a/n: Reminder that translations are in the comments for now until I think of a better system :D

"So... you weren't an escort for my dad," Ray reiterated, and for the hundredth time, Sora nodded against the hand he used to hold his head up above the kotatsu table.

Ray put his elbow to the table surface and sighed. Sora glanced at him, curious as to what, exactly, was happening. "I feel... weird calling him 'dad'. Do I just call him 'Matias'?"

"Call him whatever you want. He started a literal brawl in a white-collared event full of CEOs," Sora said. He dropped his hand down as Ray hummed, sounding far away. "You've really never met him?"

Ray shook his head. "No. My Aunt Natalia raised me," he said, only to shake his head. "Mom. She's basically my mom. I don't—I don't know who my actual mom is, but she's basically it."

"And she never... talked about Matias?"

Again, Ray shook his head. "Whenever my abue mentioned him, my ma usually changed the subject. Or she'd start cursing at him. Or... throw something. She doesn't think fondly of him."

Sora licked his bottom lip and sighed, "Right." because he didn't know what else to say to that. Sure, he had family issues, but he didn't talk about them. He didn't even know how people would cope with the amount of shit on his plate, so he just kept it to himself.

But now he was intrigued, so he decided to keep Ray talking. "Did you know he lived in San Francisco?"

Ray shook his head. "No. I didn't even know he was in the US, honestly. I figured he was still back home. Like, in Mexico."

"Oh. Does that... bother you?" Sora asked, and Ray glanced up at him, lips pursed. "I mean, it's fine if you don't want to meet your dad. I guess I just want to know how you... feel about him?"

"Indifferent," Ray decided. He pushed to his feet then and said, "I think I'm gonna go to bed now."

Sora watched Ray walk off to the open bedroom door. He had hoped telling Ray would ease some of his own anxieties about the night, but it only fueled them. As dismissive as Ray was trying to be, Sora was all to familiar with liars.

Ray shut his bedroom door behind him. He turned off the lights and, dressed in his grubby basketball shorts and tshirt, collapsed onto his bed. He wormed his way under the blankets and laid there, facing the window, his brow strung tight. It grained on his aching brain and the muscles in his forehead until the morning, when he didn't realize he fell asleep like that and woke up with a raging headache.

Distantly, he heard the buzzer in the foyer going off. It was only nine, which meant that Sora was probably still around to see who was at the door. Sure enough, Ray's phone blinked on the pillow next to him—a text from Sora.

Ray picked up his phone, curious and frowning. He couldn't seem to unstick the sour expression from his face.

"Xavier's at the door. Do you want me to answer it?"

Xavier was in the same boat Ray was in, and recognizing this had Ray realizing the very reason his forehead hurt so much. His father—No, Matias de Lucía. Just Matias.

Sure, he could go around telling Sora, Leo, or even Huey that his father was back, but they were never there. They weren't there for the eighteen years of his life in which Matias just didn't exist. He had no notion of a father. Aunt Natalia was it all—his primary caregiver, his guardian, his mother in all sense of the word.

Ray replied to Sora and decided to get ready for the day as he waited for Xavier to come up. He weaseled himself into a pair of jeans and tucked his pajama tshirt into it.

"You're being ridiculous," Ray told himself with a huff, aggressively straightening out his shirt and jeans. "Matias's just a man—you're a man! You never have to see him."

He threw his bedroom door aside and marched out into the living space. Sora was already back to the kitchen, making an egg for himself on the stove. Ray went to join him, arms folded tightly over his chest. The two of them watched the egg sizzle and pop in the grapeseed oil before Ray said, "I made a lot of food yesterday."

"I saw."

"You're welcome to help yourself. I put a post-it note with your name on a few containers."

"Yeah, I saw," Sora said. After a moment of silence in which Ray tugged their roommate agreement off of the fridge, Sora glanced sparingly at Ray and said, "Thank you."

"It's nothing," Ray said, quietly as he slipped the paper into a drawer.

A knock sounded on their door, so Ray hurried off to answer it. He peered through the peep hole—just in case—and found Xavier standing there with his eye right up against scope. Ray recoiled back with a giggle and unlocked the door.

