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Eiji Okumura sat in a wheelchair in his hospital room. The white walls soaked in the warm sun. It felt nice mixed in with the frigid cold of New York winters. Eiji waited for Sing Soo-ling, a Chinese gang leader. When Eiji came to the United States from Japan, he had been in a depressing slump after an athletic injury. One of his older friends took him in as an intern and brought him in to help out with a magazine. The magazine was on the underground and youth gangs of America. Due to that, he became close with Ash Lynx, who was a leader of an American street gang and who used to be part of a corrupt mafia. When Eiji went to interview Ash, he got caught in a web of violence, death, and scandal after Ash decided to go against the mafia. Luckily, together with the help of Ash's gang and Sing’s gang, they managed to take down the organization. Left with a bullet wound from the conflict, Eiji sat patiently in the room. He wore a beige knitted sweater with a green jacket. His pale cheeks were rosy from the cold. His lap was covered in a green and red checkered blanket. With a slow turn of the doorknob, Sing appeared.
“Hey!” Sing exclaimed.
Sing looked happy. He barged right in with a bright purple jacket with a highlighter yellow sweater underneath. He stood above Eiji with round black eyes. Eiji reached into his pocket to pull out an envelope.
“Can I ask for a favor? Could you give this to Ash? I wish I could go myself, but look at me.” He pointed out his situation, a saddened look on his face. Sing examined the letter. His face was scrunching a bit.
“But I don't know where Ash is right now.”
“The library…”
Eiji's face lit up with determination.
“I know where he is.”
The New York Public Library was a huge white building that resembled the white house. On the inside, the bookshelves were built out of a rich brown wood, and so were the tables. Ash Lynx sat in the Rose Main Reading Room. He wore a long-sleeved black turtle neck with dark navy blue jeans and dress shoes. He wore a pair of reading glasses with a watch set aside on the table to keep track of time. The library was quiet and he had a book cracked open. He took off his glasses and ran a hand through his lemon-yellow hair. He had a downhearted look. Knowing that Eiji was leaving made his heart clench with an uncomfortable tension. Ash felt a shadow looming behind him from one of the walls. It was Sing. They both went outside, where Sing handed Ash the letter he promised Eiji he would deliver.
“Why won't you go to him?! He's going back to Japan today!”
Sing looked equally furious and frustrated. After all Eiji and Ash went through… why couldn't he just go say goodbye!?
“I know.”
Ash’s voice sounded low and hollow. His gaze was directed down at the sidewalk. Sing looked baffled.
“Then why… you're his friend-”
“That’s exactly why!” Ash snapped, his fists clenching. Sing kept trying.
“There isn't any time left... Want me to give him a message?”
Ash turned to face away from him. He could see his shoulders tense and rise with his indecisiveness.
The airport was bustling with families and couples on their way out to travel. Eiji was sitting off by the luggage loading area. His eyes looked down at his lap. His mind seemed to be somewhere else. ‘Ash. You didn't come… I understand how you feel.’ he thought while looking at the farewell flowers that were gifted to him. ‘You didn't come because you thought it was best for me, but that's just too painful. Are you really okay with that?’
Ash sat outside the library with a long beige overcoat over him. He held the letter tenderly as if he dropped it or ripped it, it would disintegrate. He opened the letter and let out a grunt of surprise when he saw a plane ticket to Japan. He pulled out the snow white pieces of paper behind the ticket and started to read.
Ash- I'm worried to death because I haven't been able to see you doing well.
Eiji was pushed around the airport to say his goodbyes. He saw Charlie, Jenkins, and Jessica. Both of the men worked at the NYPD, and Jessica was the wife of Max, who was a good friend he had made along the way. He waved them goodbye with a big smile on his face. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw three of Ash's men, friends of his as well.
You said we live in different worlds. But is that true?
We have different colored skin and eyes. We were born in different countries.
But we're friends. Isn't that what counts?
The three men waved joyfully. One man whose name was Kong was tall with dark brown skin; the other was a lot older with a pale complexion, his name was Alex. Bone was the shortest one and was the most enthusiastic out of the three, with light burgundy hair and black round glasses sitting on his face.
I'm really glad I came to America. I met lots of people.
And more than anything, I met you.
Bone had a little crocodile plush with a red bow tied around its neck. That was his farewell gift from them. The two taller men behind bone laughed, and Eiji couldn't resist joining.
You asked me over and over if you scared me. But I never feared you, not once.
Ash stayed deadly still as he read the letter. He felt as if someone had taken a knife and struck his heart. Anguish flooded his face as he remembered the first time that he saw Eiji at that bar, with his Japanese reporter friends… he had looked so innocent.
What's more is you're hurt much more than me. I couldn't help feeling that way.
Funny, huh?
He couldn't stop as his memories kicked in full gear, when he had first taught him how to shoot a gun, Or better yet, when Eiji saw him with a gun in his pocket at the bar and asked if it was real. Saying that, back in Japan, it was illegal to own one, and he asked if he could even hold it. Later in the month, he had taught him how to shoot. He couldn't even hold the gun still. He held Eiji's slender waist and basically held his hand in place as he helped him shoot. Even so, he missed the lucky bottle they had chosen for target practice. ‘Ugh. Great shot,’ he had teased him. The way that Eiji had looked up at him with his wide eyes and with his lower lip stuck out. He felt like he could be young again. Like he could forget about his problems… his past... And he could be his age again. He could just be 17.
