Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Akira had no idea what the fuck he was doing here, sprawled on the floor in a puddle of Coca-Cola and half eaten pizza crusts. Three years ago it had seemed like a good idea. That is to say, it was a good idea to come here not to be laying face down in a pile of half eaten food and pop. Three years ago, running away from home had seemed like the best idea he had ever come up with. Three years ago, working at a bowing alley and restaurant had not only seemed like a good idea, but it had also been his only option. Of course, when you are never good enough for your high ranking, important business man father who constantly tells you that you’ll never amount to anything, who yells at you, and beats you when ever you bring back a grade lower than an B+, and your mother just stands by and watches at the bottom of another bottle, running away doesn’t really seem that drastic.

When he had first taken this job after running away, the plan had been to only stay for a few months - six at most- and to try and get into university. But six months had turned into a year. One year had turned into three. And here he was. Sprawled on the floor, the black slacks he was forced to wear sticking to his thigh from the Coke that had soaked through.

“Akira! Get off your ass and get back to work!” came the angry yell from behind the counter. He could tell that Shiro was pissed. Today was most certainly not the kind of day to be fucking around, but what Saturday afternoon at Spare Time Bowling and Diner was? It wasn’t like he was sitting in the warm soda because it was fun; one of those little demon children had purposely tripped him.

“Fuck off, Shiro!” he snapped back at his coworker as he lifted himself out of the puddle of soda and tried to gather the half eaten pizza crusts. It wasn’t like this wasn’t a typical Saturday afternoon. It was quite common for all 16 lanes to be taken up by birthday parties on a Saturday afternoon mid-March. In fact today could have been considered quite tame. They had only run five birthday parties since he had arrived. Only.

One party had 24 screaming, sugar-high children running around making a mess that he would have to clean up later and an oblivious mother sitting at her assigned table doing shit all. She had been a problem. This woman hadn’t even been in the facility for a whole minute and she was already insisting special treatment. Akira was so glad she was gone now.

 “I just wanted to make sure that you knew that I need my pizza’s at exactly six,” she snapped at Akira as his other co-worker, Yutaka handed out bowling shoes to the children. It was always madness when a party arrived. Akira could hear whines of “I’m a size 2!” “I need a size 13!” “Mister! Can I have a size11?” “Hey! I need a …” it was all mushing together now.

“What size can I get you?” he heard Yutaka ask one little boy.

“ummmmm...” of course. Akira wasn’t surprised. Everyone in the whole facility knew if a particular child knew his or her own shoe size, but more often than not they had no idea. A lot of kids would say something like “I’m a size 5!” but really only giving them their age, rather than their shoe size. Akira had no patience for it. So instead he dealt with the adults.

 “Yes ma’am,” Akira replied, a little flustered by the mob of children crowded around the counter.

“And I was told that they would be getting popcorn. Unlimited popcorn according to your website,”

“Yes, ma’am,” Akira replied. His eyes were out of focus. It was too loud. The black lights bothered his eyes. He needed to get out of this bowling alley. Children were screaming. The phone was ringing. Music was blasting.

“Well, I’d like it right away,” she continued in her nasally voice. Akira resisted the urge to punch her right then and there. Her nose was just asking to be broken. Might fix that awful voice , too.

“Yes, ma’am,” Akira fired off again. He was a robot.

“Well?” she snapped her fingers under his nose. That was what he needed to snap out of his reverie.  

“Let me just go and get some for you,” he told her and turned on his heel towards the popcorn machine. Did she really need this right away? Couldn't she have waited until all the kids were down on the lanes and bowling before asking for the popcorn? Clearly there was other things he could be doing, like inputting the names in the scoring computer. No. Of course not. She needed her popcorn right now, damn it!

Akira did the math quickly in his head. Twenty-four children. Six per lane. That’s four lanes. She would need at least four bowls of popcorn right off the bat, or he’d be hearing about it later. Filling the bowls right up to the top with the buttery popcorn he turned and explained to her:

“We just ask that no pop corn goes beyond the stairs into the bowl.” There was a reason for that. Popcorn got tracked around enough as it was. Regardless, some always stuck to the bottom of shoes and ended up on the approach or on the carefully oiled lanes. It was just easier to prevent popcorn from ruining the lanes if the children didn’t bring it down by the lanes on purpose.

“Well, they are children, there is no telling what they’ll do,” she snapped back. Seriously? Was this bitch seriously telling him that she was going to let the little devils play with the popcorn down on the expensive, hard-to-up-keep hard wood floor of the bowl and approach. Wow. What a bitch. This was going to be a fun three hours. She was going to be trouble.

“Did you see her lanes?” Akira grumbled, his arms crossed as he looked down at the woman sitting back in her chair. It was obvious from her nonchalance that she didn’t really care if the kids were throwing popcorn at each other.

“No,” Yutaka replied, feigning confusion.

“I swear there is at least an entire bowl of popcorn dumped out in the bowl,” he snapped. He wasn’t angry with Yutaka. It wasn’t Yutaka’s fault after all.  He couldn’t control those little fuckers any more than Akira could.

“Seriously,” Yutaka groaned, exasperated.

“Seriously.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“You’re telling me,” Akira answered, shaking his head. At that moment, the mother slid back her chair. Had it been quieter in the building, Akira would have been able to hear the protests of the chair scrapping across the floor. Fuck. Here she comes. She marched towards the counter with a mission burning in her eyes. I don’t want to talk to her anymore. “Bet she’s coming to order more pizza,” he whispered to Yutaka, who just nodded. He knew as well as Akira how these kinds of parties went.

“So, it looks like some of the parents will be joining us. I’m going to need to order four extra pizza,” she announced as she reached the counter, dropping an empty popcorn bowl in front of Akira. “I also need more popcorn.”

Akira clenched his jaw and forced a very painful smile on to his face.

“You are aware that any extra pizzas will cost you extra. They aren’t included in your package?” he spat through gritted teeth.

“I’m aware,” she replied with equal venom.

“Let me just get you more popcorn and inform our kitchen.” He snatched the bowl off the counter, a few kernels from the bottom of the bowl flying out onto the floor. Normally he would have been upset, but there was already such a mess that it didn’t even matter anymore. “Shiro, make four more pizzas for the Niwa package please.”

He heard pizza pans clatter against the floor as Shiro threw them down in frustration mixed with curses of: “What does she think we are? A five star fucking restaurant? I mean it’s not like we have a real pizza oven. We just have those three regular ovens. She’s already getting eight pizzas with her package, and we have other people to deal with to!”

“I can’t wait for her to leave,” snapped Akira as he watched the woman retreat with her newly filled bowl of popcorn (which he reluctantly handed over for fear that it would join the rest of the popcorn on the floor). “She’s just taking advantage of us! She’s such a bitch!”

“I know, man,” Yutaka nodded, “It’s not fair.” Yutaka was good for that. He always just smiled and nodded. He always knew exactly what to say to cheer some one up. “She’ll be out of our hair soon enough.”

“Soon enough isn’t soon enough!” Akira spat, turning on his heel.

There were other birthday parties of course. It wouldn’t be a typical Saturday if there wasn't a birthday party for some kid turning 3 who would never remember it.

“I will never understand why people throw birthday parties for three year olds,” Akira snapped as he watched a disgruntled mother chase after her stark naked child. “It’s not like they are going to remember that you spent all this money on their third birthday.”

“I think it’s sort of like, a family gathering or some thing. A celebration of life,” Yutaka said defensively.

“I just think it’s a lot of money to spend on a birthday party that the child isn’t going to remember. If it’s about family and celebrating life, why don’t they stay at home and have a big family dinner?”

“Maybe they just want to take a day and not have to worry about cooking and cleaning,”

“Maybe…”

Of course, there was also a party of twelve year old boys, the kind that sort of just kept to themselves and didn’t really bother Akira, which suited him just fine. He loved those kinds of people.

He couldn’t say the same for the group on the next three lanes. They looked like trouble from the moment they had walked into his bowling alley. Obviously about his age, judging by their level of intoxication, the group of about eighteen burly boys stumbled in laughing about the girl’s skirt they had just managed to peek up. They hadn’t even started bowling and there was already someone trying to moon walk on the lane. Akira didn’t even bother to tell them off. He let nature take its course. Sure enough the dumbass smart enough to walk on the oiled lane slipped. It was quite comical. His feet lifted off the ground and he fell like a cartoon character, feet flying in the air.

“You shouldn’t laugh at them,” Yutaka scolded as Akira sniggered at the guy as he hobbled off the lane.

“Serves him right. I did warn them,” Akira shrugged. It was true. Before setting up the game, he ran through his list of rule just like he did with every group.

“Alright, before you start, we just have to go through a couple of rules that’ll make everyone’s life easier. First. Take a look at the bottom of your shoes. No grip. You get them wet, or walk on my nicely oiled lane. You will fall. I will laugh. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” everyone always laughed at that part. They thought he was joking. Man were they ever surprised when they found out otherwise. Next, he slapped the ball return. “This is a ball return. It works using gravity and momentum. Instead of trying to explain the science behind it to you idiots, just trust me on this one. Shove the ball back down there and you will have to go get it back yourself,” Again. People always thought he was joking. He had sacrificed his fingers enough times to ball jams to be willing to fix it.

Yutaka chortled with Akira as they watched the guy who had fallen down sit down gingerly.

“You knew very well that they were going to walk on the lane just because you said don’t!” Yutaka laughed. Akira grinned an evil grin.

“I may have had ulterior motives, but hey, I need some entertainment here!”

It had certainly been a long day by the time bitchy-I-want-my-popcorn-and-six-extra-pizzas lady had finally cleared out of the bowling alley, leaving the place in a complete disaster. By the looks of it, her son’s friends had had a war with popcorn and cake. They hadn’t finished their pizzas (Akira wasn’t surprised).

“I’ll go clean that up,” Akira told Yutaka as Shiro had finally emerged from the kitchen.

“Go ahead,” Yutaka smiled, handing him the bussing bin.

For some reason, Akira found cleaning up at the end of a particularly exhausting party to be relaxing. Maybe it was because he could finally relax. Maybe it was because those demons were finally gone. Who knew? All he knew was that there was something relaxing about cleaning up the mess, no matter how bad it was.

“Looks like a war zone over here!” Akira called happily over to Yutaka who laughed at the comment. “I think the cake team won!”

“Have fun cleaning that up!” Yataka called back.

“Of course!”

He pulled a garbage can over to the table and methodically began scraping what was left of the cake, popcorn and pizza in to the can. He piled the cleaned off plates inside the bussing bin carefully. He ignored the children running around at his waist height. He just focused on the task at hand. He gathered the cups, pouring what was left in the still half full pop glasses into an empty pitcher. Empty cups got piled inside the bin as well.

He picked up the bussing bin, the now full pitcher of coke, and a plate with a collection of half eaten pizza crusts and started towards the kitchen.

That was when he felt something collide with his mid section and spiral away. It must have been a small animal or something. No. It was probably a child. But the word child was interchangeable with wild animal, so close enough. Akira stumbled. Shit. He couldn’t regain his balance. He was going to fall. The ground caught up with him a lot faster than he would have liked. He couldn’t stop it. He dropped the pitcher of coke. The pizza went flying. At some point the bussing bin had fallen out of his grasp and slid across the floor. Akira landed in the puddle spreading from the dropped pitcher. He felt the coke soak into his pants and shirt.

What the fuck am I doing here? Is this what I want?

He heard a chorus of laughter from down on the lanes. The drunken guys on 6,7,and 8. The ones that had disregarded his rules. The ones that he knew he hated. Akira’s face felt hot. He knew that he was probably was bright red. Fan-fucking-tastic. I’ve made a fool of myself again.

“Akira! Get off your ass and get back to work!” Shiro snapped from behind the counter. He was pissed. It had been a long day. Shiro had been trapped in the hot kitchen for five hours. Akira couldn’t really blame him for being upset, but he was mad too.

“Fuck off, Shiro!” Akira shouted back, trying to lift himself out of the Coke. He gathered up of soggy bits of pizza crust and tossed them in the bussing bin and snatched the pitcher off the floor.

Standing up, he stormed into the kitchen and slammed the bussing bin down on the counter and stormed out again. He was mad. He was embarrassed. He couldn’t believe he had fallen down. Now on top of everything else, he had to clean up the black, bubbling puddle on the floor, in wet clothes. Not to mention, he didn’t know when he was going to be able to wash his uniform next. He hadn’t intended to wash it until after his shift on Monday.

