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Forty-five minutes into his first ever all-Japan volleyball tournament and Kiyoomi is already exhausted. The sheer amount of people and energy packed in this gymnasium feeds the summer heat to cloy his senses and send his head swaying. Everywhere he looks, he sees kids with dripping wet hands flailing around in colourful smelly jersey, spreading filths and ills. The air and ground are coated with their saliva and sweat and snot. He can feel the space surrounding him turn slimy, clinging to his skin in layers upon layers. God he really needs to soap and scrub his hands under cool, cleansing water, right now.
But the door handle of the toilet, covered in fingerprints and dirt and germs, is certainly mocking him. The mere thoughts of how many unwashed hands have touched that metal plate and what kind of things those hands have handled before touching it churn his stomach. He rues the day he followed Motoya to the gym. Why couldn’t his cousin pick any other hobbies? Hobbies that don’t entail mass gatherings at the height of summer in a closed, confined space if you want to pursue it.
Kiyoomi sighs. He has no choice. The two nearest toilets are overflowing with people and look just as grotty. He takes out a tissue and gingerly pushed the door open, wishing that he had something thicker, something that offers more coverage.
Something like the handkerchief right in his line of sight, in the big rough hands of a boy. Now that’s a surprise. He doesn’t think he knows many boys his age who carry disposable tissues on them, let alone a proper handkerchief.
But there the boy is, drying his hands with the white cloth. He’s as tall as Kiyoomi, might be even a tad taller, with a bigger build. He’s dressed neatly in a white and purple tracksuit – a volleyball player. Dark hair and matching eyes. Back ramrod, gaze steady. His face is passive, stoic, as he folds the handkerchief with the damp side in.
Kiyoomi is openly staring now.
Most boys his age, many girls too, and for sure more adults than they want to admit, are slobs. They don’t pay much attention to hygiene, carelessly and slovenly go about their day. They let germs spread to their mouths and eyes and ears from their damp hands, let dirt encrust underneath the tips of their fingernails. And when they can’t even be bothered to take care of their own hygiene and health, they are never ready for anything else in life.
But the boy in front of him is of a different kind. The kind that doesn’t care that other boys would call him a sissy for carrying around a handkerchief. The kind that lets teases and taunts wash over him as he stands there unaffected, indifferent, confident in the sole knowledge that he’s prepared, always. The most formidable kind.
A thrill runs through Kiyoomi’s heart and speeds up its beats.
The boy puts away the handkerchief into the left pocket of his track jacket. He turns to the door and meets Kiyoomi’s eyes with a cool silence. If he’s surprised at Kiyoomi’s presence or intense stare, he doesn’t show it. He walks past Kiyoomi, keeping his eyes forward. Kiyoomi fixes his gaze on the boy until he’s out of sight.
As luck would have it, they meet again on the court.
The boy’s team is good. That’s a given though, for any team that earns a spot at the nationals has to be at least good. The setter plays well, even if a little too by the book. The blockers are tall and big and those are their only merits, but here on this court that should suffice. The libero is a minor miracle, but still, and Kiyoomi colours this thought with a shade of pride, a step behind Motoya.
The boy, on the other hand, is one of a kind. The thought crosses Kiyoomi’s mind as he watches the boy spring into the air to chase after the ball he just throws, not so much defying gravity as ruling over it, bending it to his will. He raises both arms as he leaps but pulls back his left arm as he ascends, taut as a bow string. With a smooth motion he strikes the ball and sends a cannon shot straight at Kiyoomi.
Kiyoomi is as ready as ever. He bends his knees, brings his arms out, clasps his hands together. The ball tears through the blockers and zips right into his outstretched arms. In a fraction of a second right before the ball reaches him, Kiyoomi thinks he’s got it.
But the ball, this particular ball sent ripping through the court by the boy who’s prepared, is not to be tamed. It slams at Kiyoomi just long enough to leave some nasty bruises, then flees from him to land with a loud thud somewhere near the end of the court.
In his mind he hears Motoya’s revelation: “It’s the spin.”
So this is what they feel, Motoya and all those players who have tried to dig his spikes and serves. He marvels at the new experience. Its strangeness bothers and excites him in equal measure. His mind wastes no time to clutch at it like a sparkly new puzzle that will consume a part of him until he can solve it.
