Work Text:
For most people sports were an escape. An escape from ordinary lives, an escape from reality, a safe sanctuary where they could feel like themselves or enjoy being alive. For most people sports were important because besides keeping you in form, it was a way to bring glory to your country or family. You thought like them in the past. You thought that volleyball was an escape, a safe haven, a sanctuary, the only right thing in the world.
But then it changed. It always does.
Most professional players start playing when they are young. Probably when they are five or six years old, even before they know how to write and read. But for you it was different. For you it was always different.
You fell in love with volleyball when you were quite older for the sport. You were like twelve, an age considered too old to start any sport. Still, you started playing and playing and playing, until you told yourself that you liked it too much to stop, that spiking felt like flying and that receiving felt like you were a guardian deity, that setting felt as smooth as putting a puzzle into place for another to come to click with it. Volleyball somehow felt like a different sport, and so you decided that you weren't going to mind other people's comments about you being too older to start in volleyball.
Middle school and high school was all about learning and creating your own path through it. At the end of it, you were a great player, but not enough to be with the best of the best. So, you pushed yourself more, sacrificed a lot of things, and persevered when no one else supported you and called your love for volleyball and studies an obsession. It was in the middle of college that you got closer to what you wanted.
The big people saw something in you, and they offered you a place within the best. They weren't the best of the best, but it was something. With another couple of years, you were within the best of the best. In a couple of years, you were living your dream. Your dream of becoming something else than a simple person.
And then, when you were on the biggest stage of your life when your dream was finally complete, everything went down in the blink of an eye.
It was pretty simple. You just had to run to save the ball, to pass it over the net. You couldn't let it touch the floor. It was simple as that, but volleyball is never that simple.
The ball went too far, you stumbled, your kneepad wasn't in its right place and then, when you hit the floor, it was pretty bad. Your knee got injured and your time to recuperate was too long. You could keep playing, but the pain sometimes was too much so the medic told you that the best course of action was retirement.
Retirement from your dream, from everything you worked so hard for years. It was frustrating and most of the time, you didn't listened to them. Until the inevitable happened.
You forced yourself too much, especially when you dived to save balls. Your knee always took the worst of everything and after months of playing recklessly, your knee got hurt permanently. The pain was unbearable, your knee was fucked up and after a few surgeries, the only thing you could do right with it was walk and run short distances. You couldn't dive nor jump too high or play volleyball at all.
The Association made you retire and everyone around you got disappointed. They didn't tell you, but you could see it. You had such a promising future as a pro volleyball player. You had an exceptional talent that very few had, and you just waste it pushing you and trying to get somewhere you weren't destined to be.
You returned to your home defeated, depressed, and feeling like everything got darker and darker around you and that the sunrise wasn't coming anytime soon.
But then, after years of you being in the dark, a ray of sunshine appeared. An old friend from college told you that they needed a teacher at the local high school, so you decided to take the chance. You studied education in college because you loved literature and you didn't mind teens, but you didn't plan to make it up to your life job because you always thought that being a professional volleyball player was your destiny.
Not on this life apparently.
They accepted you as a Literature and Language teacher in Karasuno High School and you found a new life. Teens were hormonal and sometimes dumb, but being surrounded by young and dreamy faces, made you remember those years you lost because you were always into your studies and volleyball. It reminded you of yourself, especially does that talk a lot about volleyball, and they made a fuss in the gym with the vice principal.
But you stayed away from volleyball, even if it was just high school volleyball. You haven't touched a volleyball in a few years because you simply couldn't stand the failure after what happened to your knee. So, when one of your students mentioned volleyball or when one of your colleagues was desperately look for a coach for the club, you simply looked the other way.
Until he found you. Somehow, destiny put him in the same place at the same time as you one day and it was like another ray of sunshine in your world, even if your new life wasn't that dark anymore.
He was one of your old friends from college. You two had a few general classes together back then and because you loved volleyball, you two started a friendship that got forgotten when you moved to Tokyo to complete your dream. At that time, it didn't hurt to leave him behind, but finding him again in that store, smoking and looking like he gave a fuck about everything, made you realize that you were kind of rude to him in the past.
Keishin didn't mind though. He was happy to see you, especially after so many years and after hearing about what happened to you.
You played for Japan's National Team and you appeared in TV games and magazines, but your spotlight was brief since your injury occurred practically at the beginning of your career as a pro. So, not everyone recognized you as an ex-professional player in the street. The people it did, greeted you and asked sometimes for a photo or an autobiograph or they told you how cool your receiving and spiking was. But here at home, just people close to you knew who you were before being a simple teacher at Karasuno.
It wasn't a surprise that Keishin knew what happened to you. Probably one of your siblings told him when he asked about you, because, apparently, he always asked for you when he saw any of your family members. And since you were from the same town, everyone in your family always answered him.
After your first encounter with him, you meet a few times more to catch with each other. You told him what you were up to and he told you what he was doing, he even told you that your colleague, Takeda, convinced him to coach the boys' volleyball team. And you were happy for him because he loved volleyball and he never really got the chance to demonstrate it.
And meetings with Keishin became a normal thing. Since he told you he was a coach in the team, you paid more attention to the volleyball club and sometimes asked Takeda how things were going. The teacher was sometimes confused by your sudden questions, probably oblivious to the fact that you were a professional volleyball player once. Either way, Takeda always answered you with hope and proudness in his eyes and you understood that the volleyball team was in good hands and that you trusted completely that Keishin was doing a great job with them.
