Work Text:
During the height of summer, everything is swathed in tangerine, passionate shades of red, crispy crunchy yellows that harmonise with the vibrant backdrop. It's a time where anyone can feel like they're on the top of the world, ready to spread their wings and take flight, high in the cerulean sky. But as the months drawl on and summer begins to close its curtains, everything starts to dither. The memories made are no longer captured in high resolution and seared onto the brain, a snapshot from the moment it happened, but fading polaroids that have been bleached by the sun because a lack of care and attention meant it didn’t imprint onto the tissue quick enough. The heat makes having fun easier, but the cooler evenings when you’re throwing on a sweatshirt is when the penny drops. That this moment, this slice of life, is coming to an end. And no one likes endings.
Akaashi watches the sky meet the edge of the world, how it rolls its way back around in different hues of blue to match the time zones. He feels the hazy summer evenings drip against bare skin that make a failed attempt in washing away the thoughts of it all coming to an end; the closure of a book being neatly tucked away back onto a shelf, ready to be read again next year. He focuses on the sound of the radio, the way his fingers tap against the top of the steering wheel as he sways his head to the wired and tired early noughties ballad that he grew up listening to. That she’s also listening to, sitting next to him, knees tucked up to her chest in the passenger seat while she stares outside at the passing scenery on their endless summer road trip.
She remembers the way hands splayed across bare backs, the way his bitten lips pressed against the skin of her shoulder, the loose linen sheets pooling around their bodies. The way he made his way down to her wrist, kissing the soft skin and letting his lips linger on the tips of her fingers until he eagerly trailed all the way back up-up-up to a place where the world doesn’t know where he spends his time seeking refuge. A place reserved just for him – in her mouth, behind her teeth, a place where she willingly lets him in. A place where he steals the oxygen from her lungs, relishing in the way she gasps for air every single time he takes her breath away and selfishly puts it in a jar just for him.
Summer comes every year.
But a lover doesn’t.
The windows are rolled down, the sound of the wind whooshing through her ears, muffling the sound of the radio that dips in and out of the station, beginning to lose signal as they continue their drive through the middle of nowhere. She doesn’t care about that. The brushstrokes of the clouds meld into one another, a watercolour painting hung high that anyone in its presence would crane their necks upwards and gasp in awe at the once-in-a-lifetime sunset, a bespoke picture curated for that day only. She’s too busy looking down, playing with her fingers, the edge of her sleeve where her heart is supposed to be, once tucked away under lock and key but has now been stolen, the thief guiding the wheel of the car and her affection. The anxiety claws itself at the back of her throat, the uncertainty of this relationship plaguing her entire body as she battles with the idea of exclusivity from here until forever, or letting him stay temporarily in her heart, becoming a summer sojourn she’d look back on wistfully and wonder what could have been?
Akaashi continues to mouth the words of the next song which stutters the further they drive and she looks over at him, watching the way the words roll off his tongue so naturally – she vies for him to speak to her, about her, like that. When they would sit at petrol stations on off-beat routes, bare feet burning into the asphalt with ice creams melting all over their hands as the sun relentlessly beat down on them. The same toes that would scrunch sand as they walked down the coast, running straight into the ocean where the water would lash at their ankles with force, soaking their skin in salt, both of them falling into step as they would make their way back to the car. Every single day of those three months spent well in his Acura 91 being poured into a glass from a carton of milky memories that you would drink before you go to sleep if you wanted to sleep well.
Her misshapen heart stutters, begging to not be held, to be crushed into a pulp just as three times before. It’s been stitched countlessly, the irregular shaped atriums, bruised aorta and slacking sinews all fatigued with trying. Trying to feel loved, to be loved, to be a permanent fixture in someone else’s life instead of a fleeting summer romance to look back on nostalgically when going grey.
Just like that, the radio falls out of tune and the static is loud. Overwhelming. A silence that returns and is thicker, with a cloying texture, than the dense humid heat from days before. It tastes bittersweet when she opens her mouth to let in a sharp inhale, to say a few words to shatter the quiet, something that ceased to exist earlier in the trip as they would always be fumbling with their laughter, finding ways to whisper sweet somethings, yelling until their voices went hoarse. The climb to summer’s apex was what sparked joy, inspiration and something to look forward to. Now on the descent, where the leaves are beginning to shift into russets and browns and ochres, the days are getting shorter, cooler, it made them both realise they were wearing rose tinted glasses for the first half and it’s now time to take them off and face a crushing, despondent reality.
Her crown presses against the headrest, eyes softening as she gazes through the windscreen to stare at the sky, a desire to lean forward to touch the swirling softness of the clouds, wondering if she plunges her hand through the ether’s fabric, will it ripple and warp or will she find the letter she wrote for him to read, to grant her the wish she craved for since she realised she was falling into deep waters, plunging straight off the cliffside into charted territory because she’s been dunked in that water before (three times before). This time she doesn’t want to come out soaking, with a bruised ego and a battered heart.
Akaashi feels her staring at him, his heart stuttering at her gaze, imagining those eyes boring straight through to his soul. He steels himself, pushing a tidal wave of tepid water into her direction, which crashes into her and deepens her frown. She studies the ink-coloured tendrils and how they curl across his perspiring forehead, the way his jaw tightens more the longer she stares, him constantly nibbling at his lips and picking at the dry skin because he hasn’t drank enough water. He gives up, he can’t do it anymore and he slows the car down enough so he can turn to look at her, his eyes softening when he meets hers.
