Timeless

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/48866782.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)
Relationship: Hasegawa Langa/Kyan Reki
Character: Kyan Reki, Hasegawa Langa, Kyan Reki's Childhood Friend
Additional Tags: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Romance, Established Relationship,
For like the first chapter, Time Travel, Unexplained Time Travel,
Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Autistic Hasegawa Langa, he
has a meltdown, POV Kyan Reki, Symbolism, Character Study, Slow
Burn, Lovers to Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Other Additional Tags
to Be Added, Freeform, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Cussing,
Slow To Update, It's because I'm picky about writing quality, Trans
Kyan Reki
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2023-07-26 Updated: 2023-10-07 Words: 9,963 Chapters:
2/?

Timeless
by FelixsFeelsCorner

Summary

As time ticked down and his future inched ever so slightly closer, Reki was desperate to
keep things as they were. Something happened after their nightly skating session, though.
The Langa he saw at school wasn't the Langa from yesterday. Whatever happened, Reki
wasn't about to give up on taking back everything he lost.

A character study/slow burn laced with tragedy, self worth talk, and an eventual happy
ending

Notes

whats up gay people i just fell off my skateboard in front of basketball jocks in my class and
finished my wip

i aim for good quality so please comment if anything doesn't make sense

CW// description of minor injury, meltdown

See the end of the work for more notes
 Chapter 1

Reki always found himself longing to spend more time with Langa. Yes, they shared class, lunch,
even a work schedule, but he always wanted more. Besides, it didn’t count when other people were
there.

Reki loved how Langa liked his things. He liked Reki’s sketches, his ideas, his visions while
everyone else looked at him with their same estranged look. Langa was different, exceptional, all
the big words that meant Reki’s favorite person.

It was never the same when other people were watching. He couldn’t whisper under his breath or
trace the pencil’s lead between the freckles on his arm without feeling daggers stare him down.

They wanted him to be like them; scribbling every seventh word on a scrap of notebook paper,
watching the clock drag forward a second every minute, eventually giving up and sleeping through
the class.

That, he thought, was a waste of time. Classwork wasn’t interesting at all, but time was still time,
and that time could be used. He could design skateboard prototypes, draw sketches to paint on
later. Yes, Reki slept in class sometimes, but only when he already stayed up all night on a project.
Langa saw that in him. Langa saw what Reki valued in himself. He could think up new ideas and
make them. Really, he could be himself with Langa. All he wanted was time to be himself with
Langa.

He got that alone time after work. They would close up the skate shop together. Langa would take
the keys since he was more responsible with them. They would go through each collective item to
make sure nothing was forgotten inside.

Reki would giddy when his board slammed the ground, when he looked up at the way Langa’s
smile crinkled the corner of his eye. Oh how he wanted to lean his moving skateboard perfectly
beside Langa’s, to pull his hand into Reki’s own, to dance and wobble and fall together, stumble
into the grass and pull leaves out of Langa’s disheveled hair and pull Langa’s hand up to do it all
again with him.

They would finally make it to the skatepark and Reki would start off with a trick he’d never done
successfully. They’d skate for hours, rolling in, dropping down faster, skating by, high fiving
faster.
While Langa helped a customer by the shop’s door, Reki imagined what trouble they’d get into
this time. They had already been yelled at by drivers, neighbors, dog walkers, practically everyone
for practically everything. They slapped stickers, jaywalked, traspassed, all the tame crimes. They
also did legal stuff. They’ve sat on top of the quarter pipes and kissed. They’ve tried to draw the
sunset. They’ve tried to draw eachother. They’ve gotten tired and instead of going home to sleep,
they’ve taken blankets out of Reki’s room and slept at the skatepark.

Just as the customer left with the door bell’s ring, as Reki mindlessly locked up the cash register,
Langa leaned over the counter in front of Reki.

“I won’t be too late, just gotta stop by my house to pick up that surprise I told you about.”

Reki leaned forward and circled Langa’s head in his arms, “Awww, you’re leaving already?” His
voice wavered dramatically.

Langa wrangled his squished head up to look at Reki. “Yeah, sorry babe. ”

“It’s cool! I can’t wait to see what it is,” Reki let him go. Langa packed up his things and grabbed
his skateboard on the way out.

“See ya at the park, and don’t forget to lock up!”

Langa was almost out the door when Reki waved back. “I won’t, get home safe!”

The door shut with the bell’s ring, rendering the air still.

Dust caught in the flourecent light while skateboards hung still on the wall. He swept the tiles
under their shadow and wiped cabinets clean. By about ten minutes past six, Reki turned the front
door lock closed and clipped the key to his belt.

Since he had time, Reki decided to change out his board’s hard wheels for soft wheels.

He didn’t usually do this. While soft wheels were better for cruising and could go over bumps, they
made most tricks basically impossible. That would usually be a problem, seeing as Reki and Langa
detoured to do tricks. They would go out of their way to skate down the most remote paths
together, finding tunnels and handrails to toy with. Since Reki was alone, he didn’t plan to stray off
much.

He gave the new wheels a flick to check their tightening job and put everything away to skate.

Reki didn’t like riding on soft wheels often, as they absorbed pebbles like a sponge. His ankles felt
numb without a constant rumbling from the street. He hated the feeling. There was always a sense
of comfort knowing exactly how rough the road was, exactly what he crossed over. Knowing that
he’d feel the cracks in the road, that they were real and right in front of him.

The road tilted down, leaving a slight wind brushing past, drawing Reki’s back hairs out of his
hoodie like a curtain opening for the sun.

By the next street turn, Reki remembered the vending machine he and Langa found while
exploring. It was just down the next street, plugged in to the side of an American joint. It had the
good stuff too: ridiculously sweet American sodas, (the sodas that weren’t banned in Japan) and
some Canadian brand that nearly made Langa foam at the mouth. Apparently, it wasn’t a big
name-brand, so he never expected to see it anywhere.

Reki stopped by the machine to buy the two drinks. He imagined which drink Langa would choose
if he were here.

Langa usually went for strawberry melon or some sort of citrus fruit. He would explain that the
main flavor of soda was fizz, and the fruit was just a side flavor. It never made sense to Reki,
probably because he hated fizzy drinks, but seeing the glow in Langa's eyes as he explained things
that only made sense to him was captivating. Reki would look into his eyes that darted to meet his
every so often. Reki would glance down at his lips. He would wonder if he could taste his soda
from a kiss.

