I slowly wake up, feeling a weight on my entire body. I blink, taking in my surroundings. I'm on Tsukishima's bed, next to the wall. Tsukishima is next to me, and Akiteru is sitting on a chair next to the bed.
"She's awake." Akiteru sits up. I look over at the two boys and my eyebrows furrow.
"I'm sorry for causing so much trouble." Is the first thing I say, then look at Tsukishima. He has some color back to him, but I reach out and touch his arm and he's still freezing.
"You didn't cause any trouble." Akiteru says and I don't say anything because I know he's lying. "Oh, um. We don't have enough blankets to warm you two up separately, so I thought it would be best if I just put all the blankets on top of the both of you. Is that okay?" He asks and I chuckle.
"Yes, that's fine. I'm not going to complain when you're taking care of me." I say and he gives a small smile.
"Are you okay?" Tsukishima speaks up, looking over at me.
"I'm more worried about you." I frown and he rolls his eyes.
"Don't be stupid-"
"Here, now that you're both awake." Akiteru cuts Tsukishima off. "I was going to wait for it to cool down a bit, but it's still hot now so eat some soup." He says and we both sit up.
Warm air from the heater brushes against my skin and it feels so good.
We start to eat silently and I look down at myself, realizing I'm not in my school uniform, or my bra, or my underwear. I put a hand on the sweatpants and feel a thin layer of fabric underneath.
"Am I wearing your boxers?" My eyes widen and I look over at Tsukishima.
"You're wearing my everything." He simply responds then I look at Akiteru and Tsukishima in horror.
"That means..." I blink and Akiteru quickly starts talking.
"I didn't see anything! Obviously you guys can't stay in the same clothes because they were soaked and you weren't conscious so I didn't know what to do but we couldn't leave you in those clothes. So, um, Kei insisted that he do it and I waited outside the room while he dried you off and dressed you. Your uniform is in the washer now." He explains quickly and I look up at Tsukishima. He gives me a sly wink and if I wasn't freezing right now, I would have been blushing.
But it's not like he hasn't seen me naked before. I'm at least grateful that Akiteru didn't see anything.
"Thank you." I mumble and we continue to eat the soup in silence.
I don't feel empty anymore, which is what I wanted I suppose. But I think I would prefer the emptiness over the overwhelming amount of guilt and anger I now feel.
As soon as we finish the soup, we try to get warm under the endless amount of blankets again.
"Thank you for not going to the hospital." I say, laying on my side so I don't have to break my neck just to look at them.
"Kei hates the hospital, so he demanded that I bring you guys home. I was super worried because you passed out but you still had a pulse so..." Akiteru scratches the back of his head and I nod.
"It's fine, I'm glad I'm here instead. The hospital would have called my parents and then I would have had 20 bodyguards by tomorrow." I chuckle.
"Adam and David aren't with you anymore?" Tsukishima asks and I shake my head.
"They went back with my parents this morning."
"Oh, okay." Tsukishima nods, and then it goes silent. Nobody knows what to say.
"Do you guys want some time to talk by yourselves?" Akiteru asks and Tsukishima looks at me for a minute before looking back at his brother and nodding.
"Please." He nods.
"Alright, I'll be in my room then if you two need anything." He smiles, standing up.
"Hey, Akiteru." Tsukishima calls right as his brother reaches the door. "Thank you for dropping what you were doing because I said I needed you."
Akiteru's eyes brighten and then turn soft in the same second. He looks fondly at his brother, who probably hasn't said something like that in years.
"Of course. I'll always be here for my little brother." He smiles before walking out the room, closing the door.
"That was nice. I think you just made your brother really happy." I smile at Tsukishima and he shrugs.
"I'm sorry." He says, looking up at the ceiling before closing his eyes tightly. When he opens them, he turns to me and looks me in the eyes. "I am sorry for bullying you, and calling you mean names. I'm sorry for making fun of the way you speak- honestly you don't sound very different. It's just certain words you pronounce weird but it's really cute. Your height isn't anything to be ashamed of either, you're taller than a lot of people and that's cool. I haven't seen you play...but I'm sure it's helped you in sports as well. You're so pretty too. Honestly, you're so beautiful it hurts. Sometimes I hear guys talk about you in the halls and it gets me so annoyed." He puts a hand on my cheek and sighs.
"You don't have to say things like that to try to make me feel better." I give a weak smile. "Especially the last part. Nobody talks to me in school really, I think I just intimidate them because I'm tall." I say but Tsukishima shakes his head.
"It's because of me." He bites his lip. "It's my fault. Some people tend to avoid me because even if they come up to me, most of the times I'm not in the mood to talk. I think they're just conflicted because you're the complete opposite but you're always hanging around me so they just don't talk to you." He chuckles.
"I want to stay around you. But I also want friends." I pout, making him laugh.
