Chapter Text
“I did not sign up for this,” Kiyoko yells as she swats at the dragon with a broom.
Ah, parallels, thinks Yachi, though she keeps this particular thought to herself.
It is four am. The ground is swaying under Yachi’s feet. What was initially predicted to be a simple dragon-catching mission has turned into a night-long epic with a distinct lack of anything resembling common sense, leaving a cranky array of villagers and some very frazzled volunteers to trample the orchard at an abysmal time of night. Yachi feels worryingly ready to climb into the sun.
(If the sun ever rises. If this ordeal ever decides to end.)
“I will summon the wrath of Satan himself and unleash it upon you, puny worm, if you don’t surrender to me right this instant.”
(The only good thing about this disaster is that Yachi gets to see how Kiyoko acts when she is A: high on caffeine and B: completely uncaring about any form of reputation whatsoever. This becomes more amusing by the second.)
“Get down here you reptilian fuck,” Kiyoko appears to be yelling, brandishing a broom with the expertise of an ancient samurai. If Yachi’s eyes would actually focus, she’s sure it would make a hilariously ridiculous photograph – however, she can’t quite get them to cooperate, and Kiyoko continues to shriek.
“I have been searching for your siblings for upwards of four hours now. I truly would not give a damn if you fell face-first out of this tree and smashed your skull open on the ground. But I have to, because I run a dragon shelter. So please can you come down. Please. I’m begging you. All I want to do is sleep.”
The dragon fixes her with a beady eye and scrambles to a higher branch.
“What the fuck,” Kiyoko screeches, then slumps at the foot of the peach tree and sobs.
In another universe, Yachi would rush to her side and comfort her; perhaps attempt to carry her back to the shelter and lay her down to rest. But in this universe, her legs won’t move enough to do so. Unsurprisingly, a night spent crawling through shrubbery, attempting to recapture four agile dragonlings and searching fruitlessly for the fifth one has left her exhausted and incapable of speech. She wonders briefly if she can reprogram herself to help.
(Yacchan.exe has stopped working. Please reboot file.)
When she glances back over, Kiyoko appears to have stopped crying, but has also seemed to have expired both physically and mentally. Always the gentleman, Tanaka comes to the rescue. He snatches up the broom and is preparing to make war when the tall villager – Asahi, as Yachi has since learned, along with the fact that he is indeed half giant – comes over and taps him on the shoulder.
“Would it not be easier to just leave it ‘til morning? Then we could, you know, actually see the dragon, which might help matters along a bit. Just a suggestion.” Asahi looks genuinely petrified, as if this meek suggestion will somehow invoke Kiyoko’s wrath. Which, incidentally, is terrifying. Yachi doubts that Kiyoko will ever be known as a ‘quiet, selfless girl’ again – screaming dragonlord from the pits of hell seems more apt.
“Nah, man, we gotta catch it now. We know where it is, and I don’t want to go through the rigmarole of cornering it again.” Noya’s voice is two tones quieter than usual, as if even his energy reserves have been impacted. Even the thought of that is scary, especially for Yachi, whose busy shelter nights have been forever filled with his incessant chatter.
Noya never stops bouncing. Ever.
(This dragon apparently sees fit to change that.)
Noya sighs. “We just gotta figure out a way to get our hands on it. Too bad the dragon didn’t choose an easy tree to climb.”
There are a couple of moments of silence, punctuated only by the rustling of foliage above. A lightbulb goes off in Yachi’s brain.
She turns to Tanaka. “Lift me.”
He fixes her with a quizzical stare. “What?”
“Lift me up and put me on your shoulders. Or Asahi’s. Then maybe I’ll be able to reach this dragon and the whole ordeal will be over.” She gestures at the tree. “We have to try it. The dragon’s not too far up the trunk, right? I should be able to grab it if I stretch up on my tiptoes. You’ll have to keep me really secure.”
“Yacchan. I am not lifting you. If it goes wrong you’ll snap in two. Yacchan, you are made of air.”
“And a whole lot more courage than you two, apparently,” she says tiredly, for once appreciating her lack of a filter. Tanaka gapes. “I’m tired. I want to go home. If you don’t lift me up so I can catch this goddamn dragon once and for all, I am going to die.”
As if on cue, the dragon scuttles further up the branches, positioning itself well out of Yachi’s reach. It takes everything she has not to throw herself on the ground and scream.
“It’s fine. Stop yelling, Hitoka-chan.” Kiyoko rises from her slump, an ounce or two of dignity restored.
Yachi shuts her mouth. Apparently her self-restraint techniques weren’t strong enough after all.
Kiyoko continues to talk, a few ounces of quiet dignity restored. “We can do this. We’ll just need three people instead of two. You can support that kind of weight, right?” Asahi nods, looking apprehensive. “I’ll sit on your shoulders. Then maybe Hitoka-chan can stand on mine.”
