the human condition - amaiyo (2024)

Chapter 1: act i: the difference between luck and mercy

Chapter Text

act i.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

During a sophom*ore year track meet in college, Eiji Okumura falls wrong during his pole vault and is severely injured.

He hears the crack, feels the way his ankle shatters under him, and knows the end is looming.

He’s unsurprised but devastated all the same when his coach sets him out for the rest of the season.

After a rough month of physical therapy and more pain medicine than he thought was humanly possible for one man with a busted ankle, he pulls from his classes altogether. His family is glad that he returns home but they don’t miss the glassy eyes, the far-away stare.

He feels like he’s lost everything.

Within months Eiji’s nearly at his wits end, cooped up in the family house with a crutch and no sense of purpose or direction, when he gets a call from a New York number with a more than enticing offer.

“It’s an internship so it doesn’t pay much,” the man—Ibe Shunichi—tells him. “But we’d love to have you work with us. My photograph of you from that track meet last year got me my job, so in a way I owe all my rent payments to you,” he laughs.

Ibe and his higher-ups want Eiji to move to New York City to work with them on the ground as Ibe’s assistant photographer on a by-year contract as an intern for a journalistic magazine. Ibe had shown them some of Eiji’s photography work from high school and they’d been impressed enough to extend an actual job offer.

It doesn’t sound crazy.

Eiji had never assumed that his photography hobby would amount to much; he hadn’t really done anything with it since an exhibition he’d submitted a few pieces to during his third year of high school.

He was amazed Ibe-san even remembered him, let alone bothered to track down Eiji’s own artistic projects—and felt confident enough to vouch for Eiji for a job with a magazine in New York City, nonetheless.

But with his passport and plane ticket in hand at 0500 on a Tuesday, Eiji figures the best parts about the world are a little strange and a lot surprising.

His mom tears up as they call his flight and both his parents hug him a little too tight. His dad looks proud. They all know this is for the best, but it doesn’t ease the way his heart hurts when he tells his little sister goodbye and he hears her sniffle into the shoulder of his coat.

But maybe, if the gods are kind, taking this chance will help him find what his injury stole from him; help him heal the parts of himself that pain killers couldn’t reach.

The flight is painfully long; he’s so nervous he can barely sleep the entire seventeen hours, and he has to meet with his new landlord after he lands. He does his best to ignore the way his ankle throbs as he stumbles off his flight and prays his phone’s GPS is enough to navigate the sprawling city streets.

The city is a mess of sound and sight and people from all walks of life—so different from Eiji’s little hometown, and even bigger than his college town. There’s an anxiety in the rumble of the subway and hundreds of people shouldering past him, but he can’t deny his own excitement. Every car honk, every slam of a door, every confusing billboard of sublines just reminds him that he’s in f*cking New York.

He feels his nerves dissolve into a longing, an enticement. He’s ready for whatever this part of his life is to begin.

The world feels so much wider than he had known and it makes him giddy.

He’s late to meet his landlord; he eventually straggles into her office dragging what few real belongings he owns in a single blue suitcase and a purple duffle he’d borrowed from his dad with his ankle swelling in protest, but the woman is nothing if not welcoming. She’s warm and sweet and greets Eiji with well-practiced hospitality.

Eiji feels a little more at ease. I can do this, he thinks.

They breeze through the last of his paperwork and she offers to walk him to his unit. The building is small; it only holds four tenants per floor and is awkwardly silent for someone like Eiji who’s used to his dad pacing around on business calls and his mom calling them down for family time and his sister pretending she’s in a rebellious phase by playing her German rock bands a little louder than usual in her room.

He misses their dog terribly.

The building is a little run down and sad—but it had been the cheapest in the area and the owner had been gracious enough to rush to ready a unit for him when he had contacted her. She said she had a nephew who had moved abroad for work, knew how stressful it could be, and was happy to help make his move easier.

He was really just grateful that he had found someone so patient to work with him during the ridiculous amounts of paperwork being shuffled around for his Visa. Moving countries for work had been stressful enough that he had begun to wonder if any of the headaches would even be worth it.

So even though the wallpaper in the hallways were peeling and the buttons in the elevator were almost dead and his living room window looked out into the alley and brick of the building next door, he couldn’t complain.

Change couldn’t be perfect, he told himself. None of the things that he knew he should probably be downtrodden over could dampen his excitement because this place was his. It was a step and he had taken it.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

He had a week before he had to report to the office for his first day. His bosses wanted to give him time to settle in. Ibe-san called to check-in on him that first day to make sure Eiji wasn’t just wandering the subway like a lost soul.

“It’s like it’s own level of Hell,” Ibe muttered, obviously scorned more than once by the public transit.

Eiji cheerily told him how grateful he was for the opportunity while he ate a cup of noodles from the corner store on his bare floor, ankle on fire and eyes burning with exhaustion.

Maybe a year ago such a scenario would have been a disappointment, a sign that he had done something wrong.

But now he leaned against his dusty windowsill, listening to Ibe give him a run-down of what to expect for next week’s orientation, and felt something in his chest lighten.

He was here. He was here.

The apartment ended up requiring a little more TLC than he had expected.

He spent a whole day just scrubbing the walls; disgusting dark rivulets of smoke stain and dirt lifting from the plain cream paint, the white suds turning muddy.

Turns out the walls had been white once—the apartment was rather charming once the grime had been washed down the drain.

He gave the wood flooring a thorough scrubbing too, and found he much preferred the strong scent of pine wash over decades-old cigarette and rotting wood. He managed to force his window open, propping it up with a travel book. The city sounds filtered in and he felt a sense of excitement; like a Ghibli character about to board a train.

The last of his things arrived from Japan by the end of the week and Eiji spent most of his weekend tacking posters to the walls and arranging his bookshelf. He bought a few pots and pans to hang in the kitchen, stocked one cabinet with the cheapest spices and teas he could find. On a whim he bought a tiny rose succulent to put on his windowsill next to a mini Buddha statute he had bought in high school.

The place started to feel homey. It was still pretty threadbare, and kind of lonely most days; but it was cozy, and it was his and he was so damn proud of himself.

He hadn’t felt that way in a long while.

The Sunday before his first day of work was when his troubles began—the kind of trouble that expediting a form or paying an extra fee couldn’t solve.

That night he decided it was worth it to go to the market for some fresh produce and make something other than noodles for dinner—even if he had to fight through the subway rush with an armful of reusable bags.

There was a voicemail from his dad, and he busied himself with listening to his father’s stories while he readied to leave—it was still too early to call home. He’d return the call after dinner.

The door fell shut and the lock automatically clicked into place behind him. He gave it one hard shove to make sure it was locked up tight; when he turned to go he was so immersed in his dad’s story about the family dog stealing a whole bowl of katsudon that he didn’t notice the other man walking past—and runs into him so hard that the bags go flying from the strangers’ hands.

“sh*t,” he hears the man hiss.

A few items tumble from the fallen bag and roll to the end of the hall in a clatter. Eiji runs off to get them as the stranger kneels, picking up the grocery bag and all the other things that had tumbled onto the floor in the chaos.

Eiji sincerely hopes nothing is damaged. He’s so embarrassed he’s sure he’s going to combust.

He grabs the can and hands it back, apologizing profusely. The man looks up as he reaches out to take it back and Eiji feels his blood run cold.

If looks could kill, Eiji would drop dead right there on the musty green hallway carpet. He isn’t sure someone has ever looked at him with such pure, unadulterated disdain—the man’s entire demeanor is cold in a way that makes Eiji almost immediately shut down. His expression manages to convey “f*ck you” without the actual words.

Oh no, Eiji thinks, face hot and hands trembling.

He’s also kind of cute, but now is definitely not the time for that observation; Eiji is self-aware enough to realize that he should be more worried about the fact that the man looks murderous— dazzling green eyes aside.

Eiji stutters his way through another apology and watches as the guy dumps the cans Eiji hands him into the bag. The sharpness of his eyes and the hard line of his mouth don’t soften, don’t seem to forgive, and Eiji flounders.

“Watch it,” the man grinds out, all sharp, jutting edges. His tone cuts right through Eiji’s shame and at that point Eiji isn’t sure if he’s scared or irate—it had been an accident, was it really necessary to be so hostile to a complete stranger?

The man turns to unlock his door and shove it open with one broad shoulder. The door shuts hard enough to rattle the frame—Eiji feels it in his bones.

Eiji’s phone keeps prattling on, the voicemail asking if he wants to “save, delete, or exit” over and over. It takes longer than he wants to admit for his brain to reboot.

What a rude neighbor.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Other than learning that his neighbor is f*cking terrifying and most likely to stab him in the elevator, Eiji’s week goes relatively smoothly.

The commute to work is quick and the office is nice. His bosses are kind and treat him to lunch after his orientation.

Eiji had met Ibe Shunichi once during a track meet his freshman year of college and he was as warm and welcoming as Eiji remembered. Max Lobo is dorky and supportive in a way that makes Eiji miss his father. He’s passionate about their work, though, and welcomes Eiji to the team with a firm handshake and clap on the back.

They seem excited to work with him and Eiji can feel the positivity bleeding over; he thinks moving to New York for this job might have been the perfect decision.

Work was interesting and Eiji woke to his alarm every morning, eager to greet whatever assignment the day would hand down. He was fine doing the grunt work of editing or stock photo comp, and the days Max and Ibe brought Eiji along for interviews or city shots were some of the most exciting.

The city was even bigger than he had imagined—they never visited the same places twice. Meeting with people from every corner of life, every background, every language and ethnicity and aspiration; it all lit something in Eiji that he hadn’t felt since he had stopped competing nearly a year ago.

He couldn’t quite put words to how his work breathed life back into him; all he knew was he owed Ibe and Max a debt that he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to repay.

The week was also kind enough to keep Eiji from running into his next door neighbor a second time. Sometimes he thought he heard the man’s coming and goings at odd hours, but they didn’t cross paths and there was no other sound from the man. No loud music, no irritating thumping, no blood curdling screams.

Eiji was happy to pretend that the other man didn’t exist as long as he was considerate enough to keep to himself. It all suited Eiji just fine.

Eiji did finally meet Ms. Detti, the neighbor across the hall. She was elderly with a grey knot of hair and a cane and was happy to talk Eiji’s ear off the evening he held the elevator door for her; they became fast friends after that.

She reminded him a bit of his grandmother, and the thought brought on the first real wave of homesickness—it passed quick enough, but he made a hasty call home that night all the same.

Ms. Detti lived alone and her adult son would visit a few times a week to check on her; Eiji met him once in passing, and he was handsome and pleasant with good taste in tea. Ms. Detti seemed deeply pleased that the two of them got along so easily.

Some evenings she would stop by to bring Eiji leftovers from lunch. Eiji was grateful for the homecooked meals but felt like he was taking advantage in some way. His fridge was stocked with half-full Tupperware.

“You’re too kind,” Eiji sighed, acting put out as Ms. Detti handed over a small plastic container of casserole. She laughed and patted his shoulder.

“You’re too thin. You work too much—and I cook too damn much,” she protested, all bellowing laughs and rosy cheeks behind her thick glasses.

Eiji started to say something but lost his train of thought when the elevator at the end of the hall ‘ding’ed and his murderous blond neighbor appeared like a nightmarish vision.

Eiji was well aware that the man was attractive by even the highest of standards—and maybe if his expression didn’t scream ‘I just killed a man’ at all times he might even be charming.

But, as it was, he looked like a wronged man on a warpath seeking blood money and Eiji really wanted nothing to do with that mess.

Eiji took a cautious step back into his apartment and prayed to be ignored.

Ms. Detti didn’t seem to share Eiji’s sentiments; she perked up, eyes twinkling behind her glasses, and waved the other man down. Eiji barely refrained from shushing her.

“Look who it is!” She cooed as the man approached. “I’ve been wondering where you ran off to, Ash,” she chided, tugging on the man’s black sleeve as he neared.

So his name was Ash. Eiji wasn’t sure he wanted more information—would knowing more make him more likely to get killed? That was how that worked, right? The fact that this Ash knew which apartment was Eiji’s was bad enough.

Even just his name sounded like someone who ran with gangs and committed crimes after daylight. Someone Eiji would be stupid to piss off—but you only get to make a first impression once.

Ash glanced down at Ms. Detti and his expression seemed to soften. “You know how it gets,” he answered, cryptic and lofty, before stepping around her to head for his own apartment with a distracted wave.

“Oh, and let me know when you’re low on your medicine again. I’ll get you more,” he called before disappearing inside.

Huh. He was almost cordial. And no stab wounds. Eiji would take what he could get.

Ms. Detti turned back to Eiji again and her eyes widened.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she told him, steadying Eiji with a well-meaning hand on his arm.

“You know him, huh?” Eiji asked, fiddling with the edges of the Tupperware in his hands. Ms. Detti hummed.

“He moved in last year—he’s a sweet boy. Keeps to himself but helps me out when my son can’t,” she explained. She sounded fond—she definitely had a sweet spot for him—and Eiji quietly wondered how Ash had won her approval so thoroughly.

“’Sweet’ isn’t the word I would use,” Eiji admitted, chagrined. He had never been the gossiping type but Ash hit all his buttons in exactly the wrong way—he couldn’t believe someone as rude as him could con a sweet old woman like Ms. Detti into believing he was anything other than a jerk.

Ms. Detti laughed. “Don’t let all the rough edges fool you, hon. He’s like a feisty kitten—it’s all show,” she promised.

More like a tiger with a thorn in his side, Eiji thought. But as long as Ash kept to himself and their paths didn’t cross any more than necessary, Eiji supposed he could bear it for the rest of his lease.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Suddenly, Ash was everywhere.

Exiting the elevator for their floor at 7am when Eiji was heading downstairs to leave for work; standing in the hall taking a call when Eiji was leaving to meet Ibe’s team for drinks; he even ran into him once at the corner market a few blocks away from their complex.

Every encounter, despite the varying degrees of unlucky and odd, ended the same way— Eiji would recognize the mess of bright blond hair and arrogant posture, feel himself get nauseous with panic and freeze as he floundered over what to do.

And then of course, because the gods were jokesters, Ash would glance up and make eye contact like he had known Eiji was approaching—which would only succeed in making Eiji panic more and quickly flee back the way he came.

He was only mildly embarrassed of how childish it all was.

The most irritating times were when Eiji wandered down to the main lobby to check his mailbox and found Ash there, flipping through his own mail in front of the wall of metal boxes. It felt like he could go nowhere without Ash appearing like he was waiting for him—even just to get his electric bill.

The first two times Eiji managed to run back to the elevator without incident, but the third time Ash’s voice stopped him cold before he could retreat.

“Hey,” Ash called, just as Eiji was turning to leave. His voice was as sharp as Eiji remembered—blades over gravel and cold-cut steel. It gave Eiji goosebumps.

When Eiji turned around Ash was staring at him, and Eiji was once again struck with how handsome he might have thought Ash was if he wasn’t the living embodiment of ‘guy I cross the street to avoid’.

He’s so f*cking intimidating. He’s probably the type to drink his coffee black and carry around a switchblade just for the hell of it, Eiji thinks.

“Is there a reason you’re avoiding me?” Ash asks. He sounds insulted but Eiji can’t imagine why someone like Ash would be hurt over someone like Eiji trying to dodge him.

Because you’re awful and rude? Because you’re kind of scary? Because I’d rather lay in traffic than have to have any other interaction with you, ever?

Ash’s eyes are sharp, the mail in his hands forgotten. Ash’s focus is completely on him; Eiji wishes he was dead, but only a little. Just dead enough that Ash would get bored and leave.

“No,” Eiji squeaks out. Ash’s blond eyebrows raise ever so slightly and Eiji knows his nerves are pathetically obvious. Eiji clears his throat and tries again.

“Of course not, I realized forgot something upstairs,” he lies.

He watches the way Ash’s expression pinches, analyzing him, and wonders why he needs to try to save face with someone so unpleasant anyway.

He supposes it might have to do with the fact that Ash looks like he could lift Eiji and dump him out the window of his fifth-floor apartment without breaking a sweat—Eiji refuses to acknowledge the way his fingers tremble as he scrutinizes Ash’s broad shoulders and thick biceps.

The short sleeves of Ash’s shirt do wonders for the thick cords of muscle in his arms, an annoying factoid Eiji hadn’t been cursed with before, and it makes Eiji all the more bitter. Why did he get to be rude, scary, and attractive?

What deity did Eiji piss off? Was this because he forgot to feed the class fish in elementary school?

Ash scoffs a little, turning back to the envelope he had been inspecting before Eiji had stolen his attention.

“You’re an awful liar,” he tells Eiji.

“Who says I’m lying?” Eiji asks, the back of his neck prickling with the swell of heat overtaking his face. He knows he’s been caught but he can’t stop his natural impulse to be argumentative over the accusation; who was Ash to accuse him of anything?

“I do,” Ash says simply, shrugging—bored in all his apparent infinite knowledge.

“I suppose you think you’re always right,” Eiji grits out.

“Only when I am right,” Ash swings his mailbox closed and turns to face Eiji fully. “Just so happens to be always. Purely coincidental,” he says.

Eiji’s annoyance overtakes him and he stomps over to the rows of boxes, pulling his keys from his pocket. His mailbox is next to Ash’s and he does his best to concentrate on ignoring the fact that the worst neighbor he’s ever had is standing less than a foot away, sizing him up like Eiji’s a meal—or a target.

Eiji could reach out and touch his stupid black shirt. The thought just annoys him more.

He starts poking through his own stack of mail and hears Ash huff; if he wasn’t insulted before, he definitely sounded like he was now.

“Incredible,” the other man mutters. He pushes past Eiji and brushes so close he nudges his shoulder. Something in Eiji’s stomach shrivels and curls, ugly and angry, and he’s unable to think about anything other than the sheer audacity--

Who does this brat think he is? He snaps at Eiji over a simple mistake, glares Eiji down like he’s the dirt on his stupid red converse, calls him a liar, and has the gall to act like Eiji’s done something to offend him?

What an absolute ass.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

They meet again when Eiji is visiting Ms. Detti for tea a few days later, because Eiji has been cursed and his suffering has no end.

Eiji’s trying to explain the ryokan his family used to visit in the summer when there’s a knock on the front door. Ms. Detti begins to reach for her cane but Eiji stands to answer it for her.

“You need to keep off that knee,” he reminds her gently. He sets his cup aside and crosses the front room, Ms. Detti huffing and puffing about how Eiji doesn’t need to dote on her.

He had been expecting Ms. Detti’s son to stop by, but much to his chagrin he finds Ash leaning in the doorway, clutching a pharmacy bag and some Tupperware to his chest.

Part of Eiji is still hyperaware of the intimidating cut of the older man; how icy his gaze is as it slides over Eiji in mild surprise. Another part of him puffs up in indignation and wants to kick him in the shins.

Another, much smaller, part quietly notes how nicely Ash’s red hoodie and ripped jeans suit Ash’s cutting features and bright blond hair, and the urge to kick him in the shin grows.

Eiji wouldn’t be bold to classify the look on Ash’s face as a smirk, he thinks. “Did you find what you had forgotten the other day?” Ash sneers.

“Did you find any manners?” Eiji snaps.

Eiji is sure he looks as surprised as Ash does at the response, but damn it felt good—and the look on Ash’s face felt even better. Before Ash can assemble something no doubt scathing in return, Ms. Detti rounds the corner, looking elated.

“Ash, how are you sweetheart?” She calls, waving him in. Eiji steps aside and Ash shuffles past, elbows brushing. Eiji watches in mild fascination as Ash toes off his red converse and sets them neatly by the door.

So he does have some manners, Eiji thinks. He’s just an asshole to me, I guess.

Ash moves about as if he’s familiar and comfortable with Ms. Detti’s little apartment. Eiji watches Ash stack Tupperware in one of the cabinets and wonders how often Ash was here.

“New dose of your heart medicine,” Ash explains, handing the pharmacy bag to the elderly woman. He doesn’t acknowledge Eiji but he keeps his voice low. “They jacked up the prices again, but the Wong family over in Chintatown helped me out.”

Ms. Detti rests a hand on Ash’s arm. “You do too much for an old woman like me,” she tells him.

“Nonsense,” Ash protests, patting her wrinkled hand.

Eiji feels like a voyeur, witnessing some strange part of Ash that he has no desire to learn or know about. Putting on a good show for an elderly woman doesn’t endear him to Eiji, or at least he tries to convince himself that it doesn’t.

He can’t deny it’s sweet, the gentle way he handles their elderly neighbor. Like he actually has human emotions other than “anger” and “douchebag”.

All of it is unsettling—Eiji feels his stomach knot, confused.

“Thank you for the tea, Ms. Detti,” Eiji cuts in. Ash side-eyes him for less than a moment, his gaze darting away too quick for Eiji to make sense of it. “I have a bunch of editing to do for Ibe-san, and the deadline is Friday, so I should be going.”

Ms. Detti thanks him for his company, chatters on a little longer about how Japan sounds so lovely and hearing his stories makes her wish she could see it for herself. Eiji nods along but all his brain can focus on is Ash at the sink, back turned towards them as he fiddles with the dishes. He knows Ash is still listening.

Ash reaches out to set a plate on the drying rack and Eiji watches his slender fingers, the sharp angles of his wrist, the way his sleeves are rolled to his elbows in a way that Eiji definitely doesn’t find attractive, and thinks huh.

Eiji hears Ash’s front door shut nearly two hours later; he briefly wonders what he and Ms. Detti had talked about for so long.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

In the morning, Ash and Eiji are leaving at the same time. Eiji only realizes once he’s leaned against the back wall of the elevator in a pre-caffeine stupor and sees Ash at the end of the hall, racing to the elevator and trying to wave at Eiji to hold the door.

He looks disheveled and exhausted but there’s still something demanding in his tone as he tells Eiji to “wait” that raises Eiji’s hackles; Eiji’s not a trained dog and he sure as hell isn’t in the mood for Ash’s barbed personality this early.

He tries to subtly press the “close door” button but like most things in the building it’s junk. Ash catches the door just as it starts to slide shut and halts it with an elbow. He winces at the crack of bone against metal before moving to stand as far from Eiji as possible.

“You just tried to close the door on me,” he says, teeth practically bared. An accusation, not a question.

“Ah, no,” Eiji starts to lie, but Ash looks away and rolls his eyes.

“Don’t lie, I can tell,” he snaps.

Eiji can feel his exasperation starting to seep through. Who speaks like this to someone they don’t even know? He wonders if Ash was raised by a pack of feral raccoons; Ms. Detti was living proof enough that not all New Yorkers were mannerless cretins like Ash, but Ash was enough of a headache that it made it real hard for Eiji to keep the faith.

“How?” Eiji asks, crossing his arms.

Ash fixes his gaze on Eiji’s face, and Eiji starts to think he liked it more when Ash was just pouting at their reflections in the elevator wall like a child. His gaze is unnerving, like he’s seeing more than he lets on.

His eyes are pretty, Eiji thinks. He lets the thought slide and refuses to address it—he is exhausted, after all. His brain is basically offline before 0800.

“You’re easy,” Ash shrugs.

Eiji’s English may not be perfect, but he understands it well enough to know that there’s no way to read that as a compliment. He feels his face heat and whirls to look at the taller man.

“Excuse me?”

“Easy to read,” Ash quickly amends. He has the decency to look a little abashed but crosses his arms and continues to stare off at nothing—probably pretending Eiji isn’t there. The floors crawl by and Eiji can feel the thrum of aggravation just under his skin.

Eiji spends the last moments of their trip down to riffle through his English vocabulary to properly give name to how Ash makes him feel. Thankfully Max has quite a colorful mouth. When the elevator slows to a stop and the doors start to pry open, Eiji sighs and sees Ash turn towards him in the edge of his vision.

“You’re such a prick,” he mutters, just loud enough for Ash to pick up on.

He doesn’t wait for a retort or reaction—he has to get to work. He’s helping Ibe and Max in an important interview today.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

“Who is this guy we’re interviewing?” Eiji asks. Ibe is fiddling with his camera and Max is somewhere in the building talking to a man that had been introduced to Eiji as the chief of police. As an intern he wasn’t given the more delicate details of their projects, and apparently this project was made of glass.

