#LetTheHandsTouch2k18

You’ve mostly got all the same impression that I do, but I’ll expand into a bit for the sake of others who might be reading this as well.

There’s one thing that I feel tends to be forgotten when we read Ash’s final moments. We know from his conversation with Eiji about the leopard that he doesn’t fear death – which is true – but he also mentions he doesn’t seek it. This second point is one I would argue against. He isn’t actively suicidal, no, but he has shown multiple times throughout the series that he’s passively so. I could mention a bunch of examples, but I don’t think it’s hard for us to bring to mind at least one time (not including the end) that he’s tried to die just by not taking actions to keep himself alive. All of these minus the last one are stopped by some outside force (as you mentioned re: him never asking for help).

As second quick point to bring up is where you mention Sing’s message on behalf of Ash for Eiji to come back to the US. This was not actually Ash that said this. The last words Ash and Sing shared were Sing berating Ash for not going to see Eiji. Ash never told Eiji to come back to the US. Those words were entirely from Sing as a way to give Eiji a happy send-off and shield him from the reality of what Ash was doing (distancing himself for Eiji’s safety and trying to cut himself out of Eiji’s life).

Although we know that Eiji knows this anyway and I’m willing to bet he saw through Sing’s words for what they were.

But then we get the letter.

Up until this point, Ash had taken Blanca’s words to heart and distanced himself from Eiji to keep him safe. But the letter gives him a beat of hope. He is loved and maybe he can be happy, together with Eiji. Dino is gone and Japan is a free land away from all the enemies he has in the US. He single-mindedly gets up to rush to the airport to see him himself (and maybe even board the plane with him) when he gets stabbed.

No, it wasn’t fatal and if he had gotten medical help immediately I’m sure he would have survived. So, the big question: why didn’t he?

This comes back to his passive suicidal tendencies. He’d already accepted his death long ago, and why would this one time be any different from any of the others? I’m sure he was thinking something along the same lines as this from earlier in the series:

But not only that, his life at the moment of his death was the best it had ever been. He was free from the oppression of his abusers, the one he cared for most in this world was heading back to absolute safety, and that same person still loved and cared for him even after everything.

Yes, his choice to accept his death here was very selfish. He wasn’t thinking of the pain it would cause Eiji in the future. What he was thinking of was the pain it would save him from (from Ash’s perspective). Ash has always thought that he was “bad news” for anyone who knew and got close to him. He’d been looking for ways to remove himself from the equation for a while… and what better time is now? The letter from Eiji, especially the line of always being with him, was just the final nail in the coffin. Perhaps he was also reading into it the other way too, that if Eiji knew he’d always be with Ash, that he’d also know Ash would also always be with Eiji.

So in short, dare I say, from Ash’s POV this was a “happy ending”. He was removed from the picture, Eiji was safe, Dino was gone, and he could rest knowing that, at the end of the day, he was loved and cherished just for being exactly who he was.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, especially when we look at the alternative of if he had lived, but in a way, it could have been so much worse. At least Ash got to go in peace and at a time of his choosing. He went at the moment he was happiest, and when he wasn’t giving himself the time to regret any of the choices he made. And when it hurts to come to terms with the fact that he died, and all that came after, just remember this: he made the choice to die and he did so with a smile feeling surrounded by the one he loves. I don’t think he could have a more poetic ending than that.