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badly… kei wanted him so embarrassingly badly . what had been a dumb high school crush had turned into a college near-obsession. he’d been friends with tadashi yamaguchi for years at this point, a relationship that had been forged in the late years of elementary school when he’d protected the boy from a couple of schoolyard bullies.
what he hadn’t anticipated was the shift in his affections towards his friend once they’d reached high school. what had once been just walking to and from school together had become a highly anticipated event every single day. his fingers twitched, wanting nothing more than to slot themselves between tadashi’s own in a chaste gesture. what had once been just a friendly yeah, see you tomorrow text had become a fond goodnight message, at least on kei’s end.
and that longing to just reach out and link his hand with tadashi’s, to wrap his arm around the boy’s shoulders in a way that was less than platonic, to have tadashi gaze at him the way he gazed at tadashi became an inconsolable yearning as high school went on, an eternal flame that burned so brightly in kei’s heart. a part of the blond was glad to just be by his friend’s side, but another part wanted so desperately to be something more, to be something that was vivid and admirable and beyond gorgeous; he wanted the friends to lovers arc, the high school sweetheart story, he wanted to be able to hold tadashi’s hand in public and be able to say yeah i’ve been in love with him since our first year of high school confidently to anyone who asked how long they’d been together.
kei was always blunt with his words, with his feelings, treasuring honesty and forwardness over bashfulness, but when it came to tadashi, the last thing he wanted to do was mess up the relationship he already had . tadashi was the only person in his life who really truly liked him, the only person he could consider friend and if he admitted to tadashi that he had feelings from him, especially without the proof that tadashi reciprocated those feelings, kei would surely ruin what he had with the boy and he didn’t know what he’d do with himself if he lost that relationship, too important to lose.
so high school came and went with intense pining, a sharp stabbing feeling deep in kei’s soul that hurt him more than his skin tearing when he blocked strong spikes from even stronger opponents, hurt more than accidentally twisting an ankle or hurting his knee. he’d experienced so much bodily harm, especially during his time as a volleyball player, and still, if anyone asked him what his most painful injury had been, he’d answer immediately with heartbreak .
college came and went in a haze, the pair staying close as they both attended the same university. they shared an apartment, shared meals, shared personal space when they accidentally fell asleep on the couch during movie nights. they followed hinata and kageyama’s adventures as professional volleyball players, they went shopping together, they did everything friends did, even though kei wished that deep down, things would change.
and then there was a certainty that things would not change, would never change because not long after kei turned twenty-one, tadashi brought home his new girlfriend; she was some gorgeous, soft haired brunette with mismatched eyes and freckles that matched his own and a smile that lit up the room with a name that kei couldn’t ever remember because he just didn’t care to. tadashi brushed off his forgetfulness as some side effect of working too hard, studying too much, thinking nothing of it, reminding kei of the girl’s name every single time he mentioned that she was coming over.
an apartment that once smelled like coffee and crisp laundry detergent soon added a floral aroma to the mix, all refreshing but unwelcome within the walls of the abode, though it was only unwelcome to kei rather than tadashi, who remarked on it with a whimsical fondness. our apartment finally smells good , he’d said.
the first time kei noticed that his home, the one he shared with the unwitting love of his life, was making room for a third person (her coffee mug left in the cabinet, her favorite drink in the fridge, her extra pair of shoes left by the door) was also the first time he’d coughed up the foreboding petal. it was small in the large expanse of his pale palm, a pure white that reminded him of innocence, of childhood when adult worries were of no concern. the petal carried with it a faint woody, sweet scent, one that faded quickly and it suddenly clicked in his head: heather, the same fragrance that had taken over his every waking moment in his apartment.
he’d been surprised when he’d first choked up the heather petals into his hands (he’d been pining over tadashi for the last five years for fuck’s sake), but when he realized it was because it had finally been confirmed in bold text that his feelings were unrequited, it all made sense. there had been the slightest bit of a chance that tadashi might like him back, but now that he was with the girl who carried the faint scent of heather with her, it was official: kei had no chance, had never had a chance.
