Chapter Text
Fridays.
Fridays after five p.m., specifically, are a gift from whoever invented the concept of weeks.
All days have their merits, but Friday clears the field. No homework due the next day. No shifts. Nadia cooks. Ash shows up. The Nintendo Switch makes an appearance. Sometimes there’s a party to attend later in the evening.
Shorter whistles a pop song from a decade ago, off-key in the high notes but dead-on with the rhythm—years of mash-ups and smooth transitions don’t lie. It’s a shame no one’s here to hear it. Yet.
He cracks the window to let Chinatown in and his music out. Today is cool enough that Nadia won’t be on his case about wasting electricity, even though the restaurant downstairs is blasting hell-hot air up the building like it’s personal. He double-checks that the AC is really off. It is. Chinatown rings in his ears. He whistles along to it.
Ash knocks while Shorter is still perched on the windowsill, then doesn’t wait for an answer before pushing the door open. Shorter turns just in time to watch him kick off his shoes, mutter a casual “Yo,” drop his bag, and—for fuck’s sake—pull out his laptop and sink onto the couch.
“Don’t tell me that’s homework,” Shorter says. He already knows.
His friend glances up like this is a perfectly normal thing to do on a Friday night. “I always do homework here.”
“Yeah, but you usually wait until after I kick your ass at Smash. This is disrespectful.” Shorter gestures broadly. “What do you even have to do that can’t wait until tomorrow?”
“Narrative and Identity,” Ash says, eyes already back on the screen. “The misunderstanding project. I’m meeting my partner at the library tomorrow to put it together. I’m almost done. It’s just—some paragraphs sound stupid. I need to rewrite them.”
“Your paragraphs? Or his?” Ash wouldn’t hesitate to rewrite someone else’s work five minutes before a deadline and never tell them. “Does this guy even have a name?”
“My paragraphs,” Ash says, evenly. Then, after half a beat, “Name’s Eiji.”
Shorter blinks. Edgy? That doesn’t sound right. God willing, he can do the math. “A.G.? Just initials?” He stares at Ash. “That’s cold. You put on the nice shirt for this guy and you don’t even know his name?” He sighs, dramatic, ignoring on purpose the possibility that this guy might actually go by A.G. “I had my hopes up, but I guess you can’t teach old dogs new tricks.”
Ash groans. “Ei–ji,” he says. “That’s his name. It’s Japanese. Eiji Okumura.”
“Oh.” Shorter wasn’t expecting a surname. “Okay. Tell me that won’t take long. I haven’t played the Switch in a week. I’m developing a condition.”
“Just—” Ash rubs his face, then drops his hand. For a second, Shorter expects a shut up that never comes. “Fuck. Does this sound weird?”
“What?”
“That sentence. Doesn’t it sound—” Ash hesitates, frowning at the screen. “I don’t know. Like I’m a dork or something.”
“Blondie, you are a dork.” It comes out automatically. Ash doesn’t even look at him. “Let me see,” he adds, scooting closer. He leans in, reads the highlighted passage.
I don’t think I’ll ever shake off the feeling that opening up to people is dangerous. That’s why the fence is there—and yet I can’t help but reach out through the bars when someone hands me a flower.
Shorter exhales through his nose.
That’s… kind of poetic. Soft. Earnest. Borderline romantic.
He looks at Ash. “You’re such a fucking dork,” he diagnoses. “What the hell is that long dash? I remember that from the books they made us read in high school.”
“Oh my fucking God.” Ash pinches the bridge of his nose. “Why did I even ask you?”
Shorter’s voice lives best in a room that smells like dust and warm electronics.
The campus station is all of that, crammed into a box the size of a generous closet. The ON AIR sign is aggressive, red as a warning. The microphone waits in front of him like a dare.
He leans into it, a grin in his voice.
“—and if you’re one of the freaks who thinks pumpkin spice is a personality, I want you to know I respect your commitment to the bit.” He taps the desk twice with his pen. The sound comes back crisp through his headphones. “But you can’t come into my DMs acting like a cinnamon latte cured your depression. It did not. It just made you smell like a scented candle. Which is fine. Live your truth.”
He flicks his gaze to the clock stuck crooked on the wall. Someone once tried to fix it. Someone once gave up. At least it’s still accurate enough to tell him it’s almost eleven.
“Okay, alright—one last tune before I’m off,” he continues, voice dipping into something smoother. “This one’s for the people who are in love with someone they only see in the library. The kind of love where you don’t know their name, but you know their vibe.” His mouth curves; he can’t help it. Improvising is half the fun. “Don’t worry. I’m not judging you. I’m just saying—if you’re starting a situationship with a stranger because you’re already bored by October, at least make it poetic.”
Shorter kills his mic and sits back, rolling his shoulders as the song plays. He drums his fingers against the console, nodding along as if he’s conducting an orchestra instead of a playlist. In the glass of the booth window, his own reflection nods back at him.
The track fades. He turns the mic back on.
