Chapter 104: From - CO:HHMO

Characters: Hachiman Hikigaya x Shouko Nishimiya (A Silent Voice)

Hachiman wondered whether it was pity he felt. Shouko Nishimiya was a beautiful young woman with pinkish-brown hair which fell past her shoulders, the front bangs which reached the bridge of her cute nose and there was a hint of green in her hazel eyes. But when a few men would approach her, taking an obvious interest in her– she was of a petite build, but she had breasts which could be considered on the larger side. Plus she was nineteen, attending college, new in town and trusting, oh so very trusting.

It didn't matter if he was with her. His presence was easy to dismiss. In fact, sometimes, a few guys had actually tried to come to her aid, because of the dead fish eyed looking creep following behind her. That was him and to be fair, he still had that habit of following people, walking a few steps behind. It was easy to misunderstand the situation. He looked like this, she looked like that and the two of them didn't seem to belong together – not that they were together; they just lived in the same boarding complex, the Kawai Complex.

But then, Shouko Nishimiya would use her silent voice, talk to them using sign language- gestures, motions, movements, swipes, fingers, hands - and while he had done his best to pick up the language over time, the others had no clue.

But the men would get the message :Shouko Nishimiya might be cute. But she was deaf and not worth the effort of chatting up, because she was unable to chat, talk, use her own voice to communicate. Because even idiots and perverts and guys there age, looking to hook up with a innocent looking college girl knew she would be too much work for one lazy fuck. And then there was the aftermath, breaking it off, making her cry and though they might not care for her afterwards, society tended to frown upon people who took advantage of the disabled.

Sometimes society saw them as just that, one word, disabled,

They would leave them alone afterwards and he would wonder whether it was pity he felt, whether it was pity that made him stay by her side, whether he too saw her just as that – Shouko Nishimiya, the deaf woman.

Disabled in more ways than one.

"Hachiman?" Shouko Nishimiya would ask, her fingers moving and he was still amazed that he had the patience to learn a new language over such a small time, barely a few weeks in. "Is everything okay?"

He didn't have the answer to that. Was he okay with pitying her? No, she deserved more than something pathetic like pity. He hadn't asked her much about her previous life – high school, middle school. Hadn't even asked whether she was born deaf or whether it happened later because really, it was none of his business. He was also scared about knowing that much about her. So far he was okay with what he learnt, or what she told him and they did live in the same boarding house – separate wing for the women dwellers, but still it counts.

But was he okay?

"What did you tell them?" Hachiman signed and he found that, it was still odd to talk like this. Perhaps he would always find it odd and he knew it's because, this is something he learnt not out of necessity. He had a choice, she didn't and that would forever be a distinction.

It was better to dwell on what she told the men who approached her with ill intent than dealing with this, he figured.

But then she would smile and he really wondered what was the need to talk, when she could communicate so much more like this. He remembered something he said back in high school, about eighty percent communication was not dialogue based. He never believed that more than now.

"I said, 'I'm with you!'." Shouko Nishimiya informed him.

Ah. Hachiman Hikigaya would like to meet his past high school self and add something else to that previous assessment. Yes, about eighty percent communication was not dialogue based. But the pink blush on a woman's cheek and the light smile on a pair of plum red lips said more than mere words could ever hope to communicate something to this effect.

That it was Shouko Nishimiya and that what he felt was definitely not pity was another thing. And so when he took her hand and the grocery list to shop for the rest of the boarders back at the boarding house, he knew this was not something else.

He wouldn't be the one to hurt her.

A/N: So, in case some of you are wondering what this is about – This is a One-shot which can be considered a part of my other fic "CROSS-OVER: How He Met Others."

Now, why I didn't upload this there and instead put it here? Well, it's because, I haven't wrote a chapter for that fic for a while and I felt like I was losing touch with the two characters, i.e. Shouko Nishimiya and Hachiman Hikigaya. So, to get back to the proper mindset to write them, I wrote a small one shot to get back at the characters.

But, I'm still not satisfied with the characterisation. And the chapter is too small. So, I will write a few more one-shots, before starting on that fic once more.

Also, why I updated it here? It's because this fic is titled "Vignettes, Snippets, Drabbles etc.", so I can kinda justify writing a one-shot here as it wouldn't feel all that strange.

With that said, tell me what you guys thought of the characterisation and the interactions. When you guys tell me, or when I think, I got them perfect, I will head back down to the original fanfic. Till then, I will post a few one-shots here.