volleyballing

[tyrannise]

putting some normies in a Situation

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[jumpie]

I don’t know!! Oh, god—

[ mop. a mop. a broom— anything with a handle and shoyo’s grabbing for it, awkwardly holding it in front of his chest at an angle, as his knees buckled and his heart sank uncomfortably into his gut again. ]

B-but what if I get arrested—?!

[ it’s easier to think about the probable than something as out of the ball park as this was starting to look. maybe— he’s just dreaming. he’s just in bed, having the absolutely worst nightmare and he can’t wake up from it.

the shambling woman, from the corner, stops to assess the boys— before she starts shuffling over, slowly enough with her awfully twisted ankle and sickly complexion. oh, god she’s coming right for them, causing shoyo to step back and bump his back against kageyama’s with a rising shriek-sound just behind his throat. ]

Okay okay this is a great Resident Evil Prank youcanstopnowmissIIIII—!!

[ she’s not stopping. shoyo squeezes his eyes shut, takes a wack at her, and just. screams. this was real. the thud was real. the thwuck was real and the splat was real and if he wasn’t concerned about dying, he’d be hurling right now. well. maybe later that’s still in the cards. ]

Openthedooropebthedooropebthefloor!!

[tyrannise]

This isn't the time worry about the cops, you idiot!!

[ He's pretty sure they'll be forgiven for defending themselves. He thinks no one would press charges even if they beat the living daylight out of whoever was behind this ridiculous joke. (He does not think this is a prank, but the hope is there, futile and shrinking by the second.)

—Especially when the deathly pale woman is right in front of them, reaching out with nails that look like they're going green in their beds. He's surprised that Hinata actually manages to hit her. Not incredibly hard, but she's already wobbly, and it does the job. The woman would probably be faster if her leg wasn't screwed up, ankle so swollen it barely narrows from her calf. And when she whirls on impact, he spots it—there's so much blood on her back that her clothes are suctioned to her body with red, making it hard to see where one wound ends and another begins.

The smell—coppery and thick—is nothing like a nosebleed or a scraped knee. It's new and nauseating. He doesn't know how anyone could move in her state. His eyes widen when she stumbles and then keeps on after them anyway, lunging forward face-first with an audible snap-clack of her teeth, narrowly missing them both before they sprint away; he's suddenly grateful for all their stupid races. Both of them could probably outrun most of the crowd here, and that's what takes them to the next door up into a stairwell.

He locks the door behind them again, and his breath feels thin when he pulls it into his lungs. There's no time to wait for his heart to even out, no time to deal with the bile it seems to push up his throat with all its beating. They could get up to the roof from here, see what's going on, and take the fire escape down if they had to. It's not like they have the option to go back, anyway.

More importantly, the chaos hasn't permeated the stairwell yet—the only sound is his footsteps as he urges them up and onward, mind racing to make sense of what they'd just seen—what they'd just narrowly avoided. He's riding on adrenaline. It's all that keeps his nerves at bay, his voice tight but not trembling. ]

Was... Just now. Was she trying to bite us?

[jumpie]

[ right? right. maybe the cops weren't a good idea after all, but shoyo did think about them for another hot second— shouldn't they be here? the only way shoyo knows how to keep moving is forward. rushing, hopping, heaving irregular, unsteady breaths as he jumps two stairs at a time to keep up with kageyama, all while hardly letting go of his jersey because of the ugly newfound fear of becoming separated from him in the chaos that was already behind them. ]

I-I, [ he doesn't focus his eyes; he doesn't know what to think, ] think she's like, one of those— sick people, from horror games, [ his chest and gut ice over with dread, an impending urgency that doesn't feel real and yet . . .

the door at the end of the flight felt like a near breath of fresh air to slam into, swing open with their combined weight, and shut tight. oh, crap, do they need something to close it with? where are they going to find that?

(there's something worse they have to face) ]

[tyrannise]

[ Kageyama, who has never really spent any time playing video games or having a life outside of volleyball, only vaguely knows zombie lore. But that's just it. It's lore—some stupid work of fiction that could never in a million years be a real threat. That's why it's just a video game. It's a trope that people can get their silly little scares in for some adrenaline and move on with their day, safe in the possibility that it'll never happen.

But his throat closes instead of allowing out a scoff, and he doesn't shake off the tight, squeezing tug of a Hinata's hand clutching his jersey. ]

...That's stupid.

[ His grumbling doesn't sound convinced. He doesn't even set down the fire extinguisher as he scans the perimeter of the roof, grabbing some abandoned two-by-four from some old, forgotten restoration project to shove through the door handle. While the door itself is heavy, is that secure enough? Nothing feels like enough. He has to scramble to look for more, but.

