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Reki woke up with a start. He looked around his dark bedroom in confusion, trying to figure out what could have woken him up so abruptly. And then he heard it. Muffled cries coming from the bundle in the sheets next to him. Langa. Reki could hear him mumbling nonsense and felt the sheets move as he twitched next to him, seemingly fighting something in his sleep.
“Reki!” Langa gasped out, still fast asleep. Reki felt his heart clench at the sound. Langa sounded…terrified. Reki had never seen him like this before. He was always the calm and collected one, chasing fear rather than running from it. Always desperate for that rush of adrenaline. But here he was, quivering in Reki’s bed while Reki could only watch helplessly.
Reki scooted up closer to him and placed a hand on his back, rubbing slow circles and whispering soothing words in an attempt to calm him down.
“Shh, it’s okay Langa. I’m here.”
Reki heard Langa mumble his name again, and he felt his stomach tighten into a knot. What was Langa dreaming about? It clearly had something to do with him but it couldn’t have been good, judging by how distressed Langa sounded.
Reki moved his hand up from Langa’s back to his face, and gently brushed stray blue strands away from his forehead. It felt strangely intimate, comforting his friend like this when he wasn’t even awake, but he was just acting on his instincts. For whatever reason, Langa needed him. And Reki would gladly provide whatever sense of comfort he could. Even if it sent his heart into a frenzy having Langa this close to him.
Reki wasn’t sure when exactly he had started feeling this way around Langa. It wasn’t a sudden realisation that maybe the feelings he was harbouring possibly pushed past the boundaries of friendship. Even now, with Langa in his bed and his face cupped in Reki’s hand, he still wasn’t sure how to define how he felt. There was just something about Langa that had this magnetic pull, and Reki had felt himself get drawn in more and more with each passing day. He could only hope that Langa felt the same way.
Reki felt Langa calm down under his touch and his breathing started to slow down.
“There you go. You’re doing so well, Langa.”
The sound of Reki’s voice seemed to rouse Langa from his sleep and he finally opened his eyes. “Reki?”
Reki sighed in relief and retracted his hand, placing it between them on top of the bedsheets. It felt good to have Langa back in the present. “Hey, Langa.”
Langa groaned and rubbed his eyes, which were slightly stuck together from sleep. “I thought you were gone.”
Reki propped himself up on his elbow and stared at him. “Gone?”
Was that why Langa had kept saying his name?
Realising that he had possibly said too much, Langa tensed up. “Don’t worry about it. I just have bad dreams sometimes, that’s all.”
No, Reki wasn’t going to let this one go. Not after he had heard him crying in his sleep. Crying out for him. “Langa, you can tell me. It might help if you talk about it.”
Langa shook his head. “It’s embarrassing.”
Reki tried a different tactic, opting to tease him instead. “Aren’t you the one who complained that I‘m not honest about my feelings?”
“Reki, come on. This is different.”
“Different how?”
There was a moment of silence, then a heavy sigh as Langa finally relented. “Just promise you won’t think I’m weird.”
“I pinky promise,” Reki said, and he fumbled in the dark for Langa’s hand. “Gimme your hand.”
Langa let out a breathy laugh and gave Reki his hand. They curled their pinky fingers around each other then relaxed their hands, leaving them resting next to each other on the bed.
“It’s just this dream I have sometimes. I know it’s stupid but sometimes I have these awful dreams where something bad happens to you and I can’t do anything to stop it.” Langa let out a shaky breath before continuing. “And it feels so real. Like when I lost my dad.”
Reki felt his heart drop into his stomach. Whatever he had been expecting Langa to say, it hadn’t been that. It broke his heart to think that Langa was having recurring nightmares over something like that, and dealing with it by himself. Langa rarely spoke about his dad, but Reki knew it had deeply affected him. The first time he had met Langa’s mom, she had tripped over her own words to thank him for being friends with her son. For helping him to open up and bring a smile back to his face. And this whole time, Langa had been terrified that this newfound happiness could be taken away from him in an instant.
Reki grabbed hold of Langa’s hand and squeezed. “Langa, you have no reason to be embarrassed. Never apologise for what you feel.”
