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Bokuto never had dreams before. Or if he had, he couldn't remember. So it came as a surprise to him when he woke with his head spinning, a sharp image of the beautiful man lingering in his mind even as he woke, sitting up on his bed.
The dark started to suffocate him so he reached over to his bedside table and switched on his lamp. He leaned against the headboard, a strange, tingling feeling in his chest.
There was a sort of familiarity in the way the man in his dream looked at him. Bokuto could vividly remember his piercing green eyes and his jet black hair and the way the edge of his lips curled into what looked like a smile he was trying to suppress.
Bokuto could swear on his life that he had never met a man like that, because if he had, he would never forget someone as beautiful as him. But there was an sinking feeling in his gut that the man was someone he had known before.
There was a throbbing in Bokuto's temple, but with a glance at the weak glow of the dawn outside his curtained window, he knew it was time for him to get up, so instead of attempting to go back to sleep, he forced himself out of bed and dragged his feet to the kitchen where he down some painkillers with a glass of water.
He changed into his sweatpants and hoodie. He began to stretch and warm up, before heading out of his apartment and starting his early morning jog.
-
I do not believe it is fitting for me to call you my lover, for not once have you gazed into my eyes the way I have stared into yours. I do not believe it is fitting for me to call you my anything at all, for you are the brightest star I have ever laid my eyes upon, and those who are merely dirt such as I must keep their distance, for the presence of peasants might only wear you down.
And we cannot afford to have an eager beacon of light be weakened. I shall see to it, from afar, as I have always been; that your golden eyes will never see the dark, that the beam that graced your lips will never be silenced, that the heart you have been born with will never be tainted.
I am in your orbit, thus it is only natural for me to follow you. Though it is outside the scope of your knowledge, though these sentiments are only kept for me to see and feel, I will willingly lay down my life for you. And no matter what life it is that you will be living, I will follow you.
—
"Hey, man," Bokuto called as they changed into their sportswear. He pulled his shirt over his head as he spoke. "Have you ever seen a guy with green eyes, dark hair and fair skin?"
"That's every specific, Bokuto," Kuroo said sarcastically. "That definitely narrows it to one person out of all the green-eyed, dark-haired, fair-skinned guys I've seen."
Bokuto shrugged, mananging a smile at Kuroo's retort. "It sounds generic, but his face is so vivid and oddly specific in my mind. Even though he doesn't have any characteristics that particularly stand out."
"Who's the guy?"
"I wouldn't be asking if I knew," Bokuto said with a roll of his eyes. He tugged on a shirt with a hum. "I wonder who he is."
"Where'd you see him?" Kuroo asked as they walked out of the locker room. They passed Astumu on their way out, and Kuroo stuck out his tongue at the blonde Miya twin, who retaliated with his own childish antic. Bokuto, too, couldn't help but join in.
"In my dream," Bokuto answered as he pushed open the gym doors. The smell of salonpas and sweat greeted them, and they headed over to the side to do their stretches. "I feel like I've seen him before, though."
"Well, they say your brain can't make up faces of people you haven't seen," Kuroo said. "So it's probably someone you've seen even once. If you don't remember him, then he's probably just some guy you passed at the mall or something. Maybe a fan?"
"Yeah, maybe," Bokuto said, but he wasn't entirely convinced.
-
You always call me your greatest friend. Why is that? Are you not aware that I don't deserve to be more than an inch closer to you than I'm supposed to?
However, I must say that it is also a mistake on my part for being selfish enough not to pull away. I simply cannot help but be dragged into you and your gravity. There's something about you that tugs me close and does not make me want to let go.
It might come off as alarming, how I have such a low reflection of myself. However if you were to be in my position, had the roles been reversed, I am certain that you will understand.
You are such a brilliant star that I cannot help but be blinded and shrink into a being smaller than I am now. You shine so brightly, giving off a glow that warms my soul. Perhaps that was simply how your charm works: you glow so bright that your light touched my soul.
Is it presumptuous of me to want to be your equal?
I want to be the one your soul takes hold of, so that we will see each other no matter what universe we are in, so that our lives are intertwined the way I want our limbs to be.
But I know that such thoughts are futile. Nothing will ever happen between us. Not when you are a star and I am what I am. Perhaps someday, when I better myself, I will be worthy to stand by your side.
