Purple and blue lights wash over wooden floors, where colorful bowling balls slip and roll until colliding with pins. Neon strips outline the separation of lanes. Beneath the seventies-style synth that floats from ceiling speakers, glowing screens and bright banners capture scores, upcoming events, and Soul's desperation to even the board with a perfect strike.

Ten-pins crash in far corners of the wide alley. The slick bottom of shoes clack lightly on the polished ground.

Soul stares down the red sphere as it glides on the wood, and to his horror, curves right. His head tilts in disappointment as it misses the mark entirely, and drops into the gutter.

"There we go!" Blackstar calls from behind him, and he groans. "You sure you don't want the bumpers on?"

Soul hovers by the dispenser as he waits for the ball to return. "Can the next one be our try-hard game?"

"No way. You can't keep saying that every time you screw up."

They'd arrived at the bowling alley to seriously settle days of competitive banter, but wound up doing the opposite. The first board of rounds are marked by a series of red fouls- Blackstar and Soul kept sneaking shoes over the boundary line during each other's turns, cackling at the alarms and shoving each other away. Quickly after, the games delved into inventing the most ridiculous methods to hit a singular pin.

In their real games, Blackstar has been winning with little mercy.

Soul's second try leaves his fingers with grace, light glinting off the shiny surface, and barrels into three pins before disappearing behind the lane.

"This shouldn't count." He argues feebly, for what may be the third time in the past hour.

Blackstar huffs, "You're such a baby."

Soul sulks back to their table, and eyes the greasy pizza and fries dwindling before them. "Stop calling me that."

He aimlessly bats away balled up napkins on the cluttered surface.

Lounging in the swivel chair, Blackstar grins up at him with a dixie cup pressed to his lips. "Since I'm destroying you, I think I can call you whatever I want."

Soul spares a glance up at the bright colored board, where several large X's stand next to the name Star, while he has close to none.

He lowers himself into the chair opposite while Blackstar presses the controller on the screen. "When did you get so good at bowling? I crushed you last time we were here."

He makes an empty grabbing motion towards the soad pitcher.

Blackstar nudges the container towards him. "That was like, five years ago." He smiles again, wickedly. "People change."

Soul narrows his eyes at him. "Why are you so-" He looks at the board again. "Oh my god, can you stop changing my name, please?"

Blackstar giggles with indifference.

"It's your turn," Soul complains. "Go already."

Blackstar gracefully exits his seat, grabs his sparkly pink bowling ball off the rack, and approaches their lane.

Soul leans towards the tables monitor and hastily deletes 'mama's boy' from the scoreboard.

Moments later, he hears a crash, and his eyes leap past Blackstar's shoulders to see four pins fall into the dark. The white fabric of Blackstar's shirt glows blue under the faint blacklights. When he tosses Soul a smile, his teeth are illuminated too.

As he comes back to retrieve his ball, the music overhead died, then repeats again.

"Did we really have to come on retro night?" Blackstar asks,m heaving the rounded ball to his chest.

Soul smiles. "Retronight is the best, dude."

Blackstar disagrees, then sinks his second attempt down the lane. It skims the left pin, they watch it wobble- but the cluster remains unflinchingly upright.

Soul cheers, Blackstar swears about his last spare, and they both fall silent when a nearby family casts them yet another disapproving look. After an awkward exchange, Soul meets his eyes, and they burst into laughter again.

They've been coasting in each other's company for six sunny days. Their time has been filled with stupid jokes and late night burger runs and loud, chaotic gaming. Blair has slowly warmed up to the new company; during Soul's daily search to collect her for breakfast, he found her this morning curled up on the foot of Blackstars bed. After Blackstar made one too many jokes about stealing her affection, Soul tried to pass off the job of feeding her since she "clearly loves her god so much."

Blackstar ensured he'd only make her meals, if Soul made all of his. Soul refused.

With both the easy-going and irritating moments, seeing Blackstar has been a breath of fresh air. From the moment Soul nearly had the life squeezed from him in the airport terminal, to the second he tries to nudge Blackstar's chair from beneath him at the bowling table- he's felt grounded.