He hears his teammates shrugging off the lost point. Their shouts of “next point” and “don’t mind” mingle with voices from the other side of the net lauding the service ace, and in the cacophony Kiyoomi catches the boy’s name.
Wakatoshi, his mind repeats, over and over until the name blends in with all the sounds of the court.
———
It’s his second all-Japan tournament and Kiyoomi wears his mask and stays put in his corner, away from the sweaty crowd. The opening ceremony has already stretched his patience to the limit; he now refuses to surrender his zealously guarded personal space. But his eyes rove around the arena, scanning for a particular shade of purple. Motoya stands nearby, ready to make excuses for his antisocial cousin. For the past year the two of them have been practicing serve bumping persistently, consistently – the way Kiyoomi does everything he ever starts in life. Motoya, being at the receiving end of Kiyoomi’s nastiest spins, has gotten really good. Kiyoomi, on the other hand, cannot receive his own serves and therefore lags behind, much to his own dismay. But other members of their team have also improved; they are poised to avenge their loss against Shiratorizawa last year.
Againts Wakatoshi-kun, Kiyoomi corrects in his mind.
Right before the first round starts, he spots the familiar head of dark hair. To his and Motoya’s surprise, he leaves his corner and manoeuvres through the crowd to confront the ace who beat him last year.
“Wakatoshi-kun”, he makes himself heard. Wakatoshi, still in the white and purple tracksuit, still standing with his back straight and his head held high, turns around and looks Kiyoomi in the eyes. Kiyoomi has grown taller over the year, but so has Wakatoshi. Unlike their chance encounter in the toilet last year, he acknowledges Kiyoomi: “Sakusa Kiyoomi of Dosho”. His voice is deep and cool, like night breeze down the slopes.
“You beat us last year. This year we will win.” Kiyoomi declares without preamble. He believes that Wakatoshi doesn’t need any.
“Good luck.” Wakatoshi wraps his laconic reply in a kind of pure sincerity that can only come from an utter confidence in himself and his team. The challenge that comes with it sparks a current of exhilaration in Kiyoomi. He smiles behind the mask.
They meet in the semi-final.
Wakatoshi is now the captain; the underscored number 1 jersey fits him and his uncompromising strength so very well. His team has a new setter, who carries out the most textbook sets. The blockers and hitters are shorter than the ones in Kiyoomi’s memories, the libero less of a miracle.
Kiyoomi snaps his wrist and sends the ball spinning at the player in the odd jersey colour, who lets it bounce merrily from his arms onto the court.
But Wakatoshi is still strong, if not stronger. An outside hitter manages to bump Kiyoomi’s third serve into the air, and the setter rushes over to put the ball up in a high arc. Wakatoshi soars above the court, his left hips and shoulders rotate around his right side, his right arm is pulled close to his chest. He makes the swing, and the court rumbles.
Kiyoomi can’t even see the ball flying past him. He can only feel the residue of its force, its velocity as it lands right beside him. Frustration tucks the corners of his mouth up into something that resembles a sneer. On the other side of the net, Wakatoshi responses with a self-assured grin that leaves Kiyoomi high on adrenaline and an urge to fight back, to defeat, to win. It surprises him a little since he has never thought that he quite has it in him to be so intensely driven by competitiveness. Nonetheless, he revels in it and in the glee that it brings forth.
Shiratorizawa edges out another win this year, but what vexes Kiyoomi the most is that he still can’t receive any of Wakatoshi’s serves.
———
Kiyoomi receives an invitation to the national U15 training camp. A part of him doesn’t want to go, doesn’t want to spend any second sharing the same bathroom, the same dorm, the same table, the same air with boys his age, boys he knows to be dirty and grimy, who pays not an iota of care to their hygiene and their health, who skips down their life path terrifyingly unprepared.
But he decides to go, because Motoya will also be there. And so will Wakatoshi, he expects.
As he stands next to Motoya during the first assembly underneath the dome of the massive arena, one much bigger than the cramped gymnasium where all the all-Japan junior high school tournaments are held, he can see from the corner of his eye the shade of purple that has tinted his bump drills for a good while now.