Reki would personally opt for an American iced tea. It tasted absolutely nothing like tea, but he
found that incredibly funny. How could a drink with more sugar than tea call itself “iced tea ”?
Regardless, Reki loved the sugarwater.

Besides the drink itself, the can’s vibrant American aesthetic was also strangely comforting. Big
blocky English letters, he found, just went hand in hand with skateboarding, with sitting on asphalt
at two AM. Reki could put it in his room and it would fit in.
He slid the two drinks in his bag and threw down his board.

Early evening’s sky dragged the sun down, teasing clouds above the horizon with hints of coral. It
was still blue, but would only fade into hues of honey as time went on. Reki kicked to the fence of
the park, watching the same colors swaying across the water. He was also first to the park.

It was fine. He could wait.

Reki swerved down the path to the skate park before stepping off his skateboard and slamming the
board's nose down to pick it up.

A break in the thin wire fence opened to a modest skate park. A few blocks and ramps here and
there, all surrounding the two steep quarterpipes at either side of the clearing. Across the park
streched out a gorgeous view of the sea. Surrounding trees framed the view and enclosed the entire
park, leaving a much more intimate space for them.

Reki dropped his things to the floor and took a seat at the fence. After a minute, he took out his
tools to change the wheels back.

He locked his leg over the board, and let muscle memory loosen the wheels while he drifted off
into his own thoughts.

The first thing that came to mind was Langa.

Man, meeting his soulmate as a teenager really did a number on Reki. He felt as though years never
happened because they didn’t involve Langa. He always longed for memories of a playground
crush. Chasing Langa and only Langa in tag. Sending him a special birthday invitation that had “I
like you” written out in secret code. Denying rumors of his own obvious infatuation. They could
have had years of photos to go back through, of hugs and cries and screenshots of video calls at
two AM. The memories they made within the past few months were special, but they weren’t
enough.
All he really wanted was to stay here and now with Langa. Reki wished every second went twice as
slow so he could spend both with Langa.

A soothing rumble pulled Reki out of his thoughts.

“Langa! I got you a soda from the machine”

“Oh! Thanks love.”

Reki flushed at the pet name. It was fine, he was here now.

An aluminum box was tucked under Langa’s arm. It was an old 90s lunch box whose lock would
pang when flicked open.

“Is that what you wanted to show me?” Reki pointed at the box.

Langa looked down at the box, as if he forgot he was holding it, and then back at Reki with a
pleased look on his face. “Mhm.”

Reki stared back for a few seconds before he realized that Langa finished talking. “...Nice box.”

“Reki, the surprise is in the box.”

“OH.” He should have guessed that. “Yeah that makes more sense. Sooo,” he teased, “can I see?”

“I was thinking I could show you after, is that alright?”

“Yeah sure, c’mon!” Reki grabbed Langa’s wrist, the wrist that held the box. It clattered on the
ground, letting two unseen photos flutter out. Standing as giants over the photos, Reki pulled Langa
into the center of the park and threw down his board. Langa followed suit, and before long, they
fell into a familiar rhythm.
The photos on the ground watched as they dropped down ramps like clockwork. Frozen still in
time, the first print pictured a similar scene: both boys engrossed in the asphalt ahead of them. As if
the dried ink not only kept the memory of one moment, but infinitely many identical ones.

The camera’s focus centered the figures, so the pebbles they skated over looked like nothing more
than crayon scribble. The sun’s contrast would have silhouetted them if not for the streetlamps’
light.

Reki was pictured to the left. He seemed to have been especially focused on each single
imperfection in the path; If one large pebble would be enough to quiver the board. If the board
would shake him off balance, if he would still fall even with years of practice. If Langa would be
there to help him back up after he fell.

Langa was slightly right of the photo’s center, a couple paces ahead of the other figure. Despite
glancing down the general path, he seemed to be much more occupied by the sunset’s hues that
reflected off of the ground. If he hadn’t known it to be a cool gray, Langa would have believed that
the asphalt and the sky were the same color. Of course, the sunset would pass and the ground
would return to normal. He knew that. But it was all too easy to look down at his own skin and see
the same monochromatic color.

The next photo was a much closer shot. Suggested by their back-tilted heads, the couple were
admiring the sunset, seemingly unaware of the camera’s existence entirely.

What actually happened was that Langa was preparing to take the picture while Reki had just
noticed the gorgeous backlight. He had gotten Langa’s attention just as the camera fired,
preserving that moment in time unposed and authentic.

Reki looked awestruck, fully entranced and fixated on the light as if romanticizing its mere
existence. Langa’s face formed the expression you would have when recalling an old memory:
nostalgic and bittersweet. He knew that in just a few minutes, the sunset would dip below the
horizon. The pretty colors would be gone and the only light left would be that fading in his eyes.

At that moment beyond the pictures, the waterfront’s view was now just as gorgeous as it had been
on paper. Deep into the horizon, crystal amber light slowly wavered like a sleeping breath. It stuck
in the back of Reki’s throat like molasses, like the iced tea he left half dranken in the corner of the
park, and like something Reki forgot he wanted to say.

After a while, Reki felt adrenaline shake his leg. The iced tea hadn’t helped either: from his
experience, balancing on a sugarhigh never mixed well. Regardless, Reki dropped down the ramp
again.

For a moment, as he slammed down the nose, his heart jumped the same way it would when
jumping on a moving elevator. When your brain takes the backseat and all you can feel is blissful
ignorance.

A second into the drop, his board shot to the side.

“REKI!”

Past the ringing in his ear, wood slammed to the ground a few meters away. Shoes took to running
and Langa emerged at his side.

“ Shit , Reki, are you ok??”

A collapse fell in Reki’s chest before he could talk. He could take small gasps, look Langa in the
eyes, and give a soft “don’t worry” smile, but the panic in Langa’s face wouldn’t go away.

“It’s ok, it’s ok,” he chanted. Langa pulled his arms close to his chest and frantically looked around
and down at Reki with those glassy eyes.

Reki felt a hand twist around the sweaty roots of his hair and gently lift his head up. Langa shuffled
closer, to rest Reki’s head on his thigh, “it’s ok” had turned into “you’re ok” in his same low,
scared voice.