"Leave my seat alone," Blackstar complains, shoving away Soul's red and black shoes.

As he slumps into his chair, Soul studies their feet underneath the table. "I think I kinda like these."

Blackstar looks down. "The shoes?"

"Yeah," Soul says. "They're cool."

"Are you gonna steal from the bowling alley?"

Soul frowns. "Stop trying to make me do that."

"Come on, dude," Blackstar says, "up your shoe game. The discord will finally stop roasting you."

"I don't think that's possible." Soul muses.

"Don't be so humble. They're like simps when you drop photos in the chat."

Soul cackles, pulling out his phone. "Oh, you think so?"

They've been documenting snippets of their time together whenever it naturally surfaces. He's always disliked how the clicking shutter of his camera removes him from the present moment, and jails him in a paradox of his own making. He yearns to capture the world around him, yet in doing so, is removed from the present and concerned with future memories he has yet to create.

He's been trying, lately, to forgive himself for only existing in the here, and now. Most of his camera roll was only sent to Maka, anyway.

His immersion in his digital world has been on a steady decline. For the curious hearts of his friends, though, he's posted a few clips and snapshots here and there. Blackstar's been idly slipping onto his phone more than Soul would've expected him to.

He kicks his feet up on the nearby chair, shifting his ankles to display the leather shoes.

"Okay, well, if you're showing off-" Blackstar shoves his blue and black pair onto the seat as well. "Get mine in there too."

Soul takes the photo, laughing. "Your feet are so tiny." He earns a kick to his calf. "What should I caption it?"

"How about 'matching shoes with my boo,'" Blackstar suggests.

"Fuck off."

"Let me write it." Blackstar nudges him, then draws his feet away. "Please."

"No," Soul says.

Blackstar pauses, and carefully adds, "I'll help you clean later."

Soul hands him his phone immediately. As Blackstar begins to type away on his Instagram screen, he says, "I hope you know I'm going to hold you to that."

Blackstar waves a hand dismissively. He giggles. "Okay, okay. I posted it."

He extends it back to Soul, who grabs it quickly to assess the damage of Blackstar's free speech.

On top of the photo of their ridiculous footwear, it reads:

Hey ScytheMeister do you like my shoes? :)

He chucks a wad of napkins across the table. "Blackstar,"

A few stray napkins find their way back into Soul's lap as Blackstar suffers from a fit of laughter.

"Please don't give me another thing to worry about." Soul says, tossing his phone onto the table.

"I won't, I won't." Blackstar's amusement fades into light seriousness. "I swear."

Soul's phone hums before them. He leans over it to read the notification on his screen. "Oh my god." His fingers quickly begin to tap away. "She replied."

Blackstar scoots up in his chair eagerly. "What'd she say?"

Soul skims over the response, then laughs, then reads it again. A muted feeling settles in his chest, controlled and temperate. "She said, 'ha-ha, who's that girl next to you.'"

"My feet are not that small," Blackstar retorts in disdain. "I hate her so much."

"Yeah, me too," Soul says fondly, watching as Blackstar rapidly types a response to appear in their thread.

The instagram post is something along the lines of how Blackstar usually expresses his excitement for meeting Maka- related to some sort of height check or violence when she finally flies in. Soul hardly bats an eye at it now.

Their banter dies into mindlessly munching on food. Soul hums to the faint tunes that cozy their silence.

"So," Blackstar muffles through a mouthful, tossing pizza crust onto the center tin. "Tomorrow's the day."

Soul nods solemnly. "It is."

"How you feelin?"

"Alright," Soul says. His fingers pass through his hair, briefly. "Excited, I guess."

Blackstar peers at him quietly.

"Maybe I should be more nervous," Soul continues, "But I don't know. When we've talked, it's been fine."

"In person is different, though," Blackstar points out cautiously.

Soul gestures between them. "Not really."

Blackstar burps. "True."

