haikyuu longfics (archived)

Her temple flattens her hands on his arm. Keiji cautiously scoops her head, freeing his arm, the warm ghost of her skin lingering on his, then places her head back on their goose-feather pillows adorning their bed.

He ambles to their kitchen, a mere fifteen steps away from their queen-sized mattress on the floor. He opens the cupboard and slowly pulls out the frying pan, careful not to clatter every other pan stashed inside and keep her from waking up. He checks the upper cabinet for a pancake mix. He opens the refrigerator, taking out butter, chilled milk, and eggs, while cold air dawdles on his skin as he closes the door.

He grabs a bowl, empties the pancake mix into it, and pours over a decent amount of milk after cracking two eggs in.He grabs a bowl, emptying his items into it. He picks up the whisk from the wooden caddy and starts stirring.

Keiji is in a cooking trance, far from his usual editorial one at this time of the day. But there’s less than forty-eight hours left, and he wants everything to go as smoothly as he planned it a month ago. He can’t afford to slip over the frozen lake forming in his chest.

The electric stove beeps upon plugging the cord in the socket. Keiji pushes the button for the correct setting and places the pan over it, allowing the metal to heat up slowly. His hand hovers over the pan, checking the temperature, and when it heats up enough that he pulls his hand away, he slices off a chunk of butter, dropping it into the pan.

Keiji steps backward and backs into something in the process. Arms cage his waist, hands crawl up to his chest, and something nudges his back while grumbling, “Why did you leave the bed?”

With the corner of his lips dragging upward, he holds her hand and his chest eases, like the butter melting on the pan. He turns around, letting her head rest under his chin as he wraps his arms around her neck, his hand running through her hair, her hands light and clement against his back.

“What are we doing today?” She asks, her voice slightly muffled against his shirt.

“It’s a secret,” he replies, kissing the top of her head.

Her hands leave his back, and he almost freezes from the heat loss. She looks up at him and squints her eyes. “You’re keeping secrets from me now? Is that what being six thousand miles apart did to you in two years?”

Keiji laughs it off, brushing a stray hair off her face and tucking it behind her ear. “Six thousand, eight hundred and twenty-eight,” he corrects her, each number prickling against his tongue like a carbonated drink. He swallows it down but the fizz bristles his throat.

She rolls her eyes and nestles her head back to his chest, her hands tugging at his back, his back warm again.

He turns his head around and the butter has fully coated the pan. He tries to move, but her hands keep him away from the stove.

“Babe, the butter is going to burn,” he presses. “We almost lost our security deposit over this, remember?”

She whines as she lets go of him and stomps to the dining table.

Keiji pours the pancake batter in small batches, but every circle comes into contact with each other, almost melding into one big cake. He nimbly moves the batter around, pushing each blob to where they’re supposed to be, bubbling in their own spaces.

In less than forty-eight hours, she will fly back to California, and they will bubble in their own spaces.

A sharp wind blows over his frozen lake.

“I’m going to miss this,” she mentions.

Keiji flips and stacks the cooked pancakes on a plate, and turns off the stove. He turns around in his spot. Her elbow rests on the table, hand supporting her chin, while the other traces invisible objects on the table.

“Me too,” he agrees.

“I didn’t know fourteen days could fly by like that,” she adds, her eyes trailing her finger.

He picks up knives and forks from the caddy and brings over their food to the table. She moves her hands to her lap and her eyes shift to the window. Once he settles down, he pours syrup over his pancakes and slices a bite-sized piece, blowing the steam off before taking it in.

Keiji watches her glancing at the scene outside the window, noticing the slight drop of her shoulders, the additional second it takes for her chest to rise then fall, and the tiny dip of her eyelids. Her mouth is almost closed except for the minuscule gap between her upper and lower lips. She presses them together, the corners of her lips barely gliding upward.

“What’s wrong?” He asks.

“I don’t know how to feel about our apartment,” she says. “On one hand, I like that we’re near convenience stores and malls, and everything is almost accessible. But on the other hand, we can’t wake up to autumn leaves falling from the trees.”

Keiji follows her gaze and a clear blue sky coats his vision. Right below the horizon are columns upon columns of office buildings and condominiums, dotting the streets in place of trees. From where he sits, there is no sign of fall except for the autumn-themed calendar hanging by their wall.

“Then again, it’s a pain to sweep it off every morning,” she concludes, and Keiji hears a clatter of silverware on porcelain.

Keiji thinks about the pavement he walks on everyday, how it only touches plastics and shoes and wheels all-year-round. When autumn arrives, maple leaves cloak and safeguard it from such rubble, only to be swept away by the local street sweeper, the pavement marked with broomstick scratches.

Does the pavement mourn its leaves? Do the scratches feel like ice burns? When the leaves are gone, does it frost like the lake in his chest?

“You’re right,” he answers, and takes another bite of his pancake. “It sounds painful.”

⸻

Sun rays bounce off silver metal rods while faded lavender moquette seats absorb its heat, each ray evenly spaced from each other in length-wise rectangles. The blue of the skies and the gray of the buildings blur and meet in the middle with a thin line of brown as the train zooms to the next station.

The seats across Keiji look too hot to sit on, even on the last day of October, so they sit on the other side instead, where the air conditioner blows a little harder and the sun cannot touch them. A handful of commuters occupy vacant seats. It’s almost noon time, and students and workers are heading out for lunch, not traveling to an obscure book café tucked in between unassuming pubs and hole-in-the-wall restaurants in Koenji.

“Can’t I get a hint?” She asks, resting her chin on his shoulders, her gaze piercing through his eyes and out to the back of his head. Her eyes remind him of the children loitering in the playground near Udai’s manga studio: full of unadulterated curiosity and larky antics, but something their parents capture and preserve in albums.

“At least tell me what the place is called. Or what it looks like!” She smiles, and Keiji almost gives away the answer.

“No,” Keiji says, firm in his promise to himself not to say a word about the book café to her. “We’re about to get off soon, anyway. We’ll be there in no time.”

She puffs and lifts her chin off his shoulder. He responds with a light chuckle as he locks his hand in hers, pocketing its warmth as steady cold air ruffles his hair.

Keiji has recently discovered R-Za Dokushokan, a book café he stumbled upon while trying to find something to fill the time he used to spend with her before she flew overseas. He recalls the first moment he stepped inside: he knew he had to take her there right away.

He almost ignored the café because its entrance was a dull, dark brown staircase wide enough for two-way foot traffic, but its soft yellow lighting reminded him of their date nights at their favorite udon restaurant.

When he went up to the second floor, bookshelves stood from the cedar wood floor to the dark olive green ceiling, with step ladders aptly scattered along the shelves. Tall philodendrons and long pothos plants crawled in between booths, allowing Keiji to read in silence while sipping on his black coffee with an extra layer of privacy.

The only thing that the shop owners asked for aside from paying up front was to preserve the sanctity of the shop’s silence.

It’s different from the crackling of deep fryers and boiling of pots in Marugame Udon, different from how she usually likes to spend her time off, out in some random speakeasy with her friends. But seven years have passed and Keiji knows how much she enjoys stillness and secrecy, especially when it’s only the two of them in their own little world.

He looks out the window, trying to make out where they are on their ride. Keiji values patience, given his line of work, but he wishes the operator would soon announce their stop. Then they can walk along the streets of Koenji, enter the book café, sit beside her in one of those booths, books and drinks laid out on the table, an arm around her shoulder, his hand fiddling with the box in his pocket.

The reverie freezes and melts his lake at the same time.

When the skies and the buildings have stopped blurring and meeting in the middle, the train doors open, sounding like a bottle of soda releasing its spirit. The operator calls out Koenji, and they get up from their seats and exit the coach. They walk up the staircase, leading them to a street where people clad in formal clothes walk with phones close to their ear. The sun hangs right at the center of the sky, but the October breeze offsets the heat resting on his skin.

“Where do we go from here?” She questions him, her hand wrapping around his arm and finding its way to his hand.

“Just straight ahead, then we’ll make a turn here,” he replies, squeezing her hand away from his front pocket.

They start strolling away from the main road and into an alleyway where an array of thrift shops and closed izakaya pubs fill both sides of the street. Traditional paper lanterns hang on most awnings of the restaurants, unlit at this time of the day, but every establishment displays carved pumpkins, ghost masks, or witch dolls sitting on their small broomsticks.

Some of the bar owners stand wobbly on overturned beer cases, trying to hang promo signs. On the other hand, thrift shop owners seemingly hurry to move their clothes racks inside their shop and out of the midday sun.

Keiji feels her grip tighten in his hand as she leads him to one of the thrift shops. He tries to pull away until he looks at the time on his watch, and lets himself get dragged along. There’s less than forty-eight hours left, but it’s still enough time to join her do things he wouldn’t be able to experience once her plane leaves.

She scans the selection of clothes, the plastic hangers clacking against each other as her hand flies from one shirt to the next. She stops when she sees a neon green shirt with ambiguous letters that Keiji cannot make out. She picks it up from the clothes rack and superimposes it on his torso.

“No,” he immediately rejects.

“Yes,” she fights back.

“That color doesn’t suit me,” he confesses.

“Everything looks good on you, Keiji. Or would you rather tell me where we’re headed?”

“Babe, you’re not making any sense. We’re almost there,” he tries, trying not to look down and see how awful the shirt must look on him. “Just wait a little longer, okay? It’s only a few blocks away.”

“Okay, fine,” she sighs as she places the shirt back on the rack.

Her shoulders dip and Keiji hopes that all her huffing and stomping and waiting will not be in vain. His lake starts to freeze again, so he wraps his arm around her shoulders and feels it loosen and relax upon his touch, like the bar owners who finally stepped down from the unsteady beer cases after minutes of hanging promo signs.

They walk nearer to the café but his lake is far from melting.

When they arrive, Keiji notices an unfamiliar sheen on the café’s entrance.

“Are they closed?” She asks.

Keiji walks closer and reads the sign.

We will be closing for a week due to some urgent matters and will be back until further notice. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

“I think so,” he answers her, baffled and beaten.

“What do they sell?”

“Drinks, like coffee and tea. It’s a book café,” Keiji finally reveals to her. “I didn’t know they would be closed today,” he finishes with a deep sigh.

Keiji did not expect this, not today, of all days. There’s less than forty-eight hours left and he cannot think of anywhere else that’s as quiet as R-za Dokushokan. But he tries anyway, tries hard to think of places he used to frequent when he needed some time alone, because he has to do it today—he has to pop the question today.

His lake goes beyond the freezing point. He curls his fingers into his palms, but before it leaves crescent moon marks on his skin, she takes his hand in his.

“You know,” she says as she nudges him. He glances at her and her face looks like the midday sun, slowly softening the ice that covers rooftops. “If you really want to read, I know a place we can go to.”

Keiji lets her drag him for the second time today, the sun slowly descending from the apex of the earth, the autumn wind ruffling their clothes and the nearby trees.

⸻

Keiji stifles a laugh.

They stand in front of a fifty-something man with white streaks on his black hair, perfectly round glasses perched on top of his nose, who sits behind a long oakwood table topped with glass. A computer monitor rests diagonally on the side, and the man clicks and types away as she speaks.

“Two alumni, correct?” The man asks.

“Yes,” she answers him, but not before giving Keiji a side-eye. If he were to be honest, her sidelong glance is enough to pierce through a crack in his frozen lake. He wouldn’t complain either. He would rather have his lake be fluid and steady all-year-round, flowing lightly with the push and pull of gravity.

“Alright,” the man says, handing one-day passes to each of them. “Enjoy your stay,” he welcomes them with a smile and returns to his computer.

Hushed voices and smooth flips of paper fills Keijis’ ears as they go deeper into their alma mater’s library. They walk along the white birch wood flooring, and the bookshelves are nothing like the ones in R-za Dokushokan. It’s made out of standard plywood finished with varnish, its frames and dividers thin. Its height does not even reach the ceiling, but Keiji thinks it’s considerate for the general student populace.

No splotch of green can be spotted inside the room, no plants separating each table from one another, so a sudden jolt from a student can disturb the person behind them. The lights are regular university white lights, sharp and straightforward, not as soft as Keiji’s favorite book café and Marugame Udon.

“I have to admit,” Keiji starts as he takes in the library’s interior like it’s his childhood home, “Your thought process is incredible.”

“Shut up,” she counters. “You wanted some place to read, but I don’t really know a lot of reading places, so I brought you here.”

Keiji finally lets out the chuckle he has been holding off ever since they stepped foot inside their old campus. He lays out his hand in front of her, asking for an apology over his mild teasing. She accepts, and places her hand over his, palms touching as they continue to stroll in the library.

They end up in one of the outdoor reading nooks. It’s a one-hundred-square foot area covered in neatly cut Bermuda grass and brown leaves. Bush clovers with strokes of violet hues frame the space, leaving some room for the entrance, with rows of yellow cosmos planted by its side.

At the center is an oakwood tree that shelters its readers from the heat, and a white picnic mat with brown throw pillows blankets its roots. There is one maple tree by the left corner, its leaves expectedly reddish orange, almost touching the other’s own orange leaves.

Walking with nostalgia, Keiji proceeds to the picnic mat and sits down with her, the mat’s warmth piercing through his clothes and almost melting his frozen lake. He picks up one of the throw pillows and places it on his lap.

“Nothing has changed,” he remarks as he looks around the outdoor area, listening to the hum of a nearby bird.

“Yeah. I thought they would at least cut off that tree,” she replies, jutting her chin to the maple tree. “It looks kinda out of place, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know. I can’t picture this nook without that tree,” he observes, thinking back of all the times he spent in this reading nook in the comfort of two staunch trees.

“I think I get what you mean,” she ponders as she stretches out her legs, as if trying to escape the boundaries of the picnic mat, her arms extending behind her. “Like, if we remove one of the chairs in our dining table, I’m going to feel weird. There’s just something about removing something from where it used to be.”

Like her clothes in their closet, now neatly folded in her suitcase.

“I think,” he answers her, the box heavier in his pocket, “That’s called homesickness.”

“Huh,” she tuts. “I guess you can put it that way.”

The wind comes down and brushes the leaves of both trees, their rustling oddly in harmony with each other.

“Say, do you remember when we first bumped into each other? In this library?” She asks, ankles crossed, her feet swaying with the dance of the leaves.

Keiji remembers it clearly.

It was two weeks after a storm hit Tokyo.

He was in the middle of researching a topic for one of his papers, and he needed to check out nine books for reference. He also picked up Eileen by Moshfegh for leisure. He effortlessly carried ten books in one go. Each book had between two hundred to four hundred pages, and Keiji thanked his high school volleyball team for his endurance.

Once he reached the librarian’s desk, he placed the books on the table and Keiji waited as he scanned the bar codes of each book. When the librarian picked up the last book, the scanner beeped with a different note.

“What’s wrong?” Keiji asked.

“You’re out of credits, Akaashi-san,” he said, his face painted with disappointment. “Which book would you like to exclude?”

Keiji pointed at Eileen.

“Alright. This is a really good book, though,” the librarian remarked. “Won the Hemingway debut fiction award. But you can come back to it once you’ve returned at least one book.”

Keiji nodded and picked up the other nine books, and he almost bumped into another student as he exited the library.

He was halfway from the library when someone tapped his shoulder. He turned around, and that was when he first met her.

“Excuse me,” she said, waving Eileen in front of him. “You can have this, but you have to give it back in two weeks. Actually, I think you can return this yourself.”

