Darkest Before Dawn - 130

Chapter 130

[Momo Yaoyorozu]

The school trip was not going as she’d hoped.

Granted, that started all the way before they even got on the buses, when they were told about the change in plans. However, she’d held hope still that maybe things weren’t going to be so bad. Training with her friends in the facilities at UA was very fun and nobody was left out in conversations there, least of all her.

Because that wasn’t always the case when they were out of school. She couldn’t talk about music like Kazuki and Kyoka, after all. She couldn’t talk about games like… well, a bunch of her friends. She couldn’t talk about fashion quite like the other girls. Even topics that she knew about, like that latter one, Momo felt like there was a division between her knowledge and that of others.

And she knew why it was, she also knew that she stumbled on things like that often. She’d say something and her friends would pause and look at her like they couldn’t understand, like she’d said something nonsensical. They wondered why she didn’t realize that she was saying something odd, not realizing that she did. She just never knew how to react to that. It made her relate to some of the stuff Kazuki would mention casually about that she – and everyone else – couldn’t relate to at all.

It happened to her a lot, Momo knew by then.

So, a week somewhere with friends and a topic she could talk about with no issues? She thought the trip would be alright, even if not as fun, for everyone else and herself. She could work with that and she’d enjoy the opportunity even if it wasn’t ideal.

That’s what she thought, at least.

She’d been wrong.

Momo wasn’t wrong often, if she did say so herself, but when she was wrong, she was very wrong. Such was the case with the trip, because she felt like she’d barely spent any time with her friends. They talked during meals, but she didn’t feel like they got into it as much as they usually would. Which wasn’t bad, for the rest of them, she realized, but for her… it made her feel like she was further away from them than she already felt like she was.

Admittedly, much of her downtrodden mood was due to Kazuki. Not because he’d done or said something to her… the opposite, in fact. Momo felt like she’d barely talked to her friend during the entire time they’d been in the woods.

(Friend. Yes, friend.)

He’d been taking it easy and it showed a kind of separation with the rest of them. He wasn’t as tired, or as frustrated, or as… anything as the rest of them. So, that was already something that set him apart. However, that was far from all. Kazuki had also seemed to have taken Kota – Mandalay’s nephew – under his wing. They spent more and more time together as the day passed and that meant less time for them.

(For her.)

Momo couldn’t even be mad about it, because she knew how important it was to Kazuki. He’d said it himself, that he cared about children in particular, about helping children in particular. How was she supposed to say something negative about that, even if he hadn’t mentioned that? If anything, the mere idea just made her feel selfish and generally awful.

“Oh, hey, Momo.”

She almost wanted to curse her heart for jumping in her chest and her cheeks for heating up when he just greeted her. She must not have been as obvious as she felt she was though, because her friends – that weren’t there at that moment, but were usually around at other such times – had never mentioned or reacted like they noticed anything. They knew she liked Kazuki, of course, but at least she didn’t think she was as obvious as she thought she must be.

It wasn’t saying much, admittedly.

Not that it made a difference with the boy himself either.

“Hello,” she greeted as neutrally as she could. Kazuki smiled at her – which was all sorts of unfair, truly – and stopped playing his violin. The Grimm around him kept moving though, especially the one carrying Kota around like it was a glorified horse. “You’re having fun.”

“A little fun, a little training, the best of both worlds, if you will,” her friend said with some laughter in his tone. She liked seeing Kazuki happy, enjoying himself, she really did. She’d admit – to herself, that is – that she wished she could be a part of that though, instead of being outside looking in. “Done with your training already?” he asked, and she couldn’t blame him for the curious tone.

It was earlier than she usually finished.

“I finished my exercises faster than expected and was given a little time to myself,” she answered with a slight smile that only widened when Kazuki grinned at her.

“Congrats,” he said and he meant it, even if he didn’t put a lot of energy into it. She could tell by the way his expression shifted. Kazuki wasn’t the most open about his feelings, after all, even less so after his acting classes with Uwabami. Sure, he showed plenty, maybe even more than most people, but it was always measured, always careful and controlled.

She wasn’t a fan of that, not at all.

It reminded her too much of the people in her parents’ and – by association, if nothing else – her circles. Always with masks, some more well crafted than others. At least Kazuki had good excuses for his, she supposed, but she liked it the most when it wasn’t a mask that she was looking at, like at that very moment.

“I’m happy for you,” he added and her own grin was now matching his. “I think I’ll be able to call my training off in a bit without feeling guilty. Maybe we can do something afterwards?” he asked and she resisted the urge to cheer out loud.

It was a close thing though.

Her plan had worked though. It had taken effort, a lot of it, to finish her exercise so thoroughly and early. It had taken some convincing to be allowed to have a little extra time off. It had taken some maneuvering to discreetly find out where Kazuki was training…

But it had all been worth it.

