#no thoughts head empty only Renga from Sk8

[miss-choco-chips]

North star

Core disaster week Day 1: Bart’s Birthday// First kiss

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Cassie smiled, sitting down in the picnic blanket. There was so much fucking food- it was awesome.

But not as awesome as being together, all of them. It’d been a while since they managed to meet like this. Kon, particularly, had been hard to pin down and convince to come; but exceptions had to be made on certain days, and Bart’s birthday was the height of special occasions.

Tim, too. She risked a glance at him, stony and silent, and smiled sadly. It truly had been too long.

Sitting each on one end of the blanket, like a flesh and blood compass rose, she smiled again at the unintended philosophy of it all. Bart to the east, bringing the sun into their lives, his energy and warmth a hope for the new day; Kon to the south, lost in memories of the past but a steady, firm ground beneath them; She herself to the west, holding the weight of it all on her shoulders like the sky held the heaviness of sunset; And Tim, sweet, depedable Tim, was undoubtedly their north.

“Cassie? Wonder-honey-baby-dearest girl?”

Snapping out of her reverie, Cassie waved Bart’s concerned face off.

“Don’t worry, just lost in thought. C’mon dude, it’s your day, we can’t start eating until you do!”

A little unsure, Bart sits back on his spot, glancing to his right at Tim. He hesitated a bit, something extremely unusual for a speedster presented with a widely varied menu (Kon and her had flown all over the world picking and choosing his favorites from every possible country- there was a lot).

“He doesn’t mind”, interrupts Kon softly, before anything else can be said.

Taking his word as the gospel it is, Bart’s face broke into the biggest smile and cleaned up his first plate of ‘a little bit of everything’ in less than a blink, already reaching out for more. Without even pausing his chewing, he started babbling out at Tim, who for once didn’t reprimand him on his table manners, nor tried to use a napkin to clean his chocolate-stained cheek. Cassie tried very hard to hide the pang that surprise-attacked her heart.

Desperate for a distraction, she turned to her right, to Conner. He was looking at the other two fondly, a small smile breaking through his face of steel like it was butter.

She remembered back when they were younger, just children, before all the tragedies and the losses; he had smiled easier, then. Wider, unprompted, freely. Giving that handsome smirk like it was candy on halloween.

“It was a good idea to come here”, he acknowledged, once again making her snap out of her head.

“One day, you’ll just accept that all my ideas are good.”

“Do I need to remind you about the deal with the beet demon?”

“That wasn’t that bad.”

“Cassie. We had to eat borsch for every meal. For a month. I don’t think Bart ever forgave you about that.”

They both waited for a second to see if the speedster was about to interject, but he seemed to have missed their conversation, regaling Tim with a tale of his latest training session with Wally.

“Anyway”, Kon coughed, drawing her back to their moment, “it really was. I… I know I wasn’t the easiest person to convince, so..”

“‘The easiest person’? I had to track you down across an entire hemisphere, lasso you like a wild animal and drag you here kicking and screaming. Literally. My bruises have bruises.”

“Anyway, thanks. I… needed to see you all again. I never thought we’d be able to just… sit here and enjoy ourselves, without… you know, all the…”

“Angst?”

“... yeah. How did you even manage to secure us this spot?”

Cassie smiled, leaning back against her arms, enjoying the sun on her face.

“You can thank Tim’s brother for that. I made him promise to make sure no one interrupted us today.”

The other meta snorted.

“It’d be a cold day in hell before I thank Nightwing for anything.”

She winced a bit, but refused to let the implications ruin her good mood. “Come on, you know he’s not my favorite person in the world, but he’s really doing his best to be here for” -a quick glance, Bart still talking his heart out to Tim- “the new Robin. If you can bury the battle axe...he’s not so bad, nowadays.”

Unsure, he shrugged.

“I don’t really care if he discovers the cure to cancer and spends the rest of his life in seclusion as a monk. If I see him on fire and I have a big water bottle, I might help him put it out- after taking a few drinks, first. But that’s as far as I’d be willing to go for him.”

Considering the numerous times Kon had tried to outright attack the older vigilante, Cassie was going to take it.

“How's Jon?” she asked, subject change as unsubtle as a kick to the chest, taking a delicious french pastry between thumb and forefinger and examining it.

He copied her, selecting something brown and salty-looking from the assorted items

“Nothing new. He’s still a better mentor than Supes, though his choice in friends leaves much to be desired. Still, like I told you, I’m… better? I think?”

A pause, as he washed down whatever he ate with a raspberry slushie. Bart’s incessant chatter, once annoying, was now a beautiful background noise. He was just so damn happy, Cassie felt more accomplished even than the time Diana first told her ‘good job’ after a spar. All he’d asked her for his birthday, soft and broken among his tears, had been this; just the four of them, together.

And she’d done her best to make it happen, securing this place and guilting Kon into accepting. She’d done it, and the memory of Bart’s genuine laugh as he told Tim about his last caught villain would -hopefully- be enough to deter the nightmares sure to come with sunfall.

