Chapter Text
Ennoshita Chikara had a habit. Keishin noticed it early into the year, the way he would constantly bring his hands up to his eyes. It didn’t quite look like he was scrubbing them, but Keishin couldn’t for the life of him figure out what it could be. He asked him about it early on under the concern of the team catching pink eye, but Ennoshita brushed him off. It wasn’t because of an irritant, he assured him, it was just a habit of his. He let it slide, but he never managed to be able to ignore when he saw him not-scrubbing at his eyes or raking both hands through his hair on the sidelines as he watched the practice games. He didn’t press again until Tanaka went to put Ennoshita in a headlock one day and drew a genuine hiss of pain from him the moment his palm connected with the boy’s scalp. He jumped back, of course, and even though Ennoshita insisted that he was okay, everyone in the vicinity kept a careful eye on him for the rest of the afternoon. By the time Keishin managed to pull him aside at the end of practice, he was fuming.
“It’s not a big deal!,” he hissed. “I don’t have a major injury or anything. Can I please go?”
“Why does your scalp hurt, then, if it isn’t a big deal?,” Keishin pushed. Ennoshita wavered.
“It’s nothing for you to be concerned about, coach, really. It won’t affect my gameplay.”
“If you have any level of injury, I have a right to be concerned,” Keishin insisted. Ennoshita’s face was going red around the edges.
“I slammed the back of my head against the wall when I woke up this morning,” he spluttered. “It’s just a little bruised. Can I go now?”
It was an obvious lie, even Keishin could see that. It struck him, though, that if he pressed he might lose Ennoshita’s trust. He took a step back.
“Go ahead,” he sighed. “Just… stay safe. And remember that Mr. Takeda and I are always here for everyone on this team.”
“Thanks,” was the only response he got, so quiet he could have imagined it.
Ennoshita was late.
Kinoshita commented on it as he slipped into the gym, how Ennoshita had rushed into the club room as they were all leaving, muttering apologies and keeping his head down, face tucked away from the stragglers in the room.
The alarm bells in Keishin’s head were deafening.
Takeda knew this, of course, and, with a mirrored worry glistening in his eyes, ushered Keishin out of the gym as subtly as possible.
The stairs up to the club room seemed endless against the racing of Keishin’s mind. The worst, of course, was what came to him. If his athlete was hurt, if someone was hurting him, there would be hell to pay. He didn’t even know where to begin sorting it out. If someone attacked Ennoshita, they would file a police report, right? But what if it wasn’t a chance occurrence? What if it wasn’t a stranger? If it was someone who had control, legal control of his kid, where would he start? CPS wasn’t shit, and, and—-
And he was in front of the door. He blinked, oxygen cold in his lungs, as he stared at the peeling paint for a moment, arms frozen at his sides. His fist was unsteady as he lifted it to knock.
Distantly, through the wood of the door, there was a mutter that must’ve been a curse, and then a called “Just a minute!”
“Kid,” he called back. “Are you decent?”
“Um… I guess,” was the response—-far more uncertain than he expected from the solid second year on the other side of the door. “But give me—-”
He’d turned the knob before he heard the addition.
Ennoshita stood in front of a mirror on the far side of the room, head swiftly tilted at just the right angle, blocking the view of his face from the reflection. He was holding something Keishin couldn’t quite see against his chest, clenched firmly in his fist.
“What- What do you need?”, he stammered, tucking his head further from view. Keishin entered the room slowly, keeping the door open behind him.
“Why are you hiding your face?”
Ennoshita froze and, with a sigh, deflated as he seemed to realize what this was about. “I’m fine. It’s nothing to worry about.”
“Somehow, I have trouble believing that,” Keishin grumbled. “Could you please turn around?”
Ennoshita hesitated a moment, fiddling with whatever was in his hand, and then, with a huffed curse, turned on his heel.
Upon first glance, nothing was wrong. He had hints of dark circles under his eyes, but to Keishin’s relief there was no sign of bruising or injuries. One of his eyebrows, however, was completely gone, and the other was half colored in by what Keishin now realized must be an eyebrow pencil that the kid was rolling in his hand, alongside a second, thinner stick. Eyeliner, maybe, all things considered. Relief bloomed in his lungs.
