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One thing Reki did not expect at all when he suggested they played Mario Kart was to see Langa turn into an entirely different person. Where his boyfriend was usually awkward and stiff when playing video games, he was now grace and beauty and passion and determination with a dash of trash talk. After an evening at Sia La Luce to celebrate with the whole family, they went to Langa’s place for a birthday sleepover.
After they’d both taken a shower and changed into their sleepwear, they’d settled in Langa’s bedroom, going through some of the still unopened boxes from his move. Anytime they’d open one, they’d get stuck on one thing, and Langa would talk about it, wear it, display it, and then none of the boxes would end up much more empty then when they started. It had been like that for the last few visits, each discovery as useless and distracting as the next.
And today’s find was no different. A Wii console and a few games.
Sitting on the floor picking things out of the box, Reki held them in the air, quirking an eyebrow. “You know how to play?”
“’Course I do. It’s Mario Kart and Wii Sports.” Then, leaning towards Reki from his spot on the bed, he took the games from his extended hands and added, “I used to play with my cousins. Anytime we’d get together, we’d bring out the console and play a few tournaments.”
Something seized at Reki’s heart, seeing the smile tugging at Langa’s lips, his eyes filled with love and memories. Before he could think about it, the words escaped his mouth, “Wanna play?”
Langa turned to look at him, nodding fervently and smile widening. He jumped to his feet and left his room, leaving a dumbfounded Reki on his floor. A few seconds later, he came in just as fast as he’d left and grabbed Reki’s hand to pull him along.
Together, they managed to connect the Wii to the living room TV and found new batteries for the remotes. Soon, they were seated on the couch, thighs pressed together and elbows bumping. Reki leaned on Langa’s shoulder as he was navigating the game’s menu and selected the settings for their tournament. Though the game was in French, Reki remembered enough to know Langa had gone for the multiplayer option, which was logical. But after that, Reki’s mind drew a blank.
As if he knew Reki didn’t understand past that point, Langa pressed further against his shoulder and asked him, “Is Vs. Race okay or do you want to do a Grand Prix? That way we can choose which courses we play and how many we do. Also, more control over the other characters.”
“Uh, Vs. Race sounds good.” Then, a fading memory of his time playing the game came back in a flash, and he shifted to face his boyfriend. “I remember playing Moo Moo Meadows a lot, can we start with that one?”
“Oh yeah, Prairie Meuh Meuh, ” he said in his delectable French. “It was my little cousin’s favorite.” He chuckled to himself before adding with a slight frown, “Only one where he’d win, really. He wasn’t that good, but the cows really made him lucky for some reason.” It took him a few moments with his memories before he came back to the present, to Reki. He did that, sometimes; zone out for a couple of seconds, lost in images of the past, before coming back like nothing had happened.
He blinked once and Reki knew he was back, setting up the game, adjusting the remote in his hands so that it fit perfectly in the dip of his palm, this relaxed and comfortable expression settling on his features, pressing the button with a familiarity Reki had rarely seen with Langa outside of skateboarding.
“Do you want to play 100 or 150cc?”
Reki took a moment, wondering if he remembered the difference and what his level was last time he played. Without a response, Langa tore his eyes from the screen and turned to him. Even in this environment where he was clearly more comfortable than Reki, Langa continuously asked for his input, making sure they agreed on every part. It was something Reki liked about Langa. A lot. His desire to make it good for everyone around him, to have the opinion of everyone involved before making a decision. Not that he wasn’t able to choose by himself, far from that. He was just a good person not wanting to create unnecessary conflict. That or it was a Canadian thing to do. Reki wasn’t always sure.
“Reki?”
“Yeah, uh, 100cc to get in the groove, I guess,” he said, hoping for it to be the easier version.
Langa nodded and pushed the “ 2 ” button once more. “Okay, now we just have to select a character. They’re all unlocked so choose whichever one you want.”
Scrolling through his options, Reki analyzed Langa’s reaction every time he spent a few seconds on one character before going to the next.
Mario .
Langa scrunched up his nose, whether in disdain or in fear of Reki taking it before he could wasn’t really clear.
Luigi .
