Chapter Text
Two months into his first semester of College and Kyoutani has already made about fifteen or more terrible mistakes. One of which was; despite being underage, accepting any and every drinking challenge at any party he went to. It got to the point where he wasn’t even sure if he was doing it to enjoy himself, he just did it because it was the one thing that created a sort of bond between him and his peers. Kyoutani knew from rumors that he wasn’t a pleasant drunk to be around, yet because of these parties and his stubbornness to not decline any dare he received when drunk gained him some “friends”. The group of said friends that he created was impressed by how much he could drink at the first party where they met. After that it sort of became a reoccurring pattern at each party he went to. He knew that these friends weren’t genuine; he knew he was shit at communication and making relationships with others so he never bothered. But drinking made it convenient, so he drank.
Another terrible mistake he made, was not continuing volleyball. Despite never have gotten along with past teammates, after entering College he realized how much he missed the sport, how much it served as an outlet for him. He didn’t think about volleyball often, but the moments where his head wandered there, a huge, aching feeling of regret and unexplainable emptiness filled his body. So that led him to make more terrible mistakes.
It was nearing the end of October, time was slowly creeping up to the always-dreaded midterms, and Kyoutani was hardly aware. Despite the amount of time he spent cutting class and going off to dick around with his friends, Kyoutani’s grades weren’t that low. Well, they weren’t especially good, but he was in a safe zone of “I-can-do-bare-minimum-and-pass”.
There’s a halloween party tomorrow and Kyoutani and his friends were too ‘excited’ about that to want to sit through class. Kyoutani didn’t really show any of his excitement, mainly because he wasn’t really excited. He just planned to go because he had nothing else to do, and pretended to be ‘hyped’ because his friends were and it would be out of place for him to think otherwise. He wasn’t averse to going either. He wanted to drink, he wanted to be stuck in that short time span of not having to think or care about anything. But at the same time he was tired of it. He was tired of the same hype to do something crazy. It was not only starting to get boring, but he was slowly getting more and more sick of the people he was hanging out with. He always ruminated about their sickeningly annoying and whiney personalities, always doing this and that to fit in. Kyoutani knew he had a temper and it literally took the outmost effort to not lose it from time to time and punch one of them in the face. But he restrained because these were his friends and friends don’t just randomly scream and punch each other.
“Kyo-chan?? Are you listening?” A shrill voice sounded next to where he was sitting.
Kyoutani grunted and outwardly cringed at the nickname and tried not to punch the source of the voice on reflex.
“What’s with that response? God”
Kyoutani looked at the girl sitting next to him, her hair died blonde and a blinding amount of shiny glitter makeup applied to her face. This was Miyuki and she was one of his so-called friends. He’d been having lunch with them and sort of spaced out mid conversation. He did this often when he hung out with them; it was the only way he could stand being with them for long periods of time. Honestly, this whole maintaining relationships thing was probably the most tiring thing that Kyoutani’s ever done.
“Anyway, we were discussing what to be for the Halloween party, and Kyo-chan! Do you have any idea what you’re gonna dress up as?”
“Nothing” Kyoutani deadpanned.
“What?! You can’t go to a Halloween party and not dress up!” Miyuki shrieked.
“Watch me”
“No, no, no, no, you’re dressing up as something” Miyuki wagged her finger back and forth at him.
Kyoutani crinkled his nose at the action.
“Oi, what if Kyoutani dressed up as a cop? That’d be so contradictory to his appearance” The dude sitting on the other side of Kyoutani pitched in.
Kyoutani must have made some sort of face of disapproval at this because soon after everyone erupted with laughter.
The dude sitting next to Kyoutani, Jin, spoke up again, still chuckling lightly “So that’s a no-go”
“No shit” Kyoutani grunted.
The group continued to tease at what Kyoutani should be for Halloween and he mostly just blocked it out and went back to spacing out and fiddling with his phone. Whatever they decided for him to be, he’d just ignore it and show up in his normal clothes. When he finished up his food he grunted a “see ya” and left the table to head back to his apartment. He heard a few voices yelling “how rude!” as he left, seeing as he just exited mid-conversation and left all of his trash with them.
