Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

i.

≽≽≽

They were back at the bar; an easy night off for some R&R with cold beer and a few rounds of pool. The crowd was minimal, and Ash’s crew was clustered around the green velveteen tables, sprawled on the couch and slouching over the backs of chairs as they watched Shorter and Ash play.

“You got better,” Ash snickered as Shorter botched his shot. The cue ball swerved wildly, completely missing the six, and sunk in the corner pocket. Bones nearly choked.

“Shut up,” Shorter huffed. “I’m only two points behind you!”

Sing cupped his hands around his mouth and cheered, “Kick his ass, boss,” from where he lay over the back of the couch. He didn’t really sound like he had much faith. Eiji held up his beer in solidarity when Shorter turned to look.

“You can do the thing!” Eiji encouraged.

“Hey, why are you cheering for him!” Ash set his own beer down, personally offended. Shorter threw an arm around the college student’s shoulders and somehow that made it so much worse. He wanted to smack Shorter with his cue. He refrained only on the fact that the thought was sudden and unfair.

“Play for me,” Shorter grinned, pressing his own cue into Eiji’s free hand. The Japanese student fumbled with it a bit. He looked panicked as Shorter wedged himself closer. “I bet you can play better than me.”

Kong snorted, “Anyone can play better than you.” Shorter threw his hands up as if he was appealing to some all-knowing god.

“Two points!” He reiterated with more exasperation than necessary for a game of billiards.

Eiji gently passed the cue stick back and took a sip from his bottle. “I can’t play, I don’t know how,” he admitted. The shy set to his shoulders and the delicate curve to his smile made Ash’s heart warm. He was about to offer to teach Eiji how to play—

“I’ll show you!” Shorter crowed, expression elated at his own idea. Ash wanted to scream—just a bit, at least. Eiji looked unsure and a little pink in the face even under the dim bar lighting, but Shorter hauled him to his feet without waiting for a response. Eiji followed him back to the table with unsteady steps but he didn’t protest.

Ash scowled and tried to tell himself that he didn’t know why he felt so annoyed, that it was completely irrational and stupid, even as he watched his best friend plaster himself to Eiji’s side with an arm still around Eiji’s shoulders, demonstrating how best to hold the cue.

“We didn’t finish our game,” Ash snapped. Shorter waved him off. He looked far too at ease wrapped around Eiji like a fucking limpet. He felt his fingers twitch as if they too were begging him to separate the pair.

“Like we didn’t know who was going to win,” Shorter scoffed. He then set about explaining the basics of pool—the different balls, the rules, what to do with a scratch—while Ash watched and fumed from the other side of the table. He had a little too much pride to let himself outwardly pout, but Kong and Bones’ side glances were enough to tell Ash that he wasn’t as subtle as he had hoped. There was a warmth crawling up his skin; an uncomfortable heat and itch, like searching insects burrowing into his bones. A lattice of astringent emotion he refused to address even as he felt the prickle at the back of his neck.

Eiji was completely enraptured; dark eyes wide as he tipsily followed Shorter’s wild pointing, mouth slightly parted as his beer-soaked brain tried to process it all.

Shorter turned back to Ash while Eiji nervously twisted the too-long sleeve his sweater in one hand. It was a charming blue with a too-wide collar, frayed at its hems and falling over Eiji’s delicate hands whenever he moved. It was far too endearing. But then again, Ash always thought Eiji looked charming in everything. “Since you’re so mad about not finishing our match, you can be Eiji’s first,” Shorter told him.

Ash realized he had been thinking too long about Eiji’s sweater and the revelation was like hot stones behind his ribs. Shorter was watching too closely for his reaction. Eiji stared up at them, curious and oblivious and sweet. Ash could feel the flush creeping up his cheeks. “First?” Ash ground out.

“First match,” Shorter smirked, dark eyebrows raised and taunting. “What did you think I meant?”

That fucker knew damn well. If Shorter wasn’t Ash’s best friend he would have taken him to the back alley and throttled him already. Shorter leaned into Eiji’s face, goading as he waved the pool cue in front of the Japanese teenagers’ eyes. “What’cha thinking, princess? Can you handle a round or two with Ash?”

Ash was definitely going to kill him. It was decided. He’d do it quietly, in the night, well-planned like most else Ash set to do. He’d make sure Nadia was well looked-after, give Shorter a proper send off to the next life. Shorter had been a decent companion over the years. Mostly.

Eiji snatched the cue out of Shorter’s hand, cheeks darkening as he muttered something that Ash couldn’t catch over the din of the bar. It made Shorter throw his head back and practically howl as if it had been the most hilarious thing he had ever heard.

Ash wanted to go home so he didn’t have to keep looking at the physical definition of his own jealous torture, but everyone was looking at him now, waiting for him to acquiesce or turn over the game. Too many eyes on him. Too many people to see the cracks and pry him open.

“Alright,” Ash bit out. “Rerack.” Sing tossed him the rack and Shorter arranged it, encouraging Eiji to break. Eiji missed the first time and the cue ball simply rolled back to him, but the second time the hit was so soft the set barely moved.

“Not bad,” Ash tried to encourage him. He could hear the way his tone had softened, gentle as down, and reasoned a little too late that it reflected in his face. But Eiji threw him a grin, seemingly pleased. It was a little bashful, and definitely a little drunk, but it made Ash’s heart do that dumb flippy-thing he hated.

Bones and Kong cheered enthusiastically and Eiji’s attention wavered, so Ash took a long swig from his own beer to console whatever stupid, warm emotion was making his knees weak.

It was probably just the beer.

“You need more force on the follow through—short but powerful strokes,” Shorter drunkenly rambled as he re-racked, giggling proudly to himself at his own innuendos. Ash sighed, knowing this would be a long and taxing game with Shorter playing teacher, and leaned forward to rest on the pool table. Eiji none too subtly eyed the movement, gaze so intense that Ash felt his own breath punched from his lungs.

Ash wanted to tangle his fingers in his dark blue sweater. Roll back his stupidly long cuffs for him and trace the delicate wrists underneath.

“Let me help,” Shorter tripped his way back to Eiji’s side, wrapping himself around the college boy from behind and taking his hands to position the cue. Ash thought he heard either Kong or Alex choke. He was sure he himself choked. Sing wolf-whistled and clapped, abruptly cutting himself off as someone sloshed their drink on him in the chaos.

Shorter set the cue ball far enough that the two had to lean forward. Eiji looked completely spaced; eyes comically wide and face redder than Ash had seen it in the short time he’d known him. It would have been funny if Ash wasn’t currently weighing the pros and cons of choking out his best friend in the middle of the bar. The wash of warmth was back, the physical manifestation of the taste of bile on the back of his tongue.

Gritting his teeth didn’t seem to be helping this time. He felt like a string pulled too taut.

Shorter drew Eiji’s arm back, then forward in one quick stroke that sent the cue ball careening into the front of the rack. The balls split from formation with a satisfying ‘crack’ and their friends on the sideline started cheering for Eiji and singing his praises. Eiji himself looked elated, turning to Ash like a puppy waiting to be told he did good.

Something inside Ash was feeling a little too bitter. He indulged that painful twinge, letting the shaking of his hands and heat on the back of his neck speak for him. “Nice shot,” he cooed. “Next time try it without Shorter shooting for you,” he finished, grinning wide as Eiji deadpanned and rolled his eyes.

“Your turn,” Eiji gestured graciously to the spread of the table, sticking his tongue out. Most of the numbers were set in awkward clusters far from the pockets, with the shiny black 8-ball far too close to tumbling in and losing the game.

Ash took stock of the spread, wandering to the side opposite of Eiji and Shorter to evaluate what would be the easiest to sink.

But he didn’t want the easiest to sink, he realized. He wanted Eiji to forget about Shorter, tall and handsome Shorter with his eccentric style and friendly demeanor, and focus on Ash. Only Ash.

He settled on the solid purple four—it was tucked just in front of the eleven, nestled right up against it. Logically it would be far easier to just pop the four in by hitting the eleven off it—they were at an angle that the four wasn’t likely to swing too wide, and it was a sure shot to get him ahead by game points.

But Eiji was watching him with those big, dark eyes from the other side of the table. Waiting to see what Ash would do. Shorter was rambling to him, some drunken story about a cat Sing had found outside their apartments last week, but Eiji’s focus was narrowed on Ash, and only Ash.

Ash needed to keep it there. Wanted to impress him and make him keep watching. Wanted Eiji to never look twice at anyone else.

So Ash decided to show off. Just a little. Just enough.

