###
"Kento."
Hardrock hit his head on the underside of the hood, startled by the sound of his name.
He looked over. Slim beige slacks, brown loafers. Sage.
Pushing at the achy place on his scalp with his fingers, he pulled himself out from under his car hood. The August sun hit him full force. "Hey, Sage. I didn't hear you arrive." He blinked up at the tall blond. Sage looked dog tired. It'd been two months since Kento'd seen his friend last. A month since he broke up with… her. "How's your family?"
"They all have gone insane."
"That bad, huh?"
"Worse." Sage shook his head. "Let's not speak of it again." He picked up his single square bag, a coat draped over his arm, and walked towards the back porch.
Kento followed, wiping the grease from his fingers with a striped cloth. Before they had gone four steps, Sage turned and looked at him. "That is a dishtowel, not a rag."
"Oh… " Ken looked down at the blackened cloth. Not for the first time he wondered how his friend managed to know what happened when his back was turned.
Sage raised an eyebrow.
Kento didn't know if he should feel reprimanded or merely informed.
Instead of enlightening him, Sage turned back to the house and continued up the porch steps. "I didn't see Rowan's car."
"Him and Cye are visiting Britain. Won't be back for a week."
Sage opened the back door and paused on the threshold to look back. "Then my timing is good." His gray eyes narrowed. Ken stopped short, feeling cut off at the knees. Was that sarcasm?
"Uh… We didn't know when you'd be back. And Cye's mom's been bugging him something fierce for a visit." Kento pressed the back of his head with his hand, a self-conscious blush burning on his cheeks.
The warrior of Halo's gaze skimmed back to the house's interior. Ken breathed again. God, Sage was hard to read. He watched Sage's eyes clicking, like an accountant, over the ugly tangle of mess on the floor, the couches, the kitchen. Kento blanched and began an impromptu scrub of the dust on the sill beside him. He left a streak of black grease. Panicked he tried to rub off the grease with a fistful of muscle tee.
He looked up to find Sage watching him.
"I haven't had time to clean up." Kento explained
"How long have Rowan and Cye been gone?"
Rowan and Cye kept the place spotless. Between Rowan's obsessive-compulsive desire to sort and sanitize and Cye's more practical tidy up as you go policy, the kitchen floor had always sparkled, the carpet had always smelled fresh, and the couch remained bare of the every-day debris of life. Now it was messy. Just surface mess, though, Kento reasoned. Deep down grim would take weeks to break clean's strangle hold. "A few days."
Sage placed his suitcase by the kitchen door and walked to the couch. With a sweep of his hand the clothes, bottles and sneakers were on the floor. Cye would have put everything away before sitting down. But that was Cye. Sage would make Kento do it later.
Instead of joining his friend, Kento stood in the hallway and fidgeted. "So… how was Aspen?"
"Beautiful." Sage replied, digging under the cushion behind his back. He pulled out a can of beer, raised a brow at it, and set it down on the coffee table.
Kento winced. "Do you want something to drink?"
"No."
"Something to eat?"
"No."
"Need to be left alone?"
"No."
Kento bit his lip. Okay, no easy out. "Do I have to play twenty questions, here?"
Halo glanced at him, tilted his chin and patted the couch. "I want to talk with you."
Hardrock hesitated then heel-toed to the couch, eyes narrowed. He sat down stiffly.
Sage looked around the room, settling his hands in his lap. Then he watched the lake outside the window. The silence stretched on.
Just like Sage to ask to talk and then not say a word. Kento shook his head and turned towards his friend, "Sage, I have too—"
"Cye told me what happened."
Kento clenched. "I don't want too—"
"Talk about it?" Sage's look was like a vise.
Ken leaned forwards, shielding his eyes with his hand. "It's really hard Sage. It's embarrassing."
"To get so wrapped up you don't know which way is up?"
"You never liked her." Kento sighed.
"No. I did not." Sage's lips pressed into a thin line.
"You see? You wouldn't understand. As far as you're concerned what happened was for the best."
"You don't love her."
He was just sitting there, cool as ice, mouthing words that stung. "How would you know?" Kento snapped.
"Cye told me about the ring."
Dammit. That little fink. "Cye tells you everything doesn't he?"
"He trusts me."
Kento turned away. He'd had enough. "Look, I'm gonna go work on—"
"You and I are two sides of the same coin, Kento. As above so below."
