The concert overwhelmed Langa. His mind flooded with flashing lights, and music loud enough to rattle his bones. Despite his discomfort, he was here for the same reason he always was - Reki. His face practically vibrated with excitement as he cheered for the band, bouncing up and down so that his hair flailed with the music. Langa, swept up in the idea, bounced with him. It was the first time they held hands as they bounced in tandem to the music, Reki's laugh piercing the overbearing noise in the venue. Sweat dripped down his face and along his neck. Langa wanted to kiss it, to catch Reki in his mouth, to appreciate him in the only way he knew how.
Reki held him close that night weeks ago. The first time was on the dance floor. Lights flashed around them, but the area glowed in Reki's vicinity as if everyone else faded into the background. Reki's arms were thrown over Langa's shoulders, guiding him in an energetic dance. He pressed his head against Langa's, relishing the closeness that he'd revisit every night for the rest of his life, and they shared a moment of something intangible shared between them.
Langa jolted when he was dragged by his hand in Reki's through the crowd. He parted the crowd to let Langa pass, and they were backstage. Langa had never thought to ask why they were allowed in the back, but he didn't care. It was quiet save for the faint reverberation of the concert spiking through the wall. It was the second time they had been close.
They were against the wall of an impossibly tight corridor. Reki's leg was between Langa's, and their bodies flushed against each other with impossible grooves slotting against each other. They were perfect in that way, always fitting together despite their differences. Too much color and not enough. Too many words and not enough. The sun. The moon. Never one without the other. Reki slid his fingers along Langa's waist, toying with the hem. For once, Reki had no words. His eyes peered up past lashes Langa desperately wanted to touch. That closeness ached in his body as Reki's fingers slid under Langa's shirt and their breath hitched in each other's mouths.
They were caught on one another, hooked. The only way to separate required one moving away, and Langa was backed against the wall. There was nowhere else he wanted to be.
That night branded itself into Langa's memory. Reki closed the distance between them, lips airy against one another but never touching. Reki searched for something in Langa's eyes, and Langa's throat was coated in syrup clinging into itself.

"Reki" Langa's words startled the boy. "Don't leave me."
Reki's voice was clear against the pained whimper of the other. "I won't. I can't live without you."

A promise forged in pain never sounded so sweet. Their heads tilted, lashes obscuring their vision of one another as the space between them started disappearing. Langa's chest yearned to force his body closer, to take Reki into his hands and kiss every freckle, to spot his body in love irrefutable. He had to claim Reki as his before he got away, before he left him behind as everyone else did. That bubbling greed seared yellow in his chest as his world crashed away to be consumed by the sun. Langa had to show him. Reki needed to understand the depth of his broken love. He wanted to tear himself apart piece by piece to show every scar and every wound that permanently stained him. To be ripped apart, to be loved in every place where even Langa cannot face, that was how he felt full.
Reki had to be one. If Langa's ruin denied their love, then the wolf could finally sink its teeth into his neck.
They were interrupted before their lips locked. A stagehand slipped by, and they flushed, unable to bring themselves to continue, but Langa held the other's promise, stuffing it within the trenches of his mind.
But Reki was a liar.

The day of the party they spent the day awkwardly avoiding conversation with each other. Langa wasn't sure what he had done, but his focus, no matter where he was, stayed on Reki. The colors of his presence were muted but present. They planned to meet at the party because Reki had to talk to his mother. Not able to press, Langa went home to a lonely apartment.
There was gratitude despite the empty home. Langa had never been able to muster the courage to speak to his mother, but she knew he liked men. His mother, ever supportive of everything he did, worked herself to death to ensure they had money after Langa's hospital bills piled up. He burdened another person.
He skulked through his apartment like a stranger, escaping to his room to secure himself against the torrent of emotions. Reki wasn't speaking to him. He had tried texting, but Reki's spritely texting style had been full of pauses and short phrases. Bile gripped the base of his throat. He choked it down, and stumbled over to his closet. The party was between friends, but Langa refused to allow Reki to escape from him. He had to confess, to have confirmation of what was happening between them. There was something hidden between how they spoke to one another, and Langa wasn't able to decipher the messages.
Finding his best outfit, a black undershirt with a purple top and tightly fitted jeans, he stared at himself. His legs stretched too far down his body, and his face sharpened knives. In all his dangerous edges, there was nothing about him to love, but he swore that he saw it in Reki's eyes. He had to reach out so Reki didn't run away, didn't shell up into a fraction of his former self. They opposed each other in personality, and lifted each other up in ways impossible to conceptualize.
Langa had to fight. He couldn't lose anyone else.

The party was hosted at Cherry and Joe's house. They had moved in together in the past year, being more open about their relationship with the newest generation of skaters. Their lives were forced to be private as merit of their age, but times changed. Langa admired their relationship even if it was worrying at times with how often they bickered, but he imagined himself and Reki in the same situation. Bickering sounded sweet if it meant they lived together.
His breath clouded in the chill of the night as he kicked his board into his hands, ascended the steps, and was welcomed into the house.
The home was sleek as expected of the pair. Miya sat on the couch with a party hat Joe forced him to wear. Balloons covered the living space in shapes of cats and his name with an impressive assortment of food spread across the dining table. Shadow and Cherry were conversing quietly about their work when Reki blitzed around the corner. Langa's heart skipped a beat.
There was kindness in mercy, and Langa craved that feeling for there was no mercy in the way Reki's face fell at seeing him.