He hopped up to sit on the bumper, twisting his torso to reach his target. He might have been willing to argue that the eleven and four really were at an odd angle, but he mostly knew that the angle made him look a little suave and he needed the height to make the cue do what he wanted. Shorter made some comment about him being extra, the rest of the gang laughing good-naturedly at their boss’s antics, but Ash blocked them all out. He was only fully aware of his angle on the cue ball and Eiji, standing opposite of him, looking entirely enchanted.

Eiji was dead silent, watching with an endearing furrow of brows that Ash would venture to call inquisitive but wholly intrigued. He’d wager Eiji didn’t know anything about trick shots, and was trying to puzzle out what the hell Ash was doing. All the better.

He angled his cue upright, nearly perpendicular to the table, and brought it down hard just on the cue’s outside edge. The cue ball bounced, popping over the eleven entirely and crashing down on the four, sending it rolling into the corner pocket with no scratch.

The gang cheered, Shorter included. “That’s the boss,” his best friend sung.

Eiji looked absolutely delighted. “What was that? Could you show me that?” he babbled. Ash couldn’t put words to how it felt to be on the receiving end of Eiji’s elation, to be it’s focus. He just knew something in his chest felt right. That he wanted to take Eiji Okumura into his arms and promise to teach him anything he could ever want to know, give him anything he could ever want, so long as he never stopped looking at Ash like he put the stars in the sky.

Over Eiji’s shoulder, Shorter gave Ash an over-enthusiastic thumbs up. Ash wrapped his arm around the Japanese boy’s shoulder to give Shorter the middle finger without Eiji seeing, then let himself curl closer. He felt needy, and a little more than guilty. But Eiji, pink cheeked and laughing, didn’t seem to mind in the least.

≽≽≽

“You’re an ass,” Ash sighed, one arm around Shorter’s broad shoulders. Shorter had his own arm thrown around Ash’s, the two leaning into each other as they loitered outside the bar before splitting to go their separate ways. It was a chilly New York night and Ash watched the plume of breath tumble from Shorter’s mouth as he laughed.

“And you’re easy,” his best friend told him. He gave Ash’s shoulder a solid squeeze, and they both craned their heads to watch where Eiji was standing a short distance away with everyone else. He was hoping from foot to foot, arms pulled close to try to keep warm as Sing kept trying to drunkenly high-five him. He missed every time, and they all burst into laughter.

“Very easy,” Shorter finished quietly. He eyed the smile Ash hadn’t realized was on his own face, expression a little too knowing. The blond gave him a weak shove and turned away. It was jarring to realize he couldn’t even manage his expressions when Eiji was involved. It was dangerous, if nothing else.

“Shut up. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Ash told him. Shorter snorted something about his avoiding eye contact like a coward, but in reality Ash had fixed himself on Eiji again, like a sailor stumbling after the North star. Too often he had eyes only for Eiji, Ash knew. Knew he needed to be careful.

He was eager to get Eiji home, and Ash told Shorter as much before knocking his shoulder into Shorter’s one more time and departing. Shorter laughed, a cloud of white bursting around him like summoned magic, and called Sing over to head home.

When Ash finally made his way over to his boys, Eiji was the first to notice his presence. He turned towards him like a flower finding sunlight, and Ash couldn’t help but melt into his side as they crossed the street home.

Chapter Text

ii.

≽≽≽

Eiji had been curled up in bed, nose nestled in a worn book since Ash had returned home. At this point Ash had given up. No attempt to draw Eiji away had worked and, if Ash allowed himself to be honest, it left him frustrated like nothing else.

He knew he was being ridiculous—downtrodden at something so silly—but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He had to spend all day away from Eiji to network and gather information—being separated from the other boy for so long was its own form of torture. Ibe had been the first to notice Ash’s dejection when Eiji was brought up, and neither he nor Max were about to let Ash live it down.

He halfheartedly wondered if their roles in Ash’s endeavor were truly that necessary.

And Ash was by no means against Eiji’s desire to read. Books didn’t often sweep the older boy away the way they did Ash—perhaps the joy of reading had lost novelty in college. For Ash the library downtown had become his own personal sanctuary much in the way that others found emotional refuge in the stained glass of a cathedral or the filled pews of Mass. He understood the life-altering wonder of academia and if Eiji had found that again, it simply endeared the student to him all the more.

But Ash had finished his errands and meetings early today, nearly skipping home to their shared condo. He felt almost high on the knowledge that he’d get to spend more than just a few hours with Eiji, watching trash TV over a microwaved dinner, before the two gave in to the pull of sleep.

But Eiji had barely spared him a glance. “Okaeri,” he called from their room at the sound of the front door. He tonelessly asked how Ash’s day had been, turning a page in his novel. He was tucked neatly into his own bed, comforter spread over his lap. Ash wanted to curl up there, across Eiji’s thigh—pout and poke and prod until Eiji gave him attention Ash so desperately wanted.

“Eiji, there’s something on your face.”

Mm, came the distracted reply. Ash wasn’t sure he’d even heard the words.

“I saw Max and Ibe today. Max tripped over the stairs into the building and knocked over a woman walking her dog—he thought we were being attacked.”

The crinkle of a page turning. “It sounds like he’s becoming paranoid.”

“I decided I’m moving to Alaska to become a crab fisherman.”

An irritable huff. Eiji had been stuck on the same page for a while with Ash’s chattering. Ash only felt mildly guilty. “Alaska is so cold,” Eiji muttered, eyes flicking back and forth over the words.

“You’re the worst,” Ash breathed out, so sure Eiji wouldn’t even catch it.

“You don’t think so,” came the quick reply before turning to the next page. Ash was embarrassed enough to stop trying.

As much as Ash wished he could tear the book from Eiji’s hands and settle himself there instead, he wasn’t an ill-trained puppy with separation issues. Instead, he decided to set about making dinner for the two of them—he could at least try to be useful.

He wasn’t much in the way of a cook, but maybe his efforts would be enough to draw Eiji from whatever world of fiction he had found—probably a better place, Ash thought. Somewhere desirable where Ash didn’t exist and Eiji didn’t have to hide in a condo all day to keep from getting shot at or stabbed for so much as being seen with Ash.

With heavy guilt he fished out a half-finished box of pasta from one of the cupboards and set about boiling water. While scrounging up something that could maybe coalesce into a passable sauce, he began to wonder if Eiji had begun to begrudge the situation he had found himself.

It was all Ash’s fault, and they both knew that. It had been Ash that Golzine’s men were after. Ash was the centerpiece, the target, that had gotten Eiji swept up in everything that first night at the bar. It had been bad timing on their part and bad luck on Eiji and Ibe’s. And now Ash was too selfish to let him go.

Was Eiji starting to resent him? Is that why he was putting space between them? Since the beginning Eiji had seemed swept up in the excitement and happily following Ash, even against Ash’s better judgement—even when that meant staying home and waiting for him like the protagonist of a classic novella.

Max had commented on more than one occasion that keeping Eiji as Ash’s housewife was dishonorable, just to see Ash splutter and shove him aside.

But was that how Eiji was beginning to feel, Ash wondered. Like the withering housewife left to her own devices until her husband desired her presence again. A prisoner in a high-windowed condo in a foreign country, surrounded by strangers. Was Eiji regretting not returning home when escape was more reasonable to arrange?

“What are you burning?”

Ash didn’t jump out of his skin, but he did slam his side into the edge of the countertop. Eiji had appeared next to him, book still in hand and brow furrowed as he eyed the pot on the stove. There was the lightest curl of smoke rising from the burner, accompanied by the quickly growing scent of something singed.

Ash swore, moving the boiling pot to the back burner and flicking the knob back to ‘off’. Just under the heat coils a few noodles had slipped under when Ash had dumped the contents of the box into the pot. The were blackened from the high heat, and Ash didn’t even want to think about the task of scrubbing the stovetop just yet.

“A genius that burns noodles,” Eiji was giggling to himself, sizing up the damage with a smile. One of his hands found Ash’s shoulder—just a fleeting touch, as if to reassure Ash in some way—before he was grabbing a towel to clean out the charred remains of Ash’s attempt to cook. He set his book to the side, and Ash watched Eiji’s deft hands remove the cooled coil and sweep away the evidence of Ash’s blunder. Just another thing Eiji was burdened with, Ash thought. Another oversight of Ash’s that he had accepted.

Ash wanted to ask him so many things. Wanted to know if when he laughed and smiled at Ash, when he welcomed him home or made faces at him from across the table—was he truly happy? Was this truly what he wanted? Why did he choose Ash, even knowing all the bloody scraps of his life that he tried to tuck away?

