Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

One sheep.

Two sheep.

Three sheep.

Four sheep.

Five sheep.

The sixth sheep, inexplicably wearing a traditional kimono and a high, bright pink ponytail, stops mid-jump to fix him with a nasty glare.

Langa loses count. Again.

At this point, he's lost count of how many times he's lost count, but it's somewhere in the double digits.

He sighs into the empty room. It gets lost somewhere between the end of his last strand of patience and the ceiling.

He can't sleep. He's been trying for hours. Nothing he does is working.

It's too hot under the blanket and too cold on top of it. His ceiling fan is too loud, but his room is too quiet without it. He'd taken a spill off of his board earlier, so now his neck twinges when he lays on his left side, and his shoulder protests when he lays on his right. His sheets feel ten times scratchier than they normally do. His hair keeps falling into his face no matter how many times he brushes it away. The sliver of moonlight peeking through the edges of his curtains is burning into the backs of his eyelids. And no amount of tossing and turning is helping anyway because his mind just won't. Be. Quiet.

He'd be annoyed if he wasn't so damn tired.

A girlish, high-pitched, shrieking giggle pierces the air from somewhere beyond the tragically thin walls and he grimaces.

Alright, he's still pretty annoyed.

Someone a few stories above him falls or drops something rather heavy from the sounds of it, and the thud rattling the floor is the last straw.

Well, whatever. It's not like he was sleeping, anyway.

Groaning, Langa officially gives up and opens his eyes, staring into the inky blackness; blinking until the shadows of his room start to fade into focus. The outline of his dresser, the shape of his desk, and the slope of his chair; all clear in his mind's eye, despite the darkness. The same as the jumble of pictures hanging on the wall to his right.

There's one of him, seven years old and nearly drowning in snow gear; taken moments after he'd won his first junior snowboarding tournament.

One where he's probably about nine, on his knees in their old living room, with his arms thrown around his first dog's neck. His face is buried in Rosco's fluffy golden hair.

One of Mom, grinning proudly from where she's draped across his shoulders after he'd won his last snowboarding competition. Langa is pretending to be annoyed but his lips are curled just slightly upwards at the corners.

One of Dad.

One of both of his parents. Younger than when he'd come around, but still so grossly in love it shines through the dusty glass, ten years later.

And the latest addition: him and Reki in his kitchen a few months ago, taken on his birthday. Reki had somehow gotten a hold of a tube of icing and brushed a bright blue stripe of it onto Langa's cheek while he'd been distracted. He'd been nearly folded over cackling like the menace he is when Langa had exacted swift revenge by plucking the tube from his hand and painting a matching splotch right on his nose. Reki's big brown eyes had gone round with shock, Langa had let a wide, smug grin of triumph stretch over his face, and his mom had snapped the picture without either of them noticing.

Like everything else in his room, Langa knows them all by heart. He doesn't need to be able to see them.

Fumbling, Langa groggily fishes across the vast wasteland of the other side of his bed until his hand finally bumps into the hard shell of his phone wedged under the other pillow. Without thinking he clicks the screen on, and winces when the bright light sears his eyes. Before he goes temporarily blind, he does manage a quick glance at the time.

1:24 a.m.

Fuck, he'd been hoping it was at least three. If time keeps insisting on ticking away at this slower-than-molasses pace, it's gonna be a long night.

Sighing again, Langa sits up and swings his legs over the side of his bed. The wooden floor is cold where it meets his feet and he winces. But he's crashed into snow banks much colder than this. So, gritting his teeth, he gets over it. The floorboards creak and groan irritably underneath him, but one silver lining about tonight is that his mom is at work. He's not a fan of her getting stuck on the night shift, of course, but at least he doesn't have to worry about waking her up. She, unlike him, is a chronically light sleeper.

It's darker outside his room. The pitch black kind brought on by narrow hallways with no windows. The kind that brings to mind eyes peering from the ceiling and hands darting out from around corners, poised to grab.

Rather than fear, though, it just makes him think of Reki.

Maybe it's because he knows his best friend -as brash, bold, and confident as he likes to appear- would definitely hate everything about this hallway. It's funny to think that someone so much larger than life would be terrified of ghosts, of all things.

He's ridiculous.

Cute, but ridiculous.

Or, maybe he simply thinks of Reki because Reki is never too far away from his thoughts to begin with. Who can say?

The hallway opens up into the kitchen; made distinctly more visible thanks to the splash of windows along the living room's back wall letting moonlight spill through them. It highlights the granite counters. The small, wooden dining table that goes largely ignored unless he and his mom are both home at the same time. The handful of dishes he'd been too lazy to wash that had been left behind in the sink, promising to take care of them in the morning before mom got home. (Probably.)

It's not as familiar to him as their old kitchen. He's still getting used to the different layout. But, slowly, it's getting there.

Light winks off of the faucet that hangs over the kitchen sink. Langa becomes all too aware that his mouth is currently drier than Cherry's sense of humor, and makes a beeline for it. He doesn't bother flipping on the light switch.

He fills a discarded glass and takes long, greedy gulps, draining it in no time flat. Maybe his real problem falling asleep had been thirst, because the lukewarm tap water tastes like heaven to his parched throat. He refills the cup.

While he drinks, slower this time, his eyes drift above the sink. Out the window, the silver light of the full moon is surprisingly bright.

It draws a restless buzzing under Langa's skin to the surface. Suddenly he burns with the desire to get up and move. To skate. To go for a walk. Something.

Even as he thinks it, he can already hear both his mom and Reki yelling at him for thinking about going out in the middle of the night. Like he's a wayward child and not nearly eighteen, on top of being an ex-athlete. He knows he can be a bit of a space cadet sometimes, but honestly; they're such worrywarts.

The thought of his two favorite people in the world makes a smile tug at his lips despite himself.

Yeah, he's a lucky guy to have people care about him the way those two do.

Out of habit more than anything else, he switches on his phone; which has been dimmed to a more respectable brightness after he'd nearly blinded himself earlier. Before he can unlock it, though, his eyes snag on his wallpaper. They've been doing that since he changed it a few weeks ago. It's starting to become a problem. His own face stares back at him from the screen, but he hardly spares it a second glance. Because right next to him, beaming with pride and flashing a peace sign at the camera, Reki demands far more of his attention.

His arm is slung around Langa's shoulders and the setting sun behind him makes his hair look like flames. Langa can still hear his ecstatic shouts echoing in his ears, all because Langa had nailed a trick they'd been trying to learn for a few days. As if he'd actually accomplished something. Reki had been the one to pull it off first, no surprise there. And only after hours of him teaching Langa the move step by excruciating step had he managed to land it for the first time.

He'd hardly done anything impressive, but looking at Reki's face almost makes him feel like he had.

Both of them had been scraped, bruised, and exhausted, but at that moment, Langa had truly felt invincible.

Miya had sent him a copy of the picture later that night and he'd made it his lock screen five seconds later.

Reki would probably demand he change it if he saw, but, for now, what he doesn't know won't hurt him.

If he spends a little too long tracing the lines of Reki's smile shining at him through his screen, well, no one else needs to know about that.

God… Reki is so….

Well, there aren't enough words to describe a boy with excitement etched into his veins and the sun itself in his smile.

An all too familiar fondness settles in Langa's chest. The one that always accompanies flashes of red hair and bright eyes in his mind. Man, Langa's in deep. He'd never thought he was the type to get so caught up in another person, but Reki was always having him learn new things about himself. Inadvertently or otherwise.

He can't exactly say he minds it.

Warm now from head to toe, Langa finally unlocks his phone all the way. Aside from the usual bickering between Joe and Cherry in the main group chat, and a few cat videos Miya had sent to the smaller one with only him, Langa, and Reki, he doesn't have any new notifications.

For lack of anything better to do, he finds himself reopening his chat with Reki. Earlier that evening, he'd sent a couple of links to some clips of skaters doing a trick Langa's never seen before. He knows in his gut the same way he knows the sky is going to be blue tomorrow that Reki is going to say he wants to learn it.

Anticipation curls at the tips of Langa's fingers. He might as well get a head start. It would be nice to learn a trick before Reki, for once, but, considering how amazing Reki is, he's not holding his breath.

He's not sure how long he stays there, leaning against his kitchen counter; watching video after video with a concentration his teachers wouldn't believe him capable of. But, after a while, the evil algorithm leads him to videos of puppies on skateboards wearing helmets and little knee pads and…

Well. They are very cute. And Langa is only human.

Golden retrievers, poodles, and huskies (his favorite), roll by along with the minutes. Some of them are surprisingly talented. A few skaters at S could learn a thing or two from them. And Langa watches them all, more than content with falling down this particular rabbit hole.

The further down he goes, though, the more random, kinda weird stuff starts showing up. Strange science experiments, a few makeup tutorials, and of course, the ones that are so obviously empty clickbait it's painful to look at. Even he wouldn't fall for them.

But one of the titles catches his eye nonetheless.

'I accidentally checked into a love hotel with my best friend? 😰 And then we…'

It makes him pause, casting him back to earlier that afternoon, and the way Reki had frozen up when Langa had asked him what a love hotel was. Again.

