Work Text:
August 2023
Kenji is on stage, the crowd buzzing at his feet, yet all he wants is to sneak a glance at Ben behind his shoulder. Gorgeous, perfect Ben, the mid-afternoon sun outlining his slightly crooked nose as he adjusts the dials on his drumkit. Kenji’s sure those little parts have a name, but he can’t think for the life of him what they are. Ben probably told him, and Kenji was probably too busy staring at his insultingly cute little face to have paid attention.
He’s out of focus now: they’re doing the soundcheck — not officially performing, but Kenji likes to imagine they sound good enough that people are watching already. (A more realistic part of him knows there’s at least a few people who want to see the Nublar Six in public after eight months of being more or less anonymous since the Biosyn trial. Including one person in the front holding a phone up to them.)
Kenji tries not to let it distract him — Yaz and Brooklynn drilled into them before they went on stage to ignore whatever the audience does — but it’s hard to forget that some people out there will never see him as anything more than Kenji Kon, one of the famous Nublar Six, rich brat turned beloved son of disgraced CEO Daniel Kon. Every lie the media has spun against him since clings to his body, like velcro snagging on fabric that he just can’t rip off.
At least the camp fam never saw him that way. He was a mirage, an art gallery of big, brash words, and bright, flashy clothes that cost more than some people are paid. But the camp fam saw the lost boy buried amongst all of that, and helped him out of the maze until he found who he was.
He never would’ve imagined himself as a performer after Nublar. Least of all when all he (told himself he) wanted was a quiet life of solitude in the mountains.
And he does want a quiet life. But he doesn’t want to be lonely. Thinking of his future makes him think of a house somewhere in the mountains, but close enough to a town that he won’t be completely isolated. Kids — he’s always wanted kids — toddling around his house, free to scream with joy. And a dog. Definitely a dog. He’s in he centre of the chaos, sipping a mug of coffee, fondly looking at his partner as he slides his arm around their waist.
He tries to picture himself with anyone else. His string of girlfriends he dragged along before Nublar, Brooklynn, the few one-date flings he had after Brooklynn ‘died’ to distract himself from the overwhelming grief inside him. (He’s not proud of how he treated people back then. He has to believe he can be better than that now.)
But the only face he can picture in that future is Ben’s.
It’s always been Ben, hasn’t it? The day Kenji was brave enough to look into his future — look deeply, daring to forget grand gestures and extravagant exclamations of love — and think of a future where he and his lover go to cheap diners and laugh and talk for ages, and go home to snuggle on the sofa and watch sitcoms. Where their love is wild and wonderful and something no one dares tame except with each others’ gentle hands on their body.
That person wasn’t Brooklynn. It never could’ve been. He loved her, and she loved him, and it was wonderful while it lasted, but it was never built to last. It was a beautiful flower; a sight to behold, but never something that would age and grow old. But he could recklessly fantasize about his future with Ben: a tree sprouting from the ground, branches twisting outwards for their kids to hang a swing from. It was always going to be Ben. Ben and Kenji. Ben and Kenji. (It feels right, doesn’t it?) Ben and Kenji. Ben and—
“Kenji!”
He blinks out of his spiral, and Yaz is facing him, fingers loosely pinning the shape of a cord on her bass guitar's fret, glaring with equal measures of annoyance and concern.
“What?”
“Focus!” Her face softens after a moment, and she asks, “You okay there?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Just letting the ol' noggin wander.” Kenji knocks on his head, forcing his lips to smile.
Yaz nods, accepting it for now. “Okay. Get ready to run that passage one more time.”
Yaz props her bass on her knee, and twists one of the dials. Sammy plucks out a gentle, wandering tune on her acoustic guitar. Brooklyn adjusts the microphone. Kenji doesn’t even want to guess what Ben is doing. One look at him will make him spiral into another pit of hellish, hopeless, helpless longing. And trust him. He’s learned his lesson about yearning for the impossible.
Three days after That:
“If you don’t talk to him, I will.” Darius murmured to Kenji. It was springtime: the lazy daisies are peeking through the dew-kissed grass, and the green beans need planting.
“Whaaaat?” Kenji scoffed, pointedly looking down at the tray of saplings between them. “I don’t know what you’re...”
Darius gave him a look. It took all of three seconds for Kenji to cave. He groaned, and said, “I— I want to talk to him. I do. I just...”
“You don’t know how?” Darius nodded sagely.
Kenji wiped his forehead with his wrist, smearing a few crumbs of dirt across his skin. “Yeah. I don’t.”
