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“It’s decided,” says Moniwa.
“It’s a heist,” says Kamasaki.
“It’s a terrible idea and you’re going to get all of us in trouble,” says Sasaya and shakes his head. Not that he expects his words to do much good.
His protests go unheard. Naturally.
Because Moniwa is a high strung ball of anxiety and Kamasaki is an incorrigible troublemaker and for some unfathomable reason they get along like a house on fire.
And while Sasaya can’t recall single time a two-thirds vote has ever worked out in his favour, they’re still his best friends. He’s scared of what might happen if he left them to their own devices.
With a heavy sigh he raises his right hand and completes their tiny hand-stack. A twin-set of high-voltage grins beams back at him, threatening to burn off his cornea.
These are the clowns he chooses to spend his time with, Sasaya thinks, despondently.
“We meet at dawn,” Kamasaki declares.
Moniwa grimaces.
“Actually, I’ve got an exam coming up and I really need to study. Can we make it 09:30?”
Kamasaki nods gravely.
“We meet at 09:30.”
Sasaya really needs to revaluate the kind of company he keeps.
“You’re late,” Moniwa says in lieu of greeting. For emphasis, he taps the face of his watch with his pointer finger. The display lights up, clearly displaying the digits.
09:27
Sasaya resists the temptation to argue his case. If there's one thing this friendship has taught him, it's to pick his battles. This is not a matter worth giving himself premature grey hair over. He's already got enough of those without help from the outside, thank you very much for pointing it out, Kamasaki.
“This is a terrible idea,” Sasaya stresses instead. He’s hoping against hope that a good night’s sleep may have helped make Moniwa susceptible to reason.
“Shut up,” Kamasaki says as he comes sauntering up to them from the other side of the parking lot.
Sasaya shoots Moniwa a look.
Moniwa smiles sheepishly and offers him an apologetic shrug as if he hadn’t been the driving force behind the conception of this particular brainchild.
“You’re late,” Sasaya parrots without thinking and feels the loss of another piece of his individuality sacrificed to this unholy trinity. He hates himself a little for it, even though the psychological damage pales in the face of the godawful slew of mental images his earlier metaphor conjured.
If he ever makes it to the end of high school, Sasaya’s going to need therapy.
“No, I’m not.”
Kamasaki doesn’t even take out his watch to double check. In fact, he probably isn’t even wearing one. He’s just come to accept it as a fact of life that Moniwa’s always early and Sasaya never late.
Sasaya wants to get annoyed with him for it, except Kamasaki isn’t exactly wrong.
Instead of a watch, Kamasaki produces a bag of sour gummy worms.
Kamasaki doesn’t even like sour gummies. He’s got an absurdly fast metabolism, though, and Sasaya suspects he’d consider eating a shoe if left unattended and without food.
Sasaya immediately identifies the gaudy packaging as Futakuchi’s favourite kind of sour gummies. By inference, this must be one of the bags Kamasaki regularly snatches from Futakuchi’s pockets while sternly reminding him of the “no candy at the gym” rule.
To this day, Sasaya doesn’t know if it’s an actual rule of Oiwake’s or just an elaborate excuse of Kamasaki’s to keep his own secret stash of snacks stocked. Before Futakuchi came along, they’d never had to deal with team members sneaking candy into practice.
It’s Datekō’s very own chicken-egg dilemma in the sense that nobody knows if Futakuchi started bringing sour gummies to practice to annoy Kamasaki or Kamasaki started confiscating them to annoy Futakuchi and at this point people are too afraid to question the intricate rituals Futakuchi and Kamasaki have devised to make each other miserable day after day after day.
It’d be endearing, in a twisted sort of way, if it didn’t give Sasaya headaches for days.
“Earth to Sasaya!”
Moniwa snaps his fingers in front of his face and Sasaya’s violently yanked back to reality.
“Stop daydreaming,” Moniwa chides. “We need to get moving.”
“That’s right, gramps,” Kamasaki laughs and gives him what he thinks constitutes a gentle shove in the right direction. Sasaya narrowly avoids over-balancing and falling flat on his face. “You can take a nap once we’re on the bus.”
Moniwa reaches out to steady him. He’s got his lips pressed into a thin, trembling line. Sasaya appreciates the effort he puts into keeping his giggling in check. At this point he might as well just spare himself the misery, though.
