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izukuwus · 1 year

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Edible Arrangements 30

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A/N: So usually I actually get pretty uncomfy around people who are drinking a lot, god only knows why, but this was insanely fun to write! Happy January 22nd New Year's lmao

we love some good fluff to break up all this plot <3

Chapter Summary: New Year's gets rung in the best way you and your friends can think of.

Warnings: alcohol, a single dubconny new year's kiss

Word count: ~3000 words

"I can't believe you actually invited him. You sure you're okay with it?" Mina sidles up next to you, her balance already sending her bumping shoulders with you whenever she comes to talk just a bit too loud. You appreciate her, though, horns jabbing your ear and all.

"Mina, play nice," you say. "And yes, I'm fine with it. Izu and Hitoshi are cool with it, too. I was gonna ask Tenya, but..."

Well, Tenya had insisted on you extending an invitation to Neito, though he'd warned that he’d be a bit distant should the wannabe hunters decide to attend.

Who had ended up attending: Tenya (stern parent to all), Mina (currently smooshing her cheek into yours and having pregamed the party before you even started setting it up), Tsuyu (Mina's designated driver to the event, now also partaking in the punch seeing as you have no intention of making anyone drive home tonight), Izuku (as your co-host), and Hitoshi, to start with. And then, the more surprising guests on your list, who Mina was now trying to appear civil towards: Neito, an enthralled and therefore completely nonthreatening but still just a touch creepy Ibara, and Itsuka.

Itsuka is really the one you’re a bit wary of. You know Neito well enough by now to know that he's not at threat of harming you or your friends again except on accident, and a very brief prying into Ibara's state of mind has made it pretty clear that she's forgotten her capacity for vampire murder, which leaves you the wildcard: Itsuka. You don't know much about her, except that she's the one that turned Neito and that they're still not really talking. Part of your goal tonight is to loosen her and Neito both up if you can, get them talking—though, honestly, you're mostly just impressed at yourself for being able to get both to attend.

Tonight will also be a valuable case study in whether or not vampires can get drunk.

Izuku has chosen, of course, not to partake too heavily—he's also interested in the answer, so he's opted to hang out awkwardly and commit as much to memory as possible so he doesn't freak out all your friends and assault charges in another world by actively taking notes on them where they can see. This, of course, requires his memory to be functioning, and that requires him to not risk the potential for alcohol to fuck with his memory tonight. You, on the other hand, are drinking socially with the hopes of feeling relaxed again. Those moments have been few and far between for longer than your brain will let you think about.

Tonight might be the first really relaxing night you've had that isn't just you and Izuku and Sbeve.

Speaking of Sbeve, Mina has let out a joyous squeal to chase him down after spotting him atop the network of cat trees in the living room.

"Careful!" you call after her. "He's soft, but he bites!"

You fed him earlier, so it should be fine... right?

With her gone, you sink into socializing, finding yourself awkwardly chatting with Itsuka. She's chill, it turns out. Friendly, even. And, important: she's drinking. She's joined by Hitoshi, though she keeps an eye on Neito and Ibara, who chat not far from the three of you. (Tsuyu has posted up with Tenya for the time being.)

"Itsuka, right?" You raise your glass to her in greeting as you finally wedge your way in. "Thanks for coming. I know it's probably not the most hype of New Year's celebrations, but..."

She shakes her head, grins. "No, thanks for inviting me! I was kinda surprised you invited those two at all."

"Well, you know. It's practically a vampire gathering. And, I'm not gonna lie, I kinda wanted to sus out Ibara. I heard she was... y'know, changed, but after everything that happened, I wasn't keen on risking it, you know? Had to see for myself." You pull a tight smile on the realization that that maybe... wasn't the best thing to say. Maybe you're already tipsy. Fuck it. "Sorry. I'm a bit of a lightweight."

"A bit?" Hitoshi snorts. "That's your first drink, isn't it?"

"Maybe so. Fight me about it."

The conversation quickly slides into high-spirited bickering, which poor Itsuka has become the unwilling referee for. And then, before you can challenge Hitoshi to a Smash-sponsored death battle, you note two things:

1. You need a refill.

2. Mina has declared her own death battle against Neito, something about the sanctity of your life and home.

And so you fill up your glass, break out the Smash, and watch a drunk Mina attempt to murder a completely lost Neito via Smash. Before long, it's all of you, piling in, any lingering awkwardness or worry evaporated in fair of virtual fistfights, swearing, and getting progressively drunker by the minute. By the time midnight rolls around, you've nearly forgotten about it being New Year's Eve.