You're way smarter, bigger, and stronger than me. But I always felt like I had to protect you.
He bolted up and took off running. He couldn't just sit there and let him leave. He had to run to the airport. To say goodbye, to beg him to stay and tell him he was wrong, to hang on to that little piece of youth he could reclaim when he was with him. All he wanted was more time. All he-
Shlick!
He barely had time to react. He felt the cold metal of a knife pierce through him. He looked up and saw Lao Yen Tai. Lao was Sing’s half-brother, also a part of Sing's gang. What was he doing? There was only one explanation. He was there when Ash had previously accepted Sing’s offer to fight after a disagreement. But everyone knew that it was a bluff. Sing would never fight him, not after what they had been through. Plus, nobody could beat Ash Lynx.
“Eiji?”
“Eiji!”
Eiji snapped out of his thoughts. He looked up at Ash's men, only this time it was with the addition of Sing. He had a big grin and was waving like a lunatic.
“Ash says, ‘see ya’! And that you better be back!”
The three men behind Sing smiled even wider and waved even crazier than Sing.
“We’ll be waiting!” They all said in unison.
Eiji grinned and waved back.
“I will, I will come back!”
Blood dripped out of Ash's wound. The crimson liquid scorched the cold cement of the sidewalk.
“Why did you let your guard down? You never do. Why now?” Lao growled out with a look of disdain.
BANG!!
Ash's gun rang out as he shot Lao in his gut as retaliation. Every good thug had a gun with him for moments like these. Lao grabbed his blood-soaked belly as he used the scratchy outer wall of the public library to sit down.
“No hard feelings,” Lao choked out, “I can’t let you take Sing away...”
His voice drifted off as he sat there with wide eyes. His last breath was taken while Ash’s blood ran down his knife. Ash panted and held the stab wound. The gun was clutched harshly in his hand. He had always been a good shot. Eiji's letter fell to the floor like a feather. Ash looked at the papers as if he had sinned. He dropped to his knees and picked up the papers.
Eiji lay his head against the window of the airplane. A solemn look on his face. Next to him was Shunichi Ibe, the reporter who had accompanied him and brought him to the States in the first place.
“Are you okay?” Ibe asked.
“Yes,” Eiji focused on the seat in front of him before continuing. “ Once, I got in a fight with Ash, so I went to the library to apologize. He was sitting there quietly. So serene, set apart from the world of violence and fighting. But so alone. And such indescribable and sublime loneliness-”
I wanted to protect you from fate.
The fate that tries to carry you away, drifting further and further.
“That's when I thought-” he kept speaking with a yearning look on his face. He wanted Ash to be there with him. “- That I'd believe in him, no matter what. No matter what may happen.”
His eyes got glossy, and suddenly the seat he was so focused on turned blurry. The rim of his eyes burned from the tears forming in them. “That I… That at least I would,” a singular tear ran down his cheek as his voice cracked.
You told me once about a leopard that you read in a book. How you believed that leopard knew that it couldn't go back.
Ash limped with Eiji's letter crumpled in his hands. He went back inside the library and sat down. Most of the library was empty. Since most people would have people to be with, or jobs to do. His emerald eyes squinted as he kept reading. It was all he could do.
And I said you weren't a leopard, that you could change your destiny.
He clutched the bloody papers with both hands.
You're not alone. I'm by your side.
My soul is always with you.
Tears scattered on the already dirty paper like cruel raindrops. He looked up at the light of the library. Or maybe it had been a window. All that mattered was that he was looking up. Looking up in hopes that Eiji's plane would pass through, and he could see him one last time.
God never favored boys like him. He'd taken lives, He’d been hurt in so many ways that no god would ever want for one of his sons, and yet here he was, praying. He was praying to a god who had failed him his whole life. He was thanking him because it was he who had suffered this fate. Not his Eiji.
Eiji's plane took off, buildings raced past him and turned to blurs. The plane gained speed as if it were desperate to get back to Japan.
Sa-yo-na-ra, America. Sa-yo-na-ra, New York.
but I'm not going to say sa-yo-na-ra to you, ash.
I know we’ll meet again, no matter how far apart we are.
You're the greatest friend I'll ever have.
Ash sat there on the library seat with his head still atop of the letter. His hair splayed out on the desk, his hand smothered in dried blood. God had heard his praises and mocked him, making the light from the window cast down around him like he was calling for him.
A young lady saw him with his head down and gently spoke.
“You there, you shouldn't sleep here.”
When she studied Ash's face, she saw the bloodied letter and wasn't too drawn aback. She was also unaware of the fact that he wasn't breathing. What she did notice was the fact that while he was sitting there with his head down, he had a small smile on his face. Peaceful. Serene. Alone.
“It must be a nice dream…”
She left him alone to rest.