Archive of Our Own ^beta

“-- so far and so close to me are the ones I love --”
(Manuel Daull, Nos besoins d’attachement sont aussi ceux de rupture)

He wears a red jumper, frayed around the edges. The zipper is broken.

He’s sitting on a stairs’ step, about halfway, beyond the first red tori. He raises his head like he has been waiting.

“Hello,” Akaashi says.

The boy’s eyes, a sharp amber, send a shiver down his spine. Akaashi freezes into place, the rest of the world coming out of focus. The faint stuttering of the city swirls away, drowned out in white noise.

Akaashi blinks, twice. The hum underneath his skin eases.

“Are you a ghost?”

Something fades out in the boy’s eyes that he can’t identify, and Akaashi regrets asking. It’s his first time meeting one, so he is not sure what is appropriate and what isn’t.
Then, although his expression is tinged with tranquil wistfulness, he sees one corner of the boy’s lips lift, ever so slightly.

“I’m Kenma,” the boy says.

“Kenma-san…”

“Just Kenma is fine,” Kenma says, a strained look in his eyes leading Akaashi to think he is used to that particular battle.

Akaashi almost holds out his hand, thinks better of it.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Akaashi. Akaashi Keiji.”

It’s dusk, a spilling of crimson light and the quiet heartbeats of night seeping through, slowing the world’s breath. Tasokare-doki, when the edges of time blur and the living and the dead are most likely to collide. No wonder.

Akaashi mentally goes through the few things he was taught about ghosts, from the most sensible to the vaguest. Treat them with respect, feed them, if they were someone you knew, listen to them if they requested it of you. Honor them and help them on their way with vegetables and incense sticks once a year. Do not look them in the eye if you crossed paths with one in the swelling of a crowd. Do not seek them out; do not find yourself gazing into a lake at night, especially when the moon waned thin, or near a temple at twilight. Be wary of places where existence is put on hold, huge stores and empty parking lots, rooftops and deserted playgrounds. Do not go out alone when there is mist -- et caetera.

Akaashi had never been sure how much of that was linked to proper rituals, and how much was superstition. Past the disorienting first impression, the sight of Kenma elicits nothing if an intuitive kind of curiosity in him.

“This place is nice, isn’t it? Not many people come by, but it’s well-taken care off,” Akaashi states with a glance towards the shrine.

“Do you come here often?”

“I do. It’s a good place to think, and to rest for awhile.”
Kenma frowns a little at that.
“Is it okay that I’m here?” Akaashi asks.

Kenma lowers his head. Akaashi wonders if he’s staring, and his gaze falls to Kenma’s hands. He’s fidgeting with his zipper.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have come,” Kenma mutters under his breath.

“I don’t mind,” Akaashi says. “I was just wondering if you did.”

Kenma considers this. Shakes his head, slowly.

“Okay”, Akaashi says.

They only exchange a few words that time. The last streaks of pink disappear over the horizon, and Kenma says he has to leave. Akaashi replies that he should go home, too.

Kenma goes down the stairs without a glance behind, but his foot hovers above the last step for a few seconds, as though he’s afraid it might vanish the instant he lowers it.

Akaashi comes to a halt a few steps behind him.

“Will you be back?”

And Kenma finally looks over his shoulder.

A couple of old people driving carefully. Bickering over the radio. Lovers kissing under the shade of a tree. A man sweeping leaves on the ground. A little boy skipping and humming with his backpack hopping on his back. Green tea being poured. The road and the sky, parallel lines that stretch and can only meet through your extended fingers, every once in awhile, in awakenings and in falls, in the most discreet miracles.

An amber eyed boy, slipping inside the crowd, making his way through the slightest opening with people barely noticing -- he is quick on his feet when he wants to be and hasn’t lost his long honed sense for timing.

When Akaashi arrives, Kenma is sitting in the exact same place. He nods in greeting.

This time, Akaashi sits next to him. “Is there anything I can do?”

Up ahead, the shrine’s glass bell chimes in the breeze. Kenma glances at him. Today’s sunset has just begun. It stretches yellow over white-gold clouds, a shade so much colder than his eyes.

Akaashi thinks Kenma might have misheard him, repeats: “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Kenma sighs. His gaze slides back down, and he curls up, cups his cheeks into his hands.

“You don’t have to do anything. Just being here like this is fine.”

“Okay. Don’t hesitate to ask.”

Kenma shifts, pauses. After a few beats of silence, he says:

“I’m afraid of being selfish.”

Akaashi does not know how to ask about Kenma’s reason for staying. What some, crudely, qualify of unfinished business. This, too, he knows: whatever prompts someone to wander in search of what they lack, blinking in and out of existence as they cling to a fading echo of what they were, is something they deem precious enough to live a thousand times over.

“I don’t think it’s selfish. I think it must be important.”

Kenma’s eyes narrow. Intensely reflective, he tugs at the loose thread hanging from his sleeve.

“I think so, too.”

“Do you remember what it is?”

“I’m waiting,” he says. Disarray rings in his voice like a strung-out cord. The thread snaps.

Kenma lets it fall to the ground.

Akaashi decides not to ask about it anymore.

The amber eyed boy stops before the door. Not hesitating – delaying. He knows what he came here for. He is a passing, out of place murmur in this house. Everything that meant something to him here is gone. Yet, the marks he finds here testify that what is he unable to leave behind somehow remains, even if he is not ready for it to be just that yet -- a mark, a memento.

“This time, please accept it.”

It comes out louder and less than a thought: I can’t take it. Not like this. That isn’t… it.

The amber-eyed boy leaves again.

He has a practical mind. He knows every puzzle must have an answer.

It’s only a matter of time. More than he could or should have asked for.

All the time in the world.

That is to say, none at all.

The temple is not as removed as one would think. It is small, little known. It’s tucked slightly away, a larger, vastly dwelled-in street ending in a narrow, winding passage that leads to a quieter one. And at almost the end of that street, the temple’s long flight of stairs begin. A little further away, different stairs, tight-knit and lush with surrounding vegetation, connect that street to the main one, but Akaashi has only crossed paths with cats and the occasional priest there. Most people do not let themselves roam, he thinks. They don’t know how to look without looking for.

