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“Do you ever miss him?”
“I miss his soul, but I’m sure his and mine will cross paths again.” His voice was sure.
“You believe in things like that, Kuro-chan?” His lips curled up into a mischievous grin.
He looked at him and nodded. “If we’re meant to meet again, it’ll have to be in another lifetime.” He looked up at the sunset rising over the mountains in the distance. The sky screamed with a thick red, and he held his arm up to the sun. He clenched his fist and let his face go firm. “A feeling this grand can transcend beyond this life and the next.”
“You’re so sure of yourself,” his friend said.
Kuroo put his arm down to look back at him. “King Oikawa, you have a realm to build back up.”
Oikawa looked at his kingdom as it peered before him in ruins. The buildings crumbled and threw up dust. He sighed heavily with a frown that set in afterwards.
“I can only hope that my descendants don’t have to go through such harsh trials like this,” he hissed out underneath his breath.
“The fall of a king is always tough. Long live the king,” Kuroo teased with a raise of his arm again.
“Oh, stop it, Kuro-chan, and help me see if there’s anything left to salvage.”
Tetsurou stared at the black hair that’d caught his attention as it passed by him in the hallway. His eyes trailed after the smaller boy that clutched the straps to his back pack tightly and hid his face beneath his long hair.
He felt drawn to him and almost ran after him but decided against it and continued on to class.
The breeze made his dark locks pull away from his face to reveal a set of golden eyes. Tetsurou stopped in his spot and stared over at the younger boy as he walked down the sidewalk with a gaming system in his hand, pressing the buttons rapidly.
Noticing that he was going in the same direction that Tetsurou was about to head in, Tetsurou decided to come up beside him.
“Hi.”
The kid jumped and looked at him fearfully, holding his gaming system to his chest with protectiveness.
Tetsurou grinned at him. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I saw you at school today. Are you new? Did you just move here?”
He nodded slowly with guarded eyes.
“What’s your name?”
He hesitated but relaxed his shoulders to say, “Kozu…me… Ken…ma…”
“I’m Kuroo Tetsurou,” Tetsurou introduced himself. He beamed at Kenma and pulled his other strap onto his other shoulder. “We must live near each other because I live this way, too.”
“Oh…”
Tetsurou noticed Kenma’s distance and let his smile fade. He didn’t want to scare the little guy. He seemed shy and like he didn’t have very many friends since he just moved into the neighborhood. Trying to shake off the doubts that maybe Tetsurou shouldn’t get involved with somebody that seemed like the polar opposite of his demeanor, he stuck his chest out with confidence and said, “We should hang out. I can show you around, and we can become friends.”
Kenma frowned.
“Friends?”
“Yeah, sure. I’d like to be your friend. You seemed like you were kind of lost earlier in the hallway today. You could use some friends.”
“I don’t need any friends,” Kenma said, going back to his game.
Tetsurou continued to walk with him, unfazed by Kenma ignoring him now.
I need to be his friend, Tetsurou thought. There was just something about Kenma that Tetsurou found familiar. He’d only just met him, and he’d barely talked to him, but he felt a much deeper connection; something that went beyond his understanding.
It felt like a second chance at something. He needed to carve himself into Kenma’s life. He felt like he needed to, and he wanted to.
He looked at Kenma’s face. He saw the concentration on it and smiled to himself.
He definitely wanted to.
“Kenma, some boy named Tetsurou is here to see you,” his mother told him.
He sighed and looked at his mother, hoping that she’d understand his expression. He really, really, really didn’t want to hang out with anybody, especially Kuroo Tetsurou. He’d been trying to talk to him at school, on the way home from school, and he’d even walked with him to school. It was tiring, and Kenma wanted to be alone.
“Oh, come on, Kenma,” his mother said with her hands on her hips. “He seems nice. I’m going to let him in. You be nice, you hear me?”
Kenma narrowed his eyes and made a face when his mother left. After a moment, Tetsurou hopped in front of his bedroom door and smiled at him with that crooked smile of his.
