(F/n)'s POV

"What am I doing wrong?" I continued to scroll furiously on my phone, seeing the dozens and possibly hundreds of mediocre stories in the xreader hashtag, all ranked much higher than mine. The statistics were ridiculous on them and I mentally compared the ones that I saw against my own stories, numbers I had religiously memorized.

I set my phone facedown on the table and slumped my shoulders, burying my face into my arms as I sighed.

"What's wrong, (F/n)-chan?" My best friend Takao Kazunari next to me asked. It was currently lunchtime and he was munching on some noodles, no doubt some cheap ramen he bought from the convenience store a few days ago. He had an addiction to it. Last time I went to his house he had an entire cabinet filled with different types of ramen. His favourite was beef though.

I just grunted in response and raised my head. "Where's Shin-chan?" I asked. The ever present green haired shooting guard of the basketball team was missing for the second day in a row.

"He's still sick," Takao said, slurping his noodles. "His mom wanted him to stay home."

"I wouldn't be surprised if you got him sick," I scoffed, remembering how he had been sick earlier this week.

"That's mean. So what's up with you?"

"I. . . started a new fanfiction and I've been posting it on this app I know," I explained to him, swiping on my phone to show him the orange and white app my entire life seemed to revolve around. "It's called Wattpad."

Takao snickered, his eyes gleaming mischievously and I groaned. "Why on earth did I let you read my old fanfics?" I knew he was remembering the days in middle and early high school where I went on a writing spree, writing idea after idea in Google Docs and having many discarded or poorly written stories. I wanted to burn with shame at how bad my writing used to be. But after nearly four years, shouldn't my writing be good enough now?

"You definitely had some wild ideas (F/n)-chan." He chuckled.

"Shut up Takao!" I huffed. "I was still learning. You can't blame me."

"Gomen," he said, scratching the back of his neck and looking back at me. "You were saying? What about your new story?"

"My story is an ex reader," I said. Seeing the confused look on his face I quickly added, "It's a self insert story basically. Kind of like an otome game."

"Oh, so what's the problem with that then?" He asked.

I gripped my phone tightly, the anger from just a few minutes ago returning. "It's just that there's so many unskilled people writing terrible stories! How do they have more views than I do?!"

Takao's POV

Oh crap. . . I sweatdropped, immediately regretting what I said to (F/n). She was fuming, the fiery temper of hers I hadn't seen since the end of middle school seemed to have reawakened in her. I'm so dead.

"May-Maybe their stories are just better than yours?" I said before I could stop myself. Oh god I just made it worse. If I was dead before then I was going to get slaughtered now.

But (F/n) didn't yell at me. Maybe she had gotten a grip on her temper after all. Instead she just sighed and jammed her phone back in her pocket. She grabbed her journal, an unassuming marble notebook that she was always writing in and said, "I'm going to the library." before walking off, leaving me to finish my lunch by myself.

The next day was no better, the only difference being that Midorima was back in school having recovered from his fever.

(F/n) continued to brood in silence over her problems but she kept writing in her notebook, whether it be a quick sentence in the middle of our math class or whole paragraphs during gym, not even batting an eye even when a basketball came dangerously close to hitting her.

Her mood worsened with each passing day. The stress she was under was obvious; head down in class paying minimal attention, the tiredness and bags under her eyes and tears that threatened to fall during lunch but she would stubbornly wipe away. But this was (F/n). Surely she'd bounce back again. Nothing usually kept her down for long, and I knew it would blow over and she'd be back to her cheerful self. But then that day came.

It was only one day.

(F/n) didn't come to class for the first time this entire year. She was only rarely absent, usually whenever she didn't come she was severely ill or hospitalized. Unease settled over me, and I could see Midorima was perturbed too. I darted a glance back to (F/n)'s empty seat, already missing her lush (h/c) ponytail that bounced with every movement of her head.

Where was she?

