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In the light of his mental breakdown, Reki knew, once again, his brain was the culprit of everything.
In the beginning, everything was fine. Reki and Langa had just finished up a day of skating, and while the rush of dopamine had been high at first, repeated attempts to master a new trick resulted in nothing but failure and a bruised ass from Reki eating the dust almost every time.
Langa mastered the same move weeks ago, and, at first, Reki used that fact to his advantage, asking his boyfriend to show him the trick over and over. Each time, he'd make an adjustment to his foot placement or place more weight on a different part of his foot, but to no avail.
Eventually, Reki realized he wasn't getting anywhere with trying to figure it out on his own, so he asked Langa what he had been doing wrong when he was first trying to learn it.
The blue-haired teen didn't respond for a moment, instead, reenacting the trick a few times to get a feel for it. Reki knew he was using the repetitive motion to take him back to the first time he learned it, but his fingers still drummed on his knee, impatient, and he had to take a deep breath to remind himself not everyone worked at the same pace he did.
After doing the trick a few more times, Langa picked up his board and stared at it for a moment before looking back up at Reki.
"I'm not sure," He settled with.
Reki stayed silent for a brief moment. Sometimes, Langa needed more time to finish his thought. Once he was sure he wasn't going to expand on the sentence, Reki asked further, "Well, were you putting your feet on it weird? Maybe your trucks needed to be loosened or something?"
Langa shrugged, "I don't think so. It just...happened."
Here, Reki first recognized the heavy feeling in his chest as irritation, and the words of his therapist came back to him, Remove yourself from the cause of the irritation. Take a moment to yourself, so you don't do anything you'll regret.
"Okay, I got you, dude," Reki picked his skateboard up, waving a flippant hand in the air, "I'm going to work on the trick on the other side of the park for a little bit."
Langa had already nodded and jumped back on his board before Reki finished, and the redhead took a deep breath. Maybe it would be best if he went back to the skating he could do before attempting the trick again.
He dropped in a few times, ignoring the hesitance swooping in his stomach for the practiced, familiar, comforting feeling of the board beneath him--the feeling that the wood was but an extension of himself.
And the tightness in his chest loosened, and Reki felt like he could breathe again.
Unfortunately, the casual routine soon turned suffocating and unbearably boring. He couldn't feel the rush, anymore, and he was itching for something more.
A particularly louder smack! of a board on concrete resonated through the park, and Reki turned his head to the set of high-pitched cheers a few yards away.
"Did you see that?" One of the kids pointed at some random height in the sky, "I've never seen that trick before!"
The other kids agreed, all raised voices and loud laughter as they stumbled over their words in their excitement.
Reki already knew what he would see when he turned to where their tiny fists gestured towards.
Langa was breathing heavily, the back of his hand swiping away at the moisture on his forehead. His pale skin was painted a splotchy red, and Reki fought down the urge to go over there and cover his boyfriend's face in sweaty kisses.
A small smile curved Langa's lips, and something warm like adoration and pride rose in him. That was his boyfriend, a fact he sometimes brought up when the girls at S got a little too close to Langa. Usually, the blue-haired teen pushed through them without care to get to Reki and ask if he saw a trick he did. Reki usually ignored the girls, too, and bombed Langa with compliments, though if he occasionally threw in a pet name or pulled his boyfriend close to press a kiss to his lips just to make it a little clearer that he was his, that was neither here nor there.
Langa glanced over at Reki, and the redhead's heart jumped as he started making his way over to him.
"Hi," Reki said when they stood face to face, both breathing heavily, beads of moisture on their skin shining in the fading light of the sun.
"Hello," Langa responded, a hint of a tease in his voice.
"You looked really good today," Reki gushed, gently poking an elbow into Langa's ribs, "And you didn't tell me you got the laser flip down. Man, didn't you just start on that?"
Langa shrugged as if he didn't just nail one of the hardest tricks in skating, "Yeah."
A silence settled over the two, and while Reki usually filled such a thing, he was surprised to find he couldn't think of anything to say.
He settled with "Well, uh, looks like our time's up."
"Yeah."
They gathered their stuff and started walking back home. At this point, Reki would be running off of the physical exercise high of skating, but instead, all he could feel was his shirt sticking uncomfortably to his back and the putrid smell of his body odor made his nose wrinkle. Was the sun always so hot on his neck?
He could take a shower when he got home. It wasn't a long walk, so he'd just deal with it for a little longer. Speaking of home...a spark of excitement flared in his chest. Maybe Langa would stay over tonight?
Reki had asked throughout the week, but, the first time, Langa's mom needed him home for something, and, then, another time, he had homework he had to get caught up on.
But it was Friday! Surely, he didn't have anything else, and there was no 'S', either, so they could spend the night holed up in Reki's room, watching skating videos and talking about anything and everything.
Once Reki's family fell asleep, they could switch their attention to something else like roaming hands across each others' skin, exchanging satisfied sighs and muffled moans...
Just as Reki opened his mouth to ask, his brain suddenly shut off. Despite his earlier complaint about the heat, he now felt as if he'd been dunked into an ice-cold river.
His chest tightened and the joints of his fingers ached with something familiar and very very unwelcomed.
