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More often than not, Kunimi Akira is slow to emotion. He waits for his teammates all to clear out of the locker room before he allows himself to leave, and when they take their sweet time he is slow to be irritated. He watches out the window of his first period class every morning to see his teammate and crush Kageyama Tobio sprint into school late and his heart slightly flickers; that’s it. Or, that’s what he had assumed last year as his heart halted when Tobio peered upward to smile back at the window.
Kunimi sits with his face to the sky. He basks under the rays of the sun on a picnic table; his eyes burn and he suffers, for he’s a terrible philosopher and his philosophy is pain. He is aware of his own breathing, his lungs as they slowly repeat the cycle of life. Breathe in, let it go, and repeat. The mantra is familiar: it’s the only routine that makes sense to him anymore.
He remembers it from childhood, practicing under the cherry blossom trees with a volleyball he dropped every time he tried to set it. Breathe in, let it go, repeat. He remembers it from middle school, bumping shoulders with Kageyama Tobio in the hallway and furthermore having to listen to his heart wheeze and jolt. Breathe in, let it go, repeat. Kunimi remembers it from last summer, when middle school ended and he was forced to split ways with Tobio. Breathe in, let it go, repeat. He’s ready for the wind whenever it shall come; high school is lonely, he finds himself in a cyclical loop. He breathes in and sighs into the sunlight pouring on the concrete beneath him.
His best friend, Kindaichi, sits beside him on the bench of the picnic table. He’s used to ignoring Kunimi’s dramatic outbursts—but something in the way he sighs is different today; it holds a heavier, diaphragmatic air. Kindaichi looks up from his homework and cocks his head. “What’s with you?”
The air fills with wind; the breeze caresses Kunimi’s long, black hair and massages his scalp. He hears the flutter of schoolwork from underneath Kindaichi’s coarse hands as well as the rustle of delicate pink leaves rocking on the cherry blossom trees that surround the school’s courtyard. Kunimi opens his chestnut eyes, languidly his pupils shift towards Kindaichi where they droop gloomily. The latter frowns, setting his pen down on the wooden table as his eyes flicker upwards.
Kunimi closes his eyes.
He sighs again. “You know, of all things, I wish I would have said goodbye.”
Kindaichi says nothing.
The wind lags for a few moments although the static in the trees continue to shake around. Kunimi bites his teeth tighter as the sun beats down harder, burning the cotton of his sweater vest. Fall is approaching, he can feel it in the air alongside his disparity.
His friend picks his pen back up and continues with his homework. He asks, “What are you talking about?”
Kunimi links his cold fingers together and wraps them around his knees, pulling his legs close to his chest. “Tobio.” He opens his eyes and diverts them from the sun and onto the pattern of the unpolished wood he sits upon. “I wish I had said goodbye before he went to Karasuno.”
“You could just text him now.”
“You don’t understand,” Kunimi replies, blowing off Kindaichi’s suggestion completely. “I still feel strange about not having said anything to him when he told us he was leaving.”
Kindaichi looks up. “That was a year ago. Why are you so caught up on him?”
“I don’t know.” Kunimi shakes his head, gripping his plaid school pants. Emotion was slow, emotion was foreign to Kunimi Akira. Now that he was forced to feel it, he didn’t know how to react. “How do I stop thinking about him, Yutaro?”
“Just find something else to think about,” Kindaichi says, shrugging. He scratches an answer down on his paper and pulls a calculator out from his school bag, propped up against a leg of the picnic table. “I don’t know. I’m sure there’s better people to think about.”
Kunimi's mouth flies open, but he clamps it shut once he realizes how quick he was going to defend the thought of Kageyama Tobio. The boy who ghosted him, who he tells himself almost every single day that he hates. The boy who apparently, on top of all of his acrimonious thoughts, he still finds himself infatuated with.
He lets his words wander as he stares into the clouds. He is unmistakable in speech when he asks the open sky, “Do you think he got prettier since middle school?”
The sky doesn’t answer. However, Kindaichi stops scratching his pencil as Kunimi realizes the crux of what he just said aloud. “What?” The former asks, stupefied. He drops his pencil down on the table as Kunimi hides his face in his knees, embarrassed. “Seriously, what's up with you today?”
