Here's one I wrote a few weeks ago, I was in a bit of an angsty mood and thinking of the Hogwarts March scene of the Goblet of Fire, so I hope you enjoy!
Warnings: Major Character Death, mentions of throwing up, potential ch. 362 spoilers except I wrote this before 362 came out.
Summary: In the aftermath of the final battle, class 1-A finally recognise the true horrors of war.
Word Count: 1707
You can also read this work on Archive Of Our Own or FanFiction.net!
EDIT 09/08/2022: I wrote this in September of last year when I was just starting to get into MHA, and I, for one, can say that I feel like I have directly caused the events of chapter 362... I also didn't know shoot style was a thing - I didn't know Midoriya had different moves (at this point, I only really knew as much as was in the first One's Justice game) - but as I was editing this last night I was debating on whether I should change it to be more accurate to the timeline now, but I think it would be quite nice for the winning blow to be the one he used when he was just starting to learn how to be a hero? I'm still quite proud of this story, but I do wish that September 21 me had kept my thoughts to myself..
Midoriya doesn’t remember much of the fight or the events leading up to it. He doesn’t remember the final battle against Shigaraki, at least not in great detail. He wouldn’t be able to tell you every single exact moment that happened between Shigaraki and the League of Villains arriving at UA, and the defeat that stopped the constant terror everyone had been living in. He’ll just say, “We beat him. We beat all of them.”
We must mean his class – the whole class, with Mr Aizawa as their leader.
No one stops and thinks about whether we is only another singular person.
By the time the battle is over, UA is all but destroyed. Rubble piles up, splattered with blood in places, the greenery of the courtyard buried beneath the wreckage. Midoriya has to stumble across the debris, making his way towards the crowd of reporters and worried civilians, ready to tell them that there isn’t a threat anymore, that they are finally safe. His face is dirty, covered in dust and blood from the cuts that criss-cross his cheeks, clutching his right side with his left hand as he winces and slips, gasping for a painful gulp of air before pushing back onto his feet and carrying on. The right arm of his hero costume has disintegrated from the power of the final blast he used on Shigaraki, the winning blow. His fingers smoulder as they ache from the burns of the attack.
He stumbles again, hissing as his knees scrape on a particularly nasty slab of concrete, planting his left hand on the floor to push himself back up.
That’s when he sees the body, motionless, legs bent at awkward angles, head tipped backwards so that Midoriya is staring straight into their dead eyes. Their hair has fallen out of their face, blowing slightly in a non-existent breeze. Midoriya recoils, falling backwards and landing harshly with his legs splayed in front of him. He can’t pull his eyes away from the emotionless stare of his classmate – his friend – even when he retches, even when the tears spill over and down his cheeks, tracing paths through the thick layer of muck on his skin.
He stands on shaking legs, clutches his stomach, presses his right hand to his mouth as he turns away. He lurches, heaves, brings up nothing but bile, his throat burning as he tries to focus on his breathing, painful as that might be. With his eyes squeezed shut, his hands rip at the collar of his hero costume as if it’s suffocating him.
He screams. Long and loud and painful, he screams into the sky as he claws at the skin on his neck, his cheeks, his jaw. His throat tears itself apart, desperate and animalistic, because why wasn’t it him? He screams until his voice tapers off, until he can’t make any more noise, until his eyes are burning and swollen from the tears that have fallen from them. He turns, trying his hardest to block the body from his vision, and keeps going.
He’ll come back for them. He won’t leave them lying there in the chaos and destruction, just another casualty in the horrors of war. He won’t let them be just another name in a book or on a monument, won’t let them be forgotten for who they were.
He can’t let them be forgotten.
It’s started to rain by the time he reaches the line of reporters, who swarm him the second he appears. He tries to focus on their questions, tries to answer as much as he can, tries to let them know that it’s over. More than anything, he tries to ignore the two most worried faces behind the reporters, trying to catch his eye as the rain drips from the umbrella in the man's hand. The woman – who always looked too much like his friend – stares at him as she wears an expression he’s never seen on her before this moment; her eyes are wide and her cheeks are red, her eyebrows are drawn together in worry and fear, her mouth is slightly parted as she desperately tries to get his attention without saying anything at all.
She doesn’t need to, because even as he’s not looking directly at them, the question that they are silently screaming at him echoes around in his mind.
Izuku-kun, where is our son?
While Midoriya talks to the reporters, the flashes of the cameras making spots appear in his vision, Todoroki is the next to find the body.
He blinks, frowns, confused for a moment as he waits for his classmate to sit up, clutch his chest and maybe laugh. Waits for him to do something, say anything, instead of just blankly stare towards him. Todoroki doesn’t know what to do, and so he does nothing, choosing to just stand there and watch the body as if he can will it to do something. The rain pelts the two of them, though Todoroki doesn’t seem to notice how his hair is sticking to his skin, or how his hero costume is heavier than it was before. Maybe it’s only heavy now because everything feels heavy, like he’s moving through clay, being pulled back to this one specific moment where his eyes are locked with those of the corpse of his best friend.
Iida and Kirishima come up behind him, Iida’s mouth opening to ask why he’s stopped, ask if he’s alright, but the words catch in his throat when he realises what is in front of them. He swallows, his throat thick and his head murky.
“Todoroki-kun…” His voice breaks. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, doesn’t know what he needs to say, and so he doesn’t say anything. He crouches beside the body, slipping his arms around its torso, letting the head loll back into his chest. He bottles his fury, his heartbreak, and tries to lift the body alone.
“Todoroki-kun,” he says again, softer this time, almost like he’s pleading, which isn’t something Iida does. Finally, Todoroki moves, hooking an arm under each leg, and the two of them stumble across the rubble towards where the medics wait – even though they’re both aware that they won’t be able to help him.
Kirishima watches them, his mouth open, his vision blurry with tears. He’s suddenly disoriented, as though the world has started spinning faster and he’s struggling to keep up with it, crumpling to his knees and pressing his hands against the sides of his head to just make it stop. There’s a high pitched ringing in his ears, drowning out everything around him, and when he squeezes his eyes shut, all he can see is the body, the awkward angles, the softness of his face that didn’t look like him.
He wails with a breaking voice, his hands sliding down to cover his face, a futile attempt to muffle the sound of his heart shattering a hundred times.
Kaminari appears, running to his side and skidding to his knees, pulling Kirishima’s head into his chest. With one hand on the back of his head, and the other wrapped around his shoulders, he tries his hardest to console his friend, shushing him as he watches Iida and Todoroki. Kaminari bites his lip to keep himself from breaking down, too. He distracts himself by counting their steps, how many times Todoroki’s shoes lose their gripping in the dust, how many times Iida readjusts the body in his arms to be more comfortable. He takes a breath, feeling it rattle in his chest. He wonders if that’s because he’s empty now, his heart shrivelled up and dead after finally understanding the outcome of children playing at being soldiers.
Iida and Todoroki reach the front line.
One by one, the cameras stop flashing in Midoriya’s face, and he closes his eyes, biting his lip to keep himself from screaming again, because he knows the reason they’ve turned away. They’re now pointing towards the tent, taking pictures of his body like the vultures they are. It makes Midoriya want to explode, want to plant himself between the reporters and him, want to tell them that he won’t let them abuse his death like this.
But he doesn’t, because he can’t move. He can’t move because he’s finally looked at them, only now they aren’t looking back at him.
The hope and panic in her eyes drains away, replaced only by devastation. She sways for a moment, unable to take her eyes away from her baby - who they promised would be protected - and if it hadn’t been for her husband’s arm around her waist, she would have collapsed onto the ground and never gotten back up. She presses her face into her husband’s shirt, fisting the fabric between her fingers before turning back, seeing Iida and Todoroki lower his body to the floor between them.
“No!” The first denouncement, the first shrill scream of a mother’s pain is the first thing Midoriya hears.
The couple breaks away from the crowd, forcing themselves past the reporters preying over their son’s body. The husband wants to knock them all to the ground, wants to smash their cameras under his shoe because how dare you sully the memory of my son? But anger had never been his strong suit, and getting to his son’s side is more important.
UA security bars their way, blocking their view. He tries to dodge, ducking past them, but one grabs his arms, pinning his back to their chest. The tears flow freely down his cheeks and he can’t bring himself to blink, staring at the body but prevented from getting any closer, worried that if he closes his eyes for even a second that the boy will disappear forever. The wife howls behind him, doubled over on the floor. One of her hands has come up to her throat, clutching the golden chain at her neck, the other is tangled in her hair as her chest heaves.
Her grief is going to consume her.
He stares at the body of his only child, limp and lifeless on the floor, unable to go and cradle him in his arms.
Masaru Bakugou’s throat is raw as he screams, “That’s my son!”
I feel like this is unfinished.. I might make a part two at some point, but for now, I think that this is a good place to leave it.
Practice is boring – or at least it is if you’re the one sitting on the side watching. There’s only so may times you can listen to a ball hitting the floor, to someone shouting “nice kill!”, to one of them groaning in frustration when they miss a dig or land a shot out of bounds. You can’t help the jittery feeling that comes after the hours of being sat still, watching as they take turns to jump and hit the ball just right. You fidget with your fingers as you watch another flawless set and spike from the freak twins, wanting to do anything other than just sit there and occasionally cheer.
