Chapter Text
Asahi Azumane was:
A: Panicking
B: Probably going to fail
C: Partnerless
D: All of the above
Asahi tapped the pencil against the paper, willing the answers to just appear in the blank spaces, for the notes to take themselves. He was too distracted to study well today.
It was entirely possible that people could pass in and out of Death Academy without finding a partner. It was entirely possible that he was just one of those people who weren’t really compatible with anyone, and that no amount of studying could secure him that perfect fit. After all, it had been two years- what chance did he have when the rest of the Meisters in his grade had been matched up since the beginning?
It wasn’t like he was bad at what he did. Naturally athletic, he had the strength and stamina to be better than average.
He could be a bit hesitant, he supposed, but once a fight started that all drained away. That was the whole reason he was here; there was nothing like that adrenaline hit from a fight. There was just something else about how he could feel his inhibitions fall away—it was visible, like a tree shedding its leaves.
Asahi just wanted someone who’d feel that with him. What was the term they used? Soul resonance? He couldn’t imagine it. Friends liked him enough, but being partners with someone was a different level of whatever that closeness was. It was more than friendship, maybe even more than love. The utter and complete trust the weapon gave the Meister and vice versa was overwhelming. Terrifying.
Not that he’d know.
Groaning, the second year buried his hands in his hair. Jailbroken strands hung loose around his face. All these terms on the paper in front of him…he understood them, technically. Each one he could scrawl the definition for and recite if he was called on to do it in class. That made no difference in the end, though.
It didn’t make sense. He knew everything he ought to know. According to his teachers, he’d already nailed the basic moves of most Weapons, some of the advanced moves of the more common ones. It wasn’t that he lacked skill, or intelligence, or even experience. It was just that something that seemed to slip through his fingers like water whenever he thought he was close to getting a hold on it. Whatever it was, he certainly wouldn’t be able to find it in this goddamn book- that was for sure.
He’d had this pity party before. At the beginning, middle, and end of every year there was a compatibility exam. The first time he’d sat in on it as a second year the looks had been less scared and more pitying. Even they knew how sad it’d be for him to reach third year without a partner.
As he’d gotten older he’d noticed more and more stares when he went to take it. People muttered about him having already passed graduating age, how he beat up unsuspecting Meisters when their weapons weren’t around, and other equally unfounded rumors that seemed to follow him wherever he went.
Was it possible to graduate and become a Meister without a weapon? Surely there were weapons that never found matches. There had to be. Maybe he could partner with one of them—it wouldn’t be perfect, but even if the puzzle pieces didn’t quite fit together he was sure they could still get an idea of what the picture was. A patched coat was better than freezing, right?
He’d rather quit than do that, if he was being honest with himself. It was the looming alternative that stared him down like a growing wall every exam. Asahi wanted to bang his head against a wall. Or a desk. Or any solid surface, really, as if he could knock the compatibility into himself.
He felt the familiar tightening in his chest that told him that he either had to calm down or shit would hit the fan. Sometimes it was frustration that clawed at his lungs and kept him from thinking straight, but right now it was cold bolts of panic, shooting straight through his core. A shudder ran down his spine as he picked a point to stare at. In, out.
Whatever this was, he’d learned to take care of it for the most part in the last year. The first time it had happened was right after he’d gotten the results for his last exam of first year, a blatant red ‘x’ instead of percentages. Sugawara had been around, and he’d tried to help. Mostly he’d just taught Asahi not to do it in public.
Trial and error had given him his strategies now. As far as his friends knew, it had been a one time, stress induced bout.
He was lucky he didn’t have a roommate.
As his pulse slowly calmed to a steadier beat, he realized what he had been looking at. Pushing down any lingering feelings of anxiety to somewhere deep under his chest, he blinked as he took in the scene in front of him.
Daichi and Sugawara were studying together. That wasn’t surprisingly by any measure. They were compatible in every way, according to the tests. Even though Sugawara wasn’t always the best weapon, and Daichi wasn’t the strongest Meister around, the two of them were incredible together.
When they fought, Sugawara’s blades seemed to rush like water around his wielder. Daichi’s movements were a kind of liquid too; he moved like molten metal, Asahi had always thought. He moved slowly and confidently, like he had all the time in the world to get to his next position but never managing to get there too late. Daichi and Sugawara fought on their own terms. Their resonance scores were some of the highest in the year.
They were also his best friends. They had come into the academy together and did basic training in the same class. Daichi and Sugawara had insisted on getting the same period as him for core classes this year, but he could feel them drifting away from them. There was something to be envied in the looks that they gave each other, knowing and often playful. He always wondered what they were talking about in those silent exchanges. Wonder if they were talking about him.
They had gone down the right course- the course that they were supposed to take. Although they hadn’t been paired right away due to some oversight of the system, they were together by midway through first year and had been inseparable ever since.