“Anyway, he’s good. What about Donna?”

Cassie let her head fall back between her shoulder blades with a groan, closing her eyes against the glaring midday sun.

“Ugh, don’t remind me. I love her to pieces, but honestly? I can see why my mom has so many grey hairs. Diana is lucky she’s perpetually young and perfect and thus doesn’t need to deal with stress lines. If this is what I was like when she trained me, I have a lot to apologize for. Starting, but not limited to, our days in Young Justice. We did so many stupid things back then.”

“So, the Titans are a riot?”

“They are a bad influence, and I hate how they taught Donna to disobey when I tell her to go to safety and let me do the fighting, but honestly, it’s so much like looking at our past, I can’t help but want to wrap them up in a blanket and wish them luck.”

“I wish you luck. This is why I refuse to take a younger hero under my wing. Too much responsibility.”

“You are a weak bitch. Even Bart is mentoring someone. We have to nourish the younger generation, Kon. Think of the children.”

“You are nineteen, stop talking like you just turned seventy.”

“Well, Cissie is retired. It’s not such a stretch.”

“I’ll tell her you said she’s old.”

“Don’t you dare.”

After those first few hiccups, the rest of the afternoon went smoothly. Uncharacteristically restrained of them, no food fight ensued, but even so it was a pretty fun day. They caught up with each other, teased about past exes and questionable fashion choices, and every silent, solemn moment was endured with joined hands and hearts, a united front against the grief.

Bart’s wet eyes shone, filled with gratitude, when he blew the candles. Cassie caught the exact moment on camera, having learnt the value of getting those precious seconds immortalized forever somewhere other than her own mind.

He kept his wish to himself, but it wasn’t really a mystery. Just by the way he glanced at Tim, they could harnett a pretty solid guess.

Heartache was a familiar, almost comforting feeling to her now, but the wave of raw emotion that almost washed her away at Kon’s crystalized eyes and Bart’s trembling hands gave her pause. Cassie looked away from them for just a second, giving herself this moment of weakness, and in the fleeting light of sunset, she could have sworn she saw a familiar face, looking over them from the shadow of a tree, smiling fondly.

But it was missing with her next blink, so she just shook her head to dispel any traces of wistfulness and turned back to her boys.

It was in silence that they picked up their stuff. Super speed would have made it a chore of just a millisecond, but none felt the urge to run away, so they took their time, hands brushing and then clutching while they cleaned up this sacred place they had borrowed for the day.

Cassie really needed to thank Damian for coming through for her on this. As much as she had despised the other vigilante in the past, a leftover feeling from Tim’s own feud with his older brother, she had learned to forgive and forget. It was, she’d come to accept, the only way she could move on.

Basket finally full with the blanket, empty plates and chocolate stained napkins (Kon’s hand had trembled as he cleaned Bart’s cheek in their leader’s stead), they stood together, arms around each other with the birthday boy in the middle. One by one, they said their goodbyes. It hurted a little less than the last time they could manage to do this, perhaps helped by the fact Kon hadn’t stormed off midway this time.

Cassie smiled. It was sad, it was raw, it was heavy. But it wasn’t broken. She-they- weren’t broken. A puzzle with a missing piece was incomplete, not shattered.

The hand not around Bart’s shoulders stretched, as Cassie’s finger traced the poem they had Bruce engrave in Tim’s tombstone.

“He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.”

The kids that had chosen that poem as immortalization of their grief had been drowning in it, she knew. Had needed a way to let the world know “we are not okay, we’ll never be okay again”. It was, maybe, what saved them back then.

But she wished she could crouch down in front of those lost, overwhelmed kids and tell them ‘you never stop missing him, but you learn to be happy again; and he brings you all together, just like the first time’.

So Cassandra Sandsmark, former Wonder Girl (now something more), lets her head fall back, looks at the setting sun and smiles. Because she can. Because she’s alive, and she’s gonna fucking smile for him, if its the last thing that she does.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The shadows of the coming night hide him, embrace him, want to keep him; he puts a stop to that, let’s himself be kept from wandering eyes but avoids the eternal retaking. He’s seen that side of the road and is under no hurry to visit it again.

Instead, he watches the young heroes, bathed in light and laughter, sitting around a dead bird’s grave.

He yearns. He wants, more than anything, to go to them. To join them in the warmth, in happiness. To go back to the only home that never felt anything else than welcoming.

But he has work to do; there’s a new Robin in the streets, and he needs to ensure that what happened to him doesn’t happen to this frail, rough around the edges and full of life bird.

He waits until they pick up and leave, before donning his suit and walking in the opposite direction. Hopefully, a time will soon come when he can smile with them again.

But, for now, the Red Hood has a clown to hunt and a criminal underbelly to conquer.

