Psync by Zile Elliven

Chapter Thirty-Five

Eli

Classes were over for the day, and Eli skipped his way down the sidewalk. He was going home!

Which was, of course, fraught with plenty of anxiety inducing issues, but still, he was going home!

And Haruka was coming with him—hence the issues. When Eli had tried to bring it up, he’d been nervous as hell because what if Haruka didn’t want to come? Or even worse, what if he did want to come? His mind was spinning, and his heart was racing as he tried to summon up the nerve to text Haruka and ask him to meet him so he could ask, but then his phone buzzed.

StupidHotJerk: Of course, I’m coming. Sit down and breathe

Everything is going to be fine

I promise

Eli: You heard?

StupidHotJerk: I did

Eli: And you’re coming with me?

To meet my family?

StupidHotJerk: Yes

And if it stresses you out too much, you don’t have to tell them about us. Just enjoy being home

Eli had immediately opened his contacts and edited Haruka’s name to WonderfulHotJerk.

And now he was free for the next week. He could take Haruka to all of his favorite places in Eastern Mass. He had to take him to Salem—especially now that it was post Halloween craziness. It wouldn’t be as lively, but Eli couldn’t have handled lively anyway.

Haruka tried to play it cool, but he was just as much of a nerd about American culture as Eli was about Japanese culture—which was probably one of the reasons they fit.

As he made up a list of all of the places he wanted to go next week, Eli realized he’d made a fatal error. He’d stopped paying attention to where he was going and had subconsciously taken the quickest route back to his dorm.

Every other time of the year, there was nothing wrong with taking this path. It was the quickest, most efficient way to cut through the campus, but October through November it was the worst possible route to take because it was directly under the flight path of all of the migrating geese from the north. They would take off from the pond and thoroughly befoul the sidewalk on their way out. After a few weeks of such treatment, the inclined path became a nightmare slide to the worst day of your life.

Eli had gotten lucky. He’d watched an entire pack of freshmen learn the hard way why the normally crowded walkway was suddenly empty. The previously chipper group of coeds ended up at the bottom of the hill in a sad, disgusting, tangled mess. The spark of life was gone from their eyes. Clearly, the experience had left an impact on their souls they would take years to recover from.

Eli recognized his mistake, but only because his feet had begun the long slide down the hill.

“AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” He screamed gracefully and with much dignity as he skated down the hill, arms waving and praying to every god he knew that he wouldn’t fall down in the horrible mess.

Halfway down, he started to spin until he was going down ass first, still on his feet. When he reached the bottom, he stood frozen, unable to believe he’d made it unscathed.

Other than his shoes. They were disgusting.

Applause drew him out of his daze as onlookers cheered his success.

Eli took a bow. Hey, any accident you can walk away from, right?

His phone rang. It was Haruka, so he answered, but had to pull his ear away from the ear-splitting laughter on the other end. He waited until Haruka began to laugh so hard he was making choking sounds. Eli hung up, shoved his phone in his pocket, then pulled it out again and texted:

Eli: If you kill yourself laughing, you won’t get a chance to miss out on all the head you won’t be getting ever again

The first chance he’d gotten, Eli had gone on TikTok to research ways of getting rid of his gag reflex. He’d spent an afternoon practicing each method until he found one that worked. Then he tested it out on Haruka.

Fucking Eli’s throat had instantly become his new favorite pastime, so it was no surprise when Eli got a short Sorry in response.

Haruka had better hope Eli took his shoes off before he kicked him in the shin. He shouted the thought as hard as he could.

Not that he actually would, but when someone was short, people tended to underestimate them. Threats help keep people in line.

When he reached his building, he toed his shoes off before entering. Gingerly, he picked them up—once he’d located a spot not covered in goose shit—and pitched them into the closest trashcan.

He entered the building in his socks, ignoring the stares at his feet. By the time he’d reached his room, he’d cycled between grumpy scowling and hysterical laughter enough times that he was certain everyone in the building was going to give him plenty of space for the rest of the year.

He wiped a tear from his eye and looked up, realizing someone was standing in from of his door.

“Juniper?”

Arms went around him as his sister proceeded to try and squeeze the life out of him. He tried to reciprocate, but he’d long ago given in to the fact that his sister had beaten him thoroughly in the genetic lottery. She wasn’t as tall as Haruka, but she wasn’t much shorter.