Kunimi’s stomach churns, at the pit sits an impending sense of doom. His mind starts to play games, asking himself over and over again: God, what is wrong with me?
He shakes his head and forces himself to look up. “Just forget I said anything. Sorry.”
Kindaichi scoffs and shrugs, though embarrassment and guilt stay wrapped around Kunimi’s bag of bones with sly smirks and slippery tongues. Unable to shake the feeling, Kunimi clenches his teeth as he wrings his mind for a solution.
He stops at the gate to a familiar mantra’s castle moat, and there he decides to rest for a moment’s time before continuing the fucked journey he’s set for himself to stop thinking about Tobio and make himself rectified once again in the eyes of his best friend.
He breathes in deeply the cool, crisp air. He holds it for a few moments, waiting for his lungs to knock on the hollow chamber in his chest before he exhales.
Breathe in, let it go, repeat.
He repeats the cycle once more, and then he’s ready to face the problem at hand with the utmost reputable solution he can think of:
I’ll just put off the thought of Tobio for as long as I possibly can.
—
A month later, Kunimi finds himself wandering down the block where Tobio lives with his family. He walks along the decrepit sidewalk with his dog ambling three feet ahead of him. The blue leash hangs over his palm as he journeys the path ingrained in his memory from years and years of friendship that led him this way.
His mind wanders as well; this time he keeps his mouth closed. He thinks of a boy he knew once before, wishing he could remember him as well as he used to. He thinks of Kageyama Tobio through a rose-colored lens emblazoned with bright sunshine and the light wings of love. He’s always thought of his former classmate quite fondly, albeit he hopes to God that sometime soon the color will fade and this childish infatuation of his will stop tugging at his gut like a noose slipped around his stomach tightening and tightening until his appetite is completely gone and all he hungers for is the love of the boy he used to know.
Kunimi passes Tobio’s house multiple times, his big brown dog remaining by his side. He remembers when that dog was a puppy and he would walk through the front doors of the Kageyamas’ quaint house to be greeted by the sweet smell of perfume and hair gel. He remembers the sound of warm laughter radiating in the hallways; he remembers seeing Kageyama Miwa swiftly in the hallway on her way out the door to dinner with her cool boyfriend and their cool car. He remembers the sound of her lilac voice chirping, “Afternoon, Akira! Tobi, I’ll be back around six or so, probably, let mom know I won’t be around for dinner.”
The latter used to grumble about her nicknames, but Kunimi always found them enjoyable. She held the spirit of a true Kageyama descendant with her loyalty and kindness, in that way her and Tobio were the same. Others would beg to differ, but Kunimi was always able to see the kindness in everything that Tobio did. He still does now, even though he should have forgotten about him a long time ago.
Kunimi tightens his grip on the leash and bites away a smile, thinking about how Tobio used to wait beside him after practice until everyone was done in the locker room so they could all walk home together. He thinks about how Tobio would buy him ice pops after all of their games sitting on the bench and even after they became the rulers of middle school and won almost every game. Even after Kunimi let Tobio’s set drop to the ground, Tobio bought him an ice pop in silence when their last game was over and they left for home.
He remembers the moments he and Kageyama spent alone; those made for the best memories and dreams. Kunimi can still feel his thigh up against Tobio’s as they watched a volleyball game on the TV together in the Kageyamas’ living room, the scent of his shampoo and his mother’s perfume washing through Kunimi’s senses all the while.
The sun begins to set and it takes almost an hour for Kunimi to realize how long he’s been outside circling Kageyama’s neighborhood and gazing at his house with a tired, thirsty dog panting beside his ankles. The moon has already risen by the time Kunimi makes it home, his parents already have washed the dishes from dinner and stored them away.
He shuffles up to his room after filling the dog’s water bowl. He closes his door and flips the bedroom light off, flopping onto his bed with a hefty sigh. He glares at the ceiling as he waits for the tears to come; he knows they’re close, he’s been stinging and yearning for too long and now he’s ready to melt down in self-hatred and confusion. He’s not hungry anymore, he’s just hurt.
“Why me?” He asks frequently to the moon outside his foggy window, glaring at the stars with his puffy red eyes wondering why he had to be the one cursed with the spell of unrequited love. He thinks he would be better prepared for flowers to explode from his throat than have to deal with knowing that he is in love with his best friend and his best friend probably doesn’t love him back. He thinks he would rather choke on the thorny stem of a rose than have to come to terms with the fact that he’s gay and there is nothing else he can do but accept it.
