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Osamu promised his mother he would never do drugs. He broke that promise when he fell in love.
He always knew what he was doing, no matter how unaffected he looked on the surface. He was aware of his skills in volleyball, and even more so of what he wanted to do in the future. He’d never felt empty or aimless, unlike most teenagers his age. So why, when he met you, all he could think of was ‘where had you been all his life’?
You popped the lock to his heart open, a mischievous grin and hairpin in one hand. He didn’t even know the lock was there in the first place. He never knew how much his heart could hold until you came along and filled the space with the smell of your hair and the light in your smile. You matched his sarcastic comments with equally snarky jokes, afternoons dissolving into giggles and laughs. He laughed like he’d never laughed before, tears in his eyes and cheeks hurting. And when he looked at you, teeth and eyes shining, his heart stuttered to a pause for a second. It was at that moment he decided that he would keep you all his life, an arm around your waist and a kiss on your forehead.
He should’ve known it wouldn’t last. He didn’t get to have nice things. Those were for ‘Tsumu, for you. Both of you were people with hunger in your eyes and ambition set in the lines of your mouth. You’d climb and climb until there were no stairs left, and then you’d leap off and fly. And fly you did. 9,723 kilometres away.
He was never enough for you. For either of you.
“‘Samu!” Your voice lit up the kitchen even before you switched on the lights to fight off the slowly descending darkness.
“Hmm?” He turned to you, one hand resting on his hip as the other held a spatula. Dinner sizzled on a pan.
“I got the offer! They gave me the offer!” You jumped up and down, your phone in your hand. He felt himself smile at the contagious grin adorning your face.
“What offer?”
“A promotion!” You stepped closer to him and shoved your phone in his face. He spotted the logo of your company on the screen before you started jumping again. “I’m going to Italy!”
Italy. 9723 kilometres away. Suddenly, the distance between the both of you as you beamed at him in the kitchen felt even farther.
“Oh. What…”
What about us?
He caught himself before he could say that. He couldn’t be this selfish. You had family to take care of. That’s why you were working so hard, after all. He knew you. You’d lob everything on your shoulders with a smile, telling everyone that everything was okay. Only he saw you when you gave out beneath the weight, clawing at your hair and viciously biting your lower lip.
He knew you. Knew your ambitions, your responsibilities, your stubbornness. And that was why he had to let you go.
Silence threatened to suffocate the both of you as you realised what the offer meant. Neither of you wanted to look at the elephant in the room. If it meant one more night of oblivious bliss, so be it.
You were scheduled to leave the next morning; your boss remained a non-negotiable attitude about it. Osamu wanted to laugh out loud. He didn’t get to have nice things. He didn’t even get to say a proper goodbye.
The silence was a bit lighter while you were asleep. He climbed out of the bed you shared, careful not to wake you. He didn’t know how he managed that with how hard-to-control his breathing was. He pushed the sliding doors open and stumbled onto the balcony, half-blind in the darkness.
He promised his mother he would never do drugs. He now realised why she had been so strict about it, as the winter air seemed warm in comparison to the chill in his heart. He was addicted, and now that you were leaving, now that he couldn’t have you anymore, he felt like he was burning up inside, from his diaphragm to the tear glands above his eyes.
Vines closed his throat and mist clouded his vision. Raindrops fell from the black clouds in his eyes. A storm of sobs wrecked his body and thunder shook his shivering form. He cried and cried until he felt like his heart would melt and drip onto the floor and he wouldn’t have to feel this pain.
“Don’t leave”, he pleaded to the pitch black sky, to the moon, to all the deities who could hear him, to anyone out there who could make you stay. Please don’t leave. ‘One day when I earn lots of money, I’ll buy you the best things!’, your voice echoed in his mind. I don’t need whatever crown they have for you out there, I don’t need you to give me anything. ‘You never ask anything from me, ‘Samu. I just take from you. I need to give back, you know. What do you want?’
I need you. Just you. Only you.
The yellow windows of the shinkansen were blurred as it passed outside. He hoped it would take his feelings away, all the way to Hokkaido for all he cared. He didn’t want them settling in his stomach, in the tear stains on the front of his shirt.
By the bedroom door, you muffled your sobbing with the blanket you’d stuffed in your mouth, the back of your hands wiping uselessly at your moist cheeks. Knives stabbed your chest again and again and again, and you thought that maybe this was the gods’ punishment for you.
The shinkansen moved away into the distance, and it didn’t carry anything away.
The drive to the airport was normal. Too normal. You saw right through Osamu’s jokes, fumbling to keep the ‘I’m okay’ mask in place. You didn’t have the strength to tell him to take it off and see the broken mess underneath.
