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Tsukishima Kei has a house at the end of the world.
He was born in the backroom and a frequenter of the porch, out of which he could watch the winds drop off the steep cliff which denoted the end of everything. Every once in a while, he would be tempted to tip-toe to the edge, tease the fates who watched over him, but it was never tempting enough. And besides, he had a pot of rice on the stove that couldn’t be left unattended.
But Tsukishima loved his house at the end of the world.
He was comforted by the dark void, which almost seemed to swallow all of his thoughts, and when he shouted, the echo would be short-lived. It was nice to know that he was so close he could taste it and that the world could only be so cruel until he’d remind it how near he lived to the edge. Kei didn’t need friends or companions because he had a house at the end of the world.
Suppose one day the cliff cracks right down the center of his living room while he’s watching some mundane cooking show on TV; what then? Does he scream and cry for help? There’s no purpose; it’s his fault for living in a house at the end of the world. That’s what everyone always told him: Build your house elsewhere! How will anyone ever find you?
But that was precisely the point. Tsukishima Kei didn’t want to be found. He wanted to live and die in his little house at the end of the world.
“Are you sure, Kei?” His well-meaning brother had asked him over tea one soggy afternoon; the two of them sat on the porch staring into the darkness.
“Of course, I’m sure,” he shrugged, “I’ve never not been sure.”
“It just seems—”
Akiteru stopped himself. He knew that Kei was always like this, hard-browed and jaded before he could even walk. He didn’t help him build his house at the end of the world, but he was always a welcomed guest, just for the occasional afternoon. Kei would brew tea while Akiteru watched on with a heavy tongue, wanting to say something he knew would mean nothing once it left his lips.
“Y’know, life isn’t always like this,” he said softly over a different cup of tea on a different soggy afternoon--ginseng, this time.
Kei shook his head, “I think you’re wrong.”
And that was all it took. Kei didn’t just think everyone else was wrong; he knew everyone else was wrong. He liked his little house at the end of the world, and he liked living in it even more.
Because getting some house with a backyard and miles of land stretching behind it felt presumptuous. Perhaps he would feel suffocated by the latticing streets or the endless possibilities just waiting before him. Maybe one day, he would grow too expectant of the open plains, think that there were things in his life that would actually last, and try to run for them.
That was the point of his house at the end of the world,
he never let anything last longer than it needed to.
It was all temporary: school, volleyball, his brother, even his own life. The expiration dates were set and to expect anything of forever (god forbid the thing even exist) would leave him sorely disappointed. Kei wasn’t just content knowing the end was there; he had to live right at the edge of it, taunt himself with it every day while reassuring himself with the sight at the very same time.
“I wish you’d move,” his mother had said under her breath during one family dinner.
“I’m an adult,” Kei pushed his meat aside with a fork, “I can live wherever I please.”
“But this is a delusion, Kei!” She finally broke, “You’re living like—”
Kei stood with fire coursing through his veins, two palms flat on the light wood like dinner plates served to his guests.
“Like whom?” He hissed through the prison of his gritted teeth.
His mother’s eyes narrowed, her lips fell into a thin line.
“Like your father.”
Her voice was low, but every word seemed to pinch the inside of Kei’s ear until he was rubbed red and fuming. Leaving was his only hope, the thought of his house and the cliff three steps behind it more comforting than anything else. Perhaps if he made himself a cup of tea, put on a sweater he refused to toss, and took a long bath, he could forget it all.
He didn’t care about his father, not in the slightest. If he hadn’t left—
Kei shook the thought from his head. He didn’t have the time to think about that.
And besides,
his house was at the end of the world—
right where his father had laid the first stone.
Kei was a simple man. He had his house, his job in the city, and the end of the world. He didn’t ask for anything more than the occasional night out where he could stumble back and crawl just one inch further towards the foreboding cliff, wondering how deep it truly went. It was on one of these nights with a glass half full of whiskey that he bumped into an old friend, one he’d tried desperately to forget after graduating.
“Tobio,” the name fell from his lips before he could hold the damn thing back.
Tobio turned and glared for a moment before he, too, recognized what he’d tried so hard to forget. His eyes softened, and his fingers fidgeted around the neck of a bottle of beer.
“You’re back,” Tsukishima tried to relieve the tension of the situation.
Tobio did a once-over of Kei’s body, his sensible gray sweater, and even more sensible brown loafers. His lips slowly parted as he did, revealing pearly-white yet slightly uneven teeth right below the line of his lip.
“I am,” he replied coldly.
It was characteristic of Tobio; despite the way his jaw had filled out and the hair on his head wasn’t so deathly thin, he was very much the same. Kei didn’t know how greatly he appreciated that until it was standing right in front of him. Tobio had gotten only a bit taller but significantly broader, which prompted the question Kei had promised he’d never ask of anyone, not even himself.
“Still playing?” He muttered.
He didn’t have to say the word; Tobio knew.
He nodded with a grunt of affirmation. Kei had to adjust his fingers around the rim of his glass which was hanging haphazardly at the center of his thigh. A reasonable man would’ve pulled away the moment the conversation lulled and left the situation to fizzle into the nothingness it always should’ve been; Kei considered himself the most practical of all men.
So why couldn’t he move his damn feet?
“And you?” Tobio replied in a mumble.
Oh, still volleyball.
Kei nodded, “Joined a team a few months ago, it’s nothing close to what you’re doing—”
“I’m glad.”
The words had felt strange shoving themselves in between Kei’s mutterings. Perhaps it was because they had fallen from the lips of Kageyama Tobio or that he had interrupted so readily, but Kei was caught for a moment just staring at the parted line of his old teammate’s mouth and the genuine gleam in his eye.
They’d had a genuine moment--long ago.
They didn’t talk about it much because, for both of them, there wasn’t anything to be talked about. It had been a long bus drive home from a disappointing game in their third year, the sun had already set, which had lulled all the other teammates to sleep, the first years before the sun could even touch the horizon and the second-years following close behind. Hinata waited until they had all curled up in the corners of the bus seats to let silent tears stream down his cheeks.
Yamaguchi shuffled out of the seat next to Kei to bring him a tissue but, mostly, just to be there for a moment in the silence. Tension stretched through the aisle, threatening to snap like a rubber band at any moment. Perhaps it was what Kei was so focused on when he barely felt someone join him in the seat next to him.
He shook his head, the sounds of the bar starting to fill his ears once more. He didn’t like that memory; he’d sworn it away that very night.
Why now?
Their conversation ended there, a clipped and polite sort of goodbye passed without another thought, but Kei found his hands trembling as he fiddled with his keys ten minutes later at the door of his home. He didn’t feel any relief until he stepped out onto the porch and saw the cliff once more.
Kei sighed contently.
His house was still at the end of the world.
But he had the same urge the following week on the same weekday as the clock in his office struck six. He started shuffling all his papers together while brewing a soup of ideas for what to do that night that didn’t have anything to do with the bar. Because if Tobio was back, then he’d probably make a habit of going to that very bar on the same night (as did most working men his age) and Kei had no reason to run into him again, not when he had leftovers in the fridge and a compelling documentary recorded on the TV.
Perhaps he should’ve told himself that as he turned down a street corner that led to a place that very much wasn’t his house. His heart twisted, and his stomach slumped over all his other organs in a tantrum as he shoved himself through the door and occupied an empty stool at the bar, ordering his usual whiskey and taking off his glasses to rub at his weary eyes.
On the surface, he was expecting no one. The seats on either side of him were taken, and, to anyone who passed, he would simply look like a lonely man enjoying a drink after a long day of work. But just beneath that steely surface was the reality: every time someone walked through the door, Kei’s body would crumple a bit when they didn’t have black hair or piercing blue eyes.
That drink,
then another—
and Kei began to feel stupid.
