Chapter Text
“Are you not gonna eat?”
“Huh?” Reki paused the video and looked up from his phone, taking an earbud out from his ear, seeing Joe’s towering frame over him.
“You’ve been on your phone the whole meal, everyone's finished eating, your food’s getting cold.” Joe presented the rest of the table with his hand- as if in a commercial, or a magic show -proving his statement as Reki noticed the almost empty plates of Cherry and Langa.
“Sorry, I found this really cool video of some guy skating. He jumped and then pushed- pushed? No, more like- leaned his body onto a—”
Joe tapped Reki’s plate, bringing the teen to a stop in his rambling. Langa huffed a breath in complaint, actually interested in whatever Reki was trying to describe. Reki sighed, picking up the fork- fork? Right, this was an italian cuisine restaurant- and started to eat. Joe nodded in satisfaction, turning around and cleaning his area.
“The food was decent.” Cherry handed his plate to Joe, looking away and adjusting his robes.
“Just decent? It almost looks like you licked the plate cle—” Cherry slapped Joe’s wrist, earning a yelp from the other.
“I said, the food was decent . I don’t expect much from a gorilla.”
“Tough talk for a scrawny boy.” Joe rolled his eyes, now taking Langa’s plate.
“I am not —”
“It is currently 1:40 p.m., Master. This is your reminder 20 minutes prior to your work meeting. If you were to make your way via car, you’d arrive in 13 minutes.” Carla called out, startling the people in the restaurant.
“Thank you, Carla.” Cherry stood up, adjusting his clothes and styling his hair against the reflection of his empty glass. “Well, time for me to go, I’ll see you at ‘S’ tonight.” He unplugged his skateboard, stepping out of the restaurant and into a car which was already waiting for him outside.
“When’d that car get here? He didn’t even make a phone call.” Langa looked back, watching the black car go out of view.
“Who knows. He’s creepy like that.” Joe shrugged, polishing tall glasses with a white cloth.
Reki snorted, choking on his drink, bubbles popping and wetting his nose. He hit his chest a couple of times, waving at Langa who had looked over slightly concerned. Joe took his now clean plate, completely unbothered by the other’s coughing fit.
“Come on Langa, let’s go!”
“Go where? We didn’t have plans?” Langa bit his lip, brows furrowing. “Right?”
“We never have plans. Let’s go to the skating park!” Reki hopped off his seat, picking up his skateboard which was leaning against the wall, handing Langa his own.
“Thank you for the food, Joe! It was delicious. But make me some ramen next time!” He called while exiting the restaurant, ignoring Joe’s insistence it was an italian restaurant, throwing the cloth in the air out of annoyance.
Reki snickered, knowing how much it annoyed the other to be asked something that was not in his menu. He grabbed Langa’s hand, pulling him closer to him, walking beside Reki. The walk was nice, a little noisy since they had to make their way through the busy city streets for half the time, but they enjoyed their time by talking. Reki had continued talking about the video he had tried describing earlier, trying to show it to Langa without dropping his phone or bumping into someone. Langa had gasped, taking the phone from Reki’s hand, constantly pointing out anything he saw impressive, usually being the balance the people had.
They were now sitting on a concrete bench, sweaty and panting from hours of skateboarding. Watching fellow skaters fall over trying to do certain tricks, staring in awe at more experienced ones. It was a small group of them, around five, Reki would guess, looking around the same age as him and Langa.
“You know,” Reki took a gulp of water, leaning back on his elbows and glancing at Langa. “You could achieve the level of balance that dude had.”
“What? No way.”
“Yeah! But we’d have to get rid of those.” Reki pointed at the toe clips of Langa’s skateboard, Langa shook his head, hugging his skateboard protectively.
“I’m not ready for that. I want to keep them on.”
“And that’s okay! No rush, bro. But you’ll have to build up confidence eventually.”
“I know. I’m gonna go to the vending machines around the corner. I’m out of water. Do you want anything?”
“Nah, I’m all good. Thank you, though. Don’t take too long.”
“I won’t.”
Langa walked off, his tennis shoes crunching against the hot pavement. Reki sighed, laying down on the bench, turning his head to the side, getting a confusing but entertaining view of the other skaters. Until they were getting closer to him, not all of them- just one of them. Reki squinted, just to make sure he wasn’t being delirious due to the heat or something, and sat up. Resting his weight on his palms and already feeling the forming strain on his wrists and forearms.
