Chapter Text
Eiji and Ash were never supposed to meet.
That’s an irrefutable fact, in the same way two plus two is four and the sun rises in the east.
The sky is blue.
The stars only show at night.
Ash and Eiji shouldn’t have met.
But they did, despite everything.
Two souls met.
No words were exchanged.
No expressions were shown.
All they had to know the other existed was the touch of fingertips in between worlds.
—
Eiji finds his side of the rift hidden in the bark of a tree. Green leaves fluttered down to the grass tickling his ankles from how overgrown it’s become. The air left a bitter taste on his tongue.
Eiji liked sitting on tree branches, the elevation bringing him a sense of comfort. He dragged his fingertips down the trunk of the tree, sinking in the feeling of rough bark on his hands.
He reached a point in the tree where the bark was torn off in places, and overall, very scarce in that area. He tried to feel for the rawness of the wood, but his fingertips fell through.
Eiji was frozen. From fear? Surprise? He couldn’t distinguish.
After a few moments, he moved his hand, trying to find purchase in the void. And he did. He felt calloused fingertips touch his, sending a shock through his body.
Quickly, he ripped his hand out of the void there, wondering how that was even possible.
He walked away, still confused.
—
Eiji was sure his encounter with the tree wasn’t supposed to happen.
At first, he wondered if it had been a warp (a passage in which individuals can travel to distant areas at rapid speeds), though all of the warps that were known were listed on maps, and even if this one hadn’t been discovered yet, it was much too small to be a warp at all. Besides, the fingertips he had met were calloused and unfamiliar, were rough and branded, not at all the fingertips of a god.
And the more Eiji thinks about it, he’s certain that he shouldn’t have been at that tree that particular afternoon.
But despite it all, he found something, and, he thought, he didn’t want the only thing to have piqued his interest as of late to slip from his grasp just yet.
So he searched.
And searched.
And searched.
For answers.
For logic.
For a sound explanation.
And in searching, he found not.
Anytime he had a lead, it was torn away from him. Pages were torn out of books, writings blacked out with stark ink, ancient files burned, almost as if the very idea of this thing, whatever it may be, shouldn’t have existed.
And that just solidifies for Eiji that he wasn’t supposed to meet calloused fingertips that day.
—
Eiji considers attempting to communicate with the fingertips on the other side.
And he considers.
And considers more.
And figures that if he can reach out,
More,
And more,
Gradually,
He’ll be able to find truth.
And he returns to that tree no less than 3 days later.
He traces the bark, trying to memorize its feel, attempting to immortalize the roughness in his mind.
And then he feels for raw wood.
And he does not meet raw wood.
Just as he expected.
He lets the fingertips on his right hand slip into the void, and waits.
He could wait for an eternity if he had to.
But as nothing reached out to him, he reached out to the other side instead.
Now having his entire right hand inside the void, fingertips searched for purchase on something, looking for those same worn fingertips.
And he found them, despite the high chance they would never meet again.
But they did, despite everything.
The fingertips on the other side tried to pull away, but Eiji was quicker, grabbing the hand the fingertips belonged to.
And having that hand in his own felt electric.
Eiji also stuck his left hand into the void, now holding the hand in both of his.
He traced a simple ‘hi’ onto the hand, hoping that whoever it belonged to for the message.
But Eiji noticed the hand was shaking, as it traced a ‘hi’ back.
Eiji, despite wanting to stay longer, let go slowly. And as he pulled his hands out of that void, he felt like something was lost.
—
Eiji decides a notepad might work.
One small enough he can carry around, and also be able to transfer it to whoever was on the other side.
And finally, Eiji might be able to connect to something.
And he sticks to this plan the next time he visits the tree.
A few days later he’s sitting at the base of the tree, writing greetings in his notepad, scribbling them out, trying to reword them, before just simply writing;
Hi, what’s your name?
And once Eiji has those words written, he pushes into the void with no hesitance this time.
He doesn’t feel a hand there.
He pulls his right hand out again, picking up the notepad and the pen, and bringing those into the void as well, clutching them tightly in his hands.
He doesn’t know how long he stays there, but eventually, those fingertips take the notepad and pen from him.
Eiji leaves his empty hands inside the void, scared that if he pulls them out, he won’t get a response.
After more waiting, though it can’t be that long, the notepad and pen are gently placed back into his hands.
He takes his hands out of the void to observe what was written in the notepad.
There were a few messy words scrawled onto the paper.
Firstly, who are you?
What are you?
What is this rift?
A rift?
Eiji considers the thought.
Actually, it made sense.
Rifts were small tears in the fabric of reality that allowed for impasse between worlds. There was danger, that being if a rift expands in size, there’s a chance it could cause the worlds to merge, or cause one reality to swallow the other fully.
And while, realizing this, he should leave the rift be, tell one of the other gods to seal it, he doesn’t want to.
He finds himself too curious, and decides that he’s already involved enough, what real harm could it do him now?
Eiji decides to write answers neatly next to the messy handwriting.
Firstly, who are you? Eiji
What are you? It’s a secret
What is this rift? I don’t know
After quickly yet nearly writing out his answers he pushes into the void again, holding out the objects.
Those fingertips are waiting, delicately taking the objects from him, and judging from the gentleness alone Eiji gets the sense that the tone that the writing had was different than how those hands actually feel.
Again, after a short while of waiting the notepad was handed back to him delicately.
I guess I can answer your question from before then. I’m Ash Lynx. And I’m human. I guess you aren’t? Haha. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Eiji.
Eiji smiled at the note.
Human…
So this rift leads to the human world?
Interesting.
It made sense, if he thought about it though.
The only god who got to observe humans—to his knowledge— was the god of balance, Yut-Lung. He had described humans as filthy, dirty creatures, that were rough and imperfect, and Eiji can’t help it when he thinks that Yut-Lung probably hadn’t seen Ash, then. Those calloused fingertips were rough physically, yes, but they were gentle when they met Eiji’s own, or gently traced letters into his palm, or took the notepad from Eiji’s offering hands.
And, as Eiji was walking back, he realized something.
Huh. I never did get my pen back.
He smiled, continuing to walk.