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“Are you sure about this?” Ash asks for what seems like the millionth time, desperately hoping Jessica and Max will finally come to their senses and realize that Ash is the worst, most unqualified person to babysit of all time.
Jessica laughs lightly, and catches Max by the arm. “You’re going to be fine,” she says. “Michael is a really easy kid—just make sure he eats before eight, and he won’t give you any trouble. He loves you, anyhow. All he’s done for the past three days is talk about you and Eiji coming to visit.”
Sure enough, Michael is dashing around his and Eiji’s legs, clutching a model airplane in one hand and a little train car in another.
“He’s been obsessed with the train system recently,” says Max, biting back a laugh as Michael’s face lights up at the mention of trains. “He’s memorized every line and he’s working on the times the trains come down. Worst case scenario, you can ask him how to get to the library from here. He’ll give you the rundown on all the trains you have to take.”
Ash blanches, and Eiji grips his hand.
“Bad example,” Max hastens to say. “God, Ash, I’m so sorry—”
“I can tell you that,” Michael crows. “That’s easy! Give me a harder one, Ash!”
Just as Max had predicted, he launches into a seemingly unending monologue that includes commentary on all the different stations--namely, which ones he thinks are dirtiest, which to Ash is a pretty pointless discussion considering as they’re all equally disgusting.
Jessica looks pointedly at her watch and elbows Max, who yelps.
“I think we have to go if we want to get there on time,” he says, and Jessica nods apologetically.
“You’ll do great,” she says. “Just call if anything comes up.”
“Have fun at dinner,” Eiji says, and Ash nods, hoping the terror isn’t too clearly visible on his face, and then the door is swinging shut and they’re gone.
“So,” says Ash, “what do you want to do?” He immediately cringes as soon as the words leave his mouth, because they’re so stilted and awkward, and he’s definitely not able to do this, he should just call someone up, someone much more qualified, and pay them out of pocket and hope Jessica and Max won’t be too upset--
“I wanna draw! And I can tell you about the trains! My teacher at school said to stop talking about them because the other kids were getting kind of mad, but Dad said it was okay and you would want to hear about them. Mom got me a poster too and it has the map of the subway and I can show you all the trains. Did you know that the poster spelled Ditmars Boulevard wrong? They put two ‘s’’s when there’s only one, so I had to cross it out with Sharpie. But that’s okay. It’s still a good poster!”
Eiji ruffles Michael’s hair. “Do you want to draw first?” he asks, “or do you want to show us the trains?”
“Hm,” says Michael and pauses a long moment, as if this is an incredibly difficult decision that requires extensive thought. “Drawing!” he settles, and goes racing into his room for colored pencils and paper.
“How are you doing, Ash?” Eiji asks softly, and Ash shakes his head.
“I don’t know how to take care of kids,” he says. “I have no idea what I’m doing--I’m just going to mess it all up, like always--”
“You won’t mess it all up,” Eiji interrupts lightly. “Michael loves you. And it’s alright. Even if you don’t know what to do, I’ll be there, and I can take over if you need it.”
Michael comes bounding back, and dumps his colored pencils unceremoniously on the kitchen table, dropping several along the way. He presses pieces of paper into Ash and Eiji’s hands and practically drags them to the table. Then, he produces a train car from his pocket and holds it over his head, rotating it this way and that as if trying to decide on the optimal angle. Said optimal angle determined, he places the train car carefully down on the table, and throws himself into his drawing with a kind of childlike abandon.
“Do you know what it’s called when you draw what’s in front of you?” Eiji asks, and Michael shakes his head no. “It’s called a still life. That’s the kind of thing you do in drawing school.”
Michael’s eyes go wide. “Still life,” he mutters under his breath, undoubtedly trying to familiarize himself with the new term. “That’s so cool, Eiji!”
Ash watches Michael draw until Michael demands to know why Ash hasn’t started his own drawing, and he and Eiji start discussing the matter pointedly and loudly enough that Ash begins to draw a lackluster picture of a house. His drawing is hardly better than Michael’s, whose creative license has intervened quite dramatically: the train car is a garish shade of yellow, a far cry from the original stripey grey design. To be completely honest, it looks more like an unfortunate banana that’s maybe been stepped on a couple times than a train, but Michael doesn’t need to know that. At any rate, Ash would be an extremely hypocritical art critic, because his own drawing is the type of work that would be praised in kindergarten and then never again.
Ash looks up to see Michael and Eiji engaged in some sort of strange tussle in which Eiji has covered his drawing with his hands and MIchael is trying to pry Eiji’s fingers away to see the picture underneath.
“Let me see, Eiji,” Michael whines, but Eiji just shakes his head.
“You can see once I finish,” he offers, and Michael pouts.
It’s quiet except for the quiet sound of the pencils scritch-scratching on the paper. The few times Ash tries to initiate conversation, Michael immediately cuts him off with an exaggeratedly serious shushing sound, and Ash quickly gives up: Michael is obviously the one in charge when it comes to drawing, not Ash.
