Living Alone

I love the smell of all the pastries baking in the bakery, the smell giving off a sense of home or comfort. That was the smell I wanted to live with the rest of my life. I wanted to know that sense of comfort all the time, I wanted that man to be my husband. I wanted to learn how to do all of these special things he did to bring so much comfort to me. I wanted to be with him and only him, but life had other plans. Life wanted to ruin that feeling of love we had created. 

Just after graduating college, Akaashi had gone into college and worked hard for his degree in culinary arts and soon after that had opened a small bakery. I loved that little bakery so much with our little apartment up top that we roomed together in while I finished up my volleyball scholarship playing for MSBY. It was a lot of time for us trying to get used to college work, Akaashi and running a business, and me trying not to disrupt the peace of the bakery after I finish late games. 

It wasn’t long after moving in together that we ended up talking about our friendship, something that has developed long since before high school, and how we wished it could be more. It had been years since we developed feelings for each other while playing together for our high school volleyball team and helping each other through our tough patches in life. We always did everything together, there was no stopping us from hanging out. We were inseparable and we still were. We were always so happy around each other, part of it confused me then on why I didn’t notice I had romantic feelings for Akaashi. It had to have been so obvious by that point, but it seemed my childhood best friend was just as oblivious to those feelings. 

Being with Akaashi was my favorite thing in the world to be doing and even more when we had gotten together with the promise of always being there for each other. Those evenings I come home from practice and games and I can jump into the males arms and could just relax against him with that sweet smell around us was heaven. I didn’t want to change it for the world, but everything just had to change. Life always had other things in mind that ruined the most beautiful of things. 

It had to be a normal day too, a day you wouldn’t expect anything to happen. It was a normal day, we said goodbye at the door after coming back from classes to change and prepare for the last little bit of the day we would be away from each other. I went to volleyball practice after wishing Akaashi a good day with work and then I left. I didn’t think that would be my last ‘I love you’ or ‘Have a good day’. I wasn’t ready for the news in the middle of practice, I wasn’t ready to fall to my knees and beg for it all to be a lie. I wasn’t ready for any of it, I didn’t want to believe it. 

I could feel my heart shatter, footsteps pounding in my ears after I ran out of the gym. I could hear the echoing shouts of my teammates behind me, trying to comfort me, but I didn’t want to listen. I needed to see if they were pulling my strings, Akaashi couldn’t be gone. Not yet, he was too young. Someone had to be pulling my leg, this couldn’t be real. All I could feel in my body was pain, heartache, the feeling of my stomach being in my throat, and the tears welling up in my eyes. I didn’t want the tears to fall yet, I didn’t want this night to be real, I just wanted everything to be okay. 
I could barely manage to run the entire way back home, to our home. I didn’t want to take the bus, it would take too long and my only other option at that moment was to run and I did. I ran down blocks of roads and turned street corners and narrowly avoided getting hit. I didn’t care about the pain in my legs from practice that carried over into running, I didn’t care about the pain in my chest from not breathing properly, or the tears that had slowly run down my face as I ran. None of that mattered, all that mattered was Akaashi. 

My eyes could barely stay open as I ran down the last block, eyes catching sight of those flashing blue and red lights that slowly drove away now. There were even more, police cars and ambulances all surrounding my home. Windows were shattered and there was blood staining the walls of the quiet bakery. Everything looked like chaos as I got closer and closer, a police officer coming to try and stop me from getting closer.