He slammed open the door to the furnace room where all the mop buckets were stored and started filling up a mop bucket with steaming water and a cleaning solution. He loved the smell of the cleaning solution. It was like lemons. It reminded him of his parent’s house. His mother had used the same brand to clean the floors back home. He breathed in deeply. He felt a wave of calm wash over him. He knew storming around angrily was going to fix the problem. It wasn’t going to change the past. It wasn’t going to change the fact that he was still working this shitty job.

              He grabbed a mop off the wall and strolled out to the where his coke mess rested. As he approached it, he couldn’t help but think it looked like a tar pit or something. He started to mop up the mess, trying to tune out the rowdy group on 6,7, and 8. He tried not to make eye contact with the little guy walking towards him.

              Fuck off. I’m trying to clean up this mess. Can’t you see I’m busy you little fucker? Akira kept his eyes down. He kept mopping up the mess. If I don’t look at him, he’ll go bother Yutaka or Shiro.

No such luck. The guy walked right up to Akira, stopping inches from his tar pit. Akira froze. Closed his eyes. Sighed. Swallowed. Put a fake smile on his face.

“Can I help you?” the bitterness in his voice was obvious. Even Akira could hear the venom. He glared at the guy. His face registered shock and a bit of hurt at the poison in Akira’s words.

“I was just coming to make sure you were okay,” he said, tugging his long sleeves down over his hands. Akira was taken aback. It was his turn to be shocked. He blinked stupidly, looking down at the little guy. He was a lot shorter than Akira. At least four or five inches shorter.

“Uh. Yeah, I’ll be fine. It happens a lot,” Akira mumbled, turning his gaze back down to the mess he was cleaning up. He felt a blush spread across his cheeks. He wasn’t used to people paying attention to him. He wasn’t used to people caring about him. The boy ran his hand through his shaggy brown hair and a mischievous smile spread across his round face and lit up his bright eyes.

“That was quite the fall,”

“Yeah. It happens.”

“Well, it obviously happens to you. I can’t say I’ve ever taken a spill that badly before,” At first Akira started to feel angry again. Who did this guy think he was? Why did he think he could come up here and start making fun of him? But then Akira was too tired to start a fight with this guy, so he just tried to brush it off.

“Whatever,”

“Whatever is a terrible word. It’s used far too often,” the guy said, matter-of-factly.

“Whatever,” Akira said again.

“Why don’t you try something for me. Every time you say whatever, you have to try ad think of a word that you’ve never used before and use it in a sentence,”

“What?”

“Here, I’ll show you. Ummm…”the small guy pondered for a moment. After a few second his face lit up and he said “Ephebe. You are an ephebe!”

“HEY!” Akira wasn’t sure what the word meant, but it probably wasn’t good. The short man standing in front of him laughed.

“Ephebe means young man. It’s not bad!” Akira wasn’t sure if he could trust this guy. He very well could have just called him a dirty little man whore or something. Now Akira was frustrated.

“Whatever,” he said again, trying to get the guy to leave him alone. He still had to mop up the mess and with every moment that passed the spilled coke was looking more and more like a tar pit.

“You owe me three words, tough guy!” he said with a sticky sweet voice and patted Akira’s cheek playfully. With a wink, the guy turned on his heel and walked back to his lane. Akira stood in shock. Who the fuck was this little midget and what the fuck did he want with Akira?

Chapter Text

            It had seemed like an eternity, but in reality only seven hours had slipped away since Akira had started his shift. While the madness had died down considerably, Akira had yet to have a minute to catch his breath. His stress levels were rising at an uncontrollable rate and every little thing, from those drunken assholes that were still bowling to the way Shiro was breathing, was pissing him off. To make matters worse, he couldn’t stop thinking about that midget and his stupid word game.

The word the little man had used was unfamiliar to Akira. As he cleared tables and swept the popcorn-strewn floors, he racked his brain trying to figure out what the word meant. Based on the way the little guy had acted, Akira felt he couldn’t trust the definition that he had been given.

Akira made his way down to the lane with the only people left in the building to clear away the amassed beer bottles. Had it been his choice, he would have refused to sell these ass holes any more alcohol, but Shiro had taken over the bar area. Shiro was an idiot. Shiro cared only about money. Akira understood why Shiro did the things he did. Hell, Akira needed the money just as much as Shiro did, but sometimes you’ve just got to know when to say enough is enough. Well, that and Akira just wanted to go home. Silently he collected bottles, piling them carefully in

“Yeah, and then I punched the little bitch’s lights out! Serves him right!”

“Yeah! Fucking fags!” said another.

“Totally deserved it!” a third added.

“I mean, if they wanna be gay, they should do it behind closed doors, not where I can see it!” the first guy continued. “It’s just wrong and sick!” Akira shook his head. He hated hearing people talk like that. He felt bad for the poor bugger that had see the other side of that punch. He hoped the kid was okay. Nobody deserved to be beaten to a pulp just because they were gay. While Akira didn’t really understand homosexuality, it had never really been an issue for him. In fact, his roommate and best friend was gay. Sure, it had been a shock at first. Akira had panicked. Frantic thoughts of “oh god, does he want to fuck me” had flashed through his head at the revelation. It was weeks before he would turn his back to his friend again, finally realizing that he wasn’t about to get raped at any moment.

With all the stereotypes of gay guys floating around it wasn’t hard to understand Akira’s reaction, but looking back on it now he was disappointed he had taken it so badly. While he had never been in a position where he had ever had to consider his sexuality and could say with some he couldn’t tolerate hearing other people talking about shit they didn’t understand.

He didn’t even care if he broken any of the bottles as he threw them down in their box behind the bar.

“I’m going to take a break!” he snapped at Yutaka and Shiro, snatching up his jacket and storming towards the door.

“You can’t take a break now!” Shiro barked, “there is still things to be done.”

“I’m taking a break,” Akira repeated. His tone left no room for argument. He had no idea where this sudden assertiveness came from. He was usually very passive, doing exactly as he was told. Apparently not today.

He slammed the door behind him and stood in the cool air, breathing in that wet, smoggy smell and threw himself against the wall outside of Spare Time Bowling and Restaurant underneath the over hang of the roof to avoid the early spring rain. After a few hours of madness it was great to finally get a moment to himself. The solitude of standing out in the rain with only the pitter-patter of raindrops on the tin roof to distract his thoughts was like heaven. His mind could finally take a moment to not worry about the madness inside the building and focus instead on absolutely nothing.

 He pulled a cigarette out of the pack and put in his mouth. He held it in his mouth by tightening his lips around the paper filter as he searched his pockets for his lighter. Not in his back pocket. Not in his front pocket. Fuck. Not in his sweater pocket. Fan-fucking-tastic. He had lost his lighter. Of course he had. On today of all days. He leaned back on the wall, still holding the unlit cigarette between his lips. It wasn’t like him to pout, but he felt he deserved this moment to sit back and do just that.

He quietly chewed on the filter of the cigarette as cars rushed by, their tires splashing in the puddles that had started forming in the dips and potholes in the road. He needed something to distract him from his misfortune and suddenly the round face of that little man in the bowling alley appeared in his mind. It seemed very unlikely that he would ever see that little bastard ever again. Hell. He didn’t even know his name! That fact alone made it even more unlikely that he would never see the guy again. So, why do I care? Why am I thinking about him? Why can’t I get him and his fancy words out of my head?

 “Whatever,” he grunted passed his cigarette as he glared out into the street. That’s four times now, he thought after the word left his lips. What was it with this guy and his stupid word game? GET OUT OF MY FUCKING HEAD. It’s not like I’m gay or anything. I want nothing to do with you!

He heard the door open beside him and somebody walked out into the rain to join him. It was one of the drunk assholes from lanes 6,7, and 8. The one who had been moon walking on the lane. Immediately, Akira decided he disliked the guy. It might have been his bad mood though. This guy was clearly an idiot. He was the kind of guy that made his job that much worse. All it took was one quick sweep of his gaze up and down this idiot to pick out two very distinguishing features. One. He had a lip ring. Which was pretty cool. Akira had always wanted one growing up, but had chickened out at the last minute. Two. He was either and idiot or really lazy, or both. He didn’t take off his bowling shoes. I hope you fall down again, Akira thought bitterly, clenching his jaw. Keeping his gaze firmly fixed on a pot hole on the other side of the road, Akira continued to chew on the filter. He tried his best to ignore the guy standing next to him.

He leaned against the wall beside Akira and fished around in his pockets for what Akira assumed was a pack of smokes. Pulling out his pack, he carefully chose a cigarette and popped it in his mouth. Akira heard the scraping of the flint of a lighter and after a few second could smell the smoke of the dumbass’ cigarette. Closing his eyes took a deep breath, trying to breath in the smoke from his cigarette. It wasn’t nearly as satisfying or relaxing as smoking his own, but it was the best he was going to get right now.

“Lose your lighter?” he asked. Akira grunted in affirmation, his eyes still closed. He was in no mood to talk to this dumbass. He heard shuffling, and Akira’s eyes fluttered open so he could look over to see the dumbass holding out his lighter. Akira was dumb founded. Skeptical about the kind gesture, especially after that little mischievous fucker who was still haunting him, Akira took the lighter and quickly lit his cigarette.

“Thanks,” he grunted, tossing the lighter back at the stranger.

“No problem, you look like you needed a smoke,”

“You have no idea,”

“Looks like an entertaining job to say the least,” Akira laughed bitterly at the comment. “No?”

“The highlight of my day is when people walk on the oiled lanes and fall down,” Akira replied venomously, not really answering the question. The guy’s face went a bit red in embarrassment.

“You weren’t kidding when you said I would fall,”

“I don’t joke about shit like that, and yet people always think I am,”

“Well, I’ve learnt my lesson,”

“Good to hear,” Akira grunted. He didn’t really want to talk to this guy. Why was he talking to Akira.

            “The name is Yuu,” he told Akira, holding out his hand. And I care why?

            “Akira,” he grunted back. He shook Yuu’s hand because he didn’t want to be rude, but secretly wished this weird guy with the long black hair and the crazy lip piercing would leave him alone.

            They stood under the over hang for a while in complete silence watching the cars drive passed. Akira took a heavy drag of his cigarette. He was thankful that this stranger, Yuu, had offered him a light.

            “Here,” Yuu handed him the lighter after taking one last drag of his cigarette and tossing it out on the street into a puddle. “You need it more than I do right now.”

            “I don’t need your pity,” Akira snapped.

            “It’s not pity,” Yuu replied, and he turned on heel and threw open the door and walked back inside leaving Akira alone under the overhang. The only sound was the pitter-patter of rain drops on the roof. The cigarette between his fingers smoldered, slowly burning away.

            What was with people today anyways?

…

It was well past midnight when Akira finally slammed the door shut to the apartment he shared with his primary school friend. He didn’t even care if he woke up Kouyou, although it was likely that his friend wasn’t even asleep yet. Akira was willing to bet that day’s wages that Kouyou was sitting in front of the television still playing the racing game that he spent his weekends playing. Akira envied Kouyou sometimes. He had a well paying job as mechanic. It wasn’t that Akira was jealous of the job. He had no desire to be a mechanic. He didn’t care how or why cars worked. All he cared about was the fact that they did and they were pretty to look at. He was jealous, however, of the fact that Kouyou had such a stable and well paying job. It made him regret every decision he had made that got him in this position.

“Welcome home, Sunshine,” came a voice from the living room. Akira felt a pang in his chest. For some reason he was upset that he hadn’t managed to ruin Kouyou’s sleep by his late, rather disruptive arrival at home. Kouyou wasn’t even asleep yet. He was playing his video games still. He was in the exact same spot that he had left his friend in nine hours earlier. Akira found it unlikely that Kouyou had even got up to eat.

“I see you’ve had a productive day,” Akira snapped, tossing his shoes in a pile in the corner.

“Always,” Kouyou replied. Akira could hear the sarcasm and smile in Kouyou’s voice. Rolling his eyes, Akira shuffled, to tried to lift his feet fully off the ground, to the living room where his friend sat cross-legged on the couch, pounding furiously on the xbox controller buttons. He threw himself down on the couch beside his Kouyou and stared at the screen without really seeing what was happening. “Speaking of days, how was work?” Akira could still hear that sarcastic smile in Kouyou’s voice. It pissed him off. Kouyou knew very well how much Akira hated his job.

