Chapter 18 #2
“Ugh," Luka groaned, “You’re unbearable. How you like fussing over me so much, I’ll never understand.”
“Mm." Reno kissed his cheek again, everything feeling soft around the edges. “It makes me feel complete.”
“Fascinating creature.” Luka put his hands on Reno’s chest and gently pushed until Reno lifted away from him. “I’m going to shower.”
Reno hummed an agreement and moved the rest of the way so Luka could leave for the bathroom. He sat back on his heels on the couch and sighed at the damp spot they’d left behind before deciding that the entire flat should be cleaned anyway, now that Luka wasn’t sick.
He got to work wiping every surface and was finishing mopping by the time Luka emerged from the bathroom. He leaned against the hallway wall where it opened into the living room, towel around his waist, and watched with a small smile as Reno finished the floors.
“I love not having to clean,” Luka admitted and Reno chuckled.
“Lucky you found me then.”
“I think you found me, actually.”
Reno flushed, then turned to put his cleaning supplies away. “About that," Reno said while closing the closet door, “I think we need to talk.”
Luka’s arms crossed and Reno watched his smile drop.
“Not a bad talk,” he reassured him, and Luka’s shoulders relaxed a little. Reno stepped carefully over the clean floors, trying not to leave footprints behind. “Come sit in bed with me.”
“Okay.” Luka sounded nervous but he followed Reno into the bedroom, stopping at the dresser to pull on an oversized shirt before crawling into the bed with Reno. He accepted the invitation to lie on Reno’s chest and his damp hair was cold against Reno’s arm where it rested.
“I need to know if you’re staying.”
“So direct.”
“One of us has to be.” Reno shrugged and Luka pinched him in the ribs almost hard enough to hurt. “What? You love to dance around things. It’s extremely adorable.”
“I don’t dance, you do.”
Reno clicked his tongue. “See?”
“Okay, yeah.” Luka chewed on his lower lip. “I want to stay.”
“Really?” Reno tried not to get too excited in case there was a ‘but’ following Luka’s answer. When Luka nodded and didn’t say anything else, Reno squeezed him so tight it made Luka yelp. “I’m so happy.”
“Yeah?" Luka slapped Reno’s arm so he’d stop accidentally choking him. “I have to go back soon to visit and pack my stuff, I guess. Wow.” Luka hid his face against Reno’s shirt. “I don’t know about this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ah, it’s like. It’s a yes. It’s for sure a yes—but I need to tell you something.”
Reno held his breath, feeling like everything he wanted in life was balancing at the top of a pin. “You can tell me anything.”
“I’m choosing to believe that,” Luka said, turning back so he was no longer hiding.
“When I was seventeen, I had a boyfriend. My parents kicked me out, partly because I wouldn’t listen to them about this boyfriend being bad news, and partly because my parents' first response to me doing anything they don’t understand is to cut me out of their lives. Doesn’t matter the reason, I guess.”
“I’m sorry.”
Luka shook his head. “I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I moved in with him. He didn’t live in Missouri.”
“Where was he from?”
“California.”
“How far is that from Missouri?” Reno tried to recall U.S.A. geography and failed.
“Driving, it usually takes twenty-five hours or so, but it took me almost a week. I had to stop a lot. I didn’t own much other than my car, so I just kind of packed up a bag and left.
I’d already graduated from high school, I didn’t have a home, and the people I knew from my town were not the greatest.”
Reno tried to picture himself having to fend for himself at only seventeen and a rush of gratitude for his mother flooded over him.
“I had to ask strangers to help me fill my gas tank and feed me. It was…” Luka rubbed a hand over his face and sighed, “Whatever, that’s in the past. Just like, I don’t know.
I moved into this guy’s house across the country and didn’t have shit to my name, and I let him control my life.
I thought I loved him, but he saw me for what I was—an extremely vulnerable, trans teen, desperate for any kind of family or security—and he preyed on that. ”
“I’m starting to understand,” Reno said. “I can lie here and say you won’t experience that kind of cruelty with me, but I know my words cannot convince you. I will say the words anyway, as much as you need me to.”
“I don’t think you’d ever hit me.”
Reno fought a flinch and promised,“I wouldn’t.” He ran his hand over Luka’s arm, trying to be reassuring, but found his palms sweaty. “One of my biggest fears is that I would accidentally hurt you like that.”
Luka was quiet for a while, idly playing with the ends of Reno’s hair.
“I don’t think your friends would abandon you if you felt that way, either," Reno said. “If one day, you felt like I’d taken advantage of you, and you didn’t feel comfortable asking me for help returning home to August and your previous life, I’m sure they, and your other friends, would help you.”
“So they’ve said.” Luka sighed, still playing with Reno’s hair.
“I’m not seventeen. I have a good support network.
I have a family of my own making, outside of the one we’ll try to build.
I think I’m just asking for you to be sensitive about it.
Let me have my independence still. Let me work, and do things alone, and have my own world away from you too. ”
“I love that you do. I admire it about you. I wouldn’t change it.”
“Really?” Luka looked up at him and the openness in his eyes took Reno’s breath away for a second. Luka wanted to trust him so badly; Reno could see it written all over his expression.
“Yes.” Reno kissed his forehead. “Don’t misinterpret my gift, though.”
“Your what now?” Luka blinked, a slow smile growing on his face.