Every time he passes by, Akaashi glances upwards.

Sometimes he catches the sight of a silhouette framed in all the fiery of fall, and sometimes not.

Slowly, its contours grow clearer. Sometimes it evades him, in passing, like a step lower than anticipated.

It’s not anything as consequential as distance, not enough to break their delicate balance. It’s Kenma shaking his head when he offers to share onigiri with him, or remaining silent when he asks if there is any place he would like to go.

Still, he learns some things. Kenma likes sweet things. Kenma likes fall. Kenma does not like getting tired, but hates getting bored. Kenma seems to appreciate just as must as he this fold in the fabric of reality that lets him rest, lets him think.

Akaashi threads carefully. This is all committed to a time, to a place, to memory. He knows as much: they’re locked in the in-between.
The trees are shedding their apricot skin.

Every lull in the conversation fills Akaashi with wondering, little by little -- as though there is a question he had meant to ask, but then it is gone with a blink. Pulled down and submerged by a steady, smooth-edged calm -- the next step.

A woman with sleek black hair stands in front of the shrine. The chatter in the next room grows faint, to her only. She picks up a plate and her hand lingers on the wood with her hand. Gentle. He remembers the feeling of it in his hair, wants to begin and end in them again. She stares at the picture for a moment.

“I miss you.”

The clouds tumble through the sky. Traffic stops and starts. They begin making their way home-- salarymen and strollers, satisfied shoppers and tired-looking students, chirpy children and blank-faced boys, steady-paced groups of teenage girls and shiny-eyed dogs. They hurry, even if they don’t really have somewhere to get to. Time is all they have on their hands.

Dawn breaks and it plays over and over in his head, i miss you i miss you.

A priest is gesturing vehemently at Kenma, who looks down with a frown, answers him curtly. Akaashi observes from a few steps away, unsure whether or not he should call out to him.

Kenma eventually turns his head and sees Akaashi. Displeasure flashes in his gaze --hopefully not aimed at him. The man, who has noticed him as well, shots a wary glance at Akaashi then skulks away. Kenma walks down the stairs to meet him.

“What’s going on?”

“He’s seen me around, and he says he’s worried.”

“Oh. So…”

“So, it’s none of his business,” Kenma says evenly.

He sits down, playing with an old rubix cube. The colors on some of the sides have faded or cracked into white. He hands it to Akaashi questioningly at some point, and Akaashi just shakes his head. He is content just observing. He doesn’t think he would do any better, anyway.

He wants to ask where Kenma got it, but it’s one of those lines he is still unsure he should cross.

Kenma murmurs suddenly: “I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”

“Kind of,” Akaashi notices.

“My mom makes really good lemon cakes,” Kenma says. “Do you want me to bring you a slice next time?”

The vision of an cake adorned plate in front of a shrine flashes in Akaashi’s mind.

“You can… do that?”

Kenma avoids his gaze. “Apparently ghosts can take what has been given to them. Objects only. They can’t interact with living beings.”

Akaashi thinks for a moment. “That makes sense. It’s so they don’t interfere too much, right?”

“Who knows?” Kenma says dryly. “Who even made up these rules?”

“That’s…”

“Ah, that was rhetorical. I don’t think I want an answer to that.”

“Fair enough.”

“So. Cake?”

“I’m good.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. You really don’t have to.”

“I want to. If you want some, I want to share it with you. You said I could ask, right?”

He stares right at him, and Akaashi cannot find it in himself to deny him.

Akaashi heaves a contented sigh. “It’s really good. Lemon is my favorite.”

“Lucky”, Kenma mutters. His searching gaze does not leave Akaashi.

“I’m not saying that just to be polite. Thank you.”

Kenma’s face softens into a small smile. He relaxes almost imperceptibly. “You’re welcome.”

“Aren’t you going to eat some?” Akaashi asks as Kenma finally settles next to him.

“I don’t like sour stuff.”

“Sour-sweet,” Akaashi corrects him.

“The sour part makes for most of the taste.”

“I thought you wanted to share.”

Kenma pulls a face. Akaashi chuckles.

“Fine. Just this time.”

“You don’t have to.”

“A small piece is okay.” He holds out his hand, looks over intently.

Akaashi breaks a tiny piece from the remaining slice and hands it to him. Crumbs fall to the ground, tumble from one step to another.

“Oh,” Kenma murmurs.

Akaashi follows his gaze. A trail of ants is stretching below them. They surge towards the crumbs frantically.

Akaashi slowly lowers the piece of cake into Kenma’s hand, making sure that it doesn’t fall to the ground while Kenma is not looking, and not to brush against Kenma’s fingers with his. The late afternoon singes with the timid warmth of fall.

Kenma shifts a little closer to him, close enough to touch, if he could. He is nibbling absently at the cake. A watchful presence. Akaashi does not need to look his way.

Like a beam of light through the canopy, a quiet smile settles in the silence. It does not show, but melts into your chest like sugar icing on your tongue.

The ants forge ahead.

They watch them carry their loot away. They watch still, after the crumbs have come out of sight. Strangely, it feels like something Akaashi could not get tired of.

He closes his eyes for a moment. If Kenma stays right here like this, maybe he will be able to catch it, this flickering beat of sun. Maybe he will at least remember what it’s called.

But it, like time, has dwindled by.

Kenma straightens, rises to his feet. Akaashi opens his eyes.

“See you later,” Kenma says.

Twilight.

It makes coming easier. It doesn’t mean being here the rest of the time is outside the range of possibilities. A slight opening does not compare to an anchor.

He’s very early, Akaashi thinks, and: Something is wrong.

Kenma always seems a little surprised to see him come back. This time, it’s different.

Relief washes over him.

He wasn’t expecting him not to come, he was hoping -- needed -- for him to be there.

“You’re here.”

On his way to the temple, he saw many people on the street, slightly hastier than usual but not much more bothered than he was by the rain, their coats and tucked hoods and the occasional warm beverages in their hands the only changes that had to be made to their routine, if it even were any.

