Chapter Text
Eiji sat up suddenly, his eyes wide open as he grasped for purchase on the sheets, wheezing.
The slow drum of the heater was all he could hear. There were no footsteps, no clinks of a trigger. He wasn't facing an open window, and the lamps were off. There was no glint in the skyline of rooftops facing his apartment.
Was this what Ash had always felt?
His breathing slowed. He could feel a lump in his throat, as if something was trying to climb out of his lungs. On nights like these, there was a dull pain in his abdomen, right where the old gunshot wound was.
He sat over the edge of the bed, and let his toes touch the cold wood floor. His joints ached. And yet, he willed himself to his feet, trudging towards the door. He had since learnt to walk the pain away. Just like Ash did, all those years ago.
As he passed his sister's room, he noticed her door was ajar, and he could hear her quiet breathing as she slept. She was in high school now, and he was glad she was well. This year, she would be Ash's age when he met him - a fleeting thought he buried to the back of his mind.
Eiji unlocked the gate and shuffled onto the streets in slippers, with only a sweater over his shoulders. If Shorter was here, he would surely make a big fuss over how underdressed he was, and throw his coat over him, like he used to, maybe even protest against his choice of shoes. If Shorter was here.
Eiji let the wind bite at his ankles and numb his fingers. Some days, it was all he could do to feel something - anything. Sing used to tell him he needed to get out more often and not stay home so much; he wondered if Sing would have still said that if he knew when he did go out. He stepped along the empty street, illuminated only by two lamps, separated by a broken third. The one at the furthest end started flickering, before it went out.
There were three, and then there was one, he thought.
From the look of the sky, Eiji figured it was about four in the morning.
He wanted to step onto the road, and wait for the usual morning trucks. He wanted to walk to the ridge and sit by the edge. He wanted to stand at the bend with the blind spot, where the guardrail was half-torn.
And yet, something small burned in his chest - a thin string tethering him to where he stood, a thread of light that wouldn't let him go. He remembered Sing telling him he was bringing back souvenirs from Hong Kong tomorrow. His favourites, he'd said.
So he sat on a bench until his lips turned pale, waiting for the sunrise.