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kotoplasm · 3 years

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First Love, Late Spring

oikawa tooru x fem reader, 21.6k words

summary: oikawa tooru's eyes are still the same shade of honey brown, and you still fall in love the way you used to: hard, plummeting, like a burning comet making its way across the night sky.

note: this is a complete rewrite of the series i deleted a while back. this is a (monster) one shot. title is from mitski, everyone say thank you mitski. enjoy!

warning: very slight nsfw. one scene.

extras: story playlist

You fell in love in the late spring of 2011.

There was a festival, you remember faintly, in Mikamine Park. You remember taking the train along the Namboku Line to see it. There was a skittish feeling in your bones you desperately tried to quell as you clutched the straps of your backpack with sweaty hands. You remember your hands vividly. Cold fingertips, clammy palms, knuckles wrought at the pressure of being clenched. Ears hot and heart racing, a smile tugging at your lips and refusing to stop.

You fell in love that day. You fell in love with petals that were soft to touch, fickle as they landed on your nose; you fell in love with the season, how it never lingered; and you fell in love with a boy who you wished would.

“I see something, dear. Tell me, is your heart open for love?”

You blink. The uranaishi is a middle-aged woman who holds her hair back in a scarf, keeping from the chill of her street-side stall with a leather jacket with fur trimmed linings. She takes the dice in her wrinkled hands. A cold breeze whips by. The woman moves her maneki-neko with hostility, holding down cards that are threatening to fly away. She goes back to flipping the dice and lining them up in front of you like nothing happened.

You pout, “Am I not supposed to be the one asking you that, obaa-san?”

“Insolent,” she whispers. You’ve learned that she is incapable of speaking without venom, but she is kind nonetheless. She wipes the mirth off her mouth. “Yes, it’s open. If you want it to be.”

The hanging trimmings rattle around her stall as the air whips relentlessly. You shiver closer to the table, digging a faded gold button from the pocket of your bag. “Funny. I found this under my bed this morning.”

She raises brow. “What’s that supposed to be?”

“A second button,” you announce defensively, touching its edges with a light finger, “from my first love. Fate must be working in my favor.”

“Are you insulting me?”

Fate works in no one’s favor. You stifle a laugh, tucking it back in your pocket. “Sorry. But I did find it on the floor this morning. It must have rolled out of the boxes. I haven’t seen it in about ten years.”

“The boy must have given you his button because you’re the only one who asked for it.”

“I’d have you know fifteen other girls asked for his button. This” --you lift it for emphasis-- “is the war of love won.”

The old woman is going to go on a spiel, you guess. You guess right.

“I’ve told you this before. You can never place an accurate chronology on things that are as fickle as love and happiness.” She harps on, “Is your first love truly your first, or were you simply a foal exhilarated by its first run, thinking that was the fastest the world could ever spin?”

It’s her job to sound wizened, the same way it’s your job to resist with childish petulance. “I wasn’t a -- it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t fake. It wasn’t a sham.”

He wasn’t. He wasn’t at that time, and he still isn’t now, thinking about it. He was wishing on fallen eyelashes, doodling under desks, passing paper messages around the seating arrangement. If you try to remember him, the first thing that comes to mind is the way your neck craned back in class -- the way you couldn’t stop it from craning back just to see him smile and mouth pay attention. The afternoon sun when summer was ready to begin but school wasn’t quite finished yet. He was your crevices given, not taken, offered freely like a bird would give itself to gravity for the first time -- how does it feel like to fall?

Like this, he said before he pressed his lips on yours, chapped and smelling faintly of vanilla. Yours must have tasted like strawberry. He had told you once, weeks before your first kiss, that he liked them. You bought strawberry chapstick that very same afternoon.

First love is almost never love, but you’re too fond of yours that you refuse to think about it differently.

“I saw him on television last year. He seems to be doing well, making a name for himself and everything. I’m proud of him.”

“But the question is,” she presses on, “if your heart is open for love. Not about whether your high school crush appeared on television.”

You shrug. “You said it was if I wanted it to be. And he was not my crush, he was my boyfriend.”

She ignores you like she always does. Old eyes peer at you, grey irises that fail to hide how her vision is getting cloudy. “You have to be open. Open to receive. Now go. I have other clients and you’re hogging my time.”

“A sports team is coming in from Argentina.”

“Oh?” you hum, looking up from your desk, paper upon paper full of highlights and footnotes written in the margins. “Do you want me to take it?”

An indie film is playing on your desktop, heroine drowning in the repercussions of deluded fantasies. Her monologue is tough to crack, full of metaphors that must have been hard for her to communicate, even harder for you to translate. This is the fifth full replay and your deadline is nearing. You take off an earbud.

“No one else can, really.”

Miwa hands you the file. Your eyes scan it quickly, flipping through the pages. It’s been a while since you interpreted for someone from Argentina. The specialization would have been better suited in Tokyo where gigs never ran out, foreigners streaming in abundance, but you like it here in Sendai. All gigs like this go directly to you, even if they only appear once in a blue moon.

You place the file atop the mess. You’ll read it later. After you finish this troublesome monologue.

Ito-san has several regulars, but you’re the one who visits her the most. Every week, bringing with you two orders of takoyaki and sitting in the plastic chair while she rolls her dice and reads your cards. After, you head back to the office, finishing up translations until the wee hours of the morning.

“Can you do it?” Miwa asks. “The hours are gnarly.”

Open your heart. Seize good things by the throat. You’d have to ask Ito-san the next time you visit what the heart has to do with a gig.

“The pay’s good though.” Miwa backtracks quickly, realizing if you back out, no one would be able to do it.

You smile at her reassuringly. “I can do it. It’s nice to have a break from” --you gesture to the pile in front of you, the paused indie film-- “this.”

She sighs in relief.

You don’t know why you were incredibly sentimental about Tooru when your cards were being read. It’s not like you’ve been following him over the years, obsessively listing down all the steps he’s been taking. You knew he was meant to be great, meant to go far. You hear about exactly how far every now and then when your high school friends gossip.

Oikawa won an award.

Followed by, No, his volleyball team won an award. It’s not the same thing.

Ending with, Congratulations, Oikawa. Someone tell him congratulations.

And no one does.

You saw exactly how far when you saw him on television last year playing in the Olympics and refusing to give interviews after his game. You watched it at a friend’s house with drinks, blue and white striped flags painted on your cheeks courtesy of the face paint Hanamaki bought.

But that was last year, and you haven’t heard about him in that long, haven’t heard from him in a decade. Now, Matsukawa is looking at you from across the cabbage aisle. The steady rattle of your grocery cart halts.

“Okonomiyaki?” he asks.

“Yes,” you reply.

He stalks towards you. Sendai is a big place, but people always gravitate towards the same spots, the same habits. You see him around a lot. All six feet of him towers over other people in the store, a curly mop of hair standing out.

Matsukawa digs through the pile. “Didn’t you have a cat back in school?”

“Her name was Touma.”

“What did you do if she didn’t eat?”

Hands at your back and observing him, your brows furrow. “That’s an odd question.”

“Ah,” Issei says, finding the perfect cabbage and handing it to you. He digs his phone from his pocket. “Look.”

He opens his gallery to reveal a picture of a little ginger cat so small it can fit in his hand. Granted, his hand is larger than average. The cat isn’t so small that it can’t eat yet. He explains, “I adopted her. Her brother’s with Makki in Tokyo.”

You hum as he scrolls through the album. Ginger and white, the former spread on her body like paint splotches. Touma had grey fur and was as large and as fat as any spoiled cat could possibly be. “It must be nice to live in Tokyo.”

He laughs. “The asshole’s thinking about moving back.”

You shuffle the cabbage in your hands. It is a good cabbage. You want to come across Matsukawa more often. “Touma refused to go anywhere near me when I first got her, but she came around sooner or later. They like eating what you eat.”

“Like… rice?”

“Yes, try that. They think they’re human.”

“That’s -- I’ve never thought of that.”

You wave the cabbage, a green ball in your hand. “Tell me if it works. Thank you for the cabbage, Matsukawa-san.”

As it turns out, Miwa was right about the sports team, like she is right about almost everything in the world. Gnarly hours, a 20-page NDA, and hefty pay.

The coach is called Blanco -- a name that’s painfully familiar, you just can’t pin where. It’s at the end of your tongue, where you know him. You go through all the other names, feeling faintly like you’re riding a shuttle to the answer. It’s at the tip of your tongue. For some odd reason, you think the Argentinian coach is related to Matsukawa.

It’s 1:34 A.M. when you finally land on it, written out in clear, printed letters. Ah.

Tooru Oikawa. 28. Setter.

Your mother used to tell you, back in the old house with the leaky roof and the warm walls, about the cards. She stayed sitting, one foot folded in half a lotus and her knee close to her chest. You knew what all of it meant, growing up around the deck, your mother’s hands shuffling, laying them down on the table. Lady justice is for righteousness, the flower of temperance is for patience, the joker is for misfortune.

She told you the cards are vessels. Your mother’s face had lines that made a smile without needing a smile, tricks of new wrinkles that pulled her lips upward. Fate does not hand you the cards, she said. This is what people get wrong. The cards are the forecast, not the fate.

“Strings,” she told you. “Are carefully crafted. When they separate, when they meet, when they are cut. This doesn’t change, the cards can’t change them, and no amount of will can either.”

“Resistance is futile?” you guessed.

She laughed, warm and twinkling. Sometimes, her laugh is what you missed the most. “Resistance is futile, dear.”

Strings that are cut before others.

Strings that pull apart, strings that meet again, strings that twine together.

You wear a nice skirt. Coach Blanco shakes your hand firmly. You have to crane your neck up just so you can look at his face while you talk.

Miwa texts you a little while after the meeting begins. How is it going?

They’re very tall, you text back. They speak with a clinical sort of detachment, one that comes with handling highly paid athletes. You’ve done this before. Actors and actresses, usually C-lists, but an occasional B-lister every two years appears. They tell you what they want from you, what they need, what they expect. In turn, you tell them you can be counted on. Blanco and the manager seemed eased after that.

Miwa, 6:32 PM: Goodluck ^_^

“You should meet the players,” the team manager says. You know you should. You’re supposed to. Twenty strangers above six feet, you’re not afraid of meeting, but you know one of them from ten years ago, and that makes everything… it makes you wear a nicer skirt.

For all your talk about love and second buttons with Ito-san, Tooru is still very much a stranger. You don’t know why you feel like falling into the pit in your stomach. He wasn’t your friend, not enough for you to maintain contact when your lives moved on. He was special, but he held a different place in your heart, one that throbbed powerfully in quick bursts. It’s not healthy to keep that around.

The manager pulls open a sliding door to a living room suite big enough to fit a whole team. You glance around the room. You see men, all very tall, some standing up, some sitting down. They’re in sleepwear, looking like they’re having a meeting to cap the day. Some of them smile at you, the one who whistled especially, the pull of his lip to the right bigger than the pull of his lip to the left.

He’s not here.

The manager prattles on, “I’m sure you know everyone here. That’s Bruno at the back, he’ll help you out in case you need anything -- Tooru, I was wondering where you were.”

Your mouth goes dry. It’s different that he’s this close, that if you decide to reach and touch him you won’t feel a static jolt on your fingertips or the mist-addled sight of a daydream.

“I took a piss,” he starts, before halting in his tracks once he sees you standing in the doorway. He’s wearing a complimentary bathrobe, his phone clutched in his right hand. He looks good, healthy. Older, since the last time you saw him. His eyes are blown wide. Unmistakable.

“Hello.” You decide to smile. “I’m your interpreter.”

The manager continues, oblivious, “Tooru was born in Japan -- where was it again?”

“Sendai, actually,” Tooru replies, eyes never leaving your face. It flickers to the manager for a second, before landing back. “Here.”

“Fantastic,” the manager booms. “Just like you’re going home.”

You hear the dregs of a conversation somewhere underwater. The last one, or the first one in a series of lasts.

Tooru, will you come back?

Maybe. I don’t know.

A rustle of a textbook being shoved in a bag. Footsteps trying to catch up.

For me then?

We’ll see.

A lifetime ago, plaid skirts and white blazers. Seijoh was always warm even in the winter.

“Home.” He flips the word in his mouth. It is the same. Everything is the same. His lashes are long, looping down the corner of his eyes and curling back up in a curve so familiar, so isolated to an age, that you get transported back to being seventeen and hopelessly, helplessly in love. “Yeah, it’s... good to be home.”

The rest of the meeting isn’t that long. You get shuffled with the other managers, the tour staff, the people in charge of food, the people at the hotel in charge of accommodations. You check your phone as you head home to see a text from Miwa again. How is it going?

She can be such an old woman sometimes.

You, 7:43 PM: Is this a double send?

Miwa, 7:43 PM: No. Update?

You, 7:44 PM: Just finished. It went well. I think.

You’re in the middle of typing out a cheery quip to alleviate her anxiety when you see a shadow beside you at the hotel entrance. Your fingers stop, hover, then you close your phone.