“This has been Shorter Wong, I’ll be back next Tuesday at nine. Go to sleep. Don’t forget to hydrate. And stop clenching your jaw. You’re welcome.” He taps the desk twice again. “Okay. Love you. Bye.”
The ON AIR sign clicks off, and the night playlist takes over.
Shorter hangs the headphones on their hook without looking. As soon as the pressure lifts, the room rushes back in—the hum of the computer tower, the creak of the chair—and then the knock on the glass.
He turns and grins when he sees Ash.
Shorter had made a whole thing about it on Friday—that Ash owed him. Friday-funday, sacred and non-negotiable, ruined by Ash doing homework like a freshman with something to prove.
He flicks on the lamp by the console and opens the booth door. Ash slips in like he’s breaking a rule.
Shorter clocks the paper bag immediately. “Nice. You actually brought food. I wasn’t convinced you’d follow through.”
“I was coerced.” Ash drops the bag onto the desk like it betrayed him, then sits.
“Acting like I made you hide a body—it’s just food. Relax.” Shorter gestures at the NO FOOD NO DRINKS sign taped to the wall. “If it were serious, it wouldn’t be handwritten on recycled paper.”
“Whatever.” Ash exhales. “I went to Gomakawa.”
“Gomakawa?” Shorter gasps. “But I wanted burgers.”
“You know I don’t like burgers.”
“I refuse to accept that. You just haven’t had the right one.” Shorter squints. “Did you at least get fried stuff?”
“I got you breaded pork.”
“Thank God.” Shorter digs into the bag, pulls out the katsudon, and collapses back into his chair. “What’s with all the Japanese food lately? You usually subsist on hot dogs and salads.”
Ash opens his own container—chirashi, painfully responsible, all clean lines and shrimp. “I don’t know. I walked by. It looked good.”
Shorter hums as he snaps his chopsticks apart. “Anything to do with Eiji?”
Ash’s head snaps up. “Eiji?”
“You thought I wouldn’t remember?” Shorter talks around a bite. “Have you been hanging out since the project ended?”
“Not really.” Which, from Ash, means yes. “I see him in class. Around campus. Yesterday we talked at the library.”
“Wow. You usually ghost people once you’re not legally obligated to acknowledge them.”
Ash eats in silence for a few seconds, then says, quietly, “He’s nice.”
The word makes Shorter go still. The chopsticks pause halfway to his mouth. Did he hear that right?
“Nice how,” he says carefully, like he’s approaching a skittish animal.
Ash shrugs, but it’s a bad shrug. Defensive. “Just… nice.”
Shorter keeps his tone light, terrified to break the spell that makes Ash talk. “Sounds like you want to be friends.”
Ash chews, swallows. His gaze drifts past the console, unfocused, like he’s replaying something he doesn’t realize is written all over his face. “Maybe,” he says finally. Then, quieter, almost like he’s correcting himself: “He said we were.”
Shorter’s brain rearranges itself around that sentence. “Friends,” he repeats, nodding. “That’s cool.” He takes another bite he doesn’t taste. “Then you won’t mind if I meet him.”
Ash looks up so fast it’s almost funny. Almost. “No way.”
“Wow. Immediate veto? Did I miss the part where I insulted his entire bloodline?”
“It’s not that,” Ash says, already tense. He stabs his rice with the chopsticks. Rude.
Shorter leans back in his chair, decision already made, voice easy as ever. “Relax. I’m not kidnapping him. I’ll run into him organically. Like a normal person.”
“You don’t know how to be normal.”
“Neither do you.”
Ash huffs, shaking his head, and goes back to eating. He never seems to notice the way Shorter always remembers details: name, project, timing, the café Ash mentioned once and never again.
Shorter wipes his hands on a napkin, mind already moving ahead.
Yeah—he’s meeting this guy.
Shorter leaves the apartment with his hoodie pulled up and his hands shoved in his pockets, headphones on with electro blasting just below the you’ll-be-deaf-soon warning.
Chinatown is already awake. Someone is unloading boxes from a truck. Someone is smoking on a stoop like their lungs are immortal. The air smells like damp concrete and ripe fruit and the first cold breath of fall.
Campus is a different kind of awake. People are jogging. People are holding smoothies.
The café looks like every café: warm wood, chalkboard menu, too many fake plants, and a line of students waiting to be transformed from corpses into people. Shorter stops outside the glass for a second and peers in like a detective before going in.
The smell hits him first—coffee, obviously. The ceiling speakers are playing something acoustic.
The line moves fast. Behind the counter, baristas move like someone’s holding a stopwatch. And then there’s him.
Shorter doesn’t mean to do it like this. He doesn’t mean to walk in and immediately scan for the only Asian guy like he’s playing Where’s Waldo: Cultural Edition. But Ash is terrible at providing useful information except for a name, and Shorter is a man of science.
The only Asian guy is near the espresso machine, hair black and soft-looking, dark eyes behind glasses, apron tied at the waist, sleeves rolled up like he intends to personally defeat the morning rush.
