Come Morning Light

by SharkbaitSekki

When a nuclear blast on the island of Japan destroys all of the families and dreams within its radius, all that is left in the aftermath is to rebuild something -anything- out of the debris. Back to back, heart to heart, it's a long way up for the kids who have seen their lives go down in flames. But for those who make it, there is nothing left to do but admire the view.

14. Silence

Author's Note:

Three months and a half in the making. It's the usual culprits: Persona 3, school, and work. Speaking of which, I know I've been screaming about it on Tumblr but imma say it here too. I PASSED MY NCLEX. I GOT MY NURSING LICENSE.

Speaking of screaming things on Tumblr, the CML community on there has been really active lately. People have been asking me a bunch of interesting questions and have been playing along to a bunch of ask memes I've been posting. Thanks for your participation guys! This is so much fun when we're doing it together o: If you want, you're welcome to visit the fic tag, #CMLmorelikeFML, to view all of these posts about what's coming up next in CML!

Alright, so here we go for the warnings. As usual, I'm gonna put words before and after the warnings so that anybody who doesn't want to catch one on the corner of their eye by accident can skip this paragraph entirely. Basically, the warnings that are included in here are brief but rather flagrant. I want to warn you guys about a semi-main character death. Ish. You'll see when you get there. But this doesn't have a happy ending. I'm sorry. It's for a good reason tho! I'll just write a little more to provide some space to skip for the ones who didn't read the warnings, and thus, with this, we can begin.

Please enjoy CML chapter 14, the before-last installment of their adventure. Since it's in Oikawa's POV, I had no choice but to give him dialogue, so anything in italics is sign language. It's 38k words long, the longest one yet by far, but since you guys told me on chapter 13 that you read the whole thing in a single sitting, I didn't bother with numbered breaks again. Fun fact: This chapter's Word document is titled "Chapter Takes-Four-Ever-Teen".

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Awa woke every morning with voices filling the air until the entire mall complex was bustling with activity, slowly, and then all at once. The first few days, it was staggering to witness the long hallways filling with people in boots and dirty shirts, mesmerizing to see life growing within the walls of the run-down building. And then, by day three, they were no longer in awe, but were a part of the life thriving in the halls and rooms of the mall complex.

Their work assignments reached them on the morning of the third day, in the mail destined to the house they shared as a dorm with many other families. The letter, addressed firstly to Daichi, detailed which position they'd be occupying and directed them to their specific posts that morning of. It also contained their ID cards, which made everything feel that much more official.

Oikawa grabbed his own card and slipped it into his pocket unceremoniously, patiently waiting for Hinata to stop crowing about 'how cool' this all was so that they could all make their way to the front and get dressed to brave the weather outside. As relieved as he was to finally have gotten someplace where they could find stability, he still only saw Awa as a pit-stop, a temporary solution to a permanent problem; that of their country being in ruins. That thought in itself was enough to sober him up.

They got dressed quickly, and were out of the house with the rest of their housemates, all of them making the ten-minute walk to the mall complex for work. Getting nearer, they found themselves waiting in line to enter through the hole in the glass, and were particularly proud to flash their new IDs at the guard at the door.

Inside, Oikawa removed his winter clothing and left it in a pile with the rest of his team's gear, shaking his hair out and smoothing out his shirt.

"We should go have breakfast right now, so that we have a bit of time to get situated before our work shift starts," Daichi suggested, everyone nodding in assent. They waited for one another to be done changing, and then took the stairs all the way down to the lowest floor, where the mall's food court once was, and which was now used as a giant cafeteria.

A couple of counters were open to serve the morning shift coming in to work, and the group split up between them so they could go through faster. Oikawa stuck with Daichi, Kuroo and Iwaizumi in line, idly drumming his fingers against his thigh when the line halted.

"What are your work assignments?" Kuroo asked lightly, trying to kick up a conversation.

"I'm working in the power generator on the topmost level," Daichi answered, looking at the back of his ID card, where his assignment was written. "I wonder how they generate power around here. Solar power, maybe? Definitely not hydroelectricity…"

"Maybe it'll require you to pedal a bike all day," Kuroo snickered.

"That sounds like fun," Iwaizumi mumbled, glancing at his ID card. "I'm doing agriculture. The second floor. I wasn't really looking forward to being a farmer, but I guess I can't complain."

Oikawa laughed to himself at that, and thought up of the symbols for what he wanted to say. He was getting better at signing words rather than spelling them, and he liked to practice (see: show off) any chance he could get.

"You'd look so handsome with a farmer's tan, though!"

"Oh, shut it," Iwaizumi grumbled, putting his ID card away. "How about you?"

Oikawa shrugged, his face falling lightly.

"Maintenance. Basically a handiman, I guess," he signed, not too thrilled, but also not surprised. "Can't do much more without a voice. I should be grateful they didn't kick me out."

"Stop that," Iwaizumi muttered, glancing away from him, towards Daichi, who was the only one amongst them who didn't know how to read sign language, and who looked decidedly lost. "Maintenance is the backbone of a community that runs smoothly. It might not be as glamorous as you want it to be, but it's important."

"It probably doesn't have much to do with your voice," Kuroo piped in lightly, flashing his ID card at them. "Since I was assigned to maintenance as well."

Oikawa couldn't hide the surprise that flashed across his face. Why they would assign Kuroo to maintenance went right above his head. Strong, athletic, smart, cunning Kuroo belonged anywhere but in maintenance.

"Maybe they're taking the best-looking ones of the bunch as maintenance guys," Kuroo hummed good-naturedly, apparently not at all bothered by his assignment.

"Now that just makes it sound like you'll be doing more than just cleaning around here," Daichi frowned, not meaning anything by it, although a smile cracked across Oikawa's face regardless at the implications.

"Sounds kinky," he signed smugly. "The maintenance guy comes over to your work station… You're all alone… He leans against the door and says 'I heard you needed help fixing a leak'…"

"Stop that, that's obscene," Iwaizumi slapped his hands away lightly, just as Kuroo burst into laughter.

"Is that why everyone looks so happy around here?" he chuckled, wiping a tear that beaded in the corner of his eye. "Cause the maintenance guys are servicing the general population?"

There was a violent flash through Oikawa's mind and he swallowed down the terrifying feeling of acceptance that suddenly blanketed his mind. He blinked a few times and swallowed to draw his thoughts out from the void. He no longer had to think like that. Kuroo was just joking.

"Okay, I don't even know what's going through your minds, but it's time to stop," Daichi chided, clearly noticing that he'd lost Oikawa. "It sounds lewd. Just grab a tray and shut up."

Kuroo glanced at Oikawa conspiratorially, and Oikawa couldn't help but grin, despite the mildly disturbing undertone to their conversation. He was used to it, for better or for worst. They reached out for a high-five between them before grabbing their trays, looking self-satisfied to their companions' despair.

The cafeteria attendants looked chipper this morning, as they did the morning before, as they probably did every morning, and Oikawa couldn't help but wonder why everyone seemed so happy around these parts. When he put his tray in front of one of them, she smiled at him warmly and dipped her head in greeting.

"Good morning, sweetheart. Do you want rice?" she asked him, and Oikawa nodded lightly, accepting the small bowl she offered him. "And would you prefer vegetable curry or tomato beans with that?"

Oikawa raised one of his fingers, indicating he preferred the first choice. She seemed thrown off but gave him a helping of vegetable curry regardless.

"Not very talkative this morning, are we?" she joked, handing him the faded porcelain bowl. Oikawa tried not to let his smile fall, and accepted the food, now hoping to leave as quickly as possible. "That's fine, we all have those mornings. Cheer up, sweetheart, and have a nice day!"

Knowing she meant well, and had no means of knowing Oikawa's circumstances, the brunet just nodded at her, and left down the counter to grab a small cup of tea. With his tray full, he turned and went for the table where half of their increasingly-large group was situated.

"I wish we had spicy sauce for the curry," Noya whined as Oikawa pulled out the chair between him and Hinata, who looked just as disappointed with his breakfast.

"It's hard enough to come across breakfast foods as it is," Suga admonished, pushing his tray a bit to make space for Tsukishima, who came by accompanied by Kageyama, the latter's frown deep enough to wrinkle his chin. "Make an effort and eat it bland so you don't irritate your stomach so early in the morning."

"Do you think they have eggs?" Hinata asked, pushing his rice around the bowl without really eating it. "What I wouldn't give for a bowl of tamago kake gohan in the morning… With soy sauce…"

"Eat your food and don't complain," Daichi hushed him, looked resolved as he shovelled a large bite of bland rice in his mouth. "I have yet to see animals here, so I doubt they'd have any sort of produce, other than stuff they can scavenge."

"Does that mean there's no milk?" Kageyama huffed, already knowing the answer. Oikawa couldn't help but chuckle now that the intense frown had been explained.

"We've all made do without all these things for a long time, guys," Suga laughed sheepishly. "Just because we're in a better place now, it doesn't mean everything is perfect. Let's not take things for granted and enjoy everything we're gifted, okay?"

Somehow, Suga's pure smile seemed to light up the whole table, and by the time everyone else joined them, they were all eating and chattering lightly.

Oikawa was almost at the bottom of his curry when a loud screech from the other end of the cafeteria grabbed their attention. They all turned in time to see Bokuto, accompanied by Akaashi, coming down the stairs and spotting them. Bokuto waved wildly at them, and Kuroo immediately waved back, which seemed to be the signal for Bokuto to break into a run and vault over a table in his haste to get to them. Kuroo got up in time to intercept his collision with the table, and they embraced one another almost violently before stepping back, grinning.

"Morning!" Bokuto greeted cheerfully, waving at them all. "What's for breakfast?"

"What it always is, I'm supposing," Kuroo shrugged. "Beans or curry."

"Well, I love tomato beans, so I'm not complaining," Bokuto hummed, his good mood infectious. Oikawa felt a spark of energy inside of him and suddenly felt the urge to go run laps. He wondered if they had a gym around these parts to burn off energy.

"Good morning," Akaashi greeted as he arrived, waving lightly to them. Kenma finally looked up to smile softly at him.

"Morning," he greeted, the first words Oikawa had heard from him today.

"Bokuto, let's not bother them and go get breakfast," he prompted, tugging lightly at Bokuto's sleeve.

"You're no bother at all," Daichi assured them. "It's just that today is our first day on assignment, so we wanted to get going a bit early to get situated."

"Ooh, that's exciting," Bokuto cocked his head. "Where are you guys assigned? Maybe we can help."

"I think most of us have instructions and floor numbers," Kenma declined politely.

"Well, I wanted to know where the water plant was," Hinata asked. "Sounds big. And it doesn't sound like it fits in this building."

"It's not as big as you think," Akaashi shrugged. "It's the building down the street, by the corner. It's a community center, so they use the pool as a water reservoir. Get dressed warmly; if they have you shovelling, you'll be outside all day."

"Thanks," Noya nodded. "We'll try not to get lost."

"Is anyone in the power plant?" Bokuto asked. "It's a ton of fun! I've never actually been, but I've heard of it and it sounds like a blast!"

"I am," Kageyama nodded, the glint in his eye proving that he was interested in finding out what the other boy meant.

"You'll love it!" Bokuto promised, and then turned to survey the table. "I'm guessing the rest of you are growing vegetables?"

"Yamaguchi and I are in the health services," Suga smiled lightly. "But I'm sure no one saw that coming."

"And Oikawa and I have the best jobs in the world," Kuroo proclaimed proudly, swiping his ID card out to show them. "Maintenance. I'm gonna be king of the mop!"

Oikawa raised an eyebrow amusedly at Kuroo's antics, but the more time went on, the more he realized that everyone was silent. Akaashi and Bokuto were not saying anything. A quick glance showed that they were simply looking at the card in deep thought.

"Is something wrong?" Oikawa signed to Iwaizumi, who frowned, and relayed the question out loud.

"No, no," Akaashi quickly stood back, a neutral expression still on his face. However, Bokuto was more transparent, and Oikawa clearly read the torn look on his face. Akaashi was lying to them. "Just… take care, okay? It's a very strenuous job."

"And don't be a show-off, bro," Bokuto added hastily. "Just take it easy, and relax."

"Alright," Kuroo hummed, looking contented, although the inflection of his voice was familiar to Oikawa after all this time. He, too, was suspicious. "In that case, I guess we should head off, then. If it's that tough of a job, I wanna warm up before I wield my weapon of choice."

With no choice but to follow, Oikawa got up, picking up his tray. Hinata scooted quietly to the side to let him pass, his bright gaze proving that he didn't suspect a thing. However, as he passed next to Iwaizumi, his best friend clandestinely set a hand against his knee, out of sight of the others. Oikawa stopped for a second and glanced at him, taking in the confusion in his face. It wasn't quite worry, and Oikawa was relieved. It wouldn't help to worry now, when there was nothing to worry about.

His silence spoke volumes these days, but just to hammer the point home, he set a hand against Iwaizumi's shoulder, and brushed it off when the hand fell away from his knee.

He left without another word, not that he had a choice in the matter. Kuroo waved everyone off for them both, and they left side-by-side to go find wherever they were supposed to report.

"If it does turn out that maintenance guys are doing some shady business, I'm busting you out of here," Kuroo murmured softly as they walked, and despite the chill that went down Oikawa's spine at the thought of it, he appreciated the concern for his wellbeing, and nodded. It couldn't be that bad, whatever it was.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

Oikawa wondered if he had missed a memo. By the end of the day, nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He and Kuroo had teamed up to fix a leaky pipe (with duct tape, until their superior showed them how to actually change the pipe) and had spent most of their day just mopping the cafeteria, climbing to outrageous heights to wash grime off the windows that allowed natural light in, and restocking the washrooms with toilet paper. It was a physically exhausting job, but nothing they couldn't handle.

Which was why Oikawa's suspicions didn't decrease after everything went well the first day. He had long-ago learned that he shouldn't take good things for granted. When Iwaizumi asked him how his day had been that night, he simply replied that there was nothing out of the ordinary, and coaxed his best friend to sleep.

He didn't want to jinx it, but he fell asleep with the impending feeling that a nightmare was upon him.

The next days were the same. The more time went on without anything suspicious happening, the more Oikawa became high-strung about it all. Kuroo never showed it outwardly, but when Oikawa asked him in the quiet of their table-wiping after lunchtime, Kuroo simply replied by signing the sentence "just watch and wait". Oikawa couldn't remember the last time Kuroo had signed anything to him.

Four days passed, and then five. Bland breakfasts and long sessions of mopping melted snow in the antechamber melded into one another until Oikawa almost forgot to be on his guard.

However, on day 5, as he was locking up for the evening, someone came for him. At first, Oikawa thought the quiet footsteps were Kuroo, coming back to grab something he'd forgotten. Oikawa turned to tell him that the door was already locked for the night, but he did not come face to face with his friend.

Instead, he found himself facing a man wearing a bandana over his nose and a suspicious-looking hood. Immediately, he stiffened, not liking this situation.

"Oikawa Tooru," the man grunted out, taking a step forward. Oikawa took a step back, his back hitting the (locked) doors of the storage room. The hallway was tight. He had nowhere to run. "Come quietly and we won't have a problem."

Oikawa wanted to snort and tell him there's no way he couldn't come quietly, but even if he did have his voice, it would have been stuck in the ball in his throat.

The scenario was much too familiar, scarily so. He didn't like the way his knees felt weak and his head spun.

He shook his head, however, his heart skipping a beat when the man took a step forward again. As he repeated his demand, Oikawa glanced around him, wondering if there was any way he could make a break for it. The hallway wasn't long; if he slipped past the guy, it wouldn't take him long to reach some place with more people.

The guy took another step forward, and Oikawa sprung into desperate action. A weak feint to the right proved to be mostly ineffective, as the guy immediately saw through it, and twisted to grab Oikawa as he slipped past him on the left. His hand closed around Oikawa's wrist tightly and squeezed, and even though it didn't hurt, Oikawa found a whistling scream tearing out of his burned throat.

He was in a dark basement, in a moving cargo truck, in a damp cave covered in moss, he was anywhere but not in Awa. His mind lost itself for a second, and the grip on his wrist felt like a heavy shackle, the heaviness of it promising punishment. He couldn't get caught again. Not this time.

There was a certain frenzy to his moves as he spun and attempted to kick his assailant in the plexus. However, the man, clearly trained for combat, caught his leg, throwing Oikawa off-balance. With his legs out of commission, all he could do was bite down on the man's arm, hard, until he felt skin crunch underneath his canines and a lightly metallic taste flow onto his tongue.

The man let him go, and Oikawa bolted away from him, faster than he'd ever run before. Getting caught a second time could spell death for him, and he wasn't ready to die, nor to return into captivity. Not now, not when he'd finally found everything he'd stayed alive for.

He was almost out of the hallway, looking back as he ran, his heart beating harder when he realized that his assailant wasn't pursuing him. He couldn't understand why he was just watching him get away. Was is because he had an ace up his sleeve? Or had Oikawa actually managed to trump him?

He turned his head back up front just in time to see the person standing in the exit, and the surprise tore yet another semblance of a scream out of his mouth. Eyes wide, he skidded to a stop and then stumbled back before he realized that he knew the person in front of him. He didn't know how to feel about that, and tried to ground himself in the present, waving off the memories of a darker past in an attempt not to let history repeat itself. He found stability in the person in front of him, though her smile didn't feel very comforting.

Satoko let him stop and take in his surroundings for a second before putting her arm up.

"It's okay, Oikawa," she soothed him, placating him with the gentle gesture. "Just breathe, it's all fine."

Oikawa wanted to yell at her that they wouldn't take him away again, but the last time he had, they'd taken his voice. He couldn't yell anymore. Satoko just observed him as he tried to breathe. When his chest continued to heave up and down after a minute, she finally seemed to realize that something was wrong, though.

"Oikawa?" she asked, taking a step towards him, and just pushing him a step back. His attacker was at the end of the hallway, still not moving, but Oikawa felt just as trapped as before. "Oikawa, what's wrong? Calm down, just breathe. It was just a test, and you passed. It's okay now."

The words didn't register at first, and Oikawa re-ran her worried voice in his head a few more times before he realized that she had called this whole setup a test.

What kind of test was this supposed to be, anyway? How quickly they could force him into panic? The thought of this whole thing being unnecessary made him angrier than anything else, and he clutched his chest when pain began to rise with every breath.

"Oh, hell." Satoko was at his side in a second, helping him towards the wall, where he thankfully found an anchor by sliding up against it. "Oikawa, just breathe. You're okay. You're safe. No one is here to get you for real. It was just a test. Take deeper breaths. Do you want me to get someone for you?"

Oikawa briefly considered nodding, but he didn't want to worry anybody. And, if he was being honest with himself, he didn't want anyone seeing him like this. Ever since his return amongst the group of people he now considered a semblance of a family, he had done very well reigning in his nightmares and flashbacks and traumatic memories, and he didn't want people to worry about him –or pity him- all of a sudden. As if spiralling within his own destructive thoughts and memories made him a lesser person.

No. He'd handle this himself. All those weeks he spent in so many places, not even knowing if he'd be alive the next day, he'd handled everything himself. This was just one more occurrence to add to the ever-growing list.

He shook his head and closed his eyes, twisting the fabric of his shirt in his grasp as he tried to force his lungs to stop hyperventilating. He already felt light-headed, and attempted to retain more carbon dioxide by holding his breath.

"Okay." Satoko's voice was gentle now, as if she had realized that she'd made a mistake. She was still close to him, and as much as Oikawa hated it, it didn't bother him. "I can't tell what's going on with you. I didn't know this would happen. But I want to help if you're panicking, or if you're seeing things that are long gone. So… Will you let me hold you so I can ground you?"

Her voice was grounding enough to dissipate the last memories out of the corners of Oikawa's mind. And yet, she sounded soft, so soft that for a moment, Oikawa forgot that he was talking to a perfect stranger and not to his mother.

He found himself nodding. Before he could take it back, however, she had closed the gap between them, and had put her arms on either side of his head against the wall, encasing him between the wall, her arms, and her body.

"Breathe," she ordered gently, and Oikawa burst into tears, because his body was reacting to her command, easing out and regulating itself without him doing anything about it. He felt powerless to control himself, and having to depend on someone else to pull himself together was probably the worst part. Once again, he was not in control of his own body. It didn't feel like he would ever own himself ever again.

He put his hands up to cover his face and dipped it lightly, hiding against her collarbones to cry. He was ashamed of himself.

There was only silence when she pushed herself even closer, only barely touching him, but just enough to make him feel grounded. He felt safe with her presence around him, her warmth radiating against the goosebumps on his skin. If it wasn't for her being tall and lithe, Oikawa would surely have mistaken Satoko for his mother. The wall behind him was cold and Satoko was warm, and her arms blocked everything out so that Oikawa only needed to focus on himself.

Soon, his breathing had evened out, and Oikawa was exhausted. He barely even wanted to pull away from her, but at some point, he did, and supported himself against the wall to look at Satoko with his red-rimmed eyes. No more tears were coming to him, and the anger had dulled. He just wanted to curl up with a blanket and sleep now.

"Should I let you go?" Satoko murmured softly, and after a brief moment of hesitation, Oikawa nodded. She stepped back immediately, although within arm's reach if he fell forward, though Oikawa stood upright without her support. "I'm sorry."

He didn't indicate that he'd acknowledged the apology, and Satoko sighed, having realized that fact.

"I'm sorry. I guess I should have asked about your history before having tried a stunt like that." No, that would definitely have made things worse, Oikawa thought to himself. He didn't need a total stranger knowing what had happened to him. She took his silence as a cue to continue. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I only meant to test you."

She let the silence hang for a bit until Oikawa finally nodded at her to continue, crossing his arms (or holding himself together, he didn't know, either).

"Do you want to hear about the test?" she asked gently, making it clear that she wouldn't continue if he refused. But Oikawa had come this far, and he didn't want to back down.

He nodded.

"It's a test to see your reaction when faced with danger," Satoko began. "You were scouted out as one of the most capable people in your group as soon as you entered Awa, and this test is just the final step in the selection process."

Oikawa frowned, cocking his head. He wasn't quite sure he understood, and he wanted to ask her a million questions, and now, the frustration of having lost his voice was back to hitting him full-force. He just wanted to make himself heard, but he couldn't.

Satoko, infuriatingly enough, seemed to understand him despite his silence.

"It's the selection process for a special kind of training… if you agree, that is, of course." She finally smiled at him, as if she was announcing something wonderful. "Wastelander training. Congratulations. You're eligible to become a wastelander."

It didn't sound as wonderful as she made it seem. Not at the current moment, in any case. Oikawa did not even know what a wastelander was and what they did.

He raised an eyebrow at her, unimpressed. She just smiled softly, sadly.

"I know it's confusing. And you probably want to think about it a little bit. I'd be happy to explain to you, but I think you'd prefer to join your friends now. The two radio stars, Bokuto and Akaashi, are your friends, right? I think you'll get a sufficient explanation from them if you ask. I'll come ask you for your answer tomorrow, regarding whether or not you want to become a wastelander or not."

It was all shot at him in rapid-fire, and Oikawa wasn't even sure he understood it all. But she was right regarding one thing- that he just wanted to go home. To his friends. To his family. Whatever family he had left.

She seemed to see it in his eyes and stepped back to give him an out.

"I'll come back tomorrow by the end of your shift to ask you again," she informed him, giving him an encouraging smile. "Think about it really well. This could be the start of something great for you."

