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Ash had always been good at acting like he wasn't in pain. In the short time Eiji had been in New York, he'd all but witnessed Ash get shot and stabbed and beaten countless times, but Ash always held his head high and acted like everything was in perfect order. Eiji had always thought it was really weird, back then. He had gotten used to it now, but it was still weird.
Seeing Ash lying in the hospital bed, not being allowed to sit up, as to not put stress on the stitches in his stomach, but having the air about him that he was wrongfully put in here by an overprotective nurse who was worried about his temperature rising one degree. He was staring at the ceiling and delivering nonchalant, crass comments to anyone who dared to engage him, like was his habit. He was undoubtedly himself still, rolling his green eyes and sighing dramatically. Eiji watched him from through the window in the door, slightly blurred by the glass. A man was sitting with his back to the door next to the bed. He could faintly hear Ash's unaffected drawling on the other side, that dismissive tone that Eiji had learned he only used when he was trying to get people off his case. When he was trying to get them to leave him alone, so he could be in pain, without anyone seeing it.
* * *
Max had asked him once, about how he felt about Eiji. Ash had growled that it was none of his business, and stormed out, cheeks burning. He wasn't ready to answer that question. He wasn't ready for anyone to know. Whatever they had, belonged to him and Eiji, and no one else. He wasn't even completely sure if he himself knew exactly what he felt, he'd never tried to put it into words. He'd slammed the door to make a point for Max not to follow him.
Now there was nowhere he could go. The nurses wouldn't let him leave his bed unaided. Part of him was secretly glad for it; moving hurt and he was more tired than he thought he'd ever been in his life. And that was saying something. But being confined to this room, surrounded by ugly green walls and the beeping and humming of the machines and the ceiling lights and radiators, it was hell.
Being in the hospital in general was awkward, he knew this from several previous visits. Partly because he had to wear that stupid gown, and a nurse had to help him get to the bathroom, but mostly because at night, there had to be someone there to wake him up if he was having a nightmare, so he wouldn't twist too violently and rip his sutures. They all knew about how he cried in his sleep, even screamed sometimes. The drugs they gave him for the pain sometimes made him a bit less controlled, he could blurt out things that he maybe shouldn't say. Looking the nurses in the eyes in the morning was an ongoing exercise in not letting his shame get the best of him, when they placed the breakfast tray in front of him. And then there was the fact that he couldn't leave when he was tired of a conversation. He could only turn his head away, or close his eyes and pretend Max wasn't talking to him.
Max was the only one, aside from Jessica and Alex, that had come to see him after he woke up. Alex wanted to let Ash know that he'd taken temporary leadership and was handling everything as long as Ash was gone. With a purposefully neutral face, he asked if he should send anyone after Sing. Ash told him no. Sing hadn't shown his face outside Chinatown for the past few days, and Ash figured that was for the best.
*
Max had brought comic books from home. They were Michael's, and at first, Ash felt like he was somehow intruding on their family just by listening to Max reading aloud from them. He sat next to Ash's bed, explaining what the drawings depicted and doing different voices for the characters, sometimes showing him the page if something particularly exciting was happening. Ash knew Max was doing it just to try to cover up how he felt sorry for him. But even as he tried to act like he was too old for comic books, too old to be read to, he found that he actually liked it, even though he pretended he wasn't interested. No one had read to him since before he ran away from home. It made him feel safe. He hoped he deserved a dad like Max, even if he wasn't actually his dad, or even old enough to be. It was clear he felt some sort of obligation to assume the role, anyway. And Ash was okay with that.
*
Ash tried not to think about it too much, but it loomed in the back of his mind, every time anyone gave him a lingering look; he wondered what they knew that made them feel sorry for him. Did they know about his childhood, his upbringing, about everything he'd done and been made to do his entire life, did they know about everyone he'd killed, all the families he'd destroyed? Did they know where all his scars, some new, some very old, had come from? Did they know about the young, foreign journalist assistant, that had finally gone back home to Japan after he'd been dragged into a huge, violent mess he had nothing to do with? Did they know Ash tried to tell himself over and over that nothing good can ever last; that this was the way it should be?
