Chapter Text
Now, this may come as a bit of a surprise (to absolutely no one), but Langa is not a patient person. He never has been, and more likely than not? He never will be.
It probably started… back in middle school, maybe? Elementary school? Actually, for simplicity’s sake, he’ll just say this has been a recurring theme since he was born, and go with that. It’s close enough.
The shocking truth is that he doesn’t like waiting for things. It wasn’t woven into his DNA. (He won’t name names, but Dad had held the patience of a saint on steroids, so he’s cleared for this one. Sorry mom.) Sitting idly by makes his skin crawl. Going with the proverbial flow only ever sends him breaking out in hives. It’s just not the way he operates. If there’s a goal or something he wants, he doesn’t cross his fingers and hope things work out the way he wants them to. He makes them.
Some may call that being a stubborn jackass. And they would be right. The problem is that it works, and until it doesn’t, he plans to stick with what he knows.
So, if someone were to ask him? No. Langa would not say he is a patient person in any way, shape, or form.
Where was he going with this again?
Oh, right. Reki is late.
It’s kind of driving Langa up the fucking wall. A tiny bit.
7:45 PM
Okay, I know I said I
wouldn’t beg for any more snacks, but
1. It’s your fault if you
believed that and
2. Hear me out:
Popcorn.
Pretzel dogs.
Pizza chips.
Those matcha stick things.
8:18 PM
Alright, fine. Crush my
dreams.
8:43 PM
You’re still coming over,
right?
9:00 PM
I was kidding about
the snacks.
9:10 PM
Hello?
9:15 PM
Reki, are you okay?
9:20 PM
Getting kind of worried,
here.
9:36 PM
Where are you?
He’d sent that last one about thirty minutes ago. Nothing.
Reki was supposed to be here almost two hours ago. He’s not.
Every text has gone unanswered. Every call has been sent straight to voicemail. But the important thing is that Langa is outstandingly, unwaveringly, calm.
(He’s about to lose his goddamn mind.)
His phone bites into his hand, leaving the backs of his knuckles pale and bloodless. The screen has long gone dark in the wake of no new information. The downstairs neighbors have tapped on their ceiling three times and yelled at him to stop pacing. (Good thing they’re easy to ignore. They’ll forget being mad at him by morning. Hopefully.)
‘Worried’ is not the correct word. ‘Worried’ was an hour ago. Whatever this thing is now, it’s wound tight around Langa’s neck and coiled deep into the pit of his stomach. Trying to keep the anxiety at bay is a fool’s task. So, y’know. It was made for him.
The thing is, he knows Reki’s not a child. He knows Reki has a tendency to get absorbed into one of his (brilliant) projects and lose track of time. This would not be the first instance of being inadvertently stood up in the wake of one of Reki’s bolts of inspiration. It happens. They strike without warning and send him into a frenzy where he picks away at the bits and pieces of his heart and soul until he invents something so casually creative, so effortlessly extraordinary that it takes Langa’s breath away.
(The first time he’d watched Reki trail off mid-sentence while his amber eyes went glassy and unfocused, it had been… odd. Then, when he’d finally snapped out of the spell and gone tearing through his bag for his sketchbook while he muttered incoherently about angles, trajectory, and turn rate velocity, Langa had very nearly called an ambulance.
He was a rookie, back then. Now, after having seen many such of these fascinating -and terrifying- episodes, he’s pretty used to it.)
The other thing, though, is that he also knows Reki has an uncanny, unbelievable knack for finding trouble. (Or rather, trouble has one for finding him. Over and over again.) So, the timer on Langa’s level-headedness -relatively short on a good day- is almost up. If Reki doesn’t walk through that door sometime in the next ten minutes? Langa is going to do something drastic.
So, yeah. He’s being totally cool about this.
He’s about to call Reki’s phone again, for the third (or seventh) time, or better yet just march out that door and head straight for his house, when an unexpected knock shatters the silence wrapped around him like a cloak and nearly has him jolting out of his skin.
Until he registers that it’s a familiar knock. A set of three raps. Urgent. Insistent. Like the hand responsible is attached to a boy whose mind moves a million miles a minute. Who never considers having to wait for an answer because his presence pleads for… no, demands entrance without delay.
