Chapter Text
As a child I can recall waking up early every day just to go play out in the yard. Nothing would ever beat the excitement younger me felt when I would climb up to my brothers bunk and shake him awake, pointing out to the backyard and telling him that a new day was here.
I suppose it became a habit, years later I still wake up early—now even more so than before—however what I lack now is the excitement. Every morning at four my eyes will flutter open, I'll wiggle my toes, rotate my wrists a few times, following this progression as if I was starting up a car. Then with the bleakest of expressions I'll climb out of bed, and make my way out to the yard.
I no longer wake my brother up to join me, those days are long gone. Instead I let the wall adjacent to our yard act as my partner, it's brick exterior sends back all my sets, and it will stay content passing the ball back to me for hours on end.
Some people who pass by our house ask me why I would ever wake up so painstaking early on school days and weekends to practice, especially when I attend a real practice session with my teammates after school anyways. Those kinds of questions are never posed to my brother, all the neighbors and passerby's do is cheer him on and talk about what an incredibly hard worker he is.
See practice doesn't make perfect, not for me at least, because the term 'perfection' can only apply to one twin: Tooru.
Over the years I've perfected this lonesome morning routine. I've even memorized what the sun looks like hitting my house at a quarter to six, so that I know exactly when I should be heading inside without ever needing look at my phone. I've also learned exactly how many knocks it takes to wake up my brother, and how many minutes I have in the bathroom before he comes barging in.
"Ughmmm," I hear him groan after I knock once.
"Uh—Uhuh! I'm up, i'm up, i'm up!" He now tells coherently after the second one.
See our parents head off to work early in the morning, and our older sister had moved out years ago, which means that the only person around to wake him up each morning is me. Every once in awhile—when i'm really slacking at my job, Iwaizumi will call him, yelling obscenities in to the phone speaker until Tooru assured him he was wide awake.
"I have to pee!"
His voice is now filled with energy, sounding crystal clear on the other side of the bathroom
door. However that isn't the phrase that I wish to hear while I'm in the middle of a shower.
"Go piss somewhere else," I yell. My answer was not a good one judging by the banging on the door. He was certainly persistent for someone who had been awake a mere fifteen minutes.
On the sixteenth—maybe seventeenth bang, I wasn't paying that close attention—I had finally run out of patients and quickly leapt from the shower to unlock the door.
"Thanks for taking your time," he said sarcastically as I stepped out of the bathroom with a damp towel wrapped around my body.
We don't exchange any more words for the rest of the morning. In fact, I don't even see him again until we meet back downstairs to grab our bags and head out the door.
The air outside was cool despite the suns, the kind of weather were a sweater was too hot, but just a plain shirt left you covered in goosebumps. Tooru walks a few paces in front of me, periodically looking over his shoulder to ensure that I was still following him. As children this cracked sidewalk could fit the two of us side by side, but now it feels as if I can only stay on it if I'm as far away from him as possible.
"I think I might walk that girl from biology last year to school tomorrow," he announces to me.
"It's not even the first day of school and your already making date plans?" I ask him.
"It's not a date. I don't date girls who swoon over me because they don't have the common sense to think for themselves," his voice is stern but I can hear the slightest bit of a chuckle. "I'm only doing it because she asked me to, and I'm a nice young man."
"Whatever you say."
"So tomorrow I'll tell Iwa to meet us at the house so you can walk with him," he adds.
Iwaizumi was like our triplet, he had been a part of our lives since we were in grade school. If there was ever an issue the first phrase to escape Tooru's mouth would always be 'call Iwa' or 'ask Iwa,' that was how much he relied on his him.
"I don't need an escort, I can walk to school all on my own," I sigh.
He throws his head back, hearty laughter escaping from his diaphragm. "Come on, I'm not gonna let you walk to school all by yourself, if you get kidnapped mom would kill me."
No she wouldn't, I think to myself. He couldn't get in trouble for anything, no matter what he did there was always a golden hearted reason behind it in my parents eyes. If I got kidnapped under his supervision the first thing that my our parents would say was, 'why weren't you more careful?'
"Tell him to be at our house by the six thirty or else I'm leaving by myself," I mutter.
"If I spoke to him in that tone he'd smack me in the face, why don't you just tell him that yourself," he sighs and gestures ahead toward our school up ahead.
Aoba Johsai looked like a fancy office building from the outside with its sleek designs and clean shiny windows. It was the kind of building that when you passed by it on the street you were left wondering what kind of impressive work was going on inside it's walls.
However on the inside of the school every wall was decorated with trophies from sporting events, art from past contests, and plaques of important alumni. It felt like every student who went to Seijoh either had an accomplishment of their own, or was friends with someone who did.
"Welcome back to our new third years!" Teachers and staff called out as us and some other third years crossed the court yard.
There was always a small celebration for the new third years on the first day back. Teachers and staff would welcome them back with bittersweet smiles that reminded us that the real world was coming sooner than we imagined. The idea of a bunch of hormonal teenagers making their descent in to adult hood was so very important to adults who had never left school.
However not even I could deny the excitement that lurked in my chest as I thought about what this year had in store. See the third year of high school was especially important to athletes, it was the last chance for many to prove themselves before they departed off in to the real world. For my brother and I our goal this year was one of the few things we had in common; We we're going to make it to Nationals.