Keiji remembers giving her a puzzling look. “Why?”

“I borrowed it for you. We don’t need to do a lot of readings this semester, so I have a lot of credits in my account.”

“But why?” He asked again, because who was she to be so kind to him?

She paused for a moment, slowly blinking, as if the answer should be obvious to Keiji.

Then she laughed and something jumped from his chest up to his throat.

“Right,” she said, shaking her head. “You might not remember me. I had a haircut, too, and my friends say I look different in every hairstyle.”

“Sorry, I can’t really recognize you,” he answered honestly. He tried to rack his brains on where he might have met her before, but he couldn’t.

“You shared your table with me at Marugame Udon two weeks ago,” she revealed, fiddling with the book in her hands. “It was raining really hard, and,” she paused, pursing her lips, before carrying on, “I forgot to ask for your number.”

Keiji remembered it clearly. Two weeks ago, in the middle of the storm, he had met someone who looked a lot like her, but with longer hair. He remembered what he felt then, and remembered how he had run out of words to describe the degree of warmth she had brought to his drenched clothes.

It was a shame that he had forgotten to ask for her number, too.

He remembers how her hand felt against his skin when she handed him Eileen—light, gentle, like the wind that whistles in the reading nook where they sit instead of R-za Dokushokan’s booths.

“Yes,” Keiji answers. “I remember.”

The wind continues to blow, ruffling the bush clovers and cosmos along with the trees. If the Bermuda grass weren’t trimmed, it would have swayed, too.

“So, aren’t you going to get a book to read?” She asks with a yawn. “You looked so sad when we got to the book place.”

He thinks it over for the moment, whether to reveal his true intentions now or beat around the bush. He considers his frozen lake, the dead leaves swept by the street sweeper, and the homesickness he feels whenever he opens their closet for the past two years.

He starts thinking back to a month ago, when he dragged himself to multiple jewelry shops to find the best engagement ring that would suit her and his wallet. Then he remembers R-za Dokushokan, how they closed until further notice, saying sorry to their patrons as they did what they needed to do despite the losses they would incur, because in reality, no one is in control of anything, not even the well-prepared ones.

So he says, “Yes, because I thought it was the perfect spot.”

She looks at him, eyebrows raised. “For what?”

“For this,” he replies as he fishes the black velvet ring box from his pocket and shows it to her.

The trembling of his hands must be unnoticeable, even to her. The only indication is the slight twitch of his thumb as he grips the box firmly. He cannot look her in the eyes. He fixes his gaze on the lid of the box, and he can only hear a sharp gasp across from him. He’s scared of asking a simple question composed of four words; he even prepared a three-page speech for this and memorized it despite the long shifts at Weekly Shonen Vai.

Keiji lifts his hands, opens the box, showing her the ring, his frozen lake grumbling from deep within the abyss. After a few deep breaths, he finally musters up the courage to look at her.

Her eyes are wide and watery, her mouth covered by visibly shaking hands, and he doesn’t miss how she keeps her hand still, how she tries to look at him despite the water pooling in her eyes, and Keiji knows how hard it is to see with tears blurring his vision. He knows, because he spent the first two months without her with soaked goose-feather pillows.

And so he asks, discarding his three-page speech: “Will you marry me?”

And he sounds like a child asking their parents to buy them their favorite toy, a little nervous that they might say, “Maybe next time.”

But she laughs, and her laugh comes out wet and drenched but light on his ears. She continues to laugh, until it sounds like the pain-in-the-ass, former captain of a rival team in high school. She wipes off her tears but she doesn’t stop laughing, going as far as folding herself in the middle, clutching her waist, and his nervousness is soon replaced with confusion.

“What is it?” He asks.

“You—Keiji—oh my gosh,” she struggles to speak in between suppressed giggles. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you, of all people. My gosh,” she manages to say as she calms herself down.

His confusion takes over his lake. “Why? What’s wrong?”

She points at the box, then says, “You forgot to put the ring.”

He snaps his wrist so fast it should have broken in half, and the box mocks him with a black fabric lacking the familiar silver band with a diamond center.

“What…” He trails off, and he’s more speechless than she should be. “I’m sure I put it in here last night,” he sputters.

She chuckles some more before saying, “Honey, you’ve been working fourteen-hour shifts since three days ago. Of course your brain would think you already did something you haven't yet if you’re that tired.”

Keiji stares at the empty box for a while. Never mind his frozen lake: he’s physically frozen. He memorized a speech and he just had to forget about the ring.

He’s trying to process everything that has happened in a span of six hours. He cannot decide which to feel: disappointment, embarrassment, confusion, or nervousness. Nothing could ever prepare him for this; nothing could ever prepare anyone for this.

She gets up from her seat and walks to the bush clover fence. When she returns, she holds two violet stems in her hands. She places one on her lap as she molds the other into a shape that Keiji cannot recognize. After a few seconds, she does the same thing with the other stem then asks for his hand. He obliges, and she makes him wear her makeshift, purple ring on his ring finger.

“Yes,” she finally answers him. She lets go of his hand and wears the other ring. “I will marry you, Keiji.”

There’s less than forty-eight hours left before her flight, and everything that transpired today did not go as smoothly as he had planned it a month ago. He slipped on his icy lake, and it bruised his bottom a little. But his fingers are locked in hers with matching bush clover rings, and the oakwood tree is happily married to the maple tree.

The wind sings and autumn falls, but spring arrives within their reading nook and melts his frosted lake.

network: @anime-central

You cover your face with your palms and scream into the slight gap between your hands.

“I don’t know why I even bother,” you sigh.

“I have no idea why you keep doing the same thing over and over,” Suga wonders. “I think it already looked good the third time.”

A demon. A demon in suit-and-tie with black leather shoes, laying on your bed with hands tucked behind his head and ankles crossed. A demon, who only knows how bad humans can get, tries to evaluate something as mundane as a resumé. And the demon thinks it looks good.

“Of course, it looks amazing to you. You don’t have to try hard to shower me with praises. You’re a great personal assistant already.”

“Yes, but lying might negate some of the good things I did for you. So believe me when I say it looks good.”

Your spine curves, giving him an incredulous look while your lips tremble.

“But my resumé looks so bland and boring!”

“Should this resumé thing have to be striking?”

“Of course it should. I have to grab their attention in some way or another. Plus, there are only three vacancies, and it’s a huge company, Suga,” you swing your head in resignation. “A lot of top-notch students will go after this.”

Suga sits up and crosses his legs.

“I’m right here if you need me, alright? In the meantime,” he extends his arm and reaches for your phone on the desk. “Can I take a look at this? You barely used this today.”

Suga has been interested in your phone ever since Tooru sent you those pictures—The Tooru Crisis, as Suga has poorly named—but you always refused his pouts and whines.

But you have to finish your resumé, and you might have impulsively joined an essay writing contest. You need to get things done and get Suga off your shoulders.

You press your forefinger on the scanner, and your phone unlocks.

“First of all, it’s called a phone. But don’t tap on things you don’t know anything about, okay?”

“Okay, so what can I do with this?”

You tap your fingers lightly against your keyboard, scouring your brain for the safest app he can explore. You almost consider letting him play games, but somehow you foresee him throwing your phone on the wall due to frustration.

So you keep thinking, and when the answer locks in place, you scroll through the blocks of app icons and tap on your photo gallery.

“Here. You can just stare at photos if you want. Tap to enlarge a photo like this, then swipe like this to see the next picture. Got it?”

He nods and sticks his head to your phone screen.

The sight makes you laugh. A fallen angel who painstakingly manifested into human flesh, trying to learn the ropes of what makes the human world tick. All because he wants to be an angel again.

Why did Suga fall again?

“Are there bad things in heaven?”

The question comes out of your stream of consciousness and out to the external world. And your mouth fails to filter out the irony in your words.

Suga tears his eyes from the screen and gives you his attention.

“There are no bad things in heaven,” he starts speaking, and you want to slap yourself three times: one for the father, one for the son, and one for the holy spirit.

Of course, the answer is no, based on what your professor said during a lecture and further confirmed by a demon who has seen heaven and hell.

But something about the idea of Suga in the netherworld doesn’t sound right. It's not about his physical form, because what you currently see is fabricated, and his real form certainly looks like… hell.

“So why are you the way you are now?”

So much for being a bottomless pit of words.

“I’m acquainted with Lucifer. You might know him as Satan now. So if you do horribly bad things, I can send you straight to his room.”

“Ouch! What did you do that for?” You grumble, nursing the slight bruise after he flicked your forehead. You pray to God it cancels out one of his good deeds.

“To stop you from doing bad things.”

“And now I will keep doing them, thanks a lot. Jesus.”

“That’s a sin! You’re not allowed to use God’s name in vain!”

“Oh, shut up. You’re barely an angel.”

Suga laughs and you pray to God, again, that he can make it back to heaven.

“And what’s the deal with Lucifer?”

“You know about how he fell down from heaven, right?”

You nod. You shut your laptop and focus on Suga. Never mind that you have a lot of things to do—this is the perfect distraction from your responsibilities.

“I was the first angel who cried when he fell. I really loved him and he was so beautiful and stunning, so I followed him to the abyss. I stayed for so long that I looked like Satan. But every time he sent out one of his devils, something chipped off inside me.”

Suga looks down on your phone and spins it between his fingers like a fidget spinner.

“And after two thousand years, I finally asked him why. And he just said, ‘It’s what I want to do.’”

He stops fiddling with your phone. You had no idea that a smile could look this gloomy, not even the one on Suga’s face.

“But I couldn’t stand him anymore, so I left. Lucifer did not even look for me. But God was merciful enough to allow me back in. But He is also just, so I have to compensate for every evil thing I did.”

“Suga… you’re really talkative, you know that?”

“You’re the one asking questions!” He whines and puts back the phone on your desk. He rolls to his side so his back faces you, and you can see him huff with his shoulder.

What a child.

You open your laptop again and resume working on your resumé. It doesn’t take five seconds for Suga to pester you again.

“By the way, why don’t you have pictures of humans on your phone?”

“I have them. Just on a different album.”

And he turns around and asks for your phone, like a child asking for candy while trick-or-treating.

You pull up the album where you keep photos of Kuroo, your classmates, and your relatives. You extend the phone to him, and Suga gets lost in the world of digital pictures again.

You return to your laptop, Sunday afternoon sunlight percolating through the curtains, pouring over you and the demon.

“I say two months.”

“Sure, if you want to treat me to a Michelin-star restaurant.”

“Okay, then. A month.”

“It’s your money, not mine.”

Kuroo gasps. “Oh, no. You’re on talking terms again? That was fast.”

You slap him, hard, and you don’t care because jazz music and buzzing voices drown out the sound of his complaints.

Students invade both floors of your go-to coffee shop as they bustle for midterms week. Most of them infest the café like hypocritical church patrons on a Sunday morning, desperately praying that buying a twenty-five-dollar frappuccino alone will make them snag that sweet, sweet four-point-oh.

A circular wooden table holds your tea, laptop, and readings. Kuroo sits beside you, his black coffee, papers, and notebooks littering another circular table.

“Try again,” you say to Kuroo as he massages the spot you hit.

Despite being adroitly crafted, your Matryoshka coffin could not lock in The Tooru Crisis, so you decided to store it in his baggage instead. But rather than complaining about the additional weight, the rooster-headed bastard started a betting game out of it.

“Seriously, you haven’t talked to him yet? After, what,” he pauses, counting with his fingers as he looks up at the ceiling, then carries on, “two-and-a-half weeks?”

“Yes sir,” you chuckle smugly. Pride remains an alien emotion to you, only ever feeling it on rare chances that you prove yourself (and most especially Kuroo) wrong. “I’m no longer the record holder for being the most fickle woman in the university. Aren’t you proud of me?”

Kuroo slouches in his seat and crosses his arms. His eyes dart from one spot to another as it examines you, like a K-9 diligently sniffing the ground for a live landmine. He stares for a few more seconds before he shakes his head.

“I’m still betting on a month.”

“Kuroo, I am a grown woman. Don’t you trust me?” You whine, and repeat your question, “Are you really not proud of me?”

“I do trust you and I will always be proud of you,” he finally answers, but with a sigh. “But not when Oikawa is involved. I’ve seen you act like this when Akaashi broke up with you. So I will keep betting on that month unless you block him everywhere. And I mean everywhere.”

“But what if he’s in an emergency?”

“Is that the best you’ve got?”

“I’m serious, Tetsuro.”

“I’m serious, too. Pretty sure Oikawa has a lot of friends. If he’s in danger, a lot of people will come and help him.”

“But—”

“‘But what if I’m the one he needs?’ Is that what you’re going to say?”

You roll your eyes. You slouch in your seat as well, turning your head away from Kuroo.

“You have to be more realistic. You were the one he needed. Past tense, Ms. Bottomless Pit of Words. You’re smart, but you still need to work on your grammar.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know him like I do,” you mumble, slowly realizing you’re on the scrambling side of this tug-of-war, desperately grabbing on the rope.

And the rope burns against your palms.

“I don’t need to know Oikawa that well to tell you that you got it wrong. Don’t tell me, you’re going to cling to him for an hour just in case he needs you for a second?”

The rope slips from your hands and singes your skin as you fall back down on your coffin.

You can’t argue with what he said. Or you can try, but asphalt forms in the middle of the bottomless pit. It blocks one thousand words you can throw at Kuroo, and another thousand you can use to craft excuses and orbit around Oikawa.

Soon enough, you will run out of words, and you will feel empty. And you despise it. You despise being empty because the only alternative to feeling whole again is to unlock your endless Matryoshka coffin and walk around with countless ghosts hanging on your shoulders.

But people only like ghosts when they’re stories, don’t they?

“Fine, fine, I get it,” you sigh and take a sip of your tea.

Kuroo nods at you as you return your focus to your laptop and the reams of papers before you. He scoots closer to you and asks, “How’s your essay going?”

“Nowhere,” you reply as you move a few inches away from him.

You have to write your essay today for the contest, but your dictionary only contains Tooru. You try to read through heaps of literature about the fabrication of consent, but all you can think of is the fabrication of everything that connects you to Tooru. And you have to start outlining, but the only outline you know is his silhouette against the morning sun.

And you find it ironic that the only reason you joined this contest is to keep your mind off Tooru.

“Are you sure you should be working on this? Don’t you have midterms coming up?”

You shake your head. “We don’t have written exams this semester. Just projects. And I’m done with all of my demos.”

“Really? You’re done with everything?”

You look at him curiously and say, “Yeah. Why?”

“Nothing. You just seem more overworked than usual,” he answers, hovering his index finger by his forehead, then explains, “You know, because of the pimples you have all over here.”

You lean back in your chair and crane your neck, covering your face with one of your readings.

“Why can’t you just do your own thing? Jesus,” you groan, and you swear you can hear Suga teasing you for using the Lord’s name in vain, again.

Kuroo guffaws like how you expected Suga would, but it has been seven years with Kuroo and his cackle sounds like One Summer’s Day on kalimba.

And with each chord, a part of the asphalt crumbles, and the pit is bottomless once again.

Suga has been fixated on flowers ever since God commanded the barren earth to sprout plants on the third day. He said, “There’s something about the way they tickle my nose.”

But you don’t understand how it can tickle when plants are supposed to be still and useless. Flowers wilt and clutter houses, taking up space meant for more important things like trophies and medals.