Kyoutani shared his apartment with three other people. He rarely spoke with any of them and was either in his room or not in the apartment at all, so he never ran into them much. He’s not entirely sure how he ended up being roommates with some of the most annoyingly energetic people he’s ever met, but if that flyer looking for people who needed a room also included the aggravating personalities of the other tenants Kyoutani would have turned it down. But the price for rent was too good, and here he was sharing an apartment with Lev Haiba, Hinata Shouyou, and Kageyama Tobio.
When he got home everyone was out, probably still in classes. He headed straight to his room and closed the door. When he first moved into the apartment he would have to lock the door or Lev would come into his room and bother him, but after enough anger outbursts, Lev, and the other roommates, learned not to barge into Kyoutani’s room. Ever.
Immediately after dropping his shit on the floor, he flopped on the bed and decided to take a nap and continue to ignore his homework or other responsibilities. Trying to be a functioning human of society and having to deal with people for most of the day was hard enough.
***
What felt like only 10 minutes after falling asleep, Kyoutani was awoken by loud squawking sounds from what was probably the living room. As he sat up in bed, he noticed how it had gotten dark out and that he must have been out for much longer than he thought. His stomach growled and he groggily got out of bed, probably looking shittier than he did before he took the nap, and made his way to the kitchen.
When he walked out into the conjoined Kitchen-Living room area, everyone paused their conversation to look at him. All of his roommates were there plus two people he wasn’t familiar with. One of them was a very uninterested looking boy with blonde hair and black roots who was currently invested in some game on his PSP. The other was a petite girl who also had blonde hair and made a small yelp when she saw Kyoutani walk into the room. She looked like a scared wet Chihuahua in his opinion.
Kyoutani raised his eyebrow at the silence and stares and just turned to walk into the kitchen, too tired to be concerned. It always got strangely quiet when Kyoutani would make himself present in the apartment, his roommates probably not knowing exactly how to interact with him. He didn’t really care what they talked about and wasn’t paying attention half the time, so he didn’t quite understand why they had to pause every time he was there, it felt as if they were saying something that he shouldn't hear. Or was him being there supposed to be no-fun-quiet time? He didn’t think too hard about it and just opened the fridge, looking around for something to make.
The conversation in the living room slowly picked back up, and whatever flow they had before came back. Kyoutani closed the fridge and got some rice out and started the rice cooker. He planned to go back into his room while he waited for the rice to be done, but apparently Hinata had other plans.
Hinata stood in the entryway of the kitchen, blocking Kyoutani before he could leave. Although Hinata would be easy to move out of the way, Kyoutani just stood in front of him and waited for him to speak.
“Uh, u-um, Hey Kyoutani! We haven’t seen or spoken to you in a while, huh?” Hinata nervously laughed.
Kyoutani just grunted in response, his face saying “What could you possibly need to talk to me about”
“Anywho, I was wondering if you’ve met Kenma and Yachi before?” Hinata anxiously glanced from Kyoutani back to his friends in the living room.
“No, but what does it matter?” Kyoutani stated gruffly.
“Well, I was just wondering if you wanted to-“
“No, not really” Kyoutani huffed and pushed passed Hinata, knocking the smaller boy over slightly, and made his way back to his room.
When he returned to his room, Kyoutani haphazardly looked over some reading for class but then just ended up playing on his phone for majority of the twenty minutes it took for his rice to cook. While he waited, he could hear everyone in the living room get boisterous with laughter from time to time. For some reason it frustrated him. Not in the “jesus christ everyone shut up” way, but more like he was frustrated because he couldn’t understand. How was it they could act like that with each other but when he’s in the mix everything changes? How come when he hangs out with his friends the air seems nothing quite like that? What’s different? Kyoutani closed his eyes and huffed in frustration as the ringer on his timer went off, signaling that the rice was done. He left his room to go finish up the rest of his meal; this time the room didn’t go quiet again when he re-entered.
Kyoutani took some eggs, ham, cheese, and other vegetables out of the fridge to make an omelet to put over his rice. As he finished up and got a plate out, Lev’s large figure was leaning over the kitchen counter, peering at Kyoutani’s food.
“No” Kyoutani growled, before Lev could even say anything.
“I’m not after your food, sheesh! It just smelled really good” Lev defended.
Kyoutani just made a sound of acknowledgement, but didn’t try any further to lengthen the conversation.
