#vez! writes

Lesson #2: Love doesn’t care about your “type”

Love has a funny way of sneaking up on people, at catching them when they least expect it. You could picture your ideal boy, hold the image in your head as you fell asleep, think of his hazy face in the place of every romance novel protagonist and no matter how much you obsess over your “type”, you’ll never be bound to it. Because those little things that your friend does that you find unattractive or turn-offs suddenly have you blushing. That small crack in his otherwise smooth voice when he speaks up has you oddly captured in what he’s about to say. Kenma is quite the opposite of your “type” and yet he holds your attention better than anyone you’ve ever liked. You’ll find yourself staring into a pair of eyes and realize they’re completely different from what you had imagined. Love is one of those things that blooms overtime, you can’t exactly look at someone and force yourself to love them instantly. Love slowly entangles its arms around you and before you can even realize you’ve fallen in love you’re already too comfortable in the heat of its embrace. Sitting on your couch, you’re desperately trying to find what it is that’s making you feel so off. You slept well, you’re in comfy clothes, you went out yesterday, you’ve eaten your favourite food and yet, why do you feel as though something is missing. When you finally figure it out, you look at him the next day and you wonder how you ever pictured yourself with anyone else. He has become your type. That is because love is malleable, it’s indiscriminate, it’s impulsive. Love looks like him.

Lesson #3: To love means to let go sometimes

It starts when coming home to Keiji starts to feel like a chore. It’s when you dread the bus ride home because you know he’s there and you still haven’t resolved your conflict from this morning. How every attempt at a date night turns awkward and the car ride home is stifling, the two of you having to hold back tears as you try to decipher when it was you stopped having fun together. There are only so many mistakes, so many arguments you can forget with a lazy gift or make-up sex. But 8 goddamn years in love. Despite your misery, you just fear that if you break up now, does that mean the past 8 years of both your lives have been wasted? The answer is no, you didn’t waste your time. He’s made you feel loved. He’s made you a better person. He was there for you even as you grew and changed as a person. There’s no waste in that. The best form of gratitude you can give him is to take the maturity he’s helped you with, and use it to move onto the next phase of your life. He and you both have better and brighter futures. It’s time to accept that Akaashi is a vital part of your life, just not this part of your life.  

Lesson #4: You can love someone, that doesn’t mean you need them

You love him and that’s why you had a hard time accepting that he just loved his career more than he loved you. You would spend days lying in bed or at your desk, eyes flickering over to your phone every 10 minutes to check if Kageyama had texted back, re-reading your own messages to see if they sounded clingy or passive aggressive, having him be the topic of every drunk conversation, every catch-up with friends, every therapy appointment. Only for him to text hours into the night apologizing, saying he had been at practice and press conferences all day long, that he was exhausted and just wanted to pass out. He seemed to go weeks at a time without a proper conversation and you could only be understanding to a certain point. When you finally decide to confront him, you get your answer. He’s going to Italy. “Please understand that I love you. I love you so much.” He apologizes profusely, crying into the crook of your neck as he breaks the news. You love him and he loves you, with all his heart, but he doesn’t need you like he needs volleyball. You bring him happiness but his passions bring him purpose. Love isn’t about need, it’s all about want. So when the next summer olympics rolls around and he’s at your front door (praying that you hadn’t changed addresses) with a bouquet and a cheesy grin, it’s because he wants to be there

But when Suna closed his eyes it got so much worse. In his dreams he could feel you, he could hear the sounds of your breathing, your sweet giggles and soft voice, the smell of your shampoo that had long faded from the clothes that still hung in his closet. You were so much realer in his dreams, it was the closest he could be to you ever since. And when the sun rose, and his alarm rang, he was shaken from his paradise, surrendering to that familiar feeling of yearning he felt every morning. He thinks that those moments are the worst. Worse than rewatching that video he took of your sleeping form tightly wrapped in his embrace, a blanket lazily strung over your two bodies, your cheek puffing out against his chest. All of these mementos he had kept of you played through his mind constantly, he needed to feel that you were still there, and he both loved and hated how much of you he had kept on his phone.

