Chapter Text
All I can ever think about was volleyball, the sounds that happened on the court, the crowd cheering, and everything in between. I ate, slept, and breathed the sport since before I could even remember. Even though I had Tobio and the rest of the team by my side, I still managed to feel as though my playing was less than everyone else on the team. Sure, I definitely got better since starting at Karasuno, but once I mastered my quick attack with Tobio and then other attacks with Sugawara, it was though my progress had stopped, and that's when I noticed when I started getting worse. I was nicknamed "Sunshine" by Tanaka and Noya during my first year, and since then, I've kept that facade. I knew that I couldn't let anyone know the 𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒂𝒍 me. The 𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒂𝒍 me was boring, crying, and always a huge fucking mess. So, I did what I did best: I put on a mask and hoped no one would try and tear it off, god knows what would happen to me if someone saw through it.
It was my second year when I realized it was getting to a point where I couldn't do "this" anymore, right after the third years left. It was a though time stopped, like all of my progress was for nothing, I started to take all of my mistakes and failure from volleyball to heart, which resulted in me quitting Karasuno's volleyball team before I started my third year. I couldn't continue to play a sport that made me feel nothing. The cheering of the fans at the end of the sets, the bus rides home, none of it mattered to me anymore, there was no more joy in it.
After I quit volleyball, it was a though nothing mattered anymore, like my life was flashing in spurts right in front of me and I couldn't keep up. It was a though my life simply didn't matter, I mean did anyone 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 give a shit about me anymore? Maybe they only cared about me so the team would win? Either way, I can't keep staying in Japan, there's too much here that I need to forget. So what if I'm running away from my problems, it's not like anyone would care if I stayed or if I jumped off the next tall building/bridge I saw. I started thinking about seriously leaving Japan, leaving without a word to anyone so there would be nothing or anyone to stop me. So, I did just that, during spring break in between first and second semester of my third year, I got up in the middle of the night and left, walking around for hours until the first trains started up for the day. I decided to take the bullet train to Beijing, no particular reason other than it was far. I knew damn well would I was going to do out there ; spend the last days of my life doing whatever I wanted and then end it all right after.