That’s why people throw it as they lower coffins underneath the earth.

And you don’t understand either why he constantly pestered you on buying a bouquet for your mother’s birthday this weekend. The pestering started when you forgot about the bloody messages, thereby forgetting his first reminder to buy hydrangeas and daffodils for your mother. Suga even scolded you: “She gave birth to you! You should give her something on her birthday!”

And you don’t understand why you listened—it’s the angelic voice, actually—but here you are, stuck in the corner of a flower shop, hiding among petals and tall stems. You don’t want to bother the lovely middle-aged lady fixing a bouquet of winter peonies, especially not when she’s humming Taeko Onuki’s 4:00 AM.

Indigo wisteria hangs by the grid on the ceiling, almost touching the yellow chrysanthemums and purple cosmos that perch on top of the white-painted wooden rack before you. It’s November, and Suga wished he had seen his favorite flowers bloom during fall.

You have been fiddling with leaves for a while, taking one heavy step after one heavy step as you circle in the same area over and over again. You already have a shopping list in hand, but you’re paralyzed.

Is your mother worth all this trouble?

“I would love to recommend to you my favorite flowers, if you don’t mind,” the lady approaches you with a smile. You step back a few inches, almost backing into the flower shelf.

“That’s fine. I'm actually looking for daffodils,” you hesitate. Suga told you that daffodils usually bloom in January, so it would be incredible to be able to buy one at this time of the year.

But you risk embarrassment anyway. Something is gratifying about showing a demon that humans can make miracles happen, even if you don’t believe in it yourself.

But the lady lowers her head and says, “Sorry, we don’t have it in stock right now.” Her smile is a mix of apology and sheepishness. Maybe you shouldn’t have tried in the first place. It’s not Suga you’re buying the flowers for anyway.

“No, that’s alright. Do you have hydrangeas instead?”

The lady perks up and leads you to another corner of the store.

“We have it in these colors,” she gestures to a fluid gradient of white, pink, purple, and blue. Your fingers lightly brush over one of the shrubs, and you finally figure out why Suga has a flower fascination.

The realization clicks into you like the final twist on a Rubik’s cube: each petal feels like a toddler grasping your pinky with all their fingers, asking for protection as they sleep defenselessly. Your maternal instincts kick in, and you want to take them all in for yourself because your mother locked away her instincts a long time ago in her coffin.

“I’ll take the purple ones,” you say bitterly.

The lady chirps and proceeds to prune a handful of your selected hydrangeas. You follow her to the arrangement station, and she starts singing 4:00 AM once more.

You pull up your phone to pass the time. You almost forgot about the hundreds of unread messages and unanswered phone calls from Tooru.

It’s quite amazing if you think about it. You never knew Tooru could be this persistent. But it has only been a little over two weeks since The Tooru Crisis, and you expect the badgering to fade away in a few days.

It doesn’t change the fact that there is another emotion budding inside you. An emotion you never thought would be planted in the first place but has fully taken root. And it’s quite disgusting if you’re honest with yourself. Refusing someone of affection, especially someone you used to care about, is awfully gratifying.

“Lord, give me one more chance,” the lady continues to sing.

The bell rings behind you and the lady stops singing.

“Welcome!” She greets and resumes her song. “I wonder if this is the last time...”

“Oh, finally a shop that sells cosmos!” A woman gasps in surprise.

“Right? Mattsun says it should be in season. It’s really weird to hear about flowers from that guy,” a man responds.

And the man sounds familiar.

Curiosity comes to you again with its knife, and it looks like a crisis.

“...One way or another, I want to do something about it...”

You muster the courage you need to turn your head just right, just to see if you’re right.

“...Right now, right now, if you let go, oh...”

And you shouldn’t have turned your head, because curiosity’s knife pierces through your heart and out of your lungs.

Tooru scans the selection of flowers, his arms wrapped around a girl with long black hair. She has the same black hair dangling on the shoulders of the woman who gave you five different smiles exactly twenty-one days ago.

“I cannot meet with you anymore,” the lady ends the song as she finishes up on your order.

Quietly, you hand over the payment to the lovely lady. You pick up the bouquet and tiptoe out of the flower shop, ducking your head among the flowers, hoping Tooru doesn’t see you.

You catch the earliest train to your station and hop on the train coach, the last verse of 4:00 AM ringing in your head.

When you arrive home, Suga stands in the kitchen with a frying pan and a spatula.

“Welcome back!” He beams at you.

You smile back at him as you place the bouquet of hydrangeas on your study table. You get yourself water while your fingers tremble, and you almost lose grip of the glass.

Suga walks to the table like a firefly seeking light. He leans closer to the hydrangeas and sniffs one bud and another, and you don’t miss how the purple tint of the shrub darkens against his pale skin.

“I made dinner for you,” he mentions as he busies himself with the flowers. “It’s the same protein powder and fish head dish, but I learned how to cook fish this time.”

You almost spit out your drink. “Hold on. The one you made before, that wasn’t cooked?”

Suga hums.

“Yes, it wasn’t. I heard raw fish is good for humans. That’s how I used to eat it with Lucifer, too. It doesn’t really taste like anything, but it felt weird chewing it. Oh, and did you know—”

“Fine, fine. I got it already,” you stop him as you sigh before he can talk more about his grisly adventures with Lucifer.

“So what will you do for the rest of the day?” He asks, getting one final sniff of the hydrangeas. “You don’t have anythi—oh, what about your essay?”

“I sent mine in already.”

“How about your internship?”

“I should hear from them in a few days.”

Suga hums, then adds, “Well, since you’re all good, you should sleep for the rest of the day. You’ve been sleeping less these past few weeks.”

“I was?”

He nods. “And when you walked in earlier, your smile looked... different.”

You sigh as you set the glass on the counter. You listen to Suga and climb to your bed, but not before he asks for your phone.

“Again?”

“I don’t have anything else to do,” he explains.

You don’t bother protesting anymore, because your mind is a radio tuned into a dead frequency, playing nothing but static noise on repeat.

(And listeners say the last song it aired was 4:00 AM.)

So you open your gallery and open the photo album full of pictures of your favorite people. And on the top left corner are two pictures of a person you don’t recall capturing. Intrigue takes over, and you zoom in. They look strange and familiar at the same time.

And they look a lot like a bottomless pit with a Matryoshka coffin.

You immediately discard the phone from your hands and throw it on the bed.

And it really shouldn’t scare you. You’ve been living with a demon for almost a month now. You’ve seen all sorts of supernatural things happen within the four walls of your studio apartment.

But supernatural things tend to have no explanation, so you don’t understand why you have a picture of yourself sleeping saved in your phone.

“Did something happen?” Suga prods.

“There’s— I don’t— how—”

Suga picks up your phone and sees the cursed photos. And you wish you warned him before he saw it because those pictures might transport him back to hell.

“Oh, I created these pictures.”

Your shoulders droop as you slowly turn to him, mouth still agape.

“You what?!”

“I didn’t see any pictures of you in here, so I thought I would learn about creating one that contains you.”

You urgently grab your phone back from his hands and throw it to the floor. The screen cracks, and a crevice forms in your coffin.

“What did you do that for?”

“What did you do that for?” You hiss back, anger seething between each syllable.

His mouth trembles as if it gasps for air as he drowns in your pit, searching for words to explain his mortal sin. And you fervently pray to God that Peter doesn’t open the gates for Suga.

“I just wanted to help.”

“Help with what?”

Suga pauses for a moment. You see his eyes tiptoe around the broken glass shards.

“When was the last time you wanted to look at your face?”

“That’s none of your business,” your answer comes out hot and fast but not blazing enough to burn a demon.

Suga steps closer, and you take three steps back.

“I’m sorry,” he reaches out with an olive branch.

You shake your head as your feet drag you to the bathroom. You lock the door and foolishly hope Suga doesn’t go through the walls. Your legs give out, and your body collapses to the floor, breaking open your biggest coffins.

The first coffin encases a six-year-old kid. She walked home from school earlier than usual. Her bedroom door was open just enough to see her father on top of a woman she had never met before. He told her that the woman was a friend at work and they were merely doing research. The little girl asked about the woman during dinner, and her mother threw an entire plate of okonomiyaki to the wall. Cutlery flew around them for six days, and that’s how the six-year-old girl died.

The second coffin contains a ten-year-old kid. Her puppy love asked her to meet him behind the baseball field. He told her that he saw her classmate’s slam book and said she was the ugliest and most unpleasant girl he had ever known. She came out of the baseball field bloody but alive enough to walk back home. The little girl died later on when her mother told her that there was nothing she could do about it. That was the face she was born with, so she should learn how to live with it. And the little girl’s ghost floated the earth, avoiding every mirror she passed by, hoping she would not see something ugly and unpleasant.

The third coffin holds a fifteen-year-old girl. She showed her mother her silver medal. Her mother said that second place is as good as last place. The girl got bruised when her mother added, “If you can’t be pretty, then at least be smart.” After dinner, the girl washed the dishes and dried the countertop. Her mother took a fresh new towel and wiped the countertop, saying, “Not dry enough. Never good enough.” The girl died while crying in her bed that night.

The fourth coffin boxes a twenty-something woman. She got home from university after a three-hour-long exam. She was on the bed when her ex-boyfriend sent her five pictures of a lady she had never seen. The lady wore the softest smile she would never be able to mimic, and it was that smile paired with the long silky hair that killed her.

Another corpse comes your way in the shape of a woman who died after seeing a picture of herself sleeping. You start crafting the coffin for her, but Suga knocks on your bathroom door.

“You’re a demon, right? Can’t you walk through the walls?” You say soullessly.

Suga listens, his form slowly taking shape as he oozes through the door. He sits beside you on the cold porcelain tiles, leaving a few inches of space between you.

“Sorry,” he offers again. “I went too far.”

You bring your knees to your chest and fold into yourself.

“But look,” Suga nudges you. You look at him, and he points his finger in the air. You follow it with your eyes, and they fall on the mirror.

“I stopped writing weeks ago, but you still leave your mirror uncovered. That should be something, right?”

You look at him askance.

He smiles, and you take back your prayer to close heaven’s gates on Suga. “I know all about your troubles, and I wanted to start with the mirror.”

You look back on the mirror and shake your head.

“Not covering the mirror wasn’t on purpose. I guess my brain just filtered it out like how it does whenever I go out,” you counter. “I mean, I can’t exactly cover mirrors in public bathrooms, can I?”

Suga laughs lightly.

“No, no, I guess you can’t. But you can start looking up more whenever you enter this bathroom. I can try to reform the mirror in case you break it like you did to your phone.”

And for the first time since the second coffin, you scooted closer to another being in the form of an angel, allowing your head to rest on his shoulder, his hand lightly tapping your head.

network: @anime-central

—re-read: part one

It wasn't until Atsumu's early teen years that he'd truly understood why the servants and teachers would watch him with hopeful eyes, that he'd finally connect the reason for the amounts of pressure put on him during his younger years. He was their next king, the next young leader to rule over his family's kingdom.

Osamu didn't have that title. Yes the boy was taught the same subjects and policies as Atsumu, but the emphasis and importance was watered down; royalty he may be, but a future king he was not. And yet the brothers never resented each other for who was to sit on the throne, fate had decided which one would hold the responsibility—even if that decision was only separated by ten minutes.

Atsumu's ambition to master every subject forced upon him grew the day he realized what his life had been set up for him since birth. His hunger to perfect his teachings and honor his father as future king outweighed any goal he had previously set. The crowned prince of Arellia put his heart into his work and spent a majority of his life preparing for his predetermined future; everything lay before him, perfectly planned and never astray.

Atsumu's fingers quickly buttoned the pure white jacket a maid had put out earlier in the day. It was one of his favorites—a snowy color covered in extravagant golden accents and gems that made his dark hair stand out. Dressing for dinner was always a hassle in his mind; he already changed into at least three other outfits daily for his set tasks, it felt silly to throw on something completely new when he could very well put on the garb he had worn to breakfast. Atsumu heaved a sign as he finished the last button and quickly turned to the vanity tucked in the corner of his vast room.

The prince's brows furrowed as he scanned over the surface of the piece of furniture, his confusion only deepening as a certain golden object was absent from its usual resting place. He crossed over to the vanity—opening drawers and moving boxes in a silly hope that the circlet was hiding in plain sight.

"Looking for something?"

Atsumu turned in a startled manner, eyes wide as he blinked in surprise at the man with white and grey hair.

"Kita! Have ya seen—"

Before the brunette could even finish the sentence Kita produced a simple golden circlet from behind his back. Atsumu instantly sighed in relief as Kita handed him the missing item.

"Where did—"

"The stables, your highness," Kita spoke softly, "It seems y’still forget to retrieve it after yer afternoon rides on the grounds."

Atsumu hummed at Kita's words as he placed the ring of gold atop his head, rearranging his hair in the mirror and centering the circlet so the small ruby encrusted in the ore lined up neatly at the center of his forehead.

"Perhaps I should start keeping it in my room when I leave for the stables."

"I believe that would be a preferable decision," Kita said. The man met Atsumu's eyes in the reflection of the mirror, the brunette stopped his preening when they locked gazes. "You've been far too lenient with yer care for it."

A brief pout crossed Atsumu's face. The whereabouts of a simple circlet weren't as important as learning to run a kingdom; accessories could be replaced when lost or damaged, a kingdom is far more permanent. The prince pivoted on his heel, turning away from the vanity mirror and breezing past Kita with a smile.

"A crown is the least of my worries, Kita. Besides, I've been far too busy to keep track of somethin' so insignificant,'' Atsumu called over his shoulder, a smirk toying on his lips as he slipped out the door of his bedroom. Kita—completely unfazed by Atsumu—followed close behind the prince as he hurried his way towards the great hall.

"Weren't y’not just frantically searching yer room for said 'insignificant' object?"

Atsumu froze mid-step at Kita's response, his face scrunched up as he attempted to fabricate an excuse, but gave up as he watched Kita walk past him, an almost satisfied smile on the advisor's face due to striking the prince where he knew would hurt the most—his pride. Atsumu huffed in an irritated manner before speed walking to catch up with his friend.

Kita Shinsuke had been Atsumu's advisor, and trusted friend, for as long as he could remember. During his earlier years, Kita was more of a person to keep the young prince company and help him stay organized as he was whisked to and from every corner of the castle. Stripped from his life as a middle-class child, Kita was recognized for his strong work ethic and attention to detail and thus offered the opportunity to be trained as an advisor. Although he spent most of his childhood in his parents’ modest Inner City home, Kita truly felt more at peace visiting his grandmother, who lived in the Outer City surrounded by fields of flowers and rolling hills. Nowadays Kita was tasked with assisting Atsumu in any way he needed—which usually meant keeping the man on schedule.

The pair entered the extravagant Great Hall. Cream-colored walls stretched to form the large room with floor-length glass doors lining the left side; each one led to a stone landing whose stairs would bring you straight into the rose gardens that spread out before them. The High ceilings were lipped with golden moldings, each swirling in intricate patterns that directed straight to the crystal chandelier centered in the room—the fiery lights from early sunset passed through the gems and caused spots of rainbows to dance across the walls in welcome. In the center of the room was a long birch wood table with chairs dotted around it; at the far end of the table, five places were set for dinner, one of them being filled by an identical version of Atsumu biting into a tart, most likely snagged from the kitchens before his arrival.