A girl with short blond hair strided behind another, with a black braid that fell down her back, and Akaashi heard her say it hasn’t been raining for awhile -- think it’ll rain for long?

(They turned at the next corner and he didn’t catch the answer.)

“Oh. Yeah.” Kenma has been waiting under the cover of a tree, but his hood is on, his shoulders low, his arms crossed over his chest. “I… today…”

“Did something happen?”

“No. Well…” Kenma hesitates. “It was raining that day, too.”

Ah.

“It was during the rainy season, actually. A year ago.”

“You remember it?” Akaashi asks, cautiously.

“I remember what happened right before in details. The after is… kind of a blur.”

A nagging more hangs in the silence in the wake of his words, so Akaashi waits. The rain is sweet, thin, the drops so scarce you almost feel as though you could make your way between them.

A long, soft sky exhale they are lodged and lost in.

Kenma inhales.

“I don’t hate it. It’s peaceful. But, since then, when it rains, I feel kind of cold.”

With the last words, his voice is snuffed out inside his throat like a match into a puddle.

Akaashi looks at the city below. The drops slides gently upon buildings like loving fingers, cover tiles and leaves alike in a glistening skin, soften the sharpest edges. That drizzle intertwined with inhales of sun is indeed peaceful, and even content. It makes release seem so easy.

“Perhaps walking around would help? If you’re cold, walking around could warm you up. Or at least… distract you. We can walk together, if you want.”

Kenma’s gaze finds his.

“I usually hate any kind of exercise,” he states, “but I think you’re right. Staying still is worse. So, okay.”

“Alright.”

Kenma pulls at the edge of his hood. It’s too short, leaving part of his hair uncovered. It keeps slipping. The jacket does seem a bit too small, in the first place. Akaashi commented on it once, and Kenma got a look in his eyes that had made him wish he hadn’t.

“Let’s just… not make any stops.”

Akaashi does not oppose that decision. He instinctively understood, as time came to pass, that people were reluctant and fearful to engage in relationships with the dead -- not that he could blame them.

Keeping away from the unattainable, the unavoidable, was the safest course of action.

But it was too late to worry about being safe.

Kenma walks slightly behind him, and Akaashi is fine with taking the lead, even though he would have preferred being able to see him.

He isn’t sure where Kenma wants to go, so he decides randomly. He figures it might not matter.

Kenma comments quietly on the shops they pass, and they find a steady pace, briefly disrupted when either of them stop to look at something. Akaashi is focused on Kenma, on making sure he forgets, even slightly, even if for a moment -- and Kenma does -- so he does not notice immediately. They are debating the pros and cons of movie theaters when an abrupt shushing nose makes him look back.

In those small streets, people had time to stop and observe each other. There is a bristle of murmur and fearful glances cast their way everywhere they go.

Akaashi shoots a glance at Kenma -- who has been pretending not to hear all this time. He stares back at Akaashi -- as if to say, let’s ignore them and keep moving.

(Akaashi has given up on trying to understand how he can talk without talking with a near stranger.)

That is why Akaashi lets his footsteps lead them to a larger street, brimming with life. He anticipated it distantly without really planning for it.

They would make it through fast, in any case -- the crowd is a stream that carries you forward, whether you want it or not. The only thing to worry about is --

Kenma shoots him an alarmed glance and it hits him that he has made a mistake.

-- not losing each other.

It seizes him by the throat, the ebb and flow --- overflowing with movement and sound -- everything unceasing, a roaring frenzy.

He looks behind him and does not see Kenma for a moment that feels like a long fall.

“Akaashi?”

He catches a glimpse of Kenma’s hair, tries to walk against the current to reach him, but the crowd drags him along.

Akaashi threads his way through until he reaches the side of the road. An open-aired snacks shop offers the possibility to stop and stand still.

His eyes scan the crowd restlessly and he waits.

Kenma will know.

Won’t he?

Each second his mind shrinks further with worry, his thoughts a sporadic static, until a silhouette steps out of the crowd, tired red jumper and strands of blond hair that drip at the tip.

“You’re here.”

“Kenma,” Akaashi says, and his voice comes out tighter than he expected. “Are you okay?”

Kenma stares at him, with the unblinking, processing look of someone who has gotten an answer for a question he was too afraid to ask.

“I’m okay,” Kenma says very softly, like it’s a surprise to him too. “Are you?”

Akaashi blinks, brushes off the apprehension still clawing at him. So he doesn’t have to look at Kenma his gaze turns to the sky. “It’s already letting up a little.”

The wet pavement is lit by the sun’s return. A bucket next to them is collecting drops -- plick, plick, plick, and shimmers at once like a liquid mirror.

Akaashi remembers: a sun shower -- that’s what it’s called.

They move aside to make way for the queue of customers -- one salad crepe, one coffee, one order of karaage coming right up!

“We shouldn’t have gone into that big a street when it’s almost dinner time, I guess. Do you want to--”

“Thank you,” Kenma says, and his voice carves out a deeper meaning that makes Akaashi eventually look back. “Thanks for… waiting until I found you. I’ll be okay to get back on my own now.”

“Are you sure?”

“I lost sight of you too. For awhile. But I guess I got worried for nothing.”

He’d always wait if need be, beyond the crowd.

Kenma’s open gaze is telling him nothing more and nothing less than that. That indeed, he knows.

“Yeah,” Akaashi says, a deep calm falling over him like a wave.
Kenma smiles.

One of shop’s attendant protests that they should walk away if they aren’t about to order, startling them both, then profusely apologizes with one look at them.

Kenma utters a faint goodbye that Akaashi barely catches before being absorbed into the crowd again, a lavish spark he follows during the brief timid it flickers in and out of his vision.

There’s a tightening in his chest, a remnant of something he knows he should not feel. He leaves it behind.

He has collected them like pebbles but they slide and stick together like pearls on a string, clasped hands confessions, one-sided conversations, hello goodnight you would have liked it she isn’t doing so well lately please watch over her i’m so happy it did! but i wish you could have been here you wouldn’t believe what that guy did today maybe i worry too much i wonder what you would say we went there this afternoon and i thought of you we did so well! you would have been proud i kept your favorite it’s been awhile, i’m sorry but hey i’ll tell you everything! don’t worry i’m doing okay

i hope you are too

A family of three is visiting the shrine. He can almost hear it -- the ringing of the bell, clasped hands and the tinkling of the coin falling down.

