Redirection

📅 Late Summer, 2015

【ᴄᴡ ғᴏʀ ᴍᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴ ᴏғ ɴsғᴡ sɪᴛᴜᴀᴛɪᴏɴs】

Most of August had blown by as hot and clear, with clouds that passed or broke but failed to stick. By the month’s end, the lack of rain had left the reservoir rather low, but the wetland vegetation surrounding it still looked lush enough; the mirror surface of the water reflected the sky as a vivid, unbroken blue canvas with an inverted-cattail frame.
“Look at that...This is going to be a sight in fall, isn’t it? When all the trees change color?” Anarchy asked Anjali, squeezing her hand. They tended to come to the reservoir even just to walk rather than jog; to hold hands and laugh as they dodged the cyclists they shared the path with. 
“Yeah…” Anjali sighed; a heavy sound, closer in essence to the low grey skies of autumn that Anarchy was mentioning than to the one they stood under now. He looked down at her, concerned.
“What’s up, Anji?”

“...I like it here,” she said, which didn’t seem to fit the tone of the sigh. She turned back from gazing out over the water and looked up at him; “‘Key, you’re a really great guy…”
“Uh oh,” Anarchy nervously chuckled, shifting his weight.
“Maybe not uh-oh? Maybe you’ll get it,” she offered; “...You usually do.”
He waited and watched a sad sort of grimace flit across her face.
“...You are great,” she said again; “You’re fun, and funny. I really do like you...but I don’t really think...it’s romantic. And I don’t think it is for you, either.” She lifted his hand in hers and cast an apologetic sort of smile up at him. “We’re doing all the right things, we’re playing the parts! But do you really feel it? ‘Cause...I’d be just as happy going for another jog with you. Instead of...doing this.”

Anarchy frowned on instinct and the urge to object made a bid for fruition, but when he reached for heartache he couldn't quite find it. There was some kind of ache, maybe just from an absence, where wishful thinking had been allowed to be but now no longer was.
“...We really tried for it, though,” he said instead of making any argument, cracking a smile and glad to see relief in Anjali's eyes when he did. “...Shall we jog, then?”
“Yeah, sure, let's.” 

They dropped hands and managed to jog one platonic lap before it was clear that it was simply too hot to continue; when they parted ways at Highland Blvd he gave her a hug goodbye instead of a kiss.
“We’re still friends though. I’ll be hurt if you stop texting,” Anjali said as they stepped apart, her tone half-joking but her brown eyes worried.
“And what? Lose a friend?” he grinned back reassuringly. “Don’t worry.”

—————

It was easy to adjust to, actually; as easy as their relationship had been. They kept jogging together in the mornings and it felt natural to just be...friends. To have the label match the reality. They still hung out and sent each other funny pictures and there wasn’t an unacknowledged sense of acting looming overhead.

“You’re really not broken up about it,” Kato said from an adjacent barstool about a week afterwards; Anjali had joined them all for drinks but left early—work the next day—with a friendly wave. Anarchy had just shot her a grin goodbye when Kato leaned over to make the observation.
“What’s to be upset about? We were on the same page,” Anarchy shrugged. “She’s cool as hell, but it wasn’t love.”
“It wasn’t sex either though, so what was it?” Kato asked dryly. Anarchy rolled his eyes.
“How would you know that?” he deflected, trying to ignore the discomfort the question caused him. Because yeah, Kato was right. It wasn’t like it hadn’t been an option, or even like Anarchy’s libido was inherently flagging...there was just...something that hadn’t felt quite right. Probably his history and the fact that she’d felt like a friend, he figured, even if he’d been trying to convince himself otherwise.

“Please, ‘Key. A) I didn’t hear shit, and I'm sure you weren’t timing your hookups to only land on the nights I was out slutting it up, and B) You never walked in like ‘GUESS WHO FINALLY GOT LAID, BRO.’”
“Why would I do that?” Anarchy asked disdainfully.
“It’s what you straight dudes do.”
“Oh, and you know what straight dudes do, now? How’s that work?” Anarchy tossed back. Kato laughed.
“Fair,” he said instead of arguing further, and strangely, let the topic drop. “What did you say you were thinking about for your Fresno song, again, then?” he asked instead.
“Oh, uh, I was wondering,” Anarchy stuttered at first, surprised by the easy change of subject but definitely pleased; “if we could give a bit of a nod to Linkin Park in it, maybe? Make the sound a little faster, more like rap? Not full-on, but…”
“But enough for the influence to be noticeable? Yeah, no, I like that, actually. Not like we don’t owe them. Maybe we could actually incorporate that for Pocket Change, too… I wouldn’t mind you being our Mike Shinoda through this album, lots of your lyrics would work for that.”

