yaku-soba

[yaku-soba]

iii. back

༶•┈┈ bright young things: i. ii. iii.

you’ve heard about how broad atsumu’s back is. it is, after all, one of the most discussed topics in the girls’ bathroom. you’ve heard about the squareness of his shoulders, the way they would be lovely to hang off of.

you listen in silence — it’s always atsumu this or osamu that within the tiled confines of the girls’ bathroom, and you’ve hung around the twins long enough to be used to comments like these. it doesn’t bother the twins, and anyway—

—they don’t know how small atsumu used to be. the girls who love to talk circles about the expanse of atsumu’s back and the flex of his shoulders in a game have never known atsumu when he was two years-old and already a loud-mouthed nuisance, have never had childish hands shove at them from behind to get to the onigiri first, have never witnessed that period in middle school when he’d fumed over osamu’s single centimetre in height over him.

the girls who wax poetry and blow dreamy smoke rings over high school, volleyball player atsumu were not there to witness his first set. they did not pretend not to see the tears at the first game he lost in middle school, they weren’t there when he’d collapsed from exhaustion and you and atsumu had had to lug him home like a sack of potatoes. they’ve never seen—

—atsumu’s shoulders, squared against your mother. the resolute set of his ten year-old back, the white-knuckled grip he’d had on your hand when he’d willingly put himself between you and everything you’ve ever been afraid of. when you look at atsumu on the court the vision of his small back when you were only ten surfaces in your mind like a lucid dream. at ten, he hadn’t reached your mother’s shoulders.

at ten, you remember thinking that he stood taller than you ever would. you remember thinking that it might be okay now, now that ‘tsumu is here.

#self reblog

[yaku-soba]

shoulders or back (i haven’t gotten around to reading the first part I PROMISE I WILL LMAO so i hope i’m not repeating body parts/these work)

hi!! don’t worry abt it HAHA i forgot to post this prompt too 😭😭 but it’s out now!! loved writing this :D

#re: bright young things #kyouka answers

[yaku-soba]

iii. back

༶•┈┈ bright young things: i. ii. iii.

you’ve heard about how broad atsumu’s back is. it is, after all, one of the most discussed topics in the girls’ bathroom. you’ve heard about the squareness of his shoulders, the way they would be lovely to hang off of.

you listen in silence — it’s always atsumu this or osamu that within the tiled confines of the girls’ bathroom, and you’ve hung around the twins long enough to be used to comments like these. it doesn’t bother the twins, and anyway—

—they don’t know how small atsumu used to be. the girls who love to talk circles about the expanse of atsumu’s back and the flex of his shoulders in a game have never known atsumu when he was two years-old and already a loud-mouthed nuisance, have never had childish hands shove at them from behind to get to the onigiri first, have never witnessed that period in middle school when he’d fumed over osamu’s single centimetre in height over him.

the girls who wax poetry and blow dreamy smoke rings over high school, volleyball player atsumu were not there to witness his first set. they did not pretend not to see the tears at the first game he lost in middle school, they weren’t there when he’d collapsed from exhaustion and you and atsumu had had to lug him home like a sack of potatoes. they’ve never seen—

—atsumu’s shoulders, squared against your mother. the resolute set of his ten year-old back, the white-knuckled grip he’d had on your hand when he’d willingly put himself between you and everything you’ve ever been afraid of. when you look at atsumu on the court the vision of his small back when you were only ten surfaces in your mind like a lucid dream. at ten, he hadn’t reached your mother’s shoulders.

at ten, you remember thinking that he stood taller than you ever would. you remember thinking that it might be okay now, now that ‘tsumu is here.

#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!! #miya atsumu x reader #miya atsumu #kyouka writes

[yaku-soba]

hi guys send me a body part for the next installment of bright young things

#im on public transport and terribly bored

[yaku-soba]

hello I really love ur work!!! & I really want to reblog them but I was wondering if u'd be okay getting them reblogged on an nsfw one??? (my fandom one isn't MAINLY smut but u know akdhajdh)

ahh sure idm!! this is actl the first time i've been asked this but im over 18 now so go ahead HAHA and thanku for liking my writing!! i've been having a crisis over it recently :"')

#i feel so old #where did my girlhood go #😭😭 #kyouka answers

[yaku-soba]

i just think that osamu would learn the names of all your makeup products but atsumu would remember one (1) n assume everything you use is called that

"yes baby, go in with the victoria beckham beauty lip definer" "'tsumu this is an eyebrow pencil"

#op u are so right for this

[yaku-soba]

ii. elbow

༶•┈┈ miya atsumu x gn!reader | angst, fluff

༶•┈┈ general m.list

༶•┈┈ bright young things: i. ii.

a/n: inspired by an anon who suggested 'elbow'!

atsumu runs hot.

there's something cliche to be said about the way every graze of his skin on yours sets you alight — you're gasoline, noxious, and he's made of matches.

the miya house is always warm, like a fireplace full of kindling, and it's nothing like the frigid air that settles, thick and suffocating, into every corner of your house.

you tell osamu this offhandedly, sometime in middle school. you remember the way the moonlight caught in his eyes, you remember thinking that he makes it feel warm, literary tropes be damned. osamu looks at you with the steady warmth of a heater in winter, and tells you that home is where your heart is.

