fear. || { bnha }

fourteen.

a/n: i wrote these next two chapters side by side, so have a double upload
pls don't kill me anymore

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Valui Dyer was missing for five days.

The first day, Hitoshi assumed she was avoiding him. He spent the majority of the day pacing around his room, waiting for any kind of message to appear on his phone. Anxiety gripped at his mind — had he done something wrong? He didn't think he did. If he hadn't done something wrong, then the next explanation was that something had happened to her.

Hitoshi didn't know which scenario was worse.

He didn't sleep that night.

The second day, Hitoshi left his house early in an attempt to run into her on the train that they rode to school. He got there early — thirty minutes or so — and took a seat on a bench and just waited.

And waited.

And waited.

But Valui never showed up.

Hitoshi found himself going through the day in a fog, and not just because he was tired. He couldn't focus on anything being said to him in class — not even when he was told that he had gotten a recruitment offer. He simply nodded to acknowledge that he at least heard what was being said to him, even if he didn't listen to it.

The paper was shoved halfheartedly to the back of his desk.

He hardly responded to anyone who spoke to him, instead opting to leave his phone open to the fairly empty message thread between them. The only one from her end was her sending her name so he got her number — the rest were him asking if she was there and if she was okay. Staring at her name sent waves of pain crashing over him — if she wasn't avoiding him, then where was she? Was she okay?

Later that night, Hitoshi got his answer.

He was sitting at the dinner table with his parents, purple eyes staring listlessly down at his food — he probably hadn't moved since he had sat down. The TV was on in the next room, the sound of news reports filling their air.

"Recently, a young girl has gone missing from the UA High School area."

Oh my god—

The sentence was enough to make Hitoshi's eyes grow wide with fear. He bolted from the chair, knocking over a cup and all its contents in the process as he ran into the living room. His mother called after him, but his ears blocked out anything except what was being said on the television.

"Valui Dyer, age fifteen, went missing from the UA area two days ago. Her current whereabouts are unknown. She was last seen wearing—"

Hitoshi's ears started ringing. White noise filled his head. He was frozen, staring at the news reporter in a mixture of fear and confusion. It felt like a dream — like he was in some kind of nightmare that he couldn't wake up from. Missing. Gone. She was gone. Valui was gone. He couldn't bring himself to believe it; his brain wouldn't allow it.

Her picture being displayed on the screen was the straw that broke him.

Hitoshi felt his knees give out and the floor rush up to meet him, but he hardly reacted. He watched helplessly as the screen switched to report about something else — something so mind numbingly irrelevant as compared to what he was worried about. They acted like nothing happened, like it wasn't a big deal that a girl had gone missing; that she was possibly dead by now; that that picture of her could be the last time he'd ever see her; that he had promised to keep her safe; that her smile lit up his entire world and her presence brought him unrivalled peace; that he was so helplessly in love with her and now she would never know.