Chapter Text
It’s an ordinary school day, that is, for the larger percent of ADMU’s student body. As the Wednesday afternoon settles in, with the schedule of classes ending, students flood at Matteo up. Not a single seat is available in both the outdoor area as well as the study halls. The place is packed with people. Some are chattering away while having their meals, some are just passing time after their day’s classes, but most of them have their eyes glued to their laptops.
“— AND THAT’S AN ACE!”
The crowd’s cheering spills over several laptop screens, while the students are watching with their jaws hanging in shock.
“Two service aces in a row!”
“The fuck!? TWO TIMES???” A muffled yell comes from a student within the study hall.
“— the Tamaraws are looking a little shaken,”
“And here we have Atsumu Miya walking back to service area as if it was nothing,” the commentator chuckles.
“That bumped up their tied score with the Tamaraws up to match point. One more for the Green Archers in this 5 th set and it seals their spot at the finals.”
The air is suddenly thick with tension.
One group of women, wearing their university pride at the back of their blue jackets, quietly watches the stream. They sit next to a table of men who are also wearing similar jackets and are too large for the table to accommodate all of them. They too, are streaming the same game on a different laptop.
Nyx sits on the table with the Lady Eagles. She occupies the edge of the bench, only barely paying attention to the game. She feels a tap on her shoulder and twists her neck to see who it is. She’s met with Motoya’s open palm.
“P300 for La Salle.”
Nyx snickers when she rolls her eyes. “Not a chance. FEU gets this one because I don’t wanna see DLSU’s ugly faces again. Aren’t we all tired of them? Every year na lang—”
“Aaw, ba’t naman hindi? Lahat naman may chance ah.” Marck Espejo shoots her a knowing look with an arch of his eyebrow.
Both tables briefly turn their heads to her at this comment with a resounding snicker. Even Sakusa’s eyes light up despite the facemask hiding his smile.
“Oh shut up! Whatever!” Nyx’s voice suddenly pitches higher.
But before she can say anything more, everyone’s attention is back to the game.
“Raymark Woo receives— to Ojiro, puts it high—”
“—the Miya twins fly, and—”
“Osamu, dinala sa gilid— ATSUMU PUTS IT AWAY!”
The Tamaraws whip their heads to see where the ball landed. From the other side of the court, Atsumu merely smirks. There is absolutely no doubt in his mind.
The red flag from the Tamaraw’s side points down.
“ATSUMUUU MIYAAAA! WINNING IN THE 5 TH SET AND GOING INTO THE CHAMPIONSHIPS, THE DE LA SALLE GREEN SPIKERS!!”
The hole side of the arena dressed in green roars in victory. The rest of the Green Spikers run to the middle of the court to tackle Atsumu with a hug.
And with this, the Green Archer’s victory is met with the roll of Nyx’s eyes. The camera continues to focus on Atsumu’s face. She stares down at it realizing that the Green Archers will be up against them, the Blue Eagles, the defending champions.
While she burns a hole through the laptop with her eyes. All of her teammates, as well as the boys’ table, slowly turns to her in unison. They shoot her a teasing look, while the Archer who sealed the spot in the finals speaks on the screen.
Nyx forces her eyebrows together along with a pout of her lips. She crosses her arms tightly.
“What are y’all looking at?”
“Yieeeeeee,”
She balls up a used tissue and throws it at them playfully. They all shake in laughter.
~~~~~
“Oy pare, you owe me P300,” Motoya has his palm open in front of Sakusa’s face.
The tall man’s dark locks shake when he snickers. He reaches for his wallet to pull out a few bills to hand over. The light haired man throws his fist up in victory.
“You bet for FEU to win?” Nyx asks.
Sakusa shrugs, “Yeah para daw may thrill. Motoya forced me to bet on them, since you didn’t wanna make hulog daw.”
She laughs at this. “Motoya literally just played you, dude.” To which Sakusa only snickers.
“Yo, I earned this fair and square,” Motoya flicks his fingers on the bills with a loud snap.
They all share a light laugh as the two players from the Blue Eagles walk Nyx to her condo. They arrive a the foot of the building.
