The room still reeked of iron.
My blood. His blood. Ours, they called it now.
I couldn't move. My body was trembling too violently, the chain biting into my wrist as if mocking my attempt to escape. Every shallow breath burned my throat.
Suna hadn't let go. His hand was still pressed against mine, slick and sticky, our wounds glued together by blood. He looked at me like I was some kind of miracle he had been waiting for.
I wanted to vomit.
"You'll thank me one day," he whispered, his voice low, unshaken. "When you finally understand what it means to belong to someone completely."
"Belong?" I spat the word, choking on the metallic taste in my mouth. "You chained me, cut me open, called it love. That's not belongingit's pity dressed up as obsession."
For the first time, his expression shifted just a flicker, a crease in his brow. Pity. The word hit him like I had struck him.
Behind him, Oikawa laughed softly, stepping into the room with a deliberate slowness, his eyes glinting like he enjoyed every second of this. "Pity, she says. That's almost funny. Do you think we pity you, Y/n?"
"You should," I snapped, though my voice shook. "Because you're all pathetic. Monsters who confuse cruelty with love."
Atsumu leaned against the wall, smirking, though his eyes were sharp. "Pathetic? Doll, ya tried to bleed yourself out on a pair of scissors. If anyone's pitiful here, it's you."
My chest seized. The words cut deeper than the scissors ever could. I wanted to scream, to lunge at him, to claw my way out of their circle. But my body was too weak, my blood too thin.
Bokuto took a step forward, fists clenched. "Stop it. Don't talk to her like that."
"She called us monsters," Tsukishima said flatly from the corner. His glasses caught the light, hiding his eyes. "She's not wrong. But monsters survive. Pity doesn't."
Kuroo crouched lower beside me, brushing my hair back from my damp face, smearing more blood along my temple. His voice was steady, calculated. "Do you know why pity disgusts me, kitten?"
I shook my head weakly, tears streaking hot down my cheeks.
"Because pity makes people weak. Pity lets you look at someone suffering and think you're above them. We don't pity you, Y/n. We want you. That's the difference."
"You want... a doll," I whispered, hating the crack in my voice. "Not me. Not a person. Just something you can chain and bleed and claim."
Kuroo's lips curved faintly. "Then be the doll. Be ours. We'll make sure you're never pitied again."
Suna's grip on my wrist pulsed tighter, blood still oozing between our hands. He leaned close, his breath hot against my ear. "I don't pity you. I worship you."
I turned my face away, sobbing, hating how small my voice had become. "I don't want your worship. I want my freedom."
Oikawa chuckled darkly. "Freedom? After tonight? Doll, freedom is just another word for pity. And pity is beneath you now."
The room spun around me, their faces blurring together into one looming shadow. The chains rattled, echoing their vow, their laughter, their cruelty.
And for the first time, I realized...
They wouldn't kill me. They wouldn't let me die.
They would keep me. Worship me. Break me.
Until I had no pity left for myself
My throat closed as I sobbed harder, the sound torn from me, ugly, desperate.
"Why?" My voice cracked, shaking through my tears. "Why do you hate me so much that you won't let me go? Why do you keep me here when all I want is to stop breathing? Why won't you let me be free?"
Bokuto flinched, his eyes wide, pained, but none of the others moved. They just stared.
Kuroo tilted his head, his gaze steady, sharp. "Hate you?" he repeated softly. "No, kitten. If we hated you, we'd let you rot in the ground. What we feel is worse. What we feel doesn't let you go."
"You call that love?" I whispered, my voice breaking into a sob. "Love shouldn't feel like chains. Love shouldn't leave scars. Love shouldn't make me wish I'd never been born."
Silence. Heavy. Suffocating.
Semi's lips trembled as he stepped forward, his voice shaking. "You don't understand yet. Love is supposed to hurt. Love means sacrifice. If you bleed, we bleed with you. Isn't that proof enough?"
"Proof?" I choked out, my body trembling violently. "No, it's torture. You're torturing me and calling it devotion. And I..." My chest heaved, words spilling out between gasps. "I don't want it. I never wanted it. I never asked for it."