But right now at 2AM, sitting on his bed, his hands shakily hovering over his keyboard, he doesn’t regret it one bit. The upload bar is almost complete and soon every photo, every video, every digital memory that Suna had kept of you was going to be uploaded. Frustrated with himself, Suna throws the laptop off of his lap, standing up from the bed to pace around his dark room. Wiping the tears from his cheeks and nervously ruffling his hair he wonders to himself why you couldn’t leave him alone.

Suna had tried to fight the temptation when he was first offered. He knew in his head that letting your memory go, and letting himself move on was what was best. But when he watched those videos every night, hearing your sweet voice, your vicious laughter, it was never enough, he needed more. To keep you alive he needed more.

When the small alert rings in the silent room indicating the uploading was completed, Suna rushes to his bed, practically tripping over his carpet to watch as the screen displays ‘CONTACTING NOW…’ 

It wasn’t too late, Suna could press the small cancel button underneath, this program hadn’t cost him too much. He could go to sleep right now, start anew, begin to build his life again, begin to accept that you were dead, and you would never come back. 

But Suna didn’t get a chance because a harsh ringtone cuts through his thoughts. His head whips to where his phone lays in his hand, your name flashing across his screen. He doesn’t know what to make of his emotions as he rushedly presses ‘accept’, gripping the phone to his ear, heart beating a mile a minute.

“Hello?” Your voice rings through his ears, making another tear fall from his bloodshot eye. Suna silently pulls his free hand to his mouth, covering up the shaky sobs that were involuntarily spilling out. “Rintarou?” You ask softly. You sound just like them, it was surreal, knowing you were dead yet hearing you call his name softly, like you had always done.

“Y-you,” he stutters out, failing to keep his voice steady, “you sound just like them.” The soft chuckle from the other end makes his lip quiver.

“I know, spooky right?” Another soft laugh leaving you. Suna couldn’t believe this. He lets out restrained wails, letting his tears drip onto the bed sheets, gripping his legs to his chest. “Hey, what’s wrong,” you coo, your voice trilling with concern.

“I never got to tell you h-how,” Suna sniffles, “how pretty your smile is. I wanted to t-tell you how much I loved your laugh.” A short silence follows his confession.

“You’re telling me right now.” Suna smiles to himself, gripping the phone with both hands, imagining your beautiful smile on the other end. 

“You’re right,” Suna wipes his glossy eyes on the sleeves of his sweater, “you’re here now.”

“I’m here now. Don’t cry, I’m here now.” 

Suna knew he shouldn’t, he scolds himself for being too greedy. This wasn’t real, you weren’t real. But he just missed your voice so much. What was so wrong with listening to you murmur to him through the speaker, letting him know how your day was, talking as if nothing had ever changed; you spoke to him in your low sleepy voice about your university classes and the movies you had recently watched, you spoke of how much you missed him, and how excited you were to be in his arms once again. Was it really so selfish of him to miss you? You were the one who had left him to face the consequences of your death, alone. You were the one to dig a hole in his life only to abandon it. Was he the selfish one? Was it so selfish of him to indulge in the fantasy that you were still alive, and that you still loved him?

“Shit I’m so late,” Suna mutters under his breath. He had decided to walk to the gym since he wanted to spend more time with you. 

“You should’ve just drove,” your voice echos out of his earbuds, “I could’ve called you after practice.”

“Don’t you have class soon?”

“Fuck!” You scream, he could hear you getting up from bed, papers scrambling in the background. “You’re so right, thanks for reminding me. Oh shit, I forgot to do the reading.” You are notoriously forgetful, something you complain about consistently on your private twitter account.

“Go do your work, I’ll call you after,” Suna chuckles, hanging up the call as he enters the gym, spotting his teammates already stretching.

“Rin!” Atsumu calls, gesturing for him to hurry over. Suna quickly dropps his bag, jogging over to where his teammates stood waiting for him. “Yer late.” 

“Sorry, I decided to walk today,” Suna answers with a small smile, grabbing his knee to stretch out his leg. 