At dinner, he marches straight to Wakatoshi’s table with his stray of food. He calls out the ace’s name, and watches as Wakatoshi swallows his bite, wipes his mouth with a serviette, and greets him by his own name. Kiyoomi finds that he likes very much how his name sounds in that cool, even voice.
They eat in silence, since Wakatoshi doesn’t talk much, and Kiyoomi would rather flush his stash of hand sanitisers down the toiler than talk while eating. At least that would disinfect the toilet. Somewhere behind him, he can hear Motoya’s friendly voice joining the chorus of chattering. His eyebrows twitch ever so slightly.
As they put away their trays, Kiyoomi starts talking. He has a barrage of questions in his mind, he wants to find out what Wakatoshi’s practice regimens are, how long his spike drills are, which protein sources he prefers, how fast he sets his pace when he goes jogging. He wants to uncover the secrets behind the power that puzzles him, has been for months.
“Wakatoshi-kun, what makes you play volleyball?”
“My dad taught me when I was little.”
“Is he a pro?”
“He was in the minor league.”
He learns that Wakatoshi’s parents are divorced, that his dad has moved away. That his matriarchal household is traditional, conservative, that his lefthanded-ness is considered ill-mannered. That his dad has traded a part of his own freedom to protect his gift, his strength. Kiyoomi has set out to talk about the volleyball ace, but what he gets is a glimpse of the boy who plays volleyball.
As the exasperated dinner lady ushers them out of the empty dining hall, Kiyoomi asks his last question of the night:
“But what makes you play volleyball?”
Wakatoshi doesn’t rush. He takes his time to think, to prepare. Kiyoomi is entranced. “Love, I guess.”
The word rings strangely, but not unpleasantly. It’s something Kiyoomi doesn’t mind, but it’s also something that he doesn’t have and can’t quite fathom.
He turns it over in his mind that night and many nights to come.
———
Wakatoshi moves on to high school and Kiyoomi is left behind in the boiling, stinky, congested halls of the all-Japan junior high school tournament. He scowls at the rowdy boys who don’t bother to cover their sneezes, at his coach for making him take off his mask during warm-up, at the girls who crowd around Motoya, too bright, too cheerful against his slight desolation and utter chagrin, at Motoya for inviting him to play volleyball, at himself for following his cousin to the gym.
Dosho has no worthy opponents now. Shiratorizawa is still good, but Wakatoshi leaves too big a shoe to fill. Kiyoomi is still scowling when he goes up the podium to receive the Best Hitter award. He feels unsated. The plaque in his hand is as heavy as lead. Their championship doesn’t seem to matter as much since Kiyoomi still hasn’t managed to bump any of Wakatoshi’s spikes. This thought nags at him ceaselessly, growing bigger and louder until it overwhelms him with the need to rush straight to the gym to bump serves.
Motoya, loyal but long-suffering, has this bright idea of going to the metropolitan gymnasium to watch the Interhigh, which happens to be hosted in Tokyo this year. Kiyoomi has not the faintest clue why Motoya would ever think that such an idea would appeal to his hermit-adjacent cousin who considers crowd his mortal enemy. He can watch the taped matches later. But in the end, he acquiesces, figuring that it would be beneficial for him to check out his future opponents first-hand. And he may, if luck is with him, get to catch Wakatoshi’s matches as well.
They arrive at the gymnasium 10 minutes into Shiratorizawa’s first round match, and Kiyoomi stops scowling. They find a relatively empty spot on one of the balconies, far from the actions but also from spectators and the adoring Shiratorizawa cheering squad. Kiyoomi doesn’t mind. He can still see Wakatoshi from here, in the white uniform with purple accents, only a first year but already a permanent fixture of the starting lineup. It’s Shiratorizawa’s turn to serve, and Wakatoshi takes up his position behind the end-line.
Kiyoomi has watched Wakatoshi from the other side of the net many times before, his presence both thrilling and infuriating. He was also on the same side as Wakatoshi in practice matches during the training camp last year. It was a novel experience, hearing the ace calling out his name for a pass. Wakatoshi wasn’t a horrible libero, but it was bizarre, and frankly a waste, not seeing him fly into the air to serve, to spike, to conquer.
