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Eiji is still not used to the strangeness of it all.
Things are strange, Eiji thinks, and that is the best way he can describe it. Just a little bit unsettled, just a step away from something Eiji cannot quite put his finger on.
It has been two months since Ash’s stabbing, and now they live together in a small little cottage near the ocean on the edge of New York. Their life is quiet, now, except for when the days are windy and the windchimes Eiji had hung beneath their roof ring into the air. They’re visited often, by Sing and Yau Si, Max, Jessica, Bones, Kong, Alex - Eiji wants to stay connected, to keep the warmth that they bring in their lives.
Eiji had stayed only briefly in Japan, booking a flight back to New York after Ibe had frantically called to tell him that Ash had been stabbed. His sister looked tearful, desperate to know why he had to go again.
“You have been away for so long,” she cried.
“I know. I am so sorry.”
She looked up at him, and when she did, Eiji realised that she did not look young anymore. Her eyes were older, heavier. Guilt threatened to choke him.
“Do you really love him so much?” She held his hands and tears dripped onto her shirt.
Eiji felt tears dripping onto his own shirt. “Yes.”
“Take him home with you soon. Do not leave us for so long. Please, please. I want to meet him.”
“I will,” Eiji said, and they embraced.
The next day, he went back to America. The rest is history, like they say.
Things feel very tangled between Eiji and Ash, now. It is a strange, strange feeling, he thinks, where the days are melted and lazy and the nights feel frozen, and the stars and moon are just cracks in the ice.
There is love - he knows that much, at least. There is love between the sounds of their windchimes and in the salad Eiji makes and the blankets Ash folds carefully. There is love in Ash’s blond eyelashes and Eiji’s arms at night.
Ash kisses him, sometimes, and Eiji is careful. Eiji kisses him back, but not too much. He will hold him close, but not too close. Eiji brushes Ash’s skin like wrapping paper on a gift. Like there is something precious inside.
Eiji tells him I love you with his eyes, not with his lips, and Ash does the same. Eiji wants Ash to say it because he can. Because he wants to. He doesn’t want Ash to say it because he has said it.
And so they exist in a quiet sort of way. They take baths in the sunlight together and cry softly in the darkness together, sometimes.
Sometimes they cry on their own.
-:-:-
In the early morning, Eiji hears the car start outside.
He wanders out, and Ash pokes his head out of the car window and says, “Will you come with me?”
Eiji doesn’t know where he’s going, but he says yes.
They arrive a few hours later in Cape Cod, near his late father’s diner. Eiji wonders if Jennifer is still there, and when they get out of the car, he takes Ash’s hand.
Ash lets out a breath. There is a storm inside his eyes.
Ash takes Eiji into the diner, and Jennifer is there, along with a few other customers quietly drinking coffees. Ash’s hand squeezes hard and Eiji squeezes back, more gently.
When Jenniffer catches sight of them, her eyes become wide. She looks sad, Eiji thinks. Or sadder. She had a similar feeling when they had come a year ago - heavy, but her soul was still kind and soft.
Now she is the same, but her eyes are sadder and her soul is softer. Worn, perhaps.
Eiji starts to ache a little bit.
They take a seat at the end of the bar, a bit distanced from the other customers. After a minute or two, she appears on the other side of the bar, smiling gently.
“I thought I’d never see you two again. I’m glad I was wrong, though - how about I get you boys something to eat? Is there anything you might want?” She sounds eager to help, and looks genuinely happy to see them.
She is so kind, Eiji thinks, and he wonders the same thing Ash did the last time they were here - what did she see in Ash’s father?
Ash smiles a little. “Some pancakes would be great. Maybe some coffee, too. Thanks a lot, Jennifer.”
She nods slightly, and then rushes off to brew a pot of coffee for them.
“I wonder if she’s just on her own here,” Ash says.
“It looks like she is. I just hope she is not so unhappy here,” Eiji says, but he knows she cannot possibly be happy here. It is hard to be happy in a place where all you can do is sit and rot with the memories it holds.
“I can’t really imagine her being happy in a place like this. Too much shit has happened,” Ash says, and it’s exactly what Eiji had been thinking, but is still very sobering to hear out loud.
Jennifer comes back with a pot of coffee and two white mugs. “How do you like your coffee? Milk? Sugar?”
“Both, please,” Eiji says.
“Same for me,” Ash says.
Jennifer starts to pour their coffee, and Ash says, “Hey, what happened when we left here last time?”