Moniwa keeps a hand on his elbow and it takes Sasaya a full minute to realise it’s not a gesture of support but a vice to prevent any last-minute escape attempts.
If he’s honest, Sasaya’s a little offended.
Just because he makes an effort to think sensibly—unlike some people he could name—doesn’t mean they aren’t in this together.
They encounter their first obstacle in the form of the school gate which, albeit reasonably tall, isn’t much of an obstacle at all in the end.
Moniwa presses himself against the bars to check the courtyard for potential witnesses while Sasaya and Kamasaki look to their left and to their right, respectively.
A couple of seconds pass before Moniwa turns around and motions for them to come closer.
The gate stands about two widths of a hand taller than Kamasaki, which, from Sasaya’s vantage point, translates to ‘pretty much insurmountable’.
The metal of the bars is smooth and painted in a dark teal finish. It probably won’t be easy to climb.
Sasaya’s about inform his two partners-in-crime of this observation when he notices the silent communication happening between them. It concludes with the upwards tilt of Moniwa’s chin, his jaw clenching the same way it does when he’s about to sneak in a setter dump. Kamasaki nods solemnly.
With no small measure of horror, Sasaya realises he knows exactly what they’re planning.
In an uncanny display of synchronisation, both their heads turn to look at him.
Reflexively, Sasaya’s brings his arms forward in a rough approximation of a cross.
“No way. Absolutely not!”
This was their harebrained scheme. Sasaya’s not risking his skeletal integrity playing the guinea pig for them.
Moniwa and Kamasaki exchange another look and nod at each other with matching expressions of determination. The movement appears perfectly coordinated and if Sasaya didn’t know for a fact that the three of them simply spend way too much of their time together, he’d think they’d practiced that kind of thing.
Without prompting, Sasaya takes Kamasaki’s messenger bag off him. It’s lighter than it looks and something crinkles when it knocks into his side. So Kamasaki brought his lunch with him, too. Cool.
Sasaya distantly hopes Kamasaki packed enough to share. Experience tells him, he probably has.
With his hands freed up, Kamasaki turns his back to the gate, bends his knees, and laces his fingers in front of him. Then, he smirks. Not for the first time, Sasaya wonders if he really is that confident in his abilities or if he’s just a crazy bastard.
Moniwa steps off the sidewalk to give himself a longer run-up. He unconsciously licks his lips while he’s gauging the distance from the gate and the height he’ll have to clear to safely make it to the other side.
In a sudden moment of clarity, Sasaya realises he’s dealing with two crazy bastards.
Not that he’s never realised it before, the fact just hasn’t ceased to horrify him yet.
People tend to identify Kamasaki as a feral beast within five minutes of knowing him, thirty seconds flat when Futakuchi’s around to provoke him.
However, nobody ever sees Moniwa’s crazy coming, even though there’s no hoop he isn’t willing to jump through for the volleyball team.
Even if the hoop happens to be on fire and dangling above a tank of sharks.
Moniwa’s just gonna look at it the way he’s looking at the gate now and run headfirst into danger.
Sometimes, Sasaya questions if perhaps he’s the crazy one for voluntarily hanging out with them. But before he can reach a satisfactory conclusion, Moniwa starts running and Sasaya’ has to look away because deep down beneath all his snark he’s the gentle soul Moniwa pretends to be and he can’t bear to look at the carnage that’s about to ensue.
Sasaya waits for a crash, a shout, a groan, or whatever other sounds usually follow serious injury.
Only there aren’t any.
He chances a quick glance, just in time to see Moniwa land on the other side. On his feet, Sasaya feels necessary to confirm.
“Hell yeah!” Kamasaki shouts and pumps his fist. From the other side of the gate, Moniwa flashes them a peace sign with a hand that doesn’t appear to be missing any fingers.
Sasaya finally lets go of the breath he’s been holding on to.
“Now you,” Kamasaki orders, pointing at him in a pose he’s clearly lifted from Aone.
Seeing Moniwa safe and sound and, most importantly, alive on the other side makes Sasaya feel slightly less awful about what he’s about to attempt.
“You can do it!”
Moniwa flashes him a thumbs up from the pillar just to the right of the gate.
Sasaya puts down Kamasaki’s messenger bag and copies Moniwa’s technique, right down to the mental maths that’s supposed to help him stay not dead.
Kamasaki makes a show of rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck before hunkering down again.
Sasaya rolls his eyes at the posturing but it reminds him what made Kamasaki’s seemingly boundless self-confidence such a valuable asset on the court.