“What am I doing?” He hissed to himself beneath the rising chatter of the establishment.
Not like he’d been hoping to see anyone. And the sole goal of his visit had been fulfilled.
Had a drink.
Rubbed my eyes.
Loosened my tie a bit.
So he didn’t think much more of it when he scooped up his coat from the seat beside him (recently vacated) and made a beeline for the door he’d been watching all evening, only for his shoulder to brush along the very object of his curiosity.
Tobio turned, the corners of his mouth set low.
“Kei,” he said the name first, this time.
Kei’s tongue darted out to wet his lips.
Magic of some sort landed them in a free booth, a rare find on a night like that, sitting directly across from each other with fresh drinks that they’d argued over for a bit.
“I’ll pay,” Kei had insisted.
“No, it’s fine,” Tobio turned, “you always paid for things in high school.”
High school?
Kei’s mind reeled.
What did high school have to do with any of this?
It was this particular hesitation that gave Tobio the means to leave the booth and head for the bar. As he returned with one glinting glass and one tall-necked bottle, he sighed, sliding into his proper seat.
“Y’alright?” A much younger Tobio had asked a less-younger Kei on that long bus ride home.
Kei turned with a quirked brow.
“Yes?” He asked of himself.
Tobio’s jaw rippled a tad, and his eyes narrowed in thought. Words came slowly to him, but Kei quite appreciated that. He wondered what it would be like to only think of one thing at a time.
“Shoyou and Tadashi are asleep,” he mumbled, crossing his arms and leaning back into the seat, “you can tell the truth.”
Tell the truth?
Kei’s face contorted into something puzzled and withdrawn as his glance tore over to the nonchalant boy sitting to his left. Kei’s headphones were slung around his neck instead of fit snugly over his ears; he wondered if Tobio had seen this as some sort of invitation.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kei hissed lowly, careful not to wake the others for some odd reason.
Kei watched Tobio’s face fall. He was serious now; he looked older and wiser than ever before.
“I see you after every game,” he muttered.
Kei’s eyes could only shift over, then all the muscles in his worn-out body tightening around his bones as he predicted what Tobio could possibly mean.
“When you—”
“Shut up,” Kei scoffed above the hum of the bar, which had descended into the late-night crowd rather than his preferred bunch.
Tobio sat across from him with his lips sealed around the rim of his bottle.
“It’s true,” he replied.
“Wakatoshi?” Kei emphasized every syllable of the name, “You two are friends?”
Tobio shrugged, “I mean, we spend all of our time together—”
“For volleyball.”
“Your point?” Tobio bit back in all seriousness.
Kei just rolled his eyes and leaned back into his seat, reminding his face to stone up lest Tobio see him smile.
“And you haven’t kept in contact with the shrimp?”
“No, I have,” Tobio corrected him, “he called a lot when he was in Brazil—”
Tobio’s voice trailed along with his eyes. He’d lifted his drink to take a sip, but he couldn’t finish the task, not with whatever memory was playing out in front of his eyes.
“But it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other, face-to-face,” he said.
Kei nodded slowly and stared down into the surface of his drink. He was tempted to chew on the nail of his right thumb, a habit he’d squashed once he got out of high school after far too many hangnails ruined his day. It felt alien to want to do it again. Perhaps being around Tobio was making him regress.
But it didn’t matter, because the moment Kei returned to his house at the end of the world, he wouldn’t have to think about the future for much longer—
and he could truly breathe easy.
Yet, the following week approached like a bullet train, staring Kei in the face before he had time to process what had even occurred. That was the thing about routine and his house at the end of the world; everything that happened seemed to drop off the edge, finding it had nowhere else to go. There were no memories worth keeping, so Kei was happy to watch them dissolve at the edge of his yard, never to be seen again. But one memory had settled itself onto his porch with an unrelenting grip:
the memory of Tobio’s tight-lipped smile and breathy laugh he’d let out during their last round of drinks.
“I make a mean stir fry,” he asserted that night over even more drinks.
“Congratulations, so does everyone else in Japan,” Kei mocked him.
Tobio swallowed a sip and shook his head, “You don’t understand; it’s the best of them all.”
That was the thing about Kageyama Tobio. If he spoke like a normal person, Kei would’ve laughed him off and accepted the thin joke, but Tobio’s brain didn’t work like that. He meant everything he said in the plainest possible way, and knowing that made Kei want to laugh even harder.
“I doubt that you can even crack an egg,” Kei taunted.
Tobio reeled back in his seat a bit,
“Then I have to prove it to you.”
Was that how he ended up at Tobio’s place the following Saturday?
No, there was a week in between, one where he’d had to shuffle away the old memory in favor of answering Tobio’s questions with his whole chest.
“No,” he muttered, “not my house.”
Tobio’s lips slowly pieced together, and he sat up straighter in his seat, his eyes registering Kei’s vice grip around the glass and his seething breath going in and out of his nose. Kei knew he should’ve been more cool when Tobio asked if they could have dinner at his house instead, but he couldn’t help it. No one other than his mother and his brother were allowed at his house at the end of the world. What would Tobio think?
And why the hell did it matter so much to Tsukishima Kei?
Thus, he was sitting on Tobio’s slightly stiff leather couch on a heady Saturday night, watching intently as the man hunkered around his kitchen, taking a moment every few minutes to stand in the middle of it with a clueless look on his face, spinning until he thought of what he needed.
Kei’s lips ticked up at the corners as he watched the mayhem, even standing with his glass of water and leaning on the countertop to get a better look at Tobio’s intense concentration on what would normally be a simple dish of stir fry.
But that was who Tobio was—insistent.
Observant.
“I see you after games,” Tobio had said through the darkness.
Moonlight glimmered just then over Kei’s lap where his bony, bandaged fingers were placed politely atop one another, bones rubbing together between thin sheets of skin.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he insisted quietly.
Tobio didn’t miss a beat. He didn’t have any reason to.
“When you cry.”
Kei’s breath hitched in his throat. He wanted to storm off, but they were on a moving bus. He wanted to yell, but the silence was too fragile and precious to demolish solely with his own pride. All Kei could really do was pull his fingers tighter and closer together, woven like threads of fate, and wish for Tobio to forget what he’d just said.
But the boy just wouldn’t relent.
“You always wait until everyone else has left the locker room,” Tobio muttered, “then you sit there, and you cry.”
Hearing it said aloud made Kei’s face flush red with fury. Knowing that it was true made it flush even deeper with embarrassment.
“You could just cry on the bus like everyone else, but you don’t,” Tobio continued in a flat tone.
Kei swallowed the vicious words that were souring the surface of his tongue. Tobio’s monotone voice made it all worse; he knew that Tobio could only ever be honest, and his honesty felt like a brand to Kei’s fleshy sides, a burn he would not soon forget.
He’d always thought himself to be alone in those moments of weakness in the locker room when everyone else had gone. He’d thought his cries were muffled enough by the palms of his hands that he couldn’t be heard, but he’d never considered that someone could watch, and of everyone, Tobio was the one he least expected to be interested in such a sight.
Kei’s eyes wandered down to the granite countertop upon which his elbow was leaning, the condensation on his cold glass of water dripping down his weathered knuckles. He’d always come home from volleyball with sore, rubbed-red fingers and would have to sit completely still for a while just to get the throbbing to dissipate. Now, he watched each clear drop dribble down these same weary fingers, trailing between the veins on the back of his hand.
“I’m running out of soy sauce,” Tobio grumbled to himself.
Unconsciously, Kei’s mouth ticked up into a haphazard smile. He watched intently as Tobio’s arm reached for a nearly empty bottle of soy sauce at which he pursed his lips and furrowed his brow. Kei’s mouth went dry. He was tempted to let his tongue dart out to wet the desert of his lips, but doing so would mean something, right?