In the beginning, when he was still tired and hurting, Langa tried his best to ignore that knock. Losing a dad and a home in one fell swoop doesn’t exactly leave room for excitement about moving halfway across the world with no warning. He was content being locked in with his grief. His misery had been a dark cloud keeping him trapped in the fog, and it had no interest in company. The kind with cute smiles and bright eyes included.
Now? He scrambles for the door.
It’s funny, and a little bit wonderful how time changes things, like that, but hey; he’s not a philosopher.
The flash of red that greets him when he yanks the handle open floods him with relief so intense it trembles in his hands. His knees. He has to grip the doorframe to stay standing. But that’s fine. Because Reki is here now, and sometimes it feels like that’s all Langa’s been waiting for most of his damn life.
Or something like that.
“Reki,” he breathes, though half of the name gets lost on its way past his lips. It’s as if his voice is worried that if he speaks too loudly or too quickly, he’ll break this illusion and find that Reki isn’t here at all.
Which is stupid. Reki is made of noise. Movement. Life. It’s one of Langa’s favorite things about him.
(Another is that he’s finally within range so Langa can reach out and strangle him for making him worry. How friends do.)
“I know, I know,” Reki assures him hurriedly, leaning against the wall, stepping out of his shoes in a flash, and kicking them together haphazardly. In spite of his haste, they land together. Clumsily, effortlessly neat. It’s very Reki.
As always, Langa can’t look away from him.
(No, really. People are starting to notice. It’s a problem.)
“Hi, sorry sorry sorry I’m late,” Reki starts, shifting the bags he’s carrying from one hand to the other and then back again as he invites himself further in. Like if he doesn’t plant himself, and make himself unmovable, he won’t be allowed to stay.
Also very Reki. In a way that makes Langa’s chest ache.
"Where were you," he asks. He sounds a bit like a scorned, jealous wife. He can't be bothered to care.
Luckily, frazzled as he is, Reki doesn't seem to catch on. Small mercies.
“I lost track of time and then my phone died. I think I got all the snacks you wanted but I’m sorry if I forgot any. It took me three places to find the good pizza chips and you do not want to know how the cute checkout girl looked at me when I bought all this junk food,” he promises, sounding only slightly less devastated than when the last ‘cute girl’ he interacted with had no interest in skateboarding. That had been the end of that, thank god. “The things I do for you. Don’t ever let me go back to that convenience store, by the way.”
A whirlwind. That’s what Reki always reminds Langa of. A particularly erratic one, today. There are many questions he would like to ask, but it’s as if Japanese has been erased from his brain. He can’t remember how to form the words that had been choking him less than five minutes ago.
To fill the space of silence, which was supposed to be Langa’s job, Reki laughs. A little breathless. A little too loud. The way he does to cover nerves.
It’s off. This whole thing is off.
Because Langa will never win any awards for being the most observant guy on the planet, but it struck him right between the ribs, noticing how during that whole spiel Reki wouldn’t quite meet his eyes. Nor has he since he came knocking at Langa’s door almost three hours late.
Something’s not right.
Suspicion sours the back of Langa’s throat. He shuts the door. As much as for something to do with his hands as to keep Reki in one place now that he’s finally laid eyes on him. It’s a surprisingly difficult task, at times.
The final nail in the coffin is when he turns back towards the hallway and sees that Reki isn’t fidgeting anymore.
Or more like he isn’t moving at all.
Alarm bells number three, four, and five start ringing in the distance.
Another thing it had taken Langa a while to get used to with Reki was the moving. Him popping up in Langa’s peripheral vision whenever he stopped paying attention. (So, very often.) The constant tapping of his hands. His feet. Every minute of every day except when he’s sleeping, and sometimes even then he’s going going going. The persistent, perpetual state of motion his body always seems to roll into like a wave on the beach was odd, at first, but he gets it now. Stealing a direct quote from the boy himself, Reki is allergic to stillness. It’s a thing.
And now he’s just… standing there. Like his head caught a cloud up to outer space when that’s supposed to be Langa’s thing and-
oh fuck does he have a concussion again? Is that what this is?
It would explain some things, and it wouldn’t be the first time he wandered in after a nasty bail on the way here all peachy keen, but dammit all, Langa does not need that kind of heart attack, right now. He’s about to google ‘How To Tell If Someone Has A Concussion’. (Because Reki knows, but of course Langa can’t remember off the top of his head.)
