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twenty.
“Your name,” Tetsuya said once he’d woken up. “What is it?”
From the closed windows, a gust of air swept into the walls. Seijuro opened his mouth where neither word nor breath escaped. Tetsuya only watched him and the spot where the hospital gown had fallen away to reveal the ridges of his collarbones. It was the same blue of the Rakuzan basketball jersey, the one Tetsuya knew he would never wear again. The cloth clung to his arms, pale and thin, and Tetsuya knew they had worn away with months of disuse. That, Tetsuya thought, or the medications. He did not want to know which, knew that it did not matter. It was(n’t) enough.
“Your name,” Tetsuya said again, and realized he did not expect an answer. Gold scattered across the floor on the other side of the room, bathing them in sleepless shadows.
Even with the ghost of a left eye covered with bandages, Tetsuya could tell he was thinking. Don’t bother, he wanted to say, but it was a lie.
Somewhere, beyond the hollows of what hospitals took and gave, Seijuro said, “Akashi Seijuro.“ He gave Tetsuya a smile reeking of small talk. “And I don’t believe we’ve met before.”
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ninteen.
Seijuro slept the entire time Tetsuya visited, drowning in the sheets. The shogi board Shintaro had set up--still bearing the marks of an unfinished game--lay untouched. Neither of them had touched it in around a week. Tetsuya was sure the conch shell beside it was gathering dust.
Seijuro slept on his stomach, face halfway into the pillow. Tetsuya liked it better that way, liked it when the bandages were practically invisible. He wondered if Seijuro could breathe.
For another minute, he watched Seijuro’s body rise and fall with every breath. He had to squint to make sure he was actually breathing.
“You didn’t have to prove anything,” Tetsuya said again, voice low against the air conditioner.
He was tired of saying things when they no longer mattered.
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eighteen.
“You’re Tetsuya, right?” Seijuro asked, sitting awake in his bed. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, hands rubbing the bandages.
“Yes.” Tetsuya stared at his hand. “And don’t do that.”
“I was just making sure,” Seijuro lied, and drew his hand away.”
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seventeen.
It made sense that the only hospital Masaomi would allow his precious son in (what a laugh, Tetsuya thought) was expensive enough to cater to their patients. If Tetsuya had asked about it (which he did not), they would have told him it was because most patients wanted to live the rest of their time out in peace. He thought of Sejiuro, and was at once uncomfortable.
They must have looked funny, two boys alone in a room. It was large and empty enough that voices carried, and Tetsuya listened to the echo before speaking again.
“A piano,” he said, pushing the wheelchair towards it. “Don’t you want to play?”
Seijuro only stared at him, biting his lip. “I don’t know how.” He stood up and, upon almost falling over, steadied himself using the piano. The look Tetsuya gave him must have been plain, for he said, “I promise I can steady myself.”
“But you do,” Tetsuya said, so loud that Seijuro fell still. His bangs had grown out and it made him look childish, covering the bandages over where his eye would have been. Tetsuya wanted to brush them out of the way. “You do know how to play.”
Seijuro smiled at him, almost piteous. Tetsuya clenched his hands into fists, tight enough to draw blood. “You must be mistaken.”
“No,” Tetsuya said. “Midorima taught you, even if it was just a few scales. Do you remember that?” He unclenched his fists to twist his hands together, watched as skin reddened.
Seijuro looked from the piano to Tetsuya, gaze foreign as the instrument before him. “Midorima?”
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sixteen.
Tetsuya was on his way out of the hospital when he saw them in the garbage. The mittens and gloves and coat made it hard to move, but he ran anyway. There, in the garbage, was the bouquet of flowers. Tetsuya ran his fingers over one of the petals, felt it come away wispy and broken in his hand. If he stared at them for a moment, they still smelled sweet. To Tetsuya, it was wrong, wrong, wrong--standing around the ghost of a bouquet, visiting the ghost of a boy.
One of the nurses at the front desk looked up at him from her computer. “I’m sorry, were those yours?”
Tetsuya paused for a moment, unsure if he wanted to lie. “No.”
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fifteen.
Seijuro talked often of the teammates who visited him. Tetsuya saw them, sometimes, but they never visited all at once. If he saw them, it was only in passing. He wasn’t sure who they felt worse for, the boy in the hospital or the one watching him. He certain there were bad feelings for them somewhere, for leaving him alone in the hospital, for leaving Seijuro alone in the hospital.
“One of them gave me this,” he told Tetsuya, holding up a teddy bear. The ribbon tied over its head was coming loose, and a card stuck to the front of the bear. Behind it, Tetsuya saw the red of a stitched heart. “Reo, I believe his name was?”
“Yes,” Tetsuya said.
Seijuro tucked the teddy into the sheets before his face came alive with realization. “There was another one, though. He wouldn’t look at me.”
Tetsuya blanked out for a moment, and when he stopped, Seijuro was still speaking. “He was strange.” Seijuro busied himself with the ribbon on the bear. “I had a hard time noticing him at first.”