“A young man who’s a member of a gang in Chinatown,” Ibe whispers. “We’ve been trying to interview one of the gangs for months now. We initially wanted to meet with their boss, but he would only agree to send another member instead.”

“Gang member?” Eiji spluttered.

“Don’t worry too much,” Ibe told him with what he probably thought was a reassuring pat on the back. Eiji didn’t feel very reassured.

The man ended up being more of a boy than anything—definitely younger than Eiji, and probably the shortest person in the room. He was thin, even with a silk bomber over his shoulders, but there was an edge to his expression that left little room for doubt about who he was.

No one could emulate the confident but cautious way he held himself—it was something learned through fire and grit.

Eiji was struck with the odd thought that he had seen it before but he couldn’t quite remember who.

The interview went quickly, Ibe and Max asking general questions about the gang that the boy was affiliated with and how he ended up in his position. The boy—Sing, he introduced himself as—was respectful but adamant that his gang affiliate deserved more credit.

“Before the boss took over, you couldn’t even walk around Chinatown in the daylight. It was chaos,” he said, eyes far away. Eiji was struck by the authenticity of him and snapped a quick shot.

“You believe that these newer gang sects are doing more harm than good?” Max asked.

“I know they are,” Sing told them. He folded his hands neatly in front of him on the table. Eiji took a shot of the bike gloves he wore, contrasting against the blue and white silk of his cuffs.

“We’re trying to provide for the people the city forgets about and keep them safe. If the high and mighty city elite won’t do it, we will.”

Eiji couldn’t deny he was moved. The boy had resolve and was so terribly earnest that he could probably sway even the most cold-hearted.

Whether or not his boss was truly doing the right thing, Sing whole-heartedly believed he was.

He was very different from what Eiji imagined when he thought of gangs and their violent affiliates. It was interesting, and jarring—because regardless of the circ*mstance, Sing was still just a kid who’d been a victim of cruelty and his only way out had been organized crime.

“How old are you?” Eiji blurted. Max glanced over at him and gave him a reassuring smile, so Eiji assumed he wasn’t about to be fired for interrupting.

Sing seemed a little abashed. “Sixteen,” he muttered, eyes narrowed. Eiji might say he was even pouting—it was endearing.

Sing’s anxiety became palpable even to Max, and he called for a 15-minute break to give Sing a breather. Max stood to head outside for a smoke and left the three of them at the table with the rest of the crew milling about nearby.

Ibe fiddled with the settings on his camera, reviewing the video segments. “So how’s it going with that neighbor of yours?” he asked.

Eiji shrugged, not really wanting to admit that they had taken a step down from ‘fearful’ to ‘about to throw hands in the parking lot’ as Max once put it. English slang was strange but Eiji kind of unironically loved it. Something about the insane phrase really captured Eiji’s anger and exasperation.

“Ash is the same as always—a mannerless brat,” he huffed.

Eiji noticed the way Sing’s head snapped up, curious eyes focused on Eiji and Ibe across the table. The cell phone in his hands—a burner, Ibe had quietly pointed out—was forgotten.

“Ash?” He said. His eyebrows nearly reached his hairline, eyes wide.

“Um, yes,” Eiji glanced away. Being scrutinized by a well-known gang member, sixteen or not, was disconcerting. “He's my neighbor. We don’t really get along.”

“Ash Lynx?” Sing pressed, leaning forward.

Eiji was starting to feel a little overwhelmed by the glint in Sing’s eyes.

“I don’t know his last name,” Eiji admitted. “We’ve only spoken a few times. Another person told me his name.”

“Tall, blond guy?”

“Uh, yes.”

Eiji could feel the panic beginning to creep up; there was no possible scenario in this universe where Sing being so knowledgeable about Eiji’s next door neighbor could spell anything good for him.

Sing hummed, thoughtful, and glanced down at something on his phone before looking back to Eiji. Ibe seemed tense next to him and Eiji was suddenly aware that he was gripping his camera a little too hard.

“You should be careful,” Sing’s tone was somehow both flippant and ominous. Eiji’s stomach was in knots.

“Is he part of your gang?” Eiji asked before he could stop himself. He wasn’t completely sure if he wanted a direct answer to that—or any kind of answer, really.

“Ash? Part of Chinatown?” Sing laughed. “No, he’s not one of us.”

Eiji felt himself release the deep breath he had held in anticipation for screaming—terrified or frustrated, depending entirely on Sing. “Oh, that’s good—”

“He’s actually the leader of the downtown gangs that we sometimes work with. I think he heads three of them now, to be exact.”

Sing’s smile is almost angelic until Eiji trips over a chair and nearly brains himself on the table.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Eiji orders out for dinner and then spends at least an hour that night going over every interaction he’s had in the last month with Ash. There weren’t many, but boy were they memorable.

Eiji quickly realizes that he’s not only basically run down a man who heads multiple gangs, but Eiji had been downright hostile to him—more than once.

Either Ash has more restraint than Eiji had given him credit for, or Eiji’s luck is taking a strange turn for the better. If it can be called “better” luck while having the misfortune to end up living next to Ash at all and basically assaulting him the first time they met.

Or maybe Ash was just waiting for the right time to quietly murder him in the night. Who f*cking knows at this point.

Eiji’s mother calls to check in; it’s still early for them and Eiji is trying to wind down from his minor panic over his gangster neighbor, but talking to his mother helps. Dad started a vegetable garden and it hasn’t been going well. His little sister was doing great in school but mom was a little weary about some new friends she had made over break.

That just makes Eiji think of Ash again; had Ash been the friend that parents were cautious of? Had he always been so callous and rude, or was he a victim of a reckless system the way Sing had been?

Everything about Ash was terrifying and confusing—at least that was consistent, if nothing else.

While Eiji is debating whether to tell his mother that he had spent his day interviewing gang affiliates downtown with his bosses, there’s a knock on his front door. He stands to answer it before he can remember that he should probably be more cautious considering who he shares a wall with.

He’s startled to find Ash standing in the hall, bag slung over his shoulder and expression a close approximation of pathetic.

He’s had a decent life, Eiji reasons.

“Ah, mom? Can I call you back?” If he’s going to get gutted in his front room he’d rather his mother didn’t hear.

Ash waits patiently as Eiji bids his mother goodbye, promising to call her back in a few minutes and yes, everything was fine there was just someone at the door.

Never mind that the man shuffling his feet on Eiji’s welcome mat is probably a well-known gang leader in the greater New York area. It would probably be more insulting to just shut the door in his face at this point, and Eiji wasn’t too excited at the idea of being shot before his dinner arrived.

Eiji slips his phone in his pocket and takes a deep breath. He can do this. He can talk to Ash like a normal person—be amiable with him, even.

“Are you done doing your breathing exercises or whatever it is you’re doing to pretend like I’m not here?” Ash asks.

Maybe this was a test. Maybe the gods were testing his patience.

If that was the case, the gods should know by now that Eiji had none left when it came to this man.

“What do you want,” Eiji bites out. Ash’s expression and posture give nothing away; shoulders hunched, hands in the pockets of his green jacket. Handsome and aloof and untouchable, but with the spark of something in his green eyes that makes Eiji stand a little straighter.

At the very least, Eiji would be able to say he died fighting.

“I came by to talk,” Ash sighs, tension bleeding from his shoulders in a very controlled motion, like it was taking all of Ash’s patience to be here.

Eiji’s irritation overshadowed his surprise so quickly it should have given him whiplash.

“Yes, you’re very skilled at that,” Eiji rolls his eyes. He doesn’t miss the way Ash’s mouth opens in a cute little ‘o’ of surprise—but it passes, hastily replaced with an irked little furrow to his blond brows.

“Are you always so—”

Ash hesitates, searching for a word that Eiji can’t fathom, and somehow it grates on Eiji’s nerves all the more. He wants to grab Ash’s broad shoulders and shake the insult out of him. He’s been so quick to cut every time they’ve spoken so far that the pause makes Eiji want to scream.

“So what?” Eiji snaps, crossing his arms. Ash’s eyes track the movement and Eiji tries to pretend the back of his neck doesn’t prickle with warmth.

“Hostile,” Ash growls.

“You started it!”

“How is your attitude my fault?”

“You’ve been an ass since the day I bumped into you!” Eiji protests—because it’s true, dammit. Eiji had made a mistake, but a mistake shouldn’t damn you, he thinks. He’d corrected it to the best he was able, had apologized more than was probably necessary; any issue Ash has is his and his alone.

Eiji wasn’t going to let himself be treated so poorly by a man who probably didn’t even know his name.

“First of all, you practically shoved me down—you’re clumsy and an absolute menace. Second, I—” Ash removed one hand from his jacket pocket to scrub it through his hair, making it stand up. If it had been anyone other than Ash then Eiji might have even thought it was cute.

But it was Ash and he was an overgrown brat so it was absolutely not cute, not in the least.

“Ugh, I came to apologize about that! You caught me on a bad day and I think I gave you the wrong impression—”

“No, I think the impression was pretty accurate.”

“I’m trying to apologize here,” Ash grits out, hackles raised.

Eiji didn’t really want an apology—and he sure as hell didn’t want Ash’s half-assed, passive aggressive attempt of one.

“It’s a sh*tty apology,” Eiji informs him. Part of him wants to reach out and grab the dumb hood of his jacket—for what reason, he isn’t sure. He just knows he hates Ash and his awful attitude and Eiji’s chest feels like it could burst.

“A sh*tty apology for a sh*tty guy,” Ash grumbles. He shoves his hands so deep in his pockets his shoulders round and he looks like a sulky teenager who’s just been told he couldn’t go to the concert—not quite angry, not like a moment ago, but deeply disappointed in something.

“I don’t even know why I bothered coming over here—you’re impossible,” he scoffs.

Eiji reaches for the door, channeling every overdramatic soap opera he had ever watched with his mother in the middle of the day when he was sick, readying himself to dramatically slam it in Ash’s face.

“Then don’t come over!”

“Fine—apology redacted!”

Ash turns to storm off to his own apartment before Eiji can react. He slams the door just for that “f*ck you” effect anyway. He knows Ash hears it even if Eiji didn’t get to break Ash’s nose like he wanted.

Eiji calls his mother back when he can finally hold his phone without shaking. She asks who had been at the door; he lies and says it was just a chatty delivery guy with his dinner.

He’s not quite prepared to admit to his mother that he may kill a prominent New York gang leader with his own bare hands.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Chapter 2: act ii: what's in a name

Chapter Text

act ii.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

The day after Eiji and Ash have their fight, Eiji wakes up with a sharp pain behind his eyes and a searing burn in his throat that makes him wonder if he’s being punished—he would kind of deserve it, he knows.

Part of him feels a little guilty over how he handled Ash the night before; letting his anger take over the conversation before it really got anywhere. It hadn’t exactly been fair.

Ash had been trying. In his own stupid, rude way of doing so—he had tried to put forth the effort.

Maybe I should have counted that worth more than I did, he thinks miserably.

He makes a quick call to Max and Ibe while he putters around making a cup of warm tea; both men agree that Eiji should stay home for the day and rest, and Eiji vows to finish some of the typographical editing for their piece on Sing while he’s bedridden.

They remind him to take it easy and let them know if he needed anything—and then Eiji is left to wallow alone in his viral misery for the next twenty-four hours.

Around 1100 is when it starts.

Eiji had decided that his first course of action on his sick day would be to go back to bed and not move for the next six hours; so he curled up on his futon and quickly nodded off in his two-blanket cocoon, grateful to be able to rest.

In less than an hour he’s terrifyingly jarred awake by a rhythmic, heavy pounding through the wall that shakes his apartment like a creature’s heartbeat.

It’s bass, he realizes blearily. The pulsation of a song that belonged more in a Friday night club set than in their decrepit apartment complex before noon on a Wednesday. It buzzes through his skin and bones, making him feel more disoriented than his fever had.

It’s loudest just behind Eiji’s head, the centre of the music seemingly coming from the wall he shares with Ash.

Exhausted, Eiji can’t find it in himself to do more than lift a hand and pound against the wall twice—not that Eiji would want to go next door and see Ash’s dumb face even if he wasn’t bleary and sick.

There are two heavy knocks returned from the other side of the wall, a little further left from where Eiji is sitting. The music continues to blare with no signs of stopping.

“Are you serious?” Eiji says aloud. He hits the wall one more time for good measure, reeling back and pounding against the cheap drywall as hard as he can manage, but only gets another knock back for his trouble. The sound is mocking—“I hear you!” it seems to laugh.

Eiji’s contemplative guilt over his last encounter with Ash all but vanishes.

This little sh*t.

“Hey!” Eiji tries to call. His voice is rough and the physical strain of attempting to project it over the sound of Ash’s music is rewarded with a sharp pain that Eiji is less than thrilled about.

He’s sure he can’t be heard through the overcharged bass but he tries anyway. “Ash, turn it down!”

Eiji waits as patiently as he’s able but there’s no sign he’s been heard. The sound shifts to something slower but the bass drags through the walls and futon still—a sensual song, nice and slow and enticing.

Eiji can’t sleep like this. He feels the pinprick of a headache behind his dry eyes and sighs so hard it physically pains him.

He uses his (this time justified) anger to force himself to his feet and stagger next door.

If nothing else, at least he could say Ash motivated him—though there was a stark difference between an artistic muse and a motivation for homicide.

He pounds against Ash’s chipping front door, the blanket still clutched around his trembling shoulders making him feel like an irritable child.

He feels like he might faint right there in the hall—his head isn’t quite right, like it’s been stuffed with cotton. He really just wants to go back to bed.

While he waits he wonders if Ash does this every day and Eiji had just never been home to hear, or if this was special torture because of their fight from the night before.

Either way—how inconsiderate can you be?

No one answers right away, so Eiji knocks a second time—his knuckles sting a little from how hard he hits it. “Ash! Ash!”

He will not be ignored by this insolent little—

The door flies open and Eiji nearly screams at the abruptness, and then again in confused embarrassment.

The man in the doorway is definitely not Ash.

“Ash isn’t home right now!” The unfamiliar man chirps like an assistant taking a phone message. “Can I help you?”

He’s tall, Eiji begrudgingly notices. Tall enough that Eiji has to tilt his head back to look into his face—definitely taller than Ash. His hair is styled in a bright purple mohawk with the close-shaved sides betraying his naturally dark hair. There’s a smile on his face but a pair of dark sunglasses obscure his eyes, and Eiji is hesitant.

“I, uh—” Eiji stutters a little. He vaguely points over the handsome strangers’ shoulder. “The music?”

The man glances back into the apartment; the door isn’t wide enough to see past the man’s broad shoulders and it’s rather dim behind him. The music is even louder without a door to temper it and it’s sort of making Eiji feel nauseous with the way he can feel it reverberating through him.

“Oh, sh*t—is it too loud?” The guy asks, laughing as he runs a hand through the back of his eccentric hair. He doesn’t sound unkind, just surprised and a little chagrined—as if it had been a genuine oversight.

He disappears for a moment and suddenly the music is just a quiet lull in the background. When the man returns he’s smiling, wide and bright.

“You must be the neighbor then,” he tells Eiji. He even uses air-quotes around “the neighbor”. Eiji grimaces at the thought of what he’s probably heard.

You only get one chance to make a first impression. Maybe he could do better with him than Ash.

“Yes, I live next door to Ash,” he says. He tries to pretend that he isn’t swaying on his feet as he holds out a hand. The blanket slips from his shoulder a little and Eiji is vaguely aware that he’s a bit of a disaster at the moment—a fact he sorely regrets.

“I’m Okumura Eiji,” he smiles, and knows it probably looks awkwardly dazed.

The man smiles back, snatching up his hand in a warm and firm grip and shaking it enthusiastically. “Shorter,” he says.

“I’m sorry?” Eiji leans forward a bit, unsure if he heard correctly. The man’s laugh is brighter than the stars. He’s kind of charming.

“My name—Shorter,” he explains. Eiji laughs a little too, thoroughly embarrassed at himself. He wishes he could see Shorter’s eyes behind his shades.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to finally meet you—I was starting to think you weren’t real. Cute accent, by the way,” Shorter tells him and Eiji flushes so deep he worries that Shorter might notice. Eiji was tired of embarrassing himself in front of cute guys; it was really making this whole “move to New York and start a new life” thing much harder than it needed to be.

“You don’t look so good, Eiji—are you okay?”

Well, he noticed.

“I’m sick actually,” Eiji admits.

Shorter suddenly looks embarrassed. “Oh, wow—you’re home sick and here I am blasting music at noon like an asshole. sh*t I’m sorry, man!”

Shorter is so different from Ash that Eiji might as well have whiplash. Shorter actually seemed considerate and kind—someone Eiji wouldn’t mind living next door. How can someone as sweet as Shorter be connected to someone like Ash? It couldn’t possibly be by choice on Shorter’s part.

He can’t stop himself from asking, “Are you a friend of Ash’s? I’ve never seen you before.”

Shorter smiles and actually lowers his sunglasses to wink at Eiji like they were sharing a secret. “Something like that,” he tells Eiji, quiet.

Well. That’s something to unpack—but before he can begin to do so, or question how Shorter had seemed so familiar with him, Ash appears like creature summoned.

“What are you doing in my apartment?” Ash asks, suddenly at Eiji’s side. Eiji yelps and flails in a way that’s very undignified and he will refuse to ever admit to. He knows he’s out of it but how had he not heard the elevator at all?

Ash has his hood pulled up and looks exhausted—pale and drawn. Eiji unconsciously shuffles a little closer to Shorter, as if the punk boy might protect him. His cold has left him feeling uncomfortably vulnerable.

“How did you even get in? You can’t even get in the lobby without a key,” Ash points out.

Shorter pulls a silver key ring from his pocket and jingles them in Ash’s face. “I made a set.”

Ash makes a grab for them but Shorter is faster, holding them high above his head.

“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal,” Ash whines. Shorter dramatically covers his heart with one hand, looking aghast.

“You? Worried about something illegal?”

“You’re the worst,” Ash tells him. The sigh that follows speaks volumes—there’s something heavy in it. Eiji almost feels sympathy for this boy that’s obviously carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders; but then Ash turns to him and looks him over in a way that makes Eiji want to shrink in on himself.

“You look awful,” he says—plain and direct. “Go home,” he snaps before nudging Shorter inside and quickly following. The lock automatically clicks shut behind them.

Ass.

He trudges back to his apartment to collapse on his futon and wonder just who was Shorter, and what he had been doing in Ash’s apartment.

How close were he and Ash? Were they in a gang together, if Ash is who Eiji is suspicious of him being?

Were they dating?

All the possibilities he comes up with just make him feel strangely uneasy.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Most of their encounters after that range on a scale of one-to-five; a one is just them walking past one another as if the other doesn’t even exist—Eiji is proud of himself on those good days.

Threes usually involved eye contact and an eye roll or two. Eiji wanted to elbow him out of the way of the elevator or stomp on his stupid shoes, but he was determined to keep to himself.

Today was about a four.

Ash is standing in the elevator on his phone as Eiji is heading that way to leave for work. As the door slides shut Ash glances up, sees Eiji—and has the nerve to smile and wave before he disappears from sight.

Eiji decides to take the dusty, poorly lit stairwell down to the lobby in hopes of heading Ash off. He isn’t sure what he’s going to do but there’s an energy buzzing just beneath his skin, ready for some form of confrontation.

Eiji knows he should probably analyze what it is about Ash that agitates him so thoroughly that he wants to physically fight him—but he’ll save that for the next time Max pays for Eiji’s drinks at the bar.

Eiji manages to make it down first. The elevator dings behind him and he pauses outside the complex front door, holding it open as he watches Ash approach. He looks suspicious but his steps don’t falter.

When Ash is within arms reach, Eiji lets the door swing shut—and hears Ash yelp from the other side. He gives a docile wave at the blond through the glass. Ash is rubbing at his nose, glaring and looking to be in general disbelief.

Eiji is too busy laughing at Ash’s face to remember to move out of the way and when Ash angrily shoves through the door, it smacks Eiji solidly in the face as well.

“Kuso,” he clutches at his face and Ash actually looks surprised, like he hadn’t meant to do that.

It just stings more than anything—as does Eiji’s pride. He supposes it’s his well-deserved karmic payoff for being a petty brat.

But it’s also kind of funny. Just a little.

Eiji can’t stop himself from laughing—a small chuckle that dissolves into Eiji clutching his stomach. He tries to hide it in his hands and fails, the sound spilling out uncontrolled. This was all so ridiculous and childish and dumb.

He knows he needs to hold himself accountable for his part in the animosity between him and Ash. And he definitely shouldn’t be letting himself stoop so low as to resort to ridiculous middle school antics. And he sure as hell shouldn’t be instigating—it wasn’t quite fair to hold Ash to a higher standard and then poke and prod him for fun anyway.

But Ash drew something out of him. He wasn’t even sure what it was, exactly, but he could feel it under his skin and behind his ribs like the physical flutter of excitement. A tremor deep inside him begging him to do something --he just hadn’t figured out what yet.

Ash stares at him, expression painfully incredulous and confused, before he shakes his head in disbelief and stomps off in the opposite direction.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Eiji is preoccupied with steeping tea for Ms. Detti and himself at the kitchen counter when he hears Ash quietly enter the front room.

“Good to see you, dear,” Eleanor tells Ash in that kindly way she always has, like seeing the other man genuinely brought her joy. Eiji couldn’t fathom it.

She shuts the door behind Ash as he starts to remove his shoes and Eiji finds himself turning to observe.

Ash smiles—a genuine, beatific smile. A warm thing that transforms his whole face and makes him look young and otherworldly despite the deep shadows under his eyes.

It’s a good look on him.

Eiji refuses to acknowledge the way his heart stutters a little at the sight and turns away to hide his conflicted expression. In doing so he misses his cup, spilling water from the kettle onto the countertop, and that’s a bit harder to hide.

“Oh, you spilled a bit, Eiji,” Eleanor tells him gently. Eiji murmurs an apology in the direction of the floor and she laughs, handing him a rag from the oven door. Eiji takes it and knows the tips of his ears are probably luminescent.

Ash is watching him and as indignant as Eiji feels towards the man, his attention is making Eiji’s hands shake.

Everything’s dumb, Eiji decides. He’s embarrassed and jittery and part of him just wants to leave.

“We were about to have some tea—come, sit,” Eleanor guides Ash to the dining table and the two of them settle while Eiji begins steeping a third cup.

Eiji had been rather forthcoming with how he felt about Ash; Ms. Detti had found it all amusing, grinning at Eiji and calling their squabbles cute, like they were two kids throwing dirt on the playground instead of adult men being embarrassingly petty.

Eiji had let it drop after venting his frustrations, and she had seemed to take it all lightly. It hadn’t come up again.

At least, not much. He may have rekindled the conversation once or twice. Just in passing, though. It meant absolutely nothing.

Eleanor didn’t seem to mind, regardless. Sometimes she even flat out encouraged him.

But Eiji had his doubts about the two of them here at the same time being pure coincidence.

The first time Ash had been dropping things off. He’d had a reason to be there that made sense. But today he had obviously just come from however he spends his days; bag over his shoulder, a weary slump to his shoulders like he might pass out any moment, eyes a little far away—like stopping by hadn’t initially been on his agenda or even his idea.

Eiji was willing to bet that Eleanor had invited him knowing Eiji would be here. She had been the one to suggest the date for their teatime. It all aligned a little too well—even for Eiji, who believed in coincidence and fate.

Eiji was suspicious—but bolting just because Ash was there would be unforgivably rude. Eiji hadn’t even been there ten minutes before Ash showed up; Ms. Detti didn’t deserve Eiji bailing on their plans just because Eiji and Ash hadn’t figured out how to deal with their own problems like grown adults yet.

“Are you feeling better, Eiji?” Ms. Detti asks him—then quickly turns to Ash before Eiji can respond. “He was sick this week. Poor thing,” she coos.

