𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙨 • multiship

-- 𝐭𝐞𝐧: 𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐚

HINATA SHOUYOU was an anomaly.

the royal family was beautiful, both before tailoring and after. hinata knows he isn't beautiful. hinata knows what that means in this castle, in this society. hinata knows that he is an outlier.

the other thing that set hinata apart from the other royals was his familiarity with the other side.

hinata knew death as if it were an old friend.

death first knocked on hinata shouyou's door when he was only twelve years old.

the easiest way to ruin a man was by going harming his family. when hinata was twelve, foreign assassins were sent to kill his whole family.

they got to his younger sister first. she was practically a newborn, and hinata watched her die.

the assassins then went for him, branded foreign words into his thigh with a dagger and then took his left eye. they left him in his room to rot.

they then went for his parents, killing them in a way that left no mercy. he doesn't know how, all hinata remembered was the screams.

the words "please do not hurt my children" will forever haunt him.

as if the bloody massacre wasn't enough, the assassins then let the hinata vacation manor burn.

they set fire to the libraries first, destroying hundreds of years worth of knowledge. they stole important artifacts, and then left the manor in a blaze.

hinata was the only survivor.

but his survival came with a price.

as the now duke of the western territories, hinata shouyou harbors scars both physical and mental.

the most visible scar would be his mechanical left eye. no amount of tailoring, no matter how talented, could hide the metal whirring in his eye socket.

then, there was the words etched into his thigh. sakusa had told him that it read LONG LIVE THE KING in their ancient lettering.

less noticeable though were the scars left in his mind. hinata could barely remember his parents, but he will always remember the screams.

if tailoring could ever tailor his memories into oblivion, hinata would do it in an instant.

the king had kept what had happened to the hinata family a secret from the kingdom.

sakusa's father ruled with an iron fist. he made no exceptions. now that hinata is old enough to understand, he is shocked that he is even allowed to continue holding his title.

that is why he supposed his history was a secret.

though hinata's history was locked away permanently, his childish nature is well known both throughout the castle and the kingdom.

the kingdom loved it's duke, the belles doted on him, and even crown prince sakusa kiyoomi's face softened when hinata shouyou entered the room.

hinata's bashfulness stems from his childhood innocence being stolen from him at such a young age. since he never had the time to be a child, he tended to deflect and act like one now, even though he has quite outgrown younger himself.

as previously mentioned, he was adored in the castle. his closest friendships other than sakusa were most likely two belles by the name of sugawara koushi and kozume kenma.

suga had arrived at the castle only three years after hinata was introduced at court as the duke of the western territories. he had been a constant beam of support and comfort in hinata's life and hinata was unsure of where he would be without the grey haired belle.

kozume kenma and hinata have absolutely nothing in common. where hinata is loud and abrasive, kenma is quiet and polite. he rarely even spoke at all.

kenma was known as the brain of the belles. his level of intellect was marveled by many, even sakusa himself respected the man.

hinata loved hearing kenma talk. though the belle rarely did speak, whenever he did it was always meaningful.

hinata's closest ties to the belles have always been through kenma and sugawara, but even he was affected by the imminent departure of oikawa tooru.

oikawa had also taken hinata under his wing. hinata never felt uncomfortable showing his scars to oikawa, and oikawa was one of the few people that still took hinata at face value after seeing his scars.

when oikawa had brought up that it wouldn't be his protege miya atsumu taking up hinata's tailoring but kageyama tobio, hinata was shocked.

oikawa had tried reassuring the ginger that he would be in good hands by telling him that he had mentored kageyama back in their years of training but it didn't quite work.

hinata was just too shocked that the belle he had practically gotten into a physical altercation with would become such a large part of his life so fast.

hinata shouyou was typically always open for change, but this fostered an odd feeling in his soul.

it was unsettling.