#kizen

In his heart of hearts, Obi knew there was no way this conversation wouldn’t have hit like a brick, no matter when or how they had it. As much as Doc insisted that her and Zen were over, that they’d pretty much failed to launch in the first place--

Well, Obi had known that wasn’t the way Chief saw it. You don’t have a deep heart to heart on a yacht about liking the same girl without picking up a few things about how your romantic non-rival thinks things are going. God, he’d told him to propose to her.

Three-years-ago Obi was such a dumb fuck. Good thing no one listens to him.

Three-years-from-now Obi is going to be thinking the same fucking thing about him right now, he can just feel it. Well, as long as that asshole finishes his thesis, he can think whatever he likes.

He shakes his head, looking in the mirror. Now’s really not a good time to be yucking it up over how good Future Obi is going to have it, not when Present Obi is currently wondering if this bathroom is fancy enough for him to have a window to climb out of.

Not that he would. He’s left Doc out there, awkwardly making conversation with the happy couple and her shell-shocked ex-boyfriend, and though she has a gift for smoothing things over, this is--

It’s a lot. Especially when said ex-boyfriend didn’t realize that he’s been one for the last six months.

Fuck. Obi slams his palm onto the metal lip of the sink-- or rather, trough, since this isn’t just a fancy-ass fake Mexican place, but the kind that has rustic-yet-modern details like brushed metal trough sinks and exposed beams and something that might actually be adobe.

“This is fucking ridiculous,” he tells the mosaic bird beneath his feet, and sticks his head right under the faucet.

Ah, that’s right-- the best part about fancy places like this is when he turns on the tap, the water is actually fucking freezing. And if no one is around to hear him yelp like a little baby when it hits his neck, so much the better.

“Fuck,” he gasps, rearing back out of the stream. “Fuck.”

Obi meets the gaze of his own reflection, and god, does he not need the judgement he sees right now.

“I get it,” he tells Mirror Obi, watching the water drip through the bristle of his hair, leaving tracks down his forehead. “I fucked up. Bad.”

Not like he could have done much. He’d wanted to believe Doc too much, wanted to believe that the past two years had all been leading straight to this, to them; that it hadn’t been a meandering path that circled around and sometimes even through her floundering relationship.

Still, he probably could have texted. Hey Chief, just want you to know I’m fucking Doc now. Just as good as I thought it would be. XOXO.

Oh yeah, that would have gone so well. He can just tell.

Obi shakes himself, water spraying over the trough. He’s gotta pull it together. He can’t stay in this fancy fake Mexican bathroom all night. Doc would kill him.

No, not kill-- Doc would never be so violent. She’d just give him that sad pout and say things like, I’m not upset, I’m just disappointed, and make him wish they had a yard so he could go sleep in the doghouse where he belongs. Whoever said, there are fates worse than death has definitely met Shirayuki when she’s disappointed.

He scrubs a hand down his face. Time to face the tapas. Ain’t like things are gonna go any less sideways in here.

The door easily swings open under his hand; it’s almost a disappointment. It lacks the proper gravitas of a man going to his own disembowelment.

A disembowelment that is going to happen about two minutes earlier than he expected with far less of a crowd, if Kiki’s expression is any indication.

“Kiki!” There’s a reddish cast to the shadows around her, thanks to the great big EXIT sign she’s underneath, which lends an artful level of menace to the situation. God, he wishes she wasn’t between him and the door. “Just getting some fresh--?”

She levers herself off the wall, swaggering right into his personal space. It’s both super hot and pants-pissingly terrifying; something that would be right up his ally if he both wasn’t in the best relationship of his life and bone-shakingly certain he was about to die.

“Go talk to him.”

He blinks. “Come again?”

“Go talk to him.” It’s strange; he’s always thought of Kiki as a giant, as a woman who maybe couldn’t look dead into his eyes but at least came close, but standing like this she’s-- small. Human. “Please.”

“I don’t...” He sighs, shoulders rounding. “What am I even going to say to him?”

“Everything,” she tells him, forbidding. “Anything. Just keep using words until this is better. You’re good at that.”

He chokes on a laugh. Sounds more like Doc’s specialty than his; whenever he runs his mouth off he just gets into situations like this.