He knew he wouldn’t dare to ask that, though—he couldn’t chance an answer that would break his heart. And that’s what Eiji could do, he knew now. Golzine and his men had taken so much from him; what had been left of his childhood, the endless possibilities of who Aslan Callenreese could have become, so many people he had held dear. But these had only chipped away at his heart, his being. Eiji could take every shard left and ruin him beyond any sense of reason. Destroy him so completely that nothing in this realm of living could repair him.

“What are you reading?” He asks instead. It’s safe. It’s just meaningless chatter to fill the space as Eiji dumps the burnt noodles in the trash and Ash, chagrined at his mistake, cautiously relights the burner.

“Oh,” Eiji turns, eyeing the upturned novel as if he had forgotten its existence already, “One of the women downstairs let me borrow it.”

“What’s it about?” Ash asks. Eiji blushes ears-first, the tips of the shells turning fire-engine red under his dark waves of hair. Within moments his cheeks are a subdued color to compliment them, and he makes to grab the book where it lay. Ash beats him to it, holding the book aloft—his curiosity is piqued.

“Oh, Eiji,” Ash coos, feeling triumphant at flustering Eiji so quickly and thoroughly. “Are you reading porn? Hentai?”

“Is that the only Japanese word you know?” Eiji gripes, reaching for the novel Ash is dangling overhead. Ash pulls it further out of reach. Eiji is on his tip-toes but the few inches Ash holds over him are more than enough to keep Ash in the advantage.

“No,” Ash grins, trying to ignore the way his own face heats as Eiji is flush against him, struggling to get back his book. They’re chest to chest, Eiji’s face far too close. “You’ve taught me to say tadaima when I come home, so I don’t scare you—”

“You’re too quiet,” Eiji argues. “Like a cat. I should get you a bell.” He’s no longer fighting to get his book back, but he hasn’t moved away at all. He’s focused on Ash’s rambling, and Ash himself knows he’s just showing off—trying to impress Eiji in any way he can manage.

“And itadakimasu,” Ash continues, free arm reaching around to settle on Eiji’s lower back, holding him where the two are pressed together. Ash recognizes how selfish his actions are, how they always tend to be when it comes to Eiji, but he can’t stop himself. The older boy is still pink in the face and he seems nonplussed, a little frozen. Maybe he hadn’t realized that Ash had been paying attention, had actually listened when Eiji explained the things he did and said that carried over from his native tongue. All the quirks and mannerisms and little thoughts that made him the Eiji that Ash cared for so dearly.

“It’s just polite,” Eiji sighs. He looks a little irritable but his hands settle on Ash’s shoulders, and he relaxes into him—like a star pulled in by gravity. Ash’s heart is torn between birdsong and reprimand. Is it cruel of him to delight in Eiji’s closeness, in the warmth he feels seeping through Eiji’s sweater against his palm—is it cruel, if the prerequisite for these things is Eiji’s entombment here? Being tied down to Ash and the insanity of the life he leads?

“Hmm,” Ash casts his eyes to the ceiling, pretending to think. He knows what he wants to say, what he wants to tease his friend with. A joke and a confession, all rolled into one—simple and straightforward and more than Ash ever thought he’d be capable of. But would it just be more wicked to lay his heart here, between them, in this safehouse Ash had forced him into?

Would Eiji understand, Ash wonders. Would he know how Ash aches—how it tears him apart as well, but how desperately he wants to be heard. To be received.

Is it heartless to tell someone you love them, knowing that you are the worst thing that’s ever happened to them?

“You’ve taught me quite a few words,” Ash continues, speaking slowly and hoping his internal consternation isn’t obvious. He doesn’t think he can say the words. Not now, not how he wants. But maybe he doesn’t need that. Maybe its simpler than that. “My favorite so far is probably aishiteru,” he tells Eiji lightly. His heart picks up, and he’s nearly breathless. He has to look away for a moment to compose himself.

He’d said it, and now he can’t take it back—can’t overthink it and agonize on it. The meaning of the word is not lost on him even if he isn’t proficient in Eiji’s native language—the severity of that declaration. He belated wonders if it’s insulting—someone like Ash using such a sacrosanct of Eiji’s language so freely.

Even if Eiji hates him, wants to run from him and never see his face again—Ash needs him to know what Eiji means to him, how far he’d go for him. Eiji is the closest to the divine as Ash will ever know in this world—it was by pure grace that he had been gifted with Eiji Okumura’s presence at all.

This offering is the best he can manage, and he prays it’s enough.

Ash forces his eyes back to Eiji and watches with mild concern as Eiji’s eyes widen, impossibly dark and enchanting. Was that too far? Was that the event horizon for what Eiji could bear? Ash lowers the arm still holding the book, but Eiji makes no move to grab it. He seems distracted—Ash wonders what’s going through Eiji’s mind, and his hands begin tremor at the thought.

“I never taught you that,” Eiji protests, flustered but soft. He’s a wonder, beautiful and sirenic, and Ash wants to kiss the look off his face—but Ash feels that he’s done enough damage for the day.

Eiji looks nervous, eyes watching Ash’s face closely. Ash has to remind himself to breathe when he feels Eiji’s hands curl into the fabric of his shirt. A shiver squirms up his spine. Ash wonders if Eiji can feel how it shakes his bones.

Ash hums. “Must have been my other friend I spend all my time with who slips into Japanese when he’s mad at me,” Ash concedes. He gets Eiji’s bony fingers in his side for his trouble, and Eiji laughs at Ash’s offended squawking.

“Probably Ibe-san,” Eiji agrees, recovering enough to retrieve his book. Ash lets him. He’s content to watch the way Eiji’s fingers trace over the gold lettering on the spine. There’s something reverent in it. Eiji glances up at him from under his dark lashes, bashful and warm, and Ash knows he’s a goner.

“It’s a romance,” Eiji admits quietly. His eyes flit elsewhere when Ash smiles. How like his friend, to find something beautiful and indulgent even now, locked in this gilded cage of New York.

“Tell me how it ends,” Ash tells him, easily feigning disinterest as he finally removes dinner from the stove and drains the water. Eiji doesn’t respond, and the two work around each other to plate their dinner and settle down at their table for two. Neither move to turn on the TV but the silence feels inviting. The sun has begun to set and the living room is hazy in a way that reminds Ash of fairytales. Eiji’s socked foot rests against Ash’s under the table.

Ash catches Eiji watching him, too intense to be casual. His book is shut and resting next to him, a thin green bookmark peeking out from between the pages. He wonders if Eiji would let Ash lay next to him while he read, at least. If he couldn’t have Eiji’s attention, he supposed he could make do with the warmth of his friend against his side and the glow of the bedside lamp lulling him off.

Eiji sighs, but its soft and full of something Ash is terrified to name. Fondness, maybe. An exasperated kind of joy. Ash doesn’t dare hope—it would crush him if he misread. Eiji’s foot presses a little more snugly to Ash’s. “This is my favorite,” Eiji tells him. His voice is so soft that Ash nearly misses it in the cacophony of traffic just outside, bleeding through the walls.

For a short moment Ash assumes Eiji is talking about his meager attempt at dinner, perhaps trying to lift Ash’s spirits—but then he notices Eiji’s dark eyes are on him and his lips are pressed together, failing to hide an embarrassed smile under Ash’s scrutiny. All the small, innocent ways they’re pressed together burn and Ash doesn’t doubt Eiji’s meaning. How could he ever doubt Eiji Okumura. How could he ever deserve him.

He knows it a herculean task, but he wants to try.

Ash lifts another bite to his mouth and mutters, “Mine too,” just to watch the way Eiji colours under the attention, the way his smile blooms.

Chapter Text

iii.

≽≽≽

Ash had just wanted to spend a nice day with Eiji. Alone. Just the two of them, with no one else to bother them.

When he’d tried to plan their day, Ash had imagined having lunch at their usual hotdog stand by the library—an American delicacy that should be consumed as often as possible, Ash lectured at Eiji’s unimpressed stare— some meandering through the streets to sightsee through Manhattan and appreciate the colour-struck skies spilling behind the skyscrapers, reflected like pools in their glass.

And maybe Ash would finally have the courage to reach for Eiji’s hand like he dreamed of every second he was conscious, and most of the time he was unconscious, too; their clutching fingers hidden under their coat sleeves, a warm token of this gentle thing growing between them, just one more thing out of a million about his time with Eiji to send Ash’s heart stuttering and flipping.

Eiji would probably smile up those few begrudging inches at him—as warm as the sunset and infinitely more perfect, and Ash would never want for anything else for the rest of his life.

“Man, who would’ve thought that I’d miss a hotdog of all things while I was in prison,” Max laughed, mouth far too full for how much he was prattling, and sprayed crumbs a distance that Ash was sure probably broke a record somewhere.

