Work Text:
The weeks after Eijun’s first mission are filled with more training, and with a pretty good post-mission-meeting right after they returned. Eijun is just glad he didn’t have to see any of their comrades dead. It is bad enough that Chris’ injury will take him out of active duty for a while and that Tanba glares everyone into oblivion when they as much as try to visit Chris. Especially icy he seems to get when Miyuki is around, and Eijun senses some kind of story there. Overall there seem to be many interpersonal stories that Eijun has yet to catch up on, though part of this impression might just be from his undying love for shoujo manga—in these stories there is some deeper meaning almost everywhere, after all.
His reality is pretty exciting even without all the heartwarming stories about personal growth that he loves so much, but Eijun still craves another layer. Maybe then he will finally stop feeling like the new kid even after over a year since arriving at the Seido base. His teammates like him just fine, treat him well, and yet there is this lingering feeling of only scratching at the surface of things, and Eijun was never one to be satisfied with only surface-level knowledge.
So his plan is to find out a few more things. For that Eijun observes a lot. Like really a lot. A lot lot. So much that probably everyone and their cat at Seido base notices that he is up to something. As per usual it is Kuramochi calling him out on it when Eijun sneaks back into Room 5 after he tried to catch some late evening conversations.
“Oi, Bakamura! You’ve been awfully weird lately. Sneaking around like a thief. What’s goin’ on?” Kuramochi asks.
Eijun winces where he still stands by the door. Dammit. “Er … just … er … additional practice?”
Kuramochi’s frown is so deep that Eijun wonders if the creases on his forehead will ever go away again. “You’re a really bad liar,” he says. “Why are you blushing? Wait! Wait, wait, wait… Are you seeing someone?” Kuramochi’s voice goes up in a way that indicates his utmost excitement.
“NO! Who would I see here, anyways?” Eijun sputters. His cheeks get so hot he is worried he could burn down the whole room if this continued.
“How would I know?” Kuramochi tilts his head this way and that, studying Eijun. The scrutiny of that gaze has the air around Eijun steam with his own sweat evaporating in the heat of his own body. “Oi! Careful there! Get an ice bucket or something, jeez. I’m gonna stop teasing ya when it gets to you like that.”
Eijun swallows. Instead of trying to clarify the very wrong direction of Kuramochi’s thoughts, he turns to leave the room again, almost bumbing into Miyuki who appeared out of thin air. So it seems, anyways.
“Woah! Are you trying to burn down the Seido dorms?” Miyuki laughs, but takes a huge step back.
“You better be careful I don’t burn you down,” Eijun grumbles, and heads for the ice machine. Sometimes it is still hard for him to control his powers, especially when he is embarrassed. Definitely something he needs to work on still, but at least he doesn’t lose control in the way he did in that early days after his 12th birhtday. It haunts him to this day how out of control he felt, how he realized that he sets the worls aflame without meaning to. Eijun tries to shake himself out of it, the images burnt to the back of his eyelids as soon as he closes his eyes.
When he arrives at the ice machine, there is someone else struggling to fill a bucket with ice.
“Chris!” Eijun says before he can stop himself.
Chris tenses up, a few ice cubes falling from the little shovel held by trembling fingers. “Sawamura,” he says, and it sounds out of breath.
“Can I … er … can I help?” Eijun fiddles with his hands, bodytemperature still too high. His focus shifted, though. That helps to calm the heat licking at his very flesh.
Chris takes a few steps back, makes a gesture so tired Eijun feels a pang of sadness hit him right in the sternum. “Help yourself first.”
Eijun scratches the back of his head sheepishly. “Hehe, thank you, senpai! I’m … a little overheated, maybe, but it’s fine.” He grabs a cup and a few ice cubes and only with little hesitation lets them slide into the back of his shirt. The steam when they hit his hot skin surrounds Eijun while he tries to get back to a somewhat normal body temperature—or normal for him. The motions of putting ice cubes on himself combined with the focus on his own breathing helps him to cool down. Chris is still there when Eijun takes a look around, a few metres away, sitting on a bench. His dull eyes seem to watch Eijun’s every move.
