Work Text:
“Reki! I need your help.”
The redhead in question immediately stops tapping the heel of his board against the ground as he waits, turning his head sharply toward the sound of his friend's voice as it calls out to him from across the school yard. He's on high alert from the moment he hears that tone, worried that Langa's found his way into trouble somehow, but as he watches his friend approach with neither fear nor apprehension in his eyes, he slowly lets his guard down, dropping tense shoulders to greet Langa with a smile instead.
Meeting one another at the gates to the school after classes end for the day is something they usually do, but it's not every day that Langa comes up to him without first asking for food or a trip to the skate park, and it has Reki feeling incredibly curious. He turns to face his friend properly once Langa's finished crossing the length of the yard, and while the expression on Langa's face isn't one that raises any concerns, Reki can still see a faint patch of pink across the tops of his cheeks, and it's not because he's winded or anything like that. Langa didn't run over to him, which can only mean that whatever's on his mind is something that he's hesitant to share.
Maybe it is more serious after all.
“Nice to see you, too,” Reki says dryly, with a smirk to top it off. “What's up?”
He watches as Langa ignores his tease, moving instead to drop his bag from over his shoulder so that he can fish something out from within, and after rifling through a few notebooks and binders he seems to find what he's looking for – a single sheet of paper that he guards preciously after withdrawing it. Reki raises a brow, curious to know what's on the other side, but Langa refuses to turn the page around just yet, taking a moment to frown deeply at it himself, first.
“Tomorrow's test... if I don't do something, I'll fail it, Reki,” Langa mutters, studying the page with a grim look on his face.
At the moment, Reki can't remember having a test scheduled for anything tomorrow, but the fact that Langa's worried about such a thing starts to worry him as well, and he racks his brain desperately for a few seconds, trying to remember what it could possibly be for. He didn't pay a whole lot of attention in any of his classes today on account of some sketches he's been working on covertly, focusing a lot more on the notepad that always hides beneath his textbooks instead of the texts themselves, and now he's facing the consequences – and rightly so. He only hopes that once Langa fills him in on what it is exactly that they're doing tomorrow, he can steal away some study notes for a few hours.
But finally, although rather reluctantly, Langa hands the paper over to the redhead, letting Reki have a go at examining it. At first glance, it looks like a kanji-writing practise sheet that's meant for younger students – and where Langa got it from as a high school student is beyond him – but the scrawls on the page are abysmal in quality, and if Reki didn't already know any better, he'd guess that they came from an early grade elementary-schooler. But he's known Langa for a good while now, and as a result of that, there's no mistaking this particular flavour of chicken-scratch handwriting.
And just like that, it clicks – they have a test for Japanese class tomorrow. No wonder Langa's feeling self-conscious.
“Oi, Langa, that's... that's bad,” Reki says, trying hard not to loose a low whistle, and Langa nudges him with his elbow, hitting him hard enough in the ribs to force a childish whine from him.
“That doesn't help,” Langa pouts, taking the page back with the intention of stashing it away again.
Reki recovers easily, snatching the paper away from Langa's dangerous hands once more, and he holds it carefully between his own, taking care not to let passing students catch a glimpse of it. He knows that Langa's generally not very bashful about anything, but the state of his handwriting has got to cause him at least a little bit of grief every now and then, even if their peers are already aware that he's essentially still a foreigner. As such, Langa should be exempt from ridicule for something like this, but Reki also knows that high school students can be pretty harsh, even if they don't really mean to be.
For the most part though, everyone adores Langa – and as nice as that is, it's also one of those things that causes Reki a bit of grief. But that's a separate issue, and one that Reki tries to ignore most days.
He takes a closer look at the things that Langa's written, basic words that he doesn't have too much trouble reading – but if he looks at it in terms of being able to pass a test that involves any kind of written portion? He realizes pretty quickly that Langa's in need of as much help as he can get. He's known that Langa's written Japanese was horrible since only a short time after they met, and he has a perfectly valid reason for that to be the case, but Reki never really thought about how much of an impact it would have on him in school going forward.
He's no expert himself, but he would never turn down such an easy request for help – and never one from Langa.
“You just want help writing neater, or...?”
“Sort of, yeah,” Langa sheepishly explains. “I can't remember a lot of stroke orders and stuff like that, either. And if I just... make it up as I go, it'll look even worse tomorrow.”
He sounds terribly dejected, and if they weren't still in eyeshot of so many other students, Reki would be inclined to pull him in for a hug, for... admittedly selfish reasons. But he stops himself, because it's important to have restraint – especially when Langa's not 'his' in any way, shape, or form, and he settles for a friendly clap on the shoulder instead, handing the sheet back to Langa along with a bright smile.
“Wanna come over, then? Or you got somewhere else in mind?”
“I was thinking about your place, but... won't the girls bother us?”
“Nah, mom's taking them to the park. We're good.”
Langa agrees with a short nod, safely tucking his shameful work into his bag with a wobbly little smile before he slings it back over his shoulder, and together they take off on their boards in the direction of the redhead's house. While he's not sure how capable Reki is of helping him sort out his penmanship, he's at least confident that he'll end up better off at the end of the day than when he started.
They make a stop at a convenience store for snacks and drinks before they arrive at Reki's doorstep, and with no sign of the twins as expected, Reki leads them both into the living room, dropping off his bags on the floor next to the table before stepping out. Langa situates himself there comfortably as well, digging through his bag for both blank and lined sheets of paper as well as pens and pencils, laying it all out neatly on the table for when Reki returns from wherever he's disappeared to down the hallway, and once he's prepared he patiently waits, looking nervously down at the empty pages.
Reki returns a short time later, easily reading Langa's fears based on his facial expression alone, and he saunters over with a little smile on his face, trying to keep the mood light. He takes it upon himself to dig through Langa's school bag, retrieving the sheet they were looking at earlier, and he seats himself close at Langa's side with it in hand, as if to proudly display it for them both once more. Langa looks unimpressed, however, reaching out to grab himself a pen instead, and he sits anxiously in silence while Reki hums to himself, thinking god-knows-what about his demonstrated writing skills.
“Man, I don't envy you,” Reki sighs, throwing one arm behind his head as he lies back on the floor, holding the page straight out above him as he studies it. “I grew up writing Japanese, but you... not so much, eh?”
Langa shoots him another look that tells him he's hardly being helpful, and with an innocent shrug Reki tries to defend himself, sitting up properly once more to try and actually lend a hand. He scours Langa's worksheet one more time, trying to decide the best course of action based on what Langa's given him as a starting point, and while he's not a teacher by any stretch of the imagination, he makes an educated decision that the simplest words are probably the easiest place to start if they're looking to start with 'neater' writing over 'correct' writing.
He knows that their test will have far more complex words, but reviewing basic sentences to help Langa straighten out the structure of his words a little more seems like the smartest thing to do. And if Langa manages to screw up writing something as simple as numbers, there really is no hope for him.
“Hey, at least you can ace every English test ever,” Reki suggests.
“That's—” Langa pauses, rethinking his scathing comeback when he realizes that Reki has a point. “That's kind of reassuring. But it doesn't help me in this country.”
