Chapter Text
His mother is waiting with her arms crossed and boot tapping at the top of the hill.
He’d managed to find a lucky lull in the morning crowds of people shoving and jostling their way onto the lift, sitting by himself as he stared down at the mountain, shaking snow off of his board with one foot.
The serenity he’d felt from earlier fades away as his chair climbs over the hill and he makes out his mother’s angry figure.
Langa sighs and shifts his weight forward, sliding down and past her only for his mother to grab him by the back of his hood. He falls flat on his ass with a groan and stares up at the blue sky, frowning.
“I thought I told you to wait, Langa. What if you’d gotten lost?”
“It’s a ski lodge. There’s only so many opportunities to get lost going up or down a mountain,” he mutters, even as he takes the helmet and goggles off her hands.
“You shouldn’t have been boarding without a helmet,” she scolds, brushing excess snow off of his jacket.
“Snow’s not that hard today,” he says, even though he knows she’s right. “I’m gonna go.”
His mother reaches forward to wrap a scarf around his neck when he hops back upright, foot strapped back into his board.
“I’ll be waiting in the lodge. Come back when you’re hungry – we’ll be meeting your grandparents later for dinner.”
Waving a hand behind him to say goodbye, Langa hops forward until his board is sliding down the slope again.
Another round, faster this time now that he’s familiar with the scenery.
Langa bends his knees, shifting his weight onto his left foot until he’s picking up speed, swerving back and forth around clusters of families and little kids that still haven’t learned how to pizza with their skis just right. He gives one of them a little wave as she stares up at him, only to fall flat on her back a second later, still sliding down the hill until her dad catches her sleeve. He laughs, curving away until she’s only a speck in the distance behind him.
The wind whips past him, blowing any stray strands of hair to the side of his face. With his goggles and scarf on now, only his nose nips in the cold, but he leaves it uncovered to breathe in the crisp, clean scent of new snow.
The trees blur past and colorful ski pants and parkas turn into streaks of neon light in the corner of his eye until quickly, too quickly, the hill flattens out and he draws wide S’s across the snow, carrying himself just to the entrance of the line for the lift before he’s leaning down to shuck off the straps of his right foot with two quick zips.
“Woah, are you supposed to take your snowboard off when you get on the lift?” a voice asks from beside him.
Langa looks up to see red and almost stumbles on the curb of ice that’s built up on either side of the narrow line, barely catching himself by twisting his leg forward.
The boy from before is standing in front of him, with a ski pole in one hand as he attempts to use it to drag himself forward, both feet still strapped tightly on his board.
Langa shakes his head, sliding forward on his left foot while he pushes with his right. “Just one foot,” he says, demonstrating.
Reki watches for a moment, considering, before he’s chucking the ski pole off to the side, shouting, “Oi, Ryuji! You can have this one back.” He reaches down, quickly leaning forward to unstrap one foot only to end up with the buckles caught in his thick winter gloves, tugging uselessly at his boots.
Rolling his eyes, Langa kneels down and with two quick moves, unbuckles Reki’s foot. “There.”
“Woah, thanks,” Reki says, reaching a hand out to help Langa up. “I’m Reki.”
“Langa,” Langa answers, pulling his hand back out of Reki’s grasp. “You suck at this.”
At that, Reki barks out a loud laugh as they slide forward in line together, inching up closer to the lifts. “Well, yeah. I’m sure you were just a pro since you first stepped on a snowboard, huh?”
Langa shrugs. To be honest, he doesn’t remember. It’s been so long since he first slid down a hill that snowboarding has become more than natural to him, like breathing. He trusts the snow, more than anything else. He’s not afraid to fall, because he knows it’ll be there to catch him.
He’s not sure that he could explain it well enough in his limited Japanese for Reki to understand.
He falls silent as they continue to push forward while Reki chatters on beside him, talking about his friends, and falling, and seeing other people fall. Apparently, in the time it took for Reki and his group to make it down the hill once, Langa had made the run twice.
It isn’t until they’re about to be seated that Langa finally speaks up again, reaching out a hand to grab Reki’s elbow and pull him in closer. “Careful,” he says. “Bend your knees.”
“What–”
Before Reki has a chance to respond, the ski lift is hitting them and Reki falls back with an oomph as Langa reaches above to pull the bar down over their heads.
“Didn’t you want to ride with your friends?” Langa asks as they begin to ascend, snowboards bumping occasionally under their feet.
“Nah. I’d probably just trip over them while getting off,” Reki shrugs, turning around to wave behind him, causing the whole ski lift to shake.
“Stop that,” Langa hisses, grabbing his shoulder and pulling him to face forward again. “Don’t you know how easy it is to fall?”
Reki stills at that, sitting back in the chair. He bumps his knee against Langa’s, turning to face him with a grin. “It’s okay. I’m not afraid of falling.” His eyes bore into Langa’s with an intensity that can’t be put into words – it’s an expression Langa knows well. One he’s seen reflected on his own.