Reki remembered the words stuck in his throat. He wanted to tell Langa that he was fine. That
Langa could just reach out his hand, pull him up, give him a drink and everything would be fine
and they could laugh it off together.

About a minute passed before Reki found himself able to breathe again. In that time, he didn’t
know what he wanted to say so what came out was

“Go back to skating”

…

“Huh”

Reki went to repeat himself but burst into a coughing fit.

Langa fixated on his surroundings. He scanned the floor before reaching into the teens’ belongings
and brought over Reki’s iced tea.

“Here, drink this.”

Reki coughed again before thanking him and downing the drink. American iced tea really didn’t
taste anything like tea. He put the can down with a sharp exhale, and moved his arms around to
check if they were ok.

It took the growing spots of red on Reki’s elbow to notice that he was bleeding. Really, it all just
felt numb. Everywhere else on his body, every muscle shook, even his legs on the ground and the
arm he held up wavered like they anticipated another fall. Only the spots that he’d scraped felt like
nothing.

“Reki, Reki. Reki. You’re bleeding. You’re bleeding.” Every syllable grew shorter until Langa
stopped talking entirely. He looked around and picked up his nearly empty soda can. Langa nudged
Reki up and sat him against a pole on the fence.

“Stay here, I’ll be a just minute.”

Langa got up and left Reki at the park alone. By the time he came back, the numbness started
stinging. Scrapes hurt, sure, but they never lived up to the shock of a fall. Like he had done this a
thousand times over, but one fall meant that he didn’t know what he was doing. He was unreliable.

And he fell in front of Langa of all people. The person who would be most worried.
The look on Langa's face as he walked back was exactly why he never wanted to fall in front of
him. Yes, falling hurt, but seeing Langa like this hurt so much more. He was dazed, ran by fear and
paused in place. He could only see one thing and that was his need to help Reki heal.

Langa kneeled at Reki’s side. “Can I pull up your sleeve?”

“Uh, yeah sure.”

Langa slowly rolled up Reki’s sleeve and gently poured the contents on his scrapes. “I ran over to
the water fountain down the path and filled it with that.”

The water stung like he had just gotten scraped again. The cold water numbed the skin around it.
It’s had felt like when he just fell. When he didn’t know he was bleeding. The water stung the
scrape itself like how it felt when it was sitting in its own pool of blood for a couple of minutes. by
then, he could really feel the slivers of skin that were scraped off. It did hurt. The pain only lasted
for a few seconds, though. And by then, the bleeding slowed down.

“See, it’s not that bad. The bleeding’s already stopped.“ Reki hoped that would convince Langa to
quit worrying.

“That’s- that’s not the point. You’re hurt. I’m going to sit here with you.”

Reki hated when he did that. He hated keeping Langa up, making him wait for Reki to catch up.
He wanted Langa to pull him up and say he was ok, to convince Reki that he was ok. They could
take care of the bleeding later, but they only had so much time here and now .

“No, I already kept you enough. I’ll sit here, and I’ll be fine.” Reki reached up to cup Langa’s
hands together tightly, “I promise.”

“Alright,” Langa leaned down to kiss Reki’s forehead. “I’m right here if you need me,” He
whispered barely an inch away. After a beat, Langa stepped back and returned to the quarterpipes.

Reki watched Langa for a couple of rounds before glancing around for something else. He looked
down at his board. The crash left a chip missing from its nose. While it blended in with the scrapes
and missing slivers, it was still much more noticeable than the rest.
At some point, cicadas started ringing. Reki looked around the bushes if he could find some.
Fireflies, ants, anything really. Past the fence, he saw a firefly’s flicker. It blinked every fifteen or
so seconds, giving a general path of where it went.

Eventually, he returned back to watching Langa skate. By now, he had moved to a block to
practice ollies. Reki mindlessly followed Langa’s board slam down and jump in the air. Then, he
truly realized how exceptional Langa was.

It takes about two months to learn a new skill. Langa learned how to ollie in two weeks. That was
incredible on its own, but something about watching Langa was captivating all on its own.
Honestly, he couldn’t explain it. Reki was awful at building habits, but he had learned how to
admire Langa in what felt like two seconds.

The two stayed like that until the streetlights threatened their fluorescent glare, and a tip of the sun
was cut off by the sealine.

Langa had settled down by Reki’s side, and looked over at their collective things. Reki noticed him
staring down ratherintensely at something out of sight.

“The box?”

“Yeah, I wanna show it now”

Langa kneeled down on the concrete and pried open the aluminum lid. In a flurry, polaroids circled
the boys and fluttered to the ground.

“Ah , ah no I’ll- I’ll pick these up I’ll-” Langa fell back to reach for and gather the loose paper.
Even though it had just been a minute, his knees were already red from the pebbles that dug into
his skin. Reki blinked out of his thoughts and rocked over to help pile the photos.

Langa looked down at the stack and pulled out a peeking corner, “Hey, look at this.” He held it
over to Reki. “This is the first picture I wanted to show you.”

The picture showed a sparkly-eyed toddler with bright blue hair sitting blankly in an oversized
armchair; balloons, streamers, and snowflake shaped confetti surrounded the kid. Laid stiff across
the armrests, too high up to even touch the child, sat a snowboard, oversized in comparison.

“It was my fourth birthday,” Langa began. Reki continued to study the photo as he described it.
“My birthday’s in mid-winter, so we left to try the board out that afternoon.” While “Here
lemme-” Langa filtered through the stack of photos. Sunset was well underway at this point. “I
don’t remember most of it, but I remember how I felt. It was freeing. It was like my brain would
take a backseat and I could just go.”

Reki remembered his own winters as a kid. His mom always said it was too cold to go outside, so
Reki just snuck out with a long sleeve shirt under his hoodie, a skateboard, and his audacity. He’d
skate around alone in the dead of night, with the ground humming under his wheels. He’d always
go down to the skate park. It was where he was given the time of day to think. It was where he was
given time in the night to breathe. He’d see the bustling car lights, older teens playing basketball in
the park over, but always felt content being alone, just himself.

That was his spot, and the slopes were Langa’s. Reki was glad he met Langa when he did, but
imagining if the skatepark had been their spot from the start made his heart flutter.

Langa was older in the next picture, but still no more than nine. He lay tumbled in the snow with
his dad knelt beside, laughing alongside him, Langa’s goggles off, a wide smile and baby blush on
his cheeks.

“Dude, you were such a cute kid!”