Oikawa didn't listen to her after that. When he saw that the coast was clear, he pushed away from the way, and walked off without looking back. She said nothing more, and Oikawa didn't want her to. He just indulged in the silence between them.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

Iwaizumi was visibly stressed all night long, noticing how silent Oikawa was (no pun intended) after he returned from work. He didn't communicate at all during dinner, lost in thought, and Oikawa was actually scared for a moment that Iwaizumi had noticed the lingering redness around his eyes. He didn't need his best friend hovering around him like a worried parent. In the past, he might have enjoyed Iwaizumi worrying over him, but in the past, his concerns were usual trivial in comparison to now.

"Stop brooding, grumpy-pants," he finally signed as they made their way back to their dorm room, leaving their winter gear behind. The rest of their group, some of whom slept in the same room as theirs, were preceding them, and when Oikawa signed to him for the first time of the night, Iwaizumi put some space between them and the rest of the group to whisper at him.

"I'm not brooding," he insisted. "Besides, you're more broody than me tonight. Did something happen at work?"

"My brooding is much more attractive than yours, though," Oikawa signed, trying to avoid answering. Iwaizumi didn't let him get away with that shit.

"Did something happen at work?" he pressed softly, as if afraid of what he'd hear. The mute quality of his voice ticked Oikawa off, as if Iwaizumi was softening his voice in fear of Oikawa's reaction. He wasn't a porcelain doll to be treated gently. He missed the Iwaizumi who would unashamedly call him out for his silence and maybe push him around a bit.

Both of them had changed after their experiences at the hands of the traffickers, but somehow, more than missing fingers or a voice gone for good, the rift in their relationship was what Oikawa mourned the most. He couldn't blame Iwaizumi for behaving differently, even though he dearly wished he could.

"I just…" His hands paused in the middle of the next symbol, as Oikawa's mind buffered for what to say next. He didn't know how to explain what had happened, nor did he know if he wanted to explain it. "Iwa-chan…" The gestures that spelled out Iwaizumi's pet name were comforting, and Oikawa's muscles relaxed as his fingers curled and straightened to create the word in thin air. Iwaizumi's name was like a breath of fresh air regardless of all else on Oikawa's mind.

"I'm here," Iwaizumi gruffly answered, looking away from Oikawa to give him the privacy to think. And in that moment, Oikawa felt safer than anywhere else and with anyone else in the world.

"What would you think of me being a wastelander?" Oikawa finally asked, leaving out the whole part about the recruitment activities. He had to spell that last word, and it took Iwaizumi a while to piece it together.

"A… wastelander? What's that?" he frowned as they walked up the stairs to their assigned dorm room. Inside, the six other people they roomed with were getting cozy in the tight space, and Oikawa elected to stay outside to talk with Iwaizumi. From the corner of his eye, he saw Kuroo lightly teasing Tsukishima and wondered if he had gone through the recruitment test as well. He hadn't had a chance to talk to him in private yet.

"You weren't with us when we met Kizuna," Oikawa explained. "From what I can tell, it's like… people who are trained to go outside the camp on missions."

"Why would you go outside?" Iwaizumi frowned, genuinely confused. "It's cold, and there's nothing out there."

"There must be something important, though, if they're training people for it."

"So you're after the adrenaline," Iwaizumi concluded, and Oikawa couldn't help but feel like he was being scolded somehow. "Oikawa, haven't you had enough adrenaline for one lifetime? Just stay where it's safe."

"Don't you mean that you want me to stay with you?" Oikawa frowned. However, when Iwaizumi's eyes grew wide at what he was implying, he blushed and quickly rushed to correct himself. "I mean, so that you can keep an eye on me. Are you my mom, Iwa-chan?"

"Hadn't heard you say that in a long time," Iwaizumi snorted softly, though it hit them both at the same time that it had been a long time since he'd heard Oikawa say anything at all. "But I don't want to keep you tied down. You're your own person. I'm not gonna take your independence from you."

Oikawa appreciated the sentiment, though deep down, he knew that it was because Iwaizumi knew first-hand that the power to make their own choices about their own bodies was the most important thing for them. He was grateful for his surprising thoughtfulness.

"I just… I'm thinking that maybe I can be more of use to everyone by being out there," Oikawa kept explaining. "There is not much I can do here without a voice… Other than mopping the tiles, but I don't… I don't want to spend the rest of my days mopping tiles. I want to be something greater. I want to help. I want to matter."

His train of thought was becoming more and more personal, and he was glad that Iwaizumi didn't interrupt him. He needed to get this out there. He needed his feelings to cross the chasm of silence that alienated him from the rest of the world. A whirlwind of emotions constantly roared inside of him, but never seemed to go fast enough to break the barrier of sound.

He felt trapped and helpless, and he just needed someone –anyone- to understand that he needed to feel needed.

Thankfully, Iwaizumi had gotten many years to learn to read him, and saw right through him. Making no sound, he crossed the moat of silence that barricaded Oikawa within his own walls, and ghosted his three remaining fingers across his best friend's cheek lightly to draw his attention.

Oikawa looked up, his breath catching in his throat when he saw the sincerity in Iwaizumi's eyes. His heart clenched before Iwaizumi even spoke, because at this point, they no longer communicated through words, but through silence.

"You'd spend your days lying down and watching the stars and you would still matter," Iwaizumi whispered to him, and a strange sadness welled up inside Oikawa when he realized that he still didn't believe him.

"I appreciate it," he simply signed, indulging in their proximity for just another second before pulling away slightly. Iwaizumi took the hint and withdrew his arm, stepping back. "I'm going to sleep. It's been a long day. I'll think more tomorrow."

"Good idea," Iwaizumi agreed, following him into their bedroom. Everyone was situated in their sleeping bags already, squeezing in tightly into the small bedroom as usual and light pillow-talk filling the air as they dozed off one by one.

Oikawa slid into his own sleeping bag and pulled the extra blanket over him. A few bodies away, Iwaizumi did the same, and they both settled to sleep without another word.

With the aftermath of his recruitment test still running in the forefront of his mind, it wasn't hard for Oikawa to fall asleep. He was drained, after all, and no amount of muted regrets and hushed secrets could keep him awake now.

What did surprise him, however, was how easily he woke soon after falling asleep, to someone prodding him softly in the side. Huffing lightly in annoyance, Oikawa turned around, just to see Kuroo leaning over Tsukishima's sleeping body just to poke him awake.

Once he woke, the other captain returned to his sleeping bag, and put his hands up at chest-level. Oikawa also sat up and frowned at him, rubbing his eyes to watch him sign.

"Did you get recruited, too?"

Oikawa's breath caught in his throat, and he was suddenly very much awake. A quick glance around them proved that they were the only ones up at this time. He returned his attention to Kuroo, hesitating. He nodded, unsure.

"I'm going to accept," Kuroo continued without hesitation. "Come with me."

"I don't know," Oikawa pressed his lips into a thin line, trying to drag the appropriate symbols out of his sleep-addled brain. "Why are you accepting?"

"For the adventure, of course." A small chuckle escaped Kuroo's lips, and Tsukishima shifted sleepily between them, though he didn't wake. "That, and, I still feel a responsibility for these guys. Daichi and I, we've been watching out for them since we met, even more since Ukai left." His sentence was a mouthful (handful?) and Oikawa took a moment to reconstruct it all, but when he did, he felt a ball rise in his throat. Kuroo's thoughts were extremely similar to his.

"So you're doing it for them?" Oikawa asked to clarify, watching the moonlight glint off Kuroo's pitch-black irises. In the darkness, they seemed dilated enough to swallow up his eyes entirely.

"We've got something good going here," Kuroo nodded lightly, a soft smile crossing his face as a secret thought crossed his mind. He glanced down at the bodies around them fondly. "I don't want anyone to ruin it- not me, not anybody else."

Oikawa didn't exactly know what he meant by that, but he knew what it was like to express only the surface of iceberg thoughts, and didn't push it. Besides, he understood Kuroo's motives, and the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. He would be doing this because he had a responsibility to protect his friends and family. People knew him to be a natural-born leader, a timeless model to follow. Even if he did not contribute much by actually going outside, he had to look invincible and untouchable so that he appeared as a beacon of strength for those who looked to him for guidance.

No longer human. Oikawa was no longer human. But he could still be useful.

Daichi did it every time he opened his mouth to make a decision. Kuroo did it when he orchestrated crazy plans to save their lives over and over again. And Oikawa needed to do it, too. And if he could accomplish it by becoming a wastelander, then he'd do it in a heartbeat.

"We'll talk tomorrow," Kuroo assured him, noticing that he was deep in thought. "Get some sleep."

Oikawa nodded, flashing him a small, painfully sincere smile before he laid back down. The shuffling of sheets told him that Kuroo had done the same, and soon, they had ceased all movement. The only noise left was the buzzing of Oikawa's thoughts across the silence in his ears.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

Iwaizumi watched him like a hawk the next day, but said nothing, which was what Oikawa was most grateful for. His late-night conversation with Kuroo still reverberated in his head as they headed down for breakfast with the rest of their team, and although he desperately wished for a moment alone with the Nekoma player, he knew that it would look extremely out of place, at the very least. He had to wait until after breakfast.

He had curry again, if only because his appetite felt like shit no matter what. He'd long since gotten used to eating whatever was placed in front of him, anyway. Chewing mindlessly on his food helped him control his worries, as the lingering difficulty swallowing kept his mind grounded and wired on something else.

Of course, when the sound of their casual conversation began to drown in the rising noise from the rest of the cafeteria, Oikawa was forced to take his mind off his food, and to whatever was happening around him.

"What's going on?" Hinata asked, noticing that the cafeteria was beginning to buzz.

"No idea, but it looks like everyone is in on it except us," Suga shrugged, unbothered. In places like these, they were used to being the outsiders. Oikawa noted that they looked nonchalant, but slightly on edge. He wondered what misfortunes they'd been through to be conditioned to behave that way.

"Excuse me," Daichi turned to address a man from the table adjacent to theirs. "Could you tell us why everyone is suddenly so excited?"

"Oh!" the man exclaimed, turning to their table good-naturedly. "There's an announcement going around that there's going to be a special radio report this morning. Everybody is tuning in to hear it any time now!"

"Any chance we could listen in with you?" Kuroo asked smoothly, eyeing the battery-powered portable radio that the man held in his hands. All that came from it was low static for now.

"Of course, of course!" the man nodded hurriedly and slipped onto the empty spot next to Tsukishima to make himself comfortable. He put his radio in the middle of the table, and turned the volume up. The static got louder.

The adjacent tables were doing the same thing, until everyone, even the cafeteria employees, were seemingly impatiently waiting for the fabled news report. Oikawa even began to believe it was just a rumour when suddenly, the static gave way to a flat tone.

It was almost scary how the entire cafeteria fell silent at once.

The flat tone persisted a few seconds longer, and then a very familiar voiced tuned in.

"Good morning, citizens of Awa." The soft voice on the other end could be no one but Akaashi. "We hope you've had a pleasant day so far. We come this morning with a special news report that we're very excited to present to you." He didn't sound very excited, though Oikawa didn't expect much from him.

In contrast, the next person to take the mic blew them away with enthusiasm.

"Yesterday night, around 3AM, the latest team of wastelanders made a triumphant return to our camp with many good news to share!" Bokuto was crowing excitedly in the mic, and though Kuroo was chuckling softly at this, he and the stranger were the only ones seemingly amused by his loud voice. "We have their team leader here with us right now to say a few words about their month-long trek across the wasteland. Please welcome Nakamura Daisuke, everyone!"

Oikawa wasn't sure what to think of everyone in the cafeteria actually bursting into applause, and only suddenly quieting when the man, Daisuke, cleared his throat to speak.

"I appreciate this opportunity to speak." The man's voice was gravelly and rough, his throat probably scratched by the cold winds outside. "I'll keep it brief. I mainly want to thank my team who made it through thick and thin with me; Kogane Souji, my trusty fieldwork partner, Hasegawa Kotori, our fighter specialist, and Kondo Naomi, our lovely field medic. Nothing would've been possible without Souji's quick thinking, Kotori's reassuring protectiveness and Naomi's unquestionable medical skill. I'm really blessed to have had the opportunity to work with them."

"Can you tell us a little bit more about your journey, Nakamura?" Akaashi asked, with Bokuto clearly whispering furiously in the background.

"We left Awa a month ago and had our driver take us as far as possible. I believe he actually took us as far as Sakaide, actually, but we did have to clear the bridge to the mainland on our own. I'd like to thank him, actually, because our driver, Saito Ayumu, was very prompt in both delivering us and extracting us, and was able to push relatively far into hostile territory before being forced to disembark us."

"So if I understand correctly, you crossed to the mainland from Sakaide. Where did you go from there?" Akaashi kept asking.

"Our mission as a single squad was mostly to conduct research on radiation levels in the southern wasteland and to gather some highly specific technological supplies from the big cities on our way back. We gathered data for over a month before returning, which is why it took so long, but we believe that our data will help advance our knowledge of radiation and how it is affecting us. Naomi's theory is that we can use this data to create new protocols for the treatment of radiation sickness and cancer prevention."

"That's so cool!" Bokuto crowed, and a few people –mostly girls- from the cafeteria squeaked at the sound of his voice. "You've helped our community gain levels regarding its healthcare, which is a huge win in my book! On behalf of all the citizens of Awa, thank you, Nakamura!"

"Anything for the people," the wastelander chuckled lightly.

"What a good man," the citizen sitting with them commented idly, humming to himself as he listened to the rest.

"Did you encounter any obstacles during your journey?" Akaashi pushed on.

"Many, of course. The weather being the biggest one, yet only one on the list," the man answered. "Thankfully, we avoided altercations with any other people we met. Kotori wasn't too happy about it, but it's really for the best of the team. Out there in the wasteland, nobody can be trusted but your own team, after all. We relied heavily on one another out there, naturally. For example, Souji got caught in an avalanche when we were doing fieldwork on a steep slope, but our combined knowledge of wasteland survival and Naomi's rapid interventions saved his life. If that was anyone else, they might not have made it, but I had absolute faith in my team and knew that we'd make it through."

"That's very admirable. We're all grateful that you've returned to us. When will you be leaving on your next assignment?" Akaashi asked him next.

"In a week. As wastelanders, our job is to protect the community by working outside of it, so we cannot stay long within these walls. We love what we do, though, and it is our pleasure and our honour to return to the wasteland yet again. During our stay, however, we will be giving guest-lectures to the wastelander trainees and meeting citizens, so work's not done for us yet!"

"That's gonna be exciting for the trainees," Bokuto remarked, and Oikawa quickly noted that his cheeriness seemed to have fallen a bit. Come to think of it, he had been less than enthusiastic when he heard of him and Bokuto being assigned to maintenance. Had he known? And what else did he know? "Nakamura, you're one of the best wastelanders we have, and you and your team are practically legends in your field. Do you have anything to say to the younger generations who are training so hard to reach you where you are right now?"

"Listen in class," the wastelander laughed, dragging a bit of laughter from the crowd in the cafeteria as well. "But honestly, instinct will do you more good than brains out there. The wild isn't testing your book-smarts. It's testing your endurance, your critical thinking, and your strength, both physical and mental fortitude. And when your gut tells you something out there, you know you gotta listen to it more than anything else in the world. It might just save a life."

"Can't say I disagree with that," Kuroo hummed, and there was a general nod of agreement that rippled across their group.

"Well, that's fantastic. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today, Nakamura. Everyone here in Awa has been awaiting your return impatiently and we're very glad to have you back. Keep working hard," Akaashi concluded with a tone of finality.

"Thank you, all. I hope to meet some citizens while I'm still in Awa over the week. Otherwise, thank you for listening in, everyone. Have a wonderful day, knowing that the wastelanders have your back."

"And that was Nakamura Daisuke, everyone, leader of what is only the greatest wastelander team Awa has to offer! Wouldn't it be so great if all of us could be as cool as him? As we speak, our next generation of wastelanders are working hard to live up to their legacy… But not everyone is destined for a life of adventure and danger! Next, around 11AM, tune in for an interview with the representative of the educational organization of Awa, where we will be discussing the new options for education for all ages being offered in our very own community. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll catch you on the radio waves later!"

Akaashi barely had time to mumble a goodbye of his own before the noise of the chattering crowd had drowned him out. The radio went to static once again.

"They're so admirable, those young men and women," the citizen sighed, collecting his portable radio now that the segment was over. "Wastelanders are something else."

"What do you mean?" Kuroo asked immediately.

"Well, they're the backbone of our community!" the man replied, as if this was common knowledge. "You must be new, so you don't really know, but wastelanders are the ones who are in charge of protecting us from outside threats, scavenging resources for the population or to rebuild infrastructures, conducting field research, and rumour has it that some wastelanders are even being trained to go try and stop the implosion of the remaining nuclear plants on the northern coast of the wasteland! Imagine how fantastic that would be!"

"Sounds like wastelanders are pretty popular, aren't they?" Kuroo clarified, though it didn't sound like much of a question. Thankfully, the man didn't think much of it and nodded fervently.

"Oh yes, they're a noble bunch. Everybody loves them. They're the closest thing we've got to heroes. And half the time, we sleep better at night because we know that they're protecting us and the ones that we love."

Oikawa listened closely, and at this point, realized that there was nothing more to be said. He turned to glance at Kuroo, but caught Iwaizumi's eyes on the way. They shared a glance, but no words. Oikawa could see everything Iwaizumi had to say, anyway.

Worry. Hope. Apprehension. Pride. Uncertainty. Acceptance.

But he looked at Oikawa like he now expected something of him, and that's all that Oikawa needed.

"Let's go," he signed to Kuroo as soon as he looked over, and the two of them briskly left for work as soon as they could slip away.

He signed the very same thing to Kuroo when, after their shift, Satoko showed up again to take their answer. There was no doubt in his mind now. Oikawa would be a wastelander, and he would regain a purpose for his existence, or die trying.

Satoko smiled and gave them direction for where to go next. With a flutter in his heart and a ball in his throat, Oikawa trailed behind Kuroo as they entered the small back passages of the mall, and weaved their way towards something new and promising.

-…-…-…-…-…-…-

Oikawa didn't know what he expected, but it sure wasn't what he was given. When the guy at the door let him and Kuroo in, he figured he was about to be met with some incredible phenomenon or an unbelievable sight.

Instead, what he got was a classroom-like area, filled up halfway by bored looking boys and girls of various ages, most of whom seemed unsurprised when they walked in. They were hardly even paid a glance, in fact.

"What a warm welcome," Kuroo grumbled, weaving his way through the seats. Oikawa followed, scanning the room to try and spot a familiar figure. Thankfully, a familiar figure did wave back.

Oikawa tugged on Kuroo's sleeve to get his attention and pointed at the other boy. Kuroo glanced over inquisitively, and then his face absolutely erupted into a cheerful smile when he spotted Yamaguchi.

"This is gonna be so good," he commented, and sauntered over to sit by the silent boy. Yamaguchi did not seem to mind, so Oikawa did so as well, thankful that, at least, there was someone fluent in his own language to keep him company.

They did not speak, asides from the signed pleasantries. Only low murmuring swept through the class once in a while, and despite the silence feeling so familiar, Oikawa began to feel uneasy.

As if hearing his heart beginning to pound harder, the door swung open, and a woman walked in. She seemed older than most people in the class, and Oikawa suspected, from the way that all the others stood from their chairs, that she was their teacher.

The three of them rose hesitantly, just in time for the others to sit down. They sat as well.

The woman stayed silent for a while, scanning the class. Her eyes were sharp and knowing, as if she could see through every one of them.

"Shinji," she suddenly called, her tone firm. "What is your responsibility in the event of a Code White?"

The student called upon perked up and sat straight.

"My responsibility is to ensure the safety of the surrounding citizens by controlling the crowd and creating a perimeter," he answered, so self-assured that Oikawa wondered if he knew he would be asked that question.

"Natsuko, tell us what happened last weekend in one of the residential complexes," she continued without blinking.

"There was a Code White in the evening, perpetrated by a citizen who was under the influence of illicit drugs," a girl replied just as quickly, as if she, too, had rehearsed this. "One bystander got hurt in the altercation between the citizen and security."

"Kanji, why did the bystander become a casualty of a simple, unarmed Code White?" she continued without acknowledging the other responses.

"The trainee assigned to the night guard of the residential complex did not ensure the perimeter and attempted to take on the perpetrator herself. She delayed the radio call for backup and by the time security arrived, a bystander had gotten caught in the crossfire while trying to be helpful to the trainee," the boy recited flatly, as if this was not new to anyone.

"Good," the woman finally praised, nodding, and then falling silent. Oikawa watched her pace without saying a word, feeling unnerved by her stern face.

She stayed quiet a moment longer, and in the corner of his eye, Oikawa saw Kuroo glancing around, clearly locating all the possible exits to escape the situation. Oikawa did not blame him. She made him feel caged as well.

"Everything you learn in your training is based on evidence," she finally began, drawing attention back to herself. "When I tell you to do something, it's because our community has gone through many phases of trial and error to determine that such an intervention is to be done. Not following these protocols can and will result in incidents that would otherwise have been fully preventable. Mistakes are necessary to achieve perfection; yet at some point, we must stop making mistakes and we must become perfect."

Oikawa found himself drawn to her words. His natural inclination to aim for perfection had been crushed during his months in captivity, but with a few simple sentences, this woman was drawing his will back out. He wanted to become perfect. He wanted to become useful.

He wanted to become something. Anything. Anything else than the nothing he felt right now.

"This is what your training is about. Our world order has changed. We no longer exist to live. We no longer have the luxury of imperfection, because our new world order will pinpoint every one of our cracks and will infiltrate us from every single weak point we offer it. We live to exist."

That resonated within Oikawa once again. He wanted to be something. He wanted to exist. He wanted to feel like there was a reason for him to be alive.

Next to him, Kuroo's expression was unreadable.

"We are fundamental, and we are primal," the teacher continued, pacing some more. Her eyes went to the boarded up windows that let slip a few dim rays of sun between the cracks. "We exist so that others may live. We are the last wall erected between this community and the odds. We are the ones who will retake the wasteland in the name of our loved ones who have fallen, and who've yet to fall. We are hope and we are the future."

She finally turned to sweep her eyes over the class, and her gaze softened, if only minutely.

"Welcome back to your Wastelander's Survival Theory class. May what you learn here today help you protect someone tomorrow."

Oikawa didn't realize he was holding his breath until it hitched. Iwaizumi's smile flashed through his mind's eye and disappeared, fast enough for Oikawa to realize that he was forgetting what it looked like. He didn't want to forget.

He couldn't forget. Not when he'd already lost so much of himself to despair.

"We've got new recruits joining us today," the woman continued, turning her eyes to their group in the back. As the students turned to them, seemingly sizing them up, Oikawa straightened his back to try and look more confident than he felt. "They haven't been in Awa for long, but they do show much promise. Would you boys like to say a few things to introduce yourselves?"

"Nothing much to say," Kuroo replied for all of them. "We came here with the rest of our group after traveling the entire island in search of sanctuary. I'm Kuroo Tetsurou, and these are my friends, Yamaguchi Tadashi and Oikawa Tooru."

"Our recruiting team was impressed by your story of survival. We hope you will contribute to the growth of our community," the woman nodded. "You may call me Kaoru. I will be your instructor for the theory sections of your training. We will begin shortly." She walked towards them, and sat down on Kuroo's desk, glancing at Yamaguchi. "Can you briefly describe why you accepted to become a wastelander? Despite the glory associated to it, it is a rigorous, arduous, and dangerous job. What drew you in?"