As they take a break, sipping greedily from their water bottles, you take a chance, reminding yourself that the worst thing he can say is no.
“Kageyama?” Your voice comes out quieter than you intended it to, but he still turns towards you, a small crease between his brows.
“What?” You know he doesn’t mean to sound annoyed but it still makes you gulp and avert your eyes, just for a second, before you look back at him.
“Would I be able to hit a few sets? Just, like, two or something.”
He frowns, opening his mouth to object, to tell you that you’re not a part of the team, so I won’t waste my time setting to you, but the ginger one gets in first.
“Ooh, that would be fun! We’ve never played with you before – I’ll dig them out for you if you miss!”
Noya laughs, stretching his arms over his head before jutting his thumb towards his chest. “I think you mean that I’ll be the one digging them out, Shoyo!” He lets out a barked laugh when he sees the setters surly face. “Oh, come on, it can’t hurt to set a few! Sugawara does it for Kiyoko all the time!”
The other setter grows red behind the two of them. “I don’t do it all the time, it’s just so that she can feel more involved sometimes.” He pauses, looking at the clock on the wall. “It’s nearly the end of practice, so I don’t see the problem with it, Kageyama.”
Kageyama huffs, dropping his bottle back into his bag. “Fine – but only two.”
He stalks towards the net, and you listen as Hinata excitedly babbles an explanation of spiking, complete with hand motions and sound effects (your favourite was definitely “fwam!”). When he realises he’s lost you, his cheeks burn red as he laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Basically, jump as high as you can, and hit the ball as hard as you can.”
“Preferably over the net and in bounds,” Kageyama adds. He turns to where Hinata is waiting at the ball cart, already spinning one of the blue and yellow balls between his hands. “High arc,” he says, drawing an arc over his head with his finger. Hinata nods, understanding something you didn’t, before stepping to the end line.
You’re bouncing on the balls of your feet, excited to be doing something other than being sat in the corner watching them have all of the fun. The sound of knuckles cracking makes you turn your head, and you’re certain Kageyama just dirty looked you for being so jumpy.
Jump as high as you can and hit the ball as hard as you can.
Hinata throws the ball, and you watch it fly directly to where Kageyama is waiting. You mimic what you've seen performed so many times before: approaching from behind him, jumping up a second after he does, swinging your arm as hard as you can, gasping when you feel the ball only just graze your fingertips.
Kageyama sighs, but Hinata is quick to reassure.
“You’ll get the next one, don’t worry about it! It was a great jump!”
You don’t get the next one; once again your fingertips just brush at it as it goes past.
You try jumping at the same time as Kageyama, and you try jumping before, but each time you just barely miss.
“Would you be able to set it just a bit lower?” You ask timidly, to which he sighs but nods. “Thanks.”
This one, you hit, but somehow you aim it into the net and not over it.
The next one flies past your right hand, and you try and switch in the air the same way you had seen Hinata do many times before. You manage to bump it with your wrist, but you knock it behind you.
Your flailing in the air gives you an unstable landing, and your feet slip out from under you as you crash heavily into the floor.
“Are you okay?” Hinata shouts, running over from his position by the end line. He freezes when he sees the look on Kageyama’s face.
“I don’t see why you’re finding it that hard,” he snaps, stepping towards where you landed. You stare up at him with wide eyes and an open mouth, unsure of whether you should reply or not. “Hinata explained it to you – all you have to do is jump and hit; is it really that difficult for you to hit a damn ball?”
“Kageyama-” Noya starts, but Kageyama doesn't hear him, deafened by his frustration at your incompetence.
“Are you really that dumb that you can’t hit a ball in the right direction – how did you even manage to hit that one behind you?”
Daichi has turned around now, as well as Sugawara, frowns crossing both of their faces as Kageyama’s volume increases.
“I mean, Jesus Christ, you should be able to hit at least one of them! You must be really fucking stupid if you’re not even able to hit one properly – even he can do that!” He points angrily towards Hinata.
“That’s enough!” Daichi finally snaps, placing himself between the two of you, acting as a shield from Kageyama's burning glare. For a moment, you can’t bring yourself to do anything but stare into the fire that’s burning in Kageyama’s eyes. For the first time since you met him, you understand why they call him the King of the Court.
Hinata crouches down beside you, gently taking hold of your elbow, and only then do you realise you’re still on the floor. In your almost-trance as you try not to cry, you let him pull you to your feet.
“It’s okay, you weren’t that bad, he’s just a jerk…” His words are drowned out as you look around the gym at the others who had witnessed Kageyama’s outburst. Tsukishima is twisting his jumper between his hands, and it makes your stomach turn to know that even he was made uncomfortable by the scene.
“Hey,” Sugawara’s voice is soft from behind you, and you turn towards him. When you see his blurred outline, you become aware of the hot tears running down your warm cheeks.
The other setter – the nicer setter, the better setter – gives you a smile laced with something that looks an awful lot like pity. “Go home, yeah?”
You nod, not sure you’ve fully processed what he’s saying before you turn and leave the gym, barely stopping to pull your shoes off in the doorway.
Two steps away from the genkan, you hear Noya's shrill anger as he screams at Kageyama.
Here's one I wrote a few weeks ago, I was in a bit of an angsty mood and thinking of the Hogwarts March scene of the Goblet of Fire, so I hope you enjoy!
Warnings: Major Character Death, mentions of throwing up, potential ch. 362 spoilers except I wrote this before 362 came out.
Summary: In the aftermath of the final battle, class 1-A finally recognise the true horrors of war.
Word Count: 1707
You can also read this work on Archive Of Our Own or FanFiction.net!
EDIT 09/08/2022: I wrote this in September of last year when I was just starting to get into MHA, and I, for one, can say that I feel like I have directly caused the events of chapter 362... I also didn't know shoot style was a thing - I didn't know Midoriya had different moves (at this point, I only really knew as much as was in the first One's Justice game) - but as I was editing this last night I was debating on whether I should change it to be more accurate to the timeline now, but I think it would be quite nice for the winning blow to be the one he used when he was just starting to learn how to be a hero? I'm still quite proud of this story, but I do wish that September 21 me had kept my thoughts to myself..
Midoriya doesn’t remember much of the fight or the events leading up to it. He doesn’t remember the final battle against Shigaraki, at least not in great detail. He wouldn’t be able to tell you every single exact moment that happened between Shigaraki and the League of Villains arriving at UA, and the defeat that stopped the constant terror everyone had been living in. He’ll just say, “We beat him. We beat all of them.”
We must mean his class – the whole class, with Mr Aizawa as their leader.
No one stops and thinks about whether we is only another singular person.
By the time the battle is over, UA is all but destroyed. Rubble piles up, splattered with blood in places, the greenery of the courtyard buried beneath the wreckage. Midoriya has to stumble across the debris, making his way towards the crowd of reporters and worried civilians, ready to tell them that there isn’t a threat anymore, that they are finally safe. His face is dirty, covered in dust and blood from the cuts that criss-cross his cheeks, clutching his right side with his left hand as he winces and slips, gasping for a painful gulp of air before pushing back onto his feet and carrying on. The right arm of his hero costume has disintegrated from the power of the final blast he used on Shigaraki, the winning blow. His fingers smoulder as they ache from the burns of the attack.
He stumbles again, hissing as his knees scrape on a particularly nasty slab of concrete, planting his left hand on the floor to push himself back up.
That’s when he sees the body, motionless, legs bent at awkward angles, head tipped backwards so that Midoriya is staring straight into their dead eyes. Their hair has fallen out of their face, blowing slightly in a non-existent breeze. Midoriya recoils, falling backwards and landing harshly with his legs splayed in front of him. He can’t pull his eyes away from the emotionless stare of his classmate – his friend – even when he retches, even when the tears spill over and down his cheeks, tracing paths through the thick layer of muck on his skin.
He stands on shaking legs, clutches his stomach, presses his right hand to his mouth as he turns away. He lurches, heaves, brings up nothing but bile, his throat burning as he tries to focus on his breathing, painful as that might be. With his eyes squeezed shut, his hands rip at the collar of his hero costume as if it’s suffocating him.
He screams. Long and loud and painful, he screams into the sky as he claws at the skin on his neck, his cheeks, his jaw. His throat tears itself apart, desperate and animalistic, because why wasn’t it him? He screams until his voice tapers off, until he can’t make any more noise, until his eyes are burning and swollen from the tears that have fallen from them. He turns, trying his hardest to block the body from his vision, and keeps going.
He’ll come back for them. He won’t leave them lying there in the chaos and destruction, just another casualty in the horrors of war. He won’t let them be just another name in a book or on a monument, won’t let them be forgotten for who they were.
He can’t let them be forgotten.
It’s started to rain by the time he reaches the line of reporters, who swarm him the second he appears. He tries to focus on their questions, tries to answer as much as he can, tries to let them know that it’s over. More than anything, he tries to ignore the two most worried faces behind the reporters, trying to catch his eye as the rain drips from the umbrella in the man's hand. The woman – who always looked too much like his friend – stares at him as she wears an expression he’s never seen on her before this moment; her eyes are wide and her cheeks are red, her eyebrows are drawn together in worry and fear, her mouth is slightly parted as she desperately tries to get his attention without saying anything at all.