“Princess, I would love to oblige you,” he manages, “but I’m not sure that’s possible.”

“We’re only here because none of you can just--” she makes an aborted gesture and steps up into him, so close he can smell the spice on her breath. “Make it possible.”

He laughs. “How?”

She pokes him square in the chest. It hurts. “Use. Your. Words.”

His hair dries the instant he steps outside, because if there’s one thing Florida’s good at, it’s being hot as fuck. And humid as fuck.

Use your words. Obi sighs. Easy for Kiki to say; she barely uses any. He’s been spouting them all night, and they’re still here: in a fancy tapas restaurant trying to masquerade as a humble taqueria, with Chief taking a long walk on its short pier. Literally.

Obi trudges down the stairs to the shoreline, hands buried in his pockets. Here he is, all dressed up-- he wore a button-down for this; hell, he wore slacks too, and that’s what really killing him before the breeze kicks up-- and still everything has turned into a shitshow. He ate his tapas, made good conversation, broke the news gently, and--

It’s no good. He can try as much as he likes, but the fuck up here is still him.

He drags his glare off his shoes when he hits the planks, and it’s like he walked right into one of those GQ shoots: Zen’s all artfully disheveled, leaning on the rail with the sort of brooding, thousand-yard stare that cameras love. He’s half-tempted to slip out his phone and take a pic himself, except that memorializing the moment he royally fucked up a friendship seems like a bad idea, psychologically. Definitely a choice the therapist back at Wistal would have spent a good hour on.

“Hey,” he says, trying to be casual, as if there was anything casual about chasing after your bro after you inform him you’re sort of fucking the girl he got off the plane thinking he was still dating.

He shakes himself. No, not-- it’s not fucking. He’s dating Doc. Seriously. God, this is literally the most serious he’s ever been. This is real.

Though, there is definitely a lot of fucking. A lot more than he’d imagined there would be, if the planets aligned and Shirayuki looked at him like how he looks at her even a little.

Zen stiffens, shoulders springing up to his ears like the pickets on a fence, like he can keep Obi’s bullshit out if he puts enough of a barrier between them. Which...fair.

Obi sidles up next to him, bracing his hand on the rail, and breathes. The salt stings his lungs, his eyes, and god, hadn’t they done this before? It’s only been three years, but that night on the Wisteria yacht feels like ages ago, like another lifetime entirely.

He had shitty feelings then too. Just blurted out I like Doc like an idiot.

Use your words, that’s what Kiki said. Obi grimaces. Look how well all that turned out.

“What’s the deal with the dock?” he says, regret instantly washing over him. Why on earth did Kiki think he could do this? “Like one of those big overhang decks? I could get that. But a dock? Seems excessive.”

The silence is disheartening, but Obi can’t say he doesn’t expect it. Small talk isn’t really a thing you do when everyone’s realized there’s been an overlap in boyfriend eras.

“It’s really more of a wharf,” Zen says, like he’s dredging up each word. “Lots of little piers all together.”

“Oh, well,” he drawls, mouth twitching. This he can work with. “Sorry. What’s up with the wharf?”

Zen shrugs, shoulders practically creaking from the effort. “It’s a thing waterfronts do. People have houses down here, and they like to have a reason to show off their boat to all the neighbors.”

Obi can’t help it, he stares. “So they drive it to the nearest fine dining establishment?”

Zen casts a confused look back at the restaurant. “I mean, it isn’t that nice.”

God, rich kids.

“If you say so, Chief.”

Silence settles over them, as comfortable as a wet blanket-- ugh, or maybe that’s just the humidity; they really should be having this conversation where there’s air conditioning. Or never. But never isn’t an option, not unless he wants to lose this, and--

And whatever else happens, he can’t. Doc might have been the one to clean him up and tame him, but Zen was the one that pulled him out of the dumpster. He had every reason to keep on driving, to leave him sitting in a vat of fried pickle juice, but instead he stopped. Instead he offered a hand.

It wasn’t a kindness he deserved. He’d known that then, and he knew it even better now. But Zen saw something in him, something not even he had seen, and--

And he needs that.

