Work Text:
Sing Soo Ling is not a name Nahoko Okumura cares much for beyond being someone that Eiji knows from New York that he mentions in passing. Not at first, and not for a long time. Unlike that boy that she knows is the one, this creeps up on her slowly.
The first time she talks to him, it isn’t even a conversation. The phone rings whilst she’s in the middle of her battle with Dande—she’s so close to the final Pokemon being sent out, meaning she can MegaEvolve her last-remaining team member, Corviknight, against Dande’s Charizard.
“Can someone answer that?” She yells whilst curled up on the couch, right next to it.
The phone rings three more times. Stupid Eiji, stupid Mom, she has to do everything! Nahoko rolls her eyes and picks the phone up, greeting in Japanese, “hello? This is the Okumura residence, who is calling?”
“Uh…” The static sounds on the other line. “English okay?”
Nahoko swallows her gulp of strawberry boba and nods. “Yes, English is fine. Who is this?”
“I’m—Sing. Is Eiji there?”
Sing? Huh. She’s heard that name before. Nahoko doesn’t bother replying to the voice, instead, she screams, “Nii-san! An American is calling for you! Get your lazy butt down here!”
“I’m in a wheelchair, Nahoko. And I’m eating. Who is it?”
“And you can wheel, dummy! It’s someone called Sing?”
Eiji’s silent, for a moment. “Can you bring me the phone, please?”
Oh, wow. He never says please.
It’s weird—it’s really weird how quiet Eiji is whenever they bring up America.
She can’t remember the last time she remembered her brother outside of someone who fussed over her growing up. It’s weird seeing him live outside of the family bracket. Having a life outside of Japan.
So, no. Nahoko doesn’t spare much thought to Sing Soo Ling, not outside of that one conversation. He only crops up whenever he calls their family home, and past a few words, they don’t know each other—she knows he’s probably involved in the gang stuff that has Eiji so jaded, but he sounds so young so he can’t possibly be a major player.
And then Eiji gets that call, and two weeks later, barely after having his stitches out, he’s flung himself back over to America.
Her Mom is trying to keep busy the morning Eiji leaves by fetching groceries and going on a long walk. Eiji was getting weirder these days. When got that call, he looked so determined to go back, only tempered by Ibe saying they’d go together the second his stitches were taken out. And, see, Nahoko isn’t sure the last time she saw Eiji so willing to do things after his accident.
America changed him in ways she can’t really understand, not yet.
Now, it’s a Saturday.
It’s a Saturday, 08:30 am. Usually, Eiji would be awake by now, being his dumb jock self on a morning run, or maybe fixing up breakfast for them so their Mom won’t have to after a busy night at work. It never occurred to her how much Eiji moved all the time, never sitting down or resting.
Her friend’s group chat keeps pinging her silent phone—they heard about Eiji’s departure, and it’s nice they’re worried, but everything about this is confusing to her.
Why would Eiji leave so suddenly? He was so desperate to go, practically ready to crawl to the airport. The little information she managed to dig out of him doesn’t explain much either—this Ash, who is Ash person beyond someone he met in America that meant something to him? There’s been pictures of a blond guy, his American lover, maybe? But then why would Eiji come back to Japan alone without him? Why was he shot?
Eiji’s been tight-lipped. Ugh, stupid big brothers. They never make any sense.
The phone rings again, and Nahoko peeks her head up, curious. She plucks it off the receiver, and in English, she answers, “hello?”
“Oh.” The familiar voice responds. “This is—Nahoko? Is Eiji there?”
She almost prides herself on guessing the caller. “No, he’s not. He’s on his way to the airport to go back to New York.”
“Ibe really wasn’t kidding about Eiji wanting to come back the moment he could. I-I tried getting through to his cellphone, this was my last shot in the dark.”
“Eiji is very impatient.”