-
The man was there again in his dream the next night, staring at him with an intensity that Bokuto couldn't help but match. He wanted to memorize the man's face, just in case he forgets, which he highly doubts, but it wouldn't hurt to be careful.
Bokuto looked at the curves of his nose and where his forehead ended and his hairline began. His hair curled upward at its tips and his skin glowed an ethereal light, like the gentle hum of a machine coming to life.
His eyes were the prettiest shade of green, and Bokuto couldn't help but let himself get lost in those striking Neptunes of emerald.
He was wearing the same white coat again, with laces up to his neck and gold details donned on his shoulders and chest.
"Who are you?" Bokuto tried to say, but his voice came out muffled, as if he was under the sea, so he tried to reach out, perhaps to touch the other man's face, but his movements were sluggish. He arms felt heavy. He felt like he was inside a giant aquarium that had gelatin instead of water.
The man moved, much to Bokuto's surprise, and it didn't seem like he was having a hard time unlike Bokuto. He touched Bokuto's cheek, cold skin against warm, stroking it once with the tips of his index and middle fingers.
"Who are you?" Bokuto tried to say again, this time in a shout, even he still couldn't hear himself.
The man's fingers left Bokuto's cheek, and he felt a coldness that nipped at his skin, biting at the tissues of his body until he is shredded into nothing but cells.
-
To what end shall I be your follower? Even I am not certain of my answer. A larger part of me will choose to be behind you no matter the circumstance, even if we stand at the edge of the world, I shall be there. However, there is a half of me that screams for myself to go the other way. Its throat is sore and nearly torn to piecess by how much it shrieks at me to leave.
When stars and dirt come together, the results are often times disastrous. That other half of me tells me that I will never be truly happy in your presence, for I will always be second to you, but the larger part of me knows that losing you shall mean losing the meaning of life.
There is no point in living if it is not for you. I think, from the moment I laid my eyes on you, and yours on mine, that we are linked with a bond that makes it impossible for me to exist without you. Sometimes I fool myself into thinking that it appertains to you too.
-
The man plagued Bokuto's mind, like a ghost from his past that hated to be forgotten. Bokuto struggled to remember anyone he'd encountered with green eyes and black hair and a beauty that could rival gods, but he came up with nothing.
Sometimes, when he zoned out, he could see the man staring back at him in the reflection of his morning coffee, or in the mirror after he steps out of shower, or in the rear view mirror of his car when he drives to practice.
It didn't scare him though, how he could suddenly see the man in places he never thought he would outside his dreams. In fact, he somehow felt slightly relieved to see a familiar face, and when he stared back at those dead with life greens, a throbbing ache would flare up his chest for a moment, a pain that felt all too much like longing.
Bokuto didn't understand these sensations. He didn't understand why he felt like that or why he saw the man, but it somehow still made sense. As if that was simply how it was supposed to be since the dawn of time.
"Bro, you good?" Kuroo asked, waving a hand in front of Bokuto's face. "You've been spacing out a lot lately. Are you still bothered by that dude in your dream?"
"Kind of," Bokuto admitted. "He keeps appearing in my dreams. I wonder who he is. I just have this feeling that I'm supposed to know who he is, like I made a promise or something."
Kuroo pursed his lips. "Alright, man. Just don't stress yourself too much about it."
Bokuto often found himself, when he holds a pen, absentmindedly drawing someone who looked a lot like the man in his dreams. "This guy," he once said to Kuroo, showing him the drawing. "You know him? Look familiar?"
Kuroo shook his head. "No, sorry. He looks breathtaking, though."
"Yeah, he is," Bokuto said. "When I see him in my dreams, his skin glows like abalone and he smells like the sea. It makes me warm all over, even though I absolutely hate the sea."
"What does he do?" Kuroo asked. "In your dream."
"He touched my face one time."
"And you?"
Bokuto sighed, leaning into his chair. "Nothing," he said, somewhat miserably.
"Nothing?" Kuroo echoed. "Like, at all?"
Bokuto nodded. "I can't even talk nor move. All I do is stare at him. And I've stared at him enough to know that he has nearly a thousand strands of hair in his hairline alone."
"That's a lot of staring," commented Kuroo.