“You did really well on that rescue mission,” Chris says.
“We were too late,” Eijun says. “You and Tanba … they already hurt you.”
“At least we are not dead,” Chris says. His tone of voice isn’t at all convincing, sounds more like repeating some rehearsed speech. “At least we can heal and return to active duty.” He covers his right shoulder gently, and Eijun moves to grab the bucket that sits next to Chris on the worn wood.
“Let me fill that for you.”
“Won’t you just melt it super quick?” Chris asks. There is no quirk to his lips nor his voice, yet Eijun wonders if before the mission that went so wrong for Chris, Tanba and so many others, there would have been a sign of amusement. Like this Chris sseems more like a dead body than an alive Cursed. It is intimidating and saddening at the same time.
“No,” Eijun says, and fills the bucket. “Do you want me to carry it for you? I could also help with … whatever.”
“With whatever, huh?” Chris sighs. “Well, I guess some company might not be the worst.”
Eijun blinks, unsure what to make of that statement. He wants to learn more about his comrades here, but now that the chance presents itself with Chris of all people, he’d rather chicken out. “Okay,” he says anyways just before the silence between them stretches for too long. “Lead the way, Chris-senpai.”
***
The whole way to Chris’ room Eijun had been worried the other Cursed would fall. More than once Chris’ steps became unsteady, legs wobbly, and Eijun’s heart beats right in his throat as a result. Another result is that Eijun’s body temperature once more rose. This time from worry more than overboiling emotions in the truest meaning of the word.
Chris’ room is void of people but not of things. When Eijun enters he sees stacks of books of various ages and sizes, a desk filled with more pens and markers than he can count, nearly every bit of floor filled with either more books or here and there small weights for light weight training and a yoga mat. There is also a balance board pushed to the side, that part of the room covered in more books and notebooks. It is not at all what Eijun expected.
“You can leave the ice on the desk,” Chris says. His voice is tired, dull, and maybe it is the sound of it that has Eijun shake his head against the clear request of his senpai.
“No. I will help you ice your shoulder, and then I’ll get you whatever else you need, and then you may send me away.” Eijun makes sure to meet Chris’ gaze head-on. He doesn’t want to be understood as respectless, even less he wants to just leave Chris alone like this. It feels wrong. He gestures towards the second bed. “When will Tanba be back?”
Chris sits down with a sigh big enough to indicate just how big the weight he carries must feel to him. “I don’t know.”
“Okay. Er …, I will prepare you some ice, then!” Eijun’s eyes flick this way and that before he finds a bunch of towels. “I can use that?”
Chris only nods and watches. It is unnerving to be under the scrutiny of these eyes, but Eijun refuses to back down. Probably Chris tries to make him uncomfortable so that he leaves him alone—and Eijun will leave him alone, after he did everything he can. It might be selfish, but if he left just like that, he wouldn’t be able to find any sleep at all.
Eijun clumsily builds a makeshift ice pack, only when he brings it over to Chris wondering if the other man doesn’t have a more convenient ice pack somewhere. Maybe in the freezer of the cafeteria, the one that the trainess are allowed to use. Or at the infirmary. Well, too late for second guesses. “Here,” Eijun says, the ice already quickly melting and water dripping from between his tanned fingers.
Chris grabs it, aware of not touching Eijun at all. “You can leave now.”
Eijun frowns. This whole behavior is odd, or does it only appear odd to him becaue Eijun himswelf is a very tactile person? “Let me help.” Instead of stepping away from Chris, he takes the ice back to gently place it on Chris’ injured shoulder. “It is not a bad thing to rely on people.”
Chris goes stock-stiff. Eijun wonders briefly if he even stopped breathing. “You should not get too close to me,” Chris says. The words are spoken in his usual quiet tembre, but yet they feel loud between them. What might be spoken as a well-meant warning only has the opposite effect on Eijun. The hand not holding the ice pack touches Chris’ other arm—
ThefireburnsthehouseandthefieldsandeijuncantmakeitstopheisthefirethefireishimandheisscaredscaredSCARED
Both of them jump apart at the same time. Eijun doubles over with a sudden wave of nausea while the picutures that always travel in the back of his mind return to their dark corners.