At least, that’s what he told himself that night as he lumbered back to his home, one beer and two large bowls of stir fry sitting contently in his stomach.
He felt comfortably full and pleasantly surprised by how good Tobio’s cooking actually was. But he was still nauseous and uneasy until he saw outside his slider, which led onto his little porch. Just like always, it was there—
the end of the world.
Kei heaved a sigh of relief. He and Tobio had agreed to meet the following week, but it didn’t matter because Kei could just come home and remind himself of where he lived, and everything would be alright again.
That next week came,
then another followed.
Kei cooked one of the times, standing at the front door, his arms laden with heavy bags. Tobio looked confused but appreciated the gesture, anyhow. And it was always the same; one would cook while the other watched, then they would sit and eat and talk about work and current life.
It wasn’t until their fourth week together that they talked about the past.
“Remember the time that Shoyou got that bloody nose?” Tobio said lowly between bites of carbonara.
Kei suppressed a snort and stared down into his meal.
“Unfortunately.”
“He got blood on my fuckin’ jersey,” Tobio’s face pinched, “had to get a whole new one.”
“But it’s not as bad as when he threw up on Ryu’s crotch,” Kei chuckled.
Kei watched Tobio’s chest heave with a half-laugh. He pulled the insides of his cheeks between his sharp molars and waited in expectation for him to open his mouth and let the laugh slip out rather than die in the prison of his chest. Kei had never heard Tobio laugh. He wondered what it would sound like.
No, Kei’s heart thrummed, don’t forget the end of the world.
With a gulp, Kei glanced back up and re-emerged himself into the interaction.
They moved to the couches next; the clock on the wall ticking slowly towards nine o’clock, the time Kei usually departed. But they were watching a movie at Tobio’s request, especially since neither of them had to work the next day due to some national holiday. It was an interesting enough movie (Kei was surprised at the quality of Tobio’s film collection) and kept them both awake until an hour or so in.
All throughout, Kei’s mind kept wandering to the old memory, the one that was bobbing to the surface far more often than he’d like it to.
“It’s fine to cry,” Tobio grumbled beside him through the darkness.
Kei shifted uncomfortably in his seat, “Says you.”
Tobio’s eyes swept over to him, gaze low and hooded.
“I cry,” he asserted lowly.
Kei replied coldly, “Sure you do, King.”
“I do.”
Tobio was honest. Kei hated dishonest people, even if they meant well. Shoyo and Tadashi were the kind of people to lie if it meant making someone feel better about themselves, but even those little lies chilled Kei to the bone. Tobio never lied; he had no reason to.
Tobio would never be like Akiteru.
Kei had to remind himself of that often.
He could hear his voice even now as they sat together on the couch, the blue light from the TV illuminating the curves and dips in their aging faces.
I cry.
Tsukishima huffed a small laugh through his nose.
I do.
He glanced tentatively to his host for the evening to find his head slumped to the right, his eyes closed and breathing even—he was sleeping.
The next week came all too quickly yet, at the same time, not quickly enough. Kei found himself sitting idly at his desk, the only movement being his tapping pencil against the tabletop. He’d had numerous coworkers ask if he was feeling okay, to which he gave them an assured nod, but on the inside, he felt like he was being severed apart slowly and surgically.
The only relief was seeing Tobio at the door that evening.
He looked rather handsome that day. He’d pushed his hair back a little further, so only a few strands danced along the expanse of his forehead. He was wearing his usual shirt, which always stretched a bit tightly over his broad chest, and sweatpants, which Kei was convinced would barely touch his ankles if he tried them on, but it all seemed like more that day. Perhaps it was the subtle change in hairstyle or something entirely internal—
but Kei couldn’t take his eyes off of Kageyama Tobio.
“Kei?” Tobio muttered with a pinched brow.
Jolted from his daydream, Tsukishima nearly dropped his wine glass onto the countertop, an action that would spill deep red liquid positively everywhere and leave a few pieces of shattered glass in its wake. When he felt the cup pinched between his fingers, he breathed out a short curse and looked up at an equally confused and bewildered Tobio.
“You want shrimp or beef?” Tobio asked plainly once Kei had come to.
Kei shook his head and blinked a few times for clarity.
“Shrimp,” he replied.
Tobio turned dutifully and returned to his cooking. It smelled amazing; Kei could feel his body warming pleasurably from the scent alone. He wanted to live in it, breathe it all the time. If Tobio got close enough to the island, he could almost smell his aftershave, as well. That wasn’t a bad addition, Kei concluded sometime before the meal was served.
As always, they found themselves seated together on the couch, flicking through a rather robust movie selection. Tobio explained quietly how he’d stolen Shoyo’s Netflix password when they were living together some years ago and now uses said password to mooch.
“Aren’t you a professional athlete, too?” Kei teased with a furrowed brow.
Tobio shrugged, then turned to Kei with the smallest of grins.
“Guess I need some extra money in my budget to buy ingredients for these high-quality weekly meals,” he teased.
Kei chuckled too, something small and understated. But his palm had grown hot and red against the now lukewarm glass of wine he had in his hands. He hated cold wine; he wondered why Tobio kept it in the fridge when it was much better kept on the counter.
He was going to say something snide about it when Tobio spoke first, a movie finally starting on the TV before them.
“You ever been with someone?” He asked.
Kei’s eyes narrowed.
“Like, stood next to someone? Gone to lunch with someone?” He half-teased, “Yes, I have.”
Tobio sighed, “You know what I mean.”
A pang through Kei’s heart assured that he did in fact know what Tobio meant. His throat went patchy at the thought. Their legs were close—too close. And he was sweating, for some reason. It was nearly autumn; why was he sweating so much? Kei swallowed something thick and round while he watched Tobio shift once in his seat.
“No,” Kei eked out.
He’d come close. There was his short infatuation with his childhood best friend and some guy he’d met at college who he was now realizing reminded him too much of the man now seated beside him. But other than them, Kei had never had time for romance.
After all, his house was at the end of the world—
he didn’t have much time for anything.
“Oh,” Tobio whispered with a curt nod, “neither have I.”
Something unraveled in Kei’s chest; a long-tied knot, perhaps. In any case, he felt lighter than when he’d walked through the door. Perhaps it was knowing that Tobio wasn’t much more accomplished than him in anything other than volleyball or the fact that their legs were definitely touching now, but Kei could almost breathe freely.
If you’d asked Kei what had happened in the movie, he wouldn’t have been able to tell you. He’d tried to watch and understand, but how could he when Tobio’s pinky was touching his?
“I do,” Tobio had said on that long bus ride.
A much younger Kei gulped. His eyes cast down to his feet where his old, beat-up sneakers were scraping along the bus floor. They were a hand-me-down—
from his brother.
“It feels good, sometimes,” Tobio mumbled almost too quietly to be heard.
Breath was escaping slowly out of Kei’s lungs, like he was a beach ball that had been punctured with a needle, air hissing out of an invisible orifice. The sound of the bus thankfully masked his strange pattern of breathing, but he could still see his hand shake in the moonlight when he readjusted himself in his seat. Tobio saw it too; Kei watched his eyes shift out of the corner of his vision.
In one swift motion, Tobio had shifted his own hand and body so that when Kei’s hand finally descended back to the space in seats between them, Tobio’s hand was already there to catch him.
The first thing to make contact was Kei’s fingertips. It felt like a jolt of electricity; he couldn’t remember the last time he touched the warmth of someone else’s skin. And he wanted to pull away, to pinch his hand back towards his chest and shoot his supposed rival a mean glare, but he was so tired from the game that he didn’t even have the energy to be angry.
And when his palm hit Tobio’s, all the prickling in his bones and the wringing of his muscles dissolved into nothingness. The only sensation which remained was the nervous flipping of his stomach.
