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“Did you know there are 200 to 400 billion stars in our galaxy alone?”
You looked back down from the limitless sky above and shot a questioning look at the man sitting by your side.
“Do you even know anything about the stars?” you laughed as you lightly smacked him on the shoulder. He shook his head and shrugged, a cheeky grin on his face.
“Absolutely not, I googled that one,” he admitted as he reached over to grab his water bottle from the side, his arm flexing under the light of the moon as he fought to unscrew the cap. “But I do know a lot about you, and out of the 400 billion stars out there, I’d say that you’re the prettiest star of them all.”
He watched in excited anticipation as your brows furrowed and the corners of your smile flipped into a grimace. Accidentally letting out a snort, Kuroo soon launched into a fit of laughter that rocked the open car trunk the two of you were currently sitting in back and forth.
You rolled your eyes as you took the water bottle from his shaking hands and uncapped the lid for him, handing it back over with an exasperated look.
“Ha ha, very funny. You’re so very mature,” you shot back as he took the water bottle from your hands and took a large gulp, relishing in the cool escape the drink brought about amidst the heat of the hot Californian summer night.
“The funniest and the most mature there is,” he replied in a knowing tone. “I’ll be that young but wise professor whose class you won’t be able to fall asleep in.”
You sighed, your consciousness surrendering to instinct and succumbing to the tight-lipped smile that infiltrated your features as a thought crossed your mind.
“You’ll be Dr. Kuroo by then, huh.”
He screwed the cap back down on his bottle and rested it against his side, turning over to look at you with a wistful expression on his face.
“In 2 years time,” he guessed, holding up two fingers for you to see. His smile softened, and he lowered his voice into a hushed whisper, “You’d be done your fellowship by then, right?
You turned to look away, as if avoiding his eyes would allow you to avoid the question —as if you could avoid the inevitable reminder of the near future you so desperately wanted to avoid.
“You’re still hesitating about the offer?” Kuroo figured as he leaned in closer to you, placing a hand on the ground next to your hip to support his weight. You nodded, your head low in shame at your own indecisiveness.
“It’s back in Japan,” you reminded him, your voice low and weak as you backed into the corner of the car trunk with Kuroo following suit and trapping you underneath his body.
“You’ve worked your whole life for this. You have to accept it.”
You looked away from Kuroo’s face and into the distance of the night, searching amongst the sea of stars for the North Star —for your guiding light in hopes that perhaps it could help make the decision in place of you, stripping you from the weight of the burden that it seemed to carry.
“But then I’d have to leave your side,” you mumbled, reaching out to wrap your arms around his shoulders, nestling your head into his chest. “We wouldn’t have this anymore,” you continued, your words muffled by the white t-shirt Kuroo had on. “Two years is a long time, Tetsu. And even after two years, who’s to say we won’t be on separate hemispheres of the globe?”
Kuroo stayed silent, with only the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest audible in the dead of the night as he settled to lie down next to you, your body still loosely wrapped around his arms. The cool touch of his skin against yours in the sweltering heat mixed with the scent of pine and wild flowers from his detergent quietly enveloping you in its hold curbed the screaming sirens in your head, offering the solace of silence you had longingly yearned for. You closed your eyes, crumbling down the fortified walls of your mind, and willed your mouth to slip out the thoughts that you had been fighting a losing battle to contain.
“What if we fall out of love by the end of those two years,” you whispered, fear clinging onto each syllable slipping through your lips. “What if we can’t go back to the usual routine, or what if we find something better in life? What if the ‘see you later’ that we say now turns out to be a lie, and we’ll never meet again if we part now?”
Kuroo, whose hand had slowly danced along your spine to reach your head without your notice, now gently carded his fingers through your hair as he let out a deep breath.
“Then what if we just run away?”
You untucked your head from his chest and looked back at Kuroo, an eyebrow raised up as if inviting him to continue with his thought. He chuckled and trailed his finger along the length of your waist, engraining each curve and each dip into his memory.
“What if we just ran away from it all? If we just left behind all our responsibilities? We could travel the world together, committed to nothing else but to each other,” he suggested as his fingers mindlessly found themselves twisting and twirling the strands of your hair. “We would never have to part,” he found himself whispering, his hands now ghosting the skin of your cheeks. “I’d never have to let go of your hand.”
You let out a quiet chuckle as you sat back up, your arms reached up above your head in a stretch. “Now wouldn’t that be great,” you smiled as you looked up at the stars littering the night sky.