Anarchy couldn’t keep from grinning, engaging in discussion about EoI’s upcoming album. Kato and he were doing a lot of lyrical work together this time, multiple songs, and the fact that Kato was being encouraging instead of domineering for once was a treat; something Athena had already happily noted to Anarchy earlier, in private. The energy of working creatively together again really was invigorating, for all of them, and all of their friendships, but Anarchy noticed it most in Kato. 
Animatedly moving his hands at the bar as he went over his vision for Suburban Casualties, the excitement Kato’d had on display since they started working was nearly palpable. Though he had a tendency towards pathological pessimism, recently he’d been passing for downright happy: The smile on his face was more often a genuine one, not a smirk; he got along better with just about everyone and played guitar more often than he played the victim. He definitely dropped fewer biting comments, and most of the jabs that came Anarchy’s way were either funny or easily deflected—and allowed to be. 
It seemed like Kato had gotten some weight off his chest with the minor breakdown he’d had a couple weeks back, too, and the bond between the pair of them specifically had grown even stronger than it’d been before.

Laughter came easy on the walk home, bolstered by the alcohol in their systems. Kato’s smile seemed a little contagious; so did the flush of his cheeks. His blue eyes glinted back the neon lights around them like fireworks; his posture looked looser than usual: His shoulders lacked their typical rigidity. He flipped away the hair that had fallen into his face, his lips curled lazily upward. 
“The fuck’re you staring at, Key?” Kato asked, his tone teasing to match that smile on his face, which kept failing to quite be a smirk.
“Nothing. Shut up,” Anarchy said, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking away.
“Damn, my best friend straight up calling me nothing. Rude as hell. I’m hurt.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Anarchy retorted, rolling his eyes as they arrived at their apartment complex; he pulled out his key fob to scan in at the side entrance and held open the door. “You just looked more relaxed than normal, it was nice.”
“Fuckin’ gay,” Kato ribbed, brushing past Anarchy with an obnoxious tilted grin. 
“Only if you want it to be,” Anarchy muttered, not giving much thought to his words until Kato threw his head back and laughed.
“‘If I want it to be?’ Key, are you coming on to me?”
“Dunno,” Anarchy replied, too low, with too little hesitation, letting their last round of shots do his thinking for him, “Do you want me to be?” 

The next morning, half-hungover and thousand-yard-staring into the sink, the previous night’s fuzzy memories played—rather mockingly—through Anarchy’s head: Of those blue, neon-lit eyes flashing playfully on the walk home; of laughter, and liquor-flavoured lips against his own, and fingers hooked into his belt loops...

“‘Key. Look at me,” Kato said, his tone caught somewhere between exasperation and reassurance, him having spent the past couple minutes leaning against the kitchen counter and perpetually rolling his eyes at Anarchy’s panic; “This doesn’t have to fucking mean anything. You’re my best friend, it doesn’t change shit. Yeah, okay, I sucked you off once. So what?”
Anarchy cringed. “So what? You’re...you know, you!”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Kato deadpanned; “Next time should I put a paper bag over my head?”
“Next ti—? I’m straight!” Anarchy blurted out, feeling like he was grasping for straws.
Kato gave him the most scathingly skeptical pair of raised eyebrows he had ever seen. 
“...Right.”

—————

“Hey, I was starting to worry, not seeing you Saturday morning,” Anjali greeted the next day at Highland Park, as he fell into step with her light jog. “That bar night end up running late? You don’t normally even skip Saturday mornings if you have a shift at The Aspen Friday night.”
“Gh, yeah, haha, it was...It was a night,” Anarchy laughed uncomfortably; “Choices were made.”
“Oof, that’s some wording. You all good, ‘Key?” She raised an eyebrow at him; he gave her an uncertain smile.
“Sure, just...probably sorting some stuff out, ya know.”
“Okay, well, remember not to sort and drive,” she joked, playfully bumping shoulders. “I’m here if I can help at all.”
She outpaced him briefly and Anarchy studied her silhouette. A shallow grimace flickered across his face. 
He wished he felt something more than admiration for her.