But. What's worse is that they're outside now, and—it's not like the threat is contained in the gym, locked tight and quarantined in this one athletics center. The chaos leaks out of the building, and the confused screaming and groaning and whatever else is no longer muffled by doors and walls, but only the distance from the roof to the ground. He peeks out over the edge, and sees people running with such urgency that they're practically tripping over their own feet, chased by... more of those sick people. The ones with cooling, graying skin. Some of them are faster than the ones who'd been after him and Hinata earlier, more vigorous in their—their what? Malice?

Hunger?

He watches as a young man in an unfamiliar jersey stumbles over a sidewalk edge, that half-second enough for someone else to lunge on him; they wrestle in a frenetic flurry of motion. He's never seen a person attack someone else so... viscerally. So clearly with the intent to injure and maim and push fingers and teeth into flesh. Kageyama, for all that he's able to steel his nerves during a game, freezes for a moment, stunned into blank, thoughtless silence as violence fans out in all directions below them.

What the hell. ]

emeto here in case you need that warning ;)

[jumpie]

[ free hands settle on his knees as he catches his breath, but sooner rather than later, shoyo follows kageyama closer to the edge, to peak out for a glimpse of what his partner had been staring at. he immediately regrets it, partially for being what it was, another had been his inability to quickly look away.

it was one thing to see horror and violence unfold in the safety of one's household or at an arcade, behind a glass screen. another was when it was happening so . . . so close. just below their feet, on the street some floors down. hinata feels the combined dizziness from the height and attack shoot down to an awful spin in his gut. moments later, he has to dash further into the roof's middle and off to the side to spill bile at his feet. the acrid smell is nauseating and makes him want to empty his stomach until there's nothing left. a shame, or luck, that it was empty to begin with. ]

This can't be happening . . . [ this was no game. this was worse than the game. what about his mom? natsu? the team? his school? never mind that— their whole lives are about to change. ] I-I need to get home, I—

[ he could still hear that curling scream from ground zero until the eerie silence that told them everything. ]

[tyrannise]

[ It doesn't even occur to him to warn Hinata or cover his eyes—there's no hiding from what's below them. He watches someone in a nice jacket get descended on. The guy in the jersey ends up finally loses ground, teeth in his throat. Kageyama can see the terror in their faces, even from here. Some people do get away, cars screeching out the parking lot and families disappearing down sidewalks, but...

Where can they even run to?

He stumbles back from the edge lest he risk falling off of it, suddenly lightheaded. Hinata's heaving, but it sounds distant; for a moment, everything seems faraway. He barely feels present in his own body. It's weird. He's usually so aware of his physical condition, and now he can barely feel the tips of his fingers with how cold they've gone. 

The only thing keeping him present, mentally, is a sudden reminder that Hinata is here. ]

You're not going anywhere! If you rush down there, you're— [ he stumbles over his own tongue, wrestling with the word a second ] dead.

[ Kageyama is not calm. He is holding a fire extinguisher like he'll die the instant he lets go. He worries his lip with his teeth and doesn't look off the roof again, trying to think but mostly wishing the rest of the team were here. ]

We... have to be smart about this.

[jumpie]

[ if he even had any bile left he’d hurl it out. the burning in his throat scratches as his stomach squeezes uncomfortably, at the thought of himself, or kageyama, or both in a disfigured heap of meat, viscera and bone scattered somewhere on abandoned streets. mom and natsu just in bloody spatters back home. or maybe . . . even worse. maybe they’d be one of those things, stuck in sickness, or undead living with no way out. either outcome was just— horrible.

while he’s catching his breath, hinata doesn’t feel levelheaded, he feels uncomfortably light. like he’d fall again, like he was sick and didn’t take care of himself. worse, he couldn’t think even if he forced himself to. all he could muster was the horrible squeeze of emotion in his chest, how ice cold it was— and how it pricked stinging tears into the corners of his eyes. ]

Th-then . . . Then what? We camp here? G-go down, when— when it’s clear?

[tyrannise]

[ He's thinking about his sister—is Tokyo better or worse off, for being so populous?—when Hinata stutters out a response. ]

I don't know— [ He doesn't know? How should he know? He clams up instead of lashing out, silent for several drawn seconds, glaring at the concrete like there's a solution there. It takes another moment to suck in a deep breath. ] Yeah. I guess.

[ Even he can hear the waver in his voice, and he swallows hard to try and smother it. ]

In games and... stuff. Zombies have weaknesses, don't they? [ Some don't move during certain times of the day, or only react to loud noises, or whatever. His zombie media literacy is limited, but there has to be something to work with. ] We can watch from here and move when we see an opening.

[ However, this means planting himself over by the edge of the roof again. To... observe. It takes a long, reluctant moment to do so, but he forces himself to look. Hinata, though—could Hinata do the same?

