Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The flight from nowhere Alaska to nowhere Wyoming is a long one and it gives Enji plenty of time to replay the decisions in his life that have led to him sitting in the back, cramped, economy row seat of a shitty airline the day before his nineteenth birthday. 

He lets his gaze drift out the window to the dense blanket of clouds thick in the sky beyond and curls his shoulders in around himself to avoid the flight attendant from slamming the beverage cart into the back of his shoulder for the fourth time in as many hours. Chewing on the inside of his cheek as his insides smoulder and smoke with a low burning anger that borders on rage. His hands are gripped into fists on his lap and he forces them to loosen. Consciously unclenching his jaw while he’s at it, feeling his blood pressure spiking and knowing he cannot afford to lose his temper on this tiny plane. Not with so much on the line. 

He can still hear his lawyer’s voice in his ear. Nighteye, the overworked and underpaid public defender who had handled all of Enji’s cases since he’d first entered the system at the tender age of thirteen. 

“Enji,” Nighteye says, giving him an exhausted look across the table. They’re in a cramped meeting room at the juvenile detention center, just the two of them. Nighteye said he had good news, but what he’d just explained to Enji sounded anything but. 

“This is stupid,” Enji mutters, his arms folded across his chest. Feeling hopeless and infuriatingly small, but it is stupid. Nighteye just told him if he does some ridiculous diversion program based in the lower 48 he’ll be sentenced for his latest transgression as a juvenile, even though he was technically eighteen when he committed the crime. 

Nighteye fixes him with a look that Enji knows well after years spent working with him. Years spent disappointing him, really. “What’s stupid is committing an arson, on camera, that causes hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage when you’re eighteen years old,” Nighteye corrects. “But you’ve already done that.” 

Enji knows Nighteye is right, he just hasn’t let himself come around to that conclusion yet. What he did was stupid. As Nighteye has reminded him a hundred times, he’s very lucky no one was killed, or Enji’s prospects would look a lot more grim. 

Nighteye lets out a breath that sounds like a sigh and he pushes a sheet of paper across the table towards him. “Enji,” he says, and Enji looks away from the thread of aching sincerity he hears in his voice. “I know that you’ve...not had an easy time. I know that life has not been kind to you. But you’ve reached the age where the system no longer cares. Do you understand?”

Enji grits his teeth but nods, his eyes fixed on the corner of the room where the tile on the floor has started to chip and come up. 

Nighteye pushes the paper until it catches Enji’s eye and then draws his hand back. Waiting until Enji caves and turns his gaze to look it over before continuing. “I know this isn’t your ideal way of spending a summer. But if you complete this program, the judge has agreed to sentence you as a juvenile. And you won’t be on the hook to reimburse the company whose building you burned down. That resolution is worth three miserable months in Wyoming.”

A stiff breath escapes through his teeth. He nods, after a moment. If he does this, he can start over as an adult. He can try to get his shit together and turn his life in a different direction. If he doesn’t...he’ll be spending the first few years of his adult life in prison. It’s a no-brainer, as much as the program outlined on the flyer makes Enji want to peel his own skin off. 

“Okay,” he says, finally, and he swears Nighteye looks relieved across the table. 

“Okay,” Nighteye says, nodding. 

And that was that. 

He unfolds the brochure in his hands for lack of anything better to do. Smoothing the crinkled paper out over his thigh to read it for the thousandth time. Printed across the front leaf of the brochure in an old timey script is the name “One For All Ranch - Come Experience The Wonder of the West.” It makes it sound like a tacky dude ranch where tourists bored with their city lives pay too much money to go pretend to be ranch hands for a month, and Enji supposes, as he lets his eyes drift over the photographs of sunsets over plains and smiling faces, that’s basically what it is. If you substitute 13 year old delinquent children for the overspending tourists. 

It describes itself as an “experience” instead of the forced labor camp Enji figures it probably actually is, and the pictures scattered throughout are of children significantly younger than Enji riding horses, standing on old fashioned fence lines, and wearing ridiculous cowboy hats. It’s supposed to be some program to help troubled youths get their lives back on the right track by sleeping under the stars or breathing the country air or some shit, from the sound of the program goals listed in bullet points on the back of the brochure.

Enji’s gut sours, and not for the first time he considers whether years in adult prison is a sensible alternative to this hell. He can picture the kumbaya circle around the campfire, passing around the feelings stick while teenagers cry about how their father never says he loves them.

Three months. He can survive anything for three months. He can shut his mouth and keep his head down and not start shit for three months. Probably. 

Enji crumples the brochure shut again, just in time for the flight attendant to ram the beverage cart into the back of his shoulder. She apologizes, again, and Enji grits his teeth so hard they ache and forces his shoulders in again. 

Three months. If his life has taught him anything, it’s that he can survive anything for three months. He can do this. 

He...has to do this. He has to. 

The flight touches down in Wyoming as the sun is reaching its peak in the sky and Enji is about to crawl out of his skin when the wheels finally bounce to the tarmac and the plane begins to taxi to the gate. He’s never flown before in his life and he hadn’t expected the whole process to be so...unbearably boring. 

He follows the crowd as everyone deplanes, ducking down as he stands in the aisle to keep his head from bashing into the ceiling, feeling like his entire body has been shoved in a space three sizes too small for the last eight hours and eager to be free of it. 

It feels like heaven on earth to stretch to his full height when he makes it inside the airport, rolling his shoulders back and cracking his neck as he slips his backpack that holds everything he owns over one shoulder. 

He scans the area for signs, a little disoriented but being swept along with the crowd as they mill forward, pulling a folded up piece of paper from his back pocket and unfolding it to read it again. Instructions on how to get picked up, printed by Nighteye and handed to him at their last meeting as Nighteye gave him a look that was all but imploring Enji to not fuck this up.

The crowd begins to move in the direction of a large sign overhead that reads ARRIVALS and Enji reads the sheet one more time to make sure that’s right. Before long he steps through sliding glass doors and out into the summer heat, blinking against the glare of the sun as he steps to the side to get under a pavilion. Gripping at the strap of his backpack and shifting on his feet. Able to see over the heads of most everyone there but feeling his heart kick a little in his chest. He’s never even left his own little town in Alaska and now…

He’s supposed to wait here, though he’s not sure exactly for what. Someone is supposed to approach him, or he is supposed to approach someone, maybe? He moves again with the crowd, eyes landing on every person standing there holding a sign with a family name on it and the cars driving past beyond, not seeing anything that catches his eyes. 

He stands there miserably for what feels like hours, feeling sweat start to prickle under his arms and soak into the henley he’d worn for the trip. He’s a moment from turning on his foot and heading back inside to try to find a payphone, to try to call Nighteye, or someone, to make sure he won’t get dinged for ditching the program when he apparently got abandoned at the airport. 

Just as he’s about to go, motion catches his eye, and he watches as an old pick up truck rumbles up to the drive, driving a little fast for the space, making heads turn as it lurches to a stop against the curb. It’s an older model but well maintained and stuck to the side of the passenger door is a worn decal that reads ONE FOR ALL RANCH and Enji feels some of the tension winding tight behind his ribs begin to unspool.

Anger takes the place of his anxiety just as easily, frustrating brewing in his belly the moment he realizes he hasn’t been neglected at the airport, but that the person picking him up simply didn’t care to be on time. But he sucks in a tight breath and then forces it out and puts one foot in front of the other to make his way through the crowd to the truck. 

He’s coming upon it when the driver’s side door swings open and he watches a man unfold himself from within. His steps stutter and he actually stops, his brows lifting on his face at the sight of one of the biggest men Enji’s ever seen stepping from the truck and making his way around the back of it after shutting the door after him. 

He must be from the ranch, he must be there for Enji, but Enji can’t quite make sense of what he’s seeing, and he stays frozen to his spot a few feet from the truck. 

The flight had been long and it had given Enji plenty of time to make assumptions about who would be conducting his “experience” at One For All. He’d assumed it would be an old, stuffy social worker at worst or maybe an old, retired ranch hand at best, who’d had enough of the back-breaking life and had settled for babysitting delinquent kids in his twilight years. 

He hadn’t expected a man over a head taller than Enji and broader, too. Dressed in faded jeans and a t-shirt that stretches tight over his shoulders and chest, feet clad in dusty, worn boots. His hair is blond, long bangs tucked behind his ears, and the expression on his face as he comes around the back of the truck is open and expectant. Excited, almost, as Enji stares at him with what is probably a moronic look on his face. The guy can’t be more than five years older than Enji. He has a clipboard in his hand that looks comically small there, and he’s squinting down at the paper on it as he comes around to the passenger side. 

Maybe he’s just the driver, Enji thinks, and he forces himself forward again. 

The man’s eyes land on Enji and Enji feels his insides curdle miserably at the flash of apparent, sincere joy on his face. 

“Hey!” the man calls in greeting, too loud for the space between them, and Enji contemplates turning back. Lying and saying no one came for him at the airport after all. “Are you here for One For All Ranch?”

He clenches his teeth and forces an exhale. He nods, palming at the strap of his backpack and feeling uneasy. Unbalanced, from the presence of this man. Who he has to look up at. 

The man, perhaps unsurprisingly, seems delighted by this news and flips the paper on his clipboard over. “Let’s see,” he says, squinting down at the paper again before cutting a look back to Enji. “Do you have a child with you, or - ” 

It takes Enji a beat to understand his meaning. His confusion as he alternates between lifting the clipboard up to his face to read it and looking at Enji like he’s puzzled. 

“I’m the…” Enji says, the back of his neck heating miserably. “....I’m here for the Ranch.” 

The man’s brow draws, and then he brings the clipboard up to his face. 

“Oh,” he says, after a moment. Looking again to Enji. “Shit - I, uh, mean, you’re - Enji Todoroki?” 

Enji nods and uses every ounce of will power he has to not turn and walk away. Anywhere, really. Anywhere other than where he is being reminded that he is well, well over the age of the average camper at One For All Ranch. 

The man at least has the decency to look a little embarrassed. He rubs the back of his head and Enji’s eyes fall to the ring of sweat in his shirt under his arms since it’s more pleasant than looking at the man’s beaming face. 

“My apologies, Mr. Todoroki,” the man says, shaking his head. “My name is Toshinori, I’m here to take you to the Ranch! Do you have any bags?” 

Enji shifts his backpack on his back and feels that his shirt has dampened beneath it with sweat in the growing heat. “I’m fine,” he says, and Toshinori nods like that’s just as well. 

“Let’s go then,” Toshinori says, sounding far too chipper for being apparently an overenthusiastic chauffeur for teenagers with bad attitudes. He motions towards the passenger side door to Enji and then makes his way back around the truck. 

Enji has one last moment where he looks back over his shoulder and wonders, just for a second, how far he could walk before someone caught up to him, before he chews on the inside of his cheek and reaches for the passenger door handle. 

The interior of the truck is spacious, surprisingly so, and Enji finds he doesn’t feel as cramped as he expected as he pulls his backpack onto his lap and closes the door behind him. It’s cool inside, the leather seats refreshing against Enji’s back and thighs as he settles back against the bench seat. 

Toshinori has to fold himself into the driver’s seat, one leg at a time and ducking his head low to fit inside, but once in, he fits alright. As well as he could in any non-commercial vehicle, Enji thinks, giving him the briefest of glances before returning his eyes resolutely forward. 

“Seatbelt, Mr. Todoroki,” Toshinori says cheerfully as he looks to his mirror to pull away from the curb. 

Enji exhales through his teeth and, after a moment, draws the belt across his lap. Ignoring the approving bob of Toshinori’s head when it secures with an audible click. 

The radio is the only sound besides the hum of the highway beneath the truck’s tires for quite some time, and Enji finds himself grateful for it. Toshinori guides the truck through the traffic of the airport with apparent ease, tossing a hand up in a sort of wave at a man in a booth that they drive past as they finally depart the airport grounds, and Enji forces his body to relax back against the seat. 

They drive through an approximation of a city and suburbs, past towering billboards promising the best skiing in the continental United States and disturbingly cheap buffet dinners. It doesn’t look dissimilar from the cities in Alaska and Enji chides himself a little for somehow expecting that he would fly into a town plucked straight from the old west, complete with covered wagons and saloons. 

They pull off on an exit and head away from the city, and Toshinori seems to relax a little then. Shifting against the driver’s seat and letting his hand slip to the bottom of the steering wheel before throwing Enji a glance that he does not return. 

“Mr. Todoroki,” he says, and Enji finds himself shaking his head before he even thinks about it. He does not need to be reminded of his father.

“Enji,” he says, trying not to mutter, trying to control the absolute petulance in his voice, and he sees Toshinori nod agreeably in his peripheral. 

“Enji,” Toshinori says, voice softening in what feels like a touch of apology. “I’m sorry about earlier. I should have read your paperwork more closely.” 

Enji looks out the passenger window, his eye catching on the rotting carcass of a deer sprawled where the asphalt meets grass. “It’s fine.” 

Toshinori surprises him then by falling back into silence. Enji expected him to be the type to run his mouth, and being wrong about that irritates Enji. Strangely, and irrationally. Makes something stubborn and pissy flare up in his belly. Makes him want to prove himself right, to get the guy talking. 

“I thought there would be more,” he says, eyes still trained out his window. “Kids, I mean.” 

He hears Toshinori smile and barely stops himself from rolling his eyes. “We usually do have more,” he agrees, looking to Enji across the space of the cab again. “Though we don’t just host kids.” 

It’s an attempt to placate him and it only serves to irritate him further. “Well,” he mutters. “Are we picking up more on the way?” Nighteye had mentioned groups of twenty or thirty when he’d first pitched the idea to Enji. 

Toshinori lets out a sound that sounds a little exasperated. A little tired, maybe, and he laughs softly. “Uh,” he says, around a smile that doesn’t seem to ever leave his face. “No, it’s just you this summer.” 

That makes Enji nearly slip off the bench seat. He turns to Toshinori, his mouth falling open. 

“What?”

Toshinori laughs but it sounds exhausted. He waves his hand in a ‘you know’ kind of way. “Uh, yeah, we had a full roster until two days ago. But, uh, there was some funding issue with the state legislature in Colorado, which is where most of our campers come from, so we’re...scrambling a little. It’s just going to be you, it looks like.” 

Enji wonders if he’d die if he threw himself from the truck going this speed. He looks to the door handle and contemplates it. 

“It’s why I wasn’t as prepared for you as I usually am,” Toshinori says, like a confession. “Though I can’t lie, I’m a little relieved.” 

Enji grunts in what must sound like a question because he continues. 

