[TRIGGER WARNING]: Depression, Self-Hatred, Self-Harm, Anorexia and Implied Suicide is present within this fanfiction. If any of these mentioned catergories bother you, please click away. You have been warned.

Disclaimer: I do not own Haikyuu!


How do you tell your mother,

The woman who gave you life

That you want to die?


Pay no attention to the white lines the litter his arms, a shade lighter than his tan complexion, strategically placed in different directions. They streak across his toned skin, overlaying one another in a desperate struggle to outdo the deeper, burying old scars and cut out words beneath. Those words are usually large – angry they once were – screaming words that still repeat in his head, slash over slash to embed those words deep, although none can match the depth and the darkness of his own mind.

Pay no attention to the similar lines that peek out of fabric when he soars, those lines wrapping around his stomach, hips and thighs. It is only for an instant but they are there, for the next few years at least, marking him like it is his own sick brand. They are newer and fresher – the new place he invests – those straight cuts lining up and wide as far as he dares.

You don't see them but you cannot be faulted; he has years to master the art of hiding while you, have just started to know him.

You do not see past his flaming orange hair that can light up the darkest of the night, the colour glowing embers of a newly lit fire. It is warm, like his brown eyes, the optic organ that crinkles sweetly ever so often, displaying his contented countenance. You cannot see past his blinding smile, one that rivals a thousand suns in intensity, so genuine, unadorned and carefree that you are trapped within it like the rest.

You look forward to seeing his smile – taking slight pleasure in being able to make him laugh even – even though it is almost his default reaction.

Hinata Shouyou is larger than life in everything he does, his exuberance contagious such that even the most brooding are not spared. You cannot help the fact that your lips curl whenever he laughs, spirits lifting to the sound of his rising octave because it is honest and without mockery unlike some other. He is undoubtedly the brightest star when he tries - the beacon of light – standing against all his adversities despite his short stature; confident as he stands next to you on court with a hungry grin, head tilted upwards to the skies and eyes following the ball that moves in wide arcs.

He is awe-inspiring with his endless faith, the way he would jump with his eyes closed (although they are open now), knowing that you would get him the ball no matter what. He does not understand how difficult that feat is, but you know, and he gives you hope that maybe there is someone that can match up to you and your instinctive madness.

He is happiness personified and you are thankful for his presence on the team. As the pillar of support, you are expected to keep morale high but you are only human as well. There are times when you can't lift you head but he is there; shouting that 'we can do it' and 'one more', giving you hope when you once thought it might all be lost. You are grateful for him and you try to tell him that by ruffling his hair and keeping up with his high fives – literally – knowing that your wild child loved such gestures.

But in the happy front he crafts, you forget that stars can burn out. That their light is finite and they might not be real and merely twinkling illusions. You cannot be faulted for it – stop blaming yourself for not realizing earlier – because this act he puts on spans across years such that it has become a second nature to him.

You do not realize that volleyball is his escape. It's hard to when he truly loves the sport, loves the sting of on his palm when he executes a good spike, the feeling of the ball beneath his calloused fingertips and the satisfaction of shocked expressions from the apex of his leap. All this is true – you know it because he shrieks about it constantly with glassy, awed eyes – but you do not know that there were so many more reasons for it.

He loves volleyball because he thinks of nothing but volleyball when he plays, its mind-numbing and automatic. It's just getting on to the next play when the previous one was over, caught within the tides of adrenaline and the rush of information – serves, receives, setter, run, spike, rinse and repeat – with no time for self-pity. It is a glorious feeling to not be hounded, to focus solely on one thing when his thoughts usually ran rampant. For once, he does feel free, just like the times he can spike without interference. He loves the idea of having not think, even if it was for three sets.

It leaves him aching and sore in the end of it, and he finds that slumber tends to claim him easier. He doesn't get nightmares so often when he's extremely tired because while his mind hates him resting, his bodily needs tend to supersede everything else.

However, with his love, it brings about a whole new range of thoughts.

You do not see the downward slant of his lips whenever he fails at something, the momentary change hidden by his head facing the ground. The soft gnashing of teeth doesn't reach your ears, nor does the scratching of skin as he marks out the count for each failure. Those scratches would translate to new cuts each day but you do not know that since they are scattered beneath fabric, as far as he dares.

You do not realize why he likes to come to practice early and leave late. It is not just devotion; when there are lesser people in the changing room, he feels more at peace; lesser staring eyes, lesser observant people and that is what he wants. It means that there are lesser people that will and can figure out his destructive habits. It is also the same reason why you do not notice the fact that he tends to wear shorts beneath his school pants and you don't really ever see his hips, thighs or boxers that were polka-dotted with dark red at times.

You do not know that the times where he is late is not because he overslept but rather the fact that he didn't sleep. Those were one of the worse days for him and he plays off his lack of accuracy with his grogginess. You are mostly deceived by said act since you have no other explanation to say otherwise and you think that he has no reason to lie about such a thing. He is usually honest and horrible at lying but that is only so because you don't know his perpetual web of lies that you are already trapped in.

