softsketching

[softsketching]

That Spring Noon

For Ashlyn. 

Word Count: 2505 words

By the time that white blankets of snow melted to unearth the vibrant, green blades of grass underneath, your own heart had thawed. You sighed happily. Thanks to Suga's unrelenting kindness, the wounds from your first love's rejection slowly healed over. A seemingly humiliating experience had only deepened your friendship with Suga; you were beyond thankful for his camaraderie. But at some point, the feelings of gratitude he'd sowed in your heart sprouted into something that transcended the boundaries of friendship. With the amount of time you two spent together during that winter, you'd be a fool to deny the familiar yet paradoxically foreign feeling bubbling to the surface.

Stop it. He's just a friend. You shook your head, dispelling your thoughts. And he likes someone else anyway.

It'd taken you almost ten minutes to decide where to spread your yellow picnic blanket. You wanted to find the perfect spot to lay it down–somewhere underneath a tree with a significant radius of shade and surrounded by small spots of bright, white flowers. Luckily, the only people at the park today were a few little children and their parents, so finding an ideal location proved little challenge. After laying down both the blanket and your picnic basket, you checked the watch on your wrist. 11:40. Suga would probably arrive in five or so minutes, knowing him and his tendency to overdo everything. You smoothed down your white dress, then moved to pat your frizzy hair down with your fingers. A soft breeze picked up and ruffled at your skirts. Checking your watch again, you tugged at the hem of your clothing, waiting on Suga to arrive.

"Sorry I'm late," came the voice you most wanted to hear. "I think I went a little too far with prepping the side dishes." Bingo!

You tore your eyes away from the fabric of your dress and turned to face Suga. Today, he wore a light pink, long cardigan. You could see the outline of his sculpted body through his white undershirt, a fact that brought spots of heat to your face. When your eyes moved further down, you realized he was wearing the black jeans that you gave him as a Christmas present.

"How much did you prepare?" Your eyes quickly snapped back to his face as you feigned a laugh.

Suga gave a sheepish smile before plopping down across from you. "Just...this and that."

That day, the two of you joked around until both your sides split from laughter.

"You look like a hair stylist!" You cackled, watching Suga's mouth drop open in fake hurt. It was easier for you to make fun of his appearance than it was to admit that his outfit fit him perfectly, accentuating his toned body and contrasting perfectly with his fair skin.

"Are you kidding? This cardigan is great!" He retorted. "At least I don't look like-" Suga scanned your outfit with lovestruck eyes. What was he going to say to you, anyway? You looked beautiful today. The white dress you wore highlighted every dip and curve in your body, and he had to resist every urge to run his hands through your soft, silky hair.

"Like what, huh?" You laughed harder.

"Shut up," He blushed, tears of laughter brimming in your eyes. "let's just eat already!"

While jesting at each other, you both pulled out the insulated lunchboxes and thermoses stored in your picnic baskets, revealing the contents inside. The smokiness of charbroiled meat, the dance of steamed vegetables, and the earthy aroma of sesame seeds filled your nose as you and Suga uncapped the food. You two dove in.

"Try the meat with perilla leaves and this sauce, Y/N." Suga brought his lunchbox closer to yours, trapping bits of sauce-coated beef and vibrant, green perilla leaves between his chopsticks and bringing it to your own.

"Mah pwate ish fuh." You said.

The laugh that came out of Suga's mouth made your heart skip a beat. "Stop talking with your mouth full, dummy." He waited patiently for you to swallow your food before talking again.

"I'll just feed it to you then."

What? You must've heard that wrong.

"Say ah!" Suga's chopsticks approaching your mouth confirmed that what he said was definitely not a figment of your imagination. And for just that moment, you allowed yourself to succumb to the romantic feelings begging to burst open inside of you. Suga gently place the food onto your tongue, your eyes fluttering shut to imagine how lovely it'd be to have Suga by your side like this everyday–what it'd be like to be someone special to him.

Suga's heart pounded against his chest. So beautiful. At the first taste of the smoky combination of flavors, your eyes shot open. "Mmmm!!!"

Suga smiled and returned to eating his own food. It hadn't even been more than five minutes when...

"Wipe your mouth. There's sauce on it." He poked your forehead. You scrunched up your face in embarrassment. Taking a napkin from the picnic basket, you aggressively rubbed it against your lips.