“Have you had dinner?”

Your mouth is halfway between some expression and the other, but your mind doesn’t catch up so the sound gets stuttered. “Hi. Yes. I have.”

“Earlier?” Oikawa Tooru asks, standing beside you, watching the valets go to and fro, guests arriving and guests leaving.

“Yes.” You clear your throat, and with a light tone you tease, “I thought you wouldn’t remember me, Tooru.”

He makes a sound, somewhere between choking in disbelief and huffing in defiance. “Do you still live in Natori?”

“I share an apartment with a friend in Wakabayashi.”

“I heard there’s a good ramen joint there.”

You look at him, a bit aghast at his proclivity to flirt. He really doesn’t pick. He’s still shameless.

You realize too late that you’re taking inventory. His eyes are darker outside with only the busy street to light them. They’re still the same color, you’re sure. You saw as much during the meeting. His nose is still tall, lips are still curved like he knows he’s better than everyone else in the room. His hair is cropped shorter, shoulders broader under the rumpled hoodie he’s wearing. Tooru, Tooru, Tooru. There was a time when everything started and ended with him, but now he’s no one but a familiar stranger.

You realize even later that he’s taking inventory too, the way his eyes move. Your lips first, then your hair, the earrings peeking from below your ear. You smile wryly, shaking your head. You wave a hand in goodbye before going down the steps and making your way home.

“Have I ever told you about Tooru?”

Miwa looks up from her spot on the kitchen counter, typing away on her laptop. You take off your shoes after shutting the door behind you, leaving your keys on the table and emptying the contents of your bag. “The one who disappeared to the other side of the world?”

She’s not wrong. She’s also not right. He didn’t disappear, he just… moved. “...Yes?”

“You mentioned him once or twice. Why?”

You take a deep breath. Miwa’s a friend you met back in university when all the high school stories were behind you. Same course, same grade bracket, same apartment building. You’ve told her everything, from zits to definitions you can’t seem to find. She helped you plan your mother’s funeral. You’ve only mentioned Tooru once or twice in the last ten years. Seventeen year-old you would’ve mentioned Tooru five times a day.

“He’s back.”

The sound of keyboard keys stop. “Back? What do you mean, back?”

“I mean,” you say as the gold button falls from your bag pocket. “He’s my client. In the sports team. He’s on the team.”

“The national team?” She’s interested now, standing up and stalking towards you.

“Yes,” you reply. “The national team. Not this national team but… you get it… their national team.”

Miwa raises a brow. You avert the topic, asking her about what she’s doing, tucking the button back in your bag.

Matsukawa messages you -- you don’t remember why he has your number -- that night. His little profile pops up, along with an attached picture of a cat sleeping peacefully on dark blue sheets.

Matsukawa Issei, 9:01 PM: She’s eating. Thank youuuu.

You, 9:07 PM: Anytime :)

You start typing.

You: Hey… Did you know about --

You don’t send it. You delete it.

You: I saw someone today --

You don’t send it. You delete it again. You give up and close your phone after that.

The role of a middle blocker is to attack, block, and defend. Middle blockers are usually the tallest ones on the team, the ones with hands as impenetrable as walls, judgement quick and decisive. Lopez is a middle blocker, the youngest on the team. He’s not a usual starter, but his confidence is impeccable. He’s the one who winked at you last night, and right now, the one who won’t stop lapping at your heels like a dog in heat.

You know the rules of volleyball, a strange mix between internet crash courses, the given materials by the team, and stored knowledge from dating a team captain way back.

“Where did you learn to speak the language?”

You almost jump in surprise, pen halting in the middle of writing down instructions for the hotel staff. He is the tallest one on the team, standing at two or so meters. His head is placed high enough that it covers the glare of the chandelier light in the lobby. You thought he wouldn’t follow you down after the team dinner.

“I started in high school to help a friend. I liked it enough to continue.”

“You’re kind, then,” he decides, and you wonder if things are supposed to be that easy. “To help your friend like that. You’re very beautiful too. Will you go on a date with me?”

You cough in surprise. Middle blockers are quick and decisive, but when he decided to have a crush on you this morning -- stealing glances throughout the day, pulling out a chair for you, asking you about yourself -- you thought he wouldn’t make a move the very same night.

You laugh. You feel bad for laughing, but it’s good he isn’t the type to be easily offended. “I’m a bit too old for you.”

“Seven years isn’t that bad,” he defends, sounding like a kid.

“No.” You crumple your nose. “Only slightly bad. Now please, go before you get in trouble.”

“Tell me more about yourself first.”

He’s incessant, and his grim determination is met with your placating answers while you continue to write down the long list of requests from every member of the team. Have you ever travelled? Yes, a few countries when you were younger, not so much now. Why not? Work is too busy. Why did you become an interpreter? You like languages. Do you have a husband? No. A boyfriend? No. Is it alright if he got your number? If he needs anything, he’s welcome to ask for it from the team manager. What do you think about men from Argentina?

You backtrack at the last one. It’s funny enough that you furrow your brows at the absurdity of his question.

“I’ll make you say yes before we leave,” he vows. That’s in six days. “I promise.”

You hand off the list to the receptionist, telling her it’s from the team checked in on the tenth floor. He stares at you while you do it. You laugh good naturedly. “It’s against my contract.”

“I can --” he starts.

“Is he bothering you?” Tooru asks, bounding out of nowhere, making sure his teammate can’t understand him. He claps Mateo at the back, drapes an arm across his shoulders, and smiles. Classic Tooru, with the cheek dimple and the end of his canines touching his lower lips. Mateo looks like his soul left his body.

“No, no,” you quickly promise. “We were just talking.”

“Good!” He claps his hands. “It’s getting late. Look at the time. Look at the sky.” He gestures to the ceiling. There is no sky. “Chico, our translator needs to rest.”

Mateo looks at Tooru. “Yes, sir.”

You bid them goodbye and slide out. You cross the lobby, about to leave, fully expecting both of them will stay inside. Tooru follows you out the doors of the hotel.

“You don’t have a coat,” you point out. It’s far too cold for what he has on. “Go back inside.”

“You know I run hot. I’ll be fine.”

You know lots of things about him. You know how conversations like this one go. Really, no one but Iwaizumi-san can make him do anything. Still, you try. “Will no one look for you?”

“Stop worrying.” He watches you wrap a scarf around your neck, an imperious look on his face. His adam's apple bobs whenever he tries to be menacing. “Start walking before your suitor snaps out of his daze.”

“He idolizes you,” you observe lightly.

He snorts, “Who doesn’t?”

You roll your eyes. “You didn’t work on your hubris while you were away?”

“You weren’t there to keep me in check.”

You walk down the steps the same way you used to last night, but now he follows behind you. Three minutes later, he wraps his arms around himself. Five minutes later, he makes several failed attempts to hide that he’s shivering. Six minutes later, you decide enough is enough.

You buy him a boiled egg from a food stand. He offers his palms up to you. You place the hot egg in the middle to lessen his suffering. You cast him an unimpressed look, and he has the grace to look sheepish.

You arrive at your crossing. The same residential houses and apartments, the small street and small gardens. You’ve never realized how quaint everything is. You’re suddenly self-conscious with Tooru standing beside you. Tooru who is larger than life, Tooru with insatiable ambition, Tooru who aims higher and higher, walking the small, winding street you walk everyday.

“Oh,” he exclaims out of nowhere. “The ramen joint I was talking about.”

You fix your gaze to where he’s looking. “Ah. They do sell good ramen.”

“Is what you said true? Back at the hotel?”

Your brows furrow, and you tuck your hands into the pocket of your coat. It’s cold enough that his breath creates a mist whenever he talks. “What did I say?”

“That your contract doesn’t let you go out with your clients.”

You cringe, admitting, “I made that up.”

“Okay.” He nods once. You see a glint in his eye. It’s like reading an old favorite book, forgetting most of the words, but still knowing how the sentences end. You aren’t caught by surprise when he loops his arm around yours, body squeezing closer, his faint shivering making you move closer too. “Great,” he says through chattering teeth. “Let’s go. My treat.”

He rubs his hands together as you move to sit. He points to the table far back. You shoot him a look, but you follow anyway.

“You know,” he starts, smiling faintly as both of you settle into the booth. “I asked Iwa-chan if he still had your number.”

“Are you reconnecting with all of your exes -- thank you,” you tell the girl who brings your bowls.

Oikawa smiles at her the same way, then he hands you your chopsticks. He steers the conversation back, then he starts peeling the boiled egg from earlier.

“Not all.”

“Just fifty percent?” you tease. It’s still fun, teasing him. “Itadakimasu.”

“Just you.”

You choke on your first spoon of the broth. You warn, “Oikawa-san.”

“Itadakimasu,” he says jovially. He must still find it fun too, the teasing. Then he schools a confused look on his face. “Who’s Oikawa-san?”

“Tooru,” you correct yourself. It’s always been Tooru. Tooru, the 28 strokes that make up his name. Tooru, the way you would write it at the back of your chemistry notebook beside little bubbling hearts. Tooru, the cheeky grin when he found out about your crush. Tooru, night and day and the corners behind school premises.

He finishes peeling the egg and drops it in his bowl. Just when you thought he’ll start eating, he slaps your hands away from your food. “There’s egg in this. You can’t eat eggs.”

“Hey,” you protest as he transfers it from your bowl to his own. You don’t know why he remembers your allergies. He’s just that way, you think. It’s what draws other people in, the way he makes everyone feel a different kind of special. There you are, egg-less, while he has three. It’s for the best.

“It’s been a while since I had proper food,” he grunts. “Thanks for the treat.”

You can’t help it when you let out a disbelieving noise. A laugh. He smiles in response, his head bent over the bowl, hair obstructing his face from your view.

“It’s six in the morning. I’m closed.” The uranaishi turns away from you.

“No, wait! Please!” you plead. “Just five minutes. I need to go to work in five minutes. Just a card.”

The cards are a comfort to you, if nothing else. You don’t care about what you get. You’re not nervous about what might come. What will come will come, whether you have your cards read or not. You just need this. To confirm. To breathe. Ito-san glares at you, but she shuffles the deck anyway, standing at her table. “Pick one.”

Your fingers hover.

You think about Tooru last night. He’s the one who paid for the meal, in the end, after a particularly nasty glare you sent his way. Then you pointed out your building from the front door of the ramen house and told him to head back, unfastening your scarf and wrapping it around his neck, straining to reach. One twine, then two, until his mouth was covered and all that was visible under his eyeline was his scrunched up nose. You whispered, awfully close, “Return this to me. Don’t freeze on your way back.”

You pick. She flips it.

The King, red and white, holding his sword.

You bite the inside of your cheek. “Shit.”

There’s a very specific schedule the team follows. Their game is on the evening of day three. On day three, you go through everything with the managers, ask the players some questions, and get ready for the interviews post-game.

Your lunch break consists of sitting at a 7/11 nearby, nibbling on salmon onigiri, with the endless dinging of your phone.

The high school group chat with you and your friends consists of floating baby pictures; life updates; promotion celebrations; plans to meet up; the usual messages of I’m here, where are you; pictures of sake and beer; and sometimes, like today, game tickets.

Sakura, 12:22 PM: I got three. I heard Oikawa’s playing.

Ren, 12:25 PM: Oikawa? Seijoh Oikawa?

Sakura, 12:25 PM: The very same.

You close it and eat your food. You’ve been awake for more than seven hours already. It would be fine if your body clock weren’t so broken, if you were used to waking up at four in the morning instead of sleeping at four in the morning, but it is. It dings again, loudly. You have been mentioned in a message!

You sigh and open it.

Sakura, 12:27 PM: Are you going? One ticket is reserved for you, ex-girlfriend rights.

Shiori, 12:27 PM: NO FAIR?

You, 12:28 PM: I have a ticket already. Sorryyyy.

Shiori, 12:28 PM: Can I have yours then?

Sakura, 12:28 PM: Where’s your seat?

You, 12:29 PM: @Shiori buy me dinner first.

You, 12:29 PM: @Sakura I’m sitting with the rest of the team staff. Got a translator gig.

Shiori, 12:30 PM: So you’ve seen him already? Bring Oikawa!! Please and thank you!!

Shiori, 12:30 PM: Have Oikawa buy you dinner.

Shiori, 12:30 PM: @Sakura please bring Kaori. I miss her.

Sakura, 12:30 PM: No. You’ll pump her full of chocolate like you did last time.

You mostly follow the head manager for the rest of the day, making sure the interview goes smoothly, the chairs are all set up, the court is still where they said it would be. It’s an exhibition match, and in the spirit of exhibition matches, the players are paraded around more than usual.

“I’ve been convincing him to do an interview,” Garcia, the head manager, mutters, tapping away on his phone as the elevator lifts you both up to the tenth floor of the hotel that the team is occupying.