Hardrock's shoulders slumped. He closed his eyes. It was so hard to have to deal with Sage. Sage who could see into his heart but kept himself hidden. "What does it matter?"
"I didn't like her, Kento, because I knew she was a lie you were telling yourself. You thought all that drama was love. It wasn't."
"That's enough!" Kento stomped to his feet. "I don't need your help Sage." He didn't look back, just left. Didn't see anything of the hallway, the stairs, the second floor landing, just walked past it all in dazed anger. When he got to his own room he slammed the door shut.
The picture frames on his dresser fell. He turned, staring at them in shock, then looked at his shaking hands. How did Sage manage it? How could that SoB see straight through him?
"Shit." He hissed. He'd been running away. He glanced at his pictures again and started to pick them up. Cye dunking a drowned-rat Rowan under the water. Straight cut Sage reading the newspaper. All five of them on the lawn of the manor. Then him in a goalie shirt hugging a eighteen year-old Ryo holding a football trophy. He held that one a little too long. Ryo was staring straight at the camera, smiling with quiet pride. But Kento… he was looking at Ryo.
Kento put the picture down. His fingers brushed the edge of a box. A box he'd lathed himself. A box to hold the ring.
The ring he would have given her if he'd ever gotten the nerve. Or maybe it wasn't cowardice that stopped him. Each time he'd brought it with him when they went out, waiting for the perfect time. The perfect place. But when it came—a quiet moment in a garden sipping tea, the content interlude after a perfect meal—it never seemed right. He just couldn't make himself take it out. And then she'd throw the tea in his face at some clumsy thing he'd said, or storm out because he hadn't left a big enough tip.
Kento turned away from the box. He'd go downstairs. Apologize to Sage for getting angry.
And maybe they'd go for a walk through the woods.
###
~Ten months later~
###
"Cye! Cye! Have you seen my keys?" Rowan was yelling.
Sage listened to him thump through the rooms below. Frantic. Halo shook his head, "Baka."
"Kento has to be on the plane in an hour. Cye, help!"
"You really should give yourself enough time, dear." Sage smiled at Cye's gentle nagging.
Sage wafted to the railing, watching Strata overturn sofa cushions and root through junk drawers. Torrent was checking the coat rack.
He half turned at a soft creak behind him. Kento's room door was open and swinging in the breeze from his open window. Sage remembered Rowan sitting with Kento on the bed, talking. Following a hunch he edged into Kento's room. Hai. Rowan's keys, hidden in a fold of unmade bed.
He returned to the railing and, aiming at Strata, threw the keys down with a twist of his wrist, "Rowan!"
As Rowan turned, he sidestepped and brought his hand up. The keys hit his palm square. Rowan looked up and winked, "Thanks, Sage!" Then turned on his heel and raced for the door.
Cye followed him, "bye, Sage!"
The house fell silent. They were gone. Cye and Rowan to see Kento off at the Airport. Kento to see Ryo in Vancouver.
Sage turned to go back to his room.
Kento's door creaked again.
He glanced at it. He slipped into the room, headed for the window. A gush of chill wind hit his chest. He slid the window down. No more drafts, no more creaking.
That done, he turned to leave. A picture on Kento's dresser caught his eye. He padded over and picked it up. A picture of Kento and Ryo. Sage glanced at it and smiled, remembering the summer. They'd finally defeated the dynasty. Ryo and Kento had joined the intramural football team. He'd watched them on the sidelines, holding a baggie of sliced oranges—Cye had cut them—and grinning to himself every time Kento had saved a goal or Ryo had made one.
Then Ryo had left. Fled.
Sage set the picture back. It knocked against a wooden box.
The box was a flawless, a blond oak oval. Feeling guilty he popped the lid. Nestled in folds of black velvet was a silver ring.
He'd never seen it before. But now, looking at it, he knew exactly what Cye had meant.
Sage plucked it out of the velvet.
The band was broad and heavy. He slid it on his ring finger, testing it. The ring was a touch loose. On his hand. On a man's hand.
He looked at it—winking silver against his pale skin. He knew his fingers were slender. But if it didn't fit his hands, it would never fit a woman's.
He thought he should feel elated. His instincts had been vindicated. He'd known. But all he could think about was how loose the ring felt. How wrong it was on his finger.
He slid it back into the box. And put the box beside the picture of Kento and Ryo.