Yamaguchi looked up at her, and said nothing. Oikawa wasn't surprised, until he realized that it may have been considered as rude, or defiant. Two things that Yamaguchi was absolutely not.

"I'm in it for the adventure," Kuroo hummed. "Dunno about them."

Kaoru turned to Oikawa expectantly, and Oikawa didn't know how to answer. He glanced at Kuroo, who was looking back at him knowingly, and supportively. He took a deep breath, and put his hands up.

"For purpose," he signed, and never before had he felt like he was lying and telling the truth simultaneously like he had just done now.

Kuroo's gaze stayed on him for a moment, scrutinizing, and then turned to Yamaguchi. The class had gone absolutely silent.

"They're here because they want to protect the people they love," Kuroo finally translated, and Oikawa tried not to show the surprise on his face at Kuroo's lie. He probably had a reason for it. He'd ask later.

"Right," their instructor nodded, though she did look a bit uncomfortable now. She slid off of Kuroo's desk slowly. Her eyes darted between Yamaguchi and Oikawa, both of whom were still very relaxed, and perhaps mildly confused by her hesitancy.

Kuroo piped up again.

"They're mute," he simply offered, nothing more and nothing less. Oikawa appreciated that.

The trainees around them got a bit restless, though to their credit, none of them spoke up. They simply exchanged glances and confused expressions.

"I see." Kaoru now seemed a bit unsure, but to her credit, did not voice her insecurities about having disabled recruits on board. "Alright, well… Welcome to the program regardless." She turned her back, and began pacing to the front of the class again. "Let's move on. We'll review our basic principles of energy conservation, and then we'll move on to the ground rules of physical exertion in winter territory."

The other trainees took another moment to glance furtively at the newcomers, and then turned their attention to the lesson. Some of them already had pen and paper pulled out and ready to jot notes, and at the very least, despite the weird vibe he was getting from them, Oikawa could appreciate their diligence.

He wanted to be like them.

Next to him, Kuroo's expression was unreadable, as usual. But as the class went on, Oikawa did feel his eyes on him every so often, and didn't know how to feel about that.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

Kuroo cornered him after the class, as they split from Yamaguchi under the pretense of having extra work to do after hours. Yamaguchi didn't seem to believe them, but didn't question them and left.

Kuroo led him away from the common areas, and they settled for their talk in the middle of a shadowed hallway. Being alone with him left a weird taste on Oikawa's tongue. He wanted to trust Kuroo, but didn't know if that was even objectively possible anymore.

"I want you to be careful," was all Kuroo told him at first, his voice low and flat.

"What's this about?" Oikawa frowned, despite the skip in his heartbeat.

"I can see it in your eyes when you're focused. You want to become one of them," Kuroo extrapolated, though Oikawa still didn't understand why that was an issue.

"Well, yes. That's the point of having accepted the recruitment offer."

"I get that," Kuroo sighed, rolling his shoulders as he loosened up a bit. "But there's something weird about the way Kaoru talks to her students, and the way they behave. They're like machines."

Oikawa still didn't see a problem there. Discipline would make him efficient.

"You said you wanted to find a purpose by becoming a wastelander," Kuroo continued. "That's fine. I get it. But keep it to yourself. Don't tell them that you're a blank slate. Otherwise, they will take advantage of that and train you to become what they want you to become for their purposes."

Oikawa still didn't see the issue. It must have shown in his eyes, because Kuroo's gaze dropped to the ground in a strange show of sadness.

"Do you understand why you shouldn't tell them that you've given them the power to change you?" he asked softly, just trying to understand. Oikawa decided to break his silence and throw him a bone. He answered in the only way he knew how.

"I didn't give them anything," he tried to express what was on his mind. "I don't have that power. Anyone who wants to condition me automatically gets it. There's not much I can do to change that."

He didn't know which part of his answer made Kuroo's eyebrows dip, but he hated it. He hated the way he was being looked at. With pity. Sadness. He didn't deserve any of that.

"Oikawa," Kuroo murmured, as if finally at a loss of words. His tone of voice got on Oikawa's nerves. He was getting antsy (and perhaps a bit anxious). "You're not… you're not anybody's prisoner anymore."

Something violent jolted in Oikawa's chest, and he stepped back. His heart was suddenly racing. He didn't want to hear this right now.

"You're not anyone else's," Kuroo continued, taking a step forward when Oikawa stepped back. His words were getting fiercer, and perhaps a bit more desperate to drive the point home.

Oikawa didn't see the point. When Kuroo put his hand up to touch him, he flinched. Kuroo put his hand down with light shock reflecting in his eyes.

"Nobody decides what happens to you but you," Kuroo added, clearly not sure what to say anymore either. Oikawa just wanted him to shut up. "You're your own person, Oikawa. Don't let them take that away from you."

He paused, and Oikawa held his breath. He wanted to run. He wanted to go. He wanted to leave.

"Again," Kuroo added in a heavy exhale, and Oikawa ran.

He ran because he didn't want to hear this anymore. He didn't want to be reminded of what he'd lost. Kuroo said it like it was so easy but he didn't understand. Nobody understood. Iwaizumi didn't understand, either, nobody did. Oikawa barely understood it himself.

He ran, his chest so tight it hurt, so tight he couldn't breathe, his heart beating so fast it could explode. Nobody understood that Oikawa had nothing left to give, nor had he the power to take back. He had nothing and he was nothing.

He didn't know what to do anymore. He turned a corner and ducked into a utility closet, intending on catching his breath, but ended up doubling over and smothering his angry, confused sobbing in the sleeve of his sweater.

He just wanted to become something again. Purpose. He wanted to be given purpose. He wanted someone to tell him what to do and make him feel like he was useful. He would do anything just to feel like he was worthy of being alive. He needed his heart to beat for a reason.

He just wanted to be something again. Anything. Anything but nothing.

He couldn't handle being nothing once more.

A box of cleaning products dug painfully into his ribs when he drew his knees closer to himself to try and disappear. He didn't move away. He felt no better than the cardboard.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

They did physical training the next day, and Oikawa appreciated that the exercise got his mind off of Kuroo's veiled worry. Conditioning his body like this also helped a lot. He was used to people telling him when to exercise to keep in shape. The routine felt familiar, if not mildly disturbing.

Kuroo didn't try to talk to him again, and Oikawa appreciated that, too. He followed his instructor's words to the letter and tried not to let envy consume him when he noticed that the other students were doing better than him. He'd catch up. Of course he would. He wouldn't let himself lose an opportunity like this.

The third day, the captain of the squad that was interviewed on the radio showed up to give them a lecture about wasteland survival.

And, as the uncanny would have it, he was not the only newcomer in the class.

When Oikawa walked in, scanning the room for a free seat, his eyes fell upon a new face. A face he didn't think he'd see in a place like this. His expression morphed into a grimace as he froze in place.

"What's the holdup?" Kuroo hummed from behind him as he entered, peeking past Oikawa.

At the sound of his voice amongst the silence in the class, the newcomer turned to gaze at them, and his face erupted into a huge grin. The movement stretched a small, coagulated scar on his left cheek.

"Kuroo!" Bokuto called out, waving excitedly. "I saved you a seat! Come here!"

"Bo, what are you doing here?" Kuroo exclaimed, nonetheless skipping over to plop down in the seat next to Bokuto. That got Oikawa moving, and he went to sit nearby, not wanting to be too close to the dynamic duo.

"Oh, I asked to become a wastelander trainee," Bokuto simply shrugged.

"What did you say you did?" Kuroo was taken aback a bit. "Bo, you can't do that."

"Pretty sure I can, cause I'm here right now."

"No, I mean… did you get recruited?" Kuroo asked, confused.

"No. I fought someone to get into the program," Bokuto hummed. That explained the scar. "Like, literally fought."

"Why?"

"I knew, when you guys were assigned to maintenance, that you'd be getting evaluated for a position in the wastelander training program. So I started thinking of what I could do if you did get in. It's dangerous out there, right? So all that's left for me to do is to protect you!" Bokuto proudly explained. Kuroo did not seem convinced, but the expression of disbelief on his face seemed so natural that Oikawa figured this wasn't the first time Bokuto had said something so outrageous.

"And they agreed to that weird logic of yours?" he questioned, still unsure.

"Sure! They had to let me in! I'm super important, so I can pull strings, and stuff!"

"Exactly," Kuroo sighed. "You're super important! You're the famous radio guy! You don't need to be a wastelander, because you're already famous."

"I'm not doing it for fame," Bokuto shrugged. "I'm doing it for you, bro! If you're going out there, I wanna come with you, too!"

"At this point, I've heard that sentence so many times that I won't even object," Kuroo sighed, and Oikawa was the defeated sag of his shoulders as he leaned onto his desk. "Does Akaashi know?"

It was now Bokuto's turn to look sheepish.

"Well… not exactly. I didn't really tell him I'd be going through with this." He was fiddling with his thumbs a bit more quietly, at least a little bit ashamed of his spontaneous decision.

"Bokuto, may you rest in peace."

Oikawa did not think that the quiet teen could even get angry, but then again, imagining someone so composed get angry sounded scary. He also found himself praying for Bokuto's safety when the news ultimately came out.

"I'll be fine!" Bokuto tried to brush it off, if only a bit nervously. At that point, the classroom door opened, and both the teacher and their guest speaker walked in, commanding silence. Oikawa sat upright as everyone quieted.

The teacher gazed at them sternly for a moment before beginning to present their guest speaker. That's when Bokuto leaned over to Kuroo to whisper conspiratorially.

"He's a chill guy. He'll be pissed, but he'll understand."

"I doubt that, Bo. He's gonna be angry."

"What's he gonna do, hit me?"

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

"Bo!" Kuroo waved brightly the next morning, when Bokuto came to sit next to them at lunchtime. Their party was smaller this time, as many of the boys had inconsistent work schedules in their respective departments. This left more space for Bokuto's dramatics, as he approached their table with his tray, and splayed himself down in his seat.

"What's wrong?" Daichi asked from where he was reading a couple of sheets of paper, glancing curiously at the unusually quiet boy.

"He hit me."

"I called it," Kuroo shrugged like it was nothing, and Oikawa couldn't help but snort a bit at that.

"Who hit you? What happened?" Daichi asked immediately, mildly worried.

"Akaashi," Bokuto whined, not at all seeming in pain. Oikawa saw Kuroo waving Daichi's concern off with an amused smile. "He wasn't very happy when I told him I was gonna be a wastelander. I tried to convince him, honestly, but he just smacked me and kicked me out of the studio."

"Don't take it too badly," Kuroo patted his shoulders lightly, not seeming too concerned. Indeed, as if he'd seen it coming, Bokuto perked right up, and pulled his tray closer to himself.

"True! He'll get over it. It's probably just the initial shock that got him."

Oikawa somehow doubted that that was the end of it.

From the table next to them, a man suddenly fiddled with the volume on his portable radio, and tuned in attentively to the series of static noises that were attempting to dissipate.

"What's on the radio this morning?" Kuroo asked, glancing over at the man, and then at Bokuto. Strangely enough, he seemed rather perplexed as well.

"I dunno. We didn't have anything lined up for this morning, as far as I know." He seemed to think for a second. "Then again, Akaashi did kick me out, so I wouldn't know."

"Good morning, residents of Awa," the radio suddenly began, Akaashi's voice filtering through the static. Almost immediately, all the tables turned the volume up on their radios. "I hope you are all having a fine morning today. The weather is mild out, so it's actually quite a lovely day to relax and take it easy and do your best."

"Is it just me, or does he sound different?" Daichi frowned, idly munching on his breakfast.

"Maybe he's congested?" Bokuto winced lightly when he noted the edge to Akaashi's voice.

"This broadcast is short and sweet, and an unplanned one to get you thinking on this fine day," Akaashi continued, his voice sounding soft, almost too soft. So soft it felt fake. Oikawa didn't know the other boy too much, but his tone was making his skin crawl.

"What's he doing?" Kuroo frowned as well, finally noting that something felt off.

"I would like everyone this morning to think of the people they love. Take a moment," Akaashi encouraged, letting a few second elapse. A few faces flashed through Oikawa's mind. He couldn't help it. "These people you thought of are the ones who matter in this world. As sad as it is, our world no longer can be saved. But the people we love… they are the ones who can be saved. And it is our individual responsibility to ensure that we do our utmost to keep our loved ones safe and sound."

"Where's this coming from?" Bokuto frowned, toying with his rice idly. Oikawa couldn't tell if he was being oblivious on purpose, or if he was just thick. It was painfully obvious why Akaashi was doing this sort of thing now.

"Take a moment to tell your loved ones that you want the best for them. Tell them you love them, and that you are worried for their safety. Tell your parents and children and siblings and friends that you cannot bear to lose them, too. Remind them that they can find solace at your side, and that there is nowhere else in this god-forsaken world that will provide the same safety. Let them know. Make them understand. If your feelings remain silent, you risk losing the ones you love to everything left unsaid. Don't work yourself up to regret withholding your feelings later. Break the silence. Give your emotions a voice. Tell your loved ones today that you-"

And Akaashi's voice broke in a strange lilt. Oikawa's heart lurched, and by the looks on Bokuto's and Kuroo's faces, the uncharacteristic change in his tone spoke volumes. They looked stricken, and maybe a little bit heartbroken. Kuroo looked at Bokuto somberly, and Bokuto turned his eyes to the ground, something akin to shame rising to fill the premature lines etched onto his innocent face.

"Tell them that you need them," Akaashi continued when he composed himself. "And that being by their side is the only thing that can keep you going out in this world. Tell them, and make sure they never forget. Make sure that you never have to end up thinking that you did not do enough to keep your loved ones safe."

A woman was softly sobbing on a table nearby. The entire cafeteria had been plunged in a heavy silence. The man with the radio next to them had bowed his head with his eyes closed. Two people nearby were embracing tightly, intimately, as if afraid to let go. Akaashi's deep and meaningful speech had somehow gotten to everybody, despite the fact that Oikawa could tell that it was personal, and that he was simply venting out on the airwaves instead of in person.

He wondered for a second if that was Akaashi's real voice. Both of them seemed to be surrounded by an oppressive silence, and yet, where Oikawa found sign language to speak, Akaashi had found radio broadcasting to make himself heard. They were similar in the end, both of them just trying so hard to make their thoughts known, and struggling to do so without a proper voice.

"Thank you," Akaashi concluded softly, quietly, vulnerable. It made Oikawa's heartstrings tug painfully. The pinched look on Bokuto's face spoke volumes about how much he was hurting, too. "Have a fantastic day. Spend it knowing that you are still here, and that you are still someone. You matter. Goodbye."

And then, there was a silence.

The atmosphere stayed morose for a while, almost scarily so. It was almost as if people were afraid to be the first ones to speak up. The static from the radios was turned off one by one, until all that remained in the entire cafeteria was the sound of occasional sniffling.

And then, all of a sudden, everyone got up, and chaos erupted.

People began to walk up to each other to talk, hold one another, laugh, cry, bask in the fact that, as Akaashi had said, they were still alive, and they still mattered. Only the four at Oikawa's table remained seated, not sure what to do next. Bokuto still hadn't spoken.

"Bo?" Kuroo called softly, noticing that his friend was out of it. "Hey. Earth to Bo." He waited for Bokuto to raise his head and look at him, his eyes a bit blank. "You okay, man?"

"I… I'm fine," he nodded, his usual energy having evaporated with every syllable that had vibrated through his eardrums.

"Don't look like it," Kuroo challenged softly, not pushing too much, but not letting him get away with the obvious lie either. He reminded Oikawa of Iwaizumi, if only a little… less rough than his best friend's usual mannerisms.

Bokuto did not reply, still deep in thought. His face was impassible, and Oikawa could not tell if he was sad, worried, regretful, or just plain empty. Goodness knew they all had a bit of emptiness inside of them these days.

Oikawa tapped Kuroo's forearm gently to grab his attention and pointed to Bokuto.

"Tell him something for me," he instructed, trying to do his best to help. "Tell him that he should probably talk to Akaashi." He found himself thinking of how he'd feel if Iwaizumi was the one saying all this. "I know I would if my best friend sounded so broken."

"Bo." Kuroo nodded at Oikawa, carefully reading off his fingers. "You should probably talk to Akaashi. He sounded upset, and I'm pretty sure it has to do with the fact that you enlisted yourself in the wastelanders."

"He's mad at me, isn't he?" Bokuto sighed, dejected. "I didn't mean to make him upset…"

"He's not mad at you, just worried," Kuroo rolled his eyes lightly, as if expecting this development. "You should go see him."

"He's all I had for a long time," Bokuto continued, as if not even hearing Kuroo speak. "I never meant to make him mad… not after he's done so much for me."

"Oh my god," Kuroo groaned softly, and Oikawa was briefly thrown off at the mildly inappropriate reaction to what was clearly a boy having a breakdown.

"After he saved my life and tried to save my parents… after he took care of me… after he helped me get my memory back…" Bokuto's tone was slowly escalating, until he suddenly stood up, slamming his hands on the table. His face was crisped with pain (if only a bit dramatically). "I don't deserve him! I can't face him after all this!"

Oikawa began to realize why Kuroo was sighing. Even Daichi, quiet so far, seemed thrown off.

"Look, at least go see if he's okay by himself in the recording studio," Kuroo tried, shaking his head lightly. "He needs you right now, Bokuto. You're the only one who can make him feel better. You saw how sad he sounded… And you heard him. You need to save the ones who are closest to you in this world… So go. Go save him."

Bokuto slowly considered his words, and the desperate expression quickly gave way to determination.

"You're right!" he nodded, his strange salt-and-pepper hair whipping around with the force of his nod. It hurt Oikawa's neck just looking at it. "Thanks, Kuroo! I'm gonna go fix things!"

"You do that, bud," Kuroo smirked, watching amusedly as Bokuto grabbed his tray, and briefly wished them a good day before rushing off.

When the whirlwind teenager was gone, Oikawa strangely felt like there was a vacuum left in his place.

"He's always like that," Kuroo offered simply, and got up as well, grabbing his tray. Around them, people were beginning to leave also, sentimentality giving way to practicality as they all left for work. "Come on, Oikawa. We need to get going for training."

They didn't have training scheduled so early in the day. They never did. But Oikawa just smiled, and got up as well. He also had questions for Kuroo.

He waved goodbye to Daichi, who looked mildly amused and mildly concerned, and headed off behind Kuroo. They remained silent until they'd disposed of their lunch, and Kuroo only spoke up when they were on the stairwell up to the ground floor.

"I heard a lot of interesting things, you know," he began cryptically, already bothering Oikawa with all the mystery he tried to shroud himself in.

"Drop the bullshit and tell me what's on your mind now," Oikawa rolled his eyes, making sure Kuroo could understand the skepticism interwoven between his delicate fingers.

"So straightforward," Kuroo hummed lightly, though his eyes were hard. He was clearly deep in thought. "Alright. I'll tell you. But you tell me first. Did you notice something off about the words Akaashi was using?"

"I thought you were going to talk about everything Bokuto said about owing Akaashi his life," Oikawa signed in genuine surprise.

"That, too. But what do you take from Akaashi's words?" Kuroo asked, still lightly. Falsely light.

"Well…" Oikawa tried to recall what he'd heard, but mostly, how he'd felt hearing those words. "Akaashi sounded sad. Upset, more like. Bokuto's impulse was genuinely distressing for him."

"Right. What else?"

"Is this a game show? Math class, maybe?"

"Okay, smart ass. Very funny. Tell me what else you got from it," Kuroo's eyes turned serious. "I have a hypothesis. But I need a second opinion."

Oikawa's throat locked up tight at the look of his eyes. Cold, and steely. As if he anticipated for something to go horribly wrong.

"Well…" he continued, trying to regain his bearings and remember how to sign. He looked away from Kuroo. His gaze was unnerving. "I had the impression that this was impulsive on Akaashi's part. He definitely didn't have a script ready."

"Mhm." Kuroo's eyes were riveted on his hands as he processed every single symbol Oikawa chose to create.

"He was definitely worried about Bokuto, but it was as if he didn't know how to express it." The more he went over his thoughts, the more he, too, began constructing the same impression as Kuroo. Something was fishy here. "It was as if he would explode if he didn't get it out, so he grabbed the first medium available, which was the radio."

"I knew Akaashi before the war," Kuroo nodded, stopping them on a landing in the staircase where they could be alone to talk. "He was never the impulsive type. He always thought an action through three times before doing it. He was analytical, rational, and collected. What we heard on the radio was anything but him."

"But what would drive him to become impulsive as such when Bokuto's safety is threatened with compromise?" Oikawa mused. "It was as if he was desperate for not only Bokuto to hear his feelings, but…" It began to dawn on him. "But himself, too. He needed to hear himself, too."

"There's only one emotion that is strong enough to do that," Kuroo nodded grimly.

They gave each other a second of silence, their eyes doing the talking. Oikawa didn't like the look in Kuroo's eyes, but he understood.

"Guilt."

"Exactly," Kuroo nodded, as if he'd already thought all of this up. "Bokuto's putting himself in a dangerous situation, and of all things, Akaashi is suddenly feeling overwhelmingly and desperately guilty. That's a very strange reaction. Tie in what Bokuto said about owing Akaashi his life, and this is becoming one hell of a bizarre situation."

"How do you even come up with this stuff?" Oikawa rubbed his forehead as a headache began to come forth. It didn't seem like they were quite done with the mysteries just yet. "You're literally basing a whole psychological analysis on a radio broadcast that was more static than anything else."

"I like to give these things some thought."

"More like you need to know everything about everyone around you." If Oikawa could grumble, he would. Kuroo gave that some thought, too, as he began ascending the stairs once more. Oikawa closely followed.

"Well…" he began, elongating his syllable in thought. "Yeah. Yeah, you're not wrong. I want to know what's going on around me."

"You're wrong," Oikawa challenged with a raise of his brow. "You don't want- you need. You need to know what's happening. Like you're afraid that any unknown variable will be your downfall. Why do you need so much control over everything around you?"

"Unknown variables have been my downfall so far," Kuroo hissed right back, and Oikawa flinched, realizing that he'd pinched a nerve. He hadn't expected that. "I'm just trying to avoid any more of those. Besides, I thought you would understand the need for control. Don't you? Aren't you the same as me?"

Oikawa attempted to sign the words 'what do you mean?', but his hands had begun to shake. Kuroo read it out of the nervousness lighting up in his eyes, however.

"You need control, too, don't you?" Kuroo continued, his voice carrying a certain edge to it that felt like it would cut Oikawa if he pushed too far. "You should need it. After all the time when it was taken away from you, aren't you craving to have it back? Aren't you afraid that you won't be able to be independent without absolute control?"

The words made Oikawa feel weird. He was in control, wasn't he?

Wasn't he?

"I..." he hesitated. "I don't think I can be independent anymore. I can't do it. So I… I shouldn't need to control anything around me." He wasn't sure he was saying the right thing, especially judging by the impassible look in Kuroo's eyes, but he tried. Oh, he did try. He wasn't even sure what he believed anymore. "If someone else controls the variables around me, then… that's okay, right? I don't need to have control over my own life, as long as someone does."

… Right?