He was thirteen when he figured himself out.
Telling his best friend in the entire world, Kageyama Tobio, has been his biggest mistake to date.
--
Kunimi sits at his desk as the analog clock on his bedside table strikes three in the morning. His phone rests in hand as he stares long and hard at a picture of a strong, high school Kageyama. He’s definitely grown up over the last summer: his muscles have filled out, even, and his jaw is more refined than Kunimi thought it would be. Even a frown looks good on him, so good it makes Kunimi fume as he sits at the desk glowing only by the dim shine of his phone screen, crying as he stares at the boy he wants more than life to love him back and knows won’t ever give him the time of day. So, Kunimi has to resort to the shadows to relieve himself of the burdens of love with heaps of shame and self-loathing.
Every moment Kunimi spends like this, crying as he chases himself into the dark, the memory of his first kiss resurfaces in waves hitting him harder and harder until he climaxes at the pitiful sound of ‘Tobio’ lingering on his tongue.
His first kiss was last summer, sitting under one of the half-bare cherry blossom trees with Kageyama as they spoke about where they hoped life would take them.
Kageyama spoke with a lilac voice much like his sister’s. “I want to play volleyball forever,” he said, staring at the clouds with his thigh pressed up against Kunimi’s as they lay in the summery wet grass and sun. Kunimi was drifting, his eyes were open wide but his mind was drifting--an artifice to trick Kageyama into thinking he was listening. “What do you want to do?”
Kunimi breathed in and let it go—his breath directed into Kageyama’s shoulder. “I want to be with you forever.” And repeat.
The wind was invisible, the humidity was strong and it matted Kageyama’s hair to his forehead. It didn’t matter to Kunimi, though. He still found his best friend to be more gorgeous than any other person he had ever met. His stomach tightened when Kageyama looked down at him lying in the grass with eyebrows knit together.
“I’m going to Karasuno next year, Akira.”
Kunimi already knew that, but that didn’t mean that hearing it again didn’t hurt just as much as the first time. He might have been slow to emotion, but his organs weren’t and the pang against his chest resonated like a minor chord inside the body of a guitar. He always wished he could play guitar, what a way to serenade someone. All he had were his words, and those never seemed to come out right, let alone form a profound profession of love.
“I know. I just wish you would come to Seijoh with me,” Kunimi breathed, lightly tracing his fingers over Kageyama’s thigh. He tested the waters with it, pressing his fingertips deeper and deeper into the fabric of Kageyama’s pants until he slipped his fingertips slightly beneath his shorts, drawing patterns on the skin with his nails. Kageyama said nothing about stopping. Kunimi took it as an invitation.
“They didn’t let me in.”
Kunimi bit his lip, scooting ever closer to the boy he wanted more than anything. He whispered beneath his breath, “I think you’re beautiful,” though it pertained to the conversation in no way whatsoever. His mind was clouded with thoughts of boy, he wasn’t thinking straight as he leaned over and placed his lips atop of his best friend’s.
Kageyama tasted just as Kunimi imagined. Like saliva and the cinnamon mint toothpaste that he always made fun of him for using. Kunimi wondered how he himself tasted as his lips parted for Kageyama to deepen the kiss after a few seconds of hesitation.
Kunimi was starstruck as he felt Kageyama’s tongue awkwardly fumble into his mouth. The latter then used his hands to push Kunimi back and catch him against the trunk of the tree they sat beneath. His hands pressed firmly against Kunimi’s lower back as Kunimi’s nails dug into the flesh of Kageyama’s muscular thighs.
He never expected the kiss to ruin their friendship. He never expected for Kageyama to completely blow him off from then on out, even when he was the one to push them further. Yet all Kunimi regrets?
I only wish that I would have said goodbye.
--
Kunimi walks down the hallway at school, Kindaichi at his side. The two are surrounded by classmates and peers—yet Kunimi feels alone. In his mind, a memory plays where the hallway is completely empty aside from himself and the boy he misses dearly.