Ash’s house has long been finished, but Michael looks as though he could continue drawing for several more hours yet, so Ash decides to add brick detailing to the walls. (Do people even still make houses out of brick? Ash can probably count on one hand the number of brick houses he’s come across in his entire lifetime. Oh well.) The line of bricks ends up squiggly with Ash’s unsteady hands, and the vertical lines seem to be more diagonal than anything else, but when all is said and done, it’s recognizable as a brick wall, and Ash will take that.
Finally, Michael throws down his pencil dramatically. “I’m done!” he announces, and presses his drawing into Ash and Eiji’s hands.
“It’s the J train,” he says. “See, you can tell because of the brown circle.”
“Wow,” says Eiji. “You did such a good job of the angles, Michael. This is really, really good!”
Michael beams. Ash briefly wonders what it must be like to be Eiji, to have a kind of skill for taking care of children, always knowing the perfect thing to say. His own situation is more of a catch-22, he thinks, because he wants so desperately for Michael to like him, but he doesn’t ever know what to say, and if he doesn’t ever say anything, how can Michael like him? They’re not brothers--not biologically or in any other regard, but sometimes Ash can’t help but wish they were.
“Ash?” Michael is saying, and Ash is jolted back to reality. “Do you like my drawing?”
“Oh, yeah, buddy,” Ash hastens to say. “I love it. I like the...yellow.”
Fuck. That’s bad, that’s so bad, that’s probably the worst compliment ever. Strangely enough, Michale doesn't seem to mind, because he just beams again, and then they’re all off on a hunt for the tape to stick MIchael’s drawing up on his wall right next to the subway poster.
Eiji hands Ash the tape, and Ash reaches up to press each corner of tape firmly onto the wall. Michael looks up at him as though he’s just hung the moon.
“When I’m big, I’m going to be as tall as you,” he says finally, his eyes wide, and Ash reaches out a tentative hand to ruffle his hair.
“Sure you are,” he says.
Michael takes a few steps back, presumably to better admire the wall, then, as if remembering, demands to see Ash and Eiji’s art. Ash sighs and pulls out his picture of the house, to which he’s added a little dog with a curlicue tail. Eiji’s is nicer, much, much nicer--and their side-by-side comparison certainly isn’t doing Ash any favors. He’s drawn the three of them: Ash, Eiji, and Michael, who’s sitting on Ash’s shoulders. Michael fawns over them, tracing the lines with his little finger, and when Eiji says he can keep the drawings, he practically jumps into the air.
“Are you sure?” he asks, but he’s already clutching the drawings protectively to his chest as if afraid someone is going to come and rip them away from him. Even despite his nervousness, Ash can’t help but laugh.
“Of course,” he says, and Michael rushes to place them on his desk, smoothing out the crinkles in the paper.
“Thank you,” Michael breathes, and returns to the drawings, muttering faintly to himself, and Ash is hit with a wave of fondness so strong he almost keels over. Michael is so tiny--so small, and so innocent, and Ash loves him so much he doesn’t know how to express it. For a moment, Ash allows him to fall into the rhythm of it, to pretend they are real brothers, that he’s just a normal boy that’s come home from college for the weekend to take care of his baby brother while his parents are on a date. Even though he knows it’s impossible, he wants it so much his chest hurts.
There are incredibly sappy words on the tip of his tongue, but Ash bites them back. “Are you hungry, Michael?” is what he actually says instead.
The drawings forgotten, Michael draws up, and nods his head excitedly.
“Mhm!” he says. “And did you know Mom got us pizza? I love pizza.”
He drags Eiji and Ash along the hall to the kitchen, where he begins telling them about some sort of plot that involves pirates and hidden treasure and evil crocodiles. Ash isn’t sure if Michael has made the story up, or if he’s seen it on TV somewhere, but he tries to follow along to the best of his ability.
And because nothing can ever be simple in life, actually defrosting the pizza is an ordeal in it of itself. The instructions on the box are vague at best-- what does “oven on medium high” concretely mean?--but the bigger problem is the oven itself. Max and Jessica have just bought a new oven after complaining extensively on the phone to Ash about problems with the ventilation system or something-- Ash wasn’t really paying attention, if he’s completely honest with himself. At any rate, the new oven is unsettlingly clean, and is equipped with many, many functions that Ash doesn’t understand (what’s the difference between broil and bake anyway?).
“Maybe we should call,” Eiji suggests after he and Ash have spent about fifteen minutes staring at the oven, and Ash cringes with the ridiculousness of it all. Finally, he decides to bite the bullet, and types the oven model into Google, hoping to find instructions there.
The user guide to the oven is approximately fifty pages long, and the instructions are so unbelievably counter-intuitive that Ash’s head starts to spin. In a last-ditch effort, he switches over to YouTube, where, after giving a monologue about the history of the oven, a disembodied pair of legs explain how to use this particular model in regular English, and Ash breathes a sigh of relief. Finally, someone is giving instructions that make sense, even if it’s kind of unsettling that he can’t see the person’s head. Eventually, they manage to turn the damned thing on, but then Michael asks innocently if they’ve taken the pots out, and Eiji bites back a yelp as they rush around to take out the fourteen pots and pans crammed into the oven.
