Chapter Text
sometimes, akaashi thinks, he kind of wants to do something stupid.
he knows that if he really looks at things, it’s only just a matter of closing a notebook, ripping off a few pages, booking a ticket, and betting on adrenaline to give him the five second boost he needs to call up bokuto and ask for your address to fix things.
but that isn’t the case, and the adrenaline is only waist level at best. akaashi knows he isn’t overwhelmed enough to pick up the phone and dial a familiar set of numbers. even when he does get to that point, adrenaline rises only towards chest level. he can still breathe, and with that breath akaashi knows his actions at this point will still be guided by reason.
so even if bokuto’s asking him if he’s heard from you lately, and the question of “how is she?” is at the tip of his tongue, when akaashi shifts he feels the water sway around his chest while the horizon before him is as clear as day.
in the moment, he’s aware that if he stays and lets the waves rise, he’ll drown if he goes under. neither the rush nor adrenaline holds him under, and akaashi, in a way both dreads and praises the fact that his head is still above the water.
his fingers pause in place, and he thinks of the polaroid of you, the ring, and nara in his wallet.
then he breathes, and it kind of aches, but he can still breathe.
he can still reason.
his heart clenches and he tries to tell himself it’s because of the nerves and the almost slip up of his crafted composure, and not because his heart is screaming for you.
bokuto stays silent on the line, so akaashi knows his clock is ticking.
so “no,” akaashi would be the words he always hears himself reply, and he’d swallow the question he’s tried asking time and time again for months now back down just like that. “i haven’t heard from her.”
“that’s okay,” is the reply he gets, and from the tone of bokuto’s voice, akaashi knows there wouldn’t be an extension offered for the conversation. sometimes he thinks that if the world were to throw a lifeline at him, he would ignore rationality and ask for you.
because for a while, he looked and listened for one. he looked at your profile, and counted the days where you were last active. listened for bokuto’s voice just with a bit more attention whenever he’d mention your name, and what you’ve been doing.
just that lifeline, akaashi thinks to himself every time. if the world, or in this case, you, were to give him just that, he’d be on the next flight back to tokyo.
then the world gave you happiness, he realizes.
happiness that was manifested in the form of miya osamu, a few kind words that sent a tidal wave of everything good your way, and a bakery with your recipes right across the onigiri shop you found home in.
the silence that follows, akaashi notes, is the kind that stretches like from the night that started your end.
because perhaps it was just borrowed time.
the love between the both of you was as real as life, but a forever wasn’t guaranteed with just love and hope as armor. the reality of the fall out, had been there all along, akaashi realizes. initially it was a little hard to face, but he supposes that it’s difficult because it truly was love at its purest form.
love, in accordance to your story, had always been just an emotion that’s raw and so, so unapologetically beautiful to the point that it tore you open when reality came and announced how love alone wasn’t enough to satiate the way of the world.
so akaashi cries that night he finds miya osamu’s name, because like the heartbreak he felt when he parted with you, the emotion that announced its arrival in the moment, he realizes, is killing him all the same.
his finger hovers over the send button on the right side of his phone screen, right next to the congratulations that took a couple shots of the strong kind of liquor to type out. the faded photograph with the two people smiling in nara sits on the table next to the ring he finally bought without having to blow a couple of paychecks.
he knows that there’s no one to blame, so he downs another shot—squeezing his eyes at the burn that he tells himself he welcomes on the back of his throat.
the chocolate cake in spain doesn’t taste anything like yours, he smiles to himself. when akaashi closes his eyes, more tears prick at his eyes when he hears your voice muffled by the walls that separated the kitchen in the apartment from his office.
and perhaps that was already a way the universe foreshadowed the inevitable end of love, for the both of you. another shot downed, but despite the burn still present in his throat, he grabs the bottle and pours himself another. a couple smiles still stare at him, faded, from the photograph akaashi keeps his eyes trained at.
you probably smiled in the kitchen that day, akaashi thinks to himself. eyes sparkling, tongue poking out in concentration, and a radiance that hung around you because he knows that during the last few months of the relationship, that was really the only time he saw you blooming.
he hears your voice again, but he doesn’t make out what you say; he finds himself wincing at the realization that recalls the words written in his contract vividly instead.
that night akaashi keiji downs almost seven shots because it finally dawns on him that all this time he’s only been hearing you, and never took the time to listen.
so, congratulations, the screen on his phone reads, but even with the liquid confidence setting fire to his veins in the moment, he takes his phone in his hands and deletes the message instead. smiling at the chocolate cake in front of him, he foregoes the eighth shot in his glass, and takes a bite from the slice instead.
if he were a little more sober, akaashi knows he’d have wiped his face from the tears by now, but all he registers is the thought that he thinks he’s crying, because somewhere between the second and the third bite, he suddenly sees you; apron around your waist, oven mitts that looked a little too silly on your hands, and a bit of frosting that he remembers always found its way on your cheek no matter how careful you were in the process.
it doesn’t taste the same, he cries, but then cries harder because he doesn’t remember how your recipe even tasted in the first place.
but the smell of chocolate lingers in the fucking air, and if he closes his eyes he knows he’s going to think of home, and of you.
you, an apartment that was home for so many years, and a love that was kept alive because of borrowed time.
this it it, akaashi thinks, the smell of chocolate right under his nose.
this was home, he heaves, dropping the fork and hiding his face in his hands when the weight of the ending finally settles on his shoulders.
you were home, and you were love.
he cries harder, sounding a little more broken. the photograph remains still in its time; the people with the smiles changed, and the memory of nara remembered with a different kind of sentiment now.
so that night, akaashi turns off his phone, caps the bottle, pockets the photo and the ring, and gives the rest of the cake to his neighbor’s son who he remembered has a bit of a sweet tooth. he lays in bed with the image of you, a ring that didn’t look like the one hidden in his drawer, and the radiance he feels is now connected to the name miya osamu.
then he books a ticket.
a one way ticket headed to tokyo, because akaashi keiji supposes he doesn’t regret the time he spent with you.
so, when he finally settles on asking you how you’re doing—he smiles because you reply that you’re doing just fine. and the ring on your finger doesn’t fly past his line of vision, because he suddenly feels the lump in his throat again.
“four years in spain, huh?” you ask, snapping him out of his thoughts.
“yeah. extended a year, i might be permanently transferring there in the future,” he replies, a statement he knows is only a lie, and this time he looks straight towards you and not at the wall behind you.
you smile.
and you look happy, akaashi thinks.
“you went out of schedule,” he hears you laugh softly.
“i guess i did,” akaashi replies, laughing along to the irony of your words, before he finally says, “i’m sorry.”
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