Sayuri spends a lot of
time observing the mutant children when they first start living on the base.
She, like all of the humans on this base, wonders a lot about their past, and
what the scientists were thinking when they created them.
For one thing, she
wonders why so many of them are male. Was that a preference of the scientists?
Or—and she shudders to think—did the women just not make it out?
She wonders why the
only girl who made it out clearly isn’t a soldier, like the rest. She wonders
if that was sexism on the part of the scientists—did they not think women could
be soldiers?
And she wonders what
the boys think about this lone girl in their company. What is she to the
others?
*
The first time she
catches one of the other Privates eyeing the thirteen year old girl in a
distinctly leering fashion she’s about to deck the man without warning.
Blue (literally) beats
her to it, as in a bright blue flash the man goes flying, and there’s a
snarling teenage boy glowing in bright lights saying, “Look at her again and
I’ll snap your neck.”
“Blue,” the girl
chides.
Sayuri makes a mental
note, and continues to observe.
*
It’s not just Blue,
later named Aomine, although he is the most vigilant. Midorima will help her
move heavy objects, Kise can be just as watchful as Aomine, even Murasakibara
will sometimes position himself as a shield between Momoi and what might be a
threat.
Is it because she is
“the girl?” It is disappointing to Sayuri, although she’s not sure why she
would expect human experimentation scientists to be a little more progressive
when genetically designing superhumans.
*
“Momoi-san, I do not
think it is a good idea for you to venture out at night,” Sayuri overhears
Kuroko say one day. (Kuroko, who of all the Miracles, is not the most
athletically inclined).
“Tetsu-kun! Not you
too! Don’t be so paranoid.”
“I am sorry,
Momoi-san. Old habits die hard.”
“Well, it’s not the
same anymore. We saw to that, remember?”
“Yes, I know.”
“You’re not in danger
anymore,” Momoi says.
“Yes,” Kuroko says.
And leaves it at that.
Not the same, Sayuri repeats in her mind. You’re not
in danger anymore.
*
There’s a time to be
devious when trying to wheedle answers out of the Miracles, and there’s a time
to be blunt. She eyes Aomine and says, “Why do you protect Satsuki?”
“I protect all of
them,” Aomine snarls. And Sayuri nods once, allowing for her error. Asking
Aomine was a mistake. He does protect all of them.
So she asks Midorima
next, because he is the most likely to give her a straightforward answer.
He pushes up his
glasses and doesn’t look at her when he says, “Because she’s our control
tower.”
Sayuri thinks through
this and says slowly, “Your data analyst.”
And it’s more than
that, she realizes.
In chess, the king is
a largely stationary piece. More useless than a pawn. But if you lose the king,
you lose the game.
You’re not in danger
anymore.
Old habits die hard.
“Without Satsuki on a
mission, you could all die.”
Midorima doesn’t
confirm this, but Sayuri thinks about how occasionally, they’ll talk about a
mission where Satsuki got bad information and not all of them made it back. How
terrifying it must be, for them to venture out without any information at all.
“I see,” she says.
A/N: ahaha, sorry this
took so long, friend! And that it went in a somewhat completely different
direction than you were probably imagining. It was an interesting concept to
explore, though, so I hope you enjoyed! =D
Midorima tends to
associate Takao with laughter, because Takao is someone who always laughs.
Laughter is one of those very human things that Midorima didn’t know
much about until they’d escaped Teiko.
There wasn’t a lot of
laughter in Teiko.
After a few months
living on the JSDF base, Midorima corrects his initial understanding—laughter
isn’t inherently human. After all, the scientists in Teiko never laughed
either. It’s not something everyone does. In fact, he thinks the world could be
separated into two different types of people: those who laugh and those who
don’t.
(Not laughter in
general, that is. Most everyone laughs, at some point. But, Midorima thinks,
laughter can be a state of being. Either you’re the kind of person who laughs a
lot or you’re not. Midorima is not. In all fairness, he is fairly certain he
wouldn’t be, even if he hadn’t been raised in a lab.)
*
But it isn’t just
laughter—Takao is almost always making noise. Even when they’re studying
together—an activity that pretty much everyone agrees should be silent—Takao
sometimes hums to himself or taps his pencil against the desk. It bothered
Midorima at first, but not anymore. It’s another one of those things that makes
the outside world so different than Teiko—there was never any sounds in Teiko,
not like this.
And it’s another thing
that makes Takao so different from everyone else.
*
And still it takes him
entirely surprise, the first time he hears Takao sing. The basketball club goes
to a Karaoke bar (“For team building,” says Miyaji)—Midorima opts out of
singing (no amount of cajoling will convince him to give it a try) but Takao
nearly stops him from breathing.
He has to sit there
the entire time Takao sings and pretend that he doesn’t care at all—that the
sound means nothing to him. Because he thinks that if he doesn’t control
himself this way, he’ll get up and kiss Takao right in front of everyone, or do
something equally embarrassing. He wants to listen to the sound forever and
feels like so much loss when Takao’s turn stops and someone else gets up to
sing.
*
Then it’s just a
matter of catching Takao at it—it happens sometimes, in the same idle way that
Takao sometimes hums. It’s always too short, and Midorima always wishes there
was a way he could capture it forever (it would be too embarrassing to ask
Takao for a recording. He still can’t even admit that he likes the sound).
*
Someday, he thinks.
Someday he’ll tell Takao. Someday he’ll have the song forever.
But for now he keeps
it secret, because it seems like one of those things that no one else should
know.
A/N: Thanks for the
prompt, anon-friend! It was very similar to this prompt here and I almost
thought about combining them, but then thought they would both make interesting
follow-ups to this prompt here. Also, I freely admit this short has some
similarities to this short. Apparently I just like working a theme with these
two.
