Chapter Text
“ Time after time the river has risen and flooded.
The insect leaves the cocoon to live but a minute.
How long is the eye able to look at the sun?
From the very beginning nothing at all has lasted.”
– Gilgamesh, David Ferry , 1992 –
– ☾ –
It’s only when the bone finds a way outside the flesh that Hinata feels the full scale of the pressure against his collapsing limb, soft like a sponge, relenting and giving way to Kageyama’s own desperation. He shuts his eyes tight and waits for the inevitable snap-crunch that follows, the apologies that chase after that.
“Deep breath,” Kageyama offers. The coolness in his tone is almost enough to extinguish the sensation that Hinata’s lost his worth. Almost. It’s an infectious sense of weakness, one he’s eager to be rid of when the sawing starts. His arm makes a sound like a wet towel being wrung of its juices. With a final press-and-twist, he’s free-
And flightless all the same.
– 𖤓 –
The air is brisk with the promise of a fleeting winter: nothing’s yet melted, but the powdering of snow’s gone light and crunchy beneath Kageyama’s sneakers. A crisp smell like the best part of the New Year wafts around him, keeping his mood light. After the victory at Shiratorizawa there’s been an unspoken pressure; yes, the desire to celebrate, yet also the desire to improve as drastically as possible in the time before Nationals. They’ve earned this place. Now, they must fight to keep it.
The things on his mind jump back and forth in priority. Where he’ll eat lunch, or if he’ll even have it at all instead of practicing with the others. The teams they could be up against. Is there time to research all forty-one of them? Would there even be merit in that? Hinata’s serve is still awful, and he muses on how it could be improved. In his own mind, he’s free to play a bit of dictator. Snow, even at the end of its stay, brings a delightful silence. He takes it all in stride.
It was the next Wednesday when the clouds rolled in.
Practice, practice, the same as ever, the entire team feeling the hunger to improve. He watched with mild amusement as Hinata fumbled a serve, before some irritation crawled out by way of his mouth.
“You are such a moron!” He shouts, nearly crushing his water bottle in the process. The broken form, the awkward swing, all belonging to someone with such inherent athleticism: he thinks it an insult to volleyball itself. Hinata sticks his tongue out in response, a childish remark for a childish insult.
“At least I’m practicing instead of just standing there doing nothing!” He shouts back. The chase ensues, and Hinata is frustratingly nimble, all until a sharp hesitation takes over the court.
Sugawara is the first to recognize the sound. It blares over the entire gym, echoing, wailing. Everyone immediately stops what they’re doing, and abruptly, the gym feels much smaller than it had been a minute ago.
“An alarm?” He questions, out loud so as to double his wonderings into an answer. Coach Ukai retrieves his phone, flips it open to reveal the message:
“Emergency Alert: 01-04-2012, 13:32, Subject: STORM SURGE WARNING:
Storm Surge. Storm Surge. A storm surge has been detected for your area. Please evacuate to higher ground.”
He blinks, checks the area warning to be certain the alarm is for them, and it doesn’t take a second look for Takeda to retrieve their radio. The first thing they hear is not the confirmation of the warning, rather, a static so grating that Kageyama’s not sure the sound will ever properly leave him.
“ …-gion. An unprecedented surge of winds and rain is making its way up the coastline, causing storm alerts of all nature to be advised across the nation. The cause for the inclement weather is unknown, but officials suspect it to be a result of recent tectonic activity. Please locate your nearest-“
Silence. Ukai looks to Takeda, Takeda to Ukai, both of them to the students now frozen awkwardly in place. When they meet eyes with one another, the thought is unanimous:
“A storm surge? Here?”
Tsukishima’s nonchalant tone as he, too, inspects the message immediately disperses some of the tension, but the confusion remains all the same. Where Daichi would normally shrug, clap his hands to command attention and re-establish some form of order, he only looks cluelessly towards the teachers. Takeda cracks open the door to the gym, and the kicked-up wind is eager to confirm the incoming threat.
“Okay, okay. It’ll be fine. Everybody, grab your things and we’ll group together with the other students and faculty in the main building. Let’s hurry!”
