Archive of Our Own

“And that’s all for this week’s round of phights!”

“Thank you for joining us. We’ll catch you next time…”

“On the Flipside!”

As the cameras stopped rolling and the crew started to clean up the studio, Dom and Valk both breathed a sigh of relief. They’d been commentating on phights for several hours now, with minimal ad breaks, and to say it was draining would be saying the least. Sure, as entertainers they were used to it, but it sure as hell didn’t stop them from feeling exhausted after it all.

Valk retrieved his water bottle from under the table and took a sip. “Swords, I’m glad that’s over, I really need to eat something!”

Dom stood up from his chair, stretching before he reached for his water as well.

“Didn’t you eat during one of the breaks?”

“That was just a snack! You’re saying you aren’t hungry?”

“Not really. I ate quite a bit before we started. I won’t stop you if you want to get something, but I’m going straight home once I get all of this off.” He gestured to his outfit, the suit and headpiece that he wore exclusively for broadcasts and performances. Valk, of course, had his own on as well, and neither of them ever felt the need to wear it more than they had to. Regardless of how stylish and dapper everyone thought they were in them (which they had been told numerous times from various fans), they were a real pain to be in for very long, and certainly not as comfortable as anything else they had in their personal wardrobe. Thus, at the end of whatever they were scheduled to do, one of their first stops would always be the makeup room to take it off and change into normal, comfortable clothes, which had the added benefit of almost acting like disguises for the pair.

“Suit yourself then, I’m gonna stop at Ranged Royale. Let me know if you want anything, m’kay?”

“Alright. See you at home.” Dom grabbed his belongings and headed off to the makeup room, while Valk opted to check his phone for any notifications. They obviously couldn’t be on them during the broadcast, and he already knew his would likely be blown up with notifications from emails and the like. Better to get them out of the way now rather than during his off-time.

Or, at least, he would have checked for those if he wasn’t met with a text mere seconds after unlocking his phone.

heyyy whats up man! i know we like literally just got done with all this stuff but would you wanna hang out for a bit and get some food or somethin?

Of course, it was Boombox. Neither Valk nor his brother made many attempts to get close to any of the phighters, but Boombox had somehow managed to not only get close with Valk on his own (Dom was never particularly enthusiastic about talking to inphernals in general), but he even scored a position in helping out with their shows from time to time. He was, arguably, about the closest thing to a real friend that he had besides his brother, and someone who made him feel almost normal despite his stardom.

Oh hey! I’m totally down, I was actually just about to head over to Ranged Royale! Would that work for you?

that works :D

Awesome! I just gotta get changed and whatnot. Meet at the bottom of the tower?

sounds good ^-^

Well, at least he wouldn’t be out alone now. Even when he was in his street clothes, there was always a risk of fans noticing and mobbing him on the street, and with nobody else there it would be hard to fend them all off at once. Knowing Boombox would be there was definitely a relief.

After spending some time in the makeup room to get back to his normal appearance, Valk exited the reception floor of Flipside Tower wearing plain clothes and a hoodie, a drastic departure from his usual performance gear. He even had his wings tucked beneath his hoodie, which was incredibly uncomfortable, but there weren’t exactly many winged inphernals walking around Crossroads that weren’t the Flipside duo, so it was a sacrifice he had to make.

Scanning the area for signs of Boombox, Valk eventually spotted him leaning against one of the tower’s support pillars. He was still in the same outfit he wore for the day’s phight, and his gear was on the ground beside him, the faint sound of some EDM song playing from it. He was lucky to have such a recreational gear, especially compared to the ones meant for combat like what so many of the other residents of the Inpherno had.

In the time between walking over to Boombox and waiting for him to notice his presence, Valk couldn’t help but reflect on the musician in front of him. Boombox was someone he had always had a passing interest in, before they even became friends and started working with each other. Something about the way he carried himself around others, whether it be friends or even complete strangers, always resonated with him. He felt relatable, in a way. Valk wasn’t sure where this feeling initially came from, but one has a lot of time to let these thoughts pop up when you spend hours at a time watching their every move and commenting on it for the audience at home.