The person walking up to him, surprisingly, was a girl, he didn't usually see women in the skating parks. She was pretty. Very much so, Reki would say. He’d probably make a move if he wasn’t an anxious fuck. Also, if he didn’t respect women and know they don’t like being hit on. (Even though he wasn’t gonna hit on her but still). Said girl glanced around, stepping closer to Reki.
“Do you skate?” Her eyes trailed over Reki, eventually landing on his skateboard.
“Yeah! Why? Wanna skate together? My friend left for a bit to get—”
“No, I mean like. Skate skate.” Reki probably looked confused, because the girl rolled her eyes and reworded her sentence. “As in, do you seriously skate? Are you a poser?”
“What? No! I’ve been skating for a long time.”
“Not with that weight.”
Reki swallowed thickly, forcing himself to talk. “What?”
“Sorry, that came out mean. I’m not very good with words,” Reki had noticed that. “But yeah I’m here to give you some advice. If you wanna call yourself a real skater.”
Reki had a bad feeling about this, but was still curious. “Go on.”
“You can say you skate and all. But you don’t look the part. You know about all that air resistance stuff? Yeah. If you want to go faster, drop a few pounds!” The girl smiled, splaying her arms open and waving her hands around.
“Yeah. Okay.”
She smiled, with teeth this time, it looked genuine, and Reki actually reconsidered what she had just said. Her smile seemed pure, and maybe she didn't mean any malice behind her words. It still made him vaguely consider skipping dinner, feeling shame pool in his gut at the thought. No way he’d just thought of skipping a meal due to this random girl. Someone in the background shouted, waving his hands, the girl turned around, waving back.
“That’s all. I just thought you were going a little slow when you were practicing and decided to drop some advice! See ya.” She waved, running off, Reki brought his hand up, a poor excuse of waving back. A hand on his shoulder made him jump, looking back, meeting familiar aqua eyes.
“Who was that?”
“Just some girl, nothing important. What took you so long?”
“I got the Japanese characters mixed up and confused again so I had to ask some lady for help.”
Reki chuckled, shaking his head. “You should’ve come over and asked me for help.”
“Didn’t feel like coming back. Let’s get back to skating.” Langa flipped his board with his foot, stepping on it to prevent it from rolling away. “C’mon.”
“Coming, coming.” Reki did the same, giving himself a small push, letting the board do it’s thing and take him away. The girl and her friends weren’t around anymore. In fact, the sky was darkening and the sun looked minutes away from starting to set. It’d be dinnertime in around an hour, his stomach grumbled at the thought.
Dinner didn’t sound appetizing in the slightest.
A shiver went up Reki’s spine, he stumbled losing balance but quickly regaining it, missing the quick glance Langa had shot his way. Did Reki really need to lose weight? He thought he looked fine. He was actually called lanky by most of his family members. Or anyone who was acquainted with him. Reki frowned, pressing his fingertips over his stomach, feeling the light definition of muscle under his shirt.
He thought he looked pretty damn athletic actually. What did that girl even know? Well. Actually. She apparently did know her stuff. It’s not everyday someone brings up the topic of air pressure and resistance when talking about skating. Still, it made Reki angry. At her, but mostly at himself. This was something petty to be angry about. He shouldn’t be letting a stranger’s words get to him this way.
Reki sighed once again, rubbing his eyes and looking up at the sky, seeing it covered in lovely oranges, pinks and purples. He checked the time, noting it was to be dinnertime in some minutes at home. He’ll tell Langa in a bit.
Maybe he can get something light for dinner.
“Reki!” His sister slid his door open, not bothering to at least give a warning beforehand.
“Koyomi! I told you to stop opening my door so suddenly!”
“You act as if you’re doing something important,” Koyomi huffed, starting to close the door. “Anyways Langa is here, he’s at the front door.”
“What!?” Reki sat up, throwing the covers off his legs in a frenzy. “Hey, Koyomi!” She had left already, ignoring Reki’s muffled shouting. Adjusting his sweatpants, Reki walked out the room, socked feet nearly causing him to slip at his hurried pace.
“Langa!”
“Oh, Reki, hi.” Langa was in the kitchen, helping Reki’s mom serve some tea. “Sorry for coming over so suddenly--”
“It’s no problem! We love having people over!” Reki’s mom insisted, smiling while handing Langa a cup of tea.
