Work Text:
the first time tadashi set pen to paper, the words had spilled out of him like a river emptying into the ocean. his thoughts melted into the page like they had always been meant to be there, like that’s where they had always belonged, all clean strokes and so poetic his high school self would have been surprised he was the one to write them; they weren’t polished by any means, words scratched out, syntax choppy and uneven, but endearing nonetheless.
all he’d wanted to do was get out the feelings that had been festering in his head like an illness, worried that they’d eventually spill over into his bloodstream and take over his whole body, overthrowing common sense for emotion fueled thoughts. instead, he’d found his calling in the words that were smeared under tearstains, that left imprints in the pages behind the one he’d been writing on, remnants of feelings from hours, days, weeks beforehand.
writing was what got him through his day to day routine. it had started as journaling, minutes set aside before bed to clear his mind of all the things he’d done in the hours after he’d awoken and leading up to him turning in for the night.
like building resistance to a drug, tadashi’s journaling hit a brick wall where it just was not enough to quell the emotions brewing in his head like an ominous thunderstorm, dark and foreboding, air crackling with electricity but the rain not quite ready to spill over yet.
instead, he frantically scribbled thoughts, fragments of poems, half composed sentences from fantasy worlds he’d created in his mind into the moleskine he carried with him always like a security blanket. in between customers, on the bullet train, as he walked to class or as he was waiting for class to start, his nose was in the thick pages, dark ink staining fingertips as he jotted down every little idea that flitted through his skittish mind.
any sane person would be worried if they’d read the things he’d written in his journal (like looking through a viewfinder, forgot to press record … surely, he wasn’t in his right mind, writing things like that) and maybe they should have been regardless; the image of a boy with a spaced out look on his face, unable to pacify his fingertips’ need for movement or his mind’s constant motion, and thus spending his free time composing half baked thoughts into beautiful melodies that would never see the light of day.
he’d mumble things under his breath, too, like he was singing himself a song, his whispers not even breaking the conversations of those around him. it wasn’t unusual to see his lips moving in a silent recital of lyrics that he’d repeated to himself a million times before. classmates, bystanders, regular customers had come to ignore it, just thought it part of his charm, a quirky little thing about him; he treated them nicely, always made a point of chirping a melodic hello, how are you when he recognized them and when the conversation or transaction was over, his fingers were sent tapping or writing, his lips set in motion of whatever song was on his mind that moment.
it was the coveted black covered moleskine journal that was most recognizable, though, spine so worn that it couldn’t lay closed correctly without the help of the elastic band, pages practically bursting at the seams with overuse. the cover of the journal was well-kept, clean and smooth, but the contents were unknown to those who saw it, whatever tadashi was scribbling constantly kept under theoretical lock and key, the eighth wonder of the world.
and when authoring his thoughts in his well-loved black moleskine proved to not be enough either, he’d taken to publishing his writings online, bits and pieces from his journal that he deemed coherent enough to put out into the world. maybe , he’d thought as he was putting together a blog, maybe someone will read it and relate to it and think it’s good enough for them, too. all he wanted to do was find people who felt the same things as him, like he was in the clouds watching his own life unfold before him, a omniscient participant in his own story, but not the main character; he wanted to help people with those overwhelming feelings, even if all he was doing was making them know that their thoughts were echoed somewhere else in the world.
the blog grew little by little, just a couple of readers here and there, a comment or two on a poem he’d written on the train that morning during his commute to class ( this is beautiful or i’ve never felt so heard , things that made him sure that he wasn’t alone, that he’d never been alone like he thought he was).
then suddenly, click after click after click, the following was growing, faster than he’d ever expected it to (not that he’d even expected it at all). his words seemed to resonate with all kinds of people, those who felt the same way he did to those who were simply in love with the way he described his world so lyrically. the attention was unwarranted, he thought, undeserved, but still, he found himself humbled, validated by the comments readers left on posts, happy that people were listening to him finally, like his voice mattered to at least someone out there, even if they were on the other side of the globe.
tadashi hadn’t become an overnight sensation by any means, but he was receiving unofficial accolades from so many different people, so many different outlets that were hearing the whispers of an author who seemed to take the words right out of people’s mouths and crafted them into beautiful landscapes, portraits and reflections of the person reading without even having to see them in the flesh.
what he wasn’t expecting was that people would take his art and turn it into art of their own, actual paintings or working his words into poems that they’d written in response or setting his thoughts to music, all violin or cello or piano. no matter the medium, seeing his chaotic, disordered thinking turned into something even more beautiful sent him into fits of glee, dark eyes shining with tears as he read words of encouragement or stories of how artists had felt so inspired and heard by his words that they just had to incorporate his influence into their art. he was so much more far reaching than he’d ever thought he’d be, not only making people feel seen but moved to channeling him into their unique outlets.