"Yeah, well, there's nothing I can do," Bokuto said. "And I don't want to wake up either. There's something... comforting about his presence. It's like..." He struggled to look for the perfect word. "Home...?"
Bokut expected Kuroo to laugh, but he didn't. "Are you sure you don't remember him? I've had dreams like that but it's usually about someone I've known my whole life. Like Kenma."
"I'm sure," Bokuto said.
"Did you get amnesia or something? Did you get into a tragic car crash in your third year of high school, a week before graduation, which resulted into you losing your memories before the accident except for your family thus forgetting about the childhood friend you've known since you could walk and talk? Perhaps that childhood friend had green eyes and dark hair and fair skin? "
"That's weirdly specific," Bokuto said with a laugh. "But yeah, nothing like that ever happened to me."
Sometimes, when he was out buying groceries or running errands to keep his daily life afloat, he thought we would run into someone who looked like the man in his dreams.
His first instinct is to call them out, but he didn't even know the man's name. So he would tap their shoulder instead, make them look at him, and he'd see that they weren't the man he was looking for.
"This sucks," he lamented to Kuroo one day at practice.
"If practice sucks, Bokuto-san, then maybe you should just quit the team," their coach, who overheard, shouted.
"No, coach!" Bokuto said suddenly, back as straight as a ruler. Kuroo quietly laughed beside him, patting his back pitifully.
"What sucks, bro?" Kuroo said when he finally stopped laughing. "Hey, Sakusa-kun, could you move back a bit? Tsumu-chan, you'd better not half-ass your tosses."
"Like hell I would!"
Bokuto waited for Kuroo to come back from spiking, before saying, "Not knowing who he is. It's been almost three months since I started dreaming of him, and it's driving me crazy!"
"Why don't you post the drawing you made?" Kuroo suggested. "Ask your followers. Surely at least one of the two million know who that guy is."
"That would probably raise a lot of questions," Bokuto said. "I don't want to cause any unnecessary issues. Plus, what if he's a criminal or something? What then? Some journalist will probably spread a rumor that I had a fling with a criminal."
"Wow, you're actually thinking this through?" Kuroo teased. "You have a point, though."
"So what now?"
"I don't know, Kou-chan," Kuroo said. "Hey, it's your turn to spike."
"Oh, right. Hey, Tsum-tsum! On me!"
-
T here is a magic to you that I cannot even begin to understand. I do not know if it's in the way you always make me smile or the way you bring warmth to others without knowing. There is simply a comfort to your existence that I find myself turning to as if it's a second nature.
I've stopped trying to figure you out and accepted long ago that this is simply who you are, and that there is a power in the way you laugh like the world will never end; a grace in the way you tell people that there is no impossible, only difficult; a potence in how you are ethereal down to the core, foibles and all.
Perhaps this is what makes me so certain that wherever you go, whatever you may become, in this life and those to come, you will always be heavenly.
It's what you are always meant to be, I believe. Someone who is a plethora of all things beautiful and true. An epitome of strength and accidental wisdom.
Often times you remind me that it's the simplest things that make difficulties easy. You remind me that I must take a step back and break it down to the core so I know how to navigate through it. Your forthright way of looking at life makes everything so laughably facile that I perpetually wonder how I never looked at it that way, if it makes things so easy.
How you've changed me, my love. It is one of the things I am greatly thankful for. And see that: I have finally admitted to myself that you are the person I offer my affections to, and it shall be that way until forever runs out of fuel, until time stops and all that is left is nothingness and dark.
-
"Hey, doesn't that one look like your guy?" Kuroo whispered, nudging Bokuto with his elbow.
"No," Bokuto said, shaking his head. "His hair isn't dark enough."
"What if he dyed it?"
"His eyes are blue."
"Contacts?"
"No, Kuroo," Bokuto sighed. "I think, that when I see him, I'm going to feel something."
"And what's that?" Kuroo grilled. "A sudden spike in your steady heartbeat? A heating up in your cheeks? I can make you feel all that, you know. Does that mean I'm the guy in your dreams? Oh, but my eyes aren't green, though?"
"No, no," Bokuto said. "Not like that. I think, I'd just have this feeling like... a tug in my gut. Or something. But I know that I'd just... know, you know?"
"No," Kuroo deadpanned. "I do not."
