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Something changes after Cape Cod.
Sing has been thinking of Eiji’s situation as a waste. He thought that someone as bright as Eiji was, as warm and as kind, didn’t deserve to be in as much pain as he was, didn’t deserve to be so empty. Didn’t deserve to have the person he loved taken away from him so cruelly. He thought, ah , Eiji has changed . He thought, Eiji without Ash is a star that has burnt out .
And maybe he wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t entirely right either, and he realizes that at Cape Cod.
Eiji still smiles, still laughs. He still takes lonely, broken people under his wing and loves them until they’re all better. He’s still the Eiji Sing knew, the Eiji Ash loved, but just—less alive, less present. Less.
He’s getting better now though. He’s slowly breaking himself out of his bubble, his cage that he himself built.
Eiji may have locked all his memories of Ash away in a little box and hid it away, but now, after their trip to Cape Cod, Ash is back in the open, on display in Eiji’s gallery and still very much the center of attention even though Eiji placed him in the very back of the exhibit. He doesn’t come off as an afterthought. He is the cause, the reason why all of Eiji’s other photos exist in the first place. Ash’s photo is the culmination of his work, the most tender, most moving, most intimate.
Sing always cries when he looks at it. He always tries not to think of Eiji’s tears staining Ash’s face in the photograph, Ash’s blood staining Eiji’s letter.
This is Eiji facing Ash again, the first step to accepting his death.
At first, Sing thinks, soon, I can leave him. Soon, I’ll be confident that he’ll be alright without me.
Eiji starts to visit all the places he and Ash did before. He puts up more photos of Ash with every exhibition that he has. He still can’t bring himself to look through Ash’s files with Sing, but he says he wants to and that in itself is progress.
Eiji still cries sometimes, still clutches at the fabric of his shirt over his heart and falls onto his knees and cries . He still cries himself to sleep, still wakes up with his eyes swollen and his shoulders slumped. But he’s not running away anymore, and that’s what’s important.
Something changes after Cape Cod.
Sing still sleeps over at Eiji’s house more often than he does at his own house. He still speaks in Japanese everyday, just trivial little conversations with Eiji. He still eats Eiji’s food for dinner, still sneaks Buddy bites of their food under the table.
But before, Sing never felt like Eiji really looked at him. He was there, stayed under the pretense of combing through Ash’s files, but he always felt other . He felt like an outsider, felt like Eiji was hidden behind a brick wall that only Buddy could occasionally crack. Sing stayed through sheer will alone, driven by guilt, driven by the ache in his chest that hasn’t gone away even now.
Sing has held Eiji before, has tried to give him comfort, but not like this. They’ve never just sat down next to each other, shoulders and arms touching, talking about Ash.
Sing has seen that look in Eiji’s eyes before, warm and anguished and tender all at the same time, but not like this. Not with that bittersweet smile, that weariness in his voice.
“What is it like, reading his essays?” Eiji asks. He isn’t looking at Sing. Instead, he’s looking up at the ceiling, as if searching for Ash in the shadows.
“Enlightening,” Sing says. “Amazing. But you know that.”
Even if Sing is now older than Ash was when he wrote the essays he left in his computer, he still can’t measure up to the ingenuity, the natural wit woven into Ash’s words.
“You looked up to him, didn’t you, Sing?” Eiji says. His knuckles are white where his hands are fisted in his lap. Sing wants to take Eiji’s hands in his, wants to hold them until Eiji finally relaxes. He doesn’t.
“I still do,” Sing says.
Eiji sighs. “You’ve suffered. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry,” Sing says. “I don’t want you to be sorry.”
This time, Sing does lean into Eiji, just a little bit. Just enough to remind Eiji that Sing is here, and he’s here because he wants to be here.
“What do you want me to be, then?” Eiji asks.
This time, he actually looks at Sing, his eyes kind and the curve of his mouth patient.
“I want you to be happy,” Sing says. It’s the only thing he’s ever wanted ever since he found out that Ash died holding Eiji’s letter in his hand, from a wound that Sing’s brother gave him.
Eiji smiles at him, but his eyes are unreadable. “I don’t know if that’s possible.”
“Then we’ll spend our entire lives trying,” Sing says.
Eiji doesn’t reply right away, just looks at Sing, searching, but eventually, he takes in a breath, shaky. Eventually, his hand finds Sing’s and he holds on tight.
“Alright, Sing. We’ll try.”
Something changes after Cape Cod.
“I never thought you’d be the kind of person to take a vacation,” Sing says into his phone. He’s in the hallway, walking in circles as he takes this call out of Eiji’s way.
“I think you’re referring to yourself,” Yut-lung says, barely distinguishable from all the noise on his side, but Sing knows him well enough to be able to extrapolate.
He’s not wrong, but it’s fine. Eiji never takes vacations either, and it works for them.
Sing rubs a hand on the back of his neck, says, “Well, you left me with a lot of work here in New York.”
