4: Crew
"We're having a little party to celebrate Langa's victory over Adam," Kojiro said one evening in Sia after closing.
"We?"
"You know, the usual crew. Plus Reki wants to invite his manager from Dope Sketch, Oka someone?"
Kaoru tried to work out when he'd become part of a 'crew'. In hindsight, allowing the kids - and Shadow, and Kojiro - to crash his trip to the hot springs had been his first mistake. Then there were the skating sessions before Adam's tournament. Trading commentary with Shadow and Miya, watching Langa master tricks. Cheering Reki on from the sidelines.
After Adam had left for America, it had been just him and Kojiro, and then Kojiro had left for Italy and it had been just... him. He'd stopped skateboarding as often, burying himself in calligraphy, creating CARLA just to break the silence.
Now, every time he turned it seemed like there was someone at his elbow. Worse, Kaoru… didn't hate it. Though he'd deny it to Kojiro until he expired.
The man in question was watching him now for a response, eyebrow slightly raised. "Do I have a choice?" Kaoru asked, feigning irritation.
Kojiro's lips twitched. "I'll tell them you're looking forward to it."
Author's Notes: Drabbles are fun and once you start it's very hard to stop :):):)
I finished my watch of the English dub last night (finally!) and this was inspired by the little shot of the "CONGRATS LANGA" party we see the group having during the end credits :D Plus my general feelings about Skating Found Family - I love how they all fall in with each other without really questioning it (unless you count Shadow griping about having to drive/chaperone 😂)
This fic is another Kaoru-and-Kojiro special, but at least I managed to write from a different POV this time! Originally I was going to write it from Kojiro's perspective which would have been a more wholesome take, but then I thought about mixing it up, and the idea of Kaoru looking around at his situation and going "wtf happened" was very funny :D (It's still wholesome af, really)
Another double drabble, because I wanted to give Kaoru enough space to monologue internally. It's weird how 100 words feels like so little and yet 200 is like "woah! look at all this TEXT I can write!"