Darius thought for a moment, digging a hole in the earth with two fingers. “Yaz and Sammy were talking about going riding this afternoon, and I could get Brooklynn out of the house if you guys want some privacy. We need to go grocery shopping anyway.”
“That’s... amazing. Thanks man.” Kenji beamed.
But that was two hours ago, where the inevitable conversation felt miles easier than now. Ben and Kenji are alone, at opposite ends of the kitchen, and Kenji couldn’t help but feel worlds apart.
“You— you wanted to talk?” Ben began, generously giving Kenji a platform into the conversation to jump from.
“Yeah. I, uh... I did.” Kenji looked anywhere but Ben’s face. He couldn’t look at his eyes, his swoop of hair, the concerned crease of his eyebrows. God forbid he even thought about looking at his lips—
“Is this about...?” Ben awkwardly motioned with his hand, God bless him. Having the grace not to even say it, putting to name the disaster that was their—
“I’m sorry,” Kenji blurted, stuffing those thoughts to one side. “It— that— it didn’t mean anything.”
“Oh— okay.” Ben nodded, pressing his lips together. If Kenji were feeling fanciful, he would’ve said Ben looked the slightest smidge sad. But he wasn’t feeling fanciful. He was feeling so fucking awful, he could’ve let the floor swallow him whole.
“Okay, that's a wrap,” Brooklynn declares. “Take five, and then we’ll go on for real.”
“Who put you in charge?” Kenji grumbles.
“Thanks for volunteering to lead the group, Kenji.” Brooklynn lightly knocks him with the microphone, flashing a sarcastic smile. Kenji chuckles under his breath. Their little group is only just comfortable with teasing each other like they used to, after many awkward interactions and hasty apologies.
And honestly? Kenji missed it. Being at odds with each other, when the friction between them was palpable, missing his family when they were in the same room as him was nothing short of awful. Kenji hopes they’re mostly out of it now. It feels like it. Like taking off his work clothes and sprawling on the sofa in pajamas. Like finding their eyes across the room and instantly relaxing. Like lying on someone’s lap and pouring out all his sorrows. Like coming home to something.
(Ben makes him feel that way. Kenji wonders if he always has.)
Darius is behind the stage curtain, waiting for them with a wide smile and arms full of water bottles.
“You’re the best, D,” Kenji says, grabbing one, and another that he hands to Ben. The other three follow suit, gulping down water until they’re sufficiently hydrated.
“I have your set list here,” he says, jamming an unclaimed water bottle between his neck and shoulder to rifle through the stack of papers on his clipboard.
“You are awesome,” Sammy says, taking the list.
“What would we do without you, Darius?” Brooklynn says softly.
Kenji smiles fondly. “You keep us together, Dino nerd.”
“You guys are the ones sounding amazing out there,” he gushes, a genuine smile betraying any shadow of a doubt his admiration is anything but sincere. “Yaz, I had no idea you were so good on bass guitar. And Ben— those drums!”
“I've been playing since I was eleven,” Ben says modestly.
“Weren’t you in a band in middle school?” Kenji says before he can stop himself.
Ben gives him a strange look. “You remembered that?”
And everything else you tell me. “Yeah, course.” Kenji pushes the discomfort upon finally properly speaking to him since... yeah, and gives him the best smile he can. “You were pretty good, I guess.”
Ben gives something of a smile. “Thanks. You too, Kenji.”
Three days after That:
“We don't have to talk about it,” Ben says softly.
Kenji ignores how he feels like his heart is breaking in two, and says, voice almost a whisper, “Yeah. I mean... We were drunk, I wasn't thinking... We can— just— forget it ever happened, ‘Kay?”
Ben nods. “Yeah. Okay.”
Kenji waits, heart in his throat, silently begging Ben to say something, anything, to take it back, and pull him, by the collar of his eye-colour-matching T-shirt, back from this irreversible spiral downward.
But every single word in his throat lodges on an anxious net, and all he can do is press his lips into a small, thin smile.
“We're still friends, right?” Ben asks, eyebrows creased.
All the breath floods back into Kenji at once, and he practically gasps with relief, “Yeah. Course we are.”
Ben returns a wonky smile of his own. “Thanks, Kenj.”
“You're welcome.” And Kenji can't resist adding, “Benny boy.”