“It’s what you wanted anyway, so stop complaining,” Yut-lung says, and Sing can imagine his raised eyebrow along with his lips twisted into a smile he allows Sing to see more than not these days.
“I’m not,” Sing says, and he thinks he hears a faint huff from the other end of the line.
“Well,” Yut-lung says, “please don’t say hello to Eiji for me.”
“How did you—”
“We’ll talk again when I get back,” Yut-lung continues, and then he’s gone.
Sing sighs. Well. He doesn’t even know why he had to ask. He’s always at Eiji’s, even more so now than before.
He walks back inside, walks back to the dining table where Eiji sits, waiting. Sing takes a seat across from him where there’s a plate already set for him.
“Sorry about that. You didn’t have to wait,” Sing says, but Eiji waves it off like usual.
“Was that Yut-lung?” Eiji asks, and that makes Sing pause.
Eiji would never acknowledge Yut-lung, before. He’d clam up, just like he would at any mention of Ash. And Sing understands why, and that’s the reason he has never pushed the subject before. It was hard, especially when Yut-lung was still here in New York. They’re both such integral parts of Sing’s life that he had to keep separate, and now—now, maybe that it’s necessary anymore.
“It was,” Sing says. “He told me not to say hello to you.”
“Well then don’t tell him I say hello when he calls again,” Eiji says, his eyes crinkling as he smiles.
Sing can’t help but smile right back.
“Of course. He’ll be happy not to hear it.”
Eiji nods, reaches across the table to take Sing’s hand and squeeze it once. Then, he pulls away again, and tucking a stray lock of hair behind his ear, he says, “Let’s eat.”
And they do.
Something changes after Cape Cod.
Sing is woken up in the middle of the night by the feeling of weight on his bed other than his. He forces himself not to tense up, forces himself to keep his breaths steady, but it’s all for nothing anyway.
“Sing?” he hears, and it’s Eiji. Eiji, who sounds so broken and wistful and distressed all in that one short syllable.
The little that’s left of Sing’s drowsiness disappears, and he sits up, blinks until his eyes adjust to the dark, until he finally sees Eiji’s face, stained by tear tracks.
“What happened?” he asks, but already, his arms are open and Eiji is falling into them.
“A nightmare,” Eiji says into his collarbone. Sing wraps his arms around Eiji even tighter.
“It’s alright,” he says. “You’re alright.”
Sing feels something wet on his neck, but there’s nothing he can do except let it happen. He’s done this before, but Eiji has never come to him on his own. It’s always been Sing finding Eiji.
But he doesn’t say anything more, just holds Eiji.
Buddy, who has been sitting on the floor by Eiji’s dangling foot all this while, finally joins them on the bed when Sing pats the space beside them. Buddy noses at Eiji’s arm, noses at the space between Eiji and Sing until Eiji finally pulls away and lets Buddy lick at his face.
“Good boy,” Eiji says. He gives Buddy a kiss on his nose. “Thank you, Buddy.”
Sing moves to disentangle himself from Eiji, but Eiji doesn’t let him, instead rests his head on Sing’s chest as he scratches under Buddy’s chin.
“Do you want tea?” Sing asks.
Eiji taps at his chest until Buddy comes to him. He wraps his arms around Buddy, while Sing’s arm is still around his shoulders.
“Later, maybe,” Eiji says. He looks up at Sing, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “I just want to stay like this for a moment.”
“Okay,” Sing says. “Let’s stay here.”
Something changes after Cape Cod.
They’re in the living room, legs tangled in between them as they watch the news after dinner. Buddy is in Eiji’s lap, sleeping.
It’s just like any other night, except it isn’t, because when Sing looks at Eiji, his mouth open, a question on the tip on his tongue, he freezes. He thinks, oh . He thinks, I love him .
Sing doesn’t know what to do with this realization, because even though he said he would take Eiji back from Ash, he never really believed it and he never meant it this way.
But then Eiji catches him looking. But then Eiji smiles at him, reaches for his hand and twines their fingers together. Sing thinks, I love him. Sing thinks, I want to stay with him for as long as he wants me .
He wonders if souls can be split in two, or if they can be borrowed for a while, because recently, he’s been seeing more and more of Eiji’s light and warmth back in his eyes.
“Hey,” Sing says.
“Hey,” Eiji says.
There are more words bubbling in Sing’s chest, but this is enough. Eiji knows enough.
Something changes after Cape Cod.
Eiji greets him at the door. One second, Sing is walking into their apartment, and the next, he has Eiji’s arms wrapped around his middle and Eiji’s chin on his chest as he looks up at him.
“Tell me,” Eiji says. “I want to hear it.”
This is Eiji, who poured his heart and soul out in a letter that was found in Ash’s cold hand. Eiji, who has let Sing into his life, has let him stay this long. Eiji, who still cries at night but doesn’t punish himself with loneliness anymore.
Sing doesn’t hesitate to do as he says.
“I love you.”
Something changes after Cape Cod.