“Fuck off,” Akira grunted.

“Oh, that good, huh?”

“I said, FUCK OFF!” Akira wasn’t even sure why he was so upset anymore. He was going to take anything to blow up and yell.

“Man, you smell like ass!” Kouyou continued, still focused on his video game, as if the conversation required only a small portion of his attention.

“You would know!” Akira snapped back, “besides, it’s not like I fell in that puddle of coke on purpose!”

“But you did smoke that cigarette before coming in the door on purpose,” Kouyou replied, matter-of-factly, still not taking his eyes off the screen. Akira hated when he did that. “You know you can’t smoke here.”

“You don’t have to remind me, Takashima!”

“Oh-ho! Pulling out the last names now are we?” Kouyou chuckled, he obviously didn’t think this was as big of a deal as Akira was making it.

“Whatever!” Akira stood back up, “if I smell so bad, I’ll just go shower.”

“I’m pretty sure a shower wont get rid of that stench!” Kouyou called after him as he stormed out of the room, ripping off his work shirt.

Akira, as he had been doing a lot that day, slammed the bathroom door shut and leaned over the sink. He was breathing heavily, his hear pounding on his chest walls. He was pissed beyond comprehension. He knew that by now he was just looking for reasons to be angry at the world, not that the world was actually making him angry. He took a deep breath and looked at his reflection in the mirror. The man staring back at him was not the happy-go-lucky guy he was used to seeing reflected back at him. Instead what he saw was a monster, a terrifying monster.

“Chill out, man,” he told his reflection and backed away from the mirror. “A hot shower will do you good.”

            It took him a while to peel his pants off. They stuck to his thighs where coke had seeped through and stuck to his legs. The pants themselves had gone stiff from the syrup that had dried in the fibers. As he pulled them off they crunched ominously. After finally throwing his pants and boxers in the corner in an untidy pile, he turned on the shower and didn't even wait for it to warm up.

            He stepped under the ice cold pellets of water being spat from the shower head. Normally he would have waited, but something about the cold water running over his exhausted muscles was relaxing, comforting. Slowly the water warmed up, but Akira didn’t notice. He just closed his eyes and tried to forget. To stop feeling.

            Feeling nothing would be better than the pent up rage. Nothing would be better than feeling like he was a ticking time bomb.

            That’s when a small voice whispered in his ear. It wasn’t a real whisper, more of a stray thought that he hadn’t been expecting.

            “Hey, tough guy, you thinking of those words yet?”

            The stray thought pulled him out of his trance like state. What the fuck. Why did that encounter continue to plague him? Why couldn’t he get it out of his head?

            But now that he had been scared out of his little reverie, his little moment of peace and calmness, he noticed that the water had gotten very hot. The bathroom had become a sauna. The steam was so thick, he had trouble seeing across the room. With a sigh, he turned off the water, and stood in the shower dripping wet for a moment. Without even reaching for his towel, he stepped out of the shower and gazed into the fogged up mirror for a moment. All he could see was a blurry outline of his muscular body. He raised his hand through the hot, humid air, water droplets rolling off his skin, and pressed the tip of his finger to the glass.

            In big letters, he wrote across the fogged up mirror “WHATEVER!” and stood back for a moment, gazing at the word. Did this count? He hadn't said the word.

            Still, somewhere in the back of his mind he thought: Five.

            Five words.

Chapter Text

            Akira pulled on a fresh pair of boxers and a Sex Pistols tour shirt before stalking out of his bedroom, down the hall to the kitchen. His hair was still dripping wet. He hadn’t bothered to towel it off after leaving the bathroom. Drops of water were dripping off the tips of his hair, soaking the back of his shirt. It clung to the skin of his back as he reached towards the refrigerator handle, groping in the darkness because he was too lazy to turn on the light. He pulled open the door, and the light in the back flickered on, the only light in the dark kitchen. Typical. There was barely anything on the shelves.

            Half a jug of milk on the door. A carton of eggs. A drawer full of vegetable, one that Akira usually left untouched. That was Kouyou’s drawer. Akira didn’t like vegetables anyways. On the top shelf was a few bottles of beer. Akira didn’t really care what kind of beer. He reached out and grabbed two bottles before closing the door and returning to the living room where he could still hear Kouyou playing that racing game.

            He flopped down on the couch beside his roommate, and twisted the cap off the dark bottle.

            “Here,” he grunted, handing the bottle to Kouyou.

            “You done being a bitch?” Kouyou asked, taking the bottle from Akira. Akira laughed bitterly as he twisted the cap off his own beer and tossed the two caps on the table where Kouyou had his feet propped up.

            “For now, I guess,” Akira replied.

            “Good. Because if I wanted to spend time with bitches, I would date women,” Kouyou sneered passed the bottle pressed to his lips.

            That was when the memory of the conversation Akira had over heard flooded back to him. His grip tightened around the bottle, his knuckles going white.

            He was pretty sure he was just upset on Kouyou’s behalf. Kouyou was like any other guy he knew. He drank beer. He played video games. He liked cars. By all accounts, Kouyou was manly. At first glance, many people assumed Kouyou was straight. He could certainly confuse the masses. Hell, he had Akira tricked for years.

            There had been a time when Akira had been uncomfortable with the thought of anyone being gay. Back then it hadn’t even occurred to him that it was even a possibility. Anything outside of the norm was not even a possibility. He had led a sheltered childhood in Kouyou’s shadow, and never had he thought that Kouyou was any different than him.

            But that was just it. Kouyou wasn’t different. Kouyou was just as normal as anyone else. He drank beer. He played video games. He liked cars. He fell in love.

            Maybe that’s why Akira could feel hot anger bubbling in his stomach, churning the beer that he had just drank. He could feel his throat burning. Maybe that was why his knuckles were still white, and his hands were shaking, sloshing beer on his boxers. 

            “Man, I know it’s a touchy subject, but I thought you were over it,” Kouyou commented, noticing Akira’s reaction when some cold beer splashed onto his bare leg.

            “Oh. It’s not that,” Akira grunted, taking a deep breath, trying to release his frustration. “Just drop it, kay?” As much as he wanted to talk to Kouyou about what he had heard he was afraid. Akira wasn’t stupid. Kouyou obviously knew about the kinds of things people called him and others both to their faces and behind their backs. Kouyou wasn’t blind to the hate crimes like everyone else was. He was fully aware that everyday another child was being beaten, tortured, tormented, or mocked because of his sexuality. Akira knew all this, and yet he still felt some need to protect his friend from the reality of the situation. He was afraid of what Kouyou might do to find out just how close to home the hate was hitting. Six degrees of separation just became four. Somewhere in this end of town was a kid with a broken nose and a black eye just because he was gay. Kouyou didn’t need to know about that.

            Kouyou stared at his friend for a moment, his eyes narrowed. Akira was a terrible liar, and Kouyou could see right through him. Luckily, Kouyou had known Akira long enough that he knew better than to press a situation. Akira usually just shut down when someone pressed to hard. He shrugged and returned to his game and beer.

Akira fell into his thoughts which lulled him into a state of peacefulness. Of course he found his mind wandering back to the little guy in the bowling alley earlier. The word he had used still escaped him. Ephebe. What the fuck did that even mean?

            “Kouyou?” Akira grunted after a few minutes of chewing on the word. He felt stupid. His face was growing hot and red. He hated feeling stupid. Especially in front of Kouyou. Deep down he knew that Kouyou didn’t judge him. “Can I ask you something?” Kouyou looked over at his friend, his eyebrows knit with confusion.

            “What are your curious about, Akira?” Kouyou finally asked, his voice soft and somewhat sultry. He fluttered his eyelashes slightly.

            “Fuck man! Not that kind of question!” Akira snapped, throwing a pillow on the couch at him.

            “I know, I’m just fucking with you,” Kouyou replied, a mocking bite in his tone. “Ask away my friend. I know all!”

            “Like hell you do!” Akira said, laughing now.

            “I KNOW ALL THE THINGS!” Kouyou shouted and threw his hands in the air dramatically. Akira raised his eyebrows at his friend.

            “Kay. No. Seriously. I need to ask you what a word means,” Akira finally said when Kouyou took the hint that Akira wasn’t in the mood.

            “What word. I know all the…”

            “no…”

            “Okay… what word,”

            “Ephebe,” Akira enunciated the word slowly, trying his best to say it properly, blushing slightly. He felt stupid again. Kouyou looked thoughtful for a moment and finally smiled

            “From what I know it means good looking young man,” Akira blushed furiously, remembering the context of the conversation. Did that guy essentially tell me he was attracted to me? “Why?”

            “Uh…”

            “Did someone say that to you?”

            “No!” Akira quickly thought up an excuse. “Overheard it.”

            Kouyou raised his eyebrow but didn’t press the matter. Akira brought his beer back to his lips, pretending like the conversation hadn’t just happened. After a moment Kouyou returned to his game.

            Akira watched Kouyou play the game as he slowly sipped on his beer. Some how this was relaxing, sitting on the couch beside his best friend, drinking beer. They didn’t really need to talk. Akira liked to pretend that their friendship transcended the need for idle chatter. It probably wasn’t true, but Akira could pretend. They could fall through time like it wasn’t really passing. He could pretend that all the hell the day had put him through was just a dream and that this was reality. He could pretend that nothing beyond their friendship, this bottle of steadily warming beer, and the tv screen existed.

            But time has a funny way of working. When you want it to speed up, it drags it’s feet, moving ever slower until it seems that time isn’t passing at all. When you want it to slow down so you can enjoy the moment, it decides to put on its running shoes. Akira looked down at his wrist watch what seemed like only half an hour later.

            “FUCK!” he shouted, scrambling up from the couch.

            “THE FUCK MAN?” Kouyou yelled, startled by Akira’s sudden shout.

            “Fuck! It’s four in the morning!” Akira grabbed the now empty beer bottles off the table and half jogged to the kitchen. How had that much time passed? How was it so late. Fuck. The sun was probably already rising. He needed to sleep so that he could function at work tomorrow… today…

            “You going to sleep?” Kouyou called after him.

            “Of course I’m going to go to sleep!” Akira called over his shoulder, “I work in less than 12 hours…”

            “Alright, man…” Kouyou called back. He had obviously stopped listening.

            Akira flopped on his bed after picking around the piles of clothes littered around the floor in his bedroom. He pushed a pile of clean clothes off his bed where it scattered on the floor, now strewn with the littered dirty laundry. Akira really didn’t care. He closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep almost instantly.

            Akira usually couldn’t remember his dreams, but when he did they were fucked up. This dream was no different. He was only able to hold on to bits and pieces of it as he woke. The rest of the details escaped his grasp like trying to hold onto water.

            What he could remember was a little guy. A faceless guy. But Akira was pretty sure who it was. He came up to Akira and whispered something to him before holding out his hand. For a moment Akira hesitated, but then he thought what the hell and took the faceless stranger’s hand. Suddenly they were flying (?) away and the faceless man was whispering sweet nothings to him. Akira awoke in a cold sweat. The fuck? He looked at his clock. It was just after 10 am. Of course it was. He could never sleep in past 10:30. No matter how hard he tried.

            Groaning, he got out of bed and stumbled down the hall to the kitchen. As he passed the living room he noticed that the television was still lit up with the game, but Kouyou was passed out on the couch. He walked over to the television and turned it off. Kouyou wouldn’t be up for a few hours anyways. He turned to continue his trek to the kitchen but remembered there was nothing left in the fridge.

            He stopped dead in his tracks in the middle of the hallway. The slight draft in the apartment brushed passed his legs reminding him that he was still only in his boxers as he rubbed the sleep from his eye. What the fuck am I going to eat? Running his hand through his bleached hair, he continued to stand half naked in the hallway, utterly baffled. I could go to Starbucks or something. He finally concluded. Yeah. That sounds like a good idea. I’ve been craving a good latte. Oh god. How Gay was that…

            Akira turned on his heel and returned to his bedroom. He glared down at the pile of clothes on the floor. What was he going to wear. For a moment he stared at the pile and then bent over to fish a pair of torn up jeans and a black t-shirt out of the mix. Bringing the shirt up to his face he gave it a sniff. Yup. That smells clean enough to me. And he pulled it over his head. He slide into his jeans, which still had a studded belt in the loops. Jacket. Jacket. Jacket. He leaned over the pile for a moment, stirring the contents around before finally pulling out a leather jacket. He pulled that on over the black shirt. Alright. You are one good looking, bad ass guy! He thought as he ran his hand through his hair once more.