“We could do it,” Kuroo replied, getting up to join you by your side, an arm wrapped lazily around your waist as he brought your head into his chest. You shook your head, your lips drawn tight into a thin line.
“But you know we can’t,” you answered back, your voice quiet though with a tone of decisiveness that made it evident your mind had been made up —that you had come to a decision even with your quest for Polaris having turned up empty. You looked up at him with a soft smile, yet your eyes betrayed your act, having revealed every last speck of despair and loneliness you carried with you down the path you had chosen to walk on. “We can’t just toss it all away. Your dreams, my dreams… Would we really be happy if we were to give it all up for something as intangible as love? For something where tomorrow isn’t guaranteed?”
“I mean, I am pretty tangible if I must say so myself,” Kuroo joked as he pinched at his own cheek to prove his point.
You looked over at him as it dawned on you the purpose of his outlandish question in the first place. “You set me up! You knew I’d say no to that!”
“Hook, line, and sinker,” he chuckled with a coy smirk. “So I take it that you know what to do first thing tomorrow?” he asked, his hand moving down to meet yours on his lap, taking his time to entwine his slender fingers with yours one digit at a time.
You hummed in response as you nodded your head slowly, your eyes now transfixed on the bright star above.
“Yeah,” you mumbled, the conviction in your voice now displaced yet again by uncertainty and hesitation. “But I don’t know. I just so desperately wished that we could have this work the way I planned it all out. I didn’t plan on finishing my thesis so early…”
“Nothing’s a given in our field, you know?” he laughed as he lifted your fingertips to his lips. “Just like how I didn’t expect you to beat me in getting that degree,” he continued, lightly dusting your hands with kisses. You looked back down at his face, and gave another tightlipped smile.
“I know, but I just wish. I just wish that we wouldn’t have to lose this, you know?” You exhaled, letting your diaphragm expel out the breath you had unknowingly held onto. “But it’s just a childish dream in the end, isn’t it?”
“Well, maybe you don’t have to give up on this childish dream of yours,” Kuroo proposed as he reached over to the backseat to rummage through his bag. You looked back at his bustling form with an eyebrow raised in skepticism.
“What are you even talking about,” you wondered aloud, leaning back against the back of the seat to take a closer look.
Kuroo zipped up the side pocket of his backpack and turned around, a goofy grin on his face as he stared into your eyes, happily wandering about lost in the galaxies that they seemed to hold. “A little bit of distance doesn’t have to mean good-bye. So what do you say?” he asked, holding the object in front for you to see.
You looked down, and then back up again, your eyes wide and your mouth ajar in shock.
“Oh hey, don’t cry,” he laughed as he set the box aside and brushed away your tears with his thumb. “Or are you crying because it’s just that beautiful? I have to say, the covalent network in diamonds—”
“—is incredibly strong due to the extensive network of covalent bonds between each atom,” you finished for him, your lips tasting the salt of your tears through the beam that had now manifested on your face. “I know, Tetsu, I’m the one who’ll have the doctorate in chemistry,” you laughed.
“Don’t have to rub it in my face that you’re graduating first, (f/n)! Don’t be mean!” Kuroo scolded you in feigned offence before a cheesy grin returned onto his face. “So, what do you say?” He asked, rescinding back his hand from your face to pick up the navy blue box in his hand. “Does making fun of me mean a yes or a no?”
“You’re going to have to ask me this properly. For all I know, you might be asking me to run an elemental analysis on this sample.”
He rolled his eyes as he enveloped your left hand in his, taking the item out of the box and holding it just below your nose.
“Nice try, but that wasn’t funny,” he grumbled as he squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. “I might not know a thing about the stars and have to Google cheesy pick-up lines,” he began, “but I do know I am completely and utterly in love with you, and a little bit of distance over a couple of years won’t be enough to break the bond we share.”
Kuroo leaned in, resting his forehead against yours and closing his eyes as he etched every single detail of the present into his memory.
“Our love will be stronger than all the bonds of nature,” he promised in a breathy whisper, bringing your knuckles up to his lips, his words mumbled against the skin of your fingers.
“And perhaps the strength of the covalent network of this diamond is incomparable,” he continued as he leaned back and looked back up at you, his eyes sparkling as bright as the gem in his hand under the moonlight. “But will you accept it as my promise to you anyways?”
He reached out a hand to gently wipe away the stray tear that had slipped out from your tear ducts with his index. “Hey, I said no tears,” he laughed as you sniffled and nodded your head, doing your utmost to quell the tears that threatened to continue falling.
“(f/n), will you marry me?”