You do not see the orange bottle of pills he buries deep within his bag nor the times he pops it in his mouth with the guise of a cough. Being the heavy sleeper you might be, you do not hear the strangled sob that he holds back while he is curled under his futon or the short shrieks he makes when he wakes up to a nightmare. You think that he drools but if you looked closer, those are tear stains; salty liquid that once trailed from dead eyes down mauve cheeks, tears he will never let you see him shed. He often has chapped lips such that it bleeds when he grins too wide and you chastise him to drink more water, although subconsciously, you know he drinks the same amount, if not more water than you.

You think he likes the sun rise and he goes to the rooftops since they are the best place to see them but in actuality, he stare down at the ground, five stories high, and wonder what it is like to plummet and crash. He wonders if he can finally fly when he jumps off and there are times where he almost does, if not for you going up there to call him back. You do not question why he goes to the rooftops even when it is the middle of the day or late at night.

You do not know the penknife he hides within his yellow hoodie pockets. You do not know that his bruised knuckles do not come from volleyball or from fighting his partner. You do not know that sometimes his toilet breaks were used to throw up the food he cannot keep down in his disgust for himself and that motion sickness was just an easy excuse. (A lot of things were easy excuses.)

Sometimes, you like to make scathing, sarcastic remarks that you don't mean (it is a norm for you), but you are not aware of the fact that he actually agrees with the things you say. You see him brush it off or fight back with enraged squawks, but this anger never quite reaches his brown eyes. You do not know that he ruminates over those same words in the dead of the night, adding them to the list he already has, whispering those words to himself, one by one. If you had known earlier, you know that you would never have said them. Hinata Shouyou may be annoying and you want to swat him down at times, but you would never intentionally hurt a teammate, your friend, and you regret much of what you have said.

But you cannot be faulted for not observing because he hides his weakness too well.

(And you feel useless because you were supposed to observant and yet, it was not enough.)

Another thing that you do not know is that despite all you don't see, you, are still his hope.

On days he doesn't feel like eating, you make sure the entire team goes to the Foothill Store and you treat them to meat buns. He cannot reject them under your watchful eyes and the meat buns quickly become one of his favourite foods that he wants to keep down. It is not the taste that draws him in but rather the sentiment that you have in treating the entire team and you make him feel cared for. He holds the brown paper bag in his hands for a moment longer than the rest before indulging in the treat, feeling the warmth of the steamed bun permeate into his skin and sink into his heart.

You do not know that it is your incessant texting, your worries about him travelling along the mountain trial late at night that stops him from swerving his bike off the pavement and onto the road, so he can roll down the hill to his death. The constant blinking and vibrating of his phone is what keeps him on track, willing himself to keep going forward to reach home. It is because of you that he wakes up every day, even when he doesn't want to. You have become his motivation to see a new day with excitement rather than dread.

You do not know that your pro-activeness to seek him out and make him laugh makes him feel a little less alone. His laughs are genuine whenever you make a joke, no matter how lame they are, and even for a little, he thinks he might be okay if you are around. He loves how over-the-top you are, raucous, hyped and crazy, such that he would willingly join in your cheers and bask in the zest that you create. You became one of his better reasons to smile.

Your small compliments and affectionate gestures counteract against the negativity that swarms him. You tell him he is improving day after day and he glows whenever you do it and he lives to meet your growing expectations of him. You were one of the people that he never wants to disappoint, so he keeps trying for your sake.

When you keep tossing to him, no matter how bad he was at the start, you do not know how much it meant to him, that he was worth your time of the day and strength. You were harsh on him, but he knows that it was for his own good and he is truly grateful that you did not give up on him even when he was close to giving up on himself. He tells you that he will make you invincible; you make him feel that way as well, and he thought that you would be worth fighting for and with. (He was right.) You give him the will to improve so that he can stand on the summit right next to you. You, against all odds, make him want to stay.

You make him rise from the abyss that he has been in for so long but you do not consider what would happen when he crashes down again.

It is incredibly easy to fall back down but agonizingly hard to get back up.

But it is not your fault.

(Please stop blaming yourself.)

It is the reason why you do not know how to feel when Takeda-sensei gathers of you for a meeting on a stormy morning one week after Inter-High, grim-looking and teary eyed. Coach Ukai was strangely absent but you hear the faint banging of walls outside the gymnasium.

Your anticipation is rising as you heard a small sob.

"Hinata was admitted to the hospital yesterday," Takeda-sensei says but his voice was weirdly hoarse. You don't know why that is the first detail you pick out but you have a feeling it might be important.

"He collapsed late last night from the lack of nourishment and was diagnosed with borderline anorexia, which is an eating disorder. His mother thought—"he sucked in a breath, throat clogged—"thought it would be pivotal for you to know that he was dealing with depression as well."

Depression.

You go numb as the tears stream down your cheeks. Some of you try to hide it by turning away or looking down but you cannot stop the tears.

You wish you realized it earlier.

But you didn't.

And you start faulting yourself for it.

You don't realize how much Hinata Shouyou meant to you – and the team - until he tried to starve himself.


I like to break shiny things and Hinata Shouyou is shiny.

If you have mental illnesses or eating disorders, PLEASE seek professional help. Don't suffer alone.

I don't guarantee the 100% effectiveness of said help, and you might not get the therapist or treatment method that is right for you the first time round, but PLEASE try. It will help in a long run, that I can promise. f you are alone and you are feeling suicidal, please contact your local hotline.

Your life is worth living. Have a good day :)