"I don't know," Soul repeats, hands fiddling with a napkin and folding it repeatedly. "In my session yesterday, he said I seemed genuinely ready to see Maka. He said, 'you sound like you're ready.' I'm kinda riding off that."

Blackstar's eyebrows raise. "Well, that's good." After a moment, he asks, "What do you think?"

"About what?"

"You said he thinks you're ready," Blackstar clarifies. "What do you think? Are you ready?"

"I…" The easy words of affirmation weigh heavily in his mouth, unspeakable. His brows pinch together. "I guess I'm not sure. It's not like I can afford to be anything but ready, because it's going to happen no matter what. But we… we're friends, y'know? That always comes first."

"Sure," Blackstar says.

They regard each other for a tense second.

"Can we come back to this later?" Soul asks gently.

Blackstar nods.

Lights flash from a cartoony animation dancing across a nearby screen. When families in nearby lines knock down a plethora of pins, the sound is sharp, but satisfying.

"You think once a week is working?" Blackstar asks.

"Yeah, I think so," Soul says lightly. "Might bump it down to twice a month, soon."

Blackstar chuckles.

"What?"

He runs a hand over his stumbled jaw, as if to keep the words from slipping out. "Dunno man."

"Come on," Soul smiles. "Say it."

Blackstar huffs. "You really want me to?"

"Go for it," He assures.

Blackstar's eyes raise to lock dead on Soul, as he says. "You're like, speed-running therapy."

Soul begins to laight abruptly, before he can stop himself. "Oh my god. Shut up." Blackstar's nose and eyes scrunch up with deep amusement, his smile contagious. "I'm not, you idiot- I'm actually making progress-"

Blackstar interrupts him with more laughter and Soul tosses a napkin at him.

"You're so annoying, it's not even funny." Blackstar's laughter refuses to let up.

"I hate you," Soul says, but his face is plastered with a dopey grin.

It's easy. It's everything.

They settle again, and slip into an air of ease that is gentle, and contemplative.

Blackstar clears his throat. "Really, though, Soul," He says. "I know sometimes you don't want me to talk about this stuff, but… you seem really happy." Soul pulls a dubious face, to which Blackstar back pedals. "Okay, well, happy and complicated. You're always complicated."

"Thank you," Soul says, "Blake."

"Shut up. Just… it's like, before, you were happy because you were supposed to be. But now you're starting to be happy because you are." he meets Soul's eyes earnestly. "It's pretty fucking awesome to see that."

Shock skitters through Soul's bones. He's still getting used to the lightness in his lungs.

"Thanks," He breathes, "i… I really appreciate that. I-" He laughs shortly. "I don't really know what to say. Give me a second."

As they pause, a voice crackles through the speakers overhead that asks for the owner of a wallet left in the colorful arcade. Blackstar and Soul had considered buying tickets to waste time there for a while, but once they saw a hoard of elementary schools running around the fluorescent machines, they backed off.

They've clearly outgrown their younger selves, who spent four hours losing money and beating high scores until their eyes went dry, and Soul's brother dragged them away.

Well, almost outgrown. They did stay up playing games till five in the morning the night before.

"I do all of this work," Soul starts slowly, "you know- the stuff we've talked about. Routines and journaling habits and shit."

Blackstar nods curtly.

"I've spent a lot of time with myself recently and it's- it's easy to think I'm doing okay, all on my own." He continues. "But it's kind of hard to trust. So… having someone else point that out, that I could be on the right path, is really something." He smiles. "Really, thank you."

"You're adorable," Blackstar says, swiftly shattering any traces of solemnity rising between them.

Soul scoffs, and then they bicker, and then return to bowl the rest of the game.

Eventually, they part ways from the noisy alley and sign in relief as the synth-music is lifted from their ears. The sun has hardly dipped below the horizon, dark shadows of cars in the parking lot contrasting the dimming orange sky.

Blackstar asks for the keys. Soul rolls his eyes.

He's given the aux instead.

