For @tetsvhoe S Please Dont Say You Love Me Collab (angst)

for @tetsvhoe ’s please don’t say you love me collab (angst)

kiyoomi watches as his daughter’s hand holds yours, clutching tightly onto your shirt as she stares up at him with wide eyes.

and they’re disappointed.

he feels a hole rip itself into the middle of his heart, and he wonders how he’d let it get this far. how something as familiar as family has become so distant, he doesn’t know where he lies or what his part is anymore. he’s held her hand so many times, helped her waddle through her first steps, walked her to school on her first day, played with her in the backyard through afternoon adventures.

and suddenly, she’s too far from his grasp.

he’s held yours so many times, through first dates and rough days, through happy moments and random spurs of clinginess, through self doubts and even just simple mornings laying together. you’ve always been there, just a simple reach away, your fingers connecting with his just like the strings of your hearts, interlacing and becoming one.

and you’ve been reaching, trying to grasp him desperately, but he’s never reached back.

“the papers will be sent to you by my lawyer soon. and—”

he cuts you off with wet eyes and wobbly lips, with his heart shattered and ruined and ugly, but he offers it to you anyway because kiyoomi’s willing to give you all he has—every fiber of his being, even if it’s not enough.

“please, don’t go,” he croaks, and suddenly, he notices how the paint on the walls of your house—the ones you’d happily painted together after your marriage—is chipping by the front door.

he hadn’t noticed the cracks before now.

kiyoomi’s begging you through his eyes—they’re dark and obsidian, but you find a way to make them shine a warm brown in the middle, and he can’t lose that. he’s desperately trying to get you to see his heart and soul, that they’re yours. he presses them to your hands, and he craves the safety they bring, but somehow the home he’s found in you is desolate of its usual warmth.

“kiyoomi—”

“i’m omi. you…i’m your omi,” he whispers, his voice cracking in the middle. and then his eyes drop to her, the sweet voice in his dreams, the giggles in the mornings, the hugs after work, the goodnight kisses and bedtime story cuddles and the bridge to his future, they’re all in her. “princess, where…where are you going?”

“we’re going on a trip,” she whispers. “just us two. ‘cause you’re never here, daddy.”

and finally, finally, kiyoomi’s breath stutters as he chokes on a sob—the family he’s been searching for his whole life, the one he’s built with his own hands, is falling apart from the seams.

and on any other day, though his hands are callused, they’re also warm, and you hold them anyway. but he’s a phantom now, the ghost feeling of his touch just a lost memory, an old engraving in your brain.

“y/n, you can’t do this,” he sobs, the tears streaking down his face and collecting at his chin. he’s never wanted his daughter to see him like this, but his world is being plucked from his hands and he’s got no other place to call home. “you can’t! you… you just can’t—”

“and why not, kiyoomi?” you raise your voice, and your daughter flinches slightly. the shattered remains of his heart all but disintegrate at the sight. she’s too good for this world, too good to witness this—this mess he’s created. “why the hell not? tell me something, kiyoomi. would you even realize we’re gone? huh? would you? it’s not like we’re a part of your daily routine anymore. you wouldn’t feel a thing if we walked out this door.”

he wishes he could show you, physically offer you the scene of his heart wilting the second your foot would step out the door, but he can’t, and he’s at a loss.

“of course i would! what are you saying? why wouldn’t i feel anything? you’re my whole life!” you laugh, and it’s bitter, there’s not a trace of humor, but he still feels helpless at the sound. it rings off the chipped paint of the walls and mocks him.

“you have one hell of a way of showing it,” you sneer.

and with a shaky whisper of “i love you, i love you both,” he reaches out, but you step back and your daughter is tugged along.

he offers you the words you’ve desperately tried to hear through the echoes of your memory, but they’ve become as far away as your husband himself, and you don’t care for them now.

“don’t say that now,” you whisper. “please don’t say you love me now.” and with a sigh, you straighten your shoulders, almost like you’re rolling the remnants of his love off your body. “the divorce papers will be sent to you, and we’ll handle how often our daughter gets to see you at court. but don’t contact me.” and he sinks to his knees when he hears the door slam shut, wishing he’d said i love you just once when you needed it most.

i kinda wanna post a selfie on here since its been ages but 😩

Hi hi I can spend hours on your blog haha

Might be a weird ask, but could you write something along the lines of y/n period coming during sex and the haikyuus boys reactions?