“Yeah? I guess the weather’s nice today,” Bokuto gestures to where he entered.

“Yeah, it’s beautiful,” he smiles, surprising his teammates. They were aware of your recent death and had witnessed their teammate and friend mourning your loss, for the last month in fact. Suna had rejected all of their support, responding coldly to any sort of emotional comfort or consolation they had to offer. They had noticed how tired he had gotten, how lethargic, how apathetic. So seeing him in not only a better mood, but an objectively good one was a shock they happily welcomed. 

“Rin,” Atsumu jogs up to Suna during their laps, “how’re ya feelin’?”

“I’m good ‘Tsumu,” he replies. Atsumu could tell that Suna’s eyes were more awake, his lips weren’t curled down into a frown, and even though there were heavy bags under his eyes it was like he radiated vitality. Suna had stayed up all night talking to you, filling you in on all the things you had missed in the last month, asking you if you remembered all the little moments he had stored in his mind, telling you how much he wanted to lift your delicate hand to his lips to give each fingertip a soft kiss. It was Suna who had forgotten what it felt like to be alive, and it was only until you came back to him that he remembered how much avidity he was capable of, how infatuated he could become with his own future.

Watching Suna smile during practice, cracking dry sarcastic remarks at his teammates’ mistakes, hearing him yell for the ball, it all made his teammates believe that he had started the next phase of grieving, that he was finally starting to learn to live without you. It felt like Suna was present, and even Sakusa offered a few words of praise, just to reinforce the pleasant mood Suna was in. When Suna had offered to stay behind a couple extra minutes to practice, Atsumu couldn’t help but wrap an arm around his friend, pulling in from a short but tight hug, letting him know how much he appreciated him. 

“Is someone’s phone ringing?” Aran asks, everyone pausing to listen to the faint ringtone. 

“That might be mine,” Atsumu huffs, jogging over to where the bags lay strewn across the sidelines. Digging through the jackets and sweaty towels to find the phone that just wouldn’t shut up, Atsumu finally digs into Suna’s gym bag, pulling out the phone to see that you were calling him.

“Rin?” He looks over his shoulder to see Suna jogging over to grab his phone, but before he could snatch it away, Atsumu pulls it out from his reach, extending a hand to keep his friend away. 

“What’re you doing,” Suna asks in a lighthearted tone, reaching for his phone again. 

“Why the fuck is Y/N callin’ ya?” Atsumu asks with horror in his eyes. He had been to your funeral. They all had. They had watched Suna walk out of the crematorium with teary eyes, hugging the cold black urn that held your ashes. They had watched him sprinkle you into the slow-running river by your childhood home, the one that cut through the meadow behind the rotting wooden fence, the meadow which you had buried your family dog when you were 13. You were very much dead.

“What’s going on?” Hinata asks, the rest of the teammates following after growing curious at seeing the tense faces of Atsumu and Suna. 

“Can I have my phone?” Suna reaches out his hand for Atsumu to place the ringing phone in. Atsumu doesn’t hand it back, instead pressing accept and putting your voice on speaker.

“Yo, pick up faster next time,” your voice makes everyone’s mouth drop. “Hello, you there?” You ask after being met with a long silence. 

“Is that Y/N?” Bokuto lets out, eyes wide glancing at the phone the Atsumu held in his hand.

“Bok-” Atsumu immediately hangs up, pointing the phone at Suna who stands still. He doesn’t understand what feeling was rushing over him. Shame? Guilt?

“Who the fuck was that?” Atsumu gestures with his eyes to the phone.

“Y/N-”

“Don’t give me that bullshit, okay? Y/N is dead so who the fuck was that?” 

“Atsumu,” Hinata warns, he doesn’t want Suna’s mood to fall again. “Don’t interrupt me Shoyo, Suna, what the hell is goin’ on?” Before Suna can even open his mouth to give an answer his phone starts ringing, your name flashing across the screen once again. Atsumu’s eyes met Suna’s for a brief second before Suna tackles him to the ground. Atsumu tightly grips onto the vibrating cell phone as he tries to kick his friend off of him. Suna is prying Atsumu’s fingers off of the screen, desperately wanting to press ‘accept’ just so he could hear your voice and tell you that he was okay. 