Asahi was jealous. Unspeakably so. The longer he went without finding his match, the more and more he resented the fact that it had been so easy for them. They just drifted together with the natural gravity of well matched magnets. And they were so happy.
His fists tightened on the table.
They were his friends. He ought to be happy for them.
Yet when he saw Daichi whisper something in Sugawara’s ear, saw the other collapse into a fit of barely contained giggles on the desk, he knew that he couldn’t right now. The shot of fear that he had pushed away from himself resurfaced. His Pandora’s box was getting worse and worse at keeping its charge inside. Once the lock had been broken for the first time it had just gotten harder to fix. These days he felt like he was using thread to tie it closed, letting loose at the first shard breaking off of his glass heart.
Asahi was more than six feet tall. He was muscular, like all Meisters had to be. But sitting in the library, whose ceilings were suddenly far too tall, whose labyrinth of bookshelves threatened to close in and cut him off from the air rattling through his throat, whose hushed whispers scraped his ears like knives, he felt fragile. The tightening, coiling feeling in his stomach began to rise and he could taste bile. Somehow, though, he couldn’t drag his eyes away from Sugawara. Laughing.
His hands unclenched and he didn’t both to register the crescent indents left on his palm as he pushed away from the table rather abruptly. Even now he was louder than he meant to be, drawing concerned stares from other inhabitants of the library.
Sugawara was still shaking off the last of his laughter.
Daichi smiled, an open, toothy affair.
He’d never make someone smile like that. He supposed it was about time he faced it, he thought as he speed walked out of the library. Every muscle in him screamed at him to run, to push himself until there was nowhere left to go and he could fold into himself.
Why didn’t anyone want him? Why didn’t any of the weapons need him like Sugawara needed Daichi? Why was he so goddamn useless that he couldn’t even see his friends having fun together-- like they deserved to-- without tasting bitter envy?
Words like arsenic bubbled through his veins, fighting to the surface in an attempt to be seen, to be heard. They crossed over themselves in his mind and yet he could hear each one like it was the only thing piercing the silence. Each one was another needle into his heart, this one into his stomach, the next into his lungs. How could fear hurt like this?
Maybe this was why he didn’t have a partner. Maybe he had stood a chance before this had started to happen to him, but he was just too broken now to do any good. What would happen if this happened in a test, let alone in the field? He’d let his partner down and they’d both probably die. He shouldn’t have been allowed into this school in the first place-- he was so useless, wanted to run, to be running and running and now the static walls that crowded his ears were getting louder, he couldn’t hear his ragged breaths just knew that since he hadn’t black out he was still alive somehow-
“Hey, man, you alright? You look kind of swampy. Green.”
Asahi stilled, feeling a firm grip on his arm. It took a second for him to realize that he had stopped moving, that his hands were braced on his knees and his chest was heaving. Even though his pulse was still racing and he still felt like he was spiraling away above an infinite space, his eyes were focused on the boy in front of him. There was none of the shakiness or disquiet in his gaze looking at this person- this person who looked tall enough to be a child and yet Asahi somehow knew wasn’t one.
Heart in his throat, the second year blinked slowly, having trouble processing the person in front of him. Black hair. Spiked up. Short, shorter than anyone he knew. Brown eyes and upturned eyebrows. Why was he concerned? Oh, right. Asahi probably looked like hell. Swampy.
There sweat crawled under his school uniform and down his back. A plethora of hair escaped his bun and hovered in a half curled halo framing his face, some of it plastered to his skin. A harsh breath rushed out of Asahi’s lungs far too quickly.
The other was the opposite. His hair was slicked into artificial- looking spikes and his uniform was tossed on haphazardly, but it all looked purposeful. A question stood in the set of his lips.
Asahi swallowed, forcing himself to choke down more air. “Fine,” he said. Or at least he tried to; he figured a monosyllabic answer was the least dangerous, but even that quivered as another shiver ran through his body, dragging icy fingertips down his back. He was going to puke.
“Huh,” the other dragged out the word and pursed his lips, like he was assessing the taller of the two. Couldn’t he tell that he wasn’t helping? The only reason that Asahi hadn’t run off by down was the lingering remains of self restraint and feeling like a deer in the headlights. Something felt familiar about this kid, but Asahi couldn’t focus on what it was and pinpoint it. Instead, he shook off the hand on his arm and made a show of brushing off his slacks. “You don’t look so fine to me.”
“ ‘m okay, really.”
“Right, because okay people hyperventilate in the old science wing,” the short one shot back. There was no aggressiveness in his voice, just a matter-of-fact confidence that Asahi would have wondered at, normally.
This wasn’t normally.
Asahi hadn’t noticed where he was, but looking around now he could tell that he’d gone farther than he thought.”My dorms are this way,” he muttered. “Excuse me.” He tried to push past, but for his height the other was surprisingly obstinate.
“I’ve got a map here that says they aren’t. Come on, what’cha running from?” The short one held a crumpled map in his hand, true to his word.