He remembers how walking down the hallway with Tobio was always a silent adventure. Their friendship was often suffused with silence, but the two of them found comfort in it as body language was their preferred jargon anyways. Tobio would let his hand brush Kunimi’s a few too many times on the way to their next class; Kunimi would sometimes even interlock their pinky fingers together when they walked.
Kunimi was patient as the two of them became best friends. Tobio’s actions always spoke louder than his words--they sprinted a million miles per minute under his cotton tongue--and in them Kunimi always found comfort and refuge. Tobio was a quiet spirit, but his affection always rang loudly in Kunimi’s ears.
His ears are empty now, a sea washes in and through his arteries to his heart that sinks as an empty vessel. He yearns to feel the callus of Kageyama’s setter fingertips as they brush against his own one more time; he wants to save that sinking ship his brain has made of his heart and feel Tobio’s affection just one more time.
Kunimi’s free hand swings merely grasped by the air, Tobio’s actions now silent and far across Sendai.
He sighs. He knows that he should call Tobio if he wants to see him again, but he is too swollen with pride. And he wonders day after day if Tobio even likes him anymore, seeing as he fell off the radar after their kiss.
He decides to ask Kindaichi, walking swiftly beside him.
“Yutaro, I have a question.”
Kindaichi turns his head, albeit wearily. His eyes are half-shut, it’s obvious that he didn’t sleep much last night. He holds his books covered from first page to last in color-coded tabs and pen scribbles in one hand, in the other he holds a to-go cup of coffee. He cocks his eyebrow, as if to signal Kunimi to continue.
The painfully angsty first year takes a deep breath, staring straight forward down the hallway. He bites his lip. “If you were to kiss someone, then afterwards they completely ghosted you even though you were really close with them, does that mean they hate you and never want to talk to you again?”
“What the fuck are you on, Akira?” Kindaichi blurts. He halts his gait right in his tracks, refusing to blink his bulging caramel eyes until Kunimi stops walking as well.
Kunimi sighs. “What would you think in that scenario?”
The other boy shakes his head, scoffing. “Why are you thinking of that scenario in the first place? What did you do ?” Kindaichi asks, then holds in his breath as if he doesn’t want to know the answer. “You’ve been acting so strange since school started. What’s going on?”
Kunimi looks down at his pathetic, worn tennis shoes. He sighs again, followed by a flush that garners his neck and cheeks. “Yutaro, I kissed Tobio.”
“...What?”
The atmosphere drops heavy on Kunimi’s head as the hallway empties out and leaves him alone with Kindaichi. His heart drops; he feels so inexplicably lonely as his truncated breathing combats his friend’s.
“This summer, we were sitting outside and talking about schools and I kissed him, and he kissed me back. And he hasn’t spoken to me since, and I’m scared, and I miss him a lot.”
Kindaichi remains silent, looking forward as he ponders what to say. What could he say, anyways? Kunimi knows he isn’t going to ever understand what it’s like to have to hide and hate yourself for who you are. Kindaichi doesn’t know what it’s like to have to hide a crush on his best friend until it literally explodes out of his body. Not like Kunimi does.
He shakes his head when Kindaichi doesn’t reply after a full minute, with that stupid dazed look still plastered to his stupid, dumb face. “Just forget it.”
The bell rings.
Kunimi walks to class, leaving Kindaichi standing still behind him. He realizes that if he is going to get Tobio back, he’s going to have to do it by himself.
Nobody else will understand, nobody but Tobio.
--
Kunimi stands tall before a door he knows so well--yet he’s terrified. He knows he could stare at this beautiful oak door all day, but his heart would be ripped apart if he left his query to go on much longer.
He needed an answer. Specifically, an answer from Tobio. Was he alone in his craving? His yearning? His self-hatred and need for love and affirmation? Did Tobio also want confirmation that he wasn’t alone in this, that he didn’t have to be scared and that Kunimi was standing--just as terrified--only a few feet away? Was he so afraid of his love that it swallowed him whole and hid him beneath the covers of his mattress full of dreams where Kunimi’s name uttered off his breath? Did it scream through his lips so long that his diaphragm hurt?
Kunimi had no idea what was before him, but he was too tired of always playing the guessing game. He needed to know , he didn’t want to guess anymore. So, he tells himself that he is going to guess no longer.
He places a solid knock on the wood as a deep breath moves through his nose and festers in his rose-laden lungs. It sprouts seedlings of tulips that leave his mouth quickly with a dandelion fuzzy cough.