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fourteen.
Chihiro visited only when Seijuro was asleep. It was intentional, Tetsuya knew--it (what?) was easier when Seijuro could not see him, when he could not see Seijuro. When they bumped into each other, his eye bags looked heavier than usual. Tetsuya, who knew it was not his place, did not ask about them.
“Give this to him,” Chihiro said, shoving the bouquet into Tetsuya’s arms. Tetsuya looked from the flowers to Chihiro’s face, and knew they were not cheap. “You don’t have to tell him it’s from me if you don’t want to.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Tetsuya said, being the first to put what they both knew into words. “He’ll forget anyway.”
Chihiro shoved his hands into his pockets, silent. “Flowers are harder to forget.”
Tetsuya watched him for a long moment, so damned guarded it gave everything away. If he felt anything for Chihiro, it was only pity. “If you’re feeling guilty,” Tetsuya said, taking the flowers, “don’t bother.” They knew he would give them to Sejiuro either way.
To his surprise, Chihiro laughed. “Likewise.”
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thirteen.
“Thank you,” Seijuro told him later, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin. The smell of hospital food made Tetsuya wrinkle his nose. “For the shell. I was told you got it for me.”
Tetsuya forced a smile. “I did. Do you like it?”
Seijuro looked at him from his bed, and then back to the shell. The light made it look bone-white. “It’s very pretty.” Even from where he was, he looked as if he wanted to touch it. Tetsuya brought it to him, and Seijuro held it on his lap. “I’ve never been to the beach before.”
The smile wavered, and Tetsuya scooted closer to him. “There’s one outside of the hospital, not too far from here. I can take you for a walk if you want.”
Seijuro looked at him again, licking his lips. “Really?”
Tetsuya’s smile was, for the first time that day, real. “Yes.”
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twelve.
The doctor told him to take Seijuro for a walk. Tetsuya stuffed his feet into his shoes, wrapped a scarf around his neck, and noted that pushing Seijuro’s wheelchair along was the opposite of a walk. He complied anyway.
He wasn’t sure when or why they’d decided he was Seijuro’s keeper--they were the ones getting paid for this--but that was the least of his concerns.
As he walked along the path by the shore, he caught a glimpse of Seijuro’s face. His eyes were distant and glasslike as he stared off at something he could not see. The afternoon shadows made him look brooding and dark, and he shuffled in his coat.
Had Tetsuya not known better, he would have mistaken Seijuro for a fourteen-year old. “What?” he said, and stopped pushing the wheelchair. “Is something wrong?”
Seijuro glanced at him, only to look back at the waves. March and its cold held his breath in the air before letting it go. “Not really.”
The path curved and broke for a moment, and when Tetsuya pushed the wheelchair over it, wheels met with sand. He kicked down at it, feeling bits of shell and rock beneath his heel. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Seijuro said, and then as if to himself: “Yes.”
They made it back onto the path, and Tetsuya felt alone in the quiet. The smell of salt was a welcome break from the hospital’s scent of medication. Only on the beach did Tetsuya realize it fully--the hospitals, the waiting, the white. He felt the unrest in his stomach.
Still, Sejiuro would only look at the waves and not the boy behind him. “Do you want to go back inside?” Tetsuya asked.
Seijuro looked at him, unseeing. “Could you get me that?” he said, ignoring Tetsuya’s question. He wasn’t sure if Seijuro had even heard him. “The conch.”
A large shell rested on the sand not too far away, pinkish white. Tetsuya left and brought it back, putting it in Seijuro’s hands. He held it as if it was water in his hands, afraid it would spill out from the space between his fingers.
“Do you want to go back?” Tetsuya said again.
“We went to the beach,” Seijuro said, rolling the conch over in his hands. “A family trip, I think. I remember. My father and I.” He rubbed the conch, straining to look at it through only one eye.
“My father and I. And I believe someone else.” Stopping, he looked at Tetsuya, the red of his eye almost making him squirm. “Yes, that’s right. Yes.”
The waves rising and falling at the shore filled the space where words did not.
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eleven.
He dropped the stuffed toy frog on Seijuro’s lap and said, “Midorima left this for you. It’s your lucky item for the week.”
Seijuro blinked twice, pulling it closer to his body. It was an ugly thing, eyes bulging against poor stitching. The fabric it was made of made Tetsuya itch, too. “Lucky item?” Seijuro picked it up, stroking the ears. “For the week?”
Tetsuya nodded. “He gave you a get well soon card, too.” The card was a formality more than anything; he wasn’t getting better anytime soon, they both knew.
Seijuro nodded as if he understood. (He didn’t.)
“I see. Tell…” He stared off into open space for a moment, just petting the frog, before his face lit up. “That’s right. Midorima, correct? Tell him I said thank you.”
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ten.
