Chapter Text
your eyes... they...? you could have warned me of what i was about to see because i haven't been the same ever since.
Something felt off. Just plain wrong.
Goosebumps began to appear on your forearms and your body gave way to an unexplained instinct, an alert ringing in your mind as your awareness heightened, certain that something was amiss. Everything felt "off," despite the professor continuing with his lecture as if nothing strange had happened.
You tried to ignore the strange feeling that something was "off," and return to your notes, but a student a few rows in front of you caught your eye. You could feel your attention drawn to him immediately, the mysterious feeling in the room seeming to persist as if something was happening that you weren't privy to. You tried to refocus on your notes, but the student kept drawing your attention away, the unease in the air increasing.
What was happening?
Some days you'd look over at the student sitting in the front rows, his black hair looking somehow intentionally messy. You weren't particularly interested in him, but rather that your gaze would often wander the room as a means to stay awake during the more monotonous lectures. He was just one among many, but his tall stature and muscular back would often catch your eye. The way his back flexed as he leaned forward fascinated you, so you would often find that your gaze roamed the lecture hall to see who else was a little different - someone interesting enough to distract you from the droning voice of the professor.
You would often find yourself staring at the black-haired student, accompanied by questions that your mind would create. His interesting hairdo was an ongoing topic of thought, often curious about how much height the hair added to his already impressive stature. You knew that he was passionate about volleyball, along with many other students in your lecture, as the university's sports program was quite good. The athletes in your class were often noticed by the national teams, so it made sense that he was among them.
A familiar feeling crept over you once more, as if something was off just out of reach.
A chill in the air made your skin crawl as you were once again gripped by unease without any indication as to why. You instinctively looked over at the black-haired student, wondering if maybe he was the source of this unease.
A change had happened, the air having shifted in an imperceptible way. Yet you felt it with every nerve in your body, your mind alerting you to the change and sensing that something was wrong.
The black-haired student lazily leaned over the back of the chair now, his left arm hanging down casually. Your breath almost stopped when you realized he was staring at you. Any other time it wouldn't cause such an abrupt fear in you, even if you weren't noticed often, but what appeared when you met his gaze was something entirely different from any other day.
This was the second odd phenomenon of the day that filled you with unease, his eyes holding a strange, unknown effect.
His hazel eyes were observing you like a predator would his prey. He looked at you as if you were the last person in the room. His keen eyes were observing you like you were an object defying gravity, like a shadow in a fleeting moment of his gaze. And something changed right then and there.
His eyes, although his pupils were small and his eyes feline looking, seemed to change in front of you while a small black patch of color spread in his right iris and then appeared in his left one. You had barely exchanged a word with him before, maybe one or two hello's when you met in the corridor, but that wouldn't explain why he was staring at you so intently.
You saw his mouth tighten slightly before a slow, confident smile crossed his face. The corner of his mouth curled upward in a slight, but still unsettling manner. You could feel your heart rate quicken as you saw a more aggressive side to him now, his gaze and smile threatening you with a new kind of fear.
You had to swallow hard, your eyes flicking away from his piercing gaze. Your heartbeat was racing so quickly that you could feel it in your limbs, clinging to your pen as if it were your last link to reality. The combination of nerves fear, and strange emotions that he had triggered in you led to a rush of adrenaline. You felt like you were glowing, but your hands were cold, a strange mix of sensations that filled you with a foreboding anxiety.
This wasn't the first confusing event of the day for you, and while you wanted to mull over your thoughts about his mysterious eyes, you felt your inner turmoil reflected on your face with furrowed eyebrows and a blank expression that hid the chaos your mind was experiencing.
The professor continued to speak, yet despite your best efforts to pay attention, your eyes had to look past the black-haired student to see the professor, while ignoring his intense stare. It made you feel sick in ways you never felt before.
You desperately attempted to cling to the typical routine of this lecture. The presence of other students in the room always brought a level of comfort to your feelings of loneliness, where you could lose yourself in the crowd of faces and forget about them. You preferred the busier lecture halls, where you sat amongst so many others that you had no hope of remembering their names.
