"I feel like I should teach you something, too," Langa explained.
Reki frowned, his hair ruffling in the wind. As usual, he had wolfed down his lunch in five seconds flat and was now sitting with his legs crossed, pouting every few minutes until Langa fed him bites of his own bento. "What do you mean?"
"Because you taught me how to skate," Langa said. "I should teach you something, too." The problem was coming up with something he could do that Reki couldn't. Langa glanced at him. Reki was impressive in so many ways; he was strong and fast and he could mend a skateboard without a owners' manual and he could cook ten-minute rice in five minutes, and his smile could always make Langa's heart feel a little lighter, no matter how sad and tired he felt, and okay, okay.
Langa shook himself a little, to clear his head. He needed to stop thinking about those things all the time. It was becoming a problem.
"Well," said Reki, pursing his mouth, and Langa glanced at him and then quickly looked away so he wouldn't hyperfixate on Reki's mouth. He was always doing that, lately, especially in class, and then he couldn't focus on anything else. Then Reki brightened. "I know! You can teach me to speak Canadian!"
Langa snorted before he could stop himself, covering his mouth. Reki frowned at him.
"What?"
"Canadian isn't a language," Langa choked out, and Reki sat back, still frowning.
"What do you mean? Do you guys just mime everything to each other over there?" His headband was slipping over his face, hair adorably messy, and Langa could barely hold himself back from reaching forward and fixing it. He couldn't do that; he had made a rule for himself, no touching Reki more than necessary, in case Reki started thinking Langa was weird and stopped hanging out with him.
Before Langa could try to explain how English worked, Reki waved his hand.
"Ah, it's just as well," he said. "I'm no good at learning languages anyway. Let me think." He stretched his hands in the air, toward the fence behind them, tangling his fingers in the wires and looking toward the sky. Langa allowed himself to look at Reki, just for a minute—well, he promised himself it would only be a minute. Lately even looking at Reki made his cheeks feel warm and his chest feel strangled. It was just that Reki was so expressive, he was always making faces, and seeing his eyebrows furrow or his tongue poke into his cheek did funny things with Langa's stomach.
The staring was getting out of hand. So Langa hastily made himself look away again, scolding himself.
"I know!" said Reki again, dropping his hands and turning to Langa with an excited grin. "You can teach me how to be good with girls!"
Something cold sank to the bottom of Langa's stomach. Oh.
He swallowed. Then he swallowed again, because suddenly his throat felt very dry, the strangled feeling creeping up his chest. He hadn't known...well, he guessed he should have known, shouldn't he? Of course Reki liked girls. Of course he did. Reki was grinning, practically vibrating, and of course he would be the type to fix up a fancy sports car just to take pretty girls driving, of course he would be the type to dance with pretty girls in nightclubs, of course he would be the type to declare undying love for a pretty girl on the day he met her.
Langa should just feel grateful that Reki hadn't met that pretty girl yet.
He shouldn't feel like a part of himself was dying inside.
Langa swallowed a third time. "Oh," he said, eloquently. "I mean, I'm not very...I don't know much about...I mean, you know I've never had a girlfriend before, don't you?"
