To Be Earned

 📅 late April, 2018; the morning following We’re Nothing But Blood

〚ᴛᴡ ғᴏʀ sᴍᴏᴋɪɴɢ, sᴇʟғ-ʜᴀᴛʀᴇᴅ, ᴀɴᴅ ʀᴇғᴇʀᴇɴᴄᴇ ᴛᴏ sᴇʟғ ʜᴀʀᴍ〛

Kohao forced himself into the shower at 5:30am after a sleepless night spent trying to hunt down and lay hands on the source of all his problems like a dog trying to snap its teeth down on its own tail. Everyone always left or lied and he could only find his way back to it being him; it was him, something about him turned people away eventually. But why the fuck did they lie? Why not just leave, why say they loved him when they didn’t, why act like they cared when he was as easily replaced as a paper cup? Something to fill and then empty; to crumple up and throw away? He crouched in the shower, cradling his head in his hands, nursing a spiritual migraine.
He watched the rust-colored water wash from his hair, down the shower drain, and heard Anarchy leave for the gym. After drying off and getting dressed, as he headed alone to the balcony to smoke, Kohao firmly convinced himself he’d imagined the minutes he thought Anarchy had seemed to linger, as if waiting, before he’d left.

 The air outside was wet and April-grey, with low clouds that leant themselves easily to self-pity and rumination. Kohao leaned against the metal railing and, when he heard the glass door open at his back a little after sunrise, didn’t bother turning around; just stayed overlooking the city as smoke from his cigarette combined with the morning fog. The footsteps behind him were too light and it was too soon for it to be Anarchy; Kohao felt the glare pre-loaded in his expression by the time Chey forced him to turn his head by pulling a cig out of the open pack in Kohao’s back pocket.
“Anybody ever teach you not to touch other people’s shit?” Kohao scowled over his shoulder. 
Chey’s hair was messy; his eyes tired. He appeared to have only just woken up. He still managed a cheeky, lopsided grin.
“Street kid. Bad manners,” he replied. Kohao curled his lip.
“You don’t smoke.”
“Sure don’t. Disgusting habit. Light?” Chey’s eyes had brightened; he tilted his head like a dog and held the cigarette up towards his lips, effeminately crossing one hand to the other elbow and somehow reading like a 20’s flapper, despite his oversized graphic tee and scene-kid haircut.
Kohao stared coldly for a moment before succumbing to the overwhelming naiveté of Chey’s expectant expression; he begrudgingly pulled out his lighter and flicked up a flame.
“What are you doing out here, Chey,” he said as he pocketed the lighter again. It was a question, but the inflection wasn’t present in his cold, hostile tone. Chey grimaced at the taste of the cigarette and breathed his own smoke out into the mist over the city before replying.
“Making sure you’re alright. ...No sleep again?” he asked, rather gently. He apparently hadn’t missed the deepening dark circles under Kohao’s eyes, and his gaze had followed Kohao’s wrist back to his jacket pocket when he’d put the lighter away. A sleeve hadn’t been a match for his keen, concerned eyes, and Kohao frowned. 
“We’re not friends, Chey,” he said bluntly, hunching his shoulders against the vulnerability. You don’t have to pretend to give a shit.
 Chey considered him for a moment. “...Eh. I’m not your friend. You’re mine, though.”

Kohao stayed silent for a while, his lips drawn and brow furrowed, not quite understanding the answer or a way to respond to it.
“...Why?” he eventually asked, not chancing eye-contact and keeping Chey only in his periphery as he determinedly looked out towards the elevated tracks of the J-line.
Chey took another silent drag from his cigarette as he, too, looked out over the hazy Brooklyn skyline before answering, sounding thoughtful: 
“...Because despite what you think of yourself, you pretty clearly aren’t a bad guy. I’ve met bad people—you’re not one.” Chey turned back to look at Kohao. “You’ve offered me a bedroom, and advice, and sympathy. ‘Key thinks highly of you, and I trust his judgment. Athena clearly cares about you, and I trust her too. We both know ‘Tae and Seth are smart as fuck, and they both like you...All signs point to you being worth knowing.” Chey stubbed out his barely-smoked cigarette on the railing and flicked it over the edge. 
“You don’t have to trust me, not now. I hope I can earn it someday, though.” He straightened up and turned to go back inside.
“Chey, wait.” Kohao caught Chey’s arm, not knowing quite what he wanted or how he felt, but feeling as if he needed Chey to stay there until he figured it out. It was like he’d been handed a puzzle back that he’d thrown away because nothing fit together.
Chey looked over his shoulder at Kohao and blinked curiously, briefly glancing down at the hand on his arm, then meeting Kohao’s eyes again.

“Sup, Gunner?” he asked.
The corners of Kohao’s mouth twitched upward at the nickname, if only by a degree. It was new; something Chey had started calling him that Anarchy and Athena had begun to adopt, too. The moment suddenly felt too close; Kohao dropped both the eye contact and his hand from Chey’s arm.
“Dunno. Whatever,” he mumbled, muffling his answer with another drag from his cigarette. “Just...Thanks, I guess.”