Until Reki blinks, tilts his head just the wrong way, and Langa realizes what he’d thought was a shadow on Reki’s cheek is actually a bruise.
A large one.
On his face.
Again.
Something cold grips the bottom of Langa’s stomach and twists.
What the fuck?
Reki squints at him sideways, neck craning over his shoulder and it clicks that it’s because he’s trying not to look at Langa directly.
Oh. Okay. Yeah, Langa is about to kill someone, and he’s not sure who, yet.
“Uh, you in there, man?” Reki asks, a hint of concern creeping into his voice like he’s the worried one. Honestly. The corner of his mouth Langa can see curves into a grin that makes the room feel lighter even at half power.
(Or, Langa is just whipped. Probably, Langa is just whipped.)
“The night is young if you’re a proper insomniac such as myself,” he declares, rightfully so. He’s allergic to the word sleep, the word schedule, and any combination of the two.
Langa has awoken many nights to dozens upon dozens of deranged videos in one of Reki’s Late Night No Sleep Scrolling Spams. (It’s a thing. Reki named it himself.)
Reki grins cajolingly like he does when he’s trying to bait Langa into something. (The sad thing is that most of the time it works. Langa is weak, and a slow learner to boot, but he’s getting there.) “If you’re not a coward we can still-”
Langa closes his eyes and gathers every shred of self-control he owns. It is. Not much. “Reki?” He asks evenly, mild as the fluttering night breeze. He is incredibly, impeccably calm. “What happened to your face.”
Reki’s smile goes statuesque and nope, never mind, Langa is not calm in the slightest.
Fuck.
After a beat too long of heavy silence, Reki shrugs. Casual. Relaxed. A total lie.
Langa’s stomach turns.
“Uh, you mean my dashing good looks?” Reki asks. He shifts the bags in his hand from one to the other, again. The movement might look lazy if it weren’t for the tense, pale set of his knuckles. The mechanical tint making him look stiff as a board. The unrekiness of it all. And still, he tries. Because Reki gives his all to everything he does. Even when it’s lying through his teeth.
Langa might find it admirable if he wasn’t two seconds away from throttling him. Too bad that’s not the case.
“Hate to break it to ya’, bud, but I was born this way,” Reki announces grimly. He gives a fake, irksome little gasp before Langa can comment on that. Probably for the best. “Don’t tell me you’re just now noticing,” he accuses, voice curled mildly in mock accusation.
Hardy har. He’s so funny Langa forgot to laugh. It’s great when he amps up the clownish behavior to an eleven when Langa’s trying to have a serious conversation with him. Really productive. But that’s Reki. Always the caricature, bending bending bending until he breaks.
God. Langa hates it when he does this.
“I’m noticing a bruise,” Langa says bluntly, before Reki can grasp the space between the impending silence and steer them somewhere else. Another day he might play along, but he doesn’t have the energy to dance around the subject like Reki prefers.
Predictably, a brief flash of alarm spasms across Reki’s face before he can hide it. Directness freaks him out. More than ghosts, solitude, and all of the other things that scare him combined. Unfortunately, it’s one of the only things that works on him.
Langa feels a tiny bit guilty, but he’ll get over it. “One that wasn’t there a few hours ago when we finished our shift.” Which wasn’t even five hours ago. For the love of god, it’s like every time he looks away, something happens. He’s this close to sewing a damn tracker into Reki’s clothes. “What happened?”
Reki’s jaw tightens. He’s caught, and he knows it. Yet never let it be said that Reki Kyan goes down without a fight.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says lightly, but, noticeably, not lightly enough to leave Langa any room to pry further.
Good thing Langa’s never cared much if he has permission for something or not. Truth be told, it’s usually more fun when he doesn’t.
“Yeah, no. Have you met me?”
Reki snorts. “Yeah, dude, I have,” he confirms. Very helpful.
Thankfully, he elaborates when the confusion spreads into Langa’s face.
“You’re Langa.” He declares. Which is less helpful. He waves his hand as if to ward off the need for any further explanation.
It doesn’t. Because what the hell does that mean?
Does Reki think he’s somehow immune to such mortal follies as fear or concern? That he’s somehow absolved of any imperfections or wrongdoings? Because that’s bullshit. The only thing being Langa has ever gotten him is constant attention he doesn’t want, and an obsessive, one-track mind that nearly cost him the best, the only friend he’s ever had.
