Chapter Text
The sun had barely begun to rise when Tobio started the trek from his house to Aoba Johsai on a random Saturday morning. Despite how early it was, the air was already sticky with humidity, making him sweaty from both the heat and his nerves.
Today was the day. Today was the day that he told someone all of the things Hirayama made him do in junior high. Today was the day in which someone finally learned everything that happened in excruciating detail.
It was an odd feeling for Tobio. His body was alight with both nerves and something else. Excitement, maybe? He wanted to tell somebody. He wanted to show them everything that had built him up to the person he was today. He wanted someone to care.
It had only been two weeks since the practice match against Seijoh, but Tobio was beginning to see just how much the other Kitagawa Daiichi graduates wanted to change. All of them made an effort to contact him and start up conversations. He tried his best to do the same. All of them had been hurt by Hirayama, all of their actions during middle school had been influenced by his cruel and unjust behavior. All of them wanted a do-over.
Maybe, with Tobio’s evidence and everyone else’s testimonies, they could get that do-over. Maybe, once Hirayama was behind bars (or at least completely out of their lives), they could start to repair their fractured relationship with each other.
Just the knowledge of Hirayama still being around and still influencing others was sometimes enough for Tobio to seize up. He hated knowing that this awful man was around. He hated knowing that there was probably some poor little kid with dreams of making it big who was suffering underneath his constant abuse.
He was once that poor little kid. Oikawa was once that poor little kid. And so was Iwaizumi, and Kindaichi, and Kunimi, and dozens of others. Tobio would do everything in his power to make sure that Hirayama couldn’t hurt anyone else.
By the time he reached Aoba Johsai, all of Tobio’s nerves had shifted into determination. He wanted Hirayama to get every single thing he deserved, and nothing less. When he entered the Coaches’ office, he could tell that everyone in there felt the exact same.
The two Seijoh coaches (whose names he had learned from Iwaizumi, Mizoguchi, and Irihata) were sitting cross-legged at a low table facing the doorway. Oikawa and Iwaizumi were off to the side of the room, talking quietly to each other, their thighs brushing with every shift of their bodies. Kindaichi and Kunimi already told Tobio that they wouldn’t be there.
Oikawa and Iwiazumi had pretty much insisted on being there. They said that they wouldn’t stay in the room if he didn’t want them to, but they wanted to be nearby just in case. Tobio had already decided on letting them stay in the room; he would be uncomfortable sharing his deepest secrets while alone with two strange coaches.
“Ah Kageyama-kun, thank you for joining us,” Irihata said as Tobio settled down across from them. “Oikawa and Iwaizumi have told me that you want them to stay here, is that true?”
“Yes, sir,” Tobio replied. Irihata smiled kindly at him while Mizoguchi reached behind him to grab a pen and paper.
“Well then, shall we begin?” Tobio nodded, and they began.
They asked him about everything. They asked about his training regimen, his serving and setting drills, his diet, Hirayama’s frequent punishments, and everything in between. At first, the questions were vague, like they were testing the waters to see how much Tobio was willing to answer. When they realized that he was willing to answer everything, the two of them began to probe deeper.
Tobio answered everything as best he could. He wanted to see Hirayama rot in jail for as long as possible, he wanted to see the man who was responsible for almost all of his suffering in middle school get what he deserved. Tobio took on each question like it was a match at the finals of a national tournament.
There was only one question that made him falter a bit, and it was when Mizoguchi asked about the ‘King of the Court’ situation. That was still something difficult for him to talk about. Tobio didn’t like to bring up how his team had abandoned him, nor did he like to talk about how it was all his fault.
Oikawa noticed his hesitation. “Remember Tobio-chan, you don’t have to answer something if you don’t want to,” He said to him. Tobio closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then, he opened his eyes and began to speak.
“In the middle of my third year, my grandfather died. He was the one who introduced me to volleyball, and he taught me everything I know. At the time of his death, my grandfather was the only family member who I saw and spoke to on a regular basis. When he died, I--,” His voice cracked, and Tobio had to look away. He breathed again, using a technique his grandfather taught him called box breathing and then continued.
“When he died, my grandfather asked me to go to nationals for him. It’s the only thing he’s ever asked of me. I couldn’t refuse. I didn’t want to refuse. So I started pushing everyone, and I was cruel and mean and I pushed them too hard. I pushed Kindaichi the hardest; he was already on thin ice with Hirayama and I knew he had potential so I just pushed him too far too fast and I ruined everything.
“During the last game of our season, I asked too much of him. Of everyone, really. I sent Kindaichi one of my ‘king tosses’, he refused to hit it, and then Hirayama benched me afterwards.” The room was silent after his confession as if everyone was drinking in the truth he had spilled and was trying to digest it before moving on.
“Kageyama-kun, did Hirayama know of your grandfather’s passing?” Irihata asked. Tobio looked up from his hands, searching for any sign of malice in his face. He found none.
“Yeah, he did. I requested some time off, for funeral planning and grieving mostly, but he only allowed me to skip on the day of his funeral. And on the day after, he made me run ten extra laps as a punishment.”
