KnB Valentine’s Day Challenge 2020 Day 4
I’m late! Didn’t have this one ready in time, was busy, and it was hard to write. Hope you guys like it even if it’s so rushed!
Will have two posts for Day 5, I’m looking forward to sharing those 😉
Day 4: Love Song/Wish you were here prompts by @vanilla-daydreams and @theuglycrybaby
Himuro x Reader
Some days you really miss him. It’s hard not to.
It’d been so long since Tatsuya had left for America. Although you both make time for calls and text on the regular, it’s not the same. Especially on days like today—Valentine’s—you can’t help but wish he was here. Or that you were there.
The phone screen glares into your face. Happy Valentine’s Day! Wish you were here. I miss you, the light blue bubble reads.
Above that, his last message dates to a while ago, and it worries you.
He hadn’t sounded like himself. You know that the last year and a half he’s been under intense training, the differences between Japanese and American basketball have been a hard transition back for him. He often calls you after practice, and you know it’s the after, because he’s always quiet. And because it’s him, he’ll always ask you how your day was first, and just listen.
You let him, because you know it takes him a while to warm up—and also because he genuinely cares and wants to know—so you inject as many jokes as you can and keep it light until he finally chuckles. That’s when he’ll sigh. And you find it’s the right moment to ask him how his day went.
And it’s always difficult to hear how crestfallen he sounds. Although he grew up playing basketball on the streets in LA, the latter years of his schooling and basketball in Japan has changed his style, his speed, his strategies. And it’s hard on him.
There are biological limitations, which skill could make up for, but Tatsuya’s struggles have always been mental. With him, there were boundaries he felt he could and would not ever be able to reach. You’ve never known how to convince him otherwise.
Usually, when he was still here, you’d just peck his cheek. He would blink in surprise, and ask you what for with a chuckle.
It’d always be easy to answer him. With a shrug and you’d tell him you didn’t need a reason to kiss him. Just like how he didn’t need a reason to love basketball. He just did, and although he wanted to be better, to push at those doors he was always denied entry, it didn’t make him love it less. And neither would anyone love him less for that, either.
And Tatsuya would smile, the one you love so much where the corner of his eyes crinkle, and then he’d lean in and touch his lips gently against your temple.
The memory makes your eyes water as you feel the ghost of his lips against your skin. Damn it, you really miss him.
You wonder what it feels like when the world no longer feels split between here and there.
Usually, you could at least look forward to a video call dinner, like you’d both done for Valentine’s the year before, but this year he’d told you that he had plans and wouldn’t be able to.
And to add insult to injury, you hear the strums of a guitar begin from the apartment hallway. It was the newlyweds that had just moved in next door. And even through the walls, you recognise the soft tunes of a ballad you and Tatsuya had listened to on one of your first dates.
Warmth pricks at the back of your eyes and you throw an arm over your face with a sniffle. It’s early morning and there was still at least nineteen hours to go before the day would just end. It’s not like you to feel so lonely, but there was something off about your last call with Tatsuya. He’d sounded rushed. Distracted.
Long distance relationships were hard, every around you had warned you two about it. But you’d both managed. Right?
You check your phone again. But still, there’s nothing. Not even a ‘read’ notification. Was he ignoring your messages? Maybe he had a grueling practice session during the day. Maybe the plans that he had, started a day before. Maybe he was just too busy.
Yeah. Too busy for you, the snide inside your head says.
Your next breath sticks on its way out of your throat, and you decide you weren’t going to spend the rest of the day like this. No way.
Throwing the covers off yourself, you sit up on the bed and cross your legs beneath you. You’d just make plans. You had friends. Unless, they also had Valentine plans…
No, you wouldn’t think that far.
Raising your phone, you open your message app to find the names of your closest friends, but something else catches your attention instead.
A new message.
It’s a number you haven’t seen in a long time. Because it hadn’t been used in a long time.
I’m here, the message reads. Been here for a while. Wake up, beautiful.
You freeze. Looking up, you register at the back of your mind that the strumming of a guitar has started again. And that’s all it takes for you to jump out of bed.
Your heart is at your throat by the time you throw your front door open.
It takes two seconds.
One for gray eyes to meet yours, a smile wrinkling their corners. And two, for you to throw your arms around the familiar curves of his shoulders.
Tatsuya’s chuckling, and he only pulls back slightly to put down the guitar he’d been playing in front of your apartment door.
“What?” is the only thing you can mumble into the space between his neck and his collarbone that’s always been just for you.
“Surprise?” His chest is rumbling with his laughter, and he wraps his arms around you equally tight.
“How?” You ask, pulling back to smile up at him. His eyes are bright as he leans down to touch his forehead to yours.
“A very long flight. Very long. But I’m here,” he grins then, and you reach up to brush the hair away from his face.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he says, his gaze as soft as his tone. And his lips meet yours just as gently.
