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“— always faithful.”
Isami wakes up from his dream to the feeling of being watched. He turns his head, and finds eyes softly glowing in the dark. They've done this before.
“Your breathing slowed,” Smith says, in the same tone that he used one night a few weeks ago in an offering to defend himself. “Ten in a minute instead of the usual thirteen. You should get that checked out.”
“Maybe I should,” Isami stretches. His hands tap against the head of the bed frame. The room is dark and quiet — only a soft light streaming from the windows reveals the lines of Smith's body; the cut of his cheekbone, his lips drawn into a flat line, his brows tense, eyes wide. Then the slope of his throat, his collarbones and shoulders, straight and well built; his stomach; slightly softer now that he's lying down. The rest of his body disappears into the blue blanket like a mermaid.
“You really should,” Smith agrees, nodding. “It could be sleep apnea. Or a tumor.”
“I'll ask my doctor on my next visit,” Isami tells him. “...On an unrelated note, do you remember where we are?”
Smith relaxes a little into the pillow. “Nope. You’d think I’d be terrified, yeah?”
“Are you?”
Green eyes narrow onto him. “Should I be?”
“No,” Isami reassures him quickly. His heart skips a beat even though they've done all this before. “There's no reason for you to be terrified. Or afraid.”
Smith gives an easygoing smile. His teeth look so white in the dark. “I thought so too. You know, I don't give it up so easy on the first date — at least, I didn't use to.”
First date? Is that what Smith has decided is a feasible reason for them to be sleeping next to each other?
“But looking at you; I can definitely see why. Is it cool if I ask you to keep me around? Nothing serious, just on speed-dial, yeah?”
“I can't,” Isami tells him. It's rare that Smith is so coherent during his night trips. “I'm married.”
White teeth disappear behind pink lips. “A little late to tell a guy, don't you think?”
“Well, I'm married to someone who doesn't mind.”
Smith tilts his head. “Someone who doesn't mind that I'm banging her husband behind her back?”
Banging, ha. “No, not exactly.”
“So she does mind.”
“No, well. She doesn't mind when it's you.”
“Oh,” Smith mutters. Then, he frowns, his brows furrow — Isami wants to kiss him so bad, it's physically straining to hold himself back. “Hold on, I'm confused. Is this, like, an arrangement?”
Smith takes his hand through the streets of California; it's raining, hard. Neither of them are dressed for the weather — Smith even more so, because his jacket is draped over Isami's head. He won't listen to Isami's pleas to share it, he never does — getting bronchitis will set him straight, Isami thinks.
He's pulled into an alleyway besides a motel by the American soon after. Both their chests are heaving. Smith leans forward and kisses him right on the lips — his mouth is hot compared to his skin. “I love you,” he says, breathless, his perfect white teeth glint in the light of the street lamp.
All of Isami's anger drains out of him like water through a strainer.
“Something like an arrangement.”
If the fact that Isami was so affected by the rainwater flowing down Smith's brow that he pulled him into the nearest room available could be called an arrangement, then sure, it could be an arrangement.
“So, I talked to your wife, she said it's cool that you and I got it going; and we ended up here?”
“Not exactly like that… Anyway, how do you feel?”
“Dizzy,” Smith sinks deeper into the blanket. He places a hand over his forehead. The shadow of his hand blocks the vivid color of his eyes. “You know, if I were any other girl, I'd have thought you'd roofied me.”
“I didn't —”
“I know you didn't. I just —” Smith lifts his hand to look at Isami. “— know you wouldn't. But I don't think I know who you are.”
There's a beat, a pause, as Isami takes a deep breath. The sheets feel scratchy under his fingertips, cheap — ultimately colder without Smith grinning within them.
Isami Ao closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. This has happened before.
“I’m Isami Ao,” he says, careful, tentative; the words always feel like sandpaper on his tongue. “I'm your partner.”
“Isami Ao,” Smith intones, his foreign tongue curling around the words as if learning them for the first time — in a way, he is. “My partner.”
“We met in a RIMPAC practice,” Isami adds.
“So cool. What TS do you ride, Isami?”
Sighing, Isami tries to get the words out as fast as possible, “A Rekka M-24.”
As expected, Smith gives a laugh. "Isn't that model ancient?”
“Yes, but it's pretty good for an ‘old fashioned powerhouse.’”
