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Issei Matsukawa doesn’t remember how his friendship with Hanamaki Takahiro begins. He knows the in-between, with Hiro and Tooru and Hajime, every detail and moment of their youth together. The four of them, inseparable. Tooru and Hajime. Issei and Hiro. Hiro and Issei.
Issei meets Hiro when they’re five or six, shoved in the same ESL class and forced to meander through annoyingly bright computer graphic games on their school’s spare PCs.
The other boy’s name is “Takahiro” as in “Hiro,” as in “hero,” but not really. He lives in the spaces between those words, the parted confusion of his classmates’ lips. He's granted both idol and class-joke status through their teachers’ botched American pronunciation of his first name with every new school year. Life and death. Growing up in a medium-sized suburban town means Marvel comics stretched out in front of them and their family’s battered American flag. In February, poor Spiderman imitation on slush lands Issei in the hospital with a broken arm.
Slowly, they learn each other in the way children do — this enthusiastic and innocent forming of bonds. With that comes the sharing of secrets and stories.
Hiro’s parents run a struggling Japanese restaurant near the town center and therefore have a monopoly on the town’s diversity quota. They live in a nondescript brown condo on the way to the town center, and it’s a longer walk from there to school than expected, especially in the dead of winter, and much to their displeasure, an even longer walk to the Matsukawa residence. Issei’s father is a mechanical engineer who works for the government, which is a fancier way of saying Issei has absolutely no idea what he does. Often he takes long business trips to Germany and sends back expensive chocolates and souvenirs that line the family home’s walls. Deutschland has more of a presence there than Japan.
Neither Issei nor Hiro attend a formal Japanese language school, though their parents encourage them to watch anime and other day shows illegally bootlegged from the Internet. He takes to Naruto early on. The obsession ebbs quickly when Hiro shows him One Punch Man.
But that’s okay with him. Everything is okay with him. And he’s sure it’s okay with Hiro, the only friend he sees outside of school, too. There’s enough to explore outside anyways. When you’re young, there’s something new to see everyday. Their town is all vibrant shades of orange and violet. It’s so flat that, in the morning, you can see the sunset standing from any spot in the street. There’s an unyielding harshness to the rays breaking themselves into two on the ground. The school bus comes early in the morning to a spot a street away from Issei’s house, and every morning there are more cuss words written in black Sharpie all over the thick, leather seats.
Over his years in elementary school, he goes through the usual pattern of picking up and dropping the violin, and starting karate and quitting, what he’ll later learn is almost stereotypically Asian. Starting and ending. That is almost gratifying enough.
He gives up on perfection early on, finding no real use in it, and settles for improvement. In third grade, he and Hiro “graduate” from their ESL program, now bad at Japanese and extremely competent in English, and find themselves plopped in the normal Language Arts class, confidently mispronouncing new words without an adult at home to reference to. Issei excels in gym class and science. He keeps a pet beetle. His mother talks to him in Japanese, often more slowly than the adults on her reality TV shows, and he replies in English, slowly losing the culture and ear and tongue for the language. She tries to show him Japanese sports matches, advising him to memorize the players’ names and watch interviews. It’ll help you learn more Kanji. He watches American ones instead. His mother gives up three months in.
It would be so easy to feel lonely here, yet he never does. Not really, anyways, in the ways he expects, with the town’s forested enclosures and empty lakes devoid of wildlife. Real loneliness, the kind that aches and gnaws at you for hours on end, he learns years later, upon graduating high school, isn’t necessarily about the place, but more about the people.
When he’s ten years old, without any concrete memories for comparison, he watches a coyote scamper forward to kill a small bird, the bloodless tussle a familiar sight around town, and finds it more tender than violent. He holds this moment adjacent to his heart, like an arrow. The creature vanishes into the forest before Issei can say a word — its presence fading, all of it disappearing all so fast. Leaving him there, hand outstretched, a thin trail of dust in its wake.
#
In their first year of middle school, childhood friends Tooru Oikawa and Hajime Iwaizumi move into the neighborhood from San Francisco, born in Tokyo and Miyagi respectively, fluent in Japanese and speaking English with slight Japanese accents — the hardly noticeable lilt of those from the Bay Area and Southern California, generalized into a more standard Asian-American accent.
With their arrival, Hiro becomes Makki, and Issei becomes Mattsun. Neither of them mind the change; when you’re eleven, anything goes, and you don’t know any different anyways. They join the volleyball team together, but it’s nothing more than a recreational activity meant to strip them of energy and leave them tired and polite and pliant at the dinner table.
Sometimes Tooru talks to them in Japanese as a means of gossiping in public situations. It’s clear from the start that he’s an incredibly talented volleyball player, making the first-string setter position in their local club team and vowing to beat the richer neighborhood kids closer to the city. The motions come naturally. Whatever doubts he initially harbored about not making the team disappear after their first week of practice. Hajime, Hiro, and Issei struggle to keep up, to maintain a sense of equal-standing. Eventually the entire neighborhood knows Tooru’s name.
“Do you think you’d ever go pro?” Hiro asks Issei as they walk to the town center from school. Issei’s planning to buy a watch for his father with his measly twenty-dollars, his “paycheck” from shoveling the snow off his neighbor’s driveway two weeks ago. This is the first time his father will be home in almost ten months, returning from Berlin as usual.
Issei kicks the snow off the sidewalk. “Pro with what?”
“You know what I mean. Volleyball.”
“Tooru wants to.”
“Yeah, but I already knew that! I mean, for you.”
He says, “I know you wouldn’t,” and Hiro elbows him lightly, laughing and shaking his head to make the fluffy hood of his parka ruffle loudly against his ears. His breaths come in light puffs that form tiny mirages in the air. Issei wants this image to stay with him forever.
“I’ll be taller in high school, anyways! Otousan has a tall aunt.”
Issei says half-jokingly and half-seriously, “I think I want to be a mortician,” because he’s been secretly reading his older sister’s Edgar Allen Poe collection, and though he isn’t the smartest kid in his class or even on his street, he considers himself to be somewhat precocious for his age, able to hold what he thinks are meaningful conversations with his sister about Spiderman’s shocking development in the latest Marvel comic. Besides, hanging out with Tooru means he learns big words like that: precocious, astute, prodigy, inferior.
“What the heck is that?” Then, after learning what it is — "You have to shoot my body through a cannon when I die. With fireworks and everything. Promise.”
Issei rolls his eyes. “Like either of us will ever be that important.”
“Well, Hajime would say that —”
“— Tooru will be. Always his number one supporter, huh?”
Hiro breaks into a large grin. “Come on, let’s go buy your Otousan his watch!”
As it turns out, no luxury watch will ever sell for twenty dollars, even with Hiro practically groveling in front of the store owner on Issei’s behalf (his reasoning for his doing it being that Issei read “too much Poe, you don’t look like a little kid with that hair!”). The two of them trudge back home empty-handed, and despite himself, Issei feels a little hollow.