I don’t mind who I write for I love all of them hehe

HOW THEY REACT WHEN YOU GET YOUR PERIOD DURING SEX

characters: timeskip!iwaizumi + kenma + tendou + tsukishima + (gn!reader)

warnings: nsfw and it's really filthy i'm sorry 😭

notes: the idea of someone spending hours on my blog is so wild to me but thank u! haha <3

★ iwaizumi would not care one bit, his pace doesn't falter, neither does his expression––he's still 100% in the moment, attracted to you and his only focus is on pleasuring you. he leans in and pants against your ear as he continues to pound into you, "you're bleeding all over my cock baby, making such a fucking mess." and normally you'd be embarrassed, but you can tell by the strong thrusts of his hips and the way he's moaning in your ear that he does not care one bit. "don't worry doll, i'll help clean you up after," he slides his hand down to rub your clit, grinning when you jolt and moan. "but for now, let's make an even bigger mess of this fucking pussy."

★ kenma would glance down and slow his thrusts for a moment, eyes extremely focused on where you're connected, watching the way you're coating him with your slick and a hint of red. "ken?" your voice is small and breathy and once you realize what's happened, your breath hitches but he looks up at you and the look in his eyes is fierce, "i'll stop if you want me to, but just know that i really don't want to."

★ tendou is kinda sadistic so weirdly the thought of you bleeding while he's fucking you turns him on sdfghjk. once he takes notice he literally grins and leans closer to you, to lick up your neck, his tone sing-songy and teasing, "looks like you're bleeding a little, pretty baby..." you try to look down to see how bad it is, no doubt in your mind he's putting it lightly, but he grabs your jaw with a large hand and looks into your eyes, a glint in his own as he smiles. "don't worry, i won't let a little blood stop me from making your eyes roll back."

★ tsukishima would without a doubt degrade you even more once he sees it. you see him raise a brow, his eyes focused between your legs but before you can say anything he's speaking up, a mischievous and lustful look in his eyes. "god you can't go a second without making a mess, can you? bleeding and creaming all over me––such a filthy little thing you are." and when you moan and clench immediately from his words? he knows he has you exactly where he wants you.

LEAVE A TIP <3 (if you’d like)

helpless

+ angst. suna x f!reader. timeskip.

+ wrote something a little short and quick, have some angst <3 ahem also hope you have a happy birthday @sunasbabie ;)

“What do you like about me then?”

Your helpless giggle brings him back to the first time he ever interacted with you, during sophomore year at the sports festival when you not-so-subtly slipped a love letter into his locker when you thought the volleyball team would be playing. (Suna wasn’t surprised that you were that muddle-headed to mix up the volleyball and basketball matches.)

“Didn’t my love letter say all?”

Suna scoffs, “thought you said it wasn’t a love letter?” His arm wraps around you, his voice deep and low against your ear, just like he always does whenever he’s teasing you.

“Like you ever believed me,” you challenge, pouting and crossing your arms. You tear your eyes away from him in favour for the city lights down below—and Suna can’t say he doesn’t like how they glitter in your eyes, and how your hair dances in the chilly night wind.

“You haven’t answered my question.”

Your groan tells him you’re about to embarrass yourself by entertaining him, but Suna smirks because he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“You’re hot,” you shrug, and while it sounds like music to his ears, he shoves you playfully, earning a laugh from you. “Hey, isn’t this the part where you say ‘you too’?”

Suna tips your chin up to face him, “I happen to think you’re gorgeous.” His fingers move up to squish your cheeks, “see? You look adorable even with your face all scrunched up.”

You swat his hand away, frowning instead. “That’s what you say to all the girls.”

“You jealous, babe?”

“Don’t ‘babe’ me, Suna Rintarou.” Yeah, because somehow you always get flustered whenever he calls you any sort of pet name. “Such a flirt.”

“Maybe.” But no, he isn’t. If he was, he would be replying to everyone in his DMs who were 95% girls trying to shoot their shot with him. Or even replying to the ones on his Tinder account, none of which interest him enough.

“I like how you’re very passionate about volleyball, even though it doesn’t look like it.” Your voice snaps him out of his thoughts. He glances at you to find your gaze fixed on the skyline, your fingers nervously picking at the hem of your jacket. “I like the way you’re so brutally honest sometimes. I like how you’re lowkey affectionate too.”

“Lowkey?” Suna meant to cut you off, to change the topic, because this sounded cornier than he expected. But even so, it was nice to hear. Especially coming from you.

“Mhm, and you’re such an ass sometimes but it’s pretty entertaining,” you conclude, probably deciding it was way too cheesy as well—Suna likes that, how you both have the same threshold on certain things.

“If I’m an ass, cut me off then,” he tells you, ruffling the top of your head.

