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Something was really wrong with Reki.
It took Kojiro longer than he’d like to admit to see that it was worse than he thought.
At first, he brushed Reki’s odd behavior off as some form of coping after his beef with Adam—he couldn’t blame him, Kaoru had acted weirdly after his beef too. Kojiro, Kaoru, and Hiromi (who was, thankfully, out of the hospital at the time) sat Reki down a couple days after the race and gave him the “it’s okay to not be okay” talk (they didn’t want to overwhelm him immediately after the race).
And Reki did what he always did—he smiled cheekily and told them he was fine.
Sure, “fine ”. But Kojiro had been a kid once too—a stupid reckless kid who buried himself in skating and covered his feelings with thick fog, so he didn’t push it.
Still, though, he missed Reki. He was never fully there when he was there, eyes glazed or glued to his hands. Kojiro found himself watching some videos he took of the kids during their vacation to the beach just to hear Reki’s voice. Although Kaoru wouldn’t admit it, he knew the reason he would plop his chin on Kojiro’s shoulder and watched the videos with him was because he missed Reki’s voice too.
It took Langa and Miya approaching the three of them at Sia La Luce one night once Reki had fallen asleep for them to finally do something. He was a lot more tired than usual lately, which wasn’t really surprising. It’d only been two weeks since his beef with Adam and he refused to go to the hospital, instead putting perhaps too much trust in Kojiro and Kaoru’s medical skills, so it was only natural that his body would be exhausted.
Kojiro watched as Langa gently brushed Reki’s hair out of his face and adjusted his headband before carefully maneuvering Reki’s body so that he was no longer slumped against the wooden table and was lying down across the booth.
It made Kojiro’s heart all tingly—watching the tender way Langa touched Reki, seeing the pure unadulterated fondness and adoration in his eyes and smile when he looked at his boyfriend. It kind of reminded him of his relationship with Kaoru—when he snuck out of the hospital and fell asleep at his restaurant.
“We’re worried about Reki,” Langa said, blunt as ever, once he and Miya approached the bar where Kojiro was sitting with Kaoru and Hiromi.
“You can say that again,” Hiromi snorted, taking a long sip of his wine.
Langa furrowed his eyebrows. “We’re worried about Reki,” he repeated.
The insistence with which he spoke made Kojiro chuckle lightly.
“Is he healing alright?” Kaoru frowned, craning his neck and squinting his eyes to get a better look at Reki.
“I think so,” Langa replied. “I’m making sure he’s taking care of himself, at least.”
“Something’s wrong,” Miya added, leaning ever so slightly against Langa’s side. “He barely talks to us and he’s really…” At that, the kid trailed off, looking at Langa for help filling in the blank.
“He’s really still,” supplied Langa.
Miya nodded. “Yeah! He’s really still, which is really weird for the slime.”
Now that they mentioned it, Kojiro had noticed how eerily quiet and still Reki was compared to usual. It was… unsettling.
He nodded. “I knew something seemed off.”
“What do we do?” Miya asked, voice soft and eyes downcast. It was kind of sweet—as much as they acted like they couldn’t stand Reki, the kid sure had a soft spot for him.
“Well, I think the best thing we can—” Kaoru began, but was cut off by a strangled scream.
Everyone was at Reki’s side in an instant—Langa got there so fast it seemed like he teleported.
Reki was now sitting up, one hand clutching the back of his head and the other wrapped around his stomach, his chest heaving. There were unshed tears shining in his eyes, a sight that made Kojiro’s heart drop and parental instincts kick in.
“Reki! Are you okay? What hurts?” Langa asked, immediately sliding into the booth and as close to Reki as he could get while still giving him some space.
But Reki just shook his head, scooting towards Langa and burrowing his face in his neck.
Kojiro watched helplessly as Langa gently pried Reki’s hand off of his head and replaced them with his own fingers, combing through his curls. He was whispering something to Reki, speaking so softly that no one else could hear what he was saying.
After what felt like forever of watching and waiting, worry pushing against his chest and pounding against his skull, Langa looked at the group and smiled sadly. “Reki’s tired. I’m going to take him home.”
He lightly wrapped an arm around Reki’s back, still wary about his injuries, and helped him out of the booth. The group parted, backing away so the two of them could get out with ease.
Reki slowly raised his head and flashed a wide smile, one that looked so care-free and happy that Kojiro found himself blinking in response. He didn’t say goodbye to everyone, rather, he weakly lifted a hand and waved, mouthing goodnight.
“See!” Miya screeched the second they were out the door. “Something’s wrong and the slime won’t tell us or let us help him!” The kid’s hands were curled into fists, pressing them against their thighs.
“Well, he definitely had a nightmare,” Kaoru stated, running a hand down his tired face. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was about his beef with Adam.” He spat his name, scowling.
Yeah, Kaoru would know.
(and Kojiro knew too—he was the one who ran his fingers through Kaoru’s hair, the one who whispered comforting words under his breath even after he’d gone back to sleep, the one who never told Kaoru about his own nightmares where he heard that thunk and watched him fall to the ground over and over and over and—)
He was tired of Adam hurting the people he loved.