But when he says it, there’s a split second of wavering that’s enough to push forward the already building panic. Hinata shuffles off to find his own phone, and for a moment, Kageyama wonders if he’s going to do something stupid like call the police. Where the radio and the phones had only been clear a minute ago, there’s nothing but static again now.
Suddenly the gymnasium is alive and buzzing with a different kind of life, not the enthusiasm of a game well played but the hustle and bustle of gathering bookbags, equipment, some changing out of their volleyball shoes while others forget. Kageyama is quick and measured when he retrieves his things, standing in front of the gymnasium door in a strange half-blob and half-line to prepare for a dash to the clubroom. Hinata, as ever, is lagging behind.
“Oi,” he calls out. Hinata doesn’t pay him any mind, even plugs one of his ears with the phone pressed to the other as he hunches over his bag. Kageyama disperses from the group to place a hand on his shoulder, but when Hinata looks up at him, there’s only a choke where an answer would be.
“ They’re not responding,” he whispers, a bit too seriously. “ My mom, and Natsu. They’re not responding.”
Kageyama feels the pit begin to form in his throat, but he doesn’t let it fall to his stomach yet. He shakes Hinata with an affirming grip.
“You live further away than the rest of us, the signal’s probably just weaker out there. Come on. We should follow the teachers.”
It’s not a comfort. Far from it, it’s the acknowledgment of an unsolvable issue, a simple fact of misfortune, but when Kageyama says it, it’s easier to forget. Hinata nods, and trots off to be with the others. From the way he stands, shifting his weight and rocking on his sneakers, it’s hard to ignore the bit of anxiety he’s developed.
“Alright, if you’re wearing a hood, be sure to put it up. We’ll have Daichi be our runner, and Ennoshita at the back of the line to make sure nobody is left behind. The club room can only hold so many of us, so if you don’t need anything, stay in here and we’ll regroup. We’ll make a quick dash through and up the stairs. Try to be as fast as possible- but don’t trip or do anything stupid. Everyone got that?” Ukai instructs.
“Right!” The students respond, though Hinata’s voice is evidently quieter than the rest. It unsettles Kageyama in a way he can’t quite place a finger on.
With a count to three, their crude formation files out of the building as quickly as possible until Daichi reaches the door and unlocks it with a harsh turn. Sugawara is the second to enter, followed by Nishinoya, Asahi, Tanaka, Hinata, and finally Kageyama. The others wait under the awning for their turn as there’s chaos in the shuffling and the retrieval of clothes, all while Shimizu and the faculty keep watch from below. Small shouts and complaints of “ That was mine!” “You forgot this-” and “ Watch it! I’m behind you!” fill the cramped space and ruin whatever professionalism they had before. Yamaguchi and Tsukishima peer out from the gym doors as the others switch in and switch out, quickly and clumsily.
Hinata struggles to fit his school uniform into his bag, and there’s no time for snide remarks. Kageyama seizes it and folds it down for him before shooting a glare that screams: “Will you stop messing around already?!”
Even here, in circumstances like these, their sense of competition persists. It’s a bit comforting the way familiarity is, warmer than not-knowing.
When they regroup in front of the clubroom, those without a hood or umbrella have been thoroughly drenched. They hold their bags above their heads as Takeda motions for them to run to the school, single file, footsteps pattering against the road-turned-mud. From the entrance, a student waves eagerly to the club, signaling them to enter before the doors are locked, before they’re shut out.
Standard practice. A headcount, a shake of the head to get rid of the excess water, some students wringing out their bags, some choosing to deal with the drip-drip-drip that creates percussion off the tiled floor. Hinata is on the phone again, persistent. His expression lights up.
“Mom? Mom, can you hear me? Where are you guys? You left home, right? You didn’t stay there?”
“ ...--uilding, In the — with — st — are — f- ind — you- if —”
“ The signal is cutting out- where are you? Can you text it? Can- “
His smile drops as the static returns. A few more calls, ending in a click, a beep, a resolute rejection. He stares at the screen as though something devastating already happened, as though he’s just about ready to lose his composure. A sense of bitterness wells up in Kageyama’s body as Sugawara steps forward in the face of his hesitation to comfort his junior.
“Hey, it’ll be fine. Look at me. Look at me. I know you’re nervous, but I’m certain your family’s okay. The signal’s bad for everyone right now, that’s what bad weather does. The storm will blow over and you’ll call them and they’ll pick up, but for now, we need to focus on what’s in front of us. Okay?”
