"One of you, go tell the driver to prepare the car." Chiyo ordered a pair of maids. They gave each other looks with raised eyebrows.
"Did Hitomi-sama have plans to go somewhere this evening?" One of them asked. Neither were aware of any such plans, and it appeared to be rather sudden at this time of day.
"No, she doesn't...but I have a feeling she might soon." Chiyo smiled to herself, her explanation only confusing the other maids even further. They gave each other another look, clearly understanding that the head maid knew something that they didn't.
Suddenly, they heard frantic footsteps coming down the stairs. The maids all bowed respectfully as Chiyo addressed the young girl. "Hitomi-sama, the car will be out...shortly..." The woman's voice slowly faded out as she realized the girl wasn't listening.
The maids' eyes followed Hitomi as she rushed out the front door. "Was it alright to let her go out alone this late, Chiyo-san!?" The pair of maids asked their superior.
The woman smiled, watching her charge run off. "It seems I've misjudged..." She chuckled to herself. "Hitomi-sama will be fine. Even if something were to happen, her bodyguards are always close by. Let us get back to work, shall we?" She clapped her hands twice, prompting the maids to bow and leave the area for their separate duties.
Chiyo gazed out the window, looking fondly after Hitomi with a gentle, knowing, smile.
.
.
.
Somehow, Hitomi was already panting. She was never so unathletic or unfit, but her anxiety seemed to play a part in her shortness of breath. She felt a faint stinging in her eyes from the wind, but her focus was entirely on finding Nishinoya.
In retrospect, she could have made it so much easier by calling or texting him, but her body moved faster than her mind.
Winner!
When she saw that writing printed on the popsicle stick, she flung out of her seat. The next thing she knew, she was out the door without her phone or anything.
Upon reaching the convenience store, she paused to catch her breath while her eyes scanned the inside through the window. She jumped in place, trying to give herself a slightly higher point of view.
There was no sign of the libero. No sign of his styled up hair, his brightly colored shirts with those random four-character idioms, or his loud voice.
Hitomi dashed off, making her way towards his house. She'd only been there once, so she prayed that the path she chose was the correct one.
After turning another corner, she saw the idiom 'One-Man Army' printed on the back of a bright red t-shirt.
The tightening of her heart instantly disappeared as her tense body immediately relaxed, being flooded with relief. "Nishinoya-kun!!!" She shouted out, completely forgetting that it was nighttime and that she might be disturbing his neighbors.
The boy flinched upon hearing her shout. Turning around, his eyes widened upon seeing her. "H-Hitomi-chan!?! Y-You're crying!! What happened?! Are you hurt!?" He frantically asked as he rushed up to her.
"Eh?" She released a confused breath. Her hand hesitantly touched her cheek, feeling the wetness of her flowing tears. It seemed like the stinging in her eyes was from more than just running through the wind.
"E-Eh? What...Why am I..." She softly spoke in disbelief and confusion, her other hand coming up to rub her eyes and cheeks. She hadn't realized until he pointed it out. She wasn't sure if she was crying out of relief and happiness at finding him or if she was releasing all of her pent up sadness from years past now that she started crying and couldn't stop.
"A-Are you okay?!? What are you doing out so late alone!? Did somebody hurt you?! A-And you don't have a jacket on!! It's already started getting cold at night! Here!" Nishinoya reached to give her another layer to stay warm but paused, blinking once upon realizing that he was only wearing a t-shirt.
"NOOO!!! I DON'T HAVE A JACKET!!" He berated himself for not being prepared, his hands knocking against his head in frustration. "I'll go buy you a jacket!! Wait!! The nearest clothing store is still pretty far from here!! I can't leave you waiting out in the cold!! Here!! Have my shirt!!!" In his hurry, he struggled to remove his t-shirt for her.
Hitomi chuckled through her crying fit, reaching a hand out to his arm and stopping him from doing something so ridiculous. At his innocent look, wondering why she was stopping him, Hitomi laughed harder. At this point, she couldn't decide between laughing or crying, the two beginning to mix.
"I'm sorry...I don't know why I'm being like this..." Hitomi muttered with a pitiful smile, staring down at the ground so that her hair could fall forward to hide her face like a curtain.
She flinched when Nishinoya's hands tightly grasped hers, his worried eyes staring into hers as he looked up at her. "Don't apologize!! I just want to know if you're okay!!"
The girl's tears had slowed, but she felt like fully crying again at his pure concern for her. She nodded at him, forcing a smile. "I think I just need to sit down somewhere. There's a park nearby, right?" She asked. Her fatigue had finally caught up to her, now that the adrenaline was gone.
Nishinoya nodded back at her, leading her to the park near his house. His hand instinctively didn't let go of hers and for that, she was grateful.
They sat down together on one of the benches, and Hitomi calmed down. Nishinoya kept glancing at her in his peripheral vision, wanting to comfort her but not really knowing what to say. "Nishinoya-kun...I'm sorry." The girl almost whispered.
"Like I said! You don't have t–" He started but was cut off by her.