            Leaving a note for Kouyou explaining where he went, he grabbed his bike keys and helmet and left out the door.

            It didn’t matter how bad of a mood he was in. Riding his bike made him the happiest person on the planet. The euphoria brought a stupid smile to his face as he sped down the narrow streets, weaving in and out of cars. The feeling of the engine roaring between his thighs. The wind brushing passed his body. The landscape flying by. It was true freedom. It was true happiness. The bike responded to his slightest movement. He needed only think about what he wanted to do and it responded. The bike was like an extension of his body. Too soon the ride was over and he was in the parking lot of the local Starbucks.

            He swung his leg over the bike to dismount the bike and ripped off his helmet. He tucked the helmet under his arm and strutted towards the front door of the Starbucks. Yeah. He was hot shit. People should stop and stare and bask in his awesomeness. He let a small smile turn up the corners of his mouth.

            There weren’t many people in the Starbucks. Akira didn’t really bother to take in any of the faces. He needed his coffee. He didn’t care about the other people right now.

            “Hi! What can I get for you?” the small girl behind the counter asked. She smiled sweetly. She batted her eyelashes. Knowing exactly what she was thinking, Akira flashed her a smile.

            “I’ll have a grande extra whip four pump vanilla half foam Caramel Macchiato,” he said, puffing out his chest a bit and flashing the girl another smile. The girl just looked at him. Completely dumb founded.

            “Excuse me?”

            “A grande extra whip four pump vanilla half foam Caramel Macchiato,” he repeated slowly. She smiled again. “Oh, and an Oat Fudge Bar”

            “Sure!” and she scribbled the order on the side of a cup. He paid for his drink and bar and moved down to the other end of the bar to wait for his drink. As he leaned against the bar, his helmet still tucked under his arm, he looked around the Starbucks, now interested in seeing the faces in the building. There was a couple of girls chatting avidly over coffee at a table to his right. An old couple sat at another table with a slice of some kind of lemon loaf and coffee in to stay mugs. Tucked in the corner in the squishy arm chairs was a man in his mid to late thirties sitting across from a younger guy. Akira couldn’t really see the younger guy. He was facing away from him, and he was so short that the top of his head barely cleared the top of the high backed chair.

            He turned around to face the barista to see the progress on his coffee when he heard a voice come from the occupant of the chair that was facing away from him.

            “Yeah, well I’ve never been interested in that genre of music anyways,” The voice sounded familiar. Like out of a dream or something. Akira tried to put his finger on it. It escaped him.

            “A grande extra whip four pump vanilla half foam Caramel Macchiato,” came the Baristas voice, bringing him back to the present.

            “Uhh, thanks,” Akira grunted grabbing a plastic lid and putting it on his drink.

            “One sec,” the voice from the chair said, “I’ll be right back,” Out of the corner of his eye, Akira saw the person stand up. He almost dropped his coffee. Standing in the corner of his Starbucks was short little guy with a round face and shaggy brown hair. Akira felt his heart jump to his throat. Oh Fuck. It’s him! Normally he wouldn’t have cared, but for some reason this guy was plaguing even his dreams, and now here he was, standing in the Starbucks the Akira frequented. Fuck. Do I say hi? Do I wave? No. That would be weird. We had one encounter. Ever. I don’t even know his name. Fuck. I’ll just ignore him. Pretend I didn’t see him. Yeah. I’ll walk out that door and pretend I didn’t see him. Maybe he won’t notice me. Akira redoubled his grip on his coffee cup and strolled towards the door, his previous swagger no existent. He kept his eyes fixed on his bike and just kept walking, his shoulders hunched over, trying every way possible to remain completely invisible.

            “HEY!” He heard the shout just as he pushed against the door with his shoulder. “Tough guy!” Fuck. He spotted me. 

Chapter Text

              Akira stood frozen with his shoulder pressed against the door trying to escape. With a hot latte in his right hand, a helmet under his left arm, and grasped in his fingers was a little paper bag with his oat fudge bar he knew he’d neAkira stood frozen with his shoulder pressed against the door trying to escape. With a hot latte in his right hand, a helmet under his left arm, and grasped in his fingers was a little paper bag with his oat fudge bar he knew he’d never be able to escape. At least not with out sacrificing his precious latte. Warning bells were going off in his head. His brain kept shouting GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE MAN! But he couldn’t move. Partially out of shock. Partially out of curiosity. He had tried not to react to the shout, but his muscles betrayed him. He looked like a child who had been caught with the fragments of his mother’s precious, shattered vase in his grasp.

            “Ah ha! I knew it was you! I don’t forget a face!” the little guy said as he practically skipped over to the door where Akira was still standing frozen. “This must be fate or something!”

            Akira’s eyes darted around the Starbucks for a way to distract the little guy in front of him so he could make a clean escape with out having to drop his coffee and run. After yesterday, he just wanted to try and figure out what all this meant. He didn’t really want to talk to the guy who had been plaguing his every step since yesterday afternoon. At least, not until he figured out how to deal with him.

            “Uh…” Akira wasn’t very good at thinking and talking at the same time. Well done, dumbass, now he really thinks you are an idiot!

            “You really aren’t that loquacious, are you?” he asked with a little giggle. Did he just giggle? He really just giggled.

            “Uhh….” He really had a hard time thinking and talking.

            “You got those words you owe me?” he asked, holding out his hand as if he was expecting money or something. “It’s three right?”

            “Five,” Akira said under his breath. Shit. Did I say that out loud?

            “Excuse me?”

            Shit, I said that out loud. Fuck. Akira decided that he might as well continue playing dumb. Maybe be could pull this off and make this little bastard think the had just said uhh… again.

            “Uhhh…”

          “No! NO! You totally said five just now!” he said, gleefully, hoping up and down on the balls of his feet. “Oh, I got under your skin, didn’t I?” Akira could see the happiness glowing in his eyes. It was a mischievous, dark joy brought on by tormenting others. In the back of his mind he could hear a I told you so. He really should have just dropped the coffee and ran. This kid was trouble.

            “No! I didn’t say five! You’re hearing things!”

            “Oh! It speaks!”

            “Of course it… I speak!”

            “Old dogs really can learn new tricks,” he was enjoying himself now. That spark of delight in his eyes was now a roaring flame.

            “Stop it,” Akira growled, he hoped that the growl would make it sound less whiney and childish.

            “Or what… Mr. Tough Guy?”

            “I do have a name you know,” Akira snapped.

            “Oh, I know that. I just like calling you Tough Guy,” he smirked. The corners of his mouth twisting in the evil smile. Akira knew that this smirk was going to haunt him until the day he died. “Come on, look at you with your torn up jeans and leather jacket. You think you’re hot shit, don’t you.”

            “Shut. Up.”

            “You going to throw me over the back of that bike and no one will ever see me again?” he asked, mock fear in his voice. Akira had had enough. He put his weight against the door and walked out, carrying his coffee and food but not really sure how he was going to finish it and still get away from this little ass hole. Half way to his bike he realized that he was being followed.

            “What the fuck do you want?” Akira asked, not looking back, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on his bike.

            “You owe me five words,”

            “Three,”

            “Nope. You said five! You owe me five!”

            “I don’t have five words for you,” he answered, throwing his leg over his bike and putting the key in the ignition.

            “Why not?” he asked.

            “I don’t even know your fucking name! How was I supposed to know that I’d ever see you again? How was I supposed to know you’d stalk me to my Starbucks?”

            “I don’t have a name and I wasn’t stalking you,” Suddenly his attitude was very different. That spark. That Attitude. It evaporated instantly. The corners of his mouth dropped slightly. Akira had obviously hit a nerve, but he pressed on. He was mad. Why couldn’t he just leave Akira alone?

            “Of course you have a fucking name! What do people call you?” he tried to sound mad, but seeing the look on this guy’s face, he suddenly felt his heart swell. He suddenly felt protective. He didn’t want to see this guy hurting.

            “They don’t call me anything,” he snapped back. Yup. Akira had definitely hit a nerve. For a moment Akira looked down at the guy, trying to figure out why he had reacted the way he had. The more he stared, the more other drawers in dark corners of his mind started to rattle open. His innate curiosity was getting the better of him, as was his desire to see everyone happy. Before he could stop himself. Before he could even think about the words coming out of his mouth. Before he could ponder the consequences, words tumbled out of his mouth. His entire attitude changed.

            “What can I call you then?”

            “Huh?”

            “Now look who can’t speak. If I owe you five words, I guess I’m going to be seeing a lot of you. I need to call you something.” Akira answered with a soft smile. The guy smiled suddenly. It wasn’t that mischievous smile. This one was softer. He looked thoughtful for a moment, pondering the question. As he thought about the question, Akira started drinking his coffee. He let the sweet drink wash over his tongue. Akira really had no sense of how to properly drink things, and he chugged the whole thing before the guy finally answered Akira’s question

            “You can call me… Rukia. No. Ruki,”

            “Nice to meet you, Ruki,” Akira replied, holding out his hand. “Now. I expect you to come by the bowling alley tonight. When you come by, I’ll give you your word. Just one though. That’s going to be hard enough!” Akira watched as Ruki’s eyebrows disappeared under his fringe and his eyes widened in surprise. Maybe he was surprised that Akira was actually going to play along on this one. Akira almost missed it, maybe Ruki thought that Akira hadn’t noticed at all, but his gaze snapped over to the corner of the Starbucks where he had been sitting with the older guy. He started wringing his hands as his gaze lingered for just a fraction of a second on this guy before turning his attention back to Akira.

            “Al… alright…”he breathed.

            “Took you long enough, I’m done my coffee now,” Akira laughed as he took aim and threw the empty cup into the garbage can. The cup hit the rim of the can and ricocheted back towards Akira, where it landed and rolled right to his feet. Yup. You’re pretty fucking cool. Akira ignored Ruki’s sniggers as he scooped up the cup and walked it over to the garbage can and threw it in, somewhat violently. As he turned back to his bike, he crammed his helmet back on his head. Maybe if he had the helmet on, Ruki wouldn’t notice how red his face had gotten. Good way to pretend he wasn’t actually embarrassed. That he had actually intended to miss. Yeah. Like he’ll believe that.

            Brushing passed Ruki, he swung his leg over his bike again, this time starting the bike with a forceful kick on the kick starter. The engine roared to life between his thighs.

            “I’ll see you later then,” Akira said, revving the engine a few times.

            “It’s a date!” Ruki replied, stepping away from the bike. Akira revved the engine one more time before turning off the choke. “Wait! What’s your name?”

            “Akira. Suzuki Akira,” he answered, and flipped down his visor with his right hand. He replaced his hand, revved the engine again and let out the clutch. The bike took off, spitting up gravel from under the back tire. It rained down on Ruki, who stood in the parking lot with his hands covering his face. As Akira pulled out of the parking lot he shot one last glance at Ruki in his mirrors. His hands still up by his face, but now to block the sun from his eyes as he watched Akira depart.

            As he drove, his mind wandered. What was it about Ruki that made him act so strangely? That made him want to run. That made him want to stay.

…

            By the time 2:30 rolled around Akira had pulled on his now clean work uniform. He jiggled the keys in the lock to his apartment, locking a still slumbering Kouyou inside. He’d wake up in a few hours, but Akira felt better this way.

            Spare Time Bowling was only a few blocks from their apartment, so more often than not he would walk to work. The weather was usually pretty mild, so it was never really a problem. Besides. The walk gave him a chance to clear his head before work, and based on how it had been yesterday, he was going to need every second of this walk.

            “You ready to tackle the day?” Yutaka asked as Akira dumped his wallet and phone on the desk in the back. Akira shot a glance at the communication board in the kitchen. Today was much tamer than yesterday. There was no doubt about that. Only two parties scheduled for later that night. “What’s up, man?”

            “What?”

            “Something is different about you today,” Yutaka answered.

            “What?” Akira narrowed his eyes at Yutaka who stood with his arms across his chest.

