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第二章

Keiji was sick of getting injured, healing then injured again.

Somehow after he never saw the hospital girl again, he was more emotionally injured than physically. They never got to know each other well but their brief friendship meant something to him regardless, even if their small connection of a something was getting wounds and sitting on a hospital bench having little kid small talk, Keiji treasured it.

But he could not go on wounding himself for a girl he might never meet again. So Keiji stopped going to the hospital. Even so, whenever he went to the hospital to visit a relative or follow his parents for their annual health checkup, he would always walk over to the same bench in the same garden. And he would just wait until his parents would tell him that it was time to go home.

Sometimes when Keiji was laying in bed, he would imagine she was next to him and they would talk, about what, he never knew. After sometime Keiji would come to realise that he had forgotten how her voice sounded. Soon enough, he had forgotten how she had looked. One year after their encounter, he had forgotten her completely. One year later, he was out about with his normal daily life and soon developed a passion for volleyball. By the time he was 10, he dedicated many hours of the day practising volleyball with the neighbourhood kids. 

That was how he got to know Bokuto, his best friend and teammate in every volleyball match. The both of them developed a strong bond, so strong that when Keiji started getting quieter in high school, Bokuto didn't mind and stayed as loud as when they had first met. While many of Keiji's old friends had found his growing introversion a turnoff, Bokuto was the only one that remained his friend regardless of what other people had to say.

Now vice-captain of Fukurodani's volleyball team alongside Bokuto as captain, Keiji was leading a rather peaceful life, his grades were doing fine and he had seemed to have gotten the attention of many girls from his school as well as other schools - not that he cared about the attention, he never even knew about it until Bokuto told him. Even after being told of this, Keiji paid no attention to the girls, all he did was focus on volleyball and studying, much to Bokuto's confusion - did Keiji not have the hormonal imbalance that the average teenager had? Then again, Keiji was not the average teenager.

As a growing adolescence, Keiji's parents had never experienced any rebellion from him. While most parents struggled to keep their child's behaviour in check, Keiji's parents have never had to do that. Keiji was rarely ever rude and would help around with chores, other times he'd be studying or playing volleyball. He rarely got on social media as he found it too materialistic and tiresome. He would never want to waste an hour figuring out what to caption a picture then waste another hour editing the lighting to make sure the picture was aesthetic enough. If he wanted to see something aesthetic, he would google it. 

'aesthetic volleyball tumblr ' is what Bokuto imagined he would search. 

And so Keiji Akaashi lived a very peaceful life that revolved around studying and volleyball. While seemingly mundane to many people, only those who really knew Keiji knew how his eyes lighted up when he played volleyball, but not many knew him anyway.

-

It was a Tuesday but Keiji had skipped school to go to the doctor's. After getting a minor injury on his fingers, the school nurse had adviced him to avoid playing volleyball for a while and go see a doctor. 

Walking into the hospital brought a sense of familiarity to his mind, mostly of the times he'd visited his relatives or followed his parents for their checkup. He felt a memory pop up in the back of his subconscious mind but he was unable to grasp it, besides, memories aren't very tangible are they? Whatever the memory was about, Keiji decided that it wasn't important and continued walking towards the doctor's office.

"Your pinky really had a hard hit, poor guy," Dr. Yamamura - as writte on his nametag - said with a pitiful smile. "What'd you do for this to happen?"

Keiji chuckled, "I was playing volleyball and it just sort of happened."

"Right so no more volleyball for now, alright?" the doctor said matter-of-factly. "I would say...give this little guy two weeks rest and you'll be able to play volleyball again."

"Thank you, doctor," Keiji shook the doctor's hand with a smile, bowed and left the office.

It was currently 12 pm in the afternoon and Keiji did not know what to do. Volleyball was out of the picture for two weeks, Bokuto was not around to talk to him and his parents were at work.

So Keiji decided to head over to the hospital cafeteria. 

"One of Bento A please."

"1500 yen, that'll be," said the cafeteria lady in lazy manner. 

Keiji paid for the bento and walked off to find a table. Deciding that the cafeteria just didn't feel like the right place to eat, Keiji let his feet wander around the hospital until he found somewhere that felt right. With Bento A in his hand, he started wandering around the hospital grounds. Definitely a weird thing to do, but Keiji felt like wandering anyway.

Soon Keiji came to a halt in front of the hospital garden, it seemed like the right place, so he walked over to a bench. Just as he was about to sit, he turned around and eyed the bench opposite him and decided to sit there instead. He never knew why he had made the decision to sit at that bench but there was a just a sudden urge that he decided not to question. 

He sat on the bench and stared at the bento on his lap. He hadn't really wanted to eat, he just didn't know what to do. He looked up at the sky then looked at the bento, the sky, the bento, the sky, and then the bento. Then his eyes landed on a particular leaf that was gently falling to the ground. Keiji realised that the leaf had wilted. Then he realised that there were many wilted leaves on the ground.

 Keiji's looked around and saw a dying cherry blossom tree just beside him. it was taller then him but it seemed to be gradually hunching lower and lower.  

"Mommy, it's dying," came the voice of a little girl.

Keiji shifted his gaze to the little girl. She was dressed in hospital robes and her skin tone was anything but healthy.

Keiji looked at the girl and she looked back. He instinctively gave her a soft smile to be polite and slightly bowed his head towards her mother.

The little girl's mother nodded back and turned her attention back to her daughter. "Come on darling, the doctor needs to run some tests before you can be discharged," she said and lightly patted the girl's shoulder.

The girl's shoulders slumped low as she turned back to walk away with her mother.

As Keiji watched the scene in front of him, he felt a wave of nostalgia overcome him. He furrowed his brows and tried to recall the memory.
His eyes focused on the wilted cherry blossom leaves and he recalled a time when he saw the cherry blossom tree in a healthy state instead of its current state. He felt a tinge of sadness and longing for something but he just couldn't seem to pry open the door to his tightly shut memory vault.

"Run some tests" - the words that the little girl's mother had said - suddenly appeared in his mind and it kept repeating itself like how a spoiled record player would repeat the same line of the song it played, except the words did not repeat itself over and over in the same tempo, rhythm, and tonality, instead, the voice that said those words gradually changed into someone else's voice.

Who's?

Keiji scrunched his brows hard in thought. He looked at his knees and realised - after many years - how many scars were present. He never paid attention to his wounds as he would get hurt very often from volleyball practise, but looking at his knees made him realise how scarred they were.

Then he had flashbacks.

He remembered hurting himself many times on purpose, and not just on his knees.

Then he remembered why he did it.

And he finally remembered.

He remembered her.