.”

Kaoru laughs as Kojiro continues,

“And yes, I think we’re all feeling a little better. Maybe, even, good enough to...appreciate some art calmly and peacefully...?”

When Reki turns around, he sees them all looking straight at him hopefully. He clears his throat,

“Um, yeah. Sure. I’d be cool with that.”

Kojiro whoops and Kaoru smiles softly. Langa averts eye contact.

Reki opens his mouth to ask to talk privately with his boyfriend, to apologize and maybe give an explanation and maybe get on his knees and beg for forgiveness—

“We’re back!”

Miya hops towards them as Hiromi trails behind looking tired.

“We went the whooooole way around and now we’re bored because everyone here is shit. Will you show us your art now?”

Hiromi rolls his eyes,

“They were not bad—you’re just rude. God, you take after your mother.”

There is a beat before Kaoru perks up,

“I. Am. Not. His. Mother!”

Miya smirks,

“Whatever you say. By the way, I’m hungry do you have any food?”

Kaoru pauses his fury to reach into his pocket and pull out an onigiri covered in saran wrap and hands it to Miya with an eye-roll,

“Honestly, I told you to eat before we came—you're lucky Kojiro even bothered to make these because we knew this would happen—”

Kaoru freezes. Miya smirks as he takes the onigiri and unwraps it,

“Thanks, dads.”

Kojiro chuckles from behind a fisted hand as Kaoru stares blankly.

Hiromi clears his throat,

“We still have time left, but not much. Reki, show us!”

Kaoru nods, seemingly grateful for a distraction to his recent stint with parenthood,

“Yes, Reki, we’d love to see it.”

Reki smiles sheepishly at the expecting faces all staring towards him.

“Um...okay. But, just a warning, it might not be all its been hyped up to, especially after a long wait—”

“Shut up slime, I’m sure it’s at least slightly above average.”

Reki rolls his eyes at the especially sassy child. Maybe they were right—maybe Miya is spending a bit too much time with Kaoru.

Reki steps to the side and reveals his art.

Miya’s eyes widens and he thinks he might hear a small gasp, although he isn’t sure if its genuine of just for the dramatics of it.

Hiromi pointed to the landscape of the skate park,

“You made this?!”

Reki put a hand on the back of his neck,

“Uh...yeah?”

“Bro, it’s so GOOD.”

Reki laughed hesitantly,

“You think?”

Kojiro chimed in,

“Of course! I know just about jack shit about art, but it doesn’t take a critic to know that this is amazing.”

Reki smiled really small,

“Aw, thanks you guys!”

They pointed and asked questions, and Reki feels more and more like himself again. He explains his different processes, where he got inspiration, what tools he used, the techniques he’s learned.

He smiles.

Langa looks at him, and he smiles.

And Langa smiles back.

And it’s okay.

Chapter Text

“Hey, Reki, don’t you need to pack up your stuff soon?”  

Kojiro’s voice startles him from his spot by his seat, firmly watching the double doors at the entrance of the gym.  

“Oh, uh, yeah. I’ll do that in a bit.”  

He goes back to watching the door.  

“Uh, kid? It looks like there’s less than three minutes left, if you wanna leave on time you’ve gotta start getting ready.”

“I can pack up quickly, it’s okay.”  

The rest of the S group is loitering around the table for his display, having offered to keep him company for the last short stretch of time before it ended and then go grab dinner together.   

The rest of the gym is practically empty, void of the life it had just half an hour before. Everyone had gone home, the only people left being stragglers responsible for cleaning. He can feel them eyeing him, probably begging him to leave so they can finish their job and get home quicker, but he doesn’t care. The show was scheduled to end at 9:00, so he’d stay until then.  

He dad still had time.  

Langa comes up from behind him and stands next to him,  

“Who are you waiting for?”  

Reki shrugs,  

“I dunno.”  

Langa looks at him skeptically. Reki pretends not to notice.  

Langa sighs,  

“Y’know, not telling me what’s going on is what made us fight in the first place.”  

Reki sags,  

“I know, and I’ll tell you, but it might be nothing. And I don’t wanna worry you if it turns out to be nothing.”  

Langa looks at him, then at the door, then at the big clock hanging above it. It reads 8:58, with the seconds hand ticking closer to the 12 as the spoke.  

