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Eiji stares out the window into the rain, putting most of his weight on his right foot. He trails a hand against the window pane, feeling how cool and smooth it is against his fingers, save for the small imperfections in the glass.
“Weather’s pretty bad,” Ash says. Eiji didn’t see or hear him coming—didn’t even notice his reflection in the glass until he spoke—but he’s gotten used to Ash’s muted movements in the years they’ve been together. “Ankle acting up again?”
“Yeah,” Eiji admits in a whisper.
Ash tuts. “Sit down, then, old man. You’ll hurt yourself.”
Eiji relents, letting Ash guide him back to the couch. Ash doesn’t approach him, though, as he does, and Eiji almost wishes he would—just a comforting touch, a hand on his shoulder. Something. Anything.
But he doesn’t know how to ask. Especially not from Ash. How could he ever ask to take more from him, after everything everyone else has taken? And Eiji’s already taken so much from himself ... from his family ...
“Eiji?” Ash asks. He sits on the couch, but on the far end from Eiji. Eiji stops himself from reaching out to him. “What’s on your mind?” Ash continues. “You seem a little out of it.”
“ ... Yeah,” Eiji says softly.
“Do you need to put your ankle up?” Ash asks. He starts to rise to his feet without waiting for a response, already eager to help Eiji.
“I’m fine,” Eiji says quickly. “Don’t worry about me, Ash.”
“I’m ... always worried about you,” Ash responds. He’s smiling, though, softly, as he sits back down. “I told you, didn’t I? I’m worried to death when you’re not with me. And even when you are, I still ...” Ash trails off, then shakes his head. “I just want to do right by you.”
Which is exactly why Eiji can’t ask anything of Ash—because he knows that Ash would do anything to avoid saying no to Eiji.
Unlike Eiji himself, who said no to so much. Who gave up on his own future.
When was the last time he spoke to his mother? To his little sister? Has it been over six months yet?
When was the last time he thought about the future he owed them?
... The last time it rained, probably.
“Eiji?” Ash whispers. He is worried. It’s written on his face, in his words. “Will you talk to me?"
Eiji shakes his head. “I don’t ...” want to inconvenience anyone? Ash won’t like that answer. “I don’t want to bother you,” he settles on. It’s not much better, but he knows that Ash would easily see through a blatant lie from a stranger, let alone someone he knows as well as Eiji.
“It’s not a bother. You’re never a bother to me, Eiji. You know that, right?”
But it’s not like Ash would tell him if he were. He has to say that.
“I know,” Eiji tries, but—
“You don’t,” Ash corrects gently. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
Eiji looks down. Away from Ash, down at the coffee table, and then down lower until he’s staring at his stupid, ruined ankle.
There are days where Eiji is almost thankful for his failed athletic career. After all, how else would he have found Ash? And in so many ways, his life now means so much to him. There really are days when he doesn’t regret a single thing.
And then there are days when it rains.
Days when he thinks that he could have found Ash anyway, somehow, without sacrificing the hopes and dreams of his family. Without destroying his only chance to make anyone truly proud of him. Without taking away the only thing that made him special.
“Let me take care of you,” Ash says. He’s not demanding, or even begging. It’s just a simple request—or maybe an offer would be more accurate. “Please, sweetheart?”
And it’s the pet name that does it, probably. Ash uses them so rarely, still, even now. So he must ... he must be really worried. And Eiji isn’t worth that kind of concern. Maybe if he just explains that it’s nothing major?
“I’m just ... thinking about the past,” Eiji starts. He’s still looking down, but he sees Ash tense slightly from the corner of his eye.
“What ... specifically?” Ash asks, just the tiniest bit clipped. The type of thing that no one else would likely notice, unless they knew Ash especially well.
Eiji quickly shakes his head. “No, nothing like that. I mean ... before I met you. With my family. Back in Japan.”
Ash breathes out, but it’s not quite a relieved sound. More of a hiss than a sigh. “What happened?” he asks.