(you don't tell him that your heart is where it hurts the most.)

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------«« 

the thing about being warm is that it lends itself to forgetting.

so when your mother appears before you, a ghastly apparition in the middle of the street, dull grey and freezing under the summer sky, your mind goes white with the remembered presence of memory. her hair is neat the way it never is within the house, and her clothes are as pristine as the first blanket of snow every winter.

the thing about the cold is that it just needs a crack under a door, a moment of weakness, to seep through skin and wrap itself around bone.

your mother says something. you don't hear it, you don't hear anything at all.

vaguely, you register that osamu is casting you a worried glance, but you're too far away to respond. there is a blizzard brewing in your mother's mouth, and you are frostbitten.

then atsumu puts a hand on your elbow, and you bloom into warmth. he's smiling easily, with that same flashpoint grin as he says, "y/n's just bringing us to get assessment books, ain't that such an honours student thing to do?"

he stares the blizzard in the eye and lights a bonfire, and the blizzard leaves. sensation returns to your body from the light grip atsumu has on your elbow, slowly, then all at once. the sky is blue, the streets are bright, and atsumu's eyes are matchstick-brown.

"let's get something warm," you say. atsumu's grip on your elbow leaves, but the lingering wildfire-tingling stays.

#self reblog

[yaku-soba]

ii. elbow

༶•┈┈ miya atsumu x gn!reader | angst, fluff

༶•┈┈ general m.list

༶•┈┈ bright young things: i. ii.

a/n: inspired by an anon who suggested 'elbow'!

atsumu runs hot.

there's something cliche to be said about the way every graze of his skin on yours sets you alight — you're gasoline, noxious, and he's made of matches.

the miya house is always warm, like a fireplace full of kindling, and it's nothing like the frigid air that settles, thick and suffocating, into every corner of your house.

you tell osamu this offhandedly, sometime in middle school. you remember the way the moonlight caught in his eyes, you remember thinking that he makes it feel warm, literary tropes be damned. osamu looks at you with the steady warmth of a heater in winter, and tells you that home is where your heart is.

(you don't tell him that your heart is where it hurts the most.)

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------«« 

the thing about being warm is that it lends itself to forgetting.

so when your mother appears before you, a ghastly apparition in the middle of the street, dull grey and freezing under the summer sky, your mind goes white with the remembered presence of memory. her hair is neat the way it never is within the house, and her clothes are as pristine as the first blanket of snow every winter.

the thing about the cold is that it just needs a crack under a door, a moment of weakness, to seep through skin and wrap itself around bone.

your mother says something. you don't hear it, you don't hear anything at all.

vaguely, you register that osamu is casting you a worried glance, but you're too far away to respond. there is a blizzard brewing in your mother's mouth, and you are frostbitten.

then atsumu puts a hand on your elbow, and you bloom into warmth. he's smiling easily, with that same flashpoint grin as he says, "y/n's just bringing us to get assessment books, ain't that such an honours student thing to do?"

he stares the blizzard in the eye and lights a bonfire, and the blizzard leaves. sensation returns to your body from the light grip atsumu has on your elbow, slowly, then all at once. the sky is blue, the streets are bright, and atsumu's eyes are matchstick-brown.

"let's get something warm," you say. atsumu's grip on your elbow leaves, but the lingering wildfire-tingling stays.

#haikyuu x reader #miya atsumu x reader #miya atsumu #kyouka writes #haikyuu!!

[yaku-soba]

hi guys send me a body part for the next installment of bright young things

#i am so uninspired 😭😭😭😭 #but ive been staring at my modules lost for hours now and i need a break

[yaku-soba]

i. breastbone

༶•┈┈ miya atsumu x gn!reader | angst, fluff

༶•┈┈ general m.list

tags / warnings: this series is going to be entirely for the sake of the author's catharsis :") ༶•┈┈ part 1 of bright young things

when you were very, very young, and very, very small, atsumu promised you the world.

"why are ya cryin'?" atsumu, eight years-old and entirely grown, scoffs. "yer always cryin'."

