to greater things beyond the unknown||RK96000||

Chapter 16: The Familiar Comfort, the Familiar Pain

ao3 - RK96000

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"I'll be okay!" Shouyou tries to convince- Yamaguchi gives him a small smile, and just as Shouyou breathes a silent sigh of relief that at least one of his friends was sane and willing to respond to reason, Yamaguchi just shakes his head. "Really! I will!"

Tsukishima snorts. "Right, that was the same thing you said during your last panic attack, and-"

Shouyou blinks.

Panic attack?

"I've never had a panic attack," Shouyou says instead.

Tsukishima coughs into his hand, but it's very clear he was hiding a small laugh- when Shouyou stares, not comprehending, the smile falls away. "You can't be serious."

"Tsukki," Yamaguchi hisses under his breath, but as they draw closer to the train station, he pauses and waves Tsukishima to go on.

Then, Yamaguchi glances at him. "Hinata, do you know what a panic attack is?"

The question makes him pout- of course he did! Back in middle school-

"Yeah," Shouyou says. "I do!"

Yamaguchi squints a little, as if he didn't know where to go from there (to be fair, it's not exactly like Shouyou does either). He looks at the train station in front of them, then Shouyou himself, before finally staring down at the ground before them.

"When I have a panic attack," Yamaguchi begins, and Shouyou's mouth forms a small 'o' before he nods and resolves to pay as much attention as he can, forcing his wandering mind to stay still. "I feel like I can't breathe. Like the entire world is crushing me."

"Huh. That's not how I-" Shouyou stops. "I mean. I don't have them, but if I did-"

"Is there any reason you think you don't have them?" Yamaguchi asks, and there's something about the look in his eyes that tells him he already knows what Shouyou is going to say, as if he didn't want to ask, to know for sure, but he already suspected.

"No," Shouyou lies, and it feels like acid bubbling in his stomach-

He thinks about his mother. How nothing he ever did was enough, their bond straining and straining, a fraying strand still unsevered from his own weakness, her gaze darkening further and further as each year passed- until one day, her patience ran out and her love was not enough.

(Maybe the worst part was how easy it was for her to not love him.)

Yamaguchi stares at him for a second more, his lips set in an absentminded frown.

"You're allowed to have emotions," Yamaguchi tells him, with a determined glint to his eyes- as if he had clawed his way to learning the words he spoke until he had finally felt that they were the absolute truth. "You're allowed to cry or be upset or panic- you're allowed to be human."

Shouyou stares and stares and stares- what Yamaguchi is saying is impossible.

After an entire childhood of never being loved, of being pushed away every time he cried or panicked, how was he ever supposed to feel like he wasn't a freak?

(When Natsu had cried, his mother always tugged her into a embrace- one that seemed so gentle- but then again, he would never be able to know if her touch could ever be so soft when it only brought pain for him instead.)

"About earlier," Shouyou says, just as Yamaguchi turns away. "It was my mom."

Yamaguchi pauses. He doesn't look back. "Yeah. I know."