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“So,” Reki eloquently started.
He was with Langa, skating at their usual hangout. It was a typical Friday after-school hangout; Ditch class early, go skating, eat ramen—the usual. Nothing out of the ordinary. So ordinary, that Langa thought, despite the tinge of red on Reki’s face and the way his fingers were fidgeting around his skateboard, nothing seemed off whatsoever about Reki’s current conversation starter.
“I was thinking,” Reki continued, face turning closer to the shade of a tomato.
Sliding to a stop in front of Reki, Langa stepped closer to him, noticing the redness on his face. Langa locked eyes with him, raising a hand up, causing Reki to move his head to the side, avoiding eye contact.
“Reki…do you have a fever?” Langa said, pressing a hand to his forehead.
Reki pushed away Langa’s hand, shaking his head. “No, that’s not it,” he said, trying again. He recollected his courage, forcing himself to look Langa in the face. Why was this so hard? This was Langa—this should be easy. “Look, uh. I was thinking we might go somewhere together tomorrow. Just you and I, you know…” It wasn’t exactly how he wanted to phrase it, but he figured there was no going back on the words at this point. He faced Langa, trying to gauge his reaction so far.
“Oh!” Langa said, perking up. “You want to do something before “S”? Are you trying to practice a new trick? I don’t know how much I can help you—you know more than I do, but I can try to help.”
This was impossible. “Langa, no, that’s not it. I mean, I want to go somewhere together before “S”, as in like…” Reki knew he needed to spit it out, otherwise he was seconds away from backing out of it. “I wanted to go on a date with you.” He held his breath, waiting for a response.
“Oh!” Langa repeated. “Why didn’t you say so? Of course!”
Reki felt the tension in his body completely fade away. Was it really that easy this whole time?! He thought, mentally kicking himself for making it out to be such a big deal. He grinned, stretching and shaking out the remaining tension in his body. “Wow, haha okay! That was easier than I thought it would be. I’m…really relieved that you feel the same way,” he said, smiling warmly.
Langa looked at him funny but reached over to wrap his arms around for a hug. “Reki, of course I want to spend time with you—you’re my best friend.”
“Yeah,” Reki said, feeling his cheeks warming again. He wrapped his arms around Langa to match the movement, squeezing him tightly. He felt giddy—with the anxiety from before gone, replaced with hope and excitement, it was hard not to be. He laughed, tucking his chin over Langa’s shoulder. “Wow, I’m really excited!” He laughed nervously.
“Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be fun going together! Where did you need to go?” Langa asked.
Need to go? Reki noted but discarded the thought. “Well,” he started, considering. He didn’t think he was going to make it this far…he wasn’t exactly prepared for a follow-up. He was almost certain that Langa was going to initially turn him down. “I was thinking I would surprise you!” He grinned, hoping Langa wouldn’t notice that he actually had no plan laid out yet.
“Okay, sure. I’m happy to go with you wherever,” Langa said.
Reki smiled brightly, looking into Langa’s eyes. He faltered slightly, realizing that Langa didn’t look nearly excited as he expected. Shoot, Langa looked more excited when he learned a new skateboard trick compared to his current expression. He looked happy, but not much past that. Langa always looked happy when they spent time together so it wasn’t anything outside of the usual expression he wore. He decided to not let it bug him—maybe Langa was tired? Maybe he’d be more excited tomorrow.
“So tomorrow then?” Reki asked, hoping to get a bit more of a reaction.
“Yep!” Langa chimed, still wearing his normally cheerful face.
Reki tried to keep his nerves calm. Something felt very weird about this situation—not only was it not going anything like his expectations, but Langa wasn’t reacting anywhere close to how Reki had imagined. He thought for sure, after the race with Adam, after how Langa had poured his heart out the night they made up from their fight, that Langa might have held the same feelings. So why was it that Reki’s heart was beating out of his chest and Langa still managed to look totally normal!
They continued skating for a few hours, but Reki remembered none of it. His mind was buzzing about what he was going to do for tomorrow. Where are we going to go? Where would Langa want to go? Should I dress up? Why does he not look excited?? It was hard to focus with the stream of questions going through his head. By the time they parted ways, Reki was an anxious mess, trying to figure out what he was going to do for their date.
Nerves on overdrive, he waved Langa goodbye, promising to pick him up from his place around 8—plenty of time to spend together before going to “S” later that night.
---
The next day, Reki was waiting outside of Langa’s place at exactly 7:45 pm. He ended up leaving earlier than planned. After fretting about whether or not he should dress up, picking through several t-shirts and sweatshirts, and messing with his hair until he couldn’t look in the mirror any longer, he had to get out of his house before he imploded. It was warmer out—a pleasant summer day—so he opted out of wearing a sweatshirt. Instead of one of his usual t-shirts, he wore one of his nicer button-downs. He went with a yellow button-down, banking on his signature color giving him a bit of extra luck for the day.
“Hey, I’m outside!” He texted Langa, tucking his phone into his back pocket. He pushed his skateboard back and forth, finding it hard to stay still.
