A byproduct of yatorihell's HP x Noragami AU, with inspiration from paperypiper's beautiful artwork.

One of Yato's many talents is the ability to excuse himself from any and all wrongdoing—particularly when he's in the middle of it. In this case, that would be picking the lock of the racing broom closet with a hairpin.

Just ten minutes. That's all he wants.

The ancient lock clangs open, and Yato's face splits in a demonic grin. That's what they get for locking up their broomsticks with magic, and nothing more muggle-secure.

And there it is, right at the front of the closet, all polished, gleaming…practically seductive. It's a marvel of aerodynamics; the precision of craftsmanship alone giving him chills. It's the only Firebolt he's ever seen.

Yato's fingers tremble as he reaches for it.

"So, should I go get the headmaster—or are you planning to turn yourself in after this?" comes an irritated bark from immediately behind him.

Yato whirls, arranging his face into an approximation of innocent surprise. His one-person audience doesn't buy it.

"Yukine! I thought you were—um—going to the Great Hall—"

"That was before I saw you sneaking off, looking even more suspicious than usual," the other boy counters. He looks pointedly at the hairpin dangling from Yato's hand. "Where'd you even learn how to pick a lock?!"

"None of your business."

Yukine growls. "If you get yourself expelled—"

Tuning him out, Yato lifts the Firebolt gently from its bed in the closet, savoring the smoothness of the varnish under his fingers.

As soon as the broom is clear, the closet door slams shut by itself. The lock clatters heavily against the door's weathered wood, then re-seals with a small shower of silver sparks. Yato and Yukine exchange glances.

"Oh, no…" Yato mutters.

"I can't even begin to tell you how much you deserve this," sniffs Yukine, adjusting his Hufflepuff tie with an insufferable little shoulder wiggle. Then he too freezes as heavy footsteps echo along the corridor.

"Who's tampering with the broom closet this time?" comes Kiun's long-suffering voice from around the corner.

Quickly straddling the Firebolt, Yato mouths at Yukine: Gotta run. The broom hums in his hands like a just-plucked violin string.

"Don't you dare—" Yukine starts to scream-whisper.

But it's too late.

All it takes is a barely perceptible shift forward. The broom shoots out from the hallway, Yato clinging to it like a terrified spider. He does an accidental somersault while whipping by Kiun, and nearly scalps himself on the flagstones.

"Yato!" Yukine's voice follows him as he struggles to keep his hold on the wildly jerking Firebolt. "If you don't kill yourself on that thing, then I'll do it, you sweaty moron…"

The rest of his tirade is lost in the distance, because Yato is already corkscrewing violently down the narrow corridor that opens up near the Great Hall. His head brushes the chandelier, and nothing but a sharp jerk downward spares him from an accidental beheading.

The Firebolt careens past the opening to the Great Hall. Even at the speed he's going, Yato sees every head turn toward him.

"What is that?"

"Oh my god…I think that's the Slytherin seeker!"

"Is he crying—?!"

Yato tries to yell that it's just the wind in his eyes, but when he opens his mouth, three flies shoot down his throat. His lips peel back from his teeth.

The Firebolt is so attuned to his movements, he only has to twitch a finger for it to speed down the nearest hallway leading to the exit. The enormous door is open—he sees a light gray sky, blooming with blue. It beckons him like a flag of victory.

That is, until a dark figure appears silhouetted against the bright outdoors.

"Move, movemovemove!" Yato shouts, hurtling at an uncontrollable pace toward the doorway and whoever is stupid enough to stop in front of it.

The person turns around, stiff with sudden shock. Yato's teeth slam together, and he squeezes his eyes shut.

Yato, the speeding Firebolt, and the stranger collide with a cartoonish thwack. Yato's death grip peels off from the broomstick, sending him flipping a complete three-sixty-degrees onto his stomach and the ground. He lands on something much softer than the flagstones, though his head still raps smartly against the floor. Bright agony splits his forehead open, pulsing all the way around to the back of his neck.

"Ungh…"

From somewhere outside his aches and his dizziness, Yato hears the Firebolt zoom straight into a wall with a crunch. It clatters to the floor nearby. He groans internally, trying not to imagine what the rest of the Quidditch teams are going to do to him once they find out he's wrecked the school's best broom…

The person responsible for his downfall struggles feebly beneath him.

"Why didn't you just move out of the way, huh?" Yato groans, the rough edges of the flagstones still cutting into his neck. In response, the person under him gives a small, high-pitched whimper of pain.

Yato goes completely rigid.

Dammit, dammit—

He lurches to his feet, stumbling backward a few steps. Everything in his vision tumbles in a sickening pinwheel, and the floor curtsies dramatically sideways.