Although it’s not the safest of plans, no complaints are made. After capturing four energetic baby dragons, the majority of the villagers are completely wiped out: they watch the proceedings with heavy-lidded eyes, scattered around on the grass.
(Yachi envies them slightly, but wishes they would stop eating her peaches.)
“It’s now or never, I suppose,” she says wearily, glancing around the meagre search party. The moon hangs low in the sky, threatening both her morale and her desiccated sleep schedule. “Anything to get this goddamn dragon down.”
“Alright then,” Kiyoko replies, extending a hand. “Let’s go.”
***
Five minutes later, Yachi is regretting every decision she’s ever made.
“I know it’s hard, Hitoka-chan,” Kiyoko says in a muffled voice, “but could you possibly not stick your knees in my chest?”
“I’m sorry! It’s rather difficult!” Yachi squeaks, and proceeds to nearly fall off Asahi’s shoulders.
The human tower is swaying precariously; all possible conclusions point straight to collapse. Yachi is learning the hard way that standing on someone’s shoulders – after climbing yet another person to get in that position – is a lot less easy than it looks. She braces herself against the tree trunk, knees shaking.
“Guys, I’m not sure I can do this!”
Tanaka waves his arms from the ground. “You have to! You’re the universe’s only hope!”
“If you fall, I’ll catch you,” Noya yells, magnificently failing to make Yachi feel better.
She wavers – and shrieks gibberish at the top of her lungs. “I’m falling! I’m falling - ohmygodohmygodohmygod – Kiyoko I can’t do this, I’m too young to die, I’m going to break my arms and legs I’m faLLING -”
“No you’re not, Hitoka-chan,” Kiyoko says through gritted teeth, injecting every word with forced calmness. “You’ve got your arms around the tree. You’ll be fine.”
Breathe, Hitoka, breathe. You are not going to fall or die. Not here, anyway. Not now. Look down – the ground isn’t that far away…
Ok, she shrieks internally as she sways on Kiyoko’s shoulders, that was a really bad idea.
“Can you reach the dragon?” Tanaka yells, shocking her out of her panic. Willing to do anything to distract her from the looming forest floor, she sticks her head into the foliage.
It takes a minute for her eyes to adjust to the darkness – not to mention the leaves poking at her face – but a pair of glinting opals eventually meet her gaze. A tiny hissing noise snakes through the air. The dragonling is finally within arm’s reach.
She stretches out for it – carefully, carefully – and it backs away from her hand; she’d forgotten how truly tiny it was. With one final, agonising stretch she manages to grab its miniscule frame.
“I’ve got it!” she crows, just as the shouting reaches her ears.
“Grab onto the tree, Yacchan! Step onto it! Quickly!”
“Why?” she yells, and leaps for it just as Kiyoko’s shoulders vanish from beneath her feet.
For a moment, she’s content to just breathe. Then she sees the puddle of Asahi-and-Kiyoko on the ground.
“What the hell,” she shrieks, and damn near loses her footing on the spindly peach-tree branch.
(A defibrillator still sound good right now.)
Great. Now it’s not only the dragon, she thinks bitterly.
Contrary to all hopes and expectations, Yachi Hitoka is now well and truly up a tree.
“Have you got the dragonling,” Tanaka yells over the sound of her thundering heartbeat, and it’s only then that the reality of the situation hits her.
“Yes I have the goddamn dragonling,” she shouts from between the branches, her every inch of muscle holding on for dear life. “Because that’s the priority here. Not your favourite tiny volunteer, who you have miraculously managed to install up a tree. Congratulations boys, you’ve really done it this time.”
“Just drop it down to us, silly,” Kiyoko answers, and Yachi grumbles as she parachutes the dragonling to safety.
A cheer goes up around the garden, a last-ditch attempt at enthusiasm at god-knows-what-o’ clock in the mornings. Villagers begin to peel away from the gathering, heading home to a cup of tea, perhaps toast with one of Yachi’s jams and a well-earned nap. Yachi considers throwing peaches at their heads.
“Excuse me, guys,” she hollers, “but I am still up a tree,”
“Jump for it,” Asahi says with his arms outstretched, and without even thinking about it – other than Past Yachi having a fit in the back of her mind – she does.
(Searching for dragonlings all night does tend to erase your brain.)
With any inkling of common sense, she would see that even Asahi wouldn’t be able to withstand her weight from such a drop. She would stop volunteering at the shelter, after teaching Noya exactly how to lock a window properly. And then she would make jam for the rest of her life, listen to Hinata battling potions gone awry, and never ever deal with a dragonling again.
