Langa was nervous about going back to school. He kept picturing those girls coming to stand by Reki's desk, laughing at his drawings, and it made his hands all sweaty while he waited outside of Reki's house, wobbling back and forth on his skateboard. The day was warm, and when Reki came bounding out of his front door, he was wearing a tie-dye shirt and an orange headband.
"Langa!" he called, and Langa held out his fist for their knuckle-bump, but Reki crashed right past that, throwing his arms around Langa's body, and Langa nearly toppled off the skateboard. He put his hands on Reki's back, trying to steady himself, trying to shove his heart down from where it had leapt into his throat. Underneath his fingertips, he could feel the bumps of Reki's spine, and when Reki pulled away, Langa couldn't see anything but his red hair and orange headband and big smile.
"Good morning," said Langa, a bit stupidly, and Reki laughed, his hands squeezing Langa's sides before letting go. Langa felt dizzy, maybe from the heat, or maybe from the way Reki's hands had left warm imprints on Langa's torso, which was already starting to sweat.
"I thought of an idea for our date!" Reki said, hopping onto his own board, kicking off so Langa had to scramble to keep up. His heart was still racing as their boards bounced over the cobblestones of the street, Reki's hair waving wildly in the wind, his shirt so colorful that it was impossible to look away.
"What is it?" asked Langa, when he had caught his breath.
"It's a secret!" said Reki, sounding absolutely thrilled at the prospect, and Langa frowned, their boards bumping over a crack in the street.
"That's not fair," he said. "Tell me?"
"Nope!" said Reki, grinning, his arms outstretched, and he looked so happy and free that Langa's heart thumped in his chest. "Well, not yet. I have to wait to make sure we can pull it off. But you're going to love it! Oh boy, I'm excited." He jumped over the curb, and hastily Langa did, too, wobbling a little, holding his arms out for balance. When he got into the zone of skateboarding, he forgot all about needing to balance, but somehow when he and Reki were just riding around like this, Langa kept getting distracted by how bright and colorful Reki was, how loud and excited his voice got. It usually ended in him wiping out on some street corner while Reki laughed his ass off before helping him up.
But today Langa managed to stay upright as they raced through the sidewalks, under the shop signs and the fluttering flags. "Give me a hint," Langa said, as they whipped around a corner, Reki's hand catching briefly on his shoulder.
"Okay," said Reki. "Let me think. Oh, it will be competitive! Well, there's gonna be a competitive part of it. I feel like—a date should have high stakes, you know? And nothing gets your blood pumping like some good ol' competition."
He grinned at Langa, and Langa made a face, because he already knew his blood would be pumping on his date with Reki, god, his date with Reki. The words still felt surreal. Reki had been texting him all night about the date, all the things he wanted to practice (holding hands in public, paying the check for each other, thinking of romantic compliments) and Langa had kept his face buried in his pillow to stop himself from screaming.
If Reki seriously tried to practice paying him a romantic compliment, Langa's blood was going to start pumping right out of his body.
They hopped off the boards at the school gates, Reki's shoulder knocking against his affectionately, and Langa wracked his brain for a date idea that Reki would consider competitive. Maybe they were going bowling, he thought, or maybe Reki was just going to bring him to S and claim it was romantic. That would be okay, even if it wasn't particularly date-like, because Langa would go anywhere with Reki, and he liked going to S. Anywhere they went could be like a date, if only Reki wanted it to be, but of course he didn't, so Langa tried to shove those thoughts down.
