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Throughout second year, Yuu’s plans after high school had been solid: university sports scholarship, V-League.
Then the senpai graduate, and he finds himself abruptly, deeply unhappy. Oh, they’re all unhappy. Shouyou cries like a baby at the party afterwards, sobbing on Suga’s neck while the setter pats him absently on the back; Chikara keeps hovering around Daichi, hungry for last words of advice and looking like the ground’s falling out from beneath him; Ryuu somehow gets into the special cooler of beer that Coach brought for the third years and gets drunk, then spends the early hours puking into the toilet in deep despair.
But the next day they’re all more or less back to their normal selves. Yuu’s unhappiness, however, lasts far longer. He realizes as the team continues to practice through spring break without the third years – now they’re the third years – that he’s lost something important. Something that’s he’s come to equate with volleyball, that he can no longer separate from it.
Asahi.
Ryuu takes the position of ace for the team but Yuu can’t stop thinking about Asahi, about the tall shy nervous spiker who despite all his fears learned to shine. About his kind words and his handsome face and his clever hands. About the only man he’ll ever think of as his ace.
And he realises that he no longer has the drive to play volleyball once he’s finished at Karasuno. For him volleyball has become about his team, not the sport. Had, for the past two years, become about supporting Asahi more than anyone else. And now Asahi’s gone, moved to Tokyo to pursue a career in the fashion industry, and there’s no point wishing to play with him again.
That knowledge leaves a gaping hole in his life. A hole he’ll have to learn to fill with something else.
***
“I’ve got a place at the gym,” Ryuu tells him towards the end of their third year. “I’m gonna get all the experience I can, then start training. Sports, fitness, strength, the whole works. Who knows, maybe someday I’ll even open my own gym!” There are stars in his eyes, his whole face wreathed in smiles, and Yuu smiles along with him.
“That’s great man!”
“Right? And then, when I’m rolling in it and training up-and-coming athletes Kiyoko-san will realize my potential and join me, and with her as my business manager everything will be perfect!”
“Only if she doesn’t realize my potential first,” replies Yuu, grinning easily. But, as so often these days, it’s just a hollow mask. He doesn’t know if he has any potential, and if he does he sure as hell doesn’t know where to find it. He feels restless at the idea of staying in Karasunomachi, staying in Miyagi, even staying in Japan. Somehow he doesn’t think his future – whatever that looks like – is here. He’s started looking into international volleyball programs, then international exchange programs, and finally just international travel.
Something’s missing in his life, and he doesn’t know where to find it. But he has the feeling it may be a long search.
***
Graduation Day.
Their senpai come back for it, Daichi and Suga from Sendai where they’re in school, Asahi from Tokyo. Kiyoko-san never left, is here in town working at a sports store.
Yuu had forgotten how big Asahi is, like a lumbering behemoth who’s afraid of his own shadow. Seeing him is good, smooths something inside Yuu that he didn’t realize had grown rough.
Yuu grins like a maniac as he crosses the stage and receives his diploma, aware that somewhere in the sea of the crowd are his parents, are Daichi and Suga, is Asahi.
There’s a party afterwards, of course. They rent a room in the local rec centre, provided with chairs and tables and an open space in the middle for dancing. Suga and Daichi do the decorating, Suga providing the dance mix. It starts out with loud music and the second years throwing themselves around the dance floor, Shouyou barrelling around like a loose cannon and being chased by Kageyama. There’s beers for the third years and their senpai courtesy of Coach, who this year is keeping a closer eye on them.
Yuu spends the later part of the evening standing against the wall watching Ryuu begging Kiyoko-san for a dance, watching Suga and Daichi revolve slowly around the floor in their own time while the second years play poker in the corner and the first years text each other instead of talking despite the fact that they’re all right there.
He catches sight of Asahi on the far side of the room talking to Chikara and, in a heady moment, crosses the floor to him. He clears his throat and Asahi looks down. “Wanna dance?”
Asahi blinks. “Um.”
“C’mon Asahi-san, it’ll be fun! Quit being such a wallflower!” He grabs Asahi’s hand and tugs him onto the dance floor. They neither of them are much good at dancing but no one’s watching and Yuu’s a bit tipsy and Asahi’s blushing so cutely that he can’t help but press himself against the third year until Asahi takes hold of him and starts to guide him around the dance floor.
“You’re real good at this,” says Yuu, holding onto Asahi’s strong shoulders and peering up at him.
Asahi laughs. “I’m really not. I think you’ve had one too many out of Coach’s special cooler.”
