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The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.
—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Tonight’s the night.
That’s what Kenji has said to himself the past two nights, but this time, he swears, he really means it. The weird tension between them has gotten almost unbearable — and considering he spends half his waking hours looking after him, it’s getting awkward ignoring the giant presence of that between them.
Yes — tonight is the night he talks to Ben.
Because what happened in the hyperloop... that isn’t what friends do. That isn’t what friends feel. And take it from someone who, alongside his friend group, has spent years pushing the traditional boundaries of what friends do with each other, he knows the difference. He snuggles with Sammy, Yaz kisses his forehead, Darius nuzzles into Kenji’s shoulder when he’s sad, even after their breakup Brooklynn hugs him, tells them all he loves them and means it... trust him, he knows how platonic affection feels.
But with Ben, it felt... different. Platonic affection doesn’t make his skin burn, and his heart flutter, and his stomach twist into knots. Platonic affection doesn’t fill him with a weird sensation that feels like standing on the edge of a cliff looking down at the dizzying depths below — and Kenji has to acknowledge that. Give it long enough, the others will start noticing, and then will come the questioning stares and the “is everything okay”s and another million ways the camp fam say I love you to each other without those words. And Kenji loves it, he really does. He just doesn’t want to talk about it with them.
No, he has to talk to Ben.
Conveniently, it’s his turn to help Ben into bed that evening. The camp fam are working out something of a roster, making sure one person isn’t tiring themself out doing everything for him at once. Turns out caring for someone is a lot harder than it seems. They’d all do it all in a heartbeat if they had to, of course, but they don’t have to do things alone anymore. They have each other to share the load with now.
They’re winding down for the evening: the sun has long since vanished below the surface, and Kenji is running out of time. Before this, Ben Pincus wouldn’t think of going to bed before midnight. Now, he gets so tired so easily (even after spending almost all day resting and lying down — which Kenji really doesn’t understand, no matter how many times Yaz explains the concept of energy levels to him), Ben’s lucky if he’s awake by ten.
They’ve all had a long day. Sammy and Yaz finalised the purchase for the plot of Texan farm land the camp fam are soon moving to, and they all went to an outdoor restaurant to celebrate. They only stayed for a bit, and Ben could hardly stomach half a burger and a few chips, but it was fun, at least. Kenji thought so. Come to think of it, he didn’t ask Ben if he actually enjoyed it. It’s nine pm, and he’s running out of time.
“Hey, how did you find... dinner? Earlier?” Kenji asks out of the blue.
Ben looks at him curiously, propped up by several pillows and sitting on his bed. He’s wearing Kenji’s oodie, his long hair a cutely tousled mess, and the factors combine to make him look adorably cosy. Kenji can hardly take his eyes off him. “It was fun; I said earlier.”
“Nonono, it’s... okay. You can tell me if it tired you out or something.” Kenji gives his best attempt at a smile.
“It was a little tiring, but everything is nowadays,” Ben concedes, a hint of sadness behind his eyes. Kenji knows how physically active he used to be, how it’s paining him to be so limited now. To need Kenji to do something simple as help him into bed. Kenji routinely tells Ben there’s no shame in needing help, and he tries his best to give Ben the dignity he deserves. But no amount of that will give Ben his old body back: the one that could climb trees and save lives and stop storage cupboards from crushing his friends.
Kenji is a step away from buttoning his feelings behind his lips and making sure Ben gets a good night’s rest — but he can’t bury this a moment longer.
“Do you still have the energy to, um... talk? Outside? For a bit?”
Ben looks confused, but nods. “Yeah, sure. Why— what do you want to, um... talk about?”
“Oh, just... feel like we haven’t had the chance to properly catch up in a while, that’s all,” Kenji says. “Plus I hear the moon is beautiful. So, uh... Yeah.” (Kenji internally facepalms. What is he saying?)
“Okay then.” Ben looks at Kenji, asking a question he doesn’t need to put to words, and Kenji slips his arm around Ben’s back, helping maneuver him off the bed, and slowly guides his shaking legs to stand up.
Helping Ben transfer is something Kenji still has to get used to, and every time he does, he bitterly wishes he spent more time getting building some muscle in the two months he was waiting for Darius and Ben to come back from Italy. It would’ve been more productive than giving his heart the workout of its life with every nightmare he watched Ben die. His lean muscle is suited to climbing — his grip strength is unmatched, even by super-strong Sammy — but he doesn’t quite have the strength to lift dead weight without the adrenaline that pounded him in Biosyn.
