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We had the stars.
***
You saw him first when you were too young to notice; hair a mess, clothes filthy, clutching a jar with jaw gaping. You recognised him as Hajime Iwaizumi. You couldn’t put your finger on why - son of your mother’s friend, heard his name on the playground, school bag label. You were smaller, neater, but full of that little-boy energy, that magnetism for disaster. Plus, you’ve always had that easy mouth and words come easy. You imagine now if they hadn’t been, if you hadn’t been so confident, if you hadn’t met Hajime. How different everything would have been for you. However, you did, and it’s that easy mouth that had you crossing the distance to him.
“What’s in the jar?” you ask.
Hajime Iwaizumi turns to you. The moment his eyes leave the jar, he is more guarded. “What’s it to you?”
“Now, now, Hajime, don’t be rude,” says a calm voice. His mother (you assume), sat on a bench a few paces behind them, smiles sweetly at you. “You must be Oikawa Tooru, right?”
“Right!” You beam.
“Nice to meet you, Tooru-chan. The little rascal you’re talking to is my son Ha-”
“Iwaizumi.” He scowls at you.
You turn your beam on him and he somehow seems to get more sour. He sighs, breaks your gaze and stares back into the jar.
Leaning forward, you gaze at him through the other side of the jar. “You never told me what’s in the jar.”
His glare refracts through the glass. “Look down, idiot.”
His mother scolds him at the same moment you squeal. “Wh-wh-what is that?”
A disgusting six-legged demon climbs with its sticky feet up the side of the jar. Its back flutters, promising wings. Sunlight glints off of its brown back like a jewel but fails to make it look any less repellant.
“It’s a stag beetle.”
“It’s gross!”
“You’re the one who got your face so close to the glass!” shouts Iwaizumi.
“I couldn’t see it!” you shriek back, staring in horror at him and the jar.
“Get some eyes, idiot!” He glares. Suddenly, his glare drops and a smile spreads across his face, one that wasn’t particularly pleasant. “Hey, Oikawa, come closer.”
You, curious about his change in attitude, shuffle closer. Your trainers scuff over the dirt, kicking up dust that had your mother tutting in the background. Iwaizumi doesn’t clarify, doesn’t remove his smile, until you’re less than a metre away from him and the jar.
He reaches in and yanks out the beetle. “Wanna hold it?”
You screech. Sending more dirt and pebbles flying, you take off, and he chases, beetle twitching in his hand. “Iwa-chan, don’t be so mean!”
“Iwa-chan - hey! Who said you could call me Iwa-chan?”
“Me,” you reply, pausing to stick your tongue out at him before you run again.
“Don’t call me Iwa-chan!” he growls.
“I’m not going to stop until you get that thing away from me, Iwa-chan!”
“I’m not going to get that thing away from you until you stop, idiot!”
You turn around to poke your tongue out again but pause when you see him smiling. The smile was genuine this time, holding no malice. A bubble of joy bursts open in your stomach. This Iwaizumi Hajime, this Iwa-chan, was your friend . The word tastes like ambrosia in your mouth.
“You’d better get away from that tree, Oikawa,” sing-songs Iwaizumi, “because this isn’t the only beetle in the world…”
You scream again, but it’s drowned out by his laughter.
***
“I can’t believe you,” Iwaizumi snaps.
“Wha-a-at?” you whine.
Iwaizumi is sprawled over the desk, the too-long hairs at the nape of his neck curling over the neckline of his t-shirt. One hand clutches a pen in his weird grip, and the other is pinching the ridge between his eyes with a thumb and forefinger, which he tends to do around you. The light and warmth of the room turn his skin molten gold. “Making me go through all this just for you,” he grumbles, not looking up.
You roll over on the bed, socked toes wiggling. Leaning on your hand, you shoot him a pained look, not caring that he can’t see. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Iwa-chan.”
“I could be out doing - doing - I don’t know -”
“Catching bugs?” you offer, nose wrinkled.
“Yeah! Or -”
“Is that all you do without me?”
“No, that’s just what you said! I do other -” He pauses, probably realising that he allowed you to rile him up. He breathes out with an intensity to rustle the paper on the desk. “I could be doing other stuff right now, but instead I’m writing a letter to my mom.”
“I never said you had to write a letter.” You grab one of Iwaizumi’s pillows and rock back, trying to balance the pillow in the air on the balls of your feet. “I said you should just ask her. You said you should write a letter.”
“Because she’d say no if I didn’t write a letter!”