“Anyway, good luck sa finals, see you guys sa training.” She greets them.
“Kayo rin, good luck sa finals.”
“Yeah, it’s kinda amazing, DLSU-ADMU rivalry for both the men and women’s division.” Says an amused Sakusa.
“It truly is the rivalry of the decade.” Motoya adds.
“Let’s make sure to kick all of their asses.” Nyx chuckles.
She greets them goodbye before she walks into the building.
As she arrives into her uint, she shrugs off her bag and plops down on her bed. She pulls out her phone and starts scrolling through social media. Her timeline is flooded with pictures of the Green Archers’ victory. She swipes up and the screen stops at a photo of Atsumu.
She stares at it for a while. Her irritation over his team winning subsided already. She sighs.
The downside is, they won. She hates it everytime Atsumu and his team tastes victory. She didn’t like seeing him happy because it feeds into his ego. On the upside, she’d be able to watch their asses get kicked by their team.
Nyx snickers to herself. “We’re gonna kick your sorry little ass, Atsumu. You’re gonna go home crying.”
And something pops up from the top of her screen. A message.
8:32 PM
Archer: Watch me beat you guys at finals 😉
Nyx blinks, a little surprised at the coincidence. She stares at his message, re-reading it over and over for minutes.
She hates seeing them win right?... Right?
She does. But maybe one tinsy little part of her doesn’t actually mind it when he challenges her like this…
Heat rises to her cheeks. If she had seen how red she is she’d punch the mirror, then herself. She huffs and snickers ridiculously. She tosses her phone at her pillows, the way she tosses that Atsumu guy out of her head.
She gets up and walks to her bathroom. Maybe taking a shower will wash away her thoughts of him.
Everything they have trained for, leads up to this day.
Days, weeks, months on end, training for this very day. They’ve finally climbed this far. Their rivals have been keeping their throne warm, but it’s time for them to snatch the top spot.
The players for this long awaited match finally arrives. The men and women in Blue jerseys casually greets the men and women in Green jerseys. The Lady Eagles clap hands with the Lady Spikers and even press their cheeks against each others’, while the Blue Eagles simply nod at the Green Archers.
After the men’s warm-up, the whole volleyball team of Ateneo gets called into their holding room. A few words of encouragement later, they take five for a water break. Nyx is the first to leave the holding room.
She quietly waits for her jug to fill-up. So many things are running through her head. She’s excited and nervous at the same time. This moment only happens once in a blue moon, where rivals take each other on for the finals in both divisions. The men’s team are here to defend their title, while their team is here to snatch it from the Lady Spikers.
Yes. That’s what they’re here for. She’s not going home without that title.
Each fiber in Nyx’s skin tingles with energy. She is ready to kick ass .
“Puno na ‘yang jug mo.” A familiar voice close behind her says.
Her eyebrows meet in the middle. Her jaw locks in annoyance before twisting her neck to see exactly who she thinks it would be.
Atsumu with his blonde locks, in his dark green jersey smirks at her with a smug look. She slowly reaches to shut the water and recap her jug, without breaking eye contact.
“Have I ever told you, na ang cute when you stare at me like that?” He looks at her through lidded eyes with a soft, sultry, casual tone.
She rolls her eyes, turns her chin up, takes her jug and walks away.
“Hey, you didn’t text me back last week!”
“Sino ka ba, for me to text back?” She spits her words without even sparing him a glance.
Atsumu’s lips turn up into a smug smile. He always finds it amusing to get a reaction out of her.
Nyx feels her phone buzz in her pocket on the way back to the holding room. She stops and leans on the wall at her side to check her messages. Signal is terrible in the area and all her good luck messages are flooding in just now. She’s busy reading a text from her cousin when—
Nyx jumps at the sound of skin planting hard on the wall on each side of her head. She nearly drops her phone and looks up to find the same man with that same sickening smirk on his lips.
“What the fuck do you want?!” Her voice echoes through the hall, not at all minding that fact that there was staff around the area.
“I just wanted to know lang naman eh, why you didn’t text back,” he shows her a pout as if it looked cute on him. “Hm?”