He’ll do it, though. Get stronger. He’ll go to the gym — every day, if that’s what it takes — and lift weights. With Ben’s enormous body groaning into his hands, he makes a promise to do that: get strong enough until he can lift Ben up. Swoop him into his arms without trying. It’ll be difficult, but anything worth having takes a bit of sweat.
(Anything that isn’t dragging Ben’s lifeless body around Biosyn, he can stomach.)
Ben is comfortably situated in his wheelchair, and even though it isn’t that cold, Kenji tucks a blanket around his legs, another over his shoulders, and wheels him to the porch. The girls are definitely still awake, but he’s careful to be quiet, looking at the glint of the moonlight against reflective tape placed cleverly by Brooklynn on all the edges and corners so he won’t steer Ben into them.
Kenji’s so thankful for Brooklynn and Yaz’s education and insight into the whole... disability thing. Both having firsthand experience with disability, Yaz especially with a mobility disability, they were the ones who knew how to actually help: how to make the house accessible, how to plan for Ben’s limits, what to make sure the house had (the ramp, the shower chair, grab rails, and more adjustments Kenji can’t even remember). Even something as simple as leaving an empty spot instead of another chair at the dinner table for Ben to wheel into was Yaz’s suggestion.
Shameful as it is for Kenji to admit, he’s never really interacted with a significantly physically disabled person before (yes, he knows that’s bad) and he has no clue what he’s doing. He knows Ben hasn’t changed as a person; he’s still the Ben he— they all know and love. But whenever he tries to word those insecurities — he’s saying something wrong, he’s being an asshole, he doesn’t know if he’s doing the Right Thing — he ends up sounding like an ableist jerk.
If anyone would understand him, he thinks, it’s Ben.
Tonight’s not the night to talk about that, though. Kenji needs to deal with this. Now.
“So...” Kenji says, once Ben is parked next to where Kenji stands, leaning on the railing. The woods are silent, waiting for their emotions to fill the gaps between the trees.
“Yeah?” Ben asks, and it’s then Kenji realises he has no clue what to say.
“I just missed you,” is what he eventually comes out with.
Ben smiles back at him. “I m— missed you too.”
“And...” Kenji says after a pause, long and drawn out. “I was thinking... since we’re both so, um... we’re spending a lot of time together,” Kenji clears his throat. “I wanna know if you— you have any, like... boundaries, or— or triggers I need to know of.”
Ben laughs softly. “Triggers? Boundaries? Who is this new Kenji?”
“Uh— someone who’s matured as a person, and put in the time and dedication for self improvement.”
And, someone who did not spend two months living with Yaz, Sammy and Brooklynn bullying him into talking about his feelings not to use that vocabulary now. Even if therapy talk does feel a bit weird to say, like how talking kindly to himself for the first time felt like speaking a foreign language. It’ll fall onto his tongue easier with practise; he just needs to tough it out in the meantime.
“Well done you,” Ben says, laughing, a motion that quickly splits into a yawn. Shit. Kenji really doesn’t have much time. Ben deserves rest, and frankly, Kenji’s getting pretty tired too.
After a moment, Kenji asks, “So, what— what triggers or whatever do you have?”
Ben nods, his eyes screwed shut in what seems like frustration. “Ah. Right. Sorry. I, uh... forgot.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Kenji says, his hand reaching out to cup Ben’s cheek before he can help himself— and then he’s bending down, looking straight into Ben’s eyes that hold the moon in its irises...
And he’s fallen, diving straight into another of those moments that should feel more wrong than they do. Like they’re the last two people on the planet, and whatever happens next is for their eyes only. When Kenji can see the ebb and flow of his breath against Ben’s, perfectly imperfect in its harmony. When his heart stops — not forever, but curiously pausing, waiting to see what will happen...
Ben clears his throat, the moment fractures like glass, and Kenji looks away like he was caught staring at someone naked.
“Uh...” Ben blinks several times, lost for words.
“Sorry— about that,” Kenji says, moving away. “I didn’t...” he didn’t what? Didn’t mean to? Didn’t want to? Didn’t enjoy it? Whatever he’d say, it would be a lie. And he can’t lie to Ben. Not since he promised everything would be fine if he could only get Ben to the airfield in time.