“Why? You can just say what’s in the letter. It doesn’t have to be a letter.” The pillow falls, hitting you in the face. You’re happy Iwaizumi hasn’t turned around.
Iwaizumi doesn’t reply, so you put the pillow back on your feet and look up at the ceiling.
“You haven’t taken the stars down yet,” you note. Above you, glow-in-the-dark stars are plastered to the ceiling, dim in the bright light of the day.
“Yeah, because you stuck them up with superglue, Trashykawa.”
“How else was I meant to stick them up?”
“They have sticky, peel-off backs, you idiot!” He throws a well-aimed pencil behind him that hits the back of your knee where you lie.
You snicker for a second, amused by your own stupidity, before relaxing. Absently spinning the pillow of the ball of one foot, you say, “It still doesn’t need to be a letter.”
He sighs again, the weight on his shoulders like Atlas holding the world. “It does, because I have to think out all the reasons why I want to go... and write them down, and stuff.”
“Hm…” You crawl commando over the bed to reach for his chair, pillow fallen and abandoned. “Reason one,” you say, tapping his shoulder, “is because Oikawa asked you to.”
He grunts, trying to ignore you.
“Reason two,” you continue, yanking his ears, “is because Oikawa asked you to nicely .”
He bats your hand away from his head. “Oi -”
“Reason three, because I’m incredibly adorable.” You ruffle his short hairs so they stick up.
“Cut it out,” he snaps.
“Reason four -”
For the first time, he swivels in his chair. “Oikawa, shut the fuck up, seriously.” He looks you dead in the eye. “I’m trying to write this for you .”
You’ve always been sensitive. Well, sensitive to describe what you are is debatable. Some would choose ‘insecure’, or ‘inferiority complex’, or just plain ‘miserable’. It doesn’t matter. It’s this that has your face dropping without permission, your voice feebly emitting a, “Fine,” and your head flopping back onto Hajime’s surviving pillow.
The only sounds in the room for a while is the scratch of Iwaizumi’s pen and the sounds of the trees outside his window, their leaves moving the sunlight inside the room. You don’t look at the sunlight but instead at the stars, eyes straining to catch a hint of their light. Just a couple of weeks ago, you had been standing on Iwaizumi’s chair, straining on your tippy-toes to glue your birthday stars to his ceiling. If you looked down, you would have seen Iwaizumi, yelling and laughing, his own stars bright in his eyes.
Tears gather in your eyes and cling heavily to your throat. “Do you really not want to come to junior high with me, Iwa-chan?” Your voice cracks, and you reach for the pillow you dropped to cuddle.
“Are you crying?” he asks.
“No,” you say, but the word wobbles.
Sighing again - oh, how Atlas strains to hold the world - he gets out of his chair and walks over to where you lie, clutching the abandoned pillow to your face. “You’re so bad at lying.”
You begin to mumble something like, “I’m not lying -” and roll your face away when he pulls you up by the shoulder.
You fall easily against his body, face lying in the curve of his neck and shoulder. Comfort radiates from him in golden waves. With your nose against the skin of his shoulder, his t-shirt neckline healing around you like scar tissue around a foreign object, his hot scent rushes through you, smelling of boy and Iwaizumi. You’re sure that you could probably wax poetic about his scent for a while if you had time to put pen to paper, but in the moment, there is nothing but him. Up close, you can feel his muscles, just starting to grow and harden from his little-boy body, working like cogs beneath you. His hands are firm in your hair, holding you close to him.
“A-are you really worried that I don’t want to come with you?” he asks into your ear, breath raising goosebumps on the nape of your neck.
You make an ambiguous little hum into the fabric of his shirt.
“Idiot.” He swats the back of your head without force. “Would I really do something I don’t want to do?”
“I don’t know,” you mumble.
“When have you ever made me do something I didn’t already want to do?”
You sniff in response, wiping your eyes on his tee.
“I think you have this idea that you’re persuasive or some shit and it’s completely wrong.”
“I-I am persuasive,” you halfheartedly argue.
“Oh yeah?” He ruffles your hair from where your face is buried. “Give me one example.”
“When you - when you watch those alien movies with me,” you mutter. “You hate those.”
“Just because I don’t like the movie doesn’t mean I don’t want to watch it.”
“Then why do you w-want to watch it?”
You poke your head up in time to see Iwaizumi turn his face away from you, cheeks red. “Is it that hard to believe that I like spending time with you?”
Your heart swells and you can’t breathe around it. To have Iwaizumi talk about his feelings… you must look really pathetic. You draw back first, hopefully to his gratitude, saying, “It is when you’re mean to me.” You give one last wipe of your face on his chest before backing up.
