"Honey, I'm home!" Lee yells, stepping past the intricately-carved oakwood doorframe, sneakers padding over the marble floor---one by one, step by step. As usual, the moment his feet close in on the opulence of his doorway, the crisp white walls seem to curve in on him, squeezing around his skinny limbs the same way a bottle hugs a champagne cork.
He's rewarded with a bouncing blur of brown fur, twisting and turning its way to the safety of his arms. And although Socks is probably less than one-sixth his size, she's got more than enough energy for the both of them. At least, enough to completely bowl him over.
"Hello to you too," Lee chuckles, wriggling around on the floor like a gleeful slug in a futile attempt to avoid his dog's eager tongue. He grabs her little white paws and gently presses his thumbs into them, eliciting a keening whine from Socks. "Sorry, honey. Can't crumple my shirt too much today. Jack's going to have my ass if I show up in home clothes tomorrow." He rolls his eyes, even though he knows Socks isn't going to agree---probably better, to be honest. "I don't understand why he's such a tight-ass about it. The principal doesn't care."
(Of course, there's a very specific reason why the principal doesn't care. One that Jack deems it morally correct to dismiss---rightfully so, to be perfectly fair to him.)
Socks cocks her head and continues wagging both her tongue and her tail.
An affectionate grin overtakes Lee's face, his fingers heading to the back of his dog's folded ears to give them a scratch. He wishes people were as simple as dogs---life would be so much easier if Jack Sang could be tamed with a belly rub, after all. And because he's not supposed to be thinking about Jack, not right now, he lifts Socks off him and gets up slowly.
"Come on. I'll get you something to eat. I don't expect Dad refilled your bowl." The following whimper from Socks at the mention of food is all Lee needs for an answer.
Lee loves his father. Really, he does. It's just that he wishes he could have more time for him sometimes---or if not him, at least Socks. After all, his father had been the one to bring Socks home in the first place, back when he'd actually been coming home, back when Lee had a mother around, back when everything was love and life and laughter and not a house too empty for one---two, if he counts Socks.
Because Lee's not sure what to do with his mouth, as usual, he starts talking to Socks as he's pouring out chicken Minichunks into her blue-striped bowl. (Yumeko says he's too emotionally dependant. Lee's inclined to agree.) "You know, I bought a muffin for Jack today. Fucker..." ---because apparently, dogs don't particularly mind it when he swears--- "...was so surprised, I thought he'd shit himself or something." Lee throws his back, unable to stop the giggles that bubble up his throat. "Well, not really, but it would be nice to have more blackmail material on him."
(He already has enough blackmail material on Jack to chase him to Antarctica, but it's not like he'll ever use it.)
Lee exhales loudly, hearing a few Minichunks skitter over the floor. As expected, Socks immediately darts for them, swallowing the kibble like a starving man. Guilt gnaws at Lee's stomach. He'd remembered to feed her in the morning. He'd left some extra kibble in her bowl for the afternoon. He feels guilty all the same. "You're lucky you don't have boy problems, Socks. Being gay's harder than it looks. Of course, I make it look easy as hell, but---"
He stops. The kitchen's silent as the grave, save for the light thuds of Minichunks exploding from Socks' overfilled bowl and landing on the floor---Lee's always had a terrible attention span. Socks stares up at him with dark pools that could melt a dead man's heart.
"Ah, man." Lee brushes an exasperated hand through his tangled blue-grey locks---an oddly specific shade, he supposes, but he can't help it. It had been his mother's favourite colour---at least, he thinks so, because she'd never really described it.
"It's the colour of daydreams," she'd always said, one of her countless storybooks unfolded across her lap. "It's the colour of serendipity, of peace, of air and joy and tear-stained love. There's more teal in it than silver, and it's like the tips of ocean spray." And then she'd pulled her short legs up on her favourite yellow armchair and smiled like she was never going to leave.
There's not much Lee can do when the memories come back, nowadays. All he can do is slam the door on thoughts that refuse to go away. Day in, day out. An endless cycle he desperately wants---no, needs to forget.
The Minichunks on the floor are already gone. Perks of having a living vacuum.
Lee grins---tries to, at least, and bends down to give Socks an affectionate pat on the head. "Eat up, honey," he says, and she immediately begins doing just that.
