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Kei, Akiteru realizes, is a precocious child.
Their family is sitting around the dining table, enjoying a late Saturday lunch cobbled together from leftovers throughout the working week, when their mother brings up that their cousin Ichika has recently gotten engaged. “Everyone is very excited,” she says conversationally, “Though her father is a bit worried that she’s too young.”
“Isn’t Ichika onee-san twenty-five?” Akiteru replies skeptically. The twelve-year age gap to him, a thirteen-year old, seems immutable. “That feels old enough to me.”
“I hope nobody worries when I get married young,” Kei comments, tone mild.
Akiteru turns so sharply to stare at him that a muscle in his neck tugs. As he massages it, eyes watering, he sees that his parents are also confused. So this was news to them as well. “Do you have plans to get married already, Kei?” asks their father.
“Well, not ‘plans’ necessarily,” Kei answers. “But I already know I’m going to marry Tadashi, so there’s no point in waiting too long. We’ll be kinda young, I suppose, but that doesn’t hurt. More tax benefits.”
His parents think it’s adorable. Will you and Tadashi-kun have any children? They tease. There are more tax benefits there, too. Will you invite oto-san and okaa-san to your newlywed house? They’re not taking Kei seriously at all. But Akiteru knows better—he can see it in the set line of Kei’s little shoulders, his guileless gaze. Kei is speaking his wholehearted truth, with a wisdom that his eight years of life shouldn’t have the capacity to contain.
Yet somehow they do. “I think one child probably. A daughter,” Kei replies as he spoons more stir-fry vegetables on his plate. “But only when we’re much older, like thirty. And of course you can come visit our house. We’re just getting married, not falling off the face of the planet.”
Akiteru is taking Kei’s words seriously. Very seriously. Possibly more seriously than he should. (At that moment, Kei’s small arm falls short of reaching across the table to the sharing plate of noodles, and he knocks over his cup of milk.) His brother is still a child, not even in the double digits of living, and there is a lot that can change for both him and Tadashi before they even reach high school, not to mention the legal age to marry.
But despite all of this, there’s something in Kei’s eyes that makes Akiteru believe. He’ll watch over them, he decides as he hands Kei a generous bunching of napkins to dry his sleeve. He’ll root for them.
—
Afterwards, Akiteru watches more closely when Kei and Tadashi are together. He doesn’t know exactly what he’s looking for, being only a middle schooler himself, but he thinks he sees it—
Kei breaking a double-stick popsicle in half and silently checking their sizes before giving the larger one to Tadashi—
Tadashi listening intently when Kei identifies dinosaurs in a TV documentary and mouthing their names over and over to himself so he can memorize them—
Kei holding Tadashi’s hand under the blanket unprompted when there’s a scary villain in an animated movie—
Tadashi telling Kei that he’s amazing when he retrieves a plate from the overhead drawers that Tadashi can’t reach—
The two of them pooling their allowance together to jointly buy a vermillion betta fish, naming him Ichigo, and raising him in Kei’s room together—
Them asking Akiteru if they can borrow his laptop, which makes autofill populate his search bar with phrases like “what is a honeymoon” and “best places to go for honeymoon” for the next few weeks—
Them, and everything that they do for and with each other.
It’s probably a stupid question, but Akiteru asks it anyways one day after Tadashi has gone home for the night. He and Kei are sitting barefoot on the patio, counting summer fireflies and sharing a bowl of watermelon-flavored shaved ice, and he feels the urge to check settle over him like an itch. “So does Tadashi know you two are getting married?”
He had aimed for casual, and it seems to have worked, however clumsily. Kei doesn’t give him a second look before he answers, “Of course. You can’t marry someone without them knowing.”
That makes a laugh escape Akiteru, unbidden. “Yeah, that’s… that’s true.” A few seconds of quiet (except for the idyllic screaming of the bullfrogs), before Akiteru realizes Kei isn’t going to offer more information, so he fishes for it. “When did you guys talk about it?”
Kei tucks his knees up and rests his chin on them. His spoon is loose in his tiny hand as he looks up at the night sky. “Well, I think we both just knew.” His voice is so steady, a mountain amidst a rapidly shifting world. “He brought it up first because he’s braver than me. And then we pinky promised each other.”
