"I can't leave Baio-kun!" Itsuki protests, banging his little fists against Atsumu's back. "I'm telling your mum that y'ran away," Atsumu says, for no other reason than he's bored, and a little peeved off at having to wait to pick Ituski up, metaphorically and literally, and with that he walks away, Itsuki slung over his shoulder. "I'm telling mum!" He shouts, petulantly. Atsumu sticks his tongue out at the child, because he has yet to develop empathy for random children. This, unsurprisingly, scares the other child, and tears start to fall from it's weirdly large eyes.
Itsuki makes a scene, kicking and whining in Atsumu's grip. "Itsuki, little shit," Atsumu said, and grabs the child by the scruff of his neck. The latter looks upset, pouting and sniffing. Atsumu is receiving weird looks from teachers, which is fair, considering he's unfamiliar and far too young to be a father, and is loitering on school property.Ītsumu is drafting his eulogy when he spots a small child with a horrendous bowl cut and bangs to match, clambering up the slide to reach an equally tiny child with curly black hair. There are, admittedly, a few parents still milling around, but they're talking to one another with the children very much found and hanging off their frames. Is what Atsumu tells himself as the crowds begin to thin out and time moves quickly past the appropriate child-pick-up time frame. Some have moved to the play equipment with their bags of equal size to their bodies, with teachers in hi-vis vests at their heels, and others are forming bus lines, however haphazardly.Ītsumu cannot reminisce about his childhood here, because a child is living out theirs right now, and will probably not make it to eighteen if he neglects to pick him up (so his sister tells him.) So Atsumu stands lookout in the sea of children, looking out for the choppy hair of his nephew. Everything is a bit more real now, and the voices seem a little closer.
With the shrill sound of the bell, rushes of loud children spill into the open air concrete corridors and down to the grass, yelling and whooping with a joy only known in the young years of youth. It seems that everyone is holding their breath before the wave breaks. Even the voices of gossiping mothers are muted and hushed. There's a peace before the storm, now, where everything seems to hold still. Atsumu is not looking forward to saying no to ice cream. Perfect Friday conditions for a ten year old. There's a light breeze, no clouds, and mild temperature. The concrete-bitcherman mix is chalked up with games of various sorts, which are stretched around the growing potholes, and spread with leaf litter from the surrounding trees. The grass is battered, and struggling against the compact dirt formed by stampedes of young children day after day.
Almost like a verbal punching bag but the bag doesn't know it's a punching bag and that Atsumu is not joking when he tells them that he'll put dirt in their dinner.īecause, of his very own volition and will, Atsumu finds himself standing at the gate of a generic primary school, hands free and ready to collect his nephew. Which is, to say, Atsumu is good with children because, unlike some of his peers, they laugh at his jokes and they laugh at Atsumu when he insults them.