“It’s... okay,” Ben eventually says, his voice fractured but his words steady, and his smile even steadier. Kenji beams back at him, and the moonlight smooths over whatever awkwardness might’ve lingered between them. “I like, um...” Ben’s lips twitch slightly with a barrage of words his body won’t let him say, and Kenji’s heart hurts for him. “Yeah. It’s okay.”
“So... what else is okay?” Kenji finally dares ask.
“Well, you have to, um... fuck, what’s the word?”
“Look after you?”
“Yeah. That.” Ben heaves a difficult sigh. “I— I— I know you have to do that — and I’m okay with that— uh... helping me get... get dressed. Tr... transferring me in and out of my wheelchair, giving me my— my, uhm— m...”
“Medications?”
“I almost had it!” Ben snaps, anger edging his tone, but it fades as quickly as it came, and his face becomes overcast with undeniable sorrow. “I’m sorry. But— you see what I mean. You have to put up with a lot from me now.”
“Ben, I’m not— I’m not “putting up with it” because I have to,” Kenji says in disbelief. “I want to look after you.”
“And you’re... okay with that?” Ben looks at him like he dreads either answer.
“Sure I am,” Kenji says, as easily as breathing. “You’re here so we can look after you; we wouldn’t have agreed to that if we weren’t completely okay with it.”
He doesn’t mention how he and the girls had a calendar counting down the days until Ben was due to come back. He doesn’t mention how he and Yaz went around the house three times the night before Ben’s scheduled arrival making sure everything was accessible for the wheelchair Kenji knew Ben would be using. He definitely doesn’t mention the nights he spent crying in the girls’ arms because of how much his heart ached knowing Ben almost died because Kenji wasn’t strong enough to stop it.
“It doesn’t make... make you...” Ben falters again and this time, Kenji waits patiently, until Ben comes out with, “Uncomfortable. Does it?”
Kenji scoffs playfully. “Oh, please. Course not.” His voice turns more serious as he says, “I wouldn’t have offered to take care of you if I didn’t want to, and it’s the same with the others.”
“No, I mean... helping me change my clothes, going to...” Ben drops his voice, “going to the toilet, changing my wound... dressings, that doesn’t— doesn’t make you guys f— feel weird?”
“Mom’s literally a nurse, and she doesn’t feel weird about it,” Kenji says, choosing his words carefully. “It’s a job that needs doing, and she just does it. No reason I can’t do it too.”
“Well your mom trained for— for... how long?”
“About six years, I think. But,” he adds, upon seeing Ben’s sceptical expression, “I’ve learned a lot from her. I’m qualified to do stitches now!”
“I don’t think that’s how that works, Kenj,” Ben says, but he’s smiling softly, as much as his tired muscles will allow him. “I think I’m okay with... you, looking after me.”
“You will say if you’re not, okay?” Kenji says, looking sincerely into his eyes, “Because I don’t want to do anything you aren’t one hundred percent okay with.”
“And...” Ben’s eyebrows scrunch in evident effort to get the words out, and Kenji’s heart aches watching. No matter how much Brooklynn and Yaz drilled him on disability etiquette once it became apparent Ben would be a lot more significantly disabled than they thought, Kenji will always feel something awful when he sees Ben struggle. Maybe it’s love. Maybe it’s concern. Maybe it’s guilt.
Ben clears his throat, and starts over. “And you sure I won’t make you...”
Ben motions with his hands for Kenji to finish the sentence, and he guesses, “Uncomfortable?”
Ben clicks his fingers into a finger-gun shape. “Yeah.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Kenji says sincerely. “I will always say if you cross a line, okay?”
Ben gives him a strange look. “Even if I’m dying?”
The question grabs Kenji by the throat. Because, truth be told, they both had crossed lines in the hyperloop. They’d been close in a way they couldn’t have predicted, understood, or blamed each other for. Ben was dying. Kenji just... wanted him to die comforted. He’s seen his mum collapse in the middle of a store in a shrieking pile of agony, he’s seen his father— his dad torn to pieces by atrociraptors. He couldn’t let Ben bleed to death alone.
