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Joe… was amazing. He had an inhumane strength and he did not hesitate to use it in the dangerous races of S. He was highly aware of his environment and a lot of muscles to control it, furthermore he had smart ways to turn that into his advantage. While he went past the corners of the race track, Langa was only able to watch him with a mouth open. He knew he didn’t have a chance against the legend himself.
But he still wanted to keep fighting. He was searching for that emotion, that excitement that filled his heart with joy when he was skating, making his heart race uncontrollably. Unfortunately, he didn’t have that feeling for weeks.
Since Reki started avoiding him.
Langa has been looking for his “buddy” everywhere since then. He was seeing him at school but Reki was not talking to him in the lessons like he used to, like those old times they kept driving their teacher crazy. He was just sitting there, not listening, not doing anything except watching the damn window for hours.
So if Langa wanted to talk to him, it had to be at S. He didn’t have the balls to just appear in front of Reki’s house, like when he did on that rainy night. It didn’t age well, it really did not.
But today was different. He saw that Reki’s room’s window was open, the one he used to sneak out at night to go to S. If the guy didn’t have another night time crazy skating race thing to attend, he had to be at S.
Reki is here, he thought as he looked around to the audience, searching for the familiar tone of red in their hair. Reki’s hair has always been unique and easy to spot, but Langa couldn’t see it anywhere.
His eyes went around every corner of the place, filtering the crowd. For a strand of red hair, maybe for a yellow hoodie, maybe for the doodles under his skateboard or maybe to hear the familiar chuckle of his. It had been pretty long since he heard that happy chuckle. He was so scared of forgetting how it sounded like.
“Snow, focus! Dammit, you’re gonna lose!”
With a voice yelling his nickname, Langa’s head came back into the current moment. A random dude seemed really angry that Langa was lost in thought, he probably bet on him for a lot of money.
Well, maybe Langa didn’t have that weird feeling of his heart beating with haste, but that wasn’t a reason to just let Joe win this easily. He was pretty ahead thanks to his power move but the next corner had a perfect tree for Langa to use his rotating wheels to jump from and catch up.
He accelerated as the cheering of the crowd increased drastically. People yelled his and Joe’s name over and over again, and when he made his familiar tree-jump from his snowboard days with his dad, the crowd went crazy all over again. The excitement was everywhere, the enthusiasm, the infinite energy of S.
The only one who didn’t feel any of that was Langa.
He tried enjoying it, he really did. It was just… he felt lonely? How, he thought to himself, how do I feel lonely when a bunch of people screaming my name from the top of their lungs?
More importantly, why?
Why did he feel like when he was snowboarding, all by himself, because his dad wasn’t there anymore?
He was finally shaking that unpleasant feeling off his shoulders, and without asking any permission of his, it was right back at his heart again. The only thing it did was forbidding Langa from having fun from anything he does, ruining his angelic smile.
But whatever, he thought. It wasn’t about him. There was a whole crowd of people to entertain anyway. And there was a very small chance that Reki was watching him.
A very small chance that he would be happy and proud of Langa if he won. He always has been.
So he accelerated, even gained more speed. The air and dust around got into his eye, annoying and blinding him. He still heard the screams, he smelled his own and his opponent’s sweat as they went head to head through the race path.
As the next corner approached, Langa tried to swipe his eyes with his hands to see an escape route to survive this turn, especially with that speed. Joe feared nothing, and if he wanted to compete with this monstrous guy, he had to play with Joe’s rules.
He looked around again, for a spark of creativity. Joe could use his unbelievable strength again and just push himself from rocks, but Langa needed a stable object to jump on. He didn’t have a tree in this corner, and he had to find something else. Now.
He looked at the road, the sky, the sides of the path, the cheering audience.
Every single one of them was cheering with joy, well, except Cherry, he was busy boo-ing Joe and telling him to lose and miserably die.
And there was another exception as well. A silent guy in a green hoodie, hiding his face behind an orange cap. He looked like he didn’t even want to be here, but he still was here, watching the race silently.
A strand of his hair fell off in front of his eyes, he immediately held it and shoved it back into its place. It was only a few seconds, but Langa saw the strand so perfectly despite the amount of dust and earth particles ruining his vision.
It was a beautiful, an extremely familiar shade of red.
Reki.
Langa gasped, immediately stopped his skateboard and catched it in the air.
“Reki!” He yelled, then got out of the racing road without a single hesitation and left a very confused Joe behind.
Reki visibly panicked by hearing his own name. His shoulders went up to his chin like a turtle. He looked a little funny, but it was obvious that he was so uncomfortable. He pulled his hoodie even more to hide his eyes.
