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“Hey, buy me a drink.”
“Huh?” Eiji startles out of his drunkish reverie, staring at the stranger next to him with bleary eyes. How long has he been there? That seat was definitely still empty when he ordered his last drink.
“I said buy me a drink.” The words are accompanied by one of the most impressive eye rolls Eiji has ever seen. “It’s not a come-on, I'm just not old enough. Just barely though, don't get your pants in a twist, I’m not a teenager or anything.”
Yeah, he can roll those eyes too. “Forget it.”
“Oh come on, have mercy on me, I've had an absolute fucking shit of a day and now I got my heart broken on top of that.”
It’s not so much puppy eyes as earnest indignation and apparently, he’s less immune to that than to the former.
“One beer, please.” He signals to the barkeeper.
“What kind?”
“Surprise me.”
“Nothing stronger?” The kid has the gall to pout. It would be endearing, if he were in any state to be endeared.
“Nope, take it or leave it. I don’t know how much you can handle and you shouldn’t be able to handle much more than that yet anyway.”
“Fine,” he sighs with all the drama only a ‘not a teenager or anything’ can manage. “Thanks.”
Eiji nods, turning his attention back to his drink.
“White ocean.” A finger inserts itself into his field of vision, pointing at the counter in front of him. “That any good? And why are you carrying two books around with you to a bar?”
“I couldn't tell you. I've been trying to read it for years. Can never even bring myself to open it.” He slides the beer the barkeeper placed next to his drink over to the kid before taking a big gulp from his own glass. “And that’s why I bring two.”
“You’re kinda weird.”
Eiji shrugs. “If you say so.”
“Don’t take it the wrong way, weird’s good.” He clinks his beer against Eiji’s glass. “I like weird.”
“Thanks, I guess?”
All he gets is a shrug as the kid downs at least a third of his beer in one go, wrinkling his nose as he puts it back down. “Sure I can’t get anything stronger? I could really use it after the day I’ve had, you have no idea. I need—”
“What you need is to slow down. It’ll work itself out, whatever it is. You’re still half a child, just give it time.”
“Yeah, yeah.” There are those eye-rolling skills again. “Vienna waits for you and all.” He nods at the jukebox, adding a similarly skilful layer of disdain. “I get it, keep it. And who the fuck chose this song, as if this place wasn’t enough of a depressing dump as it is.”
“It didn’t wait for him.” He didn’t mean to say it; he wasn’t even fully aware he was thinking it but apparently, a part of his brain thought his drink really ought to know.
“Huh?” And apparently, it forgot that his drink was no longer his only company.
“Not important.” He shakes his head. No need to get into that. Never a need to get into that. “And you’re right. It was a stupid thing to say. Condescending even. I know nothing about you or how bad things really are. And they don’t always fall into place.” He closes his eyes, takes a sip. Focuses on the burning in his throat. “And no one actually knows if you can afford to lose a day or two. If there’ll even be a third one. Don’t get me wrong, it’s better to believe in it because if you don’t, you’ll lose the strength to go on but it’s still just that, in the end. A cheap comfort. Because that’s all we really have to give you.”
“You’re cute when you’re brooding.”
“I’m way too old for you.”
“Come on, like you’re that old.”
“I’m pushing forty.”
“What? Really? You look younger. Like, a lot.”
“Yep.” You know you’ve gotten old old when this level of shock at your perpetual baby face starts to make you proud instead of pout. “Always have.” Eiji takes another sip, looking at him over his shoulder. “Is he older too? The heartbreak-causer?”
“Nah.” It’s genuinely impressive how quickly he goes from speechless back to jaded eye-rolling. "So if you were going for a speech about daddy issues, save it. We're the same age. Well, technically he's a year older.” He huffs. “Not that you’d know it with the way he acts.” More huffing. “Over-grown toddler.”
He can’t remember the last time something made him smile in a place like this. “He means a lot to you, doesn’t he?”
“Whatever.” The kid takes a pouty sip of his beer. “What about you? You here for boy trouble too? Or man trouble then, I guess."
“No boy trouble here.” Eiji shakes his head as he turns to signal the bartender for a refill. “Not anymore.”
