He had really done it this time.
Yuuji ran. His breath came in short, controlled bursts, scraping at the inside of his throat. He glanced around, looking this way and then that, his eyes ever-searching. It was all gray. Gray. Nothing. Each step beneath him pounded hard against the concrete. Even so, his pace was less a full-out sprint and more like a hurried search.
This place was in the middle of a series of alleys, not too far from the main streets but still relatively secluded. Trash bags lay waiting on the corners. They were so bedraggled and dirty they almost looked like black boulders instead. Old, faded and ripped posters hung in rags on the walls.
"Oh c'mon, Nagisa!" Yuuji shouted. He was still moving, arms swinging as he searched, glancing down every corner. "I was just joking!"
He had tried to have a talk with the boy. He had tried to make things right. Yuuji knew that he had. He managed to get Nagisa alone, not too far from here, and had begun talking. But—as usual—luck wasn't with him. One thing led to another, one misunderstanding made worse by another before it, and soon Nagisa wasn't interested in hearing anything at all.
Nagisa had run away. He took off down this street, down this set of corridors, sticking to the side with the most pipes. If Yuuji had to guess, probably so he could use his awesome powers to escape.
Yuuji ignored the sudden mix of anger and worry that shot through him. Regret scorched the inside of his chest. He hadn't meant to make Nagisa angry! He had just…made a mistake. Yuuji agonized. This was their first real fight, too. He tried to picture what it would be like if Nagisa never talked to him again, and found that he didn't want to know. Hopefully things wouldn't change for the worse between them. Oh please, oh please, oh please…
"Nagisa," he called for the hundredth time. Yuuji turned around in a circle. He was nearly out of the alleyways now, and still nothing. He scowled and shaded his eyes with one hand in order to look up at the rooftops. Dammit, Nagisa must be around here somewhere.
Suddenly there came the sound of thumping on his right. It was rhythmic like footsteps, coming down hard as if in anger. Yuuji sprinted towards it without thinking.
Down that side street, a board stood leaning against a storage house wall, its wooden body quivering slightly. The faint outline of a footprint had been pressed into it. Yuuji looked up. A horizontal bar stretched out halfway across the open top of the alleyway.
"Nagisa," Yuuji called again, more out of relief than anything. "I know you're up there."
No response.
Yuuji paced around the side of the building, trying to find any way up. "Come down already! I just want to talk to you."
And he would talk, he thought to himself. He would do better than last time, not make the same mistakes, or make any excuses. All he wanted to say was 'I'm sorry'…
The rooftop was still. But Yuuji could picture Nagisa up there, as real a presence as if he were standing next to Yuuji right now. He imagined the boy curled up in a corner, face set into a frown, quiet and still enough to fool anybody with training, but not someone who really knew him.
"Nagisa!" Yuuji shouted. "Come back-" He broke off, out of breath.
A soft voice drifted from above. "Go away."
Sweet relief flared through Yuuji. Hmph. So he was up there. Well, that settled it. Yuuji turned around, scanning the nearby area. He needed to get on top of that roof.
A telephone pole next to the building caught his eye. Yuuji stared at the mast. He looked back toward the storage house. He swallowed. There was no other way, was there?
Yuuji went up to the pole and placed one hand on it. The beam was made of old steel, with bolts and metal plating placed at certain intervals. The texture was rough, but at least that might offer him a good grip. He cast another look at the top of the building. It appeared to be about five meters in height.
Yuuji steeled himself, taking off his jacket and tying it around his waist. He adjusted his backpack to a comfortable angle. Then he slowly counted to three and wrapped his hands around the pole. He was all too aware of how weak his arms had felt in the past.
Weak.
Powerless.
Useless.
He took a deep breath and pulled.
Yuuji's feet scrabbled for purchase. After a few terrible, heart-pounding seconds, they lodged on the edge of one metal plate. Yuuji gasped, feeling blood rush through his ears. But he had made it. He was holding steady.
He managed to scooch up a few centimeters before the fear struck him. Oh, right. Heights.
Yuuji's stomach swooped at the very thought of the word. The world around him started to tilt. For every millimeter he had climbed, an awful void seemed to pull at him, dragging him down to join it back where he belonged. What would it be like, he wondered, his limbs taken over by weightlessness, flailing like tissue paper as he plunged, plunged endlessly, but not for very long?
Yuuji's mind raced. His mouth was suddenly uncomfortably dry. How tall was five meters, anyway? Enough to kill a human if they dropped? Enough to break a bone? Break two?