Watching him from the stands as a mere spectator, however, is a completely different thing. The lack of a vested interest in the game paints Wakatoshi in a new light, more dazzling. He tosses the ball up, then rises from the ground in pursuit. His body curves, his left arm swings, and like a god he grants power to the ball. A blink of an eye later, the ball crashes into one of his opponents, ricocheting off the poor boy’s arms and into the ground. The gymnasium erupts in applause. Kiyoomi realises that Wakatoshi is a very persuasive player. His strength turns heads, his aura demands attention, and when he wins his triumphs command cheers from the breathless audience.
They don’t run into Wakatoshi later, but they do run into Iizuna Tsukasa, Itachiyama’s first year and holder of the Best Setter award in last year’s Junior Olympic Cup. Kiyoomi isn’t quite paying attention, too busy thinking about X drills and wall bumps. But when he sees Iizuna take out from his bag a lint roller and start working at his jacket, his attention is immediately drawn back to the moment. He stares at Iizuna and the lint roller so intensely that it alarms Motoya and spooks Iizuna, who seems to recognise him. The older boy tentatively holds up his lint roller and offers it to Kiyoomi. He responds by taking out his own. In Iizuna’s eyes he can see a spark of recognition that mirrors his own. By his side, Motoya withers silently behind a blank expression.
In the following spring, he accepts without hesitation a place at Itachiyama Academy and in their volleyball team.
———
The conversation starts out ordinary enough.
“Wakatoshi-kun, how is your high school team?”
They are at the U19 training camp in the summer of Kiyoomi’s first year of high school. It’s just after dinner, and they are sitting in the empty dining hall.
Wakatoshi tells Kiyoomi about his highschool coach, who is stern and loud, his retiring captain who always greets him with the friendly pat on the back, the redhead with the incredible intuition who plays middle blocker and who keeps talking to him about all the things he doesn’t know of, the hardworking first-year setter whose composed face hides his hot-headedness. He doesn’t show off, but he doesn’t hide his strengths either. Some may think he’s foolish or overconfident, but all Kiyoomi sees in his matter-of-fact answers is an unwavering conviction in himself and his team, a conviction that stands staunch in the face of any and all adversaries.
“What about the other teams in Miyagi?” Not that Kiyoomi needs to know them; Shiratorizawa has been the perennial Miyagi representative at national tournaments for as long as he can remember. But it doesn’t hurt to know what the opponents of his main opponent are like.
Wakatoshi stays silent for a while. When he speaks, Kiyoomi hears puzzlement in his voice.
“There’s a setter in the prefecture, so excellent he rivals the best players I have ever encountered. But he refused to come to Shiratorizawa, and I could never understand his decision. Why didn’t he want to pick the best team, where he can find the best players? Where he can grow the most and have his skills recognised on the national stage?”
Wakatoshi doesn’t seem to be looking for an answer to his questions, at least from Kiyoomi. He probably just wants to put his thoughts – thoughts that must have been bothering him for quite some time – into words, give them form and presence in the hope that maybe he can tease out some hidden truths that he has missed. Silence prevails as they both chase their own thoughts.
Kiyoomi doesn’t know who the setter is, or what his motivations and circumstances are, but he thinks he understands why the setter has made that decision. If given the same choice, he himself probably would also turn down Shiratorizawa and the chance to be in the same team with Wakatoshi. It’s not because that he doesn’t want to outshine or be outshone by Wakatoshi. Neither of them cares about that. But Kiyoomi has found a certain joy in facing Wakatoshi on the court, in watching the ace jump up and wreak havoc on opponents’ court like a god clad in white and purple, and in tearing down said god’s kingdom with his own hands. It’s a joy that electrifies him, sends his blood rushing, heightens his senses so that the light shines brighter, the echo of the ball striking the railings of the upper stands sounds louder, and in his heart sprouts something stronger than an urge to see things through.
“There are other things that matter, I guess.” He doesn’t elaborate.
Wakatoshi takes in his words and doesn’t ask for more.
Before they go back to their respective dorms, a question escapes Kiyoomi.
“Do you tell your teammates about me?”
“Why should I? They already know about you.”
Matter-of-factly. Yet it feels like hundreds of pinpricks.
———
It’s Kiyoomi’s first Interhigh, and his reputation as the best hitter in junior high school still can’t win him a spot in the starting line-up. Itachiyama has a deep bench, and first-year players rarely, if ever, get to play at their first high school tournament, no matter how good they are. Kiyoomi doesn’t mind this too much when he finds out that Shiratorizawa has lost to the incumbent champion in their quarter-final.
