Butterfly Kisses- ON HOLD (Matsukawa Issei x OC)

[9] Biston Betularia

Not even for a moment
do things stand still-witness
color in the trees.
-Seiju

🦋 💀 🦋

[December 4, 2019]

Sitting on the seat of his motorcycle in the parking lot of the Serenity Funeral Home, Matsukawa had his cell phone held to his ear, a cigarette resting between his fingers in his other hand. He looked up at the stars in the night sky while he listened to his friend ramble, regretting even calling his former captain for advice.

"If you don't go and see her I am going to come back to Japan to make you," Oikawa nagged, the sound of Iwaizumi in the background trying to take the phone away from him. "Iwa-chan stop! Anyways, I'm serious, Matsu-kun. Stop letting things go that you deserve, this girl clearly likes you, something just must be going on."

"But she said she didn't want to hang out yesterday," Matsukawa muttered, flicking some of the ashes off of his cigarette. "Wouldn't it be...weird to just show up at the museum tonight?"

"Haven't you been doing that for weeks anyways? You said she sounded sad when you called her yesterday- just go check on her! Maybe she wants to talk and is just afraid to," Oikawa explained, gasping when Iwaizumi took the cell phone out of his hands and sprinted to the other side of the room.

"Usually I don't agree with Tooru, but he is right here," Iwaizumi said, Matsukawa smiling to himself at Iwaizumi calling his boyfriend by his first name, and not an insult like Shittykawa or Trashykawa. "Maybe she's lonely without her brother at home and doesn't want to bother you. You know how girls are, they say they're fine and don't want to see you when what they really want is the opposite. Just like how back in high school Tooru woul-"

"Are you implying I'm a girl?!" Oikawa shrieked, Matsukawa chuckling under his breath and taking a drag of his cigarette while he listened to the couple bicker.

"You sound like one with how you're yelling right now!" Iwaizumi shouted back. It didn't take long for Matsukawa to hear the sounds of the two of them wrestling, Iwaizumi letting out a groan when Oikawa pushed him onto the floor. Matsukawa wasn't sure what was going on, but when he heard Oikawa whisper the phrase, "let me top tonight and we'll see if you call me a girl after that," he quickly ended the call and shoved his phone back into his bag.

Exhaling the smoke into the dark, cold December air, Matsukawa looked at the red embers of the cigarette burning while he thought over what to do. He was supposed to hang out with Himari yesterday, but got a text from her saying she was still tired after her exams and wanted to go right to sleep after work. While Matsukawa had no problem with this, he felt like he could tell through her texts something was wrong. She didn't use any exclamation points or emojis, little details of her text style he had grown used to. He called Himari wanting to make sure she wasn't in any danger or anything, and the faint tone of sadness in her voice worried him- as she was usually always cheery.

He wasn't sure if it was something he did wrong or if there was something external going on, deciding not to press her because he didn't feel like it was his place to. Instead, Matsukawa asked if she wanted to hang out Friday instead and Himari said sure, but all day she hadn't sent me a message to confirm their plans. Matsukawa texted her 2 hours to go to check in and to see if she still wanted to meet up, and the response he got was"if you'd still like to."

That message drove him crazy for the rest of his shift at the funeral home, unsure of how to interpret it. He texted Hanamaki to ask him for advice, and he texted Matsukawa back saying it seemed like she wasn't into him anymore. When he got off of work he texted Oikawa, who immediately called him to speak instead of typing. After talking to Oikawa and Iwaizumi, he knew they were right. He needed to go see Himari in person to figure out what was going on, the tone in her voice yesterday still making him worried.