"Who's Asahi?"

"Huh?!"

Nishinoya whipped his head around. Haruki looked embarrassed in the same way Asahi did when he did something trivial.

"I'm sorry, forget it-"

"No. It's...it's fine. I'll tell you. You live in the same direction, right? We'll talk about it as we walk home."

"Okay."

As their feet softly thudded against the pavement, Noya began to speak.

"Asahi is an alumni from Karasuno's team last year. You didn't really get his name, but he was at the karaoke bar that night."

"He was?"

"I sang with him."

He recalled them laughing and dancing as he lay in his bed, too sick to move. It was almost pitiful, the state he was in now, he didn't even have enough energy to roll over on his side. He missed him. So, so much.

"Last year, just before graduation, he told me he was gonna go to college. In Tokyo. It...wasn't great."

"I'm sorry."

"Another important thing. He's my soulmate. You see this scar on my wrist?"

He pulled up his sleeve and Haruki flinched.

"It's...big."

"Yeah, well, I love it. Not because I have it, but because of what it represents."

"What does it represent?"

"Last year, Asahi was supposed to die."

The world seemed to stop spinning for a brief, breathtaking moment. Haruki was trying to hide the fact his heart had just dropped into his stomach, Nishinoya was staring at the sky.

"He's alive."

"I saved him. Somehow, I saved him. We changed the course of fate. Every day, I'm grateful. But after all my attempts to stop him leaving, he went to Tokyo. It's not his fault, but..."

"Oh."

"You remind me of him, you know. Same shyness."

"Do I?"

"Hey, there's your house."

"Thanks for walking me home."

"You're welcome."

Haruki walked up the stairs leading to his house and Nishinoya watched the door creak shut. His residence was a few blocks over, but he decided to visit somewhere else tonight.

It was a place that held many memories.

As he walked past the pier, he tried not to look at it. He wasn't ready to see that again. Not today.

He was going somewhere different.

But this time, he was alone.

Yachi scribbled down her final question of the day and pushed her homework away from her, sighing.

This was a lot easier when Kiyoko was here.

Her grades had slipped from perfect A's to almost B's, and her mother knew. She didn't care. Yachi put the papers away in her bag and sighed.

I'm going to bed.

She changed into her pajamas and laid her head onto her pillow.

Until she heard something pelt her window.

She looked outside and...

"Nishinoya-kun?!"

"Shh! Come down!"

"I-I'll be there in a few!"

Then Yachi was downstairs and out the front door, in her flats and running across the grass to her backyard.

"Nishinoya! Do you know how dumb and risky that was? You could've broken my window! You could've woken my parents up! I could've...I could get caught!"

"Shush. It's fine, just follow me."

"Where are we going?"

"Somewhere special."