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You are Miya Atsumu.
You are nine years old when you meet Ojiro Aran for the first time. He is tall and strong and doesn’t get on your nerves. He calls you out when you’re being an asshole (not that you’d change your attitude, anyways) yet still tolerates you being around him. Osamu tells you the only reason Aran acts this way is because he’s too nice to tell you to piss off. You kick your brother for this. He kicks back. You go screaming for your mother.
Aran is kind to you on the court when you mess up, but not too kind that you feel like you’re being pitied. You hate that. No one deserves to be pitied, least of all you.
He calls your name in the middle of a rally; he’s bumping the ball towards you to make the final hit over the net. As Aran calls your name, you feel a bolt of electricity run through your body that makes you weak in the knees.
You think this is what love feels like.
~
At ten years old, you watch one of the coaches set for a spiker. “I’ll letcha you hit it nice and easy,” the man tells the kid, and you can feel, deep inside, something click into place.
The need to give, to love, fills your heart so quickly that you feel it expanding in your chest, so much you’re scared it’s going to burst. This is what you’ve been missing, you tell yourself, this is your purpose.
“Hey,” you tell your brother, stars in your eyes, “setters are pretty cool.”
~
You are eleven, and your brother is beginning to get on your nerves. He just seems so…good. No matter what position he plays, he’s always the star--especially when he’s a spiker, smashing your tosses onto the other side of the court.
After weeks and weeks of watching praise fall into Osamu’s lap without him even trying, you snap. You pick a fight with him, just because you can. Because you want to yell. To shove all of your anger onto him.
You notice how Osamu’s standing in the doorway, hand on the doorframe, and without thinking, you slam the door on Osamu’s hand in a flash of jealousy, not an ounce of regret teasing your conscience until you see the distraught look on your brother’s face and the throbbing redness on his hand. His dominant hand. His spiking hand. The two of you burst into tears at the same time; Osamu at the pain and sheer abruptness of your act, you at the realization of what you’ve done. What you intended to do.
You think you are scaring yourself. You tell your mother this as she scolds you, fists twisting rivers and valleys into your shirt as you tug on the fabric. “That’s not an excuse,” she tells you, and sends you to bed with no dinner.
The next day at practice when Aran asks you what happened to Osamu’s hand, you tell him the truth. How you let your jealousy consume you, how you scared yourself with your pure, unfiltered rage (fear).
“Don’ think of their triumphs as their own, but an extension of yer own achievements,” Aran suggests. “Treat yer spikers with love, and they’ll take that love and fashion it into somethin’ wonderful.”
You nod, excited, and take Aran’s advice to heart.
~
You are twelve years old by the time you realize that your crush on Aran has faded. You aren’t sure when it left or why, but you can feel an empty space in your heart you once carved out for him. It yearns to be filled; you aren’t sure how.
The need for love persists, so you start going through all of your classmates in your head. Deciding which ones you think are pretty, which ones are smart, or funny, or athletic. You pick a handful and decide that they are how you will fill the hole in your heart.
You ignore how it doesn’t feel the same--how not even ten other people can replicate how Aran made you feel when you were young: free, happy, alive. These new “crushes” evoke no such emotions in you, but you keep them anyway.
~
You are fifteen when Osamu plops down across from you in the cafeteria. “Tsumu,” he starts, “the team hates you.” Your heart flinches at his words. You already knew this, deep down, but it’s easier to ignore reality than stare at it face-to-face.
“So?” You ask with a tilt of your head, shoveling rice into your mouth.
You’ve always told yourself--convinced yourself--that love and validation from others is something you’ve never really needed--you’ve already got so much love for yourself and others, you’ve got no need for more. Besides, it’s not your fault if others perceive you as mean; you do love them, deep down, and if they can’t see that, then that’s their problem.
Your brother shivers. “I’m never gonna be like you,” he promises, and you kick his shins under the table in retaliation, distracting yourself from the aching in your heart.
~
High school begins and you think, this is the year I fall in love, and stay in love. You start a new list with new classmates and sort them into new categories, filling the hole in your heart. You stare at some of your teammates with hope, or at least want, in that one of them feels something--anything--for you.
“I think I like Suna,” Osamu tells you one day, staring mindlessly at the TV in hopes that something interesting will come on eventually, even though you know it never will. “I think I’m gonna ask him out.” You hum in response, feeling your heart fill with that familiar anger--jealousy--fear.
The next day, you ask Suna out on a date. “Don’t tell Samu,” you whisper to him during practice, “I don’ want him getting jealous.” You ignore the hypocrisy in your words, focusing on the slight grin forming on Suna’s face.
You go to a coffee shop. It’s cliché, you know, but the two of you don’t bother with actually getting anything to drink. You make out in the family bathroom stall and part with “I’ll text you later”--another lie. The next day the two of you act as nothing happened.