High school tournaments are not that much different from the junior high school ones. The court is indeed bigger and the arenas more spacious, but the players also grow taller and wider, taking up all the newly given space. High school boys, despite their growth spurt, haven’t changed all that much. They still retain all of their unhygienic habits, still jostling around in crowded corridors guffawing and croaking and sneezing and sending saliva flying and germs spreading. If anything, they get even worse. The particular flavour of bravado that only teenage boys have, born from peer pressure and an innate impulse to prove themselves in the most witless ways, gets them drunk on an illusion of invincibility. It makes them careless. The worst type. Plus, summer this year is scorching and Kiyoomi honestly has had enough.
The Spring High is a much more tolerable affair. January is soothingly cold, and while it is the peak of the flu season, his coaches have made every player get his flu shot. Kiyoomi and Motoya have fought their way to the starting line-up and are now getting ready to face Shiratorizawa in the semi-final.
It’s a shame how semi-finals lack romance, Motoya laments half-jokingly while they are going through their passing drills. Finals, true to their name, have this air of finality, decisiveness, the last stretch, the last hurdle. The last fight to decide between the true winner and the best loser. Destined rivals dream of meeting in the final where they no longer have to conserve their strength for any future endeavours, where they can throw everything they have into the game to prove their worth against one another, where they can burn the brightest all for the sake of obtaining the crown. Finals are undeniably romantic. Semi-finals are, well, semi-finals.
Kiyoomi throws his cousin a blank look and stays silent, but he doesn’t agree. All matches are the same, all wins are the same, up to the very last game, finals or semi-finals or qualifiers. The only thing that matters is the manner in which one faces their opponents on the court: careful or not, prepared or not. Winning and losing are but a mere extension.
Warm-up session ends, and both teams get into their positions. Through the net Kiyoomi watches Wakatoshi, statuesque and all whipcord muscles. The referee blows a whistle. Shiratorizawa’s number 8 serves. The ball flies over the net, Motoya bumps it effortlessly. Iizuna is right beneath the ball, wrist bent, finger curved, form perfected, ready for their first attack. Kiyoomi catches the sound of his name in the air, and he soars up just in time to strike the ball. It whirls past the blockers and into the floor millimetres before the end-line.
As he lands, Kiyoomi glimpses a half-smile on Wakatoshi’s face and hears his heart racing.
The match is long, as it’s always been the case whenever Kiyoomi plays against Shiratorizawa. The red-headed middle blocker, who moves and blocks on pure instinct, is not far from terror incarnated. The setter, hair platinum with black-tipped, has a powerful serve to go with his plethora use of quick sets. But no Shiratorizawa players can eclipse their ace, who unleashes thunder and lightning whenever he takes to the air.
In the end, and with difficulty, Itachiyama gets their win, but Kiyoomi, whose arms covered in bruises from botched serve receives, still hasn’t gotten his.
———
At the following Interhigh, Kiyoomi finds himself standing next to Wakatoshi at one side of the arena. They are watching the last match of the qualifying round. Kiyoomi doesn’t take his eyes off an arduous rally when he voices his question:
“Wakatoshi-kun, how did you get so good?”
“By practicing a lot.” Wakatoshi replies a beat later.
“Besides that.” Kiyoomi isn’t quite sure what he’s looking for, but he knows that’s not it. No one can get here without practicing, genius or not.
It takes Wakatoshi longer to find another answer. Kiyoomi doesn’t mind the wait. It’s always worth it.
“Because I got lucky”. He speaks, finally.
Kiyoomi glances his way. Wakatoshi still looks straight ahead, eyes following the ball. His face is neutral, impassive. Kiyoomi turns his eyes back to the game, but his mind hangs onto the word “luck”.
He thinks of Wakatoshi’s left arm, then his wrists. He thinks of their first meeting in the toilet, their subsequent meetings on and off the court. He thinks of Iizuna, and how he didn’t hesitate to accept an offer from Itachiyama. He thinks of Motoya and all the time his cousin has spent bumping his serves. He thinks of the day he followed Motoya to the gym.