By the time the pizza is finally cooked, Ash has all but sworn off cooking ever again, and he can feel a headache coming on. Even Eiji looks exhausted. But Michael munches appreciatively on his slice of pizza, and somehow, that makes Ash feel a whole lot better.
Also, it’s only five minutes past eight, so he’s done an altogether decent job of following Jessica’s only instruction. That’s promising, if nothing else.
“Can we watch a movie?” asks Michael as soon as Ash and Eiji have finished with the dishes, and when he receives an affirmative, he practically starts shaking with excitement. At Michael’s request, Eiji pulls up HunterxHunter on his laptop, and they watch a couple episodes from the second season. Apparently, Michael’s just picking up where he had previously left off, and while Eiji had seen the beginning before, Ash has absolutely no idea what’s going on. Eiji tries to explain it quietly, but there seem to be a thousand different types of magical energy channeling called nen (really, why would they all be named variants of nen--ren, ten, nen-- how is Ash supposed to remember all of that?), so he ends up getting lost very quickly.
Despite all his energy previously, after about an episode and a half of HunterxHunter, Michael begins to tire very, very quickly, slumping into Ash’s side and curling his hands in Ash’s sweater in what seems like a desperate bid to stay awake. And despite his best efforts, he falls asleep just as quickly, snoring quietly into Ash’s sweater.
Ash scoops him up, holds him behind the knees as Michael breathes softly into his chest. Eiji stands too, and they walk to Michael’s room, the dark of the hallway flanking them on both sides as HunterxHunter continues to play quietly in the background.
Eiji waits in the doorway as Ash sweeps the blankets aside and pulls the sheets up to Michael’s neck. It’s an oddly vulnerable moment, Ash thinks, as he sits in this feeling that’s vaguely reminiscent of brotherhood. Maybe this is what Griff felt when he tucked Ash into bed—fondness, sure, protectiveness, maybe, and a sense of I want to do right by you.
Just then, Michael seems to rouse a moment, his eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks.
“’Re you leaving?” he mutters, his voice thick with sleep, and he whines vaguely in his throat when Ash nods yes.
“Eiji and I have to go back to school, buddy” he says, and now his voice is thick too, choked up with an emotion he can’t quite name. “We’ll be gone when you wake up. But we’ll be back soon to visit, I promise.”
“You promise?”Michael sits up a little to tug on Ash’s sleeve. “You’ll be back soon?”
“I promise,” Ash repeats, and brushes a sweat-sticky strand of hair off Michael’s forehead.
“Yay,”Michael mumbles sleepily and rolls over and promptly falls asleep.
Ash’s eyes sting as he goes to join Eiji over in the doorway.
Eiji laughs softly.
“You’re a good brother,” he says. “Watching you and Michael reminds me of me and Fumiko. I always forget how much I miss her until it hits me right there, in the chest.”
“Brother?” Ash frowns. “Eiji, I’m not really his brother. You know that.”
“I do not think so,” says Eiji. “Siblings, families aren’t necessarily your blood relatives. Sure, there’s the family you were born into, but there’s also the family you choose for yourself, which is equally, if not more important.”
Everything in Ash wants to argue at that, but he bites them back, these rationalizations that only serve to rob him of any sense of belonging he might ever establish. So what if they’re not biologically related-- there has to be more to relationships than just blood. Eiji’s right--family is what you make it, and he’s never felt more at home than here with Eiji and Michael and Max and Jessica. They can be a family, then, a patchwork, ramshackle family of five.
Just then, the key turns in the lock, and sounds of squabbling fill the apartment. Apparently, Jessica had found one of the waiters attractive and told him so, which then prompted an argument because you can’t just say that Jessica, he probably thinks you’re a creep.
Their arguing fades to a whisper once they realize that the door to Michael’s room is ajar.
“How did it go?” asks Jessica, and Max claps Ash on the back, as if to say, of course it went well.
Ash clears his throat. “I think it went well,” he says. “We drew a little bit, and then we ate the pizza. He’s asleep right now.”
“We had some issues with the oven,” starts Eiji, and corrects himself immediately as Max’s expression turns stricken. “The oven is fine, don’t worry. We just had trouble figuring out how to turn it on.”
Max exhales, perhaps a bit dramatically. “Thank god,” he says. “That oven has been a huge hassle.”
Jessica just stares.
“You mean the oven I installed while you stared at me and then started looking up car websites? That oven?”
“Yes?” Max, at least, has the decency to look ashamed. Jessica doesn’t look at all mollified.
She’s still side-eyeing Max when she says, “do you guys want to stay here tonight?”
Before Ash can interrupt, she continues. “It’s late, and I figure you’d rather get a decent amount of sleep as opposed to getting back at one in the morning. But you don’t have to, of course. Just an idea.”
Ash glances back at Eiji. “If you’re sure that would be alright,” he says slowly. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“You could never impose,” says Max with so much conviction Ash finds himself believing his words. “You’re our son. We’ll always have room for you.”
Something in Ash’s chest tightens, and he swallows, although not without difficulty. “Thank you,” he says, hoping his voice remains steady. “Thank you, Max, and thank you, Jessica. Thank you.”