Mina, in all her drunken glory, is not one to forget, however. "Oh my god guys we've gotta kiss."

"What?" Hitoshi chokes on his drink.

"We gotta! There's... uh... [name] count how many people there are."

You count dutifully. Eight.

Perfect.

"Eight!"

"Forgive me, but you seem to have miscounted," says Ibara, and you furrow your brow and count again.

Oh. You forgot you.

"Toshi. Toshi this is important." You have your hands on his shoulders, eyes dead serious. He seems unimpressed. "Hitsoshi. Listen to me."

"What?"

"You have to kiss Sbeve. It's the only way."

"I am... not doing that."

"You have to! It's the law! You gotta kiss someone on New Year's or you'll, like, die. I'm sorry, I shoulda only invited an even number."

"She's right!" Mina cheers. "The hosts gotta do it, and the twink's gotta kiss the thorny girl, and I gotta kiss the twink's sister for revenge, and Tsu's gotta do Tenya because they're the mom friends and mom friends gotta kiss each other, so you gotta kiss Sbeve! Do it for Sbeve!"

"Do it for Sbeve!" Itsuka echoes. She's barely drank anything. You gotta change that if she's comfy.

You shake his shoulders a little, tears in your eyes. "I'm askin'—askin' you as Sbeve's adopting momther. He's gotta kiss some—someone on New Year's, too. Or he'll be cursed."

Hitoshi slides a hand on his face. "Okay, this is stupid. You can't just—those designations are completely arbitrary. I'm pretty sure you made up nearly all those pairings on the spot except for the hosts thing."

"Just drink a lil more and you can do it! Do it for Sbeve, Hito'."

He sighs, accepts the cup pushed towards him as the other drunkards cheer. And, as midnight creeps ever closer, you look for the other host and find him in the corner. With the countdown beginning, you stumble his way, and he's there in a moment, steadying you with your hot face and dizzy smile. "Everything okay, [name]? You've had a lot to drink."

"I'm stressed," you declare. "But Mina said we gotta kiss when the midnight goes, and she's never wrong."

"K-kiss?"

"Yeah. We gotta!"

"Y-you know that—"

Your lips are on his, barely missing a lip lock. Your aim's off, your breath nearly enough to buzz him as you press into him and kiss the corner of his mouth. He adjusts, movements wooden as he steadies you more than anything. But he sinks into it, and you sink into it, and there you are, wrapping your arms around his shoulders, feeling the first kiss you can remember feeling right.

3, 2, 1.

and when you pull away, you're immediately looking with approval to see that, at minimum, everyone's at least gone for the requisite cheek kisses at Mina's badgering. Everyone will have a good year—you're satisfied.

Happy New Year!

Tenya wasn't going to get dragged along into this. For one, yours and Mina's harrowed prophecies of bad years to come for those that don't kiss on New Year's is so convoluted and, more importantly, so ungrounded in reality that the only point would be to satisfy those too drunk to realize the error of their ways. For another, he's half a mind to talk you out of it, before you've completely bought into Mina's idea that the hosts have to kiss. Of course they don't! There's no reason they should have to do that! There's no reasonyou should—

But there you are, confidently stumbling your way to Izuku, who crosses the room to steady you as though it's like breathing. And he has to admit, if he were in someone else's body, someone else's mind... He'd think the two of you looked great together. A perfect couple.

"This doesn't have to mean anything, but if it'd help..." Tsuyu says as the pair of them watch you panic to Izuku about New Year's kisses. "It'd be nice not to feel left out."

He sighs. He knows what's coming. Tsuyu is beautiful, and you are not the person he knew then. (You're exactly like the person he knew then.)

Even that purple-haired vampire has found the cat to give a kiss to the top of its head before midnight.

And there you are, loud enough that Tenya knows. You're asking Izuku to kiss you.

And there he is, not backing away, too stunned to form a response to you. You're a whirlwind. You always have been.

Tsuyu bumps his shoulder.

Fireworks launch on the TV as you drag a still-dumbstruck Izuku into a poorly-aimed kiss.

"Tenya?"

"Sorry I asked. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

He pulls Tsuyu into a kiss before he can watch your vampire kiss you back, before he can feel the hurt hit him. And Tsuyu, for all she's worth, kisses him back.