She doesn’t need to, because even as he’s not looking directly at them, the question that they are silently screaming at him echoes around in his mind.
Izuku-kun, where is our son?
While Midoriya talks to the reporters, the flashes of the cameras making spots appear in his vision, Todoroki is the next to find the body.
He blinks, frowns, confused for a moment as he waits for his classmate to sit up, clutch his chest and maybe laugh. Waits for him to do something, say anything, instead of just blankly stare towards him. Todoroki doesn’t know what to do, and so he does nothing, choosing to just stand there and watch the body as if he can will it to do something. The rain pelts the two of them, though Todoroki doesn’t seem to notice how his hair is sticking to his skin, or how his hero costume is heavier than it was before. Maybe it’s only heavy now because everything feels heavy, like he’s moving through clay, being pulled back to this one specific moment where his eyes are locked with those of the corpse of his best friend.
Iida and Kirishima come up behind him, Iida’s mouth opening to ask why he’s stopped, ask if he’s alright, but the words catch in his throat when he realises what is in front of them. He swallows, his throat thick and his head murky.
“Todoroki-kun…” His voice breaks. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, doesn’t know what he needs to say, and so he doesn’t say anything. He crouches beside the body, slipping his arms around its torso, letting the head loll back into his chest. He bottles his fury, his heartbreak, and tries to lift the body alone.
“Todoroki-kun,” he says again, softer this time, almost like he’s pleading, which isn’t something Iida does. Finally, Todoroki moves, hooking an arm under each leg, and the two of them stumble across the rubble towards where the medics wait – even though they’re both aware that they won’t be able to help him.
Kirishima watches them, his mouth open, his vision blurry with tears. He’s suddenly disoriented, as though the world has started spinning faster and he’s struggling to keep up with it, crumpling to his knees and pressing his hands against the sides of his head to just make it stop. There’s a high pitched ringing in his ears, drowning out everything around him, and when he squeezes his eyes shut, all he can see is the body, the awkward angles, the softness of his face that didn’t look like him.
He wails with a breaking voice, his hands sliding down to cover his face, a futile attempt to muffle the sound of his heart shattering a hundred times.
Kaminari appears, running to his side and skidding to his knees, pulling Kirishima’s head into his chest. With one hand on the back of his head, and the other wrapped around his shoulders, he tries his hardest to console his friend, shushing him as he watches Iida and Todoroki. Kaminari bites his lip to keep himself from breaking down, too. He distracts himself by counting their steps, how many times Todoroki’s shoes lose their gripping in the dust, how many times Iida readjusts the body in his arms to be more comfortable. He takes a breath, feeling it rattle in his chest. He wonders if that’s because he’s empty now, his heart shrivelled up and dead after finally understanding the outcome of children playing at being soldiers.
Iida and Todoroki reach the front line.
One by one, the cameras stop flashing in Midoriya’s face, and he closes his eyes, biting his lip to keep himself from screaming again, because he knows the reason they’ve turned away. They’re now pointing towards the tent, taking pictures of his body like the vultures they are. It makes Midoriya want to explode, want to plant himself between the reporters and him, want to tell them that he won’t let them abuse his death like this.
But he doesn’t, because he can’t move. He can’t move because he’s finally looked at them, only now they aren’t looking back at him.
The hope and panic in her eyes drains away, replaced only by devastation. She sways for a moment, unable to take her eyes away from her baby - who they promised would be protected - and if it hadn’t been for her husband’s arm around her waist, she would have collapsed onto the ground and never gotten back up. She presses her face into her husband’s shirt, fisting the fabric between her fingers before turning back, seeing Iida and Todoroki lower his body to the floor between them.
“No!” The first denouncement, the first shrill scream of a mother’s pain is the first thing Midoriya hears.
The couple breaks away from the crowd, forcing themselves past the reporters preying over their son’s body. The husband wants to knock them all to the ground, wants to smash their cameras under his shoe because how dare you sully the memory of my son? But anger had never been his strong suit, and getting to his son’s side is more important.
UA security bars their way, blocking their view. He tries to dodge, ducking past them, but one grabs his arms, pinning his back to their chest. The tears flow freely down his cheeks and he can’t bring himself to blink, staring at the body but prevented from getting any closer, worried that if he closes his eyes for even a second that the boy will disappear forever. The wife howls behind him, doubled over on the floor. One of her hands has come up to her throat, clutching the golden chain at her neck, the other is tangled in her hair as her chest heaves.
Her grief is going to consume her.
He stares at the body of his only child, limp and lifeless on the floor, unable to go and cradle him in his arms.
Masaru Bakugou’s throat is raw as he screams, “That’s my son!”
So I wrote this in my uni class - we had to take 22 words that jumped out to us from the pieces we'd read and then work those words into our own piece of creative writing. I managed to fit 20 of 22 words in (with some tense changes)! I wrote this one in third person POV instead of second, so I hope it's okay.
I know Bakugou isn't explicitly mentioned, but I did write this thinking of him the whole time, so to me that's who it's about.
Genre: Angst, Hurt (no comfort)
Characters: Katsuki Bakugou, Female Reader
Warnings: angst, mentions of blood, mentions of mould
Summary: An argument destroys everything.
Word Count: 300
He’s supposed to smell like caramel.
It was a comfort, to lay curled into him, his precious, wild eyes completely focused on her, the rest of the complicated world outside their apartment forgotten completely. It was formless, the way they loved each other; it didn’t need a shape because it just was. To deny its existence would be to deny that they lived.
The argument lasted for three days. Like mould, it ate its way through their relationship, devouring it from the inside out, until it was a pulsing black mass, incapable of thriving.
He had stood in front of her, both of their jaws clenched with their unreleased anger, the raw power between the two of them.
Silence.
The sound of tension.
The sound of him clicking his tongue and leaving the apartment.
She felt like someone had taken an axe and hacked her in half. Like she had pulled the parachute chord too soon, flung skywards and left to drift through memories of the two of them, a ghost trapped in the shell of her own body. For two weeks, she existed in a state of permanent catatonia – the imagined idea of him slipping into bed beside her, the soft comfort of an “I’m still here” whispered against the skin of her neck.
Her heart explodes in her chest when she sees him in a coffee shop, her blood painting the inside of her ribcage the gross black of the mould that had devoured them all those weeks ago. He looks through her, averting his attention to something he deems more important, and her ongoing dissociation sets into her bones, freezing her in place. He walks past her, an expensive aftershave invading her senses and bringing thick, hot tears to her eyes.
Okay so this isn't Haikyu!! (I'm sorry...), but in September I will be taking part in a readathon created by Book Roast on youtube - the Orilium: The Novice Path Readathon. I thought of this scenario while listening to the playlist I had made for this readathon, based on my Earthling character Treya, and I hope that I've written it well. The characters and story are mine, but the world and species (Earthlings, Iltirian, Skaimorn, etc) belong to Book Roast. If anyone else is participating, best of luck on the path!
Warnings: some gore
Word Count: 4124
It’s like there’s a threshold, a moment in time or space which separates the Ruins from everywhere else she’s been so far, even though there is nothing really distinguishing it. Even if there isn’t a visible border – a visible line that says she shouldn’t cross, that she should go around, that she should turn back and go home – she feels it the moment her foot falls onto the land inside the Ruins. The ground is dead, but saying that would imply that it was ever alive in the first place; it’s grey and covered in a crust of ash, despite there being no volcano or sources of fire anywhere in the nearby area.
Her skin prickles, and not for the first time on this quest does she think about going back, back to the Inn, back to Cabbage, back to Aela – back to clearing tables and only practicing her element when she’s hidden by the blanket of night. This time, it’s not a longing pang that is telling her to forget the quest. It’s desperate, animalistic, with screaming alarms echoing over and over inside her head telling her to turn around and forget everything you saw here. It’s as if her entire body, her entire subconscious is on alert ever since that first footfall into the Ruins, it’s like she’s seeing herself from somewhere else, but she knows that’s not possible. She squeezes her eyes shut, holding them closed so tightly she sees starts swirling around the blackness, and when she opens them everything is normal again.
You need to get through this as fast as possible.
She fumbles as she pulls the map from her pocket, the same map that she had snuck from the Elves table in the Inn that day… how long ago was that now? She can’t remember, she can’t think, she can’t remember what Cabbage looks like, which makes her breathing quicken like someone much larger than her has grabbed her torso in their hands and squeezed – squeezed until her rips popped and her heart burst – because how can she not remember what he looks like?
To ground herself, she grasps a fist full of her cloak where it rests over the left side chest, the buckle over her right shoulder just like Aela had taught her so many years ago. She wraps the old fabric around her fingers, fisting it so tightly she’s afraid she’ll set it on fire – her fingertips are already starting to smoulder just the tiniest bit and she forces herself to calm down. She brings the cloak to her face, burying her nose into it and taking a deep inhale. It smells like the Inn; it smells like smoke and ale and the lavenders that Aela leaves in her room every couple of weeks, it smells like the same cheap, sickly soap that she uses to wash Cabbages hair, it smells like the air surrounding the Library.
