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The hot coffee in your hands slowly started to lose its warmth. You trace the lid with a gentle finger and feel the cold of the hazelnut latte you had picked up earlier.
The sunset falls on the Manhattan horizon. The skyhigh apartment you owned made the sun glare into the large windows as you looked over the busy streets. Your white coat slung over the couch and your stethoscope on top. The previous 25 hour shift was harsh but not overbearing. It was what you signed up for after signing to work in the US and becoming a ER surgeon.
It's been a while, 3 years. The age of 27 hitting hard in a few days as you ease into the American ER life. You had transferred into a medical school here after an offer and a set reason. A phone rings. You walk over to the countertop and pick it up.
Mom
You bring the phone to your ear as your mom’s voice on the other end fills up your thoughts.
“Hello dear!”
“Hey, mom.”
“How are you?”
“I am well. You?”
“Ah, just fine, your mother may be 55, but that does not mean I act it.”
“That is great,” you chuckle out.
“So, y/n.”
“Hm?”
“Any son in law?”
Your mother has been pushing for this for a while. You were peaking into your 30’s now, which is nothing wrong but, it was not what they had expected.
“No.”
“Oh.”
“Mom, if that is all you were going to call about. Then I will go rest, I had a long shift.”
“Why do you always overwork?”
“It is my job.”
“A job that leaves you no room to socialize?”
“No, it does allow me that time.”
“Is it you that keeps working?”
In reality, yes it was you. Working 24+ hour shifts nearly every other day. Your coworkers were worried, but you brushed them off like you could care less and kept going.
“Yes.”
“y/n, honey, you should take a break. Go out.”
“I sure will mom, I have tomorrow off.”
“That’s great, send me a few pics of the New York scenery would you? I haven’t been able to visit for a year.”
“I sure will.”
“Alright then, take care and remember.”
“Some mistakes get made and that’s alright, that’s ok,” you finished off.
Your mom chuckles on the other end, “Great, rest well.”
“Bye.”
Ending it in a sudden whisper. You headed to your room and tossed the phone to the sheets and looked at your shelves. They were decorated minimally with sleek books, small plants, and photos.
“Hey, Alexa, play some music.”
“Playing music.”
You start to strip off your clothing and walk into the bathroom for a shower, the music blaring in your apartment. You scrub down your body and come across old scars of you tripping, falling, and getting into accidents. Little imprints of the highschool life you had in Hyogo.
“Ay! SAMU!”
“AH!”
You land on your side and burn in your hip from what you assumed was the asphalt. Osamu stands up after toppling onto you from running backwards and helps you up.
“I am so sorry,” he immediately says, bowing.
You shake your head and wave your hands in front of you.
“No, no, it was my fault, I should have seen you.”
Another voice steps in.
“It’s not your fault if Osamu was walking backwards, he should have been aware.”
The environment turned cold. You still smiled, apologetically at the junior in front of you.
“Sorry Kita-san,” Osamu says and turns to you again, “Sorry miss.”
“Ah no,” you quietly spurt out, “Call me l/n. I am in Kita’s class.”
“Oh, I am truly sorry l/n-san.”
“It is alright.”
After that, Kita came to you the next day asking if you were hurt, but you said no so that you were not burdening anyone. Though, later on he found that hip scar otherwise. Many scratches formed because of your clumsiness, though Kita would scold you for it often after you were acquainted with their team after signing up for your last year of highschool.
You turn off the shower and throw on some silk pajamas and dry off your hair. Slipping on slippers, you walk out to the kitchen sink and lean on it, scrolling through social media. Occasionally looking up at the nightlife that has fallen on the Manhattan horizon. You had made some tea and slowly sipped on it when you came across a woman’s page, which caught your eye with the photo. Now you shifted from your chest leaning over the sink to leaning your back onto the countertop edge next to you.
You tap on the girl’s page.
Oh. He was doing great. That was well for him. I haven’t seen him for 3 years. Great, that he was doing so well.
You close your phone and the song lyrics started to come up as you traced along the shelf of your living room.
“So I never really knew you, god I really tried to.”