When they pull away, there's a shared nod, and then a move to the drinks table.

Happy damn New Year.

The morning does not come gently to end the night. No, in fact, it comes in the form of Sbeve batting at your face, of light casting across the eyes of a pile of hungover college students plus Izuku. Those human among you groan—you can already tell that you're not the only one with a splitting headache. Izuku shuffles beneath you when you stir, and you soothe him back to sleep and squint through the light to assess the damage.

The first damage, you can tell, is the fact that the fucking blinds are open. That's an easy fix. You twist them closed, draw the curtains to leave the room sufficiently dark enough to elicit a muffled "thank you" from one pink best friend of yours. The next steps are obvious—water for the humans. Maybe for the vampires, too. You're not sure any of them drank enough to get drunk, let alone get hungover. You're also not sure they can get hungover. (Note to self: ask Izuku whether or not he can experience hangovers now that he's a vampire.)

You stumble to the kitchen, fill up Sbeve's water and yours in succession. You down your glass, fill it again. Tsuyu, Mina, and maybe Ibara need water, for sure. After a moment's deliberation, you get down enough glasses to fill everyone up with water once they're up, and start a pot of coffee for good measure. Painkillers abound, a tray brought into the living room and set on the coffee table, which you haphazardly clear to make room for some hungover bitches to take water as they need. Then, you're back in the kitchen, setting about some toast. You've definitely got the bread for it.

It seems you're the first really up. Mina hasn't moved or made a sound since you closed the blinds, and the others are all still. It's not until the first batch of toast is done and you're plating that you sense a presence in the room with you, and then there's a hand over your mouth to keep you from screaming.

"Just me," Tenya says in a low voice. When you relax before him, he releases you.

"So the sneaking around is just a vampire thing, then," you grumble. "Sleep okay?"

He nods, but he glows, too. You arch a brow.

"I confess, I'm not used to sleeping on the floor like that. I found it difficult to get comfortable."

"I'm sorry," you say, because you have nothing more to say. Maybe you should have offered a bed. You should know he's not like the rest of you. "I've got coffee. And water." The toaster going off has you yelping, jolting away. When you're settled, you smile sheepishly and offer a slice to Tenya. "And toast."

He shakes his head. "I'm heading home. I just didn't want to leave without saying anything."

"Oh. Did... did you have a good time, at least?"

He hesitates. You can see the gears turning and you know, deep down, that one of your dearest friends is searching for a way to lie to you.

"What went wrong?" you ask, distress seeping into your voice. "Was it because I invited—"

"It's not because you invited those hunters." He pulls an attempt at a smile. Your only consolation is that it's the truth. "They're actually quite good company. Had they not nearly killed us, I could see us becoming friends under some different circumstances. I take it you didn't mind working with him on the project, then?"

Oh. This is how you were able to be lied to for so long, isn't it? Tenya's not nearly smooth enough to pull it off.

(He’s avoiding answering. He’s redirecting you.)

"Tenya. What went wrong?"

Pain's written on his face. You wonder when you learned to read that on him. "Please trust me when I say that it was nothing you did."

"What did I do?"

He flinches. Maybe he doesn't want to blame you. Maybe he does anyway.

You take a step back, rest your back against the hard countertop. "Whatever it was, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

"I know you didn't. I'm not mad at you."

You're not willing to look at him to test that statement.

Tenya leaves, and you eat your toast and clean around the still-sleeping remaining houseguests. They begin to wake and leave in your preferred order—Ibara and Neito and Itsuka get up and leave first, then Hitoshi (the day's biggest surprise). Soon, all that's left is Mina and Tsuyu, both of whom eventually wake up and linger with your hangover recovery spread for a bit.

"Mina," you say with a sigh as she downs a mug of coffee in one go.

She blinks owlishly at you. "Wha?"

"What do you remember of last night?"

"Why do you ask? Everyone woke up with clothes on, right?"

"Right, but..." Another sigh.

She tilts her head your way. "What happened?"

"Tenya was in a hurry to leave this morning. He wouldn't say why, but he was trying to find a way to get around my quirk to protect my feelings. So, you know, not the best feeling in the world for one of your best friends to tell you that you did nothing wrong while very obviously lying to you."

"Obviously to you, maybe," Tsuyu says. She's on her third glass of water. "If he's trying to protect your feelings, why dig into it? There's probably a reason."