It hasn’t been that long. It hasn’t been that long.
She waits until her heart slows, until she can’t hear the blood pounding through her ears, before she straightens up, suddenly remembering that the map had fallen from her pocket. It lays on the ground, it’s thumbed corners blowing slightly in a non-existent wind, and as she crouches to pick it up, she spots a figure standing in the rubble of the old temple. They’re shielded by half of a fallen column and the darkness that surrounds it, unmoving. They’re stood very awkwardly, one shoulder held much higher than the other, as if one of their legs was abnormally short, and she can’t tell whether they are facing towards her or away from her.
She picks up the map, cringing when the ashy ground crunches beneath her shifting weight, but the person – or thing as she would prefer to refer to it – doesn’t startle.
Maybe it’s dead.
According to the map, it should be a straight route through the Ruins, but the scrawled note beside the drawing makes her skin crawl.
Three steps forward and you’re not sure if time is linear, or if things you see are of this dimension.
She swallows, folds the map back up, and slips it back into her pocket, making sure the clasp secures properly before she begins. Each step seems to echo forever, the blinding white-grey fog swallowing it in the distance before sending it back to her, as if it’s trying to communicate. The further into the Ruins she walks, the more things she sees, hidden amongst the rubble or shrouded by the ever-present mist, each one unmoving, each one more unnerving than the next. Some of them are stood with their backs to her, some with awkward gaits like the first one that she saw. One of them was laying in the middle of what she could only assume was a collapsed house, his toes facing up towards the sky.
This one she stares at for a moment, and she is reminded of a time when she was younger, when her temper got the better of her far too often, when she would run away from the Inn at least once a month, always being dragged back to Aela by an Iltirian, a scowl on her face and flames in her eyes. The last time she had attempted to run away, the one time she didn’t need to be dragged back to the Inn because she had ran back on her own, she had seen a man laying in an alleyway near the Library, the toes of his boots pointed towards the sky. A human, a traveller – the kind they didn’t get many of in Darkmeadow – his mouth unhinged and his eyes wide, his hands claws at his throat. Her stomach had lurched, splattering her dinner over his boots, before she had stumbled blindly back to the Inn, her new shoes covered in her fear, her fingers smouldering and sparking.
She doesn’t feel that fear now, only looks on with her mouth set into a line.
Fear makes you stronger.
That person didn’t manage to create the same heart-stopping panic she had felt when she was younger, but the next one does.
They are sitting upright facing away from her, and from the angle she’s approaching at, she can see one of their legs stretched out in front of them. When she passes, she feels her breath stop dead in the middle of her chest, and as she tries to scramble backwards trips over her own feet, landing heavily on the ground behind her, her sword making an awful clang that seemed to make the already still surroundings even stiller.
The other leg is missing, not a clean cut or a healed one – it looks as though it’s been ripped from their body, dislodged at the hip and torn away without care. The skin is ragged and black with decay, and yet it still bleeds thick black blood onto the ground surrounding it. She watches the blood drip down in strands, sticking to itself even when it hits the puddle. Their hands are gnarled, not unlike the hands of the body she had found when she was younger, only the fingertips on these hands are blacked – not in the same way as the ripped skin of the hip, but in the same way as her fingers get when she gets too angry, setting alight and staying that way for too long.
An Earthling.
Of course, she would’ve noticed if she had followed their arms more, would have seen the bright red marks that had adorned her skin since the day she turned ten, but her attention was too focused on the Earthling’s face, or lack of one. Where the face should have been, was a crater like hole, also dripping that same stringing blood down itself, and she is reminded of the time she had found Cabbage leaning over the balcony, letting gobs of spit drop onto the people leaving the Inn. He had turned to look at her with wide eyes and the faintest beginnings of purple spots, the string of spit dribbling down his front in the same way that the blood is dripping onto this things ruined tunic. There are shards of bone protruding from where the eye sockets would have been, snapped sharp by whatever it was that had attacked them.
There’s nothing nearby that could suggest a possible weapon, and it made her ears ring with the realisation that this probably meant that the attacker had taken it with them, and was potentially still prowling through the Ruins for the next victim.
Get through this as fast as possible.
She pushes herself up, wincing at the pain from her now cut palms as she puts all her weight on them, and goes to step around the body, before noticing a piece of paper fluttering weakly inside a pocket on the Earthling’s jacket. She digs her nails into her ruined hands to stop them shaking, quickly pulling the paper away without lingering near it for too long.
Across the top of the paper is the same flowing script that she had seen every day since leaving the Inn. The Novice Path – the words still distinguishable despite the blood that had gathered on the edges of the page.
They were going to Orilium, too.
She doesn’t think on it for too long – she can’t afford to worry about it – instead dropping the map back beside the body, continuing forwards at a faster pace than she was before.
After about five minutes, hearing the whistling of the fake-wind through the Ruins many arches and alcoves, she becomes aware of another noise: a scraping stumble, as if someone was struggling to climb across all of the rubble, dragging their feet and digging up crusts of ash with each step, landing heavily as they tripped forwards. She doesn’t turn around, even though her skin prickles, because there is nothing here to be afraid of, this place has been dead for centuries, there is nothing in the Ruins that could possibly mean any harm to her.
It’s probably just another traveller on the Path, one that isn’t well acquainted with walks like this – maybe from Daerune.
“Treya.”
It makes her stop, not freeze, just slowly stop. It was as though the word was whispered into her ear, as if they had said it stood right beside her and not from however far back they really were.
They. He.
She turns, her mouth still that same stoic line – the same line she had managed to hide every emotion behind when Aela told her she needs to control her temper – despite the way she wants to scream and sob and drop to her knees and run towards him all at once.
Cabbage stumbles over another dislodged piece of ash, longer than his own legs, and lands with his hands outstretched in front of him, a little oof leaving his lips as he hits the floor. He looks up at her with watery eyes and a wobbly lip, and she forgets everything to run towards him, dropping in front of him and not caring about the noise she makes in this decaying place. She hooks her arms under his and pulls him into her, pressing his head into the crook of her neck, her nose in his still baby-soft hair, her tears dripping onto his skin.
She underestimated how much she would miss the two of them, her fake-brother Cabbage, and her boss – and also her sort-of adoptive mother – Aela. She thought of how difficult it must’ve been for Cabbage’s ten year old body to have to endure the trek, to have to follow her through so much, just trying to find her.
“Hi, Cabbage.” Her voice is harsh from days of no use, scratching her throat and coming out not sounding like her at all. “What’re you doing here, hey?”
“Aela told me the Skaimorn had taken you to be their ward instead – said that they needed a mean-tempered girl like you – and I didn’t believe her, not one bit, because why would they want you as a ward when I was right there! I followed you, saw your cloak as you were leaving, so I followed you all the way out here, but you’re so fast and I’m not tall yet so I couldn’t keep up that well.”
She runs her hand down his back, sniffling to herself despite her anger at him being so stupid as to follow her to Gods know where. “This was very silly of you, Cabbage, you should’ve stayed with Aela. She’s probably worried sick about where you are.”
“She’s not, I know she isn’t. Let’s go home, Treya – please. It’s so scary out here, I don’t like it.”
She keeps rubbing his back, and she suddenly frowns, moving her hand towards the top of his back, to the space just under his shoulder blades where the first nubs of his wings should have been. She remembered him running into her room with a grin missing a front tooth as he had launched himself onto her bed, proudly jutting his thumbs behind him towards the start of the bony spikes that would one day become a beautiful pair of wings.
Cabbage’s back shouldn’t be this smooth.
She pulls away from him, smiling, hoping he doesn’t see that it doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and cups his face with her hands. She rubs at his cheeks with both thumbs as he keeps talking, and she notices how his eyes are just the slightest too wide, his hair just the slightest bit too dark, his nose just the slightest bit too crooked. The spots on his skin aren’t the bright shade of purple they had been the day before she had left, but instead a sickly dark yellow.
“Or – Treya, we don’t even need to go back to the Inn at all! We could stay right here, couldn’t we! It’s pretty here, and I bet we could even build our own Inn, just like the one back in Darkmeadow!”
She curses herself for dropping her guard, for forgetting the old lessons – to not take anything at face value, to pay attention, to never let her feelings get the better of her, to always be on the offensive.
“I’m sorry, but you and I both know I can’t do that.” She doesn’t refer to it with Cabbage’s name, because it is not Cabbage. It is not her sweet fellow ward who cries with excitement every time a Skaimorn enters the Inn, it is not the little boy who followed her around like a stray puppy, even when she glared at him with her burning eyes.
It is not Cabbage.
And as soon as it registers she knows, her fingertips pressing harshly into it’s skull that’s wearing Cabbage’s face, her mouth back into that line, her eyes dark with black fire, the act is dropped. The wobbly lip disappears, the eyes become lidded as it stares at her with a bored expression that doesn’t fit Cabbage’s face at all; it’s the expression that makes her fury spike, the fact that this thing is tainting Cabbage’s image with an expression of disinterest and annoyance, and she longs to dig her nails into the skin just before its ears and just rip it off.