“That bastard,” Hiromi growled, his face twisting as if he were trying not to cry.
Kojiro sighed, a deep and controlled pulse. “Miya, have you seen that happen before?”
He nodded. “Sort of. I’ve seen him wake up sweating and gasping once or twice, but it’s never been… that. He brushes it off every time too. Whenever we ask, he tells us he had a weird dream.” Miya wrinkled their nose. “One time, he tried telling us had a dream about creepily singing flowers.”
Hiromi muttered, “Of course he does,” under his breath.
“Yeah. Langa and I let it go because he changes the topic or says that he doesn’t want to talk about it, but… we’re worried.”
“How often does he fall asleep when he’s with you?” Kaoru prodded. “I noticed he usually rests for a couple minutes when he’s here.”
Miya made a so-so gesture. “Not often. Sometimes he sits under a tree at the skatepark and watches us till he falls asleep, I saw him fall asleep on Langa’s shoulder at S once too. Like I said, he’s never woken up like that before.”
A heavy silence fell over the group. Kojiro couldn’t shake the sound of Reki’s scream ringing in his head. It reverberated, pounding against his skull. What hurt the most is that it wasn’t just one scream he was hearing—it wasn’t just the scream from minutes ago. The loudest of them all was the piercing, blood-curdling scream from when Adam dragged Reki’s back across the cliff—the scream that brought tears to Kojiro’s eyes and kept him awake at night.
A soft hand latched onto his wrist, the callused fingertips pressing into his skin. Startled by the cold but familiar touch, his body twitched, and he turned to see Kaoru staring at him, his piercing gold eyes digging into his, melting away the barrier of fog threatening to cloud his vision.
Kaoru pressed down just a bit harder—a weight that brought him back to reality, that drew him away from S and from that moment, watching helplessly as Adam grabbed Reki’s face and threw him to the ground.
“Thank you.” He whispered it—his lips barely moving. Kaoru heard it, he thought, blinking once, slowly.
“We should’ve said something sooner.”
Hiromi’s angry voice made Kojiro twitch again, a bit more violently this time. He was picking at the ends of his shirt, rubbing his fingers against the fraying edges and scowling. “We all fricking noticed.”
Kaoru sighed. “He would’ve said that he was fine.”
“I know that!” Hiromi barked. “I know that but… God, he’s just a kid.”
Just a kid. Yeah. They were kids once too, skating around at night with Adam without a care in the world. He was a kid once—watching as Adam became more violent, scarier. He didn’t do anything then either.
“I thought if we gave him some time…” Miya trailed off, crossing their arms and squeezing them together tightly. “He’s so stupid.”
Kojiro had been around Miya long enough at this point to know that “he’s so stupid” actually translates to “I miss him, I wish he would talk to me”.
But Miya was right. They all gave Reki time, they all let him believe that everyone believed his empty lies. He realized now that time wasn’t going to fix anything, realized that Reki wasn’t like him and Reki wasn’t like Kaoru, that he needed something more than normalcy to heal.
Because Reki was used to being ignored, and he was used to being the older brother and putting on a happy face. He wasn’t used to having a Kaoru or a Kojiro, a Hiromi or a Miya, and definitely wasn’t used to having a Langa.
After Kaoru’s beef with Adam, Kojiro gave him some time. He was there and never left his side, but he gave him time to process and time to be ready to talk about it. Even if he didn’t want to talk about it, Kojiro wasn’t planning on walking away, and after a week and a half, they talked and they worked through it together, just like they did when they were kids.
He reached his free arm across his body, placing it on top of Kaoru’s comforting hand.
“Well,” Kojiro spoke up, “he isn’t alone. He’s got us.”
Kaoru cocked a brow at him but smiled softly nonetheless. “Yes, he has us.”
Miya sniffed, nodding and Hiromi swiped at his eyes (it was sweet, how emotional he got when it came to the kids).
“He isn’t alone.”
The next few days were full of worrying and texts between the three adults as they tried to figure out the best course of action. Hiromi didn’t want to include Miya or Langa in this—they were kids too.
It took them awhile to come up with a plan. In some ways, Reki was an open book, but in others, he was terrified of feelings and would do anything to hide them (even though he wasn’t great at it).
The kid was stubborn, but luckily, so were Kojiro, Kaoru, and Hiromi.
Four days after the incident, their group gathered at Sia La Luce. They opted out of going to S that night under the pretense of being too tired, and luckily the kids were down to just chill and enjoy a nice dinner together.
Dinner was spent talking about their day: Hiromi told the group about how his favorite customer, a kind older woman, had stopped by at work earlier, Kojiro talked about an annoying customer from the day, making everyone laugh (and he couldn’t help but notice that Reki’s laugh was so much quieter than it usually was—before the beef, Reki’s laugh would fill up the entire restaurant). He and Kaoru bickered like usual, and Kojiro took great pleasure in throwing a couple tomatoes at the “pink-haired robot lover”.
