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It started as a covertly shot video taken in the apartment on a mobile phone camera. The angle suggested it had been filmed from the sofa, at a safe distance and out of earshot. The camerawork was shaky and amateurish, a slightly blurred video of the Boss and an enigmatic foreigner. Ash was stood in the kitchen area with Eiji, as the little Japanese boy handed him something with a cute smile, and he laughed good naturedly at it as he thanked him. Even though the footage was out of focus, you could clearly see the way his face softened as he looked at Eiji, the sharp angles sanded away and the affection plain to see. Then Bones casually walked into shot, striding past the camera and blocking the view as he casually stated, “And they were roommates!”
The camera turned to a rather shocked looking Kong, his face close-up so you could see right up his nostrils, as he whispered loudly, “Oh my God, they were roommates!”
And the video ended. A short, less than 10-second-long clip, riffing on an old vine meme.
They couldn’t upload it publicly, as much as Bones wanted to put it on his Youtube channel next to his strangely popular jackass stunt videos and recorded pranks (most of them against Alex), because Ash had too many enemies and giving them any fodder to get to him would be irresponsible at best, and could potentially get Eiji killed. Currently, only Yut Lung and Golzine knew about Eiji and his significance, but they were not the only people with a grudge against Ash and any close friend of the Boss was a target. They’d been put in charge of protecting Eiji, so placing a video online implying Ash was more than a friend to him and outright showing his face was basically the same as putting a sign on Eiji’s back saying ‘Ash’s romantic interest’ and shoving him into enemy territory. However, that’s not to say they couldn’t share the video privately…
Lynx Gang had a private IM group chat that most of the members were involved in. It offered a quick way to send information to all members on meeting points, basic discussion, and just a place to share memes and funny pictures. Since allying with the Chinese and Black Sabbath, some of their more trusted members, including Sing and Cain, had joined too, so they knew what Ash and his boys were up to and vice versa, and could avoid or assist as necessary if it benefitted them. Cain played it straight, using it purely for business, but more often than not Sing would use it to post pictures he took of alley cats around the back of the Chang Dai with the caption, ’Ash, dis u?’ It got annoying to the point Ash actually left the group chat, favouring a return to giving his orders in person and not dealing with the idle chatter of others, and Alex would have to relay all relevant information into it for him.
Eiji, however, remained happily in the large group chat under the moniker ‘Flyboy’. Most of the time he didn’t understand what was going on; the gangs used a lot of slang for security reasons when it came to making plans, especially if they involved illegal activity, but he appreciated the funny pictures and videos, and he commented on every single cat with ‘Kawaii’ and a string of heart emoji.
The video proved a resounding hit with the Lynx Gang members, so much so that saying ‘and they were roommates’ whenever they saw Ash and Eiji together became an instant in-joke that led to a lot of knowing smiles and stifled giggles. The original Vine was popular enough that even those who hadn’t seen Kong and Bones’ remake understood the reference and to whom it referred. It spread not only through Lynx Gang, but also Black Sabbath and Chinatown, so much so that all Ash seemed to hear these days were hastily muffled snorts of laughter.
“The fuck is with the ‘roommates’ thing?” he muttered to himself, frowning. Ash was very good with computers and technology, but he was first and foremost a book nerd; he knew what a meme was, and he’d heard about Vine videos, but he had little interest in either when entire encyclopaedias and vast libraries of scientific journals and political debate were available to read, for free, online instead. He’d noticed that every time Eiji was in earshot of anyone murmuring ‘and they were roommates’, he would suddenly blush a cute rose pink and fall silent, as if embarrassed but trying to hide it or act like he’d heard nothing. He plainly understood the reference and, apparently, it was somewhat mocking them. He decided to ask him what it was all about when they were alone that night, being roommates and getting ready to lie in separate beds.
“Why does everyone laugh at us being roommates?” he asked, laying under the covers and staring at the ceiling.
“What?”
“I’ve noticed recently people laughing at us because we share the apartment.”
“Oh…” Eiji paused for a second, before suddenly understanding what Ash was on about. “Oh! That! They not laughing because we share apartment!”
“Huh?”
“It was video meme. Bones post in group chat, parody of old Vine video. They laugh because they think we are… ano…” he mimed an intercourse motion using his hands, stabbing the pointer finger of his right hand in and out repeatedly into a ring made by the thumb and pointer of his left. “Room mate.”
“Fuck’s sake!” Ash sighed.
“I know we not, so it not really bother me,” Eiji shrugged. “Bit embarrassing, but they know truth really. It just joke, mean nothing.”
“I’ve heard people outside the gang saying it!” Ash growled, annoyed. “They may as well paint a fucking target on you and be done with it!”
“It was private video,” Eiji said, reassuring him. “Unless people see video, they just think it reference old meme. Probably not even know it about us.”
“Show me the video.”
“Hmm?”
“The video! I’m guessing it’s in the group chat?”
“Okay…” Eiji scrolled through his phone, having to scroll back quite a way to find the video. He passed the phone to Ash so he could watch.
“Those idiots…” he sighed as the video came to an end. “It’s not even funny! It’s just dumb!”
“I maybe think it be funny if it was not about me,” Eiji smiled, being honest.
“I shouldn’t have left that group chat,” Ash said regrettably. “They wouldn’t have posted it if I’d still been there and able to moderate things… But I literally would have killed Sing if I saw yet another cat pic with me tagged in it!”
“He has started to post photo of wild cat now,” Eiji smirked. “Most recent was tiger hiding in large cardboard box.”
“At least he’s moved on to more dangerous cats…” Ash grumbled.
“Meme jokes never last long,” Eiji assured him. “New thing will come along, people will forget and move on.”
*
They did move on eventually. Unfortunately, the next meme was a cartoon drawn by Alex, again riffing on a known meme from the TV series ‘Roseanne’. It showed Max Lobo slamming open a door with an ‘aha’ expression, loudly proclaiming ‘You two ARE having sex!”. The next panel was Ash and Eiji lounging on a bed fully clothed, reading a book and a magazine respectively, Ash stating, ‘Really? Eiji, why didn’t you tell me? I would have put my book down!’ Eiji showed him the picture as soon as it came onto his feed, just to give him a heads up.
‘You two ARE having sex!’ then became the next viral sentence sniggered between group chat members.
At least this time, Ash had a comeback that put a stop to things pretty quickly.
“Well, we ARE roommates!” he said nonchalantly, sharp eyes focusing on the offending gang members as he smirked internally, the laugher abruptly stopping as a tense hush descended. It was only funny until the Boss got pissed off, after all.
Ash marvelled at the awkward silence he had created, thinking peace may have finally been restored, until someone broke it by bravely stage whispering with a strong accent, “Oh my God, we are room mate!” Ash raised one eyebrow in response.
At the back of the room, Eiji demurely hid his smile with one hand, desperately trying not to make eye contact with Ash lest he lose his composure entirely. Ash flipped him the bird before walking out the room in a huff, and Eiji broke down into a fit of amused giggles.
“You got balls of steel, man,” Bones told him, a little in awe at Eiji’s brazenness.
The AshxEiji memes on the group chat came to an abrupt end.
Sing, meanwhile, finally posted a wildlife photo of a legitimate Canadian Lynx. ‘Dis U Ash?’ he commented.
Someone with the username ‘NewYorkWildcat’ responded with a simple, ‘Yes.’