before.

I miss you. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you.

...but you're not going to come back, are you?

WHAT TO LOSE, WHAT TO KEEP. That same simple task but in the end, you don't really have a choice. The things you keep are doomed to leave, to be abandoned.

Humans are selfish creatures who always want better. They seek to improve themselves only to end up worse than before. They change tools for ones that present more efficiency. They cut trees for houses, dig the earth for worthless stones. Only to fall to the same inevitable end.

Death.

Game over.

Mana knows this fact, but she refuses to let go. She gathers all the fragments and hold them so tight that it wounds her.

She keeps the traces of memories, the letters, every single word she can still remember. She holds them so tight that even though it wrecks her entire being, she refuses to let go.

That's why her footsteps always felt so heavy when it was time to visit their graves.

Polished marble with inscribed names, the little fissures that trailed her sister's, the deaths of mother and sister on the same time. Her father's just months away.

"Mana-chaan~" Mana freezes. It's that annoying voice again. It's been weeks now, but he's still achingly persistent.

"What a coincidence! I was just going to visit my grandmother's-"

"It's not a coincidence," she snaps, sharper than she intended to. She's been more friendly towards Oikawa for the past weeks, but the fear that he'll see the gravestones, bearing the names of her parents and sister, Mana can't help but raise those walls for protection.

She clenches her fists. Unclenches them. She breathes in deeply, repeats the preceding action to soothe her nerves. She just looks blankly at him. And then seconds trickle past them, but the silence is intact.

"Mana-chan," he begins and she's frightened of that normal way he says her name. That serious way that pierces through her soul and unravels fragments of her past. She holds on.

"Are those your parents' graves?" he points at the gravestones, cleaned and polished, inscribed with surnames the same as hers.

Mana is panicking too much that sweat is dribbling from her forehead to the ground, clammy fingers closed around each other and hidden behind her. Mana is still panicking after minutes pass, so much panicking that her mouth can't form ideas that refute his statement. Panic claws on her throat, presses nerves that the ugly truth is spat out.

"Y-Yes," she stammers and the word is the worst tasting thing in her mouth. She wants to swallow it like bile but her own body rejects it and spits it forward.

Seconds pass, the wind blows harder, her carnation pink skirt fluttering, the leaves dancing, the grass beneath the gravestones swaying, the flowers inside the glass filled with water blown away. Mana hurries to pick the flowers up and place them back in the glass and she keeps her silence as Oikawa helps her.

He mutters a prayer under her breath, watches with solemn chestnut eyes and Mana feels repulsed by the pity that laces his eyes. It fuels rage in her, crescents formed from fingernails burying into skin. Deep, deep, deep. And blood trickles from the cut.

"Don't tell anyone," she says, voice sharper than the blades her sister cut herself with. Sharper than the words her father hurled towards her mother in those rare fights between them. Deadlier than the fire that burnt her sister, mother and everything to ashes.

She's wildfire and she doesn't hesitate to burn him.

"I won't," he says, words that are not meant to be taken to heart. Oikawa Tooru is a player in two senses and even though she doesn't know him so much, she can conclude that he cannot be trusted. "You can trust me."

She doesn't. She ignores those saccharine words that just seem too good to be true, candy that feels too sweet and oozes of chocolate and vanilla lies. She searches for the snakes and worms that carry the fact and the truth. She looks at the darkest side. For the truth.

Because she's always seen the truth as ugly and bitter and disgusting. Like medicine you took when you were an infant, leaving bitter aftertastes in your mouth, but needed to cure the sickness.

She doesn't- cannot trust him.

And because she didn't, she ended up falling for him.

* * *

now.

EXAMS. EXAMS. EXAMS.

The same goddamned topic for an equally horrible week. And from the looks of it, Mana isn't the only one aggravated at the examinations. Black hair with the same cliché comparison to crow's feathers, not vultures or ravens, eyes like bottomless pools of octopi ink.

Kageyama Tobio, King of the Court.

He sips the milk angrily, that sort of sip where one just keeps on sipping, sipping until you can hear the sound of the air inside the carton being sucked out. It paints a hilarious picture for Mana though.

Kageyama Tobio laying on the grass, on the same place where they fought, eyes sharp as he watched the cumulus clouds be blown away in the sapphire skies.

He was about to throw the carton of milk into the river when Mana threw him a withering glare. Mana's a meek little creature now, but she's amazed by how those death glares she was so famous for still have the same effect on people.

"It's biodegradable, Mana-senpai," he grumbles, and puts the carton in his pocket. Black like his hair.

"Humans could be classified as biodegradable too, Tobio," she says, playing with the grass she lied on, letting the tips tickle her palms and pass through the crevices between her fingers. "And we don't get get thrown into the river."

Kageyama snorts. "We're not trash, Mana-senpai."

"Speak for yourself."

He merely chuckles. Not. He's an angsty badass that eats people souls and his laughter scares Satan away. At least that's what it looks like to other people, but Mana knows him enough to appreciate the awkward chuckle that escapes his lips.

They should see him look at a volleyball, Mana thinks. They'll wish to be the ball in five seconds flat.

"It's true," Mana says. "I'm trash. Many people are trash. You're volleyball trash."

He merely scoffs. "If I'm garbage," he says, and that annoyed expression is painted on his face. "Imagine what that Tsukishima is."

Mana knows Tsukishima. He's never seen the person, doesn't know anything about his physical appearance except for the fact that he's tall like a beanpole and he has the most conceited smirk in the entire planet (Kageyama's words, not hers). He's an asshole that feeds in the happiness of other people.