“You can make him a card,” Hiro insists. “Otousan’s always asking for stuff like that from me. He doesn’t care how much money you spend if you make him a card and write him a letter. Maybe you can even type it. That’s not hard, right? Is typing hard?”
“Takes a long time, yeah,” Issei says. “It’s fine, I’ll figure it out.”
The two part ways at their usual intersection, and Issei watches Hiro wave enthusiastically at him before beginning the long trek home. It’s getting colder now.
Later, during recess at school, Hajime jumps off the monkey bars after completing an especially difficult routine, much to Tooru’s indignation. Hiro takes his turn on the bars and copies Hajime exactly, which results in Tooru trying over and over again without avail.
“It’s not that I wanna be a gymnast anyways,” he says when recess ends.
Hajime and Hiro exchange looks, both biting back giggles.
“Neither of us want to be gymnasts,” Hajime says. He runs a comforting hand over Tooru’s hair, and Tooru wrinkles his nose but doesn’t pull away. It’s clear from the get-go that both of them are quite accustomed to physical touch. “Actually,” Hajime continues, “and I hate to break it to you, it might just be that you’re really, really bad at the monkey bars, Trashykawa.”
He ducks to avoid Tooru’s petulant kick and exclamation of “Mean, Iwa-chan!” The two chase each other back to class, and Hiro joins them with ease, allowing Issei to do so as well.
Issei knows that Tooru and Hajime share a deep bond and connection that he doesn’t with anyone else, and that they aren’t as dramatically aware of their presence as sore thumbs among their white classmates, those who attend the same Catholic Church in town and claim to have an ancestor in Thomas Jefferson “if you look really closely” at their family tree.
Of course, Tooru Oikawa, if anything, has always been more. More of everything, the good and the bad. More talented, more comfortable speaking to crowds, more Japanese, more charismatic to their teachers. And Hajime Iwaizumi has always served as a balance to those extremes, keeping the other grounded in times of overexcitement or distress.
Issei doesn’t think too much about it. He continues his daily routine, and once school gets out, goes over to Hiro’s house to watch Disney channel and help his mother make onigiri.
His father comes home at night, tired, and falls asleep before Issei gets back. His mother hushes him, advising him to brush his teeth in the dark because the bathroom lights are noisy, and tucks him in with a kiss and apology.
The next morning, he oversleeps and misses breakfast. In a rush, he leaves his handwritten card on the counter for his father, and heads down to his bus stop.
#
At the start of eighth grade, the four of them — himself, Hiro, Hajime, and Tooru, now a common sight in town — go to the mall two towns away, courtesy of their parents' free schedules that particular weekend, and venture into the department store with a singular mission: hair dye. That, being a classic coming-of-age ritual seen in American films all the time.
Marvel characters have funky hair colors all the time, Issei reasoned the night before, but his mother still refused to let him touch his locks for fear of messing up and having to shave his entire head. The truth is his hair is too dark anyways, and bleaching it more than once or twice would damage it beyond his thirteen-year-old comprehension. His sister, now in college, calls him and tells him he already has the perfect hair for an Edgar Allen Poe character anyways, and he isn’t sure whether to take that as a compliment or straight-up insult.
It doesn’t matter. Hiro takes an unsmiling picture of him with his disposable Walmart-bought Kodak, then teases him for looking like a more youthful and definitely Asian version of Poe. Anyone else, and Issei might’ve been a bit annoyed, but it’s Hiro.
And the joke is, admittedly, funny.
Of course, once they arrive back in Hajime’s large, three-story house on the edge of town, Tooru refuses to touch his own hair, though Hajime teases him relentlessly for his vanity. Anyways, Issei’s hair is too dark and coarse, like Hajime’s, and since Hiro’s hair is naturally a lighter brown, he offers himself up to the hair-dye gods.
In the end, they choose pink. Armed with bleach, Tooru, who dubs himself a hair-styling expert without any real experience, spreads the slick material over the other boy’s hair and drops random quips over Hajime’s mother’s Backstreet Boys CD.
“Makki-chan would like San Francisco,” he says, and though Issei isn’t as well-versed in casual Japanese honorifics as he’d like to be, the playful rhythm of Tooru’s speech is easy enough to understand. He’s always appreciated that about Tooru, his insistence on sacrificing parts of himself for others. He knows Hajime does not. He sees it when they play volleyball, and he sees it in every interaction with a figure of authority. “Lots of people have crazy hair there. You’d be surprised how many different colors you can fit into one head.”
The pink hair suits Hiro quite well. They take a million pictures of themselves with his disposable camera, and smear hair dye on the bathroom tiles.
Around six in the evening, Iwaizumi-san (Issei remembers his mother sitting him down and reminding him to address Mrs. Iwaizumi by the correct honorific at all times, no matter how awkward it feels, since he never talks with any Japanese adults other than his own mother) sets out warm bowls of udon for them in the backyard, where her family has installed a small picnic table. She calls him “Matsukawa-kun” and Hiro “Hanamaki-kun.” It’s so formal he almost blushes. Suddenly Issei feels out of place, though everyone else around him looks just like him.
“Mattsun, Makki,” Tooru calls him from the room next door. “Come here.”
It turns out there are plenty of photos of San Francisco to show around in Iwaizumi-san’s study, most of them printed out and pasted into dusty scrapbooks. The streets are crowded and narrow and busy in a way Issei’s could never have imagined. In San Francisco, there is something called Japantown, and in Japantown there is more Japanese culture and Japanese people than Issei has ever seen in his life, having never visited his parents’ home country before.
Haijme leans over to flip the page and reveal the Golden Gate Bridge, a rusty red cast out against the sunset in all its glory, the fog rising just enough to hide the tourists gawking at the bridge from below. Then there’s the Embarcadero, Tooru’s favorite place, because second to milk bread is his deep appreciation for French baked goods, and there’s a bakery right next to the sea.
“It can be hard to find if you don’t know what to look for,” Tooru says.
“Did you really ride the train by yourself?” Hiro asks, and Tooru flushes with pride.
San Francisco, as described by Tooru Oikawa and Hajime Iwaizumi, is alive. It’s bustling and exciting. Whereas there’s only the Hanamaki family restaurant here, San Francisco carries thousands of Asian cultural exports across the sea. There’s something called boba milk tea there. Without another word, Hiro thumbs through the photos with awe sketched over his cheeks, and Issei knows he’s trying to think of a way to one-up the other two. But what is there to say about their New England town, nestled closer to forested mountains than tall, city buildings?
“Even the buildings are colorful in San Francisco,” Tooru says. “Like Makki’s hair, sorta.”
Issei imagines running through the city streets, Hiro right at his heels. Or maybe — running together. Finding that one bakery Tooru loves so much. Finding the sea.