“The prospect of having a single camper for the entire summer was a lot more daunting when I hadn’t read your date of birth closely. How old are you?” 

Enji has half a mind to tell him to just do the damn math since he did read his date of birth, but he’s….trying. He’s trying to try. “Nineteen,” he says. Well, tomorrow he’ll be nineteen. 

Toshinori lets out what sounds like another breathless little laugh. “God, you’re big, even for nineteen.” 

“Says you,” Enji can’t help but mutter, and that makes Toshinori laugh properly then, his head tipping back against the seat behind him. 

“That’s fair,” Toshinori concedes when his laughter dies out. “I meant it before when I said we have campers of a range of ages. You’re not our oldest by a long shot. And, well…” He scrubs his hand over his chin, looking over his shoulder at Enji. “I’m a little relieved because I think having you around will be a lot easier than trying to keep a younger camper busy all by themselves.” 

Enji huffs. His eyes stay trained out the window, his heart kicking hard against his ribs. This experience continues to surprise, in a consistently unsettling way. 

“I’ve been told I’m very unpleasant to deal with,” Enji says flatly, and he guesses he shouldn’t be surprised when it makes Toshinori bark again with laughter. 

“We’ll see, Enji,” Toshinori says, grinning over at him and appearing not deterred in the slightest when Enji doesn’t even meet his gaze. “We’ll see.” 

They drive for over three hours and Enji finds himself nodding off. His head bumping softly against the glass of the passenger window where his elbow is propped up, the weight of the journey and the day settling into his bones over the soft warble of the radio and the easy silence that falls between him and Toshinori as the road winds up and on and over the plains. 

He startles a little too hard when the engine kills and the truck comes to a soft, lurching stop, a soft, ragged gasp ripping past his lips before he can stop it. Jerking upright in his seat and gripping his backpack to his chest as his sleep-addled mind tries to remember where he is. 

When he can finally see straight, he looks over and sees Toshinori, who offers him an easy smile. “We’re here,” he says, inclining his head out the windshield, and Enji allows himself to look. 

The truck is parked in the shadow of a colossal barn, built of weathered wood and covered in chipping red paint. Beyond, Enji can see mountains in the distance and closer, lines and lines and lines of split rail fencing through lush green pastures. A large house is off to the left at some distance, and to the right is a fenced in paddock of deep sand footing. 

Toshinori folds himself out of the truck and Enji follows, the passenger side door creaking as he pushes it open and steps out, blinking against the sun as he closes it behind him. Still a little unsure of his footing as he remembers, slowly, where he is. What he’s doing here. That he’s not in Alaska anymore. 

Toshinori scratches at the back of his head and Enji’s eye goes again to the rings of faint sweat under his arms again before he forces his gaze to the dusty ground. It’s hot out, still. Hotter than at the airport even, and he barely resists the urge to push the sleeves of his henly up his arms. 

“So, uh, this is it,” Toshinori says, holding out an arm in some sort of displaying gesture. “Welcome to One For All Ranch.” 

Enji expected bigger. More commercial maybe. This place looks like something out of a postcard. 

Toshinori takes a step and reaches towards him, like he means to take Enji’s bag, but drops his hand when Enji’s eye’s track the movement and his hands grip it tighter. He smiles at Enji, as easy as ever. 

“Follow me, Enji. We’ll get you set up in your room and you can settle in before supper.” 

Then Toshinori turns and steps away from the truck, and Enji has no choice but to follow. 

If Enji thought he would be getting some commodified version of the farm experience, that thought is quickly dispelled as the odor of the place settles around him as he follows Toshinori across the flat expanse of the yard. The breeze carries on it the tickle of dust and the earthen smell of animals and manure, so strongly that Enji finds his nose wrinkling in spite of himself. He doesn’t see any animals in the immediate area, save for a small scattering of chickens scratching at the ground near the corner of the barn, and not for the first time, Enji wonders what he’s gotten himself into. 

He follows Toshinori as they walk around the house there, the sun beating down on his head and making his throat dry. The house is simple in it’s farmhouse design, two levels with a porch wrapped around the front and a screen door situated there at the center of it. Toshinori leads him beyond, though, and once they round the corner of the house, Enji sees to where. 

A longer, narrow building is there, beyond the house. Simple yet rustic looking, with rows of windows on each of it’s two floors, and Enji supposes at once it’s the dorms where he’ll be staying. 

He follows Toshinori through the front door located at the end of the building and doesn’t allow himself to be surprised at the oppressive heat that lingers within, even with all the lights off. Toshinori flips switches near the door and a hallway is illuminated, lights set along the wall gleaming off the hardwood floor. 

Toshinori turns to him then and shrugs on a soft little laugh. “This is when I’d usually be giving everyone a tour, but...it’s just you. Pick any room you want. They’re all the same. The rooms on the ground floor stay a little cooler but the rooms on the second floor catch a better breeze.” 

Enji shoulders his backpack and lets himself look at Toshinori, maybe for the first time since they met earlier in the day. Toshinori returns his gaze, smiling easily, if a little gently. 

“I’ll come get you for supper,” he says, and then he turns and leaves Enji there in the dorm building. The door clicks shut behind him, echoing off the hardwood floors, and Enji doesn’t let himself wallow. 

He goes to the first room on the right and opens the door, figuring this room will be as good as any. It’s simply appointed but clean, twin sized bunk bed made of untreated pine pressed along the far wall and a desk made of the same perpendicular to it, against the wall beneath a large window that overlooks fields of grass that are swaying in the wind. 

Enji sets his bag down on the ground and goes to the window, allowing himself a moment of relief when the thing budges under his hand and he’s able to push it all the way open, allowing a tiny wisp of a breeze to trickle into the stifling heat of the room. 

Enji turns slowly in the room, his eyes raking over the plain fixtures, and finds the room is not unlike those he’s stayed in at various detention centers in his time. The bedding feels softer, he thinks, when he sinks down onto the bottom bunk. That’s something. 

He can survive anything for three months. Three months is nothing, in the scope of the rest of his entire life. He can survive this. He will.

For lack of anything better at all to do, Enji sits there on the bunk bed. Listening to the sound of cicadas drone in through the screen covered window and feeling the light breeze catch and cool on the sweat at his temple. 

When Toshinori appears in his doorway a few hours later, Enji’s a little mortified to find that he’s dozed off. Tipped over on the bed, his feet still resting on the floor. 

He pushes himself upright at once, palming at his face and getting to his feet. Brought around to consciousness by the feel of Toshinori entering the room more than any sound he made, but Toshinori smiles warmly at Enji. Looking a little empathetic, and it makes Enji want to push his face away, something like low burning irritation sparking in his belly. 

“Supper time,” Toshinori supplies and Enji grunts. Following Toshinori as he turns and goes, out of Enji’s room and then out the dorm building door and into the open air. 

It feels better out here, Enji thinks. The air is fresher, the breeze a little stronger. The sky overhead is impossibly wide, a soft powdered blue stretching as far as the eye can see, and Enji finds as he follows Toshinori, that he can breathe a little easier out here. 

“You didn’t change,” Toshinori says over his shoulder, his eyes flicking down Enji’s form before returning forward, and that makes Enji’s irritation spark a little too. He doesn’t have anything else, really. Just brought a few pairs of pants and a few long sleeve tees. He hadn’t thought to pack anything different for this climate, and it’s not like he had the money to go shopping even if he had. 

Enji isn’t sure where dinner is held, part of him assuming it would be set up on a long row of picturesque picnic tables in a grassy field somewhere, so he’s a bit surprised when Toshinori leads him up the porch of the farmhouse and through the front door without any fanfare. 

It’s a little cooler inside, the lights off and the rooms lit by the golden light of the setting sun filtering in through the windows. Enji hears a distant hum which could be a window air conditioning unit and his skin prickles with grateful goosebumps at even the tepid drop in the temperature.

Toshinori leads him through a mudroom, where a mess of boots, muddied and flaking, are piled haphazardly. Toshinori kicks off his boots and Enji reflexively follows suit, toeing off his boots and nudging them towards the wall. Toshinoti disappears through the doorway there and then leads him through a living room where mismatched couches rest on worn rugs on the hardwood floor. The windows are covered with simple curtains of white linen, and the whole place gives an aura of being a little dated, but clean and tidy. Like the house has been home to many generations of people and been cared for with a loving touch. 

Enji stops at the doorway to a brightly lit room, the kitchen, it seems, where Toshinori enters and moves to the stove. Lifting a lid on a large pot there, stirring the contents with a wooden spoon. His eyes lift to Enji, stood near the door, and beckons him inside with the spoon. 

“Come on in,” he says, inclining his head to the area behind him. “Have a seat, it’ll be ready in a minute or two.” 

Enji can’t...really make sense of what is going on. His brain is moving slowly, still fighting off the last vapors of sleep, and he can’t understand why he’s standing in the kitchen of a kitschy home, watching a mountain of a man fuss over what appears to be a large pot of soup. He expected meals to be dodging flung food from teenagers while counsellors tried desperately to keep the group under control. Not...this. 

He forces his legs to work, passing Toshinori and hearing his feet sink softly into the linoleum beneath his feet that’s printed to look like tile, worn and faded beneath his socks. He takes a seat on the far side of the little table there in the center of the kitchen, his shoulders curving in on himself as the chair groans beneath his weight. 

It’s...weird. This feels weird.

Toshinori seems unaware of his uncertainty, bobbing his head from side to side as he stirs the contents inside the pot again, then ducking low to look into the stove below, cracking the door to peek inside and letting the door shut when he stands again. 

He looks over his shoulder to Enji. “You don’t have any food sensitivities, do you?” he asks. His brow furrows a little. “I don’t remember you having any…” 

Enji shakes his head, though his traitorous stomach grumbles at the smell that’s wafting from the pot on the stove. He hasn’t eaten since breakfast. 

Enji sits at the table, feeling out of place and strange, as Toshinori busies himself around the kitchen. Mismatched plates are set on the table, and thin silverware Enji thinks might be older than he is. Glasses that are filled with tap water come next, and then Toshinori is setting pot holders in the center of the table and placing steaming pots and pans on them. 

When he finally sits across the little table from Enji, Toshinori lets out a sigh that sounds tired. But he quirks a smile at Enji and nods to the food between them. 

“Help yourself,” he says, and Enji stares at him, stupidly, for a moment, before he shifts up in his seat and starts lifting lids to look inside. 

He keeps an eye on Toshinori while he dishes up, his mind still churning as he tries to make sense of what is going on. He’d assumed Toshinori was the driver for the ranch, but he’s also...the cook? Enji realizes he hasn’t seen another soul on the property since he arrived hours earlier and the need for clarification settles somewhere in the pit of his stomach. Feeling unmoored by the constant surprises of the day, wanting some clarity. 

When his plate is full of steaming food, hearty beef stew that makes his stomach growl hungrily, steamed greens, and a hearty serving of white rice, he picks up a fork and watches Toshinori begin to dish up onto his own plate. 

“You cook here, too?” he asks, stabbing a sliced carrot and chunk of beef with his fork. Pushing it around his plate before putting it in his mouth. His mouth flushes with saliva as he chews. It’s good. 

Toshinori’s brows lift and he huffs a soft little laugh. Enji wonders if he’s able to have a conversation without doing so. “We usually have more people on staff,” he says. “A cook and someone to help out with the actual running of the ranch, plus someone else to help manage the campers themselves. It’s usually a full house in here.” Something that reads a little wistful drifts across his face before he takes a bite of his food. “But when we found out we were losing all of our campers for the summer, I had to release them.” 

Enji grunts softly, taking another bite. Forcing himself to not shovel the food into his mouth like he wants to. He can’t remember the last time he’s eaten a home cooked meal. Or a meal this big. 

“I’ll miss them,” Toshinori says, his mouth turning on a smile. Shrugging lightly as he chases rice around his plate with his fork. “But we don’t have the work to support them this summer or the funds to pay them, so. You’re stuck with me.”

Enji chews. Swallows. Glances over the table at Toshinori. “You keep saying ‘we’.” 

Toshinori huffs another small laugh and bobs his head from side to side. “I do, don’t I? Old habits, I suppose.” 

Silence descends between them, the distant hum of the air conditioner filling Enji’s ears as he eats, and he tries to realign his expectations for the next three months of his life. No screaming kids, no sharing a bunk beds or singing songs around a bonfire at night. He thinks, anyway. Toshinori might just make him do that shit anyway.

Toshinori’s mind must be on a similar track, because he lets out a soft breath and speaks again. “I’m a little out of my depth, to be honest,” he says, his mouth quirking up again in what seems like a habitual smile. “I’ve never run the camp on my own before. And I’ve never only had one camper. I’m going to do my best, but the experience might be a little strange for you, compared to what you were expecting.” 

Enji shrugs, his eyes dropping down to his plate. “I don’t care,” he says, when it seems like Toshinori is waiting for a response. 

Toshinori nods agreeably, taking a sip of water. “I know you’re not here by choice, Enji,” he says. “I know this isn’t the summer you’d choose. But I’m going to do my best to make it worth your while.” 

Enji shrugs again. Not much to say, really. Toshinori’s not wrong. 

“There is a curriculum I usually follow,” Toshinori continues. His voice trails a little, like he’s thinking. “I’m not...attached to following it with you. I have to structure our time towards reaching certain outcome objectives, but I think...with your age, I think I don’t need to follow the usual schedule.” 

Enji scrapes his fork over his plate, scooping the last bits into his mouth. He shrugs again. “Not up to me,” he says, and Toshinori nods again. Enji wonders if this is how all of their communications will go for the next three months - Enji communicating in grunts and shrugs and Toshinori nodding like those are perfectly valid responses.

“Sure,” Toshinori says. “We’ll get more into it tomorrow, after you’ve had a night to rest and settle in. I know you’ve had a long day.” 

Enji casts a look to Toshinori then. Across the table, his brow drawing a little. He searches the man’s face for something, for any sign of forced platitudes or placating, but finds none. The warmth that emanates from every word spoken by him seeming sincere in a way that makes Enji feel off-centered. Suspicious, almost, as he watches Toshinori eat. 

Toshinori catches him looking and tosses him a warm smile. 

“Have seconds,” Toshinori says, and Enji doesn’t have to be told that twice.

Enji barely sleeps that night. His accidental nap in the late afternoon fucks with his circadian rhythm and he spends most of the night laying on top of the covers, staring at the underside of the bunk bed overhead. Sweating and listening to the sound of crickets tricking in through the open window on the heavy night air. 

His mind turns over the events of the last day and tries to sort them. Rearrange them into something that makes sense. 