Max tried not to show his pity, but it didn't work. He was too open, he'd always been, ever since he had found out Ash was Griffin's brother, he'd always been quick to talk. And even though he hadn't asked again since that time Ash had stormed off, and Ash had never answered, still that question, do you like him?, floated around the room; it exuded from Max like a sound in a freqency too low for the human ear to hear, like heatwaves that you can only see close to the ground, intangible but defintely there. He wanted to say something, to let Ash know he knew.
Ash assumed Max had read the letter. He assumed pretty much everyone had. He knew people liked to peer into his life as if he was an exhibit in a glass case, like they had the right. He'd gotten used to it a long time ago; the way people watched him, with admiration, with want, with pity, with disgust, with fear, or a mix. He'd gotten used to it, but that didn't mean he liked it. He wished he could snatch the letter out of their hands, whoever had it now. It wasn't for them. But he had this nagging feeling that all of the things he wanted to keep secret, always seemed to get out one way or another, in the end.
Ash didn't know anything about what had happened after he'd passed out from blood loss. He had killed Lao, he knew as much, but after that, nothing. He assumed his clothes had been cut off him in an ambulance and probably disposed off somewhere in a plastic bag, and then he'd been put into a big, white hospital bed, where he woke up, with gauze wrapped around his middle, and was told not to move too much. The police probably had everything he'd been carrying on his person; his gun; his necklace; his reading glasses; Eiji's letter. Or maybe they had thrown that out along with his blood stained clothes.
“These superhero comics are kind of violent for a kid,” Max said, dismayed. Ash glanced over, Max was making a face and holding the comic away from him, like an old man that had bad eyesight. Ash wasn't supposed to laugh, the doctor had told him, but he gasped through the pain just so he could chuckle at Max.
“Maybe I should get you something else to read...” Max frowned at the comic and turned a few pages. “All this is kind of making me feel bad. You shouldn't have to think about any more violence than you probably already do.”
“Are you sure you're not just projecting your own issues onto me here?” Ash asked smartly.
Max gave him a tired, annoyed look. “You sure have an attitude, kid,” he grumbled. Ash smugly took it as a win. Max leaned his elbows on his knees and bowed his head, and sighed heavily.
“You might be right, though,” he told his shoes. “You know, you're too smart for your own good.”
Ash leaned over a little and reached out to pat him on the shoulder. “Luckily you don't have that problem, hm? It's not all bad.”
Max laughed down at the floor, but it sounded hollow. “I'd say I wished that knife would've humbled you, but I don't think I even want to joke about that right now. This whole thing has been stressing me out,” he huffed, and looked up. He looked drained, the skin under his eyes dark with exhaustion. “You need to stop almost dying, Ash. You're finally going to kill your old dad.”
Ash hummed. “You've had it coming for a long time. Didn't I tell you that I would kill you, back when we were cell mates?” He examined the back of his hand, where a long needle was sticking out, secured with tape. “And, you know, since I haven't actually died yet, you still have it coming.”
Max smiled like he had given up, and let out a breath resembling a laugh. He reached over to ruffle Ash's hair, and Ash huffed and frowned, but let him. He couldn't get very far if he'd tried, anyway. He was all but surgically attatched to the hospital bed.
“Fair enough,” Max admitted.
“You just wait until I get out of this bed,” Ash warned. “I'm coming for you.”
“I'll make up the guest room,” Max replied.
*
“Hey, Ash, this is you,” Max said, turning his comic book around and showing it to Ash. He had gotten a different one, that wasn't full of blood and busted teeth. Ash had been moved out of the ICU that morning, and his new room had a much better view, showing the fire escapes on the side of some old apartment blocks, and then above, the blue sky. The story that Max had picked out this time seemed to be more of an office romance, and Ash mostly looked out the window, away from Max, while Max read. Now he poked the side of Ash's thigh and urged him to look again. Ash was bored, so he obliged. Max pointed to a blonde woman with her arms thrown around a man's neck, with little, pink hearts floating around her head. “See, that's you.” Her right leg was lifted in the air, like in an old movie. Then he pointed to the man. “And that's Eiji.”
Ash raised an eyebrow. “You calling me a girl?” he said, ignoring the obvious.
Max chuckled. “No. I'm just saying you have those same little hearts floating around your head.”
Ash's face flamed. “Yeah, right,” he piled the sarcasm on as thick as he could manage, rolled his eyes. “As if.”
“No?” Max asked, amused.