"But if I did something, I want to fix it, not dance around it! What if he's actually mad at me?"

"Then you'll fix it," she reassures you. "I mean, you two moved past way worse. He's even playing nice with Izuku for your sake, because he knows it upsets you."

Gods, she's even more blunt with a hangover. "But how can I fix it if he won't even tell me—"

"You don't have to know everything or fix everything, [name]. Just let it be. He'll work through it on his own and it'll be like nothing ever happened."

You hesitate. On paper, it's reasonable, but there's that nagging thought at the back of your mind—intentional or not, he made it pretty clear that whatever upset him was something you were directly involved in, if not the sole perpetrator of. And if that's the case, shouldn't it be your responsibility to address it? Shouldn't you—

You snap out of your reverie to see Mina snapping a selfie, for some strange reason. Snapchat, probably. You wrinkle your nose anyway. "God, please don't save that. I'm sure I look like shit."

(Who are you to demand the truth all the time, anyway?)

"We all do, it's part of the vibes."

(The truth sucks.)

"What vibes? Hangover vibes?"

(You have to let it go.)

"Precisely. Here, you get one retake. I think you look good candid, though."

(You don’t want to let it go.)

You sigh and let her drag you and Tsuyu into one more selfie, this time with you actually looking at the camera and weakly raising your water glass. Satisfied with at least one attempt to look half-decent, you let her do what she will and turn your attention instead to the stirring Izuku.

"Morning, sleepyhead," you call across the room. You're almost certain he didn't drink last night, so he should be hangover-free, right?

He stirs a bit further, then jolts up, frozen until his eyes land on you. "Oh. You woke up first."

You snort. "For once. What had you so sleepy? I already cleaned up before you even moved."

"S-sorry! I didn't mean to make you—"

"Chill, chill, Broccula. If it bothered me, I would have waited until you were up. I woke up super early so I got to work before everyone got up. Coffee? Water? Toast?"

He comes to sit beside you in your little floor circle, draping himself over you. Every day he is more of a cat.

"Yes please."

(You give Tenya and his lie one last thought.)

(You let it go.)

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anyon-else · 1 year

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Let the Games Begin (The Hunger Games pt. 5) | The games begin, and the tributes begin to realize that the arena may take them out before they can reach the Cornucopia. Kurogiri clearly wanted to put on a good show when he planned this year’s games. – spotify playlist | read on ao3

Pairings | Hawks | Keigo Takami x Reader + Dabi | Touya Todoroki, Shouto Todoroki, Aizawa Shouta, Ibara Shiozaki, Mei Hatsume, Itsuka Kendo

Warnings | angst, hurt/comfort, descriptions of violence, descriptions of injuries, weapons, suicidal ideation, religious themes, minor character death, discussion of themes present in The Hunger Games trilogy

Word count | 4k

Author’s note | Let me know if you guys like this chapter! I wasn’t too sure how to end it, but we’re getting some confrontations in the next chapter! I’m excited for the next few chapters. Please leave feedback if you’d like, I always love getting y’all’s comments!

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You were thirteen the first time you met Dabi. You had accidentally run into Shouto in your distraction to get home before curfew, knocking both of you to the ground. Shouto hit his head against the pavement below from the impact, and at eight years old, that was enough of an injury to warrant tears. His cries were soft, and almost too quiet to hear, but Dabi knew his brother’s crying well enough by then that he saw past Shouto’s attempt to duck behind his bangs and stay as quiet as possible. Dabi crouched behind his brother and felt where his head had hit the concrete, staring at his hand when it came back coated in a thin layer of bright red blood. At the sight of it, Shouto’s eyes widened, and his cries became quieter, replaced with quick, deep gasps that left little room for any air intake.

Dabi was bigger than you, and one year older, and the most important thing you learned after meeting him was that he cared more about his brother than he did about anyone or anything else.

He grabbed your shirt with one hand and pulled you to your feet, glaring down at you with more contempt than you’d ever seen in a fourteen-year-old. His burn scars stretched with the muscles of his face, morphing around his furious features. You flinched away from the intensity of his stare.

“Did you do that on purpose?” he asked, and you shook your head.