No no no.
Quickly, he tried to remind himself. You're fine, it's alright, don't listen don't listen don't listen-
'If Langa really wanted to hang out with you, would he not ask?'
Reki almost groaned in disbelief. He’d gotten so much better at stopping the voice before it started. Though he’d also been frustrated, earlier, and then couple that with the overstimulation, and then his meds wearing off…he was set up for failure.
Fine. If he couldn't stop it, he had plenty of other ways to combat the voice.
Quickly, he replayed in his head the night Langa had showered him with compliments. He recounted the many times Langa asked him to skate with him. He remembered the expression Langa had made when Reki first clumsily pressed his lips to his, something shocked, in awe, full of love-
'He's grown sick of you since then. He didn't say anything about your skating, today. Actually, he hasn't directly complimented you since-'
Tuesday. Reki unhelpfully supplied. Three days ago. Reki's usual headband had been in an accident involving his little sisters and orange juice, and he had to go without it for a day. He'd been anxious, running his fingers through the loose strands over and over, thinking--no--knowing he looked like a mess.
And, yet, when Langa saw it, he smiled--Reki may forget deadlines and details, but he always remembered Langa's smiles--and told him his hair looked good down.
Okay. So what? Reki argued. Langa wasn't always the most verbally affectionate, he knew that. It didn't mean he didn't love him-
'Then see if he asks to stay over.'
That's such a stupid way of testing it, I'm not five-
'Then why don't you ask?'
Reki stayed silent. He wanted to. He really did. His therapist told him not to make assumptions when it came to his relationships. He knew it didn’t give the other person a fair chance–that he was deciding how they felt without actually knowing. And, yet…
He didn’t open his mouth again, even when they came to the part of the path where they went opposite directions. They turned to face each other, just as they had at the skate park earlier.
Please ask. Reki thought. He didn’t know if he was talking to himself or Langa, but his chest had really started to hurt, and he could feel the hot rise of tears in his eyes-
“So…” Langa started, and something like hope flared up in Reki, “I guess I’ll see you at S tomorrow?”
He could only describe the coldness that came over him akin to a candlelight meeting a fireman’s hose.
Utter helplessness and despair.
“Yeah, uh, see you tomorrow.”
The rest of the way home was a blur of twin scalding rivers pouring down his cheeks and self-loathing, his mind going and going and going.
All because of one thing. Could he be so pathetic?
Yes. It seemed he could.
When he got home, he easily wiped the tears off his face and made some bullshit excuse to his mother that he wasn’t hungry for dinner. She didn’t realize anything was off, and Reki safely made his way to the bathroom.
He knew he was being ridiculous. That he was thinking irrationally. His therapist called it rejection sensitivity dysphoria, common in people with ADHD. A common consequence of his innate insecurity and easily influenceable brain.
But knowing didn’t make the pain hurt any less. Knowing didn’t make it any easier to push the ceaseless thoughts away.
He could reach out. Message Langa and tell him how he felt. But he’d done that last week, already. He knew it could be exhausting to deal with his mood swings, and what if Langa had finally had enough? Realized the cons of their relationship far outweighed the pros and then officially broke it off? What would Reki do, then? How would he not crumble and cease to exist?
Their first fight had already left what felt like a permanent scar–reigniting his fear that Langa would find someone else to chase after, to skate with, to give those soft kisses he was so fond of to-
Reki pulled at the hair on his head, letting the pain racing across his scalp bring him back to focus. How did he get from Langa not asking a question to him breaking up with him?
And why was he genuinely scared it would happen?
He’d been standing in front of the mirror in his bathroom, looking down at the drain of the sink, his tears creating streaks in the porcelain bowl. When he glanced up, he only caught a glimpse before he whipped his head away.
His eyes were red and irritated with tears, his lips twisted into an ugly frown.
It was only a short glance, but it had already done its damage. Once he started, he couldn’t stop.
When compared to the silken hair of the girls at S, his hair was too bright, perpetually greasy from all of the skating he did. His lips were chapped, mostly from dehydration, partly from the way he always bit at them, unconsciously tearing the skin off.
His nose was slightly crooked, a result of many a broken nose. And don’t even get him started on the acne. Even on good days, he could find a breakout across his nose or along his hairline, painting his skin uneven and patchy.
He was spiraling, thinking of the scars across his body, some from skating, some from just being an overactive kid, some intentional. The stretch marks across his thighs, the freckles along his back looking more like acne scars–
The voice didn’t even need to say anything for him to think it.
How could Langa love that?
—
This wasn’t the first time it happened, nor would it be the last.
There was so much he could do, Reki knew. One session, his therapist had given him a list that he shoved in some pocket of his backpack, with things like ‘say the things you like about yourself’ ‘count to ten and take deep breaths’ or ‘ask yourself if your thoughts are logical.’
But it was all he could do to lay in bed and let the thoughts consume him until he was too tired to think anymore.
He would get back to normal in a day, tell his therapist about it in their next sessions, discuss what he can do to better handle it next time, but, for now, he would let it pass and ignore just how much easier it was to fall into the same mindset the next time.
It would be fine. He would be fine. He always was in the end.