"Oh my goodness, Y/N. I told you to wipe your mouth—not maul it."

You giggled, sticking your tongue out at the amused, gray-haired boy. "Alright, mom. Wipe it for me then."

"Okay."

The next turn of events passed by too quickly for you to properly recall them. All you could feel was the ghost of Suga's fingers swiping at your bottom lip. He'd closed in on you by then, the beauty mark below his brown eye fading into view as his hands cradled your face. Faint hints of strawberry wafted off of his skin as his thumb delicately wiped at the corner of your mouth. When Suga retreated back to his food, no words left your lips. Your chest tightened; your mind was spinning.

You knew that Suga's presence served as a catalyst that allowed your heartbroken wounds to heal faster. He helped you regain the confidence you'd lost post-confession, and with that confidence came newfound feelings of intimacy for him. But the fact of the matter was that speeding up the process of healing doesn't mean that you've fully recovered.

And when you open up a wound that hasn't healed over...

You gasped, freezing in your spot in Karasuno High's courtyard. In that moment, you could no longer feel Suga's warmth by your side. The world around you crumbled. You were face to face with your first love, eye contact unavoidable, longing eyes square against cold indifference. You were shaking. The thought of glancing over at the smaller figure next to him terrified you, but you did it anyway.

It was like a punch to the stomach, seeing your first love with his arms wrapped around another girl. All the confidence you'd built up over the course of the winter drained out of you at the sight of him and her, and in its place was the same freezing emptiness that choked the life out of your trembling body.

How long had it been since school started? A few months, maybe some months and a half? How long ago was your picnic with Suga? Two weeks, maybe two weeks and some change? Your grasp on time was shaky at best. All you knew right now was that you had to get away. So with a quick turn of your heel, you did.

Your pace was slow at first. You didn't bother turning around to see the look on anyone's face. But as soon as you were out of your first love's sight, you took off sprinting. You quickly pushed past groups of students chatting idly after school, asphalt and cleanly trimmed lawn blurring together to form streaks of grayish, green ground. You sniffled. Tears flooded the corners of your eyes, drowning your vision. Before you knew it, you'd tripped over your own feet, crashing onto the pavement with a hard thud. The impact had scraped both your elbows and your knees, but you couldn't feel the pain. You just needed to get away. Run. You hoisted yourself up off of the ground, tiny pebbles jamming into your palms, and made your way across the school, stopping only when you'd turned a corner that was devoid of students. Soft cries escaped you, rattling your entire body. You felt like the air in your lungs had been ripped out of you. Anger and disappointment churned in the depths of your stomach; you'd been swallowed whole by the plethora of negative emotions swirling dangerously inside.

"Y/N!" You looked to the side to see an out of breath Suga approaching you. The expression on his face told it all: you'd worried him so much that he chased after you.

"Suga?" You whispered. "why'd you follow me? You're gonna be late for prac-"

"It doesn't matter." He replied quickly.

"B-But it does. I was supposed to walk with you to the gym."

"It's okay." Suga said.

You wiped at your eyes aggressively. Seeing this, Suga sighed and inched closer to you. With the same kindness he'd shown you the day you were rejected, Suga ran his thumb across your closed eyes to wipe away stray tears, delicately, as if you were bound to break apart at any second.

"I'm here now..." He whispered. But unlike before, the bitterness in your heavy heart had all but consumed you.

"Don't be sad.." You heard him say.

"He's just one guy. You can do better..." Ha. How would you know? Frustration licked at your insides, and you flinched away from his tender touches. Suga scrunched his eyebrows in confusion.

"You're lucky, Suga." You hiccuped.

"You're lucky that you're so perfect. Nobody would ever pass up on being with you."

Suga retracted his hands, taking a perplexed step back. Despite your own brain telling you to stop, you pushed forward with your distateful thoughts.

"Of course you think he's just another guy. You don't even know how painful it is to be in my position."

Stop. It isn't his fault.

Suga shook his head in an attempt to block your words. "That's not true. I understand."

"How could you get it?" The pointedness of your question left him speechless. "You have no idea what it's like to be rejected!" For some reason, the more you talked, the louder your voice grew. Suga hadn't done anything wrong. Matter of fact, he was the only reason you hadn't broken down from sadness that winter. But why? Why were you so frustrated at the gray haired boy who was oozing care for you? Why?