They stared at each other for far too long considering the ticking of the clock on the wall behind Keishin. Ennoshita shifted his weight between his feet impatiently, not quite meeting Keishin’s eyes.
“Can I go back to getting ready?”
Keishin waved for him to continue and watched curiously as he brought the pencil back up to his browline to press color back into it, softly at first and then firmer when the main shape was established.
“You’re not usually late like this.”
“My charger wasn’t connected to the wall right,” Ennoshita admitted readily. “My phone died and my alarms didn’t go off.”
“And this couldn’t wait until after practice because?”
His steady hand paused, then, clenching tight around the brow pencil. The corner of his mouth twitched up, just once, before he carefully schooled his distaste.
“They don’t know I draw it on,” he grumbled, so low Keishin could barely pick it up.
“And would it be such a bad thing if they did?”
“If they knew they would have questions ,” he huffed, and Keishin realized with a flush that he was actively proving the kid’s point. “They wouldn’t get it, and they’d meddle, and it’d become a whole thing .”
He shouldn’t press. Questions were what the kid was trying to avoid, right? And he knew now that he wasn’t hiding because he was hurt, so he could, in theory, put his worries to rest for now. But he’d given up the facade of not caring about these kids, and curiosity burned hot under his tongue.
“What wouldn’t they get?” He leaned back against the wall, watching the way Ennoshita’s calm exterior flickered again. There was a painful moment of thick silence, and then a sigh.
“I have a medical condition.” He was focusing on his reflection, quickly sketching in the last of his other brow. “It’s called trichotillomania. It’s not dangerous and it doesn’t affect my ability to play or my academics. I handle it just fine.” He was robotic as he slipped the two pencils back into his bag, movements carefully controlled. He didn’t speak again until he was to the door, pausing just as he reached where Keishin was standing.
“I apologize for being late,” he told him. “I’ll try not to let it happen again.”
He found himself fiddling with his phone when he got back to his apartment that night, opening and closing a search tab several times before committing.
Showing results for trichotillomania
www.mayoclinic.org - Trichotillomania (hair-pulling disorder) - …
Trichotillomania (trik-o-til-o-MAY-nee-uh), also called hair-pulling disorder, is a mental health condition. It involves frequent, repeated, and irresistible urges to pull out hair from your scalp, eyebrows, and other ar… see more
He wouldn’t admit, if asked, that he went down a rabbit hole, going from medical organizations to forums to videos, until his tea (which Takeda had gifted him, claiming it would help him calm down and sleep better) was cold. He also wouldn’t admit that he drank that tea even after it had chilled because Takeda was right and it had become an essential part of his routine. God, what was he becoming, a responsible and healthy adult? If he saw himself from even a couple of months ago, he wouldn’t believe it was him.
Regardless, he went to bed that night later than he strictly should have (and that was also something he would have scoffed at; a regular sleep schedule), but it was worth it for the knowledge he walked away with.
Things went smoothly, for a while, in regard to Ennoshita. Of course, nothing can ever go smoothly for too long with his pack of dumbasses, or the demons of chaos he was convinced they sold their souls to might starve.
“Woah, Ennoshita, do you wear eyeliner?”
Keishin watched in real time as the second year went through every stage of grief in mere moments. He stared, wide eyed, at Hinata, who was watching his hand with a tilted head, not unlike a dog.
“Why do you say that?”
“Your fingernails are all black and stuff. My mom’s look like that when she messes with her eyes too much.” He jumped out, then, without warning, because Hinata Shoyou did not know the meaning of the words personal space , and grabbed Ennoshita’s collar to bring him down to his height and inspect his face.
“Aren’t you worried about, like, poking your eye out? Doesn’t it sting to put stuff so close to your eyeball? Isn’t it hard to put on if they get all watery? My eyes always get all watery when I get anything near them.” He was bouncing on his heels even as he grabbed at his teammate. Keishin was close enough to see the moment a lightbulb went off behind his eyes. With a gasp, Hinata’s face broke in two with a broad grin.