Kita bid Atsumu goodbye and slipped through one of the hidden doors behind a tapestry of a golden fox, probably down to the common area the servants gathered in for their meals. Atsumu made his way towards Osamu and plopped down in the seat beside his brother. The younger twin said a muffled greeting through a mouthful of food.

"Don't let Ma see you eating that," Atsumu teased, "She'll go on one of her rants about spoilin’ yer dinner."

Osamu eyed his brother, swallowing the last bit of the berry tart and brushing away the evidence of crumbs from his lips.

"Her and Dad are in some meeting about those attacks on the trade roads toward the Inner City, so unless y’say anything there's no way she'd find out."

A shitty smile spread across Atsumu's face—one that already had Osamu dreading whatever his brother was planning to say during dinner. As quickly as the smirk appeared it was gone, being replaced by a blank look and blinking, confused eyes.

"Wait if Ma and Dad are in a meeting then where's—"

"'Tsumu! 'Samu!"

The owner of the shrill, giggly voice echoed around the room as they burst into the hall. In a whirlwind of gold and blue, a little girl bound towards the princes, her poofy dress bouncing and twirling with her excitement.

The twins turned towards where their little sister was charging towards them, soft smiles and laughs breaking through their trained composure at the sunny voice of the little girl and the exasperated nanny who was standing in the doorway.

"Look! Look!" She called pointing and twirling in her dress, "I match the both of you!"

She wasn't wrong, the deep navy of her dress matched the blue that Osamu was wearing, and the gold details lining the bodice and edges of her skirt were a perfect replica of the ones Atsumu was dawning. A cheery laugh bubbled from Atsumu's chest as he stood up from his seat and went to kneel in front of his baby sister. The little girl twirled again to show off the frilly dress, her dark brown locks dancing around her face as she spun.

"Ya look beautiful, Mitsuru!" Atsumu encouraged, hand going out to straighten the princess as she teetered and stumbled after all her spinning. A beaming smile split the little girl’s face, her onyx eyes—the same shade as Osamu's—twinkled with childish wonder.

Mitsuru turned to where Osamu was sitting, directing the same heart-attack-inducing smile towards him. "Do ya like it too, 'Samu?"

Osamu smiled gently at her, the kind of smile that eased a person's worries and melted their heart. The prince motioned for her to come over to him—too which she happily obliged—and straightened out the petite crown that sat on her head.

"'Course I do 'Tsuru, yer lookin' more and more grown-up every day."

Mitsuru happily danced in place at both of her brother's approval. The twins watched their baby sister twirling about with loving smiles; it seemed like just yesterday the two of them were being called into their parents’ quarters to meet her for the first time—eight years had gone by as quick as a sneeze.

"Mitsuru," the voice of the princess's nanny broke the joyous spell the girl had cast over the room, the chastising tone sucked the bounce right out of Mitsuru's feet. "You know your mother and father have requested you practice acting like a big girl for when the representatives from Wisteria come to visit. Was that outburst very ladylike of you?"

The girl visibly slumped at the woman's words, her little feet shuffled uncomfortably at the wooden floor.

"No," she said dejectedly, "But I wanted 'Tsumu and 'Samu to see my new dress."

"That's fine dear, next time just do it a bit more quietly," the nanny's hand caressed her fluffy hair then guided her to the seat across from Osamu's.

"Mrs. Finn," Atsumu started, "What's this about the Kingdom of Wisteria?"

Osamu perked up as well, "Yeah we weren't told anything."

The woman opened her mouth to speak as she lifted Mitsuru into the cushioned seat, but whatever she was going to say was cut off by a strong voice echoing from the entrance of the Great Hall.

"We've agreed to invite some members of the house for dinner," the King spoke as he escorted his wife towards her seat beside Mitsuru. The nanny bowed frantically towards the King and Queen before excusing herself and slipping through the door behind the fox tapestry.

"I thought we cut off all communication with them?" Osamu questioned, reaching for the glass filled with water set before him.

"We have, but the council and I think it would be in our best interests to reconnect with them. Their firstborn is looking for betrothal candidates."

The twin princes blinked back at their father from their seats. Never had the prospect of an engagement been discussed. Usually, these things were decided while royalty was in their teens—not early twenties.

"So Osamu would be betrothed to some princess?" Atsumu's voice broke the hanging silence. He had nothing to worry about as the next in line, most Kings in Arellia marry a second-born royal to avoid the rare possibility that they'd have to leave to rule their spouse’s kingdom. Atsumu's unbothered mood vaporized when his father didn't respond, the sick feeling only worsened as he watched his mother exchange a pitiful look with the king.

"You haven't told them, dear?" She said in a hushed voice, almost as if she were pretending the pair weren't sitting directly across from her.

"Told us what?" Atsumu and Osamu said at the same time, sharing brief confused looks with each other.

The King cleared his throat while picking up the fork beside his plate; cooks and servants had started bringing out trays of mouth-watering food and placing them around the table. Mitsuru—who was oblivious to the tension enveloping her family—dug straight into a bowl of rice.

"The council has recently expressed their approval that. . .Osamu will be the candidate for the throne of Arellia."

Atsumu's throat closed up. He couldn't breathe, it was like he was silently choking on air, his lungs struggling to drink in oxygen. Sound became irrelevant as he stared at his father in disbelief, the muffled protests from Osamu felt miles away as a loud ringing only he could hear invaded his thoughts. Atsumu's entire childhood had revolved around the fact that he was to be the next king, now his one purpose—his life's work—was being stripped away because some ancient council members deemed him unworthy.

As Atsumu's mind started to process the news, the anger built. His hands balled into fists that shook in rage—a rage that was not only directed at the deteriorating politicians in the court, but also at himself. The sounds of the tense argument between Osamu and their father started to rush into the prince's senses in a similar way one surfaces from water: graceful but all at once. With a sharp slam Atsumu stood up with his hands flat against the birch table, the sudden outburst had made Mitsuru jump and sink closer towards her mother's side once she noticed her brother's irritated state.

"It's against the law for them to do that—I was born first! It's my birthright to be the next king, not Osamu's!"

Atsumu's eyes flicked sharply to his father's face, a venomous emotion lingering in his stare. "I've spent my entire life preparing for this role, I won't let some shitty politicians ruin that for me!"

Mitsuru sniffled pathetically into the Queen’s side, the woman's hand ran comfortingly over her daughter's head as she watched her family tear into each other.

"Dad, perhaps ya should reconsider—"

"Stay out of this Osamu! You’ve already ruined enough!" Atsumu snapped, directing his attention towards his brother. Osamu's brows furrowed and an emotion flickered momentarily in his eyes, one that Atsumu didn't care to acknowledge. The older twin opened his mouth again to spew a vicious wave of words at his clone.

"Sit down, Atsumu!"

The King's voice came out strong, demanding, and hot. The sheer force had Atsumu falling into his seat sitting straight as a board. His eyes burned hotly at the plate of food in front of him, a plate of food that would not be able to satiate the angry hunger building in his chest.

After what felt like hours the Queen's gentle voice rose through the tense air, defusing the heated stares and violent thoughts brewing. "This matter can be discussed later, perhaps at a more appropriate time than at the dinner table."

The rest of the meal was silent, all except for the hiccups and sobs coming from Mitsuru; the girl's tears dripped down her face and onto her new blue and gold dress—a dress that was supposed to represent her two beloved brothers.

Atsumu was up and out of the Great Hall the second the last plate left the table, storming through the corridors towards his room. Nobody tried to stop him in fear of being on the receiving end of his explosive irritation; even Kita's voice died in his own throat as he watched the man breeze past him. Kita was rational and decided to let him simmer down a bit before even attempting to approach him.

Atsumu slammed his bedroom door shut, ripped the circlet from his head, and threw it onto the maroon sheets of his bed. The prince's hands instinctively raked through his hair as he paced around the polished wood floor of his bed chambers. He felt antsy, hyper-aware of everything around him as fear started to shred its way from his lungs to his throat, a burning pressure built in his head behind his eyes as he fought to keep everything in; like steam in a pot trying to escape.

Atsumu was supposed to have his life perfectly planned for him—a straight shot towards the throne void of any obstacles—and now it was as though the floor had fallen from under his feet causing him to free-fall into a pit of dark unknown. His father had never doubted his abilities before, so why was Osamu suddenly a better candidate than him?

A few tears fell down his cheeks, ones that he wiped away as quickly as they had been produced. Atsumu refused to cry, he didn't want to give the council that satisfaction—even if nobody would be present to witness such an event.

The prince's head fell heavily against his pillow, his eyes focusing and unfocusing on the balcony windows lying to the right of the bed. The sun had finally set for the day, the moon beginning its silvery reign over the world as night descended over the kingdom. Through the swirling darkness of the evening, Atsumu's eyes flicked from their blank stare to a more curious watch; a warm light was glowing from somewhere beyond the palace grounds, it danced and played in the black air in a taunting manner, as though it were beckoning the prince to look.

Atsumu rose from his bed and crossed over to the door of his balcony, the cold air rushed around him the second the door swung open. From here he could see the light clearer—lanterns, each one bobbing about the sea-like void. If Atsumu strained his ears enough he could make out the faint sounds of music and laughter, the infectious warmth spread through him, chasing out the previous tension and flooding his mind with curiosity.

Presented right in front of him was an opportunity to escape and attempt to forget about the current situations creating so much turmoil inside him. He had to get away from it all—his family, the palace, anything that reminded him of his position.

Atsumu flew back into his room. If he were to do this properly he'd need a change of clothes; as much as he enjoyed his white and gold extravagance, he knew for a fact that it wasn't exactly a typical style choice among the more common folk. He'd need something normal, something that wouldn't make him stand out.

The prince sifted through his clothing and only was able to produce a simple black cloak. He tapped his finger against his chin as he pondered how exactly he'd be able to make a single cloak cover his identity. Muffled voices were heard passing his bedroom—voices who just so happened to be able to solve his problem. Atsumu crept his bedroom door open and smirked triumphantly when he spotted the canvas bag of clean laundry sitting a few doors down. The prince scurried over and snagged a few articles he was familiar with seeing Kita wear; it’s not like Kita would mind that much anyways, Atsumu would have them returned before he even noticed they were missing.

Now that he was completely disguised, Atsumu slipped down his balcony using a makeshift rope of sheets—an idea he had gotten from an old fairytale his mother would read him and Osamu as kids— and started his mad dash across the castle grounds and towards the bustling Inner City.

The Inner City was even more than Atsumu could ever imagine. Not once had he actually ever left the palace to explore, what was supposed to be, his kingdom; the closest he had come to was reading about the trade markets and political theories related to the city. The cobblestone streets weaved into multiple alleyways and avenues while beautifully crafted stores and homes lined the paths in neat rows, all illuminated by candle-lit street lamps which cast a warm glow over everything. People loomed through the city laughing and talking to one another as they explored what new inventory the night markets had to offer. Inviting smells of foods completely foreign to his refined taste made Atsumu's mouth water as he peeked over the shoulders of the citizens. The deeper he strayed into civilian life the more he hungered to learn and absorb everything this strange new world had to offer.

The farther Atsumu ventured from the Inner City nightlife, the more peculiar his surroundings became. Pure white storefronts and homes with deep oak support beams faded into smaller wooden homes, the beautifully kept cobblestone roads and streets started to crack and become misaligned until they eventually morphed into dirt. It slowly started to dawn on the prince that he was no longer in the safety of the Inner City, a place of Nobles and artisans, but instead had wandered into the sickening realm of the Outer City—an area he had heard many of the bankers and respectable traders working directly with his father call a festering filth hole.

If there was one place a prince would find himself unsafe in this kingdom it would be the Outer City; a place known for crime and as of recently, vicious raids on merchant caravans traveling to the palace.

The young man looked around him frantically; he was completely lost, all the streets looked the same here and he couldn't catch any glimpses of the bustling Inner City. Caught at a fork in the street, Atsumu just had to choose a direction and walk; maybe there was at least one kind soul who'd be willing to help him.

The direction he had chosen opened up to an old town’s center; decaying shops and a smoking bakery sat in an odd scattered pattern around the square. Behind the buildings Atsumu could just make out a hill speckled with what looked like sunflowers. People of all ages loitered around wrapped in ragged, patchy clothes; despite their current states, there seemed to still be a joyous aura about the townsfolk. A bit off from the middle of the square was an ancient traveling puppet theater, it looked like one strong wind would cause the chipped, dull contraption to topple over. Children sat in the dirt around the theater watching with wide eyes as the puppet master played out his show.

Atsumu found himself smiling gently at the childrens' merry laughs and calls to warn the knight of the dragon creeping up behind him. Their energy reminded him so greatly of Mitsuru. The thought of his baby sister caused his heart to sink as pictures of her crying form appeared in his head. Atsumu felt sick when he realized how much he must have scared the poor girl at dinner; he and Osamu rarely yell like that around her to spare her kind heart. He'd make it up to her when he got home, she always loves it when he takes her riding through the gardens.

The little show continued on, creating happy cheers from the children as the knight prevented the dragon from attacking; even Atsumu found himself breathing out laughs with the townsfolk. Who knew a crummy puppet show would be a hundred times more entertaining than the ballets and operas he was forced to watch?

"Excuse me," a voice called out.

The prince turned to find a person in a flour-covered apron with a large basket of bread hanging safely on their arm. The person smiled up at him and reached into the basket retrieving a loaf of bread.

"I'm sorry it's all we have to offer tonight. I'm afraid the shipment of ingredients never got delivered," they said, pressing the bread gently into his hands. "Hopefully the trade supervisor will lighten up on his taxes soon."

The person left Atsumu standing baffled in the square with the fresh bread heating his hands.

What in the world just happened? Why did that person give him bread? And what was that mention of taxes?

The prince watched the person weave around the square handing the food out—each recipient smiled and thanked them greatly as they made their rounds. When they approached the children they cheered and whooped, all of them eagerly lining up to get their share of food.

How odd, Atsumu thought. Some of them act as though they've never seen food before.

With their bread in hand, the townspeople started to break into groups and enter their homes—related or not they welcomed people into the shelters with crinkled smiles and cheery voices. Atsumu took this as a note to head back the way he had come, not wanting to attract any attention to him as the streets cleared.

As he shuffled lost through the Outer City alleys, he absentmindedly took a bite from the bread the mystery Baker had gifted him. The food was light and soft, the inside still heated to a comfortable temperature from the oven. This simple thing was just as good as any of the gourmet delicacies he had been given by the palace kitchens—maybe even better than some. The noble found himself slightly saddened as he popped the last piece into his mouth, disappointed that he could very well never taste such divine baking again.

For such a talented Baker they sure said some strange things. Why had they apologized to him about sparing one loaf of bread? And why did they mention taxes on ingredients? The kingdom didn't have any taxes placed on ingredients. Atsumu had studied every law, and past laws, the kingdom had ever ordered, and not once had a tax on ingredients or food been issued.

Surely the person was turned around a bit. Atsumu had never worked in a kitchen, but he could assume that the hot ovens make your brain a little fuzzy.

Speaking of being turned around, the prince was still very lost at the moment; any thoughts about the baker had to be put on hold as he wandered around trying to find a sliver of direction. He had bumbled his way into an area with messy cobblestone streets—a definite upgrade from the town square he had visited earlier—but he still found himself slipping In and out of the extensive alleyways and streets of the labyrinth-like city.