“So that’s a yes,” he all but snorts. “What’s the deal, your boyfriend refusing to grow up too? Or did he leave you for some hot young thing? Or is it a ‘bemoaning my long string of failed loves’ early-ish midlife-crisis type of situation? No need to be shy about it.” He stretches both arms to their full length, waving them around in a broad sweep. “We’re all losers here.”
Eiji stares into his glass. Like there’s anything to find in there; like he wouldn’t have found it already if there was. “I’ve only ever really loved one boy, and he left long ago. And he never got to grow. He’ll forever be your age.”
It takes a moment to sink in; he can tell. Just like he can tell the exact moment when realisation hits him. Always a mood killer. He shouldn’t have brought it up; he doesn’t even know why he did it. It’s that kind of night, is it? No matter how much time passes, no matter how good he gets a keeping it locked up, from the world as much as from himself, they always come back around eventually. Those nights.
“Shit. I'm sorry.”
“No need.”
The silence stretches decidedly uncomfortably as Eiji gets his refill, thanks the bartender, and waits for his solitude to be returned to him.
“How about me then? It wasn't a come-on but…” He eyes him up and down. “It could be. You’re in pretty good shape for your advanced age and I could use some fun tonight. And it sounds like you could too.”
Well, that’s new. Normally, people just find a quick way to excuse themselves after that one.
“I'm flattered. But that's the thing: he's your age, he’ll always be. And I’m not. You’re at a point that I can never go back to.” Damn, he really is too lost in it today. Poor kid, having to listen to all this. “And unlike him, you'll grow out of it eventually. But I will forever be haunted by that 18-year-old face that will seem further and further away from the old man I'm becoming until it will be so far removed from who I've turned into that I won't be able to love it in more than an abstract way.” He cocks his head and smiles at him. A weak attempt at lightening the mood. “And I also have this thing where I prefer my partners to be legally allowed to drink.”
The kid looks utterly forlorn, which makes the conviction in his voice even more startling. “That’s bullshit.”
“Excuse me?” Eiji tries to stare him down but it only makes him raise his chin even higher, adds more fuel to the blaze of the eyes that stare him down in turn.
“My grandma always used to say that all her past selves were still there, side by side within her and that it only took one scent, one memory, one voice from her past to bring them out. And then she’d be them again, even if it was just for a bit. She was still dancing exactly like she did when she was 16 at 70 sometimes so if that’s how it is, you’ll always be able to dance the way you did with him too. The you you were with him will always stay alive inside you and it can still love him the same way even when you're 90.”
We never got to dance, though. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a poet.”
“So I like to read, so what. I'm still right, you know.” He takes a moment to finish what’s left of his beer. “And there’s no reason the you you are now should have to miss out on all the fun in the meantime. So how about it? You can look at it as taking pity on someone who really needs it tonight if it makes you feel better. Who knows, it might take your mind off things for a bit too. And it’s not like I'm gonna ask you to stay in the morning.”
“‘Just for now’, huh?” he mumbles into his glass.
“Hm?”
He takes his time with the next sip. Sips. Plural. “Did you tell him?”
“Tell him what?”
“That you love him.”
“What the... I never said I did???”
“Because I never did. I never even got to officially call him my boyfriend. And that I didn’t go to him, that I didn’t take the last chance I had to tell him how I felt might have been what killed him.”
“... guilt-tripping much?”
He shakes himself out of it. It takes more effort than it should. It’s the alcohol. He’s not usually this weepy. This lost in everything that never got to be. “Sorry. That went too far. It's just... it hurts to be left wondering, with the answer forever out of reach. And you might end up regretting the lovers you didn’t have more than the ones you did have. That's all I know. The only thing I know.”
“Ok, maybe a night with you wouldn’t be fun after all.”
Yep, that should have done it; he and his drink should be left in peace now. “Told you so.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” His voice is much quieter now. “Or I did but not like like that. It’s just… gee, have you been like this the whole time?”
“The whole time?”
“I mean, were you his age or…?”
“Two years older.”
“So it has been that long then.”
“Yeah.” Eiji rubs his eyes. “It’s not always this bad. You’ve caught me on an off day. It’s just the alcohol.”
“Then why are you drinking?”
