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Their quirks don’t always line up quite right.
The teacher will be at the chalkboard, lecturing in that droning voice of his, with the quiet murmur of classmates’ voices overlapping like a steady flow – Langa hadn’t realized that something akin to a stream or river could be anything other than relaxing. His hair isn’t sitting correctly on the back of his neck. It’s itchy.
Well, not even itchy, but the mere presence of it has him holding his breath, willing the sensation away as he trains his face into a semblance of concentration. He knows that the expression on his face – or lack thereof – is starting to crack. Too many lines of dialogue are happening at once and he blinks hard, struggling to hear the lecture. His notes are nonexistent.
He knows that Reki’s are also going to be lacking today, given the fidgeting and restless sighs occurring one seat over.
No, their quirks sometimes work against each other. While Langa is training his eyes to glance at the clock, at the door, at the wrinkles above his teacher’s eyebrows (anywhere but the eyes), Reki is tapping his foot and most likely picking at the skin next to his fingernails. Secondhand anxiety is seeping over like osmosis.
They both have their odd off days when the world feels shifted and slightly unbalanced, but it's rare that the worst of the days line up so ironically in sync. One glance over at Reki confirms everything. He’s taken to cracking his knuckles, one at a time, shifting flightily in the uncomfortable metal chair. It’s as if he’s bound to shoot off at any moment like a rocket and flee towards the nearest exit.
Forty-three minutes until lunch.
The knuckle-cracking isn’t loud enough to disturb the class, but it’s enough for Langa to want to cuff his hands over his ears and press his face into the desk so that it goes away. There are too many sounds, always overlapping just enough that he can’t tune into any of them in particular. He wonders if his classmates can sense the brewing storm in his head just from the tiniest wisp of hair grazing against the back of his neck. He wonders if the girls would stop looking at him with the same empty adoration if they knew he nearly threw a tantrum this morning because his usual tea mug was dirty and there wasn’t enough time to wash it. The feeling of unfamiliar ceramic has stuck to his mouth all day.
-
School is tough for both of them at the best of times, but homework is high up on the list as well. Their friendship is impenetrable at this point, it’s a given fact, but that doesn’t stop the tension that arises when they’re both huddled in their corner of Reki’s bed with textbooks on their laps. Reki is on his fourth ‘break’ (can you call it that with half a math problem completed?) and he’s chattering on about some woodworking channel he’s been enamored with online.
Langa thinks that he’s smiling at the right moments, nodding when it’s appropriate, but then Reki’s animated expression dulls to something confusing. His eyebrows draw tight and he tilts his head with a slight frown. Langa nearly assumes that it’s disappointment that the conversation is clearly one-sided, but he pushes that fear away. Surely, he’s misunderstanding.
Right?
“Dude. I just realized you haven’t said a word since lunch. You don’t have to talk, but give me a thumbs up if you’re okay?”
Langa feels his shoulders sag. This is why he couldn’t stand to lose this thing they’ve got. No one has ever treated him the way that Reki does. There’s a genuine understanding between them, a lack of judgment that most people fail to provide.
You don’t have to talk.
Since he was three, at the age that most children talk and talk and never shut up, he’s heard constant demands to be more outspoken. Friends of his parents would either applaud Nanako and Oliver for raising such a ‘mature’ child, an old soul, or they would do something worse – constantly push and push him to speak more.
Wow, you don’t say much, huh?
Oh, he can speak!
It gets old.
Langa lifts the corners of his mouth into the best smile he can muster and gives Reki a thumbs up.
“Are you sure?”
Langa nods. He isn’t sure why he has this stubborn lump in his throat, but he knows that he’s okay. More than okay, really. He’s sitting knee to knee with his best friend in the world, and for a second he can forget all the info-dumping and fidgeting and facts that are irrelevant to the worksheet due tomorrow. Reki has so much patience for him; he can spare some in return.
“Okay, cool. Let me know if I’m bothering you. I’m just – my brain moves too fast sometimes, you know? It’s like if I don’t let it all out, it’s just trapped up there and there’s no room for math. But here, let’s check out this next problem. I think I actually have some examples from class in my notes.”
