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He reeks of stars and galaxies, that boy.
He's the boy waving in his memories, the one that his eyes could spot immediately, not because of his ridiculous height, but because of something more innate, as if it's meant to happen, as if it's only natural.
His photographic memory fondly remembers everything about his face, scenery and events, high-quality and glowing, like the photographs you put in frames that last for a lifetime. Silver hair, wide eyes, all of him, behind the sunflowers, pressed against him on the bleachers, jumping, blocking, arms gangling and awkward but it still works, like a trump card, like a miracle, like how things with him always go.
As if it's what he's made of.
He reeks of stars and galaxies. He leaves behind the trail of it on everything he touches.
Yaku could feel stars beating in his veins.
"I feel like you're dying," Lev said, face scrunching up, morphing into some form that Yaku was trying his best not to laugh at.
"Dying," Yaku repeated, looking up at the sky they're under, white trails over the blanket of blue.
"You know. Tomorrow is our last game, and all. It's like a funeral."
"Funeral." He repeated once more, before he let out a breathless laugh. "Lev, I'm only graduating. You'll still be playing next year."
"It won't be the same without you," Lev replied, head on Yaku's lap,and he tilted to one side to meet the shorter boy's eyes, "but I don't regret choosing Nekoma to play with you, Yaku-senpai."
And then he smiled, grin and stars and all, which was stupid because the sun was higher than Hinata's jump, but he could feel a thousand of galaxies shifting and moving underneath the existence of the boy on his lap, and something that tasted like me too and it's not the last was burning on his throat. And it's all poetic, really, so poetic that Yaku literally cried.
"Unfair," he muttered, as Lev sat up and cupped his face, thumbs grazing the corners of his eyes, pushing the tears away, warm and gentle and smiling.
Galaxies. Sunflowers.
"It's raining."
The sky never darkened throughout that day.
His fingers deftly moved from one key to another, the piano elegantly giving him the exact sounds that he wanted to get, floating, surrounding both of them. Lev sat on the floor, back leaning on the chair Yaku was occupying, and the latter knew even without looking that the Russian was smiling.
"Dmitri Shostakovich?"
"I thought you couldn't really speak Russian," Yaku replied, fingers working on perfect muscle memory as he shifted more of his focus on Lev. "Jazz Suite, No. 2."
Lev opted not to reply to the first jab, and instead rolled his head to rest it on Yaku's lap as the shorter one played, and Yaku knew it was kind of unfair, to play this while Lev was like this, but he felt the need to. "My grandmother used to play this."
(Yaku swallowed down the questions: What was she like? How does she speak? Were you two close?)
He shifted to the second movement, lullaby, and felt Lev move his head, just a few inches, kissed his knees.
"Thank you."
He played the piece perfectly, but even so, something in him felt dislodged.
(He bid Lev farewell the next day on the airport, as he flew off for his grandmother's funeral.)
Stepping into Nekoma's gym after a year of college was weird, like coming back to your hometown, only to find out that your old apartment was already demolished and Old Man Mizono already passed away. Like fostering a flower and making it bloom beautifully, only for someone to come and take it away, proclaiming ownership when you were the only one that got your hands dirty.
Alright, so maybe not something that sounds as bitter-inducing as that, but he came back to second years as third years and a whole new crop of bright-faced, passionate freshmen, ready to take the world by storm. He watched the others--former teammates like Taketora and Sou and Shibayama, only managing to give a small wave before they went back to practice, making a gesture as if to say sorry, wait a little bit. He shooed them away, grin on his face.
They exuded enthusiasm and passion, so much that it very nearly rekindled the already-long gone flame in Yaku, tampered down by responsibilities and studies and telescope operations and how to locate the stars. Seeing them fired up and ready to go, though, made him think of the time where he was still 165 cm, glowing and feverish with want to win, to hold the world in his hands.
New coaches. New members.
"Morisuke!"
Same team.
He turned and saw Lev running towards him, still sticking out like a bean sprout, awkward but familiar, so familiar that he could feel the gym morph back into what it felt like from three years ago until last year, when he too, was still someone who was ready to take on the world.
As Lev enveloped him in a huge hug, sweat and all but he didn't mind, he didn't mind because the only thing he could think of was the word home.
"I want a turtle," Lev said, head resting over Yaku's, much to the latter's chagrin. "I want a turtle. They look strong."
"Turtles are bad luck," Yaku retaliated, but looked over the displayed pet, anyway, along with Lev. "They said they slow down the income, or something."
It was the middle of January, the snow still falling, and there they stood, buried in beanies and scarves and coats, paper bags and plastics hanging off their hands. There was a lot of people, but they managed to gather most of the things they needed, what with Lev's sentimentality that asked for much cups and Yaku's aesthetic that ended up with most of their furniture and household materials being as simple and minimalist as possible.
It felt like their chests were going to burst.
The excitement that one gets from living with someone you love, alone, is unbearable at most, and here they are, walking around Tokyo, picking out things for their new apartment--their home.
It was worth it.
They came home with more than ten plates, eight cups, forks and spoons and knives, a frying pan, and all the other things that they purchased from the furniture store. The turtle slept in his aquarium, named "Haizuke", aquarium on a safe place, on a mini table beside the bookshelf that arrived the day before.
They stepped back, took it all in, and at the ages of 19 and 20, they fully learned what it meant to belong.
Lev's laughs were the kind that traveled through his veins and exploded in his stomach.