            “Well. You seem a lot happier than you usually do. There is this… spark… in your eyes…”

            “Dude. That was so gay,” Akira laughed, punching his friend’s shoulder playfully before turning away from Yutaka.

            “But despite that, something is still bothering you,”

            “Nothing is wrong. Nothing is different.”

            “You’re lying to me.

            “No, I’m not,”

            “So you aren’t happy?”

            “No. I’m fucking annoyed now.” Akira snapped, trying to push passed Yutaka, who was taking up an awful lot of room for someone so small.

            “What’s annoying you?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

            “You are.”

            “You were annoyed when you came in, with that bounce in your step,” Yutaka countered. Yutaka had a way of reading people that pissed off Akira to no end. It was like he had this ability to read people’s minds. “Now, you are going to tell we what the fuck is up, and I’m going to make you French toast. Sit your ass down.” Akira threw himself in the squishy office chair at the desk, which rolled slightly with the momentum from his fall into the chair. Yutaka made his way over to the fridge and started pulling out ingredients for French toast. Akira just glared at him. “I’m waiting.”

            “I don’t know what’s bothering me,” Akira finally decided on answering.

            “Don’t lie to me,” Kai said as he started beating the eggs in a bowl. Akira watched him for a moment. He was smiling fondly down at the eggs.

            “…dude…you shouldn't be so happy about cooking…”

            “But I love cooking. And don’t change the subject.”

            “Fine. What ever.” The word slipped out. He clapped his hands over his mouth as soon as he realized what he had said. Fuck. Six.

            “You okay?”

            “Uh. Yeah. Anyways. I think I’m just upset about those guys that were in yesterday,”

            “The drunk ones?”

            “Yeah. They beat up some kid. I over heard them talking about it.”

            “Why does that bother you?”

            “Well. They beat him up just because he was gay.”

            “Why does that bother you?” Yutaka repeated.

            “Stop being such a fucking therapist. And how does that make you feel~” Akira mocked.

            “Seriously.”

            “Well, I’m not sure.”

            “Is it because of Kouyou?”

            “Maybe?”

            “Why are you so unsure?”

            “Well. It just makes me so angry. Like that kid did nothing to deserve being beaten up. He was just being himself. Right,” Yutaka placed a plate in front of him piled with three pieces of French toast with a smile. “Seriously dude. You shouldn’t get so much pleasure out of cooking and listening to me bitch.”

            “Like I said, I like cooking,” Yutaka smiled. Akira laughed and started eating his French toast. He wasn’t going to admit it, but it was fucking good. “Later you’re going to tell me why you are so happy.”

            “Fat chance,” Akira said through a mouthful of food.

            “I’ll figure it out eventually. You always cave. You have no back bone,”

            “Hey! I have plenty of back bone,” Akira joked, Yutaka just raised an eyebrow.

            “Sure…”

Chapter Text

          “I haven’t seen you this happy in years,” Yutaka noted as he watched Akira cut pizzas. He was humming. Not consciously. Nor could he tell you what he was humming. It was a mystery even to him. “Not since…”Akira turned around abruptly, holding the pizza cutter up by his eyes. He looked a little menacing with the blade, held like some kind of weapon, covered in pizza sauce.

         “Don’t,” he said so quietly and seriously that it scared Yutaka. Everything about Akira’s demeanor changed in that moment. He stopped humming. His eyes grew narrow. Any trace of a smile had evaporated. Yutaka stood in shock, yet Akira didn’t feel sorry as he watched his friend’s eyes widened and the smile slid off his face. “Don’t bring that up.”

         “I’m sorry,” Yutaka whispered, still standing a few feet away from Akira, but had angled his body away from him.

         “Naw, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have reacted so badly. It’s just a… touchy subject,” Akira replied, turning back to the pizza he was cutting.

         “I understand,” Yutaka whispered, still motionless. Akira could tell that Yutaka was afraid he had started a time bomb, or that he had opened a can of worms that couldn’t be resealed. It wasn’t so much that. The topic was always present. In the forefront of his mind. Everything eventually came back to this. Just get over it. He told himself.. It’s in the past, it doesn’t matter. But it did. It always did.

         “Just drop it, kay?” Akira finally said, still cutting the pizzas, not looking up. He grabbed the pizzas and balanced them carefully on his muscular arms before striding out of the kitchen towards the table that had ordered them. On his way back to the kitchen he collected a few glasses, empty plates, empty pitchers. He piled them high in his arms. Somewhere deep in the back of his mind he knew this many plates was a bad idea, but he was flustered and he dismissed the sense of foreboding.

         He should have known. He should have been more careful.

         “Hey, Tough Guy!” Even though he had been anticipating his arrival, even though every time the alarm on the door beeped to signify a new customer he had perked up hoping it was Ruki, even though he had been so excited about his arrival, the actuality of Ruki coming back to his bowling alley surprised him more than it should have. Or maybe it was the shout. Either way, the shout startled him and he forgot how he was supposed to walk. When he thought about it later, he thought he may have tried to take a step while one foot was still in the air. Or maybe he had somehow managed to hook one of his very large feet around his ankle. To be honest, he couldn't remember. All he could remember was that for the second time in two days, the floor was catching up to him awfully fast. Plates shattered on impact. An empty jug bounced across the floor out of reach. A trill of laughter reached his ears. Ruki. Akira could feel his face going red. Beet red. His skin was hot. Really hot. A piece of ceramic plate had embedded it’s self in his hand, but he couldn’t really feel the sting. His pulse pounded in his ears, blotting out all the other sounds in the bowling alley. “I can’t believe you fell again!”

         “I can,” laughed Yutaka, who had come rushing over with a broom and dust pan to clean up Akira’s mess. “It’s not really something new here. We have bets: ‘How many times will Akira fall this week’,” Ruki laughed even louder. Thanks, Yutaka. This guy already thinks I’m an idiot!

         “How do I get in on this?” Ruki asked between gasps.

         “I’ll text you,” Yutaka answered, a smile spreading across his face. Oh. These two were having fun laughing at Akira’s expense. Akira sat up and brushed off his pants. He grazed his left palm against his thigh and felt a painful tug. Glancing down he saw a piece of ceramic protruding from his hand.

         “Ouch,” Yutaka gasped, catching sight of the wound.

         “It’s not too bad,” Akira shrugged, and pulled out the shard.

         “Don’t do that!” Ruki said shrilly, covering his eyes.

         “What?” Akira asked, holding the shard in one hand, and inspecting the other.

         “That’s just gross!” Ruki continued.

         “It’s just a bit of blood,” Akira answered, turning his palm to face Ruki. Ruki was on the other side of the room faster than Akira could process.

         “Keep that away from me!” Grinning, Akira got to his feet, abandoning Yutaka to clean up the mess, and crossed the room to Ruki.

         “What? You scared of a little blood?” Akira asked, his hand outstretched, groping at the air in front of him.

         “Stop!” Ruki whined, dodging Akira when he got to close for comfort. Akira couldn’t remember the last time he had had this much fun, least of all at work. He chased Ruki around the bowling alley with his hand outstretched, the blood now running down his wrist.

         “Akira!” Yutaka called after a few minutes of this, “Let me clean that up!”

         “It’s fine,” Akira answered.

         “No, it’s not,” Yutaka replied more firmly. With a heavy sigh, Akira gave up and dragged his feet dramatically as her returned to the counter. Ruki poked his head around the chair he was crouched (barely) behind. He watched skeptically as Akira trudged into the back room with Yutaka before coming out of his hiding place and sitting down at the bar.

         “So it’s him,” Yutaka observed.

         “What?”

         “He’s the one that’s made you happy again,”

         “What? That little shit?” Akira replied, peering around the door frame to the bar where Ruki sat, his legs swinging slightly because he couldn’t reach the foot rest. “Hell no! If anything he’s making my life more difficult!”

         “Sure,” Yutaka laughed as he returned his attention to the wound on Akira’s hand. He cleaned it with an antiseptic wipe. The alcohol on the cloth stung the open wound on Akira’s hand, making his eyes water. “So?”

         “So what?”

         “Tell me about him,”

         “Why would I do that? I hardly know him. He’s a little shit and he’s making my life miserable.”

         “So I can see.” Yutaka answered, raising an eyebrow.

         “I don’t even know his real name!” Akira continued, trying to prove his point. “I only met him yesterday! He’s like a fucking stalker!”

         “I heard that!” came Ruki’s sing song voice from the counter, “Need I remind you that you asked me to come here today?” Yutaka’s eyebrows practically disappeared.

         “You would have come anyways, you stalker!” Akira shouted back.

         “Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t. Guess you’ll never know,” he called back.

         “See what I mean? He’s infuriating!”

         “Hey. Apparently you brought this on yourself,” Yutaka replied with a mischievous smile. “It might be good for you to make a friend other than Kouyou and I.”

         “I have friends.”

         “Name one,” Yutaka challenged.

         “Uh. Well. I hang out with that guy from my soccer team every now and then,”

         “Uh huh,”

         “And uhh. Actually, I met this guy a few days ago. Yuu. He’s pretty cool.”

         “Uh huh. Keep going,”

         Akira gave up. It was true. He had no social life. He was either at work, or sleeping. Sometimes he would lose a few hours to the Internet, or video games, but mostly he just slept and worked. That was the main reason he was stuck at this job as a pin monkey. He had no time to work on his true aspirations. By the time he got home, he was so mentally exhausted that he simply couldn’t function.

         “Okay, what ever,” Akira answered. “FUCK!”

         “What is it with you and that word today? That’s the second time you’ve acted strange after saying what ever,”

         “It’s a long story,”

         “I heard that too! You owe me six words now!”

         “Seven!” Akira called back. “Fuck!”

         “You are an idiot!”

         “Thanks for pointing that out, as if I didn’t already know!”

         “Hey! Don’t bring yourself down,” Yutaka snapped, throwing Akira his newly bandaged hand back at him. Akira inspected Yutaka’s handiwork as Yutaka stood back up and returned to the cutting board where he as chopping chives for an order of potato skins.

         “Dude, you seriously shouldn’t look that happy cutting chives. It’s weird.” Yutaka just laughed and continued chopping and smiling.

         “Get back to work, you lazy ass,”

         “I’ll work if I want to work,” Akira replied, with a smiled. “Thanks for cleaning up my hand.”

         “Someone had to. Knowing you, it probably would have gotten infected and you would have had to have it amputated.”

         “I can’t get my hand amputated,”

         “I don’t think they give you a choice, man,”

         “Get back to your love affair with those chives,”

         Akira stepped back into the front, where Ruki was still sitting behind the counter at the barstool. He was smirking at Akira, a look in his eye that Akira knew all to well didn’t bode well.

         “What?” he asked.

         “You really are an idiot,”

         “No I’m not!” Akira tried to defend himself.

         “Sure,” Ruki replied in a sing-song voice. “Where is my word?” He held out his hand towards Akira again, like he was expecting Akira to physically hand the word over to him.

         “Uhh…” Ruki had caught Akira off guard. He had found a word. Okay fine. He had grabbed a dictionary and let it fall open and picked a random word off that page. It was a good system. He thought.

         “If you don't have a word for me, I’m going to be very upset. Things could get ugly.”

         “I have your word. One second,” Akira rolled up his sleeve a little and shot a glance at the inside of his arm. Erythrite. An enucleated blood cell that transports carbon dioxide and oxygen combined with the red pigment Haemoglobin to and from somatic tissues. Also known as Red Blood Cell. Akira had no idea what half of that even meant. Enucleated? Haemoglobin? Somatic? But luckily he knew what a Red Blood Cell was, and was able to come up with a pretty good sentence. He puffed out his chest, ready to impress Ruki with his Physiology knowledge and said “Erythrites transport oxygen and carbon dioxide throughout the body.”

He crossed his arms over his chest as if to say HA! And you thought I was stupid. Ruki raised an eyebrow.

         “You really are stupid.” Ruki said after a minute, his eyebrows furrowed.

         “What?”

         “Erythrocytes. Not Erythrites.”

         “What?”

         “Here tell me how to spell your brilliant word,”

         “E-R-Y-T-H-R-I-T-E,” Akira spelled out slowly and Ruki typed the letters into his iPhone.