“That's what I was going to say!” Smith cheers.
At his warm face, Isami feels some of the lead in his stomach dissolve away.
Smith shifts in the bed — the muscles under his skin flex when he turns his head toward the rest of the room — the empty closet, the vanity where they'd hastily pushed their jackets onto, the carpet that they had both agreed looked horrible before throwing themselves onto the mattress.
“Not a bad place to jazz, partner.”
Isami’s heartbeat picks up, again. He wipes the sweaty palm of his hand onto the blanket. “Thank you.”
As if he still has a hearing module capable of hearing footsteps five hundred meters away, Smith catches the tremble in Isami's voice, and turns around to flash those teeth at him again.
Why is he so rakish?
“Why don't I remember you, Isami?” Smith asks, and takes a look at the floor. “Also, do you know where my pants went?”
Wordlessly, Isami leans down and picks the brighter of the two pants on his side of the bed. He reaches out and passes it to Smith.
Smith takes it from his hands with a wink accompanying his smile. “Thanks, partner,”
“You have a condition,” Isami blurts out, and curses himself. Two weeks ago he had eased Smith much easier into it. “You get disoriented sometimes.”
A perfectly sculpted brow rises up to Smith's hairline. “Disoriented?”
“Confused. Scared, mazed, bewildered, forgetful —”
Smith raises a hand to signal him to stop. “I think I get the idea. How long has this been going on?”
Smith chuckles awkwardly as he comes out of the MRI machine. His hair is messed up, eyes bloodshot, but when he comes out of the magnetic area and sees Isami standing there with his arms crossed over his chest, he gives an easygoing smile anyway.
“So?” Isami asks.
“No idea yet, but I doubt they'll find anything out of the ordinary. They couldn't the last three times I've been here,” Smith tells him. His voice sounds quieter than usual. He tugs at Isami's palm and leads them to the waiting chairs to sit together. “Listen, Isami, you don't have to come here every time I —”
“ — start sleepwalking to the roof?” Isami finishes his sentence. “Break your door’s hinges out thinking you're locked in? Attack the first officer you catch in the hallway?”
“In my defense, I'm asleep during all that.”
“I'm not blaming you, Smith, I'm just telling you that this isn't normal!” Isami hears his voice, sharp and bothersome. “It's dangerous, for both you and the people around you, and you don't — you act as if you don't even care!”
Smith frowns. He never raises his voice back, these days — other times he would. He's every bit as fierce as Isami is and he'd give it as well as he'd take it, but nowadays, his biting nature seems to have snuffed out. Now, apparently, reaching over the arm rest between them and pulling Isami into himself is enough. That's enough for him to argue, apparently.
His neck smells of sweat and medical equipment. His sentences sound smoother in English, lighter. “Calm down, Isami calm down. I'm sorry.”
“Don’t say sorry! Just — Smith, you —”
It's not fair for Smith to struggle so much. Smith is brave and kind and the best of humanity. He, of all people, shouldn't deal with night terrors. Isami wants to say all that, but he's never saying the right thing at the right time.
Even when Smith was leaving, he took the time to tell Isami everything he needed to hear.
It takes a while — some moments of controlled breathing, some counting and tapping and internal struggle — for him to notice that at some point, onward the fiftieth murmur of reassurance from Smith, that the man has fallen asleep.
Isami raises a hand and readjusts Smith's head, setting it onto the crook of his neck. From this point, Isami can hear the soft, steady breathing coming from deep within the man's chest.
Isami pulls Smith yet closer against himself, and decides resolutely, for the umpteenth time, that he never wants to let this man go.
“About two years. There's a month until the anniversary — of our meeting, I mean. You've been losing time at night since about then.”
“Head injury?”
“It was messy. I'd rather you didn't remember it — it freaks you out, a little.”
Smith pulls the zipper up, and readjusts his belt. His back seems on par with those statues in ancient cities. “Ahh, okay. Two years ago, freak TS accident, I went crazy. What say you and I grab a bite to eat?”
“Pardon?”
“Aren't you hungry after all that action?” Smith scours the area, and locates his shirt. “Let's go eat. Bet the night markets are still kicking.”