“Hey, why don’t you eat here instead of your room?” Lev offered enthusiastically.
With the amount of angry outburst Lev has been on the receiving end on, Kyoutani never thought he’d be enthusiastic to be in his presence at all. Is he fucking stupid?
“Uh-“ Kyoutani quirked an eyebrow, but was interrupted before he could finish
“Come ooon! Come sit down!” Lev moved and patted at one of the seats at the small dining room table.
Kyoutani decided to indulge him and moved to sit at the table, although he wasn’t particularly happy to be sitting next to Lev.
Kyoutani ate in silence and Lev sort of kept him company. Everything carried on as normal and Kyoutani felt oddly included despite not participating in any of the conversation. At some point between finishing his food and cleaning up his dishes, Hinata stopped him again to introduce him to Kenma and Yachi. Kyoutani just nodded in acknowledgement, looking the two over once before leaving to go shower and then go back to sleep.
Maybe I’ll actually go to class tomorrow.
***
Friday was normal. Which was weird. Kyoutani didn’t have a butt load of frustrations boiling inside him, he actually felt pretty calm. He sat through all his lectures for once, and even took some notes. It was so normal that it freaked him the fuck out. Like, when did he become an average working student all of a sudden? Well, it’s only freshman year, plenty of room for change, but still what?
He hadn’t bumped into anyone from his usual friend group; they were probably all ditching, seeing as it was a Friday and the Halloween party was tonight. He briefly thought of the shrill voices that would be nagging him later for not dressing up but he was willing to bear with that more than being in a stupid costume for the entire night. He had a shift at his part time job before the party, so he was meeting up with every one at the party. Meaning that he wouldn’t be wrestled into wearing a costume last minute before the party.
As his day had started, and from until the time of the party, everything went relatively normal, and Kyoutani was feeling pretty good, despite what his outward expression said. It was 8:30pm when he got off his shift at the record store, and he stopped by the apartment to change and eat. In the middle of eating, his roommates came out into the living room and he watched in horror as one awful costume came out after the next.
“Are those really your costumes?” Kyoutani couldn’t help but ask.
“Um yes? And they’re amazing, right?” Lev, who was literally dressed as a streetlight, gave Kyoutani an expecting look, as if he was definitely going to agree.
“No, you’re a fucking streetlight” Kyoutani stood up from his seat momentarily to smack the top of his costume
“Don’t do that! It’s delicate…” Lev caressed the top part of his costume.
Kyoutani just scoffed and sat back down and went back to eating.
“And where’s your costume?” Hinata the hamburger piped up.
“This is my costume” Kyoutani deadpanned.
Lev erupted with laughter, “Yeah, that’s definitely scary enough”
“Shut up”
“Well, were heading out, see you at the party!” Hinata exclaimed.
Kyoutani honestly never thought he’d have the experience of watching a streetlight, hamburger, and… some kind of fish (?) leave his apartment. He couldn’t really tell what Kageyama was, but it looked like some kind of fish. Kyoutani took his time finishing up his food and cleaning up, not in any particular hurry to get to the party. It was 9:30pm by the time he arrived and the house the party was being hosted at had a good amount of people in it already.
Within 10 minutes of walking inside, a beer was already placed in his hands. Kyuotani walked around for a bit, ignoring the few chants of his name that he heard and the blatant death stares from people who he’s probably been a complete dick too at previous parties. He picked a wall to stand near as he sipped on his beer, surveying everyone at the party and silently judging them on their costumes. Not to long after, Kyoutani could hear a familiar voice calling out to him.
“Kyo-chan! Found you!” Miyuki called out, but soon after seeing him her smile dropped. “Where’s your costume?!”
Kyoutani looked over at her and saw she was dressed as some slutty bumblebee. Seriously, what’s the appeal of a bee? A fucking bee? Who’d fuck a bee?
“I said I wasn’t dressing up”
“That’s no fun…” Miyuki pouted.
Kyoutani shrugged and finished off the rest of his beer, placing the empty bottle on the nearest surface.
“As penalty, you need to do 6 tequila shots” One of his friends, who was dressed as Mario, suggested.
