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Screaming at her mom in a subway was the most terrifying thing Yachi Hitoka had ever done. Yet, somehow, among her reservations and fears, she also felt… invincible.
If she could tell her mom she wanted to be the manager for the volleyball club, she could probably do anything. Anything! Like picking up her pencil when she slips in the hall and one falls out of her pencil case because she didn't zipper it all the way and if she picks it up and her teachers notice then they’ll know she had carelessly forgotten the most basic life skill of zippering your pencil case all the way and how could they recommend her to colleges after that so she thinks it might just be easier to pretend it wasn’t her pencil.
Okay, maybe she wasn’t ready to put her college recommendations on the line yet. But she wanted to do something with her new found courage. If you don’t use it you lose it, and Yachi wasn’t about to lose this. She had big dreams.
Big dreams of someday telling the barista at the cafe she frequents near her house that a chamomile iced tea isn’t actually her preferred order, rather the order that she blurted out one time by mistake when she hadn’t had enough time to read the whole menu but she couldn’t bring herself to admit it because everytime she went in after that the barista would say, “Chamomile iced tea for our regular Ms. Yachi?” and it was so kind of them to remember her that she’d say “Yes, thank you so much!”, even in the winter, while glancing longingly at the “Try our peppermint tea latte!” sign in the bottom corner of the menu.
But days after her bold below-ground confrontation (which appeared hardly confrontational to anybody else) Villager B was still at a loss. She stood in the corner of the gym staring intently at the volleyball she was supposed to be putting away after offering to finish cleanup while the others went home. She gazed into it’s scuffs and scrapes as though it held the wisdom she desperately craved.
So much had happened since her upperclassman approached her about the volleyball club. Yachi felt like a whole new high school girl, complete with her very own team track suit that Kiyoko insisted fit her perfectly.
Ah, Kiyoko. Beautiful. Generous. And sweet enough to lie to spare Yachi’s dignity. Yachi was convinced that the length of sweatpants looked silly on her, but was delighted that Kiyoko wouldn’t say so. Even after Yachi asked “Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?”
With Kiyoko’s elegant smile on her mind, Yachi stared into the farthest depths of the volleyball (which was not very deep. Volleyball’s aren’t normally transparent, and Karasuno High School had outstandingly normal volleyballs). Since it was this sport that prompted fate to bring Kiyoko’s grace to Yachi’s humble life, maybe it was volleyball that would bring Yachi other such blessings. She turned the ball over in her hands, harnessing all the eye contact training she had done in preparation for classroom presentations, staring into the name “MIKASA”.
“Tell me, Mikasa,” she said as firmly as she could (that is to say, her voice was shaking. Talking to volleyballs is scaring shit, y’all). “How do I be brave? How do I become Brave Yachi, like I was in the subway? I want to pick up my pencils without caring who’s watching. I want to tell the kind barista I like mint lattes. I want to tell Shimizu-senpai that I… I want to tell her… Tell her that I… I--”
“Whatcha doing, Yachi-san?”
“EEK!”
Yachi jumped, flailing her arms. The ball flew into the air and she yelped, “No! Mikasa! I’m sorry! Please don’t curse my bloodline!”
The ball landed neatly in Hinata’s hands as he walked towards the edge of the gym, ambiguous about potential curses. But it was clear that another catastrophe had formed in Yachi’s presence, the scope of which she could only grasp with one question.
“Hinata-kun,” she wheezed. “How--how much of that did you hear?”
Hinata tilted his head to the side, expressing his classically simple confusion. “Huh? How much of what did I hear?”
Yachi let a small breath escape her in measured relief. Maybe he just got there. Maybe he didn’t hear anything. Maybe he assumed she was still just cleaning up, rather than seeking advice by talking to a volleyball--.
“Oh! You mean what you were saying to the ball? ‘Cause I think I heard most of it. I forgot my water bottle and when I came in to get it, you were quiet at first, then you started saying something about subways, and pencils, and mint drinks… Something you wanted to tell Shimizu-senpai, too. Oh! I think Brave Yachi is a really cool nickname, y'know! Is it your username in a game--Yachi-san, why is your face blue?”