“Oi! Do you mind not wiping your snot on my shirt?” he suddenly yells, pushing you back. “Snottykawa.”
You laugh and roll backwards to kneel. “Oo, Snottykawa! That’s a new one.”
“Yeah, so stop crying. You’re really ugly when you cry.”
“I am never ugly!”
“You’re really ugly all the time actually.”
“Iwa-chan! I’m not ugly!”
“Then why haven’t you got a girlfriend yet?”
“My mom says I haven’t grown into my face ye-e-et!”
“Sure.”
***
You knew you were in love with Iwaizumi Hajime. You think you’ve always known. Before even knowing what love was, you were already head-over-heels for Iwaizumi Hajime. Another thing you’ve always known is that it’s hopeless. There was no point trying because Iwaizumi did not fall in love with boys, and especially not boys like you.
Around halfway through Junior High, the confessions started rushing in. Not for him, but for you this time. The first few you brandished in Iwaizumi’s face, saying, “Did you not say I was ugly, Iwa-chan?” and cackling. However, eventually the letters got old, and turning girls down became a pain. You started offering photos with them instead (“So fucking cocky,” complained Iwaizumi) which saved time. After so many photos and rejections, you had honed your smile to every situation, like an art. You had practiced pulling that face this way and that to gleam, to reflect the light, to sparkle. You became an unattainable prince, and many a girl fell in love with you. Meanwhile, you fell in love with volleyball, and you ignored .
This continued to Aobajōsai High . Iwaizumi’s mother didn’t need a letter this time (whether or not she needed the first one is a question for another time), knowing Iwaizumi would follow where I went, or vice versa. Seijoh was a powerhouse and you buzzed with it, glowing like a lightbulb about to blow. You take your knife to your volleyball technique, work at it and chisel it into something that shines. You got used to the slap of the ball on your palm, the flutter of those tender muscles, the burn of it. You got used to sleep tugging on your eyelids after nights awake, staring at a screen.
Right by your side, be it in the court or at home, would be Iwaizumi. When you needed it, he would be by your side, your ace , tugging the best out of you as you tug the best out of him. He gave his passion and his stability to the team. When you would quiver, he would be the pulse. When you would falter, he would plough on. When you were blinded, he would be the eyes. His stern voice telling you to get some rest. His hand on your shoulder, nudging you towards the changing rooms. That same hand, rubbing up to the skin of your neck, where the chafe of his callused hands against the soft skin of your nape bringing you back to your senses. A text, at 2am, glowing too bright against your sleep-weakened eyes, telling you to ‘go the fuck to sleep’. Behind that text was a boy who didn’t know you were awake but texted anyway, just in case.
A grip on your wrist when you raise your hand to a child .
There would be nights - more nights than you would care to admit - when the pixels on the screen would blur together before your eyes and leave you, droopy-eyed and slack-jawed, thinking only of sleep and Iwaizumi’s hand around your wrist. There would be nights where you would think of him. There would be nights when you would think of stars. Sometimes, you couldn’t tell the difference.
***
“Can you still name them all?”
You have an excuse to look at him at last. The moon has generously scattered its light across his face; sketched with a dainty finger the outline of his full lips in white, raked its nails through his cropped hair, swiped a silvery stroke across his cornea, pecked the tip of his nose. Above him, a small gathering of fireflies were forming a swarm, attracted, like you, to the heat of him. Blades of grass marked out on his cheeks where you would like to place your fingers. Clover leaves kissed his skin and your lips tingle with jealousy.
“Earth to Oikawa?” He turns his face to you - torture, absolute torture - and smiles. “You home?”
“Hm… what?” you mutter, feigning sleepiness.
Chuckling, he raps you on the forehead with a knuckle. “Pay attention, Trashykawa. I asked if you could name them all.”
“Name them all - the stars?”
“What else, idiot?” he raps you on the head again.
“When will you ever be nice to me, Iwa-chan?”
“Stop pouting. You’re not upset.”
With that, you relax your face and look up to the stars. You don’t have to be anyone around Iwaizumi. You can just stare. “I think I can name a few. Did I really know them all, once?”
“Yeah,” he says, smiling softly, “or you made me think you did. You read all of those stupid magazines.”
“Yeah?” You’re smiling too.
“Yeah, and I remember lying down outside your house and you’d point and say, I don’t know, the North Star. The Big Dipper.”
“Glad to see you’ve taken so much in. God, you call me the idiot.”