“Nothing happened,” Eiji says, but it’s not really true. He happened, to himself. “I just ... with my ankle.” He tries to lift the leg in question, but gives up with a grimace when a dull, pulsating pain emanates from the old injury. “I messed up.”
Frowning, Ash shakes his head. He leans in slightly toward Eiji, but nowhere near close enough to touch. “You didn’t mess up, Eiji. You got hurt.”
“Yes, but ...” It was my own fault.
“Did someone make you feel bad for it?” Ash asks. It’s incredibly brief, but for a moment, Eiji sees a hint of the Ash Lynx who would pull the trigger without hesitation on anyone who threatened his loved ones. But Ash doesn’t have to be that Ash anymore, and it passes quickly. “You were dealing with enough without the weight of others’ expectations,” Ash murmurs as the murderous intent fades from his eyes.
“It’s not like that,” Eiji breathes. “It’s just that ... I wanted to do better. Than I was able to.”
Ash looks pained, though Eiji isn’t sure why. It seems like he holds a breath for a moment before leaning back against the arm of the couch, just slightly away from Eiji. There’s a pang deep in Eiji’s chest, even as Ash asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”
Leaning back against his own armrest in turn, Eiji wraps his arms around himself. “Track was my life,” he whispers. “My purpose, my everything. My reason to go on.”
Ash’s pained expression doesn’t change, but he doesn’t respond, either. After a moment, Eiji continues.
“Almost as soon as I started in junior high, people thought I would go far. I only really had one ‘rival’ at my level in the country. As we moved into high school, though, he ... kept surpassing me. And, I was okay with it, really. I met Ibe-san, and I was able to get the scholarship I needed to go to college without taking away from my father’s medical expenses. But ...” Eiji trails off, smiling sadly. “I messed up,” he says again.
“No, no you ... Eiji, you didn’t.” Ash’s hands fidget in his lap, like he’s not sure what to do with them. “You got hurt. It wasn’t your fault.”
“You can’t know that,” Eiji whimpers. His vision is a little blurry, and it takes him a second to realize that it’s from tears. “You can’t know that. It was my fault, it was ...”
“Darling ...”
A pet name again. From Ash, endearments like that always stop Eiji in his tracks. A reset of sorts.
“Sorry,” Eiji breathes. “I just ... lost so much.”
“You wanted to do better?” Ash says carefully, echoing Eiji’s earlier words. He’s frowning.
“Height is ... an important factor in pole vaulting. I’m not as tall as the other athletes were. I did well in middle school because the others hadn’t yet hit their growth spurts. But ... mine never came, and I ... wanted to be better.”
Now Ash seems antsy, his leg bouncing slightly and his hands still unable to stay still. Eiji, on the other hand, feels like he’s frozen.
“People expected you to do just as well in high school as you did in middle school, and then just as well as that again in college?” Ash asks.
How does he ... ? Eiji wonders. Ash always manages to identify the source of the problem, boiling it down to what really needs to be addressed.
“Yeah, I ... I guess that’s what it is,” Eiji answers. “So I tried, but then ...”
Ash shakes his head. He still seems restless. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t ... They should have never put that kind of pressure on you.”
After everything Ash has been through, how could Eiji do this? Making Ash comfort him for his childhood and adolescent years, when Ash has been through so much worse. He doesn’t have a right to complain. He doesn’t ... he can’t do this ...
Eiji’s surprised at the sob that runs through him. He thought he’d be able to prevent himself from actually crying.
“Let it out,” Ash whispers. “It’s okay, Eiji. It’s okay.”
But it’s not. Eiji is still hurting people, still putting himself first, still expecting everyone to cater to his own stupid wants. It’s just Ash now, instead of his family.
“I wanted to do better,” Eiji whines. “I wanted to be better. My parents, they ... Ash, they needed me to do it. They needed the money, the success that I would have brought them. And I was so close. I could have ... if I had just tried harder, I could have ...”
Ash shifts his weight where he sits. “It wasn’t your responsibility. Those expectations, those ... requirements, that’s not a reflection on you. Even if you could have done it, you shouldn’t have felt like you had to for someone else’s sake.”
