Excuse me but the idea of MC and Xav sitting on their respective balconies and texting each other The Tea while people watching in their neighborhood is both so silly and so endearing to me.
So let's go on a small adventure, shall we?
Warnings: None.
Just fluff. Pure, unadulterated fluff.
The late morning sun was already warming you through the windows of your tiny apartment before you'd even stepped foot outside. It was finally mid-spring in Linkon, which meant you could enjoy your late breakfast on the patio without having to worry about a stray chill or errant frost dampening your weekly Saturday 'brunch' plans.
Opening the patio door with your granola bar in one hand and phone in the other, you settle into the cushioned bench that overlooked your apartment courtyard and took a deep breath. Sometimes it felt like winter was neverending in Linkon, but you could finally feel the tension of the gripping cold that had settled in your bones start to slowly bleed from you.
After getting comfortable, you finally pulled out your phone, and quickly found your brunch 'date's' contact info, sending him the customary "Get up it's people watching hour" text.
[Hey Xav, you up? I'm already on my balcony?]
It doesn't take long for his reply. This has been your weekly tradition for a few months now. Ever since you had both just so happened to see that kid getting dragged down the street by the monstrous hound, it had become something of a... habit for the two of you to text each other the funny happenings on your street when you were home. Not that either of you were particularly prone to gossip, but the simple domesticity of it was oddly comforting after a long week of getting slogged on by wanderers.
[Yeah I'm up. Give me a sec]
The soft ping of your notification broke the peace, followed shortly by the shuffling of his patio door sliding open from above you. Sure, you could simply call out and greet him, as the acoustics out here are great and the soundproofing is atrocious, but the silence is cozy, and the atmosphere almost feels magical. This is your ritual, after all.
It's a bit like a storybook scene, you think, the two of you sharing a moment in time together yet still separated by some outside force. Maybe it was silly, but the fabricated longing almost made it feel romantic in a way that you're sure your neighbor would find ridiculous.
When you hear his footsteps above you come to a halt, you immediately notice something in particular is missing, however.
[You forgot your coffee Xav. Are you gonna be able to stay awake?]
[How could U tell?]
[I didn't smell any burning 🤭🔥]
He doesn't reply, but you can hear the huff he makes over the railing as his footsteps retreat, fading behind the sliding door once again. You don't even try to hold back the laughter his reaction elicits from you, hopeful the concrete carries it to him easily.
When he finally does reemerge, faint smell of bitter charred beans on the wind, his phone is already buzzing with the morning's newest additions to your people watching portfolios.
An older man you'd long ago dubbed "Green Thumb" who liked to frequent the flower garden outside your apartment complex was already taking photos of the new stargazer lily blossoms that had just opened this morning. So enamored by the vibrant petals, he didn't even seem to notice the couple he'd backed into who'd happened to spill their groceries all over the sidewalk. You heard Xavier call "Watch out!" From above you when he'd recognized the impending impact, but at your distance, it was no use.
[That was nice of you Xav. Too bad it didn't help 🫠]
[I can't believe they didn't see Green Thumb. He was so hard to miss. Even when Ur distracted U still see better]
[HEY! I'm not the one who sleep walks! 💀]
[And yet I'm always there to guard Ur back partner]
He's right of course, though you're not going to tell him. Xavier likes to play the part of a soft and harmless little thing, but it doesn't take much to stoke the hunter into burning hotter than you intended. His evol might be light, but you know better than anyone that light, under careful concentration, can start a blazing fire if you're not mindful. His teasing isn't ever harmful though, so instead you decide to simply poke the bear.
[Only because I'm starting to suspect you like it back there]
The distinct sound of a phone accidentally hitting the concrete marks the end of that thread.
Its not long before another of your regulars, pair of young kids Xavier had called the Trouble Twins arrived on scene. Aptly named for the number of times their poor mother has chastised them for chasing the ducks and picking the flowers, the siblings were quite the rambunctious duo. Today they seem to be a few steps ahead of their vigilant mother, rushing into the park with high-pitched hollers and improvised swords made of small branches they'd found. Today's unfortunate conquest seemed to be the pigeons that were being fed by the local grannies.
[They look like a pair of knights today don't they?]
