Chapter Text
Langa has a migraine. A massive one. And his husband isn’t helping matters.
Always with the incessant talking.
“Tadashi, stop the car.” Langa orders, rubbing his temples.
“No, puppy, don't stop the car or we’ll be late for the ball. Langa, sweet, you know how important this night is to me.” Adam coos at him, sporting his trademark saccharine smile.
His voice is sickeningly sweet, and it almost hurts Langa’s ears. He glances at the rearview mirror, and meets Tadashi’s conflicted eyes.
“I said, stop the car, Tadashi, or I’ll throw myself out of it! That’s an order!” Langa snaps. The tires squeal as Tadashi’s foot spasms, hitting the breaks. On the rare occasions he raises his voice, Langa expects to be obeyed.
“Langa! Enough nonsense. We’ve had this event planned for months . We’re in the middle of nowhere, for Christ’s sake!” Adam grumbles, moving to grab the blue-haired man’s hand.
But Langa is quicker, opening the door and undoing his seatbelt all in one go. He rushes out of the limo, slamming the car door in Adam’s face in his haste.
Adam opens it a few seconds later, having narrowly avoided breaking his nose, as Langa takes in his quiet surroundings.
They are somewhere… familiar. One of Okinawa’s small suburbs, probably. Teenage memories fight for attention in his brain, but he ignores them in favour of taking a few deep breaths.
The air is cool on his skin, and Langa is so lost in memory that he doesn’t register Adam standing beside him. The man is starting to look thoroughly pissed off.
“Eve...” He starts. The ridiculous nickname makes Langa's skin crawl, and he resists the urge to step away.
“Tell them I’m sick or something. I don’t want to go.” he huffs, cutting his husband off.
Adam stares at him, flabbergasted, before remembering that this whole ‘marriage’ thing means he has to pretend that he cares.
“At least let the puppy take you back to the apartment. I won’t leave you here. There are vagrants around.” Adam says, looking around as if he’s expecting to be jumped any second.
“Oh, fuck off, Adam. Just leave me the hell alone, for once.” Langa hisses.
He’s twenty-four. He can protect himself.
Adam just can’t get that through his thick skull, insisting on being an overbearing dick who still acted like he was sixteen.
And he wasn’t exactly defenceless back then, either. He probably could have beaten Adam senseless. Probably would've.
He feels the heat of the fire burning in Adam’s eyes for a second, before he mutters something and slides back into the car. The slamming of the car door rings out in the silent street and Langa hears the sound of his raised voice through the thick plastic and metal. Tadashi drives off, and Langa sighs out a breath of relief.
Langa feels his headache already starting to dissipate now that Adam was out of his presence. He wonders why. Moving to loosen his tie, he slumps, undoing the first few buttons of his shirt.
The sound of two pairs of high heels clicking against the asphalt catch him by surprise . Oh no , he thinks dryly, am I going to get robbed by this pair of teenage girls?
“Hurry up, Lara, or we’ll be late! Sk8’s starting, and if we miss it, I swear to God, I will kill you! This is my -our- chance to see the members of S there!” The first one says, dragging her friend by the hand. They both struggle to stay on their heels, which better resemble wine bottles strapped to the soles of their feet.
Sk8… He hasn’t heard that name in years. It had barely even been a thing when he left.
When he had been dragged out of his comfortable, normal life into a stuffy one of suits, meetings and insufferable boredom.
More memories threaten to rise up from the depths of his brain from where he had so-carefully buried them alive, but he forces them back into their graves.
He needs to catch up with the girls. Find out what the hell is going on.
“Did you say…Sk8? Um, is the lead singer a redhead?” He asks. Way to be subtle.
Langa heads over to the pair.
He does a double-take, making sure he is speaking the correct language. He’s glad, at least, that his job has left him fluent in four (Or five? Ah, the smart-person problem of not knowing just how many languages he knows).
They look at him warily, but a practised, lazy smile on his part has them letting down their guards.
“Yeah! Kyan Reki. He’s amazing. Do… Do you want to come with us? We have an extra ticket. Our friend was supposed to make it, but the poor girl came down with the flu last-minute.” Lara says, holding out a ticket.
“I don’t have my wallet on me. Can I have your banking details? I’ll send some money over.” Langa asks, pulling out his phone.
“No, it’s fine, really. It’s your first time seeing the band, yeah? Then you should get to– everyone should get to experience them. It’s practically a human right! Come on!” The other girl says, comprehensive speech tapering off into a wordless squeal as she grabs his hand and whisks him along.
