Chapter Text
At thirty minutes to midnight, Reki slipped out of his house, a black bag slung over his shoulders. As he walked, Reki tossed a bright orange golf ball from his left hand to his right, throwing it a little higher each time. When that got boring, he pulled out a second ball, then a third, and practiced juggling them as he walked. He kept all three going for three minutes and nine seconds, his longest ever, but then his hand fumbled and the neon green ball landed on his face.
Golf balls and faces were not a good match.
Reki spent the rest of his walk wondering what would be added to the course at M tonight. He hoped it was something crazy—most of the recent changes had been small. The small ones were fun to puzzle out, too, and Reki usually figured them out. Unlike a lot of people, Reki paid attention. Well, sometimes. He paid attention to things that mattered, like the mini golf course at M. Other things, like school and homework and oncoming traffic, didn’t matter as much. Nothing mattered as much as mini golf.
Breathing in the cool night air, Reki thought that he was the luckiest guy in the world. How many people knew what they wanted to do, and got to do it whenever they wanted? Yeah, for Reki, things were pretty much perfect.
A long line had already formed at the gated entrance to M. Reki waiting impatiently, bouncing on his feet, craning his neck to try and see inside. He checked that his pin was still in place. He never took it off, but he always worried that it would somehow fall off and be lost forever just when he needed it.
The crowd at M was rowdy tonight, the line thrumming with electric energy. Reki grinned to himself. Perfect. This was his favorite kind of night, where everything felt just barely under control, just on the verge of chaos. Like anything could happen.
Finally, finally, he made it to the front of the line, and flashed his pin at the bouncer. They waved him through. His clubs rattled comfortingly in the bag on his back, and he made his way through the crowd inside to his favorite spot—an alcove near Hole 1. Reki set his bag down and rolled his shoulders, tense from the walk over. He settled against the wall and surveyed the crowd. Like him, most people in attendance crowded near the first few holes, in pairs and groups. They chatted animatedly and gestured wildly with their hands. Probably trying to guess what the changes were tonight. Some people placed bets on it. Reki never got into that, but he saw the appeal. He checked his watch. Plenty of time. He picked his bag up once more and joined the few others who wandered through the course. Although M was underground, it was well lit, and Reki never got tired of the brightly colored obstacles scattered throughout the cavern. Some people might have found it overwhelming, but Reki loved the vibrant chaos.
Reki watched a couple nearby, heads bent together, as they examined the blades on the first windmill at Hole 9. Reki almost laughed. As if the leaders of M would change a windmill! Nah, it would never be that easy. Still, Reki couldn’t help but feel jealous—he didn’t have anyone to guess with him. Lost in thought, he stopped paying attention and nearly bumped into a trio. With a hurried apology, he wove back through the course and to the safety of his alcove, narrowly avoiding two more couples and three more friend groups. Jeez, what was going on tonight? He was used to groups forming throughout the night, to cheer on their favorite players or talk shit, but tonight it seemed like everybody had brought a plus one. Or two. Or three. No one else was alone.
Reki ran a hand through his hair and readjusted his headband. Man, he was already in his head. He didn’t have any chance of winning tonight if he kept that up. So what, everyone else had friends to hang out with. Big deal. He was Kyan Reki, and he was going to kick ass at tonight’s match. Maybe he’d even get a hole-in-one! Yeah, that’s what he would do. He checked his watch again. It was nearly time. If he wanted in on a match tonight, he needed to find a challenger.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a familiar shock of orange hair sprouting from a face painted white, green, and purple. Shadow. Oh, yeah. That would work.
“Hey, old man!” Reki called, stepping out from his alcove and into the artificial light. Shadow didn’t turn. Reki cupped his hands around his mouth. “I said, hey, old man!”
Now, Shadow turned. “What did you call me?” he bellowed.
Reki grinned wickedly. “You heard me.” He slid a club, his favorite, from the bag by his side, and twirled it in his hands. “I heard old guys are good at golf. You wanna prove it?”
In response, Shadow pulled his club, an iron studded with spikes, from the holster on his back and held it high in the air. “You want a challenge, kid? I’ll give you a challenge!”
The crowd roared. Reki lifted his chin and set his shoulders before choosing his first club from his bag. Whether he played or not, this was always his favorite part of a night spent at M—the moments just before a challenge began. The fierce look in the challengers’ eyes. The feel of the pulsing crowd, desperate for a good show.
Well, if it was a good show they wanted, that’s what Reki would give them. They still didn’t know his name, but they would. Maybe not tonight, but someday. He stepped up to the first hole and placed the bright orange golf ball on the start spot. Adjusted his hands on the club. Beside him, Shadow did the same.
