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The first time Reki met Langa, his nose tickled. There was a whiff of something, something cold, something brisk. Like snow, soft and subtle, barely there.
It made Reki sneeze, but it wasn’t annoying. Just present, a scent that he kept coming back too even with the swirl of other, more dominating scents. It lingered in class, but melted on the walk to work, barely a puddles worth by the time he started his shift. It only picked up when that same guy happened upon his way, with a newer, fresher scent stuck to him. Like pine, a piercing sense of irritation. Whether it was because of Reki egging him on with trying the skateboard or something else, he couldn’t say.
Couldn’t say he hated it, either.
It was only after a hectic night of competition that those scents became overwhelming.
When Langa had floated mid-air, a vision lit up by light works, Reki had sworn it was falling snow right there and then. Fresh snow, falling all around in a globe that was their own world. Reki inhaled sharply, senses struck with a whirlwind of winter, pine and cold condensed into a moment.
On the landing, Reki came back down with him, and found his footing when he ran after his new friend, shaking the snowflakes outta him for not telling him he was some pro snowboarder. The nerve.
Since then, Reki has stuck to Langa’s side, determined to get his friend on a skateboard – without falling flat on his face. It was a work in progress, but with time, practice and board adjustments, they’d done it. Before he knew it, Reki was stuck to Langa’s side for all their matches, work, in class, out of class, everything. It felt natural to be beside him, to be with him.
Despite never going to the snowy mountains, Reki felt like he’d gone there through Langa. As if Langa’s home was a part of him, and Reki got to experience it through him.
But these days, there was another scent popping up, something he couldn’t quite stick a name on.
It wasn’t snowy mountains or sharp pine needles, but something sweet, tart at times. It was familiar, but too muted and short-lived to be properly taken in. Not that Reki was trying to get a good whiff of his friend! That’d be so weird of him. Hah-ha…
Anyway.
It was starting to nick at Reki’s brain the more he thought on it. And yeah, he thought about it a lot. When he first met and started to get to know Langa, he thought he was a Beta. They could have scents, but they were often subtler than the other two dynamics; clean, crisp and uncomplicated. Nothing so heavy and dense as an Alpha or as sweet and syrupy as an Omega could be. It was an educated guess, and it’s not like Langa had gone and corrected him whenever he implied it, nor did he ever ask Reki about his dynamic. It was nice, to be with someone who didn’t give a crap about any of that stuff.
But then, on one of their nightly matches, he’d learned the truth.
Reki wasn’t a stranger to being the butt of a joke. He was an easy target: short, reactive, not-so talented as to garner any respect but not willing to mesh with the rest of the less then best. He could handle the teasing, the taunting, even the occasional shoulder-check. No biggie.
The thing was, Reki was used to it. Langa was not.
Some goons, no one special had gotten in his face. It wasn’t the first time someone had done it, even in front of Langa, but it was the first for his friend to see someone get physical. His jacket collar was yanked, fisted tight and tugged up into the gnarly snarl of some jerk with unnecessary beef with him. Reki had been prepared to bark back, maybe give ‘em some bite for it, but his pulled back lip loosened when the sudden, sour sting of a scent washed over him.
He didn’t feel in danger, but it wasn’t a safe scent, nothing soft about it. It makes something in his mouth rot, and without thinking he loosened his tense muscles, dropping down. The jerk that had him in a near choke hold dropped him, stepping back, but Reki was caught into the slot of Langa’s arms.
There was a growl, low and long-drawn, and Reki breathed in something sour. It was only with that sound reverberating through the chest at the back of Reki’s skull that he realized it was Langa. Wordless, he pulled Reki up and onto his skateboard to literally roll away from the situation which, as intimidating as the moment was, it must have looked pretty stupid with them both slowly rolled backwards on a single board, to which Langa had to keep kicking to get them far enough away. Reki was too struck and awkward to do anything about it.
They hadn’t really talked about it after, which was fine before he’d learned his friend was really an Alpha. It felt like it should have changed something, everything about their relationship. At least for Reki, who hadn’t known.
But it didn’t, at least not all at once.
He’d spent more time since keeping his nose out of Langa’s face, knowing how it was probably even more cringy he’d been getting so close to his scent gland like that. They still hung out, worked together and trained, but there was something else with them, something jabbed in-between the moments they shared. It was distracting, but Reki could manage. Whatever this ‘something’ was, it didn’t change that he liked being with Langa.
They were out on a walk when it’d happened; that something that’d been drifting namelessly in his brain like a bouncing DVD logo screensaver, finally fitting right in the corner. There weren’t any plans, so they’d wandered. They talked, and when Langa described something from his home back in Canada, the air became breezy, a sting of nostalgia, mild melancholy wafting out. He was homesick, Reki knew this, so he thought something col and sweet would lighten the mood.
The ice shack was close, and they lingered in the empty part of the park nearby to enjoy their frozen treats. Reki thought it was funny that he got something blue and Langa go something red, but the latter had just tilted his head cutely, confused.
It wasn’t sweltering out, but it was hot enough that the clock was ticking, already having blue staining his fingers that clutched the piece of popsicle stick. Reki licked up the sides, keeping the drips from going to far. He cringed whenever he side-eyed Langa only to see him chomp teeth first onto the popsicle. It was like watching someone cannon ball in a pool in autumn. He shivers, despite the heat of summer.
Reki finished first, looking over his popsicle sticks hidden joke written. He squinted, sliding the flat of his tongue to get a clearer look at the smeared blue over it. “What's the weatherman's favorite food in winter?”
