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A chill creeps down Reki’s back as another breeze blows by,
He can see Langa glancing at him out of the corner of his eyes, can see Langa watching as Reki tries his absolute hardest to stifle the shiver that threatens to wrack his whole body, The sun was high in the sky, brilliantly bright and not doing a damn thing to warm him currently. It was one of those deceptive days— the ones that looked beautiful and warm and were actually far colder than they had any right to be. It had been so nice the last few days, too. Reki had just assumed that today would be nice too, another day filled with balmy breezes and the warmth of the sun soaking through the back of his shirt.
He had been wrong. Very wrong.
The shiver wracked its way down his spine.
“Reki.” Langa stops walking, his board tucked under his arm as he turns to look at Reki who continues to fight— and lose— a valiant battle against the chill that’s trying to sink all the way to his bones. “You’re cold.”
“I’m fine,” Reki says, despite the fact that he clearly is not fine at all.
Langa sighs and it’s all the response he really needs to give. He fixes Reki with one of his patented stares— one of the patient ones that mean he’s absolutely willing to wait for Reki to break and just admit what’s going on. Unfortunately for Langa, Reki is well versed in this look by now, having received it from him plenty of times in the months they’d been friends, and he wasn’t about to crumble underneath it. Making his point, Reki plastered a broad smile on his face and met Langa’s gaze directly, holding his shoulders tight so the cold didn’t ruin the image he was trying to project. With a roll of his eyes, Langa relents. But he sets his board down and then drops his bag next to it, leaving Reki to just stare in confusion as he finally pulls his own jacket off and holds it out to Reki.
“Here.”
“I’m fine ,” Reki repeats, gently pushing the jacket back towards Langa.
“You always say that,” Langa lectures, stepping close enough to Reki that he’s able to sling the jacket over Reki’s shoulders without any fuss. “And you’re always lying.”
“Why does everyone always say that?” Reki laments as the jacket settles across his back, warm to the touch. Already he can feel the chill of the early spring air dissipating, dissolving away under Langa’s touch, the softness of his jacket, the tenderness of the gesture.
“Because it’s true,” Langa replies. He takes a step back and resumes staring pointedly at Reki.
“I’m just a little cold. But that doesn’t mean I’m not fine .” Reki concedes finally as he reaches for the collar of the jacket, intending to pull it off and offer it back to Langa. “Besides, I don’t want you to be cold, too.”
“Reki, I’m a snowboarder.” Langa’s hand shoots out to cradle Reki’s wrist, stopping him from removing the jacket. “It gets much colder than this in Canada. I promise I’m fine.”
They stare pointedly at each other, Langa’s hand still warm but gentle against Reki’s wrist. Reki wants to protest further but he knows that Langa has a fair point. In fact, it’s rare that Reki ever even sees Langa in a jacket at all outside of the one required for their school uniform. In all the time they’ve known each other, Reki really doesn’t think he’s ever seen Langa cold. It takes a long moment before Reki finally sighs, pulling his own bag off of his shoulder before slipping his hands through the sleeves of Langa’s jacket. Langa is taller than him so the jacket hangs loosely off of his frame, but it’s comfortable and warm like an embrace and Reki finds immediately that he likes the feel of it. The fit of it is even better than the fit of his own jacket and he thinks he’d gladly wear Langa’s jacket forever if he could.
And then he promptly cuts that line of thought off, ducking his head as he grabs his bag off the ground again, hoping the dusting of pink he can feel warming his cheeks can pass as a result of the cold air still biting as his exposed skin. “Thanks, Langa. It’s just colder than I expected today.”
“I see that.” When Reki shoots him a look, the corner of Langa’s mouth quirks up into a smile. “I was starting to think you didn’t actually have arms since I’d never seen them.”
“I don’t always wear a hoodie,” Reki interjects, both of them slinging their bags back over their shoulders and resuming the walk to their classroom before the final lunch bell rang. “I do have other shirts.”
