Chapter Text
Matsukawa sipped noisily at his juice box before setting it down on the railing of the school roof. The distant sounds of first-years groaning and laughing while playing some new mobile game came from behind them. Hanamaki thought he could hear Kindaichi among them, maybe. Who knew? He didn’t particularly keep tabs on his teammates’ activities outside of practices.
“Wonder what’s taking those two so long,” Matsukawa muttered.
Hanamaki shrugged without looking over. “Dunno. Maybe Oikawa’s being all indecisive about what kinda juice he feels like getting, what with the weather being so nice, but then which one has more calories, but then he doesn’t like orange juice that much…”
He smiled when he heard Matsukawa snort beside him. He leaned just a little further over the railing, stretching his shoulders and neck.
The midday autumn breeze ruffled Matsukawa’s dark curls in Hanamaki’s direction, and he closed his eyes, drinking in the clean scent of shampoo. Some days when they didn’t have volleyball practice, Matsukawa would come to school with wet hair (“I like showering in the mornings; it wakes me up” he once claimed), and all throughout first period Hanamaki would try (to no avail) not to stare at the way the curls framed his face differently. It felt intimate for no apparent reason. Plus, it smelled good the whole day, long after his locks dried.
Hanamaki observed his thoughts wandering in the direction of, I wonder how soft his hair would be if I ran my fingers through it when they were interrupted by Matsukawa’s shoulder bumping into his own.
“Oi, look, that cloud looks like a bird.”
Hanamaki stole a glance at his friend before following the direction of his outstretched finger, up at the cold blue sky. A few scattered wisps were following a larger mass of water vapour that spread into paint strokes of white behind it. Though its wings were slowly dragging behind its body, Hanamaki could discern a somewhat beak-shaped front end.
He smirked. “Oh, yeah.” He looked back at his teammate and couldn’t help the smile that meandered onto his lips upon seeing the one Matsukawa had stretching across his mouth. Unadulterated, beguiling amusement. How he could at once look so lazy and bored, yet so youthful and brilliant escaped him.
When a gust of wind struck chills through his uniform jacket, Hanamaki was reminded of the changing seasons. It was November already. They were third-years, like it was nothing. Like time was so infinitesimally small, and life was so trivially short.
He kept his gaze on Matsukawa’s frozen, lopsided smile, his face still except for his glassy, wandering eyes. They were still trying to look for things in the clouds, he was sure. Hanamaki was still searching for answers to a question slowly forming in his mind.
Hanamaki turned his face away when he felt the strangest shooting pain in his chest cavity. It eased into a dull ache as his eyes searched the clouds for something else to focus on. His mouth opened but closed after discovering his mind had produced no words. His next coherent thought struck him like a train:
How do I say how much this means to me?
He felt his face fold into a frown. He swallowed slowly and looked around, bewildered; he looked up to the bright, bright, faraway sky, brighter than light but dimmer than Matsukawa. Looked around everywhere, blinking madly. Like he was holding back tears. Was he about to cry?
He sensed Matsukawa shifting his weight between his crossed arms on the railing. “You good?” His voice rung distant in Hanamaki’s ears when normally it would rumble into his bones.
“I—” miss you so much. He almost said it aloud before realizing how nonsensical it would sound. How could he miss someone who was right beside him that instant?
Why was he feeling such a profound sadness for something that hadn’t happened yet? Because it was inevitable? Because he knew it was?
Hanamaki barked out a laugh. “I was thinking about that calculus test we had the other day, and how I probably bombed it.” Breezily, he waved a hand for levity. “Man, it stunk.”
Matsukawa snorted. “Geez, don’t remind me,” he muttered. “I can’t believe it took us five hours of studying to realize we were on the wrong chapter.” His shoulders shook, and Hanamaki breathed in the sight.
A smile crept onto his features again, but this time his heart was breaking.
I’m gonna miss this, he thought. He wanted to derail the train of thought—the thought of graduating, the thought of possibly drifting apart from his best friend, of possibly losing Matsukawa.
He’d briefly entertained the thought from time to time in the past, on a few occasions in second year and every now and again… but drunk in the smell of Matsukawa’s shampoo, feeling the spot on his shoulder where it connected with Matsukawa’s through their jacket sleeves, trying to count his naturally dark, naturally curly, rather full eyelashes… it was hitting harder than ever before that he could possibly forget how all of this felt. How it felt to be around Matsukawa. How it felt to sling an arm over his shoulder, or high-five him during a volleyball match after a good team play.
How it felt to hear him laugh at one of his jokes. How it felt to smile at him and watch him smile back.
“Oi, finally, there you guys are,” Matsukawa huffed, turning on his heel to face their other friends approaching them.
Hanamaki peered over his shoulder to watch Oikawa traipse over to them, a Pocari Sweat in his hands, followed by a sighing Iwaizumi. Hanamaki rolled his eyes.
“What took you two so long?”