"Your hands are shaking," Kuroo noted, a bit softer this time, as if he saw something that Oikawa didn't. He looked away. Shame was beginning to well up inside of him once again. "Hey. Don't think too much about it. I'm sorry for bringing it up." They reached the top of the staircase, and opened the door to the ground floor. "Take it easy. I'll see you later, for work. And then we can go to training together in the evening. Hopefully, Bo will have sorted himself out by then."

Oikawa nodded, if only with a slight delay. Kuroo patted his shoulder as he walked off.

"Take care, Oikawa."

He left the brunet in silence, standing there with many more questions and insecurities than he had before. Oikawa felt weird about it. Every conversation he had with Kuroo seemed to end on a mixed note.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

Bokuto did not say much after his talk with Akaashi, but considering that the two were back to behaving as usual (whatever their usual was), they had settled things. Akaashi still seemed a bit hesitant when Bokuto mentioned going to his training sessions or classes with Yamaguchi, Kuroo and Oikawa, but never again made a big deal out of it. Oikawa noticed that Kuroo still seemed a bit suspicious, but he brushed it off as Kuroo being paranoid. He still wasn't sure what his story was (they never really spoke of it), but it must have been fucked up for him to be like this all the time.

Oikawa thought back often to what he told him over and over again.

That he needed to regain the control he'd lost.

He didn't even know where to start looking, or if it was even something he could look for. He couldn't even remember when he lost it. His days in captivity melded together in his recollections, so blurry and so vivid at once that all he could remember were unending cycles of terror and emptiness.

If he took the time to think about it, he probably didn't lose control all at once. No, it had probably slipped off gradually, whittled away by the small freedoms that were routinely forbidden to him.

Eat, they'd say, and Oikawa would have no choice but to do it, whether or not he was hungry. Go running, they'd say, and Oikawa would do it, not because he wanted to exercise the frustration away, but because he was told to. Sleep, they'd say, and Oikawa would have to pretend to sleep until the fear in the forefront of his mind actually dissipated enough for him to fall asleep.

Stop squirming, they'd say, and Oikawa would do it, because he was scared, and because he was told to.

His heart jumped in his throat, and the uncomfortable feeling of nausea snapped him out of his recollection. When he came to, he found himself at the dinner table with everybody else, not even sure how he got there in the first place. There was an untouched bowl of cheap ramen cooling in front of him, and a quick glance at the others informed him that he had been off in his memories for quite a while.

The next thing he noticed was that Iwaizumi had set his hand against his thigh, not actually touching him, but rather brushing his leg to let him know that he knew something was wrong. Iwaizumi himself was calmly slurping his noodles, tuning into Hinata's excited conversation nearby.

Oikawa appreciated him not being overprotective, and moved lightly to indicate that he was back. As expected, Iwaizumi immediately turned to him, drawing his hand away, and scanned his tired features.

"Hello," he greeted softly, too quietly for anyone else to hear. "How are you feeling?"

Oikawa just nodded with a small smile, too tired to bother signing.

"Do you want to say something?" Iwaizumi continued, his face betraying nothing of how he felt. There was a smack of broth on his cheek, and Oikawa honed in on it to avoid discerning the worry subtly etched in his expression.

He shook his head. He didn't want to talk about it, whatever it was. He still wasn't sure how to go about the subject matter of regaining control on his life.

"Okay," Iwaizumi nodded softly. "Please eat a little bit."

Eat, they'd say, and Oikawa would have to do it. If he didn't, they'd make him. And they'd yell at him when he threw up afterwards.

His breathing must've been shaky, because he saw Iwaizumi moving in the periphery. He immediately zoned back in to watch his movements like a hawk, and his best friend must have noticed it, because he moved slower.

"Do you want to eat anything?" he adjusted the question slightly, knowing that he'd hit the nail on the head when Oikawa took a deeper breath to calm down. Oikawa shook his head after a moment of thought, and fully expected Iwaizumi to try and gently coerce him into taking a few bites at least. However, to his apparent surprise, Iwaizumi shrugged, and pushed his bowl away from him.

The shock must've shown as clearly as day, because Iwaizumi patted his shoulder supportively before returning to his own dish.

"No point in trying to get you to do something you don't want to do," he explained regarding the silent question. "The Oikawa I know is mule-headed enough to get away with it."

The Oikawa he knew seemed like a fantastic person. Unlike the person Oikawa had become through his ordeal, he would stand up for himself, and so much more.

When Oikawa saw Iwaizumi casually return to his food without another word of objection, his heart leapt, and he promised himself that, if only for Iwaizumi, if only for his memories of his past self, he would go back to the man he was before.

Somewhere inside of him, he still had the power to change himself. The thought sent a shiver down his spine, and the shiver reflexively drove his fists to clench. And when his nails dug into his palms, he thought that he felt, for just one second, an invisible string in his grip. And though the next second, it was gone, he knew now that his life was within his reach. He had to grasp thin air, and believe hard enough for the string to be in his hand when he opened his eyes.

He glanced over to the other side of the table, and caught Kuroo side-eyeing him, as if he'd been watching him. Kuroo didn't break eye contact, just smiled lightly to Oikawa before turning back to the ongoing conversation. It irritated Oikawa that he acted so omniscient and untouchable, but it irritated him even more than he had been right so far. It irritated him that he was grateful.

He looked away from Kuroo, but knew that he'd turn back to him sooner or later. And as irritating as that thought was, it helped calm a bit of Oikawa's uncertainty regarding the future.

He had Iwaizumi. He had Kuroo. And someday, hopefully someday soon, he would have himself.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

A week passed before their very first practice mission. A week of evening classes and daytime practice and exercise prepped them to step outside the boundaries of Awa for the first time ever since they arrived there.

Their first practice mission was a simulation of the practical evaluation they'd be doing later on. It was a simple raid-type mission, where the boys would have to demonstrate the proper techniques of safety and survival as they raided a house set-up by their instructors prior to their arrival.

None of them were worried about it. In fact, Oikawa found that the worst part of it all was that he had to step back out in the chill of nuclear winter yet again. He already had enough of it commuting from their residence to the main complex every day, never mind going outside for long periods of time again. It felt like his body had forgotten how much it had taken for them to trek to Awa, and had regressed into its old state of getting irritated at any long exposure to the cold.

He was going to be a wastelander though. He figured he may as well start to train himself in that sense.

For all the hype, the simulation was nothing. Clearly, Kuroo and Yamaguchi had done this a hundred times, and with Bokuto's quick reflexes and Oikawa's precious common sense, they made a very good team.

They were so good, they even saw coming the incident that was bound to happen to them, knowing their luck.

It wasn't anything major. Midway through the steps to the second floor, Kuroo stepped on one that must've been loose, because it gave way, causing him to fall backwards. He caught himself quickly, but did end up tumbling down, into the wooden screen that their instructors had used to delimit the area of the house to be used for the exercise. It, too, toppled over and fell on him, but Kuroo was able to catch it and slow its descent before it knocked the breath out of his lungs a second time.

By the time their instructor rushed in to help them with this unplanned occurrence, Bokuto had already lifted the divider from off of Kuroo and was securing the surroundings. Yamaguchi was already at Kuroo's side and assessing him for any head injuries or broken bones, and Oikawa was kneeling behind his head, hands on his neck to preserve spinal alignment in case of a head injury.

In front of their speechless instructor, Yamaguchi cleared Kuroo's spine, and Bokuto helped him and Oikawa up just in time for all of them to start laughing about it. They finished the exercise without further ado, and returned to the relative warmth of the transport truck for a debrief.

Oikawa knew to expect their instructor's praise on a mission well done. They had gone through so much worse together, after all. He was only excited to hear that they would be returning to the compound for their theoretical classes of the evening, and that they'd be getting assigned more practice missions throughout the next few weeks. Getting his body and mind moving had done him a load of good.

A week later, they passed their practical examination with flying colours. It was no surprise to anyone, neither the teachers, nor the team members themselves. Oikawa figured that they were a mild annoyance to the other students, though, considering that they had waltzed in several weeks into the new term and were now nailing all the examinations, but nobody ever said anything about it. Or anything at all, in fact. The other students never really spoke to any of them, which was fine by Oikawa. He didn't feel like being reminded of what he'd lost, anyway.

The familiar feeling of getting settled into a lifestyle returned over the next few weeks. They all began to find their place within the community. They began to rebuild a routine in Awa. On some days when the sun poked through the dense grey clouds and illuminated the irradiated land, Oikawa felt like they were actually beginning to rebuild a life in Awa, too.

The spring semester of school began halfway through March, about a month after they found salvation in Awa. The setup was rudimentary; inhabitants with a teaching degree or higher education in a certain topic would offer classes about it, and anyone who wanted to attend could enroll. At first, the concept of school seemed a bit ludicrous. After all, did homework really have a role to play after the apocalypse?

Oikawa was unconcerned anyway, since he was in wastelander training to begin with. That already counted as a form of education. Besides, he didn't fancy himself anything more than a military man now. Without a voice, he wasn't worth much anymore. Just enough to offer his body to whoever could still make use of it.

On the other hand, Daichi insisted that they all sign up for at least one or two classes. His reasoning was that they wouldn't live the war for the rest of their lives and that they may as well begin to rebuild upon their lives from before. There were a few objections raised. The thought of homework somehow seemed more chilling than the weather. But nobody really acted upon it, and within the next week, most of them were sitting in a thrown-together classroom environment, scribbling notes about mathematics and history. Physics and history. Biology and language. The very same things they would have been studying at this point in an alternate lifetime, when all they would worry about was the next volleyball tournament. The next midterm exam. What they'd be having for dinner.

Oikawa didn't like reminiscing. It reminded him of everything that he had been, and that he now was not. The Oikawa who wanted to beat Ushijima Wakatoshi and play on the national volleyball team was dead. He had died long ago. Only a silent shell of his body had remained.

For that reason, Oikawa didn't restart his high school education and just kept focusing on wastelander training. However, when he lied sleepless at night, he had to admit that somehow, it felt wrong.

Of course, Iwaizumi could tell.

Oikawa knew he could, even before he sat up from where he slept, a few bodies away from him. Oikawa didn't sit up himself, but when Iwaizumi threw his covers off, he knew he was about to abandon the warmth of his sleeping bag for a little while.

He sighed mutely, and did the same. They proceeded out of the door to their room, and headed down the hallway. Though they stayed close, neither of them spoke. Oikawa enjoyed this kind of silence.

Iwaizumi stopped them in the living room area, which had been repurposed as giant closet for all the winter clothing for the inhabitants of their dorm. Past the racks and racks of damp coats and soggy boots, a large window cast a faint moonlight upon the macerated hardwood floor. Iwaizumi took him to it.

The clouds usually cleared in the later hours, because of the high winds that made the nights so freezing. Oikawa liked that about the weather, at the very least. Despite the painful cold that pervaded their bones every step of the way, it was times like these that made this entire trip worth it. The powdery snow scintillating in tall mounds made it seem like the stars had fallen from the sky, only to find a foothold on Earth. Standing in the soft moonlight filtering in, feet curling with the chill and the anticipation of the situation, body leaning close to Iwaizumi's, Oikawa breathed. He breathed, his heart beat, and his fingers twitched with the urge to reach out and touch the frosty glass. In the thin film fogging the window, Oikawa saw his reflection's mouth open in a soft gasp. For a second, he saw the man he'd been before the war.

"You better have a good reason for making me stay up like this," Iwaizumi began in his rumbling, soothing voice. He spared Oikawa a glance that lasted three whole seconds, and then he, too, turned his eyes to the world outside. He gave Oikawa the time and space to think, which he appreciated.

Lately, he'd begun to forget what troubled him and what didn't. All he knew was that he felt haunted, like there was something in the back of his mind that told him that he was hurt, though he himself couldn't see nor feel a wound. He pondered if perhaps he still felt like the issue of regaining his control was out of his control. Deep inside, there was still a little voice that yelled at him to relinquish his will to others. He never responded to its desperate cries, hoping to ignore it until it went away, but periodically questioned if it stayed for a reason. Perhaps there was some truth to it.

"Iwa-chan," he signed, his fingers sliding against one another as if to feel the comfort brought by the name. Iwaizumi didn't turn to him, giving him space, but did look down at his hands. "What do you think I'm good for?"

"This again?" Iwaizumi groaned. "I told you. You're irreplaceable."

"Why do you have to be such a brute when I pour my heart out to you like this?" Oikawa teased, gently bumping his friend's shoulder with his. "I want to know the answer."

"The answer is something you're supposed to come up with yourself," Iwaizumi sighed. "It's called having a self-concept."

That made Oikawa feel a bit worse. A bit. He knew he was supposed to have it, but he still couldn't find it inside of him. Iwaizumi made it seem so easy. Although he didn't mean to hurt him even more, the comment did pinch a little bit.

"Well, what's your self-concept like?" he reversed the question, halfway trying to prove a point, and halfway just trying to understand. Iwaizumi had been through a lot as well. Surely he had lost something irretrievably as well.

The silence confirmed it. A glance at his friend proved that he was thinking about the question deeply.

"I'm a good person," Iwaizumi murmured after a moment of though, so quickly that Oikawa almost missed it. He said it as if to get it out of the way, or to express it before he forgot it. It broke Oikawa's heart. "I allow people to lean on me and depend on me when they need to get something done. I'll do anything to help." His voice cracked a little bit and he coughed to cover it up. A pathetic effort that Oikawa commended regardless, for he would have done the same. "Anything."

"And that's who you are?" Oikawa continued, his glance straying down to Iwaizumi's right hand. His description sounded very much like the Iwaizumi before the war, but Oikawa felt like there should have been something else. Something less. Iwaizumi had been broken by the war, and both of them knew it for a fact.

"Yeah." Iwaizumi frowned lightly, as if not understanding what Oikawa wasn't understanding. "You've known me for too long to get away with disbelief. What are you thinking?"

"You really wanna know?" Oikawa smirked, though it was weak. Iwaizumi saw right through it.

"You've never held back on me before, stupid. Just tell me."

"I'm just…" he wondered how to formulate it. His fingers hovered at his chest level, tingling with the cold radiating off the frosty glass. He turned towards Iwaizumi to get away from the chill, and Iwaizumi immediately followed. "I'm just trying to understand how you came up with the answer. It sounds very similar to the thick Iwa-chan I knew before the war," he hesitated, then added, "as if you haven't changed."

"It's not that I haven't changed," Iwaizumi frowned deeper. "Of course I have. But my experiences didn't change the person that I am. They changed the way I behave and the way I think about things, but deep inside, I've always been and always will be me. Whether I'm Seijoh's dependable ace, or this group's dependable friend, I'm still Iwaizumi Hajime, the guy that people can count on."

"Of course you are." Oikawa meant it as a quip, but his hands quivered. There was something about his best friend's statement that made him feel like he was about to cry. "You've always been the voice of reason, too."

"Tried to be, in your case. You say that, but you've never listened to me," Iwaizumi threw right back, the familiar banter creating a comfortable cocoon in the atmosphere around them.

"It's cause you're not my mom, Iwa-chan," Oikawa threw right back, and for a second, their faces brightened. They both allowed themselves to chuckle at their ridiculous antics for a second, just to relieve the heaviness that the conversation had spread upon their hearts.

The silence returned after they quieted down, though it simply felt like a buffer between their thoughts and their words. It was comfortable, as always. It lulled Oikawa's mind down to a point where he felt like if he lied down, he could fall asleep.

But being with Iwaizumi felt like something else entirely. He didn't want to fall asleep just yet, not when the moonlight still cast harsh shadows across his young face for Oikawa to admire. His eyelashes, long and dark, fluttered when the chill dried his dulled eyes out, and Oikawa knew that although Iwaizumi had not changed as a person, there were still parts of him that would be affected forever by his experience.

A shiver ran down his spine, and he couldn't help but inch closer to Iwaizumi. The warmth he provided wasn't physical, per se, but although a blanket would've been very welcome right now, he still found solace within his aura.

"I don't know if that has helped me figure out my own self-concept," he suddenly admitted. "You… You haven't let your experiences change the person you are, but I… My voice…"

"I know," Iwaizumi mumbled softly, looking sad.

"Do you really?" Oikawa stressed, not angrily, but desperately, feeling a bit desperate to have himself understood. "My entire life revolved around my voice. I wanted to study in law, but I can't be someone's advocate if I can't talk. I can't play volleyball if I can't communicate with my teammates. I can't work a part-time job if I can't talk to customers. I can't do anything…"

He sighed deeply, though all that came out was the whistle of air. Not a trace of his voice to be found. It made him feel broken from the very depth of his being.

"I can't even tell people how much they mean to me anymore…" he added as a second, more hidden thought. "All I've got are the symbols in my hands, and they won't say how I feel like my voice would've. Nobody even understands sign language. It's frustrating because it always feels like I'm alone."

Iwaizumi looked at him, and then put his hands up. Oikawa's eyes immediately went to his fingers, which curved elegantly as he made the choice to answer by signing. It was a considerate, and very empathetic gesture.

"But you're not." His fingers hovered in mid air for a second as he buffered what to sign next, but all he did was put his right hand over Oikawa's heart. The pressure was uneven, but somehow, it felt that much more comforting to him. He was damaged, but he wasn't the only one. "Though you may feel lonely sometimes, you're never alone. I know that… I know that better than anyone. When the worst comes to get you, there's always someone there for you. You may not expect it. You may not believe it. But there will always be someone there for you when you need them most." His hand fell off after a second of thought. "I… I want to be that person for you." He swallowed heavily, and Oikawa noticed how he turned his gaze away, mildly embarrassed. "I'm the dependable one, after all, right?"

Oikawa never thought his heart could swell so much. After everything he'd been through, he still found it in himself to trust in Iwaizumi's quiet passion. But then again, he'd never, not even for a second, ever doubted Iwaizumi. This shouldn't have come as a surprise. His choice of words, though, let something like a bitter taste linger in Oikawa's mouth. There was a story behind all this, and he wanted to hear it.

"And who was that person for you, when you needed them the most?" he asked after some hesitation.

"I knew you were going to ask," Iwaizumi chuckled softly, genuinely amused. As the laughter dissipated, though, there only remained a heavy silence. By the looks of his stricken expression, it wasn't an easy story to tell. "I guess I had to tell someone sometime."

"You haven't told anyone about it?" Oikawa asked, mildly surprised. His curiosity was beginning to poke his head out from behind the curtain of self-doubt. "I thought you told those Karasuno guys everything."

"Not everything." Iwaizumi seemed mildly affronted. "Just the basics. I guess I didn't want to get emotional in front of them."

"Are you gonna get emotional in front of me, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa asked, but without the lull of his voice, it didn't sound teasing. It just felt like a genuine question.

"Probably," Iwaizumi admitted after a moment of swallowing his pride. "I know you won't think lesser of me regardless of what I say."

Oikawa flinched lightly at such an honest statement, but never in a thousand lifetimes would he even joke about it otherwise.

Iwaizumi took his silence as a stepping stone towards his story. He didn't hesitate, however, as if he'd already been preparing this for a while. Perhaps he had. Oikawa was glad, because he now knew that this was something that his best friend had to get out of his system. And if his use was to be receptive to his emotions, then so be it. He would gladly devote a lifetime to bearing Iwaizumi Hajime's burdens.

"It's how I lost my fingers." Iwaizumi clenched his fist, the moonlight casting a bizarre shadow on his palm through the gap in his digits. "It was punishment, too."

Oikawa had a feeling that that was what it was, but hearing it made his heart hurt that much more. With so few words and so much left unsaid, he already understood and empathized. He wanted to touch Iwaizumi, but knew that sometimes, distance said much more than anything else.

"There was a girl in the camp with me," Iwaizumi continued. "Younger than us. First-year, I think. Her name was Mayumi Sonozaki. She was an O minus."

Confusion must've shown on Oikawa's face because Iwaizumi let out a small noise of realization and backtracked.

"That's her blood type," he clarified. "Age and blood type were the biggest determinants of identity in the camp. Most people didn't know any names, just blood types." He chuckled lightly in a rare moment of genuine nostalgia. "Mayumi called me the A+ A-plus. She thought it was funny because I'm very fit and my blood type is A-positive."

"You seemed close to her," Oikawa commented, with just a bit of bitterness. He wished he could've been there for Iwaizumi instead of some random girl. He felt powerless again.

"I needed something to hold onto," Iwaizumi shrugged. He seemed to be getting lost in his memories. "She had been there before me, so she eased my transition into the camp. It was… it was really terrifying at first. Lots of baseline tests, interviews, stuff like that. She told me what to expect and how to take care of myself after the procedures."

"I'm glad you had someone to help out," Oikawa still replied, unable to imagine how scared Iwaizumi must've been. He didn't want to imagine it. The simple thought broke his heart.

"She helped everyone out, really, not just me." Iwaizumi shrugged, looking away. "One of her kidneys had already been taken out, so she fancied herself a veteran in the camp."

"Are you okay to talk about this right now?" Oikawa immediately asked, shivering lightly. He worried for Iwaizumi, but also was worried that he wouldn't be able to bear what he would be told. He just hoped that he would be enough. "It's a very heavy topic. You don't have to."

"I need to," Iwaizumi protested softly, his eyes shutting lightly in resignation. He took a deep breath. "I want to."

Oikawa remained silent in acceptance. Iwaizumi flashed him a grateful look, then continued.

"We wore bracelets on our wrists that showed our blood type and age. It became clear very quickly that there wasn't much organization behind the operation. When someone was needed, an overseer would literally just walk by and check wristbands until he found what he wanted. As far as we knew, documentation wasn't kept. Once an organ was harvested, it was labelled with the blood type, age, and sex of the person and was stored away. So it was easy to slip through the cracks once in a while."

"What happened?" Oikawa asked, his heart tugging at the stricken look that was dawning on Iwaizumi's face. He wanted to cry in his stead. Something terrible was about to happen in his story, and he knew it.

"I got sick. Pneumonia," Iwaizumi's words came out clipped with emotion. Frustration. Remorse. Oikawa began to feel his frustration himself. "They gave me aspirins for pain and whatnot, but apparently didn't know -or care- that aspirin makes blood more liquid. The next time they took blood from me, I couldn't clot, and lost almost twice what they usually take. I was really in bad shape for the next couple of days. Mayumi kept saying I would die if they took anything else from me at that point. She was angry."

"I'd be, too!" Oikawa's fingers were crisped with the white-hot rage that was filling up his lungs. "I hope they're all dead or suffering for their crimes… How dare they do this kind of thing to people?" There were tears in his eyes, blurring his view of his fingers. He struggled to spell out his next sentence. "Why'd they have to do it to you...?"

"I ask myself that every day," Iwaizumi mumbled, and gently took Oikawa's trembling hands in his. His grip was warm and firm, and Oikawa couldn't help it. Grounded by his presence, he let the tears fall, letting the anger roll down his cheeks and leave cold trails of bitterness. "I've figured out that there's no answer. So I've stopped being angry about it."

He hated that they had both become so pliant when it came to the way they'd been treated. Oikawa knew he would have said the same thing if he were the one telling the story, though. Somehow, that shed some light on his own problem. If he was angry about Iwaizumi's mistreatment, then why couldn't he be angry about the way he'd been treated?

"Are you okay?" Iwaizumi asked in a low voice, gripping tighter when Oikawa's entire body shook with a mute sob. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

Oikawa immediately shook his head, pulling his hands out of Iwaizumi's grip to wipe his tears away. He then stared Iwaizumi straight in the eyes, and pursed his lips.

"Don't be sorry. Please continue."