Langa modestly looked down to the side. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

“I’m being serious!!”

Kid Langa really was adorable. While today’s Langa had a stoic air, this Langa was full of wonder.
Despite most strangers thinking that little Langa was gone, that same wonderstruck side of him
came out when skateboarding. Seeing him like that blushed Reki’s grin and set butterflies in his
stomach.

Reki saw the way Langa flinched, modesty turned into noticeable skepticism. Reki saw how Langa
didn’t believe the good about himself. Reki hated how Langa didn’t see what he saw.
He repeated in a softer voice. “Babe, I’m being serious. You were cute, and you are adorable
now.”

It was small, but Langa hitched a breath. You could hear his hesitation in the silence. He glanced
up at Reki, back down at the photos, “Thank you.”

Before Reki could respond, he had flipped to the next one.

This next one showed Langa a bit younger than the last. He stood pretty far in the distance with a
little girl, brunette and probably around the same age. The two crouched by the edge of a river. It
was hard to tell, but it looked like

“Wait, are you guys kissing?? ”

“Ohmygod this one OK.” Langa exaggerated that last word. He took a big breath. “So… that was
my second grade girlfriend.”

“YOUR WHAT? ” Reki made sure to not hide his laughter, made sure Langa knew he wasn’t
upset. “ Langa I thought you were gay! ”

“First of all, yes I am. Secon- hey it’s not that funny.” At this point, Reki fully burst into laughter.

“Actually, it kinda is. Mister ‘I don’t look at girls’ had a girlfriend??”

Langa tried to pout but ended up laughing into a goofy expression. “Well she was a girl, and she
was my friend, so I thought I like-liked her.”

The two ended up making the other laugh harder until they had to hold onto the ground for support.
They then moved on to the next photo.

Before long, they drifted closer together to the point where Reki sat on Langa’s lap as he flipped
through polaroids in front of them. One showed little Langa ice skating, another at the same girl's
birthday party. They continued like this until the sun dipped down and the sky was set in deep
twilight. Eventually, the next picture they found had been the first.
“Wait, where are they?”

“Where are what?”

“The last two. I had two more to show you.” Langa stiffened under him. Reki decided to climb off
of Langa’s lap, in case he started to panic. His voice wavered like that.

Reki started asking questions to try and understand exactly was missing. “What was on them?”

“No. No, you had to see them. You had to. I needed you t- to see them. I needed. I’ve held onto
them for so long where did they go ?”

Langa dropped the pile of polaroids and stood up. He walked over to the box, then behind the
fence. A few seconds in and it was getting hard to keep track of where he had been and where he
had yet to look.

Reki couldn’t really help. He didn’t know what to look for, but the biggest problem was that it was
hard to talk to someone who dashed around the park.

Reki looked back to see Langa completely still by the quarter pipes. His lip was left in an open
pout, as if he had to remind himself to breathe.

“Langa, we have tomorrow to look for those pictures”

“Tomorrow. I thought this- yeah. O-ok tomorrow.”

“Is it getting hard to talk?”

Langa slowly began to nod his head.

“Alright, you don’t have to talk. I’ll do the talking.” When he spoke, every syllable was calm and
enunciated. “Should I be here right now?”

Langa didn’t hesitate this time when nodding. Reki thought for a moment for what to ask next.

“Can I touch you?”

Langa nodded.

“Do you want a crush hug?”

Langa thought into space for a moment, then promptly nodded, holding out both arms bent
forward.

Reki slowly walked forward and leaned in to collapse Langa in a hug. Not in a suffocating way, in
the way a weighted blanket would collapse you into a mattress. It was a thing they made up
together. Since Langa didn’t like light touches, a crush hug was the exact opposite.

To them, a “crush hug” was when they would pull the other in, tightly, so tightly that each could
feel the other’s heartbeat in his own, as if his heart pumped blood to keep the other alive instead of
himself. Reki’s sighs became Langa’s metronome.

Reki felt Langa begin to loosen his grip. Arms that clutched Reki’s ribs as a lifeline now grasped
him like an aspiration. He didn’t seem in a rush to let go or even move. His head leaned on Reki’s
shoulder and slowly, inch by inch, shifted his bodyweight onto him.

As much as Reki loved holding him, standing up and holding Langa’s fallen arms and chest on his
own and a chill from the seaside started to weigh on him.

Reki bent his knee, shifting it ever so slightly backwards, leaning closer to the fence, took the
smallest step, and pulled Langa towards him. He coaxed him back, taking small steps, one at a
time, until they reached the fence’s pole. He sat the two down and led Langa’s head onto his own
chest.

Then the two just sat there.

Neither boy knew how much time had passed. It hadn’t mattered. They had gone for sleepovers
and midnight skateboarding rides together before. Both of their parents trusted the two to take care
of eachother.

Reki knew he would. They promised each other infinity, after all.

He turned down to look at Langa. He’d fallen asleep.

“We’ll find those pictures for you. I’ll make sure we do.”

Reki woke up the next morning cuddling his pillow as if it was Langa. His leg stretched and
hooked around it, and his arms were wrapped around so tightly that they crashed back against his
shoulders.

He knew that the pillow wasn’t his boyfriend. Langa would feel more solid and human than the
sack of feathers. He also knew that he walked Langa home last night.

The hardest part had been getting him to wake up. Part of Reki wanted to sleep right there with
Langa on his shoulder. The other part knew they had school the next morning and he didn’t want
Langa to get in trouble. Langa had gotten home safe, his mom thanked him with a familial smile,
and Reki made his way home. By the time he’d changed into sleepwear and brushed his teeth, it
was getting closer to 2 am. By then, Reki promptly collapsed and fell asleep.

He went through his routine as normal, put on his uniform, and headed out the door. He couldn't
find his skateboard but the night before was hazy, he must've misplaced it. It was fine.

Langa wasn’t outside the school, nor was he in class yet. Reki disregarded that: It wasn’t strange
for Langa to sleep through his alarm. Reki had been a personal witness to this on several
occasions.

When they had sleepovers, Reki couldn’t drag himself out of Langa’s arms. He couldn’t even wake
up, not when he’d already softened. He felt too loved; Langa made him like that. Langa’s tangling
warm arms and slow breaths hummed like sweet nothings. Reki found himself safe; He unclenched
the jaw he forgot was tense. His heart sat firmly low in his chest, and his ear on Langa's.