So was the feeling he was having now, many years later, as he felt Tobio’s long, callused pinky rub up against the side of his hand. At first, he’d thought it was an accident. Maybe Tobio had injured the finger during practice and was experiencing some sort of numbness in that finger alone, but when Kei’s eyes swept over to it, he saw no bandage or bruise to prove his theory.
And with each passing second, Tobio’s hand was advancing on his.
It was slow, intentional, each fingertip grazing along Kei’s cuticles and the heel of his palm running rough over the valleys of veins in the top of his hands. Once more, Kei considered his options.
He could tear his hand away and walk out the door, dooming the rest of their meals to awkward, thick silence. Or he could pretend to have an itch on his cheek and act like he didn’t feel the touch in the first place. If those two failed, somehow, then he could just fold his hands in his lap and sit still for the rest of the night.
But all of those options ended in some sort of lack, primarily the lack of Kageyama’s warm hand over his. Kei didn’t want to feel any lack in that moment. Though his stomach clenched and grew sour and he’d certainly begun sweating, for real, he reminded himself that even if he did hold Kageyama Tobio’s hand, he could return to his house—
conveniently placed at the end of the world.
Thus, with a silent sigh of relief, Kei turned his hand slowly as if it were the moon paying special attention to each phase until he reached the darkest shadow.
Next, the eclipse.
The back of Tobio’s hand was porcelain pale, just like the rest of his skin, and it seemed to overtake the shadow of Kei’s hand with ease, his long fingers interlacing one-by-one and his thumb hooking less-than-confidently over the other side of Kei’s palm. Kei pursed his lips and inhaled a shuddering breath.
And, one-by-one, he let his own fingers fall into the divots between Tobio’s knuckles, making sure to rub each patch of skin subtly to gather every sensation of softness. He remembered this feeling; it was familiar.
Because they’d held each other just like this on the bus all those years ago.
They didn’t speak either time, simply sat in silence, waiting for the moment to pass naturally. Many years ago, it came with the stopping of the bus back at their school. And now, it came in the form of the movie ending, Kei’s cue to pack his things and take the last train home.
But he didn’t want to let go of Tobio’s hand. He didn’t want to stand up and walk away even after the TV screen went black. He wanted to stay forever.
No, his mind cried.
Remember your house.
Remember why you built it that way.
Thus, with a sharp inhale, Kei slid his hand away from Tobio’s, already feeling the immediate lack he was dreading before. He swallowed thickly as he adjusted his legs and pushed himself up off the couch. He didn’t want to be doing what he was doing, but it was what he had to do; and that was Tsukishima Kei, so full of responsibility and duty that there was no space for anything else. With a thin-lipped expression, he marched towards the door while muttering his usual goodbye to the man on the couch.
Because he needed to see his house in the next ten minutes, or he was sure he would explode.
All the while, however, he couldn’t help but run his thumb along the parts of his hand where he could still feel Kageyama Tobio.
Kei was practically trembling when he walked to dinner that next week.
He’d spent more time than usual lounging out on his porch, staring into the familiar black abyss, reminding himself that no matter what happened, the end of the world was right there. He’d stood for so long before it that the image was clear in his mind as he climbed the stairs to Tobio’s apartment. Yet, his fingers clenched and loosened around his hand endlessly, itching for some sort of contact other than his own skin. He wondered if Tobio would hold his hand again, then he banished the thought from his head.
They ate dinner.
They talked.
They sat on the couch.
Tobio reached for his hand.
It was more practiced, this time, not requiring nearly as many steps or moments of consideration as before, and yet, Kei’s heart was still thumping out of his chest, and his skin was going clammy with anticipation. They were watching a romance movie. Well, not exactly a romance movie, more so a movie with romance woven throughout it.
“It hurts,” a woman on the screen said with tears in her eyes, “I love you so much that it hurts.”
Kei’s chest tightened. His fingers moved unconsciously against Tobio’s warm skin. He inched a bit closer but tried to mask the movement as just an adjustment of his body. Tobio, however, took it as a prompt to speak.
“That doesn’t make sense to me,” he mumbled, “isn’t love supposed to feel good?”
Kei didn’t know how to respond.
The man on the screen spoke instead.
“I would endure any pain if it meant getting to be with you for one more day,” he said a bit breathlessly as if every passing second gazing at his love was taking his life from him in wisps.
They kissed rather passionately, rain pattering all around them. The camera pushed in a bit, Kei backed into the couch cushion. But Tobio was curious, his eyes narrowing and focusing tightly on the pair in the movie. It was as if he was studying them, trying to memorize their subtle movements. Kei let his eyes dart over a few times; he was lucky to see a tinge of pink on the tops of Tobio’s ears.
And, as it always did, the movie ended, and Kei had to unhook his hand from Tobio’s to prepare his farewells. He grabbed his coat from the hook and shoved his phone into his pocket, using the moment facing the wall to feel his hot, flushed cheeks with the back of his hand. Slipping on his shoes, he tried to swallow down his heart one, two, three separate times. With a gulp, he turned towards the door and opened it, the farewell hanging on his tongue.
But Kageyama was sitting on the couch like he usually was; he was standing in the doorway. And when Kei turned to say his goodbyes, he was met with Tobio’s intense gaze instead. He had one hand gripping the door frame rather tightly, and his socked toes were just inches away from Kei’s nice leather loafers.
“Yes?” Kei asked, his breath hot and his utterance short.
Tobio looked at him for one more second before jutting forward, hand wrapping around the back of Kei’s neck and his body moving impossibly close to his own
Kei felt Tobio’s lips, next, stiff and strangely positioned. But it wasn’t bad. Rather, all the bundles of nerves in Kei’s body began to untangle into pleasurable tingles, concentrated mostly in the places where Tobio’s lips were touching his. Still, a few moments had to pass where neither moved, lips hard as stone against one another.
But it only took a subtle softening to change it all.
The pleasurable tingles in Kei’s body turned to spikes of pure adrenaline, nearly forcing his heart out through the cage of his ribs. Tobio’s hand on the back of his neck had relaxed and carded just a bit through the loose blonde waves which hung over the skin. Their bodies were comfortably pressed now, Kei’s hands hovering over the unknown landscape of Tobio’s body. Yet, his focus was pulled entirely to the soft brush of Tobio’s lips against his, the huffy and hot and minty breaths exchanging through their teeth.
Kei felt wisps of air hit his cheek as Tobio’s nose dove in further, tip pressing against the bones of Kei’s face. Tobio tasted like beer and soy sauce. He smelled like clean sheets. Kei nearly melted under the sensations, alone.
Sure, Tobio’s lips were a bit chapped, and he wasn’t too practiced in the whole kissing thing, but Kei didn’t mind. Why didn’t he mind? He was prickly and particular and judgemental.
So why was this kiss making all his thoughts disappear entirely?
Parting was sweet sorrow; his lips left only with the ghost of Tobio’s touch. He could feel a burn on his cheeks and looked up to see Tobio’s face mirroring his own, except he had a blush of red over his ears, too.
It felt foolish, in some ways. They were grown men acting like awkward teenagers standing like statues in the doorway after a long kiss. Kei’s lips itched to reconnect—
“Goodbye,” Tobio muttered before he could try, the door closing in the very next moment.
And that was the end of the night. Kei walked home and, for just a fleeting moment,
he wished that his house wasn’t at the end of the world.
And that defined the next few weeks of dinners, those long, drawn-out kisses which Kei could never get enough of. By the second week, they’d both grown more comfortable with each other—even though it took nearly the entire move for Tobio to muster up the courage to turn his body and make the fated connection. A series of hand brushes and shoulder presses had preceded it, but Kei was too proud to be the first to turn, revealing his flushed face.
By their third week, it only took them halfway through the movie to fall into the familiar practice.
