Skate ♾ One Shots

Every (Rain) Cloud Has A Silver Lining

~ 14k words

This is a hurt/comfort story where Langa collapses in the rain after his fight with Reki.
What will happen next? Will Reki help him? And if he does, will he continue avoiding him?
Hint: Happy Ending

It was written for Langa Appreciation Week, so it's written entirely from Langa's point if view.
As an introvert myself, Langa is my favorite character and it's my mission to promote introverted characters and explain how they tick in more detail.

I know that most people relate more to Reki and that's fine. Of course, I love Reki, too and he gets his time to shine. ✨

"You and I aren't a good match anymore."

When Reki left him, muttering those last words to him. Langa knew he had seriously screwed up. He had been so excited about the possibility of skating against a truly incredible skater like Adam that he had gotten carried away and broken his promise with Reki without thinking twice.

And this wasn't the first promise he had broken. The first one he had given Reki before his beef against Adam, promising him that he wouldn't be reckless. That hadn't worked out so well, either... Maybe Reki was right to avoid him. Reki deserved someone better, someone, who'd keep his promises to him and notice his inner turmoil and sadness and comfort him.

He was terrible at noticing other people's feelings. He usually saw such things only after rewinding the conversation later on but not at the actual moment of that talk. And if you noticed such things only afterwards, it was usually too late to make up for it because people expected you to see their feelings at once. But what if you couldn't read faces? If he tried to apologize for it later, people only blamed him for being cold and heartless.

That wasn't how he had planned it. Since Reki avoided him, he had decided to wait for Reki on a corner he had to pass when returning home. Unfortunately, it had started to rain heavily, and he had forgotten to take a hoodie or an umbrella with him, so he was drenched by now.

However, he hadn't walked home, too afraid to miss Reki. He wanted to patch things up with him at all costs. He had no clue why Reki was ignoring him, but he had decided to find out the whole truth tonight. He had shivered in the rain and put his arms around himself in a last attempt to warm himself. Not that it had worked if his clothes were soaking wet, and the occasional breeze had only increased the chills running down his spine. He had felt the first signs of a headache dancing around his temples. Still, he had shoved that minor side effect aside, ignoring it.

He had eventually been rewarded with Reki walking around the corner. When seeing him, he had frozen up and tried to bolt, to turn in another direction, away from him, but Langa had run to him as fast as possible and called his name, so Reki had realized he had already seen him. Reluctantly, Reki had finally stopped, much to his relief. Even so, he still hadn't faced him, looking in the opposite direction, away from him.  

That's why he had realized too late that Reki was hurting and had noticed his pain-stricken face, the desperate and agonizing look in his darkened eyes.

In retrospect, he should have asked Reki what was wrong and if he could help at that moment. And why he had avoided him. Suppose that had been his fault because he had maybe done something wrong without realizing it. Reki was his first real friend, so many aspects of friendship were still a mystery to him. He also had the bad habit of spacing out at times, so maybe he had missed something vital Reki had told him?

However, when he had seen Reki, his excitement about the tournament had resurfaced and blended out Reki's inner torment, hoping he'd share his enthusiasm and the thrill of a new beef. He had hoped the prospect of skating or even going against each other would cheer Reki up. He loved the idea of skating against a genius skater and maybe rival, and this sensation had overwritten everything else at that moment.