Akiteru blinks. Huh. “You know, I think Tadashi wouldn’t be mad if you changed your mind later and break that pinky promise.”
“Yeah, maybe. He’s super nice… sometimes too nice. But I won’t change my mind,” Kei says seriously. “I know it’ll happen. It’s inevitable.”
Inevitable. When he learned words like that, not to mention how to apply them so tenderly to another person, Akiteru has no idea. And he also has no idea how to reply to something as earnest as what Kei just said about Tadashi.
But sweet baby Kei seems to recognize that. He turns to his older brother, limbs loosening. “Nii-chan, can you watch The Fellowship of the Ring tomorrow with us when Tadashi comes? Okaa-san said I need to ask you because it’s PG-12.”
“Of course.”
Tomorrow comes, and before the previews are even done rolling, Akiteru sees them holding hands again.
—
When Kei is ten, their mother receives a call from his homeroom teacher telling her that Kei received a warning at school for calling a classmate stupid. Akiteru is seated at the dining table, munching on a snack while Kei receives his lecture.
“You cannot be rude to your classmates, Kei,” Their mother reprimands him, arms crossed. “That is unacceptable behavior.”
Kei sits next to Akiteru, looking slightly chastised, but not nearly as much as he should be. “I know, okaa-san. But she was being stupid,” Kei whines.
“What did she do?” asks Akiteru.
Their mother shoots him a look, but the words are out there now, and it’s too late to take them back. Kei’s face instantly turns into the most intriguing mixture of embarrassed and grumpy. “Fujii-chan said she like-liked me,” He makes a face like he’s gagging, and Akiteru nearly chokes on his carrots trying to hold back his cackle. “And Tadashi said she can’t like-like me because he’s going to marry me. But she said that he’s stupid and that’s not true, so I told her she’s the one that’s stupid and it is true.”
Their mother sighs. “Kei, just because someone does something mean doesn’t give you permission to be mean back. And I’m sorry, but Tadashi was wrong to say that to Fujii-chan. He can’t stop anyone from liking you.”
“Like-liking, okaa-san,” Kei corrects, still grumbly. “And fine, but I won’t ever like-like anyone but Tadashi back.”
“Alright, Kei.” Their mother pats his head, then finally passes him his afterschool snack. Kei brightens, picking up an apple rabbit. While he takes a big bite, she tells him, “I want you to apologize to Fujii-chan tomorrow. And no more telling people they’re stupid.”
“Okay, I’ll apologize,” Kei says. Their mother smiles, pleased, and heads over to the kitchen to start dinner.
“But anyone who is mean to Tadashi is stupid,” Kei mutters under his breath.
Akiteru pretends he didn’t hear that.
—
In the summer during Akiteru’s third year of high school, Tadashi and his family go on a month-long trip to visit his American cousins. Kei spends a great deal of this time either alone or with Akiteru.
“Do you miss Tadashi?” Akiteru asks him during the third week that Tadashi is away. His question is delivered with a healthy degree of trepidation: Kei will probably respond somewhat calmly, given that he’s spent the first two weeks pretending to their parents that he’s barely noticed Tadashi’s absence. But Akiteru also suspects that Kei knows that his older brother found his scratch calculations of how many seconds Tadashi will be away from Japan.
“Yeah, I miss him,” Kei admits.
He goes back to fiddling with the balsa wood model steam train that they’re working on together. It’s a long enough lull in conversation that Akiteru figures Kei must not want to talk about it—but then his brother speaks up again.
“I watched a documentary on social bonding in animals. The narrator said that it can happen for different reasons, like mating or territory defense or offspring longevity, but she said in the end it’s all linked to survival.”
Kei is the nerdiest middle schooler ever, Akiteru thinks affectionately.
Kei continues, “I think Tadashi and I are different though. I don’t need to be with him.” He raises his arms away from his body, as if demonstrating that Tadashi is indeed not physically with him yet he is, in fact, alive. “But I still want to be with him so much. Forever.”
Kei drops his hands and picks up the glue again. “Anyways, oto-san said he’ll help me make an international call tomorrow.”
Akiteru clears his throat. It feels like he has a lump stuck in there.
