“And now, for his vault attempt to secure his team's first place medal in all-around men’s, Koa Orion Bennett, representing the country of New Zealand. Koa has already qualified for the Olympics and is now looking to place first in his performance today,” an announcer called as I took my position, my heart starting to race.

It was not that I doubted my skills as a vaulter, I had been doing it for the last 10 years and was officially part of the New Zealand Olympics team for the next year at 18 years old, it came down to being unable to truly see where I was going. My vision was terrible and as I couldn’t wear my glasses during vaults and refused contacts, I was forced to do everything by muscle memory.

“Thank God my parents aren’t here in case I fuck this up,” I muttered to myself, shaking my hands out as I waited for the signal to do my final vault.

A sound blared and I broke into a sprint, hitting the vault pad at full strength before launching myself, rotating as needed, and landing on my feet, my heart racing when the crowd and my team erupted around me, the coach pounding against my back.

“How do you think I did?” I yelled over the cacophony, making Coach Brenner laugh.

“Perfect I’d say,” he yelled back and handed me my glasses.

We turned to the scoreboard to see that I had only been knocked .2 of a point, leaving me at 5.8 out of 6 points, as close to a perfect score as I could get. I cursed at myself, realizing I had bounced slightly when I landed but it was still better than the other members of my team and they cheered loudly, guiding me back to our area to watch the last of the competition.

I was yawning, my eyes heavy when things finally ended and I gathered my bag before walking onto the streets of Tokyo, immediately overwhelmed by the sound around me. Reaching into my pocket, I grabbed my over-ear headphones and started walking toward a restaurant I had found. A tap came on my shoulder and I turned around, gasping loudly when I found my parents Alexander and Caelan, both beaming with pride.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I set my headphones around my neck and a familiar face poked out from behind Alexander, red curls spilling around his forehead as he giggled, “Beau?”

“Hi,” Beau giggled again, “surprise!”

“Big surprise,” laughing, I hugged my father Caelan, admiring how beautiful the fire of his waist-length waves shone in the fluorescent lights around us, tears settled in his wise, welcoming light brown eyes, “did you come for the ceremony?”

“Duh,” Caelan laughed, his thick Montana accent totally out of place in Japan, even more so than my own New Zealand one, “Beau told us and we just knew we had to be here. We managed to make it on time to see you tonight. I thought you only had one more next week?”

“Oh, I do. But one of our guys sprained his ankle and for us to win the team competition, not just solo medals, I agreed to step in. I already secured my spot and could realistically skip next week but I don’t want to.”

“We’re so proud of you,” Alexander ruffled my hair, making me smile as we were the same height, and shared light brown curls and matching brown eyes. I was only a bit deeper skin-toned than he was, spending most of my time in the backyard of our home in Christchurch practicing flips, “Beau told us and we decided to come to Tokyo. We’ve never been after all and seeing our son qualify for the fucking Olympics seemed as good an excuse as any. Beau didn’t even need to beg to come, we just figured you’d want your best friend here.”

“Yeah,” I smiled at Beau and he returned it, fixing the front of the obnoxiously yellow sweater he was wearing, “thank you, Beau.”

“Mhm,” he wiggled, looking up at the sky and I tried to stop myself from staring but it was hard when his hazel eyes reflected the green light and made the honey of them even brighter, “well Mom and Mama were fine with it. I am 17 after all and they trust your parents. I packed before even telling them.”

Beau’s out-of-place accent could rival Caelan’s back home. Even though Beau had been our neighbor since I was three and he was nearly 2, his parents had moved to Christchurch from New York. Both of his mothers, Erica and Brooklyn, had that usual tone you’d hear in movies when they tried to display New Yorkers. But as Beau had learned to talk in New Zealand, he took on both accents and created his own, a beautiful twinkling sound when he spoke that made my cheeks warm.

“Did you get taller in the three weeks we were apart?” I teased and Beau kicked me in the shin, “Ow! Rude!”

“You’re the abnormal one here, ass,” Beau scowled, “6 foot 2. I’m 5 foot 9 I’d have you know. I’m taller than your dad,” he pointed to Caelan who glared at him.

“By an inch. Be nice,” Caelan snorted, “where were you going, Koa?”

“Oh I’m starving so I was heading to a restaurant nearby before returning to the hotel room I’m sharing with one of my teammates. I didn’t want to rent an apartment like a few of them did.”

“Or,” Caelan smiled, “you could come with us. We rented a two-bedroom place for the time you’re here and we can all fly back together. If you want. We already got permission from your coach as long as you go to the meetings and practices you’re supposed to. We’ll just be tourists when we’re not at your competitions. Ya know, Papa Lio had a shop in Akihabara. We could go see it,” he turned to Alexander who smiled gently and kissed Caelan on the forehead.

My parents were incredibly affectionate and while I loved to see it, knowing how truly they were meant for each other, it left me jealous as all I wanted was someone to love me the way that they loved each other. But I knew it was better to wait until I was in university this year, wanting to feel stable in my future before I dated.

“Oh. Yeah, that’d be fine. I’ll just need to get my stuff but I can do that after dinner. Did you get a car?”

“We tried,” Alexander shrugged, “but they wouldn’t release it to me. At least the place we’re staying is close.”