“I wasn’t actually listening at the time.”
“Iwa-chan! I’m hurt!” You turn to look at him again, convincing yourself it’s to show him you’re not hurt, though he probably knows already and you probably just want an excuse to look at him. Then you take his hand, his warm hand, and point it upwards towards a star. “That’s Tetris -”
“Tetris isn’t a star, you moron! Don’t act like I’m stupid!”
You laugh, and you can feel him laugh beside you. “I think those three are Orion’s Belt. The Three Sisters.”
“Which one’s the Three Sisters?”
“The same one. It’s the same constellation. See that tiny little star? That’s Mintaka. The faintest of the stars in the belt.”
He isn’t looking at the stars.
“It’s also a double star! So… if I’m Alnilam - the brightest, obviously - and you’re Alnitak, then Tobio-chan and Chibi-chan are Mintaka! Are you even listening?” When you roll to face him, you expect a smile, but he looks deadly serious. “Iwa-chan?”
“I want to kiss you.”
Your eyes widen. Under your shocked gaze, his face flushes a deep red, but you think he’s enjoying wiping your face clean of expression. “You - you - Iwa-chan, you’re hilarious.”
“Please, Tooru -” Any amusement you had is wiped away by the use of your first name. “- please don’t make this any harder for me than it already is.”
“Is it hard for you right now?”
“I’m dying right now.” He laughs, forcing his jaw into something less vulnerable. “I just - we’re not going to be going to the same school for long, and I like how you look when you talk about the stars, and the girls in your club probably need an excuse for why you’re not going to date them and why you’re not paying them any real attention, so why not kill two birds with one stone?”
“Iwa-chan, you’re rambling,” you mutter. A smile teases the corners of your mouth up.
His hand reaches for your face and you tilt your head, pushing the line of your jaw into his hand, letting him know you’re yearning for his touch as much as he is - finally able to gravitate towards him like he’s been calling for for so long. “I think I’ve done my fair share of shit I don’t want to do for your sake, Oikawa Tooru, so why not do this for mine?”
You give an amused hum as you lean in.
He meets you halfway and the first touch is everything , dear God almighty; the first touch makes the stars weep, bends and sucks light into black holes the way your hands bend to the shape of his neck, the way your thumb is sucked into hollow of his throat. You did no waiting for him - why wait when it’s hopeless? - so you kiss his inexperienced mouth with practiced ease, kissing and licking his hesitance away until he has his fingers linked in your hair, other hand splayed at the small of your back, kissing you back with a vigour that heats you in ways you refuse to acknowledge. Grass underneath you, stars above you, your lips and hands exploring the places the sun has kissed: you fit like puzzle pieces. His muscles sing under your hands. He gets braver, too, running his hand up your side before leaving it hot on your waist.
You pull away and he makes a grumble of complaint that is quickly stifled by your mouth beside his lips. Your tongue and teeth graze the places the clover petals touched, moving from his cheek down to his chiselled cliff-edge of jaw, working parallel to his pumping blood. You suck a mark right at the twitch of his pulse, coaxing a growl from him that has his throat vibrating under your mouth. Littering small marks you know he’ll hit you for in the morning up his throat, you move to a spot beneath his ear you know he finds ticklish and find him not pushing you away but moving towards your mouth with a small gasp. His jaw tightened, his teeth gritted against what you assumed would have been a moan. You could hold that against him, but instead it fills you with warmth and has you curling around him, mouth near his ear.
“Hajime,” you say. It’s less of a name and more of a promise, his name heavy and intimate on your tongue.
“Tooru - Oikawa.” He jerks away from you. “I - I didn’t mean for it to - I just wanted -”
“I wanted to,” you state.
He blinks at you in shock, and part of you revels in it, the wild part of you that has always loved to make Iwaizumi lose his cool. He says, no louder than a whisper, “But - you never said - I persuaded you to -”
“When have you ever made me do something I didn’t already want to do?”
Recognising his own words, Iwaizumi defrosts, smirks and is pulled back into the nest of your arms. You know he’s thinking of that day, of holding you in his arms and looking up at the tacky stars you stuck to his ceiling (still there to this day). You, however, think of him, golden and ringing in your arms, and of the stars.
***
You don’t want to talk about the first night. To talk about it, to put it into words, would be to do it an injustice.
It wasn’t perfect.
It was clumsy hands, teeth on tender skin, calluses against hipbones, marks that taste like secrets, kisses that taste like prayers, moans, yelps, too-hard, too-soft, out of rhythm, out of time, beyond time, one person, moving, him in you like he always has been, limbs, freckles, moles, scars, sunburns, unanswered texts, promises.