His life has never followed a consistent or predictable path, so he always considered himself pretty adept at adapting to the ground being pulled out beneath him on the fly. Still, he finds himself unsettled deep in his bones at the mismatch between his expectations and the apparent reality of his situation. 

On the plus side, the majority of his existential dread at the idea of this place was based in the presumption that he would be living alongside thirty 14 year olds for three months. He had expected rowdy screaming at night and getting caught up in stupid pranks and to be nursing a low-grade migrane for the entirety of the summer. Enji was 14 years old once. He recalls being insufferable, and expected no different from the pack of kids he was supposed to assimilate to. 

On the downside, a large group of trouble-causing kids would have given Enji the perfect cover to blend in. To shuffle towards the back of the group and keep his mouth shut and his temper in check and to just exist in this place for the summer until he had fulfilled his end of the bargain. 

Now, it’s just him. Him and Toshinori and whatever animals are lurking around the corners of this place. Nowhere to hide from the apparent ceaseless optimism that hangs around the man like a halo. 

As the moon rises in the sky, Enji lays and his mind whirls. Sleep does not come for him and as the night passes in slow, steaming shades, Enji feels himself go numb to the feeling of it.

The sun rises and finds Enji awake. Blinking miserably up at the bottom of the bed overhead, the sweat from the heat overnight cooling on his skin and making him itchy and irritated. 

He’s not exactly sure when he’s expected up but doesn’t want to risk an overly enthusiastic waking from Toshinori, so when the first sunlight of the day cuts through his window, he pushes himself upright in bed. Scrubbing his palms over his face and letting out a tight sigh. 

He forces himself to his feet, exhaustion flaring immediately as his head spins a little. He grits his teeth through it and pulls his shirt over his head. Tossing the stinky long-sleeve to the ground and rifling through his bag for something cleaner. He ends up with a worn long-sleeve tee and jeans and shoves his feet into his boots with his toothbrush in his mouth. 

It takes a minute or two of wandering the first floor of the dormitory before he finds a bathroom. Several showers and sink settings lined in faded white tile, and Enji posts up in front of a mirror and mechanically brushes his teeth. Spitting the excess toothpaste down the drain and letting his eyes linger on his reflection. 

He looks...strung out. 

The thought of it almost makes him laugh. Of all the vices Enji picked up in his teen years, and there were many, hard drugs were the ones he somehow managed to avoid. Doesn’t stop him from looking like roadkill in the mirror now, though, and he scrubs his hand over his face before ducking low to draw a pull of cool water from the faucet in a deep drink. 

He moves silently through the darkened building, tossing his toiletries onto his bed and not caring to see where they land. Hiding a yawn behind his hand and making his way towards the front door. Pushing it open with his shoulder and stepping out into the open air, where the sun is starting to light the sky in oranges and pinks and purples. 

It’s cooler out here, a breeze drifting past him, and Enji forces himself to draw in a deep breath. To try to gather some of his strength to prepare for whatever the day will bring, and he does so not a moment too soon when he sees the screen door of the farmhouse swing open and Toshinori appear in the early morning sun. 

His eyes go to Enji at once and his face lights at the sight of him. That ever-present smile stretching across his face, his long golden bangs tucked behind his ears. He’s dressed in another worn tee shirt, tight around his shoulders but loose around his waist, faded jeans and dusty boots. He’s just...huge. Stupid huge. 

“Good morning!” he calls and Enji lifts a weary hand in greeting as he approaches, his feet scuffing on the dusty ground. 

Toshinori meets him halfway, light on his feet. Like he’s accustomed to waking at whatever ungodly hour it is, like he’s been awake for a while. “I’m surprised you’re up this early,” Toshinori says, cocking his head a little to the side as he comes to stand next to Enji. “There’s breakfast inside, you should go help yourself before we get to work.” 

Enji nods a little and shuffles past him towards the house, and he thinks he hears Toshinori chuckle behind him. He’s too exhausted to care, trudging up the steps of the farmhouse porch with heavy feet and letting himself inside. Wandering through the mudroom and kicking off his shoes before making his way to the kitchen. Drawn there by the salty, savory smell on the air. 

There’s a plate full of scrambled eggs and four strips of bacon, plus two slices of toast. All steaming and warm still, butter still gleaming where it was smeared across the bread. There’s a plate sitting in the sink, crumbs still caked around the edges, and Enji figures Toshinori must have eaten already.

He stands there by the counter and eats with his hands. Blinking heavy eyelids and trying to will energy into his body. Unsure what Toshinori means for them to do but getting the impression it won’t be sitting around doing nothing. The food is good and his stomach grumbles greedily as he forces himself to chew and swallow, letting his eyes drift out the window over the sink to where the morning sun is painting the sky in watercolors. 

The coffee maker to his left gurgles and bubbles, the smell of roasting coffee thick on the air and Enji breathes out as he shoves the rest of the food down his throat. The clock over the stove says it’s just after 5 AM. 

Christ. 

Enji shoves the last piece of toast between his teeth and makes his way back through the house. Waking slowly but surely, finding his boots easier to get on his feet before he makes his way back outside. 

He stands on the porch for a minute, tired eyes scanning the barnyard for Toshinori when he sees him appear from around the corner of the barn. When Enji comes down the porch steps, Toshinori trots to meet him, grinning. He’s got a huge, faded travel mug in his hand, steam coming from the lid and smelling of fresh coffee. 

“You ready?” Toshinori asks, pushing his hair back from his face. “Breakfast for everyone is first. You can just follow along today - I’ll show you how we do things.” 

Again with the “we”. Enji stops himself from pointing out that it’s just the two of them and falls into step behind Toshinori. Following him as he goes to the barn and steps through a door on the side, ducking to slip through it. 

Enji follows Toshinori silently through the barn, his feet soft on the straw underfoot, and realizes very quickly that his silence will not deter Toshinori, who seems content to fill the silence with mild chatter. Pointing to things in the barn as they walk through, explaining their use, though Enji immediately forgets basically everything that’s said. The smell inside is rich and a little moist but not unpleasant, of animals and vegetation and a little dust. 

Toshinori slips promptly into what must be his routine, exiting out the far side of the barn, and Enji just follows silently behind him. First up are the chickens, Toshinori opening a wooden door on a lean-to attachment to the barn and stepping back when a few dozen birds come rushing out. Enji nearly flinches at it, as the birds weave through his legs, clucking and cooing as they spread across the space, pecking at the ground and ruffling their wings in the fresh air. 

Enji watches as Toshinori goes into a little room attached to the coop and comes out with two coffee cans full of dusty grains - split corn and what looks like wheat pellets - and the chickens come rushing back to him when he empties each can with a flick of his wrist, the grains scattering across the grass there. 

Toshinori takes a deep pull from his coffee mug, grinning behind the plastic lip of it when Enji tries to step carefully around the chickens who seem wholly unconcerned with his presence. 

It turns out that there are a lot of animals to feed, though the process is similar for most of them. There are goats in a little round paddock of wooden rail just beyond the barn and Enji follows Toshinori’s instructions and helps fill low rubber pails with grain and toss flakes of scratchy hay over the fence. The pigs and horses get a similar treatment, though their pens are much larger and lush with grass. They are fed grains and hay, both the horses and pigs lining up along the fence line to wait for their breakfast, and Toshinori greets every single one by name, his voice cheerful and warm as he moves down the fence line. 

By the time they’re done, Enji can feel sweat starting to prickle under his arms as the sun begins to heat as it rises in the sky. 

“Good work,” Toshinori tells him while they walk side by side to one of the outbuildings west of the barn, and Enji searches for any hint of condescension in his tone, since Enji did truly very little, but all he can hear is sincerity there. “We’re gonna toss hay next before it gets too hot.” 

Toshinori goes to the front of the outbuilding, sides and roof made of rusted tin, and tugs back the front door with a strong jerk of his arms. Inside is a tractor, old-looking with two giant wheels beneath the driver’s seat, and Toshiniro looks over his shoulder at Enji. 

“Do you want to drive or do you want to toss?” he asks, and Enji blinks at him a little. He doesn’t know how to do either of those things. Doesn’t even know what they’re about to do. 

Enji gives him a look like maybe he’s a little stupid, because maybe he is. “I don’t know how to drive a tractor, Toshinori.” 

That makes a smile split across Toshinori’s face, and yeah, he might be a little stupid, Enji decides. “Call me Toshi,” he says, and Enji realizes belatedly it’s the first time he’s ever said his name aloud. “I suppose you don’t. Not yet, anyway. You can toss today - hop in the trailer!” 

Enji is too busy being stuck on the words “not yet” to even think about whatever it is they’re about to do, as Toshinori swings himself up into the driver’s seat of the tractor and brings the engine rumbling to groaning, dusty life. 

Turns out, “tossing” is the crappier job and Enji allows himself to be a little annoyed by that as Toshinori steers the tractor through the far fields of the ranch. They have to be out several miles from the barn by now, the sun beating down hard overhead, and Enji is breathing heavy as he works to keep his balance on the wobbling flatbed trailer while tossing flakes of hay off of either side of the trailer. 

Cows have materialized, first appearing over the horizon when Toshinori stepped down from the tractor to open the fence gate and approaching quickly once they realized it was food time. There are more than Enji can even try to count, many hundreds, and they mill about after the slow-rolling tractor, peeling off one at a time to settle on a flake as it falls to the ground to lower their heads to graze. 

Enji’s never seen a cow before. Not in real life, anyway, and he’s a little embarrassed at how startled he is the first time one trots up beside the trailer and tries to sneak a bite of hay over the edge of it. The thing is the size of a horse and denser than a bison, it’s fluffy coat colored in big patches of red and white, and Enji thinks if he was on the ground next to it the thing would come up to his damn shoulders. 

Toshinori keeps looking over his shoulder at Enji as he steers the tractor along the fenceline, and Enji doesn’t miss the grin settled firmly there. Unsure if it’s genuine or at his expense as he curses as he nearly slips and coughs from the plumes of dust that rise from the hay bale with every flake he pulls free. 

Enji thinks they’re done when they drive down the long, winding fenceline of the first field, but then Toshi pulls the tractor up to another gate and pulls it through, and Enji has a bewildered moment, looking out over thousands of rolling, grassy acres, to wonder how damn big this place actually is. 

He’s able to settle into something of a routine in the second field, more cows appearing over the ridge and trotting down to meet them. He’s grateful for the gloves Toshinori had insisted he wear, the hay rough and scraping on his bare arms where he’s pushed up the sleeves of his shirt onto his elbows, and he feels sweat beading on his forehead as he bends low to grab a handful of flakes and toss them over the side. 

Toshinori keeps checking on him, looking back over his shoulder and chirping words of likely-encouragement, though Enji can’t hear them over the rumbling of the engine, and Enji barely resists the urge to throw a flake of hay at the back of his head. He’ll learn to drive the damn tractor, thanks very much, and then he can sit on his ass and steer it while Toshinori works up a sweat and gets covered in hay dust.

He ends up pulling his shirt free by the third field, his mouth open on panting breaths from the effort and the heat of the sun overhead, and the drift of the breeze past the thick trunk of his chest feels like heaven, even if bits of straw and hay cling to every single inch of exposed, sweat-slicked skin. 

The work is mindless, once he gets used to it, and he loses count of the number of fields they steer through, Toshinori stepping dutifully down from the tractor at each gate, climbing back up to drive the tractor and trailer through, then climbing down again to shut it. As the hours pass, Enji finds himself going into himself a little. Lulled by the repetitive nature of the work and the rumble of the tractor engine, using a box cutter to slash the twine holding a new bale together, then bending down to grab a flake in each hand, then rising to toss it on either side of the ambling trailer to a herd of eagerly awaiting cows. 

His mind wanders a little. Drifting to the bare floor and walls of his apartment at home, the twin mattress shoved in the corner of the room on the floor there. A single blanket left rumple on top of it, diagonal in the room from the twin mattress his mother would sleep on. Also on the floor, also bare. Only used on nights she would make it home from whatever it is she did during the day, lulling Enji to restless sleep with the sounds of her sleeping off whatever substances she had downed earlier to make it through the waking hours. 

He thinks of Nighteye. Wonders if he’s gotten a new pet project since Enji has aged-out of his tutelage. Wonders if his new client will be easier to deal with than Enji was. Easier to talk to maybe, or more inclined to listen to Nighteye’s repeated, sincere, and honest advice. Something twists in his chest, distant and faint, and Enji can’t quite identify the feeling of it as hay scratches at his arms and sticks to the insides of his elbows. 

He thinks of his situation now. Set to spend the next three months working side by side with a man so close in age to Enji that they could well have graduated in the same high school class. If Enji had actually graduated, that is. A man that defies absolutely all of Enji’s expectations - one with relentless optimism and apparent interest in Enji without seeming overbearing or wanting to pry. It is strangely unmooring for Enji, who has survived this far in life by being able to read people quickly and thoroughly, to spend time with someone so far removed from anyone he has ever known in his life. 

But, Enji thinks, as Toshinori steers the tractor over a slowly cresting hill and Enji sees the barn and the farmhouse appear in the distance, it could be worse. A lot worse, really, and Enji commits himself then to...doing this. Existing in the moment and doing whatever dumb workshoppy shit Toshinori wants him to do over the course of these months. He expected his time at One For All Ranch to be a hellish slog, a situation seemingly designed perfectly to test his patience and his temper, but it seems that will not come to pass. 

Enji tosses the last flakes in the trailer over the sides and starts to scuff the bunches of hay that have fallen to the trailer bed off the end with his feet to the last few cows, and feels something deep in his chest that he can’t quite place. Not hope, not something so optimistic, but maybe something similar. Maybe the feeling of dread slowly dissipating, loosening in his muscles like a tonic.

He can survive this, and it won’t even be that hard, he thinks, as he lets his weary body settle to the trailer bed for the last of the journey back. In the strange course of his life, the prospect of spending three months in the hot sun doing back-breaking labor next to a relative stranger feels like something oddly of a blessing. A reprieve, maybe, and Enji isn’t going to let himself linger on how absolutely pathetic that is. 

He turns his face into the breeze as Toshinori steers them home and lets his eyes close against the feeling of it. Cool and tugging at the sweat covering his bare chest and feeling a little bit like something new.

The rest of the day is spent puttering around the farm, after Toshinori dragged Enji into the shade cast by the barn and pressed a red, plastic jug of water against his chest and told him to drink the entire thing. Insisting on it with a nod when Enji had a few sips and said he was good. They’d eaten sandwiches then that Toshinori produced out of nowhere. Standing side by side in the shade and eating massive bites each, breathing deeply for the rest and the cool breeze. 