Until one day he approached you. He usually did it, but not in school. He usually did it outside of it. You were surprised to see him there, if you were honest, even if you knew that he was the volleyball club coach. It simply felt weird to see him there.
He came with a simple proposition that made you question everything for a few minutes, that made you remember everything. From the people's lack of trust in your abilities in volleyball, from the comments of your classmates for being a person with goals and no time to date, the days you dedicated yourself to volleyball and to reach the dream you destroyed with your recklessness and stupidity.
"I know is a very personal thing what I'm asking you, but I think that your presence can motivate and inspire them after losing against Aoba Johsai. Will you please think about it?"
And you told him you were going to, but deep inside you, you wanted to tell him that you couldn't help him.
That night you actually thought about it. You were scared of course, of talking about your short-lived pro career, about the looks of disappointment they were going to give you when you explained to them why you left the court in the first place. You were dead scared to talk about your biggest failure to anyone.
But then you remembered Keishin's words. How he said that you could be a motivation, an inspiration to them. And you got why he thought that. Meeting someone that touched the sky with its fingertips was an awesome feeling, you knew because you felt the same when you met and played with your sports idols. And then you understood that you had in your hands a very important lesson. You could show them that dreams come true, that they shouldn't push themselves so much, that volleyball is more than just a sport, that losing doesn't mean that you have failed everything else. They could actually learn something about your experience, you could actually teach them something.
And that made you feel useful, gleeful, and proud at the same time. It made you feel like you found your way again. That night you called Keishin and told him that you agreed to meet the volleyball boys on their practice the next day. He thanked you and you could swear he was actually smiling from the other side, something that he usually didn't do.
That was why you were currently standing outside the gym, dressed in jeans, sneakers, and your national team jacket and shirt. You were nervous and still doubting a little, but your mind reminded you of everything you wanted for them to learn from you and you decided to do it. To open the door and show them your biggest failure, your ugliest scar, but told them that learning from them was the most important thing of all.
When you enter the gym, no one appears to mind your presence and for a few minutes, you are relieved. They were too busy warming up for practice, so you decided to walk to Keishin, who actually smiles when he sees you. Like the idiot you are, you smiled too, because he is the reason for you to realize everything else. He is the reason for you to put your National Team shirt and jacket again after so many years swearing to never touch it.
Keishin and Takeda stop the warmups and tell the team to gather up around them. The third years are surprised to see you (you recognized them because you gave them to class the year before) and the second years are even more surprised to see you in clothes so different from the ones you usually wear (you give them class) and the first years are confused, except for the orange-haired guy. He looks surprised and like he is about to explode with excitement.
You simply simile without telling anything at all.
"Guys, Kyoko and Yachi, this is- ", Keishin couldn't end the sentence, because at that moment the orange-haired boy exploded.
"YOU'RE THE INFAMOUS Y/L/N Y/N!", your only response is to chuckle, just as Keishin beside you. "YOU WERE IN JAPAN'S NATIONAL TEAM A FEW YEARS AGO! YOUR SPIKES WERE LIKE BOOOM AND YOUR RECEIVES WERE FIIIIUUUU!"
The rest of the boys look at him with confused faces.
"No offense to the sensei, but Hinata, that's our Literature teacher", Tanaka says.
"Yeah, what do you mean?", asks Nishinoya.
Before Hinata could explode again with his enthusiasm, you decided to answer.
"What he tries to say is that a few years ago, before being your teacher here, I was a professional volleyball player. I was actually in the National Team and yes, I was quite famous back there for my boom spikes and fiuuuu receives", you explain and Hinata starts crying with excitement.
All the teens in front of you look at you with open mouths and shiny eyes. You can only smile, because they are all looking at you like you are some kind of celebrity and they are trying not to freak out as Hinata did already.
The next minutes are them doing exciting questions all at the same time. You can only laugh, and they don't stop jumping and asking things until Keishin makes them stop to explain why you were there today.
In the end, they all sit down for a bit, you do the story of your life, they listen like is the best thing in the world and then when you told them what happened with your knee they all look sad, not disappointed. And their faces change very fast when you propose to show then some pro players tips.
That day the practice was a supernatural experience to them. Especially for Hinata, the orange-haired fellow, who you were impressed with when he jumped and did that quick with Kageyama, the setter. You concluded after seeing them and giving them a few bits of advice that they just needed to work harder, until they could really fly (not too much to end up like you) but enough to touch the sky and stay on it like gravity didn't exist.
"You were right. I think my presence cheer them up", you tell Keishin once you two are walking home after that practice.
"I told you. They are a good team; they just felt a little lost after that game with Aoba Johsai. But you showed them a little of the light and they feel more confident now".
"I'm glad I could help. I promised myself after what happened that I wasn't going to get closer to volleyball ever again, but I'm glad I returned. I forgot how good spiking feels", you look at your dominant hand, the one you used to show Asahi how to improve his way.
"Welcome home, then", when you look at him, he is smiling again, and you can only smile at him back.
"Thanks for having me back".
And then he takes your hand and for the first time in years, you truly feel like you're on the right track, like the sun is finally shining over you again.