“Yeah, not really,” Reki murmurs, the end of a pen balanced thoughtfully on his lower lip.
It's distracting enough to take Langa's attention away from the problem at hand for a few seconds, and he watches entranced as Reki delicately bites at it, deep in concentration as he rifles through a reference book. Langa realizes that it must be what he had disappeared down the hallway for – what seems to be a decent-sized textbook with clear depictions of kanji and their meanings, as well as how to write them.
“... Do you really read things like this in your free time?”
“What? No— don't be dumb,” Reki teases. “It's Koyomi's. She actually cares about good grades,” he adds, playfully jabbing at himself with a grin that goes right to Langa's heart.
“You do too, don't lie,” Langa coos. “How many times have I helped you study?”
“'Kay, you have a point, but who cares right now?” Reki says, laying the book down in the centre of the table between them both. “You have bad handwriting, and that's what matters today.”
“No need to rub it in,” Langa mumbles, laying his cheek down on the table.
Reki snickers at him while he reorganizes what they've laid out on the table, carefully maneuvering around Langa's face as he continues to rest his head there, and he starts by writing out a few things on a blank piece of paper, with Langa following along with his eyes as the pen effortlessly glides across the page. He's mesmerized by it for a while, eventually choosing to sit up so that he can see what it is that Reki's writing, and he's treated to the sight of handwriting that doesn't look at all like what he normally sees from Reki. There's numbers, full sentences, and even a few words that Langa can't even read, all written out in beautiful script – and it genuinely confuses him.
“Why is this so neat?” Langa asks, and Reki makes an indignant sound.
“What do you mean 'why is this so neat?' I'm trying to make sure you can read it, dumb-ass.”
Langa side-eyes him as a gentle warning, before sliding the page closer to himself to get a better look. While the strokes aren't up to par with the likes of Cherry for example, they're incredibly legible and tidy enough that they could almost pass as being done by someone with far more experience than either of them, and he takes a moment to marvel at this side of Reki that he didn't know existed. When they take notes in school or at work, Reki's writing is hasty and scribbled, and it takes a lot more effort for Langa to make out what it is that he's written (not that that's Reki's fault – it's entirely his own), but he supposes that taking notes in Japanese must not be all that different from doing so in English after all.
His own notes in English never were very tidy, but he's starting to wonder if that's just a character flaw.
“You can read Japanese, right?” Reki asks, although he knows the answer – at least partially.
“... Yes, Reki. Enough to get by, anyway.”
“What's this say, then?” he asks, pointing to some of the writings near the top of the page.
“You wrote the numbers one through ten. Anyone can read that,” Langa says plainly, and Reki shrugs.
“Yeah, but can you write 'em?”
He feels like he's being baited, but Langa snatches the pen out of Reki's hand anyway, the very same one that was perched on the redhead's lower lip earlier. He sets to work on mimicking what Reki had done, easily reciting every number stroke-for-stroke, and while it's certainly not the neatest depiction he's ever seen, it's legible and at least done properly. Reki gives him a little pat on the shoulder, and if it were anyone other than him doing that Langa would see it as condescending, but he lets it slide partly due to the fact that he really can't rely on anyone else's help today.
The other part is because he actually likes Reki, and doesn't want to do anything to jeopardize that.
“Yeah, okay. It's... messy, but you've got it,” Reki says, and Langa sighs, feeling defeated already.
“This is as easy as it gets, and it still looks like a kid wrote it,” Langa groans, tucking his head down in between crossed arms as they rest on the table, and Reki shamelessly laughs at him.
“Just try a few more times. Slow it down a little, and write with smaller strokes.”
“You almost sound like you know what you're talking about,” Langa teases, finally peering out from behind his arms just in time to see Reki make a face at him.
“I know more than you.”
Langa brushes him off, sitting upright again to get back to the task at hand, and he takes up his pen with much more determination than the last time. He puts it to paper, re-writing the same numbers as many times as it takes until they start to look a little more professional, while Reki watches carefully from his side. It makes him sweat a little, being under the concentrated gaze of the only person who can make him nervous in a good way, but the thought of hearing Reki's praise for even the smallest of improvements keeps him going strong for a while.
He knows that he's barely just begun, but his focused effort so far hasn't been in vain. He can see an actual, visible difference between his first attempt and whatever number he's on now, having lost count after the first ten or so runs through each digit, and it gives him hope that he might actually be redeemable after all. Even though Reki hasn't offered him any further tips or encouragement in a while, the very fact that he's even offered to help in the first place has Langa feeling warm throughout, and just the redhead's presence alone is enough to keep him strongly motivated.
“How come you didn't go and ask Cherry for help?” Reki asks, as he digs into one of their snack bags.
“He'd kill me, I think,” Langa says matter-of-factly, and Reki stares at him in disbelief, mid-chew.
“... That's a bit extreme, isn't it?”
“No. He's already seen my writing once, and I don't think he wants to see it ever again,” Langa adds with just as much sincerity as before, and after taking a second to think it through, Reki laughs.
“Never change, Langa,” he says, slinging one arm around his friend's shoulders.
The sudden closeness causes Langa to mess up what should've been a clean stroke, and in his head he ridicules himself for letting something so innocent get to him. But Reki doesn't move away after that, keeping them both locked together in a half-hug of sorts with the weight of his arm playing across Langa's shoulders like a taunt, and it slowly drives him mad as he tries to come up with an excuse to shake the redhead off. Not that he doesn't like it when Reki makes even a little bit of physical contact with him, but it's distracting enough that he knows he'll have to put his foot down eventually.
He's starting to wonder if he might have had an ulterior motive when asking Reki for help today.
But Reki certainly doesn't need to know that, nor does Langa need to give in to his selfish wants at a time like this. He has something more important to do right now that could help shape his future, and he would be wise to pay more attention to that instead of the redhead that's glued himself to his side. He starts to venture out and away from writing numbers over and over again, feeling like he's done all he can with those for now, and he starts writing other words that he can quite easily remember – simple ones, that consist of one kanji alone. Reki's arm distracts him less and less the more he puts his focus toward what he's supposed to be doing, but it isn't long before his scribbles start to lose their shape again, as the sound of Reki snapping pretzels between his teeth every few seconds floods his ears.
It doesn't help that Reki's still situated right there at his side, either, where he can very clearly hear every little obnoxious crunch and chew, and he grips the pen in his hand hard enough that it shakes. His irritation soon balances out nicely with his growing hunger thanks to the fact that the redhead's digging into snacks that they were supposed to share later on, and it isn't much longer before he gives up entirely on trying to make whatever word he was going for look legible.
If Langa can't beat him, he may as well join him.
“Give me one?” Langa asks, turning to look Reki right in the eye.
“You're supposed to be practising,” the redhead points out through a mouthful, defending his little bag of pretzels by holding them outstretched and away from himself, far out of Langa's reach.
“I am, I am. Just... hold one out for me while I write, then?”