Pictures of you and highschool friends, family, and him. You met Kita through a project and became his friend that way and after you joined their team as a manager, you became one of his closest friends. His stern voice replays in your head like no other, nagging and scolding at your clumsiness.
“I am not clumsy no more, I’m a surgeon,” you whisper to yourself with a sincere yet sad smile.
Your finger traces the edge of a photo of you and Kita. A selfie you had taken with Kita looking at you with a subtle smile as you stared at the camera with your brightening smile. The cherry blossoms in the background were at full bloom that day and you decided to go check it out with Kita.
“Shin!”
“Hm?”
“Come on, let’s take a picture!”
“y/n, why?”
“Because, I want to remember this forever!”
Kita looks at you with his sweet eyes as you quickly take a photo of yourself without allowing Kita to agree.
“Thought we could do this, but really I was foolish.”
You move away from the photo as you look around the place you called home. It was no home of course. A 26 almost 27 year old girl from across the world in a sky high city apartment. Luxurious, but cold. The sleek furniture complemented by sage colors and plants on the contrast of black floors and shelving. The white countertops and dimmed lights gave the look of a modern home, but there was no warmth. Leaving the place you called home to find a new one has yet to be accomplished even after 3 years.
You shut off the kitchen lights and head into your bedroom once again, trying to hold onto some warmth. Though the heater was on, your heart was frigid cold. You set down the almost empty cup of tea on the coaster and looked at it.
A cheesy design of an egg was on it, which matched a bacon design on a cup he had, though maybe he does not have it any more.
“What is this y/n?”
“Hm???”
“This,” Kita said, raising the cups to you.
You giggle out. For his 21st birthday, you decided on these cute couple mugs and something else that was explicitly for him behind closed doors.
“They are matching cups!”
“Of bacon and eggs?”
“Yup! Though you can eat them by themselves, they are better together!”
You beam at the gift as he smiles back and places them in front of him. He hugs you tightly and talks into your shoulder.
“Thank you y/n. I will use these forever because I want to be with you forever.”
Your smile grew in size as you squeezed him back.
“So,” Kita says, pulling away from the embrace, eyeing you with lustful intentions, “Is there more to my gift?”
“What??! Do you not like this gift? You want more?”
“No, no. I did hope for another gift though.”
You look at him in lying confusion.
“You.”
Your shoulders perk up as you smile at him, reassuring him. The sun had gone down and Kita and you had just finished dinner.
“If you can reach the present, you can open it.”
You say in a whisper to his ear as you sprint off around the living room couch of your shared apartment like a gazelle trying to outrun a lion. Kita eventually catches you after an effortless hunt for his prey, where he has his meal for the rest of the night.
“It’s funny how a memory turns into a bad dream.”
Your head drops at that. You shouldn’t have kept this cup. This cup that left you destroyed that morning after, the cup that held your morning coffee from the brewer sitting on the counter or the tea he made for you when you were sick.
Yet, it is still here. You still kept it close as some haunting reminder of what used to be.
You pull out a key from a drawer to open the bottom most drawer of your end table. Upon opening it, the view of photos and cards, letters and even pressed flowers took up your eyes.
Your hand fishes into the drawer and pulls out loads and loads of photos you have collected of you and Kita and the team and home.
The photo of Atsumu with a peace sign and you behind him as Suna stared aimlessly with a subtle peace sign, the same with Kita, Aran, Oomimi, Akagi and Gin on Osamu’s back. A photo of you and your mom out shopping and paying a visit to your father’s resting place. Another photo of the twins’ hands on each other's faces, fighting as Suna sits there on his phone in the cafe. A photo of your cousins and you having a few drinks. Your eyes fall onto a certain photo in the corner of the mess you had pulled out of the drawer.
A picture of you and Kita as he kissed you under the fireworks, where he first confessed his love.
“Wow! The fireworks are so pretty.”
“Mhmm, very,” Kita answered, staring only at your eyes reflecting the fireworks.
Your hair was pulled back and the kimono you wore complimenting your skin tone. In his eyes, you were his firework.
“Hello, Shin??”
You say, waving a hand in his face, breaking his lost thoughts.
“Hm?”
“What were you staring at?”
