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Usually all it took was a glance. Ray must be having one of his rare bad days though, for the touch against Kai’s shoulders was hard enough to be confused for a smack. He watched Ray stomp out of the dining room, not bothering to wish their raucous teammates a good night. Well, whatever. Kai was pissed at Tyson too, though he couldn’t truly confess why. He had a reputation and all that.
(You see, Tyson had finished all the donuts before Kai got home that evening. He had been looking forward to one all day.)
Biting back a grin, Kai walked out of sight, and then skipped up the stairs. He heard the main door fall shut as he jerked his desk drawer open, fishing for the crumpled pack hidden between novels too intimidating for Tyson to go fiddling around with. Really, he had no sense of privacy but Kai couldn’t exactly complain when the fool was literally housing them for free.
Running a hand through his hair, he quickly checked the definition of his face paint, sharp as it should be. Adjusting his scarf so it sat just so, he shoved the packet in his pocket, then scampered down the stairs. He forced himself to slow his gait as he crossed the dining room door, lips pressed together so they would’t betray his excitement.
Some rituals were his and Ray’s alone.
Outside the night sky was clear, inky blue dotted with silver. The moon hung low, waxing slowly every night, bathing the lawn in a shade of pale silver he’d learned to adore. These trysts always occurred at night time.
Rounding the house, he made his way to their overhang, jutting out from the side of the dojo, an empty little half-shed Tyson’s grandfather could no longer recall the purpose of. There, Ray stood in wait, leaning against the wall, watching out for him. He waved, as if Kai didn’t know where to go and Kai’s hand twitched in response.
“Hi,” Ray whispered as Kai joined him inside. “I hate Kenny sometimes.”
“I hate Kenny every day,” he muttered.
“Mhmm,” At least Ray was smiling now. “He just whines so much. And his voice… I-…” He stopped himself and took a deep breath, exaggerated for effect. Kai watched his shoulders rise and roll back. Ray tilted his neck to the side, stretched into the range of just a shard of moonlight and Kai stole his gaze away, face hot.
“Nope. Can’t allow them to violate our safe space.” Ray said, turning to Kai with a grin, holding his hand out. Kai placed the packet on his palm, revelled an eternity in a second of warmth and said under his breath,
“Amen to that.”
It started in China. Kai had wanted to try a cigarette as all teenagers do. He made the preparations, snuck out and hunted down a shop with employees who looked shady enough to make a couple bucks off of a sale to a minor. He stalked out of their room that night, heart thundering in his chest with childish glee, feeling like the coolest guy on the street with the bundled nicotine between his fingers. He lit the match stick up, held it to the end of the cigarette and then… nothing.
Kai was sure that wasn’t how a lit cigarette looked.
He tried again, brought the flame closer then took it farther away. No dice. He frowned at the thing, seconds away from tossing it aside before a voice he was starting to grow familiar with cut in.
“That’s not how you do that.”
Presently, he watched Ray flick the box open, his other hand toying with the lighter like he was wont. Kai wondered as he always did on these nights, if he should be worried about possible pyromania after all.
“Oh,” Ray said, frowning slightly. “Whatever, we’ll share.”
That had happened just once before, the very first night. Ray had lit Kai’s cigarette up for him with a cheeky conspiratorial grin. Kai had taken it from him, face expressionless like the ghost of Ray’s lips wasn’t dancing against his.
Now, two years older and apparently not that much wiser, Kai had discarded all pretence of shame. It didn’t belong between them, not when they were here like this. Their last cigarette was dangling from Ray’s lips and he cupped his hands around the flame, wearing the orange glow like the lushest of silks created just for him. His eyes, narrowed embers of gold, were trained on Kai.
No pretence. He stepped closer.
Ray threw his head back, letting the smoke curl lazily out of his parted lips. Rarely as they did this, Ray seemed to enjoy it enough that Kai could, maybe, suggest it more often.
“It’s kinda cold today, isn’t it?” Ray said between an inhale and an exhale. Showoff, Kai thought and let his fingers linger against cool skin, tracing the bed of Ray’s nail for just a second.
“That tends to happen as autumn sets in.”
Against his lips, the cigarette was alight on both ends.
Ray watched him take a drag in, just half of a smile on his face. Sometimes when they were standing here like this, close together, heads bent forward, it seemed he was always on edge. Waiting, just waiting.
“Do you even feel it, Rasputin?”
The joke was tired but it was Ray. Kai would humour him any day. He was sure Ray knew that.
Rolling his eyes with mock offence, he offered the cigarette to Ray again and then immediately forgot how to breathe when Ray grabbed his arm instead.
He couldn’t look away, not with eyes so brilliant pinning him place. He couldn’t want to, even if he tried.
“No goosebumps, you’re warm,” Ray grinned. “You really don’t feel it, do you?”
He didn’t let go. Kai felt ash fall onto his fingers.
“Of course I do. I am only human.”
The brush of his fingers against Kai’s forearm was unnecessary. Kai filed it away in his heart where the briefest of encounters with Ray were carefully documented, so he would never forget, no matter what. Ray took the cigarette from him, took another drag from it, tore his gaze away. He turned towards the moon, eyes brimming with a feeling Kai couldn’t name but knew as well as he knew himself. Maybe better.
He felt it every day, soft, delicate, and so maddening. He felt it when he looked at Ray and when Ray looked at him, on the edge of cigarettes and the threshold of the room they shared, in the glisten of water droplets that clung to Ray’s skin after a shower, and all the stolen glances between them, loud enough to drown everyone else but somehow still a secret kept in faith.
Oh, how he felt it.
Ray lifted the cigarette to his mouth once more. Kai stepped closer still, a hand beside Ray’s head, against the wall. Gently he stole the cigarette from Ray before it could meet his lips.
“Better?”, he asked.
Ray smirked up at him. Smoke obscured his face for all but a second, but his eyes refused to suffer so.
“I think so. I am still kinda chilly.”
“Hmm?” He took another step closer, and held the cigarette out to Ray. “How about now?”
“Yeah, that feels good,” he sighed, eyes on Kai’s, lips parted still in the aftermath of a lazy exhale. “Thanks, Captain.”
Shameless.
Up this close all Kai could smell was Ray, more potent than the smoke or the crisp October smell of cut grass. Had they found a way to stop time yet? Kai couldn’t remember but he prayed they had, just the same.
“It’s over,” Ray said, staring down at the smoking butt in his hand. Kai glanced down at it, picking it from between his fingers. He put it out against the wall, and for just a second, Ray was caged in his arms. He could have held him there for as long as he damn well wanted and no one could do anything about it, absolutely anything at all.
Ray licked his lips.
“I’ll bring a jacket next time,” Kai drew back with a smile. Ray rolled his eyes.
“I’d be so grateful.”
“Wanna head in?”
“No, wait,” Ray’s smile broadened as he dug into his pocket, proudly presenting Kai with a plastic container. Kai raised a brow. “There was only one left when I came back so I saved it for you. Don’t wanna risk Tyson smelling it though. You should eat it here.”
In there, was a donut, glazed with cinnamon. Kai’s chest felt hollow for all of a second before it constricted painfully against a bulbous, beating beast in his ribs. His heart, he realised a second later, and took the container from Ray’s hand.
“Careful, Ray,” he whispered, almost to himself. “One of these days, I am gonna run out of patience.”
“Oh Captain,” Ray smirked. “I’d be so grateful.”