Langa lingers in the Kyan household more than he likes to admit to himself. It’s hard not to want to stay when everything is warm and cozy, in its own chaotic and loving way. The girls mostly leave them alone now, especially when Koyomi will entertain the twins and Masae is in the kitchen talking to Reki’s grandmother. The noise doesn’t ring in his ears as it does in class. This is a softer, relaxing hum. It’s familiar in a way that Langa didn’t realize it could be.
It reminds him of being younger when his father would have friends over to watch some sports game on TV and the conversation was distant and pleasant. Reki even lets him borrow a warm sweatshirt when the sun goes down and it begins to grow colder inside. Langa is wearing it now, tugging the sleeves down to the edges of his wrists where it doesn’t fit quite perfectly. He’s always been a bit lanky.
Reki is playing Animal Crossing and once again they’re close enough that parts of their bodies are touching. Their ankles are crossed towards the end of the bed and Langa’s posture has slouched enough that he can rest his head on a sturdy shoulder, broader than his own. A sense of contentment has brought his voice back, a fact that he’s grateful for. He knows Reki loves to talk, and despite the accommodating and doting worries, he’s felt guilty all evening for not speaking.
He knows it’s not normal, or fair, but around other people with each minute that ticks by, his anxiety only grows and festers. He’ll fixate on the fact that he’s being too quiet until his brain shuts down and pushes him back inside his little box of fear and words feel like manual labor, heavy at the back of his throat. It’s different here. He’s able to chip away at that box in tiny increments until it’s safe to emerge.
Reki is always waiting for him at the other side.
“I don’t think you should kick that villager out,” he says.
Reki’s fingers hover over his buttons, hesitating only for a second before he recovers. He doesn’t even comment on the prepubescent-sounding crack in Langa’s voice.
“Why not? He’s kind of ugly.”
“I like his shirt. It’s snazzy.”
“Yeah, but look at his dumb little face,” Reki snorts out a quiet laugh.
“Look at your dumb little face.”
“Hey!”
A sharp elbow shoves into his ribs and Langa retaliates, scuffling with Reki until they’re all rumbled blankets and snickering laughter. He knows he’ll have to go home soon, but he would almost give up his own safe bed and his persistent nighttime routines for this. Almost.
-
After midterms…and a few other average weeks, the group of skaters ends up at S.
And – no, backtrack. An average few weeks?
Langa would argue that it was anything but.
In the most mundane of ways, it was average. He woke up, he went to school, he had his four meals a day and skated with Reki and hung out with Reki and kissed Reki – Yeah.
It isn’t a huge story to tell, really. It was kind of anticlimactic and involved a chilly night at the skatepark that had them scuffed up and tired and sitting on the ground next to a shitty halfpipe. Reki had gone all quiet and contemplative and he looked so peaceful under the glow of the stars that it felt irresponsible not to kiss him right then and there.
So… a minor change in their everyday dynamics.
They haven’t talked about it a lot, but now they link pinky fingers at lunch, and buying each other drinks from the vending machines now comes with a shy expression and a warm swooping feeling in Langa’s stomach. But he digresses.
They’re at S.
Something is brewing, a tension in the air nearly crackling with electricity, but it isn’t from his newfound admiration for his best friend. It’s more menacing than that. A certain ‘Matador of Love’ had made his entrance shortly after they all arrived for the night, and now the entirety of the Crazy Rock is bursting with excitement over the prospect of Adam challenging someone and hopping onto his board. The last time Adam raced was with Langa, in that thrilling encounter that left him barreling down a mountainside with no regard for his own life or what may have been at the bottom of it.
Langa’s heart has been thumping something fierce since Adam’s arrival, with racing thoughts providing him with vivid imagery he’d rather not remember. That flash second he had seen his father beckoning him. The garish costume trailing ahead of him on the coffin-shaped board. The feeling of sharp hands holding his waist tight, pulling him into a dance that he never agreed to.
God.
