A.U.: Okay so, one of you mentioned that this fic had the wrong document to it so I took it down and fixed it. Thanks for that, I never even noticed lol
Tumblr prompt was unrequited tsukisuga.
You don't quite catch it, something tilts right off the edge when you aren't looking and suddenly the sky is too bright, those clouds too full and the sun too warm; suddenly, his laugh sounds like silver bells and his smile melts you right down to the core. This shift is immediate, you don't understand where it comes from but it is there, this festering thing starting at the pit of you. You breathe, and air don't taste the same. You close your eyes and everything's colored different, this new shade of something you do not recognize, and there is no one you can tell about this, no one who will listen will half an ear and no mouth to follow. There will surely be an end to this and you are entirely unprepared to face it.
"Funny, you look so out of sorts today," he comments, and you try not to lose all of your wits at once. His eyes are big and round and encouraging and his lips curve up at the edges, gently, a question not quite a question. "That's new."
And you're not sure what to say, if he'll extend the courtesy just far enough for you to say, and yet not say, all these things you cannot comprehend.
"You're pretty," it wants to go, small and trembling and desperate. "You're so pretty I forget how to speak, sometimes."
Today, his hand brushes yours on the way to the ball and everything seizes up inside of you. There is too much movement and your mind moves too slowly, sluggish, attempting to memorize the split seconds in which his skin had burned right into yours, to sear it right into your mind.
And you remember it later, this fever starting up in places you do not pay enough attention to, all alone in your room where no one can see you, and there. There it is, this blistering, throbbing thing, attaching itself to the edges of your heart.
"I don't want this," it goes, small and trembling and desperate. "I don't want to feel this."
.x.
It's a strange sort of jealous. His hand flattens against Tanaka's back, or his elbow knocks against Asahi's ribs, or his fingers skitter the back of Shimizu's hand—and it is there, boiling at the edges of your mouth and coiling up in your chest. You swallow and try not to see what isn't there; some lingering touch, this affectionate gaze, the undeniable proof that you cannot have him.
You are the last two in the clubroom and he's humming, fingers turning under the hem of his shirt. He tugs and pulls and there is skin, pale and speckled. And the arch of his spine, and the subtle lines of muscle, smooth stomach, the back of his neck, the way his shoulders roll and the faint sound of his relieved sigh. You try not to watch, it's too hot in here and your hands are shaking. He does up his zipper, and buckles his belt, and you push your glasses right up the bridge of your nose.
"Zoning out again?" he asks, and his eyes are so warm, amused. "Maybe you should get some more sleep."
In all honesty, you haven't been able to find it since the start of this week. Each night grows longer and longer and you are finding it hard to shut your eyes now.
"I have a lot on my mind," you confess one morning, leaning against the railing with a yawn. The sun is hardly coming up and she is watching you with an arched brow, this small frown. Her arms are folded and sometimes she reminds you a lot of him, that stern look in her eye.
"Perhaps I'm speaking out of line," she says, tucking inky strands back behind her ear. "But, they say we have trouble sleeping often because reality has become better than a dream."
And how terribly astute, how awfully sharp she is to call you out immediately, without a single warning on her part. You try your best to look uncrossed, but she catches this, too.
"You can't control everything," she tells you.
He is smiling, again. One of your upperclassmen has told some joke or another and a grin has cracked across his face, the gleeful curves of his eyes and the color rising at his cheeks a fascinating thing. You're nearly hit in the face, and everything is doubling over. This practice ends for you in a rush, Yachi presses a towel to your pulsing nose and does not leave the nurse's office until you're nearly shoving her out.
"Really," Shimizu says, once everyone's left for the night. "You must know where to draw the line."
.x.
It is the week before school lets out for the winter, there's this scarf around his neck and the snow suits him nicely. His nose is pink and his hair is spotted in white. He offers a cup to drink and it burns on the way down; you are not the only one he's looking at today. Nobody says anything about anything so you're not sure where he's going now, if he has any plans worth noting. He bundles up tight to the others and mentions trees, big dinners, trainsets, and gifts wrapped up in glossy, glimmering, colorful paper, all the bows he's knotted recently. It all moves so fast, the snow is falling hard and he scrunches his face up, sticks his tongue right out to catch the flakes before they all whisk away.
Here, something comes to a screeching halt and you can't stop staring. There's a small hand on your arm and it is tugging, tugging, trying to get your attention before it all comes crashing down on you—
And it all comes crashing down on you, his eyes flicker to yours and you freeze, breath snatching up in your throat, unsure of what to say, how to feel.
He looks away, just as quickly.
And there it is, there it is, this small and burning, desperate thing leaking out to the rest of you.
Her fingers are curled hard into your sleeve, tugging you away from the rest.
.x.
"Isn't that something? I thought maybe…" you say, watching her rub her hands together under her mittens. "Maybe I shouldn't have thought at all."
"Don't say that," she reprimands, kicking up tufts of snow. "There's nothing wrong with hoping."
"Did you tell him? Or was that a coincidence?"
She cups her hands to her mouth and breathes out. Her eyes are so blue, so very, very striking. The snow looks beautiful on her, too. "I didn't tell him."
You squeeze yours shut, forgetting yourself for just a second. "I shouldn't have—it was never going to work."
"There's no way of knowing until you try," she says, and the snow crunches under her boots. "And even if it doesn't, you won't live out wondering if you should have."
"Does he have someone?"
There's this look in her eye, and you are at once aware of how truly expressive they are. They tighten at the edges, and yet inexplicably grow softer toward you. More empathetic. Her hands twist and wring at her middle and she cannot find the right words to tell you what you both already know. It hangs between you like another breath, this whole different weight. And maybe this explains everything, maybe this is why you never thought you had a fighting chance to begin with.
Maybe this is why this was doomed from the start.
"No. He doesn't."
.x.
You reel it in.
The snow is melting off the pavement, and all the trees are springing back to life. His hair is newly trimmed and nothing changes. He playfully shoves and pulls at his friends, ruffles Hinata's fiery locks and skims his fingertips over Shimizu's knuckles, Yachi's sunshine hair, the scattered freckles on Yamaguchi's cheeks. He spares no second thought to it, these thoughtless touches not quite so thoughtless. He is utterly aware of himself and everything he does and he does not for a second treat you any differently.
Your throbbing fingers, the knobbing muscles, he smacks his hand on your back and he's laughing, and he's smiling, and he's so close to you something's shriveling up inside you.
Something small and trembling and desperate.
"That's more like it," he says, soon as practice is finished. "You're wide awake now."
You stare at the wall when he's changing, and he mindlessly agrees when someone mentions the posters on the walls, the beauty mark on Shimizu's face, the way coffee tastes in the morning.
"Pay it little mind," she tells you, handing off a bottle of water. "He is who he is, and sometimes that's hard to define."
Something has changed, tilted off the edge all while you watched. It all comes down to this, the color of his eyes when the light hits them just right, and the way his skin feels when it brushes yours. The sound of his laugh, how he smiles when your upperclassmen make some stupid joke about something or another.
It means very little, but each and every time he casts all of this aside you lose some sense of yourself.
"I didn't want this," it says, rippling at the edges, pink and soft and new. "I didn't want to feel this."
.x.