His suggestion has Reki curious now, and while the redhead's reluctant to share with someone who's known to down more than his fair share of food in mere seconds, he finds himself drawn to the idea of hand-feeding Langa, as embarrassing as it may sound. He would be lying to himself if he said the thought didn't appeal to him intensely, and so with his eyes still glued to Langa's he deposits the bag in his lap, fumbling around in it with his free hand to dig out a piece for Langa to have.
Reki waits expectantly for Langa to start writing again, sitting there with a patient look on his face that only seems to annoy his friend further, but Langa obediently sets to work once more with the promise of food on the horizon. He scrawls out as many words as he can remember, focusing mostly on making sure they look acceptable enough and are written correctly, and given that Reki hasn't hounded him yet for making any mistakes in stroke order or length, he has to assume that he's actually a fair bit better at this than he first thought.
It's almost encouraging enough to instill him with some confidence for tomorrow's test.
But he throws that assumption right out the window when Reki finally holds the pretzel to his lips, letting him take it without putting up a fight like he half expected him to, and when he glances over out the corner of his eye to get a look at what Reki's been up to while he was waiting, his face warms, noting that Reki hasn't been looking at what he's written at all in the last minute or so. The redhead's eyes are heavily focused on his face – or more specifically his mouth – smouldering as if they're trying to burn a hole in him, and everything that Langa's ever known about writing in Japanese seems to evaporate from his brain entirely.
That intense look sure doesn't help to ease the pressure of Langa's yearning for the redhead in the slightest. It actually makes it much worse, providing Langa with another wonderful expression to lock away in the back of his mind for all eternity and effectively distracting him from getting anything even remotely important done for several precious seconds.
In some ways, this bizarre exchange does at least explain why Reki's been so unusually quiet for the last little while, but what Langa's still left to wonder, though, is why Reki would even want to stare at him in the first place.
“Is there something on my face?” Langa asks meekly, his face alight with colour now and quite obviously nervous, and Reki's face scrunches in return.
“Huh?”
“You're... staring at me,” he mumbles.
“... N-no— I'm not,” Reki argues, taking the defensive as he turns his head to shoot daggers at the table before them instead. “You— you asked me to feed you, you moron,” he says, blindly shoving another pretzel somewhere in the vicinity of Langa's mouth.
Langa takes it with a glare, wiping salt from his lips with the back of his free hand, and Reki's arm finally slinks away from his shoulders, dropping back down to his lap as he recoils. Immediately, Langa regrets saying anything, mourning the loss of that warmth across the back of his neck, and he sulks as he chews, trying hard to come up with a way to get Reki to touch him again. His mind is mostly blank for a good long while, fixated only on what Reki's doing and what he wants Reki to be doing, and the pen in his hand starts drifting aimlessly across the page, leaving a nonsense trail of ink in its wake.
“Uh... what're you doing, Langa?” Reki asks, watching as the ink runs over words he's already written.
Langa finally snaps out of it, glancing down at the page before him with an empty look on his face, and he slowly realizes that he's just about scribbled a line right through everything that he was halfway proud of. He sighs, shoving the paper forward and out of his way, and before he can grab a new one for himself Reki thoughtfully does it for him, beaming at him with an encouraging smile.
“I dunno where your head's at, but... why don't we move on to something else?”
“Yeah... I don't know either,” Langa mumbles. “What do you want me to do now?”
Reki retrieves the page with all the things he's written for Langa to reference, giving it a once-over, and while he's busy doing that Langa capitalizes on the opportunity to shove his hand into the bag in Reki's lap, intent on stealing away the biggest handful of pretzels he can possibly grab. Reki gawks at him for shamelessly reaching into a part of his personal space that he thought would be off-limits even for Langa, but it's apparently not, and with a warm face he grips Langa's wrist tightly, holding him prisoner.
“I'm getting tired of asking you what you're doing,” Reki pitifully hisses, nearly whining when he feels Langa's hand squirm inside the bag. “S-stop that, Langa!”
“I'm hungry, Reki,” Langa huffs, still extremely unaware of the situation he's created. “Learn to share.”
“You have no idea what you're doing, do you?” Reki asks once more with a defeated whimper, releasing Langa to cover his own face with both hands in shame, and Langa remains oblivious as he withdraws both his hand and the bag, scooping the whole thing up with the hand that still clings proudly to his hard-fought prize inside.
He stares at Reki as he eats with that same dumb look on his face, plain and inexpressive, and Reki drops his head to the table with a harsh thump, rattling a few of the pens until they fall to the floor. Langa glares at him, unimpressed at first, but with a tiny smile he begins to casually tidy up the small mess they've made, getting everything back in order so that he can put some actual effort in at some point. Reki continues to mope as Langa tidies, his head still hidden in his folded arms, but Langa pays him no mind, happily indulging in his small victory with one hand while the other does all the work.
While he never intended to send Reki into a delicious nervous spiral, Langa really didn't pay any attention to where exactly his hand was headed at the time, either – but it seems to have paid off well enough, at least. The gravity of what he had done only hit him after he managed to grab a handful of what he was actually going after, and it certainly played a part in warming his own cheeks a fair bit when he took notice of how close his hand came to something else, but thankfully Reki had already stubbornly hidden his face away in his arms before he could use that redness as ammunition against him – which means that Langa still effectively has the upper hand.
He's not exactly sure what it is that he's competing with Reki for, but if he can keep his cool while simultaneously making Reki lose his, then he's happy to play along as often as the opportunity arises.
“Are you gonna get something done today, or what?” Reki asks, looking lazily up at him from where his cheek still rests on the table.
“You're supposed to be helping me, Reki, but you're sitting there feeling sorry for yourself instead.”
Reki sits up quickly, side-eyeing his friend with a pointed and very obviously irritated look, before he heaves a soft sigh in defeat, letting this one slide. He shuffles his weight, getting comfortable once more in preparation to get them both back on track, and as he gathers up what he's decided they'll need for the next step, he watches Langa from the corner of his eye, still on high alert now that the boy seems keen to pick on him today for reasons unknown.
He tries to come off as intimidating with his shoulders set tight and drawn back while he sits straight upright, eyes narrowed as if to warn Langa to behave, but Langa simply stares back at him with a blank expression as he makes quick work of the snack he cheated Reki out of – almost as if he's mocking him for losing it so easily in the first place. But he's afraid to pick even a childish fight with Langa to win it back right now, as he's sure that his face is more than likely still quite red, and that's only ever proven to boost Langa's confidence through the roof – something that Reki really doesn't need.
Perhaps he'll have to hold the threat of withdrawing his help over Langa's head as leverage.
But to his surprise, Langa polishes off the last of the pretzels, wielding his pen soon after with renewed interest in accomplishing what he came here for today, and Reki can't help but to smile at his bizarre display of enthusiasm – a very stoic, concentrated expression on his face as he stares at the paper that rests between his hands. He makes it easy for Reki to forget about how easily he was slighted, chalking up Langa's restlessness to the fact that he was probably just hungry (to nobody's surprise), and with his own budding enthusiasm, Reki throws himself fully into giving Langa the writing tune-up that he's looking for.
“Well... whatcha wanna write next?” Reki asks, figuring that if Langa has anything specific in mind, they may as well try it out and see how it goes.