Jennifer’s pouring falters, and guilt creeps under Eiji’s skin, but he wants to know the answer just as badly as Ash does.
“A lot of shit, honestly,” Jennifer says quietly. “Jim was dead, and he was, well. Basically everything tying me here. To the world, really. I didn’t really know what to do for the next few days, weeks. The authorities came and did absolutely jackshit. I’m sure they were involved with whoever came and killed him. Fuckers.” She puts down the coffee pot. She sounds angry, more angry than Eiji has ever heard her, but she does not seem like she is angry at them - more like she is angry that it ever happened.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come when I did.” Ash buries his face in his hands.
“No! No, no, no. I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to blame you,” Jennifer rushes in. “Please don’t be sorry. I just haven’t really gotten over it yet - it wasn’t all that long ago. But Ash, please don’t blame yourself. Very few of the things that have happened to you have been your fault.”
“I don’t know about that,” Ash says quietly.
“But I do,” Jennifer says, and her voice is suddenly fierce. “Ash, if I’m honest with you, I know damn well Jim is a lot of the reason you’ve gone through such horrible things. I don’t think he wanted that for you. I truly don’t. But it’s hard for me to say he’s a good person, given the way he reacted to the things that happened to you. Nothing he said or did helped you. He could have called the cops. He could have done anything, Ash. And if he had, you know you wouldn’t have had to go through half of the hell you were in.” Jennifer’s voice breaks.
Ash is breathing hard. Eiji squeezes his hand. I am here.
“Oh god, Ash, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything that happened. I hope you’re happy, now. Or at least that you will be soon. You’re a good kid. You’re a really good kid.” Jennifer breathes shakily. She sounds like she is about to start crying.
Ash takes in a last breath. “I am happy,” Ash says, and he smiles at Eiji. He smiles like summer sun, and Eiji thinks he could melt in it.
Jennifer smiles very wobbly, and then she laughs a bit watery. “I’m so, so happy to hear that. Oh, god. Sorry about that. I’ll finish making your coffees. God, sorry.” She pours the rest of the coffee, and splashes milk into their mugs.
“Do not apologise,” Eiji says, and smiles warmly, but his expression falters. “Ah… I am sorry to ask this, but, ah… why did you stay with Jim for so long, Jennifer? You did not seem so in love with him when we saw you last time.”
Jennifer’s face suddenly looks like clay, carved with lines of regret. She spoons sugar into their mugs and then takes a deep breath. “I… I don’t know. I guess you could call it a milder version of Stockholm syndrome. I came to the diner in… I don’t even remember when. I think I was in my late twenties.
“I’d been living with my boyfriend of two years. I used to be a journalist, but he’d made me quit my job so I could be some sort of live-in whore. He didn’t want me interacting with people where he couldn’t see me, and so I lost friends, my family didn’t really speak to me. He made sure I was completely alone, and he abused me. He’d come home really drunk smelling like some other bitch and then I’d ask him where he’d been and he’d get pissed off real quick and next thing I knew I was on the floor and he’d punched me in the face. And it was like that for so long. So long. But then I ran away. I stole his car and drove all the way here, and then I pushed his car off a cliff.
“And, I don’t know. I met Jim, and you too, Ash and Griff. And Jim offered me a job, a place to live. Cape Cod is really pretty and I had nothing to lose, so of course I said yes. It really seemed like Jim was my fucking knight in shining armor.
“He liked me, and he saved me, so I just. Stayed. And got into a relationship with him. And after a while, I just really couldn’t leave. Even if I wanted to, I had nowhere else to go. And really, there was nothing wrong with staying here, except for the fact that I was dating some man twice my age who really was kind of an asshole. So, yeah. Kinda just stayed cause I felt like I had to.
“And then he died. And I know he wasn’t the nicest, or the best father, or even an okay father, but some fucked up part of me still loved him. In the worst way. And it’s hard to get over that. So I stayed, and I stayed, and I stayed. And things are good now, sort of. Good, but sad. A lot of life is like that, isn’t it?”
Eiji swallows. “It is.”
This time, Ash squeezes. It’s hard to process Jennifer’s story. Eiji feels like crying. Is no life truly happy? Is there anyone who has lived a life of joy, marked by moments of love and happiness, rather than pain and sorrow?
To be human is a cruel, cruel thing, Eiji is finding.
“I wish all of us could have lived happier,” Eiji says, and something empty screams inside him.
“Me too,” Jennifer says. “Let me get you those pancakes.”
She disappears in the back and Eiji lets out a shaky breath.
