Chapter 4

One thing that dawned on him in that moment was how easy it was for others to baffle him. Moving from Japan to America resulted in an endless string of mild cases of culture shock throughout his teenage years. Not the kind of culture shock that inspired deep resentment or anger against the unfamiliar culture—but rather, anxiety and confusion. It made receding and keeping to himself the ideal coping mechanism.

Additionally, there was the problem of language. Kiku was aware of, but helpless against his misinterpreting the intentions of those around him, because of the different nuances and subtleties of communicating in English. Reading the atmosphere was now akin to reading some utterly foreign language, like trying to decipher Greek symbols.

But when it came to this moment, the only thing Heracles' words could sound like was a confession. The kind that dating sims reserve entire cutscenes for, but Heracles had said so effortlessly.

Electric signals spun uselessly like uncontrollable motors in Kiku's brain, then stopped. The only response he mustered: "Oh."

Kiku quickly looked away. From the corner of his eye, he saw that Heracles also finally looked away and had kept a small amused smile on his face.

More silence. Kiku instead tried to concentrate on the cold and realized he was shivering a little. For some reason, he felt pressured to say "I like Heracles, too," but he had to think first, in what way he meant it, if he did say it. And why Heracles said what he did, and what exactly he meant. And—

A warm jacket circled his body. He looked up.

Heracles' voice. "You look cold." The warm jacket closed in.

Kiku suddenly stood up, making his eyes level with Heracles' chin, which was now only a few inches from his face. His legs, stiff from sitting for so long, moved on their own. So did his heart rate, apparently. His eyes moved up to Heracles' own surprised ones.

The warmth reminded him of the store. The cashier! The one who asked Kiku to tell Heracles to go take his shift.

"Your shift, at the store," Kiku blurted. He felt even warmer now. Too warm. Words were evaporating before they could leave his mouth, leaving his sentence incomplete.

Heracles didn't look alarmed. Rather, he looked a bit concerned, and his hand reached up and rested itself on Kiku's forehead, as if feeling for a temperature.

Hot. Where Heracles' skin met Kiku's forehead felt really hot. The heat started to spread from Kiku's head to the rest of his body, like a fire. Heracles was the fuel.

"You're all red."

Kiku needed to escape. For some reason, he felt exposed, he felt the need to flee. Like a reflex, Kiku politely said "please excuse me" before breaking away from the fire back into the cold with a sprint.

"Soooooo, Mei says her friends from China are arriving tomorrow. She says we can drop by her place and meet them in the afternoon," Yong Soo said cheerfully through the phone.

"That sounds great." Kiku replied. The metal of his own cell phone felt cool against his ear. He had left it near the window of his room, thus exposing it to the chilly air of the day by accident, rather than charging it near his bed, where he was sipping tea at the moment.

"A friend from Vietnam is also flying in later. She's apparently reeeeeally cute… and single! Hint, hint."

"Who are the other people?" Kiku asked, eager to shift the subject away and prevent Yong Soo from setting him up in another scheme. He blew on his tea a bit while listening to his friend's response, pushing some of the steam up in his face.

"Well, one of them has got this complicated Chinese name that I can't pronounce, and his eyebrows are pretty impressive, I gotta say. The other one is…" Yong Soo paused and spoke in a quieter voice, as if someone was eavesdropping on their conversation. "She's an older woman. And she's HOT."

Kiku remained purposefully silent, unmoved. The sound of him puffing air on his tea is the only thing audible over the phone at the moment.

Yong Soo, expecting this reaction from his friend, just continued. "Her name is Yao or something. It's a pretty boyish-sounding name to me, but I guess it's pretty cute."

Yao. That sounded familiar. It was definitely a guy's name, though. "How do you know it's a woman?"

"Mei accidentally showed me a picture on her phone of Yao wearing a dress." That reply seemed to satisfy Kiku (who responds with "I see"), so Yong Soo moved the conversation to something that had been intriguing him the whole time. "So uh, where's the stuff you bought, if you don't mind me asking?"

Oh. Crap. The grocery bags. He had left them in the park.

Words scrambled away from Kiku like frightened prey. How was he supposed to explain this turn of events? How was he supposed to explain Heracles, and the jacket, and fleeing the scene because of reasons he couldn't even make sense of himself?

The lack of a response halted the conversation for so long that Yong Soo had time to make his own assumptions.

"Damn, you must've had one hell of a night up with Mei if you're that spacey." Kiku heard Yong Soo whistle suggestively.

"Wait, th-that's not—" That wasn't it at all. His thoughts were forced to move from the recent events of this afternoon to his date last night with Mei in less than a second.

"Maybe I should've just let you sleep in today. Sorry for bugging you about dumb shit like groceries, man, but I'm glad it worked out!" He sounded really excited. "You should've told me that you guys… you know, when I asked you earlier! I knew I was a great wingman—"

"Nothing happened!"