"am not!" you try to wipe your tears with your hands, but your palms are strawberry-red and hurting. everything hurts — every beat of your heart sends your blood flooding everywhere and you are so tired of hurting—

"stop that," slightly less-small hands are prying yours away from your face by your wrists. atsumu wipes your tears away with his fingers and nearly stabs his thumb into your right eye. your vision's all watery, but there's a deep furrow in atsumu's brow. like he's upset.

(near-blindness aside, his hands are so gentle.

you didn't know that atsumu could be so gentle.)

"stop cryin'," he says again, and you can't help the annoyance that wells up in your chest, past all the pain.

"then go away!" you glare at him as best as you can. "nobody said you had to be here."

atsumu stops. the hurt comes back, all at once. it starts from the middle of your chest, nearly splitting you right down the middle, and you want atsumu to go away so you can tear the hurt right out. you know it won't be pretty.

"don't like it when ya cry," he says, scuffing his foot in the dirt. "'s noisy."

tears rise again, unbidden, and you hate it. everything hurts, and you hate everything—

"what can i give ya so ya won't cry anymore?"

you hate everything. everything is unfair and you hurt everywhere and you want to leave and go somewhere and you want to go everywhere because anywhere would do—

"the world." you hate everything, and so you want everything, so that you can have anything. "i want the world," you tell your best friend, and the resolution settles over you, almost triumphant, like a bucket of water over a roaring house fire.

you can't give it, you think viciously, you can't.

"what's the world to ya?" atsumu asks instead, after a brief deliberation. he kneels, places his hands on the chains of the swing on either side of you.

like this, he's looking up at you.

you've never really noticed the way it looks like there's gold flecks in his irises when the lighting's just right. like twin little wishing wells of five-yen coins.

atsumu stares at you, utterly serious, and all the hatred in you settles into a dull ache. "i haven't decided," you admit, "but i want it."

atsumu mulls over this. you watch the head tilt, the gold coin-flash.

(you've never been to a gambling hall before, but your father loves to. and you're not a gambler, but if you were ever asked to, you'd bet on atsumu.

something about atsumu makes you want to bet on him, even if you know he will lose.

maybe it's because he's yet to lose at anything that truly matters.)

"okay," he decides. "i'll give it to ya."

#self reblog #would love to hear ur thoughts!

[yaku-soba]

i am very upset and instead of talking abt it i am gg to write miya atsumu fanfic. welcome on the ride though

#it's just gg to be a series of drabbles #in no particular order #idk this seems best seeing as im still strugglikg to get back into the hang of writing #kyouka rambles

[yaku-soba]

i. breastbone

༶•┈┈ miya atsumu x gn!reader | angst, fluff

༶•┈┈ general m.list

tags / warnings: this series is going to be entirely for the sake of the author's catharsis :")

༶•┈┈ part 1 of bright young things

when you were very, very young, and very, very small, atsumu promised you the world.

"why are ya cryin'?" atsumu, eight years-old and entirely grown, scoffs. "yer always cryin'."

"am not!" you try to wipe your tears with your hands, but your palms are strawberry-red and hurting. everything hurts — every beat of your heart sends your blood flooding everywhere and you are so tired of hurting—

"stop that," slightly less-small hands are prying yours away from your face by your wrists. atsumu wipes your tears away with his fingers and nearly stabs his thumb into your right eye. your vision's all watery, but there's a deep furrow in atsumu's brow. like he's upset.

(near-blindness aside, his hands are so gentle.

you didn't know that atsumu could be so gentle.)

"stop cryin'," he says again, and you can't help the annoyance that wells up in your chest, past all the pain.

"then go away!" you glare at him as best as you can. "nobody said you had to be here."

atsumu stops. the hurt comes back, all at once. it starts from the middle of your chest, nearly splitting you right down the middle, and you want atsumu to go away so you can tear the hurt right out. you know it won't be pretty.

"don't like it when ya cry," he says, scuffing his foot in the dirt. "'s noisy."

tears rise again, unbidden, and you hate it. everything hurts, and you hate everything—

"what can i give ya so ya won't cry anymore?"

you hate everything. everything is unfair and you hurt everywhere and you want to leave and go somewhere and you want to go everywhere because anywhere would do—

"the world." you hate everything, and so you want everything, so that you can have anything. "i want the world," you tell your best friend, and the resolution settles over you, almost triumphant, like a bucket of water over a roaring house fire.

you can't give it, you think viciously, you can't.