It’s reassuring, plain and simple.
Sasaya goes for it the jump and before he even knows what’s happening he’s over the gate and Moniwa’s there, ready to high five him.
Kamasaki whistles to get their attention and throws his bag to the other side. Moniwa catches it easily and they clear the landing zone.
Kamasaki moves back, checking for cars from either side once more, and runs straight towards the gate. The metal rattles dangerously when his hands close around the top and his feet connect with the bars. He straightens his arms with a grunt and swings his feet to the front one after another.
It’s not an elegant manoeuvre by any measure but it gets him to other side.
Just like that, step one of their four step plan has come to a close.
Step two proves decidedly trickier.
Their athleticism may work fine to get them over a gate, it’s decidedly less helpful when up against a regular door.
The three of them are crouched in front of the gym entrance, staring at the lock as if trying to scare it open.
They’re not official club members anymore. Moniwa had to return his key the day he stepped down as captain. It’d be so easy if they still had the key.
“Let’s kick it in,” Kamasaki says in a tone that makes it clear he’s only saying it because the delinquent image he tries so hard to project demands it.
“Let’s not kick it in!” Moniwa says in a tone that makes it clear he doesn’t care if Kamasaki’s delinquent image demands it, the very suggestion is offensive to him.
Once more, it hits Sasaya that Moniwa and Kamasaki are just different shades of the same brand of crazy and Moniwa’s as much a stickler for the rules as Kamasaki pretends he isn’t. The fact that it’s these two out of all the members of the volleyball club who cooked up the idea to break into the gym and steal the team’s banner is proof of two things:
One, life’s a farce and Sasaya should just give up trying to keep any semblance of order.
Two, Moniwa and Kamasaki’s boundless devotion to the volleyball club and Sasaya’s glad to have been a regular during their woefully short tenure as captain and vice-captain of Datekō’s volleyball team.
Sasaya sighs and shakes his head. He can’t believe what’s about to come out of his mouth.
“How about we check the windows.”
Luck is on their side.
Someone left open one of the basement level windows. If memory serves Sasaya right, it leads to the boiler room. He shudders at the thought of squeezing through the small opening into the sticky heat of the boiler room only to have navigate the dark hallways of the basement.
He’s staring at the window, wondering how they’re going to decide which one of them goes in when he becomes aware of two pairs of eyes on him.
Oh.
Oh no.
Two out of three.
Two-thirds majority.
Again.
Sasaya glares at them.
Kamasaki scratches the back of his neck and mumbles, “I’d do it in a heartbeat, yanno. No way in hell I fit, though.”
Granted, Kamasaki’s kind of got a point there and Sasaya appreciates the effort he’s putting into looking bashful.
Sasaya decides to cut him some slack for once and focuses on Moniwa instead.
Moniwa and he are practically the same size. What Moniwa’s got on him in height, Sasaya makes up for in weight and Moniwa knows that. What’s his excuse?
As it turns out, Moniwa doesn’t have one.
He fiddles with his pointer fingers, looks every which way except directly at Sasaya and radiates a general sense of discomfort. Sasaya knows if he plays his cards right, Moniwa will cave and take one for the team. Moniwa will do anything if it’s for the team.
Besides, it was his idea, it’s only fair he did the dirty work.
However, Sasaya makes a point of picking his battles. Most battles he skips, he skips to save himself the hassle. Every now and then, though, he’ll skip one to save his friends the hassle.
“You’ve been down there before,” Moniwa eventually supplies. It’s the lamest excuse Sasaya’s heard in a while, but he waves him off nevertheless.
The basement’s dark, cramped, chockfull of spiders, and, quite possibly, home to the secret laboratory where the science teacher conducts illegal experiments on the resident rodent population. Sasaya knows the rumours like everybody else.
He gets where Moniwa’s coming from, is what he’s saying.
At least Sasaya has a rough idea of what’s waiting for him down there. He’ll just talk Moniwa into treating him to lunch or unload some of his technical drawing assignments on him.
“Just help me get in, will you?” he says and methodically removes his coat, blazer and button up, leaving him in his T-shirt.
Outside of the gym, the cold winter air bites into his skin. However, there’s no way he’s going to get his clothes any dirtier than necessary when he’s going to be out and about in public all day.