Reki was silent throughout dinner—just like he had been the last couple of weeks. He picked at his food, piling a chunk on Langa’s plate when he finished and only speaking when spoken too. It was eerily quiet without Reki’s voice echoing across the empty restaurant—it felt like something was missing.
There was something in the way his eyebrows were furrowed and his body was stiffened that set Kojiro on edge. He wasn’t sure why and he couldn’t place it for the life of him, but there was something more than just Reki’s voice that was missing.
Hiromi made eye contact with him and Kaoru as dinner died down, and they nodded in response.
Moments later, Hiromi’s phone rang, and he excused himself from the table.
The kids didn’t think anything of it, finishing their food without so much of a glance Hiromi’s way. Good, Kojiro thought.
He returned a minute later, stuffing his phone in his pocket. “That was Oka,” he informed the group, and Kojiro noticed the way Reki’s head shot up when his manager was mentioned. “He just got a late shipment and it’s more than he thought he could handle and asked if any of us would be willing to help out.”
Reki was on his feet in an instant, already shrugging his jacket on.
Hiromi tsked, walking over to Reki and gently pushing him back down in his chair. “He specifically asked if anyone other than Reki could help,” he added. When Reki’s face fell dejectedly (and, God, that was a look Kojiro never wanted to see again), he continued, “Because Reki is still injured and some of the boxes are heavy.”
The kid muttered something under his breath, crossing his arms and slinking back in the chair.
“He’s right, Reki,” Langa said. “I don’t want you to be in any more pain.”
And wow, it was comical how quickly Reki’s cheeks flushed.
“Since Kojiro has to clean up here, I figured Langa and Miya could come with me?” Hiromi continued, shooting the kids a pointed look.
Miya seemed to get it, and they nodded. But Langa just frowned, glancing at Reki. “I’m Reki’s ride home,” he said.
“Oh, it won’t take too long!” Hiromi told him. “Forty-five minutes max. We’ll be back in time for dessert!”
Langa hesitated again, but Reki shot him a small grin, nodding. “Okay,” he finally answered, still looking a bit weary.
They got out of their seats, Langa taking a second to press his chin against the top of Reki’s head and whisper something to him, and then they were gone.
Kojiro got up as well, grabbing the empty plates the three left behind and taking them back to the kitchen.
When he returned, he saw that Kaoru had stood as well, his, Kojiro’s, and Reki’s plates in his hands. Reki was now slumped over in his seat, his head in his arms.
“Just set them down on the counter,” Kojiro muttered. “I wanna talk to him as soon as possible.”
Kaoru mumbled something along the lines of “Obviously, you idiotic gorilla” as he set them down, and together the two of them approached Reki.
“Hey, kiddo, mind if we join you?”
Reki’s head shot up, eyes wide. “Um, I—” He cut himself off, taking a deep breath and swallowing. The breath was shaky and seemed to rattle in his throat.
Kojiro’s gaze met Kaoru’s, who’s eyes narrowed in concern.
There was something about that breath…
“Yeah, you can. Sit here.”
The kid had to pause mid-sentence to swallow again, and Kojiro’s hands clenched into fists at his side. Still, he plastered a smile on his face and plopped into the chair on Reki’s left, Kaoru sitting down in the one on his right.
Reki didn’t say anything while they settled down. He simply sat there, watching them. The kid didn’t even seem to be blinking.
“Reki, are you doing alright?” he began. “We’re all a little worried about you, kiddo. You haven’t been yourself lately.”
“I’m fine,” Reki said, voice soft, shifting his gaze to his hoodie strings.
“You don’t have to be brave for us, Reki,” Kaoru spoke up. “I know what it’s like to skate against Adam, to lose to him.”
Reki flinched when Kaoru said Adam's name, lips trembling. “It’s nothing—it just still hurts a little bit.”
“I wish you wouldn’t lie to us, Reki,” Kaoru told him, frowning. “We all care about you and we’re worried about you. But, if you won’t talk to us, then let us talk to you. A race against Adam isn’t a race—it’s a game, a game you were destined to lose. It took me far too long to realize that, and I probably wouldn’t have if it weren’t for this idiot.” At that, Kaoru gestured towards Kojiro, and Reki let out a breathless chuckle.
“He doesn’t play fair, Reki,” Kojiro added. “He studies you and learns how to chip away as much of you as he can. I’ve seen it too many times. I experienced it myself when I was younger, but that was before Adam became violent.”
It was. Kojiro remembered the way Adam skated close to him, so close that his breath tickled his ear, telling him that he would always be second, especially when it came to Kaoru. He knew about his crush on his best friend, and he knew how to play him.
Adam was always good with words, good at manipulating people. At the time, Kojiro thought he was telling the truth. The way he spoke was earnest, he sounded more like he was warning Kojiro, telling him not to get his hopes up. Kind of like he was looking out for him.
It took him a long time to realize it was all lies, all a ploy to make him lose, to prove that he wasn’t good enough to be his Eve, to skate against him.