"H-Hey, Xavier—I didn't know you were stopping by," Ray said, heat flushing up his neck as Xavier stepped in.

The guy was wearing a pair of washed blue jeans and an open plaid shirt rolled up to his elbows. It was a classic, casual look on him that really shouldn't have looked as great as it did, and yet there Ray was, fanning himself discretely as he turned away.

He cleared his throat as Xavier said, "You never gave me your number. A grandes males, grandes remedios."

Ray gasped, horrified with himself. "Oh, God, I'm sorry. Here—I can give you it now—"

"It's no problem, really," Xavier said as they sputtered uselessly to each other on the cusp of the foyer archway. Off in the kitchen, Sora aggressively flipped his egg over on the pan, his initial desire for sunny side up demolished.

After handing Xavier the phone back, their eyes met and Ray swore he heard the angels singing in the distance.

He stumbled back into the living room, blushing like a maniac and rubbing at his hair. Only then did he remember that Sora was there and gave a frantic gesture in Sora's direction. "Oh, uh, Sora's here."

"Yeah, I know. He buzzed me in," Xavier said, offering a light wave to Sora, who eyed Xavier from over his shoulder, looked at Ray, and went back to the stove.

Ray smiled apologetically at Xavier. "He's not a morning person..."

Xavier gestured to the two of them as he wandered towards the center of the living room and asked, "Does he... usually stay over at your place?" and Ray wished he would have said it in Spanish.

Sora all but slapped the spatula down and Ray flinched.

Ray knew what he wanted to say, but he loathed how being in Xavier's company suddenly made him question the barrier his "relationship" made. But then Xavier went and said shit like that and Ray was glad he didn't come clean.

"Y-Yeah, we're dating," Ray said, glancing at Sora. Sora said nothing as he turned to rest his hip against the counter, plate in hand, and proceeded to eat standing up as he watched Ray and Xavier from the outskirts.

When Ray gave him a "What the fuck?" look, Sora shrugged and took a bite of toast.

Clearly, "dating" wasn't enough of an excuse for Xavier. He made a look Ray would have expected from some elderly lady passing on the streets thinking to herself, "Millennials."

Sora scoffed and said, "Didn't think you'd be so old-fashioned, grandpa."

"Sora!" Ray gasped, but couldn't hide the startled laugh of amusement that escaped him. He put a hand to his mouth, grinning, as Xavier rose an eyebrow at him.

"I just don't like that it feels like you two are living together when you're dating," Xavier said, and this comment sobered the both of them.

Ray waved his hands dismissively. "We aren't living together."

Sora thought to himself, So much for trying to come clean about everything. Ray never seemed all that interested in lying, but he did so because Sora asked. This, however, gave Sora the distinct impression that Ray wanted to lie about this to Xavier.

And Sora couldn't really blame him.

And, so, to put the icing on the cake, Sora pushed off of the counter. He transferred his plate to one hand so that the other could pass around Ray's shoulder blades. He snickered at the sight of Ray's flushed ears up close before Ray turned to look up at him, eyes wide.

He felt the minuscule tremble that went through Ray's shoulders when Ray caught sight of Sora's diabolical smile. "Would it be so bad to live with me?" he teased before laying a kiss on Ray's forehead.

It was just a split second, executed just as Sora passed him to head to the kotatsu. Ray felt his soul ascend from this dimension into the next as he did a complete 180 just to watch Sora walk by. When he spun back around, dizzy and disoriented, he found Xavier's eyes honed in on the back of Sora's head.

"Um..." Ray started, drawing Xavier's attention back to him. His wide, dark eyes reminded Ray of a bright-eyed puppy, and he melted at the sight of them. "Did you, um, just come here for my number or...?"

"That and I also wanted to see if you'd want to go for a walk with me since I don't have weight training this morning. I'm not really familiar—at all, really—with the area. We could get coffee or something—"

"That sound nice," Ray said with a soft smile.

Xavier smiled, and Ray melted all over again at those dimples. They had to be illegal.