He shrugs,  

“Okay, sure.  But if it does end up being something,” 

Langa turns towards him, then grabs his cheeks and turns him too,  

“You’ll tell me.”  

Reki nods, feeling a little silly with his cheeks smushed like this,  

“Yeah, I'll tell you.”  

Langa glances to the side where the rest of the group sat, looking engaged in their own conversation. He turns back and pecks Reki on the forehead,  

“Okay, good.”  

Reki looks at him softly and leans in for a kiss. Langa reciprocates, giving him a small peck on the lips.  

The corners of Langa’s lips quirk up,  

“I love you.”  

Reki giggles,  

“Uh, I love you too? Where is this coming from?”  

Langa shrugs,  

“Dunno. Just thought I should tell you. Just wanted to say it.”  

Reki smiles and grabs Langa’s hands from where they still are on his cheeks, bringing them down gently and holding them.  

“Okay. Then, I love you too.”  

Langa shakes his shoulders in a small shimmy and gives Reki another small peck.  

“Uh, hey, I don’t wanna interrupt, but it’s past 9 and the cleaning crew is giving us the stink eye,”  

Hiromi chimed in.  

Reki can distantly hear Kaoru chide Hiromi about ‘reading the room’, but he is already a little out of the moment.  

He turns all of his attention to the doors.  

Firmly shut.  

Yeah, of course. It was stupid of me to even get my hopes up in the first place.  

“Reki?”  

Reki turns back to Langa, trying not to be affected by his boyfriend’s worried face. He can’t find words, and can’t figure out even what it was he wants to say, he just knows he’s suddenly feeling very...down. He turns to the rest of them,  

“Hey guys, actually, I’m a little tired. I think I’m gonna skip out on dinner and just go straight home.”  

Miya sticks his tongue out,  

“Boo!! You’re lame!! Tomatoes, tomatoes, I’m throwing tomatoes!”  

He makes a lazy throwing motion in Reki’s direction,  

“It’s hitting you! It’s getting everywhere! You’ll never get the stains out!”  

“Alright, cool it kitty.”  

“Kojiro, I’m not even doing anything- aH! PUT ME DOWN, YOU UNCIVILIZED APE!”  

Kojiro has come swooping in and picks Miya up, laying him on his shoulders, completely ignoring the way the child is pounding at his back,  

“Not until you learn to be nice and play with the other kids.”  

“I’M NOT A CHILD!!”  

“Hey, listen to your father!”  

“SHUT UP, HIROMI!”  

“We’ll be waiting in the car, take as much time as you need. Kaoru, come on, let’s go.”  

“You don’t order me around, over-cooked sumo wrestler.”  

The group trails out of the room, leaving Reki and Langa alone.  

Reki sighs,  

“Hey...Langa?”  

Said boy turns around to look at him. He suddenly feels a little put on the spot, despite him being the one to call out to Langa.  

“Yes? What is it?”  

“Oh-um, I was just...”  

He swings their joint hands back and forth,  

“I wanted to know if you could to come over to my house tonight? It’s Saturday, so there’s nothing tomorrow. Unless you have something planned, of course, you don’t have to come over or anything-”  

“I’d love to,”  

Langa cuts off his rambling. Reki smiles,  

“Okay, good. ‘Cause, I also wanted to talk about...yeah. And just say sorry. I snapped at you when you didn’t even do anything ‘cause I was mad about something you had literally nothing to do with and you don’t deserve that. I’m sorry.”  

Langa nods once,  

“I accept your apology. And I forgive you. But don’t do it again.”  

Reki nods emphatically,  

“Of course.”  

Langa smiled softly at him,  

“I gotta stop at my house and get some stuff, but I’ll come over once I grab it.”  

Reki bounces in his seat slightly,  

“Oh! Yay!! Okay, see you then!”  

Langa puts his hands on Reki’s biceps to calm him for just a second before bringing up a hand to hold Reki’s face in place to soft peck him on the cheek.  

He pulls back,  

“Okay then, bye!”  

He waves primly then turns and sprints back to the group.  

Reki smiles to himself and holds his own cheeks in his hands before turning to his display.  

He sighs deeply.  

After getting off of his seat and walking over to his display, he begins by unclipping everything and placing it in a neat pile, making sure nothing creases. He disassembles his display, placing all of the clips in a small bag and folding down the trifold. He grabs the big tote bag he uses to hold his art, because there’s nothing else to use, and starts putting it all in there. Papers go in protective plastic sheets. He just hopes for the best for his canvases.  