It was lips like cherries, eyelashes against cheekbones, lips, tongues, breath in ears, teeth to lobes.
It was more than the obvious: hands to the backs of knees, lips to the insides of elbows, tongue running slalom to the spine, teeth to the flesh of palms and the thin silk of wrists.
Bumps, aches, complaints, requests, directions, guiding hands, clockwork.
Twin stars, hands in belts, Mintaka.
Stars.
***
And then we didn’t.
***
“Why do you even bother with me anymore?”
You can hear Hajime freeze, but you don’t turn. You’re still, hunched over your suitcase, hair around your face like a curtain, jaw clenched. The space at the back of your throat where you had forced your words from itches, scratched by the intensity of your voice - you don’t want to sound weak. Not for a second. You hold your shoulders in until your hands stop shaking.
He steps towards you. “Tooru -”
“Don’t.” Your eyes burn. “Please.”
“Where has this come from?” His voice is quiet, calculated.
“Don’t act like you haven’t been expecting it.” A cold, humourless laugh rips itself through you. “This whole week, you - you were… Where even were you?”
“What do you mean? I was right there with you.”
Once you’re sure your eyes are dry, you turn to look at him. This light what once would have burnished him in gold sapped the saturation from him. He was grey, glassy, drawn-back. All memory of the alchemy your eyes once performed on his skin was gone. “Right there with me. Right.”
You thought back to the week you had spent with him. You had expected, after travelling so far to see him for a surprise visit, that he would be happy to see you; he would pull you into his arms and pepper kisses all over you and apologise for not answering his phone and tell you how much he missed you. You’d walk hand in hand around the sights, the city, the shops. You would feed him food from your chopsticks and make him blush and hit you. Things would fit together again, like they had the first time you visited, and the second.
But this time it didn’t. He didn’t look happy to see you. He didn’t pull you into his arms. He kissed your temple once and then said how much work he had to do. You were left wandering the city alone. Maybe it was because it had been so long since the last visit. Maybe it was because the workload was getting heavy towards the end of the second year. Maybe it was because he was exhausted from university. Maybe you’re making excuses.
“Tooru, what are you talking about?” His voice deepens, slipping into something low and gentle. It croons to you, but you grit your teeth and ignore it.
“I just -” Don’t whine. Stay collected. “Well. You’re not going to say it, are you? So what’s the point?”
“Say it? What do you - Oikawa, what is going on?” He’s getting angry now, you can hear it in his voice. Or confused. Or helpless.
Don’t blow it. “You really don’t know, huh?” The unshed tears burn in your throat.
“Tooru -”
“Don’t!”
He’s almost touching you - the air between his outstretched palm and your bare arm vibrates, making your hairs stand on end. “Tooru,” he insists.
You break, far too soon. Turning to look at him one last time unshattered, you reveal your glistening eyes. You drink him in like a parched man sucking open mouthed at the undisturbed water of an oasis, lapping up the smell of him that was green tea and city and childhood. Your eyes kiss his lips one last time. Your tears spill down your cheeks and the words spill from your lungs, too full of him. “You should really - stop hiding things in your bedroom drawers, Iwa-chan.” The small hitch of your breath is enough for you to hold yourself, wishing the bedroom floor would open up and eat you.
“I should stop hiding things in my - you rummaged through my stuff?” he near growls. He wants to get angry, you know he does, but his shame is already trickling up into his cheeks, making him flame.
“ You’re honestly surprised that someone like me would go through your stuff? ” you want to say, something playful and childish and Oikawa , but the words are too sour in your mouth after all these years. Instead, you revert for something with less emotion: “I was looking for lube.”
“You - oh.”
“So…” You throw on your smile with ease, quicker than putting on a mask. “Who’s the lucky girl?”
He doesn’t reply. His eyes are wetter than before.
“Were the nights just too long and lonely without me, Iwa-chan?”
“Don’t make this into a joke -”
“You could have told me! Or, you know, spoken to me at all.”
His shoulders shake - broad shoulders dipped and broken. You’re sickeningly proud.
“You could have told me not to pay to visit. Could have told me to stop texting.”
He’s still so silent, but not a comforting silence.
“Oh, imagine if she’d picked up your phone to see those texts from me! That’d be awkward. No wonder you didn’t risk replying.”
No - it was more of an eye-of-the-storm silence. Pregnant. Waiting.
