when y/n was young, she had been born into a family of renowned devil hunters. unlike most, she lived in a tribe, not a city. she didn't go to school, but instead studied under the tribes monks. from the moment she could walk she was conditioned to...
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❞⁀➷♡'ˎ˗ "what's wrong?"
you spent a little while in the hospital after that.
it wasn't too long, just a quick checkup since according to everyone else, you had been seeing things. but you knew you saw someone, you just knew it.
the tv in the room is on, flicked onto the news channel. it's talking about some villain known as the hero killer. you're not committing much attention to it. instead, you're staring rather blankly at your hands in your lap. yumi was quite quiet lately, it was unlike her. even now, she's in the room, sitting silently in the chair beside the hospital bed. you're not even hooked up to iv, you're not sure why you're even still in here.
you steal another glance at the tv, but nothing can retain your attention right now.
"you're being strange." yumi speaks, her voice echoing around the room with an odd amount of lucidity. almost as if she's really there and not just a figment of your imagination. "all contemplative... if you have something to say, you should say it." she says, crossing her arms as she looks away from you. contemplative was the perfect word, that's exactly what you were doing. "do you think i was seeing things?" you ask curiously, and she raises a brow in response.
"dunno. i wasn't there." she says, and you huff. that wasn't exactly the answer you had been looking for. she examines you, sensing your disappointment in her response.
"...but i don't think you should really doubt yourself if you think you saw something. based on our memory, you weren't in a sorry enough state to be hallucinating anything. besides, you were at the fringes between hell and reality, maybe you were able to discern something that bunny girl wasn't because of your partial form." she suggests, and you blink a few times. "i didn't consider that... it is possible that we observed something she couldn't, or perhaps just remembered it while she forgot it. not that i remember enough. i can't even remember what she looked like or sounded like, just a vague memory that someone was there." you add in, allowing your chin to rest in your hand.
as you fall into silent contemplation once more, yumi withdraws again. she silently watches you as you work through your thought process.
eventually, you're released from the hospital. you go back to work. but something is bothering you, fraying at the edges of your consciousness and stirring confusion in the back of your mind.
it lingers as you handle hero work with mirko, it lingers anytime you eat or sleep, and it lingers as you see your classmates on tv.
you're almost certain the lingering feeling of perilous dread had been caused by some kind of lucky premonition of the danger your friends were in, but as you exchange words with them over the phone to verify that everyones alright, the fear does not displace itself. it lingers in the evening when you're washing up, it lingers when you go to visit your friends at the hospital, it lingers your final days of the internship, and it lingers your entire train ride back to musutafu.
your second guess had been that perhaps the fear originated from a place of longing, to return to the normalcy of your new home and the mundanity of school. but when you got home, the dread hung heavy over your head regardless. it was while you were getting your percentage checked in recovery girl's office that you began to understand.
dread, fear, terror, all emotions running rampant through you that you had no explanation for. recovery girl herself had said your blood pressure was a bit high, requesting you try to calm down. it's when you catch yumi pacing out of the corner of your eye that you realize why you're so anxious. she's anxious, and you're at a point where her emotions are becoming yours.
the notion is a bit unsettling, but you discard the thought.
"what's wrong?" you ask curiously, offering yumi a curious gaze. she scowls, looking away. "nothing, shut up." she replies curtly, crossing her arms. "well, if it was nothing, we wouldn't be jumped up like we've been on caffeine for the entire past week. spill, what's wrong with you?" you ask, and yumi doesn't reply. she remains silent, watching you with a complex expression that you wished you could understand. she had been ever present lately, anytime she was around she manifested a physical form. "it's just..." the moment she begins to speak, recovery girl reenters the room from her office. "all done, sweetie. there's a few papers here that i need you to bring to aizawa. can you do that for me?" you nod, standing up and taking the papers with a polite bow.
recovery girl looks to the corner, a small frown on her face. she's making direct eye contact with yumi, despite not being able to see her. "yumi's presence is beginning to fester physically. it probably won't be long before she starts appearing to people or having enough autonomy to control the body." she says, before shaking her head. "take care of yourself, dear." she advises, and you nod. "thank you, recovery girl."
yumi is silent as you both walk to the classroom.
school is closed, but aizawa is grading work for his other classes and you needed to visit recovery girl so you tagged along.
she walks alongside you in the hallway, her hands tucked in her pockets.
it's quiet.
"what were you going to say earlier?—" she cuts you off. "it's nothing." her tone final, brooking no argument. you can't help letting out a small sigh, and she looks at you as you do. eventually, you get to the classroom and hand aizawa the paperwork. and to avoid the awkward tension between yourself and yumi, you hang around the classroom to chat with him, hoping yumi will feel less stand offish when you're finished.
she stares at you, sitting in one of the classroom seats as you talk to aizawa. she's trying to control herself, but emotions are not something she is used to feeling so strongly. it's not that they weren't there, but they were less expressive since she wasn't human. now they are expressing themselves through you, and until she learns how to manage her emotions, that won't exactly stop.
but the truth is, she is just so afraid.
she is too afraid because alongside this overwhelming fear, her other emotion that she had put a terrible amount of focus into suppressing is an overwhelming affection for you.
she has been with you from the start, you two grew up together like sisters and she will never forget the glimpses of humanity you had gifted her without realizing that you had done so.
she loves you so much, and so she is afraid.
she is afraid that by the end of this she will love you forever, and that she will never be in the same room as you again.
"nothing, shut up." ✧‿➹
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not sure how to feel about this chapter, but i hope u guys like it. stories abt to take a lighter direction that segways into actual tragedy.