All throughout the morning, I snuck messages to her but all of them went unanswered. Midorima knew what I was doing; I felt his intense stare as I sent my twentieth message but he didn't tell me to pay attention to the lesson.

By lunch break she had not replied even once. I didn't even see the dots pop up suggesting that she was typing a message to me. But that was when Midorima got a phone call, the ringing piercing the silence that would have usually been filled with (F/n)'s banter.

"Hello?" Midorima answered the phone and held it up to his ear.

I looked on curiously, the muffled voice on the other end bearing no indication on who the caller was, but my gut feeling told me it was (F/n).

"Okay," he was saying to her. I caught the faint words of 'give up' from (F/n) and Midorima's furrowed eyebrows confirmed my fear. Could she really be giving up on writing?

"There's no reason to—" he began to say but I interrupted him.

"Let me talk to her!" I reached for the phone but Midorima was already taking it away from his ear. "She hung up," he said bluntly, pushing up his glasses as I stared at the caller I.D. on the screen longingly.

Midorima just sighed, pinching his nose as he pocketed his phone. "Come on, class starts in five minutes." He started packing his empty bento box away and clearing up the napkins and plastic utensils.

I helped him, throwing away our trash and then we grabbed our school bags and made our way back to our classroom for another few dreaded hours of work.

The teacher began our science lesson but my mind was far from the theory of molecules and composition of hydrogen atoms. Instead I closed my eyes and my thoughts wandered. I found myself thinking of mine and (F/n)'s middle school days when she first began writing.

"Takao!" (F/n) had called my name, running up to me with a wide smile on her face and a notebook clutched in her hands. "Read this story I wrote! It's about a wizard that accidentally cursed himself into a dragon but everybody thinks the dragon ate the wizard so he's waiting for someone to turn him back."

"What kind of story is that, (F/n)-chan?" I had asked her as she thrusted the notebook into my hands. I turned to the first page curiously and saw a picture of a purple dragon on the top accompanying the story.

"A good one!" She declared proudly. "I think I'm gonna be an author when I'm older."

After that, (F/n) just kept on writing up a storm. Everyday she always had something to tell me about how her stories were going. She seemed to have an endless amount of creativity and energy.

"I've started writing a Soulmate AU!"

"What if I wrote about a character who is deaf?"

"How many stories do you think have a doctor who has an incurable disease but he keeps helping people because he wants them to get better even if he can't?"

Not long after she turned to writing fanfiction about anime and books she liked, and I had a distinct memory of teasing her for it, saying that three, four, even five seasons of an anime wasn't enough to satisfy her so she had to make her own stories about it.

That's when it hit me, like that one time Miyaji's brother threw a basketball at my head. (F/n) loved writing. She always had. For someone with the Hawk Eye I've been pretty blind to see that. What if the reason she was so insecure about her stories was because I had failed as her friend to support her in what she loved?

I've messed up. I've messed up terribly, I thought in dismay.

(F/n) had always supported me in basketball. She came to every game and even gave me pep talks when I was nervous about a match. Yet I couldn't do the same for her with her own passion.

"Shin-chan," I said as soon as our final class was finished.

He looked over at me questioningly, silently asking what I wanted.

"Let's go see (F/n)-chan."

To my surprise, he agreed. "Alright," he said, throwing his bag's strap over his shoulder. "What are you waiting for?"

I hurried to grab my own things and we set off to (F/n)'s house. She lived within walking distance of the school so Midorima and I decided against taking any public transport.

"Wait, what if her parents are home?" I asked, realizing that her parents might not take it well if two boys suddenly showed up to their house to see their daughter.

"It's Friday," Midorima said as if that explained everything. It didn't. It just made me even more confused.

"So what?" I asked.

"Her mom will be at the library. Her dad works until late, nanodayo," Midorima explained with a hint of irritation that he had to elaborate.

"Oh."