Izuki eyes his younger
sister. All things considered, her question is not completely off track, but
he’s not entirely sure how she could know that. “What brought you to
that conclusion?”
“He had dinner at our
house,” Mai says.
“Hyuuga has dinner at
our house all the time,” Izuki says. “And I told you, Hayama missed his train—”
“Yeah, yeah, and the
next train wouldn’t be for awhile, I heard you,” Mai says, rolling her eyes.
“But, like, he laughed at all our jokes.”
“Our jokes are funny,”
Izuki defends.
“Our jokes are hilarious,”
Mai says, “But you have to admit, most people who are not in this family don’t
tend to agree with that.”
Izuki nods because yes,
this is a sad but true statement regarding their jokes.
“Also, why are you
even playing with someone from a different school anyway?” Mai says. “Wouldn’t
it get weird for tournaments?”
“I’d only ever play
him in nationals, so, not really?”
“Nationals? He doesn’t
go to a Tokyo school?”
“No,” Izuki says, but
then he grimaces because maybe he had been neglecting to actually
mention… “He goes to Rakuzan.”
“Rakuzan?” Mai
yelps. “In Kyoto? And he was visiting you here?”
“It’s not that—weird,”
Izuki says, realizing that it probably is.
*
“Oh my God!” Mai says,
bursting into his room the next day. “Do you know who he is?”
“Who?” Izuki frowns.
“Your boyfriend! Hayama Kotarou! He’s a super genius basketball player.”
“Uh, yeah, I did know
that. And he’s not my boyfriend.”
“He has appeared in magazines,”
Mai says. “He’s being professionally scouted! His family is super rich!”
“They are?” Izuki
says.
“He goes to Rakuzan,
of course they are! You don’t just have a boyfriend, you have a boyfriend who
is way out of your league!”
“Hey!”
“Don’t get me wrong,
Nii-san, I wholeheartedly approve. You found a rich, successful man who laughs
at our jokes. For the love of God, marry him.”
“Get out of my room,”
Izuki says.
“Fine, I have to go
tell mom and Nee-san about your knight in shining amour.”
Izuki pauses, laughs,
and then nods, “Yes, that was a good one, but he’s not my boyfriend so cut it
out.”
“Are you kidding me?
There are millions of unexplored romantic themed puns this family has yet to be
able to utilize, we’re not letting this one go any time soon.”
A/N: Hahaha, thanks
friend! I am glad you enjoy the series and the HayaIzu! Sorry for the lack of
actual Hayama in this one, but I all of the sudden had an intense desire to
write Izuki interacting with his family. The hardest part of writing this rare
pair ship is having to come up with puns. Hope you enjoyed!
After he moved into
the Kasamatsu household, Kise began to make all kinds of discoveries about
Kasamatsu Yukio that he would have never known otherwise (thus solidifying his
sense that this move was the right one to make).
For example, he knew
Kasamatsu enjoyed music, and even knew the older boy played the guitar as a
hobby, but he hadn’t known that Kasamatsu is actually a very good
guitar player.
And he hadn’t known
that Kasamatsu sometimes likes to sing while he’s playing.
*
The thing is, Kise has
to try very hard not to make a big deal about this. If Kasamatsu knew how
fascinated Kise is by his playing, he might not do it. Kise has learned that
Kasamatsu is rather shy about the fact that he plays the guitar. And he
definitely doesn’t like it when other people are around when he sings.
The first few times,
Kise overheard him when he was out of their room; in a rare glimpse that was
like a lightning-strike, he never knew when it would happen next. But gradually
Kasamatsu has come to accept Kise as a presence in their shared room, and
sometimes he will play without acknowledging Kise’s presence at all. (Kise lies
very still the entire time, on the idea that if he doesn’t draw attention to
himself, then Kasamatsu will keep playing. It’s little things like this that
Kise has learned the value of from Kuroko).
*
When he feels more
confident that Kasamatsu won’t abruptly stop playing, Kise finally has the
courage to venture, “You’re really very good at that, Senpai.”
“I don’t need to hear
that from you,” Kasamatsu says, rolling his eyes. “It just sounds
condescending.”
“What do you mean?”
Kise says, and he pouts about it in his usual way to mask the fact that he’s
genuinely stung by the comment.
Despite his attempt at
masking the hurt, Kasamatsu looks at him questioningly, like maybe he senses
something is wrong anyway. “You’re amazing,” Kasamatsu clarifies. “I’ve
heard you at karaoke, you match the singers perfectly.”
“I Copy the singers,”
Kise says, and he feels a little incredulous that he even has to have this conversation
with Kasamatsu, who should know better than anyone that there’s a difference.
“With my Latent Overflow.” He smiles wryly. “It’s not like I could actually create
anything. I’m only ever just a Copy.”
That was far too much
of the truth, and Kasamatsu looks at him sharply. “You’re not. Copying
just means you’re finding your own style, that doesn’t make it any less real.
You’re incredibly talented, Kise.”
Kise has to glance
down, because otherwise his emotions will show and he doesn’t want Kasamatsu to
see how happy that made him, not yet. When he’s composed himself he manages to
smile again when he looks back up and says, “Oh, well, yes, I am
amazing, which is how I know you’re a very good musician, Senpai, and you
really should play in front of a wider audience—”
“Stop, stop flattering
me, it’s still weird,” Kasamatsu says, and the tips of his ears are red, and
Kise thinks maybe Kasamatsu just doesn’t know how to handle praise.
All in all, maybe it’s
best if Kasamatsu doesn’t play in front of a wider audience. Kise rather
likes being his only fan.
A/N: Thanks for the
prompt, anon-friend! This is a follow-up to this prompt here, because I thought
the two would work well together in terms of why Kise in particular might be
fascinated by the creation of music. Hope you enjoyed!
just moving along like everyone else 