(Then again, Yachi thinks as Kiyoko pulls her up from the ground into the biggest hug she’s ever had and exhaustion floods her veins, common sense has never been my forte.)
***
“Well, one good thing came out of that ordeal at least,” Tanaka yawns, stifling his morning breath with the back of his hand. Tired eyes flicker around the backroom. “None of the babies got hypothermia. That means we can release them within the week, if all goes well with their routine check-ups.”
Yachi opens one eye from where she’s lying on the shelter couch and closes it again in absolute disgust.
“You’re kidding,” she says flatly. “We go to all that trouble of finding them and you’re saying that we’ll release them within the week. Why not just do it now. Or later. Why not have done it five hours ago when you noticed the dragons were missing, and instead of dragging us all out on some murder mystery detective hunt, said ‘oh well, they’ll probably survive’ and be done with it?”
“I’m pretty sure if we’d done that, you’d have beheaded us, Hitoka-chan,” Kiyoko says sagely as she nibbles on a slice of toast. “Like it or not, the dragonlings are our responsibility.”
“Don’t think I’m forgetting about your yelling episode earlier, Kiyoko-san,” Yachi grumbles, prompting an outburst of laughter around the shelter table. Red-faced, Kiyoko sticks out her tongue, and Yachi revels in the fact that she’s no longer the only one without composure.
“So when do you think you’ll release them?” Hinata asks, head nodding over his umpteenth mug of coffee. He’s curled up in Kageyama’s lap, hoping beyond hope that the hot drink will blow his head off enough to make selling potions a feasible task.
(“It is now… four twenty-nine am. I have to open the shop in an hour and thirty-one minutes. Holy crapballs,” he’d said while pouring Red Minotaur into the first of many coffee cups. “Down the hatch it is.”)
(“Over my dead body,” Kageyama had replied, and Hinata had drunk it anyway.)
Nishinoya smiles, face smushed into Asahi’s shoulder. (Yachi makes a mental note to ask him about that later.) “Their wings should develop fully by this time next week. Then we can set them off into the woodland. Kiyoko can do a little good-luck ceremony. It’ll be a great send-off! They may be troublemakers, but I have to admit –“ he grins – “I’m going to miss these guys.”
A crash echoes from the dragonling backroom, and the smile slides straight off his face. He sighs. “Forget I said that.”
“A good-luck ceremony?” Yachi asks as the three shelter workers head over to the room to face whatever dragon disaster has occurred now.
Kiyoko looks back with twinkling eyes. “Just a little goodbye kind of thing. Nothing much, just some cakes and a charm. I like to think it helps them survive in the wild.” Another crash echoes from the room and she winces.
Yachi rolls her eyes. “I suppose they need all the help they can get.”
“Sounds like it. You’d best get back to the shop, or maybe take a nap. If it’s not too much bother, we’ll probably see you for the vaccinations later on. And you might need to cover Hinata’s shift too: the coffee doesn’t seem to be doing him much good. See you later!”
With that, she’s gone, and Yachi’s left to drag a slightly-convulsing Hinata home and flip the sign on the shop door. Despite the fact her eyelids are dragging her down with them and she’s finding it hard to hold conversation, Yachi feels the cool breeze on her face and decides, however tempting it may be, not to climb into the sun.
She makes her way over the bookcase and looks up ‘good luck recipes’. She skims past the ‘peach jam’ page without a backward glance.
It takes a while, and several awkward conversations with customers – goddamn Yukie shows up again, prompting a silent laughing fit from Hinata and failed attempts to avoid interaction – but she finally finds it: the perfect recipe. The jam that sums up her entire experience with Kiyoko so far. The jam she hopes will continue to do so.
Sweet. Different. Tangy, with just that little bit of a kick – supplied by trouble-making dragons and some flirting on the side.
Yachi smiles and grabs her pestle. Dragonfruit jelly, here I come.
***
“Here we go, boys,” Kiyoko says solemnly. “Light ‘em up.”
(It’s safe to say that when Yachi had envisioned a ‘good luck ceremony’, she hadn’t factored fireworks into the equation. Or the aforementioned ceremony taking place in her lovingly cultivated orchard. Or the fact that she’d have to hold a squirming dragonling for a grand total of ten consecutive minutes, while Asahi – now Nishinoya’s boyfriend, a result of endless interrogation over the past week and a half – went round snapping pictures with her camera and crying.)
(But hey, she thinks cheerfully, c’est la vie.)
They’re standing in a row in the orchard, Tanaka, Noya, Kageyama, Hinata and Yachi with flapping dragonlings clutched in their fingers. Kiyoko herself has the mother dragon, snapping and snarling, wings are kicking up a storm. Yachi finds it hard to believe how quickly they’ve grown – though she can believe the mess of the shelter after their attempts to find their wings, so maybe it is comprehensible – but most of all, she can’t believe they’re finally letting the dragonlings go. After two weeks of dragon-duty, 6-hour shifts, 24-hour watch, they’ll be gone.