Atsumu was just about to lose hope when he spotted something turning out from the corner of the street ahead of him—an incognito banking carriage. Joy flared within him as he followed the carriage, being sure to stick a good distance away from the vehicle. Banking carriages—specifically the one in front of him—often travel at night between the Outer and Middle sections of the kingdom directly to the Inner sections. Following this carriage was a straight shot back to his home.

The trip wasn't as long as he initially thought it would be, before the prince knew it he was surrounded by the hectic crowds of the night markets. After weaving through the masses of people and sneaking through the castle grounds, Atsumu found himself back at his window which he craftily scrambled up again with the use of his makeshift rope.

Once in his bedroom, he felt the adrenaline from sneaking back into the palace rush through him. Tonight had been like nothing the young royal had ever experienced—and he was still hungry for more of that euphoric freedom.

Out in the city, he didn't have any responsibility. Nobody knew who he was and he got to observe people living lives so foreign from his own. His curious mind drifted back to the Baker; he still had questions unanswered about them that burned hotly in his consciousness as he tossed and turned in his bed.

Atsumu fell asleep with a final decision on his mind—one more visit to the small Outer City town wouldn't hurt, he'd be there only to get his curiosity quenched and he would come straight home to the palace. He promised himself that.

How exactly could anything go wrong from just talking to someone?

The next day seemed to drag on slower than ever. Atsumu sat through his lessons and duties, glancing at the clock every 10 minutes—his leg never ceased its insistent bouncing as he waited impatiently for his day to end so he could run off to the city.

The day wasn't a complete waste though, he managed to snag more of Kita's clothing for his trip whenever he passed one of the canvas laundry bags in the halls.

When Atsumu finished his last objective for the day he burst out of the room and hurried through the halls. He didn't want to waste another second in the castle—which had started to feel absurdly stuffy after his taste of freedom last night.

As he skirted around the corner leading to the wing where his and his siblings’ quarters resided, the prince skid to a halt to avoid stepping on the dainty feet of his baby sister. Mitsuru let out a startled squeak as she stumbled back to dodge Atsumu, only for her to bump straight into Osamu who was standing behind her—the younger prince’s hands quickly went to hold her shoulders to make sure she didn’t fall. When Mitsuru looked up to see just who had almost run her over, she let out a happy squeal, wriggled out from Osamu’s cautious hold, and jumped up into Atsumu’s arms; the small girl couldn’t jump particularly high, leaving Atsumu to crouch awkwardly to catch her when she launched herself at him.

“Atsumu!” the small princess cried, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck, locking him into a hug. “‘Samu is gonna steal cupcakes fer us! Y’can help me distract Chef Blanchet while he gets 'em!”

“I uh,” Atsumu stuttered, shifting Mitsuru to his hip to have a more secure hold on her. Atsumu locked eyes with his twin; Osamu inclined his head towards the hall that led down to the kitchens. It was like he was saying: “What’s with the hesitation? Let’s go.” Atsumu looked away from Osamu, he gazed briefly out the window on his right; a warm hue was starting to hit the sky as the sun moved across the heavens, the prince could just make out the tops of the buildings of the Inner City from where he was standing. “I’ll have to pass this time, ‘Tsuru. Promise I’ll help ya next time, ok?”

Mitsuru let out a whine and held onto her brother tighter, “But it won’t be as fun without ya!”

“C’mon, Mitsuru,” Osamu drawled. He stepped forward and pried the girl off his brother, as he stepped back he sent Atsumu a questioning look. “‘Tsumu don’t want to be bothered right now.”

The princess muttered out an ok, waving sadly at Atsumu as Osamu carried her down the hall. Osamu must have said something to cheer her up because just as he was turning the corner her eyes lit up and she started giggling.

Atsumu brushed the interaction off and continued his way to his quarters.

The Prince slipped into his bedroom and threw off his circlet. He then poked his head into the hall and informed one of the maids to tell his family that he wouldn't be attending dinner that night due to feeling ill. The maid seemed to buy his little lie and wished him good health as she headed straight into one of the many hidden servants' halls to relay the news.

In seconds Atsumu was dressed in the "commoners clothes" and shimmying down from his window. This time the prince had armed himself with more than just a cloak and the clothes on his back, he had a pouch of coins and a knife strapped to his belt—you could never be too safe.

The streets of the Inner City weren’t as busy as they had been the night before; it was still fairly early in the evening so people were probably just tucking into their suppers.

Atsumu fished some gold pieces from his bag and purchased a pastry from one of the many side vendors as he re-traced his steps from the night earlier. The baked good was flakey and light, but he still preferred the bread gifted to him yesterday.

The prince hoped dearly that he'd be able to find his mystery Baker again, there was something about them that just felt. . .magnetizing. They were an odd character and he couldn't help but have curiosity tug at his stomach the more he thought about them.

The sky had just started to tint a gold color as he stepped back into the dusty town square. The puppet theatre from the night before was gone—its owner had probably already started his travels to another town. With no theatre to entertain, the children kept themselves busy with games of tag or Ring around the Rosie; such games that Atsumu didn't understand nor find that interesting, and yet the gaggles of kids still squealed with delight.

Just as Atsumu passed the little bakery in hopes of catching a glimpse of his mystery Baker, the old doors burst open, the hinges squeaked and moaned at the force of the action. Out from the door stumbled a person holding various boxes which were falling from the neat stack they had once been placed in.

On instinct Atsumu jumped at grabbing the boxes that were tumbling towards the ground. The packages were safely cradled in his arms as the person peeked out from behind the stack of boxes.

"Oh thank you, sir!" You boasted, stepping carefully down from the steps to meet him on the dusty path. "I don't know what I would have done if those fell."

"Yer welcome," Atsumu responded, immediately recognizing you as the Baker from yesterday. He glanced at how you were struggling to balance the many boxes in your arms while also attempting to take the ones he had managed to save. "Perhaps ya'd like some help deliverin' these? It might be a bit easier for you to see where yer headed."

A grateful look broke out on your face, a happy sigh followed close after, "That would be wonderful thank you," you hummed, your relief quickly evaporated as concern replaced its space. "I mean, only if it wouldn't be a bother to you! I'd hate to just force my work onto some poor soul!"

"Yer forcin' no such thing on me," Atsumu said as he reached out to take his share of packages from your arms, "I'm happy to help ya, truly."

You sent him another grateful smile in return and started leading the way towards your destination.

"Are you new to town? I saw you yesterday evening but I don't recall your face—My name’s (y/n) by the way!" You said over your shoulder. You slowed your pace slightly so Atsumu could catch up.

Atsumu didn't really know how to answer your question; technically he was new to the town but definitely not new to the kingdom.

"No, I just stumbled upon this place while on a walk."

"Well," you started, a breathy laugh leading into your words, "Our town might not be as extravagant as the Inner City, but I think it holds much more charm than that stuffy socialite compound."

The prince stifled a laugh at your words; there was a slight bite to them which he enjoyed.

"Forgive me, but I still haven't gotten your name yet. I'd like to thank you properly for helping me with these care packages."

The prince's mind went into a state of panic; he couldn't tell you his real name, it was far too recognizable. In seconds his eyes darted around the town searching for a pseudonym for himself, grasping for the first name that came to his mind.

"Shinsuke," he stuttered. Atsumu cleared his throat and straightened his stance in an attempt to seem a bit more convincing, "My name's Shinsuke."

"Well thank you very much for helping me, Shinsuke."

It felt odd being called anything but his name or some variation of “your highness,” but somewhere in Atsumu's heart, he enjoyed the anonymous feeling the name provided. You were treating him like a normal person and not a future king—although he wasn't sure about the king part anymore.

The two of you stopped at your first destination. A hasty knock on the chipped door revealed an exasperated mother holding a sobbing child. Atsumu watched as the mother thanked you over and over when you handed her the package. Your smiles and soft voice eased her obviously spiked nerves; even the child tucked away in the woman's shoulder peeked at you and sent a teary smile your way when you waved at them.

"(Y/n)?" Atsumu started as he followed you to the next destination. Your hum of acknowledgment queued him to go on, "What exactly are in these packages?"

"Food from my family's bakery!" You chirped, pausing your steps to let a wagon with rusty wheels filled with firewood rumble past the two of you.

"So does your family just sell everything in-store and you deliver?"

"No we give this out for free," you said like it was the most obvious thing.

Free? Your family was just giving people food without charging them? How did that even work—why was your family even doing it in the first place? Giving things to people without charge defeats the entire purpose of having a business, you don't have to be an educated Noble to understand that.

"I can tell you're confused," you said. You matched your steps with his to better explain yourself. "The primary trading corporation that sells our town ingredients and food has been raising taxes for the past few years; the people aren't able to pay for everything individually anymore, so my family buys in bulk and distributes the food."

"It's illegal for corporations to do that," Atsumu frowned, glancing at the dim look on your face. "Have y’tried to report any of this?"

"Trust me," you laughed bitterly, "This entire town could waltz right up to the King and they'd still find a way to twist our words. It's what they've been doing with all those raid reports anyway. It's not hard to gain power when you're born into wealth."

Atsumu followed quietly behind you as you handed the last few packages out—most of them were given to families or elderly people who were in no position to work. The night before Atsumu had only gotten a glimpse of what life was like out here; any prior knowledge was heavily biased by the very nobles destroying your way of life. Now that he's had a closer look, the prince realized that everything he knew, or he thought he knew, about the Outer City was completely wrong. The people weren't crude and violent, scraping any living thing for money to survive, or robbing caravans. Everyone he had watched you interact with was kind—struggling to live, but incredibly welcoming; multiple times the two of you were invited to share what little food the townspeople had to offer as the sun dipped and the air froze, but each time you politely declined.

The last lights of the day were completely gone by the time the two of you had looped back to your bakery; the moon cast its silvery light over the dirt-laden square as the stars winked gleefully at anyone watching. Parents were calling their children in for bed and a group of joyous elderly men playing cards and smoking pipes ushered the children in with warnings of ghosts stealing any stranglers.

"Wait right here please," you called out, hurrying up the cracked steps to the storefront—the little bell jingled happily in welcome as you threw open the door.

In seconds you returned with something wrapped in a white, cotton cloth. You hopped down the stairs and smiled up at the brunette, "A gift to thank you again. It was quite nice to have company this time."

Atsumu accepted the cloth-wrapped item. He unraveled it to find two hot loaves of rye bread.

"Thank you," he whispered, still stunned at how gracious you were; he'd only just met you properly and yet you treated him with such care and respect.

"Well," you awkwardly kicked at the ground, your hands fiddling with the strings of the apron you still wore. "Goodnight, Shinsuke."

The prince watched you turn to leave, your figure was halfway up the stairs when his mouth moved faster than his mind.

"Wait!" He sputtered, cheeks warming at your glittery eyes when you quickly turned back, "Would ya—this sounds so forward, but would y’mind if I helped ya again tomorrow?"

"I would love that."

Your answer came out barely louder than a whisper, but the sentence caught the wind and drifted straight to Atsumu's ears, sending shivers down his spine. A giddy smile spread across his face and he waved goodbye to you as he left the impoverished town for the second time.

Atsumu has been consistently visiting your town for three weeks now. Every night he would either skip out on dinner and request it be delivered to his quarters where he was "studying," or he would leave immediately after a hasty meal with his family and meet you after your nightly deliveries where the two of you spent hours talking and sharing a loaf of bread from your store.

You had opened him up to a completely different world, talking about every mundane thing that crossed your mind. He was fascinated by your way of living and how you thought; everything was from the heart, not once had you stopped to politically analyze or weigh the financial repercussions of the obstacles presented, you simply acted on how you felt—something so pure and out of the goodness of your heart would have been frowned upon by the stiff nobility.

The early evenings in the Inner City had become more crowded as the nights shifted to that of cool summer. Atsumu had consistently found it difficult to maneuver between the crowds of eager peddlers and pompous artisans; their voices calling out to victims who looked to be easily swayed into purchasing whatever trinket they were selling.

"You sir!" A seller called, shoving handheld cases filled with jewelry into his face, "A handsome lad like yourself must have a special person; perhaps treat them to a gift just as beautiful!"

"No thank you," Atsumu said in the politest voice he could muster, gently pushing the case away. The peddler frowned slightly and sauntered away from the disguised prince, his voice already calling out to a young couple passing by. Atsumu breathed a sigh of relief before hurrying through the crowd; he was already too late to help you deliver food tonight and he didn't want to waste any more time getting stopped by vendors.

The bright, flame-lit street lamps slowly dwindled to none as the brunette followed the familiar path towards your town. The only light cast onto the streets being from candles inside the houses he was passing.

It was funny to think that the first time he had walked this path he'd been terrified of the people inhabiting the area; now he was welcomed with cheery hellos from everyone who lived there—Atsumu had even found himself particularly popular with the village children who often invited him to play games with them.

The tight streets opened up into the dusty town square. Atsumu breathed in the fresh air, the slight scent of sunflowers riding on the wind down from the open fields, and the chirp of crickets mixed in with the happy squeals from the kids playing off to the side created a warm feeling in the air.

Atsumu went to wait for you at your family's bakery. His eyes drifted across the weathered boards and slightly rusted hinges on the door and sign; the building was old and underkept, but was dearly loved by the townspeople. Atsumu had even caught you gazing fondly at the building on multiple accounts. The prince had learned a great amount of history regarding the store and yet he still had yet to actually enter the bakery—perhaps it was out of respect for you and your family as the small store also doubled as your home, or perhaps it was out of fear.

"Shinsuke," a dry and weathered voice called. The name still felt foreign to him, but gradually Atsumu had found himself responding to it more naturally. The Nobel looked over to the small hut of reclaimed wood and straw, a gentle smile graced his lips when he spotted an elderly woman waving him over. When he approached her, the woman's withered, yet soft hands encased one of his own. "Have you eaten supper yet? You look too thin for a man your age."

It felt ironic for someone to call him thin when he had probably been fed more food in a day than most people in the Outer City had seen in their life, but the genuine concern and parental love seeping from the little old lady's voice melted away any humor in the situation.

"Don't worry," a charming laugh broke through his words, "I've been takin' care of m’self."

"Good," she stated, her hands slipped from his and reached up to gently pat his cheek. The moment was tender until her smile slipped into one a bit more devious, "Wouldn't want you getting sick on our dear (y/n), now would we?"

Before Atsumu could even respond—voice thoroughly stopped up with embarrassed stutters—the old lady waved to him, muttering something about it being too late for an old soul like her's to be up, and slipped into her shack. The prince just remained, rooted to the spot he inhabited, staring unblinkingly at where the woman had been moments before.

"Shin? What are you doing?"

"(Y/n)!" He squeaked out pathetically, spinning quickly on his heel to face you. He cleared his throat to try and compose himself before walking over to you. "I was just uh—talking to Ms. Aida."

"Riiight well—," you trailed into your next sentence, an air of suspicion in your voice. "C'mon I want to show you something!"

You didn't really give Atsumu a choice as you reached out for his hand and started pulling the brunette to wherever it was you were leading him. The two of you brushed past the buildings of your town, breaking off to a small path that led up the sunflower-spotted hill. The tall plants brushed against Atsumu's limbs and hands as you dragged him forward; delicate petals tickled his hands and cheeks as the monstrous flowers engulfed the two of you, impairing any view of the town previously had. Your soft laughs floated through the air as your only response to the prince's questioning of where you were taking him.