Honestly, he probably would have forgotten about it a long time ago if those assholes at the mall hadn't been acting like creeps to some poor girl who'd just been existing and reminded him.

'Aw, come on, babe, don't be like that! Here, lemme check us into a love hotel. I'll teach you what a real man is.'

Even without knowing what it had really meant, he'd been disgusted enough by the way they'd said it alone. But Reki?

Reki had been pissed.

Langa had almost thought he was going to start a fight with the jerks. What a hypocrite, calling Langa reckless like he's any better.

He'd claimed it wasn't a big deal when Langa had asked about it, but with how he had acted? Langa wasn't so sure.

And now he'd gotten away and wormed his way out of explaining again.

Once was odd. Twice is a pattern.

Langa is officially suspicious.

For something that 'wasn't a big deal', it seems like Reki really didn't want him to know. Unfortunately, that only makes him want to find out all the more. Reki being evasive isn't anything new, but it never leads to anything good.

And now that familiar, sinking feeling Langa always gets when he knows he's missing something important is starting to tug at his chest.

He's typing before he actively makes the decision to do so.

Google search: What is a love hotel?

Images instantly pop up on the screen. Lots of brightly lit, colorful hotel rooms -he knows what those are- lay out before him in perfect grid format. At a glance, though? Nothing looks too out of the ordinary.

The only thing that visibly sets them apart from regular hotels is that it looks like these sometimes have some sort of theme. A few of them look like aquariums. Others like planetariums. And a lot of them are just… really pink. Sure, it's a bit strange that anyone would want a theme for a place to sleep, but to each their own. Of course, some of them look more… extravagant than others, but that's not too surprising. A couple of them actually look kind of fun.

Briefly, he wonders if Reki had been telling him the truth -unlikely, but possible, he guesses- and he's overthinking it.

And then Langa leaves the images page and starts reading.

A few seconds later, and he really, really, wishes he hadn't.

—

A love hotel is a type of short-stay hotel found around the world operated primarily for the purpose of allowing guests privacy for sex. The name originates from "Hotel Love" in Osaka.

Wikipedia

—

And just like that, time freezes.

For a few seconds, he stands there, staring at the blunt jumble of words that, as clear as they are, won’t make sense in his brain. 

Is his translator broken? Did he search for the wrong thing? Did he actually fall asleep earlier and get trapped in a godawful dream? Is this some kind of joke?

But no matter how many times he scans the words, over and over and over, they refuse to change.

Something white hot and jagged pierces Langa’s lungs like a bullet. A rough, choked off gasp hits his ears and it takes him a second to realize it came from him.

What the hell?

Time starts to tick forward again when the phone nearly slips out of his hand and goes crashing against the tile floor. His hand clenches and he catches it by the skin of his teeth, but, somehow, he doesn't think that's what's got his pulse racing all of a sudden.

It's only a handful of words. A couple of sentences. But after reading them the world seems to tilt sideways. He has to dig his fingers into the edge of the counter to keep upright.

Okay.

So.

They were hotels. Basically regular hotels.

But for… sex.

Specifically for sex.

(In hindsight, it seems so obvious. It's practically in the name! Good god, Langa is so stupid.)

And Reki… had apparently been to one?

With Snake?

Which was…

Something hot blooms in Langa's chest, clawing at him from the inside.

What?

Why?

When?

How many times?

What?

Icy pins prickles at the back of Langa's neck as he remembers something else:

Reki, earlier that day in the dressing room, looking mortified, as well as drop-dead gorgeous in something more form-fitting than his usual baggy clothes. (Not that he was any less gorgeous in his usual attire, but damn, they didn't do him justice.)

Reki still, cute and flustered, trying to tug down the shirt, but not before Langa had gotten an eyeful of dark splotches that didn’t belong.

The worry Langa had felt, once he'd managed to get ahold of himself and stop ogling long enough to notice Reki trying to cover up the purple bruises smeared on his skin.

Bruises Langa doesn't remember him having before.

The glass in Langa's hand makes a crunchy, warning sound as a crack splinters across the side in a spiderweb of lines. He puts it down in the sink before it shatters completely. With nothing else to hold, he's forced to feel his pulse pounding in his bare fingertips.

No.

There's no way.

Right?

Had this been why Reki had gotten so shifty when Langa had seen the bruises on his stomach he'd kept hidden under his baggy clothes? Because they were from… that?

The thought has fire burning on his cheeks and ice gripping his stomach.

Here's the thing: Langa would be lying if he said he'd never thought about Reki in that way before. There have been a few nights (alright, more than a few) where he's woken from a dead sleep with sweat on his skin and Reki's name on his lips.

The thought that someone else could know what it was like to touch Reki the way Langa wanted to, had wanted to, for so long, makes something acidic burn in the pit of his stomach.

And Snake, of all people? The guy has to be almost thirty!

In a moment of panic, Langa freezes.

Maybe… could it be that Reki's just into older guys?

…

Okay, no. He's not even going to go there.

Pulse racing, Langa's moving before he can think better of it. He storms towards his front door, pausing only long enough to yank his shoes on, and honestly, he considers leaving without them. He can barely think over his mind whirling whirling whirling like a snowstorm.

Reki. Bruises. Snake. A love hotel?

Something -everything- is wrong wrong wrong about this whole thing, and he needs to find out what the hell is going on or he's going to lose his goddamn mind.

He swipes the keys to his scooter off of the dish by the door, and doesn’t feel bad in the slightest for letting it slam behind him  

(And… okay, maybe he's jumping to some pretty out-there conclusions with only a few scattered, incomplete pieces of information to go on. Maybe he's just sleep-deprived, completely off the mark, and it wasn't like that at all.)

(But, on the small, razor-thin, million-to-one chance it was?)

(Well, he had seen Reki first. That had to count for something.)

Chapter Text

At half past some ungodly hour or other, Langa finally pulls up to the Kyan house.

For the life of him, he doesn't really remember the ride over. But he'd made it without incident, and that's all that matters. He'd thank his lucky stars, but this is about Reki. He's sure the stars will understand. He'll find it in him to spare a moment of thanks that the only distracted driver on the road had been him, later.

He slows to a stop at the end of the driveway, despite the panic bouncing around the cavern of his skull that's made it near impossible to think. It's become an ingrained habit not to get any closer the times he comes by to sneak Reki out so they can go to S. Normally, this is as far as Langa goes at this time of night.

Picking him up is one thing, but after S, Reki is lethal. Even moreso than usual. He's already dangerous in the sunlight, but in the few, exhausted hours before dawn, he becomes all soft mumbles, sleepy smiles, and clingy hands. (Well, clingy everything, really. Sleep deprivation turns him into a damn koala and it's not good for Langa's health.) So late night tends to mean Langa getting him home and watching over him to make sure Reki stumbles into the right bedroom window -there have been some close calls in the past- but not from any further than here; his self-imposed boundary.

Too big a risk that he'll say or do something stupid.

(Or worse: Something honest.)

But tonight is miles behind what's normal, and he's wasted too much time as it is. It's not that long of a drive, but the pulse rushing in his ears, louder than the screeching wind as he flew down the paved roads getting here, made it feel like hours.

Tonight, Langa has barely rolled to a complete stop before he's twisting the keys and yanking them out of the ignition. The engine dies with a single, outraged sputter of protest and he scrambles off the scooter. He nearly face-plants when his foot catches on the front wheel, but manages to catch himself in the nick of time. He knocks the kickstand down with his foot and lets go of the handlebar. His scooter wobbles precariously, but it doesn't tip over. Good enough for him.

The house before him is dark, but Langa knows the way to Reki's room like he used to know his snowboard. With a familiarity that aches.

The same way he knows, after months of having the same argument time after time, that the window is most likely unlocked.

("So you're scared of ghosts, but not actual, potentially dangerous intruders?"

"I am not scared of ghosts! Besides, that's completely different, Langa."

"It's a safety issue, Reki."

"The better to sneak out with, my friend!"

"One of these days, someone is going to break in, I will say 'I told you so', and I won't even feel bad about it."

"That is a risk I am willing to take.")

If Langa knows Reki, and he does, at least it won't be a challenge to sneak past his family. He can cut straight to the finish line.

Mind locked on his goal, Langa finally, finally makes his way to Reki. The notion has a single stitch of the net that's currently squeezing the contents of his ribcage loosening, if only a fraction.

The window is unlocked. Of course it is.

A wry, humorless chuckle spills from Langa's lips, quickly melting into the quiet. He wishes he was surprised. It's not even all the way shut!

Soft snores drift through the two-inch gap between the bottom of the frame and the sill. Langa sends a quick prayer for patience but he's not expecting an answer. He knows Reki always leaves it open a bit on more humid nights like this one, but Langa had reached the end of his rope before he'd left his house. This is just the icing on the metaphorical cake.

With a heavy sigh, he lets go of the irritation for now, adding it to the list of things he fully intends to complain to Reki about, at length. He'll be getting quite the earful, to put it mildly.

For the briefest of moments, he considers simply opening Reki's window the rest of the way and letting himself in. It wouldn't be the first time. He's had practice following on Reki's heels when one -or both- of them are injured from a spill at the skatepark or a beef gone wrong, but not wrong enough to warrant a hospital visit. Ultimately though, he decides against it. He may be one spin of a skateboard wheel from losing his mind, but he's not a heathen. Crawling into someone's room while they're sleeping is just wrong.