Her hands are already beginning to heat up; she can see the smoke coming from its skin in thin ribbons. The wrong coloured spots begin to muddle, rippling across its skin, flowing across the surface like water.
It still speaks in Cabbage’s voice, the boredom drawling his words and smearing them together. “Fine. Let’s try it my way, shall we?”
She ignites, her fingers burning with the type of heat that she can’t feel, that she’ll never know the true power of unless she sees it. The skin bubbles, warps, dripping off the skull in gobs as the hair catches, swallowing its face in a blaze of red and yellow. It doesn’t scream, doesn’t give any indication that it’s in any kind of pain, but even if it did she wouldn’t have cared. She wouldn’t have stopped, would’ve only pressed her palms further into its face as she is doing now, not even unnerved when its cheekbones crack and fizzle, not even when its blood splutters and hisses.
Only when there is no remnant of Cabbage left, when his baby-soft hair has burnt to ash and his skin lays in waxy puddles surrounding her, only when she’s staring at the blackened skull does she let go, letting the body fall backwards, looking not unlike a doll dropped by a child who longs for a new, more enjoyable plaything. She doesn’t lurch, doesn’t cry, only stares on with the same lidded eyes it had stared at her with, a smirk playing on her lips.
Look how powerful you have become.
She wipes her hands on the things tunic, longing to unbutton it and take it because it doesn’t deserve to lay there in a crude imitation of Cabbage’s ward uniform. She doesn’t because she has the feeling that as soon as she leaves the Ruins, as soon as another traveller enters, the thing will merge into someone else, trying to convince them to stay forever too. Rocking back onto her feet, she continues, now hyperaware of every slight noise, every piece of rubble dislodging and falling down a pile, every creak and groan as the old pillars are battered by the not-wind, every gasping breath and scratchy yell.
At those, she turns, at the same time surprised and unsurprised to see masses of bodies making their way towards her. The one that had panicked her, the one missing a leg and a face, dragged itself over the ragged ground with it’s clawed hands, being overtaken quickly by others, among them the first one she had noticed with the awkward gait, which she saw was because it was missing the bottom half of one of its shins.
It wasn’t so much fear that got her heart pumping, but annoyance and frustration. She set her feet, drawing her sword with her right hand and spinning it once, twice, three times, her brows furrowed with determination. Her hands were still hot, but she didn’t allow herself to let go yet. They had to get closer – the closer they were, the bigger the explosion, the more could be taken out. She tried to count them, gave up when she realised they were moving too fast for her to be able to not count them twice.
“Going in blind,” she murmurs to herself, shifting her cloak so that her right arm is just a bit freer. “The old way.”
She doesn’t even register the first one. It’s as if her body moved on it’s own, as all she registered was it dropping onto the floor beside her, sliced up the middle, it’s head split into two and leaking black blood onto her boots.
The second one she registers because it dodges her first swing, lunging at her from the other side, but she is nothing if not prepared. She raises her left arm, unleashing an inferno in the things face. Even if it doesn’t feel the pain, it catches it off guard for long enough for her to detach its head. It snaps at her heels with rotten teeth, and she brings her boot down with a crunch, not caring about the sudden silence of the thing.
The majority of the mass is almost upon her, the main body that she was waiting for, and she sheathes her sword back at her side, her lips turning up in a grin.
She cracks her knuckles, presses her fingertips together in a mockery of the prayers they used to do to the Old Gods when she still lived in Irtheria, her palms not touching, her fingertips barely kissing. She was proud of this display of her raw talent, a party trick that was unsuitable for most parties, something she had coined herself in her more rebellious years.
This is going to be fun.
Her lips part in a wild grin as they fall into the right distance, which she knows from many sleepless nights of practice, challenging herself to find her maximum distance – but also her maximum destruction.
She doesn’t need to say anything, she just needs to will it, and for once she thanks herself for having such an untameable temper that required her to let of steam more often than most her age.
The ground erupts, catching the middle of the crowd in a column of fire as wild as the hair on her head and the smile on her face, her eyes flashing with the same bright flame. She doesn’t bother to hide her excitement at the carnage, doesn’t care if she looks crazed because it worked.
Some emerge from the blaze, their clothes and skin alight, their features melting in the heat, eyes popped and dribbling down their faces, continuing to advance upon her without any need of their sight.
Time to go.
She spins, sprinting as fast as she can towards the boundary of the Ruins, towards the Falls. With each footfall, another burst of flame splits the ground on either side of her, her control waning as her heartrate increases. The normally tame flames on the ends of her hair grow, licking their way down her back, catching her cloak with their damning kiss, igniting a section of it to her dismay. Still, she doesn’t stop, whipping her head to the side to dampen the flames enough for them to not be damaging to the one thing she cares about.
As she runs, the cloak billows, the flames extinguishing – to her relief – leaving only a gaping hole that travels from the middle of her bicep to her elbow. It’s better than losing the whole cloak; she can deal with a hole. She doesn’t stop, the gurgling behind her enough to spur her despite the pain in her legs, despite the sword clanging harshly against her with every step, despite the fact that the boundary of the Ruins seems to be the edge of a cliff.
It doesn’t look this way on the map, but she knows from listening to the Ilterians in the Library that maps can lie just as much as men can.
If she stops, they’ll kill her. But if she continues, she might kill herself.
The Path is not impossible if you listen to its warnings.
They wouldn’t send you into the Ruins just to die.
She takes a deep breath, giving herself that last push, that last burst of speed to get just far enough in front of them to take the leap, her arms pinwheeling, her legs still moving as she falls before she angles herself so as not to paralyse herself on landing.
The drop is not as deep as it had looked from inside the Ruins, ten feet at most, and her landing is mostly softened by a thick layer of underbrush that has been creeping out of the forest and began its ascent up the cliffs face. She rolls off heavily, landing on her back on an old dirt path, her chest heaving and her vision blurring as she talks to the Old Gods for the first time since she was ten, thanking them for giving her the strength to survive, though she knows that she alone is the cause of that strength.
Only when she sits up on that small path, only when she looks towards the cliffs edge and sees the creatures gathered and staring down at her, unable to follow past the boundary line, only when she is certain she is safe (from that task at least), does she let herself scream.
She screams until her throat is raw, then screams some more, clutching at her chest with her left hand, fisting the black fabric of her shirt as her voice breaks from anger and pride and that thin layer of fear that she has finally allowed to crest the surface.
For a moment, she just sits, panting, her mind spinning, her fingers smouldering. She thinks about turning back now, finding a way to go around the Ruins and back to Darkmeadow, collapsing in the doorway of the Inn and holding the real Cabbage close to her as she whispers her apologies to the both of them. It would make the most sense to turn back now, with how close Deaths fingers came to grasping her around the throat and dragging her down with him.
But she stands, brushes the dirt from herself, and starts down the path, her mouth set and her eyes lidded.
I'm not really sure how I feel about this... I think it started strong then kind of just dwindled. Hopefully you all enjoy it anyway haha.
Genre: Friendship, Comfort (I guess?), Fluff
Summary: After convincing his best friend to come to his early morning practice, Nishinoya can't help but unleash all of his annoyingness upon them.
Characters: G/N Reader, Yuu Nishinoya
Word Count: 1923
NOTE: There are no pronouns used in this piece, however there is mention of girlfriends not referring to the reader character.
You yawn, stretching your arms over your head until you can feel your shoulders popping. It’s too early to be going to the gym, but after he’d begged for so long for you to go to his practice, you’d finally caved and said fine, Noya, if it’ll make you shut up. So now, you’re stood on the corner of your street at half past six on a Saturday morning, and your head feels like it’s going to explode.
You close your eyes as you take a drink from your water bottle, listening to the birdsong and breeze as the world settles around you. You think of how calm it is, when the world is sleeping.
I should be sleeping, you think grumpily to yourself, yawning again.
All of a sudden, the peaceful birdsong is drowned out by loud footsteps.
“Good morning!” He shouts as he approaches. Does this kid not have any volume other than yell?
“Why are you so awake?” You groan, adjusting your bag before trying and failing to fall into step alongside him, or at least trying to.
He’s like a damn puppy.
He spins around, walking backwards so he can grin at you like the imp he is. “Why aren’t you?”
“Because it’s a Saturday, I’m supposed to be in bed.”
He makes a psht noise. “Who cares about bed?”
You sneer at him. “Ido, very clearly.”
He laughs, his eyes scrunched closed, before turning back to face the way he’s walking. “I’ll buy you some curry buns later, since it’s such a crime for me to get you up at 6 o’clock.”
“On a Saturday!” You snap, eyes narrowed at the back of his spiky head, but all he does is laugh. “What time do you need to get up to do your hair?”
“I wake up at like half past five.”
“Every day?”
“Yeah?”
“And you’re still so…” You falter, unable to come up with any word that even came close to describing him.
“So…?” He prompts, looking back at you over his shoulder. He’s clutching onto the straps of his backpack like a child on their first day of school.
“So annoying.”
He huffs, turning away from you. “I’m not annoying.”
“You’re probably annoying because you wake up at half past five every morning.”
“I’m not annoying!”
“Maybe your annoyingness is because you’re really unhappy with the fact that you wake up at half past five, and you want to make everyone else miserable too.”
