chaos
nishinoya yū x f!reader
when your mind spins into a frantic "what-if" spiral, noya decides the only way to ground you is to hold on tight and never let go. wc: 1.8k, request + reader is an overthinker
it started with a simple, standard-issue nishinoya yū proclamation—the kind that usually involved him vibrating at a frequency high enough to shatter glass. he was leaning against the gym doors, sweat glistening on his forehead like a halo made of pure athletic exertion, looking at you with eyes that held the intensity of a dying star.
“y/n! if i don’t get a perfect receive today, i’m going to exile myself to the mountains and live as a hermit with only the crows for company!”
to anyone else, this was just tuesday. to nishinoya, it was a dramatic flair meant to show off his fiery resolve. but to you—a girl whose brain functioned like a web browser with eighty-four tabs open, all of them playing a different song—it was a logistical nightmare.
your heart did a frantic tap-dance against your ribs. exile? the mountains? you immediately began calculating the cost of high-altitude camping gear and whether or not you could get a wifi signal in the japanese alps just to make sure he didn't accidentally eat a poisonous berry.
“the mountains?” you whispered, your voice trembling as your imagination painted a vivid, horrifying picture of nishinoya wrestling a bear for a single acorn. “but yū, you don’t even like cold weather. and what about your hair? the humidity up there will ruin the gel! you’ll be a flat-haired hermit! is this because of the serve i missed catching for you yesterday? i’m so sorry, please don’t leave society!”
nishinoya froze. he had expected a laugh, or maybe a “do your best!” instead, he saw your pupils dilating and your hands shaking as you reached for your phone to check the ten-day forecast for mt. fuji.
panic, a physical and unruly beast, clawed its way up his throat. he hadn’t meant to send you into a spiral; he just wanted to look cool! seeing you distressed was like watching a kitten fall into a puddle—it was physically painful, a direct strike to his soul that made him want to fight the very air for upsetting you.
“no, no, no! y/n! i was joking! i love society! i love electricity! i love you—i mean, i love your support!” he scrambled toward you, his sneakers squeaking like a frantic pod of dolphins. “don’t cry! if you cry, the world will actually end. the tectonic plates will shift and we’ll all be swallowed by the earth! i’ll stop it! i’ll hold the ground together with my bare hands!”
“you’ll be crushed!” you wailed, your overthinking brain now pivoting to the literal collapse of the earth’s crust. “you can’t hold up a tectonic plate, yū, the physics don’t support it! you’re only five-foot-two, the leverage is all wrong!”
nishinoya yū was, by all accounts, a simple man. he liked volleyball, garigari-kun popsicles, and the way you looked when you tucked a stray hair behind your ear. but more than that, he was a man possessed. he was a devotee at the altar of your existence. every time you spoke, he felt like he was being struck by lightning, and he was more than happy to stand in the storm.
but his tendency for theatricality was currently his greatest enemy. he was a man of extremes, and you were a woman of extreme interpretations.
he spent the next three days in a state of high-alert desperation. he watched you from across the classroom, his heart performing a violent circus act in his chest. he noticed the way you chewed on your bottom lip when you were thinking too hard—probably worrying about his “impending exile”—and it made him want to run through a brick wall just to distract you.
i have to fix this, he thought, gripping his desk so hard the wood groaned in protest. i have to give her something so solid, so undeniable, that she can’t possibly overthink it into a catastrophe.
he consulted tanaka, which was his first mistake.
“just tell her she’s the sun,” tanaka suggested, flexing a bicep. “and without her, you’re just a cold, dark planet spinning into the abyss.”
nishinoya’s eyes lit up. “the abyss! that’s poetic! that’s powerful!”
“no!” he corrected himself a second later, hitting his forehead against the locker. “no, if i say ‘abyss,’ she’ll start worrying about black holes and the heat death of the universe. she’ll start googling how to build a rocket ship to save me. i need to be... gentle. but also legendary.”
he was so far gone for you that his dreams were just loops of you smiling at him. he was a man starving for your affection, a castaway on an island where the only sustenance was the sound of your laugh. he was desperate to be the person who calmed the storm in your head instead of the one who accidentally summoned the clouds.
the opportunity came after practice on friday. the sky was a bruised purple, streaked with gold—the kind of sunset that felt like it was waiting for something important to happen.
you were sitting on the bench outside the gym, your brows knitted together as you stared at a notebook. nishinoya approached you with the caution of someone trying to disarm a bomb made of feelings.
“y/n,” he said, his voice unusually soft.
you looked up, eyes wide. “yū! i’ve been researching. if you do decide to go to the mountains, i’ve found a brand of thermal socks that are rated for sub-zero temperatures. and i think if we practice your receives for another four hours tonight, we can mitigate the risk of exile by at least sixty-eight percent.”
nishinoya’s heart shattered into a million glittering pieces. you were so precious. you were taking his ridiculous hyperbole and turning it into a survival plan. he felt a surge of devotion so strong it threatened to lift him off his feet.
he sat down next to you, his thigh pressing against yours. he could feel you vibrating with anxiety, your mind spinning a thousand miles a minute.