[awesome-cookies-and-cream]

Reki and Langa’s dynamic

It’s speculation at my part and a shameless rant on what i like about sk8 just to get it off my chest I’ve been so fixated help

it’s 5am I’m at uni and i have a shit ton to do, am I really gonna make an essay about sk8 instead? yes abso-fucking-lutely. strap on to your metaphorical skateboards kids. this is going to be long ride

this isn’t to call out anyone lol so in case you get that impression I’m sorry. I understand everyone is out to interpret media in whatever they like and that’s fine, but sometimes i feel like either some missed some points of the story? anyway here are my thoughts tho

alright so what i absolutely love about sk8 is how they didn’t make anyone into a genius.Genius is a mockery of the hardships everyone does to attain that level of skills. And no Langa is not a genius or a prodigy which I will explain later. I’ve seen enough shounen animes back in the day and usually it’s ‘annoying heart of gold beginner vs. calm and collected genius’ they usually hate each other’s guts and bicker all the time though secretly, deep down care for each other but would rather die than admit it dynamic. While I’m glad we’re moving past that, I really thought Reki and Langa would be like that so....

imagine my surprise when Langa was the ‘beginner’ in skating. He has the potential to be a second sasuke here lol. (blue, handsome, cool) but no he isn’t. he’s an adorable idiot, an airhead, head empty only skating dude and i love it. 

Reki as well. He could have been the usual protagonist. (sucks at his sport, loud, hardworking, and by the power of friendship he suddenly beats everyone else which i think is pretty overused at this point, don’t you think?) some people complain how Reki despite being the MC isn’t given screentime and hasn’t won a single beef. (and sure that’s true. he should have won some and langa lose some but we only have 12 eps so lol) but he’s not the usual protagonist you know? and sk8 isn’t about winning. if it was, I think they would have focused on the techniques. the hows and the what to do.

Idk if you noticed, but sports anime with winning in its goal would often explain in detail certain techniques. (see haikyuu) but shows like Free and Yuri on Ice isn’t exactly talking about how to win that seriously as Haikyuu did. It’s more focusing on the feelings and how their lives are affected with their passion for this sport. it’s about the character development!!! and i think SK8 is something like that too. It explores the character’s feelings rather than sport. (like what i tell my sister, they use the sport as a character device if that makes sense?)

this was literally in the opening lol. it’s really about the feelings you know?

so anyway it’s been pointed out several times that Reki was already feeling insecure about his skills in skating since ep 1 way before Langa came. But he still likes to skate and despite feeling never enough, he still enjoyed it. (some also pointed out that Reki’s reason of going into a beef against Shadow has been because he insulted his way of skating not because he wanted to be the best) so the show from the get go was already hinting at his self esteem issues.

this also implies that Reki has always been feeling like this in a while, added with his tendencies to bottle things up, it makes sense that he’ll blow up at some point and he’ll need to release all of those feelings. (so yeah i think this is just the right amount of eps for their fall out. i see some people complaining shush. otherwise it would also feel too rushed. this is years weighing him)

and i guess it’s also implied in here he’s had days like these too in the past! seriously it’s an ongoing problem he’s been carrying. i think 3 eps is pretty good enough pace to internalize it

so point: Reki was already down way before Langa came. langa just added to that. And don’t go blaming Langa cause the boy did nothing wrong.

Consider that Langa just lost his dad (i think we need more backstory on this though. please sdsjkdksl i need little Langa and his dad interactions) he just moved countries, and the only connection to his dad (snowboarding) is gone cause it doesn’t snow in OKinawa

though one also argues that Langa hasn’t been snowboarding since his dad was gone.

so for Langa, Reki introducing skating to him was revolutionary. You’re someone grieving over the death of what is probably the most important person in your life, the thing you love the most no longer gives you joy (as was shown in the flashbacks and basically Langa going ‘it’s the same’) and you’re in a new country with a language you barely are fluent. you can’t even read or write, and you barely have friends granted you don’t have much back in the day. it’s horrible.

and then this guy you barely know talks to you, befriends you, helps you get a job, and teaches you something you thought you’ve lost and through that you made more friends??

yeah you see why Langa likes Reki. You also see why he’s obsessed with skating. It’s kind of like a coping, a fixation. plus he’s bad with social cues i guess? the interview says he’s likely to get dumped for being too inattentive lmao and that’s what makes him interesting!

also the thing that really surprised me when they first interacted was how supportive Reki is to Langa. it also got to me with how much Langa thinks highly of Reki. Again a deviation to the ‘i say i hate you but deep down i care for you’ trope. they’re full on supportive and protective. i like that. it’s fresh to me. I thought Reki was going to the tsundere ‘hmph that’s not a big deal’ route at the start of ep 2 but he’s really amazed. (kinda also says he’s been very desperate for someone to share skating with but that’s another topic)

so Reki teaches Langa how to skate. and Langa sucks. Which was interesting to me because I thought Langa would be some flawless prince-like character. But nah. He trips and faints at his own blood lol. He’s so uncool and i love it.

