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There was a castle in the sky.
Made of brick, stone, glass, illusion, it loomed out of the darkness and in the sunlight, out of the corner of Sakusa's eyes and in the back of his mind. Its shadow stretched across snow white mountain tops all the way back to the beginning of time. The moon was its forever companion, the sun crowned it with golden glare, the stars danced around it like a chorus awaiting the peak of tragedy.
Sakusa decided that he liked the clouds, how they hid the castle from sight, even if only for a moment. Then he could pretend it didn't exist, and he wasn't trapped in its never-ending game of fate with a crown weighing his head down.
Every month on the night of the full moon, they were invited, charmed, dragged to the castle in the sky. When the moon started its ascent, they waged war with a kingdom from the other side of the universe, with knights in white armour riding white horses, broadswords gleaming like eyes of eagles. As the moon rose and rose, they fought and fought, losing themselves in a mad masquerade orchestrated by high heavens. Only when the moon reached its zenith and bathed the battlefield in a soft light that blurred screams and cries did the war stop, the fighting cease, the fighters return, wounded and weary.
Legends had it that they who won the war would have their wishes granted.
Except that no one had ever won, and no one would ever win.
So the masquerade started again and again and again, month after month, year after year, century after century. Endless.
Sakusa knew what his wish was.
---
There was a castle in the sky.
On the castle grounds were stone pillars reaching for the night sky, rugged hillocks overhanging barren lands, winds wailing for a bygone age, a battlefield extending farther than the eyes could see, black cavalries wielding arming swords as sharp as canines of beasts.
Ushijima was made for that battlefield. They all were, as pieces in a chess game of gods. They whiled away crescent and gibbous moons at home where rice painted the land golden and rivers washed away all stains, healing, training, becoming strong, stronger. The spent full moons at the castle in the sky where black replaced gold and blood flowed instead of freshwater, wounding, slaying, getting shattered, destroyed.
It was their way of life, someone said in a dim and distant past, when they put him on the throne. Ushijima didn't question it, not any more. When beginnings had faded and endings were beyond their reach, he just let fate be.
So as the moon waxed and waned, he fought and rested. Waxed and waned, broken and rebuilt.
Their lives ran around in circles. His fate would never be complete. Nonetheless, it was his.
Ushijima didn't think he had a wish.
---
Sakusa wasn't afraid. He was nimble, fast, precise. He breezed past foes as easy as the wind, leaving behind him trails of destruction. He knew he inflicted terrors with a snap of his wrist and a swing of his sword.
The grime of the battlefield bothered him a bit. He hated the mud his horse kicked up, the sand that covered him from head to toe, the blood that crusted on his armour. But they, at the very least, could be washed off.
Sorrow filled him when his people fell. When their numbers waned with the moon, when eyes closed and never opened again. There were rules to wishes after all. But he hid his cracks behind masks, wrapped them tight, swallowed them whole. Just part of life, nothing to show, he told himself once. Twice. A hundred times. Lies if lived long enough would become truths.
What kept him awake with the new moon was an ache for the end, an end, any. A full stop to a sentence that had lasted tomes. A coda to a song as old as time.
He wasn't bored. He wasn’t tired, not exactly. He didn't think much of the future after. The ache was simply innate, something he was made with. It burned him inside out, leaving his mind charred and his body restless. So he ran, he read, he cleaned, he baked, just so he could finish the last lap, close the book, keep the floor spotless, wolf down the cupcakes.
Yet no matter what he did, how he fought, how many enemies he defeated, the ending to his fate seemed forever unattainable.
Sometimes Sakusa wondered why he was made, if there were things that could not end.
---
Ushijima found satisfaction in building up his strength.
It wasn’t that he enjoyed violence. Bloodlust wasn’t in his nature; he didn’t take pleasure in cutting down his opponents. But with unstoppable strength, he would be able to play the role thrusted upon him. He would lead his knights into darkness, would inspire them to stand tall and walk straight.
So he trained to use claymores with one hand, to march into battles like a storm raging, to crush adversities under the hooves of his horse and the force of his strike. Even when he was bruised, battered, beaten, he never doubted that he would rise anew.
But on darkest nights, he did wonder about what would happen when it ended. Would they win? What would happen to the vanquished? How would the air feel? The wind on his cheeks? The soil under his feet?
But those nights were short. The distant, impossible future didn’t hold his attention long, for what mattered was the next step. And the next. And the next.
---
Their swords met first, metal skidding on metal like death screeching. Pure power knocked Sakusa back; his horse staggered from the brute strength. For a brief moment, he struggled to breath. His eyes saw stars; his ears lost all sounds; his heart galloped; his sword arm felt alien - pins and needles all millions of them.
