Chapter Text
Maybe they were destined for better, greater, and maybe, just maybe, for happier.
Maybe, he thinks to himself as he neatly folds his last few t-shirts to stack into his suitcase, this was just not their fate.
But yet again, he never enjoyed abiding by the world's writings, whether it be work rules, or his own destiny.
If it was carved in stone, he would shatter it under his fingers.
If it was written in the stars, he would realign his own constellations.
Maybe this was selfish of him. Maybe the one stood at their bedroom door deserves so much better than him. But he cannot seem to care. If he has to, he'll become this better he deserves.
Just. Anything to keep their world from dividing, their realities from splitting, leaving between them a vacancy he wouldn't know how to fill, and his heart from shattering.
The universe had never granted them that thin yet sturdy red thread of fate and love and belonging.
But he would mend it himself. If a thread didn't keep them connected, then he'd just hold his hand forever.
"I love you."
"I know."
"I'm sorry."
"I know."
"I'll be back."
…
The blond breaks his attention from the suitcase he's desperately trying to zip closed, his eyes falling on dark rubies.
"I'll be back. I promise."
A sigh. Desperation. A fight between hope and fear. A plea.
"I know."
A smile. A tear drop. A kiss. Maybe more. But then a door clicking shut, an apartment losing one of its residents, and a redhead losing one of his two suns.
He's lost.
Even though the blond will, eventually, find his way back home.
Eijirou's still lost. Because he couldn't preserve what they had. Couldn't fight doubt with love, insecurities with adoration.
And now, Katsuki's gone.
Where to, the redhead has no idea.
Just, somewhere far out of reach. Somewhere that isn't their home, their bed, their small universe of lingering kisses and wandering fingers, midnight confessions and dawning love.
Somewhere that isn't theirs.
New, Eijirou realizes.
Katsuki needs something new.
Not someone. Just, new flavors, new colors, new constellations and ocean gradients.
What had the blond said the night before?
/I need change. Not from you, but from myself. I need to live a different life to watch myself change. I want to offer you something new to love, before your heart grows numb of my presence./
Eijirou wanted to argue.
He wanted to disagree.
But mostly, he craved the thought of new.
/I'm scared, Ei./
So was he.
/I'm scared one day you'll wake up, and your heart won't do that little thing of skipping a beat to match my own./
Eijirou smiled, he thinks as the memory plays behind his closed pupils.
/I'm scared your love will grow but I won't. I need to go away, just for a little while. I promise I'll be back./
Eijirou wanted to argue, but not for the same reasons anymore.
He didn't want to stop Katsuki from leaving. He wanted to go with him.
Change and grow with his lover.
Feel the way their hands fit together through it all, because that is the one constant he doesn't want to alter.
They love each other.
But if Katsuki would rather they grow in their own soils, then so be it. He would grow, become the best person to love and be loved, give and receive, ready to welcome his blond back home.
Even if he'd be losing the Katsuki he knows now. The one he doesn't think his heart would ever stop hiccupping at the sight of his long lashes resting on rosy cheeks in the early morning.
He's willing to give all of his love to whoever the new Katsuki who enters their door in hopefully no more than a few months might be.
Because he'll always be the boy he's fallen for.
The one destiny wouldn't grant him, so he chose to seek himself.
But it's been six years and he doesn't think he can keep growing without his sun any longer.
***
"Will you marry me?"
"No."
"Wh- WHY NOT?"
Katsuki fights the chuckle attempting to escape his throat as his lover of seven years is busy acting offended.
"Because, Ei," He pulls his hand out of his pocket in order to grasp Eijirou's, their fingers laced together like they've always been meant to be doing just that, the perfect fit among shards of broken chaos, as they stroll down the street to their apartment on this cold autumn night "we're already married."
"But babe, I want to marry you again! Let's get married on my birthday! You can choose the country this time!"
Katsuki often forgets that he's married to an oversized puppy with never-ending energy.
Eijirou is always buzzing with life, racing through moments, too fast to smell the flowers.
He only slows down when his husband is left breathless, dizzy from watching life through the glass of a speeding car.
He makes sure to take a moment to help breathe air back into his lover's lungs, peppering him with kisses and adoration, sharing his energy with the blond, before they're back to running once more.
Maybe one day Katsuki will finally ask him what it is they're running from.
***
"I'm home." Eijirou offers his voice to an audience long gone. The echo of what it used to be still dances across the walls of an apartment he once called home, but it only grows weaker every day.
Six years.
That's a lot of years, Eijirou thinks to himself as he makes it across the living room to place his suitcase by the foot of the armchair that's been accommodating him for those six years of agonizing solitude.
The one piece of furniture he didn't get a say in choosing, for it wasn't his to sit in.
But six years is a lot of time, and things change. Dust settles behind unmoved picture frames, beds grow cold and lose the mould of bodies tangled together under soft blankets.
Armchairs become temples, housing ghosts and memories, and the mould of a single body, cradling its own lonely self in the dead of the night.
Lovers become legends.
What is unknown of may not die.
And that is the only thread of hope Eijirou has to hold on to.
Calling it an anchor would be undoubtedly an exaggeration, considering he's already drowned. He's always underwater, although still holding his breath, not letting himself go just yet.
But six years is a lot of time, and his face has gone pale, his hair has been drained of its color, and his skin has shriveled, melted away into the ocean.