A small tilt of his head.
Toadette.
Langa huffed. He huffed.
This little game went on for a few more characters before Reki landed on Dry Bones, which earned a small nod of approval from Langa, and Reki decided to roll with it.
Then, less than two seconds after his choice was made, Langa had already chosen Rosalina – that somehow was the most Langa character to select, not the obvious choice in terms of royalty, just fancy enough without being pretentious – and went on to selecting his vehicle.
And though Langa’s knowledge and decisiveness were great hints, it was only when Reki saw Langa select the manual drift that he knew the boy was absolutely serious about the game. Like really serious.
And when the game started, Langa got the maximum boost from a perfectly timed start of the engine, confirming his deduction about Langa being pretty good at the game. Not having gotten quite the same boost, Reki trailed behind for the first few turns, managing not to get crushed by any of the computers and not lose his spot in fifth place.
They soon reached the first item boxes, both managing to get one. By luck, Reki got the Bullet Bill and hastily pressed the button to claim it on the controller and activated the booster. It placed him right in front of Langa, who managed to not get toppled over at Reki’s passage. But as Reki thought he had the advantage, he saw Langa smirk in the corner of his vision, eyes narrowing.
“Take that,” he said in a low voice as his red shell hit Reki from behind and sent him tumbling, allowing Langa to take the lead.
As he pushed forward, the tension in his shoulders dropped and he started taking curves in a more controlled manner, always at the perfect angle to have the boost from the drift at the end. At every turn, he increased the distance between them, sending more red shells and leaving bananas behind in way too precise spots.
On the last lap, Langa was so far ahead there wasn’t a single moment Reki could as much as see him in the distance.
The second he finished the race, his eyes were on Reki’s part of the screen, coaching him through his turns and allowing him to take third place by the end with a special move that was all Langa’s.
A big smile on his face, Langa seemingly was back to his usual self. “Which one do you want to do now? Yoshi Falls is pretty nice too, and it’s not that hard.”
Reki quickly agreed, ready to be destroyed once again by his boyfriend, but at the same time curious to see this new façade surface again.
And just like that, the moment the course was chosen and loading, his eyes focused, and every movement became calculated, and Reki could swear he heard Langa mutter “I will crush every one of you,” under his breath as the race started, a small smirk Reki wanted to kiss off tugging at his lips.
True to his promise, Langa finished first again with half a lap of advance on every player.
And just like the last time, he quickly turned to Reki to help him take every shortcut and shoot every item at the perfect moment. When Reki passed Luigi to finish second, Langa threw an arm around Reki’s shoulders and pressed him tightly to his side. “I knew you could do it.” He cupped his boyfriend’s face and added, “You’re so great,” and a kiss on his pursed lips, then one on each of his cheeks and a final one on the tip of his nose.
As Langa settled back in his spot on the couch, Reki’s face burned red. Langa really didn’t realize what effect he had on him, the way his casual touches and compliments affected him and made his heart swell and squeeze. He really loved Langa.
The next race was DK Summit, which Langa admitted was his favorite since it wasn’t a repetition of laps but more of a ski (or snowboard) descent. Something about seeing the snowy trails reflected in Langa’s eyes made him want to immortalize the moment. He wanted to see real snow making them shine, illuminating his face in a way Reki had only seen in older pictures. He wanted to see snow with Langa and take his hand and kiss his reddened cheeks and drink hot chocolate snuggled under a blanket. But right now, they were far from the snowy mountain tops of Canada, a few seconds away from starting the race in Langa’s living room in Okinawa. Maybe one day it’d be different. Definitely.
Reki only tore his eyes away from Langa when he heard the race starting, choosing to concentrate on the task at hand and leaving his daydreaming for later that evening.
Just like Reki assumed he was at snowboarding, Langa exceled on the track, taking deep curves, cutting right at the edge of the trail to keep as much speed as possible. At every jump, he dropped a banana peel and chuckled to himself, probably thinking of the future adversary slipping on it. Like both times before, there was a safe distance between him and any other racer when he crossed the finish line. And like both times, he turned and talked Reki through the best route to keep the advance he had on the ones behind him.
