When Rom’s apartment building’s basement storage units were due for a renovation (thanks to a burst pipe), he realised just how much stuff had collected there throughout the years.

 

He’d lived in the same apartment for a little over a decade, and rarely went down to the basement. Lugging everything into the apartment had taken a couple of hours, especially when soaked cardboard boxes started to fall apart.

Like the box he’d been supporting the bottom of promptly did as he stepped into the apartment, its sides collapsing instead, making everything fall to the floor. He groaned, making Hachin look up from where he’d been messing with his phone after putting his own box down.

“Damn,” he said, kneeling in front of the pile of clothes. He covered his nose. “They kinda stink.”

“They’ve been standing in a moulding box for the past few days, I’m not surprised. Help me throw them in the washer, will ya?”

 

They had a lot of laundry to do. Hopefully they would be okay after that. He had a lot of old shit in these boxes.

-

While the laundry machine ran warm, Rom started to pick through one of the boxes that had been standing higher up in his basement cardboard box tower, while Hachin paid him half a mind where he sat next to him, playing a video game on the TV.

The noise of Mario Kart music was on low as Rom dug his way through old items he hadn’t spared a thought in years. His old high school uniform was in there (something he’d brought with him as he moved at his mum’s insistence), a simple black gakuran. It smelled like dust more than mould, so it would probably be alright even if it wasn’t washed, though he still might.

As he saw what had been lying beneath it, he whistled, eyes widening. “Man, I completely forgot I had this.”

 

Hachin threw him a glance, sending him careening straight off the colourful road. “Fuck!” He glanced at Rom again as he waited to get deposited back onto the road. “What’s that?”

Rom picked up the cassette tape, reading the text on the spine of the cover slotted into the case. “It’s a recording of me and Shu. We made a couple songs just for us, before we met Adam and Eve.” And a few more after they met, accounting for almost half of them.

“A cassette tape? Man, you’re ancient.”

Rom laughed. “Hey, I’m not <i>that</i> old. I got the player from my parents. It was vintage back then too.” He flipped it over, reading the smudged list of song names they had written so many years ago. “Adam and Eve didn’t have a cassette player so we kept it as a thing just between us.”

He smiled at the memories that resurfaced as he read through the title of each song. It felt like a lifetime ago.

He remembered throwing it in a box he knew he had no reason to ever open again after Shu had broken up the band and disappeared, filled with rage any time he looked at it.

Now, only a sting of sadness remained of his anger, the happy memories allowed to take front and centre again.

“You sure you never dated before this? Cus ya kinda make it sound like that’s what you were doin’.”

 

Rom threw his head back in a laugh, opening up the case to see if the tape inside seemed okay. “I was completely clueless that he liked me back, back then.”

Finding the tape in good enough shape he closed the case again, putting it on the coffee table. Maybe later tonight he would dig out his cassette player and listen to it again.

“He’s pretty good at keeping things he wants to keep from you to himself.”

Rom snorted, a grin on his face. “Figured that one out pretty quick, huh?”

Hachin nodded, eyes not leaving the TV screen this time. “I mean, only after I got to know him, but yeah.”

“I guess he’s been spending a lot of time here recently,” Rom said with a smile.

Just a couple of years ago he never would have thought that Shu would ever step foot in this apartment again. Not with how badly things had ended, how mad he had been at him. But after reuniting again, working together to save the world, he hadn’t been able to keep from warming up toward him again.

And now he spent more time here than at his own apartment.

 

Rom held out a hand. “Hey, gimme one of those spare controllers will you? I’ll play with you.”

Hachin lit up, pausing the game so he could hand Rom one of the controllers. As he exited to the game’s main menu so they could choose their characters, vehicles and a track, Rom’s eyes drifted back to the tape.

He had completely forgotten that was the box where he had put it, and now, years later, he found it again thanks to a burst pipe.

 

When he listened to it later tonight, he would have to call Shu.

And maybe the next time he came over, they could even listen to it together.

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