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“Don’t you know how much I like you?!” Reki shouts, and for a moment all Langa can hear is his voice echoing in his ears, as if even the rain stopped.
Don’t you know how much I like you. I like you. I like you.
“Reki, you…” Langa starts, but nothing else comes out. His tongue doesn’t want to work, and he doesn’t even know what he wants to say—he’s not sure he could remember enough Japanese to say anything even if he did. Maybe he wasn’t even understanding correctly in the first place—Reki used a different word than Adam did, maybe suki like this doesn’t mean anything that special—
—but the way Reki’s face crumples as he forces out a self-deprecating laugh says more than his words could.
“Yeah,” he says, a hollow tremor in his voice. “Yeah, like—like that. Like a frigging girl. Like Adam.”
He still spits the name like a curse, like something disgusting, and Langa feels something in his chest twist like he swallowed something hot too fast. This should be a miracle, shouldn’t it? Reki likes him like that. Reki likes guys like that. Like girls like guys. Like Adam likes guys.
Like Langa likes guys.
Like Langa had thought he could like Reki, but—
“I just want to skate with him,” Langa says, his phone—the entry form he’d left open on it, I’m waiting for you—heavy like a stone in his pocket. He doesn’t even have to look right at Reki’s face to know he doesn’t believe it; Reki forces out another bitter bark of laughter, eyes burning right through Langa without him even meeting them. “It’s not like that.”
“Seriously, Langa?”
“It’s true, I just—” Langa trails off—or his voice just gives out on him, more like. He’s not even sure if he really believes himself, if there’s a right answer that Reki will accept or if he’d made a mistake as soon as he’d said anything about Adam at all. “I just…”
Reki turns away, his soaked hair falling in his face. Langa watches his jaw clench, like he has to grit his teeth to force himself to speak. “Why can’t you just stay away from him?”
Langa looks down at the ground, raindrops glittering in the artificial light as they puddle under their feet, the line between old and new asphalt like a wall between him and Reki. They should feel more alike than ever—so why does it feel like everything he says, everything he thinks and feels and wants, is pushing them apart?
Just when did they end up on opposite sides?
“He’s an amazing skater.” That’s true, at least—it’s a part of the truth he can say that doesn’t sound ridiculous, not like I feel like he’s a star I’m just orbiting or I don’t think God would let me stay away from him no matter what I promised, which sound ridiculous but equally true. Racing with Adam didn’t make him feel like how Reki makes him feel, but he’d felt something, something he’s not sure he could live with never feeling again. Whatever had happened in that one shining moment, whatever it was he’d seen in the rainbow Adam had led him into—if only Reki had seen it, he’d have to feel the same way. “I thought you’d get that. As a skater.”
“I don’t,” Reki says. “I don’t get you at all.”
There’s a rumble of thunder somewhere in the distance. Langa clutches his skateboard a little tighter, shivering through his shirt. It’s hot even at night here, warmer than it ever got in Montréal, but all at once the rain feels as frigid as the last snowboarding season after his dad died.
“I’m sorry,” Langa mumbles, and he hears Reki suck in a sharp breath through his teeth.
“Don’t,” he snaps. “Just forget it. You and Adam can skate together, or—do whatever you want. Don’t let me hold you back anymore.”
“Reki—” Langa takes a step across to Reki’s side of the line, grabbing desperately at his wrist—but Reki yanks his arm free and shoulders past him, out of the glow of the streetlight and into the darkness. “Reki, wait!”
Reki pauses without turning around.
“I—” I like you too, Langa wants to say, but it sounds like a false comfort even in his own head. “—I really am sorry.”
Reki scoffs and walks away without another word.
Langa just watches him go.