Will you find something on this road? He thought. Will he find the strength to let you go? Will you find the will to stay? The airport came into view before either of you could salvage anything from the journey.
“Ya’d better go, Y/N, plane’s leavin’ in a few.” He gave you a heartbreaking forced smile, then turned to blend into the crowd.
“ ‘Samu,” you called out before you could think better of it. He stopped but didn’t turn to face you.
‘Samu, look at me.” Stormy grey eyes flitted up from the ground and met yours. You held back the tears building at the tip of your nose.
“This is the first time I’m asking you to do something. Be happy. Please. I’m - sorry.” Your voice cracked, and you took a deep breath to steady it. “I’m sorry that I can’t stay. I’m - I’m sorry that I don’t love you enough to drop everything for you. I really am. But you don’t deserve this. You deserve the world, ‘Samu.”
I’m sorry I can’t be the one to give it to you.
“So please. Forget me. Find someone else.” Your lips poorly act out a humorous smile, falling flat in its attempt. “You’ve always been Mr. Loverman, you know? Everyone wants you. It won’t be hard. So forget me, for both our sakes.”
You saw him crumble completely, years upon years of love and devotion falling to pieces at his feet. The expression on his face didn’t change.
“How?”
How could he go on when you’d given him a taste of what love was like? How could he forget you when all you’d given him were memories he wanted to lock in his heart for eternity? How could he let you leave when he’d promised himself to take care of you for the rest of his life?
How?
Maybe your science teachers were wrong, you thought as tears rolled down your cheeks, unbidden. Maybe your heart wasn’t made of cells that form tissues that form organs to continue your bodily functions. Maybe it was made of glass.
And maybe it breaks into a thousand pieces as he wrapped you in a crushing embrace.
“I’m sorry, ‘Samu,” you sobbed into his shoulder, body shaking as spasm after spasm of grief abused your heart. “I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry that I can’t say ‘I love you’ before I board the plane. I’m sorry that I can’t be your personal taste-tester for life. I’m sorry that I can’t wake you up when you sleep past your obnoxious alarm.
He remembered that he fell in love in the winter of his second year, fell in love with your scrunched nose half-hidden by your signature red scarf. And it was winter once again when he stared at the plain cutting through the clouds in the crisp winter sky.
His tears ran dry in spring.
Five years later
You inhaled Japan’s air, foreigners and locals alike bustling around you at the pickup spot outside the automatic glass doors. You cracked your neck and rubbed your eyes, already dreading the next day when you have to report back to headquarters to officially pick up the job as central manager.
It was winter, your breath materialising in the form of billowing mist as you let out a deep exhale. Through the water droplets hanging in the air, you see him.
He stood on the other side of the road, eyes casting about over the heads of the crowd. A shorter girl with brown hair and wide eyes stood on tiptoe and mirrored his actions, a hand clutching his shirt for support.
He saw you, and you were fifteen again.
“Y/N! Over here!” His face broke into a wide grin as he shouted, beckoning you over. The girl beside him dropped onto the soles of her feet and followed his gaze, beaming when she saw you. You checked to see that there were no cars pulling over to pick up passengers before crossing the road.
“ ‘Samu,” you greeted when you reached him, a hand on the handle of your luggage. He smiled warmly back.
“Welcome back, Y/N. Sorry about ‘Tsumu, he’s being an ass, I’ll get him to apologise -”
You waved away his apology on his brother’s behalf. You deserved Atsumu’s hostile attitude towards you. You winced inwardly as you recalled an angry phone call with him the day you left for Italy all those years ago, him spitting all the profanities in existence at you for breaking his twin’s heart. You’d bore all of that silently, knowing even without Atsumu’s barbed words that this was the punishment you deserved.
Osamu cleared his throat, circling his arm around the waist of the bright young girl next to him. “Anyways, Y/N, this is Ryoko, my fiancée. Ryoko, this is Y/N, my friend from high school.”
Ryoko flashed you a sweet smile, and you couldn’t help but smile back. You didn’t have the heart in you to loathe her. You didn’t have the right to. You didn’t have the right to feel upset or jealous. You chose this, you reminded yourself. What were you thinking, that Osamu was going to wait for you?
Time moves on. And so do people. What seemed impossible to Osamu the night he cried to the sky on the balcony was a reality now. He was happy and content. He’d fulfilled the only thing you’d ever asked him for.
“You seem very happy,” you observed.
“I am.”
You smiled, meaning it.
“I’m happy, for you.”