They didn’t even start a movie the fourth week.
As he’d grown older, Kei had gotten better at blocking out unpleasant things, realizing that constantly considering them would put him back in his bed for days on end like it had in high school. So as his lips were pressed to Kageyama Tobio’s in the quiet hum of his apartment, only the slightly slow clock on the wall to give him any sense of time’s passage, Kei wished away the thoughts that were prodding at the soft parts of his insides.
Your house.
Remember your house.
Kei shook his head subtly enough that the kiss didn’t break. Tobio didn’t seem fazed in the slightest.
The end of the world, Kei reminded himself.
Tobio can’t know about your house at the end of the world.
But it was that very man who broke the kiss and gazed at Kei with glassy, weary eyes.
“What are we?” He asked plainly.
Tobio had never been one to beat around the bush. Kei liked that about him almost as much as he liked the way his nose felt pressed up against his cheek. Still, Kei’s breath hitched in his throat, and he found himself at a loss for words.
“I—” he stammered.
“Are we together?” Tobio leaned in enough for Kei to feel his warm breath brush over his cheek, “Are you my boyfriend?”
“Woah,” Kei sighed and leaned back a tad.
It was all too much, too many questions in such a short amount of time. Kei was the type to need every fact and detail before he could make a simple decision; he found himself locked up in his room more often than not, simply pacing—thinking. And even after hours of that, he’d sometimes end up right back where he started with even more questions.
“Sorry,” Tobio’s voice lowered, so did his eyes.
“No, it’s—” Kei blurted out, “sorry, I just need to think.”
Tobio’s hand, which had once been on his arm, slid down slow and limp. He had his left knee folded onto the couch cushion, the right planted on the floor. This was their usual position, only the gripping of their hands a semblance of closeness. It felt strange to scooch any closer like there was an invisible veil between them shielding the truth of their desires. Kei couldn’t even bring himself to place his arm on any unclothed part of Tobio’s arm lest the worst occur:
His house disappears.
“I shouldn’t have asked like that,” Tobio lowered his head and leaned back a bit.
Kei sighed again, “I’m sorry for—”
Being myself, he wanted to say.
Kei felt the walls inside his heart begin to fortify, the loyal defenders taking their place. He’d never been in a relationship or allowed himself any sort of “love” for a good reason. Doing so would bind him to someone else, take his own life out of his sole control. He wouldn’t exist merely inside himself but in another.
What if one day he returned to his house and there was a backyard behind it that didn’t belong to him?
Because the end of the world comforted him. The end of the world lulled him to sleep.
The end of the world reminded him that there was nothing permanent enough to grow attached to. The end of the world kept Tsukishima Kei from ever getting hurt again.
But—
Tobio.
He looked beautiful like this, silky black hair gleaming beneath the low light of his living room, the floor shrouded in deep midnight, and the moon peeking through the curtains. Kei found himself unable to speak when Tobio looked like this; the mere image stole his breath in one fell swoop. And he’d even admit that he spent each week leading up to their dinners dreaming about kissing him again, sitting beside him on the couch. He wondered what Tobio was doing. He watched his volleyball games on the television.
“W-we could be,” Kei muttered unthinkingly, “boyfriends—if you wanted.”
Tobio’s eyes widened slightly, but his mouth stayed in a straight line.
“You sure?” He asked in a small voice.
Truthfully, Kei wasn’t sure. And he hated things he wasn’t sure about. There was a moment where he considered taking it all back, maybe brushing the moment off as a joke and leaving with his coat immediately after. But Tobio was looking at him with such anticipation, such hope. Kei’s lips trembled as he imagined shattering it all with a single word.
He never imagined the future. He had no business doing so. But in that lone moment, Kei saw it: time passing.
He saw himself at dinner with the very man sitting across from him. He saw himself holding onto his waist as they cooked in the kitchen. He saw himself waking up to a sun-soaked Tobio; sheets rustled all over the bed. He wanted to kiss him. He wanted to be near him.
Forever.
The thoughts felt almost intrusive, imposing, and creeping on his usual even-mindedness. They clouded all his judgement until all Kei could hear was a mantra of one name loudly in his ears.
Tobio,
Tobio,
Tobio.
“Yes,” he whispered,
“I’m sure.”
They were together—
separately.
Though Kei spent nearly every evening at Tobio’s apartment partaking in dinner and long, drawn-out kisses, he always had his own home to return to at the end of the night. Yet, he couldn’t ignore the sense of loss on the tips of his fingers when the strands of Tobio’s hair weren’t beneath it nor the soft plush of his cheeks. Kei had never been the type to long for something that wasn’t right in front of him, but he found himself running his fingers through his own curls late at night trying to simulate the sensation, the tenderness of it.
They went out for drinks after work on the nights where they didn’t have dinner together. But, naturally, dinners became more frequent than their usual Thursday nights. It felt only natural for Kei’s feet to carry him to the apartment on Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday nights.
Neither of them were well-versed in anything that had to do with love. Perhaps it was why they confined all their affections to the apartment where they couldn’t be seen. The following weeks were a chorus of elbows knocking into shoulders and hesitant hands finding purchase in unexplored places, all in an effort to huddle closer on the couch while some movie they didn’t care about played on the television.
Tobio was a rather large man, which made his tendency to curl up in Kei’s side all the more shocking.
Often, in the night, Kei would watch the blue wash of the screen in front of them dance along the features of Tobio’s face: his sharp-lined jaw and thin-set lips. He’d taken a moment of courage about thirty days into their relationship to push back a few loose strands from Tobio’s forehead, ensuring that the tip of his finger grazed the porcelain skin. He froze when Tobio’s eyes swept over, narrowed, but sighed in relief when his mouth ticked up into the smallest of smiles. Kei wanted to kiss him more in that moment than he ever had before.
The only time they had shown affection in public was at a particularly crowded bar one Friday night where Kei felt a finger wrap around one of his own. He didn’t have to search through the crowd to know who was tethering themselves to him.
“My father, he—” Kei had caught himself droning on a month later on some quiet Wednesday night.
Tobio leaned in and listened intently, his brow furrowed in thought.
“Nevermind,” Kei shook his head and glanced away.
“I wanna know,” Tobio protested.
Kei chuckled. Tobio was always honest.
“He up and left when I was seven,” Kei sighed, trying to sound nonchalant about it all, “something about another wife and other kids or whatever.”
Tobio didn’t respond. Kei was still staring into the surface of his drink, pretending that he’d told the story a million times before. Truthfully, this was the first time he’d ever said these things out loud.
“Well, I hate him,” Tobio eventually said bluntly.
Kei chuckled again, this time with more force.
“You don’t know him,” he said, eyes sweeping to Tobio.
The man was closer than before, something sincere in the sorrowful curve of his face. His cold fingers were drawing simple shapes against the plush of Kei’s arm, mindless yet assured. Kei was always tempted to grab his hand and kiss each finger, one after the other, but he didn’t know how such a gesture would be received.
“If he made you feel unimportant, then I hate him,” Tobio said in a lower yet still blunt voice.
Kei’s smile melted into a tender line. He felt spikes of electricity move up his arm from where Tobio’s fingers were grazing. He hadn’t thought about his dad for this long in ages; he’d had no reason to. If he ever got the chance to see the man again (god forbid), he would tell him how it was entirely his fault that Kei couldn’t trust anyone, not even himself.
There was a consistency to their “togetherness,” a routine which neither desired to break. It was warm and reassuring, like a small room where you can see the door from any position. They were sensible people doing sensible relationship things. They didn’t need anything more.
Yet, routine is a fragile thing. The world tempts it with sharp weapons at every turn.
There was one night at the cusp of their third month together where Tobio called him as he was boarding the train to say that he had gotten caught up in practice and wouldn’t be home until late that night. Thus, there was no time for dinner.