“Bruno?” you clarify, ready to jot it down in the schedule. Bruno and Tooru seem to be close. Their ages are near, and the younger ones look at them in some sort of cult-idolization, hanging onto their every word, their every action.

Third floor. “Tooru. It would be a nice headline.” He raises his arms up in his vision. “Sort of like, the prodigal son goes home. This is his hometown, and we could arrange a proper homecoming, all the media coverage, but he won’t do it.”

“Why won’t he?”

“In Argentina,” Garcia says, voice raspy, like his chest is made up of a million rough stones. “The volleyball players there are stars. Bruno Conte has a mansion and is constantly booked for television interviews, guestings. It’s very different from here.”

You laugh a bit at that.

Garcia continues. He likes going on tangents, you’ve learned, but he takes care of his team well. “Coach Blanco is known wherever he goes. Tooru too. Who would think, at first, but his face is made for pictures, and he has a way of speaking that makes the ladies go mad. Have you spoken to him yet? I’m sure you have, you know what I mean. His house is a wonderful mediterranean with a large swimming pool at the back. Don’t tell the others, but I like his house the most. San Juan signed that boy when he was nineteen, and the national team signed him when he was twenty-five. He’s never played for other countries, no matter how big the offer.”

“And there were? Offers, I mean?”

“Of course, yes. A player like him is rare. He makes his members shine, but he doesn’t have to dim down his own light to do it. Good for the game, and also good for publicity.” He leans closer to you. The elevator reaches the seventh floor. “I’ll tell you this in secret. Teams in Japan have offered him deals -- so many, more than I can count already. He could be the highest paid volleyball athlete here, if he wanted to be.”

Last night: Tooru in the dim glow of the ramen shop, green onion on his cheek, the planes of his face softened by the dim light, making some bad joke about the guy two tables over, giggling uncontrollably. The reality is this: Oikawa Tooru, all the expletives imaginable. You are insanely, immensely proud, and your lack of wanting him to slow down or be more at reach bothers you. You nod. “But he won’t do it.”

Garcia shakes his head. “No. I’m guessing that’s why he doesn’t want to do interviews here either. Ah, but do you want him to play here? If you were a fan of the sport.”

The manager has thick eyebrows, thinning hair. He wears an impeccable suit everyday since they’ve arrived. You shrug. “You can’t force a man to play for a team he doesn’t want to play for.”

He laughs, big and booming. The elevator doors open. “Good answer.”

People are starting to mill out of the venue. The win was satisfying, especially because the last point was a dump shot made by the setter wearing thirteen on his back. Or maybe it’s first-love bias that lets you say that.

You watch them as they wipe their sweat by the benches. People are lining up for autographs, as is custom in an exhibition match. You can’t help but feel proud as Tooru signs a slip of paper held by a little boy with bright eyes. He says something to the boy that makes him beam. It’s nice, watching him like this. He played against Ushijima Wakatoshi today, along with Kageyama Tobio. The names that pulled him away are the same ones who are anchoring him straight back.

You head in first to prepare, and surprisingly, you see a familiar face. She waves, recognizing you as you recognize her, a young girl at her right pant leg, a boy at her left. “Have you seen my brother?”

“He’s still out there, Tamaki-san. Door to the left.”

You remember Tamaki. She always put too much salt in everything. Whenever she tried being a good sister to Tooru, she packed him a lunch box. He carried the thing around like it was about to explode.

“It’s been so long,” she says. You were always scared to run into her whenever Tooru brought you over to his house. She was older, endlessly sophisticated, and you were a high school girl madly in love with her brother. It didn’t help that she had a sharp mouth, and you can’t exactly talk back. “Takeru, say hello.”

Your eyes grow wide. “Takeru, you’re all grown up!”

“Onee-san,” he greets, voice deep. He must be eighteen now. “Are you and uncle back together?”

“Tooru-oji has a girlfriend?” the younger kid asks.

Tamaki has never been known to pick her words. Her brother has always been more gracious than she was, in that regard. That lucky trait must have passed on to her kids as well. You know for a fact that Takeru’s eight year old mouth was as sharp as a whip. She looks apologetic as you smile at the little girl. “I’m his interpreter.”

“Ah,” Tamaki says before her kids can interrogate any further. “We should leave you, then. We saw lots of reporters go inside. Door to the left, correct?”

“Yes, it’ll lead to a hallway, then their locker rooms. They should let you in easily enough.”

“Ba-bye,” the little girl says as her mother ushers her to go see her uncle. Her hair is in the smallest set of pigtails you have ever seen.

Garcia opens the door, pulling you inside for the press conference.

Shiori, 9:23 PM: You look sexy on television. We saw the interview from the gym center. Like boys over flowers.

Ren, 9:23 PM: One flower and fifty boys. I’m so jealous. Oikawa couldn’t stop looking, did you notice?

Sakura, 9:24 PM: The other guy too. The tall one.

Ren, 9:25 PM: All of them are tall.

Sakura, 9:25 PM: The tallest one. With spiky hair.

Shiori, 9:27 PM: Hahaha, true.

Live translations are a pain. Translating for one is already hard. Twenty people at the same conference, at the same time is plain torture. An hour and a half going back and forth about what they thought about a line call back in set two.

You tried to trample down a spark of irritation in your gut too, when a reporter asked Tooru why he wasn’t speaking his native tongue. Tooru just laughed it off, but you wanted to throw a stone at that reporter’s head. You massage your neck, reading the older ones from Miwa.

Miwa, 8:41 PM: You’re on!

Miwa, 8:51 PM: Uwah, I know you’re good, but you’re really good.

Miwa, 8:52 PM: Oh, please get seaweed from the store on your way home. I’ll buy you drinks after this gig.

Miwa, 9:03 PM: Going to the office tonight. I’ve printed out your face from the interview. It’s on the dining table. DON’T THROW. WILL FRAME.

You’re the last one to leave the press room, the team and their staff having been shuffled away for more pictures right after. You make sure all the microphones are off, then you unclip the temporary ID they gave you from your blouse.

“Leaving already?”

You look up from your bag, shoving in your notebooks. “Tooru, I’ll get fired if you keep this up. Garcia will blame me for his setter wandering around.”

“Garcia has a soft spot for me.” He lounges spread eagled in one of the reporter chairs. “I told the bus to leave first. I’m visiting family tonight, see.”

You pick up a forgotten water bottle. “Is Tamaki-san still here?”

“Nah, I told her to go home.”

You stop. “Then?”

He smiles innocently. “Lie of omission?”

“No?” you whine. “Lie of fabrication? You’re making my neck hurt.”

He stands up, cackling at your outburst. Argentina colors are awfully close to Seijoh colors. You point it out, “It looks the same. Like in school.”

He glances down at his windbreaker. There are knockoffs of the uniform he’s wearing outside. In a sudden dawning, you realize he got bigger. You’ve been looking at his face -- you know how his face changed, how his hair changed -- but his body, his whole frame, is just now hitting you. Broader shoulders, bigger arms under the sleeves of his Federation jacket, still looking like it could pass for his old one at Seijoh. The muscles on his thighs stretch as he rocks forward, then upward.

You avert your eyes quickly, neck now both strained and hot. His eyebrows shoot up, catching you fumble with the water bottle. “Like what you see?”

You throw it at his head. He’s asking for it, at this point. He still picks it off the floor where you missed, empty plastic crumpling in his palm. You make your way out of the room and into the hallway. He follows, skipping to catch up.

“That reporter was rude earlier,” you say once he falls in step.

“Yeah,” he hums, fiddling with the zipper of his bag. “‘S alright.”

A spark of irritation passes again. “You always do this.”

“Do what?” The sound of a closing zipper.

“You act passive. You don’t like what’s happening but you still act like it’s okay.”

He treads, his tone gentle, the tone of a person who always gets what he wants, “Would you like it if I punched her in the eye?”

“Well, no.” You wince at why you can’t properly reason with him. “But you could have done something.”

“You always do this,” he retaliates. You don’t appreciate how amused he sounds.

“Do what?”

“Let your temper run.”

You pause midstep. You purse your lips, avoiding his eyes. It wasn’t nice what the reporter did, asking him if he forgot all about Japan. He shot it down quickly enough. A chuckle and a sweet sparkle in his eye he can summon on command, then some corny joke about getting hit in the head with a ball. He handled it well, but sometimes you want to tell him to stop pleasing other people so much. It’s hard, and it’s tiring, and it’s taxing. But then again, he’s Tooru. Under the ease he wears on his skin, there is a monster of ambition who knows what it is he has to do. It’s none of your business. The double doors of the gym open.

“Good job today.” He bumps your shoulder with his. You settle comfortably in the heart of things, a sweet spot: immune to his charisma, unfazed by how ugly things are inside. He’s neither of the two. You didn’t realize it before, in Seijoh. You thought he was both of those things combined, personality big and incomprehensible and magnetic. Maybe it’s age that has taught you that Tooru is none of those things at all, that he’s still lacking and still trying.

Another set of steps. Your neck is still aching, and you’re sure a migraine is about to come. Everything melts away. You bump him right back. “Congratulations, Tooru.”

You’re riding the Tozai Line, waiting for your stop, sitting beside Oikawa Tooru. He doesn’t have his own card. It hit you that he doesn’t live here anymore when you paid for his fare. His hands are shivering, held in front of his mouth.

“Do you ever feel,” he whispers slowly. “Constantly cold?”

“It’s not even winter yet,” you reply. Still, you move a bit closer to him on the off chance it might help. He didn’t change into warmer clothes, just went along with you, nothing but his gym bag and his thin jacket. You have no clue why he keeps going about like this. “Maybe you have tourist skin.”

Tooru shudders, “Foul.”

You place your bag on his lap. He blinks, confused. He looks at you in question. You peek around the train. When you see people minding their own business, sitting and staring into space, you drop your hand on his lap, the back of it landing on the fabric of his shorts, the hard muscle underneath it. He blinks again. You wiggle your fingers. “I’m warm.”

He places his hands on top of yours, tentatively at first, and once you don’t show any signs of changing your mind, he sandwiches it between two of his very cold ones. You hiss. He looks down and giggles -- Tooru used to giggle, Tooru still giggles.

Your hands, clasped together behind the cover of your brown leather Diu.

Minutes pass, maybe hours. Your hands don’t get clammy around him anymore.

“I’m sorry,” he says out of nowhere.

“Why?”

“Because I -- maybe you thought I’d be back in a year, maybe four after university, but it ended up being…”

“Nine years?”

“Ten.”

Indulgently, “That long?” You stop to look at him, the face he has on. An old favorite book, eyebrows creased, the single line between them that spells worry. “It was… such an old thing, Tooru. We were so young. No one had a clue what they were doing when they were seventeen.”

“I could have handled it better--”

“No one handles things at that age. Guilt doesn’t look good on you. It makes you ugly.”

“I know you still find me handsome, don’t lie. And it -- it’s not guilt,” he says. He leans back on the seat, staring up at the lights. “It’s, I don’t know, regret.”

“Regret for what?”

“You were… the kindest person in my life at that time. And I was… you know what I was. I regret that.”

“Kindest,” you repeat, mouth going over the sound. You weren’t kind for the sake of being kind. You were kind because… you loved him, whatever type of love it might have been in your mind.

“I knew why there were always power outages in the gym, why the teachers never got mad when I skipped school to talk to Blanco in the last few weeks.”

“Huh,” you whisper, surprised. You didn’t know that he knew. You forgot you did those things, even. “It was… it wasn’t a big deal--”

You pulled the plug on the lights when you heard Iwaizumi complain about no one able to get Tooru to stop after that last spring tournament match. He used to fold himself inwards, swimming in his shortcomings. It was his curse. A star that burns so bright also burns itself. The only way to get him to go home was to pull the power plug of the school gym. He couldn’t exactly practice in the dark. He might have practiced elsewhere, but at least he took a walk with himself before he reached another court. You gave the maintenance men gifts at the end of third year.

Then, before graduation, you went around lying to the teachers, covering his ass in attendance because he was off in places even Issei and the others didn’t know about, alternating between a list of easily cured illnesses and easily contracted viruses.

“It was,” he contends, “it is.”

“I didn’t resent you, Tooru,” you say honestly. “For leaving-- for leaving that way. I knew what you were supposed to do, what you planned on doing. Why would I resent you for your ambition? That’s stupid. And it was so long ago. We were kids. You’ve changed. I’ve changed. I didn’t hate you. I still don’t hate you.”

Easy dismissal. A heart crushed under his shoe. He wasn’t at fault for that. You were the other half of the equation. You can’t offer something up and expect it not to get taken. Teenagers are so fond of dramatizations of romance, martyrdom for the sake of martyrdom, it’s almost funny. You thought that if you loved Tooru hard enough, he’d learn to take it easy. Anchoring someone like him to simple happiness is like asking the tide to flow upstream. Both equally tempting, both equally impossible.

Tooru looks at you now. “Even if I make your hand cold?”

