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Chapter Text

“Bye Reki!” Langa said, making a weird sign with his hand as he left.

Reki responded in kind with a “Bye Langa!”, but he was confused. Huh, I wonder what that hand sign means… Is it a Canadian thing? What if it’s a rude gesture?! No. Langa would never do such a thing… So what does it mean?

~🛹~

“So, what did it mean?” Was the first thing out of Reki’s mouth once he and Langa were in his room and sitting on his bed.

"What?"

“The sign you did!”

“What sign?” Langa’s head tilted as he asked.

“Y’know! This one!” Reki proceeded to struggle to remember the specifics of it and contort his fingers into it.

Langa had a few moments of confusion watching his boyfriend before he realized what sign Reki was referring to. “Oh, you mean this one.” He held up the sign, his ring and middle finger folded down with the rest extended out.

“Yea! What’s it mean? You did it last time you said goodbye. Is it a Canadian thing?”

“I mean it’s not exclusively a Canadian thing, I know Americans do it too. I don’t know about other countries other than that though.”

“Oh, ok! But what does it mean?” Reki pouted and flopped backwards onto his bed dramatically. He looked up at Langa and noticed how cute he looked when embarrassed. Wait. Why would he be embarrassed?

“Oh my god, is it something dirty?!”

“What?! No! It’s, just that it means…” The end of Langa’s sentence trailed off into inaudible mumbles. Reki was beyond intrigued now by whatever it was this hand sign meant if it got Langa this flustered.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that dude.”

“It means ‘I love you’ in ASL. My parents had taught me ASL so I could still communicate whenever I end up nonverbal.”

“Oh… Dude. We’re dating, no need for being flustered about ‘I love you’—though it is cute. We will return to that last bit later, but first the sign, I don’t get it, it’s not a heart or anything so how could it mean that?” Reki sat up, making the sign and trying to make sense of it.

Langa huffed a laugh and held up his hand for Reki to see. “That’s ‘cause it’s a mix of signs.”

He held up his pinky. “This is the sign for “I”, the English letter.”

“The English word for ‘love’ starts with ‘L’, which is this in ASL,” He explained while extending his pointer and thumb into a right angle.

Then he extended only his pinky and thumb out, “This is the sign for ‘Y’, which is what the English word for ‘you’ starts with.”

“And when you combine them all you get that…” Reki finished while looking at Langa’s hand which had formed the full sign.

“Yup. That’s about it.”

“…”

“Reki, my love, are you ok?”

“My turn.”

“What?”

Reki grabbed Langa’s hands and looked into his mesmerizing ice blue eyes, “My turn to show you something.”

Langa blinked in surprise, “What is it?”

“My mom taught me what she called the Two Rule, meaning that two meant ‘I love you’.”

“Two? How so?”

The corners of Reki’s mouth pulled into a grin. He tapped Langa’s knee twice, then grabbed his hand and squeezed twice. “Like that!”

“Oh…” Langa squeezed Reki’s hand twice back, then looked to Reki for confirmation.

“Yup! Just like that,” Reki affirmed and then remembered something. “Hey Langa, you mentioned that you sometimes go nonverbal?”

“Uh yeah… I did tell you that I’m autistic. And well that…uh…is one of the side effects of it.”

“Oh yeah you did! And no judgment here, I also am autistic and have that happen to me!”

“You go nonverbal?” Langa’s head tilted again.

“Yup! Although I don’t have as handy of a tool for it like you. I just type it out on my phone or write it down.”

“I knew you had ADHD but you didn’t say you were also autistic.” Langa’s brow furrowed in confusion as he talked.

“Oh jeez, sorry dude!” Reki rubbed the back of his neck. “Guess it slipped my mind, sorry.”

“It’s ok, Reki. I'm tired, can we take a nap?”

Reki, perked up at that and instantly expressed his agreement with a kiss.

~🛹~

Over the next few months the ‘I love you’ sign and the Two Rule integrated into day to day life for them. Reki started to learn ASL so that if either of them was nonverbal they could still communicate.

Of course they also abused this ability to have convos without the others understanding them. Although Reki had a sneaking suspicion that Joe and Cherry actually did know ASL. Unfortunately, he had no proof for this claim and Langa thought he was just being paranoid.

Chapter Text

link is below

Art I made for this chapter.