Maybe it was simply from their shared identity as performers. Putting on acts for others, being something that’s not entirely you, but not an outright fabrication either. He obviously wasn’t privy to Boombox’s private life (Being essentially his boss meant that their relationship remained perhaps more professional than what a true friendship would be), but he knew what being a performer was like. He had lived most of his adult life as one, after all. Sometimes cracks show through, little subconscious actions that briefly shatter the illusion of what you show to others, but in the time he had spent observing Boombox throughout perhaps hundreds of phights and in the intermissions during and after them, Valk had never noticed him slip even once. He always maintained the same loud, cheery attitude that everyone knew him for, phighter or not. Maybe that was just how he always was? Or maybe he was just good at keeping up his act.

Nevertheless, Boombox eventually noticed the presence of the idol standing in front of him and was quick to shut off his music.

“Oh, hey man! Sorry, I didn’t recognize you, you always look so different when you’re not in your other outfit!”

Valk chuckled. “Well, that’s the point, right? If anything, I’m glad that you of all inphernals couldn’t recognize me!”

“Right, right, paparazzi and megafans and all. You ready to get goin’?”

Valk gave a nod, and after Boombox took a few moments to sling his gear over his back, the two headed towards the direction of Ranged Royale.

It was early evening at this point, which meant that the streets were starting to clear of other Crossroads citizens. Although Crossroads had a fairly active nightlife, there wouldn’t be many inphernals out at this hour unless they were going out for dinner, which luckily meant there wouldn’t be as many inphernals out that could recognize the two.

Also coinciding with this time of day, and something that Valk always looked forward to, was the sunset. Right now, it was hard to see past the sprawling jungle of buildings and neon signs, but in the open air above he could see the streaks of orange and yellow beginning to cross the sky. It was something he always enjoyed observing, ever since his younger years, and it helped to keep him somewhat grounded in all of the chaos of his life, related to his stardom or not.

The pair made light conversation on their way to Ranged Royale, but it wasn’t long before they eventually arrived.

About 5 minutes had passed at the restaurant so far, split between ordering and waiting for their food. It wasn’t long after they had sat down with their orders that Valk thought to check if Boombox was doing alright after his matches. He always made it clear to the phighters that they should update him on their wellbeing if need be, whether it be something that happened before, during, or after a phight. Even if there hadn’t been many major medical emergencies in a while and most injuries sustained during phights were easily solved by using Medkit’s crystals, there was always a chance something unexpected would happen that would necessitate either replacing a phighter on the roster or stopping the phight entirely, and sometimes there would be some residual injuries after everything was over.

“By the way, are you doing alright? You took some pretty nasty hits out there today.”

Boombox’s visor temporarily flicked to a pair of question marks before it changed to a happier expression. “Oh, yeah! I am! I honestly completely forgot about all of that already!”

Valk was bewildered by that. “Wait, really? Are the crystals that effective? You had to remember that you got hurt?”

“A little! Hold on, one second…” Boombox set down the burger he was holding to roll up the sleeve on his right arm. He nearly got all the way to the shoulder before he pointed to a faint line that ran across most of his upper arm. “Yep, here it is! That one Biograft I went against sliced me real good up here, stung like hell for the rest of the phight and made it really hard to use this arm, but the crystals patched it up pretty well!” He patted it for emphasis. “Doesn’t feel much worse than a papercut now!”

“That’s… wow. I didn’t know they were so potent!”

Boombox shrugged before picking up his burger again and taking a bite. “Well, it’s certainly a lot better than whatever he’s got loaded in that revolver of his. That stuff stings when you get shot by it.”

He continued talking for a while about what it was like to be in the phights and his experience with the other phighters, all the while Valk listened intently. Something about the way Boombox spoke just made it fun to listen to him, even if a lot of what he was saying was already known to Valk from prior conversations and even his own broadcasting. It was no wonder why he was generally well-liked among the other phighters.

“Um… Valk? You there?”

The sound of Boombox’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. “Wh- Huh?”

“You were staring at me and not saying anything. Did I say something wrong?”

“I was staring?”

“Mhm.”

