His Warrior Queen: A Haikyuu!! Novel (Tsukishima x OC)

Chapter 54: I'm Ready (TW)

(TW: Minor discussion of addiction to painkillers)

Tsukishima had woken up a little earlier than he'd really needed to for the second day of qualifiers, and that gave him a little extra time to spend on his new research project.  He was just as careful to keep the subject hidden as he was with the other lines of research he pursued regarding his relationship with Nakano - just as his family really did not need to know about their intimate activities, they also did not need to know about Nakano's past struggles with painkillers.

And the struggle with the drug itself really was in the past.  After comforting the setter last night and getting her home safely, Kei had thrown himself into research.  Well, within certain limits.  He needed to be ready for a long day of volleyball today.  There was really no rush on this project, but he found there were few things in life he disliked more than the sound of Nakano's voice when she spoke of herself as drug addict.

She sounded like she hated herself.  And Kei wanted to fix that as soon as possible.

He knew, very quickly, that she'd obviously long since broken the cycle of physical addiction.  She had not taken painkillers for a long time, as far as he could tell.  She'd talked about how she'd gone through withdrawal.  Based on what he'd read, it seemed to him that her problem was completely psychological.

Not psychological dependence on the drug, but psychological trauma because she'd used the drug as an escape, in her view.  Not just from the physical pain, but from the mental pain as well.  Her own perceptions of doing such a thing meaning that she was some kind of terrible disaster of a person were what was harming her now.  He wanted to do some more reading, but he was pretty sure that the likelihood of Nakano ever suffering a relapse and becoming dependent on painkillers again were pretty much slim to none.  And the only way that might ever even have a chance of happening would be if she was so badly injured again that long-term painkillers were a necessity.

He knew she'd been through three more surgeries after she got herself off the painkillers from the first one.  Surely she must have had to take some form of pain management drugs to get through those subsequent operations and their aftermaths.  He remembered her saying that she'd insisted to her new doctor that any medication for pain be kept at a bare minimum, and she was pretty sure her doctor knew why even though she didn't seem to have discussed it with him in so many words.  He was willing to bet that her pain tolerance and her ability to mitigate pain using non-pharmaceutical methods were both pretty impressive.  

No, the root of the problem was getting her to understand that, once again, she was not a terrible person because of something that had happened to her.  And that wasn't going to be something he was going to be able to do in a single conversation.  This was going to take some time, and he was going to have to approach the whole thing very carefully.  There were going to be some fights probably, and a lot of tears.  But it would all be worth it if he could eventually make her understand.  Make her see what he saw every time he looked at her.

He closed his browser and his laptop.  He already felt a little better having begun the research process.  One thing he knew for certain - he had no intention of giving up until he'd shown his beautiful girl that she was not the awful person she seemed to believe she was.

Time to get my things together, grab something halfway decent for breakfast, and pick up my beautiful girlfriend, Kei thought.  Knowing he'd be seeing her soon brought a small smile to his lips as he headed downstairs.

Ten minutes later, he headed out his front door to find the girl in question standing in front of his house, looking at him shyly.

"Roses?" he asked, a mix of excitement and unease in his voice, "is everything alright?"  I'm glad to get to be with her even just a few extra minutes, he thought, but why does she look so...nervous?