Enji follows Toshinori around like a puppy for lack of any other direction and watches him to try to pick up what he can. They scrub water tanks with coarse bristle brushes, lifting slimy layers of algae and grime, and use pitchforks to fill wheelbarrows with droppings in the horse and pig paddocks. Through it all, Toshinori keeps easy conversation between them even when Enji responds in grunts or shrugs. 

It seems easy for Toshinori to talk to him. Enji finds that a little strange at first, given every interpersonal experience he’s ever had in his life, but supposes Toshinori’s entire job is drawing damaged teenagers out of their shells. Enji learns about all of the animals as they work, Toshinori pointing to each in kind and telling Enji their name and their habits. Enji learns which goats not to trust when he opens the gate to their pen and which of the pigs enjoy a good scratch behind the ears. He’s introduced to the absurdly large horses that are snoozing the afternoon away in the shade of a lean-to, Belgian Draft crosses, whatever that means, who Toshinori tells him he can learn to ride if he wants to. 

The work is physical and exhausting and pleasing in a strange way. Concrete, with an obvious starting and ending point and visible progress made with every passing minute, and the day goes by quickly for Enji. So much so that he’s a little surprised when Toshinori nudges his arm with an elbow and tells him they’re all done for the day.

His eyebrows must lift on his face because Toshinori grins at him. Looking...affectionate, almost. 

“You’re a workhorse, Enji,” he says on a soft laugh. “You put a lot of miles on today!” 

Now that he has a chance to look, the sun is beginning to set around them. Casting the barnyard in streaks of orange and red, and Enji’s muscles ache and thrum. 

“Go ahead and take a shower,” Toshinori says, pulling heavy leather gloves from his hands and stuffing them in the back pocket of his jeans. Nodding to the dormitory building across the way. “Drink more water, too. I’ll get dinner going for us, alright?” 

Enji takes a moment to let himself look at Toshinori then. Standing before him with his weight on his hip, the tanned skin of his face and throat and arms glistening with sweat, staining through the t-shirt stretched across his chest. That ever-present smile on his face. Looking like he could work another full day without any real effort, while Enji thinks his muscles might just quit on him soon. 

He lets out an exhale that sounds more tired than he means it to, and nods. Toshinori nods back, pleased, watching as Enji steps past him and heads towards the dormitory. 

“Drink water!” he calls when Enji makes it halfway. “I mean it!” 

Enji throws up a half-hearted hand in acknowledgement, not even bothering to turn around from his trudge to the building, and the sound of Toshinori’s laugh on the air lifts and turns on the breeze like a living thing. 

Enji nearly falls asleep in the shower, startling awake when he slips on wet tile after resting his forehead against the wall, and he realizes as he scrubs a bar of soap over his chest that the skin there is pinking up and heated. Burned from the sun, and he lets out a stilted sigh through his lips, because of course. 

He pulls clean clothes on mechanically, his bones feeling like they’re made of lead, and when he looks down at the pile of clothes he dumped from his backpack, he realizes he’ll be going through clothes faster here than he’s prepared for. He only has one more clean shirt and a ratty pair of sweatpants that are still clean, which he’s forced to pull on. He’ll have to explore the dormitory more - there must be a laundry room somewhere, though the prospect of running a load of clothes through the washer every night to accommodate how much sweating he’s doing during the day makes him groan in quiet, frustrated anticipation. 

He’s almost light headed when he stands back up and his eyes drift to his bed and the rumpled sheets there. He’s so exhausted right now that he might actually be able to sleep the night, and he has half a mind to blow off dinner and let himself collapse right there onto the thin mattress. 

He considers it, even taking a half-step towards the bed, but Toshinori’s face flashes through his mind, unbidden. He realizes that Toshinori is working now to make food, for him, after working just as hard as Enji did, and it makes him grumble quietly to himself. Scrubbing a hand over his face before tugging up on the waistband of his sweatpants and slipping his feet back into his boots without bothering to find any socks. 

The farmhouse is lit from the inside as he makes his way across the yard towards it, every muscle in his body aching and pulling with each step, and the aroma of cooking meat draws him in in spite of himself. His stomach growling as he steps up the porch steps and the smell warms and thickens on the air. 

He toes off his boots in the mudroom and shuffles into the house, gravitating towards the kitchen, where Toshinori is bent across the table, making a place setting in front of Enji’s seat. He doesn’t hear Enji enter, murmuring quietly to himself as he sets out a fork and a knife and a spoon beside the faded floral of the plate, and Enji realizes that the hair on the back of Toshinori’s hair is damp and dark. 

He’s in a different set of clothes too, a new t-shirt and clean jeans and socked feet, and Enji realizes that Toshinori managed to shower and somehow prepare a meal in the time it took Enji to drag his body to and from the dormitory. 

“Hey,” Toshinori says, voice warm as he straightens up and sees Enji standing there in the doorway. “Come on it, it’s almost ready.” 

Enji is struck by the strange feeling that he should help somehow, watching Toshinori return to the stove and peek down into the oven, but he must sense Enji’s hesitation because he waves him off. “Sit,” he says, peering into the belly of the oven with a squint. “Take a load off.” 

Enji shuffles over to the table and eases down into what has apparently become his chair. There’s a large glass there, filled to the brim with water, and Enji takes it in hand after a moment, casting a quick glance over to where Toshi is poking at something with a spatula. Bringing the glass to his lips and tilting it back, draining the entire thing in one long, cool pull, to avoid Toshinori prompting him to do so. 

He watches as Toshinori moves around the kitchen, talking quietly to himself the entire time. Bobbing his head every few moments, like perhaps there is a song playing in his head, muttering something about timing and temperature as he checks whatever’s in the oven again. Quietly cheerful in a way that Enji still has not adjusted to, but peaceful too. Like he’s comfortable here in his home. Like the silent, hulking presence of Enji at his table is no cause for concern or consternation. 

He joins Enji at the table eventually, setting a casserole dish down onto worn potholders, and Enji’s stomach roars in mortifying approval. It’s some sort of chicken dish with biscuits on top, browned from the oven as the creamy sauce beneath bubbles and browns, and when Toshinori motions for Enji to help himself, he does. 

It’s only then, once he’s settled back in his chair, that Enji sees anything resembling weariness settle over Toshinori. He lets out a sigh, content sounding, and watches passively as Enji scoops half of the dish onto his plate, his hunger making his eyes bigger than his stomach. He dishes himself a plate after Enji sits back down, his portion equally large, and sighs once more as he settles back down. 

“That was a long day,” he says, the corner of his mouth lifting. “How are you feeling?” 

Enji looks up, sauce smeared on the corner of his mouth. He chews, his tongue burning a little on the chicken, and swallows. He shrugs, when Toshinori seems to want a response, and then looks back down to his food. “Fine,” he says, as if the singular effort of lifting his fork to his mouth doesn’t feel like trying to lift a car. 

“You’ll sleep well tonight,” Toshinori muses. “You got a lot of sun. Looking a little pink.” 

Enji hears the teasing grin in his face more than he sees it, still looking down at his food, and he doesn’t deign Toshinori with a response. 

“I should have given you sunblock, that’s my fault,” Toshinori says, around a bite, sounding a little thoughtful. “I’ll bring some out tomorrow for you. You’re not used to the heat.” 

Enji doesn’t like being told things about himself, like Toshinori thinks he knows him, but he can’t say anything because Toshinori isn’t wrong. He shrugs and takes another bite. 

“Do you have any lighter clothes?” Toshinori asks, tilting his head across him from across the table. “I’m not sure what you brought but you’ll get heatstroke if you work in long-sleeves all day.” 

Enji’s knee begins to jump underneath the table. Softly, just barely, but a nervous little tic. He shakes his head. “I brought what I have,” he says, trying to school the petulance out of his voice but only sort of succeeding. 

Toshinori nods agreeably. “I’ll find some for you. I have plenty, and they should fit,” he says, like it’s normal for him to offer a camper the clothes from his literal back. 

Enji’s mind drifts to what Toshinori’s regular summer days must be like, when he has a full roster of kids to manage. His body aches just thinking of it. 

“You do this every day?” he asks. His voice is a little rough from disuse and he clears it, spearing a piece of biscuit with his fork. 

Toshinori smiles at him and shrugs lightly. “More or less,” he says. “Usually I have help, but usually I also have a herd of campers to juggle, too. You’re easy.” 

He winks at Enji, teasing and stupid, and Enji rolls his eyes, prompting a soft little laugh. “It will be strange,” he admits, his hand curling around his water glass. Engulfing it entirely. “To have just you for the summer. I don’t have to be as ‘on’ with you. It’s nice.”

Enji’s head lifts and he can’t stop the soft snort that falls from his lips. “This isn’t you ‘on’?”

Toshinori laughs again, softly. Taking Enji’s jab with his grace. “I’m usually much more unbearable, if you can imagine it,” he says, and it sits wrong in Enji’s belly immediately. Liking the thought a lot more in his own grumbling head than coming from Toshinori’s own mouth. 

Toshinori seems unbothered though, and he takes a drink. “I mentioned before that I usually have this curriculum I follow - I’ve got a whole binder and everything. But I think with you, I’m just going to...use your help. If that’s okay with you.”

He’s sincerely asking, and Enji realizes as he lifts his gaze and meets Toshinori’s steady one that if he asked Toshinori to go through the extra work of giving him an authentic One For All Ranch experience, he would. Without question. 

“I’m not much help,” Enji says, and Toshinori’s face crumples a little in immediate, if light, disapproval. 

“Nonsense,” Toshinori says, shaking his head. “You put in a full day’s work today and I couldn’t have gotten all that done without you. You’ll learn more every day and by the end of the summer you’ll be a proper ranch hand, just you wait.” 

Enji snorts a soft huff at the thought. Him decked out in wranglers with a lariat coiled on his belt, a stupid, over-sized cowboy hat jammed down over his red hair. If only his mother could see him now. Pinked from the sun and nearly nodding asleep over his chicken and biscuits, too tired to carry the low-simmering anger he’s brought with him every day since he was a young boy. 

They eat in silence for a while, the low hum of the air conditioner filling the air alongside the scraping of forks on porcelain, and Enji feels himself settling into it. The silence between them. The strange, new comfort of it. 

When Toshinori finishes his plate, he leans back in his chair until it groans beneath his weight. “And Enji, I’m…” his gaze travels across the wall over Enji’s head as he thinks to himself. “I know I’m your “counselor” or whatever, but please, feel free to just. Talk to me. About anything. The bones of the program are what they are and some parts of it are non-negotiable, but if there are easy changes we can make, I’m happy to do that.” 

Enji’s brow dips. He already feels like he’s been overly accommodated. 

Toshinori sees his face and shrugs. “If I make some food you don’t like or something like that,” he says, tossing Enji a lopsided grin. “I know you aren’t here by choice but there’s also no sense in suffering unnecessarily.” 

Enji’s brows lift to his hairline, a skeptical snort falling from his lips. “Eating food I don’t like is suffering?” 

He doesn’t play it off casually enough, though, because a look crosses Toshinori’s face. Quick, but Enji sees it. A softening, a quiet flash of recognition of something, and when he speaks again, his voice is just a touch softer.

“To some it is,” Toshinori concedes, and Enji feels like he’s given something away he didn’t mean to. “I’m just saying, we can make adjustments.” 

Enji’s knee jumps and jitters below the table. He looks past Toshinori into the heart of the kitchen, just to look somewhere else. “I want to learn to drive the tractor,” he says. “Tossing hay sucks.” 

Toshinori’s entire body lurches on a laugh, sudden and warm, and his teeth are bright when he flashes a grin across the table to Enji. “We can do that,” he says, nodding. Pleased by Enji’s bad attitude in a way Enji can’t wrap his head around. “Tossing hay does suck.” 

Toshinori remains apparently tickled by that for the rest of the meal, a smile etched across his face that doesn’t leave, even as they get up together and begin to clean up. There are no leftovers so Toshinori plugs the sink and begins to fill it with soapy water while Enji loads the dishwasher that creaks and groans when he opens it, looking older than Enji himself. 

By the time the kitchen is cleaned, Enji is disturbed to find that some of his energy has returned, and he can feel it thrumming in him as he stands awkwardly near the door, wanting to rise up on his toes as he watches Toshinori dry his hands on the towel hanging over the oven door handle. 

If Toshinori notices, he has the grace not to mention it. “Why don’t you get some rest,” he suggests, pushing his bangs back from his face. The golden strands glinting in the flourescent light of the kitchen. “Tomorrow will be more of the same, and if you’re not exhausted after today, you’re superhuman.” 

A glance through the sink over the window confirms that the sun hasn’t even properly set yet, the yard still glowing with the last rays of it, and Enji thinks to himself that he has absolutely no idea what he’ll do with himself for the rest of the night. But, he knows a dismissal when he sees one, and he’s sure Toshinori is ready to spend some time apart from him. 

So he nods, feeling a little awkward, and turns and lets himself out. Jamming his bare feet into his boots and grimacing at the feeling of it, pushing open the screen door and stepping out into the thick summer air. Feeling sweat begin to prickle along his hairline at once and groaning internally as he turns to head towards the dormitory. 

He knows, in some part of him, that he won’t sleep tonight either, no matter how tired his body is. He shuffles his way into his room in the dormitory and gives the window and extra tug to see if it will open any farther. It doesn’t, and Enji resigns himself to the faint trickle of breeze coming through the screen as he turns back to flip the light switch off. 

The room goes dark and he lets himself down on the bed. Settling onto his back and staring up at the bottom of the bunked bed overhead. The heat of the evening settling in around him like an oppressive blanket. 

He lets out a sigh through his teeth and stares blankly ahead. Ready to face another night of his mind circling around itself like two feral dogs, sweating on top of his sheets. 

Outside, crickets begin to buzz as the sun touches the horizon, and a lone rooster crows. Announcing the arrival of night and making Enji’s chest ache. 

The next week is spent largely the same. Enji drags his body out of bed at an ungodly hour and dresses himself. Toshinori gives him a pile of clothes the next morning, all old t-shirts that are soft and faded and smell faintly of detergent, and as much as it weirds him out to put on a shirt that is somehow too large for him, the difference is unmistakable as he faces the growing heat every day with bare arms and lighter fabric. 

He ends up taking over the morning feeding chores, making a mental checklist in his mind so as to not leave anything out. Letting the chickens out of their coop and scattering their feed onto the grass. Visiting the goats and the pigs and checking their water tanks, topping them off with a hose he finds coiled around the corner of the barn when they look a little low. He scoops cans of grain into their paddocks, trying to run through their names in his head as they approach the fence, finding he’s only able to remember a few of them. He tosses flakes of hay to the horses, forcing himself to not take a reflexive step back when they amble over to him with gentle interest, their ears pricked atop their massive heads as they nudge him with their noses as if looking for treats stashed away in his pockets. 