Some people say Langa is over powered with a thick ass plot armor which gets him to win (which is why i see people saying he should have won against Joe and I actually agree that Langa should lose some beefs but again only 12 eps, so little time)

but I still wanna talk about it anyway so it’s revealed Langa was snowboarding since 2. That’s 15 years. I think that should be around the same time Joe and Cherry should be skating. and i think if you start earlier as a kid, your body develops differently. (should Langa, “an amateur” win against Joe a pro? the question falls more on whether you can classify Langa as an amateur) i think it’s like Langa being very used to motorcycle tricks from age 2 then suddenly he’s using a regular bicycle, and sure the feeling is mostly the same but there’s just something off. Your body doesn’t easily forget what you know, especially if it did it for 15 years. and so Reki customizes a board for Langa so it’ll feel exactly like snowboarding

So Langa has a customized board that he needed to get used to before he went pro. He really sucked the first few eps lmao. but that’s more of him getting used to the new rules. he pretty much told Reki in ep 2 that he can’t do a skateboard ollie, but he can do a snowboard one bec it’s attached to his feet.

(i may just want to add that one thing i also like about sk8 is that it really doesn’t care what you need for accommodation? if that’s how you do it best, then go for it. When Langa says to Reki he can’t do the ollie without the board attached to his feet, Reki immediately goes his way to accommodate him. usually people in real life might say ‘it’s not real skateboarding if you need a modification etc. but look at Cherry with a freaking AI board and people are like yeah whatever do what you want man. whatever rolls your board.)

so anyway Langa vs. Joe with Langa winning despite being an amateur? if you can even call him an amateur that is. Plus all his tricks are snowboarding tricks lol. everything he’s done is testament to his 15 years of snowboarding?? We don’t even know how good Langa is in snowboarding. Someone make a post about how difficult the snowboarding equivalent of those tricks Langa has done just to show people it means he’s pretty pro (I’ll even argue maybe Langa’s real talent is his creative ways of going around things which kind of why Adam is highkey obsessed, and calls Cherry who calculates everything to the last second boring but that’s a different can of worms I’m opening later) plus Langa barely won against Joe so there’s not much difference in level i think. Should Langa have lost though?

I think some have missed the point of that beef in Reki’s pov. and if the Renga reconciliation is done well, it would be worth it.

that beef got Reki to realize he what he really wants! that it’ll kill him if he can’t skate anymore! that he doesn’t wanna only cheer on for others and be a support! THAT HE WANTS TO SKATE BY LANGA’S SIDE WHICH IS THE REASON FOR ALL THIS INSECURITIES if Langa lost, that cathartic realization might not have happened. He might have gone to Langa and cheered him up, brushed off his insecurities and, made up with Langa halfheartedly without addressing his problems

I’m going to go back to Reki’s insecurities. In ep 6 he’s been afraid of being left behind, and sure Langa came back for him but he still forgot until midway. (will that parallel how Langa got too excited with the idea of skating, the same feeling he thought he lost forever. The same thing that he thinks connects him with his dad, and might have left Reki behind, but later remembers and goes back to chase him? hopefully) in ep 4 it’s obvious he’s afraid of the near death experience Adam gave him, and he’s just realized how different their skills were. in ep 5 he worries about Langa, enough to get nightmares about it. mixed with his friend getting hurt. it’s obvious the feelings are very very muddled there.

So he begs Langa not to skate with Adam.

And what did Langa do? say that he wanted to skate with Adam. (again he’s not the most attentive. he probably thinks he’s just skating with his best friend, all is good then boom. Reki leaves. as a person shit with dealing with other people, i don’t blame him at all) he’s trying to fix it though, but his bond with Reki primarily revolves around skating! how else was he going to warm up with Reki? He also doesn’t know that Reki has self esteem issues that’s always been there since the beginning. He probably doesn’t understand it too because he holds Reki up highly. in ep 6 when Reki was going over his board, Langa thinks he’s pretty cool. he didn’t hear what other said to Reki. He’s earnestly having fun with his friend

We should also note that Reki was never angry at Langa’s skills, he wasn’t resentful that Langa was far ahead. Again he’s been nothing but supportive. He doesn’t want to pull Langa down. He wasn’t like Miya’s friends that lashed out at Miya for being better. in ep 7 he tries his best to follow Langa

it feels like he’s mostly regretful that he can’t catch up. he doesn’t want Langa to slow down, he wants to go faster and meet him where he was. So it makes the realization that all he wants to do was be in equal with Langa more frustrating because he thinks he can’t keep up. (and this only ever started when he heard he’s like Langa’s plus one. there’s that daunting feeling about being pulled around. not being his equal) 

if you need further proof, when Langa and Joe were having a beef, he wasn’t aggressively hoping Langa would lose. in fact he encouraged him. He worries deeply He calls him out when he was doing badly. Still very supportive as ever. So really the frustration isn’t to Langa, again, it’s all internal. He wants to be better

so he’s feeling shit and Langa goes to him in the middle of the rain, bless langa for trying, thinking talking about skating (what he thinks Reki loves and would probably cheer him up, not knowing that’s exactly his problem) tells him

which is probably the worst he could say.