Down a few streets and the unfamiliarity falls away to reveal Langa’s familiar haunting ground. He didn’t realise he was this close to Crazy Rock. But he can see it’s all lit up and he follows the girls further in, keeping pace with them even though his heart feels like it’s teetering on the edge of a deep chasm.
He hears the music already.
His palms are sweaty. He barely notices the odd looks thrown his way or, more likely, his 350-thousand-yen Prada suit’s way, but the burly men at the gates let him through regardless.
Finally, he’s inside the factory.
The girls give him a wave before they run off. He can hear their wishes of ‘we hope you’ll enjoy the religious experience’, but it feels like his head is underwater.
It is almost exactly as he had remembered. For a second, he’s sixteen again and tackling his best friend after winning his most important race.
His last one.
The only thing that has been changed is the large stage that now sat under the projector screen.
But that’s not what Langa is looking at. The music fills him as he takes in the men on the stage.
For some reason, he had expected them to be changed, too, but they really hadn’t in the slightest.
Miya has gotten taller, as teenagers do, and has swapped out his shorts for a pair of distressed jeans. But he still wore the same hoodie– although it was most likely a newer version, because it was... clean. Miya’s fingers are delicate as ever as they make their way across the bass strings.
But that’s not what has captured Langa’s attention.
Shadow’s face immortalized in his trademark face paint as he pounds away at the drums. He’s the same as always, even though he must’ve been nearing thirty by then.
But, still, that’s not what Langa can’t tear his eyes away from.
No, it’s the boy who has his rough hands wrapped around a guitar. It’s the boy bouncing on his feet as his hands fly on the strings, making cord after cord ring out. Practised motions.
Langa is only half-listening to the music as he watches his once-best friend come alive on stage.
The boy seems to age in reverse, and it’s like they’re kids again. Forever.
Langa, slowly but surely, forces himself closer and closer to the front, mumbling half-assed apologies to the people he pushes past. He needs to get closer. He needs to get closer to the ray of living sunshine.
By the time he makes it to the front, the first song is finishing and Reki is pulling off that final note with a solid finality.
Reki, breathing hard, grabs the mic.
“How’s everybody feeling tonight? Brothers, sisters, gender resisters you ready to party?”
His voice is somehow exactly as Langa remembers it.
The crowd around him screams an affirmative as Reki’s smile blows Langa away.
“Good. That’s good. We have some sick songs for y'all tonight. What do you want to hear next?”
The crowd screams out different song suggestions while Miya and Shadow both take a second to stretch.
Reki smirks, eyes scanning the crowd. He goes to say something, but his breath hitches when he meets Langa’s eyes.
Langa gulps a little bit, raising his hand in a short, awkward wave. He almost expects to get hit in the face with Reki’s guitar (he deserves it, even), but the redhead stays professional and takes a deep breath.
“I have the perfect song for you,” he says, not breaking eye contact. Those brilliant, ruby-red eyes narrow a bit.
Langa is unable to tell if Reki is angry or upset. It’s probably both. He has always had trouble telling people’s emotions apart, and he struggles with Reki the most. Always has. Despite Reki being the most emotional person Langa has ever known, there was something about him that made him hard to read.
Reki’s fingers start to play a song. Miya and Shadow catch on easily (were they used to spontaneous song choices? Langa wouldn’t put it past them). All Langa knows is that Reki’s eyes are on fire as he slams out chord after chord.
He expects a scathing song, and that’s kinda what he gets. The words almost hurt to hear.
But he deserves it.
“I’m afraid that you’ve become everything that you had hated!” Reki practically spits at the mic. The chorus crashes over Langa like a tsunami.
Langa sinks into the ground slowly as the crowd below Reki sings with him. They know the song well, and from the way Reki is staring down at him, he had most certainly written this song about Langa.
How long after Langa left had Reki started writing it? How much hate did Reki have towards him?
And yet, he can’t look away. He can’t force himself to walk away.
Miya backed up Reki’s vocals, having also found Langa in the crowd. His emerald eyes sting like acid as he stares Langa down.
The song feels like it goes on forever, but it finally, thankfully comes to a stop. Reki pants a little before he rips his eyes away from Langa’s.
Langa suddenly feels like he can breathe again.
He really should leave. He’s hurting Reki by being here. But before he can slink away, he feels a large hand set on his shoulder.
“Langa. You’re back.” Joe says simply. He doesn’t look angry, but from the grip on Langa’s shoulder, Langa can tell he's barely restraining himself.
“Hey, Joe.” Langa says sheepishly.
“Why don’t you come and sit with me and Karou? Catch us up.” Joe says, before pushing Langa through the crowd. He stops at a section marked ‘VIP’. The security guard lets them both in.