On the third day of the Interhigh, Shiratorizawa loses their quarter-final. Itachiyama wins theirs, as well as the semi-final, and Motoya’s speech on finals fleets through Kiyoomi’s mind.
They meet Inarizaki in the final.
Their third-year captain isn’t on the starting line-up, and that cues Kiyoomi in on their strength. All their starters are skilled, aggressive, ruthless. The Miya twins – dubbed the strongest twins in high school volleyball, but really, how many volleyball playing twins are there? – are a force that blasts through all walls and limits, twin cyclones of madness and mayhem. Aran, power that reigns high in the apex of the court. The middle blocker with narrow eyes and a ridiculously strong core that lets him make a fool of blockers. Inarizaki’s setter, the blond Miya, goes behind the end-line, ready to serve. He raises his left arm, clenches his hand, and silence engulfs the stands. Kiyoomi’s eyebrows crease.
Miya jumps, and suddenly all Kiyoomi can hear is the thunder of his strike. Motoya gets the ball up in the air, not flawlessly since there is too much power in that serve to neutralise. The ball bounces back over the net.
“Free ball.” Someone from the other side yells. The blond Miya steps out to set, and his first step is so beautiful that it stirs in Kiyoomi a wild, erratic desire to knock him off his pedestal of absolute perfection. From the hardest angle possible Miya initiates a quick attack. His brother answers with a ridiculously high degree of synchronisation that only twins can have. Inarizaki wins the set point.
The Miya twins are equally good. They have similar skill sets: the blond Miya can attack as well as many other top high school point-getters, and his dark-haired hitter twin sets like a seasoned setter. They also share a temperament that elevates them from good to excellent: assertive, driven, combative. Yet there is something else that sets the blond Miya apart from his brother, something that makes him destined for places bigger than a high school tournament: a kind of hunger, born and not made, untameable, burning blue flame hot, searing everything that stands on its way. It shows nakedly on his face in his irritating smirk, and Kiyoomi wants nothing more than to crush it in the palms of his hands.
Itachiyama wins their third set, and the blond Miya stops smirking. Kiyoomi hides his delight.
In a deep corner of his mind, however, a serve packed with unbelievable power still dances its wicked spin furiously, incessantly. In the Spring High, it rings.
———
But Shiratorizawa doesn’t make it to the Spring High, and Kiyoomi scowls all the way to the Ajinomoto Training Centre, where this year’s All-Japan Youth Training Camp is held.
Wakatoshi’s loss unsettles him. He hasn’t expected the ace to lose, not until at least the third round of the Spring High. Wakatoshi is strong enough. More importantly, he is prepared enough to win. Kiyoomi knows this for a fact. Yet this fact and, at its very core, the foundation of Kiyoomi’s system of beliefs and principles, are thoroughly shaken by some random team. He detests this feeling.
To add fuel to his already grouchy mood, he runs into the setter of Karasuno – the random team that somehow beat Wakatoshi in the qualifier – at the entrance. The boy’s eyes gleam in excitement. He bows politely and introduces himself. But Kiyoomi’s thought process doesn’t seem to be able to move beyond the fact that this boy and his team have deprived him of his last chance to play against Wakatoshi in high school. He rudely ignores the boy and walks into the centre.
The boy – Kageyama Tobio – doesn’t seem to mind his discourtesy and continues to regard him with the deference of a future usurper. When he approaches the boy at dinner to ask about the match and why Wakatoshi lost, he meets unyielding eyes and honest answers. No boasting, no hiding. Kiyoomi sees in him a conviction so familiar that it deepens the crease between his brows. Motoya senses troubles and comes to defuse the situation.
Kageyama certainly has the skills to back up his conviction. He receives well, spikes flawlessly, and sets like he was born to do it only. He’s a true prodigy, as expected of the one who beat Wakatoshi. But his sets are a bit too compliant, too acquiescent. They trust hitters, but don’t demand trust in return. It’s an unbalanced relationship that will eventually crumble, like any other unbalanced relationships.
In contrast, the blond Miya’s sets are a completely different beast. They know how to sing praises to hitters in order to coax them into jumping higher, reaching further. Behind the veneer of ease is a contract for mutual devotion from hell, unconditional but brutally demanding and quite irresistible. After two practice matches as Miya’s hitter, Kiyoomi begrudgingly concedes the title of best high school setter to him.