There weren’t really any rules at M, which suited Reki just fine. Rules were boring. At the start of a challenge, it was considered courteous to allow the less experienced player to go first, but most people who came to M weren’t courteous, and usually both players started at the same time. Reki was secretly a little pleased that Shadow wasn’t giving him a head start. Maybe the old man respected him, after all.
More likely, he was just impatient. But Reki could dream.
As the countdown began, both players feathered their clubs above the golf balls, testing out their first swing. Reki knew the first hole back and forth. A big swing to start and get the ball over the Rut, a trench in the ground lined with sand. A hole-in-one if he was lucky, or a second, smaller swing to finish if he wasn’t. Anyone who couldn’t sink the first hole in two swings was laughed off the premises.
Reki was proud that he’d never done quite that badly.
As the countdown reached its end, Reki lifted his club, and brought it down for a perfect drive, whacking the ball with a satisfying crack just as the buzzer sounded. Shadow’s club connected with his golf ball a split second later.
Speed was not, technically, an element of mini golf. The only thing that determined the winner was the total number of strokes, the lower the better. M was no dinky, tourist town course, however, and the crowd rarely respected a player who took their time, no matter how good they were otherwise. There were no spare seconds to adjust grips or swing angles. No one wanted to wait for their challenger to limp through the course.
Unsurprisingly, Reki did not get a hole-in-one, but neither did Shadow. Reki had no idea how Shadow managed with that spiked club—shouldn’t it impale the ball?—but if he thought too hard about the mechanics he knew he’d get a headache. Their golf balls landed next to each other about a foot past the Rut. Reki leapt over the Rut, but Shadow was faster, and knocked Reki over when they landed. He swung, and the ball landed in the hole. Reki picked himself up and did the same.
The obstacles got harder after that, but Reki was prepared. As long as Shadow didn’t play dirty, it would be a good game—but of course Shadow did play dirty, bumping into Reki whenever he could, nudging his ball off course, once nearly whacking him in the head with his spiked club. Reki dodged just in time.
They made it past the winding lane at Hole 2, up a ramp at Hole 3. Around a spiral at 4, and over the pools of water at 5. All the way to Hole 9, the last of the standard hazards. Starting with 10, things would get a lot more difficult, and a lot more interesting. If he got anything over four strokes at this hole, Reki was done, and wouldn’t be able to move onto the second half. He wasn’t going to let that happen. He squared his shoulders and faced down the windmill.
Beside him, Shadow hesitated, and as he swung back, Reki realized why. Distracted by the couple, he hadn’t noticed before that the windmill was different. He wanted to smack himself. It was so obvious now. On either side of the windmill were two mirrors, facing each other, reflecting infinite windmills. Shoot, Reki thought. It was super cool, that was for sure, but it was hard enough to get the ball through the blades normally. So that was tonight’s change. Clever bastards.
Reki always wondered who made the changes to the course. He’d heard rumors, of course, but nothing confirmed. He had a dumb hope that someday, he would be allowed to add something. Unlikely as it was, he kept a notebook full of his ideas.
Furrowing his eyebrows in concentration, Reki followed through with his swing, and watched the ball sail through the air. For a brief, exhilarating moment, he thought it would go over the windmill completely, and land on the other side, maybe even a hole-in-one. But then, as it reached the peak of the arc, Shadow darted forward, launched himself over the windmill, and caught Reki’s ball in the air. He threw it to the side, well out of playing range, and dropped his own golf ball on the ground, mere inches from the hole. With a small, neat swing, he sunk the ball, and that was that. Reki had lost. Again. He clambered over the course, picking his way past the onlookers, until he finally saw a flash of orange. Reki knelt, picked up the golf ball, and slipped it into his pocket. It wouldn’t be a winner today. “Sorry, little guy,” he whispered.
More challenges took place after that, but Reki zoned out, and when the competition wrapped up for the night, he followed the crowd back out through the gates. It wasn’t that Reki minded losing. He didn’t even care much that Shadow had cheated; cheating was part of the game, at least at M. Usually, the game itself was enough for Reki, but tonight, something felt off. Swept up in the crowd, he noticed again how everyone clustered in groups or pairs, energetically discussing the events of the night.
In that moment, Reki felt terribly, horribly alone.
He hoped he wouldn’t always be alone.
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At school the following morning, Reki could barely keep his eyes open. He knew it wasn’t healthy, staying out all night, only catching a few hours sleep here and there. But it wasn’t like he did it every night. Other days, he slept for 14 hours straight, and that’s called balance, he thought.