THAT’S what got Reki mad, not really Reki being insecure though that’s part of it, that’s what they’re fighting about, Reki is angry he’s breaking his promise. He thinks Langa doesn’t care about Reki, that he’ll easily break a promise between them that Reki obviously cares about just so he can go skate with Adam who is way better than him. It blows to the self esteem. Reki probably also think that if only he was better, langa wouldn’t bother skating with someone that dangerous. it doesn’t help at all.

but langa doesn’t know this. he doesn’t see all this. Langa might have been too up the high of skating like in ep 6, he sorta left Reki behind again.

it kinda makes Langa’s mom’s words hit harder though

and he did just that. he got too engrossed.

It parallels adam, cherry and joe’s friendship then probably tadahsi’s too but who knows? reki and langa, and tadashi and adam might parallel too, the master and the student thingy Adam might have gotten too obsessed. So Joe trying his best to make sure Reki and Langa won’t end up like them hits a little harder in my chest ;’)

but Langa won’t be to engrossed i think

because unlike Adam who’s aggressively looking for his ‘equal’, Langa is just looking for someone who makes his heart beat, to make him feel like he’s skating with his dad again, someone he loves dearly. (there’s a parallel about loves here too between Adam’s and Langa’s. but I can’t write it now) and he probably already thinks Reki is his equal anyway. He just wants to have fun. he doesn’t think much about the skills.

maybe at first he does. that’s why he’s drawn to Adam but from ep 9, it was pretty much shown that skills really doesn’t matter from when he skated against Joe

if Adam easily discarded his friends because he think they’re boring (which was why the whole skateboard to the face thing with Cherry), langa doesn’t think like that

if anything Reki is important to Langa because he only has fun skating with Reki, who taught him how to skate and made his board. (his board that was customized to fit his style btw, and arguably the only reason he could skate that well. without it, he might as well be a beginner once again.) so without reki, langa is left with nothing. especially with his broken board

no fun in skating, no way of skating. He’s only manage to get this far because of Reki and he knows that now. All of it would be pointless if he doesn’t have Reki (and either he gets so obsessed in chasing that feeling again, or he stops completely) but in case you haven’t noticed it, Langa’s motivation revolves around having fun with skating no matter the skill or place. And he’s having most fun with Reki.

But Reki obviously doesn't know Langa’s feelings. He thinks Langa was forever looking for someone better. So he’s still caught up in the idea that Langa won’t want to skate with him (even though Langa has never shown this) and he left S entirely, thinking what he wants is impossible. fucking just talk you two motherfucker

(I also wanna point out that Reki has always been shown from episode one to be good at making boards. And that’s amazing? We need some support recognition and appreciation, seriously) I think maybe most who find problem with Reki not winning beefs like the usual shounen protags aren’t used to the nuance and perspective of being someone ‘ordinary’. Reki’s character is relatable because most of us feel ordinary, never enough, surrounded by geniuses, ‘inferior’. And if we’re being realistic since a lot are saying joe should have won because langa winning is unrealistic and you want realism so bad no I’m not salty at all there will always be someone better than you. ALWAYS. but what’s important is for you to have fun in what you love! in what makes you happy! AND even if you’re not good at one thing (in Reki’s part, skating) he’s also good at other things (making boards) so does he need to stop one for the other? no. He’s shown to enjoy skating with Langa, he doesn’t wanna stop it hurts him so much he quit. But he can also hone his skills in making boards as well as skate. He’s equal with Langa in a way he doesn’t even notice when he made that board for Langa, but even Reki’s presence alone makes Langa enjoy skating the way Reki also wants Langa by his side.

So I think the next ep is the best time to confront all these feelings. And how it happens might be what’s tricky. Like romantic or not, i personally can read it both ways though i prefer if they do become canon. (idk if it’s queerbaiting. i guess friends can care as deeply as that but ngl, these shounen bestfriends having deep connections that are written off as friends while also giving us bland af hetero love interests who did nothing but exist and be straight really is messing with my perception of romantic and platonic love irl) anyway their talk better be done really well, or else all those episodes of tension would be for nothing

It’s a nice perspective to give a shounen protagonist this time. It’s new, it’s fresh. How many incarnations of underdog turned the best at their craft can you take? variety is nice! and if you don’t like it, there are always a dozen other animes like that for you to turn to. to conclude, IT ALL GOES BACK TO THE START: WHAT IS YOUR HAPPINESS???! AND FOR THEM IT’S THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP BUT IN A VERY DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE. FRIENDSHIP DOESN’T  SUDDENLY GET YOU TO LEVEL 100000000000 TO DEFEAT THE FINAL BOSS. FRIENDSHIP IS WHAT MAKES DEFEATING THE FINAL BOSS WORTHWHILE

Anyway tldr; maybe the real Eve is the friends we made along the way :D  and idk if I’m making sense but obviously I’m head empty only sk8. Renga needs to talk, i can’t believe they have the audacity to make a recap episode as if i wasn’t head empty only sk8 since february, and if there’s more emotional edging to come, i will burn some of the palm trees outside my house

[maryniss]

The Wet Bathroom Floor

Fandom: SK8 The Infinity

Rating: General And Up Audiences

Summary: Reki cries but Langa is there for him.