Afterhours of muffled music and squeaking bowling shoes, it's pleasant to hear Blackstar's playlist crackle through the speakers and blanket their ride home. He muses to Soul about how he and Tsubaki pour over their spotify creations religiously every few weeks, and Soul patiently reminds him he'd been told this before.

Darkness has nearly settled when they park outside Soul's house. He has a faint thought that calls quietly when his keys jingle against the front door, and Blackstar wats for it to swing open.

Next time we come home, his mind whispers, Maka will be here,too.

They enter the house and are greeted with the mess they've created over the past week. Old wrappers, dirty dishes, pizza boxes- all cluttering the open surfaces and suddenly more noticeable than Soul had cared for when they'd left. It reeks, a miniscule amount, of old food.

As Soul nudges aside old energy drinks to empty his pockets on the kitchen island, Blackstar quickly skirts to the living room.

"Hey," Soul says sharply. "No. You said you'd help me clean."

"That doesn't sound like me," Blackstar calls, as Soul watches him disappear over the pony-walled counter.

After grabbing a trash bag for 'cleanup duty' Soul makes his way out of the kitchen in tired pursuit. "Don't make me do this again."

"Don't make me clean," Blackstar's muffled voice floats from where he's sunken into the couch.

Soul sighs at the fluff of Blackstar's hair he can make out from beyond the tall cushions. A gentle clack of keys signal that his guard is down.

"Any last words?" Soul asks, rhetorically.

"Hold on, Im texting-"

His hands find the backside of the couch as he leaps over it with practiced ease, landing heavily on Blackstar's chest and crashing their bodies together.

A deflated wheeze leaves Blackstar's lungs.

"You said you'd help," Soul repeats, hopping slightly to elicit another pained breath from below him. "You pinky-promised."

"I didn't," Blackstar forces out, but his hand claps Soul's back as a sign of resignation.

He grins as he rises to his feet, sparing a glance down at Blackstar who doubles over dramatically in a fit of coughs.

"I think," He rasps, "You broke a rib."

Soul starts to pick up the trash strewn on the coffee table before them. "You're fine."

With one last unnecessary cough, Blackstar slowly sits up. "Where do I even start?"

Soul gestures to the garbage in his hands. "Here. Or we could start upstairs, if that's easier."

Blackstar rubs his chest. "I don't have to clean my room for her."

Soul busies himself by stacking cups and stuffing them with old napkins.

"And her room is definitely fine," Blackstar continues, trying and failing to catch Soul's eyes. "You've checked on it, like, five times-"

"Shut up." Soul mumbles.

"It's okay if everything isn't picture perfect. She's just a girl."

The thin, white trash bag in Soul's hands clings with static as he opens it. His hands move with seemingly automated motion, intensely focused with shoving contents inside and brushing leftovers from the table.

Briskly, he says, 'I know."

"She's not gonna care if there's crumbs, or dust- dude, slow down." Blackstar takes the bag away from Soul's grip. "And sit for a second."

He looks at his empty hands, then the concerning knitting Blackstar's brow, and lowers himself to the couch.

Blackstar slowly hands the trash back to him. "Take it easy, alright?"

"Sorry, I just- this helps me feel in control." He mutters. The plastic is warm when it returns to his fingers.

"Okay." Blackstar says. "We'll get to cleaning in a second, then. What's going on?"

"The house is filthy."

"Soul."

He exhales, long and slow. "I guess," he says. "I'm more nervous than I thought."

"Do you want to, um- what's the thing you said?" Blackstar asks in a jumble. "After we got Quiznos."

Under tall, fluorescent street lamps, they'd reclined in Soul's car with warm sandwiches in hand. The slow moving darkness of the night caused them to sink. They chatted, through a mouthful of food, about why the still air and empty spaces of parking lots elicit such conversations.

Blackstar noted Soul's words seem to weigh in his mouth with more kindness than they used to.

Soul chewed thoughtfully, and swallowed the taste of sourdough down his tongue. He explained a token of advice he'd been given, for whenever he feels he can barely speak at all:

Talk it dead. Talk through it until I can't talk anymore. Till my words are gone, and there's nothing left to say- only then should I retreat to silence.