"Whatever." Bokuto waved him off.
"Do you believe in soulmates?" Kuroo asked. "And reincarnation?"
"No," Bokuto said. "I don't know."
"What if... Listen: you met this guy centuries ago and your souls have been tied since," Kuroo said in a faux haunting voice. "You have been reborn into this life and now he's looking for you."
"Woah, that sounds cool, Tetsu-chan!" Bokuto exclaimed excitedly. "Does that mean he's my soulmate?"
Kuroo laughed. "I don't know, bro," he said. "Just making things up." But there was an edge to his voice that Bokuto didn't hear that made him sound like he believed for a moment in whatever the hell he just said.
-
I never thought I'd love passion as much as this. And it came even more as a surprise when you pulled me into your warmth; when you pressed your lips against mine, flitting shock coursing through my veins in an explosive manner as that of a grenade at war; when you whispered a life of glory and joy in my ear with a fervor I never thought you were capable of; when you told me you loved me the way I loved you.
When we connected, I felt thousands of hundreds of supernovas coming to light within me, and the deaths of thousands of hundred stars never felt so pleasant.
Your skin brushing against mine in the dark, where there is no one else but us; the feel of you under my palm and inside my mouth; your hot breath fanning on my lips as you look at me with a fondness I never thought you felt for me — those are the sensations only you can make me feel that I would never trade for the world.
When you laid beside me on the bed that night, sweaty and tired and with your face flushed, I pulled you closer to me and we laid there, your back to my chest, the rhythm of our heartbeats falling into place as we breathe in unison, falling into a golden slumber I will think of for eternities to come.
-
Bokuto knocked on the door of Kuroo and Kenma's shared condominium unit, arms crossed over his chest. When Kuroo opened the door to let him in, he smiled brightly and waved his arms around with an enthusiasm only he could muster at 6 in the evening after a day of excruciating practice.
"Hey, hey, hey!" he greeted energetically.
"So loud," Kenma muttered, and Bokuto slung an arm around him, burying the smaller guy's head under the crook of his arm.
"So what's this streaming thing you called me over for, huh?" Bokuto said, ruffling Kenma's hair with his other hand.
"I'm starting to regret it, honestly," Kenma said as he pulled away and fixed his hair.
"He reached ten million subs," Kuroo answered for him. "So he thought he should do something for his viewers. They always told him to do a live show where he wasn't gaming, just him doing something else, like a mukbang or something. I told him we should invite you and the three of us could do it together, since you're loud and funny."
"Oh, so we're just gonna eat?" Bokuto said. "I love eating, let's go!"
Kuroo laughed. "Chill, man, we're still waiting for the food."
"Oh okay," Bokuto said. He invited himself on the couch and dropped on the cushion with a loud flop. His eyes landed on the laptop on the table, screen emanating a bright light in contrast to the dim, cool lights of the condo unit.
Kenma's Twitter account was open on the conputer, on the trending page. Bokuto felt like he was being drawn to the number one item on the list: Akaashi Keiji.
He reached out and put the laptop on his lap. He clicked on it, and scrolled through the tag. "Hey, who's this guy?" he called without looking at the other two.
He heard Kuroo walkjng towards him. "Akaashi Keiji," Kuroo read beside his ear. "Why? You know him?"
"I don't know," he said. "There's something..."
"What something?" Kuroo pressed.
Bokuto scrolled further down, passing tweets about a discovered journal and written entries about a hidden love. There were pictures of yellowed pages and beautiful, cursive handwriting. For some reason it made Bokuto's heart clench.
Kuroo sat next to him, back against the opposite couch arm, and scrolled through his own phone. "Hey, Kou-chan," he said slowly. He showed Bokuto his phone. "Doesn't he look like the guy you've been dreaming of?"
And he did.
Bokuto looked at the picture Kuroo was showing him and felt the world fall away into silence and static. Looking back at him was the familiar green eyes and jet black hair he had grown used to seeing in his sleep. He was wearing the same white coat in his dreams, with the same laces up to his neck and the same golden details on his shoulders.
The picture was a painting of him, and behind him was a midnight blue sky with balls of light that resembled stars. It looked like a Van Gogh painting.
Bokuto suddenly remembered something his mother used to tell him: "You were named after my favorite 19th century painter, Koutarou."