"It's not just for earlier. I'm sorry for a lot of things. For not answering your calls, not responding to your messages, for worrying you..." She looked down, ashamed of herself. "For running away..."
The libero's heart clenched painfully at seeing her distress. His fists tightened as he responded. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to know what was going on...but you don't have to talk about it if it makes you sad!! And if it's anything I need to improve on, please tell me!! I'll try my hardest to be better for you so that I won't make you sad again!!" He proclaimed with a hand over his chest in promise.
Now Hitomi's own heart clenched with guilt. "No...no, it's not about you. It was never about you." Her hand tightly gripped her shirt in vexation as her jaw tightened. "I was just...struggling with some internal issues. It's honestly stupid."
Nishinoya immediately opened his mouth to defend her from her self-deprecation, but Hitomi already saw it coming. "I know you're going to tell that it's not stupid, but it is! And you deserve an explanation for it after all that happened."
Her statement seemed to placate him enough as he shut his mouth, giving her time to collect her thoughts. "I don't know if your teammates said anything to you, but there was something one of them said..." She pursed her lips, finding it much harder to talk about than she had anticipated.
She quickly defended Sugawara, making sure Nishinoya wouldn't misunderstand. "I-It's not his fault! He was just making casual conversation, but it...it triggered some painful memories for me."
The girl took another deep breath, knowing she had to keep going and couldn't turn back. "Three years ago, the boy I was dating said something really similar to what your teammate said."
Nishinoya's heart plummeted.
He then suddenly got angry at himself. He was upset with himself because he got jealous that Hitomi had been in a relationship before. Rather than focusing on listening to her story, he got jealous over some other guy! This wasn't about him!! This was about Hitomi, so how could he be thinking something like that!!
His nails dug into the palms of his hands and his hands clenched out of anger at himself. He mentally berated himself, thinking this was certainly not the time for such thoughts. He should be trying to make Hitomi feel better, not getting riled up about some random guy!
"Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. We technically hadn't started dating yet..." She began explaining, unsure of how to go about the story.
Nishinoya breathed a small sigh of relief before tensing up again. He had been briefly overjoyed at knowing Hitomi hadn't been in a relationship with whoever she was talking about before realizing that he was focusing on the wrong thing again. He got mad at himself once more, making a mental note to apologize to her when he got the chance.
"I suppose what he said is part of the reason why I'm such a mean person. Let me finish." She added on, knowing Nishinoya would try to come to her defense again.
"I think I should give you some context." Hitomi suggested as she gently hugged her arms to herself. "I'm sure you've already noticed that I come from a...well-off family." She hesitated, not meaning to downplay her situation but also not wanting to come off as bragging.
"Dealing with people while in the upper-class is excruciating. Everything I say and do is heavily scrutinized by those around me, but at the same time, I have to do the same thing to those people. That is, if I don't want to get hurt." Her grip on her arms tightened slightly.
She grimaced, recalling some unpleasant interactions. "That's a fake smile. They're not really being nice to me, it's just empty compliments. This person doesn't actually want to get to know me, they're just using me. For material gain and for prestige. If you want money and power, then look no further than the Fukumoto family. It didn't help that I'm...what you would say, conventionally attractive to many."
"I learned really early that people's actions can differ wildly from their intentions, but I wanted to believe that not everyone was like that. That not everyone was so two-faced. I really wanted to be optimistic...but you can't do that while also protecting yourself. I tried making friends despite my cynicism, only to realize that they only wanted to be my friend for their own benefit. Because my house had the best games or snacks. Because their parents told them to foster a relationship with the Fukumoto family. Because they wanted to get into my pants. I couldn't keep believing in that naive hope while also giving out my trust so easily to people that had proven time and time again that they couldn't care less for it."
Hitomi released a deep sigh as she gazed up at the moon. "So I stopped trusting so easily." She looked back down at her hands as her fingers fidgeted with each other. "Until I met the girl I thought was my best friend."
"I guess I was really easy to figure out back then, because she read me like a book. I met her after she had apparently been cheated on by her then ex-boyfriend. We bonded over hating the fact that people, no matter who they were, could be so deceitful. She validated my feelings, agreeing that we should be skeptical of people, considering the position we were in, and ultimately that we should look out for each other. It was because of her that I even considered befriending boys again."
Hitomi bit her lip, taking a moment to calm the swirling thoughts in her head. "So now it brings us to the story of the boy that I mentioned. My best friend already knew him and introduced me to him. We got really close and he eventually asked me out. Up until then, I had rejected every single boy on the spot. Similarly to the cruel way that I did to you when we first met. I'm sorry for that, by the way."
She laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I wasn't sure how I felt, but it was obvious that I didn't see him like all the other boys. So, I told him that I would think about it. Apparently, everyone else in the school figured this meant that we would start dating. Not long after, I went to give him a response when I accidentally overheard him talking with his buddies. What your teammate said reminded me of what he was saying to them."
"With enough perseverance, you can get through to even a girl like Hitomi..."