And of course, they would both end up missing the alarm.

Even when Reki did wake before the alarm, he couldn’t shake Langa up. He noticed how Langa's
shirt twisted in his sleep. Its neck nudged up against his nape on one side while leaving the other
side’s collarbone exposed. He would look at it, a bit too long. At the shadow made under dawn’s
new light. At the two or three acne scars scattered around the surrounding skin. Imagined how it
would feel under his lips. Reki tugged the shirt’s collar back afterwards.

His head rose up to meet his eyes with Langa’s: calm and unbothered. Reki wondered how much
light sunk through those eyelids. Would Langa see Reki’s silhouette if he squirmed through the
bedsheets to lay in front of him? Would those pretty eyes blink awake? Would they look at him
with the same adoration he felt?

The teacher’s voice snapped him back into class. It reminded him that he was even in school.

“Take your seats class, I would like to introduce you to our new transfer student”

Just then, A lanky, blue-haired guy stood expressionless at the front of the classroom.
 The First Day...
Chapter Summary

CW// Long-lasting anxiety attack, major disassociation

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Reki had tuned out just about everyone until this point. Until he heard the teacher say something
about sitting down and shutting up. Then, he slowly brought his focus up to the front.

What Reki didn’t expect was to see a blank-faced Langa standing in front of the classroom.

Langa’s expressions were usually blank. At least, they were to other people. Around Reki, he
would dramatically giggle and pout. Smirk at cheeky comments and just look at Reki.

And his gaze at the most mundane moments. How Langa’s eyes would flicker, breathe in the
moment, envelope them two. Each hitch in a sentence when Langa wanted attention, how he would
melt into Reki’s touch when he grabbed onto his sleeve.

Honestly, Reki loved how nobody else got to see that side of Langa. It made him feel wanted.

Reki never saw this expression on Langa’s face, though. It was completely blank. A tint of
awkwardness maybe, but it was hard to tell.

What did he have to be awkward about? He could just walk down and sit in his usual seat. And
why was Langa standing up in the front anyway? Langa hated standing in front of the class.

He only stood in front of the class once: on his first day of school. Today wasn’t his first day of
school. Everyone already knew him by now. He could just come and sit down next to Reki.

“My name’s Hasegawa Langa.”

Reki looked around to see everyone’s reaction. They spanned between bored and tired to intrigued.
Intrigued about what? Everyone already knew who Langa was.

Something was off. Langa would never speak in front of the class.

“Anything else?”

“Uh, I’m from Canada.”

Everyone knew that. Everyone already knew that. Really, who didn’t know that Langa was from
Canada? Before him, nobody ever met a native english speaker, so Langa didn’t have to introduce
himself. Everyone knew him already.

He could just sit down already. Waddle over and sit down because everyone knew him. But feet
tapping under desks turned enthusiastic. Everyone wanted a turn talking to this Canadian guy, but
he could just sit down because everyone knew him and everyone already had a chance to talk to
him from his first day of school.

Reki needed to talk to him now. Reki needed Langa to waddle over and sit down and smirk at him
like he just fooled everyone into thinking he was new.

Langa wasn’t new. Everyone knew him already. He could just stop talking and walk down from
the front of the room, and by the time Reki realized he was repeating himself, he looked over to the
vacant desk beside him and realized that the chair was now pulled out and someone had waddled
on over.

And Langa wasn’t at the front anymore because he was leaning forward on the desk and listening
to the teacher pointing at the board.

Reki looked over at Langa. He thought he already was, but he must have imagined that.

Langa looked tired. Everything really was ridiculously similar to Langa’s first day of school.

That morning, Langa explained to Reki sometime, Langa’s mom got their plane tickets on short
notice so they were separated on the plane.

Why was Reki remembering this now? He was in class and Langa was sitting right next to him.
Langa could tell this to Reki like it was his first time hearing it. It wasn’t his first time hearing this,
though, because Reki’s known Langa for so long.

Even after the plane ride, Langa really didn’t know what was happening. Only that they had a new
apartment, and that Langa had school the next day.

That was actually why he wore a Canadian uniform that day.

Like the one he was wearing now.

Back then, Langa realized just too late that a different school in a different country meant a
different uniform. And the first time he talked to anyone in this new school was his first day of
school right before introducing himself to the class.

He’d just introduced himself to the class like he’d done months ago. Like when they first met.

Reki knew it was ridiculous but the walls of his heart remembered housing something that felt like
a ticking clock. It tapped and tapped and nagged and he knew it was ridiculous but Reki thought it
was telling him that this was his first time meeting Langa. It wasn’t.

He knew that it was ridiculous because he knew how Langa’s crystal hair looked under a sunset.
He’d seen it himself, they watched a sunset just yesterday. They shared hundreds of sunsets
together, and that happened right?

Langa knew how to skateboard. Reki taught him how. They’d skated together before. They’d
skated to school and the park and down S and out to infinity.

But Reki looked over at Langa and wasn’t he already looking at Langa? Reki could have sworn
that there was a scar on the back of his wrist. From falling off a skateboard. Reki watched it
happen and he laughed it off with him and got Langa to laugh too because Reki was there and
everything was alright and they could skate it off together.

Reki loved that scar, where did it go?

This time, Reki was looking at Langa. No, he was staring at Langa. His eyes dropped back down at
the paper on his desk. A couple of designs sat doodled over lines of printed text, unfinished with a
thick, shiny graphite outline.

Reki stared at the indent they made in the paper. They followed the same path, over and over. All
to the point where he couldn’t see the paper, everything just fell into place, each line just tracing
over the last one.

It would be a shame to leave the drawing unfinished, but Reki really couldn’t sit in that room. Not
without that scar, not while Langa wore that uniform.

Not at the back of the class, where nobody saw him except Langa. Not when Langa’s indifference
could have all been made up in Reki’s head.

Even if others did notice, they wouldn’t get it. First of all, they wouldn’t care enough to ask why
the blood rushed out of Reki’s face.

Second of all-

no.

Reki raised his hand to go to the bathroom. But he forgot to raise his hand, so Reki raised his hand
to go to the bathroom.

Alright, reset.
What’s next. How does the story go? Because this didn’t happen.

There’s the possibility that a chair didn’t push back from the inside of the knees. There’s also the
possibility that no footsteps clomped on the floor. Maybe nobody left the room.