he had never seen the appeal in going out to the clubs, to parties and bars to get fucked up on bad alcohol and maybe meet a one night stand, but now, with tadashi’s girlfriend over almost every friday and saturday night, he needed something to dull the pain. he couldn’t stand coming out of his room to see the couple shacked up on the couch, couldn’t stand the way his heart stopped so painfully in its home inside his ribs, couldn’t stand the way his mind imagined being the one with tadashi instead, what it would look like, feel like to cuddle up next to tadashi on the couch, watching a dumb movie, kissing every so often when the film got boring.
he couldn’t stand any of it and so he started going out when the girl came over for the night. he hated how loud clubs were, hated how hot they were, hated everything about them. he’d spend his nights sitting at the bar or at a table in a far corner, nursing some cheap drink because he couldn’t afford anything better to really and truly get him fucked up enough to forget. he took to people watching, his eyes, obscured behind glasses reflecting the bright lights of the stage and dancefloor, picking out the most interesting people to revel in.
it became an addiction, observing from the shadows and nursing a smirnoff ice or something inexpensive. he singled out all kinds of people: a girl with a bubblegum pink pixie cut throwing it back on a tall girl with lip piercings and fishnets, a tall boy in jeans and beat up converse awkwardly holding a bottle of beer as his friends danced in front of him, a couple making out just on the outskirts of the dancefloor. his mind wandered to what the lives of these strangers looked like: what was their favorite food? did they have a comfort movie? what was their college major? what did their morning routine look like? did they like their eggs scrambled or over easy?
it was these questions he pondered about them that made him fall in love with complete ghosts. he loved the girl with the bright pink hair because she was so carefree in her dancing, exuding true happiness. he loved the boy with the scuffed black hightops because he cared for his friends, his hands tucked protectively over the tops of glasses and bottles. he loved the couple on the outskirts of the dancefloor because they were so unbothered by their surroundings, so confident in their love for another, and ready to show it off for the entire galaxy.
eventually, kei phased into joining these people on the dancefloor, easing himself into their own little worlds that they welcomed him into with open arms. he partied with them as often as he could, dancing between these strangers like a pinball in a pinball machine, and he started having more fun than he’d ever had since high school. he felt good , he liked being able to tell tadashi i’m going to see some friends when the dark haired boy asked where he was off to so late on a friday night; it was like taking a stab at his roommate and best friend, a subtle way of saying i have more friends outside of just you, i don’t need you to function anymore .
and when he started kissing these club friends, though platonically or romantically he couldn’t tell, there was a freeness that came with it like he really didn’t need to be with tadashi to have a good time, didn’t even need to think about the boy waiting for him at home anymore. he liked feeling needed, liked feeling wanted, feeling desired . when the boy with well-loved converse kissed in him the middle of the dancefloor one friday night, his palms at his cheeks, nose bumping against his own, kei didn’t feel anything less than lightheaded, reveling in the warmth of the man’s dark caress, a person he hardly knew outside of their late night escapades on friday nights.
he’d picked out these strangers, picked out the little things about them that were perfect, and chosen to fall in some flimsy copy of love. none of it was real, the worlds he’d created inside his head were most certainly far from the truth, but he liked living in the fantasies that he’d taken the time to craft, liked believing in them for just a handful of hours every weekend. every friday and saturday night, he could imagine that the boy with the converse was majoring in graphic design and preferred toast over eggs, liked studio ghibli movies and had a crush on howl pendragon. he could believe that the bubblegum pink girl liked french toast and coffee, watched foreign films, and liked anime more than anything else in the world. the couple on the edge of the dancefloor were into dark things, liked going ghost hunting, and had an artsy apartment that was cozy and home to more than just themselves.
and though he could get lost in these people for hours at a time, could tuck his sorrows into converse boy’s lips as they made out in the dark corners of their club, could pretend like everything was okay as bubblegum girl cheered him on as he bottoms upped a shot like he wasn’t trying to wash back the snow white heather petals that were stuck in his throat, returning home was like a bullet to the heart. he’d stumble home drunk and have to see tadashi and his girlfriend fast asleep on the couch, and the flowers would make their devilish little ways back to the surface and kei would have to make a beeline to his room before he could cough up the clumps of delicate little petals.