         “Erythrite is a red coloured Cobalt Arsenate. Usually a red incrustation on Coblat. Well. Even I didn’t know that. But I knew that Erythrite and Erythrocyte are not the same thing. You really are stupid.” He started giggling. “Good effort. I’ll give you that. Only, next time, if you are going to use a dictionary try to make sure you are copying down the right definition of the word.”

         With that Ruki jumped down from the stool and strolled towards the door. Akira stood dumbfounded behind the counter. He had been shown up. Again. By this little shit head. By this little ass hole. By this devil that plagued his nightmares. Ruki pressed his palm against the door, and then turned back to Akira.

         “I’ll be back tomorrow. Try not to fuck up again.” And with that, he pushed open the door and disappeared.

         “What was that all about?” Yutaka asked, drying his hands on the bottom of his apron.

         “It’s not important,” Akira snapped.  

Chapter Text

          When Akira got home that night, Kouyou had migrated from the couch to his bedroom. The door was closed, so Akira assumed he was sleeping. He picked up the few empty bottles that had been left lying around the table and brought them to the kitchen. With a sigh, he dropped the bottles unceremoniously in the sink. If he cared enough he might have put them away properly. At this point he was really just too tired to care, so he sauntered down the hall to his room where he collapsed on his bed. What a day. First running into Ruki at the Starbucks. That alone would have been enough for Akira to call it a day then and there. That run in had been so mentally exhausting that Akira was sure he would never recover from it. Then there was the fiasco with the broken plates and the cut in his hand at work. He would probably need stitches he noted as he tried to ignore the dull throb in his palm. And Yutaka bringing up that topic. Couldn’t he just let that go? And using the wrong word. And Ruki... At some point Akira’s thoughts became jumbled and stopped making sense. At some point he was aware that he had fallen asleep.

         For the second night in a row, he had vivid dreams. This time he saw bloodied body slumped over in a bathtub full of her own blood. Her mouth foaming. Her beautiful throat sliced open. Akira was on his hands and knees, reaching out to her. He tried to hold on to her hand. He sobbed. Why couldn’t he reach her?

         Suddenly he was awake again. Breathing heavily. Drenched in a cold sweat. Realizing that it had just been a dream, he slowed his breathing. His heart rate slowed. What a dream. That particular dream hadn’t plagued him in months. Why was it coming up now? He peered at the clock on his phone. Three am. He wiped the sweat off his brow and sunk back into sleep, this time dreamless. Thank god.

A few hours later he cracked open one bleary eye, having completely forgotten about the nightmare. His was so dry, his eyelid felt like sand paper against his eye. Grey light from the rising sun seeped into his room through the gap in his curtains. Though he was tempted to close his eye again, his curiosity got the better of him. What time was it? Fishing around under his pillow, his hand closed around his phone. He clicked the center button and the screen lit up, making him squint even more. The display read 5:45. Are you fucking kidding me?

         Akira lifted himself off his bed, realizing with mild embarrassment that he was still fully dressed, and cracked open his bedroom door. He could hear Kouyou in the kitchen filling a glass of water. Akira was willing to bet that if he ventured out of his room, he would find Kouyou standing in the kitchen, tossing back vitamins by the handful in a pair of shorts and a high quality exercise t-shirt with his iPod strapped around his left arm. Every weekday morning was the same. Kouyou got up at an ungodly hour and went for a half hour jog. Akira had no desire to join him, or to be guilt tripped into joining him, so he quietly closed his door and turned back to his bed. This time he remembered to strip off his pants at least before flopping back down on the still warm bed.

         Akira’s alarm blared at 9:00. He grunted and flailed as he awoke. Graceful. As always. I can almost hear Ruki laughing at how stupid that was. Suddenly realizing that he had wondered what Ruki would think of him, Akira slapped his hand to his face. This was getting a little silly. Why did he keep thinking about Ruki. Why couldn’t get he that fucking asshole out of his head. He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Another day. He thought miserably. Groaning, he hauled himself out of bed again and trudged down to the kitchen. Of course Kouyou had left his dirty, nasty protein shake glass on the counter.

         With a grimace, he tossed that in the skin with the beer bottles from the previous night. To Akira, the protein both looked and smelt like vomit. He couldn't comprehend why Kouyou drank those disgusting things. When he asked Kouyou why he drank them he would reply:

         “Because they are good for you,”

         “How can something that disgusting be good for you?”

 Akira had asked.

         “Most things that you think don’t taste good are good for you,” Kouyou had pointed out, taking another sip of his nasty protein shake. “I, however, find them very delicious.”

         “They look like something a baby puked up.”

         “They taste like vanilla.”

         “They have a weird texture.”

         Their banter had gone back and forth for a few minutes before Kouyou had finally put down his glass and left for his run. Out of curiosity, Akira picked up the glass and brought it to his lips. Tilting it back, he waited for the last of the thick liquid to drip down the side of the glass and pool into his mouth. Almost immediately he gagged. It had a weird add-powder-to-milk texture and it tasted like raw eggs and flour with a slight hint of vanilla, but not enough to mask the overwhelming milk and eggs flavor. He spat it into the sink and threw on the tap. Running the cold water directly into his mouth, he tried to rid his taste buds of the unsavory taste. Since that day, Akira had refused to drink protein shakes. He didn’t care how good they were for him.

         Instead, Akira pulled open the fridge, and to his delight, found a box of pizza that Kouyou must have ordered while he was at work. Excitedly, he pulled the box out of the fridge and flipped it open. Inside, on the grease stained cardboard, Akira saw three slices of all dressed pizza. His mouth was already water as he pulled the cold pizza out of the box and brought it up to his mouth. There was nothing better for breakfast than cold pizza. He would order pizza the night before just so he could stick it in the fridge and eat it the next morning. Kouyou found it disgusting.

         “That is so unhealthy,” he would say when ever Akira would eat cold pizza for breakfast, sneering down at Akira as he would shove slice after slice down his throat.

         “So?” Akira would say through a mouthful.

         “Your arteries are going to get clogged, and your going to have a heart attack, and I’m not going to help you.”

         “What ever,”

         “And it doesn’t help that you smoke. You’re already fucking yourself over with that alone. You are going to die young. And I don’t even care     “K.” Akira would say, still munching away on his pizza.

         Throwing his hands in the air, Kouyou would storm out of the kitchen and go work out or something like that.

         He didn’t even bother to grab a plate. He just took the whole box back to his bedroom and sat down at his desk. Ignoring the dictionary on the desk, which was still open to the same page he had flipped it to the day before, he knocked a couple of papers out of the way, even throwing a couple of old note books on the floor to make room for the greasy cardboard box on his desk as he flipped open his computer. He had one goal in mind as he opened the Internet browser.  Find word and use it right.

         Today he had a plan. He was going to use the word illicit. He had already figured that out. He had carefully planned a sentence out for Ruki. Now it was just a matter of coming up with his other words.

         As he waited for the dictionary page to load, he gazed down at the notebook on the floor. He felt a pang in his chest. Guilt. The words written in his own had writing in large block letters burned into his eyes. Once it had been his dream to write. Once he had cared. But not for a while.

         He returned his attention to the glowing screen and scanned the web page for a word he could use. He was in luck. In the upper right hand corner of the blue and white web page there was a “word of the day” box with a word written in large blue letters. “Mignon: Small and Pretty. Delicately pretty.” Well that was a good word. But. How could he use it in a sentence? The first thing that popped into his head was Ruki is mignon. But immediately he shook the thought out of his head. If he said that to Ruki, he would assume Akira was hitting on him or something. He couldn’t have that. Maybe there is another word I can try instead. Akira thought, and clicked the MORE link. This link took him to a page with previous ‘words of the day’. He scrolled through the list for a while until he came across a word that peeked his interest. Effulgent. Shining forth Brilliantly. Radiant. He liked that word. He wasn’t sure why. He quickly jotted the word down and then closed the browser.

         He had a long day ahead of him to prepare for. Unfortunately, Akira worked 5 days a week. Two of those days were always the weekend, and then he would also work Monday, Tuesday and Friday. His weekend was in the middle of the week. Because of that fact, the only friend he had left was Kouyou. He never had time to go visit old high school friends, not that he really wanted. Not that he really wanted to go and see how successful those people had become, while he continued to be a pin monkey, living pay check to pay check, given up on his only dream. A drop out. A Failure. No goals or anything to live for anymore.

         With a sigh, he pushed his chair away from his desk and sauntered off to the shower, leaving half eaten pizza on his desk.

…

When he showed up at Spare Time Bowling at 4 for his regular Monday night shift, he didn’t expect to see Ruki sitting at the bar, his feet swinging as he tried to reach for the foot bar, but still couldn’t reach. He didn’t expect Yutaka to be leaning against the bar with a cloth in his hand cleaning the same portion of counter over and over again as he chatted avidly with the small guy sitting on the opposite side.

Ruki was talking animatedly about something that Yutaka was eagerly drinking in. To Akira it seemed like they were talking about a movie or something, but as he got close enough to hear what they were talking about, Ruki caught sight of him and stopped mid sentence to turn and smile at him. The smile lit up Ruki’s face and made Akira smile back for the sheer adorableness of it. The words he had looked up, Effulgent and Mignon popped into his head and it was all he could think as he walked up to the bar.

“Sup?” Akira asked, nodding at Yutaka.

“Not much, just chatting with your friend,” Yutaka replied, motioning towards Ruki.

“He’s not my friend,”

“He’s not?”

“I’m hurt,” Ruki piped up here.

“I don't even know your real name,” Akira pointed out.

“And you wont,” Ruki replied.

“Are you hear for your word of the day?” Akira asked.

“No. I’m here chatting with your lovely co-worker,” Ruki answered, smiling maliciously.

“That’s a lie,”

“Hey, now I’m hurt!” Yutaka supplied. “Are you implying that people don’t come here to visit me?”

“Well they usually don’t” Akira mocked, going to clock in. “What were you guys even talking about?”

“You,” Ruki said, completely seriously.

“I’m not that interesting,”

“I beg to differ. You, my good sir, are an enigma. I like puzzles. I like solving them. And you are one riddle I can’t seem to get a grasp on.”

“Look who’s calling who an enigma!”

“Right, well I wont interrupt your flirting,” Yutaka said with a wink.

“We aren’t flirting!” Akira snapped.

“Right,” he answered, raising an eyebrow skeptically. “Anyways. I’m leaving for the night. I think Shiro is coming in around 6.” Akira let out a groan. Shiro would have him scrubbing the floors with a toothbrush until midnight. He hated working the slow Monday night shift with Shiro. “And Ruki, you’ll have to bring that CD by! I’m really interested in listening to it!”

         “Yeah. I’ll bring it by tomorrow.”

         “Oh, I don’t work tomorrow. But Akira does. If you drop it off with him, I’ll grab it from him on the weekend.”

         “Sounds good,”     Yutaka smiled and turned around towards the kitchen, Akira on his heels.

         “Seriously,” Akira hissed, “what is he doing here?”

         “He showed up around 2 looking for you,” Yutaka replied at a normal volume as he gathered his wallet, keys, and phone.

         “He’s been here that long?”

         “I told him he could hang out, that you would be on at 4,”

         “Does he have nothing better to do than make my life miserable?”

         “He seems very nice. I don’t think he’s making your life miserable.”

         “He’s making my life miserable!” Akira repeated.

         “Mmhm. Right. Well. Have a nice shift!” Yutaka turned and left, Akira still standing in the kitchen.

         “Fuck you, man!” Akira called after him. He peered back at the bar. Ruki was sitting innocently with a pad of paper and a pen. Akira couldn’t tell what he was doing, if he was drawing or if he was writing. What ever he was doing, he was smiling down at the paper with a spark in his eyes, that spark that Akira had learnt in less than 48 hours to fear.

         “What are you doing?” Akira asked, taking Yutaka’s spot at the bar, propping his head up in his hands.

         “Drawing,” Ruki answered, not even looking up from his paper.

         “What?” he asked, straightening up a bit to get a good look at the paper on the bar. Ruki was drawing a person. From Akira’s angle he couldn’t really tell who, but he could decipher a faux hawk and gangly limbs. “are you drawing me?”

         “So what if I am?”

         Akira wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He hardly knew this guys, and yet he was drawing a picture of him.

         “Can I see it?” Akira wasn’t sure if he was afraid to look at the picture.

         “When it’s done,”

         “I want to see it now,”

         “Nope.” God, this guy was childish. Change the subject.