“Do you think I would look cool with eyeliner? It’d look all tough, right? Not, like, girl’s eyeliner, obviously, although that’s super cool, but like how you do it, all close and—”
“Hinata,” Keishin barked finally, not wanting to see what would happen if Ennoshita wound up any more. “You’re supposed to be taking a water break. Don’t waste your energy.” He had a twinge of regret at the way the light in the kid’s eyes silently flickered out and his now reserved smile went hollow as he stepped back with a quiet apology, but he couldn’t have wins all the time, and the way Ennoshita relaxed as his classmate backed up made it relatively worth it.
He noted, in the back of his mind, that Ennoshita didn’t touch his eyes for the rest of practice. Instead, when his hands came up to his hair, they went to the back of his scalp, at the juncture of his neck to his skull. He didn’t say anything, though, until the kid was checking out.
“They won’t judge you, you know,” he murmured as he scanned Ennoshita’s drink. He didn’t look up to see the kid’s expression.
“They didn’t,” Ennoshita admitted, equally quiet. “Tanaka tried to convince me to do his.” Keishin smiled at the admission, just a bit.
“You’re still tense, though.”
He got no verbal response, and when he looked up Ennoshita just shrugged. Keishin sighed.
“You want a bag?”
“No.”
“Alright. Get home safe.”
He was met with a hum and a mindless bow goodbye.
Ennoshita’s eyes were bare, the next morning. Keishin wasn’t going to lie, it was… jarring. He’d never thought about how much the presence of lashes lended to the human face, but the jarring lack of outline or barrier between the pale skin and whites of his eyes was uncanny. He didn’t have to look for long, though, because Ennoshita kept his eyes down as much as possible, avoiding the shocked stares the rest of the team so poorly tried to hide. In the very least, they were spared Hinata or Nishinoya loudly pointing it out thanks to very pointed looks (and a hand over their mouths, when necessary) on the captain’s part. As practice came closer to an end, Ennoshita grew more fidgety, hands fixed almost permanently on the sides of his head, constantly sifting through and picking strands.
Keishin caught Kiyoko just before she gathered her things to get to class.
“Do you have time to go check on Ennoshita?”
“Of course, coach,” she responded with no hesitation, gentle smile gracing her face as she pulled her bag over her shoulder. He nodded and, still somewhat at a loss when it came to talking to the more mature of their group, patted her on the shoulder once before he wandered off.
He caught them by chance on his way off campus, hidden outside the gym, Kiyoko’s hand steady on Ennoshita’s face as she effortlessly dragged the pencil across his upper eyelid. Ennoshita seemed to be breathing clearly for the first time that morning.
And so life continued. He put Ennoshita’s potential troubles out of his mind, preoccupied with the team’s progress, coaching Kageyama through more than volleyball, and finding out exactly what caused Hinata’s terrifying late-night glassy eyes, for a solid while.
They were on the road for another practice meet, parked momentarily at a rest stop to let the kids stretch their legs and grab a bite, lest they combust from having to sit still for too long, and the bus was mostly empty. Keishin watched through his window as they meandered around; in and out of the restrooms and store, stretching in the sun, running along the grassy stretch at the edge of the parking lot where the level ground sloped down into a somewhat steep but by all means walkable hill. Takeda was out with them still, but he kept track of them as best he could from the window. In fact, there were only two people in the bus right now: Tsukishima, who had been the quickest to return, can of coffee and bag of corn puffs in hand, and Ennoshita, who had his knees tucked up onto the seat and was staring at the seat in front of him with a far off, wide eyed look, rhythmically running his hands over the fabric of his pants. Keishin frowned and, checking that Tsukishima wasn’t paying attention (he wasn’t, thick headphones over his ears and eyes idly tracing the skyline), quietly moved into the row in front of Ennoshita.
“Y’alright there, kid?”
Ennoshita jumped as his eyes snapped to meet Keishin’s. He blinked once, and then lowered his head once more and hummed.
“Look like you’re thinkin’ bout something big there. There something we can help you with?”
Ennoshita shook his head. “Just zoning out,” he murmured. Keishin’s gaze roamed over his face, but it was entirely probable that he was mother-henning, so he nodded and silently shuffled back to his seat.