he couldn’t fool himself, couldn’t fool his disease that he wasn’t in love with tadashi, no matter how many times he let the boy with the converse take his face in his hands and push him back against the wall. it didn’t matter whether he let bubblegum hair girl tell him she loved him as they danced together or the couple rope him into their shenanigans. things still circled back to tadashi, they would always circle back to that godforsaken boy and kei couldn’t tell whether it was the worst thing on earth or the best thing.
despite it all, despite the fact that he had to hide the petals that he choked up every day, he couldn’t bring himself to hurt tadashi. the last thing he ever wanted to do was make tadashi cry, was hurt his feelings, was break his heart. the dark haired boy had a soul threaded with pure gold . out of the seven billion people on the planet, kei deserved tadashi’s companionship the least; kei had never, ever, ever done anything to deserve the love and friendship that tadashi had given him. he could never take any of that for granted and telling tadashi after all this time, especially now that the boy had a girlfriend that he was so entirely dedicated to, that he had feelings… he couldn’t imagine the emotional strife that he’d be responsible for making tadashi go through. he couldn’t do it.
and so time went on, moved on easily for all, except for kei.
converse boy eventually stopped coming to the club, wanting to focus more on his coursework, though he gave kei his phone number so they could keep in touch because they had become fairly good friends. the girl with the bubblegum pink hair transferred schools and left without a word, her friend with the piercings following her shortly after, too torn up with not seeing her every day. the couple, newly engaged, didn’t have the time or the emotional capacity to casually involve kei in their dealings anymore and skipped town entirely.
kei was back to square one, picking out traits in strangers at bars and chugging drink after drink in an effort to keep the heather petals down, little tokens of bad omens, dark and foreboding despite the stark white of them. it left a bad taste in his mouth that white heather was supposed to represent wishes coming true and good luck when everything in his life was crashing down around him.
he’d thought he’d hit rock bottom when his coping mechanisms had bounced on him, left him alone to inhabit the shadows of dingy bars and overwhelming clubs, but he’d been proven wrong when tadashi sat him down halfway through the week, a nervous look on his face.
“so hisako and i have been talking about this for a while, but since you’d be most affected by it, obviously we want your approval,” he said, eyes downcast as he picked at the skin around his fingernails.
“what?” kei said nonchalantly, trying his best to look and sound unbothered, though he wanted to be literally anywhere but there, having any other conversation but this specific one.
tadashi’s dark gaze flitted up to him, apprehension curdling in his eyes. “i want her to move in with us and before you get all up in arms about it, her roommate is dropping out of college to move home and hisako can’t afford rent by herself. it-”
“whatever,” kei said, immediately regretting the way it came out, all sharp edges and bitterness that left a bad taste in his mouth. he could feel the beginnings of a cough, though this time, there was a more acute pain in his chest, like he was being stabbed right through the heart. “it’s fine, really. it doesn’t matter to me.”
tadashi looked taken aback, both by the tone of kei’s voice and by the look of pure agony that was probably written all the way across kei’s features. “are you sure? i know you aren’t too fond of her and this is your home, too-”
“she-” kei choked up, pressing a hand to his mouth and the other to his chest. this was worse than before, a torturous feeling that overtook his whole body as he tried not to cough up the flower petals that were rising in his throat.
“kei? what’s going on? are you okay?” tadashi’s voice was full of worry, shaking and uneven as he pushed himself to stand and lean across the table.
the blond pulled his hand away from his torso, waving his friend off before he turned away. “i’m fine. it’s nothing.”
“tsukki-”
“i said i’m fine , tadashi,” kei snapped harshly, his voice tinged with poison. “she can move in. she’s here all the time anyways.”
he began sulking back towards his bedroom, eyes narrowed as he tried to keep himself from crying from the agony that had taken hold of his entire body. why is it so much worse this time? is it because tadashi and hisako are getting more serious? what’s going on?
