⊹ ࣪ ˖ ໒꒱. i wish i could talk to you
through ink and paper, no distance is too much for chigiri hyoma.
(a/n: sfw, reader's gender not specified, light jab at other characters, whether it's platonic or romantic it's up to your interpretation really, first time posting so i'm a bit shy)
i've been missing him so so bad so i just made some bullshittttt
out of all people you've known for the longest time that chigiri hyoma was one sentimental guy, annoyingly so. he is a jerk and an asshole, on the field a total showoff, who gets mad, who cries frequently; but despite all that, he is in truth a that holds his loved ones dear in his heart— his parents, his older sister, his friends and you.
you had placed your trust in hyoma long ago growing up together, he is a good player after all. after he had told you he was leaving for a while for a football training camp everything became much lonelier.
missing the celebrations of winter you would otherwise have spent with him; the first snow, his own birthday, christmas, new years. and by the time spring arrived he would be back in training, there was no fun and no point in participating in such anymore.
despite the harsh cold of the early days of march, your days began warming up thanks to the knock of your door. there stood koyuki— his sister, holding a shoe box.
"there's a lot in for you. i'm sure you know how he is— here. and please drop by our home whenever you can." she left the box in your hands with a reassuring smile.
you knew hyoma was currently resting in the comfort of his own house, and after all the months that went by you were unsure if disrupting his rest was the most sensible thing to do right now. so you scrambled to your room, emptying the box and organizing the envelopes by date.
the first reached your hands:
"today is december 20th, from the moment i am writing this letter, it means it's been barely a month since we last saw each other. i would wish you a merry christmas and a happy new year, but i guess this won't reach you in time..."
you continued reading through the lines. one thing about him is that he adores running his big mouth and it shows in the way he talks about the first team he got placed in, the "bottom-of-the-barrel" team with the lowest ranked participants out of 200 high school football players, or just Team Z. Despite the verbal fouls after fouls, his appreciation was still there
he mentioned a lot of names of faces you wouldn't have recognized had you received the twenty letters he wrote before, with the exception of few more locally famous players that needed no introduction.
there another there were another couple lines you just had to stop to laugh out loud because of how eager he is to talk shit.
"...there's this guy annoying to no end, his name is imamura yūdai. He brags about being a «casanova» but I doubt he has anyone waiting outside dying to date him. i think i'm far more luckier than this guy because i have you, had i told him about you he'd be fuming. so i'm gatekeeping you for now."
"remember the wanima thing 1 and wanima thing 2 from our school? well they're also here, I know they're not gonna last for long. If you see them back on campus, it was probably my doing."
you spent several hours reading, it was a wonder he managed to balance writing in between all the training you're sure they had, but you were thankful nonetheless.
he talked about isagi— who gave him a new panoramic view, and decided that if he was going to make it, he would do so until his leg gave up. bachira — who harbored an unstoppable spirit called a 'monster'. and about kunigami, hyoma in his words called it a hero complex but in reality his heart was nothing but noble.
"there's this pair... and I say pair because you genuinely couldn't see one without the other near, like it's physically impossible not to. anyways, I ended up grouping with them, but like, separated. It seems they got divorced this phase."
"there are a lot of guys that called me 'princess' that at one point I started to just accept my fate, but there's this one guy who deludes himself calling himself a ninja and is clearly trying too hard to imagine he's getting the slightest bit of a girl's attention by hitting on me. he isn't even all that anyways, seriously, a green streak in the middle of white hair, how is that natural? what are hairstylists up to these days?"
He signed away with his name in a different attempt of calligraphy, or a doodle bordering the papers. sometimes, "attempts" is rather a generous way to refer to the splot of black ink lingering on the bottom.
some were signed away not with ink but damp spots from tears— lots of them, and those were dated within the first weeks of the project back when the uncertainty about his leg was very much present.
his last letter was written in february 24th, few days previous the match against the japan u20.
"you must be tired of me, aren't you? you took your time to go through my journal factory explosion, but once i see you, i want to know all about you, what you've been up to these past months. and being honest, i miss you. i left thousands of words i would rather say to your face in person than in paper. let's see each other soon ♡"