At the sight of Smith so willingly offering, Isami can't say no. Their untidy state while they walk down the inn room is embarrassing to any self respecting Japanese man, but Lewis Smith’s all-consuming American confidence must be dripping into Isami's own mind — he can't help but feel a little smug when an elderly man’s eyes follow them out the door — yes, let him look. Why wouldn't he? Smith is eye-catching and bright and one with Isami.
The street is lit, the shops are preparing for a 3 am shift. Isami never gets used to how eerily similar it is to midnight Kanagawa — perhaps late night drinking is the same everywhere around the world.
“What do you want to eat, Isami? I'm fine with whatever. “
“There's a good seafood place nearby.”
“Lead the way, partner,” Smith says, but there's a twinkle to his eye; his feet move on their own accord — from the looks of it, he already knows where they're going, or can tell.
The roads are winded and long. People pour from four sides all around them, night outers and shoppers and clubbers. A man with a blue surfboard nearly decks Smith on the head when he turns around. Smith isn't bothered, though, he just gives a relaxed smile and a firm press of the hand over Isami's shoulder.
Can he tell how wound up Isami is about him?
…
Of course he can. It's probably coming off in waves.
Smith's health is… a tender topic for Isami. After they'd lessened the visits to the military doctor and started going to civilian hospitals more often, Smith had been less and less prone to complain about unprofessionalism. If he didn’t get the results in time, or if the hospital got the mixed up, or if a nurse fucked up drawing blood from him — he'd chalk it all up to the state of things; overworked, underpaid, understaffed medical personnel were constant across the world, and the recent events had only worsened those situations.
Isami understood. He really did. He'd known firsthand just how quick, excessive casualties could cripple a group. They'd found out after establishing connections with Smith's military base back in America that half the TS pilots in his battalion had been wiped out within a week. Smith hadn’t been there to know — well, he had been. But also, he hadn't.
So, Isami knew the state of things. But when it was Smith who sat on a crisp white bed, clutching an arm, waiting overtime for the results of what they'd been assuming to be a tumor, and he had to turn to Isami to reassure him, Isami may have gone a little insane.
Lewis Smith wasn't allowed to try to please other people after all that he'd done. Lewis Smith wasn't allowed to get cuts on his hands when they didn't know just how fast or well it would heal. Lewis Smith wasn't allowed to get knocked over the head with anything, let alone a surfboard, when Isami fretted that wearing a particularly fitting hat could hurt him.
A tap on his cheek. Smith’s face came into his view, bright and cheerful. “Frown that hard and you'll crack a mirror, handsome.”
“I’m just thinking.”
“‘bout what?”
“...You.”
A tilt of the head. “Oh?”
“How carefree you are… how easy it is for you to pretend nothing upsets you.”
“It’s not like nothing upsets me. I just don't sweat the small stuff. You shouldn't either.”
Isami nods, not because he fully agrees, but because Smith would be pleased with him if he does.
“So, I'm not really craving seafood. Can we have something from there?” Smith points his thumb at a small shop — a patisserie, to be exact. The sign 7/24 glows a soft blue atop the entrance.
“Of course,” they approach the entrance together, their steps only one behind the other. Isami fishes out his wallet. “What do you want?”
“Hmm… oh! Those look good,” Smith tells him, and taps on the glass. It's a type of puff, with ‘lemon cream,” according to the price tag below.
Isami doesn't particularly like sweet things, so he settles to buy whatever Smith is buying. They step inside — the cashier is a teenage boy with a small hat. He sets aside the magazine he'd been flicking through, and asks; “Welcome. What will it be tonight?”
“A pack of those puffs on the front window, please,” Isami says. When the kid comes back out holding their order, Isami acts fast, and pulls out his own card before Smith can.
“You really didn't have to pay for me, you know,” Smith tells him, holding the pack in his hands. He looks disappointed in that puppyish way he does when Isami shoots ahead and does something reckless enough to warrant a frown, but not a rescue.
“Well, I wanted to pay for it. Here you go.”
Silent, Smith pops one of the desserts into his mouth.
“Smith, we've got to talk.”
“Tah abouh wha’?”
“First, stop trying to eat and talk at the same time. Second, you can't keep paying for everything when you're here in Japan.”
Smith brings up a hand for Isami to excuse him, and swallows. His pink tongue darts out of his mouth to catch a crumb from his lips — no, stern, Isami, cold and stern!