How is he going to cope with any of this, really? ]

[jumpie]

[ hinata wants to hug himself and wake up, soothe his upset stomach with water, and an actually energizing nap, but none of that will come today. he won't wake up on the bus at the end of either of those. he's . . . stuck here. kageyama has the right idea. they could watch, but.

i don't think i can look again, hinata thinks. he just. just thinking about it makes him want to hurl another time, over the edge. the combination of dread and height that makes his feet go cold has him further away from the edge, but not far enough that he can't be by kageyama. it's the only stronghold of support he had left— he was never leaving his side, at this rate. he's side by side with the other teen, watching their backs with his eyes pinned to the door they came from.

but, for now, shoyo works himself out, and steels his nerves in preparation to look with his partner, just. just not at this instant. observing was the most important part of learning, and he learned so much when it had to do with a ball. looking at a zombie apocalypse without vomiting, now that was going to take a little extra. ]

Some of them, like . . . D-don't like loud noises. [ but that's not exactly a weakness. more like a weakness for them, he survivors. ] And, um. Headshots? I think?

[ he's a big baby. he doesn't do gory video games by himself, but he's seen a couple. friends, and such. ]

[tyrannise]

[ Part of him wants to just grab Hinata by the ear and force him to look over the edge amidst a flurry of bickery arguments. Just like they always do—pushing each other around here or there as long as it's forward, together.

But it doesn't feel right. He can barely keep his eyes looking ahead, fighting to keep his gaze from drifting towards a treeline or a car or anything else instead of at the walkers below. He doesn't have the confidence to lead Hinata around, at least not yet. Besides, it'd be—cruel, probably. Even by Kageyama's standards. He takes a deep breath, lungs crackling. ]

Tch—like knocking off someone's head is that easy.

[ As for noise, that's easy enough to test. He throws a spare two-by-four off the roof, and it smack-skips hard on the pavement below them. Some of the shambling zombies jerk towards the loud clatter, reacting with the thoughtless immediacy of a pack of animals.

But there's a small huddle of monsters staying where they are, too busy crunching down on a recent victim, mouths and fingers busy tearing, consuming, and he quickly hits the heel of his palm to his mouth, not quite able to stop the lurch in his stomach; he retches, dizzy and pale, reminded very clearly that for as unflappable as people like to accuse him of being sometimes, this is not a volleyball court, and he's felt fear as much as any other teenage boy for lesser things.

He manages—barely, mostly because he hasn't eaten in hours—to keep from puking too, stubbornly looking around. ]

...They're slower than us. If it's you and me, we can cause a distraction and find a chance to sneak down the fire escape. [ Coach Ukai and the others have to be around, right? And both he and Hinata are fast. Two of the fastest. He didn't think of how important that would ever be. ] You think you can do that without making a racket, loudmouth?

[ There's no real venom in his insults right now—he can't even turn to face Hinata to bark and snap at him. It just feels better to talk like this. ]

[jumpie]

[ the flips his gut is making is worse, worse so much worse than the pre-game jitters. part of him inches his peripheral vision to look downwards and off to the side when kageyama holds the sickness within him. even with that, he's going to lose, huh? always a step back— and it shouldn't be like that.

he closes one more gap by inhaling, holding, and then turning himself around to face the city. the ruckus is far enough from crystal clear detail that he could avoid some of it, perhaps focus on the less densely populated alleyways for a pathway, for a getaway. that's something worth focusing on, right? the sooner they find one, the faster they'll leave.

the floor is a massive court. they just have to see it that way. ]

. . . Bet I'll be quieter than you. [ he hopes they're both equally quiet this time, though. and equally fast. ] Just— keep up.

[ please. he means that. seriously. it's the one time he doesn't want to win. but maybe . . . they could use that to do better. ]

[tyrannise]

[ Even outside, the atmosphere seems thick, charged enough that he can feel Hinata turn beside him like they're underwater, treading the air itself. It's scary, but he feels—it's like he feels a little steadier, too.

He finally turns to face him, a threat standing resolute in his posture. ]

...You're the one who'd better not fall behind.

[ Hinata isn't allowed to lose today. Kageyama is always moving forward, trying to keep his meager lead on their hundreds of silly (and not so silly) competitions. But it's not like he wants to completely outpace him. Especially not here, like this.

No, it's always been about staying at each others heels, getting faster by chasing at someone else's back or at their side. If they survive this, it won't be alone. He goes back to scanning the perimeter of the building, pacing now and trying to be more analytical than disgusted. He finds himself looking for things—sidewalks and bushes they can escape through, but also familiar faces. Things they can pick up that have fallen out of people's pockets. Maybe they can nab a phone.

It feels wrong to think this way, but the thought of leaving the rooftop makes him very aware of how exposed and unarmed they are. ]

Let's figure out a route.