i'm so stuck in kyouhaba hell i'm sorry i can't stop writing it

Watari rolled down the window. "Are you sure you're okay to do this?" he asked gently. Yahaba nodded stiffly, not entirely sure if he actually was ready for this. He was going to do it anyways. "Okay. I'll be back in twenty minutes." Yahaba watched Watari drive away, his car disappearing in the distance. He took a deep, shaky breath and walked down the worn-down path he knew awfully well. When he got to where he needed to be, he sat down in the grass next to Kyoutani.

"It's been a while," he whispered. "How've you been?" He didn't suppose Kyoutani had heard him. It wasn't like he was going to respond anyhow. He sighed and laughed bitterly at how ridiculous he was being. Of course, Kyoutani wouldn't reply. When did he ever? Yahaba folded his hands carefully in his lap. "I've been alright." He paused and bit his lip. He could feel his throat closing up. Why did he think he was ready for this?

"Nothing has been the same since the accident," he murmured. "I can't hear very well anymore. It really pisses Watari off sometimes," he laughs again but nothing is truly funny to him anymore. "I uh.. I started talking to myself. Well, I mean, not on purpose. I always think you're going to be there to respond. But you aren't. And it really sucks," he said, biting his lip again. His throat was closing again, tears brimming in his eyes. "It really sucks you aren't here to tell me that my jokes are stupid, or that my tosses aren't the right height, though I think I'd gotten pretty good at knowing how high you wanted them. That was before i stopped playing."

Yahaba took a deep breath. "I know you'd want me to keep playing. That's what Oikawa and Iwaizumi say. I know that. I don't think it's fair of them to say that. After all, they didn't get shot. You were the one who took a bullet to the chest..." He choked back a sob. Tears were coming down his face, resembling something like a waterfall. He tried not to think about how Kyoutani would hold him when he cried, how he would make fun of him until he was laughing again.

"I guess I'm lucky," he said carefully. "The bullet only ruptured my ear drum. You-" he took a deep breath and ran a hand over his scarred ear. "You had it much worse. They couldn't save you. I know they did everything they could.." He let himself be consumed by his cries for a moment.

"It's all my fault," he croaked. "I know you'd tell me otherwise. Everyone else does. But I could've pulled you out of the way. I could've jumped in the way. I could've saved you." There wasn't an inch of him that didn't ache right now. "I could've saved you like you did me." His tears watered the soil under the headstone marked KYOUTANI KENTAROU. "I wouldn't be here right now if I did. We would be together, married just like we had planned. You have no idea the type of looks you get when you have to ask to cancel your reservation because your fiance was killed three months before he could become your husband."

His voice was raw and sounded pained, which, of course, it was. His bi-monthly visits to Kyoutani's grave were never easy for him. They only seemed to get harder. He twirled the chain holding his ring around his finger, the ring that matched the one buried under the surface with the rest of Kyoutani. "It's kind of funny how our first and last words to each other were yelling," he said, although he didn't find it funny in the least. "The first time was yells of anger. The last time was yells of excitement." He smiled bittersweetly at the memory. "We were finally going to get a dog. They finally approved us." He frowned, pulling up a blade of grass to mess with. "I never did get the dog. I forgot about the paperwork."

He sighed again. "School shootings. Who the hell would've thought." He paused to take a deep breath, trying and failing to compose himself. "We always felt safe in the gym, no matter if it was the university's or the high school's. We were wrong. We were wrong," he whispered the last bit to himself. "We felt too safe. We always thought we were invincible, that nothing would happen to us. We were so young, so ignorant. So wrong," he spat angrily.

"I didn't want them to take you away. Not so soon."

Those were Yahaba's last words before Watari tapped him on the shoulder. "It's time to go Yahaba," he said, leaning to Yahaba's good ear. Yahaba nodded wordlessly. He let go of the handfuls of grass he had gripped and followed Watari. Watari smiled at him sadly and slung an arm over his shoulder.

"It didn't feel like twenty minutes," Yahaba muttered.

"It never does," Watari replied simply, leading Yahaba back to the car.