“You do,” Langa agrees mildly, the smile still firm on his lips. “You just wear them over your hoodies.”
“You’ve definitely seen my arms before,” Reki replies, shoving Langa gently away.
Langa returns to his side immediately, like a magnet pulled back to its opposite half. He’s barely even gone and then he’s suddenly back in step with Reki again, the edge of his smile turning a little smug. Reki still likes it, though, and tries not to think about that fact while Langa is teasing him mercilessly. “I’ve seen you in short sleeves, but your arms are usually covered in bandages then.”
“I’ve broken my arm once !” Reki splutters as they head down the stairs, their shoulders brushing as they stand close enough to allow other people to pass on the other side of the stairs. It’s not technically true, he’s broken his arm more than once, but only once while Langa has known him.
Only once where Langa has had the chance to delicately bandage his arm for him, lecturing Reki the entire time about being reckless and not properly caring for himself. Only once where his fingers skimmed the inside of Reki’s wrist, right over his pulse, before the bandage followed, locking that touch in. Sometimes, like right now, Reki can still feel the electric jolt of that touch, the way it was filled with so much concern. He tries not to think about it often but it’s becoming harder with each passing day. Ever since they had repaired things, ever since Langa had really found his voice and started saying all the things that crossed his mind, Reki found himself unable to think about things that weren’t related to Langa in one way or another.
“When I met you, you had your arm broken,” Langa replies, reaching for Reki’s wrist again and holding his arm up between them as if that could possibly prove his point. Reki swallows, the inside of his wrist tingling at the memory of Langa’s fingertips.
Reki pulls his arm back out of Langa’s grasp and slides his hands into the pockets of Langa’s jacket, the tingling shooting all the way up his arm. “It was probably not broken anymore by that point.”
“Just how fast do you think bones heal?” Langa laughs, shaking his head. A few of the longer pieces of his hair fall into his eyes when he glances over at Reki, but they do nothing to block the brilliant blue of his eyes or the fondness that’s there, mixed right in with the affectionate exasperation that Reki is so used to seeing.
“My bones are very strong,” Reki says stubbornly, but he knows that he’s smiling, too. He sinks into the moment, lets it surround him and wraps him in a warmth that far exceeds that of Langa’s jacket. It’s been a while since Reki felt this at ease with anything— even himself— and he relishes in the fact that Langa is still here, still teasing him, still laughing at him but with absolutely no bite whatsoever. The only mark his words leave behind is a faint blush on Reki’s cheek. All the cracks that have been in Reki’s heart lately are completely repaired as Langa smiles back at him, his eyes sparkling with that mischief that Reki has found very intoxicating since the first day.
“That’s probably because you break them so often,” Langa replies, and he’s already pulling away to try and get out of Reki’s reach, his smile broad now.
They round the last corner and by the time Reki is jamming his elbow into Langa’s ribs, Langa is already laughing again— a quiet huff under his breath that’s far more pleasant than the day outside. Reki’s so caught up in it, in his own laughter that comes freely, he doesn’t even get a chance to dodge Langa’s elbow as he returns the favor, nudging Reki in the ribs. And then they’re tripping over each other, falling together instead of apart, and Reki is nearly breathless by the time they finally stumble through the classroom door, the entirety of the class glancing up at their arrival. Reki doesn’t notice, his entire focus wrapped up in Langa as they finally manage to separate enough to sit down.
“You’re the worst,” Reki says as he slides back into his seat, depositing his board and bag on the ground at his feet.
“Ouch.” Langa slides into his own seat, his smile betraying the fact that he puts absolutely no stock in Reki’s words.
It only takes a second for Langa to dig his notes out of his bag and straighten up and suddenly the two of them are dissolved into their own world again, completely oblivious of the things around them until class starts. So, if the rest of the class exchanged glances at Reki in Langa’s jacket, at Langa’s brilliant smile that they don’t get to see nearly as often as they should, well Reki doesn’t notice. He’s too busy leaning across the aisle that separates their seats and doodling something in the margin of Langa’s notes.