“seriously, kei,” tadashi said, his voice quiet. when the blond stopped and glanced at him from over his shoulder, he realized that the boy was still stood at the table, but wasn’t looking at him. “we’re best friends. you can tell me anything. if you don’t want her to move in, she won’t and i won’t move out and leave you high and dry like that. it’s not a big deal to me if you don’t want her to live here. it won’t hurt our feelings.”
they stood there like that for a long beat of silence, tadashi’s eyes focused entirely on where kei had been sitting just moments before and kei staring back at his roommate, tears wholeheartedly threatening to spill over his waterline. in the heat of the moment, the pain in kei’s chest had stilled, but when the quiet stretched into minutes, it returned in full force, guns ablaze.
kei had to do everything in his power to not collapse right there.
the agony in his chest had been something so much worse than he’d thought.
i’ve signed my death warrant , he’d realized as he sat on his bedroom floor, tears free falling over the fullsize heather flower in full bloom, stem, roots, and all.
it got harder to hide his affliction once hisako moved in. what was once a bathroom shared by two people became one shared by three, with the third treating it like a second home within a home. kei could no longer hope to lock himself behind the door and vomit his pure white petals into the toilet and sit on the floor until he felt well enough to stand.
he didn’t even feel safe in his own bedroom, kneeling over his wastebasket and trying to quietly choke up the flowers that had glued themselves to the inside of his throat. it was painful, trying to cough without alerting anyone.
it had been easy in the days before the girl had moved in because it had been less severe, had been able to be covered up with it’s just allergies . now, though, he was in a constant cycle of agony. his body waltzed carelessly between ease and agony, like he was just along for the ride. he’d spend hours upon hours coughing up everything between a tiny petal or two to a full grown plant, long tendrils of white heather that reminded him of winter and untouched fields of white snow.
he didn’t know how to cover it up anymore. he couldn’t keep lying about why he was running off to the bathroom and throwing up, couldn’t explain why he spent hours at a time locked away in his bedroom, couldn’t explain a random stray petal that had elected to not end up in the trash or toilet without coming out about his feelings for tadashi, without fucking up everything he’d built with the brunette and everything the brunette had built with the girl who shared his bed.
kei had decided long ago that he’d rather die choking up flowers than ever ruin the only extra-familial relationship that mattered to him. tadashi’s happiness had always been paramount to any of his own feelings and so, it was with a heavy heart that kei carried the burden that tadashi would never love him the way he loved tadashi. he’d never minded it that way, never cared much that he put tadashi ahead of himself; it was just the natural order of things.
even presented with the option of surgery, he had chosen to pull heather out of his mouth because dying poetically of unrequited love than never loving again seemed more merciful to him.
things settled in with hisako, though. kei had picked a routine that meant that he saw her as little as possible because seeing her was always, always followed by hunks of petals and full grown plants. the only good thing, he’d decided, that came out of her moving in was the constant scent of food that wafted from the kitchen. the only trait of hisako’s that kei cared about was the fact that she liked to cook and bake, which meant there was always something going on in the kitchen; most days, she was baking cookies and cakes, but the nights she cooked dinner, kei appreciated her a little more, despite the fact that even seeing her made his throat close in apprehension of petals.
it was dinner that had sealed his downfall.
she’d called his and tadashi’s names, drawing them out of their bedrooms and into the dining room where dinner was waiting their arrivals. she’d made a grand meal for the three of them and she was standing proudly at her spot, a victorious smile on her face and hands placed on her hips.
“i hope you boys like it! i worked really hard on it,” she’d said, eyes shining proudly as she watched them take their seats.
dinner had been eaten in conversation between the couple with only occasional input from kei when they asked him a question or wanted his opinion on something, which was just the way he liked it; the more they left him out of their discussions, the less he had to pay attention to hisako and the less the chance his lungs would hurt later as he coughed up his petals.
as he was wrapping up his meal, a wave of agony washed over him, his head pounding with an acute sharpness at his temples and his hands trembling like leaves caught in a harsh wind. he blinked to right himself, but found that he still felt hazy.