Ash hums, taking a sip from the delicate cup Eiji sets in front of him without a word. The flowery drinkware is comically small in Ash’s hand. Eiji’s a little mad at himself for noticing how attractively large Ash’s hands are at all.

Such a dumb thing to notice.

“Yes—just a cold,” Eiji smiles and takes his own seat. Ash is very determinedly looking at anything that isn’t Eiji.

Eiji figures that with Ms. Detti there to temper Ash’s hostility towards him, he might as well drag up some of the questions that had been nagging at him. It might be his only real chance, since he sure as hell was never going to track Ash down just to have a conversation with him.

Conversations were something amongst the civilized and Ash just didn’t seem capable.

Eiji couldn’t say he was much better when it came to Ash, but he could at least pretend.

“Who was that at your apartment the other day?” Eiji asks.

Ash’s eyes snap up and narrow—a little too sharp of a reaction for such a benign question.

“What?”

“The guy I talked to at your apartment—I think he said his name was Shorter.”

Ash sighs, the tension leaving his shoulders. He seems to accept that answer, though there’s still a little furrow between his bright blond brows.

“A friend of mine from school,” he answers. He takes another small sip from his cup. “An annoying one. But a friend.”

“You have friends?” Eiji teases. He’s confident that Ash won’t stab him in front of Eleanor—and the way the other man actually pouts is worth the risk.

It’s kind of adorable. If only he wasn’t so insufferable every time he opened his mouth.

Ms. Detti pats Ash’s shoulder consolingly. “Ash isn’t the best with people,” she stage-whispers to Eiji like she’s sharing a coveted secret.

“Hey!” Ash seems to sink in his seat, like a child embarrassed by his parents’ antics at dinner.

Eleanor ignores him and continues.

“But once you get to know him he’s impossible not to love,” she pinches Ash’s red cheek. He grimaces, face turning redder by the second, but he doesn’t comment or brush her away. He’s squirmy and awkward and its so entirely new to Eiji that he forgets to contribute to the conversation.

He takes a sip of his own tea to hide his bewilderment. These other sides of Ash always throw Eiji off balance.

Ms. Detti turns on him next. “So, do you have a girlfriend back home, Eiji?”

“Um, no,” Eiji stumbles a little over the turn of questioning. Now it’s Eiji’s turn to flounder while Ash unhelpfully watches on, apparently.

“A boyfriend, then?”

Ash shifts in his seat a little and Eiji can’t seem to not notice.

“No—I didn’t really have time for dating,” Eiji mutters. He doesn’t really want to delve into explaining the only two short-lived relationships he’s had with Ash watching him so intently. It feels like a vulnerability he should guard.

“It’s not about having the time—it’s about making the time. And getting the timing right,” she says, glancing between the two of them none too subtly.

Eiji gets the distinct impression that they’re being played.

Eleanor suddenly clasps Ash’s arm, looking excited. “Eiji’s from Japan, did you know?” Then to Eiji. “Izumo, you said?”

Eiji nods along. Ash is back to not looking at him.

“I know,” Ash softly comments. At Eiji’s narrowed look he continues. “You were talking about it when we were here last,” he explains, rolling his eyes.

Don’t say it so casually, as if we were willingly spending time together, Eiji thinks. But he’s equally surprised that Ash had listened and retained these parts of Eiji—almost like he had cared to know on some strange level.

Eleanor is watching the two of them closely from over the rim of her mug.

Eiji presses the pads of his fingertips against the warm ceramic of his own and watches the steam waft. She brought them both here for some reason; to teach them how to be civil, to bridge a gap, for a little entertainment—Eiji doesn’t know. He couldn’t understand the strange glint in her wide blue eyes, or the awkward shuffle of Ash’s socked feet under the table, or why his own nerves were warm and searching like there was static in the air.

But he could play along. For Eleanor, at least.

“Where are you from, Ash?” Eiji asks.

Ash looks surprised, and Eiji feels ashamed; ashamed that he had been so callous that such an asinine question left Ash staring at him like that--amazed to be treated so cordially.

Even if Ash had started it, Eiji didn’t need to breath life into the fire. He didn’t want to be that person.

“Cape Cod. In Massachusetts,” Ash says. He reaches for his mug and takes what appears to be a nervous gulp.

“I’ve never been—what’s it like?”

“I lived on the coast right by the ocean. It was small. Peaceful. We didn’t even have electricity till I was twelve.”

Eiji can’t ever figure out what to make of Ash; with his rough edges and pitiful social graces—a boy raised by the ocean and sand like a well-kept flower but somehow still wild and sprawling like campsis vine. He’s a man who gets medicine for his elderly neighbor and does her dishes and runs himself ragged at all hours doing god knows what.

There are bruises on his knuckles but a quietness about him, like lulling waves—never quite what they appear.

The lines of the box that Eiji had shoved Ash into were blurry and messy and perhaps not quite accurate. It was strange, to think he might be wrong about the other man and to feel elated over it.

Maybe there was more. In the same way that the cover of books never reflected the stories inside, maybe Eiji had been too quick to judge. Maybe it had been poorly timed; an off day, a snap decision, an ill-chosen word.

Ash had been trying, Eiji remembers guiltily.

Ash is staring down into his tea, but he looks almost peaceful. He kind of looks like he’s smiling.

“What was your town like?” Ash asks.

It’s an olive branch. An opportunity to move forward in a way Eiji had been fighting against.

They didn’t have to be best friends, but they could be civil. Eiji could be kind.

He rests his elbows on the table and breathes deep. He doesn’t miss Eleanor’s smile.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Eiji gathers their cups and rinses them in the sink. Eleanor rises from her seat with an exaggerated groan and when she wobbles a little Ash reaches out, whip-quick, to steady her. His reflexes are startling.

“It’s getting late—an old woman like me needs some rest,” she tells them, patting at Ash as he nervously flutters about her.

It’s cute, the way he dotes on her. Eiji is willing to accept that thought now; willing to appreciate the little things of Ash that aren’t quite what Eiji expects.

He’s also willing to accept that there is a stark difference between the Ash he had bickered with for nearly two months and the Ash that was currently helping him stack dishes and trying to find Ms. Detti’s cane for her.

Or maybe it wasn’t that they were different so much as Eiji’s view had been cloudy and incomplete. A dozen pieces hidden away to connect the two halves that Eiji had to work for—had to want to find.

Ash had told him about growing up on the Cape with his father, step-mother, and older brother. He didn’t talk about his birth mother, and Eiji knew better than to ask. They’d run a small diner in their seaside town and Ash had worked there with his family till he left to follow his brother to New York.

Mentioning his brother at all had twisted his handsome face into something pained and strangely recognizable.

Ash was a private person and seemed like he had a lot of things that haunted him—he was always careful when he spoke about himself, like he was planning out everything to make sure he gave away nothing damning or delicate.

Eiji didn’t ask about his work or his vague, nameless family; he let Ash talk when he was willing, and safely filled in the gaps when Ash seemed hesitant. Eiji let Ash guide the conversation, gentle and careful. He tried to meet Ash halfway.

And as the evening wore on, Ash seemed to bloom into something beyond what Eiji had pegged him.

He relaxed into Eiji’s stories of home; of his mother who had fronted a rock band in college and his sister who gave their parents a heart attack by trying to learn to skateboard.

Eiji showed him pictures of their dog Buddy and Ash suddenly didn’t look drawn or haunted or like a man who probably ran organized crime syndicates—he was just a nineteen year old kid who really loved dogs and thought Shintō jinja and onsen were interesting.

Eiji and Ash are both quiet as they slip their bags over their shoulders and relace their shoes by the front door. Eiji trips a little and slaps a hand to the wall to steady himself; he swears he hears Ash laugh, just a brush of breath. It makes Eiji’s face burn.

They bid Ms. Detti goodnight and step into the hallway.

It’s so awkward Eiji could choke on it.

He murmurs a goodnight to Ash without turning to look at him and begins heading to his own apartment, but Ash calls out and stops him short.

“Hey,” he starts—and it’s not like before. This is softer; an attempt to not break this new, fragile thing between them. When Eiji looks back he realizes that Ash is staring and it makes Eiji feel a little breathless.

“I still want to apologize.” At Eiji’s confused look he presses on, stilted but sounding no less genuine. “About that first day. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. Something… happened that day and I wasn’t handling it well—I took it out on you. And probably a dozen other people, to be honest. But, I’m sorry. It wasn’t fair to you.”

Eiji’s a little stunned; he tightens his hands around the strap of his work bag, trying to ground himself against the strange sensation in his stomach. Ash’s look of remorse starts to dissolve into what Eiji thinks is embarrassment or painful regret, and he realizes it’s been a long moment with Eiji not saying anything.

“I haven’t been all that great either,” Eiji admits.

“True,” Ash is quick to agree, grinning. Eiji tries to fight his own smile at the teasing. It’s pleasant—being able to talk to Ash like this. To not feel like he has to be on the defensive.

“Watch it,” Eiji warns, just on the edge of a line or two.

Ash laughs and it sounds almost as breathless as Eiji feels.

It’s a delightful sound, he decides.

“Night, Eiji.”

“Good night, Ash.”

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

“Well hey there, neighbor!”

Eiji startles so bad that he nearly drops the glass jar of sauce he was looking at. For a second the man next to him is just a blur of purple and a lot of loud noise, and then Eiji realizes—

“Oh, Shorter! Hi,” Eiji greets him, feeling awkward. He hadn’t thought he and Shorter would ever cross paths again—but here Shorter was in the middle of the corner store, looking as excited to see him as if they were old friends.

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” Shorter points out.

“Ah, I’ve been working a lot. I haven’t spent a lot of time at home.”

“Journalism, right?”

He was sure he hadn’t told Shorter anything about his work.

“Kind of—I’m a photography assistant for a journalism magazine,” Eiji tells him. He fiddles with the jar in his hands a little before asking, “How did you know I work in journalism?”

Shorter ruffles his mohawk a little. “It’s a small world—we have a tighter circle than you think.”

Shorter starts browsing the shelf, hands trailing over labels as he glances over them, and Eiji thinks he should probably be a little more off-put than he is.

But Shorter’s a bit of an overgrown dork and Eiji likes his hair—awful reasons to let it slide, but obviously Eiji’s never been the best at making decisions.

“Come to think of it, you knew who I was that first day too—how?”

“Sorry, did I creep you out?” Shorter asks. He looks apologetic. Eiji shakes his head—there’s no twist in his gut warning him, but he’s curious all the same.

He tells Shorter as much and the other man just smiles at him—that little secretive one again. Like there was a secret between them, held but unspoken.

“Don’t ever tell him I told you this, but—Ash talks about you. A lot,” Shorter whispers, hand cupped around his mouth as if one of the college students or old women in the next isle were listening. “It’s cute.”

Eiji rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure he told you all about how awful I am,” he says.

Shorter tilts his head like a confused puppy; Eiji can see the way his brows furrow just over the rim of his sunglasses like he doesn’t understand what Eiji means.

“He never called you awful,” Shorter argues.

Eiji has no reason to take Shorter’s word for sincerity, but he chooses to anyway.

Shorter has no reason to lie to Eiji about such a thing—he’d gain nothing by pissing Eiji off or embarrassing him. And he doesn’t seem the mean-spirited type to toy with Ash and Eiji for kicks, so Eiji decides he’s not too far out by assuming that Shorter is being honest.

But if Ash wasn’t complaining about Eiji being an asshole, what could he have possibly said? There really wasn’t much else to say with what little, callous history they had.

And to be talking about it so openly and often—two traits Eiji would never associate with Ash of all people—that Shorter had known who Eiji was as easily as if the two of them were acquainted?

Eiji’s face feels warm but he blames it on the store’s poor ventilation. It wouldn’t explain, though, the way his heart contracts just a little at the thought of what Shorter might know.

“What did he say, then?”

“Ah, nope! I’ve known Ash for almost five years—I know better! If I told you that, Ash would kill me for sure,” Shorter laughs. He mimes locking up his mouth and tossing the key into the next isle.

Eiji pouts. “If you weren’t going to tell me why did you even bring it up?” He whines.

“Ask him yourself.”

“I’d like to keep all my limbs intact for now, so I’d rather not.”

Ash sure has some interesting friends, Eiji thinks. He wants to be annoyed with Shorter for teasing him with information, but he mostly just feels giddy at the idea of Ash gossiping with his friends like a schoolgirl—about Eiji, no less.

“You’re both impossible,” Shorter sighs, looking exasperated.

He accompanies Eiji for the rest of his shopping—and he turns out to be good company. Shorter is pleasant and fun to be around, making Eiji laugh. He’s charmingly friendly with other customers and the employees. Everyone seems to know Shorter.

It makes Eiji wonder about Ash; it doesn’t seem likely that he’d willingly keep the company of someone like Shorter if Ash was as drawn and closed-off as Eiji had seen so far.

Eiji wonders how many sides of Ash he hasn’t seen yet. He thinks he’d like to know them, too.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Eiji and Ash continue this strange, truce-like form of an acquaintanceship for a few weeks; they greet each other in the hallways and at the mailboxes. Some mornings Ash even waits for him and they ride down to the lobby together before going their separate ways.

Eiji never asks where Ash goes during the day, or where he disappears to on the nights when Eiji hears his door opening at strange hours, and Ash never offers more than what he had for dinner or some song he caught on the transit that he hated.

Their conversations are short and shallow—but it’s nice. Simple. A routine that Eiji can keep up with between his hectic work hours and visiting Eleanor and video chatting with his nosy but well-meaning parents.

Ash has become a side fixture in his life rather than a problem to avoid or solve.

He wouldn’t call them friends, though—not quite. They don’t joke and tease the way friends do. They keep their conversations to the mundane; weather, work, plans for the day.

It feels like they’re both still avoiding the little intrapersonal details that would solidify what they were becoming; it would feel more permanent, more real, if Eiji told Ash about his crushed athletic dreams or how he worries he’ll become too dependent on his pain meds to make it through the day without them.

If they show one another all those little cracks, show the pitfalls for the gaping canyons they really were, it would be like admitting to one another that the other person meant something. That they were encroaching on an area that was well past “cordial neighbors”.

There’s still some sort of wall keeping them at arm’s length. Eiji’s not entirely sure which one of them built it up first, but the realization leaves him wanting.

For what, he doesn’t know. He has yet to let himself sit up all hours of the night to analyze it.

For now, he tells himself he’s content to be distant but amiable; to appreciate the way Ash’s eyes light up when he smiles, how he always seems to have some obscure factoid about any subject, how he stares at Eiji from underneath his blond lashes when he thinks Eiji is being particularly annoying.

These small, superficial observations aren’t the whole of Ash as a person—not really. But Eiji could hold them close and count them as enough for now.

But things change quickly, and never in ways that Eiji would expect. They very rarely do when it comes to Ash.

It’s a strangely balmy Tuesday despite the way the leaves are starting to change color and dust the sidewalks in scattering orange patterns. The sky is patchy but overcast, the sun trying to fight it’s way through in weak slants of autumn light. The wind breezes through Eiji’s apartment carrying the scent of impending rain; the preface of petrichor.

Eiji can feel deep in the marrow of his bones that something is off.

He tries to pretend it’s just the echoes of a poor nights sleep and readies himself for the day.

Halfway through his morning cup of tea he touches the painted knee of the Buddha statue in his window and tries to breathe deep—just for cosmic reassurance.

There was absolutely no reason for him to feel so uneasy, he tries to reason.

The hallway is empty and Eiji leaves for work with something still unsettled in his gut. He finds himself missing Ash’s hesitant chatter in the elevator. It’d be a welcome distraction from the grinding pull of the machinery around him.

He wonders if having Ash there with him would soften whatever was tightening around his lungs—if his presence would be a calming sense of samadhi for him to hold close.

Almost as if the gods had heard Eiji’s embarrassingly needy cycle of thoughts, Eiji spies Ash coming up the walk towards the lobby door as Eiji exits the elevator.

Ash is staggering, Eiji notices first; graceless in a way Eiji had never seen from him. He favors one side as he practically hauls himself up the concrete step, head down and hood up. He fumbles his key for the lobby door and it falls to his feet. He bends to try to reach them but every line and edge of him is shuddering, pulled taut.

He’s in pain.

Eiji rushes to the front door and opens it for him, scooping up the dropped key ring. Ash reaches out for Eiji’s hand and the blond’s palm clumsily brushes against Eiji’s like he can’t quite control his motor functions.

Eiji almost reaches out to clasp it—to steady him, to reassure him, to reassure himself because suddenly he can taste bile in the back of his mouth and his chest feels too small for his lungs. Even before he sees it, Eiji knows something is terribly wrong.

When Ash finally lifts his head, Eiji can’t stop the small, pained “oh” that crumples from him as if the air had been knocked from his chest.

The high bone of Ash’s left cheek and the delicate skin around his eye is shiny and purpling with a fresh bruise. It’s inflamed enough that Ash’s eye is swollen partially shut.

His green eyes are dull and tired, a weight to them Eiji wishes he could remove. His jaw is set and there’s dried blood matted to the sharp line of his jaw where a thick cut bisects the bone.

There’s the briefest moment where Eiji sees it—sees the vulnerability, the raw layer of pain and fear and need that crosses Ash’s face when their eyes meet.

And then Ash visibly shuts down and his expression is wiped clean.

“Can you move,” Ash sounds urgent, almost panicked, but his voice doesn’t rise above a strained whisper. He goes to push past Eiji into the building but Eiji stands his ground because—no. No.

They’re standing pressed together in the threshold, the door propped open against Ash’s side. Eiji extends one hand as if to steady himself against Ash’s chest but thinks better of it, the movement aborted awkwardly halfway. Neither move for an excruciating moment. Eiji can hear his own heartbeat and its making him nauseous—or maybe it’s Ash’s, pounding within inches of his fingertips.

“I’m tired, Eiji,” he murmurs, eyes down. Eiji feels his heart crack.

Ash tries again to shove past Eiji with just enough force to slip through—and Eiji lets him.

Ash disappears behind the elevator doors while Eiji watches him go; watches the way he keeps his back towards Eiji and his hood pulled up close.

Eiji remembers Sing—the teenager from Chinatown gazing at Eiji over his burner phone. ”You should be careful,” Eiji hears. It bounces through his head and settles in his palms, heavy.

No matter how Ash infuriated Eiji, no matter the poor footing they had begun on—Eiji knew Ash didn’t deserve that.

In a moment of surety, Eiji starts down the street in the opposite direction of his morning commute.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Eiji knocks on Ash’s door and hopes that the other man hadn’t stepped out again in the twenty minutes he had been gone. His first few knocks go unanswered and Eiji worries where he might have gone.

It wouldn’t be safe for him to wander off alone—he could barely even walk.

The thought makes Eiji panic anew.

“Ash?” he calls, knocking again.

Eiji is about to hit the pavement to search for him when Ash finally creaks his door open. He doesn’t look particularly pleased when he sees Eiji waiting for him in the hall. Ash had changed into a ratty white shirt and sweats. He’s adorably barefoot with bedhead and a sour expression. Eiji thinks he might have woken him up.

Eiji holds up his plastic bag from the corner store and Ash’s expression goes from irate to confused.

“Do you have painkillers?” Eiji asks.

Ash rubs one hand across the side of his jaw that isn’t busted, smooshing his face like a child who can’t make a decision. Eiji wants to brush the tangled mess of blond hair behind his ears.

“No,” he finally admits. His voice is fragile and it makes Eiji all the more determined.

“Come on, then,” Eiji turns and walks the ten paces to his own door before he notices that Ash isn’t following. “Well? Get over here,” he snaps in what his little sister always called his “mom voice.”

It seems to work on Ash just as well—he startles, reaching back into his own apartment for his keys before trailing clumsily after Eiji.

Eiji holds the door for him and directs him to the futon in the front room while Eiji begins sorting through the items in his bag at the table. Ash sits carefully on the very edge of the mattress, looking chagrined like he expected Eiji to yell at him.

Supplies in hand, Eiji reaches into the cabinet where he keeps his medicine and tea. “You haven’t taken anything?” Mixing medicines with the same active ingredient can be dangerous, so he needs to be sure.

Ash shakes his head. It’s a very puppy-like gesture; his mess of hair flops with the movement but his expression is still determinedly grumpy and exhausted. When Eiji returns to his side Ash looks defensive.

Eiji pops one of the cold packs he had bought and waits for the flood of cold from the burst capsules inside before handing it over. Ash hesitates, but when he finally places it against his bruised eye he sags with what Eiji thinks is relief.

The gash on his chin is still bleeding sluggishly and Ash’s own attempt to clean it had been slap-dash at best; the skin was bright red and irritated, the cut shiny with fresh blood.

Eiji knows logically that the head bleeds more than most parts of the body so it probably looks worse than it really is—but the blood spatter on Ash’s neck and chin shake him with worry, regardless.

Obviously someone needed to worry about Ash if he couldn’t be bothered to take care of himself properly.

Eiji presses a towel to the gash and Ash jumps like a startled kitten. “Hold this there,” Eiji tells him. Ash is quick to comply but he won’t look at Eiji, eyes fixed on the floor and brows furrowed in thought.

He looks almost ashamed and Eiji thinks he could cry with the thought; that Ash could have this done to him and somehow be so hard on himself as to feel shame for Eiji helping him.

Eiji busies himself with prepping a bandage and anti-bacterial treatment, trying not to make his own distress obvious. It wouldn’t help whatever was going on in Ash’s head if Eiji started falling apart, too.

Even now—bloody and bruised—Ash is still handsome in that cutting, otherworldly way he has, Eiji thinks. But seeing all the fight drained from him like a river run dry is devastating.

Eiji thinks maybe he preferred it when Ash was mocking him.

“What happened?” Eiji asks. He’s desperate to know but grimaces as the question slips from him—its not really his place to pry.

Eiji has his own ideas about what might have transpired, but he wants to hear it from Ash—wants the other man to speak to him, to deconstruct some of that wall they’d built.

But Ash is obviously fragile and flighty; Eiji is scared to look too close and send him running.

Ash sighs, shoulders sagging and eyes falling shut. “Can’t tell you,” he mutters.

Eiji figured as much.

He buries his disappointment and removes the towel from Ash’s face to start applying the gel treatment. As he dabs at the raw skin Ash flinches and huffs, pouting.

“Ow—can you be careful?” Ash whines. Eiji presses a little too hard and Ash actually yelps. “You’re so clumsy,” He accuses, pulling back as if to defend himself against Eiji. There’s light in his eyes again, at least for just a second.

“Oh sorry,” Eiji tells him sweetly, applying the bandage with a grin—it’s a messy job, poorly aligned, and Ash yelps again. “You know us clumsy Japanese,” Eiji says.

Ash sighs and rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t move away. When Eiji gently cradles his jaw to turn Ash to face him, Ash is wide-eyed and warm and Eiji feels a strange rush of protectiveness.

Under the ice pack the swelling around Ash’s eye seems to be going down. His face is clean of blood and his eyes aren’t guarded as if waiting to be struck. Ash looks a little more at ease. Ash is safe.

Eiji feels like he can breathe again—or at least he’s getting there.

Ash gratefully downs the painkillers and water Eiji brings him, and when he stands to leave Eiji feels disappointed somehow. He isn’t sure why he had expected Ash to stay; Ash is a grown man and something in the flippant, casual way he reacts tells Eiji that this type of occurrence isn’t really an anomaly.

Eiji hands him the extra ice packs he had bought, and Ash looks confused.

“For your eye,” Eiji explains.

“I mean—I know that, but,” Ash trips over his words, cautiously taking the extra packs from him. His hands are cold where they brush Eiji’s. They aren’t as shaky as they had been earlier in the lobby.

Ash stares at the cold packs and painkillers in his hands, like he can’t bring himself to look at Eiji. “Why are you… doing this?”

“What a dumb question,” Eiji huffs, hands on his hips. Ash clutches the items to his chest and looks equal parts scolded and surprised. “Why wouldn’t I do this?”

Eiji doesn’t quite have the confidence to add the for you. It feels like too much too fast. Now isn't the time.

Ash is quiet and Eiji starts to think that maybe he said the wrong thing—but then Ash nods to himself and the smile he gives Eiji is so pure and grateful that Eiji feels strangely teary-eyed.