The sun is barely still in the sky by the time Langa drops him off that night.
Reki climbs off the back of Langa’s bike, exchanging goodbyes quickly before hustling through the door because he’s definitely late for family dinner. Reki had tried to plead with Langa, to get him to attend family dinner too because there’s no way his mom could ever be mad at Langa, but Langa had already promised his own mom that he’d be home tonight for dinner and didn’t want to leave her alone. So, Reki’s only choice was to try to sneak through the door quietly and pretend he’d been there the whole time, distracted by something else and definitely not running around town with Langa until the sun was almost completely below the horizon.
He opens the door as slowly as he can, glancing over his shoulder at Langa who nods at him in good luck before taking off towards his own house, shrinking until he’s a speck that’s faded into the few remaining tendrils of red and orange that still paint the horizon in a beautiful picture. Reki creeps through the door, kicks his shoes off, and is just about to shut it behind him when he hears footsteps in the hallway that tell him he’s absolutely busted.
“Where have you been?” Reki doesn’t have to look at his mom to know she has her hands on her hips.
He lets out the breath he’d been holding and hangs his head, “I”m sorry mom, I—“
“And what are you wearing?” She asks, more kindly this time. Reki still isn’t looking at her, but he can hear the smile in her voice and the edge of something that he can’t quite place his finger on.
Startled, Reki looks down at his outfit only to realize that he’s still clad in Langa’s jacket.
Langa had been right, he was perfectly fine in the cooler temperatures, and skating after class had certainly only warmed him up. A brief image of Langa, flushed cheeks and chest heaving as he cheers for Reki when he finally lands the newest trick he’s been practicing flashes through Reki’s mind, but he tries to stifle it. The point was that Langa hadn’t asked for his jacket back once and Reki hadn’t even considered giving it back because Langa hadn’t looked cold and— well, he’d actually completely forgotten he was wearing it. It was so comfortable that somewhere in the middle of class, Reki had forgotten that he wasn’t just wearing his own hoodie. Sure, this hoodie smelled like Langa and now that Reki was alone in his own home, he really realized just how true that was. But he’d been within a few feet of Langa all day long, he hadn’t really realized—
“Oh.” Reki glances up at his mom and hopes that he isn’t blushing, hopes his expression doesn’t betray all of his thoughts, He’s been having so many of them lately that he’d like to think he’s getting better at hiding them but he has a sneaking suspicion that he’s actually getting worse at keeping his thoughts off of his face. “I forgot my hoodie today so Langa let me borrow his jacket.”
The way his mom smiles in response is very fond and far too knowing and if it weren’t for the fact that Reki could tell just by the tilt of her lips that he was no longer in trouble, he’d hate whatever he thought she saw in his statement— or perhaps written across his face. “He’s a very kind boy. You should’ve invited him in.”
“I did.” Reki finishes shutting the door finally, just to have a reason to stop looking directly at his mom. He tries desperately to school his expression into something neutral and puts the questions he has about his suddenly racing heartbeat to the back of his mind, He can wonder about that later when he’s alone. Wondering about it now when his mom can see everything is a dangerous game that Reki has no intention of playing. “But he had to get home to his mom.”
“Well, let’s hope you didn’t make him late to his family dinner.” The bite is gone from her chiding and Reki knows he deserves it anyway so he just mumbles another apology and trails his mom into the kitchen, sliding into his spot at the table and not meeting any of the glances she throws his way while they eat.
Once dinner finally ends, Reki escapes to his room as fast as he possibly can, barely putting the last dishes away before he’s all but sprinting to his room to get some distance from his mom and the looks she’s been sending him. He shuts his door with as little force as possible and finally flops down on his bed, letting out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding all night. His heart continues to thunder away in his chest, racing with just the mere thought of Langa and whatever dots his mom seemed to be connecting. He didn’t really have to work hard to dissect the meaning of his mom’s looks— she’d been sending them to him for a few weeks now, and only when he mentioned Langa.
