[クロ月 | KuroTsuki]: On My Knees (Begging You To Touch Me)

30. Unvoiced Words {TW}

- I am almost done...  -  Kuroo said sadly, his head dropping to the front.  –  Give me 5 more minutes, Kouhai...

Despite those words, Tetsurō did not go on, not straight away. He rather gave some time to Tsukishima to calm down, it was all pointless otherwise. The sobs shook the fragile shoulders, and Kuroo's heart was breaking, but he knew he needed to give him space, apart from time. They both knew it.

***

Time didn't matter here, amid the hills and mountains. Time was meaningless, it was not wasted; it was vacant, just a human societal construct  –  here it was something bluntly artificial. Nature followed its course, as it always did, and they were forced to obey, and follow with it. 

So, time passed, and then it didn't, and then it really didn't matter.

After what might have been 5 minutes, or 50 minutes, or maybe 5 hours, Kei finally managed to control himself, and turned his unseeing eyes to stare at the dark figure, sitting there, a blurred silhouette against a background of white and grey and hues-of-brown patches of color, and  –  had it not been for Tetsurō's voice  –  it wouldn't have made too much sense.

But, paradoxically still, it was all that mattered to Tsuki, that voice. It was history, it was memory, and it was still fraught with ache, as the past hurt, it was still hurting them, so many years later.

- I...  -  Kuroo's voice broke the wordless intermission faintly.  –  I thought I could... participate. You know? In life. Parties with friends, with colleagues... Girls flirting, social media contacts and chats... photos, discos... It all sounded like such a bad idea that I couldn't even force myself to fake it. I couldn't even bear to watch women, the way they were degrading themselves, just to... be closer to me...

Tsukishima shuddered, cold, too cold now, alone.

- There was a little bit of that in Hotaru-chan too, at first, I think... but... maybe it was all in my head. I used to be a heart-breaker at high school, as you remember... Funny! Just how the tables had turned! Now I was the one suffering the most horrible heartbreak. Perhaps it was justice. On some days, I was telling myself that I deserved it all... On other days, I knew that it was immature and childish of me to fret over just one rejection... My sister used to tell me there's a lot of fish in the sea, as the old saying goes, but... Well... It was back then, when we were still talking, me and her...

It all sounded so lonely  that Kei's undefeatable instinct to just hug him overpowered him so much that he crawled closer very very quickly, making Kuroo gasp, surprised, and all his body went taut as the tall blonde straddled him and gave him a suffocating hug, tight and strong, and sure.

***

A sigh. Relief.

Who sighed? Which one of them let out that sad sigh? Or was it the wind, the forest? Was it the frost-bitten day that stirred the air, was it the mountain? Was it the sun of the aging day? The dirty-looking clouds, littering the high skies of early afternoon? Was it their past? Or was it their future?

That sigh sounded like a good-bye. Tsukishima felt his blood freeze, expecting worse, expecting the worst, inevitably, expecting to be told that this reunion of theirs mattered not, that it was just a nostalgic piece of obsolete history repeating. A fling. A whim. A pain to be dealt with, gotten over.

Shivering awfully, craving for Tetsurō to hug him back, he listened, afraid. It was all cathartic, yes, and it was terrifying, at best. It was a small death, and there was nothing he could really do about it.