A speck of red hides behind a tree. He gestures at Akaashi to join him. Wordlessly, he crouches down next to Kenma.

The family, faint chatter and peels of laughter, a distant dream, walks down the stairs and pass them by without seeing them.

Kenma’s hand on the bark clenches for a few seconds.

Akaashi wonders if his hand would feel warm, were he to hold it in his.

It isn’t a firefly of a thought this time. It’s a flood of light, engulfing his very core. The word for this comes easy.

Yearning.

They walk back to their usual spot on the stairs and Kenma looks up instead of at him.

“Would you like to make a wish too?” he asks.

Maybe I already have.

“Would you?”

Kenma frowns, starts: “This isn’t…”

Akaashi raises a questioning eyebrow, and he sighs.

“It’s something I need to do. Asking a god for their help…”

“It can help. Give you the determination you need. I’ve heard that even if you don’t believe in any deity, praying can be good.” Akaashi searches for the right words, settles for a simple: “I guess it just makes you help feel less alone.”

Kenma ponders that for a moment. He narrows his eyes at the distant shrine.

“I don’t think I should ask for anything more,” he eventually says. “I should never have. But…”

“It’s fine.”

Kenma bites his lip. He does not look at him. “Well. I don’t know. But that’s how it is now.”

He has to leave, he adds. He strides down the stairs with a goodbye and an apology thrown over his shoulder before Akaashi can answer him.

“It’s fine… If it means we have this,” Akaashi mutters. He looks down at the step, the stone still faintly damp from rain. “Isn’t it?”

The amber eyed boy jumps to his feet and curses in a dim lit room as his gaze falls to the clock. If he throws a scarf loosely around his neck, barely bother with a beanie and tugs his shoelaces in instead of lacing them, it’s so his resolve does not weaken as much as not to be late.

He slams the door behind him.

“Hello,” Kenma says.

He wears a scarf and a beanie, which Akaashi deems strange until he remembers that Kenma did mention he could be cold. “Hello. It’s been a while. You--”

Akaashi gets distracted by the silhouette peeking out from behind Kenma, a sudden undulation of white fur.

Kenma takes a few step to the side, to get away from it and so Akaashi can properly see it. The cat stiffens, narrows vertically slit pupils into a straight line.

“Ah, yeah. That one has been following me when I come by sometimes.”

It’s said with enough annoyance for Akaashi to conclude: “You don’t like cats?”

“Not particularly.”

Akaashi clicks his tongue, extends a hand. The cat bolts away with his tail between his legs. Akaashi frowns.

“Cats usually like me. That’s weird.”

“I think this one is just a weirdo,” Kenma assesses as he sits down next to him. “Cats usually don’t like me.”

“Well, I was never really good with animals in general, though. Bokuto was always the one--”

Kenma’s gaze shoots up. Akaashi’s head throbs, starts to spin. He bends over, raises a hand to his forehead and feels Kenma’s hand search for his forearm reflectively to support him, and--

it passes through

-- like smoke.

What--

Kenma draws his hand back just as fast. “Sorry.”

Akaashi blinks. It slowly subsides. “It’s ok. I just got dizzy.”

A wayward wind is picking up and sweeping aside the last shreds of fall, the embers that exhaust with one last murmur.

It’s affecting him, simply being there, by his side. They are both aware of that now. If even blurred out edges meet and turn into a clarity that is equally as unforgiving, if the dusk beckons, it’s because of Kenma.

“It’s alright”, Akaashi insists.

“It’s not.”

“I just feel a little lightheaded. I’m fine.”

Kenma stares intently at him.

That is when he finally notices-- Kenma isn’t wearing his red jumper today.

“Akaashi, I don’t think I should wait anymore… And I think you shouldn’t either.”

Akaashi’s ears fill with deafening silence.

“What do you mean?”

There’s a stubborn last ray of sun at the back of Akaashi’s head, pounding. A golden thread, that, if unraveled --

“Kenma! Thank god I caught up to you!”

Kenma flinches. They both stand upright to look at the person waving at them from the bottom of the stairs.

Everything about him is bright, from his hair to his affectionate grin and the delight in his voice.

He climbs the stairs three at a times and there’s a tug at the back of Akaashi’s mind. Something about that boy, the way he leaps, feels familiar.

“There you were! I was wondering where you’ve been disappearing to,” the boy pants. He extends a hand. “You forgot your gloves!”

His gaze darts to Akaashi.

“Who’s--”

Color drains from his face. He drops the gloves to the ground, takes a couple of steps back, almost slips.

Kenma jerks forward, to help him regain his balance or reassure him, his fingers curling around the boy’s wrist--
tightening around it.

Akaashi, can you hear me? Are you still there?

I’m sorry. I thought you would remember--

Bokuto-san, of course he remembers Bokuto-san. He’s tearing through it all as he used to, whimsical, nonchalant electricity in his stride, adamant eagerness in his smile.

Black and white meeting in steely gray before parting again, high and lows, lightning zigzagging through the air and needing no more than a nudge to land true.
To slice through the night.

It’s natural for him to be the first thing he sees, after.

Bokuto-san wears all black. His suit is impeccable. Even his hair is tamer than usual. An uncanny sight.
He feels a pang of pride.

Your tie doesn’t need to be so tight, though. You look like a salaryman.

“Akaashi… I’m mad at you, you know. You were always so careful. You’re supposed to be… You’re Akaashi. Couldn’t you have--” Bokuto-san’s voice trips, breaks.

Konoha-san drags him away from the altar.

There, sitting in the back row, is a boy with hair like a wavering sunrise. Numb.
He stays longer than almost anyone else.

Kuroo-san, his voice hoarse and tight, tells him they have to go but remains unheard.
He ends up only saying his name, over and over, like he’s calling him.

Kenma.

Wooden pieces tucked out of their dusted shelter.
“How about… If I win, you stop calling me Kozume.”
“If you win.”
He minds the loss more than the outcome.

