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In eighteen-forty-two, Juilius Robert Mayer discovered the law of conservation of energy. Of course, dates don’t matter much to Daichi. He has lived many lives, has held many names, and lived in many places. Times and dates and names and places matter little in the faces of eons, in the faces of eternity.
Julius Robert Mayer discovered not just the secrets of science and the construction of the universe, but he also discovered the secret to an eternal life. Or at least, to Daichi’s. Souls, similar to energy, could not be destroyed. They lived on and on and on, searching forever to find their final fate.
Souls often came in pairs, bonded in their creation and always yearning to be connected with each other. While these pairs had many names in many different cultures, Daichi elected to call them soulmates. He found it easier that way.
He remembers himself as Daichi, because that was his name in his most important life. But a name holds importance only for identification, and there is so much more to Daichi than just his name.
In his first life, he was born under the great suns of Egypt. That information is unimportant. He was born on a sunrise, under the eyes of Ra, the sun god, with dark skin and dark hair and dark eyes and small, dark feet. That information is unimportant. His name was Akhenaton, and that information holds no importance to the rest of Daichi’s existence, but he remembers. It was his First Birth.
On the human timeline--an incorrect, linear model--his First Birth was during the messy period between the beginning of civilization and the first time humans started to count the years. So was Suga’s, even if that wasn’t his name yet. In his most important life, society called this time-period ancient Egypt.
Daichi met Suga on his deathbed. He had been walking a path on the outskirts of their village, carrying meat from the butcher back to his house. The path he took was dangerous, his mother warned him never to walk upon it unless he wished to meet his early end. Daichi walked upon it to avoid the manure smell from the slaughterhouses and stables that lined the main path.
Starvation was common in his village, theft even more so. It was unsurprising to Daichi that whenever he walked the path he found bodies slumped over on the side-shoulders, either dead or close to it. Sometimes they would call out to him, begging for a single drop of water. He forced himself to walk on.
Daichi didn’t like it, but he lived with it. The day, objectively, was no different than any other. The boy laying on the side of the street; he should not have been special or noteworthy.
But he was. Daichi was drawn to him, it was as if he was being pulled closer and closer to the boy. For the first time, he diverged from the path.
The boy was slumped over, breathing shallowly. It was clear to anyone passing by that he was in his final hours.
“Uh, hey.” Daichi said, kneeling down next to the boy. “Are you okay?”
The boy just let out a pathetic groan. “Uh, uh, you’re okay. Are you going to throw up?” The boy weakly shook his head. He let out more little noises of distress. The boy's skin was pale. Daichi realized exactly why he was on the side of the path.
He was about to die.
There had been sickness wracking the poorer people of the village, isolated from their richer counterparts and unable to afford a doctor. Daichi had heard stories of young boys, no more than his age, being left on the street to die after becoming so sick that their family can’t care for them any longer.
Daichi felt a stirring within his chest, pity or sympathy, maybe. He had to do something, even if it’s just to console the boy.
The noises of discomfort increased in volume. “Hey, hey, hey. Don’t worry, calm down. I’ll-I’ll save you. I promise. It’s all going to be okay, I’m going to protect you, okay? I promise.”
Those words were the beginning, the only part of Daichi’s First Birth worth mentioning, because it was the beginning of his mission. What he will spend the rest of his eternity on.
Promises are not taken lightly, not in the eyes of fate. They are permanent bindings, unable to be broken until they are complete. Daichi didn’t know that when he made his covenant. If he did, he might not have stopped that day, he might not have sat down next to the other boy, he might’ve ignored the pull in his chest and brought his butcher meat directly home to his family. But He didn’t. He sat next to the boy until sundown, until the boy's chest stopped moving and his heart stopped beating. He sat in that spot well after the boy was already dead and gone, until the moon's pale face was the sole illumination in the night, his only guidance on the path back to his home, to his parents, to drop off the meat and eventually fall asleep.
The rest of his life was dull and uneventful, with his First Death being caused by a rogue bull accident when he was well into his middle age.
That was Daichi’s first life, as well as the beginning of everything.
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Daichi does not remember his second childhood, though he must assume it was boresome and unvaried, because he remembered everything else from his past life. That was unusual.
He was in what would eventually be referred to as Europe, as the continent was slowly recovering from the war and sickness and famine that had ravaged the people. Everyone was split apart, fighting over religion and land and royalty.
There were some things that changed from his life in Egypt. For one, Daichi was now a noble maiden . He was not let out alone, he was married off to some carpenter’s apprentice and was ultimately treated like a piece of glass.