“Thank you,” Ash murmurs, ducking his head.

Eiji decides he wants to know everything about this man; everything from his favorite color to where he went to school and how he met Shorter, to every little mannerism and hobby and what it was that weighed on his shoulders so heavily.

He wanted to tear apart the little safe wall they had kept between them—wanted to truly meet him halfway and help shoulder the burden. To be a source of support and stability and remind Ash that he that he didn’t have to bleed in his apartment alone, that he had someone who was willing to try to understand.

Eiji felt like Ash deserved that much.

Ash turned to go and Eiji knew then—he needed to ask. He had to take that first step.

“Hey, Ash?”

Ash paused at the door, one hand resting on the handle, and craned his head to look back at Eiji. There was something vulnerable in his face that gave Eiji resolve.

“What’s your last name?”

Ash swallowed thickly. He seemed to be fighting with how to answer—but Eiji would trust him. He would take what Ash offered, nothing more.

But Eiji kept remembering Sing; his stories, his heartbreak over the city, the familiar way he held himself that Eiji wanted to believe wasn’t mirrored in Ash’s every action.

“Lynx,” he finally said. “I go by Ash Lynx.”

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Chapter 3: act iii: home is everywhere

Chapter Text

act iii:

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Things change. Again. Just as quickly as before but, in Eiji’s professional opinion, much more strangely.

Ash disappears for a few days and Eiji is left to deal with the fact that he is Ash Lynx; an infamous gang boss revered from Chinatown to the Valley and every side street in between. A man Eiji had been warned to be careful around, and probably someone Eiji shouldn’t be so easily swayed by. He didn’t know exactly what Ash did or why, but he would have argued that these facts didn’t inherently make Ash a villain, either.

If anything, Eiji had evidence to the contrary.

But showing up bloody and bruised and then vanishing into thin air for three days didn’t spell anything good.

On the third day Eiji is about to hit the pavement to look for him when there’s a startling knock on his front door.

He finds Ash on the other side; face still bruised but healing fast and looking oddly docile despite it. He has the decency to look chastised at Eiji’s glare. Ash simply holds up a paper bag with splotches of grease on the sides and opts says nothing in return to Eiji’s less-than-friendly greeting.

Eiji sighs and steps aside for Ash to shuffle past.

It’s weirder this time around, having Ash in his apartment. There’s no sense of urgency. No forced comraderies in the face of something perilous or dangerous—Eiji can’t hide his misplaced affections behind the adrenaline of disaster. It’s just two grown men sitting crossed legged on a futon eating what Eiji is convinced are the greasiest hamburgers in the whole of New York.

Ash is doing well at pretending everything is fine but Eiji catches his little slips and tells; the side glances, the nervous way he fumbles his fries. There’s anxiety in every line of him—back ramrod straight and shoulders set.

“What’s got you on edge?” Eiji eventually asks.

“Huh?”

“You’re nervous.”

Ash looks put-off. “I’m… not. How can you tell?”

How funny to hear Ash thrown by the easy way Eiji reads him the same way Eiji had felt mortally wounded by Ash’s own easy understanding of him.

What a pair, Eiji’s traitorous mind supplies.

Eiji hums. “You’re not as mysterious as you want everyone to think.” He stuffs his mouth with the last of his fries and chances looking at Ash again. He looks a little mystified. “You’re twitchy. Like you want to talk about something.”

“I’m not a talker,” Ash says, whipping his head away. The last bites of his burger are suddenly terribly interesting, apparently.

Eiji snorts. He feels laughter caught in his throat at how ridiculous it all is. “I noticed.”

They finish eating in relative silence but it’s not as painfully awkward as Eiji would have thought; Ash is decent company when he keeps his mouth shut, Eiji thinks. Their knees bump and Ash is a warm spot, near but too far to really touch. They both settle a little further away from one another.

The sun is setting in the west and Eiji’s apartment is at just the right angle to catch the late fall glow between the buildings. Ash’s profile is warmed by the dying light and Eiji finds something almost poetic in it. Enthralling. Eiji wants to tuck the messy hair behind Ash’s ears, run his hands down to the nape of his neck.

The thought startles Eiji. He begins to bustle and clean, ignoring the way Ash is looking at him—and the way he feels in return.

It’s strange, wanting to caress and punch the same person. He’s never had such an overlap, nor felt this conflicted.

“Thanks for the food,” Eiji tells him while he gathers their trash. The apartment is going to smell like fast food for days, he thinks. It’s not the absolute worst. Just relatively close.

“I wanted to pay you back,” Ash mumbles. Eiji feels a little lightheaded.

“For what?” he teases. Ash pouts again—it shouldn’t be as cute as it is, especially still busted up.

“Obnoxious,” Ash calls him, moving to grab his shoes in a huff. He busies himself with tying the laces on his converse when Eiji finds the confidence to cross the room and reach for Ash’s arm—just to grab his attention, Eiji tells himself.

The taller man doesn’t fight him; there’s nothing in his face to give away what he’s thinking. No flinch or grimace or grin. He rises to stand and Eiji wraps his hand around Ash’s elbow a little more firmly and it all feels almost normal. It feels right to meet Ash halfway here, to feel how warm he was under Eiji’s palm—warm and real and safe.

“You’re always welcome to stop by,” Eiji tells him. “And you don’t need to thank me. I’m glad you’re okay.”

And he means it. He means it so much that it makes him dizzy. Ash may be a brat but the idea of something happening to Ash and him never returning stole Eiji’s breath. He’d rather have Ash curled up on his futon complaining about his choice in Netflix than alone, injured and bleeding, where Eiji couldn’t find him.

Ash opens his mouth as if to respond then quickly closes it. His eyes slide to the floor like he’s unsure. Eiji can recognize it easy enough—Eiji’s words were more kindness than Ash is used to. The thought spears him.

He knows then he wants to be that kind outreach, a haven, for Ash. The way Eleanor seemed to be. The way Ash seemed to need.

He wanted to be someone for Ash to rely on, no matter their clashes.

“I mean it,” Eiji presses.

“Thank you,” Ash nods distractedly, voice hushed. Such a fondness blooms across his face then as he smiles and Eiji is sure the sharp breath it punches from him is audible.

Ash is bright and brilliant in the fading light and Eiji’s heart pounds so hard he can feel it in the tips of his fingers.

Ash slips out as quietly as he’d appeared and Eiji stands by his door for a long moment, thinking of how he had wanted to draw Ash into his arms and keep him there forever.

He hears Ash’s own door close and wishes the idiot had stayed.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Routine was something Eiji needed but didn’t like. Thankfully, he had Ash to remedy that.

It was hard to fall into the humdrum motions of an average day when Ash Lynx was involved.

Ash showed up at all odd hours; and maybe if it had been anyone other than Ash Lynx, Eiji would have felt annoyance for having unannounced company so often—but seeing Ash so regularly meant that Eiji had confirmation with his own eyes that Ash was safe.

That alone was worth any inconvenience.

Most of the time they took meals together—Eiji readying himself for work or a meeting and Ash trying to decompress from whatever it was that wounded him so. Eiji would make some slapdash pancakes or bowls of oatmeal on the days Ash appeared with the sun—always looking hallowed out and worse for wear. He’d take the cup of tea Eiji slid to him and stare out the window at the brick building next door, mind much further than his gaze.

Some evenings Ash would appear with another greasy takeout bag and bruises on his hands and Eiji would draw him inside, praying Ash couldn’t read his mind—he didn’t want Ash to know how much he worried about him.

After, they would settle on the futon to watch something on Eiji’s laptop. Eventually they both conceded to the fact that the screen was too small for their unspoken two-foot rule, and they’d end up pressed together to stare into the small screen.

Ash was a warm line against Eiji’s side that he couldn’t stop himself from sinking into. The first time he had realized he melted into the other man’s side he nearly recoiled from embarrassment—until he felt the way Ash’s body seemed to loosen against his, tucking his head close as if to see the movie better.

They didn’t talk about it; didn’t give anything any names or meaning or try to dissect how easily they fell against each other after a long day. It didn’t need titles or words for the feeling of relief Eiji felt tucked into Ash’s side.

The gentle slump to Ash’s shoulders and the quiet smile Eiji sometimes caught was enough to ensure Eiji that Ash felt the same.

Ash was pleasant enough when he was there, despite how they fought over what to watch or eat or Eiji’s pronunciation of “color”, but he was still distant; like he kept drawing himself back from some unseen line that Eiji couldn’t fathom.

Eiji got home early on a Friday evening and found himself cleaning his apartment thinking, well, I need to tidy up before Ash comes over.

He wanted to kick himself. What would Ash care if there were newspapers on the kitchen table or laundry left on the floor? And why was he expecting Ash anyway? The man’s schedule was erratic at best—definitely not a salary job—and they’d never even exchanged numbers. Ash just came and went as he pleased like a stray, temperamental cat.

It was the strangest companionship Eiji had ever found.

Halfway through Eiji irritatingly scrubbing a pot, there was a knock at the door; Ash was leaned against the threshold with his hands tucked in his pockets, sickly pale and a fresh cut along his right cheek.

“Get in here,” Eiji told him. He crossed the front room to the kitchen, trusting Ash to follow him while he gathered the bandages and antiseptic. He heard the door close, Ash’s light footsteps coming up behind him. “I’m going to run out of Band-Aids with you around.”

When Eiji turned, Ash was staring down at his socked feet, expression almost remorseful.

Good job, Eiji—you made him feel bad about being hurt.

“I’m sorry,” Ash started—stopping abruptly when Eiji fluttered a hand.

“I’m kidding, Ash. I’m flattered that you’ve picked me as your personal all-hours doctor,” Eiji smirked when Ash’s expression twisted to something more pouting and annoyed—crisis averted.

“I think calling you ‘doctor’ is giving you too much credit. You’re more like a first-year nursing student,” Ash told him.

“Meaning?” Eiji deadpanned. He set his supplies down on the table and nudged a chair out for Ash to sit.

“You’re sloppy,” Ash said, simple and straightforward and smiling. Eiji stuck his tongue out, opting to start cleaning Ash’s face instead of arguing further. As expected, the blond huffed and grimaced as Eiji worked—complaining how rough Eiji was with Ash’s “delicate skin”.

“You’re insufferable,” Eiji told him. He slapped the bandage on the clean wound with a little more force than necessary just to grin when Ash squawked at him like a disgruntled bird. “So, what happened this time?”

Ash turned somber, looking away.

“You can tell me, you know. Really.”

Ash still didn’t respond. Eiji could practically see the cogs in his mind whirring—trying to figure out how to dodge the question, what lies to feed Eiji so he’d drop it. Maybe he worried that Eiji would drop whatever weird, tactile form of friendship they had been working toward if Eiji knew the truth.

How do you tell your friend that you know they’re probably involved in organized crime? Eiji wondered.

“The cut was my fault, I wasn’t paying attention,” Ash finally said. Eiji put his hands on his hips. It was such a blatant lie that it actually hurt a little.

“You can’t expect me to believe that.”

Ash looked up. His eyes were wide. Eiji wondered if he was panicking. “Why not?”

“Almost every time I see you, you’re bleeding or bruised.” Eiji paused—he didn’t want to tell Ash what he knew, what he suspected, or that he had the pleasure of meeting Sing from Chinatown. Not yet. He could see in Ash’s face that he was fragile and flighty. He needed to tread carefully. “I’m not upset about that. You should know that by now. I would have said something if I felt… unsafe, or taken advantage of.”

“You are quite vocal about what you think of me,” Ash murmured. His smile looked self-deprecating.

“I just want you to be safe. I worry about you when you show up like this.”

“You worry about me?” Ash teased.

“Of course I worry about you.” Eiji went to shove his shoulder but let his hand rest there instead. The contact was grounding—Eiji felt like he was being drawn in. “You’re an annoying brat, but I care about you. You’re my friend.”

The sly grin dropped from Ash’s face. Eiji wondered if Ash hadn’t considered that—that the two of them were friends, and that Eiji genuinely cared for Ash’s well-being. Could such a thing truly sound so farfetched to him?

“I’m sorry I worried you,” Ash whispered. He looked lost again. Confused.

Eiji withdrew his hand and dropped into the seat next to him. “It’s not just the injuries, Ash. You look… tired,” Eiji told him. Ash slumped forward, sighing heavy.

“I am,” he admitted. “This is all a lot more work than I’d thought. But people are counting on me.”

“I understand that you don’t want to tell me—but if you’re holding back because you think I’ll be upset or hate you or judge you, just know that it isn’t true. Whatever it may be, I think you’re a good person Ash. I’ve seen it.”

Eiji could only describe Ash’s smile as bitter. “What if I killed someone?”

Eiji scoffed. “I’d bet you had a good reason.”

“Don’t say it like it’s so simple! You don’t know, I could be a murderous psychopath!”

“I watched you get your hand stuck in a pringles can the other day, so, I highly doubt that.”

“Maybe I’m trying to lull you into a false sense of security. Maybe I’m not the person you think I am.”

Ash’s voice was quiet, but the dark purple shadows under his eyes and the tense line of his spine spoke volumes. Eiji didn’t want to stress Ash further—he wasn’t ready to meet Eiji halfway yet, and Eiji could accept that. He just wished Ash would accept that Eiji cared for him regardless of what he was, regardless of whether Ash felt like he deserved to be cared for or not.

Something about Ash left Eiji’s heart wounded. He wanted to coddle Ash, to care for him the ways Eiji suspected Ash hadn’t been cared for in a long time.

Eiji wasn’t quite willing to unpack that yet.

“Come on, you’re exhausted,” Eiji stood and drew Ash to his feet with a gentle hand on his elbow. “Let’s just sit down and watch a movie.”

They settled on the futon with the coffee table pulled up next to them to situate Eiji’s laptop. Ash insisted they watch “the worst movie ever made” because it was a classic—he even found a version with subtitles for Eiji because he had complained once that Americans talk too fast in movies.

They started the film in their usual spots; upright with their legs crossed and their sides firmly against one another—for a better vantage point for the movie, of course. About twenty minutes in Ash let out a long-suffering sigh and laid himself across Eiji, legs hanging off one end of the futon and his head nestled in Eiji’s lap.

The cat metaphor was steadily becoming more accurate.

Well, this is new, Eiji thought, heart pounding. His first instinct was to rest his hand in Ash’s hair. He wanted to know if it was as soft as it looked. But he fought the desire as hard as he could—he didn’t want to scare Ash off. Ash was removing some of the barrier between them, letting himself be familiar enough with Eiji to entrust him with Ash laying vulnerable in his lap.

He didn’t want to ruin this.

Ash must run hot, because the heat of his skin bled through Eiji’s pants like the metal of a furnace. Eiji suddenly couldn’t keep track of the movie’s protagonist or his wife’s affair with her fiancé’s best friend—Ash was like a blinding spot of light, wearing down all of Eiji’s other senses so he’d be able to properly appreciate the man sprawled across his lap.

“You good?” Ash muttered into Eiji’s pantleg. He must have felt the way Eiji tensed in response to his own selfish wants. Ash’s hands were neatly folded under his jaw, drawn up to his neck. Eiji found it painfully endearing. For all of Ash’s bravado, he was still, in many ways, a bit of a child. He was still young.

Eiji wondered why he had been the one Ash chose to show this vulnerability; and he knew it would remain unspoken between them, at least for now, but he felt honored all the same.

Eiji sighed deep, relaxing his body into this strange, new dynamic, and let his hand rest gently in Ash’s hair—just above his ear. He was warm and soft under the cautious way Eiji ran his fingertips through the tresses. Ash hummed something noncommittal in response. Eiji wondered if his eyes were closed.

“Fine. It’s fine, Ash.”

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Ash began showing up on Eiji’s doorstep more often than not. Eiji began looking forward to spending his evenings after work with Ash—came to expect it, even.

In some ways, they did fall into a routine.

They’d always share dinner together; whether it was takeout or something Ash grabbed on his way home, or a meal Eiji scraped together from the fridge—they’d set it out on plates and settle into the creaky chairs at the kitchen table, facing the window, while they ate and talked about their day.

Ash was always relatively vague about his own day, but Eiji didn’t miss the way he’d nudge himself close enough that their thighs were flush and their feet bumped. He always listened to Eiji’s stories about his work and his bosses—he never even looked bored while he let Eiji prattle on.

Ash would usually suggest a movie, and Eiji would complain, and Ash would complain about Eiji’s complaining. They’d choose something off the Popular list and then complain together the whole time about the low standards that rocketed movies like these to “popularity”.

The newest part of the routine was Ash, making himself at home in Eiji’s lap. He never brought it up, never even made eye contact when he did it—simply scrolled through some feed on his phone in the perfect act of nonchalance. Sometimes on his stomach with his head craned towards the TV, other times he’d press his spine to Eiji’s lap and studiously avoid Eiji’s gaze.

But it made Eiji realize; Ash was a little touch-starved.

And not really a little—more like a lot. Kind of desperate for human contact Eiji would say, if he had less tact.

It was in the way Ash always subtly initiated their contact, tried to pretend it wasn’t a big deal or like he hadn’t even noticed the way he clung to Eiji’s side. In the little hums and sighs that Ash couldn’t seem to contain when Eiji gave in and ran his fingers through Ash’s hair, or in innocent circles over his tense shoulder blades. Whatever had happened between Ash running away from the Cape and ending up in New York next door to Eiji—wherever his brother had gone—Ash had been left feeling a little disconnected and lonely.

And it was a special kind of torture, Eiji thought. Feeling Ash melt into him and sigh and nod for more—because he trusted Eiji, felt some connection with Eiji that was emotionally fulfilling in the way Eiji grazed his shoulders or cupped the back of his skull.

But that was all it was for Ash, Eiji knew. Eiji helped fulfill some basic, human need that Ash had been denied or too uncomfortable to seek elsewhere—Eiji was safe and convenient. He never took more than Ash offered, he never pushed limits. Every shift was Ash’s choice and pace.

And that should make him happy, Eiji knew. He should be elated that’d proven himself to the other man and begun truly deconstructing those walls. That Ash genuinely trusted him.

But Eiji watched the pale blond of Ash’s eyelashes flutter as he studied the screen, reclined in Eiji’s lap again, and was angry—because he wasn’t happy. Not really.

I’m a terrible friend.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Gawking at Ash from a distance had been something Eiji came to terms with before he’d even been convinced that Ash wasn’t a complete asshole; a person didn’t need to have a sparkling personality to be attractive, and regardless of Ash’s own personality or lack thereof, Eiji had been well aware of Ash’s looks.

A pretty, bright blond with light green eyes, tall and fit with wide shoulders and a jawline that could cut—on the rare occasion that Eiji caught him without a jacket or hoodie he quickly became sure that Ash spent some amount of time in the gym to have biceps like that.

But seeing Ash as an attractive player in Eiji’s life in passing was not the same as knowing Ash. Knowing him, befriending him, made it so much worse. It shifted from simple observation to want.

Because now Eiji didn’t just find the jade of his eyes or the strength in his forearms attractive; now he was drawn to the way Ash laughed when Eiji chewed him out over something stupid, or the way he set his jaw when he was thinking or how he pronounced “over here” as “ova heah”.

(“I’m an Islander,” Ash whined, elbowing Eiji when he laughed. Eiji was too embarrassed to admit that he found Ash’s Cape accent—on the rare occasions that it slipped out—absolutely adorable.)

Suddenly Ash wasn’t Hot Next-Door Neighbor. He wasn’t even Hot Next-Door Neighbor that Eiji Sometimes Got Along With. At some point between Ash being a bloody mess and sitting down to dinner with Eiji, they’d become friends. Actual friends.

And that made Eiji’s plight so much worse.

Because now when they took the elevator together in the morning Ash stood far too close and Eiji had to pretend that his cologne didn’t make Eiji’s knees weak (it was warm and woodsy and distinctly masculine, god).

Because now when Ash showed up for a late dinner he’d scoot his chair until their knees knocked together under the table and Eiji had to find a reason to excuse himself because it was too domestic and it made Eiji’s face burn.

Because now that Eiji had made it clear that Ash was welcome, the man found any opportunity to sprawl himself across Eiji’s lap like a nuisance of a house cat.

And it wasn’t that Eiji minded, per se—it was that he enjoyed it. A lot. Probably too much. It made him want to scoop Ash up to cuddle him the way the stupid brat deserved and kiss his dumb forehead. Give him all the affection the touch-starved man could ever want and then some.

But obviously he couldn’t do any of that—friends didn’t do that. No matter how much he wanted to hold his hand or kiss away his frown when Ash had a bad day. It wouldn’t be appropriate. Having these feelings at all felt like a betrayal of Ash’s trust—to act on them would be unforgivable.

Ash was showing Eiji vulnerability, putting fragile new trust in him—he wouldn’t dare ruin that just because he wanted to kiss the idiot till he couldn’t breathe.

And even if Eiji was really willing to risk their friendship for his attraction, he had no clue if Ash even liked men, or women, or anyone, really. Maybe he had no interest in those types of things. Or maybe just no interest in Eiji.

That thought felt like a sucker punch.

Eiji really wanted to kiss him.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

“Shorter’s got a friend over and they’re making out on my couch. Can I stay here?” Ash pushed past Eiji and wandered into the living room, looking traumatized.

“I don’t think I fully processed what you just told me, but—sure, come on in, I guess,” Eiji muttered, closing the door behind him. Ash was perched on the edge of the futon scrubbing his palms across his eyes. “And I think we need to discuss your definition of ‘friends’.” Eiji teased.

Ash just groaned and threw himself back to lay flat on the futon, feet flat to the floor. Ash was good at dramatics, Eiji noted.

“Is Shorter your roommate?” That would have made sense, but Ash looked horrified at the implication.

“No,” he gasped. “No way I could live with him in a one-bedroom and not have killed him by now.”

“Isn’t he your best friend?”

“Yes but that doesn’t make him listening to kpop at 3am any more tolerable. I lived with him before—well, before I moved here. It’s best that I have my own space. I’m not a people-person.”

“I noticed.” Eiji deadpanned. “How long did you live with Shorter?”

“Just a few months after—” Ash abruptly stops, looking as though he had been about to confide something personal before backpedaling so hard Eiji was amazed he was still sitting. “Just a few months. He shares a flat with his sister over their family restaurant. They’re good people,” Ash mutters.

Eiji hums in agreement, remembering Shorter’s friendly openness and kind demeanor. He wondered if his sister was the same.

Eiji crossed the room to the kitchen where he had laid out all the leftover ingredients for a passable stirfry. Tomorrow was grocery day. “So who’s this friend he has over? I’m amazed you let him run you out of your own space.”

“I’m a pushover, I guess,” Ash laughs.

“You? Mister Bloody-Knuckles?”

“Hey, I only get in fights over people who deserve it—it’s in defense!”

“Wow, you’re practically a superhero. I feel much safer having you next door.” Eiji joked. He turned to smile at Ash, expecting him to look annoyed or disgruntled, but Ash is staring at Eiji curiously—his eyes are distant and thoughtful for a long second before he snaps back.

“Just call me Matt Murdock,” Ash rolled his eyes.

“Poor reference,” Eiji argued. “We’re not even in Hell’s Kitchen.”

“Figures you’d be into all that nerd sh*t.”

“You’re no better!” Eiji huffed. “Anyway, who’s Shorter’s friend? Is she a friend of yours too?”

“He,” Ash muttered.

Eiji hummed in question, turning to look at where Ash is sprawled across the futon mattress again.

“It’s a guy. Shorter’s into men and women—he has bad taste in both, though,” Ash said.

Shorter, into men. What an endearing concept—and a heartening one, too. “Do you like men too?”

Ash’s eyes narrow. He didn’t seem to receive the question well and Eiji feels his face heat, deeply embarrassed at having blurted out such a personal inquiry. Of course Ash wouldn’t take it well—they barely know each other, friends or not. It’s nothing short of rude to pry into. He was sure his mother was clucking her tongue in shame half a world away and didn’t know why.

“Why? Does it matter?” Ash snapped.