“Fuck off Miya, give me my phone!” Suna bellows out.

“Yer fucking crazy! The hell’s going on?” The team soon surrounded the two, trying to pull the two off of each other. Kageyama and Bokuto eventually get Suna off of Atsumu, dragging him away from the setter who scrambles to his feet, looking over to where Suna’s fuming with rage, restrained by his teammates.

“What’s wrong with you guys!” Suna’s anger is overflowing, tears running down his cheeks as his voice cracks with rage. “Just give me my phone!” He cries out, desperation and anxiety brimming in his words. 

Aran takes the phone from Miya, glancing down at your name on the screen, then looking over to Suna who struggles, hiccuping from his sobs.

“Is this what I think it is?” Aran holds up the phone. Suna stays silent, finally falling limp in his teammates’ arms. 

“Ya know what it is?” Atsumu asks in disbelief.

“It’s a computer program,” Aran feels the phone go silent in his hand, “that pretends to be dead loved ones from videos and social media.” Suna’s head drops, his teammates let go of his arms and let him sink to his knees. He cups his face with his hands, lightly sobbing into them. “Suna, you know this isn’t real.” 

“Of course I do!” Suna screams. He wasn’t a fucking idiot, he knew you were dead. So now he couldn’t mourn the way he wanted to? Couldn’t give in to the sense of loss for even just a day? What did any of them know about grief? You weren’t real... he knew that. But you felt just as vivid to him as you used to. Suna realizes he let himself get a little too carried away, a little too lost in the illusion.

“Alright, give him his phone back,” Bokuto mutters.

“Are ya serious? Yer just gonna let ‘im keep doin this? This isn’t fuckin’ healthy!” Atsumu points at Suna, who cups his hands over his ears, trying to block out all of the screaming. He would rather drown in the dark solace of his bedroom, alone with nothing but your faded memory, than be in this gym right now, his teammates looking down at him in pity. Please, can everyone just be quiet? Suna just wants to lie in bed again with you tucked into his chest, he just needed to hear your voice again.

“The entire point of the thing is it’s supposed to help ya get better,” Aran interjects, walking over to Suna.

“Does he look like he’s gettin’ better?” Aran ignores Tsumu’s yelling, kneeling down to rub Suna on the back, placing the phone by his feet. 

All Suna can do is shakily stand up, tearful eyes blurring his vision as he fumbles around for his phone, clutching it to his chest, and drown out the sounds of his teammates arguing. He just wants all this noise to stop. The only thing that got him to walk out of the gym was knowing that he could fall asleep to the sound of your voice when he got home. He can only stifle his tears as he imagines your soft voice soothing him, telling him how proud you were and how you would always be there.

“Tsumu just let him be,” Hinata blocks Miya’s path from running up to Suna. He looks at his teammates in disbelief, scoffing at how they let Suna walk out, dialing your number.

It’s been 3 days. Suna hasn’t left his apartment, he’s barely gotten up from his bed, occasionally slinking off to the bathroom or grabbing a cup of water from the kitchen. His curtains are drawn, his comforter lays over his shoulders, the only thing Suna can hear is your sweet voice. 

“Have you eaten yet?” Suna doesn’t answer but he’s sure that you could figure it out from his silence. “Rin, you should have something, just something small.”

“I’m not hungry.” Lies. You wanna know the real reason Suna couldn’t eat? It was because the pantry was still stacked with your favourite foods, and in the fridge was a rotting box of takeout you had brought home a while ago, insisting you were going to finish it another time. Every day for the past month, every time he opened the pantry door he was reminded that you were no longer there. When he glanced upon your old food he was reminded that the voice he listened to wasn’t you, and your physical presence would never return to him. 

The only thing he had left of you was this automated voice who was nothing beyond a couple of lines of code. Seeing the physical remnants of you reminded Suna that this voice wasn’t his lover, it was just a parasite. 

