Haikyuu One-Shots

Fear (Keiji Akaashi)

Wizzy: This guy is hard to write about... Anyway, this was a request I got a while ago. Hopefully, it turned out well...

When my best friend asked me to be a manager for the volleyball club, I thought, 'alright, volleyball's fun, so why not?' But when I got there, what I encountered was not what I thought. While the members were far from normal, that wasn't why I was mentally freaking out right now. I had assumed that she meant the girls' team, but noooo.... it just had to be the boys' team.

Now, you might not think it at a first glance, but I felt uneasy around boys. Okay, uneasy is a bit of an understatement. I was terrified. And with all the times Yukie's attempted to help me get over that fear, I really should have seen this coming.

Now here we stood, facing the entire team. Or rather, Yukie was facing them. Me? Yeah, I was cowering behind her.

Despite all my attempts to calm myself and try all those stupid little 'erase your fear' sorts of tricks, I was still shaking and cowering behind my best friend. That is until a certain guy decided to get a closer look at me.

"Hey there!" Seemingly out of nowhere, a guy jumped out from the other side of Yukie to right next to me. Instantly, I jumped back, tripping over my own feet and falling on my backside. Throwing my arms up like a shield, I could feel my entire body shaking.

This was a bad idea. No, it was the worst idea ever in the entire history of bad ideas. How could Yukie possibly think this would help me get over my fear?

Lucky for me, one of the guy's teammates quickly dragged the energetic fellow away, scolding him for 'idiotic behavior'. It was that moment when I felt like maybe, just maybe this had a chance of working... a very slim chance.

Months passed and I started to get over some of my fear. At least, I wasn't so afraid of the boys of the volleyball team... as long as they didn't try to touch me. Well, I'd gotten over Bokuto, the energetic guy who nearly gave me a heart attack on the first day, and simply slapped his hands away whenever he made any attempt to touch me.

But over time, there was one member of the team who'd caught my attention. Someone who I'd wished would try to get close to me. That just so happened to be the one who'd rescued me from Bokuto on that first day. And almost every day after that.

Akaashi was an interesting guy, but for some reason, he always seemed to keep his distance. Everyone else would try to interact with me in some way outside of my manager duties, but Keiji Akaashi seemed like he was trying to stay as far away as he could. Maybe that was why I was so interested in him. Don't they always say that you always want something more when you can't have it?

I thought about mentioning it to Yukie but decided against it. She'd only accuse me of having a crush or some nonsense. You can't have a crush on a guy when you're terrified of men... right? It wouldn't make any sense...

As I thought about it, I found myself getting distracted from my task in the middle of practice. And when that is volleyball, that can be a dangerous mistake. I didn't even feel it hit me; I just heard voices shouting at me before everything instantly went dark.

I don't know how much time passed, but when my eyes opened, I quickly noticed that I wasn't in the gym anymore. This was the nurse's office, but just how did I get here? My head was feeling a bit fuzzy and I couldn't remember what was going on before I blacked out.

"You could have dodged that one," a calm and familiar sounding voice said nearby as I forced myself to sit up. With my head still a bit out of it, it took a moment to put a name with the voice, even though I was looking right at him. "You've done it every other time, so what happened this time?"

You. Akaashi was right though, I could have blocked or dodged it if I hadn't been distracted. As much as I would have loved to, I couldn't exactly tell him that it had been his fault.

There was a dull pain in my head where the ball hit and I quickly placed my hand there. "I was distracted." It kinda hurt to think.

That answer wasn't what Akaashi was looking for. "That was very obvious," he frowned. "Why were you distracted?"

As much as I would have loved to answer him, Akaashi was the one person that I couldn't tell this to. All I could do was look down at the floor. With the silence and my eyes focused elsewhere, I didn't notice him approaching me until the toes of his shoes came into my view.

Being so close, my nerves were instantly put on edge. Yes, I did want to be close to Akaashi. I wanted to know how it would feel to have his lips touch mine... But that didn't mean that I wasn't still scared. Or at the very least, nervous.

A hand touched my chin and tilted my head up to meet Akaashi's intense and emotionless stare. Then it hit me: he was touching me. My body stiffened against my will.

"Are you scared?" Unable to speak, I simply nodded. "Of me?" I shook my head. Akaashi wasn't scary. No, I could never be afraid of him. However, he was still a man and men scare me. Bit of a tough situation, huh? "Do you wish for me to leave?"

I didn't. If anything, I wanted him to come closer. But that would only increase the already high level of anxiety that I was feeling. "I-I don't..." I barely managed to stutter out. Then without thinking, another word slipped out. "... closer..."

He raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything. My gaze slipped from his eyes down to his lips. Now that I wasn't looking him directly in the eyes, my nerves calmed just a little. And when his hand was removed from my face, they calmed a bit more.

His hands reached for mine, pulling me to my feet and then into his arms. And there go my nerves again. My hands rested against his chest and I squeezed my eyes shut as I tried to calm my racing heart. One arm was around my waist and his hand rested on my cheek.

What expression was on his face right now? I couldn't tell; I couldn't bring myself to open my eyes. "Do you wish for me to stop?" his voice asked calmly. It sounded so close... was he right by my ear when he spoke?

I shook my head. "N-no..." Face your fears, right? If you can stand strong against something you're afraid of, then it's supposed to help you become less afraid. Or that's what people say anyway. I've never dared to test it.

When he spoke again, I could feel his breath against my lips. "I have no intentions of hurting you. If you don't feel the same, then by all means, please stop me..." I didn't really understand what he meant, but I'm sure if I'd had my eyes open, I'm sure I'd have understood before it happened.

Nothing more was said; no more words were needed. As Akaashi kissed me, his feelings were clear. And even more, my mind stopped thinking and I felt my fears melting away.

Maybe, just maybe, this would work after all... That's what I thought as I returned both his kiss and his feelings.