Eleven Red Lotuses | Kageyama Tobio | S/H

A Warm Breeze is Still Cooler than the Stagnant

・・・　・・・　・・・

     Just hours.  
     He had just hours.  Marry her?  Leave her?  Keep her?  Forget her?  
     For everyone else, it was a normal Tuesday.  Just a day to sit at home or walk around and look at the snow.  Maybe get prepared for school starting in 9 days, but Kageyama had so much more to think about.  
     By midnight that very night, he needed to decide.  He'd been so confident in his answer until he woke up that morning and realized that tomorrow, everything would be different, and he had to decide how.  
     He'd told (Y/N) he'd like for her to kind of let him simmer alone throughout the day.  She'd left the house an hour earlier to make sure the mural was perfect and hadn't spoken to him all day.  Of course, he wanted to talk to her, but he knew he couldn't procrastinate on this big life-decision.  He'd already told Daichi that morning that he was going to need practice off.  It wasn't a big request.  
     In the short 4 and a half previous months, she'd really bloomed and opened up.  The volleyball club basically loved her.  She was mending her broken bond with Kiyoko again, which he absolutely loved to see.  Of course, they were all aware of the fact that if he chose to forget her, they'd need to forget her, too.  
     He kind of missed the third-years.  They didn't practice with them nearly as often anymore.  They were now technically alumni.  It was so strange to remember that they graduated.  Daichi was still helping Ennoshita learn the ropes, so he hung around a lot, and the others visited and gave pointers, but they rarely joined them.  
     They'd went to nationals and had a blast doing it.  They'd beat Nekoma, too, which was a phenomenal victory.  They ended up losing to Kamomedai High in their fourth match.  They'd held themselves decently well, and Hinata was completely inspired by Hoshiumi.  

     Kageyama quickly shakes his head.  As much as he wanted to think over the game, he could do that any other day.  He couldn't think over this decision after tonight.  
     There were so many factors.  So many things to consider.  It was hard to imagine how much he'd need to forget.  Memories and pictures lost.  An entire year turned to dust.  And even if he could manage to get his mind to forget her, it didn't mean his body would stop craving her, too.  How could he control that?  His heart would miss her for years to come.  
     It would be weird to adjust to life without her.  To sleep in a bed when he hadn't done so in 6 months.  To get rid of the chair itself entirely.  To wipe half of his phone of her.  To get used to opening a phone to a picture of the sky and not her hand on his or looking at him through a heart in her hands.  To return the ring and not explain why.  To rip her out of everyone's lives.  
     There would be so much missing.  He'd have to completely forget the treehouse.  And what about the murals?  The painting for the school and the one for the volleyball club itself?  Would she take them back or destroy them?  Would he have to feign confusion on why they exist?
     And what would she do after?  She'd promised him that she would be okay, that he didn't need to worry himself with that.  She'd stressed that she didn't want him to put his future on the line to save her some possible grief.  Surely, she'd be okay.  She and Kiyoko were acting like true sisters now, so they wouldn't let themselves get bullied and abused by their mother and Miyu.

     What if they got married?  He certainly was in love with her.  But would that change?  What if it did?  He'd never experienced romantic affection, romantic love, romantic connection with anyone besides her.  What if a different cute girl flirted with him and he suddenly realized that while (Y/N) was good, she simply wasn't the wife he wanted anymore?  
     His father had warned him that marriage in general was a big life choice.  As he'd explained it, there's marriage in love and there's marriage in law.  Marriage in law should be thought over simply to ensure you don't lose things like money or status.  As he said, a man and woman could get legally married simply for something like health insurance.  "There is no law that says those who are married have to be in love, and there is no law that says those who are in love have to be married."  
     As Masatomo explained, for the abused like (Y/N), she might get the two intermingled and confused.  She might believe that if she was not married legally, they did not truly love and trust her.  
     Marriage, in the love sense, was a binding contract.  Once you had made that promise, there was no such thing as leaving.  You were there and you were there to stay because you had said you would.  

     Forever was a long time.  That's what marriage in love was.  To love forever.  
     "If you do not believe in soulmates, boy, then I have failed you."  Masatomo states.  "There is no greater truth than the brightest star in the sky; your eternal lover.  Do not simply think about what you could be with this girl.  Think about what you have been.  You will know.  A heart will always long for those it loves.  What is her soul to you?  To your heart?  Is she simple a lovable stranger, or is she your lover?"  
     Marriage.  What a powerful word.  Even in the word, there was the kanji for 'sun.'  
     "So I found out that the brightest star in Earth's sky is named Sirius,"  Kageyama mentions.  He'd heard it passed between two people on the walk to the store to buy snacks.  "Guess you're my Sirius."  He cocks an eyebrow as (Y/N) laughs.  
     "Wouldn't the brightest star in Earth's sky be the sun?  I know you're mine."  
     He chuckles a bit to himself.  Even the word marriage reminded him of (Y/N), and not for any reason related to love.  That had to be a sign in itself at the very least.  

     There would be so much to miss of her.  Now even words were reminding him of their conversations and light flirting.  So many things in nature —hell, even nature itself— reminded him of her.  Pine trees, sakura flowers, lotuses, lilypads.  Would anyone like to take a wild guess as to what 4 plants littered Karasuno's courtyards?  
     He wouldn't be able to hug her after practice and immediately cool down against her chilled skin.  He wouldn't be able to visit the treehouse and stare down at the village, feeling like he actually had control over the world and his life.  He wouldn't be able to look up to the railing during practices and games and see her leaning on the metal, watching with her intense (E/C) eyes.

     Yet, there would be so much he would be sheltered from.  
     He wouldn't be able to experience different types of love and lovers.  Would he recognize things like manipulation?  And even if he did, would he be so convinced that he forced himself to stay?  People change as they grow older, she wouldn't always be the woman he married, the woman he knew, but who would she be?  
     He would never experience what it was like to be with somebody other than her.  All of the things about her he didn't care for, though there were only two or three, he wouldn't ever be able to escape.  He'd constantly live life being reminded anybody could die at any second, because she constantly remembered it.  That was the big one.  
     But in a way, he liked it like that.  That he could live the world through her eyes.  Actually, he really loved that about her.  That she expressed her viewpoints, and that she loved seeing through his.  He didn't need to sleep in a chair, but she did, so he did it, too.  Sometimes, he'd stop himself in the middle of doing things, because sometimes she had to drop everything for minutes on end to cough.  What was life like, like that?  

     8 minutes.  
     Kageyama sighs, his breath fanning her face and making loose strands of her (H/C) hair flutter.  She looks down to grab his hands and pull them up.  She'd set some sort of playlist on when she returned home, and YouTube had been playing background noise for hours now.  He didn't even know what song was playing.  
     Kageyama shivers under her gentle touch.  Her fingers weaved between each fiber of his hair, her face calm as a warm breeze.  He watches her lips part as she draws in a deep breath.  6 minutes, and simply to spite her, he was waiting until the very last second.  
     "I'm sorry."  He watches with confusion as the words stumble from her lips.  Her soft expression went rigid and concerned.  
     "Huh?"  She looked over as they began to rock back and forth in a slow waltz.
     "I didn't want it to be like this."