Chapter Text
For Hasegawa Langa, everything changes under Okinawa’s inky black sky.
Things have changed a lot in the past few months. Gone from a certain kind of normal to absolutely upside-down to rightside up in a way that was entirely new. He’s yet to get used to it. Okinawa is… different from Canada. It’s warmer. The sky is clearer. There’s not a lot of clouds, and police officers stop him when he wanders around at night. Japan is different from Canada. He wonders – often – why his mother thought that coming here was such a good idea.
He stops wondering that the first night that Langa happens to wander nearby a small skatepark, just a few blocks away from his new apartment building. He isn’t sure what came over him to pass through this area. His mother had always told him not to wander through parks by himself at night, but there was something about this one that just seemed so peaceful , and then–
He catches sight of him.
Langa doesn’t know who he is. There’s no way to know who he is. He sees a head of bright, fiery red hair. A flash of amber eyes, sparkling in the light of the stars and the moon overhead. Then the person – it is a person. Langa is sure of that – vanishes from sight for a moment. Langa hears what sounds like wheels hitting some kind of hard surface. Langa can’t place exactly what it’s made of, but that doesn’t matter.
He finds his feet carrying him towards that sound. Without any input from his brain, Langa rushes towards it. Through the trees, across the path. Langa hears the sound again. Catches sight of that red hair and those eyes, soaring above the leaves just for a moment. His silhouette is painted against the full moon. Like an angel, flying through the sky on his way down from heaven.
Langa doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything – or any one – so beautiful in all seventeen years of his life.
He finally finds them. Him. It’s a boy, with fiery red hair and bright amber eyes. Though, even as Langa stands at the edge of the skatepark, staring with wide blue eyes as the pretty boy rides a board on the halfpipe, he goes unnoticed. Completely unnoticed. Langa doesn’t think it’s out of rudeness. The guy doesn’t seem to even notice that he’s there. His entire attention is focused on his board. On his tricks. On flying as high into the air as he possibly can.
Langa can’t stop staring. His eyes are glued to the skater. To the way he moves – in perfect control of his board. In perfect control of himself. As though he knows exactly how to move to maximize height, speed, and everything else in-between. The way he smiles, brighter than the sun, each and every time he reaches the peak of his height. Just before he falls back to the halfpipe.
Langa wants that feeling. The one that he sees lighting up the redheaded skater’s face. It’s not an unfamiliar expression. It’s one that Langa knows well, actually. One that he’s certain he’s worn himself. But not one he’s ever worn for skateboarding.
Even back in Canada – even snowboarding with his dad – Langa never managed to fly quite that high.
He wants to try it.
He wants to do it.
Langa runs all the way home, without even stopping to wait for the guy to finish up. He makes a mental note – next time. If there is a next time – to stop and ask for the guy’s name. Maybe a phone number. Maybe he’ll even ask the guy to teach him how to skateboard like that. Langa doesn’t think he’d ever be able to figure it out on his own.
Hasegawa Langa runs home, a spark in his eyes for the first time in months , and begs his unsuspecting mother to buy him a skateboard.
The next day, she takes him to get one.
It really didn’t take all that much convincing. He told her – in a rushed voice that gets her to ask him several times to slow down or she’ll never understand what he’s trying to say – that he desperately wanted to try skateboarding. That there was just something about it – he neglects to mention the redheaded skater in the park. He isn’t exactly sure why – that made him feel like he needed to do this. That, if he didn’t, he might regret it for the rest of his life.
The look on his mother’s face is soft. Gentle. Happy, almost. Langa wonders if it’s the happiest he’s seen her since the two of them moved to Okinawa under such terrible circumstances. She does a whole bunch of research on different skateboarding shops. Langa hadn’t even thought to do something like that before he came to her demanding she get him a board. They find a store not all that far from the apartment building– some little place called Dope Sketch with really good reviews – and his mother promises to take him the next day.
Langa spends practically the whole day at school absolutely buzzing with excitement. Sitting still at his desk is almost impossible. The teacher – and the other students in the class – keep staring at him as though he’s a crazy person. He can’t stop tapping his foot, and then tapping his desk, and then staring out the window and blatantly ignoring the lecture going on in front of him. He tries to focus, more than a few times, but he can never just keep his attention on the lesson.