Langa came outside shortly after. He was wearing…the same shirt combo he always did—the one he usually wore for “S”. Even worse, his hair seemed messier than normal. He rolled out onto the sidewalk standing lazily on his skateboard.
“Sorry, I took a nap and overslept,” Langa yawned, scratching his head. That explained the tousled hair, at least. Yet, Reki had to admit, somehow Langa managed to look good even with bedhead. He looked at Reki, eyes widening. “You dressed up,” he said, raising an eyebrow.
Langa’s words were like a final nail in the coffin to Reki’s self-confidence for the day. He would have ripped off his shirt if he could have at this point. He felt horribly embarrassed that he had put so much effort into his appearance, opting to wear something nicer, when Langa put what looked like less effort into his looks than normal. He thought of his normal sweatshirt lying on his bed at home, wishing he had gone with his first choice and worn it instead.
“Yeah…I thought I might change things up,” he muttered, feeling mortified.
Don’t falter now, self!! Reki thought, hauling his focus back on their date. He had prepared for this! He was ready! It was going to go perfectly!
“So where are we headed?” Langa asked, cutting through Reki’s thoughts. He skated forward pushing past Reki, looking back, expecting him to follow.
“Right!” Reki squeaked, voice cracking. Nice.
He coughed, clearing his throat. “I was thinking we could go to the harbor together,” he said, pushing off on his skateboard to ride alongside Langa.
“The harbor?” Langa asked, sounding confused. “Okay, I guess. Sure.”
Reki shriveled up inside, cursing his choice of location. Langa sounded so disappointed!! He thought the harbor would be a safe bet—it was a classic date idea! He knew at least a handful of his classmates who had very successful dates at the harbor! “It’s a nice day out…I thought it might be a good place to go.” Reki was smiling at Langa but screaming inside. He couldn’t believe he had struck out twice already this early in their date.
They skated in near silence towards the harbor, save for Langa making periodic comments about his thoughts on Miya and Shadow’s beef that night at “S”. Reki kept as quiet as possible, not trusting himself to say anything else on the off-chance that he might strike out a third time for the evening.
Unfortunately, not even Reki’s silence could save him from himself. The date was incredibly awkward—they arrived at the harbor, still in silence, and skated back and forth a few times until they had seen the entirety of the harbor at least three full times. It wasn’t in the least romantic, and it hardly even qualified for friendly. Reki spent the entire visit in silence, and Langa wouldn’t stop asking if they were still going to go anywhere. (The harbor was the destination, Langa!) Reki’s hope was fading as quickly as the sunset in the distance. He was embarrassed to even think about how he had imagined the date going—friendly banter, a romantic skate through the harbor, spending time alone on the beach, watching the sunset…the potential for any of those outcomes was long gone.
Pulling out his final fail-safe, Reki offered to buy Langa dinner.
“Oh, I ate before I left home. Thank you for the offer, though!”
Reki wanted the ground to swallow him whole and put him out of his misery for the night.
They eventually made their way back to Langa’s once it grew dark, stopping to pick up Langa’s bike to go to “S”. The ride over to the mines wasn’t any better. Even Langa had stopped offering conversation, and they rode along in the worst silence imaginable. To make things worse, Reki could have sworn he saw Langa looking frustrated, clearly disappointed in Reki’s failure of an attempt at a date.
“S” was always the highlight of the week, Reki and Langa’s favorite pastime together, and yet Reki was dreading the next few hours with every ounce of his being.
When they arrived, they spotted Miya and Shadow warming up in the distance. Miya was in the middle of practicing kickflips but looked up when he noticed the two of them riding up on Langa's bike. He shot a knowing look at Reki, who had told him about their date earlier in the day, and made a face as if to say “how did it go??”
Reki frowned, looking away instead of saying anything.
“That bad, huh? Ouch,” Miya said aloud.
Langa frowned, looking between Miya and Reki, trying to decipher what was going unspoken between the two of them. Huffing an exasperated sigh, he grabbed Reki’s arm. “Reki, can I talk to you for a second?” Without waiting for a reply, he pulled Reki away towards a secluded area in the bushes.
Out of the corner of Reki’s eye, he saw Miya giving him a double thumbs up. “I believe in you!!” he mouthed, waving him goodbye.
Langa came to a stop, flipping Reki around and grabbing him by the shoulders. He frowned, hesitating, looking up, down, and sighing before making eye contact with Reki. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“Huh?”
“You’ve been dead silent all day,” Langa continued. “We went to the harbor to run an errand, but then didn’t do anything other than skate. You haven’t acted like yourself all day. Did I…” A pained expression crossed Langa’s face. “Did I do something to make you upset?”
“Wha-“ Reki gasped, completely thrown off. “What, no! No, no, no, not at all! If anything, I thought I did something to make you upset. I-“ he paused, blinking
“We went to the harbor to run an errand.”
“Why…did you think we were at the harbor for an errand?” Reki asked slowly.