Carefully spoken words.

“Am I being too slow? I don’t like walking fast.”
“That’s fine.”
More than fine.

“For all you have to indulge him, you smile more when Bokuto is around.”
A quietly prodding gaze, casting more light upon still frames than he will ever know.
Shrug: “It’s just something I’ve noticed.”
“You have quite an eye for people.”
A flash of surprise. Catch and release.
“Coming from you, that’s quite the compliment.”

A small tug at his sleeve.

“Be careful on your way home.”
“Good luck with exams. Let me know if you ever want to…”
“Yeah. I will.”

A fingerprints covered console, a universe safe in his pocket.

“Hold this for me for a minute.”
“Can’t you press pause? What do you want me to do?”
“Just keep pressing that button.”
“Can I--”
“Not in my save slot. I can make you one, if you want.”
“I’m honored,” he says. Kenma’s slim smile tells him he knows he’s only half-kidding.

Wet plates, handed to him by a thin soap covered hand, wiped one by one.

“This isn’t really the kind of place I go to… But I don’t mind going with you.”
“It’s is the kind of event that drains me after a while too. But I know if you’re here, I’ll…” A drop crashing to their feet. The plate hanging in the air between them like something too brittle to be held.
“You’ll?”

“It’s your turn. I changed the sheets, made dinner, refilled the soap container--”

“Okay, you can stop. I’ll go. Ugh, it’s so cold.”
A silhouette sliding away. Then back in. A ruffle of sheets, a surge of warmth, a relieved sigh. A sleepy mumble that reverberates into Akaashi’s chest:
“I never want to move again.”

“That’s five wins to three.”

A smirk. “You’ve gotten way better.”
“I want a rematch.”
“I guess I could call you Keiji now.”
“That’s--”
Eyes lowered, then finding, locking with his.
“No. Actually, I change my mind for now. I’ll ask for that next time.”
“Then…”
Kenma leans in, fingertips on his cheek feather light. Declaration and a question in his lips.
One he answers again and again, a trapped hummingbird for a heart, thrashing in absolute silence
(that he has only known once since).

Wonder turned wonder.

“You brought a lot of books. Are you planning on staying a while?” “Well, that depends.”
“On?”
He smiles, the vertigo of all too simple truths: “How long you’ll let me.”

The slow rise and fall of a back. A nape where day cascades above the edge of night.

“Don’t take that.”
“Oh, you’re awake? It’s for personal use.”
“You know, that makes you sound perverted.”
“And you know what I meant.”
Fingers lacing distractedly with his. “Do we have anything left to eat?”
He puts the camera away and lays back into bed. Led by their joined hands, he wraps an arm against Kenma’s waist, presses a kiss to the bare skin of his shoulder.
“Not sure. “
“Let’s go see…”
“Not yet.”

A small huff, in assent.

Akaashi learns during a phone call with Kuroo-san that Kozume Kenma, who is moving to live on his own and go to university, is going to live a few train stations away from him.

“He hasn’t told you?” Kuroo-san says. “I thought he definitely had. That’s weird.”

“Is it? It’s not like we’re that close.”

Kuroo-san hums thoughtfully. “Aren’t you? I mean, you have his number.”

“And?”

“And,” Kuroo-san marks a pause, “he actually went and gave it to you. Hasn’t he?”

Akaashi considers that fact under a new light for a moment. He thinks he might have missed something important.

“But he didn’t tell me,” he says eventually.

“Maybe he simply doesn’t know that you’re going to be living relatively closeby. Have you told him?”

“Oh. Not yet.”

Kuroo-san heaves a half-pained, half-amused sigh. “There you have it.”

That day he sends a brief message to Kozume, informing him of the little distance they now have between their living places and asking if he would like to meet, next week on Friday, over coffee -- or tea, that he preferred, didn’t he? The answer comes faster than expected.

from: kenma
> where?

The first thing that taught Akaashi to look at the world differently was filmmaking. The second one was Kenma.

They’re taking the train to run an errand and stroll in one of Tokyo’s park the day it occurs to him. Kenma is dozing off with his head on his shoulder, the both of them enveloped in the soft torpor of early morning.

He can stare at the ever-changing sky without having to move an inch.

He’s sitting on the floor, leaning against the bedframe, flicking through pictures and videos on his camera -- the one he left once at Kenma’s place, and that hasn’t came back since. Kenma is behind him, laying with a pillow under his head. He’s reading something on his phone.

Akaashi finds himself staring at an old picture. He can’t quite put his finger on what holds his attention at first.

He chuckles lightly, a soft sound at the back of his throat, when he understands.

“Punctum,” he says.

“What?”

Akaashi tilts his head back to look at Kenma. “This picture is nice.”

Kenma puts his phone down, leans forward to see it.

It’s a picture of him, from a few months ago. He’s sprawled on his bed, fiddling away with his PSP inside a nest of blankets and a few stray sweaters. It’s early morning and he’s half-asleep, yet stubbornly focused. He spent all night gaming.

“Looks normal to me.”

“It is normal. Who took it?”

“Shouyou. He said he wanted to show me the dark circles under my eyes so I’d finally get some rest. What do you like about it?”

“This,” Akaashi says, and points.

Kenma’s fingernail, the pinky finger’s, is painted gold.

“Oh. I remember. I’d forgotten to remove part of it. Shouyou was in a nail-painting frenzy when I saw him. He wanted to do it properly together with his sister.” Kenma frowns, perplexed. “Is it important?”

“Roland Barthes theorized something called punctum. It means small wound, or sting. It’s a detail that the photographer missed as he’s taking the picture, but that later gives it all its meaning to the one looking. Not everyone will feel the same way about that or that innocuous detail, so it’s random. It gives the photograph a subjective value. ”

Kenma hums. “So it makes the picture special to you?”

“Yeah.”

A dot of unpredicted life. A pang of the heart.

“I see.”

“Roland Barthes’ work is interesting,” Akaashi goes on half-absently. “He also said photography was a micro-death experience.”

Kenma’s eyes widen slightly at that. “Because it’s frozen in time?”