A man once renowned for his eloquence no longer has any words left in his mouth, but his eyes do all the talking, ready to spill all of his secrets, display it all out in the open for her to hear his own personal letter, let the world know how he longs for a home that he’s unsure was his to begin with. The word hiraeth starts blaring in his head, the only thing his brain can pluck out of his mental dictionary and the feeling settles deeper. A melancholic ache thrums throughout him and he has to snap his head forward to keep his eyes on the road, ignoring the hyperawareness of a crushing absence.
“Do you like driving in silence?” The first words said since he turned on the engine.
Akaashi quickly glances over at her, then back onto the quiet road. “Um. Sometimes. Today’s one of those days, I guess.”
“What are you thinking about?”
His heart lurches. Busted, it sings up at him, snickering. “I guess just how much fun I’ve had with you this summer. Being able to enjoy one last long summer before we graduate university and get thrusted into adulthood. What about you?”
With her eyes glimmering underneath the sunset’s glow, she hums, lightly shaking the world with the soft vibrations of her voice and shifting the seasons along – it suddenly feels like the start of summer again. An opportunity for a retry, one more time. A chance to do it right.
“Well?” he verbally nudges.
“I’m trying to word it.” She huffs. A pause, a beat, a tick-tick-ticking because they don’t have forever. She lands on: “The memories I’d like to keep with me from these last few months.”
“What’s been your favourite?”
“Learning how to finally change a tyre on my own.”
Akaashi guffaws, which elicits a scintillating laugh from her mouth, eyes turning into crescents. “That’s what you like the most about this trip? Alright then, what’s your least favourite thing?”
“That god awful bed and breakfast we stayed in where we didn’t even make it to breakfast, the one with the stains on the covers and the dead something stuck in the shower drain. God.” She scrunches her nose at the memory, immediately locking it up in the back of her mind because it’s an experience she does not want to remember.
They sit in silence for a few minutes while Akaashi pays attention to the navigation on his phone, working through the convoluted country roads that are sign posted for two lanes of traffic but, let’s be real here, how on god’s green earth can you expect to drive down these tight country roads and expect to pull into an invisible lay-by to let oncoming traffic through? Finally, Akaashi is out of the fray and he lets out a sigh of relief, not wanting to think about the scratches littering the outside of his precious Acura that had to dive straight into some hedges when a tractor began to barrel down the road, no warning until the last minute of switching on their headlights. It made Akaashi realise that the sun has dipped beyond the horizon, the stars making their show-stopping appearance and that they are both reaching closer to their trip’s expiration date.
“What was your favourite thing this trip?” she asks, picking her moment well as Akaashi is now on a paved road with a central reservation.
“When we had dinner together at that tiny little hole-in-the-wall restaurant when passing through one of the villages. I wanted to plan something a little nicer, more formal, when we got to a bigger town, but that just felt right – sitting on the curb together eating our food out of the little containers, watching the people in the pub opposite go in and out.”
“That was such a good place. I am going to miss their food so much.” She sighs dreamily. “Alright then, to ask you the same question, what has been your least favourite thing on the trip?”
Does he go with his brain or gut on this one? Because his brain is saying to mention when he got stung on the outside of his forearm by a jellyfish. He was crying out in pain, she was yelling about how piss will help and he had to try and shut her up, all the while screaming between wailing in pain, to tell her that was fake news and he had to just rinse it off in seawater and run it under a warm tap. That was the worst thing he could think of, the sting now a faint scar, a tinge of pink and resulting in a permanent reminder that will eventually fade away with time, learning to blend in with the surrounding tissue so it doesn’t stand loud and proud.
But his heart? His heart takes the lead in this and he sighs, parting his lips to start speaking. Now or never, and he doesn’t want it to be the latter. “The worst thing about this trip is wondering if we’ll go back to being distant friends after this. And I don’t want that, not one bit.” Akaashi shakes his head.
He doesn’t want to be ships passing by no longer, to see her in the library on her own and make awkward small talk, not after the way they learnt about each other over the course of the summer. How he desperately kissed her, wanted her, craved her more and more with each passing moment that it felt like agony when she would part from his side for a few brief moments. He wants it all – the tender touches, the soft looks, the staying up until midnight playing cards, the regular domesticity of university dorm life, the going to her flat and sitting on her bed watching lame romcoms and ordering greasy takeout. He wants to meet up with her after work to walk her home, to cradle her head in his hands as he kisses her goodnight, to feel her press against him, gentle yet desperate for his kiss, beckoning him to come inside.
He isn’t in it for a round-the-corner trip, he wants to enjoy the long, winding journey with her.
Waiting with bated breath, grip tighter on the steering wheel, he can feel himself dizzying after his confession. God god god god what did I say. Should have stuck with jellyfish.
Suddenly there’s a noise, so quiet, but it carries itself straight to his ears, her breathy whisper closing the gap between them and blowing away the thick cloud of awkward silence. “I feel the same way.”
Akaashi can’t stop smiling. He’s grinning from ear to ear and all she can think about is how the stars dazzle even brighter tonight so the night can see him smile. She rests her elbow on the window ledge, hiding her smile into the sleeve of her sweatshirt, her misshapen, battered and bruised heart no longer stolen but taken, handled with care and sincerity. Being nursed back to health as she imagines curling up next to him and smelling his laundry detergent of choice dusting across his sheets, sitting across from him at a cafe and feeling the pad of his thumb brush across her knuckles as they both turn the pages of their books in silence, a quiet that isn’t awkward or confusing or begging to be addressed but comfortable, known, full of so much love.
The stars above dance and twirl, holding onto the letters both of them intended to give to the sky but they ended up falling from the heavens into the right person’s hands.