“So, ah,” Obi coughs, staring out at the marina across the bay. “Back in the restaurant. That was, ah, a lot, right?”

Zen doesn’t answer him, doesn’t even look at him, but Obi’s watching him from the corner of his eye, and he sees his mouth pull thin. Yeah, this was probably not the most graceful way to bring this up. Probably should have stuck with small talk.

He clenches his jaw. Whatever, in for a penny, in for a pound, and quite frankly if they don’t clear the air, Kiki might kill him.

“Yep,” he says, glaring out over the water. “You’re right. Just a whole ton. Really fucking heav--”

“This was my worst nightmare,” Zen croaks, the words nearly lost on the breeze. “You know that?”

Considering he wakes up in a cold sweat two nights out of seven, convinced Doc’s come to her senses and left him only to find out she’s gotten up to pee-- yeah, he knows that. Inside and out.

Probably...probably not the best time to say so.

“I knew the whole thing was a risk,” Zen admits, with a rueful laugh. “I mean, you told me you liked her, and I sent you after her anyway.”

Obi stiffens. “You didn’t send me here. Shidan offered me a spot, and I chose to come.”

“Right, sure, but I encouraged you,” he says, elbows leaning heavy on the rail. “I told you that you could do it-- that you should do it. And I-- I knew then too. Even without you telling me.” He laughs, wry. “I made the stars align to get you here.”

His fingers clench around the wood. It’s true, he knows; his grades had been good, Garrack liked him, Shidan liked him, but abroad programs were a long shot, and he was not the sort of pony the admin department was apt to bet on. He’d always known there must have been a nudge, a whispered word over canapes, but--

But he really could have lived without knowing it. “Doc was with you.”

“Sure, but I’m fifteen hundred miles away, and you look like-- like that.” He waves a hand at him, cheeks flushed. “And you were interested.”

The rail creaks under his grip. “I never--”

“No, of course not,” Zen sighs. “But all you have to do is breathe and panties come off.”

Historically, it’s a fair assessment, but it’s like he’s forgotten that it’s Doc, the last person on earth who would be swayed by rippling abs and solid pecs. For two solid years she happily went without any sexy time whatsoever from her long-term boyfriend and thought that was a good thing, and it had nothing to do with how well he filled out his jeans. Unfortunately. Would have made a whole bunch of things a lot easier if it had.

“If you’d been interested in me, I would have--” Chief turns a painful red-- “I mean, if I was a girl. Not--”

If Zen had known, he would have done more than eyefuck you for an entire year.

It’s strange how that’s all it takes for things to come into focus. It’s not about Doc, it’s not even about him, it’s--

“I just thought if this was going to happen, it wouldn’t have taken so long,” Zen continues, hunching over the rail. “I thought you’d just...jump each other or something, and it’d be over.”

--It’s about him.

“I should have paid more attention,” he sighs, morose. “I just thought that I knew you--”

“Hey, while we’re talking about stuff,” Obi blurts out, wishing he could stop hearing Kiki’s voice, wishing he could stop thinking, just talk about everything until this is fixed, “you know, stuff we haven’t talked about...”

Zen turns to him, wide-eyed, and god, this is a really bad fucking idea.

“You should know,” he says, striving for a casualness that isn’t even in the same zip code as his anxiety, “I’m bi.”

The word sits between them like a lead weight, like cement shoes.

“W-what?” Zen manages, and god, he’s almost purple.

“Listen, Kiki said that--” he shakes his head-- “never mind. I just-- it seemed like you should know, and honestly, it’s not like you can really get more mad at me at this point, so--”

“I’m not-- I’m not mad.” He is a little breathless, which is interesting to say the least, and there’s not an exposed sliver of skin on him that isn’t pink. “I just-- why are you telling me? It’s not like I’m-- that I--”

“Kiki said we were flirting all of sophomore year,” he says before the kid can hurt himself. “So it felt pertinent to the conversation, I guess.”

“What? I wasn’t--” he sputters before his words dry up. “Wait. We were flirting?”

God, he really has a type, doesn’t he? “Yeah. You know--” he turns to him, letting his mouth take a sly slant-- “before Tanbarun, I could have gone for blonds or red heads.”