“It’s okay, Touya. It was an accident,” Shouto insisted, but Dabi still threw you over his shoulder and carried you past his brother and into an alley lined with trash bins. He peeked into one of the fuller ones, then dumped you into it and closed the lid before you could jump out. You struggled to open it for almost ten minutes until you realized that he was sitting on it, and it was only when you’d stopped pleading with him to let you out that something above you shifted and you were able to open the lid. Both Dabi and Shouto were gone when you peeked over the edge, so you rolled out of the bin, picked bits of trash off of your clothes, and walked home.

Two months later, you and Keigo were caught outside of District Eight’s perimeters after curfew. The peacekeepers were more watchful that year following the incident with Toga. They chased after you when you started racing towards the abandoned market, shouting and cursing at you as you sprinted between tables and pillars. You ended up hiding in a small bathroom stall meant for venders, chest-to-chest as you heaved and shushed one another between giggles while listening for the peacekeepers.

Small spaces had never bothered you. Confinement was usually just an inconvenience.

Now, it meant something else entirely.

You and Aizawa were watching one another carefully, him for signs of distress, and you for something to distract yourself. The glass tube that would take you into the arena was open in the front, and it had only been a few seconds since you’d stepped into it. Your fists were clenched around the loose, thick fabric of your pants, and you knew you looked just as worried as you felt.

“Don’t panic now,” Aizawa ordered, startling you from your thoughts, “you haven’t even started yet. You need to clear your head before you get up there.”

“Right,” you exhaled slowly, “okay. Talk to me about something, then.”

Aizawa looked slightly less inconvenienced than he usually would at a request like this, and it only took a moment for him to take a step closer. He leaned against the glass next to you and rapped his knuckles against it.

“When I had my games, these were metal.”

“What?”

“Mhm. They closed us in before we went up, and it was pitch black for about five minutes before we started moving. It was supposed to give the audience a look at our genuine reaction to the arena.”

You pictured a younger Aizawa, trapped in a metal tube with no sense of what was happening outside of the suffocating space. It sounded like torture.

“If Keigo dies in the arena, you can’t let it break you.”

You stared at Aizawa. His eyes were concrete, solid and sure and resolved. You wished people would stop saying that to you. You felt like they were anticipating Keigo’s death. Like it was inevitable. Even Dabi had asked you not to give up. Of all people, you wished Dabi put more faith in Keigo.

“I’ll get him out.”

“Anything can happen in there,” Aizawa bit back. “Anything, Y/N. There is every possibility that he will not make it. There’s every possibility that you won’t either. But whatever happens, you have to fight. Do you really think he would want you to die with him?”

“Don’t tell me what he would want,” you spit, “and don’t tell me that I won’t be able to save him from this.”

“I’m your mentor. My job is to tell you things that you don’t want to hear.”

His voice was kind, kinder than you’d ever heard it, and it made you pause. You gave him a small nod of acknowledgement.

“It’ll be alright. Just keep your head up.”

“You make it seem easy,” you muttered. Don’t lie to me, you wanted to say.

Aizawa took a step back when the door shifted. You fought the urge to pound against the glass once it closed you in. The space wasn’t big enough for you to spread your arms. You shut your eyes, picturing yourself in a big, open field. When you opened them, Aizawa had stepped back. He gave you one final nod before you started to move.

You were rising fast –– faster than you’d anticipated. Your hands involuntarily pressed against the glass as Aizawa disappeared from your view. You wanted to go back. You wanted to go home. You didn’t want to die. Fuck. Fuck.

Your chest was heaving when you entered the arena. You took in a deep breath, watching with wide eyes as the thirty second countdown began. Between you and the Cornucopia was a sheet of ice, spanning the entirety of the space between the platforms and the center of the arena.

“Oh, shit,” you muttered, breath catching in your throat as you took in the landscape.

It was a city of ruins. Everything was covered in a thick layer of snow, and towering over the rest of the arena were half-destroyed buildings covered in muddy ice. They looked like they had been sitting like this for years. You wondered if it had even been a week since the Capitol completed it.

You jumped when a loud crack sounded from the opposite end of the arena. One of the still-standing buildings began to crumble, and you watched with wide eyes as it came crashing to the ground. The other tributes were all looking around with similar expressions of shock; this wasn’t what any of you had expected. You’d seen the city arena a few years ago, and Aizawa had warned you that it might be a colder climate, but combining two already difficult arenas was rare. This was Kurogiri’s debut as gamemaker, and he was already making a name for himself.

You couldn’t see Keigo. He must have been on the opposite side of the Cornucopia. Numbly, you remembered one of Aizawa’s insights.