They part ways at the end of the training camp, and Kiyoomi is surprised to realise that he might not mind this year’s Spring High after all.
———
Inarizaki is eliminated in their first match.
Karasuno loses their quarter final.
Iizuna injures his ankle in the second set of their quarter final. Losing their playmaker, Itachiyama struggles in vain.
Kiyoomi simply doesn’t get it. They have done everything they could. They have practised all the possible drills diligently, have eaten the right food, have gone to sleep early, have rested when they are unwell, have purged their gym of germs so thoroughly that the infirmary can almost be moved there. They have prepared. Yet they are still denied the results that are expected from their efforts.
He hears choruses of pity from the crowd and he doesn’t like it. Pity is inherently unbalanced. It is bestowed on those who suffer by those who watch from afar, safe from suffering. Only winners can pity losers, the happy pity the unhappy who pity the desolate. Pity, in its mere acknowledgement of sufferings and nothing more, is tinted in condescension, and that’s something he never wants to give Iizuna.
But more importantly to him, pity elevates those who suffer by taking away their agency. It implies that misfortunes are unearned, that the pitiful don’t deserve their plight but at the same time are unable to prevent, to fight, to overturn their misfortunes. He can deal with condescension since he doesn’t care about most people enough to be concerned about what they think of him. But a lack of agency, a lack of control over his life, is something he cannot stand, because it leads to the frightful conclusion that he may never be truly ready for anything in life. This is not to say that he thinks Iizuna deserves the twisted ankle and the team deserves to lose. He thinks they don’t, he believes that they don’t, since they have done everything right. But there’s a conflict in him between his refusal to surrender his control and his acknowledgement that there is nothing else they could have done to not lose.
As ever, Iizuna sees through him. The force of his captain’s frustration – not regret, he realises – jolts him out of his mental struggle. It’s a frustration at the injury, against which he is helpless, at the futility that shrouds their efforts today. Not always, but definitely today. He isn’t quite sure what to think.
And while he is trying to arrange his thoughts – puzzle pieces that seem to fit but at the same time don’t – Iizuna makes a declaration, a vow stained with tears, to his kouhai and to himself. A vow of contentment at the end of the road, in the wake of all frustration and heartbreaks.
"It isn't today, but one day I'll play my last game, and you'd better believe I'm gonna finish that one with a smile."
Kiyoomi thinks of the final of all finals, the very last chance to blaze. He thinks of the road to get there, fraught with injuries and mishaps. He thinks of solved puzzles and unfinished businesses. He thinks of the one serve that he has prepared for years to receive but no longer has the chance to, at least for now.
He thinks of luck.
———
Kiyoomi is unable to leave things unfinished. There’s an uncontrollable need in him that won’t allow him any peace of mind until he gets things done. This need compels him to prepare himself well, always, so that when he starts something, he can see it through to the very end.
But he has come to realise that life is different from solving puzzles or practicing 1000 overhand passes in a row. It’s unpredictable, uncontrollable, governed by the roll of a dice. It gives chances without notice and takes them away just as unexpectedly, indiscriminately. In life, one might never get to finish things.
Wakatoshi graduates and signs with the Adlers.
“Congratulations,” Kiyoomi texts.
“Thank you.”
It’s maddening at first, learning that life has never been in his control in the first place, and that no matter how much he tries, there are things he can’t finish. And it takes some time for him to come to terms with this seismic shift.
In his third and last year of high school, Itachiyama cedes their Interhigh championship to Inarizaki, but takes their revenge in the Spring High. Kiyoomi is bothered by his losses and pleased with his wins, but he isn’t quite satisfied, isn’t ready to be satisfied. Nevertheless, he still wants to do everything possible to prepare for the next match, the next tournament, the next stretch of his life. It’s an ingrained part of him that even knowledge of the futility of life cannot uproot.
The blond Miya – the only Miya left in the volleyball world as it turns out – signs with the Jackals after graduation.
Motoya signs with EJP Raijin.
Wakatoshi is called to national team. His world debut doesn’t go well.
“Sorry for the loss,” Kiyoomi sends another text.
“I hesitated,” The reply comes a day later.
The three dots blink, then comes another text. “Congratulations on your graduation.”
