The Great Plan to Take Lin Xiaoming To The Gay Pride
Hello there! I’m back in the fandom with a little drabble I wrote during Pride month like, last year. And then proceeded to forget all about it until now, when I was looking through my files to do some organising and I found it abandoned in a corner. It’s a cute, silly thing, but I like it and I hope you do too! :)
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Banba is well aware that the better part of Lin's life hadn't been exactly easy. Or common, by any means.
And yet.
There are things that everyone should do at least once before dying. And seen as likely as it is for a hitman to die any given day, before dying implies well before being twenty-one.
Those things include marching in a Pride - hell, knowing what a Pride is, in the first place.
It takes a while to explain it to him, and even when Banba manages, Lin doesn't seem so enthusiastic.
Banba isn't sure if it's because he hates people or because he doesn't believe him.
At times, Banba wonders how Lin would be now if he knew asexuality was a thing ten years ago, or if he was ever given the time and place to grow up like every child should. He wouldn't probably be the Lin he is now, but he wonders anyway.
Banba also wishes he could give it to him. He can't, clearly, but he can take him to Pride.
Hakata's Gay Pride might not be New York's, but it's not bad for a start.
The morning of the Big Day he still hasn't told Lin anything about The Great Plan to Take Lin Xiaoming To The Gay Pride - which is admittedly a bit of a long title for a plan, so TGTLXTGP for short.
(Everyone they know knows about TGTLXTGP. It was a necessary evil, because he needs Enokida to keep an eye out for any problems and he needs Jirou's face paint, seen as he never thought about buying grey and white.
When he shows up at the bar, Jirou has to physically restrain his daughter from coming home with him to paint Lin's cheeks. He would have let her, had it been someone else - maybe next year they could go together, he says.
It's selfish of him, but he really really wants to be the first - and possibly the only - one to see Lin's eyes when the truth and high of people and music kicks in. He might even laugh.
Banba really really hopes he does. There isn't one single better way to die.)
He comes home a little later than he planned for, so he can't exactly ease Lin into the idea like he had hoped to do.
Instead, he sits him down on the couch, face paint in hand, and he prays Lin won't bite all of his fingers off.
"We're going to Pride. And I am going to paint your cheeks, because I'll be damned if you don't get the full experience, Lin-chan." he says, going for cheerful in the hopes Lin will be too blindsided by the sudden attack to answer it with one of his own.
He only looks confused, though. Well, angry-confused, which is how Lin looks a great deal of the time anyway.
"That's completely idiotic. Why should you paint me?" he asks, a frown firmly in place on his face and weariness in his eyes.
Banba tries to smile bigger, and it's not too hard. It's oh so delightful to be the one that gets to cross this bridge with him.
"It's to show you're part of a group, Lin-chan. If you're really against it I won't push it, but I thought it could be nice for you to wear the asexual colours?" and he can see Lin frown, confused. He doesn't question him further, probably deeming it useless to ask where these supposed colours come from or something along those lines.
He nods, quickly, when Banba questioningly raises the palette again, and that's enough.
(He does quite a good job, the colours blending nicely together without being a shapeless mess. The unique grey of his eyes is almost the same as the one on his skin, and Banba stares at his face a hell of a lot of time more than recommended, but he can't exactly help himself.
He startles when Lin glares at him, making it obvious he's been spacing out for a while.
The glare almost completely disappears when he smiles, offering him the paint.
"Care to help me, Lin-chan?" he asks, beaming when he nods again, curiosity in his expression.)
Banba can sense Lin's nervousness when they finally join the parade, laughter and loud music echoing in the square where they're regrouping before starting to walk.
He lets his right hand relax, maybe a little too close to Lin's side than strictly necessary, just in case. He's actually surprised when Lin takes it, squeezing it forcefully and pretending not to.
He's not looking at him, assessing his surroundings with that angry-confused expression on that Banba finds so familiar and that is probably scaring off half of the people that would like to talk to them.
(Banba is sure there is at least someone, because Hakata's community is small and Lin's face is new and this is the first year he's not with Jirou. Rumours have probably already started, but he only grips Lin's hand more strongly, trying to be reassuring.)
Lin tenses up when someone - judging by the flag she's carrying around, she's with the ace/aro group, which makes sense - gets close to them despite his murderous glances.
The girl seems friendly enough, innocuous - suddenly shy under their joint scrutiny.
"Hello!" she begins, too loud even though the music is still louder. Lin frowns - he frowns more -and she awkwardly waves at them, still smiling hesitantly. She talks directly to him, looking towards Banba sometimes like she's making sure she's not bothering, because Lin surely is looking at her like she is. "I just noticed the flag on your face, you know. I wanted to ask if maybe you wanted to join us for the parade?" she keeps going, and then, quickly, when she notices the way Lin is clinging to his side, "You both, of course."
(At that, Banba sees out of the corner of his eye the way Lin's free hand relaxes a little, falling further away from the knife strapped to his thigh.
Instincts are hard to eradicate, but he's an optimist. A couple of years of this, and he might at least agree to wear something else, maybe hide the knife in his boot.
Oh, wouldn't it be nice to see him wearing boots. He makes a mental note for himself, in case the possibility to ask ever presents itself.)
They end up marching almost the whole thing next to the group. Lin is stiff, at first - almost timid, in a way Banba never thought he would be.
(But is it weird, in the end?
He thinks about things confessed in the dead of night, whispered - sometimes only wrenched words.
Fear. Alone. Freak. The only one. Machine. Wrong. Freak, freak, freak.
He knows how that was the worst possible thing to be, in his situation.
He will never know how it must feel to know he's not alone at all.)
He lets his hair down quickly enough, once he decides nobody is trying to kill them and he hasn't tried to kill anybody. He still scowls, still frowns, still looks kind of angry - but there's something, in his eyes, while he listens to stories and shared experiences and things Banba will never be able to understand, or to explain to him.
He listens, and when he glances up at him - when they're almost done, music getting louder and colours brighter, laughter resounding in the air like silver bells - Banba sees the wonder, innocent and wide-eyed and beautiful, just for a moment.
He doesn't laugh, but he does something even better.
Honestly, Banba can't recall a time when being kissed within an inch of his life felt as good.
