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Once again, I was walking the dreadful yet familiar, walkway that, inevitably, would lead me home. I knew what was in store for me as soon as I opened the door. My father was standing in the doorway of the living room staring at me as I silently closed the front door. As I turned to face him he slurred, clearly drunk. "Where's my beers, Yuu?!"
Shakily, I inhaled before speaking. "Dad, you know they won't let a sixteen year old buy alcohol". He clicked his tongue, his annoyance clearly increasing. But instead of continuing our dispute he resorted to disciplining me for my ignorance to his request.
The first blow was to the left side of my face. Black eye. It was then closely followed up by multiple blows to my stomach leaving me no recovery time. Many bruises. He then grabbed me by my hair and threw me to the ground, my head hitting the bottom of the front door. A banging headache. Then just when I thought he was finished, he walked into the living room and came back out with a broken bottle and, with no hesitation, he threw it, with a clear lack of accuracy due to his drunken state, to the ground in front of me. I winced as I felt some pieces of the shattered glass pierce my exposed legs. A few cuts. After that, he finally went back to watching the TV, dozing off almost instantly.
I let out an exasperated sigh as I slowly stood up trying desperately to ignore the immense pain in my body. Could've been worse. With that thought in mind I dragged my aching body upstairs and into the bathroom to begin cleaning myself up. It wasn't until I was pulling the shards of glass from my legs that I realised the salty tears streaming down my face. I continued pulling out the tiny shards as the flow of tears increased. I then applied makeup to my face to cover the very prominent black eye that I'd obtained and walked to my room. I've had enough.
So I grabbed my duffel bag that I used for volleyball and filled it with clothes and a blanket. Heaving it onto my shoulder, I checked the time. 00:08. I sighed as I opened my window and threw my bag to the ground, hearing the soft thud. I then followed suit, climbing down the drain pipe before dropping to the floor next to my bag.
I picked it up once more and walked towards the living room window only to see my dad still asleep. Silently thanking God, I then began walking to my destination. The brisk cold air whipped by me biting at my exposed arms and legs. Damn this uniform! I should've changed! I thought to myself. However, I powered through the cold weather as I reached the gates of Karasuno High school. I then proceeded to throw my bag over and, with much more effort than I had anticipated, climb over myself.
Walking on, I kept an eye out for any security guards on a night shift until I reached the gym, however I walked up the stairs and headed straight for the club room instead. Using the key that Daichi had, surprisingly, entrusted me with after practice, I opened the door and switched on the light. After closing the door and locking it again, I began making my makeshift bed for the night and switched off the light.
I lay awake as I began thinking. Lucky its a Saturday tomorrow. That means I can wake up early and just make it look like I came to practice too early. Practice on Saturdays is at 11:30 so I'll set an alarm for 09:30 just to be safe. After I was sure my alarm was set, I turned over as I began drifting in an out of an uneasy sleep.
After what felt like 10 minutes of sleep, I awoke to the sound of my alarm and began to repack my things before everyone else got here. I locked the door and walked down to the gym with my stuff and sat down. Now time to wait. I thought as I checked the time, working out that I had about an hour before the others started arriving.
Suga and Daichi were the first ones to arrive, together as usual. They were surprised to see me but more or less believed my lie. Next, Kageyama and Hinata fell through the door breathing heavily, clearly having raced, as Tanaka stepped over them, laughing at their tired state. Eventually, Asahi, Tsukishima, Yamaguchi, Ennoshita, Narita and Kinoshita arrived meaning practice could officially start. It wasn't until I began practicing my receives with Kinoshita that I realised something.
I forgot to bring my painkillers. As the ball hit my arms I felt the surge of pain pulse through my body. I quickly stood and glanced around, immediately calming down after realising that no-one noticed. It went on like this for the whole three and a half hours of practice and all was going well. But as some of us were talking about finishing for the day, I heard an all too familiar voice from outside the gym.
"I know you're in there boy!" I felt the blood drain from my body as the realisation of what was about to happen finally set in. "Yuu! Get out here or I'm coming in!" He was losing his patience, I could tell. At this, the rest of the team looked at me. "Who's that?" Asahi asked, he looked a little shaken. "My Dad." My voice wavered slightly.