Suddenly, Iwaizumi stood up and marched out of the room, fury visibly radiating off of him. Oikawa didn’t look much better. The coaches looked more horrified than angry, but Mizoguchi still gripped his pen in a white-knuckled grip.
“Tobio-chan, you know that it was wrong of Hirayama to punish you for that, right?” Oikawa’s voice was level, but he was obviously trying to control a raging storm of internal emotions.
“It really wasn’t though? I mean, I missed practice, and we had a tournament coming up so--,” Tobio was cut off by Oikawa walking over to him, kneeling onto the floor, and yanking him into a hug. Tobio’s head was tucked into Oikawa’s shoulder, and one of Oikawa’s arms wrapped around his shoulder to pull him closer. The other hand buried itself in Tobio’s hair. Tobio was frozen in surprise at Oikawa’s actions.
“God damn it, Tobio,” he mumbled underneath his breath. “You should’ve been allowed to grieve.”
That one, tiny, six-word sentence broke him. Tears began to leak out of Tobio’s eyes without his permission and he collapsed into Oikawa’s grip. No one had allowed him to grieve. He hadn’t been allowed to process everything that happened. Even though he was the only person there when his grandfather’s heart stopped, even though his grandfather was the only family he truly had left, he wasn’t allowed to grieve. He had been carrying the weight of his death around for nearly a year now, and it was suffocating him.
Yet he was Oikawa, the boy who once hated him with every fiber of his being, holding him and telling Tobio that it was okay to grieve. That he shouldn’t have been punished for grieving.
It was… a lot.
Eventually, he calmed down enough to pull away from Oikawa and continue with the interview. Oikawa, surprisingly, didn’t leave his side. Instead, he stayed right next to Tobio and offered silent support in the form of a warm hand in his. Tobio noticed through blurry eyes that Iwaizumi had come back in at some point, but now with red knuckles.
“Well, Kageyama-kun, I think that’s good enough,” Mizoguchi said. “If you remember anything else or find any physical forms of evidence that you would be willing to share, we’d appreciate it. But other than that, we have no other questions for you.”
Oh wait, he had physical evidence. “I um, I brought something that might work as physical evidence,” Tobio winced at how croaky his voice was from crying.
“Wait, really?” Oikawa said, his voice taking on a lighter, more hopeful tone. The coaches had equally as hopeful expressions on their faces. Tobio nodded while digging through his pocket.
He pulled out an envelope filled with memory cards. “I used to videotape my additional setting and serving practice that I did after everyone else had already left. Hirayama would stay with me a lot of the time, and ‘critique’ me. I caught most of it on camera.” He slid the envelope across the table towards the coaches. “Sorry, I couldn’t figure out how to separate all of Hirayama’s critiques from the other stuff, so it’s just a bunch of serving videos.”
“No, Kageyama-kun, this is perfect, ” Irihata said. “We can use this as physical evidence to strengthen our case. In fact, with these memory cards, we might be able to take our case to the head of Kitagawa Daiichi and start the process of Hirayama’s removal. Thank you, Kageyama.”
He said the last part while directly at Tobio, sincerity lining every inch of his voice. It made Tobio turn seven different shades of red. He wasn’t used to gratitude or sincerity from anyone, let alone coaches. Oikawa squeezed his hand in silent support.
They could do it now. They could bring all of their evidence to the people in power, they could remove Hirayama from his position. They could even file charges against him for abusing his students. If they played their cards right, Hirayama would never lay a hand on any child ever again.
The little kids with big dreams would be allowed to keep dreaming for a little bit longer.
Fujimori Azumi trusted her gut. Yes, she was also logical and calculating and made sure that all of the proper steps were taken, but she also trusted her gut. Her gut had yet to steer her in the wrong direction. It was the reason that she was the head of the Kitagawa Daiichi Sports Department. It was the reason she had been an internationally ranked tennis player in her youth.
The point is, Azumi knew that her gut was accurate ninety-nine percent of the time. The few times it had been wrong were circumstantial and entirely her logical brain’s fault.
Right now, her gut was saying that Hirayama Yoshito was bad news.
There was no discernible reason it was saying this, all of Azumi’s interactions with Hirayama had been a little awkward but still polite. Nothing about his obvious mannerisms screamed “danger, danger, awful human being alert.” But something about him was achingly familiar in an incredibly negative way.
One day, while she was going over the budget report for the Tennis Club, Azumi put her finger on it. When she was in high school, she had an assistant coach who was just like Hirayama. He was polite to everyone but something about him set off ten thousand little red flags in her mind. Later, it was discovered that he had been sexually assaulting some of the first-year students (male and female).
This realization gave Azumi whiplash. She almost denied it on principle alone. Hirayama showed no signs of being that kind of coach. In fact, he was absolutely adored by all of his players and all of their parents. She had no reason to suspect this kind of behavior from him.
Yet, that’s the thing about abusers. They’re not abusive where anyone else can see. They keep their cruelty hidden beneath a facade. Her assistant coach in high school was a nice man; he would even help her with homework occasionally. But he was still a monster. He still did all of those horrible things to kids who just wanted to play tennis.
Something in her gut told Azumi that Hirayama was just like that man. Her gut was never wrong about things like this. Now, all she needed to do was prove that it was right.