“We’ll have a scrapbook of volleyball and stuff one day,” Tooru declares. “You’re all playing in high school, right?” He glances at Hajime. “You could be my ace.”
Issei nods with a wry smile. “Of course. Someone has to keep you in your place, even with Hajime around.” He glances at Hajime, and Hajme says, “No offense taken.”
Hiro says, “He’s right. We’re stronger than Hajime anyways.”
“Really?”
Tooru coos, “I’d love to see you prove that, Makki, Mattsun. Iwa-chan?”
Issei resists the urge to laugh out loud when Hiro lifts his arm up to the table and challenges Hajime to an arm wrestling competition right then and there — right arm first, then left. In between shouts and grunts, Hajime wins with a resounding snap of his wrist. They’re out of breath, exhilarated and sweaty. Tooru throws a pillow at Hajime, and Hajime lifts it up like a trophy. The boys cheer and clap. Issei’s sure the entire neighborhood can hear them.
Two hours later, Iwaizumi-san #2 (Mr. Iwaizumi, Issei tells himself. It’s easier that way) arrives home from work with a quiet wave of his hand and a grunt, oddly similar to Hajime himself. He kisses Iwaizumi-san on the cheek and tells Issei that if Issei needs anything, anything at all, don’t be afraid to ask him, that he’s here to make sure they’re comfortable.
Mr. Iwaizumi reaches into his bag and pulls out a M&M cookie, handing it to Hajime.
Hajime splits it in four.
“Here,” he says.
He gives Tooru the biggest piece.
So, Hajime Iwaizumi is a good person. Hajime is kind, and Hajime takes care of Tooru in ways that Tooru does not even realize, and allows Tooru to, in a less explicit way, care for him in return. They dance this invisible dance everyday, whether they know it or not. Hajime splits cookies into four and shares it with everyone. He gives Issei and Hiro and Tooru a piece. He might tease and call Tooru “Shittykawa” (the first time, Hiro almost spit out his water because, “I can’t believe you swore!”), but he lets others go on the monkey bars before him, and picks less popular kids first when he’s voted team captain in gym class. It is safe to say that Hajime deserves everything good, every single bit of success well-earned through hard work.
Tooru, while talented, works equally as hard, harder than the rich kid volleyball players who live closer to the city and train with the city university’s youth volleyball training program. Together, they make quite a duo, formidable on and off the court. They are always together.
And as for him and Hiro. Well, Hiro is Issei’s best friend. That much is true. Hiro gets standard B grades and the occasional C in tougher subjects, but his mother doesn’t put him down for it in the harsh way Tooru’s mother does. He holds no qualms about dying his hair pink. He makes an effort in most of what he does. And though he has a tendency to flipflop his opinions and commitments, trying everything until he’s left with nearly nothing, he is always there to listen when anyone needs it. When Issei needs it. Not that Issei’s thinking of that specifically.
Issei thinks he could write a million cards and letters expressing his feelings about Hiro, not that he’d ever be able to put it all into words.
It would be easy, he thinks, to lose Hiro. Unlike Hajime and Tooru, who lie on two extremes, Issei and Hiro navigate a more fuzzy gray zone. Neither of them push its boundaries. They've settled for what they have, and quite frankly, at the moment, it is just enough, and he wouldn't trade it for anything else. Who else would he share his memories with?
It’s a strange feeling, though not unpleasant at all. In fact, it’s kind of warm. Is that the right word? Yes. It’s warm. Warm, in a way that suggests a distance, like the warmth of a house next door on Christmas morning, holiday music drifting through a half-open window, yellow lights cast down on the snow. Like the memory of a sunrise over the blue sea.
They sleep over at Hajime’s house. The Iwaizumis have futons. Hiro or Issei’s families don't use futons anymore, but they’re comfortable, and the floor isn’t cold at all.
Issei falls asleep around midnight to the low buzz of the space heater. He wakes up once to kick Tooru for rolling into his personal space, and Tooru complains and whines, but eventually drifts off again.
#
A year later, high school begins with grand plans. Issei’s father wishes him luck via a handwritten letter sent with expedited postage, a package from Berlin containing German sweets and trinkets, more to add to their already overflowing collection. Tooru has taken to talking about volleyball all the time, and Hiro has started a part-time job at their local convenience store, stocking shelves and manning the cash register, occasionally sneaking Issei and Hajime chocolate bars when the manager isn’t watching. When Tooru learns about this, he places a hand on Hiro’s shoulder, mimicking fake tears, and says, “Our Makki is growing up and finally resisting against the capitalist machine!” Hiro threatens to kick Tooru out of the store.
High school demands they all take a language, so they choose Spanish. Tooru displays an early promise for the language, then goes around Hajime’s house adding random objects to the end of me gusta and yo quiero, until Hajime tells him puta, joder, and sal de ahí without actually knowing how to use the words. The mismash of words makes them all laugh.
“I’m gonna be fluent one day,” Tooru promises. He rolls his r’s once, then twice. “That’s trilingual, right? Wouldn’t it be so cool to be trilingual? I could play volleyball anywhere.”
Issei tilts his head to the side, locking eyes with Hiro.
It’s almost telepathic. A smirk tugs at Hiro’s lips.
“Joder,” they say at the same time. Tooru gasps and tries to smack them.
Hajime barks, as if on command, “Shittykawa!”
“Do you even know what joder means?” exclaims Tooru, and everyone shakes their heads, leading to an even louder, more obnoxious burst of laughter.
Later, he says, “I have been practicing actual grammar,” and says, “Quiero comer onigiri ahora mismo. Quiero tener éxito. Quiero tener éxito con mis amigos.”
“If you want to be excited, get a girlfriend,” Hajime says, butchering the translation.
Tooru looks appalled. “Iwa-chan, you know I could never do that to you.”
Unfortunately, Issei doesn’t know enough Spanish to translate what Tooru said. His barebones knowledge of Spanish means all he catches is amigos, con mis amigos, and he’s still guessing for the most part. But he knows what it means. It’s a nice thought.
#
One Friday afternoon in the late fall, Issei and Hiro decide to meet up, just the two of them, and catch up. It’s been a long time since it was just the two of them. Tooru has a way of wriggling his way into everyone’s lives, and Hajime usually follows one or two steps behind. Time conflicts and clashing schedules make it hard to spend quality time together when it’s not officially a school break. Besides, lucky for them, making plans is easier now that both of them have smartphones. They text their way through the boring school day. Issei walks home to grab a snack, and the trees are shedding their leaves, and with every step they crunch more and more colorful leaves under his feet. Out in the more secluded and forested area of town, the shadows
After Hiro finishes his late shift, they meet at the town center where they tried to buy a watch for twenty dollars all those years ago. It hasn’t changed. The same dormer windows adorn the colonial buildings, each store a waterless island confined to its own shores. Everything is dull, isolated. The shop-owners are kind enough. Growing older means the small town has started to lose its isolated charm and starts to become mundane instead. Inevitable.