Although you can’t see his face, you know that he’s scowling, his eyebrows drawn together and his eyes narrowed as he seethes at your words. You’re glad it’s working; he deserves it for making you to wake up at six o’clock on a Saturday.
When he speaks, his voice is the softest you have ever heard it, like he’s choosing his words carefully and making sure they sound exactly as he wants them to.
“I don’t like it when you call me annoying.”
You weren’t expecting that reaction, and it makes you feel like a terrible person. You didn’t want him to feel bad, you thought it would be like all of the other times you both have ripped into one another, each time ending with easy laughter and melted ice pops. It breaks your heart to know that this time was the time that it went too far, the time it stopped being just a light joke.
Maybe you should’ve stopped when he said it the first time; you thought he was saying it in the same way that you say ‘I do not!’ when your friend tells your crush you fancy them. Now you realise he was saying it in the same way you say ‘get off!’ when a playfight steps into actual fight territory.
“I didn’t mean it.” You jog lightly to catch up to him, leaning forwards to get a glimpse of his face – of his bottom lip caught between his teeth as he chews on it, of his slightly wet eyes as he glares at the floor in front of him. “You’re not annoying, I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t reply, and you don’t know what to do. You don’t know what will bring back his bubbliness.
“Noya? I’m really sorry – you could never annoy me, you know that you’re my favourite person in the whole world. I wouldn’t change you for anything.” You grab his arm, making him stop walking. He doesn’t look at your face, his eyes trained on the floor, still chewing anxiously on his lip.
“Really?” You don’t like the softness of his voice. You want to hear the ecstatic roughness of it again.
“Really really.”
He tilts his head up to look you in the eyes, blinking slowly, before he breaks. His face splits into his usual shit-eating grin, his eyes creasing in the corners.
“I didn’t know you cared about me that much, [Y/N].”
“Oh, screw you.” You shove his shoulder, turning to stalk off with burning cheeks when you realise he’s played you.
“Am I really your faa-vourite person?” He runs around so that he’s walking backwards in front of you, batting his eyelashes like a damsel from an old cartoon.
“I take it back, you really are annoying.”
“Only to you.”
“That’s even worse – I could live with you annoying everyone, but now I know you have something out for me.”
“Nah, you’re special. You’re the only one who gets to see the true extent of my annoyingness.”
“Why don’t you save that for a girlfriend?”
“A girlfriend would love me too much to see me as annoying; she would probably see my annoyingness as endearing. A best friend – that’s you, by the way – sees the annoyingness, but embraces it, and loves me anyway.”
“Your annoyingness is the one thing that stops me from loving you.”
“You’re a liar. I know full well that my annoyingness makes me even more lovable.”
“Shut up about your annoyingness.”
“You love my annoyingness.”
You scowl at him, crossing your arms over your chest as he laughs. Unsure what to say to stop him going on about his annoyingness, you decide not to say anything at all, allowing the two of you to lapse into a comfortable silence.
You feel yourself tuning in more to the sounds of nature: the gentle breeze stirring the branches of the trees, scattering tiny leaves and blossoms over you as you walk beneath them; the birds chittering as they sat on the rooftops, their conversations drifting and making you feel like an eavesdropper, even though you could never understand what they were saying.
Noya yawns beside you, scrunching his eyes shut with a cute little noise that almost makes you snort.
“I knew you were tired,” you mumble, your only answer a roll of his eyes.
After a moment, he actually answers with words. “I might be tired, but I think my excitement for the day means it doesn’t matter to me.”
“Your ‘excitement for the day’? You do the exact same thing every day.”
“Yes, and the exact same thing is something that makes me happy.”
“Maybe your annoyingness comes from your lack of something new – your lack of adventure.” You had both talked about adventure before – from fantasy battles with trolls in mountain halls to exploring the South American continent. You knew how much adventure and excitement meant to him, which is why you just couldn’t understand the joy that came out of his daily repetition.
His jaw tenses slightly, and he thinks for a second. “What is there to adventure here? In the middle of butt-”
“No swearing.”
“-frick – why won’t you let me swear, you weirdo? – nowhere, where I’ve lived my whole life? I know this place like the back of my hand – heck, I might even know it like the back of your hand.”
“Oh, so you stare at my hands?”
He scowls, shoving you lightly. “You know that’s not what I meant.” He sighs, waits a second to collect his thoughts and set them in order, before he opens his mouth again. “Adventure would be great, yes. But digging the balls out and being there for my team is also great – maybe it’s even greater.”
You loop your arm through his, leaning your head against his shoulder. “It better be greater if you’re going to wake me up at six in the morning for it.”
“It’s the greatest, I promise.”
“It might be the greatest for the people doing it, but I’m just going to be stood there watching. I might fall asleep against the wall.”
“I’ll get Asahi to hit you with a spike if you do.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
“Nope.” You smirk up at him and he scoffs.
“Why not?”
“I’m the only person who’ll put up with your annoyingness. You won’t risk losing that.”
He thinks for a moment, then drops his head with a sigh, giving an exaggeratedly sad nod. “You’re right. I could never risk losing the one person who puts up with my annoyingness.”
The two of you giggle into the crisp morning air, the birdsong almost like a mockery of your laughter. You walk in silence until you see the gym about a hundred feet away, when you decide to end with a question you didn’t want to ask when there was enough time for it to be awkward.
“Nishi?”
“Mhm?” You know he’s already basically checked out at this point, running through a mental list of things in his bag, checking to make sure he hasn’t forgotten anything. You see Sugawara reach the gym, already changed into his gym clothes. He turns and waves, and Noya waves back with a wide grin.
“You know in the future? When you manage to get out of here and go on your adventures?”
“Yeah?”
“You won’t forget me, right?”
He stops, turning towards you, cocking his head to the side slightly as he checks to make sure you aren’t joking.
“Why would I forget you?”
“If you go adventuring, then you’re going to meet so many amazing people and do so many amazing things. I’m going to be the not amazing thing from your not amazing hometown. I don’t want you to replace me with a newer, cooler version of me.”
“I could never replace you. And for the record, you are the newest, coolest version of you there ever was – and there will ever be.” You laugh, but he doesn’t. “I’m serious. And, I could never forget you because whenever we’ve talked about adventuring in the past, I always imagined you would be there with me.”
“You’d want me on your adventures?” You’re shocked; all this time you had been convinced that when he inevitably left to go explore the rest of the world, he would be a lone wolf, not wanting anything to hold him back, letting the wind blow him from place to place until he decided it was time to come home. You had never imagined Noya would be the type of person who would want to share those experiences – with someone like you nonetheless.
“You’re my partner in crime, of course I’d want you there.” He shrugs, starting towards the club room. You stop at the bottom of the stairs, watching as he jogs up them two at a time with his hands in his pockets. He leans over the railing when he gets to the top, looking down at you with that shit-eating grin once again.
“Besides, who else is going to help me fight the mountain trolls?”
Here's a fic inspired by the Harvest Festival scene from The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You by Lily Anderson :D
This work includes mentions of clowns, vomit, and panic attacks, so if you have coulrophobia, emetophobia, or are triggered by panic attacks in any way, then I would suggest not reading this piece.
Genre: Light Angst, Comfort, no romance
Summary: When someone has a breakdown in the middle of a meant-to-be fun Haunted House attraction, one scare actor steps up to help lead the visitor out safely, but maybe they should have just left it alone.
You wring your hands as you wait outside the haunted house, the fake (were they fake?) screams emitting from inside making your stomach churn. Your friends didn’t seem too bothered, but then when did teenage boys ever show their fear?
“This is stupid,” Tsukishima says as he counts the correct amount of tokens out to pay for your tickets. “Why are we doing this again?”
“Hinata’s never been in one before,” the other surly one, Kageyama, points towards where Hinata is trying to contain his excitement, jumping from foot to foot in front of the sign.
“Hey! They haven’t been in one either!” The ginger one snaps his head around angrily, pointing towards you.
“I don’t particularly want to go in one.” You wish there was anything you could say that would make them let you stay outside, but you had promised; you had told Hinata that if they got past the first round of the Spring High Prelims, then you would personally take him to a haunted house. You hadn’t meant anything by it – not that you didn’t believe they would get through the first round, more that you didn’t believe Hinata would remember the promise you had made before nodding off on the bus. You wanted to die when he had entered the gym that Friday with the flyer for the Halloween Fair in the park, but you couldn’t bring yourself to say no to his beaming smile.
“Oh, come on! It’s not going to be that bad!” He gives you a wide grin, and you want to smile back but you know that it will just come out as a grimace if you try. Instead, you just stare at him, your lips set in a tight line.
“How come Tadashi doesn’t have to go in?”
“The last time Tadashi went in a haunted house, he threw up on one of the scare actors. I think it’s best for both him and everyone else that he stays outside.” Tsukki drops the unneeded tokens into his jacket pocket.
“What if I throw up on a scare actor?”
“Then we’ll know to leave you outside with Tadashi next time.”
He marches over to the attendant’s booth, where a bored teenager rests his head on the palm of his hand, where he exchanges Tsukki’s twelve tokens for four shiny black tickets (“Three tokens per ticket, at 700¥ per token! That’s practically robbery!”).
