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The tall trees of Eden’s Garden private park lit up sodium yellow once night fell. The darkness concealed everything but the gravel path that curled around a vast central lake collecting downstream rainfall from the forest. The water was still, reflecting the stars in the sky and the leaves of the trees lining the shore. Behind the reeds the sleepy heads of ducks poked out, and soft croaks of frogs echoed across the lake surface. The streetlamp hue cast a spell of unreality over everything. At night it seemed nothing like the same place it was at day. The greens turned a strange orange, the blue water dark like void, everything more than a few armlengths away from the lit path so dark it was nothing but a silhouette against the black sky.
At night magic took over, Kai thought. He enjoyed nothing more than strolling here at nighttime, with his most favorite boyfriend in the world. Jett and he walked quietly, the gravel crunching under their shoes, both of their loud-mouths somehow having fallen into a comfortable silence. A growl came from Jett’s stomach. He stretched his arms and yawned and threw his hand around Kai’s waist where it settled to cup a slight love handle squished out by Kai’s skinny jeans. Kai didn’t like it when he touched him there, or any part of his body that was curvy, but he also couldn’t resist the way Jett touched him. At least Jett did so completely lovingly.
This silence was so unlike anything Kai was used to. He could only hear cicadas, frogs, crows and weird birds he didn’t know the names of. There were little movements around, little flicks across the grass or quivers of leaves in the exotic flower bushes, forcing him to cling tightly to Jett’s side because they scared him.
“Rehehe!” Jett laughed, as he rubbed his paw along the length of Kai's waist. “Just a squirrel, bro! Nothing stinky!”
“A squirrel…” he gasped. He’d not seen squirrels in real life for… as long as he could remember? “Can we track it? Does it have a big stash of nuts somewhere!?”
“Hrmmm…” He rubbed his index finger along his helmet. ”I say they probably do! But it’s spring now, so they might already have eaten everything from last year. But, lemme tell you bro, don’t mess with a squirrel’s nuts! Did you know squirrels hold grudges!? If we sneak into their tree hollow, they’ll talk to each other like they’re a guerilla command popping out of the trees, and if they catch you they’re gonna send a whole army to scratch your eyeballs out!”
“What the hell!? You just made that up didn’t you!”
“Rehehe~!” Jett ruffled Kai’s head. “You better believe it bro! I saw it happen in a cartoon before!”
Kai scowled at him, looking at the circular side-profile of his helmet. His muzzle bobbed up and down with every step and the whirl of the built-in fan corresponded with puffs of cloudy breath vaporizing in the cold spring night’s air.
They passed beds of flowers that grew dense and tall, and Kai knew from being here at night that they were a dark crimson like they sucked the blood out of these park-inhabiting squirrels. At night they looked so much different, still vivid but far more orange and unreal. They swirled in a light breeze and their petals fluttered like butterfly wings. He didn’t know flowers like these bloomed in March already. Going outside was like learning something new every day. Truly, he was touching grass.
A place like Eden's Garden park, to Kai it was like wandering into an exclusive fairy land for the super-rich. Everything radiated brilliant wealth. Every corner was perfectly maintained by gardeners every day. The grass was mowed neatly and every yellowed spot replaced as it went bad, the flowers all snipped once they went brown and ugly so only vivid colors remained, and the garbage cleared up every evening by a small army of janitors. The one thing they could invest in was probably nicer lighting, though the sodium vapor lamps had something romantic too. It dialed the magical fairy-ness to 110%.
The thought of wandering into wealth like here made Kai feel so good in the greediest, most selfish sense. God he was so rich. He was successful. He’d gotten a million likes on his most recent post, making that the seventh time this week. The money just poured into his bank account like a ceiling pipe had burst. Over ten million followers, 500% growth this year. He was going viral everyday, countless sponsors begging him to choose their brand by outbidding each other with even more absurd mountains of money. He could buy real estate, invest in the stock market, retire for life. Walking in a place like this only cemented his feeling of having made it in life.
But the wealth that surrounded him also reminded how precarious it all was. From experience he knew that reputation was built like a hollow eggshell. It didn’t help that his underage fangirls were wound tight like the spring of a trigger, and burst out into a vicious witch hunt at the slightest critique of Kai’s online personality.
Not that he liked critique, or thought other creators had a point in hating on him, or that his fans were unjustified defending him, but… It just made things worse when shit had already hit the fan.
If it wasn’t for that stupid asshole bitch making call-out video after call-out video.
“Alright, enough moping.” Jett tapped Kai’s mouth like getting a crying baby to shut up. “Tell me what’s bothering you, shrimpy!”
“Huh?” Kai furrowed his brows and looked at the black visor of Jett’s helmet. There were eyes behind there; no matter how hard it could be to see them they were there, and Kai searched as best as he could hoping to find them. But as usual at night, Jett’s eyes were hidden. “I’m not bothered by anything! I was actually just thinking how amazingly calm I was! The air is so clean here! It’s clearing my sinuses from teaching Damon how to paint his nails green in that stuffy room of his! And the sounds here are like listening to a white noise machine. I couldn’t imagine a more relaxing time than this, spending it with my handsome boyfriend, hehe…” he trailed off.
“Oh yeah? Your brows are wrinkly like a dragster’s tires launching down the track! I know that face, a slight push of extra torque and that tire goes KAPOW!” Jett swished his hands through the air like he was karate chopping imaginary wooden blanks balanced between two concrete bricks. “Before you know it the rubber bursts and your scraping your axles across the tarmac. You know what happens when your tire blows? You fucking lose! So tell me, bro!”