“I got you something special, in case you said yes. Are you saying yes?”
“I am.” Luka nodded. “Will you be my boyfriend?”
“Of course.” Reno laughed, delighted that Luka beat him to asking the question. “I’ve been yours for a while now.”
“I know.” Luka beamed at him and Reno wanted to remember this moment forever. Luka sat up and asked, “So what’d you get me?” He ran a hand through his drying hair, pushing it away from his face. Reno loved how it dried a bit wavy and fluffy before Luka styled it.
“Hold on," Reno said, then rolled out of bed to grab the bag he’d tucked away in the kitchen.
Luka was sitting upright in the bed when he returned, looking expectant and cute in an oversized, worn-down Voltage t-shirt. Reno handed him the bag.
“You don’t have to accept it.”
“Pretty sure as long as it’s not an engagement ring, I’ll be keeping it.
” Luka pulled the tissue from the top of the bag to remove the box inside.
“Box is too big anyway. Definitely not a ring, thank god. I can’t handle deciding to move across the world, be your boyfriend, and get engaged on the same day. ”
“So you’d say yes?”
“Don’t twist my words.” Luka gave him a dirty look and Reno sat on the edge of the bed, effectively humbled. He snapped the box open and looked confused for half a second before turning beet red. “I—”
“Like I said, you don’t need to—”
“Shut up.” Luka laughed awkwardly. “You got me a collar.”
Reno pinched his lips together but nodded an affirmation.
Luka pulled it out of the box and held it up to look at it more closely.
The thin black metal formed a seamless circle, and its sleek surface reflected the bedroom’s light.
Luka’s face, other than being a lovely, flushed red, was hard to read.
“How does it open?”
Reno held out his hand and Luka handed it over.
“You can talk again.”
“There’s key for it, two actually. One for me, the pretty one.
One for you, small to keep in your wallet in case of emergency.
” Reno pulled his key from the box and showed it off.
It hung from a black chain that he could wear tucked under his shirt.
The key was also black, and the top of it curved into a heart where it hung from the chain.
“It is hex key, so if you lose your key, a small Allen wrench will work too. Universal for safety.”
“That’s considerate.” Luka looked slightly more composed than before as he watched Reno use the key to unhinge the collar. “I like that I won’t have to rely on you to remove it.”
“I thought you would," Reno said. “I got you this because I knew you would like it, not because I am ownership over you. The key around my neck holds as much weight as this does.”
“I own you, you own me, you said. Equal exchange.”
“And you say your memory isn’t good.” Reno set the collar down between them, open on the blanket. “There’s a tag in there, too.”
“Oh," Luka reached back in the box to rifle around the satin-covered padding until he pulled it out. “It’s—”
“Cheesy, I know.” Reno felt himself blushing. “It’s one of my old picks from that tour. I don’t know if it was from that show, but I kept several from back then because it was our first overseas.”
Luka ran his finger over the front, the sand-blasted ‘R’ that used to be on all of Reno’s picks in that era was matte against the black, glossy surface.
Luka flipped it over and even his ears went red.
Reno had the people at the store engrave the back for him, the characters for his name— 木村光—and his phone number, in the same texture and font as the front ‘R’.
Luka turned it over in his hand a few times. “Will you put it on me?” He moved his hair out of the way and scooted closer while handing the pick to Reno.
“You want this on there too?”
“I have no shame. Put it on.” Luka tilted his head back to look at Reno through his lashes. “I am your number one fan after all.”
“O-okay,” Reno stammered out. Sometimes the air around Luka grew so thick it made it hard to breathe.
He slid the tag onto the collar, the silver o-ring pierced through the pick smooth against the black metal.
Reno made sure the front was facing out before he got close enough to Luka to carefully close the collar around his neck.
Luka tilted his head, still holding his hair up and out of the way, and Reno locked it in place, trying not to be overwhelmed at how nice it looked against Luka’s skin.
It looked like something Luka would wear already, resting heavily against the base of his throat.
The tag hung just under his collarbones, and when Luka let his hair fall back down, he looked so beautiful, Reno’s need to kiss him was so strong it nearly toppled him over.
His hands went to Luka’s shoulders instead and pulled him forward.
They fell back onto the bed, and Luka yelped, then started laughing when Reno laid kisses over his face and neck like he needed to cover every inch of Luka with his lips.
Reno pressed his nose against Luka’s throat, burying himself there.
He took in the smell of his boyfriend, how his own shampoo was different on Luka, how his soap was more earthy somehow, and less sweet than it was on Reno, and couldn’t resist the urge to take Luka’s flesh between his teeth and mark him.
Luka gasped, then let out a light laugh followed by a high moan. He melted into Reno’s touch, going slack on the bed as Reno left a second bruise over the first.
“God." Luka’s hands found Reno’s hair, and he tugged until Reno stopped biting and sucking at him. “I swear you want to eat me.
“I’ve considered it.” Reno purred and got pushed away for it.
“Well, thank you.”
“For wanting to consume you and keep you in my body forever?”
“No, for the collar. And, for waiting the past two weeks and more to ask for my answers.”
Reno pouted. “So no to the romantic cannibalism?”
“Freak.”
“You’re welcome," Reno said, “for the collar and the patience," and he kissed the spots he’d bitten, knowing he’d spend the rest of his life giving Luka everything he wanted, for as long as Luka let him.