“Have not. I just recognize class when I see it, Asahi-san.” He grabs Asahi’s hand and spins, stumbling and falling back against Asahi’s solid bulk, laughing.
He tries a couple of times to put some sexiness into his dancing, running his hands down his body and twisting his hips, but this isn’t a club and Asahi’s no stranger he needs to impress with his body. They quickly settle into a softer rhythm, just the two of them holding onto each other, swaying in vague time to the music. Asahi’s mouth is open slightly, his lips shining, and Yuu wishes suddenly that they were alone, that he could kiss this man he hasn’t been able to get out of his head all year.
But in the background he can hear Shouyou rebuking Kageyama about calling his bluff, can hear Tsukishima’s dull sarcastic voice chiming in, and he knows Asahi would have an aneurism if he kissed him in front of the entire volleyball club. So instead he just concentrates on what he has: their closeness, the freshly starched smell of Asahi’s shirt and the musk of his aftershave, the heat of his body pressed tight against Yuu and the tickle of his beard against Yuu’s forehead when he bends down.
“I’m so fucking happy,” Yuu tells him.
“To be done high school?”
Yuu shakes his head. “To be here with you.”
Asahi blushes. “I missed you too. Your strength, your energy. Having you at my back.”
“I’ll always have your back, Asahi-san. I just might not make the best back-up seamstress,” he adds, smiling.
“Will you come to Tokyo? To visit?”
He feels something turn over in his stomach. “I want to. I do. But… I bought a plane ticket last night.”
Asahi stops, confused, and Yuu jolts into him. “A ticket? Why – to where?”
“Thailand. I want to see the world, find out what I’m missing. What I’m meant for, you know? You’ve always known you wanted to design clothes, and that’s awesome. Ryuu knows he wants to be an athletic trainer, and Daichi’s gonna be a cop and Suga a teacher. And me? I feel like when I try to think of what I want to be, all there is is this big hungry hole in my mind. I need to find the thing I’m meant for.”
“But Thailand?”
“Oh, it’s just a first stop. I’m gonna work my way around the world. I’ve been studying English hard this year, I’ll get by. And translation apps have come a long way.”
“But… for how long?”
Yuu shrugs. “As long as it takes, I guess. There’s so much out there – I’ve gotta be able to find whatever it is I’m missing.”
Asahi looks shocked, and pained. It surprises Yuu, but the alcohol is singing in his veins and he doesn’t think too much about it. “Cheer up, Asahi-san. I’ll write to you!”
On the other side of the room Shouyou and Kageyama get into a fight and upset the table, cards flying everywhere. Yamaguchi hurries to pick them up while Tsukishima makes wry comments about their squabble. Yuu smiles. “Besides, the rest of the team will still be here. You can talk to them anytime.”
Asahi looks down, eyes dark. “They’re not the same as you, Nishinoya.”
Standing there in Asahi’s arms, the room smelling of sweat and old cigarette smoke, Yuu feels something pull in his heart. Something warm and tender. “I’ll make you a deal,” he says all of the sudden, and pulls away. Crosses and picks up the pack of cards that Yamaguchi has just re-assembled, and returns to Asahi. “Fifty-two cards. I’ll send you one from each country I visit. When I’m out of cards, I’ll come home and see you. How does that sound?”
“Fifty-two countries is a lot,” replies Asahi quietly.
“There’s a lot out there to see!”
***
Yuu’s decided that he should keep track of his adventures, and so in the airport while waiting for his plane he sets up a travel blog. Starts it off with pictures of him in Narita, lounging in the departures area waiting for his plane. His last time on Japanese soil for maybe years. He posts it, and sends the link to the team. In a separate text, he asks Asahi for his mailing address – “Gotta keep my promise!”
He arrives in Thailand on a hot day in April, Bangkok crazy busy with traffic and pedestrians, the air smoggy. He heads to his hostel and dumps his stuff, then – for his first day abroad, ever – takes a boat down the wide snaking river and stops off to see the Imperial Palace, all gold and mirrors. He takes pictures of the shining gilt roofs and the tall guardian statues for his blog. There are even more people here than in Tokyo, tourists packed and sweaty like sardines. He eats street food for lunch, some kind of cooked meat on skewers, then takes a small noisy 3-wheeled car out to see a floating market. It’s huge, dozens of tiny stands and boats in the river full of produce and brightly coloured souvenirs. But he spent all his money on his plane ticket, and buys nothing as he wanders along the riverside admiring the wares.