"You don't know that at all," came his uncharacteristically curt response. The air hung heavy around your skin.

"Really?" You said back. "Because the last time I checked, you haven't even had the guts to confess to the girl you like. You really think that you can understand how I'm feeling right now?"

Suga's jaw tensed, but his eyes remained on you. You couldn't breathe.

"Am I ugly?" You asked. Dull pains littered your body.

"No."

"Am I boring?"

"No."

"Am I stupid?"

He broke eye contact with you. "No."

"Then why, you cried, "don't I deserve to be loved?"

"You do."

"The person I wanted already rejected me, Suga!" A formidable distance had grown between you and Suga, both in physicality and in mentality. "Who could ever like someone like me?!" Tears streamed down your cheeks in huge bursts, obscuring your vision. Perhaps it was because of your tears that you couldn't see his own expression.

Suga was gnawing at his lip, his eyebrows furrowed as he burned holes into the ground. His brown eyes were telling their own story of hurt, confusion, and love, but you were blind, so blind. He looked up.

"Me. I would."

It was like the world stopped moving the moment he uttered those three words. You blinked your tears away, eyes widened in unadulterated shock.

"You say I don't know what rejection is like? I watched you, listened to you spill your feelings about him for two years." A thin layer of ice was beginning to coat Suga's voice. "I listened to you every night when you'd tell me why he was perfect for you. All those times you and I climbed onto the roof of my house to talk–I had to hear you tell me he's the one even when he treated you like crap. All I could do was comfort you when you cried and I-"

"I would like you—no, I do like you. I like you so much, Y/N! Why can't you...look at me like that?"

His voice shaking with desperation. "It's always been you."

Suga's eyes stung. He couldn't believe that he'd exposed his feelings for you this way. With just a few words, he'd ruined everything. Gone were the days where he could admire your laugh, your smile, your sparkling eyes. Your hugs, your voice, your platonic love. Your support, your jokes, your care. You were fading, fading because he couldn't hold his selfish feelings in. Fading because he overstepped his bounds. Fading because he could no longer deny his heart.

You couldn't think of any words to say. For years, you assumed that Suga was head over heels in love with some enigma. You never bothered invading his privacy, thinking he'd tell you when he was ready. But to think that the girl he'd been longing for, the girl he used to cry over during his lowest nights, the girl who dulled the twinkle in his eyes at just a mere mention of her...

was you?

Despite every feathery touch he'd leave on your hands, the overextended bear hugs he'd give you when you two were alone, the slight blush on his cheeks that only appeared when you were around, you were oblivious.

How could you not have figured it out?

"I might not know what it's like to get turned down after finding the courage to admit my feelings." Suga's breaths were uneven, wavering. "But to say that I haven't experienced what it's like to be rejected isn't right." The sound of his breaking voice made you want to rip out your ears.

"You rejected my love before I even had the chance to give it to you."

He shook his head then. You watched in agony as a single tear cascaded down your friend's loving face, your friend's loving face which was now twisted from the hurt. Your heart was in absolute shambles.

"I'll see you later" was the last thing Suga said to you before his back faded out of sight. The sound of his retreating footsteps rung in your ears. Regardless, no matter how much you wanted to move your feet and chase after him, you stayed glued to your spot.

Warm spring air slapped you in the face as you stared out into the open fields. The sun was supposed to be beating down on your wet face today, rays of light supposed to be tanning your uncovered skin. But you were stone cold, alone.

...you get a deeper scar.

[softsketching]

That Day In Winter (Sugawara x Reader)

That day in winter, with blankets of white covering the concrete and earth, you laid out your heart.

"I like you."

You remembered the way the winter winds nipped at your cheeks, beckoning bits of snow to gather on top of your fluffy, knit hat. You remembered the burning cold of your shaking hands,  the dull numbness of your trembling legs as you shifted uncomfortably in the snow. You remembered every second of that day, every spot of cold where your clothing didn't cover, and every pang of pain that dug into your body when you heard his response.

"I can't accept your feelings. I'm sorry."

That day, you stumbled back home with tears stinging the edges of your eyes. Snow crunched beneath your feet as you took heavy steps towards your front lawn. But the weight of your embarrassment hung in that chilly, winter air, and you collapsed at the front of your porch before you could take solace in the warmth of your fireplace. You succumbed to your sadness, feeling hot tears slip down your face. A small sob left your throat. That was the most embarrassing thing you'd ever done. How could you ever face him at school now?