"And unfortunately, he's the only guy that can help Hinata and me pass that exam," he says and he sounds like the words are the hardest ideas to release from his mouth.

"It's amazing," Mana notes, playing with the grass again. She scoots closer to Kageyama, noticing the clovers that bloomed near him. She reaches for one, it's next to his neck and the next thing she knows, they're staring into each others eyes. Mana is the first to look away. It's nothing, she reminds herself and picks up the clover with dainty hands. It has four leaves.

"The grass?" Kageyama asks, and if Mana wasn't so focused on the four leaf clover, she would have noticed the crimson tinting his cheeks.

She shakes her head, tilts it back and laughs a little. "You are amazing," she says. "I can't imagine bearing someone I hate for the sake of a sport."

"It's just not a sport," Kageyama says and Mana smiles.

Kageyama and Oikawa were so alike in many things than they would imagine.

"Of course." Mana was never really a fan of volleyball, but from watching all those people- Oikawa, Iwaizumi and Kageyama- fall in love, she couldn't help but be enticed and feel the same way too.

"How are things with you and Oikawa-san going?" he asks and Mana actually snorts at the question. She can't believe Kageyama spent fifteen minutes of his life talking about Tsukishima when all he wanted to talk about with her was her very own relationship with Oikawa.

She knows he's worried. It's very evident in her features, how the weight of the toxic relationship they had immersed themselves in has buried her cheeks and made bags under her eyes droop. How her grades- once with flying colors that could send her to a prestigious university without even trying- have deteriorated. And maybe that preceding word was a severe understatement because if Mana was in a river, deteriorate was just sinking, the word perfect for her current fiasco was something akin to drowning.

"It's fine," she says even though there are a million ways to put it. She could say how it's been terrible for her, the constant fear, the slow descent towards the transition to the worthless cycle they've drowned in, the bad memories. She could say how she's been happy, because in that ship amidst a storm, he's the lighthouse that guides her back to shore. She could.

But she knows the world is not full of absolutes, the world was grey. Grey and chaotic and there were many sides to a story.

"It's really, truly fine," she repeats and she wonders in that brief moment if she's really telling that to Kageyama.

The boy smiles at her, that smile that's so curt and so benign that Mana is reminded of peach blossoms blooming in springtime. "Good for you, senpai."

Mana merely nods at him, and she has the four leaf clover in her palm. "Ne Tobio," she begins. "Can you tell me more about your volleyball career?"

And he's truly happy to oblige.

Looking at him, with his eyes sparkling they could be mistaken for gems, Mana wonders how a girlfriend would feel. To always be second best for him, because volleyball is a clawed creature that has him clutched so terribly and yet sometimes so hauntingly beautiful.

She's envious though, of that hypothetical girlfriend/boyfriend Kageyama has, at least he/she is just second to volleyball, Mana wonders if she's even in the Top Five of Oikawa's heart.

"Why are you looking at me like that, senpai?" Kageyama asks her.

"Nothing." It's easier to pretend there's nothing there at all than to unravel millions of feelings that she hasn't figured out herself.

"Say"- she smiles and turns to him-"It's been a long time since we ate together. Would you like to have dinner with me?"

"Where?" he asks, calm.

"That new karaage place near Shinzen High," she informs him and stands up. "It'll be my treat, come on."

He stands up too, joining her in dusting off the traces of grass on their clothes.

Mana hands him the four leaf clover, smiles. "Here," she says. "I've made a wish. You do too."

"What did you wish for, senpai?"

"That we both pass those exams we so dread."

"Then," Kageyama accepts the clover, stares at it with furrowed eyebrows. "I guess that's my wish too."

"You're such a nice boy," she says with a little lilt in her tone.

"Don't call me that, senpai," Kageyama says with puffed cheeks and she pinches them.

"But you're really like an adorable baby brother I never had."

"Shut up," and he buries his hands in his pockets, face flushed with red.

"You're too cute for your own good."

And then they leave. Just that. Never reminding themselves that the world was neither black or good. That after the good things, the bad was soon to come.

* * *

Mana is still smiling after they return from the karaage shop, her stomach and mood ten times better than before. She checks her phone for texts (she turned it off earlier, under the mentality that all her family was deceased and nobody would be bothered to check up on her) and twelve unopened messages and two missed calls greet her.

It's a little bit strange to have Oikawa sending her messages inquiring her current state, but a little sweet.

Mana hopes he's not upset.
She scrolls past Oikawa's messages, opting to read them later and two messages from a person she doesn't expect to see again.

ANENOKOJI KOTONE
━ 03: 06 pm ━

↱ Mana-chan, it's been a while. How are you doing? I realize you must be busy since you haven't responded to my call, but I've got news that needs urgency in replies. You must have an idea as to why I'm sending this message. It's been years, Mana-chan and I fear so much for your well being. I'm not coercing you into doing things that make you feel uncomfortable or anything, but I really wish that you would travel here to Kyoto and stay. Permanently. You are my only blood relative that remains and my brother would wish for this as well. You can stay in the manor and I will arrange everything. You need this, Mana-chan. Maybe it's time to heal those wounds and stop grasping things that are no longer with us. ↰

Mana freezes. Ice cold.

She's leaving...?

* * *

e n d.
-
[ Supermarket Flowers ]

'sometimes, it's just better to let go.'

[ a u t h o r ' s c o r n e r. ]

oof... i kinda feel inspired rn, so here's an update...? thanks for reading by the way :) you guys are the best !!! dedicated to yuki!! i'm only using my mobile phone for this so unfortunately, i can't tag you. thank you for bearing with this rough draft ^^