All done.  

Some of his best work and favorite pieces, set up for appreciation.  

All in the bag.  

He swings it over his shoulder and suppresses another sigh.  

This is okay.  

He turns and makes his way down the length of the gym towards its doors.  

The resounding silence of the room is somehow so fucking loud, deafening it its pronouncement of every little thing—the beat of Reki’s heart, the buzz of the LED lights, the squeak of shoe against tile. He tries not to hear it.   

He tries not to hear, or feel, or think anything at all.  

He finds himself outside. He doesn’t quite remember the trip into the barren parking lot, looking like more of a wasteland than anything else, but he knows he took it.  

This is the pavement they could have walked on together. This is the night sky they could have stood under. This is the crisp night air they could have breathed in together.  

They didn’t, though.  

Maybe it was never even a possibility at all.  

Reki sighs.  

He wraps his fingers around the faux-leather of his bike seat and yanks it up to open the compartment that sat there. He slings the bag into the area and hastily arranges it.   

He keeps fumbling with it. He adamantly ignores the small voice in the back of head, along with the heat behind his back, and the in and out of breath. They’re not real, they’re not helping.  

His fingers turn stiff and his eyebrows furrow close together.  

“Ah, fuck it! It’s fine.”  

He throws the seat closed and just slings the bag onto the handle of the bike. They’ll probably get messed up in the wind; he always makes sure to carefully arrange them in the seat and take good care of them. But it’s whatever. He doesn’t care.  

He climbs onto the seat and revs the engine.  

Off he goes.  

Y’know, this is fine. I don’t care. It’s fine.  

I’m fine.  

Reki goes to close his eyes and take a deep breathe in, but when his eyes are already half-lidded, he distantly remembers that he is, in fact. Begrudgingly, he drags his eyes open again.  

The roads are mostly empty, much too late for a relatively small town to still be awake. Nobody is awake. Nobody it there to witness him.  

He sags a little, feeling a weight in the pit of his stomach. He swallows, thinking about how he hadn’t eaten in many hours at this point, too excited or stressed or anxious or generally just Reki-like to have done something like eating.  

It continues to weigh him down, though, and he spares a look away from the desolate road to the ground and finds his sweater bulging in the front, liquid beginning to soak through the fabric.  

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck! Not now, not now, not now, not now-  

He takes one hand off the bars and clutches at his abdomen, scrambling to keep it all, if not inside, at least close to his body and in reach.  

He bends his arm this way and that, spreading his fingers, and crooking his elbow to try and keep it from spilling over and out, out into the night where the humid air would stick to it.  

He bends the wrist of the hand still steering, accelerating.  

Please please please, I really don’t need this right now, fuck, god, shit-  

He’s looking down, making sure nothing leaves, making sure he is left exposed-  

BRRRRREEEEEEERRRRRR  

Reki squeezes down on the breaks as he hears rather than sees the trailer truck speed past. The abrupt stop jolts him forward, sending him into the handlebars.  

With a loud oof, sensation ceases across his body, and then immediately returns violently and jaggedly, shooting out through him in spikes.  

“AAAARRH!”  

A scream is ripped from his throat and thrown out into the cold night air.  

Fucking-...holy shit.  

He is doubled over the front of his stupid fucking bike, hacking and dry heaving.  

I’m gonna die, I’m gonna fucking die, I’m gonna die right here right now and nobody will find me until sunrise. Or maybe even until Monday morning on the way to school. What if Langa is the one to find me? What if he skates over my dead body on accident? What will my corpse look like?  

Reki opens his eyes and (partially) gets his answer to the last question, staring down at what looks to be nothing more than devoured remains flailing out of his body and over the sides of the bike, seeming like the sickest form of decoration.  

He breathes. He blinks a couple times. He breathes again.  

Tiredness settles into him as adrenaline and tension seep out and leave rock behind. He feels like he’s solidifying, fatigue setting him into place. He wants to become a statue.  

The cold night are flutters through his clothes, and he considers it for a moment. To become one with the scenery, nothing more than backdrop. He could stay here forever—live here, die here, decay here…  

Langa is coming over.  

He suddenly remembers.  