“Kenma! Do you wanna come outside and play with me?” he asked.
“Not really,” Kenma answered. He picked up his gaming system only to have Tetsurou grab his wrist unexpectedly. Kenma snapped his attention towards Tetsurou’s face and gave him a hard look of annoyance.
Tetsurou slowly removed his hand and gave him a nervous, apologetic smile. “Sorry. But don’t play your video game today. Come outside and enjoy the fresh air.”
“There’s fresh air in here,” Kenma told him.
“C’mon, Kenma,” Tetsurou pressed. “It wouldn’t hurt to try something new.”
Kenma scooted away from him as he sat up against the end of his bed. He picked up his gaming system and turned it on. “Then it wouldn’t hurt for you to sit down and be quiet for five minutes.”
Tetsurou blinked at him and scoffed with a grin.
“Boy, you’re hard to get along with.”
Kenma gestured towards the door. “You can leave.”
“And sassy.”
Kenma paused his game to glare at Tetsurou. “I’m not sassy.”
“You are.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I am not.”
“Are.”
“Not.”
Tetsurou smirked at him. “We’re arguing. Great. We’re getting somewhere. I’ll come back over tomorrow then.”
Kenma’s shoulders slumped with irritation.
“Bye-bye, Kenma!” Tetsurou called to him as he left his bedroom.
What did I ever do to deserve this? Kenma thought miserably.
There was a slow sensation that crept along Kenma’s spine as he stared down at the book. The pages were torn, wrinkled, and made of old material. The words were printed in ink and styled finely. He was careful not to add any more damage to the old diary, and he sat down at the table in the local library to read over the words.
He flipped to a random page and saw a name that gave him a chill that trailed all the way down his back.
“Kuro-chan has been downhearted since the altercation at the edge of the valley,” it said. “Ken-chan was killed—stabbed by a knight’s sword. He’s been miserable since then. I feel as if I’m responsible since I brought upon this hardship with my tyranny. He has been a loyal man to me still, but I cannot bring back the one person that he cared for the most. I can see it in his eyes that the love he had for Ken-chan was more than that of friendship. It was of a deep longing. It truly saddens me to see him in such peril over the death of his loving partner. I would never wish such pain upon any of my enemies for I am sure that this pain is far greater than anything that I could do to them. Alas though, I am paying the toll for my wrongdoings. I feel as if it’s on par with the tragedy that I brought upon my people and my friend. My kingdom has been torn. My men have perished. My time as king is finally over.”
Kenma could only feel that the name was only a coincidence, but he needed to be sure.
He grabbed the old diary from the table and went up to the librarian.
“Excuse me…?” His shyness came out, and he looked up at her as he tried to hide his face behind his hair.
The librarian looked down at him and asked, “Yes?”
“Can you tell me if there are any books on…”—he looked at the diary’s title—“King Oikawa?”
The librarian chuckled gently and nodded. “That diary is so old,” she said. “Not many people pick it up from our special collection, but there are more up-to-date books that tell the story of King Oikawa. They’re not as detailed about his life, but they’re good for learning other things. You can find them right over there, dear.”
“Thank you…”
Kenma took the diary with him to the section and searched through the selections of books. He took a few of them back to the table with him and started to open them up with wonder. He skimmed through the paragraphs, trying to locate a name that was similar to the ones that King Oikawa had written about in his diary.
He yawned as time passed by, feeling his eyelids growing heavy.
His eyes scanned another page once he turned it, and his sleepiness instantly vanished as a name caught his eye.
Found it!
“King Oikawa’s close aide, Kuroo Tetsuo, was a former healer,” the passage began. “He was a companion of another healer that went by the name of Kozume Kenta. When King Oikawa’s kingdom was devastated with an immense overthrowing of his power and war broke out, Kozume was on the frontlines to aid the wounded soldiers on both sides. Tragically, Kozume was killed by a knight from the opposing side of King Oikawa’s army. This, in turn, deeply saddened Kuroo.”