"He has a museum dedicated to him in Tokyo," Kuroo said, pulling his phone away. "It's, uh... a fifteen minute drive from here. They're open until eight."
"I need to go," Bokuto told him with an urgency Kuroo had never heard of before. "You understand, right?"
"Yeah, okay," Kuroo said. "I'll tell Kenma. Be careful."
And Bokuto was out the door.
-
There is absolutely nothing in this world that will take me away from you. I will rip apart flesh and paint with blood if it means never leaving your side. It pains me to think of a life without you, so I choose not to.
You're an exquisite creature, one I cannot even begin to attempt to unravel. And that is one of the things I love most about you: how you are simply you, an abundance eccentricities and idiosyncrasies I will always find myself looking for.
I genuinely believe that I must have saved the world a lifetime ago to deserve a significant other such as you.
Perhaps it is pretentious of me to presume this, but you are the only man I wish to spend forever with. You are the only man I will go to the ends of time for, and for you I will transcend the limits of morality in my words and in my thoughts.
I will immortalize you with my pen, and so your soul shall stay with me, and mine with yours.
-
Bokuto arrived at the museum, fist squeezing the car keys in his hand so tightly that his nails dug at his skin as he stood in front of the entrance.
Inhaling deeply, he pushed open the glass door and approached the front desk.
"Good evening, sir," the woman behind the counter said with a pleasant smile. "You're just in time. The next tour begins at 7:30, would you like to be a part of it?"
"Uh, yeah," he said.
"That'll be five thousand and four hundred yen, sir."
Bokuto dug into his pocket for his wallet. He counted six one thousand bills and handed it to her. "Just keep the change," he said with a wave.
"As you wish sir," the woman said warmly. "If you would please sit on one of the provided seats while you wait, that would be great."
With a nod, Bokuto complied without much conplaint. He sat, bouncing his leg up and down in anticipation. Beside him was a family occupying the row of red chairs, complete with two rowdy kids and a quiet teen. On the chairs in front of him was a couple, holding hands and talking among themselves.
After a couple of minutes, another woman came out of the door behind the counter. She wore a white dress shirt and a black bow tie. "Let's get the tour started, shall we?"
-
You told me a million mornings ago that I must have greater belief in myself, and now I have finally come to realize the truth in your words.
We cannot be partners if we are not equals. And so, slowly, I allowed myself to praise my own words and acknowledge my own strengths. I let myself become free to love who I am and to stand on my own as I would by your side.
We are equals in my eyes now, and to me that is the grandest honor I could be bestowed with. Nothing feels me with more joy than to finally be able to think of you and I on the same pedestal.
You are my sun, and I your moon. Together we will dominate the universe and create our own, where not even death can pry you and I apart.
-
"Akaashi Keiji is a Japanese writer in the 1800s. Not much is known about his personal life, but in terms of his profession, there is a number of things he has contributed at a global scale in the world of literature."
They walked the well-lit room, the tour guide gesturing at the artifacts with her hands, rambling word after word about the apparent legendary 19th century writer.
Bokuto latched on every word, not letting one escape his grasp, listening intently.
"He traveled around the world, looking for stories to tell and cultures to delve into. This was him at the opening of Robert Stephenson's Brittania Tubular Bridge on March 5, 1850." She pointed at a large, framed, sepia picture in a glass case. "The picture itself was taken from the suitcase he carried with him in his travels."
"This one here is a picture of him with the king of Netherlands in 1848 at the introduction of their constitution." She pointed to a different image.
"Akaashi Keiji is a well-known writer, having written over two hundred novels with diverse characters and all kinds of backgrounds," she continued. "This one here is one of the original firsts he had written." She pointed to a tattered book inside a glass case, nearly falling apart at the spine.
"Over here is one of his most famous works. Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Scorned. Written in 1869 while he was in the Philippines. It's a heartbreaking novel about a Filipino woman and the hardships she went through under the Spanish rule. It was published a year later in France."
"Being a polyglot certainly made traveling the world easier for him, as he didn't have linguistic barriers to hinder his expedition," she said. "He made many acquaintances in his travels, but he didn't have a friend as close as Koutarou."
The name sent a jolt through Bokuto's spine, and his ears perked even more, straining to hear the guide.