Yachi had run out of oxygen from holding her breath in devastation.
After fanning Yachi with her own clipboard and walking her to the fountain for a drink, Yachi exited panic mode and confided in Hinata her predicament as he walked her to the bus stop. “Ah, I get it. So you want to do something brave like when you told your mom you wanted to be manager?”
“Yeah.”
“And you asked a ball about it?”
“...yeah.”
“Don’t be embarrassed,” Hinata smiled. “I ask the ball for advice all the time.”
Yachi glanced up at him. “You do?”
“Of course I do! It’s kind of comforting, even if it can’t answer, to just say my worries out loud.”
Yachi turned her face back to the ground. But this time, a tiny smile spread over her face. She was relieved that Hinata understood her strife.
“But I don’t really get why you would ask a ball about something like that. I only ever ask the ball about the really hard stuff, like how I’m going to convince Kageyama to let me hit the super fast quick spikes with my eyes open.”
Yachi’s smile fell from her face. “That’s… really hard… huh…”
“Totally hard!” Hinata asserted, rattling his bicycle’s handlebars for emphasis. “I mean, to solve my problem, I have to convince Kageyama! And his brain’s too full of vending machine milk to notice how talented and awesome I am.” He paused to growl vaguely upwards, approximately in the direction of where Kageyama’s face would be if he were towering over Hinata that very moment.
Hinata was straightforward and determined. Yachi admired that about him. But it was a distant admiration. She could never tackle her goals as head-on as Hinata. Her problems never felt so simple.
“But your problem is simple, Yachi-san.” Hinata startled Yachi out of her train of thought when he suddenly stopped cursing at an absent Kageyama and addressed her again.
Yachi slowed her pace slightly, shuffling her feet through the dirt. A behaviour she engaged in often. But she didn’t quite feel defeated. She remembered that it was Hinata’s commitment to the simple answers that had helped her be brave in front of her mom (and a subway station full of unsuspecting commuters). No, she hadn’t slowed her pace to wallow in self pity. She slowed her pace to buy herself time. Time to ask for advice. And this time, she wouldn’t be a piece of asking sports equipment.
It took Hinata a minute to notice that Yachi was no longer walking on the other side of his bike. He turned to see her moving at a snail’s pace. “Yachi-san? You okay?”
“How… so?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“Ah, sorry!” Yachi could tell the gears in Hinata’s mind were turning a bit too hard. “Sorry, I’m okay. I meant… How do you suppose my problems are simple? I mean, I don’t really know what to do about them.”
“Oh!” Hinata’s voice brightened with understanding. “That’s easy! They’re all things you want to do, right? So, just do them!”
Yachi sighed. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. “But I can’t…”
“Yes you can!” Hinata insisted. “If you want to pick up a pencil that you dropped, pick it up. If you want to order something new at a cafe, order it. If you want to tell Shimizu-senpai… Actually, I don't know what you wanted to tell her. But you can tell her anything! I can tell she really likes you.”
“R-really?” Yachi’s face burned so red she wasn’t sure it’d ever go back.
“Yeah, of course!” Hinata assured her. But his confident grasp over the situation waned as he noticed Yachi’s flustered expression. “Wait, what was it you wanted to tell her anyway?” he asked.
The feeling of embarrassment covered Yachi’s face so completely that it had been replaced by the pure essence of embarrassment. She zipped her sweater all the way up and dove into it up to the blue stars on her hair tie. She could stay consumed by her sweater until she figured out how to reintroduce herself to the society as raw embarassed energy, right?
At this point, she had completely stopped walking. The silence of Hinata’s bicycle suggested he had stopped too. Or he had finally ascended to become one with the sun and would never be seen again except as a spectral image on warm days.
“Yachi-san?”
Nope, he was still there.
