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There's always been something indescribable about Eichi's skin, so pale and translucent that it looks like stained glass, blown to stretch the distance from head to toe in a fashion that almost seems rushed — from the way it isn't opaque in the slightest, to the red and blue scars that dot over his arms and torso.
While his skin is always what stands out the most, Keito can't help but find beauty in the rest of him, in the way that his flaxen hair shines gold under the natural light of summer, and his lips are smooth and eager, never pausing as he continues to spew out gilded prose that hardly makes a lick of sense.
And oh, his voice.
Melodic in every sense of the word, silvery, and honeyed like only the heir of a scion can possess. The kind of voice that sinks deep into your soul and
explores,
softly prodding at every little crevice inside you until you're beyond subdued. Sometimes, even, it rises to a jingle, the sweet cadence that holds the child of him, and makes Keito want to hold him.
It's only in these times, when he admires Eichi and feels utterly inferior to the god before him, that he's glad Eichi can't see him, that his eyes are sealed away from Keito.
What color are they, what shape? Keito has his guesses — he's spent enough time looking at the Tenshouin family — but for some reason, it feels utterly taboo to try and put them to pen, like it's the sort of dream that has ought to stay as just that, a whimsical product of imagination and fallacy.
Selfish, too, because asking Eichi to remove the bandages, to open his eyes and let them flood with light, would undoubtedly bring him pain. That's the entire reason that he has to wear the bandage in the first place — he's simply too weak, and the light makes him feel dizzy and nauseous.
It's for that reason that there are no pictures of him, and that he's never seen Keito's face, and what he does remember of his parents’ faces are but facsimiles of that memory, hardly anything that he should put worth to. But it's not as though he hasn't seen light before, and whenever he finds himself on that topic (he manages to dance himself around conversation with ease — even when he's practically talking to himself, he's a brilliant conversationalist) his voice gains a new melody, like the sunlight that makes him so weak has found it's way to him another way, mixing into his voice until it somehow manages to glow.
“I remember some colors,” Eichi has said before, fingers dancing over Keito's pulse at his neck. “None of their names or anything like that, not even really what they look like. But I can remember the feeling of it. They were all so brilliant, intermingling and dancing about, I almost forgot how much it hurt to look at them.”
Keito had been quick to scold him; one, because it doesn't matter how brilliant they were, he shouldn't have been putting himself at risk, and two, because even if he gets a pass to feel people up to create a mental map of them, stroking their neck is just
weird.
One time, Eichi had asked Keito to describe himself as best he could, just to see if the portrait he'd tried to map in his head was accurate.
“Well,” Keito had started. “Both my hair and my eyes are green.”
A moment passed between them in silence before Eichi nearly choked trying to contain his sudden burst of laughter, and Keito realized that his description meant absolutely nothing to Eichi.
If he could, Keito would give his sense of sight to Eichi, because it's Eichi, with his sense of detail and delicacy that cascades into sprawling towers of prose that rivals even the finest of architecture, who deserves it the most. Nevermind the fact that it's Keito's dream to become a mangaka, that falls short in the face of Eichi's dream, his grand wish to reform the idol industry. Even though he could never see their faces or their dances, he managed to become so genuinely devoted to them that comparing their dreams would be like comparing a campfire and a star.
Yes, that's the reason that Keito put down his paintbrush to become an idol. Like this, he can sing, and his talents have meaning to Eichi, because even if Eichi could drone on and on about how amazing Keito's skill seemed to be, he would never truly be able to appreciate it without seeing it in action.
It's fine, for the most part though, because the way that Eichi's lips had hesitantly twitched before curving into a smile when he'd first heard Keito's image song was more than Keito could ever hope for.
They make their way past friendship, slowly stepping out to place where they're both left in the dark. Eichi tries to be nonchalant about it, but his lips are pursed with worry, and his fingers glide over Keito's face in a way that can hardly be helping him map out its geography. One of Eichi's fingers settles back at Keito's pulse — his safe place — and he ducks forward to kiss Keito.
He misses by a considerable margin, landing at Keito's jaw, but even though most would dream of having a perfect first kiss, Keito can't find himself embarrassed or frustrated over this — this kiss is perfectly
Eichi.