Suna's grip tightened painfully on my wounded wrist, dragging me back to him when I tried to turn away. His voice was low, unshaken. "And yet you're ours. You can deny it. You can fight it. But you'll never erase it. We branded you tonight. You belong to us."
"I don't," I screamed, my voice raw, throat tearing with the effort. Tears poured hot and relentless down my face. "I will never belong to you!"
Bokuto staggered back like my words had struck him, his hands clutching his hair. "Don't say that, don't-.."
But Kuroo's hand shot out, stopping him, his gaze locked on me like a predator to prey. His smile was calm, cruel, unshaken.
"You can hate us, doll. You can curse us, spit on us, scream until your voice breaks. But you'll stay. Because that's the only choice left to you."
I felt the last of my strength slip away, my body sagging against the chains, my vision blurring with tears. A hollow sob broke from my chest, soft, pitiful, the sound of someone already broken.
And they drank it in.
Every shudder. Every tear. Every crack in my voice.
Because to them, I was never a person.
Just a doll.
A doll too pitiful to break free.
My body jerked forward suddenly, desperate, wild. The room swayed with shadows, their stares suffocating, and my eyes landed on the scissors, the same ones I had used before still on the table where I'd been caught.
I lunged for them.
The chain rattled and burned against my skin, but somehow my fingers closed around the cold steel. My chest heaved, broken sobs tearing from me as I raised the blades with trembling hands.
"Don't-..." Bokuto's voice cracked, panicked. He stepped forward, but Kuroo's arm shot out like a barrier, stopping him.
The room froze.
My breath came in ragged gasps, tears streaking my blood-stained cheeks. I pressed the scissors against my throat, my hands shaking so violently I nearly dropped them.
"Let me go," I rasped, voice hoarse and broken. "Or I swear...I'll do it. I'll end this. You won't have your doll anymore. You won't have me."
For a moment, no one breathed.
Oikawa's smirk faltered, his lips parting, but no sound came out. Atsumu muttered a curse under his breath, shifting against the wall, his eyes sharp and uncertain now. Semi's face had gone pale, his knuckles white as he clenched his fists.
But Kuroo...
Kuroo only crouched lower, calm, steady, his dark eyes locked onto mine as if he were studying a puzzle he had already solved.
"Kitten," he said softly, almost gently. "You won't do it."
"Shut up!" My scream broke, raw and cracked, my chest aching. The scissors pressed harder into my skin, a thin sting blooming at my throat. "Don't...don't test me, I'll do it, I'll end it right here! I can't...I can't keep living like this!"
Kuroo tilted his head slightly, his expression unchanging, lips curving faintly.
"You said the same thing when you tied that rope around your neck, remember?"
His voice was steady, cruel in its certainty. "You wanted to fly away, to choke out the pain. But you didn't. You survived. Because somewhere, deep down, you're terrified of dying more than you're terrified of us."
My sob broke louder, my grip faltering on the scissors.
"You don't know anything about me!" I screamed, though my voice shook, splintered. My arms trembled violently, the blade quivering against my skin.
"I know everything," Kuroo murmured, his eyes sharp and unwavering. "I know the way your pulse races when you cry. I know how your hands shake when you think about death. You want it, but you don't choose it. You want escape, not an ending. That's why you didn't die last time. And that's why you won't do it now."
The weight of his words crushed me. My knees buckled, my body slumping against the chains, the scissors clattering just slightly as my grip weakened.
Tears blurred everything, and my voice broke into a whisper, trembling, pleading.
"Why... why won't you just let me go? Why won't you let me die?"
Suna's hand reached over mine, prying the scissors away slowly, carefully. His touch was firm, possessive, but not rough this time. His voice was low, almost reverent.
"Because your death would mean nothing. But your suffering, your tears, your breath... they mean everything to us."
I sobbed, choking on the sound, shaking as the scissors slipped from my hand and clattered to the floor.
The silence that followed was suffocating, broken only by the sound of my ragged breaths and their quiet, steady presence.
Kuroo's fingers brushed my cheek again, smearing tears with blood, his voice a whisper against my skin.
"See? You're still here, kitten. You'll always still be here. That's what makes you ours."
And in that moment, I broke again.
Not because of the chains. Not because of the blood.
But because a part of me believed him.