Let's Take It Slow

Characters: Yachi Hitoka, Yamaguchi Tadashi, Tsukishima Kei, Hinata Shoyou, Kageyama Tobio

Pairing: Yamaguchi Tadashi x Yachi Hitoka

Word Count: 3, 396 words

Summary: When Hinata suggested the volleyball first years to ride the infamous Drop Tower during their outing to the amusement park, Yachi had already long decided not to join them. Will she ever change her mind and face her fear once again?

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When Yachi agreed to tag along with the first year volleyball boys on their outing to the amusement park, getting caught in a whirlwind of begs and pleadings from Hinata for her to ride the Drop Tower with them was certainly not part of her agenda.

"Yachi, please! It won't be fun if you don't ride with us!" He begs her once again, but she still refuses to get in line with them. Kageyama smacks the back of his head and yells at him to stop forcing her to take the ride if she doesn't want to, but being the airhead he is, he continues with his desperate bombardment of beggings and pleadings.

She is very much aware of the attention they're attracting. Almost everyone in line has their eyes on them, some looking amused and others annoyed at the ruckus they're making. Being in the spotlight makes her extremely uncomfortable. She so desperately wants Hinata to give up and let her go.

In a different situation, she would've just given in and let the other party get what they want. In this case, she could just join in the line so that Hinata would finally shut up. But she knows better than to deliberately put herself into a near-death experience once again. The beast of a ride looming above them right now is something out of this world, a creation made by the gods themselves to take those onboard past the puffy white clouds and straight to the gates of heaven, before plunging their soulless body back down to Earth. She survived it once a few years back and she swore to never ride it ever again. Not even her friend's wide pleading eyes, which usually worked against her, could change her mind.

She could still vividly recall how terrified she had been as soon as she'd been fastened to the seat. She had willingly step into the line back then, not knowing what to expect but still wanted to feel a sense of accomplishment for riding one of the most intense ride in the park. The ride hadn't even started yet but her hands were already clammy with sweat as she gripped onto the metal handle tightly as if her life depended on it. Her heart started beating furiously against her chest when the seats started moving and everyone onboard were lifted up slowly. The ascend had been torturously slow. Each second of it was a nightmare. Despite knowing the drop will only happen once they were at the top, she couldn't help but think that they could fall at any moment.

Except, they didn't fall and were only taken even higher than before.

Then they finally stopped.

There was a pause.

The pause.

If someone were to ask her what was the scariest part of the ride, she wouldn't take a moment's hesitation to reply it was the pause at the peak.

Up at the highest point, she could see the whole park below and even the expanse beyond the parking lot. The loud music that was initially blasting against her eardrums sounded much more distant and the people below looked like ants. It was the longest ten seconds of her life and in each second, her heart threatened to burst out of her chest. Somehow, she felt lonely waiting up in the sky even though there were other riders onboard with her. She didn't realise it sooner but maybe, at the moment of vulnerability and uncertainty of what to was to come, she needed someone to be right next to her.