In which you love Akaashi very much. Very much...
Hanahaki disease, both love eachother but are too shy to say anything, kinda sad, and cherry blossoms || This fic was HEAVILY inspired by her @akaashiit—a very talented and sweet person<33
Akaashi never meant to let anyone see the diary.
It was a habit from his student days—keeping things close, organized, private. The leather cover was worn at the edges, pages softened by years of being opened and closed during commutes and late nights. Inside were schedules, clipped articles, a pressed cherry blossom sealed carefully between two pages.
One afternoon, as he flipped through it during a break, a coworker leaned over.
“Hey, Akaashi-san,” he said lightly. “That flower—do you always keep it there?”
His fingers hovered over the page longer than necessary before he closed the diary. For a moment, he didn’t answer. Then, quietly, “…Yes.”
There was something in his voice—measured, restrained, but fragile enough that the coworker didn’t push. Still, Akaashi surprised even himself when he added,
“It belongs to someone I love.” not loved—love.
He met you before he knew what love was.
You lived two houses down, a loud, cheerful presence in a world that Akaashi had always experienced as muted and careful. Where he hesitated, you moved forward. Where he overthought, you laughed it off.
As children, you dragged him outside when he’d rather stay in with a book, you held his hand crossing the street, chattering about nothing and everything, you called him by his first name without hesitation, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Akaashi remembers thinking—she’s warm...and cute. Not just physically, emotionally. Like sunlight filtering through leaves.
In middle school, when he started volleyball, you were there. Sitting on the bleachers with homework spread out, cheering too loudly, clapping at the wrong moments—he never asked you to come—you never asked if it was okay.
By high school, it felt inevitable that you’d become Fukurodani’s manager. You fit too well. Encouraging Bokuto, teasing the team, remembering everyone’s preferences. And Akaashi—Akaashi trusted you without realizing when it happened.
You brought him drinks when he forgot—smiled at him in that easy, familiar way that made his chest feel tight for reasons he never examined too closely.
You dropped hints. Soft and careful ones.
“You’d make a great husband someday, you know?”
“I think cherry blossoms suit you...both of you are pretty”
“Whoever you end up with is going to be really lucky.”
Akaashi heard them. He just…translated them wrong.
He told himself you were kind to everyone, that you were naturally affectionate, that assuming otherwise would be arrogant and dangerous. He overthought every word until it lost its shape.
And you—patient you—never corrected him.
Akaashi noticed you’d started carrying lozenges in your pocket, always offering them to others before taking one yourself.
He didn’t know about the illness.
Sometimes, after laughing too hard, you’d turn away under the excuse of fixing equipment, shoulders tense just a second longer than necessary.
There were mornings you showed up pale but smiling, insisting you were fine when Bokuto asked, waving it off like it was nothing important.
You grew used to stepping out of the gym for “fresh air,” counting your breaths until the tightness in your chest eased.
Once, Akaashi asked if you were sick. You smiled, bright and practiced, and said, “Just allergies.” Cherry blossom season had just started, after all.
He didn’t question why you avoided the nurse, or why your laughter sometimes ended in a quiet, swallowed cough.
Looking back, Akaashi realizes how often you chose to be alone right after choosing to be kind.
But there were days you looked impossibly happy, eyes bright, voice light—and Akaashi never realized that joy could hurt just as much as sorrow. you seemed lighter than usual, almost glowing, and Akaashi mistook it for confidence instead of devotion.
Sometimes, loving him felt so full, so overwhelming, that your chest ached with it, like your heart didn’t know where to put all that feeling, but still it felt right.
You used to be happy—because you love him so much that you were coughing petals in the devotion you have for him—even the universe couldn't deny that love you have for him is the purest and deepest.
On those days, you laughed the most. And later, alone, you coughed petals into your hand and wondered how something so painful could still feel so gentle.
Cherry blossom season suited you too well, Akaashi thought it was because you loved spring. He never considered that spring loved you back in its own cruel way.
You’d smile afterward—always afterward—like happiness was something you could choose to keep, even when it left traces behind.
He didn’t know that sometimes, the reason you looked so happy was because loving him—even silently—still made you feel alive.
Only later did he understand, the petals didn’t come from despair alone, but from love that had nowhere to go, from the love you have for him from the start.
By the time you stopped coming around as often, Akaashi told himself it was adulthood. Different paths, life.
Then came the phone call.
Akaashi has read it more times than he can count.
Your handwriting was familiar.
You wrote about childhood, about high school, about how loving him had never felt like a burden, even when it hurt. You didn’t blame him. Not once.
You apologized—for not being brave enough to tell him outright.
You thanked him—for every quiet kindness he never realized mattered so much.
I was happy, Keiji. Genuinely, being beside you as your friend, our team's manager, the person who knew when to tease you and when to leave you alone—that was enough to make my life feel full.
If I had another chance, I’d still choose you. I’d still call you Akaashiit without thinking and watch you sigh like you always did.
Someday, I hope you marry someone beautiful. Someone who understands your silences, who notices when you’re tired before you say it, who reminds you to rest and laughs with you on the easy days. I hope your life with them is warm and a little messy and full of happiness and dreams.
There’s one small thing I want to ask—cherry blossoms fall quickly. They’re fragile, and they never stay as long as you want them to. But they’re beautiful anyway. If you can, please keep one with you. Not as something sad—just as proof that something gentle existed between us, even if it didn’t last forever, and hopefully you will preach about my tales to your children too, if you don't I will haunt you!
Years later, Akaashi still keeps the flower. The flower from the same tree, that grows from the ground were you're resting—waiting for him.
It's pressed, fragile. A reminder not of tragedy—but of a love that existed quietly, sincerely, without demands.
Sometimes, when he opens the diary, he thinks of your laugh echoing across the gym, of small hands tugging his sleeve as a child, of the way you believed in him before he learned how to believe in himself.
The ending is not—because maybe, maybe if his was honest about his feelings, then perhaps you would have been here with him, being his wife.
Here's a tissue for you dear (•‿•).LIKES AND REBLOGS ARE APPRECIATED!
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