Before Langa can answer, Reki’s twisting again, this time to look down as he whistles sharply. “Then again, I haven’t ever fallen from this high before, so that could be pretty bad,” he laughs and the moment is broken.
They fall back into silence again, and Langa closes his eyes to bask in the warmth of the sun on his face, feeling the slightest breeze push back against them as they move forward.
“How long have you been doing this, then?” Reki asks from beside him, breaking the tranquility of the moment.
Langa doesn’t bother to open his eyes as he answers, “Since I was two.”
“Two?” Reki asks incredulously. “Could you even walk when you were two?”
Langa opens his eyes then, blinking away the spots of red that burned into his eyelids from the sun. “My mom does like to say that I could snowboard before I could walk,” he says. “I think that’s an exaggeration, though. Babies can usually start walking before they’re two.”
Reki laughs at that, smacking Langa on the shoulder as he leans forward. “Damn, snowboard sensei. You’re funny, too?”
“That wasn’t a joke,” Langa says, looking down at Reki who continues to laugh. He finds the corners of his lips quirking up anyway as he watches, even though he can’t seem to follow the joke for himself.
Catching his breath, Reki heaves a sigh as he says, “Man, and here I thought I was something of an expert in my field, too.”
“Your field?” Langa asks.
Lifting up his feet, Reki balances his snowboard so his unbuckled foot still brushes against it, giving the illusion of being strapped in. “Skateboarding! There’s no better feeling than flying down a twisting road, no acceleration or braking or steering except your own two feet and a piece of wood on four wheels. Ah,” he sighs, leaning back. “Talking about it makes me miss it.”
“Has it been a while since you last skateboarded?”
“Hmm… Probably at least eighteen hours?”
“You miss something you did last night,” Langa deadpans.
“Exactly!” This time, Reki is the one lost on the joke.
Then again , he thinks as he settles back in the lift chair. I did take an eighteen hour flight to Japan only to snowboard more.
Reki continues to blabber excitedly beside him, telling him the tricks he’s learned and the friends he’s made over the years as if Langa will be able to differentiate between any of the names he rattles off. Is Casper a person or a trick? Langa sure couldn’t say.
Still, he watches as Reki talks, nose red and scrunching up when he thinks of a particular victory, or patting at his shoulder as he recalls a nasty injury.
The sun reflects off his red hair in a way that makes him look so warm and alive compared to the icy cliffs surrounding them that Langa’s tempted for a moment to reach out a hand and touch it.
The lift comes to a screeching halt all of a sudden, leaving Reki bewildered as he looks around in a panic.
“Are we stuck? Why aren’t we moving, oh my god, did this break? What’s happening, I’m too young to die, are we going to die here?”
Snorting, Langa bumps Reki’s shoulder with his own to get his attention. “It’s fine, somebody probably fell while getting off so they stopped it. Happens often, especially on green slopes.”
Reki blinks for a moment, face flushing red from more than just cold as he nods. “Right, makes sense. Totally knew that.” As if on cue, the lift creaks again, moving them forward once more.
They’re nearly to the top, so Langa begins to lift the bar above their heads only for Reki to clutch his arm in panic once again.
“What the hell are you doing? We could fall,” Reki says, gripping the handlebar tightly.
With an easy shove, Reki’s gloved hands slip off the cold metal anyway as Langa ignores him, leading Reki to hold onto Langa’s arm instead for support.
“We’re gonna get off soon,” Langa says slowly as if that explains everything. “Now let go and get ready if you don’t want to be the reason the lift stops again.”
Reki doesn’t bother listening, too busy staring down at the ground far beneath them.
With a sigh, Langa reaches out and knocks on Reki’s head until he looks up, eyes wide and round.
“Put your foot on the board, against the back binding.” He lifts his two feet in front of him to demonstrate. Hopefully, Reki is paying attention. “It should be like skateboarding. Easy,” he continues. Beside him, he feels Reki nod, still pressed up into his arm. “And lean forward. Not back. Or you fall. Now jump on three.”
“Wait. What?” Reki says, sitting up a little more as he turns to see they’re reaching the top of the hill.
“One, two, three!”
They both jump off, with enough momentum that they’re sliding forward and out of the path of the lift.
Unfortunately, it seems that Langa forgot to remind Reki of the most important step of dismounting.
Letting go of his damn arm.
Langa barely makes it two feet forward before he hears a yelp beside him, then a thunk as he feels himself being tugged down as well. They land in a heap of limps, gasping as they struggle to untangle themselves and sit upright again.
Eventually, Reki gives up and just flops back with a laugh, staring up into the blue sky. Langa stares down at him, considering the way his red hair contrasts against the white snow behind him and finds himself following suit.
The snow is cold on his back, but Reki radiates warmth beside him.
“You should teach me how to snowboard,” Reki speaks up after catching his breath.
“No,” Langa answers without bothering to look beside him. “You stick to the bunny slopes. I’m going to black diamond.”
Langa hasn’t been afraid of falling in a while. But he thinks he might have fallen for something new today.