Instead, he reaches out and raps his knuckles against the glass. Once. Twice. Three times. All in quick succession.

On the other side, Reki jolts mid-snore, sits bolt upright, and falls out of bed when he flails too far to the left. Because he's a drama queen like that.

Langa allows himself approximately three seconds to be amused at the sight before pushing up the window frame and sticking first his leg through, and then the rest of him; now completely free of any lingering guilt.

What?

Reki isn't sleeping, anymore.

The tangled heap of Reki on the floor scrambles onto his back, eyes full of panic, until they adjust and his open mouth goes slack with recognition. He blinks blearily.

"Langa?"

A single word. Just his name. But static zips down Langa's spine all the same. God, this might have been the worst idea he's ever had. (And that's saying something.)

Reki's voice is low and rough with sleep. A devastating difference from its usual light cheeriness. His hair is wild and even more unruly than usual without his headband pinning down his bangs. He always looks softer with his hair down. It's a problem. His dazed eyes, reflecting the stars in the sky shining through the window, are dilated in the darkness; magnifying them until they could easily hold galaxies. His t-shirt has also ridden up on his side, Langa can't help but observe. Objectively.

(It's actually Langa's t-shirt, he realizes once he registers the familiar logo of the band Reki claimed he didn't even like. Langa had been looking for that, dammit. When had Reki even found time to steal it since last week?)

The material is bunched up just right so Langa can't not notice the dip of his hipbone peeking over the top of his shorts and-

Good lord.

This is why Langa tries not to come here after midnight. Reki is dangerous. (Mostly for his self-control.)

However, while it is deeply painful on many counts, it is nothing new. Reki is always a hazard, whether he means to be or not, and Langa has gotten used to it. Mostly. So, he takes a breath, sneaks one more glance, and accepts the fact that this moment is going to be burned into his brain for the rest of eternity and there's nothing he can do about it. (Nor would he, if he's being honest.) Then, he gets over it.

Anyway, internal crisis aside, does Reki have to sound so surprised to see him?

"I was-"

"Shh!" Reki hisses at him, raising his pointer finger and pressing it against his lips.

"Oh," Langa says, keeping his voice quieter, now. "Right. Sorry." Sometimes, he forgets that so many other people live in Reki's house. Sounds weird.

Turning, he pushes the window frame down until it clicks shut. There. Better. "Were you expecting someone else?" He asks over his shoulder, eyebrow raised.

Sour discomfort stabs him in the gut as he realizes that may not be as outside the realm of possibility as he once thought. Jaw tight, he turns back around and holds out a hand to help Reki up off the floor before he can answer. He's not sure he wants to know.

Reki doesn't take it. "What are you doing here?" He asks, bewildered, but far less panicked than before.

"What are any of us doing here?" Langa shrugs, secretly hoping for a glimpse of that outraged wrinkle Reki gets on his forehead when Langa irritates him that he'll never admit he thinks is cute.

It has the desired effect. "Ha ha, smartass," Reki huffs.

Langa bites back a smile.

"I mean what are you doing here? In my room?"

Langa shrugs, again. "Can I just take this second to point out that I wouldn't have been able to get in if somebody would lock their window?" Channeling a sweet sereneness that is the opposite of everything he is right now. His arm is starting to feel stupid hovering in the air waiting for Reki, so he wiggles his fingers in a come on, already motion.

Reki finally takes the offered hand, although he looks less than impressed with it. Or maybe it's the guy attached to it. "Are you kidding me? Did you seriously break into my room to prove your point?" He asks incredulously.

Langa hauls him to his feet. It's surprisingly easy. Reki isn't light by any means. The hard work his best friend pours into both his skating and his homemade workshop has left him with plenty of muscle. A fact Langa is made agonizingly aware of every rare time he sees Reki out of his typical, oversized hoodie. But Langa is no daisy, either, and he accidentally puts too much strength into the pull.

Reki's foot catches at the abrupt move and he stumbles forward. He braces his hand against Langa's chest in a bid for balance and Langa's hand flies to his waist like a magnet to steady him.

Langa briefly wonders if it's possible to live without a heartbeat. But he figures he's about to find out either way, because his? Has just stopped.

Reki jerks when Langa touches him. He looks up, eyes and mouth round in shock. A small breath of a gasp sounds from somewhere in his throat, and like many other things about Reki, Langa knows it's going to haunt him.

For a few seconds, they stay frozen like that. (Personally, Langa would be more than content to remain exactly how they are, until the end of time. If not longer.)

But then Reki shifts awkwardly, and suddenly goes rigid when Langa’s hand presses against his side. Something that looks an awful lot like pain flashes across his face. He clenches his jaw, but not fast enough to trap the hiss behind his teeth.

All of the warm, gooey, fizzy bubbles that had been floating around in Langa's chest pop.

Fuck.

He's such a moron. The whole reason he'd come here in the first place was to check on Reki, and he'd almost forgotten! Too caught up in his own thoughts. Not paying the proper attention to the things that are important to him. Like always. He's a shitty friend; how could he ever have the audacity to ask Reki for more?

Reki coughs awkwardly and the moment passes.

Langa swallows hard and forces everything else down. He'll kick himself for being an idiotic airhead later.

Reki takes a step back; the tips of his ears glowing the faintest shade of red. Another critical hit Langa forces himself to ignore.

Reki's hand is warm. He's warm.

And someone else -someone that isn't Langa- might know that now, too.

Something fragile, possessive, and frightened inside Langa doesn't particularly want to let him go. Wants to hold on like a vice and beg Reki to choose him instead. But he does let go, and it feels like way too much of a loss for something so small.

"Wow," Reki laughs. It's a bit too breathless and strained for the casual vibe he's probably going for, but Langa can't call him out on it without being a hypocrite, so he doesn't. "Would you believe me if I said I forget how stubborn you are sometimes?"

Langa blinks. "Huh?" He asks, confused and admittedly still recovering from the previous closeness.

Reki lets out another strained laugh. "I get it, alright? Lesson learned. I'll shut the window from now on. So no more breaking and entering, please."

Oh, right.

Truthfully, Langa had already forgotten about his irritation with the stupid window and the stubborn boy who refuses to lock it properly. The questions eating at him had gone quiet for a while, but now they're back. This time, with a vengeance.

"That's good, but actually not why I'm here," Langa admits. His hand itches to reach out and take Reki's, again. He ignores it.

Reki frowns, and his head tilts to the side. A few strands of hair flop over the wrong way with the motion and it's so disarmingly cute Langa has to fight back a groan of despair. "Huh? Then, why…?"

Tension gnaws between Langa's shoulder blades. There's no good way to say this. So.

Might as well rip off the bandaid and dive right in.

"Reki, I need you to take your shirt off," he says, not bothering with preamble. He usually doesn't.

Predictably, Reki's eyes widen and his face explodes into red. "Dude?"

Langa cringes, wishing that Reki's floor could split open and let him fall beneath it never to be seen again. It would be a mercy.

In hindsight, there are now a million ways he could have gone about this better. But he's made his bed, and now he has no choice but to lie in it. One of these days, he really needs to start thinking before he speaks.

Reki, apparently, deduces that he has some kind of brain injury. Langa can't even fault him.

"Alright, what is with you tonight? Did you hit your head when you fell earlier? You do remember seeing me like, three hours ago, right? How many fingers am I holding up?" Reki demands, thrusting three fingers and waving them under Langa's nose while worry tugs at the corner of his mouth.

On instinct, more than anything else, Langa catches the hand in front of him and brings it down in between them.

"Bruises," he blurts, the wordsmith that he is.

Reki squints at him confusedly.

Langa isn't doing a very good job of convincing him that he hasn't gotten concussed, lately. Without meaning to, his fingers curl tighter around Reki's wrist. "You had bruises, earlier, and you brushed me off when I asked about them," he says, trying to hold back how much that stings.

He tells Reki everything. The reminder that Reki doesn't always do the same is a slap in the face.

Reki's wrist twitches under his palm, like he wants to pull away. Langa squeezes lightly.

He may be slow on the uptake, most of the time, but he learns from his failures. The last time he'd let Reki get away, it had broken them. He won't let that happen again.

He can't.

"But now I need to know. Reki, where did you get them?"

A startled noise slips past Reki's lips at finally being asked point-blank. His wrist jolts again but Langa holds fast, forcing himself to ignore the guilt gnawing at his insides. Reki, always in motion, doesn't like to be held down. But Langa can't take any chances, here.

Something apprehensive bleeds into Reki's eyes, clouding over the reflection of stars that had been in them moments ago.

"I…"

Langa's chest twinges at the way Reki's voice cracks on that single syllable.

All at once, Reki looks away, and goes completely, utterly still.

It's damning. It goes against the way movement is woven into every stitch of his skin. His leg bouncing when he's antsy or his fingers tapping when he's struck by an idea he needs to sketch out. Reki is never still.

Langa's heart sinks.