“No, of course not,” Eiji tries to reassure. He stares down at his feet, feeling a little ashamed. “I’m just being nosy, I’m sorry. That wasn’t a proper question to ask.”

Eiji turns back to finish chopping vegetables and toss them in the pan. The silence between them weighs heavy. Good job ruining your friendship with Ash by being a thoughtless idiot, Eiji chides himself.

“Yes,” comes the quiet sigh from the futon. When Eiji cranes his neck to look at Ash the other man has his arms tucked behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. “I like men, too.”

“That’s cool,” Eiji stutters a little. His hand slips on the knife where his fingers tremble. His twelve years of English suddenly seem to dissipate and the words are thick on his tongue. “Me too,” he whispers.

When the pan is finally sizzling over a medium heat and Eiji turns to grab something from the table behind him, he catches Ash’s eye. Ash is watching him, smiling to himself.

“Cool,” Ash echoes, faint and thoughtful. Eiji can’t stop from grinning.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Shorter’s exiting the elevator just as Eiji is stepping out of his apartment.

“Heading out?” Shorter asks, friendly. Eiji still feels mild surprise that someone like Shorter willingly associated with Eiji; it was hard not to feel like a dork in his mom-jeans (new phrasing, courtesy of Ash) and sweater while standing next to Shorter in his track jacket and facial piercings and purple mohawk.

“Yeah. I was about to run some errands. Were you here to see Ash? I think he’s still out.”

“Was here for you, actually.”

“Me?” Eiji points at his own chest, just to be sure there was no confusion. He glances over his shoulder to ensure there was no one behind him just for good measure.

Shorter laughs and claps him on the shoulder. Eiji stumbles a little. “Yes, you!”

“What for?” Eiji is torn between panic because Shorter was probably in Ash’s gang and thus a gang member and that was dangerous but also panicking because Shorter was tall and handsome and Eiji couldn’t fathom why someone like him would seek out Eiji.

Ash was tall and handsome too but he was stuck with Eiji as a neighbor and Eiji had seen him looking kinda pathetic so they were practically sworn together by blood. Almost literally.

“It’s about Ash. He’s seemed a little down, lately,” Shorter starts.

“Sad?” Eiji clarifies. Shorter nods. “I haven’t noticed anything when he’s with me.”

Shorter hums and Eiji thinks he looks thoughtful behind his glasses. “Maybe it’s nothing, but I was going to take him out Saturday. Thought maybe seeing the guys and getting drunk might cheer him up. You wanna come with?”

“Like, go with you guys?”

“Of course,” Shorter smiles and it’s blinding, even under the poor hallway lighting. “Ash and I both like you, so you’re always welcome. And having you there might raise Ash’s spirits.”

Eiji isn’t sure but he thinks he sees Shorter wink and suddenly he’s an awkward teenager again, shuffling his feet and stuttering his way through a conversation with some attractive person way out of his social strata. He fusses with the strap of his bag to avoid having to look directly at Shorter.

“I don’t work Saturday, so if you really want me to—”

“Great! I’ll come grab you guys around five. Oh, and,” Shorter pauses, pressing one finger to his lips and grinning. “Don’t tell Ash. It’s a surprise.”

Eiji is more than sure that Ash hates surprises. But he’s also more than sure that Shorter—Ash’s best friend of nearly a decade—knows that, so he simply nods along and prays Ash will be merciful when he kills them both.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

It’s pouring rain the entire way from the station to Eiji’s apartment building, because of course it is.

The whole day had been a menagerie of “how can the universe f*ck over Okumura Eiji” so why would it bother to stop just because he had clocked-out at the office?

Assuming it would do so had been a dumb assumption, Eiji realizes now.

It had been a long day.

He’d jammed the copier, twice, accidentally pissed off a client and had to listen to her cause a scene about it for an hour, which in any form of clientele work was a form of Hell on its own. By 10am he’d spilled his coffee on his white shirt and stained almost the entire damn front of it—he’d even forgot his lunch at home and the vending machines downstairs had been out of order.

Ironically, Eiji had thought “when it rains, it pours I guess” as he stared into the dimmed lights of the machine and resigned to surviving the day on cold coffee from the breakroom.

I’ve dealt with worse, Eiji told himself.

He’d stood inside the station for almost twenty minutes hoping the rainfall would let up but it seemed to grow heavier with the passing minute. Of course this morning he had forgotten to check the weather because he had woken up late and been in a rush to make it to the station, so he had no umbrella.

My building’s only ten minutes away, I can make it, Eiji thought. He’d left his most expensive equipment at the office for the weekend and his laptop bag was waterproof—at least according to Amazon.

f*ck it.

Running wasn’t an option with his ankle, but fast-walking proved effective enough. He ducked under shop overhangs and roofs as he went. A few well-dressed business men gave him strange looks but otherwise no one paid much attention to the soaked Japanese intern running through the streets clutching a bag and looking like he’d gone for a swim in his Friday casuals.

Eiji knew on some level that this should be discouraging and maybe even humiliating, but all he could think of now was a warm shower and a cup of hot chocolate for his troubles.

He’d already decided he was sleeping till noon tomorrow and no one could stop him. He deserved it, damn it.

He was flooded with relief as he turned the last corner and the building finally came into view. As he leapt up the front steps and ducked under the overhang, he reached into his pocket and felt a cold shiver of dread as he realized—his keys weren’t there.

Not in the other pocket, nor his back pockets. He dug through his laptop bag but came up empty handed.

He could vaguely remember seeing the keyring laying on the kitchen table as he passed to find a pair of socks that morning, but he couldn’t pinpoint any moment in his panic where he’d picked them up. Both the unit doors and building doors lock automatically when they shut so he hadn’t needed them when he rushed to work in the morning.

So essentially he was locked out of his apartment building in the rain, soaked to the marrow and freezing, and basically stuck there.

His first thought was to call Ash, but he squashed that quickly. He didn’t want Ash to see him like this—it was pathetic. He had never gotten Ash’s number anyway, nor Eleanor’s. He didn’t know anyone else in the building, either. He figured calling the building office would be his best bet.

The call rang through till the voicemail kicked in. An automated woman’s voice listed the leasing office hours before requesting his message after the beep—they were out on Fridays.

Because of course they were.

Eiji hadn’t felt this defeated since his PT back home. His first post-op steps had been awkward and wobbly, and he’d felt completely hopeless—much like now. He had no one else to call. He knew logically that Max or Ibe would offer to help if he told them, but there was a little too much shame in the idea of calling his bosses and begging to sleep on their couch because he was dumb enough to lock himself out of his own building.

He sunk down to sit on the front step; it didn’t matter now, he was soaked through so deeply that he didn’t even feel the chill of the rain anymore.

He didn’t know what else to do. Maybe eventually someone would come through and could at least let him in the building.

Across the street he could see down the alley between two buildings and spotted the black metal grid of a fire escape climbing along the bricks.

Wasn’t there a fire escape near his window? He could swear he had seen it before in passing. Maybe he could climb up to his own window—or reach Ash’s, if he was home.

He really didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of Ash like this, but his options were quickly narrowing.

Eiji’s ankle had begun throbbing while he raced home but now it felt like it was burning—a painful twisting that made him limp a little as he stumbled around the back of the building. He really hoped no one saw him. He couldn’t imagine how strange he looked; soaking wet, stumbling his way through the rain to the back shadows of the building. He must look suspicious—or at least pathetic.

The ladder was up, and he wasn’t quite tall enough to reach it by stretching. His ankle protested but he bent his knees and leapt as high as he could—it took a few tries, his knees popping a little each time he landed poorly, but eventually he got his hands around the cold wet metal of the first ladder step and drug it down where he could reach it reasonably.

Eiji double-checked that his laptop case was secure across his shoulders before starting to scale the rungs, good leg first. They were dripping and he was worried more than once that he would fall—the metal lattice of the scape under his feet didn’t feel particularly secure either.

Cautiously he picked his way through to the fifth level; he could recognize his own window stuffed full of plants now and in desperate need of a washing—just out of reach.

“Come on,” Eiji whined out loud. He bent over the railing and stretched but he couldn’t reach the outer sill. Even if he’d been able there was no way for him to climb inside, and no guarantee that he’d left it unlocked to start with.

“What’s the point of a fire escape if I couldn’t even escape? That’s just poor design, New York!” He shouted, punching the railing and immediately regretting it. He was still cradling the injured hand to his chest and feeling sorry for himself when he heard someone call his name from behind him.

Ash was leaning out of his own window at the other end of the scaffolding, shielding his eyes from the rain and looking at Eiji as if he had lost his mind.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked. He sounded about as lost as Eiji felt.

Eiji sighed deep, knowing he couldn’t hide his ridiculous mishap of a day from Ash. How embarrassing. “I locked myself out,” he called back.

So much for not embarrassing himself.

“Well, get in here!” Ash gestured him over without a second of hesitation, and it made Eiji warm despite the sopping wet clothing still clinging to his skin. Or maybe that was hypothermia setting it. Hard to discern, really.

Eiji was easily distracted by the heat of Ash’s hands as he helped maneuver Eiji over the windowsill; one hand on his hip, another in his dark hair to make sure he didn’t smack his head against the window pane above.

Eiji stumbled a little on his bad ankle and Ash caught him, hands pressing to Eiji’s arms and back to steady him on his feet. Eiji thought he might finally understand what swooning was—though he was unsure if it was fatigue or Ash’s face so close to his.

Maybe 50/50.

When Eiji was finally standing in the middle of Ash’s kitchen, surrounded by a puddle of rainwater and shivering through his rain-heavy clothes, the mortification finally set in.

“I’m so sorry,” he muttered, eyes down.

“It’s really okay,” Ash assured. He ran one hand through his mess of blond hair and Eiji quietly wished it was back in his dark curls instead. He tried to shake that thought off when Ash started speaking again. “You’re probably going to need a shower and some clothes, huh.”

Eiji got a little caught up in how handsome Ash was like this; expression unguarded and soft, a little sleep ruffled. Eiji wondered if he had woken him—another reason to feel guilty. His green eyes were inviting, not the sharp stone Eiji had first known. They were terribly lovely.

How far they’d come.

When he noticed Eiji lost in his own little world, Ash teased, “Unless you’d like to stay in your wet jeans until the leasing office is open tomorrow for a spare key?”

“Ah, no,” Eiji stuttered. It was embarrassing for Ash to see him like this, but to catch him gawking was something else entirely. He’d blame his sudden lack of control on his exhaustion. “I’d really appreciate it. I’m so sorry—”

“Nope, no apologizing. Shut up.” Ash shushed him, looking painfully amused.

Ah, there’s the Ash he knows.

The other man wandered down the hall to what Eiji knew to be the mirrored plan of Eiji’s own bedroom, leaving Eiji to take in Ash’s apartment.

He’d never seen it before. If asked, Eiji probably would have assumed it was bursting with bits and trinkets—probably with an overarching theme of dark colors and weapons or something along that vein. It surely would suit his intimidating personal aesthetic.

Overall, it was relatively bare of the things people normally kept in apartments. Two chairs and a TV in the living room area with a red rug between them, the kitchen scrubbed spotless other than a few plates sitting in the sink and a large incubator of plants on the counter near a microwave covered in stickers. There was a Star Wars poster on the wall, but that was about as far as decoration went.

One whole living room wall was bookshelves, precariously situated one on top of another. Each shelf was filled to bursting, books laid horizontally across the tops of the rows. All around the room were more stacks of books—paperback, hardcover, brand new or yellowing from sun exposure.

It was a little surprising—he hadn’t realized Ash was such a reader.

Ash Lynx always managed to surprise him somehow.

“They probably won’t fit you well, but it’ll be better than nothing,” Ash called, reappearing around the corner a second later. Eiji must have looked a little pitiful because Ash sighed to himself, a strange smile crossing his face, before he gently guided Eiji to the bathroom with a hand on one arm.

“Shampoo, soap,” Ash pointed at a few different bottles inside the shower, then bent to dig something out from the sink cabinet. Eiji begged himself not to stare at where Ash’s jeans clung to his thighs; he didn’t want to make the situation any more awkward than it already was because Eiji was a disaster.

It’s not cool to stare at your friend’s ass right after he saved you from drowning on the fire escape like an idiot, Eiji scolded himself.

“Towel,” Ash finished, dropping the fluffy white square on the countertop.

He didn’t say anything else before shutting the door behind him. He had left the small stack of clothes next to the towel.

Eiji felt somewhat like a child—completely incapable of caring for himself, needing coddling and help for every little thing. All because of one bad day. It all left him more than a little drained and irritable.

He guessed Ash babying him wasn’t the worst option, but he wasn’t going to let himself enjoy it either. After all his stupid mistakes he didn’t deserve to enjoy it. Maybe under different circ*mstances Ash doting on him wouldn’t make him feel quite so shameful.

Eiji peeled the wet clothing from his skin and left them in a relatively neat pile on the floor. He tried to clean up quickly but it just felt strange to use someone else’s shower, especially given that it was Ash’s. At the least, the hot water warmed him up fast and he was grateful—he hadn’t realized he’d been shaking so hard.

As he poured a small pool of shampoo into his palm, it hit Eiji that this was Ash’s shampoo; the same scent of vanilla and coastal sunshine that clung to Ash and turned Eiji into a pathetic, pining mess every time Ash crawled into his lap or joined him in the elevator.

It was intoxicating, Eiji was loathed to admit; it was something sweet and sandy and bright. It reminded Eiji of visiting the beach back home. He adored it—and wasn’t completely sure if it was for the scent itself or because it was distinctly Ash.

And now he’d be drowning in it; in his own dark hair and clinging to his skin. And he’d have to change into Ash’s clothes which were certainly no better. Eiji wasn’t sure if he was comforted or about to have a meltdown over the fact, but his chest felt tight. Like he could collapse right there as the shower beat down and the scent filled the bathroom.

He could never tell Ash any of this. He could never tell anyone. Who the hell got weak knees from their friend’s shampoo? If Ash found out, Eiji could never face him again. There was pathetic and then there was Eiji.

He silently hoped he’d just die in the shower and end his suffering and never have to look Ash in his irritatingly handsome face ever again. Or smell his stupid shampoo and cologne ever again.

Ash Lynx was a menace, in multiple ways.

Eiji scrubbed down as fast as he could and toweled his hair dry before stepping out of the shower—he tried his best to not make a huge mess. He was already inconveniencing his friend enough.

Just as Eiji had worried, the clothes carried that woodsy scent that made Eiji want to bury his face in it and suffocate. He hoped he would acclimate to it quickly and be able to put this small, embarrassing chapter of his life behind him—but everything about Ash seemed to make Eiji a hyper-aware disaster.

Eiji was torn between feeling elated to be surrounded by his shame and feeling as if he should fling himself back out the kitchen window to atone.

Ash was reclining in one of the living room chairs scrolling through something on his phone when Eiji finally found the courage to emerge from the bathroom. Ash’s eyes darted up for a second before returning disinterestedly to his phone, and then looking up a second time—a much longer second time, eyes widened in a way Eiji wasn’t familiar with.

“What?” Eiji huffed and crossed his arms. Ash had the decency to look embarrassed for staring.

“Nothing,” Ash muttered. His eyes raked up and down Eiji’s body a few times; over the too-wide collar of his shirt and the soft shorts that hung past his knees. Eiji tried not to fidget or preen—but he rather liked that look on Ash’s face. Eiji liked having Ash’s attention, he realized.

“My clothes are just bigger on you than I’d imagined,” Ash finished.

“You’ve imagined me in your clothes?” Eiji teased. It wasn’t often that Eiji was the one who got to fluster Ash, but Eiji took great delight in the way Ash’s pale face colored. It was painfully obvious under Ash’s fair complexion. He wasn’t looking away, though.

Eiji was feeling a little weak-kneed again.

“Maybe,” Ash told him, flippant as he rested his chin in one hand. His posture was open and relaxed and overbearingly confident—almost inviting. Eiji caught the smirk ghosting at the edges of Ash’s lips and began nervously toying with his shirt hem between his fingers.

There was no way that Ash Lynx was looking at Eiji like that; as if Eiji was something to look at. As if Ash was more than pleased to look.

Ash is playing with me, he told himself. He probably knows how I feel and thinks this is funny.

But that didn’t sit right with Eiji, either; Ash had rough edges and his social skills were lacking on some matters, but he wasn’t mean. Eiji had never seen him be cruel or rough. Even when he made jokes at Eiji’s expense it was never mean-spirited. If Ash knew Eiji’s feelings, Eiji couldn’t imagine Ash using them against him—especially not for laughs. It was just a brand of awful that Eiji now knew Ash was not.

Eiji must have floundered too long; Ash sighed, relaxing back into his chair and the moment passed. Eiji found himself regretting it immediately—he’d had a fondness for Ash’s eyes from day one, and having them so intently on Eiji, heavy-lidded and beckoning, was an experience Eiji would be happy to repeat.

“Want to explain how you ended up on the fire escape?”

“Not particularly.”

“It’s not like you,” Ash sing-songed. “You’re usually so responsible. Did you decide to take up parkour?”

Eiji’s head dropped, rolling forward to hide the way his cheeks flamed and his eyes were a little wetter than usual.

He was frustrated and tired and his leg hurt all the way from the hip socket to his toes; he wanted to be alone to angry-cry about his disaster of a Friday and then sleep for the next two days with no interruptions.

“It’s just been a long day,” he admitted. He’d rather not expound to Ash just how pathetic he truly was right now.

He heard Ash stand and cross the room, stopping just in front of Eiji. When he looked up Ash started to reach out but hesitated, just for one awkward moment, before settling his hand on Eiji’s shoulder.

It was warm and solid, the heat of Ash bleeding through his own shirt, and Eiji thinks that if he had been a weaker man he would have collapsed right there.

“Sorry you had a rough day,” Ash murmured. When Eiji glanced up Ash’s eyes were nothing but kind—as warm and comforting as the hand on his shoulder. “You’re welcome to stay here. The landlady should be in the office tomorrow and we can get her to open your apartment.”

Eiji knew he should be planning ahead now; Ash was kind enough to open his apartment to Eiji and he needed to figure out where he would sleep, what time he could get a hold of their landlady tomorrow to sort out his mess, what he was going to do for dinner after having to skip both breakfast and lunch—he didn’t even know if his laptop had survived the ordeal.

He had no phone charger, no toothbrush, not even a pair of socks.

Everything was an absolute mess, but he didn’t want to sort it out now. He was tired and Ash was warm and sweet and right there. The entire day felt like a fever dream with one nightmare right after the other—Eiji just wanted to turn his brain off for a little bit.

So Eiji crossed their small distance and rested his head against Ash’s collar, nestling into the other man’s neck contentedly. Ash’s hand fell away from his shoulder and hovered awkwardly at his side like he was unsure—but he made no move to push Eiji away. Simply stood still while Eiji made himself comfortable against all the dips and lines of Ash’s body, drawing his own two arms tightly around Ash’s middle.

Eiji felt Ash’s arms settle hesitantly around his shoulders, warm palms flat to his back. Something about it made Eiji melt; Ash was a furnace like usual but being enveloped in it was an entirely new experience. Ash’s woodsy cologne clung to the skin of his neck and his shirt was soft against him.

It was the first thing in nearly 24 hours to make him genuinely happy.

Ash rested his cheek against Eiji’s hair, relaxing into the embrace fully, and Eiji thought, I could stay like this forever.

“You okay?” Ash whispered.

Eiji hummed. “Just tired.”

“You’ve never hugged me before.”

Eiji lifted his head to watch Ash’s eyes as he asked, “Is it okay?”

Ash’s nonchalance was so well-crafted that Eiji wondered what was really going through his mind—he was trying very hard to play at casual and it almost came off as nervous. “It’s fine, just didn’t know why you did it.”

“I need an ulterior motive to hug my friend?”

“I think you need an ulterior motive to hug me,” Ash corrected, grinning. His hands were still pressed flat to Eiji’s back, and Eiji twisted his fingers in the fabric of Ash’s shirt. He felt needy.

Ash had been receptive to him so far—encouraging, even—and always met him halfway. It hadn’t taken long for Eiji to figure out that Ash was about as touch-starved as Eiji had been feeling since his transcontinental move; tangling themselves on Eiji’s futon had been mutually beneficial and ultimately innocent, even on Eiji’s infatuated part.

But Eiji wanted their closeness to be more than just a convenience of circ*mstance.

He wanted Ash to have Eiji stuck in his mind the way he had been driving Eiji insane since the day they met; he wanted Ash to touch him because he wanted Eiji—not just to placate some deeply humane need that anyone with a pulse could fulfill.

Every little quirk and obscurity that made up Ash Lynx had thoroughly drawn Eiji in and he wanted to drown in him.

For the first time Eiji felt that maybe, just maybe, Ash could feel the same; that even in this Ash would meet him halfway, that he understood Eiji beyond what their words offered.

That their relationship was something still growing and refining and there was no shame to the affection Eiji felt for his friend—because there didn’t need to be.

He knew he shouldn’t press his luck—he was going to be stuck here all night, he shouldn’t take the chance of making it awkward—but Ash was so warm against him, and he could feel one of Ash’s hands absently rubbing at Eiji’s shoulder blades like he was trying to soothe him, and the kindness in Ash’s face and touch made Eiji bold.

Eiji pressed his face close, nose-to-nose with Ash and mouths a hairsbreadth apart. “I mean, when it comes to you I do have a motive, I suppose.”

Ash faked gasped and Eiji could feel the air move between them. “Eiji Okumura, are you using me?”

Eiji was about to move away, rolling his eyes, but Ash pressed their foreheads together. The hands at Eiji’s back were more sure, more solid.

“You’re so annoying,” Eiji told him—but it was fond, because it was Ash and Eiji wanted nothing less.

Ash drew one of his hands up the length of Eiji’s back, sending the strangest sensation of ice and electricity down Eiji’s spine in response, and gently palmed the back of Eiji’s neck.

Eiji’s eyes fell closed, a sigh escaping him. He was convinced that nothing in the world could feel better than this, right now.

“And yet here we are,” Ash murmured, thumb pressing into the hollow beneath Eiji’s ear.

Eiji peeked up at Ash through his lashes, feeling docile and sleep-heavy in the blond’s arms. “Here we are,” he echoed faintly.

Ash’s own eyes were half-lidded, the pale fan of his eyelashes lowered over piercing jade green—Eiji felt him move, the subtle shift of muscle against him as Ash began to lean forward and his parted lips brushed Eiji’s.

Eiji wouldn’t count it as a kiss, though; not when the sudden knock at the door made them both jump so hard they smacked their foreheads together and both pulled back at the sickening crack.

Eiji sighed, trying to ignore the way his heart pounding behind his ribs didn’t match the crushing disappointment he felt. He pressed one hand to his abused forehead.

“You should get that,” Eiji told him. He hoped his tone conveyed proper annoyance without sounding dismissive, but you’ve got to be f*cking kidding me.

Courage doesn’t matter if the universe is against you, I guess.

Ash seemed loathe to release Eiji, but Eiji waved him off. Ash looked rather annoyed too, Eiji thought. That was promising—that this wasn’t simply a moment he had been caught up in, but something longed for and fought for, something Ash was upset to have taken away.

The blond sighed as well, shoulders hitching, and pressed his forehead gently to Eiji’s one last time before slipping away.

Eleanor was leaning heavily into her cane when Ash swung the door open. She looked a little tired, one hand clutching square blue Tupperware. “Leftovers,” she announced, cheery, before she took notice of Eiji hovering nearby.

He knew he must look a sight; rumpled, hair still damp and curling around his ears, flushed and jittery and wearing clothes that were obviously not his. Ash turned to follow her gaze and Eiji saw the embarrassment cross his face as he too realized a moment too late how it looked.

Eiji knew he should probably be a little more embarrassed over looking like he and Ash were caught out but considering he’s spent the last few weeks sighing dreamily over Ash’s laugh and eyes and occasionally staring at his ass when he washed the dishes—the shame was hard to come by.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” the older woman fluttered, shoving the packaged meal into Ash’s arms. “There’s enough for two!”

She started down the hall and Ash seemed frozen, but Eiji had enough sense left to remember to call “thank you!” after her. He thought he heard her laugh.