The three had settled on the library steps, cold stone to their backs, with Max plopping himself snuggly between Eiji and Ash like the oblivious old man he was.

Or maybe he was doing it on purpose. Either way, Ash was going to kill him.

Eiji didn’t seem to mind Max tagging along on their first day to relax in months; he laughed along good-naturedly at where Max had gotten mustard in the scruff of his unshaven beard. He touched one finger to the older man’s jaw and nearly collapsed into tears when Max made a bigger mess trying to clean it off. Ash finished off his own hotdog without comment and balled up the napkin, trying to remember a time when he didn’t think about breaking Max’s jaw—the same jaw that Eiji so casually touched.

Just me and Eiji, he thought bitterly. He felt the headache rearing its ugly head just behind his left eye. He was well aware that he was pouting—“bull-heading”, as his father had always called it when Ash didn’t get his way. But knowing he was being childishly selfish about Eiji’s time and space didn’t make him feel any less petulant.

He elbowed Max solidly in the ribs just to appease his annoyance.

The older man squawked, dropping crumbs on Ash as he flailed, and Ash didn’t feel appeased.

“Ugh,” Ash griped, swiping a hand down the front of his jacket. “Careful with the junk food, old man. Your metabolism probably isn’t what it used to be.”

Max threw an arm around Ash’s shoulders and pulled him close, shoving the last of his food in his mouth so he could use the free hand to ruffle Ash’s hair. If it hadn’t already been a mess from the wind, Ash probably would have been more put-off than just a grimace.

“Respect your elders, punk,” Max told him. He was grinning, broad and bright, obviously enjoying his time with them—he was wearing his newfound freedom well, and despite all the recent terror and struggle, he seemed happy in the moment. Joyous, in some way.

Ash briefly wondered if it made him a bad person to wish Max away, regardless.

“Yeah, elders, not ancient bastards that are one strong wind away from turning into dust,” Ash told him, shoving him off.

“Oh! Earlier, I was thinking,” Max began, turning to address Eiji.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Ash snorted.

Max ignored him, continuing as if he hadn’t heard him. Ash supposed if Max stopped to deflect every little jab Ash made, nothing would get done. At this point Max was just being efficient.

“We should take you sightseeing somewhere, kid,” Max said. “You didn’t get the chance to do much before you got caught up in this one’s drama,” Max reached back to ruffle Ash’s hair again but this time the blond ducked and smacked the hand away. He was one hair ruffle away from choking Max out right there in front of the library.

Eiji cast his eyes skyward, contemplative. “That’s true. Ibe-san and I wondered around the Manhattan Mall a bit on our day off, but we didn’t see much before we met with Ash. We assumed we’d get some downtime after we interviewed.” Eiji smiled sheepishly before laughing at the memory of assuming he’d have a life and downtime after meeting Ash, and Max joined in.

It seemed like they were backhandedly making jabs at him, and Ash took it a little personal. It stung, hearing the friend he loved joke about how much Ash had disrupted his life. Maybe between the two of them Ash wouldn’t have felt so viscerally aggrieved about it—it was Eiji, after all—but hearing Max guffawing along like it was the funniest thing since cable TV brought a sour taste to his mouth.

For the briefest of moments he considered heading home and leaving them to it, bitter at being unexpectedly delegated to Third Wheel when Max was the one that had elbowed his way into their plans—

“What do you think, Ash?” Eiji was standing in front of him, equal parts radiant and hopeful. He nudged Ash’s sneaker with his own, hands shoved in his pockets—the picture of casual. The smile on his face was anything but; Ash felt himself melt like frost under the first wave of spring— completely helpless.

Halfway through waxing internal poetic about how stupidly cute Eiji’s eyes crinkled when he smiled, Ash realized that Eiji was waiting for an answer, Max was openly giving him the “you’re hopeless” deadpan, and he probably should have been paying attention. “Huh?”

“I asked what you thought we should do,” Eiji repeated. He was too patient with Ash sometimes. Max glanced between the two of them with a thinly veiled eyeroll before standing and muttering something about tossing his trash, ambling away to find a trash can.

Ash was thankful for the reprieve. Having any audience to see the way Ash bent to Eiji under the simplest circumstance somehow felt voyeuristic, and Ash was nothing if not selfish with what he treasured.

“If you’re tired we can head home, it’s okay,” Eiji told him. His tone was soft, understanding; taking in the annoyed set to Ash’s brows and every tense hitch to his shoulders, cataloguing every quiet moment since Max had intervened, and saying in his own way; I see you. I understand.

Ash wondered how anyone was ever supposed to resist falling in love with Eiji Okumura, least of all Ash himself. The boy was a menace.

“You might like the Modern Art Museum, it’s not too far away,” Ash finally decided, just as Max returned. Ash glanced at him, hoping he’d take a hint and call it a night, but he patted Eiji on the shoulder and grinned like Ash had just proposed the greatest idea. Ash refrained from acting on the instinct to rip his hair out at the roots.

“The Museum is pretty neat! You’ll probably appreciate it more than Ash or I ever have, living in New York most of our lives. You’re the artsy type—” Max rambled. He stood too close to Eiji for Ash’s liking. He wanted to wedge himself between them and stamp on Max’s foot. He wanted Eiji all to himself.

He wanted to parade him around Manhattan and show him Hell’s Kitchen and the Chelsea Parks and every museum greater New York had to offer; take him through Times Square during the holidays—give Eiji moments to remember Ash by that didn’t involve guns and blood and violence.

He also wanted to scream up at the cloudless sky in pure frustration at his shitty choice in oblivious friends, but obviously that one was irrational.

“Neat,” Ash mocked, rolling his eyes so hard he was amazed he didn’t injure himself.

“Photography was just a hobby,” Eiji sighed, nonchalant—but Ash could see the excitement buzzing just beneath the surface, the thrill to experience something new. Eiji was giving Ash an out.

Max was looking to Ash expectantly, waiting, eyebrows raised.

He supposed he just had to deal with not getting his way.

“We should leave now. It closes in a few hours,” Ash reminded them. He stood, brushing at his jeans for distraction from the way Eiji’s face lit up—a child given a precious gift, given the biggest box on Christmas Eve.

Ash thought he could deal with Max every day of the week if he got to see that expression.

Getting to the museum was an affair; nearly a half hour of dodging traffic at too-crowded intersections and Max griping about his old man knees, which prompted Ash to crack jokes about him being an old man, which led to Max trying to put him in a headlock on West 49th—then again on 51st.

Ash shoved and elbowed and loudly declared his annoyance—trying to ignore the passing, invasive thought that Max reminded him of Griffin sometimes; the last real shreds of Griffin from those hazy memories on the island coast, before everything collapsed like wet sand.

Eiji, at his wits end only four blocks into their trek, shoved them apart and proudly wedged himself in between to dissolve their bickering. Having Eiji tucked so close was more than enough to temper Ash’s instigating and he tugged Eiji just a bit closer to his side, more snug than was probably proper in the middle of downtown with hundreds of passerby. Max gave Ash a sly look from over Eiji’s head of dark hair, and Ash tried his best to look unimpressed.

Nosy old bastard.

Eiji may have considered his art a hobby, but that didn’t hinder the awed look on his face once they made it inside. The rooms seemed to unfold indefinitely; each one softly lit with a new set of creative masterpieces that drew quiet, contemplative comments from the student and other wandering tourists.

Ash couldn’t say he felt much; especially when it came to modern art, but he was more than content to trail after Eiji as he went from room to room—completely enraptured.

He stopped at a photography piece in a darker section of the gallery; the steamed image of a woman from the waist up, nude and smudged with artful condensation, wet hair plastered to her head, features unfocused and hard to discern as if the view was from the other side of a bathroom mirror.

“This one reminds me of you,” Eiji nodded to the piece, tugging on Ash’s sleeve like an excited child on a school trip. Max leaned around them to take in the photo as well, then laughed too loud for the soft murmur of the room. Ash was torn between shushing him and kicking out his old man knees.

“Ash wishes he was pretty like her,” Max crossed his arms, nudging at Ash like the annoying co-worker type that he was.

Before Ash could respond with something probably equally as dumb but twice as scathing, Eiji cut in, “Ash is pretty, but that’s not what I mean.”

He took a step closer to the enlarged photo, eyes carefully taking in every line of the obscured body. Ash was glad Eiji didn’t look back to see Max’s shit-eating grin or the pathetic way Ash flushed under Eiji’s casual compliments.

“It’s sad,” Eiji finished, stuttering over his English as he gestured widely at the piece. He seemed to be searching for the right words. “The steam makes her feel disconnected. Untouchable.”