Yachi poked her eyes out the top of her sweater safe haven. Hinata looked calm, but concerned. Yachi closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It wasn’t fair to worry him. She popped her face (which was, in fact, still human, and not The Concept of Embarrassment) all the way out of her sweater.
“Shimizu-senpai has done so much for me,” she whispered. “She saw me, when I thought I was just part of the background. Not only that, but she wanted me to become a manager like her, have responsibilities like hers. But I’m not like her. She’s beautiful, generous, and kind. Still, she makes time for me. Correcting my mistakes, re-assuring me. I don’t want to burden her any more than I already do. Especially not with something as silly as my feelings.”
Hinata waited to see if Yachi had more to say. Then, without reservation, he firmly declared, “Your feelings aren’t silly.” He watched Yachi shift, uncertain. Almost as if she was about to retreat back into her sweater again. She opened her quivering mouth as she sank, but Hinata cut her off. “It’s true,” he stated. “Shimizu-senpai, she’s all those things you said.” He shifted his gaze and muttered quietly, “Especially beautiful.” He took a moment to reminisce on the last time he saw the beautiful Kiyoko up close (two hours ago) before returning his attention to Yachi. “So, Yachi-san, if you really believe the best about Shimizu-senpai, you’ve gotta believe you can trust her with your feelings. Right?”
Yachi’s eyes shifted, as though looking for a sign. A reason. A rebuttal. Something to fuel her anxiety and prove that Hinata was wrong. But he wasn’t wrong. Kiyoko had been so caring to Yachi. She made Yachi feel wanted and needed like she’d never felt before. How could Yachi believe the best about her dear upperclassman, then turn around and not trust Kiyoko with her feelings? Kiyoko had shown Yachi nothing but kindness. Why would Yachi think that would change now? Why did Yachi think that would change if she told Kiyoko how she felt?
She fixed her determined eyes on Hinata. She gave him a firm nod, and said, “Right!”
Securing her backpack on her shoulders, Yachi turned on her heels and began to walk briskly away. She was ready. She was ready to leave fear in the dust. Tonight, she was no ordinary Yachi. Tonight, she was Brave Yachi!
“Uh, Yachi-san? Yachi-san, you’re going to miss your bus!” Hinata called after her.
Yachi ground to a halt, turned back to Hinata, and marched timidly in the direction of her bus stop. She could put off being Brave Yachi for tomorrow.
And, in her own stammering, shaking, fidgeting way, she did.
At morning practice, up on the balcony, squeezing freshly laundered practice jerseys in her hand, Yachi stuttered her way to courage. She fixed her eyes on the net below, frightened of the uncertainty of looking at Kiyoko’s face. She couldn’t take back her words. She couldn’t take back her feelings.
Then Kiyoko placed her hand on Yachi’s, gently guiding her away from the laundry-lined railing and the shouts of athletes below. It was there that Yachi finally looked into Kiyoko’s eyes. A kind smile. A gentle reciprocity. A warm hug that, all at once, lasted forever and not long enough.
A few weeks, three cafe dates, two matching keychains, and countless texts into the night later, Kiyoko told the other third years. Daichi was happy for them. Suga called dibs on speaking at their wedding. Asahi expressed sympathy for Yachi, his comrade in anxiety, for how scary it must have been to be asked out by an upperclassman. Kiyoko corrected him.
“I still can’t really believe it,” Daichi said as his teammates trickled into the clubroom that afternoon for practice.
“Yeah,” Asahi chuckled. “I definitely wouldn’t be brave enough to do something like that.”
“Brave enough to do what?” Hinata asked over his shoulder, shoving his bag into his locker.
“Didn’t Yachi tell you?” Suga asked. “Yachi confessed to Kiyoko, they’ve been dating for a few weeks now.”
“Huh.” Hinata said. His brain gears whirred to life over the sound of Tanaka’s and Nishinoya’s quiet sobs.
Suddenly, everything clicked.
“Wait!” Hinata shouted. “Yachi likes Kiyoko?!”