“Thank you, but I’m not staying for long.” The older woman nodded, excusing herself out of the room when the dryer beeped to signal it was done with it’s cycle.
“Why’d you come over? I don’t have a problem with it! It’s just that you usually text me before and stuff.”
“I was near your area and decided to stop by and tell you that Joe and Cherry are going to the beach later today. Cherry invited us.”
“Are we going to that same place we went some weeks ago? The one where they,” A tremor wracked his body, a grimace upon his face. “Where they lathered us up in that gross mud stuff. Man were they scary.”
“More like stinky, but anyway, I wouldn’t go if they were going there again. They’re going to a beach around an hour from here.” Langa rinsed the tea cup, setting it to dry, slipping his shoes on. “Anyways they’re leaving in like three hours, I’m going home to get my bag ready. We’ll meet in the same spot as usual. Cherry and Joe will be waiting there in their car.”
“Yeah, bye Langa!”
Of course, he slept instead of packing his bag with the necessities to go to the beach. Waking up and having his eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets when he noticed the time it was. Cursing, he quickly stood up, raiding the drawers, searching for his swimming trunks. Quickly putting them on, he shoved sunblock, a change of clothes, and some other things in the bag. He was ready to go, pulling a shirt and sandals on, freezing before opening his door.
Should he..?
Reki looked back, setting the bag down on the floor beside his feet, walking to his drawers and crouching, pulling it open until the very end. There lay a sun shirt, pressed against the end of the drawer, completely forgotten. He picked the black shirt up, grabbing it where the shoulders would go, extending it. His mom had bought it for him around a month ago, since summer was around the corner, the sun was getting brighter and the heat was harsher. Even though she knew Reki preferred to swim shirtless, she still bought it for him just in case.
Reki stared at the shirt in thought, a conflicted expression on his face. He bit his lip, looking down. This really wasn’t the time to get self conscious. Usually he didn’t have a problem swimming shirtless, like any person, he’d overthink it a bit, but he really didn’t mind most of the time. But he just didn’t feel well about his body today, he could list out everything that felt or seemed wrong if someone were to ask him. All thanks to that stupid stuff that stupid girl had told him some weeks back. He sighed, taking his shirt off and putting the sun shirt on, now ready to leave.
He skated down the sidewalk, at first he was anxious people would stare since he was in full attire to go swimming, but it was about to be summer, and people didn’t so much as bat an eye toward him. He turned a corner, seeing a large black car parked around the corner in the distance. Langa saw him, waving at him. Reki smiled, waving back.
Langa cupped his hands around his mouth, shouting, “You’re late!” Reki did the same, “I know!”
He came to a stop in front of the car, waving at Cherry, who was sitting in the front seat, Joe nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Joe?”
“He’s at the back, loading stuff in the trunk.” Langa pointed back, and Reki got a peek of familiar dark green hair.
“Hand Joe your bag, I’ll get in the car.” Reki nodded, walking to the back of the car, finding Joe hunched over the trunk, desperately trying to make some foldable chairs not tumble out. “Oh, Reki! What’s up with the shirt?” Reki shrugged, handing his bag, “Don’t wanna get a tan? I’ll start calling you Cherry 2.0.” Reki chuckled nervously, hugging his sides.
“I can hear you, meathead!”
“Yeah, yeah.” Joe took the bag, somehow making it fit in the overloaded trunk. It was just 4 people coming, but it looked like enough for a whole generation of people. “All he does is nag. C’mon, get in the car, we’re leaving.” Joe slammed the trunk shut, climbing into the car. Reki did as well, sighing in relief at the feeling of the cold air conditioning hit his skin.
“Let’s go!” Joe called out.
Reki stared at himself in the window for most of the ride, tired eyes analyzing his own face, analyzing Langa’s reflection as well. He had a lovely side profile, and his jawline was enough to make Reki almost stare, but it also made him slightly jealous. Upset, even. Did his jawline look like that too? It probably wasn’t sharp like Langa’s. ‘ Keep dreaming’ he thought to himself. Reki groaned, throwing his head back against the seat, putting his earbuds in and playing his playlist. Langa hummed in question, but Reki ignored it, acting as if he didn’t hear him.
He felt shitty and he hoped this wouldn’t stick around for long.