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“Langa, this is such a bad idea.”
“No, it’s not. It’s going to be fun, trust me.”
“Oh, I would gladly trust you if it didn’t mean standing on a skateboard blindfolded while it’s tied to your board and skating like that across the city!”
“You’re being dramatic,” Langa’s smile became a pout. He showed up in front of Reki’s house with his skateboard, a piece of rope, and a mysterious proposition and tried to convince Reki to agree to his plan for the last fifteen minutes. He was clearly very excited about this whole surprise thing but Reki could be stubborn when he wanted to. And in a situation where his life was at risk? He definitely wanted to.
But he also hated to see Langa sad.
Reki sighed, “Okay, how about a compromise.” He got Langa’s attention back. “You get to tie my eyes but we walk, no hauling!”
“I guess that could work,” thankfully Langa agreed. He took out his phone from his back pocket and checked the time. “But we don’t have that much time left, we have to get going. Come here.” He grabbed Reki by his sweatshirt to pull him closer.
Reki would lie if he said the gesture didn’t make his heart beat a little bit faster. However, the excitement in his stomach quickly turned into unease when he realized it was just so Langa could pull down his headband to cover Reki’s eyes.
They started walking. Both of them with a skateboard under one arm because even if they weren’t riding them, leaving them behind felt like missing a limb. Was it an exaggeration? Maybe. Neither of them cared.
Langa held onto Reki’s board, pulling it lightly behind him to guide Reki. It didn’t seem to be the most efficient way but it was kind of working. It took Reki a while to get used to not being able to see where he was going, although his legs seemed to have memorized quite a long bit of the path leading to his house which did make sense, he walked that way countless times. But the further they got the more lost and nervous he felt.
Reki was about to tell Langa that he couldn’t do it after all, Langa would understand, he always did, when he was suddenly grabbed by his forearm and yanked to the side, almost falling if it weren’t for Langa's grip. He could feel the warm wind created by something passing them by.
“Sorry. Are you okay?” Langa asked, helping Reki regain his balance. “Stupid cyclists… Wait, here-“ Langa took Reki’s board and put it under his other arm.
Reki was a bit confused, still trying to understand what exactly happened but then Langa’s fingers brushed his arm, sliding down to Reki’s palm. Langa grabbed and gently squeezed his hand, their fingers intertwining. Took by surprise, Reki could feel the touch causing goosebumps on his arm and his face going red. It’s not like they’ve never held hands before but it still made Reki’s insides flatter every time. It also had never happened in public until that moment. He couldn’t exactly see where they were or how many people were around but he decided to try and not think about it. He was already feeling too many things at once.
He couldn’t see Langa’s face, but as opposed to Reki, he sounded pretty calm when he said “This should be safer” and started walking again towards… wherever they were headed.
The rest of the trip might have as well not happened at all. Reki couldn’t even tell how long they were walking for. Whether he wanted to or not, the only thing he could focus on was Langa’s hand holding his own. It was nice. Maybe the experience was even better because he wasn’t able to see anything. Wasn’t it a thing that if one of your senses was turned off, others were enhanced? He read something like that somewhere, he was sure.
He also might have been smiling to himself for a better part of the way.
“We’re here!” Langa said as Reki bumped into him not aware he was supposed to stop moving.
“Can I take the blindfold off?”
“Yeah, let me-“ Langa came closer and pulled the headband up. Probably unintentionally, he softly brushed Reki’s already hot face with his fingertips.
Reki slowly opened his eyes, trying to adjust to the light. After a moment, he realized where he was brought. They were at a skate park. Their skate park. They had spent so much time there he would recognize those trees at any time of day or night. He had so many good memories linked to that place and was about to have one more. The already setting sun illuminated the ramps from behind. The ramps and Langa whose hand was still hanging close to Reki’s cheek but not quite touching it.
They looked at each other for a few long seconds before Langa finally dropped both his gaze and his arm down only to once again grab Reki’s hand distracting the boy from asking why his eyes had to be covered for them to come to a place where they hung out all the time.
“Come on, I wanna show you the surprise.”
He guided Reki towards one of the ramps. The closer they were the better Reki could see that something was laying on top of it, a bit of the thing hanging off. A blanket?
Langa put his board down and climbed up so Reki did the same.
Atop the ramp was indeed a dark blue blanket but not only that. There was a picnic basket, a bottle of alcohol of some sort, and a sparkly gift bag. Langa towered above it all, arms spread wide, a giant grin on his face.
“Happy birthday, Reki!”
Yes, Reki did know it was his birthday and, logically, he should have connected the fact that Langa prepared a surprise for him with the date but he just… didn’t think of it. He wasn’t used to getting presents from anyone other than his family and this year even Koyomi didn’t bother to get him anything. So it was safe to say that Langa’s plan worked perfectly. He was definitely surprised.
He was also starting to cry a little.
Langa’s smile dropped from his face.
“Oh no, I’m sorry. Is this lame? I thought you would like it.”
“No! No, don’t worry. It’s amazing, really. I think I’m too happy.” Reki laughed, a bit embarrassed. He didn’t want to react that way, it just happened. Before he could do anything else, Langa stepped over the picnic and hugged Reki tightly.
They stayed like that for a while, letting the sun disappear behind the horizon, leaving only an orange glow under the clouds. Reki was holding onto Langa, taking in his smell and trying not to leave snot on his shirt.
Eventually, Langa pulled back. He looked at Reki with a soft smile, dried his tears with his thumb, and kissed Reki’s forehead. “Okay, enough crying, I’m hungry.”
“Of course you are.” Reki shook his head as they both sat down cross-legged on the blanket.
“Wait, open your present first. I want to see your reaction before it’s too dark,” he said handing Reki the gift bag.
The bag was red and made out of holographic paper. A piece of cardboard was tied to one of the handles with a sticker of a skateboard on one side and for Reki written in Langa’s awful handwriting Reki could never mistake for anyone else’s on the other. Inside was a small velvet box. Kind of like the ones for jewelry. Kind of like the ones for engagement rings… No! Stop! Reki forced his brain to shut up. They weren’t even really dating! Why was he this stupid? He took out the box and opened it before his head could come up with even more nonsense.
In the box was a silver enamel pin, about the same size as the ones granting access to S, but this one had the infinity symbol on it with the word infinity engraved both in English and in Japanese.
Speechless, Reki looked up at Langa who had just finished fixing an almost identical-looking pin to his shirt, except this one was gold.
“Did you look at the back?” He did not, so he carefully took the pin out of the box and turned it around. In the middle, just below the bit used to hold it in place, was another engraving. A small sun followed by a snowflake. The two of them.
“Langa, I- Thank you, this might be the best birthday gift I’ve ever gotten.” He felt his eyes starting to water again, but no! No more crying.
“I’m glad you like it. Now let’s eat.” Langa’s face went from happy to serious in a fraction of a second. He was always deadly serious about food.
Reki started to unpack the basket and beside the food that he assumed came from Joe’s restaurant he found a few plastic candles powered by batteries. Joe knew them well enough to expect they wouldn’t make it before the sunset. Or to trust them with actual candles. But the atmosphere was still kind of romantic. As Reki turned on the lights, he noticed Langa studying the bottle with a confused look.
“What’s up?”
“Joe must have left this but I don’t know what it means,” Langa said turning the front of the bottle towards Reki.
There was a yellow sticky note with nothing but ;)))) written on it.
Reki smirked, “Don’t worry about it.”