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I.
He’s the first hint of snowfall in Daichi’s life. He’s beautiful, he’s ethereal, he’s perfect -- and like snow, it’s a transient matter until it’s not, and he melts away soundlessly into the nipping winter air. (He left far too soon, but Daichi has dinner warmed by softer, more feminine hands that’s waiting for him on the dinner table, and Suga -- well, maybe if the times were different. There’s nothing to be done.)
His skin is a welcome comfort against Daichi’s, and he laughs an airy, breathless laugh as Daichi hooks a leg around his, tugging him in even closer. The soft chuckles that colour the air quickly turn into an indelicate snort as Daichi nuzzles gently at his neck. “That tickles,” he scolds, but there’s no bite in his tone and he doesn’t pull away.
Daichi hums contentedly for a moment longer, then tugs lightly at Suga’s fingers, lacing his own much darker, rougher ones with his. It almost feels like the hardened calluses that litter the pads of his hands could rub away the delicate constitution of the other’s hands - and so, he’s exceedingly gentle. He can’t help but marvel at the aristocratic paleness that Suga possesses - but, it was only to be expected, after all.
Suga seems to catch onto Daichi’s thoughts quickly - typical, Daichi muses fondly, how typical - and the candlelight splays in warm illuminating shadows as the corners of his eyes crinkle. He lets Daichi play with his fingers, watching on as Daichi traces light nonsensical patterns on his skin.
His next words are soft - so soft, they meld seamlessly with the silence.
“Maybe in our next lifetime,” he says, his breath a passing gust of warmth on Daichi’s shoulder. The light flickers, and the glow in Suga’s eyes dances.
“Yes,” he agrees. “Maybe in our next lifetime.”
II.
He dreams of impossibly soft strands of hair and slender fingers that stroke at the rough callousness of his own and of an intoxicating fondness in amber eyes that feels like home.
He’s not sure why he, of all people, remembers a life of decades past but he does, and it’s a glowing warmth that he carries gently with him in a pocket of his heart. Our next lifetime, and the words sit in patient optimism in the midst of worn and well-loved memories. However, Daichi is a practical man, and he knows it might not be this lifetime that they meet, or even the next. He keeps the hope tucked away.
So it rattles him to the core when one day, he spots the face that haunts his dreams every night.
It’s the cross ‘don’t stand in front of my stall if you’re not getting anything!’ that has him jolt out of his stupor. He didn’t realize he had frozen in place, forcing the crowd to part awkwardly around him. It can’t be him, it’s not really him - but what if.
He offers a distracted ‘Sorry!’ to the grumbling vendor before he goes crashing through the throng.
“Suga!” he hollers, and his voice cracks under the heat and the already loose dust that kicks up beneath his feet. He ignores the dirty looks he gets, and near bodily shoves a man away (though not without a fleeting apology). “Suga,” he calls again, and the man turns and --
He’s as beautiful as ever.
The relief makes him sag, and he lets out a shaky laugh, raking a hand through his hair. He hasn’t realized how tense he’d been, but he definitely feels light-headed now, and he feels his hands trembling slightly. Daichi tugs at his short bristly hair to steady them.
He feels dazed and a little bit drunk and he’s fumbling with his words but he’s sure Suga won’t and doesn’t care. We found our next lifetime, he means to say. This is a miracle, crosses his mind too. I found you. We’re both here. I love you.
Instead, he manages a stuttering “I --” before --
The other man wavers, then, apologetically, “Can I help you with something?”
(When Daichi returns home and he’s sent to bed after his mother finishes admonishing him about the chives that he’d neglected to bring back, he can’t stop seeing the muddled bemusement that coloured Suga’s eyes, and the awkward chuckle that he offered when Daichi blurted out, ‘I’ve got the wrong person, sorry.’ And more than anything, he hates how through the haze of the afternoon and his choking swirling thoughts, he couldn't help but notice that even in the middle of the pack of peasantry, Suga's hands were as white and delicate as ever.
He feels more alone than he had ever before.)
III.
The next life, he sees him tucked away behind an oak tree, cheeks flushed a rosy pink with furtive exhilaration. His hands are twined gently with another man’s, and he has stars in his eyes and laughter bubbling at his lips.
(He doesn’t remember.)
Daichi turns away.
IV.
When they find each other next, they collapse into hysterical hiccuping giggles and Suga apologizes profusely (“I can’t believe I forgot, I can’t believe -” “Suga - Suga, it’s okay!”). It’s been so long - so many lifetimes, but who’s counting anymore (four, it’s been four) - and they spend the next hour exchanging stories of ex-lovers and terrible bosses and regretful career choices.
Daichi learns that someone named Oikawa apparently has a mole on his left buttock (“Suga,” Daichi groans while Suga snickers unsympathetically next to him, aiming a not-so-gentle punch at his bicep), and Kiyoko is really one of the most beautiful people he’d ever had the pleasure to meet and Daichi, do you think I have a thing for other people with birthmarks? (Daichi sure hopes not, because he’s beginning to feel woefully inadequate with his markless self compared to these Oikawa and Kiyoko characters and their cursed beauty marks.)