In the evening he heads back to his hostel and gets an envelope and paper from the front desk. He sits down on his bed to compose a letter to Asahi:
Dear Asahi-san,
Well here I am in Bangkok! It’s not as hot as at home in August, but for April it’s already pretty warm! It’s so crowded and crazy too. Just crossing the street is an adventure. The traffic is all over the place, really nuts. I did some tourist stuff today, saw the Imperial Palace (so much gold!) and a floating market where the stuff being sold is all in these little boats. Very cool, but I have no money so I didn’t buy anything.
Tomorrow I start looking for a job. Wish me luck!
Yuu
He encloses the two of clubs, seals the envelope, and addressed it as per Asahi’s reply text.
***
Yuu gets a job as a porter for a Japanese tourist company, lugging baggage in and out of cards and busses and hotels for rich tourists. It doesn’t pay well, but he doesn’t have the skills for anything else. It’s hard work out in the hot sun but he gets to go all over; he sees rainforests and temples and even elephants, sleeping in a close dirty room with the Thai drivers and eating cheap food with resort kitchen staff.
He blogs from his phone late in the evenings when the mosquitos are humming, uploading pictures of not just the usual tourist spots – seen hastily between trips to carry baggage – but also of home-cooked meals and dust-covered beds and the sun shining in on bunks of sleeping workers.
After three weeks he moves on to Cambodia, and mails Asahi the three of clubs.
***
He does South-East Asia thoroughly; after Cambodia he visits Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, then up to Bangladesh. The culture changes from Buddhist to Muslim, the sounds of the language and the food shifting as well.
Yuu’s noticed that more people have been reading his blog; he starts checking his metrics and sees there’s been a steady upswing. He tries to focus more on posting commentary as well as photos, describing the scents and the sounds of his trip, and getting his language right. And, in each new country, he writes to Asahi.
Arrived in Bangladesh today! Even more colourful than Bangkok – all the women wear these incredible brightly coloured clothes, and although everything is covered in dirt and dust they all manage to look so pristine. I’m already filthy! Dhaka is built along a river but it’s less built-up than Bangkok; the boats are small one-man crafts for transporting food and cloth. I wish you could see the clothes markets – they’re incredible! You’d love it.
In Bangladesh he works for a textile factory carrying loads of packed freshly-sewn clothes; unlike the expensive one-offs Asahi designs these are cheap street fashion intended to be sold in big box stores. But in between his exhausting twelve hour shifts he wanders the back streets of Dhaka, seeing how people live crammed into tiny apartments, hanging colourful clothes over alleyways to dry and selling food on every street corner. He saves money not because he’s earning much but because his expenses are practically non-existent. He blogs not so much about the fancy colourful clothes markets for tourists, but more about how the fashion industry is exploiting the people here, about the gritty reality of life practically on the streets of an impoverished city.
From Bangladesh he moves into India, and it’s an exuberance of colours and smells and tastes. He works in markets hauling bags of dried beans and peas and lentils, at a dam construction site doing work in the water where the local hands can’t swim and won’t enter it, even as a cleaner at a train station which earns him a free fare from Kolkata to Patna in lieu of wages.
He spends three months in India travelling from east to west. There’s so much to see, and with English being more prominently spoken he is able to get by pretty well. The food is amazing, the architecture fascinating, the people kind and funny even in desperate straits. At first the hawkers mistake him for a tourist, following him around and trying to sell him souvenirs and food and trips to local scenic places. But Yuu learns to blend in, learns what clothes to wear and what expression to adopt to make them stop.
He blogs about it, about the poverty and the hope, about the frustrations of being other and the advantages of it. Posts pictures of kids cooking meals on tiny fires in the street, of a man making shoes from old car tires, of the men he works with at the market all dirt and missing teeth and uncombed hair, but still smiling.
I guess I always thought we didn’t have much back home in Karasunomachi, he writes to Asahi as he moves into Pakistan, but compared to this we’re so rich, Asahi-san. When I get home I’ll never take a shower or go to the grocery store without remembering these people, the way they live. Their hopes and dreams are so small compared to ours that it make me sick, but it’s so inspiring too. I can’t explain it. I’m sorry, I’m rambling.
Asahi writes back. Every time. He’s Yuu’s lifeline to Japan in a way the others aren’t – sure, they post on his blog, they like his pictures and tell him he’s having such a cool experience. But Asahi takes the time to understand him.
***
Europe is huge. It’s daunting too, because fuck is it expensive compared to Asia. Yuu realises early on that his dirty, dusty self is no longer employable and has to clean up and spend money on new clothes.