But Reki sure seems convinced otherwise.
“You don’t worry about anything.” He laughs.
Laughs.
Wow. Langa won’t lie. That one kind of stings. A lot.
He knows he’s not good at expressing himself all the time. He’s all too aware that there are several people who think he’s bland or cold or uncaring. They don’t tend to say it to his face, but he has ears and on occasion, they work. It’s why the only person he’d ever snowboarded with back in Canada was his dad. Why everyone who’s in love with Snow disappears when he steps off the skateboard and becomes Langa again. They only see one version of him, and that’s fine. He couldn’t care less if some random strangers think he’s an asshole. (In many instances, it’s preferable.)
But Reki?
With Reki, it hurts. More than it has in a long time.
“I worry about things,” he corrects Reki peevishly. The soreness of an invisible wound bleeds into his throat, giving the words a bit more bite than he’d intended.
And still, Reki blinks. “Like what?” He asks, eyebrows drawn and features colored in genuine confusion.
Langa can’t believe this. Is he serious?
All this time trying, trying, trying to show Reki how important he is, that none of this matters without him, and he still. Doesn’t. Get it. Langa would cry if he wasn't so fucking frustrated.
“I worry about you,” Langa tells him, because for all his brilliant mind and exceptional talent, he’s an idiot, sometimes.
The stunned silence lands without Reki trying to make a joke out of it. So there’s that, at least.
Stricken guilt carves into Reki’s face and Langa hates it, but if it means that any of this is getting through to him, then, it can’t be helped.
“Oh,” Reki says, barely a breath of a whisper.
Yeah. That about sums it up.
He knows he’s won when Reki sort of just. Deflates. Like a balloon. It’s an achingly hollow victory.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean- it’s really nothing,” Reki insists, which means nothing, coming from him.
Langa waits expectantly.
It doesn’t take too much longer for Reki to crack.
“I… I was with Miya,” Reki admits, which is… not where Langa thought that was going.
Some of the hurt begins to ebb away in bits and pieces in favor of curiosity. He blinks.
That’s it? That’s the big, dirty little secret?
Reki sighs, no doubt seeing the confusion on his face. Unsurprising. It’s one of Langa’s more frequent expressions.
“You remember the beef from last weekend?” Reki asks, the question tugging from his pursed lips a bit like pulling teeth.
And finally, a few of the puzzle pieces start clicking into place.
Ah. There it is.
Yes, Langa remembers. In crystal clarity. That arrogant douchebag who had talked such a big game until he’d gotten what was coming to him. How satisfying it had been when Reki taught him a lesson he’ll never forget if he knows what’s good for him.
Reki had been amazing. He’d crushed that pathetic sap without a second thought. With a bright, slightly feral grin on his face that had admittedly gotten Langa’s adrenaline fueling for reasons other than skateboarding.
But of course, the jackass fought dirty, and Reki hadn’t won without paying the price. Namely his wrist. He’d sprained it. Again. He’d been upset about it for days.
Until, mysteriously, he hadn’t been. He’d smiled that one, dazzling, more-radiant-than-the-sun smile that never fails to make Langa blind.
He should have known Reki was still beating himself up about it.
Dammit.
Reki’s lips quirk wryly. It fits on his face like a crooked piece of stained glass. Hurts Langa to look at like one, too.
“I asked him to show me how to not wipe out like that again,” Reki shrugs stiffly, and now Langa recognizes that the slow, careful way he’s been moving is more than simple discomfort.
Miya teaches the same way he talks. Sharp, brutal, and to the point. But never let it be said that his training sessions aren’t effective. All they cost are blood, sweat, and tears.
(That’s literal, by the way. Not a metaphor.)
Reki smiles. It’s so tired it takes hold of Langa’s chest and twists his heart until it threatens to split right down the middle.
“Don’t look at me like that. I just wanted some extra practice. Gotta work hard if I wanna keep up. Y’know?” He says cheerfully.
Langa’s stomach lurches the way it does when he looks down and sees there’s only air beneath him. The alarm bells that start going off in his head sound a lot like raindrops against pavement.
He knows that look. Much as he wishes he didn’t.
Fuck.
Well, he got what he wanted. Now, he understands. Kind of. And he definitely feels like a jerk.
