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He didn’t need it. Had refused it in the past for the sake of his pride and fear of his budding feelings showing. But as he only got better at skating, the chances of the opportunity to hold Reki’s hand to help him skate would only lessen.
And sure, maybe it was a little bit lame, not exactly having the confidence to make a solid move but using skating as a way to get a hint of what he wanted, but Langa was far past the point of caring about that. Majority of people his age with a crush in the same position as him would take it.
“You wanna hold my hand until you get the hang of it?”
Despite past rejections of the exact same thing, Reki still offered, speaking as though it was a first time thing.
If he was to be honest, Langa had thought about this situation more times than he had about school work in the past month. He’d had the chance to hold Reki’s hand thrice now and every time he rejected it, which had him regretting his decision every single time.
The first time it happened was the most bothersome as he hadn’t quite grasped why he was so frustrated about the fact that he didn’t take up the offer after the fact. He hadn’t considered the possibility he was nursing a crush until then, but it put everything into perspective when he did figure it out.
The mere concept of holding Reki’s hand, it made his heart race and mind pace like an adrenaline rush from falling off a board but with a slower process and less physical pain. Less, but still a noticeable sort of ache in his chest and stomach that the pleasure of outweighed how generally overwhelming it could be sometimes.
This time, he didn’t refuse, but Reki wasn’t expecting that. He stared at Langa’s outstretched hand like he’d never seen a human hand before.
“I got you!” He beamed when realising the situation, the gentle slap of their hands meeting following shortly after.
Not much was said while it was going on. Aside from Reki’s instructions, observations and explanations as Langa moved his feet and shifted balance on the board, that were the usual anyway.
Honestly, the fact that they were holding hands didn’t immediately affect anything on the surface.
But deeper? A lot was going on.
Reki noticed for the first time just how much smaller Langa’s hands were than his, despite being taller. It wasn’t a huge difference, probably barely noticeable from the outside, but Reki seemed to smile at the realisation immediately.
Langa’s hand was cold, pale and every nail on the edge of his fingers were trimmed neatly. It greatly contrasted to that of Reki’s warm, tan hand with nails ridged and bitten from multiple angles.
It was mostly instinctual for him to offer his hand to help whenever Langa needed to learn a new way to balance or position his feet, not something he actually thought about and definitely not something he actually considered the effects of. On himself, or on Langa. He didn’t once think about how it may have distracted them both from the actual skating should the offer be taken up.
The longer time went on, the harder it was for Langa to focus on his stance, positioning and balance. The couple of times he nearly slipped had him squeezing onto Reki’s hand tightly, which only caused his cheeks to tint against his will and his concentration to falter even more.
Not only did Langa squeeze on instinct once nearly falling, as anyone would, Reki squeezed back, even with arguably no real reason too. Langa wasn’t going to complain about it.
There was one thing that Langa was certain about and that was that he absolutely would have gotten the hang of it a lot quicker without the ‘help’. If presented the opportunity again though, he would take it.
He only realised how much he actually enjoyed it once it was gone. The fact that it almost became familiar and something of instant comfort despite making his hair stand on end was completely contradictory and he was going through that mental journey all at once in Reki’s presence.
“Are you feeling okay, dude? Your face is super red.” Reki suddenly asked as he moved in close, supposedly getting a closer look at what he called out, but Langa jumped all the same.
Was Reki doing this on purpose? They literally just held hands and he noticed Langa completely blushing. It was easy to see against his pale skin and Reki even looked to be a little rosy cheeked himself?
“I’m fine. It’s warm.”
“Oh, right! That makes sense.”
Langa wondered if Reki really didn’t catch on or if he was trying to get him to say something more explicit regarding his feelings with what just happened, but doubted it, considering how Reki probably would have straight up asked or teased if that was the case.
As they walked away from the skate park, hands now close to brushing by their sides, Langa saw the clear tense in Reki’s shoulders and the way he kept clenching his hand, and came to the conclusion that he was probably figuring some things out on his own.
The look on his face was pondering and focussed even though there wasn’t a clear excuse for it.
Langa gave Reki time to figure it out on his own. He could tell him straight right that second and would probably be met with positivity, but there was something almost amusing about seeing him silently try to work through his pining.
Reki was a little less aware of explicit labels for such strong feelings than Langa was, but he was willing to wait until he figured himself out.
Willing to hold his hand whenever presented with it from now on.