Kojiro shook his head at the memories. “What he did to you wasn’t right,” he continued. “The way he hurt you was wrong. God, kid, you should’ve seen us. We were terrified.”
“Sorry,” Reki mumbled, and Kojiro noticed the way the muscles in his neck stiffened, the way his fingers were shaking ever so slightly.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Kaoru said without missing a beat. “We’re so proud of you. You almost won. You held your own against someone who was making up the rules as he went along and you still played fair. You have a big heart, Reki, and that’s something you’ve got that Adam doesn’t.”
Another strained breath, another furrow of the brows…
“It’s not like it even matters.”
He was so close… it was on the tip of his mind…
“Why wouldn’t it matter?”
“Because it’s stupid,” Reki grumbled. “It’s stupid and you guys shouldn’t have to deal with it. It’s not important.” His voice was unsteady as he spoke. He continued to pause to breathe between words, and when his shoulders twitched, he scowled.
And that’s when Kojiro noticed—Reki was trying not to move. He wasn’t simply motionless, he was actively trying to be still.
He wasn’t even ticcing.
Everything suddenly clicked into place—the missing pieces came together, and Kojiro felt like an idiot. That’s why everything seemed so off, that’s why it was eerily silent and why Reki looked like he was in a constant state of agony. He was suppressing, and suppressing hard.
“Why aren’t you ticcing?” he said abruptly, causing Reki’s eyes to widen the way a kid’s would when they got caught doing something they weren’t supposed to.
Kaoru’s eyes widened as well, realization sinking in.
“I-I’m not, I mean—I am, I just—” Reki spluttered, looking from Kojiro to Kaoru in panic.
“Kid.” He said it softly but firmly, causing Reki’s mouth to snap shut. “You’re suppressing, aren’t you?”
“You know you don’t have to do that—it doesn’t bother any of us,” Kaoru said.
“There’s nothing wrong with your tics,” Kojiro finished.
Reki blinked at him once, twice, then suddenly his face scrunched up and he burst into tears.
Kaoru was up and out of his chair in an instant, one arm loosely wrapped around Reki’s back, rocking him back and forth.
“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!” Reki cried, over and over again. Almost mechanically, his hands moved upwards and he began to tug harshly on his hair.
“Hey, no, shhh, it’s okay, we aren’t mad at you,” assured Kaoru, quickly using his free hand to pry Reki’s hands out of his hair.
Kojiro hated to admit it, but he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to help in this kind of situation. He could see Reki’s body almost give in to the urge to tic, he could see it desperate to move, but he still held it back, and somehow that hurt even more than the echoes of the kid’s screams. Usually, he was good at this, but now? Now, all he could see were Reki's tears—he'd never seen Reki cry before, not even after his beef with Adam. That's what made him freeze.
“Reki, Reki, hey, look at me, can you look at me?” he finally spoke once he got ahold of himself, hesitantly placing a hand on Reki’s shoulder. The kid didn’t shake it off or seem agitated by it, so he let it rest there. “Come on, please, look at me.”
It took a second, but eventually Reki managed to stifle his sobs enough to meet Kojiro’s eyes.
“Good, thank you. This is going to sound weird, but can you tic for me?” he asked, cringing at the almost incredulous look Kaoru gave him. “Please? You need to tic—your body needs to tic. Stop holding it back, let it go. You’re safe here.”
Then he lifted his hand from Reki’s shoulder and indicated that Kaoru do the same. If he was remembering what Langa said correctly and he was right about what was to come, their touch would do more harm than good.
“You’re safe here,” Kojiro repeated.
Reki blinked at him one more time, his brown eyes big and watery. Then, ever so slowly, he nodded.
It was Kojiro’s first time seeing a tic attack, and he hated every second of it.
He hated watching the way Reki’s body seemed to convulse, the side effects of nearly a month of suppressing. His shoulders were rolling so sharply, his head jerking so harshly, his fists pumping so quickly it was as if he was at a concert. Noises were flying out of his mouth at such a fast rate that Kojiro had a hard time actually hearing any of them.
He hated the way Reki curled in on himself only to uncurl mere seconds later, hated watching as Reki’s eyes filled with tears once more, but this time they were tears of absolute pain rather than devastation.
Most of all, he hated that this is what had to happen. Having to sit there and simply watch Reki’s body fight itself was almost like watching his beef against Adam, standing helpless while a grown adult tortured a child—his child.
Glancing at Kaoru, his face was as blank as ever, but he saw the way his hands were jittering at his side—aching to do something to help but knowing there was nothing he could do until it was over.
Once it became obvious that it wouldn’t be a five minute wait, Kojiro grabbed his phone and sent Hiromi a quick text, asking him to distract the kids for a little while longer.
Kojiro was itching to do something, too—to wrap Reki up in his arms and hold him tight until he felt how loved he truly was, to place a comforting hand on his back, something. But it was an endless game of waiting, of him and Kaoru encouraging Reki from their seats.