“You’re not getting rid of me that easy, Rin,” you reply, grinning and throwing your arms around him. His grip tightens around your waist, breathing you in.

In this moment everything is perfect. It’s nearly your birthday, and—he peers down at his watch; it’s a second to midnight—he gets a hug from the most beautiful girl in the bar, your arms squeezing him and your cheek pressed against his chest.

“I love you, Suna Rintarou,” you comment with a lilt—almost like you’re joking somehow. You always were so elusive with emotions.

Before Suna can even say anything, a crowd gathers around singing ‘happy birthday’ to you. He pulls away and whispers in your ear, “you totally knew this was coming, didn’t you?”

You nod in response, but you act surprised anyway, Atsumu running to you from inside and enveloping you in a big hug. Osamu makes a comment about how Atsumu is being way too excited and getting in the way of the shot, and the blonde starts to bicker with his twin about how it would look great anyway since he was there.

Your other friends are still singing, ignoring their antics, and Suna sighs in exasperation, muttering an apology into your ear. You shake your head, “it’s fine, it’s been so long since I’ve seen everyone anyway.”

Suna observes as you try not to tear up from the fact that almost everyone freed their calendar to celebrate your birthday. It’s hard to miss your beaming face, even harder to miss how your dress hugs your body—and the hardest not to notice? How you’re absolutely brimming with bliss as your two-tiered black velvet cake is walked out onto the balcony.

“Happy birthday, princess.”

He doesn’t notice until then that your smile is less because of the cake than it is the person who carried it out. Behind the candles pops out your boyfriend’s face, sharp gaze fixed on you, attention placed solely on the birthday girl.

“Thank you, handsome,” you reply, jumping into his arms after he sets the cake down on the table. The way your forehead presses against each other only serve to remind Suna that no matter how close the two of you are that he would never get to know you that intimately. The kiss he plants on your lips is a reality check; Suna would have been the lucky one if he had just spent less time playing around. The whispers you share with him only make Suna feel like an idiot for even having that earlier conversation hoping for an inkling of the same affection you showed to your boyfriend.

He should’ve known better than that. After all, your fierce loyalty is one of the reasons Suna admired you. And in the hushed, shy way you tell your boyfriend “I love you”, Suna can tell that you mean it in a completely different way than you did earlier. (Suna doesn’t miss the way your boyfriend’s eyes meet his for just a split second—eyes full of doubt for just a moment.)

“More than anyone else?”

Suna almost wishes he was deaf. Everyone else is busy chattering among themselves, but Suna can’t take his eyes off of you.

Your eyes, though, are only locked on your boyfriend. “I promise you, Mr Hirugami, I love you more than anyone else.”

Your words are a thorn in Suna’s heart. He supposes it’s his fault for not being upfront with his feelings, for always playing it off as nothing.

Sachiro gives you a peck on the forehead. “Keep saying things like that and I might just have to give you my last name.”

It’s like all other sounds have muffled into the background, and all Suna can hear is the love drunk confession of two lovebirds.

“Maybe I want you to.”

A nudge from Osamu snaps Suna’s mind back into the foreground. “Honestly thought she would’ve ended up with you.”

“Does it matter?”

You’re blowing out the candles now, and your boyfriend has given you the biggest kiss on your cheek. Suna almost finds it nauseating.

“No, but if you ever wanted to chase her, better do it before it’s really too late.”

Suna doesn’t bother to answer. Just by looking at you he already knows; you’re happy right where you are. Who is he to take that away from you? He already lost the moment he took his time to figure it out. By the time he did, you had already been swept off your feet by another.

Just as sure as Suna is of his feelings now, he’s also sure of your feelings too. And just as much as he knows he feels for you, he also knows you feel just as much for another.

So maybe watching from a distance and not interfering is the best present he can possibly give you.

[9:25 PM] — SAKUSA KIYOOMI

Kiyoomi remembers vividly the empty house and quiet evenings of his childhood. He’s been told not now, Kiyoomi far more times than he can recount, and it’s ingrained in him. He’s too often been an afterthought, there’s never really been time for him, and he’s grown used to that.

But he looks down at two little orbs, same shade of obsidian as his—and unlike his, they’re wide and curious. They shine with trust, a trust in him and you and in the world that things will be good, and he doesn’t wanna ruin that. There are tiny hands that reach up and expect his to be waiting, and he makes sure they are. He promises he’ll be good, that he’ll do things differently.

The Sakusa’s haven’t always been known for being a tight knit family, but he wants to change the course of things, and he does his best. So when news comes that soon there’ll be another baby, Kiyoomi sees that there’s one person who’s not as thrilled as everyone else.