“Might be smart to learn some of the words on the test, I guess,” Langa sighs, reaching into his bag to dig out study material.
“Going for the hard stuff, then? You're brave, Langa,” Reki comments, watching as his friend shrugs.
The redhead leans forward on the table, placing his elbows on the surface to rest his chin in his palms, and he waits patiently for Langa to crack open the textbook that they're supposedly going to be referencing for tomorrow's test. He watches with passive disinterest as Langa turns through it, probably in search for something that their teacher told him to focus on specifically, and he makes a note to himself to ask Langa if he can borrow the book later on for his own studying, if he has any hope of doing even remotely well come time for the test.
“Is this really what we have to study for tomorrow?” Reki asks, reaching out to flip through a few pages himself, and Langa slowly turns his head to stare at him.
“Reki... did you even know we have a test coming up?”
“Don't worry about that,” Reki scoffs. “I found out after you told me, so it's fine.”
“It's not fine,” Langa insists, scolding the redhead with a rap on the wrist using a piece of paper that he stealthily rolled up while Reki wasn't paying attention. “How am I supposed to learn anything from you if you don't know what's on the test?”
“Oi, don't hit me,” Reki pouts, making a big show of nursing his wrist close to his chest as though it actually hurts. “It was your bright idea to ask me in the first place,” he teases, yanking the rolled paper right out of Langa's hand and readying himself to strike back with it.
Langa's eyes widen at the sight of an imminent threat, that panicked expression painting himself as a target almost immediately, and he turns to face away from Reki, planting his hands on the floor in preparation to crawl away. But before he can move even an inch in retreat, Reki manages to snap the paper across his lower back, right where his shirt has ridden up just enough to bare a small stripe of skin, and he cries out with a strangled yelp, reflexively kicking one leg back to blindly retaliate.
Reki catches him by the ankle though, and Langa realizes that he really, really didn't think that one through.
With his upper body resting on his forearms and one knee still precariously balancing the rest of his weight, Langa turns to give Reki a flustered look over his shoulder, one that silently pleads with him not to do what he can only imagine to be the very first thing that's on the redhead's mind. Reki's face has mischief written all over it, a sign as clear as day that Langa's not getting out of his iron grip without being smacked again or maybe even tickled, and his face pales as his fears grow more justified with each passing second that Reki remains eerily quiet.
“R-Reki, I'll stop— I'll behave,” Langa rambles, trying desperately to get the redhead to release him.
With a deceptively innocent tone, Reki answers him, murmuring, “I'm not doing anything.”
“You're a liar,” Langa bites, trying with one sudden jerk of his knee to wrest his ankle free – but it seems that Reki was more than prepared for that stunt, gripping him even harder. “Don't you dare.”
Reki has him in an optimal position to do whatever he wants with him, and while the circumstances aren't exactly what Langa had in mind for a scenario like this, he can't really say that he's all that disappointed by it. His face is terribly warm and shy now, a look that Reki only seems to be getting increasingly better at causing, and although it's a fact that's equally as irritating as it is embarrassing, Langa can only hope that at the very least it might someday give Reki some kind of hint as to how he feels. His discomfort has to count for something eventually, right?
But knowing Reki, it'll sail right over his head, and Langa will suffer in silence for another day.
He's not about to admit anything by word of mouth ever, not until he's certain that Reki might possibly feel the same way – and while that might be actively backfiring if by some chance Reki's also playing this game the exact same way, Langa simply doesn't have the energy to worry about it right this moment. He has better things to do, like working on a way to pass his test tomorrow as well as making sure that Reki lets him go with his dignity intact.
“Langa,” Reki says softly, his voice so wickedly tender, and it wrenches Langa from his thoughts like a thunderclap.
Slowly, Langa turns his head again to look back over his shoulder, fearing that Reki's intending to get a good look at his face before exacting whatever torture upon him he sees fit, but instead he's shocked to see that Reki's decided to let him go, carefully lowering his foot back down to the floor. He lies there frozen in place for a minute, well and truly confused, but before he has a chance to sit up and give Reki his many thanks for having mercy on him, the roll of paper lands swiftly against his cheek, blowing a rush of air past his face that sends some of his hair flying into disarray.
“You're such a wimp,” Reki laughs, delighting in Langa's bewildered face, and he leans off to one side and away from Langa as his friend finally moves to sit upright, steering himself clear of any stray hands that might want to exact revenge.
Langa looks so thoroughly displeased, his hair a mess and his eyes flat and almost threatening, but even in such a state as that he still looks flustered, and it goes right to Reki's heart. He pouts softly, knowing he's been defeated, and Reki can't tear his eyes away from that face for a good while, with his relief only coming in the form of a distraction brought upon him by Langa himself. He receives a gentle flick to the forehead, the snap of Langa's fingernail causing him to flinch, and as he rubs the spot to soothe his skin he gives Langa a cheeky smile – the kind that he knows tends to be Langa's weakness.
“I'm starting to think that you just want to see me suffer,” Langa says, arranging himself properly beside Reki in front of the table once more.
“You'll be fine. You're pretty tough,” Reki says, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze, and much like before when he laid his arm across the back of Langa's neck, that hand actually stays there, spreading delightful warmth through Langa's shirt and right down to his skin.
He's not sure if Reki's keeping it there on purpose or not, but he's not about to make the same mistake as last time by giving him any reason to take it away.
With only a hint of a smile on his face – a pleasant reaction to Reki's touch – Langa turns his focus back to writing for what feels like the hundredth time today, determined not to let Reki distract him any further. It's easier said than done, as just about everything that the redhead does is distracting in one way or another, and lately it's been for unsavoury reasons that Langa really does know better than to daydream about, especially when in Reki's company. But thankfully, the simple pressure of Reki's hand on his shoulder hasn't stolen away every ounce of his attention – at least not yet, anyway.
Reki sort of hangs on to him, leaning in a bit closer into his personal space to get a better look at what he'll be writing next, and though it's rapidly proving his own sentiments about his attention span wrong, Langa forces himself to stay on track, gluing his eyes to the open textbook before him. He tells himself that he'll ignore whatever Reki gets up to for the next several minutes at least, hoping that he can get something useful out of today's 'practise' by the time the day is done, and with a deep breath he takes a good look at the first page that he's tagged with sticky notes – only for his face to fall soon after.
“There's no way. I can't remember any of this,” Langa mumbles, and that sad tone hits Reki hard.
“Uh... d-don't worry about how to write them then, just... get a feel for what they mean!” Reki tries, giving soft encouragement with not only his words but another gentle pass of his hand, rubbing a small circle over the plane of Langa's shoulder. “Write a few sentences, see if you can start memorizing one word at a time.”
He hopes that his advice – however wrong it might be – is enough to lift Langa's spirits a little, or at least enough to stop him from being so deeply discouraged. Writing out words improperly is almost certainly not the right way to learn, but Reki figures he can make an exception for Langa given that he's been thrown into it with so little experience as it is, and if he can get a better grasp on reading and understanding the language first, then Reki can't see why writing everything he's learned stroke-for-stroke can't just come later.