Issei and Hiro greet each other, and exchange hugs without a second thought, though it takes a minute for the ice to really break. Afterwards, they head towards the nearest coffee shop, eventually ordering a small drink. They go to stand outside. It’s kind of cold.
“I’m not a big fan of the convenience store,” Hiro comments. “I’m pretty sure they’re violating a million health code violations. Not that I’ll ever tell.”
“At least we know where you stand on morals,” Issei grumbles.
“Do you want a chocolate bar?”
“Did you take one?”
Hiro nods, reaches into his pockets, and hands over a Kitkat to Issei, who unwraps it eagerly. The sweet taste explodes over his tongue, and he sighs, content.
“Nevermind,” Issei whispers. “I won’t snitch on your manager either.”
“I’ll always steal for you,” Hiro says through chuckles.
Another thing —
Hiro looks nice in the soft orange sunset, Issei thinks dimly, and the colors dust the top of his muted pink hair without any strong contrast, almost as if Hiro himself is fading into the light. All lilting spots and almost feverishly red cheeks, the soft curves of his jaw illuminated by the dying shadows. Shifting, like a hallucination. Almost impossible to believe.
He's almost translucent, like a figure that could be excluded or included in a painting with no significant change, existing there in the background without any real purpose, but to Issei, the absence of Hiro would be more startling than anything else. Because it is a place they both inhabit, in the spaces of their names and the gaps of town, the unintentional brushing of hands. Their shoes scuff against the sides of the sidewalk.
“I can’t believe we’re so old. We’re going to be sixteen soon,” Hiro complains, and Issei agrees. Both of them scroll on each others’ phones for a while, having discovered memes, then take a walk until they reach their old middle school. They spend a few minutes watching the remaining stragglers wander around the tiny campus until a car pulls up to pick them up.
“How’s work?”
Hiro wrinkles his nose. “It’s retail. And I’m late all the time anyways.”
“You know Tooru would say you’re raging against the capitalist machine.”
“Tooru says a lot of things.”
“At least you’re making lots of money.”
“Yeah, I mean, it’s better than nothing.” Hiro sighs. “After that, I have no idea. I’m kinda lost about the entire college major thing. What am I supposed to do, become an engineer?”
“Nothing wrong with being an engineer,” Issei says, and thinks of Berlin.
“The bridge would collapse! Imagine if we ran the world, Issei.”
“We have time,” he responds. He doesn’t mean it in a patronizing way, like lots of adults do, sneering at teenagers for their lack of experience. No. Issei Matsukawa really believes it. Him and Hiro — they’re fifteen years old, and have barely ever left town. They’ve never left their state, never ventured out of the country. He thinks of his older sister, away and studying biology in college, encouraging him to follow a science-related path as well. He thinks about her lab experiences, how when she does message him updates, which isn’t all that often, she gushes about the supportive college faculty. He adds, “It just feels like it’s all coming at us so fast.”
The wind blows through his hair and leaves the wavy locks disheveled.
“Man,” Hiro says, “if only there was a way to make money off posting random things on Facebook. You know my uncle from Japan messages me twice a week to ask me if I’m okay?”
Issei wacks him on the arm. “You need to stop posting stupid things to Facebook!”
“But it’s my brand!”
“You don’t have a brand!”
They bicker meaninglessly for a few minutes before dissolving into laughter, like usual, the reason for their spat long forgotten. They chat about volleyball, and Hiro jumps up in the air to demonstrate his improved spiking form, to which Issei clicks his tongue and says cheekily, “I don’t know, I don’t really see a difference, you know?”
“Shut up.” Hiro sounds mildly annoyed, though he’s blushing. He runs a hand through his pink hair, redyed over and over again through the years. “I spent a lot of time on that. It’s better on the court. Isn’t there a stupid saying about falling down seven times and getting up eight?”
“If you want, I’ll post that for you on your Facebook wall.”
He lets out a small noise of indignation. “You wouldn’t!”
“At least your uncle would think you’re finally studying.”
“Studying what? Chinese — is it Japanese? — proverbs? In American public school?”
Issei snorts. “You have a point.”
An hour later, they end up wandering into the nearby park, the grass fields mostly devoid of people. The only thing of note is a goose. A white goose sits on top of the sparkling lake.
Hiro points at it and wonders if it’s actually a swan, and Issei says, no, the world doesn’t work like that, if it was a swan you’d know it was a swan from the start. Hiro pokes fun at it: maybe it’s a swan in disguise. But Issei knows it as well as anyone else, as well as Hiro — that it’s just a plain, normal goose, swimming in a normal lake, tucked away in some small town in the middle of nowhere. Maybe if it’s lucky it’ll live a long life floating around in this very park. Or a tourist (because the locals refrain from feeding the animals) will toss it a piece of bread. Not that any tourists came around these parts anyways, unless passing through for a gas station.
But, of course, the goose doesn’t know that, and it never will. For now, it’s just a goose, searching for nothing. It will never want for more. It will never want for the sea.
#
Next week, Hiro asks Issei to lock up the store for him on Friday, giving him the keys during second period geometry and demonstrating how to properly lock the front door, and Issei promises to help. Hiro can’t make it to work that night; his mother has a doctor’s appointment she can’t cancel, and she needs him and his weak Japanese skills to translate.
Then, on Friday morning, Issei’s father returns from Berlin on short notice, and Issei forgets.
His mother drives him to the airport to meet his father, and they bring flowers and chocolates. Otousan brings back pictures of German cars and German buildings and German women (co-workers). He gushes over Issei’s mother’s cooking, spinning up entertaining stories about his travels in nearby European countries. When Issei asks, he even speaks in German. Though it’s clear he still carries a bit of a Japanese accent, the language is still jarring and grating, and Issei loves it. He wants to learn German. He wants to hear more stories.
So Otousan tells him about Italy and Austria and Switzerland, and the entire time his mother listens from the kitchen with a small smile and blush written over her cheeks. Issei scrolls through his father’s phone for photos, even setting one of them as his wallpaper. In return, he shows his father recent photos of him at school events. His father ruffles his hair, like Mr. Iwaizumi might, and compliments him for his tall height.
“You look more like me every year,” Matsukawa-san says.
Added onto their German memorabilia and trinket collection are three postcards dedicated to the Christmas market in Dresden, a glorious and bright sight. It’s past midnight now, and the sounds of crickets and frogs chirping outside overpowers their words easily. The living room is warm, with a hearth going, and soft German music plays on the CD player. Issei’s father talks with his mother, and his mother rubs at her eyes and tries her best to hide a yawn.
Sitting in the kitchen, Issei turns over the new postcards gently, so as to not accidentally scratch or fold them, before going searching for Tooru, Hajime, and Hiro’s addresses.
Then he remembers.
