When Yasu had told his mum that we was spending the night at Hachin’s place she had sent him off with enough bento boxes to share with both the other teen and his guardian, an excited smile on her face as she told him to have fun. He didn’t really get why she was so excited, really, they were just going to work on some of the fine tuning of the guitar sections of their new song.

She had just chuckled at that before greeting the customer coming in through the door.

When Yasu rang the doorbell it was Rom who answered the door. He was on his way out, some sort of last minute meeting at the office he was told, and Yasu just barely had the time to let him know about the bento his mum had sent with him to give to Rom before the man was gone (bringing the bento with him, infinitely grateful as he was going to be very busy the next few hours and probably wouldn’t have had the time to go and buy something), leaving him alone in the apartment with his bandmate.

A second later and Hachin came out of his room, face lighting up at the sight of him. “Yasu! Great timing, I just got done setting up a futon for you. We can work in the livingroom, I put all the stuff there.”

Yasu locked the front door and followed Hachin deeper into the apartment.

When they’d seen each other in school earlier during the day Hachin had been pretty upbeat, but it seemed like his body was more tired out now, as he trailed his hand alongside the wall for support as they walked. Every day was different, Hachin had told the band. After his jump out his old home’s window he’d gone through extensive physical therapy, and been told that they couldn’t know yet if he would heal completely. Some days he needed a wheelchair, some days a cane (it was smooth and shiny, a dark purple with two yellow stripes ear the handle, Hachin had been really excited about how cool it looked), and some days he barely needed any support at all. Healing would take years, but Hachin was refusing to let that keep him from taking part in any fights the other three got into. They couldn’t have all the fun to themselves, he’d insisted. Besides, Joe got into fights too and they had never told him to stop. Hardly seemed fair of Joe to tell Hachin not to get into fights, he said.

“Besides,” he added. “I know you got me for the most part anyway.”

If Joe had cried a little at that, not even Sojun called him out on it.

Hachin had already brought out his guitar into the livingroom, the table covered in notes and sheet music where their previous progress had already been written down.

“I have some ideas for right before the bridge if you wanna start with that,” Hachin said as he sat down, shuffling the papers around until he found what he was looking for. He pointed to one of the staves to show him where to start, picking up his guitar as Yasu read the notes.

Setting the paper down once he was done, the vocalist unzipped the case for his own guitar. “Sure let’s try it.”

They kept working through the song from the beginning after that, painstakingly perfecting each section until they were satisfied. They had gotten pretty far by the time they had to take a break for dinner, Hachin having set an alarm for it at Rom’s behest, so they wouldn’t completely forget about it. They ate their bento in comfortable silence, after which Hachin insisted Yasu take a bottle of honey for his mother as a thank you for the food. He had made it himself, so he could attest for how good it was, he said with a beaming smile that made Yasu’s heart skip a beat, much to his own confusion and annoyance. What business did he have getting flustered because of a smile? Especially one from Hachin?

It was fairly late by the time they decided to call it quits.

They had gotten a lot done, and both were looking forward to the next time they were going to practice with Joe and Sojun to see what they would think, and what adjustments they had in mind for the song as well. Not all songs could be thought up as quickly as the one that had gotten its start in a crashing space shuttle, and this one had been in the works for a little while.

Yasu was offered the first bath, Hachin ushering him into the bathroom with a fluffy towel after he’d filled the tub up.

It felt weird to be on what was essentially a sleepover, even if the reason for it had been to get work done. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to a sleepover. Okay, that was a lie. He had been seven and had ended up punching another kid in the face. He couldn’t really remember why though. He just remembered being angrier than he’d ever been in his life at that point of his life, and that he had never been invited to another sleepover or birthday party after that.

He undressed and started washing up, thinking about that night about ten years ago. He was pretty sure he had punched the other kid because of something he’d said, he didn’t just smash someone’s face in just for the hell of it. Even now, most of the fights he got into were because someone else started them. Not all of them, but most. But at that age he’d still been pretty well-behaved.

While he sat there in the tub he stared at the bubbles of soap in the water. There was a slight familiarity to the scent, and he smacked an embarrassed hand at them and into the water when he was reminded of why. The bath smelled like Hachin. Which made sense of course, as he was taking a bath in his home, what else would the soap smell like?

He shut his eyes and dunked his entire head under the water, cheeks puffed with air as he tried to sort his brain out. What was with him today? There was no reason to get so worked up over little things like this when he’d shared a bath with the other before at the bathhouse. It felt ridiculous. And why was he imagining a much younger Hachin looking at him with the brightest smile he’d ever seen? Even bigger than the ones he would usually give him. It didn’t make any sense.

It was only when his lungs were screaming for oxygen that he resurfaced, mind still a mess but at least the most pressing reason for his red face and spinning brain was the lack of air.