Yet the name of the black-haired student burned on the tip of your tongue, as if you needed to whisper it aloud to yourself, to affirm that he was real and that everything happening around you was real too. You almost even said his name aloud, if it wasn't for the fact that the glares from your fellow students only increased.
Your body was ahead of your mind, shivers snaking down your spine, your hands turning ice cold as your heart thundered in your chest. The tension within the lecture hall continued to increase, your anxiety leaving you feeling as if you could faint right at this moment.
You looked away, your gaze falling to your notepad with its empty page, your hair falling in front of your eyes and serving as a curtain to the world around you. Carefully, you peeked through the few strands of your hair, blowing them out of your face as you were doing so and scanning the room as if on a mission to satisfy your curiosity.
And you were right.
Your heart caught in your throat as you saw him when you noticed it. The lecture hall was completely still, the only sound was the occasional scratch of a pencil or the flip of a page.
Tetsurou Kuroo had turned his attention back to the professor, his gaze fixed on the speaker at the front of the room. You were unsure whether your eyes had been playing tricks on you or not, but when your eyes fell on the bottle-blonde hair belonging to a guy your age on the far side of the lecture hall, your heart skipped a beat and you were close to toppling out of your chair. With your focus firmly set on him now, you were startled to see that he had turned to face you completely and was staring at you - watching, his gaze holding you hostage with its intensity. His eyes matched the same emptiness that you had seen in Kuroo's eyes, as he had stared at you, yet there still remained something about his gaze that sparkled, an intrigue that was not present with Kuroo's stare. Your eyes were transfixed to his, unable to tear away, yet a curiosity grew within you.
His dark brown eyes drew you in and at this point you were almost positive that this was all a figment of your imagination, it had to be. Surely, you were only focusing on him because you knew something was wrong with him, too.
In this strange back-and-forth between you and him, you were waiting for something - a cue, a signal, maybe an obvious display of something strange to confirm your suspicions. Yet you were equally wishing to look away, get up, and never return, the smug smile on the boy's face and the glimmering metal piercing on his tongue provoking you.
Your eyes were already burning as you tried not to blink and while you thought that and had almost blinked you would have missed the yellow dot forming in one of his eyes. He was too far, yet close enough somehow to be sure you saw what was happening. After a few seconds, the small dot became larger, until the pungent yellow color had settled over his entire iris.
And then he blinked and it was gone.
His crooked smile faded. He turned back to his desk and started taking notes again.
A shiver ran down your spine. The entire moment was so otherworldly that, despite everything that had just happened, you found yourself transfixed by him and staring at him once more, unsure as to whether the yellow eye color was more surprising or the fact that he turned around pretending nothing had ever happened.
You craved to get up and head to the bathroom, yet the fact that you couldn't, for fear of garnering attention after this surreal situation that had played out before you, did not sit well with you.
You dreaded the thought of being left alone in the quiet halls of the university, you didn't want to risk anything.
Terushima and Kuroo were guys you had nothing to do with. You didn't know what was going on but you wouldn't put yourself in unnecessary danger. The subtle change in the ambience of the lecture hall coupled with the feeling of a strange and unsettling presence surrounding you, made you certain that some kind of looming danger was present.
You attempted to keep your eyes lowered, yet there was no focusing on your blank sheet of paper, your mind consumed by the colors yellow and black.
Your thoughts wouldn't allow you to focus on anything else, as your body and mind stayed wrapped up in the strange situation you found yourself in. The strange whispers you thought you had heard drew more of your attention, prompting you to look to your side, only to see everyone in your row writing or looking forward. Everyone was silent, creating a tense atmosphere that made you want to cringe out of discomfort and nervousness.
You began to feel frustrated by the situation, yet your irritation quickly subsided as you actually heard words being whispered next to you.
"The hunt begins", close to your ear, so close that you could still feel the warm breath and you twitched so hard that you jumped. A shaky breath escaped your lips and your hands felt the coldest they had ever felt.