He promised Hiro to lock the store.
Issei runs all the way there. It’s farther away than expected, and he’s too young to drive, too embarrassed to ask his father and disturb his mother. His sister, the one who dubbed him Edgar Allen Poe Jr. and sometimes actually encourages him to pursue mortuary sciences, is far from home, and she doesn’t return unless she has to. Plane tickets are expensive. And because there’s no bus in town, it takes him a full twenty minutes of running to get to the store. The night is cold.
He stands there, rubbing his hands on his arms before realizing he forgot to bring the keys to lock the doors in the first place. He can’t believe it. The most important thing — and he left it sitting on his desk at home. Of course, ten minutes of pacing leads him nowhere, and he considers going inside the store. A breeze picks up. Around him, the night has draped the entire town blue, fuzzy and blurred.
In the end, he sits in front of the store until morning. The first workers of the day clock in at five, and he drags himself home, where his father and mother are both asleep. He brushes his teeth with the lights off, and goes to sleep.
There’s nothing else he can do.
He thinks about telling Hiro through text message, but it feels much too impersonal for such a staggering mistake. Unfortunately, he doesn’t need to.
The manager fires Hiro, and Issei’s father leaves soon after, this time not for Germany. This time, he’s headed to Dallas, Texas, not nearly as exciting. His flight leaves before Issei wakes up, bleary and sore from the night before. His mother offers him stamps for the postcards.
When Issei breaks the news of his mistake to Hiro, he expects the other boy to shun him. He expects him to yell and break off their friendship.
“You know I was at a doctor’s appointment for Okaasan last Friday, right?”
“Yeah.”
“My mother isn’t sick or anything,” Hiro says. “The tests came back negative.”
Issei’s voice is strangled. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“Issei. I can always find a new job.”
He doesn’t answer.
Instead of leaving, Hiro sits there, quiet. He exhales. Inhales, falling into a steady rhythm. Then he leans forward and murmurs in a soft voice, pink hair brushing against Issei’s shoulder and chest pressing into Issei’s arm as he wraps him in a sudden embrace.
“I’m not mad at you,” he says. “You know that, too, right?”
He’s warm to the touch. They let themselves stay there for a while.
#
In their second year of high school, their school’s varsity volleyball team places first in their district tournament and comes in second at regionals. On the bus ride back, Issei and Hiro fall asleep on each other's shoulders. They wake up to Tooru snickering and snapping photos with his brand new mobile phone, with Hajime pretending to stop him. When Tooru notices they’re awake, his smile grows even larger and he raises his fingers into a v-sign.
“Cheese!” he exclaims, and Hiro gasps in false indignation, reaching forward to knock the phone out of Tooru’s hands. Tooru leans back, almost stepping on Hajime’s foot, and retreats to the nearest window seat. Issei tackles him down. The coach scolds them for the remaining thirty minutes of the bus ride. He threatens to tell the vice principal on them.
What this tournament means is that there are only two more chances for their high school to qualify for the state tournament. If they manage to place in the top three of their state, they qualify for nationals. Historically, they’d never gotten past districts until Tooru Oikawa.
Their coach congratulates them on a battle hard fought. In the end, a private school near Shiratorizawa Academy with captain and USA U16 and probably U19, U21, and future national Olympic team member Wakatoshi Ushijima (“I can’t believe he’s Japanese, too,” Tooru says one day, throwing his arm over his eyes in a melodramatic manner. “I can’t believe I’m gonna have to fight him for that diversity spot.”) snatches the final spot to the State competition.
“It’s pretty bad,” Tooru says. “We’re not even from California, so it’s not like we’re ultra-competitive or anything. I’m gonna have to poison Ushiwaka.”
Hiro wrinkles his nose. “Ushiwaka?”
“Wakatoshi, the Shiratorizawa captain,” Hajime supplies helpfully.
Tooru raises a hand and closes his eyes for a moment. “Don’t say his name. It’ll taint your lips.”
Issei and Hajime chant “Ushiwaka” over and over again until one of the yard duties silences them. Then they go back to eating their lunch in silence, snickering. Hiro falls over the lunch table from laughing, then sits there wheezing until he regains his breath.
“I can’t believe you thought that was funny. Maybe you have asthma, Makki-chan,” Tooru says, still evidently miffed at the mention of Shiratorizawa, and Hiro shoves him. “What? If you grew your hair out a little, you could be Shiratorizawa’s bowl-cut wing spiker.”
The summer after their sophomore year is hot and humid. Hajime goes to Tokyo with his family, and Tooru spends his days moping and wandering around aimlessly. He organizes volleyball practices and studies for the SAT. Hiro works as a waiter at his parents’ restaurant, considers going into food service, then changes his mind when a customer throws Pepsi at him.
“Let’s each take a career aptitude test,” he tells Issei, and both of them take the informal online exams on their clunky laptops. “I can’t figure out what I wanna even do.”
Issei’s results are unsurprisingly bland, though he doesn’t place much importance on them. Science has been his strongest subject since his youth; he doubts he’d pursue anything else. Being a teacher sounds exhausting. Software engineer would ruin his eyes before thirty.
They toss out random possibilities. Issei even suggests mortuary sciences for Hiro, though they both know he doesn’t have an aptitude for that sort of thing.
“I wish I was Tooru,” Hiro says, before jumping up in alarm. He pushes his chair back. “Shit! I can’t believe I said that! Don’t go around telling him, or he’ll get an even bigger head.”
“You should just say you wish you were Wakatoshi.”
“No, he beat us!”
“You’re right. But don’t tell Tooru I said that earlier, okay?”
Once Issei reassures him that his secret is safe with him, Hiro closes his laptop. He pushes his chair back and slides onto the floor. “It’s not that I wish I was actually him,” he says. “I’d be a terrible professional volleyball player. Couldn’t take the pressure or the rabid fans. I don’t know. And don’t say we have time either, because I feel like we’re starting to push it. I mean, we’ll be seniors before we know it. We’ll have to fill out college applications. Sure, I’m not particularly worried about what my parents will think. But I feel like I’ve only done what I need to do my entire life, and now that I have a choice, it’s too much. I feel like I’ll try a million different things and fail at the exact same things. Does that make sense?”
“I don’t know.” Issei feels like he should be saying something else. “I guess.”
“You guess ?”
He shrugs. “I think I’ve always known what I wanted to do.”
When he was younger, his sister’s word was God, and now he is about to pursue it. Becoming a mortician and dabbling in biology research sounds like a good-enough life.
“At least you’re good at science,” Hiro says. “You and Hajime both. You’ll have to use your medical connections to get me a job when I go broke, like, ten years from now. High school chemistry killed me. What about real life? I’ve always only done what was necessary because we needed the extra cash. It was okay, but I don’t want that to be forever.”
“Come on,” Issei replies, swallowing hard. “You didn’t do that bad in chemistry.”