Characters: Reki Kyan ; Hasegawa Langa

Relationships: Reki Kyan X Hasegawa Langa

Tags: Fluff and Angst, Angst with a happy ending, renga brainrot, making up

Notes: Not me with another sk8 angsty fic. idk but i cant stop. also not my projecting my mental breakdown on reki. anyway enjoy bye bye

The bathroom’s floor was cold. Cold and wet already with Reki’s tears. Curled up in a ball, Reki whined and cried. He wanted to scream, but all that was coming out of his throat was a strangled whisper. His long eyelashes were stuck together by the salty water that didn’t stop coming from his eyes.

It was dark in the bathroom. The grey light pouring from outside was not doing much. 

Reki could hear his siblings laughing somewhere in the house. It was a far-away sound and Reki took his head into his hands. He wanted to stop crying. He wanted to because he knew that his family needed him; the happy and energetic Reki. They didn’t need to worry about him, too. 

He should just stop. 

Reki turned on his back and took a deep breath; a deep breath then another one. The tears stopped coming down his cheeks.

And, then he remembered that he was not enough; that what he did was not enough. He started crying again and he bit his hand, he bit his hand so that the physical pain would suppress the one that he felt in his soul.

It didn’t of course. He was so tired and he still had to do so much...

He loved to skate. Fuck yes he did.

But it hurt him so much; to feel like he didn’t do enough, to feel like he didn’t love it enough. His breath started to speed up; on his hand there was a red mark from his teeth.

Why? Why? WHY!? 

He always worked so hard; he threw everything else aside from skateboarding. He threw everything away for him to be able to skate.

He did, he always did. And what was happening now? What was it?

Why couldn’t he throw Langa away? Why, why did he want to stay by the other’s boy side so bad? 

He even quitted S. Because he...he just...

Reki didn’t know why he did that. He just felt like. And, when he offered his insignia to the bodyguard he expected to be sad.

He was not; he was relieved. 

The sound of the rain smacking against the bathroom’s window. Reki got up. He was not crying anymore. He was just feeling empty. 

He opened the tap and let the cold water run over his hands. He splashed his face and looked into the mirror. His eyes were dead and empty, tired.

And, Reki smiled. Because he knew that he was needed. Nobody would want a crybaby. Such a loser like him.

Reki burst out in laughing.

He really was a loser. He couldn’t even do what he loved. He couldn’t even have Langa because of what he loved.

So, he basically lost every time.

The bathroom was filled with his laughter. The rain cried outside. His siblings were laughing.

And Reki cried again. The tears fell into the sink this time.

He just was not strong enough to...

The bathroom door opened. The first thing Reki did was to hide his face.

"Want me to help you with something?", asked Reki, thinking in was his mom or one of his sisters.

He definitely didn't expect to be hugged. And for his senses to feel the familiar scent of winter and orange. The familiar scent of Langa.

It was him and Reki didn't even have to look to know. Of course it was him.

Reki's legs gave out and he fell on the floor, curling his body so he would not face Langa.

"Go...away...". Reki bot his tongue after those words came out of his mouth. Did he really want Langa to leave? Did he now?

"No way." Langa sat down next to Reki and hugged him tightly from behind. The red haired shivered and Langa squeezed harder.

"Why are you crying, Reki?"

The bathroom was small and their bodies were pressed hard against each other. Reki sighed.

"I dont know. I am just tired..."

"Reki, talk to me. If you are tired you sleep."

Pff. Reki almost laughed. Langa was always such a dense person.

"No. I am not tired like that... It s just...I feel like I didn't work enough...like I dont love skate enough..."

Langa sighed.

"Reki. Do you really want to hear it from me?"

Reki's mom shouted and then something fell on the ground and broke. It was probably a plate.

"Reki. You are amazing. I started to skate because of you. Dont you understand, Reki?", said Langa in a low voice. The sound of rain was fading away.

"Reki, your love for skateboarding is so great that it inspires others. Reki, you are so amazing that I could not even start to tell you what I like about you."

Reki didnt say anything. Instead he wondered if what Langa said was true. He tried to sort out his feelings.

Yes. He was sad that Langa juts went ahead. But it was not like him, not like the energetic Reki to give up. So, whatever would happen from then on, Reki promised himself: he would skate next to Langa. Always. Not in front of him, not behind him.

He would skate next to his side.

"Langa." Reki turned and looked into his friends blue eyes. "Lets stay like this. And we will talk after."

Langa kissed Reki's forehead and at that moment Reki was basically screaming inside.

"Langa, just so you know, I am not mad at you."

