#taiyoru

[   msg  »  chihaya   ]   where are you [   msg  »  chihaya   ]   don’t tell me you got lost again [   msg  »  chihaya   ]   i swear if i hear an announcement to come look for you at the lost child services center again,  i’m leaving you there.

       distinctly,  yet distantly,  tooru feels the prickling of tears in his eyes.   “   hajime,   ”   he starts.   swallows,  when he realises he’s choked up and unprepared and doesn’t actually know what he wants to say,  reaching out for hajime’s hand to fill the silence but missing,  catching his sleeve instead and holding on anyway to the blazer and to any semblance of stability to anchor his shaking hands,  when a tear falls   –       

       and he’s cried at graduations,  at every one of them since he began to understand its meaning,  but this graduation is different.       

       this graduation is different not because it’s a parting of ways,  because it’s never been,  really,  in all the ways that matter,  when he’s kept in touch with everyone he wants to keep in touch with,  and good riddance to the rest,  but because hajime is going his own way,  and for the first time hajime’s way is not also aligned with tooru’s,  and that,  tooru thinks,  is what makes it different.   they’ve never been apart quite like this before,  not since they met when they were children with only houses between them,  and barely meters to cross.       

       soon,  it’d be cities and countries,  and as train rides blur into flights they’d be miles apart,  and tooru.   well,  he’s always been good at not getting what he wants,  and having to deal with it anyway.       

       “   geez,  you don’t have to sound so dramatic,  iwa-chan,  this isn’t goodbye.   ”       

       i won’t let it be goodbye.       

       is it cowardly :  at the end of all this,  to not lay bare his feelings ?   would it make him brave,  he wonders,  at the end of all this,  to confess how he feels ?       

       “   iwa - chan   –   hajime,   ”       

i love you / i’ve always liked you / the past few years were the best / you’re the best ace i could ask for / you’re my best friend / i don’t want to leave you / i’ll miss spending time with you / i have to go / you understand,  don’t you ? / this isn’t goodbye.

       and would it make him cruel to reach out only as his hand would be out of reach ?       

               even from his halfway span across the court,  hawkish eyes zeroed in on the finest,  most understated misplacement of knees .  in that pinprick of a moment he can list off the tens of ways that the following receive will be off -- kilter .  in fact,  he wants to correct the posture before the ball’s even in the air .  what happens instead is the dam of the control tower that is kageyama tobio opening its floodgates:

I’m shy

she extends the carefully wrapped arrangement, a subtle smile on her face. ‘ congratulations on the premiere. your performance was beautiful. ’ 2/2 (kei 2 akira!)