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The Guess Monster.
From the start, Ushijima hadn’t liked the nick name, even if Tendou seemed to carry it proudly, a badge of honor for intimidating his opponents.
But the reputation started to change over the few years from admiration mixed with a bit of fear, to whispers behind Tendou’s back, giving the redhead dirty looks and blatantly mocking him through the net.
It made Ushijima’s blood boil, to say the least. He knew it wasn’t appropriate to stoop into the bullies’ level, so Ushijima only settled for playing harder. He didn’t admit it, but he felt a bit happy when he did manage to crush the spirits of his rivals that dared to try and bully his best friend, recently turned boyfriend.
On their third year, Tendou was quite widely known all over Miyagi, at least among the volleyball teams of the area. Having two of the prefectures most feared players in their team, Tendou and himself, was often a good advantage to have on their rivals, but the fear towards Tendou, more often than not, turned to irritation and all the way to anger.
Ushijima’s theory was that their rivals couldn’t stand how good Tendou was, how much effort and time he had invested in making himself one of the best blockers in Miyagi.
But enough was enough.
At the start of their last tournament together, the qualifiers for the nationals, their team had already made great progress and had made it past the first few matches easily.
Today’s first opponent, Araigawa High School, they had played a few times before during their high school volleyball journey, and Ushijima knew not to underestimate them, or any of his opponents before they had won (which they had every time).
The hitters especially were powerful and intimidating, Ushijima could see. Shiratorizawa had luckily taken the first round 25 to 15, but the other team seemed to only get stronger and their defense more aggressive on the second set.
When Tendou was then put on the court at the start of the new set, it was clear that the team was very much aware of Tendou’s notoriety.
To Ushijima’s pride, Tendou only played twice as hard when he knew he was being measured and observed. He thrived on attention and recognition, even the bad one.
His boyfriend was so cool, Ushijima couldn’t help admitting over and over, after every ball that Tendou dropped to the opponent’s side.
But the other team did not like it. After just a few points made by Tendou’s phenomenal guess blocking, the team was already huffing at him, glaring and whispering stuff to each other, Tendou clearly as their target.
Instead of playing smarter (the only strategy that could truly counter Tendou), the Araigawa hitters seemed to only want to play harder. Tendou kept grimacing after each spike when even the tapes on his fingers didn’t reduce the pain of the ball getting slammed hard onto them.
Ushijima could see that they used too much power on purpose, just to make Tendou back away. It was totally allowed and fair, but Ushijima did not like putting his boyfriend on the line of fire, especially when an injury would most likely mean missing the rest of the season all together and the end of Tendou’s high school volleyball career.
“Hey, monster! Wanna give up already?” The other side’s hitters teased and laughed when Tendou was left massaging his fingers after a particularly hard hit.
“Oh? Didn’t you know that monsters don’t feel pain?” Tendou gave them a terrifying smirk and took his position on the net once again. The hitters glared at the middle blocker once again and kept whispering amongst themselves.
“HE CAME OVER THE NET,” one of the hitters suddenly shouted. Tendou stood eyes wide as he landed on the floor, having successfully dumped the ball.
“I did not!” Tendou said back and they both turned to the referee. The whistle blew and the referee decided that there had been no violation.
Araigawa’s hitters gritted their teeth and Tendou didn’t even give them a winning smile like usual. Tendou looked irritated as well.
At the same time, the opponent’s coach called for a time-out and both teams jogged to the side.
“What was that, Satori?” Ushijima heard Semi ask Tendou.
“They were clearly just tryna steal a point.” He huffed to Semi and they stopped in front of the short coach.
Ushijima did not listen to Washijou as Tendou finally arrived next to him. He had other things to worry about.
“You okay?” he asked the redhead.
Tendou gave a relieved laugh. The boy had an incredible skill to not hold grudges or be angry for long, as he was already smiling at Ushijima. “Yeah, they’re just really getting on my nerves already. I understand that this is also a mental game, mind versus mind y’know, but that was just unfair.” Tendou shook his head mock disappointedly.
“I see.” He answered, still looking for signs that Tendou was feeling worse than he let on.
Tendou glared at him too. “I didn’t go over their side. I don’t play dirty, ‘Toshi.” He pouted cutely.