"If you say so," Iwaizumi shrugged, but Oikawa did notice his traits relaxing a bit. He needed this, and Oikawa would die to give it to him. "Anyway. Turns out that they get an urgent order for A-type blood a couple of days later. People of A type were systematically picked up and whisked away for whatever. Mayumi knew, and she knew I would die if I underwent any procedure. She kept me in the dark about this, told me to rest, and switched our bracelets when I slept."

"So instead of you…" Oikawa trailed off, guessing the rest of the story.

"She probably thought it was another blood harvest." Iwaizumi's voice suddenly cracked. "She wouldn't have done that if she knew that they were going all in. She should've let me take what was meant for me."

Oikawa was secretly, selfishly glad that she had switched the bracelets. It was a terrible situation, but thanks to her, he had Iwaizumi back at his side.

"From what I heard afterwards, they anesthetized her for surgery, but as they made the incision, the surgeon noticed the scar from her previous surgery. They did an ultrasound and realized that she only had one kidney. Since the anesthetic dosage hadn't been adjusted to someone missing a kidney, she never came out from the anesthesia. They couldn't get her to wake up, so they had no choice but to take all her other organs out and let her die." Iwaizumi's eyes reflected how much the remorse still haunted him. Oikawa wanted to take his pain away from him, but he knew that he couldn't magically do that. He still wished it, though. He wished for righteous, strong Iwaizumi to break free from his guilt.

"It wasn't your fault," Oikawa signed, and then put a hand on Iwaizumi's shoulder.

"I know that now," Iwaizumi smiled sadly, and put his right hand on top of Oikawa's, squeezing gratefully. "But back when I heard the news, all I could believe was that I had killed her. So when they found out about the switch and came to get retribution, I…"

Oikawa almost didn't want to hear it. Iwaizumi's voice said enough. He didn't want to watch him relive this anymore.

"I willingly gave them my hand," he rasped out. "Because I thought I deserved it. But most of all, because I wanted to suffer enough to believe that I was absolved. Because I was scared of living with guilt and wanted to believe that sacrificing a piece of me would make me innocent again. I offered them my first finger."

Oikawa couldn't stand there anymore. When Iwaizumi's nose scrunched and his lips pursed tightly, he pulled him into his arms, and squeezed hard enough to draw the pain out of his pores. He hoped. He tried. He held him until his arms shook with exertion and Iwaizumi's shoulders shook with emotion.

"I regret just one thing," Iwaizumi murmured into Oikawa's shoulder, his voice quivering in his inner battle with self-control. "That one of my fingers was taken from me afterwards, but that the other I gave. I could live with two reminders that I fought back. But now, I have to spend my life knowing that I gave up. That I gave them what they wanted and complied. That one part of me was a martyr, but that the other part of me was a victim."

Oikawa would have done anything to have his voice back. Just to hold him and tell him everything he had on his heart at the same time. It was so frustrating because he wanted to reassure Iwaizumi and tear down his self-blaming commentary, but couldn't do so without letting him go. He never seemed to be able to do anything without letting something else go first.

Frustration welled up in his throat, and he fought back the ball choking him by gripping Iwaizumi tighter. One of his hands snaked to the nape of his neck and tangled itself within his elongated strands of hair. The other hand went under his arm, to his opposite shoulder, so that when he pulled Iwaizumi in close, he felt his heart beat in sync with his. The few inches Iwaizumi had less than him gave him enough maneuver range to comfortably settle him into his shoulder. His best friend had always fit perfectly with him.

He almost forgot, in the heat of the emotionally heavy moment, that he and Iwaizumi had never really needed words to communicate.

"I know what you're thinking," Iwaizumi murmured again after a while. "That being a victim doesn't make me a worse person. That it wasn't my fault. That I never deserved any of this. That I was physically coerced into the second finger, but psychologically coerced into the first one. I know. I know."

A bit of tension did leave Oikawa's aching shoulders, though his grip did not falter. He turned his eyes out to the night sky and traced the outline of the moon behind the clouds with his gaze.

"I've finally come to understand all of that," Iwaizumi continued, and his tone clearly expressed that he wasn't done saying everything on his mind, even if his story was chronologically over. "It took me time and a lot of support to believe all that."

Oikawa knew where he was going with this now. So when Iwaizumi drew back lightly, just enough to glare fiercely into his eyes, he somehow felt like he was breathing anew.

"If I made it, then so can you," he delivered swiftly, straight to the punchline without another word wasted. "I know that stuff has been happening lately, with all the wastelander training going on. I don't know what's going through your mind exactly, but I can tell you're troubled. And I just want you to know that the first step is to accept what's happened to you, and that you had no part to play in it."

Oikawa looked at him, waiting to hear what he had to say next. He wanted to give him a chance to convince him.

"Something terrible happened to you, too," Iwaizumi continued, hesitating for a second before reaching up to swipe his thumb lightly over the scars on his lips. Oikawa shuddered as pain spiked in the back of his throat. He hated remembering. "But you fought. You didn't give in then. You fought, and you threatened them. That's why they tried to break you. That's why they tried to break me. But we made it. You made it. So if you didn't give in back then, you can't give in now that they've got nothing left on you. You've won. You're the king of the court." A small smile dawned on his face as if he had clandestinely let slip an inside joke. Oikawa couldn't help but laugh at it softly, genuinely.

As his chuckling faded, he put a hand on top of Iwaizumi's, and then slowly took it down, away from his scars. He knew they were there, but as they faded, he didn't want to explore them anymore. He wanted to let them become a part of him and make him strong, rather than make him stand out.

"I didn't know you were so good at motivational speeches, Iwa-chan," he signed lightly, throwing him a grateful look regardless. "But you sure know what to say sometimes. I can't keep believing that they've won long after they'd lost. I have to keep moving and better myself. Slowly but surely. But I can't stop anymore, and I refuse to turn back."

Iwaizumi watched him sign intently, and then, to the feeling of a flutter in his chest, he smiled.

"That's the Tooru I know," he simply responded, and it was all that Oikawa needed.

He grinned wide, giddy, so brightly that his scars ached. They ached and reminded him of what he'd lost, and reminded him of what he'd fought to protect.

He would never let himself forget ever again.

He had won.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

Motivation returned to him after that. The next morning, he smelled of humidity and his hair had frizzed, but his heart was three kilos lighter. There was a new spring in his step, and he wasn't even pissed when he tripped on the stairs on his way to class.

He wasn't even pissed when he caught a cold.

(Yamaguchi was pissed, though, when Oikawa gave it to him a few days later).

Thankfully, his nose was down to combating the sniffles when the first missions began to roll in. The squads with the best grades on their practical exams got an assignment for a small, uncomplicated mission to carry out first. Of course, that included their squad. They had been some of the best, after all.

Their briefing was on Friday morning, and on Thursday evening, Yamaguchi got sick. Like really, really sick.

To Asahi's horror and ruined pants, really sick like in projectile vomiting.

Unfortunately, from the look on Kuroo's face, it didn't seem like Yamaguchi had gotten simple food poisoning.

Oikawa actually woke up to the sound of the poor boy dry-retching into a plastic bag in the middle of the night. He was about to get up to help him to the bathroom, but Suga beat him to it, getting up in a flash to support him in his quest to hobble to the bathroom without tripping or puking over anyone's body.

The next morning, neither he nor Suga were there to accompany the first batch to the complex. When they settled for breakfast in the cafeteria, Suga joined them, looking as if he'd been awake for quite a while now.

"How's Yamaguchi?" Tsukishima asked, his tone neutral. "Sounded pretty violent last night."

"He's stopped retching," Suga sighed out. "He fell asleep an hour ago. I got him a clinic bed because he dehydrated himself pretty badly, and we're concerned about his heart."

"His heart?" Daichi piped up worriedly. "What do you mean?"

"It's nothing too bad," Suga corrected himself. "Sometimes, when you dehydrate yourself too badly, you lose the electrolytes that keep your heart beating normally. He's just being monitored upstairs to make sure nothing happens. He's fine."

"So… he's gonna be okay?" Tsukishima grunted out, hesitating a moment too long to feign proper indifference.

"Yes. He'll be out in the evening and will be back to normal by tomorrow," Suga assured him kindly.

"That's a relief," Noya sighed out. "I'll go visit him later, cheer him up. I know you guys were supposed to go on your first real mission today," he added, turning to Kuroo.

"Yeah… about that…" Kuroo groaned, running a hand through his messy hair. "I don't know if we'll be able to run it, since we're missing a member of our team. It wasn't a big mission with huge risks, so Yamaguchi could've just stuck back anyway, but if he's in the hospital…" he sighed. "Guess we'll have to call it off."

Oikawa's face must have visibly dropped because Iwaizumi patted his shoulder lightly.

"Come on, there will be other missions. It's okay," he mumbled, not sure how to address the issue, probably since he knew about Oikawa's search for purpose.

Oikawa just shrugged, feeling a little bit empty, like he wasn't sure how to respond.

"Would it be possible for me to come with you instead, then?" Suga asked very casually, in such a light tone that it took everyone a moment to register it.

"Come again?" Kuroo cocked his head, looking genuinely confused.

"Like… Maybe I could replace Yamaguchi," Suga clarified, looking a bit sheepish. "I mean, you guys just need a medic, right? I've been a field medic ever since we left the gym back in Miyagi, so it shouldn't be too hard to stand in for Yamaguchi."

Seeing as there were some unconvinced stares thrown his way, Suga rushed to complete his thoughts.

"I mean, you said it yourself, Kuroo," he turned to the captain, relying on him for support. "It's not a big mission, and it doesn't have big risks. I'll mostly be a figure rather than an actual participant. There shouldn't be an issue there."

"I don't know." Surprisingly, Kuroo objected. "We get a lot of special training in preparation to go outside. I don't know if it would be okay for you to go out without that knowledge."

"I'll be fine," Suga waved him off casually. "I've got experience to make up for knowledge. And, like we agreed already, I probably won't do much anyway. I'll just be there for security. And if something does happen, you know you can count on me to fix it."

"Suga…" Daichi began in a tone that led on that he knew more than what was being said. Oikawa didn't mind it. Goodness knew he had his own secrets to keep.

"It'll be fine," Suga huffed. "Come on. Do you want to go on this mission or not?"

At that, Kuroo glanced at Oikawa, and they shared their silent impressions. Both of them really looked forward to the mission; Kuroo for adrenaline, Oikawa for purpose. Hell, Bokuto was probably getting hyped up at this very moment and was probably threatening to ruin the radio broadcast he was doing with Akaashi. All of them had really wanted to take this first step outside today.

That thought sparked something within them. Oikawa closed his eyes and turned away, whilst Kuroo turned to Suga.

"Alright," he agreed. "We were supposed to leave at noon. I'll go talk to our supervisor to let him know. Be at the exit upstairs by noon."

"Gotcha!" Suga grinned brightly, seeming so full of energy and enthusiasm. And then, a bit more controlled, he added, "thank you".

Oikawa didn't know what he was thanking them for, but he nodded to him regardless. They all returned to their meals once the case was closed, some more hesitantly than others, but the subject was dropped. Instead, Noya began to complain about the boring math class he was enrolled in, and for a moment frozen in time, it felt like they were back before the war.

Oikawa didn't revel in the illusion. He preferred to remain in reality, where he wouldn't risk another heartbreak when waking from a wishful dream.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

They met at the exit at five to noon. Bokuto was not there yet, since his program with Akaashi was running a bit late, but their instructor was there to give them the final debrief before sending them out.

Kuroo was pulling on his boots when Oikawa arrived, accompanied by Suga. Both of them waved as they stopped next to the instructor. Suga bowed in greeting, seeing as he didn't know their instructor.

"Thank you for allowing me to participate," he smiled, charming as always. Oikawa saw a bit of his old self within his attitude. Did Suga ever consider manipulating others with his attractive body language? He could probably pull it off.

"It's an exception," the instructor shook his head. "Since this mission is a very low risk mission, we'll allow it. That, and, according to Miss Satoko, one of our most valued members, you have a lot of field experience, without which we wouldn't have allowed you to venture out."

"I appreciate the opportunity to be of help to my friends," Suga simply responded. "I won't overstep my boundaries."

"Alright," the instructor nodded, and turned to the others, who were getting dressed. "Where is your fourth member?"

"He should be here any time," Kuroo answered passively, zipping his jacket's first layer. "Akaashi was going to bring him down as soon as they finished their broadcast."

"Well, until he gets here, remind me of a few things," the instructor continued, checking off a few things on his clipboard. "Who will be leading this mission?"

Oikawa immediately turned to point at Kuroo, but was surprised to see Kuroo looking back at him. However, he kept silent, and shrugged.

"I guess it will be me," he agreed nonchalantly. "I will lead. Oikawa will navigate, and Bokuto will be in charge of physical work. Sugawara will be our medical backup, but I don't know who our driver is."

"Drivers are usually randomly assigned, depending on availability and knowledge of the area covered by the mission. Yours will be Katsuya Junichi, a relatively senior driver. He's been at it for 2 months now, so you'll be fine," their instructor explained. "Your driver will drive you to your mission point and will remain there to extract you once you are done. For this mission, Katsuya is instructed to wait for two hours. Honestly, with the small job you've got on your hands, it shouldn't take you more than one hour."

"Considering that all goes well," Kuroo mumbled, though it seemed that only Oikawa, who was next to him, heard. If Suga or the instructor heard, they didn't react.

"Wait for me!" A loud voice suddenly boomed from behind them, and they all simultaneously spun to see Bokuto sprinting towards them with desperate abandon, Akaashi jogging lightly to keep up behind him. "Don't start the briefing without me!"

"All you had to do was not be late, bro," Kuroo teased as Bokuto slid to a stop next to them, panting.

"Our program ran late! It's not my fault!" Bokuto protested, catching his breath.

"Well, we hadn't gotten far, at least," Kuroo chuckled lightly, patting Bokuto's heard jokingly to get him to pay attention. "Let's keep going."

"Well, that was all there was to this quick briefing anyway," their instructor continued. "Most of it was said yesterday. In the truck, you will find the GPS device that will allow you to track down the other team who vanished a few days ago. Remember that they most likely ran out of fuel and are probably sheltered in their truck, waiting for help. Your job is to bring back the people on the mission first, and if possible, pinpoint the location of their truck so that it can be retrieved at a later date. Your mission is a find-and-retrieve type. Nothing more, nothing less. Come back as soon as you can."

"Yes sir," the four of them snapped at once, just as Akaashi arrived by their side, lightly panting.

"Are we ready to head out?" Kuroo asked, looking at the others for confirmation.

"I just need to get dressed, but I have my stuff in the antechamber," Bokuto hummed, going towards the exit to access the antechamber.

"Go on ahead, Bokuto," Akaashi encouraged. "Good luck, and stay safe."

"Suga, you should go ahead as well," Kuroo suggested over the sound of Bokuto's excited goodbye-wishes. Their instructor, probably having contracted a headache from Bokuto's crowing, was already turning to leave with a grumbled wish for good luck.

"Alright," Suga nodded, asking no questions as he made his way out.

"Oikawa, perhaps you should go make sure Bokuto wears his jacket on the right way," Akaashi suggested softly, though his intentions were crystal clear.

"You could be a little less obvious about the fact that you want to talk to me in private, Keiji." Akaashi's name rolled off of Kuroo's tongue with a strangely chilling lilt. Kuroo cocked his head amusedly, watching Akaashi's next move, but Oikawa could tell that he was on guard.

"Well, if it's no trouble, Oikawa, then I'd like to do just that," Akaashi turned to him with a strange smile that made Oikawa more uncomfortable than anything. Just to escape Akaashi's contradictory presence, he nodded, and backed a hasty retreat towards the exit.

Considering that he was already dressed, he simply had to pull on his hat, goggles and gloves, and help Bokuto tighten his own ski goggles around his face. By the time Kuroo came back, his face as impassible as always, they were all ready to go.

"Alright," he began without further ado. "Let's get going."

To the sound of Bokuto's excitement, they made their way to the hole in the glass storefront and exited through it. Oikawa helped everyone out and slid the wooden boards over the hole once they were all outside. Then, he followed Kuroo, who led them all forward, towards the truck waiting nearby.

The snow crunched under Oikawa's boots, reminding him of what he'd escaped by finding solace within the walls of Awa. Despite making the short trek from their dorm to the main complex every morning and night, walking out into the cold with purpose made everything seem much more meaningful. And Oikawa would not lie to himself. It felt good to be back out where he could be free.

Bokuto and Kuroo were making small talk in the front, so Oikawa caught up to Suga, though he didn't have much to say to him.

"How are you doing?" Suga asked him regardless, glancing at him expectantly through his goggles.

Oikawa simply nodded, since he couldn't do much else. Suga didn't know how to use sign language, unfortunately.

"Good to know," Suga smiled, his radiant happiness much warmer than the mild sun poking through the clouds above. "How is your throat? Healing, I hope. Are you still having difficulty swallowing?"

Oikawa shook his head. He'd successfully rehabilitated his swallowing reflex to the best of his abilities, so he didn't have much trouble with that anymore, thankfully.

"Fantastic," Suga hummed again, seemingly always in a good mood. "You know, I've been watching you lately… in a purely professional manner, of course." That still made it weird, but Oikawa overlooked it. There was a promise hanging at the end of Suga's sentence. "And I know that something is going on inside your head lately. I won't pry if you don't want me to, but… I just wanted to try and alleviate your worries a little bit."

Oikawa cocked his head, curious. How did Mr. Refreshing intend to help him with something he didn't know about?

"I have been asking around my workplace for any information regarding surgery for your vocal cords," he cut straight to the chase. "I was wondering if it would be possible to give you your speech back somehow, so I dug around… Unfortunately, since we don't have much medical literature lying around, I couldn't really read up on head and neck surgery… and there aren't any head and neck specialists working anywhere in the Awa clinic… but I do think that maybe… maybe there's a way to fix your vocal cords."

Hearing such a prognosis was more underwhelming than Oikawa thought it would be. Here Suga was, telling him that he may have a chance to regain his voice, and Oikawa couldn't bring himself to be excited or curious about his claims. He wondered why.

Was it because he had given up already?

"I hear you sometimes," Suga continued. "When you sigh. Some of your sighs are in different pitches from one another. That has to mean that your vocal cords are still at least a little bit flexible, right?"

Oikawa shrugged, and then realized that he hadn't given up. On the contrary. He had come to accept his loss as a part of himself, and was now more concerned about coping with the consequences of his loss than with reversing it. The revelation surprised him, and Suga must've interpreted the surprise on his face as a reaction to his claims.

"Medicine is a fantastic world of discoveries," he assured him as they neared the truck, Kuroo climbing into the front, and Bokuto opening the tarp to slip into the back. "I'm sure there's something out there for you."

Oikawa really appreciated the sentiment, so he smiled, and nodded. But when Suga slipped into the back, the smile fell off his face, and he sighed. And maybe he did try to consciously alter the pitch, just out of curiosity.

He couldn't really hear anything in his own ears, though, and decided to forgo the experiments right now in favour of focusing on the mission. In charge of navigation, he slipped into the front with Kuroo and the driver.

Kuroo was already striking up an amicable conversation with Katsuya, though their driver looked mostly thrown off by Kuroo's loud mouth. Oikawa enjoyed this for another moment before tapping Kuroo's shoulder to get his attention.

"Do you have the files on the team we're out to retrieve?" he asked, the truck rumbling beneath them as the driver gratefully glanced over at him, and started the engine.

"They're supposed to be here somewhere," Kuroo shrugged, glancing around before checking the glovebox. As they should've been, the files were there, poking out of a plain folder. "Here." He thre Oikawa the files, though he did look at him expectantly afterwards.

Oikawa rolled his eyes, and opened the folder.

The first file had a picture on it that was a bit too recognizable. Though they'd only seen the guy once, the highly emotional encounter had been enough to burn his frown into Oikawa's mind for a lifetime.

"Isn't that the guy who shot at us when we met Satoko in Tokushima?" Kuroo remarked what they both had noticed. "What's his name…? Kizuna, right. We're out to rescue this dick?"

"Just imagine his face when he realizes that he owes us." Oikawa put down the folder to sign, and Kuroo snatched it away immediately to thumb at the other files.

"It'll be a fun sight to see. From what I remember of him, he'll get angry. Maybe shoot at us again." He snapped the folder shut, clearly indicating that nothing else of importance was in there, and threw it back into the glovebox. "You're the one in charge of keeping us bullet hole-free, Leader."

"Leader?" Oikawa cocked his head. "When did this happen, mister High-and-Mighty?"

"I figured you may as well be leader everywhere but on paper," Kuroo chose to sign instead of talking, probably considering the driver. Oikawa always felt apprehensive when that happened. "Since you can't talk, the higher ups may not agree, but…" Kuroo hesitated on which symbols to make next. His sign language wasn't as good as Iwaizumi's. "I still think you're our best candidate to lead."

"What happened to you coming up with the best plans ever?" Oikawa asked, disappointed not to be able to slip in an indication of cynicism.

"I think people are getting tired of my recklessness."

"Acceptance is the first step to recovery."

"Shut up," Kuroo laughed, drawing a bizarre look from Katsuya, who must have wondered about their silent conversation. "But seriously. I think the team needs someone with stability in mind as their leader. Not just our wastelander team, but our entire team, back in Awa, too."

"And I'm that person?" Oikawa raised an eyebrow dubitatively. "Kuroo, I can't talk. I am hardly fit to give orders."

"Well, I'd be happy to step back and spread the orders you give. Maybe offer a consultation once in a while," Kuroo smirked provocatively, as always. "But I think I need to take some responsibility off my shoulders for a while. It's gotten a bit too heavy for my liking."

Oikawa flinched back, surprised. Kuroo had never been one to back down from a challenge before. Why was he hesitating now?

Kuroo must have read his disbelief in his eyes, and shrugged in what seemed like a casual manner.

"I'm just taking some time off from the spotlight, is all," he attempted to explain, though Oikawa was finely attuned to facades, and could tell there was some uneasiness in his traits.

"Something else happened," he stated, rather than asked. "Did you find something out?" A sudden, terrifying thought sparked through his mind, and his breath hitched. "Are you in danger?"

"No, no, nothing like that!" Kuroo's just-as-frantic signing was accompanied by a heavy shake of his head. "Jeez, relax…" he mumbled, running a hand through his hair. "Can't you take things at face value? I just need to take some load off my shoulders."

"With you, nothing is to be taken at face value," Oikawa reminded him of his own philosophy, then glanced over at the driver. He seemed unconcerned by their conversation, focused on clearing a path through the thick snow. "I know you're a ball of paranoia and hyperacuity. Something happened to make you change your mind. Tell me."

Kuroo just watched him impassively for a few seconds, then sighed in defeat. A new exhaustion came over his young face and he rubbed the weariness out of his premature wrinkles. Oikawa patiently waited for him to recollect himself.

"Akaashi threatened me," he simply signed at first, leaving Oikawa in disbelief. How could tiny, soft-spoken Akaashi even appear imposing to someone as confident and strong as Kuroo?

Then again, the small ones were always the tiny balls of fury. Oikawa could picture how much temper Akaashi was hiding behind his impassive façade.

"What did he tell you?" he asked, slowly, repeating his question when Kuroo clearly didn't catch all of it.

"It was about Bokuto." Kuroo glanced to the metal separation between the cabin and the back. He looked vulnerable, for once. Oikawa knew it was a rare sight, and revelled in it with a certain sadistic pleasure. "He didn't say much. Just told me to guarantee his safety and bring him back unharmed if I wanted to remain unharmed. I have never known him to be so aggressive, honestly."