But instead, Langa spends a good while looking over the words in his textbook, the expression on his face growing more grim with each passing second, and Reki starts to worry that he's letting his inexperience with this language get the better of him. Reki knows deep down that whatever score Langa ends up getting on tomorrow's test won't be amazing by any means, as he still has so much to learn, but Langa seems to be under the impression that he's bound to fail the whole thing miserably – which is something that Reki will absolutely not let happen, no matter what.
He has to think of something else that they can do instead, and fast, because at this rate he's not sure that Langa's even going to remember how to smile by the time he's done here.
“Let's do names!” Reki suddenly suggests, and with far more enthusiasm than Langa thought possible.
He turns to Reki, wide-eyed and surprised, but with a tentative nod and a nervous smile he agrees, if only to placate the redhead. Truthfully, he's uneasy about the idea as he's never been good at writing Japanese names or even reading them, as back in Canada he had very little reason to do so – and with very few people of Japanese descent to speak to, he never had any need to write names besides his own and his mother's during the time that he was still learning.
But Reki seems interested in the idea, and Langa has to admit that names are sometimes complicated enough to make for good practise – and not to mention that if he wants to get a serious job someday, he knows he had better get a grip on reading names at the very least. His original goal was just to straighten out his strokes and write confidently rather than to memorize the test material in its entirety, and now that Reki's gotten him off that futile track and onto something that admittedly sounds more fun, he finds himself looking forward to learning how to write some of his friends' names.
“... You know how to write your name, right?” Reki asks, with wholesome honesty, and Langa sighs.
“Reki— of course I do,” he groans. “You've seen me do it.”
It's his family name that's a bit more difficult, but even Langa can do that much – growing up not knowing how to write his own name in both of his native languages isn't something that Langa or his mother was going to allow him to get away with.
“Okay, okay. Touchy, much?” Reki teases, recoiling just in time to dodge an airborne eraser. “Cut that out, or I'll kick you outta my house,” he warns, but Langa brushes him off with ease.
“You wouldn't,” Langa dares, his voice dry and disinterested as ever.
“I would – I can, and I will,” Reki insists.
He gets up onto his knees, shuffling his way in behind Langa in a matter of seconds, and he playfully hooks his hands under his friend's arms, making a show of trying to drag him backwards in the direction of the sliding doors that lead outside. Langa doesn't budge of course, besides letting himself lean back into Reki a little, but he does happily throw Reki an equally playful look by tipping his head back enough to see the redhead grinning down at him, and in an instant a plan comes together to get a bit of revenge on him for what he did earlier.
Without hesitation, Langa reaches up with both hands, catching Reki's cheeks between his palms, and he holds the boy steady, staring deeply into his eyes. With Reki frozen in place and now focused solely on Langa's face alone, Langa slowly and very boldly starts to pull him down closer, mustering all the stoic confidence that he possibly can to make Reki think that he's fully intent on dragging him down for a kiss – and while Langa wouldn't mind doing exactly that, it's just not the right time or place to do it.
But he can fool Reki into thinking he's going to, because the look on the redhead's face will be worth every blow to his dignity.
He lets his eyelids fall, low and so obviously full of interest as he pulls Reki's face towards him at an agonizing pace, and with every last ounce of strength left within him, he tries his hardest not to break out into a smile as he watches that frightened expression on Reki's face grow more intense by the second. He can feel the redhead's breath ghost across his face in a quick pant, and for a while Langa starts to wonder if this really is how his first kiss is going to go – disastrous, and not at all as planned. But Reki's waiting an awful lot longer to pull away than Langa ever expected him to.
Thankfully, Reki has enough sense left in him somewhere to put a stop to this before Langa really does end up taking it further than intended, and he drops his hands from underneath Langa's arms, letting him fall back and into his lap. It knocks the wind out of Langa for a moment, and he stares wildly up at Reki from where his head now rests upon the redhead's thighs, taking some time to reorient himself and figure out what exactly just happened.
“W-what were you doing, Langa?!” Reki asks in a panic – for the hundredth time today.
“What did you think I was doing?” Langa asks innocently.
“... Not what I want you to do,” he huffs, quite pleasantly red in the face, and Langa's quick to take his words the wrong way, fuelled entirely by that exquisite expression on his face.
“... What did you want me to do, Reki?” he asks, his hopeful lilt sending Reki into another nervous fit.
He seems to clue in to what Langa's implying fairly quickly, his mouth now stuck open on a retort that won't come out, and Langa can actually hear his teeth snap together once he finally shuts his jaw in defeat. He sulks by crossing his arms tightly over his chest as he looks anywhere but down at Langa, his face so bright and warm that even the tips of his ears have reddened, and Langa decides that now is probably the best time to roll off of him and give him some space to cool off, sitting upright again with a sly smile on his face – smug satisfaction for his well-deserved victory.
He's a little flushed himself, still coming down from that high of feeling hopeful that Reki might've actually let himself be pulled in all the way, but he's quick to let it go, savouring the image he had of Reki's face so close to his own instead. He sits there in a daydream state for a while, reaching up with one hand to gently comb his hair back into place, and rather shyly he looks over at Reki, watching as he nervously fiddles with his hands in his lap. In a way, Langa feels a little guilty for making him squirm like that, but if he has to be honest with himself, Reki really didn't seem all that bothered by their close proximity to one another, at least not for the first few seconds.
If anything, he genuinely seemed to want it, but Langa has to wonder if that's just his own heart talking.
He turns his attention back to the table, scooting over to it on his hands and knees to wait there while Reki figures himself out, and in the meantime it grants Langa a chance to clear his own head a little more. He absolutely has to get focused on writing, to put something down on the page that isn't just words that he has no problem with, but Reki's done everything within his power so far to distract him in every way possible. While ordinarily that wouldn't be so much of an issue, as Langa loves tagging along on whatever bizarre plans Reki has for them both, it's simply too much of a detriment today to allow himself to get tangled up in every little thing that the redhead does.
But... he's already had this discussion with himself once today, and it's clearly gotten him nowhere, as he's still falling for everything that Reki's doing.
“We, uh... we really haven't done anything that we were supposed to do today,” Reki suddenly comments, sighing heavily from somewhere behind him, and Langa turns to look over his shoulder.
“That's hardly my fault,” Langa shrugs, easily passing the blame as he reaches for a pen once more – a timely gesture, as though he's trying to convince Reki that he's been on track the whole time.
Reki doesn't buy it of course, glaring at him with an offended sneer, but he says nothing with regard to what just happened a few minutes ago. He really doesn't need Langa to target him like that again, to take advantage of the feelings that he's yet to be honest about – though, to be fair, he's guilty of asking for some kind of retaliation for what he did earlier.
But it's a little cruel when he thinks about it, the way that Langa was so willing to tease him like that. Maybe his feelings have been a lot more obvious than he thought, and Langa's seen right through him, taking the opportunity when presented to essentially dangle himself before Reki as bait just out of reach – like something that Reki will never have. And maybe he's also just overreacting, which seems a lot more plausible, as Langa's too gentle with him to ever do something like that. If that were the case though, then why would he...? They came so close to kissing that it's almost scary, and—
He stops himself before his thoughts go into overdrive, as ultimately, this train of thought leads nowhere and helps no one – especially Langa, who's actually here with a purpose; one that they need to learn how to pay a bit more attention to.