And yeah, okay, Reki knew what she was implying and if the way his cheeks constantly heated up under those looks was anything to go by, he’d say she was right. And if that wasn’t a good indicator, he could certainly look at the way he felt around Langa— the tingling in his wrist that he could call up at any moment with just a mere thought, the buzzing he felt throughout his whole body whenever he made Langa laugh.
He remembers it clearly— and often— the night at the skate park when they had finally reconciled things and had a chance to say their peace. When Reki had sat up, his body aching from the impact with the ground, only to find Langa laughing bright and brilliant, laughing in a way Reki had never seen before— well he had felt the entire world shift, then. It was like something inside of him had changed, like something had clicked into place and suddenly a lot of the answers he had been looking for were there in Langa’s laughter, in the kind words Langa said, in the touch of his hand. All the things Reki had been seeking, missing, longing for, all of it was there in Langa.
And it wasn’t that those things hadn’t been there before, but that Reki just hadn’t really realized it.
So yeah, he knew what his mom was implying every time he said Langa’s name, and her eyes softened at the corner. He knew what she was thinking when she told him to invite Langa over more often, to let him get to know the family. It was a pretty clear line she was drawing and Reki couldn’t even deny it. The most he could ever do was duck his head and tell his mom that Langa was busy, but that he’d promised to come over as soon as he could. And then he would bring Langa home on days when they had homework to do instead of skating, or days when they were too tired or sore to stay out all night. And his mom would greet Langa at the door as if she were just greeting a second son as if he already had a solid place in this family— and he did . Reki’s sisters loved him and Langa was unbearably great with them, listening to their stupid stories that had sixteen detours before they got to the point. He’d ask questions, too, giving them a chance to say more. And when one of Reki’s sisters had given Langa a picture she’d drawn, Langa had taken it like it was the most precious thing he’d ever been offered and then later sent Reki a picture of it hanging on his wall.
It wasn’t just Reki that had these— these feelings about Langa, it was his whole entire family.
It was like Langa just belonged here, right next to Reki. In that time that they’d been fighting, when Reki had felt entirely lifeless, nobody really asked him what was wrong. They saw the Langa-shaped hole in his life and they had all the answers they needed to why Reki had been behaving the way he was.
Reki sighs and digs his phone out of one of the pockets of Langa’s jacket, clicking into his conversation with Langa out of habit more than anything else. He can agonize over these thoughts later, it’s not like they have a deadline. He’s been agonizing over them for weeks now anyways.
Sorry, I forgot to give you back your jacket.
He sends the text to Langa and then closes his eyes, dropping his phone and waiting for it to thump onto his chest. It does, but it comes with the distinct sound of his phone hitting something else and suddenly Reki feels two things pressing into his chest instead of just one.
Confused, he sits up and unzips the jacket, patting it down. Sure enough, over the left side of his chest, there’s something rectangular. Thin enough that he hadn’t noticed it all day but now that he’s aware of it, he wonders how it didn’t catch his attention sooner. Reki checks the outside of the jacket but there’s nothing there. Carefully, he pulls the jacket open and sure enough, there on the left side is a zipper practically hidden in the seam— a secret pocket. Confused and concerned that he damaged whatever was in here, Reki opens the pocket and reaches inside.
He hears his phone ding from where it’s now resting next to him on the bed, but he doesn’t care for the time being. His hand closes around cold metal and then he’s pulling Langa’s iPod out from the pocket and looking down at it. He remembers when Langa had first found his old iPod again. He’d been so excited to show it to Reki, offering Reki the second earbud as he played through the songs of his past and told Reki some of what those songs meant to him. He had an entire snowboarding playlist that he used to listen to on the slopes and when Reki listened to it, he loved every second of it. The entire feeling of the playlist was how Reki felt when he was skating next to Langa— the heavy beat of his heart, the weightlessness of going fast, the freedom, and the joy of sharing it with someone else. That was Reki’s favorite thing that Langa had shown him. And sometimes in the morning, when Reki first met up with Langa, he’d see Langa pull the earbuds out of his ears and tuck them away before raising his hand in greeting.