Everything that they do is purposeful. Never assume that anything is a coincidence.

“Three. Two. One.”

Day one of the 74th Annual Hunger Games

The cannon sounded, a crack in the silence of the arena, and then everything went quiet. Your head was pounding, ears closed off from the chaos breaking out the moment the countdown ended. You watched as the tributes raced across the ice, grabbing the first weapon they could get their hands on and turning on whoever was closest. You backed away from the bloodshed, stepping on the ice carefully. The shoes you’d been given were cleated at the bottom; short metal spicks dug into the ice and kept you from slipping. You winced when the blonde –– Bakugo, your spinning mind supplied –– kicked his spiked shoe into someone’s face, knocking them over with a snarl.

Your feet began moving on their own. Someone to your right threw a knife into the back of a retreating tribute. They fell to their knees, slumping onto their stomach almost in slow motion.

You broke into a sprint, pushing yourself off of the platform and racing towards the now still body. You slid across the ice on your knees to reach the knife before its previous owner did. You didn’t have time to think, not with Hatsume racing towards you, another knife clutched in her hand. You grasped the handle of the first knife, finally recognizing Kendo as the now dead body beneath you. Bile rose in your throat as you pulled the knife from the body easily. You turned away from the open wound and hunched over your weapon, ignoring the sick feeling in your stomach as blood stained the ice. Hatsume was almost on you now, knife raised high over her head.

You used Kendo’s body as leverage, spinning yourself on the ice and using the momentum to launch the knife towards her. It hit its mark just before she could bring her own down. She howled as it lodged into her shoulder, dropping her knife and collapsing to her knees.

There was no time to think. No time to feel guilty. No time to wonder if the wound would get infected and kill her. No time to do anything but grab her discarded knife, pull the other from her shoulder, and scramble to your feet. Your hand slipped, and you barely caught yourself with the hand holding the knives. Your knuckles burned as they hit the solid sheet of ice, but you dug your cleats into it and launched yourself from the Cornucopia. Ahead, the ice dissolved into slush and eventually became a layer of snow covering the rubble of the city. You stumbled over the watery ice, the cold shocking you as your feet sank into the freezing water.

“Y/N!”

Your brain was muddled. You felt like something inside you had deflated, leaving you breathless and full of nothing but empty space. The voice was faint, and your ears were still ringing, but you lifted your head and one of the two knives you’d collected towards the new voice.

Keigo.

He was right in front of you. He was right there, wide eyed and ushering you towards him from behind one of the crumbling buildings. You glanced behind you at Hatsume, who hadn’t looked up at Keigo’s call of your name, before pulling yourself from the lake and racing over the snow. Keigo’s arms were held in front of him, smile wide despite the chaos surrounding you.

“I found you,” he laughed, holding your face between his palms, already frozen from the cold.

“Yeah,” you nodded, gripping his hands, “you found me.”

By the time the sun set, you and Keigo had settled into a building that had at least some protection from the snow. The roof was half-collapsed, and only one corner of the small space was dry.

“We can’t start a fire,” Keigo sighed, pacing between the two still-standing walls of the structure. “Tomorrow, we can go back to the Cornucopia. There should be some kind of pack with a blanket. At least something we can use to warm up.”

“Right,” you wondered if Aizawa was doing what he said he’d do and helping and Keigo get sponsors. If he was successful, you might be receiving something like that sooner rather than later.

You leaned your head back against the concrete, eyes skyward. There were plenty of stars, too many to be possible in the light-polluted Capitol.

“Have you ever seen stars like that?”

Keigo glanced up through the small opening in the roof. It seemed almost unimaginable. The sky looked like something out of a painting, splattered with the bright, white lights. You’d heard stories of nights where the stars lit up the sky, but you’d only seen scattered stars in your district, and your days in the Capitol had only shown you a darkened sky.

“No,” he muttered. You wondered if these stars only existed in the arena. It felt darkly humorous. Kurogiri was either attempting a small kindness, or he was crueler than you’d given him credit for.

“Stars can only be seen in the lower districts.”

The voice came from the opposite corner of the small space, and the speaker was hidden in the shadows cast by the broken walls. You stood from your position against the highest wall of the structure, reaching behind you for your blood-crusted knife.