When Tadashi visits their home for the first time after he returns to Miyagi at the end of August, Kei visibly tries to tone down his excitement in front of his family. His expression is carefully level, but he stands closer than normal to Tadashi. His hands are clasped tightly together, like he’s afraid that they’ll seize the other without so much as a warning to their owner. “You’ve gotten taller,” he tells Tadashi, tone not unlike that of a distant relative seen annually at Lunar New Year.
Akiteru can tell that Tadashi sees through the act too, maybe even more than the rest of them do. With a broad grin, he flings his arms around Kei’s body and squeezes him so tightly that Kei lets out a gentle “oof.” “I missed you, Tsukki!”
Kei resists for a commendable two seconds before his entire body softens. His fingers unclasp, and he clutches them in the fabric of Tadashi’s shirt. “Me too.”
—
When Kei finds out that Akiteru has been lying, things go to shit. The shame keeps Akiteru away for a while, and when he finally musters the courage to attempt to reconnect with his brother, Kei’s last strand of sympathy has already been sliced away.
One day when he’s home on break from university, Akiteru catches Tadashi trying to sneak out the front door far earlier than he normally leaves. Kei isn’t even there to see him off, likely still shuttered away in his room, as is current protocol during Akiteru’s visits.
“Akiteru-kun,” Tadashi says when he sees him, freezing in the middle of putting his left shoe on. Though he’s still as polite and kind as he was as a child, Tadashi’s relationship with Akiteru has also been affected by the cold war that Kei’s been waging ever since that… that one volleyball match. “How have you been?”
“I’ve been good! University’s getting harder now that I’m an upperclassman, but it’s still fun.” Akiteru smiles a little awkwardly. “Are you… are you heading home?”
Tadashi grimaces. “I… yeah. Tsukki and I just need a night apart, I think.”
Akiteru nods. “Here, let me drive you home. It’s, uh, probably cold outside.”
Even though his home is only a ten-minute walk away and it’s been an unseasonably warm May, Tadashi agrees. They make small talk during the drive about his first few weeks at Karasuno, both of them politely skirting around the topic of Kei. But when Akiteru pulls into Tadashi’s driveway and shifts into neutral, Tadashi quiets down for a few seconds.
Then, he says softly, words barely audible over the hum of the car engine, “Tsukki is stubborn.”
“He can be, yeah,” Akiteru agrees lightly, as if his brother’s refusal to interact with him outside of meals hasn’t been festering a hole through his heart for the past few years.
Tadashi wrings his hands. “I’ve… I’ve been trying to talk to him. I think his reaction was so severe because he loves you so, so much. But I feel like he’s going to come around soon.”
“Thanks, Tadashi.” Akiteru’s shoulders slump. He thinks about how it’s still light outside, how Tadashi didn’t even stay for dinner. “It sounds like this has been stressful for you, though. You don’t need to worry too much about me.”
“I do, though!” Tadashi bursts out. He pauses, eyes wide like he’s surprised by his boldness, then says meekly, “You’re basically family to me. How can I not worry?”
Akiteru’s chest clenches. He opens his mouth but no words come out.
Tadashi continues, “And it’s not just about how he acts to you. I think we forget because he’s a goddamn genius with some things,” Akiteru pointedly does not reprimand him for swearing, “but Kei is still immature in a lot of ways. These are his growing pains.”
And maybe it can be chalked up to the secondhand schism that has fractured their relationship for so long, but Akiteru really sees Tadashi for the first time in a while. His body is bigger, taking up much more room in the passenger seat of the car than Akiteru is used to. His hair is longer, his skin tanner, his freckles even more pronounced than they were when he was younger. It is not enough to say that he is no longer a child; he is different from who he was when Kei first introduced him to Akiteru. And right now, Tadashi is more upset and tired than Akiteru ever knew he could be.
Akiteru suddenly feels an irrational swell of fear of the unknown. He blurts out, “This is so selfish, but please—please don’t give up on Kei.”
Tadashi’s head snaps up. His eyes lock onto Akiteru’s, and Akiteru almost takes a step back. It is like seeing the forest charge towards you. Inevitable, Kei had said about him and Tadashi. Like they are fated. But Akiteru can’t help but think this is stronger—this is two boys striving to be with each other, no matter what it takes.
“Who said anything about giving up?”