He sighs a deep, deep sigh. He props himself up again. He leans down and drags it all up. He stuffs it all back in the best he can, and yanks his sweater down once he’s done.  

He continues on.  

It’s only a little bit before he’s pulling into his driveway, jostled slightly by the uneven gravel. The sigh he lets out it more one of relief than anything else, and he hopes his lucks holds.  

God, I shouldn’t have been so careless with my art. And what, just ‘cause I was a little moody. They’re probably completely ruined now and it’s entirely my fault.  

Reki moves one strap a little farther away so he can look inside, body wound up and tensed as he anxiously peers in to assess the damage-  

Reki pulls the bag off and takes another, closer look.  

They’re all fine.  

He takes them all out slowly, carefully placing them on the seat of his scooter in a pile, examining and scrutinizing each piece before setting them down.  

They’re all fine.  

Reki looks at his canvas tote bag. He grips the straps, creases forming in the limp fabric.  

He squeezes his eyes shut and curls in on himself, holding it close to his face.   

“AHHHHH!”  

Reki snaps his eyes open just in time to see the bag get flung across his driveway, hitting the fence separating him and his neighbor.  

He stalks over and grinds his foot into it, the gravel making a dull sound beneath the rubber bottom of his shoe.  

He reached down and yanked it up, gritting his teeth and getting ready to do something else when-  

“Reki...?”  

The porch lamp lights and seems blinding in the dark night,  

“Oh, Langa! You’re already here!”  

Langa glances to the side,  

“Uh, yeah. You took a while getting home, so I’ve just been sitting here.”  

Reki flusters,  

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize how long I took-”  

Langa puts his hands in front of him, palm out and shook them back and forth,  

“No no no, its alright, don’t worry about it.”  

The sudden break from the moment he was having makes Reki feel ridiculous, like he wants to laugh. So he does.  

A strong belly laugh coming from deep inside him, reverberating in the empty space between the two boys.  

He keeps laughing.  

Langa looks to the side again, wringing his fingers together. He bites the corner of his lip.  

Reki starts gasping for air in between bouts of laughter, lungs feeling like they’re squeezing down on nothing. It sounds inside his own head like a bell, resounding and leaving no room for anything else. Suddenly, Reki feels arms around him.  

Langa had crossed from the porch steps over to where Reki was standing and wrapped his arms around the shorter, smaller boy. Reki’s breath hitches. His shoulders tense.  

“...it’s okay, Reki.”  

Reki blinks a couple times. All of the giddy jumpiness from just a moment prior has left him, leaving a stark emptiness.  

Langa runs his hands up and down Reki’s back,  

“It’s okay, Reki. I love you. A lot. It’s okay. I’m right here.”  

Something rises in Reki’s throat. His body cramps down on the emptiness. His arms bring themselves’ up to squeeze around Langa’s chest, and his face burrows into the crook of Langa’s neck.  

“Everything’s all good. I love you.”  

Reki shakes his head back and forth. Langa moves his hand up to Reki’s hair and starts to card through it,  

“It is. And I do. It’ll all be okay. Let’s go inside.”  

Reki squeezes tighter. Langa pats his back softly but firmly two times,  

“Come on, you have to let go for a second so we can walk. You can hold my hand, though.”  

Reki slowly melted away from Langa, hand trailing down shoulder, arms, hand, and then keeping a firm grasp. Langa nodded.  

Reki kept his eyes down as he heard some shuffling and then felt Langa’s tug on his arm as the boy led them both inside.  

The click of the door closing behind them.  

“I’m gonna go grab some water.”  

Langa pulls at their joined hands, and to Reki’s horror he feels a squeak escape from his own throat. Langa pauses,  

“You can come with me, but I’m gonna need both of my hands once we get to the kitchen. Okay?”  

Reki nods. His feet stumble slightly but eventually follow in Langa’s steps to the kitchen.  

Random sounds vaguely register in his brain—steps on the hardwood, click of the lights, fridge opening, fridge closing, plates clinking on granite. He hears, but he does not listen.  

He rests his head on his crossed arms at the table, but he doesn’t remember sitting down.  

He watches across the open-concept house as Langa pulls something out of the fridge.  

Langa’s fingers were so nimble, not dropping a single thing as he sets everything out. His hair swishes around his face, a perfect curtain to frame an even more perfect expression, flat and serene like a grass field.   