“I know that, Satori.” He decided to appease and gave his boyfriend a reassuring smile. Tendou’s shoulders slumped too.
“Thanks for asking, though.” Tendou said at the end, the backs of their hands barely brushing against each other.
They walked back to the court and the chase for 25 points continued. Shiratorizawa did have a nice lead now, much thanks to Tendou having agitated the opposing hitters to make more mistakes. The Araigawa coach must not have been very forgiving for the attempt at point stealing, as the hitters were frowning even more now.
As Tendou gained them a few more points, something finally snapped. One of the tall hitters, number 6, a feisty second-year, was given the chance to finally get past their blocks, Tendou and the smaller Shirabu on the net to greet him.
Tendou jumped right in front of him. It was the perfect spot to block in any which way the ball was going to be slammed, and the opponent knew it too. And instead of taking their chances and proudly losing against a powerful opponent, the hitter had another idea.
Tendou smiled excitedly at another point won, but before he could celebrate any more, the ball was slammed right into his face. A loud, spine-chilling crack was heard in the quiet gym and a thump as Tendou fell backwards on the floor.
The whole gym seemed to not know what to do: the audience was silent, the teams did not move and even the referees just stared at the fallen boy.
“Satori!” Ushijima did not realize that he had shouted, but it had finally woken up the others from the trance too and half their team surrounded Tendou.
Ushijima was the first on the ground, supporting Tendou’s back and searching for any injuries with worried eyes.
“Are you hurt?” He asked over and over. Tendou seemed to be a bit disoriented as he looked around him.
“Umm..” He had to think. “I’m fine.” Tendou turned to Ushijma. And then his nose began to bleed.
Reon brought Tendou a tissue for his nose and Tendou was helped back up. He did really seem to be fine, no injuries other than his nose taking a small beating, but Tendou wavered a bit as he stood up, head still a bit fuzzy.
That was it for Ushijima. The hitter was lucky that he hadn’t hurt Tendou any more badly, because he honestly did not know what he would’ve done then. Even now he was barely able to hold his anger in.
He took big strides towards the referee on the side of the net, who had paused the game until Tendou was either standing or switched off the court. It seemed that he had no intention to punish the other hitter, not even a warning had been given.
“That was intentional. He should be given a yellow card at the very least.” Ushijima stated, trying to keep the tenseness out of his voice. “It was clear that the hit was made as an act of aggression towards our teammate. He should be removed from the court for his behavior.”
“What?!” Number 6 walked to the net, right in front of him. It wasn’t very convincing when the tallest on the Araigawa team was still a head shorter than Ushijima. “It was an accident! You can’t blame me that he was caught in the crossfire!” The hitter seemed just as angry as Ushijima was.
“If you don’t remember, I am a hitter too. I know that it’s quite easy to not hit the opponent in the face, I saw you do it many times in this game alone. Unless you want to admit that your aim is just worse than I thought.” Ushijima could have joked, but he was dead serious. He was done playing around.
“I made a mistake, okay?! Chill out, man!”
“I will not. My teammate was hurt because of you, intentional or not.” He turned back to the referee.
The referee gave them a technical time-out as he went to discuss with the other referees. Ushijima was left standing in front of the Number 6.
“You’re just petty because we finally got through the guess monster. Pathetic.”
“Don’t you dare call him that. I do not give a single damn about a point. Tendou will win one back in no time.” He said, sounding almost like a threat.
“You son of a..” The hitter started when Ushijima was suddenly pulled back from his arm. He turned at Tendou was finally back on his feet, holding onto his arm.
He looked at Ushijima with worry in his eyes, the tissue shoved into his nose. “Hey, ‘Toshi, it’s fine. I wasn’t hurt!” He tried to smile awkwardly, not giving any attention to the other boy on the other side of the net.
“I do not care. He should face consequences for what he did.”
“Look, let’s just continue playing! Let’s beat them that way!” Tendou tried to convince him.
Ushijima looked at his boyfriend, who still had a dried track of blood on his upper lip. He hated it but seeing Tendou worry about him and putting his boyfriend on the spot like this was not what he wanted either.
Tendou placed his hand on Ushijima’s shoulder and unnoticeably traced his thumb on the tensed muscles. Ushijima relaxed instantly under Tendou’s slim fingers. He smiled back.