[}-o-{]

[Kazuki Endo]

“Off you go, little dude,” he said, having to keep his smile nice and small even though he wanted to laugh at Kota’s glare. If he thought he could get Kazuki to stop calling him kid or some variation of that by pouting like a kid, then he was very wrong, obviously. It didn’t help that Kazuki found that hilarious. “You have assignments to do still, don’t you?”

“Most of it is done already,” the boy mumbled as an answer, but Kazuki was having none of that. He knew Shino was grateful and all, she’d told him as much, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t feel guilty if Kota failed something because of him. Besides, he did want a moment to himself, even with as much as he enjoyed the kid’s company.

“Then finish it and we can spend time together all you want,” Kazuki told Kota. “Maybe we can get Shino to teach you to play piano and see if you like it. We can even try to play something together. If you want. If not we can look up some stuff for my Grimm, how does it sound?” he offered, hoping the kid would take one of those offers. Not just because he wanted some time to spend with Momo, who had been a little down those days, but also because he kind of hoped they sounded like good ones to Kota.

Was it selfishness or pride that made him want the kid to like spending time with him? He wasn’t sure, maybe it was something else entirely. His vocabulary had improved with all his acting and PR classes, but he only knew so much.

“Ok,” Kota mumbled, pouting rather adorably. “You promise?” he added then, eyes narrowed and doubtful, as if Kazuki would go back on the deal or something. Instead, he had to hold back the urge to laugh… and also the urge to just do one of those things immediately instead of later.

He had too much of a soft spot for kids, he was starting to realize.

Kazuki didn’t think it was a bad thing, at all.

“I promise,” he replied, not even having to fake confidence or honesty. All the same, he tried to project those a little extra so that Kota would get the idea more clearly. Nothing worse than being called a liar when you were telling the truth.

“Ok,” the boy repeated, getting off the beowolf he’d been riding on. “You can have some time with your girlfriend, but remember that you promised,” he grumbled and Kazuki just rolled his eyes – even though Kota wasn’t looking at him – and sighed. Beside him, expectedly, he felt emotions spiking in Momo, so he was quick to reassure her.

“I’ll correct that later. Little shit thinks he’s funny,” he said, keeping himself focused and calm so that Momo would understand. If anything, that seemed to make her feel worse, the mix of negative emotions getting a little confusing. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have thought she was disappointed.

That didn’t make sense though. There was nothing to be disappointed about, as far as Kazuki could tell. Or maybe she was disappointed she didn’t have a boyfriend yet or something? Kazuki made a mental note to steer clear of that topic, maybe with all the girls. He’d noticed them reacting kind of oddly when the subject came up.

‘Normal people, normal worries,’ he thought wryly.

For once, he was a little glad to have basically crossed out romance from the list of things involved in his life. He’d still rather have the chance like a normal guy, but there was no denying that there were some positives to the situation. Kazuki had truly made an art of looking for silver linings, he realized.

“Well, did you want to do something in particular? Maybe the others are free too and we can hang out for a bit,” he commented as he considered their options. There really wasn’t that much to do around there, especially since they couldn’t go unsupervised out into the woods. Kazuki ended up backpedalling spectacularly though, when he noticed Momo’s emotions spiking again.

‘Ok, the others are likely busy and that’s strike two. Let’s not fuck up again, Kazuki,’ he thought to himself, resisting the urge to outwardly show how nervous he was feeling all of a sudden. Instead, he pulled on all his training to improvise.

“Then again, that’s not very likely,” he continued, as if nothing had happened. “Do you think there’s anything we can do by ourselves?” he asked, returning to his first question and hoping that was safe enough.

“Not that I know of,” she all but mumbled as an answer, rubbing her arm self-consciously. “Haven’t had a lot of free time yet,” she added with a helpless shrug and a hesitant smile that did very little to hide her embarrassment. At the same time, Kazuki kind of panicked a little, because he didn’t exactly have a lot of options. Most of his free time had been spent with Kota, since he didn’t have training to do, and he doubted Momo wanted to do any of the things he and the kid did… “You said…” she started then, making him perk up.

Maybe he spooked her a little doing that though, because she cut herself off after that. Still, Kazuki waved his hand and smiled, trying his best to encourage her to speak up. Privately, he resolved to do whatever it was that she asked, just to avoid any more awkwardness and to not make her feel worse than she already was.

“You said something about working on a song together with Kota?” she said, and he wasn’t sure if it was truly a question or more of a statement. It was probably the latter though, considering she continued immediately afterwards with an actual question. “Maybe we could do that? I know how to play piano.”

“Sure,” he said, and he didn’t even need to fake his enthusiasm, because… “That sounds great!”

And the responding beaming smile would have been worth it even if it hadn’t.