"He's worried."

"He's different," Kuroo insisted out loud, using his voice to inflect in an order to drive the point home.

"War changes everyone. You said it yourself. Something must have happened to change the way he behaves around Bokuto," Oikawa shrugged, not too concerned. To him, Akaashi just sounded a bit like a pushover. Nothing too bad.

"I knew that already, ever since his broadcast," Kuroo nodded, his eyes losing their vulnerable spark and glossing over as his steely persona resurfaced. "But this is different. What I got from him was borderline hostility. It's like… he was so scared, he projected his anxiety on me as anger."

"Here you go again, psychoanalyzing everyone," Oikawa sighed. "If you already know this, why concern yourself with it?"

"Because I hate it when things are hidden from me," Kuroo growled out, sounding a bit frantic to get his point across. "I hate it when I can't see every facet of the situation. He's hiding something, and it's making me uneasy, because if I don't know what it is, I can't have control over it. And I can't do anything to prepare in anticipation for the day it comes to bite me in the ass!"

Oikawa just listened to his frustration -and dare he think, insecurity-, and let him wind down from it. Honestly, he agreed. However, unlike Kuroo, he didn't feel extra safe by knowing what was going on around him. In fact, quite the opposite. He liked to deal with things as they came, rather than burden himself with hidden knowledge. Kuroo, however, seemed to find control in knowledge, and Oikawa was the last person who would discourage someone from regaining control over their life.

"Sorry to interrupt," Katsuya suddenly piped up, and though they both turned to him in surprise, he didn't look back to them, instead focusing on the road. "I have no idea what you're referring to, but if you're having teammate trouble, all I can say is that from experience, I'll suggest you talk to your teammate. Out here, they're all you have. If you're putting your life in their hands, you may as well know what you're getting into."

Oikawa could almost see physical cogs turning over Kuroo's head as he considered Katsuya's words.

"Not that it's any of my business," the driver added quickly, a bit sheepish. "Sorry for prying."

"Don't worry about it," Kuroo quickly assured him. "Thanks for the suggestion. I think I'll do just that, actually, once we return from the mission."

"Well, prep yourself, then," Katsuya replied, a bit more at ease now. He looked young, not as young as them, but young enough to look like a victim of circumstances as they were when he smiled apologetically at them. "ETA is 30 minutes. You still have a while to think of what to say."

Kuroo just settled back in his seat wordlessly, and the small smirk on his face told Oikawa that he already knew exactly what to say to Akaashi once they got back.

He wasn't sure whether he was ready for some drama, or apprehensive about the shitstorm.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

The rest of the ride was spent in silence. Kuroo actually napped for a while with his feet propped up on the dashboard (to Katsuya's very obvious displeasure), and Oikawa went from dozing off to dog-earing the corners of the files, to dozing off yet again. If the cabin hadn't been cold as all hell, he would've taken his gloves off to pick at his nails. His GPS tracker still wasn't getting any signals, and that said a lot about their progress.

Finally, as they began to ascend into the more mountainous parts of the region, Oikawa's tracker made a faint beeping sound, indicating that the other team's receptor was within range. Far, but within range. That was promising. Katsuya briefly asked him to confirm the direction he was heading into, and then engaged the loudly-rumbling vehicle into a few slopes to drive them up the hill.

Kuroo woke when the beeping on Oikawa's tracker became a bit louder, though Oikawa suspected that he had been awake the whole time. The sun outside glinted off the pearly snow lining the road winding up the side of the hill, and Oikawa was glad that his ski goggles were tinted when a ray of light reflected off the snow and blinded him momentarily. It was a beautiful day to be outside, despite the freezing temperature.

Finally, Katsuya rolled the truck to a stop on the side of the road halfway up the mountain. Oikawa checked his tracker, and estimated that the receptor's location was a fifteen-minute walk away. Not too far. The only pain in the butt would be to walk though the knee-high snow and be careful to stay away from the edge of the hill. Oikawa actually wondered if someone who fell off the side would roll into a large snowball by the time he reached the bottom.

"Alright, go," Katsuya prompted them as he pulled the handbrake up. "I'm instructed to wait for two hours before I leave. Sorry, but it's procedure."

"We'll be back in less than an hour," Kuroo assured him, opening the door to jump out. "Just get cozy, and we'll be back before you know it."

"Have at it," Katsuya wished them, actually pulling out a magazine from the side of the door. That was the last Oikawa saw of him before he jumped out as well with a small laugh.

Bokuto had already come out from the back, and was helping Suga into the snow. Kuroo was joining them, so Oikawa did, too.

"Are we all okay?" Kuroo asked as they adjusted their goggles over their eyes.

"Yes," Suga nodded softly, looking genuinely happy to be out in the chill. Oikawa had to admit that there was something freeing about being out here, essentially all alone.

"Alrighty then. Let's get going," Kuroo decided. "Oh, also. Oikawa is our leader now. So he'll decide when we go."

"We're changing leaders?" Bokuto perked up. "I want to lead!"

"You can't do that, Bo. Oikawa is leader," Kuroo snickered, patting Bokuto's back lightly when he slumped dejectedly. "Anyway, you're the strong guy around here. We need your arms in the line of fire."

"You only love me for my arms!" Bokuto whined, but dropped the subject nonetheless, playfully shoving Kuroo off.

"Well, we should move out," Oikawa repeated once Kuroo's eyes finally came to him. He pulled his tracker out and checked it carefully before slipping it into his jacket pocket. "Let's follow the road. Their truck seems to be a little way up on the hill."

"He says we're marching our asses up the hill," Kuroo translated, pointing at the winding road. At least it wasn't too steep. "Let's go!"

"At least this isn't a mountain, like back on the way to Niigata," Suga recalled with mild laughter, which Kuroo echoed with a snicker. Oikawa didn't get the reference, but figured that a mountain trek, versus a hillside trek, would be much less fun. Their legs would have killed them if they trekked on a mountainside in so much snow.

"So! Suga!" Bokuto piped up. "Here's the basics of survival in the snow. "You conserve energy by keeping your extremities warm."

"Mostly, however, heat escapes from your armpits, head, and groin," Kuroo corrected. "It's just that when extremities get cold, it's a lot less fun than a cold groin."

"Cold groin sounds like a weird fancy food," Bokuto remarked. "Like… Hello! Would you like to try the chef's special today? It's cold groin on a bed of lettuce and a peppercorn drizzle."

"What the hell is that?" Kuroo guffawed, actually amused by Bokuto's dumb antics, which is what made the whole situation much more ridiculous. Oikawa couldn't help but crack a smile. Even Suga was smiling widely, although by the looks of him, scanning the landscape, he was mostly enjoying his time outside more than anything else.

With a gentle wind blowing the crisp air into his lungs, Oikawa simply felt at peace out here, lost in the wilderness. The snow already soaking through his snowpants grounded him to this vast expanse where nobody could hurt him. If he chose to disappear, no one would even find him. He wouldn't need to exist for others anymore. He wouldn't even need to keep holding onto the purpose he searched for so arduously. He could just lie down and watch the grey clouds travel at the whims of the wind, breathing the crystalline air until his lungs froze and he slipped away in total peace.

Whether they resisted or not, nature would always outlive them, and would always reclaim their bodies after they passed. There was something elegant, something attractive about laying still and finding his inner peace whilst nature did its work and sucked the suffering out of his veins.

But that would be for another time, another lifetime. Right now, Oikawa had a job to do. A job that he cherished well enough. And he had people to return to. People he held onto even when his vision turned as bleak as the winter nights.

He snapped out of his thoughts just in time to see Kuroo and Bokuto drag one another down into the snow, rolling dangerously close to the hillside. Though the drop wouldn't harm them at such a low angle, having them roll to the very bottom of the hillside would be a pain in the ass for retrieval. So, he tapped Suga on the shoulder, and pointed at the two of them, who were laughing too hard for wastelanders on an actual mission.

"Come on, guys, stop playing around!" Suga admonished. "Your leader is telling you to get away from the edge!"

"Well, if the leader says it, we probably should do it," Kuroo continued, slamming a handful of snow into Bokuto's face, and then screeching when Bokuto shoved snow past his scarf, against his neck.

"I win!" Bokuto exclaimed, getting up and running back to Oikawa and Suga, Kuroo closely following with vengeance clearly on his mind.

Oikawa was glad they weren't being evaluated. Katsuya had already been left far enough behind not to be able to see or hear them, either, which really meant that they were alone out here.

"So much for heat and energy conservation," Oikawa commented, glancing at Kuroo's soaked snow gear a bit judgmentally.

"Learn to live a little," Kuroo taunted him right back, shoving him just enough for Oikawa to stumble a bit through the snow.

When Oikawa regained his balance, he made a move to shove Kuroo back, but his tracker made a loud beeping noise, which caught his attention instead.

"What's up?" Bokuto asked curiously, glancing over when Oikawa removed the tracker from his pocket. The grid on it was clear now, and the scale ratio had become much smaller, which meant that they were getting closer. Oikawa's eyes went to the emitter signal on his grid, and he glanced in front of him. The road kept winding up the hill, so if the receptor was sending signals from their left, they just had to follow the road up a little more, and they'd be okay.

"Let's keep going. We should be able to see their truck soon," Oikawa ordered, which Kuroo translated out loud, to Bokuto's excited whooping.

"Do you think we get hot chocolate when we go back?" Bokuto asked, his voice full of awe. "Imagine! I'd do a hundred missions a day if it meant a cup of hot chocolate afterwards!"

"I'm just happy to get some nice leverage over these guys," Kuroo hummed, to Suga exasperated groaning. "I could pull a few favours from them when the time comes… maybe even some hot chocolate."

To each their own, Oikawa figured, and rolled his eyes as he pressed on. His nose was already red and numb, and in an effort to relieve the burning of his skin, he pulled his scarf over his face and exhaled into the fabric. It warmed his nose up a little, at least.

Bokuto and Kuroo entertained them with mindless small talk just a little bit longer. As they began to take a winding turn, the truck stopped a ways off on the road slowly appeared in their vision field.

"There it is!" Bokuto pointed out the obvious.

"Stay with the group," Oikawa warned, which Kuroo put into practice immediately by grabbing Bokuto's arm before he could run off.

Once Bokuto's impulsiveness was under control, Oikawa removed the tracker from his pocket, and glanced at it. The truck in front of them was indeed where the now-strong signal came from. He put his tracker in his pocket and zipped it now that he didn't need it anymore.

"The game plan is to get to the guys, who are probably all holed up in the back of the truck, do a quick triage of injuries or needs, and then help them back to Katsuya as soon as possible," Oikawa signed out, which Kuroo dutifully translated as they walked closer and closer. "If anyone finds the receptor, just put it somewhere safe in the truck so we can retrace it back when the next team comes to retrieve the equipment."

"Aye aye, captain," Bokuto saluted sarcastically.

Instead of responding, Oikawa took a good look at his surroundings as they cleared the last hundred meters between them and the truck. He was mildly surprised that their loud, crunching footsteps hadn't alerted anyone, but they were probably sleeping to conserve energy, so it wasn't all that surprising in the end.

"Call," he instructed simply to Kuroo.

"Hello?" Kuroo called out immediately. "Kizuna? Someone else? We're a team of wastelanders here to help you out. You good in there?"

Still no answer. Oikawa frowned, beginning to fear that hypothermia may have affected the team they were sent to rescue.

"Hot packs," he signed.

"Suga, get some hot packs ready," Kuroo relayed. "They may be badly hypothermic."

"Got it," Suga nodded. "The best thing for them right now is to return them to Katsuya. There are plenty of blankets in the truck I can use to rewarm them.

"Alright, I'm going in, then," Kuroo decided.

"I'll come, too!" Bokuto immediately volunteered, and Oikawa didn't comment on the fact that his hand immediately went to a knife he had strapped to his belt.

Kuroo opened the tarp and swung himself into the back of the truck, dragging snow everywhere. Bokuto followed. Oikawa glanced at Suga, and then also went in.

"Oikawa," Kuroo immediately called him over to the first body, kneeling with his ungloved hand pressed to his neck. Kuroo's face was grave. Oikawa's blood chilled. "They've been here a while, I suppose. This one is very cold."

"They froze to death?" Suga murmured knowingly, climbing into the truck just in time to glance at the four bodies on the floor. Why they hadn't huddled together was a mystery. Oikawa knew he would've.

"Check the others, too," Oikawa ordered, heading for the body in the corner. Kuroo relayed his order dutifully, then took a bit of time to search his first guy's pockets.

"Here. I thought I felt something vibrating. I've got the receptor."

Oikawa would've praised him, if not for obvious reasons. Instead, he focused on his own body.

Which, with growing pangs in his heart, he realized was familiar. Kizuna.

He didn't need to check for a pulse to know he was already gone. His face was ashen, pale even in the darkness of the tarp-covered truck, and somehow, such a crisped expression, even in death, did not suit him. Despite having been a bitch to them the only time they ever interacted, it still hurt to see someone die like this, especially so young.

If only by principle, Oikawa removed his glove to take a pulse, though he knew he'd find nothing. He slipped his hand under Kizuna's scarf, and put his fingers to his neck.

However, something felt wrong. Instead of leathery skin, Oikawa's fingers found something gelatinous and cold. It felt really, really wrong. He quickly divested the body of the scarf, and took a better look with his hand up in the light.

Blood. Congealed blood.

Apprehension slowly rose within him. The others around him had not noticed anything, so Oikawa quickly looked back down to make sure he wasn't seeing things. However, now without his scarf covering his neck, Oikawa could see the large patch of blood that had congealed on Kizuna's skin and clothes. In the middle of it all, a gaping flap of skin, sharply dug into the side of his neck, stood out alarmingly.

Oikawa did not hesitate.

He spun around and grabbed Kuroo, dragging a cry from him, and only mourned the loss of his voice for a second before his fingers were moving rapidly.

"Get Suga far from here! These guys were murdered!"

Kuroo blinked as he struggled to keep up with the rapid signing, but the alarm on his face was enough to convey the message.

"Suga, get out of here!" he immediately cried out.

"What?" Suga was thrown aback, looking up from where he knelt next to Bokuto. "Why?"

"Run as far away as possible towards Katsuya! Go!" Kuroo insisted, making a move to push Suga out.

Thankfully, push didn't come to shove, because Suga's face immediately steeled, and he asked no more questions. He grabbed his backback, and swung down from the truck.

"Got it!" he confirmed, and then broke into a jog bogged down by the snow.

"What happened?" Bokuto asked, alert.

Oikawa just raised his hand as an answer, and the other two suddenly got grim when they saw the blood.

"They were killed." Kuroo's face darkened. "Someone else is here."

"Is it fresh?" Bokuto asked, his hand returning to his knife.

Oikawa shook his head. By the looks of it, the blood had clotted, cooled, and congealed. The team had gone missing for 24 hours, so they must have died at least half a day ago.

"Do you think it was a roadside raid?" Kuroo asked grimly, glancing at all the bodies with a new sense of understanding.

"There's no other explanation," Oikawa signed, hating how the jellied blood rolled off his hands. "Unless they were left here for a reason."

His inner musings seemed to snap all of them to alert all at once. They all thought the same thing, suddenly, and it wasn't good.

"We've gotta get back to the truck!" Kuroo called out even before Oikawa signed it to him, and Bokuto was jumping out of the truck even before the order was given.

Oikawa closed the march. As soon as his feet crunched into the snow, though, a horrifying noise tore through the air.

The sound they all heard was a booming noise, like an explosion, and it came from the top, wrapping around the entire hill and echoing from everywhere. It took Oikawa's breath away.

"Go!" Kuroo prompted, and they broke out into a run. At the same time, the ground beneath them began to quiver. Oikawa's blood ran cold even when he tried to run away.

However, the snow was slowing all of them down. Oikawa's mind ran a hundred miles an hour trying to remember his theory, trying to find the minute ways in which he could make himself run faster, just a second faster. The quaking of the ground became more intense, and suddenly, a loud noise, continuous in the background, began to roll towards them.

Oikawa made the mistake of looking up. A quick look at his companions, and at Suga who was about a hundred meters in front of them, showed that they were all captivated by the horrifying spectacle as well.

Oikawa indulged in a moment of terror, and let the waves of snow rolling down the hillside, towards them, take his breath away. For just one moment.

Then, he was running again, with a new goal in mind, because the snow was descending rapidly and gaining velocity, and he couldn't even cry out to warn Suga.

He made a frantic motion with his hands for Suga to come back towards them as he ran towards him, and by a blessed miracle, Suga immediately understood, changing course and stumbling through the snow towards Oikawa. The rumbling sound was now deafening, and the sheer size of the wave of snow was becoming apparent as it reached them. Oikawa had no time to check on Kuroo and Bokuto, but they had gotten the same training as he had. He trusted them to get the upper edge on the situation.

Suga, however, had not gotten any training. He was vulnerable, and Oikawa needed to protect him.

"Oikawa!" Suga called out, his voice high and worried, and reached out. Oikawa pumped his legs just a little harder, just a little more for the person who was counting on him and who had put his trust in him. He pushed hard enough for his legs to spasm with pain, and reached out as well.

Their hands caught one another, and the avalanche was upon them.

They had learned about avalanches in theory classes. They were told that it was an uncommon, but very real possibility, considering that most of the snow piled around the southwest of the country was fresh and untouched, which made it unstable. However, considering that it took a large shift in snow to trigger them, the risk was low. The mountains in the area weren't extremely steep, and they weren't going around snowboarding and displacing snow everywhere they went.

But this… this hadn't been something they had caused. The large noise before, whatever it had been, had been the cause of the avalanche for sure. And Oikawa had no doubt in his mind that it had been deliberate. The bodies. The avalanche. They were related somehow.

He didn't have time to think of any of that, though, as the sheer force of the rolling snow slammed into him, rattling his entire body with pain. When they had spoken of avalanches, they had also not mentioned how massive and terrifying they could be. Oikawa had not expected this. He could never have expected something like this.

For a second, he heard himself scream. And then, he realized that he wasn't the one screaming. And that his hand, which had been gripped tightly around Suga's a second ago, was now empty.

His heart jumped in his throat, but it was soon overshadowed by the dizzying tumbling of his body. The snow was harsh, merciless when it threw him left, right, and upside down, rolling him down the hill with massive force. One second, it was dark, and the next, it was brighter, the only constant in Oikawa's environment being the freezing snow that was slipping through every crack in his clothing. He was panting, breathing hard enough to freeze his lungs and choke on the snow that made its way into his throat.

He didn't know how long he panicked, but it felt like an eternity before the sound of reason snapped in his mind, and he began to remember his training. As hard as it was to be rational in a situation like this, he tried to calm himself, and swim to the top of the wave as they had been instructed to do in training.

The process was challenging. Clearly, the person who had designed this plan had never tried to control his movements when being dragged down by the sheer chaos of an avalanche. Or maybe he had. Either way, despite the pain in his limbs, Oikawa made the effort to pull himself up through the layers of snow, and his hand actually broke through the surface of the wave for a second before being dragged back down. He just kept trying, again and again, because if he gave up now, he would die for sure.

It felt like an eternity before the wave calmed down. When it began to lose velocity, though, it did so at an astonishing rate. If the tumble down had felt like a lifetime, then the halt felt like the split-second of death.

But Oikawa was not dead. He came to realize this when his body stopped moving, and all that was left was the shaking of his limbs from the sheer terror and cold of the environment around him. Oikawa could hear himself panting in his own ears, but nothing else. The entirety of his world, plunged into the dark, was silent.

It took him a second to realize that he was panting because he was choking. The oppressive snow packed all around him had immobilized his body and caged him in its embrace. There was snow in his nostrils and in his mouth, and his lungs, already hyperventilating in panic, were burning. Oikawa had almost suffocated when they forced the acid into his throat. He knew what that was like.

And he was terrified.

If there were tears rolling down his eyes, collecting in his ski mask, he didn't realize it. As the pain increased, so did his desire to live, and he quickly scrolled through his frantic mind for the next step in avalanche survival.

A pocket of air. He had to make a pocket of air.

He opened his mouth wider and began to grab greedy bites out of the snow around him. His teeth ached and his lips froze all too quickly, but at least he gave himself room to breathe another two breaths. Then, he was moving again, this time, trying to bring his hands up through the impacted snow to widen the pocket. The oppressive darkness all around him prevented him from seeing much of his progress, but he knew he had been able to clear some of the snow, at least, when his breathing began to ease. It was only temporary, though. Sooner rather than later, he would have used up all the oxygen in his pocket. He had to climb out.

His center of gravity felt a bit off, which meant that he was probably diagonally suspended in the snow. At least he wasn't upside down. With that in mind, he used his pocket of air as a hold to start digging. Keeping his hands close to his body, he cleared small bits of snow first, and then, as the snow loosened around him, he began to claw out larger amounts, impacting them all against his lower body to make space.

Thankfully, the snow loosened easily. Oikawa only had to dig for about a minute to finally hit the point where he pulled some snow to chest level, and the rest of the snow just crumbled. After the initial surprise of another face-full of snow, Oikawa gasped in relief at the small hole that was filtering light upon him. He was doing well. With that in mind, he continued.

He couldn't feel his body by the time he had pushed enough snow off of him to put his arms out of the hole. The snow he was in was relatively shallow, but the lack of traction in grip or foothold made the task a hundred times harder. He felt himself shivering violently as he worked, and wondered if it would be pathetic for him to die of hypothermia before he even pulled himself out.

But he couldn't die. Not yet. His team was counting on him. Everyone back home was counting on him. Iwaizumi counted on him to return. He couldn't let them all down.

He kicked with his legs to loosen up some of the snow on his lower limbs, and used the impacting snow around him to help pull himself out. The surface snow was also soft, so the more he pulled himself up, the more his hands sunk back in, but he could feel that he was gaining ground. He also felt frustrated enough to burst, but that was another story altogether.

When his upper body came out of the hole, he elected instead to throw himself onto the snow, and use the leverage he got by supporting half his body to pull out the rest. Compared to the beginning, finally pulling himself out felt like a breeze.

He only gave himself a second to lie down and catch his breath, blinded by the last tears blurring his vision. His entire body was racked by violent shivers, which felt wholly unpleasant, but that snapped him into action to warm himself up, and of course, find the others.

However, when he glanced around him, he saw nothing but white. They had been dragged down to the bottom of the hill and were now resting on a flat area, but that didn't help him much in terms of locating his teammates.

Some leader he turned out to be.

Self-deprecation burned hot in his brain, but he decided not to let it get to him. Not right now. Right now, he had a job to do. If only he could call out to the others, he could've perhaps gotten a clue about their location, but he couldn't even do that. He forced himself to think, instead. What other tool did he have to help him locate the others?

Standing up, he brushed the snow off of himself roughly, figuring he may as well begin looking blindly, in the absence of any leads. However, as he patted the snow off of himself, his hand dragged over something solid in his pocket. Oikawa's eyes took a moment to light up.

The GPS tracker. It was still in his pocket. And last he'd seen, Kuroo was holding the receptor.

He pulled it out with renewed urgency and checked the grid. The breath he'd been holding in apprehension left his body instantly when he saw a small blip on the grid, not far from here, which indicated the still-functional receptor's location.

He began to jog through the snow, sinking down to his ankles with every step, and not letting anything stop him from reaching the blip on his screen. He could see nothing in front of him, though, which was the scariest part. The receptor only gave him an approximate location; the rest would be up to him.