“Oh, Swords, I’m sorry! No, I promise you didn’t say anything wrong, I just got lost in thought.”

“Cool, cool.” Boombox nodded as he finished up the last of his meal. “Well, that was fun! I’d love to stick around for longer, but I had a movie night planned for later with Sling and Skate that I can’t miss! Catch ya later Valk!”

Valk waved goodbye as Boombox hopped out of his seat and left the restaurant, leaving the idol alone at the table with his thoughts. He realized he hadn’t even finished his food yet; he must’ve been too preoccupied with listening to actually eat. He thankfully didn’t have all that much left, so it only took him a few minutes to finish before he was able to leave as well, heading back home to meet up with his brother.

“Sooooo, did you tell him?”

Slingshot was laying on the floor of Boombox’s apartment, his chin resting in his hands as he kicked his feet behind him. He was looking over at the other inphernal, who was sitting on the couch with Skateboard. They were there to watch a movie, but they hadn’t even started it before Slingshot jumped into this line of questioning.

Boombox groaned as he covered his face with his hands. “No… I didn’t.”

“Aw, c’mon man! You gotta say something eventually!” Skateboard put his hand on Boombox’s shoulder, shaking him around lightly.

“Well yeah, but how am I supposed to?! Just walk up and go, ‘Hey, Valk! Did you know I have a crush on you? I’m sure you, my boss, feel the same about me!’”

Slingshot scoffed. “Well definitely not like that.”

“Well then what do you suggest?”

“You could try inviting him over? Maybe make him dinner and tell him during that?”

“Dude, you’ve seen his cooking,” Skateboard interjected. “That’d be a murder charge before a confession.”

“Hey!” Boombox picked up a pillow from his side of the couch and chucked it at Skateboard, who barely managed to catch it before it hit him. “My cooking isn’t that bad! I’m surviving off it!”

“‘Surviving’ is never how you want to talk about your own cooking.”

“As if yours is much better! There’s a reason you go to Sling’s café so much!”

“Hey, be nice! Skate, you can come to my café as much as you want.”

“See, now that just sounds like you want him there for his money.”

“I do not!”

“Oh, whatever. Boom, I’ll literally give you a thousand bux if you confess the next time you meet up with him.”

Boombox and Slingshot both shut up immediately as Skateboard said this, looking at him with the same expression of surprise and incredulity.

“A THOUSAND?”

“Skate, no offense, but I don’t believe you just have a thousand bux laying around to throw into bets like these.” Slingshot pointed a finger at him accusingly.

“Oh, I promise that I do!”

Boombox was flabbergasted. “Where did you even get that from? You haven’t been at a phight in, like, a month! I know you’ve had to pay rent since then!”

“I have my ways.” He smirked in a way that both of the other phighters knew meant some sort of crime was involved. “So, you down for it?”

“I…”

“Boom,” Slingshot interrupted, “if you never say anything, your yearning is only gonna get worse and worse until you eventually confess anyways. Are you about to turn down a thousand bux to go a little faster?”

Boombox’s mind was racing with thoughts. He’d had a crush on Valk for over a year at this point, starting not long after he started helping out with Flipside’s shows. He wasn’t very aware of it at first, since it just started out as this feeling in the pit of his stomach whenever he thought about him, which really could’ve been anything. But as time passed and they spent more and more time together outside of phights, he realized that he really liked Valk. They had similar personalities and interests, he was fun to talk to, the whole nine yards. He accidentally let this slip during a hangout with Slingshot and Skateboard a few months back, and they were the only ones who knew about it, but by the Swords did they tease him about it often.

“Dude, you’re so green right now,” Skateboard snickered.

“Wh- Shut up!” His cheeks were burning with how much he was blushing.

Slingshot kicked his feet back and forth, smirking all the while. “So what’s it gonna be then, hm?”

“...”

Valk had a lot to think about when he got home. Ever since Boombox had pointed out him staring during their conversation, there was something nagging at him from deep down inside himself, and it had something to do with that musician. So there he was, sitting on his bed, deep in thought.

