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Don’t stay down. Keep on moving. Pick yourself up. Sow the broken pieces together. Keep it all together until you can’t.
It hurt. He could taste blood in his mouth, could feel his ears ringing, but he ignored the pain. The collision, it was probably less that a second of contact. Daichi’s head had snapped to the side with the force Tanaka’s shoulder had rammed into him. Black spots had appeared in his vision for a moment, his limbs felt suddenly week, but he had to keep on going. He can’t stop now. So he used the momentum to roll once, putting his feet beneath him and scrabbling to his feet. He makes it in time just to see the ball roll off the top of the net, one of Wakatuni’s players just managing to put his hand under the ball, sending it up again.
“Chance ball!” He hears numerous voices call.
“Daichi-san! Are you okay?” Tanaka asks.
“Yes, I’m fine.” Daichi quickly says, swallowing the blood before it could drip out of his mouth. He doesn’t feel that good. He feels something in his mouth. “We have a match to win.” The ball is over the net again and the rally continues. Daichi receives, each step he takes sending pain up his body and into his face, each jump he takes to join a block making his cheek throb even more. It doesn’t look like anyone saw where exactly Tanaka collided with him. They’re two points away from getting the set. He’ll sit on the bench then.
He feels something trickle down his chin. He quickly wipes it away with a hand, ignoring the smear of blood that covers the back of his hand. The hard thing that was in his mouth, it’s his tooth, he thinks. He has it trapped under his tongue, keeping himself from swallowing it or letting it fall out when he opens his mouth.
The whistle blows and Daichi lets out a large amount of air from his nose, shoulders slumping forward and a shudder running through his body. He raises a hand to touch his cheek and winces at how tender it feels, how much it hurts with just this light touch. He swallows the blood and jogs to the side of the court, joining the rest of the team where they’re drinking water and wiping sweat off with towels, congratulating each other on the set and preparing for the next. Daichi ignores his teammates and friends and heads to where the adults are.
“Coach” Daichi quickly says, pointing to the hallway. “Bathroom.” For some reason, Ukai seems amused with this. He nods at Daichi before turning to Takeda-sensai again and waving over Tanaka. He walks until he has to turn a corner, and then he breaks into a run.
Keep it together, keep it together .
He bursts into the bathroom, making it to a stall just in time, falling onto his knees and clutching the sides of the probably dirty bowl, not bothering to lock the door as his throat opens out, and wet and burning bile and half-digested food makes its way out of his throat. He stares at the once clear water in the toilet, now mixed with chunks of stuff and red. A lot of red. He spies his tooth, floating (or is that his imagination?) before it dramatically sinks into the murky depths of red, gone forever.
It’s that which makes his stomach rebel even more, the smell and the taste and the sight making whatever is left come out again. He squeeze his eyes and flushes the toilet before it can make him double over again. They’re probably wondering why he’s been in here for so long, even though he feels like all of that couldn’t of taken more than a minute. He falls back on his but, sitting his his back to the stall wall, tipping his head back and facing the ceiling. Blindly, he reaches a hand out and manages to lock the stall door. He can still taste the blood in his mouth and his tongue automatically seeks out the source, forcing him to bite back a groan when he feels the empty spot in his gums where his tooth used to be. There’s also a cut on the inside of his cheek- those two combined probably explains all the bleeding. He just never realized that he swallowed that much.
It also doesn’t help that now his head’s pounding- it hadn’t been before. He takes in a deep breath which rattles in his chest before standing up, exiting the stall and examining himself in the mirrors above the sinks, taking in the drying blood that expands its territory across his face. He wets his hand and wipes the blood off, spitting any of the thick fluid that gathers in his mouth.
“I thought something happened, but that idiot didn’t believe me.”
Daichi flinches at the new voice, head snapping to the side. He knows that face, even though he’s never seen the body wearing anything other than a volleyball uniform, grey hoodie with a darker jacket on top contrasting greatly with the usual bright sea-green.
“Iwaizumi-san” Daichi manages, ripping off some paper towels fro the dispenser. The ace doesn’t look at him with malice that Daichi wouldn’t of expected, since they ruined Aoba Johsai’s chance at Nationals again. He can’t really tell what emotions the other shows, head tilted slightly to the side and brow slightly furrowed. But he was thinking about whether Daichi was okay? That means he saw the collision, realizing its severity when everyone else hadn’t.
“Iwa-chan~” A choice calls from outside. “Someone might steal our seats! Hurry up!”
“ Bakawa ” Iwaizumi calls back, facial expression suddenly morphing. Daichi smiles behind the paper towels- this reminds him of Hinata and Kageyama. “Tell their coach that I’m taking Sawamura to the medical office.” Daichi’s eyes widen.