Kenma pondered on the names in the book. It was strange that he and Tetsurou would share surnames with two people from hundreds of years ago. He didn’t want to think too much on it, but even when he returned some of the books to their rightful places and checked out the diary and the one history book from the library, it bugged him all the way home.
He opened the door to his house and took off his shoes at the door.
“Mom?” he called out only to be met with Tetsurou sliding in from the living room in his socks on the hardwood floor.
He beamed at Kenma as Kenma stared back at him in surprise.
“What’re you doing here?”
“Kenma, be nice,” his mother said as she came in from the same room. “Tetsu-kun just came over to see if you’d like to play. He insisted on waiting until you returned from the library. Did you get the books that you needed for your report?”
Oh… My report…
He nodded and then looked at Tetsurou and then back at his mother.
“I have a lot of work to do, so I should—”
“I had the same assignment last year,” Tetsurou started to tell Kenma’s mother. “I can help him with his report.”
She beamed happily. “Thank you, Tetsu-kun! I’m sure Kenma would be grateful.”
I’m not, Kenma remarked to himself.
“C’mon, Kenma,” Tetsurou said as he grabbed Kenma’s wrist and started to pull him towards his bedroom.
Kenma frowned and hardened his eyes as he begrudgingly allowed Tetsurou to lead him up to his bedroom. He snatched his wrist away from the older boy as soon as they entered the room and took his back pack off.
“I really don’t need any help,” he told Tetsurou upfront.
“I know,” Tetsurou said.
Kenma turned to look at him and blinked.
“You’re really smart. Your mom likes to hang up your tests on the fridge. You get really high marks. I know you’re capable of figuring things out.”
“Then why did you offer to help me?”
Tetsurou took a seat on the floor and crossed his legs and smiled up at Kenma in a friendly way. “Just to hang out with you!”
Kenma blinked back at him again and turned his head away to hide his embarrassment. He unzipped his back pack and carefully pulled out the diary and the history book. He placed them on his desk and walked to his door. He glanced back at Tetsurou to say, “I’ll… be right back.”
Tetsurou watched him leave and then sprang up to stand. He went over to Kenma’s desk to take a look at what he was doing a report on. He furrowed his brows at the old diary and picked it up with care to take a look on the inside.
A small piece of notebook paper marked a place in the diary, and Tetsurou read over the paragraphs quickly. His heart almost skipped a beat at the familiarity and similarity of the names within the book. He snatched up the history book and found that a page had been marked in it as well. He skimmed across the passages and shut the book quickly as his eyes went round.
“Mom?” Kenma called to his mother as he walked into the living room. She was sitting in a chair by the window, reading a novel with a content look present on her face.
She looked up to see her son enter the room.
“What is it, Kenma?” she asked him.
“Um… Was… Did we… Did we ever have an ancestor that was named Kenta?”
His mother stared at him with a blank expression for a moment before blinking her eyes and laughing lightly. “Well, I think so. He was a… doctor? Something like that.”
“Healer.”
“There you go!”
“Do you know if—”
“I’m sorry Ms. Kozume, Kenma, but I just remembered that my mom wanted me to help her with something at home,” Tetsurou interrupted as he stood at the entranceway to the living room. “Thank you for letting me come over! I’ll see you tomorrow, Kenma!” He grabbed his shoes at the door and slipped them on before running off to go home.
Both Kenma and his mother stared after him and wondered why he’d left in such haste.
“I do like him,” his mother remarked from her chair, glancing out the window to see if he was going home safely. “I think he likes you, Kenma. You should really open up to him more. He’s really trying to be your friend.”
Kenma slumped his shoulders.
“Don’t slump your shoulders at me, young man,” she scolded him. “He’s a good kid.”
“Mom…”
“I’m sorry, pudding. What were you saying?”
“Uh… Do you know if we have any more information on him?”
His mother tapped her finger against her head in thought as she stood up from her seat and walked over to her cabinet full of books, albums, and magazines. She skimmed across the spines of each item until she smiled to herself and pulled out a skinny book and handed it to him.