If he were being honest, Kojiro didn’t know how long the tic attack lasted. It seemed like ages, and it must’ve felt like it to Reki.
Watching the kid move so forcefully for that long had been hard enough, but the whimpers of pain that slipped out between his verbal tics rang in his ears, and he knew they wouldn’t be going away anytime soon. He was prepared for the sound to haunt him at night, right beside the screams and the thunk.
It felt like infinity.
Eventually, it died down.
It didn’t necessarily stop, it probably never would, but Reki was able to heave and to lean back in his chair, eyes closed. He was finally able to rest. The position he was in, the heavy rise and fall of his chest made it seem as though he’d just finished a race or a workout.
“How’re you feeling, kiddo?” Kojiro asked cautiously once he was able to swallow down the fog that clogged his throat.
Reki didn’t answer immediately—he didn’t expect him to. It took him a minute or two to catch his breath, for his chest to stop heaving. And, with his eyes still closed, he eventually replied: “Bad. But… it feels kind of good. But it hurts.”
There was a tongue click between the words, the muttered echo of “bad”, and Kojiro could’ve cried.
That was what he was missing—it’s what they were all missing. Pure, authentic, genuine Reki.
“What happened, Reki?” Kaoru finally asked, and, again, Kaoru’s hand twitched with the need to show physical affection, to brush Reki’s hair out of his face, to fuss with his headband, something. But, he held himself back.
“Um,” Reki sniffed, bringing a hand to his face to scratch at his nose. “Well, I just had a tic attack.”
Kojiro sighed. “You know that’s not what he means. Why were you suppressing, kid? You don’t have to tell us if it’s too personal or you don’t feel comfortable, but we just don’t want to see you hurt yourself like that again.”
Reki didn’t answer, his head listed to the side ever so slightly, fingers twitching at his side.
After a moment, Kaoru spoke up hesitantly. “Forgive me if I’m overstepping, but did Adam have anything to do with it?”
In an instant, Reki’s lax posture tensed. Kojiro watched as the steady rise and fall of his chest grew faster, saw his hands latch onto the side of the chair so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
That was an answer in itself—he’d seen Kaoru react that way plenty of times before, there were even times when he had a similar reaction to Adam.
Of course Adam has something to do with this—of course Adam did something to make Reki feel like he has to suppress.
He hated that Adam got to Reki like that. He hated that Kaoru was familiar enough with the way Adam hurt people that he was able to pick up on it. He hated that he was too blind to see it, that he didn’t notice, that it had to be pointed out to him.
His eyes met Kaoru’s across the table, and he wasn’t surprised to see his eyes narrowed, his mouth in a thin line. Kojiro wasn’t sure what was running through Kaoru’s head—he never knew when it came to Adam. All he knew is that he looked pissed.
But all of Reki’s panic vanished within seconds, as if it had never even been there, the only remaining trace of it being his grip on the chair.
“It doesn’t matter,” he murmured.
There was that phrase again—it doesn’t matter. It was starting to sound as common and believable as I’m fine. Again, he and Kaoru shared an exasperated look.
“Reki,” Kaoru chided.
The kid wearily blinked, opening his eyes at the sound of his name and squinting as if he were oblivious to what he could have possibly done to make Kaoru say his name like that. “What?” He clicked his tongue.
“It matters if it’s hurting you,” he said firmly. “You may not think it’s hurting you or maybe you don’t care that it’s hurting you, but it is and you deserve more than that.”
Kojiro noticed a warm kind of glow in Kaoru’s eyes as he looked at Reki, embers of affection and care burning inside them. That was one of the things he loved most about Kaoru—how protective he was, how much love was in the heart he pretended was so small and closed off.
He could relate—he didn’t realize how much Reki or Langa or Miya or even Hiromi would end up meaning to him. Strangely, though, he wasn’t frightened by what he was willing to do for their little family—what he would do to make sure they were happy and safe.
It didn’t take a genius to see that Kaoru felt the same way.
Still, Reki seemed nervous, his cheeks flushing in the way that they did when he was unsure or receiving, what the kid would call, too much affection. Like he didn’t really believe that his feelings and safety were important to them.
Well, Kojiro had one more card he could pull.
“It also matters a lot to Langa,” he told Reki. “Langa is worried sick about you, kid. He was so concerned that he came to us to ask for help. Even if it doesn’t matter to you, if it doesn’t matter that we care, it matters a whole hell of a lot to Langa.”
That seemed to do it.
Reki’s face fell. If he thought the kid looked distressed before, that was nothing compared to the pure guilt encompassing his face.
It was a cruel card to play, but if Reki cared about Langa’s happiness more than his own, then Kojiro was more than willing to lay it down.
“I don’t… Langa doesn’t need to worry about me…” Reki mumbled, neck twitching. “I didn’t think anyone would notice.”
Oh, Kojiro wanted to scoop Reki up in his arms and never let go—to pull his own hair out because of course they would notice if Reki wasn’t okay after his beef with Adam. It hurt, knowing that Reki thought of himself in that way—that he thought his pain wasn’t worth noticing.