The sensations stunned him. He had been wounded before. He had been dragged off his horse. He had been sliced, had been stabbed, had been slashed. But not like this. Never like this.
A thrill jump-started a part of him he didn’t know existed.
He tried to take in more air. This wasn't anything that could bring him down. The haze in his mind lifted. He would return this favour in kind. His vision came back, and he looked up at his assailant.
On the instant Sakusa lost his breath once more.
Astride the white horse sat a white knight. King. God. He had dark hair and darker eyes, with a rugged face, young, ageless. He didn't sneer, didn't taunt. In his whole being there was only the calm before the storm. Tall and muscular, he wore armour and weapons and wars dangerously well. A claymore was in his left hand, ready to strike again.
On instinct, Sakusa swallowed.
God lifted his left hand. Sakusa pulled on the reins, trying to escape god's wrath. The claymore aimed for his shoulder, and he only had a fraction of a second to meet it with his own sword. The next blast arrived before he could exhale; it left a scratch on his faulds, right at his heart.
Sakusa felt like he had been stabbed.
The third came just as fast, but this time he was ready. With a wrist snap, he deflected it. God raised an eyebrow, and Sakusa smirked behind his mask.
The moon peaked not long after that. Sakusa spent the night at home sleepless, dreaming of white.
---
It wasn't first sight, since Ushijima didn’t remember firsts.
It wasn’t the second. Nor the third. But before he knew it, there was poison in his blood.
The black knight sought him out the next full moon. Amidst blood-soaked shadows he could easily spot the dark round eyes glowing above his mask and the black curls framing the twin beauty marks on his forehead. Their eyes met, and the black knight launched at him like a lover long forgotten.
He was strong, stronger, Ushijima realised. He made almost no sound when he swung his sword, wearing the night as camouflage. He was fast enough to leave his opponents dizzy. His attacks looked feather light but pierced through steel.
Blood boiled in his vein and Ushijima thought there might just be another reason for him to be.
So a ritual it became, their mad dance under the moon. Sparks flew when swords clashed. Grins and grimaces blended together. Into the night they swayed, shouts and howls as their music. Round and round they spun, awash with blood and silver light.
Ushijima supposed that it was irrational, nonsensical, how he fell for a being of the night, a visage only illuminated by the moon and never the sun, always out for his blood.
Then again, nothing had never made sense here, since the very beginning.
So he let the poison course through him whenever they traded blows. Poison so strong it shook his limbs when he stared past the sharp tip of the sword and into eyes darker than the night sky. Poison so strange it left him breathless, aching for air, for something he couldn't name. Poison so sweet it made his heart leapt and cried when full moons arrived.
If Ushijima was to have a wish, he knew what it would be.
---
It happened quickly. Sakusa had been in his room, reading. He blinked, and the earth shifted.
He opened his eyes to find himself in a vast white space. Another blink and he realised that he was in a hall of a strange palace. Gold tapestries draped on the walls, punctuated by paintings of tundras and rainforests. Looking out of the windows he could see the sky, full of twinkling stars and an invisible new moon.
He turned around and came face to face with God. King. The white knight with a claymore in his left hand that had been invading his mind.
"What are you doing here?" Sakusa went on the offence first.
"That should be my question. This is my place," the white knight's voice, low and cool as evening breeze, was without inflection, but surprise was evident on his face.
"Your place?" Sakusa echoed.
"Yes."
"Why am I here?" He wanted to pinch himself to see if this was a dream, but he didn't want to wake up yet. Not when he was so, so close.
"I don't know," the white knight simply said. He stepped forwards.
Sakusa immediately took a step back. He couldn't help himself; this was their routine.
The white knight frowned. "I'm unarmed."
"Doesn't mean that you can't hurt me," Sakusa said. But he didn't believe it.
"I don't think there's any reason to be enemies when we are not at the castle in the sky."
Sakusa watched the white knight. Like the most majestic statue made of marble and jade, he stood straight, head held high, eyes never turning away. There was nothing wicked in him, no lies, no falsehood. Sakusa caught his gaze and realised he never wanted to let it go.
"Maybe you're right," he conceded, willingly this time.
A small smile appeared on the white knight's face. Sakusa lost track of himself.
If this was a dream, then please, o heavens on high, please let this night last just a while longer.
"I seem to have forgotten my manners. My name is Ushijima." He held out his right hand.
"I'm Sakusa." He was never one for physical contact, yet at that moment he wanted nothing more than to take the hand offered, to feel the warm skin, the rough callouses. To feel him.
It turned out that there were limits to dreams.