[Knights? Don't knights usually protect people?]
[Maybe they're protecting us from the pigeons]
[Xavier those old ladies look pretty mad idk. That one even tried to chase the boy and almost caught him!]
The pause in messages was punctuated by his soft laughter above you, carried on the spring breeze. It was so warm, so genuine, so comfortable. You didn't need a mirror to feel the heat bloom in your cheeks; the overwhelming sensation of ardor flooding you at the the very sound.
[You're right. He needs more training. A good Knight should never be caught by an old lady]
[.... I don't think that's the message here Xav]
The rest of your morning goes back and forth like this for another hour. Watching your favorite people pass by, concocting new and interesting stories for them as they pass your balconies. Xavier has very interesting and oddly insightful opinions on those around him, considering you don't really recall seeing him with many friends. None the less, his company and companionship on your balconies has easily become your favorite part of the week. The only noises between you are the laughter that passes back and forth as the texts volley from one to another.
Finally, as the afternoon sun starts to become an uncomfortable heat, your phone chimes once more.
[I'm getting kind of hungry]
[Oh good. You're warning me this time. Thanks!]
[What?]
[No. I was going to ask if U wanted to go to lunch. With me, I mean?]
And just like that, the storybook was snapping shut. No longer a fragment lost in time where two people gazed at the same scene together from two separate places, but a tangible moment you could step into. Something intimate and real.
Perhaps you stayed in this thought a moment too long, or your silence below him made him second guess himself, as the chime of your phone snapped you out of your daze again.
[I didn't mean to impose if U have plans]
[I know it's Ur day off too]
Fumbling with the suddenly slippery device, softly cursing, and praying he didn't hear, you quickly hammer out the only thing that's been playing in your head on repeat-
[Yes absolutely! I'd love to grab some lunch I'm starving]
[Meet me downstairs in 30?]
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thinking about how eiji's a pole vaulter and how ash talks about eiji "flying" and how eiji's associated with bird imagery and how eiji's free (unlike ash) and how eiji comes in on a plane and leaves on a plane and how ash cannot fly, ash cannot be free, how nyc is ash's prison, and how ash is the leopard who dies climbing the mountain, unable to live at such elevation, how he was trying to reach the sky and be free but was always stuck to the earth, how he chose to die instead of climbing back down, how he chose to die where he could see the sky and hope and freedom almost like a bird with eiji's letter right in front of him rather than letting everything go wrong and ruin it once again, how eiji's a failed pole vaulter anyway, how a bad fall ruined his career and grounded him (physically and emotionally), how it took flying to america and meeting ash and needing to save him and skip for him to try flying again, how he landed hard and harsh and still the thought of that escape compelled ash to protect eiji at all costs because if he could fly that means something to him, even if he doesn't think he can fly, how eiji is the manifestation of his hope and how when he breaks and asks eiji to stay with him a while he folds himself over his legs and weighs him down and traps him and grounds him, how ash fights like hell to keep eiji alive not because he thinks he can be like him (hopeful, flying, innocent), but because he makes him forget the gravity of his situation, and so he can see eiji fly again. how he wants to see him escape. how eiji is a bird and ash is a wildcat and how ash never once saw eiji as prey. how eiji never saw ash as a predator. how it is eiji's naivete that first endears ash to him, how it is his freedom and flight and removal from darkness and his ability to leave that darkness that really roots eiji in ash's blood as something essential to him keeping on living in this hell of nyc. how it is that distance from the violence and that hope for the future that ash chooses to surround himself in as he dies. how ash dies in a dream because he feels more than anything that he can't fly like eiji, that he can never leave. how his violence is a part of him and will be forever, how it weighs him down. how he wants to enjoy the view from the mountainside rather than looking up from the ground below. as if they can both fly. as if he is with him up there and not grounded. eye-to-eye with what he can't have, seeing eiji's homeland: the sky. how he dies trying to reach the top because he couldn't take retreating and trying again. how ash, tired and tired and tired and convinced it will go on forever if he crawls back down the mountain, chooses to close his life deluged in eiji, in eiji's insistence that they can fly together, in eiji's hope for him and for them, in eiji's beautiful dream. how ash dies without trying to realize that dream. how ash, in dying, destroys it.
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