Work Text:
It was cold, bitterly so for such a clear day with bright sun, and as the endless sea of white spread before his eyes Hajime could feel movement behind him. Amane appeared at his elbow, her breath rising into the morning air in little clouds of steam, and he smiled down at her as she raised her face to him. It was like having two suns to look at, one in the sky and one at his side, and although initially Hajime had felt ridiculous for thinking such things someone before had assured him it was not. That thinking the world of another thing, another person, was not ridiculous. It was what made people humans and what set them aside from the animals that shared the planet with them. There was nothing to say an animal couldn’t treasure something or someone, he’d been assured of that when he started to voice a protest, but there would always be a difference. Hajime wasn’t a monster, a beast, an animal. Hajime was a human and that was all that mattered to everyone. To him.
"Hajime-san?" The sun at his elbow was speaking to him now and Hajime blinked, forgetting that his gaze had originally been on her face. "Are you okay?" A weak and quick smile had him dismissing the moment and her questioning of him; a hand extended down to hers felt fingers press against his beneath the fabric of gloves. Holding hands was a sensation he’d never forget nor get over. It was such a simple motion, a connection between two people that conveyed many things with a single touch, yet each time a hand took his it was like a new sensation. He wondered then, as he felt Amane squeeze tightly as they started walking forward, how it would have felt if they’d joined hands once. With Amane it was an adventure each time, a young woman who easily wore all of her emotions on her sleeves. There were days when taking her hand felt like a challenge to his life, whatever that meant in a real situation, and there were days when taking her hand felt like the only thing holding him back. Back from what though was what nagged at him some days and echoed through his sleep most nights. Just what was she preventing him from doing? There was nothing stopping him from anything, he’d think, except himself and an occasional fear. If they’d held hands once would those fears and thoughts be gone? If, just once, fingertips had met outside of combat and worry, what would he be thinking and feeling now?
"It’s cold today, isn’t it?" Warmth ran over his lips and brushed against his cheeks and nose as he spoke to break the silence. Amane wasn’t saying anything as they traveled along, at least nothing in particular to him, but she’d call over her shoulder towards her mother behind and the man called her uncle every once in a while. It was an action of reassurance, he supposed. Looking over her shoulder to make sure they were still their, calling out their name in an effort to get a response. They echoed her name back when she called to them, Mother and Kotaro, and a smile would spread over her face and the sun beams would grow warmer. She’d smile at him as well when he said her name and she’d say it back, his name. ’Hajime-san’ in a tone so full of affection and dedication that never wavered even when he gave her all the reasons to doubt. Leaving her behind, showing up again, never once did Amane turn her back or create a barrier between them. Her hand was always there, always warm, her lips always calling his name in a voice that at first had been a source of guilt. Now her calling to him was like a gift, their simple conversations a present that he was taking for granted each day that they walked out together. "Should we build a snowman?"
"Do you think there’s enough on the ground? It only fell this morning." Amane let go of his hand to walk a few steps ahead and, for a brief moment in time, he felt fear. The cold enveloped where warmth once was and threatened to take everything away. She was there in front of him, a figure leaning over and gathering white into her hands. She was smiling as she packed the snow into little balls, amassing ammo perhaps for the approach of her uncle and mother. She was there, clearly there. A figure he could see and hear. But would she vanish and not return if he approached her, would she just - "Hajime-san?" She called out to him again, looking at him with an expression that paused him in his thoughts and steps. "Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been distracted lately, are you sick?" Amane took a step closer and dusted the snow from her gloves, little flakes falling down like leaves to an already covered ground. Leaves. Beneath the leaves, in a world covered with muting colors rather than a stark white, he was there. He was there smiling beneath them, always in the last of his memories.
There were other things there though, things mixed in that he wouldn’t forget. Green where red should have been, a tearful expression on a face that never should have looked that way. A face that never should have looked towards him to start with, a voice he never should have heard. The initial meeting they’d had was what he’d wanted it to be and the relationship between them had been what he’d commanded. Distance. Repulsion. Everything in him had pushed away the hands that reached for him and Hajime had, over time and to his current disgust, found that he always expected them be there. That those hands that steered him along the path to being human, to being himself, would always come back for him. There weren’t there and hadn’t been, nor would they ever return for him. The company that Hajime had finally found, outside of Amane and her mother, that he had truely wanted to be with was no longer there and could no longer be at his side…and it was all his fault. Knowing that he felt that way, that Hajime blamed himself for it and the fact they couldn’t see one another anymore, was worse than it should have been because he knew what he would have said. Hajime knew what he would have that about it, that he was being ridiculous and no one was to blame. It had been the other man’s choice, those words had been said, and a smile had been given. Hajime had reached his hand out and nothing had reached in return, only the shadows and a farewell. It hurt, it was disgusting, and it was what made him human. Would he be proud of him, to know he was feeling all those things now?
A touch at his side startled him once more, his thoughts scattering away as he looked down at the figure who’d approached and was now before him. She’d taken her gloves off before reaching for his hands and, with his still covered, laced their fingers together. The warmth returned and the unease ebbed, pushed back behind a wall. Amane’s hands were not the ones he wanted to hold, not the fingers he wanted to feel, but they were all he had now and they were just for him. A gift he shouldn’t waste, wouldn’t waste, and he smiled down at her as he thought about him. She was not a replacement nor ever would be, she was not a love interest nor ever could be. Amane was a gift, his life with her a farewell present, and as Hajime squeezed her fingers he knew he could never forget. He would always remember him, remember Kenzaki, and every time he looked at Amane - at her mother, he would recall him. Perhaps that too was something left behind, something more precious than to hold hands and hear voices, and as Hajime took steps in the snow he could only bitterly smile.