“What’s wrong, princess?” Kiyoomi crawls into the trampoline beside his daughter. Her pigtails are loose, stray hairs disarrayed from a long day of playing in the backyard, and he smiles at the chipped polish on her fingernails. He’ll have to repaint them soon.

It’s a tight squeeze, the trampoline’s built for a five year old, not a 6’4 well-built athlete, but he makes do with his legs pressed up to his chest, hand laying itself atop her unruly curls that match his.

“Nothing, daddy,” she mumbles quietly, fiddling with the tiara in her hands. Kiyoomi sighs softly, shifting to face her as best he can. It’s silent for a bit, until he decides to break it.

“Did you know I have a big sister?” She looks up at him, eyebrows furrowing in confusion, and her nose scrunches up the way yours does, making Kiyoomi’s eyes crinkle at the corners as he grins at the sight.

“Really?” He nods, pulling her body closer, and she curls into his warm chest, hand moving to grip his shirt as he kisses her forehead.

“Yeah, sure do. It’s your aunt, remember? You saw her during the summer at grandma’s house.”

“Oh,” she whispers. “She doesn’t talk a lot,” she recalls, and Kiyoomi hums. He’s never exactly been close with his sister, and he wants things to be different with his own family.

“We never really spent a lot of time together,” he explains.

“Is it because you stole her love, daddy? From your parents?” Blinking, Kiyoomi looks down, watching as a pout curls his daughter’s lips, her eyes a tad bit watery at the idea. Titling her chin up, he presses another kiss to her nose.

“Now, why would I do that?”

“Because that’s what little brothers do. And little sisters. I don’ wanna be a big sister, daddy,” she whispers. And Kiyoomi hugs her closer, his own eyes a little moist. He’s not sure why.

Maybe it’s because he feels like he’s done something right, that his daughter feels loved in the first place. Or maybe it’s because there’s a pang in his chest that she could think anything would steal even a sliver of his love for her. Kiyoomi never knew love could burn this brightly, but the embers are never dying, and he cherishes this feeling, these moments.

“That’s not true, princess,” he murmurs. Laying his cheek on her head, he looks ahead at the backyard, looking at the three chairs on the patio. Two big ones on either side of a tiny one. There was once only two, one for you and one for him, but now there’ll soon be a fourth, and he feels his heart swell. This is fatherhood, he thinks, when a chair becomes so much more than a chair.

“I don’ want you to forget me,” she whispers, voice hesitant, and it almost breaks his heart, but he’s made a promise—and he intends to keep it.

“I could never,” he promises. Grabbing the tiara from her hand, he gently smooths down the curls, carefully placing it on her head. Giving her nose a soft pinch, he smiles at her giggles. “You’re still my princess, even with another baby. I love you, always will.”

“What if the baby steals you away?” Huffing out a chuckle, he cradles her cheek in his palm. It’s small against his large hand, and he’s thankful that despite all the growing she’s done in the last five years, she’s not done needing him, not ready to grow out of his affections.

Love is a two way road, he’s reminded yet again—and he’s glad.

“Daddy’s don’t ever stop loving their babies, you know,” he mumbles against her head. “Even when you’re a big girl, I’ll always love you.”

“Even if there’s another baby?”

“Of course. You were my first baby.” She grips his shirt tighter, and Kiyoomi lays his hand on top of hers, rubbing her back gently as she listens to his heart beat through his chest. He wants to show her it’s beating for her, that her little pigtails and morning kisses and after school tea parties are what makes his world go round, but for now, he settles for this. Just the two of them sat in the tiny trampoline, savoring the way time stilled for a moment.

“Do you think I’ll be a good big sister?”

“The best,” he answers immediately. She relaxes in his hold, yawning tiredly from the long day of adventures, and Kiyoomi is just as excited for bed time cuddles during story as ever.

“I love you, daddy,” she says with a small grin. And Kiyoomi’s always wondered if he’s done a good job, if he’s been keeping his promise to himself—and thinks he just might have done that and more when he looks down and sees two wide eyes even brighter than before.

So, with a soft squeeze and a kiss to the crown of her head, he murmurs “I love you too, princess.”

a/n: spent the weekend with my best friend and her little nephews and i been sobbing over dad kiyoomi

reblogs are really appreciated !!

bergamot haze.

a/n: i listened to a new song that popped up on my youtube feed and here i am writing an angsty thing because of it. you can find your optional background music for this fic here. it might be that i was looking for an excuse to write introspective ushijima, too. for the friend who said it's "not in his character", it can be done. now add him to your harem. also, i am addicted to earl grey tea these days. please do not ask me when the last time i had a sip of water was. i do not know these things.

fandom: haikyuu!!

character: ushijima wakatoshi

genre: angst

warnings: -

word count: 4.1k

“I’m home,” Ushijima said, a force of habit.

