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Even if it aches, he should know by now.
Know the pain of a world without Ankh. Know it like the back of his hand brushing past empty air, like the way that a quiet breeze tousles his hair.
Even if time trudged on with no sign of his return, there would always be a small bud of hope for him to water.
When he lays back in the cool sands of the beach lulling himself to sleep with the crashing waves, behind his eyelids he can make pretend. Dream up a day where Ankh tumbles back home, probably cursing up and down every person he meets, shouting and stomping around. He likes to pretend that when he finds Ankh, it all pauses- he stops and his eyes zero in on Eiji like they would so often. To have his full attention back on him again, and finally… finally, he could cross the gap between them and press them together, leaving no more room. These visions cradle Eiji to sleep, imagining them like the warmth of arms wrapped around him.
But he wakes up cold and alone all the same.
He meets new people, he goes out on the water, and he comes back to a place that he can’t quite pin down as a home. Most of all, though, he comes back with a core medal still split in two like the fracture in his chest, cracking into a hole that sometimes feels like it sucks him in too deep to crawl back out of. He swallows it down and keeps trudging on, because it’s all he knows to do.
It takes time… but just waiting for a bud of hope to bloom isn’t enough for Eiji- it’s never been enough for him.
If there’s a sliver of chance of finding a way to bring him back, he’s going to keep reaching out for it with his own hands until he grasps it.
Ankh was wrong about one thing at the end- it was his hand he needed, it was always his, and always will be.
And Eiji won’t rest until he’s reached it.