There was, however, one thing that anyone could see in the hallway: a bright red presence that
reflected harsh rectangular light.

That presence, supposedly, made those clomping noises. It was also red. That wouldn’t be unusual
if anyone else were red.

They weren’t.

The hair on everyone else’s head was black, or dark brown, maybe the ocasional blond. This one
was red. This one was different. This one didn’t belong.

This one wasn’t following what was supposed to happen.

I’m not following what’s supposed to happen.

Reki didn’t know how he was so sure about that.

But he was sure because something was wrong, so it had to have been his fault.

Things were usually his fault. No, that wasn’t right. Thing’s weren’t all his fault, but he
overexaggerated too far. He probably wasn’t drawing any attention right now. Since he was
perceiving himself, he had to make mistakes.

Bathroom door. Yes, that was a bathroom door. To open that, a hand went and grabbed the handle,
but the metal was cold. And the door opened and the lights weren’t any better but it would have to
do.

Reki, right now, wasn’t okay. But that was fine because he knew that he wasn’t okay.
That’s right.

Reki wasn’t not okay.

As long as he was alone and not okay, then nobody could make it worse. Reki didn’t have to worry
about appearing okay to anybody.

The floor was cold. Reki could feel it through the bottom of his pants. The wall too, but that was
through the back of his sweatshirt that curled up against a corner. His sweatshirt was thick, the
inside was stringy cotton and his cuffs were mittens around his retreated fists.

Reki was not okay.

Music. Okay, he could put on some music. Blast some music, drown out his mind until the worst
of it was gone.

Reki mindlessly opened his phone, opened up the search bar and found something that would be
loud, layered enough to stop and start his heart like CPR. Something that could pulse electric
shocks or just something that can take him over so he didn’t have to inhabit a body right now.

The floor was cold. He could feel it in the silence before the song started. In the stops between
starts, those moments when he was too present. He could feel the cold when the song finished,
when Reki realized that he forgot to loop it.

The cold sank as Reki sat in silence. He didn’t bother looping the video because that would mean
taking out his phone again.

Just get by.

Just get by.

You can play the song again. All you have to do is move a bit. Got it?
Three…

Two…

One…

Reki, a bit more present, took out his phone to replay the song. All too present, he saw how the
screen date read April but how was it April? It was September, not April.

But April did make sense. April was when Langa introduced himself to the class. April was when
Reki walked to school because Shadow burned his old board.

But April didn’t make sense because it was September. Yesterday was September. Reki knew
Langa, how else would they be dating.

But that Langa wasn’t his boyfriend. This Langa was tired, indifferent. This wasn’t his Langa. He
wasn’t his-

How the fuck.

Shit.

Reki’s phone clattered against the tile across the bathroom. Langa loved him. Langa loved him.
Langa loved him. He did, didn’t he? He did. He did.

He did, even as the sentences melted together and lost meaning behind his teeth. Langa did love
him.

Didn’t he?

If there was a clock in the bathroom, Reki wouldn’t have looked at it anyway. He had his phone,
sure. That had a clock, sure. But looking at the time would have been bad for him, anyway.
Reki shouldn’t have skipped class. Bad habit, he guessed.

He should get back to class.

In five minutes, he promised himself.

Reki weaved through desks and sat down. Right on the chalkboard, there it was: April. It wasn’t
April though, It was September. Yesterday was September, and today was September. Reki’s eyes
reset back at Langa. He couldn’t.

He couldn’t look at Langa.

Bad habit.

His eyes wandered: to the chalk, how short it ran and if there was a replacement. Reki couldn’t see
any on the stand so there must be a box in the back.

To the heels that tapped on tile and metal bases of chairs that were never long enough to reach the
ground.

And back to Langa and to the six… no seven pencils in a cup on the teacher’s desk and back on
Langa.

Langa was the rest station his eyes stopped at. He couldn’t look at Langa, though. Langa didn’t
look back at Reki. Langa used to always look back.

Reki saw Langa shutter to the bell like it was his first time hearing it.
He turned over right away and called out “hey, Langa ” with the Langa part emphasized, not the
hey because he wanted Langa to see him, not just glance over. He wanted Langa to face Reki and
stand up, and push through the people He wanted to be kissed in front of the whole apathetic
swarm. He wanted them to back off and he wanted to be dragged out of the room by Langa and out
of this fucking nightmare.

But girls closed in around Langa with “ hey Langa”s because they didn’t care to know who wore
the pretty face. They just wanted to hear their own names out of pretty lips.

Was Reki really any different from them?

Of course he was, Langa loved him. It was different.

Reki tried to convince himself that he was different, at least.

But his call was drowned out by zipping bags and rustling papers and chats of lunch plans with
cliques. With friends Reki knew but apparently not anymore because Langa wasn’t looking at him.

Then Reki didn’t know where Langa went because by the time he looked up from his desk, the
hoard was gone.

Forget it.

Reki stared down at his feet through the hallway, up the stairs and he wrangled his lunchbox out of
his bag.

He sat down. At the wall, on the floor, where he and Langa usually sat. He could see him across
the rooftop, with a big group who Reki swore talked about him.

And he couldn’t do anything because something was wrong: Reki couldn’t bring himself to screw
something up again.
He could just talk to Langa at work today, when other people weren’t around. Yeah. Langa
must’ve known something.

But if Langa did know something, then he would have talked to Reki, right?

But what if he was thinking the same thing as Reki right now, what if he was wondering why Reki
didn’t go up to him?

But didn’t the calender say it was April?

He checked again and yeah, still April.

But it should have still been September. Summer was over, they had their time in the sun and now
it was time to celebrate the cold season. Break-up season be damned. They could last it. Langa was
used to the cold, anyway.

The clouds looked like snow , he thought.

The clouds that Reki looked up to formed that snow monster he painted on Langa’s board. That
cloud cleared and a few more scattered the sky in random shapes.

He didn’t know what he was doing. He did. He was waiting for some alert in the sky to tell him
what the shit was going on.

People usually didn’t talk to Reki, but Langa did. Langa always talked to Reki. But Langa wasn’t
talking to Reki, and he checked his phone again and it still said April but yesterday was September
and he and Langa just hung out yesterday.

And yesterday was September. He was sure of at least that. He didn’t know if he was actually sure
of that, but he wanted to be.