Moniwa eyes him strangely but seems to understand the thought process behind what’s going on. Kamasaki takes his clothes and stuffs them into his bag. Sasaya doesn’t even bother warning him about wrinkles.
Preparations complete, he squats down in front of the window and tries to work out the best angle of attack. In the dark, he can’t really see what the ground looks like or how far down the drop is.
He’ll just have to go in blind and hope he doesn’t break an ankle upon landing.
Fun times.
Moniwa and Kamasaki each hold on to one of his arms as he tries to wiggles in feet first. It really is a tight fit but once his shoulders are through it’s smooth sailing. Or free falling, depending on how you look at it.
Moniwa slips on a mushy patch snow and loses his grip. This, in turn, knocks Kamasaki off balance and Sasaya is dropped on his ass.
“Ow!” he says loudly.
“Sorry!” a disembodied voice calls out above him.
“You alive down there?” a second adds.
“Screw you!” Sasaya groans and forces himself to sit up straight.
“Hey, what’s that?”
Sasaya hears shuffling, followed by indistinct shouting.
“Guys?”
“Shit, teacher, three ‘o clock! Meet us by the dumpsters if we’re not back in ten!”
Drumming footsteps move away at a rapid pace.
“Moniwa? Kamacchi?”
No reply. Great.
Just then, Sasaya realises he left his phone in his coat pocket.
Fucking fabulous.
Step two draws to a close and Sasaya’s sitting alone in the dark. The boiler room’s just as stuffy as he’d feared. Moniwa owes him lunch, dinner and breakfast after this. Sasaya won’t have to complete another technical drawing until the year is over.
Step three proceeds about as smoothly as one would expect, given that he’s got no light source, only a vague idea of where he’s going and what’s probably shaping up to be a sizeable bruise on his ass.
After he discovers his third cobweb with his face he stops counting disgusting stuff he runs into. They’ll just have to stop by at Moniwa’s before catching the bus to Karasuno. Moniwa’s house is the only one that’s on the way and Sasaya is in desperate need of a shower—and quite possibly first aid, a tetanus shot wouldn’t hurt either—after this.
Figures he’d eventually catch rabies after years of hanging out with wild animals.
He very emphatically does not sob when his foot finally knocks against the bottom step of the staircase leading upstairs. The door, thankfully, isn’t locked and Sasaya emerges from the dark bringing a whole dust storm with him to the surface.
At least that’s what it feels like when some dust particles lodge themselves in his throat and he spends the next thirty seconds hacking up a long.
Breathing heavily, he rests his forehead against the cool surface of the wall.
It occurs to him that he may very well have swallowed a spider during his extended sojourn downstairs but he doesn’t have enough fight left in him to care right now.
There’s so much going wrong in his life and Moniwa and Kamasaki are to blame for all of it.
He finds their team’s banner exactly where they’ve always stashed it outside of tournament season. Rolled up neatly on a shelf in the club room. It’s colour is more vibrant than the last time he saw it and it smells of detergent.
Or maybe colours just naturally look less clouded when they’re not a backdrop to their teams losses.
In any case, he makes a mental note to thank Nametsu at the next chance he gets for continuing to look after the team. Somebody’s got to make sure they’re always putting their best foot forward.
Sasaya takes the banner off the shelf with an air of reverence remembering all the times they’d lined up in front of it and bowed to the other members of the volleyball club cheering for them from the stands.
“Go, go! Let’s go! Let’s go, Datekō!” he whispers to himself, quietly laughing at the silliness of it.
It is a catchy chant, he thinks and swallows in an attempt to distract himself from wishing they’d had a few more opportunities to hear it.
He shakes his head.
Be that as it may, the Iron Wall of Date is standing stronger than ever on the foundations the three of them have laid down.
It’s all they could’ve asked for.
It’s enough.
Wiping at his eyes, Sasaya hooks his arm under the banner and gets going.
Stupid allergies acting up again.
Step four was supposed to be the easiest part: escape undetected.
Except, Sasaya’s escape room has been barred. When he returns to the boiler room, the window’s been shut and there’s nothing indicating that Kamasaki and Moniwa are waiting on the other side of it.
Sasaya runs a hand through his hair as he tries to think of an alternative escape route.
Seriously, the trouble he goes through for these idiots.
Every last one of them.
He hikes the banner higher up against his torso and prepares to brave the winding hallways of the basement the third and hopefully final time.
He really isn’t any better than Moniwa and Kamasaki, is he?