tadashi’s life had become so bright, no longer artificially vivid as he had described it so many times before; no, this was a different kind of brightness like sunshine was finally breaking through blackout curtains, finding its way through blinds and fabric, tearing through them to ignite a room bathed in pitch. by no means was the attention a cure (his mind was still a fast moving bullet train of half baked prose and broken stanzas, his fingers still tapped out indiscriminate melodies, his mouth still moved to the song playing from his head’s record player), but to know that he was no longer alone in the way he lived his life as a dream helped him in his day to day routine.
he’d once written that he felt he’d never lived in the moment, never relished in the warmth of a current present, too busy looking back on his past or fretting about what was around the corner in his future, but as that figurative sunlight lit up that figurative dark room, he found himself trying to stand right in the heat of the moment, to capture the richness of his surroundings and the happiness in it, determined to make them memories he could look back on and know that they were as happy as he remembered them to be.
and in doing so, he’d met the walking beam of sunlight that sat next to him in his morning world religions lecture on mondays, wednesdays, and fridays. kei tsukishima was as radiant as he was chilly, voice warm but dripping with a bitterness that, despite it all, still drew tadashi in like a moth to lamplight.
it had started out as simply making small talk while they waited for their professor to show up for class and had escalated into weekend study sessions where kei would help tadashi understand things that he was struggling with and tadashi would return the favor by paying for coffee or lunch or whatever because kei was the smartest person he had ever met and kei never needed help studying for anything.
and one evening as tadashi was seeing kei out of his apartment, kei looked at tadashi like he had single handedly put all the stars in the night sky and it was as if tadashi had suddenly been enveloped in a towel fresh from the dryer, warmth seeping into him to ward away the cold that taken up home in his bone marrow.
he’d gone to his blog after kei left and written about the fleeting second where kei had smiled at him so softly, a rarity that was granted to very few people, and how it had been like a heater had come to life and begun to melt the snow that lay before it, revealing grass that was on its way to recovery, seeking to fade from murky brown to emerald green.
and when kei returned the next day and asked tadashi if he wanted to do something sometime, outside of coursework, tadashi’s mind had immediately faded from the dead of winter to a spring season full of life, vivid flowers and sunshine and a breeze that kept the world from getting too hot.
he said yes.
and when kei walked tadashi home after their date, when kei leaned in and whispered that tadashi had pretty eyes, when kei kissed him right there, right on the doorstep, his lips soft and tasting faintly of vanilla, tadashi found that he was finally happy in the heat of a moment, caught up in the softness of kei’s sweater and the warmth of his presence.
i don’t think i’m lying anymore , he wrote that night, skin still tingling where kei’s touch had been, all addicting static electricity dancing across his body. i think i’m really in love this time. deeper than facade, more than surface level. real, honest love. indiscriminate. i’m not waiting, i’m finally living. and it’s beautiful.
when he finally made it official with kei, when they’d finally declared their relationship as boyfriends, tadashi could say with certainty that he was no longer lying, really was in love. he was in love with every part of kei, even the parts that were less than desirable like the way he hogged the blankets or left dirty dishes on the counter instead of the sink.
he was obsessed with being able to say that he’d finally found love past surface level, past the disguise he’d fallen for so many times in his teenagehood. it wasn’t just the cold, unbotheredness of kei’s exterior that he was in love with, but the way he’d hold tadashi’s hand as they walked out of class together and the way he’d tilt his head in thought as he listened to their professor lecture and the way he’d subconsciously let his foot or knee fall against tadashi’s as they studied together. it was the little things he’d picked up on, kei’s personal quirks that set him apart from everyone else, that he was in love with the most.
kei’s influence, the sunshine he emitted without even realizing, exerted a beautiful kind of power of tadashi’s work. what was once a log of all the times where he’d felt like he was watching his life through the viewfinder of a camera were now the backdrop for the poems he’d write about the way kei looked in the morning, bathed in flaxen sunlight, or the way kei had picked up on his bout of anxiety and gone out of the way to bring him a care package or the way kei had…
what was once an overwhelming space of the struggles of depersonalization and depression had now been pushed to the back burner in favor of the trials and tribulations of really being in love, what it was like to finally experience something that he’d been waiting so long to obtain. he chronicled how much he still hurt, but how wonderful it felt to still have someone by his side, to know that his person would never leave him, even when things got difficult.
it’s like this candle that i’ve been carrying with me was finally lit after years of thinking it was too damaged to ignite. love isn’t an antidote or a cure, but knowing that the person who lit my candle will tend to the flame is more than enough to keep me afloat.