Getting out of the water soon after he quickly dried himself off and put on his pajamas. He felt a bit awkward, a little out of place, so he took a few deep breaths before he got out of the bathroom to let Hachin know it was his turn.

While Hachin was in the bathroom, Rom came back home. He looked tired, but still made the time to talk to Yasu while he waited for his friend. When Yasu awkwardly asked how Shuzo was doing Rom made a joke about kids these days being too perceptive for their own good, but still answered that he was doing well. Apparently Trichronika were recording a music video for their upcoming new album and so they hadn’t had a lot of time to see each other in a while, but with how packed the trio’s schedules usually were that wasn’t too uncommon.

When Hachin was finally done in the bathroom he cheerfully told Rom ‘welcome home’, Rom responding in turn. Yasu watched them interact over a mug of hot chocolate that Rom had offered him. There was a comfortability there that reminded him of him and his own mum, though everything else about Rom was really nothing like her. Some people were just suited to be parents, he thought, remembering his own dad ditching him and his mum when he’d been really small. He could just barely remember the man, and he didn’t care to change it. He’d been a shitty person who didn’t really have any business being either a husband or a father.

He watched Rom hand Hachin a mug of hot chocolate of his own before ruffling the blond’s hair and heading for the bathroom next to get ready for the night.

Hachin noticed him looking. “What’s up?”

“Nothing really, just, you seem to get along really well.”

That made Hachin’s cheeks tint pink, a happy smile making its way onto his face. “Right? It was pretty weird at first, not gonna lie, but he did a lot to help me be comfortable and get me used to things. Only experience I had before with parents being nice to me was your mum.”

“Yeah, same.” He idly spun the mug around, the sound of the bottom of it lightly scraping against the wood of the table hitting his eardrums. He could almost feel Hachin looking at him, and he had a hunch that he knew what he wanted to ask. It was just hard to find the right words to ask such a question though. He knew, since he’d wanted to ask Hachin the exact same thing. “My dad dipped when I was three. Haven’t seen him since.”

Hachin fiddled with one of his piercings where he was sitting next to him. “I have no idea who mine is,” he admitted. “Mum never talked about him, I don’t even know if they were together or if he was a one-night-stand or something. She had a couple boyfriends while I was growing up but they were all pieces of shit, so I kinda assume my dad was too, anyway.” He lightly knocked his mug against Yasu’s with a clonk. “Cheers to shitty bio dads, I guess.”

A small smile played on Hachin’s face when Yasu looked at him, and he couldn’t help one of his own sneaking onto his face. “To shitty bio dads,” he agreed, raising his mug to bump it against Hachin’s.

Once they were in Hachin’s bedroom, they were both pretty tired. Hachin shuffled around the pillows on his bed, Yasu sitting down on the futon next to it, taking one of the pillows he’d been lent into his arms, chin propped up on top of it. He watched Hachin fuss for a while, watching his back. When he leaned to the side the tanktop he was wearing moved with him, a scar glowing in the light of his bedside lamp. He hadn’t noticed it before. Unlike the ones he got from his jump out a building it didn’t look new. It was faded, only this visible because the light hit his skin just right. Something abut the placement of it tickled his brain unpleasantly, and he made a face, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, Hachin had finally settled down, and was now looking at him. “You gonna sneeze or something?”

Yasu shook is head, opening his mouth to say something before pausing. What do you even say when you know at least partially what type of parent someone else had and you see them with a scar you hadn’t noticed before? They’d both talked a little about their respective dads (or lack thereof), but he wasn’t sure if this was a step too close too soon.

Hachin waited, looking at him with curiosity now.

Something was tugging at the back of his mind. He kept looking back at Hachin, furrowing his eyebrows as he tried to figure out what was bothering him so much tonight. Logically, he knew it was more than one thing, but they were all connected to Hachin.

Said boy was starting to squirm where he sat, face slowly growing more and more red. “What? You trying to pick a fight or something?”

“No,” Yasu easily replied, not even thinking it over, too focused on raking through his mind to notice that made Hachin’s face grow even more red.

He was thinking about the times Hachin had insisted they used to be friends when they were little kids, but how he just couldn’t remember. He thought about the scar again. He didn’t know why it bugged him so much. He also had some scars, as a delinquent they tend to accumulate over time. But the placement was so specific, almost like…

“Hey Hachin,” he started, uncertain. The thought seemed ridiculous, but he felt like he had to ask.

Hachin’s hands stilled from where they had been smoothing out the sheet on his bed, just to have something to keep his mind off how Yasu was staring at him. “Y-yeah?”

“This is gonna sound really weird if I’m wrong, but uh,” Yasu looked away for a second, thinking his words over one last time. Really, if he was wrong this would probably make Hachin really uncomfortable. “Did you use to have wings… or something?” He tacked on the last part in an attempt to make the question less serious, even though it was a picture now stuck in his head.