(Sometimes he wasn’t confident it actually balanced out.)
Chin propped in his hand, Reki was close to nodding off when he heard, “We have a new student. Would you like to introduce yourself?” Reki, like the rest of his class, immediately perked up. New students weren’t common, and no matter who they were, they were always good for gossip. Not that anyone usually gossiped with Reki. But he liked to listen in.
Reki allowed himself a brief happy moment to think, hey, maybe they’ll want to play mini golf with me before looking to the front of the room. He caught sight of the new kid and immediately slumped back in his chair. Nope, not a chance. Crisp uniform, a serious face. Polished. Not the kind of guy who would want to sneak out to midnight mini golf games. Reki vaguely processed the guy’s introduction—Langa from Canada, or was it Canga from Lanada?—before burying his head in his arms and falling asleep for the rest of class.
After school, having slept through most of his classes, Reki felt a lot better. Last night had been a fluke, and he really had almost gotten that hole-in-one, hadn’t he? Plus, the thing with the mirrors was so dope. He wondered if more mirrors would show up at M next time. He started imagining a course completely lined with mirrors. How sick would that be? Between the reflections, and the extra care needed around glass, it would be nearly impossible. Reki held his hand above his eyes, shading them from the sun, and gazed up at the row of second floor windows on the school building. A mirror-course was unlikely, he knew, but it couldn’t hurt to start practicing his aim around glass. Right? Glancing over both shoulders to make sure no one was looking, Reki dropped his backpack on the ground and dug through papers and books until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a golf ball, dusted off the crumbs—where did the crumbs always come from?—and the collapsible club he always carried at school. He set the ball down, focused on the wall, and prepared to swing—
As he brought the club down, someone walked straight into his sightline. Crap. Reki switched his angle, too quickly, and hit the ball hard. It flew into the air, hooked to the right, and instead of smacking the wall between two windows, as he’d planned, it sailed into—and through—a window. Even two stories down, the sound of shattering glass was unmistakable. Reki gaped at the window for two seconds, then turned to the person who’d walked in front of him, prepared to get a lecture.
But Reki didn’t come face-to-face with a teacher. Instead, standing in front of Reki, frozen in place, head swiveling back and forth from Reki to the window, was the new kid. Reki didn’t have time to think. He shoved the club handle back down, tossed it in his bag, and grabbed the kid’s wrist, pulling him away from the crime scene.
The new guy didn’t budge. “What are you doing, man? We gotta get out of here!” Reki said in a low, urgent voice.
Langa—it was definitely Langa, Reki remembered now—stared blankly at the broken window. “Why?” he said. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You saw me, dude!” Reki shook his head and tugged harder on Langa’s wrist. “You were a witness. I can’t leave you here to blab. And you did too do something! You walked in front of me! You messed up my aim.”
Langa fixed him with a curious look. “Why were you aiming at a window?”
Reki sighed in exasperation. “I wasn’t. I was aiming between the windows.”
Langa gave a skeptical frown, but he finally moved his feet, though still not as quickly as Reki would have liked. Reki was glad, at least, that no one else seemed to be around. When they were a safe distance from the school campus, Reki put his hands on his knees and started laughing. “Oh, man, that was crazy! I can’t believe I did that, and oh no, they’re gonna find the golf ball in the classroom. They’ll know it was me. Nobody else carries golf balls around.” Reki suddenly remembered who he was with, stood up straight, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s not funny. It’s stupid.”
Langa stared at him, and Reki wondered if he’d broken him. Oh god, I broke the new kid. Finally, Langa said, “It was…kind of awesome, actually.”
That was unexpected. “You think?” Reki’s mouth quirked up in a hesitant smile.
Langa nodded. “You’re Reki, right?”
Surprised, Reki jabbed his thumb to his chest and said, “Yeah, that’s me—wait, how’d you know my name?”
“Oh. I sat next to you in class. You were asleep, I think? But your homework was on the edge of your desk. I—copied it. Sorry. I’m not very good at, uh…”
Reki doubled over laughing again and grabbed onto Langa’s wrist again to steady himself. Langa froze until Reki collected himself, looked up into Langa’s blue eyes—so blue—and said, “Oh, man, you chose the wrong guy to copy. You’re totally gonna fail.”
Instead of the horrified expression Reki expected, Langa began to laugh. Overcome with the rush of adrenaline and his residual fatigue, Reki broke into yet another round of laughter. They laughed together for another minute, and Reki allowed himself a cautious hope. Maybe Langa wasn’t as polished as he looked. Maybe he was like Reki.
Maybe Reki wouldn’t always be alone, after all.