"Y/N?" Came a familiar voice from behind you. You had no strength left to turn your aching body, so you remained crouched in your spot. Another sob racked your defenseless frame.

"Oh, dear..." The cold numbed your senses severely, though not enough to block out the feeling of someone's warm, gloved hands gently  pressing against both your shoulders. With gentleness akin to a mother touching their newborn baby, the person turned your body. They sighed, catching your downcast eyes with their gray ones.

No other words needed to be exchanged between the two of you. He already knew.

When Suga pulled you into his arms, you allowed yourself to break down. You cried into his chest, releasing your pent up frustration and embarrassment. The heat radiating from his body and the sweet smell of vanilla heightened your senses, and you snuggled into your friend's embrace. You were never confessing to anyone ever again.

Suga's hand traced comforting circles along the small of your back, the other coming up to brush your hair up and down. He gulped. Suga prayed that the sound of his heartbeat hammering against his ears would go undetected by you. Not once in the three years that Suga knew you had you expressed romantic interest in him, though his own heart swelled with joy during your moments together. But perhaps it was best that way. Taking that extra step was too risky–losing the feeling of your bodies pressed together in these long hugs, losing the sight of your wide, playful smile as you teased him, and losing the words of encouragement you'd give him after winning or losing a game– all of it would be too much for Suga to handle. So he tucked his feelings into the back of his heart and mind, tightening his embrace around you while allowing himself to feel the guilt-ridden relief that washed through him.

"So that's all he said?" Suga quipped. Two weeks after you were rejected by your unrequited love of a year, you finally gathered enough courage to tell Suga exactly what happened. Suga sucked in his breath, bringing the mug filled with hot, chocolatey liquid up to his soft lips. "What a jerk."

You chuckled bitterly. "At least he was honest. There's really not much to say if you don't feel the same way, right?"

Suga shrugged. "I guess. But did he have to be so cold about it?"

"He said sorry." You replied.

"That's obligatory." Suga said almost immediately. "How could he ever reject someone as beau-" He cleared his throat. "awesome as you?"

You playfully rolled your eyes at the gray haired boy sitting across from you. The café booth that you and Suga had nestled yourselves into was your favorite spot to be in. Around you, the café buzzed with patrons' idle chatter. "Awesome, huh?" You shook your head, trying to erase your first love's rejection from the depths of your memory. "Yeah, awesome at being completely humiliated."

"You can recover throughout winter break." Suga placed the white mug back down onto the wooden table sandwiched by the two of you. "But try not to overthink it, okay? Rejection comes and goes–you'll get over him eventually."

You sighed. As always, Suga was right. You gazed outside of the cafe's glass window. The snow was coming down in small flurries, painting the pavement a spotty white, casting a hypnotic spell on those who watched. You saw two people, a boy and a girl, walking near the café. The girl was looking straight ahead and chatting away happily, but the boy next to her stared at her intensely, his cheeks dusted pink. Whether it was because of the cold weather or the strength of his own feelings, you couldn't tell. But the scene reminded you of something you and Suga had discussed a few weeks prior.

Looking back at that moment now, with Suga staring at you lovingly, drinking in the curve of your jaw, the dip in your lip, and the innocent look in your eyes, you wondered why you couldn't tell.

"Speaking of coming and going, how are you and your crush doing?" You asked teasingly. Suga's grip on the mug's handle tightened just a hair, though you didn't catch it. He shifted in the plush seat.

"Nothing new." He responded stiffly. You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion. An unidentified emotion clouded Suga's vision. And while you weren't always the best at reading people, he definitely looked uncomfortable right now, right?

"You're still not going to confess to her? You've liked her since you two met!" You brought your own mug to your lips, savoring the sweet spots of warmth that proliferated your throat. "You should tell her soon! You told me you'd tell me who she was once you confessed." You looked at Suga through the gap between your eyes and the mug filled with hot chocolate. Your heart clenched.

Suga was wearing a strange expression on his face, a small, faraway smile plastered onto his lips. His eyes had gravitated to the left, no longer able to hold eye contact with yours. "She likes someone else." He whispered. Pools of sadness and dejection gathered in his deep, brown orbs.

"Then why don't you just try to win her over?"

He chuckled. "Because I love her."

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