Ash didn't look at him. Maybe he could pretend like the morphine was kicking in, and drift off to sleep. Eiji was in Japan. Don't talk about him. What right do you have. Shut up.
Ash didn't really know how long he'd been out before he woke up. He didn't know how long a flight to Japan was, either, though Eiji had told him it was pretty long. He had spent a two full nights here, so he was pretty sure Eiji had landed a long time ago, on the other side of the world. Maybe he was asleep right now, because of the time difference, or the jetlag. Or maybe he was hugging his mother, or eating natto, or watching the sunrise from his kitchen window.
“No way. Gross.”
Ash had pretty much figured that Eiji needed to go back to Japan in order to try to heal himself. During the time he'd spent in New York, he'd changed, Ash had witnessed it first hand. He'd become bolder, he had refused to leave Ash's side, even when Ash had tried to get his guys to take him to the airport. But something else had happened, too. Ash couldn't really pinpoint exactly when. He thought something had broken in him. Maybe the weight of Ash's crazy life finally got to him.
He'd had to leave. But he'd left behind this weird weight. Something invisible, intangible, yet heavy. It was like the letter had been a contract between the two of them. Ash wasn't really sure what that contract involved, but it had been signed. Ash had signed it with his blood.
“It's normal to have crushes,” Max said, poking him gently on the arm.
“Thanks, I know that, dad. But it's none of your business.” Ash was attentively examining the slightly crappy paintjob on the ceiling, right in the top corner of the room. Through the ugly white, there were traces of darker panelling underneath.
“I think it's good for you,” Max said, “to do normal seventeen-year-old things.” Ash wished he would stop talking about this.
Suddenly he felt a strange shift in the air. Like the energy of the room was slightly altered. He knew it well, he'd gotten good at sensing when someone was close by, over the years, and he got that feeling now, even though there was a wall and a closed door between them and the hallway. And he had a feeling he knew who it was. It wasn't just someone passing by his room on their way to somewhere else. It hit Ash like he's been dropped into an icy lake. Sudden, and sure, and it made his heart stutter and jump. But it was not a bad feeling.
It didn't make sense. And yet it did. The way the hairs on his arms stood up, the way something stirred in his chest, like he had a magnet in there, and its positive was suddenly close enough to pull on him.
It was as if talking about it had summoned him. Ash could see his blurred silhouette in the little window on the door, out of the corner of his eye.
Eiji probably thought Ash couldn't see him, because he stood there for while, just looking in. It made Ash nervous, all of a sudden, or maybe it was just excitement mixed with a little bit of fear. Something had changed when he had read that letter; something had shifted in him, between them, around them. He'd always been focused and clear every time he had to protect Eiji. As long as Eiji had been in front of him, he could make sure he was safe. But on that bench outside the library, something had come loose inside him. That pull, that need to get back to him, it had made him unfocused. It had caused him to run blindly into a knife with his name on it. He'd been truly reckless for the first time in almost ten years. Getting a glimpse of what could be, had blinded him so completely.
A frankly embarassing sound left Ash's mouth as Eiji pushed open the door. He stood there for just a moment, and then he leapt. It was like he physically couldn't stop himself from rushing across the room and throwing his arms around Ash's neck.
From the doorway, the alarmed nurse that accompanied him warned him to be careful, and Eiji let up, but Ash fisted his hands into his jacket and held on. “Eiji,” he whispered into Eiji's dark hair, behind his ear. “Eiji.” He didn't think he could ever let go again now, even if he tried. Eiji pressed his face into the side of his neck, and made some indistinct sounds, that might have been words, but Ash didn't catch them. He smelled of airports and trains and sweat, and Ash didn't care a single bit.
Something told Ash that Ibe was probably hanging around somewhere as well, likely out in the hallway, perhaps as a futile attempt to give the two of them some privacy, which had already failed spectacularly, since Max was there, and the nurse. The nurse kept a wary eye on them, undoubtedly checking to see if Eiji was a threat to his health by hugging him so hard his stitches would pop, but didn't say anything else. She calmed down when Eiji eventually let go. Ash let go of his jacket, but kept staring, like he needed to make sure it was really him.