And here he is, taking care of me like I'm a fucking baby instead of out, doing something fun-  

The clatter of plastic in front of him breaks him from his internal fight.  

“You should eat.”  

Reki looks up,  

“I’m not hungry.”  

Langa pulls up a chair across from him,  

“You haven’t eaten since lunch time at school today.”  

His tone is light, not at all vindicating.  

“Reki?”  

Reki hums.  

“Reki, do you wanna eat together?”  

Reki shrugs.  

Langa picks up the fork—a tiny, plastic thing meant for babies—and scoops up a bit of rice.  

“Here. Say ahhhh.”  

Reki looks up at Langa. Langa gestures softly with the fork.  

“You’re kidding?”  

“Nope, you’ve gotta eat. Open up.”  

Reki sighs and closes his eyes as he turns his body fully toward Langa and lets his mouth fall slack open.  

He feels the fork enter his mouth, and as he closes down on it, every last grain pushes up against the flesh inside. It’s unsettlingly and unnerving in the way snake scales are, and he immediately wants to spit it all out.  

Langa gently presses the palm of his hand over Reki’s mouth, lips smushing slightly,  

“Now, just chew.”  

‘Just’, ‘just chew’, he says, as if that is a small thing, a trivial thing, not a big deal. No bigger than a grain of rice.   

“See?”  

Langa takes another forkful, about the same size as Reki’s, and puts it in his mouth.  

“Shee? Bvery easjy.”  

He swallows.   

“Now you.”  

Reki realizes that he hasn’t been chewing, just holding it on his tongue and trying to keep it as far away from the other parts of his mouth as possible.   

He looks at Langa. Langa looks at him.  

Slowly, he closes his jaw. He can feel it smush under the force of his teeth, and he wants to rip his skin off.  

“Good job, keep going.”  

Reki feels a lump in his throat at those words, but he nods. He keeps chewing.  

“Just like that.”  

Reki nods again and again, and he chews it down into a paste before forcing it to the back of his mouth and swallowing down his throat.  

“You’re doing so good, Reki. You’re wonderful.”  

Reki feels pressure build up around his head, like someone wrapped a rope around it and just pulled.   

“Let’s keep going, okay?”  

Reki just opens his mouth as an answer.  

Langa keeps giving him small bits of rice from the inoffensive plastic baby fork. Langa keeps telling him how well he’s doing, how amazing he’s doing, how amazing he is , and it’s all way too much.  

Eventually, the bowl is empty, and Reki’s stomach is not. Langa gets up from his seat and stretches a hand out for Reki to do the same.   

Reki just looks at it for a second. Then a couple more seconds. Then he understands what he is meant to do with it.  

He gently presses his hand into Langa’s, but then uses his other hand to grip at Lang’s forearm.   

He hauls himself up, bumping into his boyfriend slightly. Langa instinctively wraps and arm around Reki’s middle to steady said boy. Reki instinctively presses his face into Langa’s chest, burrowing into the fabric and feeling it prickle against his soft cheek.  

He takes a couple deep breaths, the smell of detergent and sweat surrounding him.   

“Let’s go to your room.”  

Reki nods against the fabric.  

Langa takes a step away from him but abruptly stops mid-step,  

“Oh, look. There’s a package.”  

Reki reluctantly turns his head to the side, feeling like he’s twisting his neck a way it’s not supposed to go.  

Langa looks down at Reki, then back at the package.  

“Come one. Hold my hand.”  

Reki’s hand lazily moves from hanging limply between their two bodies to Langa’s hands, still wrapped around Reki’s love handles.  

“Good job, come on.”  

They walk the short distance to the table, Reki’s feet moving without energy, without bounce. There is none of his usual static buzzing about him in the air. Just…radio silence.  

Langa takes the hand not holding Reki’s and begins to pick at the tape, peeling it off best he can. Eventually, it gives, and Langa reaches in through the packing peanuts to grab it.  

When Langa carries it out, it’s horrendous. The black fabric emerges from the soft white like tar, like a curse, like pure darkness. In the nighttime, there is no light to give it shape, Reki cannot see it’s outlines—just black. Formless and black.  

Langa spreads it out on the table. Reki knows it has a zipper because he hears the sound of it opening rip through the quiet.  