         “Seriously. What were you talking to Yutaka about?”

         “You.” Ruki repeated. So he wasn’t going to get an answer out of Ruki. Okay fine. He turned and walked away.

…

         When seven rolled around, Akira was ready to pull out his hair. Ruki was still sitting at the bar, doodling idly, and refusing to give Akira a straight answer about anything. Shiro was just short of ordering Akira to scrub the floors with a toothbrush. Actually, he had told Akira to wash all the walls, which was almost as bad.

         Sweat dripped down his back as he made large swipes with the cloth on the wall. They were just going to get dirty again. He had no idea why he was being forced to wash them. This was honestly the stupidest thing Shiro had ever made him do. As he fumed and washed walls, he barely noticed Ruki slide off his stool. Not really taking note of it, he continued to clean.

         “Here.” Ruki grunted, thrusting something towards Akira. Akira stopped and stared down at Ruki baffled for a moment until he realized that Ruki was holding out the pad of paper he had been drawing on. “You wanted to see the picture. It’s done now.”

         Akira took the pad from Ruki and looked down at it. Sure enough, there was Akira, sprawled out on the floor, covered in soda and broken plates with an ugly grimace on his face, meanwhile, standing over him was someone doubled over with laughter.

         “Nice,” Akira replied sarcastically.

         “What?” Ruki replied innocently, “This is what I picture when ever I think of you.”

         “You wanna know what I think of when I think of you?”

         “What?”

         “Why wont this little shit leave me alone,” Akira answered.

         “RIGHT THROUGH THE HEART!” Ruki cried, grabbing his chest dramatically.

         “You’re fine,” Akira sneered, patting Ruki on the top of the head. Ruki swatted at Akira’s hand and glowered.

         “Don’t touch the hair,”

         “I’ll do what I want,”

         “As long as it doesn’t involve touching my hair,” Akira rolled his eyes and continued scrubbing greasy handprints off the walls. “That looks like a shitty job.”

         “It is,” Akira grunted. “So it would really be a help if you stopped bothering me.”

         “You mean my company isn’t pleasing you?”

         “No,”

         “You are really just out to make me hurt tonight aren’t you?”

         “Yup,” Akira paused his cleaning for a moment to smile maliciously down at Ruki.

         “Jerk,”

         “Bitch,”

         “Just give me my word, and I’ll be on my way.”

         “Fine,” Akira replied, dropping the cloth he was using in a bucket of greyish water. “Your word today is: Illicit. No matter how hard you try, you will not illicit information about my past.”

         “Wow! You actually did it today. You actually used a smart word correctly!”

         “Hey!” Akira shouted, insulted, “I actually am a smart person. I just have my moments.”

         “I’ll believe that when I see it!”

         “Well you should believe it.”

         “Wait. How do you spell your Elicit?”

         “What?”

         “Elicit. It’s a homonym. Two words that sound the same but have different meanings. I want to make sure you used the right word.”

         “Uhh…”

         “You have yet to prove that you are as smart as you say you are!”

         “Shut up, you bastard,”

         “Spell it!”

         “I-L-L-I-C-I-T,” Akira rattled off.

         “WRONG! SO WRONG!” Ruki roared with delight.

         “Do you like seeing me at my worst or something?”

         “You are very amusing,” Ruki admitted. “Just so you know, Illicit means something illegal.” Akira blushed furiously. He really wasn’t stupid. He just made a lot of mistakes. He tried to defend himself, but he couldn’t seem to find the words.

         “AKIRA! GET THE FUCK BACK TO WORK!” Shiro had made his way to the front counter from the kitchen. Apparently what ever cleaning he had been doing back there was done, and he had caught Akira slacking off.

         “Looks like I got you in trouble,” Ruki noted.

         “Yeah. This is probably a good time for you to leave,”

         “Or I could stay and get you in more trouble,”

         As if on cue, Shiro yelled again: “SUZUKI!”

         “Alright!” Akira yelled back, then turned to Ruki with a pleading look in his eyes.

         “Fine, I’ll leave,”

         “Thank you,”

         “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Ruki said as he walked away, his voice stickily sweet. Akira shuddered dramatically. “Wait. One thing. Wanna go for coffee sometime?”

         “Coffee?”

         “It’s a hot drink made by brewing hot water in ground coffee beans.”

         “I know what coffee is,” Akira snapped.

         “Well, do you want to go get some with me sometime?”

         “Uhh,”

         “It’s not like I’m asking you to fuck me,” Ruki said, rolling his eyes. “It’s just coffee. As Friends.”

         “Are we friends?”

         “I don’t know. What is your definition of ‘friends’?”

         “I lost the definition of friends a long time ago,” Akira said, shrugging.

         “Well then, I say we are friends,” Ruki declared.

         “I guess that means I can’t turn down coffee.”

         “You can do what ever you want. But, no, you can’t turn down coffee.”

         “I work tomorrow, but how about Wednesday? Or Thursday?”

         “Thursday works. I’ll meet you at that Starbucks,”

         “I’ll see you there.”

         “It’s a date.”

         With that, Ruki picked up his belongings from the bar, and strolled out of the bowling alley, leaving Akira standing, dumbstruck. Did he just agree to a date with the little fucker that had been plaguing him for the last few days? The little shithead that seemed to have taken over every aspect of Akira’s life. Apparently he had. He hadn’t spent time with a friend other than Kouyou since the incident. He hadn’t been on a date in that time either.

         He stood for a moment longer, still staring at the door that had swung shut. The tapping of Shiro’s foot brought him back to the present and he continued to wash the walls.

         Everything was changing and he wasn’t ready for it.

Chapter Text

“How was work?” Kouyou grunted as Akira sat down on the couch with a beer. Kouyou was watching the TV with mild interest. His mouth was set in a deep frown as if he didn’t know why he was watching this particular show, but couldn’t really work up the energy to change the channel.

            “It was good,” Akira replied between sips of beer.

            “You didn’t get me one?”

            “Sorry,” but Akira made no move to get up and get his roommate a beer.

            “Good? Work is never good,”

            “It was good. I can’t really complain.”

            “Dude. You always complain about work,” Kouyou pointed out as he stood up to go get himself a beer.

            “Do not,” Kouyou raised an eyebrow.

            “The only time you don’t is when you work a shift with Yutaka, and even then work is never good. And I know Yutaka doesn’t work Monday nights with you.”

            “It was good,” Akira repeated, turning his eyes to the television, although he wasn’t really watching. Kouyou had set the TV to a station playing a reality show. Like Survivor or something. He didn't really care. He just wanted an excuse to get out of this conversation. Giving up, Kouyou left the room to go get his beer. Akira racked his brain. Was it really that odd that he had said work was good? When was the last time he had said work was good. When had he used an adjective to describe work other than miserable, terrible, or awful? The longer he thought about it, the more the answer eluded him. Not in a very long time. That much was for sure. Since the incident, nothing had made Akira happy, least of all his dead end job.

            When Kouyou sat back down on the couch, Akira was still silently trying to figure out a way to avoid any more questions about work. He wasn’t ready to admit, even to himself, why work had been good today.

            “So… uh… how was your weekend?” Akira asked, before Kouyou could say anything else.  Both of them kept their eyes firmly on the television. Akira knew that Kouyou knew he was trying his best to avoid the pervious conversation, but Kouyou was a good enough friend to pretend he didn’t notice.

            “Same as any other weekend,” he answered. Kouyou’s weekends rarely changed. Kouyou had a very firm schedule, and very rarely deviated from it. When he did there was cause for panic.  

            Every Friday night, some time after Akira had gone to work, Kouyou would arrive home and plop himself down in his spot on the couch after turning on his xbox. Akira wasn’t sure if he ate before or after he had turned on his game, but based on the lack of dishes on the coffee table, he assumed Kouyou ate before. Some time after midnight, Akira would arrive home and join his friend in a couple rounds of whatever game his was playing. Usually, Akira made him change it out so he could play GRID. Some time after 3 am, Akira would go to sleep, leaving his roommate to play his game well into the morning hours. He had this image of Kouyou bathed in the grey light of the rising sun, eyes still glued to the screen, blood shot and sitting onto of large, dark circles.

            When Akira would wake up at 9 or 10 to go on his regular Starbucks run, Kouyou would still be sitting with his eyes fixed on the the television screen. He looked like a zombie.

“Want a coffee?” he would ask, to which he would only get a grunt. He had come to assume that grunt meant yes. The fifteen minute walk to Starbucks on Saturday morning had become quite routine. It had become so routine in fact that the girl at Starbucks had Kouyou’s Grande Soy Skinny Vanilla Latte and Akaira’s Grande Extra Whip Half Foam Four Pump Vanilla Caramel Macchiato waiting for him when he walked in the door.

“Thanks,” he would say, and she would blush and giggle. Flashing a smile at her, he would pay for his coffee.

“See you next week!”

“Next week,” he would call over his shoulder, and return home with caffeine to help Kouyou through the next 24 hours. Akira didn’t know if Kouyou ever slept on his typical Friday night. If he did, he probably slept a total of two hours, only to wake up as soon as the sun rose and start playing his game again. So, he probably needed as much caffeine as was physically possible.

            He would play all through his Saturday. And then sleep all Sunday. For a man who was obsessed with his health, Akira was pretty sure that wasn’t healthy.

            It hadn’t always been that way. In fact, he and Kouyou used to go out quite often. They would drink. They would laugh and have fun.

            All that had changed not long ago. Since that day, the day that had changed everything for Akira, they had essentially avoided their past like the plague. Well. Akira’s past. Deep down, Akira was thankful that his friend had given up so much for him. Most people would have just let him rot in his misery. Kouyou on the other hand had given up everything in order to make sure Akira was okay.

            Now, more than a year later, they were so set in their routine that they weren’t really up for changing it. They liked it the way it was.

            They idly watched the TV and sipped their beers for a little while longer until Akira decided that his craving for nicotine was stronger than his desire to not move. He stood up and went out on the back porch, the one place within the confines of their apartment that Kouyou actually let Akira smoke.

            He lit up his cigarette and gazed out at the city lights. The moon lit up the sky, but the street lamps and headlights of passing cars were more than enough to light up the streets. With a sigh, Akira mourned the lack of stars in the sky. He knew they were there, but unfortunately they were invisible to him under all the light pollution of the city. He had long ago vowed to himself to go to the countryside one day so he might see the stars for real. Cool spring wind rushed passed him as he breathed out , a tail of smoke escaping from his lips, but scattered in the breeze. As he looked out over the roof tops, he wondered where Ruki was. It was an odd thought. He didn’t even know where this little devil that had been plaguing him lived.

            For some reason it really bothered him. Even though he had only known Ruki for a few short days, it seemed like he had known Ruki his whole life. He’d already made such a fool of himself in front of the little guy that Akira figured there wasn’t really much he needed to hide from his new friend.

            Did he just refer to Ruki as a friend?

            Was that what he thought? That Ruki was a friend. Was he actually making a new friend? Apparently he was.

            Suddenly, the apartment felt like a cage and Akira needed to get out.

            “I’m going for a walk,” Akira announced as he walked back into the apartment. Kouyou turned and looked at Akira, eyebrows raised in shock. This wasn’t normal Akira behavior. This was stepping out of the routine they had comfortably lived in for the last few months. “What?”

            “This is just. Something new.”

            “I like trying new things,”

            “Not lately.”

            “Well. I’m going for a walk,” He repeated.

            “Alright. I’ll leave the door unlocked.”

            “See you later.”

            Kouyou grunted and Akira closed the apartment door behind him. He didn’t really know why he suddenly wanted to go for a walk. He just did. He wandered down the abandoned sidewalks. The streets, as was usual for this time of night, were teeming with activity, but the sidewalks were empty. His feet carried him down his usual path towards work. He didn’t really have to think about where his feet were taking them. They sort of just did their own thing.

            When he stopped, he realized he was standing in front the park between his apartment and the bowling alley. It wasn't a big park, but it was the only one within walking distance of his apartment. It had a slide attached to a small jungle gym, but most importantly, a swing set. There was two swings attached to the metal frame by chains which swayed in the slight breeze of the mid spring night. Akira didn’t really decide to walk towards the swings. His feet just kind of took him there.