“i think… i’m going to go lay down, if you don’t mind. i’m not feeling very well,” he said, settling his hands on the table so he could stabilize himself and stand.
tadashi and hisako’s conversation came to an immediate halt, both of them looking at him with worry in their gaze.
“that’s fine, kei,” tadashi responded, his voice confused. “we’ll take care of your plate. it’s no big deal.”
“how bad are you feeling?” hisako chimed in, her own tone laced with a concern that made kei’s heart physically hurt. “you look really sick, kei.”
he shrugged them off nonchalantly. “just some nausea. i’ll be alright.”
famous last words , he thought as he stood, immediately pressing a hand to his mouth as he coughed roughly, his throat raw with the effort. his palm, he noticed when he pulled it away, was coated in a thin layer of crimson, the usual pure white heather now tainted with red. he could feel petals sticking to his lips and as he fell to the floor, he could see the realization cross the faces of his best friend and his worst enemy.
kei’s eyes squinted against harsh fluorescent white, the lights above him nearly blinding him as he awoke. his nose scrunched as he breathed in, the combination of the smell of sterilization and the bright lights assaulting his senses with no mercy. he didn’t need to observe his surroundings to know that he wasn’t in his own home, but rather in an uncomfortable hospital bed, a scratchy blanket covering him up for warmth.
“oh, thank god you’re awake.”
tadashi .
kei turned his head to the left, his eyes falling on the boy sitting right next to his bed. it was only then that he realized that tadashi was holding his hand , warm fingertips pressing into his freezing palm. it was a feeling that he’d never thought he’d experience and he was reveling in it.
“what happened?” kei asked, voice raspy with disuse. “how long was i out?”
tadashi’s eyes wavered, tears resting at his waterline. “just a few days.”
“what happened?” he repeated, just wanting to hear tadashi confirm what he already knew to be true.
“you were getting up to go lay down because you said you felt sick,” tadashi started, his fingers tightening around kei’s hand. “and then you were coughing up blood and flowers and you passed out.”
kei breathed in, turning his gaze back to the ceiling. there was a burning behind his eyes.
“the petals… those were yours, kei. the doctor said you have one of the worst cases of hanahaki she’s seen in a long time. why didn’t you tell me?”
the blond shrugged the best he could in his position, not breaking his eyes from the ceiling tile he’d locked on. “i didn’t want to worry you.”
“we’re best friends, kei,” tadashi said, his voice wavering tearfully. “i want to worry about you. i want you to worry me, so that we can sort out things like this.”
kei’s eyes stung like he’d been staring into the sun for too long, the way his skin stung when he got sunburns on his arms and cheeks. he couldn’t cry, couldn’t let tadashi know that this worried him, that this was all because tadashi didn’t love him back. he couldn’t do that to tadashi, not right now, not when he had tadashi’s warm hands on his cold ones.
“i’m sorry, tadashi,” he said softly, finally bringing his gaze back to his friend’s. “i should have told you. i’m sorry.”
i shouldn’t have told you. i’m glad that i didn’t.
“who is it? who-”
“i don’t wanna talk about this right now. maybe later.”
tadashi nodded in understanding, sniffling before he smiled as brightly as he could. they spent the rest of the day talking about everything under the sun, but dancing around what kei knew tadashi really wanted to talk about.
as night fell, so did tadashi’s energy. kei couldn’t bring himself to tell the boy to go home, knowing he’d fight tooth and nail to stay anyways; it wasn’t worth the argument, so when the brunette’s chin dipped against his chest and the conversation they were having petered out, kei smiled and squeezed at tadashi’s fingers, which hadn’t left his all day.
the first thing he noticed was that he was struggling to breathe, his chest shaking with the effort as he raggedly drew in air. he’d had shortness of breath like this before, especially in the earlier stages of his affliction, but now it was painful, even more so in the moment because he didn’t want to wake tadashi. he committed himself to coughing under his breath, trying to keep his body from shaking too much.
as he lay there, picking petals from his hands and trying to keep the full grown flowers he knew were going to overtake his lungs soon, kei reveled in the memory of tadashi’s warm fingertips curling gently into his palms, dancing gracefully across his cold skin.