“Why not?” he asks, swiping the very tip of his tongue over his thumb next — damn ice cream, actually, why did Isami suggest to buy ice cream of all things — “I'm already making enough trouble for your family staying over.
“No — that's fine. I think my mom is surprised I got along with anyone from the practice at all.”
“‘cuz you were a shy kid?” Smith questions as he leans forward, the light in his eyes seem downright mischievous.
Isami rolls his eyes. “Yes, Smith, because I was a ‘shy kid.’ I haven't forgiven you for looking at those pictures, by the way.”
“Your sister pulled them out of nowhere! Why would I say no if she offered?”
“Because I told you it'd be embarrassing, and you didn't listen and looked anyway,” realizing he's venturing off topic, Isami gives his sister in the distance a side eye, before turning back to Smith. “Either way. You can't pay for everything. My mom's gonna think that you're…”
Smith raises a brow. “I am…?”
Isami's heart-eyed boyfriend. “…that you're feeling forced to pay.”
“But I'm not! And I can pay,” Smith shakes his wallet in the air, an act which would have been douchey if not for the earnestness of his face. “Your family's got bigger bills to pay, yeah? Just let me handle the costs.”
“No, Smith, you can't! Especially considering how you're —” ‘Specifically paying for my purchases’ goes unsaid, Isami hastily clambers something else in the end; “acting like they can't pay. It's a big faux pas in Japan.”
“Shit. Maybe I can —”
“— you can't get her a gift to make up for it, Smith.”
“How about I get her those fancy fruit arrangements, then ? One tray of them is like, what 12000 yen? I can —”
“They're 7000 yen for Japanese people, and you're not paying 75 dollars for a tray of fruit.”
“But that’s a gift!” Smith says, and here is where his expression goes from ‘an American making well use of the currency conversion rate’ to ‘a guy who has never settled for anything cheap’ — because where the normal American's response at fruit costing 75 dollars would be disturbance, Lewis Smith says; “You can't put a price on a well-thought gift, Isami!”
However, he still has some sense left. He frowns, and adds right after; “Was that guy ripping me off?”
Isami raises a brow. “You looked like a sheep lost in a slaughterhouse.”
“Christ — you're ruthless, I didn't look like… that.”
“You asked him if the mango was a type of peach.”
“I know what a mango is! I wanted to give him a chance to advertise the fruit!”
“Yes, and you made him think he could get away with scamming you out of 5000 yen.”
“Isami!” Smith huffs, and crosses his arms over his chest. “If I was almost ripped off, why didn't you stop him?”
“I did.”
A tilt of the head. “How so?”
“I asked him about the melons in the back,” — then, Isami slammed him into the wall, “and I told him that his actions were deterring tourists from shopping,” — Isami got all up in his face, the neat collar of the uniform crumpled in his hands, “and I told him to cut it out and not do it again.”
Told him, yeah.
Smith's smiles, all warm around the edges, his eyes glinting with a devilish light. “Yeah, right. So, am I right to assume we're not gonna be welcome in that shop anytime soon?”
“...mhm.”
“Ahh, forget it. I'll just get your mom some jewelry.”
“Smith…”
They sit there by a pretty fountain when the clouds of the sky stir together again, signaling a storm. Isami knows he should go back to the motel — it's dark, cold, terrible night to be out, really — but he wants more of Smith like this; unknowing yet accepting. Willing to let Isami pay, or give up his jacket to keep Smith warm, or have the worse part of a split cream puff.
Sometimes, it's good to be the self sacrificing hero Smith always insists he is.
Smith is silent for a long time as they sit there. His eyes have a dreamy feature to them, as if thinking of thoughts almost tangible but not quite. Isami watches his face, lays a hand near the man's own, resting atop the lip of the fountain. Their pinkies touch, and soon enough, the fingers are intermingling between them.
Suddenly, Smith's head snaps up, a twinge on his expression, as if something stung him. He turns towards Isami slowly, eyes raking over his form — the shoes, the pants, the shirt that definitely once belonged to Smith. Their eyes meet.
“Say, partner… Do you love me?” Smith asks, tentative.
Isami struggles for words. Smith looks at him with an owlish expression — he was lying in the bedroom earlier, Isami realizes, his casual remark of asking Isami to call him again was a downplay. He looks so hopeful, now, as if surprised at the idea that anyone can ever love him.