"what's the world to ya?" atsumu asks instead, after a brief deliberation. he kneels, places his hands on the chains of the swing on either side of you.

like this, he's looking up at you.

you've never really noticed the way it looks like there's gold flecks in his irises when the lighting's just right. like twin little wishing wells of five-yen coins.

atsumu stares at you, utterly serious, and all the hatred in you settles into a dull ache. "i haven't decided," you admit, "but i want it."

atsumu mulls over this. you watch the head tilt, the gold coin-flash.

(you've never been to a gambling hall before, but your father loves to. and you're not a gambler, but if you were ever asked to, you'd bet on atsumu.

something about atsumu makes you want to bet on him, even if you know he will lose.

maybe it's because he's yet to lose at anything that truly matters.)

"okay," he decides. "i'll give it to ya."

#haikyuu x reader #miya atsumu x reader #miya atsumu #haikyuu!! #kyouka writes

[yaku-soba]

ZHEN OMG?!@&#$&@$%@ HELLOOOOOOO HOW ARE YOU DOING!!!!! I MISSED U SM T_____T

HI I'VE BEEN DOING OK!! i was working as a lit teacher for a few months and that was so tiring 💀💀 i'm not ready to start uni tho :"""" I MISSED YALL TOO and i miss writing regularly i feel like my writing muscles have atrophied

#kyouka answers

[yaku-soba]

different anon but it is nice to see u back!!! i hope u take your time to get back into writing and eventually find your groove!! im not a content creator by any means but when my writing is janky…it is FR JANKY….but nvm hoping everything falls into place for u 🤞🏼🤞🏼what are you going to major in in uni!!!

ahh it's nice to be back!! i get what u mean, my writing is so... disjointed rn 😟😟 and as usual, i'm going through another crisis over my writing style TT i technically don't need to declare my major yet, but i'm considering eng lit with a minor in film studies :")

#i want to take japanese studies bc im just attached to my 6 years of japanese lang study but idk 😭😭 #kyouka answers

[yaku-soba]

aa zhen!! so excited to see you on the dash! hope youve been doing well <3

ahh yes i've been well!! i've been working/enjoying life the past few months since my a-levels ended, and i'm starting uni in aug!! i've been trying to get back into writing prose again but smth just isn't clicking 😭😭 i hope you've been well too!! it feels like sm has changed since i was last active on tumblr :"")

#ive been sitting on several new short fics but. i'm havjng a crisis over my writing style #what is new 😭😭 #i rlly miss coming on here and writing and hearing frm yall tho :) #kyouka answers

[yaku-soba]

Just read your Kanoka fic and MY GOD is it the most beautiful piece of literature I have ever read. So eloquent and captivating my head is honestly spinning rn I LOVE YOUR WRITING <333

i popped into tumblr for the first time in a long while and this ask was such a nice thing to see :"") i haven't been very active here for a long time, but this reminded me that i had another wlw fic i forgot to post so here it is if you wanna read it!! the writing style is so old help 😭😭

#i feel like the hq x reader fandom has died down but i still wanna write on here just bc i want to get back into writing again but #idk it's just so hard 😭😭 #kyouka answers #re: we're planets in orbit

[yaku-soba]

speak it free

༶•┈┈ shimizu kiyoko x f!reader | slow-burn, coming out, light angst, eventual fluff

༶•┈┈ general m.list

tags / warnings: kinda internalized homophobia, coming out, reader has supportive friends i promise, reader is female and into girls bc the author says so, this is really just a love letter to shimizu kiyoko, this bad boy can fit so much pining in it, i promise there’s a fluffy ending, ocs in the form of minor characters

word count: 3.76k

a/n: an old fic frm my prev blog i forgot to repost, but an anon's ask about my other wlw fic reminded me of this so this is for u <3 

summary: The third-years call her Shimizu, Nishinoya and Tanaka call her Kiyoko-san, and the first-years call her senpai. You dream of the day you can call her Kiyoko, even as you know that all it is is a hopeless pipe dream. 

(Or: you’ve fallen in love with Shimizu Kiyoko, and it’s both the easiest and hardest thing you’ve ever done.)

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------«« 

“Shimizu,” Sugawara pokes his head through the doorway, smiling. It fades into a disappointed pout when he realizes that you’re the only one in the classroom.

“I think she went to see the teachers about something,” you offer, looking up from your novel, “I can pass a message on to her, if you’d like.” You keep your voice as light as you can, even as something cold and ugly twists in the pit of your stomach, 

“Ah, thank you L/n-san!” Sugawara beams, white and blinding, the corners of his eyes creasing prettily — and you feel nothing. Of course not, you think bitterly, it could never be this easy. But just as Sugawara makes to say something, you catch sight of Shimizu behind him.