The boy in front of him discreetly takes a deep breath, and it laces tension back into his jaw. His shoulders. He blinks, and when his eyes open again it's like all the color has leaked out; leaving them dull without the spark that belongs there.

All the classic signs of a Reki that's beginning to shut down, Langa recognizes; a pit forming in his stomach.

"Look, bro," Reki says carefully, aiming for neutral but a bit too shaky to hit the mark.

And the thing that terrifies Langa the most is that, if he were anyone else, if he didn't know Reki as well as he did, he might have let it go. Might have missed the new, guarded edge that's wrapped itself around the words. The thought makes him queasy.

Reki pulls his wrist out of Langa's grasp, devastatingly gentle. Even now.

The pit widens.

"I already told you, I just went a little too overboard trying to learn a new jump," Reki says evenly.

Too evenly, Langa thinks. It sounds mechanical. Rehearsed.

Reki continues, "You may be some crazy genius prodigy, but mere mortals such as myself are sadly not immune to falling."

Langa couldn’t disagree more. Doesn’t Reki know by now that he’s the furthest thing from a genius? He thought they’d gotten past this. "I'm not either!" He wants to say. "Don't you get that the only reason I can skate at all is because you taught me? Because of the board you made for me?" He wants to scream, shout, take Reki by the shoulders and shake him until he understands that without him, everything falls apart.

But he doesn't.

(Why doesn't he?)

"So, like, thank you for worrying about me, but you really don't have to, man," Reki says, full of fake enthusiasm that's honestly an insult to his usual, vibrant passion. "I'm fine,"

If Langa had a nickel for every time he'd heard that.

But he still won't meet Langa's eyes.

He's still lying.

Why?

Why won’t Reki tell him?

Is he doing something wrong? Has he missed something vital and let something precious start slipping through his fingers again? He's been trying so hard to pay more attention, lately, but has he made another mistake? Or, could it be that he's really that untrustworthy? Is he so glaringly transparent in his ugly, vicious jealousy he has no right to feel that Reki is disgusted by him? Or is Langa simply that bad of a friend?

Whatever it is, it hurts.

Reki forces a smile that doesn't even come close to meeting his eyes. Frankly, it's painful to look at.

"And now it's like, three in the morning, and I'm really tired. You're obviously delusional. So, unless you've finally realized you can't resist my charms anymore and came to declare your undying love for me, I'm gonna have to say this can wait until tomorrow," he snarks. A pale imitation of a teasing grin quirks at his lips.

It's a joke.

Obviously, it's a joke. One meant to distract him, most likely, and damn if it doesn't almost work.

In spite of himself, Langa's face heats. But he bites his tongue and doesn't rise to the obvious bait. He came here with a purpose, dammit, and Reki will not get away with distracting him. Again.

The whirling storm of emotions wreaking havoc inside his chest calms a little as it settles on one: anger.

So that's how Reki wants to play it?

Fine.

"Are you embarrassed because they're from Snake?" Langa grits out, not quite managing to keep the bitter, clipped note out of his voice. "From the Love Hotel?" The question tastes like poison, burning and accusatory on his tongue.

That seems to throw Reki for a loop, and the mask he had been stubbornly clinging to cracks dangerously. His shoulders twitch and his gaze snaps up, meeting Langa's for the first time in several minutes. Color tints high in his cheeks and something sharp claws into something soft behind Langa's rib cage. "Uh, what? I thought- you said that didn't know what that was-" he sputters, stumbling over his words, higher pitched than usual and more than a little panicky.

"I googled it," Langa states, belatedly realizing that he probably should have mentioned that sooner. Oh well. He's been a little preoccupied. "I was tired of you dodging my question, but I guess now I kind of get it." He cringes at how petty and… whiny his voice grates. He sounds like a petulant child. Worse, he feels like one, too.

As if the admission had been a spell, in a blink, the facade Reki had been hiding behind completely crumbles. He grimaces awkwardly, that way he does when he's embarrassed. His eyes lose most of that strange, cautious tint they'd taken on that doesn't suit him at all, and they start reflecting the stars again. He looks almost like his normal self.

A thread that had been pulled tight loosens in Langa's chest.

Reki lets out a long, mortified groan. "Oh my god, I can't believe you actually looked it up," he complains, covering his face with his hands. "Is that why you've been acting so weird?" He mumbles, voice muffled behind his palms. The tips of his ears are red where they poke through his mane of fiery hair that's even messier than normal from sleep.

Cute, Langa's stupid, tired gay brain provides. He tells it to shut up. Priorities.

Right.

"Reki," Langa pleads. Trying to get his best friend to focus is like pulling teeth, sometimes. "I know it's embarrassing, and I know this isn't my place to pry, but I'm worried about you. Is that where the bruises are from? Did… did you and him… did Snake give them to you?" He asks again, and it feels like a vital, horribly fundamental piece of himself is depending on Reki's answer.

If…

If it is like that, then he has no business judging or complaining. If this turns into another one of those things, where Langa only realizes he's lost something he should have cherished better once it's too late, he'll have no one but himself to blame for moving too slow, like always.

Sure, he'd thought… he thought he and Reki were… something. But. Well.

If Reki didn't, then that was neither here nor there, and he will respect that.

(His insides clench all the same.)

Finally, Reki looks at him again, eyes startled. "What?" He squeaks, sounding appalled. "No!" He whisper yells.

Oh thank god.

Langa has done nothing whatsoever to earn it, but he can't help the hot rush of relief that rushes through him all the same.

Unfortunately, it’s short-lived.

"At least, not all of them?" Reki tacks on under his breath, a little too stilted to suit the strained chuckle he forces along with the words.

Something cold trickles back into Langa's veins.

Dammit.

But Reki keeps going before he can ask him to clarify on that frustratingly vague admission. So did he or not? The back and forth is giving Langa whiplash.

He pins Langa with a fierce glare, although the effect is somewhat marred by hands he places on his hips and the outraged flush staining his puffed-up cheeks.

Langa fights off the urge to poke them, but the temptation has his hand twitching nonetheless. Reki is distressingly adorable when he gets mad, and impulse control is not Langa's strong suit.

"Oh my god, did you actually think I hooked up with Snake?" Reki asks, looking, thankfully, horrified as he unknowingly echoes Langa's earlier sentiments.

Heat washes over Langa's cheeks, while guilt chills the back of his neck. "No comment," he mumbles, ashamed, elated, and too many other emotions at once to name. For the first time since he'd seen those few damning sentences in bold at the top of his screen, he can breathe deeply again.

Reki isn't fooled, though. Somehow, he always knows what Langa's really thinking. It's as much of a good thing as it is bad, considering Langa himself has no idea how the hell his brain works most of the time.

"The guy's like thirty!" Reki pauses and chews on the corner of his lip for a moment. "Which, okay, not exactly a deal breaker, but not him!"

A tiny burst of surprised static jolts through Langa's heart.

What does he mean, not a deal breaker? Did he actually-

Nope. No, focus, Hasegawa.

With great difficulty, Langa bites his tongue. He'll… unpack that later.

Probably.

But, as grateful as Langa is to know Snake hasn't beaten him to the punch as he'd thought, something is still off.

"But, if it wasn't for-" Langa's stomach flips- "that," he forces out, "then why were you at a love hotel with him?" That part won't click, not that he particularly wants it to.

And just like that, the red tint drains out of Reki's cheeks.

Apprehension and the numbing, brittle awareness that he's said something wrong crawls up Langa's spine.

Reki's jaw tightens. He lets his hands fall from where they'd been propped on his hips, and once again he looks away.

Not quick enough, though. Langa catches a glimpse of emotion, dark and fervent, flash in his eyes. The apprehension grows when he recognizes it.

Fear.

He can count on one hand the number of times he's seen Reki scared. (of Adam. Of being left behind. Of Langa?) Each had been one too many. But, this doesn't seem like the shallow fear he gets when Miya or Shadow tells a ghost story. This feels… bad.

Reki's fingers wrap around his wrist (a nervous tic he has). "Don't worry about it," he mutters.

And if there was anything that could have possibly worried Langa more, it's hearing Reki say that. That old, achingly familiar realization of missing something important seeps into his bones.

"Reki," Langa starts, trying his best to sort out his jumble of thoughts. The puzzle in front of him is massive, broken, and frustratingly incomplete, but a piece of it falls into place anyway. "If they're not from Snake," he says slowly, chest bottoming out and leaving it a struggle to breathe, "then where did you get all those bruises."

Reki visibly stiffens.

It's all the confirmation Langa needs. He knows he's overlooked something again, but the what keeps eluding him, dancing out of his reach. If Reki would tell him, then he could-

"I already told you, I fell," Reki breathes lowly, a touch too wobbly to be convincing. "I wanted to nail a jump, and I couldn't. Alright? Just because you're so perfect and talented doesn't mean I am!"

Irritation sparks under Langa's fingernails. Why does Reki always make things so difficult? Why can he never just let Langa in? "And I already told you to stop with that lame-ass excuse," he snaps, more harsh than he'd intended.

He can see Reki's hackles rise.