Yesterday… Yesterday they looked at Langas old polaroid photos together. The ones from him in
Canada. Langa as a kid. He was adorable.
Reki looked over to Langa at a table with other people. That wasn’t kid Langa.

He couldn’t look at Langa right now. He really shouldn’t, but it’s hard to break a bad habit.

The bell rang. And Reki walked to class but not before another bell rang, teachers called on
classmates before him. He could feel himself slipping out of sync, his body walked ahead but he
could only see it lapsing rather than living in it.

He could see his ghost walking throughout the day and walking through walls because nobody was
really watching Reki hard enough to see if he was obeying the laws of physics. Or the laws of
society or whatever.

Langa was supposed to be watching him. He always did. Reki knew Langas schedule so he knew
where Langa was supposed to be.

Langa also knew Reki’s schedule so he should have been here right now. He should have been
holding Reki’s hand and walking him to class right now.

And the next bell rang but that next bell was the last bell. So Reki went over to grab his skateboard.

And then he realized that he didn’t come to school on skateboard so he walked over to Dope
Sketch for his shift.

Reki slammed the door on his way in. He would have loved to see Langa there. Then, Reki
remembered that Langa didn’t work at Dope Sketch yet.

Gone.

He’s gone.

Every GODDAMN thing we had is gone.

What even happened? I walked Langa home last night, went to sleep, and now it’s April instead of
September?

That’s not how time works.

That wasn’t how time worked.

That’s not–

You can’t skate backwards. This couldn’t happen. He felt like this had happened before but also it
did because…

I remember this. In a couple of days from now, we’ll deliver a customer’s skateboard. It’s broken,
so…

That’s where Reki’s skateboard was. He accidentally grabbed his own burnt skateboard for that
customer. Last night, no. The night before “today,” Reki raced Shadow. Reki lost, and Shadow
threw the board in a fire. Right now it was sitting in a skateboard case waiting to be mistakenly
picked up for a customer waiting at S.

“Reki.”

Reki refocused his eyes on the shelves in front of him. He looked over to his manager and smiled a
greeting, “oh, hey Oka.”

That sounded squeaky. Why did that sound squeaky?

“You seem out of it.”

No shit , Reki thought. He would’ve said something, anything he could, but Oka didn’t know about
Langa. Sure, the time fuckery couldn’t be explained, but Reki couldn’t even mention Langa at all,
because Oka didn’t know Langa.

This shift was Reki’s and Reki’s alone, and he just couldn’t handle that.
“I’m fine.”

“You know what sucks about the way you say ‘I’m fine?’”

Shit, Reki knew this. Is it ‘ The fact that I never really am?’

“The fact that you never really are.”

Oka had said this before, after Reki’s race with Shadow, right before Langa started skateboarding
but he also just said it right now .

Reki had to convince himself that right now was right now. Right now, he was stocking wheels,
alone because Langa didn’t work at the skate shop.

Reki jolted at the door bell’s ring. Opening it was a box-blond guy, around his early 20s. A regular
customer, actually. Reki recognized him as the customer who ordered the board to S.

Oka stepped out from behind the counter. “Hey Kazu, what can I do ya for?”

“Just wanna make a tweak to that board I ordered. So inste-”

Reki turned back to the shelves. Right. Stocking wheels.

After about no time, Oka paused the conversation and turned to Reki.

“Hey, can you put the leftover wheels in the back when you’re done with that?”

“Yeah, sure.”
Looking down, Reki realized that the shelves were already full. How long had he just been
kneeling there? Did Oka notice? How long was he talking to the customer?

In any case, Reki stood up, bent down to pick up the box, and hauled it over to the back door. By
the time he opened the door, Reki realized he forgot the box.

So he walked back over to the shelves, bent down to pick up the box, and hauled it over to the
back.

The back of the store was decently sized when compared to the shop. It was just as wide as the
store itself, but only had a couple meters of walking room in between the assembled shelves.

In the corner behind boxes, a familiar scratched up skateboard tilted on the wall. It was Reki’s old
skateboard, the skateboard he used before the Shadow burnt his. It was also the only skateboard
Langa knew Reki to have. The yellow deck with the mechanical-esque wing design and the red
blob creature.

Reki remembered when he first designed that board. It was when Reki didn’t know what he was
getting into. When Tomo was still teaching him how to skate.

That was back when they shared good memories.

Reki wrangled out the skateboard. He didn’t want to think about that anymore.

Balancing the board in his fist, rough indents in his fingertips from the fading griptape, the
weighing metal bolts on the hard wheels. It all felt like a distant memory. It was yesterday, Reki
didn’t know which yesterday but it was yesterday.

Screw it.

Reki looked outside through the door’s window.

He could deal with the stuff in the back later. What Reki wanted right now was to skate.
He opened the back door. It clicked open like a soda can and a cool chill rushed by.

Reki didn’t think about how it sealed shut and locked him out. Nor about the time he did this same
thing last spring. He wanted something familiar.

The breeze was familiar. It was nice.

He slammed his board into a kickflip and the higher air felt free. He missed this.

Another. He did it again. Reki missed moving the sky to make way for him. He missed having a
place above the ground.

His next jump slipped.

Reki bailed and stumbled across the concrete before he could really fall. That left the board racing
off down the sidewalk.

So Reki ran off to catch it.

There was a figure in the distance, “hey, can you stop that skateboard?” He thought it was pretty
nice timing. He ran up to the person.

His foot sunk into every step on the sidewalk. Like there were footprints already there. Like each
step, each breath already happened and Reki was just falling into place.

The figure ran down to catch up with the rolling board. It took swaying blue hair and a blank
expression for Reki to realize that was Langa and this happened before.

“Ah, thanks Langa.”

Langa opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then shut it again.

Shit, did Reki mess up already? What was he not supposed to know Langa’s name?

“How did you know my-”

“Uh- INTRODUCTION.” Reki stopped screaming.

He wasn’t even sure if that was true, if Langa even said his name in the introduction. Didn’t
matter, though. Reki had to go along with it.

“Sorry. Your introduction. I’m in your class, remember?”

“No… but yeah, that makes sense.”

Neither spoke for too long. This wasn’t how this went. Shit, what was next?

Reki noticed how Langa eyed the board in his hands. Right.

“You wanna try skateboarding?” If all goes right…

“Huh?”

“Here, lemme show you. Lay down on the ground.”