“I guess you were too busy being balls deep in that whore -”
“She’s not a whore!” he exclaims.
Jealousy mingles with disgust in your stomach to bring bile up your gullet. You can’t tell if the acid or his words sting the most.
“Her name is Hairi. I met her through university. I - Tooru, please look at me.”
Your chest hurts; heartburn or heartache , you wonder.
“Goddamn it, Oikawa, at least look at me right now.”
His curtains are lovely. Soft, silky, a warm dark orange, near-red. You remember packing them, smoothing the creases with the pads of your thumbs, before winding them around yourself like a toga. He found that funny, you think. You remember him smiling.
“You’re so fucking childish.”
“Is that why you left, huh?”
“What?”
“Because I’m childish?” You look at him now, nose wrinkled with the weight of your crying. “Because I’m annoying? Because I’m stupid? Because I’m not a genius? Because I’m a burden? A weight on your shoulders? Because I’m jealous? Because I’m manipulative? Because I’m demanding? Because I’m high-maintenance? Because I’m -”
“Oikawa, stop that.”
“I thought we were forever! You promised me forever!” You’re gasping now. Your lips taste of salt and your eyes sting.
“Don’t be ridiculous. We were teenagers.” Something in him quivers, plucked like a string.
“You made me think we could have forever!”
“Maybe I thought we would have forever.” He’s crying now, crying soft little cries.
“Why would you lie to me?”
“I didn’t know I was lying.”
“Why would you betray me like that when I loved you? Why would you touch me with those hands - oh God -”
He’s really crying now. “I don’t know. You weren’t here.”
“And I really thought you loved me.” You’re not even talking to him anymore. “I really did. Why else would you kiss - well, I know why else. Fuck.”
“Oikawa, you’re my best friend.”
That was the wrong thing to say. “After everything - and I - oh my God -”
“I thought I - but then she…”
“Do you love her?”
He doesn’t reply. He doesn’t need to.
“Do you love me?”
He’s crying really hard, which is all the answer you need.
“Thanks for everything, Iwaizumi Hajime. Really.” You grab your bag. With a sniff, you wipe your wet face on the back of your hand like you did as a child when you’d fallen over. Even the taste of your tears makes you think of everything Iwaizumi.
“Oikawa, just because I don’t feel that way about you doesn’t mean we’re not friends,” he mutters.
“Are you fucking with me right now?”
“We’ve been together all these years, so I - just because I don’t like you like that doesn’t mean I’m not still your best friend.”
“Don’t make me laugh.”
He hiccups a little on a sob. He probably knew it was a long shot, you think.
You look at him one last time, broken, and instantly regret it. Please , you think, please don’t let this crying Iwaizumi be the image you last have of him . Please forget this .
“We’re still best friends, right?” Iwaizumi breathes.
For old times’ sake, you throw him a glittering fake smile. “Of course.” And then you leave.
As you make your way out of the apartment complex, you start thinking about alternate universes. If space is so infinite, then there must be planets out there on which everything is the same as this planet, except something has changed. With that theory, you can imagine lives where you weren’t in love with Iwaizumi Hajime; where you weren’t even friends with him; where you never existed. On some other night, that picture wasn’t in the drawer. In some other place, you went to Iwaizumi’s bed and curl up in his arms like a spoon. On some other planet, he kisses your hairline as you fall asleep. Maybe his love for you was lost in translation, somewhere. Maybe another time you would leave the apartment and look up to the sky, and see thousands of tiny lights blinking down at you, just as they always have done. Thousands upon thousands of tiny, soft, blinking lights.
Tonight, you don’t have Iwaizumi. Tonight, the city lights are too bright and you are left standing alone, bare-armed and goose-pimpled, under a vast expanse of empty sky. Tonight, a girl no older than fourteen pulls down her miniskirt and gets into a Benz at the street corner. Tonight, a man throws a beer can over a garden fence. Tonight, Hairi reads over the old text conversations between her and her sweetheart with her eyes softened and cheeks pinkened.
And you’re fucking standing there in an X-Files t-shirt crying at the sky.
You just want to see Orion’s belt. You want to whine at the sky until the stars appear. You want to see Mintaka! The tiniest and faintest star! Those twin stars! Oh, please can we see Mintaka, Iwa-chan, I really want to! You want to stay in the city until then. Just a little while! Please? Catching bugs is boring! Just until the stars come out. You’ll stay until the stars come back. Let’s stay until the stars come back, Iwa-chan. Let’s stay here together. You’ll stay until the stars come back.