"Talk it dead," Soul recites.

Blackstar leans back into the couch cushions. "Right. Hit me."

"What… What if it's a trick?" He questions, his voice small.

"I'm not tricking you-"

"No, not you- me," Soul says, exasperated. "What if I really am faking it? I know I feel better than I used to, and you think I seem better than I used to, but what if it's all… pseudo progress. Fake healing. Fake everything."

Blackstar frowns slowly.

"Maka…" Soul's tone softens. "Maka has a way of knocking me down when I least expect it. In ways I never know are possible." His palm rubs against the back of his neck, in an attempt to soothe the tension threaded there. "I feel like I've been rising, somehow. Getting somewhere, in this little bubble we've created." he meets Blackstar's eyes, unwavering. "It's gotta pop eventually."

The quiet between them is reflective; Soul listening to the echo of his own words ring, Blackstar collecting his own. The trash bag in his hand droops Soul's wrist down to the floor.

"I mean… if it pops," Blackstar says, "Then it pops."

Soul stares at him.

"You guys have been sitting on this thing for a while. I think… I think it's going to be better if we go into it expecting something to change." Blackstar's eyes break away. "Maka didn't agree to come, thinking that everything will stay the same. She's not stupid."

"You think I'm stupid?" Soul asks lightly.

Blackstar sighs. "No, Soul. I don't."

His gaze drops to trace stray knots on the carpet.

It's hard, sometimes, to forget the nights he's called Blackstar over the past few months, and received no answer. It was worse when he picked up, when it meant Soul had to say what his heart was threatening to spill.

The loneliness was raw. The loneliness has been grounding. He'd looped and fallen several times, scuffed himself with dirt. Slowly, in Dr. Stein's office the next week, he'd put his pieces back together.

He meets Blackstar's eyes again. He's told him this.

They study each other for a moment, before Blackstar asks. "Are you ready to get started?"

Soul nods.

They delve into decluttering and collecting items, fussing over cleaning supplies. Soul makes too many jabs about his friend's poor tidying skills. Blackstar lets it slip that his mother visits to clean his house once a month, and Soul hardl lets him live it down.

"Are you serious? When was the last time you vacuumed your own apartment?" Soul questions, while plugging in the purple and white machine.

Blackstar shugs, fluffing pillows. "I dunno. Probably around the time I moved out, so ten months ago? Maybe a year."

"You're ridiculous."

He scoffs. "I live like, a few blocks away. And I take her out to dinner and stuff after. It's not that big of a deal." Blackstar turns to look at the contraption in Soul's hands. "That's an ugly fucking vacuum dude."

Soul extends the plastic handle towards him. "You wanna help?"

"No," Blackstar dismisses quickly. "Suck it up on your own."

Soul rolls his eyes and flicks on the switch, accustomed to the rumble that stirs against his palm. He's fallen into a manageable routine of chores around the house; dusting, sweeping, even repainting the empty office he intends to move his computer into. Blackstar's arrival and contagious habit of being a mild slob lured Soul away from that abruptly.

While he runs the vacuum over the carpet, Blackstar fusses with their boxy speaker in the kitchen.

"Do you want to connect?" Blackstar asks, setting it on the marbled counter. "My phone is dead."

"Play whatever." Soul opens his phone and tosses it to Blackstar, his eyebrows shooting up with worry as it's nearly fumbled against the floor.

"What are you in the mood for?"

Soul nudges a toy of Blairs away from the vacuum's bristles. "Just go to my spotify, I don't care."

Music begins to fall from the speaker, snippets of songs off of Soul's likes that Blackstar skips through with disinterest. He settles on a private playlist of Soul's and they continue working. The loud melodies play while they clean and pass jokes, eventually moving to the kitchen, where Blackstar attends more to playing 'DJ' instead of wiping down the counters.

Soul has already stolen the cormant, damp rag from Blackstar's grasp when a familiar song trickles into the air around them.