“You okay?” Ash asks, and Eiji laughs breathlessly.
“I should be asking you that.”
“I don’t know if I’d know the answer.” Ash exhales. “Fuck, I just. I don’t know, Eiji. This sounds so fucking stupid. I guess her story just really shook me up. I forgot that… I just forgot that just normal people can have shitty lives. That their lives can fucking suck. I forgot. I forgot, and it just fucking sucks. And not everyone has an Eiji. I’m lucky. I was one of the lucky ones. Cause I’m one of the only ones who has an Eiji.” Ash closes his eyes. “God, fuck. I love you. I love you so much.”
The empty spaces in Eiji fill, if only for a moment, they fill with love, love, love. Honey dripping from honeycombs and fabric cascading from skin. Ash has never said this before. Eiji knew, of course, but he had never heard it, not like this.
“I love you, too,” Eiji says, and he wants to say more, because love pours through him, endless endless endless, but Jennifer comes back with their pancakes just as he opens his mouth.
Jennifer puts their plates down. “Here you go. I’ve got more syrup in the back if you - oh. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt anything!” She looks flustered, and a little panicked. “I’ll leave you two alone. No worries, I’ll just…”
“Ah, no! It is okay, really. We have so many years together ahead of us, but not so much time with you. Please, stay,” Eiji says, and it’s true. He can say anything he wants later, when they’re alone.
“You are so sweet, Eiji. Please don’t think this has to be a one time thing. I’d be more than happy to see you boys again, but then again, I totally understand if you’d rather not.” Her voice sounds like it is begging for company, and Eiji wishes she had someone more solid to give it to her.
“We’ll find our way back here. Eventually,” Ash says, and his eyes try for warmth, and almost make it. He is not quite there yet, not quite able to give warmth so freely, but Eiji can tell he is fond of Jennifer already.
“I really hope you do. Maybe one day I’ll find myself in New York City again. We might bump into each other then. But hey, just eat your pancakes for now. They’ll get cold if you leave them for too long.”
They eat their pancakes, and when they finally leave the diner, the sun is setting.
-:-:-
Sunsets in Cape Cod are beautiful, Eiji has found. It was like this the last time they came, and Eiji almost feels like the universe knows they are here, knows that perhaps this sunset would provide the perfect background for their sweet sadness.
They were here many months ago, but it seems like it was hardly a few days ago. Everything is still fresh in his mind, but not fresh like bread from the oven, not fresh like cherries picked off of a tree, but fresh like an open wound, one that still tears if you move too much in the wrong places.
They have moved quite a lot in the wrong places tonight, Eiji thinks. Or perhaps the right places.
They sit in the evening-cooled grass together, and Jennifer’s words and her memories sink into their minds. The sky is a bright, bright orange, the same color as the sunset the last time they were here, and not for the first time, Eiji thinks that memories can be very difficult things to have, sometimes.
“It’s a shame,” Ash starts. “It’s really beautiful here. It’s a shame so much shit has to be tied to it.”
Ash sometimes does something where he will say something very serious and actually sort of sad, but he will say it like it doesn’t matter at all. It’s rare that Ash will say something like that without this tone of voice, but now he doesn’t hear it at all. The only thing in Ash’s voice is a bitter sort of sadness, and Eiji’s heartstrings twist when he hears it.
“I wish that I could take them away from you. I wish I can make places beautiful for you again. Beautiful without anything making them dirty. I want you to have at least one beautiful thing, without anything to make it ruined. Just one.” Eiji’s heart begins to fall, fall through dark rings that squeeze and smoke, and Eiji tries desperately to catch it, but he is not sure if he has the energy to, anymore.
“You have,” Ash says, and his voice is soft, and Eiji bruises.
“No.” Eiji bleeds.
“Yes.” Ash looks directly at him, now, and his eyes are green and have seafoam inside of them and they glow gorgeous in the faded light. “You help me make myself better, Eiji. You help me make my memories things that happened to me, instead of things that are just… a part of me. You do all of that for me.”
Eiji trembles, and then Ash tangles their fingers together.
“I love you,” Ash says, and he sounds real. He means this he means this he means this.
“I love you,” Eiji says, and his voice flutters like paper. “I love you more than you can think. I love your heart. I love that your soul is connecting to mine. Every day I am so thankful to have met you. I think, what if you had not been in that bar when I came? What if I had not come to America? We could be completely different, now. And I am so happy we are not. Ah…” Eiji’s hand tightens around Ash’s. “I want to say thank you for loving me. I know it is not easy for you to love.”