“Who are you?” Keigo raised his voice. In his hand was the knife that you’d used against Hatsume, clutched at his side as he approached the stranger carefully. You caught as glimpse of green hair, long and spread out into the faint glow of moonlight. You wanted to kick yourself for not noticing it before.

“Shiozaki?” you asked, careful as you stepped up to Keigo’s side. You’d studied the twenty-two other tributes carefully, and with a clear head you probably would have been able to recognize her voice from the number of times you’d watched the interviews. The girl’s long green hair certainly made a statement, but it contrasted her toned-down demeanor and advocation of peace rather than violence.

“The stars were once very beautiful,” she continued. Your eyes began to adjust to the darkness of the far corner the farther you moved into it, and the outline of the girl became clearer. She was sitting with her legs spread tucked under her. Snow dusted her hair, but the cold didn’t seem to bother her. She was twisting a piece of grass between her fingers where it was peeking through the snow, careful not to pull it from the ground. Wrapped around her right palm was a Kyoketsu-shoge. The knife was thrown to the side, but she was gripping the rope like a lifeline, body tense despite her distraction from you and Keigo.

“When I was young, my grandparents told me of a time when they could see stars like that in District Eleven. Now, there are days when we barely see stars at all. The Capitol polluted everything, and now all of that natural beauty has disappeared.”

The hand that was twisting the grass between her fingers froze, and she suddenly glared at you and Keigo fiercely. Gone was the girl from the interviews who clutched a bundle of flowers to her chest, asking the audience to think about their bloodlust and look to God. Gone was the girl whose character you thought you’d understood to be simple. This was someone entirely different. Beneath those words was a girl ready to break.

Before you could react, the knife at the end of Shiozaki’s weapon shot towards Keigo’s hand, knocking the knife into the snow. She pulled you into the shadows in your distraction and pressed you against the wall she’d been leaning on. She tugged the rope forward and caught the knife with remarkable coordination, then held it to your throat. Her movement quieted Keigo, whose knife was covered by the thick layer of snow that it had fallen into. He had clenched his bleeding hand into a fist, but you still saw blood staining the white powder.

“What do you believe in?” she muttered, digging the knife into the skin of your neck. You felt a trickle of blood come from the split she’d created, and fought not to shrink away from it, “do you believe in God?”

“What?” you grit, wincing when the knife shifted. She inched it away from the wound, giving you the space to take in a deep breath.

“You’re lost,” she shook her head, “you won’t survive this. The faithless never survive.”

“If there was a god, we wouldn’t be here,” you breathed, still wary of the knife just inches from your neck, “and if there’s a Heaven, we’re not going to get there.”

“You can still get there,” the smile that spread over her lips unsettled you. “You don’t have to take any lives. Let the Heavens take you before your soul is poisoned.”

It seemed hypocritical, considering the knife she was still threatening you with.

“You’re asking me to die?” you smiled, “are you going to finish the job?”

She scowled, pushing you away with unexpected force and dropping the knife with a shaking hand. Her face broke into something agonized, and she turned away from you towards the concrete wall.

“Are you okay?” Keigo grabbed your face, and you felt the sticky blood on his palm where Shiozaki had cut him.

“I’m fine,” you shook your head, bringing a hand to your throat. The cut was shallow, but the bleeding likely wouldn’t stop until you were able to put pressure on it and wrap it with something. This wasn’t the ideal opportunity to start dressing wounds.

“Our father, may your name be sanctified; and may your kingdom be blessed. May your will be done in Heaven and on Earth, and give our bread always.”

Shiozaki had fallen to her knees, hands clasped together as she muttered to herself. You began to approach her with Keigo at your side, but froze when you heard a familiar crack in the ground below you. It was the same sound you’d heard just before the building had come crashing to the ground during the countdown, but now it was much louder. It was coming from right under your feet.

“Run,” you looked back at Keigo with wide eyes. “The building is coming down. Run! Shiozaki!”

The girl hadn’t stirred at the noise, nor had she moved when the already crumbling building began to shake. You looked up as a large slab of concrete hit the ground just behind her. Still, she didn’t move.

The sounds of destruction ceased just as the Capitol’s symbol was projected over the stars. Music surrounded you as faces and districts flashed across the screen one by one, showing the tributes who had fallen on the first day. You looked back at Shiozaki with wide eyes, stepping forward behind Keigo as the building seemed to momentarily stabilize. Shiozaki had her head bowed to the floor now, listening as the last of ten canons sounded.