Ash stood elbow to elbow with Eiji, looking to the photo a second time. There was something… melancholy about it, about her—bare but tucked away, almost aloft in a way that couldn’t be bridged.

“I think I get it,” Ash told him, sincere. No one else had ever made Ash consider artwork before. It was a strange concession for him; trying to match Eiji’s emotional standing, to see what he saw.

Eiji gave him a gentle look, eyes crinkling with something heartfelt—like he knew Ash was trying and it meant the world to him.

Max fake-gagged somewhere behind them and the moment was broken, the two of them socially aware enough to feel some modicum of embarrassment.

They moved on to the next gallery, Max leading the way while Ash and Eiji trailed behind brushing shoulders—both of them with hands firmly in their pockets.

Max didn’t seem much the art buff either, but Ash could distantly appreciate effort. Max stopped at a moderately sized painting in the centre of the room display; white canvas with a few strokes of primary colours, crossing and jagged. “I like the… lines, on this one,” he muttered, glancing to Eiji.

“The brush strokes?” Eiji hummed. He leaned forward to look closer. “It is nice,” he conceded, but he didn’t seem impressed—he didn’t halt in thought the way he had with the photograph. He seemed like he wanted to say more but was hesitant to continue. Ash elbowed him gently for wordless encouragement; Eiji knocked him back and ignored Ash’s comment about Eiji’s “boney fuckin’ elbow”.

“Art should make you feel something—or, I guess express something. I took some religion and philosophy classes my first year of university, before my injury—we talked about a concept called mono no aware.”

“What’s it mean?” Ash asked. He kept his voice hushed, clustered close to Eiji’s side—he wouldn’t deny he was enchanted.

Anytime Eiji talked about home, or his life before, it just made Ash greedy. To know more, to collect more of the little pieces of Eiji Okumura and arrange them, so he could see all of him.

Ash that knew if he had been the college type, he would have dreaded listening to old men wax poetic and arguing about whether life was worth living half the week—but with Eiji he could sit and listen for days. Every little thought, every little idea, every time he stumbled over his words trying to translate the more complicated intricacies of his native language—it was like a sirens call, and Ash would go happily, delighted to be ensnared.

Eiji poked him in the side, making Ash jump. “The genius can’t translate?” he snickered. The smirk on his face was handsome and dare Ash even say flirty, and he felt the warmth creep up the back of his neck. Ash hoped Eiji thought he was just embarrassed at his limited Japanese. He saw Max roll his eyes on Eiji’s other side, but the older man didn’t comment.

“It’s like… ‘feeling of things’. A sensitivity. It’s hard to explain in English,” Eiji admitted, brow furrowed as he puzzled out what to say. “Have you ever looked at something in nature and felt inspired?”

Ash could remember the coastline he used to run down as a child; golden sand flanked by fields of grass, fading into rolling hills. The sea and sky always such dazzling colours, extending impossibly in every direction. He had wanted to chase the clouds, find out where they go when they disappeared over the horizon.

“It’s a deep, genuine emotion. It moves the heart. It’s like… a conversation, without words. The thing affects you, and you’re affected by it existing. It… inspires awe,” Eiji finished, a determined little nod to show he was satisfied with his lesson. It was painfully endearing.

Eiji didn’t wait for a response, just returned to staring up at the partially painted canvas. “Motōri Norinaga made the phrase famous. He believed art should only be to express those types of emotions—you should feel something when you look at it, something deeper. Not just superficial appreciation. This type of art never feels like anything to me.”

Ash hiked his shoulders to his ears, trying to imagine those intense feelings applied to his childhood memories of the Cape—to the first time he saw the grand cityscape of New York, or when the morning sun hit the glass windows of his old apartment just right, all warm angles, and for a moment he just wasn’t himself; nothing new, nothing transformed, but he wasn’t Ash Lynx.

“A conversation without words, huh,” Ash muttered, eyes downcast.

Eiji still wasn’t look at him, laughing a little under his breath and shuffling his feet while he continued pretending to study the art. Ash wondered if he was embarrassed to bare himself like this, philosophically—to give this quiet, intimate part of himself over to Ash as casually as handing him a glass. “I told you I didn’t know how to explain it well,” Eiji reminded him.

Ash could only see Eiji’s profile as he stared up at the plaque installed next to the canvas. Max had wondered to the other side of the room, apparently uninterested in religious philosophy—or maybe he was just sick of the two of them in the same room, bound like an old couple who knew nothing but each other.

Regardless, Ash took the opportunity to unabashedly stare without consequence, and he realized; there was no single thing about Eiji that made his heart race, or relentlessly wrung the breath from his lungs.

Eiji’s dark eyes, his soft waves of hair, the generous fan of his lashes—all beautiful things that anyone passing by on the street could notice and admire. But Eiji was almost luminous with something, and it drove Ash mad that he couldn’t understand it; this otherworldliness in the way he simply existed and how it made Ash feel—actually feel. Deeply, genuinely, beyond his own comprehension.

Sometimes he would watch Eiji do the most mundane of things; reading the label on something in the kitchen, yawning in the middle of a conversation, sipping tea or combing down his bedhead in the morning when Ash was done laughing at him; and regardless of each, the effect Eiji had on him was indiscriminate on the time of day or circumstance.

Every little stutter over unfamiliar English, every annoyed sigh, every shape his fingers made as they curled around his mug in the morning, every little scar and bump and bruise—the whole of Eiji Okumura brought Ash Lynx to his knees in reverence.

There were no words to describe the living embodiment of the angelic. Ash would know. He’d tried.

And even now, the way Eiji quietly brought another dimension to Ash’s perception of the world; how he made him reevaluate something as simple as the way the clouds had made him feel when he was a child. How he so casually showed him, gently guiding, that there was something beautiful and ethereal in the mundane— because it wasn’t mundane at all. Because the world was there to receive you, to show you itself, if you were willing to receive it. To take the time to translate the clouds and skies and sea.

And so Ash stared; took in the how Eiji’s hair was a disaster from the wind, his lips chapped from the cold. His nose had the smallest crook in its bridge from some childhood memory he had probably forgotten and his eyes were almost too wide for his face, always rung with the faintest purple crescents—he took it all in and thought; maybe he did understand what Eiji meant. Maybe he did know what it felt like to look at something and be awe-struck, to understand it without words.

An expression of the deepest emotion, a movement of the heart; Eiji Okumura was all these things.

“No,” Ash whispered. “I think you explained it just fine.” Ash wasn’t sure that Eiji even heard him, wasn’t sure if anyone could hear anything over how hard Ash’s heart was pounding in his chest.

Max seemed to come from nowhere, nudging the two of them where they’d been lost in their own worlds—Ash wondered where Eiji had gone, with his dark eyes determinedly fixed on nothing. “Museum’s gonna close soon. We probably should head home.”

Eiji nodded along. He looked a little lost, like he hadn’t quite returned to them yet. Maybe he and Ash had gotten lost in the same nameless stratum, just missing each other.

The three headed to the exit, Max chatting along the way. Security wished them a good night and then they were back out in the biting chill of the New York winter. The sun had disappeared, leaving the winds absolutely frigid. Their breaths crested and swelled in thin white waves, dissipating with a weak flutter.

“I’m gonna split off here,” Max said, stretching his arms above his head with a groan. “I’ve gotta meet up with Shunichi to work on a few things. You two make it home safe, okay?”

“If you had work to do why did you hang around us all day?” Ash ground out.

“We’ll do our best,” Eiji told Max dryly, patting at Ash’s shoulder placatingly. Max laughed, starting down the steps with a wave.

“Let me know when you make it back,” he called.

Ash rolled his eyes, muttering ‘yeah, yeah’. He still wished he could have had Eiji to himself. They didn’t get many opportunities to go on outings—and Ash liked Max fine, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little territorial when it came to Eiji.

The day was fine, he supposed—but he was definitely still feeling sullen.

Eiji descended the first few steps and then abruptly stopped when Ash didn’t immediately follow. He turned back to look at Ash where he stood, still lost in thought. How like Eiji to always be aware of Ash caught up in his own mind. Eiji was already shivering under his coat. “Let’s head back,” Eiji said.

Ash stopped on the step above him, making Eiji look up into his face. His cheeks were already a bright pink from the chill, Ash noted guiltily. “We can grab a taxi. It’ll be quicker,” he promised.

Rather than answer, Eiji reached for Ash’s hand where it was tucked to his side and Ash was sure he made an embarrassing noise, but he was too far gone on the way his breath caught in his throat to be sure—Eiji’s hand was cold, and already trembling, but it was Eiji. Their coat sleeves hid where their hands were wrapped around one another, grasping like it was their only lifeline.