This sweet, stupid boy is doing it again. It’s a Shakespeare level tragedy, honestly.
Reki is so good at seeing other people’s talents. Their skills. How hard they work and the brilliance of their accomplishments. Just never his own. All adding up to how, once again, Reki paid a toll he didn’t need to.
And once again, Langa hadn’t noticed until he got hurt.
He doesn’t like this pattern, anymore.
“Reki,” he whispers, as carefully as he can. The air now is delicate, and he’s never been good with the whole ‘gentle’ thing, but, for Reki? He’ll try. Always. “We’ve talked about this,” he says. The anguish in his chest only barely seeps into his voice, so that’s good.
The guilt that flashes over Reki’s face at the reminder only makes it worse. “I know,” he agrees hoarsely. “I know. I just…” he looks at Langa with devastating helplessness burning in his bright eyes of pure gold. He doesn’t finish his sentence.
That’s fine. He doesn’t really need to. Because Langa knows, too.
Like he said, it’s not the first time they’ve had this conversation. More than likely, it won’t be the last. But, at the end of the day, this is how Reki is, and he’s never made any secret of that. He’s a mixed bag of marbles, confidence, enthusiasm, and self-deprecation that’s been so shaken over the years there’s no separating the pieces. And, as it happens, Langa fell in love anyway. With the whole imperfect, messy, spectacular package. Not just his good days.
It’s funny. Before he moved here, Langa never liked complicated things. Or people. (Or people in general, honestly, but that’s a different matter.) He wonders what his past self would have said if someone told him that one day, he’d blink, and find himself hopelessly head over heels for the most beautiful, bewildering boy he’s ever met.
Probably that he’s lost his mind.
And who knows. Maybe he has.
But if that’s all he has to lose for the strangled hitch in Reki’s breath when he wraps his arms around those sturdy, stubborn, shoulders, then it’s more than worth it.
(The thin crunch of cheap plastic hitting the floor signals that he also might have paid for it with their snacks. Oh well.)
He buries his face in red curls, and when hesitant hands grip the back of his shirt, something tells him that means he should hold on tighter. So, he does.
(And he will.)
(For as long as Reki needs him to.)
(And probably even longer than that, but that’s not important right now.)
After a few minutes that feel more like seconds, glowing and melting through the cracks of this fantastic, fleeting moment, the spell is broken when Reki’s stomach growls. Loudly.
Langa snorts. He should have known. Training with Miya tends to have that effect.
Reki laughs, too, short and embarrassed.
Langa savors the sensation of the sound against his skin. At least now there’s one thing he can do that might be of some help. Perfect timing.
“Popcorn?” He asks quietly, loathe as he is to disturb the peaceful, practically nonexistent space between them.
After a beat, Reki nods against his chest. It tickles. “Popcorn,” he agrees, voice small and dangerously thick.
It hurts like a knife. All Langa can do is his best to breathe through it. So, he does.
Then, they make popcorn.
And this time? They only burn it a little bit.
It’s progress.
Surprisingly, after the rough start it got off to, the rest of the night is good.
No, that’s not true. It’s not good.
It’s great.
Except for maybe the part where Reki falls asleep on him twenty minutes away from the end of this week’s movie, so basically Langa suffered through it for nothing.
(Listen. Reki is very cute, and Langa would go to the ends of the earth for him in less than a heartbeat. Unfortunately, being cute does not mean he is good at picking movies.
Langa is glad it’s his turn to choose, next.)
He supposes it’s not so bad sitting here in their cozy, warm little bubble. While his favorite person snores softly next to him, and Langa watches the screen; fully aware that the story lost him three plot twists ago. It’s how most of their attempts to watch a movie together end, truth be told.
(Alright, he's lying through his teeth. He loves it.)
(He’d probably love it a little more if he could feel the arm Reki passed out on beyond some vague pins and needles, but. No, he wouldn’t.)
Curled against his side as he is, he feels it when Reki stirs in small, slow movements.
Langa holds his breath. Because he’s greedy at heart, and if there’s anything he can do to grab this moment and keep them here just a little longer, he’s not above it.
Reki blinks up at him with weary, bleary eyes, and something stabs somewhere squishy and vulnerable in Langa’s chest.
He loves him he loves him he loves him but when in the world did it become so much?