Too bad. Langa learns by example, and this is what Reki has given him. If this is how he wants to lead, then Langa is more than happy to oblige. "You're the only one who believes it. You think you're not as good as me?" He scoffs. The mere thought is laughable. "You only picked up skateboarding a couple of years ago and you're amazing. But I have been snowboarding since I was two years old. Try again."

Reki's shoulders hunch, like he's trying to shrink in on himself. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, floundering for words and coming up empty.

But Langa is officially out of patience, and he is nothing if not persistent.

"Let me see."

Reki jerks, snapping his head to look at Langa with wide eyes. Evidently, he's picked up on the fact that it wasn't exactly a request. "Excuse me?"

Langa doesn't waver. Doesn't blink. "You heard me," he says evenly.

Before he's even finished speaking, Reki is vigorously shaking his head. "No, dude," he says, taking a step back. "It's ugly. And you're squeamish. The last thing I need is you passing out here," he says firmly, but the undercurrent of nervousness works against him.

Langa takes a step forward. As stubborn and bullheaded as he was, it took a lot for Reki to label an injury as 'ugly'. Which meant that, whatever Langa had been imagining, it was probably, definitely worse. Fantastic.

Reki takes another step, and gasps when his back hits the wall behind him. Alarm flares in his eyes when he notices that he has nowhere to go.

Langa steps forward, and he's almost close enough to reach out and-

Reki frantically raises his arms, waving them in front of his body like he's trying to ward off an evil spirit. "Langa, come on," he says, high and strained and scared. "It's really not-"

Enough is enough. Langa can't stand to hear another lie.

"Reki, please."

Reki's hands freeze in front of him, and his eyes and mouth go round with shock. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why.

The burning pressure behind Langa's eyes has boiled over, leaving a few hot, scattered tears to slip down his face before he can force them back.

Fuck.

As if this whole thing wasn’t humiliating enough.

"Langa," Reki whispers, ragged and horrified.

Langa shakes his head, and furiously scrubs his eyes with the back of his hand. He's not sure who's more surprised; Reki, or himself. He hasn't cried since the funeral. He can't say he's missed it.

Reki swallows and a tiny, wounded noise escapes him. His hands lower to his side and all of the fight drains out of him like a popped balloon. "Alright," he surrenders. "Alright."

It should feel like a victory.

It doesn't.

But Langa is worried, and he's exhausted. He'll take what he can get.

Hesitantly peeling himself away from the wall, Reki begins to pace. Another nervous habit he has, Langa knows, after countless hours of watching him do it while stressing about a test, a beef, or a new design he wants to try on Langa's board.

Just looking at him makes Langa feel even more drained, until Reki abruptly halts, whirling on his heel. "Can you like, sit down, or something?" He asks, fingers curling around the hem of his shirt.

Considering how Langa had to fight tooth and nail just to get to this point, he doesn't want to push his luck. He sits down, perching himself on his usual spot at the foot of Reki's bed.

But, rather than calming him, it only appears to push more tendrils of tension back into the lines of Reki's body. He breathes in deeply and doesn't appear to let it out. "Okay, first things first," he says, although, once again, he won't meet Langa's gaze.

Dread creeps up the back of Langa's neck.

Reki's knuckles are pale where they grip the hem of his shirt. "I'm telling you right now, this is not as bad as it looks."

The dread creeps higher. Coming from Reki, that is quite possibly the least comforting thing he could have said. But Langa keeps his mouth shut. Because he's scared that if he doesn't, Reki will dodge or deflect his way out of this again and they'll be right back at square one.

Langa doesn't want to be in the dark anymore. He has to know.

Reki starts to lift the shirt, but pauses briefly; biting the corner of his bottom lip so badly Langa worries he's going to make himself bleed. "Please don't freak out," he whispers, tentative and small. Things he never is and should never be.

Langa stays silent. They both know he can't guarantee that, and he's been trying to avoid making promises he can't keep since last time.

And the second Reki's shirt is over his shoulder, he's glad he hadn't.

Once, when he had first moved to Okinawa, first met Reki, and first started learning how to skateboard, he had sailed smack into a rail at the park. He hadn't gotten the hang of turning, yet. He'd pulled left when he meant to go right and the bar had caught him in the gut before he could say 'Oh, shit'. It was different from wiping out on a snowboard. At least snow was softer than concrete. But even after years of flying high, and the unfortunate inevitability of crashing back down, he had never had the wind knocked out of him so badly in his life.

This is like that. But worse.

Because, in a way, Reki had been telling the truth. It wasn't bad.

It was horrible.

Langa forgets how to breathe.

Black. Blue. Purple. Red. It looks, more or less, like someone had taken a bat and tried to set a new record of home runs.

Using Reki's skin.

Langa's chest begins to burn. He vaguely recalls that he needs air, but he can't force himself to breathe.

They'd looked bad enough from the glimpse Langa had inadvertently caught earlier. But that hadn't even begun to scratch the surface. Because this?

Bile rises at the back of Langa's throat.

Dark, brutal splotches cover most of Reki's torso. Indigo shadows ringed in a pasty, sickly-looking yellow at the edges. The worst of it is on his stomach. That's where the bruises stained the darkest. But there are some stray ones littered on his shoulder. One that shadows his entire right side. A couple of dark spots right above his hip.

They were everywhere.

"What happened?" Langa breathes, cracking the thick silence that had fallen between them. The words leave something bleeding and hollow behind when they finally tear themselves from his throat. He reaches out, hand hovering over the bruise on Reki's side, but pulls it back before he does something stupid; like touch him. God, how was Reki walking around like this?

Reki quickly pulls the shirt back on and lets it fall back into place, but Langa can still see them. Each savage blemish is seared into his mind.

"It was weeks ago, okay?" Reki says, as if that doesn't make it worse. "I always heal rough. You know that. It looks worse than it is. I'm fine."

Icy rage and horror twist Langa's stomach in knots. Terror sings in his blood.

Weeks ago?

Weeks ago?

What the fuck?

And he hadn't said a word? To anybody? To Langa?

Cold, unsurprised bitterness swells in his throat.

No, of course he hadn't.

The anger beats the fear. "Bullshit!" Langa hisses, trying his best to keep his tone down but jesus, does he want to scream. "Don't give me that crap, Reki. You're a fucking Van Gogh painting!"

Reki cringes. His shoulders hunch up, and for a moment, he looks for all the world like a child who's gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

For some reason, that only makes Langa angrier. Where the hell does he get off acting like this is no big deal? Does he think this is some kind of game?

"For gods sake," Langa growls, pushing his hair back with his hand because if he doesn't keep them occupied he's going to break something. "You look like you got hit by a car!"

He expects Reki to argue. To deny. To brush it off as he's so infuriatingly insistent on doing. He does not expect it when Reki flinches, hard, curling his arms against his chest like a shield as guilt sweeps across his features.

Everything inside Langa crawls to a stop.

Oh, god. Please, please do not let Reki be trying to say what Langa thinks he is.

But god has not been merciful to Langa in the past, and he isn't now.

"Um," Reki says; hesitant, shaky, devastating. "I… kind of… was?"

Everything around him turns to static.

What.

The.

Fuck.

Langa thinks it's funny so many people call him Snow. Because right now he feels more like glass, falling through air and seconds away from shattering.

Reki eyes him warily, tensing as if bracing himself. But for the first time all night, there's nothing but terrible, raw honesty on his face.

Something cracks behind Langa's ribs.

So, it's not some sick joke. Not a misunderstanding.

Some guttural noise tears out of Langa's throat. Unable to think, to breathe, he feels his body jerk forward and grab Reki's shoulders, clutching him like a lifeline.

Reki winces, shrinking into himself, and screws his eyes shut.

So many questions jumble up in Langa's head all at once, but his throat is too tight for any of them to get out.

What? When? How long ago? Who the fuck did it? Why the hell hadn't Reki said anything?

Daring to open his eyes, Reki's face twists in panic at whatever face Langa is making. The gold of his eyes glimmers in concern and the world shifts the tiniest smidge back into focus. "I'm sorry- shit, that's not what I meant, that makes it sound really bad-"

Langa pushes him back brusquely. (Carefully, though. Reki does not need another mark for his horridly vast collection.) It's a struggle to find his voice, but while he fights to get it back, he doesn't let go of Reki's shoulders. He can't. No more of this beating around the bush bullshit. Reki needs to explain or Langa's going to lose it.

"Start from the beginning. Right now. Tell me everything or I swear to god I will murder you," he vows, made darker than he'd meant by the note of unhinged hysteria he can't keep down.

It's an empty threat and they both know it. Still, Reki is disturbingly unbothered by it. "Everything?" He squeaks.

Langa nods. "Everything."

Reki's face pulls into a grimace, like that was the one thing he'd been hoping Langa wouldn't ask him for.

Tough. Langa doesn't see how it could possibly get any worse.

…

Okay, he can, but he doesn't want to.

But then Reki starts to speak, and paying attention has never come naturally to Langa, but with Reki, it does.

"Okay." Reki takes a deep breath. "Okay." He lets it out.

Langa waits.

Not long ago his world had sunken into the snow itself -shades of dull gray, blinding white, and so, so cold- and there had been nothing.

And then there had been Reki.

Reki, who had brought color, excitement, and fun back into his life. Reki, who had been the first person who was able to make him genuinely laugh after Dad. Who had given Langa a reason to smile when he thought he never would again.