With a deep, shaking breath, you follow your boys into the house, giving Tadashi one final timid wave before stepping into the black of the first room.
If you weren’t standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Hinata, you’re pretty sure you would have lost him immediately. Most of the time when people enter darkness, they say they ‘can’t see two feet in front of them’, but you can barely see an inch. You can hear breathing: loud, rattling breaths merging with the sound of the blood pounding in your head. You feel like you were going to pass out.
“Move,” Tsukki pushes you from behind, not too hard but you stumble anyway. Your throat feels dry – was it always this hot in here? You clench and unclench your hands, the clamminess of your palms just making you more uncomfortable.
The first scare actor pops up, in a Michael Myers mask, wielding a chainsaw. If you were in a sound state of mind right now, you would tell yourself that this person is completely inaccurate to the character, and shouldn’t be a scare actor at all due to their lack of dedication. However, all rational (if that thought would have even been rational in the first place) thought has already left the building, and instead you ball your eyes shut and barrel past him with a scream at a pitch you didn’t even know you could hit.
You run blindly, feeling your shoulder collide with a doorway, only opening your eyes when the slight momentary pain jars you from your panic.
There are lights here, in this small corridor, bathing everything in a gross green tinge, and when you turn around you can’t see any of the boys behind you. You stick your head through the doorway, leaning out into another thin corridor. There are three other doorways lining the wall, and you realise they must have gone through a different one once you’d bolted. You realise that the only way to meet up with them is at the end, as you have no way of knowing which doorway they picked.
You look back to the corridor, your footsteps suddenly ten times heavier now that you didn’t have the two six-foot tall bullies behind you. Even your lungs feel heavy, every breath like you’re taking in water instead of air, like you’re about to drown.
Your head hurts.
Why did you agree to this?
Finally, you reach the end of the green corridor, swallowing thickly as you poke your head slowly into the room.
It’s as if your heart stops.
There are five of them (Scare actors, you tell yourself. They’re just actors.) stood in different areas of the room. It’s difficult to remember they’re just scare actors when they’re all stood facing you, wearing matching killer clown masks and outfits. The one closest to you is stood behind a pile of cardboard boxes, and you’re thankful that there’s at least something separating them from you. It’s as if they’re leering at you, even though the mask is fixed into the twisted smile of the clown; they’re looking at you as though they’re hungry, waiting for the right moment to pounce.
You edge along the wall, keeping your eyes on the one behind the boxes the whole time, until you realise you need to watch the others, too. Your hand shakes as you use it to feel your way along the wall, your stomach dropping when you have to take that first step away from the security the wall provided.
You can see the doorway, it’s straight ahead, just keep your eyes on the doorway and it’ll all be fine.
The one behind the boxes shifts their body so that they’re facing you, but you don’t look at them, closing your eyes for a second to tell yourself to just calm down.
They can’t hurt you, they can’t touch you, they’re just teenagers, just actors being paid to have a good time scaring other teenagers.
You’re halfway through the room, the door is right there, just don’t look at them.
The one to your right takes a lurching step forwards and you jump, tripping over your feet and falling backwards, landing hard on the floor. Your hands burn where they hit the concrete, and your arse is now throbbing, but your eyes are squeezed shut, your face twisted into a grimace as you try not to cry.
Your eyes are shut so tightly that stars begin to swim in the blackness, and you try to focus on the patterns and not the sound of the clown’s footsteps.
You press your hands over your ears, trying to tune it all out, trying to convince yourself that you’re still with the boys and you didn’t get separated – or better yet, that you’re waiting outside with Tadashi with a cup of tea warming your hands.
Your breathing is coming too hard, too fast, and you feel like your chest is about to explode, the pounding of your heart shattering your ribcage as it bursts from your body. You can’t get a full breath, the air stopping dead in your throat just before you can get a full lungful. You think you might pass out, your whole body feels as though it’s on fire, and you just wish that it was over, that you’re already outside, that you’ve completed the house without having a breakdown, that you don’t feel like you’re about to be murdered by a teenager in a clown mask.
The footsteps stop, and there’s a moment where you think about opening your eyes but you know that if you do you’re going to see the clown leaning right in front of you.
They’re just actors, they’re just teenagers, they can’t touch you, they can’t hurt you, they just want to scare you.
You swallow, almost gagging from the dryness of your mouth.
There’s wet on your cheek, you notice. You’re crying, the tears dripping hot and heavy down your face in your blind panic, and only when you notice the wetness of your face do you tune in to the sound of your loud sobs.
The footsteps to your right retreat, the clown slinking back to their original position.
Something touches your shoulder, and your brain goes haywire.
They’re not allowed to touch you so what just touched you was that a real clown ohmygod am I about to die what if he stabs me why is he touching me why is he touching me WHY IS HE TOUCHING ME
The thing shakes you slightly, enough to get you to open your eyes the tiniest bit before shutting them again once you see the mask to your left. They’re crouched down, balancing their weight on the balls of their feet beside you. They touch your wrist and you flinch, before they gently pry your hand away from your ear. You open your eyes again, focusing instead on the balloon that’s tied to their wrist, bobbing in the air with each movement of their arm.
They stand up, offering you their other hand to help you up, but you ignore it and stand up on your own. They nod at the clown across from them, and then they nod you towards the doorway.
You don’t move, swallowing once again, making sure you don’t look at the mask. You wipe your cheek with the heel of your hand.
The clown offers their arm to you, and when you don’t take it they make a flourishing bow gesture before offering it again. You giggle weakly, your head throbbing, and the clown points at you before giving you a thumbs up.
You take their arm, and they walk you out of the room, into another dim corridor.
“Thank you,” you whisper, surprised at the hoarseness of your voice. The clown just shrugs.
“Are you not allowed to talk?” The clown shakes their head, and you hear a bell ringing that must be attached to their collar. “I like the bell. It’s a nice touch.”
You stay silent for a moment, until you step into the next room and a man in a leather apron jumps out with a cleaver. With a squeal, you turn, curling into the clown’s side as you try to make yourself as small a target as possible, squeezing their arm a little bit too much. You’re surprised at the muscle you can feel through the costume; it reminds you of the times you’ve hugged any of the boys on your team when they win a game. It’s weird to think that an athlete would be doing something like this in his free time (as though your athlete friends aren’t currently in the same haunted house, albeit for a different purpose).
The clown clears their throat, and when you look at them, they make a gesture with their hand, one that seems to say if you talk it might help you calm down.
You think for a moment, unsure of what to say. “I’m only here because I promised my friends that if they got through the first round of the volleyball tournament then I’d go with them. And then we got split up. And Tadashi is only allowed to stay outside because he threw up on a scare actor once, so because I haven’t thrown up on a scare actor that means I had to go in.”
The clown makes a show of laughing silently, their shoulders shaking as they clutch their chest with their other hand.
“But I just hope it doesn’t worry Hinata too much because I know he can talk a big game but he’s really a huge wuss – I mean, before our practice game against Aoba Johsai he was jumping off the walls until it actually came about, then he threw up on the bus and was mainly the reason we lost the first set – don’t tell him I said any of this will you?” You don’t know why you ask – there’s no way they know who Hinata is.
The clown shakes their head, making an exaggerated cross over where their heart would be.
Another scare actor jumps out with a shrill scream, and you close your eyes with a shaking breath before continuing.
“I think Aoba Johsai is our biggest problem – we only won the practice match because their normal setter wasn’t there for the first two sets, and even then, it was a close call. And then we played them during the Inter-High in full sets, but we still lost in the end. I just hope that all the work they’ve put in over summer pays off, and I hope they don’t let him land any service aces, the cocky bastard.”
You enter the next room – how many rooms are there? The clown tilts their head slightly, like a puppy dog.
“The Aoba Johsai setter, Tooru Oikawa. He’s a complete jerk. At least the other teams we play are likeable, he’s like a movie villain – especially in the way he seems to exist just to annoy Kageyama.”
Their arm tenses, but you either don’t notice or you don’t care.
“He’s so full of himself – did you know he was almost late to their first game in the Inter-High because he was too busy flirting with his little fangirls. And that’s another thing! Who has fangirls as a high school athlete? No wonder he’s so self-centred, they’re just inflating his ego all the time. God! He thinks he’s the best person in the world, but he’s not; just because you can serve really well and set really well and spike really well doesn’t mean that you’re God’s gift to volleyball.”
They nod slowly. You’re almost through the last room – you can see the torn sign on the door that reads You Made It… Or Did You?
“He’s infuriating! He’s just so smug and you can just tell that he thinks he’s the smartest person ever – well, Tooru Oikawa, you aren’t a genius.” You’re surprised at how angry Oikawa makes you, but you’re thankful for the anger that thinking about him creates as your fear is basically non-existent at this point.
The clown shoves the door open with their left shoulder, holding it open for you to be able to slip out into the cold night air, which feels lovely against your warm skin.
They do another exaggerated bow, the balloon bobbing and blowing about in the breeze. They turn to go back into the house, back to their original room.
“Wait!” You’re surprised by the sudden force in your voice. The clown stops, and turns back towards you, tilting their head to the side in question. “Will you be at the preliminaries on Thursday?” A nod. “Come and find me and I’ll buy you a water for your trouble.”
