Chapter Text
Life is so interesting. Though, to kids, insignificant things such as ants crushed under shoe soles are entertaining, too.
You prefer bleak walls scratching off and trashy neighborhoods over polished ones; you enjoy seeing strangers hang out in dangerous places, you like blurry trips downtown and you like walks in the park as long as you can sneak off deeper and deeper until your parents lose sight of you. You like to think about the lives of people you've never spoken to and adults always look so worn down, you can't help wondering what's tormenting them.
No one is truly gone, though they are forgotten. Maybe someone's blood seeps through the pavement you walk on until it dries over and you can't see it but it's there, maybe they weep and cry like bitches and wipe it off on that sweater you later end up buying from a thrift shop. When something is forgotten, it's like it never existed in the first place, but no one ever truly dies.
You find no beauty in eternity and forever sounds unappealing. What’s forgotten, what happens in an instant, it's endearing. You want to be forgotten.
Your mom tugs at your hair and tells you to stop staring out the window. Soulless gaze and slanted lips. Your head snaps back to the front and you stare ahead, there's a crack coming from your neck with every twitch you make. You're so shallow.
Life is so interesting. Are these people you see passing by in broken mirrors and muddy puddles shallow, too?
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"I didn't take you for the modeling type, [L/n]," a classmate of yours says.
And you're not. It goes against what you think about most things. It clashes with your schedule of being a menace to the general public, and it goes against your desire to disappear without a trace. You shake your head no.
"Lame. I wanna try it out. How much do you make a gig?"
"Dunno. My mom gets the money." You don't speak often. You have hostile thoughts though mostly your head is devoid of anything sensible, you dream of unattainable things and you dream of getting close to a fire that burns more than your rage does. You don't mind.
"Lame, again. I'd buy something," she argues, though you're not sure why. Does she not understand that this is out of your hands?
This girl, Haruna, you do not understand what she wants from you. She wants to be your friend, but the two of you aren't compatible at all.
"Call me lame again and I'll bash your skull in." You don't speak often. People don't plan murder out loud━your mom says it's taboo.
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After-school hours are like the gate between two disasters waiting to happen.
There is blood dripping from your nose and your cheeks are stinging and itching, your classmate's manicure embedded into them, guiltless. When you inhale, you can feel iron in your nostrils. It doesn't matter, you won like you always did.
You wipe your nose with the back of your hand. That's the moment it occurs to you that you're bleeding a lot. Using the sticky substance on your finger as paint, you write out '4ever' on the wall of your school. Someone will wipe it off or it'll dry away or something else will happen. It'll disappear one way or another, and that satisfies you.
To honor it, you take a picture.
Later, when your mom picks you up. She scolds you for getting in another fight but reassures you it's nothing that makeup can't fix. You want to protest and in return, reassure her that you don't care but she never listens and you seldom speak.
When the cameras roll and they force you to grin━it's routine━you give them a bloody smile.
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Miya Atsumu learns what love is by the time he's sixteen and in his first year of high-school. Love is called Su-mi-re-ko like spring and innocence and religious rituals, an interesting name, unlike the common Sumire. Love is dedicated and warm, love is kind and selfless, love blooms in somewhere far away in Miyagi.
(Love is oblivious and unrequited.)
It's not that Atsumu doesn't want to give anything back, or that he means to be dismissive. He just doesn't have time, always in and out of practice, and the reason he responded to her message in the first place was because of the way she looks. Osamu says he's an asshole, and he's right.
Sumireko looks like a dead girl walking. A haunting brand of beauty, from the firm press of her lips against one another and to the mean slant in her eyebrows and the slight bags under her eyes. Atsumu swears that he's not shallow, it's just that he's treated as an idol and it's hard to get his attention━
Okay, he admits that he is, in fact, shallow after his inner monologues somehow derail and become less and less convincing. Not that he thinks about that casual relationship super often, not when he has volleyball on his mind. It's about often enough to make him question his morals, though.