Langa jumped and ran towards Reki just like a little puppy who just saw its owner at the door after a long day of work. “Reki! I knew you would come,” he started yelling as he leaned down to see his face to make sure it’s Reki. He’s been wrong two times before, he was mixing every single mysterious dude he saw with Reki. “I knew!”
“Reki, do you want to stake together? We can go to the other road, since the crowd is here, it must be available, we can hang out there!” He said cheerfully. He has been pouting for weeks, but seeing Reki in a place of skateboarding again made his heart race and his face lit up. He just couldn’t hide his smile. Reki was here!
“Langa-”
“We didn’t skate together for weeks, I have so many things to show you!” He held his friend from the arm of his oversized hoodie and started pulling lightly. “Lets go, please!”
“Langa,” Reki started without even a single emotion in his voice. “I didn’t bring my board.”
Langa blinked with confusion. He was sure Reki’s feet were attached to his skateboard, as if it was a part of his body. “What… Why?”
“I ain’t gonna use it anyway. Go back to your race.”
Oh god, Langa completely forgot he was in the middle of a race with the legend guy Joe. No offense to him, but Langa didn’t want to come back and finish the race. He didn’t have a decent conversation with Reki for days, he just wanted to stay beside him. He had a lot to say, an apology, the tournament, the new guy that beated Adam’s record, his talk with his mom…
“It’s okay! We can ride mine together!” He just kept talking, whatever it took to keep Reki in front of his eyes. “Like we did while escaping that scary mud thingy, remember? Wasn’t that fun?”
Reki rolled his eyes. At that moment, if Langa didn’t save him with his own board, Reki would be long gone. Remembering that moment of being saved by him definitely didn’t help his hidden feelings of inferiority. He knew Langa didn’t do anything wrong, he was grateful for catching him there but, still. It didn’t feel great to be reminded.
“If you don’t want to skate at S… we can go to the park next to your house.” Langa desperately tried. Again.
“Who’s that guy?” someone whispered to their friend’s ear. Another one, someone that clearly didn’t care if Reki heard them said “What is he doing with Snow?”. “Did Snow just leave the race for him?” someone else added. As the mumbling of the crowd rose, phrases like “That’s stupid. He looks lame.” and “Why can’t he just let Snow race, I am bored.” filled Reki’s ear.
“I am not getting my money, aren’t I?”
Now Reki looked like this was the most uncomfortable moment of his life. He buried his face and his hands into the green hoodie even deeper. He whispered “People are looking at us. Stop it.” so quietly that if all of Langa’s mind wasn’t focused on him, he wouldn’t hear it.
That was something Langa didn’t understand. Reki always liked attention. He had this enormous fluffy red hair that one could never miss, he always wore beautiful hoodies with bright colors, unlike this boring green one. He had a loud, funny voice that made everyone look at him, and never failed to make Langa smile.
But now, he hated that he was the center of attention. No way.
“No, please. You came to S, that means something, right? Did you see my texts? Why would you come here if you didn’t want to skate?”
“Langa, go and finish your damn race.”
Langa looked behind him, Joe was waiting patiently. Even if he secretly was, he didn’t look offended, which Langa was grateful for. He really needed this moment, he really needed to talk to Reki while he still was able to. However Reki looked really annoyed, dreary and broken. Maybe he should have given him a little bit of space.
“Promise me you’ll be here when I come back.” He said, almost begging. “Promise me you’ll watch.”
“Why would I promise?” Reki blurted out. “We end up breaking them anyway.”
Langa sighed. He knew that he deserved that response.
As a last try, Langa said “I missed you.” as he stepped a little closer. To see his face better, he didn’t get a great chance to look at Reki’s golden eyes for a long time.
Reki did not respond, he didn’t even give a single reaction that he had heard. He just kept staring at Langa with tired eyes, he was probably busy thinking how he didn’t deserve to set his foot on the land of S.
“Um… I will go back to the race then. Uhh, see you at school?”
Reki hummed and Langa went back to the racing track, not breaking eye contact with Reki until he reached it, too afraid to blink, as if Reki would disappear between his eyelids.
After the race started again from where it left off, Langa and Joe moved away further and further, until they disappeared from Reki’s sight. Many people started running to be able to see the winner, but Reki didn’t. He couldn’t get himself to care.
He stood there, looking at the road that had Langa on it a few seconds ago with empty eyes. When no one left around, when he was finally completely alone, he mumbled, “I missed you too.”