“Alright. Um… can we eat then I’ll go?”

“Sure.”

I slid my headphones back on, putting them in noise-canceling mode, and started leading them to the restaurant. Beau caught up to me, peacefully walking at my side as he always did. I had severe issues processing sound, taste, and touch. He was used to this, knowing I always wore headphones if I was outside and would text me if he needed to tell me something, my watch notifying me so I didn’t need to get my phone out. We were the best of friends, having been in each other's lives since we were toddlers but we weren’t close until a year ago. I had been closer to his older brother Mateo until Mateo made some negative choices and ended up in prison at eighteen years old for drugs, robbery, and it then came to light that he had been assaulting girls between the ages of 13 and 15 when he was already a consenting adult as the age of consent in New Zealand is 16. He was 18, preying on 14-year-olds and quite a few had come forward. This landed him a minimum of ten years as well as having to stay in a men's home when he was released as he was a registered sex offender. I was disappointed, my best friend turned into a monster that had also tried to use me sexually but I had thankfully turned him away constantly, knowing he was attempting to use my being gay as an excuse to push me into something I wasn’t ready for.

Once Mateo had been arrested, Beau started to spend time with me and it became very apparent he’d wanted to be my friend since we were children but his brother had gotten in our way. I adored Beau, he was more than accommodating of my needs and always found ways to make things easier. All he wanted was to spend time with me.

We reached the restaurant a few minutes later and were seated, doing our best to be respectful but as this was the heart of Tokyo, I figured they were used to tourists. I slid my headphones back into my pocket, grateful to find that the place as still as quiet as it always seemed to be, and smiled at my parents.

“I bet Kaia is mad you’re here without her.”

“Oh absolutely. Your sister is so proud. I guarantee she’s been watching online like we have,” Caelan laughed softly, looking at the menu screen on our table, “hm. Koa, I’m surprised you’d pick somewhere like this.”

“I’ve been teaching myself to eat more foods by researching the textures,” I shrugged, “it’s never flavor that bothers me, it’s how it feels in my mouth. This place is renowned for its tonkatsu. I like tonkatsu, it’s crunchy so I’ve been here every day for three weeks. They even happily separate it from the rice and cabbage for me. I did try Korokke. Do you know what it is?”

“Oh, it’s like a French croquette, right? Papa Bas used to make me those when I was little,” he smiled, lost in thought, “it’s meat and potato that they mix and deep fry.”

“But I didn’t know that so I bit into it and felt like I was going to die,” I shuddered, “the sudden appearance of soft potato was more than I could handle.”

“Did it taste good though?” Beau smiled from his seat next to me and I shrugged.

“Couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t process the taste when I was trying to get it out of my mouth. I was doing my best to be polite, it just wasn’t for me. Dad, order on that screen. It translates to English for you.”

“Thanks,” Caelan smiled and I felt a small poke to my thigh.

Looking down, I realized that Beau had hooked his finger into the loop on the side of my shorts and was studying the menu intensely as if he had unconsciously touched me. Normally, I would have pushed him away in a panic. I hated touch as it made my skin feel weird, the sweat or smell of someone else lingering on me and forcing me to shower to get it off. But I had never felt this way with my family and the more time I spent around Beau, the less his touch bothered me. He was always respectful, the most he gave me was a quick side hug, and it showed me that I could trust in him, and that what I needed meant more than his satisfaction of being near me.

“You’d like that,” I whispered to Beau, pointing to something I saw on the menu, “it’s called gyukatsu. It’s breaded, deep-fried beef. I know that they serve it here with miso soup, potato salad, and pickles. All of your favorite things.”

“Thank you,” he whispered back, smiling, “I want to go to Harajuku while we’re here. Because I saw that they have lots of different snacks and street food I want to try. I wish you could go, but I know how busy you’ll be so I’ll take notes for you.”

“I have two free days before the last competition. If you’re willing to wait for me, we can go. I’ll take you while my parents are in Akihabara. They’re about 25 minutes apart by train. We did a lot of sightseeing when the team first got here, so I downloaded an app that told me the train times and the right lines to take. I can be your guide at least a little bit. I don’t know if I’ll want to eat any of it and I’ll need my headphones but I would like that if you want to go with me.”

“Yes,” he nodded quickly, his cheeks bright pink before he put in his dinner order and I did the same.

“Was your flight okay?” I continued focusing only on Beau as my parents were in their own world, talking about coming back to Japan to hike in a year.

“No. It sucked. I was so uncomfortable. We had last-minute flights so we got stuck in economy and had no legroom. I’m sure your Matua was worse off. But I know Caelan told me the flight back is first class. They’ll have a little area and we’ll share. I made sure that there’s enough room to keep us separated so I don’t accidentally touch you in my sleep.”

“You did that for me?” my eyes grew wide as Beau nodded, resting his chin in his hand, “why?”

“Your comfort is the most important thing to me. That’s all,” he shrugged, taking a sip of water, “you did really good today. I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you. That means a lot. Also… I’m really happy you came with my parents. They were right,” I swallowed and gently pushed his hair away from his eyes, making Beau gasp as I had never touched him before, “I wanted to see you.”