He removed his shoes and placed them on the shoe rack by the front door, clearly noting that there were fewer pairs of shoes on it than he remembered. It was out of place, but he didn’t let it bother him. Ushijima shut the door behind him and locked it, and he walked further into the strangely dim apartment.

His slippers were there by the entryway, but yours weren’t.

There was something wrong with the apartment, but he couldn’t quite yet put his finger to it. Everything seemed okay, but the longer he looked at any one thing in the place, the more unseemly it became. Still, Ushijima pushed the uneasy feeling to the back of his mind with a swallow, and repeated his call of “I’m home, Y/N.”

He still didn’t receive a response.

Immediately, he went to the bedroom to check if you were taking a nap at this late hour. Ushijima pushed the door open and expected to find you bundled up on the bed, a reminder about keeping an established sleep schedule already on the tip of his tongue.

You weren’t there.

With a turn of his head, he took in the entirety of the master bedroom, and the feeling that something was very wrong sprung up again and refused to be ignored. A suspicion arose with the feeling, and Ushijima followed it, taking too-wide steps to the door of the walk-in closet.

One look was all it took for him to remember that you had already moved out. The realisation gave an explanation for the creeping feeling of disquiet that clung to him from the moment he unlocked the front door.

You had already moved out.

The shelves in the closet were bare of your clothes. You had an affinity for patterned socks for the longest time, and you were always buying new ones, even when you already had more than a hundred pairs. All hundred something pairs of your socks lined your shared closet and spilled over into drawers and shelves where socks shouldn’t be.

Ushijima never thought he would miss the jumble of colour that your collection of socks brought, but here he was.

You had already moved out.

The new awareness of that fact was starting to sink into his mind and deeper still into his bones, and suddenly, he felt a little bit numb. It was a kind of numbness that he was sure he couldn’t have explained, if ever he went to a doctor and wanted to receive some medication for it. It steeled his feet to the tile of the bedroom floor, and he couldn’t move from his spot even if he willed it.

Ushijima was still wearing his socks from training and his feet were in his house slippers. Even so, there was a cold seeping into his feet and it spread upwards frantically, like a bad fever. A phantom shiver born from a fever that wasn’t real passed over him in waves, decreasing in strength as they came, until it all subsided into numbness.

It was too late to have dinner when he managed to tear himself away from the doorway of the closet. He trudged to the kitchen, feet still too heavy and too cold, and searched for something that he could easily whip up and would fill him enough that he could wait to have a proper breakfast.

Something that would taste good even if he was eating alone.

The kitchen was soon filled with the sounds of cooking when he settled on making an omelette to go with the morning’s leftover rice that he had reheated. Ushijima whirled the centre of the omelette with his chopsticks, watching for when the entirety of the omelette would become opaque and he could flip the whole thing onto the rice.

As he set the table to eat, the two plates of food in his hands felt strange, too heavy. When he remembered again that you weren’t there, he slid what would’ve been your portion of dinner onto his plate and he set down both plates on the dinner table anyway and ate.

It was a strange and bitter experience, to be eating alone at a table for only two when he was used to seeing you at the place you claimed at the other end of it. The silence at the table was broken when the kettle on the stove began to whistle, and Ushijima remembered again that you were the one who liked to drink hot tea with your meals and not him.

He went to switch the burner off and opened the cabinet where you placed your tea. When he grabbed the box from the open cabinet, it too felt too heavy and too cold in his hands. Even reading the label felt wrong in your absence.

However, having set the tea bag in a mug that wasn’t yours and letting it steep, being surrounded by the scent of it was a much greater suffering than merely looking at the box itself.

There was a bright and slightly bitter citrus scent that hung in the air. Even when Ushijima was done with his admittedly too heavy dinner and washed it down with your tea, the scent lingered and followed him.

He didn’t stop to think that maybe he was imagining it.

From: Y/N i left some of my books at your place. mind if i come pick them up tomorrow?

His phone screen lit up with a notification that he had received a text from you. He responded to it with a simple “I don’t mind”, and then he heard your voice in his mind, a little disapproving but mostly fond, telling him that he could stand to use more words. Ushijima’s thumbs hovered over the keyboard. He tried a smiling emoji, but quickly decided against it.

To: Y/N I don’t mind. I will be at home after 4pm. You can come then.