“The fireworks.”
You start giggling and give him that smile he oh-so loved.
“Silly, the fireworks are-”
He cuts you off with a kiss on your lips. Your eyes open in surprise as they close again as you melt from his lips. Kita pulls away and looks at your melted composure.
“You are my firework.”
You laugh at his remark.
“I love you, y/n.”
A squeeze on your hand was felt as you turned to look at his face again. You loved him, you truly did and could not have been happier right now under the summer sky.
“I love you, too.”
You squeeze his hand back as you rest your head on his shoulder before the photographer interrupted you to give you the picture.
Your fingers trace against the shine of the photo, tracing the shadowed figure of you and Kita under the bright yellow firework. Your heart yearning for it to come back, yearning for this once felt warmth. Your chest slowly heaves up and down as the song continues playing.
“Talking with my mother she said, “Where’d you find this guy?””
The prickling stings start in your eyes as your body heat rises. This had stopped for 2 days, though it was still bad, it used to be everyday.
“Mom!”
“Yes?”
“I have a boyfriend,” you told her when you went to college.
Your mom asked to meet him immediately and upon meeting him, she loved him. Pulling your arm in after you greeted him off from dinner with your mom, she sits you down and stares into your eyes with excitement and happiness. She puts your hand on her cheek and rubs it warm.
“Where’d you find this guy?”
You could imagine her face in front of you, this time with tears for her now heartbroken daughter. As if you could reach out and caress her face like she had made you before, you whisper with the song with your broken and crying voice.
You whispered, “Some people fall in love, with the wrong people sometimes.”
“I said, “Some people fall in love, with the wrong people sometimes.”
And as if your warm hearted, supporting mother’s image in your head, held your hand on her cheek, she kissed your hand bringing it down and set it in your lap as your eyes and head followed. You raise your head to look at the ghostly image you created in your head to keep yourself grounded as your tears poured out unforgivingly with the response coming from her imagined lips as you follow the lyrics to the song.
She spoke, “ Some mistakes get made. That's alright, that's okay. In the end it's better for you. That's the moral of the story babe.”
“Some mistakes get made. That’s alright, that’s okay. In the end it’s better for me. That’s the moral of the story babe.”
You mouth the words of the lyrics as the image of your mom disappeared from your view. Your head leans onto the bed next to you as you sob out a bit more. The tears dripping onto the photos around you.
It hurt. Like hot wax dripping onto your skin. Like a knife twisting in your heart. Your chest heaved up and down in hopes of air. You ground yourself by gripping the comforter hanging over the edge. Looking at a smiling photo of Kita, you wished you had it back.
“They say it’s better to have loved and lost. Than never to have loved at all.”
You lost him. You loved and lost him. You both fell out of the relationship as your school got rougher and eventually he left for the countryside while you left the country. His smile that was rare and kept for you was now being shared with another, that deserved it more than you. You loved him truly, but with your dreams of this life, it stretched the string before snapping.
This life you lived right now was not what you dreamed. You wanted to wake up to him everyday, to come home to him everyday, to eat when you could with him. You wanted all of that. Not this lack of love of a flat you had to call home. Not even your mother could come by this year, so it made it worse.
“You can think that you’re in love, when you're really just engaged.”
With no connections and mere coworkers as friends, you were lonely. The supposed crushing feat of your job had become too easy for you because of the excruciating hours you took on. Packs of tea and coffee were bought by the week and you went through at least 100 tea packets a week.
You missed him, his hug, his smile, his eyes, his laugh, his everything. A sob ripped out from your mouth as your face marked with tear tracks.
The photo of that woman on your phone was his new family. The image burned in your retinas, the small child on her hip with Kita’s hair and her eyes. A nose like his, how you wanted to hold that child and make that your life. Kita sent you an invitation to his wedding 2 years ago and you declined because you couldn’t bring yourself home and to him, the one you still loved right now. So, you told him you had to work mandatory hours.
Your eyes eventually closed and you were off to a much needed sleep. The photo in your clutch, smeared with tears on Kita’s face fell out of your hand and into the pile of other photos.
“In the end it’s better for me, that's the moral of the story babe.”