“Well,” Langa motioned with his hands. “Yesterday you asked if I’d accompany you today. I figured you had an errand to run.”
Reki had to have heard that wrong. “I’m sorry, let me get this straight—you thought we were at the harbor to run an errand, no other reason?” Gears were slowly starting to click into place in Reki’s mind, and he didn’t like where it was going. He stared at Langa, desperately hoping he wasn’t about to hear what he thought he was going to hear.
“Well yeah, why else would we have been over there? The harbor isn’t really great for skating compared to our usual places. You asked me to accompany you so I figured you needed help with something.” Langa tilted his head, confused.
“Langa.” Reki stated, disbelief hitting him like a truck. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Japanese wasn’t Langa’s first language.
“Yes, Reki.” Langa said waiting.
“Tsukiatte has two meanings, Langa.” Reki couldn’t believe he was about to go through this a second time. However, his patience for the day had run out. Clearly, the day had been a failure in every conceivable way, and there wasn’t much else to lose at this point. “I wasn’t just asking you to accompany me.”
“No?” Langa asked, still not following.
“I asked you on a date. A date. Like, you know-“ Reki could feel the heat coming back to his cheeks. Why was this somehow even more embarrassing the second time around? “Like, the thing that two people do when they l-like each other.” He cursed himself for the thousandth time that day for stuttering through the word.
“Oh,” Langa said, blinking. Then it clicked. “Oh! Oh. Oh my god.” Like a flame had been lit inside the boy, Langa’s face grew red to match Reki’s. “Oh my god.” He grabbed Reki’s shoulders. “Reki, I’m so sorry.”
Here it comes. Reki deflated, shaking his head. “No, please don’t apologize, I get it. I misunderstood, I get it—you’re not into me. It was a reach to assume you were even into boys-“
“Reki.” Langa squeezed Reki’s shoulders tighter, staring directly into his eyes. “I like you too.”
“…what?” Reki asked, hoping he didn’t mishear him.
“I like you too,” Langa was starting to smile brightly, and oh this was the reaction Reki was looking for yesterday. Langa was beaming. Reki’s heart flipped in his chest, beating loudly. He suddenly felt very, very close to Langa, the world narrowing down very small around them. Even the sound of the crowd far away as Miya and Shadow’s race began seemed to fade into muffled cheers, only one thought running on repeat in Reki’s head like a broken record.
I like you too. I like you too. I like you too.
When did Langa’s face get so close?
“I’m sorry, I-“ Langa started again, becoming flustered. “I would love to go on a date with you, Reki. I feel so foolish for not noticing…” His eyes went wide, suddenly grabbing his face into his hands. “You dressed up for me. You dressed up for our date.”
Langa absolutely glowed. “Reki, you’re so wonderful.”
Feeling overwhelmed, Reki leaned his head to thump against Langa’s chest, burying his face. He laughed into the fabric of Langa’s shirt. “Well, I guess I should have expected something like this coming from the same guy who didn’t realize when the girls from school were hitting on him.” Langa wrapped his arms around Reki, pressing him closer to his chest.
Langa released his arms, pulling Reki up again to face him. He looked between each of Reki’s amber eyes, glowing softly from the lamplight nearby. Reki looked back at him, anticipating…something, but not knowing what. His chest felt tight, realizing how close Langa’s face was to his own once again. Langa’s throat bobbed, gulping before parting his lips slightly. He slid his fingers behind Reki’s head, threading his fingers through the hairs at the base of his neck. Reki felt dizzy, hoping that this was leading where he hoped it was, but trying to calm himself.
Closing the final stretch of distance, Langa moved his lips against Reki’s, pressing softly. He pulled back, looking at Reki. “Sorry—I’ve wanted to do that for a really long time. I didn’t think you felt the same way. I thought you liked girls.”
Instead of responding, Reki pulled Langa back to his lips, softening, deepening their kiss further than before. Their lips slid against each other, making Reki’s head dizzy, buzzing with excitement. He felt like he was floating.
They broke apart, breathing heavily. Reki smiled up at Langa, a soft laugh escaping him. “Well, as it turns out, I like you a lot more.”
Elated and giddy, the two of them began walking back towards the crowd, sneaking a few extra kisses along the way. They were gone longer than expected and had to make their way towards the finish line to meet up with Shadow and Miya who had nearly finished their race already. When they finally arrived at the finish line, Miya was waiting for them, looking irritated.
“Took you long enough. You missed my win—I crushed Shadow and not one of you was there to see it.” He huffed but looked down to see Langa and Reki’s hands laced together. “I suppose,” he muttered under his breath, “I can give you both a pass, just this once.” He raised an eyebrow smirking at the two of them. “Glad to see that you both managed to finally level up.”
As they left “S” that night, celebrating Miya’s win, Langa spent the whole night crowded over Reki, hovering, grabbing for his hand as often as possible, and excitedly pressing close to him whenever he could.
As they left to go home, Langa kissed Reki goodbye, still glowing, still smiling, and promised to take him on a proper date next time.