“y/n, look at me,” he commanded, but it wasn't the loud bark of a libero. it was the plea of a boy who was utterly, hopelessly underwater for the girl beside him.
you turned, and the intensity in his eyes made your internal monologue screech to a halt. for a moment, the tabs in your brain stopped loading.
“i say a lot of stupid things,” he began, his hand reaching out to cover yours. his palm was calloused and warm, an anchor in your sea of ‘what-ifs.’ “i say i’ll fight gods for you. i say i’ll jump off buildings. and i know that makes your brain go into emergency mode because you actually care if i live or die.”
“i care a lot,” you whispered, your heart hammering a frantic rhythm.
“i know. and that’s why i’m the luckiest guy in the history of this entire rotting planet,” nishinoya said, his grip tightening just a fraction. he was leaning in now, his scent—a mix of laundry detergent and pure adrenaline—enveloping you. “but i need you to stop thinking for one second. i need you to listen to my heart, because it’s currently trying to beat its way out of my ribs to get closer to you.”
you blinked, your breath hitching. “yū?”
“i’m not going to the mountains. i’m stayin’ right here. because being without you would be like trying to play volleyball without a ball—it’s pointless, it’s boring, and i’d just be standing around looking like an idiot.”
he took a deep breath, his face flushing a deep, radiant red. he looked like he was about to jump out of his skin, yet he didn't pull away.
“i love you, y/n. not in a ‘the world is ending’ way, but in a ‘i want to share my popsicles with you every single day’ way. i’m completely, terrifyingly in love with you. you’re my center of gravity. if you’re with me, i’m never going to get lost in the mountains or anywhere else.”
the silence that followed was the first quiet moment your brain had experienced in years. the overthinking didn’t have a foothold here. how could it? he was right there, solid and vibrating with a sincerity so loud it drowned out every doubt.
you looked at him—really looked at him—at the fierce set of his jaw and the way he was looking at you as if you were the only thing in the world that mattered.
“you... you aren’t just saying that because you want me to stop worrying about the socks?” you asked, a tiny, hopeful smile tugging at your lips.
nishinoya let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob of relief. he lunged forward, not to tackle you, but to pull you into a hug so tight you could feel every muscle in his back with your palms. he buried his face in the crook of your neck, his breath hot against your skin.
“forget the socks, y/n! i’ll wear them if you want, but only if you’re the one putting them on me!” he barked into your shoulder, his hands shaking with the sheer force of his adoration. “i’m obsessed with you! i’m a goner! i’ve been yours since the first time you brought me a water bottle and told me to be careful! please, just tell me i can stay.”
you wrapped your arms around him, the chaos in your head finally settling into a warm, humming melody. you felt the weight of his devotion, a heavy and beautiful thing that anchored you to the earth.
“you can stay,” you murmured, squeezing him back. “but you have to promise—no more talk about exiling yourself. my heart can’t take the logistics.”
nishinoya pulled back just enough to look at you, his grin wide and blindingly bright, a lighthouse in the dark. he leaned in and pressed a kiss to your forehead, then your nose, and finally, a lingering, sweet-as-sugar kiss to your lips that made your toes curl inside your shoes.
he pulled away, his eyes sparkling with a renewed, manic energy. “fine! no mountains! from now on, i’ll only promise things i can actually do—like winning every single game for you and making sure you never have to think about anything other than how much i adore you!”
he jumped up, pumping a fist into the air, his voice echoing across the quiet school grounds.
“HEAR THAT, WORLD? Y/N IS MY GIRLFRIEND! I HAVE OFFICIALLY PEAKED AS A HUMAN BEING!”
you laughed, a real, unburdened sound, watching him celebrate as if he’d just won the national championship single-handedly. for the first time, you didn't worry about the noise complaints or the property damage his excitement might cause; you just leaned back and let yourself be loved by the human equivalent of a supernova.
n: well, i hope i did this request right. i feel like i lean into exaggerations too much but it’s my fav thing to do :3
yū’s taglist 1/2
@the-bloopsters @nelinkythoughts @kukikoooo @sleepykeijiii @averys-place @reverd-ck @anzuuhoshi @katzline @michexoxo @xiansoria @asthmaticasma @x3nafix @george-russell-defender @depressinglyobsessed @keiob @perpetuallydone @mptality @crystal-lilac @methiart @wensurr @fiannee @suha-reads @sillylule @imjustanobody2024 @hibernatinghamster @olliesoxenfree @mitzukita @tsukkislala @starzlytoetsie @littlemissfix-itfic @kuroofangirl67 @bigdaddyyaoii @lov3shin @forgottensniper @sh0dor1 @eri0-0 @lazyruinsperson @whoizmae @improvingdreamer
© showhay — don’t copy nor translate without my permission. i do not own any of the photos that i have used. credits to all the rightful owners !
iloveu