The voice—Sing, his name is Sing—laughs through the static. He’s familiar with Eiji being stupid and reckless. That… that’s weird. Eiji doesn’t usually let people see that side of him outside of pole-vaulting. “Yeah, I learned that when he was over here.”
“Mm.”
There’s a beat of silence when Sing hums awkwardly. “Well, uh—sorry to waste your time, Nahoko. I should—”
“Wait!”
It’s a sudden cry that makes her hesitate, and Sing stops his sentence. “Yeah?”
Nahoko flops down into the couch, crosses her legs, and grabs her Sylveon plushie to hug it tight against her chest. She’s seen pictures of Sing since Eiji opened up a little to her, showed her some photographs he took of people whilst he was in America. He was one of the few Eiji named where it didn’t hurt him.
“Eiji—Eiji really wanted to go back to America.” Nahoko hugs her plushie tighter and huffs. “But he never tells me anything. You know what happened over there, right? You’ve called him before, so you’ve got to be a friend of his. So, does that mean you know this Ash person?”
Sing is silent on the other end, for a long time. Enough that Nahoko feels weird for having asked.
Finally, he speaks (he took ages!), but preludes it with a sigh. “Eiji probably won’t want me telling you anything without him knowing.”
Nahoko huffs. “Well if he wasn’t such a stinky butthead, I wouldn’t have to go behind his back to ask.”
“Stinky—” Sing laughs—laughs at her! What the hell!—before it trails off into little snickers. “How old are you, seven?”
“I’m almost fifteen!”
“…You’re my age?”
“Yeah? What about it?”
Sing seems weirdly shocked at that. She’s not that childish! Besides, this guy looks like he cuts his hair on a rock! Who is he to judge her? Stupid boys. Girls are way better. And pretty. She likes pretty girls a lot. And pretty guys. But boys in general? They stink.
“No, it’s… nothing.” Nahoko’s about to follow up on that, but Sing swerves the conversation away. “Look, a lot’s happened in America. A lot of people are still trying to—fix the mess left behind. Eiji coming back here is going to help a lot more than it’ll hurt, so I don’t know how much I can tell you right now, but…”
“But?”
“But you don’t need to worry about Ash. They really care about each other. And Ash is a cool guy. He wouldn’t ever hurt Eiji.”
Nahoko sits up, digs her socked toe against the grainy wooded floor. “Is Ash, um, Eiji’s… lover?”
Sing muses on that. “More than that, I think. Like they’re—connected to each other. Soul to soul.”
“Oh.”
“Are you still worried?”
Nahoko cradles the phone against her ear. “I don’t know. Eiji’s just weird lately. Older brothers stink.”
Sing laughs, and it startles her—he sounds like a boy. “Yeah, you can say that again. Mine’s all banged up in the hospital right now. Tried to crusade all by himself.”
“Sounds like Eiji!”
“…Yeah, though I don’t know if they’d like each other very much.”
Huh? Did Eiji meet Sing’s brother? But he seems to like Sing, why wouldn’t he—
Oh, well. She can ask him when he gets back.
“Hey, Sing?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask for your email?”
“Huh?” Sing seems surprised. “Why?”
Nahoko sighs. “Eiji doesn’t tell me much. And I don’t want to spy on him, but I’m worried. If I have a question you can answer, could I ask you that way?”
Sing muses on this for a moment. Two. The clock in their living room may as well be the backing track of an EDM. She could come up with a routine for it on the local arcade’s DDR machine. She could. And rock it, too!
“Sure. You got a pen?”
Writing in English still sucks, but Sing is patient with her. She scribbles down his email address on a wad of scented strawberry sticky notes, and eventually, the call tapers off to a gentle end with goodbyes on both ends.
Nahoko lays back on the couch, plushie abandoned to the side, staring at the scribbled email.
Eiji’s in America right now. This Ash person is alive, in a hospital, and Eiji flung himself across the world to make sure he was okay. That’s their story.
Sing Soo Ling, huh.
This will be interesting.