You sigh. You place another hand on his lap. “Good thing I have two.” He clutches it with less hesitance. You swallow. “I heard you’re already a citizen… over there.”

He nods. “It’s nice there, you know. Warm during the summer.”

There. Where he has a card for the metro, if they have one; new friends; restaurants that know him; a garden that’s waiting to be watered; a refrigerator with yogurt that needs to be eaten before it expires; a life. His thumb doesn’t need to rub circles on your skin, but it does. Another station, another stop. Closer and closer to yours. Garcia said something about his house. A house at twenty-eight. Tooru really is a special kind of freak.

You snort. “Oh, evidently.”

“Foul.” He huffs in indignation. “I won the game point tonight, so I think that demands a bit of respect.”

“I’ve heard all about that game point.”

“Who knew that leaning into a microphone and saying ‘la bola de línea’ could be so sexy.”

“I’ll kill you.”

“No, really,” he laughs. “You did it so quickly.”

“It’s my job. You asked Iwaizumi-san for my number?” You look at your intertwined hands. The scar on his ring finger that’s been there since forever. He has pretty nails. Capable hands, cold because he refuses to wear a coat. “Is it because of guilt? Or regret?”

The lady sitting next to him stands up to leave. He stares at her back. “It’s because I missed you.”

He’s still a good liar. He’s an even better actor. You’ve seen him at it a million times. A hand scratching the back of his head, a bashful glance. All perfectly timed and perfectly executed, with just enough fumbling to give the impression he’s being honest.

You believe him, not because you want to, but because you know he’s telling the truth. Tooru smiles when he lies. He can’t look you in the eye now, and is instead glaring holes into the poor woman’s back.

You breathe deeply. “Boo, Tooru, you have so many lines. What did Iwaizumi-san say?”

“He hung up the phone on me.”

The doors open at Oroshimachi.

This is the farthest he’s gone. They make poems for moments like this: two people standing outside an apartment building, facing each other; the flicker of the streetlight; the sound of the television of the house five steps away.

What the poems forget to include is Tooru, jumping around restlessly to feel warm; you feeling embarrassed to be seen out with him; the threat of the 11 PM flashing on your watch coupled with the 6 AM calltime you have tomorrow.

“This is me. I’d let you in, but my roommate...”

“Let me in?” he gasps. “That’s forward of you.”

“I said I couldn’t!”

He wiggles his brows. You look around the street to make sure no one is here to see him make a fool of himself. He leans closer conspiratorially, “But you want to?”

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. More than he knows. More than the quiver of his smile can comprehend. “No.”

“If you say so.”

“I’ll--” You gesture to the door. He nods, motioning his head for you to go in, hands tucked in the pockets of his jacket, shoulders bunching in the cold. You say, stern, “Run to the hotel before you turn into an icicle.”

He nods impatiently. You nod too, Okay. You turn away and open the door. Looking back at him one last time, just to check, “Good night.”

He’s walking away now, pedaling in reverse, still watching you, waiting for you to get inside the building. He mouths, jerking his head to the right, Go inside.

You wave. Once, twice. Then you go inside. It’s the usual steps. The usual sound of the door opening. The usual motion of taking off your shoes. Left first, then right.

“Miwa-chan, I’m home.”

No one answers. You check your phone. A million messages from Sakura and the others. A few from the hotel staff you already settled earlier.

Miwa, 9:03 PM: Going to the office tonight. I’ve printed out your face from the interview. It’s on the dining table. DON’T THROW. WILL FRAME.

Then you hear it. Rain splatters. Gentle for a few seconds, then suddenly violent. A downpour.

He couldn’t have gone far yet. You take your umbrella from your bag and run.

You find him under the roof of an empty garage. You squint. Your shoes are wet, and it’s digging close to your socks, but he looks worse for wear. His hair is damp and sticking to his forehead, rain stains on the stupid fucking jacket. You come closer. People write poems about this, you think again. Two poems in one night seem a bit excessive.

“You’re making my heart flutter,” he calls. Tooru runs to huddle under your pink umbrella. “Fuck, it’s cold.”

He puts his freezing hands on your cheeks. You jump away at the sudden jolt. He moves closer like nothing happened. You consider leaving him then and there.

It leads to this. Whatever this is.

“You could have warned me,” you groan, slumping on the same chair you saw four days ago. “You could have warned me.”

“I did,” Ito-san purses her lips. “I can’t give a warning to someone who knows what’s happening anyway. You’re an odd girl. You receive your fate properly, without fumbling hands.”

“And here I am, no better than if I fumbled.”

“What’s troubling you?”

You notice she doesn’t take out her dice, or her cards. She doesn’t ask you to give your palm either. She knows you don’t need it anyway. She knows, she must have seen it. She could have warned you. In hindsight, she’s right. She did.

Is your heart open for love?

You don’t know what you expected. Maybe a nice office worker you’ll meet at the grocery store. Maybe one of Miwa’s brothers. Maybe you’ll drop Sakura’s kid off at daycare and find a nice man bringing a kid there too. You didn’t expect second buttons, or suns, or the droplet of rain on Tooru’s cheek.

“Love,” you breathe bitterly, “is such a hateful thing. Like a leech. Vehement.”

She takes your takoyaki and opens the box without shame. “It is cruel to you, then?”

“Tooru’s here.”

“Who’s -- Ah.” Understanding dawns on the uranaishi’s eyes. You don’t have to see the future to see this.

“But he’ll leave again in three days.”

“Will he come back?” She takes a ball and chews it with precise movements, sharp and quick like she always is. “After this nonsensical timeline the two of you have set?”

Will he come back?

Yes, your heart says. A heart that believes in him, believes love given is love reciprocated. But you know him too well for that, know yourself too well for that. You know he makes allowances now: for mistakes, for forgiveness, for other people. You know you weren’t as rash as you used to be, you don't give as freely as you used to. Love given might be love reciprocated, but it doesn’t always mean love is all encompassing. His life is over there, across the ocean, miles away.

“I don’t know,” you start. But you do know. “You can’t clip a bird’s wings. It’ll resent you if you do.”

Strings that diverge. Strings that meet again. Strings that are not meant to stay together.

You don’t tell Sakura and the others. In the end, you don’t breathe a word of it to anyone, not even to Miwa. They have enough going on in their lives already.

You will approach this with even judgement, you promise yourself. Shiori would tell you to do something rash, Ren would shake her head, Sakura would nod her head, and Miwa would ask if she could meet him right away. You’re better off with your own advice.

You go through your contract, back and forth the hotel and a few locations the team wanted to see. After the game, there’s nothing much to do but stick around in case anyone needs anything. You interpret a solo interview with Bruno hosted by a volleyball magazine. You drink coffee with Garcia. You forward a file of the game with a transcript to Blanco.

In the middle of it all, funnily, you run across Iwaizumi Hajime in the tenth floor hallway of the hotel. He comes short of mowing you down and sending you toppling backwards on the fancy carpet. You only stumble a bit, thankfully. He apologizes profusely.

“Iwaizumi-san,” you begin. You think he doesn’t recognize you. You and Iwaizumi had lived in the same neighborhood since the first grade. “It’s me.”

A second passes, then realization lights up his face.

“I feel like a dick,” he laughs. “How are you? Issei told me you’re the one who made his cat eat.”

“I’m doing well. I heard Hanamaki-san has one too. Are you the only one without one?”

“Oikawa doesn’t have one. I don’t think he can scoop the shit up on his own.”

“He’ll cry a bit before,” you agree. You’ve always liked Iwaizumi. His mother used to make the best curry, and he always gave you the strawberry popsicles that came with the pack because he didn’t like how they tasted. “Are you here for him? I think he passed by earlier. He said he was going to wait for you downstairs.”

“He still can’t read. I saw you on television,” he says.

You shrug. He’s not the first person who has told you that. “I might become a bigger celebrity than Tooru at this point.”

They rent a bus to go around the sites. It’s good. A good cap to a good win to a good trip. They’re good too, generally. Most of them aren’t rude, and the ones who don’t have anything to say to you just don’t say anything at all. They’re one of the better types of clients, even if their hours are dreadful.

You settle comfortably on the bus seat, the itinerary tucked in your lap. A weight pounces on the seat beside you, and you look up in time to see Mateo Lopez greet you a good morning. He looks younger now that he’s not wearing the usual workout clothes or team uniform. A black hoodie that, though you know it’s not possible, makes the spikes of his hair stand more erect. He’s endearing, like a pet, or like Sakura’s kid. You haven’t seen Kaori in a while, come to think of it. Still, you move a bit closer to the window, just in case Garcia thinks you’re coming onto one of his players.

Which you are, but just… a different one.

You talk to him a bit, and you realize he has a little lisp. He’ll find some nice person back in Argentina, you’re sure, and you’ll be a memory he’ll soon forget. He’s in the middle of telling you about the places back home that he thinks you would like when someone calls his name and starts talking to him. You take it as a window to check your phone, rearrange the notes for the team.

Unknown number, 7:16 AM: What’s he talking to you about?

Unknown number, 7:17 AM: Did you know we’re going to Aobajo later?

Unknown number, 7:17 AM: Don’t ignore me TT_TT

You, 7:28 AM: Argentina. Yes. Okay. How did you get my number?

Unknown number, 7:28 AM: I tortured Iwa-chan.

Matsushima is a thirty minute ride from the city, and soon all of you are filtering out of the bus. Tooru emerges last, exchanging a few words with one of the assistant coaches, dressed like a veritable tourist. A complete get-up with the shades and the product on his hair. Thankfully, he’s wearing a coat. Thanklessly, your green scarf is wrapped around his neck. You shoot him a questioning glance, which he replies to with a texting motion. He points to your pocket, where your phone is.

Unknown number, 7:45 AM: You know this tour is a scam?

Unknown number, 7:45 AM: I don’t need to climb Toyama to see reikan.

You, 7:52 AM: You only need to look in the mirror? Ha ha ha

Unknown number, 7:52 AM: I only need to look at you.

Unknown number, 7:53 AM: PSSSSST don’t be mean.

Unknown number, 7:53 AM: Heyyy stop leaving me on read TT_TT

You roll your eyes and close your phone.

You double as a tour guide here, translating for the lady who introduced herself as Hayami as she leads your party across the coastline. When you reach an observation tower, she points at the islands, naming them all with proficiency. The men all stand and watch, forming a little clump, as they gaze out into the sea, the seagulls cawing overhead.

“There are 260 tiny islands,” she says. “Here, we are in Toyama, and what you are seeing is reikan.”

“It means ‘beautiful view’,” you explain. Tooru is smiling like a satisfied cat at the back of their cluster.

Hayami continues, “Next we will see sokan -- magnificent view -- over there in Otakamori. If you will follow me.”

When you reach another observation tower, the chilly whip of the air makes you tighten your coat around your body. You tell them to pose for a complete picture of the team, blue gray clouds at their back, smiles on their faces. You snap it from Gracia’s phone.

“Should I get you all lunch?” you ask Garcia as you make your way down and the hours are starting to pass. “I know a store nearby.”

“That’s alright, it’s…” he stops. He’s still wearing his suit. You wonder if his feet hurt in his shoes. “They do seem hungry, don’t they? Should I come with you?”

“No need.” You shake your head. “I know my way back. I’ll be quick.”

You walk the offshore coast, the cement sidewalks and the grass growing where the rocks crack. You used to go here with your friends during the weekends, but you forgot what for. A whole lot of nothing, if you had to guess. Going for the sake of going, laughing the whole train ride, then eating instant ramen in a convenience store with the most handsome cashier. You had to rush back before evening for cram school. Once, Shiori stole her older brother’s motorcycle. You, being reckless and endlessly stupid, rode passenger as she drove here, clutching her back and screaming in her ear.

“Issei and I fell asleep on a curb there.”

Oikawa falls into step beside you.

If you had a particular liking for metaphors: Oikawa from before always walked ahead, barrelled ahead. Sometimes he looked back, but most of the time, you pumped your legs to run and catch up. Oikawa now, falling into step beside you.

But you don’t like metaphors. “Shiori and I smoked our first cigarettes on the way here. An old woman caught us and asked us if our parents knew they raised -- what was it... ah, thugs who will never be able to marry a nice man.”

Tooru’s laugh twinkles like a million stars, a million suns. “Are you? Married to a nice man, I mean?”

“Your teammate asked me the same thing. I’ll inform you both once I have the answer. Did you know Shiori’s getting married soon?”

“Really? Is it anyone I know?”

“I don’t think so. She met him at work. I’ve only met him once.” “And?”

“He’s okay.” He raises his brows, the tip of his chin. You cave. “Well, she could do better. But maybe I’m only saying that because she’s my friend.”

He places a finger to his lips, a secret between you two. “I always thought Shiori would end up with an asshole. She had… a thing. Self-sacrificing. Not as bad as you, of course. But a self-sacrificing streak.”

You shudder at the thought. Self-sacrificing indeed. You grew out of that, but he isn’t wrong. “I’m surprised you thought about us at all.”