“We all noticed, Reki,” Kojiro said quietly. “We thought you just needed some time so we didn’t say anything. We didn’t want to overwhelm you, you don’t deal with affection well, you know.” He ended with a tease, lightly elbowing Reki’s arm.
The blush on his face deepened, spreading to his ears, proving Kojiro’s point.
“Whenever you feel ready, we’re here to listen, and we’re here to help,” Kaoru continued for him. “Nothing Adam did to you was okay, and we don’t want you to cope with it alone. We’ve both tried doing that over the years and it only drove a wedge between us.”
Reki sniffed, his fingers pulling at and wrapping around the strings of his hoodie. “I want to tell you guys and Langa and everyone,” he started, glaring at his hands. “It’s just embarrassing and I-I’m so mad at myself for letting him get to me again and again! And you know what’s stupid? It doesn’t have anything to do with how he-he hurt me or when he told me that I was nothing!”
God, Kojiro wanted to punch something, preferably Adam.
“What did he do, Reki?” Kaoru asked, his voice tight as he tried to restrain his anger towards the casualness in which Reki ended his sentence.
“It’s stupid…”
“It’s not stupid if it upset you so much that you suppressed,” Kojiro replied instantly. Because it wasn’t stupid, Adam was just really good at invalidating everyone’s feelings. For the longest time, he thought that he would never be good enough since Adam refused to skate against him. He made it seem like it was a privilege, that only the best could race him. And Kojiro had believed him; so had Kaoru.
Reki took a deep breath, sitting up and leaning forward. He placed his elbows on the table and rested his chin in his hands, lacing the strings to his hoodie between his fingers.
“It’s just… during my beef with Adam…” Reki’s voice trembled, his hands beginning to clench into fists where they were holding the hoodie strings. “Whenever he got close to me, well, you know how much he likes creepy nicknames. He-He’d call me his ‘little songbird’ cause of my tic. And it was just really gross, the way he said it. It made me super uncomfortable. And I tried not to react, you know, not to let him get to me, and he didn’t really like that, so then he would… he’d tell me to sing for him and then make bird sounds in my ear which triggered my tic. He kept on saying creepy things like ‘music to my ears’ and he would moan.”
While he spoke, Reki began to shake so violently that the hoodie strings fell from his fingers. He eventually gave up on trying to hold them again and his hands formed into fists which he pressed against his forehead.
“Reki—” Kaoru started, but Reki kept going.
“He told me that the only beautiful thing about me was my bird tic a-and he said that I would make a lovely bird, which I don’t really get, but he grabbed me when he said it and held the back of my neck and rubbed it with his thumb. And he just-he said it all so quietly that no one heard but me and he kept making me do it and I didn’t wanna do it! I didn’t! But I couldn’t stop and he kept praising it!”
There were tears swimming in Reki’s eyes now, but Kojiro knew they wouldn’t fall. Reki wouldn’t let them fall twice in one night.
Kojiro wasn’t surprised, though, when he felt tears of his own slid down his cheeks. One glance at Kaoru showed him that he was in the same boat as Reki, tears threatening to fall but lying dormant to suppress emotions. He had a hand pressed over his mouth, though, and a murderous glint in his hardened eyes.
“Every time I’ve had that tic since the beef… I see Adam and I hear him and I feel him.” Reki moved his fists down so they were pressing into his cheeks then looked up at him and Kaoru, blinking the unshed tears away. “I’m scared. I’m scared to tic,” he said, his voice so small and fragile that Kojiro was sure it would break.
“Adam made me hate a part of myself that I was trying to love.”
Pure fury coursed through his veins. As if the kid hadn’t been tortured enough. As if Adam hadn’t stolen enough from him already.
There are no remnants of the Adam Kojiro once knew as a child left in that cold heart. No more pieces of the innocent child who loved to skate. He’d known that from the minute he’d touched Langa, the second he hurt Kaoru. Hell, he’d known the moment he pushed that kid off the cliff all those years ago.
Still, Adam always found new ways to surprise him—to disgust him.
Reki was a kid—a child who had done nothing wrong. Yet Adam still saw him as his biggest obstacle, as the apple growing in his little garden and tempting his Eve away from him.
It had always been a game with him—even before something in him changed and became more vicious, more violent, it was still a game. It was Adam who created and encouraged the stakes in beefs. It was Adam who praised Kaoru with big words, charming smiles, and gentle kisses. It was Adam who told Kojiro that he would never amount to Kaoru—that Kaoru would always beat him, who spoke in a dulcet, pitying voice, who reached out to help him up when he fell while obsessively trying to become better under the pretense of helping him improve.
It was all a sick twisted game.
He knew that Reki was resilient and he knew that Reki wouldn’t back down. He’d tortured the kid—pushed him and broke him down until the only thing left of him was bloody skin hanging between shreds of dirty yellow fabric. Even then, that hadn’t been enough for him.