Sora was so furious for no particular reason—perhaps it was because he couldn't eat in peace in his room, which didn't technically exist to Xavier, or perhaps it was because his fake boyfriend just agreed to what was clearly a date. Either or, he never inhaled a fried egg so quickly and so thoroughly before in his life just so he could pointedly dropped his fork on the table to get their attention.

Sora propped his elbow up on the table and met Xavier's eyes. "Yeah, that sounds nice."

Before Ray could even summon the good sense to convince God to open the earth beneath his feet and swallow him whole, Xavier put his hands on his hips, turned to Sora, and said, "If you don't mind, it would just be Ray and I. We have a lot to catch up on."

"Oh, of course, so you can...? Convince him to date you instead, is that it?" Sora said, and Xavier rose an eyebrow at him. "I'm not stupid, you know."

"Neither am I," Xavier said, taking a step towards the kotatsu as Ray feebly put a finger up, like he was raising his hand in the middle of class during a debate. Both parties ignored him. "Which is why I'm quite confident that I'm better suited for her—"

"Him," Sora hissed, damn near close to bending his fork.

Xavier closed his eyes, damn near close to strangling something. Instead, he pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, "Sorry. I know."

"I-It's fine, really," Ray squeaked. "It takes a while, I get it."

"It takes a while, yeah, for cis het dude-bros," Sora said.

"He is not a cis het dude-bro," Ray said, gesturing to Xavier. Xavier blinked at him, and Ray stammered, "H-He's just... cis het."

"What does that mean?" Xavier said.

"Born a guy, identifies as a guy, attracted to the opposite gender," Sora droned, pushing to his feet. "AKA bottom of the future pecking order once we dismantle the patriarchy in a millennia."

Xavier stared at him, and Ray withered at the look of absolute repulsion on both of their faces. It didn't help that he was still reeling from Sora's intrusion. Before either of them could open their mouths again, Ray pushed between them and grabbed Sora by the wrist.

"I need to talk to you—my room, now," Ray hissed, giving Sora's arm a firm yank.

Sora didn't give in until he made his distaste abundantly clear by pegging Xavier with two fingers towards Xavier's chest, which he then redirected to his eyes and back again. Xavier mimicked it, muttering an insult under his breath as he watched Ray herd Sora into his room.

Ray shoved Sora out of sight and glanced back at Xavier with an apologetic smile. Only then did he shut the bedroom door behind them and turn with a groan of contempt in Sora's direction.

"Do you have to be so rude 24/7?" Ray seethed as quietly and calmly as possible.

"He's got the mentality of a Gen X-ers—I was practically born to fight the entirity of Gen X," Sora said.

"He's—! He's barely a Millennial!" Ray whisper-shouted, flustered beyond belief.

Sora slapped his hands together, rolling his eyes. "We're Gen Z, get your facts straight," he snapped.

"I don't want to fight you on—fundamental generational disparities!" Ray said, and if he was surprised with himself for having blurted that out, Sora was even more so.

They both blinked at one another, thoroughly stunned by where the conversation went. Ray put a hand to his forehead and muttered, "Aye yai yai..." as Sora sighed, relaxing back on his heels, shoulders straightening once again.

Now composed, Sora said, voice hushed, "Do you want me to be your fake boyfriend or not?"

Ray's shoulders bristled. "Yes, but—"

"Okay, then this isn't about me anymore. Clearly you have issues with Xavier that make you want to lie directly to his face about this," he said, and when Ray fell silent, utterly caught, Sora continued. "Then if I was your boyfriend, I'd be pissed that Xavier even spoke to me like that—or you for that matter. It's obvious that he thinks our relationship is weak enough for you to ditch me to go to him."

Ray put a nervous, trembling hand to his cheek, and then his chin, his fingers rubbing beneath his lip. He paced the floor and worried himself to pieces. He felt his brain starting to overheat and fry with the stress of it.