“I only thought about volleyball eighty percent of the time. The twenty percent was allotted for gossip. Besides, it was hard to ignore them when they were constantly threatening me with knives.”

“You were a terrible gossip,” you admit. “I don’t know how you knew everything about everyone.”

“I don’t know why they kept telling me, hell,” he laughs. “I didn’t care about what was happening in their lives, but you always seemed happy enough whenever I reported to you about it.”

“Hmm,” you hum. You tilt your head. There is the littlest jingle in the air made by the two beads of your earrings catching each other. “We had fun back then, didn’t we?”

“It feels… weird here. Familiar.” He tests the word on his tongue, as if making fun of himself for thinking it. “Nostalgic.”

“You are home.” You stop at the word home. Is he home? Or is home a different place for him now?

He doesn’t seem perturbed. He kicks a misplaced pebble. “Tadaima,” he murmurs absently.

“Okaeri, Tooru-kun.”

Sometime after this, you’ll look back and remember three words, and they are not about love, they are about home.

But not yet. Not while the sound of waves lapping at rocks fill your ears, the rustle of wind numbs your fingers, the unforgiving edges of the cliffside threaten to swallow you, the spiraling seagulls fly overhead. Not yet.

“Wah, I’m Tooru-kun now?” he teases, opening the door of the old convenience store that still has a poster from 2010 at its front door. “Are we time travelling? You should cut your bangs again--”

“You yap so much.”

You start piling packs of donburi oyakodon into a red basket you’re sure hasn’t been cleaned since 2010 either. Tooru goes to get bottles of juice for the others. You don’t want to get reminded about your bangs -- the bangs Sakura talked you into when she thought she had a calling as a beautician. You’ve always trusted people easily.

“You don’t like listening to my voice?” He takes the basket from your hands. You don’t notice until you put an onigiri inside midair. “This is the voice that won--”

“The Sendai Middle School Singing Competition, I know.”

“Wrong,” he sighs, placing the basket at the checkout. “It was The Sendai Middle School Singing Competition for Gifted Artists.”

You look at him, really look, hoping to see an ounce of shame in his body. You don’t.

When you’re nearing the tourist spot, he heads on first. It’s unspoken, and you’re thankful that it is. You don’t want the others to think you’re doing anything unseemly with the players. At least if he goes first, he can make up some story about getting lost and watching the flowers, and you were never together.

Bruno helps you with the paper bags, and you hand out lunch once you get into the bus, heading back to the city.

The trees vanish, and soon they are replaced with buildings gradually getting taller and taller. It stops when the bus starts going up a hill of the scattered ruins. The walls loom upwards, menacing as ever. Soon enough, everyone scatters into little groups walking around the site, and, as expected, Mateo follows at your heels. You follow at the heels of the team manager.

You’ve seen Aobajo before, so the magic is diluted, but it’s nice to walk familiar footpaths. Aoba Johsai has always raised its students with a strong sense of school pride, so trips here are frequent and often. There are too few competitive private schools in Miyagi. Shiratorizawa is an older institution, but Aoba Johsai was named after a stronghold. The colors are better too. You’ve never known anyone to genuinely like purple.

You cross the east bailey, taking in the details of the gates. Garcia huffs a breath, “I should have worn different shoes.”

“There’s a bench a bit further down,” you suggest. You cross another bridge, the fish rippling the lake below. You point at where the hill curves. “There’s a school right around that hill.”

The bench comes into view, the oak tree blowing gently up above. The manager leans back and lets out a grateful breath once he sits down. “Did Tooru go to the school in this city?”

“That school, actually,” you tell him, nodding at the roof of Building C peeking from the hillcrest. “Aoba Johsai.”

He looks surprised. “Like where we are?”

“Yes, named after where we are.”

“Did he tell you?” he questions.

“We were classmates,” you admit.

It’s Mateo’s turn to look surprised. He perks up from something or the other on his phone, looking at you. “Were you close with him?”

“Um, not really,” you lie.

“But he played volleyball? Was he already a setter?”

You’ve seen this before. Kids who worship Tooru often ask about the how, but never the why. The how is easier to lie about. ‘How did Oikawa Tooru become that good?’ can be met with, ‘He practiced a lot’ because the alternative is, ‘He practiced too much than what can be considered sane.’ The why’s answer -- although no one ever asks -- is Oikawa knew what he wanted, and, as a rule of the universe and also perhaps a reward for his own unbendable will, he always got what he wanted.

Like he has a telepathic tie to all those who utter his name, Tooru appears at the bridge and calls out to your group.

“Talking about me, old man?” He flops himself beside the manager. “Behind my back too?”

“‘Not really’?” he whispers to you much later, when the sun is setting and some of his teammates have already settled back in the van to get some rest. “Shall I tell them?”

“Tell them what?” You raise your brows in question. You walk to admire the stacked stones of the walls, the flutter of tourists that hide you from plain sight.

“That we were close.” He points at the repurposed hall. “That I kissed you in there.”

You scrunch your nose, remembering. His tone is light and teasing, not like his tone at the train. “Not our classiest act, making out in a public restroom in a tourist spot.”

“We weren’t exactly classy kids.”

You divert the topic. You don’t like thinking about what you gave Tooru and what he gave you and the whole fumbling mess of giving and taking at the wrong places. You nod at his neck. “You should return my scarf soon.”

Mateo appears as you turn a corner. To you, with the earnestness of a marriage proposal, he says, “We should take a picture here.”

“You should!” Tooru agrees, looking endlessly amused. He takes Mateo’s phone. “Go on, both of you. I’ll take it.”

At least the kid has the sense to not put his arms around you. Tooru looks personally tickled. He snaps an unnecessary amount of photos, all with varying angles, going as far as to crouch to take it, and just when you think it would never end, “Kid, I think they’re calling you back on the bus.”

“He has a name,” you grumble. “You should learn it.”

“I do know his name,” he defends. “I know everyone’s names because I know everything. I know position switches don’t happen in volleyball, but he’s smart enough to play setter -- in the game, game smart”--you snort, and he gives you a look--“he’s trained differently though, so it’s a shame.”

“He’s a good kid,” you say, looking at Mateo’s retreating back. “I feel bad.”

“Don’t be. He has a new girlfriend every two weeks or so. He’ll forget about you soon enough.”

You shove Tooru, hard. You glare. He sobers and catches himself.

“Wait, wait, stay there.” He takes out his phone, raising the camera up. A stripe of the sunset catches his cheek. It’s gone as quickly as it came. He makes a peace sign and bends his knees so his face is level with yours. You’ve taken a million pictures of other people today. He poses beside you, moving his head closer to yours. Oikawa opens his mouth and pulls his tongue out.

You move with a start, cupping his chin and his jaw, closing it. “Smile properly,” you snap.

He rolls his eyes. “Don’t be boring.”

He closes his mouth anyway. Your hands quickly fly off his face. You’ve held it before -- you have, you have, you have -- but, somehow, someway, cupping his face when you were seventeen is a world different from cupping his face when you are twenty-eight. If you were weaker, your hands would have stayed. Chalk it up to some law of magnets and magnetism and orbits and gravity that’s pulling, tugging at you, and they are impossible to resist. You sorely wish you were weaker.

“I don’t want to take a picture with a lunatic and the fly in his mouth,” you grumble, fixing your hair, stepping back.

He bares his teeth. “Smile, then, see? Come closer-- now you’re the one who isn’t smiling--”

“I’m smiling!”

“Smile like you actually enjoy--”

You know only of one picture. He shows it to you, fingers pinching it closer to zoom. “Ah, look. So cute.” You peek. He’s zooming in on his face. You pinch his side and he yelps. He pockets his phone as the two of you make your way back to the bus.

You don’t know about the other one. The other one is you with your hand cupping his jaw, the other one at the back of his neck, a crease between your eyebrows and in the middle of a reprimand. He’s looking at you there. If you saw it, you could have guessed it for what it is: fondness, softening the corners of his eyes and the edges of his lips. Fondness tipping carelessly close to deeper waters, the familiar lull of the waves. He knows what the clouds look like, from down there.

Back at the sea.

He doesn’t show you that one. That one, he keeps to himself.

Matsukawa Issei, 11:32 PM: Iwa told me not to

Matsukawa Issei, 11:32 PM: Iwa told HIM not to*

Matsukawa Issei, 11:32 PM: Iwa told me not to tell you**

Matsukawa Issei, 11:33 PM: GAH

You, 11:45 PM: Are you fine?

“Do you want to come with me?”

You cock your head to the side. “My neighbors might call the police because of noise disturbance.”

Oikawa stands in the middle of the empty street, clothes a bit rumpled and hair sticking up more than what he must intend. Matsukawa did try to warn you. You had an inkling this would happen. You saw his head from outside your kitchen window, pacing back and forth. A text came a minute later, asking you to come down.

“Do you want to come with me?” he tries again. This time it’s a whisper. You try not to laugh.

“To the hotel?”

“Bah, I’m not that tacky.” He waves a dismissive hand. You want to argue that he is that tacky. “To Seijoh.”

You cross your hands in front of your chest. You cast him an even look. “Are you drunk?”

He looks sheepish, the little wrinkle by the side of his nose betraying him. “A bit. Come with me?”

You look around the sleeping street. Uphill where the road forks. Downhill where the insects are flying around the lamplight. You can’t say no to him. You don’t want to say no to him. You remember Mikamine Park, the hanami in bloom, how he asked the very same question, and how you answered the very same thing. “Okay.”

A smile blooms on his lips.

Seijoh isn’t far from your apartment. The two of you stand in front of the back gate. It’s been there since before you graduated, and it’s nice to know they haven’t changed it since then. You shake your head, looking at the spiraling metal. It must be at least nine feet high. “I’m not going to climb that.”

“I won’t let you fall.”

“You can’t even stand straight.”

He stands straight, as if to disprove your point. “I have reflexes.”

“Everyone has reflexes, dumbass.”

He opens his mouth to respond, but what comes out is a stutter of a laugh. He snorts, loudly. You jump closer to cover his mouth with your hand. “Someone might hear you.”

“The school ghost?” he says, muffled through the skin of your palm. “D’you still believe in that?”

“School security.”

“School security doesn’t check the back gate.” He taps your wrist to make you loosen your grip. He walks to the gate and opens it by squeezing his arm in the space between the bars, then turning the lock from the inside. It clicks, then he pushes it back. “Told you I won’t let you fall.”

You plod along at his heels. The main building is now painted utilitarian white instead of cool blue, and there are benches that weren’t there before. You make your way across the trimmed lawn, gazing at the large windows of the third floor staircase. You used to sit there with Ren and the others, sipping on the free juice the History teacher gave out to students who won his quizbees, sun beating down on your faces and the chatter of the students below filling your ears.

“I miss this,” you say softly as you sit down on the bench beside the gym. The one with the faucets where he always left his bag for afternoon practice. “Do you?”

“Yeah,” he admits. “I miss the milk buns they used to sell.”

The milk buns were good. A Seijoh delicacy. You’re not sure if it’s legal to be here. You’re convinced this is breaking and entering, but Tooru being beside you makes you feel like you won’t get into trouble. He can talk his way out of anything. You’ve seen it enough times.

You used to wait for him to finish practice in the afternoons here, and he’d walk you to cram school after. You lost an earring here, a little pink heart you kept in your pocket so the teachers won’t see, only for it to fall out and into a sewer.

Both of you are silent, basking in the glow of nostalgia surging like a large wave. Last week he was a memory from another lifetime you locked in your heart but never touched. Now he’s here, so painfully close.

“You were my first love, you know.” Your voice treads quietly, and you almost think he doesn’t hear you.

He does. “You were mine too.”

He says it like there was never any doubt. Love given is love reciprocated.

“I found your second button. The one you gave me.”

“Huh,” he echoes. “I could’ve sworn I gave it to somebody else.”

“I killed them and stole it.”

He looks at you. People say that Tooru is made for the sun. His skin takes to it like gasoline to flame. When morning makes a halo around his head, it makes the brown of his hair even lighter than it is, shadows playing around his eyes, framing his long lashes. But Tooru and the moon are friends. Tooru and the moon are like a soothing balm for the aching heart. It almost hurts when you see only half of his cheek illuminated, the smile lines like threads of silver.

“Is this unwelcome, what I’m doing?” he asks, so softly it’s a whisper. You’ve never known him to be uncertain.

“What are you doing, Tooru?”

You know, but you want him to say it anyway. You like it when his mouth forms the words, when his statements become questions, when you catch him unguarded enough that he stutters. It spells out that this is for you, for you alone. The Tooru without the charm he puts on as armor, the Tooru that no one else knows.

You don’t want to fight for affection, let alone his. You’ve done plenty of things for it back in school, back in university. Now your pride has thickened over time, twining around the ends of your tongue and how freely you allow yourself to ask for things.

You wonder if the years have twined around his tongue too, creating a string that allows him to say what he’s truly feeling.

