Tastes Like Home | Various!Blue Lock

Twenty-Four

The average person slips into fight-or-flight when faced with extreme conflict.

Normally, (Y/n) fell into neither category. She fawned instead—meeting problems head-on with practiced obedience and careful composure. It was one of the reasons she'd managed to stay beneath her parents' radar for so long. To the (L/n) couple, their daughter was perfect: pliant, moldable, the kind of girl who listened quietly when corrected and bowed her head when scolded.

The kind of girl she had strayed dangerously far from over the past few days.

Ever since Yoichi and the others arrived, something in her had changed. Conflict no longer drew compliance from her—it drove her away. For the first time in her life, she found herself fleeing at the slightest hint of confrontation.

It was her own type of rebellion. Her own way of saying "I'm putting my comfort first instead of letting you step all over me!"... and yet, her flight was the very reason she found herself in her current life-threatening predicament.

With the snow blizzard blowing past her tender skin harder than it had ever done before, (Y/n) found herself planting face-first into the five-inch snow. Her cheeks were steaming yet snipping cold at the same time, lips peeling from the frozen atmosphere. She could not feel her fingers, her toes, her neck, her ears, or even her eyes.

She might as well be ceasing existence.

Deep inside, she knew she should probably turn back and go home... but to where? To whom? Would her parents even welcome her back with open arms? Even after they'd looked at her with such betrayal and contempt? Would she even have a home to return to?

(Y/n) let out a frozen breath, her equally freezing arms wrapped around her body in an attempt to alleviate the cold. Her body shivered like never before, worrying even the part of herself that knew she was used to the cold.

"So cold..." she hissed through chattering teeth, retreating beneath the sprawling canopy of a lone tree. Its thick trunk offered little shelter, but it was enough to shield her from most of the angry blizzard.

Snow clung to her hair and lashes as icy winds bit through her clothes. At that moment, she wanted only one thing—warmth.

The same warmth she'd consistently offered to guests through her carefully handmade tea; the same warmth her family was fortunate enough to indulge themselves in after she'd lovingly tended to the fire; the same warmth she'd been taught all her life to make others feel; and the same warmth she'd been deprived of for far too long.

She pressed her back against the tree, sliding down to hold her legs to her chest.

She felt so far gone into the fiery pits of hell, like what she'd done was absolutely unforgivable.

It hadn't occurred to her that there were cruel people out there who'd sadistically toy around with people's lives and that her rebellion was mere childsplay compared to them. But still, she'd thought her attempts to claw at freedom were just as punishable—and with her parents, it might as well be.

She buried her face in her legs, the pressure she'd paced on her eyelids to keep them close forcing her into an unending pit of darkness. She fantasized being tugged and being brutally pulled out of the pits of darkness.

For a moment, she could almost visualize the character that'd be able to do so: Someone so lively, so unwilling to be pinned down like she'd let herself be all her life; someone to drag her by her arm, and pushed her to the front of the battlefield in hopes that she'd revolt for herself.

She took in a shaky breath and let her eyes take in the snowstorm gradually coming to a stop. It was almost as if it could hear her cries—she was a child of the wintery mountain, after all.

She got up, ignoring the way her legs had to wade through the 5-inch snow.

She approached the edge of the cliff that overlooked the bustling valley villages below. Each tiny house was decorated with windows in which warm, orange light seeped through. It almost felt comforting to know other families weren't as dysfunctional and that there were parents who actually cared for their children.

All her life, she'd secretly wished that in her times of need, her parents would merely wrap their arms around her and console her. Was that too much to ask?

She stared bitterly down at the village below, licking at her dry, cracked lips. Squatting at the edge of the overlook, she almost seemed to be trying to make herself smaller—as though getting closer to the distant rooftops might somehow bring her closer to the warmth within them.

Below, families lived ordinary lives. Parents called their children inside. Lights glowed softly through windows. Laughter drifted faintly through the cold air.

She wondered if, in some past life, she had committed a grave enough sin to deserve this one.

Perhaps that was why she had never been allowed the simple luxury of loving parents who acknowledged her feelings, or who understood how much she had sacrificed for them. Perhaps she had done something unforgivable long before she was born, and this life was merely the price she had been made to pay.

The thought made her head ache.

Every emotion seemed to collide inside her at once—anger, grief, exhaustion, resentment, loneliness.

None of them made sense on their own, yet together they dragged her toward the same desperate conclusion.

She looked at the vast distance between herself and the snow-covered ground below.

Maybe she simply needed another life.

A rebirth.

A chance to wake up somewhere else, as someone else, where perhaps things would hurt less.

Her head throbbed. Her heart ached.

She shut her eyes and tilted her face toward the wind, letting the cold brush against her skin one last time.

For one quiet moment, there was nothing but the whisper of snow and the distant sounds of the village below.

Then...

"Hey!"

A hand caught her by the back of her jacket, pulling her sharply backwards.

She gasped, stumbling onto the snow as someone caught her before she could fall. An arm wrapped firmly around her, keeping her safely away from the edge.

She turned, and suddenly, she stood at the edge of everything she had ever wanted.

_______

[CHECKPOINT]

Paths will split from here on out. What do you need the most?

→ HOME
→ WARMTH
→ TO BE BRUTALLY PULLED OUT OF THE PITS OF DARKNESS
→ A REVOLUTION
→ CONSOLATION
→ REBIRTH