“Reki, I don’t-…I don’t know what this is…? Oh wait—there’s a note.”  

On prim, inoffensive cream-colored stationary, a neat scrawl writes out:  

Reki,  

Here’s a proper thing to carry your art in, rather than that ratty tote bag you always use.  

~ Kyan  

Reki bursts into tears.  

His chest feels both weightless and impossibly heavy in its dead center, dragging him down to lean against the table. He dry heaves, air dragging across the inside of his throat painfully, digging its nails in and raking through his flesh.  

It feels like the strength in his body is leaving with the tears.  

Distantly, there are arms reaching around his middle and a body pressed against his back, but he can’t seem to feel anything past the hot numbness across his body, creating a film or force-field protecting and preventing him from the outside world.  

It spreads from his surface through his body, ending at the center, marrying with the indescribable tangle at his core. He can’t feel the muscles in his legs. He can’t feel his legs at all.   

His fingers drag across the edge, rubbing against the counter as he attempts to stay up, adamantly ignoring how incredibly impossible that is.  

He’s on the floor, and his body is separate from his mind, and the air is too thick to enter his lungs. He is breathing tar—he’s sure of it.  

He sobs and sobs, his head getting tighter and his chest getting heavier.  

“I can’t—I can’t breathe. Ohmygod, I’m gonna die. I can’t breathe. I can’t see.”  

“Shh, shhh. It’s me baby, you won’t die.”  

“Yes, I will!”  

He feels an intense weight around him from the back, and the suddenness of it makes him flinch.  

He throws his arms back, sharp and forceful into whatever was behind him. He barely registers the grunt of pain and thud of body against wood right afterward, and is only present enough to know that someone fell, and it wasn’t him.  

He brings his arms to his front again, burying his face into his arms, clenching his eyes shut and kicking his feet out in front of him. They hit something hard and upright. The harsh ebbing in the sole of his foot gives him something to focus on, a specific pain to pinpoint. He’s not floating anymore.   

He kicks out again, foot hitting the same thing again. Same pain, rippling out through his skin.  

He kicks again. This time, the pain manages to make its way up his ankle before waning out.  

Again. Again. Reki’s breathing slows, the tautness in his muscles being relaxed steadily.  

He brings the bottom of the palm of his hand down on his temples, hitting and rubbing into his head forcefully.  

He slows down. Everything slows down. It’s relief.  

Reki blinks his eyes open, dim stream of lights coming in one by one.  

The air inside his body finally seems to match the air outside it: he can breathe. He. Can. Breathe.  

“Ugh…”  

Reki whips around. Langa is sprawled on the floor—limbs out about him like loose string, back limp like wet paper. Reki brings his hands up to his mouth in a silent gasp.  

Langa slowly come back together. He curls in on himself slightly as he rises, hand coming to rest on his stomach as another groan seethes from his tight throat.  

Langa’s hand over his own stomach in pain makes Reki want to burst. Something about this, something about the way the hardwood floor is so uncaring and the way Langa’s cardigan slips off his shoulder, makes Reki want every emotion inside him to come to a head and explode, sending pieces of himself all across the walls of his living room like shrapnel.   

Reki coughs, guts sliding out unceremoniously. He brings his hands over his mouth, fingers threaded together in a tight grip to try and cover the hiccuping, squeaking sounds he can’t help coming out.  

“Reki.”  

The brown of wood floors moves aside as Reki slowly lifts his head, seeing his knees then socked feet then jeans then hand.  

“Langa…”  

The name trails out of him, dragged from his throat like a clump of hair out of a drain—wet, clogged, and disgusting.  

“Reki.”   

The name flits out of him like a moth to a flame, nearly weightless and a little frantic, but still soft and graceful and determined to get to his light.  

“Langa...”  

Reki’s eyes are wide from where he sits on the floor.  

“Reki...”  

Reki feels a pair of arms wrap around from under him, and suddenly Langa is right there, Langa is touching him, Langa is getting dirty-  

“Reki, I love you.”  

The world is shaking. Wait, no, that’s him.  

“I lo-”  

“Shh, shh...don’t say it back. Don’t say anything, don’t worry about anything at all.”  

Reki is stiff in the face of something new.  

“I’ve got you. Relax.”  

Reki’s weak muscles finally untense as he cries into Langa’s strong arms and firm chest.