“I’m seducing you.”

You let out a surprised giggle. “Seducing?”

He winces. “That sounded better in my head.”

“Is the beer still buzzing around? Did you have fun with Matsukawa and the others?”

“No,” he grunts out. “Did you know Iwa-chan’s training the national team? No.”

“Okay,” you reply. You don’t ask. He looks like he had fun. He looks like they all made him the guest of honor, which, in his group of friends, doesn’t always mean good things. “Why?”

“Are you asking me why I didn’t have fun with them? Or why I’m seducing you?”

You don’t dignify him with an answer. You stare at Building A instead.

Your shoulders are touching. Close, but not close enough. No collision, no tangling, just the hum magnets make when they find each other’s orbits. He licks his lips. “Because when I saw you back at the hotel, I thought, wow, some things never change. You’re still the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

You laugh in his face, sudden and forceful, hiding how shy you suddenly feel. He blushes tomato red, like the moon at a lunar eclipse.

“Because you laugh like that. You laugh like you used to. You still laugh the same way, did you know? It sounds like flowers opening.”

You remind him, “Flowers opening don’t have a sound.”

“Because you’re still so fucking mean -- I sound like a sap.”

You nod. “You do. But go on.” You tuck your head on your hand by the back of the bench, staring at him. “I like hearing you talk about me.”

He perks at the encouragement. He’s considerably flustered. Oikawa, still wanting to please, though and through. “You’ve changed since I last saw you. You’re the version of yourself you hoped you’d be, back when we were kids.”

It’s not a matter of conciliation between what he knows about you a decade ago and what is presented in front of him now. You understand that much. You understand because it’s the same for you. It’s not a simple then and now, a side by side comparison of frames. It’s finding a familiar comfort in a stranger. Beneath all the new layers, there exists one you’ve come across before.

He’s still Tooru. You’ll see your reflection if you look into his eyes. You’ll see how he sees you: mouth not as sharp as it used to be, but still cutting when you’re with him, still keeping him in line in all ways possible. Tooru wasn’t your friend back then, but you knew him like the back of your hand.

Tooru is your friend now. Tooru does not bring an avalanche of emotions anymore. Just one. Pure and simple and gentle like the way the moon curves beside his ear. Comfort.

“How did you come to that conclusion?”

“You told me back then,” he replies. He ticks it off with his fingers. “‘I want to live honestly. I want to do something I love. I want to try to be a good person -- but not too good, because that would be boring. I want to have a million cats.’ -- I still remember what you said.”

You asked him his question right back, that day. His ambitions have always been more high-reaching. You asked him, but how about being happy, and he looked at you like you grew two heads.

“Impressive,” you admit. “But I don’t have a million cats now.”

“That’s easily treated, so it doesn’t count. Besides, Makki brought home his cat.” He shows you a scratch on his hand. You can see it if you squint, otherwise, it’s too small to properly locate. “It injured me.”

“Poor you.”

“You can kiss it better.”

You grin at him, shaking your head no. “I won’t.”

He rearranges himself on the seat in an act of displeasure.

“I’m scared,” you start, lashes fluttering down. “That what this is might just us riding a wave of have-beens and could-bes. I know you well, and you know me well, and we have a lot to talk about, so it’s -- maybe it’s…”

He hums, “You still worry too much.”

“You don’t worry enough.”

“Exactly why I’m seducing you. One cannot quarrel without an opponent.”

“I’m your opponent?”

“And my crush,” he laughs. He’s still no better than he was. Maybe time does not progress the way it should. Maybe progression leads to regression when the strings shape themselves into a circle. “What do you say?”

No matter how many loves Tooru has had, you were the first. You always will be. Your place is insurmountable. You might not be his longest, or the one who made him weak, or the one who swept him off his feet, but you were the first. Anyone can come along and show him how best to be loved, anyone can come along and be his new last, but you will remain his first.

Still, you want to be the one who’s loved him best. You want to be the one he’s loved the most.

The mirth in his eyes melts into something hopeful when you inch your face closer to his. You close the space. His lips are soft and moist and moving against yours without question. There are butterflies in your stomach, heat in your ears, numbness in your fingertips. It’s not difficult to see the boy that you fell in love with a decade ago for the man he is now. He’s changed -- his tongue is more experienced, lips more considerate -- but he’s still the same. He’s still Tooru, your first love.

Looking at him now, you don’t think he’s loved anyone this way either. Loved this fumblingly, pure and unpolished in the way that makes him lose his affinity for appropriate words.

There is no rush of strawberry mixing with vanilla anymore. There is no pounding, no throbbing, no nervous palms, no jittery apologies. He tastes like sake and you taste like your evening coffee. Just him, the slow spread of happiness from your gut, and how being with Tooru on the bench outside the gymnasium feels a lot like coming home.

Miwa emerges from a two-day stupor of deadlines. You know the feeling well. It’s a setback that comes with the job. You have your own time, so you’re sure to have a broken body clock. You haven’t heard from Miwa in two days, schedules not catching each other, but she did frame your face, and it’s now hung on the wall like you’re some sort of deity that watches over meals.

“Is the team home yet?” she asks, seeing you upside down on the sofa, head dangling off the edge and feet propped up.

You halt writing the email to the television station about the copy of Conte’s interview. “Two more days.”

You try not to think about it. Two days is too short. After the two days are up, you’re sure he’ll leave. You don’t want him to leave. You haven’t had dinner with him yet, haven’t asked him about his teammates, haven’t shown him pictures of Shiori’s fiancé. You want to have coffee with him, maybe buy him a hideous coat he’ll never be caught wearing. In the New Year, maybe you can come with him to Washikura and say your prayers together, and if time permits, stay long enough to get him to buy the two of you omikuji. You want lots of things. You want too many things, and if Ito-san could hear your list, she would call you an ungrateful brat.

“Did you get the seaweed?”

“It’s in the pantry.”

“Thank you,” she calls from the pantry, making the syllables long and appreciative. “I’m going to bed.”

It’s five in the morning, and she’ll probably sleep through the night too. You call out, “I’m thinking about getting my master’s.”

Miwa, who’s in the middle of getting hers, calls back, “Don’t do it.”

Her bedroom door slams closed.

You dream about him that night.

An old memory skewed by the faded, vague sides of the subconscious. A fifteen year old girl shyly confesses to a fifteen year old boy under the light of the afternoon sun, tendrils of dust of the empty hallway swirling around them. The boy is blushing, stammering. His eyes are brown. A shout. The boy gets called by someone out of view, but he glances back one last time as he makes his way out of the frame.

A beat, and the world is pink. Falling cherry blossoms and a backpack. He’s taller than you. He catches one, and he blows it to your face. You sputter in surprise and pinch the lobe of his ear in retaliation. The white blazer of Seijoh, the gray and blue plaid skirt, the pink of Tooru’s cheeks.

A boy standing outside the gate of your house. Your mother catches him, having just arrived home herself. You’re preoccupied with dinner. They exchange a few words, and you are none the wiser. You only catch on when two people enter the house, one of who you expected, the other you thought you would see tomorrow morning at first period, both of them chirping happily as you look at them in horror. Your mother shrugs and tells you Tooru-kun is cute.

A beat again. A conversation. “The world is going to end tomorrow.”

He looks at something far. “I heard.”

“Do you believe it?”

“Of course not. Are you scared?”

You shrug. “There’s a Math quiz tomorrow. I wish it was true.”

“Want me to teach you?” And it cuts just like that.

Tooru leaves, and he doesn’t say goodbye. You haven’t been talking in the days that led up to it. He leaves, and he is gone for a long time.

“Hiiiiiiii!”

Your hand comes up to cover the glare of the morning sun. You don’t have much on the schedule today, so the call time got moved to a more considerate hour. You wonder how athletes all do this. Wake up before dawn only to go on runs or to nourish their body, or whatever it is they do.

“What’s that?” You motion to the thing Tooru has in his hand. The people in the neighborhood must know him already as the incessant man who won’t stop visiting. You’re sure the older women gossip about how inappropriate everything is. Visiting at late hours of the night, visiting at early hours of the morning.

“Flowers.” He offers them to you. “For the prettiest girl in Sendai.”

A bouquet of pink camellias, hugged by brown paper and a simple twine.

You take it gingerly. “Just Sendai? And it isn’t spring, how’d you get this?”

You squint to look at him. Still, you can’t help but bring the flower to your nose, glowing like a sunflower with her sun. It’s a nice day.

“The prettiest girl in the world,” he declares confidently. You nod in agreement, offering him a thumbs up. You walk down the road together.

“Tell me where you got this.”

“I think you already know.”

“Know what?”

“I’m loaded,” he declares. “I can get you as many camellias you want, even in the winter.”

You gape at his arrogance. You stop in your tracks just to process what he said, and how he has no shame in saying it. Your jaw slackens without your permission. “You can’t just--!”

He laughs at you and moves your hand up, successfully shoving the bouquet up your nose. “Appreciate the flowers, now.”

“You--”

“So, I was thinking,” he continues. “Are you still terrified of Tamaki?”

“Yes,” you tell him without explanation. His sister talks like a speeding truck on the highway. She doesn’t have any of Tooru’s talent for conversation, but that doesn’t stop her from talking. Seeing her once at the exhibition match is already enough. Your eyes widen in realization. “Oh! So this is what the flowers are for. Don’t even start--”

Tooru puts his hands together and pouts. He can be such a pain. Manipulative and sly and cunning, knowing that nice flowers can make you bend easily. “Please? Dinner?”

“No,” you say firmly, walking away from him. “Isn’t it too early? Aren’t you presumptuous?”

A kid on a bicycle whips by, his school bag flopping behind him. The shop doors are starting to open, and ahead it smells like the ginger of okayu, its scent spreading down the street and into noses.

“They already know you. I’ve brought you over a hundred times.”

“Exactly why you shouldn’t bring me over again,” you tell him, eyebrows drawn and voice whiny.

Tooru laughs at you, voice echoing in the waking street.

He still persuades you to go because he’s Oikawa, and he can talk a plant into becoming an antelope.

Tooru’s mother teaches Economics at the Tohoku university, his father teaches Molecular Physics. Both of them look surprised to see you standing in front of him, at the door of their house, holding a box of Wagashi you hurried to the store to buy earlier.

It surprises you even more when his mother claps her hands in glee.

You hand her the box. “It’s nothing special but --”

“Nonsense!” she says quickly, taking it and retreating back into the hall. “When Tooru said he was bringing someone over I thought the worst.”

“What’s the worst?” you mouth to him as the two of you are left alone at the genkan. His father trails along his mother’s back as they disappear into the living room.

Tamaki’s head pops up from the corner. “We all thought he knocked someone up in Argentina and he’s bringing home his ten year old son. It’s nice to see you again,” Tamaki says, motioning for you to take your coat off. She looks at Tooru and sees his face contorted in discomfort. She quickly cleans her tracks, “He didn’t. He doesn’t have a son. Don’t worry. It was just a bad guess. Someone doesn’t come home for ten years, what else would you think? It’s his fault mother is this bothersome now. Are you hungry?”

You nod and let yourself get dragged into some other place, shooting him one last look.

“I think it’s nice,” his mother says. You look up from the plates you’re drying to see that she’s looking at you, bubbling dishes momentarily forgotten. “That you and Tooru found each other again.”

“We should have told you earlier,” you reply. You’ve only talked about it the other night. It’s a little white lie so she can feel that you don’t disregard her blessing. His mother has always been nice and kind, terrifyingly smart. He gets his way with people from her.

“No, no, your business is yours. It’s just -- he’s been lonely over there. He doesn’t tell us, but I know my son. It’s nice that he has someone to… well, someone like you.”

You always don’t know what to say whenever you talk to his mother. Maybe it’s because she always knows what to say when she talks to you. Once you’ve finished drying the plates, you excuse yourself to the restroom, and she nods and tells you that you already know where it is.

You bound up the steps and bump into Tooru’s chest once you reach the top flight of the stairs. Immediately, you pull the washcloth from your shoulder and whack him with it. He ducks like he’s expecting it. “How bad?”

“Better than I expected,” you admit. You don’t know why you expected hellfire and pires. You were seventeen the last time you saw them, and you don’t trust your seventeen year old self to not embarrass herself. “Your niece is cute.”

“Right?” he agrees. The little girl looks just like him. The same full smile and cheek dimple. She has a habit of sucking her bottom lip. “Tamaki’s ex is a piece of shit.”

“Where’s he now?”

You can’t believe you’re gossiping with him when his family is one floor down.

He shrugs. “No clue. Where all the pieces of shit go, probably.” He leads you to the door of the bathroom. “Tamaki won’t tell me.”

You move past his frame to get inside to start washing your hands. You don’t need to, but you had to get away for a while. “But do the kids see him?”

He doesn’t go when he sees you don’t plan on doing anything but stretching your legs. “No. She says they’re better off without him.”

The steady hiss of the faucet streams into the sink.