Zen stares. “What does Kiki have to do with--? Oh.” His jaw goes slack. “Oh. So you were...?”

“Flirting? Yeah.” He slides closer, brow arched. “Thought I was being obvious too.”

Chief’s mouth works for a moment, eyes darting to take in this new distance, and he blurts out, “I thought you were joking!”

Yuzuri’s right; he needs to work on his game if the result is resoundingly, I thought you weren’t interested.

He grins, dropping his voice. “Ryuu says I like to joke, but I never lie.”

It’s fun to see Chief like this, stuttering and unsure, face so red he’s worried about what it means for brain function. “But you-- you said-- on the yacht--”

Obi doesn’t point out that the yacht was a good six months after Tanbarun, that by then he’d been long gone on Doc. Whatever potential had been brewing between them had cooled, Obi’s heart settling into the long haul of pining for a girl he’d thought would never see him as more than a friend.

Mostly because it’s funnier this way.

He leans in, close enough that his breath stirs the baby-fine wisps at his hairline. “I said I liked you.”

He’d meant it, too, but not the way he would have months earlier, wondering if Chief’s furtive post-shower glances were as speculative as his were. On that yacht, his whole body had been quivering, an arrow ready to be loosed. He just needed Zen to point him south.

“I also said you had great eyes,” Obi reminds him, smirking. “And a great ass.”

Zen’s mouth pulls flat, and just like that the spell is broken. “You said you liked Shirayuki, too. And you definitely meant that differently.”

Yeah, he’d meant to say he loved her, but it seemed kinda gauche to say in front of her boyfriend.

“Maybe,” he teases with a shrug, “but you’re both my type. Stubborn, cute--” he slides his hand along the rail until they’re almost touching, looming over him-- “short.”

“All right.” Chief puts a hand to his chest and shoves. “Joke’s over.”

Obi stumbles away, pressing his palm to his heart with a theatrical gasp. “Why, your lordship, would I ever lie to you?”

Zen’s mouth pulls thin. “No. I know that you’re-- being honest about that. But you’re definitely trying to fuck with me.”

“Can you blame me?” he asks with a grin. “I don’t envy your complexion at all, chief. You give everything away.”

“Ha-ha.” Zen gives him a withering look. “First short jokes, now this. You definitely seem contrite.”

“Hey, I am. I never--” he shakes his head-- “we weren’t trying to hurt you. We just--”

“No, I get it.” He hangs his head with a humorless laugh. “I wasn’t part of the equation. I stopped being one a long time ago and then just...never noticed.”

Obi grimaces. It sounds so much worse when he says it, all out loud and stuff.

It doesn’t make it any less true.

Zen coughs, awkward. “Hey, uh, listen. As long as we’re being honest...”

Every muscle in his body tenses, but Obi takes a breath-- takes two breaths, because this is going to be heavy, talking about Atri, talking about what it’s like to feel like you’re carrying around a secret no one will understand-- and leans oh-so-casually against the rail. “Yeah?”

Nailed it.

Zen squares himself off, like he’s expect a fight-- no, like he’s expecting a punch, and he’s ready to take it--

“I’ve been seeing Kihal.”

Obi stares. “Uh, what?”

“C-casually!” he clarifies, springing back from the rail and shuffling down the pier like he hasn’t dropped an absolute bomb. “It’s not-- not anything serious or anything. Just, you know. Coffee. And dinner.” With a guilty expression he mutters, “And breakfast.”

Obi stands there blinking like an idiot. “Come again?”

“Listen, I know it’s...” He grimaces, realizing there’s no more rail to hold this far out, and holds up his hands instead. “I know I said that nothing had changed for me, but I guess--” he sighs, hanging his head-- “on some level I knew. Shirayuki was pulling away.

“That doesn’t make it right,” he continues, “but even though we hadn’t said anything, I knew it was over. No--” he shakes his head-- “I wasn’t even thinking about it. Shirayuki wasn’t even really a consideration.”

He can’t even think from how loud his mind is screaming. “So you came down here to...what? Break up with Doc?”

Zen grimaces. “I mean, it sounds so bad when you--” Obi glares-- “yeah. Yes. I guess. Something like that.”

