The Deer & The Owl [Haikyuu x OC]

Prologue

There are some stories that can't be changed or fixed.

No matter how much we erase and rewrite, no matter how hard we try, the ending doesn't change.

In those cases, the best thing to do is to give up, accept defeat, and start over.

There will always be a new blank page waiting for us, the beginning of a new chapter, a new story.

This was the thought that comforted me during my flight to Japan.

I had left Canada a few hours earlier: my life in Victoria, my father, regrets, doubts, and questions that I could not yet answer, but in which I still placed the last remaining crumbs of hope.

I was actually hopeful and optimistic, though I tried to keep this unhoped-for enthusiasm at bay, to avoid yet another burn, yet another dead end.

Below me, Tokyo began to appear, first as a collection of bright dots, distant but blinding, then as a blanket of stars, dazzling and inviting, a small galaxy of alleys and treasures I could hardly wait to dive into.

"Nori, you better start buckling up, we're going to land in a few minutes..." my mother murmured, lifting the satin mask from her eyes and leaning over the window next to me to look at this enchanted vision, the shadow of a smile illuminating her face in the half-light of the sleeping plane.

"It's been so many years since I last took you with me... It will be strange to start again, won't it?"

I nodded imperceptibly, never taking my eyes off the shimmering view as the plane flew over the last stretch of ocean that separated us from the mainland, the last patch of darkness before dawn and the new beginning I longed for.

*

Nori reached out to read the time on the screen a few inches away from her, hoping it was still the middle of the night, but it was exactly 7:14 in the morning and in any minute her alarm would have gone off.

She had left the window slightly ajar to air out the room, which had been closed for years, but had fallen asleep from exhaustion without remembering to close it, and now she felt the cold April air peeking through the sheets.

She slipped out of the warmth of the blankets, panting loudly: she didn't feel like facing this day, a day that was going to be quite long and exhausting.

Sighing, she looked at the school uniform hanging on the open door of the wardrobe: she liked the colors of the Fukurodani Academy, neutral and calm, with a single touch of color represented by a blue ribbon. Her grandmother had made her try it on the night before, muttering that the skirts were shorter than in her day.

"Why don't you wear leggings?" she had asked her, pulling the hem down as far as it would go.

"Mom, don't be old-fashioned, all girls dress like that nowadays... Nori will get used to it, and when it gets cold, she can always put on my old leg warmers!" her mother had replied, giggling and pinching her daughter's thighs.

Nori had left them alone and had gone back upstairs to pack her schoolbag, determined to get to bed early so that she could face the first day of school in top form.

And that day had come, sure it wasn't her first day of high school, but it was still her first time in a Japanese school.

She quickly got ready without even checking herself in the mirror and went downstairs to have breakfast.

"Obasaan, you didn't have to get up so early to make me rice, you know I'm not used to eating salty things in the morning..." Nori said as she looked worriedly at the pile of dishes in the dining room.