The jungle of tall flowers dissipated, breaking out to a meadow settled snugly in the middle of the thick garden. It was beautiful—far more beautiful than the rose gardens kept in front of the palace's Great Hall. In comparison to the natural beauty before him, the royal gardens looked almost artificial; everything there was perfect, not a bud out of line, but here nature did as it pleased—growing into something entirely free.

Your hand broke from Atsumu's and you rushed forward, flopping straight onto your back in the middle of the meadow; golden streaks of light danced down from the sunset, caressing your features in an ethereal way. The prince followed hesitantly behind you, unclipping his cloak in the process before spreading it onto the soft grass below and following your lead of lying down.

Joyful laughs burst out from beside him; the prince turned his head to look at you—your faces just inches away from one anothers' as you lay in your floral oasis.

"What's so funny?" He questioned, nose scrunching at the displeasure of being left out of whatever joke you were indulging in.

"You!" Your voice babbled out between breaths, "You have such peculiar habits, Shinsuke." Your hand reached out and tugged lightly on the cloak separating his body from the dewy grass beneath.

He simply rolled his eyes in a playful manner, playing off your obvious amusement. "My peculiar habits won't have ya laughin' when y'sit up and yer clothes are all wet."

Truly Atsumu had placed his cloak down on instinct; his mother and nursemaids had instilled the priority of keeping one's clothing neat and orderly from a young age—of course he and Osamu found it difficult to uphold when they were children, but the rule still found a way to imprint themself into his subconscious.

"Do you like it out here?" You asked, blinking hopefully at him.

"I do," he whispered in return. A smile spread across his face as he spoke, "There's a garden near my home, but it's nothin' like this."

"You don't often speak of your home and family. Would it be too bold of me to ask why?"

Atsumu's face dropped slightly, he turned his attention away from your face, instead, looking up at the clouds slowly crawling over the caramelized sky.

"I'm sorry that was improper of me, I shouldn't hav-"

"No it's alright," Atsumu reassured, "I'm just. . .my family life has been a bit tense lately."

Atsumu turned his head back to the side to look at you. There was a deep sorrow in your eyes, one that was understanding, urging him to end the conversation there if he wanted, but in the depths of your features was the human curiosity to hear more.

Atsumu sighed. His tongue swiped over his lips to wet them slightly before he spoke.

"My father has trained me to take over our family's business my entire life. I barely had a childhood, most of my time was devoted to learnin' everything I needed to run the business." He paused for a second; his hand reached out to the small sliver of grass that separated the pair of you, his hands twisting and twirling the blades. "Then Suddenly, a few weeks ago, my father announced to the family at dinner that my twin brother would be taking over instead. Everythin' in my life up until that point was dedicated to becoming what my father wanted and then instead my twin is given what I was supposed to inherit."

Atsumu continued plucking at the grass as you lay quietly listening to him speak. You hadn't said a word or interrupted him, so Atsumu took the chance to finally express the thoughts that had been eating him inside out for nearly a month.

"I guess to my parents I'm an utter failure of a son if they feel they have to give my brother the job instead."

Tears pricked at Atsumu's eyes as he confronted the fear that had been harbored the moment his mother and father shared the news. Perhaps it was entirely the council that had pushed for Osamu to be king, but the lack of protest from his parents hurt worse than them proposing Osamu's role themselves; it was like they had already been thinking that exact thing, but took pity on him and refrained from taking action.

"Shinsuke," you called out softly. Atsumu felt you move slightly closer to him, his eyes trained on the grass he was terrorizing. "You're not a failure—I highly doubt your own parents would think that."

Your hand laid on top of his, ceasing his movements in tearing at the earth below him. Your thumb caressed his knuckles in a comforting manner as you looked deeply into his hazelnut-hued eyes. "Maybe you're not destined to be the head of your family's business, but you still have beautiful qualities within you."

You inclined your face closer to his, your hand brushed his dark bangs from his eyes as he stared back at you. Your voice was hardly above a whisper now, "You're funny, you always play with the children no matter how late it is, you constantly offer me your cloak on cold nights," you breathed out in a laugh, pushing the prince's shoulder in a teasing manner as he joined in on your jest. "Plus, you've been insistent on helping me deliver food to the town—which I see as far more important than some silly artisan trade."

Atsumu wasn't expecting to cry. He hated the action really, but here he was trying to blink back the tears that slowly dripped down his face as your words processed from his ears to his heart. Your words which were so warm and loving—the exact thing he had been missing for weeks. The prince held onto your hand, which had settled comfortably on his cheek; a broken, but grateful smile graced his features as he gazed at you.

"Thank you," he whispered, leaning his head closer to yours. Your foreheads rested against each other, the space between your lips getting smaller and smaller.

Until, eventually, they connected under the golden-washed sunset.

His heart was still giddy and light as he scaled up the wall to his room.

He had kissed you—truly kissed you! This felt like a dream, but it certainly wasn't one, the red marks on his collarbone and swollen lips were a distinct sign of the actions that took hold in the hidden meadow.

For the first time, Atsumu felt full; his heart, his mind, his soul—everything had been ignited by your touch. Now that he's had a taste of it, he couldn't imagine the feeling of anyone else's hands or lips embracing him the way you had.

He didn't realize it then, but love was already blooming.

Just as Atsumu reached his balcony—one leg swung over the railing, the other still dangling off the edge—a knock echoed around his room.

Someone was at the door. Someone was at the door and Atsumu was still in clothes that technically didn't belong to him.

"J-just a moment!" He called out, voice cracking slightly as he stumbled over the rail. He rushed forward, tearing off his cloak and reaching down to yank his boots off. The prince hopped around his room on one foot as he pulled hard to try and get the shoe off—it was like the damned thing had been glued on, no matter how hard he pulled it wouldn't budge!

Another knock came from the door.

The shoe came free but with it a wave of excessive force he was using to rip the thing off, causing him to trip and fall hard onto the floor.

"Your highness?" A concerned voice asked as the person clicked the door open and peeked into the room.

Atsumu looked up horrified to find Kita Shinsuke looking down at him sprawled on the ground—one boot on and the other lying beside his head.

The prince had never seen Kita so surprised by something in the almost 13 years of knowing him; the man's eyes were round and googly with his mouth slightly opened in shock. Kita seemed to recover quickly as he slipped into the bedroom and locked the door behind him, his eyes returned to Atsumu—who was still on the floor—and analyzed his figure.

"I guess I know where my missing clothes have been going."

Atsumu groaned, he couldn't tell if his advisor was trying to make a joke or that was really the only thing he got out of the situation. Kita reached out to pull Atsumu up and guided him over to his bed to sit down properly to safely take off his other boot. As the prince worked on the laces, Kita's eyes fell to the makeshift rope tied to the balcony railing.

"You've been sneakin' out of the palace," it came out as more of a statement than a question; Kita's voice was chillingly calm for discovering such a scandalous act.

The light and happy butterflies that were floating in his stomach since the events that took hold in the sunflower meadow, quickly formed into a thick, sticky ball of nerves. Adrenaline started to cloud Atsumu's mind as panic set in, his thoughts racing to patch together an excuse. The longer he tried to find a way to skirt around Kita's accusation, the more he realized there was no way he'd be able to effectively lie to his advisor.

Kita was too sharp for his own good and after spending almost every day with the prince since he was 10, he could read Atsumu's behavior like a book.

"Kita," Atsumu broke the veil blanketing the room. Placing his other boot down, the prince stared at his friend in front of him, his eyes pleading towards his next statement. "Ya can't tell anyone. . .please."

Kita shifted uncomfortably, he studied Atsumu's expression the way the Queen did when looking for imperfections—crooked crowns and wrinkled clothes were quickly sorted with her watchful eyes.

"Whatever could be out there that requires such secrecy?"

His once imploratory look hardened. Flashes of your happy laugh and the soft brush of your lips breezed through his mind and sent a tingling sensation across his skin. You weren't royalty, hell you weren't anything close to nobility, but what you were was a thousand times better than a performative blood status—unfortunately, blood statuses are more valuable than individual qualities in his world.

Your relationship would never be accepted and that was the exact reason Atsumu refused to reveal his precious sanctuary.

"I can't tell you."

Kita squinted down at the prince, watching his face and the way the royal's hands nervously picked at the fabric of his pants. His stoic face lit into one of surprise.

"You've met someone," he breathed out, "Haven't ya?"

"Please don't tell anyone," Atsumu spit out in a broken voice.

"Atsumu-"

"Please!" He shouted cutting off the advisor. His hands balled into fists atop his thighs, drinking in a breath to calm himself before continuing. "Kita, I've been trapped in this luxurious shoebox my entire life and I've finally realized that I can make decisions myself, that I don't need everything pre-planned for me. Please don't take this away from me—take them away from me."

Kita sighed, scrunched his eyes shut, and slumped onto the mattress beside Atsumu, "Do they know who you are?"

Atsumu let out an awkward laugh, his hand went up to rub at the back of his neck.

"No I uh—I actually told them my name was Shinsuke."

Kita let out a groan as his head fell into his hands, muttering something about the prince being smart but incredibly stupid.

"Yeah it's a ‘lil weird hearin' people refer to me using yer name," Kita peeked at Atsumu from where he was hiding in his hands. The advisor watched as his prince's face softened into a look he had never seen before—one of pure bliss and joy. "But they make me incredibly happy."

The ghost of a smile on Atsumu's lips migrated to Kita before it was harshly tugged down into a straight-lipped frown.

"They're not nobility, are they?"

Atsumu's smile was erased in a snap as he sourly shook his head. "That doesn't change my feelings about them."

"That's not what I meant," Kita said, sitting up straight again to look at the Miya next to him. "If ya keep lyin' to them yer only gonna do more harm than good."

Atsumu knew this—he didn't want to be reminded of the stark divide between the two of you. He truly has been trying to find a way to tell you, but it's so much easier hiding behind a different name and empty backstory. Deep down though he was scared, terrified that you would reject him upon discovering his title and more than comfortable life.

“I spent a lot of my youth in the Outer City, and the one thing I learned is: Lyin’ for long periods of time ain’t taken well,” Kita said in a serious tone, “You have to tell them, Atsumu.”

“I know,” the prince whispered back.

"I promise on my life not to tell anyone," Kita said as he stood from the bed. The man slowly walked over to the door, his white hair bouncing with each step. "I will warn ya that there are whispers between the servants that the King is plannin' a betrothal for you—that was the initial reason for my visit tonight."

The prince's heart sank; his friend's words were a painful punch knocking the air out of his body. He felt warm and cold as he processed the new information. In a matter of hours, he had a dream created and cruelly ripped from him.

"Um...thank you, Kita."

Kita whispered goodnight before leaving Atsumu's quarters, but the prince didn't hear a word.

Once again he found himself lying on his bed, lost and broken with angry tears silently slipping down his cheeks.

The prospect of marriage was supposed to bring vibrance to your life, not completely destroy the functionality of your being.

Atsumu was struggling, drowning, weighed, trapped—whatever other word fit the description. He couldn't stop his mind from wandering towards what Kita had told him the night prior. There was no end to the cycle of worrying, forgetting, and then remembering to worry some more.

The prince dragged himself through the day being hardly responsive to anything around him. It got to the point that his political teacher sent for a doctor thinking the prince had contracted some sort of illness. After many protests and fake smiles assuring he was in good health, Atsumu found himself reluctantly walking towards the event he had been loathing all day—family dinner.

He could already feel it, the emotional storm had been building throughout the day and it was moments away from hitting land. The prince was one wrong word away from unleashing the dangerous turmoil inside him—one that his family was most definitely going to be on the receiving end of.

The circlet he wore sat heavily on his head, a constant reminder of who he was with each step he took down the hall. Previously, wearing the crown had enlisted a sense of pride and honor in him, but now the craft of gold-wrapped rubies felt like an annoying itch you couldn't scratch; no matter how hard you tried it wouldn't go away, constantly taunting your mind in its inescapable discomfort. His white and gold jacket had even started to force a stuffy feeling on him whenever he dawned it; the cloth being the first thing he tore off when he returned to the safety of his quarters.

The halls in the castle seemed far too large and long now that he's had a sample of different classes' culture. It felt a bit silly that his family should have hundreds upon hundreds of rooms hardly ever used in practice when their citizens—the people they were to represent and protect—hardly had more than a single room for their families to take shelter in.

It was sickening at how blind he had once been, but it was even worse to be stuck in this realm of jewels and riches when he had first-hand exposure to how people were living down in the Outer City.

His shoes clicked loudly on the white marble floors as he turned the corner to the Great Hall. He paused in front of the heavy double doors; technically he was already late for dinner, but schedules hadn't seemed important to him as of recently. With a final sigh, the brunette prince pushed the doors open.

You'd think he were a stranger with how his family looked over at him; all the members—excluding the youngest of the bunch—looked over at him with flat expressions. Mitsuru was still too young to fully understand the rift forming between Atsumu and the rest of the family, so at her eldest brother's entrance, she had jumped out of her seat, ignoring the Queens scolds and ran over to hug him hello.

Atsumu instantly scooped his baby sister up and into his arms as she ran to him, spinning the both of them around causing her to laugh gleefully. He felt more at ease having Mitsuru around, her constant smiles and sunny personality were infectious—at least there was one family member he knew would never think ill of him.

Not wanting to give up the welcomed feeling Mitsuru had given him, Atsumu carried the girl back to the long, birch dining table, placing her safely into her seat before going to his and sandwiching himself between his father and twin.

Once Atsumu was seated, the steady dinner time conversation continued, the clinking of utensils joined in the mix of voices as the family ate.

Atsumu hadn't said a word besides a short greeting to his mother and father, instead opting to push around the food on his plate—he was devoid of an appetite anyway.

Atsumu was hardly paying attention to whatever conversation was being thrown about the room but it quickly turned to one that caught his attention.

"That reminds me, the princess from Wisteria will be visitin' next week. I ask that we all be on our best behavior," the King spoke, his gaze lingered on Mitsuru accompanied by a mischievous twinkle in his eyes—a look that the little girl returned in full.

"Is that when ya were going to tell me about our engagement?"

What Atsumu said cast a stilled silence over the hall. All attention had turned to him as the inhabitants blinked surprised at him—partly because of the accusation and partly because he had decided to speak.

"How did ya-"

"Our staff are far more perceptive than ya give them credit for, Father."

The prince held his hard glare at the King. Whether he meant to or not, this look was a challenge, and stubborn personalities ran strong in the Miya bloodline.

The King squared his shoulders and met his eldest son's gaze. "I see news travels fast. But yes, her visit is to solidify a betrothal between the two of ya."

"Of course it is," Atsumu muttered. The prince plastered a sickeningly fake smile on his face, a venomous note tinged his words, "Thank you for tellin' me. Although, it's a shame I had to find out through my advisor first and not directly from my family."

"Miya Atsumu!" His mother gasped, "You apologize for takin' that tone!"

"Why should I?" He questioned, looking between his parents who could only sit astounded at their son's words. "Ya don't seem to have the decency to communicate yer decisions about my life these days. Did ya even think to ask me what I wanted?!"

That was the sentence that seemed to set the evening's fate. Atsumu watched the irritation build behind his father's eyes, like a fire in an Icy blizzard, burning brightly in the dark landscape. A part of him coward at the stern look, but another part—one that had found courage and a voice—stood strong and met the King's refined glare.

"What ya want should be the betterment of our Kingdom. Sometimes that means doin' things y’don't necessarily like."

"Oh right, like breaking an ancient law that's been upheld for centuries until now?"