Ash’s head drops onto Eiji’s shoulder. “It’s easy with you.”
Eiji’s heart has long slipped out of his grip.
Ash pulls him close, and Eiji wraps his cold fingers around Ash’s waist.
-:-:-
The darkroom is one of Eiji’s favorite things about taking photos.
Perhaps saying “favorite” is a stretch. The darkroom provides him with security. Familiarity. He feels safe in the darkroom.
He likes the routine of it, but he also likes the shades of difference between each development. It toes the line between mindlessness and comfort, and it is hard for Eiji to say he prefers either side of the line, but he loves this middle ground. The soft scarlet light. The sharp contrasts revealing themselves as the photographs develop. The gentle turn of the hanger as the photographs drip and dry.
The darkroom is also a home for his most private thoughts. His thoughts are everywhere in the darkroom, but only he can see them. They are printed on the walls, laced inside every photograph. They drift in the developer, drip onto the floor. They consume him, and Eiji allows it.
In the darkroom Eiji lets himself be destroyed. His mind explodes, it feeds on the silence and the loneliness of it all, and Eiji lets it tear every piece of him apart. Something dark wraps around the emptiness inside of him and rips it open, lets it swallow him.
Eiji cries in the darkroom. He cries, and he cries, and he cries, because he can feel this sickly flavor on his skin, this strange grey sheen, but it sinks in and he doesn’t want to scrub it off anymore because it’s been there so long he is afraid of what his skin looks like without it.
He just wants it darker, darker, so he cries harder. Why does he look like this? Why does he feel like this? Everything is exactly how it should be. He stares at photographs of hair that looks red in the light but is gold in real life. He stares at photos of dark hair together and he stares at photos of New York, and he cries because nothing is wrong but he is being consumed.
In the darkroom, he is not enough, and there is no one there to tell him that he is. There is only Eiji, and Eiji is not enough. He does nothing but love, and love, and love. He has nothing to offer but love.
In the darkroom, Eiji’s emptiness tries to choke Ash’s blinding light, tries to strangle it and watch it suffocate and dim on the floor, until there is no light, just Ash. And when it is just Ash, Eiji is sure that Ash will finally tell him that he doesn’t care.
The darkroom floor is stained with Eiji’s tears, and when he leaves, his eyes are dry and he shows Ash his photographs even though he knows he probably does not really care.
Ash doesn’t come into the darkroom, because Eiji has very strict rules about that, not because he cries but because he truly needs darkness if he would like his photos to turn out well.
But it works out very well, since Ash cannot walk in on anything Eiji does not want him to see.
One day, Eiji walks out of the dark room and Ash is laying on the couch and looking like he is thinking very deeply about things that are not very nice to think about. Eiji assumes that he is thinking about Golzine, or Foxx, or something like that, but when he sits down on a chair near him, Ash says, looking at the ceiling, “Do you do that a lot?”
Eiji’s stomach fills with ice. “Do what?”
Ash turns his head to look at him, and he looks like he is trying to keep his face neutral, but Eiji can see something desperate fighting to break through.
“Cry in your darkroom.” Ash pauses, as if he was trying to be dramatic, but he breaks and rushes, “Did I do something to hurt you? Why were you crying? Am I doing something wrong?”
“No! No! Ah, I… you were not supposed to hear. But it was not you. It was not your fault. Please, please do not think that.” Eiji’s panic is clear in his voice, but he will die before he lets Ash think that this is his fault. It’s Eiji’s fault, all Eiji’s.
“Then why?” Ash’s voice is weak, and Eiji starts to shake. “Why would you cry like that?”
Eiji’s eyes start to burn. “I… I do not know how I can explain…”
“Please try,” Ash says, and his voice sounds like it’s spun out of gold and tears.
“Ah… I do not know when it started. Two years ago, maybe. Three. I do not know, anymore. It was after I began to get worse at pole vaulting. The competition began to affect me. I could never win, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how many times I practiced. It became more hard for me to keep looking up. I was feeling bad about myself, I was not good enough. I could not do it, even though I wanted it very badly. Because of this, my performance suffered even more, and then it was even harder for me. It was… ah, what do you call it? I fulfilled my own prophecy.
“Even without that, things were not so good for me. My dad was very sick. There were problems with his liver, and he was in hospital for a very long time. I was in charge of the house, and my mother was not often home. I wondered if she was being unfaithful to my father, and it made me feel sick. There was a lot of emptiness inside of me.