“.. should’ve hit harder..” the hitter muttered, and finally Ushijima grabbed the player from his shirt and almost lifted him up.
“’Toshi!” Tendou cried next to him.
“Let go, you crazy!” The boy shouted as both teams came to break them apart.
Before they finally pried Ushijima’s hands off of the hitter he managed to lean over and whisper to the boy’s ear. “Oh, you don’t know how crazy I can get if you ever as much as touch Tendou again.”
Reon pulled Ushijima back and the other players of Araigawa High School came to the hitter’s side. They all look annoyed but at least a bit apologetic for what had happened.
The referee walked beside the boys, not really interested in their bickering when it seemed to be in control now. He must see a lot worse, being the referee for games between some hormonal teenage boys, Ushijima thought.
“We decided to give you a yellow card for now. We would also strongly advise you to switch off the court for the aggressive behavior. We won’t be so forgiving if it happens again.”
“The hell?! I’m not getting off for an accident!” The boy shouted back, face almost red.
Ushijima was so done. “I will walk out if he continues to play.” He stated to the referee. His team gasped and started shouting arguments at him.
“’Toshi, that’s just what they want!” Tendou said beside him.
“I don’t play against opponents who don’t respect the game and their rivals. I’d rather not play at all than play a dirty game, especially if it means putting my teammates, my friends, at risk.”
“Your loss, dumbass.” The boy already laughed but was interrupted when the Araigawa coach placed a hand on his shoulder.
“I think it would be wise to calm down for now, don’t you think so too, Noda?” He sighed at the hitter. “I apologize for any in convenience.” The coach bowed for Ushijima and Tendou, then turned to once again bow towards their coach Washijou. It was clear that he respected the old coach of Shiratorizawa and Washijou nodded back in appreciation.
Then he made to slap the boy, Noda, lightly on the back of his head, looking knowingly at Tendou.
“Ah.. damn it.. I apologize too.” Number 6 muttered as he was taken off the court.
They ended up winning, which had nothing to do with the incident throwing the opponent’s off, and everything to do with Shiratorizawa being more skilled.
----
“Hey, handsome!” Tendou came to hug his waist as they waited for their bus to arrive.
Ushijima had felt off for the rest of the game. It did not affect his drive to win, or his skills, but afterwards he had only kept to himself, changing quickly and getting outside before the rest of the team.
Apparently, Tendou had followed him, which he should’ve guessed.
“Satori.” He smiled slightly, already feeling his cheeks heat up from the touch. He was happy and relieved that Tendou was okay again.
“How are you feeling? Are you upset about what happened?” Tendou whispered as he squeezed Ushijima tighter into his chest, cheek leaning on Ushijima’s shoulder.
“Of course, I am. I felt my heart almost jump out of my mouth when you fell into the ground.”
“You mean into you mouth, ‘Toshi?” Tendou laughed cutely. “I’m sorry for making you worry. I understand. I would probably break some necks if someone hurt you. But I’m still fine, Wakatoshi.”
Ushijima sighed and turned in his boyfriend’s arms, reaching his own over Tendou’s shoulders.
“I know and I’m glad for it. I just hate that some people don’t seem to understand your talent. It’s just a game, they shouldn’t take it so personally..”
“Wow!” Tendou laughed again. “I’d never think I’d hear you say that volleyball is just a game! Though, sometimes our rivals do have some reason for not liking me.” He grinned brightly. Ushijima laughed as well, quickly capturing his boyfriend’s lips in a short kiss.
“But do you know why I can do it?” Tendou continued.
“Why?”
“Because I know that you’ll beat the shit out of anyone that tries something.” He grinned again, but in a different way, flirtatiously. Ushijima’s cheeks heated up even more.
“I would. Anything for you.” He growled seriously, his voice lower than before.
“Hmm~” Tendou hummed. He pulled Ushijima into him until their chest were touching and gave another, lingering kiss. All strain melted out of Ushijima. “But actually.. I’d love to see more of that side of you.”
Ushijima did not understand why he would ever be angry at Tendou. But knowing his boyfriend, he was aware that Tendou Satori knew very well how to play dirty- and not just on the court.