“Sugawara-san,” she says, soft and serene, “were you looking for me?” With her hair tangled in some unseen wind and brushing the top of her sweater, silhouetted in the sunlight streaming through the windows of the hall, she’s a vision.

Your stomach drops the way that it hadn’t when Sugawara had smiled at you just moments before, doing a few backflips on the way down for good measure. 

“There you are, Shimizu! Daichi asked if—” Sugawara’s voice fades as they move down the hall. 

You return to your novel. 

(You register nothing. You might as well have never learnt to read Japanese in the first place, with how meaningless the strokes of ink are to you now.

The black words mock you, too stark on their pages.)

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------««

You think you could have fallen for Sugawara. It would have been easy — when he smiles it’s a tangible warmth. It should have been easy, with his kindness, his mischievous eyes. 

You could have had a crush on Daichi — the captain with the large hands, steady as the immovable foot of a mountain; the boy who grins like a warning. You know he’ll always be there, in the same instinctive way you know that the earth won’t suddenly fall out from beneath your feet without an explanation. Gravity, and all that. Maybe the crush could have become something more, something fuller. 

You could have learnt to love Asahi, who speaks softly like he doesn’t want to break the quiet, who shifts carefully, whose eyes burn when he’s on the court. His gentle smile must be a wonderful thing to wake up to. You wish you were able to long to know what that would feel like. 

Perhaps even the boy who sits behind you in class, with the sheepish grin. Or the boy two classes down, who had bought you a candied apple back in first-year, when you’d forgotten to bring your money with you to the summer festival. 

But it could never be that easy, could it?

Because it’s not Sugawara, Daichi, or Asahi that you'd fallen in love with; it’s not even the boy who sits behind you or the boy from two classes down, it’s not the boy who bumped into you in the halls just last week, and not the boy you always see at the crossroads on the way to school. 

It’s Shimizu Kiyoko, the pretty manager of Karasuno’s guys’ volleyball team. It’s Shimizu, with the rectangled glasses like windows leading to everything you’ve ever wanted, with steel-blue eyes like the sparkle of a stream. She’s the girl in your class who is quiet but not silent, the girl with a mole just below the left corner of her mouth that you want to press your lips to. 

You’ve fallen in love with Shimizu Kiyoko, and it’s both the easiest and hardest thing you’ve ever done.

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------«« 

You were from her middle school. 

You remember halfheartedly watching the prefectural qualifiers for track, dragged to attend by a friend that had abandoned you the moment that the boys’ qualifiers had ended. 

You hadn’t even been paying attention. Not until the whistle blew, the wind picked up, and suddenly you were — because the prettiest girl you’ve ever seen is sprinting towards you, then past you, and when she leaps over the hurdles it’s like she’s flying.

She’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.

(When the captain of the baseball team stutters as he asks you if you’d like to be his girlfriend, you think of the curves and lines of legs stretched in flight. You think of the there-one-moment, gone-the-next flash of eyes several shades darker than a spring sky, and you say, I’m sorry, but no.) 

About a year later, when you wander into Karasuno’s halls and catch a glimpse of dark hair framing twilight eyes and a mole on the left corner of a mouth, you’re equal parts despairing and delighted. 

You tell yourself it’s because you love the way she runs, the way she jumps over the hurdles like they were made solely for her to overcome. 

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------««

Kiyoko remembers a face in the crowd, shocked and flushed. A bottle half-raised to parted lips under the sun.

She doesn’t know why it’s such a clear memory. She shouldn’t have had the time or the focus to pay much attention to the bystanders beyond the cheers.

She doesn’t know why she remembers you, but she does, and when Kiyoko walks into her new classroom in third-year to see you staring out the window, her heart sings and suddenly it’s like she’s back on that red track with the wind under her feet again.

She wonders if you remember, too.

She decides it’s too awkward a question to ask. She doesn’t even run track anymore, after all.

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------«« 

It’s like a guillotine. Your (unforgivable) love for her hangs over your head like a death sentence, and you’re so tired of walking around too afraid to even breathe for fear of your head sighing right off, that you wish it would just drop already. 

At least it’d be a swift death, not — not whatever this is. 

“L/n-san,” Shimizu says, and you startle, nearly dropping the paintbrush in your hand, “could you pass me the paint?” 

“Yeah, sure,” you reply, voice strained, and reach over the banner to hand it to her. Her fingers brush against yours, and you barely manage to keep yourself from jolting. Still, you pull away from her in a swift motion, as if burnt. 

(You are. Your body is alight where her fingers have grazed, your skin is tingling and electrical, and your blood is pounding so loudly in your ears that you’re worried you might faint and mess up the newly-repainted Karasuno banner.)