“You know what you should eat? There’s that fried chicken place on the opposite corner of my university, I’ve always wanted to try it.”

“We’ve been there already.” 

“Really?” Suna’s heart folds momentarily at the thought of you not retaining one of his favourite memories with you. “Maybe it was a while ago?” Lie. It was only 2 months ago. Suna remembers that you dragged him there to celebrate passing your midterm, forcing him to put his phone away so he could pay attention to you.  A tear falls from Suna’s eye, remembering how he leaned over to lick the corner of your mouth covered in wing sauce, feeling you push his chest away in embarrassment. He loved that no matter how many times he kissed you, each time he pulled back he felt light on his feet, dizzy and content.

“I just want to give you a hug.” Suna whimpers out, missing the feeling of your body pressed against his.

“I do too.”

“When can you come over?” It’s a stupid question to ask of course, given that you’re dead, and the machine he’s talking to didn’t even have a physical body. But Suna can’t help himself, can’t help but believe that your body is still breathing and your eyes were looking for him. 

“Suna,” he knows the answer already, but for some reason he wants to hear you say it, to admit that you aren’t real, “I don’t know. I don’t think anytime soon. I’m sorry baby.” 

“You always made time for me.” Suna feels his tears pool at his temples, running over the bump of his nose and soaking the cold pillow. “I just want to be with you.”

“You’re talking to me right now. I’m right here Suna.” You aren’t listening to him, why couldn’t you understand what he was saying? Suna slips his hands into his hair, pulling roughly at the root of his strands. Frustrated mewls slip through gritted teeth. “Rin?” Suna contains himself just long enough to end the call before hurling his phone at the wall, hearing the screen shatter. He lets out a wail from deep in his stomach, hearing the echo vibrate in his eardrum. 

Was this it? Was this all he had of you? Suna lets himself shrink to the floor of his room, cradling himself in his own arms. Why was he being so selfish? He had gotten you back, that’s all he wanted, why couldn’t he be happy hearing your voice? 

“Please Y/N,” drool stifles his cries, pooling at the bottom of his chin, “please Y/N help me. Come back,” he moans. Hugging his knees to his chest, burying his nose into his legs, Suna squeezes his eyes shut, imagining your touch, your soothing reassurance. “Come back,” the taunting silence of the room is dispiriting, as if the world had nothing to offer as consolation; the world remains silent and unmoved by Suna’s bellowing grief.

Suna lays his jacket on the ground, making sure not to get his pants wet as he sits down on the dewy grass. He enjoys the subtle white noise that engulfed him, of the tall grass whistling in the wind and the leaves of the trees ruffling against each other. A dove coos in the background, and Suna’s reminded of the same bird that sung in the early mornings of summertime when the two of you were young. Back in your highschool days where he’d lazily drape his arm around you, shoving his face into the crook of your neck, refusing to get off you despite your whining. There was always a thick humidity coating his room in the mornings, he would feel the heat and exhaustion in your languid and playful kisses. Your hair would be warm from the glare of the morning sun and Suna liked to press his face into it, feeling safe in the smell of your shampoo.

The sun’s out today, but it’s slightly colder, a mild breeze tousling Suna’s hair. The air’s so fresh it’s almost dizzying for Suna, who had spent more than an unhealthy amount of time holed up in his apartment. 

The back of Suna’s t-shirt sticks to his skin and the light afternoon breeze chills his sweaty back. Sighing to himself, he finally lifts his phone to his ear, the cracked screen tickling his cheek.

“Hey Rin,” your voice cuts through the meditative silence. There was something so nostalgic and recluse about Suna’s location that your voice with its slight automated quality disrupted.

“Hey.”

“I was actually just about to call you, my professor told me the craziest shit ever-” Suna didn’t feel like cutting you off. He thought he might as well let you ramble before he moved on to what he called you for. “Rin?”

“Mm?”

“Where are you?” Suna pauses.

“Take a guess,” he could hear your faint chuckle. Gripping the blades of grass under his hand, curling his fingers into a fist, nails raking into the dirt; it took all his efforts not to melt all over again; he was so close.

