Chapter Text
Three Months Later
Langa walked out to his car, keys in hand, mind faraway, went he spotted movement from across his family’s lawn. It was the end of May, so the snow was melted, the grass had turned green, and Reki’s house had stayed empty all that time. Now, the caution tape was long gone and Langa had noticed the For Sale sign a few days prior, but it didn’t prepare Langa the sight of a moving truck.
He froze at the sight of it. There were three people unloading the truck: a father, a pregnant mother, and their small toddler son. Langa was thrown into the memory of seeing the back of Reki’s head that first day he moved in, the deep red hair, and then when he turned, his oh-so-pretty eyes.
The thought of this random family moving into a place where Reki had resided made him angry, irrationally so, and he grit his teeth at the sight of them. His hand curled painfully onto his keys.
He missed Reki so much that his body ached with it. He’s worried so much over the last 3 months that he was bound to have an ulcer from it. He hadn’t seen Reki in all this time, since he let go of him at that ambulance. He shouldn’t have let him go.
Now he had no idea if he was okay. He was alive, sure, Reki’s sister had confirmed that in their chat messages together online, but they didn’t actually know what was taking them so long to transfer him home. Koyomi said that her mom assured them Reki was fine and coming home, but shouldn’t he better by now? Why did they keep his location so secret? Why was his health status a private?
They don’t want his location to get out, Kiriko had told him several times when he begged her for answers. They need time to get him stable and to get international permission to get him home, she’d also told them. She didn’t know much more than Langa or Koyomi or the rest of the Kyans, but she just told him progress was being made, or at least that’s what she was told.
Langa was frustrated, especially watching this happy family erase the last traces of Reki, and it irked him so much that he turned and fled back into his house. The door shut loudly behind him and he braced himself on the kitchen counter, unable to find the motivation to go to school; school, where there was still an empty desk next to him; school, where there were only three at the lunch table; school, that felt so grey and pointless without Reki.
God, he missed him. He clutched a hand to his chest as it panged. He should’ve held on to Reki to make sure he’d be okay, to make sure not another person touched him. Reki didn’t like anyone touching his skin, other than Langa, and he wondered if Reki was okay wherever he was, if he remained untouched. Was he even lucid enough to protest?
Langa had spent hours combing the internet for information about omega drops. They could last anywhere from weeks to months with the omega completely out of it. Surely Reki should either be recovering now or… He didn’t even want to think about if Reki was worsening without their knowledge.
“You’re still home?” Dad asked, finding him hunched over the counter and breathing hard. Mom had already gone to work and Dad worked less at the ski resort in the warmer months. They mostly got hikers and downhill mountain bikers during the short Canadian summer.
Langa sighed and turned to face him. “There’s neighbors moving in next door,” Langa said.
Dad’s expression morphed into sympathy. “I’m sorry,” he told Langa. He took no time in gathering Langa into a hug. Langa let himself sink into it, feeling comforted by his dad’s steady embrace. “I’m sure they’ll get Reki home safely,” Dad assured him. He used his hand to press Langa’s neck to his shoulder until Langa gave in completely, slumping into him.
He felt as if he had no right to be happy, to be safe or comforted until he knew Reki was. Here in his dad’s embrace, he allowed himself the comfort he so often deprived himself of.
Langa’s phone chimed with the ringtone he assigned to Reki’s sister, so he pulled out of the hug to retrieve it from his pocket. Dad watched him, used to hearing Koyomi’s chat tone, and he asked as he leaned onto the counter, “What does she say today?”
Koyomi often kept him updated about things she heard about Reki, which was admittedly little, but she sometimes just rambled about Reki. Langa liked to hear about Reki and what he used to be like. He liked to hear about the ways they used to tease each other, how close of a family they’d been, and how messy Reki was. He wondered how much of their version of Reki and his version Reki overlapped. He was sure everything that had happened had changed his friend.
“Call me,” he said, frowning at the two single words in their app. His eyes drew to his friends list, to call her, which only contained her and an unanswered friend request to Reki’s account. He paused, glancing at it; maybe when Reki got out, he could keep in contact with Reki this way. Or maybe they would get him a phone. He hoped so.
He clicked call and it rang only once before Koyomi’s face appeared on screen. She was sitting in Reki’s skateboard shop; he recognized it from when she gave him tours around it several times before.
“I have news!” she squealed, a laugh bubbling out of her uncontrollably. Then she noticed Langa’s dad just over his shoulder. “Hello, Mr. Oliver, sir!”
“Hi, Koyomi!” Dad greeted with a wave. Koyomi had become a fixture in their home, from all the time Langa spent talking to her.
“The news,” Langa prompted, daring to get his hopes up.
“Oh, right!” she gasped, her eyes more filled with light than ever before. Langa’s heart began to hammer. “Reki’s coming home!”