Ash shut the door and rejoined Eiji’s side but his movements seemed stiff and his face was a little red.

“At least Ms. Detti isn’t a gossip?” Eiji tried.

“Of course she’s a gossip—who do you think told me all about you?”

“You and Eleanor talked about me?”

“Of course,” Ash huffed, as if the answer was truly so obvious.

The thought struck a cord. “Come to think of it, Shorter mentioned you talking to him about me, too.”

Ash had wandered over to the kitchen with the Tupperware, but froze at his Shorter’s name. Eiji saw the way his shoulders hiked a little higher and knew—Ash was embarrassed.

“Shorter said that?”

Eiji hummed, watching Ash’s back as he went about awkwardly plating the leftovers and heating them in the microwave. His posture screamed, “please god don’t make me talk about this.”

So of course Eiji was going to make him talk about this.

“What did you talk to Shorter about?” Eiji asked. Ash glanced over his shoulder and flushed at Eiji’s smile.

“Nothing important, just how annoying you are,” Ash muttered.

Eiji, emboldened by throwing Ash off so easily, crossed the room to stand behind him and rest his cheek against Ash’s shoulder blade. He was warm and sturdy and one of Ash’s hands came up to pat Eiji’s where it rested on his bicep—almost thoughtlessly, as if it was a natural reaction to Eiji’s closeness.

“If we’re talking about annoying, then you’re the subject,” Eiji muttered back.

“I’m a delight,” Ash deadpanned. “Everyone thinks so.”

“Eleanor doesn’t count as ‘everyone’ and I’m pretty sure you’re conning her, anyway.”

Ash began to turn so Eiji stepped back, watching as Ash rested his hands on the countertop and leaned into them as if to brace himself. He looked… anxious. “Do you think I’m conning you?” he finally asked.

Eiji couldn’t stop the unattractive snort. “I’ve known you were an asshole since day one. You can’t con someone who’s already seen behind the curtain.”

The microwave beeped and Ash turned his back to Eiji once again to switch out the plates.

Ash seemed more open than usual, more quick to answer. Maybe now would be a good time to ask again.

Eiji knew they’d never be able to move forward together until they were on the same page; maybe guiding Ash there with small steps was the way to go.

“Remember you told me that you were a jerk that first time because you’d had a bad day?” Eiji asked. His hands fell to Ash’s back again like he couldn’t help himself. Eiji did deeply appreciate the hard shift of muscles under his palms.

Ash glanced back again, this time with an eyebrow co*cked like he didn’t quite trust where Eiji was leading the conversation.

“What was so bad about it?” Eiji finished, voice pitched in a whisper. Gentle, secretive—something Ash could ignore if he truly wanted.

Eiji knew it had to be more than just a “bad day.” Eiji knew “bad” for someone like Ash ran a little deeper than jamming the copier or getting caught in the rain. He couldn’t deny he was curious—he knew nothing about gang life, he had no clue what being a gang boss entailed, and he was parched to learn something about Ash that wasn’t just his favorite food or some obscure animal fact that he’d picked up in a book.

He couldn’t deny that his attraction to Ash was more than his pretty eyes or the broad width of his shoulders; but caring for someone meant caring for all parts of them, even the parts that weren’t shiny and prettily packaged. Ash didn’t even realize that Eiji knew as much as he did—he had no clue that Eiji had already had that crisis and moved past it.

Eiji knew that, for all his bravado, Ash was kind and fair and rather gentle-hearted. Eiji fully believed that that was who Ash was, and that Ash only did what he thought would help others. He didn’t need the full context to accept that.

At some point he had begun trusting Ash. It felt as natural as breathing to think, “This man is good.”

“I was about to say it’s complicated, but it’s really not,” Ash muttered.

“I know I keep saying this,” Eiji whispered. “But you really can tell me.” He pressed himself fully to Ash’s back again and felt Ash take a deep breath. Their breaths synced as the moment drew on. The microwave beeped again but neither moved to touch it.

“I know. And I know you probably know more than you should, which shouldn’t surprise me—”

“What is it you think I know?” Eiji teased, pressing his words and smile into the soft fabric of Ash’s shirt. It felt like a game—it felt easy. It was always somehow easy with him, even when it shouldn’t be.

“More than you should,” Ash snorted. “Shorter has a big mouth.”

Eiji deigned to let Ash continue thinking it was Shorter spilling secrets—for now. Having a conversation about Sing and gang politics and Eiji’s job didn’t feel like something that needed broached right now.

Maybe I shouldn’t tell Shorter any secrets, Eiji noted.

The way Ash sighed before he spoke again made Eiji’s heart feel constricted, held too tight by his chest and ribs and sinew.

“There’s a kid that works with us. His situation is a bit complicated—I’ve been trying to get him back in school, but he doesn’t really want to go and there’s a lot of stupid hoops to jump through. He got hurt that day and I just… didn’t handle it well.”

“Is he okay?”

“He’s fine now, but it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.”

“It scared you, huh,” Eiji said—it wasn’t a question. Eiji could read it in him as easy as if Ash was a language Eiji had spent years learning—Ash was carrying guilt like iron chains. Ash shifted, his head lulling forward like the thoughts inside were too heavy.

“It scared the sh*t out of me. He’s like a little brother. I’m terrified of something happening to him,” Ash whispered. The confession felt like lead between them—Eiji is grateful for it regardless.

Eiji stepped back and Ash turned again, watching him carefully. Maybe waiting to see if Eiji will pry.

But he won’t. He swore to himself he wouldn’t. He’ll take whatever jagged edges Ash will offer and keep them safe until Ash can process this thing between them on his own terms.

“Anything I can do?” Eiji asks.

Ash looks a little stunned—Eiji assumes that, out of all the responses he’d anticipated, that hadn’t been one of them; unquestioning support. Desire to help.

“No, I’ll handle it,” Ash tells him, terse—and that’s that. The conversation drops, and Eiji lets it pass like sand between his fingertips. As much as he wants to punch Ash in the arm and remind him that he doesn’t have to do everything on his own, it feels too soon. Too fragile. He won’t push—he’ll wait for Ash to open that door himself. And Eiji is fine with that.

Ash hands Eiji the second plate without a word. The cheap ceramic is warm under their hands and Ash’s eyes are a little far away.

So Eiji leans in and kisses the side of his face—less of a kiss, really, and more of just Eiji brushing his cheek against Ash’s. A fleeting but comforting gesture, just enough to get his point across.

I’ll wait. But I’m here.

Ash doesn’t comment or complain and Eiji doesn’t tease for the way Ash’s eyes get wide and his pale face turns flush. They simply settle down at Ash’s table and press their knees together underneath, sitting a little too close to eat comfortably.

Eiji wonders what Eleanor had seen between them, what she had thought. The most likely assumption was they were sleeping together. But Eiji glances to Ash on his left—watches the way his pale lashes lower over his eyes in thought and his free hand curls in his lap, always on edge or waiting—and thinks that’s too simple.

Something as basic as sex couldn’t possibly capture that true depth of it all; of how Eiji worried for him, of how easily and strangely they fit together even on their worst days, or how Ash drew a fire from Eiji that he hadn’t felt since his surgery left him with a sports ban.

Sex couldn’t possibly make him feel anymore or feel any closer to Ash than sharing a reheated meal in his apartment after a terrible day already did. Being a human—being them—ran a little deeper than a few kisses and an org*sm or two.

“We could watch something. Since you’re stuck here all night,” Ash suggested quietly, spearing pasta with his fork distractedly. They had quite a list of movies and series that they each wanted the other to watch. So far Ash had been pretty unappreciative of Eiji’s suggestions. “Anything but Lost in Space,” Ash quickly amended.

Eiji tossed his head to glare. This was an argument that they’d had a hundred times before. “What do you have against Lost in Space?”

“It’s boring, Eiji.”

“Not everything has to have guns to be interesting, Ash. They’re in space.”

“They managed to make space boring,” Ash pointed his fork at Eiji as if it reinforced his point. “That’s a hell of a feat.”

“Fine, no Lost in Space. But if you suggest another Syfy movie—”

“Syfy channel movies are American classics. I haven’t even shown you Ice Spiders yet!”

“Strangely, I don’t think I want to watch something called Ice Spiders.”

Ash pesters him for the rest of dinner until Eiji finally gives in to watching another ridiculous Syfy channel movie. Unfortunately, Ash’s living room chairs mean they can’t cuddle the way Eiji is used to and it leaves Eiji feeling a little more irritable than he probably should be.

Eiji insults the entirety of the movie and Ash seems to find it hilarious, and Eiji finds himself staring at Ash every time he throws his head back and laughs.

Eiji wants to kiss the sound off his lips, it’s so beautiful.

As the end credits roll, Ash turns in his chair to face Eiji again, “You probably want to head to bed, huh?”

“It’d be nice. Today sucked,” he mutters pathetically.

Ash stands and Eiji follows him to the back half of the apartment where Ash’s bedroom is tucked in the corner of the unit, first stopping in the bathroom to pull a spare toothbrush from a pack for Eiji.

They clean up for bed in easy silence; the reflected image of the two of them, shoulder to shoulder and bumping elbows, is a lot for Eiji’s heart to take.

Ash makes a face that has Eiji spraying toothpaste on the mirror, and they both dissolve into fits, leaning on each other for support.

He wanted this, Eiji realized. All of it in its dumb, domestic glory.

Ash’s bedroom is much the same as the rest of the apartment; simple, yet cluttered with an almost concerning amount of books. His sheets are black and soft and Eiji immediately wants to sink into them.

“You can take the bed,” Ash starts, but Eiji reaches out blindly for his arm.

“No, no no. I’m not making you sleep on the floor,” Eiji protests, firm. Ash had done so much for him already—Eiji couldn’t stomach not letting him sleep in his own bed.

“Where would you like to sleep then?” Ash is teasing him, this he knows for sure, so he looks Ash directly in his face as he says, “Won’t you share with me?”

It wipes the smug little smile right off his face; to Eiji’s delight he turns a particularly dusky shade of rose and flounders for words a moment too long.

“Is that alright?” Eiji continues, softer—giving Ash an out.

Ash nods. His words still seem lost, so he busies himself with gathering clothes to change into. He opts to change right there so Eiji preoccupies himself with studying the lone photo on the dresser.

The little boy in it is obviously Ash; his hair is bright blond and his eyes are as green as the field he’s standing in. He’s smiling wide and toothy into the camera with an older boy, maybe in his mid-teens, kneeling next to him. Ash is cuddled into his side, staring up at the other boy as if he hung the stars. Both are wearing dirtied baseball uniforms.

Ash shuffles up behind him. “My brother and I played baseball when we were younger. It was pretty fun, even though I had cried the whole first week dad made me go. Griff had to practically drag me to the diamond,” Ash laughs fondly, but quickly sobers. “Dad made us quit just a few months after that picture, actually.”

“What for? You seemed to enjoy it.”

“New coach. I aged up at the end of the summer. Dad didn’t like the guy, neither did my brother—so they pulled me from the team.”

“I’m sorry,” Eiji tells him, unsure.

“Don’t be,” Ash assures him. “The guy was arrested one year later for making inappropriate advances towards one of the other kids on his team. A parent caught him on video after practice—it was a huge scandal. I’m just glad he got caught before anyone got hurt,” Ash finishes simply. It throws Eiji a little; how do you respond to that respectfully? The thought of some man misusing the community’s trust to hurt small children—to hurt Ash—made Eiji feel a bit queasy.

“I’m glad your father had good instincts.”

“Yeah—he was good for something, I guess.”

It was the most Ash had said about his family since their time visiting with Eleanor—Eiji was almost too stunned to respond. He’d even gotten his brother’s name, or at least a part of it; Griff.

Ash had trusted him with a childhood memory, and the name of his beloved older brother. Eiji so desperately wanted to ask more; what was Griff like? Where was he now? Why had Ash left the Cape and those beautiful country fields to come to New York?

But he couldn’t—and he wouldn’t. They were answers for Ash to decide when to give, and Eiji would not try to draw them from Ash as if he had any claim to them. They weren’t Eiji’s to take.

Eiji would accept what Ash offered and be grateful.

“Ready for bed?” Ash asked. His voice was hushed—it was calming. Eiji nodded so Ash flipped the light off and the two awkwardly shuffled under the cool covers, bumping knees and hips and hands the whole time.

There was enough light from the window for Eiji to find Ash laying next to him, curled up on his side facing Eiji; every line of him looked exhausted. Eiji felt much the same. Today must have been the longest Friday in existence.

Some stray thought must have crossed Ash’s mind, because he suddenly looked pained and woefully upset. It was heartbreaking to watch the way the serenity on his face crumbled. Ash moved as if to turn on his other side, as if to put more space between them, but Eiji raised his arm.

Ash just stared at him.

“Get over here,” Eiji whispered. He waited for Ash to shuffle towards him and then drew him close so he was tucked into Eiji’s shoulder. Ash seemed to sink into him, one hand resting on Eiji’s sternum and his wild head of blond hair brushing Eiji’s chin.

“Thank you,” Eiji told him. He prayed Ash could read the sincerity—could know how much Ash had come to mean to him already. He didn’t think he could find the proper words.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Ash muttered into Eiji’s shirtsleeve. He buried his head as if he was embarrassed by the exchange—it was terribly endearing.

“Fine, I won’t,” Eiji said, cheery—and then laughing when Ash’s fingers found his side.

“Obnoxious.”

“Brat.”

“You’re the worst and I hate you,” Ash huffed.

Eiji hummed thoughtfully, as if entertaining Ash’s claim. “Mm, sure—I definitely believe you.”

Ash reached back and grabbed his pillow, flipping it around to smack Eiji in the face in retaliation—both laughing as they fought over it. Eiji had the advantage for a long moment by rolling on top of him to limit Ash’s range, but the taller man pushed him back to the bed and locked his legs over Eiji before sprawling himself half over Eiji’s chest—effectively pinning him.

Eiji threw up his hands to block but he was laughing far too hard to really strategize. It didn’t matter because by then Ash was doubled over as well, pressing his own laughter into Eiji’s chest. One of his hands were splayed over Eiji’s collarbone and the heat of it was grounding. He reached up to link their fingers, the action drawing Ash up and close to Eiji’s own tear-stained face.

It was quick—Ash moved just as Eiji began to move, the two drawn together like magnetics. Completely inescapable. Eiji had shifted up to his elbows, trying to look at the tears caught in Ash’s eyes, and Ash had lifted his head to meet him. They met eyes and knew, and it was fine—they were fine.

The natural world had a flow, a way; and Ash cupping Eiji’s face while they were both still caught in their ridiculous laughter—to press their mouths together mid-laugh as if they were desperate for one another, to share that elation so intimately—was simply theirs.

Eiji melted into him, pressing closer, hands falling to Ash’s shoulders and finding their way to the back of his neck. Ash tilted his head as Eiji’s fingers curled in his hair—a pleased noise in the back of his throat.

They both eventually parted, but didn’t pull away; the shared air between them was something soft and flexible and inviting. Ash’s eyes were a little wide, somewhat wondrous. He was still cradling Eiji’s face.

“I wanted to do that for a while now,” Ash confessed in one shaky breath.

“I can’t believe I let you do that,” Eiji mumbled against Ash’s mouth—still so close to his own. At Ash’s look of surprise Eiji tumbled them to press Ash into the mattress, grabbing for the discarded pillow with one hand. “After making me watch Ice Spiders all night? You don’t deserve it!”

Ash wrestled the hand Eiji had around the corner of the pillow, managing to trap Eiji’s hand above Ash’s own head—he was bright with laughter and Eiji’s heart sung for it as he stared down at him.

Eiji dipped his head to find Ash’s mouth again. The other man met him eagerly and the sensation drew electricity across Eiji’s body, a heat that told him this is right, this is where you’re supposed to be. He could feel Ash’s heart thundering beneath where Eiji’s free hand rested.

Ash fell back to breathe and after a long moment of the two of them panting into the dark, “Are you really mad at me for Ice Spiders?”

“It was atrocious and I’ll never forgive you.”

Eiji collapsed onto Ash’s chest and felt it rumbled with his laughter—something deep and fond that made Eiji melt into the sound.

It was nice; tucking his face into Ash’s neck and feeling every line of Ash’s body pressed snug to his. They fit easily, strangely enough—Ash’s ankles bumping against Eiji’s and one hand tracing his spine as if it was this simple. As if this could be something the two of them would be allowed to have.

And Eiji wanted it.

He wanted to fight with Ash over stupid American movies and make dinner with him and hold his hand while they both drifted off to sleep. He craved everything they had and then some—he wanted to bottle the way Ash made him feel and keep it for a rainy day, because nothing in the world called to him the way this idiot with a heart of gold did.

Ash’s breathing eventually steadied and deepened so Eiji, sleep heavy himself, gently rolled to the side; close enough to press against him but far enough for Ash to rest comfortably. As he turned, head nestled against the crook of Ash’s shoulder, he caught something he had missed before.

The soft green glow of hundreds of little plastic stars so carefully placed against the popcorn-ceiling of Ash’s bedroom; little points of light mimicking the constellations Eiji wouldn’t have been able to find under the city haze outside.

Eiji knew they were accurate, because it would be very much like Ash to take glow in the dark stars made for children and arrange them like the night sky.

And he called Eiji a dork.

Eiji wondered if they reminded Ash of home; if they were a bridge to something Ash desperately missed. If he had placed them with care to replicate something lost, or nearly forgotten, or maybe something stolen from him long before they had crossed paths.

He thought of that faraway look that Ash got sometimes, of his bruised knuckles and eagerness to help and the little unspoken sheen in his eye when he had stared at the picture of his brother.

Eiji pressed his mouth to the curve of Ash’s shoulder and rested there; he knew none of this would be simple. But something told him it would be worth it to see it through.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Chapter 4: act iv: just like eternity

Chapter Text

act iv.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

It’s sunny—way too sunny—when Eiji finally pries his eyes open, vision hazy, and finds Ash curled up on top of him like a house cat unaware he’s too big for his seat. He had somehow stolen the covers during the night and kicked them down to the foot of the bed, leaving Eiji shivering in the early afternoon light despite the heat of his companion curled over his lower half.

He pats over the covers until he finds his phone tucked under one of the pillows, the screen dark. It was in desperate need of a charge. He hopes his family hadn’t been trying to call.

Eiji’s in the middle of debating whether to wake Ash or be a courteous guest when Ash makes the decision for him; the blond rolls over, groaning and mumbling like a cranky old man as he slowly wakes. “Stop moving, too early,” he slurs.

Eiji cards one hand through his hair to temper him. Ash melts into the touch like a man starved for it. “Looks like it’s nearly noon,” he whispers.

Ash just groans again. When he shows no immediate sign of moving, Eiji taps his shoulder a few times and tries to roll him off Eiji’s hips. “Come on,” Eiji gasps under Ash’s reluctant weight. “I need to at least go to the bathroom.”

“No,” Ash mutters, pressing the petulant word against the bare skin of Eiji’s waist. Eiji does his best to ignore the way his skin burns like flame in response and shoves him one more time. Ash finally gives in and rolls away—flopping flat on his back with arms thrown wide, the very picture of dramatics.

“Will you die if I leave?” Eiji teases. The wood flooring is chill under his bare feet. As he rises he sees the sun is much higher outside the window than he had thought.

“Maybe,” Ash hums. “No evidence to the contrary.”

“You’re contrary.”

A quick trip to the bathroom wakes Eiji up proper and he returns to Ash wide-eyed and with the bite of mint toothpaste on his tongue. Ash is reclined along the mattress and staring at his phone. He turns it to show Eiji the clock on the home screen, ticking away their seconds; “A little after one.”

“I don’t think I’ve slept like that in months,” Eiji sighs in contentment.

Ash fidgets with his hair for a second, combing it into some form of order, and eyes his phone in a way that is too obvious to be genuine nonchalance. “I don’t think I’ve slept that well in years.”

Another small gift—another piece of himself, given freely. Eiji feels his heart warm.

“Aw,” Eiji drops to lie next to Ash and rests his head on his crossed arms. He smirks at Ash from beneath his lashes and delights in the way Ash’s breath halts. “What will you do when I’m gone?”

“Who says you’re leaving?” Ash curls one arm around Eiji’s waist and draws him close. For every tease that Eiji can manage, Ash returns it two-fold. The word “suave” comes to mind but Eiji would never say such a thing out loud. Ash didn’t need the ego boost.

Whether Eiji admits it aloud or not, Ash is smooth and it has its desired affect; Eiji buries his head in his forearms to hide the way his smile grows and his cheeks warm. To have Ash’s attention so deeply and thoroughly thrills him in ways no one else had ever inspired and it’s so embarrassingly new.

He’d die before admitting any of this to Ash.

“Breakfast?” Ash murmurs—far too close to Eiji’s ear, lips brushing the pink shell just to get a rise because he knows he can. Eiji’s unsure if agreeing would damn him; he’d have to extricate himself from the cocoon he had made and the heat on his cheeks would be far too easy to see.

Eiji turns to face the other way and tries to ignore the way his heart hammers as one of Ash’s hands settle on his lower back, fingertips brushing heated skin where his borrowed shirt had ridden up.

“You have a dimple,” Ash murmurs, pressing one finger into the dip just to the left of Eiji’s spine. Eiji can only hum in response—lost to the way his skin tingles under Ash’s touch.

Ash takes Eiji’s lack of response in stride and seems to decide that curling up along Eiji’s side is the best course of action. He’s quick to relax into the easy draw of sleep, and Eiji can’t resist to follow.

The heat and weight of Ash resting against him is already so familiar. It’s a comfort, to be pressed into the mattress by the warm line of Ash’s body, like a living weighted blanket, and Eiji slowly lulls into an easy doze—safe and happy with Ash’s even breath against the back of his neck.

When Eiji wakes a second time, Ash is once again plastered to him like mache. The sunlight has deepened to the cooler tones of a fall afternoon and time seems a foreign concept in their small, strange home.

Eiji manages to twist in his grasp just enough to see the way Ash’s eyes are still closed, lashes feather-soft against his cheeks, and all the tense lines of him have fallen away. For once he appears like the nineteen-year-old boy Eiji knows him to be—still just a teenager, still so young.

Eiji can’t resist pressing a kiss to his sleep-warm forehead; his hair tickles Eiji’s cheeks, that scent of coastal sunshine still clinging.

Ash mutters something and Eiji moves closer to hear. “What did you say?” Eiji whispers.

“Hungry,” Ash whines, brow furrowed.

Eiji runs his hand through Ash’s mess of bedhead once, both annoyed and fond, before rolling out of bed with the desire to fulfill Ash’s drowsy request.

He finds Ash’s white charger with its taped end still in the wall by the bed and connects his drained phone before he goes.

The kitchen is clean but threadbare; there isn’t much in the fridge beyond eggs and a half loaf of bread shoved in one of the drawers.

How does he live like this, Eiji wonders. He’s sure it would hurt his heart to hear the answer, so he decides he will not ask. All the time in Eiji’s kitchen seems to make more sense.

Eggs and toast it is, then. Even if it is almost four.

Ash finally wanders out while Eiji is plating the eggs and stares in complete wonder as Eiji sets the dishes at the table. Eiji gestures him over, pushing the seat out, and he swears Ash is on the brink of tears—his eyes are bright and he looks confused and lost.

But he isn’t. He doesn’t cry—he tries to speak for a moment, eyes falling to the plates of eggs and toast, before shaking his head like a puppy with a dizzy spell.

Ash sweeps Eiji up in his arms instead, laughing brighter than the sun outside the kitchen window, and sits Eiji on the countertop so they’re eye-to-eye when he leans down to kiss him.

It’s still so new, it steals Eiji’s breath all over again to know that last night hadn’t been a dream—that he hadn’t imagined cradling Ash’s face and having his affection returned.

Ash pulls away and breathes deep. “You’re amazing,” he whispers against Eiji’s open mouth and the shine in his jade green eyes tell Eiji just how much he means it. It’s startling.

“It’s just eggs and toast,” Eiji protests, bashful.