"'Tsumu, don't-"

"Shut yer trap, Osamu!" Atsumu snapped, turning to glare bitterly at his brother. "Y’don't have to insert yourself into everythin' I do!"

"Be quiet, the both of ya!" The King bellowed, slamming his hand down on the table. The sound made Mitsuru jump in her seat and the princess sat petrified looking at her father. "Atsumu, ya have a role to fulfill, so get over this attitude and do what yer told!"

Atsumu roughly stood from his chair, the wooden legs screeched against the floor from the force. The prince turned to face his father, looking down at him in disdain.

"I refuse to let you force a role on me that strips away my freedom."

He then turned away from his family and stormed towards the exit of the Great Hall. Just before he left, Atsumu ripped the crown from his head and tossed it on the ground—the metal object clattered and clanged against the marble floor before being accompanied by the slam of the wooden doors.

Atsumu ran faster than he ever had down the corridors, slipping into corners as he hurried to his room.

He wanted out. He wanted to be free. He wanted to be with you.

Just as he reached the door to his room, Atsumu was grabbed by his shoulders and slammed into the wall beside the entrance.

"What the hell is wrong with ya?!"

Osamu's hands kept Atsumu firmly in place, no matter how he squirmed he couldn't break free.

"Don't act like yer not happy!" Atsumu bit back, pushing harshly at Osamu's arms to attempt an escape. "Ya get to sit around and be the golden child, havin' everything' y’want brought to ya on a platter!"

"Ya think I wanted to be the next King?!" Osamu spit, moving his hands to grab Atsumu by the collar of his jacket and slam him back into the wall. "I couldn't care less about which one of us sits on that fuckin' throne! What I do care about is when my thick-headed twin yells at our parents and makes our Ma cry!"

Atsumu pushed Osamu's face away from him, causing the prince to stumble back and lose his grip on Atsumu's collar. Atsumu then shoved Osamu by the shoulders as many times as he could before his hands were grabbed; the two of them attempted to overpower the other resulting in a temporary stalemate.

"They're not innocent either! Ya heard what they did, they took everythin' and gave it to ya!" Atsumu yelled, "They're lettin' people die in the cities because they're too blind to actually care about what those twisted trade companies do!"

"Oh because yer any better?!" Osamu said, forcing Atsumu away from him. The two of them stared at each other as the tension built between them. “Yer an ungrateful brat ignoring yer family! Yer little sister!”

Atsumu tried to scoot away from the conversation, fists clenched tight as he resisted the urge to lash out at Osamu again.

"Maybe if ya weren't so selfish and crude ya'd still be in line for the throne."

Atsumu's eye twitched from irritation. In a split second, he had gone from distancing himself from his brother to landing a solid punch on his nose. Warm liquid spread onto his knuckles and between his fingers when he pulled his hand back, the red contrasting harshly with his skin. Distracted by the blood that now splattered his fist, Osamu took the chance to retaliate, sending a hard punch on the corner of Atsumu's mouth; metallic flavors invaded his taste buds as his lip formed a nasty split.

Those first two hits and blood being drawn opened the gates for their fight to escalate. They shoved and kicked, pulled at each other's hair, whatever hit they could land they took.

After a few moments they broke apart, breath labored and eyes crazed like a pair of wild animals; they watched each other's every move, waiting to see if the other would strike.

"Ya satisfied? Did ya get what y’wanted?"

"What I wanted?" Osamu laughed bitterly as he wiped some of the blood dripping down his face from his nose, "I want my brother back, you dumbass."

Atsumu hesitated for a second, his twin's words hitting harder than he anticipated. Atsumu and Osamu had always been a pair; where one prince goes the other was close behind. Now they stood on opposite sides, battered and bloody, a false hatred overpowering any familial love still harbored in their hearts.

"I'm not comin' back, 'Samu," It came out as more of a plead than a statement. In a short amount of time, his perception of royal life had twisted and darkened, but deep down he still craved the reassurance he was making the correct choice.

Atsumu felt lost and found at the same time, caught between two worlds so different they were like night and day. In the end, his heart was what led him—his heart which had been captivated by fresh bread and sunflower meadows.

"What changed?"

"Ya wouldn't understand if I told ya."

Atsumu opened his quarter's door and entered his room. As he turned to close the door he paused and looked over his brother. Blood stained his hands and face, hair messy, his eyes were dull and broken as unshed tears shimmered in them.

"'Tsumu-"

Whatever plea was cut off from Atsumu pressing the door shut and locking it. The prince leaned his back against the door and breathed in a shaky breath, his hands went up to wipe at his watery eyes.

In seconds Atsumu filled a small bag with the clothing he had taken from Kita and as much gold and valuables he could sell to keep himself financed. With his cloak on and hood up, he slipped down from his balcony and into the night.

Atsumu never saw or spoke to Osamu again.

The town square was deserted when Atsumu arrived; it was well into the night and everyone had shut themselves into their homes for the evening. Curls of smoke from chimneys and the dim glow of candles in windows were the only indication of life throughout the town.

His steps were hesitant as he climbed the few stairs up to your bakery's storefront; a small sign indicating the business being closed hung innocently on the doorknob, but the warm light reaching out from the store windows inflicted the opposite feeling. Atsumu brought his hand up and knocked gently on the decayed wooden door.

A few seconds later you appeared, a blanket was tightly wrapped around your shoulders as you peeped out from the open door. Upon seeing him a smile formed and then disappeared when you took in his battered form. Without a second thought, you ushered the man into the bakery.

It was incredibly warm inside, the coals from the ovens in the kitchen were just starting to die out and yet were still able to produce adamant heat for the rooms. The store was cozy, a humble counter surrounded with antique glass cases and woven baskets filled the right side of the room. Atsumu didn't get much time to gawk at the storefront as you were already pulling him behind the counter and into the back of the store. The wood floors transitioned into cracked tiles that lined the entirety of the kitchen. You parked the man next to the large wooden workbench in the middle of the room, pulling one of the lone candles over to inspect his face in a better light.

"What happened, Shin?" You whispered, gently caressing his cheek and moving down to lightly brush your fingers over his split lip.

Atsumu flinched at the contact; he had completely forgotten about the injury, but now the spot was throbbing with pain in reminder.

"I got into a fight with my brother," he said. All you did in response was hum sadly. You placed the candle on the bench and started moving around the large kitchen, grabbing a rag and a bowl of water which you filled using a small indoor pump—the leaver on the contraption squeaked pitifully as you forced the water out.

"M'sorry about comin' here," Atsumu paused to let you dab the damp cloth on his lip, the water was cold and made his lip sting more. "I didn't have anywhere else to go."

"Nonsense," you huffed. Your nimble fingers had wiped away all the blood from his face, the evidence now staining the cloth in blots of blotchy orange and bright red. You placed the rag and bowl of water on the bench and grabbed the candle from where it was sitting. Loosely you laced your fingers with Atsumu's and started to lead him out of the kitchen and towards a set of creaky stairs. "You're always welcome here, Shinsuke."

Atsumu tried to smile at what you said, but a sense of guilt weighed on his shoulders. You trusted him so easily and yet you knew virtually nothing about him that wasn't a facade or half-truth.

At the top of the stairs was a small hallway with a single door at the end. The floors groaned under both your feet as you led Atsumu towards the door. When you pushed the ancient thing open Atsumu was met with what he assumed to be your room. A bed covered with handmade blankets sat near a small window and directly across from the foot of the bed was a chair and washstand—though the surface was devoid of its usual basin and pitcher.

You sat Atsumu down on your bed and moved to place the candle on your nightstand. From there you crossed over to your washstand and pulled open the top drawer. Like magic, you produced a round tin from the stand and happily went back to where Atsumu was seated.

Atsumu watched you sit down beside him and swiftly open the tin; inside it was filled with a waxy substance that smelled strongly of herbs. You swiped your finger in the slav and gently spread it over the prince's injured lip.

"There," you muttered softly. You placed the tin on the sheets beside you before turning back to Atsumu. You smiled up at him and pressed a kiss to the uninjured side of his mouth. As you pulled away from his face Atsumu's arms wrapped around you in a tight hug, his face buried into the crook of your neck.

He had been crying a lot more recently and he hated it. Atsumu was never fond of the action but his emotions and stress seemed to get the best of him the past few weeks. He couldn't exactly tell what triggered the wave of tears—your kindness and unfaltering gentle love? Or maybe it was his mind finally catching up with what had happened earlier outside his old bedroom.

Whatever the reason, the Miya clung to your body, arms holding you tight to his chest and face hidden in your shoulder.

"It's alright. . .you're ok," you cooed, running your hands up and down the expanse of the brunette's back. You stayed like that for some time, running your hands against his body and softly rocking the pair of you. A pitiful smile was all Atsumu saw when he pulled away from your neck. Quickly he wiped his damp cheeks to preserve whatever dignity he had left.

"Feel better?"

Atsumu shook his head. With a final sniffle, the man looked you in the eyes, terrified of what would happen when he said what was on his mind.

"I've been lyin' to ya."

He said it so quietly—so quiet that you had to strain your ears to hear every word and yet the impact they had on you was the same as if he had yelled.

"Wha. . .what do you—"

"M'names not Shinsuke," he whispered. Atsumu watched confusion fill your face, a slight hesitancy, and spark of fear. "My real name is Atsumu. Miya Atsumu."

Your eyes widened and your mouth fell open from pure shock, "You're the prince."

"Not anymore."

Your brows furrowed at his statement. Your mind briefly traveled back to your conversation in the sunflower meadow and a sudden realization came over you. "The business you were talking about, that wasn't an artisan trade that was—"

"To be the next king," Atsumu confirmed. He gently grasped your hands and laid them in his lap, "I never wanted to lie to ya—and I promise everythin' else about us was real. Ya taught me so much and made me realize how warped the nobility is—ta the point where I couldn't stay there anymore."

You stayed silent as you listened to him, playing absentmindedly with his fingers. It's not that you didn't believe him—everything made perfect sense now—but something was holding you back.

"Why give your life and family up over some things I told you?"

"Because ya made me see that I don't have to be what my parents want. . .I have my own say In my life," Atsumu breathed out. His hand went up to cup your cheek, "And because I love you."

Tears pricked at your eyes as you beamed at him, your hand went up to the one he had on your cheek.

"I love you too, Atsumu."

A shiver went down his spine upon hearing you say his name for the first time; the electric feeling spread from his fingers to his toes. Atsumu felt like he was finally home in the rickety bakery holding you close. It had taken him nearly 22 years to recognize how misplaced he felt in those crystalline halls—all it took was a fresh loaf of bread.

"Y'know how ya said that takin' my family's business wasn't my destiny?" Atsumu said. He heard your soft “mhm” of confirmation from where you were buried in his chest. "I need to find a new one. . .what d'ya think about me bein' a baker?"

A breathy laugh escaped your lips as you lifted your head away from his chest. "I think that's a great idea," you said, pressing a kiss to his nose.

“Thanks,” you acknowledge, wiping off the blood on autopilot. As you brush your teeth, you finally ask the invisible Samaritan after five days, “Why do you only write when I’m not looking?”

Realizing how moronic your question is, you turn around and say, “Sorry. Here, I can’t see you like this.”

You slightly lean your bottom against the sink, your hand supporting the other arm as you continue to brush your teeth. Your mirror squeaks behind you, and you feel something brush against your back.

That must be the Samaritan, you think. You want to turn around and peek at the mysterious creature, but you wait until the squeaking stops.

The invisible Samaritan will show themselves if they are ready, you suppose. And looking away is one way to repay them with all the reminders and motivational messages they have been scrawling for you.

When the sound stops, you look at the mirror again.

I CAN ONLY WRITE IF I MANIFEST INTO MY PHYSICAL FORM. I HAVEN’T SHOWN MYSELF TO A HUMAN SINCE THE BEGINNING OF MY EXISTENCE, BUT I HAVE HEARD THAT HUMANS ARE SCARED OF CREATURES LIKE US. SO I ONLY WRITE WHEN YOU’RE NOT LOOKING.

You spit out the toothpaste residue from your mouth and rinse your teeth. You pat your mouth dry with a towel.

“Okay, but what exactly are you? And why help me? Did I accidentally summon a demon or what?”

You turn around again, running your tongue against your molars as you wait for the squeaking to stop. Then you spin in your spot and read the new message in the mirror.

I AM NOT A DEMON PER SE. A FALLEN ANGEL, IF YOU WILL. I JOINED THE REBELLION AT THE BEGINNING OF TIME. AND NOW I AM TRYING TO RECLAIM MY SEAT IN HEAVEN BY HELPING YOU.

“Demon, fallen angel—they’re all the same to me,” you shrug. “I don’t really mind, you know. My quality of life hasn’t improved these past five days, but you have been helpful, so thanks.”

You wipe off the blood again. As you are about to wrap the mirror with a fresh black cloth, you ask the invincible Samaritan, “Do you have a name?”

You face your back against the mirror, feeling the same object graze your back. You stand by in your position while your mirror squeaks, and after turning around for the umpteenth time, the mirror now says:

SUGAWARA KOUSHI. YOU CAN CALL ME HOWEVER YOU WOULD LIKE, BUT MY PEERS OFTEN CALL ME SUGA.

“Okay, Suga,” you say as you clean the mirror. You gesture your arms upward to cover the mirror, but you stop.

You fiddle with the cloth in your hands for a while, then take a look at the laundry pile. Sighing, you fold the fabric into a square and store it back in the cabinet.

“See you after school.”

You exit the bathroom and dress up. As you grab your keys and open the door, an ominous, layered voice whispers in your ear: You will blow them away. I believe in you. See you later.

You locate the source of the sound, but you’re standing alone in your apartment. There is only the buzzing of the refrigerator in the kitchen.

You swallow and try to rationalize whatever you heard, but nothing has been rational ever since—oh.

“Suga? Was that you?”

Nothing whispers.

“If you can talk, why didn’t you just do that from the beginning?”

Nothing again.

You shake your head at how impaired your brain must have become. You lock the door behind you and leave for university.

The floor-mounted air conditioner drones as you stare at your laptop screen, trying to locate the pesky bug in your app.

You just resolved a bug that had faulty logic, but your solution gave birth to not one but three more bugs. It’s not a semi-colon, nor a missing variable, and you’re sure you ran everything listed on the unit test. So why is it still not working?

You rest your elbows on the table, interlocking your hands in a praying stance, and desperately wish Suga knows the answer. But Suga can't be here because a) there are no mirrors around, and b) you’re in the university library. For all you know, Suga might be tethered to your apartment as punishment for defying god.

And would a demon—fallen angel, Suga would correct you—even know how printf(“Hello World!”); works?

There are only two days left before you have to demonstrate your final app in front of your professors, and as you languish in your misery, a small object pokes your arm.

You look to your side and glance at Kuroo. He has a critical analysis paper due in twenty hours, and he has yet to do the required reading. His eyebrows furrow while his breathing deepens as he asks you, “Hey, what does koi-fyur mean?”

You take a glimpse of the paper he’s reading, and with the tip of his pen, he traces an imaginary line under the word coiffure.

“Kwah-fyur,” you correct him. “It basically means hairdo, but normally it’s used if you want your hair to sound like it’s fancy.”

“So like,” he says, dropping the paper and his pen on the table, gesturing an imaginary crown on his head. Then he continues, “My coiffure looks so good today.”