Something he hadn’t noticed until now was that whenever the two would meet up after a phight, Valk would always ask about how Boombox was doing. He never did that for any of the other phighters, even when he would meet with them face-to-face. Was it just formality? Just him doing his job as an organizer and his boss to make sure he was alright? Or was it something more?

Even if it was just formality, he couldn’t deny that even while watching the phights he was concerned for the other’s safety. He’d always be subconsciously keeping track of his movements across the arenas, every hit he took and every ‘death’ he had. Of course he had to be watching the other phighters as well, that was he and Dom’s jobs as broadcasters after all, but he never committed much to his memory unless it was Boombox. Furthermore, he would feel genuine worry if it looked like he had taken a particularly nasty hit, like he had many times in the past. His brain wandered to one particular instance that had happened recently.

Two months ago

It was a particularly rough Conquer match for Boombox’s team. They were losing 40 to 75, and the rain pouring down on the Kingdom of Telamon certainly wasn’t helping them regain footing, both figuratively and literally. Skateboard, who was on his team, was having an especially hard time controlling his board due to the rain, and at one point wasn’t able to slow down enough before he hit the point’s ledge, sending him flying onto the ground. Boombox rushed over, presumably to help him back up, before a voice rang out through the arena.

“Prepare yourself!”

He barely had time to turn towards the noise before Sword’s gear lodged itself in his chest, knocking him onto the ground.

Beep.

He sat up, as fast as he could with a hunk of metal sticking into him.

Beep.

He tried to push himself to his feet.

Beep.

He slipped on the wet ground, falling onto his back.

…

Valk shook himself out of the memory. That was especially rough to watch live, and he had to refrain himself from gasping out loud during the broadcast. Even though things like that had happened numerous times before (Sword had a surprisingly good aim with throwing his gear), it was only with Boombox that Valk felt a lingering sense of dread until he respawned, eager to get back into the phight. It felt… wrong. He brushed it off so casually, so nonchalantly, it was like it never even happened.

Why was he so worried for Boombox? Was it just because they were friends? Maybe. But… that didn’t feel right to Valk. It felt like there was something more.

A knock sounded from his door.

“Yeah?”

The door creaked open slightly, revealing Dom on the other side.

“Are you alright? You seemed off when you came back.”

“I… guess? I don’t know, I’ve just been doing some thinking.”

“Do you need help with that?”

He chuckled. “Sure, I guess. That’s a weird way to phrase it though.”

Dom shrugged before he pushed the door open, walking over to the chair in front of Valk’s desk and sitting in it.

“What’s on your mind?”

“Where do I even start…” He tried to think of a way to lead into this without seeming weird. “Do you… have a favorite phighter?”

“Not really a favorite, no. Some of them are more tolerable than others, but I doubt that’s what you mean.”

“Right... I guess a better question would be… do you feel anything when you watch them phight?”

“As in?”

“Do you… I don’t know… feel worried for any of them? Maybe someone gets blown up into a wall and then they fall into some pit, do you worry about them at all?”

“Can’t say I do.” He reclined back in the chair a bit, putting his arms behind his head.

“They always seem fine when they get out, other than the handful of times they weren’t. But those are few and far between.

“Besides, we all know the game. Phighters are gonna get slashed, stabbed, blown up, all of that. They know what they’re doing, and we know what we’re doing. They phight, we commentate.” He leaned forward, arms crossed across his knees.

“Do you worry about any of them?”

“Not purposefully. Or, I don’t think so, at least.”

“What do you mean, ‘not purposefully?’” He accentuated this with air quotes.

Valk sighed; there wasn’t really a way to continue with this without ripping the band-aid off. “It’s just… I’ve noticed that I’m way more attentive to Boombox than any of the others. I feel like I’m always subconsciously watching him, noting when he gets hurt and when he takes especially bad hits. I feel worried every time he has to respawn, even though I know he’ll be fine after it all. And I don’t know why.”

Dom pondered for a few moments, seemingly lost in thought.

“You… consider him a friend, right?”

His wings flared up in defense. “Of course I do! More than anyone else in my life! Aside from you, of course.”

“And you’re sure ‘friend’ is the right word?”