“Eli!” An angry, confused voice rang out down the hallway. Haruka was frozen in the act of rubbing a towel through his hair, but only briefly.

He let the towel drop onto his shoulder and began stalking toward them. There was a mixture of emotions on his face, but the only one Eli paid attention to was the sharp stab of fear he felt emanating from him.

“Haruka, this is my sister, Juniper,” Eli said hastily. While he loved to fuck with Haruka to get a rise from him, fear was never an emotion he wanted to inspire.

The fear cut off, and Haruka’s face rearranged itself into its usual too cool for everything expression as he met them at the door.

He flicked his wet hair at Eli and turned to give Juniper a bow. “Nice to meet you. I’m Haruka.”

“Is this the friend you’re bringing home?” Juniper poked Eli in the chest, causing Haruka to flinch. Juniper eyed his reaction with interest and did it again. This time Haruka didn’t react, but somehow, he managed to do it loudly. “Interesting.”

Eli waved a hand in her face to bring her attention back to him. “What are you doing here? We were going to see each other tonight. I’m already packed—well, mostly.”

Juniper’s eyes shuttered. “Why don’t we go into your room, and you can finish packing while I explain.”

“Ooookay.”

She knew. Eli didn’t know how she knew, but she did. Stupid insightful twin sister! Well, he wasn’t going to let her be the one to bring it up. Fuck Antarctica, they were doing this now.

The second the door closed behind them he blurted out, “I’m gay and he’s my boyfriend and if you give me any shit about it, I’m going to hit you with the bag of old Chinese food we have in the refrigerator.”

Juniper blinked at Eli.

Haruka blinked at Eli.

Eli dropped down in the closest chair and concentrated on breathing.

Haruka came around behind him and rubbed his back using large, slow circles. “It’s okay, chibisuke. I’m here.”

Which made Juniper’s eyes nearly pop out of their sockets. “You’re . . . He’s . . . What the fuck, Eli?”

Haruka made to stand in front of Eli, but he put a hand on the man’s arm.

“She’s not mad, just confused. Give her a minute.”

Juniper needed more than a minute. She plopped down on the bed, making Eli doubly glad they changed the comforter after their morning’s recreational activities. Then she sat there for an eternity, letting her eyes dart back and forth between Eli and Haruka. The longer the silence drew out, the closer Haruka got to Eli. Each passing second seemed to make her eyes grow even wider.

Finally, Eli got sick of waiting. “Come on, Berry. You had to know this was going to be a possibility. The odds of me being straight weren’t good.”

Tears welled in Juniper’s eyes.

Oh no. Crying. He wasn’t prepared for crying.

“I’m just so happy for you!” She flung herself off the bed and onto Eli’s lap, nearly crushing him. Eli saw Haruka flinch out of the corner of his eye.

“You’re happy? Really?”

“Of course I am, stupid! I was so afraid you’d be too stressed out to make friends, let alone have a boyfriend. And one who can touch you—who I will kill if he ever bad touches you.” Juniper did the thing where she became terrifying in the blink of an eye and then shifted back to friendly like nothing had happened. “I just can’t stand it.” Then she hugged Eli until he squeaked.

“Breathing . . . I like breathing.”

Juniper thumped him on the head, and Eli was fairly certain Haruka was on the verge of a nervous breakdown from the amount of twitching he was doing.

“You should have told me!”

“I would have when I was ready, but—hold on, didn’t you already know? I thought that’s why you came here.”

Juniper’s face went pale, and she climbed off his lap. “I came because I needed to tell you something important.”

The relieved smile that had been working its way across Eli’s face faltered. His eyes went to Haruka, who knelt beside him and took his hand. It was like a hit of instant serotonin. Whatever his sister needed to say, it couldn’t be that bad.

“What happened?”

Juniper’s eyes darted around the room like she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Then she took a deep breath. “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it. Liam—the guy who kidnapped you. He’s out on parole.”

There was a ringing in his ears, and his sister’s voice became muffled. Eli had to focus to understand his sister.

“. . . at first Mom didn’t want to tell you, but he missed his meeting with his parole officer . . .”

There was another moment where things got a bit staticky, but he tuned back in to hear his sister say, “. . . you hear me, Eli? His house was empty. The police said it looks like he never stayed there after his first night back. They found a recent picture of you . . .”

And that was the last thing Eli heard before the static took him.