Shorter gets in line. A different barista takes his order, dead-eyed. “What can I get you?”
He glances at the menu and grins. “Pumpkin spice latte.”
“Here or to-go?”
“To-go.”
He slides over, leaning his hip against the counter. He watches Eiji—because it has to be Eiji—move. Eiji picks up a cup, checks the sticker, and works through the order with quick, practiced confidence. A minute later, he calls, “Pumpkin spice latte.” Famous first words.
Shorter takes it, warmth seeping into his palm. “Thanks,” he says, and then—because he didn’t come here just to be polite—he adds, “You’re Eiji, right?”
Eiji’s head lifts so fast it’s almost cartoonish, his mouth forming a perfect little O.
“Ah—yes. That’s me.” Eiji smiles.
Shorter can’t help it. He grins back. “Nice. Great. Hi. I’m Shorter.”
Eiji’s eyes widen further, if that’s even possible. “Shorter—”
“Wong,” he supplies, because he’s not a monster. “Ash’s friend.”
That earns a tiny delighted sound. “Oh!” Eiji says, breathy. “Ash has talked about you.”
Shorter feels his insides do something unpleasantly warm. Ash has talked about him when he wasn’t even there? His grip tightens around his latte. “He did?”
“Yes,” Eiji says, nodding quickly, like he’s excited and pretending he’s not. “He said you have a radio show and that you’re very—” He searches for a word, eyes flicking up toward the ceiling like the answer might be written there. “—funny.”
Shorter exhales through his nose. “He’s correct.”
Eiji laughs—soft, real. He glances toward the drink queue and back again, polite panic flashing across his face. “I want to talk, but—ah—could you wait a minute? Just until there’s no more line?”
“Sure,” Shorter says immediately. “I’m not going anywhere. I crawled out of bed for this. You’re not allowed to escape.”
Eiji’s smile goes brighter, like that sentence was something kind instead of something vaguely threatening. “Okay,” he says. “Five minutes.”
Shorter steps to the side and takes a sip of his drink. It tastes exactly like he expected: sweet and aggressively seasonal. He can’t decide if he hates it or loves it.
He watches Eiji work. Eiji doesn’t look like he’s performing niceness. When someone hesitates, he waits without making it awkward. When someone mumbles, he apologizes and asks for clarity like it’s the easiest thing in the world. He helps a coworker with a bag of beans. He smiles at Shorter once or twice, as if to say I didn’t forget you.
Usually, Ash complains about nice people. Says they’re phonies. But Ash needs people who make him feel safe. Not in a lame, cliché way. Not in a he needs saving way. In the very practical way of: Ash is always braced for impact, and some people make his shoulders drop without him noticing.
Shorter has done that for him, sometimes. Nadia does it too. Not many others.
Eiji looks like he does it for everyone just by existing.
The line thins. Eiji hands over a final drink, wipes the counter, then looks over at Shorter like he’s checking he didn’t imagine him.
“Okay,” Eiji says, stepping closer but still staying behind the counter like there’s an invisible leash attached to his apron. “Hi again.”
“Hi again,” Shorter says, lifting his latte. “This is surprisingly okay.”
Eiji glances at it, amused. “The pumpkin spice.”
“I ordered it for science—I swear.”
Eiji laughs again, and it’s… easy. Like they’ve been talking for years.
“So,” Shorter says, lowering his voice. “Ash really talked about me?”
“Yes!” Like it’s obvious. “He called you his best friend.”
Shorter's throat tightens. He covers it with a grin sharp enough to cut glass. “Does he—” he starts, and then gathers the willpower to stop because he didn’t come here for his own gratification. He shifts gears and settles on small talk. “What’s your major?”
“Fine arts, mostly photography,” Eiji says. “And I’m taking some journalism and writing classes too.”
“Of course you are,” Shorter says, mostly to himself.
“What about you?”
“Marketing, communications,” he says. “Someday, people will pay me to convince them they want things.”
Eiji’s eyes widen again—this is apparently his default setting. “That’s impressive.”
“It’s morally questionable, but yes.”
“Ash said you’re very charismatic.”
Shorter groans, throwing his head back dramatically. “Stop. I can’t handle this. He’s gonna deny all of it.” He takes another sip of his latte and suffers in silence.
The bell above the café door rings. He doesn’t turn right away.
Eiji’s gaze shifts over his shoulder. He brightens like someone turned a light on inside him.
Shorter turns.
Ash stands just inside the door, his hair wild around his face in the exact way it gets when he towel-dries it for five seconds and runs outside like a raccoon late to a wedding.
His eyes flick from Shorter to Eiji and back again. His body goes rigid—the unmistakable posture of someone caught doing something he doesn’t want named.
It’s 8:30.
The café windows glow with morning. Eiji is still smiling like he has no idea what he’s done.
And Ash—Ash, who does not do mornings, who barely does people, who once called brunch a moral failure—stands there with dawn slipped around his neck.
Oh, fuck.
