Work Text:
Akaashi applies for the college literary folio and the editor-in-chief asks him, “Do you only write when you’re sad?”
“Not all the time. I can write when I’m happy, too.”
“So why didn’t you include those in your portfolio?”
Because it’s difficult to write about something he rarely experienced, with only a small pool of mellow memories to draw inspiration from.
And the pool became smaller when Akaashi lost you.
You, who floated like white dust in golden sunlight.
You, who tasted like the first glass of fresh water after hours of volleyball practice.
You, who smelled like freshly baked bread from the local bakery and too expensive for him to purchase.
He never wanted to let you go, but he never learned how to make you stay.
“This isn’t going to work, Keiji, you know that,” you said. “I can’t keep seeing you if you’re not all in.”
And all he could do was turn you to poetry, and liken you to the tender ache he feels when he presses against a bruise.
Or to the musty smell of the abandoned home he explored with you.
Or to the scratchy feeling in his eyes when he stares into his phone for too long, waiting for your text.
All he can do is keep you in his notebooks, cataloging every piece of you he can no longer have.
“I didn’t include those,” Akaashi finally says to the editor-in-chief, “because no one will read them anymore.”