Two weeks later Osamu tells you that he and Suna are dating. You tell him congratulations and leave for a jog. Your wandering heart leads you to Kita, crying with your head in his lap. “Why doesn’ anyone love me?” You ask between sobs. “I give my spikers so much and yet no one gives me anythin’ in return.”
“Sometimes,” Kita hums as he runs his fingers through your hair. “The real joy is not receiving a gift in return, but in seein’ how yer spikers react to yer tosses--to yer gifts.”
You feel your heart swell, and in a burst of confidence, you push your core muscles to the limit, lifting your face up to Kita’s. You press a gentle kiss to his lips and wait for Kita to push back. He doesn’t. Kita leans back and stares at you with a small smile on his face, and a sense of sadness in his eyes. No words are needed between the two of you--Kita’s always shown his heart in his mouth and eyes, a trick you have learned long ago.
You go home and cry again in the shower and punch your thighs, because Osamu would ask questions if you began punching all the pillows in your shared room--or Osamu’s face, for that matter.
You think about Kita’s advice as scalding water reddens your punched thighs even further, and decide to take it to heart.
You tell yourself that you are happy.
~
In your third year of high school, you get your ass kicked by some rich city boy named Sakusa Kiyoomi and his team of weasels. You know him--attended training camps together and competed for years--but somehow, this defeat feels worse than all the others, all the sneers and rude remarks Sakusa sends your way.
You vow to never give your love to him (no matter how much it pains you to say it).
~
Joining the V. League is a rude awakening. Everyone there loves volleyball just as much as you do, if not even more so. It scares you--just a bit--Osamu can go shove it. “Yer scared cause yer used to bein’ on top. How does it feel to be a scrub?” Your brother sneers over the phone, while you’re trying to find love, and acknowledgment, the fuckin’ asshole. It’s fine, you tell yourself. You’ll find consolation in Suna. He’ll understand.
You don’t find consolation in Suna.
Suna cackles and calls you a ‘scrub’ over the phone and hangs up before you get the chance to shout at him. You go for another run and take your second angry shower of the day, before deciding to sleep it off.
~
Players come and go in the MSBY Black Jackals, ebbing and flowing like the tide. A year after you join, Bokuto Koutarou--a man with an inconceivable amount of love in his heart--joins the team with a new fiery passion--love--for the sport.
Passion creates action, and the two of you put on the best performances of your lives.
Two years later, an unexpected face shows up. Well, not that unexpected--you’ve simply been avoiding the inevitability of your reality for as long as possible, which ends now. Sakusa Kiyoomi, recent university graduate and MVP of Japan’s National Collegiate Volleyball Championships, has just signed with the MSBY Black Jackals, and entered the playing field alongside you.
This, of course, puts somewhat of a dent in your plan, which was to never set for Sakusa Kiyoomi. Ever. You mope around for a couple of days, ignoring Sakusa as much as possible by throwing the second-string setter at him at every opportunity.
Eventually, your luck runs out, as most other things do.
The two of you are forced to play together. To the surprise of no one, you’re a hot mess. At one point you snap a rude remark at him, he snaps back, and before you know it, you’re moving to pull his stupid curls out of his stupid head. Naturally, the two of you get pulled apart and benched for the rest of practice. “Work it out,” your coach tells the two of you in a stern yet disappointed voice. “You’re two of my best players, we can’t afford any petty squabbles.” Both of you mumble a response and your coach leaves, turning back to the court.
“What the hell do you have against me?” Sakusa asks in a pissed voice, gripping the towel he’d placed on the bench before sitting down--probably part of his germ thing, you think.
“Nothin’,” you lie.
“You’re lying.”
You huff in anger. You were never a good liar, anyway. “‘S cause yer an asshole,” you mumble under your breath.
“I’m an asshole?” Sakusa looks offended. “Excuse me, but I’m not the one who had teammates who talk about how much they hate you behind your back.”
You flinch at Sakusa’s comment, and he notices. “I’m sorry,” he says, lowering his voice. “People say I can come off as rude.”
“Who’s ‘people’?” You ask with a teasing smile.
“Motoya,” Sakusa grumbles, and you snort.
“He’s right, y’know,” you say, staring at the way Sakusa’s hands twist the towel he’s sitting on. It’s a nervous response, one you recognize because you do the same thing. Then you realize that Sakusa’s nervous. Huh.
“I guess that makes both of us assholes,” Sakusa reasons with a straight face, gripping his towel tighter.
“I guess so,” you agree, a smile tugging at the corner of your lips. Not to tease, not to gloat, but because you’re happy. Sakusa Kiyoomi made you happy.
You think you might be willing to give your love to him.