“I’m going to university,” Kiyoomi declares.
“I see. See you at the Kurowashiki.”
As luck would have it, Kiyoomi’s university team never meets the Adlers at the Kurowashiki All-Japan Volleyball Tournament. But he continues to train, to clean, to get flu shots, to eat well, to sleep well, so that if the chance to finish what he has started comes, he can seize it and be satisfied.
And if the chance doesn’t come, never comes, even in that final of all finals, he hopes that he will be satisfied still.
———
The fervent heat on the court, born from pressure, passion, and an insatiable hunger for victory, never bothers Kiyoomi. It’s familiar, welcoming.
On the other side of the net, Wakatoshi, number 11 of the Schweiden Adlers, stands behind the end-line.
The stands quiet down to a distant murmur.
The referee whistles. Three seconds later, Wakatoshi tosses the ball. Eyes never off the ball, he starts his run-up, steps long and practiced, arms extended behind his back, wrists a little higher than shoulders, and at that moment he’s the image of an eagle about to take flight. A foot away from the end-line he leaps, gravity subsumed to his will. As his body curves in mid-air, his left arm draws back, elbow bent, a cannon loaded. A millisecond later, he swings his left arm, and the ball charges at Kiyoomi with all its lethal spin and frantic speed and unrelenting power.
Kiyoomi is prepared, always. He bends his knees low and wraps his right hand around his left fist, keeping his thumbs together. When the ball plunges at him, he hears bruises blooming on his forearms, bright red on top of faded black and blue. Gravity multiplies the sheer power packed tight in the serve, forcing his entire body to the floor. He uses everything he has, every screaming cell of his muscles, every year of early morning bump drills, every memory of coming face-to-face with a power that refuses to yield, to push upwards, killing both the spin and the velocity of the serve.
As Kiyoomi watches the ball, defanged and tamed, rise in a slow, smooth arc, he feels the hold that Wakatoshi’s monstrous serve has had over him ever since his first nationals loosen, and he drinks in the relief, the satisfaction. He feels free – the kind of freedom that only comes when he gets something done: a puzzle, a practice drill, a goal almost 10 years in the making. At the same time, excitement roars in his veins. With his bare hands he has bested god, stopped his weapon, pulled him down to Earth. There is no greater feeling than that.
The ball flies over to Miya, who glows with pride as he sets it to Thomas. The middle blocker tips it over the block. It’s Black Jackals’ turn to serve.
Hinata takes a deep breath and knocks imaginary sand off the ball before tossing it. He jumps, ever faster and higher, claiming the sky above the court as his. The ball lands right on the side-line just before Hinata touches the ground. The set point is now theirs to win.
Hinata serves again, and everything fast-forwards. The ball zooms to the Adlers’ half of the court, but Heiwajima manages to dig it this time, and the ball flies into Kageyama’s hands. He puts it up high for Sokolov to spike over the middle, but Kiyoomi, running on the high from his last receive, bumps it up cleanly. Miya and Thomas carry out a textbook quick set, and in a blink of an eye the ball passes through the block effortlessly. Romero keeps it in the air, but his receive sends the ball flying away from Kageyama. Hoshiumi dashes down for an emergency set and calls for Wakatoshi.
And that’s when Kiyoomi realises that how short-lived his victory and his satisfaction are, and how Wakatoshi may never let him go.
As Wakatoshi launches himself in the air, his right arm continues skywards, but his left arm drops down to his side to follow a circular motion all the way to the top. His airborne form is breathtakingly beautiful. Power courses from the core of his body to his left arm, building up momentum in order to explode at the zenith. When he strikes the ball, the arena shudders.
Kiyoomi doesn’t have any time to think before the ball comes crashing down like a meteorite trapped in the gravitational pull of the Earth. It hits him like lightning and knocks the wind right out of his chest, before spinning out of his arms and into the stands.
In his mind, he is thirteen again, failing to receive Wakatoshi’s serve for the first time, awestruck and rankled.
Frustration knits his brows together, but he can feel surging in him the familiar cocktail of fierce competitiveness and unadulterated elation that quickens his pulse. In his heart the sprouts of something stronger than an urge to see things through grow bigger and take deeper root. He realises that maybe, just maybe, this is love.
On the other side of the net, Wakatoshi smiles expectantly.