“Whazza matter?” Reki slurs, lost on a completely different planet. “Movie o’er?” He asks.
Good lord.
There’s dried drool on his cheek. His headband is crooked. His eyes are droopy. His hair is a mess.
He’s beautiful.
God, Langa is so, so screwed.
“Everything’s fine,” Langa promises, trying very hard not to explode. It’s a close thing. “You’re just very cute when you’re confused.” He mutters without thinking, because he’s an idiot with no impulse control.
Reki frowns. “But I’m always confused?” He says, over a yawn almost bigger than his ego.
God, Langa hopes he doesn’t remember this when he wakes up. He’ll have no choice but to launch himself back to Canada. Or the moon. “Uh-huh,” he agrees, trying to sound normal. “Don’t look too much into that.”
Reki makes a little, unhappy noise of protest at that, and Langa feels it strike through him like lightning. All the way from the butterflies that swarm his stomach to the curl of his toes.
“Weirdo,” he complains, but it’s hardly a breath of a sound and before it’s even fully passed his lips, the snores have returned.
Langa breathes a sigh of relief, and does his best not to let the flood of feather-soft, honey-sweet affection dripping from his chest into his lungs drown him.
Man. He loves movie night.
Only, he loves it slightly less when Reki turns his head and tucks his face into Langa’s shoulder, and he finally gets a proper glimpse at the bruise that’s been darkening the back of his mind -and his best friend’s cheek- all night.
Ah, right. That.
The indigo stain is painful to look at. Let alone how it must feel for Reki to actually wear that damage under his skin. But Langa already tried attacking him with bruise cream to no avail.
“It’ll go away on its own soon, anyway,” Reki protested petulantly, because he is a stubborn child.
As it happens, Langa is an even more stubborn child, and ‘soon’ isn’t good enough. He wants it to go away now.
Maybe he is childish.
Or, maybe he’s right.
Guess they’ll never know.
Langa sighs, gently tracing the edge of it. Mostly because… he can. That’s usually enough of a reason for him.
There go the hazy, hopeful ideas he’d had when the night started of maybe, finally telling Reki how he feels about him. Those silly notions have been effectively pushed to the back burner, set up in smoke.
Again.
Just like the last attempt.
And the one before that.
And the one before that.
Not that it’s more important than Reki, because nothing is, but christ. Is this going to be a recurring pattern for the rest of their lives? It’s already getting rather old. And with the way things are going-
Well. That’s just it.
They aren’t going.
He’s not sure what else he’s supposed to do, here. Because some days, it feels like everyone can see it. That any random person could look at him and know how hopelessly gone he is for this boy who holds his heart wrapped around his little finger without even knowing it.
Maybe that’s not so bad.
Now if only Reki would get the memo, Langa might care. Lord knows he isn’t exactly subtle, but he’s running out of ways to say ‘Hey. I like you.’ without blaring it off the damn rooftop.
…
On second thought, that might not be the worst idea.
Reki mumbles something about wheels and aerodynamics under his breath, because apparently he’s a genius even when he’s sleeping.
Ha. Langa already knew that. What he doesn’t know is how long he can keep sitting idly by while he waits for this ‘right moment’ to come along. He’s starting to think doesn’t exist, but if it does, it’s taking an awful lot of patience.
And, as everyone has already established, Langa doesn’t do patience.
He breathes in slow, lets the nerves and tingling restlessness fill his lungs to bursting, and holds it. He curls his arm tighter around Reki’s waist. Leans his head further against Reki’s hair.
Being allowed this much is nice.
Wonderful.
Amazing.
Greater than he deserves.
But it’s not enough.
Langa wants more.
No, that’s not it.
He wants Reki. All of him. The good, the bad, and the ridiculous. His time, his thoughts, and his attention. His joy, his sorrow, and everything in between. Anything Reki is willing to give him, and then some.
He wants everything.
And as his heart beats like a desperate, unsteady drum against the cage of his chest, he thinks he’s finally ready to do what it takes to get it. For real, this time.
Well, except for this whole waiting thing. He’s been there, done that. Promised himself Soon, soon, soon. Over and over and over. It’s time for something different.
Hm. No. Something brave. Something like Reki.
Perhaps, if he thinks about it that way, he can finally get these damn wheels rolling.
After all, he was promised infinity, wasn’t he? What better time to start than now?