“So what you’re saying,” Obi deadpans, “is that I suffered through that whole dinner, your huge ass guilt trip monologue, and this conversation...and you’re seeing someone else?”

“Well, gently,” he argues lamely. “Not like you guys, when you’re, you know, practically married--”

His arm moves on its own.

His palm juts out, taking Zen right in the chest, and he stumbles for a single step in his boat shoes before he falls ass-first right into the bay. A jolt of concern wracks him in the second it takes Chief to emerge, bobbing and gasping, linen shirt soaked all the way through to transparency, and is gone just as quick.

“What,” he gasps, hands flailing for the dock, “was that for?”

Obi grins. His arm might have moved on its own, but he definitely approves. “Really?”

Zen deflates, arms crossing over the planks to hold him. “Okay, this is fair.”

He crouches down, meeting his wide-eyed gaze. “You think?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Zen holds out his hand. “Just help me up.”

“My pleasure, master,” he teases, grasping his hand, and--

And it’s only once he’s tilting, boards no longer under his feet, that he realizes: that’s the oldest trick in the book.

From the pier, the shore had looked a lot closer. It takes a significant amount of actual swimming until he’s able to brush his toes against the bottom-- though he’ll admit, half of it is because there’s no cool, convenient way to swim with clothes on. Doggie paddle is inefficient, but actual strokes look like you’re trying too hard, so they make due with some weird combination of both with some freestyle cussing.

“So,” Zen coughs, once his own feet can touch, a good few feet after Obi can. “Did you like Mitsuhide too? I mean, since you wanted to kiss everyone?”

In Obi’s opinion, the fact that his top three sexual fantasies in Wistal involved either Zen, Kiki, or Doc showed some real discerning standards, like some real Gray Goose level taste, but he understands-- the point’s lost on Zen. He’s in his mid-twenties and can count the number of people he’s wanted to catch in a dark corner on one hand. They’re different people, it’s cool.

“Nah,” he sighs, shaking out his hair. Zen hisses as some of the water sprays him. “I mean, if I didn’t know him, I’d fuck him in a second, but--” he hesitates-- “No, wait, scratch that. I’d let him fuck me, but--”

“OKAY,” Zen yelps, pushing past him. “Conversation over! Too much information!”

Obi grins at his back. “You did ask.”

“Yeah,” Zen huffs, trudging faster, “and now I definitely regret it.”

“Hey,” he croaks, feet finally finding purchase-- as long as he cranes his neck up. It hurts like a bitch, but it’s giving him a great view of the shoreline. “Does that look like--?”

“Kiki’s waiting for us?” Chief finishes faintly. “Yeah, it does.”

He’d grimace if it wasn’t going to get more water down his throat. “Does she look...pissed?”

“I can’t tell from here.” Zen gives him a flat look. “Are you a betting man?”

It’s not much of a gamble with these odds. “How about we just swim up...super slow?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, quickly. “Sounds great. Let’s just take our time.”

The water laps at their thighs-- well, his thighs, Chief’s waist-- when Obi finally clears his throat and asks, “So Kihal.”

Zen tenses beside him. “Yeah?”

“You really--” man, this sounded better in his head-- “like her?”

“Yeah.” Zen sends him a wary glance. “I think...yeah. There’s something there.”

“Good.” Considering how much there it sounds like Chief’s experienced, there better be. “She’s good people. I wouldn’t want anyone to be playing around with her.”

To his everlasting surprise, Zen laughs. Has a good old fashioned guffaw right there as they marinate in fish shit and whatever runoff this restaurant is paying the inspectors to miss. “What?”

“Nothing, it’s just--” he shakes his head, hair almost translucent between the sun and the water-- “she did not like you back in the day.”

“According to Doc, she thought I was hot back in the day,” Obi says, basking in Chief’s unstifled ugh. “And then was extremely betrayed when I ended up being an asshole.”

“That does sound exactly like her,” Zen admits with a begrudging fondness. Obi dares a glance in his direction, and-- yep, lovesick smile.

“I’ve since made up for it,” he assures him, hand pressed humbly to his chest. “But she also likes to text me every few weeks to remind me she could kick my ass.”