The match went off without a hitch, and so did the following weeks. The kids were improving quickly, and their motivation was positively contagious. His brief concerns about Ennoshita faded into the distance. He was responsible for thirteen other children, after all, despite how removed he was from actually caring for them, and these kids had problems . Ennoshita, in contrast, was essential as part of the glue that held the disaster that was the Karasuno Boys’ Volleyball Team together.
One Sunday, though, as the sauna of summer bled on, Keishin was covering a shift at the shop, thanking the powers that may be that their AC hadn’t broken down yet and flipping idly through the day’s newspaper, having given up on trying the crossword early into the morning. Crosswords were something he could imagine Takeda doing on late school-less mornings, leant back with the pristinely folded paper and a steaming mug of tea—something with all sorts of medicinal qualities he could list off the top of his head, no doubt—as the sun reached through the blinds. He was probably good at them, too, head full of miscellaneous information Keishin never bothered to remember from school, plus four years of university knowledge.
The sharp chiming of the bell jerked him from his (100% normal, not thinking about the glint of early sunlight off of glasses and how it might hide entrancing doe eyes, or how short, burnt espresso curls might look first thing in the morning) pondering, and he glanced up with just enough time to see a tall black head of hair dart into one of the back aisles. He sat up straighter in his chair, summer drowsiness simmering away.
He watched that aisle for a few minutes, muscles at the ready, hyper aware of every noise: the creak of one of the refrigerator doors, the squeak and shuffle of bottles shifting as one was removed, the silences in between. He didn’t know who he expected to emerge from that aisle, or what he expected to deal with, but it wasn’t Ennoshita, eyes puffy and smudged all over with black, gaze flitting around nervously, almost paranoid. He said nothing as the kid put down the sports drink he’d grabbed, only watched as his hands shook around the coins he pulled out of his pocket, fingers grabbing uselessly at the pile in his hand, too shaky to properly sift through them. Slowly, Keishin raised his own hand, inching them towards Ennoshita’s clearly until he could wrap it around the one searching in vain for the right coins, holding it still. The kid was tenser than a loaded slingshot, breath short and forced. His forearms were red with scratch marks. At the junction of the thumb on the hand Keishin was holding, he could make out the still sharp outline of teeth. Keishin squeezed his hand once, and then released it to brush the coins in the other one around and find the three needed. He put his other hand over the sports drink as the kid slipped the rest of the coins back into his pocket.
“What’s wrong?”
Ennoshita’s gaze bore into his shoulder, brows pinched together further than Keishin had ever seen them. He shook his head, mouth thin. Slowly, still holding the sports drink, Keishin rounded the counter, careful of the way the kid held himself, poised like a deer set to run. He stopped a couple of feet from him and leaned back against the counter.
“Kid,” he tried again. “I’m here to help you. You know that. What’s. Wrong?”
Ennoshita stared at him for a moment, shoulders shivering, and then, with a sharp gasp, the first tears dropped down his cheeks. He trembled, hands going to his forearms, and before he could think about it Keishin was reaching out to stop him, both hands going out to gently grasp him by the elbows.
And then there were five feet and nine inches of teenager collapsing into him, hands curling around the back of his shirt so tight he could feel the strain on the kid’s muscles on his back. Slowly, he brought his hands back to the kid’s shoulders, patting in a way he hoped was reassuring. Was that how it was done? How tight should he be squeezing back? As a kid, his mother had always rubbed circled into his upper back when she hugged him, no matter the occasion. Should he do that, or was that a parental thing? With the amount of times he’d been ambushed by these kids at this point, he should be better at this.
When it became apparent that this was no short, embarrassed embrace like some of the other kids had given him he started lowering them to the floor, leaning against the register and letting Ennoshita curl into him. His shirt was swiftly becoming stained with tears, snot, and, he suspected, spit, but he waited, arms still around the kid’s shoulders, until he started to pull back.
He leaned against the register, mirroring Keishin, legs still slung over his calves, and wiped at his face with the collar of his shirt.
“I’m sorry,” were the first words out of his mouth. “I don’t know… I don’t usually… don’t usually cry like that.”