As he reached out, Sakusa felt nothing. There was no warm skin, no rough callouses, even though they were right in front of him. He withdrew his hand like it was burned. He seemed to have no corporeal presence here, in this dream that looked and sounded too close to reality. Or maybe everything was merely an illusion, born from a figment of his imagination that was too drunk on dark eyes and rugged face. The thought pricked whatever inside him that could bleed.
"Ah." That was all he could say.
"What a shame. I was going to offer you tea.” Ushijima closed his hand in a loose fist. In his eyes there was disappointment, and for a moment that eased Sakusa's heart.
"I don't need tea," Sakusa didn't pout.
“How about I showed you our gardens then?” Ushijima smiled indulgently.
And off they went to the gardens, where they talked about flowers and horses, about the book that Sakusa was reading, about the strange juxtaposition of the paintings in the hall, and Sakusa fell deeper and deeper, until he realised how unfathomable the depth of his desire was.
---
Sakusa was gone by the first sunlight.
They next met at the castle in the sky on the night of the full moon, the way they had met so many times before. Their encounter at his home didn't soften Sakusa's attacks on his knights, and Ushijima didn't know whether to feel elated or indignant. From up on the hill, he watched the black knight wrecking havoc and felt the call of the ancient magic that tied them all to this savage game. No one had ever escaped it, and no one would.
So he unsheathed his claymore and charged into the battlefield, because that was where he belonged.
But as he fought and destroyed, his heart whispered of a bond, newborn but already as unbreakable as this timeless castle.
He wondered how fast the poison would spread, how fatal it would be if it consumed him, and if it could ever erode his ties to fate.
---
By magic, by fate, when a new moon hung unnoticed in the sky, Sakusa was spirited away to Ushijima's home, in reality, in fantasy, no one knew for sure. Sakusa didn't care for such details. He cared only for Ushijima's soft laughs, his unwavering eyes, his honest answers, his loves, his sorrows, his angers, his everything.
He couldn't touch anything during his sojourns, and, truth be told, that shouldn't have bothered him. No dirt, no filth could reach him; his mind should have rejoiced.
But in this strange palace, he yearned for touch. The blooming roses in the garden, the gossamer wings of a peculiar butterfly, the handkerchief that Ushijima offered him. Ushijima, his hands, his face, his lips. He yearned to feel them all in his hands, against his skin. Funny how fate worked.
So he learnt to make do with conversations that lasted until dawn and into his dreams, with the silence that reigned between them when no words were suffice, with the ghost of caresses that forever and ever haunted him.
Sakusa remained sleepless with every new moon. But it was no longer endings that kept him up all those nights.
Sakusa wouldn't mind setting his wish aside for a pair of dark eyes.
---
The first time Sakusa told Ushijima his wish, they were standing by the pond, talking about the lives of fireflies. How short they were, how fulfilled.
"I wish for the end," Sakusa said out of the blue.
"Of us?" Ushijima lost a heart beat.
"No," Sakusa turned to him, and his heart restarted. "Just the war."
"Why?" He asked to confirm.
"It's who I am," Sakusa turned away, eyes at the horizon. Dawn was close.
"What happens after?" Would they meet again.
"I don't know."
The second time Sakusa told Ushijima his wish, it was late autumn. Sakusa had lost a platoon in their last battle, and Ushijima didn't take his eyes off him. Sakusa looked a bit more exhausted. His eyebrows knitted together in frustration. Ushijima wanted to smooth them out.
"I'm sorry," he said. For once their silence unsettled him.
"It wasn't your fault," Sakusa closed his eyes.
It was no one's fault. Not either of them. Not the victors, not the dead. They were pieces on the board. Bound.
The poison hummed in his blood.
---
The third time Sakusa told Ushijima his wish, Ushijima couldn't get out of bed. A sword had came for Sakusa and struck him instead. Red dyed his armour and flooded Sakusa's vision.
"Why did you do it?" He didn't know hearts would break like this: in one fell swoop and his shattered, like a crystal vase dropped from the sky. For a second he was left dazed, numb, unable to comprehend what had happened. Then realisation came, the devastation kicked in, and he almost doubled over in pain. Storm roared through the hollow where his heart had been and ripped air out of his windpipes.
"I didn't want you to get hurt," Ushijima said like it was an unshakeable fact, left hand reaching out to wipe away invisible tears.
The pain never went away. Like ocean waves it subsided only to surge again, ever more tumultuous, crashing into him with all the force of a tsunami and dragging him into the depths of despair.
Sakusa took a deep breath.
"Do you ever wonder why we meet like this?" Why they were allowed to meet but not touch. Why they could be together here but driven to fight at the castle in the sky, frenzied whenever in armour. Why they went to a war knowing in their blood, their souls that it wasn't meant to end. Why they were made in chains, promises of ever after dangling in front of them, always in sight but never in reach.
