Work Text:
"Are you sure I can't help you with this?" you ask again, and Eijirou glances at you over the wooden planks that he's hefted into his arms.
"You want to volunteer to do work that you're paying me for?" he asks, humour shining in his voice, and you shrug from where you sit on a nearby rock.
"Well, your neighbourly attitude is rubbing off on me," you say dryly, and he laughs.
"About time. But honestly, you keeping me company is nice enough."
"Well," you sigh. "There's actually not a lot else to do right now. Plants, by the way, grow really… slowly."
Eijirou barks out a laugh at that, grinning at you as a gentle spring breeze brushes past you both.
"You don't say," he muses. "I just hope your impatience doesn't rub off on me."
"I doubt it will," you say softly - because, really, you can't imagine him being impatient or irritated or anything hard-edged. He's only ever been kind to you, even in the relatively short time that you've known each other, and it throws you off even now.
Looking down at the soft ground between the two of you, you toe absently at a patch of little flowers that's growing there, new and rosy and delicate. They look sort of out of place against the patchy grass, and you wonder why a thing as pretty as that would choose to grow in a place like this.
"Can I ask you something?" Eijirou starts gently, and when you look up, he's standing in front of you. With the afternoon heat rolling in, his tank top sticks to him, beads of sweat shining on his biceps as he fiddles with the hammer in his hands.
"Hm?"
"Why'd you…" He pauses, like he's weighing how to ask. "Um… what made you want to come here?"
"Oh, it's -" you falter. "I don't know. I guess I just felt like someone should."
"No one else wanted it?" he asks as he putters around, and you shrug.
"There's not much to want - or there wasn't, before we started. No one in the family really wanted to be the one to take it on, I suppose."
"So why'd you?" he asks curiously. "You don't, um… well, when we first met - you certainly didn't strike me as the farming type."
"No, I'm -" you cut yourself off with a pitchy sort of laugh. "I'm not. But I… um, I don't know. It just didn't feel right to let this place rot away. It's… it makes me sad, I guess. When things just… disappear off the map because no one cared enough to make it their problem."
"So you made it your problem?" he supplies softly, looking at you with a sort of fondness that has you shifting where you sit.
"I'm good at solving problems," you shrug, scuffing your foot against the ground and clipping some of the little flowers, squishing them into the unforgiving soil.
Eijirou nods - and he seems, then, to be focused on his work, and you hope that that'll be the end of it. Somewhere distantly, a bird chirps and coos, and you look down at the bruised flowers that you've left behind.
"Does it make you happy?" he asks eventually, and it startles your gaze back to him. He isn't looking at you, notably - and you wonder if he knows how hard he's pinned you with that question.
"Oh, it -" you flounder. "Well, it's work."
"My work makes me happy," he responds, finally glancing at you, and you narrow your eyes at him.
"Your work isn't like this every day."
"No," he laughs. "No, it's not. But still, I love what I do."
"I just…" you start quietly, toeing at the trampled flowers as if you can bring them back to life with the same touch that flattened them in the first place. "I just didn't want this place to disappear."
"Does it mean a lot to you?" Eijirou asks kindly. "I know it's been in your family for a while."
"No," you admit. "We don't - I'm not close to my family. I just…I don't like collateral damage, I guess. I didn't think this place deserved it."
"Was this place, uh…" he pauses, rooting around in the toolbox near your feet. He seems sheepish - cautious and careful as he continues. "Was this place the only collateral?"
You stare at him, wondering when you started circling each other like this - when the seasons cracked you open to let something new grow.
"It's the only thing I could do something about," you say softly, and he nods like he expected it.
"Can I offer some advice? Or - an opinion? Just on… this place."
"Sure," you say slowly.
"I don't, um…" he looks up at you from where he's crouching, still. "I don't think there was anything wrong with this place - or anything that needed fixing. Sometimes things just don't get the care they deserve."
"You don't think that ruins them?" you ask softly. "The - places like this?"
"No," he shakes his head, standing back up. "I think it's just bad luck. It's not, like, a curse or anything."
You huff out a startled sort of laugh at that, leaning back on your hands and feeling the sun-warmed rock under your fingers.
"That's a very straightforward way of looking at it," you say kindly, and Eijirou beams at you.
"Well, you know, I think it really is that simple most of the time," he says obviously. "There's just not enough kindness in the world to go around. It sucks, but it's true. People - things get missed, you know. They get skipped."
"That's sad," you murmur, and he sends you an empathetic little smile.
"But," you continue. "It's a good thing that people like you are here. For, you know… places like this."
He smiles at you, then - brighter than the springtime sun that splits the sky, and you duck your head down like it's not meant for you to see.
You're waiting for him to call you out, maybe - to catch you in the act of caring and take it all back.
"You still want to help with this?" he asks instead.
"Yes," you insist, your gaze snapping up to his.
"Ok. Hold these nails."
"Uh, yea, this is not really helping," you argue as you take the box from him, holding it in your lap. He laughs when you toss a nail at him, catching it easily.
"Come on," he grins. "Anymore than that and I'm going to have to start lowering my rates. You could put me out of business, you know."
"Can't have that," you quip back, but then you soften. "What would I do without you?"
And you hope, as the sun begins to lower over the horizon, shining down onto the flowers that have begun to bend upwards again, recovering from your rough treatment - you hope that you never have to find out.