He takes a slow boat to Greece, offloading with a family of Greek boys who sing pop hits at the top of their lungs as they regain their native soil. Greece is all warm sun and olive groves, goats and white-washed houses. He sends Asahi the ten of clubs and works picking olives for a while, enjoying the relaxed culture after the hot press of bodies and sounds and smells of India and Pakistan.
Europe feels old in a way Asia didn’t, he writes to Asahi as he arrives in Italy and sends the jack of clubs. Everything in India is about eking out life today, about focusing on the present. In Europe, at least so far, it’s all about the past. There are these huge monuments everywhere, just… there where they can’t be forgotten even though they’re coming to pieces. People walk to work past huge coliseums and fallen down palaces that are thousands of years old. It’s weird. But also very cool.
He works in Italy catching marlins on week-long trips to the Atlantic in large boats with automatic winchers to bring in the fish that sometimes weigh twice as much as him and need a shot to the head from the revolver stored in the captain’s cabin to kill.
Then, feeling like he’s falling behind – it’s been a year and he’s not even through a single suit yet – he hurries up the centre of Europe. Goes through the Balkans with the cash he earned fishing, more as a tourist than a worker. He makes it up to the six of diamonds before he reaches France and stops again, this time to work at a vineyard in the Champagne region. He imagined he would be out tending the vines, but it turns out that’s specialized work; he hauls bottles and boxes instead, loading and unloading trucks in the bright green days of spring. On his days off he visits old castles, so much different than Japanese castles, and ancient caves used to store wine for centuries.
***
Asashi seems to be moving up in his trade. He starts sending Yuu pictures of clothes he’s designed, even some photos of magazine articles featuring his designs. They’re local Tokyo arty magazines, but it’s more than Yuu’s ever achieved and he’s amazed – wishes he had someone here to share the pictures with. He settles for moving on to Germany and posting Asahi another letter with the eight of diamonds.
I got the pics you emailed – Asahi-san, you’re really killing it! I can’t believe I know someone who designs clothes that are in a magazine! Honestly, that’s unbelievably cool. I wish I knew how to tell you how impressed I am. I’m here doing nothing but menial work and you’re a fucking fashion designer! But then, I always knew you’d go far. You’re our ace.
He stares at the words for a long time before sealing them up in the envelope with the playing card. For some reason he feels suddenly empty, incomplete. He drops back on his hostel bed and closes his eyes.
He still hasn’t found what he’s looking for.
***
Over the summer and fall he works his way around the Baltics and up into the Nordic countries. Here nature really becomes the main attraction, steep-sided fjords and steaming hotsprings and corridors of golden poplar trees. There’s not much casual labour and he moves through pretty quickly on a dwindling budget, coming down to land in the UK with the three of spades.
He gets a job in Skye of all places working as a mechanic’s assistant and struggling mightily with the accents. It’s nice to be near the ocean again though, nice to go for walks and smell the salt air even if the houses here are all ancient stone and the seaside rocky. He goes for long walks through the heather, climbing steep hills and cutting through sheep pastures to the sea side. It’s nice to be somewhere quiet, for a while.
***
Yuu heads to Spain and then Portugal for the final leg of his European adventure, the climate and the culture a complete 180 after the quiet dourness of Skye. He works in a Japanese restaurant correcting the cooks about their recipes and looking up new ones for them on the internet.
He’s been saving up for a long time now, and by the time early spring comes around he has enough for a ticket to South America. He flies from Portugal to Brazil, writing a long entry in his blog to finish off Europe and start a new chapter. He has more readers now, commenters he doesn’t know who ask him questions about what he’s seen and done, who ask advice for their own trips.
Rio is hot, humid, and lively. He spends his first day in tourist mode, visiting the white-sand beaches and taking a cable car up to see the famous statue of Christ on the top of Sugarloaf Mountain. He writes to Asahi that night from his hostel, pulling out the six of spades.
I can’t believe I’m in South America. Maybe I’ll run into Oikawa-san here somewhere! The beaches are amazing – white sand blue surf. The people here are all beautiful: tanned giants, kind of like you, Asahi-san! They’ve got amazing hair too – also like you! I could get used to it here. And the hostel says there’s plenty of work. Maybe I’ll stay here for a while.
He gets a job harvesting Brazil nuts in the Amazon, a hot, breathless job out in the intense humidity. He’s never been somewhere so full of nature – there are birds and insects and frogs and snakes, the whole place absolutely hums with sound. The trees are immensely tall, dropping the nuts down from huge heights to where he scavenges for them on the ground. He sneaks in breaks to go looking for birds with bright plumage and poisonous frogs.