He hated it. He hated the dresses and the suitors and how sheltered he was. He hated how he was treated like he was dumb, or like he was a child, or like he was an object for a man’s desire. He hated how he received a minimal and stunted education, soon replaced with lessons on how to clean and cook and be silent unless directly addressed, while his younger brother was allowed to fill his brain with theories on the starts and mathematics to his heart's desire. He hated the scornful upturn of his parents' noses at the young women Daichi’s age and younger who slinked through the streets, selling their bodies for money and food.
Daichi often thought these things in the safety of the outdoors, away from his home and the dresses and the suitors, where he could walk around the poorer sections of his city in a stolen dress without the expectations or pressure of the nobility.
It was on one of these adventures through the backroads that winded through houses of the peasantry and lower class, did he meet the person that would change his life. Daichi had been sitting on the muddy ground, his skirts already caked with rainwater and muck, silently glowering about the tightness of his boots.
“Why are you here?” A high-pitched, feminine voice had questioned. Daichi has turned around, and saw who must’ve been the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
“W-what do you mean?” He said, regaining his composure. “I’m resting my feet.”
“In the middle of this storm? Outdoors ?”
Daichi scoffed. “Well, you’re outdoors too!”
“That I am,” the woman said. “But I live near here, you do not.”
Daichi paled. “How do you-how do you know that?” He asked, before he could stop himself, “I-I mean, I live near here too!”
“I don’t believe you.” The other girl sat down next to Daichi.
He flushed in embarrassment, puffing his chest out slightly. “And-and why not?”
She smiled. “The only type of girl my age around here that’s still running around without a fancy little ring on her finger is a working girl, and you look like you have a distaste for men.”
Daichi blinked in confusion. Working girl? Distaste for men? What does that-
Oh. “You’re a prostitute.”
The woman laughed. “Technically yes, but I prefer to think of myself as a businesswoman.”
Daichi swallowed nervously. “Do you-do you enjoy your work.”
“It’s just a job. I have a...large clientele pool.” She shrugged. “But you could say I have a distaste for men as well. I much prefer women, if we’re both being truly honest.”
Daichi gaped at her bluntness. “That’s...that’s sinful!”
“I never cared much for sin. I don’t think I care much for God, either.”
“How can you just say that? You’re going to burn in Hell for your blasphemy!”
“God is a man, isn’t he? I said I have a distaste for them.”
Against Daichi’s better judgement, against every ideal and expectation of being a good, Catholic, God-fearing girl that had been drilled in his head since his second birth, he laughed. It was a loud snort, undignified and unlady-like and going against every lesson he’d ever learned. It was scandalous. Daichi loved it.
He also thinks that if love at first sight existed, he would definitely have it with this girl.
He coughed suddenly, hoping the pink tint to his cheeks went unnoticed in the dreich weather.
Daichi glanced over at the sky, and cursed as loudly as he dared at the moonbeams shining prominently through the downpour. It was late, he should be back home. “It’s late, I should be going.”
“You want to travel in this storm?” The woman asked, with a quirk of her lips.
“I don’t think I have much of a choice. My parents will be worried.”
She smiled solemnly. “You always have a choice. You just have to ask yourself if it’s worth the risk.”
Daichi found himself continuously more flustered. “I don’t-I don’t think some fancy words will change much of what my parents say when I arrive home well after moonfall.”
The woman shrugged. “I’d say it was pretty smart sounding for a working girl, don’t you think?” She smiled. “But it is late. We wouldn’t want your fancy little noble boots getting stolen because you were tromping around peasant territory, would we?”
“I, uh-”
“You’re cute when you’re flustered, has anybody told you that?”
Daichi swallowed. “No.”
“Well,” the woman said while sweeping the wet clumps of his hair out of his eyes, her skin brushing against his, “they should.”
It should have been nothing more than a brush of her hand, their skin touching for the first time, but to Daichi it was so much more. It was warmth, it was light. It was the feeling of the Egyptian sun upon his skin as he bent down to help a dying, nameless stranger. It was the silence of the dead, and the heavy weight of a promise upon his tongue.
This woman was the boy on the path, sick and hungry and dying. This woman was Daichi’s soulmate, she was Suga, and he was innately certain he didn’t remember a thing about the past, about Egypt.
“I’ve got to-I’ve got to go now.”
Suga just smiled at him. “Okay then, but you better come back. I can’t have your noble self living it up in luxury while I’m stuck down here with the pigs. I need company.”
Daichi nodded, grateful that his fair skin masked the paleness of his face. “I will. I will.”
With that, Suga left, even though it was Daichi who needed to head back home. He sat alone, in the mud and the dirt as the sky poured and soaked his dress. He stood up, eventually, and began the gloomy trek home.
When he finally snuck into his room and laid down in his bed, he closed his eyes, his heart feeling emptier than it had in the morning.