Man, I love his laugh.
"You just have to talk to them." He smiles but then his eyes turn serious. "I really need you to know that I'm sorry about all those things. I made someone so perfect, hate themselves. I'm a horrible person." I open my mouth to say something but he cuts me off.
"I think that's why I jumped. I didn't see how far down the water was, or if there was even any water where you were jumping. I felt so bad hearing you say those things about yourself knowing I'm the reason why you feel that way. And - God - when you yelled out your name and said nobody needed you-" he stops, closing his eyes. When he opens them again they're watery and he gulps. "I didn't care what the consequences were going to be. I just needed you to know that I care about you. One last time, I needed you to hear that. So I jumped because I was selfish." He sniffles and I look at him sadly. I reach up, cupping his cheeks to kiss his forehead.
"I forgive you." I say softly and he looks at me in shock.
"Why? I've hurt you so much..." He adverts his eyes somewhere else.
"Because it's all come down to this. You thought you were going to die, and you did it just so you can tell me that you need me." I chuckle. "We both hate ourselves now, and both of our mental health's are shit. What's the point in holding grudges against each other?" I ask and it's his turn to laugh.
"Yeah, you're right. We are a mess." We both smile at each other. "To be honest though, I didn't feel like I was about to die. I'm scared of dying if we're being honest. So I think deep down I knew things would be okay. However, if I did die I would have been pissed. I would have been so upset." At this, I laugh. An actual, coming from the belly, laugh. And he soon joins in too.
"I just can't wrap my head around the fact that you thought I was going to do something like that." I shake my head, looking up at him amused. "But then again, you think I would cheat on you." I say, my voice salty as I roll my eyes. He look at me for a minute, face full of guilt.
"I'm sorry for how I treated you that day too." He sighs. "I was already upset you were going out with another guy and I kept telling myself that it's okay, and that he's your old friend and I shouldn't feel this way because he lives in America, but-" he groans and huffs out a breath. "I was being childish. I decided that I'll go to the park because you asked me to and when I seen you guys, I knew nothing was going on. I knew it, but that voice in my head kept telling me that you probably just got done making out with each other or something, and that's why you're holding each other so tightly. Even though I heard crying. So I kept telling myself that you did cheat, especially after you wouldn't deny it at your house. After you broke up with me...it just gave me even more reason to believe it. I was telling myself that you broke up with me because you cheated on me. But I know you didn't. I don't know what is wrong with me." He groans and I sigh.
"I don't know either." I say. "But that really hurt me. I wasn't going to straight up tell you that I didn't cheat on you because you should know. When have I ever done something to make you question how I feel about you?" I ask and he rubs his thumb against my skin.
"Never." He answers and I chuckle.
"Exactly. I just wanted you to say 'yeah, you're right. I'm being irrational, I know you'd never cheat on me'. But you didn't, and I just remember being so fed up with everything. It started to feel like our relationship was a chore. I felt like no matter what, I'm always doing something wrong and it'd be better if we just ended it there to save both our breaths." I look away, pressing my lips into a thin line as I sigh. "I'm sorry. I really missed you."
"Don't apologize, I'm the one who should be apologizing." Tsukishima says quickly. "We have to work on our relationship and our trust. I don't want things between us to end forever. I still like you a lot. Can we try to move forward?" He asks and I nod, smiling.
"I'm happy to hear you say that. I want to move forward with you too, let's work on our relationship together." I grin and he chuckles.
"Okay." He looks at me then pecks my lips. "Does this mean we're dating?" He asks.
"It'll mean whatever you want it to mean. I trust you." I move my body closer to his.
"Okay, then you're my wife." He wraps his arms around me and pulls me to his body. I mentally scream and throw a party in my head at his words.
"Stop it, you're so cute." I keep my hand on his cheek, beginning to run my other hand through his hair. "Okay. Then you're my husband. We're married now, I don't care what the law says." I say, and we both start laughing.
"Your hands are really cold." He whispers, turning his head and kissing the palm of my hand that was on his cheek.
"You're really cold too." I say and he smiles.
"I can't get warm." He admits, pulling me tighter to him. "Warm me up, yeah?" He grins, pressing kisses all over my face. I giggle, closing my eyes.
"Okay." I smile, opening them once he's finished. I pull the blankets up to our shoulders and wrap my arms around him.
I see him close his eyes and after a few minutes of silence, his breathing evens. I watch his face as he slowly falls asleep, and think about today's events. I play with his hair, waiting for 20 minutes to make sure he's really asleep. I lean forward, placing a kiss on his cheek and then moving my lips next to his ear.
"I love you, Tsukishima Kei." I whisper softly, before putting my head back down. Saying those words out loud after so long feels so good.
There was no way I'd be able to tell him while he's awake. I don't have the guts. But after today, I started to think that maybe, just maybe, he loves me too.