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Dear Sakusa,
From the deepest depths of my heart, I hope you never read this. The last thing I want is for you to think you have some strange power over me.
I’m thinking about how we met. I’m thinking about the training camp, and how I was amazed by you. You, so powerful and so strong in everything you did. You, who was so cold and so distant and so prickly and with a wall around your heart. You, who for some reason allowed me to talk to you, even for a moment. You, who snorted after I tripped during that training camp. You, who I finally convinced to allow me into your life.
I’m reading over our texts. The ones that started after the training camp ended. How you were so funny and quick witted with every word that you said. How you replied as fast as you could, even if it was within two seconds, or maybe after a month. I keep remembering how you tried. I keep remembering how you would message me after months of silence just to tell me about how your cousin did this, or how your sister did that. I’m thinking back to when we graduated, and how you went to college, and how I went to play professionally.
I remember how you promised me that we would play in the future together.
Talking while you were in college and I was playing was hard. But we tried. We checked in every once in a while, and sometimes we would talk until the sky poked over the horizon, about everything and nothing at all. I’m reading over the texts now. They still make me laugh to this day. I hate that they make me laugh. I wish I could hate you.
I still have the stuffed animal you thought was funny when you got it for me for my birthday. I slept with it every night for years. I can’t bring myself to look at it for too long now. Isn’t it funny how things change?
I didn’t know I gave you my heart back in high school until I saw you again. Six years, you had my heart and a part of my soul and I didn’t even know it. You held my heart in your strong hands, and neither of us knew it for five of those years. Five years of texting and shitty jokes and bad stories and you stole my fucking heart. Kept it locked in a cage and wouldn’t tell me where the key was.
When I saw you for the first time, I knew. You had gotten older, grew into your looks, managed your hair. Seeing you after everything we had talked about, after all those late nights, and those times of silence where I kept checking my phone to see when you would respond, they all came crashing down on me when you walked into the locker room that first day. Is it sad that I had to have Osamu tell me that I was in love with you? I couldn’t imagine it, I couldn’t process it.
And I thought I was so lucky when you said you liked me too.
How long was it? Was it three months? Three months of dates that never ended with kisses like they do in the movies. Three months with nothing more than hand holding and cuddling. Three months of movie nights and walking down the street together. Three months of pretending like you were mine. Three months of me imagining what our life would have been like together. Three entire months of me imagining what it would be like to marry you, to be loved and cherished by you, to live with you and share a life with you.
Do you remember how the fight started? I can’t. Maybe it was because I felt like we weren’t acting like a couple. Maybe it was because it wasn’t what I had imagined dating you would be like. Maybe it was because you got sick of me, and your only solution that you came up with was starting a fight just so we could call it. I do remember that the fight lasted five days. Five days of not eating. Four nights of crying myself to sleep. Five days of wondering what the fuck I did wrong. You never told me. You never told me what I was doing wrong. We never talked about how we were feeling, and I guess that was the start of our problems. We never fucking talked. I’m looking at the messages now. Watching you grow more and more distant over time, casually pulling away from me like I meant nothing. Watching you make me feel like I was crazy, when all I was doing was trying my hardest. I was just a kid in love, and you took that from me.
It’s been a year since. You’re playing for Paris now. The team hasn’t been the same since. I haven’t been the same since. I still find myself holding your hoodie and crying into it when I can’t smell you anymore. I’m just hoping that one day I can finally breathe without the urge to cry over you again.
I know it’s not entirely your fault. Or maybe it is. It’s been so long and I really can’t remember. All I know is that you took a part of me. You took my heart and I haven’t been the same since. You took out a chunk of my soul, and I’ve felt empty and fucking lost. Six years of loving you had disappeared into nothing over the course of five days. I’m trying to heal. I’m trying to move on. It’s hard when I see you everywhere I go. I see you at the mall where we shared curry. I see you in the park where we watched the fountains change colors. I think of you every time I play that stupid fucking game we used to play together. I think of you every time I watch any of the movies we watched together. Sometimes I forget you. Sometimes I have too much in my life going on that I forget you entirely. And then in the quiet of my room, where your stuffed animal that you gave me still remains, where your hoodie sits in the corner of dirty laundry, when the team watches a movie we’ve seen and I can’t bring myself to watch it without you, you’re there in the back of my mind.
Sometimes I wish that we had made it work. Sometimes I wish that everything was fine and you finally kiss me and everything is good and we talk about the important things while still cracking jokes. And other times, I remember that you broke my heart. I remember that you took a part of me with you to Paris, and that I can never get it back. You took six years of my life and I can never get them back from you. I don’t know if I could ever forgive you for that. And yet I still can't bring myself to hate you.
I hope you’re fucking happy. I hope you are having the time of your life while I’m writing this stupid fucking thing I hope you never read, the fake letter that I’m crying over. The fake letter that I’m going to burn after I’m finished. I also hope you think of me, and there’s a giant fucking hole in your heart, just so you can understand what the fuck you did to me.
I’m tired of trying. I’m tired of fighting. I want to watch your hoodie burn. I want to cut that poor stuffed animal into tiny pieces. I want to scream. I want to cry and finally let it out because the pain has come all the way back and I can’t fucking fix it. I can’t fix what you’ve fucking broken.
I’m tired, Kiyoomi. Please let go of my heart. Please set it free. I’m tired of you having such a massive hold on me. I just want to be my old self again. The person I was before I fell in love with you. Please just let me go. I’m tired of hurting over someone who was barely mine.
Atsumu Miya