"There has been many speculations that they had been more than friends," she said. "As you may have noticed from the pictures I've shown you, there was always a man with him, though his face is often blurry or half hidden behind an article of clothing such as a hat or a scarf or a mask, and many historians have pointed out that they always stood a little closer than platonic friends do."
"And these theories have been solidified by the recent discovery of Akaashi's journal," she continued. "Follow me, please."
She led them to a dark room with the only lights illuminating a long table in the center. On the table lined yellowed pages and a book cover.
"There were the only pages we could salvage," she said. "And these are the pages we have finished transcribing. I will be giving you a few minutes to read the transcriptions, if you wish to. Then we shall proceed with the tour."
Bokuto's feet moved before he could think, and he walked over to the table, starting at the far left, and began to read the pages.
"Please avoid touching the pages," the guide said. "You can, however, take pictures of them if you want to."
Bokuto felt his heart hammer, a steady thrum pulsating through his body as his blood began to pump in and out of his heart in excitement.
I do not believe it is fitting for me to call you my lover, for not once have you gazed into my eyes the way I stare into yours . . .
You always call me your greatest friend. Why is that? Are you not aware that I don't deserve to be more than an inch closer to you than I'm supposed to?
To what end shall I be your follower? Even I am not certain of my answer . . .
Bokuto felt as if his life was flashing before his eyes, though he wasn't sure why. There was just this inkling at the back of his mind that went red and haywire. He felt as if everything was all too familiar, as if he had known all of this a long time ago.
"As you may have observed, Akaashi certainly felt inferior next to Koutarou and regarded his lover as someone far greater than him. And as their relationship progressed, he felt himself grow alongside his partner and eventually stopped thinking lowly of himself."
There is a magic to you that I always fail to understand . . .
I never thought I'd love passion as much as this . . .
"Akaashi was a writer through and through," the guide kept saying. "And personally, I think that's one of the best things about him that made him a great person. He always says things in an intricate and poetic manner, and the way he does that brings out the beauty in everything."
"He truly was an accomplished man, wasn't he?" one of the tourists said.
"He really was," the guide said. "A really great man, that Akaashi. He conquered the world with the man he loved. What I would give to be able to do that."
"What happened to Koutarou?" Bokuto said. He pointed at the last page on the table. "This one made it sound like he died."
The tour guide smiled sadly. "Please follow me, everyone."
They followed her out of the room and into a a great circular hall with blue and green walls lined with gold. At the center of everything was a a large painting, the same one Kuroo had shown Bokuto back in their unit.
Bokuto stared at the familiar bright green eyes that followed his dreams, along with the same jet black hair and the regal white coat with gold details and lace up to his neck.
"This is the only painted portrait of the great Akaashi Keiji," she said. "It was painted by Koutarou while they were in France in 1888. It's largely believed that Koutarou had inspired the great painter Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night. Koutarou was believed to have died a year later of natural causes. Akaashi followed shortly a few months after, having taken his life."
A gasp resounded from the group, and the guide took it as her cue to leave. "This marks the end of the tour. Thank you for listening. Please take your time."
She left with out another word.
"I've always had a dream," Bokuto whispered to himself, mind reeling, eyes planted on the magnificent painting before him, "about the boy in this painting."
His mind went back to what his mother used to tell him, "You were named after my favorite 19th century painter, Koutarou."
Bokuto stared at the green eyes he always saw in his dreams and wondered about the boy with the smile he tried to fight off and the thousand strands of hair that made up his hairline.
He wondered what it was like to be in the same lifetime as him, breathing the same air, conquering the world with just the two of them, living the same life without being decades apart.
-
I have written over two hundred novels with you in mind, and today I shall write the last.
It has been a while since your departure, and still I cannot find the right words to describe the raging maelstrom within me.
In moments' time, I shall succumb to the sky, where I will scour the ends of earth in search for you. The years we've been together were the happiest I've been, and to have you and I part is the loneliest I have become.
Tomorrow is a new day without you by my side. And that is truly devastating. Once I finally let go of my pen, my life, for the last time, I shall seek for you and only you.
Thoughts of you being out of reach cloud my mind, but I fear not, for my soul will always be with you. And I shall see you in my dreams, even when I am awake, because no matter what they say, we are the protagonists of the world.