—
It gets better after Akiteru and Kei finally manage to reconnect a few months into Kei’s first year. Their relationship truly begins to rebuild itself after Akiteru coaxes Kei into joining his university team’s practices, and then time repairs the cracks.
(There also seems to be some sort of breakthrough on Tadashi’s side—something involving “pride” that Kei speaks about in only the vaguest of terms and with an immeasurable amount of fondness. This blend of attitudes from Kei is familiar to Akiteru: as he’s gotten older, he’s held his most cherished memories of Tadashi at an arm’s length from others, not unlike a dragon hoarding its treasure.)
One of the starkest signs of healing that Akiteru sees is when Kei calls him in the early fall to ask if he’s coming to his birthday dinner. “It’s on a Thursday, so it might be hard to make it,” Kei says gruffly, like he has prepared himself for disappointment.
“I’ll make it!” Akiteru declares a little too loudly. “I won’t miss it.”
His next week is consumed with a thought exercise on what to get Kei for his birthday present, in which he tries to figure out what Kei wants while simultaneously anticipating what his parents and Tadashi will get him. What he fails to consider, however, is the possibility of presents from anyone else. Kei, as a mostly introverted individual, has never invited anyone to his birthday dinners outside of his family and best friend.
But when Akiteru walks into their family home that day equipped with signed first-editions of Kei’s favorite fantasy series, he is surprised to see not only the birthday boy and the three guests he anticipated but also a few additional attendees. There’s this tiny orange ball of positive energy who spends most of the dinner talking everyone’s ear off, a black-haired boy with the demeanor of a perpetually grumpy kitten, and a slight blonde girl who flinches with every semi-loud noise. It’s an unexpected ensemble, but, as Akiteru realizes slowly over the course of the meal, it also works so well.
He ends up sitting on the couch next to Kei and the black-haired boy, Kageyama, while Tadashi and the other two somewhat enthusiastically do the dishes (Akiteru’s parents go upstairs to allow the “kids” their night of fun). It’s slightly awkward; the energy between the two boys is somewhere between grudging mutual respect and twin souls.
So Akiteru turns to Kageyama and asks, “How did you two become friends?”
Kageyama flinches at the last word, eyes wide, and Akiteru hastily revises his question: “How did you meet?”
“Volleyball club,” Kei replies.
“We all started hanging out more when Yamaguchi convinced Tsukishima to help us study,” chirps the orange ball of positive energy, Hinata, who appears out of nowhere, hands still sudsy. “Tsukishima knows so much about English.”
“Idiot, you’re getting soap all over the floor!” Kageyama scolds him, grabbing his hands and holding them higher in the air, which only makes more soap fall to the ground.
With all the patience of a martyr, Kei sighs and stands up. “There are cleaning supplies in the kitchen, if you two can make it there with your combined single brain cell.”
There is always a concern that devotion can turn into insularity, that one can become so single-minded in their pursuit of an individual that their world narrows. But as Akiteru watches the kitchen—Hinata and Kageyama engaging in some sort of soap battle, Kei making snide commentary from a safer side of the room, Tadashi valiantly shielding him from the fallout, and the slight blonde girl, Yachi, egging everyone on—all he can see is proof that Kei and Tadashi’s worlds have grown.
—
When Kei visits his apartment one weekend in late April two years later, Akiteru asks about the new team.
“We’re doing well. There’s a bunch of tiny first-years who take up way too much of Tadashi’s time.” Kei rolls his eyes, clearly attempting to sound above it all, but Akiteru catches the way his bottom lip juts out in a micro-pout.
“Wait, why Tadashi?” Akiteru asks. “And, really quickly—do you want an extra fried egg?”
“Yeah, thanks. Because Tadashi’s the captain this year,” Kei says.
“Tadashi’s the captain?” Akiteru exclaims, right as the restaurant hostess answers his call and asks him how she can help. He distractedly places their curry orders for delivery while processing what Kei has just told him. Akiteru has been to Karasuno’s games; if he were to guess who would be captain, he might have answered with Kageyama, whose genius has already attracted attention outside of the high-school volleyball sphere. Or maybe Hinata, whose positivity and sheer willpower seem to steady the on-court team’s morale during particularly precarious games.