Atsumu was quick to find out that her looks were deceiving. In her texts, she's always shy and sweet, and her voice on the phone reminds him of the birds chirping outside. To be fair, he doesn't know if he finds that more annoying than endearing, but that's not of great importance.
"Hey, 'Tsumu. You never showed me that girlfriend you have," Osamu says after practice. He sounds otherwise disinterested but also slightly suspicious, like Atsumu is lying. As if.
He reaches for his phone and takes it in his sweaty volleyball grip before scrolling through a few pictures until he settles on a particularly beautiful picture Sumireko sent him over the weekend. "See? My girl's great."
"I guess she's pretty." And that's the sound of defeat. Atsumu: 1, Osamu: 0. "You should treat her better, though, or you're going to lose her to someone better, eventually." Ouch. Atsumu: 1, Osamu: 1.
Suna, looking for an excuse to make a petty remark, looks over Osamu's shoulder, though he's mostly confused. "Hey, that Sumireko girl looks kinda familiar?"
"Are you asking me or are you telling me?"
"Either she has a doppelganger or I've seen her somewhere. But she's not from here, right?"
"No, she's from Miyagi," Atsumu says. Informative as always.
The topic gets dropped after this brief exchange, apart from when he uses his relationship status as a bragging point or to tease someone. Truly, Miya Atsumu is a menace, it's a wonder how such a timid girl could stand him.
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satou haruna:
girl ))))):
why didn't u tell me ur moving away i thought we were friends...
[L/n]:
i didn't think it was important
satou haruna:
????????????????????
what the
Seen
In Hyogo, the summers are wet and hot and sweat clings to your skin along with water-drops. There are new bleak walls to vandalize and pass by and a new high school to terrorize. When you have free time, you walk around abandoned buildings, lean on snappy railings and snap pictures of things you consider curious.
Further into the shade and away from the sun, you lay crouching down against a parked car and listen in on the ongoing conversation. You think it's some kind of drug trade occurring, here, where the only people listening in are ghosts and you.
Slowly, you stand up and peek at them through the car windows. Once the younger man pulls something out of his coat. You focus your phone and snap the picture from a weird angle as to leave their faces obscured, even if you're going to edit them out later. Not that the quality matters that much, the moment has been captured already.
They go to separate and you turn to leave as silently as possible, though you accidentally hit the car. It blares a high-pitched noise, alerting everyone of your lurking. "Is there somebody here?!" one of the men screams while you scurry away.
They follow the sound of your footsteps, running after though you're ahead of them. "Bitch! Come back!"
After you spot what you've been looking for, which is another abandoned building in the area you used to trespass in, you locate the removed window, rush ahead and jump up ahead until your fingers graze the windowsill. One man pulls on your leg, though you kick him off easily and throw your body in, descending further inside.
"You ain't seen nothing, bitch." Those are his last words before they both give up on dealing with you. You smile wryly to yourself.
satou haruna:
ur in Hyogo rite?
which high school
[L/n]:
inarizaki
satou haruna:
cool!!
they have a nice v-ball club did u know
Seen
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"Err, this year we have a new student. She transferred here from Miyagi. Please be kind to her. Miss [L/n], would you like to say something about yourself?" the teacher coughs awkwardly, as if he's uncomfortable by your presence.
Even if he is just imagining his superior's off behavior, Atsumu himself is very uncomfortable. You don't acknowledge him, instead opting to stare off into space. Sumireko's last name is obviously not [L/n].
"No," you say bluntly. This is not Sumireko's voice.
"Ah, you can sit down then," the teacher allows, again with unease for some reason, and you do as told.
Atsumu hears the way you ungracefully drop onto your assigned seat that's conveniently behind him. He can't help turning around and staring, even if the situation is obvious he can't get over this brief stage of disbelief. "Sumireko...?"
"What are you talking about? That's not my name," you snap, annoyed.
sumi-chan:
Hope you have a fun and safe first-day back to school Atsumu-kun ^__^