"Are you going to go out there?" Daichi questioned, noticing my lack of movement. "I think i'll stay he-" my sentence was cut short due to the slamming of the door.
I made eye contact with my father as he stormed towards me, his face darkened by anger. Showing no signs of stopping, I began walking backwards, a feeble attempt at keeping distance between the two of us, as I was met with the solid concrete wall. No less than a second later, I was clutching my nose as blood gushed out of it. The shouting voices of my teammates became muffled as my ears began to ring. I doubled over in immense pain as I received a blow to the stomach but surprisingly that was the last one. As my hearing returned, I looked up to see the kind face of Sugawara but I could still hear my father shouting out slurs and curses from the door.
When I looked past Sugawara I saw the rest of the team crowding the door and then it slammed shut, this time, with my father on the outside. Daichi and Tanaka held the door closed for a few minutes until the banging and shouting ceased and was replaced by the sound of receding footsteps.
We were engulfed in silence, until I couldn't take it anymore. I stood abruptly and attempted to run to the door but my steps faltered halfway and the pain caused my knees to buckle, causing me to fall to the floor. Feeling a hand on my shoulder, I turned to lay on my back as I saw Sugawara looking down at me. I could hear the others but I couldn't see them. As I propped myself up onto my elbows I heard Suga say "Where does it hurt? Show me." So I leaned to the side and grabbed the hem of my jersey to pull it up and show him, knowing that I couldn't hide it any longer. When I heard the shocked gasps from everyone, I looked at it myself, realizing the once light yellow bruises had progressed to deep purple marks, completely covering my torso leaving no unmarked skin. Sighing, I got to my feet and started towards my bag. I could hear their worried protests but ignored them as I pulled out some wipes from my bag.
"I may as well show you this too." I muttered before wiping the makeup off of my face, revealing the big purple blotch that surrounded my left eye and my cheek. They looked at me. Sympathy. I clicked my tongue, annoyed by their pitiful expressions. "I'm going home."
Before any of them could protest I walked quickly out of the door but I realised that they were following me. Breaking out into a run, I left school grounds and just ran blindly. After what seemed like hours but was probably around ten minutes of running I stopped at the entrance of an alley in the town center, and that's when the adrenaline rush started to calm down and the pain started to increase gradually. A once dull ache becoming a stabbing pain across my entire abdomen.
I retreated to the back of the alleyway, holding my stomach and silently willing for the pain to stop. Setting my bag down, I slid down to sit on the ground next to it causing the pain to increase momentarily. I resigned myself into a fetal position using my bag as a pillow as I drifted in and out of consciousness, the pain being unbearable.
Once I'd fully awoken i sat up realising that once again I was accompanied by the familiar dull ache along with darkness that indicated the time. Checking my phone, I saw that it was somehow 8pm and I had multiple missed calls and text messages from the team, coach Ukai and Takeda Sensei.
I put my phone in my pocket, deciding to ignore them for now as I picked up my bag and began aimlessly walking. My phone vibrated multiple times but I ignored it again and again. Abruptly, I stopped and put my bag on the ground. I leaned my arms on the railing as I stared out at the water below and for once my life seemed peaceful as I stood on the bridge in the quiet night.
I placed my phone on top of my gym bag followed by my shoes and jacket.
I climbed up onto the railing.
I jumped.
•••
Sugawara's Pov
Me and the rest of the team were walking home together. We bad stayed at the gym for the entire day hoping that Noya would come back as we couldn't reach his phone at all.
The walk was relatively silent, the worry we all felt was the obvious reason and without realising it I had stopped. "Suga?" I heard Daichi say causing me to snap out of my trance. "Sorry its just in really worried you know." I looked up and noticed that everyone's face mirrored exactly how I felt. Daichi intertwined his hand in mine before saying "He'll be fine."
We all began walking again however, no less than five minutes later we stopped again but this time it was due to the presence of police tape at the beginning of the bridge. The flashing lights from the ambulance and the blaring sirens from the police car prevented us from being able to talk but as we watched for longer a stretcher was being rolled to the ambulance van.
When the stretcher reached the van, it became clear as to who was on it. Noya. I covered my mouth, tears rolling down my face as we watched the paramedic cover Noya's body with a black sheet.
"Pronounced dead at 08:53pm"