Langa, ever so confused, did as Reki said. He was lucky for that; Reki didn’t know what to say if
Langa found his request strange. Now to ollie over him…

A few steps back should do , he thought. Now to impress Langa.

Reki threw down his board in a running start. He felt a good weighing on his board, slid his foot
back and slammed into the jump.

Looking back from his landing, He saw Langa frozen on the ground, just looking up at the
skateboarder.

Reki found a familiar expression on Langa’s face. For just a second, it made him forget that
anything was different.

Langa had been staring at Reki, awestruck. At the board for following Reki in the air.

That’s right. This Langa was still a snowboarder. He probably didn’t know how the board stuck to
Reki’s feet without straps.

Had Langa even seen a skateboarder before now? Reki didn’t know if they had skateboarders in
Canada, or at least where Langa lived. This absolutely could have been his first time seeing, much
less meeting a skateboarder.

Reki stepped off the rolling board and popped it up into his hand.

“So was that cool or what?” He hollered back

That was cool, Reki concluded while getting ready for bed that night.

The ollie was nothing special, but the board popping first try was really cool.

Technically, it was very easy: Slam the board’s tail to shoot it up into a hand. But Reki always
thought it was so annoying to do, no matter how cool it looked.
And Langa was impressed. Everything happened perfectly: Reki mentioned how he worked down
at the skate shop, Langa was interested in the job, and Oka hired him because he had a drivers
license.

Langa was meant to start tomorrow, which meant one more thing done right.

Reki’s mom had set Koyomi and the twins down to sleep, so the whirring of electricity in the light
fixture was the only sound left in the Kyan household. That sound came from the bathroom
because Reki had to brush his teeth.

He made sure to keep the door closed, so he wouldn’t wake anyone up. It felt kinda weird: Reki
was the only one in his house who could see. How long would it take for anyone to notice if he
changed something’s place.

No, don’t do that. Things are where they’re supposed to be.

Reki blinked back at himself in the mirror. The toothbrush poked a bump into his cheek, just over
heaps of baby fat that decided to stay. He really didn’t like it. It made him look soft and squishy:
too feminine.

Reki tried to keep the dysphoria out. He had a lot of problems right now, and he was determined to
keep dysphoria out of it.

His voice did sound high pitched today. And Reki realized that was because today Reki was over
five months behind on testosterone.

Of fucking course his voice would be squeaky.

No, nono don’t think about that now . Reki looked back up at his reflection and ruffled his hair to
get rid of that cursed middle part he used to wear.

He sure was brushing his teeth.

Well, that was because he had to. That was just the routine anyone would do before going to sleep.
He would usually text Langa around this time. That was just his routine, but he couldn’t do that
anymore.

The light started to burn. Reki wanted to turn off the light, go back in the dark and not see anymore.
Reki didn’t want to see his body. He didn’t want to see the color blue; It reminded him of Langa.

He did kinda need the light to see, so he kept them on.

Just focus on the electricity , he thought. It kept whirring around in the light. It was hard to not hear
it as a backdrop to the overwhelming silence.

Eventually, Reki did finish brushing his teeth, and immediately put on his retainers, shut off the
bathroom light, and made his way to bed.

He knew not to trust his thoughts near midnight, but at this point, nothing was around to distract
him from them.

Was dating Langa worth it?

Not thinking about that right now. Nope, nah. Not in the mood.

Reki drooped further into his bed. Now, go to sleep.

But if Reki knew this would happen, if he knew that he would lose Langa like this. Would he have
dated him in the first place?

Would he have let himself get that happy?

Even now, his life wasn’t Langa-less. Langa wasn’t dead or anything, just… Well gone. But not
dead, and that was the point. As long as Langa existed, he would be fine.
It was like a plant during nightime or something. The sun wasn’t there, but as long as the sun
would come the next day, the plant could survive.

Reki could survive as long as he had Langa the next day.

No.

Reki didn’t have Langa the next day.

You’re alone in this.

At first, the “this” Reki meant was “this analogy.”

“This,” however, quickly went from meaning “this analogy” to “this night.” Because an analogy is
never just an analogy.

Reki realized that he didn’t have Langa’s phone number. Even if he wanted to text Langa he
couldn’t. And Reki couldn’t just ask him for his phone number tomorrow because what if he
thought that was weird?

“This” finally spiraled into “this life.” Because the life he’d built with Langa vanished overnight.
At this moment in time, whenever now was, he was truly alone.

Reki curled in his bed.

He’d never felt more alone. He never had to admit that to himself before.

Reki felt bad. He felt fucking awful, his chest was filling with cement and the very back of his head
felt like it was swelling up and stabbing against his skull.

The Reki right now, the Reki buried under sheets under static, heavy air in a slammed-door room,
this Reki was alone.
 Reki needed to repeat the summer perfectly. He needed to skate the same path, make sure
everything is perfect and then in September he could go on with his life again.

Yeah. Ok that could work.

Then everything would be just like normal and he could forget that this all happened.

Reki buried his head in his pillow. He needed to do this right. That meant that right now he needed
to sleep.

But Reki didn’t remember which pajamas he wore tonight.

Chapter End Notes

Sorry for the delay, I had to choose between this and my college essay, and I’ve been
fighting with my school’s scheduling for about three weeks because they tried to force
me to take an AP class!

So: time travel's in full swing and only Reki remembers!! What a time for him to be
alive. Just remember, this will be a slow burn, and boy will it be slow. I swear it's
worth it, though, I have a lot planned. (also "Tomo" is just the name I'm deciding to
give Reki's old friend from canon. He will only be referenced in backstory)

This chapter was actually intended to be the first half of a much longer-than-usual
chapter. I decided to split it up since it would be a bit longer until the second half is
done. The bad news is that the over two-month wait resulted in a typical length
chapter. Reki will also be incredibly angsty next chapter too (since they were intended
to all be one chapter).

The good news is that next chapter will come much quicker than what I had planned!

Comments (especially predictive/analytical) are always appreciated!! There are so

many little bits of foreshadowing and characterization to find in these chapters.

I'm also in search of a beta reader! If anyone has experience actually beta reading
 please comment!

End Notes

Hey wait a minute, why is Langa introducing himself for the first time??

Things regarding the time travel will be revealed, but not explained. (i.e. there's no one
magical object that caused it, but the timeline and solution will make sense as Reki figures
things out.)

Please drop by the archive and comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!