“What!” Langa practically yelled, so excited he wanted run and jump and scream, but instead he rushed to ask, “When? How?”
“Mom said by next month. Apparently, he’s improved enough that he can be sent home and he got clearance to be flown home privately, under the government’s watch.” She grinned, spinning in a circle in her chair. “I can’t believe it! He’s coming home, finally!” When she finished spinning, her eyes were shining with unshed tears.
“He’s safe,” Langa said. Relief descended over him like a splash of cool water and he felt weightless, a burden finally lifted.
“You’ll need to come visit once he comes home. From what you told me, he’ll want to see you.”
“Oh, yeah,” Langa said, blinking a few times. He hadn’t even thought to visit. For some reason he thought he would have to only see Reki over video chat like this with his sister. Langa looked to his Dad, a question in his eyes. They weren’t rich by any means, but maybe they could afford a week to see Reki? Maybe?
Dad softened, chuckling a little at Langa’s pleading look. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Okay,” Langa said, looking back at his phone. “Will you tell me when, as soon as you know?”
“Of course! Keep your phone on you!”
They said their goodbyes and hung up. Langa sighed, leaning against the kitchen counter with his dad, trying to work through the flood of emotions he’d had that morning. “Do you really think we can go to Japan when Reki gets out?” He had to confirm it, make sure he held his dad to a promise, that he would get to see Reki again, face to face.
Dad reached over and squeezed his shoulder. “I wouldn’t get in your way. In fact, I would pay any amount of money to see you happy.”
Langa grinned, both of them knowing they did everything they could anyway to make sure he was happy. He was grateful for their support over the last few months, especially now when it felt like he was thinking finally with clarity.
“Thank you,” Langa said breathlessly, on the verge of elation; he hadn’t felt anything like it in months.
“I’ll talk to your mother she gets home.”
Langa came downstairs for dinner and found his parents already seated, their food set on the table, but no one had served themselves yet. Nervously, Langa sat down but he didn’t reach for anything, even though his stomach growled angrily.
“We have something to talk to you about,” Mom announced once he was situated.
“Nothing bad,” Dad added with a placating hand.
“Right,” she said with a nod. “This is about Japan.”
“Yeah?” Langa squirmed in his seat, hoping they were agreeing for him to go.
She continued, “We decided we should all go and make a trip of it. My parents were from Okinawa, too. I have some cousins there that would be happy to see us. I haven’t seen them in ages.”
“Oh!” Langa said in surprise. “Okay, sure.” He had very little interest in extended family, but he would take anything to just go to Japan and be with Reki.
“Tell him the best part,” Dad said with a nudge to her arm.
“Right! So, we are planning to go when you get out of school at the end of June, until the end of summer.” The two of them grinned at Langa.
Langa stared, letting the words process. “We’re going for the whole summer?”
“The whole summer!” she confirmed excitedly.
“As long as Koyomi confirms Reki’s actually returning,” Dad added.
“Right,” Mom said, as if just now remembering. “As soon as you get more info on when Reki is getting home, we will plan around it, make sure he has time to get used to home and being with family again, before we show up and take up some of his time.”
“Thank you,” Langa said, growing more excited as it sank in. “This is amazing, this is—"
“The least we can do,” Mom finished for him. “I can’t help but wish we’d done more for Reki, but we can start to make it up to him by bringing the two of you together again.”
Langa asked, “How are we even going to afford that?”
“We’ll stay at my cousin’s house,” she explained. “And we will help out in her shop. Oliver will come for part of the time and return home to work when the end of summer events at the ski resort return. We’ll manage.”
“I’ll help out however I can,” Langa told her. His appetite was renewed, so he started to dish up his plate.
“I’ll hold you to that. You can’t hang out with Reki 24/7.”
Langa imagined spending all day and night with Reki and it made his heart stutter. If he had any say about it, he and Reki would do just that. “I’m going to make him a new playlist,” he murmured to himself, taking his phone out to scroll through his music app.
“A new one?” Mom laughed.
“Did you make him a love mixed tape?” Dad prodded.
“Lo—” Langa cut himself, strangling the question. His face was heating and definitely turning red. “No, just a playlist.”
“Right, okay,” Dad said, grabbing food for himself.
“We should stop teasing him,” Mom said.
“I have a feeling we’ll be teasing him more than ever in a month or so. I can see it now, these two boys fawning over each other, hiding away and kissing—”
Mom elbowed Dad, hushing him. Dad just laughed.
Meanwhile, Langa ducked his head and shoved food into his mouth to avoid speaking. His face was heated because truthfully, he’d been imagining exactly what Dad had described. He wanted to find easy summer days at Reki’s side, doing whatever, going wherever.
And because his face was so red, he ignored his laughing parents in favor of adding songs to his playlist and typing out a message to Koyomi to share the good news.
He couldn’t wait to see Reki again.