“... What were we gonna do again?” Reki asks, still dazed and very much stuck in his own head.
“Names, Reki,” Langa gently chides. “Teach me how to write some peoples' names.”
“Right, right,” he mumbles, resuming his place at Langa's side. He thinks it over, trying to get himself back into the right headspace, when an idea suddenly strikes – one that seems harmless and completely doable, so long as Langa doesn't turn it into something it's not. “Hey, what about my name?”
Silence.
“Wanna try?”
“N-not really,” Langa says stiffly.
Langa should've known that was coming.
He knows he'll screw it up, as simple as Reki's given name is, but unfortunately that awful little stutter reveals his fears, and now Reki's looking at him almost expectantly, and with an obscene amount of hope in his eyes that Langa finds it hard to say no to. He picks up the pen with a grimace, reluctantly doing the exact opposite of what he wants to do, but Reki leans into him so enthusiastically, beaming at the blank page before them as he waits to see his own name written in Langa's terrible script.
“Just write it like you remember,” Reki suggests, and with a nervous sigh, Langa sets pen to paper.
Reki's under the assumption that Langa remembers how to write his name at all, which is a terrible thing to assume given who it is that he's dealing with, but he remains determined to try at the very least.
He stares at the blank page for a bit, trying to recall a rough image of Reki's kanji in his head, and although he has a vague understanding of both what it looks like and how it can be read, the moment he moves to make the first stroke he forgets it all completely. He stares wide-eyed at the page, growing ever-more ashamed of himself with each passing second, and the fact that Reki's so close at his side and ready to examine whatever awful attempt he leaves on the page doesn't help in the slightest.
But when he thinks about it, he's done nothing but write the simplest of words so far today, and while he's at least seen some decent improvement in those, it isn't nearly enough to justify his visit to Reki's place. Not that he ever really needs any reason to come over, but Reki was kind enough to offer up his time to help him improve his handwriting instead of goofing off like they usually do; the least he can do is take a crack at Reki's innocent suggestion.
His hand trembles as he tries to draw a stroke, knowing as soon as the first blot of ink starts to spread that he's already made a mistake, but what he couldn't have predicted was the way that Reki would decide to try and correct him. The redhead leans in close enough to wind his arm around his friend's back again, his chest pressing firmly into Langa's right shoulder, and his other hand reaches out to gently take hold of Langa's own, covering the back of his hand with a palm that's far too warm to be anything but distracting.
Reki's fingers grip the pen just above where Langa's do, and slowly they start to guide his strokes across the page, leaving smooth lines that shape his name with effortless precision. Langa blanks out completely, failing to pay even a crumb of attention to how the redhead's name was written, and instead all of his focus falls on the way that rough hand feels over the back of his own, and the way that Reki's steady breathing sounds right there in his ear, blowing soft breaths of hot air along his cheek in a very tantalizing rhythm.
Alright, so the almost-kiss wasn't just his imagination. Reki's up to something, and it's one-hundred percent intentional.
“Like that. Wanna try?” Reki asks, so calm and almost chipper after finishing his demonstration, as if his hair isn't inches away from tickling Langa's neck in the most infuriatingly delightful way.
In a very small and not obviously shy voice at all, Langa asks, “... Can you write it one more time?”
Reki makes a show of sighing, pretending as if Langa's lack of attention is some big inconvenience for him, but he guides his friend's hand to a fresh corner of the page, working slower this time to write his name very clearly. This time, Langa ingrains that image into his mind, searing every stroke in its proper order into his brain like his life depends on it, as if Reki's name is the most precious thing he'll ever write in his lifetime, and it soon becomes obvious to him that the redhead is no stranger to the obsessive way that his eyes fixate on every move their hands make.
But when Reki finishes the last stroke – the fourteenth, as Langa's counted diligently – he doesn't remove his hand or even himself from Langa's space. He sits there patiently, as if he's waiting for confirmation from Langa that he's got it this time and he doesn't need another repeat of such simple instructions, but Langa can't seem to bring himself to say anything at all. He sits there in silence and as still as he can, letting the back of his hand soak up every bit of warmth that pours from Reki's palm, fascinated by the way that hand seems to eclipse his own despite the difference in their heights.
“Are you... gonna be okay?” Reki asks, leaning forward to get a good look at Langa's expression.
Pale faced and more nervous than ever, Langa nods quickly, mumbling, “Yeah. I'm fine. I'm good.”
Truth is, he's not fine, and he's not sure that he'll ever be after this. Reki is so close and all over him as though it's no big deal at all, a complete one-eighty from his jittery reaction to that almost-kiss, and quite frankly, Langa has no idea how he's supposed to read this behaviour anymore. He's not good at reading people to begin with, and now that Reki's made the sudden shift from being so unbelievably nervous to something that's closer to complete and utter compliance with flirting, Langa's starting to think he's slowly losing his mind.
Does Reki want something from him or not? And how the hell is he supposed to know now?
“Uh... huh. Well... just sit there then, I'll be back in a minute – give that writing a try, maybe?” Reki says, and all at once that warmth leaves Langa's personal space as the redhead stands, sending a rush of what feels like cold air across his fevered skin.
As soon as Reki's out of the room and not a moment sooner, Langa drops his head to the table with a thunk, groaning into his folded arms. He taps his pen restlessly against the paper a few times, dotting ink into the same spot over and over again until he has enough sense to realize that he might be in danger of wearing a hole right through it and into the table, and finally he sits upright again, red in the face and so obviously whipped.
He's got it bad, and he's not sure that he ever realized as much until right this second.
A few simple touches from Reki and he's suddenly incapable of forming a single coherent thought except for plotting how exactly he's going to manage telling the redhead that he would absolutely love to have him guide his hand once again. But in his blind frustration, both with himself and Reki (though mostly himself), Langa finally starts to do what was asked of him, quickly writing out Reki's name as neatly as he possibly can. He tries a few times, correcting every hesitant line in each new attempt, taking it a bit slower after a while and working hard to get every radical as straight and tidy as he possibly can until he has about a half-page filled with Reki's name done in various degrees of legibility.
And now that he's accomplished that much, he's almost feeling a little bit smug.
He looks at what he's done, proud that he's committed Reki's name to memory, and he anchors his left elbow to the table, resting his chin comfortably in his palm. He leans into his hand with eyes half closed, pleased enough with himself to take a break already, but now that his right hand is idle he almost finds himself wanting to do more, even without Reki's guidance. There's plenty more that he can practise, words he's familiar enough with to at least try to tidy rather than write properly, but now that he's gotten so good at writing Reki's name in particular, he finds that he really doesn't want to stop.