Eiji thinks about requirements, and how much Ash knows about that. About being forced into someone else’s idea of him, forced to play a role that isn’t what he would choose for himself.
But this is different. This is ... Eiji wasn’t being forced into anything. He chose to do it for his family’s sake. He wanted to.
Right?
He cries harder.
“I didn’t ...” Eiji starts.
“Didn’t what?” Ash prompts after a moment.
“I didn’t want to!” Eiji cries. “It was fun at first, and I pushed myself to do better, but ... when everyone wanted me to ... I didn’t ...” He’s sobbing now, unable to contain his feelings.
“Oh, Eiji ...” Ash says softly.
“And no one even ...” He scoffs through his tears. “No one saw me as anything more than a machine, designed to push myself to my limits until I broke down. And I did. I did break.”
“You’re not broken, Eiji.” Ash looks like he’s about to stand and pace the room, but he still doesn’t move even a centimeter closer to Eiji.
“No, I am. But that’s okay. That’s just how it is. It just ... hurts, sometimes. Sometimes I wish I weren’t.”
And how many times has Eiji told Ash that he’s not broken? But again, this is different. Eiji literally broke. A broken ankle, broken dreams.
“You’re not broken,” Ash says again, a whisper this time. His body language counters the softness of his voice, in a way, but nothing about it is harsh. Everything is open, honest, caring. “You are worth so much more than what you can give other people.”
Eiji pauses at that. Ash would ... Ash knows a lot about that. About only being valued for what he can offer. About being seen as something other than human, be it a machine or a doll. And maybe ... maybe he’s telling the truth, here.
A hiccup this time, and Eiji realizes that his crying has slowed a little. “You still care about me?” he asks. “Even though I can’t ...” fly?
Ash’s restlessness slows a little. “Eiji, I love you. So much. Unconditionally. Irrevocably. Nothing can change that, okay?”
“But you said ... that I was the first person to help you ... without asking something in return.”
“That’s ... yeah, you were. I mean, Shorter and I cared about each other, but ... with being gang leaders, there was always an expectation of reciprocity, in one way or another. And you didn’t ... you didn’t ask that of me. But that doesn’t mean that I only love you for that, or that your value to me is in what you can give me. I love you for being you. For being Eiji. Not the pole vaulter Eiji, or the photographer Eiji, or even the steal-a-cop-car-in-his-second-month-in-America Eiji.” Ash looks down. Is he ... blushing? “I love ... I love Eiji, my soulmate.”
Yeah, Ash is definitely blushing.
Ash starts fidgeting again, and Eiji can’t help but smile a little, though his tears are still falling. “Thank you,” he says. “I love you too.”
But Ash is still on the far side of the couch, never having approached Eiji through this whole conversation.
“Ash?” Eiji asks. His voice sounds a little higher pitched than he meant it.
Ash hums in response, bouncing his leg and all but wringing his hands in his lap.
“Can you ...” Eiji hesitates. He still worries that Ash won’t say no to Eiji, but ... Ash loves him, right? And Eiji loves Ash, and would want Ash to ask for what he needs. Or even just what he wants. “Can I lean on you? I mean ... literally? Can I lie against your shoulder?”
Ash looks surprised, but not uncomfortable. “You want to?”
“If that’s okay,” Eiji adds quickly.
A smile breaks across Ash’s face, bright and beautiful. “Of course!” Ash pulls his hands off of his lap, opening his arms for Eiji to lean against him.
Eiji makes his way across the couch, finding his place in Ash’s open arms. As he does, Ash stills slowly, his restless leg and hands calming.
He seems serene. Peaceful. The way he makes Eiji feel.
Ash wraps his arms around Eiji, pulling him snug against his own body. “Is this okay?” he asks softly.
Eiji closes his eyes, melting into the embrace. He’s still crying a little, soft sobs and hiccups, but at this rate it won’t last much longer. “I just ... want to stay here, forever in your arms.”
There’s a soft breath against Eiji’s hair as Ash exhales. “Then do,” Ash whispers. “Then stay.”