Kei’s heart sank instantly. He felt his throat tighten as the bus doors closed, and the vehicle began to move forward. He felt like crying. And he almost did despite there being a good amount of people sitting around him. He had never felt such potent disappointment grip his heart since—
No, he thought.
It’s happening.
“That’s alright,” he lied through his teeth over the receiver.
It wasn’t alright. Nothing was.
He had to go home and make sure that the end of the world was still there waiting for him:
dark, foreboding, and close.
Kei sank into his own sheets that night, fist clenched around the soft white fabric, and cried, letting his tears soak into the plush of his pillow. He was no different than all those years ago, putting his trust into someone who would ultimately let him down. It made him feel sick and unbalanced like one strong breeze could topple him completely.
Even seeing the end of the world wasn’t enough to make him feel better.
Perhaps it was why he couldn’t text Tobio back the next evening when he asked if he wanted fish or takoyaki for dinner. Kei cozied himself further into his sheets. He hadn’t gone to work that morning—he couldn’t. He felt like a statue in his own bed, carved from the marble of his former self and forced to watch the world turn around him. All he could do was stare at the words through the bleariness of his tear-filled eyes and wonder how long it would take for them to break up.
It had only been a month. It had only been three months. and he and Tobio were falling apart.
Tobio: Kei?
Blinking back tears, Kei turned the phone face-down on the nightstand and turned over, vowing to himself that he wouldn’t look at it again no matter how many times it buzzed.
But, sure enough, three minutes later, it hummed again. And again. And another time. Kei buried his soiled cheek further into his pillow, feeling his blonde curls begin to mat and knot against the fabric. The knots took forever to work out, he knew from experience, but the knowledge of having to do it made the prospect of getting out of bed even more unbearable to imagine. He felt another lock of hair begin to entangle itself when his phone buzzed again, and curiosity got the best of him.
Tobio: Are you alright?
Tobio: Are you still coming tonight?
Tobio: Was it something I said?
Kei’s heart pursed as he heard each innocent question in Tobio’s deep, raspy voice inside his head. He sighed, the ridiculousness of it all swarming his thoughts. Tobio hadn’t done anything wrong. So why did Kei feel this way?
Tobio: Please tell me what I can do.
Kei’s throat began to choke with tears. There was nothing Tobio could do—how was Kei supposed to tell him that without everything falling apart?
Tobio: I’m coming to see you.
Kei’s stomach dropped as the message read out in his mind. Tobio knew where he lived, Kei had described it to him, but he’d been vague enough to ensure that Tobio never actually needed to come. Because the last thing he wanted was for Kageyama Tobio to see the end of the world, he kept hidden behind his house. With trembling fingers, Kei swiped over the keys.
Kei: No, that’s alright.
Kei: You don’t need to come here.
It was formal, sure, but it was all he could think of.
Tobio: Are you sure?
Kei squeezed his eyes shut, the smallest tears collecting at the apples of his cheeks.
Kei: Yes.
Lies. That was all Kei could tell. And as badly as he wanted to tell the truth and explain how everything within him ached at the thought of losing Tobio, there was no way he’d be able to look at himself in the mirror afterward. Kei couldn’t live with himself so open—so vulnerable. Perhaps it was why he’d rather flirt with the end than with anything he could truly touch.
Or anything that could actually love him back.
He could feel his sweat drying into a thin film on his forehead. He knew he didn’t smell good, but showering included far too many steps. And it wasn’t like anyone was coming to see him.
Not his mother.
Not his brother.
Not Tobio.
Kei swallowed a knot in his throat and forced himself to stare at the blank wall across from him. There had been pictures up there, but Kei had taken them down not a week after moving in; seeing his friends’ smiling faces was a distraction from the reassuring sight out his window. Instead, he’d entertain himself by blurring his eyes just slightly until the corner of the wall melded into the blue sky outside. Then he would let them refocus before doing it again.
And again.
And again.
Until another day had passed.
He hadn’t left the bed. He wasn’t hungry. He wasn’t thirsty. And his chest hurt from all the little cries he’d been holding up inside of it the past few days. Occasionally, his shaking fingers would reach for the phone and hover gently over it, wondering if he thought hard enough about it, he could manifest a text from Kageyama Tobio. But he’d been entirely clear in his last message, and Tobio was the kind of guy to take things at face value. If Kei told him that he was alright, Tobio had no reason to disbelieve him.
Kei counted on this to keep him alone for the next week, at least. Tadashi could’ve come over like he usually did and forced Cheerios through Kei’s thin-set lips, but Tadashi was out of the country—a vacation, Kei remembered. Thus, he was alone.
Exactly how he liked it.
A pang shot through Kei’s tender, weary heart.
How he liked it—
right?
An echoing knock startled Kei, jostling his hunched form atop the mattress. He gulped and felt pure emotion and adrenaline course through his muscles for the first time since the week began. His breathing became steady and noticeably slow; every exhale wisped around his nostrils and reminded him that he was, in fact, still alive. He was alive, and there was someone at his front door.
Kei wasn’t going to answer it. He had no reason to. It was probably a delivery man or something like that. With a sigh, Kei let his body flop back to the mattress, his head lolling over the spot where his pillow used to be; now it was splayed somewhere on the floor. Five long seconds of silence followed.
Then, another knock.
Kei furrowed his brow. With a pinched expression, he let his head fall in the direction of his bedroom door, which gave him a near-direct view of the foyer. The knock echoed like it had before, but it was more insistent. Kei’s insides started to burn. What if it was the police? What if he was in some kind of trouble?
A remembrance of his goody-two-shoes upbringing gripped him by the throat. Slowly, Kei hoisted himself off the mattress with every ounce of starved strength he had left and felt the soles of his feet hit the hardwood.
One step, then another, and a few just like it carried him weakly but insistently towards the front door. He felt cold air hit his exposed collarbone, the space left vacant by the stretched-out collar of his old t-shirt. His shorts were torn up, as well, an old pair from Karasuno however many years ago. He didn’t even have his glasses on.
Which made the sight of Kageyama Tobio out the peephole even more frightening.
He was standing there with wandering eyes, bags of something clutched in both of his broad, strong hands, a sensible outfit clothing his body. He looked like he’d just gotten back from a nice event. Wasn’t it daytime? Kei had drawn all the blinds—frankly, he didn’t know what time it was. Did Tobio have fancy events to go to during the day?
Tobio knocked again, this time loud enough to startle the gremlin on the other side of the threshold’s barrier.
Kei covered his mouth with his hand to try and muffle any noise of surprise so Tobio wouldn’t know he was standing right there. Because he wasn’t going to open the door—he couldn’t. He couldn’t be seen like this, especially by the one man he was hoping would forget him entirely. He was going to do what he needed to do and stay put in his little apartment, hand clasped over his mouth and hair matted from four long showerless days. He was going to let the smell of his negligence fester and eventually rot into the very fabric of his comforter because there was no way he was going to let anyone inside.
That is, until he heard Tobio speak.
“Kei?”
Though his voice was still deep and rather airy, it lilted with a hint of concern, a vein of emotion that Kei didn’t think possible from the King. The very sound of his own name shuddered through Kei’s body, knocking every dry bone on its way down. He wanted to curl up and disappear; he wanted Tobio to disappear,
he wanted Tobio to say his name again.
“Kei,” Tobio obliged, “if you’re in there—”
Kei held his breath. Tobio paused.
“Can you please let me in?”
There was a wall at the edge of Tsukishima Kei’s heart, a tall brick wall he’d spent most of his life building with his own two hands. He knew every divot and lump in the mortar with intimate precision; he ran his finger through the cracks every night in the quiet of his room. The bricks absorbed every sound, blocked the tender parts of his heart from the prodding nature of the world. He sat against it and waited. He waited, and waited, and waited.
