Chapter Text
Lovelorn.
This is a word Langa learned in the sixth grade when he heard the pack of popular girls giggling about crushes. Never did he think he'd need to use a word describing the unhappiness that comes from unrequited love in his life, but these days, it felt like the best way to describe his entire being.
Langa was lovelorn.
Reki was "average" according to the girls in his class. Average looking, with average grades, and an average personality. This opinion made Langa incredibly frustrated, almost even mad. Clearly, they never paid attention. Because if they did, they would have seen the way his eyes shone when he was excited, and his handsome dimples that made themselves known when he smiled, and his genuinely amazing sense of style, and how much he cared about everyone and everything around him, and all the things that brought Langa to be head over heels in love with him.
There was a time when even the people at S considered him average. To say Reki had average skating was genuinely insane. Reki was beautifully talented – he just lacked confidence. Langa wished he could show him how he saw him. But after Reki skated against Adam, everyone found out how amazing he was. This made Langa very, very content.
Langa and Reki had built one of the sweetest friendships Langa had ever had. Stronger than most fights could probably bring down. And Langa took more pride in being Reki's best friend than in anything, even more than he took pride in all the skating and eating contests he had won.
Enough dwelling on the past. You must know what was happening now, because it wasn't a sight to take lightly. Well, maybe Reki lying on the pavement with his hand in his hair and sunlight hitting his face just right, laughing as if the fall he just took was the funniest thing in the world, was a very common sight – but Langa's heart stopped when he saw it. So there it was: two boys in the middle of the skate park, lying on the ground after crashing into each other, and Langa could only stare with his heart in his hands as Reki looked like the prettiest damn thing ever to exist.
Reki snorted, taking a deep breath, finally letting go of his seemingly endless laughter. "That was fun," he said, eyes shining. Langa could only stare, unblinking, mouth slightly agape as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Reki adjusted his headband, which was hanging halfway off his hair. "You good, dude?"
Langa finally closed his mouth and glanced away, shaking his head. "Yeah, sorry, just didn't expect that to happen." He said with a chuckle.
And so they got back up and kept skating.
Except now Langa kept tripping.
It was embarrassing, honestly – he wasn't usually like this. But the image of Reki laughing like that, head thrown back and completely unguarded, kept surfacing at the worst possible moments and throwing him entirely off balance. The sound of it, the way the sunlight caught his face… Reki was so pretty it actually hurt, and Langa didn't know what to do with that, so instead he ate pavement. Multiple times.
They only stopped when the sky bled pink and soft swirls of white began to pull across it, the day quietly announcing it was time to go. But Reki, of course, had other plans first.
He grabbed Langa by the wrist and pulled him toward a nearby bench with that particular brand of Reki-urgency that didn't really leave room for argument. He dug through his bag – because of course he carried a small kit – and got to work applying cream to Langa's scrapes with more focus and care than he ever gave his own.
He never did this for himself. Langa had noticed.
But Reki hated seeing Langa banged up and unbothered about it, so there they were. And if Langa was being honest – which he rarely let himself be, about this – he didn't mind the bandaid Reki pressed carefully to his cheek. He'd been told it was quite cute on him. (Reki had offhandedly said so once, and Langa never forgot)
"There you go," Reki grinned. "Wanna come over? My mom made ramen."
"Not today," Langa sighed, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "My mom wants to chat about my report card."
"Uh oh," Reki said in a sing-song voice. "Well, good luck." Reki grinned, performing the familiar handshake with Langa.
Even long after Langa had walked away, his mind lingered on his hand, and the fading warmth of Reki's hand touching it. Butterflies fluttered in his stomach, but were quickly replaced by a dark twist of dread deep in his gut.
Fights weren't the only thing that ended friendships.