In a way, they're so similar. Smith, who is afraid of Isami's disinterest, won't step into love territory, just as he had initially struggled to say those words he'd said as a metal giant back in the beach.
The beach. Isami shudders with the memory. He'd needed that exclamation so much, anything to remind he was a human of hot blood. Smith had always given him what he needed.
Isami reaches out, pulling their interlaced fingers together into the air, and leans forward. “...I do. Love you, I mean. I just don't know how to say it sometimes.”
There's a gasp between them, the pulling of muscle backwards as Smith startles. Those eyes switch from staring at one of Isami's eyes to the next — searching for even the most miniscule sign of a lie. Something shifts, then, Isami can only assume that Smith has found something he'd liked, because his unknowing, human smile is white, wide, encompassing. It becomes everything — the street and city and the world get lost in Smith’s amusement. The green eyes get closer, haunting, but Isami doesn't feel haunted one bit. They do make it a little hard to breathe; since their presence drowns everything else out.
Finally Smith leans his head to the side, and the whole world tilts along with it. “Sounds like you should kiss me about it, partner.”
Isami does.
It's an overeager, clumsy reach of the head — Isami quite literally slams his face into Smith's, and misses his mouth by a few centimeters. Smith's smile grows; Isami kisses at the cold dimples of his cheek.
Without removing his mouth, he kisses a line to his mark, and Smith pulls him into it.
There are hands pushing through the short strands of his hair — Smith used to tangle his fingers there when Isami had it long — Smith smells like rain and both of their colognes tangling-together. It's a heady mix. California has some perks, Isami knows, no one particularly bats an eye to Isami dipping Smith backward to kiss him deeper and wiping rainwater away from his cheeks with his hands while he kisses him; provided he doesn't do it too long. The kind of mannerism is expected from Lewis Smith, who’s very presence screams man of passion, is not expected from Isami — things like losing himself in a kiss, for starters. Not Isami. Never Isami.
Here, no one knows them — and they know no one. Isami's free to lean completely into Smith's yearning hands, free to nearly climb in his attempt to get closer.
One of these days, he'll do this elsewhere. In Lewis Smith's arms, surrounded by his warmth and peppered by warm kisses, Isami's sure of this — he's never been sure of anything else in his life. He'll take Smith back to the streets of his home city, and he's going to kiss him stupid in the middle of the shifting suburban crowd — pull his hair, shove him into the wall, all the works — until people start looking — until they stop looking.
One of these days. One of these days.
“Come here, Isami,” Smith croons when he pulls away. It's like the guy keeps forgetting Isami needs to breathe — just like how he forgets he himself needs to as well. “Isami, come here — honey, come on.”
A flare of heat climbs up Isami's nape. Smith can be so affectionate. He leans in again, despite the fire in his chest — Smith makes a thrilling noise when he pushes his whole body into it. Arms wrap tighter around his neck, Smith hangs to the solid world by the anchor of Isami's shoulders, now, the fountain behind him sprays up — the rain hastens, and even the sparse amount of people who would usually stop to disapprove rush away from the open areas.
All the people of Earth go away. There's just Smith and him, at the end of everything.
Isami breaks contact to take a deep breath, and it's at that moment that Smith takes his hand to slide it through the gaps between the buttons of his shirt and onto his bare chest. The heart underneath his skin beats a mile a minute, like it’s desperate to prove itself alive.
“Tell me something, Isami Ao,” he says, eyes hazy; there's a furrow to his brow that Isami could ease. “Have I know you for long? I want to have known you for long.”
“It's going to be two years,” Isami breathes in. Their words are pressed against one another, practically whispered into each other's lungs — close enough for him to make out the subtle tremble of Smith's iris — the dots of blue making the green seem all that more striking. Two years ago, Smith had hated the man in the mirror, almost entirely because of the paperwork that had sprung up. So many identification photographs had needed replacing, and neither of them were fond of paperwork.
However, Isami had always loved those two eyes despite it all — lashes like arrows, rays from the sun — enchanting, even when closed. Hazy, kind. He leans forward, and presses a kiss into one of them, and Smith's arms tighten around him.
“I feel horrible,” Smith says. “I feel like I'm going to make you cry.”
“I'm not crying,” Isami takes a pause to sniffle, “I'm used to it.”
“Jesus, Isami Ao, get a girlfriend with less issues.”