He can’t stop thinking about skateboarding.
He can’t stop thinking about that red-headed skateboarder with the bright amber eyes that glowed in the moon. Langa can’t stop thinking about the way he flew so very high, and the way that the moon outlined him, and–
Langa wants to do that.
Langa wants to be able to do that.
He’s practically bouncing off the walls by the time he finally gets out of school. His mom had texted him during lunch – saying to meet her by the store – and Langa doesn’t think he’s ever moved so fast in his entire life. The store is within walking distance of the school. Just close enough that it’s not worth taking the train, but just far enough that it’s annoying to walk. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that Langa pushes open the door to the shop, and there’s his mom. Chatting with a brown haired guy in a blue jumpsuit. Probably the manager.
“Oh, Langa!” She calls out, waving him over. Langa steps up to the counter, and the man behind it looks him up and down for a moment. “This is Manager Oka,” His mom introduces the man with a smile. “I was talking to him about what kind of board he recommends! He said something about…” She cuts herself off, turning to look at the manager again. Clearly indicating that she wants him to take over.
“Well,” The manager gives him a smile. It’s a nice smile. The guy seems welcoming. Not very intimidating. Langa stares at him with the same blank look that he always wears and hopes that he doesn’t freak the guy out. “Do you have any experience with skateboarding?”
“No.” Langa shakes his head. “I…” He glances towards his mom. “I used to snowboard, but I’ve never been on a skateboard before.”
“Snowboarding, huh?” Manager Oka tilts his head to the side, resting a hand on his chin. “Well, the two are somewhat similar, so your experience in snowboarding will probably help you somewhat, but there’s also a whole bunch of stuff that’s different. Do you have someone to teach you? Or are you planning to teach yourself?”
“I’ll teach myself.” Langa says, because he had neglected to tell his mom about the redheaded skater that he saw in the park, and he would rather not be called out for lying in the middle of a store.
“Alright…” The manager tilts his head to the other side. “Then… I would recommend…”
The manager rounds the counter, crossing the store to a display of skateboards hanging on the wall. Admittedly, Langa’s head starts spinning just a bit when the man starts going on and on about deck sizes and wheel types and tracks and a whole bunch of other words that Langa doesn’t know anything about. He really and truly can’t follow what’s going on here. Maybe the man can tell that, after a while, because eventually he just picks up one of the boards and says.
“This one should be good for beginners.” Manager Oka smiles. Langa takes the board. “I’ll throw in a toolkit, for maintenance and stuff, and I’ll even give you a discount on getting your deck art done here.” The man waves a hand. “Though… if you wanna learn more about skateboarding…” There’s a bit of a mischievous glint in the man’s eyes. “...then we’ve got an opening for a part-time job~! I’ll teach you everything you need to know about the boards, but you’ll need to teach yourself how to actually ride.”
Langa stares at the board. Eyes wide. Fascinated. His mom is excitedly chatting about something. Maybe about the opportunity for a part-time job? Both of them know that Langa had been thinking about getting one for a while, and an opportunity this perfect doesn’t just drop into one’s lap all that often. Even if Langa might find it… mildly annoying, to hear his mom practically accepting the job for him, he would have to admit that it’s an appealing offer. The chance to learn about skateboards, get a part-time job, and work in a store specializing in them.
Langa’s interest in skateboarding was only ignited about 18 hours ago. Under the twinkling stars as he watched someone he’s never seen before fly through the air as though he had grown wings. It’s an image that, somehow, Langa knows he’ll never forget. An image that’s going to stick with him, and an image that–
“And, I don’t know if you’re interested ,” The manager says, slinging an arm around Langa’s shoulders with a bit of a devious expression on his face. “But, if you do take the job…” Manager Oka looks one way, then another, as though checking that the three of them are the only people in the store. “Then maybe I’ll take you to S. ”
“ S …?” Langa blinks, tilts his head to one side, and stares at the man curiously. The way Manager Oka had said it leads Langa to believe that it’s something he isn’t necessarily supposed to know about, and yet his chest is bursting with curiosity. Manager Oka’s smirk only grows wider, as though he knows that he’s hooked the kid in with little more than a simple offer.
“You start Monday.” The man pats Langa on the back and steps back around the counter. “Show up on time and do your job well, and I’ll teach you all you need to know!”
