crow in the blue castle

chapter three

When the last bell rings, Hinata's heart sinks when he realises he has nowhere to go.

Whenever school ended before, he always had somewhere to go. In middle school, it was practicing volleyball with the girl's volleyball team or nagging his friends to help him practice. At Karasuno, he was practicing with the team.

Now more than ever did he really yearn to be with them. To be with anyone, really.

Well, anyone but his dad, but that didn't really matter. The man was never really home and when he was, he was drunk and ignored him (unless he bothered the man, but that's only happened once and hes been careful to avoid it happening again).

When he finally stands from his desk, the classroom is empty. Huh, he didn't realise he'd been thinking for so long.

At Karasuno, someone would have called him from his class if he was late. Like Kageyama, angered at him for daring to skip practice. Or Suga, worried why he wasn't at practice and wondering if he was doing alright.

Man, he missed his old team. Sure, his time with them was short but... It was more than anything he could've ever asked for.

And plus, they were his first ever team. No one could replace them. He doesn't want them to.

He want's them back.

He want's to be at Karasuno.

He want's to be with his mother.

He want's, he want's-

He want's his life back.

Hinata's vision blurs and with a start, he realises tears are streaming down his face. He sniffs, but can't bring himself to wipe his tears away.

So he cries.

And mourns.

He mourns the loss of his mother. He mourns the loss of his team. He mourns the loss of his family. Both of them.

He lied to Kunimi and Kindaichi. Obviously. He isn't coping at all. He's falling apart and he can't handle any of this.

He wraps his arms around himself, hugging tight. For a moment he can almost imagine it's his mother's embrace.

A cold breeze hits him, and he is reminded of just how alone he really is.

Hinata's lungs constrict. He shakes and cries, his breathing quick and shallow.

His heartrate is picking up dramatically, thumping loudly as if trying to knock down some kind of door that'd let it be free from his body.

Maybe it's his imagination, or his heart threatening to escape its cage, but he almost thinks he hears footsteps walking towards him. His mind is too fuzzy to make anything of this.

It must be his imagination.

Distantly, he hopes it isn't his imagination.

He hopes someone will come save him. That someone will magically swoop him off his feet and take all his pain away, like some sort of fairytale.

The less distant part of him prays this is where he dies. He sure feels like he will, right now.

Or that this is when he wakes up from this goddamned nightmare, awakened by Natsu shaking him to wake up quickly or he'll be late to morning practice and his mother's soothing laughter as she hands him his breakfast to go as he dashes out the door.

But none of these happen.

No one is coming to save him.

Nor does he die.

And no matter how much he sobs, he doesn't wake up.

——

Hinata is careful to open the front door as quietly as possible.

It's pointless, his father isn't even home. He rarely is.

The house is void of life.

Taking his shoes off, he walks through the hallway and into the living room.

The irony of its name makes him laugh, though it is bitter and hollow of any real humour.

If he's being honest, this place is the most lifeless of the whole house, which is really saying something.

There are no pictures, no signs of an actual person even touching the place. It's picture perfect, like a advertisement for a new house or an Airbnb for rent.

For someone who's lived alone for so long, it's kind of weird how clean the house is. Now he knows it's cause the man is rarely even occupying the house.

When he is, however, the state of the living room is a whole other story.

Beer cans or bottles littering the floor, jeers and yells at that stupid tv when a game is on. A few times there were even other guys like his father around, all equally drunk and gross.

Work friends, he'd concluded during one of those days. All office workers like his dad, gravely egotistical and with alpha male-like complexes.

These days are usually the worst as he's reduced from 'insolent ungrateful child' to 'free maid'.

Okay, the second title sounds alot more appealing than the first, but he can guarantee you it is not.

And when they leave, he is left to clean everything up. 'By tomorrow, this place better be spotless' his father would say, towering over him with beer bottle pointing at him as if the man would be using it to finally end him.

By all means, he could. A part of Hinata almost wishes he'd do it already, if it meant he wouldn't have to smell the dizzying stench of his father's alcohol breath.

When he cleans, he wonders what his father would do when he drank at home before he moved into the house. Did he drink somewhere else? Did he ruin someone else's house like his friends now did his?

In the end of the day, his theories were futile. He'd never ask his dad anyway, lest he risk getting brutally murdered or something.

The house right now is dark and cold. It has been for the past few days, his father not caring that he was readying to go to his new school soon. Did he even know today was his first day?

Numbly, Hinata walks up the stairs and to his bedroom. It's a small room, atleast compared to his father's.

It must've been guest bedroom that was last used in the medieval period or something, because when he'd first moved into the room it'd been so dusty that he was left sneezing to high hells for a whole week.

He's never had a dust allergy, as far as he knows. Idly, he wonders if he's gained one after he finished cleaning the room.

He flops down on his bed, sighing at the softness of the mattress.

One thing he'll always be happy about is that his oh-so-kind father was nice enough to get some movers to bring some furniture and his belongings to his new home.

Hinata just thinks the man just didn't want to have to spend any money on him, but he won't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Not bothering to change or wash the tear tracks off his face, Hinata falls into a restless slumber.

Before he falls asleep, he pinches himself one last time, checking to see if he was really real or not. If this was really his life now.

It hurts.

It's real.

He falls asleep with tears streaming down his face.