The rest of the walk was silent. Thoughts began to race in my head, worried about what I'd find when we reached (F/n)'s house. Would she be locked up in her room, crying because she had no one to turn to for support? Would she be angry? Would she even want to see me?

All those thoughts disappeared as we finally found ourselves in front of (F/n)'s residence. I gulped, feeling a sudden chill down my spine. What if we were too late?

Midorima was already striding up to the door to knock on it. I turned to the window I knew was connected to (F/n)'s bedroom and peeked through it. The curtains weren't drawn so I had a clear view into her room.

(F/n) was at her desk, a serene expression on her face as she busily wrote in her notebook. Her earbuds were plugged into her ears, her free hand tapping out the beats on the wood beneath her fingers.

I leaned closer but a twig rolled under my foot and my head banged against the glass.

"Ow. . ." I muttered, rubbing my forehead and looked up just in time to see (F/n)'s surprised face as she toppled off her chair, the earbuds ripping out of her ears. Even from here I could hear the thud of the impact of her body hitting the floor. She stalked up to the window and yanked it open, her eyebrows knotted in anger.

"Takao! What the hell?!" She exclaimed.

"Hehe, nice to see you too?" I chuckled nervously.

(F/n) sighed deeply and face palmed, but before she could say anything else I tossed my bag through the window and clambered inside.

"Shin-chan!" I called. He was still standing at the front door. "Come on!"

"I'm not going through the window," he said in disapproval. "Tell (F/n) to open the door, nanodayo."

Two minutes later, Midorima and I were both sitting in (F/n)'s bedroom, the three of us gathered on the broad (favourite/colour) carpet, a tray of drinks in the middle of the small circle we made. Even though our visit was unexpected, (F/n) still showed us hospitality.

"S-sorry about that," I said sheepishly, my cheeks blushing in embarrassment.

"It's fine," (F/n) said dismissively. "So what are you guys doing here?"

"We came to check up on you," I said, and then the words kept tumbling out. "I'm really sorry (F/n)-chan. I've been a pretty terrible friend to you but you shouldn't stop wri—"

"Takao," she said my name firmly as she looked at me intently. Her eyes were determined, blazing orbs of (e/c) and for a moment I lost my breath from the intensity of her gaze.

"Yeah?"

"It's fine. I'm not gonna stop writing."

"R-Really?" My eyes widened in surprise. "But the-the phone call. . ."

She chuckled, shaking her head. "I was just in a bad mood earlier and I tried convincing myself to give up. But I won't because I need to finish what I started in middle school." She then gave me a bright smile. "Besides, I can't leave my readers hanging."

"O-oh, that's great!" I said, and I really meant it.

"Now since you guys are here, what do you say we watch the new episode of (anime name)?" (F/n) asked with a smile.

"I'd rather we complete our homework, nanodayo." Midorima said, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"I've got red bean buns," she said in an attempt to bribe him.

He stayed stubbornly silent for a few minutes and then grudgingly said, ". . . fine."

"Awesome! I'll go get them." With that, she disappeared out of the room and to the kitchen.

I took a moment to look around (F/n)'s room. The shelves were overflowing with reading books and a stack of notebooks lay on her writing desk. I caught sight of a piece of paper pinned to her bulletin board that hung over it.

100/200 chapters. Halfway there! :)

A/N: Hello everyone! I hope you guys enjoyed this one-shot. This was a collaboration with the lovely Nikourou_Nick where I rewrote her one-shot "Finish What I Started: Takao Kazunari" from her own KnB one-shot collection. I had a lot of fun writing this, especially the dialogue at the end when Takao and Midorima went to (F/n)'s house.

Please do go check out Nikourou's one-shots and read the original one-shot! She's an absolutely talented writer and has so many unique ideas. I actually had a really hard time picking which one to do for the collaboration. She will also be rewriting one of my own one-shots so I hope you'll support her when she writes it. Thanks again for this Nikourou, I hope you liked my take on this!

Here is also a picture for her one-shots so you guys can find them!