When Ash looked towards the door, Ibe was there, unsurprisingly, peering in and greeting them in his unsteady English and with a tired smile. Ash didn't care to register what pleasantries were exchanged between Max and Ibe as he stepped into the room, he just looked at Eiji. He had a million things he wanted to say, needed to say, but none of them came out.
“You're okay,” he said with a shaky voice.
Eiji pulled up a stool, and took a seat next to the bed. He grabbed hold of Ash's hand, and held it firmly between both of his on top of the sheets. His eyes were so wide, and he kept them steadily on Ash. “Yeah, I'm okay,” he nodded.
Ash felt exposed. The contact was so intimate, so obvious. His first instinct was to pull his hand away, but he didn't. He could feel Max eyeing them, probably thinking smugly to himself, I knew it. Eiji didn't care, he couldn't afford to care.
“How are you?” Eiji asked. A loaded question. He had tired shadows under his eyes.
Ash offered a small smile. “I've had worse.”
To his surprise, Eiji started crying. He bowed his head, so his dark hair hid the tears that ran down his face, and squeezed Ash's hand harder. It was so sudden, and Ash felt bad, but he didn't know what he should do. He looked to Max, who looked just as surprised and worried, and Ash just let Eiji hold onto his hand, watched his shoulders shake with uneaven jerks. Eiji leaned forward and put his forhead against their clasped hands. Ash felt a few warm, wet tears smear against his wrist. Ibe came over to them, putting a hand on Eiji's shoulder, and said something to him in Japanese that Ash didn't understand, in a soft, soothing tone. Eiji clung to Ash's hand, and Ash let him. Eventually he straightened back up, sniffling a bit.
“I was so scared,” he sobbed, in English.
“Why,” Ash asked softly.
Something pained, almost angry, passed over Eiji's face, as he looked up to meet Ash's eyes, and Ash regretted saying that. He knew perfectly well. Eiji frowned and took a deep, shaky breath. The kind of look people give you when they're trying to keep themselves in check, so they won't say something they'll regret.
“What if you'd – ” he gritted out. A few more tears pressed themselves out from behind his eyes. “I thought you would die. And I wasn't there for you.”
Ash huffed and shook his bangs down over his face, and flashed him a little grin. “Do I look like the kind of person who dies?”
Eiji stared at him, clearly not amused. “Why are you doing this,” he begged.
Ash wished he had it in him to tell the truth. The full truth. He wished he could stop being such an asshole right now. If there was one person in the whole world who deserved the truth, it was Eiji. And yet, deflecting the question was as easy as blinking. The room had too many ears. Too many eyes.
“The hospital food is making me cranky. I've been dying for a hot dog ever since I got here, but they won't let me have one. It's like I have withdrawls. So, you should blame them.”
Like every good lie (not that this was one), it had a sliver of truth to it. He was itching to get out of this bed, to use his legs, to run, to wear his own clothes again, and to eat something else than single serving microwave meals. He shot an accusing look over at the nurse, who had sat down in her chair over by the window, and she just tilted her head at him. “We don't do takeout runs,” she said mercilessly. Ash would never forgive her.
When he dared to look back to Eiji, he was frowning deeply. His face was red and streaked with tears, but he had stopped crying. He looked like he kind of wanted to punch him.
“Stop it,” he said sternly. He deserved better than what Ash was giving him right now, and he knew it. Ash ground his teeth together and swallowed his pride. Eiji wouldn't make fun of him for being weak.
“Sorry.”
Apologizing felt awkward and unnatural, even though he knew it was the right thing to do. He dared squeezing Eiji's hand back.
Eiji had a talent for surprising him, it turned out. Or maybe he was just home to a rapidly changing thunderstorm of emotions right now. Slowly, Eiji's hard, dark stare softned around the edges, and his face suddenly split into a grin. He let out a laugh that made his whole body shake, and Ash huffed, confused, wondering if he should be offended.
“What the fuck are you laughing about?”
It took a good few seconds for Eiji to get himself under control enough to squeak out,
“A hot dog?” He stared at Ash in disbelief.
The thing that hit Ash the hardest, was how much he had missed Eiji's laugh. The way it made him feel warm and light. He couldn't help but join in, but it made a sharp pain bloom in his stomach, and he had to stop himself. Eiji looked at him expectantly.
“You know I keep a strict diet,” Ash grinned. “To keep my brain healthy.”
Eiji shook his head, and suddenly got to his feet. “You're impossible. I'll get it for you.”