“Your mother misses you.” You swallow. “It’s not my place but --”

He cocks his head, looking at you like he shouldn’t be explaining it already. “You know why I can’t come home.”

Even if he didn’t tell you, you know why. You can read him like an open book, know what he’s about to do before he even does it. But he did tell you, all those years ago. He can’t come home until he’s proven himself, he said. He can’t come home until he’s sure he can beat anyone who’s ever beaten him. It’s the reason why he continues to refuse offers from the leagues here. It’s the reason why he doesn’t entertain Garcia’s pleas for press releases. For a country that did nothing but show him how lackluster he was, he’ll do the same right back.

Tooru has always put his pride first.

“I do,” you say. “But at some point, you have to realize the reason why you can’t come home isn’t because of some penal code that’s binding. The only reason you can’t come home at this point, Tooru, is because you don’t want to. Accept it for what it is, at least.”

You see the look in his face. You might have gone too far. You look away. “Sorry, Tooru. I know I --”

He kisses you. You pause mid sentence, a stammer forming and heat creeping to your cheeks.

He pushes you against the doorframe of the bathroom hard enough that it rattles the lone potted plant on the floor. You part your lips, and his teeth catch the bottom one, trapping you in both his arms.

“Tooru!” comes a call from downstairs.

You break away, breathing heavily. You move, ducking under his arm and into the hall. You’re kissing him in his mother’s house like some sort of hormone-addled teenager, you think to yourself in embarrassment.

“Stomach ache or headache?” he asks you.

“Stomach ache always works better.”

“Walk me home?” you float the request, wondering if he’ll take it. Tamaki closes the gate after you, her little girl waving bye and Takeru already back in his room, fiddling with the new videogame Tooru got him.

He snorts, taking it. “It’s the least I can do.”

“Hey, it wasn’t so bad.” Your stomach is full, and you feel particularly warmed after his father showed you his paper, then an email, asking you to proofread his correspondence. “I’d do it again next week.”

You would do it every week, because that would mean that he stayed.

He keeps quiet. The disbelieving look he sends you is response enough. He settles instead on whistling something that sounds like donguri korokoro. You turn left to the same winding street. You hear the sounds of the ramen restaurant, the hard orange glare of the light. He knows the way out of sheer repetition, and is the first to walk into the smaller road that leads to the clump of houses in your neighborhood.

“I feel like he knows you already.” You look at the man who is tinkering away in his clock repair shop. He nods his head in greeting, and you do the same.

Tooru notes, “As the fool smitten by the lady at 305.”

“My personal court jester,” you declare.

You reach your building.

“Come up?” you float the request again, wondering if he’ll take it.

He does.

“I’m starting to think you made Miwa up,” he says as you unlock your apartment door with the same combination code. It rings in the silent hallway.

“She’s a gremlin that pays half the rent and only shows up for feeding time.” You turn on the lights. “No, it’s because she works in the office at night. I usually go with her, depending on my gig.”

Tooru helps you out of your coat. He stands at your back as you shrug it off. “You’re used to staying up all night?”

“Mhmm, I am,” you smile, twisting to face him. This is the time to act coy, to flirt. You’ve learned as much through college boyfriends, trysts you started but never continued, people that you’ve been introduced to by mutual friends. But you don’t do it.

Tooru doesn’t either. He grins back. Both of you know, and maybe it’s why you can’t stop smiling.

Like this:

At some point, you stopped smiling. Your breath hitched when he kissed your neck, going down to the valley between your breasts. Clothes shedding. Kisses deepening. The pads of his fingers digging into the flesh of your thighs. Slow rocking that has you clenching too fast, too early.

Like this, the second time:

Some of your hair gets into his mouth. You giggle in his ear. He sputters it out then he brushes it away from your face.

“Shit — the hotel, did you tell them —”

“Fuck, I don’t know,” he pants, and between his words he says is what he doesn’t say: Is this really your topic of conversation now?

“Still —”

“Shh, later.” He changes the pace. You shut up appreciatively. “Like that?”

You nod and close your eyes. “Like that.”

It’s starting to rain, a slow ringing outside the window -- pat pat pat pat pat. You pull yourself to your feet to walk to close the glass.

“Come back,” he murmurs.

“Wait,” you mumble, locking the latch. “There.”

You stumble back to the bed, half asleep and comforted by the sound of the rain. He moves towards you like a worm and lays his head on your stomach. He presses a kiss there, arms winding around your body.

It’s three in the morning according to your bedside clock. Not too late. “You got better.”

He stirs. You count the seconds in your head, staring at the ceiling, tracing circles around his scalp.

One. Pat pat pat pat. Two. Pat pat pat pat. Three. Pat pat pat pat. Four. Pat pat pat pat.

He stirs again. “What do you mean ‘I got better’? Didn’t you like it the first time?”

The first time being ten years ago, in your childhood bedroom back at the house that’s now someone else’s. He never asked you to, but you wanted to give it to him anyway. You wanted him, plain and simple. You still remember how his adam’s apple bobbed when you asked if he’d like to try it with you. He was eager, and fumbling, and in that moment in time, he was yours.

Five seconds. You continue staring at the ceiling, a smirk pulling one side of your mouth up. You keep your voice light. “No, no.”

He’s sitting up now. “What do you mean, No, no — No, no I was good or no, no I wasn’t good?”

“You were a high school boy.” You continue, just for fun, “A virgin.”

“Oi,” he half-shouts. You swallow a laugh. He pulls you up to sit on the rumpled sheets. You start to protest that you want to lie down, but he keeps you sitting up. It’s only the light of the street casting in from the window that’s making you see in the dark. Dim as everything is, the distress painting his face can still be seen clearly. “Be serious.”

You laugh hard enough that tears spring from your eyes.

“Oi,” he whines again. You wind your arms around his neck and pull his head to your chest. You finally lie back down. His voice rumbles against your ribcage in a dejected mutter. “Stop it.”

You rub his back. “Hmm.”

He makes a noise — some crossbreed between a groan and a whine. He’s awake now, and you’re amused. He pulls himself up by his elbows to look at you. “Really?”

“No,” you laugh at him. “I’m messing with you. I liked it. I liked that you were my first. I liked it when you said sorry because you didn’t know how to use the condom.”

He buries his face in the curve of your neck. “Now you’re being mean.”

He apologized a lot, but it’s not like you knew what you were doing either. When it finally happened, it wasn’t the fireworks that Sakura’s novels promised, but it wasn’t the horror story Shiori’s older sister said it was either. It was uncomfortable, and painful, but it was also special, and gentle, and nice. You liked it.

You decide to let him rest. You’ve had your fill. You run a palm at his nape. “I liked it, don’t worry. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

Pat pat pat pat pat pat--

He starts kissing your skin suddenly. You look at him in question, propping yourself up on your elbows. “What’s —?”

“Like,” he mutters, like it’s some sort of insult. His mouth, wet and hot and open, stopping on your hip bone, tantalizingly close to your core. “Just like? You sure?”

“Tooru—”

4:01. You might as well wait for sunrise.

He breaks the quiet. The rain stopped a while ago. “Can I tell you something honest?”

You nod. “Go on.”

“There’s a space in my house. Back in Argentina. I thought about building you a sunroom. If you’d like to visit.”

The house. You wonder if it’s as impressive as Garcia says it is. Knowing Tooru, it probably is. You muse, “A sunroom for a visit?”

“You could stay… for a while. If you want to. Enough time to sit in the sunroom.”

He traces the dips of your hand, the curves and the corners. The pads of his fingers press on your nails. You raise a brow, though he can’t see. “Plane tickets are expensive, you know that?”

“Not if it’s a one-way trip,” he tells you.

You stop. Cold rushes through your body, jolting your hand out of his. Wow.

“You want me to uproot my whole life here?” You add unnecessarily, harshly: “For you?”

He bristles. “Well when you put it like that --”

“I put it the way I see it, Tooru. I won’t ask you to stay, so don’t ask me to leave.”

You’re pissed off now. He’s still selfish, quick to ask. He’s smart, so you don’t understand why he doesn’t understand that while the you a decade ago would have considered it, the you now wouldn’t. Your life is here. Miwa, and Sakura, and Ito-san, your job, your friends. You’ve never asked him to leave his life there, so you don’t get why he’s asking you to leave yours.

“What do you want us to do? What do you want me to do?” he amends quickly. “Say it. I’ll do it.”

Some things change. Some things, no matter how much they change, will remain the same.

I want you to stay.

You don’t tell him that. You don’t think you ever will.

Like this, the third time:

Knowing it might be the last. His flight is in six hours.

You don’t cry. Not when he grips your waist. Not when he murmurs promises into your cheek. Not when your orgasm rips through you suddenly and you hold onto him like he is the only thing on earth. Not when it’s over.

Not even when the first rays of sun start to peek from the jagged horizon of Sendai.

You’ve already said your goodbyes to Garcia and the managerial staff yesterday, before the whole thing that was Tooru dragging you to his house.

“Lopez will miss you,” he said teasingly, brows still thick and suit still immaculate. You’d hoped he wouldn’t notice, but the kid was about as subtle as an elephant.

“Hah,” you quipped. “It would be better if I didn’t say my goodbyes to him, then.”

He waved, then quickly went back to his phone, and you went out of the hotel to find something to give Tooru’s mother. It was the end of another job.

You are woken by unrhythmic thudding. You didn’t even notice you fell asleep. You raise your head from the pillow to come face to face with Tooru, fresh from the shower and buttoning the same clothes he had on yesterday. He sits beside you on your bed.

You wake with a start. “Your flight --?”

“It’s in three hours. I still need to go back to the hotel.”

“Oh,” you say, sitting up, squinting at how the room is too full of sun. You hoped he had missed it and it flew back without him.

“I cooked you breakfast. Will you talk to me?”

“We are talking,” you yawn.

“You have sleep in your eyes.”

You blink, wiping it off. “Oh.”

“I’ll wait for you outside.” Then he closes the door.

Maybe you can stall. Keep him here. Keep him distracted long enough that he misses his plane. It’s a selfish thought you entertain. You’re not selfish enough to follow through in action. You roll off the bed and find it in you to stand up.

You wear an old shirt and an old pair of shorts and trod out after him. You see him standing by the genkan looking as collected as he usually is. His jaw is still relaxed and his frame is still carefree. He looks like he got a full eight hours of sleep. You stand in front of him, a mess that was fucked good last night.

You walk towards him. You see the eyes of the you from the interview Miwa framed look at the scene. Or maybe she’s looking at him. He is nice to look at.

Tooru doesn’t need to ask you because he already knows the answer, but he does. You catch a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes, there for a moment, then gone. “If I told you I wanted us to try, what would you say?”

“That it will be a disaster,” you reply, cutting straight to the heart. There’s no use in candying words for this. “Long distance from Tokyo and Kyoto is bad enough for some people, and they end up hating each other. I don’t want to hate you.”

He nods. “If I begged--”

“No,” you plead, cupping his jaw. It’s nice to know that he wants this as much as you do, but you won’t let him do that to himself. “Don’t, Tooru. There’s nothing to do. It’s just wrong timing, wrong place. There’s nothing to do.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “That I can’t give you what you want.”

Tooru’s always taken more than he can give, and you’ve always given more than you can take. Fundamental differences get murky over time when two people learn to be together. He’s taught you how to take, and you’ve taught him how to give, and now both of you stand in the middle, not really a single person but a mix of odd pieces of each other. An impasse.

“It’s fine. I can’t give you what you want either, so we’re even.”

“Huh,” he huffs. He snorts, “Seduction.”

Two days. It was wishful thinking that was hoping for more. Still, still, still -- is it better than nothing? Was it worth it? With him, you think naively, like a little girl in love for the first time all over again, it is. “Short-lived, but well-lived. Take care of yourself over there.”

“Don’t stay up all night,” he reminds you. “Eat well. Don’t--”

You nod, rolling your eyes. “Eat eggs, I know.”

He’s saying goodbye, you realize. When he leaves the second time, he won’t come back again. “You’ll keep scratching yourself, and your skin will be irritated. One egg isn’t worth all the blister marks.”

“Bye, Tooru.” You slap a smile on your face, but your voice wavers. You want to scream, and to cry, and to beg him to stay, and to tell him you’re willing to try. You don’t do it, in the end. Neither does he. If you two could joke about it, you’d tell each other you are the paragon of maturity.

“Bye.”

He walks down the hall, turns right, and then he’s gone.

You said goodbye to him too, ten years ago. You didn’t ask him to stay back then either, but you did ask him to come back. You were seventeen and in love with a boy that was already out of reach. You didn’t ask him to come back this time. You wonder if it’s better or worse that you didn’t. It doesn’t matter either way. You still had your heart broken, and he is still gone.

How stupid, that after the span of a decade and an ocean and a second try at the same set of crossroads, the outcome is still the same.

You close the door. Breakfast is laid out on the table: miso, mackerel, Miwa’s seaweed, and rice. You expected him to cook you pancakes, or whatever it is they ate in the West.