Ash worried that maybe he was holding Eiji too tight, or that his hands were shaking too hard and that Eiji would pull away again, that Ash would somehow ruin the moment—but his friend smiled up at him, still so soft and ethereal and heartbreaking under the city lights.

Mono no aware. A deep, genuine feeling.

Ash sure was feeling a lot. He had never felt more genuine than he did with Eiji at his side.

“I don’t mind the walk,” Eiji told him, squeezing Ash’s hand just a little tighter.

They shuffled together on the sidewalk, elbows and shoulders knocking, unwilling to part for the crowds. They were quiet for most of the trip back—content with one another’s company under the dark sky and shoddy street lights, the din of the city in the background. Ash had never felt so simultaneously at ease and wired around another person; it was like an entirely new world, a new set of emotional awareness that only Eiji could breakthrough.

Their building’s front desk greeted them as they passed, and Ash was vaguely aware that they should probably stop holding hands—but it would feel like losing a limb at this point. He wondered if Eiji knew that he had to hold Ash’s hand for the rest of their lives now, because Ash’s heart couldn’t handle being separate ever again.

Eiji was still shaking when they reached their apartment, so Ash sent him off to use the shower first.

Ash emerged from his own shower to find Eiji already curled in bed, scrolling through his phone. Ash wasn’t completely sure if the shirt he had scooped up off the floor was his or Eiji’s—they didn’t really separate their laundry anymore.

Ash spared his own bed a glance, and immediately made the decision to throw himself on Eiji’s bed instead. Eiji ‘oof’ed with the impact, glaring at Ash where was sprawled over most of the bed and half of Eiji himself—all long limbs and damp hair and obnoxious yawns, just to see that little crease of annoyance between Eiji’s dark brows.

“Your bed not good enough?” Eiji asked, trying to look put-upon. But Ash didn’t miss the fact that he had locked his phone and set it aside, already forgotten, focused entirely on Ash. Two celestial bodies, trapped in one another’s gravitational pull—inescapably drawn in.

He thought he noticed Eiji shift, tucking himself just that much closer to where Ash lay next to him, but that could have been wishful thinking.

“Your bed’s nicer,” Ash told him. Eiji huffed and the sound made Ash think of a slow summer morning—of the warm angles of the morning sun cutting through the window of his old apartment in early spring.

“They’re the same bed,” Eiji argued, a laugh just beneath his exasperation.

Ash stretched his long limbs, overlapping Eiji and overtaking as much of the bed as he could reach. Eiji grunted and groaned dramatically at all the points of Ash’s body digging into the softness of Eiji’s sides and hips. “Manifest destiny,” the blond declared, triumphant.

Eiji returned it with an artful flap of hand that landed on Ash’s face, making him splutter. Ash started to whine but Eiji just laughed, fond and unrepentant. It made Ash want to curl around him and hold him so close that their ends and beginnings were indiscernible.

“Sorry, we Japanese are so clumsy,” Eiji rolled his eyes, but the offending arm settled on Ash’s chest like it belonged there—neither of them acknowledged it.

Ash was sure he’d never been as hyperaware of anything in his life as he was of the warm line Eiji made against his side and across his chest, wrist to curving shoulder to slender hip and the pounding heartbeat in between.

They were a tangled mess, but neither moved. There was a content ease to their madness. Ash settled in, dark waves of Eiji’s hair pressed to Ash’s cheek, and he couldn’t stop himself from nuzzling into it. The movement seemed to encourage Eiji who all but sunk into Ash’s arms, a puppet with cut strings giving into gravity.

The two carefully arranged themselves, as easily and in sync as a set of lungs breathing deep. Eiji ended up curled on his side, arms pulled close and head resting on Ash’s bicep. Ash mirrored him, free arm pulled protectively up to his chest as if it could defend against this softness Eiji drew from him, the damning emotions he elicited just by existing at the same time as Ash.

Eiji’s hand lay only a few inches away, toying with the edges of his shirt. It would be easy to reach across the scant space left between them, wrap his fingers around the warm skin and bruised joints and draw him in.

But he’s terrified to push, or demand, or take more than Eiji ever wants to give.

“Do you think we could have met another way?” he asks instead. Eiji watches him closely, expression curious. The glint in Eiji’s eyes make Ash feel like he must be going insane. No one man could be this captivating, he silently reasons.

“How do you mean?” Eiji whispers.

Ash flounders for a second before deciding that, at least with Eiji, honesty is the best policy. Eiji had already given another shard of himself today, let himself be vulnerable with Ash despite the cost—Ash could do the same. “I just… feel like we were meant to meet. Like, maybe, we would have found each other—one way or another?”

“Like fate,” Eiji summed up. His dark eyes were shimmering, a thoughtfulness in his face that reminded Ash how Eiji could always see through him; like he always knew what was running through Ash’s mind—driving him mad—and managed to meet him there, arms wide open.

Ash nodded. “Like fate.” He paused, unsure if he’d overstepped. Maybe this was the point where Eiji would realize that Ash really was a little more than senseless. “Do you think differently?”

Eiji flushed the lightest pink from his ears to his neck, eyes dancing away, and Ash wasn’t sure if he should feel worried or intrigued or embarrassed. He had never been the best at articulating what he felt, hadn’t really had the time to mature emotionally beyond understanding pain and fear and survival—maybe he was mistaken?

“It’s, uh…” Eiji cheeks grew darker and Ash caught the nervous twitch of Eiji’s fingers against his own chest. Curling against the fabric, then uncurling, just to clutch at the threads again—an anxious pattern. “It’s silly, but I thought—”

Eiji cut himself off. He looked so unsure that it nearly broke Ash’s heart.

“You can tell me, I’ll only laugh a little bit,” Ash told him, playful as he reached out to clasp Eiji’s trembling hand. Eiji reached back, almost instinctual and desperate with how he met the grasp of Ash’s fingers. Eiji looked down— staring impossibly long at how their joined hands trembled, nestled among the blankets between them, and seemed to right himself.

“In Japan, we have an old myth called the Red String of Fate. Everyone has a red string from their heart to their pinky finger, and the other end of the string is connected to their soulmate,” Eiji’s voice was so soft, just above a whisper—like a lover sharing secrets or a parent reading a fairytale. “Those two people are destined to meet, no matter how their circumstances change.”

Ash felt like he could burst with how he adored this man—felt like he truly might combust if he kept staring into the dreamy expression in Eiji’s dark, gleaming eyes. So he moved forward just enough to rest his cheek against the top of Eiji’s head again. He told himself it was for Eiji’s sake, so he didn’t feel so put on the spot, wouldn’t feel so embarrassed.

He was sure deep down that Eiji knew what a soft-hearted, amiable puddle Ash became when Eiji was involved.

Eiji nestled himself closer, and continued in that fairytale whisper, “It’s silly, but—I thought, maybe, you’re the end of my string.” He sighed, heavy and shaky. “It does feel like we were meant to meet, doesn’t it? That I was supposed to be here with you—one way or another.”

“I’d like to imagine there’s a hundred other universes out there where we met in the library over a book, or at school in an art class or something—or maybe we bumped into each other on the street and you knocked all the books out of my hands like in that Korean drama Ibe was watching,” Ash laughed to himself, but his own voice was gravel where he pressed it into the crown of Eiji’s head. He was glad Eiji couldn’t see the tears welling in his eyes.

Wishing didn’t do much, but Eiji made him wish for so many things he never knew he wanted. He wanted to scream at the stars—how unfair, how cruel their fate was to dump them here like this, to give them nothing and demand so much in return. To steal their time, the people they could have been—together.

“Maybe there’s a universe where we move to California and spend every day on the beach. I finally teach you Japanese, and we visit my family over the winter,” Eiji’s voice is so soft, so full of longing, that it gutted Ash. He hadn’t considered what Eiji wished for—if he had daydreamed of a simpler life with Ash—or a life with Ash at all. “I’m sure there’s also a universe where we met because I spilled something on you in a coffee shop, or something,” Eiji continued, his laugh a little wet and ragged.

The idea punched a laugh out of Ash, “Hah, you would—clumsy Japanese,” he cooed, nuzzling closer. Eiji headbutted his chest in reply.

“Brat,” Eiji murmured, pressing the word against the flushed skin of Ash’s throat. Ash squeezed Eiji’s hand all the tighter, resting his lips against Eiji’s dark hair and choosing not to comment on the cool dampness he felt against his collar or the way Eiji’s shoulders silently shook.

