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Dear Lover,
I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. Your beautiful amber eyes, your brunet hair cascading down your shoulders, your effervescent smirk, and the dimples that sit above your hips. All of it—I can't get it out of my head. I can't get you out of my head. The taste of you, the scent of you that clings to your hoodies…
I know I haven’t written to you in a long time, I’m sorry. Today I felt worse than usual, so Akaashi said writing you another letter might make me feel better. I told him I would think about it and instead rode the bus to your house. Your mother let me in with a sad smile, I know it’s been hard for her to take care of your house alone but I can’t bring myself to go anywhere but your room. I sat on your bed for three hours and thought about us, about you… but you never came. I left with one of your hoodies. I’ll return it in a few days.
I haven’t talked to Kuroo in a month. After everything happened, we split our separate ways. We both have a lot on our minds, I guess it’s for the better that we stay apart. I don’t know what would happen if I tried to talk to him. He would probably punch me, if I’m thinking honestly. Maybe he would cry; I don’t know, but I feel terrible. He thinks I took you away from him. I didn’t mean to, Kenma.
I didn’t know he loved you. You never told me. Of course, I wouldn’t blame you for staying silent. I promise that I’m not angry with you, I could never be upset with you. But it hurts to know that I had you while my best friend suffered. I wish I had known sooner how he felt for you. Maybe the fight we had would have been prevented; I do kind of wish I never had that black eye. Everyone was so worried about me in the locker room before practice. I couldn’t find the heart to tell any of my teammates how it happened.
I won’t lie, I do miss Kuroo. But I miss you even more. I’m so in love with you, Kenma, it’s almost laughable. I feel like I’m in a Disney movie, the way I would do anything to sing for you again or dance with you in your kitchen. Akaashi used to say that he could see pink hearts floating above my head whenever I read your texts. I think he’s exaggerating, though it’s true that your texts always made me smile. I don’t wish for anything but to see your name pop up in my notifications, just one more time. To read you tell me, “I love you, Kou” just one more time.
I hate that we never got closure. It burns me up inside, every single day I wonder what I could have done differently and what I could have said to make things better. I think about texting Kuroo every single day, but I know he doesn’t want to hear from me and he deserves someone better than his boyfriend-stealing ex-best friend texting him, don’t you think?
I wish you would have told me that you and him used to date. He never told me either, so I guess the fault is on both of you. I keep blaming myself, but really, this part isn’t my fault at all. If you had told me then I would never have taken you into my arms. I would have kept my love for you buried in my heart because to me, my friendships are just as important as my relationships. You should have broken up with him before you moved on to me. It wasn’t fair to either of us.
I guess you can’t resolve that now, though. I wish you would. I want you back. I want my best friend back.
I want you back in my arms, Kenma. I want you to greet me after practice and take me back to your house and I want to go to your game room and fool around with you on the plush carpet. I want you to sit in my lap while you stream. I want to tease you at the dinner table and leave kisses from your knees to your hair. I don’t want to be alone. I’m no good when I’m lonely. I keep writing these stupid fucking letters.
Akaashi says I’m coping well, but he doesn’t know that I cry every night. He doesn’t know about the window I broke in your house, he doesn’t know that I paid your mother to fix it while I sobbed at her feet. He only knows that you left me and I’m sad. He doesn’t know how I took all of the Jackals down with me. They benched me, Kenma. Did you know that?
I can’t focus on anything. I just keep replaying that night over and over again in my sick head, thinking about when Kuroo opened the door to your house to find us on your couch. You were pinning me by my hands to the couch’s arm, your hips straddled mine and my clothes were on at the coffee table. The TV was playing loud, but it was just static in the background of the movie of our love. Your head was buried in my neck, leaving your saliva on my collar with bruises that I was forced to awkwardly laugh off while in the locker room, too ashamed of who I was to admit that I loved you.
He didn’t see us when he first came in, but there’s no doubt that he heard us. I wasn’t exactly quiet—how could I have been when it was you above me? You were smirking, our eyes were locked and you wouldn’t look away.
God, Kenma, you had such beautiful eyes. I could gaze into them all day, I would have staring contests with you for the rest of eternity if it meant I could see the beautiful amber of your irises once more. I would have never looked away from you and to Kuroo standing in the doorway if I knew it was going to be the last time you ever looked at me.