But then, Akiteru thinks of Tadashi in his car years ago, talking about growing pains and never giving up. He thinks of the way Tadashi had brought together their friend group of five. When the call ends and he hangs up the phone, he turns to Kei and tells him, “That makes perfect sense.”
“It does,” Kei agrees. He’s using his palm to flatten out the take-out menu, which is crinkly from old water damage. “I get why you were surprised at first though. I think I would have been too, if you told me a few years ago that he would be captain. But he’s stronger now. He really carries the team.” Kei smiles fondly at the take-out menu. “He’s so different now.”
And suddenly, Akiteru is curious. “Do you still want to marry him?”
Kei looks at him, surprised. Then he turns his face away, but Akiteru can still see how pink the rim of his left ear has gotten. “Yeah, I do.” He lets out a shaky laugh, like the sublimity of that feeling has unsettled him. “Even more than I did as a kid.”
Their lunch eventually arrives, and afterwards Akiteru and Kei head out to the city museum. Kei is still ever-fascinated with the dinosaur fossils, though he shows it a little differently now: less open-mouthed gawking, more sparkly-eyed fervour. It’s funny how things can shift and evolve yet still maintain their root essence, Akiteru thinks. Maybe he should buy Kei a stuffed dino.
—
It’s move-out day for Kei and Tadashi. They’ve already packed their belongings into the van borrowed from cousin Ichika’s husband, and in an hour Kei’s parents are going to drive them to Sendai, where they will share a cramped but conveniently located studio apartment as they venture into their first year of college.
Akiteru can’t help but fret. It’s true that Sendai isn’t far, but the two of them are still so young. Probably too young to be left alone without supervision. Who will make sure Kei isn’t skipping meals when he’s feeling lazy? Who will remind Tadashi that he can’t stay up all night playing video games? Who will help mediate when they inevitably argue over the little things, like taking out the trash and squeezing out the toothpaste properly? Or the big things, like paying bills and making career decisions? Who will watch over them?
He’s going up the stairs to fuss over whether Kei has packed everything he needs one last time when the landing and Kei’s bedroom comes into view. Through the sliver revealed by Kei’s open door, Akiteru sees Kei and Tadashi sitting on the floor of Kei’s now-empty room. They’re talking in low voices together, so quietly that Akiteru can’t make out any distinct words.
Then, Kei smiles the most carefree, genuinely joyful smile that Akiteru has seen on him in a long time. Tadashi smiles back. They lean in together. Their lips meet.
And instantly he knows that he’s seen enough. Akiteru leaves, to give them privacy, and marvels to himself:
They’re really going to be okay.
—
Akiteru is shucking off his work blazer, loosening his tie, when the cell phone rings.
“Akiteru-kun, I DID IT!” Tadashi’s voice crows through the speakers. “I did it, I proposed! And I totally beat Kei to it too—after he was done crying, he pulled his ring out of the sock drawer—”
“Shut up, Tadashi,” comes Kei’s voice, but there’s absolutely no bite to it thanks to how congested he sounds. He really did cry, Akiteru thinks, dazed. Tadashi’s proposal made him cry.
Wait, Tadashi’s proposal—
“CONGRATULATIONS!” Akiteru bellows, then bursts into tears himself. Through his blurry vision, he thinks he can see precocious, precious eight-year old Kei, sitting at the dining table, telling his family that he was going to marry his best friend someday. “Congratulations,” he weeps. “I’m so, so, so happy for you two—I’ve been rooting for you guys.”
Akiteru can almost hear Tadashi smiling. “We know. Thank you for everything,” he says.
“This is so embarrassing,” Kei grumbles. Again, the effect is weakened by the quaver in his voice. “So this means you’ll be my best man, right?”
And that brings a fresh round of tears, but Akiteru eventually is able to choke out an “of course.”
The phone call ends once Akiteru has finished interrogating them for all the details of the proposal (“I stripped my shirt off in the middle of a Frogs game and had the words ‘will you marry me?’ painted on my chest,” Tadashi jokes, and Kei laughs then corrects, “He decorated our balcony for a stargazing date and proposed at the end.”). Afterwards, Akiteru takes a deep breath. He reflects on the years that brought his little brother and his little brother’s best friend to this moment. By the end, his face hurts from smiling too much.
He can’t wait to tell everyone at the wedding about the first time Kei told him he was going to marry Tadashi.