He waves a dismissive hand without batting an eye. "Skip it. Skip it."

Blackstar skips it.

A different one comes on, strong with bass and rhythmic drums.

"I like this one," Blackstar muses.

Soul hums along lightly. "Didn't you play this, like, four times in the discord call the night of your flight?"

"I didn't," Blackstar says.

Soul glances at him, because he did.

The curiosity is swept away alongside the sauce stains on the marble. Soul tosses the wet cloth to Blackstar, grinning at the gray splotch it leaves on his shoulder.

A collection of upbeat songs filter through the vibrant kitchen. Dishes are stacked; trash is collected. Older music that they both attribute to their parents' influence brings laughter between them, and it carries through the house, down the hall, to the laundry room where Blackstar finally starts a load.

The vibrations from the speaker swirl around Soul's head, as they dance, and head-bang ridiculously, and slide on the slick floor in socks.

"Can he do it, ladies and gentlemen? Redemption, after hours of wiping the floor with his face for my victory-"

"Move your feet," Soul complains. Music thumps heavily from behind him.

Blackstar steps back from the triangular arrangement of empty soda cans and water bottles on the floor. "He lines up for the shot."

Soul dramatically mimics his bowling stance, palms cupping the dusty tennis ball they'd found under a table in the foyer.

"Grand prize of six thousand dollars if he makes this," Blackstar says gravely, and the corners of Soul's mouth twitch upwards.

He breaks his concentration on the faux pins to glance at Blackstar. "Really?"

He watches as Blackstar's hands dive into the pocket of his sweats, grasping around sporadically. "Uh, more like…" He tugs out a few coins, and stray bills wrapped around an old receipt. "Two dollars and six cents."

"Big money," Soul breathes. His fingers curl around the ball.

Blackstar nods. "The biggest."

The fuzzy green rolls down his palm as he releases it, watching it bounce and glide across the narrow hall.

It barrels into the plastic bottles, sending them rattling against the wooden floor. Triumph tips them all onto their sides- except one that remains upright.

Blackstar nudges it over with a light kick. Soul whoops.

"Give me," Soul says. "My money." He's handed the payment and the receipt, unfolding the inked purchases on the paper. He frowns. "Did we really buy that many monsters?"

"Yeah, dude." Blackstar bends to rearrange the bottles back into the proper lineup.

Soul rolls his eyes, and they fall back into homemade bowling and singing along to whatever spills from the speaker.

Their tunes are interrupted as a brief ping eches through the house from the speaker. Soul slides and nearly loses his footing as he grabs his phone from the counter.

Blackstar continues to loudly serenade him in the distance.

Breathless from a poor rendition of a low-tones rap verse, Soul unlocks his screen to view the text.

His heart rate quickly flutters to an impossible height.

Tomorrow at eleven, Maka sent.

The grin that blooms across Soul's face is impossibly bright, warming his cheeks and squeezing his eyes. His teeth sink into his lower lips to keep himself at bay.

The older texts above her message detail the light-hearted conversation about bowling they'd shared from hours earlier, until Blackstar won his first strike, and Soul absently forgot to respond.

Maka has been reaching out to Soul more frequently in the past week. She'll curiously prod about Blackstar's trip, the September weather, and any other casual topic they choose to settle on.

Soul can't help but feel that it's a choice, still, for their conversations to be casual. Nearly two months of repression and filtering hasn't pushed them to bland disinterest. He can't help but feel as if there's a reserved charge waiting beneath the surface, weighed down by the two words they'd agreed upon in the summer.

He calls it wishful thinking. Yesterday, his therapist called it hope .

After taking a moment to calm the excitement rattling in his fingers, Soul types back.

Tomorrow at eleven. He repeats.

Once shut off, the phone is pulled to his chest, and rests against his sternum lightly. He takes a deep breath.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

His smile is nearly painful.

As he and Blackstar continue to clean and putter around the house, he thinks about the small message that sits beneath his text for the rest of the night.

The small receipt says: Read at 9:09pm.