KEISUKE BAJI | YOUR PLACE ON THE GROUND.
lucky lover: baji keisuke (x reader)
cw etc: swearing, mutual pining, cigarettes, this is love, the briefest mention of weed
all about: you, baji, your old bic lighter, and cheap menthol cigarettes vs. the wind at your private little hideout.
there’s a slight shiver next to you, coldness protruding from the boy on your right, arms huddled to his chest as he looks forward. the light from the moon rests on both of your fingers, creating panels as yours move to grab at the box in your bag.
you can’t remember how the conversation even started, the wind covering the accents in his words when it rustles through the trees or accentuating his insults when it dies down a little.
“i hope that asshole gets in a wreck on his way home.”
“so you’ve been saying for the past thirty minutes, baji.” he scoffs at the annoyance in your tone; sees over it and carries on with his rant, sprawling his legs before him as his hands move down to rest atop the wood he’s sitting on.
the log under you two is worn, bark faded slightly under the wear and tear of the weather and quite probably your tobacco addiction— but it stays in its place on the ground, waiting for you two like it’s ritual.
you’d found this spot roughly six months ago, aimlessly hiking, or looking for a place to maybe pack a bowl before you’d settled on a semi-open patch in the woods, secluded in trees with slivers of city lights poking through from a distance. the oaks you’d found months before had shed now, leaves brittle and hidden under the soles of your shoes, but they still provided enough coverage to feel alone.
shortly after finding it, you became enamored with it. the walk was pretty short all in all and you knew it wouldn’t feel remotely as long with keisuke by your side, bitching about whatever stranger had so much as looked at one of you two wrong.
your hands fumble against the packaging, tearing the plastic off before tucking it into the boy next to you’s pocket, an argument about how ‘littering in your spot is even worse than regular littering’ resting on the tip of your tongue in case he noticed. when he didn’t— he definitely did, you’re just the only person he’d let use him as a human trash can—, you hit the box against your palm a couple times out of habit, even though you never really understood why people did that.
“if you vaped or something we wouldn’t have to freeze to death, you know that right?” your eyes roll, head finally snapping in his direction.
“fuck you mean freeze to death? i dressed for the occasion, dickhead.” your hands gesture down to the fabric engulfing your figure, leaning over to nudge his shoulder with your own. “see how that didn’t even hurt? hoodie privileges.”
“pretty sure that’s mine.” his grumble is quiet, caught under his breath as he rubs his fingers together, trying to rid himself of the brittleness the cold has brought to his skin.
it’s easy to ignore him, passing him one of the squares and grabbing your own shortly after, resting the recently bought box at its honorary spot on your leg. it’s still too windy for an easy light, but that’s never really stopped you before.
“if it bothers you so much you don’t gotta come with.” you’re turned away from him again, head catching warmth from your bag while you fish around for your lighter.
“shut up.” you exhale a laugh and this is easy, too. it’s always easy with baji, whether you’re in an overly crowded environment or alone in your own little world. your breath spills from the bag, tumbles over and heats up the skin on your wrists, moving up in clouds to your palms.
“oh, got it.” it’s self assured and then you’re back in the present, looking at him, over exaggerating your movements as you motion your gaze from his eyes to his hands. it’s a dance the two of you do, towing the line of unspoken competition before you break in premeditated annoyance.
“cover for me? not gonna be able to light for shit.” it’s habitual; a routine process where his hands act like a barrier between your little flame and the world, and yours for his. at this point he should be ready and willing by the time you pull out your pack, but it’s almost taunting how he makes you ask every time.
“‘you don’t gotta come with’.” he mocks your previous comment, hunching over slightly nonetheless to cup his fingers— his long fucking fingers— over your cigarette. “you wouldn’t even be able to get a drag without me.” you don’t see his reaction, your eyes preoccupied with wearing down your paper under the fire, but you’re sure he’s got a harsh smile, a smirk with a snicker set up just for you.
there’s something unsaid in your friendship with keisuke. it shows up in abstruse ways; like when his attention stays on you for just a second too long or you slip away from your day to day responsibilities just to see him. he’s not the subtlest, but that must just mean you’re not the smartest. or maybe— in some twisted, childish little way— you like it more like this, all unspoken and yearning and nerve wracking.
you’re not sure how long it really takes you to light it, but your thumb is worn from the spark wheel and the metal pricks at and forms a little callous on the pad of skin and you’re just a little bit irritated.
“fucking annoying.” you grumble against the butt once you finally light it, puffs of smoke slipping past the corners of your lips. he pulls back, or maybe you do first, and you lift your hands up in return, cupped while you balance your cig in your mouth.
he leans down to try to run from the wind, head closer to your thighs, spine curving in a hunchback, hair falling uncomfortably over his head, and it’s unfair that he still looks good. your heart thumps louder than the repetitive catch of the lighter, the way it sounds over and over as he tries to work it in spite of the weather, but his muttered swears outdo your heartbeat as you exhale from the side of your mouth again.