“Thank you for helping me with this, L/n-san,” Shimizu continues serenely, as if she hasn’t just nearly sent you into cardiac arrest. You force yourself to keep painting, slathering a new coat of black paint over a faded portion of the banner. 

Her hair has been pulled into a ponytail to keep it out of her face, but there’s a single strand that has snuck out of the hair tie. 

You try not to stare too blatantly as Shimizu tucks it behind her ear. The shell of her ear is round and graceful, and wow, you’re really hopeless, if you’re this gone for just her ear. 

Not just her ear, a voice in your head pipes up unhelpfully, look at her fingers — long like a pianist’s, but they must be rough from her years doing track; don’t you want to know how they feel in your hands?

(Yes, yes you do. You want to know what they look like laced in yours. You want to know if they’ll feel soft resting on your hip when you wake up in the morning, or if the scratch of her callouses will be a reassuring friction. You want and you want and you want—

— And that’s all it’ll ever be.

The nice things you dream of aren’t yours to keep.)

“It’s not a problem,” you manage to choke out. Then, because you’re selfish and your mouth is traitorous, “You can call me Y/n.”

Shimizu smiles. “Still,” she starts, and your heart is in your throat, if you swallow it wrong you’re going to die, you just know it, “thank you, Y/n-chan. You can call me Kiyoko, too.”

Your breath stops halfway into your lungs. Your heart shudders, rises. 

Everything fades till it’s just you and Kiyoko, and the brush in your hand, in an empty clubroom of a mostly-empty school. The Karasuno banner with the kanji for fly stretches between you, and you want, you want so much that it hollows you from the inside out. 

Y/n-chan, you think dazedly, not san, but chan. 

“You’re welcome, Kiyoko-chan,” you hear yourself say, and it’s so close to what you want that your heart seizes in your chest, but still—

— Still nothing. This is the best you’ll ever get, this is already more than you could have hoped for, and it should be enough. 

(You wonder if you’ll ever get to call her Kiyoko. No honourifics.)

The strand of hair falls into her face again, brushing her cheekbones and cradling her jaw the way your hands, tingling with longing, yearn to.

It’s awfully distracting.

(You wonder how your first name will sound from her lips. No honourifics.)

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------«« 

You see them the moment you step out of your classroom.

Their heads are bowed over a notebook that’s worn and creased. As you watch, Daichi's face lights up as he points out something excitedly. Shimizu cracks a smile at whatever he says.

(You shouldn’t be surprised. You’d always known something like this would happen. It had only ever been a matter of time.

It doesn’t stop it from hurting so damn much.) 

“Y/n-chan!” One of your friends, Akiko, skips backwards to loop her arm through yours. Her gaze snaps to the pair you’d been looking at, and you see the exact, terrible moment that realization dawns on her. 

“I didn’t know that you liked someone,” she whispers, gleeful and conspiratorial, and your heart stops in your chest, bobbing in the rising panic, because she can't know, no one must know — what would your parents say if the word got out? 

Then Akiko says, “Sawamura-kun, huh? I always did think you’d be the type to go for the sporty ones.”

She doesn’t know.

Akiko doesn't know that it’s Shimizu you'd been looking at, she doesn’t know that it’s Sawamura, not Shimizu, that you’d been jealous of.

It should put you at ease — after all, no one must know. 

Right?

(It hurts. You’re so tired of pretending.)

You force a smile. It’s strained, but you hope that Akiko will take it as you being sheepish. 

“I guess I do like the sporty ones,” you say, laughing helplessly. You swallow the, did you know that Shimizu ran track in middle school? The words, did you know that her legs are wings, did you know that her eyes burn under the sunlight, that her hair cuts the wind like a knife through fruit as she runs? snag in your throat. 

(You do. You know the way she looks with her hair plastered to her neck with sweat. You know the exact arch of her back and the strong line of her jaw as she leaps over the hurdles.) 

Akiko laughs, so loud it fills the hallway. 

(You miss the way Shimizu’s eyes snap to your back as you retreat down the hallway with Akiko’s arm around your shoulder. You miss the way Sawamura nudges her lightly, grinning, when he realizes who she’s looking at.

You miss Shimizu’s blush at your name.)

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------«« 

“It’s Shimizu-san, isn’t it?”

Your pen freezes, midway through the kanji for fly. 

Chie waits patiently as you attempt to glue the pieces of your mind into some semblance of functionality. 

“What do you mean?” You ask finally, pen moving again. Stupid literature homework. 

“The one you like,” your best friend clarifies, and your mind screeches to a halt with terror, “it's Shimizu-san, isn’t it?”

