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When he was a child, his mother made a time capsule and buried it on their backyard, it was a metal box that she put together; filled it with copies of the family album. She made him write a letter to his future self the day he learnt how to write. It was poorly written at best and the message itself was a cute nonsense from a four-year old child.
She was so proud of him.
When she died, he thought about taking the metal box out but never convinced himself on doing so. He wasn’t ready to accept she wasn’t there anymore.
She told him to open it in times of need, of loneliness, when she wasn’t around.
She was mortally ill since then and when she died, he felt betrayed by that box.
He was fourteen when he tried to exhume the tomb of his childhood memories.
After ten minutes digging, he found nothing more than a hole in the earth. After half an hour he found nothing more than despair. After an hour he found nothing more than heated rage. After two hours, he found nothing more than a hole big enough to be his own grave.
The pictures of his mom went missing little by little on the pace of time. The memories stood tall in his heart, but it was a withering tree.
She wasn’t there anymore for real this time; she went away with the time capsule.
Everything was fucked up.
When he made it into the Teikou team as a titular, it was just as expected. That was his place. He made the trials and made to the top. Because he was the heir to the Akashi household. The thought of his mother prideful smile because her boy was on the team, as if it wasn’t his duty, not the natural order of the world, but something that only those who work hard accomplish.
He would’ve been lost then, but they were there. So precious, so honest, so full of life. And then he was afraid. The mismatching pace of the team worked, but it was forcing the delicate machinery.
He met him then when they still were children. He didn’t fell in love at first sight; he fell in love with him by the time he couldn’t see him anymore.
The box was empty and so was he, devoid of emotions, he could have just lay on the earthy hole he dug.
When the worst of him took over, sleeping was hell. Cold and dark, he was utterly alone and he thought of each and every person he loved and lost. His mother and that tiny surprise.
When they met, they had no idea of how love was supposed to feel. It could have been Satsuki’s cooking or a nest of carnivorous vicious butterflies on the pit of his stomach. He never took the time to make sure.
The first time they kissed, was an absolute accident. Like magnetism mixed with ignorance and a wishful need to do a lot of things at once. He was one to think before acting, but when he thought about it, it seemed like a pretty good idea.
His priorities where childish and he was looking for his place in the world. He still does, but back then, the top three were on winning and paying tribute to his last name. Falling in love wasn’t necessary to kiss someone and the raging hormones of a teen that just a month back in time was still considered a child said fuck this, do it. And he did.
He kissed Kuroko Tetsuya and went along with the protocol of walking with him on the way home while holding hands.
It wasn’t love, but he liked how there was no need to talk about the truths of the universe or making small talk. They did so, yes, but once in a while, when they both felt like it. It was comfortable, but not his priority.
Then everything that could go right went absolutely wrong.
He noticed he loved him the time he lost him.
And once again there wasn’t a metal box of memories to exhume. He lost him with all the new born love and let it drift away from his grasp.
Though he didn’t lose his hopes.
He immersed in memories to light up the hell that was the depths of his character.
“Do you love me still?”
He did, but he didn’t. He couldn’t tell apart the butterflies from the nostalgia and despair.
He wasn’t alone, but he was.
Before parting ways, he said it, even when it was too late. He had no intentions of holding him back, mostly because he didn’t want him back so he saw him turn his back without a word of farewell.
The winter withered like the memory tree of his heart and spring came with realization.
He really loved Kuroko, spelled carefully for him by the untold arrangement of anniversaries that he never noticed before.
It was a little thing, a question that shouldn’t be the first one on his mind, but the mixed parts of him stuttered nonsense at the same time and his instinct blurred the words, so maybe it was a legit question. “Are you free tomorrow?” and then Rakuzan was so different from Teikou.
He was a long way apart from making that work.
When he was a child, his mother buried her fears on a metal box and made him write a letter that proved how much he was happy to have her as a mom as to reassure her soul from the guilt of leaving him alone.
This was Kuroko’s letter.
He forced the tomb open and took it out on their first winter apart.
The next summer he noticed how love wasn’t enough to keep people together, but that was something he already knew.
He kissed him on that summer and he saw the prolific kind of butterflies spread from his stomach to every part of his body and nest on the back of his eyes.
They loved each other, but that was all.
They’d loved each other from the beginning but it never worked out.
When he was seventeen, he got a letter from home.
His father never wrote, nor mailed. His father called when absolutely necessary, so he wouldn’t forget why he was there. And by there, his gather meant the world of the living.
“Dear me from the future.” And that line was enough to make him greet his teeth. He didn’t want to read.
But he did.
“Are you having fun?” Well, he asked the same to himself a couple of times now and he still didn’t have an answer.
“Mother said you would read this, so I wonder if you really would. “ Well, she made sure of it now.
“Do you remember me?” No. Honestly, he couldn’t tell apart if those times were a dream because the reality felt different on every aspect he could think about.
“Are you behaving well? Have you grown to be a fine man like mother wants?”
They met once a year, but they never kissed since their first summer apart.
“Are things different there?”
The dream-like vision of a four years old child was blinded from the truth behind scenes.
But now he saw it all, he was the best at it.
He wasn’t being honest.
The last dream he had about it was a year apart from the time he got the letter.
The priority list top three were on Kuroko Tetsuya.
He was the one who needed to change.
The love was never enough to keep them together because it was their job.
When he was seventeen, he made a time capsule and filled it with the uncertainty and fears he held so dear for all that time.
He buried out of his mind and made a promise to never open that tomb.
— I missed you.
“Dear me from the past, we’re moving forward.”
It was the end of his childhood, the end of the dreamlike hope, the end of shallow nostalgia.
It was the beginning of a new letter.