He nearly responded with an affirmative ‘yes,’ but the implication of Dom’s question hit him like a sack of bricks.

Oh Swords.

Dom smirked at him.

“It’s not, is it?”

“N… no, this can’t be right. How?”

He shrugged, pushing himself up from Valk’s chair and heading to the door.

“Seems like you got this all figured out now. Let me know how that goes for you.” With a playful wave before shutting it, Valk was now left alone to confront the sheer terror that had encompassed him.

This was bad. Really bad.

Out of everything that’s happened to him in his career, all of the show mishaps, all of the phight disasters, everything, this may just be the worst thing that’s happened to him thus far. This wasn’t just some minor mistake that led to some videos floating around on the internet, or some medical emergency that resulted in a quick hospital trip, this was relation-ruining. And in showbiz, relations are everything.

Hell, even without speaking in regards to business, this was essentially his one and only friend in the Inpherno. Having feelings for him, ones which he likely wouldn’t reciprocate, would either make everything awkward for the rest of time or outright ruin their friendship entirely.

But at the same time, he couldn’t just let these feelings sit. SFOTH knows that bottling up feelings isn’t a healthy thing to do; he’s been taught that lesson many times. He was just gonna have to suck it up and tell Boombox his thoughts. But not over text. No, this was going to have to be at one of their physical meet-ups.

Valk groaned, burying his face in his hands. He couldn’t deal with that tonight, he still had to wrestle with the idea that he actually had feelings for someone.

He would settle this in the morning.

Hey Boombox! I got a bunch of stuff to do today, but if you’re free this evening, I’d love to meet up with you so we can talk about some stuff! (Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble)

Boombox had been staring at the notification for at least 30 minutes. Valk had sent the message to him before he had woken up, but now that he was awake, looking at it was all he had done so far. This was way sooner than he was hoping for it to be. He was nowhere near ready to go through with it all.

What was he supposed to do?

Carefully navigating his messages app to avoid tapping on Valk’s and sending a read notification, he opened his messages with Slingshot, since he severely doubted Skateboard would be awake yet.

sling
sling its happening
he wants to meet up this evening
im not ready for this
what do i do

Shoot, already? That was fast!

yeah no shit you dont have to tell me that
im kinda freaking out a bit
what am i supposed to do

What did he want to meet up for? If you can say, not sure if it’s business related or not lol

idk he didnt say
just said that he wanted to talk about stuff

Okay, but imagine…

i doubt :(

Hey, it’s alright man! Listen, if you want, I can wrap up some pastries for you to bring to him? If it does end up going that way, at least
And if not, at least you’ve got some of the Inpherno’s best to snack on at home :P

i guess so
thanks sling, ill try to make it up to you

Maybe you can bring him to the cafe for a date, eh?

youre really not helping your ‘using us for money’ case with that

Sue me >:P

Boombox sighed. That was probably enough stalling. He needed to get this done and over with.

With a shaking finger, he opened Valk’s message and typed his response.

oh hey! sounds good, just let me know what time and where :]

His heart felt like it was about to beat out of his chest.

Eventually, after what felt like an eternity to him (despite only being a handful of minutes), his fate was sealed:

Awesome! There’s a nice park along the beach that I think would be secluded enough to talk, do you know the one?

uhhhh, you talking about the one with the firebrand statue in the middle?

Yep! Would 5:30 work for you?

i think so! see you there ^-^

Fuck.

This was really happening.

“SFOTH save me,” he muttered.

The hours came and went, and eventually it was time for their meeting. In Boombox’s backpack, he had a small bag of pastries, courtesy of Slingshot, that he planned to give to Valk in case things went well (Heavy emphasis on if). Boombox really had no expectations for this to work, and was already starting to accept that he was probably going to be rejected. But either way, Valk wanted to talk about something, so he’d probably wait until they were about to part ways to say anything.

After wandering through the park for any signs of the idol and realizing he must not have arrived yet, he opted to sit on a bench overlooking the beach. At this time, the sun was starting to go down, all the while casting rays of colors across the sky. Boombox was never the type of person to watch the sunset, since he would usually be too preoccupied with other stuff to have the time to watch, but he couldn’t deny that it was especially beautiful.