So all thoughts of Ben’s girlfriend, and Kenji’s confusing feelings, and the outside world, were left behind on another level of Biosyn and their existence. And Kenji couldn’t let Ben die alone. So he held him. He let Ben cling to his arm, and hug him, and rest his head on his shoulder, and Kenji held him back. With the walls of the helicopter shielding him from prying eyes, and two paramedics who had far more important things to think about, he kissed Ben’s hand.
And Kenji wanted it. He can’t deny that. Terror might’ve burned his butterflies alive, but he can’t deny that they existed. Between the dilophosauruses, and hauling Ben back and forth, and the ceiling crumbling, there were butterflies. He knows they only live for a matter of weeks, but they’re pollinators. They spread life across the world, and lay the seeds for life and feelings to grow. Only time will tell if his feelings will fertilise the foliage and grow into something great and tall.
But there were butterflies. And that matters, because Kenji... might be a little bit... in love with Ben.
“Yes,” he declares, confident as the trees. “Even if you’re dying, I’ll always tell you the truth.”
“Do you love me?”
Kenji feels like he was hit by a truck. “What?”
“Do you love me?” Ben repeats, his tone unreadable.
“Why...” that doesn’t matter, Kenji! He shakes it off, and says, “Of— of course I love you. We’re— friends.”
Ben doesn’t seem satisfied with the answer. “You, um... fuck damn it, I can’t... words, but you... I don’t feel like that’s all it is.”
“We’re just... affectionate, that— that’s all!” Kenji exclaims. “You know how our friend group is.”
“Guess so.”
But— the thought catches Kenji off guard, like an arrow to his chest— if Ben has to ask that, does that mean he felt something different, too? Did his skin burn, and his heart flutter, and his stomach twist itself into knots, when Kenji held him? Did he feel the same way too?
“Why did you ask me that?”
“I— I—” Ben immediately starts to panic, his speech unintelligible — and watching him try to push words from a tongue that doesn’t want to cooperate, a pang of guilt spears directly through Kenji’s heart.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Kenji says, raising a hand to try to calm him. “You don’t have to say.”
“No, it’s... it’s fine,” Ben says — trying to protect people’s feelings even when he’s like this. “It’s just... I have— I have a girlfriend, Kenji,” Ben says, his eyes downcast. “I don’t know what you think I— I feel—”
“Oh— no, no, nonono, God, no, Ben...” The words stumble out of him, like people trying to escape a burning building, clamouring at the doors as several rush through at once. “I— I— I wasn’t thinking... I was just curious. Really.”
“Oh... Okay.”
And Ben sounds so defeated, Kenji almost takes it all back. Almost. He knows his limits. He knows his place in this world. He knows his life is well and truly good for the first time in a while — possibly in his whole life. He sleeps in a trailer that echoes emptiness, but lives in a house overflowing with love. He falls asleep with his brother in the opposite bed just like they used to do when they were kids unable to spend ten minutes apart. He wakes up to sunshine beaming through the beautiful California trees he’s surrounded by. He has it good.
Yet when Ben’s head hangs so sadly, none of that matters and it feels like his heart is breaking in two.
“Hey, we are friends,” Kenji says. At least that never changed, and he hopes with all his heart it never will. He’s lost Ben too many times in too many different ways, he knows he wouldn’t survive another.
“Yeah. Best friends.” Ben smiles warmly, and damn it Kenji can feel his ears burning red. Thank goodness for the low light. The moonlight casts her eyes away from Kenji’s shame, and allows the moment to slip by unnoticed.
Kenji can’t resist bumping Ben’s shoulder with his own. “Aw, Benny. You sap.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m a dork, whatever.”
And there’s just a little too much self loathing in his tone, a darkness that can’t be laughed away, for Kenji to resist saying, “Well, maybe. But we love that you’re a dork. We love your weird dork pouch, and your dorky obsession with punk bands no one’s ever heard of, and your dorky hair.”
Kenji gives it a ruffle, and Ben scowls. “I’ve barely had time to cut it!”
That sends another pang of guilt through Kenji’s heart, so he says, strained, “Fair enough.” And after a beat, “And it looks cool, actually. Not dorky. Like... like some cute boy band’s hair, or something.”
“Oh really?” Kenji can hear the smug little smirk in Ben’s voice. “So what I’m hearing is, you think I’m pretty?”
Kenji scoffs. “Who doesn’t?”
Ben looks... genuinely surprised by that. Shock and the moonlight shine in his eyes, and his voice shakes as he says, “You... still think that?”