"Langa!" Miya squealed. "Back me up!"
"C'mon. Doesn't he look kinda cute?" Joe teased.
Langa cleared his throat, unable to meet Reki's nervous face. "It is. Cute that is."
Miya bounded over, strapping the hat onto Langa's head. "If it's so cute, wear it! I thought I could trust you!"

His eyes flashed to Reki. A familiar expression crossed his face, but he turned away, texting on his phone instead. Langa cursed himself at his inability to understand. Miya dragged him over to the couch where he was playing an RPG on the television. Each character has been customized to look like someone from the group. A big barbarian, a serene ninja, a shadowy warlock, an icy archer, a firey rogue, and Miya who took the forefront as a noble hero. A controller landed in his hands, and they played, slaying monster after monster together.
The party continued as Miya wished. They ate at his whims, watched what he desired, and at one point Cherry gifted him a cat plushie. Despite his best attempts at remaining composed, he hugged Cherry. Miya's home life was strict, Langa understood, and now, he was able to fully be himself. His eyes drifted across the group. He supposed that was what bonded them together - birds of a feather flock together. His eyes stopped on Reki. His constant texting ended not long before Miya hugged Cherry, but he couldn't meet Langa's gaze. There was a prickling in Langa's eyes.
He excused himself to the bathroom.
Langa stared himself down in the mirror, the party hat slipping to the side. That's why Reki wasn't able to look at him, he looked stupid. Adjusting the hat, he stared at himself longer. With all of his recent stress, his body ached. He hadn't been eating as much as normal, which wasn't the worst thing considering he normally overate, but his body complained. Warmth blotted his cheeks, and his fingers grazed the tears streaming his face. Langa felt numb despite the tears. Doubling over, he sat on the floor and sobbed.
What is there to cry about? Langa scolded himself. You're being stupid
He tried to reason to himself that Reki had a lot going on. It wasn't a permanent fixture to their friendship. Maybe one of his family passed, or one of his sisters hurt themselves. His chest coiled into a tight cord poised to snap. Clutching himself, Langa wretched a dry sob into his hand at the countless possibilities Reki couldn't share with him. With his focused distorted, he hadn't heard someone slip into the bathroom.

"Reki?" Langa flicked his vision up.
"Sorry to disappoint. May I?" Cherry gestured towards the space next to him, sitting after confirmation. "Is everything alright?"
Langa shook his head, refusing the urge to scream
"I thought so." Cherry rubbed circles into Langa's back "Do you want to talk about it?"
Langa stifled another sob. "I love Reki."
"Yes." Cherry sounded so absolute he forgot to say more. "Sorry. I mean, it's alright to love him. Have you told him?"
Langa shook his head again.
Cherry reached over, unhooking the party hat. "He said he was leaving. I think you should find him. Maybe less tears at first, and no hat."
"The hat felt silly." Langa breathed a laugh that.
"Joe and I are here if you need anything." Cherry wiped away Langa's tears with the back of his fingers.

Cherry's voice sounded comforting. Langa knew it was a trick to make him stop crying, to adjust his focus elsewhere so he wasn't collapsed on the bathroom all night. Langa wanted to wrap himself in the cocoon of his own self loathing, hiding in a hatred hot enough to keep his soul burning with Reki's sweet gaze absent. Cherry smoothed out Langa's hair, helping him to his feet.
Langa thanked Cherry. He stumbled down the hallway towards the party where everyone carried on as normal. Langa swallowed, his eyes catching Miya's. He was pointing towards the door, and Langa followed, ignoring the suspiciously normal party. Desperately, he needed to find the sun again, to feel its warmth. Opening the door, a tumbleweed of red hair sat at the steps. His leg bounced. Langa suspected it was anxiety, but never asked directly. His constant movements always stopped when they were close - it had to be enough.
Sitting down beside his friend, Langa's body iced over trying to find the words stuck in the honey of his throat. He peered to the side, sneaking a glance through his hair at what Reki was doing. Tight in his hand, his phone shined revealing a notification from his mother about not being too tired for their plans. The knot in his chest loosened slightly. No girl, just his mom. A bead of worry embedded itself into Langa's chest, but he could help. He had to help.

"Is," Langa grumbled. "Everything okay?"
Reki's beautifully dumb voice caught on the roof of his mouth. He choked, forcing the words out. "Nah, everything's cool. Sorry I've been distant. Just... stuff. Hard to process."
"Yeah." Langa stupidly clung to every word.
"You wanna come over tonight?" Something left unspoken lingered in the air. A trap.
Langa turned, his leg on the stair to press against Reki's thigh to stabilize himself on the contact. He kept his eyes low. "Can I tell you something first?"