She breathed out that one haunting line. She had expected to do so more seethingly, but her mind was so numb from the painful memories that she didn't have the energy. "He was bragging to his friends about his 'successful conquest,' and just when I was going to barge in to give him a piece of my mind, I was dealt the final blow. My supposed 'best friend,' who incidentally I later found out is his cousin, told him not to 'screw this up' for the both of them."
Hitomi let out a shaky breath, feeling a tide of negative emotions. Anger, sadness, disappointment. "Apparently, they had hatched this plan with their parents and had been working on it for months. They were getting close to me in the hopes of fostering a business relationship with my parents to help themselves out of their near bankrupt situation."
"After that, I decided to completely shut everyone else out. I tried really hard to have hope in people. To really believe that not everyone was so disgusting. I even went so far as to justify their behavior or to blame it on myself! Did I just have bad luck? Am I just a magnet for these kinds of people!? Was this some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy that I was bringing onto myself!?" Her hands started to shake. She cupped one in the other, attempting to calm herself.
She let out another humorless laugh. "I guess by shutting everyone else out, I became a hypocrite. I was so tired of people judging my 'worth' from my family ties and my appearance that I became the judgmental one, thinking everyone is the same without giving them a chance. I gave people chances, and I got burned for it. If becoming a hypocrite protects me from getting hurt, then I'll stay a hypocrite for the rest of my life."
"For the past three years, I was perfectly content living like this. Being the distrusting, cynical, and callous person that I am. But lately...lately I've felt I don't need to be like that anymore. That I don't want to be like that anymore. And that scares me, because I've felt this way before and look what happened. That's why when your teammate said what he did, I ran away. It's also why I want to apologize to you, Nishinoya-kun...Nishinoya-kun?!?"
For the first time since she started revealing her past, Hitomi looked over at the libero only to be shocked at the sight. He was still sitting on the bench, but he was hunched over with his arms resting atop his knees. His hands were balled into fists so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. His face was just as rigid, his eyebrows furrowed and his teeth gritting together. At the corners of his eyes were small tears that had yet to fall. She wasn't sure if they were out of sympathy or frustration. "N-Nishinoya-kun...?" She gently called his name.
"How...How could they!? Those...Those bastards!!! I can't believe they would do something like that to you!!! You don't have to apologize to me, Hitomi-chan!! I should be saying sorry that you had to go through all that!! Tell me his name and I'll teach him a lesson for you!!!" Nishinoya loudly proclaimed, releasing all of his anger into his voice.
Hitomi stared at him in astonishment for a moment before snapping out of it. "W-What!? You don't have to do that! After we graduated, I don't know anything about what happened to him anyways."
"It's okay!! Tell me his name and what he looks like! I'll find him for sure!! Tell me about that girl too!! I'll find them both!" Nishinoya exclaimed.
"Please calm down, Nishinoya-kun! I don't want anything to do with either of them and neither should you." She almost pleaded with him. He reluctantly backed down, but then seemed to get fired up about something else.
He stood straight up, startling the girl. Getting right in front of her, he dropped to his knees and sat formally in the seiza position. Before she could ask what he was doing, he bowed his head down, his forehead touching the ground. "Hitomi-chan!!! I want to apologize for the way that I've acted around you! I'm no better than any of the other guys that you've met, and I'm sorry!!"
Realizing something, he jolted up. "But I'd never do what he did to you!!! Never in a million years! No! A gazillion!! I promise! I swear my life on it!!!" He bowed his head deeply again.
Hitomi kneeled down in front of him, taking his hands in hers. "Please lift your head, Nishinoya-kun. I know now that you wouldn't. You're far too sweet for your own good. Far nicer than I am, anyhow."
The boy lifted his head at her request, but what she said still bothered him. He disagreed entirely. Hitomi was one of the kindest people he knew even after all she had been through. Of course, she was guarded but she was compassionate at heart. Her past actions had proven that and he had seen it for himself plenty of times.
Knowing that Hitomi would just brush off his compliments, he stood up without another word. The girl's confused eyes followed his form as he ran over to the monkey bars in the park. The libero climbed them, standing precariously on top and taking a deep breath.
"I LOVE HITOMI-CHAN!!!"
Hitomi jumped up, rushing over to him. "N-Nishinoya!? What are you doing!!!"
He heard her, but he refused to stop it there. "I love Hitomi-chan!!! I really love her! I love her kindness and how considerate she is!! I love when she helps me study! When she comforts me when I'm crying! When she buys me aloe vera gel for my bruises! When she gives me the bigger bucket of crawfish! When she makes sure there are no onions in my food!"
Hitomi could feel the tears coming back in the corners of her eyes as she looked up at him. He jumped back down after catching his breath. He stared right at her, the conviction in his eyes clear as day. "Don't call yourself a mean person, Hitomi-chan, because you're not! You're one of the nicest people I know! And if you still don't believe me, I'll keep telling you until you do!!"
The girl gave a small chuckle, the small tears trickling down her cheeks. She quickly used her arm to wipe them away before Nishinoya could get too worried. This boy was far too good for her. So good that for the first time in a while, she really let her feelings show without thinking about it first.
"Nishinoya-kun, can I give you a chance?"