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It was 2:30am in the morning and Tsukishima, once again, found himself tossing one time after another, unable to sleep. Just like every night for months now.
To be honest, he had to admit, this all started way before than just a few months ago. If he wanted to know what exactly was the cause of this all, he’d have to travel years to the past, when he was still in high school, just a student in love.
Maybe, if he had spoken the words always itching to be said, he wouldn’t be in the situation he was now.
Yes, he had tried to convince himself he had enough with looking from the sidelines and share as many moments next to the other. But in the end, fate had to prove it to himself how much of a blind fool he had been.
Fed up with this state of insomnia, Tsukishima decided to go outside to see if the cold night air could make him feel something more than just empty inside.
And as he walked, he thought about how this all came to happen and wonder how did he even fuck up as much as he did.
During high school, it was no secret he had a crush on Hinata Shoyo. Well, he thought it was a secret, but he hadn’t fooled anyone with his “subtle” looking at the shorter boy and his playful teasing, that most time was borderline flirting, though Tsukishima would have denied it as if his life depended on it.
Yet, in the end, everything worked out because Hinata, proving himself to be one of the most emotionally intelligent people Tsukishima had ever met, decided to be the one to say the words he didn’t dare to when in his second year.
For Tsukishima, that day felt as if he was seeing the sunrise after the darkest night, illuminating everything it touches and making the shadows of the past difuminate. Of course, Tsukishima's sun was no other than Hinata, as cliché as it sounds.
Tsukishima thought he was allowed that moment of sappiness since he had just started dating the boy he had been in dreams for more than a year now.
Like all relationships, theirs had ups and down, but they always worked their through them, always coming out stronger after this.
Hinata always being the light that gave Tsukishima the energy he needed to always strive forward.
And even when it was Hinata who fell prey to his insecurities and it was Tsukishima who had to be strong for both of them. Helping Hinata fight the demons that lived in the darkest place of his mind.
Because if Hinata was the sun of the relationship, Tsukishima was the moon, guiding people through the night.
All in all, their relationship, even if far from being like living inside a fairytale, was one based on trust. Trust that came from knowing each other inside and out, no secrets between them.
And when Hinata decided he wanted to keep on playing volleyball but that he wanted it to be beach volleyball, Tsukishima actually encouraged him to follow his dream, even if it meant them being in opposite sides of the world because he knew that even with several thousand miles between them, the two of them would make it work.
Or, at least, that what Tsukishima had believed when he saw Hinata’s plane take flight.
But with time, that proved to be more difficult what he had predicted. Because even if they texted everyday and called each other as many times as possible during the first few months, but even planning a simple video call proved to be more and more of an endeavor with every day it passed.
It started with missing some of the dates they agreed to video call. Then it was the fact that except volleyball and the friends they had in common, everytime they actually talked they had no topics to talk about because they didn’t really understand what the other meant.
And when it marked a year that Hinata had been living in the other side of the world, Tsukishima saw it clear through the screen that separated them.
They had grown apart in those twelve months, and it was a breach big enough that the spare minutes their schedules matched so they could talk couldn’t repair.
Yes, they obviously still loved each other but Tsukishima, always the pragmatic one, knew that what they loved was the shared memories and the moments they had lived together because, as they were now, they both had started to construct a life that didn’t include the other.
He knew he had to talk this with Hinata. But he wanted to be selfish for a little longer and try to convince himself that this all was just in his mind, the distance playing dumb tricks on his perception.
What love gives, love takes, as they say, and Tsukishima was aware of that. He just wanted to be a fool for one more moment and try to find a way around this.
In reality, he was just afraid of having to face the heartache this would bring.
And all this bring us to where Tsukishima found himself. Sitting all alone in a bench of a park he didn’t leave nearby at roughly 4am after walking mindlessly for an hour.
It had been months since he had last talked with Hinata now.
Last time they talked was after Hinata messaged him a simple “we need to talk”, the lack of the usual emojis making it more eerie. Tsukishima called him after receiving it and talking they did, even if it was to face what the taller boy had been avoiding.
That conversation made Tsukishima see how much Hinata had matured, because instead of using the usual bullshit sentences used to end a relationship, he went straight to the point and said that it was just a fact they had miscalculated and that, while they still loved each other, it just didn’t work. Hinata explained that they both needed someone next to them and that in that moment they couldn’t offer that.
The only cliché Hinata fell into was suggesting that when he came back they could try again if their spark was still there, even sounding hopeful at the prospect of that actually happening.
Throughout the whole call, it was as if Tsukishima could actually see the tears falling down Hinata’s face, probably mirroring the ones in his own face.
That conversation replaying in his mind in that moment, as it did every night, plaguing his brain with all the what ifs of what it could have been.
Still, something deep down inside himself said that this happening was what he deserved because Hinata was something too good for him to hold and deserve, that it had even been a miracle that the bright boy even felt something for him in the first place.
And if he had to believe that part of himself, then Hinata had been his miracle, that had now walked away. Making the sundown of their relationship to happen.
And what had followed it ever since, had been one moonless night after another.
After all, the moon needs the sun to be able to shine.