With the redhead out of the way for a few minutes and unable to distract him, Langa sets to work, filling the rest of the page with Reki's name – over, and over, and over again. It gets to a point where he no longer has to focus on what he's doing at all, relying on muscle memory alone to repeat himself, and after a while he almost seems to nod off a little, his eyes low-lidded and fixated on no spot in particular on the table before him. He's in a daze, absentminded and gone off somewhere in his thoughts while his hand slowly but surely makes its way to another blank sheet of paper, writing the same thing out many more times over until he's nearly onto a third piece.
That's when Reki comes back – but Langa's so far gone in his infatuation with Reki's name that he has yet to notice.
It isn't until he's halfway through scribbling Reki's name on that third sheet that he becomes vaguely aware that something's different about the space behind him, feeling that tingling sensation that one gets at the back of their neck when something isn't quite right. But he doesn't turn around to check it out right away as his mind isn't exactly present in its entirety yet, still wandering aimlessly through daydreams of Reki instead, and it takes a short, breathy laugh from that presence behind him for him to finally snap out of it, just long enough to lazily look back over his shoulder.
“Somethin' on your mind, Langa?” Reki asks, and he bears the softest smile that Langa thinks he's ever seen as he leans over, bent at the waist with his hands braced on his knees to peer at what Langa's done.
“Ah... what? What do you mean?” Langa mumbles, blinking slow and disinterested up at him.
“Either you really like writing my name, or... you just really like me,” Reki comments, and finally Langa takes notice of the way his eyes seem to shine, lit up as though whatever he's looking at is the most endearing thing he's ever laid eyes on.
He turns back around to look at what he's done, and it takes a few moments for it to really sink in along with the impact of what Reki's just said to him. He stares in horror at three pages filled to the brim with Reki's name, drawn like an obsessive mantra that one who's possessed might fall into, and for a good long while he can't summon even one believable reason to explain what he's done to the boy behind him. It's a blatant admission of what's been on his mind all this time, revealed to the very last person he would ever want it revealed to, but no matter how Langa feels about it he knows that there's no taking back what's already written in ink.
He's not sure what compelled him to write it quite so many times other than the very same reasons that Reki suggested, or even what he's supposed to do now that he's mastered that word with no sane explanation for it, but what he does know is that somehow he has to make it out of this situation on speaking terms with Reki. He'd much rather go back home and hide under his blanket until the shame eventually washes away, forgetting that Reki even exists until that happens, but realistically, that's just not an option for him.
He still can't believe what he's done. He may as well have written 'I love you' and called it a day.
Maybe it's just a case of now or never, as he's already embarrassed himself far more than he ever thought possible. What could go wrong with a confession now of all times?
“... Can it be both?” he shyly asks, looking both ashamed and guilty at the same time as he quietly peers back over his shoulder.
Reki stares at him for far too long, slowly building that anxious pressure up even more, but eventually he drops to his knees to sit at Langa's side, his face still frighteningly unreadable. Langa shies away as much as he can, folding his arms atop the table's surface in preparation to hide depending on what Reki says next, while the redhead keeps his gaze unnervingly level with Langa's own, wondering what could have possibly sent him into such a state. It's not every day that he sees Langa get so thoroughly ruffled, after all, and never as a result of anything that he's said.
Curious, he says, “I mean... sure, but... I already knew you liked me.”
The look that Langa gives him immediately tells him plain as day that there's some serious misunderstanding underway, and as he quickly backpedals through everything that's been said in the last minute or so, Reki starts to realize the magnitude of what he's said. His skin prickles with cold fear as his heart jumps into his throat, his face mirroring Langa's own in a wide-eyed stare, and for several terrifying seconds they both sit in silence, their faces growing equally as warm as the other's.
“W-wait, hang on— I meant like... the other kind of like, not— I-I just mean... as a friend!” Reki says, almost shrill as he scrambles to find the right words.
Somehow – and very slowly, at that – Reki's panic starts to settle the longer that Langa keeps staring at him, with his face still surprisingly pink but now softer in expression, and Reki feels his throat dry up the moment he tries to speak again. He knows what he wants to say instead, and what Langa apparently wants to hear, too, but every time that he rehearsed a situation like this in his silly daydreams, it never, ever went anything like this. He's made a terrible excuse that – while truthful in that he really did just mean it as 'a friend' – still hides his honest feelings from Langa, and he's learning very quickly that he's made a grave mistake.
Langa's expression continues to fall, and Reki soon realizes that if he doesn't say something a little more intelligent in the next few seconds, his friend is liable to stay that way for a good long time – as a friend, and nothing more. He swallows his nerves, forcing his tight throat to cooperate, and with his hands so politely and defensively curled into fists in his lap, he finally looks away from Langa, finding it so much easier to rework his intentions without that very distracting face so close to his own.
“I-I know what I meant, but you... did you mean...” he quietly tries, pausing to collect himself once more, before dropping to a hoarse whisper. “Like like?”
He's quick to curse himself for not being able to just outright say that he actually does very much like Langa in 'that way' after all, putting the pressure on Langa instead to clear the air and take the lead here, but before he can make things even worse by running his mouth again, the sound of a soft thump and a groan suddenly startles him, forcing him to turn his head back in Langa's direction.
His friend sits there with his head down against the table, his face hidden away behind folded arms, and he can visibly see Langa's chest deflate with a harsh sigh. It's a familiar look, except this time Langa's the one doing it rather than Reki himself, and Reki hasn't the faintest idea how to read it, given that nothing he ever does has caused Langa even once to take up such an obvious (and for him, over-the-top) defense. He's starting to wonder if he's misinterpreted all of this way more than he first thought – that maybe Langa isn't into him after all, and just thinks that he's an idiot instead.
Shyly, he leans forward to try and get a peek at Langa's face, hoping he might get some idea of how he can fix this, but he recoils quickly at the sound of Langa's voice, sitting stiffly upright once more.
“What do you think?” Langa mumbles, miserable and barely audible from behind his arms.
While it's not a perfect admission, Langa's words still tell Reki pretty bluntly what his answer is, and the silence that answers him in return nearly scares him enough to pack up and leave. He's seconds away from pleading for forgiveness, from shamelessly begging Reki to forget everything that he's said so that they can still manage a somewhat functional friendship after this, but the sound of a pensive hum from the boy beside him keeps him from moving so much as an inch, waiting on bated breath to receive judgment.
Oh, how he wishes he had never asked Reki for help in the first place right now.
“I think...”
Reki starts so softly and so sincerely that Langa seriously starts to wonder if he might actually confess something and spare him some of the misery that he's already amassing. Although he remains hidden away within his arms, Langa tilts his head enough to make sure he can hear the redhead clearly, listening with every ounce of attention span his exhausted brain has left for the words that'll seal his fate either way, but he's hopeful that he might actually be able to look Reki in the eye again when this is all said and done. If only Reki would just say something already, he could—
“I think that you really did try to kiss me earlier.”
Well, that's hardly the answer that Langa was expecting.
“You're the one who stopped me,” Langa says flatly, finally raising his head to reveal a very warm face as he pitifully argues to defend himself.
“W-well I'm not gonna stop you now, stupid!” Reki grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest. “Look at how many times you wrote my name. Anyone else would think you're insane.”