Cherry’s eyes widen when he catches sight of Langa. He mutters something under his breath. Langa’s stomach drops a little at the wheelchair that Cherry sits in.
Langa feels like he’s being dragged in front of the principal.
‘Sit, Langa.’ is all that the pink-haired man says, pointing to a few empty chairs beside him. There’s a cooler at his feet with a couple of drinks sticking out. Both men had aged, but nothing noticeable. If anything, they had grown even more attractive. More handsome than when Langa was younger.
Langa nervously takes the seat and flinches when Cherry whacks him over the head with his fan.
“Explain.” Cherry’s voice is dangerously flat.
“There’s not much to explain. Adam’s aunts and my mother made a deal. I couldn’t say no to mum.” Langa says with a soft shrug. The next song starts up and it’s just as scathing as the first one.
Something about Reki forgiving him, only because Langa wasn’t there to hate.
“That doesn’t give you a right to just disappear on us, you brat!” Joe grumbles.
“It happened so quickly, and then I lost track of time,” Langa says with another shrug.
It isn’t the whole truth but he isn’t going there just yet.
“You didn’t even have the basic courtesy to text. I thought we had raised you better than that!” Cherry chides, looking ready to whack him again.
Langa doesn’t bother pointing out that Cherry and Joe technically didn’t raise him. But they had been there for him after everything after his dad, so he keeps his mouth shut.
“I really am sorry,” he says, half-covering the ring on his left hand.
Oh god, what’s Reki gonna say when he finds out that Langa has married the man that he has despised.
This was all going downhill so quickly. He knows if he really wants to, he can get up and walk away, But he also knows that if he did, there would be no chance of Reki ever forgiving him.
“At least you're back now. You’re back, right?” Joe asks, eyes half on him and half on the red-haired sprite jumping around the stage. Making the crowd fall in love with him.
“Uhhh....for a little while. I have some business here. So a few months, maybe?” Langa says softly.
“You mean that Adam has some business here. We’re not stupid, Langa. We know you're married. It was all over the papers here.” Cherry reprimands, the word burning his ears.
Langa silently hangs his head in shame.
“I didn’t want to go, Cherry. I really didn’t.” He whispers.
He fought Adam for the first two years. Over anything. He tried to make the man’s life hell. He’d rip apart the curtains of their room and insult Adam’s suit choices. He wasn’t stupid enough to pick a fight him in front of his business partners, but behind closed doors, Langa fought like a rabid dog.
Hoping that if he made Adam just as miserable as he felt, he’d let him go.
But Adam had only been endeared by his aggressiveness, and, eventually, Langa didn’t have the energy anymore.
He’s surprised by Cherry grabbing his hand, squeezing it a fraction.
“Kojiro and I know that. But it doesn't mean it hurts us any less. Reki was a mess after you left. Promise you’ll stay this time?”
“I promise that if I have to go, I’ll say goodbye.” Langa says instead.
Joe purses his lips, but Cherry nods. Always the more understanding of the pair.
“Good. That’s good. Now you're here to watch those idiots sing, aren’t you? Come on, let's go watch.” Cherry says, before pushing at the stick on his wheelchair gliding away, making Langa (who was leaning on it) lose his balance.
He walks after Cherry quickly, until they’re pressed against the side of the stage.
Miya sticks out his tongue but his eyes aren’t trying to tear Langa apart anymore.
Reki doesn’t spare him another glance. Not even when they have a break halfway through. He walks straight past Langa and snatches a bottle of water out of the cooler instead and chugging it down.
Shadow steps off the stage, only to do a double-take at the sight of the blue-haired man and slips down the last step. Joe snickers.
Langa gulps a little bit, waiting for Shadow to hit him.
He’s surprised instead when Shadow hugs him.
“You look weird in a suit.” He murmurs. He’s sweaty and he smells slightly gross from said sweat, but Langa doesn’t care. He focuses on hugging his old friend back.
Miya punches him hard in the chest, and Langa looks down at the boy with a curious expression.
“You’re such a stupid slime.” He says before he hugs Langa quickly. Tightly.
Langa almost swears he's purring.
Reki still refuses to look at him as he walks back up on stage, but Langa rushes to stop him.
He catches Reki’s hand in his, when the redhead is halfway up the stairs.
“Reki, please, look at me.” He whispers.
Out of all of them, Reki was never the violent type.
At least that’s what Langa thinks, right up until he hears a sickening crack. Blood starts pouring down his face. Langa moves to cover his nose as Reki storms away.
Well, that could have gone better.