Work Text:
Eichi is sixteen years old today. Birthdays are supposed to be fun, filled with stupid, childish games and cake and presents. They’re supposed to be spent outside with your best friends and the people you love. Somebody is supposed to sing, “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Eichi…” But nobody does. While everyone he used to know spends their birthdays how they’re meant to, Eichi watches his through a hospital window.
The gray light of dawn wakes him. It’s a frozen, tired-feeling day. Frost crawls over the windowpane, creating a delicately silver filigree across the glass. It’s like some kind of living creature greeting him. Sitting in his white bed, looking at the white clock against the white wallpaper next to white curtains, he counts down the minutes and seconds until he’s sixteen.
Six twenty-three AM on January tenth passes without incident, and Eichi has lived another year. The only friends for him are the steady beeping of monitors and the faint hum of electric lights overhead. He closes pale blue eyes, dulled from years of hoping against hope, until their light faded. It’s better in his head, where he’s more than a kid stuck in a hospital. Where he’s more than a ghost, a face anyone who comes to the hospital sees. More than a forgotten story forever awaiting its next chapter. Where he’s more than the faded sharpie reading Eichi Tenshouin next to his door
Where he’s more than an abandoned memory.
He has always loved idols and music. In the long hours of sitting and waiting for some kind of closure that will never come, Eichi sings. His voice is tremulous, quiet and soft. Angelic, almost, with a bright and bell-like ring. He loves the way he can skate between words and play with phrases. Walking the line between a songwriter and a poet, he manipulates melody to fit his whims.
Some days, even this great love is stolen from him. On the days when sound goes tinny and distant, when light goes hazy, and time doesn’t exist, he can’t even sing. On those days, there seems to be nothing but the pain and the medication that’s supposed to suppress it. He simply lays there, utterly defeated.
Some days, Eichi can almost function like a normal kid. Those days, he goes outside and stays there till the blue sky turns the purple and black of watercolor paint. The feel of the sun on his skin is enough, the enticing trace of wind through his wispy blonde hair is the best feeling in the world.
Today, it’s something in the middle. Maybe he probably shouldn’t get out of bed, but he could if he really wanted to.
He closes his eyes and lets his mind take him somewhere brighter than this.
No more is the scent of antiseptic and the gleam of tile floors. They’re replaced by sunlight and grass and the smell of spring. Dew glimmers on every oak leaf and darkens the cuffs of his pants- because he is standing. He is standing. He is standing and it doesn’t make him tired to do that.
Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a flash of blue hair, white tips in shocking contrast.
“Wataru,” he greets him with a smile, “How are you?” Wataru grins back, flipping flower-woven braids over his shoulder.
“Amazing!” He exclaims, “Happy birthday, Eichi!” Catching Eichi in a hug, he twirls them around in a circle. Bright, lilting laughter pierces the silence.
In the real world, he and Wataru drifted long ago, when Eichi was hospitalized long-term for the first time. That happened when he was thirteen. Before then, Eichi had spent days and weeks there, then come back to Wataru without incident. Now, it had simply been too long.
Neither of them wanted to leave each other, but time had pushed them apart. Eichi wants more than anything to have him back.
Now, in his alternate reality, Wataru is still here. All of his former friends are still here.
Still bright-eyed and spirited, genuinely happy to see him, Wataru finally lets go. He's about to say something else when he's interrupted by another enthusiastic call.
"Eichi! Wataru! What're you two doing out here without me?!" Little Tori, tugging Yuzuru by the hand, comes around the corner with an expression of outrage. Opinionated and just shy of five feet tall, Tori is as quick to forgive as he is to anger.
Eichi's heart swells at the sight of Tori, a burst of sunshine bursting into his serene scene. The little boy's bright eyes sparkle with mischief, and his signature puff of rose-colored hair bounces with every step.
“Just celebrating!” Wataru beams, his arms still outstretched as if ready to embrace the whole world. “Eichi’s sixteen today!”
“Sixteen?!” Tori gasps, bright green eyes widening in disbelief. “That’s so old! You could totally be an idol now!” He bounds over, a whirlwind of energy, and gives Eichi a fierce hug that nearly knocks him off his feet. But he doesn't fall.
Quiet, violet-eyed Yuzuru follows in his own time. A peaceful, mellow grin tugs at the corners of his lips.
"Happy birthday, Eichi," Yuzuru says, standing beside Eichi. Tori, finally releasing Eichi, pulls a spray of delicate white flowers from the grass and tucks them behind Eichi's ear. They seem to glow there, like some sort of crown.
"Come on, sit with us! We're not going anywhere." Wataru laughs, sitting down and gesturing for the others to do the same. They oblige, and Eichi returns his best friend's smile.
The vision in his head, though its edges have begun to fray, seem to kickstart emotions that have long run cold and numb.
We're not going anywhere . It plays back and back like a broken record in his mind. He tries desperately to grab the scene back, even as it slips through his fingers.
By some miracle, it works.
"Yeah!" Tori chimes in, "You're our friend- Always!" Yuzuru nods assent.
"I've got an idea!" Wataru exclaims, "Eichi, have you ever seen the view from the sky garden?"
Eichi shakes his head. It happens so fast. Wataru grabs his hand, and they run off, Wataru dragging Eichi and Tori dragging Yuzuru.
It doesn't take long to get there. Flowers and ferns of every conceivable species and variant dominate the sky garden on the terrace, with only a winding stone path snaking through the center.
Eichi leans on the railing, overlooking Yumenosaki Academy. The place where dreams bloom. Where everything seems hopeful, all the time.
"It's beautiful," he breathes, "Thank you, Wataru."
Wataru leans against the rail next to him. The sun has begun to go down, changing the sky to its evening splendor. With Wataru, Tori, and Yuzuru beside him, Eichi feels warm.
"Of course." Wataru replies, his voice soft, "Anytime."
The scene falls apart.
Eichi could have been daydreaming for minutes or hours and he wouldn't know the difference. Somehow, he finds himself standing by the open window, leaning on the frame, really.
All of a sudden, he feels something close to falling.
But that's okay.
The stars have never looked more beautiful.