“Shiozaki,” Keigo called, looking between her and the rubble, “what are you doing?”

“Praying,” her voice was quiet, “for my fallen brothers and sisters.”

When the building began to fall again, you saw the second that Keigo made the decision to run back in. You remembered all of the people he’d taken care of in your district. All of the people that he watched over and kept safe. He had always been kind to a fault, sometimes at his own expense.

But he wasn’t going to make it. Not this time.

The wall came down in front of him just as you knocked him to the side, wrapping your arms around his torso and pulling him away from the destruction. Shiozaki could decide her own fate. You wouldn’t let her decide Keigo’s too.

He landed on top of you with a grunt, sitting up and looking back with wide eyes. You met them for a split second before you heard Shiozaki raise raise her voice so that you could hear her over the sound of the building collapsing. She was standing now, hands lifted and and face tilted towards the sky. You could see the light of the moon reflecting off of the tears on her cheeks.

When she looked towards you and Keigo, you felt frozen with the snow.

“May God watch over you both,” she smiled, “and may you escape with your lives.”

The building collapsed, one final canon sounded, and all that it left behind was dust and silence.

You watched as the debris settled over the rubble. Blood was still leaking from the cut in your neck, feeling like cold water on your skin, but you felt a million miles from your body. You shivered, bringing a hand to the wound to feel the damage.

“We need to find somewhere else to sleep,” you finally turned to Keigo. He stared at you, brows pulling together as his eyes fell to your neck.

“You’re hurt,” he took a step forward, reaching towards you with his injured hand. You smiled, stopping it before it could reach your neck. You turned it over to display the long, still-bleeding cut on his palm.

“You too,” you shook your head.

You glanced back at the building once more, briefly wondering if she could be alive under there. You turned with finality, trudging through the snow with a loose grip on Keigo’s uninjured hand.

Part of you wished you were in that building with her. Part of you didn’t want to wake up in the morning. The games generally lasted a little over two weeks. It had been one day, and you felt like all the fight you thought you would have had left you. Watching the games on a screen really didn’t do them justice; back home, you were able to convince yourself that it wasn’t real. That it was just a sick joke that the Capitol orchestrated.

You wondered if you would ever get the image of her final moments out of your head.

You and Keigo didn’t talk much as you continued on through the maze of the buildings. He seemed just as shocked as you felt, but you were reassured by his hand holding tight to yours that he was still with you. That he didn’t blame you for interfering.

But you knew that wouldn’t stop him from blaming himself.

You’d settled in another, more stable looking structure for the night. You both knew you’d need to sleep to be able to defend yourself against the twelve tributes left in the arena, but every time you closed your eyes, you saw Shiozaki letting herself die. You saw her eyes, wide and crazed and terrified as she asked you to die with her. Instead, she died alone and terrified, her death decided by people who used her as a spectacle.

You kept thinking about what more you could have done. If things went the way you wanted them to, she would have died anyways. Really, you should’ve been relieved.

That’s why they do this, you shook your head, trying to rid yourself of those thoughts, to turn us against one another. To isolate us and make us believe that we’re enemies.

Keigo was working mechanically, ripping the sleeve of his undershirt and tying it around your neck. It had taken long enough for you to find a semi-stable shelter for the night that the blood had crusted over the wound, but you felt it open again when Keigo cleaned it. He murmured out apologies as he worked, quick and efficient with practiced hands.

When he finished, you took his hand and repeated his actions. He watched you work with heavy eyelids, resting his chin on the arm he had draped over his knees.

“I wasn’t looking at the tributes who died today,” you leaned into Keigo’s side shivering against the cold wind blowing through the cracks in the wall. “Do you think–”

“No,” Keigo’s voice was firm. “Shouto’s strong. He’s okay.”

Neither of you wanted to acknowledge that your survival meant Shouto’s death. You didn’t want to think about coming home to Dabi with the weight of his brother’s death on your shoulders.

You drifted off plagued with thoughts of Shouto, possibly already dead and abandoned in the Cornucopia. Once asleep, you dreamed of Keigo being crushed with Shiozaki, leaving you alone in this Hell.

#hawks #hawks x reader #hawks x you #hawks x y/n #hawks imagine #keigo takami #keigo takami x reader #keigo takami x you #keigo takami x y/n #keigo takami imagine #mha #mha x reader #mha x you #mha x y/n #mha imagine #my hero academia #thg #emwrites

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