A movement of the heart; Ash knew he’d never be able to get that phrase out of his head.

Chapter Text

iv.

≽≽≽

Ash kept waiting for the day when this gentle, blooming thing he had with Eiji Okumura would end.

The day when Eiji would finally come to his senses and realize that Ash was just a troublesome punk with too many ties in too many dangerous places, and he’d hop on a plane for home—and take what was left of Ash’s heart with him.

And Ash would never be able to hate him, if he did. When the day comes that Eiji runs from him like a man with an actual self-preservation instinct, Ash would understand.

He could never hate the man who had taken all of Ash’s jagged little bits and pieces and held them like they were something precious.

Ash had always been told that it couldn’t last; the honeymoon phase, he’d heard other men call it. The romantic idyll when everything felt right with the world because your lover was the sun, stars, and moon of your life. The short-lived heaven when every little adventure and eccentricity felt perfect in ways you hadn’t known were possible, and you desired nothing more from the world than that person.

They said that, sooner or later, all the little quirks and mannerisms that made you fall for them became just annoyances; hinderances, something to be dealt with in the middle of the daily chaos. The person you had loved became a burden. Another task dragging you down.

They said it was even quicker and easier to fall out of love than it was to fall in it.

The thought ran Ash through with fear, terrified at the idea of a day when Eiji could look at him and no longer be charmed by all of Ash’s mismatched edges—that, one day, he would only see the emotionally stunted, cruel and impudent child Ash had always feared that he was.

And so Ash waited for the day when his personal doomsday prophecy would come to pass.

The day where Eiji hogging the newspaper would make his blood boil and he’d lose his patience. When Eiji waking Ash up at sunrise was no longer the delight it had been just to see his face and know that Eiji had stayed with him just a little longer; he waited for the day when Eiji was no longer so enchanted by the cocky way Ash held himself, and Ash’s too long showers and poor habit of leaving his guns laying on the kitchen table wore away Eiji’s kind-hearted tolerance.

But it never came.

Each day brought a new challenge; more blood on Ash’s hands, more ghosts he didn’t think he could face. But Eiji was his constant—his North Star. Eiji’s hands never held Ash any less gently; his confidence in Ash never waned or wavered or faded.

And with Eiji waiting for him, arms wide open and accepting of Ash in ways that no one else in his life had ever been—Ash never wanted anything more than what Eiji offered him.

Who could look the universe in the eyes every night and want for more?

≽≽≽

Ash woke to Eiji wrapped around him like a squid, half-awake as he nuzzled Ash’s bedhead and murmured something in Japanese too low for Ash to understand.

The world was grey and still—too early for Ash’s tastes. The room was uncomfortably warm and Ash felt fussy at being woken before the sun—an itch beneath the skin that kept him on an edge.

Ash pulled Eiji closer to soothe the frayed edges his dreams left, heavy with sleep and lethargy and some other desperate emotion he couldn’t quite pin at the odd hour.

“Morning,” he sighed into Eiji’s collar, voice dragging like gravel.

The older boy responded with a rough noise, sleep caught in the back of his throat. Sleepy-Eiji was one of Ash’s favorite sides of him. He was warm and soft and never seemed to remember what planet he was on—he also was quite clingy. Ash was loathed to admit how much he needed Eiji tucked under his arm, an addiction he felt all hours of the day.

“We should get up soon,” Eiji murmured to him in English.

“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” Ash groaned.

That startled a laugh out of Eiji—a loud, uncontrollable thing in the morning quiet that made Ash’s heart ache. How could he ever think he’d get tired of that sound?

“You told me you needed to be up early today,” the Japanese boy protested.

Ash rolled them so that his body covered Eiji’s, smothering him and making him laugh again; bright and delighted at Ash’s irritated antics. Eiji knew well by now how Ash felt about mornings, yet it never deterred him from trying to keep Ash on schedule.

“No. Fuck today. Back to sleep.”

“Fine, I’ll give you five more minutes,” Eiji whispered, conceding.

One of his hands ran the length of Ash’s back. Up, down. A soothing pattern. Fond in a way that almost made Ash bitter—he wanted this for forever. Wanted Eiji for forever. He wanted to grow old with this feeling; hold it in the closest approximation of “forever” that humans could manage.

Ash tucked his face into the side of Eiji’s neck, nose pressed to his pulse point. He felt Eiji’s throat and chest tremble with hushed laughter as Ash’s warm breath drew goosebumps along his flushed skin. Eiji was warm against him, a solid and reassuring point in the grey gloom.

On impulse, Ash reached across the bed for his phone and thumbed open the camera app, adjusting the image on the screen till it was ninety-percent just Eiji’s face nuzzling into Ash’s mess of blond hair, eyes blissfully closed. His expression was mostly hidden but Ash could see the peek of a dimple in Eiji’s cheek that gave away his smile.

At the sound of the shutter click Eiji bowed forward, trying to hide the rest of his face with an annoyed groan.

“Why are you taking pictures?” he whined. His voice was still sleep-rough and vulnerable. Ash sighed contentedly against his shoulder, completely taken in and endeared.

“I like having something of you with me all the time,” Ash told him.

He was more than aware of how embarrassing the statement was, how it gave away another vulnerable part of himself he thought he had been rid of years ago—but it was the truth. And Eiji deserved that, and then some. Deserved to be worshipped and know he was revered, to know how he made Ash feel alive and wanted in ways Ash had never dreamed.

Ash could feel Eiji’s skin heat against his, equal parts bashful and self-conscious, shifting nervously under the blanket.

“Have you been taking pictures of me when I’m not paying attention?” Eiji accused. He sounded mortified, but curious. A photographer betrayed by his own art.

“Of course,” Ash laughed, squeezing Eiji tighter.

Ash rolled off to his own side of the bed, facing Eiji’s wide eyes and navigating to the gallery on his phone. He tilted it for Eiji to watch as Ash shamelessly swiped through the hundreds of photos he had collected and saved, cherished little things.

They were all of Eiji, in his most candid, simple existence—little moments that Eiji had probably already forgotten; Eiji laughing while Ibe looked exasperated, Max a blur of movement behind them like a Bigfoot snapshot; Eiji on the couch hesitantly helping Kong clean a pistol; Eiji distractedly eating lunch with Alex and Bones and Kong at their beat up table; a red-faced Eiji perched on Shorter’s knee at the bar where they had played pool, completely immersed in watching Sing and Alex play a round.

Ash specifically remembered Shorter reaming him afterwards about how “fuckin’ mad you look, man—he just needed a seat” Shorter had said, shrugging his shoulders and cackling as Ash grabbed for him, trying to put him in a headlock.

“Haa?” Eiji was suddenly much more awake, springing upright and snatching the phone from Ash’s hand. He scrolled through another twenty-some photos, all like the others.

Quick little shots of their everyday lives with Eiji doing mundane things like cooking or laughing or talking with Ash and Sing’s crews. Different shots of Eiji drunk at the condo or apartment or bar, hanging off Cain’s side with a big grin or his arms thrown around Max. A few random ones of Sing teaching Eiji ping pong—he had been atrocious at it but it was a precious memory for Ash, nonetheless.

Eiji stopped when he reached the more private photos, the ones he kept in a second folder because he at least had the decency to be embarrassed by how much of a sap Eiji Okumura made him; a dozen different days of Ash waking up at odd hours in Eiji’s arms, Ash’s own little smile almost completely out of frame next to Eiji’s slack-jawed sleeping face. Other nights where Eiji had buried his face in Ash’s shoulder or chest and refused to budge.

They were all incredibly dear to Ash. He needed the reminder, the weight in his pocket, of what a mistake could cost him—what he could lose. But he also needed the reminder of what he had to come home to, who was waiting for him now.

He had loved Shorter, in a way. He had been his best friend, and there had always been something deeper than simple comradery that they had never taken the time to address. And no one would ever be able to replace Skipper, the little brother that Ash had loved more than himself. Ash would never forgive himself for not being good enough to save them from Arthur and Golzine. He was never enough to make a difference.

Every loss just made him wonder if it would be worth it—to go on. What was left to live for? How do you choose to keep breathing once you lose the only ones you care about?

Eiji had brought that desire to live back—not just survive, not just make it to tomorrow, but live. Ash knew he’d find a way to keep going because Eiji was here, waiting for him. He wanted him for some insane reason Ash couldn’t fathom. Ash mattered to him—Aslan mattered to him.

He made him feel like he was more than Ash Lynx. Like he was more than his utility or his past.

“Why so many of me?” Eiji asked him. He was breathless, face so pink Ash was worried that Eiji might faint right there in Ash’s arms. But he didn’t look scared or disgusted—just coy. Confused.