-
Daichi’s life continued in that cycle for a long time after their first meeting. He and Suga would walk the slumps of the peasantry houses, hands grasped together that were hidden under draping sleeves, stealthily climbing into abandoned bathhouses for just one more moment, one more second of privacy before their illusion of utopia was broken. Suga would always have to leave first, gathering her skirts as she adjusted her tunic to sit a little bit lower, a message to any of the men walking the streets that she was open for business.
One time, before they had to leave one of the bathhouses and re-enter reality, Daichi had turned towards Suga, and asked her a question. “Why do you do this?”
Suga blinked at him in confusion. “Do what?”
“Sell yourself.”
She swallowed thickly, staring at the ceiling while she squeezed Daichi’s hand in hers. Eventually, after minutes of silence, she released the pressure. “I wish I didn’t. I wish I didn’t have to, but...it’s this or starve. I have no desire to join a nunnery and I can’t get another job.” Suga shrugged, the weight of sadness heavy on her shoulders. “I’m stuck. Also, I have a significant client base, so it’s keeping me afloat.” She looked up through the hole in the ceiling, rotted wood slowly spreading throughout the rest of the building. The sun was peeking through, signaling the beginning of the mid-afternoon. “I have to go.” She said, gathering her skirts and flattening her hair.
Daichi squeezed her hand before she left. It would be the last time he would ever hold it.
-
It had been a week since Daichi last saw Suga. He walked through the peasant houses, through the abandoned bathhouses, checked every nook and hiding spot the two had ever used. There was no sign of Suga.
The whisperings about witches, however, had never been more bountiful. Everywhere in Daichi’s house, the servants would be clumped together muttering, separating reluctantly only when Daichi or another member of the noble family entered the room.
Finally, while walking through Suga’s neighborhood yet again, she spotted someone. She stopped him, quickly asking where Suga was, hoping he wouldn’t ask who she was.
The man stared at her quizzically. “You haven’t heard? The witch has been taken to pay for her crimes!”
“W-what?” Daichi exclaimed. “What do you mean, witch?”
“Exactly what I said, girl. The seductress will pay for her crimes, and burn in Hell. She’ll be hanged come nightfall.”
Daichi glanced at the sky, the sun was significantly lowered in the sky. “I-thank you. I’ve go to-I’ve got to go.” And he ran off, towards the sun, and towards the gallows.
He was too late.
There was a group of men holding Suga’s body, bruised and pale, not caring at all that they had just killed—no, murdered — her. They handled her roughing, belligerently tossing her body into a hastily dug hole. Into a grave.
Daichi couldn’t move, he was stuck. His feet were full of lead, and he just stood as the men man-handled his lover, treating her body with disrespect. He couldn’t move until after the men had left, until after he had been standing alone for some time.
The patch of earth they dumped Suga in was unmarked, lumpy dirty being the only indicator that there was a body put to rest there at all.
He remembered his promise from Egypt, he remembered watching the boy as his hands became cold and his eyes glazed over.
He failed again.
This would not be the last time. Not by a long shot.
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There was a particularly interesting cycle where Daichi was reincarnated as a flower. Next to him, sat Suga, as sunlight shone upon their grassy meadow and the gentle breezes that plagued the summer caused the grass to sway without rhythm, chaotic and unpredictable and wild.
And so, Daichi and Suga sat side by side, swaying together in the wind and basking together in the sun and existed in each other's orbits. They were magnets, and they did what magnets did, they pulled each other closer, and closer, and closer, never to touch because of their own magnetism.
Suga was always beside him, but never close enough to touch. Never did their petals brush against each other, not even in the most brutish spring rainstorms, or in the most utopian of summer days.
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Daichi didn’t remember what cycle he was on, or what year it was, or even what his name was.
In this cycle, he remembered two particular things. He was on a boat, and Suga was his captain.
The sailor’s life was fine. It was hard for Daichi to get overly excited about anything anymore. It was hard to be impressed by human luxuries when one has lived for eons.
The deck was always wet, there was always salt in his eyes, he always tripped on one of his crewmates' personal belongings that were carelessly strewn around the ship.
Every morning, Suga would round up the crew and talk about the weather. This day was no different.
“Good morning sailors!” He yelled, obtusely joyful despite the early hour. “Are you ready for the day?”
The crew all grumbled out various versions of confirmation, most filled with curses and swears at the early hour, along with the annual wishes of violence towards the captain and his unborn offspring.
Suga always laughed it off. He was nice like that. Then he said the forecast.
“I’ve been spying a nasty storm up on the horizon. Stay sharp boys, we don’t want any accidents.”
The crew ignored the uneasy energy that had settled over all of them, and attacked their chores with the same fervor as always. They ignored the darkening skies, trusting their captain to keep them safe. They ignored the rising waves, angry under the Cimmerian sunset, even as they beat louder and louder against the side of the hull.