“Also sounds exactly like her.” Zen ducks his chin, awkward. “It’s good though.”

“I’d say so. I could live out my Zorro dreams if I let Elena de la Vega--”

“Please do not finish that thought,” Chief pleads, eyes rolled heavenward. “I just meant it would suck if one of my best friends didn’t get along with my girlfriend.”

Obi has to take a moment. A whole ass moment while he tries to remember how breathing and not crying work.

Chief claps him on the back, expression etched with worry. “You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He coughs, and ugh, some ugly cry phlegm comes out. “Just-- there’s pollen or something. My chest got all tight.”

“Right.” Zen squeezes his shoulder with a grin. “I know this is all-- weird.”

“Terrible,” Obi corrects.

“Right, it’s godawful.” He sighs. “But I won’t lose you over being dumb. Either of you.”

“Cool, yeah” He nods, and ugh, makes the worse sniffling noise. “Also-- girlfriend? I thought you said this wasn’t anything serious.”

He’s eaten lobsters less red than Chief, he’s pretty sure. “Shut up.”

“Somehow,” rings a cold voice from the shore as they pick their way over the sharp shells near the shore, “this is even stupider than I thought it would be.”

Obi winces. Ah yes, going slow would have been a great plan, if Kiki was going get to tired of waiting. Now she’s only had time to age her anger, like the wines in the Seiran basement.

Zen gulps, audibly. “It’s not my--”

She holds up a hand, whipping out her phone and flicking through screens so fast that a deep pit of dread forms in his gut. Oh, she’s not just pissed, she’s officious.

They are fucked.

“W-what are you doing?” Zen asks, faint. If he was a lobster before, he’s its ghost now, pale as a sheet.

“Ordering you an Uber.” She says it the same way men in the spy business might say waterboarding.

“W-wha--”

“I’m glad to see you’ve both worked out being idiots,” she tells them, mouth curving, just for a moment, into something like a smile. “But there is absolutely no way you’re getting into Mitsuhide’s car like that.”

Kiki regards the two of them, dripping into the bay in their nice clothes, from down the length of her nose. “The restaurant will lend you some towels for the ride. We’ll meet you back at the hotel.”

She strides away, disappearing up the stairs, toward the street.

“Well,” Zen sighs, dragging himself out. “That could have gone worse.”

“No.” Obi shivers, giving him a boost. “She’s just leaving the rest for Doc.”

Zen freezes, halfway up the retaining wall. “Oh. We’re fucked then.”

It’s got all the makings of a fantastic enemies-to-lovers pairing. Like, I don’t think Zen is completely aware that he was her enemy, BUT KIHAL CERTAINLY IS

Like, obviously he is aware that the situation is messed up, but his hands are tied, right? RIGHT! She couldn’t possibly hate him for that! (lol)

I mean, OBVIOUSLY things got fixed, but I think if they were to hook up, I doubt she would be quiet about the above bureaucracy for a minute. The system is set up this way? THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN AND WE MUST FIX IT NOW. 

(omg, can you imagine it? Her storming into Izana’s office like WHAT IS THIS BULLSHIT??? 

*throws ancient tome on Izana’s desk* *dust goes flying everywhere* 

Izana: ??? 

Kihal: THIS IS THE WATER RIGHTS FOR THE NORTHERN TERRITORIES. IT IS COMPLETELY UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION AND WAS OBVIOUSLY WRITTEN UNDER DURESS 

Izana: *has headache* Why can’t you be like my brother and not like paperwork? )

She’s incredibly impulsive and impatient, too! Doesn’t trust people when she meets them at all (very much like a certain Prince didn’t trust a certain redhead when he first met her).

But both of them have incredibly pure hearts. They are driven first and foremost to their people, which puts them in incredibly stressful situations. But they both believe that their causes are worth fighting for. 

They also know what it means to take advice from people that they trust. They can change their minds and their impressions of people if the right people vouch for them. And they know what it means to rule! …even if in their rulerships are in completely different contexts. 

And let’s be real, this was probably the hottest moment of Kihals life right here:

I mean, look at her face when he does that. Girl wants to jump him right then and there.

And let’s not pretend they wouldn’t make some gorgeous babies.