There was a proud expression on Langa's face when Reki finished, probably a mix of joy from having raced his favorite course in a while mixed with the results of Reki’s efforts to perform extra well on this specific race.
Reki was proud of himself, too. He’d managed to not fall a single time in a pit, not slip on any banana peel left behind by Langa, avoid every shell sent his way with tricks Langa had given him a few minutes ago, and take the second spot with a large gap before the next driver. It once again earned him a few kisses.
Reki was starting to really like playing Mario Kart.
They finished their Vs. Race with Moonview Highway, Peach Gardens and Coconut Mall, each time with Langa at the head of the group, but with Reki slowly reducing the gap between them at the finish line.
Even in first place by a lot, it didn’t stop Langa from swearing under his breath in broken French every time something hit him. Those blue spiky shells received a hell of a string of insults, most of which Reki had no idea what they meant. He did understand the variations of “fuck,” like “fuckers,” or “fuck up” amongst others, sometimes combining many in a single sentence. One of Langa’s favorites, “fucking fuckers and their fucking shells,” made Reki laugh loudly and snort when Langa scrunched his face in annoyance.
They ended up next to each other on the podium, and Langa’s gaze dropped to Reki’s face when the ranking was shown. “You did really well, I’m proud of you.”
“Says the guy who destroyed everyone. Seriously man, how are you so good?” Langa shrugged, dropping the controller by his side to take Reki’s hands in his.
Over the last few weeks, he’d gotten more comfortable with initiating physical contact, and the now casualness of it all never failed to threaten tears to spill from Reki’s eyes. He really loved the boy, and him letting his desires come true, letting his impulsions and twitching hands reach out and tangle with calloused fingers. “I love you, dude,” Reki said when Langa was closing in on the inches between them. “I love you, too,” Langa mumbled against his lips.
They kissed until the same music loop has passed about twenty times. They were breathless and panting, their lips pink and shiny and their eyes glazed over. Eyes still locked to Reki’s mouth, Langa asked, “Want to play another game or should I close it now?”
Still very much in need of cooldown from the moment they’d just spent, Reki agreed to another game, but only if they play in teams, together.
Langa nodded fervently, preparing the game, and selecting once again Princess Rosalina, as Reki went for Toad, another character Langa seemed to approve of.
Team playing Langa was totally different from solo playing Langa. The trash talk was now reduced to the opposing team only, and he didn’t care about who won, only making sure as many people of his team as possible were in the first spots. He sometimes stayed behind and took a hit for Reki before taking a shortcut and a secret jump to catch up right after.
The look of determination was the same, yet strangely different than the one from before. The desire to win burned just as bright in his eyes, but his willingness to put others before himself to ensure the final win really did something to Reki. He’d just found another part of Langa to love. Not that he didn’t love everything about Langa, that he did. But every time he found out about a new thing, a new expression, a new word that turned differently in Langa’s mouth, a new way to make his heart flutter, he added it to the list of small things he found perfect about the boy, keeping it tucked away safely in a little drawer in his head.
They destroyed team Blue by many, many points, and Reki finished with the most for team Red. Langa looked like a proud mama bird whose kids had just learned how to fly. He squeezed Reki’s thigh, fingers digging lightly in the muscle of his leg, and dropped his cheek on his shoulder. It took him a few tries before he was comfortable enough to stay put, but once he found the right angle and spot, he sighed loudly, melting at Reki’s side.
“Thank you for playing with me.” He seemed to weigh his words, mouth opening and closing against Reki’s shoulder. “It used to be a thing between my cousins and me, and I miss them a lot, you know? We kind of grew apart the last year before I left Canada, and it was nice playing that game just now. It made me feel closer to them, if that makes sense.”
“It does,” Reki quickly responded, dropping a kiss to the top of Langa’s head. “I know what you mean.”
Langa nodded, nose catching in the fabric of Reki’s hoodie. “You always do.”
And somehow, they’d both filled a void in the other’s heart. They were each other’s family. They were best friends and boyfriends and partners. They would never really replace the people they’d lost over time, but the presence of such a strong love in their lives certainly helped fill the hollow in their chests.