Summary:
- "If all our life is but a dream
Fantastic posing greed
Then we should feed our jewelry to the sea
For diamonds do appear to be
Just like broken glass to me.
~Northern Downpour by Panic! At The Disco
- How long has it been since we last spoke? Days? Weeks? Months. It's been months and you're still not with me. You've scolded me countless of times during our childhood, saying that I shouldn't be such a spoiled brat, but for the love of God please just let me be selfish this once, I want you here with me, to hold me and console me. I haven't lost hope, but I am losing my sanity over you. I wish I hadn't been so careless and stupid, I wish I hadn't been as selfish as to do what I did that day, but I can't change what happened.
I wish I could turn back time, I wish I could have loved you more, because now you're gone and you've left with the saltwater kiss you promised me when we were kids.
- It happened on that summer day, the last day he had seen the person he has loved. Oikawa Tooru, who was just fourteen at the time, had seen the worst thing he could have imagined at that young age. It was the day his life has changed, the day he had realized that life wasn't the fairy tale he had believed when he was a kid.
He had been hit with the cold reality of this world, just like a blow to the face. He's slowly starting to realize how miserable he is without his best friend, Iwaizumi Hajime. Tooru's changed with each day that goes by, no longer smiling or laughing, and he's started to form unhealthy habits. With each breath he exhales, he's saying goodbye to the person he was, the jubilant boy with the chocolate brown eyes who'd make just about anyone fall for him. Maybe the only thing keeping him from moving on is the saltwater kiss that Hajime promised him when they were just kids.
Prologue
It's been so terribly long since I last saw his face, many sunrises and sunsets, it's a miracle I haven't lost my sanity yet. Days turned into weeks, restless days and sleepless nights turned into bad habits. Funny how this is because of him.
I've lost sleep and my grades have started to turn to the worst. My parents were upset, but I could only be optimistic. The F's I received in my classes stood for the first letter of what I wanted most. To find you, to have you in my arms, to bury myself in your strong shoulder, to feel like a spoiled kid.
It was because of him that I couldn't think straight, that on occasion I'd skip school and walk down to the beach, the last place I had seen my best friend. I'd cry for hours, ignoring the buzzing of my phone until the sun would start to set.
There was a night that changed those almost daily visits, when I woke from a nightmare that had drained me of color. I never visited the beach after that, or any body of water for that matter. I had become afraid of the ocean, and I could never go back there without breaking down and remembering him.
I've gone through so much with him gone, but I still have faith, something that everyone no longer has. No one except me still believes he's alive, it's almost as if they're too afraid to have that one fragment of hope, almost as if they fear it to be shattered by the news they worry will come soon. I can't have that, it's too much to bear thinking about him not coming back. It scares me, and I hate it.
There's a place in my heart for him, but it's empty without him. My life has no meaning, because for the first time since we were little, we have been separated. There were things I didn't tell him, topics we didn't dare speak about, let alone think about. If there was something that terrified one of us, we'd tell the other and we'd stay awake all night, arms wrapping around the other. That was how it worked.
But he's gone now, and I can't pleasure myself the way he used to. Not a day goes by where I don't think about him, my head playing countless scenarios of reuniting with him, of me telling him everything that's happened since he left, of the thing that I've kept hidden for so long.
I want to tell him everything, I want him to whisper in my ear and tell me everything is going to be alright, I want him to console me as I sob into his broad shoulder, but we can't have everything, now, can we? Not every story has a happy ending, Makki's told me that as a way to console me, but what he doesn't know is that every time he has to sob it out, every time he has to cry out because we all miss him, he doesn't realize that I haven't given up, that I'm not willing to accept this, that I'll fight for my happy ending. The story can only end with a happy ending if you fight for it, and I'm prepared to fight with blood and sweat to find my sweet Iwa-chan, to reclaim the saltwater kiss he promised me when we were younger.
My dear, sweet Hajime, if only Fate could stop being so cruel, if only there was a way I could find you. I miss you terribly, days go by and I've started to lose interest in everything we once enjoyed together.
I wake up every morning, hoping that you'll be by my side.
I go to school every day, hoping that since you didn't spend the night with me, you'd have already beat me to school.
I go home every evening, phone on my nightstand, waiting for it to ring, signaling those evening calls that were a routine.
I stay up all night and cry, I mourn your absence, and it's the most hurtful thing that had ever happened to me. I remember when I fell and scraped my knee when we were younger, and you asked me if it was that bad. I recall nodding my head and claiming that it was the most painful experience of my life. Now, with you gone, maybe my perspective had changed, and maybe it's because I'm growing older, but Iwa-chan I want to grow old with you.
It's too late now, but I just wanted to tell the secret that I've been keeping for a while, something that only my parents and I know. Maybe when I finally find you I'll tell you, dearest Hajime, I hope you won't reject me after I tell you.