            Since that day over a year ago, he hadn’t stopped at this park. It held too many memories. Akira didn’t really want to sit down in the swing. He just wanted to look at it. As he stood, staring down at the empty, swaying swing. Reaching out, he wrapped his hand around the cold chain. A wave of bitterness rolled over him. Why had he even come here?

            When he opened the door to the apartment, a rush of hot air greeted him. He was surprised at how cold it was it was outside. He shouldn’t have been. It was spring after all. The temperature did tend to drop significantly ass soon as the sun went down.

            “You were gone for like an hour,” Kouyou grunted from the kitchen where he was cleaning up Akira’s collection of beer bottles.

            “What are you? My mother?” Akira asked as  he closed the door and locked it.

            “No. But I was worried about you.”

            “You don't have to worry about me. I’m a grown boy!” Kouyou turned and looked at Akira with a skeptical look in his eyes. “What?”

            “Nothing. Well. I’m going to bed. Early morning tomorrow.” He said in a condescending way.

            “Fine.”

            “Night.”

            “You don’t need to say good night to me. That’s so gay.”

            “What are you saying?”

            “Nothing.”

            “Why are you in such a bad mood all of a sudden?”

            “I’m not!”

            “You went for a walk. Now you’re calling me gay like it’s a disgusting thing. What the fuck, man?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “Just don’t project your insecurities on me. If you have a fucking problem, deal with it. I’m just trying to be your friend, like I’ve always been.” Why was he acting like such a dick all of a sudden? Thing had changed so fast. A week ago he was Akira, the grumpy jerk who worked at the bowling alley. He had no life outside of work and sleep. He wanted nothing to do with the world beyond his little dome of routine he had created. But then, Ruki had come into his life. He had thrown a wrench into the well oiled machine. Was this him desperately trying to hang on to the world he had created?

            “Sorry,” he mumbled.

            “No you’re not.” Kouyou said with a smile.

            “Just go to bed,” Akira said, breaking into a smile.

            Akira woke to the sun streaming in on his face. With mild, incoherent shock, Akira realized that he had actually slept through the night for the first time since meeting Ruki. Well the first time in a while. He hadn’t done much sleeping over the last few months. Despite having slept through the night, Akira felt more tired than he had in days. Awaking from the dead sleep had not been kind on his body.

            Groggily, he got out his bed and dragged his feet as he walked down the hall to the bathroom. As he turned on the shower and waited for it to heat up, he thought back to his walk to the park. Vaguely, in the back of his still half asleep brain, he had thought that adventure had been nothing more than a dream.  However, the sequence of his memories wasn’t making sense. He knew he had argued with Kouyou. That much hadn’t been a dream. Right? No. That had definitely not been a dream. But that had happened after the park. Right? Yes. So. The park was a legitimate memory. Not just something his brain had made up. Definitely not.

            It wasn’t until the steam was so thick in the bathroom that he realized that he was standing naked waiting to jump in the shower. With a sigh, he gave up on trying to figure out his brain and jumped under the hot water. He let it pour down through his hair and cascade over his back.

            He dried himself off with a towel, now somewhat saturated with water from the steam in the bathroom. But now, he felt awake. The fog in his tired brain seemed to have dissipated. He still couldn’t figure out why he had had the sudden to urge to go to the park the night before, but he had long since given up on that.

            With the towel now tied around his waist, he searched through the piles of clothing on his floor. He needed something that he could wear to work later, a pair of jeans or something, but something he could go out in public with. Marveling at his luck, he pulled out a clean pair of jeans from the bottom of a pile. As he pulled on a black t-shirt he decided that he wanted to grab himself another coffee. He hadn’t taken the bike out since Sunday morning and he was itching to get back on. Two days was an awfully long time for him to not ride.

            Locking the door behind him, he left the apartment and walked down the hallway. Vaguely he was aware of the fact that he was humming again. Had Kouyou or Yutaka been there, they would have commented on how much happier he seemed lately. Minus his little out burst last night, he did seem happier. He guessed. He wasn’t going to admit that to either of them.

            His bike roared to life and a small smile touched his lips. This was true happiness. Being on his bike was a joy beyond anything he could explain to anyone. He was just to leave the parking lot when he glanced down at the gauges out of habit. With shock, he realized that the gas meter was dangerously low. Not willing to risk driving to Starbucks and then head in the opposite direction for gas, he set off for gas.

            Akira flew down the streets towards the gas station. It was a few blocks north of his apartment with Kouyou. He weaved in and out of traffic, startling the motorists with his risky maneuvers.

            He stood with one hand in his pocket, and the other holding the gas nozzle open as the potent smelling liquid poured into the tank of the bike. With a bored expression, he watched as the digital numbers on the gas pump gradually grew larger. Fuck gas was expensive. At this rate he’d have to quit smoking just to be able to afford to run his bike. For a moment he thought about that. Would he even be able to quit smoking? Probably not.

His fingers closed around something in the pocket of his jacket and he pulled it out. It was a plain green bic lighter. Nothing special. It was about half full. When the fuck did I get this? He usually opted for shades of red or black when he bought new lighters. He only ever bought the green on the rare occasion that they had no red, or black. And he wore this jacket fairly often, so it was odd for there to be a half used lighter in a colour that he almost never bought that he couldn’t remember picking up. With a shrug, he replaced the lighter in his pocket.

He felt the nozzle click in his hand, and the sound of the rushing gasoline ceased indicating that the tank was full. For good measure, he squeezed the nozzle again, and it immediately shut off again. Yup. Full. Trying not to drip gas on his bike, or on the ground, he returned the nozzle to the pump and screwed the cap back in place. Throwing his other hand in his pocket, thumbing his credit card, he stalked into the gas station to pay for his gas. He wasn’t really interested in the total at this point. The bike had to be filled. It wasn’t really an option at this point.

As he stood in line to wait to pay, he noticed the guy in front of him seemed familiar, but he couldn’t really put a finger on why this guy seemed so familiar to him. From behind, the guy was tall and slender, but not much taller than Akira. He had long scraggly black hair. Akira could see he was holding a handful green lighters and a six pack of Kirin Lager Beer. There wasn’t anything really extraordinary about him.

He wasn’t really sure why he was so sure this guy was familiar. Hell, he hadn’t even seen this guy’s face since entering the gas station. The guy placed his handful of green lighters and his beer on the counter. Akira idly fingered the lighter in his pocket as he waited for him to pay. It wasn’t until the guy turned around, shoving the lighters, a couple of bills and his receipt into his pocket, that Akira recognized him. The first thing he noticed on his thin face was his lip ring.

“You!” Akira half shouted.

“Oh hey!” Yuu replied, smiling at Akira.

“What… What are you doing here?” Akira stammered.

“Well, some guy stole my last lighter, so I had to go get some more, and I figured while I was here, I might as well treat myself to some beer!”  He lifted he six pack to indicate he was buying beer. “Besides, I live not far from here. It’s the closest place to buy lighters.” Akira couldn’t believe it. He had met two people only three days earlier, and it seemed that neither one of them particularly wanted to leave him alone. His encounter with Ruki, and everything that had happened since had whipped Yuu clean out of his mind. He pulled the green lighter out of his pocket, and his eyes widened. Shit.

“You… you gave me that lighter, didn’t you?” Oh shit. You didn’t take that lighter from him did you? He racked his brain, frantically sifting through dictionary searches and his conversations with Ruki and Yutaka over the last few days. He couldn’t remember if he had just pocketed this stranger’s lighter. Had his kindness only been a dream? He’d had a lot of those lately. Yuu raised an eyebrow thoughtfully. His face scrunched as he thought, but Akira was pretty sure he was just mocking him at this point.

“Did I?” he asked. “I seem to remember you just taking my lighter.”

“Ah! Fuck! I’m so sorry!” Akira fumbled. He couldn’t believe he had just taken this guy’s lighter. Sure he had been stressed out that day. But how could he have been so rude, especially after Yuu had been kind enough to offer him a light in the first place. Akira held out the lighter to Yuu. “You can have it back now!”

“Well,” Yuu said with an exasperated sigh, “it’s a little late now, bro.”

“I’m so sorry!” Akira repeated, getting a bit frantic now.

“Well, you might as well keep it now. I mean, I just bought a bunch.”

“Are… are you sure?”

“I guess so.”

“Thank… thank you!”

Akira pocketed the lighter again and moved forward to pay for his gas. As he was signing the credit card receipt, he heard Yuu snigger behind him. He turned around slowly, his eyes narrowing. By the time Akira was fully turned around, Yuu was doubled over with laughter.

“You… are so… gullible!” Yuu said between fits of giggles.

“You bastard!” Akira growled.

“I can’t believe you fell for that!” Yuu was laughing so hard at this point that everyone in the station had stopped what they were doing and turned to look at Akira and Yuu.

“Take your fucking lighter!” Akira snapped, chucking the lighter at Yuu, who still laughing, failed to dodge it and instead just lifted his hands to protect his face from the projectile. Akira stormed towards the door, furious that he had been made a fool of. Again. He seemed to be making a habit of that lately.

“Hey wait! I’m sorry!”

“No you aren’t!”

“Ha ha! Yes I am! Come have a smoke with me. You can have one of mine.”

Akira thought about the offer for a moment. While this guy really got on his nerves, he couldn’t pass up a free smoke.

“Fine,”

...

Yuu pulled out two cigarettes from a pack. Akira didn’t get a close enough look at the pack to really know what the brand was, but it certainly wasn’t his typical Mild Seven Lights. Yuu held out one of the cigarettes towards Akira, who took it between his first too fingers. He twirled it around to put the filter in his mouth and realized that the cigarette had no filter. He must have looked confused because Yuu laughed.

“You never smoke a non-filter before?” Akira shook his head. He might be a smoker, but when it came to his cigarettes, he was a bit of a pansy. Even he could admit that. He typically smoked lights, or ultra lights. He usually stuck to the menthols because he liked the taste better. This cigarette, quite frankly, looked terrifying. “Boy are you in for an experience!” Yuu put the cigarette between his lips and lit the opposite end. He let out a puff of smoke and turned to Akira who was still staring at the cigarette. “These are the most manly cigarettes you can smoke, my friend. They a bit harsh though.” As if to confirm his point, Yuu let out a nasty cough.

Akira popped the end that seemed to be held together better into his mouth, and lit the other end. The first drag was unlike anything Akira had expected. Being used to the resistance of the filter on his lights, taking a drag of this non-filter was like breathing through a straw. Literally no resistance. But then the smoke hit the back of his throat. Holy shit it was strong. Much stronger than what he was used to. The taste of the tobacco was so overwhelming he starting coughing almost immediately.

“These are… strong,” he wheezed after he’d finished coughing.

“They are manly,” Yuu responded, taking another drag with a wink. Akira took another drag, this time ready for it. He didn’t cough, but he understood now what Yuu had meant by “harsh”. The back of his throat seemed dry. “What kind of sissy fags do you smoke?”

“Uh…” he pulled out his pack of Mild Seven Menthol Lights and showed Yuu, who laughed.

“Well, I hope you enjoyed this,”

“It was different,” Akira admitted, taking another drag. It was getting easier. He was still amazed at how easy it was to smoke. Yuu laughed again. The stood in silence for a bit, both just enjoying their cigarettes and the silence.

“Look, I’m sorry for the way my friends acted the other day,” Yuu said out of the blue.

“Huh?”

“They were assholes. I know dealing with people like them can’t be fun,” Akira shrugged. It wasn’t like it was anything new. He dealt with those kinds of people all the time.

“What…” he stopped himself mid-word, “It happens.”

“Well, it wasn’t cool of them,” Akira shrugged again. Yuu looked down at the smoldering cigarette between his fingers, it had almost reached his fingers, so he flicked it on the pavement in front of him. “Anyways, I have to hit the road. It was nice seeing you again.” Akira grunted in response.

“Thanks for the smoke,” Akira answered as he took one last drag and then flicked his away so it landed next to Yuu’s still smoldering butt.

“Anytime,” Yuu replied as he picked up his six-pack. “Friend.”

Yuu walked away, leaving Akira alone in the parking lot, leaning on his bike, watching the two cigarettes on the ground smolder like coals on the pavement. He crushed them under the toe of his big bike boot.

What a week.

He swung his leg over his bike and knocked back the kick stand. After his bike had roared to life, he left the parking lot behind. Off for another day of work, and another day dealing with Ruki.