While Socks chows down on a small mountain of Minichunks and slobbers all over the freshly-mopped floor, Lee yanks his phone out from the pocket of his jeans. There's a text lighting up his screen---voice message from his father, as usual. Lee doesn't want to listen to it, but he knows he won't be eating tonight if he doesn't, so he watches the play button turn green anyway.
"Um, Leroy, I'll be, uh, busy again today," is the first words that drift out from the speaker of his device. His father's voice is hesitant, tentative, as if he's just remembering he has a son. "I won't be coming back for dinner..." ---which, really, has been something to be expected for the past few years--- "...so there's food in the fridge. Second shelf, right. There's spring rolls. And, uh, fried eggplant." There's a pause, like he's trying to end the message but can't quite find the words. "Uh...love you. Yeah." And then it's done, and gone, and his father's voice has escaped his head for another day---or week, or month.
(Lee hates eggplant. He's said it before, but he's not sure if his father even hears him anymore.)
Lee doesn't bother swinging open the fridge to check---he knows the food will be there, as promised, because although his father isn't particularly reliable, their day maid is. Instead, he crouches down and continues focusing his love on Socks---who has rapidly switched her attention from him to her towering food bowl---because Socks, at least, is a welcome constant in his life.
Once Socks has devoured most of her bowl, Lee leans against the kitchen counter and hooks two fingers into the corners of his mouth, one at each side. His teeth dig into his thumbs. His smile digs into his heart.
Lee pulls his thin lips wide, stretching the skin around them until his cheeks burn. Every second that passes makes it easier to grin, until Socks starts crying in the little dog-wail she uses whenever she senses Lee's feeling like shit, and the eggshell-white walls swallow him whole once more.
Sometimes, Lee wishes he was anyone else. He wants to be the too-cool-for-school boy in the front with the hipster glasses and the plaid backpack whose equally-hipster father comes to pick him up every day. He wants to be the goth girl in Econs with the punked-up chains and the trio of younger siblings that yank her to the ice cream shop on Saturdays. He wants to be anyone else, anywhere else. Not Leroy Hiew with his blue-grey hair and touch-starved soul.
"Yeah," Lee mutters, the porcelain abyss of false hope withering before his eyes. Like a daydream, his mother had said. And even though dreams run through the livewire of his blood, travelling through the city lights of his wanderlust only seems to get harder every night. "Love you too."
٩( ᐛ )و
So it's no surprise when Lee ends up on Yumeko Mori's doorstep after leaving Socks in the care of their night maid, because why the fuck does his father hire so many maids if none of them stay? But since that's a question he can't answer and the night maid's deaf as hell, he finds himself standing on the all-too-familiar stoop with the crack at the top. The seed Yumeko had dropped into the crevice the last time he'd come over is a sprout now, a figment of a sapling, small and weedy and alive. Lee thinks about how Yumeko had cradled the seed in the sleeves of her oversized sweater when they'd found it, and how she'd looked at it with more fondness than he'd ever seen her have for anyone, and he briefly wonders if that's why it's grown so fast.
His finger's barely touched the doorbell when Yumeko's there, haloed in the golden light streaming from the open doorway. Her red-lacquered hand presses against the frame harder, dark hair ringing her waist in a pin-straight waterfall. A scowl's plastered over her pretty face, but Lee knows she doesn't mean it---or at least, she won't in a minute.
Lee holds up the peace offering he'd carefully thrown together just before coming over with a big grin: chocolate pastries from their favourite bakery, new pyjamas, extra-thick pads. "Food man!" he hollers.
Through the curtain of her heavy bangs, Yumeko smiles.
٩( ᐛ )و
They end up on the short stone wall between Yumeko's house and her neighbour's. When Lee had swung himself up onto their usual spot, he'd been greeted with a sneer of disbelief and a clipped, "I'm bleeding like a motherfucker, Leroy. I'm not climbing today." She'd quickly softened, though, especially when he'd gathered her up in his arms and gently dropped her on top of the wall---perks of being six inches taller, he supposes.
Yumeko swings her legs over the border, kicking her heels into the neighbour's side of the wall---just because she can, as she always claims. Lee knows it has less to do with what she can and more to do with what she wants, and what she wants is the honey-skinned girl from the crackerbox next door.