“There should be some information on him in here.”
“I can’t believe we have this,” Kenma commented out loud.
His mother laughed and ran her hand over his head as she went back to her seat.
“Mamaaa!” Tetsurou shouted as he crashed through the screen door to his home and rushed down the hallway to find his mother in the kitchen.
She turned around quickly and looked at him fearfully.
“What?! What’s wrong?! Did something happen?! Who do I have to kill?!”
“No, no, no! I’m fine!” He paused to give her a weird look. “Who do you have to kill?”
“Hey, a mother has to be prepared to defend her offspring.”
“Mama…”
“Just tell me what all the shouting is about,” she said, changing the subject.
Tetsurou took a deep breath and quickly explained what he’d read in the book back at Kenma’s house. He explained how he’d been feeling really weird ever since he’d seen Kenma. He never got embarrassed to tell his mother things, so he just blurted the entire truth out. By the time he was done, he was out of breath and staring at her with his body slumped over and his arms dangling out in front of him.
His mother turned the stove off and sat down at the table to snicker at her son’s antics.
“My, what a story, Tetsurou!” she commented, laughing with a loud force.
Tetsurou frowned.
“Oh, come now. Don’t give me that look,” she said. She wiped the tears from her eyes. “Sounds like a case of fate to me.”
“Fate?”
“Or reincarnation.”
“Reincarnation?!”
“Or both!”
“Both?!”
She snickered again and gestured for him to come to her. He walked over to her, and she placed her hands onto his shoulders and looked back at him. Her expression changed, and she straightened her lips as she looked back at him seriously.
“These things are really important, Tetsurou. I believe in reincarnation and fate, and it was all because of our ancestor, Tetsuo.”
“What?” He lifted his brow at her.
She stood up and told him to wait for her right there. She hurried off to their basement as Tetsurou sat down at the table and tapped his finger against the wood. He swung his legs impatiently as he sat in the chair and huffed out a sigh when his mother was taking too long.
“Aha! Here it is!” she announced, walking back into the kitchen and holding up a small leather book into the air like it was a trophy worth showing off.
“What the heck is that?” Tetsurou questioned her.
“This, my son, is a diary that Tetsuo wrote. In it, he says that King Oikawa thought it’d be a good way to cope with the loss of his friend, so he began to write things down.” She handed the book to her son. “The beginning is where he talks about fate and reincarnation. It’s the reason why I believe in it,” she explained. “Go on and learn while I finish dinner.”
“‘Kay…” he said as he stared down at the pages and started to walk out of the kitchen. He went up to his bedroom, letting his feet drag as he read over the words.
“Kenta was killed today,” the section began morbidly. “He was stabbed through the torso with a sword. That cursed blade now has his blood on it. I can’t even fathom what it was like for him to die in such a horrible way. The pain that went through my entire being when I’d witnessed the incident was unbearable enough. I’d gone to assist him in healing the wounded for I’d been a former healer, just as he was. He was my friend, and to have seen such a horrific feat sent me into a depression.”
Tetsurou’s eyes saddened, and he sat down on his bed and pulled his legs up to his chest.
“King Oikawa offered his regrets,” it said as Tetsurou continued to read. “He suggested that I write in this documentation booklet to help ease the pain that I’ve been experiencing since losing Kenta. It’s been hard. I regret a lot in this lifetime. I could have continued to do good, but I chose to be King Oikawa’s aide at the promise that my family would be spared from his harsh treatments. He was a hard king, but I trusted him as a friend. Though, I regret taking the deal for it has left others in despair. I was selfish, and it has cost Kenta his life. Oh, how I wish Kenta were still here. I would trade everything in the world just for my love to return.”
Tetsurou put the diary down and widened his eyes.
“Oh, my gosh…”
Shaking his head, he picked it back up to continue again, seeing that the next page started off on a different date.