“What … was that?” Eijun forces out between heavy gasps of air.
“Sit down, Sawamura,” Chris instructs gently. His puplis are blown, eyes a golden colour that hints at his powers. The gleam subsides while Eijun still tries to get his bearings, as quickly as it came. “I’m sorry this happened. I … I’m not good at controlling myself these days.”
“Huh?” Eijun adequately says. He slumps onto his butt, heartrate slowly coming back to normal. The nausea still clings to him, though. He rubs his temples. “I … What did you do?”
“I read your mind,” Chris says.
“Of course,” Eijun breathes. “What else, huh? But how?”
“Because you touched me.”
“Oh.” Now it makes a lot more sense that Chris seemed so keen on pushing him away. On not getting too close to him. “Does that … er … happen with everyone?” It feels like an invasive question. Usually Eijin never asks about the powers of the other Cursed.
Chris’ sigh is a heavy thing and holds an answer all by itself. “It could. Usually I have better control, though.”
Eijun hums, pulls his legs up to rest his chin on his knees. His golden eyes never leave Chris. He looks so sad, so guilty that Eijun wants to take that weight off of him. Only how he is not sure. “It was like that with my flames,” he says quietly. “I couldn’t hold them in. They … they burned everything and everyone. It made me feel very … lonely. Not … not that I am saying it is the same for you … just …,” he trails off, suddenly unsure where he wanted to even go with this.
“You’re not … scared of me now?” asks Chris. His eyes might he dulled, but they hold so much sadness, so much deep pain, Eijun has trouble breathing for a second.
He swallows, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, but forcing the words out anyways: “I could never be scared of you! You never chose that kind of power. It must be hard for you, too, to see things people want to keep hidden.” Eijun stops, contemplates, continues, “The mission you and Tanba and the others went on; you were there to get information. I thought you’d be hacking into the systems and maybe, well, do other things, but you can read their minds!”
Chris looks at Eijun as if he never saw him before. “For how loud you often are you are quite insightful.” The words are laced with a sense of awe that makes Eijun wonder just how many people turned their backs to Chris just because of his power. Was it unsettling that he saw parts of Eijun’s memories? Hell, yes! Is it something that would make Eijun not want to be friends with Chris? Hell, no!
“I’m often underestimated,” Eijun grins instead of raising to this potential bait. “So, can I help you ice your shoulder now, or what?”
“Okay.”
“I really want— Oh! You agreed!” Eijun says.
Chris huffs the tiniest of laughs and Eijun loves that sound immediately. He wants more of that. “I did.”
And just like that Eijun helps Chris ice his injury, and they talk a bit about Chris’ dad, about Eijun’s family, about life here, and afterwards Eijun feels a lot more like he belongs into the Seido base.
***
Room 5 is mostly dark when Eijun returns hours later. He hadn’t realized just how much time he spent with Chris. The desklamp casts shadows on the floor and the beds. Masuko’s bed is empty, but Eijun finds two teenagers in Kuramochi’s bunk bed. Eijun stops in his tracks, stretches up to his tip toes for a better view.
In Kuramochi’s bed there is Kuramochi—which is no surprise—, asleep on his back and his handheld gaming console so loosley in his hand it might just slip from his grip at any second, and then there is Miyuki next to Kuramochi, back to Eijun but head pillowed on Kuramochi’s other arm—and that is the surprise, really. Eijun knew these two are close, but not that they are close enough to sleep in the same bed. Not that he minds.
Eijun grins to himself while he gets up into his bunk bed, already feeling sleep pull on him, too. He can pester Kuramochi-senpai about the sleeping situatipn with Miyuki when he’s rested. That might also distract Kuramochi from getting his nose into Eijun’s business about whatever friendship there might be developing with Chris. And hell, does Eijun want something to develop there.
His dreams are full of sunflowers, blue skies and Chris’ eyes looking right at him. Not dull and barely there, but alive. It steals Eijun’s breath away.