His voice is everything that’s expected of a caring senior; kind, calm, words well-picked enough to be unwaveringly believable. Hinata nods, a bit more sullen this time, clicking the phone closed and keeping it in his pocket.
In one big mass, congealed under the cover of drenched-through black uniforms and half-worn jackets that double as a canopy, the students make their way upstairs amidst murmurs of worries and affirmations. To see every classroom empty and bathed in the overcast light from the windows is an unusual sight. It feels nice, Kageyama thinks, to be a part of a whole like this- amidst the dire circumstances, there’s a certain camaraderie in traveling together, in being shoulder to shoulder with his classmates and teachers. Among so many, the worry, the confidence, the obedience and the desire to break away is shared. He knows half of his club is behind him. He knows the other half is ahead. He knows, with certain confidence, that the fifth floor is certain to be the driest of them all.
Only a few make it there before the water rushes in.
It’s as sudden as it is powerful, knocking the wind out of the remaining students and pouring through the oh-so-fragile glass, sending shards and splintered wood in waves that slosh everyone against the walls. Utter chaos. The building seems to shake and rumble- those who are on the first floor submerge almost immediately, and those that look back find that drowning is not loud, is never loud, it’s silent and swift and more absolute than any of them could have imagined. Kageyama watches the water rise to his ankles. His waist. His neck. His mouth- an awful taste.
A small hand grabs him by the collar of his shirt, tugs him back sharply as the groups break and dissolve into the angry sea that’s found its way into the building. He coughs, sputters, climbs up the stairs while the vacuum of the waves seeks to pull him back into its embrace. Shouting. Splashing. Hoarse screaming following low-gurgling, a cacophony of sound that floods his brain.
In that moment, he only sees glimpses of the hallway he’s left behind. It’s full of the faces he’s seen in polite bows and group photographs- floating, aimless. Shattered glass cuts his hand to remind him he’s alive, and this is real, unbearably real. A flash of blond brushes his shoulder and he swears he sees a cupped hand rise from the murky depths- cupped, like a swimmer, a pitiful ladle that’s sure to be snapped off by the current. The swimmer shouts a name, dives beneath: Just like that, his coach is gone.
The tugging doesn’t stop until Kageyama sees the patterning of the fourth floor, until the water has somewhere to end. He scrambles to climb up higher: an instinct hard-wired into each and every being here. Go up. Up. Up where the air is, up where the sky is. Breathe. I need to breathe. He gasps, gulps in the oxygen that tastes strongly of a hundred futures cut short, and lets his arms shake as he rests against the stairs. Hands swing blindly above his head to find his tether. He finds skin instead, then the wet fabric that clings to it. A blur of orange speaks in a muffled voice. It sounds like it needs to shout, but all that comes out is a fuzzy mish-mash of syllables.
“-̵-̴-̵-̷-̷-̴-̴-̵-̴-̶-̷-̵-̴-̵-̷-̵”
In the cadence of his name. The shouting hasn’t stopped, not for a second. He thinks he hears someone cry. He might be crying, too. He can’t tell if the dampness on his face is from the spray of an invasive sea or from his own tears. Suddenly he’s back on his hands and knees, water lapping at his wrist, struggling to get back to his feet. He must have crawled- only, he doesn’t remember crawling, doesn’t remember moving the way he is now. Is this instinct?
Adrenaline. He sees the familiar features of his teammates- Yamaguchi hacking up what’s left in his lungs, Tsukishima with a hand on his back to push him forward still. A glimpse of Sugawara’s hair as he grabs an unwilling Nishinoya. Unwilling, because he’s fighting back, cutting through the shallow flood to get back down the stairs. Daichi’s hand, Yachi’s eyes, Tanaka’s head, pieces of them that he registers only for a second, prays that they’re still attached. Rain patters down- they’ve reached the roof.
They’ve reached the roof. The flood continues to reach for them, too. He’s not sure how long it takes for the water to recede. He’s not even certain it actually has, even as the sun beams down on them all, even as the clouds break like it had all just been a light drizzle. The first thing he notices, once his brain settles back in his skull and he’s able to think again, able to blend senses, thought, intuition, and action into one form, is something he sees reflected past the fence around the roof’s perimeter:
The water is wrong.