“Wait, I’m fine-”
“You’re not fine if you’re puking your intestines up” Iwaizumi drawls. “Yes, I was here. No, I didn’t watch like a creep. Now come on- you’re hurt and that was a nasty collision. You might have a concussion.” Iwaizumi’s hand wraps around his wrist, fingers easily circling. To Daichi’s displeasure, he realizes that Iwaizumi is about two centimeters taller than him.
The door opens and suddenly there’s another one of them no. Oikawa has glasses on, clothes smartly picked. Unlike Iwaizumi, the concern is quickly written on his face. Daichi now feels a bit guilty that he usually thinks of Oikawa as some demon in disguise. All humans have a dark side and he just assumed that Oikawa’s defines who he his.
“He’s trying to insist that he’s fine” Iwaizumi says. Oikawa’s face twitches.
“He clearly isn’t. Mura-kun, you do see that bruise on your cheek, don’t you?” Daichi’s lips press together into a thin line. “I think that’s a grimace. Why are you loitering?” Oikawa waves his hands. “Go, Iwa-chan! I’ll go to Crow Coach.” And just like how he came in, Oikawa is gone again, jacket swishing behind him and the door softly closing. Daichi blinks. He feels like he missed something very important.
“You feeling dizzy or anything?” Iwaizumi asks.
“Feeling a little lightheaded,” Daichi answers truthfully, resigning himself to his fait “And I have a bit of a headache.” Iwaizumi lets out a hum in reply and rather than keeping his hand around Daichi’s wrist, he pulls Daichi’s arm up so that it’s wrapped around Iwaizumi’s shoulders.
“That should keep you from falling over.” They exit the bathroom, the sounds of the court becoming both louder and quieter as they walk farther away from it.
“Why are you helping me?” Daichi asks. His tongue is starting to feel heavy, throat feeling like he swallowed a gallon of the artificial whipped topping they put on cold-coffee drinks. He’s always hated the feeling.
“Why do you ask?” Iwaizumi sounds genuinely confused. Daichi opens his mouth then closes it, looking away when he realizes how close the other’s face is to his. “Oh” Iwaizumi says. He stops, forcing Daichi to a halt as well. “Well, uh, I don’t hate you or dislike you. You seem like a pretty nice guy actually. And Oikawa, he doesn’t hate you either. He just...dislikes Kageyama for some reason. If you thought that I hold a grudge against you personally or anything become of the game, then, well, that’s not true.” Iwaizumi doesn’t give Daichi any time to reply before their trek to medical is started again.
No concussion is the honey to Daichi’s ears. Then there’s the rot- he won’t be able to play for the rest of the match. Theoretically, he could make it, but the nurse wants to keep him for an hour,which should be when the bleeding should stop. She puts ointment on his bruise, making comforting sounds every time he lets out a little noise because of how much it hurts. Iwaizumi stays the whole time, tapping on his phone, while occasionally looking up. He never says anything.
“You didn’t tell her about…?” Daichi lets the question hang in the air. Iwaizmumi shrugs.
“I’m not your mom. I think you’ll be fine- you’re not sick or anything, it was just the blood.” Daichi nods, half in agreement and half in thanks, before leaning back on the half-inclined bed, closing his eyes. He’s tense because he’s not there to see how his team is doing, if they’re winning or losing, if Tanaka is drowning himself in undeserved guilt. “What’s your email?”
“Daichi dot Sawamura” he replies. His eyes snap open. “Wait, wha-”
“We’re at least acquaintances by now” Iwaizumi drawls. The next button he presses on his phone has a sort of finality to it. “I didn’t know there could be another reckless idiot, but here you are. Well, except the idiot part for now.”
“You care for Oikawa a lot," Daichi says.
“Childhood friends.” Iwaizumi replies, voice taking on an almost resigned tone. “Stuck to me like a parasite. But he’s not that bad. He would of been worse if he weren’t captain- never would of gotten any maturity.” Daichi snickers at this.
They talk for the next forty-five minutes. It’s after this time that Kiyoko enters the room, a small smile on her face. Daichi’s face instantly takes on a similar expression because he knows that they were able to do that- her arrival just confirmed it.
After that, the rest of the herd comes in. Daichi has enough sense to sit up by then, playing down the severity of the situation- and he would of succeeded too if not for Iwaizumi retelling exactly what she had told Daichi to his team, who jumped a few centimeters (And also eeped in Yachi, Asahi, and Yamaguchi’s cases) when they realized that Iwaizumi was also there.
And just as promised, he’s allowed to leave and join in the next game.
The next day, he wakes up to a text wishing him “Good luck”.
A few hours later, sweat-soaked but victorious, he looks up at the stands, and grins. Two once familiar and now welcome faces grin back down at him.