A lot of what he sees, though, is destruction. There’s logging happening all around, huge ugly muddy roads cut through the forest and ancient trees razed, leaving huge great bald patches in the forest. His coworkers tell him not to take pictures of it but he does, posting them to his blog with stats he pulls from the internet about the daily deforestation happening and the loss of natural habitat occurring.
Eventually he grows so sick of it that he moves on, crossing over into Bolivia in a packed bus with no windows and a groaning engine. From there he works his way south as a cattle hand in the ranches, learning to ride a horse and muck out stables and neuter yearlings. He wears a second-hand cowboy hat to keep the southern sun off his face and neck, and learns to embrace the silence around him as he rides across empty acres.
I don’t know if you’d recognize me now, Asahi-san, he writes as he crosses from Argentina into Paraguay. I feel different. Quieter? More thoughtful? I dunno. When I was in high school I was so sure I knew everything, so full of confidence. But out here… there’s so much I never dreamed of. I can’t believe how immature I was – how stupid. To imagine at 16 in a tiny Japanese town I knew everything. All I know out here is how to stay quiet; I think that’s one thing I’ve learned.
He mails the nine of spades with it.
***
Yuu takes an endlessly long series of buses up the spine of South America on his way to Central America. He’s mailing the ace of spades by the time he arrives in Equador, and takes some time off to just lie on the beach. After his posts about calving and riding the range in Argentina, his blog hits are through the roof; Daichi and Suga send him links to local Miyagi newspapers that have cited some of his entries.
It’s nothing like having my work published in a real magazine, he writes to Asahi from the beach, sand between his toes and speckled on his piece of paper, but it’s still cool. I guess I want other people to know how much is out there. How much we never see, never think about. I used to think I had a lot of imagination; it’s kind of funny being proven wrong. I think now that you were always the biggest dreamer of all of us, Asahi-san. Send me some more pics of your designs, will ya?
***
He’s planning now. Only 14 countries left. He skirts the top of South America, then heads up the long narrow width of Central America. The poverty here is different than what he’s seen before, is more rural, more full of fear. Drugs and guns are the currency here, and he doesn’t need Asahi pleading with him to be careful to know to keep a close eye on his actions and acquaintances. He sees pick-ups full of men with rifles driving around, sees sniffer dogs at the border crossings and burnt-out homes. But he also sees a flower and coffee festival in Panama and a music festival in Costa Rica. Sees ordinary people working hard to survive, just like everywhere.
By the time he makes it to Mexico he’s on the jack of hearts. He’s starting to get dejected. He’s only got two more countries left after this and still hasn’t found the place he belongs, the thing that fills his empty heart. He works teaching school children English – his own having vastly improved – and moonlights as security in the neighbourhood. He talks to people who want a better life in the States, and to some who have tried to get it only to have been sent back. There’s hope for a new future for Mexico, but there’s also so much exhaustion with the drug cartels and the poverty.
He moves north.
***
What he realizes as he travels through America is that it’s hard to pin down a national identity because each city, or at least each region, is so different. Politics, accents, foods, racial mix – they all vary hugely across the map of the immense country. He works hauling clubs at a golf course in the deep south, travels up along the east coast through cottage country and spends two days in New York, then heads east and gets a job as a mechanic’s assistant at a tiny repair shop in Philadelphia. He saves up to make the flight to the west coast, landing in LA and going immediately to the fashionable shops in Santa Monica where he takes pictures for Asahi.
Wish you were here, he emails the former ace.
There are only two cards left. He sits in his hostel room in LA and stares at them. King of hearts, ace of hearts. He traces his finger over the single heart in the centre of the ace.
When he thinks back over all the things he’s seen and all the places he’s been so many amazing experiences – and terrifying experiences – stand out. But when he stares down at the ace, only one thing comes to mind. Dancing with Asahi in Karasunomachi, pressed tight against the designer, Asahi warm in his arms, his lips shining.
He still wants to kiss those lips.
He swallows and checks his bank balance. Enough for a flight home from Vancouver.
***
Yuu takes the train from California to Vancouver, staring out the window as the scenery goes from dry to lush then to evergreen forests, arriving late at night and walking to his downtown hostel. Vancouver is on a bay with white mountains in the distance, the air cool. A slight drizzle is falling, the sky grey.