The tasks are not rocket science, but Enji finds himself enjoying the routine of them, even after just a few days. His life has been marked since his birth by the only constant being the utter lack of constant, of predictability, and Enji finds something deeply soothing in the routine of waking and eating a quick breakfast with Toshinori and setting about those early morning tasks. 

The rest of the day varies but he inevitably spends it in Toshinori’s shadow. Learning how to bale hay or how to dig a fence post, sweating in the sun and watching Toshinori. Always watching as he grits and flexes and powers through the back-breaking work on the farm. Toshinori has a way of making Enji feel useful, even when he’s just standing there, and Enji allows himself to feel grateful for it. For the chance to learn. To be relied upon, once he knows how to do a new task or thing. 

Dinners are shared over the kitchen table, hot and good, always, somehow. Enji wonders if his standards for food are just low or if Toshinori is a gifted cook, and figures the truth probably lies somewhere in between. They talk, soft conversation shared mostly by Toshinori between bites. He doesn’t pry, doesn’t ask Enji to talk about anything he doesn’t want to talk about, and it’s fine. It’s good. 

He doesn’t sleep. Not at all really. Most nights he drifts in and out, lucky to get a solid hour or two before he’s groaning awake again and rolling over to look out the window. To see if he can at least get up and start his day but finding, more often than not, the sky outside dark and lit with stars. 

Toshinori dedicates an entire afternoon to teaching him to drive the tractor, and much to Enji’s mortification, it does take an entire afternoon. He lies when Toshinori asks if he’s driven a car much, the back of his neck heating at the prospect of telling him that he got everywhere by walking and public busses, until his shoes started to break down and fall from his feet. So he lies and tosses out some non-committal comment that Toshinori clearly takes to mean he knows how to drive a car because that’s what Enji means for him to take from it, which only makes his subsequent struggle to figure out the mechanics of the tractor all the more humiliating. 

Toshinori has all the patience in the world, which is worse somehow. Enji is convinced he would commit what he’s being told to memory better if Toshinori would just lose his temper and scream at him, but he does no such thing. He simply crowds in beside where Enji is sat on the tractor seat, stepping up on the tongue of the trailer so he can see over Enji’s shoulder while he explains the different levers and pedals and what they all do. Close enough that Enji can smell the low, warm scent that originates in the sweat under his arms. 

What Enji figured would just be turning a key in an ignition and turning a wheel turns out to be considerably more complicated than that and Toshinori spends the better part of four hours teaching Enji how to drive stick. How to let out the clutch and how to shift between gears, chiding Enji to be more patient with himself everytime Enji drops the clutch and the engine sputters out and grits his teeth so hard they ache. 

By the end of the day, when the sun is touching down near the horizon, Enji manages to finally guide the lurching, stalling tractor across the barnyard without it failing on him, and Toshinori claps him hard on the back and cheers. Not an ounce of frustration in his body as he tells Enji he can practice more the next day and then drive the tractor for hay tossing the next, like he hadn’t spent the better part of a day teaching Enji something Enji is pretty sure a child could pick up in like an hour. 

He seems genuinely pleased by Enji’s progress, still commenting about it over dinner that night, and it’s enough to make Enji a little embarrassed. To be praised so sincerely for something that he basically failed at repeatedly, for hours. He eats his green beans and feels his shoulders curl in over himself at the table. Not wanting to sulk but feeling his insides twist and grapple with the discomfort of it, as Toshinori tosses him a smile and tells him he did a great job.

Toshinori seems to grow a little pensive as dinner passes, and Enji wonders if for once Toshinori has managed to actually read his mood, but he speaks again when Enji reaches out to plate himself seconds, and Enji realizes it isn’t about the tractor driving at all.

“Are you sleeping, Enji?” Toshinori asks, his voice softer than Enji expected it to be. 

It makes Enji look up, a spatula overflowing with egg bake wobbling over the table between the dish and his plate. He blinks a little, taking in the soft little downturn of Toshinori’s mouth. A tiny little frown that reads as loudly as if Toshinori had screamed. 

He forces himself into action after a moment, dropping the slice of egg casserole onto his plate and sitting back down on his chair. Toshinori looks concerned and he doesn’t know how to process that. “Why?” he asks, in lieu of a proper answer. 

Toshinori watches him, not really rising to the bait. “You don’t seem like you’re sleeping.”

That’s all he says and Enji realizes after a moment that it’s all the explanation he’ll get. Toshinori is right, of course, though Enji has no plans to tell him so. He wracks his brain, staring evenly at Toshinori across the table. Trying to figure out how Toshinori knows. 

Somehow, Toshinori has read him. With each passing night, Enji assumes he’ll finally be exhausted enough to sleep but it never comes. It’s too hot in the dorms, and too quiet. From a young age Enji has always slept with the ambient sounds of town traffic and drunks stumbling past his window at two in the morning, or the echoing sounds of the juvenile detention center filling the silence at night. Trying to sleep in his room in the dormitory still feels like being sealed in a coffin after a full week at the ranch - stiflingly hot and eerily quiet. 

“It’s a little hot,” Enji says, sensing Toshinori wants some explanation. 

Toshinori nods after a moment but his eyes stay on him, and Enji thinks maybe he’s not satisfied with the answer. But it’s all Enji feels like offering so it’s all he’ll get, and Enji focuses instead on the food on his plate. Still not entirely sure how to handle the intensity of Toshinori’s gaze on him or his apparent worry. And it is worry. It doesn’t read on his face like anger, an expression Enji knows how to read like the back of his hand. 

Toshinori lets out a breath Enji doesn’t think he means to sound like a sigh, but it does. “Most campers have some adjustment,” he says. “It’s normal to be unsettled in a new place. But, I’ve been working you pretty hard.” 

Enji snorts, wanting to deny it but unable to, really. He’s put in hard working days from sun up to sun down in his first week at the ranch, though he thinks he’d have it no other way. 

“Is my work slipping?” he asks, voicing the thought that’s been needling at his brain. He can’t figure out how else Toshinori would know, unless he was checking up Enji in the middle of the night. Which he hasn’t been, because Enji would know. Because he hasn’t slept.

Something shifts over Toshinori’s face, so quick Enji nearly misses it. Something a little sharp, something that looks maybe for a split second like frustration, and it oddly unspools something in Enji’s chest to see it. A strange, poisonous relief settling in his chest to finally see a reaction from Toshinori that he expects. That makes sense. 

“No, Enji,” Toshinori says. His voice is as patient as ever, whatever glimpse Enji saw a moment ago thoroughly tamped down. “That’s not it.” He looks at Enji across the table and Enji gets that familiar feeling, like he’s suddenly exposed. Naked, sitting there at the table, as Toshinori sees more of him than he’s willing to show. 

“What, then?” Enji asks. Tired. Feeling a little raw from the conversation already. From the concern tightening around the corners of Toshinori’s eyes. 

“Am I working you too hard?” Toshinori asks, and Enji can’t stop the exasperated huff that falls from his lips as he pushes himself back from the table. Shaking his head and looking away from Toshinori as something like anger starts to take root behind his ribs. A familiar feeling, but one he’d nearly forgotten about in his time at the ranch. 

“You think I can’t handle this?” Enji asks, petulance thick in his voice, and it’s gratifying when Toshinori’s hackles rise a little across the table. Another quick flash across his face, of frustration. At Enji. Finally. Finally. 

“That’s not what I mean,” Toshinori says, his voice deliberately level. Like he sees Enji is trying to get a rise out of him and is not letting him. “You are working too hard to not be sleeping at night. Either I need to work you less - ” 

“No,” Enji cuts in, his jaw setting. Not exactly sure why this is the hill he’s chosen to die on but feeling something like hurt blooming in his chest. Some sad part of him relishing in the conflict that’s been missing here on his time at the ranch, leaning into the sting of it like an old friend. 

“Then you need to tell me why you aren’t sleeping,” Toshinori says, his voice firm. “Or you’ll give me no choice. I will not work you until you collapse, Enji. That isn’t the point of any of this.”  

Enji’s arms end up folded over his chest and he forces his eyes away. Out the window over the kitchen sink, to the grass dancing in the breeze beyond. He doesn’t know what to say, even when he looks past the simmering anger he feels gripping tight at his lungs. He’s not sleeping for one million little reasons and no good ones. How does he explain to Toshinori that the ranch is the first time in his life he’s ever experienced peace and his body doesn’t know how to process it? 

“It’s a little hot,” Enji offers, again, after a long beat of silence. Because at least that part is true. 

Toshinori stares at him, his eyes pouring over Enji’s face in a way that pisses him off. Reading him, or trying to. Like he’s trying to figure if that answer was real or a decoy to throw Toshinori off the scent of whatever the real issue is. 

He nods, after a long moment. “This summer is hotter than most. And we can’t afford to condition the dormitory, even with the funding of a full roster. I’m sure it’s uncomfortable.” 

Enji allows himself a pebble of relief that Toshinori has accepted his answer, as half-baked as it was. “It’s fine,” he mutters. 

Toshinori doesn’t react, then. As if he’s figured out that Enji wants him to. Just watches Enji evenly, his blue eyes growing more sure with each passing moment. The worry that melted into frustration there solidifying into something more concrete. More knowing. 

“There’s a spare room here in the farmhouse. It has a window air conditioning unit,” he says. Pushing himself back to lean against the back of his chair. “You can stay there.” 

Enji’s face crumples at the thought. A retort springing to the tip of his tongue and not caring to wrangle it back. “That seems a little inappropriate, don’t you think?” He doesn’t think, sharing a large farmhouse with Toshinori would still be one of the most private, luxurious living situations he’s ever experienced, but he throws it out there anyway. To see if it’ll stick. If it’ll make Toshinori backpedal or apologize for crossing some imaginary camper-counselor line that has been non-existent since Enji’s first day on the ranch. 

Toshinori lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “It’s your choice,” he says. Refusing to rise to Enji’s bait, and Enji feels a sinking in his belly that maybe Toshinori is actually starting to figure him out. 

“I won’t force you,” Toshinori says. “But if you don’t start resting at night, you can’t be working like you are. I won’t let you hurt yourself, Enji. We would share a bathroom but the guest room is across the house from mine. And you could use the bathroom in the dormitory if you had concerns.” 

Enji worries his teeth together in his mouth, his knee jumping below the table, as he forces himself to match Toshinori’s gaze. His mind goes to his morning chores, the greeting the pigs and the goats at the fence, the tossing flakes of hay to the horses, and feels something in his belly sour and clench. He’s surprised to find he’s not willing to give that up, even just after a week. 

“Fine,” he says at last, and Toshinori nods. Enji realizes that it’s perhaps the first time he’s seen him without a smile. He doesn’t look angry, just controlled. Level, like he’s keeping his emotions contained as he stares across the table at Enji. 

“You can bring your stuff over after we clean up,” Toshinori says. “I’ll put clean sheets on for you.” 

“Don’t bother,” Enji says, and Toshinori lets out a sigh then. Leaning back in his chair again and letting his eyes travel over Enji’s face. 

He pushes his hair back from his face and Enji swears he can see the fight drain out of him. “Okay,” he says. Nodding, his mouth twisting softly on his face. Displeased, but aquiesing. “Okay.” 

They don’t speak much as they clean up together, their shoulders bumping in the small space of the kitchen, and Enji shoves hard at the sickly feeling that creeps in around his senses at the silence. Searching for that familiar comfort in his anger, wanting to cling to it, but finding it evaporated within him. Finding some distant part of himself aching at the loss of Toshinori’s smile, at his easy laughter. 

He goes to get his things after, stuffing his clothes and toiletries into his backpack, and leaving the dormitory without looking back. Letting the door click shut behind him and hearing the echo of it like a mausoleum in his mind even as he steps away from the building and makes his way to the farmhouse, where lights are shining softly through the windows in the growing dark. Lighting the way for Enji’s steps and guiding him home.

Enji wants to stay up that night, because he’s petulant and an asshole, but the moment his body reclines back onto the queen size bed that groans beneath his weight, he feels sleep rush towards him. All at once, so quick it nearly takes his breath away.

He fights it for a bit, listening to the steady hum of the air conditioning unit in his window, but the sounds of Toshinori moving through the house cuts through it. Soft, homey sounds of footfall and a hummed tune, and Enji can’t bring himself to keep up the fight then. Rolling over onto his side beneath a worn quilt and breathing out heavily as sleep takes over him and draws him under. 

Toshinori has to wake Enji the next morning, drawing him from a coma-like sleep with a gentle hand on his shoulder, and Enji experiences the incredibly disorienting experience of waking to a kind face. Toshinori smiles down at him, pleased as punch, and tells Enji breakfast is ready. 

They never talk about that fight again, if you can call it one, and Enji flips overnight from dead-on-his feet, dragging himself out of bed when the sun rises to sleeping like the dead at night and relying on Toshinori to wake him every morning. He hates to admit it, but the long days on the ranch come easier, then. When he’s actually allowing his body to rest and recover. 

And his body does recover. As his first month at the ranch passes, Enji begins to change, in both mind and body.

It’s not something he thinks about. Not something he allows himself to think about, because he thinks if he does, he’ll fight it out of instinctive obstinance. It occurred to him first in his...disagreement, with Toshinori over his sleep that in his time at the ranch, the low-simmering anger he always carried with him had all but evaporated. He wondered, as he carried out chores the next morning, if he’d awoken it somehow. If it would spring back to life, flare hot and bright in his belly again at the slightest provocation. Dropping a bucket of water accidentally or a goat headbutting him in the back of the knee hard enough to drop him to the ground. 

But that roaring anger never comes, even as Enji waits for it to. He’s still Enji, to be sure. He’s still pissy and quiet more often than not. He still gripes at Toshinori and rolls his eyes when he slaps him amiably on the back. But the reactivity that seemed so deeply ingrained in his bones seems to have dissipated somehow. Seeped through his pores with his sweat and drifted away on the prairie breeze. 

It leaves a strange void, the loss of that ever-present anger. Leaves him feeling a little hollow and strange inside, wondering, as he helps Toshinori in the kitchen to prepare dinner, who he is without. If he’s really him without it, after carrying it for so long. He’d always assumed that quality, that rage and fury, was innate to him as a person. It surely was to his father and Enji had thought himself no different. 