When he reached the general area of the blip, he put his tracker away, and scanned the area in front of him. His eyes went across every mound in the glistening snow, trying to catch a clue, when he finally noticed something off.

The snow in a spot nearby had been depressed in a circular pattern, as if it had impacted against something moving underneath. His breath catching, Oikawa immediately went for the spot, and put his hands into the snow.

With his first handful, he pulled out snow that had become slushy with blood.

His movements became even more frantic afterwards as he dug, thankfully not needing to go far to find the source of the blood. It was hard to see at first, but he quickly recognized the black streaks of Bokuto's hair, and his heart leapt with anticipation. Especially when, after clearing a little bit more snow, Bokuto's head began to move. All Oikawa could do is pat his matted hair and continue to dig.

Soon, he found the source of the blood. It, too, was coming from Bokuto's head. When Oikawa pushed most of the bloodied snow away, he found the gash. That's when he hastened his efforts to clear Bokuto's head from the snow.

Bokuto was beginning to help him with it, wiggling and clearing some of the snow around him. When Oikawa had done enough, he cleared the snow around his own face, and finally broke through.

"God, I'm suffocating in here!" he exclaimed, and then realized something. "Shit… Kuroo is actually suffocating!"

Oikawa mouthed him 'where?', but Bokuto clearly didn't get it, his pupils dilated and his eyes frantic with worry. However, he did get the emotion, and wiggled a little more to clear his shoulders.

"I've got him in my arms," Bokuto answered, fear very obvious on his features. Oikawa hadn't seen such an emotional display in a while. "I grabbed onto him when the avalanche came. He's against me at waist level!"

Oikawa nodded, and immediately began to dig in front of Bokuto, trying to get to his waist.

Bokuto helped, too, probably letting go of Kuroo with one hand to dig with the other. What worried Oikawa was that Kuroo wasn't moving to help them from wherever he was, despite feeling Bokuto squirm.

When the snow was thin enough, Bokuto began to strain his arms, and grunted as he tried to pull Kuroo's body out from under the snow. Oikawa tried to dig a little more, and sighed in relief when he saw a flash of black hair. A little more effort from both sides, and Kuroo's head was clear.

Now, the next most worrisome part was the way it lolled back heavily, Kuroo's lips open lightly and blue when Oikawa saw him. His heart skipped beat, and he made a motion at Bokuto to hurry.

He looped his arms under Kuroo's, and then began to pull, with Bokuto trying to push from underneath. Snow fell off of Kuroo's unconscious body in clumps, and the more he was removed from the snow, the more snow fell away from Bokuto and into the cavity he'd left. By the time Oikawa had fully pulled out Kuroo's body and had laid him out flat on the surface, Bokuto was already pulling himself out.

"Is he okay?" he asked immediately, quivering in cold, and probably shock, and by the sight of his bloodied face, blood loss. Oikawa made a mental note to check his wound out, and then unzipped Kuroo's jacket, practically slamming his ear against his chest.

He could hear a heartbeat, but his chest did not rise and fall.

Oikawa did not hesitate, immediately tilting Kuroo's head back and pinching his nose before sealing his lips over his and breathing until his chest lifted.

"No…" Bokuto whimpered, watching him uselessly. "Is he dead? He's not dead, is he? Please, he can't be dead!"

Oikawa gave another rescue breath, and then glared at Bokuto, shaking his head. He didn't know how to explain it without his words, but didn't need to. Kuroo just needed some incentive to breathe.

However, they still had someone else to find. Oikawa couldn't dawdle here while Suga's life slipped away.

He motioned at Bokuto to come close, and pointed at him, then at Kuroo. He then demonstrated a rescue breath, one large enough for Kuroo's chest wall to expand visibly. He then drew back, and tapped at his wrist, as if on a watch, five times at the rhythm of seconds, and then gave another breath.

For his airheaded personality, Bokuto caught on quickly.

"One breath per five second. Got it," he nodded urgently, and knelt next to Kuroo to take over.

Oikawa stood up, and glanced behind him. Now, to find Suga.

Suga didn't have a locator on him. He also hadn't had the training they'd gotten. The more Oikawa thought about it, the scarier it seemed. He had to think, fast.

He jogged over to where he had been buried. Suga had been on his right (or his left? He had tumbled a whole lot on the way down), so his best bet would be to delimit the area that Suga could possibly be in.

He still felt Suga's phantom touch in his right hand. So he decided to look on the right side of where he ended up. Suga should not have gotten too far either, considering how close they were when the wave hit.

He was still shivering when he began his search, now trembling not only with cold but with slowly rising dread. He walked around the area, but nothing felt weird under his feet. Just snow. Endless expanses of snow. But he couldn't give up. His heart began to hurt, both from the physical exertion and the mental fortitude he was forcing to keep his mind and eyes clear. He couldn't cry now. Suga still needed help.

He kept searching, kicking snow over as he went, trying to cleave a path to find their friend. His mind kept going to the worst-case scenarios, but he refused to indulge in them until he found Suga.

Suddenly, a loud cry of agony rang out in the air, and the hairs on the back of Oikawa's drenched neck stood. It was terrifying and animalistic, and he immediately spun around to look back at Bokuto.

Who, all heavens be praised, was now supporting Kuroo's back as he sat up, doubled over himself and shaking. Noticing Oikawa's concern, Bokuto glanced up at him and waved him off.

"He's back!" he announced with thinly veiled panic. "His shoulder is busted, though. But he's back! He's okay!" Then, noticing Oikawa's posture, his eyes seemed to darken. "I got things here. Find Suga!"

Oikawa doubled his effort at that. He had saved Kuroo and Bokuto. He could save Suga, too.

He didn't give up. A few minutes later, Bokuto joined him, supporting a trembling Kuroo who was cradling his left arm against him, pain all too obvious in the crisped lines of his face. Without saying a word, the two of them also got to work on trying to find Suga.

They didn't speak as they worked, their hearts heavy with apprehension. Oikawa didn't know how long it had been since he'd emerged from the snow, and he didn't want to know, either. He just wanted to find Suga, and return home safe and sound. And the more he thought about how much time had elapsed since he'd lost Suga under the snow, the more panicked he felt. What if… they were too late?

The sound of a truck engine interrupted his musings, which were going in a rather dark direction at this rate. Simply by reflex, Oikawa's heart leapt in his throat and he dropped to the ground, making himself as flat as possible. Noticing him, Bokuto and Kuroo both followed his lead, Kuroo letting out a few groans of pain as he laid down.

"Is it a hostile vehicle?" Kuroo gritted out from his clenched teeth.

"I don't know," Bokuto glanced at Oikawa for guidance, but Oikawa was back to it. He didn't know. Bokuto instead looked up, towards the road. And Oikawa almost cried when his eyes lit up. "It's Katsuya!" he jumped up, and began to wave. "Katsuya! Katsuya, over here!"

"He isn't supposed to be here," Kuroo grunted, shakily getting up on his knees and watching the truck slow down warily. "He's supposed to be at the extraction point."

Oikawa wasn't paranoid about it, though. He got up, and, considering that Bokuto was taking care of calling Katsuya, he persevered in trying to find Suga.

"Katsuya!" Bokuto called out again as their driver stopped the truck, and immediately jumped out. "Katsuya, help! We need help!"

Katsuya broke into a jog at that, and Oikawa was partly relieved that they had some more backup.

"What happened to you?" Katsuya asked, panting as he arrived by their side. "That was one hell of an avalanche! Are you okay? You're bleeding everywhere!"

"One at a time," Kuroo grunted, still cradling his arm. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, there was an avalanche!" Katsuya replied, almost petulantly, even though he seemed to be in his early thirties. "And you guys were in it. I wasn't gonna wait at the extraction point for you to come back! I had to find you."

"That avalanche was deliberate, wasn't it?" Kuroo continued suspiciously.

"I did hear an explosion. You must have heard it, too." Katsuya's face became grim. "Let's not linger any longer than we should. If this is what I think it is… We should go right now."

Just the thought of leaving without all his family made Oikawa's blood boil. He kicked the snow angrily. That seemed to get him some attention.

"We need to find Suga, first!" Bokuto urgently translated, immediately getting to it. Kuroo followed, too, using his feet to dig into the snow.

"Please help us," Kuroo mumbled pleadingly, looking at their driver with hope, panic, and sadness all mixed up with the pain he felt. Oikawa had never seen Kuroo so distressed. His heart hurt. He was leader of this mission; he had to take care of his teammates somehow.

"Alright," Katsuya agreed quietly, glancing around quickly before getting closer to them. "But let's not linger. Every minute we spend out here is another minute where we are in danger."

They all put their backs into it, at that. Not just for their personal safety, but for Suga's. A little voice in the back of Oikawa's mind screamed that it had been at least 20 minutes since Suga had been buried. He didn't want to think of it. He kept digging.

It was another two minutes before he kicked some snow, and his booted foot slammed into something solid. His heart leapt in his throat, and he immediately fell to his knees to investigate by clearing the snow with his hands. He dug for ten seconds, and finally, finally, from under over a foot of snow, he spotted Suga's snowpants.

He glanced up and waved at Kuroo until he noted the movement, directing everyone's gaze at it.

"He's got him!" Kuroo announced, jogging over, Bokuto and Katsuya imitating him. "Quick, let's get him out!"

Oikawa had already begun to dig, a bit off to the side. He'd found Suga's hip, but the most important thing right now was to get his head above the surface so he could breathe. The more Oikawa dug up, though, the less optimistic he felt. Suga had not even twitched in response to their efforts.

With that horrifying thought in mind, he doubled his efforts, and breathed a sigh of relief when he finally cleared Suga's face.

He was pale. Pale, so pale he was almost grey. The entire area surrounding his lips was a worrying shade of blue. By his mouth stood a discarded oxygen mask with an empty canister of compressed oxygen attached. Oikawa found some comfort in the thought that Suga had gotten some oxygen until his small canister ran out. Perhaps they weren't too late after all.

"I'll pull him out," Bokuto volunteered, still surprisingly lucid despite the blood that was now actually running down the arm of his coat. He looked pale, too, and Oikawa decided that after they dealt with Suga, Bokuto was the first one he'd get medical attention to.

He helped Bokuto pull Suga out, and laid him out on the snow, his body limp and lifeless. It was scary, but Oikawa held his breath and unzipped his jacket to check for a heartbeat.

He didn't need to look up to give orders to the others. The sight of him scrambling to get his hands on his chest and beginning his compressions was enough to get the message across.

"No." The word escaped Kuroo's throat like a whimper. Oikawa didn't look up, too busy counting his compressions, but he could tell that Kuroo was genuinely distressed. "No, he can't be gone."

"It's okay, bro, we'll bring him back like we brought you back," Bokuto tried to cheer him up, though there was a real fear weighing heavily on his sunken face.

"He's been under for a long time," Kuroo continued, his voice hitching. "What if we're too late? God, what if… what if there's nothing we can do?"

Oikawa tilted Suga's head back to give two rescue breaths, and then, as he rose, kicked Kuroo's ankles roughly. Kuroo let out a squawk of pain, almost crumbling, but shut up after seeing Oikawa's piercing glare.

He returned to his compressions.

He went for two more rounds before Kuroo's worries began to seep into him. His arms were becoming tired, too, and his compressions felt like they were doing nothing. Suga's body sunk into the snow with every pump, and suddenly, he wondered if everything they were doing was futile.

That was the thought that brought the first tears to his eyes.

Before beginning his next round of compressions, he turned to Katsuya, and pointed at the truck.

"Should we get going?" Kuroo attempted, his perception slightly off as he dealt with his difficult emotions.

Oikawa nodded to confirm, trying to appear strong in front of his teammates. Even if every second he spent over Suga's lifeless body made everything seem bleaker and bleaker.

"Let's move!" Katsuya ordered, crouching to grab Suga from under the arms. Oikawa immediately turned around and pointed at his back, and Katsuya hesitated a second before draping him on Oikawa's back.

The added dead weight was not the easiest thing for Oikawa's exhausted body to deal with, but Bokuto helped him get up, which was the hardest part. From there, they all began their rapid march back to the truck.

Katsuya ran up ahead to get it started as they caught up, and by the time they were loading Suga into the back, the truck had already rumbled to life.

Oikawa breathed, and then began compressions again.

On the side, Kuroo took care of Bokuto's head wound, finally, simply putting pressure on it with some pads from the first aid kit. Oikawa wished they hadn't lost their backpack full of advanced medical supplies, but it hadn't been with Suga, and they weren't going to spend more time looking for it. The Band-aids in the truck's kit would have to be enough.

He switched with Bokuto when his arms and knees began to ache fiercely. Bokuto's compressions were much rougher, much more frantic, but his boundless energy seemed to work in their favour when Suga's entire chest wall recoiled with every pump. In a moment of respite, Oikawa fell back, his heart beating rapidly on the adrenaline, and his limbs numb with emotion.

His hands were shaking, and he wasn't sure that it was because of the cold anymore.

Kuroo crawled to him on his good arm to hold one of his shaking hands. The human touch, unaccompanied by words, made Oikawa realize what the situation was. All he could hear was the sound of Suga's body thudding against the floor of the truck rhythmically, and the sound of his own heartbeat, much faster.

And suddenly, aware of his own life, still holding strong, he realized that Suga might not even make it out.

He pulled his hat and ski goggles off when he began to cry, quiet and pained, repressing all of his anger and powerless desperation until his entire body was quaking violently. Kuroo just dragged him to his side with his good arm, tilting his head to his shoulder and putting a hand to his ear. Oikawa appreciated it when he closed his eyes to sob. Not hearing nor seeing Bokuto try so hard to revive Suga's limp body made it easier for him to repress his guilt.

"I need a break," Bokuto called out after two minutes, his face getting paler and paler. The gauze on his head was already stained with blood. He was visibly sweating, despite the fact that he was clearly hypothermic and drenched. That didn't bode well.

Oikawa got up to go replace him at Suga's side, despite the fact that tears were still running down his face freely. Kuroo just watched him go, silent and apologetic with his eyes for not being able to help.

Oikawa took over after Bokuto's two rescue breaths, and channelled all of his feelings of helplessness into each compression. This seemed to give him renewed strength, if not for a short burst of time.

He and Bokuto switched often, though by the end of their ride, Kuroo was also stepping in to do a couple of rounds as best as he could with a single functional arm, as they were both too exhausted to keep going. It felt like they were driving forever, and Oikawa wondered for a second if it even mattered for them to continue CPR. The car ride itself was longer than most time limits for good CPR outcomes. His body and mind cried at him to call it, and to cease efforts. But when Bokuto looked at him pleadingly for a switch, for the hundredth time, his heart told him that he could do nothing else than continue. Persevere. That's what he'd always done in everything. He wouldn't give up now.

He didn't quit. He compressed with renewed energy, over and over again until he couldn't even hear anyone else, not Kuroo, calling faint encouragements to him, not Bokuto, who half-heartedly asked if he needed a switch, not even the truck rumbling beneath him. All that existed with him in his bubble was Suga's lifeless body. He had to save him.

He carried out the last round of compressions before the truck stopped. Even before the engine turned off, someone had unzipped the tarp from the outside, and Oikawa barely had time to finish his rescue breaths before people were rushing in with more equipment and barked orders to one another. He embarked on a new round of compressions, not willing to give up just yet, hoping that his next compression would be the one that brought Suga back to life, and didn't stop, even when two hands on his shoulders began to draw him back.

"We'll take it from here," someone was saying, and Oikawa looked up through teary eyes to see a few paramedics setting up their equipment. A defibrillator was charging on the side. Kuroo and Bokuto were both holding onto him, trying to get him to let go, but his arms felt glued to Suga's chest.

"Let go," someone else said, just as the paramedics tilted Suga's head to begin their intubation. "It's okay, let go."

He couldn't let go. He was the leader of this team, he had to protect his teammates and do everything in his power to save them. He couldn't give in.

"Oikawa, it's alright," Kuroo whispered next to his ear, which seemed to snap him back to reality. "We're okay. They'll take it from here." He tugged on Oikawa's arms, and this time, Oikawa gave. The paramedic nearest to him immediately began compressing again, hard and fast, better than any of them could do right now. Numb, Oikawa just fell back into Kuroo's grasp. Bokuto put a hand on his knee, gripping tightly to comfort both of them when the defibrillator came out.

"There's equal air entry bilaterally," one of the paramedics, with the stethoscope called out. "The intubation is good, we need a shock now."

"I need the shock pads," another one called, using large scissors to cut open all the layers of clothing on Suga's upper half. When Oikawa caught a peek at his pale skin, he saw it mottled with bruises around his left ribcage. It helped him convince himself that they had done everything they could. "Shock pads are on, everyone clear for the shock."

"Clear," the three paramedics called out, putting their hands in the air as the fourth one shocked. There was a slight discharging noise, and Suga's body jolted before falling motionless again.

"We'll transport him to the unit after the second shock. Prep the stretcher," the one by the defibrillator called, and they all continued CPR.

At this point, a fifth person peeked into the back, and Oikawa recognized Katsuya through the fog in his mind coming off the adrenaline.

"Come on," he called, motioning them over. "I'll help you guys to the infirmary. You're seriously hurt, too."

"Thank you," Kuroo murmured, though he didn't make a move to go. Too shocked, Oikawa didn't move, either. Bokuto was the one who got up and helped Oikawa stand, and who then helped Kuroo up.

With no choice but to leave, Oikawa took one last look at Suga's lifeless body, and let himself be escorted out.

As soon as his feet hit the ground in front of the complex, he stumbled. Katsuya caught him, even when he doubled over, heaving. He felt like he would vomit. He couldn't face anyone right now.

"Come on," their driver mumbled, glancing at Bokuto, who was supporting Kuroo as they walked, and half-dragged Oikawa towards the hole in the glass to go in. Behind them, another general cry of "clear!" was heard, and then, the noise of electrical discharge.

Oikawa didn't want to hear it anymore. He just needed to know that Suga would be okay.

He followed Katsuya, if only because his limbs weren't his own anymore. There was a silence of death in his mind, as if despite his conscious hope, he knew, deep down inside, that this story did not have a happy ending.

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

The nurses in the infirmary wing assigned him a bed in the clinic area, just long enough for him to regain his bearings, but he didn't want to be there. He felt misplaced, like he was using up resources he didn't deserve. He wasn't the one who died out there. He wasn't the one who was supposed to be on that bed.

On the bed next to him, Bokuto was sitting with his legs dangling off the side, idly making small talk to Kuroo, who was lying down on his right side, shirtless under the covers. Oikawa could see bandages swathing his left shoulder under the heavy blankets warming him up. Bokuto also had a large blanket drawn around his shoulders, bandages rolled around his head, a large piece of gauze on the spot where they had stitched up his rather large gash. Apparently, from what he understood, the two of them had hit resistance on the way down the hill, a tree or a boulder, busting Bokuto's head open and dislocating Kuroo's left shoulder.

Oikawa felt guilty for having gotten out of it unscathed.

The silence in the infirmary was only disturbed by Bokuto's occasional conversation starters that quickly fell through, considering that Kuroo was not too responsive. The poor boy seemed to want the covers to swallow him up. Oikawa hadn't seen him cry again since they dug Suga out, but he could tell that he was repressing the tears. Sometimes, it was easy to forget that Kuroo was also eighteen years old, just like Oikawa, just like many of them, and that his self-imposed responsibilities were so heavy that full-grown men with military training sometimes couldn't bear them.

He was a part of Oikawa's team, too, and Oikawa wanted to help him, too.

He couldn't do much, though, stuck in a hospital bed feeling empty and helpless. He needed to hear about Suga. It had already been almost an hour since they'd returned. There must have been some sort of development with Suga.

The silence was shattered all of a sudden when the front door to the clinic area was suddenly thrown open, so hard that it slammed into the wall. All three of them sharply turned to the door, just in time to lock gazes with the frazzled newcomer.

Oikawa's heart melted, and fell into his stomach when he saw the way Iwaizumi's face shifted from terror to relief.

"God," Iwaizumi shakily breathed out, covering his face in the move that Oikawa recognized as the one he made when he tried to hold back tears. He was visibly shaking, even from so far away. "Oh god. You're okay. It wasn't you."

Oikawa said nothing. He waited for Iwaizumi to compose himself and run towards him, a little less panicked, but still on edge.

"Are you okay?" he asked in a quivering voice, hesitating with his hands, as if he didn't know whether or not to touch Oikawa.

Oikawa looked at him, and shrugged, not sure how to answer.

"My body's okay," he replied simply.

"What happened?" Iwaizumi asked right back. Oikawa was grateful that he was signing, as they could have a private conversation even when there were others in the room.

"The mission went bad. Someone tried to kill us." Suga's lifeless body flashed in his mind's eye, and he actually shut his eyes to hold the tears back.

"I was so scared," Iwaizumi continued, his eyes wide. Oikawa hated seeing such open fear in his expression. Iwaizumi had never been honest about his feelings, until the war. And sometimes, seeing emotions on their dependable ace's face was the hardest part. "When they said someone had died… And they called me to the infirmary as your emergency contact…"

"Someone died!?" Oikawa's breath flew from his lungs, and in that moment, nothing else existed. Nothing but the knowledge that he had failed.

That everything they had done was for naught.

He couldn't help himself anymore, and burst into tears.

He sobbed openly, soundlessly into his hands, fat tears drenching his face all too quickly. His heart was broken; there was nothing else to it. As if knowing exactly what he was thinking, Iwaizumi immediately drew him into his arms, letting Oikawa cry into his chest. He held him tightly, trying to keep all of his pieces together as he fell apart.

"What's going on?" Kuroo asked, noticing that they'd been talking.

Oikawa indulged in another minute within Iwaizumi's protective hold before pushing back and facing the facts. His hands trembled as he turned to sign to Kuroo.

"He's dead."

"God," Kuroo choked out breathlessly, and turned to Bokuto, who hadn't understood. "He's… he's not…"

"No!" Bokuto immediately exclaimed. "No, stop that! You can't say that. You don't know that for sure!"

"They announced your return on the radio," Iwaizumi continued, not sure what they were referring to. "They said… They said that the two wastelander teams had returned with several casualties. And then, my boss told me to go to the infirmary immediately, and that it was about you…" His face fell. "I was so worried that something had happened to you…"

"Maybe they're referring to Kizuna's team only," Kuroo gasped. "It could be!"

"Maybe he's still okay, then," Bokuto breathed out in relief. "Told you!"

"Who are you talking about?" Iwaizumi asked, getting a bit frustrated. "Oikawa… What happened out there? Is this something I should know?"

Oikawa just looked at him, saw him trying to see through his stricken, teary face, and just shook his head. This wasn't his burden to bear. Plus, they'd all probably find out in due time.

"All you should know is that I'm okay," he answered. "For now, let that knowledge be enough."

Iwaizumi's response was to embrace him again, tighter, as if he knew that he was hiding a heavy secret. He probably did. But Oikawa was grateful that he didn't push it.

Their moment was interrupted when someone else walked into the infirmary. Unlike Iwaizumi, though, his steps were calculated, fast, and decisive. Oikawa heard him coming before he saw him, and his blood felt cold all of a sudden. When Akaashi Keiji strode into view, they all stopped.

And then, Akaashi was taking large steps towards Kuroo and Bokuto, his face impassible.

"Told you I'd bring him back," Kuroo huffed with forced amusement. "Don't hit me."