“The kingdom is in ruins. The civilians have been freed from the king’s rule and many of his men have died in battle. King Oikawa called out all of the names of those who have died as we walked through the fallen land. Only I was there to hear the names for none of the people stayed. They were most likely to be rejoicing at their newfound freedom and mourning the loss of the soldiers that the king had sent into the battle to defend his title.
He and I have both been selfish. I suppose that is the reason why I chose to stay, even after all of the turmoil and after my own family left the kingdom. The only thing I carry now is my head and documentation booklet as well as the strong surety that my soul will meet again with Kenta’s.
King Oikawa had asked me, funnily enough, if I missed him. I do, every day. I told the king that if I were to meet Kenta again, it would have to be in another lifetime for a love this strong can transcend past even this life. Even if we don’t cross paths after we are reincarnated the first time, there are many chances after that. I feel it deep inside of myself that our souls will be able to connect once again. Souls are reborn time and time again. I remember some of my past lives, and I wonder if they ever imagined that their new life would be feeling this much hurt over losing the love of their life. I hope my new life does better in their lifetime than I have in mine.”
Reincarnation… Am I really one of his new lives? How weird that we’re in the same family, Tetsurou thought. He put the diary down to rub his tired eyes. He yawned and went to continue on once again.
Ah, a different date again.
“Oikawa has decided to lose his title as king. He said that there’s no place for a fallen king to continue on living with a façade. He said that it was fate for the kingdom to fall. Now that there is nothing left of the land, we have decided to leave and locate my family again.
Oikawa keeps bringing up fate. It never really crossed my mind that fate could be important, but the more that he talks about it, the more that I understand where he is coming from. It was fate to meet Kenta back in our youth. The love that grew from that first encounter has changed me as a man. Fate is destiny, and my destiny is to live without that returned love for the rest of my days. It is cruel how fate works, but I believe that it’s only bittersweet.
Kenta’s death has left me hollow. The shell that surrounds my former self has only begun to crack. My life is not yet over, but my soul has ways to go. It is only on a day in the future that my soul will finally cross paths with Kenta’s soul again.
Oikawa asked me if I believed in fate like I believed in reincarnation. After listening to him for days on the subject of fate, I had silently been talking with myself about the matter.
‘Reincarnation and fate work together,’ I’d told him.
Oikawa seemed dumfounded, but I believed in my words. Reincarnation is another chance at life. Fate is what brings two souls back together again. I wholly believe that my reincarnated soul will be fated to meet Kenta’s again.
Oikawa wished for that to be true after I told him.”
Tetsurou shut the diary once he’d skimmed over the rest of the pages. The rest of the diary only spoke about his travels in finding his family again and parting ways with Oikawa before ending abruptly after the birth of his first child. There were mentions of Kenta again, but they’d become repetitive, saying that he’d meet him again in another lifetime.
Tetsurou stood up on his bed and pumped his fist into the air, declaring, “I have met Kenta’s soul again, Tetsuo!”
“Oh? Do you really believe that?” Tetsurou’s mother leaned up against the doorframe and smirked at her young son playfully. “You think your little friend is Kenta’s reincarnation?”
“Yeah!”
“It’s bizarre that both of you are supposedly descendants. You sure you believe in this, son?”
“Mama, I’m telling you, I felt like I was meant to be friends with Kenma.” He pressed his hand to his chest and stared at her with seriousness as he stood on his bed.
She put her tongue in-between her teeth and snickered.
Tetsurou frowned at her. He loved his mother, but she was also a lot like him, which was annoying sometimes, he realized.
“Mama!”
She calmed herself down and smoothed out her T-shirt. She put her hands on her hips and leaned over a bit, smirking at him still. “You’re persistent with him, aren’t’cha?”
Tetsurou slid against the headboard to sit on his bed again and rubbed the nape of his neck. “Well, I dunno about that…”
“Keep being persistent, Tetsurou!” His mother’s voice was suddenly loud. “Don’t let Tetsuo’s chance slip away again!” She pumped her arm into the air. “This is fate!”