That was a good start. They both started at the same time. The were going next to each other.

The rain stopped. Langa was warm and Reki smiled to himself.

And the bathroom's floor was cold. Not that it mattered.

****

Also bonus

At Langa’s house, after Renga make up:

“Oh my god oh my god, this boy is so cute! This is him, Langa? Really? Ahh, he’s so cute!!”

Langa’s mom was just too happy and Reki was sure that his face was as red as his hair. He was nervous before coming here, but now he was more embarrassed. But, he was happy.

“Oh, boy, you know that Langa liked you so much! So happy I finally met you! You’re the only one he had talked about since we came here!” Langa’s mom whispers, even if she does know that Langa could hear

“At first I thought you were a girl.”

“Mama!” Langa is now red as well. Reki can’t help but laugh. Yes, that is what he wanted. Now, he cant say that he is a loser, can he?

[orange-plum]

So I’m not really in SK8 anymore, so I doubt I’ll ever finish this. But I dabbled in some Renga post car accident episode. It’s going to collect dust in my folders, but y’all can have it if you want it. It is, I must emphasize, incomplete, though.

Either way, here you go:

Fandom: SK8 Pairing: Renga Status: Incomplete/discontinued

----------------------------

The off-white shell cradling his fractured appendage was as much of an eyesore as it was a nuisance. As if to prove his point, Reki gingerly raised his leg, ultimately forced to lower it a moment later with a bitter grimace. 

“I can’t believe this . . . ,” he quietly groaned into his hands. Bowing his head, Reki closed his eyes to will away the miserable reality he found himself in. And here he’d thought his current situation couldn’t have possibly gotten worse.

Reki had too much pride to accept that man’s money after being struck by his vehicle, but a broken leg was a broken leg. He wasn’t going to be able to hide it from his family, even if the futile idea had briefly crossed his mind while he had been manhandled out of the street in a daze. 

He wouldn’t ask for compensation. All he’d wanted was fast treatment and for the bill not to be sent to his mother.

Her worried face and flurried hands as he’d shown up after sunset, wobbling on crutches with less than no explanation wasn’t exactly something Reki wanted to dwell on, either. There was no changing what happened. But what did he really expect after running out of the hospital in a panic? 

In the end, it wasn’t too surprising a car had hit him. The mortification still heated his cheeks like hotplates.

Fingering the edge of a stiff piece of stationary, Reki frowned and flicked it back into his backpack. The man had paid for his casting and scrapes, giving him a blank card with a phone number scrawled hastily across.

Call me if there are any further complications and I will take care of it right away, he’d said.

“Fat chance,” Reki snorted, laboriously shifting his leg into the aisle to get more comfortable. 

Students had asked him about his sudden injury as they’d filtered into the classroom that morning, seeming to hone in on the hulking distraction that was so very out of place.

Finding the energy to muster a smile about a clumsy skating mishap had been one hindrance. Seeing Langa’s face when he stepped into the room, zeroing in on Reki’s leg, was another thing entirely. Reki didn’t know what to make of that expression, suddenly feeling very self-conscious, yet unable to hide the evidence of the fateful car accident.

“Reki . . . , ” Langa breathed, drifting forward like a ghostly wraith. Up close, Reki could see the slight tremble of his jaw as he searched for the proper words to illustrate his surprise. Langa’s gaze flickered away from the cast to the bandages on Reki’s chin, his lips soundlessly flapping.

Reki averted his eyes, unable to bear the concern bleeding onto Langa’s face. Under the loose sleeves of his sweatshirt, he felt the irritated sting of road rash on his forearms.

“What happened to you?” Langa asked in a rush. He ignored his seat in favor of hovering. Reki ducked his head and chewed at his lip, hating the sudden attention. As awful as it was, he’d gotten used to the quiet between them. This encounter was uncomfortable. “When did this - Are you alright?”

The alarm in Langa’s voice was somehow worse than the worry on his face. Damn.

“It’s nothing,” Reki muttered, hoping if he feigned nonchalance that Langa would dutifully follow suit. He careened away from the frantic static prickling his side, Langa’s concern a physical entity. It smothered him. If Reki had any luck left at all, Langa would catch on and drop it.

“It’s not nothing,” Langa countered. When he spoke again, his voice was lowered an octave, aware of the few eyes that curiously drew towards the two. “When did you break your leg?”

Running his tongue over his teeth, Reki managed to glance at him. There was an anxious energy about Langa. His hand reached forward, halting as Reki jerked his arm away. He regretted it instantly at the brief flash of hurt that flitted across Langa’s features.

“Last night.”

Pursing his lips, Langa reluctantly retreated the foot back into his desk. Thankfully, he sat down, but his torso shifted precariously close. Langa paused, as if to properly consider what he was about to say, not quite confident in his delivery. Reki wilted at the small torrent of hope in his words.

“At S . . . ?”

The instant flare of annoyance rekindled before Reki managed to suppress it. Chin in palm, Reki turned his attention to the window, muttering to himself before he could help it. “Of course not at S.”