But I didn’t know. I looked up, I saw Kuroo. And his face was indescribable as his eyes met mine instead of yours. I gasped so deeply that I can still feel it in my throat now, almost a month and a half later.
He walked over to us and dropped his bag on the floor, taking your attention off of me and onto him. You were so quick to leave me there on your couch, naked and scared and confused. You zipped your jeans up and looked presentable in under ten seconds. But me, I felt so vulnerable.
He said to you, “What's this, Kenma?”
His voice was so stern, but you didn’t seem to care. But I did. I cared a lot.
“We broke up, Kuroo. This is my boyfriend.”
Kuroo grit his teeth, I can still hear the shrieking sound solid in my ears as the bones hit one another. “You moved on from me that quickly?”
“It’s been three months.”
“This isn’t the first time, is it, huh?”
Kuroo sounded so hurt. But me, I was just confused. I never knew you two were a thing. You should have fucking told me, Kenma.
“No. It’s not. We started dating two days after I broke up with you,” You replied, as deadpan as they come. It rang out as betrayal in my heart. I had been betraying my best friend for three months straight, and I had no idea.
I looked at you, but you didn’t look back at me. You and Kuroo were having a staring match and you weren’t about to lose to comfort me. I was the least of your concerns. I was always the least of your concerns—I was just your fucking rebound, wasn’t I?
You were still in love with him. I knew it; I could see it plainly in that moment. When I said, “Kenma… What are you talking about?” and you said nothing to me. You stepped forward and arched your chin upwards, looking at Kuroo from only a foot away. Your eyes were watering, and he was fuming.
I grabbed my shirt and slipped it on, then struggled to put the rest of my clothes on. But it didn’t matter, because neither you or Kuroo even seemed to notice that I was there.
Kuroo shook his head at you. “I can’t believe you.”
I was so in love with you. I loved you better than I’ve ever loved anyone in my entire life, you know. It was only ever you.
But for you, it was only ever Kuroo.
“You left me first,” You whispered back. I came up behind you and sat my hand on your shoulder, but you shrugged it off. I was just collateral damage, you didn’t care what it meant to hurt me. You didn’t care to explain to me about anything.
Still. I don’t know what happened when you two were together. No one has told me. I wish you would have told me. I deserved to know, don't you think? You fucked around with me for three months; isn’t that enough time to feel comfortable enough to share your past? I shared all of mine with you. I told you things that I haven’t even told Akaashi. And you buried it all in the dirt with you. .
I shouldn’t have gotten involved. But I did, because I was so stupidly in love with you. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I stepped in front of you and I told Kuroo, “You should go,” and he put his left foot forward, and his right fist came and hit me in the eye harder than I’ve ever been hit before. I fought him back and got a few good punches in—but all three of us know that he won the fight, kicking me over and stepping on my crotch as he walked out the door.
“Fuck you, boyfriend-stealer,” was the last thing Kuroo said to me.
You broke into tears and I worried so deeply for you, because I knew how unstable you were. I knew you were struggling deep inside with yourself, and it hurt me so bad to see you cry like that. But when I went to comfort you, you pushed me away. You told me you were fine; you weren’t. You told me you weren’t going to do anything stupid; that was a lie.
You lied to me about so many things, Kenma, and yet I’m still so madly in love with you. I need to figure out how to stop that. I deserve better than someone who will use me to fill the hole my best friend left in their heart.
I left your house and called your mother as I did. I told her, “He’s getting bad again,” and I hung up. I didn’t want to tell her that Kuroo caught us in the act, and I didn’t want her to see my shiner. I was ashamed of myself. I thought it was my fault that you were bad at communication. My therapist says it wasn’t my fault though. She says you were hurting and didn’t know what to do, so you kept it all inside of you. She says that she thinks that’s why you exploded like you did.
She says that people with depression tend to hate themselves more after they do something that they didn’t want to, rather than when someone else does something that they didn’t want to. She says you were probably so angry and upset with yourself over the fact that you cheated Kuroo and lied to me that you didn’t know what else to do.
She told me that it wasn’t my fault, what you did later that night. She says it wasn’t Kuroo’s fault either. She says that if you were depressed for a long, long time (which you were) and you weren’t improving at all (which you weren’t), you wouldn’t have thought there was any other way to solve the issues that you had caused in your life.