“Don’t apologize,” Keishin huffed. “What happened?”
Ennoshita retracted his legs, curling up, shoulder pressed against the register, at the question. He stared down at the lines of the laminate beneath them.
“It’s… I don’t know where to start without you misunderstanding it. Nobody ever understands it, they all think I’m crazy.”
“Kid, you are one of the least crazy people on the team. I haven’t quit out on any of them yet.” Normally that would draw a smile from any of the mediators on the team (and Tsukishima, who, while calm, was perhaps the worst instigator among them), but Ennoshita just frowned. He ran his hands through his hair, index finger and thumb brushing through the strands from root to tip. A few loose ones fluttered out on their own, landing on his white shirt like stray marks of graphite on a canvas. He dipped his head down, then, and brought both hands up to do the same to a section on the top of his head, one set of fingers running over the hair and then the other, tugging gently and, if they didn’t give, moving on to the next, until he found one that came loose easily. He wrapped it around his finger and released it once, twice, and then ran it between his lips and wrapped it once more around his index finger. His stuttering breath was beginning to smooth, so Keishin left him to it.
“We had a get together this morning,” he said finally. “Not quite a family reunion, not late enough to be a party. More of a brunch thing.” He raked his hands through his hair again, fingers separated like claws this time, until they came to the back of his head, the same spot that had brought Keishin concern at the beginning of the school year. He continued his sifted as he talked.
“One of my aunt-and-uncles have a baby. Cutest thing. Everyone was passing her around while the parents ate, and I wanted to hold her, but…” He took a shaky breath, closing his eyes. His throat bobbed thickly before he continued, voice hoarser. “But every time I thought about it, I had this certainty that I was going to drop her. I could see it, and feel it, her just… slipping out of my hands, because I’ve never really held babies and I don’t know how and she’s so fragile because she was premature and kind of sick when she was born, and I could see it all playing out over and over again, and I knew , I know that if I held her, I would drop her and her…” He shuddered around a breath, face wet again, hands digging into his hair, no longer carefully sorting through and plucking but pulling , harsh and unforgiving. Keishin shifted to face him directly, knees under him, and reached out to grab his hands again, gently detangling them from his hair and holding them despite the way his arms tried to jerk back to his scalp. His nails dug into Keishin’s skin. His metacarpals clicked at the pressure, and the joint of his thumb stung where the nails dug in, but he held on.
“I could see how the blood would splatter, and… and probably the brains, and she wouldn’t even scream because it would be that quick, and it would be all my fault, and I love her, she’s… she’s so perfect—” he was choking on his words now, small specks of spittle flying as he near doubled over with sobs. “But I know, I know that if I held her I would hurt her, and I can’t…. I had to get out, I couldn’t… so I left and I walked around and I tried to do good, I stayed away from the hills and railings, and I just kept walking, and then I got thirsty so I came here.”
Holy shit. Keishin drew the kid in by his arms, which were still holding onto his own with a death grip, and, with a little coaxing to let go of him, wrapped him back up in the tightest embrace he could, squeezed to his chest like it could save him from his own mind.
What did he say to that? It was, frankly, horrific, both the words and the way the kid was making himself sick explaining them. Nausea bubbled at the back of Keishin’s throat, but he couldn’t think about that right now. He was, once again, a fish out of water, maybe more than he’d ever been, heart pounding incessantly against his chest. Really, how did one even go about addressing something like that?
“I’m glad you came here,” he started uncertainly. “That sounds… terrifying.” He loosened his grip so he could run his hands gently over the kid’s back. “I’m going to be straight with you. I don’t know how to handle this, or what’s going on with you, but—”
“Please don’t think I’m crazy.” The words were tiny, a squeak against Keishin’s shoulder. “I’m not usually like this. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“I never thought you did,” Keishin assured him quickly. Whatever this was, it was plainly clear that it was something happening against the kid’s will. “But I’m not qualified to handle it, because I couldn’t even begin to tell you what it is.” He took a breath, and then, thinking back, threw out another question.
“Why did you have to stay away from the hills?” Dread was crawling up his spine at the answer he already expected. Ennoshita’s forehead dug further into his shoulder.