“Duh. What do you mean ‘still’?”
“Well...” Ben motions vaguely to his lower body. “I’m kinda... Not exactly the marvel of muscle I once was.”
Kenji doesn’t even dispute that. Ben was extraordinarily strong, and he can’t imagine how difficult it must be to have to cope with watching all that hard-earned strength slip away faster than Ben can snatch it back. Even with three month’s time between his injury, his atrophied muscles are noticeably smaller, and Ben has lost a lot of weight, leaving his figure long and thin like a beanstalk.
But for Ben to think he’s not attractive?
“Uh, dude. You’re a straight up hottie.”
Ben’s eyebrows shoot up, and Kenji realises he has massively overstepped a boundary. “Uh— fuck, I’m sorry! I— I— I didn’t mean it like that, ob— obviously, sorry, I just. Objectively. You’re hot. Gia’s lucky to have you.”
The sincere moment is ruined by now, but Ben still smiles. “Thanks, Kenji. I appreciate that.”
They sit in silence longer, undeniably more intimate than anything Kenji did with Brooklynn. He never learned to be okay with silence around her, and maybe he should’ve. (Or maybe, he should’ve left when the silence started to suffocate him.) But either way, he can be quiet with Ben in a way he can’t with anyone else.
In a way he’s never seen Ben be with Gia.
When Kenji was younger — far, far younger, with two missing front teeth and unruly hair sticking up — he remembers sitting on his mother’s lap as she played piano. (Mozart, always Mozart. He was her favourite.) The soft melodies falling into his ears with ease. She once told him, “music is not in the notes, but in the silence between,” and Kenji was always confused by it. Music is in the music, obviously. How could silence hold more than the music itself?
But now, his stillness in harmony with Ben’s, stretching out a century, Kenji finally understands it.
Ben’s soft voice breaks the moment. “I like it when you hold me.”
Each word is measured, like it was something Ben spent that whole century of silence practising saying.
Kenji’s heart hitches in his throat. “You... do?”
“Yeah.” Ben’s smile is the purest, softest thing he’s ever seen. “You make me feel safe.”
And Kenji wishes he could return the statement — because Ben did make him feel safe. Ben was stable; Kenji’s rock in the storm. He can handle anything.
But Kenji’s never been more terrified for anyone in his life. Yeah, Ben’s fine now, but what if— what if something happens? What if he gets worse? What if there’s a complication the doctors missed? What if he gets really sick, or... Kenji can’t even think it. It’s barred out in solid black in his brain; a safety barrier only shattered by his nightmares.
“Don’t ever die.” The words slip out of Kenji’s mouth, piercing the tender moment like a— God, he’s sick just remembering it.
Ben looks confused, a little shocked, even, but Kenji finds himself dropping to his knees — both of them — and clutching Ben’s cold, shaking hands in his own. “Please. You have to be careful with yourself.”
“I... I will.” Ben’s eyes are wide— scared, Kenji realises, a lightning bolt of guilt forking through his heart. “I’m taking all m— my meds, I’m doing my exercises, I’m resting, I’m...” His face relaxes into a smile. “I’m okay, Kenji.”
He is.
And like the biggest loser in the world, Kenji almost starts crying. Almost. It takes all the strength he has to gulp his tears and feelings down, and it feels like being forced to swallow his own sick.
“You’re okay,” Kenji’s voice is nothing but a wisp of air, punctuated by the consonants, the body of the sound gutted, just like Ben... fuck, his mind is morbid tonight. He can’t look at Ben without thinking of blood — because how can he? How can he just... move on, after that? In every sense of the word, part of his soul will forever be stuck somewhere in the hyperloop, the weight of Ben’s body and the consequences if he fails to save him both crushing his chest to pieces.
Yet, Ben looks at Kenji like he sees every part of him — past his insecurities and performances and the mess he strings in front of himself so no one will see the soft, gentle, scared soul he is — and all of that fear fades away.
Ben slowly slides a hand over Kenji’s shoulder, and his muscles twitch with a movement (a longing?) to pull him closer. It’s as much as his body can do and his eyes shine with a want for so much more, and Kenji closes the distance for him.