Yong Soo didn't reply for a moment. Kiku wondered if his friend even heard him and considered repeating himself, only more tactfully and with less annoyance in his tone.

"What?" Yong Soo shouted, confused.

Apparently, clarification was needed. "I didn't—I didn't have sex with her!" That one word felt so awkward stumbling out of Kiku's mouth. Even after he said it, he could feel it lingering in the air and echoing in his mind. Sex, sex, sex.

Yong Soo was almost indignant. "She told me you walked her back to her apartment yesterday!"

"I—" That didn't mean they had done anything! It dawned on Kiku that Mei must have explained last night's sequence of events to Yong Soo in a way that would keep the pesky self-proclaimed wingman off her back, without actually lying. "I escorted her back to her apartment and then went home."

He could almost see Yong Soo's disappointment smattered all over his face. "So… so you guys didn't…?"

Kiku could almost say he'd rather discuss why Yong Soo's groceries were missing because of a certain tan, green-eyed stranger than have Yong Soo question why Kiku and Mei didn't go through a long, steamy night of copulation after having just met each other.

"Dude, are you like… playing for the other team?"

"Pardon?" It was obvious to Kiku that Yong Soo was trying to ask something indirectly, but it wasn't clear exactly what. He was using some sort of idiom.

"You know like, swinging in the other direction?" Oh.

"…You are asking if I'm…"

"I-I mean, it's totally cool if you are! I totally respect that stuff. I just… I got you a date with basically one of the hottest Asian girls on campus, and considering how much time you spend on dating sims I figured you'd really jump at the opportunity! So, why did… nothing happen?"

There were so many inaccuracies in Yong Soo's reasoning that Kiku couldn't even start. What was Yong Soo expecting? That he would eagerly go and have his first intimate moment with the first pretty girl he went on a date with? That Mei was even looking to have a lay in the first place? Kiku pondered staying silent and letting Yong Soo mull over the words that just came out of his own mouth. But knowing Yong Soo, he probably wouldn't think it over.

And, Kiku couldn't ignore that his friend was… in his own special way, looking out for him. Or his virginity. But Yong Soo was showing concern about his life (even if he was being rather nosy… though Kiku did little to keep Yong Soo out) and even helped him meet and become friends with Mei (even if he meant to push them into doing something entirely different).

…But he did not want to discuss this. It was just so bothersome, and Kiku felt too tired to explain right now.

"I'll get your groceries as soon as I can, by the end of today. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. Talk to you later."

"It's totally cool if you like it up the butt, Kiku! This kind of thing sometimes happens in Korean dramas too!"

Now Yong Soo was just teasing him.

Kiku toyed with the idea of teaming up with Mei to confiscate Yong Soo's drama collection.

Kiku assumed that Heracles had understood his blurted-out half-sentence earlier and went to the store to fill in his shift. At least that what he hoped. He walked into this same store for the third time in two days, far more nervous than he felt entering the first two times.

No one behind the counter.

Disappointment and relief filled him at the same time. He… he just didn't know how to greet Heracles. Heracles' last words felt more like a confession than anything, but Kiku also considered that he was looking at the situation through his dating-sim eyes and entirely misinterpreting everything. Maybe what had happened was just a standard way of making friends, and Kiku had gotten carried away with his own version of events. He didn't know how he was supposed to clarify Heracles' meaning. They had literally met just yesterday. Kiku barely knew how to deal with Yong Soo, who he had known for three years.

"You're here."

Kiku turned around too fast and almost lost his balance. But he steadied himself and found Heracles' eyes, which were absent from the room mere seconds ago.

"You left your groceries in the park."

Ah! Right, the groceries. Kiku could never seem to remember the groceries.

"I brought them here for you," Heracles explained, patting the counter in front of him gently. "I thought you would come back here to get them, once you remembered."

"Th…thank you very much," Kiku uttered, grateful and relieved at once, but not enough to let go of his nervousness. He moved towards the counter as Heracles placed the bags on top. Awkwardly and slightly embarrassed, he took them into his arms and immediately recalled Heracles' possible-confession from earlier as their hands briefly brushed against each other in the exchange.

Forgetting to leave, Kiku stood there for a while, trying to look at anything but the man in front of him. He wondered if Heracles was going to ask why Kiku ran off (and there were thousands of questions Kiku would rather answer, or could answer in the first place). He could feel green eyes looking at him thoughtfully, watching him curiously. He could feel his ears heating up.

"I think you have my jacket," Heracles stated casually.

The heat instantly waned. Shit. How could Kiku forget that too? It was back in his apartment, where Kiku hung it. He was forgetting everything today.

"I… I sincerely apologize," Kiku started. "I'll bring it to you right away." He turned to leave as quickly as he could, to retrieve Heracles' jacket or to escape how foolish he felt.