“She liked beaches.” Sejiuro poked at his food with the plastic fork. Tetsuya knew he had no intention of eating it. He’d spent the last ten minutes stabbing at his food until there was nothing left on his plate but mush. “My father took me on a trip with her before… Yes. Before.” He wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Before.”
He spoke again before Tetsuya could reply. “They were very warm, and very nice. She found me a conch shell, you see. It was beautiful.” The look on his face told Tetsuya he wasn’t thinking of the shell at all. “We have it at home. In her room.”
“What colour was it?” Tetsuya said.
Seijuro made an effort to shrug. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen it in years.”
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nine.
He talked to Tetsuya, sometimes. It was alarming in a way; he spoke of random things, spots that didn’t form pictures, pieces he left Tetsuya to make wholes out of. He spoke of Rakuzan, of Teikou, of basketball, and occasionally, himself.
“Did I tell you my mother was in this very hospital?” Seijuro lay in bed, blankets pulled up to his chin. His eye was closed. “I remember it, now.”
“Was she?” Tetsuya said.
“She was,” Seijuro agreed, drifting in and out of consciousness. “For a few months. Then she came home.”
“And then what?” Tetsuya asked, but Seijuro did not answer.
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eight.
“Yes.”
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seven.
“--was a success,” the doctor told him, sweeping papers off his desk and into the garbage. His attention was on the mess in front of him and not Tetsuya. “It was a success, but there was damage to his brain.”
“I see,” Tetsuya said, voice dull. He didn’t want the long explanation, didn’t want the excuses--all he could see were the holes in Seijuro’s words, and all he wanted to know was why. Letting out a low breath, he tried to keep his tone even. “What does it do, exactly?”
The doctor adjusted the name tag on his breast pocket before moving to the buttons of his white coat. “Amnesia. He forgets things little by little.”
In the corner of his mind’s eye, he saw a stranger in the bed, wearing Seijuro’s name and face. His heart beat its way into his throat, painfully loud. He was selfish; Tetsuya knew better than anyone else. Selfish, selfish, selfish. “Could he forget people entirely?”
.
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six.
“Did you drink your medications?” Tetsuya said, sitting down when Seijuro opened his eye and only stared. “You said you would. Half an hour ago.”
Seijuro only lifted his hand, watching his fingers furl and unfurl. “I don’t remember that.”
They sat together in the unbearable silence.
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five.
“I was keeping a promise, you see,” Seijuro told him when Tetsuya wouldn’t look away from the bandages. “An Akashi never goes back on their word.”
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four.
Seijuro did little but sit in his bed. In fairness to him, Tetsuya thought, it wasn’t like he could do anything else. Whenever Tetsuya visited, they spent the hours sitting and thinking (the more often it happened, the more he realized they didn’t even think). He pressed the chair right up to the side of the bed, but there were chasms between them, and Tetsuya was hanging off the edge.
The dryness in his eyes hurt. “You didn’t have to prove anything,” Tetsuya said, staring at the window curtains. “You know that, right?”
Seijuro put a hand to the bandages. “It isn’t that easy.”
Of course it isn’t, Tetsuya wanted to say, but did not.
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three.
“They’re worried about you,” Tetsuya said, moving the curtains so that they stopped all light. Seijuro was half-there and half-not, voice warbled by anesthetics and a lack of sleep.
“They shouldn’t be.” Seijuro watched Tetsuya toy with the curtain hems, twisting it up and letting it go. “The operation went fine, did it not?“
“Don’t,” Tetsuya said.
“Earlier, they showed me the fake eyes. None of them are the same red as mine, of course, but I suppose they’ll have to do--”
“Don’t,” Tetsuya said again, loud enough that Seijuro quieted.
“You could always leave,” Seijuro said, ever so helpful. Tetsuya would not look at him. “Does it make you feel better? Knowing that you stayed here when they did not?”
“It isn’t about that.” Tetsuya let the curtain go, refusing to back down, refusing to run away. “You know it isn’t.”
“I wonder,” Seijuro said, and nothing more.
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two.
“Why did you do it?” Tetsuya said when they were alone, throat and eyes burning from how dry they were. “You know it would have been…” He didn’t finish his sentence, unsure if he wanted to in the first place.
Seijuro only ignored him.
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one.
“Your name,” Tetsuya said once he’d woken up. “What is it?”
Seijuro opened his eye, looking around the room. His hospital bed was surrounded by people--doctors and teammates. Tetsuya could see him struggling to adjust through seeing with only one eye, and he looked from his hands to them. It came as a shock, Tetsuya knew, passing out on the basketball court and waking up on a hospital bed.
He sat up, sheets and bed shaking as he moved. Raising a hand to the left side of his face, he ran his fingers over the the bandages below his bangs.
“Akashi,” he said, hesitant. Tetsuya met his gaze, could see how it was heavy with confusion and the sour aftertaste of medication. “Akashi Seijuro.”
“I’m glad to see you’re awake,” said the doctor. “We’ve treated your eye.”