Hiro rolls his eyes. “Significant figures were the worst.”
A chuckle. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”
They sit in silence for a moment.
“Issei,” Hiro says, “what if I end up living under a bridge?”
Issei furrows his eyebrows together. “I’m sure some funeral homes have places for the living. You could always come stay with me.” And though neither of them know anything about real life, of being an adult and having to pay bills and go to regular jobs (as well as they can in this economy, at least), the sentiment is comforting enough to calm both of them down.
“You worry too much,” Issei says. “You’ll do fine.”
“Well,” Hiro says, “I don’t know. I guess. But I trust you.”
When Issei gets home, there’s a large package waiting in front of his door. He lugs it into the living room, then tears the tape open the best he can with a butter knife. His mother comes downstairs to help him. Inside, trinkets and goodies from Texas spill out. Postcards with iconic paintings, a cowboy hat made from real leather. Tucked away in the farthest corner of the cardboard box is a letter enclosed in a beige envelope. Typed, all fancy and placed on a professional letterhead. It’s addressed to him. Matsukawa Issei. Matsukawa-san, his father but younger. Inside, Otousan talks, as he usually does, of Texan food, Texan culture, Texan women (coworkers) and spontaneous trips to Mexico. His mother shifts farther away from him to avoid reading over his shoulder. She retreats into the kitchen and makes him a plate of cold inarizushi.
Immediately Issei runs to the Hanamaki family restaurant to inform Hiro of this new development and give his friend a keychain. Issei keeps the letter beside his bed. He hasn’t felt lonely in a long time, not the deep kind that haunts you. That night it colors his every breath.
#
Tooru becomes team captain in their third year of high school, despite two of their players being in their fourth. The vote is unanimous. There’s nobody more fit for the role.
Another thing: several Division I coaches from across the country have expressed keen interest in having Tooru join their collegiate volleyball team. They send him letters and brochures, and offer college visits. What was once a childhood dream for Tooru slowly begins to breach their reality, and it comes with a violent flair of color that drenches their muted school.
Suddenly their small town doesn’t feel so small anymore. Wherever they go, random adults congratulate him on his achievements. The rare taste of success, actual success acknowledged by the institutions that dictate the flow of their world, starts to permeate Tooru’s every living moment, and Issei can tell. As the new volleyball season grows closer, a couple new underclassmen join the team and fill Tooru up with a newfound drive, almost a need to impress those who may carry on his legacy. It doesn’t matter that he has nothing to prove; it doesn't matter that his reputation precedes him wherever he goes. For underclassmen Akira Kunimi and Yuutaro Kindaichi, both sons of new Japanese immigrants from one town over, he aims to demonstrate proper spiking technique. For a setter one year younger, he aims to teach jump serves. He starts to put on a show, whether he realizes it or not.
Of course, it’s not a surprise to any of them. Out of all of them, he’s always been the one to take everything as either good or bad, acceptable or failing, and with Hajime focused on AP biology and standardized testing, there’s nobody to reel him back.
In fact, Tooru Oikawa hardly does anything but practice volleyball. A month into the school year and he’s already watched dozens of matches, taking meticulous notes and forgetting to sleep. Hiro expresses his own worries in a hushed whisper at lunch one day. He trusts that Issei won’t tell anyone, because Tooru doesn’t like to be told what to do, but Issei contemplates telling Hajime. But he doesn’t want to be one to distract Hajime from his academics.
So what follows next is inevitable.
Neither Hiro nor Issei are there when Tooru injures himself practicing serves in their third year of high school, though Hajime recounts the entire experience in painstaking detail. Apparently they ended up calling Tooru’s mother to pick him up, and she scolded him for being too reckless the entire way to the hospital. It’s an injury severe enough to put Tooru out for the rest of the season. If he attends physical therapy and uses his crutches, he should recover in time for pre-season. By that point, all of them will be seniors. Their last year of high school.
So when it seems that their season is doomed and Tooru might cave in on himself, Hajime invites all four of them over to his house for a sleepover.
“It’s about time,” he says when he sends them invitations via text. “Come over tomorrow. Don’t say no, don’t think about it. No, Tooru, you’ve had enough time to yourself. Just come.”
It’s supposed to be a movie night, so Issei brings three bags of potato chips, Tooru brings a pile of fuzzy blankets because Hajime’s blankets are “coarse and rough just like Iwa-chan’s mean personality!” and then claims that, “I can say whatever I want now, because Hajime would never hit a man on crutches! Hajime is a true gentleman, Mattsun.”
Hiro arrives last — ten minutes late, to be exact — with a healthy supply of microwaveable popcorn. He’s unrepentant, and waves around his popcorn with a wild grin.
“With movie-theater butter,” he boasts, reading the packaging outloud. He sounds so smug that Issei has to resist the urge to laugh. “It was two dollars more than the normal kind.”
“Idiot,” Hajime says. “Save your money.”
“No, no,” Tooru interjects, “Spend it on us!”
“Here.” Issei takes the flat bags from Hiro. “I’ll put them in the microwave.”
“Mattsun, you wouldn’t do that for me!” Tooru whines, and Issei doesn’t understand what that means.
They bicker over movies for ten minutes, working through half the popcorn before deciding on a film. By that time, Issei doesn’t care what they watch, as long as they watch something. They end up watching Godzilla at Hajime’s request, then a SyFy original Tooru begs them to play. With all of them overworked with academics, it’s a rare moment for rest and relaxation. Iwaizumi-san and Mr. Iwaizumi leave them alone, retreating upstairs to their study, which Issei thought only existed in fancy British movies.
Right before they go to sleep, Hajime shows Tooru a scrapbook made from random photos, mostly from their past volleyball seasons. Though most of the photos are blurry and none of them would ever garner an award, they’re heartfelt and soft, the sides slightly tattered from use, each one pasted neatly into the sketchbook with purple glue. Small captions surround each photo. Hajime has, with his messy handwriting, marked each photo with a date and descriptor. Tooru's service ace. Pre-game huddle. Hiro and Issei making Akira and Yutaro pull a prank on Hajime. Beating Tobio-chan’s team. That time we won Districts. Look how proud the coach is. Here is Tooru scoring the winning point. A photo of the scoreboard. Each memory solidified into something tangible and real. His achievements. The small moments in between games and before and after practices, small glances and tender touches on the shoulder for reassurance.
Basking in their nearness.
Issei would dare to call it lovely.
For the next fifteen minutes, bonus scenes from the SyFy original playing faintly in the background, Tooru flips through the sketchbook over and over again, until he has to stop, fingers trembling. He bites his lower lip to steady himself, but Issei can tell he’s already past that point.
“It’s a gift.” Hajime shrugs. “Keep it. It’s yours.”
Then Tooru takes one look at Hajime and starts crying.
“No, don’t cry,” Hajime says, and Tooru cries even harder.