Keito helps him out, tilting Eichi's head up so that their lips can mesh awkwardly. Two trembling hands finally cup Keito's cheeks, as Keito wraps his arms around Eichi's back to steady him. They sit there basking in each other's warmth for a moment before Eichi's greed gets the best of him, and he hesitantly lets his teeth sink into Keito's lips like shards of broken glass, drawing out a moan that melts like chocolate into the air. It's embarrassing, but Keito lets him hear it, because it's not as though Eichi has the same benefits that Keito does. Case in point, when Keito returns the action, Eichi chokes back his own noise awkwardly, but he forgets that Keito can pull back and see how his face colors and his lips shine red, giving Keito all the more incentive to lean back and capture Eichi's lips again.
Eichi beats him to it, using his tongue to trace to the seam of Keito's lips, prompting Keito to dart his own tongue out so they can meet, getting Eichi to coo, pleased, and a sigh out of Keito when Eichi tilts his head further to get a better taste of Keito. They both can't contain a low noise of pleasure when Keito tugs Eichi closer, pressing their chests together and retracting his tongue to tease Eichi with his canines.
It gets Eichi to tilt his head back, lips delicately curving to make room for his shaky sigh in a way that makes Keito fear for what he could look like, because Eichi's the only person who can carry that sort of look and still be elegant.
“I want to see you,” he rasps in a single breath once he finds himself able to inhale and exhale again.
Keito swallows a groan at hearing such a sultry voice right next to his ear, and nods, finally letting it slip that he's begun to fill sketchbook after sketchbook with hypothetical drawings of Eichi's eyes.
It never goes past those kisses, and touches, and exchanged wishes, but Keito's fine with that, because a part of him wants Eichi to only be able to see everything in dreamy pastels just like how he's described, a part of him never wants Eichi to learn of the deep hues of red so many of the others in the hospital are accustomed to.
Until, one day, Eichi's physician mentions something about taking the bandage off of Eichi's eyes, about how he's gotten stronger and most of the reason they hadn't taken it off before was just out of hesitance.
Eichi's mother stands at the back of the room, solemn and silent in a way that's unlike her. It's Keito who sits next to Eichi, clutching his hand as the doctor unwraps the mass of white cloth over his eyes.
Even after the bandage is gone, Eichi's eyes remain screwed shut, brows furrowed in nervousness. He squeezes Keito's hand, prompting Keito to part his lips to speak.
“Eichi,” is all he says, but it prompts Eichi to part his eyes slowly, staring blankly at the ceiling before shifting his vision to the side to look at Keito.
One look at Eichi's eyes, and Keito finds himself falling in love all over again. Never has Keito ever seen eyes that blue, even on Eichi's mother, never has he seen eyes that look like they could drown him. Ah, he'd be happy to drown in them, so close to the downward slope of Eichi's eyelid, in a way that makes him seem almost docile, but Keito looks closer and sees the danger hidden in his eyes, making them dangerously alluring for Keito's poor heart.
Eichi's blinks slowly, like he's staring into blank space, but in a moment, the tunnel of his vision steadies, leading straight to Keito's face, and he snaps to attention. He stares at Keito's face for a moment, lifting his free hand to try and weakly reach for Keito's cheek.
“Keito?” he asks redundantly, but Keito still nods, and whispers a small “yes”. He wonders what Eichi's mother is thinking as Eichi jolts up, catching everyone off guard as his hands fly to Keito's face so that he can see him more clearly. Eichi studies his face, eyes carrying an intensity that Keito's never seen on anyone before, and as his lips part and quiver in amazement, Keito finds himself wanting to cry as well, staring at Eichi's eyes in an attempt to familiarize himself with them. As much as their brilliance is undeniably just a reflection of Eichi's true character, a character Keito's long come to love and hold dear, that ethereal presence of theirs makes them seem too stunning for Keito to truly comprehend as belonging to the friend of a mere mortal
Faintly, Eichi whispers, in a voice so low that it can hardly be heard, and yet it still manages to transfix Keito, listening to the very first words Eichi has ever spoken while locking eyes with his childhood friend, holding a bated breath — finding endless beauty, pain, and glory in the way the single word's syllables seem to dissolve once they hit the air, how they shatter into a shining kaleidoscope of stained glass too beautiful to not be otherworldly; Eichi whispers, and the words glow and reflect off of the green and blues of their eyes, because, as they intoxicate themselves in the view of each other for the very first time, they find themselves thinking the exact same thing.
“Beautiful.”