You could tell the sounds were different from his bedroom; there’s a faint white noise that idn’t the hum of his air conditioning.

“I think I hear birds.”

“You’d be correct,” Suna smiles, watching as a flock of nightjars make their way over his head. “It’s somewhere you’ve been.” Somewhere we’ve been. Suna can’t count how long it’s been since he’s come here with you. One time he brought a picnic blanket and a box of baked goods he had made the night before, and although they were slightly burnt and sour for some reason you enjoyed the way he fed you, cupping your cheek to tell you how beautiful you were. The two of you lay on your backs, hands loosely intertwined watching the thick clouds slowly pass, carving out shapes, although his were almost always unnecessarily vulgar. 

“Hmm, is that water?” 

“Indeed it is.” A couple meters from Suna’s feet is the ice cold water of a river, crystal clear, moss lightly decorating the rocks lining the border. Suna can practically feel the bite of the cold water on his feet. Balancing on your tiptoes trying not to wet the hem of your jeans. Suna was scared you were going to slip or maybe even cut your foot on something but you insisted he could just carry you on your way back home. Squatting in the river, you leaned down to cup the water in your hands, splashing it into your face. Suna hopped across logs and rocks, trying to escape from your wet and freezing cold hands and lips, cupping his cheeks and planting rough kisses through giggles. 

This place has so many memories. This is where the two of you had talked about getting married. Suna never thought he would tie the knot so young, thinking there was never going to be a person he’d see himself coupled with for the rest of his life. Yet there you were, your hands massaging his scalp, toying with his brown locks, Suna’s head resting on your chest with his arms wrapped around you. And he just couldn’t help himself. ‘Do you wanna get married’ he had asked you, because honestly, he truly believed he was the happiest he ever was and ever could be. 

“I’m in the meadow, behind your house.”

“Did you rinse Max’s grave?”

Suna chuckles, nodding his head, “I rinsed Max’s grave.” Looking around, he can see that the late afternoon sun was starting to dip below the trees, its flare disrupted by the thicket of branches. “I realized we never decided on an answer.” He takes your momentary silence as confusion. “When I asked you if you wanted to get married, you never had the chance to get back to me.” Suna knows you’re caught off guard, because you promised to keep your potential engagement a secret until you were sure. 

“Do you still want to marry me?” 

“I would love to,” Suna pauses, gripping the grass with all his strength to muster up the next few words, “but you aren’t you. What I never appreciated about Y/N was that they were always surprising me, that’s why I could never grow tired of them.” Clutching his phone, Suna thinks of every memory he had saved on it. “And that’s why you’ll never be enough.” He feels a stream of tears drip to his chin. The meadow looks different from when he had come to sprinkle your ashes, unlike that day, the sun was out, its warm glare reflecting off the surface of the stream, he could actually hear the sounds of nature around him instead of being shrouded in deafening wind. When the sun had died, the world had kept moving, and it was time for Suna to do the same.

Suna isn’t sure if he’d ever find someone who made him as happy as you did. To think he was so ready to shape his entire life around you, that even after your death you still had him wrapped around your finger. No one could live up to you, not even if it tried. Hearing your voice was never going to be enough for Suna. 

He can’t stand the idea of your lasting presence in his life being whatever this shallow mimicry of your perfection was. 

Suna would rather have all of you or none of you. 

“I understand.” Suna lets himself stand up, feeling the breeze hit the back of his legs. Without even ending the call, Suna tosses the phone, watching the water splash around where it lands, seeing the screen glitch, the phone flowing along the water out of sight.

Suna takes in the view from where he stands, his eyes raking over the rolling hills with moving grass. 

‘Do you wanna get married’ he had asked you, because he truly couldn’t picture wanting anyone in his life more. You looked at him, cupping his cheek, brushing a brown lock out of his face.

‘Of course. I’ll be with you no matter what,’ pressing a gentle kiss to his nose. 

As long as Suna was alive, his heart beating and his chest rising, with every strike of his sole against the ground, he would remember you, and you would always be there with him.