She says that sadly, it was probably a long time coming. Since your antidepressant wasn’t working, it might have been causing an opposite effect on you. She says that since you dropped therapy, (I told her that) you were probably feeling really lonely. And you felt trapped between Kuroo and I, feeling as if you couldn’t tell either one of us how you really felt inside of your head.
You know, you could have told me. I know it’s too late, but it makes me feel better to confirm that. I would have listened to you. I would have tried to help you, or find you someone who could help you. I would have done anything to make you feel good again—even if it meant helping you get back together with Kuroo. See, Kenma, that’s how in love with you I am. I would do anything for you to be happy, even if it meant I would be doomed to sadness.
My therapist says that’s a really toxic way to think, and I know she’s right. But I can’t help it. I just… I just miss you. I miss you so bad. I’ve loved you for years, and as soon as I was able to act on my love… it was wrong. And I can’t get over that. I keep feeling like my love is wrong, that it’s always been wrong. She says I’m being too hard on myself. But I don’t think so.
It’s currently three in the morning as I write this. I’m supposed to go out with Akaashi to breakfast tomorrow morning, but he’ll probably arrive to me sleeping. If I manage to get sleep tonight, that is. I haven’t really been able to sleep since it all happened. I can’t stop thinking. I wish I had you to guide me to sleep, asking me, “What’s going on up there in your head?” when I would sit awake on the edge of your bed in the middle of the night.
I wish you would shuffle from your side of the bed and greet me at the edge where I sat. I wish I could feel your hands travel up my arms and to my shoulders where you massaged gently, your knees pressed against my back. I wish you would ask me, “Did you sleep at all yet?” in your quiet nighttime voice, then kiss my cheek. I wish you would take me back to our pillows and cuddle with me until my eyes fell and I slipped into a comatose state, your hands rubbing calming circles on my stomach.
I could really use your love right now.
Akaashi has been trying to make me feel better, but he’s not you. He’s a sweetheart and his hugs are nice; they’re nothing like yours though. It’s easier to bury my head in his chest than it was with you, but his scent isn’t nearly as calming as yours. That’s why I keep taking your hoodies, so at least I can have a little bit of you still in my life.
I miss the rest of you though.
I think that if I manage to wake up early enough tomorrow, I’ll have Akaashi drive me to drop this letter off to you before we go to eat. Cars have been really making me anxious lately, I think you can guess why.
I wish I could have stopped you. My therapist says it was out of my hands. I don't care what she says. I should have stayed with you at your house. Your mom should have left to see you earlier. I should have noticed when you picked up your keys as I left out the front door, because you had nowhere to go.
I try not to think about how you must have been feeling, nor do I try to think about what was happening inside of your head when you turned the key in the ignition and drove out of your driveway and down your street, through your neighborhood and to the busy rush hour streets.
Were you scared?
You drove right off a bridge, over 100 feet down into the rushing river below. I would have been scared if I was in your position.
I’d like to think that you felt peace as you feel. But the police told your mother that your eyes were completely bloodshot when they pulled your body out of the river. It hurts to think that you were crying all alone as you passed.
You know, I didn’t see Kuroo at your funeral. I asked your mother and she said that he paid his respects, but he didn’t come to the service. I don’t think I blame him. I’m glad that it was a closed-casket funeral. I don’t know what I would have done or how I would have acted if I had to see your dead body.
I’ve been thinking all night about what type of flowers I should buy you next when I drop my letter off at your grave. I already did roses and tulips. What else is there? Orchids? Hydrangeas? What even is there to buy in the middle of fall? If I can’t find any, I might bring you something else of mine. I don’t know what, but I want at least a piece of me to be with you.
Anyways, I don’t think I have anything else to tell you right now. But I’ll tell you again—I love you. I love you so much, the feelings I have for you are so fiery and loud in my head. I hope they’re loud in yours too, I want you to know that you’re so loved. I hope you’re feeling alright now. Are you happy? Are you still able to play your video games and watch volleyball? If you can find a way to answer me, I would love to know. I want to hear from you really badly. I miss you a lot.
I’ll see you tomorrow, okay, Kenma?
Love,
Koutarou