appolepi

a little oneshot to get a hang of things:))

GIF creds: kennyisanomega

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Kenny Omega had seen plenty of people come and go around the wrestling world, but Ilani was different. She wasn’t loud, wasn’t trying too hard, and somehow made the chaos around him feel quieter the second she walked in.

They met backstage after a long show, when the halls were nearly empty and the buzz of the arena had faded into a hum. Ilani had been there for a friend, not for him, and that was what caught Kenny off guard. No starry eyes. No nervous fangirl smile. Just a calm glance, a dry joke, and a presence that made him want to keep talking.

At first, it was small things. Holding a conversation while he stretched between matches. Sharing vending machine snacks. Ilani fixing the wisps of his unruly hair before he could step out into the hall. Kenny found himself looking for her in a room without meaning to, then blaming it on habit when the truth was much less convenient.

She noticed, of course. Ilani was sharp like that.

“You keep staring,” she said one night, leaning against the doorway with a small smile.

Kenny, caught completely off guard, laughed under his breath. “That obvious?”

“To me? Yeah.” She said to him a matter of fact.

He should’ve made a joke. Should’ve flirted his way out of it. Instead, he was honest in the only way that mattered.

“I like being where you are.”

That shut her up for a second.

The hardest part wasn’t the teasing from the others, or the constant travel, or even the fact that everything in their world moved too fast. The hardest part was the waiting. Kenny was used to momentum, to motion, to matches that built and built until everything exploded. With Ilani, it was slower. Better. Terrifying.

So when he finally kissed her, it wasn’t dramatic. It was after a long night, under weak hallway lights, with both of them tired and laughing about something stupid no one else would understand. He stopped smiling first. She went quiet. Then he asked, very softly, “Can I?”

Ilani answered by closing the distance herself.

After that, nothing was the same. Not because everything changed all at once, but because now the silence between them meant something. A look across a crowded room meant something. A hand brushing his wrist meant something.

And Kenny Omega, for once, didn’t want to chase the next big moment.

He just wanted this one.

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