“I can’t believe you did that.”
“It’s a nice way of saying I’m sorry. I should’ve been there for you.”
Tooru shakes his head, and says, “No, no. I was pushing myself too hard,” and Hajime cracks a dry smile and says, “I’m glad you finally came to that realization,” but there’s something so incredibly soft and fond in his eyes, like he’s discovered the sun itself.
“When I get big from volleyball, I’ll make sure we’re all rich,” Tooru says when he’s regained his composure. His voice is thick and muted from the tears. He extends his legs gingerly, careful not to injure his knee any further. He sighs, then smiles, and the expression, genuine and kind, settles in him naturally. “They’ll have to set up a museum dedicated to all of us, and we’ll make sure they remember us even after we die.”
“Issei won’t die,” Hiro says. “I’m pretty sure morticians sell their souls and become vampires. Issei’s gonna live forever and live out his Twilight dreams.”
“Hey!”
“I’m kidding!”
Issei craned his neck to look at the ceiling. When he’s with them, Tooru and Hajime and mostly Hiro, Hiro, Hiro and everything he is — he feels like he could live forever.
#
Tooru’s recovery signals the beginning of college applications season, and though all of them have already taken their SATs and, for the most part, finalized their senior-year schedules, there’s still an undercutting tension of thick stress in the air. Tooru thumbs through his many recruiting letters, and Hajime starts to intern at a lab in the city. The long commute there means he’s hardly practiced at all for the pre-season. Issei and Hiro, on the other hand, write their college applications in a single, frenzied week full of coffee, tears, and awful movies playing in the background. At the end of the entire process, they both look like they’ve been hit by a bus.
“It’ll be a miracle if we get in anywhere,” Hiro says. “I’ll probably stay in-state anyway.”
In the end, despite his best efforts, his applications are a mess. He applies as a political science major to some places, economics to some others. He sprinkles in business management for flair. A week before the deadline, he adds a few universities abroad and applies as computer science, English, then economics again. If anything, he claims, he’ll try to work with the family restaurant at home. If anything, he’ll have a place to stay in town.
But Issei approaches his applications with much more focused efforts. He chooses mortuary sciences or biology, purposely choosing colleges close to funeral homes or labs where he can participate in research and internships. Most of his colleges are out of state, some south of New England and others in the Midwest. He knows Hajime is gunning for the West Coast. He applies to a few of them as well, but he knows he’d never be able to afford out-of-state tuition. He aims for colleges who provide lots of generous need-based financial aid.
“New adventures,” he tells Hiro.
Hiro’s eyes shine bright. “Cheers!”
They clink metal water bottles.
Time goes faster than each of them expect. One day in the middle of February and the start of volleyball season, Issei, who hasn’t seen his father in years now and has hardly thought of him, is greeted by a singular text message from his mother.
Your father isn’t coming back.
After the denial passes, in which he eats his weight in sushi at the Hanamaki family restaurant, much to Hanamaki-san’s clear concern, he invites Hiro over to his house to do some spring cleaning. He throws away the German trinkets and his Learn German Easy! book he found at their local bookstore. He trashes the trinkets from Texas, then they both stand there, covered head to toe in dust and panting.
Hiro breaks one of the bobbles for good measure.
Issei thinks he understands his sister now, leaving for college and hardly ever coming back or contacting home. He feels immense amounts of pity and resentment for his mother. In his mind, his father still stands as an idol, making money in Germany and other fancy European countries, speaking many languages at the same time, meeting new coworkers from all over the world. A well-traveled, well-versed man with a well-rounded education.
He thinks of his letters, handwritten and discarded.
And the watch. What if he’d been able to buy that watch so long ago?
His father makes no effort to contact them again.
Once volleyball season begins, it’s clear that though their team is talented, they won’t make it past Regionals, and soon enough they’re proven right by a terrifying defeat by a new team, one run by a certain Tobio-chan. This time, they don’t even see Shiratorizawa.
Luckily, Tooru doesn’t fall into the same pit of despair he did last time. This time, with a college acceptance and hefty scholarship from Princeton in hand, he goes back to practicing volleyball and practicing Spanish.
“I can’t get rusty with my serves or sets,” he says.
Then he spits out what sounds like an entire Spanish paragraph, and Hajime throws a volleyball at him.
Issei loses track of time. He cycles through his usual routine, aimless and lost. He watches college Youtube videos and falls asleep with his laptop open on his stomach.
He navigates this invisible grief like a mourning sailor, surrendered to the wind and sea. Suddenly every moment of beauty is tainted, scarred by this selfish man he never really knew. This mental self-destruction threatens to wrap him in a thick riptide, and he’s scared, because that embrace threatens comfort. He wants to be held. He knows Hiro might give it to him if he asked, but he doesn’t know how to ask. Instead, he sits in the bath by himself, playing music and surrounded by water, forcing himself to stay there until his feet and hands shrivel.
Somehow, one weekend, he finds himself back in that place of his childhood — the forested edge of town in that one park with the goose, the lake glittering and beautiful and empty. He watches a coyote rip apart a rabbit with deft jaws, delivering the death blow with a final snap of its jaws. It’s quiet. It’s painful. The limp remains of the prey leave bloodstains on the grass.
Loneliness is easier than expected. It’s a kind of subjectless grief.
#
Their high school buzzes with excited energy as everyone’s college results trickle in over the course of a stressful month. March is the cruelest month, or whatever their English teachers say. It comes at them, merciless, but brings its own fair share of good news and exciting acceptance letters. Tooru records every single one of Hajime’s acceptances with a smile splitting his face and cheering so loudly the nextdoor neighbors threaten to call the police. Hajime, usually one to chastise, takes it all in stride, joining the celebration in good spirits.
Hajime decides to study exercise sciences with hopes of becoming either a physical therapist or athletic trainer one day. He commits to an out-of-state school called the University of California, Irvine, apparently famous for its boba and authentic Asian restaurants. Hajime calls it “suburban San Francisco,” and Tooru calls it, “middle of fucking nowhere.”
On graduation day, all four of them take photos for Tooru’s new photo album. The day is hot and muggy. All of them smile through sweat-stained graduation gowns, then gather at their local Cheesecake Factory for a celebration dinner. Iwaizumi-san offers to pay, and the adults immediately fight for the bill when it comes. In the end, Mr. Iwaizumi pays in secret.
“I’m going to miss you, Iwa-chan. You’re going to have to ship me good Asian food, because I still miss San Francisco and Irvine’s close enough,” Tooru says, then crushes Hajime in a sudden hug that is much too intimate to be between just friends. He keeps a slight distance from his mother as he rubs fond circles over Hajime’s back. Then he smirks a little. “She’s been telling everyone about Princeton, you know.”
“You’re going to do amazing,” Hajime says it the only way Hajime knows: honestly, and with a gentleness he hardly ever shows outwardly. “Beat Ushiwaka for me.”