His body has become but an empty vessel, having lost the life and light it's meant to carry to the gates of death. He's lost his offerings to the reaper, wondering if the one with a scythe would still take him in such a state? Or maybe he's already dead.
As he sinks in the armchair, he believes that he might just be. At least in here. In this apartment, Eijirou is but a dead man awaiting his burial.
Between these walls, time has stopped ticking a long time ago. Six years to be precise.
He can tell, because brown shoes too small to be his own still sit in the exact same spot under the bed where they were last left.
A shampoo bottle dating from his mid-twenties still stands by the rest of his hair products, never opened in the past years.
The calendar in the kitchen still reads "2 July". But not this year's July, nor the one before. No, this date belongs to a year he doesn't remember quite well, but a day he'll never forget.
The day he lost his everything.
"I'm home." He echoes his own words, this time a whisper, a plea. A prayer?
Where is home? Where is home if not in the embrace of your arms? Where is home if not in the dimples of your cheeks? Where is home if not in the reflection of your eyes?
I am never going back home.
"I'm home." This time the words are broken into sobs, like the face he tries to recollect behind his eyelids.
Come back home.
Bring back home.
Be my home.
One last time, before I fall.
Another night goes by, with Eijirou falling asleep on the grey armchair that is now shaped only to fit his body.
Another night of tasting salt water on his lips, but that's okay, he thinks. /He/ always liked the ocean.
The tears became less frequent with time, but sometimes the dam still breaks, and there is not much he can do about it.
Someone else would have spent these years building up walls, high enough to block the sun, any intrusion of false hope that might pierce through his being, only to leave a vacancy behind.
But Eijirou, well, he's no architect. His walls would've crumbled sooner or later. So he's fine living in danger of his own emotions. He's accepted the veil of vulnerability he'll forever wear.
Yes. He's fine.
He's accepted many things. The solitude, the silence, the agony, the water slowly seeping into his lungs. He's accepted it all really.
But there's one thing he won't accept.
And that is leaving the past be, to run along with time once again.
***
"Will you marry me?"
"Not yet, Ei."
"Oh. Why not?"
"We're just eighteen. That's too soon."
Eijirou doesn't argue, but he also fails to understand his lover's logic. Is it too soon to be married, or too soon for him to have fallen in love with the redhead? Does Katsuki not love him enough yet?
It's true that they've only been dating for just over a year - fifteen months, three weeks, and five days, but who's counting - yet Eijirou already knows what it is that he wants.
It's simple, really. He believes he's known since the day he first heard that voice about three years ago.
He wants forever. With the blond stood by his side in every photograph scattered around their forever home.
He wants a lifetime of love, of trust, of sharing all that he has and all that he is, with the one who's opened his eyes to all that he can be.
Three years ago, Eijirou made a friend. A cranky, stubborn, short-tempered friend, but a friend nonetheless. A friend in the way they held hands. A friend in the way the blond offered him his notes to study in. A friend in the warmth of his hugs and the honesty of his praises.
Katsuki was a friend, whether he liked it or not.
And soon enough Eijirou discovered the blond didn't quite like it. Or rather he did, but wasn't satiated. He wanted more, and Eijirou was thrilled to provide.
He was ready to love. He always was. What he wasn't ready for, was the thrill of being loved back. Especially by Katsuki.
The blond didn't halfass anything. Even emotions, something most of their classmates believed he was incapable of, he did with fervor. Determination. Power.
Katsuki felt too much, too deeply, his love for the redhead was one spoken of only in legends and fairytales that kept magic coursing through children's hearts.
Katsuki was magic, and Eijirou was willing to be enchanted every morning of every day of the rest of their lives.
So why won't he just say yes? Why won't he agree to marriage just yet?
Their walk to the park ends up with two young lovers drenched in freezing water, running for shelter from the rain, but finding only each other in the midst of cold emptiness.
The roads are slippery, their hands holding on to each other and refusing to let go, the rain piercing across their skin like bullets attempting to break their bubble, but all they can feel is the warmth circulating from one's heart to the other, through tangled fingers and red wires.
They're running back to the dorms, ready to cuddle their incoming fevers away, and Katsuki's trying to say something, to yell over the sound of the skies bestowing their offerings on the blooming earth of spring.
But Eijirou's always ran faster, his energy carrying him forward, always a few steps ahead of the blond.
Even as his fingers start to slip away, as he turns his head to throw his lover a smile so bright the sun accepts it's been cast away, even as Katsuki's eyes grow wide, and he tries to pull them back, only to realize his hand is cold and empty and-
"EIJIROU!"
Thunder fears for its reputation, shying away from the moment.
The clouds agree to part, hoping the sun could help. Appease the situation. For they worry chaos might break loose if the blond's heart was to grow any colder.
Birds wonder if it really is time to fly back home for the season, if they can't stay just a while longer away from the park, from the woods nearby, and from the blizzard that threatens to bury spring in a tomb way too young.
He's just human. He has no control over the weather. Not the atmosphere nor his heart.
But one agonizing roar, one primal instinct from his core, has snow twirling in his heart and rain no longer drilling through his bones.
He's just human, and this is just nature pitying him.
He's just human, and so is the boy cradled in his arms.
He's just human, but something tells him if he had the will to move his hands away from his lover's face, he could blow up the car now parked behind him with just a touch of his fingers.
Human. Weak. /Mortal/.
Mortal mortal mortal mortal-
/You need to wake up, Ei./
***