A short laugh startled them both, Hachin covering his mouth with both hands. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

Yasu’s cheeks grew red in embarrassment. He knew he said the question might seem really weird, but come on. “Look, I get it, I’m wrong, I just-”

“You’re not!” Hachin cut off, leaning forward as if to stop him from leaving, even though Yasu didn’t really have anywhere to go. Going home now would make his mum ask questions, and that would be really embarrassing. “I did. I used to. I was just so shocked that’s what you’d remember when you don’t seem to remember anything else about me. How’d you even remember that now when you’ve seen me without them for like, months?"

Yasu scratched his burning neck. There was not really any way to avoid admitting he’d seen it then. “You have a scar on your back.” He cringed at his own choice of words. Hachin’s back was covered in scars now, that wasn’t very specific.

Still, it seemed like Hachin understood. “Oh. Yeah. There’s two, actually.” He twisted his upper body, hiking his shirt up his back. “See?”

Among the fresh scars, still bright and angry and tender, stood two matching vertical scars. They were faded, long and thin, surgical in nature in a way the others weren’t, despite the surgeon’s best attempts to make the new ones more neat. Yasu felt the need to reach out, place his hand over them, but kept his hands still. “Yeah.” He swallowed, looking at Hachin’s face peering over his shoulder. Hachin lowered the shirt back down, lying down on his side to face him.

“When I think about being a kid,” Yasu started. “I remember being close friends with a kid with wings, but not much else of what they looked like. But you don’t have them. Now, I mean. So it didn’t even cross my mind that it’d be you. I don’t even, how do you even go from having them to not?”

He belatedly realised that the question was probably both painful and rude, and when he looked Hachin in the eye, it seemed like he was at least right about the former. There was a look in Hachin’s eyes that made Yasu want to rewind time, find a better way to say it, or just not say it at all. But as far as he knew you couldn’t change the past, even if said past was only a few moments ago.

Hachin reached back over his shoulder, just out of reach of one of the scars. “Mum broke them. She thought I was annoying trying to learn how to fly, so she just kinda,” he made a snapping motion with his hand, making Yasu cringe, cursing under his breath.

“Then she took me to this doc who removed the rest of them. At least he did a good job, there’s not even a bump left from where they were. I heal really well, apparently, he said when mum took me back to check in on it. I guess that raises my chances on healing this time,” he joked.

Yasu let himself fall onto his back on the futon, staring into the ceiling. “Jesus Christ Hachin, that’s fucked up,” he whispered into the room. He could hear the bed shift as Hachin moved. “I’m used to it. I was like, seven or eight or something."

He turned his head to look at him. “I’m really sorry you had to go through that, Hachin. That really fucking sucks.” He didn’t know what else to say. Clearly this topic hurt in a way different way than the others they had touched on while they had been talking, judging by the other boy’s reaction to being asked how he lost his wings.

“...Thanks,” came the uncertain reply. “...At least now it makes a bit more sense why you couldn’t remember me. No one really… expects someone to just lose their wings, right?”

Swallowing, Yasu’s throat felt tight. “Yeah.” His voice cracked. Looking over at Hachin, he could see Hachin’s eyes glistening in the lamplight.

“I just thought I was really forgettable, to be honest.” Hachin’s voice was quiet. “‘S what I asked Joe once, like he’d even know. It’s a bit of a relief, if that makes sense.” It did, in a fucked up way.

Slowly, Yasu reached out to take Hachin’s hand, fingers dangling off the side of the bed after his imitation of his mother snapping his wings. Hachin’s fingers trembled just slightly, but then he moved his hand so Yasu could get a better grip, twining their fingers together. When he blinked, the tears finally rolled down the side of his face. He had to blink a few more times wen the tears from one eye fell into the other. Sniffling, he moved around so he could awkwardly wipe the tears off his face with the hand not holding Yasu’s. “Sorry, I, I’ve just, I’ve never told anyone about that before. The, the wing thing.”

“It’s okay. I, I kinda care about you now so, tell me anything you want.” It was embarrassing to admit, but in the wake of everything else it felt important to say. Judging by the tiny upturn to the corner of Hachin’s mouth, it was the right time to admit it.

“Thanks. That, that means a lot.”

Yasu tightened his grip on Hachin’s hand for just a few seconds. “Anytime,” came his reply. He’d be extremely embarrassed every time he would say it, he already knew, but now that he had actually accepted that the boy he remembered from his childhood was Hachin, he had a bit of lost time to make up for. He’d been so cold to Hachin when they were reunited, he felt a bit bad about it now that he knew the other boy hadn’t misremembered.

It was okay though. They had time, and he knew that Hachin didn’t really fault him for it, especially now after things had been cleared up.

Their friendship wasn’t the same as it had been ten years ago; it was fragile in a sense, with all its teenage emotions. But in the wake of everything they had gone through together by now, all the months they had spent together as bandmates, he was sure they could rebuild it.

Not into the same as back then, but something just as good.

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