Langa hums, tapping the tip of his popsicle against his lips in thought. It makes them redder, bright and shiny. Reki feels his own lips thin, cheeks warm despite an ice-numb tongue.
“That’s a tough one,” Langa concedes, brows furrowed in actual thought. Reki wants to tell him not to bother, the answer is pretty dumb, but the face he’s making is even funnier than the joke, so he lets him ruminate. Finally, with a completely straight face he says, “I am befuddled.”
“Brrr-itos!” Reki says, rolling the first part with his tongue, doing little jazz hands for effect. Langa doesn’t openly react, but his eyes do sparkle like christman lights, awed in his own way.
Still as straight-faced, Langa says, “That’s so funny.”
“Then why aren’t you laughing, jerk?!” Reki huffs, biting the stick with the blunt side of his teeth. It pokes at his cheek, a little red syrup coming out of the side when he speaks all gargled, “Ah leash smol-oe.”
Eyes down cast, he doesn’t see the hand that reaches until it’s right in his face. Reki stiffens, but doesn’t pull away, unconsciously adjusting his face to fit at the angle Langa’s hand is pushing him too. Long, langy fingers press gently at his cheek faced away, now made to look right at him. Fingertips touch the apple of his cheek, holding him in place as the pad of his thumb rubs at his skin. The thumb swipes, catching the corner of his lip and pulling the chilled skin with it, before it snaps back, then swiped at again.
Reki blinks, slow and dazed.
Still as straight-forward, but softer, sweeter, Langa simply says, “You had blueberry on your face.”
And oh, there it is.
The thing about scents, specifically the glands is it isn’t just in the neck. The neck is the most sensitive, the most potent, and the one romanticized in rom-coms the most. But what they try and teach you in class is that it isn’t the only one. Though smaller and less necessary, there are glands in other parts of the body: the wrist being what’s relevant right now, in this very moment.
Reki breathes in, choking on that once mild sweet-tartness, now as strong as the syrupy treat that stains the inside of his mouth. It’s like he’s tasting it again, the coldness turned too hot, heating him from the inside out, with the now familiar taste tingling his throat.
Langa’s hand pulls back, taking with it the potent scent unintentionally shoved right beside his flaring nostrils. It lingers like frost, contrasting the heat on his skin. He must have been frozen in that moment for too long, as there was a light kick to his shoe, jostling him to awareness.
“Whah?” At the oh-so eloquent speech, the popsicle stick falls from his lips, but Reki doesn’t bother trying to save it.
“You’re being weird,” Langa points out which, rude.
“No I’m not.”
“Yes,” he stresses, his shoe going to jostle Reki by his bent knee, “you are.”
Reki just rolls his eyes, knuckles wiping aggressively at his mouth. His lips still tingle. “Shaddup, I’m just thinking.” Overthinking more like it, but he won’t admit to that.
Langa leans in, barely breaching his space even as Reki forces himself to stay in place. “Tell me.”
Reki just pouts, playing up his reluctance. Langa opts to prod at his side with his sneaker, pushing him to nearly lay against the long bench before he bounces back up, laughing.
“Okay! Man, you’re so annoying,” Reki teases, some of that cocky confidence coming back up at the others open poutiness. He rolls his eyes. “I just realized you smell like blueberries.” He makes the connection clear by pointing at his lips, right where Langa had touched. He laughs again at Langa’s widening eyes, liking the expression on him. Maybe that’s why the next words slip out of him so easily. “Now I know what you taste like!”
Despite the coolness of the popsicle and slightly warm atmosphere, Reki suddenly bursts into flames.
“Oh my god that’s so not what I meant,” he hurries, panic hurtling out of him like a run-away train. It ends with Reki curling up on his seat, knees digging into the table and flaming face hidden in his crossed arms. He whines into his sleeves, mortified. Knowing Langa, he’ll probably be let go with an awkward back pat and a confused by still supportive look, if not just leave him entirely to his shame.
Stuffed in his little self-burrito, he barely hears when Langa says what he thinks is the word, “Cherry.” Raising his head, Reki peeks a look at Langa, surprised to see him just as red, but otherwise collected. He certainly isn’t hiding away in his own arms like an idiot.
Reki hums, a questioning note.
Somehow, Langa looks even more red, red as- “You smell like cherries. Like-” he stops, raising his popsicle, both realizing what was left has melted during all this, dribbling past his hand and onto the table. “Oh. It’s melting.”
To rectify this mess he’s made, Langa has the bright idea to lave up the entirely of the liquid with the flat of his tongue, and when he isn’t satisfied with what’s gotten in his palm, he just- just sucks his freaking fingers like what he’s doing isn’t doing things to Reki right now.
“Dude!”
Langa draws away with a pop, lips pulling off the last finger. “Yeah?”
“Not cool!”
Slow blinking, Langa says with that stupid straight face of his, “Yeah, cause it’s melted.”
Reki retaliates by kicking Langa none-too gently in the shin. “That is not what I meant and you know it!”
And Langa, sweet, always confused by social cues Langa, smiles, something knowing in the pull of his lips. “Yeah? What did you mean by it?”
Reki just sputters, no real answer coming out for all the useless noise he makes. He settles back in his arms, face first, muttering a muffled, “Shaddup,” as his closer. He doesn’t see him, but Reki hears Langa’s chuckle, feels the light pressure of his show against his. The scent of blueberries and cherries swirl, the former lying heavy on Reki’s tongue.
They sit in silence, lulled by the atmosphere, the scents new and yet all too familiar to them. Unseen by Langa, Reki lips at his lips, savoring the blueberries that still stain them.
And unseen by Reki, Langa does the same.