Akaashi turns round, rests his chin into the hollow of his wrist, arms crossed over the bed, explains: “Pretty much. It captures someone in the past and makes it into something that is dissociated from the person themselves. Something that is subjected to everyone else’s gaze and unable to change. Since the picture is a still point in time, it suggests that the subject is already dead by proving he has been alive -- that’s punctum too. At the same time, it gives them an immortal life of a sort.”

Kenma scrunches his nose. “You lost me a little." He picks his phone up, begins to read again. “But it sounds interesting.”

“Bokuto-san, you cannot take that many fish. That would be unreasonable.”

“What? But Akaashi, I’m only taking five! How about four?”

“That is still too much,” Akaashi says.

“I’ll treat them well! I have names for them all, I can’t abandon them now!”

“... Already?”

Right next to them, a mother is having the same talk with her six-year-old.

You respect him, he tells himself. Although the thought is tinged with irony at the moment. He sighs, slips into Kenma’s ear: “Sometimes I wonder if that’s not the exact corner I’ve been driving myself into.”

“Tell me about it,” Kenma deadpans, staring at Haiba, Morisuke and Kuroo-san who are raiding the takoyaki shop.

“Once they’re busy eating, it should give us a short window. Do you want to give the shooting range a try?”

Akaashi raises a brow. “Are you good at that?”

Kenma shrugs. “Probably. We’ll see.”

“Because I am.”

“That’s why I’m asking,” Kenma says. Of course.

His side-way glance and the hint of a smile on his face are loaded with a taunt as sharp-edged as the slick brush of a blade against Akaashi’s neck. Akaashi is thankful for the lighthearted atmosphere. In another context, he might have gotten goosebumps just from that one look.
And Kenma knows that.

“If you lose, you buy me a candy apple.”

“What do I get if I win?”

“What do you want?”

Akaashi retaliates with unadorned honesty: “Nothing. To be with you.”

Bokuto-san whirls around. “Akaashi!”

“Yes, Bokuto-san?”

“You say the most romantic things with a straight face! I didn’t know you were so smooth...” He grins.

“He is, isn’t he?” Kuroo raises a brow, a playful glint in his eyes.

“Why did we invite them again?,” Kenma says to Akaashi without lowering his voice.

“Because you love us, obviously.”

“Just eat your takoyaki.”

“Want one?”

“Nope. I’m getting a candy apple.”

And with that, he walks towards the shooting range without even checking that he is being followed.

“Kuro?”

“Yes?”

“Keep a few takoyaki for him, will you?”

Kuroo-san smirks. “I think I’ll watch this.”

(They play two rounds and each win one. “I guess we’re both getting what we want then,” Kenma tells him.)

After the summer festival, Akaashi has to take the train back.

Kenma holds his hand on the way, in the darkening streets. His fingers are sticky and warm. They walk as slow as they can to delay the moment where they would reach their destination and have to let go. They lead each other into ignored, hidden paths, small streets with a simpler glow. It becomes a game.

They hide from the light to be closer to their own.

He remembers now. The rain.

The sky pouring out with implacable wrath, a thick and warm hail, clouds amassing and dissolving into a wet haze, the faded glow of streetlamps and cars headlights.

In an attempt to shake off the soreness of his limbs after an entire day of sitting, he hurries out the door for a short evening jog, as he often does. Silhouettes make their way through this blur of wet asphalt, umbrellas that pass in a flash of colors too vivid to last. A bike splashes past him, the thrum of cars an insistent back-and-forth.

He stops under a florist’s shop to get temporary shelter when his phone chirps.

It’s from Kenma. Summer vacation is drawing near.

do you need me to bring anything specific

just yourself.

> how about some lemon cake? my mom dropped by with some. she forgot i didn’t like it much
> but i know you do

Akaashi types out a quick sounds good. and tucks his phone away. Deep in thought, he runs down the dim-lit street, his clothes sticking to his skin, repeatedly flicking strands of hair and the tip of his hood out into place.

One too many blinks. A sharp turn,

A ripple trembles and slows, hesitates on the verge of completion.

The relentless rain washes the world hollow.

Akaashi’s parents handed Kenma a full box of things. He can’t refuse them this: they have an entire room, an entire life to pass by.
We think he would like you to have them, they said.

They must have found some of Akaashi’s pictures, and the prism of the gaze they betrayed had told them enough.

At first, it was only a comfort. He would forget for a couple of seconds because he was engrossed in a book, in his game, in a conversation, or just lost in thought. His gaze would fall to a chair, his hands would fumble on the other side of the bed, and come up empty. He would remain perfectly still until the walls stopped closing in.

As weeks prickled by he would forget longer, or rather stop thinking of it-- and that was scarier yet.

So he kept the box open.

There are books. Most of them aren’t really peeking Kenma’s interest, but he ends up reading them all anyway. Several times if they do.

There are some of the films Akaashi made. He has already seen them all. There are also, however, cut out sequences and raw material, an abundance of wordless questions, that Kenma watches curled up under the covers. Glimpses, a fickle, everyday life. Scholarly interviews of people at university. More intimate ones, with people on the street. Footage of Akaashi walking and going about his day -- talking, laughing, eating, attending class, hanging out with his classmates. And clean cuts. The passing of birds on wires and on top of buildings in different places in Tokyo. The feet of the crowd at the food market. A day in the foliage of a tree from different angles, dancing spots of a light that is never quite the same. Wavering neon lights that still hold. A study on broken reflection. Melting drawings in the snow. A deserted elementary school bus. A snail’s journey to an unexpected hiding place. It goes on and on.

In one recording, Akaashi’s is asked by one another film-making major how finds inspiration for his projects. “I often don’t quite know what I’m looking for. So I walk around a lot, I film everything until I do. I film several things that have caught my eyes and more often than not I realize how they fit together -- what I mean to say-- afterward. I build a project based on that.”

When asked what he loves about filmmaking, Akaashi replies: “It teaches us that there is always more to be seen and to be shown.”

There are pictures as well, some that he took and some he kept.

One of them has “a model student!” as a legend. He doesn’t know who took it -- one of Akaashi’s parents, perhaps, or one of his friends at university.