“Why is anyone?” He rolls his eyes at the sudden shift in his expression. Just to pay him back for earlier; it’s actually kind of cute. This genuine concern for a complete stranger. “I do this like maybe once every four months or so, don’t worry. I’m not drowning my sorrows day in, day out.” He takes a very small sip as if to illustrate his point. “Just watering them a bit every now and then.”
“I guess that makes sense,” he relents after a couple of seconds of pensive nodding. “I mean, I’m here too.” He leans forward with a sigh, resting his arms on the bar and his head on top of them, turning it to the side to look up at Eiji. “And you always do it like this? Never pick up anyone at all?”
“Occasionally.” He shrugs. “I rarely get asked and—“
“Yeah, no kidding, you brought freaking books with you. To a bar.”
“If I remember correctly, you liked that.”
“Yeah, but few people have impeccable taste like me. And you still turned me down.”
“Impeccable, huh?” He raises his eyebrows. They feel heavier than they usually do.
“You are cute.” He moves in what might be a shrug. It’s hard to tell with him lying on top of the bar like that. “Weird and gloomy and preachy, but cute.”
“Got your priorities straight there, I see.”
“Straight? Now that’s offensive.”
Who knew he still had it in him to chuckle? It wasn't even funny. Those drinks sure work in mysterious ways.
“It lives!” He pokes him in the side as he grins up at him. “Knew I could get one out of you. And now imagine what I could do if you took me home.”
The smile lingers even as he shakes his head. “I already told you, you’re too young.”
“I’m twenty. I’m old enough to know who I want to sleep with.”
“That, you are. Maybe you’re even old enough to know who you don’t want to sleep with. But either way, I am definitely old enough to know who I shouldn’t sleep with.” He shushes him before he can voice whatever protest that pout was about to unleash. “And you should really tell him. How you feel. If you feel it. It’s one thing if not but if it’s just about pride or fear… that’s nothing compared to what you might end up losing. Yes yes,” he waves his hands in front of him, “I’ll shut up now.”
There’s that pensive look again, for just a second or two, replaced by one of those cocky grins as quickly as it came. “You should at least buy me another beer for that one.”
“Alright, that’s fair.” He signals the bartender. “But that’s the limit, you’re not getting a third.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” The kid waves him off as he sits up and takes out his phone. He frowns at it for a moment, switches around between a couple of apps Eiji can’t make out from this angle, types a few words and slides it back into his pocket before he grabs his shiny new beer. For a while, they merely drink in silence. Silence is good. He’s gotten quite fond of it, over the years.
“Does too young mean that I remind you too much of him?” He startles Eiji out of his thoughts again. Annoying habit that, just randomly vomiting out your thoughts like this when people are trying to get into a stupor in peace.
“You’re nothing like him.” He shakes his head even as he feels just the tiniest trace of a smile coming on. “Although he could be a little shit too.”
“That’s not what I meant. I meant if it’s an ‘only sleeps with old dudes on principle’ thing.”
“I…” He frowns. Rubs at his temples. Is it? Has it always been, or is he just forgetting some of them?
“Struck a nerve there, huh?” There’s that gentleness peeking through again, so very at odds with the words themselves.
Still rubbing his temples, he sighs. “I stand by my point that you're too young. Way too young. But now that you mention it… they might have been older when I was still younger too. And,” he adds, more hesitantly than he’d like, “you might also be too blond.”
“Ah.” Again, he goes from serious pondering to shamelessly cocking his eyebrows at him in less than a heartbeat. “Sounds a bit like you don’t necessarily know who you do or don’t want to sleep with, huh, Grandpa Wisdom?”
“Well.” Eiji mimics the way he eyed him up and down earlier. “Definitely not you. You’re exhausting and demanding even with your clothes on. I’m too old to be bothering with that.”
“Yeah.” He half-grins, half sinks into thought. “I’ve been told that before.”
The kids’ phone buzzes in his pocket and he nearly falls over himself trying to fish it out, his leg bouncing nervously as he looks at the screen, the smile he doesn’t quite manage to hide bouncing along with it. “Ok. I’m gonna head out then. That advice of yours better have been good.”
Eiji hides his smile behind his glass. “Good luck. “
“Thanks.” He’s already taken a few steps away when he turns around. “Are you gonna be ok?”