He waited for his father to come home.
He waited for his brother to tell him the truth.
As much as he would deny the fact, he’d always hoped that something would come along and take the wretched thing down in one swift blow: a bomb or a bludgeon, perhaps.
But it was stood in his little foyer with Tobio’s voice still hanging in the air, his shirt barely holding onto the bones in his shoulder, and his stomach aching for sustenance that he realized he’d been wrong all along. With his index pressed firmly into those familiar mortar ravines, realization coursed through Kei.
Nothing was coming to take down the wretched wall.
Not his father, not his brother,
no one.
There would be no bludgeons or grand machines or ticking time bombs that would disassemble the damn thing without his consent. That was his job. Kei had to take apart the wall brick-by-brick. He had to let the dust parch his palms, and the edges knick at his knuckles and leave bruises of remembrance all over his arms. He had to forsake the familiar lines to break one brick from the other, ending the union he’d thought permanent.
But it was going to take forever. Even with his right hand curled around the silver handle of his front door, Kei was regretting a decision he hadn’t yet made. He was accounting for all the presumed backaches and bandages and long, harrowing nights such a process would take. He couldn’t envision himself anywhere but in his own bed as he did it.
Well, actually,
that wasn’t entirely true.
Tsukishima Kei could imagine himself in two places while he took apart such a wretched wall.
One,
beneath the suffocating covers of his own madness.
And two,
in the arms of Kageyama Tobio.
Then, an eclipse.
Opening the door was an afterthought—letting his body fall into Tobio’s built frame was the simple instinct of his body. It was more of a cry than an exhale, tears falling immediately and soaking into the sleeve of Tobio’s nice dress shirt. Through the flurry of his own thoughts, Kei bunched the back of the shirt into his hands, blissfully unaware of wherever the rest of his body truly was. His fingers were insistent, blistering with want. Tobio smelled like soap.
He heard the plastic bags fall to the ground amidst the chorus of crickets. It was nighttime, but Kei had only caught a glimpse of it before his eyes were scrunched closed and brimming with tears, nose buried in the crook of Tobio’s neck. Tobio’s palms made contact with Kei’s back first, gentle and uncertain. He could almost imagine the subtle shock on the man’s face; they had made out countless times, but this felt wildly more intimate than any of it. The tears wouldn’t stop rolling down Kei’s cheeks, hot and slow.
Tobio held on tighter. His thumb made a circle at the edge of Kei’s shoulder blade. Kei’s body buckled beneath the tenderness.
“Don’t look,” he whimpered into Tobio’s shoulder.
He could feel Tobio’s breath against his ear.
“What?”
“Don’t—look,” Kei whispered, “don’t look, don’t look.”
They were so close, Kageyama could see it—the end of the world. He could see the house and everything behind it, the source of Kei’s endless shame. He wanted to unravel his hands from the safety of Tobio’s shirt and push him away before he got a chance to peer in too closely, but he couldn’t stop crying long enough to do so.
“Don’t look,” he whispered again, more broken.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tobio replied plainly but gently.
Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.
Don’t stare into the darkness which surrounds me.
Don’t perceive the cliff I can’t escape.
Don’t look,
don’t look,
don’t—
“I want you to be happy,” Kei whispered through his tears, many of which were still collecting on Tobio’s shoulder.
They had only been together for three months.
But they had known each other for far longer.
It’s okay to cry.
I do.
Gently, Tobio took Kei’s face in his hands, a gentle grip on each dampened cheek. He pulled him close until their noses were nearly touching. His deep blue eyes flickered with concern.
“I am happy,” he replied softly.
“Not with me,” Kei shook his head, feeling the resistance of Tobio’s firm hold, “no one can be happy with me.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you,” Tobio said.
Kei inhaled sharply, “I don’t know that, though.”
His voice was snapping at every turn and cracking in its most vital of moments. Kei let the weight of his head fall into Tobio’s hands, and the man was quick to hold him up. They were still in that threshold; Kei’s feet were still in the house while Tobio’s toes were just barely grazing the doorframe. Something invisible seemed to separate them, a door of sorts.
Or perhaps,
a wall.
“You deserve better than me,” Kei eked out.
Tobio’s eyes narrowed, his mouth fell into a straight line.
“Who told you that?”
His voice was low and serious as though Kei had just admitted to being mugged in the streets. Kei gulped.
“No one,” he admitted, “they don’t need to. I already know.”
Tobio’s face didn’t change, but there was a new fire in his eyes accompanying the concern.
“You’re an idiot,” he said plainly.
Kei’s teary face pinched. Tobio was blunt, but this really wasn’t the time for their bickering. But instead of hardening, Tobio’s face fell into a series of sad lines, drooping over one another as he gazed at Kei in silence.
“I’m so happy,” he said in a barely audible whisper, “I’m happy because of you.”
“No,” Kei shook his head.
“Yes.”
“No! You’re lying!” Kei cried, “Just like they did.”
Kei could barely get the words past the hot ball of iron in the center of his throat. His fingers were still curled around the fabric of Tobio’s shirt so tightly as if he was afraid the man would fly away without warning. Or perhaps it was Kei who was the one that needed to be tethered to the earth.
Still, despite Kei’s subtle thrashing and cries of protest, Tobio was holding firmly onto his face and keeping him in place, eyes roaming over every feature. Tobio knew. He knew everything about Akiteru and Kei’s father. He knew too much.
It was precisely why Kei positioned himself at the end of the world. Because having a future implied time and passing time only strengthened his affections, and strengthened affections are never strong enough to withstand the blows of life. It was why he couldn’t date Kageyama Tobio for any longer than these three months; he couldn’t get attached.
Because the fewer heartstrings he tied around Tobio’s fingers, the less it would hurt when he walked far, far away.
But they were close, in this moment—impossibly so. Kei’s chest trembled and wavered with breath while Tobio’s stayed steady and certain. His thumbs moved only slightly, grazing the skin of Kei’s cheeks just enough for him to return to the world with full consciousness.
“I love you.”
Tobio’s tone was simple, his words small and short. Above the crickets’ song, it was barely audible, but it sent a shockwave down Kei’s spine.
“No, you don’t,” he shook his head, voice cracking and more tears falling.
Tobio held onto him tighter.
“I loved you six years ago; I love you now,” he insisted.
Kei still shook his head. It was impossible. No one loved him. No one even liked him, for that matter.
“Why else would I have gone back to the locker room after every game just to be the first person you saw when you left?” Tobio admitted in a hasty tone.
Kei still shook his head between the barriers of Tobio’s palms but slower now.
“I came back to Japan hoping I’d see you,” his voice began to break, “I came back—”
“Stop,” Kei whispered.
“I love you.”
“Tobio—”
“I’ll cook you dinner every night, if that’s what it takes,” Tobio interrupted, “I’ll kiss you whenever you want and never lie to you, not even a little.”
Promises. Liars always made promises.
“I can’t trust you,” Kei’s voice was impossibly small, trapped up behind the thick brick wall of his own thoughts.
Tobio’s lips pursed.
“You don’t have to,” he replied.
Tobio leaned in.
“But if all my love is well-spent, then one day you will,” he insisted.
Slowly, Tobio’s features melted into desperation. He was holding out his empty hands as if he was waiting for something to hold onto, to grip for dear life. His lips parted, the first attempt at words silent and clumsy.
“Just don’t let me live another day without you.”
Tobio washed Kei’s hair that night. His fingers coursed slowly through the soapy, sopping waves over and over in silence. Only the echoing of the sloshing water against the tile filled the space between them. They hadn’t exchanged a word since Tobio stepped in the house, a silent communication letting him know that, right now, Kei needed to be cared for more than he needed to be kissed.