“Oi Gonzago!” One of the crew members heckled towards their first mate. “Is it true that Martinez over here f-”
A giant wave hit the hull of the ship, aggressively rocking it in the increasingly stormy waters.
The captain ran out from the upper deck. “Gonzago!” He barked, as the wind whipped around him, almost blowing a few sailors off of the ship. “Man the-”
Another slammed into the ship's side. The crew heard a sharp crack, as well as the horrifying sound of a hull quickly filling with water.
Suga’s face was pale. “Get to the-get to the lifeboats. Hurry!” He shouted while running around to the other side of the deck to start untying smaller boats.
Daichi, who had picked up the very dangerous habit of tangling his legs up in the ropes hanging from the ship’s upper masts during his more reckless years at sea, had to spend a perilous amount of time untangling himself.
When he finally managed to get safely on deck, he was the only one left on the boat.
Well, almost.
“Come with me captain, we can still make it!” Daichi shouted, wind and salt water whipping against his face, masking his tears in the face of the pounding rain and moisture.
“No!” Suga screamed, clutching onto the dying boat’s rails. “A captain goes down with his ship!”
The rain was falling harder, the rumbling downpour falling from the heavens, angry rainclouds relentlessly beating down the broken hull of their ship. Daichi squinted through the thick sheets of water, barely able to make out more than blurry outlines of his surroundings. He needed to save Suga, he needed to get them off this ship.
“There’s still time!” He shouted over the rain, over the memories of Egypt and Europe and a hundred lifetimes that paralyzed him. Before it was too late .
“No!” Suga shouted. Daichi had blinked, and the other man was right in front of him. “I will not abandon my ship.” He saiddecisively.
Daichi blined, his vision hazy in the downpour. “You’re going to die! We’re going to die!”
“No.” Suga said, suddenly in the center of his eyesight. “You’re not.”
“I-what, no-”
He hadn't noticed that they were nearing the edge of the boat. He hadn’t noticed the singular lifeboat that was bobbing feverishly in the monstrous waves. He hadn’t noticed himself slipping on the slick deck, and his captain towered above him.
“I’m sorry,” Suga said gazing down at him. “I’m saving you.”
“You’re killing yourself!” He shouted, as Suga pushed him backwards, backwards, backwards, until he was falling down, down down. He hit the lifeboat.
Suga was still on the boat.
“I’m being a captain!” He heard over the thunderous roar of the rain, over the thunderous beat of his heart, filling his head.
“There’s room for two!” He shouted, but he was floating away. “There’s room for two! There’s room for two, there’s room for two, there’s room for-”
He started sputtering, his panicked gasps drawing rainwater into his lungs. It was dark, Daichi could only see the silhouette of the boat as it sank.
“ NO!” He screamed. “ NO, NO, NO!”
He doesn’t know how long he screamed for. He doesn’t know how long he floated alone at sea, a single man in a lifeboat fit for two.
He doesn’t know who found his body, or when. He doesn’t know who saw tear stained cheeks on a cold corpse, who saw his vocal chords which were raw and bloody. He didn’t care.
He only knew that he had failed yet again.
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In all of his life’s and death’s, Daichi never cried for himself. He cried for his friends, and his families, and his countries and his worlds, but never for himself.
Failures don’t deserve tears.
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In one reincarnation, Daichi almost did it. He almost lived the happy ending. He and Suga had been childhood neighbors, eventually set up for marriage before the war hit.
He was stuck. Women weren’t allowed on the front. Suga had enlisted.
As a final plea, a final hope because they were so close to making it, Daichi was so close to saving him, he caved.
He told Suga he loved him. He told him he’s loved him for eternities.
Suga looked at him softly, kissed his forehead and whispered, “I have to go.”
“No, you don’t!” Daichi argued, tears welling in his eyes and breaking every rule about a woman’s role that his mother had ever taught him. “You could-you could stay. Here. And be safe with me.”
“If I don’t enlist now, I won’t have a choice later. You know this.”
Daichi did. Daichi also remembered eternities upon eternities being too late, failing at saving the man in front of him.
He was so close, he’d almost made it.
“Please don’t go.” He whispered, eyes full of tears that refused to fall. Failures don’t deserve tears.
“I’m sorry.” Suga said, leaning down to plant a tender kiss on his forehead. It felt hollow.
Come back to me, Daichi thought when Suga finally clicked the door shut with a goodbye.
He didn’t.
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Suga was an unbloomed rosebud in the middle of a winter storm, withered and dying and unsaveable.
Daichi was the poor gardener that had to go up to the rosebud and water it everyday, despite knowing the flower was condemned to death.
It was futile, it was pointless, it was failure. He hated it. He hated his endless lives. He hated trying over and over to save a soul who could never be saved. He was stuck performing the same task over and over again, forced to try and fight a destiny that the deities had slated for death so long ago. He was fighting an uphill battle, trying in vain to reach the fortress where his soulmate’s happy ending was being locked away.
