companion fic to karasunotsubasa's 'till the sun dies' (chapter 15 of 'looking for sunlight') on AO3. I haven't figured out how to add links or if that's possible here, so if you know and would like the links, shoot me a PM :)
Eijun was 16 when his life changed forever.
Not that he knew at the time, but things that are meant to happen, will happen. It's a rule of the universe and, while many may argue that chance is much more likely than fate, with some things, you just know.
Eijun didn't, not yet, but when something keeps coming back to you, it's clearly one of those things.
He was 16 years, and one summer break, old when he realised he had a crush.
He panicked. He rebelled. He cried, first out of anger, then frustration. He tried not to have these feelings that made his life much harder than it had to be. He had come to Seido for baseball, not for anything, or anyone, else. Hadn't he?
He was 17 when he confessed to his crush.
He gave up trying to resist and, ironically, that's when it became easier. He began to watch more closely, quietly, instead of shouting like he had done to cover up his previous fear. He began to accept it instead, became used to how the feelings were lodged between his ribs and accompanied every beat of his heart to send warmth into every corner of his being. They became something natural to him, something that just was. Something that seemed like it had been there forever.
And so the confession slipped from his lips as easily as taking a breath and expelling it, taking the words that had gathered beneath his tongue and laying them out in the open.
He was still 17 when he gave his first kiss away and took one in exchange.
It felt like a dream and he was in a daze, but he had clear evidence of the reality of it. It was there, in how is ribcage expanded with warm breath that tasted like another's, unknown and familiar at the same time. It was there, in how his heart swelled with warmth and happiness at what he had thought was an impossible dream come true.
He was 19 when he lost his virginity.
It was without regrets and full of love; everything he could have wished for. And the evidence was still there, with that warmth pressed to his back, safe, solid, and present. And it was with a contented sigh that, what he had practised saying in his head over and over again, suddenly slipped out as easily as his first confession, "I love you."
It was met with silence and warm kisses pressed to his ear, his cheek, covering his whole face. They chased away that tiny, anxious flutter inside his heart and he forgot about it, floating away on a cloud of blissful happiness.
He was 21 when his heart broke for the first time.
He gave and gave and got nothing in return. Or maybe not nothing, but not enough. It didn't matter how many "I love you"'s he voiced or how soft he could be, how much he tried to prove the strength of what he felt. He was always met with an unresisting wall, cold and impossibly high. There was too much to overcome and not enough proof that he could. So his heart broke bit by bit until it was full of cracks, barely holding itself together when he said, "I don't think we should go on like this, Kazuya."
And it sprang apart completely when he was met with nothing but unresisting agreement. It was the one time he was given into, and he wished it hadn't been.
He was still 21 when he regretted it.
He wanted nothing more than for the hurt to fade, but he soon discovered that it was true what they say, that you never forget your first love. Still, he had never been one to give up easily, and it was no different this time.
He was 22 when he saw him again.
It was more like a glimpse than an actual meeting, and he was glad for that. It was the first time since they had broken up that his heart didn't feel quite as broken anymore, felt like the cracks were beginning to disappear and heal. He could smile again, true and honest, for the first time in a long while. He didn't let himself show that he had seen him, nor did he let himself acknowledge the painful lurch in his stomach or how his heart, which he had thought was beginning to heal, cracked open a little wider.
He was 23 when he began to feel like he could live this way.
The love he felt never truly left but he became used to it, the same way he had gotten used to those tentative, vine-like golden tendrils sneaking their way into his heart such a long time ago. He finally started another relationship, giving in to a year of courtship that had started out as easy friendship until it slowly became something more. He thought he could be happy.
He was 24 when his heart broke again.
"I can't go on like this."
The sentence was flung at him in tears, exhausted and raw. Hearing it didn't hurt as much as he thought it should, but that didn't mean there was no pain at all. There was, but maybe his heart had healed a little too well and the scar tissue was too thick for those words to truly wound. He could do nothing but dully nod in agreement when the inevitable "Let's break up" came. What did hurt, a lot more than expected, was the following, softly spoken "I know you never stopped loving him."
And the reason that penetrated his heart like a thousand knives, like that first time all over again, was that it was true.