He hated Reki from the moment he laid eyes on him. Kojiro recognized that look immediately—he’d been on the receiving end of it more times than he can count. He hated that Langa had more love in his heart for Reki, and he played them all.
He played them all and they fell for it.
They all entered the tournament without thought. They won when Adam wanted them to, they lost when Adam demanded it, and they fell when Adam had enough of them.
He wanted to race Reki—not because he knew he would win, but because he wanted to torment him. Adam wanted to hurt him beyond repair—to be the beast Reki saw when he went to bed at night.
And if that wasn’t enough, he claimed something Reki had been trying not to be ashamed of. He took something that made Reki Reki by the throat and molded it until it took the form of him. He stole Reki’s voice, his body, his tics.
When Reki ticced after the beef, none of them thought much of it because it was Reki and Reki made noises and moved oddly sometimes.
None of them realized that Adam had infiltrated the sanctity of his mind.
Looking back, Kojiro should have seen it—he should have noticed. He knew something was wrong—they all did—but they weren’t looking in all the right places. He should have known that something was really wrong when Reki ticced back at Kaoru’s apartment while they bandaged him and he made a disgusted face. He should have known when Reki made the bird sound and dug his fingernails into his skin until he bled.
They were all merely Adam’s puppets, being strung along for the ride while he tormented kid after kid, and eventually, friend after friend after friend.
They played right into his hands, and even though Langa beat him in the last beef, it didn’t feel like the kid really won. Not when Adam’s laughter woke them up at night, not when Kaoru discovered he had chronic migraines, not when Hiromi had to shave part of his head so the doctors could stitch his wound, not when Reki saw Adam every time he ticced.
“Bastard,” he growled, standing up with enough force that his chair flipped over and landed on the ground. “I’m gonna kill him.” His chest was heaving—fury fueling the rapid beating of his heart.
“Get in line,” Kaoru hissed, slamming his hands on the table and making Reki jump in his seat. “He’s a monster. An absolute monster.”
To make matters worse, Reki just shrugged. “It’s not… it’s not a big deal. I’m just overreacting.”
Both of them sharply turned their heads towards Reki. “Reki, it is a big deal,” Kojiro said, his voice much louder than he intended. He didn’t like yelling—raising his voice didn’t come naturally to him, it was something he actively had to choose to do. But now? God, he doesn’t think he’d be able to lower it if he wanted to. “He hurt you and none of us even noticed!”
“I didn’t want you to notice, it’s o—”
“Don’t you dare say ‘it’s okay’,” Kaoru snapped. “It’s not. You deserve better, Reki. You shouldn’t have had to go through that at all, much less alone!”
“I-I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you, it’s just—I was embarrassed and didn’t want you guys to think I was weak and…”
The noise resembling a whimper that Reki made caused Kojiro to pause and look. Reki had drawn into himself again, his eyes wide and full of fear and guilt.
Crap. They were yelling. They were yelling not at Reki, but in his presence all the same and they were scaring him.
Kaoru seemed to come to the same conclusion, for he closed his eyes and counted down from ten, taking controlled breaths that Kojiro mimicked along with him.
“Reki,” Kaoru said, his voice back to it’s quiet, soothing tone, “we aren’t mad at you. You didn’t have to tell us what was going on—you have a right to privacy. We are not mad that you kept this from us.”
“Exactly,” agreed Kojiro, dropping to one knee beside Reki. “We’re mad at Adam and we’re mad at what he did to you. You did nothing wrong here—you are the victim.”
Reki sniffed, clicked his tongue, then pumped his fist. “Oh.”
“You mean a lot to us, Reki. And it’s hard to see you hurting so much. It’s hard to hear about what he said to you and did to you,” Kaoru explained. “I’m glad you trusted us enough to tell us, it must have been hard to carry that on your shoulders for so long.”
“I didn’t want to bother any of you,” he shrugged.
“Kid, you are not a bother,” Kojiro stated. “You never have been and you never will be. Your tics never bothered us either. We love hearing you talk and seeing you get so passionate about things. We missed you the past few weeks. Don’t start apologizing for that because it’s not your fault. We’re gonna get through this together, if you want.”
Reki blinked, tilting his head. “We will?”
Kaoru nodded. “We will—we all will, if you want us to. Kojiro and I, we’ve known Adam for a rather long time. We’ve seen firsthand the damage he can do.” At that, he glanced at Kojiro, a small, warm smile tugging at his lips. “That’s how we got through it—together. We’ve both been hurt by him in more ways than one. It’s not the same as what he did to you, but we know what it feels like to get burned by Adam. We’re here for you and so are Hiromi and Miya, and most of all, Langa.”
That brought a genuine smile to Reki’s face—the first one Kojiro had seen in weeks. It filled his heart with absolute joy.
“It doesn’t matter how long it takes, we’re gonna help you reclaim that tic,” Kojiro told him, winking. “We’re going to do whatever we can to help you think of it as something worthy of being loved again, because Reki, you deserve so much love.”
Within seconds, a red blush consumed Reki’s face and neck. It was almost comical how quickly Reki’s face heated up with the smallest of compliments.
