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For the first two days after he gets dumped, Akashi Seijuro spends his days in bed, listless and only taking meals when he gets hungry. For the most part, he is idle and stares at the ceiling overhead. He remembers complaining about the cracks in the ceiling paint at Midorima's place but in retrospect, they were much more interesting to look at than a vast expanse of unbroken white. They traced the Nile and the Mekong Rivers overhead. On the third day, Akashi Masahi storms into his only son's room, fury personified.
"What on earth is wrong with you?" he demands of his son.
Akashi turns briefly and considers his father. "I was dumped."
"So?" Masahi says, tactlessly. Akashi thinks he would never have thought his father was particularly tactless but his family is not the norm from what he has learned. "The men of the Akashi bloodline haven't been very good at keeping their women."
Akashi turns back to the ceiling. "Midorima isn't a woman," he says just to be difficult, although he knows what his father means. He had grown up thinking his mother had died in a freak accident when he was two only to discover she was alive and well and divorced up in Kyoto and had paid him an unannounced visit during his third year in high school, which brought the entire main house to its knees. His father was so ashamed.
"Be as that may," Masahi says. "You must get up and work. What have I taught you? You must not let your personal life get in the way of business."
"Yes," Akashi agrees. "But father, I am…sad." He thinks he sees his father back away in horror from the corner of his eye. This sort of undisguised emotion is undoubtedly foreign to his father. Indeed, his father takes his leave quickly and sends in his secretary to deal with him. Akashi almost laughs, if he had the energy to.
On the fourth day, Akashi finally leaves his room dressed in his business suit and takes the car to work. Akashi Masahi rejoices until he hears his son has taken to sitting in his and sighing loudly if anyone enters to talk to him. Akashi Sr. promptly goes against his instincts and orders his son to take a break, lest he ruin the company's image forever with his melancholy.
Akashi calls Midorima Suzuka during his lunch time. She picks up after a long five rings. "Yes?" she demands.
"Ms. Suzuka," Akashi says in his most polite voice. "I was wondering if you'd like to have tea with me."
"No," she says. "I don't, really."
Akashi sighs. He's getting quite good at it. "Please don't be difficult, Suzuka. I just want to talk to you."
"No, you don't," she says. "You want to talk about my brother. I'm free at five, though."
They meet in a cute - but expensive - little tea room at five-thirty. Suzuka orders the most expensive black tea on the menu and a tray of little cakes. "I'm not going to talk about my brother," she says preemptively as Akashi is thinking of how to breech the subject. "This is literally the last thing I'll say in reference to him. You won't get anything out of me."
He doesn't like to show his cards, but he doesn't think he's got a way out of this. "Then why did you agree to come out with me?" Akashi asks.
"Because the son of the Akashi Corporation doesn't skimp out on dates," Suzuka shrugs. "This is pretty tasty."
After his failure with Suzuka, Akashi waits several days - brooding all the while - before finally deciding he's got to do something about it. He decides to write Midorima a letter; he could send an email, of course, but Midorima knows the value of a genuine, heartfelt handwritten letter. His characters are done neatly and with a bit of a flourish but he means every word, inquiring about Midorima's health and ending with a bit of an embarrassing I still think about you before signing his name. He thinks this is probably very out of character for him. He seals the envelope and realizes that for every time he's visited Midorima at his apartment, he doesn't know the apartment's address.
Akashi sits on his hands about it for a bit and calls Takao, who is much more receptive about meeting with Akashi. "This is a little unusual," he says, cutting to the chase as Takao begins to stir sugar into his coffee. "I know, but do you know Midorima's apartment's address?"
"Midorima moved," Takao says. "He's abroad now."
"Oh," Akashi says.
"He left, like, two weeks ago?"
"Oh," Akashi says. Why is he out of the loop?
"He didn't want anyone to know about it, really," Takao says, and Akashi realizes he must have spoken aloud. "He told his parents and sister about it, obviously, because he can't get around that, but I only found out because I was snooping around his business and he was packing up his apartment."
Akashi stares at his drink. The letter in his pocket seems so insignificant now. "His number's not any different," Takao says quickly, reading the atmosphere. He's grinning, but only to really keep the mood up. "I bet if you'd call him, he'd answer."
"I can't call him," Akashi insists.
"Yes, you can," Takao says.
"Yes, I could," Akashi agrees. "But I don't think I should."
"Okay." Takao orders a small dish for himself. "Well, I'm planning on calling him soon, because his mother's worried sick about him and he hasn't contacted the motherland since he's left. If you want me to put in a word for you, I can." Akashi's fingers brush against the letter and against his better judgement, he pulls it out and thrusts it at Takao.
"Don't open it here and don't read it until I'm not with you," Akashi orders. He sounds like a stubborn child, he knows, but the letter's his heart laid as bare as he knows how and he doesn't need Takao to look at him knowingly - although with how Takao takes the letter, he knows even if he doesn't show it, Takao is smiling. A few weeks later, Takao calls him. Akashi thinks he's doing better, probably, because he can smile at the receptionist again and he goes out to dinners with his father without feeling a soul-crushing amount of apathy.
"He seems pretty hung up on you," Takao says.
"Where is he again?" Akashi asks, putting his phone on speaker so he can search through the availability of his father's several charter flight pilots. He notices he has a voice mail that he's neglected to listen to. He leaves it until he boards his father's second best plane with a small luggage bags and calls his voice mailbox as the pilot is getting ready for takeoff.
"Let me alone," Midorima says in his ear. Akashi feels his stomach drop and he isn't sure if it's because the plane has begun to ascend.