The next day Yuu sits in Stanley Park looking out over the water and wondering what to get Asahi. What he could get Asahi. Whether there’s any point – he’s been gone for almost three years, and Asahi’s made a life for himself. A life that doesn’t include Yuu.
Increasingly he thinks back to the night of graduation. To his happiness at being with the ace, the warmth he felt in Asahi’s company. Wonders why it took him three years and fifty one countries to realize that he already had what he wanted – and now has maybe lost it.
I’ll see you soon, is all he writes when he sends the king of hearts home to Asahi. His flight leaves in three days.
***
It feels weird being back in Tokyo. Feels strange to see signage in his own language, to hear people all around him speaking Japanese. After a nine hour flight he feels gross and tired; there’s a shower facility in the airport and he briefly showers and changes into his one clean outfit. It’s February and his coat is too heavy for Japan, having been bought second-hand in Philly. He takes a picture of himself under the Arrivals sign and posts it to his blog with just two words: I’m back.
It’s late afternoon; he crosses town slowly, realizing that he’s navigated Brazilian rainforests and Indian slums more easily than he does the Tokyo metro system. He hops out and has dinner on his way, eating slowly in a hole-in-the-wall ramen restaurant. The thick smell of the broth is so nostalgic he feels himself tearing up; swallows his whole glass of water to try to snap out of it.
By the time he makes it to his destination it’s after seven. His destination is, of course, Asahi’s apartment. He’s never been there, but he’s been sending him cards for the past three years and after checking with the local police box he finds it easily enough.
It’s a simple walk-up, no buzzer system, so he climbs the stairs to the apartment and stands staring at Asahi’s door. Tries to think of what to say. There’s so much he wants to tell Asahi, so much he’s seen and learned and experienced. But really, there’s only one thing he wants, and that’s Asahi’s presence.
He knocks and hears slow footsteps as Asahi crosses. The door opens and the hulking ace looks down. He’s wearing a pale v-neck sweater like his old high school one, his hair pulled back; he’s tall and muscular as ever, and he blinks as he looks down. Then his eyes widen and his hands tense. “Holy shit – Yuu?”
Yuu smiles. “You didn’t get my letter? I sent it express.”
“Letter? Oh – I mean, I did, but… I figured you meant in a few weeks. Not… now.”
Yuu feels uncertainty swell in his stomach. “Is it a bad time?”
“No! No! Come in, please!” Asahi steps backwards, clearing the way. Yuu comes in, toeing off his shoes and putting his backpack and duffle back down.
Asahi’s apartment is small, just a one room with a kitchenette and bathroom. The main floor space is tatami and taken up with a low table holding a laptop, as well as some shelves with books on fabric and design in both Japanese and English. “I’m really surprised,” he says, following Yuu in.
“You didn’t think I would come home?”
“It’s just… you were having such an amazing adventure. Fishing and riding horses and harvesting olives and nuts and…”
“I didn’t find what I was looking for,” breaks in Yuu.
“The thing you were missing,” says Asahi slowly. “But then… are you going away again?” his handsome face falls, eyes darkening.
“I didn’t find it because it was here all along.” He pulls a card out from his pocket and hands it over. “Ace of hearts. It’s you, Asahi-san. You’re the one person who’s kept me grounded this whole time, who’s kept me remembering who I am, who’s been encouraging me. And when I think of the time I was happiest, the most content, do you know what I think of?”
“No,” says Asahi softly.
“Being with you. Graduation night. Dancing in the rec centre’s back room to Suga’s playlist. I’m happiest here, Asahi-san. With you.”
“Yuu…”
“I know it’s a lot to take in, me coming home after being away all this time. I just… I thought you should know. If you feel differently, or if there’s someone else, I’ll understand.”
Asahi reaches out, and Yuu takes his hand, threads their fingers together. “There’s only you,” replies the ace shakily. “It’s always only been you. In all your adventures, your travels, I figured you would find something to love. Someone to love. That you’d settle down and I’d never see you again. It made me heartsick, but I knew that was what you wanted. I didn’t think I would see you again, Yuu.”
Yuu pulls him close, looks up into his dark eyes and speaks intently. “You are what I want. I’ll always come home to you. Ace.”
Asahi smiles. “I want to hear all about it, you know. Everything you did, everything you saw. But right now, what I really want…”
“Yes?” says Yuu.
Asahi raises his chin with his hand and bends. Seals their mouths together in a hot, passionate kiss. When they break apart they’re both flushed and panting, bodies intertwined.
“What I really want is you.”
END