And now Langa knows that he could have lost Reki, lost someone else he loved in less than the blink of an eye, and he wouldn't have even known because Reki hadn't told him.

Just the possibility has Langa's blood turning to ice and his fingers curling tighter over Reki's shoulders.

Not again.

Not him.

He can't.

"Uh, yeah, so," Reki begins gracelessly, as he always does when he's nervous. "Basically, a lot happened when we-" he cuts himself off, waving his hand through the air as if conjuring the words he's searching for.

Langa's pretty sure he can make an educated guess, though.

"When we were… not… talking," Reki finishes weakly, staring stubbornly at a poster on the wall across from them.

Pain spikes through Langa's chest. He does his best to breathe through it. Yeah, that's what he thought.

In a way, it checks out. No way any of this heinous bullshit would have gone down under his nose under ordinary circumstances. He was practically attached to Reki by the hip. He would have noticed.

(But wasn't it terrifying that no one else had?)

And now, Reki's gone quiet, watching for his reaction, but Langa has gotten nowhere near enough information yet. So, he just nods, prompting Reki to continue.

Reluctantly, Reki does. "Anyway," he barrels ahead, trying to sweep the unpleasant reminder under the proverbial rug. It wasn't a happy time for either of them, but he dislikes thinking about their fight probably more than Langa, which is saying something. "The day Shadow got attacked, right before Manager Oka found me and told me, I got jumped by these jackasses I used to hang out with," he says, face scrunching in annoyance as if it were nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

Alarm courses through Langa's veins and his grip tightens on Reki's shoulders. Christ almighty. Of all the things he'd expected, that had not been on the list. It explained why he looked like he'd lost a fight with a batting cage, but when had he found the time to get jumped? How did this keep getting worse?

He opens his mouth to- well, he's not sure what, but something. But then Reki taps his foot against Langa's ankle warningly, and he doesn't. Patience is not a virtue of his, but the alternative is Reki clamming up again and keeping Langa in the dark. Which meant that there wasn't an alternative at all.

Seeing that Langa was no longer going to interject, Reki continues. "As soon as I heard that Shadow was hurt, I went to the hospital to see him, but-" he bites his lip, looking firmly at his feet.

Langa makes another educated guess. "But I was there?" He asks flatly. It's not really a question.

Reki nods, shame coloring his face. "Yeah," he croaks softly. "I… wasn't ready to see you, so I left."

Something slimy curls in Langa's stomach. He knew he'd seen Reki that day! Hurt at the revelation that Reki had, literally run away from him pangs through his chest.

But the past is in the past, and it does him no good to hold onto it. Langa sighs deeply through his nose and lets it go.

(Well, most of it.)

Reki observes him with guilt etched into every line of his features, but Langa merely waves him along promptingly. They still hadn't even gotten to the best part, yet.

Sheepishly, Reki obliges. "And on my way out I ran into Miya, and I was already kind of losing it so acted like a jerk and ignored him." His fingers dig into his palms as regret tugs his lips into a frown. "I still need to apologize to him for that."

Another misshapen puzzle piece clicks into place. Langa had been wondering why Miya was snapping at Reki so much more than usual. Not that the emotionally stunted preteen was ever not being snarky with him, but the bite behind it had been a lot harsher, lately.

"And then while I was running away like a complete douchebag," Reki huffs a self-deprecating laugh that Langa despises the sound of. "I, naturally, didn't look where I was going and-" he stops short, a small, shuddering breath passing through him that Langa would have missed if his palms weren't glued to Reki's shoulders. His hand flutters up for a moment, hovering over the now covered bruise on his side. The biggest out of all of them.

Langa scowls. He fills in the rest of the blanks on his own. Everything finally makes some twisted, terrible kind of sense, now.

Reki drops his hand and sucks in a breath. "And, yeah," he says brightly, wearing a wide, strained grin. "That's pretty much it!"

The false, cheery words fall flat and melt into the new silence of the room.

Langa stares at him, aghast. Did Reki seriously think that he was satisfied, yet?

Evidently, he does, because Reki shifts under Langa's palms, like he's trying to slip out of his grasp.

Langa holds fast. He has no intention of letting him do so. There is… so much to unpack, here. He doesn't even know where to start.

From the top, he guesses.

"You got jumped?"

Reki blinks. The stretched smile falls from his face. "Uh, yeah?"

Langa waits.

Reki does not elaborate.

For gods sake. Langa fights off the impulse to shake him. Pulling teeth would have been less painful than whatever this was. "One person did all that?" He demands, glancing at Reki's torso doubtfully.

Reki snorts. Langa's stomach twists. "Oh please, I could have handled one of them," he boasts, smiling sardonically.

Langa doesn't find it quite as funny. "How many of them were there?" He grits out. He's not sure he wants to know, but it feels important that he does. So.

Reki has to stop and think about it.

That in itself is enough to let Langa know he isn't going to like the answer.

He doesn't.

"Um, probably… four? Five?" Reki decides, frowning uncertainly. "I dunno, bro. I didn't exactly have time to do a headcount," he says wryly. "All I remember is that it took me five showers before I stopped smelling like an alley," he complains.

Langa counts to three in his head, trying to keep a hold of the loose grasp he still has on his calm.

It doesn't work.

A sickening image of Reki -bright, shining Reki- who wore his heart on his sleeve, who met every challenge with breathtaking enthusiasm, and who loved everything around him with a fierce, burning passion that was sometimes too big for his body flickers into Langa's mind.

Him being pushed around, being hurt, by a group of sadistic, faceless bastards. Him being left injured, broken, and alone in some alleyway. Like a piece of trash.

Rage, disgust, and a light sting of betrayal pricks at him. Not only at Reki, now, but at Oka, too.

One thing that Langa and Oka were both painfully aware of, that Langa wasn’t sure if anyone else knew, was that Reki drew trouble like a damn magnet. It was baffling how easily it seemed to find him, even when he wasn’t actively looking for it. Day or night, rain or shine, he rarely caught a break.

Beefs. Teachers who saw him -his bright hair, his baggy clothes, his distant eyes during lessons- and punished him for every minor infraction, while his grades were still better than Langa’s. Snobs who glared at him when he got too excited. Angry, pissy customers hellbent on taking out their frustration on the first person they saw. At times, it felt like keeping Reki out of trouble was more of an extreme sport than snowboarding had ever been  

Langa had thought that he and Oka had a mutual, if unspoken agreement to work together in keeping an eye out to protect their common, misfortuned, red-headed interest. But apparently not. Because Oka had known and hadn't said a word to him. He'd told Langa to give him space when he’d been hurting and-

and…

And if Langa continues to think about this he's going to combust. So. Moving on.

"And then, after he hit you with his car, Snake took you to a love hotel?" He asks, ignoring another surge of hot, ugly jealousy that washes through him. Reki, conveniently, had left that little tidbit out of his explanation, and it’s the only piece of the puzzle that still isn't falling into place for him.

Reki shifts cagily under Langa's hands, and fixes his gaze on another one of his posters. "Yeah," he says brusquely, again hellbent on not providing any further details. Telling, for someone who typically has so much to say.

If he wasn't one of Langa's favorite people in the world, he would strangle him. "Why?" he presses. “Weren’t you right outside the hospital? What possible reason did he have to take you there? Why did you go with him?”

Reki's jaw clenches, staying stubbornly shut.

Frustration flickers in his chest. Yeah, no, Langa's gonna throttle him. "Reki," he says firmly. He's aiming for neutral, but there's too much heat behind it and it comes out like a snap.

Reki cringes, looking at him briefly, before his eyes cloud over and dart away once again. He still won't say anything.

Hopelessness claws underneath Langa's skin. "Come on, don't go quiet on me now," he all but begs. He'd be embarrassed, but his pride means less than nothing to him at the moment. "Talk to me. Please."

Reki exhales, a small, pained thing, and shakes his head.

Concern, anger, and the beginnings of fear swirl disorientingly in Langa's head. All he wants is to help Reki like Reki is always helping him. Why won't Reki let him?

The last thread of Langa’s patience doesn’t so much as break as it does incinerate.

He’s angry, tired, and desperate. All of the rest gets dreadfully, horrendously lost in translation  

Langa makes the mistake of speaking without thinking first. It's an affliction he's carried since he was a child, and it's unlikely he'll cure it anytime soon.

"What?” He stupidly lets the hot anger win. “What is it?” He leans down and gives Reki no choice but to look at him.

Those amber eyes bore into his, and there’s so much agony there it’s sickening. Langa’s mouth moves faster than he can shut it.

“Did he bribe you? Promise to give you a new skateboard if you were a good boy and didn't tell anybody?" He spits tauntingly, daring Reki to deny it. To confirm it. To say anything. His venomous tone hits his own ears like a knife.

Reki goes rigid under his fingers.

Langa wants to kick himself.

He doesn't mean it. It's low, petty, and cruel. Spurred on by nothing but exhaustion, worry, and the rash remnants of a childish jealousy he can't seem to shake no matter how hard he tries. And he can't stop.

"I thought you were smarter than that."