They’re laughing, talking, and then it’s time. Kenji opens his mouth to offer to wheel Ben onto the stage, but Sammy gets there first, and Kenji feels his heart sink a little. He follows them onto stage, shooting one final wink at Darius, before he gets to the front and adjusts the mic. He risks a glance behind his shoulder, searching for the swirl of dark blonde hair and morning-sky-blue eyes. His eyes just sweep metallic black speakers and a maze of wires— until their eyes meet like a car collision and Kenji immediately looks away.
Ben watches Kenji flinch away from him and feels his heart sink. The drum sticks suddenly threaten to slip out of his grasp, and he shoves them between his knees to dry off his hands. Something in him is shaking, nervous in a way he hasn’t been in a long time. Somehow, he seems to know that today is different somehow. Maybe it’s a flare up. Maybe it’s an unusually good day for his symptoms. Maybe the sun is shining extra bright, or the air extra humid.
Or maybe it’s just the way that Kenji takes the microphone and begins to sing.
Ben forgets the drums, for a second. He forgets his part, he forgets the others, he forgets himself entirely.
Kenji comes to life, haloed by the sunlight, and Ben can’t bear to take his eyes off him.
Four hours after three days after That:
“I love him, Yaz,” Ben says, lying on Yaz’s bed, mournfully hugging a pillow.
“I know you do.” Ben doesn’t need to look up to see her all-knowing smile. “And I really think he feels the same.”
“But what if he doesn’t?” Ben exclaims, trying to push himself onto his elbows without much success.
“I’ve gotcha,” Yaz says, gently helping him sit upright.
Ben says, “What if he doesn’t see me that way anymore?”
“Uh, Ben. He literally kissed you.”
“I—” Ben sighs. “I know. But what if that’s changed since then? What if he’s killed the feelings? When he’s hurt, he shuts his heart off to people that care about him; you know how he got after Brooklynn’s funeral with Darius. He literally didn’t speak to him in months.”
“He’s spoken to you, though,” Yaz argues, “So I’d say you’re already on better footing than that shitwreck.”
Ben flashes her half a smile. “Here’s hoping.”
Yaz’s arm wraps around his shoulder, hugging him close. “Hey. Whatever happens, you and Kenji will be fine. He’s a good guy. And so are you.”
Ben softens into a smile. “Love you too, Yaz.”
Yaz doesn’t reply; doesn’t need to. But she squeezes him a little tighter.
After a beat of silence, Ben says, “Do you think we’d make a cute couple?”
“Ben!”
Yaz gives him a gentle shove, and he yelps, pushing her back. They’re laughing, and all is good for a moment.
Then, Yaz says, “Well, if you want to take your mind off things, there’s a food festival about an hour’s drive away from here with open performance slots in a month, and Sammy, Brooklynn and I were thinking of getting a band together. You play drums, right?”
“Yeah, but I’m not very—”
“I’m sure you’ll do great,” Yaz cuts in, squeezing him tight.
Ben could do with a distraction from... this. “That sounds amazing. When do we start?”
“I don’t really give a damn about the way you touch me, when we’re alone. You can hold my hand if no one’s home.”
He’s... good. He’s really good. Ben knew Kenji could sing, but he honestly didn’t know Kenji was that good. Every rehearsal they had, Ben managed to tune everyone else out (especially Kenji), skimming the surface of the music to make sure he stayed metronomically on beat.
But going through the set list, ending in a song that sounds built for Kenji’s voice, Ben can’t believe he never noticed the beauty of his voice.
“Do you like it when I’m away? If I went and hurt my body, baby, would you love me the same?”
Things were tolerable enough not to be tense, but too stiff to feel truly comfortable between them. Both Ben and Kenji needed someone to crack the tension between them, yet neither made the move.
“I can feel all my bones coming back and I’m craving motion, mama never really learned how to live by herself.”
Ben would be lying if he said he never thought about it. Oh, he thought alright. He couldn’t stop thinking about it on Nublar, all the way back when he was a scrawny slip of a boy, clinging to Kenji’s arm. But that was a schoolboy crush. It never meant anything (he told himself as he shivered through those cold, lonely nights).
“It’s a curse, and it’s growing... you’re a pond, and I’m an ocean, oh.”
Yet from the way he stares at Kenji, only keeping up with the music through sheer muscle memory, he wonders if those feelings are folding back on him.
Kenji has almost never felt this good in his life. There’s something freeing about singing, like screaming in a way that doesn’t hurt his throat. Opening the gates to free a cathartic release of emotions he never normally dares touches. Everything is going well, and Kenji could leap off the stage and fly over the crowd into the sky if he tried. (Maybe, if he actually did try, he’d crowd surf; there’s definitely enough people to hold him up.)
