dancing with your ghost

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/27382894.

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: Major Character Death
Category: M/M
Fandom: Haikyuu!!
Relationship: Miya Osamu/Suna Rintarou, Miya Osamu & Suna Rintarou
Character: Miya Osamu, Suna Rintarou
Additional Tags: Haikyuu Angst Week 2020, Angst, Implied/Referenced Character
Death, Character Death, Osasuna
Language: English
Series: Part 4 of Haikyuu Angst Week 2020
Collections: Haikyuu Angst Week 2020
Stats: Published: 2020-11-04 Words: 735

dancing with your ghost

by kakegoe

Summary

The most painful kind of losing your love is losing them to something you have no control
over, that the thought that if only you were given a choice, you would continue to love each
other in lifetimes and more makes it harder to let go. It haunts a feeble mind, and you either
move forward or linger in the past.

Notes

[tw] implied character death (nothing major, but it's there.)

fourth day (prompt: death + "has it always been this silent?") entry for
#HaikyuuAngstWeek2020. inspired by sasha sloan's dancing with your ghost.

Three years and the beige paints were starting to peel, but not much of the four walls have
changed. The oakwood doors still creaked at the slightest move, squeaking locks and ticking
clocks ringing in the silence of midnight, memories of a distant love enclosed in its surface. Not
much have changed; Rintarou’s scent lingered under Osamu’s nose, warm breaths and soft touches
still familiar at the back of his mind, reminding him of every day he had spent with his love and
every day he had not, and every day he will not.

No more. No more of the early morning rises with lazy smiles and side embraces. No more of
the spontaneous slow-dancing at 2AM under kitchen lights. No more of the late-night talks,
planning the future; marriage, adopting kids, building a restaurant—no more. No more of them.
No more of him.

Osamu was left with a mere ghost of who had come to be his only love.

“You’ll hold on, right?” Osamu had asked once; the usual stoic face tainted by a look of
dread and worry poorly covered up under the dim fluorescent lights. He had their hands clasped
together, his attempt at a calm demeanour failing with how tightly he was holding Rintarou against
the hospital sheets.

Pale, chapped lips smiled, genuine and reassuring. “For you.”

But Osamu should have known that was too selfish of him; to ask someone who was by then
tired, to stay. It was selfish to pull someone who only wanted to rest, simply because Osamu was
not ready to let go. And he had never been ready to let go. Not even five weeks after, four months
later, and three years past.

Not even now.

Three years and tears continue to be shed before night breaks to day, making up, and more, for
the two months he had not wept when he lost him. The day Rintarou had let go, Osamu mustered
no cry. It was only two months later that he did, pouring out all of his soul, when he finally realised
that no matter how much he would wish to hear, touch, or even just see a little bit of Rintarou, he
will never be able to. Not anymore.

The most painful part of it all was… it was not their choice. Had they had one, Rintarou
would be by Osamu’s side right then, smiling, whispering, leaving a kiss on the latter’s forehead as
he goes to bed. Had they had their choice, Osamu would have forever of Rintarou, and Rintarou of
Osamu. They would choose to continue in a lifetime, and more, and fulfil each promise that was
now sadly left merely broken. But they played no more than shoulders to lean on in a story long
foretold, where there were only two options laid out: accept it or continue dwelling in the past.

And for Osamu, he decided to miss Rintarou for every piece of his being, for every day.

Has it always been this silent?

Three years and the beige paints were starting to peel, but not much of the four walls have
changed. And yet, somehow, the stillness of the night carried more weight than ever before,
deafening and painful, as though the world was mimicking how hollow Osamu felt and how much
he was equally hurting inside. It has been long, but he could not seem to bring himself to move on,
but even doing so much as trying cut him deep, especially with the thought that if Rintarou had
been given a choice, he would choose to stay and love more of Osamu every day.

Osamu was now left dancing with the mere ghost of the past—of his bygone lover, their song
playing on the record turning in the background. His chest constricted with every breathing
moment, muffled screams of hurt and frustration threatening to slip past his quivering lips as the
night had dipped bottomless to a cold, bitter silence, making way for more reminiscences to flood
his mind. He could swear, that in the dead quietness of the night, he could hear Rintarou’s sweet
lullaby of a voice—that in the chilly air, he could feel Rin’s soft, warm touches. But heaven only
knows where his only love is now.
 Even for a lifetime, and a few more eternities, for Osamu, Rintarou would be everything that
was, and are, and will be.

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