He wants to take it back as soon as he's said it. But unfortunately, that's not how words work.

Reki wrenches himself out of Langa's grip. Betrayal, hurt, and outrage shine in his eyes.

Langa is the worst person, the worst friend on the planet.

"What is your problem?" Reki whispers, and his voice cracks on the last word; taking one of Langa's heartstrings with it. The quiet shock on his face sharpens to anger. "That's not what happened at all!"

Langa's hands ache to reach out again, but even he isn't stupid enough to think that would go over well after he so royally fucked up. He'll be lucky if Reki ever lets Langa touch him again, after being such a stupid jackass. He keeps his hands to himself. It isn't easy, but he's had lots of practice. "Then explain it to me," he pleads. "Because I cannot think of one good reason why you would have just gone with him to somewhere like that."

Fury blazes in Reki's eyes as he snaps his arm out to grab two fistfuls of Langa's shirt. Langa's heart does a backflip, but it becomes apparent that it was only so Reki could shove him away by the chest. He's not weak, by any means, but it isn't enough to make Langa move.

That only seems to make Reki angrier. "I did not just go with him!" He seethes, with the same defensiveness he uses when someone insults Langa, or one of their friends. Langa's never heard him use it for himself.

But Langa doesn't have time to be confused.

Because Reki glares at him with all the wildness of a cornered, feral animal.

"I was unconscious, you ass!"

And the world stops spinning.

Langa's vision goes blurry around the edges. All the sound fades away, leaving nothing but Reki's harsh, ragged breaths and Langa's own painful, pounding pulse ringing in his ears. The silence, vaguely, reminds him of the aftermath of a bad blizzard.

Everything inside of him just…

Freezes.

Reki shakes in front of him. Though whether from anger or something else, Langa couldn't say.

He couldn't say much of anything. Not if his life depended on it, which it just might.

"What?" He finally croaks, ragged and brittle, breaking the ice that had enveloped them.

Reki stops shaking. Realizing what he'd said, all of the blood drains from his face in a blink. "Oh fuck," he says, so softly it's barely a sound. He folds his arms around his stomach, like he can keep the words pressed in if he keeps them wrapped tight enough.

This time, Langa can't stop himself from moving closer and carefully laying his hands back on Reki's shoulders.

Reki doesn't lash out at him, which would have been warranted. Doesn't fight him on it. Doesn't do anything.

Langa almost wishes he would. "Reki, what?" He says, a broken record while he scrambles for words and comes up empty.

Reki winces. "I just woke up there, alright?" He slumps, shrinking in on himself. "Can we please drop this, now?"

Jesus christ.

Langa was a hopeless idiot. He'd figured Reki was hiding something, but he hadn't thought-

Well. That was it. He hadn't thought.

But this was so, so much worse than what he'd been imagining.

Reki has stopped looking at him, again.

"Did-" Langa forces, throat thick. "Did he do something to you?" He almost can't bear to ask.

Reki looks up at that, and his eyes -his eyes- glimmer with fear and uncertainty.

Dear god. Langa is going to be sick.

"I… I don't… know?"

Langa inhales sharply.

Reki tenses again and immediately tries to backtrack. "I mean, I don't think so?" He says. It's extremely unconvincing. "I barely know him, but, like, he didn't seem like a bad guy. And I didn't feel weird when I woke up?" He's speaking too quickly, stumbling in his haste to smooth over this petrifying admission. "I-" he falters. "If he- I would… know. Right?"

Langa's heart pangs at the desperate, searching look Reki gives him; a breath away from shattering completely.

How?

How did he get this so wrong?

How does he fix it?

He didn't understand how anybody could hurt this boy. He hated himself enough for doing it unintentionally. How anyone could look at Reki- his crooked smile. His messy red hair that glowed at sunset. How he secretly cried when he heard a certain cartoon theme song (because he used to watch with his sister, but then she’d grown out of it, and watching cartoons with her brother)- and not feel the same urge to keep him safe, away from any harm that Langa did.

But so many people had hurt him. Had left him battered and bruised and with an uncertainty that would never be fully assuaged. Fine, Snake probably hadn’t done anything, but no one would ever be sure  

Reki would never be sure  

And though Snake most likely hadn’t, the worst part was that he could have. He, or those other cretins who had attacked Reki, could have broken him; scarred him in terrible, unspeakable, unforgivable ways.

And Langa. Hadn't. Known.

Nausea grips at his stomach and swelters under his skin. He needs to do better.

Even now, he's taken too long to answer. Reki starts pulling away from him again, leaving a gaping, painful wound against Langa where he'd been.

"Anyway, I'm just being dramatic. It's fine," he says, empty and strained and wrong.

Instantly, another spark of anger ignites and blares into an inferno. Flames of it lick up the sides of Langa's arms, down the back of his neck, and he burns; the hot waves of fury cracking the ice that had formed around his heart.

Langa had only seen his father angry once in his life; when his uncle had insulted his mother.

His father's side of the family had never really liked Mom. She was too boisterous and enthusiastic. Too loud and clumsy. Too Japanese. They'd never said as much, but they hadn't had to. It was plain as the snow on a mountaintop.

Then, one day, his uncle had sneered something cruel under his breath. Mom had gone pale, and his dad, always gentle, always smiling, had punched him in the face.

At the time, Langa hadn't understood. Dad had always been so kind, so loving and patient. Even with Langa, back when he had struggled so hard to understand things that should have been basic. And he had done his best to teach Langa that a man didn't have to use his fists to be strong. So why, then, had it been so seemingly easy for him to go back on his word?

Langa hadn't grasped it when he was eight.

But now?

Now he gets it.

How is any of this fine?

"You really think that. Don't you."

Reki glares determinedly at the floor and doesn't answer.

Langa's heart bleeds. He wants to scream. Why doesn't Reki get it? "What if it had been anybody else?" He tries, cold desperation hardening his voice. "What if it had been Miya? Or Koyomi?"

Reki reels back like Langa had struck him. To be fair, he might as well have. And it was a low blow. "That's not the same thing," he refutes, jagged and sore. "What the fuck, dude? They’re children,” he says, like he isn’t barely older than sixteen. “Why would you even say that?"

"Because I don't know how else to make you understand! When is it not fine, Reki?"

Reki's breath hitches.

Langa takes a mile for the inch he's been given. "Explain to me why it only matters if it's not you."

Reki flinches, looking up and meeting Langa's gaze with wide, panicked eyes. "Langa," he says warningly, unwrapping his arms from around himself to let his hands latch onto Langa's elbows.

But Langa keeps going. He needs this to stick. He needs Reki to get it through his brilliant, stubborn, thick head. "What do I have to do to make you see how important you are to me?"

A low whine pulls from Reki's throat. His fingers clench tighter around Langa's arms. "Langa, that's enough," he pleads.

If it were, they wouldn't be having this conversation to begin with. "These things that happened to you were… awful." Another slimy shudder of dread passes through him. He holds Reki's gaze fiercely, ignoring the way his vision is starting to blur threateningly again. "And you've kept them to yourself for weeks now! But you can't just brush them off just because it was you."

Reki exhales another painful, small noise. "No," he shakes his head. "That's not- I wasn't trying to-" he stops.

And that was the thing, wasn't it? Langa believed him. Reki wasn't doing it on purpose, and didn't that just make it so much worse? "You matter, Reki," Langa says. He'll say it a hundred times. A thousand. However many it takes for it to process.

Reki clutches at him like he's drowning. "Langa-"

"To your family. Your friends. To me."

"Langa-"

"The only one who doesn't see how amazing you are is you."

"Langa, I can't-"

"We care about you," Langa says, begging Reki to understand. To believe him. "I care about you. I-"

"Langa, stop."

Langa stops.

Not because he wants to -he still has so much more he wants to say- but because Reki has begun breathing in quiet little gasps and hot, large tears have started rolling down his face.

Langa's stomach plummets to the floor.

"Please," Reki rasps, almost inaudible over the sound of Langa's heart breaking for him. "I don't… I'm sorry- I," his voice fails him. He lifts his hands and presses his palms against his mouth to muffle the small, but violent sobs wracking through his body.

Langa feels a few anguished tears slide down his own face. Tentatively, he pulls Reki closer, and if he slaps him in the face Langa will have more than earned it. He doesn't know what else to do, but he has to do something.

Thankfully, Reki goes willingly when Langa tugs him into his arms.

The hollow, jagged space that had been nothing but worry and fear for the most important person in his life begins to stitch back in crooked, imperfect lines in Langa's chest. It hurts, trying to hold Reki together with nothing but his own awkward, indelicate hands, but it's a pain Langa is grateful to bear.

Reki trembles against him.

Langa holds tighter. He wonders if this is what it feels like to watch the universe crumble.

Reki, Reki, Reki, his mind chants on a loop.

He was always so worried about everyone but himself. It was as endearing as it was worrying. Look away from him for a second, and god only knew what trouble would somehow find him. What terrible things he would keep to himself.

But Langa's not going to let that happen anymore.

Ever.

If he has to never take his eyes off of Reki again to accomplish that?

Well. There were far worse fates.

Eventually, Reki's tears slow, and his shaking eases to lighter, shivering tremors.