Ushijima stayed in the shower too long after sending you those two texts. There was nothing vaguely affectionate in the short, insignificant text exchange between the two of you. It was as if the relationship that had lasted the rough patches of high school and the uncertainty of entering adulthood was only a delusion of his own mind.

Like he had been going it alone, with only his wishful thinking for company.

When he had gotten dressed for bedtime, he found himself in the other bedroom that you once used as a home office. Sure enough, it was mostly bare, save for several stray novels that you had left behind in your rush to get out and take your things with you.

If Ushijima stared at the now empty bookshelves and desk long enough, he could imagine that everything was back to how it should be. Your books would be lining the shelves, full to nearly overflowing. Some days, they would be sorted by colour. Other days, they would be sorted by height, or language even. Other days still, they were sorted in alphabetical order of the author’s last name.

The notebooks had an entire shelf set apart for them. Your desktop setup would be in the centre of the desk. There would always be a few open books and notebooks scattered about the keyboard, with pens and highlighters and sticky notes with scribbles thrown in the mess. A coaster you knitted yourself would be some distance to the right of the mouse and the mousepad, with your favourite Pompompurin mug filled with tea on it.

And that bright and slightly bitter citrus scent would herald your presence in that room, and he would know that you were at home because he could smell it in the air. Even from the entryway, he would’ve been able to detect it.

Ushijima tossed and turned on his side of the bed, even the most fitful and disturbed sleep eluding him when he needed it. He would’ve thought that practice had worn him out sufficiently, but the scent of citrus kept him up, along with thoughts of you. For some reason, the image of you still in your pyjamas standing at the stove waiting for the water to boil burned in his mind, amongst all the other happy memories he had with you.

The bedroom door was closed and there wasn’t any tea brewing in the kitchen, and yet he could smell it, like the tea leaves perpetually sat underneath his nose. Like the ghost of you was still there in the apartment, brewing tea even at odd hours of the night.

He went to practice the next day with his feet still too heavy and too cold. When his teammates and coach asked him if he was alright, he allayed their concerns and questions by repeating the mantra that he was in good health and that nothing was wrong. They left it at that after a few cycles of Ushijima uttering the same excuse.

The afternoon came too quickly, and he was at the apartment again, sweaty and sore from an appropriately effortful practice. Again, he removed his shoes and noticed that all your footwear was missing from the shoe rack. Again, he noted the absence of your plush house slippers at their rightful place beside his.

Again, the apartment smelled of bitter citrus, even if there wasn’t anyone at home brewing the tea.

From: Y/N i’m already on the way. are you at home?

Ushijima checked his phone after showering again, even if he’d already showered before leaving the gym, and there was a text from you.

To: Y/N Yes, I’m at home now.

“At home”.

It was an oddly intimate way to be saying that he was at his place of residence, especially now that this apartment was only his home and not yours any longer. The words stirred up a hopeful part of him that he had only ever scarcely been aware existed, and he suddenly felt a certain excited anticipation overtaking the sense of dread that came with the knowledge that you were coming home.

You were coming home. To him. To this place that you once shared with him.

Ushijima felt himself tensing up uncharacteristically when a series of gentle knocks echoed from the front door. He put his magazine down on the coffee table and answered the door.

“Y/N,” he said, and he felt a little more like himself, the taste of your name on his tongue still sweet, still familiar, still like home.

You nodded, giving him a smile that he could tell was half-hearted, a practised manner of politeness. “May I come in?”

It was his turn to nod, and he moved out of the way so that you could come on in. Ushijima reached for the small stack of hotel slippers stashed away close to the entryway and handed one to you. You took it with a soft expression of thanks, but you didn’t rip the flimsy plastic open so that you could wear them.

Ushijima looked at you, and you were visibly uncomfortable for the fact that this apartment was your home until two weeks ago. He watched you crinkle the plastic covering the hotel slippers in your hands in a feeble attempt to reach the slippers, as though your hands suddenly lost all their strength from the sheer difficulty of being in his presence. He felt a prickle in his chest at the thought.

After some needless struggling, you set the slippers down on the tile, and most of the pattern of your colourful socks disappeared into them.

“My books?” you asked.

He nodded and led the way to the other bedroom, even if he knew that you knew just as well as he did where it was. Ushijima opened the door for you and gestured for you to enter the room. You said “thanks” again, though your tone and your half-smile told him it was a necessary evil of common courtesy, and you went inside.

As you walked by him to enter the room, there was that bitter scent of citrus in your hair. It wafted into his nose, and the smell hit his senses harder than brewing a cup of tea for himself to drink did.