Everyone just loudly “wooed” in favor of the penalty. They moved more towards the center of the room and set up the shots on the table that was already littered with other empty cups and bottles. A small crowd had gathered around, small cheers erupting here and there. A challenging smirk appeared on Kyoutani’s face before he started to down all the shots. Everyone hollered and Kyoutani just brushed it off as if he hadn’t just downed 6 shots. This set off the drinking challenges for the rest of the night, and Kyoutani knew that he was going to get way drunker than he had planned.
By 11:30 Kyoutani wouldn’t admit that he was smashed but it was obvious to everyone around him that he was smashed. He didn’t really have much idea of what he was doing and he probably looked like an idiot roaming around the party, making unnecessary noise, but he didn’t care. He moved to the kitchen, rummaging through… whose house was this again? Well, he was rummaging through what’s-their-name’s fridge and took out some cold cuts, not bothering to make a sandwich and just eating them plain. Not many people were in the kitchen and it was noticeably quieter. In this moment, Kyoutani realized how fucking drunk he was. It was quiet enough for him to actually think and process and holy shit wow my arms feel weird. Kyoutani focused on not being drunk as he snacked on the cold cuts, having a staring contest with the kitchen cupboard. There were a few other people in the kitchen that weren’t paying him any attention. There was a couple making out in one corner, and then just a few other people scattered around getting more drinks and water and what not.
After a couple minutes of focusing on the concept of being sober and staring at a cupboard, Kyoutani felt a tug at his sleeve. He let out an involuntarily grunt at being interrupted from his invigorating staring contest and looked over at whoever was planning to bother him.
“Hey Kyo-chan~” Miyuki slurred.
Oh. It’s the weird bee.
“H-hey~, could I talk to you in private?” Miyuki leaned more onto Kyoutani’s arm, and then leaned back a bit to tug on him.
“Why can’t we just talk here?” Kyoutani didn’t really feel like moving. He was content in the weird blissful world he had created with the kitchen cupboards.
“Noooo” Miyuki whined, “We can’t, c’mon” She started to tug hard on Kyoutani’s sleeve, trying to lead him out of the kitchen.
Kyoutani put the cold cuts down and huffed in annoyance. He let himself be dragged out of the kitchen and down one of the hallways. What does this bee even wanna talk about? Bees can’t even talk, what the fuck is this?
Miyuki opened one of the room doors and pulled Kyoutani inside, and then backed him up into the door after it shut.
“Um, so what is it?” Kyoutani starred down at her.
“Wow, someone’s clueless” Miyuki giggled and ran her hands up Kyoutani’s chest, “I never noticed that you were so muscular, Kyo-chan”
She leaned up to suck on Kyoutani’s neck and he pushed her back.
“Stop touching me it’s fuckin gross” Kyoutani growled.
“Gross? What the fuck?” Miyuki scoffed and then moved her hand to grab at Kyoutani’s crotch. “Are you fucking gay?”
Kyoutani lost it at the sudden touch and wasn’t sure what happened but next thing he knew Miyuki was on the floor covering her head; he must have head-butted her without thinking. He didn’t want to deal or think too much about what had just happened so he left. He made his way back to the kitchen and grabbed his untouched cold cuts and moved to go to what he assumed was the backyard. Luckily, he had assumed correctly. Hardly anyone was in the backyard, a person or two probably trying to get away from the noise, but that was it. Kyoutani sat on the cold grass and looked at the night sky as he finished up the lovely thin sliced pieces of heaven.
Once he finished his food he lost the will to sit up and flopped down onto the grass. Kyoutani laid there for who knows how long, and he completely forgot that he was at a party and was not far off from falling asleep right there despite it being way too cold for comfort. Soon enough, he vaguely heard the sound of footsteps approaching him. He kept his eyes forward, continuing to stare up at the sky and ignoring whoever it was.
“Hey, asshole!” A voice called out.
Kyoutani grunted, knowing the call was directed at him but he didn’t want to acknowledge it. He could hear them walk closer and saw them come into view. It was one of the idiots from his friend group and Kyoutani just grunted at him in acknowledgement. In response he kicked Kyoutani in the side.
“Ow! What the fuck?!” Kyoutani could feel his blood start to boil and moved to stand up.
“Did you fucking headbutt Miyuki?” His friend, who he has drunkenly identified to be Jin, hissed.
“Probably, so what?” Kyoutani growled.