Once more dressed in his street clothes, Valk slowly strolled through the park, taking in the scenery around him before he’d inevitably have to tell Boombox about his feelings. The calm before the storm, if you will. He eventually found him sitting on a bench near the edge of the park, hunched forwards slightly and bouncing his leg, appearing to be lost in thought.

He wasn’t about to count on Boombox’s situational awareness to tell him that Valk was here, so he decided to grab his attention with a, “Hey, Boombox!”

Boombox, visibly startled for a split second before realizing who it was, responded with, “What’s up Valk! How are you doing!?”

“Not bad,” he responded, taking a seat at the bench next to the musician, “spent a lot of time doing paperwork and making phone calls. Y’know, real fun stuff.”

“Yeah, I get that. I couldn’t imagine doing stuff like that every day, must be tiring as hell, yeah?”

“You could say that again,” he said with a chuckle.

A brief, but not unpleasant, moment of silence passed between the two as they stared at the sunset in front of them.

Eventually, Boombox spoke back up. “So, uh… you wanted to talk about something?”

“Oh, right! Sorry, I uh… got a bit distracted. I’m... a bit of a sucker for sunsets, to be honest.”

“Really?” He cracked a small smile. “I didn’t know that! Is that why you kept staring at the sky when we were going to Ranged Royale yesterday?”

Valk started to lightly blush. He didn’t realize Boombox had seen him doing that. “Y… yeah, maybe. I didn’t know you saw that…”

“Hey, no judgement here! I get it, to be honest. It’s nice, for sure. You get to see it often?”

“Not as much as I’d like, to be honest. Traveling through Crossroads to get home obscures it a lot of the time, and our house doesn’t get the best view of it, really. Got built at a weird angle, and there’s a bunch of trees outside. Blocks the view unless I go outside to watch, which doesn’t happen all that often.”

Boombox frowned a bit after hearing that. “Aw, man, that’s unfortunate. My apartment building has a pretty nice view of it from the roof. At least, I think it does. I haven’t sat down to watch one in a while, honestly.” He turned away from Valk, but didn’t face the sunset either, rather away from both to a point where it was hard to see his face. “Maybe you’d wanna come over sometime to watch it?”

Valk softly smiled. “I think that’d be nice, yeah!”

A few more moments passed between them, until Boombox took a deep breath and turned to face Valk again. “So… the thing you wanted to talk about?”

“Ah, sorry! Didn’t mean to get distracted. Yeah, I, uh…” He started to fidget with the cords on his hoodie. “I guess I just… wanted to say something to you.”

Boombox’s heart was racing. Even ignoring the whole confession thing, and despite Valk explicitly saying he wasn’t in trouble, he couldn’t help but feel anxious over those words. He blamed his brain for being so quick to jump to worst-case scenarios.

But despite every possibility running through his mind, nothing could have possibly prepared him for what Valk said:

“I… think I have a crush on you?”

“WHAT!?” Boombox exclaimed suddenly, visor changing to an entire row of exclamation points, afterwards slapping a hand over his mouth after he realized the outburst he just had. Not only could he feel himself heat up in the face after hearing that, but Valk was sporting his own unmissable blush of his own as well. “Gods, sorry, I didn’t mean to yell, but… what?”

Valk gave a sheepish smile, not meeting Boombox’s gaze. “Yeah, I… don’t blame you. It’s a bit out of nowhere, I know. You don’t have to feel the same, but I just thought it was important to-”

“No, I- I feel the same, Valk.”

Now it was Valk’s turn to be surprised. “Wait, really?” he said, turning to face Boombox.

“Y- yeah, hold on, let me just…” He reached into his bag that he had between his legs to pull out a small bag, decorated with the logo of what Valk recognized as a café in Crossroads. “I… had a bunch of pastries because I was planning to give them to you after I confessed.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, sheepishly smiling as well. “I probably should have mentioned that first, actually. I was also gonna confess after we were done talking.”