Sora's words made him crumble to pieces in a matter of seconds. "Oh no—Oh no, oh no, what do we do?" he moaned, dragging his hands down his cheeks. Sora opened his mouth to answer, but Ray was on a blubbering tangent. "I really like him and I really care about him but I'm—! I'm not ready for that kind of commitment! I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd love a boyfriend who'd take me out for food and get me flowers and go on morning walks with me—not that... I'm a morning person or anything, but I'd totally consider it if—"

"Jesus Christ," Sora muttered to himself, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"—But I barely know the guy anymore—! If he swept me off my feet now I'd scream bloody murder and call it kidnapping—" he went on, pacing back to where Sora was, only to turn for another lap around his mattress.

"Ray, for Chrissake," Sora said, snapping his fingers in front of Ray's face. Ray startled with a squeak, blinking fast. "I get it, you're looking for Prince-fucking-Charming, and I hate to break it to you, but Xavier isn't it. Not right now, anyway."

"Yeah, you're right," Ray sighed, shoulders slumping. "So what do we do?"

"We need to convince him we're a power couple. Get him on board with our relationship so he holds off on pursuing you for a while," Sora explained.

Ray nodded. Yes, he thought, that seems like a good idea. Definitely doable.

There was very little, however, that he understand about being perceived as an authentic couple.

He discovered this approximately the second they got out of the apartment complex. After strapping into their shoes, zipping up their jackets, and locking the front door behind them, the three of them made their way down to the first floor of the complex. Xavier held the door for them, which Ray thanked him for as he walked by.

When his hand swayed back, a cool, solid hand grasped onto it. Ray startled at the touch, about to retract. In the process, he pulled the hand closer and found Sora attached to it.

Sora pushed his fingers between Ray's, his wrist touching the back of Ray's, and his skin displaying all of the rough edges and marks of a pole dancer. The callouses were hard like pebbles under the pads of his skin just beneath his fingers, and in the damp, foggy San Francisco air, they felt dry to the point of flakey.

But his grip was firm and confident—something that pulled Ray back to the concert where he had watched in awe as Sora hoisted himself upside down with nothing but a hand on the pole above him.

Ray's cheeks flushed at the memory of it as he watched, speechless, as Sora turned to Xavier and asked, "I know a place we could go. I haven't taken Ray there yet."

Xavier glanced past him to where Ray struggled to shake himself out of the shock of holding a guy's hand. The realization that he was even holding someone's hand struck him as The Best Thing Ever and soon, he was beaming so wide his eyes shut into happy moons.

"That sounds great!" he said, cheerful as ever, and started off ahead of the group, his hand trailing behind to where Sora gave him a weird look and Xavier grimaced in distaste.

Sora gave Ray's hand a tug and said, "Wrong way, you idiot—" only to curse. Fuck, he thought, I can't call him that! He could already feel the judgement seeping off of Xavier only five paces away from the front door of their apartment complex.

Ray whined, slumping his head against Sora's shoulder. "Aw, so mean," he teased, and Sora could have sighed in relief. Teasing. Right, that was what he intended to do, because that was what couples did.

Xavier strolled up alongside Ray and said, "So what are you majoring in?" which sparked Xavier's immediate interest in Ray's music. He had, after all, been there for Ray's early stages of learning the guitar.

As they talked and drifted on from Ray's music, the topic trickled into an old classmate of theirs from Mexico who also picked up the guitar. Before long, Xavier was naming all of the people Ray had forgotten but remembered instantly upon hearing their names.

Sora never felt that level of nostalgia, but it consumed Ray for the entirity of the walk to their destination. Ray listened intently to the stories Xavier had—about people from their hometown who had passed away, gotten married, moved abroad or simply away to another city. It was heartbreaking for Ray to hear that their favorite tree had been cut down in fear of it falling over one of Xavier's relatives' homes. It was equally exciting, however, to hear that they had built an addition off of Xavier's grandparents' house that included a screened-in porch filled with all of his grandma's voracious plants.

They walked down streets filled with old brick buildings and refurbished warehouses. Amidst the checkered windows and open store fronts, there were a number of people frequenting the coffee shops and the antique stores that were just now opening for the afternoon. The buildings were all a variety of shapes and sizes, pressed up against one another, and on the rare chance that the side of a building showed through, they found murals painted on the exposed brick.