Suga once adopted two children, one as broody as the other was sunny, and it was possibly one of the best decisions he’s ever made. Though, that’s if he discounts the time Shouyou and Tobio had somehow set the fire alarm off and the entire apartment had to evacuate, oh but wait, nevermind, that was because they were trying to bake him a cake of sorts for when he got back from overtime on his birthday, so he’d forgiven them that time for the ensuing panic and headaches. (He still misses them, he admits, but maybe he’ll find them again one day; he’s always been hopeful that way.) He’s been a journalist in one life and a nurse in another, but he’s liked neither; how do they expect kids to choose their careers nowadays, if I can’t even find my career after what’s it been, three lifetimes now?
“What about you,” he asks, and the sunlight that peeks in through the curtains frames a glowing silvery halo around him. “How’ve you been?”
Daichi glances at where their fingers laced loosely together and suppresses his immediate answer of ‘I’ve been missing you,’ because that is so many shades of stupid and sappy and well, when Suga traces light circles on his skin with the pad of his thumb -- it’s obvious it doesn’t need to be said. “I have a kid,” he says instead. “Four years old. She’s an absolute tyrant.”
Suga’s laugh is light and cheery in the sleepy haze of the afternoon. “Four years old, a bit young for an old fart like you to deal with, huh?”
He’s not wrong. A bit young, yes, but still a bright beaming light in his life.
(She might’ve never been born, if he’d just waited five more years to get married. What’s five more years to five lifetimes?)
“I am not an old fart,” he says instead.
“Tell that to the grey hairs you’re sprouting,” Suga says teasingly, reaching out to muss with Daichi’s hair - as best he could with the length of the cut, that is. “You’ll look just like me in no time.”
He bats at Suga’s hand, and Suga chuckles at the petulant half-frown that Daichi adopts. He wasn’t even forty - in fact, neither of them were (and they could’ve had so many years, so many futures --)
A nurse knocks and peers in. She looks a shade hesitant, a shade upset. I’m sorry, sir, but it’s 6 o’clock. Visiting hours are over.
Daichi glances back. Suga’s still smiling. (But it hurts, somehow.)
“It was good seeing you again, Daichi,” he says sincerely, and it sounds like goodbye.
Daichi swoops in for one more hug - and it takes everything he possesses to not cling desperately to those achingly familiar planes of soft skin (be gentle, he scolds himself, and tries not to think about how frail and small Suga feels in his arms). “I’ll be back,” he promises.
(And he does go back. But each time, Suga’s gets progressively sicker and the tissues that litter the bedside table are increasingly dyed scarlet and his skin goes gaunt and translucent. Eventually, Yui asks questions and the sanatorium no longer feels open and welcoming and finally Daichi’s no longer allowed in Suga’s room, and -- well, that’s that.)
V.
There’s a constant niggling feeling that he’s missing something. It doesn’t bother him, most days. It’s a small knot in the pit of his stomach that is a little annoying, perhaps, on the worst of days, but sits quietly most others.
(He shrugs it off. He’d remember if it was something important. Or maybe his mind’s just telling him that he doesn’t really want to remember. Who knows.)
Only once has it reacted, tightening into an aching twist that rakes and claws its way up into his chest. He doesn’t even know why it happened - all he remembers from the incident is blonde-grey hair and wide amber eyes and a strangled mess of words along the lines of “Daichi, what are you -- I found you, I can’t believe you’re here --”
How strange, he thinks. I never told him my name.
“I’m sorry,” he had said, equal parts sheepish and bemused when the stranger pauses to take a breath. “Have we met?”
The ache in his chest stays for a while. It doesn’t fade even when the other’s strained crooked smile is tucked away into the worn folds of his memories, but he learns to live with it.
It can’t have been important, he tells himself. It can’t have been.
end.
When Daichi spots him, he wants to run.
(The way his hair shimmers a pretty silver even under the ugly fluorescent lights of the school is unfair in itself. But even then, all Daichi can see is the way the candlelight lit the amber of Suga’s eyes and the delicate ridge of his nose in soft flickering hues so long ago.)
Is it worth it? Is it even worth it?
But Suga sees him first, and his eyes widen, as clear as they always have been, and it hurts. He immediately shoots out a hand through the crowded hallway to catch Daichi by the wrist, and nearby classmates scatter like a flock of crows, clucking irritably as they go.
(But of course, he muses when he thinks back later, Suga’s always been more daring, more hopeful than Daichi has ever been.)
It’s a more awkward affair than perhaps either of them might’ve anticipated, but Suga speaks first. “Daichi?” he questions, hesitant. He’s rocking nervously on his feet, and he begins to let go of Daichi’s wrist with an apology clearly written in the small furrowing of his brow.
Daichi’s throat is dry and the roaring in his ears is quite distinctly not coming from the echoing murmurs of other students, but he flips his hand to catch Suga’s fingers with his own. “Hey, Suga,” he manages. He wishes he’d thought to wipe his hand or something first, because his palm is sweaty and the tips of his ears are hot and he’s burning a spreading trail down to the nape of his neck.
But it turns out okay, because the smile he receives is bright and Suga’s eyes light up like they never did in their previous lifetimes.
Daichi swallows past the cloying knot in his windpipe. “It’s been a while, huh.”
Suga’s laugh is boyish and full of life like the fifteen year old he is, and it’s enough to have Daichi’s lips lift in a wide grin as well, and just like that, Daichi’s caught in Suga’s orbit, just like he always has been.
“It really has, Daichi. It really has.”