(As Lee has learned over the years, what Yumeko wants, she gets. Probably why she and the girl next door have been holding hands and butterfly-kissing for over a month already.)
From his vantage point, the moon almost seems brighter---and yet, it's a poor replica of the reflection gleaming from Yumeko's round dark eyes. Her gaze is a million miles away, bouncing off the stars as she wolfs down still-warm chocolate croissants at an alarming rate.
Lee pokes his best friend's cheek gently. "You're so cute when you're hungry," he cooes.
Yumeko shoots him a heated glare---of course, considering how she's got crumbs all over her face, it's not nearly as intimidating as it should be. "I could push you off this wall and make it look like an accident."
"Yeah, except I'd land on my feet, because this thing's not as high as you think it is," Lee states. And then, with a teasing little smirk that he hopes Yumeko knows he doesn't really mean, "Shorty."
"I'm not short." (She's barely five-two, so she kind of is.) "You're just too tall." (And he's only five-eight---and a half, as he likes to remind Jack, because if he can't grow another half-inch, he'll guard the one he does have with his life---so she's wrong again.) Yumeko shoves another croissant into her mouth. Without their signature coating of vermillion, her lips are pale, almost naked.
"Yeah, well..." Lee shifts his hand from her cheek to her hair, ruffling his fingers through the stick-straight curtain until dark strands begin poking up from the top of her head. Yumeko doesn't even flinch---too busy with her croissant, no doubt. "How's Maya?"
"Normal," is Yumeko's reply before she reaches for another croissant.
(Food, as Lee has noticed, is Yumeko's one true love. Even her girlfriend pales in comparison to it.)
"Slow down, tiger," Lee says, nabbing the pastry from her grasp before it can reach her mouth. Yumeko sends him a stare that makes him wonder if she'll actually push him off the wall. "You'll get heartburn if you eat this fast."
"Yeah, well, it's my body."
"And it's my money. I bought these."
"Bullshit. We both know you're still living off Daddy's hard-earned cash. Anyway, you gave these chocolate-coated babies to me, so they're mine now."
"I came here to talk, not to watch you stuff your face, you pig." Lee takes a bite of the stolen croissant, a giggle bubbling from his mouth at the look on Yumeko's face.
"Rude." Yumeko brushes her overgrown bangs away from her forehead just so she can roll her eyes at him, and the unnecessarily dramatic action only makes Lee laugh harder. "Why'd you come here, anyway?"
The smile instantly drops off Lee's lips. He turns his dark eyes to his lap, because it's easier that way. It's easier to hide everything away, lock it all up, chain it to the shadow of things he doesn't know---things he doesn't want to know. "You know why."
"Daddy issues?"
"What else?" Lee knows it's cliché: the filthy rich kid with the absent father and the mother that never wanted him, all imitation sunshine and parental problems and abandonment complexes. Too much money and not enough love. But Lee supposes it's an accurate representation of the overused, hackneyed phrase that is Leroy Hiew---dye job, fat wallet, city slicker. An amalgamation of clichés condensed into the simplicity of a single human body.
The night sticks to Lee's skin, cool and misty. Yumeko reaches over and threads her fingers through his own.
"Sorry for the trouble," Lee apologises, staring at the scar curving itself along the knuckles of his right hand like a rat's tail, thin and pink. Yumeko rubs her thumb along the bumpy, raised skin, and the familiar motion's a balm to Lee's protruding thoughts.
"Shut up and stop beating yourself up over it. It's no problem," Yumeko replies. Lee drinks in the pity in her eyes like liquid cocaine, feeds off the glorious feeling that someone cares for him like he's never eaten before. "Don't know why you like my house so much, though---filthy crackerbox like this, probably worse than yours---"
"It's got you in it," Lee says, and Yumeko instantly shuts up. A hint of a smile tugs at her lips, dry and almost grudging. Lee loves that about her---the paper-thin layer of affection under all that grit and bite. She's so different from him, who's all fake niceties and pretty words and artificial sunshine, and then...nothing. Hollow and raw and far more careful than he likes to appear.
"You'll have to share the bed today. Sorry. I know you hate sharing with me, but the couch's unavailable. Mom's drunk again."
"Hey!" Lee protests, pursing his mouth into a dejected pout. "I love sharing with you."