Valk couldn’t help but laugh at the coincidence. “Wow, that’s… that makes me feel a bit better, actually. I was really worried this would be weird since, y’know, I’m pretty much your boss and all…”

“Same! I would always think to myself, ‘This would be a weird thing to bring up, right?’ I… never expected you to feel the same.”

“Can… I ask how long you’ve felt like this?”

“About a year or two? I think? Not long after you properly hired me for shows ‘n stuff. What about you?”

“Well, truth be told, I didn’t fully realize until… last night?” Valk gave a semi-guilty smile. “I know I’ve kinda had some feelings for a while, but I didn’t realize what it actually was until Dom basically spelled it out for me.”

Boombox nodded. “I got ya, no worries. Feelings are complicated.” He paused for a moment, contemplating something. “So… do you wanna… make this official?”

He smiled. “If you’re willing to give it a shot, I think I’d love to.”

“I think so…” With a smile of his own, Boombox reached behind his head, unclasping his visor and bringing it away from his face. He looked at Valk, smiling warmly, before he leaned forwards to bump his forehead against the idol’s, trying his best not to get hit by Valk’s horns. “I love you, Valk.”

Valk cupped the musician’s face with his hands, staring into his eyes. “You can call me Mic, you know.” He leaned in a bit closer, until the rest of their faces were nearly touching. “And I love you too, Boombox.”

Their lips met in a quick, light kiss, since neither had much confidence to go much further with it. A flurry of emotions swept across both of them, but ultimately culminating in an overwhelming feeling of happiness and, of course, love. They pulled away, both of their faces heavily tinted with their respective colors.

“So… do you wanna get into those pastries?” Boombox asked, seemingly aware of the absurdity of the question at this time.

Valk giggled, holding both of Boombox’s hands with his own. “Y’know, I think those sound pretty nice right now.”

Eventually, the two had decided on spending their first night together at Valk and Dom’s house, since Boombox did bring up genuine concerns for the idol’s safety in Playground. Opening the door, the pair were almost immediately met with Dom’s presence in the living room just to the side of the foyer, his eyes leaving the book he was reading to look at the two.

“Looks like everything went well for you two?”

“No, actually, he found out about our secret drug ring and now we have to kill him.”

Boombox gave a playful frown, visor adorned with animated tears streaming from the eyes.

Dom chuckled, shaking his head before turning back to his book.

“Good, can’t leave any loose ends. I’m sure you can handle him.”

“Sure can!” He turned to Boombox, who had already changed from the sad expression to a happier one. “Come on, my bed has plenty of room for us both.”

Once night had fallen, the pair were both in Valk’s bed facing each other. Valk had changed into proper pajamas, while Boombox, since he didn’t think to pack any night clothes of his own, simply opted to remove his visor and place it on the bedside table.

As he could feel himself drifting off to sleep, Boombox spoke: “Can… I ask something?”

“Shoot away!”

“What did you see in me? What made you realize you had feelings for me?”

Valk thought for a moment, but it didn’t take long for him to give his response, since it was something he’d given a lot of thought about in the past few days. “I guess… I saw myself in you, in a way. We’re both performers, we’re in a lot of similar situations and tend to act pretty similar, but there was also just something about you I found so… interesting, I guess.”

“...Huh. I never really thought I was that interesting, to be honest.”

“Well, I certainly don’t see it that way.” He gave a soft smile. “What about you? What did you see in me?”

“Honestly? A lot of the same stuff you just said. I kinda saw myself in you as well, I guess. Thought you were a really awesome person to be around, and thought that you were someone I’d wanna maybe spend the rest of my life with.”

“Aww, well that’s really sweet, Boom.”

“Not as sweet as you, Mic.” Boombox smiled, before softly laughing. “Y’know, I never thought my night would be going like this.”

“No? What did you think would happen?”

He shrugged, at least as best as he could while in bed. “I dunno, thought you’d just say no and I’d go back to my apartment. Maybe cry over a bowl of ice cream.”

“Well, I’m sorry to have ruined your plans. Looks like you’ll have to deal with the horror of sleeping in the same bed as me!”

He smirked, capturing Valk’s lips in a kiss once more before pulling away and bonking their foreheads together. “I don’t think I’ll mind, actually.”