He looks so different in this moment, so young and honest and vulnerable and earnest and every part of Eiji wishes he could go back. Be like that again. To feel it again just once, that part of him that was laid to rest in the ground alongside him almost two decades ago. Maybe his smile wouldn’t feel like it was held in place by rubber bands and tacks then. “Of course. I told you, I just had a little too much to drink.”
He hesitates for a second, then holds out his phone, demanding little fellow that he is. With eyes too kind for his own good. Almost like Sing, back before everything. Back when he was still Sing. “Gimme your number.”
“Knock it off already.” He doesn’t have it in him to make himself sound annoyed. “We’ve been over that, I—“
“Not for that, duh.” By his standards, that eye roll should count as gentle. “I took your stupid advice, remember? Just to hang. I can tell you’re spending way too much time with straight people. Or dead ones,” he adds, in a much quieter voice. “You need to get out more.”
“I have a dog.”
“If that’s a euphemism I don’t wanna know. Just give me your number already. We have a weekly board game night. You’d fit right in there. Don’t worry, there are a couple of other oldsters too, you won’t stand out. Not that you would with that baby face of yours anyway.” He grins, nodding his head at the books in front of Eiji. “Besides, it’d be nice to have another friend who’s read more than one book in their life. Most of them don’t even know what I’m talking about half of the time.”
“Is picking up sad strays one of your hobbies?” He blinks at the phone that was all but thrust into his hands through the curtain of whiskey in front of his eyes. “Shouldn’t it be the other way round?”
“You helped me, now I’ll help you. It’s only fair.”
His fingers freeze on the screen. “Helping someone should come without expecting something in return.”
“Yeah, but you weren’t expecting it, were you? So what’s your point?”
“Guess I don’t have one.”
“Look.” He’s not quite raising his arms to the heavens but it’s getting there. “You just… have that look about you. Kinda like my niece when she’s about to start crying like she’s never gonna stop, except with you, it’s permanent and it can’t be fixed with some candy. It just… It makes me feel like I should be looking out for you, ok?”
Eiji double-checks if he typed in his number correctly – it’s one thing to give out a wrong number on purpose and quite another to have those drunk sausages you have for fingers do it on accident, and one of the two is decidedly too pathetic – then hands the phone back to him. “You’re a little young for a protective uncle.”
“And you’re a little old to be needing one, but here we are.” He wags his finger in an endearing imitation of stern fatherliness. “I’ll better be seeing you at game night.”
Eiji’s reply falls somewhere between a nod and a shrug.
“Well, I’m off. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck, —uh, what’s your name?”
“G.”
“…G?”
“Yeah.” He shrugs. “My real name’s stupid, so G’s more than enough. Hey, what’s yours?”
“Love that you’re only asking this now and not when you saved my number.”
Another shrug. Seems he’s dispensing those just as liberally as his eye rolls. “I’ve got you under ‘Cute sad fossil’. Easier to remember. So, what is it?”
"Eiji."
“Ei-ji.” He butchers it only a tiny bit. “That sounds cool. Are you from around here, by the way? You have a bit of an accent sometimes.”
“Yeah.” Somewhere, another version of him smiles. “Could never quite get rid of that.”
“Nah, it’s barely there, I thought it was all the drinks at first. But you sound all different when you say your name.”
“It’s two syllables.”
“Still.”
“I’m Japanese. I’ve been living here forever though. About as long as you’ve been alive.”
“Japan? That’s cool.” He flashes him another grin. “You can tell me all about that at game night then.”
“There isn’t much to tell. It’s just a place.”
“Yeah, well, so is this, and I could tell stories for days. See ya.” Half-turned around, he adds, “Did you lose him there, or here?”
The answer takes him a beat too long. It’s the alcohol. “Here.”
He just nods. Doesn’t say anything; doesn’t ask. There’s probably no need to. “Game night’s on Friday. I’ll call you. You can bring your dog if you want.” He’s halfway to the door when he turns around once more. “Vienna’s still there, you know. It's cruel that it didn't wait for him, I get that, but it's still there. And you're still here too.”
“Japan.” There's moisture gathering at the corner of his eyes. He can't remember the last time he managed to cry actual tears for him. “It was supposed to be Japan.”
“Pretty sure that's still there too.”