The music is a fight, a dance, something burning deep within his chest, and every lyrics ourpuours directly from his soul itself.
“Darlin, when I’m fast asleep, I’ve seen this person watching me—”
(And it’s him, in a way, tossing and turning late at night as he wonders, quietly... Should he tell him? Should he set free the words in his throat that will split open a chasm, and it’s a coin toss whether he lands on the side where he gets everything he wants.)
“Is it worth it? Is it worth it?”
It’s like playing Russian roulette — and he’d take a million bullets if he stood a chance with Ben. He’d take a million more to save his life once again.)
“Tell me, is it worth it?”
And he realises, as he’s belting his heart out, his lover was never going to be his duet partner. It was the unsung hero, waiting in the wings with warm, blue eyes and a willingness to stand by him, to just be in each others’ presence. No pretending, no exaggerating, just them. Ben and Kenji. Ben and Kenji. Ben and Kenji.
“Guess there is something and there is nothing, there is nothing in between. And in my eyes there is a tiny dancer, watching over me. And singing, he’s a, he’s an angel—”
Ben almost misses the next few beats. Those aren’t the lyrics. Kenji knows this song word for word, and he wouldn’t misquote it. Ever.
“—and I am just a boy.”
(And the way Kenji clutches his t-shirt can’t be an accident, like this boy he sings of lies close to his heart.)
“Singing, he’s a, he’s an angel—”
And if Ben were an optimistic person, he would’ve wondered if the way Kenji’s torso seemed to swivel around, ever so slightly, was simply a coincidence. But Ben is not an optimist. Ben is realistic. Realism kept him alive (except, of course, the time he died.) He was very realistic about their circumstances, and look where that got him.
Ben also would not be alive if his friends weren’t daringly, foolishly hopeful they could get him out of Biosyn. So maybe Ben owes it to himself to be a little optimistic. What is braver than being hopeful, after all?
So yeah, maybe Kenji did look to him. Maybe that kiss meant more than either of them wanted it to.
Maybe the angel is Ben.
The song finishes, and the end chord reverberates across the field, rolling to the horizon and back.
The crowd bursts into applause. Kenji bows and waves, playing it up for the crowd, but the person he really wants to see, the person his eyes latch onto the moment he turns around — is Ben.
“Thank you, thank you. I love you, Texas!” Kenji yells into the mic, waving and blowing kisses to the crowd one more time, before turning around with a jump, dusting off his hands. “That went well.”
Ben and the others agree, gushing over their performances and complimenting each other as Yaz takes Ben’s handles, helping him maneuver over the maze of extension leads.
They head down the ramp, and onto the grass to the left of the stage, where Darius is there with water bottles and a million and one compliments.
Ben taps Kenji on the arm, and says, “Behind the stage?”
Kenji looks a little confused, but says, “Yeah— yeah, sure.” He takes the push handles from Yaz, and immediately Ben’s heart rate rises to terrifying, borderling-unhealthy levels. He feels like he’s on the edge of a skyscraper, looking down and hoping Kenji will swoop from the sky like a superhero and save him.
Part of him almost backs out. Part of him begins weaving together a lie, but he tears it apart in a second. He needs to do this now. Before it’s too late. Before he loses the guts and the lightness and the wild buzz of adrenaline.
And he’s scared he’ll never feel this dangerously, dizzyingly brave again.
“Ben, I— wow, you were—”
He pulls Kenji into his lap and kisses him.
Lips. Mouth. Skin. Teeth. Warm. Comfort.
For the most juddering, jarring, wonderful moment, that is all Kenji can think. Ben kissed him and— he’s kissing him back. Yeah? Yeah. God, yeah. Ben kisses like a cyclone: warm and wet and rough, tossing everything around Kenji’s body with the kind of wildness Kenji would expect from him.
But his hands soothe the storm: one sliding around Kenji’s waist, the other encircling Kenji’s head — so big against his small head — and Kenji’s hands are touching every inch of Ben he can, roaming over his cheeks and along the smooth edge of his jawline, tracing the soft curve of the muscles he desperately wants to learn the shape of with his hands. He touches Ben like he’s a sculptor crafting their lover from memory, engraving his likeness with every intricate scar Kenji trails his fingers down (the notches are reminiscent of the groves down the middle of jungle leaves, a scar between two halves, still joining them).
They break apart, panting slightly, and they’re apart for one torturous second, the cold assaulting the barren emptiness of their lips, before diving back in for more. Ben kisses him again, and Kenji kisses back, deeper, hungrier, clutching Ben’s hair with his fingers.
