Chapter Text
Their seating in the classroom has been rearranged.
Luckily, Langa still finds himself within close proximity to his friend, close enough to reach his arm behind him, where the other sits, just to feel Reki’s fingers tangle with his own. They’re hidden under the shadow of the desk, but Langa knows people whisper, the students who sit in the back rows too.
He can’t help it though. It’s like a routine whenever all the students settle in after the starting bell. There’s a tap on his shoulder and next thing he knows, his back subtly relaxes into the seat and his fingers feel warm and ticklish from the sensation of his friend’s. Maybe Reki doesn’t even realize it, but ever since his spontaneous outburst in the middle of class, chest heaving and eyes terrified from flashbacks Langa can’t begin to imagine, he’s become particularly… tactile. As if merely touching Langa puts him at such ease, like the last tense muscle to loosen before his body settles, the way damp soil does around beautiful green plants, and he finally falls asleep.
Langa knows what fresh cherry blossoms truly look like, now that they’ve been wiped clean of a gloomy, black and white slate. When he sees Reki at peace, he wonders what the boy would look like with those delicate petals draped along his hoodie-clad shoulders and speckled in his fluffy hair. He looks like a flower himself, honestly, with his red hair. The kind that apparently turns bold and rich during this springtime. He’s beginning to think this whole color thing has spurred a particular interest in gardening.
“—Your exams for each subject begin next week…”
Class drawls on and Reki’s hand gradually goes limp. Langa holds on anyway and continues looking ahead. Today can follow all their other days, and he knows that during lunchtime the droopiness of Reki’s eyes will linger a bit longer while he snags food off Langa’s tray (its alright because he’s cute); in the afternoon he’ll be bursting with energy and probably scrape his knees raw from relentless skating; and in the evening Langa will text the notes from class so Reki can at least be occupied when the insomnia sets in.
It’s comfortable, repetitive.
But as he roves his thumb across Reki’s knuckles and overhears the snickers and taunts from nearby, he feels his heart ache for one slight change: to live the way they have been, but together. As… a couple. Soulmates.
“Tsch, no wonder he’s such a weirdo. He’s gay.”
Right. Despite the fact that soulmates are defined by something greater and unknown, completely uncontrollable by the person in question, the stigma toward homosexuality still rots away in plenty parts of the world. Even the utmost truth of a person’s identity is thrown aside, considered a disgrace or punishment to their family, and believed to be somehow prayed away to whatever god controls when someone will see the sky in its natural blue.
Reki’s touch strengthens the fibers of every color Langa has come to see, like their connection is meant to be exercised.
He glances at the bare, open palm of his free hand laying on the desktop. The sliced rivene of that nasty cut has sealed up for the most part, and his stitches should be removed quite soon.
It’s still a burning red around the edges. He thinks of that cat’s claw that drew the first drops of blood he’d ever seen, and as Reki stirs awake, fingers curling closer, Langa wonders if seeing red somehow made it all easier.
Reki isn’t staring. He’s made sure of it since that nap, or at least when Langa finally woke up the other day. On the outside, their connection was anticlimactic, there were no heaving breaths and a great collide into each other, no smashing lips or one liners that would make a poet teary eyed. Just the sight of cool blue that matched the sky’s color just outside the sun’s glare, and his heartbeat absolutely thundering from realization.
There’s no doubt it was Langa. Not only was the boy his best friend, but he was the only one within reach at that moment. But Reki could’ve been in a suffocating crowd with Langa a mile away, and still have no doubt it was him.
He’d swallowed down nothing but anxiousness at that time. It was a complete opposite to the blissful oblivion on Langa’s relaxed face.
Reki has heard that fire turns blue at the tips of its flames when it grows especially hot; the feeling stirring in his chest could’ve rivaled that of a bonfire. Entirely blue, and the sting of it pressed into his lip as his teeth dug into its picked skin. Nearly all of his bedroom felt brand new, but the only thing his eyes could handle was a face right in front of him, and the strand of hair puffing from air that escaped between Langa’s agape lips.
Since then, Reki has practically glued himself to his friend’s company with the help of fast wheels from his skateboard and the soles of his sneakers.
I wanna see blue again.
Not any other kind, it’s just Langa.
“You’re not telling me something,” Miya says inside the shop. His hair is still especially dark and contrasts the sheer green of his eyes. It matches his personality, honestly, since his kindness tends to hide behind a curtain of snark just the way his bangs dangle around his eyes.
“What am I not telling you?” Reki asks as he feigns innocence the best he can. He’s a great liar, it’s almost a shame, but somehow Miya sees right through like glass and Reki bets it’s because this kid does just the same.
“I don’t know that’s why I’m bringing it up, idiot.” Miya’s board dances under his feet as he hops between random tricks. “But I bet it’s about Langa,” he chirps, and the board clicks with it.
Reki schools his face as he picks away at the stickers stuck to the edge of the countertop. ‘Number 1!’ it reads, the letters are bubbled like mini graffiti. “Well I’ve got nothing. He’s coming around soon, though.” He shrugs.
Miya doesn’t buy it. Instead he grounds his foot into the front of his board and flies to the counter.
“Tell me,” he says at the same time his hands latch onto the counter just across from Reki. He tilts his head, mouth curled, nothing but a sneaky little cat playing the poor part of a curious dog. Reki rolls his eyes.
“You tell me. I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Well I bet…” Miya props his cheek in one hand, the ribbon on his beret sways with it, “—you’re seeing color.”
Reki knows he fucking lost to this damn kid. He feels his eyes widen before he knows it, and it’s already a bad move to act skeptical but he does it anyway and lifts a brow. “What makes you think—“
“Nah I saw it,” Miya already says and his little finger points straight between Reki’s eyes. “It’s in your face, hah!”
He smacks his arm away. “I don’t care, there’s nothing to see.” Just black and white, he tries thinking to himself, but this whole setting is shouting otherwise.
“Don’t act so surprised.” Miya scowls. “Everyone in S already knows, maybe even your whole stupid school.” He slides back to the opposite wall of the shop, and his head stays facing away as he finishes smugly. “At least the fact that you’re soulmates.”
Reki says nothing. The shock bursts from his head down to the bottom of his spine.
“Hmmm,” the kid continues nonchalantly. “Adam is trash anyway.”
Adam, Reki thinks bitterly. Acting like he’s god himself. There’s no way he could even intervene, despite the off chance of a person having two soulmates, that man is nothing but disgusting and he can count on the fact that his— his friend just gets a rise out of competition like some idiot ‘cause he apparently loves having Reki worried sick over him.
“If you do it again I’ll punch you,” he remembers saying just nearly a month ago. It was a half tease, his and Langa’s fingers were intertwined and pressed to either side of his head on the latter’s bed.
Langa loomed over him. “Okay,” he’d replied simply, and Reki bonked his knee into Langa’s hip from where the boy was planted between his legs.
Lord help him, this crush had knocked him to the ground too many times. Reki is almost tired of falling for Langa (not really), he may as well make the floor his home at this point.
“He is, but the rest of this is bull,” Reki makes a half shot at faking it more but it doesn’t even land. Miya knows better.
“We’ll see at S tonight.” Miya says ominously before pushing himself right out the door.
Reki bets that kid would call his soulmate a slime the first time they meet. He’s just that much of a shithead.