limerence + various

fleetingly so : ba

its quiet without him.

+

keiji's dirty laundry was his depression.

it was rooted deep within him, like an old tree. he had learned to put up such an act that almost nobody could see through his opaque mask.

only koutarou.

the bad days came like the rain. they came like wildfires and snow storms. they came like lions, they came like earthquakes, like tsunamis. they came quick and the left slowly.

the good days came like sunday mornings. they came like soft breezes and light snow. they came like sheep, like the comforting bumping of riding a bike on a sunny afternoon, they came like soft waves. they came slowly and left quickly.

koutarou remembers rain and wildfires and snowstorms and earthquakes and tsunamis in those last agonizing days.

there were tears, there were days of silence when nothing was said between either of them, and there were mixes of the two.

there were days where everything seemed fine, and there were days when keiji walked around the house all day with a dark shadow following him and hell upon his shoulders.

there were days when koutarou didn't see keiji at all. those were the days that worried him the most.

and now there are no days like any of those.

the house they shared now provides shelter for only one.

koutarou remembers coming home from the funeral, after listening to sob story after sob story about how his old teammates, his friends, his colleagues, coworkers just couldn't believe that akaashi keiji could kill himself. they didn't know, they couldn't possibly know.

he remembers walking through the threshold and standing there a moment before sinking to the floor in despair.

on the welcome mat, he had cried all the tears he had tried to hide from keiji throughout those last days.

why upset him even more with koutarou's worthless sadness and tears?

after all, tears don't bring back the dead. they don't cure depression. they don't rid those bad days.

after he was done, he vaguely remembers dashing through the house and drawing the curtains on every single window.

why would there be light?

he had looked to the sky from the last window and asked himself this. after all, the brightest star in his galaxy was six feet under.

so why does the sun deserve to shine? why does the moon deserve to rise? why do the stars deserve to be wished upon?

the world should be drowned in darkness, he thought. no light should grace the earth ever again, because what light could replace keiji?

keiji never was a loud person, always reserved and never causing a scene, but the house was so painfully quiet without him there.

koutarou missed the favorite songs that keiji liked to play.

he missed that movie he used to run all the time, he missed the excited expression that came upon keiji's face every time he watched it.

he missed walking into their shared room to find keiji drawing, or maybe painting, maybe laughing while talking to a friend on the phone.

it was only after keiji killed himself that koutarou realized he was the best kind of loud.

he was that kind of loud that you couldn't possibly ignore. many would agree with him that keiji was beautiful. his soft features from his dark eyes to his short curly hair that was perfect for running fingers through.

he was loud in that he was always present. maybe he was quiet, sucked into some sort of distraction, but he was always there.

it was the truth that he never made much noise in the house, but now it was actually silent. painfully, horribly silent.

there were no soft smiles, quiet reassurances of love, nothing left of the relationship that koutarou had cherished so deeply. it was so silent.

deafeningly silent.

it has been a few years since those last days, that one day, the day of the funeral. koutarou still believes there is no light to replace the one he had.

he still believes the sun should lay low, the moon should never grace the night sky, and that the stars should never twinkle.

but over everything, over his bitterness, over his self loathing, he misses him.

his soft smile, his gentle aura, his eyes once so full of life.

koutarou didn't see that soft smile, the lively eyes or his gentle aura in his final days.

he was a shell.

he was akaashi keiji, that much koutarou knew, but was he really?

before he died, was he actually already gone?

sometimes koutarou wonders what their future was going to look like. where they going to get married? adopt a child? would they have an argument over who's family to visit during the holidays, would they adopt a dog? a cat? would they grow old together?

he knows it's senseless, because what is wondering going to do?

their future is nonexistent.

it used to pierce a new hole through koutarou's heart whenever he thought thoughts such as these, but as of now he's calloused.

that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt, though.

his life is quiet, and he misses that loud but ever silent presence of keiji's.

it's something he knows is irreplaceable.