Title: Yield
Fandom: Haikyuu!!
Rating: T
Length: 2K
Ship: Goshiki Tsutomu/Shirabu Kenjirou
Content notes: alternate universe - modern setting, shapeshifters, dogs
Author notes: For the prompt "abandon."
Summary: Shirabu finds a stray dog and tries to do the right thing.


Shirabu hated dogs without their leashes. He could see a dog on the street from his apartment window, and it didn't have a leash. No one nearby seemed to be its owner.

The dog ran up and down the sidewalk, barking as it faced straight ahead. Shirabu couldn't hear it through his closed window. Sometimes the cool air that breezed into the window kept his apartment cool, and he appreciated that and took advantage often, but if he woke up in the middle of the night, or went to bed too late, the songbirds' early morning racket kept him awake.

Shirabu sighed and slid away to return to his homework. After hours of working and studying, he checked back on the street and found the same dog there, lying on the floor under the streetlights that flickered on with the sunset.

The next morning the dog was still there, sleeping while leaning against a lamppost. Shirabu woke up at noon, groggy from a night of studying, but even with his bleary vision he could see the dog.

Shirabu picked up his phone and dialed Ushijima's number.

"Ushijima. It's Shirabu. There's a dog outside my apartment."

"What do you want me to do about it? I don't live near you," Ushijima said.

Shirabu grumbled. "Don't you have any advice?"

"What kind of dog is it?"

Shirabu swiveled and rolled his chair back to the window. "...I don't know."

"How old is it?"

"I don't know."

"Who does it belong to?" Ushijima asked with slow disbelief, already aware of the answer.

"It doesn't have a collar, so I don't know."

Tendou burst out laughing in the background. Shirabu's hand tightened on his phone. "Tendou's there? Did you put me on speakerphone?"

"He wanted to listen."

Shirabu groaned, but he couldn't argue when he sounded like a clueless moron. "Anyway, what should I do? It's been here since yesterday."

Something shuffled on Ushijima's end of the line. "What, afraid you'll get bitten?" Tendou asked.

"Can't you give the phone back? I'm being serious."

"I'm right here, Shirabu," Ushijima reassured.

"So far, you haven't said a single helpful thing."

"Then, what is it that you're afraid of? Do you want to avoid it, or put up found posters?"

Shirabu let out a sigh. He hated dogs without their leashes or collars; it gave him an uneasy incomplete feeling from not knowing who the owner was. It frustrated him, and he needed the closure. That was the reason why he hesitated to turn a blind eye.

"Why don't you take it?" Shirabu asked.

"I have the free time to talk to you, but not enough to visit."

"Why don't you just take the dog yourself, Kenjirou?"

"I live in an apartment that doesn't allow pets," Shirabu said.

"Either you let this poor cute dog be miserable and homeless, or you break a rule everyone breaks anyway," Tendou explained.

"This dog could be ugly for all you know."

"There's no such thing as an ugly dog," Tendou said. "Anyway, you probably want a pet anyway, so..."

"I feel bad for it but I don't want a pet in a small apartment. And I'm a student, I don't have time to take care of anything."

Tendou didn't say anything, but his smug silence said enough. Shirabu hated him, too.

It was a Sunday, so Shirabu had the time to put homework aside. He stepped outside with a trash bag in hand to throw out the garbage.

The dog had been sitting near the entrance under a window, and it turned at his footsteps, hurrying to meet him. Shirabu ignored it and continued on to the trash can. It made no move to bite him. Instead it trotted behind him quietly, and when he closed the dumpster and looked down, it lowered itself to its front paws and wagged its tail.

"Are you lost or something?" Shirabu asked.

Its tail flopped for a moment, and then swung up and wagged again. Tendou was right; it was a cute dog, with thin-haired black and brown fur. It was bigger than a small dog, so it wouldn't fit comfortably in his apartment.

"Don't you have anywhere to go? Go." Shirabu waved his hand with a dismissive motion. The dog sat back on its back legs.

Shirabu groaned and closed his eyes in a slow blink heavy with resignation. He made his way back to the building entrance, and the dog trailed after him.

Shirabu creaked the door open and squeezed himself inside. He stuck his foot out to nudge the dog and keep it away. "No. Stay. I can't just take you in...get off me." Shirabu shook it off his leg, closed the door, and took the stairs to his room.

Half an hour later he returned with a large blanket. He slipped out the door and glanced around. The dog was staring at him from around the corner of the next building, its eyes squinting with suspicion.

Shirabu approached it and lowered the blanket, waved it and hovering it above the ground. "Hurry up and get under here before someone sees you," he said quietly.

In broad daylight someone could still see, but Shirabu had already made up his mind. He dropped the blanket on the dog and bundled it until it was an unrecognizable heap of fabric. Despite the help, the dog struggled, and Shirabu fumbled to keep it under the blanket.

"Stop moving," he hissed. "Unless you want me to drop you and go inside without you."

The dog went quiet and curled up into a loose complacent ball. Shirabu carried it inside and went back up the stairs.

A neighbor on the second floor caught him on the stairs, and he froze.

"Shirabu! What's that?" Yamagata pointed at the bundle.

"Oh uh, it's...junk food."

Yamagata laughed. "You need a blanket for that?"

Shirabu hunched his shoulders in a shrug. "It already fell out my window."

"Okay, okay." Yamagata passed him and headed downstairs.

Shirabu grumbled and continued on to his floor. As soon as he closed the door and lowered the dog, it took a step and tangled itself in the blanket. Shirabu locked the door and leaned his shoulder against it while watching.