A week after his beef with Adam, once Reki had excused himself to use the restroom after Langa complimented him for about a minute straight, Kojiro had asked him what brought that on.
Langa just smiled contently at the bathroom door and told him that he wanted Reki to get so used to people saying nice things about him that he stopped blushing every time because maybe then he’d believe it.
At the time, he had merely chuckled and ruffled Langa’s hair, telling him to keep up the good work. He forgot about it once Miya called him and Kaoru their parents again, igniting a fight between Kojiro and Kaoru on who the dad was and who the mom was.
It came back to him now, though, and something inside of Kojiro’s chest bubbled.
He could see why Langa liked complimenting Reki. His reaction to praise was sweet, and maybe as they helped Reki love his tics again, they could also help him love himself.
“It’s true, Reki,” Kaoru continued, a mischievous edge to his voice (one look at him and Kojiro could tell he wanted to do the same). “You are an incredible young man and I am so proud of you.”
Reki groaned, turning his head to look away from their cheeky grins. “Okay, I get it. That’s enough of that now.”
Kojiro couldn’t help it—he laughed. “I don’t think we’ll ever be able to tell you how proud we are of you enough times, kid. You’re just gonna have to deal with it.”
“You’re just as weird with feeling as Langa is,” Reki whined, but even still, he flashed them a grateful look.
“Speaking of,” Kaoru began, “are you okay if the other three come back, now? They’re concerned for your well-being too, you know. And I think they may have even more love to give than we do. Or, they at least have more than this muscle-brained gorilla.” He gestured towards Kojiro, who rolled his eyes.
“Do you think I should tell them?” Reki asked, his fingers twisting nervously around each other. “Would they really want to know?”
“Well, that’s up to you,” Kojiro answered honestly. “You don’t have to tell them if you don’t want to or if you’re too drained. You don’t even need to have a reason not to tell them. It’s your right.”
“But,” Kaoru picked up, “I know that they do want to know what’s wrong. They want to be able to help you and to see you laugh and smile again, just like you are now.”
At that, Reki’s face flushed again.
“It is your decision, though, and we’ll support you no matter what you decide. What you just told us will stay here if that’s what you want.”
Reki scrunched his nose while he thought. It took him a minute or two before he spoke again, but Kojiro didn’t mind—he’s always willing to wait for Reki. “I think… I think I want to tell them,” he finally said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat as if he were scared that he made the wrong decision. “I feel a little better after telling you guys and I don’t want to worry them anymore.”
“Hey, don’t do it to make them feel better—do it if you want to,” Kojiro gently chided.
“I do! I do want to tell them—I’ve wanted to tell you all for awhile I just… didn’t know how or think it was worth being brought up, or something. I just… will you guys help me? I don’t—I don’t know exactly what to say and I don’t want to freak out on them or anything and—”
“Reki.”
The kid shut his mouth instantly and diverted his attention to Kaoru.
“Of course we’ll help you,” he assured. “There isn’t a right way to do it. You can babble to your heart's content, you can cry, you can do whatever you want. No matter what, this idiotic gorilla and I will be there to support you.”
Reki snorted at the dig at Kojiro. “Thank you. You can, um, you can tell them that they can come back now. Shadow’s distracting them, isn’t he?”
Kojiro chuckled, pushing himself to his feet. “Right you are. You’re too smart for your own good, kid, you know that?” He held out a hand to Reki, and when he accepted it, helped him out of the chair.
The kid wobbled a bit when he stood, needing to grab the back of the chair to steady himself at first. Once Kojiro was sure he wouldn’t topple over, he sent Hiromi a quick text telling him that they were good to return.
“Can I hug you?” Kaoru asked, also standing (that copycat). “You don’t have to accept—you just had a strenuous tic attack. I wanted to offer one just in case.”
“I—” Reki hesitated, biting his lip. “I don’t want a hug. I mean, I want a hug, but I don’t think I can handle it.”
“That’s okay,” said Kaoru. “Have you ever tried a hand hug before?” When Reki nodded, he continued. “Do you think you’d be up for a hand hug?”
The kid beamed at the idea, bouncing on the balls of his feet and nodding eagerly. “Yeah! Yeah—I think that’ll be fine!”
Nearly vibrating from excitement, he held his hand out to Kaoru who did the same, wrapping his thumb around Reki’s smaller hand while Reki wrapped his around Kaoru’s.
Kojiro smiled at the sight—sneaking a picture of two of his favorite people hand hugging before he put his phone back in his pocket. “Alright, out of the way, robot lover, I want a hand hug from Reki too!”
Kaoru huffed indignantly. “Go to the back of the line, you dimwit!”
“There is no line!”
“Then you need to wait your turn! I know you’re an idiot, but even you can see that Reki and I are still hugging. It’s rude to interrupt.”
“You’ve been hand-hugging long enough!”
They continued their banter, each trying to hide their smirk behind a facade of anger once Reki started to giggle.
It was nice to have their kid back.