He briefly places his knuckle under her chin just because he wants to do it, and he can. Nyx’s eyes widen at this. There is nothing more she wants to do than to hit his stupid face with her water jug. And hit him is what she almost does if the man didn’t catch her wrists with his large, firm hand. Nyx freezes in place but forces a glare at him, despite only being a few centimeters away from his face, despite her heartbeat hammering in her chest.
“If we were in play, ref would call a foul on that.”
She still wants to punch him anyway, but somehow… with his firm hand holding her in place, she couldn’t. Her chest pounds as her skin gets warmer.
Nyx rolls her eyes instead and tries to look at something else besides his eyes. He chuckles, amused with how small she seems while caged under him, even if he knows that this girl can spike a volleyball to his face and break his nose.
He straightens up a little without letting up his arms or letting go of her wrist. “Now I know this game is big for the both of us,” his voice is smoother and hushed. “Maybe we can bet on something—”
“Not interested.”
“— If my team wins tonight, we train together for a weekend.” He looks at her dead in the eye. She gives him a hard look.
That is the LAST thing on earth that she would do. She would rather die than spend time with this cocky little shit. She lets out a breath to compose herself. She racks through her head in a millisecond for a good clapback that’s just as grave.
“And if we win in the men’s division,” she pauses. Her eyebrow swiftly arches as she lowers her voice in the same hushed tone, mimicking him. “You quit volleyball for a semester.”
It’s Atsumu’s turn to get caught off guard. He finally pulls away from her, letting his arms fall beside him. She smirks. They gaze into each other’s eyes.
Got you.
After a few seconds, Atsumu’s look of shock melts away into a chuckle.
“You’re that confident, huh?”
“I just really wanna see you suffer,” her eyebrows dance to taunt him.
He scoffs. “What makes you think I’ll actually stop for a term?”
“So you agree? You’ll be losing finals.”
She expects him to just shake his head and walk away, her lips clamp shut when he suddenly brings his palms back to the wall, caging her frame between them. He leans in. Her eyes widen and Nyx tries everything in her to stand her ground and keep eye contact. Atsumu’s eyes trail down and stop at her lips. He doesn’t take his eyes off it even when he bites his own lip to moisten them.
She feels her heart wanting to drum its way out of her chest. She swallows, and Atsumu has his eyes at the movement of her throat.
She wants to punch him, (or kiss him) but she can’t bring herself to do it.
“Hoy kambal, tara na!”
“Tama na lande, bro!”
His teammates call him over, chuckling as they pass by. Osamu and Raymark’s voices echo through the hall. Nyx, while still frozen, absolutely hates that they just saw her in such a vulnerable state, but is also grateful they did, because all Atsumu could do now is snicker.
Their eyes meet once more. Seconds stretch. She has to walk away now before she lets him do something stupid.
Atsumu takes in an even breath and finally, finally , pushes his weight off the wall. He takes a step back eyeing her for a little while, before fully turning his back to catch up with his teammates.
Once he’s a few feet away, and can’t see his eyes anymore, she sags and lets out the breath she was holding. She finds support from the wall at her back while holding to her knees. Her cheeks, her ears, her forehead; all in a deeper shade of red.
“Where’s Chua?”
She hears the voices of her teammates. She has to straighten up now.
~~~~~
“THE THREE TIME DEFENDING CHAMPIONS, THE ATENEO BLUUUUUUE EAGLES!!”
The blue side roars! They chant the words “ONE BIG FIGHT!” over and over, drowning out every other sound in the arena. The announcer goes through the Blue Eagles’ team as they run out one by one.
“LAWRENCE MAGADIA, CHU NJIGHA, GIAN GLORIOSO, MOTOYA KOMORI, MARCK ESPEJO aaaaaaaand KIYOOMI SAKUSAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!”
The crowd goes wild, but the noise doesn’t push out the thoughts in Nyx’s head. She’s busy finding her seat at the bleachers next to her teammates.
“Girl, you okay?” Kat asks her. Nyx looks up at them, seemingly lost in her thoughts.
“What?”
“Your face is so red,”
“Ahh,” she nervously laughs.
She is about to answer when—
“THE DE LA SALLE GREEEEEN SPIKERS!”