So really, it doesn’t surprise Reki to find this in here.
Smiling, Reki picks his phone back up and glances at the text from Langa.
It’s okay, you can keep it as long as you’d like .
Warmth blooms in Reki’s chest as he drops his phone without replying. Instead, he picks the iPod back up and reclines against his pillows, unlocking it and hopping into Langa’s playlists. He knows Langa won’t mind if he finds out that Reki was listening to his snowboarding music. Plus there’s one song in there Reki keeps asking Langa about and Langa can never remember the name of it.
Reki’s smiling to himself, nestled in Langa’s jacket, the scent of Langa surrounding Reki in his own bed, the intimacy of that thought not lost on him, as he clicks into Langa’s playlists. He starts to scroll down by default, knowing that a snowboarding playlist has to be something Langa made a long time ago and therefore would be lower down on the list when something catches his eye. It takes Reki’s mind a second to register it and then he’s scrolling back up to the very top.
And there it is, staring back at him.
The first playlist on Langa’s iPod.
The playlist that’s titled simply: Reki.
Curious, and with his heartbeat in his throat, Reki clicks on the playlist. It opens up to a list of songs, a lot of which Reki recognizes as songs he’s mentioned loving before. He sees his top three favorite songs right at the start of the playlist, and that makes sense to Reki. Maybe Langa had just made this playlist to get to know Reki better or to help remember the kind of things Reki liked. It would make sense, and Reki couldn’t deny that he kept a similar mental list of all the things Langa had mentioned liking in passing.
But as Reki continues to scroll down the playlist, the songs start to change. Now he’s staring at a bunch of songs he’s never mentioned— some of which he’s never even heard of— but the ones that he recognizes all have one common theme: love songs.
For a moment, everything freezes and Reki thinks he must be seeing things. His finger trembles as it hovers over one of the songs, one earbud already in his ear. He can still feel his pulse in his throat, but now he can feel it in his fingertips, too, in his toes . Each breath feels like it’s shaking him apart completely. Carefully, he clicks on one of the songs.
And yeah, that’s definitely a love song.
Reki can feel his face turn as red as his hair as he listens to the warm melody of the song, as he lets the declarations wash over him. He closes his eyes, burying his face in the front of Langa’s jacket, and just listens , wondering how these singers managed to find the words for these feelings when they’ve been expertly eluding him for weeks now. How do people get up the courage to say these things? Reki thinks he’d never have the guts for that, thinks the mortification of it would be the sort of thing he’d never survive.
But still, there’s something tempting about it. There’s something so honest and raw in these songs, something that strums all of Reki’s heartstrings and makes him ache. Just listening to them would’ve had him thinking about Langa anyways because he hears all of his own deepest desires, his most secret thoughts spoken aloud to the beat of these songs. But knowing that Langa picked these songs and put them on a playlist that was titled with. Nothing other than his name makes Reki feel— he doesn’t even know. But it feels pretty close to that mortification he was imagining earlier but it’s mixed with happiness and maybe a little giddiness. He suddenly feels like he could skate laps around the entire town and it would do nothing to dull the energy he feels pulsing through his veins.
He tries to calm himself down, tries not to let himself hope but, well— Langa’s a pretty direct guy. He may not have always been great at communicating his thoughts but the things he’s said, he’s always meant. And the fact that he would create a playlist like this, the fact that he had to hand-select these songs to be on here couldn’t mean nothing. It just couldn’t. Langa didn’t do or say things that were untrue or deceptive. If he crafted a playlist under Reki’s name and filled it with Reki’s favorite songs and love songs— that was deliberate.