Kai pouted and turned his face away. “It’s nothing.”
“Tell meee!” Jett wriggled his helmet against Kai’s neck, looking up in a way so his eyes were suddenly brightly visible, shining against the overhead street lamps. His thick bushy eyebrows quirked up while he looked. He wiggled his body from side to side, as if there was a little puppy inside him sensing a disturbance in their owner’s psyche, and he wanted to console him.
Kai sighed and tried to push him back, but he clung on too firmly. “It’s just stupid drama. I don’t wanna talk drama right now.”
“But you love drama!”
“But we said this would be a relaxation walk!”
“Eh, you know what they say,” Jett shrugged. “Once a chicken, always a coyote’s meal.”
“What does that mean! You’re calling me a chicken!?”
“It means, uh…” He furrowed his thick brows and looked up in a way that was so expressive Kai could see every gear turning in his head. “I don’t know? It’s something my dad told me. I think it means you gotta be brave and confront your fears!”
“Well, if you insist,” Kai sighed. This was supposed to be a relaxation walk but at this point the cat was already out of the bag and there was no reason hiding it. “This girl told her followers that my latest sponsorship was really problematic. It’s for a company selling coffee from all over the world, but apparently it has like issues with how they treat their workers and it’s really evil. It’s so unfair of her! I’m totally trying my best! How was I supposed to know that they did all those awful things? She spent like so much time talking shit about me as if I was a literal Satan when I already offered to give the money to a charity for people suffering abroad or something! She’s really just completely jealous of me like a snake.”
“Hmmm…” Jett rubbed his paws over Kai’s belly in a way that sent tingles down Kai’s body. Jett’s physical skills were unmatched and he always knew where to touch Kai at what moment, like threading a stunt plane through a tunnel and holding the steering wheel with utmost precision. His fingers settled on Kai’s belly button where they tapped the beat to a song Kai immediately recognized as Mark’s. He shook his head and said, “You know, when the conservative drag racing crazies tried to come for me holding hands with another guy I just told them to get fucked and threw hot coffee into their faces!”
“I can’t do that! They’ll sue me!”
“Hush, baby.” Jett smooshed the leather wrinkles of his glove against Kai’s lips. “Say no more. Your cortisol levels are spiking. Baby needs a warm glass of milk. Baby needs an extra large frappe with strawberry syrup and whipped cream.”
“Sh-shut up!” Kai’s lips sputtered between his fingers.
“Hmm?” Jett nestled his helmet on Kai’s shoulder where the cold carbon exterior chilled his cheek. Without hesitation Kai sniffed the scents of bro cologne, sweaty latex and metallic gunk stuck inside the crevices of Jett’s helmet. The opposite of what Kai preferred to smell like himself, but he didn’t hate it on Jett. “I made you put your phone in the coyote fursuit helmet on top of the shelf, the one you find so weird and creepy, so you won’t get it back until I allow you. But I guess the online stuff keeps haunting you anyway? I know what it is. There’s a coyote stalking you, bro; it’s been stalking you for years. It’s howling about frappes and sponsorship deals and Satan, and it’s trying to deceive you and walk into the ambush of his pack buddies. And lemme tell ya, a coyote does not give up until a bullet pierces its brain. They are survivors, bro!”
“Jett…” Kai sighed exasperatedly. “I really have no clue what you’re talking about. You want me to shoot the girl who’s hating on me??”
“Nahhh! Enough, bro!” Jett gripped Kai’s wrist and tugged him violently to a bench off the path. Kai stumbled after him, catching his balance on Jett’s shoulder as he abruptly stopped in front of the bench. It looked out over the lake and there was a street lamp right next to it yellowing the grassy ground. “I’m gonna sit you down right now and you’re gonna hush! So you’re thinking about drama? But have you considered thinking about your handsomest boyfriend in the world!?”
“J-Jett…” Kai watched as Jett settled into the bench and patted the space next to him while his eyes narrowed into a bright inviting smile. Whenever Jett sat down he looked cute in a way that flustered Kai. He really couldn’t believe having a boyfriend so cool when the guys who tried flirting with Kai in the creator space were largely chopped twinks. Of course Kai wanted to sit down right away and rest his head on Jett’s shoulder. The bench creaked as he sat next to him, and he felt the soft warmth of Jett radiate through him, flooding his body like he was tipsy after sneaking in a cocktail at the make-up line launch party.
“Let me take the lead, okay shrimp?” Jett grabbed Kai’s two hands and pushed them into the curve of his stomach. A thick blush warmed Kai’s cheeks, ashamed to feel like a cat giving biscuits. Then he leaned closer and planted helmet’s muzzle on Kai’s lips into a skin-to-helmet kiss.
“God, Jett…” Kai gasped. The excitement in Jett’s touches overwhelmed him. The way his fingers traced Kai’s spine, how they wound around his pink hair and poked his hairclips. Shyly Kai wrapped his arms around Jett’s waist and leaned into the aggressive hugs Jett was giving him. They exchanged more kisses. “You make me light-headed,” Kai said. “Thanks Jett…”
“Rehehe! How does it feel to have a real man like me?”
“Don’t say it so weirdly!”
“But does it feel good?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
Kai whimpered helplessly. “Mhmmm…”
“Rehehe!”
And he looked out over the stars reflecting in the lake as they continued to cuddle. He really could forget all that was bothering him when Jett was there. Going for a late night walk together again turned out to be the right thing.