The Sun with A False Eternity

Drowning Alone In The Dark

  Silence.

Nothing but silence.

Kageyama blinked, the words warping in his mind.

Because there was no way.

There was no way Hinata, the middle blocker on Karasuno, Kageyama's closest friend, greatest ally, and biggest rival... There was no way he just said he was...

"Dying." Kageyama repeated the word blankly, hating the way it felt on his tongue. "You."

Hinata nodded, and before Kageyama realized it there were tears running down his friend's face.

"Yeah, I am."

"How?"

"Sickness."

"No duh." Kageyama rolled his eyes, ignoring the fact that the boy in front of him started crying harder.

"I got the results from one of the tests and... Well... The doctor diagnosed me with TMPE I believe it was. It stands for something but I can't remember all the fancy words." Hinata took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. "They... They don't test for it often because the testing process is so hard and there have been so few cases that the doctors hardly even considered it a possibility. But after I kept showing more and more symptoms..."

Kagyama went dead silent. Hinata wasn't joking.

This wasn't fake.

He wasn't dreaming.

"You're... Dying," he stated blankly, hardly acknowledging the weight of the words. "But they can fix it, right? The doctors? That's what you're here for, right? They're gonna fix you and then you're gonna come back to volleyball, to the team, to... Well, to me. And then we're gonna go to Nationals and we're gonna win and-" the setter was cut off by Hinata shaking his head.

Only then did Kageyama truly recognize the state Hinata was in. The teen had been decaying, right before his eyes.

"No," Hinata whispered, his whole body trembling as he continued to cry. "I'm not. I'm never going to play volleyball again. I'm never making it to Nationals and I'm... I'm... " His words were cut off as he began to cough, each one wracking his body and making him look was smaller than he ever should have.

Kageyama couldn't take it. He jumped out of the bed and fled without thinking. He faintly remembered passing by Hinata's mother on the way out but he hardly noticed, intent on getting out of that place as fast as he could to care.

That place that caused him so much pain as a child. The place where he felt heart-wrenching grief for the first time, the place where he had watched someone who meant the world to him fall apart.

The place where history was now repeating itself.

The place that was trying to take his sun away.

The place he never wanted to go back to.

Kageyama could hardly feel the burn in his lungs as he arrived back home. He could hardly hear the voice of his mother, on some call for work. He hardly even noticed the fact that his curtains were still shut, blocking out any light that tried to get in with the morning light.

He simply collapsed in bed, burying his head under his pillow. He didn't know whether he wanted to cry or scream. None of it felt real. None of it was happening. There was no way he was having to go through this again.

Not again.

Not him.

Anyone but him, please.