Blown completely away by this, blown completely away by the fact that he didn’t see this, either, even though it was objectively right in front of his face, Reki can’t stop the smile from spreading across his face.
It was just like with his own feelings— they had always been there but it had taken Reki a long time to see them. Langa and his feelings had always been there, too, and Reki sees that clearly now. He remembers all the things Langa said to him, thinks of the times Langa has worried after him and his injuries. Reki remembers the touch of Langa’s fingertips to the inside of his wrist, feels his pulse spike at just the thought of it, and immediately, he knows what he has to do.
It’s Saturday, but that doesn’t stop Reki from getting up early and heading out to meet Langa. They have the whole day they can spend at the skate park and Reki absolutely intends to do just that. His fingers tremble as he slides his arms into the sleeves of Langa’s jacket, zipping it up over one of his T-shirts. His whole family is still asleep so he sneaks out the window, the wind whipping at his hair and his exposed neck as he rides down the ramp and heads to their usual meeting spot.
As soon as Reki turns the last corner, he can see Langa already waiting there for him, dressed in his usual short sleeves. Reki tries to swallow around the lump in his throat, tries to hold onto the conviction he had found last night while listening to Langa’s playlist for him. It turns out it’s much easier to be confident in his decision when he’s alone in his room under the blanket of night. Because now, slowing to a stop so he can look up and meet Langa’s blue gaze, he feels all of that courage shriveling up.
What if he misread everything? What if Langa knew someone else named Reki?
“Good morning, Reki.” Langa smiles at him, raising his hand for a high five and Reki knows that he has to do this.
He raises his own hand, completing the high five, and offers his own smile that he knows is wavering a little around the edges. “Good morning.”
Langa scans down Reki’s body and Reki knows that he’s looking at the jacket. That’s the key to Reki’s plan, the lynchpin for how he’s going to bring up what he needs to bring up and Langa is taking the bait perfectly, “Keeping the jacket?”
“Yeah. Can’t let you know I have arms .” Reki jokes, his voice feeling unsteady. If Langa notices, he doesn’t say anything, but he does laugh at Reki’s joke and it’s just the right amount of encouragement Reki needs to follow through. Carefully, he reaches into the jacket and opens the secret internal pocket, pulling out Langa’s iPod. “But I’m not keeping this. I figure you’d probably like it back.”
“Ah,” Langa accepts his iPod, glancing at it. “That explains why I couldn’t find it this morning.”
“Yeah, sorry. I didn’t mean to take it from you.” Langa shrugs in response, clearly unbothered by the whole thing, and goes to put the iPod in his pocket. And this is Reki’s moment, he knows that it’s his moment and yet he’s practically paralyzed by fear.
What he has with Langa is too precious to him to ruin. Maybe it would be better if he just swallowed his words and left them unspoken. If Langa really felt the way that playlist implied, Reki could leave it to him to say something first, and then he could just kiss the confession off of his lips. That would be easier, and significantly less terrifying. But Reki had known he was a coward when it came to feelings last night and he’d put a failsafe into place, something to force him to act today.
He reaches out and catches Langa’s wrist before he can finish putting the iPod away.
Langa looks up at him, the edges of his hair catching the light and making him look like he’s glowing. His beauty has always been ethereal, but it’s never been more true than this moment. “Reki?”
“I, uh—“ Reki swallows. The words stick in his throat. He needs to say something because he can’t risk Langa finding out on his own. He can’t let Langa just discover it and leave him with all these questions. The words are out of Reki’s mouth before he has a chance to overthink it any further. They come out clumsy and a little slanted, but he says them nonetheless and that’s what matters. “I also made a playlist on there.”
Langa’s eyebrows rise in surprise.
And that— that was Reki’s failsafe. He had made his own playlist and filled it with his own love songs. And he’d titled it with nothing other than: Langa.