The water is very, very wrong. It’s subtle at first- the tint, the hue. He’d seen it flash black and blue like a bruise in the hallways, saturated with the bodies of his peers, the group he’d been so comfortable in fizzling out like medicine in a glass. Black and blue like the movies, black and blue like how people describe the ocean. The water here was too bright for that. Greenish, as though it were from a lake, the foam reflecting purple tones instead of off-white. He thought of oil spills he’d read about once for a useless exam. Rainbow tinted because of the chemicals refusing to get along with the salt. Did oil move this freely?
Then there was the evaporation. In what only felt like thirty minutes, barely an hour, the water had sunk back to the earth it swallowed up- fell back as though it had never overwhelmed the building to begin with. Kageyama couldn’t stop himself. Despite the weakness in his knees, the worries rattling around in his brain, he stumbled towards the fence and peered through the chain-link mesh:
Below, his classmates were littered like ants. He thought he could see some of them still moving- a girl from his class, her arm bent in a strange shape, her leg just as backwards, crawling towards another. Two or three others manage to stand, shuffling back into the building. The rest lie uniform and motionless. He thought he’d see devastation. Not like this, not so preserved, and still, and indifferent to his own panic. He thought he’d see bright ugly red, obvious carnage, and feared the possibility of finding the school’s population in pieces. Feared spotting Hinata among the crushed masses-
Hinata.
Just the name snapped his attention away. Where is he? Where is he? An instinct just like when he had fought upwards for air, he swings himself back around, scanning the rooftop for the ginger hair that helped him stand out from the rest.
Instant relief washes over him when he sees the wild orange against the gray and blue of the sky, matted from the water but bright, still. It’s small, crouched over, moving slightly side-to-side as though he’s shaking his head. He finds the strength to go to him and anchor himself on Hinata’s shoulder.
“Stop- stop! Quit moving! Nishinoya! Quit it!”
The words are almost playful in nature, but the tone, the tone is coarse and strangled and full of desperation. Hinata ignores Kageyama’s hand on his shoulder in favor of holding Nishinoya back, locking both his arms like he’s trying to stop a fight.
“Let go of me! Asahi’s still down there- I can still get him!”
Down, where half his club had been the last time Kageyama checked. Down, where coach Ukai had run off to. Down, where his classmates were. Down, down, down. He looks around to survey the damage- see who’s still here, for certain.
Daichi, who’s holding his own waist, sitting and leaning beside the door. Sugawara, who’s tending to him, who’s shed his jacket and left the tan sweater beneath. Tsukishima, alone, now, hiding his face in his hands as he puts a bit too much trust in the fence behind him. Hinata and Nishinoya, struggling against each other. And himself. He wonders how he looks- if any of his limbs have been snapped the wrong way when he wasn’t looking, checks them just to be sure. It’s then that Nishinoya bites down against Hinata’s arm and earns himself a sharp cry of alarm. His freedom follows, but Kageyama is quicker- he realizes, as he holds Nishinoya back, that he doesn’t want any more of his teammates to go down. Down feels like a promise.
You’ll never come back up.
Nishinoya shouts and thrashes, tries to bite him too, but he holds on. Nobody will go back down if he can help it, and oh, he can. He realizes a bit too late that there are tears in Nishinoya’s eyes, but the shorter one claws them away before they get the best of him. The individuals begin to move together: they all crave the unanimity they had before. One big mass with twelve sets of interlocking arms, twelve terrified eyes, huddled together for a semblance of security. He looks at Hinata to see that he shares his disorientation- a greedy part of him hopes it lasts even longer. Now that the ability to think has returned, so too comes the ability to cry, the ability to fear, the ability to mourn. He knows it firsthand.
When one of them breaks, the others follow.
– ☾ –
That had been two days ago. Two days was all the time they needed to tally up the results and gather their findings, coming to three important conclusions:
One: They couldn’t be sure who had lived and who had perished, because the people on the ground had been sunken under ten layers of mud, and the people in the building under ten layers of debris, and twelve hands was not enough to dig through it all without losing another pair.
