(See bold for warnings and disclaimers. Fic warnings: graphic violence, character death.)
Original a/n:
A somber note:
I've had this fic sitting on my computer for a while, waiting for when the timing was right. I'm not sure even now the timing is right, especially for some people, but I do want to do it now.
I have vaguely personal experience with this. Though I didn't know him, a person who worked for my same company in my same city died because of somebody motivated by this "phenomenon", if I can call it that. Part of this fic has been my processing the spontaneous, unfair horror of the world we live in, and part of it is my attempt to understand, how does one cope after something like this.
This story will get progressively darker; fair warning. Yet I like to think there's hope amidst the unfairness, even if that hope is day by day.
a/n one year later:
Revisiting this fic, I've changed a lot. This story had the therapeutic effect for me that I hoped. I don't have answers to my questions, but I'm grateful to everyone who walked through this meditation with me. I hope it could possibly have a therapeutic effect for others.
Looking back I even find myself uncomfortable with how on-the-nose this story was, but back then I couldn't have mentally explored the subject of loss from any other angle. To be even more explicit: trigger warnings for character death and political/religious violence. I would like to reiterate though: this is not a commentary on RL politics. This is a fic about how life can be normal and easy, and then suddenly everything you know gets upended by a single person's actions.
I've tried to find a common thread through all the even-numbered chapters. The only answer I came up with derived from a spiritual source: "Love binds all things together." Whenever you are suffering, remember: you are not the only one. My biggest regret, if any, is using our lovable, innocent volleyball boys as proxies to reach that conclusion.
Remember all those around you, be grateful for everything you have, and as far as you are able, confront the pain of everything you don't have. There is still a life worth living.
~Breeze
It was a special Monday of practice in the Karasuno High School gym, in light of the team's most recent tournament successes. The squad worked double-time on Ukai's orders. Yachi had gone over to the adjacent school building via the breezeway to fetch more hydration for the boys, chancing upon Ennoshita, Narita, and Kinoshita belatedly getting changed. Inside the gym, Kiyoko diligently drew up stat sheets of future foes. Ukai barked orders to the nine boys who had just finished warmups. The only person not accounted for was Ittetsu Takeda, who at that moment was galloping feverishly across the breezeway. He whipped open the gymnasium door, histrionically wheezing, gripping his cell phone.
"Everybody, stop!" he squealed. He gasped again as the room gave the faculty sponsor their attention. "Look at this."
The phone he held up was streaming live video from a news helicopter. The chopper appeared to be tracking a four-door sedan, tailed by police cruisers, through their very own town. Takeda expounded there was an explosion at the main train station, and the occupants of the pursued car were believed to be the suspects. As the vehicle swerved past street signs and recognizable landmarks, it was apparent the chase was frightfully nearby.
Tanaka swiped the phone for a closer look.
"Yeah, get 'em!" he rooted for the cops with Noya's enthusiastic backing. Kageyama swiped the phone and beheld the video with fascination, though he cluelessly couldn't identify the landmarks himself. Tsukishima lifted the phone next giving the video passive curiosity, Yamaguchi peeking around Tsukki's form. Then Kei handed off the device to Daichi, flanked by Suga and Asahi. The only person who couldn't see the phone was Hinata who, hesitating too long before congregating around their teacher, had been locked out of the huddle and couldn't see over anyone's shoulder.
"Wait a minute," Daichi focused. "That's around the block!" Only now did they notice the chop of the helicopter and whine of distant police cars. Ukai nabbed the phone with Takeda and Kiyoko, hoping to find out how much—if any—danger they were in.
It was so surreal Keishin didn't know how to react. Their peaceful town and community were the subject of a national headline. As he gawped at the eerily familiar storefronts whizzing by, the car approached the intersection with the street that fronted Karasuno High. The erratic vehicle skidded a left turn through a stoplight, headed towards their very high school. Tanaka spotted the turn with unbound euphoria.
"He's coming!" he exuberantly shouted, the gravity of the situation not at all apparent to him. Instantly he, Hinata, Kageyama, and Noya dashed to the door, futilely hoping for a glimpse of some action. As police sirens wailed louder and sharper and the spinning blades of the copter rattled ever closer, Ukai warily ogled the phone. The car was speeding past the front wall of the schoolyard at that very moment—never mind, whatever broadcast delay might exist—with the fugitives nearing the main entrance to the school grounds.
And then, as if telepathically attracted to Ukai's unease, the car swerved into Karasuno High's courtyard.
"They're here! Shut the door!" he emphatically hollered.
The posse at the doorway dithered—unsure what "They're here" exactly meant—until sighting a speeding sedan with an entourage of dust adopting a crash-course trajectory for the breezeway and gym entrance. The four students took to flight, Noya slamming the door shut only for it to ricochet open halfway. Ukai snatched a padlock and chain and stampeded towards the opening. Feeding the chain through the handles, he beheld the car barreling nearer at breakneck speed. In a moment, the sedan impaled the rectangular panels of the breezeway, shunting the metal aside flagrantly. Its engine crumpled like an accordion, the sedan continued on its inertia, colliding against the base of the gym steps, directly in front of Ukai's face. The coach fatefully wavered before grasping the handle of the door to shut it.
Before he could close the ingress, however, a punctuating bang preceded a metal object spitefully piercing his chest.
Keishin tumbled backwards, pressing one hand into his torso. In seconds, three male figures with ski masks hustled into the gym, one sporting a handgun, the others AK-47s. They wore ammo straps across their chests and body armor beneath their clothes. The two assault rifle-wielders trained their barrels over the beleaguered occupants, counting two adults (including the man their boss had shot), a teenage girl, and nine teenage boys. Outside, law enforcement rapidly formed a barrier of police cruisers around the breezeway before eventually encircling the whole gym itself. Inside the space, the twelve hostages fearfully beheld their captors as the chief fanned the end of his pistol over each and every one of them.
From behind his ski mask, with a Middle Eastern accent, the leader spoke: "Do as we say, and you may live."
Chapter two is already up