Isami shakes his head with all the force he has left in himself — it's chilly, Smith is warm but the wind is really picking up. He kisses Smith's cheek deeply, lingering. “I don't want a girlfriend,” he says, making fun of Smith's accentuation, and presses another kiss on his brow. “I want you. I've always wanted you.”
“You have me. You have me — do you always have me? I love you. Am I supposed to love you?”
“You’re — you should,” Isami tumbles over his words, they're selfish, but they come from the deepest parts of him. He's shivering, not only from the cold. Even hearing those words from Smith's eager lips has him half undone. “You should love me, because without me you're a half, because we're one.”
It is at the moment when Smith leans into him again that the fountain springs into action, and a geyser of water shoots out from the middle, soaking the diameter around it. Smith's makes an interrupted noise, and then he's laughing; a cackle high and short as he lifts up an arm to guard the two of them from the shower. Not only has the rainwater soaked him well and wet, the fountain has renewed it all over again.
Isami's still looking up at his bright, laughing face when the water lowers down and diminishes.
“Ah, shit,” Smith sighs, and runs a thumb over Isami's brow. His gentle touch induces shivers all over Isami's spine. “Shit. You're going to catch a cold, Isami.”
The hand atop his face threatens to stop his heart. That's a proper view, there, Lewis Smith; delighted and bright and careless — that's the only kind of expression the hero of the world deserves to make for the rest of his life.
Isami. I love you.
Isami's knees feel a little weak. Right, he remembers — he must have forgotten in his frenzy to burn the image into his eyelids. For the rest of their lives.
“We should go back and change,” Isami tells him, doing his best not to stumble. He's locked in Smith's arms, tucked between his legs, can anyone blame him? “...The pay for the room was for the whole night. Breakfast included.”
Smith's eyes narrow until the delight in them is concentrated enough to laser a hole through Isami. “I’m all yours.”
Vice versa, Isami thinks, tightening their fingers together as he pulls Smith up and away from the fountain. Vice versa. I am yours forever.
_____
“So, you don't think your easy-going wife will throw a fit when she finds out you love me, do ya?”
The words come out of Smith's mouth like strung pearls on a long white line. His hair is fussed, lips red and kissed — even his words are warm and relaxed, soaked with the afterglow of a companionable warm shower. He shifts his long legs underneath the blankets, making it difficult to understand who's legs belong to whom.
A companionable warm shower followed by even hotter actions. A horrible heat crawls down Isami's cheeks, and Smith laughs when he feels the heat against his bare skin, right above his heart. “Hey, sweetheart? Are you gonna leave your wife for me? Dont’cha think I'm much more handsome?”
“Shush.” Isami presses a hand over his lips. It's hard to think now, let alone banter back to Smith. “You're fine looking.”
“Just fine?”
Isami sighs. “Hot looking. Happy?”
Smith's chest moves when he speaks, the lungs within pushing all the words out with fervour, in the exaggerated fashion Americans always do; “I love the way you say hot, you know that?”
Isami turns his head, and kisses the nearest patch of skin available. “… I love you.”
The breath leaving Smith's chest stutters on the way out for a moment, before Smith shifts to press his head over Isami's hair. “Yeah, I know,” he says, willing his voice to sound steady.
Isami can see, though, the blush dusting all the way down his shoulders. His skin is fair — the color is easily discernible.
And because Lewis Smith never does anything half-assed, he reaches out, wraps a hand around Isami's shoulder to pull him closer, and kisses the top of his head. “Of course I know. I love you too. Forever.”
Isami feels a boneless smile form on his face. The motel room is still average; the vanity is pretty but the carpet pattern is shit; still, the room seems a little brighter now. The world seems a little brighter because Lewis Smith loves him — even though he'll forget that again some night a few weeks in. He'll forget, and Isami will remind him.
Isami shifts into the embrace, until he's completely enveloped in the man's arms. Next time, he'll make sure to specify just who this mystery spouse is. He'll do better. He'll be better.
They'll both be better.
Back on the beach, on the shore, two men sit and watch the waves lap by. One turns to the other, boldened, and says; “I love you.”
The other man reaches out with ready hands, as if he'd been waiting a lifetime to hear those words. He takes the hand of the other man, lifting it from the golden Hawaiian sand, and presses it to his lips, reverent, adoring. “And to you, my hero, I am —”