Langa’s voice sounded tight and hoarse when he responded, and Reki could tell he was trying not to cry. “I can’t stand the thought of losing you. I hate it so much. And I know it’s not even a logical fear but I can’t stop the nightmares from happening.”
Reki felt overwhelmed, both by the emotion in Langa’s voice and the thought of Langa tormenting himself with these thoughts. He could at least relate to being scared, having had his own nightmares about Langa getting hurt when he was preparing to race against Adam. But Langa was the one who had actually experienced that type of loss before, which could only make his fear feel even more real.
“I’m not going to pretend to know exactly how you feel, because I can’t. But I need you to know that I’m not going anywhere, okay?”
Langa clutched even more tightly onto Reki’s hand. “Okay.”
Langa still seemed tense and Reki wished he could say exactly the right thing to put him at ease, but he always struggled with his words in the heat of the moment, only to realise the perfect thing to say long after the conversation had ended. Sometimes it was just easier to show someone what you meant, rather than putting it into words.
“Can I hug you?” Reki asked.
“Yes.”
Reki moved closer to Langa until their legs were touching, and wrapped his arm around him, pulling Langa against his chest. “You really think you could get rid of me that easily?”
To Reki’s relief, he felt Langa chuckle against his chest and nuzzle in even closer. They stayed like that for a while, with Reki running his fingers down Langa’s spine and Langa playing with the fabric of Reki’s tank top.
Eventually, Langa pulled away slightly to look at him, and said, “Thank you, Reki.”
“You don’t have to thank me. You’d do the same thing.”
And it was true. Because Langa was always there to reassure him and sing his praises when everyone else thought he wasn’t even worth looking at. He had been the one to keep seeking out Reki when they had fought, refusing to take no for an answer. From the day they had first met, Langa had been glued to his side and it was hard to think back to a time when they weren’t together.
It was then that Reki realised how close their faces were. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness of his room and he could just about make out some of the features of Langa’s face. He could see his bright blue eyes staring back at him, and his gaze travelled down the slope of Langa’s nose and down to his mouth. Reki’s body acted before his brain could, and he leaned in to close that gap between them, pressing a soft kiss on Langa’s lips. It was a brief moment of contact, before Reki realised what he had done and pulled back in horror.
“Shit, Langa I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have—“
Reki couldn’t even finish his sentence before Langa was silencing him with a kiss of his own. Reki let his worries about crossing a line melt away as he kissed him back earnestly, threading his hand through Langa’s soft hair as Langa squeezed at his waist. He felt his heart pounding in his chest as their legs tangled together under the bedsheets, and as Langa sighed against his lips he was finally able to put words to that undefined feeling that he had been harbouring for his best friend for so long.
He was hopelessly in love.
He should have seen it coming, honestly. It made sense now, why he was always so drawn to Langa. How just a glance and a smile in a crowded room would be enough to put him at ease. How his heart had raced when Langa had said that he wanted to skate infinitely with him, because of the implications behind it, whether Langa had meant it that way or not. How his heart had twisted in his chest that first time Langa nailed an ollie, and he saw him smile properly for the first time. That smile was one of his favourite things.
Their kisses slowed down until their lips were just resting against each other, barely touching, and Reki started giggling.
“What’s so funny?” Langa frowned, confused by the sudden outburst.
“Nothing, I just really love you,” Reki replied.
Langa went quiet for a moment, processing the confession that Reki had just uttered so casually, before allowing a smile to spread across his face. “You mean that?”
“Of course I do.”
As if to prove it, Reki leaned back in and kissed him again, slowly and deeply. He ran his fingers down Langa’s arm until he reached his hand, where he entwined their fingers together, calloused fingers meeting soft ones. Now that they had kissed for the first time, Reki didn’t know how they had gone this long without doing it before. It just felt so right, the way Langa’s lips fitted so perfectly against his own, how each of his senses were just filled with Langa, the little sounds Langa made at the back of his throat when Reki tugged on his bottom lip. If he absolutely had to choose, Reki would have said it felt even better than skating.
He felt Langa smiling against his lips and he smiled back, pressing one final kiss to his lips before pulling away. Soft breaths filled the air between them as their breathing slowed down, and Langa looked at Reki with complete adoration in his eyes.
“I love you too, Reki."