It was the existence of that playlist that spurred Reki on. Because he really couldn’t let Langa find it when they weren’t together, when Reki didn’t have a chance to explain. And there was no hope that Langa wouldn’t find it at all. It would last until tomorrow at the latest before Langa went to listen to something and found the new playlist staring back at him. And he’d have a million questions, Reki was sure of that. Reki had been sure of that last night, too, which is why he’d made it. Because he knew it would be the only way to guarantee that he didn’t brush this off or try to avoid another conversation about feelings.
Because conversations about feelings scared the shit out of him and made him feel like hiding under a rock for a week, minimum, but he knew what he wanted— Langa— and he knew the only way to get it was to suck it up and talk it out.
Langa pulls the iPod fully out of his pocket again, the movement dislodging Reki’s hand from his wrist. As Langa lifts the iPod to look up the playlist, Reki looks down at their feet, his cheeks burning, He hasn’t even said anything yet, Langa hasn’t even seen the playlist, and already the mortification is so strong that he wishes the ground would just open up underneath his feet and swallow him whole.
Feelings have never been Reki’s forte.
Reki hears Langa’s intake of breath and then there’s a pause that lasts the length of three racing heartbeats. And then, finally, Langa says, “Reki?”
And now is the moment that Reki needs to explain, to lay it all on the line, to tell Langa what he probably should’ve told Langa that day in the skate park when they’d made up and Langa had said so many of the things that he needed to say. Now it’s the moment where Reki gets to tell Langa that his life changed for the better the day Langa picked up his skateboard, the day their paths officially intertwined. He gets to tell Langa that everything hurts when they aren't together and that Reki’s life is only complete when he has Langa by his side. He gets to tell Langa that his family loves him, that he loves him, that all he wants is to never be separated from Langa again.
Except, Reki’s not a singer or songwriter and words are not that easy. So he starts simple and really hopes he just gets enough momentum to say the rest.
“I’m sorry.” He starts with and he’s not sure if it’s the right or wrong way to begin this sort of thing. “I found your iPod last night and I went into it to find that song I’m always asking you about and then I found your playlist— the one with my name and all the— all the—“ love songs , Reki doesn’t say because he doesn’t think he’d be able to without losing whatever thin shreds of sanity he still had left. “And it just made me realize that maybe I really have been stupid this whole time because I—“
Oh god, Reki, come on. Just say it, just say the rest of it. Put an end to it and just put the words out there. Reki tries to encourage himself, tries to force the words to dislodge from where they’re trapped between his ribs but everything fails him. His sentence trails off into nothing, the meaning he’s trying to make clear hanging invisible between them, and Reki wishes he could kick himself.
The silence stretches on and pulls taut between them. One wrong move and it will shatter completely.
“I’m sorry, Reki,” Langa says finally, and there’s something in his voice that has Reki snapping his eyes up to Langa’s face, despite the overwhelming fear he feels about what he’s going to find written into the lines of Langa’s expression. “I never told you because I didn’t want to burden you with it. If you want to make fun of me, I understand.”
“Make fun of you?” Reki feels like he’s falling, like he has nothing to catch himself on. He feels dizzy. “Is that what you think I’m doing? You think I’m making fun of you ?”
“Well, you made the playlist—“
“To try and tell you I feel the same way!” Reki cries, throwing his hands into the air. “I made the playlist so you would know that I feel all those things too!”
And, well, that’s one way to do a confession, Reki supposes, It’s a lot clumsier than he’d intended for it to be, absolutely no nuance whatsoever, but at least the words are out there. At least now, if nothing else, he knows that he was honest, even if it was a bit blunt and rough around the edges.
Langa is looking back at him, eyes wide. Reki stares back at him but all he sees is blue . Brighter than the sky, deeper than the ocean, the kind of blue that he’d let himself get lost in. The kind of blue he has already let himself get lost in because that’s the real truth of the matter— he’s been wrapped up in Langa since the first day they met.
