⍟ Broken Strings {A Chaos Theory x Male Reader Story - Ben}

𝟺. 𝙱𝚛𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚜

"Dude!" Kenji grins when he stands face to face with the other man, "Did you get even taller? Slow down, buddy."

"And Y/N, my guy!" Kenji chuckles and moves over to hug Y/N, "Still playing guitar?"

"You know it!" Y/N smiles, returning the gesture.

"That mean I can call you Strings again?" Kenji smirks.

"Didn't know you ever stopped." Y/N scoffs playfully.

"Well," Kenji turns to Sammy, "Since you already kicked me, can I give you a hug, Miss Karate?"

"It's capoeira, but, um, duh!" Sammy beams, "I'm always up for a hug." She pulls him into an embrace.

"Come on in!" Kenji leads them to the door. Darius tries to talk to him as they step inside, but Kenji ignores him and shuts the door in his face.

Sammy sighs and goes back to the door, slowly pushing it open.

"I'll... be right in." Darius frowns.

Sammy nods sadly and shuts the door.

"Welcome to casa de Kenji 2.0!" Kenji announces, showing off the trailer filled to the brim with cardboard boxes with brand stickers slapped onto them.

Y/N's eyes linger on the stickers.

"Aha," Kenji leads Y/N down into a chair, "I see my budding business has caught your eyes."

Sammy and Ben both take a seat as well.

"Here," Kenji grabs some stickers from his pocket and passes them around, "Have some swag."

Sammy brings her sticker up to her face and reads it, "You Kon Climb Too - Kenji Climbing Camp."

"This is... really something, Kenj!" She smiles at him optimistically.

Darius steps inside and shuts the door behind him but Kenji completely ignores him again.

"Almost forgot!" Kenji moves over to shut off the lights and close the blinds, "Ta-da!"

Y/N looks down to see the sticker in his hand shimmering.

"They glow in the dark!" Kenji adds when nobody speaks.

"Isn't that sick!?"

"Yeah... these are awesome." Y/N smiles, sliding his sticker into his pocket.

"Yea-- Yeah, real great, Kenji!" Ben adds.

"But that's not why we're here," He gets up to switch the lights back on, "We came to warn you."

"We're all in danger." He places his hands on Kenji's shoulders.

"Danger?" Kenji stares into Ben's eyes for a moment, "Pshh," He pushes his hands off and walks away, "I don't do danger anymore."

"I'm more of an eat-climb-love kinda guy now." He settles onto his bed.

"All great and fun, until raptors show up at your door." Y/N folds his arms.

"Raptors?" Kenji sits up, "For real?"

"Yeah, for real." Darius chimes in, "Why do you think we're here? It's definitely not for the sparkling conversation."

Kenji pauses before glaring over at Darius, "Sorry, what was that? I'm not fluent in betrayal."

"Dude, what's your problem!?" Darius throws his hands up.

"Brooklyn's death--" Ben chimes in, choking on his words.

The mood in the room shifts as everyone is reminded of how things started and how they're going.