Two: The school was structurally unsound, and the gymnasium had been ripped clean off its foundation. This meant that the radio, which would have been extremely useful in figuring out what happened to the rest of Japan, or even the rest of Miyagi prefecture, was nowhere to be found.
Three: The water had done something to everything it touched, changed it more than the typical harshness of water damage and weathering. Yamaguchi, who had dived in sometime between reaching the roof and realizing Yachi was missing, was the first to notice it.
The other casualties were minor; A desk had slammed into Daichi’s side, bruised a rib but not broken it, or so he figured. Tsukishima’s glasses had snapped clean in half yet by some miracle remained with the lenses intact- if scuffed. Hinata had strained his arm in dragging Kageyama up to the fifth floor. The glass left most of them with minor scrapes, only Kageyama’s cut being dire enough to warrant an immediate bandaging.
Then there was the not-knowing, the sheer, unbearable grief of hoping the others had survived, still realizing the odds were against such an outcome. It was as the remaining students; Hinata, Kageyama, Daichi, Sugawara, Nishinoya, Tsukishima, and Yamaguchi, huddled together by the remains of the girl’s gymnasium, which had left at least some of it’s framework for them to hide beneath, that the ugly truth emerged by way of Tsukishima’s remark:
“It’s already a miracle that this many of us even survived. Statistically, about half of us should be dead right now.”
Nishinoya is quick to anger, quicker now as Tsukishima hides his true conclusions under a cold guise of analysis.
“We don’t know that they’re dead! What kinda takeaway is that? You’re saying it’s a bad thing we’re okay?!” He shouts. Sugawara, exhausted, yet still quick enough to get in Nishinoya’s way, is eager to diffuse the situation.
“I’m sure that’s not what he meant. We’re all shaken up- none of us are thinking straight. Let’s just figure out our next move.”
“Our next move? Are you kidding?! We’ve gotta go back- the school’s gonna collapse and I know there are people left in there!”
Tsukishima turns away. There’s no scoff, but the action alone suffices.
“Right, because a bunch of highschool students covered in mud can properly navigate a collapsing building.”
Unsurprisingly, a fight ensues, and without Daichi in the proper condition to stop it, Kageyama finds himself beside Yamaguchi and Sugawara to assist in breaking it up. The fury in Nishinoya’s eyes reveals its origins in a glance; fear, and uncertainty. It’s settled over all of them now. Without the teachers, or any adults, for that matter, there’s a certain helplessness to be shared amongst them. Helplessness is contagious now. Viral in its spread. They see it in themselves and each other. They see it in the remains of their school, of their livelihoods, how the small percent chance of a warning turning into an utter disaster had, by some complex association of variables, become their reality.
Nishinoya pants for air as he lets go of Tsukishima’s shirt, a fist gnarled with scuffing- no blood. Kageyama’s attention wanders the moment the fight is over. He eyes Hinata, hugging his knees, a sort of vacant stare taking over his expression. With an ugly splish-splash of the mud-ground-water, he goes to him, inexplicably concerned over his newfound silence. Silence doesn’t fit Hinata, doesn’t fit his face, his voice, his being. There’s a desolation that’s taken over, and Kageyama wants it out as soon as possible.
“Hey,” he begins. Clunky, awkward, the word leaden on his tongue. Hinata doesn’t look up, but shifts his head a little to indicate a message received.
“Hey.”
Kageyama gulps down with hesitation. Now that things are finally quiet, he finds the silence is unbearable, just as contaminating as the helplessness.
“Are you- um, doing okay?”
It’s a stupid question, they both realize. But in a space like this the words are able to shape-shift, take on new meanings that are said with a lilt of the voice, not a swapping of the letters. “ Okay” turns to “ do you still have some part of you left in there- can you still eat, can you still move? Will you stay here, or will you turn into water like everyone else? When I look at you, can I know you’ll be here tomorrow?”
Hinata shrugs. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
His voice is small and broken, but the words are there. They change again.
“ Yes, there’s some of me left. No, I don’t know if I can do everything else right now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure. You?”
Kageyama sighs, inspecting his bandaged palm.
“Could be better. Could be worse.”
Hinata moves over slightly to allow Kageyama somewhere to sit, though the slippery steel foundation beam of the gym is not an optimal chair to begin with. They both look forward to life amidst the destruction, and it almost seems like a cruel joke when the sun crests the scene in golden daylight.