But now, as his first month of his summer stay passes, if Enji allows himself a moment to think on it, he realizes he barely recognizes the person that he is. He realizes that he barely even knows himself outside of that ugly burden. That poisonous feeling. He realizes, slowly, as he watches Toshinori grow more fond and more affectionate to him by the day, that the perception of himself that he had worn as armor for years was perhaps a mirage. That perhaps his true self was something different. Something a little less volatile though perhaps no more pleasant. 

The work on the ranch becomes second-nature to Enji with each passing day. Becoming more fluid. More natural. More ingrained in him as he develops a sense with the animals and masters driving the tractor for the daily hay toss. He finds the work to be steady and true. Consistent and a comfort in that consistency. 

Through his daily work, his body begins to change as well. He allows himself to follow this more consciously than whatever is happening in his mind, because it’s utterly fascinating to see the transformation every morning when he looks in the mirror. Slowly, at first, and then after a few weeks, seemingly all at once. 

Spending his entire life in a little town in Alaska with short summers and long, dark winters, he’d come to the ranch pretty fair. Not pale, but light skinned enough that the sun glowed a little on his bare chest when he’d pull his shirt off. Enough that Toshinori would flinch dramatically and shield his eyes from the supposed glare whenever he did. After a fun week or two of burning horribly, sunscreen be damned, his skin began to adapt and darken. Freckles he didn’t knew he had begun to darken on his shoulders and while he’ll never be as tan as Toshinori, he finally stops having to worry about turning into a lobster any time he’s out in the sun for the day.

Looking at himself now in the mirror a month in, he wonders if his mother would recognize him. If Nighteye would. His hair has grown some, long enough that he means to ask Toshinori to cut it back. His shoulders and back have broadened, his genetically large frame eager to bulk up with proper effort and proper nutrition for the first time in his life. His hands blistered at first, worn from hauling bales of hay by their twine and hammering nail into board when he helped Toshinori repair a fence line, but they’ve hardened now. Grown callus around the fingers and palms to the point where he barely feels when a horse rips a leadline through his hand, startled by something in the wind and shying backwards. 

He and Toshinori fall into quiet step beside each other. Growing to know each other in the intimate way of working with their hands together. Enji learns to read Toshinori, to see past the chipper aura that follows him around like a cloud. It’s little things, like catching expressions as they glimmer across his face before he can stop them, or hearing the little sigh in his voice when a project doesn’t go exactly to plan. He sees how much work Toshinori does on the ranch every day, working without stop from sun up to sun down with nary a complaint, and Enji can’t help from doing everything he can to ease that burden. 

He’s not a replacement for Toshinori, not even close. The horses still startle him when they come up too fast for their breakfast hay flakes and he doesn’t have the persuasion with a loose goat that Toshinori apparently possesses, but he’s able to take the easy tasks from Toshinori’s plate. He’s able to take care of morning and afternoon feeding, able to check the coop every day for fresh eggs. He’s able to pitch in in the kitchen, even if Toshinori gives him a quizzical look when he’s slicing carrots for a stew and then shows him the better way to do it. 

He doesn’t drink it himself but he learns how to start the coffee maker, and a small part of him will never forget the look on Toshinori’s face the first morning he’d managed to get it going before Toshinori had made it to the kitchen to start breakfast. Will never forget the way Toshinori paused in the doorway, his tired eyes drifting to the coffee pot that was bubbling and brewing beneath the drip, before his face lit up. His hand coming up to press over his heart as he sagged dramatically in gratitude before slumping over to where Enji was standing and pulling him into a stupid, grateful hug that Enji pushed away from after a minute, groaning about Toshinori’s morning breath. 

That’s new for him, too. It’s a strange cycle he’s never before experienced. Wanting to help someone else, and then having that help be so graciously received. Having the desire to put someone’s needs on par with his is wholly foreign to him but it becomes a quick and reinforced habit with the way that Toshinori responds to him. Achingly sincere, always, and grateful. Praising Enji for his good work baling a batch of hay, groaning in happiness the first time he eats a dinner Enji had prepared for them. It makes him want to do more for Toshinori, to be more helpful, and seeing this side of himself is part of the odd re-learning of himself that takes place in that first month. Part of the readjusting his personal perception from who he thought he was to perhaps who he really is. 

He doesn’t realize that time has passed in the way it has until Toshinori mentions it one night when they’re sitting out on the front porch of the farmhouse. Sitting in the wooden rocking chairs there, Enji’s hair still damp from his evening shower, Toshinori nursing a beer he’d given an exasperated look to Enji over when he’d asked for one. A storm is rolling in, the clouds blooming and dark on the horizon, the wind dropping cold and a little gusty, when Toshinori mentions that he’s surprised it hasn’t stormed yet in Enji’s month at the ranch. 

Enji scoffs softly, reflexively, leaning easily into the comfortable trope that Toshinori is a sweet but simple moron, but when he takes a second to think, he realizes that Toshinori is right. That a month has gone by already. That he’s spent four weeks here, sweating under the hot sun and breathing in the fresh air and letting go of much of the baggage he’d carried around his neck like an anchor. 

He goes quiet then. Quieter than usual, even, as the cool wind draws up goosebumps on his bare arms where the damp from the shower hasn’t yet evaporated. 

Toshinori talks on beside him, either oblivious or kind enough to not pry when he sees Enji go into himself a little, as something twists a little behind Enji’s ribs. 

One month down. Two to go. Just two months until Toshinori drives him back to the airport and puts him on a plane back to Alaska. Never to see each other again. And Toshinori will get a new batch of campers and he’ll forget about Enji and their strange summer together. 

Enji’s lips part on a breath that he draws in quietly, feeling something like physical pain soft in his chest, and he looks over at Toshinori, who’s looking out at the building storm on the horizon and talking away. His voice gone soft and barely audible over the rising whistle of the wind. 

It’s in that very moment when Enji realizes that Toshinori is his friend. His first ever, he thinks, and he shoves the thought into the recesses of his mind as soon as it appears. For as soon as it appears, the fear comes. Lurking there, in the shadowed places of Enji’s mind. Reminding him with a bitter sink that all friendship means is pain when it goes away. And he doesn’t want to think that. Knows himself well enough that if he does, he’ll push Toshinori away. And knowing himself well enough, somehow, now, changed by the fresh goddamn air or whatever, that he doesn’t want to do that. Doesn’t want to shut Toshinori out to protect himself. Knows that he wants to exist in this moment, sitting next to Toshinori as a storm rolls in, and simply be. 

Toshinori says something Enji can’t hear over the wind and then grins behind the mouth of the beer bottle. Enji’s eyes catch on the flash of his teeth there, white and straight, and Enji thinks to himself then that’s he’s proper fucked, and his mouth twitches in a smile back at Toshinori in faint response.

With the start of the second month comes calving season. Enji learns this when he’s driving the tractor along the fenceline in one of the far pastures and alongside one of the cows that comes ambling up for breakfast is a tiny creature. Well, not tiny, still the size of a huge dog, but a fraction of the size of its mother, still damp from birth, toddling towards the tractor on wobbly legs, and the sight of it has Enji slamming on the brakes so hard that Toshinori flips over the side of the truck like gravity itself has a grudge against him. 

Enji’s brain shorts out, hearing the yelp from Toshinori as he collapses to the ground onto his head, his eyes still locked on the little calf that’s approaching the tractor. Trying to throw the tractor into park, worried, somehow, that even at a stop it will lurch forward and hit the little thing, and he does so in such a hurry that he drops the clutch and the tractor stalls and sputters out. 

Enji hears a groan and he curses, low under his breath, and clambers down gracelessly from the tractor seat to the ground. Rushing around the side of the trailer to where Toshinori is picking himself up from the ground, his face pinched in a grimace. 

“Toshi,” Enji breathes, kneeling beside him and grabbing at the thick hinge of his elbow. His heart roaring in his ears, feeling stupid and mortified, with worry rooting tight in his ribs as he sees dirt in Toshinori’s hair and realizes he literally fell on top of his head. “Are you okay?”

Toshinori grunts softly and then lifts his face to look up at Enji. Brushing dirt and hair from the back of his head and groaning a little when he apparently finds the skin tender from the fall. “What did you do that for?” Toshinori asks, looking a little confused, and that worries Enji even more. Makes him want to pull Toshinori to his feet, to be sure he’s alright. 

Enji looks over his shoulder and feels the breath rush out of his lungs. He jerks a thumb over his shoulder at the cow and calf approaching, more cautiously now after the commotion of Toshinori falling and Enji killing the engine of the tractor. 

Toshinori’s eyes follow Enji’s hand and land on the calf. He looks back to Enji, bewildered. Shaking his head softly, one of his eyes pinched shut as he touches at the back of his head. “Yeah?” he says, prompting Enji for more. 

“There’s a - baby,” Enji says, feeling the back of his neck heat. Wrangling his heart rate back under control when it becomes clear Toshinori isn’t like, paralyzed by him being a moron. He can’t think of the word for baby cow and he nearly gives himself a stroke trying to come up with it as Toshinori looks at him like he’s grown a second head.

Toshinori nods slowly. “Yes, that’s a calf,” he says, and the slow if unintentional condescension in his voice would piss Enji off if he wasn’t still worried about Toshinori’s brain from crashing into the ground. “Have you never seen a calf before?”

Enji sputters, nearly throwing his hands in the air. “Not here,” he points out. “I didn’t know you had baby cows here.” Calf, dumbass, his whirling mind reminds him, and he groans, palming at his face. 

“Enji,” Toshinori says, taking Enji’s offered hand to pull himself back his feet. Sounding a little exasperated. “Most of these cows will give birth in the next month or two. Have you not noticed them getting bigger?” 

Now that Toshinori is back on his feet and apparently okay enough to give Enji a hard time, Enji’s graciousness begins to expire and he feels embarrassed grouchiness settling in. “You never told me this was a - a - cow breeding operation, I had no idea!” 

Toshinori lets out a breath and pushes the hair back from his face. A smile crossing his face that he puts there deliberately, probably for Enji’s benefit as he senses Enji growing prickly, and it makes Enji want to push his face away with his hand. “I didn’t tell you,” he agrees, though Enji hears the “but you could have figured it out on your own, stupid” that remains unsaid. The stupid part was maybe his mind’s addition. “But why did you slam on the brakes like that?” 

Enji wants to be done with this conversation. “I thought - ,” he gestures to the calf that’s come up to sniff at the pile of hay that went over the side with Toshinori when he fell. “I didn’t want to hit it.”

Toshinori gives him a look then that makes Enji groan and say, “Shut up,” as he turns to head back to the tractor. Satisfied that he hasn’t killed Toshinori and very ready to leave this conversation out here in the pasture. 

Toshinori is chuckling to himself as he climbs back into the trailer, softer, and not unkindly, but Enji hears it and it makes him want to flip Toshinori the finger. 

“It was like one hundred feet away,” he hears Toshinori mutter to himself, laughing softly, and Enji reaches down to start the tractor just to drown out the rest. Feeling his entire face heating with mortification as he shifts the tractor into gear and lets off the brake for it to roll slowly forward. 

He looks back to be sure Toshinori is seated safely on a bale, his cheeks dimpling as he looks back at Enji, and Enji taps the break then again, throwing him a pointedly sour look. Not hard enough to unseat Toshinori but enough to make his entire body lurch, and that just makes Toshinori laugh harder. Leaning back against the bale behind his back and flashing his teeth at Enji, his humor returned to him. 

Enji grumbles to himself and faces forward, though he can feel his anger seeping out of him as soon as the tractor pulls ahead beneath him. Ebbing as quickly as it had arisen and going out like the tide, as the sound of Toshinori’s quiet amusement fills the air in the spaces between the rumbles of the diesel engine. 

Toshinori starts calling them baby cows instead of calves after that day and Enji shoves him every single time that he does.

Toshinori must know how Enji will react to the proposition, so he doesn’t even ask. Springs it on Enji when he’s resting in the shade after morning chores. Ambling up to him all casual, like two gargantuan horses aren’t saddled up and following dutifully behind him. 

Toshinori grins at him. Cheeky, showing his teeth, and Enji gives him a flat look. 

“No.”

He expects Toshinori to deflate like a balloon but he’s undeterred, apparently. “Come on,” he says, like that will work. 

Enji tips back the water jug and takes a long pull, keeping an eye on the two horses standing behind Toshinori. Near as tall as he is, and Enji will never apologize for not trusting something the size of a freight train with a brain the size of a walnut. 

“You said I could learn if I wanted to,” he points out. He has absolutely no interest in getting on one of those things. Less than none. Negative interest. 

Toshinori bobs his head a little, like he’s considering it. One of the horses bumps it’s head against Toshinori’s back and nearly knocks him off his feet, proving Enji’s point. “I lied?” he says, his voice rising at the end. “Come on, Enji, don’t be scared.” 

The way Enji bristles at that is utterly predictable and that pisses him off more than the barb does. He lets out a stilted exhale and lets his eyes go to beyond Toshinori. To the two mammoth horses standing boredly behind him. Their coats gleaming chestnut in the sun, and Enji wonders how long Toshinori spent brushing them to get that copper penny shine. 

The horses are Franz and Ferdinand. Enji remembers, because when Toshinori had first told him, he’d snorted and asked, “Like the band?” and Toshinori had blinked at him and said, completely serious and a little puzzled, “No, like the Archduke of Austria-Hungary.” 

“Not interested,” he says, and a look crosses Toshinori’s face that looks a little...schemey. If he thinks he’s being subtle, he isn’t, and Enji kicks a clod of dirt at him. 

Toshinori shifts his weight to his hip. Considering. “I’m going to spend the afternoon riding out in the pasture and swimming in the lake and napping in the shade,” he says, a little slowly. Drawing his voice out until Enji huffs and meets his eyes. “You’re welcome to join me. If you stay, there is plenty of manure in the pig paddock to scoop.” 

Enji exhales and something must shift on his face, some show of acquiescence, because before he even speaks, Toshinori is beaming. Delighted. He holds out a pair of reins attached to the horse on his left. Shaking them a little in his hand when Enji slowly pushes himself up to full height. 

“These are Franz and Ferdinand,” he says in a stupidly serious introductory way, and Enji grumbles, because he goddamn knows. 

Toshinori manages to get Enji up over Franz’s back with surprisingly little effort, even if Enji accidentally bangs the horse with his heels a few times as he tries to settle himself in the wide seat of the saddle. Toshinori gives him all of a minute of instructions - pull back to stop, squeeze with your legs to go, pull to the side to turn - and then he pats Enji on the thigh and turns to walk back towards Ferdinand, who has dropped his head to nibble on a patch of grass. 

