Fire Phoenix - Reki x Reader

✨🛹 𝕊𝕜𝕒𝕥𝕖 𝟙𝟙 🛹✨

~Your POV:~
It was the next day. I was getting ready to head to S since I heard they were opening the gates earlier on today. Mainly because it's normally abandoned anyway so who's gonna know when a bunch of teens are skating towards an abandoned mine? (I say teens and I just now realise Shadow is 24 and then Adam, Joe and Cherry aren't teenagers anymore). I grabbed a causal outfit today since the weather was quite nice.

I settled on a pair of blue shorts with a f/c top and a black and white flannel tied around my waist. I sorted my hair out like I always do for S (however you want) and don my mask. I headed over to the skate shop. On door. Since I needed to pick up my board. I headed over there and saw Reki and Langa already with the boards on the floor and Reki was holding my board in his hands. I walked quicker over to them and greeted them.

"Langa! Reki!" I call out.

"Phoenix? I didn't think you were gonna show. Headed to S?" Reki asks.

"Mmm hmm." I say in agreement.

"Here. Your board." Reki says, passing me the board.

Damn. He did a good job on this. Really good job on this.

"Damn Reki. I'm gonna have to come to you for board fixes more often. It's almost as if you watch me skate." I say.

"Well I do. That's how I get a rough idea of how to fix up the board." Reki says.

"So you tailor a board to the skating style?! Damn that must take skill. Makes sense why Langa's board has toe clips now." I point out.

"Oh, you noticed." Langa says.

"Anyway, shall we go?" Reki says.

"Yeah. Race you there!" I say, taking off.

"Hey, no fair! You had a head start!" Reki says.

I kept on skating until I was no longer in view of them. I was stupid. I wore shorts. I totally forgot about the scar running down my knee. It's also the reason I don't skate as often. Once before, I had a beef with someone that didn't end well. That race broke me. Like it always breaks people. I was drawn in and I lost control. I ended up injuring my knee but cos it was so bad, it didn't heal properly. I have my off days where I can't skate. But I can still go around my daily life.

Which is why I don't skate often. Before my injury, I was showing up to S every night. I'd have people challenging me to beefs left, right and centre. And, week in, week out, Shadow would always challenge me to a beef. He never won. Not once. And I love coming up with dares for him. I loved watching do awkward dares.

I made him dye his hair pink. Wear a maid costume. Do a race with cat ears. We are a dress. Eat a raw egg. And a worm.

It was so funny and those were only a few I got him to do. Everyone would always laugh but it never once chipped away at his dignity. He'd come back. Every week. And act the same as he would any other week.

I soon got to the gates at S and decided to sit down and wait. I didn't need to, but I wanted to make it seem like I'd been here for hours. It was so funny seeing their faces when they showed up. They just glared at me.

"Why'd you go on ahead?" Langa asked.

"How long you been here?" Reki asks.

"To answer Langa's question, I wanted to. To answer your question, Reki, 15 minutes." I answer.

"Huh." Reki says.

The three of us then headed inside and saw Miya. So the four of us ended up going down the course. It seemed as if Miya was challenging Reki. With levels? Almost as if he treats this as a game. I decided to get involved. It was like he was giving us moves to do and we had to copy them. Since I'm a quick learner, copying the moves wasn't difficult.

We kept on going until Reki fell off his board. I slowed down and went over to him and then Miya spoke up.

"See, this is why you're a slime." Miya points out before skating off, Langa following him.

I stayed with Reki, making sure he was alright.

"You good?" I ask.

"Yeah." Reki says.

We then continued skating and soon caught up to Langa and Miya. I managed to get ahead of both Reki, Langa and Miya. I tried to do a trick I've seen Joe do all too often. Except I didn't have enough jump. I ended up bailing and landing on my knee. I quickly got up and skated away before anyone could've seen what happened. No one was really here at the moment and Reki, Langa and Miya were quite far behind.

I decided after a while that I'd stop. I neared where S normally takes place. Since we were racing down the path towards where it took place. I stopped my board and picked it up, heading to the side to lean against one of the rocks. After a short moment, Reki and Langa come skating over to me.

"You alright? You just disappeared." Langa points out.

"I'm fine." I say, not looking at either of them.

"Phoenix." Reki says, gaining my attention.

"You sure? Cos you don't seem to have that friendly attitude you always have." Reki says.

"I'm fine, ok. I don't need people worrying about me." I say.

I pick my board up off of the floor and start skating off. Leaving Reki and Langa behind. I don't need people worrying about me. No one's cared for me in 4 years. I don't need it now. I glance back slightly and see Reki and Langa trying to catch up to me. I sped up and head off, outside of the gates. After a while, I managed to shake them. Well, at least I thought I did.

I headed to Joe's. When I got there, I picked up my board and headed in. My leg was hurting after trying to land the jump Joe always does.  I thought I could do it. Genuinely thought I could. He seemed shocked to see me, but when he noticed my slight limp, his expression changed.

"Phoenix? What happened?" Joe asks.

"I thought I could do your jump. I tried and ended up messing up and bailing. I landed on my knee and it hurts." I say.

"Which one? The one you hurt in a beef that one time?" Joe asks.

I nod in agreement.

"You're planning on going back to S tonight, right?" Joe asks.

"Yeah..." I say.

"Phoenix! I thought we'd find you here." Reki says, panting.

"Yeah. You seem to always gravitate to here for some reason." Langa adds, also panting.

"I confide in Joe." I causally say.

Reki and Langa sweatdrop at that before returning back to their normal expressions.

"So why'd you run off?" Reki asks, I stay quiet.

But Joe spoke up for me.

"Let's just say although Phoenix is super friendly and outgoing, she doesn't like it when people worry about her. She doesn't like feeling vulnerable." Joe says.

I glare at Joe for the comment and he just smiles. More like smirks.

"Anyway, why'd you come here?" Reki asks.

"Well..." I start.