You nod, adding, “Right. Or, Kuroo’s coiffure looks so ridiculous, I wonder why he even bothers.”

“Hey,” he protests, vehemently slamming the desk. “I almost died just by maintaining this coiffure! Give me some credit!”

“Well, nobody told you to press your head between two pillows just to look second-rate!”

Kuroo leans back in shock, hand splayed across his chest.

You smirk. You know you have won this round.

“You did not just—”

The librarian loudly shushes the two of you, and you try to bring back your focus again on the pesky bug on your app.

“Seriously though,” Kuroo speaks in a low voice close to your ear. “I’ve been curious about this since we submitted our career plans back in high school.”

His soggy breath docks on your skin repulsively, and you rub it off before it dries up and stays on your ears. You scoot a few inches away from him in case he scrunches his nose and grimaces from your scent.

You don't really have an unpleasant odor. Suga even complimented you on how angelic and immaculate you smelled. But keeping a good amount of distance from others is an annoying habit you picked up from grade school. Not even university heartthrob—and heartbreaker, you realized a month ago—Oikawa Tooru could cull that habit out of you.

He continues, “If you know so many words, why did you choose to limit yourself with computer lingo?”

The question drifts in the air along with the cold wind coming out of the air conditioner. You think of ways to steer clear of follow-up questions, and you respond with, “Software engineers are more in-demand these days, so it’s easier to land a job right after graduation.”

Kuroo hums. “But more than what?”

You raise an eyebrow as you peer at him. You know you have lost this round, and now Kuroo will never stop prodding.

“You said it’s more in-demand, but more in-demand than what, exactly?”

More than whatever my mother hates and looks down on, you want to confess to your best friend of seven years.

But you know it will commence an unsolicited unraveling of a coffin you adroitly crafted when you were eight years old. And you deem your skills adroit because it’s not a simple coffin.

It’s an endless Matryoshka coffin, able to accommodate prior and inevitable woes.

So you paraphrase instead, telling him, “Almost everything. Welcome to the fourth industrial revolution.”

His eyes endure on you a little longer than usual. You look back on your laptop screen and try to zone in on your piece of shit code, but another distraction comes in the form of—

“Iwa, where are you? I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

You glance beyond the edge of your laptop. You see Tooru, all in his four-eyed, chestnut-colored hair glory. He wears a gray long-sleeved sweater over a white polo, completing the look with a navy blue necktie. His phone hovers by his ear as he turns his head from side to side.

“Seriously, Iwa, where are you?”

When he turns his head in your direction, you immediately fall back down, covering your head with your forearms.

“What’s wrong?” Kuroo asks.

“Shut up,” you murmur as you peek at Kuroo through your arms. “He might hear us.”

And you wish Suga were here. Then maybe he would have warned you about the havoc that is about to unfold and how you could have avoided it.

Kuroo looks around the library and stops when he finally sees who you are talking about.

“But he knows we hang out a lot, right? So if he sees me, then—”

“I didn’t know you’re in here, too.” The dreaded man finally comes, and you unwillingly lift your head to look at him. You flash your fakest smile and nod out of courtesy.

Tooru looks at you, then at Kuroo, then back at you.

“Was I interrupting something?”

You avoid the ice-cold daggers hurling from his eyes, but not gracefully.

“No sir, we’re not doing anything.”

Tooru looks as if he were about to say something, only to get pulled back by the person on his phone. He turns around and walks away, saying, “Okay, okay. I’ll be there.”

Kuroo snorts. “You made it sound like we were doing something, sir.”

You shoot him a glare. “Shut up. I didn’t know what to say.”

He shakes his head. Does he find this amusing? Does your best friend of seven years find your suffering amusing?

“You know what coiffure means, and the other day you asked me not to ‘extol’ you or whatever. You’re practically a bottomless pit of words, and you couldn’t even say a simple, ‘No, we’re just studying. How about you?’”

He trembles in his seat, adding more salt to the wound. “Dude, why did you have to sound so guilty? What, are you still not over that flat ass?”

You slap his shoulder, the strongest you’ve ever hit him. You don’t care if the librarian opens fire from her eyes and quashes you until you peter out to off-white coarse sand.

“'Extol' wouldn’t sound so difficult if you actually listened to class,” you grumble under your breath. “I don’t even understand what’s so funny about what I said.”

You look at your laptop again, but you’re exhausted for the rest of the day. Never mind that the deadline is in two days; you just want to stay away from everyone. You just want to sit on the cold porcelain tiles on your bathroom floor because the noise of blood squeaking against your mirror sounds so much better than your best friend's convivial laugh.

You hold down the power button. The screen zaps out.

“Are you mad?” Kuroo treads lightly.

“No, Kuroo. I’m just—”

You heave out a sigh from your bottomless pit of words before carrying on. “I’m just tired, okay?”

Kuroo nods.

The laptop clicks as you pull down the cover. You reach for your laptop case and slot the laptop inside when Kuroo asks, “So you’re still talking with Mr. Flat Ass?”

“Not that often,” you respond, swallowing another kind of pit germinating in your throat. You coil the wires as you have done since your first semester and drop it in your bag.

“But you still talk.”

“I guess.”

“Do you want to keep talking to him?”

“If that’s what he wants,” you admit. You stop fixing your things and focus on Kuroo.

He stares at his reading, tapping his pen on the table. He underlines something on the paper and says, “But what about you? What do you want to do?”

His eyebrows meet in the middle as he taps his pen restlessly. His shoulders sag, and he bunches a patch of his hair.

“I want to help you finish your paper,” you try, gripping the lock of your adroitly crafted coffin.

Kuroo tears his eyes away from his reading and blinks at you. He bites his lips as he considers your offer until he scoffs and accepts.

“Sure, I would really love that,” he says, smiling.

So you move closer, successfully avoiding things you probably should tell Kuroo about.

But you have won this round, and you would rather keep the coffin locked in its place.

The door slams open and crashes on the wall. You hurriedly remove your shoes as you walk from the doorway and to your bathroom, your bag thudding and your house keys clattering on the floor.

You automatically switch on the lights and hysterically unclasp the button on your jeans. When your thighs touch the plastic toilet seat, you groan and release.

Emptying your bladder after a three-hour-long exam is the most gratifying reward you can receive. Not even full marks can top that.

Exams usually don't unfold like this. Typically, you would avoid drinking anything so you would not squirm while decimating your brain for an answer.

But Kuroo insisted that “Health comes first!” and forcibly made you drink half a liter of water, “Because I didn’t see you drink anything for the past four hours that we’ve been studying!”

Your ear picks up the familiar shrill noise again. You turn to your side and read a brand new message on the mirror:

YOU REALLY SHOULDN’T HOLD IN YOUR URINE. YOU MIGHT DIE EARLY BECAUSE OF THAT.

“It’s not my fault,” you complain to Suga. “Kuroo made me drink so much water right before an exam. That’s why!”

You get up from your seat to flush the toilet and clean yourself up. As you fix your pants, a realization clicks in your head that should have come to you the first time Suga started scribbling on your mirror.

“Suga, have you— have you seen me— you know, naked?”

You look away. Suga writes again. You look back, and Suga says:

YES. SINCE THE BEGINNING.

You don’t know what to feel first. Shame for baring your skin to an entity you haven't seen yourself, or guilt for baring your skin at all.

You turn off the bathroom lights, but Suga writes something, and as a reflex, you read:

IF IT HELPS, I AM NOT CAPTIVATED BY HUMAN BODIES. I HAVE ONLY BEEN ENTICED BY HUMAN INTENTIONS.

“Sure, demon,” you puff, and just as you are about to leave the bathroom again, Suga writes once more.

BY THE WAY, YOUR MOTHER’S BIRTHDAY IS COMING UP NEXT MONTH. DON’T FORGET TO BUY HER A GIFT. I RECOMMEND A BOUQUET OF HYDRANGEAS, AND YOU MIGHT WANT TO PURCHASE THE PURPLE ONES. IT WOULD BE AMAZING IF YOU COULD GET DAFFODILS TOO.

“Later, if I remember. Thanks for the heads up.”

You shake your head, wondering how he always manages to write half a novel in just three seconds.

After escaping the bloody messages, you flump on your bed and shut your eyes. Your phone vibrates. You want to check it, but you have been staring at a computer screen for eleven hours straight.

You made a pact to yourself that if you manage to live until you’re eighty and wrinkly, you would rather have good eyesight as you rock in your wooden recliner. But your phone persists, so you frisk your bed to where you feel the vibrations coming from.

Your vision slowly adjusts as you check the notifications on your lock screen.

“Of what?”

Tooru: Here you go

Tooru sent you five photos.

You shoot up from your position, double-tapping on those five photos. When it opens, a woman you’ve never met before smiles at you.

There are five pictures of her, each displaying five different smiles. She wears a white, long-sleeved fitted shirt. Her silky black hair dangles around her shoulders, and her elbows rest on a dark brown wooden table.

And you recognize the table. It’s one of the tables in the restaurant you frequent with Tooru, the one that serves freshly-cooked udon and ramen for under five dollars.

But who is she?

You: Is she your new girlfriend?

You send without much thought, letting the pulse in your fingers ask the question you're scared of knowing the answer to.

As much as you want to throw away your phone across the room, curiosity points a knife at your throat.

Tooru unsent a message.

Tooru unsent a message.

Tooru is typing…

Why did he send these pictures to you? Why does he even have these in the first place?

So you wait with trembling hands, careful to stay still in case you idiotically push yourself to the metaphorical knife.

You: Just say you’re seeing someone new and leave me alone

Tooru: That wasn’t meant for you

Tooru: She’s a classmate

Tooru: We went out for lunch

Tooru: And she asked me to take pictures of her

Tooru: Honey?

“‘Honey’ my ass,” you grumble as you throw your phone on your bed. “We’re not even dating anymore.”

So why do you even bother? Why do you still talk to Tooru?

You collapse on the bed along with your phone, waiting for the tears to arrive. But it doesn’t come. Nothing scalds against your lower eyelids. Has coding dried your eyes enough that you can’t even cry like you’re supposed to?

You bury your face on your pillows, stamping your asymmetrical face on white cotton sheets.

“What happened?”

“Tooru has a new girlfriend.”

“Mm-hmm. And how do you feel about that?”

“Really bad, but I’m not blubbering, even though Kuroo said that’s how heartbreak must work, and—”

You crane your neck at a neck-breaking speed.

You slightly move your head, just a few centimeters to the left, then to the right, checking if you can still rotate your neck. And you wish the jolt resulted in a stiff neck because then you have an excuse not to turn your head around.

And yet curiosity returns, this time with a knife crafted out of a soft, ethereal voice. It coaxes the bones in your neck to twist and look over here. It’s heavenly, unlike the demonic layered voice from that day.

But fear is more tenacious, and it casts a spell all over your body. You freeze in your spot, but the knife continues to speak.

“Is your neck alright? I heard a loud crack.”

Goosebumps run across your neck and arms. The knife sounds closer, and you should scream and cry. But just like heartbreak, fear stops all your bodily functions.

Until the knife touches your back.

“Get away from me!”

You scream, lashing your arms in the air, and finally, finally turn around and see the voice behind the knife.

Oh. It’s an angel.

He has short, light gray hair, wearing an all-black businessman facade—a perfect contrast to his pale and seemingly smooth skin. He has round hazel brown eyes with a beauty mark aptly placed under his left eye. His full lips are pink, and you fight the itch to bounce your fingers off of it.

“Wh-wh-who are you?” You sputter, but the fear that was brewing in you has calmed down. This man looks divine—celestial—and it would be blasphemous to get scared of him.

The pale man tilts his head to one side.

“Have I not introduced myself yet?”

You shake your head as if you're being exorcised. The pale man chuckles.

“That’s right. You haven’t seen me yet. I got enthused and it slipped my mind. I’m sorry.”

The pale man sits on the edge of your bed. You bring your knees closer to your chest as the bed dips with his weight. He smiles at you, and god, if that isn’t the most transcendent experience in your entire life.

“I’m Suga. It’s great that you can see me now.”

You think fear is the only emotion that can freeze you in your spot, but you’re wrong. The combination of confusion and shock can, and it’s even worse.

“Sorry, I must have scared you. Are you alright?” He waves his hand in front of you, and you follow it as it moves from side to side. “Your eyes are responsive, so I think you’re still alive.”

Suga leans closer until you can feel his breath on your face, and it breaks off the freezing spell on your body.

You collapse on Suga and blackout, remaining unconscious until a few hours later.

Your blanket wraps you up to your cheeks, and you hear humming from your study area. You peel your eyes open and see Suga sitting on the desk chair beside your bed, throwing a black object in the air and catching it with his hands.

“Is that my phone?”

Your heart burns and your head throbs, but you prop yourself up anyway.

“Good morning!” Suga booms at you, catching your phone one last time. “Did you have a good sleep?”

You take a quick glance at your window and see the moon still hanging high against the dark, starless sky.

“It’s not yet morning,” you choose to retort before choosing to ask every impending question that needs an immediate answer.

“Oh,” he chuckles. “It’s three in the morning, so I thought I ought to greet you a good morning.”

You scrutinize Suga and attempt to comprehend this demon (in double quotes) sitting before you. You look for horns, a tail, scaly skin, long fingernails, and a forked tongue lolling down his chin.

But Suga is not unkempt; he’s proper and looks like someone who will not dare cozen you.

“Are you hungry? You slept through your usual dinner time, so I mixed some protein paste and fish heads in case you wake up hungry.”

You swallow the bile crawling up your throat. You resist the urge to ask where he acquired those fish heads.

“Oh, and I brewed some herbal tea, too!”

Thank god.

You shuffle in your bed and move over to the kitchen counter where a cup of tea waits for you. There is a covered saucepan beside it that you wouldn’t dare open, even if curiosity stabs you.

You lean your back against the counter, and after a few sips of your tea, you finally find the mettle to ask, “Why do you look human?”

“Do I? That’s a relief,” he says, leaning back against the chair. “It was difficult to manifest this form. I’m glad I look human enough for you.”

“And the demonic voice the other day, was that you?”

“Yes. It wasn’t enough that I look human. I wanted to sound like one too so you don’t get scared. That day was a trial to see if I got it right. I’m sorry if I startled you.”

“Why go through all that trouble?”

“Staying invisible takes a toll on me. Manifesting into a different form does too, but not as much.”

You put down the cup on the counter and move back to your bed. You sit across from Suga and ask one more question, the first query that should have come out of your mouth since you got used to the bloody messages.

“So why write if you can show yourself instead?”

His gaze lingers on you until your phone buzzes.

“Oh, this has been vibrating for a while. It kept buzzing even while you were asleep.”

Hastily grabbing your phone from Suga’s hand, you unlock your phone and see thirty unread messages and eight missed calls from Tooru.

You lie on your side, debating whether to open Tooru’s messages. But you pull up Kuroo’s number instead and hover your thumb over the call button.

“Is that related to this human named Tooru?”

You nod.

“Do you need to attend to it right now?”

“Maybe.”

“Is it more important than your education?”

You glance at Suga and crease your brows. “What are you trying to say?”

“You have an exam at eleven, and if my calculations are correct, you have to wake up in five hours.”

You sigh, pinching your nose bridge and shutting your eyes tightly.

“I think you should continue resting,” Suga advises. “You’re always at your worst when you’re tired.”

And despite your aching head and chest and a demon by your bed, you let yourself go back to sleep.

network: @anime-central

—re-read: prologue