And they didn’t kiss that night, despite it being their favorite pastime. Tobio simply knelt at the side of the tub with his sleeves folded up to his elbows, his hands shrouded by a washcloth thatwhich dug gently into the corners of Kei’s eyes which were phasing in and out of sleep. There was no room for humiliation or hiding; Kei had already made a vulnerable fool of himself at the front door.
So he graciously took small spoonfuls of the cereal Tobio had poured for him.
Cereal, he chuckled softly to himself.
“What time is it?” Kei asked lazily as the mattress dipped beneath Tobio’s weight beside him.
“Doesn’t matter,” Tobio replied gently.
His hand was back in Kei’s curls which were now comfortably damp. He felt refreshed from the two simple acts of care alone, and when the time came that he was too sleepy to even sit up, Tobio was quick to flick off the light and help Kei recline into his pillows.
And in another unspoken exchange, Kei wrapped his weary fingers around Tobio’s wrist and tugged him gently toward the bed as he turned to the door. Tobio hesitated for a moment before obliging, and Kei felt the mattress move beneath him once more. The warmth of Tobio’s body neared him slowly until he was pressed against Kei’s back, his left arm thrown gently over his side and his nose pressing subtly into the back of his neck.
Clean and sleepy, that was how Kei felt in that moment.
Clean, sleepy,
loved.
“I love you, too,” Kei whispered.
At first, he thought Tobio hadn’t heard. But Tobio’s fingers lacing with his said otherwise.
As much as Kei wanted to look inwardly and see the end of the world banished entirely and the wall disassembled with little effort, he found both banes of his existence to still be staring him in the face, mocking him. But he had to admit that as good as it felt to have Tobio close, he was terrified. Kei was trembling in fear of how quickly it could all fall apart.
“Don’t leave me,” he whispered, holding tighter onto Tobio’s fingers.
That time, he surely thought that Tobio was asleep.
“Never,” he mumbled into the skin of Kei’s neck.
You don’t have to trust me.
Kei’s mouth ticked up into a smile.
Just don’t let me live another day without you.
It wouldn’t come until a few years later, actually.
Tobio was fully moved in. All his things were cluttering Kei’s once clean space, which would spark only a few little bickering sessions, which most always devolved into fits of giggles and kisses on the area rug. Now it was a comfortable clutter, something that surrounded Kei in a warm hug even in the days where Tobio wasn’t around. There weren’t as many of those as there used to be, but Kei was still ashamed of the nights he called his significant other in tears, absolutely sure that Tobio had found someone else in the seven hours he’d been gone.
On one occasion, it was so bad that Tobio said goodbye to his teammates and came rushing home. Kei remembered standing in the doorway watching a panting, exhausted Tobio double over, all his things slumping to the ground like he was shedding a second self. Kei’s tears had dried already—he didn’t think Tobio would actually come home.
Perhaps it was the first time that Tobio’s utterance of ‘never’ that fateful night began to take root as truth more than a mere promise.
Though their edges, soft and sharp, seemed to fit seamlessly within each other, there were still stumblings akin to learning to walk. Both had been running for so long—away, toward—that accustoming themselves to the simple joy of walking was more arduous than they’d expected. It was a sweet, minor melody of
‘Is this alright?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I love you—
even now.”
Love wasn’t something they found somewhere along the way; it was something that grew around them, within them, shifted as life spun silently around their failing bodies.
A year, a month, a lifetime;
in the end, is there really any difference?
“Mornin’,” Tobio murmured, muffled by the plush of his pillow.
Kei had only sat up in bed for a short time, his usual routine of rubbing his eyes and slipping on his glasses. Tobio had suggested he get contact sometime last month, something about loving his eyes. Kei laughed him off but almost got caught making the optometrist appointment a week later.
He used his left hand to work at a knot in his right shoulder for a bit, the warmth of sleep still radiating off of him. A yawn like a silent roar for another hour of sweet rest unhinged his jaw as he used that same hand to tame his unruly blonde curls. Kei peeked at Tobio—his precious heavy sleeper. His face was still smooshed in the pillow, and splayed around him were his knotting black hairs shaped in the form of a crown, one that could be made from the weeds and wildflowers in the open field.
Kei wished he could’ve seen his eyes or the curve of his face so early in the morning, but he didn’t dare poke the bear for the chance. Instead, he watched the bones of the backs of his shoulders move slowly beneath the porcelain sheen of his skin with each deep inhale and exhale. Kei traced the moles with his eyes, tying red ribbons to each spot and reveling in the perfect points it designed—a star to remind Tobio of what he always carried.
They’d talked about the end of the world.
At first, the words were brief and clipped, shrouded in artful metaphors and cognitive behavioral intellectualization. The wall had come down, Kei was sitting in the rubble of it, but its memory was perhaps more formidable than the physical thing. Kei had been speaking into brick for so long that he’d almost entirely forgotten how to really say anything.
Perhaps it was his mother’s visit at the end of their fifth month together.
Perhaps it was Tobio’s gentle prodding over the rest of the year, his kind beckoning from the other side of the dark tunnel.
Or, perhaps, it was the earth-shattering phone call Kei received from his father in December—
Christmas, of all days.
He couldn’t even remember what the man said. All Kei had retained from the few moments was the sound of his father’s voice echoing in his head like an abandoned, overgrown church and the instinctual click of his finger on the screen, succinctly ending the call before it could really begin.
Tobio had held him together than night; fingers clutched around the cracks in his voice and lips pressed in every crevice through which his very breath was escaping. He slipped the mirror under the bed when Kei said he couldn’t bear to look at himself anymore; every day of aging made him look more and more like his father. He laid awake for hours listening to the saga, every childhood emotion and wrung-out tale Kei could possibly tell.
In fact, he rehashed the thing so often that, one day, he felt ready to say goodbye.
“I don’t wanna call him,” he mumbled into his hand.
Tobio scooted until just their shoulders were touching.
“Then don’t,” he shrugged.
“But he’s my dad, aren’t I supposed to patch everything up now that I’m feeling better?”
Tobio’s face pinched momentarily. He pulled his lips into a thin line and thought.
“I don’t think you owe anyone anything,” he said plainly.
And that was the last they spoke of it.
It was the last time they acknowledged the end of the world.
Thus, it shouldn’t have surprised Tsukishima Kei when he walked out of the bedroom with still bleary eyes and glanced haphazardly out onto the patio to see the world stretched out before him. He tried to blink it away, sure it was just a trick of the eye.
But it wasn’t.
It was really there.
The cliff, the darkness, the nothingness for miles—
it was gone.
He stood frozen, worried that a simple movement would make the illusion disappear. There were houses with other people in them, trees growing and stretching towards the sun, roads pointing in directions Kei had never even thought of. He gulped sharply, taking a few tentative steps towards the glass sliding door.
“What’re you doin’?” a groggy voice murmured from the bedroom door.
Tobio was leaned up against the door frame rubbing the sleep from his eyes and adjusting the waistband of his pajama pants until they sat loosely on his hip bones.
Kei looked back, feeling the wind of the motion kiss the crystalline tears on his cheeks, letting him know that they were even there in the first place.
“It’s gone,” he eked out, a hint of mourning in his announcement.
Tobio knew immediately. His eyes flipped to the backyard for a moment, then swiftly back to Kei. He lumbered over in a sleepy haze, arms primed to loop around Kei’s neck from the back. When his hands met at Kei’s sternum, he hooked his chin over his shoulder. Soft black strands of hair tickled Kei’s cheek damp with tears.
“Was it worth it?” Tobio asked.
“What?”
“Falling in love.”
The plains stretched for miles. Tsukishima Kei breathed for the first time in his entire life, it seemed.
“It was well spent if that’s what you’re asking.”
It was.
Good—that is.
The two of them at the beginning of the world.