Considering the number of antique stores in the area, Ray assumed that was their plan. Instead, however, they followed the smell of fresh pastries that traveled with the people passing by. Sora held the door open for Ray, his hand trailing off of Ray's fingers as they separated.

Xavier followed after Ray into the café. The café was based in a repurposed warehouse consisting of eclectic displays and decorations strung up from the ceiling. The light through the second story windows caught on hanging crystals and decorative stained glass fixtures, which cast rays of rainbow sunlight across the room.

The fronds of large palm trees draped from pots on the second-story balconies, and Ray caught himself marveling at it all as Sora walked past their stunned faces. Xavier was, likewise, in a state of disbelief as he stared up at the ceiling decorations. He turned to look down at Ray, who, likewise, circled back around to face him.

They shared a quick smile as Ray said, "Pretty."

"Sí—es hermoso," he said in a way that made Ray feel like Xavier had just been looking at him the entire time.

The flutter of the accordion nearly blossomed from Ray's chest right then and there. The sunlight turned to blush on Xavier's face, and the glitter of the dust particles in the air spun into a bokeh effect like they were in a shōjo manga. Xavier's eyes shined, his dimples dazzling. Ray felt his feet floating out from under him from the way his heart fluttered with the accordion and prepared for take off.

Before he could harness it and go off on a romantic tangent, Sora came to the rescue.

"I used to come here all the time last semester," Sora said, taking Ray by the hand again. Ray pried his eyes away from Xavier as he staggered forward, up against Sora's chest.

He forgot just how striking Sora's eyes were, and how flustered they made Ray feel. Eye contact was always a task, but with Sora, he couldn't look away, not when Sora said, "I don't know why I haven't taken you here yet—the greenery reminds me that your favorite color is green."

Ray swallowed hard. "H-How could you possibly know that?" he whispered, the words whisked under Xavier's radar due to the commotion echoing in the warehouse.

Sora grinned, and he was back to his usual snarky self. "Because you own so many green basketball shorts."

Ray groaned with a huff. Sure, green was his favorite color, but that wasn't the reason why he had so many green shorts!

Sora walked off, laughing and trailing Ray behind him, their hands clasped together. "I—! I only own those 'cause my high school's colors were green!"

The three of them got in line to order drinks. When it came time to pay, Sora turned to Ray and asked what he wanted. Oblivious, Ray admitted that he was thinking about getting some tea with one of the pastries in the glass case on the countertop. The cashier punched it in and rung it up, and Sora handed his cash over before Ray could get his card out.

"H-Hey! Why are you paying for—" Ray started, and Sora glared at him. "Oh, shit—I mean, thank you. But you didn't have to."

"Don't mention it," Sora said, and as the two of them went in search of a table, Sora leant closer to whisper, "It's practically your money anyway."

Ray blinked, confused. When had he given Sora money? Maybe it was for groceries? he wondered, but no—Ray was the one who generally picked up things for Sora, not the other way around.

Ray rose an eyebrow at Sora. Sora rolled his eyes. He let go of Ray's hand to gesture with both hands the visual of him raining money on unsuspecting onlookers. He started shimmying his shoulders, biting his tongue as he grinned, and the visual hit Ray like a brick to the head.

Ray yelped and slapped Sora's hands down. Sora threw his head back and laughed, which only threw Ray off-balance more than he already was. Had he...? Had he ever heard Sora laugh?

No, he realized, not really, anyway.

Xavier joined them then as Sora covered his smile with the back of his hand, only to sober up at the sight of Xavier behind them. He cleared his throat and went back to frowning as Ray caught himself holding Sora's hands down.

He yanked his hands back and said, voice cracking, "Let's—! Let's get a table!" and immediately tripped over someone's handbag when he attempted a getaway between the tables.

Ray caught himself with a shriek of terror. Both Xavier and Sora had their hands out, not that they could have done much to prevent a concussion. Ray recovered and galloped off before either of them could ask if he was okay.

Xavier turned to Sora and asked, "Is he always like this?"

Sora snickered. "Why? Having second thoughts?"

"Of course not," he said, stern-faced and resolute.