Ash blinked in surpise. “Wait, what? You're leaving?”
“To get your hot dog.”
Ash stared. “Really?”
“If it makes you stop being a little bitch,” Eiji said hotly, his cheeks blooming with colour.
Ash didn't think he'd ever heard Eiji say bitch before. He couldn't help but be impressed.
“I can't promise anything.”
Eiji wiped at his face with his hand, gave something that could have been a smile, so quick Ash almost missed it, and shook his head. “That's okay. I'll wait.”
By the door, Eiji turned around and threw Ash a look.
“Does the princess want anything else?”
Ash held his eyes for a moment, wondering birefly if it was a trick, and then he tried,
“Grape soda?”
Eiji nodded once, and then he was out the door. Ibe followed suit.
It was just Ash, Max, and the nurse again.
She piped up from the corner, “He your boyfriend?”
Ash couldn't cross his arms, because it hurt his abdomen, but he huffed and looked away. “Shut up.”
“Oh, I see,” she replied smugly. “The princess is sensitive.”
Ash stared out the window, cheeks burning, and pointedly ignored Max's excalamtions of “See! That's what I said! They are so in love!” and the nurse's chuckling response.
*
Eiji was gone forever. Ash started to think he wasn't going to come back. Maybe visiting hours were over and the hospital wouldn't let him back in. Maybe something had happened to him. Maybe he'd decided he didn't want to see Ash after all.
Max had to go pick up Michael from school, and as he left he'd smiled knowingly, ruffled Ash's hair again, and left the comic book on the table next to Ash's bed. The nurse had left too, telling him for the millionth time to push the yellow button to his right if he needed anything. The night shift nurse wouldn't be around for a few hours yet, and Ash could lie there and just enjoy the silence, if he discounted the sounds from the machines. Mostly, he was glad to have a moment to himself, even though without the distraction of having other people around, the sharp pain in his stomach started to really make its prescence known. He pressed the button, and asked the unfamiliar nurse that came in a little while later for some pain relievers.
Eventually the door swung open, and Eiji came twirling in like a storm, disturbing the dust that had undoubtedly settled, breaking the silence with a crinkling green plastic bag dangling from each hand, and saying something in Japanese over his shoulder to Ibe. Eiji wasn't a loud person, per say, he was shy, but he was loud in a more subtle way. Like he didn't need to worry about moving quietly. Like it was perfectly safe to be heard and seen. Even though this scared Ash, on a muscle memory level, it was also something that he admired in Eiji. He admired Eiji's carefree freedom of movement. The plastic bags crinkled loudly as he placed them on the bed by Ash's feet.
“Hello, Aslan!” Eiji called. “Can I sit?” He pointed to the bed, next to the bags.
Ash said, “Sure,” and just like that, Eiji plopped down at his feet. Ash felt the way the bed dipped all the way into his bones, felt his heart beat a little harder.
As Ibe pulled up the chair Max had sat in earlier, Ash looked between the two of them.
“You've been gone for like an hour and a half,” Ash asked. “Where the hell did you go?”
Eiji grinned. He had some of that busy city energy about him now; a little jittery, almost windswept from venturing out into the streets of New York, his hair messed up. “Koreatown! The subway was full of sports fans for some reason, so we had to walk.”
“What? Why? Were there no hot dog trucks anywhere closer to here, or what?” Ash frowned.
Eiji started rummaging in one of the bags, and held out a cardboard box. “None of them had natto! We had to go to a restaurant, and there was a little bit of a wait.”
In disbelief, Ash accepted the box, and the smell hit him like a truck. He opened it, looked down at the slimy soybeans, and the hotdog underneath. He looked back to Eiji.
“Eiji,” he whined. “Whyyy?”
“So you'll get well faster!” Eiji proclaimed. “It's really good for you. It makes your bones stronger.” Ash stopped himself from saying, I don't have any broken bones. Only Eiji would do something like this. Eiji placed a small soda can with a purple label on his lap and gave his knee a little pat.
The weight of it hit harder than Ash was prepared for. He wasn't used to getting things he wanted without earning them first. The fact that Eiji had done what Ash had asked, that it actually hadn't been a trick, made him almost tremble, weird, but in a good way. With Eiji is was never a trick.