“motherfucker,” he leans up too fast, almost hits you with the sheer speed of it, and shakes the lighter against his ear. “it empty?” he looks stupid like this, features pink from the harsh feel of the weather, eyes pointed into a glare at nothing specific as you move to flick the ash off the end of your cigarette now that he’s not actively attempting to light his. and, in a way, it’s like you won— because even though you invited him here to begin with, and even though you bought the cigarettes with your own dime, yours is lit and his isn’t.
“i think it’s empty.” yours is lit and his isn’t. dammit.
“no, you’re just shit at this.” you spend a lot more time than you’re willing to admit admiring, or analyzing as you’d like to think, baji. it’s important to know your friends, so it can’t be bad you want to know him, and it’s not romantic that you’ve picked up and memorized all the different ways he reacts and what each of them mean. so you’re not surprised when there’s a rumble in his scoff, voice sticking itself in the place where the air leaves his lungs.
he tosses the lighter onto the ground next to his feet. “this is fuckin’ stupid.” it takes a second, you think, for him to realize the lighter wasn’t his and he scrambles in an almost passable nonchalance to scoop it off the earth again. baji isn’t the brightest, but he’s smart. he’s smart when it comes to people and when it comes to you; even if there’s this rundown ploy between the two of you, even if neither of you could pull a real confession out from the other if you wanted to, and he knows you have a soft spot for him hidden behind all the light hits and titillating insults. he has it, too, he knows it festers like a disease— so he grins a little as he looks at you, hand reaching out in front of your face.
“let me take a pull,” his palms— that he’s noticed you like— lay flat, fingers curling up into tiny fists over and over as he waits for you as if you owe him anything. “gimme.”
“fucker— no.” his posture flops to dejected with minimal effort.
“this is bullshit,” he starts, huffing like a petulant child as he retracts his hand. “cold as fuck and i don’t get one drag? not one?” part of you is proud of yourself for moments like this. you’re grateful, even if you’d never tell him, that you get to watch him act incredulous like this. he pouts so often, but not in that cute little way people always talk about, and it tugs at your heart; but more than anything is swells your pride up beyond large at the fact you’re the one he lets see him like this.
it takes you forty-six seconds to suggest it. you’d thought of it before he’d even asked to share yours, you’d thought of it for so long without a presented opportunity, and now that you had it, you waited a whole forty-six seconds to spring your plan into action.
“here,” you lift his hand up to his mouth, guiding the butt back to his lips, spoon feeding him his cigarette. “move and you’re an ashtray.” your voice is quiet in your warning, words meshing together in your murmur and it’s like a little undeclared admittance to your nerves. the embers on the end of your cigarette deteriorate and you literally can’t daly if you want to enjoy the rest of your smoke in peace.
you balance it in between the crevices in your fingers, steadying it as you shorten the distance between the two of you and you think your heart is genuinely in your ass. you’re not sure if your stomach hurts from anxiety or the smoke, but you shake just a little bit when you approach him. this is nothing. this is a friend helping a friend, you’d even go as far as to say an addict helping an addict. nicotine addiction is a serious illness, and you’d never want to deprive someone of their little high after you offered it to begin with. you’re just being considerate; you don’t want to feel his breath on your face, or the way his hair brushes soft against your shoulder, you’re just helping out a friend.
you decide to close your eyes so you don’t have to watch him watch you. in retrospect, it’s probably a bad idea because you can’t line your squares up properly, but he tweaks your chin a little to make the connection. and his hand’s on your face, and yours is on his thigh— you don’t remember how it got there—, and your other is holding the half smoked stick, and your cigarettes are touching.
and he doesn’t inhale. idiot. you’ll slap him once you’re done, but for now you settle for tapping under his jaw, urging his throat to take in any oxygen while you wait, giving him all of yours. when he gets the hint, when you feel his jugular retract under his inhale, you grin around your cigarette, eyes opening and crossing to focus on the way the little spark passes between the two of them.
when you pull away from him, for once, he doesn’t say anything. you’re now watching him, and he’s still watching you, and it’s another external competition between the two of you: who’ll break first, who’ll utter the truth first, who’ll move past this redundant bullshit.
everything reeks of cigarettes, but you don’t really mind because keisuke ends the almost eye contact first, turning his chin up slightly to exhale. it’s embarrassing how speechless it makes you, as if you were even saying anything, and your ribs ache with jealousy at the trees for their ability to see him at any angle they’d want.
the wind has grown on you now as it pushes your smoke against baji’s features whenever you breathe out. it fills up the silence, whispers your divulgences so neither of you have to, and makes itself company amongst the two of you.
your eyes flicker to him and you know his flicker to you, and you wonder how the two of you would look to anyone that saw you. you wonder if the oaks that provide you your solace think the two of you look like quiet lovers sharing in an unhealthy habit, or if they think you’re friends without a real purpose decomposing after a long day. you don’t vocalize your thoughts, neither of you say another word until both of your cigarettes are out and gone and nothing but a filter; but you don’t mind much, sitting in silence in your place on the ground with keisuke.