[1] HOUSE OF CROWS | Haikyuu!! (Murder of Crows) ✓

HOUSE OF CROWS | 02

The sky had coalesced into a cold, heavy shadow by the time you left your house at five minutes to ten that same night. The moon was a grey smudge above the rooftops and the stars seemed dim and far away, the wind stinging at your cheeks as you pedalled your bike through the silent neighbourhood. There was no sound but the crunch of gravel beneath your tires, and the rattling of gutters and empty cans in the breeze.

When you pulled up outside the school twenty minutes later, you saw four figures stood by the outer gate, which stretched up behind them like a thin, crooked shadow. You recognised Kuroo when he stepped forward, his arms crossed, the floodlights above the school casting long, sharp edges across his face. He was frowning. "I said don't be late."

You shrugged, pushing down the kickstand of your bike and leaning your weight against the curb. "You're lucky I turned up at all."

Kuroo considered you for a moment from beneath dark, hooded eyes, then nodded. "Now that we're all here, let's get moving."

After securing your bike in the shed on the outskirts of the school, you fell into step beside the boys, glancing around to see who else was part of Kuroo's investigation. Other than Keiji Akaashi, who you knew through shared classes, there was a short red-head you recognised as Shoyou Hinata, and a tall boy with blond hair and glasses you knew as Kei Tsukishima, both through your acquaintance with Kuroo.

"I'm surprised you would go along with something like this, Akaashi-San," you said to the boy next to you, tightening the lens of the camera you had strapped around your neck. "You don't strike me as the type to investigate haunted houses."

Akaashi shrugged, glancing down at his feet. His shadow stretched out long and thin in front of him. "I guess I'm just curious, to see if the rumours are true."

"And what rumours would these be?" You asked, your voice carrying to the three walking ahead.

Kuroo glanced back, his sharp eyes finding yours in the gloom, and a small, disquieting smile appeared on his face. "Hinata, would you like to do the honours?"

"Do you know the legend of the Crow?" The small boy said, a soft shudder passing through his voice as he fell back to walk beside you.

"I don't think so. What is it - some killer bird?"

"Not a bird," Hinata corrected, his voice low and solemn. Sweat beaded his forehead, despite the coolness of the night. "A man. A murderer. The legend goes that he lived in the middle of the Forest of Crows, and that's where he killed all of his victims. Apparently, you can still hear their screams echoing in the forest at night."

"I'm sure there's plenty of wildlife living in the forest that cry out at night," you said. "It's probably just an owl or something."

"Then how come it sounds human?" Hinata challenged.

You shrugged, disinterested. "Imagination playing tricks. People hearing what they want to hear. Or the trees, maybe if they've grown too close together, sounds might distort around them. There's plenty of explanations."

Hinata fell quiet after that, apparently mulling over your words. The boy was too impressionable, you decided, but at least he wasn't stubborn.

"What about you, Tsukishima-San? Do you believe the stories about the Crow?" You asked, genuinely curious. From what you knew about the tall blond, he had a sour attitude and didn't seem like the type to go chasing ghosts.

Tsukishima nudged up his glasses as he shot you a glance over his shoulder. "It's not that I believe the stories... but the rumours must have come from somewhere, and I want to see how much is real."

"Hm. But you're not a sceptic?"

Tsukishima shrugged. "I'm open to interpretation, whether it be grounded in fact or... something else." He turned away, and you sighed.

"Great. Looks like I'm the only sane one here."

***

"Does the princess want me to carry her?" Kuroo called over his shoulder when he noticed you had fallen behind the others, your breathing laboured as you struggled up the steep incline of the hill.

You scowled in return, the muscles in your calves aching. "The princess can carry herself, thank you very much."

Kuroo held out his hands in defence, and from the corner of your eye, you caught a smile flutter briefly across Akaashi's face.

"Nobody told me we would have to cross a mountain to get to the forest," you muttered as the ground finally levelled off into a flat road, and you paused with your hands on your knees, breathing heavily. Without warning, a water bottle was suddenly thrust in front of your face, and you glanced up to find Tsukishima holding it out to you. He said nothing as you accepted it from him and took a sip.

"Thank you," you said, passing it back with a glance around you. It was darker than before. You'd been walking for at least thirty minutes and the street lamps had slowly become more spaced apart, so that puddles of black shadow pooled between them.

"Why did you come?" Tsukishima asked after a moment, his hands now in his pockets, looking at something in the distance. Casual, disinterested. But there was an odd tightness to his face, a shadow lingering around his eyes.

Lifting your hands to rest them against your hips, you considered the question. "For Kuroo, I suppose. He's a friend, and I figured I owed him this."

"Is that all there is to it?"

You frowned up at him, disliking his tone. "What do you mean?"

He shrugged, the moon casting his face into sharp contours of shadow. "You can't deny we all have a bit of morbid curiosity inside of us. The desire to know."

His words lingered oddly between you, but before you had the chance to respond, Kuroo was there, snapping you all to attention. "We all had a rest? Good, let's keep going."

***

It was surprisingly warm in the forest. The trees were packed close together, and the leaves fanned above in a tight canopy that stopped any moonlight from reaching the floor. It was pitch black. Tsukishima dug around his backpack and produced a torch, flipping it on. The sliver of yellow light illuminated only a short distance ahead, bouncing off the trees and throwing the light wide. The floor was a thick carpet of leaves and rotting undergrowth.

Kuroo also pulled a flashlight from his jacket pocket and panned it around his feet.

"How far is the house?" You asked, wishing you too had brought a light of some kind. You had your phone if it came to it, but you'd rather not drain the battery.

"About two miles North from here," Kuroo said from memory, and you were glad he was at least organised enough to have done some research. The last thing you wanted was to get lost.

"You brought a compass?"

Kuroo glanced back at Tsukishima, who again reached into his bag to retrieve the small device, handing it across to him. "Courtesy of Tsukki."

"Don't call me that," he muttered, swinging his bag back onto his shoulder. From the corner of your eye, he was nothing but an unnaturally tall shadow.

"You can begin filming when we get deeper into the trees," Kuroo instructed you as you began walking North, the noise of feet shuffling amongst leaves creating a distorted echo around them. "Or if you see any ghosts."