You jerk, the action drawing a short, jagged line down the page. Breathe, you remind yourself, fingers white-knuckled around the pen still in your grip, at least she isn’t screaming yet.

“Oh, Kiyoko-chan?” You try to buy some time as your mind somersaults for some believable reply. Unfortunately, it comes out strangled, rather than the casual tone you’d been aiming for. “Of course not, Chie-chan.”

You laugh. It sounds broken to you, sharp-edged and mocking. “Don’t be ridiculous,” you say, and your voice breaks on ridiculous as you reach within your chest to dig a serrated knife into your heart, “we’re both girls.”

Chie just smiles, and it's so accepting that you have to look away.

You don’t get to have nice things, you remind yourself. It won’t hurt as much if you don’t get your hopes up in the first place. 

“Love is love,” your best friend says softly, “and we don’t exactly get to choose.”

She covers your hand, the one holding the pen in a death grip, with her own. It’s warm.

“We’re all humans, and we all love other humans — isn’t that enough?”

You look up at her. It can’t be this easy, you think desperately, even as your heart aches and aches and aches for something you've wanted for so long, just within grasp. I’m not allowed to have nice things. 

Except Chie is looking at you the same way that she’s looked at you for years, the same way that she had back in middle school as she’d dragged you to the prefectural qualifiers for track just so she wouldn’t be alone when she gave her homemade bento to a boy.

You set your pen down.

“I like Kiyoko-chan,” the words slip out of you like a bird finally out of the cage, a confession, “I think I’ve liked her since that track competition in middle school.” The words are freeing as they leave your lips in a way that you have never let them before. 

Chie’s eyes crinkle at the corners when she smiles. “I know,” she says simply, “you look at her the way he used to look at me.” 

You’ve never felt as warm as you do now, in an empty classroom with your literature homework half-finished and your best friend’s hand over yours.

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------«« 

It’s spring, and the cherry blossoms are in full bloom.

“So,” you start awkwardly, hoping you’re not flushing as hard as you feel you are, “did they like the banner?”

Shimizu smiles. Your heart stops. You try to busy your hands by sweeping up a nonexistent clump of dust. 

“They did,” she says musingly after a moment, “some of them cried a little.”

You would too, even if all Shimizu had done was inform you that you’d failed midterms and would be spending the mid-year school break at remedial classes. 

“Was it your juniors? You know, the two who are always jumping around you?” Was it Sawamura, you want to ask, was it Sugawara, was it Asahi?

“Oh, Nishinoya-kun and Tanaka-kun.” There’s a fondness to her words, and you try to keep your disappointment off your face. “I think so.”

“Ah,” you say intelligently. Guess the competition’s not just the third-years, huh. 

“Y/n-chan,” Shimizu says, and it takes you every effort to keep breathing, “I know I've said it before, but thank you for helping me with the banner. It made them really happy.”

You flush all the way to your toes. Your neck feels so hot you think you might be running a fever. “That’s,” you stumble over your tongue, “that's great,” you finish lamely. Then, because you’re masochistic, “I was free anyway, and it was fun.”

“Was it? I’m glad.” You dare a glance out of the corner of her eye. Shimizu is smiling as she cleans the blackboard, and your heart has reached its limit, thank you for your service, old friend. 

There’s silence again, and you shuffle across the classroom, sweeping up crumpled notes and nonexistent dust clumps. 

You’re heading to the bin at the front of the classroom to clear your dustpan when it happens.

Your foot catches on the leg of a table, and your hands, full with the broom and the dustpan, can’t catch onto the edge of the table in time. 

Someone grips your arm, and you stumble into Shimizu’s shoulder.

The world spins to a halt. 

“Y/n-chan,” oh no, Shimizu is very, very close, “are you alright?” She smells like spring, faint and flowery and honeyed, and your head is going faint.

If you lean in just a little more, your noses will touch. 

And if you lean in just a little further than that—

“Y/n-chan,” Shimizu repeats, and you vaguely register that she sounds amused, “is there something on my mouth?” 

No, but there should be. Like, my mouth. You’re overcome with guilt the moment you think those words.

You yank yourself out of her grasp, pulling your gaze downwards to see that the dustpan has been upended in the chaos. 

“Nope, nope, I’m fine, your mouth is fine, everything is fine,” you babble, looking anywhere but at her, “You’re really amazing, Shimizu-chan! Catching me like that.”

When she doesn’t say anything, you pause, glancing over. 

She smiles as your eyes meet hers, and you have the distinct feeling that you must have misstepped somewhere, misread something. 