It’s a picture of Akaashi working at his desk. He sits with his back straight, a pensive frown, the very image of concentration. He’s reading and taking notes on his laptop at the same time. The scene is tidy-looking, his desk spot clean, his books neatly color-coded. Light pours out of the window. He is framed at the center. It was the kind of picture you would find on an university official website.

Kenma went to rub what he thought was a grain of dust but turns out to be an eyelash on Akaashi’s cheekbone.

Unfathomable frailty.

So this is what you meant, Kenma says to an airless room.

Kenma skims through the content of the box more frequently than he should. Even though he admonishes himself for it, even though he sometimes throws them under a chair or a shirt in the hope that they will melt into the ordinary mess. His gaze is drawn to the spots he scattered them at and memorized despite himself. His mind is a landslide.

Kuro points it out several times when he comes by. The first few times, he’s only noticing. After a while, blunt, he says: “this can’t be healthy.”

A truth that Kenma is already well aware of. He says so, falls back behind a series of short, terse answers, listens to Kuro all the same. As he always does.

Kenma tells himself he will put them away, and they find their way back into his hands.

Bokuto is the one that helps him take the next step. He snatches them from him, helps him tidy them into the carton box they were originally in. He’s grimly silent the whole time, which is so much harder to bear, Kenma finds, than his noisiest, flashiest requests for attention.

He tidies his entire room, once, twice. He walks down roads even when they feel too wide. He clings to the shore when the receding tide comes crashing back.

The box sits in one corner, under a pile of clean clothes and blankets. Some days he sits on it so he doesn’t have to look at it. He doesn’t open it for months at a time.

He doesn’t put it away either.

Kenma turns on the camera. He flicks through a few pictures, sighs, tears himself away before he drowns. He thinks that maybe he should sell it, but selling it means erasing the memory card.

He can’t.

“They still exist inside your head!” Shouyou tells him.

“It’s different,” Kenma says.

“You could just print them all and put them all in one folder…”

“It would be the same.”

“Kenma!” Shouyou pouts. “Look, if it’s because you’re scared of forgetting about the time you spent together--”

“I’m not. I’m just…” Kenma trails off.

Scared he will forget what a home with someone else feels like; a world to be his and theirs, and endless.

Scared he will find another.

“Just?”

“I don’t know how let go without letting him go.”

“Then maybe you have to,” Shouyou says, intensely earnest.

“I…” Kenma does not know what to answer to that. His stomach twists with the wrongness of it.

Shouyou sighs. “Well, I think Ennoshita-san would like the books about photography and films history. He told me Akaashi-san’s parents already gave him a few, though. As for the rest…”

Kenma’s nails dig into his palm.

“We can put them in places where you can find them again without having to see them all the time. Let me know if you want any help, okay?”

“Thank you.”

Shouyou smiles, squeezes him in his arms with a rub of his cheek against Kenma’s -- the Shouyou trademark when it comes to hugs, to the point where he doesn’t even notice he does it.

He rushes out the door, then back in.

“I’m going to the combini, do you want something?”

“Orange juice. Or rice crackers.”

“Got it!”

Kenma settles back into his chair, side-eyeing the camera.

Kenma settles back into his chair, side-eyeing the camera.

He -- hovering on the edge of consciousness -- watches. He makes no sound, just gently slips through the fingers of time.

He waits to be noticed. His presence here still lingers, which made it easier for him to come and harder for him to be acknowledged.

Kenma aims the slightest glances to the side, a begrudged reminder, but not this time.

The room shapes around him with a crushing kind of consistency. He stills, a hum made lullaby, at last -- caught in amber eyes.

Kenma startles. The chair crashes to the floor.

A desperate, stunned whisper:

“Keiji?”

Keiji, that must be him.

Akaashi... Keiji. Was it?

He blinks and blinks and blinks himself whole, but in vain. He opens his mouth to speak and the pull gets harder. Was it the chair’s fall? Too strong a ripple on another kind of frequency. He longs for it, too; that awaited, belated fall into silence.

“Wait --”

He wants to, he has to, but it’s too hard like this, too heavy.

The room tips over like a sinking ship and weeps in black and blue.

Keiji.
Did you leave?

Akaashi blinks. He glances around, finds that the night has fallen. He is as the bottom of the stairs. He climbs them as fast as he can, gaze searching, lifted upwards.
The city lights, blankly oppressing the darkness, have emptied the skies.

A lone star shines overhead, while a plane idly blinks white and red, crawls, further and further away.

Kenma is curled up next to the shrine, staring at nothing.

Akaashi clears his throat. He jolts upright.

“You’re here,” he says. “I thought--”

“No. I’m not done.”

The words fall cluttered, a breathless sliver:

“You remember.”

“Some of it. My memories are kind of… jumbled.”

Kenma hovers a few feet away, uncertain.

“Does it hurt?”

“It doesn’t. It’s just kind of frustrating. Like trying to make a puzzle with only a couple of scattered pieces,” Akaashi says, and they both know he’s not only talking about memories.

But it’s not like he ever minded the silence in between. Some of the blanks are another part of the story that they filled together.

It doesn’t make him Akaashi Keiji -- not really. It just allows him to choose his last line.

He is a trace, a certainty left in the unknown.

Kenma takes a long shuddering breath. He’s gathering his courage.

“You can say it now. Whatever it is.”

Akaashi closes the distance between them. Kenma swallows, clenches his jaw.

“Thanks for sharing lemon cake with me. It was good.”

“Yeah.”

“About the rain, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“I should have been more careful. Tell Bokuto-san that I… tell my parents...”

He catches himself. What should he tell them that wouldn’t be cruel? That would be enough?

What is there that he can tell them that he knows how to say?

“No. It’s okay, they know.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t know what to say to you either.”

“Anything,” Kenma retorts, and Akaashi almost falters at the way his voice cracks.

He hears himself say: “Do you know how I always know when you’ve cried?”

Kenma stares, shakes his head slightly.

“You bite your lip... because you’re trying to hold it in at first.”