He was 25 when he decided to stop running.
Because that, he realised, was exactly what he had been doing, ever since making that first mistake of leaving. There was no escaping the golden tendrils, having taken root deep inside him and grown stronger than he ever thought possible. They had made their home inside his heart, and forgetting about them was as impossible as trying to rip them out. He couldn't ignore them any longer and so he stopped fighting for the first time in his life, because sometimes giving up is the only way to win.
He was 26 when he realised what was meant to be.
Well and truly scabbed over, he met him again. His heart swelled like that first time they had kissed and he couldn't hide or suppress the love dwelling in it any longer. But, he could still feel a phantom-like pain throb inside his ribcage, a pin-prick in the hitch of his breath. He couldn't deny that he was afraid – but being without him had proved to be much worse than any fear could ever be. He wasn't sure yet what would come of it, because, if there was one thing he knew he couldn't take again, it was another heartbreak.
And Kazuya was the only one who had ever been truly responsible for that, him and his own, stubborn love.
He was 27 when they found their way back to each other.
He didn't know how but he didn't truly care. It felt like all the times he thought he had been happy with someone else before now had been nothing but a shadow of this, paling in comparison. And now, even with the only way to break his heart for good so close by, Eijun decided that leaving would never again be an option.
He was 29 when he promised his life to another.
It was perfect, in the way that losing their virginity together had been perfect. It was perfect, not in the conventional sense, but perfect for them. And it was with a single, choked, "Yes", that he just knew - he finally had that happy ending he had always wanted.
He was 31 when they married.
It was in LA, the city of fallen angels, and it seemed fitting to him. It certainly felt like it fit, when the ceremony took place in a small chapel and felt like a dream. They had the weekend alone to themselves, full of love and nothing else, and this was, he realised, when their forever together was just beginning.
He was 34 when he began to long for something more.
Initially, he had always believed he didn't need anything else. But he had begun paying attention more; it was difficult not to, when everyone around them was starting their own families or already had. He had never really given it much thought but now he was and he began to wonder until it became a solid want, something to fill the gap in their lives that he hadn't been aware of until now.
He was lucky his husband couldn't tell him no, it was pointed out to him with amusement when they submitted the adoption papers, and when he playfully argued that if his husband didn't want a child, he would have said so, he was met with a soft, "I want everything that makes you happy. And if a child will make you happy, then I want a child too."
It took his breath away and he knew that, once again, he had made the right decision to stay, because even after so many years he could still make him breathless with words alone.
He was 36 when they could finally welcome a new life into their family.
Because yes, that was what they were now. A real family, made up of loving parents and a daughter who became the sunshine in their lives. A family with the man he was meant to be with, no matter what people say about chance and fate, and the daughter who brought them new happiness every day. This, Eijun thought, was what a true happy ending felt like, complete and eternal, because happy endings last forever.
But, as everyone knows, happy endings only happen in fairy tales.
It was an accident. A stupid accident that could easily have been avoided.
He didn't want to believe it, as his ears filled with impossibly loud wind, drowning out every other sound.
Happy endings don't belong in the real world.
This can't be it, he sluggishly thought as he tried to make sense of his surroundings. It took him much too long to finally realise why everything was on its head. This couldn't possibly be the end, because he had just dropped off their little girl at kindergarten. This couldn't be it, because he had barely been able to say goodbye before rushing off to work.
This couldn't be it, because he hadn't been able to say goodbye to Kazuya at all.
39.
The world was paradoxically silent as the wind in his ears began to quiet down. Outside, he could see some hectic movements, colours running into one another like heavy rain on glass distorting reality. But this, this couldn't be his reality, could it?
There was too much he hadn't gotten to do yet, things he still wanted to see. This…
Sawamura-Miyuki Eijun was 39 when he died.
Somehow, even though everything else had gone numb, he could still feel his eyes grow hot and become blurry. The colours grew duller by the moment as the rain intensified, and for a second, Eijun was confused because this morning, the sky had been a clear blue.
Then it became dark, black closing in at the edges, and the only thing he could think of were the faces of his small, perfect family, before they too were swallowed up by the creeping shadows.
My forever.