[}-o-{]

There was a slight problem with their plan and it was that Kazuki didn’t actually remember Shino saying if she had a piano in hand or not. So, either he half-remembered or he’d just assumed she did. He only realized that when Momo and him were already on their way to ask for permission, which was…

Yeah…

Fortunately, either he had half-remembered right or he’d been lucky, because Shino did, indeed, have a piano on hand. Kazuki was barely able to conceal his relief, because not only would that have been extremely awkward with Momo, it’d have been twice as awkward once Kota was added into the mix. He thanked his lucky stars all the while as they followed the woman to the spot the instrument was on, truly. He wanted to hide in a corner and disappear just thinking about what could have happened.

Slight dramatics aside, the new problem then was that he didn’t really know any piano-violin duets. It wasn’t like he’d expected to play with others at any point in his life. ‘Although, thinking about it, maybe I should. Momo’s one, but Kyoka might want to play together at some point. We could even play all three at once,’ he thought to himself then, wondering why he’d never thought about that.

Or maybe he had and he’d forgotten.

His poor memory was being doubted a lot that day.

“Do you know any duets? I don’t actually know if any of the songs I play can be played in tandem with piano,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck with his bow hand. Fortunately, nothing seemed to happen with Momo’s emotions. He took that to mean that she did, in fact, have something in mind that they could play.

“I think one or two do,” Momo said with a beaming smile that reassured him plenty. Maybe she even knew those songs too and they’d be able to avoid the awkward- “I know a few others too, do you think we could practice those?”-... Never mind, he supposed. Awkward learning curve it was. Why Momo wanted to suffer that, he didn’t know, but she looked too excited for him to say anything.

Was he being a bit of a pushover? Definitely. But Momo had been feeling a little down recently, which was part of the reason why they were where they were. So, with that in mind, he didn’t think he could be blamed for caving so easily.

“Sure thing,” Kazuki said with a slight smile and he knew it was the right choice when Momo beamed brightly at him. ‘Maybe I’m getting the hang of this social thing,’ he thought to himself, more than a little giddy too. “What did you have in mind?”

He came to regret his life choices very soon.

‘... Of course it’s a romantic song,’ he thought to himself, trying to will his smile not to be awkward or anything like that. He should have expected that. Momo was no Kyoka, after all. She liked more… Was it sexist to call them girly things? Was it insulting to Kyoka? Kazuki didn’t know, but he couldn’t think of a better word at the moment. Good thing no one could read his mind.

Still, it wasn’t like it was the first time he played something romantic. Hell, he’d literally played a song called Ballade to Momo’s parents. Maybe she’d assumed he preferred that kind of thing and that’s why she went with that? Maybe she had other options? Here was hoping…

‘Although, we’re likely to be stuck with this song for a while,’ he realized then, when they were already each with their instrument and starting to try their hands at the song. ‘Gotta remember to ask for next time,’ he decided, regretting not having done so before.

Well, at least they weren’t going to be doing that for too long, he supposed, still doing his best. What kind of friend would he be if he didn’t? Even if it was awkward to play such a song together with his very beautiful friend, he could still make an effort for her. ‘Don’t make it weird, Kazuki,’ he told himself, focusing on the music instead.

He was thinking about that kind of thing a whole lot those days, he realized, and that was really messing with his efforts to relax. Couldn’t very well do that when he was feeling awkward or depressed, after all. Kazuki was a master of pushing through such things though, if he did say so himself, so at least it wasn’t a complete failure. He was feeling better than before, at least.

Just the fact that there were a lot less people around was a huge boon.

“Ok, that could have gone better,” he commented wryly, when one of their first attempts had them being completely out of sync. Funnily enough, they’d tried to correct that for a bit while playing, but that somehow just made everything worse. “Again?”

“Again,” Momo said, grinning widely. She seemed to be having fun, even with all their very terrible failures. So, Kazuki slowly let go of his nerves and awkwardness to just focus on what they were doing. If she enjoyed it, then that was all he could ask for, truly.

‘Maybe I’m just overthinking it,’ he thought to himself, taking a deep breath in and just treating the whole thing as a normal song. He hadn’t learned Ballade or any of the other songs with romantic meanings because they were romantic, after all. ‘Definitely overthinking it,’ he thought, smiling slightly as they somehow managed a good few seconds of the song. It was probably a fluke, but that was fine.

They’d get there, he was sure.

[}-o-{]

[Kota Izumi]

“Of course I’ll help you learn piano, Kota!” Shino said and her obvious enthusiasm only made things more awkward for him. As if things weren’t already awkward after he’d listened to Kazuki and told her he loved her. He really shouldn’t have done that. She’d hugged him! And she’d cried!