You sleep through it, their departure, catching up on all the hours that you lost and made up with through very strong coffee. You sleep a good 12 hours, dreamless and at peace.

He goes away and life comes back to its usual swing. You go to Sakura's house, complete with her flowers, her husband, her dog, and her baby Kaori. Kaori isn’t a baby anymore though, as she takes quick, wobbly steps towards you and tells you to Up! Up!

“She doesn’t walk, she runs,” Sakura complains. “I swear, she fell on her face ten times this week.”

“Oh? Really?” you babble to the kid more than to her. You make a face and she laughs. “Maybe you’ll be a runner. An athlete. Mhmm? A trackstar. My little trackstar.”

She gurgles in glee. You tell Ren to come over, because Ren works at law and has her own time too. You send Shiori some pictures to make her jealous. She texts back a minute later.

Shiori, 11:33 AM: How was I supposed to know 8 month old babies can’t eat chocolate! And she was fine! She was happy! Let me come overrrr.

The days bleed into each other, and as slowly as they passed while Tooru was here, life picks up pace again. You’re back to translating American movies, television shows, staying up with Miwa at the office. She buys you red wine that neither of you have the guts to open, so it stays untouched at the bottom of the refrigerator. It’s an impending headache disguised as celebration you’re not yet ready to go through.

Mateo Lopez requests to follow you on Instagram out of the blue. You accept it after three days of careful deliberation, and three days hoping he’ll retract it. He doesn’t, and it’s becoming rude to keep him waiting, so you click the little blue button that says accept and follow him back.

It’s mostly pictures of movies, the flowers at the local coffee shop, you and Miwa at the beach, and occasionally your face. If he’s diligent enough to scroll back to 2012, he’ll see one picture of you and Tooru taken with a rickety first generation phone. You’re wearing your old yukata with the dahlias, and he is wearing his with the white stripes. Your head is on his shoulder and his arm is around you, both of you grinning like fools under the stars of tanabata.

You receive your paycheck that night. It’s big enough that it buys you a pair of new shoes to replace the one that got wet because of the rain. You make your way to the uranaishi’s stall, hand coming up to your neck to tie your scarf. It’s pink tonight. He hasn’t returned your favorite one.

“How’s it looking?” you ask her.

She stares at you in surprise, “Hopeful, actually.”

You pout and she laughs, and winter creeps up on the trees. You see Issei at the grocery store again.

He waves a hand in hello from across the aisle with fresh fish. You wave back, and just as quickly, move your cart so you can pay for your things and leave. You don’t want to talk to Matsukawa Issei yet, or any of the people that remind you of Tooru, but it’s Hanamaki Takahiro’s face that greets you as you whip left.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” he says without preamble. “But the milk you got is expiring tomorrow.”

You blink. You read the lid. “Oh, thanks.”

“Oikawa’s been extra whiny lately,” he tells you conversationally. “Have you been talking?”

You remind yourself to put the milk back. “We haven’t been talking.”

“Maybe that’s why.” Hanamaki places his words in a carefully nonchalant tone, but you know they know, and whatever Tooru’s been telling them, it’s enough to cause worry on their part. You’re about to make some excuse about needing to head back quickly, but someone stops you.

Shiori sees you and walks closer, holding a can of mushrooms. “Oi! Pinky!”

“Still not letting that go?” he whines, and Shiori teases him again.

This is home. It’s like he wasn’t even here at all.

But that’s a lie. The walls of the city remind you of Tooru more and more. If you close your eyes, you could almost imagine he’s with you right now, pushing the cart and asking if he could put in a million unnecessary things. If you turn, he’ll slide his hand around your waist and show you a can of peanut butter only to ask if it’s too expensive, then Matsukawa will pull him over to where the fishes are and tell him the ugliest one looks like him. He’ll bring up how Hanamaki’s kitten scratched him, and Hanamaki wouldn’t listen, and they’d call Iwaizumi who’s at Tokyo, and you and Shiori would laugh while they do an unplanned skit like a bag of fools.

This is home, and if the edges of his smile are here, you wonder what he’s left with over there.

“Couldn’t you try long distance?” Shiori asks as you walk her to her in laws, cicadas chirping. There are still a few people on the street, and the two of you make way for an older lady.

“No, that’s tiring. Do you even know anyone who can make that work?”

She sounds apologetic, “No, they all broke up.”

Your hands, interlocked, swing back and forth. You shrug noncommittally. “Besides, long distance is… short term. When one of you will follow. No one’s following, and no one’s coming home.”

“I wish you told us,” she sighs.

“It’s not that important.”

Shiori’s getting married, and her mother in law’s a monster if the monster were ten times worse. Ren has work and is getting shuttled from one high profile case to another. Sakura can’t conceive again. She told you in that afternoon with Kaori. They’ve been trying, but they can’t. The doctors said there was something that went wrong after the first pregnancy, something jumbled up inside her and it’s been making her think that she somehow failed. She cried to you that afternoon, and you held her hand and stroked her hair because there’s nothing you could say that could make it better.

Your high school crush coming back and breaking your heart all over again seems to be the least important thing of all things in the universe.

She sighs like she’s read your mind. “But Oikawa Tooru is the most important boy in the world.”

“You’re about to have a husband,” you remind her. You point at the scary-looking gate.

Shiori’s living with her in-laws, and their house is larger than most. You squint at the orchard that obstructs the front lawn from view. It looks like a house for snobs, and Shiori knows it.

“He’s inside.”

“So?”

You snort. Oikawa Tooru is the most important boy in the world. Sakura said that back in first year after seeing him for the first time. He was something else. Smart, handsome, good at sports. It was like the heavens crafted the perfect boy and gave him to Seijoh as a gift. He was already charming back then, and soon enough a fanbase emerged, and girls wouldn’t stop sending him gifts, and the rest was history.

You scrunch your nose in tentative agreement. “He is, isn’t he? Oikawa Tooru is the most important boy in the world.”

Oikawa Tooru came back again and brought a hurricane with him. Oikawa Tooru is the most important boy in the world, but he is still just a boy. You want him to come home, to stay, but not because of you.

You want him to stay because his friends are here. You want him to stay because he finally realizes he’s all alone over there. You want him to stay because he can be closer to his parents here, to his niece and nephew, spoil them as much as he wants. You want him to stay because he finally forgives himself for whatever he lacked in the past. You want him to stay because he finally realizes that it’s possible to not forsake happiness for dreams. You want him to stay because he finally admits that he misses home.

You can’t be the one to make him see that.

“Will Miwa be there when you get back?” she asks, footfalls stopping once you reach the gate. She’s been stalling. You give her a look that says if you want to run away, I’ll cover your tracks.

You nod. “Mhmm.”

She nods. “Tell her to take care of you.”

Shiori hugs you goodbye.

The years have colluded your sense of romance. There used to be a time when you thought it was romantic to be serenaded, or to be proposed to in public. Now, rose petals and intricate acts and public confessions seem watered down to you, a last ditch attempt to hide a failing relationship. Who cleans up the rose petals? Who has that much time to think about how to make a confession unique? What if the person being proposed to refuses?

You’ve seen a thousand films, and most of them are about love. You get surprised at how love can be written and rewritten and still come to the same ending, at how many forms it can take, how many stories it can tell.

In films, there are surprises. In winter, there is the never ending cold of the street. In the end, it’s about give and take, and pulling weight.

There is a singular message that pops up on your phone. Your back is slumped on the chair and the glare of your computer screen is starting to hurt your eyes. The office is quiet. Miwa headed home an hour ago. There’s a crumpled bottle of Monster energy on your desk. Another love story, and you can’t help but enjoy it better than the last.

Unknown number, 3:02 AM: Are you still awake?

Unknown number, 3:02 AM: If I asked you out to dinner next week, would you accept?

You, 3:02 AM: Who’s this?

Unknown number, 3:03 AM: Ouch. Ouchhhh. It’s the best you’ve ever had.

You, 3:03 AM: I blocked my college boyfriend on my cell.

Unknown number, 3:03 AM: GAHHHHH

Unknown number, 3:03 AM: Can I call?

“Hello,” says the voice on the other line.

“Aren’t international calls expensive?” you say, but what you want to say, really is, I miss you, I love you, we can try, come home… come back to me. You look at the caller ID quickly, but it’s him, you know. Unmistakable.

“No, not if I get to talk to you,” he replies smoothly. You trample down a smile like some lovesick idiot. “Have you heard of Tachibana Red Falcons?”

You leave your pen and start twirling in the office chair. “Um, I guess. Not really.”

You hear him laugh a bit, then you hear him grunt like he’s flopped down a bed. “Yeah, so they offered me a contract a while back, and I’m thinking about taking it.”

“That’s… here?”

“That’s there,” he agrees. “I'll play, maybe, four months a year? With conditioning and training time and everything. I don’t think they let players play for leagues in other countries but…”

“You’re special?” you suggest. Your heart is at your throat.

“My bargaining skills are fantastic. Then I’ll play the rest with San Juan and the Federation.”

“Oh,” you reply, not yet trusting yourself to form the right words.

“Maybe four months a year is better than nothing.”

Hesitance coats his voice, and the question goes unspoken. Is four months better than nothing? If I asked you out to dinner, would you accept? If I tried, would you let me?

“Oh,” you say again. You understand. You understand completely.

“Is this fine?” he asks from the other end of the call, from the other end of the world.

“Tooru, it’s --” you stammer. “If you don’t want to--”

“I miss you,” he admits. Like he did back at the train, and like you did back at the train, you believe him. “I miss home. I’ve been away for too long. I -- I miss you.”

Your heart soars, you blink and a smile breaks from your lips, leaning back on the swivelling chair, nothing else but Tooru’s voice keeping you company in the empty office room. “Then hurry back.”

“Mama,” you start softly. “Remember when you told me to keep Tooru close? You were right.”

Your mother’s grave stares at you. Cracks are beginning to hug the stone, cracks that remind you an awful lot of her smile, the wrinkles on her face. Mama taught you about the strings, and the cards, and how fate deals people hands. Maybe she knew about him all along. You’ve never had her gift for it, but you like where it ends nonetheless.

Tooru appears from the corner of the old sakura tree, coat on and a sprinkle of white of snow sitting atop his head. He’s dressing warmly now. He doesn’t have the luxury of being not wrapped enough now that it’s winter. He lays down a small clump of white peonies and a box of zunda mochi in front of her, then he lights the incense candles without a word.

You look at him fondly. “Here he is now, at my beck and call.”

“Psh,” he huffs, but he doesn’t argue further. The string of smoke is starting to dance up.

You squat down beside him. “She always liked you, you know. Whenever we fought, she told me, ‘Go apologize to that poor boy. I’m sure it’s your fault because you have a sharp mouth and a bad temper.’”

“You did have a sharp mouth and a bad temper.”

“How ‘bout now?” you pout.

Tooru kisses your lips. Then he puts the back of his palm on your forehead. You blink. All around, Sendai is like a snow globe, a world suspended in cold. A snowflake lands on the tip of his nose. “Soft mouth, good temper.”

You smile, standing up. You wipe it away quickly with your thumb. “Let’s go?”

“Go ahead, I’ll catch up.”

You look at him, the way he’s crouched by the headstone. “Don’t make my mother love you more than she loves me.”

He shoots you a grin. “I can’t help it.”

You walk the cemetery, the familiar curve of the pathway, the familiar beat of the graves. Some tombs are cleaned, while others are swallowed by a mix of snow and fallen leaves. You wrap your hands around yourself, hearing footfalls, then the crunch of grass under a shoe.

“Cold?” Tooru asks.

“A bit,” you admit, moving closer. He opens his arms so you can nuzzle the fuzz of his coat by the side. The irony of it isn’t lost on you. He was the one who was shivering and trembling not a year ago. He’s a fast learner, or maybe all that was a ploy so you’d let him hold your hand.

“Wait,” he mutters, pulling out your green scarf out of nowhere. Maybe a pocket. How big are his pockets? He wraps it around your neck. One twine, then two, then three. He pinches your nose. “There. Better?”

“All better.” You start hesitantly, “So I was thinking…”

“Dangerous.”

“Shut up.” You roll your eyes and move closer. “I was thinking, since you’re going back tomorrow, and I did buy a ticket…”

He looks at you, chin down and eyes wide in surprise. He keeps his cool. He didn’t know you bought a ticket. “Mhmm?”

You suggest, Tooru’s arm around you, “You could show me my sunroom?”

At seventeen: You’ve given more than you could take, and he’d taken more than he could give. At twenty-eight: He taught you how to demand, and you taught him how to offer. At twenty-nine: love, at the heart of things, is the stupid exchange gift he insists on doing every Christmas. It’s mostly composed of useless coupons and fast food chain toys, but he laughs like an idiot and wears red like he’s some sort of town mascot.

You love him terribly, your first love, walking with you now on the snow.

fin

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