There’s air between them, and then there isn’t. There’s unsaid things between them, and then none of those matter. There’s pain and suffering and worry, and then there is warmth: an invisible force field around the two nothing in the universe could shake or shatter. Ben’s arms wrap around Kenji, warm and soft and shaking and spasming slightly — and it’s then, Kenji feels a flicker of that familiar safety he used to feel with Ben. A familiar blanket of strength, wrapped around his shoulders, warmer than any fire could make him.
Ben’s strength lies close to him, tucked beneath his muscles, held closely next to his heart. He’s a hurricane people never see coming, an explosion carefully contained underneath his skin. Even now, Ben would throw himself into the line of fire for any one of the camp fam in a heartbeat — and this time, it might actually be the end of him.
Kenji always thought the grandest act of love was dying for someone. But dying for someone is easy. It’s passive, and painful, and only happens once. Real love is a million small things: washing dishes and cheek kisses and waiting up late until the other person comes home. A house is far easier to bulldoze than build brick by brick. But he’ll build this house, plant the tree in the backyard, his hands will grow calloused, and he’ll wait. The best things are worth waiting for.
Ben’s breath is warm on Kenji’s cheek as he says, “We should go b... bed now.”
“Yeah. You’re right.”
Kenji takes the handles of his wheelchair once again, and pushes him inside. Ben’s hair is temptingly soft in front of him, and Kenji longs to affectionately ruffle it and make it stick up, just to smooth it down like the tease he is.
(Maybe it’s on Kenji, then, that he never let Ben know how much he wanted him. Never said I love you to him without a million stones thrown to knock those words down to something less terrifyingly real.
But now, longing is burning, overflowing in his heart. The water levels are rising, swallowing him bit by bit. He can’t bury it anymore, and he knows it’s only a matter of time before those feelings show up to drown him to death.
Yet all it takes to ease it, all he needs to forget the flooding pit he’s stuck in, is the way Ben turns around, and smiles.
Kenji’s grinning before he is even aware of his own face. “Hey, you.”
“You’re...” Ben trails off, but somehow it feels like an entirely different reason than his usual speech impediment. “I appreciate you. So much.”
Despite the tiniest twinge of disappointment it’s appreciate and not love, Kenji can’t help but stop Ben’s wheelchair, and hug him in the middle of the living room. His back hurts a little to bend down to Ben’s height, but he would do it all again, millions of times over, to be this close to him.
Silently, he mouths “I love you” into Ben’s hair. Even if he never hears it, he knows it’s there, tucked between the strands of his ridiculously soft hair, and Kenji can add one more strength to what Ben holds near and dear. Being loved and cherished, in whatever way that might mean for Ben, will stick with him for the rest of his life.
And suddenly, Kenji sees himself, sometime in the far-off future, older and stronger, lifting Ben out of his wheelchair into an effortless bridal carry, looking into his eyes with nothing but love as they head to bed, settling down with Kenji’s head resting on Ben’s chest as they fall asleep tangled in each other’s arms.
The image is gone as quickly as it came, but — just like the butterflies — it was there. If Kenji can be brave enough to let the butterflies pollinate, and the dreams last, maybe they’ll stay even longer.
It takes time. It takes patience. It takes waiting. Three things Kenji never thought he’d have when he was waiting for Ben to die in the hospital. But he served his time, and Ben rests warm and steady against Kenji’s body. He waited, and it paid off.
And... he’ll wait for even more. Even if he barely stands a chance, he’ll wait. He’s waited for Ben to come back from the dead, laid down in that cesspool of anticipation and let it swallow him before. His patience was rewarded, and he’ll do so again. Even if he waits for the rest of... for the rest of his life, yes, even if he waits for eternity, he will do it. A life spent loving Ben is a life worth living.
Even if... even if Ben never loves him back. (The thought is a sigh, a deep exhale of sadness, but Kenji lets it sit with him.) Even if it burns his skin and flutters his heart and twists his stomach into knots just to touch him. Even if he has to watch a tiny part of his soul die every time he sees Gia’s pink lipstick stain Ben’s cheek. Even if he’s nothing more than the best man at Ben’s wedding. Having Ben in any way is better than never having him at all, and the moonlight tracing each curve of Ben’s face as the quiet of the moonlight pours into every corner of the room is all Kenji can ask for.
And if, after helping a sleepy Ben into bed, Kenji leans to the side and kisses Ben’s cheek, only the moon is awake to see it, Kenji’s dreams are full of soft skin and softer lips, and it’s as if it never happened at all.