“I’ve never thought about hurting other people before,” he whispered. “But I… I get these intrusive thoughts, and I’ve learned how to deal with them, I just… I was so rattled. I had to be extra careful.”
The whirring AC had nothing to do with the full body chill that ran over Keishin. He opened his mouth to prod more, but his panic must have read in the tenseness of his body, because Ennoshita continued.
“I’m not suicidal.” It was the firmest he’d sounded all afternoon, the same intense insistence that he’d given in the club room. “I don’t want to think about all this stuff. It just happens. Nobody gets that.”
Keishin squeezed his shoulders. “Okay. Explain it to me.”
And he did. Slowly, he removed himself from Keishin’s hold and pulled out his phone, opening a photo album of informatics for Keishin to scroll through. The whir of the AC filled the void around them as he read, and then Ennoshita’s voice cut through it softly, filling in the spaces the informatics left with a hesitance Keishin rarely knew him to have. He sat on the laminate floor in silence, trying his best to understand what was being explained to him without panic taking over. When silence fell between them again at last, he sighed, staring blankly out at the sidewalk beyond the shop windows.
“Okay,” he said. “You… obviously are very well versed in your own issues. I… I’m not equipped to handle this, but if there’s anything I can do for you…”
In his peripheral, he caught the shake of his student’s head.
“I’ve got it handled… usually,” he asserted again. Keishin sighed, tension working across his brow. He brought a hand up to pinch at the hollow of his eye sockets, trying to stave off the growing itch there.
“I trust you, kid, but usually isn’t enough.” He smoothed his hand over his brow, eyes shifted now to the floor beneath them. “I really think you should get professional help.”
“The services down here are… bad.” Ennoshita frowned, shaking his head. “I’ve heard my fair share of horror stories about them.”
“Then why not go somewhere else? There are a lot more… online things nowadays, right?”
“I couldn’t bother my parents with that,” he huffed, curling into himself a little as he did.
“Are you the person to decide whether that bothers them?” Keishin scoffed. He’d met Ennoshita’ parents a couple of times, and seen them from afar after the games they could make it to. They seemed like sweet people, always doting on all the boys on the team equally. Looks could be deceiving, though, so he watched the kid carefully as he asked, “Could you call them to come pick you up?”
Ennoshita sighed, tilting his head away. “Yeah.”
“Hey.” Keishin reached out to grab his shoulder as he picked up his phone again, waiting for their eyes to meet before he continued. “You need to talk to them about this. It’s their job to take care of you. None of this is a burden, it’s just part of raising a kid.”
Ennoshita gulped, averting his eyes back to his phone. “Okay.”
“Would you be more comfortable if I were there?”
He shook his head, and the AC took over the conversation from there. They waited an eternity on the shop floor before the melodic bell of the sliding doors chimed out again. Ennoshita was on his feet in an instant, and he’d hardly stood to his full height when his mother pulled him in, stooping him down to meet her level as she wrapped her arms around his head and pressed an audible kiss into his temple.
“What’s up, chickpea?,” she cooed as he squirmed out of her grasp. Keishin took the moment to rise slowly to his feet, wincing at the three consecutive pops in his knees as he did so (he was far too young for bad knees).
“Nothing, mom,” he murmured, looking beyond her to his father, who stood with his brow furrowed a pace behind them. “I just… No, I’m fine.”
“Ennoshita,” Keishin warned, leveling him with a hard stare as he grabbed his now significantly less cold drink off the counter and tossed it to him. “Talk to them.”
“I will, coach,” he promised, catching the drink effortlessly and slipping his other hand into his pocket. His father met Keishin’s eye, worry painted into every wrinkle on his face, and Keishin nodded back at him with a sad smile.
The weight on his chest dragged him back into his seat as the three of them disappeared down the sidewalk. He clenched his eyes shut, craning his head back to the ceiling. If he could do more, if he could snap his fingers and make all these kids’ issues disappear in a heartbeat, he would. But he was just one horribly inexperienced, ill-equipped, twenty-six year old man, and at times like these he felt even younger, hopelessly helpless and small compared to what plagued these children. He needed to do better for them. He just wished he knew how.