Were you doing some work at that cafe you liked and drinking tea before coming to meet him here?

“Waka– Um, Ushijima-kun,” you said, and the way you chose to address him hurt more than he let on, his face not betraying a single hint of the storm of emotions that was brewing beneath the surface.

“I was missing a notebook that has some important things in it. It’s not here? Because I swear that... I left it here. Two weeks ago,” you said, hand caressing the surface of your desk. Ushijima stepped into the room with you, but maintained some distance between the two of you for your comfort.

“The cover’s pink. It’s this thick,” you said, turning to him with your hand up and your fingers bent to give him a visual clue on how your missing notebook looked like. “It’s ring-bound and– And hardcover. It’s a kind of pink that you can’t miss. Have you seen it maybe?”

He shook his head. “I have not seen it.”

Your face pinched in apprehension, and instinct almost moved him to approach you so he could kiss that expression away. Instead, he willed himself to stay where he was, his hands gripping the loose fabric of his sweatpants too hard.

“I’ve not touched anything in this room since you left,” Ushijima said. “You might have taken it with you but you weren’t aware of it.”

At his hopefully helpful words, the expression on your face morphed to something more palpably sullen. “The cover is blindingly pink. I can’t have missed it. It has to be here,” you said, gesturing to the room with both your hands.

“It has to be here,” you said again, and he didn’t understand why you repeated yourself.

“But it’s not. I have not seen it. All there is in this room are the novels on the desk. Nothing more.”

You sighed, exasperation clear in the sound and on your face. You scratched at the back of your head, the harsh movements messing up your hair, and you sighed again. Looking him in the eye for the first time since you arrived, you said, “Well. I’m sorry for wasting your time. I’ll get going.”

You tried to sidestep Ushijima to leave the room, but he moved faster and blocked your path of exit.

“Y/N,” he said. “I want to know what’s wrong.”

You wrung your hands in the way you did when you felt distressed. He hated to be the thing that caused you to feel that way, but he left his statement in the air and waited for you to respond.

“Wa– Ushijima-kun,” you said, correcting yourself again. “Wasn’t it obvious?”

Ushijima shook his head.

You suddenly began to withdraw yourself from him, before telling him one day that you wanted to break up and that you were going to move out. He remembered that he had said that you were being “reckless”. Just that one word sparked an argument between the two of you. He hadn’t seen you raise your voice at anyone in anger until that day, and he regretted being the cause of it, even if he hadn’t yet found the words to express it to you. Hadn’t yet found the right way to apologise for it the way you deserved.

The moving company came just two days after you had announced that you were moving out to live with a friend, and the new knowledge that you were serious about leaving was so much for him to process that he hadn’t thought to ask you why.

But now that you were here, after Ushijima has had some time to think, he wanted to get an answer from you. Even if it would be something that he didn’t like, he had to hear it from you.

You let out a forceful exhale, shaking your head at him with a rather hostile expression on your face. He watched you clench your fists, like he’d seen you do before on that day when you had shouted at him because he had called you “reckless”. Despite the almost tangible lump growing in his throat, he swallowed, and readied himself for the tirade that you looked like you were about to unleash on him.

“… You were my best friend,” you said, in a voice that was too small and too bitter and too unlike you. He wasn’t used to you sounding like this.

The outburst he had prepared himself for never came.

Instead, Ushijima waited in the silence that was beginning to feel suffocating, despite the lingering scent of citrus and tea that always surrounded you. He breathed it in as he waited, and it was more bitter than he remembered it being, the scent more like traditional medicine than the fresh peel of a fruit and tea leaves.

The silence toiled on, effortlessly trapping his breath in his throat and making his mouth run dry. He wet his lips with a swipe of the tongue, and he swallowed needlessly in the hopes that it would moisten his throat. Still, Ushijima waited, but you never picked up where you left off.

“Were,” he said, finally. It was a statement, not a question.

You nodded. With a heavy exhale, you were the first one to break eye contact, looking at your feet. Ushijima followed your gaze, watching how the tops of the hotel slippers dented with the skittish wiggling of your toes. It was only then that he noticed you were wearing your favourite Pompompurin socks. You only ever wore those on the days when you felt like you needed a little extra happiness.

It was a bitter realisation to Ushijima that you felt that way because of him. That you expected to be short on happiness, and it was his fault. It was because you were coming to see him.

You only moved your toes like that when you were feeling afflicted. He reasoned with himself that there was nothing here that should make you feel that way, but then he remembered how this conversation began. It began like a rubber band that was pulled too tightly, and it was only now he allowed himself to see how it was fraying and coming close to snapping with every second.