A little bit longer, and those cease, too.

Langa says nothing, while he waits for Reki to regain his composure. They have infinity, don't they? It's not like they need to be in a rush.

"Sorry," is, predictably, Reki's first word after he finally finds his voice. The single word comes out raw. Wrecked.

Langa's throat stings in sympathy. He shakes his head. "If anyone should be saying that here, it's me," he says firmly. "I said terrible things to you and I was way out of line, earlier."

Reki laughs. A small, precious thing that sends warmth pooling in Langa's chest. "When aren't you?" He asks, a fragile echo of his usual sass.

Little brat. Menace.

But, he is Langa's favorite menace, so there's not much he can do about it. Still, there's something he needs to make clear, and he gently pushes Reki back to look him in the eye.

Reki blinks up at him, confused.

Something in Langa’s chest flutters. He ignores it, and how hopelessly gone he is for this boy. Priorities. "I know I came on too strong, but I did mean what I said. You don't get to worry about everyone else and not let me… or anyone, worry about you back. Okay? That's not how this works, Reki."

Reki's breath gives another small hitch. If Langa weren't nearly plastered against him at this point, he probably wouldn't have noticed. He shakes his head, and the movement of his wild hair tickles Langa's neck. But he's not ready to let go, so he simply leans further into the fiery tufts of hair.

"I'm sorry-"

Langa's gonna stop him right there. "If you apologize again I'm screaming bloody murder and waking your whole family up," he promises with no truth behind it whatsoever.

Reki eyes him warily. "You wouldn't," he says, though there's a warble of uncertainty under it.

And really, doesn't he know better than to challenge Langa, by now? He inhales pointedly, and lets it out in a laugh when Reki swears and jerks his hands up to cover Langa's mouth.

"You're not as funny as you think you are," Reki grumbles petulantly. "You menace," he says, like he's any better.

Langa simply presses his smug grin into Reki's palm and lets the childish triumph sweep through him when it makes Reki's cheeks turn red.

"You love me for it," Langa tells him, confident in a way he only ever is when Reki is with him.

Reki flushes darker and looks away.

He doesn't deny it.

Interesting.

Langa hides his grin as another wave of triumph sweeps over him.

All at once, Reki sags, and Langa is almost alarmed until he sees Reki cover his mouth against a huge yawn.

Right. Langa had woken him up like a psycho at nearly three in the morning. He grimaces guilty. "Ah, shit, what time is it?" He asks. His phone is in his pocket. He could check. But that would mean letting go of Reki so no, he can't.

Reki raises an eyebrow at him. "Late," he answers dryly.

"Helpful."

"I try."

Langa could happily continue bantering with Reki until the sun dawned. But, while he may have a somewhat regular sleep schedule (it's not much, but it's something) Reki is practically borderline insomniac. He stays up most nights in his workshop modifying boards or testing new design ideas he has when his mind won't let him calm down, and Langa had woken him up on one of the rare occasions he'd been sleeping soundly.

He's the worst.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to keep you up so late," Langa says reproachfully. "If I'm tired, I know you're exhausted. I should go."

He starts to back up, reluctantly drawing his arms back from where they'd circled around Reki. It had been nice while it lasted.

But then Reki exhales a quick, panicked sound and latches onto the front of Langa’s shirt. He stops short.

"Reki-?"

“Don’t-“ Reki gapes at him for a moment, conflict warring on his face. Whatever side wins, it’s not one either of them were expecting. "Will you stay?" He asks, jumbled and rushed. He goes pale, as if shocked by his own audacity.

Langa only feels breathless.

"I mean," Reki backpedals, "You don't have to, I just- I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked. And you'd probably get in trouble, right?"

Even if Langa's mom was home, it would be a small price to pay.

Ugh. Reki is dangerous.

Mostly for the fact that Langa can't say no to him.

Reki fidgets in front of him, and Langa squeezes his arms. He jolts, and Langa tries not to smile. Funny. Usually the problem is making himself smile. "Do you want me to stay?" He asks, because that's what's most important, here.

His heart soars when Reki screws his eyes shut and nods.

That's enough for him.

It's awkward, getting in bed together. For all the obvious reasons, and because, as often as they've hung out watching skating clips and dumb movies on Reki's bed before, this is different. Intentional.

They settle in, backs to each other. Heat radiates off of Reki in waves. Langa tries to keep his limbs and hands on one side, and also to keep his heart from beating out of his chest.

You are fine, Hasegawa, you are fine.

(He is not fine.)

Heavy silence ticks on until Langa physically can't stand to be still anymore and he rolls on his side to ask Reki if he's sure he's okay with this-

Only to find Reki already looking at him.

He's close.

Very close.

Langa's brain short circuits. "Hi," he says dumbly.

Reki grins. "Hi."

Langa's anxiety melts away. How could it not, when Reki smiled like that?

For a few minutes, the silence returns.

Reki shifts, breaking it. His eyes dart away from Langa, then back, then away again, like he wants something.

On a whim, Langa opens his arms in invitation, and it doesn't feel awkward at all when Reki lets himself fall into them. It just feels… right.

Has Langa mentioned that he's screwed, yet?

For a bit, neither of them say anything, but then Reki speaks. "You know," he mumbles, so quiet it's nearly snatched up and lost into this precious moment of time they've stumbled into.

Langa's arm curls tighter around his waist, pulling him closer. Only to hear him better, of course. Not for any other reason.

"For a minute there, earlier, before I told you everything, it almost seemed like you were jealous of Snake." Reki laughs, and it's not really a laughing matter, but the sound is so small, so soft, it just about breaks Langa's heart anyway. "How dumb, right?"

("No," Langa wants to say. He wants to lean in closer and swallow the gasp of surprise he knows Reki would make. He wants to finally close the last bit of distance between them. "It's not dumb at all.")

(But he doesn't.)

"Go to sleep, Reki," he says softly, instead.

Reki, stubborn as always, looks like he wants to argue. But another yawn overtakes him and his eyes flutter shut.

Langa slides his arm up Reki's back to work his fingers through a tangle he'd noticed in Reki's hair.

A sleepy, content hum buzzes in Reki's throat. In moments, his breathing evens out and he is gone to the world.

Just like Langa is gone for him.

Good lord.

This is bad.

Really bad.

Clearly, he hasn't been obvious enough.

He'll have to fix that at some point.

But not yet.

Not when Reki still smells a little like salt and has dried tear tracks on his face. Not when Langa's heart keeps beating a bit too fast for reasons other than the lack of proximity he has from Reki's eyelashes. Tensions are too high and he's still reeling with the knowing that Reki had been bottling up such gut-wrenching things. Things need to settle, first, get back to normal; before they can progress.

Langa will just have to wait.

Reki makes a small, discontent noise, and burrows further into Langa's arms.

Langa's stomach flips. He holds Reki tighter, and amends his previous statement.

Not yet.

But soon.

Really soon.

A few days later, Snake has the gall to show his face at S.

Reki notices the instant Langa spots him, going dangerously still at the edge of the ramp they'd been practicing on.

To his credit, Reki tries to stop him."Langa, dude, come on, don't-"

But Langa is already marching up to him.

"Race me. Right now."

Snake seems surprised, in his own, inexpressive way, to be approached by the infamous 'Snow' out of the blue.

The only one who doesn't seem phased in the least is Reki, who just lets out a long-suffering sigh. "Langa-"

And look, he knows Snake isn't solely responsible for all the shit that happened to Reki, but he'd done more than enough. Langa needs to fight somebody about it and Snake has drawn the short straw, today.

Snake glances at Reki.

Langa bristles, and steps in front of him.

Understanding dawns in Snake's eyes. "Very well. What will the stakes be?" He asks, not even trying to get out of it. Smart. "Changing the past is beyond my control, and aside from that, I can't imagine there's much you would want from me."

Langa will give him that. He's not sure what he wants either.

The satisfaction of knowing that he's better than Snake? A free shot so that Langa can punch him in the face? A promise from the man that he will never, on pain of death, lay another grimy finger on Reki again?

It's difficult to choose.

"I'll decide after I win," he says coldly.

Snake's mouth twitches for a moment, but he nods. "Very well." Then he starts towards the top of the mine.

Langa glares at his back until an elbow knocks into his side and pulls his attention back to his main focus.

"Seriously?" Reki snorts, shooting Langa with an unimpressed look. "Ego, much?"

Langa pouts. Rude! "What? I'll win!" He insists.

Reki only rolls his eyes. "Well, duh."

That makes Langa feel better.

Reki scoffs, turning to walk away.

Langa catches him by the wrist.

Reki looks back, eyes wide and reflecting the lights overhead.

Langa swallows. "Wait for me at the finish line?" He asks, oddly nervous.

Reki blinks. Then his face flushes. He opens his mouth to respond, but has trouble finding the words.

Langa waits.

"Don't I always?" Reki finally mutters.

Langa's heart sings.

Reki's cheeks darken. Apparently at his limit, he pulls out of Langa's grasp and escapes. Fleeing, no doubt, to find Miya and the others.

Langa watches red flash into the crowd and grins. Adrenaline seeps into his bones, and he turns towards the starting line.

It's a good day.

With infinitely more to come.