Langa has absolutely no idea what to say. His mom gives him that little mischievous smile that she always used to get when she won an argument with–
She pays for the board. The manager says something about Langa thinking about the deck art that he wants. And the Hasegawas step out of the store with a Dope Sketch bag, a brand new skateboard, and a part-time job for Langa.
A strange day, to say the least.
“This is what you wanted, right?” His mom turns to look at him with a bright smile, but there’s a bit of hesitation there. She’s trying to make sure that she did the right thing. That she didn’t push him too far. His mom was always gentle with him, but she’s been even more so as of late. Langa has yet to decide if it’s a good thing, or not.
“I think so.” He nods. “I wanted… a skateboard. And I told you that I wanted to get a part-time job, so it works out.” He looks at the board. Then he glances over his shoulder, at the store, and thinks of the boy he saw flying through the air. The boy who had–
Well, Langa doesn’t know much more than that he had the prettiest eyes that Langa has ever seen, and that his skateboarding was so damn mesmerizing that he just had to find a way to copy it. He just had to find a way–
He’s on his way. There’s a board in his hands. It feels… surprisingly similar to the board that he used to use back in Canada. The one that lacked wheels and would glide over the snow as though there was nothing in its way. The board that had been his entire world. The board that had lost all meaning. The fun vanishing along with–
“So…” His mom interrupts his train of thought with a tilt of her head and a smile on her face. “Gonna tell me what brought this on?”
“Huh?” He blinks, staring at her.
“Well, you burst through the door at like midnight demanding that I buy you a skateboard. You really think I’m just gonna assume that it was some random impulse?” She raises an eyebrow. “Did something happen to make you take up an interest? Or did it just spark in you?”
Langa frowns. Lips and eyebrows pinched in thought as he stares at the board in his hands. He hadn’t mentioned the mystery skater to his mom last night, and he hadn’t been planning to tell her about him at all. There wasn’t really a reason not to, now that he’s thinking about it, but does that really matter? Something had just… stopped him from telling her. Maybe he had felt that he intruded on something private, watching the mystery boy fly up into the air like that.
Or maybe he just wasn’t sure how to talk about him in a way that wouldn’t end with his mother teasing him for being so fascinated with someone who he literally hadn’t even talked to.
“...well…” Langa pauses, tilts his head to the side. “...I saw someone riding one, and…”
“Oh!” She blinks. “Say no more, I think I’ve got it!” She smiles. Langa can’t help but blink and stare at her. He was expecting a… different reaction. More teasing. More giggling. More of his mom being the playful woman that he always saw his father flirting with. But she keeps herself restrained. Is she trying to be gentle with him again? Langa isn’t sure how he feels about that.
“Are you gonna ask this mystery person to teach you?” She smirks, leaning just a bit closer to him. Langa shakes his head. Stares at the board. There’s really no way to know if he’ll ever run into that red-haired, amber-eyed skater boy ever again. As much as Langa wants to see him skate again – desperately, almost. So desperately that his chest aches at the possibility that he never will – he knows better than to hope for something that might never come true.
“I’ll teach myself.” Langa says with determination. “...even if it takes a while…”
Soon, I’m going to soar too.
Not long after the blue-haired spectator runs off into the night, a redheaded, amber eyed skateboarder finally brings himself to a grinding stop. A shame. He had been hoping that the guy would hang around a bit longer. He had been wondering who he was. He had never seen him before, after all.
Not long after the spectator leaves, the skater checks the old-fashioned watch on his wrist, tucks his scratched up skateboard under one arm, and pushes his way back through the trees.
Not long after the spectator leaves, the skater sneaks back into his home through a secret route only known to a select few. He stashes his board in a safe hiding spot. Tip toes down the halls and up the stairwells. Slips into his room.
Not long after Hasegawa Langa makes his run home, the skater settles beneath unnecessarily extravagant sheets and wonders just what that pretty blue-haired boy was doing watching him, of all people. He wonders why the spectator ran off as though he had somewhere to be – though that one doesn’t really require an explanation – and then he wonders why he stopped to watch in the first place.
He drifts off, thinking about how pretty those eyes are, and wondering who his mystery observer was. Maybe hoping – just a little bit – that he’ll run into him again the next time he sneaks out.