The world spun on. Daichi was born, yet again.
He was powerless.
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Daichi lived one of his lives as a paramedic in Chicago. The call shouldn’t have been different from any of the thousands of calls him and his partner answered.
There had been a shooting. A civilian was hit and was profusely bleeding out. Dying.
“Hey hey hey, no no no, you’ll be okay. Shhh, don’t worry, we got you. You’ll be okay. You’re in good hands.” His partner whispered to the whimpering man, blood soaking through the cloth he was pressing over his wound. His partner hissed at him to get the defibrillator.
He was gone for a minute, probably less. But that was too much.
The look on his partner’s face said it all.
He had never met this man before in his life, in this life, but he knew. This was his soulmate.
His soulmate was dead, yet again.
Daichi was too late, yet again.
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In the wartorn valleys of Vietnam, Suga died. Daichi watched friendly-fire impassively gun him down.
When he reached for the body, he was pulled away. He let himself be.
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He told himself he wouldn’t care. That he would stop fighting. The sword and shield that Daichi had carried throughout time and space, throughout centuries upon centuries of failures and mourning, had finally set them down.
He fought for Suga, but in the end it meant nothing. He knew nothing about him. He was stuck in this godforsaken cycle because of a stupid promise he made to a boy on the side of the road. Hell, he didn’t even know him!
And he was condemned for eternity to fight for that boy’s life.
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The defining feature of Daichi’s most important life was volleyball.
In this life, his name was Sawamura Daichi, born December twenty-first nineteen ninety-four. He had four younger siblings and two loving, vastly overworked parents.
When he was six, his father sat him down at the kitchen table and handed him a volleyball. The next week, he was signed up for a youth team.
Daichi loved the sport. He had fun with his teammates and craved that sweet exhilaration that coursed through his veins whenever he dug a nasty spike. The mere thought of the next game filled him with a buzzing excitement and uncrushable joy.
He could even convince himself he was happy, sometimes.
He played throughout middle school. The thrill of the game helped clear his mind of soulmates and promises and the great suns of Egypt.
When he played, he could forget. Even if it was just for a little while.
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He met Suga in the Karasuno gymnasium on his first day of high school.
He was one of only three first years. The boy at his side had shaggy long hair with a sharp jawline and even sharper line shot.
Next to him was a pretty boy with a shining mop of bright gray hair. As soon as their new senpai’s stopped talking and went to set up the net, he turned to him.
“My name is Sugawara Koushi, and I’m a setter.” He said without prompting, sticking his hand out towards Daichi’s. When he didn’t immediately react, Suga grabbed his hand and shook it for him. “Let’s be friends.”
“Wha-?” Daichi couldn’t finish voicing his confusion before one of the third years started yelling for everyone to line up for two-on-two’s.
He didn’t get to talk to Suga for the rest of practice, but the other boy’s skills spoke for themself.
Daichi had yet again found his soulmate.
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Asahi, Daichi, and Suga walked home in a group after practice. Or more like, Suga and Daichi walked to the grocery mart a little less than half a mile away from Karasuno and Asahi climbed into one of his parents cars only a couple of blocks away from the front gates.
“So!” Suga exclaimed joyously. “That was fun.”
“Yeah,” Daichi said. “It was.”
They walked in companionable silence, with Suga occasionally butting in to make a comment about one of their senpai’s or about his sensei’s or about adjusting to high school in general.
As Suga rattled on another polite tangent about the unfairly and annoyingly tall boy from the basketball club that sat directly in front of him in class, Daichi was drifting deep in his thoughts.
Suga was undoubtedly his soulmate, which meant two things.
One) He was going to die.
Two) Daichi would fail to save him.
Everytime he thought of his failures, the memories of Suga’s various dead bodies flipped through his mind.
I’m sorry, he mentally screamed at Suga. I’m sorry I can’t be better.
“Do you want to get meat buns?” Daichi burst in interrupting the other teen mid-rant.
Suga paused, and smiled, soft and beautifully. “Sure.”
Daichi paid at the front counter.
Meat buns wouldn’t quell his guilt, but they could settle it, even for just an hour.
-
“Hey Daichi?” Suga called from over by the volleyball net. They had the gym to themselves, Asahi was sick and they had silently agreed to continue their newfound tradition of staying behind behind after practice. “Do you have me in as ‘Suga from School?’”
Daichi stopped collecting volleyballs to be put back into the giant fabric bin for the night, and stared at Suga who was currently scrolling through his phone. “Yeah. Why?”
Suga snorted just a little bit, and shook his head I’m mock-disapproval. “Dude that’s so boring! What are you, fifty years old?”
A voice in his head whispered I’m actually around several eons old, but Daichi did not comment. Suga didn’t give him the chance to respond.