Enji sputters a little, gripes aloud that he thought Toshinori would actually teach him something before pitching him up atop a 1,400 pound keg of dynamite, and does everything he can to not look at how goddamn far off the ground he is. 

Enji isn’t a coward. But he’s not stupid either. He’s made it through his life by being being not stupid. And even though Franz feels as wide as a dinner table beneath him, Enji feels like trying to control him with the thin leather reins in his hands is like asking him to control the tide with a broom. 

Toshinori pays him no mind. Sticking his foot into the stirrup of Ferdinand’s saddle and swinging aboard with ease. Settling lightly into the saddle and picking up the reins. Throwing a grin that makes Enji want to shove him as he urges Ferdinand forward with a little rock of his hips, resting the reins against the right side of the beast’s broad neck to turn him towards the gate of the paddock. 

“Toshi!” Enji barks, and Franz’s ears flip back. Displeased and shifting beneath Enji in a way that has his chest clutching. “How do I - ” he hisses, because the only thing worse than being on top of this horse is being on top of this horse alone as Toshinori smugly rides away from him at an ambling walk. 

But his fear is short lived, because Franz lets out a long suffering sigh and steps forward with no prompting from Enji. Turning to follow Ferdinand, his head bobbing low as he tugs the reins loose in Enji’s hand and his dinner-plate hooves clod heavily on the packed earth. 

Toshinori manages to work one of the cattle pasture gates while mounted, pulling it open and waiting dutifully for Enji to awkwardly steer Franz through the space. Toshinori shuts the gate behind them and sets off. Bringing the reins to one hand and relaxing into the saddle. His weight shifting down into his heels as he lets out a breath, tilting his face back into the sun. Looking for everything like he was born to be here, his hips swaying easily in the saddle as Ferdinand steps through the tall grasses. 

Enji spends the first ten minutes sweating. Sitting awkwardly across Franz’s back and feeling like any small wrong move would lead to him pitching over the front of him to a heap on the ground. But, it’s exhausting holding every muscle in his body locked from stress and as Toshinori leads them through the lush pasture, he finds himself relaxing. Slowly at first, feeling the muscles in his hip flexors trembling with effort and loosening when he can’t hold tension there any longer, and then more easily as the summer breeze drifts by him and carries the sound of the tune Toshinori is humming up ahead of him. 

They travel through the cow pastures slowly. In no real rush as the sun shines overhead, Ferdinand and Franz falling into ambling step beside one another as easy as breathing. Cows lift their head as they pass through, a few calling to them, but the horses’ ears just flicker atop their heads. Unbothered and unconcerned as they carry Toshinori and Enji over the rolling land with gentle tosses of their great heads. 

Enji figures there is probably more to riding a horse than this, but it seems Franz is accustomed to babysitting newbies. All Enji has to do is not actively throw himself over the side of Franz’s barrel chest and the rest comes naturally, and as he feels sweat start to prickle under his arms from the sun overhead, he finds himself exhaling. Feels his shoulders drop a little as his weight settles more deeply into the saddle and his hips begin to swivel more freely. 

It’s...rhythmic, in a way Enji hadn’t expected. He’d expected it to be jostling and hectic, bouncy and bumpy, but swaying back and forth over Franz’s back as he steps through the fields feels like sitting in a rocking chair. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Only the occasional soft snort of Ferdinand and the gentle creak of the leather of the saddles drifting away on the breeze around them. 

Enji finds himself closing his eyes, the reins still gripped tight in his fists, and he’s a little stunned at a memory that comes to him. Rushes over him suddenly, once his vision goes dark behind his eyelids. All at once, he is twelve years old again, out on a little fishing vessel out in open Alaskan waters. The boat dipping and rising on great, rolling waves as fresh sea spray washes over his young face. His father is standing behind the steering wheel, guiding the boat over each cresting wave, calling instructions to Enji as he slips and slides over the deck. It’s the closest his father has ever been to being proud of him, when the boat comes into harbor at the end of that day, and Enji can still feel the callus of his big hand on the back of his head, even as he lost his lunch over the side of the boat a few minutes later. 

When his eyes blink back open, he sucks in a breath. Realizing he’d been holding it, and when he looks up, Toshinori is watching him. Quietly, looking back over his shoulder at Enji where Franz is trailing a little behind. Enji’s belly flips at the expression on his face, a little embarrassed to have been caught, but then Toshinori leans back on the reins a little until Franz comes up beside Ferdinand.

Toshinori reaches across the space between them and presses his hand to the back of Enji’s neck. Broad and firm against the skin there that’s damp with sweat.

Enji blinks at Toshinori, swaying gently over Franz’s back. A little bewildered at the broad span of Toshinori’s hand grips comfortingly at the nape of his neck, rough skin that’s warm from the sun and leather rein. Toshinori squeezes his hand there once, a gentle pulse that makes Enji’s heart stutter, before he draws his hand back and lets it come back to rest on his thigh. Turning forward in the saddle to look ahead, giving Enji privacy for his face to heat in a strange twist of confusion and a low simmering something. 

They ride for so long that Enji loses track of time, lost in the easy, swaying haze of it, so it brings him out of his reverie when Ferdinand’s ears perk up and then Franz’s do too. Enji grips at the reins, his heart kicking awake at the feeling of Franz coming to life a little beneath him, and then Toshinori lets out a happy sounding sigh and they come up and over the crest of a gently sloping hill. 

In the valley below is a lake. The water is a deep, rich blue and glistening in the sunlight, surrounded around the banks by a smattering of tall oak trees, casting wide, peaceful shadows over the sandy banks where the water gets shallow. 

Toshinori murmurs soft words to Ferdinand and leans back on the reins, who looks like he wants to surge ahead to the water, and Enji is so nauseatingly grateful that he could kiss him in that moment, feeling Franz go from lumbering couch beneath him to a living, hulking creature that very much wants to go and knowing that Toshinori holding Ferdinand back is the only thing keeping Enji from being dumped in the dirt. 

They make their way down the slope then, the horses beginning to snort softly in anticipation, and as they make it to level ground and approach the water, Enji is very much ready to be off the horse. Franz starts to move sideways beneath him and a sound falls from Enji’s lips that he will deny with his life later. A nervous gasp of breath, but before his heart can kick out of his chest, Toshinori is there. Dismounted already, somehow, and stepping up to Franz. Taking the side of his bridle in hand and pressing a palm to his whiskered nose, murmuring soothing sounds to him to stop him from shuffling beneath Enji like a livewire. 

Toshinori looks up to Enji. “Go ahead and get down,” Toshinori says, and Enji isn’t proud of how tight his voice is when he says, “I don’t know how,” because why would he know? Toshinori just threw him up there and wished him well?

A chuckle falls from Toshinori’s lips, clearly at Enji’s expense, and Enji plots in that moment to dunk him in the lake later as Toshinori moves from Franz’s head to along his side. His head appears near Enji’s thigh and when he holds his hands up for Enji, like a parent encouraging their kid to jump down from a playset, Enji doesn’t hesitate. Just goes, ass over teakettle, letting his upper body tip over against Toshinori’s hands, trusting that he’s strong enough to catch him. 

Franz snorts and ducks away, disturbed by the feeling of Enji hanging off his side, and Enji just collapses onto Toshinori then. With a loud oof, feeling Toshinori’s strong hands on him as he juggles Enji’s mass in his arms, feeling the warm puff of Toshinori’s laugh on his neck as Toshinori shifts him until he manages to place Enji down flat onto his feet. 

Enji’s feet hit the sandy ground and he has about thirty seconds to enjoy the feeling of solid ground beneath him before his knees wobble like rubber and he collapses in a heap to the ground. 

“What the fuck,” he wheezes, pushing himself up onto his ass and staring at his traitor legs that have gone completely numb beneath his weight, and Toshinori is laughing properly, his head thrown back. Not unkindly but then looking down at Enji with such naked affection, his eyes bright and joyful and blue, that Enji can’t even bring himself to bristle at it. 

“That happens sometimes,” Toshinori says, wiping a tear from his eye. “I should have warned you.” 

“That would have been nice,” Enji mutters, no real heat in it as he stares at his feet and lifts them, banging his heels against the ground and feeling only dim static as blood starts to rush back down the limbs. “Why don’t my legs work?” 

Toshinori ruffles Enji’s hair as he steps past him and Enji manages to get one good shove in before Toshinori ducks out of his reach, chuckling still to himself as he makes his way to where Ferdinand is grazing. “They’ll come back, just relax for a bit,” he says, and Enji groans and lets his upper body fall back to the grass below. 

He stays like that for a while. Partially to be obstinate and unhelpful to Toshinori as he unsaddles the horses and partially because he realizes, once his shoulders come to rest against the cool grass, that he’s exhausted. So he lays there, halfway in the shade of an oak, and lets his arms splay out to his sides as he looks up at the sky. As the breeze trickles past him and fluffy clouds drift slowly overhead. 

He loses track of time a bit. Blinking slowly in the shade, feeling his heartbeat slow, until Toshinori appears in his field of vision, bending over at the waist to look down at him, and Enji groans, which makes Toshinori nudge him with his booted ankle. 

“Leave me alone,” Enji grumbles, wanting to close his eyes again, but Toshinori is reaching down and pulling him to his feet. Ignoring Enji’s petulant whines until Enji is on his feet again, grousing at Toshinori and pushing his hair back. He can feel his legs again, though, which is something. 

He hears splashing and looks up to see Ferdinand and Franz wading into the lake. Stripped of their saddles and bridles, sweat darkening the coat across their backs. Dipping their heads low to drink as their coats shine copper bright in the sun. 

“Huh,” Enji says, following Toshinori mindlessly as he steps towards the edge of the lake until he’s just a foot away from the reeds that grow there at the shore. He didn’t know horses liked water. 

They watch the horses in silence for a bit, standing shoulder to shoulder. Toshinori snorts softly when Franz starts pawing at the water, and when Enji looks to him, Toshinori nods back to the lake. Enji looks back he sees Franz lowering his massive body into the shallow water and then tipping immediately onto his side to roll in it. 

Enji watches, flabbergasted, as the horse pitches about on his back in the water. Back and forth, back and forth, until he finally climbs back to his feet and shakes like a dog, his skin rippling and twitching as water pours from him. Ferdinand nudges his shoulder with his nose and they both turn then and slowly amble their way out of the lake. Stepping onwards to the thick patch of grasses beyond, lowering their heads to begin to graze. 

Enji’s eyebrows are in his hairline. Horses are fucking bizzare. “That was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,” he mutters and Toshinori tosses him a grin that shines like the sun. 

They stand there for a moment longer, long enough for Enji to wonder exactly what the plan is, now that they’re here, when Toshinori asks him, “Can you swim?” 

And Enji is able to get out a scoffing, “Of course I can -” before he’s being fucking shoved into the lake by strong hands. Flying into the water headfirst on an undignified yelp that disappears under the thunderous crash of his body into the water. 

When he comes up, there is a reed on his head, and he can feel his insides fuming. 

“Toshi,” he says through gritted teeth, spitting out a mouthful of tepid lake water and watching Toshinori return his gaze with an utterly moronic look of complete innocence. Looking around with a shrug like Toshinori doesn’t have the faintest idea who could have done that to Enji when there’s not another living soul for a thousand miles.

Enji’s clothes are soaked and hanging heavily from him, his boots sucking to the sandy lake bottom, and he can feel his gut trembling with something heated. Something that makes him want to grip Toshinori with his bare hands until he whines and gives.

“Help me out of here,” he grits through his teeth, holding out his hand. Water still rushing down from his shoulders in a cascade. “And I won’t kill you.” 

Toshinori holds his hands up in peace, probably reading the unfettered murder spelled out on Enji’s face, and he steps up to the edge of the lake and takes Enji’s hand to haul him up. 

The second Enji’s hand closes around Toshinori’s, he shouts. Gets his other hand around Toshinori’s and shoves his body back through the water with all of his strength. Ripping Toshinori off his balance and forward into the water on an equally undignified yelp. 

He comes up sputtering, his blond hair dark and soaked, and, because he’s an entirely different person than Enji, he comes up absolutely howling with laughter. He tips back in the water with the force of it, his chest rising and falling, and he lets himself float a little, his t-shirt billowing around his chest in the cool water. 

His laughter dies slowly as his arms come out to help him stay afloat, and he says into the air, “I suppose I deserved that.” Delighted, apparently, by Enji being a dick and being entirely unable to take a good-natured joke. 

They stay like that for a bit - Toshinori floating lazily on his back and Enji standing stupidly with the water coming up to his chest. His heart rate slows after a bit as the sun roasts the skin on the back of his neck, the instant riptide of rage drawing back like a tide as quickly as it had arisen. He stands there, his arms floating at his sides, and watches Toshinori as he kicks around, dressed in his jeans and his boots, his eyes closed as his face tilts towards the sun and he floats. 

His eyes open eventually, meeting Enji’s, and again, the sheer affection there in his face has something gripping at Enji’s belly. Unmooring, like the ground is moving beneath his feet, to see someone seeing him for who he is and delighting in him for it. 

“You’re so funny, Enji,” Toshinori breathes, sounding happy, and Enji splashes him with water instead. Not trusting whatever words would come out of his mouth in that moment, something strange blooming warm behind his ribs that he can’t quite identify. 

Toshinori laughs again, dreamily, and Enji watches him as he sighs and floats, lighter than air in the cool, crisp water. 

They end up stumbling to shore to strip down to their underwear before going back into the lake for another hour. Splashing around like kids, Toshinori diving deep to search for treasures along the bottom. Dunking each other, grappling in the shallow water until they’re both heaving out of breath and Toshinori is laughing and Enji’s face hurts from trying to swallow back the smile that wants to settle there. 

Toshinori groans finally, exhausted, and he grabs Enji’s elbow and pulls him out of the lake. Enji follows Toshinori to the shade where the saddles are tipped in the grass, and Toshinori kneels down and produces sandwiches and fruit, handing half to Enji before making his way to a shaded patch of grass and sitting down. Popping the sandwich into his mouth to take a comically large bite as Enji slumps gracelessly down next to him. 

The heat of the afternoon bakes the bare skin of their shoulders and backs as they sit cross legged beside each other. Eating slowly, still gathering back their breathing, their skin still glistening and damp as a breeze drifts by. They eat in easy silence, Enji finishing his sandwich in three bites and his apple in four before he tips down onto the grass on his back. His arms coming out on either side of him to rest on the plush grass below as he lets out a breath through his lips and lets his eyes drift closed. 

Toshinori follows suit. Enji can feel him settling down beside him, his shoulder and arm bumping against Enji, and he lets out a breath too, then. Slow and low. Contented, as the breeze rustles the leaves of the branches of the tree overhead. 