“Then Ibe came, and he made me feel like… like I was something incredible. He was impressed with my pole jumping, and the photos he took were very interesting. I was looking so… ah… free? I have never seen myself look like that before. It was strange, and it was very, very nice. But not everything was better. Still I felt the same hurt towards myself, to my mother, maybe a bit less.
“Then Ibe left, not forever, not permanent, but he was not a big presence in my life, anymore. Things became worse again. I quit pole jumping. I became very lonely, and I stayed in my room very often. I wanted my own emptiness to swallow me. Perhaps if I had stayed like that for longer, I would have let it. But Ibe came back, and he said, ‘Come to America with me.’
“My family did not want me to go. My father was still in the hospital, and my mother worried that there would be no one in charge of the house if I left. There would be no one to watch while she left the house to see other men. America was also so far away - there would be no way they could come to visit me. But I wanted to go. So badly, I wanted to go to America, to escape from my own loneliness, to stop myself from sinking into my own emptiness.
“And then… ah, you know the rest. But not all of it, I think. Because I think that I have been hoping America will cure me, but I have not been cured.
“I love you, Ash. I… cannot express so well in English, but I love you very, very much. But one thing that I think the Americans were wrong about is that love is the answer to everything, because this is the strongest love in the world, and I am still feeling like this. I am still feeling so empty, I am still feeling like I am not enough.
“Ash, why am I still feeling like this?” The entire time Eiji had been speaking, he had avoided Ash’s eyes, but now he looks up at him, desperate for an answer. Why, why, why?
“I don’t know,” Ash whispers, and tears, thick like honey, roll down his cheeks. Eiji wants to scream. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” Ash shakes his head, faster and faster, like if he goes fast enough he will find the answers to his questions.
He will not.
“Stop,” Eiji says, and his voice is thick with the same honey as Ash’s tears. “You could not have known. Ash, I do not want you to feel sorry for me. I did not tell you this for your apologies, I told you this because you have asked me. Please, please just hold me. Just this time. I am so tired.”
In a flash, Ash has left the couch and curls in next to Eiji, wrapping his arms around him. Eiji can feel him shake, but he sighs and leans back into him. It’s nice, he thinks. Warm. He would like to feel like this all the time.
“I wanna make it better,” Ash says. “Or easier, at least.”
“I do not… I do not know how you can. You are already doing so much, Ash. You love me. You are choosing to continue loving me, you are choosing to stay. Out of everyone, out of everywhere, you are choosing to stay here, with me. That means so much to me, Ash.”
Ash’s tears roll quicker than honey now. “How could I have chosen anyone else over you? How could I have stayed anywhere but with you? God, fuck if this doesn’t sound cheesy but you are fucking everything to me. Everything. Fuck. I love you.” Ash coughs, and Eiji can feel his tears seep through his shirt. He trembles with Ash.
“That is enough. From you, for me, that is enough.” Eiji is crying, too.
They stay there like that for many minutes. Eventually, Ash says, “Maybe you should talk to someone. Or something. Someone who isn’t completely in love with you, though I doubt that will take long to happen anyway.”
Eiji laughs a little bit, but then he goes quiet.
“Maybe,” he says, even though he is afraid of not feeling like this anymore.
“Good,” Ash says.
Maybe.
-:-:-
Eiji goes, and it is okay, he thinks.
Her name is Sarah and she has dyed blonde hair and her eyes are watery blue. She is middle aged and she has a British accent, and it is sometimes a little bit hard for Eiji to understand her but mostly it is okay.
She is nice and asks him questions about his family, what his life is like here, and she asks him questions about Ash. She says it seems like Eiji has depression, and Eiji is not exactly sure what that means. She tells him it is a serious medical illness that negatively affects how he feels and his wellbeing. He understands, he thinks. It makes sense. She says, “Let’s meet again next week, shall we?” in her British accent, and by the time the hour is over, Eiji is tired and ready to go home.
Ash is helping him. He is helping him so much, he is making him feel like he can get better. That things will get better. He is making him want to get better.
Maybe love is not the answer to everything, but it helps. It helps a lot.
They watch sunrises together, and they drive to diners at midnight together, and they eat shrimp and avocado salad together. They see Sing and Yut Lung together, they see Max and Michael and Jessica together. They hold hands, and they kiss under the moonlight and they kiss in their living room and they kiss in the rain.
They also say, “I love you,” to each other, and Eiji likes this best of all.
“I love you,” means that they are here, they are together, and things will only get better.
And somehow, Eiji believes it.