And they just keep getting pulled deeper into the crowd because the entire place is a crowd now. It’s as if the mere mention of Adam’s name summoned more and more people into the space, pushing and shoving to get a glimpse of the man himself. Langa steels himself as they venture onward, barely hearing Joe and Cherry’s argument about how they would agree to handle this situation.
It was supposed to be a normal night of S. They were supposed to goof around and skate and Langa was even going to ask Reki for a rematch after their infamous race together since he had actually managed to lose in the final quarter. But now he can hardly sense Reki’s presence next to him.
He balls his hands into fists, but his skating gloves block him from the grounding sensation of fingernails against his soft palms.
“I think Joe should be the one to challenge him,” Miya pipes up.
“That idiot doesn’t need to be out there. It should be me,” Cherry scoffs.
Miya’s reply comes instantly. “Yeah, well, I don’t think your old man brain can recover from another hit to the face.”
“That was barbaric. It didn’t count as a real match.”
“You’re not going up against him again, Kaoru,” Joe says.
It comes with an air of finality that shuts them all up. It’s then that Reki makes himself known again, grabbing onto Langa’s wrist with a firm hand.
“None of us should entertain his bullshit. Let him tire himself out until no one here wants anything to do with him anymore,” he says.
Miya’s eye roll is more audible than it is visible.
“You’re all so boring.”
-
For some reason, the breakdown doesn’t come until the actual race begins. It may have been the pushing and shoving to the sidelines that did it, or the general loudness, or the look of fear in the random opponent’s eyes as Adam mimicked putting out a burning cigarette on the guy’s arm. It doesn’t really matter what set him off. Only that it did.
Langa’s flight or fight kicks in mid-match, and he stumbles away from the scene as flight wins the tug of war in his bones. He ends up in some random coves set within the side of the jagged rock, somewhere with less commotion now that the star had taken off on the main path. His breaths are coming in quick and sharp, a sure sign that this isn’t simply a quick break for the sake of his sanity.
No, it’s more.
He feels like he might just die there with the way he’s struggling to get a deep breath. His turtleneck collar is invasive and threatens to send him into a fit as he slides down to the ground, probably staining his stupid cream-colored pants on the way down. He tugs at it uselessly and rubs at his cheeks with sweaty hands.
Things haven’t been this intense in a while.
Langa does everything he knows to do – things his therapist back in Canada had instilled. The timed inhales and exhales do little to soothe him. The minute he tries to pick out things in his environment that he can see, smell, touch, or feel, he’s simply brought back to what caused his breakdown in the first place.
It must have been Adam that triggered this… this meltdown.
That’s what it is.
In a moment of clarity, he thinks of his mother, speaking in hushed tones to a middle-aged pediatrician in an artificially bright room that smelled of antiseptics. Meltdowns. That’s what she had called them.
It wasn’t long after that he received his diagnosis, actually. He could almost snort out a laugh if it didn’t feel as though his bones were locking in place, his knobby shoulders cementing into place as he pushes his head between his knees.
Breathe.
Literally, just breathe! It’s not an Olympic sport.
Nevertheless, he finds himself stuck, gasping out a short cry that wracks his frame. It’s humiliating to be doing this at nearly eighteen years old. There’s no imminent danger coming to swoop him away, but it doesn’t help at all, nothing is helping, he’s going to be stuck here until –
“There you are! Hey man, are you good?”
Great. Fantastic, even. It can get more humiliating.
Joe’s familiar voice sounds farther away than Langa knows it is, like there’s a wall somewhere between them, cushy and insulating. Or like he’s underwater.
Langa wipes the back of his hand across his face, trying desperately to conceal any fallen tears that may have slipped through. All he can bear to look at is the boring dirt ground and the bottoms of his dusty purple converse.
“Did something happen?”
“Do you need help up?”
That’s far too many questions. Langa manages to shake his head, which is now aching something fierce.
“Can you look at me?”
Another halfhearted shake. Langa’s hands lock in tight to his hair and he tugs sharply; anything to stay grounded.
