wings : haikyuu!! drabbles

love, or lack thereof

what is love, if not the way he says your name, up against your lips, tender and kind and burning like his lips were that of iron molten just to match the shape of yours? the smile unnoticed as your breath hitches when he's close, close enough to inhale your soul through a kiss?

is that love - the dizzy whisper and his fingertips caressing honey onto your waist? perhaps when he draws out the flowers from your lungs and takes the petals for himself for keepsake? the answer to his question, your loss in his eyes?

or is it this - you on your bed, bones embedded with fatigue and the air heavy in your lungs. it goes unnoticed as your roommate hums the melody they're listening to on their headphones, it goes unnoticed how four fourty-three in the afternoon borrows the sun and it is suddenly nighttime. nearby, your phone chimes with the tune you'd recognise anywhere.

no matter how you want to ignore it, the anxiety bubbles up your throat from your tummy - it was never true vacancy when you felt at ease, eyes closed, world a little distant. as you open your eyes, it all comes back, the undone assignments, the seminar work you should finish being due midnight, the sixty slides you have not yet read this week. it is fine, though - it has been too long since you aimed for the week to end. the day's change is almost a victory.

your phone's too bright - it hurts, almost.

his text reads, "come down in 30. know you're exhausted, wanted to spend the evening together. preferably don't bring uni stuff. but if you want to, just one thing."

is that love then, when you fall calm to his warmth, the youtube video about ergonomical approaches barely audible. maybe his fingertips caressing love confessions onto your skin and the tender kiss on your forehead. it is almost calculated, the understanding in his eyes when you cry from not knowing how it is possible to bear this much on your shoulders - but there is no foresighted plan. he just knows, knows it better than anyone because he sees you putting your soul and heart into it and it not paying off. sees it, feels it, because it is the same, and when you stop your crying, the saltwater aching on your cheek, but not burning and stretching like the new cut on his knee that you see - is that love, love, love, when you place a kiss onto the damaged skin. when he puts his hand right where your neck meets your jawline and you feel all the warmth winter has robbed from you?

in discipline, it is wrong to say that having someone to love you would solve all your problems. it is but merely the comfort of feeling loved and loving back that the soul involuntarily craves, and to be in that state takes a different kind of devotion. it is the willingness to make time, to tend to the love blooming in your chest, to navigate between academic duties, friends and family and the person you can easily give your heart to because it feels safer in their hands than in your chest, beating, beating, racing.

it is wrong, for you need to find, if not love, a way to appreciate yourself.

but having him makes it easy. this, here, the faint explanation of structures to consider when designing a product barely registering at the edge of your consciousness, and his hand so warm on your neck. maybe you fall deeper in when his thumb touches your lips and it's hard to nake anything out of his expression. except - except he kissed you then, chaste for what it's worth. your hands find themselves touching him in response, because this, this warmth that's spreading in your body, this safe, comforting warmth, that of a summer day's afternoon, you want him to feel it tenfold. it's a thank you, maybe, not the best one you know, but there is no time to say it with words when he kisses you like that.

—

is this love? ten thirty-seven in the evening you're knocking on his apartment's door, knowing he's alone for the weekend. putting your arm down, your bag rustles with the hastily packed bandages your mother gave you. you've had cuts, your feet get blisterst that needed treating, but never - never this.