Ash simply laughs and Eiji feels as though he had missed the point—but then Ash is on him again and Eiji can’t feel too aggrieved when Ash stands between his knees and cups the sides of Eiji’s head like he’s made of fine china. Eiji loops one arm around the back of Ash’s neck, the other fisting in his shirt just above his heart.

Eiji’s heart is beating so hard he’s sure Ash must hear it, must feel it through where his hands are pressed into Eiji’s skin.

He’s sure that must be the reason neither of them hear the key in the lock till the door swings wide and it’s too late.

“Whoops,” Shorter says, one foot already in the door. “Guess I’m early.”

Ash pulls back far enough to scowl but his hands press protectively to Eiji’s sides. “What the f*ck, how did you even get in here?”

Shorter holds up his keyring and jingles it. His smile shows no shame. “Spare key.”

“I took the copy you made,” Ash argues, throwing up a hand in exasperation.

“I made a spare for my spare!”

Ash looks torn between astonishment, confusion, and rage. “I want to strangle you.”

“Oh, don’t worry, angel,” Shorter throws one arm around Ash’s neck while the blond tries to duck out of his grasp, slipping away from Eiji in the process. Part of Eiji is bitter at the interruption, at not having Ash’s warmth against his chest. He feels his desire like an intrinsic need.

“You’ll have plenty of time to play with kitten here after we go out,” Shorter finishes with a grin.

At the phrase “play with kitten” Eiji feels himself flush from neck to ears and quickly presses his knees together in the empty space Ash had left. The nickname both makes him warm and share Ash’s earlier sentiment. No one’s ever called him “kitten” before—it’s odd.

“Go out? Out where?” Ash turns to look at Eiji, but Eiji simply shrugs. He hadn’t bothered getting any details from Shorter—and given the current state of his pathetic life, it wasn’t very surprising that he had he had forgotten about Shorter’s plans altogether.

“Just out,” Shorter emphasizes vaguely before patting Ash on the back of his sweatpants. “Go change.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Ash whines. Eiji refrains from doing the same, but just barely. Shorter is lovely but the idea of returning to bed with Ash far outweighs his desire for drinking with men he doesn’t know—and now he’ll have to put on real pants.

Shorter eyes Eiji, still seated on the counter, and smirks. “I can see that. But the guys are excited to see you.” Shorter turns to Eiji then, tapping him on the cheek. “And to meet you.”

“What have you been telling people about me,” Eiji demands. He slips down from the counter, peering around Shorter to catch Ash’s eyes. Ash simply looks flustered and awkward, muttering something about going to change, before disappearing into the back hall towards the bedroom.

“Don’t worry, they’re all good things,” Shorter assures with an easy smile. Eiji wasn’t sure that his and Shorter’s definitions of “good” would be categorically the same. Eiji knew he must have looked harried at the thought because Shorter reached over and patted Eiji’s knee, expression kind and too damn knowing. “You worry about it too much. Ash adores you, you know.”

Eiji’s heart picked up as the words sunk in—Ash? Adored Eiji? Despite the cuddling and kissing, it felt so much more real to hear such a thing said out loud, as if the words cemented what Eiji had only dared contemplating. Declarations were often less impulsive than actions; the words meant that at some point Ash had sat and thought of Eiji and it brought him to this.

“What makes you say that?”

“I told you kitten, he talks about you. Ash’s life may be complicated but Ash himself is not a complicated man.”

And it was something to consider, surely; the idea that, despite the twists and turns and hoops of Ash Lynx’s life and all the little hidden secrets he had yet to show Eiji—that Ash was the simple centre. That this world, this life, was pressed upon him and he was just adapting. Moving forward in whatever ways he could.

Ash poked his head around the corner just as he pulled a black sweater over his chaotic hair. Eiji was almost sad over it, to see the broad width of his shoulders covered with cable-knit. “Hey, Eiji? Why don’t you call the office before we leave? We can stop and get your key.”

“Key?” Shorter asked, glancing back and forth.

“Eiji locked himself out,” Ash laughed. Eiji didn’t know how to respond but he was about to just shove Ash for being a sh*t, until Shorter jumped in.

“Don’t act like you haven’t done that,” Shorter chastised. “How many times did you lock yourself out of the restaurant?”

“Like, twice,” Ash tried to argue, pouting.

Eiji rested one hand on Shorter’s shoulder. “Thank you for defending my honor.”

Shorter saluted him and Ash scoffed, crossing the room to hand Eiji his phone. “I’m being ganged up on in my own home. You’re both the worst.”

Shorter and Eiji both murmur, “You don’t think so” before exchanging sly smiles.

At Ash’s aghast look Shorter bursts into laughter, “Ooh, I knew I liked him!”

“I don’t know what’s more of a nightmare; the two of you getting along or the two of you hating each other,” Ash mumbles into his own palm. He looks a little delighted as Eiji and Shorter high-five over Ash’s distress, though—and Eiji is sure that Ash is able to answer his own musing.

Ash lets Eiji borrow a fresh set of clothes as he tries to pester Shorter into telling him where they’re going. Eiji hears Ash call Shorter a “secret-keeping sh*t lord” as he cuffs the too-long jeans Ash gave him and cinches the belt as narrow as it would go. There wasn’t much to do about the way the sweater hangs from his shoulders, though.

Eiji was about to round the corner into the kitchen when he hears Shorter murmur, “He likes you a lot, it’s obvious.” He sounds exasperated but soft, like a well-meaning teacher with a stubborn child.

Eiji knew he should make himself known. He shouldn’t eavesdrop. It was rude and a breach of trust, but–

“But why,” Ash bemoaned. Eiji could imagine him with his arms sprawled across the tabletop and moping in that over-dramatic way he had, head low and shoulders rounded up to his ears.

“Don’t push him away just because you don’t think you’re worthy,” Shorter tells him with a kind firmness.

Worthy? Was that something Ash was concerned about—needing to be worthy of whatever he had with Eiji? Worthy of his friends?

“I’m not worthy,” Ash argues back, low and quick and bitter.

“That’s not how this works. Stop sabotaging yourself before you’ve even talked to him,” Shorter sighs and it sounds weary. This must be an old conversation, Eiji imagines.

He hates thinking that Ash has been carrying some guilt, some concern, that he didn’t deserve love and affection—that he didn’t deserve Eiji. He had assumed that they had crossed that bridge already—remembered the way small kindnesses had caught Ash by genuine surprise but thought that had been an easily broken barrier. It wounded Eiji to realize that it hadn’t been broken at all; that Ash had simply tucked it away a little deeper each time Eiji got a little closer. That Ash still watched their relationship from behind a wall of glass like a desperate observer.

He didn’t want to hear anymore. His heart was still tender from Ash’s stories the night before and he could only take so much heartache before being forced to slap on a smile for Ash and Shorter’s friends all night.

“I think I’m ready to go,” Eiji announced before rounding the corner. He did his best to smile but the tense lines of Shorter’s shoulders and the way Ash was slumped and petulant made it difficult. It was hard to pretend he hadn’t heard Ash bear his vulnerable heart over his half-eaten plate of eggs.

He flicked Ash’s ear as he passed to see if his shoes were dry by the door. “Stop pouting, you’ll get wrinkles.”

“Funny coming from an old man like you.”

“You really should respect your elders, you brat.”

Shorter whistled long and low before stealing a forkful of Eiji’s own dinner, mumbling with cheeks full of yoke, “Wow, I can’t believe you two didn’t invite me to the wedding.”

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

The side quest of picking up a spare key was mercifully quick; their landlady waved off his embarrassed apologies and slid him an envelope with his apartment number scrawled on the front.

“It’s no problem, Eiji. People have a lot of trouble with the locks. I’m sorry we were closed last night—where did you stay?” She tilts her head in concern and watches the way Eiji fidgets with the sleeves of the sweater that obviously doesn’t belong to him.

“Oh, just with my neighbor,” Eiji laughs nervously, hoping that she couldn’t read the way his mind drifts to the way Ash pressed them together in his bed or how he had wrapped his legs around Ash in the kitchen as easy as instinct. Hopes she can’t hear him think how locking himself out of his own apartment had been an unseen gift.

“I’m glad you had someone there for you. All the tenants in that building are so nice,” she smiles.

Eiji thinks of Ash, slumped over the kitchen table and telling Shorter that he wasn’t “worthy” of Eiji; of the way Ash had always been the first to apologize and how quick he had been to offer Eiji his home on one of the worst days of his life in New York so far—no questions asked, nothing demanded of him.

“Yeah, they are,” he agreed, voice as soft as his heart felt.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Ash was watching the streets passing by—all the colorful graffiti and climbing vines of untended neighborhoods stretching beneath the EL tracks—and Eiji was busy watching him.

He was preoccupied, Eiji could read that much. He was focused on the passing world but Eiji could feel him come and go, mind fluid and lost like water over stones.

Eiji needed to talk to Ash about what he heard earlier, he just wasn’t sure how to approach the topic. Or when. He assumed being sandwiched between Ash and Shorter on the EL railway at peak traffic wasn’t the prime option, so he settles to study the handsome cut of Ash’s profile instead.

As he stares and admires his mind drifts to the word “boyfriend” but it feels shallow and useless; lover is more formless—koibito, in his native tongue—but was that presumptuous? Too much too fast?

Eiji just desperately wanted to name the heart-feeling Ash stirred in him; give proper reverence to how lucky Eiji felt to have crossed his path.

“We’re going to The Bar,” Ash suddenly declared, as if he had read Eiji’s thoughts and tried to deflect.

“f*ck you, it’s a surprise,” Shorter whines.

Ash smirked, catching Eiji’s eye and winking as Shorter groaned. “It’s The Bar,” Ash stage-whispered over Shorter complaining about Ash ruining all his surprises.

The Bar ended up being just that—a bar that had once gone by some trendy street name now referred to by its regulars as just “The Bar”, lost in the thicket of the rundown commercialist street.

It was rough and well-worn with brick walls and peeling band posters plastered around the front entrance; a set of stairs leading down into a basem*nt door and grey concrete walls below the line of earth covered in what, to Eiji, read as nonsensical graffiti.

It had a lot of personality. A very distinct one—one that takes decades and disasters to cultivate. Eiji wished for a brief moment that he had brought his camera—the street art was colorful and intriguing in a way that made Eiji want to trace his fingers over it, all graceful curves and bubbles and arches with hidden colloquialisms.

Shorter tapped twice on the wooden door and it swung open to reveal a small boy, possibly no older than thirteen with wide, dark eyes and a boyish grin. A heavy bass streamed out from behind him.

“Thought you’d be late again,” the boy teased. Shorter ruffled his thick, dark curls as he breezed through and got swatted for his trouble. The kid stuck his tongue out at Shorter and Shorter pulled a face in return. It was cute to watch.

Not as cute as the way the kid practically jumped into Ash’s arms when he saw him, but still close.

“Ash!” The kid crowed. “You disappeared!”

“I got busy,” Ash murmured, embracing him warmly. The kid suddenly peered around Ash’s shoulders at Eiji, brown eyes wide and somehow knowing.

“Who’s this?”

Ash gestured for Eiji to step forward. “This is my friend, Eiji.”

The boy hummed thoughtfully, eyeing Eiji. “Hm, I thought—”

“Nope,” Ash quickly slapped a hand over the kids mouth. “Eiji this is Skip. Now inside—go.”

Skip tried to protest as Ash began shuffling him back into the bar but Ash’s desperate pleas to “not do this now” drowned it out. Eiji hesitantly filed in behind them.

The bar was full of people and it was suffocating.

Groups of unfamiliar men and women were clustered around green pool tables, chatting and cheering and goading one another on. The crack of the billiard balls from all directions made Eiji jump. Even more people hung around the edges of the room at tables, blowing smoke and eyeing the newcomers at the door with strange expressions—Eiji was very aware of how poorly he stuck out.

Shorter had made himself at home by the bar, and Ash seemed to be following him, so Eiji decided it would be best to continue in that direction as well.

Skip was calling Ash “pathetic” and laughing as the blond hung his head. “He’s got a very specific type,” Shorter was agreeing. As Eiji approached, hands white-knuckled around the sleeves of his sweater, Shorter threw his arms around him and began dragging him off.

“I’m taking him to meet some of the guys,” Shorter called, Eiji stumbling along with his too-quick steps.

“Wait—” Ash called. He tried to follow them, looking panicked, but a man in a jean jacket approached looking sullen and whatever he said to Ash was enough to distract the blond for the moment.

Shorter stopped them in front of a table with two men nursing beers over a card game. One was easily three times Eiji’s size with a chain necklace as thick as Eiji’s wrist laying against the lapels of his jacket, and the other seemed razor sharp with a wild mess of strawberry hair and what Eiji was sure were fangs. Both men stared with furrowed brows as Shorter gestured wildly between them. Eiji wished he could collapse and die right there.

“Kong, Bones—this is Eiji!”

Eiji raised a hand and waved, muttering a greeting that he was sure went entirely unheard as the jukebox loaded up an overbearing guitar riff to some classic rock Eiji couldn’t name.

The larger man’s eyes widened. “Eiji? You’re the neighbor?”

The other man slammed his hand of cards down on the table, leaning forward to stare at Eiji like a particularly rare specimen—Eiji couldn’t fathom what about him could garner such a response.

“If you mean Ash’s neighbor, then yes,” Eiji nodded. He hoped he looked like he had some sort of backbone.

“You’re the one who stood up to Boss!” The pink-haired one exclaimed.

“Stood up to?” Eiji tilted his head.

Shorter’s arm around Eiji’s shoulders tightened, drawing him closer in a way that felt almost proud. “Oh, you should see them together. It’s a treat.”

The man with the chain necklace stuck out his hand. His smile completely changed his face from hardened gang member to teddy bear within seconds. “I’m Kong. Ash and Shorter’s told us all about you,” he said. Eiji returned the gesture. Kong’s hand was warm and calloused and he suddenly felt much more at ease.

“Bones!” The other one offered, raising his hand like an enthusiastic student.

Maybe this wasn’t so bad. Maybe he was judging too quick. If nothing else, he could say his friendship with Ash certainly pulled him from his comfort zone. “It’s nice to meet you,” Eiji told them both.

Ash appeared then, annoyed and flustered and pink-faced. “I told you to wait,” he huffed at Shorter. The man in the jean jacket trailed behind him.

“Don’t worry, angel, I didn’t say anything incriminating,” Shorter laughed.

“You are incriminating,” Ash muttered.

The man in the jean jacket reached between them to offer Eiji his hand. His expression was teetering between placid and something Eiji wasn’t sure he could name—something near thoughtful, he supposed. “You must be Eiji. I’m Alex.”

Eiji shook his hand before looking around at the new faces. Maybe now was as good as ever, maybe now was the opening Ash needed to finally— “How do you all know Ash?” Eiji asks before he can think better of it.

It was astounding how such an innocuous question ground everyone to a halt. Alex side-eyed Ash, who refused to make eye-contact. Shorter sighed like a disappointed parent. Just over Eiji’s shoulder, Bones quietly asked, “He didn’t tell you?”

Ash didn’t answer and Eiji’s heart began to sink.

You can tell me. You can tell me. We’re here, with your friends. You’re safe. You can tell me, Eiji pleaded to himself. He so desperately wanted Ash to trust him, to confide in him—to understand that this was nothing when pitted against how deep Eiji’s affections ran.

He watched Ash, waiting and hoping for the minute when he would turn to Eiji and finally just say it, get it off his chest and realize that Eiji wasn’t going anywhere—

But Ash turned away, looking sullen and ashamed and it broke Eiji’s heart.

Because Eiji realized he was wrong—the time was wrong. Even now, surrounded by the men he trusted with his life and their work, he wasn’t ready. There was so much Ash hadn’t said and it had hung him up and now he wouldn’t look at Eiji, and Eiji didn’t want to press. Didn’t want to force. It was the one thing he never wanted to do. He knew he had already done enough damage—thoughtless, once again.

Over Ash’s shoulder, another man walked in through the front entrance—a boy, really. Sing saw Eiji and his surprise was clear when their eyes met.

Eiji wanted to give Ash an out. He was a little ashamed and he needed to step back, needed to leave things to ease.

He touched his hand to Ash’s shoulder for a moment, but the blond didn’t look at him. “Bathroom,” Eiji murmured just loud enough over the rock song for Ash to hear. He left without waiting for a response. He could hear Shorter begin to speak but he let it dissolve into the white noise of the Saturday crowd—Eiji had done enough.

Eiji met Sing by one of the pool tables near the bar, as physically far from Ash and his friends as possible, and Eiji was grateful for that.

He had to give Ash that space. You couldn’t heal, couldn’t move forward, if you couldn’t even breathe. Eiji didn’t want to take that rare spark from him like a vine choking the life from a flowering bloom.

“What are you doing here?” Sing asked, eyebrows raised.

Eiji gestured vaguely over his shoulder in the direction he had come from. “Here with some friends.”

Sing’s eyes found where Ash was speaking heatedly with Shorter and Alex on the other side of the room, Kong and Bones watching helplessly. “Don’t tell me you mean Lynx?”

“Yes, Ash—and Shorter. I don’t know if you know him.”

“Know Shorter?” Sing scoffed. “Of course I know him. He’s my boss.”

Eiji held up his hands to stop Sing while his brain shuffled bits of information around. “Wait. Boss? As in—”

“The Chinatown Boss,” Sing nodded towards Shorter, tone telling Eiji that he thought it was obvious. “That’s Shorter Wong.”

And somehow, that information was surprising but not devastating. It didn’t change things. It took a second to adjust but, still—Shorter was one of the nicest people Eiji had met. He was kind and funny and always seemed to put Ash’s wellbeing first. He was so quick to bring Eiji, a total outsider, into their fold and seemed happy to do so. He greeted everyone on their lower end as equals. His status as the Chinatown Boss was just another drop in the bucket. It didn’t matter. Not to Eiji, anyway.

“Looks like you know two gang bosses, then,” Sing pointed out, eyebrows raised. Maybe waiting for Eiji to have a meltdown.

“My mom will be so proud,” Eiji muttered. That got a laugh. Sing’s whole face transformed with the sound and suddenly he wasn’t a member of the Chinatown syndicate—just a sixteen-year-old kid.

“You were wrong about Ash, you know,” Eiji tells him then. Because he needs him to know, because it’s important for the world to know that Ash Lynx wasn’t the man he was said to be. “He’s probably the sweetest person I’ve ever met. I feel… lucky that I met him.”

Eiji knows that his voice had turned pathetically fond—it seemed to do that a lot when talking about Ash. It was embarrassing but at least it was candid.

Sing stared at him long enough to make Eiji squirm. An odd look passed his over his face—something calm and accepting. Eiji wondered if he was taking his words to heart, if in some way he was rearranging what he knew the way Eiji had done each time with Ash. Eiji wondered what Sing saw when he looked at him.

“You’re a strange one, Okumura. But maybe that’s what he needs.” Sing threw an arm around Eiji and began leading him to the bar. “Let’s get you a drink.”

And Eiji was happy to go.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Eiji was only a drink and a half in when Ash reappeared, but they were strong drinks, Eiji would defend.

Ash didn’t look as distressed now; he carried a sense of calm as he approached, melting into Eiji’s side and pressing his lips to Eiji’s hair. And it was the first time Ash was being affectionate in public, and in front of his men—

Eiji was more than content to follow the way the world was swaying to lean further into Ash’s embrace, to feel the steady beat in Ash’s chest under his buzz-warmed cheek, but – what had changed?

“Thanks for taking care of him,” Ash murmured to Sing. Sing nodded tipsily and rambled about how nice Eiji always was and how good of friends they were (becoming, he probably meant). It was endearing. Eiji decided he liked Sing quite a lot and needed to tell him immediately.

“Shin wa sukina yuujin dayo,” Eiji cries, pawing at his new friends’ arm to get his attention. Eiji doesn’t realize that he hadn’t spoken in English till Sing turns to him, squinting and muttering, “f*ck, that wasn’t Chinese” in confusion.

Shorter appears then at Sing’s elbow, drawing the boy into a headlock while he orders a drink of his own. He looked much more at ease as well and he smiles at Ash over Sing and Eiji’s tipsy heads. Eiji follows his gaze to where Ash is still partially curled around him, expression sweetly bleary, and sighs because he’s just so cute.

Ash seems to take note of Eiji and Sing seated so close together at the bar that their elbows and knees bumped. Shorter looks amused as Ash asks, “How do you two know each other?”

Sing excitedly patted Eiji’s arm, “He was one of the guys at that interview-thing Shorter made me do.”

“Huh?” Ash reeled back to stand up straight and looked to Shorter. “With that journalism magazine that pestered you for months?”

Shorter just shrugged but his smile was sly.

“I met Sing at the interview,” Eiji nodded and the world spun a little but it was okay because Ash was still standing close enough to press against his side. “I just didn’t realize that it was supposed to be Shorter.” Eiji turned to glare at Shorter then. “I didn’t realize you worked for Chinatown!”

“I knew you’d figure it out, kitten,” Shorter croons. And then as the bartender slid Shorter a green glass full of something that Eiji could taste on the back of his own tongue, Shorter leaned over and whispered, “Wanna know a secret?”

“Probably not,” Eiji deadpans. He isn’t sure but some part of his brain chatters away, reminding him that he’s annoyed with Shorter for something.

“His secrets suck,” Sing agrees, tapping the rim of his glass against Eiji’s in solidarity.

“Betrayed by my own second in command,” Shorter simpers, wiping away imaginary tears behind his glasses. “The truth is, I only sent Sing because I was hungover that day.”

“I thought you told Ibe and Max that you’d only cooperate if you could send one of your guys?”

Shorter flapped a hand, “I made that sh*t up last minute. I got trashed with Nadia and some guys from the restaurant the night before—had a really good night with one of the servers—and just didn’t feel like being poked and prodded all morning.”

“So he called me at 6am begging me to take his place,” Sing griped into cup.

“Wow. I was wrong about gang members,” Eiji muses, thoughtfully nuzzling into where Ash’s arm is still curled around his shoulders. Shorter nods enthusiastically.

“See? We’re not so bad, huh?”

“You’re all so lame,” Eiji continues, ignoring Shorter’s disgruntled squawk. “Ash cries at nature documentaries and broccoli, you pass off work on a kid, Sing’s literally a high schooler—why was I ever so scared of you?”

“Because Ash is probably the worst at flirting I’ve ever met. He gives the rest of us a bad name, walking around looking all grumpy,” Shorter accuses. He reaches across to jab a finger into Ash’s cheek but the blond swats him away and laughs.

Eiji glances up at Ash, expecting Ash to be preoccupied with Shorter, but Ash is staring down at Eiji in a way that he could only describe as dreamy—and it settles something in Eiji, to see the way Ash makes him feel reflected in the other man’s face so openly and earnestly.

Eiji presses his entire face to his chest and breathes deep that scent of sand and breaking waves. “Saiko no hitori yo,” he tells him. Ash just smiles down at him like he understands—and Eiji is more than sure that, somehow, he does.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Eiji learns that Kong is an amazing pool partner in Cut Throat, and Alex is always DD because Bones rigs the straws, and Sing hangs on Shorter like a beloved older brother. A hulking man with the coolest haircut Eiji had ever seen (which he very loudly and drunkenly declared and didn’t have the sense to be embarrassed about for nearly two more hours) introduced himself as Cain Blood and offered to help Eiji beat Ash’s ass at pool. Eiji very enthusiastically accepts and Ash is only mildly dramatic about the betrayal.

Shorter and a sweet-tempered man named Sonny spend half the night going through rounds of Blackjack with him while Eiji sobers up enough to make it home. It’s around midnight when Ash finally gives up on scamming Shorter at the pool tables and comes to fetch him.

He’s sober enough to know it’s his genuine feelings when Eiji steps onto the EL and thinks, I really like Ash’s friends. They had been so quick to accept Eiji as if he was part of their crew—they taught him all their inside jokes and slang and sounded genuine as they asked Eiji where he was from. Not everyone was kind to learn he was a foreigner on paper.

The night had gone surprisingly well—but downing six shots of vodka and loosing at Twenty-One wasn’t the difficult part.