It took Ushijima a little while to answer. Sakusa would never mind the wait.
“It's luck.”
---
That I can see you, talk to you, look into your eyes and see my own reflection,
That we have moments like this, deep in the night, when the rest of the world fade into a faint murmur,
That I know so many sides of you, your burning eyes when we stand face to face with our swords drawn on the battlefield as red as poppy, your rare smiles when we talk about the books in my library, your frown at the shambles in the west wing when we tried and failed to redecorate,
That I get to meet you as often as heavens let us, more often than I ever hope for, ever wish for,
That I get to meet you at all,
It's luck.
---
The full moon shone too brightly.
The grounds of the castle in the sky reeked of blood wasted, of lives squandered. Of futility, of absurdity. The wind slapped his cheeks then licked the sting with all of its sharp edges. Metal met metal met flesh met blood met dirt.
Sakusa could distinguish all those sounds.
Ushijima was in front of him. His horse reared up. He reined it in.
Even with the injuries Ushijima was still a thunder on the battlefield. He stormed through knights and swords like, more force of nature than earthly being. Cavalries on horses fell to the ground in his wake; they never stood a chance.
Sakusa tightened his grip on the sword.
But the claymore went slack in Ushijima's left hand. His face was calm, but there was no storm waiting. The look in his eyes reminded Sakusa of white halls and green gardens and fireflies flitting about in the night. It shouldn't have been here.
Sakusa frowned. It was getting hard to breathe.
Ushijima's smile was faint, almost imperceptible.
"Let's end it.”
He threw his claymore to the ground. Simple as that.
In chess, the game would be over when the king was in checkmate.
The final move was Sakusa's. One strike and everything would be over. The war. His fate. Them. For a moment no longer than a clash of swords, he thought of what could come after the end.
The air brought the first notes of freedom, and he didn’t want to breathe in.
He looked at the knight, king, god who disarmed himself in the middle of a battle. He felt Ushijima’s words washing over him, rough, warm, gentle. In their finality all he heard was eternity.
The broken shards of his heart had already burrowed so deep into his bones, muscles, skin that it hurt just to be. It was too late. It was just right.
Sakusa smiled.
"This is how it ends," he said before letting go of his sword.
---
Legends had it that they who won the war would have their wishes granted.
When the pieces were broken, would there be a war still?
When Sakusa’s sword hit the ground, the entire world came apart. The ground cracked, the air crumbled, the hills collapsed. The wind rose and rose and rose until it reached a crescendo in the hymn for the end. Above them, around them, below them, the castle in the sky shuddered once then fell to pieces. Remnants of bricks, stones, glasses, illusions scattered around them, obscuring the sky.
Their people were whisked away one by one. To home, Ushijima hoped.
Sakusa remained. There were only them, like always.
A punishment. A reward. A gift. Who was he to say.
Ushijima knew this was the end. Did Sakusa win? Or did they both lose, in this game of fate?
It didn't matter. Not any more. When endings came and beginnings were carved in his heart, he just let fate be.
Still, he closed his eyes and made a wish.
for paths to cross,
for eyes to meet,
for hands to join,
for skins to touch,
for shoulders side by side,
for hearts together.
Sakusa opened his eyes, and the moon split in half.
---
"We are the lucky ones."
"You believe in luck?"
"I do, because you do."
---
Kiyoomi is 13 when he believes in past lives and reincarnations. There is no other explanation to the way his breathing stops when he meets Ushijima Wakatoshi at his first volleyball national tournaments. The way his heart starts beating to a strange rhythm he knows from memory. The way he realises how touch-starved he is even when it's his nature to avoid touch. The way he reaches out, involuntarily, willingly. The way he falls, but there's no ground underneath.
It's a marvel, a nuisance, and a blessing in equal measure. He isn't sure what to do.
A voice as low and cool as evening breeze tells him not to let go.
---
Wakatoshi is 14 when Sakusa Kiyoomi crashes into his life like a meteorite.
Wakatoshi is 19 when Kiyoomi decides to stay. Probably for good.
It's destiny, they say. It's coincidence, someone dismisses. Wakatoshi thinks neither of those labels fit.
He doesn't see a need to dwell on labels. So he focuses on taking things one step as a time. Practices, scrimmages, matches. Tea, dinners, the little bookshop at the edge of Tokyo. Osaka, Kraków, maybe Miyagi. One step, then the next. And the next.
Nevertheless, on nights when there are only stars in the sky and his hands find black curls and warm skins, Wakatoshi thinks he know what it is.
It's a wish they once made when there was a castle in the sky.