“You should listen to your big bro, you know,” Eiji said. “You're clearly not able to take care of yourself without me.”
Ash just rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, sure.”
“How are you feeling, Ash?” Ibe suddenly asked, trying, and failing, to change the subject.
“Less hungry than before,” Ash remarked, making a face at the smelly contents of the box sitting on his lap. It made Ibe laugh, but Eiji was not amused, and gave Ash's foot a little slap, as a warning.
“No, you have to eat it. So you'll get better.” He handed Ash a few napkins.
“I'll get better, Eiji, don't worry,” Ash insisted, but accepted the napkins. “Unless this slime kills me, that is.”
Eiji got two more boxes out of the bag, and handed one to Ibe. “I always worry about you, Ash, it's my job,” he said without looking at Ash.
Ash felt his cheeks grow a little warm. “No, it's not.”
Eiji cracked open a can of orange soda, and set his brown eyes to Ash's green. “Yes, it is. Now shut up and eat.”
*
As it grew later, the sun set outside and more lamps were lit in Ash's room. Ibe had eventually announced that he was going back to the hotel to get some sleep. The long travel had knocked him right out. Eiji had hopped down from the bed and hugged him, and told him goodnight, and then took place in the now vacant chair, as Ibe ghosted out of the room. Ash thought about asking Eiji is he wasn't leaving, too, but it became obvious he wasn't going to do that. Ash wondered if the nurses, or maybe security, would try and wrestle him out of there at some point. He hoped not, for the sake of the security guards. The scene was entertaining to imagine.
Sitting by the side of the bed, Eiji reached out to take Ash's hand again, and now it was like Ash could feel more clearly the points where the tips of his fingers touched him, the warmth of his skin. Now there was no one else around to think their quiet (or not so quiet) thoughts about what they were.
Eiji looked down, and just sat like that, breathing, for a while. Now that they were alone, Ash felt like he could relax. Having Eiji here, being held by him, made him feel safe. Seeing with his own eyes that he was alive, and okay, was more reassurance than he could have ever asked for. But Ash had chosen to let him go, so he would be safe. Having him back here, fed the monster of guilt in his stomach. He regretted having dragged Eiji into his own violent world of death and suffering. He couldn't shake it, couldn't escape from it. He had made him hold a gun, fire it with intent to kill. He had let Sing's guys hurt him, almost kill him, in the end he had failed to protect him from it all. Ash knew, deep down in his rotten heart, that putting Eiji in harm's way was the worst thing he'd ever done.
“Why,” he started to say, but Eiji cut him off.
“I watched a cartoon, on the plane,” Eiji said, down to the floor. “I couldn't sleep.”
Ash swallowed and bit his lip. “What cartoon?” he asked. Eiji just shook his head.
“I don't know. I don't remember. It was american, I think, but it didn't have any words. Just music. It was sweet, what I remember from it. It was about a dog.” He started tracing small patterns on the back of Ash's hand with his thumb, following the blue lines of his blood, faintly glowing through his paper-like skin. “He took a ferry out to an island, and there he met a frog. They were sort of. Um, what's the word... unlikely friends? A dog and a frog – he-he, that rhymed,” he chuckled, and took a moment to breathe again, still looking down at the floor. “They swam in a lake together, or maybe it was the ocean, I don't know... then at the end they dried off in the sun together.” He smiled to himself, sighed, and it was like his whole body deflated slightly. Ash could tell he was exhausted, from the tired slump of his shoulders. “I think I must have fallen asleep for a bit after that, because then Ibe woke me up for breakfast.”
“How long was the flight?” Ash asked softly.
Eiji groaned. “I don't want to think about that, Ash. Too long. I don't even know what day it is anymore.”
“It's Thursday,” Ash offered.
Eiji frowned at him. “What? Still?”
Ash nodded.
“What the fuck,” Eiji mumbled to himself, shaking his head. “Makes no sense.”
“Maybe we should get you a wristwatch, grandpa,” Ash laughed. “Or a calendar book?”
Eiji gave him a sour look. “That won't help when you cross time zones back and forth like a ping-pong ball,” he grumbled. Ash just tutted at him.
“You know, I'm really sick of sitting on my butt all day,” Eiji said, still pouting his lip. “Airplanes are really boring. Do you think they'll let you go for a walk with me tomorrow?”
