#jkfhskfsdfh

[meraki-kintsukuroi]

a star is dying, but the universe won't let it.

(or alternatively: you're burning out like a dying star but these hands that have loved you even long before will never let you go, even if it means getting burnt along.)

tags/warnings: hurt/comfort, light angst, soft fluff, references to depression and to the pandemic, and maybe probably a bit of child abuse it doesn't happen though its just mentioned, implied long-distance relationship, space, morbid, and colour metaphors, discussions about death and dying, shit writing and word vomit (bc im rusty as hell).

pairings : kindaichi yuutaro/reader (gn! reader & ambiguous relationship bc ytf not)

wc : 1, 755

a/n: dedicated to @haru-senji for being in the same situation as I and to all the other people who are as well, hang in there you guys, love you and please stay safe <3.

"Hey 'tarou are you up...?", Yuutarou hears you call out to him in the dark, breaking the silence in the night with your voice faint and small, almost lost against the loud howling wind of the dim sky.

He shifts, twisting his body to where you are, and in the dark--despite of it all--reaches for you when you don't pull or push him away and squeezes the hand you let him hold.

(Intimacy between skin has always been a line you jump in and out of and yuutaro wonders if there ever could be a day where he can hold you without you flinching or shrinking away, and without him saying that its okay despite the hurt in his heart or the deep open scars in yours.)

"Mm, yeah..?", he asks, voice a deep low rasp from the silence that had long been stretching between you, "What is it?"

There is a pregnant pause before you speak. It stretches long and wide much like the ones before and he can't help but be reminded of sea and the sky and he thinks that even in the vastness of it all with you besides him, your backs against the grass of some far away place, underneath all the darkness and twinkling nights, and far away from all uninvited eyes. He thinks that if you were to say anything here and now he would keep it lock in his chest until the day he died.

(Because happiness is limited in a world that is almost at its limit, only holding on to whatever thin silver lining there was to just not fall into the void of nothingness and cease to exist.)

"Do you know how a star is born?",

The ex-volleyball captain blinks once and then twice, and thinks of a grand king who he had served for three long years, of a boy turned king-enemy, to a friend that he had found once lost, of a gymnasium so big that it had to be the whole universe with how many stars, planets, and other celestial bodies there had been, but no matter how much he had thought of it, those astral objects that he had thought of was only at their prime and not at their beginning.

(Those people, those upperclassmen, those players, those rivals, his teammates, had been and always been stars--the moon, the sun, the planet--his universe.

He wonders how proud, those who have seen them at their very beginning feel? To see the rock with no fuel burn with utmost energy along with others who are just as bright as them.)

"No, I don't.", He says, a quiet thing and hears you hum, before feeling you twist and turn before finally settling again, not once letting his hand go as you did so.

(He does not comment on how closer you are to him now, afraid you'd pull away and distance yourself from him again.)

"How about when they die?", you ask him instead, and across the vast meadow he hears the crickets chirping this season's song "Do you know how they die?"

Yuutaro closes his eyes, and thinks of an explosion, of bright colours and a supernova exploding in the expanse of space, of the destruction that follows the grief that comes along with the loss of something as bright as a star.

He thinks of the king-prince-boy and how he had exploded into nothing but colours of red, black, and blue of the grand king who had burst out crying hues of green, grey, and teal, of a dark black empty gym with no bright light or palette in sight.

"They, uh, collapse i think...?" He says trailing off, trying to rack his left part of the brain of the lessons he hadn't slept in science class, "Yeah they do--And then they, they, uh... explode into supernovas? Yeah they explode into supernovas." He finishes unhappy but accepting all the same.

It's not like he was as blunt but smooth with his words just like his best-friend, not sweet like honey, or rough but straight to the point. He was still an awkward, tongue tied, and still fumbling idiot even after all this time. Even when he had hit a growth spurt or even after hitting a major milestone in his life, He was still the tall awkward boy people know who had just grown into an adults body to fit an adult's clothes.