“you, tadashi,” he whispered into the silence. “it’s always been you.”
sometime in the night, kei tsukishima had drawn his last breath. when tadashi woke in the morning, kei’s fingers had gone rigid against his own and he looked pale. there was dried blood at his lips and petals were stuck to his skin. despite it all, tadashi thought, he looked peaceful; kei looked a lot more peaceful than he had in a really long time.
when all was said and done, when the doctors and orderlies took kei away, when tadashi was given what the hospital had of kei’s and sent home, when he’d passed through the doorway, he’d realized how empty he felt.
“‘dashi? how-”
hisako’s words died in her throat, mind cutting her short as her eyes fell upon the blank look of tadashi’s face.
“i want to be alone right now,” he mumbled, arms, full of kei’s things, shaking violently. “just… give me some space, hisako. please.”
he was grateful for the way she stepped aside and made no move to follow him as he tracked the path to kei’s room, one that he knew like the back of his hand. the moment he stepped inside, took in the way kei’s room had been left, he broke. fitful sobs fell past his lips as he collapsed, clutching kei’s sweater to his chest, unable to bring himself to care about the blood that stained the collar and the sleeves.
if asked, he’d never be able to tell anyone how long he sat there, wailing like a dying animal, just that his knees ached tremendously when he stood, his joints stiff with dehydration and however long without movement. his eyes stung with tears that he could no longer cry, his hands trembling with unbridled emotion.
he wanted to scream so desperately at kei, at hisako, at the entire world. he was angry and sad and so, so upset. why hadn’t kei told him? didn’t he trust him? why had hisako burrowed herself so deeply into his heart and consumed him so entirely that he couldn’t notice something was wrong with his best friend in the entire world? why did the world hate him so much? had he done something wrong?
as he staggered through kei’s room, uneven on his feet as he shook with dry sobs, he wanted to destroy the whole thing, rip apart everything that belonged to him, everything that was so distinctly kei tsukishima: the desk organizer, the volleyball posters framed on the wall, the shoes lined neatly by his door, all of it, every single bit .
but when he looked around, took in the way the bed was made, the way the room smelled like kei’s favorite laundry detergent, he felt so at home like he was welcome in this room. he’d spent so much time in kei’s bedroom and he was just now realizing that he felt so much more cozy here, so much more wanted .
wiping at his face, tadashi placed kei’s clothes in his laundry basket, tucked his shoes in their place by the door, set his phone on his desk, put things where they belonged just like kei always did. it was only then that he noticed the journal that resided in the middle of kei’s desk, pen tucked atop the cover.
i shouldn’t. it’s kei’s , he reasoned with himself, but there was something compelling him to reach out, brush his fingers across the little bound book, faux leather soft beneath his fingertips. maybe he’d want me to. maybe i’ll get some answers .
and so he did.
and he kept it with him, a keepsake of how unconditional, pure love was supposed to be, even if it wasn’t reciprocated.
i realized today that i’m in love with tadashi. i was watching him work on his jump float serve with asahi and noya, and he served one that neither of them could get. when he landed and realized that he’d just scored a service ace, he looked at me and it just… clicked. even if he never feels the same way towards me, i like knowing that i love someone. it’s nice.
it’s been six years since i realized i love tadashi. hisako’s moved in now. i want to hate her so badly, i want her to move out and not come over anymore, but she always wants me to have the first cookie or the first slice of cake. how can i hate her when she’s always so kind to me? i coughed up my second full flower today. it hurt so badly, i feel like my throat is ripped up. i wish i could tell tadashi how i feel, but even if i did, there’s no chance he feels the same and so this pain would stay anyways. i don’t even care anymore. if i end up dying, i’ll die knowing i love tadashi more than anything else in the world. that’s the only thing that matters to me. his happiness matters the most and so i’ll suffer. i’d suffer a thousand more lifetimes if i had to, just to see tadashi smile, even if he’s not smiling at me.