Archive of Our Own ^beta

While Langa and Ainosuke had done plenty of kissing, both heavy and light, passionate and sweet, they had yet to have sex even though they had known each other for roughly two years and had celebrated their six-month anniversary last week. Now, though, in the midst of a deep kiss, Langa was delighted when he felt Ainosuke unbuttoning his pants. The sound of his zipper being pulled down was something he needed to hear mixing with their heavy breaths.

“May I?” Ainosuke asked, thumbs hooked into the waistband of Langa’s tight jeans.

“Yeah,” Langa breathed.

With his pants being taken off came his underwear. Ainosuke licked his lips at the sight, and then he smirked as his eyes paused their travelling over Langa’s newly visibly skin. He ran a finger along the art on Langa’s left thigh. “Little Langa has a tattoo?”

Maybe Langa was quiet too long while trying to figure out how to explain this, because the next thing he knew, Ainosuke was sitting next to him, not quite close enough to touch, but close enough to provide a soothing, grounding presence.

“Is this about your father?”

Langa nodded, looking towards his wall. Sometimes he couldn’t handle how soft and gentle Ainosuke looked at him during times like these, but that didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate the care.

 “The snowboard I understand, as well as what’s written over it.” Life is a double black diamond slope. With two, small, black diamonds representing those middle three words. “But, what do these flowers mean?”

Langa looked down at his leg with Ainosuke so he could point out the flowers. “Pansy, remembrance. Daffodil, new beginnings. Anemone, fragility. Goldenrod, encouragement. Black rose, sorrow. Black tulip, strength.”

Ainosuke brushed his thumb along the flowers in the order Langa had pointed to them, saying, “This must have taken hours.”

Another nod as Langa remembered getting the tattoo, as well as all those hours during childhood when he’d sat with his dad while he tattooed other people and Langa did his homework.

“And you put a lot of thought into it.”

Pulled out of his memories, particularly the one when he’d fallen asleep coloring at the age of seven, lulled into slumber by the buzzing of the machine, Langa shook his head. “I didn’t know what it looked like until it was done. I asked my dad for his artwork when we found out he was terminal, so I would always have a piece of him on me, and after telling me no twenty-three times, he conceded, and then I told him he could do whatever he wanted. That’s actually his snowboard. The last snowboard he ever stepped foot on.” Langa had thought he was done crying, but his eyes were hot and wet, lashes dampening with cooling tears with every blink, vision blurred as he stared at the colorful ink embedded in his skin.

Ainosuke wrapped his arms around Langa and kissed cheek where tears were beginning to spill, the physical embodiment of all the pain he never seemed to be able to get rid of, even though it had been more than a couple years. “It’s okay to cry.”

Langa sniffled. “You don’t.”

“Because I was told for many years that crying is for infants and everyone else shouldn’t show that kind of emotion, but that doesn’t mean you need to follow that ideology.” Ainosuke kissed Langa’s cheek again, replacing a fraction of the salty tears there with his comforting touch.

“Do you miss your mom?” Ainosuke had only mentioned her once to Langa, and it was when he was explaining his childhood to him.

“Every day, but I promise, one day, you’ll remember things about him and miss him, but the ache will be far duller.”

Since the mood was something much more somber now, Langa put his pants back on and then lied down with Ainosuke, curling up against him and resting his head on his chest, listening to the steady, slow thumps of his heart. “Do you mind telling me more about her?”

Langa felt the slight vibration when Ainosuke hummed thoughtfully. “I suppose you don’t know what she looked like, so let’s start there. She had beautiful, long, red hair, a shade not unlike Reki’s. I have her eyes, though she always used to make these, soft, soothing expressions with them, like everything was going to be just fine.”

“You do that.”

Stroking his hand through Langa’s hair, Ainosuke asked, “I do?”

“Yeah.”

Ainosuke let out a small laugh like he didn’t believe Langa. “Alright, if you say so.” For a moment, the only sounds in Langa’s ears were Ainosuke’s heartbeat and his easy breathing. “One thing I certainly did not get from her was her ability to love so openly even after being hurt so badly.”

“You love me, don’t you? And Kaoru, Kojiro, and Tadashi, right?”

Ainosuke sighed. “I do, very much, but it took me quite a long time after you reminded me that I wasn’t alone before I could get to this point.”

Langa lifted his head slightly to watch Ainosuke stare at the wall as he absentmindedly played with Langa’s hair before resting it against Ainosuke again. “I think you’ve always loved Tadashi.” Langa had spent a few hours talking to Tadashi over the years, and it was obvious that, since the beginning of their friendship, Ainosuke had adored Tadashi deeply.

“Perhaps you’re right, but I had a rather sick way of showing at times.”

“Tadashi forgave you.” Though, Langa wasn’t even sure Tadashi thought there was something to forgive in the first place. Still, he had accepted Ainosuke’s apology when it had been given. “Kaoru, Kojiro, and Reki forgave you.”

Ainosuke was twirling Langa’s hair now, pulling on it pleasantly. “I’m sorry, this isn’t about me. What would you like to talk about?”

Langa saw right through Ainosuke trying to get out of their current discussion. “This.”

Ainosuke chuckled. “You know me too well.”

“Or just well enough.” Langa breathed in the scent of Ainosuke soap and laundry detergent that lingered on his dress shirt. “Have you forgiven yourself?” When Ainosuke was silent, a rare occurrence after being asked a question, Langa said, “Why you can’t you be as kind to yourself as you are to me?”

“Technically, I’ve tried to kill both of us.” Ainosuke sounded like he was smiling, like he was trying to create a baseball field’s worth of distance from himself and the memory of the funeral beef.

Langa sat up, moving to straddle Ainosuke so he could look him in the eyes when he said, “Stop. Please.”

For a split-second that felt like it lasted hundreds of times longer with Langa’s heart racing in desperation, Ainosuke stared like he didn’t know what to do with that. But then he said, “Alright.”

They stared at each other in silence until, a few seconds later, Ainosuke buried his hand in Langa’s hair, smiling lovingly as if to ease the last remnants of jolting in Langa’s heart. “I have forgiven myself, as much as I am able to right now, but what will help most is time, which is also what will help you most.”

“Okay.” Langa settled back down to his previous position. At the risk of restarting this conversation, he asked for more about Ainosuke’s mom.

Ainosuke told him the little things he still remembered until Langa fell asleep in his arms. And when he woke up, Ainosuke was still there, which made sense. That had part of the original intent of last night before things took a turn.

Langa was about to see what time it was, but then he heard clattering in the kitchen, followed by Reki yelling, “Sorry.”

Both Langa and Ainosuke had the day off, but Reki had work, so he was likely making breakfast before heading out.

“Should we go out there?” Ainosuke asked.

Though Langa knew he was kidding from his tone, Langa still answered seriously. “Later.” Because Reki would look at Ainosuke strangely if he thought Ainosuke had seen Langa naked.

Ainosuke hummed. “You’re quite a peaceful sleeper.” And that would explain why Ainosuke hadn’t changed out of his dress shirt and dress pants and risked waking Langa up.

“I’m also a heavy sleeper.”

Ainosuke kissed the top of Langa’s head and then mumbled into his hair, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

They laid there until the front door to the apartment opened and closed, Ainosuke talking softly about all the things they could do today. It was a peaceful start to a peaceful morning after a bit of an emotionally rough night, but Langa wouldn’t trade a moment of it because he loved Ainosuke, and he wanted to be there for him like Ainosuke was for him.