When August Became April

Chapter 1

29th August 1942

My dearest family.
The nights are getting longer and colder again, winter is about to come and we're on our way to the next city... The last one before my brothers and I'll join the soldiers on the Feld.
I'm looking forward to see all of you again and I hope that your doing well...
I honestly want to tell you so much but we shouldn't waist our time with 'what ifs'...
Just thinking about home keeps me going.
Sadly this is going to be one of the last letters for a while.
They told us that we should concentrate and that our letters are a distraction, but I would never dare to look back... I'm seeing forwards... Forward to return home, seeing all of you with a medal on my chest and pride in my heart....

Till than...
Daichi

"Oi, Sawamura... One of those letters again?"  a young man who sat at the end of the transporter asked. The male beside him gave him a slith shrug of his shoulders as an answer.
But his companion wasn't that easy to please.
"to who is it this time? An old friend back home? Your mom or maybe a lovely girlfriend???" he asked in order to teas the other soldier.

"Kuroo stop picking on sawamura... You're always so rude" another comrade adding his opinion to the conversation. But Kuroo just ignored his friend.

"Honestly Sawamura, you know that those letters are just gonna be thrown away? I'm sorry to destroy your fantasy of peace but... Those letter will never reach their destination".
The attention of each person in the transporter now rested on Daichi Sawamura a young man who had to leave his family, friends and home behind like so many others.
Only one person fixed his eyes on the person who had asked such a rude question.
"Kuroo, that's enough" he hissed
"Calm down Bokuto I'm just trying to safe him from getting in trouble... We have to concentrate and those letters are just going to keep him in a phantasy world" the black haird boy explained.
"Still" Bokuto said and crossed his arms to dramatize the situation further...he was about to say something about the bad manners of his best friends, that was when quite words where spoken. They were barley audible and almost completely overheard. But Kuroo who sat next to the source of mumble turned his attention to sawamura once again.

"What did you just say?" he asked.
Daichi finally looked up, he had enough of how people spoke about and not with him.

"I said what if... What if my letters reaches home, what if my mom reserves it? What if my family can be relieved that I'm still alive?" he responded, this time loud enough for the others to hear.

Kuroo was a little taken back by daichis sudden outburst but he was never known for being the speechless typ, he alway had a smart remark in the back of his head and he wouldn't be him if he wouldn't juse it.

"Those are a lot of 'what ifs' for a guy who just wrote the lines:
'we shouldn't waist or time with what ifs' to his mom. Are you lying to your loved ones again, sawamura? What a bad habit of yours, when will you finally stop doing that? " the slightly taler male asked rhetorical. But the answer that he was about to reserve wasn't satisfying at all, it was brutally honest and left him with an uneasy feeling in his chest.

Sawamura looked up and stared directly into Kuroos eyes as he spoke.
"On the day my letter end with a 'fare thee well' "

It was silent non of the boys knew what to say, they all found reality in those words and they left a bitter taste behind in all of them.

It wasn't Daichis intention to be so cruel, but he knew where fate would lead him, he knew that the upcoming path that he had to take wasn't the easiest one to go... It was rough, frightening and covered with blood.

All his life he wanted to know who he was, he wanted to find a purpose but now that he was on the way to enter a game of life and Death he didn't knew what he should think anymore... His destiny had betrayed him. Doubt was filling his chest, taken a tight grip on his heart, all the decisions he had made, all the turns he had taken, was this really where his life led him?

"Okay enough with the long, sad faces!" Kuroos words were cutting through the silence.
"Kuroo's right! We should celebrate! We are soon arriving at the last city before we have to join the others. Be thankful for the last moments of peace" Bokuto interfered.

"I planned on drinking till unconsciousness anyway, I'm in" one of their comrade announced in his known serious way.

"Perfect so even Iwazumi joins, who else???"  the owlish looking man asked the following soldiers.

They were still silent and sunken in thoughts but a few of them raised their hands eventually.
Daichi who also had lowered his head in order to get a few seconds of shut-eyes suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder.
It was kuroo who tried to comfort him.
"What about you? Are you in or not?"
Daichi took a second to think about it, he came to the conclusion that a night out wouldn't hurt, it could keep him a way from reality a little longer.
"I'm in" he said and smiled up to his mate who returned the gesture with a happy grin and nod of his head.

And for the first time in a long while Daichis smile was honest. The others were right this was no time to drown in sadness... It was time to celebrate that they were still alive.

These people were sharing his fate, they weren't strangers anymore, they were his friends, his family now.

He knew that no one could ever replace his beloved mother or his father that he had looked up to all his life. But he finally realized that he wasn't alone, there where people beside him, brothers who could be trusted. He knew that he had their back, they where behind him no matter what. If he'd fall they were now the ones to catch him.

A new family of a different kind, his ambition got the best of him, he looked around the small truck.
They were all there.
In a few weeks he would fight beside those people, like they trained over months and if he died while doing so, than so it be. He would be passing surrounded by people who cared for him. The thought set his mind to ease as he closed his eyes and drift of to a world of dreams in which everything was fine.
'I'm not alone'