Once he had been in the shops with his parents and a meltdown similar to this occurred. They had been trying to get him to try on clothes for school and nothing would sit on his body the right way. He held it together until his dad insisted that he needed new shoes. He didn’t want new shoes, he liked the ones already on his feet, even if they were getting snug as he grew taller.
His dad had sat him down and convinced him to try on a nice pair of sneakers. And then his socks got all folded up inside the shoe and that was the final straw. Langa had ended up kicking his feet in frustration and crying hot tears that led to a very apologetic Nanako paying for the damn things anyways, and Oliver carrying out a screaming seven-year-old over his shoulders.
How is this still happening? Shouldn’t he have grown out of it? He’s still that little kid throwing tantrums when things don’t go his way.
Dumb, dumb, du –
“Yeah, I found him. No, um. He’s- could you just come to us? I’ll text you where we are. Yeah. Okay. It’s fine, Reki, don’t-“
Joe’s words fade off as the call ends. Langa sniffs, angry to find that he’s still crying. It’s made worse by the fact that he can’t stop thumping his fist against the back of his head. He knows it’s a wretched habit, one that his therapist made a priority to stop, but it’s somewhat effective in getting his thoughts under control. One impulse for another.
The rhythmic motion distracts him from any fleeting image of Adam’s stupid face.
-
Some minutes pass without incident, and then he senses the presence of another person. His knuckles are still repetitively knocking against his skull, but more gently than before. It's not like he’s truly hurting himself. He’s got a hard head, after all.
The motion is only interrupted by an intervening hand pulling his arm away.
“Come on now, stop that,” Reki chides.
His voice is different than it normally sounds, but not in the weird underwater way that Joe’s was. It’s nice. Soothing.
“Let’s get you home, dude. You need to sit up straight for me.”
It’s easier to convince his muscles to loosen when Reki is the one telling him what to do. He straightens out his legs slowly and lowers his arms to his sides. His chest still feels like a knot, and he can’t look up from the ground, but it’s a start.
“Good. You’re okay, Langa. Everything is alright. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed. Things are kind of insane here tonight.”
“Should I get Shadow to start the car?” Joe asks.
He sounds a bit awkward, but Langa tells himself he’s imagining it. Joe is never awkward or unsure. He would never be caught dead in the state that Langa’s currently in.
“Yeah, please. We’ll be there soon.”
“Alright. Call me straight away if you need anything.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Once Joe is gone, Reki’s hands are suddenly planted firmly on his shoulders. At first just to rest, but then his fingers lightly dig into Langa’s stiff muscles, basically forcing them to relax. It’s then that he takes in the biggest breath he’s had in what feels like hours, exhaling it slowly to savor the sensation.
“You can take a second before you try to get up. Do you need a hug?”
Langa nods. It may be selfish, but when he’s enveloped by those warm arms, he doesn’t regret it. Reki hugs him from behind, his chest pressed up against Langa’s back.
“Reki?”
“Hm?”
“Um, could you like – could you hold me a little tighter?”
It’s a strange request, but it’s granted immediately. Reki adjusts his hold so that he can really give Langa a good squeeze, and the deep pressure is like a balm straight to his anxious brain. He melts back into it, soaking up the moment for as long as it lasts. Reki doesn’t let go until Langa starts to move away from it, and that’s almost to bring the waterworks to life again.
God. He kind of loves this boy.
“Thank you, Reki.”
“Of course. Do you need anything else? We’re not in a rush, I could get you a water or-“
“A kiss?”
“Okay, now you’re just milking this whole thing,” Reki teases.
Langa raises his head in preparation for a rebuttal, but instead, he sees the other boy shuffling around to sit in front of him instead. Reki’s eyebrows are still pulled together in concern, but there’s a shine to his eyes that shows he's happy. He leans in and plants a soft kiss on the corner of Langa’s mouth, effectively taking away his breath all over again.
Langa chases the motion as Reki pulls away, making sure to get a real kiss out of the interaction. His mouth is dry, and his lips are chapped, but he doesn’t think Reki minds. The way the other boy grins into it is proof enough.
“Come on. You need to go home and sleep this off, and I feel like we have a lot to talk about tomorrow.”