Ushijima wanted to say something to alleviate some of the tension between the two of you. You were slouching, curling in on yourself as you crossed your arms across your chest, like you wanted to disappear from his presence.

“You were my best friend once, Wakatoshi.”

It took him three seconds before the meaning of your words set in fully. It didn’t help that you were still visibly squirming just two long strides away from him.

“I just– I just felt like I was losing my best friend, the longer I was with you. And one day, he was gone,” you said.

You were running your hands back and forth, back and forth across your forearms. Your eyes were still glued to the open door behind him, and Ushijima noticed how your gaze flickered from the door to an empty picture frame beside it in your failed attempts to look him in the eye now.

You took a moment to breathe, and he mirrored it, taking in air when you were and then letting it out at the same time you did.

The sound of you clearing your throat made him look up from tracing the new wrinkles on the tops of the hotel slippers you were wearing.

“Maybe it’s me being sensitive. Or not understanding you as well as I thought I did,” you started, your shoulders bunching up as they rose. “Maybe you felt like you’re losing your best friend too. I-I wouldn’t know. But what I do know is there came a time when I wasn’t happy with you anymore. And that’s important to me, you know? It’s so hard to be happy. Harder still when I’m somewhere that makes me feel the opposite.”

The revelation that you weren’t happy with him crashed into him like a thousand bricks falling from the sky all at once. You weren’t happy with him. He didn’t make you happy. He made you upset, angry, frustrated, disappointed– Ushijima would’ve continued listing the words that came from your lips in his most recent memories of you, every single disagreement he’d had with you that he had all but put aside because he had to focus on volleyball. But what you just said to him was more than enough.

Why did it take you breaking up with him and leaving to know?

“I apologise, Y/N. I should have done better,” he said, and even to his own ears, he sounded like he was being strangled.

Your lips were pinched in a flat line, the fleshy part of them barely showing with how tightly you pressed them together. Ushijima could hear you breathing, how exhausted the sounds you made were. You shook your head at him again, but this time, he was certain he deserved it.

“Ushijima-kun, you had many chances to do better,” you said, your shoulders finally falling as you exhaled. It looked like you had given up on him, and that much was apparent to him, even before counting your words and your tone.

Even so, Ushijima wanted you to reconsider.

“I will do better, Y/N.”

You put a hand out, silently telling him that you didn’t want to hear it, that you already had enough.

“You–You can do better with someone new. I meant it when I said I’m done here,” you said.

He allowed you to walk around him and out of the room, out of the apartment, the last books on the desk that belonged to you safe in the tote bag hanging from your shoulder. When he found the strength to turn around, you were standing by the front door and tugging your shoes on, instead of taking the time to untie the laces and do them up again like you normally would.

It was impossible to misread how eager – desperate almost – you were to leave, and to leave for good.

“Y/N,” Ushijima said, savouring the feeling of your name on his tongue. This might very well be the last chance he had to say it. To call you by your first name as lovers do, and not by your last name as a stranger would.

Though, he was sure he would make that mistake the first dozen times he'd chance upon you.

Your sneaker squeaked against the dark tile of the entryway floor with the force you exerted to shove your foot in. You swung your head in his direction at the call of your name. He had many things he wanted to say to you, to thank you for the years you’ve been steadfast at his side and to give a final goodbye accompanied with well wishes for what would come next in your life. The tears that glistened at the corners of your eyes in the late afternoon glow choked him, and the words he had for you died.

Did you know how beautiful you were? So beautiful that it hurt that this would be the last time he was allowed to be with you, just him and just you.

A sniffle wrinkled the bridge of your nose, and this time, Ushijima could not help running to where you were to scoop you up in his arms. Bitter citrus flooded his senses as he came within an arm’s reach of you. He would’ve caged you to his chest, close enough that it would be difficult to ascertain where he ended and where you began.

But you put out a hand to ward him off. He abruptly came to a stop, his toes hanging off the edge of where the entryway and the rest of the apartment were separated, your palm just a mere whisper away from his chest.

Whatever transpired after that moment was a blur in his memory. You had left the apartment with your novels in a tote bag that you held in your arms but without the pink notebook you were looking for. There were tears in his memory. He couldn’t confidently place whose they were, yours or his. But someone had been crying, in that last meeting.

Ushijima had put the kettle on the stove and brewed himself a cup of your favourite tea after you left, as a consolation of sorts. Perhaps, a final goodbye to you, and all the memories in his head that were coloured by your presence, standing apart from the others that were grey.

It was the only thing he had left of you, after all.

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