It’s beautiful.
It’s the people and their creations that seem ill-fit now, for the grass has begun to peek out in some places in all its lush greenness, cradling the foreign wreckage. The flood, in its strength, swept winter aside to bring forth spring, tall flowers surviving the coat of mud and the trees blooming in shades of pink and yellow. Though there’s something putrid in the air, there’s also a sweetness, and the two mix into an uncomfortable fragrance. The sky is open and clear.
“This isn’t right,” Kageyama thinks. Spring in January. Right after New Years, no less. For the greenery to grow so quickly- for the plants to spread their influence in such a short amount of time. He hates how warm it is, how nice the sun feels against his waterlogged being. The others notice it too- Yamaguchi sneezes something fierce.
“The- the yellow stuff, it’s like-”
He sneezes again, wiping at his face to rid himself of the irritant.
“-like pollen,” Tsukishima ends, observing some of it pinched between his fingers. They all look around now, witnessing the abundance of it. Golden and bright, a friendlier version of the sharp and unfeeling snow. Snow that Kageyama deeply missed. Snow from before it all.
“Are you allergic?” Sugawara asks. Yamaguchi shakes his head, bracing for another sneeze.
“N-no, it’s just- it’s on my face, it, ah-”
Again. This one takes some of the air out of him, and his mild sneezing turns sinister with its frequency. Tsukishima is quick to offer the bottle of water he managed to keep in his bag- clean water, something the third-years quickly acknowledged they’d run out of soon.
“Wash it off with this. We don’t know what it is yet.”
Yamaguchi does so rather eagerly, and it’s only when the pollen is washed off that the others see just how red his skin’s become, how the pollen has somehow found its way to his freckles and caused them to sink , just beneath his eyes. They’re speechless when Yamaguchi looks up.
“Is it bad?” He asks. Sugawara is afraid to touch him.
“Does it hurt?” he counters, his voice a bit flighty and pitched. Yamaguchi shakes his head. Ironically, the absence of fear, of panic, of screaming, is what makes him even more nervous. Tsukishima leans down to inspect him a bit closer, his eyes widening slightly.
“Maybe it’s poisonous. I thought it was sediment, but it's too uniform for that, too dry. We should take care not to touch it,” he looks down at his fingers, his index and thumb already a bit pink, the prints in his fingers seeming, if not by a trick of the light, the slightest bit deeper. He can’t help but itch his thumb against his nail and notice the ridges that have begun to form.
Nishinoya has gone quiet, and that alone is a sign of trouble. “Quiet” and “Nishinoya” are not terms that go along. By the time Sugawara looks back to check on him, he’s already packed his things and changed into better clothes: discarded his red t-shirt for a drier white one, and layered his Karasuno jacket on top of that. He’s kept his knee pads on- any defense against possible debris, no matter how seemingly superficial, is essential.
“I’m going to look for the others,” he resolves. Daichi is eager to object.
“No, you’re not. We need to stay where we are, figure out our basic survival needs, then see if we can call for help. The police will handle that building better than any of us.”
“We don’t have time for that, Daichi! You know it too. I don’t care if you guys aren’t coming with- I’ll do it alone.”
“We’ve just learned the pollen is probably poisonous, and the school’s likely full of it. You’re not making a good decision here, Noya,” Sugawara follows up, collected as ever. There’s a stiffness to his words that tells of his own exasperation- he can’t, and won’t, keep this up forever.
“At least I’m making one.”
He breaks into a run, disappearing around the corner towards what remains of the school. Sugawara follows on instinct, chasing him for some paces until he looks down to see the pollen again, realizing how deeply powdered the areas without any sort of shelter or roofing would be. There’s a tear in his decision making: Follow- leave the others behind. Four first-years, Daichi with a hurt rib. Stay- let Nishinoya get hurt. Do nothing to stop him. It’s a debate loaded with shearing tension, enough to split him in two. Lose the only second-year they have left? Or count himself as one of the casualties, if it means supporting his friend?
He shouts after him, but Nishinoya doesn’t hesitate, nor does he hold back. Hinata decides to stand up, the light of mid-day glinting off his eyes. The world seems to come to a stop when he says:
“I wanna follow him.”
– 𖤓 –