You pause, watching them, waiting to see if they’ll reply. They don’t.
“Thank you. Truly, thank you, so much.” You let out a short laugh. “Who would’ve thought my saviour would be a murderous clown? Thank you once again, Hero Clown.”
The clown makes one final bow, the bell tinkling, and gives you a wave with a wiggle of their white-gloved fingers. Then, they turn for the last time and disappear back into the house.
“Where did you go?” Tsukki’s voice makes you turn around, and you see the three of them stood there watching you. Tsukki looks bored. Hinata isn’t wearing his jumper anymore.
“Where’s your jumper, ginger?” You ask, ignoring Tsukki’s question and walking over to meet them so you can begin your exit out of the park. He holds up a plastic bag that he didn’t have before.
“Hinata threw up on a scare actor.” Tsukki answers. “That means that next time Hinata can wait outside with Tadashi.”
On the twenty fifth of October, you stand inside the Sendai City Gym with the boys, cradling three of their water bottles against your chest. All of you are staring at the schedule as you wait for your first game – the game against Johzenji – to begin. Nishinoya sits on the floor in front of you as he stretches, before he yawns and holds his hand out for one of the bottles. You roll your eyes, unsurprised from his lack of a please.
Before you can pass him one, though, someone behind you grabs one of them from your hands, and you wheel around in shock to see Tooru Oikawa of Aoba Johsai drink half of the bottle in one go.
“What…is wrong with you?” You snap, snatching the bottle back from his hands. “Who do you think I am, your servant? I’m not one of your stupid little fangirls! Drink your own team’s water!”
He tilts his head with a smirk, but you can tell there’s something weird about it. Maybe it’s the way his eyes aren’t as bright as they normally are whenever he teases the opposition, maybe it’s how it’s more like a sneer than a smirk.
Nishinoya stands up, and you put your arm out to keep him at bay. You don’t need the feral chihuahua to back you up against Tooru Oikawa of all people.
“Don’t worry about it, Little Karasuno-chan. Your debt is paid.” Oikawa’s words are laced with… something.
“My debt? I don’t know what you’re on about, mister, so you’d better-”
The realisation slams into you like a truck going a hundred miles an hour.
“Come find me and I’ll buy you a bottle of water for your trouble.”
This is my first time writing a Haikyu fic so I hope it's okay! I was inspired by the song A TV Show Called Earth by Philip Labes.
Pairing: Oikawa x Reader
Complete fluff :D
Word Count: 1462
You don’t know what’s wrong, why you can’t get to sleep no matter how long you lay there with your eyes closed. With a groan, you sit up, looking over to the digital clock on your bedside, which taunts you in bright green letters that it’s now two o’clock. You stretch your arms over your head, your shoulders popping, before you reach for your phone.
The screen is the tiniest bit too bright for your dark-adjusted eyes; even on the lowest setting you’re squinting through the blare. You scroll aimlessly for a while, opening various social apps only to close them once you realise how dead they are in the early hours of the morning.
Somehow you end up opening his text thread.
You click the message box, watching the cursor flickering in and out of existence, thinking about whether or not you should say anything. He would probably be asleep, right? So that he can get up early to go on his run, so that he’s nice and refreshed for the day, so that he looks good for his fangirls, so he’s not tired when it gets to practice.
You scan the last couple of messages, your vision slightly blurred from your lack of sleep.
Bane of My Existence: Goodnight, my beloved Y/N-chan :))
You tap out a quick text and send it, not giving yourself a second to think about it.
Hey, u awake?
After about a minute of no response – you expected it, so why is there a part of you that’s upset? – you go to put your phone back on the nightstand, until you see the three dots appear.
BoME: Yea, why’re you up so late?
I should ask u the same thing, Mr Asleep-By-Ten-Thirty.
BoME: Ouch D: that was harsh, Y/N-chan.
You find yourself smiling at your phone, your cheeks flushing in the dark. You don’t know why: he’s like this with everyone, isn’t he? So how come it feels like you’re the only one?
Do you want to go somewhere?
BoME: At 2 am? We have school :/
You’d expected that.
I couldn’t sleep lol. Doesn’t matter.
Your eyes flicker to the curtain next to your bed, and you pull it back just enough to peek out. The stars glitter among the blanket of black, as if they’re teasing you, tempting you to step outside and tilt your head right back so you can stare at them until your neck hurts and your head begins to feel heavy.
The stars are nice tonight.
BoME: They are?
There’s a moment. A second where you can imagine him standing up and walking to his window and looking outside, his eyes lighting up and a smile splitting his face in half.
BoME: Park?
Park sounds good :DD
Half an hour later, you’re walking into the park, your mums good picnic blanket tucked under your arm. Your fluffy green pyjama bottoms look odd compared to your trainers and hoodie, but you don’t really care, since the only person who’s going to see you is him.
You spread the blanket, making sure it’s not folded in the corners, smoothing out the creases.
A twig snaps behind you and you tense, the back of your neck prickling.
“Rah!” Someone jumps at you, grabbing your sides gently to make you jump. You yelp, just for a second, before whipping around and smacking their chest with both hands.
“Don’t do that!” You hiss, punctuating each word with a hit.
He just laughs, and you’re angry at how the laughter can make it seem not as bad, can make everything seem like it’s going to be okay. His eyes sparkle in the darkness, and he runs a hand through his hair with a grin before dropping himself down onto the blanket.
“Hello my beautiful Y/N-chan.”
“Hello, Tooru.” You roll your eyes at him and he laughs again, flopping onto his back with his arms beneath his head. You nudge him with the toe of your shoe. “Move over, you’re taking up all the space.”
With a pout that quickly breaks into a smile, he shuffles over slightly, giving you enough room to lay next to him. The two of you lay there like that for a while, staring at the stars while they stare back at you.
He points up at the sky, and you don’t even need to look at him to know that he’s smiling, his eyes twinkling as he gazes upwards. “That’s Lupus – the Wolf – and Centarus. Lupus used to be part of the Centarus constellation until…” You twist your head to look at him, tuning his geeky words out as he smiles to himself and tells you the stories behind the constellations, drawing the lines between them with his fingertip. You notice a slight spattering of freckles on his cheek – something you could only notice being this close to him – and you want to reach out and connect them the same way he is doing with the stars in the sky. He grins upwards, a dimple (a kiss, your mum would say) appearing on his left cheek.
“Hey!” His voice brings you back, and he’s half-glaring, half-pouting at you as you stare at him. “You’re not listening.”
“I thought you liked it when people stared at you,” you mock, cheeks flaring as you try and joke your way out of the fact that you were staring at your best friend.
“Not when we’re out here.” His eyes shift upwards again, and he can’t help the way the stars make his lips turn upwards. “You should be looking up there.”
This is the moment you fall in love with him, you think. The moment when, for the first time since you’ve known him, your attention-hungry best friend didn’t want to be looked at.
You turn back to the sky. “So, the Wolf,” you prompt him.
“Yes – now, as I was saying…”
You lose track of his words once again, too entranced by the way the stars seem to swirl slightly in the sky.
“…and of course that’s Scorpius –”
“Do you think aliens are real?” The words tumble out without you realising.
“Hm?”
“Aliens. Do you think aliens are real?”
“It would be impossible for them not to be real – the universe is 93 billion light years wide. There’s no way that we’re the only things out there.” He pauses, and out of the corner of your eye you see him turn towards you. “Why do you ask?”
“Do you think they think the same thing? Like, do you think they sit there and look at the stars with their people, and they say Hey, Zorkblob, do you think there are aliens out there?”
He laughs, a beautiful belly-aching laugh. “First of all, I don’t think they’re called Zorkblob. And who knows, maybe they do. Maybe they don’t understand the concept of space – I don’t think cavemen would’ve thought about it. Or, on the complete other side of the spectrum, maybe they know aliens exist, and they’ve already made contact with other species.”
“Do you think they know we exist?”
“Wouldn’t they have initiated contact with us, or sent us some sort of sign they’re out there too?”
“I mean, maybe we’re like entertainment; they’re watching us the way we watch TV, maybe. So they don’t want to make themselves known because then they lose their show.”
He’s quiet for a while, and you think you’ve made it awkward. You turn your attention back to the sky until he breaks the silence with a soft voice you normally only hear when he gets tired while you’re studying.
“Am I your people?”
You frown. “What?”
“You said they sit there and look at the stars with their people. We’re sat here looking at the stars.”
“What do you mean by people?”
“What did you mean by people?”
You don’t know what you meant. You think you had meant it as a general term – the people of that planet, the people they know – but when you think deeper, hadn’t you imagined the aliens laying holding hands (tentacles? fins? claws?). You think of the quote from one of your mum’s favourite shows (‘she is my person’), and you wonder if you had meant people in the way of someone you want to spend forever with. Someone you share everything with.
People as in friends. As in family.
People as in the person you love the most, the person you would travel all 93 billion light years of the galaxy for.
“Yes,” you say finally, your voice quiet. “I think you are my people.”
You feel him timidly reach out his hand, lacing his fingers gently with yours as he rubs his thumb over the skin on the back of your hand.