“We’re friends! We need something more exciting, like a nickname. Or an inside joke! We need an inside joke, Daichi!” The other teenager continued to stare at his phone. “Oh my God, I’ve got it!” He started furiously typing on the keyboard, grinning slightly manically and chuckling to himself.
“What is it? Can I see?” Daichi asked, walking up to the other boy.
“No. It’s a surprise.” Suga giggled, still smiling like an absolute madman. It was a soft moment. Nice, even. Daichi found that he enjoyed the gentle tenderness that had encased the moment.
It was like, for a moment, he could forget the golfers chains of fate that linked them together. That he could forget the boy next to him was destined to die,and he had, over and over again, while Daichi again and again failed to stop him.
Suga shoves his phone into his hands, still brightly illuminating the gym with the force of his enthusiasm. Their hands brushed, the tranquil atmosphere strengthening and solidifying.
There was a new name over Suga’s phone number. Shiratorizawa Upriser #1.
“And here, here, here look.” He pulled out his phone as well, opening up his contacts app. “I’ll change it in mine too! We can match.” Suga’s bright grin was back, lighting up the court in the same way the sun lights the solar system.
Daichi thinks, maybe, that smile is something worth fighting for after all.
-
“Hey Daichi.” Suga’s voice filtered out of the phone receiver and into Daichi’s ear.
It was eleven at night. Daichi was already tucked into his bed for the night.
“Hi Suga.” He said. “Do you need something?”
He heard a muffled yell distorted through his speakers, and then a ragged inhale. “Can we just..talk?” He sounded like he had been crying.
“Sure. One time, when I was playing in middle school I…”
This would be the first time Suga called him late into the evening, but not the last. Daichi couldn’t convince himself that he minded.
-
Halfway through their second year, Suga invited him over to his house for the first time.
As Daichi set down his overnight bag, he couldn’t help but notice the emptiness of the apartment. There was no mother in all of the family portraits, just Suga and another white-haired man who was presumably his father.
Catching Daichi staring at the photos and then subsequently whipping his head in the opposite direction in embarrassment over being caught, Suga only laughed. It was a choking, awkward sound, and neither of them mentioned it for the rest of the night. “My-uh, parents got divorced last year.”
“Oh.” Daichi said dumbly. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Suga batted a hand at him flatly. “It was for the best. Neither of them were happy anymore.”
“Oh, uh, that’s good, I guess?” Daichi scratched his head awkwardly, suffocating in the tension.
Thankful Suga was a gracious man, taking pity on his friend and quickly showing them down the hallway to his room, and also his newest video game console.
Suga’s father rapped on his door four times to tell them to quiet down. They never did.
When the sun was starting its early morning ascent into the sky, all of the games were put away. Suga was snoring peacefully on a futon next to Daichi, whose eyes were still peeled wide open and had laughter still resting on his tongue.
This was...this was wrong. He shouldn’t get attached. He should leave now and distance himself and let Suga die and leave him in peace before he had to repeat the cycle over again.
But that night was maybe the happiest in all of his lives. He’d never laughed so much, he’d never felt the weight of thousands of deaths be lifted from his shoulders.
Daichi was caught in an illusion; living in a mirage. If he closed his eyes, and breathed slowly and deeply, he could pretend that it was just him and Suga, without the memories of failed pasts and futures and presents, without the images of Suga’s different dead bodies imprinted on the inside of his eyelids, playing like a flip book whenever Daichi blinked. He could pretend like the boy next to him wasn’t condemned to die soon, like he and Suga were normal and regular second-years and he was a person unburdened by the knowledge of fate and the universe in his mind.
Suga groggily turned in his sleep, seemingly roused to wakefulness, and broke the thin sheet of silence that had settled over the two of them and the night. “I’m glad I met you, Daichi.”
He swallowed, pushing down memories and fear and feeling of the Egyptian sun beating down on his skin. Suga could be in his arms if he just rolled over slightly, his goal was within reach. “M-me too.”
Suga’s snores had returned. Daichi was left alone with the loud hammering of his incessant regrets.
He fell asleep desperately trying to remind himself not to get attached. Dying may be Suga’s destiny, but failing is his.
Daichi knew it was irrational, but he faded into unconsciousness with a faint smile on his lips.
-
“Daichi.” Suga said one day after practice. “Next year we’re gonna be the captains. We’re gonna be third years.”
“Yeah.”
He smiled without any of his usual mirth or mischief, just full of determination and hope. “We’re gonna beat Shiritorizawa, and make it to Nationals.”
Daichi was treated to Suga’s uniformed back as he left the gymnasium.
Okay, Daichi thought. We’re going to Nationals.
-
They made it to Nationals. The moment the volleyball slammed onto the ground for the game point against Shiritoirizawa, Suga ran onto the court and threw his arms around his shoulders.