“What else would I take photos of?” Ash asked, genuine. Eiji’s blush darkened, eyes shifting away, and Ash felt a little sly. “Wow, a photographer that’s photo-shy?” Ash laughed.

“I’m not used to being the subject,” Eiji argued, cheeks puffed.

Ash ran the pad of his thumb along Eiji’s jaw. The space between them was too much—even a few inches felt like uncrossable lightyears.

“You’re beautiful,” Ash told him. He knew he had to say it now, before the grey of early morning broke and they had to return to the real world. Before Ash was too awake and aware and lost his resolve.

Honesty had always come easier to him when he was a little gone, when he was with Eiji.

Eiji glanced back down at the phone in his hands, swiping one more time. Whatever he was looking at made him furrow his brow—a little frustrated dip, lower lip sticking out in thought. He was still glowing bright and warm with embarrassment.

“I’m still mad at you, you know,” Eiji told him, tone as serious as the grave.

Ash felt his heart drop.

They fought occasionally, like everyone else, yes—but it was complicated. They were complicated. Sometimes it got in the way—but it never lasted. Eiji would come find him hiding in the library or Ash would take a walk to clear his head, already picking his way through wording an apology.

He’d rather gut himself than ruin this thing; this serene, delicate bloom that had cropped up somewhere between Eiji risking his life for Ash and Ash realizing he’d sacrifice what was left of himself to protect Eiji.

Ash’s panic must have shown in his face because Eiji’s deadpan expression fell away, replaced with something spirited and impish in his quirked brow and curling smile.

I’m so confused, Ash thought. He wasn’t sure there would ever be a day when Eiji Okumura didn’t completely throw him through a loop in some way or another.

Eiji tilted the phone to show Ash the picture that had given him pause; it was an older photo from the bar, when things had been simpler.

Eiji was mid-laugh, so bright and sweet that Ash could hear it even now; his cheeks were dark with the flush of alcohol and joy, his eyes adorably crinkled with his smile. Ash was next to him, arms tight around Eiji’s shoulders, hair a windswept mess and lips pressed to Eiji’s cheek in a chaste but sloppy kiss.

Shorter had goaded him on after everyone was a few rounds in and then taken the photo as “blackmail”—Ash had refused to acknowledge how easy it had been to convince him to kiss Eiji. Shorter was also unsurprised when Ash shamelessly demanded Shorter send him a copy to keep.

Seeing that photo had been a revelation of sorts for Ash; seeing his own upturned smile, the flush in his own cheeks—how tightly he clung to Eiji for no purpose other than wanting to be close. Every time he opened the image and looked at Eiji’s delighted grin his heart pounded, whole body warm with an emotion he had been too scared to name.

He could distantly remember his crew laughing and cheering, egging them on with wolf-whistles and catcalls—it had been a joke, a stunt, a game. Their fearless leader and the cute Japanese kid putting on a show for kicks.

But when Eiji turned to him after, eyes wide and dark and infinite with a smile to match, Ash knew he couldn’t lie to himself. Least of all to Eiji.

Ash was never as genuine as he was with Eiji Okumura.

“If you’re mad I’ll delete it,” Ash promised. He’d be sad at having to let go one of his fondest memories, but he’d do anything for Eiji.

Eiji huffed, clearly unsatisfied with his answer.

“Not that,” Eiji said. He dropped the phone on the blankets and crossed his arms as best he could while still laying on his side. The movement was a little awkward and terribly fucking cute.

“I’m still mad that my first kiss was just part of some New York gang leader’s devious master plan while he was in prison,” Eiji sniffed.

Ash felt his mouth drop open; he was sure he probably attempted words--are you really mad at me? Or was that an invitation? That had been your first kiss? Ever? How long have you been holding onto this, Eiji?--but nothing seemed to come out.

It didn’t seem to matter, because at that point Eiji broke eye contact, staring at anything in the room that wasn’t Ash or his floundering silence. Ash saw Eiji’s fingers nervously toying with the sleeve of his shirt.

“You owe me,” Eiji whispered, face bright red.

Words were hard, so Ash gave up on trying to give verbiage to the way Eiji so meticulously and intricately destroyed him and pieced him back together again, a universe reborn under Eiji’s artistry and compassion.

Ash reached out, tracing the curve of Eiji’s ear and brushing his hair back just as he had done that day in the Falkner visiting room; but this time they didn’t have an audience. Every movement was for one another, blushing and buzzing with excitement. They had nothing to prove, no story to sell—Ash could feel the enormity of it; the moment between them.

He had still barely known Eiji then, when he had kissed him; Ash had admired him, even envied him a little—but he hadn’t imagined what his admiration might become. Hadn’t imagined sharing a home with this ridiculous boy, sharing his bed and holding his hand and wearing his shirts; filling up his phone with photos of Eiji like the lovestruck teenager he had never been; like he was terrified to ever forget all this.

As if he ever could forget the way Eiji Okumura had uprooted Ash’s entire being and changed him.

“What do I owe you?” Ash asked, not unkind. He never wanted to take more than Eiji was prepared to give—never wanted to treat Eiji as carelessly as Ash himself had been shown.

Eiji reached up and covered Ash’s hand with his own, fingers intertwining.

“A real first kiss,” Eiji murmured.

Ash pressed their foreheads and chests together, a long warm line against one another under their shared blanket.

“I don’t think we get do-overs for things like that.” Ash sighed.

Eiji gripped Ash’s hand tighter, palm warm. Ash knew that Eiji understood; he didn’t have to spell out the context of his own stolen first kiss, or the hundreds taken from him after that—how something sacred had been turned into profit and violence.

“If anyone gets a do-over, it should be us,” Eiji argued, so earnest. The first golden rays of light were spilling from underneath their cracked blind. Ash wished that they had more time—then and now.

“Fuck, you’re right.”

Ash threw himself on top of Eiji, making the older boy laugh, loud and clear as a bell, the sound punched out of him. His legs tangled with Ash’s under the blanket. Ash wasn’t sure where he ended and Eiji began anymore.

“You always give in so quick,” Eiji grins. He carded his hands through Ash’s hair, smoothing down the wayward strands and tangles, Ash leaning into the touch with a contented murmur.

“Only because it’s you, you loser,” Ash grins back.

Eiji rolled his eyes, grabbing his pillow to shove in Ash’s face. “You’re so damn annoying,” he huffed.

Ash pushed back, shoving the pillow out of his face and gasping in feigned distress. “Who taught you to swear like that, Eiji Okumura?”

“You, you bratty, arrogant--”

Pillow still clutched between them, Eiji gazing at him so fondly as if Ash himself had hung the stars, Ash just couldn’t stop himself from acting on his impetuous need—he had never wanted anything in his life as desperately as he wanted Eiji Okumura; all of him, forever.

Ash surged up to press his mouth to Eiji’s; simple and chaste, so different from their first. Ash lingered, lips still brushing even when Ash pulled away to stare up at where Eiji was watching him, stunned.

There was no possible word in any language on the planet for how hard Ash felt himself fall in that moment; this man was his present, his future, his hope—his everything.

“Go on,” Ash taunted. Eiji blinked, looking dazed and lovely.

“Huh?”

“You were calling me names. It was cute. Like a duckling with its feathers ruffled.”

“I hate you,” Eiji whispered, pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of Ash’s mouth.

“I’m the worst,” Ash agreed. He picked up his phone from where it had been lost in the tangle of bed sheets, aiming the camera to take a photo of Eiji—red faced and grinning, cheek pressed Ash’s like he belonged there.

Eiji whined, smacking Ash in the face with the pillow he was still clutching and making a mad grab for his phone. Ash pulled it just out of reach, his other arm wrapping around Eiji’s waist and practically hauling the older boy on top of him.

“You’re awful,” Eiji whined. Ash pressed his lips to Eiji’s burning forehead and smiled to himself. He was sure Eiji could feel the heat of Ash’s grin against his skin.

“I know,” he whispered.

The sunlight creeping through the window blinds had warmed, slanting across the wall in long golden shadows—climbing higher every minute.

Ash could hear some of his crew meandering through the tiny apartment, someone turning on the water in the kitchen and another trudging down the hall. He knew they would need to get up soon. They had to start their day.

Ash had always detested mornings; hated the process of rising to face another day and trying to put himself together, assembling himself into whatever version of Ash Lynx he was required to be. But with Eiji giggling into his ear, warm hands curled around Ash’s shoulders—he figured mornings could be tolerable.

I could stand to wake up like this every morning, he thought.

He pressed his lips to Eiji’s flushed temple, the two of them breathless, and wondered how many more minutes he could steal.