“Mm— gentler,” Ben murmurs, his lips brushing against Kenji’s like a feather as he speaks.
“Oh— sorry.” The wonderful, fluttery adrenaline feeling fades, and Kenji pulls away, relinquishing Ben’s hair.
Ben looks at him, equal parts sad and confused. “Don’t stop. Unless you— you want to.” A moment of silence passes, before he says, his voice and eyes daring, “Do you want to carry on?”
“Fuck yeah.” Kenji swings his leg over Ben’s lap so he’s straddling him. “Is this okay?”
“Just kiss me, dammit,” Ben says, and Kenji doesn’t need to be told twice.
Their lips collide like twin waves onto the shore, and their bodies move closer, melting into each other. Shivers roll down Kenji’s spine, filling him with a thrill he’s never felt before. His hips rock into Ben’s waist, and Ben grips him tighter with a desperate fervour that makes Kenji tighten his legs around Ben’s waist, holding onto him with everything he has.
Ben swallows all five of his senses: all Kenji can see through the web of his half-shut eyelashes are Ben’s eyes, fluttering blissfully in a way that makes Kenji want to elicit the feeling from Ben all the more. All Kenji can hear is Ben panting in his ear. All he can feel is Ben’s body against his. All he can touch is Ben. All he can taste is Ben’s saliva brushing against his lips. The undeniable softness of them makes Kenji’s moan into his mouth, and the sound only makes Ben hold him tighter.
This... is everything Kenji’s ever wanted. Kissing Brooklynn was a performance: dramatic, grand, every movement perfected down to exactly where and how his fingers cupped her face. But kissing Ben feels like running out of the theatre, gasping in the rawness of the night air and rejoicing life under the street lamps. Kissing Ben feels like being set free.
And Kenji could live on that high forever.
They break apart, gasping, their eyes meeting, and immediately burst into laughter. Ben murmurs, “Oh my God,” laughing against his lips, and Kenji... he’s too giddy to string words together. His soul feels like it’s doing cartwheels in the sky. And the way Ben gazes at him, like Kenji stole the stars from the sky just to put them in his eyes, could fill his heart forever.
That kiss... that alone could keep Kenji alive for years, spurring him to chase that warmth on a decades-long quest if he knew Ben was at the end of it. But the way their heads remain pressed together, Kenji’s head fitting perfectly into the slope between Ben’s forehead and nose, Ben’s hand still trembling against Kenji’s skull... it soothes the wildness, stroking it down as if it were dinosaur scales rubbed out of place. It settles the adrenaline like the consoling hush of a mother to her baby (a sound Kenji can’t remember ever hearing). Ben and Kenji are panting, their breath mingling in the inches between them — and, somehow, that is even more intimate than the kiss.
Kenji finally dares look up, and he swears the sight of Ben’s eyes looking right into his makes his heart stop.
“Ben—”
“Kenji...”
They both speak at the same time, and Kenji lets a soft bubble of laughter leave his chest. He looks at Ben again, hungry for more, hungry for what he— can he have him? Kissing could mean nothing. Right? Right... Yeah, it can mean nothing. Those fireworks will fade into the sky in a puff of smoke. He can kill the feelings, he’s done it before. One half of Kenji begs to run away, and the other half begs to kiss him again, and instead of either of those, he gets off Ben’s lap and blurts, “I’m a mess.”
“Kenji, I—”
“No, seriously. I’m a mess. I grow too attached to people, I panic when I think people are going to leave, and when they do I make myself hate them so it hurts less when they stop loving me. My— my therapist said I have one of the most complex cases of PTSD she’s ever seen.” Kenji lets out a burst of hysterical laughter, willing himself to stop talking — but he can’t. The words are tumbling out of him like opening a stuffed closet, and he’s getting pelted with everything falling out. “Mom says a Bowman never talks bad about themselves, but this... is just fact. These are all facts about me that you should know.”
“Kenji...”
“Look— I want to make this official with you. I love you — God, is that too soon to say? Yeah, I’m— sorry, I— sorry, Ben. I want to be with you, I love you like crazy — seriously, it’s driving me crazy — but... if you want to date me — which I want to, if you’re okay with that... you should know that—”
Ben’s fingers close around Kenji’s jacket, and kisses him again.
If the first kiss was a confession, the second is a promise. A vow to each other that this is real, and solid: a sapling planted in the middle of the woods to grow something beautiful. Maybe someday, kids will swing off the branches, and they’ll sit, shoulders touching, growing old underneath its shade. But that day is not today. Not yet. They’re young and in love, and their future is a light glowing so brightly they can’t make out anything.