Tetsurou jumped off of the bed and threw his arm into the air again. “Yeah! Fate!”
“This is another chance!”
“Another chance!”
“This is love!”
“This is lo—” He stopped himself and waved his hands at his mother. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I just wanted to be friends with him.”
His mother let out a guffaw as she doubled over with tears in her eyes. She leaned against the wall and wiped at her eyes. “Oh, God…” She sighed out and looked over at Tetsurou.
“Why was that so funny?!” Tetsurou demanded.
“You got so defensive. Friendship requires love, ya know.” She started to walk out. “You never know where fate will lead you, son!” She headed back to the kitchen as Tetsurou’s face heated up with a mixture of embarrassment and something else.
Kenma met Tetsurou at the end of the sidewalk where the taller boy was waiting for him. He was surprisingly quiet as they began to walk together. Walking with Tetsurou was something that Kenma was almost used to. Having him wait for him at the end of the street was also something that’d been happening lately.
But the quietness was new. It irked Kenma to the point where he looked at Tetsurou to ask, “What, no talking today?”
Tetsurou looked at him in surprise and then laughed lightly.
“Sorry. I was just thinking.”
Don’t continue. Don’t ask. Don’t say anything, Kenma told himself.
“Thinking about what?”
I hate myself.
Tetsurou’s face flushed of all color, and Kenma raised a brow to him curiously.
He let his hand wander to the back of his head, and he rubbed it with nervousness, not looking at Kenma as he said, “Well, I kind of looked at your books that you’d brought back from the library yesterday.”
Kenma’s eyes lowered.
“That’s really the reason why I rushed back home because I asked my mom about one of the guys from your books,” he continued slowly. He halted and pulled his back pack around as Kenma stopped to watch him silently. He pulled out the diary that’d belonged to Tetsuo. “This is Tetsuo’s diary. He talks about Kenta and fate and reincarnation.”
“Fate…?” Kenma gripped the straps to his back pack harder and stared back at Tetsurou. “Rein…carnation?”
Tetsurou nodded and opened the diary up to the first page and pointed to the words, showing Kenma them. “He thought that his soul and Kenta’s soul would be reincarnated and fated to meet again in a different lifetime.”
“You believe in that stuff?” Kenma asked as he glanced over the words and then moved his head to lift his brow up at Tetsurou again.
“Well… I mean, yeah… Kind of…” Tetsurou closed the diary and looked at the ground. “It’s just kind of weird that my ancestor knew someone that shares the same surname as you. I know some surnames are common, but I just feel like this is too much of a coincidence not to mean anything!” He sounded aspirated as he threw his arms up into the air and widened his eyes back at Kenma.
Kenma stepped back a few inches and said nothing.
Tetsurou calmed himself down and slipped the diary back into his bag. “Sorry. I must sound like a weirdo…”
“You do,” Kenma replied, “but I kind of understand what you mean. I, uh… asked my mom about Kenta, and he’s an ancestor of mine.”
Tetsurou’s eyes went round again. “Really?!”
Kenma nodded. “Maybe Tetsuo wasn’t really that far off about what he was saying.”
“So, you believe that we’re reincarnations?”
“No,” Kenma said.
Tetsurou’s shoulders deflated.
“But I believe that maybe it was fate that we met.” He didn’t look at Tetsurou as he said that. “You’re kinda annoying, but…”
Tetsurou looked back at him and let a gentle grin spread across his face. “You wanna be friends, Kenma?”
“Sure… It wouldn’t hurt to try new things.” He looked up to meet Tetsurou’s eyes and found that Tetsurou’s eyes were glistened over with happiness. Kenma let himself smile a little at him.
“We’ll be the best of friends, Kenma!” Tetsurou promised him, putting his arm around his shoulders and beginning to walk with him to school. “I’ll take care of you.”
“Thanks… Kuroo,” Kenma said with his small smile remaining.
Tetsurou beamed back at him, and they walked to the school, their friendship finally formed.