Issei and Hiro exchange suspicious looks.
They’ll ask them about it later.
Plus, somehow, Issei’s pretty sure he already knows the answer.
“You too, Makki-chan, Mattsu-chan.”
Then Tooru’s hugging all four of them and they’re making dozens and dozens of promises to stay in contact, finally releasing after a minute. Tooru looks away with a grin, his eyes glassy. Hajime wraps his arm around him, and they meet each others’ eyes.
“I might’ve forgotten to mention it, but I’m going to community college to save money and to hopefully find some kind of direction. The school counselor said it was good for that kinda stuff,” Hiro reveals eventually. He’s rifling through menus at his family’s restaurant. He’s been an increasingly common sight there recently. He shrugs when Issei doesn’t respond right away, pulling out a few menus. “In the end, I might just end up working at this restaurant. It’s kind of all I’ve known, you know?”
“I’m happy for you,” Issei says. “Maybe you’ll be able to transfer out of state.”
“Maybe. I’ll have to actually get good grades though.”
“You always try really hard. You can do it.”
“I know.” Hiro’s voice is close to his ear. He says, with a newfound confidence and unwavering words, so brutally honest and clear: “I’m going to miss you though.”
Issei’s breath stutters. He glances over at Hiro, and Hiro is standing there, eyes wide and genuine, holding onto his plastic menus with white knuckles, like they’re keeping him grounded.
He says, “I’ll visit all the time.”
A hand brushes against his shoulder. Hiro sets down the menus and organizes them on the counter. “I’ll visit you, too. You’ll let me stay over at your dorm? Apartment, maybe?”
Issei wants to lean into Hiro’s touch. He doesn’t. Not yet.
“Yeah. Yeah, of course.”
Oh my God, he thinks, half-yearning and half-terror.
His shoulder tingles.
How had he ignored this for so long?
He is in love with Takahiro Hanamaki, and he doesn’t know what to do.
So that’s when it happens. What seems unnatural at first, but slowly grows comfortable to the point of unease. The separation of two similar forces, drifting apart at sea. There is nothing spectacular about it. There is nothing spectacular about them, and there never was. All they are are two young men from a small town in New England, their own little world.
Issei floats back home, his mind reeling, and buries his face in his pillow, confronted by these new feelings, confronted by everything that has happened in the past year, and ends up lying there until the sun sets and night falls. He curls his legs up to his chest and tries his best to let the storm pass, like a ship stuck in a river, carried down by the current in search of someplace to call home, in search of the sea. Issei finds himself going out less and less, still meeting up with Hiro and Tooru and Hajime, but without the same gusto as before.
It’s not a significant change, but one morning he wakes up to somebody standing in his bedroom door. His first thought is: murderer.
He’s almost out of his bed and wielding a hairbrush before he realizes it’s Hiro.
“I thought I’d only ever have to do this for Tooru,” Hiro says. He turns on the light, and Issei squints up at him. Hiro looks a lot less threatening now. “But this is an intervention.”
“Did Okaasan let you in?”
“Yeah, she’s making some breakfast downstairs, I think.”
Issei shifts to the side, and rubs his eyes. His hair is a mess, his voice still bleary with sleep. “I don’t get it.”
Hiro sits down on Issei’s bed and folds his hands in his lap.
“Look, I don’t want to be overbearing,” Hiro begins, then pauses. He frowns before continuing, “But you need to tell me what’s wrong, Issei. You need to talk it out.” Then, in a softer voice, “I know it’s been a tough year with a lot of changes. I mean it. It’s okay.”
They sit there in silence for a moment.
“You thought I didn’t notice?” Hiro asks.
Issei shrugs. Hiro is getting closer to him now, their thighs almost touching, and the warmth is unbearable. “I don’t know what you’re —”
“I guess I felt like I didn’t deserve anything. I’m sorry. I was overdramatic.” With a slow exhale, Issei balls up his fists in his blankets. “I think I was worried about you leaving. Or Tooru or Hajime. But, you know, not in the physical distance kind of way. Just.”
He stops then, because he doesn’t know what else to say.
“Don’t apologize for that. You weren’t being overdramatic.”
Issei blinks wildly. “I kind of was.”
Hiro shakes his head firmly, and Issei wonders when he became the secure one, the one who knew what he was doing. When did they switch spots? He can’t pinpoint the moment.
“You know, I’d get it if you’re mad at me.”
“I know, I know,” Hiro murmurs, then whispers in a way he’s never done before, his words clinging to his lips and soft against Issei’s shoulders, “But I could never be mad at you. You know that. Not for long. You know I have to remind myself to be mad every time we argue? And that barely happens at all. Listen.” Then with a faint pink spreading across his cheeks, he lies down, pressing the side of his face to Issei’s pillow and breathing out — “In a Marvel comic, this would be a turning point, with really fancy art and stuff.”
Issei blinks, having expected something else. But before he can protest or say anything else, maybe ask Hiro if he’s actually still reading the comics of their childhood, if he’s thinking of the time Issei broke his arm, Hiro’s staring straight into his eyes and saying:
“I think I love you.”
His breath smells sweet, like mint.
Issei swallows hard, and suddenly he feels so exposed.
“You really think?”
“I know. I think I have been in love with you. Do you feel the same way?”
He does, yes. He does in the way the waves need to the shore and ships love the harbor, with a fervent necessity that undercuts his every waking moment, and he does, yes, he does.
So he says it out loud for the first time, “Yeah. I love you.”
It’s simple and quiet.
Nothing fancy. Then again, they’ve never been the type for grand gestures.
With that, Hiro pushes closer to Issei and wraps him in a tight embrace. He doesn’t pressure him any further, and they relax into each others’ bodies like two rivers coming together at an impasse. Natural, normal. Something that Issei could live with forever.
“I’m going to visit and call you all the time,” Hiro says, his voice muffled.
Issei sighs, and it’s content.
“I promise.”
So, when Issei goes off to college, he keeps Hiro’s phone number close to his heart. But he isn’t scared of losing Hiro, not like he was in the past, Hiro's delicate, translucent figure illuminated by the sunset. Regardless of time and place, even in the world’s biggest city or the world’s smallest town, Issei thinks he would recognize him, pink hair or not, whether in a grass field or in a lake. Hiro is someone that wants to be found. All roads lead back home — not to this court, not this school, not to this town or park, but to each other. Like their streams finding the sea. Some direction amidst all the turbulence, a lighthouse shining down on them.
Because whether you can see it or not, the sea is everywhere, its unyielding presence caught in between every single drop in the air. The tinge of blue, ubiquitous and mellow. Like life, waning and waxing, but perpetually there, a constant inside everything unpredictable. When he’s with Hiro, he can smell that sea breeze, a love to be found and cherished and taken care of, filled with life both inside and out.
Fresh and new, welcoming him to the world.