The girl is still splayed on the floor, motionless. She's alarmingly white. Fighting his dizziness, Yato steps nearer to her. The red-and-gold colors of a Gryffindor scarf peak out the front of her robes, glaring starkly against her skin.

Mentally slapping himself back to equilibrium, Yato wipes a hand on his robe before reaching toward her shoulder. He prods her, gently.

"Um…" He pokes her again. "I'm…I'm sorry! Are you, uh—are you hurt—?"

He doesn't get a response.

For a horrified instant, Yato wonders if he's actually killed her—or, at the very least, given her permanent brain damage. He crouches down, shaking her a bit more firmly.

"I'm really, really sorry," he repeats in desperation. "Oh my god—please don't be dead…"

He slides a cautious hand up her neck, checking for a pulse, and her entire body stiffens.

"Get off me!"

Something hard jabs into his ribs, and Yato yelps.

"Stupefy!"

Flung ten meters backward by the spell, Yato lands in an absurd spread-eagle on top of the Firebolt. The handle splinters under his weight—much like the remains of his ego. Rubbing the second enormous goose egg rising on his skull, he scrambles to his feet.

"What the—what did you stun me for?!" he wails, throwing his hands up in a show of surrender. The girl is standing up now, still aiming her wand at him. The expression on her tear-streaked face is downright murderous.

She's crying.

"You mean—besides nearly killing me on your stupid broom?" she hisses.

Yato notices how her wandless hand curls around her ribs, and his stomach plunges toward his gut. Ignoring her valid point, his wounded pride takes control of his mouth.

"Well—y-you could have moved! No one told you to stand in the middle of the road like that—"

Her wand hand starts quivering dangerously, and Yato's teeth snap shut.

"Get away from me."

Her voice quivers with rage and humiliation. Yato backtracks.

"Are you…" He swallows loudly. "You're…sure you're okay? I mean, um—"

To add further embarrassment to his floundering, a bustle from the mouth of the nearest corridor tells Yato that dinner in the Great Hall is coming to an end. Their little scene will soon have an audience.

Yato also finds it rather interesting that the whole world seems to be swirling counterclockwise.

Then he's the one going counterclockwise.

Then, everything is dark.

: : :

"You're awake."

He's not, really. It takes a few seconds for him to figure out where his eyes are, and then a few more trying to open them.

"Nngh."

Yukine is sitting next to his bed in the hospital wing, leaning back in a chair with his arms crossed.

"You had a pretty bad concussion, and some other cuts and bruises. Mayu said it was a miracle you didn't get a more serious injury."

Yato's tongue feels thick and uncomfortable in his mouth—probably a side effect of whatever was used to heal him. Images and scattered memories from his accident start filtering back to him. Among them…

"That girl!" The volume of Yato's own voice causes the space behind his eyes to ring with agony. He winces, then whispers: "Is she okay?"

From the corner of his eye, he sees Yukine nod.

"Yes. She was released about half an hour ago. That was before you woke up."

Yato heaves a relieved sigh.

"Ugh. That's good…"

"What the hell happened?" Yukine asks, his question sharp with annoyance.

"What—you didn't figure it out?" Yato shoots back. "I hit another person while going full-speed on a racing broom. It seems like the whole school should have heard about it by now."

Yukine shifts in his seat, looking vaguely embarrassed.

"Well. Actually it was just me and Kiun who found the two of you and brought you here," Yukine admits. "I asked him if it would be okay to keep it, um…quiet for a little while. And…I also offered to help you work off the debt to him for wrecking the Firebolt. He's going to put both of us to work gathering fertilizer for the greenhouses, once you're back to normal."

Yato's eyes widen. He lifts his head, grinning toothily at Yukine.

"Wow—I really do owe you one."

His head pounds, and he lowers it to the pillow again.

At that moment, the magnitude of his behavior comes into stark focus. He really did it. He smashed a Firebolt. Into a person.

"Oh, no," he moans. "Oh, nooo…"

"Yeah, you do owe me," Yukine asserts. "So now you have tell me what happened. That girl couldn't even look at you when she walked out of here."

Yato brings his hands up to his face, rubbing his throbbing temples with both fingers.

"I wouldn't really blame her for that, after I barreled into her at top speed," he sighs. "She did stun me, though. Which was really unnecessary, given that I was trying to help her…"

"She stunned you?!"

"Yeah. Pretty bloody rude, if you ask me—"

"Wow. I can't even stun anyone yet," Yukine grumbles, obviously ignoring Yato's irritation.

"Anyway," Yato forces through gritted teeth. "All I did was run into her. I apologized and everything. And—if she left here before I woke up, she can't have been that badly hurt."

Yukine's uncertain expression says that he thinks otherwise.

"I don't know about that," he says. "I mean, when she left, she looked pretty upset."

Yato gives him a questioning look, and Yukine fidgets.

"I think…she might have been crying."

