Ashes to Ashes (Book Two of The Kazuya Series) (✔️)

十六 (Sixteen)

(Third Person POV)

Koan stared at Masaki and Masaki stared at Koan. They were trying to see who would break first.

Masaki.

He broke first.

"How is Elle?"

Koan cocked his head a little to the side, studying Masaki. He still wanted nothing more than to bash his face in for touching and kissing him, but he was also curious. Masaki was a confusing man to Koan.

"Any word on her mom?"

Koan just cocked his head further.

Masaki let out a sigh. "Are you going to just stare at me? Didn't you come in here for something?"

Koan shoved his lighter in his pocket and flipped the small picture around so Masaki could see it. He really wanted to set it on fire and watch it burn, watch the pain in Masaki's eyes as it turned to ash. He didn't though. He was curious about it too.

Koan was four in the picture and he was holding a small brown teddy bear. He remembered the bear, but not the picture being taken. What confused him the most was that Masaki was also in the picture.

Masaki, being a bit older than Koan, was bigger than him in the picture, his size almost dwarfing Koan's. Koan was staring at the camera with no real emotion on his face.
Masaki was the opposite. He had a look of awe, disbelief, and...something else. Masaki wasn't looking at the camera though. He was looking at Koan. He almost looked...enamored.

Masaki's words came back to Koan after he saw the picture.

'You don't remember me, do you?'

That's what Masaki had asked him.

"That was the day before my transplant, before I got my new heart." Masaki said causing Koan's head to snap up. "We shared a room for a few nights. You were in for severe flu. They wanted to keep you there since the flu could've been deadly to you because of your CIP. Your...regular doctor was out of town or something."

Koan tried to recall those memories, but came up with nothing.

"Your parents left to get something to eat that night thinking you were asleep. You weren't though. Once they left, you started talking to me. We talked about a lot of things. A couple of times I even managed to get a full sentence from you."

Koan tried to remember that too, but still nothing.

"You told me that my...eyes looked familiar. You said my eyes were pretty, but they were nothing compared to a pair of emerald green ones you'd seen somewhere. When I met Elle...I noticed she has emerald green eyes. Very pretty ones."

Koan still said nothing. He wasn't planning on saying a word until Masaki let it all out.

Masaki positioned himself to sit up straighter in his bed before he continued speaking.

"The locker room...."

Koan tensed. His whole body went rigid.

"Something about you...drew me in when we met. First it was just the desire to be your friend. Those days we spent in the hospital together were some of the best days of my life. I never got to say goodbye before you left and I didn't know your last name. It never occurred to me to learn it before you left. That picture...was left on my little bedside table. It was all I had for all these years."

Koan stayed rigid as he didn't understand how this all pertained to what happened in the locker room.

"I never forgot about you. As the years passed, I knew you probably didn't look the same since you were four the last I saw you, so I focused on one aspect. Your eyes. I've never met anyone with eyes like yours." Masaki said, getting an enamored look on his face as he stared at Koan's eyes from afar. It resembled the look in the picture.