to greater things beyond the unknown||RK96000||

Chapter 17: Behind Closed Doors

ao3 - RK96000

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"I'm sorry," Shouyou says as soon as he arrives, the words practiced and yet numb on his tongue. For them, it'd only been a few hours ago that they'd seen him off with Tooru at the train station- for them, nothing had changed. "I didn't know where else I could go."

Yamaguchi blinks but steps aside regardless, tugging Shouyou and leading him into the living room as Tsukishima locks the door behind them with an unsettling click.

(The click of a door as it shut, the sound of a mask as it fell-)

"I didn't want to bother Kenma again but," Shouyou rambles instead, the words tripping as they fell from his mouth before his jaw clicks shut as he realizes- "I'm bothering you now, too."

"Hinata," Yamaguchi says, soft and reassuring as he plops Shouyou down onto the couch, "you're our friend, remember?"

Shouyou nods, even as his thoughts all feel disorganized and scrambled and overlapping (and then, everything was ruined- and then, and then-). "She knows where Kenma lives. If she came and saw and heard, she would-"

"She would what?" Tsukishima asks, clipped and cold, his fury evident, and it's only then, that through the incoherent fragments of his mind, he realizes he's doing exactly what his mother told him not to do.

"Nothing!" Shouyou blurts out. "She's never done anything bad to me!"

Yamaguchi's soft gaze grows harsh before he sighs and settles down besides him, gently placing a tiny dinosaur plush onto Shouyou's lap. "I think we all know she has."

Tsukishima scowls but he takes a seat next to Shouyou too. "Even from the little I've seen, she seems like a..." he trails off, as if he didn't want to overstep any boundaries and hurt his friend like he did once before- but this time, Shouyou agrees.

(Monster, he thinks- and he knows he's right.)

"Monster," he echoes. "Yeah."

Shouyou shakes his head (his mother warned him to never speak of her again to his friends- she will find out and he will be sorry and- and yet, he's already failed miserably), smiling down at the fluffy little dinosaur plushie.

"Shimashima," he starts, despite the numbness in his fingertips and the sharp vines of terror entangling his heart in a death grip. And if, from the beginnings of Yamaguchi's muffled laughter and Tsukishima's glare (which is ridiculously ineffective given how he and Yamaguchi are wearing matching dinosaur pajamas), he feels a little less lost and a little less numb, then no one has to know. "I don't suppose you have another pair of dinosaur pajamas?"

Tsukishima huffs and stomps away upstairs- before Shouyou can even think about pouting, he returns just a moment later and tosses a stack of too-large dinosaur pajamas onto the couch.

"Here," Tsukishima smirks as he stares down and down at Shouyou, (if only for a moment, did his friend and his mother share the same view?). "Suffer."

Shouyou stares for a second before he remembers how he's supposed to act, the role he's supposed to play- "Joke's on you, I like big clothes!" Shouyou sticks his tongue out.

"Oh," Yamaguchi asks, a little too innocent to be anything other than teasing, "and why is that?"

(It's because it reminds him of Tooru's jacket, large and warm and safe.)

The pout and reaction comes a little easier this time, as if Shouyou is finally settling back into an unfamiliar skin, but when he opens his mouth, he can't think of a single thing to say. And so, he picks up his well-earned matching, dinosaur pajamas, along with the tiny dinosaur plushie to guard him on his journey, and leaves to change in the bathroom.