love notes and iron walls (aone takanobu x reader)

(4) comfortable silence

why did you quit?

i heard his voice, i registered the words, and i stared blanky at him while my throat closed in on itself. my mouth dried and i looked at him desperately searching for an answer. everybody at the table had their eyes on me as i choked on the air in my lungs. my mouth opened and closed as if i was going to speak but no words came out. i panicked and searched through all the possible answers

they might find out eventually, could i even get away with lying? i looked at him as the rock in my stomach weighed me down and my lungs tightened. i cleared my throat nervously praying they couldnt notice how desperately i was crashing. i probably looked like a fish out of water, opening and closing my mouth. i felt the weight in my chest of how they would judge me, ridicule me, wouldn't believe me. i just got a team back, a family, a safe space. theres no way i can tell them and risk fucking it all up the first day.

i croaked out a quiet "my dads work. we moved here for his work" and forced a smile, looking around nervously, desperately hoping they wouldn't question it. the boys all seemed suspicious and i felt as if i could vomit all over the place any second. aone tilted his head to the side a little and then turned to the candies again, quietly reaching for a piece.
"okay" he said, opening a candy and quietly handing it to futakachi, drawing the attention off of me.

futakachi looked at him confused and said "what? do you want me to try one of y/n's definitely-not-stolen candies?" everyone giggled and it brought a smile to my face as well, the familiar feeling of comfort that a group of friends brought calmed my nerves. futakachi looked at me and giggled
"well y/n clearly thought these candies were worth pulling off a grand heist for, it would be rude of me not to try them!"

futakachi takes the candy from aones hand and inspects it for a moment, contemplating the small candy. he looks at everyone else in silence for a moment, than shrugs and begins unwrapping the candy. everyone else watched in silence as they anticipated his reaction, and he popped the candy into his mouth, holding his hands up as if to shush everyone. i giggled at his silly reaction, acting as if he were a proffesional candy taster. i have to admit though, he did make me fairly excited for his reaction. he swirled the candy around in his mouth with an intense look of contemplation that was overly fake serious. he nodded his head and smiled with a goofy grin

"thats so fucking good, in my professional opinion. i order as captain that all of you try one!" he said through laughter. the rest of the team laughed as well and each person grabbed a candy from the pile that i spilled out into the table. kogane looked at me with a wide smile and grabbed a whole handful, clearly hoping it would please me. i smiled brightly at him and took one into my hand as well, playing along with the team. i looked around and everybody seemed to be waiting for something, so i took the liberty of starting a countdown
"okay, your soon to be manager speaking, we go on three okay?"

everyone smiled brightly at the mention of me being their future manager and nodded happily, kogane being particularly excited. i looked around and saw nobody had unwrapped the candies yet.
"okay doofuses, you gotta unwrap it first" i said through a laugh. everyone looked confused for a moment before sniggering and unwrapping the candies. aone decided to join in last second, grabbing another candy from my pile. i disnt realize how many i had actually grabbed until i realized an entire team of volleyball boys barely made a dent in the pile. i waited until everybody had unwrapped their candies and i settled back into my seat. i looked around once more and posed my hand to pop it into my mouth on three, and watched at the boys instinctual reaction to copy the pose. it brought a small smile to my lips to see they already deemed me as a respectable authority figure.

"okay, one... two... THREE!"
i yelled and they all very quickly shoved the candies in their mouth, including myself and aone. i felt the familliar caramel taste seep into my mouth and smilled, humming delightedly at the taste. everyone else let out shocked "mmph"s and started talking about how good they were. except for koganegawa.