Within a few moments, the door swings open and Kunimi is met with a familiar face holding a familiar warm smile. He sees Kageyama Miwa, clutching her phone to her chest, with wavy black hair to her shoulders. Her eyes sparkle per usual, allowing Kunimi’s heart to thump in his chest. He hasn’t seen the eyes of a Kageyama in a long time; it’s as if he’s seeing Tobio smile for the first time when Miwa warmly welcomes him inside.
“I’ll go get Tobio for you,” She murmurs, shuffling across the carpeted flooring. Kunimi begins to take his shoes off when she stops in her tracks, whispering almost inaudibly, “He’s missed you a lot.”
She scuttles away, bounding upstairs with a childlike posture. Kunimi watches; his heart falls into his stomach and beats down low until he’s uncomfortable and the room starts getting hot. Tobio missed me? Kunimi couldn’t believe it. He half expects Miwa to have lied--but upon seeing the boy make his presence known at the top of the staircase he isn’t exactly sure what to think.
In an instant, Tobio sprints down the stairs and finds himself face to face with Kunimi, eyes widened and so bright they could illuminate even the darkest of cold nights. They illuminate Kunimi’s bloody heart thumping faster and faster until he’s helpless to the shallow breaths that escape his throat and foggy thoughts that clog his lovestruck brain.
“Tobio,” Kunimi chokes out, eyes wildly searching his surroundings. There’s no Miwa in sight, and nothing has changed since he’s last been here. The walls are still olive green, baby pictures still hang next to the bathroom door with a hole still punched through it.
“Akira,” Tobio breathes, taking a step forward. The two are only centimeters apart, and Kunimi can feel Tobio’s scattered breathing on his pink-dusted cheeks.
“I missed you.”
Tobio bites his lip. “I missed you too.”
The two stand in silence after that. They glare at one another until they can’t stand it any longer, looking down at the shag carpet they stand upon—both in socks with feet turned in.
Kunimi takes a deep breath and blows it out fast like a fire. He shoots his head back up, but when he sees himself staring alone he looks back down. “What did you miss about me?”
Tobio shrugs. “Everything.”
“Really?” Akira scoffs, linking his fingers together at his waist.
“Yeah. Did you?”
Kunimi Akira might be somewhat slow to emotion, but he never was when it came to Kageyama Tobio. Instead, words come very fast, but never when he speaks to the boy he loves so, so much.
Right now, he has no idea what to say. He says nothing.
He takes a step forward instead and brings a hand up from his waist to gently brush Tobio’s jaw. “I missed this,” He whispers, then trails his hand down to rest on Tobio’s chest. “And this.”
Tobio remains still and silent as he holds his breath.
Kunimi brings his other hand up and snakes it into Tobio’s hair. “I missed this,” he whispers, then traces his fingers down to close Tobio’s eyes with his fingertips. “And I missed these.”
Tobio sighs softly, allowing himself to fall into Kunimi’s touch. Kunimi takes it as a good sign to keep going, and he does. He cradles Tobio’s face and brings him close until their noses touch.
Kunimi exhales. “And most of all, I missed this.”
He places a short, chaste kiss on Tobio’s soft lips before backing off and waiting for a signal to continue or to leave.
Tobio doesn’t open his eyes for a few moments, but when he does he looks dazed as a deer in headlights. Akira admires his big, pretty eyes before cocking his head and smiling.
“Are you afraid, Tobio?”
Kageyama nods, but takes a step forward until his body rocks against Kunimi’s. He pushes him back until they’re up to a wall, and when Tobio leans down, Kunimi closes his eyes and waits for their lips to meet once again.
Kageyama whispers into their second kiss, “I’m terrified,” before deepening his embrace around Kunimi and kissing harder, harder until Kunimi moans for breath.
They depart for a quick few seconds, Kageyama watching as Kunimi gasps for air into his lungs. His cheeks are red, his neck is scarlet, and his eyes are starry and beautiful. Kageyama smiles, though it’s evanescent and Kunimi is unable to catch it. However, that doesn’t mean it was never there.
Unknowingly, Kunimi smiles back. “I’m glad I came to see you.”
Tobio nods. “I am too,” he says, before diving in for one of a thousand more kisses.