Reki continues to bicker for a while, but mostly to himself as not a single word he says passes through Langa's ears. He's hyper-focused on one thing in particular instead – those few words that undeniably grant him the permission he's been looking for, whether Reki's realized as much or not. Though thinly veiled as an insult, Reki's flat-out told him that his mindless scribbles are endearing enough to make him not want to dodge a second attempt at a kiss, and while Langa never intended to take his tease that far earlier anyway, he's certainly not about to pass on the opportunity now, not when Reki's offered it up to him on a silver platter.
He looks down at the table once more, drowning out the sound of Reki whining and complaining beside him, and this time he admires his masterpiece instead, proud to know that a certain someone thinks so highly of it. He gives his work a gentle smile, one that threatens to burst into a wide grin, unconstrained by the sheer ridiculous happiness he feels, and all at once the reality of what's going on seems to hit him, setting alight that reckless confidence that he's so used to having.
Reki actually wants to kiss him. And all it took was some abhorrent handwriting? Really?
“... Can I kiss you, then?” Langa asks, quiet and sweet, finally halting Reki's rambling in its tracks.
“... Huh?”
“You said you wouldn't stop me,” he murmurs.
“Did I? I-I mean— is that... what you want?” Reki asks with a small voice, cautiously peering over in Langa's direction as he worries the corner of his lower lip between his teeth.
With a gentle hum, Langa simply answers, “Mhm.”
Langa's looking hopeful now and very, very invitingly at Reki, who in turn seems to shrink in on himself as much as he can, looking nervously off to one side once more. Part of him is strongly convinced that Langa's just fooling around, or that he's heard everything incorrectly and he's in for a massive misunderstanding, but luckily that part of him is small and easily snuffed out by a burning desire that he wasn't really aware he had. He's been aware of his feelings for a long time, sure – but with the offer that's on the table now, he finds himself craving something he long thought out of reach.
He's just been told in no uncertain terms that Langa wants to kiss him. He would be stupid to refuse.
“Do you want to, Reki?” Langa asks, and Reki swears that he already sounds breathless before they've even done anything.
It's exactly what he needs to spur him on, and with a fevered nod he turns on his knees to face Langa, eager to please not only himself but Langa as well. Not that he has any idea what he's doing, but he has it on good authority that Langa's never done this either, and that knowledge alone is a godsend at a time like this. Langa won't have anything to compare him to, which means that his confidence can safely burst through the roof, giving him enough time to figure out how to do it right as he goes.
He curls his fingers into fists, resting them atop his knees to keep himself from getting out of hand, and he gives Langa a look that totally doesn't give away his enthusiasm in the slightest. His eyes are bright enough to light the room, and paired with the nervous streak of colour that spans across his cheeks from ear to ear, it's plain to see that he's wanted this for a very, very long time.
Langa's handwriting be damned – this is far more important than any test score.
“Ah... close your eyes, Reki,” Langa mumbles, and the implication that he's getting cold feet brings a little smile to Reki's face as he starts to think he's got the upper hand.
“Nervous?” he asks, and Langa gives him a flat look that only widens his grin.
He does as he's told anyway, closing his eyes to wait with all the patience he can muster for Langa to deliver that first soft press against his lips, but as the seconds tick by with nothing happening at all, Reki starts to sweat, wondering if he's been had after all. He begins to fidget, curling his toes beneath his crossed legs, and a gentle frown crosses his face as he's made to wait even longer yet, with not a sound out of Langa at all thus far.
“Langa...?”
“Keep them closed,” he's told firmly, and he nods, gripping his knees tightly.
At some point he finally feels a gentle touch against his cheek, what he quickly learns to be Langa's fingertips as they move across his skin to hold him steady there, and he sits as still as he possibly can, feeling his heartbeat pound away within his ears. His breath comes quicker as he hears Langa shuffling across from him, presumably moving closer, and he can't help but to pant softly through his nose as the excitement builds, knowing that at least one of his dreams is actually, finally coming true.
But something cold and wet runs across his other cheek a few times, and with a noticeable shiver and a grimace he hopes like hell that isn't what Langa's mouth feels like.
He cracks one eye open, beyond afraid to discover what Langa's doing to him that he's almost certain by now is not kissing him, but what he sees is Langa's face still there a short distance away from him, his expression calm and not at all like how he imagined it should look. His eyes stiffly follow those hands as they slowly retreat from his face, one understandably empty as it had held his cheek, but the other holds within it a marker – a red one in particular, one that looks very much like it belongs to one of his youngest sisters.
The sight of that marker paired with the smug look of satisfaction on Langa's face paints a very clear picture of what's going on here.
“You're actually horrible,” Reki grumbles, reaching up to rub furiously at his twice-reddened cheek.
He's hardly amused, but the longer he sits there frustrated the wider Langa's smile spreads until it's almost contagious, and it's nearly enough to convince Reki to forgive him entirely. Internally, he's fuming, feeling as though he's been made a fool of and Langa's truly had the last laugh today, but part of him wants to just sit back and laugh himself, to relish the amusement he's provided Langa with. It's not often that he's treated to such a pure, unhindered smile that's as warm and wide as the one his friend wears now.
“If it makes you feel any better, I do still want to kiss you,” Langa murmurs, and in that split-second that he manages to rein in Reki's attention, he leans forward to place a gentle kiss upon the writing left behind on the redhead's cheek.
Stunned, Reki sits there for a minute to collect both himself and his thoughts, before rambling, “That's... that's not what I— y-you know what, never mind.”
“What do you mean? I kissed you—” Langa states, reaching out to carefully brush the backs of his fingers against Reki's sullied cheek. “Your name, too.”
“... You wrote my name on my face?” Reki asks incredulously.
“Mhm,” Langa answers proudly.
“... You're an idiot,” Reki sighs. “An idiot. Why do I even like you?”
It's then that Langa laughs, unrestrained and sweet enough to finally do Reki in, and the redhead hides a subtle laugh of his own behind one of his hands, covering his mouth in a loose fist. He tries to keep his cool, to give Langa the impression that he wasn't actually bothered by being slighted at all, but the moment that Langa leans forward far enough to wrap his arms around Reki's chest in a firm hug, Reki lets himself go, shamelessly laughing at himself.
He leans back until he's lying on the floor, Langa coming with him as his arms remain wound around him, and together they settle comfortably there, without any intention of getting up any time soon. Langa rests his cheek upon Reki's chest at first, breathing a soft sigh, before raising his head enough to place another gentle kiss a few inches below Reki's collar, just above where his heart still beats wildly. He gives the redhead a warm look that tells him more kisses are definitely coming – an expression that Reki has no trouble believing this time around – but for now he lays his head back down, content to simply enjoy Reki's company without distraction.
“I don't think I'm gonna pass that test tomorrow,” Langa mumbles, and to Reki's pleasant surprise, he doesn't sound all that broken up about it.
“Could've told you that an hour ago,” Reki murmurs, trailing off thoughtfully. “At least you learned how to write my name, though,” he adds with a short laugh, happily soaking up the vibration of Langa's affirmative hum as it runs through his chest.
“That is important.”