Langa showed up in his life and filled a vacancy Reki hadn’t even realized was there. Langa had shown up and completed all the parts of Reki’s life that didn’t seem like they added up perfectly. It wasn’t until he met Langa, until he first saw Langa tape his feet to a skateboard with all the reckless abandon that Reki himself was known for that he realized all those parts of his life had been off balance because they’d been needing someone to complete them. All this time, Reki needed someone to jump into crazy adventures with him while also looking out for his safety. He needed someone to listen to him ramble on forever, someone who asked questions and added to his thoughts, someone who shaped him into a better, smoother version of himself. And Langa had shown up and done all of that without any hesitation, like it was what he was meant to do. Langa had done all of those things so naturally that Reki hadn’t even realized it was happening.
“You—?” Langa is still staring at him and Reki still doesn’t have any additional words.
So, he does the only thing he can do, he repeats himself and hopes that Langa will read between the lines the way he always has. “I feel the same, yeah. And I— I didn’t know how else to tell you.”
Reki isn’t quite sure how he expects Langa to react to the confession, but he knows it’s not the reaction he gets. Langa’s free hand reaches out and tugs Reki forward by the collar of Langa’s jacket that Reki is still wearing, meeting him in the middle with a searing kiss. Reki tries to kiss back, to pour everything he needs to say into it, but before he gets much of a change, the board under his feet shifts with his changed stance and suddenly he’s tumbling into Langa and Langa is falling backward and they’re crashing to the ground together, a pile of limbs as Reki lands halfway on top of Langa.
It takes a long second of groaning and throbbing elbows before they’re able to disentangle themselves enough to actually look at each other. Reki meets Langa’s gaze again, just in time to watch Langa erupt into laughter, throwing his head back and blinking his beautiful blue eyes closed as his shoulders shook with it. And then Reki was laughing too, full, deep laughs that took away all of the tension he had been feeling. Because this whole thing had been a certifiable disaster but it had also been perfect somehow, and even though his elbows still hurt, he found that he wouldn’t change a single thing about this moment.
“Langa,” Reki says when they finally tone their laughter down enough to get actual words out. Langa opens his eyes again and Reki finds that this time, the words finally fit, finally come to him the way he’s been begging for them to. “I really like you.”
This time, when Langa reaches for him, Reki knows what to expect. He goes willingly, leaning in until their lips are practically touching, feeling the shape of the words as Langa whispers, “I really like you too, Reki. So much.”
And somehow this kiss is even more searing than the last as Langa pulls Reki down the remaining distance. With solid ground underneath him, Reki is able to actually lean back into the kiss, to pour everything into it that he’d been trying to put into the first kiss. This kiss is arguably so much better than their actual first kiss, but Reki doesn’t care. He loves both of them equally because both of them give him Langa, warm and solid pressed against him, Both of them give him Langa’s hand warm on his cheek, Reki’s fingers tangling into his hair, the racing heartbeat beating against his ribs like drums. He loves them both because both of them mean that Reki didn’t misinterpret the signs.
It may have taken him a while to get here, but he got here regardless and when he did, all he found was Langa waiting for him with open arms.
When they finally separate and haul themselves off the ground, Reki dusting the dirt off of Langa’s jacket, the world feels different and yet exactly the same. Reki isn’t sure how to phrase it, but this time he doesn’t think he really has to. He’ll still spend a bunch of nights pondering over it though, he figures. For now, he’s happy to just climb onto his board again, to accept the earbud Langa offers him, and to listen to the playlist he made to express his emotions as he skates perfectly in sync with Langa to their favorite place, the place they share together. And as the day progresses, he’s happy to steal some kisses between tricks, to feel the brush of Langa’s fingers against his cheek, his neck, his wrists.
For now, Reki’s just happy . And he’s pretty confident that he’ll stay that way for a long, long time.