Because now he was alone with Ash—Shorter having dipped out with a pretty dark-haired man under one arm and a blond woman under the other—and Eiji needed to figure out where to go from here.

Where they were going from here.

The train ride is quiet; it’s after midnight by then and the crowds are thin, so Eiji feels no shame in resting against Ash’s side. He sinks into Eiji’s touch like he had only a month ago on the futon they shared and Eiji’s buzzed little heart sings when he catches Ash’s reflection across from them—eyes closed and tranquil, distant city lights reflected through the dark glass.

Their station is announced overhead and Eiji is loathed to jostle Ash awake. He’s still sleep-soft as they stumble onto the platform and begin their walk home—arms linked and fingers intertwined. They don’t speak, opting to listen to the muted sounds of the neighborhood. Eiji thinks it should be awkward but it’s so far from it; there’s a comfort in Ash’s presence that doesn’t require prattling or translation to enjoy.

They spend the elevator ride up to their floor in silence as well, still attached at the hip with Eiji’s cheek resting in the curve of Ash’s shoulder. He dreads every number that lights up above the door because that means they’re closer to home. Home means two separate apartment numbers for the two of them.

And Eiji doesn’t want to leave this, to let go of his Ash. Now that he knows how his heart soars to wake up to Ash, he doesn’t think he can ever bear to wake another way—what would be the point in it, truly.

“Let’s test your spare and see if it works,” Ash suggests. With clumsy fingers Eiji pulls it from his pocket and fits it in the lock. The door swings wide as easy as magic.

Ash rocks back on his heels and suddenly Eiji can imagine him as he might have been when he was younger; hands in his pockets and shifting with anxiety. “Guess I’ll let you get some rest. Thank you for tonight,” he says, voice soft.

Ash hesitates, wavers, and Eiji knows he can’t let it pass.

“Honestly I’m exhausted,” Eiji sighs. “But I don’t think I’ll be able to rest as well if you leave.”

And maybe it was closer on the side of too honest instead of coy because Ash’s eyes widen and he stops rocking on his heels—but then he smiles so bright it could rival the stars and maybe being vulnerable and embarrassed is worth it for Ash to look like that. To look at Eiji like that.

“I’m always happy to help a friend,” Ash laughs.

Ash leaves only long enough to clean up and change, and when he returns they fall into bed immediately, cozy and warm under Eiji’s mountain of blue duvet. Eiji tucks Ash under his chin and Eiji can feel the alcohol linger just under his skin, every point of contact making Eiji sigh and nuzzle that much closer.

“You knew, didn’t you?” comes Ash’s soft voice. Eiji merely hums to show he’s listening and Ash continues, “About… me. Who I am.”

“You mean what you do,” Eiji corrects. “I know who you are, and nothing Sing or anyone else can tell me has anything to do with that.”

Ash sighs and it warms Eiji’s neck, makes him shiver. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Eiji says. He cards his hands through Ash’s hair and listens as the blond sighs again—this time in contentment as he sinks further into Eiji’s arms.

Eiji wants to leave it at that. Wants to let Ash drift off knowing only that’s he’s understood and wanted, that Eiji’s adoration is more than shallow interest, but something still gnaws at Eiji—

“You know,” Eiji starts before he can regret it. The English seems difficult to parse through now, but he can’t quite blame his clumsy tongue on the alcohol the way he had at the bar. He hadn’t planned what he wanted to say and to lay his heart so bare so plainly makes him nervous. Ash shifts when he hesitates too long. “You don’t need… to earn the people who love you.”

Ash pulls back enough to settle eye-to-eye. He presses their foreheads together and Eiji is filled with grace that Ash didn’t pull away. “You heard me and Shorter, huh.” It’s not a question.

“A little, yes. I’m sorry,” Eiji winces. Ash’s gaze settles on something far past Eiji.

“It’s just—you’re so good, and kind, and I’m—”

“Incredibly smart, and sweet,” Eiji cups Ash’s cheek. “And the first real friend I made here. You are valued whether you feel you deserve it or not. You do not need to try to be worthy of what I feel for you.”

“And what do you feel for me?” Ash grins.

Eiji presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, then a second—then a third on his cheek, because he can’t help himself. “Not sure. Requires more testing.”

Ash pulls away then, eyes wide, and for a moment Eiji thinks that’s it— “Can I tell you something?” he asks, sudden and serious.

“Anything,” Eiji promises with another kiss to his furrowed brow. His expression smooths under Eiji’s touch—a surety he settles into.

“Aslan Jade Callenreese,” he says. The meaning passes Eiji by and when Ash opens his eyes to Eiji’s bewildered expression, he continues, “My name—my real name.”

Eiji is sure he stops breathing then; he can only reach for him, trace the fine bones of his cheek and watch the way the jade of his eyes brighten when he finally murmurs, “It’s beautiful.”

Ash catches his mouth in a real kiss, firm and sure, and Eiji feels himself melt as if he’s drifted too close to a star. Ash is rather good at the way he presses Eiji into the pillows and cups his chin and whispers praise. It all makes Eiji feel overheated and fragile, like a frayed wire.

“Aslan,” Eiji breathes between them.

It makes the blond pause, tousled hair in his face as he quietly asks, “Say it again?”

“Aslan,” a kiss to his mouth. “Aslan,” another to his cheek, his chin, the pulse beating hot and strong in his throat. “Aslan. My Aslan.”

“Thank you,” he presses the sentiment into Eiji’s neck, the words leaving purpling marks along his collar bones. Eiji gasps at the enticing sting of teeth and blindly reaches for Ash’s hand. Ash meets him halfway to twine their fingers together under the covers.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

“Woah, good morning,” Max tells Eiji from his seat in the breakroom—and his tone stops Eiji just short of the coffee pot when he enters.

“Good morning, Max,” Eiji returns, suspicious.

“You, um,” Max swallows an awkward sip of coffee from his own mug and gestures towards Eiji’s person. “Have a good weekend?”

“It was rough,” Eiji sighs and drops his bag into an empty seat. Max chokes.

The door opens before Eiji can question the older journalist and Ibe enters, making a beeline for the coffee. “Morning, everyone. How was your weekend?”

“Eiji had a rough one,” Max pipes up, sounding as if he was about to burst into hysterics.

“Oh?” Ibe finishes pouring his cup and turns, “What happened—”

Ibe stops short, mouth falling open. He looks absolutely scandalized.

“I think we need to talk to our son,” Max nods sagely from his seat. He’s grinning so wide it looks like it might be painful.

“Did I say something wrong?” Eiji asks—it’s one of his more sensitive subjects; the idea that even now, after fifteen years of English—over half his life—he’s still stumbling through the most basic communication sometimes—

And then Eiji realizes that they’re both staring at his neck. Where his collar had fallen open and his scarf no longer sat. Where Ash had enthusiastically worked Eiji to frustration Saturday night, and then again Sunday morning on the futon while they “watched” Lost in Space.

Eiji had completely forgotten how much of a menace Ash Lynx truly was.

Embarrassed beyond all belief, he quickly slaps a hand to where he most remembers Ash sucking bruises to the surface and hurries out to find the red scarf he had left at his desk.

He’ll have to pay Ash back somehow.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

It’s a Thursday and Ash is taking a call—Eiji can tell from the way Ash casually drops “sh*thead” that it’s Shorter on the other end. Despite the endearing names it sounds like they’re talking the logistics of something business related; but it’s been a long day and Max still hasn’t let Eiji forget his Monday morning blunder and it certainly doesn’t help that the purpling around his neck still hasn’t completely faded.

So Eiji settles himself across Ash’s lap, straddles his hips and simply smiles when Ash looks up at him questioningly.

He kisses at Ash’s chin and delights in the way the blond tilts his head back, accepting of Eiji’s desire for exploration at such an inopportune time—so Eiji dips lower, presses sloppy, open-mouthed kisses along the tendons of his neck and sinks his teeth into the pulse point. Ash jumps and stutters over his sentence, so Eiji does it again.

He drags his tongue across the fresh mark and feels how Ash has tensed under him. His free hand presses to Eiji’s curved spine as if to steady himself. Eiji drifts higher and mouths at the hollow beneath the blond’s ear, carding a hand through the soft blond locks and tugging just enough—

“I um—sorry, I’m kind of distracted right now,” Ash admits. Shorter murmurs something on the other end and Ash fumbles with his phone for a minute to switch it to speaker.

“Gross,” Shorter is saying—but his tone is annoyingly chipper. “Go get f*cked by your cute boyfriend. Cain will be here soon.”

“Well now that I have your permission I definitely will go get f*cked by my cute boyfriend,” Ash laughs, running his hand down the length of Eiji’s back while Eiji just pouts.

He’d been expecting at least some shame on Ash’s part.

Ash tells Shorter something about Sing and a list of names before hanging up and turning his attentions to kissing Eiji to welcome him home.

“For the record,” Ash mumbles against Eiji’s lips, “If you’re trying to embarrass me, good luck. The most the guys will do if I walk in with a hickey is high-five me and say nice.”

Eiji drops to sit more comfortably across Ash’s lap and rolls his eyes. Of course Ash was completely shameless and the crew were enablers. “Fine. Order a pizza for dinner while I make tea?”

“Of course,” Ash kisses him one more time—smacking Eiji’s ass as he stood wasn’t entirely necessary but Eiji couldn’t find himself entirely against it.

They’ll talk about that another time.

“So—who’s this cute boyfriend?” Eiji teases. Ash crosses the room to lean against his back as Eiji puts the kettle on. He sighs like a high schooler enamored.

“He’s so cute,” Ash simpers. “He’s got dark hair.” A kiss to Eiji’s wind-swept mess of hair. “Beautiful brown eyes.” A longer, gentler kiss to Eiji’s exposed neck. “He’s kind of a dick sometimes—he never lets me sleep in—but honestly it’s pretty worth it.”

“He sounds like a catch. I feel bad for him though—having to deal with you.”

“You wound me, Eiji,” Ash mumbles into his skin. The kettle starts to whistle and Eiji shoos him away to move it.

“And if you give me another bruise on my neck I’ll strangle you.” He sets the kettle aside as he pulls two mugs out of the cabinet and feels Ash lean down to press a kiss to his shoulder. “Max won’t let it go.”

Ash’s hands smooth down the sides of Eiji’s button up and tuck themselves into the waistband of his slacks—just enough to get Eiji’s undivided attention. “There are plenty of other places I can leave them instead,” he promises.

Eiji reaches back to cup Ash’s jaw, drawing him forward to place a single kiss on the tip of his nose. “Can you seduce me after you order dinner?”

“Are you admitting out loud that I was seducing you?”

Eiji sighs deeply—Ash doesn’t need the ego boost. “Yes. Now go order dinner.”

Ash wraps both arms around Eiji’s middle. His laughter is bright and contagious where he hides it in Eiji’s neck. “You’re the best.”

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Two months feels like no time at all.

Two months of Ash sleeping in his bed and plying him awake with kisses, of Eiji making two cups of tea for breakfast instead of one, of spending time with Alex and Kong and Bones and Shorter in his off hours.

Two months of watching Ash gather funds for high-cost medicine for various families in the area like Ms. Detti that can’t afford it, of watching him make donations to kitchens and shelters and abashedly telling Eiji, “People that end up places like that are the most vulnerable,” as if seeing Ash use his status for such things didn’t make Eiji fall more in love with his stubborn ass.

“I’ve never seen him… fuss like this,” Shorter tells him delicately as they watch Ash run back to the apartment building. He insisted on returning to find Eiji’s scarf because it was “too cold for just a jacket”. Ash was a kind of ridiculous that left Eiji a little starry-eyed.

He was a disaster to get up in the morning and spent too many hours making himself sick over numbers and who the hell liked avocado and shrimp salad? He was impulsive and sharp-tongued and warm-hearted and Eiji was weak to it all.

“He drives me crazy,” Eiji nods and sighs as Ash disappears through the building front door. “But I love him.”

The words are out before he had even considered them. He can practically hear Shorter gape before it really settles and hits him;

Loves him. Eiji loves Ash. Is that what this was? Before he can even begin to doubt his own revelation, Eiji knows—what else could this be? What else can account for the way his heart craves Aslan despite the day or hour; how his presence feels more like home than any place ever did?

What else can it mean when Eiji watches Ash Skype with his family in Japan and he can feel his joy like a stimulant nestled in his veins, or how Eiji seeks out his warmth at 2am before he can even remember where he is?

“Love, huh?” Shorter teases, slinging an arm around Eiji’s shoulders and pressing his face close to whisper, “Does he know?”

“Probably,” Eiji sighs. “But I suppose I have to say it at some point.”

“If it helps—I think he loves you, too.”

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Three months and Eiji was spending most weekends in Ash’s apartment in Ash’s too-big clothes because he was too tired to do laundry and Ash was an enabler.

This weekend in particular he had cocooned himself in Ash’s bed with his laptop, trying to finish editing work for Ibe, when Ash mutters something about going down to check the mail. Eiji hums and thinks nothing of it as Ash slips into the hallway.

He comes back quick enough for Eiji to notice the oddity of it, gently holding a weather-worn envelope between his fingertips. His blond lashes are thick with unshed tears as he slumps next to Eiji.

“Ash?” Eiji sits up and holds out his arms, beckoning him closer. “Ash, what’s wrong.”

Ash whispers something Eiji can’t catch over the sound of traffic outside, and when Eiji asks him to repeat it he finally notices how hard Ash’s hands are shaking.

“Griff,” he grinds out, eyes too bright. He takes a breath and it’s not quite steady. “It’s from Griff.”

“Your brother?”

Ash nods and Eiji feels his own heart pound—the ghost of a brother, sending letters and making Ash look like that. As if his world was splintering under the weight of a dirtied white envelope.

“Do you want to open it?” Eiji asks quietly.

He can’t even begin to fathom what it might be, what it might mean. What it means to Ash. He had kept those details to himself. Tucked them so close to his heart that even Eiji hadn’t been privy.

Ash shakily reaches for Eiji’s hand; Eiji takes it, squeezing his pale fingers between his own and feels the bones shift just under his skin before he withdraws. He runs a fingertip under the lip of the envelope and breaks the weathered seal.

It’s a letter. Three pages, dusted and well-worn, same as the roughened envelope, with lines of English scrawled in a careful, delicate hand. Ash pauses and then reaches for Eiji again—he squeezes his hand so hard Eiji almost thinks to protest before he sees the thick tears Ash turns his face to hide.

He takes a long moment to read through the looping cursive before the tears begin to fall.

“He’s okay,” Ash sobs, and Eiji isn’t entirely sure the words were meant for him. “He’s okay, he’s okay.”

Ash sways and Eiji is ready to catch him, to gather him in his arms and bundle him close and let him cry into the collar of his stolen sweater—and his heart doesn’t break, or bleed, or ache. Because his tears are joy. There’s a smile on Ash’s face that he presses to Eiji’s neck, wet and watery with his tears, but it’s there.

So Eiji silently lets Ash work through his sobs in fits and bursts. Lets him dampen his chest and sleeves and presses whispered words he can’t quite hear into his skin.

Even joy can be messy, Eiji supposes.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

“What’s that?” Eiji blows steam from his mug and watches the way it wavers around Ash’s face as he studies the paper in his hand.

“Lease renewal,” Ash drawls. He sets it aside in a pile separate from his return letter to Griffin, packaged neat and tidy in a fresh envelope with it’s stamp and foreign destination neatly printed in the centre. Ash was excited to run their errands today because it meant today he got to toss half his heart into the US postal system.

“Do you plan to stay?” Eiji asks. Sips from his mug. Watches the way Ash furrows his brow and shrugs.

Because this might be a good opportunity—

“I guess,” Ash answers slowly. “Where else would I go?”

“I mean,” Eiji starts, and stops. His fingers tremble around his mug so he sets it down, pretends to be busy with something in the sink instead. His heart can’t bear to watch Ash’s face as he says, “You could just move in with me? It would save money and time.”

He doesn’t hear Ash stand and approach, but he figures that’s because the blood pounding in his ears is far too loud. “Or,” Ash murmurs as he slips his arms around Eiji’s waist from behind. “You could move in with me. My apartment is nicer.”

Eiji tosses his head to glare. “They are the same—it’s a mirrored plan.”

“Mine gets more sun, though,” Ash argues. He gestures widely to the small pots lining the window and table and counter; thoughtful gifts from Ash and Shorter and a pretty rose succulent gifted from Bones and Kong when they heard that Eiji’s birthday had already passed.

Eiji sighs—partially because he should have known Ash would be contrary about even this, but also in relief because that’s not a no.

“We’ll talk about it,” he grumbles. Ash just laughs, all sunshine, and curls himself tighter around Eiji.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Ash is rather talented at most things like language and leadership and piano. He’d taught himself how to fold origami animals to leave as presents for Eiji on their shared pillow when he leaves before the sun rises. He can carry a tune when he parrots the radio at dinner and his penmanship is nothing short of artistic.

He’s also very good at stealing the breath from Eiji’s lungs and pressing him just hard enough against the bedroom door to make him gasp. His ability to make Eiji oversensitive and sobbing is unparalleled, and Eiji was more than sure that no one else on the earth was as confident in their ability to make Eiji beg quite like Ash Lynx.

“Don’t stop,” Eiji sobs, face turned into the pillow and one hand clutching Ash’s like a lifeline because he was moving and Eiji was so full and he could feel it—right there, on the cusp on something grand, near it’s end—

“Use your manners,” Ash teases and bites the shell of his ear and Eiji nearly screams with it because Ash slows the rolling of his hips and it’s not fair.

“Don’t you dare stop,” Eiji tries. He grits his teeth and tries to meet Ash’s hips with his own to draw him back to the pace they had set but Ash slinks down to bite at the sweat-slicked skin of his neck instead.

“Asshole,” Eiji gasps—feels Ash’s teeth sink deep enough to bruise, his tongue soothing the abused skin and it all makes Eiji melt into his lover’s hands but it’s not enough– “Please, Aslan” he murmurs, again and again, whispering shamelessly to the starry ceiling for only Ash to hear.

“That’s all you had to say,” Ash tells him kindly, resuming his pace and making Eiji fight for breath as the air heats and his knees shake and the constellations begin to blur as Eiji loses control of his mouth.

Ash presses a kiss to his temple to match the slow and hard roll of his hips driving Eiji to delirium, and it’s all more than Eiji could ever want.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

“Earl Grey?” Eleanor offers from where she stands at her tea cabinet. Above her is a vast array of boxes and tins, all boasting promising combinations of tea leaves and florals and bergamot.

“That would be lovely,” Eiji tells her as he sets his shoes aside neatly between Eleanor’s little pink flats and Ash’s dirty red converse with one taped eyelet.

He keeps threatening to buy Ash a new pair—maybe he’ll give in once the toe box on the left one finally gives out. Or Ash will end up just duct-taping it back into place. It’s a toss-up, really.

Ash pauses where he was setting out mugs, as if seeing Eiji had pressed an urgent thought upon him, “Oh, I forgot the cookies,” he murmurs. “I’ll be right back.”

He makes for the door and disappears, leaving Eiji to set the kettle on the stovetop as Eleanor divvy’s out tea bags for the three of them.

“Good to see you two worked it out, dear,” she delights, pinching at Eiji’s cheek.

“What do you mean?” Something in him isn’t ready to discuss this—he wants to keep it private, a treasured thing only for him and Ash. Even Ash’s best friend wasn’t privy to the things they talked about during the darkest hours of night; Eiji’s family only knew that a friend would be joining him on his spring visit home once the sakura were in bloom for hanami.

Eiji was so scared of something ruining this thing between them; the imperfect, messy, unalloyed simplicity they had so easily cultivated.

Ms. Detty hums and moves to sit at the table while the kettle rumbles. “I know that look anywhere. You’re so far gone you’re out of New York.”

Eiji doesn’t want to admit that the meaning is a little lost on him so he busies himself with the screaming kettle. Eleanor had seemed to vie for them since their earliest days, over half a year gone.

And they didn’t hide it, really—never really tried. Shorter liked to make suggestions for what he assumes to be their impending wedding since “no one can handle the boss like you can, kitten.” Bones and Kong were adamant that they had been onto them since before they met Eiji. Sometimes Eiji caught Alex just watching them, thinking, the ghost of a smile almost visible.

And of course Eleanor had heard the absent-minded admiration in Eiji’s own irritated ramblings before he himself had been able. She was surely aware of their comings and goings—never one without the other, now. Despite the day or hour they couldn’t seem to bear to part.

But speaking it into existence was so much more terrifying with an audience, with expectations and judgments.

“He is important to me,” Eiji finally settles on. It’s the simplest way to dilute to an outsider the bond they had, formed from blood and tears and the insatiable need to be truly seen.

Eiji places one steeping mug in front of the older woman and she watches him fondly over the steaming rim, blue eyes smiling behind her glasses. “I’m glad you got the timing right.”

Ash returns just a moment later baring a tray of tea cookies with delicate pastel frosting. “Found them,” he announces before turning to Eiji, “Why did you put them in the fridge?”

“Those ones have cream in them.”

“You don’t have to refrigerate cookies.”

“No but you need to refrigerate creambecause it is dairy.”

“We just bought them this morning,” Ash points out.

“You still aren’t supposed to let it sit out,” Eiji sighs, crossing his arms. He’s torn between fondness for the way Ash’s eyes crinkle when he smiles at him like that and irritation at his lover’s stubborn nature.

Ash crosses the room and makes to set the tray down on the counter, pressing his lips to Eiji’s hair as he passes—not quite a kiss but intimate enough to make Eiji’s face warm in front of their current company, “So difficult,” Ash grouses.

Eleanor doesn’t comment on the way they move around one another, fluid like water, as they plate the pastries and settle with their cups; nor does she point out the way Ash none too subtly takes Eiji’s hand in his own once they sit—but she watches it all, suspiciously contemplative. Her eyes seem far beyond the mug in her hands.

“Quit elbowing me,” Eiji mumbles, laughing, as Ash reaches for a second cookie and jostles him. As he speaks he settles his head on the blond’s shoulder and watches Ash stuff the whole of the tea cookie in his mouth like a chipmunk.

“Sorry, can’t hear you over these sweet ass cookies,” Ash tells him but shifts to accommodate Eiji more easily against his side.

There are pink and blue crumbs stuck to the sides of his mouth, and without thinking Eiji reaches up to brush them away and replace them with a gentle kiss. “Disgusting,” he teases.

“Yes, the two of you are,” Eleanor roars with laughter.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Ash drops the bag of clothing on the floor at the foot of the bed and watches Eiji nudge aside a bin of blankets to exit the bathroom.

“What’s left?” Eiji settles his hands on his hips and then falters at the way Ash is watching him—soft and careless as the evening light paints him gold. He cradles one of Eiji’s hands like it’s made of glass; uncurls the fingers and traces each one thoughtfully before pressing a kiss to every knuckle.

“Just my books,” Ash murmurs.

“Just my books, he says,” Eiji scoffs, not unkindly, into the chest of Ash’s shirt where he presses his forehead. Ash rests his free hand on the nape of Eiji’s neck and braids his fingers into the long strands. They’re almost long enough to tie back, now.

“I’ll handle it,” Ash promises and kisses him long and slow. Eiji presses his chest to Ash’s and hopes he can feel the way his heart turns erratic at his touch. Hopes he knows how dearly Eiji treasures him.

When Eiji pulls away he spots the white envelope on the table next to their bed, and suddenly his heart picks up for a whole new reason. “Did he give you a date?”

“Three months,” Ash whispers. The smile overtaking his face is childish and free of burden and Eiji wishes he could keep him this way forever—full of the joy that had been hard-won.

“Three months,” Eiji echoes.

In three months Griffin Callenreese will be home, alive and well from his deployment, and Ash will be able to hug him for the first time in almost two years. In three months Eiji will be meeting Aslan’s beloved older brother, the man who had all but raised Aslan himself.

Eiji hopes he can impress.

As if reading his mind, Ash tells him, “He’ll love you.” Another kiss, pressed softly to the dip of Eiji’s temple. “I already do.”

“I love you, too.”

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━