"Kiku," Heracles said, stopping Kiku midway through the door with his words. "Do you like me too?"

One of the bags seem to leap in shock from Kiku's arms onto the sidewalk just outside the door. The contents of the bag raced from the inside out onto the pavement, with cans clanging and boxes tumbling about all over the place. Kiku's attention barely had time to wrap itself around Heracles' question before it had to turn to the calamity occurring at his feet.

Cursing himself for suddenly being so clumsy, Kiku set the other bag down next to him and gathered everything together. He found tan hands picking up items alongside his own small, pale ones.

As everything was cleaned up and put back into the bags, Kiku apologized again, for troubling this person, but Heracles merely said, "it's fine, it's fine." A few items had been ruined in the spill, so Heracles invited Kiku to come back inside and replace them. Kiku realized he didn't bring his wallet with him, but Heracles replied, "it's fine."

Kiku must've looked really mortified, so Heracles tried to reassure him. "It's okay. I'd be glad to pay for Kiku." But that seemed to mortify him only further.

"I dropped them out of my own carelessness," Kiku explained earnestly. "Please wait inside. I'll be back with money, and your jacket as well." He picked up the bags, one first, then the other, with a little more difficulty, but no complaints.

Heracles noticed how small Kiku was. The bags were so big that Kiku had to hug them to his chest with the effort of both his whole arms, and the little Asian man could barely even see over the top edge of the brown paper material. In fact, had Heracles approached him from further away, it would almost look like two grocery paper bags with a pair of legs walking down the street. He smiled a little. "Cute."

The person behind the grocery bags didn't respond. He didn't know how to respond. The only response was the red tint appearing on his face again. Really, really cute. (Heracles didn't say this, for fear of making Kiku spontaneously combust or something.) Nevertheless, he couldn't let Kiku walk back like that alone. He looked entirely… defenseless.

Kiku was already on his way before Heracles shouted (at least it would be considered shouting, relative to Heracles' normal speaking volume), "I'll walk with you."

Honestly, up until the last two days, Kiku could say that his everyday routine here had been the same. Waking up, going to class, studying, and maybe playing video games (he wasn't one to shirk his studying responsibilities for leisure). Suddenly he had gone on a date, had what he would consider an intimate moment with a stranger (though what Heracles was thinking was entirely a mystery to him), and now that same stranger was standing in his apartment, putting down Kiku's bag on the counter. Heracles had offered to carry both of them for Kiku, but Kiku only agreed to divide the burden evenly. It was the only compromise he could muster… had he not been so baffled, Kiku would've refused the offer entirely. At least Heracles didn't repeat his question from earlier. Kiku had so little knowledge of how to address it that he was avoiding thinking about it entirely.

"Kiku?" Oh no.

"Y-yeah?"

"Your kitchen smells really nice."

"Oh. …Thank you." He brought Heracles' jacket over from the hook where it was hanging. Heracles didn't look cold, even if only short sleeves were covering his tan, well-defined arms.

Ooh boy. Kiku quickly turned his attention to preparing some tea after Heracles took the jacket into his arms. He at least had to take care of this common courtesy before sending Heracles back; after all, Heracles had went through the trouble of bringing his groceries home. Then a sudden realization came to him.

"Is there anyone watching the store right now?"

Heracles shrugged.

"Is… is that alright?"

Heracles nodded. Kiku was unconvinced, but didn't feel like pushing the point further. First he had to find a place for him to sit. He didn't have much furniture in this room, save for his desk, a Japanese-style table, and his Japanese floor bed. Heracles asked why his table was so low and close to the ground as he sat down in his own relaxed manner, and Kiku explained to him tables were like that where he came from.

"Where are you from?"

"Kyoto, Japan," Kiku said, smiling a little upon thinking of his hometown. He wondered if Heracles came from somewhere far away too. "What about you?"

"Athens, Greece." Heracles closed his eyes, and Kiku couldn't help but think that he looked so peaceful thinking about his hometown. He opened his eyes again as the tea kettle started whistling and picked his head up from where he had been resting it on his hand, intrigued by the sound with a cat-like, alert curiosity.

Kiku thought about Athens as he turned his attention to the rattling kettle on his stove. It had always been a place that he wanted to visit and learn about. He wondered if Heracles wouldn't mind talking about it, but as he turned around to ask what kind of tea Heracles preferred, he saw that the man had fallen asleep. Again.

A hushed voice came from the direction of the door. "Hey, who's that?"

And somehow, he was going to have to explain this to Yong Soo, who had just walked in.

To be continued.

Anyway, thank you for your reviews and subscriptions and stuff. Yyou guys are writing reviews that are making me do things like squeal, blush, make tears come to my eyes (happy tears o' course), and roll around on the floor. Okay maybe not that last one. I do that one in my head.

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