“What?”

“I’m fine.”

Langa looked like he wanted to protest. His reflection in the glass drew their brows together, his mouth opening to fling more unwanted questions Reki’s way. 

The bell chimed for class, cutting Langa’s interrogation short. A small mercy.

Reki drew in a breath of relief, letting it go only when he saw Langa reluctantly retreat into his seat. 

He didn’t want to talk about this with Langa. He didn’t want to talk to him period. It was already awkward as it was.  He wasn’t properly equipped to put his feelings into words just yet. Adding this new shame to the mountain of contempt Reki already felt was far too daunting to tackle.

But if the continuous side glances Langa kept bestowing upon him throughout class were anything to go by, Reki knew he couldn’t run from him forever.

X x X

Avoiding someone was a lot more difficult on crutches.

With their friendship so out of sync as of late, Langa catapulted between seeking Reki out and giving him his space. It didn’t matter if they were sitting side-by-side in class together, or if Langa ran around the city to locate him. Reki and his words always evaded Langa’s advances.

The shock of spotting that bulky cast, however, might have turned the tides in Langa’s favor.

Giving Reki space to manage their fallout was one thing, but Langa couldn’t bring himself to ignore the dismal state of his body as he hobbled around their school on crutches.

How did I not know this had happened? Have I really not been paying attention? Langa thought to himself. His stomach twisted anxiously, sending his lunch riding on a nauseating wave. He trailed behind Reki towards the school gates, unsure how to approach him.

Reki hadn’t exactly been the most chatty as of late, but the short conversation this morning had somehow been worse than the silence. If Langa had thought he’d been sufficiently shut out before, he now knew he was gravely mistaken.

Reki clearly didn’t want to tell him about this. 

That hurt.

“Careful!” Langa warned, darting forward in time to steady Reki’s arm as he stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk. Reki jerked in his hold, despite taking care to be gentle. Langa immediately pulled his hand away, his heart pounding in his chest at the sight of wide eyes and a wrinkled nose. 

“Sorry,” he apologized just as swiftly, taking a step away as Reki took a few steady breaths. “You just . . . I thought you might fall.”

It’s not just his leg? Langa silently realized, swallowing the building knot in his throat. How bad is it? Was this really not from skating, then?

Though Reki had gotten hurt before, even racing Adam hadn’t put him in such a brittle condition. Reki looked like shit boiled over. And now that Langa had a proper view, he could see the bandages peeking out from the hem of a sweatshirt sleeve.

“I’m fine,” Reki assured, turning away and staggering forward. He looked so strange, barely balancing on crutches when Langa was so accustomed to the vibrant flurry of motion that was Reki on a skateboard.

Langa was probably never going to grow used to the quiet, defeated way in which Reki seemed to speak nowadays. It felt like an eternity since he’d spoken any louder than a murmur.

“I can carry your bag if you want?” Langa offered, trotting beside Reki, his fingers flexing over the board in his hand. He hated this distance between them, but didn’t have a clue how to fix it. Reki’s rain-soaked words, how he no longer saw them as an adequate match for friendship, took that inopportune moment to play on a loop in Langa’s mind.

The palms of his hands turned clammy.

“I don’t need it,” Reki said, refusing to take his eyes off the street in front of him. As an afterthought, he mumbled a quick, “Thanks.”

It did little to abate the nervousness in Langa’s belly.

How could he get Reki to talk to him? How could he get Reki to tell him? Langa wanted to help, but he couldn’t manage to muster up the courage to fully pry.

Even so, there was never a more pitiful sight that he’d witnessed than watching Reki struggling to self-sufficiently make his way home, perspiration on his temples and frustration splintering that dismal mask of his.

“You don’t have to follow me. I can go myself.”

Langa hesitated. “I know. But I want to.”

“Well, I don’t want you to.”

“Oh.”

Langa shifted his feet, halting in his tracks. What was he supposed to say to that? While it was certainly painful, Langa knew Reki was making it clear where his boundaries were now set. He wasn’t exactly being subtle about wanting to sever their friendship.

Even so, Langa couldn’t bring himself to let go. That empty chasm growing in his chest by the day was already so overwhelming. If he fully gave into Reki’s wishes and let go of him for real . .  .

I don't know how to come back from that, Langa thought. Desperation flared and forced his feet forward. Reki flinched as he came by his side once more. He paused when seeing Langa, a curious expression fitting onto his face.

Langa wasn’t sure what he was thinking when seeing him persist, but he wasn’t going to let Reki brush him off this time. Not with something potentially this serious.

“Please let me take your bag,” he insisted. Langa wanted to kick himself at the small crack in his voice. He pressed forward, regardless. “Your house is so far, Reki. I won’t ask if you don’t want to tell me, so . . . ,” he faltered.

Langa averted his eyes as the silence loomed between them. He drew an arm up, then feebly dropped it to his side, unsure of himself. “I just want to help.”