Christmas lights were placed up, hanging around and across the huge windows of their apartment. The place itself was spacious and somewhere far from the city. There was something that sounded like "Jingle Bells" playing on the radio, stacks and stacks of books, comics, reference materials and readings littered around the place.
The music was loud, but he didn't mind.
"Can't build the Christmas Tree alone," he heard from behind him, tone whining, and Yaku wondered if he accidentally moved in and dated a five year old for years. "Help me."
"Fine, fine."
So they did.
It was when they got stuck for forty minutes at the vending machine that ate up Lev's ￥100 that he first realized that he was so, so fucked.
"Why did you even jam in a hundred yen? Don't you have any change?"
"I don't. But I wanted to buy you a drink, Yaku-san."
He blinked at Lev, confused and asking for an explanation. Lev turned red; the weight of his words probably just sinking in by then, fidgety and reluctant to answer Yaku's unvoiced question.
"I. I wanted you to feel... appreciated?"
Lev turned even redder, and Yaku, realizing but not yet fully comprehending, stared him, speechless, mouth opening, before closing it and bringing a hand up his face to cover it, he's so fucked, so fucked for falling in love with this boy, and he'll probably regret it, someday, but he doesn't really care anymore, he thinks.
"Yaku-san?"
"It's nothing," Yaku said, taking his hand away from his face, looking straight at Lev before moving forward, holding his hands.
"All's good."
"You didn't need to buy this for me," Yaku whispered, tucked underneath the comforters with Lev beside him. "this is expensive."
"It isn't really!"
Thousands of stars spread themselves against their ceilings and walls and everything else, constellations and clusters, and when Lev lifted a hand to point towards the Orion, there were stars that embedded its' selves on his arm, glittering against his skin.
They spent their time whispering the names and details of the constellations, the stars, how they move, how far away they are.
"Even if they look like they're almost touching?" Lev asked, eyes wide in wonder and amazement, emerald reflecting the stars.
Yaku stared at him, choking down the words thank you and I love you. "Yeah."
It wouldn't turn on, no matter what Yaku did.
He googled it already, but after the fifth "I have the same problem" in the third forum he checked, he gave up, opened his normal lamp, collapsing on the bed.
He gave the space projector lamp a side long glance, longing and unrelenting, before trying one more time. He got a flashback of the stars exploding in his room, from a few years ago, when they still lit up and when the bed wasn't as cold and lonely.
His hands went limp, still holding the cord, eyes softly looking down the lamp.
"It doesn't matter, anymore."
He kicked the vending machine, hoping that it would either spit his money out, or give him what he wanted.
He sighed, before pressing another button, causing the machine to make some whirring sound, and he wondered how he forgot that half the vending machines in Tokyo were made from the deepest part of hell. He should know better than anyone.
His eyes stared harder at the machine as it made some dying sounds, noting the green exterior, faded, shade familiar and nostalgic, for some reason.
The vending machine already spat out the Fanta the moment he realized why.
The Christmas tree collected dust in the closet.
Yaku moved out of the apartment every Christmas to either celebrate with his fellow university professors, or with Kuroo and Kenma.
This year, he celebrated it alone, looking down at the Christmas lights that illuminated the campus grounds, standing up on the Observatory Tower. Fireworks exploded, up in the sky, higher than the distant Ferris wheel that he could see, the spark struggling to replace the stars that didn't show up that night. The snow falling was mild, the air chilly, and he leaned over the edge, hands nursing the warm can of tea he bought earlier.
He let out a breathy laugh, vapor coming out his mouth, dissipating in the air, the silence somehow more unbearable.
"Merry Christmas," he muttered; the cold air piercing his lungs, and he convinced himself that that's the reason for his tears.
The turtle was bad luck. But it's not the turtle's fault.
At 25, Yaku learned how to lose something and not blame anything.
There's something about spending team reunions in the cemetery, where no one minds if you pretend for a while that he still exists, where no one sends you a look of pity or asks you if you're alright every five seconds. There's something about feeling grateful to have people who knows exactly what to do. There's something about the gravestone feeling less cold every May, when you pass the beer around and eat a picnic, when the smell of the flowers bought isn't as suffocating as usual, when it doesn't feel lonely.
But there's also something about feeling all the emotions come back the moment you step in your apartment after, the realization still hitting you hard after five years, fingers tingling, head hurting, you want him back.
You haven't tasted the word home in years.
Yaku pressed in a few notes, not really paying attention.
He could still remember the ghost of the warmth that always stayed on the floor by his feet, leaning on him, kissing his knees, thank you.
There was none.
There was only a draft of a eulogy and a lone pen.
"Words can only help you if you speak them. I never told you I love you. You never told me you were dying. It was the shock I never needed. Until now, medical jargons can't fit in my mouth the way stars or galaxies or your name does. I don't know what happened, what caused this, but all I now is that I never got to say goodbye. And you were a morning star. And like every great star, you leave a great black hole in your wake."
But time heals all wounds. There would be a day where when you wake up, the sun is shining in a way that makes you feel better, and everything seems lighter, and you feel the coldness slowly disappear, like baby teeth. It gradually climbs down, letting in warmth that you thought you lost forever.
Then you feel it.
The gentle thumping of your heart underneath your chest, a gentle reminder, green eyes and silver hair. Welcome home.
It fixes you.
Yaku's heart skips a beat when the star lamp opened, eyes widening, taking in the appearance of the stars floating in front of him once again, unwanted tears suddenly springing out of his eyes.
For a moment, he could hear Lev's voice, amused, endearing. It's raining.
He could feel the stars beating in his veins.