: : :

The next time Yato sees her, it's at the end of Tsuyu's Transfiguration class. He catches a glimpse of her sandwiched between a Ravenclaw and a Hufflepuff girl. He knows her name now, after paying more attention during roll call than he ever has during the actual class.

"Hey," he calls. She doesn't turn.

"Hey, Hiyori Iki!" he tries again, louder. The Ravenclaw girl turns her head, and Yato catches her disgusted glare before she puts a comforting arm around Hiyori, guiding her away.

"Oh come on—hey!"

He starts trotting after them, his heavy book bag jostling against his ribcage. "I just wanted to see if—"

The air thrills next to his arm, and Yato hears the clatter of several heavy items hitting the floor. At the same time, his bookbag is abruptly much lighter.

Looking down, he sees the bag's reinforced seam has ripped wide open, spilling everything in his bag onto the floor. Ink blooms across the pages of several textbooks, and his foot lands on a snapped quill. Bending down, he lifts up the spine of his soggy potions book, which took the brunt of the spilled ink.

"My lucky bag…" he mourns, before looking up again. The retreating trio of girls still hasn't turned to face him.

But he does see Hiyori's wand pointed under her elbow—aimed straight back at him.

: : :

The message in that encounter could not have been more plain: "Stay the hell away from me." So, naturally, Yato takes his usual approach of ignoring the message entirely and coming up with his own plan.

As far as he can tell, it's a flawless plan. But when he relays it to Yukine a few days later—

"Yeah, you and your dumb idea can definitely go stuff it."

Yato's crestfallen expression has no effect on his friend's answer. Yukine scratches the tip of his chin with a quill, staring at the participle dangling at the end of his History of Magic essay.

"Pleeease…?" Yato whines.

This time, Yukine responds with a silent, yet very expressive gesture that causes Yato to hide his face under the library table in order to regain his composure.

When he resurfaces, he's all seriousness again.

"Yukine, I really need your help. Iki just…won't talk to me. I've tried. She's always with those other two girls—they both give me looks like they want to slit my throat in some dark alleyway."

"And this…surprises you?"

Yato moans, planting his forehead on the polished surface of the desk.

"I've apologized and everything. What am I gonna do? I can't have someone going around just hating me like that. I'll never be popular!"

"Trust me Yato, that ship has sailed."

The frowning, pinched-looking librarian pokes her head around the nearest shelf and hisses at them to be quiet. Yukine bends over his book, muttering, while Yato stays securely faceplanted to the table.

When the coast is clear again, Yukine looks at the despondent Yato for a few seconds. Then he heaves a sigh, and prods Yato's ear with the tip of his wand.

"…Fine. I'll help you."

Yato's head rockets up from the table, causing Yukine to flinch from the whiplash of his mood shift.

"Really?!" Yato asks, eyes sparkling.

"Yeah. But—you have to help me out, next."

"Anything! You're the best, Yukine!"

Yato sends his palm slamming into Yukine's spine so hard that the boy's forehead smacks the table. The resulting howl of agony summons the librarian, who swiftly shoos Yato and Yukine out of her domain with a few well-aimed, airborne hardcovers.

: : :

Yato drags Yukine into an empty classroom later that week.

"So…how's surveillance?" he hisses conspiratorially.

Yukine rubs his chin uncomfortably.

"Yato, I really don't like following her around. It feels weird."

Yato looks at Yukine like he's suddenly declared a soul-deep affinity with Blast-Ended Skrewts.

"Well—obviously it's weird! That's why you're doing it! I can't scare her off after already making a bad impression."

Shaking his head, Yukine drops into a seat at an empty desk.

"…I did find out," he admits. Then, adding a little smugly: "I got her friend Yama to tell me. All I did was help her with her Charms homework and she basically told me Hiyori's life story."

He looks far too pleased with himself when he says:

"So your suggestions about sneaking around were pretty useless after all."

Yato rolls his eyes.

"Are you going to get to the point soon, or should I come back in twenty minutes?"

Yukine huffs in annoyance, but Yato gets the feeling that he's not dodging the issue just for the fun of it.

"Is it…bad?" he asks tentatively.

"A little bit. Yeah."

Yato's eyes widen. Then, he lifts himself up onto one of the nearby desks, crossing his legs beneath him.

"All the more reason to tell me."

Yukine averts his eyes, and something in his expression makes Yato wonder if he's really doing the right thing. Maybe he should just let Hiyori go on…despising him. The thought itself is so unpleasant that his stomach twists into a knot.

"Hey," he begins. "It's not like I'm going to make fun of her, or anything. I'm trying to perform a good deed!"

He grins down at Yukine, trying to lighten the mood. Yukine glances up at him skeptically, before puffing his cheeks and blowing the air slowly out. Then, he says:

"Okay…okay, sure."