Chapter Text
It’s almost moving day, a day I’ve been dreading for the past month or so. Boxes of old memories had been resurfaced… photos, postcards, and little mementos from high school littered throughout the mundane contents of the boxes. If Tashiro was here to help me pack, he’d say something along the lines of, “Lighten up Kurokawa, you have your life ahead of you! No need to dwell on the past!” But I couldn’t help myself. I probably wouldn’t be seeing the rowdy bunch that I called my volleyball team again.
I had placed three photos, all taken by Suga, in a special box with other things my kouhai gave me. The first photo depicted a cloud with the sun’s rays peeking through, the second being stars reflected across a puddle, and the third was of a blood red moon.
Suga gave me the first photo when he joined the volleyball team. It was a fun time in my life, where I didn’t have to control five crazy first years. Or rather, Noya and Tanaka controlled me. I smile at the picture, letting it consume my thoughts for the first time in ages.
-
“Hello, Suga was it?” I asked when he came up to me, looking like he had a question.
“Yes.”
“Spit it out.”
“I was that obvious wasn’t I?” He laughed a bit, “I was wondering if it would be possible to change somewhere else?”
I thought for a moment, and shrugged. “I guess, I’m not sure where you could go, but I won’t stop you from finding somewhere.”
His face passed through a few emotions before landing on relieved. “Thank you.”
“No problem. Just make sure to arrive on time.”
“Will do.”
-
The day after Suga joined the team, he handed me the picture. It’s nice, almost like the calm before the storm, where the sun barely peeks through the cloud cover. And boy did the storm come.
I take a long look at the second photo: the stars shimmering in a small body of water, looking like someone just threw glitter in it and thought that was good enough for a photo. But I knew they were stars, since Suga apologized after giving me this, and told me what they were. My brain short circuits at the memory. I should've been the one to apologize.
-
Suga turned his head towards me, looking away from the stars. “I feel like we’re gonna make it big one day. I know we will… Win nationals and all that.”
“I doubt we will.” I paused, thinking over my words for a moment. “We can try all we want, but there’s always going to be someone better.”
Suga sat up, sighing, “I guess. Doesn’t stop us from trying though.”
“Why though? Why do you, Daichi and Asahi try so hard?”
“Because we want to win. We want to get better. We thrive playing volleyball, playing competitively…” Suga trailed off, looking back at the stars shimmering overhead. “Tell me Kurokawa, what’s stopping you from trying?”
I looked up at Suga, and see his eyes downcast. My hands twitched a bit in the sand, imagining it boiling into glass. But the water lapped at my feet, cooling my head and grounding me. “The fact that our team will never be good enough. We had our five minutes of fame and that’s it. I doubt we would even be able to scrape past our second match.”
“You’re too cynical.” Suga pouted.
“What?”
“Being cynical doesn’t automatically mean you have good judgement.” He shrugged. “Sure, you’ve played more than me, and you’ve been in the club for longer, but being doubtful of our success will only bring us down further… All of us, not just yourself.”
“Suga—”
He stood up, brushing the dirt off his legs, “Who hurt you? Why are you acting like we don’t stand a chance? We will get past those first two matches, I promise.”
Suga left the park in a huff, vanishing into the milky darkness of one in the morning as the light no longer reached him.
-
In the end, we didn’t even win one match. I frown at the memory of everyone looking so disappointed. The first years were so committed, and Tashiro so optimistic. If only…
I shake my head. There’s one last photo, the blood moon. Suga gave me this one the day after he was feeling sick, when he couldn’t come to practice. He never skipped unless necessary, so it must’ve been pretty bad.
-
“Suga won’t be in today.” I said after Daichi came up to me, asking where he was.
“Is he alright?”
“Should be, he just said he was sick.”
“Ah... okay, thanks for letting me know.” Daichi walked back towards Asahi, probably relaying the news. Asahi looked like he was about to be sick, until Daichi must’ve said something to calm him down. I could tell they were good kids, and I suspected they liked each other in one form or another, but I wasn’t about to say anything about it. If they wanted to tell me they would, and I wasn’t the type to want to gossip, so I kept it to myself.
The next practice, Suga came up to me, holding the photo in extended arms. “I’m sorry I missed practice. It might happen again, but I’ll try to push through it.”
I raised an eyebrow, taking a look at the glossy paper and taking it. “No worries. If you’re not feeling well, please don’t come to practice, especially if it’s contagious.”
“Ah.” Suga looked surprised for a moment, before nodding. “I won’t.”
-
I take one last look at the photo, running my fingers along the edges of the paper, and come to a realization. It’s a lunar eclipse, and this one is as red as blood. If this is what I think it is, Suga may’ve been trying to send me a message. Maybe I’m just assuming. But it’s too late now anyways, so I lay the photo down next to the others, and close that box, moving onto the next.