They ate in the company of a corner full of cat palms and elephant-eared fronds. Ray sat with a sneaker on the edge of his chair seat, the other straight under the table. He sipped his tea with a pleased smile, round cheeks pushing his bright eyes up. Sora glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, wondering who the hell decided it was a good idea to merge the spirit of a golden retriever with Ray de Lucía at birth. He slid his eyes over to Xavier, who was reclined back in his seat, stuck between glaring at Sora and watching Ray fondly.

After the café, their next pitstop was a block over on the edge of the hill overlooking the Bay. They could see the fog on the water through the open garage door, which was propped above an arrangement of plants for sale. At the crosswalk, Ray had noticed the flower shop and thought, Cute! and nothing else of it.

But then they were walking in and Ray's romantic heart sang.

The store was filled to the brim with decorative plant hangers and tall, potted plants taller than Ray. Between the congested aisles, Xavier and Ray inspected an assortment of cacti. Xavier pointed to a stout, fat one and said, "Abuelita."

Ray snorted and pointed to a tall, skinny one with a red flower on the top. "Aunt Natalia."

Xavier laughed so hard he snorted, which pitched Ray into a giggling fit. Xavier put a hand to Ray's back, and the instant he did, Sora slipped behind them and tucked his chin against Ray's shoulder.

Ray sucked in a deep breath and smelled nothing but what had to be Sora's shampoo because it wasn't floral, and it was, quite simply, the exact same smell he found when he once experimentally opened up a foreign shampoo bottle in the shower.

"Hey, I think we're good to go," Sora said.

Good to go? Ray thought, because it sounded like Sora came here with a plan. "Did you... need to get something?" Ray asked, which felt odd because they didn't have a single plant in the apartment.

Sora relaxed next to Ray, his hand discretely swiping Xavier's arm off of Ray's shoulders as he presented a quaint bouquet of white roses and eucalyptus sprigs. "Just this," he said.

Logically, Ray knew what this was. But illogically, Ray knew it was a checklist of everything Ray had blabbed to Sora about in his bedroom that morning.

Sora listened to him.

It made him want to scream and cry with joy at the same time because why couldn't he have an actual boyfriend who did this shit? The thought had his throat closing up as he took the bouquet with hesitant fingers.

Heat swelled to his cheeks. He touched the back of his hand to his face, knowing just how red it was as he whispered, "Thank you." He hated that he meant it because this was the first time anyone other than Aunt Natalia or his grandma bought him roses.

The feeling, however, was obvious. Sora hesitated at the teary look in Ray's eyes when Ray pretended to study the roses. He licked his lip and thought, Fuck, they're probably his dead grandpa's favorite flowers or something. Xavier's probably going to—

But the flowers were all it took. Xavier gave them a few feet of space to respect the moment, and while that was a win, Sora really did not know what to do with Ray in this state. He barely knew how to handle Ray when he was blubbering about needing a roommate, and now?

This felt so much worse.

"Hey, it's—It's not that big of a deal," Sora whispered, and shit, that didn't help.

Ray's lip quivered. He tipped his head against Sora's shoulder, biting his lip, and held still. Naturally, it was an invitation for a hug, so Sora draped his arms around Ray's shoulders, the flowers between them, and waited. It took several seconds before Ray pulled away, lowering the flowers to his side.

Sora waited, and kept on waiting as Ray turned back to Xavier and suggested they start heading back.

Xavier stuck his hands in his pockets and said, "Oh, no, I can walk myself. I have a meeting with my advisor soon anyway. You two don't need to rush."

Ray clasped the flowers against his stomach as he stammered, "O-Oh, okay. Thanks for walking with us this morning."

A small smile graced Xavier's lips, and Sora interpreted it as melancholy of him. "Of course. I'll talk to you later," Xavier said.

As Xavier walked off, Sora waited for the moment Ray turned back to him. Instead, Ray merely waited to give Xavier a wide birth before making his way down the sidewalk, only half-turning to Sora to say, "We should—I have a lot of homework to finish."

"Right," Sora said, because he didn't know what else to say.