Enji feels something warm and cozy creep around his senses, and he drifts on it. His mind going whispy and blank as his skin warms and dries, as the sound of Toshinori’s breathing fills his ears. It was worth it, he thinks. Worth riding the damn horse to come out here and have this. To have this afternoon with Toshinori, acting stupid and laughing and laying back and resting together. 

Enji doesn’t have the gift of foresight often, but he knows, as he draws in a slow breath through his parted lips, that this is a memory he will keep. Even after the end. 

They could have been laying there for an hour or five when he speaks. His voice comes out a little dreamlike. Warbly and soft from his throat. “Do you know what I did?” 

Toshinori is quiet for so long that Enji figures him asleep. But just as Enji is about to raise his head to look, some strange part of him wanting to see Toshinori’s face slack with rest, he hears Toshinori’s murmured response. 

“No,” he says. “I don’t.” Knowing what Enji means with the question without need for further clarification. 

Enji realizes that he believes Toshinori, and he nods, even though Toshinori can’t see him. 

Enji breathes. In and out. His eyes opening into low slits against the bright sun, looking up at the sky overhead. The clouds slowly drifting there. “Do you want to know?” he asks, his voice near a whisper. 

Toshinori lets out a breath and silence falls between them that feels closer than it does far. Warmer. After a long moment, he asks, “Do you want me to know?” 

Enji swallows past something lumped in his throat and blinks up at the clouds. He hadn’t really thought about it. He’d assumed the ranch got a dossier on every camper. Just figured Toshinori knew Enji was a miserable little shit with a record a mile long and a recent problem with starting things on fire. That life feels so far away from him now, grass tickling at the bare skin of his legs and around the broad of his chest. Doesn’t hardly even feel like his life anymore. 

He turns his hands on the ground until his fingers thread through the cool grass. He shakes his head. “No,” he murmurs. “I don’t.” 

He doesn’t want to bring that here. Not to this day. Not to this place. He wants to keep being the version of him that Toshinori has accepted. The version of him that Toshinori values. The version of him that Toshinori likes. 

He hears grass rustle and knows it’s Toshinori nodding beside him. Another soft sigh falling from his lips that belies no tension or even curiosity. Just a bone-deep, quiet assurance that Enji feels in every little piece of him. 

The sun passes overhead in the sky and they continue to drift there. Laid out in the grass and dozing in the sun, their outstretched hands just inches apart. 

By the time Toshinori pushes himself to his feet with a groan, Enji is dead asleep. It takes Toshinori’s hand on his shoulder to bring him around and he blinks up at the sight of Toshinori bent over him, a strange, soft little look on his face. 

“What?” he croaks, squinting into the sun that’s already beginning to set. 

Toshinori shrugs, the corner of his mouth lifting. “It’s good to see you sleep,” is all he says, before he extends a hand to Enji and helps him up to his feet. 

It takes a few minutes for Enji to push the sleep from his mind, stumbling around the grassy area near the shoreline and finding his clothes strewn there. Grateful to find they’re dry beneath his hands and he pulls them on slowly, one article at a time. Feeling sun-baked and like he hasn’t quite shaken himself from a dream. 

When he turns around, Toshinori is dressed in his jeans and boots but still shirtless, and in the middle of saddling Ferdinand. Enji makes his way over to where Franz is grazing in the shade, wanting in his tired state to be at least a little helpful. 

“Don’t fuck with me,” he tells Franz, before he bends down to grab the saddle where it’s tipped in the grass and the saddle pad to go beneath it. He manages to get the pad over Franz’s back and then the saddle, banging the stirrups into the horse's ribs and apologizing gruffy for it when the horse snorts in disgruntled response. 

A presence appears at his side and Enji feels himself sway into it a little, sleepy, Toshinori stepping into his space and reaching down for the girth hanging from the saddle. Bumping Enji gently with his shoulder, an affectionate touch, as Toshinori takes over and Enji simply stands and watches. 

He finds his gaze going a little distant on Toshinori’s back. His eyes tracking the shift of muscle beneath tanned skin as Toshinori tightens the girth and checks it by slipping his fingers beneath it, and he doesn’t know if he’ll ever adjust to how big Toshinori is. Enji has spent an entire lifetime watching people react in stunned astonishment at his own size, and next to Toshinori, Enji feels...small, nearly. 

Toshinori slips the bridle over Franz’s face and settles it into place. Petting the space beneath his forelock with scratching fingers before turning to Enji. His expression utterly at rest. Peaceful, as he turns a smile to Enji. 

“Ready?” he asks, nodding to the saddle, and Enji shrugs. As he’ll ever be, he supposes. 

He manages to mount with a fraction more grace than the last time, managing to swing his leg over Franz’s back and not kick him, and he feels the muscles of his ass complain as he eases down into the saddle. He’ll be sore for days, probably. 

Toshinori watches to be sure Enji is settled, patting Franz on the neck and looking to Enji like he can’t help himself, like it’s an indulgence to him, before he turns and returns to Ferdinand, who is standing lazily in the shade. He picks up his t-shirt from the ground and pulls it over his head before he slips a foot into the stirrup and swings himself aboard Ferdinand. 

He urges the horse forward with a gentle nudge of his hips and Ferdinand rocks forward on a slow walk. Coming up to stop beside Franz and Enji, and Enji blinks slowly. His eyelids feeling like warm, heavy lead. 

A thumb on his chin makes him blink awake a little and he sees Toshinori drawing his hand back, his mouth curved in a smile that makes Enji’s chest ache. 

“Don’t fall asleep,” Toshinori tells him. His voice warm. Fond. “Franz won’t catch you if you fall.” 

They move past him then, Ferdinand sighing and stepping forward once more. Back up the slow, sloping hill of the pasture. Back towards home. 

As Enji steers Franz around to follow them, he can’t help but think to himself that Toshinori would. He would catch Enji if he fell. 

Enji had wondered when he’d first moved to the guest room in the farmhouse if there would be any weirdness sharing a space with Toshinori. He was no stranger to communal living, his time at juvie made sure of that, but he wasn’t sure if Toshinori was. If they’d have to creep around each other in the dark to try to preserve each other’s privacy and give each other a wide berth in the early morning and late evening hours. 

It ends up like everything Enji experiences with Toshinori, it seems. As easy as breathing. Toshinori is not an easy man to ruffle and Enji folded into life in the farmhouse without much of a hitch. 

Toshinori wakes Enji most mornings and they shuffle through a lazy morning routine together. Making breakfast and waking up slowly across the dinner table from each other, before heading out to tackle the day. At night, they take turns in the shower and one or both of them makes dinner before they slowly prepare for bed. It’s strange how utterly unstrange it is, though Enji supposes he should stop being surprised by Toshinori at some point. 

Sharing the sole bathroom never really becomes an issue, with both Enji and Toshinori not particularly concerned with privacy, and they tend to keep the door unlocked while showering so the other can come in and use the sink to prepare for or wind down from the day. Enji gets used to seeing Toshinori in various states of undress and Toshinori, presumably, does the same with Enji. And while Enji doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the size of Toshinori, the first person Enji’s ever known that’s bigger than him, the sight of Toshinori walking past in the hall to the bathroom in nothing but his boxer briefs stops being anything of note. 

Enji looks up when Toshinori passes, tonight. Busy pulling on his sweatpants for sleep, only catching the blurred shape of Toshinori as he passes through the dark hallway. He means to follow him to the bathroom then, to get his toothbrush and toothpaste to bring to the kitchen sink so he won’t bother Toshinori while he’s showering, but he gets distracted when he hears a commotion outside and steps to the window to see two goats sparring in their paddock in the fading light of the evening. 

It’s a few minutes later when he even remembers what he meant to do, running his tongue over his teeth and groaning. Deciding he does need to brush them before giving up and going to bed, and making his way down the hall to the thick oak of the bathroom door. 

The sound of the shower comes through the wood of the door, muffled like it’s hitting something other than the shower floor, and Enji has experienced this enough to know it means Toshinori is in the shower. His form blocked by the frosted glass of the shower door, only a vague flesh colored blob to whatever Enji doesn’t avert his eyes from. He reaches for the handle of the door, content to grab his toothbrush and bring it to the kitchen where he can brush his teeth and look out the window, but the handle sticks under his grip.

He frowns a little. Pulling back to look down at the knob in his hand and trying it again. He’s seen the door locked before, but when Toshinori was doing...other bathroom things, than showering. A little confused, he tries the knob again, tapping his shoulder against the door to see if it’s just stuck.

It gives then, something shifting in the handle, and the door parts open silently beneath his hand. The hallway is dark behind Enji, casting him in shadow, and he opens his mouth to call out a warning to Toshinori of his presence so he doesn’t startle him.  His hand is still on the doorknob, one foot into the bathroom, when his voice dies in his throat at a sound. Hanging heavy on the thick, steamy air of the bathroom, barely audible over the rushing sound of water. 

A grunt. Low and breathed but unmistakably masculine. Deep, in a way that makes the hairs on Enji’s arms stand up. His ears burn red as he blinks stupidly at the blurred shape of Toshinori behind the frosted glass, and he thinks for a moment that his mind made it up. Imagined it, mistaking some sound of flesh on wet tile for it, but then it sounds again.

A soft grunt, and the sound of skin on skin. Slick and wet, then Toshinori’s voice drops deep and over the rush of the water, Enji hears him whisper, “Fuck,” to himself. 

Enji’s heart stops in his chest. Slams against the back of his ribs like someone threw it at a wall as his belly drops down to his feet. His eyes adjust to the light in the room and go helplessly to where Toshinori is standing beneath the water spray. Just enough light in the room to make out the shape of him behind the glass of the shower door, to see the motion of a hand working rhythmically near the middle of his body.

Enji realizes in a moment of blistering clarity, that Toshinori is jerking off there, in the shower, and his heartbeat screams in his ears. Deafening, but not enough to cover the breathless groan that slips from behind the glass of the shower door, and then Enji is turning on his foot and shutting the door behind him. Having just enough sense to keep from slamming it, twisting the knob carefully so it latches quietly behind him, before he rushes down the hall to his room. 

He does slam that door, his entire body thrumming with something. Something that feels raw and feral. Wild almost as he stumbles over to his bed and collapses onto it. His hand slipping beneath the waistband of his sweatpants before he can even think, before he can even consider what he’s doing, and his head tips back against the pillow when he finds himself hard there. Thickened up in his sleep pants just like that, fat and leaking against his palm, and he grips himself tight as his eyes squeeze shut. 

He hasn’t...done this, since coming to the ranch. Too tired usually at the end of the day to even really think about it, and his body seems to recall all at once how long it’s been. Every nerve ending lighting as he begins to stroke himself, his throat working as he swallows thickly, feeling like he’s losing control of himself. Like the train of this situation is leaving the station whether he wants it to or not, and he just has to hang on.

His cock pulses in his hand, heated and smooth, and he groans softly to himself as he pushes down at his sweatpants and pulls himself free. Shuddering at the rush of cool air over him as his mind whirls to tread the well known path of his frequent fantasies of old. The memories that would provide him a quick and perfunctory release back in his old life, laying on his little twin sized bed and cumming into his fist with his lip in his teeth. 

He thinks of old girlfriends and finds them alarmingly faceless in his frenzy, only able to summon the memory of their warm skin and soft mouths, and his mind takes it from there. Fucking up into the tight grip of his fist as he remembers what they felt like. How they tasted, the soft little moans they would make against his skin. 

He imagines them laid out, legs spread. Head tilted back in delirious pleasure as the plunge of a fat cock knocks the breath from their lungs. Over and over, their breasts bouncing on their chests with each rut of hip against hip. 

Enji hears a sound then, over the breathless whimper of their moans, and he realizes in a deafening rush that it’s the sound of Toshinori. Grunting softly, his breath catching in his throat, and suddenly Enji’s mind whirls, shifting and swirling, and then Enji sees Toshinori there. Between her legs in his place, covering her with his body. Leaning down low to kiss her, his hand curling around her jaw as he fucks her with hard pistons of his hips. 

Enji’s body wracks on a shudder, violent almost as every muscle in his body seizes tight, and he’s making noises now. Stupid, unbidden noises that fall faintly from his parted lips as his eyes squeeze tightly shut and he begins to chase his pleasure with hard fucks of his cock into the tight grip of his fist. 

He shakes his head, trying to return to the fantasy from before. To imagining him fucking into the hot, wet clutch of a cunt, to small hands clutching at his arms, his shoulders, to soft lips murmuring his name against his ear. 

But he can’t hold it. The image slips through his fingers like cascading sand, and Toshinori returns in his mind’s eye. His voice echoes in Enji’s ear, his voice dark and thick when he murmurs “fuck”, the sounds of skin on skin, slick, and an electric wave of pleasure rushes over Enji. Makes his nerves flare scorching like a flame. Makes his cock throb on his hand, makes hot prespend spit from the tip. Makes his back arch on a ragged sound that falls from his lips as his hips rise to meet his fist in a frantic, furious rhythm. Lost to the feeling of it, out of his mind. 

He sees Toshinori fucking her hard. Can’t shake the picture of it from his mind as his lungs tighten up in his chest, as his breath rattles through his teeth and out of his mouth. Hears the slap of skin on skin, sees Toshinori bend down low to nip at her jaw, grunting as he does, and it makes Enji’s entire body roil with heat. 

His release takes him by surprise. Sneaks up on him as he chases his pleasure on little gasps and groans, his entire body trembling, when the strength of it coils sharp in his belly. So sudden, so strong that it verges on painful, and Enji’s entire body locks as he cums. His head shoved back against the pillow as his cock swells and bursts in his fist. Fat, hot gobs of spend shooting up his belly and singeing the skin where they land. 

Some of it spatters all the way up onto his throat and his chest heaves like he’s run a great distance as he comes down from it. Trembling and shaky as he sinks slowly down into the bed, his eyes pressed close to stay in the moment a while longer. To linger in the deafening bliss of it, his entire mind off-line and hazy with pleasure, before having to return to the now. To examine that, whatever it was. 

It takes him several minutes before he can even move. Before he can compel himself to sit up, bone-weary and zapped of his strength. Rubbing the spend from his chest and throat with a t-shirt lying on the floor near the bed before collapsing shakily back down on the bed. Staring up at the ceiling and feeling goosebumps prickle down his arms as the air conditioning unit hums away and his body comes back down to earth. 

Sleep comes for him quickly, all the fight ripped from him with the ferocity of his release, and he’s dimly aware as he lets his eyes fall shut that he never did end up brushing his teeth. 

Fuck.