But as long as they’re holding each other, Kenji feels like, whatever happens, they can make it through. Whatever grows from this will be beautiful.
“I love you too,” Ben says, his mouth millimetres from Kenji’s.
And there’s a million better things that could be said right now, but Kenji blurts. “Remember when that plane crashed?”
“I— yeah. Why?”
“I remember looking at you as the plane went down,” he confesses. “I was scared. I didn't want to die without seeing a familiar face. Even if I hated you at the time. But then... I saw you looking back at me. You were so hurt, and confused from everything — including what I said — and you still looked for me. You looked for me. And then, I realised a lot of things: I realised I really don’t want to die. I realised I’m never getting on a plane again.” He chuckles softly.
“Kenji—”
“And I remember thinking: if I have to die, I want to be next to you, looking at you. If I have to die, I want to be by your side.” Kenji finally summons the courage to look into his mesmerisingly blue eyes, the colour of the bold blue sky he climbs towards on every mountain he conquers. “And I realised that... even when I hate you, I love you. That’s when I knew.”
Ben’s heart visibly sinks as he sees what’s coming next. “And then you met my girlfriend.”
“Yeah.” Kenji tries not to let his grimace show.
Ben tilts his head towards him anyway. “I love her. But— but not like that. Not anymore.”
“So you really—”
“Come on, Kenji, I literally just made out with you!” Ben exclaims, and Kenji can’t help but laugh. “Yes, I love you.”
“I’m... Gah,” Kenji sighs, his head lolling into Ben’s shoulder. “I need to be told that. Like, constantly, or I get stupidly insecure,” Kenji admits.
“Then I’ll tell you I love you. Every morning. And before we go to bed,” Ben says, and a smile splits across Kenji’s face like the sun rising over the horizon.
Kenji’s hand slides around Ben’s cheek, and he kisses it before he can help it. Ben smiles, humming happily, and kisses Kenji’s temple. Kenji could kiss him a million more times, swapping little kisses for eternity, but even one brush of Ben’s lips against his head is more than enough to fill his heart.
“You’re not— you’re not the only mess,” Ben whispers into his hair. “Have you seen me? I flinch at everything, I— I can’t even get my words out sometimes, hell, I get terrified listening to music through headphones because I can’t hear what's coming at me.”
“Then maybe, I could, uh... stand guard for you, or something,” Kenji says, scratching the back of his neck, and Ben beams like it’s the best news he’s heard all week.
Kenji and Ben hold each other, their hands on each others’ shoulders, before they bring each other into their arms for a hug, firm and long and loving.
“I love you. I think I always have, in some way,” Kenji says. “God, Ben, I— I’m seriously in love with you.”
“Mr VIP... In love with the jungle boy,” Ben teases, poking Kenji’s cheek. “How embarrassing.”
“Hey! You’re in love with me too,” Kenji bickers.
“Ugh, you caught me.” Ben pretends to dramatically collapse.
The gesture is a bit too close to reality for Kenji’s liking, so he says, “Whaddya say we ditch the others and head home?”
“And make out some more?” Ben whispers in his ear.
“Actually...” Kenji mumbles into his chest, his voice edged with the daringness of something he’s thought about for a long time. “I’d rather curl up on the couch and watch a sitcom.”
Ben smiles, hugging Kenji as he settles back on Ben’s lap. “Sounds perfect.” Kenji clings tighter to him, and Ben returns the touch, gathering him closer.
“Now who’s this new homeboy?” Ben teases.
“Like I’ve said, I’ve matured. Wild boy Kenji is over. Now, I’m ready to mellow out... live somewhere quiet.”
“Jungle boy Ben is still alive and kicking— well, punching,” Ben corrects, looking down at his legs. “But I’m ready to settle. I want to live near the woods. Somewhere nice and peaceful.”
Kenji kisses the top of Ben’s head. “I like the sound of that.”
And it should scare him, talking about his future so boldly when they’ve only just kissed. Kenji’s loved and lost, and loved and lost, and he should fear the beginning of the same cycle.
But this doesn’t scare him. The thought of losing Ben is far more terrifying. This feels like an inevitability: something he could’ve seen coming on the horizon if he wasn’t so foolish as to choose not to look.
And now it’s here, staring him in the face, its arms wide open, and Kenji falls in with all he has, trusting completely the arms of the future.
Because whatever comes next, if Ben is with him, he’s certain it will be amazing.