"And you were so smart earlier," Shirabu remarked, remembering when it had listened to him as if it understood

It poked its head out of the blanket. "I am," it insisted.

Shirabu slipped and knocked his arm against the doorknob. He clutched it with his other hand and strangled his pain down his throat. "What?" he asked sharply through his grimace.

"I can read and speak Japanese," the dog continued, and it crawled out of the blanket with its paws scrambling to pull itself along the floor. Once it freed itself, its tail wagged again.

Shirabu rolled his arm and shoulder until the pain faded. "You're a...talking dog?"

"Yeah!" It nodded its head all the way to the floor and back up. "My name is Goshiki Tsutomu, and I'm--"

Shirabu lifted a book. "Get the hell out of my house."

Goshiki scooted backward and tripped on the blanket. "What're you doing?!"

"You're a talking dog," Shirabu repeated. He opened the door. "Get out."

Goshiki kneaded his feet and fidgeted. "But you said I could stay."

Shirabu crouched behind a chair. The pain in his arm was gone, but a dull ache crept into his head from grimacing and thinking hard about Goshiki in front of him. His eyebrows twitched and wrinkled together.

Goshiki stepped forward onto all four of his feet. "Can I stay?"

"No," Shirabu said flatly.

"Why not?"

"Letting a weird creature in is the start of a horror movie."

"I'm not a werewolf or anything! I'm just a dog! What if I was a bird?"

"No."

"You wouldn't even take in a bird?"

"If you were a bird that still argues and bothers me like this, then yes, I'd kick you out."

Goshiki walked away and around the couch in the living room, disappearing from view as he dragged the blanket with him. Shirabu then heard a decisive thud. He stood and found Goshiki sitting and sulking, his feet tight against himself.

"You really need to get out. I was already on the fence and ready to change my mind either way. I just felt bad for you for a second."

Goshiki turned with a small sadness crinkling his eyes. "If you want a dog, I can act like one!"

"No."

Goshiki hung his head alongside a whine. "Why not..."

"Dogs aren't supposed to talk. Get out, and I'll forget this ever happened."

The longer this dragged on, the more the headache imprinted into Shirabu's mind, and the more he doubted that he could forget this happened. Detail guaranteed a memory. It also normalized the situation, and he had finally made up his mind.

"What if I don't talk anymore?"

"You really think I can just ignore that you can talk? You sound like a human in a dog's body, and I will not feed you food in a bowl and pet you when you're practically..." Shirabu stopped as a chill caught up to him.

Goshiki tilted his head. "What?"

"You're not...actually human in there, are you?"

Goshiki raised his head to a height that drew himself up and puffed out his chest. "I am!"

He nosed his head under the blanket and buried himself underneath. Shirabu came to regret asking the question -- or any -- when Goshiki filled out the blanket with a human shape.

"Stay under there, I don't want to see you at all," Shirabu snapped, his hands shooting out to block the view.

Goshiki kept the blanket wrapped around himself as he rearranged himself to sit up. Shirabu liked dogs, but he barely knew anything about them, so he didn't have any idea how old Goshiki was supposed to be. He just knew Goshiki was a medium-sized dog, and that didn't tell him anything. As a human, Goshiki managed to be taller than him, pinning him close to Shirabu's age.

"Can I stay as a human? As a roommate?" Goshiki asked.

"I live alone for a reason. I don't want a roommate. Even if it wasn't already disturbing that a dog can talk, I wouldn't want someone bothering me without shutting up." Shirabu's eyes narrowed. "And I'm not supposed to have pets in the first place. So having a dog that can talk is the worst of both. Get out."

"But you like dogs? So if I had just stayed a dog, you wouldn't've gotten scared?"

"I'm not scared. It's common sense to not take in a random stranger."

Goshiki placed his hands on the floor, a pose that struck Shirabu as slightly similar to the way he stood as a dog. "Being a stranger's the problem then! Ask me anything you want so I won't be a stranger."

Shirabu sighed. "That sounds like a terrible idea."

"My name's Goshiki Tsutomu, and I can turn into a dog," Goshiki began.

"Is there any reason why?"

Goshiki smiled. Shirabu realized, then, that he had fallen right into the mistake of agreeing, but he couldn't backtrack as Goshiki continued to talk.

"No. I don't know. I just exist. It ran in my family--"

"It doesn't just happen."

Goshiki displayed no surprise or concern. He cocked his head, still happy, and he didn't push or explain. "I was born. It happens."

Shirabu picked his fingers on the bottom of his shoes as he listened to Goshiki, keeping his eyes dubiously on him but his head elsewhere. Semi had once told him about a pivotal point in a relationship happening when two people have the "conversation," when they have a long deep heart-to-heart and find out everything about each other. Shirabu doubted Semi's experience and advice, but now that he was shoved into a framework of impossible circumstances, everything held up regardless of his disbelief, he could see that he had been avoiding it for a good reason. Even if the entire situation resembled nothing close to it, the small divisible contexts could still be reconstructed and argued to convince himself. Flags and alarms went off in Shirabu's mind.

Shirabu rubbed his forehead. "Don't you have a place to go?"

Goshiki bumped his hands together and averted his eyes. "This is where it gets complicated..."

"That's it. I don't care." Shirabu pressed his hands down on his knees, shoving down on himself as if he could will Goshiki away. "I don't need or want to have this conversation." He went to his room and returned with a heap of clothes. "Here're some clothes. You're going to borrow money from me to buy clothes, you're going to get a job, and then you have to leave."

"Thanks!" Goshiki excitedly shuffled his feet to the bathroom to change.

Shirabu dropped into his desk chair in his room and checked the last message from Tendou: "How's the dog?"