—her attention shifts to the court where the Green Spikers jog in.
“Their first line up for tonight: ARAN OJIRO, RAYMARK WOO,”
One by one the players run into the court, clapping hands with their other teammates.
“DAVID DELOS REYES, RINTAROU SUNA, OSAMU MIYA aaaaaaand ATSUMU MIYA!”
The opposite side of the crowd roars with their university chant. The camera focuses on Atsumu as he runs. His beautiful locks bounce on his forehead… and she can’t seem to look away.
Until she hears her teammates snickering beside her. She shoots them a questioning look. Her girls stifle their laughter.
“Easy girl, baka matunaw ka diyan,” Maddie Madayag teases her, “remember, they’re like our kalaban kaya.”
The ladies burst into laughter, hitting her playfully. Nyx goes tomato red again in a second as she lightly hits them back. She clicks her tongue.
“Shut up, whatever.” She rolls her eyes.
The game finally begins.
~~~~~
Hours fly by. It’s been an exciting and difficult match with endless rallies in each point between the rivaling teams. The game has reached halfway through its 5th set with the 8th point taken by Sakusa with a cross court spike. The referee signals to change court and the teams switch.
As the players walk to their positions, the Green Spikers move to the side of the arena where their opponents’ supporters sit. Nyx’s throat suddenly feels tight. Despite the players in green coming closer to their side for the nth time tonight, she tries to avoid eye contact anyway from…
But he still catches her eyes. Even just for a split second.
He hasn’t missed a single change court without a glance at her before they resume the game. But his eyes aren't as playful as when the game began. This time they are sharp and intense.
PRRRRRT!
Njigha serves the ball for the Blue Eagles but it’s too strong and flies out of line. The referee whistles, then raises his arms to the side of the green.
Atsumu takes his place at the service area, while repeatedly hitting the ball to the ground. The crowd’s screams ring in Nyx’s ears as she watches him. He suddenly turns his head to her again.
Their eyes meet again. Nyx absolutely denies it; that maybe her heart skipped a beat.
She blinks a few times. Atsumu looks away, back to the game.
It’s amazing to Nyx, how everything charming about him off court seems to melt away and turn into a completely different person once he’s in the game. It’s… to say the least… beautiful .
PRRRRRT!
The arena shakes with the noise that erupts from the blue side to distract him. But Atsumu’s eyes fix on the ball. He runs— tosses the ball high— he flies up off the mat— arches his back with his arm pulled back— the ball begins to fall—
PAK!
— Atsumu lands on his feet.
“Service ace from Atsumu Miya! Another point goes to the Green Archers.”
At this point, the chairs in the whole arena have become pointless. Everyone is at their feet, screaming at the top of their lungs. Sweat begins to break through Nyx’s forehead. The Green Spikers only have five points left while their team was still behind by one.
Five is still a large gap. They can make it. They’re not losing this match.
And so, another set of endless rallies break through; from perfect plays from the Green Spikers to perfect receives and blocks from the Blue Eagles. The defending champions, despite always being a point behind from their opponents, are not the least bit shaken by them. They got this.
We got this!
The eagles score another point.
“Magadia sets it high— Espejo flies! Oh and it’s a bluff!”
PAK!
“SAKUSA PUTS IT AWAY— and with his left hand!”
Nyx jumps, yelling with her fist in the air! The players throw their fists up in the same manner and run to Sakusa. He simply nods with an easy smile. The arena drowns in the Blue side’s chant.
“MATCH POINT FOR THE BLUE EAGLES!”
“Grabe ang galing! Sigurado si Sakusa eh, took that one out by hitting the blocker’s arm.”
While the screaming continues to flood everyone’s hearing, the LED screen focuses on Atsumu’s face. He has his tongue dipped out to the side of his lips with the biggest smirk. He’s shaking his head.
“ONE BIG FIGHT!”
“ONE BIG FIGHT!!”
“ONE BIG FIGHT!!!!”
The crowd in Blue chanted. Nyx is screaming at the top of her lungs.
There’s a chance! We’re going to win this! WE’RE GOING TO WIN THIS!!