Ash wanted that more than anything. He wanted to smell the air outside, filled with car exhaust and frying oil and garbage, something else than sterile sheets and plastic tubes. He wanted to run, and jump, and climb, but he knew he probably shouldn't. He could walk, though, if he took it easy. Most of all, he wanted to spend time with Eiji. “I'd like to see them try and stop me.”
Eiji grinned. “That's my Asshu. So you are healing well?”
Ash had to look away. His face felt hot. My Asshu. The way Eiji said his name made him feel soft. It was so gentle.
“Pfft. A little stab wound won't stop me,” Ash said. “Nothing can. Except maybe the nurses here when I try to get a soda from the machine in the hall without their help. They can be real scary, you know.”
A haunted look ghosted over Eiji's face.
“I know I've said it before many times, but I think you deserve to hear it again,” he said. “I'm really glad you're safe.”
Ash suddenly felt like he should say something. Sorry, maybe. Sorry for almost dying. Sorry for not meeting you at the airport. Even though he had a good reason for not making it. Or thank you, maybe. For saving me. For coming back to me. For caring about me, without asking for anything in return.
He wasn't really sure where he should start. He sort of felt like him and Eiji had no start, even though he remember meeting him. That day, Eiji had asked to hold his gun, and Ash had been compelled, by something, to let him. That strangely enough felt like a midway point, somewhere along an endless line. A point on a circle that had no beginning, and no ending.
He couldn't get his mouth to work, couldn't find the right words to say any of it. He had signed with his blood. It was settled now, in a way. Yet, none of them would bring it up. Ash didn't know if he could. The pain, and the meds, were starting to tire him out. His head was slowly growing heavier, and he knew he needed to sleep, but he didn't want to let Eiji out of his sight again. He needed to make sure he was safe.
After a while, Eiji said quietly, “I meant what I said, you know.” He looked at Ash with his big eyes, wide and tired, and full of quiet sincerity. “What I wrote.”
Ash recalled the way Eiji's handwriting had scrawled across the page, recalled the way it had made him feel as he read the words on the envelope over and over. He repeated the words in his head, returning to that warm feeling.
Dear Ash. Dear Ash. Dear Ash.
“I know,” Ash said. He didn't know what else he could say.
Eiji kept looking everywhere on Ash's face, like he was making sure he was still in one piece. Looked down to his mouth, looked like he really wanted something, and Ash knew that move, but he was too out of it, to really process it, or register what it meant.
“Are you on drugs right now?” Eiji asked. “I mean, did they give you something? For the pain.”
Ash sighed. “Yeah.” He was really tired. “A little bit.”
Eiji stroked the back of his hand. “Okay.”
Ash felt bouyant. And Eiji didn't kiss him.
“You probably think I'm being superstitious,” Eiji said, “But.” His eyes dropped to somewhere on top of the white bedsheets. He took a deep breath, and held it, then let it out slowly.
“When I got back to Tokyo, and I heard you were hurt, I thought for a second that it was because I left.” He kept stroking his thumb over Ash's hand. It felt really nice, the soft press of Eiji's fingers against his skin. “I somehow got it in my head that I could just go back home and go back to my life. That I could just pick up the pieces of everything I was trying to get away from when I came here. I thought I could try vaulting again, or apply for law school, maybe. But, when Ibe got off the phone with Max and told me what happened, I realized that, I don't think I can. I got this feeling, like. Like the reason you got hurt was because it was bad luck for me to be away from you.”
He had kept his eyes downcast while he was talking, and Ash could feel how his palms had grown a bit sweaty. His heart beat almost painfully hard against his ribcage when Eiji looked at him again. “I still think that.”
Ash looked at their joined hands. The room was starting to fade in the corners, becoming nothing more than dark shadows that could stretch on forever. Eiji's hand was really warm, and solid.
Eiji said, “So I'm never leaving you again. Just in case. I don't care if you think it's stupid.”
“Sounds good,” Ash said. Eiji's eyes were so intense, but he couldn't look away, he was happy to be pulled into them and fall asleep there. He felt heavy, he knew the drugs in his blood were going to drag him under soon, whether he wanted to or not. He wasn't strong enough to fight it anymore.
“Will you stay after I fall asleep?” Ash asked.
Eiji didn't miss a beat. “Of course.”