The Colors Screams [ Haikyuu!! ]

☼ Blazing Solstice ☼

Shouyou surmises that he has escaped from his doom, but in a different way from Kei.

He experimentally gathers up a portion of the body of water surrounding him with his hands, his bronze orange eyes observing the translucent liquid draining out from his clasp. After spending two weeks and three days in his time loop, he had woke up not to see the celeste blue of the early morning sky, not to see the bumblebee yellow of the ever-blazing sun, not to see the stars slowly fading away, but to see the aegean blue of the evening sky, to see the cotton white of the luminous moon, to see the ivory white of the incandescent stars.

Glancing beneath him, glistening water pools around his ankles, clutters of full bloom marmalade orange marigolds sprouting from underneath the waterbed, reaching up to his waist. A tinge of yellow caught his attention and he turned left, flabbergasted to find Kenma's parting gift, a bouquet of bumblebee yellow sunflowers swathed around a macaroon yellow wrap, floating amidst the tints of orange.

Ambling towards the bouquet, Shouyou ran his fingertips through the supple petals of the marigolds, a few detaching itself from its sepal, fluttering with the winds. He scoops the bouquet into his hold, embracing the gentle flowers when a strong gush of wind swept through the field, bringing stray petals along with it. Shouyou uses his hand to shield his eyes, the other cupping the flowers he is holding, determined not to let the wind whisk the petals away.

When the gale recedes, he pulls his hand away from his face, gaping in awe to see a path cleared away for him, the orange flowers that was once rooted to the soil now levitating midair, water dripping down from its roots. Not knowing what else to do, Shouyou gaits down the footpath, the sunflower tucked in his arm. The night sky stretched above him, the moon bathing him with its light, the stars twinkling brightly.

From as far as his eyes could see, he sees nothing but levitating and rooted marigolds, and he briefly wonders what they meant. He remembers Kenma talking about floriography – language of flowers, and how important it is when one considers gifting their lover with them. Shouyou succinctly recalls that he had glimpsed the same flowers during his father's funeral, concisely reminiscing that his mother had uttered that it meant 'mourning' and that they stood as memorials for those who passed away. Shouyou tilts his head at this and pondered to himself, Is he dead? Had he succeeded in killing himself? Is this the afterlife?

His mind wonders towards his friends, If I'm dead, will they mourn for me? Imageries conjured in his mind, his team's joyful faces when they won against Inarizaki High, their pained glances when he collapse due to a fever, Kei's aggravated look when Shouyou bounded out of the court, Kenma's quivering form as he walked away, Tooru's and Hajime's reluctant voices when they bid each other goodnight. Yes, he thought, I'll be missed.

He is driven out of his thoughts when a melodious breeze blew past his ears, with it, a faint childish giggle and soothing whisper. The familiar feeble tones made his heart skip a beat and immediately, he ran, as fast as he could, faster than he had ever ran, his inhumanely haste unparalleled to his and Tobio's diurnal race. He ran and begged and implored to whatever god is out there, looking down at him, at his ruptured soul, that he hadn't just heard things, that those soft tones were real.

And just as he planted his feet to the mushy soil, sweat dripping down to the water, hands resting on his knees as he voraciously gulps down oxygen, he hears it, mellow and delicate. "Nii-chan?" Bolting upright, Shouyou looks down to see bronze orange orbs, ginger orange tresses tied up into pigtails, a small figure - his sister, no doubt, the same way he had last seen her, lifeless but at this moment, full of ardor. "Shouyou!" Turning towards his name, tears rimmed his eyes as he stares up into his mother's flaxen yellow eyes and soot black hair, her arms wide open, beckoning him to fall into them.