You hum again, and he feels you inching closer, but not close enough to hold you the way he wants to--needs to--

(He pushes the greed--the fear of loosing you--letting go of you away. He can't, does not, will never be selfish, he can't allow it, not when he knows all too well what happens to you and the people around you, suffer through all too well.)

"Do you think we'll go out like that?", you ask him again, voice almost like a child afraid, "Like a supernova exploding in colours?"

He feels you shift again, and this time he thinks you're much closer to him than before and he thinks that you might be facing him this time too, he doesn't know it's too dark to see (but even so, even so, even so please come closer so I can hold you so--)

"Or do you think, we'll go out like a daisy crushed by the one who's supposed to take care of it?"

And something about that question, something about the way you say those words, makes his heart scream and mind twist in agony.

Because he thinks of the world, and how its marching to an unknown point and how much its scaring people. Thinks of you and your home that's only getting so much colder with each day passing. Thinks of himself and how he's just like a ghost wandering with a lover that's slowly collapsing--dying underneath the weight, of the pain of it all, that's too much for them to bear and not being able to do anything about it because-- "the only person who can save you is yourself, and you know that better than anyone else Yuutaro." His mother had once said.

And he knows, he knows, he knows, he goddamn knows, that things are getting worse for you--for him-and for everyone else, but he will fight God and his angels if it meant at least being able to carry some of the burden you had to carry all because the people who was suppose to do it but couldn't so you had to learn how to carry it all by yourself even after all this time.

Because Yuutaro with all his awkwardness and flaws had never been alone.

You however, have been painfully all by your lonesome.

And you meant to him that much to say the least.

"I don't know really." he murmurs truthfully, and squeezes your hand as an I'm sorry that i can't help you lift your pain that I was years too late to even try to do so and now you're hurting so much that you're almost at you're breaking point, and even if you don't know why or what, he still tries to.

Because he was just a ghost with no body or home wandering around this world, trying his darn best to find himself again for a lover that's slowly collapsing and loosing the brightness that they once were.

"Lots of people die in many ways you know?", He says not having one single clue about what's he saying but continues on because happiness is a fickle thing and is it selfish of him to hold your hand and keep you safe from the monsters that was supposed to love you for a bit much longer?

"We're not stars or flowers or anything,", He says with a finality he didn't know he had.

"We're people and we die when we die.", he goes on to say, and he thinks of an accident on the news, a tragedy in a script, and a genocide written on the history books, and thinks that for all the fire and hydrogen or whatever that makes up a star, planet, comet, or whatever. They were all still painfully human even on their last moments.

That they'd all bleed, cry, turn ugly, and at the end of it all die in more ways than one, because humanity is a fickle thing and they were no different.

That he was still human despite being a ghost of he once was, that you were still human even if you were a rotting corpse murdered by the monsters that were your own flesh and blood by the burdens and self-projections that they always had.

That the tyrant he had hated so much was just a boy underneath all the gore, grime, and blood, and that the grand king he had served underneath all the gold and silver and bronze was just human too.

They all were.

"But what if someone wants to go already and the people around them don't want them to...?" He hears you mutter softly, and he squeezes your hand again replying.

"Then don't.", He mutters tiredly just as much you are to the world, the monsters, and at yourself, "Live."

"Do you think we'll ever...", you trail off, and he knows from your tone that you must be struggling with what words to say so he squeezes your hand again because this is the only way you'll let him show his love for you other than his presence (because you're so, so, so scared and he is too, for you and for him as well.)

"Live again?"

Because he's a ghost of a star cluster once formed and you're a rotting corpse of a white dwarf floating in space with no way or direction to what home once was.

"I don't know really.." He says again, and crosses the gap between you deciding fuck it and presses his forehead against yours pushing on as he goes on, "But we'll cross the bridge when we get there all right?"

You don't pull away nor you push him away, instead you tense before relaxing again, and this time instead of him you're the one who squeezes his hand instead.

"Yeah we'll cross the bridge when we get there."

And in the dark--despite the dark, he thinks that maybe you're smiling in what it seems for a long while now, and he thinks that maybe, maybe he is too.

(And when morning comes maybe you both start trying to live again.)