Kenma’s lips part. Akaashi reaches for the reddening spot with the pad of his thumb, the shadow of a caress. A shooting star twinkles down Kenma’s cheek, and Akaashi’s hand falls helplessly at his side. Was want this inescapable before?

For a while, they listen to the trees wheezing under the wind’s assaults. Kenma does not bother wiping his face.

“Also… Next time we played shogi, I would have won.”

“Saying that now is pretty convenient,” Kenma says, and the wryness creeping into his voice brings a smile to Akaashi’s lips.

“There’s one thing. It’s not something you need to answer. I already know because I’ve already said it.” In everything else, and in everything he has forgotten. Something he could find a million more ways to say. A million swallowed back punctum. “But I never really have.”

If it wasn’t for the adamant howl in his veins, it would feel like a whim. It’s an incredible weight to shoulder for a couple of words.

Yet it tones down to this, as insignificant as it seems. This tiny shell of everything, aching for a whole that cannot be but by the wish they shape, is all he can give.

The dot on Kenma’s lip is a thing to touch from the tip of the finger, when everything is gone and past. To remember by. No matter how deep, nothing but a small wound.

The words hatch in his mouth, but before he can form them, a gust of wind ruffles Kenma’s hair and whisks him away.

Akaashi tugs Kenma along into a small street that smells of okonomiyaki. Lanterns blushing pink in front of a pawn shop. Slithering on the front of an abandoned building, ivy.

Kenma looks around, a contemplative, growing gleam in his eyes. “I think I want to live on a street like this someday.”

Akaashi slows and stops in his tracks, turns to look at him. This is the first time he has told him something like that.

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

Akaashi examines his surroundings more carefully, thinks: it’s a calm that greets you. He knows it well.

“That sounds nice.”

Akaashi doesn’t ask, doesn’t add anything. Kenma holds his hand a little tighter, and he smiles.

“Keiji?”

“Oh, sorry.” Akaashi blinks, looks at Kenma again. “Do you wear the scarf I got you?”

“That’s not…” Kenma starts, unsettled by the sudden subject change. “Yeah. Well, sometimes… I love it, but...” As Akaashi remains silent, he declares: “I only wear it when I’m really cold, because it’s so big, and almost too warm.”

Akaashi is glad he left something to protect Kenma from that kind of cold. Until the underlying edge of his words hits him.

“If I had said no, and put it away, would you be angry?”

“Why would I be angry? It’s a gift. You can do whatever you want with it, it belongs to you.”

Kenma inhales, curt and sharp, like he’s going to say something but he smiles instead, in irrepressible pain and gratefulness tightly intertwined, bursting like the sun over the horizon, like it was always meant to.

“Did you want to throw it away?”

“Not anymore. I don’t need to look for you.”

“That’s right,” Akaashi says. The words too are a caress he cannot give.

He raises his head. He doesn’t see the blinking light anymore. He hopes planes know how lucky they are to watch over it all, setting out on a journey with no real destination.

“Well, I kind of wanted to see you wearing it,” he confesses. “Besides, it’s going to start snowing soon. I missed that.”

“Are you...”

“I’ll be okay now. There’s just one last stop I want to make.”

He watches the words sink in. Kenma only asks:

“Where?”

“Before you go… You haven’t been here at night yet, have you? Look. This is why I like this place.”

Akaashi turns round.

The city lay at their feet, stretching further than the eye could see, a web of glimmering flecks like freckles on veiny hands, lining the streets; a kind of storytelling. And when his gaze turns to Kenma again, the faraway lights are in his eyes.

“That’s why I like it too,” Akaashi mutters.

“Keiji,” Kenma says with a smile.

“Yeah?”

“Ruler of the city.”

“Hah. Right.” Akaashi sighs in faint amusement. “I think I’ll leave that to you.”

The world shrinks and slides away like a raindrop on a glass window. Through the wind muffles every sound he hears Kenma says:

“When it snows, I’ll come back.”

An echo:

“I’ll be waiting.”

It surrounds, it spills, it swallows him whole, fractured light and speeding cars and birds unable to land, holy grounds and hungry skies, buzzing lips, a scarlet-dotted smile, emptied carton boxes.

The trees, they let everything go.

He blinks awake inside a stark white town.

(For a shadow, nowhere to hide.)

“Hello. It suits you, the scarf.”

Once or twice, they stop at a fork in the road.

Kenma’s gaze darts from one street to another, and as he decides on which path to take his hand twitches at his side, clenches into a fist. Akaashi says don’t worry, I’m right behind you.

Kenma digs his chin into his oversized scarf. He looks plump in winter, hiding under so many layers, with sometimes only his eyes visible between the waves of his scarf and his beanie. Akaashi finds it ridiculously endearing.

“So Hinata is your roommate now?”

“Yeah. He moved to Tokyo recently.”

“How is it going?”

Kenma tilts his head, thoughtful. “To me, he’s the kind of person that is both hard and easy to live with. But we make it work.”

Akaashi asks about Bokuto-san, only to discover that he has found a job at a zoo, giving tours and presentations and dotting on the animals in his care. He lets out a knowing snicker when Kenma tells him Bokuto-san gets competitive with children over owl facts, and floods his phone with enthusiastic snaps and videos. He shows Akaashi some of them.

Akaashi asks about everyone whose name he can remember, as much as to know what he is has been missing than to hear Kenma’s voice.
They almost get lost searching for the small, pristine street. Or, rather, they take their time.

Or, rather, Akaashi watches seeking become a kind of finding.

“By the way... what is it like when you’re not here?”

“It’s hard to explain. Kind of like I’m… drifting. Or into a deep sleep and dreaming, every once in awhile, in restless fits. Sometimes I dream of you.”

“You don’t. You came to see me, I think. You don’t remember what dreaming is like?”

“I’m not sure. I guess not.”

Two boys wander in a crystal clear silence. Under clouds swelling grey, one’s breath fogs in the cold. The other’s does not.

They come to a halt in front of a building covered in frosted ivy.

The sun peeks out of the clouds. Tenuous beams of light fall alongside snowflakes for a brief moment.

The faintest reminder that before long, spring will come.

Kenma?

Yes.

Akaashi speaks, quiet and tender as footsteps in the snow.