“You did it, Daichi!” His breath tickled his ear, sending his few baby hairs careening over the side of his head. “You got us to Nationals.”
He did it. He finally did something for Suga.
The other boy very kindly didn’t mention how Daichi was clinging to him just a bit too tightly for winning the Nationals Qualifiers. Daichi might have loved him for that.
-
He didn’t play volleyball in college, but he and Suga still texted daily. They still hung out and they still laughed about stupid stuff while endlessly mocking their most rued college professors.
It was...nice. Daichi thought he was finally starting to relieve the ever encompassing weight of failure.
It ache never really left, though. Not really.
-
In his second year of college, Daichi was hospitalized for a brain tumor. The doctor said he was going to die.
He’d never saved Suga. He never was going to be able to.
Everything he built, every late night playing video games, every game of volleyball, every brush of Suga’s hands against his, every meatbun they had ever bought together after that fateful first meeting, gone.
Daichi had died many times before. None of his failures had ever stung as much as this loss.
He loved Suga, and he was going to leave him. A small rose had finally found the sun and began to bloom in his chest, only to be withered away by a brutal, cancerous snowstorm.
When everyone had left, and Daichi was alone, he cried for himself for the first time in eternities.
-
The months blurred together. So did his visitors. Daichi couldn’t differentiate one day from another, one face from another, one life from another.
The only constant was Suga. It was always Suga.
-
Suga’s hands were freezing.
His hands had always so felt cold to Daichi, but he couldn’t tell if the decrease in the temperature was a product of his imagination or not. They felt colder when Suga clutched his hand as Daichi laid in a hospital bed.
“Daichi, I need to...I need to tell you something. Before you g-go.” Suga said, choking on the last word. “The doctor said you don’t have much time left, and you...you deserve to know this.”
Daichi tried to push himself up further on the bed, but his arms were too weak, and his back fell onto the hospital mattress. Suga had seen his struggle, and helped him adjust himself into a sitting position.
His face was solemn, an uncharacteristic expression on the setter's face. It made Daichi’s stomach flutter with anxiety.
“I was lonely in middle school.” Suga said bluntly. “I never really had any close friends and I felt like I was just floating through everything in my life. The only exception was volleyball. My parents had started fighting more and more, and I felt like I had nowhere to go to. I didn’t have an escape.” His bit his lip as his eyes misted over, staring at someplace over Daichi’s head, someplace that was far away from the hospital room. “The summer before I came to Karasuno was the worst, I think. I just walked around without a purpose. The only thing I did was play volleyball and sleep. I couldn’t keep my room clean and everything I ate tasted bland and the same. It was-it was so hard to feel happy about anything.”
Daichi squeezed Suga’s hand with as much strength as he could muster. The setter swallowed nervously, the sound reverberating through the heavy silence in the room. “I think-no, no. I know that if I kept going down that path, I would’ve done something I regretted. I probably wouldn’t be here today. I probably wouldn’t have made it past the winter holidays.”
Daichi blinked, a tingling chill ran through his limbs, making him feel tense and uneasy. “And why-why did you? Make it, I mean.”
“You,” Suga said, his gaze still off in that far-away time away from this hospital. Away from Daichi. “It’s because of you . In you, I found a home. You saved me Daichi.”
His mind was in a daze, his heart beat in his ears. “I-I, I saved you?” Daichi asked, voice crackling with a foreign emotion. Was it happiness? Was it relief?
“Yeah, Daichi. You saved me.”
“I-I saved you. I saved you. F-finally.” Daichi said shakily, his fist raised and shaking with the effort. “ Finally!” He yelled, in a hoarse sob-scream concoction. There were tears streaming down his cheeks, a physical representation of his solace.
Suga had snapped out of his trance, and was staring at him. “W-what do you mean, Daichi? What do you mean by finally?”
Daichi squeezed Suga’s hand again and said, “I haven’t been completely honest with you either.”
“What do you mean, Daichi? How haven’t you been honest with me?”
“This isn’t my first life. It’s not yours, either.” And Daichi told him. He told him of Egypt and suns and two boys meeting too late. He told him of Europe and witches and fire. He told him of gods and fate and soulmates.
Daichi told him of two flowers, blowing in the wind, helpless to the whims of the world. He told him of Chicago, a paramedic holding a dead body in their arms, scared to hold on but even more afraid of letting go. He told him of one soul, who’s spent lifetimes upon lifetimes chasing after another, only to be too late time and time again. He told him of one soul, tired and defeated and burdened by the extreme weight of their failure resting upon their shoulders, who decided it was easier to stop searching, stop trying, stop saving if the only result was ever going to be pain.