‘Stupid Kazuki,’ Kota thought to himself, holding back a pout. He was not going to pout. At least Shino wasn’t reacting like before, so that was a relief. ‘Stupid Kazuki,’ he repeated, and he was more annoyed that he couldn’t actually be annoyed at the guy. Why couldn’t he?

“Was there anything in particular you wanted to play?” And why did Shino look so excited anyway? Kota was already regretting both asking her and considering trying out piano. Surely there’d be some other instrument that’d be better, right? He was… He was…

He was struggling, he knew.

Looking at Shino just made him think of his father, because they were so similar. And it made him think of his mother, because they acted almost the same. And she was a hero and he hated that… Except he didn’t hate her. Didn’t hate them.

“You don’t have to hate them, Kota.”

“You can still love them.”

Stupid Kazuki.

“Just… maybe something…” he mumbled, kicking the floor under his feet as he considered what to say. He knew what he wanted though. It was just… awkward. It was awkward to talk to her, after so long just… trying to hate her, to hate all of them. It was awkward to voice what he wanted, because of what it was. And it was awkward to voice anything at all, after so long just… being angry and speaking angry words. “Something that can be played… together with violin?” he said, finishing it as if it were a question instead of a statement and he almost grimaced.

Instead, he looked away, pursing his lips.

Why was it so hard to say that he wanted to play with Kazuki? He was cool, even if he looked a little scary at first. He was a softie if Kota had ever seen one though. And he… he listened and he understood, or at least it seemed like he did. It was because of his Quirk, Kota knew on some part, the fact that Kazuki always seemed to know what to do, what he wanted, despite what he said or what he did.

Did that make any difference though?

Shino and the Cats had been some of the few people that had stayed when Kota lashed out, but he’d never been able to really talk to them. He wasn’t sure why, but every time they did, they’d be so caring and warm and then he’d lash out and they’d look hurt and that… That just made him more angry for some reason.

Kazuki just took it though. He stayed calm and even smiling and kept going until Kota realized that he really wasn’t going to leave. Not because he was stubborn or annoying or stupid. He stayed because Kota wanted him to stay, even if he didn’t show it.

“But you need help, so I’ll help you.”

Stupid Kazuki.

“Hm, I think I know a few of those,” Shino replied, her voice and expression softening as she looked at Kota. “I might need to refresh my memory a bit, but I can help with that,” she added then, straightening a bit. “I’ll look for my notes… Do you want to come with me?” she asked and he could almost see the real question. She’d done that enough times for him to pick up on it.

“Do you want to stay with me?” she asked and maybe it was all that had happened those days, or maybe it was the fact that she said it like an actual invitation instead of a plea, or maybe Kota was just that excited to try out the instrument even though he acted like he wasn’t, but… But he just nodded and they walked through the halls together. He still tried not to look at her though, because things were awkward enough as they were.

Although, he should have known she wouldn’t leave things as they were.

“He’s really something, isn’t he?” Shino asked and there was no need for clarification, because there was only one option that appeared in Kota’s mind. She did so anyway though. “Kazuki,” she said, the name rolling off her tongue oddly, like she was talking about some distant high rank hero instead of a student that was staying with them for the week.

‘A week that’s almost over,’ he remembered then, his hands balling into fists.

“He’s stupid,” he muttered under his breath, getting a giggle from Shino. She was mean. She could at least pretend that she believed him. And he wasn’t lying. Kazuki was stupid. But he was also, as Shino put it, something.

“Is he?” she asked in that “indulge the child” tone that made him want to snap something at her. He didn’t though, because that day… That day he didn’t want to do that. Not after the talk he’d had with Kazuki before and not after he’d followed the student’s advice and told Shino… that he loved her.

Would it ever not be awkward to remember that? He didn’t know how he’d gotten through that without dying. He still wished Earth would just open and swallow him whole.

“I guess I can put aside the plans to invite him over on breaks,” Shino said and Kota stiffened, eyes wide and a pit forming in his stomach. He could… He could have seen Kazuki more? “Do you want to invite him? He’s a good kid and you like him, don’t you? We can do that if you want, Kota. Maybe even a weekend or two, if he’s free,” she said then, giving away that she’d just been messing with him before.

He wasn’t even angry about that, too busy processing the rest of what she’d said.

“... Yeah,” he mumbled, looking down and away from Shino. “I’d like that.”

“Hm, then that’s what we’ll do.”

And if his lips quirked up a little at that, nobody had to know.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

Well, this chapter was… something. I tend to mix some other stuff with my interactions, like training or plot or some other non-interacting slice of life stuff, but it was not the case in this chapter, pretty sure. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I don’t feel like it is, at least, surprisingly. It’s odd though, the same way trying something new is always a little odd.

All the same, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: What’s one thing you can hear (music doesn’t count)? I can hear my fan, because the weather is starting to get hot and I hate it.

See you.