Scattered light

Do You See What I See

"So which road do I take?" Suga asks, leaning forward and squinting as he searches for the small dirt path off of the main road that I told him would lead us home.

"Up ahead a little more," I reply, the endless fields of grass split perfectly at the horizon by the vast country sky already familiar to me. "By the way, where'd Daichi and Oikawa go?" They had been following behind us in Daichi's mini cooper but I don't see their reflection in the side mirror anymore.

"They turned onto the highway a while ago. I think Daichi mentioned stopping by a store on the way before we left. Hopefully the GPS will lead them all the way out here," he explains, eyes darting to the mirror on his side, hands gripped tightly on the steering wheel even though we haven't seen any other traffic since leaving the city.

Hinata looks up at me and shrugs, squeezing my fingers despite the sweat between our palms. He's calm; the brightness of his eyes the only betrayer of his feelings. This is a new level of excitement; usually he can't stay still, but now he has transcended the plane of hyper motion and moved on to stony silence. I can only imagine what his thoughts sound like right now.

"You know what I'm going to miss the most?" Suga continues, water works just on the edge of his words. "The random video game sessions we had. Or pizza night. Wait! No. Definitely the dumb arguments you and Oikawa would get into," he says, choking a bit on the last few words.

"Holy shit, Suga, you sound like we're dying or something. Trust me, Oikawa and I are still going to argue about stupid shit literally every time we see each other," I shout, laughing because he sounds so ridiculous.

"Okay, okay. I know, I'm sorry. It just feels so weird."

"We'll come visit you so much that you'll get sick of us," Hinata signs, and I interpret since Suga can't (won't) look away from the road. And even if he did his sign language recognition still isn't great. "It'll be like nothing even changed."

"I'm going to hold you to that promise," Suga chuckles, and I'm surprised to find that the sob threatening at the back of his throat is finally gone. It took Hinata a fraction of the time it took me to learn how to calm Suga down.

"Is that it?" He asks, pointing ahead of us where the top of the house begins to rise through the haze of thick summer air. Hinata and I both nod and he smiles, finally tuning away from the road to look at us. "It sure sticks out."

"I painted it, Hinata beams, some of his jittery excitement showing through the closer we get. Suga laughs and shifts his eyes to mine and I shrug, fondly remembering how carried away he got with the paint job. He could barely carry all of the buckets of paint he bought, trying to stack them on top of each other and almost toppling over countless times. Almost every section of our house is a different color. One for each outside wall, another for the window frames, three more for the porch and stairs. He kept it simple on the inside, but the outside looks like a page out of a Dr. Seuss book, and I love it.

The tires make a satisfying crunch on the gravel driveway and he three of us hop out of the cab, taking deep gulps of the outside air that is only fractions thinner and cooler than the inside. We start to carry in boxes while we wait for Daichi and Oikawa to show up, setting them down randomly on the wood floors. Every box breathes new life into the confines of the empty house, warming the walls and lighting a flame behind the dark glass windows. Each thump of cardboard hitting the floor like a heartbeat transforming the skeletal shelter into a home.

The couches come in next; and we just place them in the middle of the living room, planning to figure out how we'll decorate sometime later. We didn't bring much with us, there wasn't much tobring, but as Hinata goes around opening all of the curtains and windows I realize that I am not wanting for anything anymore. I have everything I need right here, and it feels amazing.