Asahi babbled. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe your map’s wrong, I mean I know where my dorm is- I think I know where it is. I have to- I have to go. Pleaseletmego.”
“Where are you roomed? I’m Nishinoya Yuu.”
What was this kid doing, introducing himself? Couldn’t he see that the last thing that Asahi wanted to do right now was interact with him? His heart was an animal clawing at its carcass cage. Talking was making it worse. Everything was making this worse.
“Where’s your partner?” Nishinoya asked. Asahi froze. “It’s pretty irresponsible of them to leave you like this when you’re obviously having some sort of panic attack. No offense, but whoever it is, they’re a pretty shit person.”
It was a normal question, a normal expectation that someone like him would already have a partner to care for and about them. Not so for Azumane Asahi, who would probably never find someone because who would want to look after a wreck like him? No partner deserved to have to stick with him through this. Maybe it was for the best that he never got matched. The ultimatum hung above him and pressed down on his shoulders hard enough that his legs weren’t enough to keep him upright.
“Dude—“ Nishinoya started.
Breath coming in shallow gasps, Asahi stumbled over to the wall. He slid down until he was seated against it, arms wrapped around each other like he was trying to hold himself together. Here he was, breaking down in front of a total stranger and the shame of it made it worse. Part of him wanted to cry, but the other half knew that tears never came when he was like this.
“Fuck,” Nishinoya hissed out under his breath. If Asahi had been looking up, he would have seen the look of momentary panic and annoyance cross the other’s face. Not directed at Asahi, but at himself. “I said something. Fuck, I’m just making this worse. Fuck.”
“Please go away.” A wind blew through one of the open windows and a crow took off. The hallway was cold and empty, devoid of students and teachers alike. Just a mismatched pair, both looking at different spots on the ground.
Dust particles drifted through the air, illuminated by a single shaft of sunlight haunting the ground next to Nishinoya. He moved through it as he squatted to get to a better level, disturbing the traffic of an infinitesimal highway.
“I’m not gonna leave you here like this,” he muttered, moving so that he was next to Asahi, leaning against the same wall, breathing in the same dust. “So if you want to talk, I’m all ears. If you’re not feeling that, just breathe, okay? Focus on breathing.”
Asahi took a shuddering breath, knowing that it wasn’t enough. His lungs were still going to scream for air and the feeling of pressing wasn’t going to go away. What if it never went away?
Slowly, like he was approaching an easily startled animal, Nishinoya leaned against Asahi. Not enough to move him, to press on him harder than the air already seemed to be, but enough to let him know that he was there.
He didn’t understand why, but breathing was easier when there were two of them. Asahi’s chest rose and fell quickly, but it was beginning to slow. He could swallow without feeling the roadblock in his throat. He wouldn’t feel right for another couple of hours, maybe even a day, he knew. The ridiculously illogical feeling of being so small in a vast nothingness would linger for a while and make him jumpy, more nervous than usual.
Neither of them was sure how long they sat there in silence. Nishinoya didn’t say a thing, didn’t move at all. Asahi counted his breaths and felt his weight against his side as some sort of anchor. It didn’t make sense, why this stranger was able to help at all. If anything having someone else there should have been sending him deeper, but instead it felt like someone had offered a hand and pulled him up. They weren’t even talking.
After a while, Asahi trusted himself to talk. He didn’t shift, just stared straight ahead at the dust mites doing their antigravity dance.
“Who are you?” He asked. If Nishinoya was surprised, he didn’t show it. In fact, he didn’t reply at all. The moment stretched out into an uncomfortably long silence. Maybe Asahi had mistaken him- he hadn’t seemed like the quiet type. “I mean, I haven’t seen you around here before.”
Silence greeted him.
“Thanks, I guess. I’m not really sure what you did but I guess it kind of helped and I feel- I feel a lot better now.”
He swore he could hear an overture coming from the dust, it was so quiet. Asahi had to hold in a chuckle when he saw why. Nishinoya’s mouth hung open slightly and his nose whistled as he breathed in and out evenly- of course he’d fallen asleep. A rush of gratitude flooded through the taller. Maybe he hadn’t meant to have fallen asleep, but it gave Asahi an easy out. Whoever this kid was, he’d thank him next time he saw him. The school wasn’t that big; they’d see each other around some time and he’d be more composed then.
In the mean time, he had to get back to his room. Screw studying-- he was tired. Nishinoya had called it a panic attack. That felt right, somehow. His body felt heavy like he had just done a two hour training block, fighting off a string of enemies. Just in this case his enemy had been himself. The feelings were still there, but for some reason they didn’t seem as urgent right now.
Asahi repositioned Nishinoya so that he was leaned flat against the wall, not falling to either side. It was only fair to let the guy sleep. A gentle smile came to Nishinoya’s lips as Asahi drifted away, and he cracked open an eye.