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— 1 missed call from [Name] —
Realistically, he knows he shouldn’t call you back. Ignore the missed call, head back to bed, and forgot you forever. Forget the romance you once shared and move on. Forgot all the words of love that ever left his lips. You are not his and he is not yours.
But he can’t. He can’t possibly ignore you when you’re calling him at 2AM, yearning for him in whatever way you do.
So he calls. Like the fool that he is, he calls his ex-girlfriend of one year back.
“Hello?”
“Tsukishima…” you trail, and your voice is distant. So far, so small, so fearful. He hears your hesitance from one word only.
He wishes you could call him your Kei again.
“Why did you call me?” Tsukishima responds with hostility, for that is all he knows. When he lost you, his ways changed and his heart turned to stone. It seems that anger is all he knows these days, a hard tongue made of venom and stone.
“I-I wanted to talk to you.”
You stutter. You stutter and Tsukishima knows that you’re drunk. You have a few habits whenever you’re intoxicated, and a stutter is always accompanied with the alcohol.
“You’re drunk,” is all he says.
“I know.”
“Talk to me when you’re sober,” he goes to cut the call, but a quick wait! is enough to halt his movements.
“God, I don’t even know why I even called you,” you whisper, as if speaking to yourself.
He sighs, “where are you?”
“Um, I’m not sure.”
“You went out not knowing where you’re going?” He asks, and it’s that condescending tone you hate. The one that pushed your relationship to its limit.
“It’s not like I wanted to be here,” you whisper yet again, a measly attempt at defending yourself.
Another sigh, another sign of disappointment, and Tsukishima finally speaks up.
“Go to the Maps app.” You mumble a small okay, and do as he tells you. “Now zoom in on your location and send it to me.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
You listen to him and soon after Tsukishima gets a notification. He doesn’t bid you goodbye, simply cuts the call and gets up from his bed. He heads for his closet, grabbing two jackets, and heads out the door.
He’ll see you for the first time in a year.
-
And see you he does.
You’re sat on the curb of the road, your knees pushed against your chest and your head resting on your knees. It seems as if you’re asleep, your eyes closed and body still.
He kneels beside you, whispering your name loud enough to wake you up.
“Huh?” You groan, turning your head to look at the man you can’t seem to let go. “Kei?”
There it is. It’s always sounded so sweet on your tongue, so sultry and intimate. It’s his given name, the one he grows to love each time you say it.
It’s bittersweet hearing it from you.
“Why are you just sleeping in the middle of the road? What if some pervert stopped by?”
“But nobody did,” you say, logic leaving you in your drunken state. You move closer to him, seeking his warmth.
You’ve always loved his touch. When you once called him yours, his body was always somehow attached to yours. Your skin on his, his heart in your palm.
He sighs, “get in the car, [Name].”
He pulls you up from your position, easily holding you as gently as he can.
“You never used to call me by my name,” you stop and lean into his shoulder. “I was always your baby.”
Tsukishima knows it’s the alcohol talking. That you’d never say this sober, and that there’s a possibility that you don’t mean any of those words. But his heart still hurts. It hurts so much that he feels as if he has lost himself. Lost all the progress he made to just get over you.
(But perhaps he never really stopped loving you, if he was so willing to pick up your call.)
He lays you on the passenger seat, buckling your seatbelt for you. He drapes the extra jacket over your shoulders, and you remember it to be one of your favourites. You stare at him the whole time—eyes on his—but he refuses to look back. Not when he knows how easily his resolve could crumble with you around.
The car starts soon after, and you’re already asleep. Your head lays peacefully on the mirror, and Tsukishima wishes he could stay like this forever. In a world where he is yours and you are his.
-
There are not many things that Tsukishima regrets.
He prefers to live in the present and let the past be the past. What has happened is unchanging, so why worry? Why worry about what he should’ve done, when all he has is the now?
There are not many things that Tsukishima regrets. But he will always regret leaving you.
He knows that now, as he is in your bedroom, trying to find a way to change you out of your clothes and into your sleepwear.
You’ve always been a heavy sleeper, unmoving in the midst of all noise. That trait carries on to now, as he struggles to get your top off your body.
You squirm as he touches you. “Kei,” you whisper. “Why’d you pick me up?”
“You called me.”
“But you picked up,” you slur, “you could’ve ignored me. You were good at that when we were together.”
He winces. He knows you don’t mean it. You’ve always been far too kind to respond with such malice, especially towards him. Even when your relationship was walking on a tightrope, you never once yelled at him.
“Why were you so mean, Tsukishima?” It’s a rhetorical question, he knows it, but his heart burns the more you speak.
“I loved you so much, but you didn’t love me at all.”
“Don’t,” he immediately interrupts, “don’t say I never loved you.”
“You never showed me,” your voice is small, and he knows you’re about to cry. (Even after all these months, your habits remain in his mind.)
“I love you. So much more than you’ll ever understand,” he speaks with so much passion, that he forgets his confession.
He loves you. His heart will always belong to you.
“I love you too,” you cry, and a single teardrop grazes your cheek.
“You never deserved me.”
“I get to decide that,” you grab his delicate face with your rough hands. He always fit so perfectly in your palms. “I get to decide who is good for me.”
He pauses, resting in your hands and cherishing every moment he has with you. And it’s in your calloused palms where Tsukishima realises what he misses. He misses your presence, your love, you. Every habit that made him love you so deeply, he misses.
He will be yours again, he decides, as you hold him close. Somehow, someway, he will win you back.