Reki's pinky slinked across their laps to hook on Langa's. He muttered the affirmative, but there was a distinctive lack of warmth behind his words. Langa knew Reki. It all felt wrong, but there wasn't going to be another opportunity. If Reki slipped through his fingers, if Reki left, Langa's lifeline snapped. He mulled over the idea of confessing. The bead in his chest hefted through his body weighing him down. It rocked at the bottom of his core, solidifying into rock. To speak the truth, the stone had to come out. His mouth opened and closed a few times, but Langa ended with an indignant noise.
His eyes drifted skyward, charting the endless stars that never ran out of connections. Each star bounced between one another, shining with a hope that beyond the endless abyss there was a star for them. Somewhere, beyond that darkness, Langa reached for hope. It embroiled itself into Langa's mind. Light spread beyond the expanses of reality coagulating inside his imagination until it became a stubborn force that propelled him forward.
Langa felt this before. That narrow minded focus others thought to be detrimental, but Reki adored it. When he snowboarded, his focus honed in on being the best, on impressing his father. On witnessing that color bleeding against the dull tapestry of the world. That vibrancy was gone, but it was here again. In front of him, his best friend who had shown him a new love in skating where the colors bled farther than before. His best friend stained color onto canvas with reckless abandon that swept Langa into a whirlwind that beat against his ribs.
His mother had been exhausted since they moved here. His Canadian friends extricated him from their life. His father died. Each friend in Japan sought out Langa, caring for him in a way that made his body repulsed with his incapability to tend to himself. For every burden he caused, Reki's smile lifted the weight of the world off his shoulders until he soared.
Everything was dedicated to Reki. When he soared during his skating tricks the wind caught in his hair allowing his face to be in full view. When he learned a new trick, he stampeded towards mastering it so no one could doubt his undying devotion even to something as stupid as skating. And for all that devotion, for every ounce of prayer whispered into the ozone with the hopes that his sounds carried a symphony on the wind to the ears of whom he had written countless confessions, his words failed him. They always did. The pooling fabric in his throat weighed his tongue flat, mouth closed for a few moments more.
Painstakingly, his eyes tore from the night sky holding trails of endless promises across distances unfathomable. Reki's eyes filtered the stars. Even against the night shrouding them, the solitary light on the sidewalk haloing their existence, Langa disappeared in the hope beyond the visceral gold twinkling in Reki's eyes. Langa's only goal was to confess.
There had been countless eventualities for this action, yet Langa hated every one of them. Nothing measured against the beat of his heart that drummed in rhythm with Reki's voice. Langa leaned close, steeling himself for rejection, a pain worth the one moment of solace. His thumb grazed the other's jaw. His opposite hand laced fully in Reki's. Behind them, off beyond the expanse of darkened cold that urged them closer, a cocoon fell.
Langa kissed Reki.
Everything drowned around him, washing itself in swathes of that monochromatic filter that swallowed Langa's life. Their tips touched, and the world around them exploded into a vibrancy unspoken. The verdant, untamed greens, the grey brightened against the light that savored the moment, the vermillion cast along Reki's skin - Langa ached. The world held so much promise. He deepened the kiss, begging that his memory survived the years so this hope engrained itself into his skin, etched along every pore.
The blizzard that kept Langa safe from others, that numbed his emotions to a sphere, melted. His shoulder blades winged outwards. He emerged from the sphere to boundless freedom, soaring in search of the sun to warm him forever.

"Langa." Reki purred, a whisper searing flesh.

Langa peeled from the other, afraid that an insurmountable distance formed the farther they were apart. His eyes blurred. The beauty of life finally wrecked Langa. There was a world for him where he was worth his weight. He promised himself to never stop soaring, to never stop chasing the sun for as long as he lived, because without the golden blessing in front of him, Langa swore to tear each feather from his own delicate skin until the ruin in him finally rotted.
For Reki, there was no ice worth shielding himself inside of and no burn not worth enduring.
A moment scattered itself through as time as Reki opened his mouth. It wasn't to meet Langa, to feel the cracked, chewed lips riddled with self doubt. There was something that crossed his eyes, a shadow so dangerously dark the abyss of space was bright.

"I have a girlfriend."

The rot inside of him spiraled outwards to grasp at the paper world around him. Scar after scar ripped through his vision as the hopeless shades of self worth fell to tatters. The stars hid in the curtains of murk, threatening a grayscale of new proportions. One where Langa required the frost to survive.
He fell. The sun burned the flesh of his hand to bone, and Langa needed more. He need to be ash in the eyes of the angel that he reached. But, as his wings gave out to fall deeper into that murk that introduced him to a new ruin, there was nothing to catch him. His body rocketed in weight as he clattered with the ground, each bone broken as his eyes forced themselves to stare at the sun until he was blind.
He was so blind.
Even as he heard the wheels of Reki's board escape, a thought loomed beyond his skull. Holding himself, sobbing, he heard Miya, but his body shook violently with tears dangerously acidic that he wanted to melt his skin layer by layer until the tears had nothing left to cling to. That thought.
Reki lied again.