"The feeling's not mutual."
"Come on, Yu. I know you love me."
"And you'd be wrong." Yumeko grabs another croissant and continues stuffing her face, chocolate dripping off her chin and onto her black shorts. She doesn't seem to notice. "I love your wallet. Not you."
Lee throws his head back in a raucous chuckle, gently swiping his finger across the chocolate staining Yumeko's cheek. "Sure. Keep telling yourself that." And then, because he's not an animal, he yanks a tissue out of his pocket and continues dabbing at his best friend's face until it's spotless once more. "We all know you love me."
"Who's we all?"
"You, me, and literally the rest of the universe, Yu. You make it so obvious." Lee pats Yumeko's head gently. In the halo of the pale moonlight, she's soft and silvery, a little less take and a little more give.
"Yeah. Well." Yumeko pauses, as if deciding whether to hold her words out of Lee's grasp or not. Lee mentally crosses his fingers and hopes the croissants are enough for emotional bribery. "You're easy to love. Daddy's a bastard if he can't see that."
"Daddy's been a bastard since Mom left."
"Precisely." Yumeko carelessly spits into the grass below, her expression contorting into a snarl. "I mean, come on. You even got Jack of all people to like you."
"Like is an overstatement. Mildly tolerating is probably more accurate, but I'll still count that as a huge achievement."
"That's my boy." Yumeko finishes off her croissant and begins the tedious task of licking the excess chocolate off her fingers. Lee laughs lightly, resting his head on her shoulder. (Of course, because he's more than six inches taller, he nearly snaps his neck in half to do it.) "You're still not getting the couch."
"I think we've established that already." Lee lets himself sink into the moment, basking in the shadowy silence of the night. The world is a little too dark, a little too quiet, a little too calm. The quiet hum of a faraway engine wraps itself around Lee's ears, and he shuts his eyes.
Yumeko punches him in the arm. "Stop trying to give off fanfiction vibes."
"We're both gay, baby."
"If you didn't buy me pads, I would have killed you by now."
"And the croissants. Don't forget the croissants."
"And the croissants," Yumeko relents. She starts knocking her heels against the wall, her shoulder comfortably warm against Lee's cheek. "Bring Socks over next time. I miss her."
Lee knows he can't keep coming here, that he can't stay forever. But Yumeko's the closest thing to a happy place he's got, so he does his best to clear the piling thoughts from his head---if only to linger a bit longer. "She misses you too."
"Of course she does." Yumeko tilts her chin up, sharp features glowing gently in the moon-glazed shadows. "I can take the floor if you want."
Nearby streetlights, glaring white things in the piercing darkness, flicker faintly. The night's clear, too clear, the stars dappling idle crescents over Lee's private melancholy and stripping him bare. In the eclipse of the voiceless gloom, head pressed against Yumeko's shoulder, Lee feels naked---as if the world can see just how sad he really is. So he turns his head, touching his thin lips to the junction where throat meets skin. Yumeko's heartbeat thrums quietly, a pulsing flush beneath his yearning caress, and it's a comforting reminder that there's someone left on Earth who cares about him.
Lee wishes he could buy love, but he doesn't think there's enough money in the universe for that.
"Nah," Lee declares, chuckling airily. He burrows his face further into his best friend's neck, revelling in her welcome warmth. "I'm good where I am."
OKAY BUT LISTEN i am SO SOFT for romantic platonic relationships--like they're so cute i can't---there's something about friends being all sweet and loving and caring to each other without actually dating that just gets me right in the feels,,,i've been writing romantic platonic relationships since January and no one can stop me (honorable mention goes to platonic romantic relationships where it's dude and bro, but like, romantically)
why is the title like this when moon river is never mentioned? because i was listening to Shinee's 'Moon River Waltz' while writing and i was like "oh shoot that's a pretty title" and BAM this chapter was born
Socks is also based off my friend's dog! because she is adorable and deserves the world
that aside, what did you think of this chapter? i'm taking a pretty different approach with this book by centering the plot on one character rather than the relationship between two characters, so i hope you're enjoying it so far anyway! let me know your thoughts, feedback, criticism, anything!
hope y'alls are doing great and staying safe and healthy, and i promise i'll try to reply to comments soon 💙 love you guysss
xoxo, Alex