Akaashi didn't stop on his way towards him, and the closer he came, the more Oikawa noticed Kuroo's face twist into genuine worry.

"Umm, Akaashi?" he called. "Didn't you hear the part where I said that Bokuto's safe?"

"Yeah, I'm safe," Bokuto backed up, hopping off the bed to go towards Akaashi. "I'm fine, see? Please don't hit Kuroo."

"You're hurt," Akaashi stated, halting in front of him and twisting his jaw to inspect the gauze on his head. "You split your head open."

"It was an accident!" Bokuto insisted. "Come on, Akaashi. It's not that bad."

"You promised not to get yourself hurt," Akaashi finally hissed, his voice low and dangerous. "That's the only reason we agreed you'd go out as a wastelander; if you came back unharmed."

"You can't foresee everything, Akaashi," Kuroo grumbled. "If we'd known that someone would try to kill us, we wouldn't have gone either."

It took another moment for the fire in Akaashi's eyes to die down. Then, he sighed softly, and patted Bokuto's shoulder.

"Well, I'm just glad you're back." He casted his gaze to the floor guiltily. "I refused to despair when I heard the news of your return on the radio. I'm relieved."

"You can thank Oikawa for it," Kuroo shrugged, motioning over at the mute. Oikawa cocked his head, as if trying to figure out what he meant by it. "He was the mission leader, after all."

"You're leading these things?" Iwaizumi piped in, turning to his best friend with a spark of concern in his eyes.

"He's good at it," Kuroo defended. "Better than any other one of us."

"People need me, Iwa-chan," Oikawa simply offered. "Whether it's you, Kuroo, someone else… If people need me, I'll be there."

Iwaizumi's gaze lingered on him, unreadable for once, and then, to Oikawa's genuine surprise, he smiled.

"Good for you, then," he hummed, ruffling Oikawa's hair teasingly. "Just… stay safe, okay?"

"Are you my mom, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa challenged, crossing his arms.

"I may as well be," Iwaizumi sighed in defeat, at least a little bit amused.

"So listen," Kuroo continued, his tone just a tick too airy to sound innocent. "I'm kind of hungry. Bo, would you mind trying to see if you can find anything to munch on 'till dinner?"

"Ask your emergency contact when he gets here," Akaashi challenged. "Bokuto needs his rest, too."

"I don't have an emergency contact," Kuroo shrugged in mock-innocence. "Oops. Must've left that part of the admission paper blank."

"I can go, then!" Bokuto perked up at the thought of food. "I'm hungry, too. Come on, Akaashi, let's go see!"

"Well, I'd rather if Akaashi stays here," Kuroo hummed lightly.

"Iwa-chan can go," Oikawa immediately picked up, seeing where Kuroo was going with this, despite being uneasy with it. "I'm hungry, too."

"Are you sure?" Iwaizumi asked. "You don't need me here, do you?"

"I can make do without you for a little while," Oikawa rolled his eyes. "I'm okay. Please don't worry."

"If you say so…" Iwaizumi was still hesitating, but with a wave from Oikawa, decided to comply. "I'll be back."

"Thank you," Kuroo called out for both of them.

They waited until Iwaizumi and Bokuto had left. Then, Akaashi turned to Kuroo.

"You could've been a bit subtler about wanting to talk to me alone," Akaashi mimicked Kuroo's words from before the mission, at least a little bit amused. Oikawa still didn't know how to gauge this guy. One second, he was making quips with his resting bitch face, and the other, he was getting mad at Kuroo for not protecting Bokuto.

"I'm returning the favour," Kuroo threw right back.

"What do you want, then?" Akaashi asked, jumping straight to the point. "If you want an apology, I'm not giving it to you."

"None of that," Kuroo waved him off. "We actually were curious about something, and were wondering if you could shed some light."

"Go ahead." Akaashi seemed mildly confused.

"Bokuto," Kuroo continued without skipping a beat. "You're very protective of Bokuto. More than you were before the war."

"Well, yes." Akaashi cocked his head, like he didn't understand. "The war changed the way I view him. I want him to be safe."

"More than that, though, you need him to remain safe," Kuroo clarified. "Some of the things you've been saying had struck me as odd. It's coming off to me that you need Bokuto a lot for your own sake, too."

"Are you saying I'm using him?" Akaashi balked, clearly offended despite his face remaining impassible. "That's just plain disrespectful."

"No, no, I know you care for him," Kuroo continued, still nonchalant. Oikawa was beginning to see how people thought he was annoying. "But what I mean is that you're hiding a secret regarding him. And you need him to stay alive because if he died, you wouldn't be able to live with yourself."

And surprisingly, Akaashi said nothing. He did glare sharply at Kuroo, but he said nothing. The silence was greater of an answer than anything he could've said.

"On the radio," Kuroo continued with absolute confidence. "When you called Bokuto out on the radio, you said some things that felt off. Mostly, I thought you sounded guilty."

"I wasn't feeling guilty," Akaashi quickly huffed, looking away. Again, his body language said a lot.

"Guilt is a bizarre feeling to have when your best friend is about to be thrown into a dangerous situation out of his own free will," Kuroo pushed on. "Bokuto also said that he owed you his life. So forgive me for prying, but this whole thing sounds fucked up to me. You're keeping secrets from us, but now I'm wondering if you're keeping secrets from him, too."

"That's none of your business," Akaashi grumbled. "I don't have to answer to anything you ask me."

"No, you don't. But your silence is giving me all the answers regardless."

"I hate you," Akaashi glared at Kuroo venomously. Oikawa began to wonder if he'd have to break them up.

"You say that now." Kuroo laughed lightly before sobering again. "I care for Bokuto, too. He's my best friend. Finding him safe and sound has been one of the only good things that has happened to me so far in this journey of ours. So forgive me if I'm trying to ensure the best for him. If there is something you're not telling him, I want to know."

"There's a reason I'm not telling him," Akaashi bit back before realizing that he'd fallen into Kuroo's trap. He shut up immediately.

To his credit, Kuroo didn't push it, despite having an in and confirming his hypothesis.

Akaashi glanced at him, then at Oikawa, then at the door, as if hoping for the other two to come back and save him. But they didn't. The room remained plunged in silence.

"It's just…" Akaashi finally began, lower this time. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other uncomfortably, and held his arms close to himself. "I don't… I don't want him to hate me."

Oikawa frowned, quickly running through every interaction he'd seen of the duo so far. Bokuto hung onto Akaashi like a lifeline. It didn't even seem possible for either of them to hate the other.

"You know him as well as I do," Kuroo encouraged him, his voice softer now that he knew he'd won. "You know he wouldn't hate you."

"Even if he found out that I killed his parents?" Akaashi grumbled, glancing at the door worriedly. His young face looked tired and overwhelmed. Oikawa was sure that he hadn't been ready to talk about this when he came here with every intention of beating Kuroo up, or whatever his initial plans were.

Kuroo seemed lightly thrown aback by his confession, but Oikawa didn't as much as blink. He'd seen horrifying things be done to people all around him with his own two eyes. He was past the point of revulsion. Besides, he was sure that Akaashi had a reason. Whether it was a valid one or not, he'd judge later, however.

"I'm sure it was an accident," Kuroo picked up the conversation a bit awkwardly. Oikawa enjoyed his discomfort. It wasn't often that Kuroo seemed less than sure of himself.

His earlier moment of distress flashed through Oikawa's mind, however, and he decided never to think that again. He preferred Kuroo's paranoid, controlling persona over his vulnerable, panicked heart any day. He didn't want him to suffer any more than he had already.

"It wasn't an accident, Kuroo," Akaashi continued, coming closer so he could lower his voice. He glanced over at Oikawa, as if unsure what to do with him around, but Oikawa didn't flinch. That seemed to put Akaashi at ease, somehow. "I killed them, and made him think it was an accident."

"You're gonna have to start at the beginning." Kuroo's tone was cold, but his eyes were not unkind. He was giving Akaashi a chance. That's probably why Akaashi looked down and away from him, ashamed.

"It was for his own good…" he muttered, sounding so desperate to believe in himself that it hurt Oikawa's heart. The sadness on his pretty face didn't suit him. "I had no other choice…"

"Tell me what happened," Kuroo encouraged, swinging to sit on the side of the bed and be closer to Akaashi. He dragged his blankets over his bare shoulders with his functional arm, and then extended his hand to his friend. "Akaashi. It sounds like you have a lot on your mind. Please tell me what happened so I can take some of your burdens away."

At this point, Oikawa didn't even know if Kuroo was going at this interrogation with the intent to manipulate Akaashi or not. From the way his brows creased worriedly when Akaashi physically withdrew, however, he figured that Kuroo still had some manner of emotion somewhere behind the steel of his heart.

"I can't…" the young man shook his head. "This is my burden to bear. I killed them, and he'll never know."

"Keiji," Kuroo called, so soft that for a moment, Oikawa mistook him for someone else entirely. This much empathy radiating from him was a first. "I've known you for years now. And I've known Bokuto longer than that. I'm your friend. I really just want to help."

Akaashi took another moment to shuffle his feet, and just this once, Oikawa felt like he saw the real Akaashi, the one behind the cool, steely front, the one who was a boy just trying to make it in the wild, the Akaashi who was lost and scared like every single one of them. Then, he looked up, eyes wide and worried, in the biggest show of emotion that Oikawa had seen from him so far. He looked like he was about to cry.

"I really missed you," he admitted, his voice catching in his throat. "You, Kenma… When Tokyo fell, I was so scared that I would never see you again…" he glanced away, and Oikawa saw how Kuroo's face fell at that. "And now… now that you're here, I'm scared of seeing you."

"Am I doing something wrong?' Kuroo asked immediately, genuinely distressed by the statement. "Akaashi, you and Bokuto are way up there on the list of people I care about. I don't want any secrets to be between us. Whether it's about you and me, or… or you and Bokuto."

"I'm just scared that you won't see me as the same guy as before the war," Akaashi mumbled insecurely. "I've been trying to live like a regular person, but the truth is that… I've killed people. I killed two people. Two people who meant the world to the person who means the world to me." He hid his face in his hands. "I'm scared that he'll hate me. That you'll hate me. That after all this time spent being strong, one moment of vulnerability is going to destroy everything I love."

"It won't," Oikawa found himself signing too quickly, as if Akaashi's lament had resonated within him. Kuroo turned to him when he detected the movement in his peripheral vision, and Oikawa repeated it.

"He says that it won't," he translated, putting a hand on Akaashi's arm for comfort. "And honestly, I agree."

Akaashi turned to him, as if only now acknowledging that he was a part of the conversation, too. He glanced over Oikawa, and Oikawa knew that he was being appraised. Akaashi didn't know him, didn't know this story, though, so he probably didn't know how much they had in common.

He, too, had been afraid that Iwaizumi would reject him after finding out what he had done under the control of the traffickers. But his fear had been misplaced. Iwaizumi had never, not even for a second, seen him as a lesser person for it. And Oikawa saw a lot of himself in both Akaashi and Bokuto, and knew that he could safely draw that parallel.

"Bokuto is your best friend," Oikawa continued, more self-assured with every word he signed. As he signed, Kuroo translated, and for a moment, Oikawa felt like he was actually talking again.

It was a fantastic feeling that inspired him to push harder.

"Your best friend sticks with you because he knows everything that you are at your core, and everything that you will never be. And then, it doesn't matter what you do, because he'll always recognize why you've done those things, and why, whether it was misguided or not, you have made that choice. And your best friend loves you. He'll always guide you forward. Even if he has moments of doubt, even if both of you have doubts, your hearts already know one another." The more he spoke, the lighter he felt. A small smile was dawning on his face, and he was conscious of it. "Even when the radio silence persists in your brain and your own heart begins to reject you, know that you'll always find your true self within your best friend's heart."

Oikawa let Kuroo finish, noting how even he was having enunciating now, stumbling over the emotional words. He figured that all of them could relate to some degree. After Kuroo hammered the point home, though, no one said a word. Oikawa didn't mind it. The silence felt more comforting than the blanket hugging his shoulders.

And then, Akaashi slowly put his hands to his eyes, and pressed on the corners, as if to stop the tears from accumulating. When he removed his hands, Oikawa saw that his eyes were puffy and red, despite him not having shed a single tear yet. His glance over at him was glossy, though, and Oikawa proudly held eye contact with him until he turned to Kuroo again.

"I'm scared," he repeated. "But I know that I can never stop feeling so afraid if I don't tell him the truth."

"You're not a bad guy, Akaashi," Kuroo encouraged him, rubbing his arm lightly. "He'll forgive you. All of us will forgive you. Whatever the reason was, you'll be forgiven. Because we know that what you've done doesn't dictate who you are."

"Right," Akaashi's voice broke, and he did not resist when Kuroo dragged him close for a hug. If Oikawa had any doubts about the genuineness of their friendship before, he had none now. The two clearly cared a lot for one another.

They indulged in the silence for a few minutes, Kuroo and Akaashi immobile in their embrace, if not for the slight hitch of the latter's shoulders once in a while. Oikawa did not feel awkward at the display. In fact, it was comforting to know that they were all rebuilding their lives from the debris left by the war, and that they were all slowly but surely finding home again within the expanse of one another's arms.

The moment broke when the door to the infirmary opened again, a bit less violently than the last time. They all looked up to see Bokuto and Iwaizumi stride in, looking a bit more sober than before.

"Akaashi-" Bokuto began, glancing over at him just as he untangled himself from Kuroo's arms, eyes clearly red. "Whoa. Did I miss something?"

"Not at all, Bokuto. What were you saying?" Akaashi immediately answered, wiping his eyes conspicuously.

"Why are you crying?" Bokuto frowned, jogging over to him, and without hesitation, pulling him close by the shoulders. "Akaashi? Is everything alright?"

Akaashi looked at him for a second longer with his eyes wide, and then lapsed into a fresh round of quiet tears, burying his face into Bokuto's chest. Bokuto just held him, confused, and looked at Kuroo for guidance. Kuroo said nothing.

"Is it because you already heard?" Bokuto asked, then, shakily. "Did the nurse come and tell you, too?"

"Tell us what?" Kuroo frowned.

"About Suga," Iwaizumi was the one who answered, stepping forward to join them. "The nurse stopped us in the hallway to tell us that he was ready to be seen in the intensive care room."

Oikawa heart leapt so harshly he felt like he wold vomit. Iwaizumi must've seen the blood drain from his face, because he approached him, frowning deeper.

"Oikawa, what's going on?" he demanded. "I thought Suga was missing because he was busy doing nurse stuff after the mission. Did something happen?"

Unfortunately, the silence said it all.

"Oikawa." Iwaizumi's breath caught audibly. "Please… please don't say nothing." His eyes widened slowly, and then all at once, until the look in them was pleading. "God... Nothing happened to him, right?"

Oikawa didn't know what to say. He wasn't sure about Suga's condition either. Last time he'd seen him, he was dead. He really hoped that there was an update to his situation.

"Let's go see him at once," Oikawa decided, jumping off the bed impatiently. As soon as his bare feet touched the cold tiles, he shivered, but mostly because his heart was beginning to beat faster. The others watched him as he drew his blanket around his shoulders and began to walk to the door.

"You'll get sick! Wear some slippers!" Iwaizumi called after him, jogging to catch up after the initital shock tided over. "Oikawa… If something happened to Suga, it's no reason for you to get careless."

But Oikawa was the leader of his team. He had to put his team before anything else. They'd been in the dark about Suga for the last few hours; now, with a new development arising, he wouldn't stop until he got news from him.

His steps were decisive and steady, despite the apprehension that was welling in his chest with every breath. Kuroo, Bokuto and Akaashi had also jogged to catch up with them, all of their faces betraying how concerned they felt.

"If he's in the intensive care room, that means he's alive, right?" Bokuto asked out loud.

"What?" Iwaizumi spun to look at him sharply. "He could be dead!?"

"Not now, guys," Kuroo placated them both. "Let's not make any assumptions until we see him."

"What happened for him to end up there?" Akaashi asked, concerned despite not knowing Suga very well. "On the radio, they only mentioned an accident… But what happened, really?"

No one answered. Oikawa blamed no one. He wouldn't have been able to clear things out in his frazzled mind right now, either. He just needed to see his teammate. His teammate, who hadn't even been his teammate.

Suga hadn't even been supposed to be there with them. If only they had put off the mission while waiting for Yamaguchi to recover, this wouldn't have happened.

With the dangerous 'what if's beginning to pop up in the forefront of his mind, Oikawa weaved his way through the med bay hallways and walked straight into the intensive care room without even bothering to knock.

There were two things to notice as soon as they stepped in, hushed.

Of course, the first thing to notice was Suga.

Suga was laid out on a hospital bed, swaddled with blankets. His hospital gown, peeking from underneath the sheets, was draped loosely on him, making him look tiny and fragile. His arms were spread on top of the blanket, IV tubes running fluids in the crooks of both his elbows, a blood pressure cuff on his bicep and an oxygen monitor on his finger. His eyes were closed, his face serene underneath the large oxygen mask sealed over his mouth and nose. He was pale, his complexion sickly in the bright light. At least he was not blue, nor grey anymore. And his chest seemed to be rising and falling independently. Behind his bed, a heart monitor was silently operating, the spikes of his heartbeat clear on the screen.

Oikawa could cry. His knees felt so weak that at some point, he just stumbled, and Iwaizumi was the one who caught him to straighten him out. When Oikawa glanced at him in thanks, he noticed that Iwaizumi was shaking, too.

"Oh my god, he's alive!" Bokuto broke the silence with a loud cry of relief. He jogged to Suga's side and immediately put a hand on his shoulder to shake him awake. "Suga! Suga, wake up! You scared us so much! Man, do we owe you an apology for dragging you into this… That was scary!"

"Bokuto, let him rest," Kuroo sighed in absolute relief, running his hands over his face to rub life back into his concerned expression. "You'll gush over him all your want when he wakes up."

"He's not gonna wake up."

And then, Oikawa turned his eyes to the second thing to be noticed in the room.

Daichi, who had been quiet so far, pushed himself away from the far wall where he'd been leaning, and approached the bed somberly, his eyes never leaving Suga's still form. Something about his demeanour threw Oikawa off. He wasn't sure he wanted to stay to hear the rest anymore.

"Wh-What?" Bokuto asked, thrown aback by the cold edge to Daichi's voice. "What do you-?"

"He was under the snow for too long," Daichi simply recited, as if reading off of a paper. He approached Suga's face, and hesitated only for a second before putting a hand on his cheek, caressing it tenderly. His expression remained flat, scarily blank. "They successfully resuscitated him because the cold preserved his organs. Using his oxygen tank saved his brain stem, but the rest of his brain died asphyxiated. There's nothing left of him to wake up."

Daichi's words hung in the air, and then dissipated. As they faded, Oikawa became aware of ringing in his ears.

He wasn't sure who cried out first. It was probably Bokuto. Then again, Kuroo had been rather mentally unstable lately, and had known Suga longer than Bokuto. It surely wasn't Akaashi. Maybe Iwaizumi? Suga had saved his life back in Niigata and Nagoya, after all.

All he knew was that Daichi was silent, and it was terrifying.

Someone was crying. Oikawa was numbly aware of Iwaizumi stumbling to hit the wall for support. There seemed to be a flurry of activity as Bokuto began to shake Suga, and Akaashi rushed to stop him, ending up having to hold Bokuto when the other boy began to crumble into tiny little pieces. Oikawa had no idea where Kuroo was. He was probably the one crying.

But Daichi was saying nothing. In fact, he looked like porcelain, his limbs rigid and his jaw squared, his eyes unblinking as he gazed down at Suga's still form. He didn't move, even when the rest of them began to fall apart for the friend they'd gained only a few months ago.

Daichi had known Suga for at least three years. From what Oikawa had seen of them back in the days when volleyball was the only struggle they knew, they were closer to one another than to anyone else.

So Daichi's silence was terrifying. Even when everyone else ripped at the seams, Oikawa tuned out their anguish, and focused in on the absolute silence of death that was surrounding Daichi. So far, he'd learned to live with silence and find comfort within its simplicity. But this silence was anything but simple, anything but comforting.

It was heavy, suffocating, asphyxiating like the snow that should have, by all rights, become their final resting place. And even when Oikawa's legs gave out under the pressure of shock, and he fell painfully to his knees, his eyes never left Daichi's steely, resolved expression. Still, he heard nothing, basked in the silence of loss yet again, in the silence of a cruel fate that always succeeded in ripping more away from them.

Frozen in time and space, his gaze remained on Daichi for what seemed like forever. And when he began to cry, his hitching breaths inaudible to his own ears, it was only because Daichi still hadn't moved, still hadn't spoken. He despaired in the quiet of his own mind, already aware that one more bitter loss had beaten yet another one of them into eternal silence.

---

Author's Note

Sorry? I really am. This was a tough decision. The overwhelming majority of people on Tumblr did tell me to go for it, though, if I had a good reason for it. I do have a good reason for it. It's elaborated next chapter, but Suga's death is actually very important to provide the boys with closure,not only for Tanaka, but also for all of their individual losses, and for Daichi's character development, which has been rather steady so far. As a leader, I want Daichi to be a more ambivalent character, like Kuroo, and this is the turning point for him, clearly. Also, Suga's incapacitated state is a plot point for the ending of the fic. So yeah. I'm sorry. It had to be done.

The before-last chapter doesn't mean that everything is being wrapped up. In fact, there's a lot of new plot points peeking from under the surface. What was that explosion on the hill? What is this about Akaashi having killed Bokuto's parents? Kuroo actually has feelings? Daichi is going through the most overwhelming loss he's had since his parents died last summer? Lots of stuff coming up in the grand finale.

I enjoyed writing Oikawa, especially since he exists in relation to other people at this point. Notice how he has two voices: Iwaizumi and Kuroo. Iwaizumi voices the part of him that is emotional, and that is the person he is right now. Kuroo voices the more rational part of him and shows him the person that he could become. Both of them are important for Oikawa, who is quickly rising up to become a leader of their group as well, and who must mix these two identities together to become an effective leader. Also, I loved writing Oikawa because he's my son, my child, and him and Iwaizumi are the lights of my life. I went into their backstories more, and with that, I feel like the major part of their trauma has ben laid out on the table and is now being dealt with. The themes with Oikawa are always the same: gaining purpose and control of his life. If you go on the CML tag on Tumblr, you can actually find an ask where I was asked to describe Oikawa's time in captivity. I feel like his psyche took quite a hit in the trafficking ring, and that post explains it better than the fic.

I had quite a troublesome time characterizing Akaashi. I wanted him to be a character who appears calm and collected, but who harbours horrifying secrets, but I can't write a teenager with terrible secrets without having him get frustrated and sad. I'm gonna do my best to stick with his canon personality, but yeah. Get ready for a lot of Akaashi emotions. As a recap, he apparently killed Bokuto's parents and made it seem like an accident. That doesn't sound foreboding or suspicious at all :U

I thought I'd have more notes to write for such a long chapter, but apparently not. I'll probably remember at some point and add them in. If you ever have any questions or felt that I addressed something badly, you're welcome to talk to me on Tumblr. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed (some parts of) the chapter, and I really hope you're looking forward to the next one, the last one. I was hoping to have it out by February 22nd, which is my birthday, but at the rate this chapter went at, I'm not so sure. I might spend another Katsucon writing at 4am under the gazebo :I In any case. In the words of Madeon in his song, "Finale" (which I highly recommend you listen to!);

"Brace yourself for the grand finale!"