Free. Flying wild in the orchard like the magnificent creatures they are, commandeering the skies and raiding her peach trees for dinner.
(She doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.)
Most of the group, no matter how well they’re hiding it, have gone for the second option. Tanaka and Noya have been in tears since walking into the shelter this morning, clinging to each other and making such a scene that Kiyoko threatened to have them kicked out, or at the very least mopping the bathrooms. On the contrary, the dragonlings seem less than concerned, focused more on escaping their imprisoners’ hands: their eyes are bright as shimmering opals, scales shining with the light of a thousand suns.
“Three… two… one… lift-off!”
Yachi opens her hands and the dragonling spirals into the sky, urged on by cheers and the crackling of fireworks. The group of volunteers gaze up in delight as bright colours split the sky: shades of happiness dancing in the breeze. Dragon calls echo through the orchard.
Yachi looks down to see tears staining every person’s cheeks, and isn’t surprised to find them on her own.
“I know they were assholes,” Hinata sobs into Kageyama’s chest, “but they were cute assholes.”
Kageyama ruffles his partner’s fiery ginger hair. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Cute assholes indeed.”
They stand still a while longer, watching as the dragonlings flap off into the distance. Some gargantuan sniffs are coming from Asahi’s direction, but nobody mentions it: they’re too busy mopping up their own. At some point, Yachi looks over at Kiyoko to find her absolutely starstruck – held in thrall by the sky – and she doesn’t know how to deal with such beauty, how to deal with so much happiness the dragonlings have brought her.
So, naturally, she does it awkwardly.
“I made jam,” she says, and everyone bursts into laughter through their tears.
“I love you, Yacchan,” Tanaka weeps, holding out his hands for the jar. “I don’t know if I’ve ever told you. But I love you from the bottom of my heart.”
“I’m afraid that’s my job,” Kiyoko says softly as she sweeps the jar from Yachi’s hands – is it Yachi’s imagination but is that a blush on her cheeks, was that flirting was that flirting oh my god – and she picks up the label and reads it with a smile.
**Dragonfruit Jelly**
Good health and good luck.
“Oh, Hitoka-chan,” Kiyoko says, her voice heavy with tears and big smiles and good things, and she kisses Yachi on the cheek and just grins.
(World collide.)
(Brains implode.)
(Nishinoya catches sight of the look on Yachi’s face and mouths ‘same’. Yachi mouths ‘you have a boyfriend’ back.)
Yachi’s just about ready to turn round and smash her face into Kiyoko’s, just kiss her right up into the sky with no cares as to who might be watching, when Hinata shoves a plate into her hands. Brought out of her reverie, she’s greeted with the sight and smell of the best piece of toast she’s ever seen. Spread lightly with a thin layer of her jam.
Her thoughts and questions – “you already opened my jelly?” – are cut short by Hinata’s wink. “Just give it to her,” he whispers. “She’ll be blown away.”
It takes only two seconds of Kiyoko’s interesting facial expressions for Yachi to realise that no, Hinata did not, in fact, open the jelly. Kiyoko is not eating dragonfruit on toast. Instead, she is going through the exact same phenomenon as Hinata, and Yukie, and last of all Yachi have been through many times – and suffering through every bite, just to make her happy.
(I told you that you were soulmates, internal Yachi reasons. I told you so.)
“Gout cure?” external Yachi asks resignedly. Kiyoko, bless her soul, just nods.
“Excuse me a minute,” Yachi says heavily, and stalks off to do some beheading.
***
Later on, when Yachi has successfully disposed of Hinata and apologised to Kiyoko a hundred million times, they laugh about it. Hands entwined, heads close together, enthralled in the sunset that seeps through every pore. Curled up together on a step stool, watching the sky paint the town; dying their lips red with lucky fruit jam and listening to dragon cries overhead.
When Kiyoko turns to Yachi tonight, her breath doesn’t catch in her throat. She has no use for a defibrillator. She feels no need to throw herself into the sun.
Perhaps it’s a testament to how far they’ve come together – from the flustered strangers rescuing a dragon together to this, whatever this is – but Yachi hasn’t the words to describe it, and for that she’s rather glad. A sense of belonging has always been hard to come by: it only makes sense that it’s hard to dictate, too.
Kiyoko smiles and pulls her closer, and Yachi has only one thought as she stares at those jam-stained lips, the hands that carry dragons, the chick-flick irises full of wonder.
Baby dragons may be sweet, Yachi thinks as her eyes flutter shut. But dragonfruit is sweeter.