“Y/n-chan,” Shimizu leans forwards and into your space, “what do you want?“

“What?” Your voice rises and breaks. What’s going on, you want to ask, but the words are stuck on the roof of your mouth, why are you looking at me like that. 

Shimizu’s eyes shine as she leans just a fraction closer. “I’ve seen you looking, you know”, she says softly, and your limbs are ice, your blood lead in your veins. 

“I don’t mind,” she assures you, and your brain short-circuits, because — what does that even mean? You feel a little like screaming. 

 “So what is it that you want, Y/n-chan?” 

What do you want? Your mind swims. Shimizu has seen you looking. Shimizu doesn’t mind. 

Shimizu is asking you what you want. 

This is either a cruel, cruel prank, or a nightmare of your wildest dreams come true. You know that Shimizu isn’t someone who’d pull the former.

There is so much that you want — you want to wake up with your legs tangled with hers, you want to kiss her at the finish line. You want to visit her during volleyball practice to give her a bottle of her own, you want to hold her hand on the road home—

“I want,” your voice comes out small and wrecked, and you lick your suddenly-dry lips as you search for the courage to answer, “I want you to call me Y/n.”

Shimizu smiles encouragingly, and it’s the first rays of dawn seeping through the fabric of night. “Is that the only thing that you want, Y/n?”

Your name is beautiful coming from her mouth. It’s sweet and pure, snow melting in the first days of spring. 

“I want to call you Kiyoko,” you continue, still not quite convinced you haven’t somehow knocked yourself out and this is all just a dream, “I want — I want to hold your hand.”

Shimizu takes your hand in hers. Her palms are soft — the callouses on her fingers rub soothing circles onto your skin. “You can call me Kiyoko,” she says, softly, gently, “and you can hold my hand.” Her eyes are so achingly kind, so heartbreakingly open when they look into yours that your own grow wet with unshed tears. 

I want to kiss you. 

It presses against your lips, begging to be let out — but you can’t. Even assuming that this isn’t a dream, you don’t know why Shimizu hasn’t stormed out of the classroom yet, why she hasn’t flung your hand aside like something filthy she’d stepped into on the street.

You don’t know why she keeps looking at you the way Chie had looked at you that afternoon, the way Chie had looked at that boy from track three years ago. You don’t know, and you’re too terrified to find out, but you want, desperately, to keep it. 

I just want this one nice thing. 

Shimizu’s free hand comes up to cup your cheek. Her eyes look searchingly into your own, which are probably blown-wide with shock, and you’re drowning in the steel-blue, in the twilight spring sky. 

“I want those things too,” the girl with the rectangled glasses and the mole below the left corner of her mouth says, “and I want to kiss you too. Can I?”

(You wonder what your mother would say if she saw you now. 

You wonder if she’ll still let you sit at the same table for dinner, or if she’ll bundle you off to somewhere far away from Miyagi, somewhere where  Karasuno’s pretty manager of the guys’ volleyball team will be nothing more than a pipe dream, a distant memory. 

But you’ve wanted for so long, that same small voice that had pointed out Shimizu’s fingers a lifetime ago says, can’t you just let yourself have this one nice thing?

Your mother isn’t here now.

But Kiyoko is.)

“Okay,” you breathe, and are treated to the sight of Shimizu leaning in, lashes fluttering, that one strand falling from its place behind her ear—

—It presses a line against your palm as you bring your hand up to cradle her jaw just the way that you’d wanted to, that afternoon spent painting the banner in Karasuno’s empty clubroom. 

It’s spring. The cherry blossoms are in full bloom outside of your classroom. 

It’s spring, and you’re kissing Shimizu Kiyoko with her hand in your hair and yours on her cheek. Shimizu — no, Kiyoko against you the same way that kanji strokes tuck neatly into each other, and you’re crying, just a little, because she’s smiling against your lips and this is every nice thing you’ve ever wanted but never had.

»»------------- ------------- ------------- ¤ ------------- ------------- -------------«« 

When you explain, haltingly, to your friends, Chie smiles, knowing and satisfied. Akiko pinwheels between apologising and cooing over the way you’ve hooked your pinkie finger with Kiyoko’s. 

Daichi flashes you a thumbs-up when you wander into the gym during volleyball practice. Asahi offers an awkward wave, Sugawara slaps you so hard on the back you swear you feel the ache for days. Nishinoya and Tanaka adopt you into the Shimizu Kiyoko Fanclub.

It’s spring, and you’re learning that you get to keep nice things too, like everyone else.

»»————- ————- ————- ¤ ————- ————- ————-««

a/n: as always, likes and reblogs are appreciated!

#haikyuu x reader #shimizu kiyoko x reader #kyouka writes #haikyuu!! #shimizu kiyoko