“What do you mean so what? What’s wrong with you?! Her forehead is fucking bruised! You don’t just hit a girl like that” Jin shoved Kyoutani back.
“Don’t fucking push me, and why should it matter that she’s a girl” Kyoutani smacked at Jin’s hands and he could feel his patience lessen with each word that was spoken.
“You’re a dick” Jin stated
“Wow you’re just realizing that now? You’re stupider than I thought” Kyoutani scoffed.
“What reason did you have to even do that to her?” The anger in Jin’s voice started to become more present.
“She fucking started touching me and it pissed me off, okay? I don’t appreciate my dick randomly being groped at” Kyoutani admitted.
“That’s why? ‘Cause she fucking touched your dick?! You should be feeling lucky for someone that hot to be coming on to you what’s you’re pro-“ The rest of Jin’s sentence was interrupted by Kyoutani’s fist.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP” Kyoutani yelled, throwing another punch at Jin’s face, causing him to fall on the ground.
He was too fed up with dealing with the shit his ‘friends’ said. He was drunk enough to not care about trying to maintain the shitty relationship he had built with these people. He shouldn’t have to hear his friends say stupid shit like that to him. Why couldn’t they just accept the fact that being touched like that made him uncomfortable? Why should he feel lucky of all things? Sure he overreacted by head-butting her, but it was the first reflex his body had in response to being touched like that. Just because she was good looking didn’t mean he wanted to fuck her. Why should he be expected to do that when the chance arrives? It’s not fucking fair.
Kyoutani watched as Jin picked himself up from the ground, blood starting to ooze out of his nose. He noticed a couple of his other ‘friends’, including Miyuki, come out into the yard and walk over to Jin.
“What the fuck are you doing Kyoutani?!” The dude dressed as Mario spoke up, walking closer to Kyoutani.
“I fucking punched him. Was it really not that obvious? You fuckin’ dumb Mario?” Kyoutani chuckled.
“You have some serious problems Kyo-chan!” Miyuki yelled.
“Oh my god, can you quit it with that god awful nickname? It makes my skin crawl every time you say it in that shrill voice of yours. And don’t you all go acting like you’re such great people either. You’re all probably the shittiest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting and it takes every fiber in my body not to punch y’all on a daily! But wow, look it now! I just don’t give a flying fuck anymore and you can all go fuck yourselves because I can’t stand being in your presence any longer!” Kyoutani laughed at the looks he received and ‘Dumbass-Mario’ rushed over to him, punching him in the face.
Kyoutani doesn’t really know how many punches he took or how many he threw, but both parties looked like shit in his opinion. Well, he didn’t know what he looked like but he felt like shit so that was enough of a validation. The only thing Kyoutani was 100% certain of was that he’d gone back to having zero friends. Although, it didn’t really feel like he had friends to begin with so he didn’t really feel like there was that much of a loss there.
Jin, Miyuki, and the others had left and Kyoutani continued to sit in the desolate backyard. He didn’t want to be at the party anymore yet he didn’t feel like going home. He looked around the backyard and saw that the fight had caused the few people that were there before to disappear. Except for one. He spotted what looked like an extremely frightened sunflower sitting on the steps of the back porch. He walked closer to the sunflower, the small thing frantically shifting its eyes from one side to another as if saying “oh wowee, I saw nothing, what fight, haha such a lovely night”. As he got closer he noticed that the sunflower looked oddly familiar. Wasn’t this one of Hinata’s friends? Ya…Ya.. I don’t fuckin remember.
As Kyoutani stood in front of Yachi, trying to fully process her identity, Yachi’s head was filled with panicked thoughts.
Oh gosh, his face is all bruised and covered in blood! AND HIS KNUCKLES JESUS! Oh god, Yachi you should run, why are you sitting here, oh god he’s so close I’m going to actually die this is it this is the end, Hinata’s scary roommate is going to rip my guts out and I’ll be so dead like beyond dead I’ll probably die twice-
Kyoutani moved to sit next to her, the movement startling Yachi out of her thoughts.
“Yo” Kyoutani said, groggily.
“H-Hi!” Yachi stuttered out nervously.
They sat quietly for a couple minutes until Yachi got the courage to speak up again.
“R-Rough night?”
“…Yeah”