He told him of one soul who could never save another, even after they told themselves they didn’t care, they never cared. A soul who lied to themselves for eternities, because living in denial was better than living alone, even if they were always lonely anyways.
Suga had stared at Daichi during his entire explanation, the only indication that he was still engaged and listening was his hand tightening over Daichi’s own, squeezing harder and harder the longer Daichi spoke.
“I-I you’ve been alive for thousands of years? Trying to save me?” He asked.
Daichi quirked his best imitation of a smile, soft and faint and all too unfamiliar on his face. “Well, years don’t really matter when you’ve existed for eons, but yeah. My entire existence has been for you, Suga. And I’ve-I’ve always failed. Until this cycle.”
“Where you saved me.” Suga finished, staring into Daichi’s eyes.
“Yes.”
“So you’ve...done this before?” He asked, staring down at his free hand, which was tracing patterns in the thin hospital duvet.
“Done what?”
“Died.”
“Yes.”
Suga looked up at him. “What’s it like?”
Daichi had never really thought about the ‘dying’ part of the cycle. It was inevitable, yes, but it was never long. After all, it was just his body that ceased, never his soul. “It’s like a cold blanket, but it’s made of mist. And then your arms and legs get heavy and your head starts to hurt and then-”
“No.” Suga said. “How does it feel?”
Daichi swallowed. “Like failure, but not...not this time.”
“Because you finally saved me?”
Daichi swallowed. “Yes.”
Suga nodded sadly. “This time’s different, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what happens next.” Daichi said, instead of answering. “I don’t know if I’ll be reborn this time.”
“If-if you are, I’ll find you. I promise, and we-we can grow old together.”
Daichi grinned weakly. “And live in one of those big suburban houses with the little white fences?”
“Yeah,” Suga choked out. “We’ll get a dog and everything.”
“I’m allergic to dog fur.”
“A bald dog, then.” They both laughed, hoarsely, weakly, it was the kind of laugh that’s used to mask an air of sadness, the kind of laugh reserved for funeral homes and grieving relatives reminiscing on happier times.
“I’m going to miss you when you’re gone.” Suga said softly. “Does your soulmate dying ever get easier?”
Daichi swallowed thickly. “No. But it’ll be different for you. Whenever you died I just felt like...like a failure.”
Suga nodded, his hand trembling. “What happens next?”
“I don’t-I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Suga inhales shakily, gathering his thoughts. “Okay, okay, okay. Sawamura Daichi, I’m going to tell you this once and only once, and if it’s the only time I get to say it then-then..” Suga stammered, “then that’s okay! Because, I love you Daichi, and it doesn’t matter if this is the last time we ever see each other, or if I have to search time and space to find you again, because I will always love you, Daichi, nothing changes that.”
“Not even death?” Daichi asked weakly.
Suga nodded. “We’re soulmates. Death means nothing to us. And maybe, someday when I find you again, we’re going to live that suburban fantasy. Okay? I promise.”
Daichi was breathless. “O-okay. Okay, Suga, okay.” He took Suga’s hand, grasping it firmly.
Unseen to the two soulmates, on their clasped their skin turned gold, cuffing the two souls together yet again. A promise has been made.
-
Sawamura Daichi died three days later, still in his hospital bed with his soulmate by his side. There was a small funeral. Just Suga, the old volleyball team, and Daichi’s family.
Suga lived on.
After one year of Daichi being gone, he graduated college with a degree in primary education. All of his friends had gotten together and some even got married, while he gazed upon them from a spectator’s view.
Suga lived on.
He played groomsman and best man and even maid of honor at his friend’s weddings, never walking down the aisle for himself. He told himself he was okay with that.
Suga lived on.
He fed stray birds and lonely dogs and homeless cats, just like he and Daichi used to do. He bought meat-buns for the little kids in his neighborhood and taught Daichi’s niece how to spike a volleyball. He taught his students and gave them advice and took them on field trips to his friends’ games.
Suga lived on.
He retired, and flew all around the world to the spots where Daichi told him about. He went to Chicago and Europe and Egypt. He stopped at every meadow he drove past and stared at the flowers swaying gracefully in the wind.
Suga lived on.
He grew old, living alone with a cat he adopted from the local shelter. His skin wrinkled and his back ached and it became harder and harder to play volleyball.
Suga lived on.
He found his deathbed in a hospital room, surrounded by his equally old friends, who were also covered in wrinkles. Daichi’s niece brought him to the meadow before he went, and sat with him, her hand clasped in his as they watched the flowers sway in the wind. She held his hand in the place of her uncle when he eventually passed, closing his eyes as his world filled with light and he was covered in the misty blanket of death.
In a different place and a different time, a soul formerly named Sugawara Koushi opened their eyes, their newborn head filled with a lifetime of memories for the first time. They had one goal, one drive in their new life.
Find Daichi.
A new cycle had begun.