Thoughts like these were part of what led Yuuji to make the mistake of looking down. He pressed his face back against the pole and closed his eyes to stop the ensuing vertigo.
It wasn't very far off the ground, but already Yuuji was almost too scared to jump off. Thoughts flashed unbidden through his head. They just wouldn't stop. Yuuji imagined how the impact would be, shocking through his legs, then crumpling his knees, but before that, the horrible plummeting sensation, yes, always the fall-
A bead of sweat ran cold down Yuuji's neck. His hands shook around the pole, though luckily not from fatigue just yet. Maybe there was another way. Maybe there was a convenient stack of crates just beyond the building, on the other side…
The words that he needed to say flashed again through his mind. Yuuji gritted his teeth and started to climb.
Nagisa sat alone on top of the roof.
He was curled up in a corner, knees to his chest and arms wrapped tightly around them like a barricade. One hand clenched into a fist. On his face was a permanent frown. His cheeks swelled as he pouted. Stupid. Stupid. Everything was just so stupid.
Nagisa laid his head upon his knees. Anger mixed within him and gave way to sadness. How long could he keep this up? He couldn't stay here forever. Although, when he glanced over to the neighboring rooftops, he realized that he could probably form an escape route easily.
Nagisa sighed again. Keeping this up was exhausting.
He drew aimlessly in the dirt beside him. It was a dumb thing to do, anyway, he reflected, coming up here just because he knew that Yuuji couldn't follow. God, how petty could you get?
"Hey, Nagisa!"
And there he was, at it again. Nagisa felt like mumbling to himself. Didn't that guy ever learn?
"Nagisa!"
Nagisa glanced up. Then his eyes went wide. He jumped out of his pose, arms and legs flying open.
There was Yuuji, hugging the telephone pole with a death grip just beyond the rooftop edge, shaking and trembling and looking more terrified than he had ever been in his entire life.
"Yuuji?!" Nagisa exclaimed, his voice shooting high with worry. "What are you doing?"
A nervous grin came onto Yuuji's face. "I-I-I wanted to s-s-say th-that I-I-I'm s-s-so-s-so-sorr-"
"Forget about that! Get down from there, it's dangerous!"
Yuuji's grip shifted. "I-I-I don't think I can…"
"What? Hold on, I'll…I'll do something!"
Nagisa did do something. He ran in circles, sprinting to one end of the roof before appearing to second-guess himself and run toward the other, only to realize that whatever miracle he was seeking didn't lay there either. He called out advice, giving desperate instructions that only caused the other boy to wobble slightly whenever he tried to obey.
Meanwhile, Yuuji slipped down a few millimeters every second.
"AAAAH!"
"AAAAH!"
The sound of their screams melded together beneath the clouded sky.
They lay sprawled together at the bottom of the pole afterwards, panting.
The cool ground felt good against Yuuji's back. Especially so given that he hadn't plunged down onto it, but had flopped down of his own free will instead. His arms shook. Nagisa seemed similarly exhausted.
"You…" Nagisa gasped. "You're terrified of heights, aren't you?"
Yuuji gave a breathless nod. "Yeah," he managed at last. "Isn't everyone?"
A moment of silence passed, just long enough for the words 'most people' to float invisible through Yuuji's mind.
"And yet…" Nagisa sat up. "You did it anyway. You climbed that. For me."
After a few moments, Nagisa gave a sigh. "Alright. What did you want to tell me?"
Yuuji swallowed. A leaping nervousness was back in his throat. Here went nothing. "I wanted to say that I'm sor-"
"Stop," Nagisa cut him off. "I get it. You're forgiven."
Yuuji paused. "Oh."
Minutes slid by while the two of them slowly returned to calm.
"So, we're good now?" Yuuji asked timidly.
Nagisa sighed through his nose. The expression on the boy's face looked as if he were searching deep inside himself, looking for something to be angry over or something else that needed to be said. But he found nothing. "Yeah," he stated. "We're good."
Yuuji's head fell back against the concrete in relief.
Nagisa swatted at his leg. "But no more climbing telephone poles, you hear?"
In response, Yuuji just gave a weak thumbs-up.
Afterword: This chapter was inspired by a prompt on tumblr by otpdisaster, about Person A climbing up someplace where Person B couldn't reach them after an argument, and Person B facing their fear of heights in order to apologize.
Since Yuuji represents a "normal person" in the world of Assassination Classroom, I figured it'd only be realistic for him to have a fear of heights.