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You’re Hinata Shoyou: Seventeen, failing English, and watching out for the eyes of the world.
(They’re watching you. They aren’t yet. They will.)
(A camera in the stand shutters. For a moment you imagine Sugawara asking you if you’re okay, but it vanishes quickly. He’s not here now, you remind yourself.)
(Sugawara’s off to college, probably. Before he left he told you that he wanted to be a teacher, it was unfathomable to you at the time. Why would you leave volleyball? Your home? Your origin? Now, you think you understand him a bit more.)
—
Kageyama left.
You’re sitting next to Karasuno’s gym, pressed against the wall, and he took one look at you and the wetness of your cheeks and left.
(You ignore the flash of concern you saw in his eyes. It was just a fluke, you tell yourself. You’re not in your right mind.)
You don’t know when he’s going to come back. If he will. You’re scared. There’s a snake growing in your chest and it’s not constricting, rather slithering and sliding between your organs. It’s nauseating. Vile.
(You’re fifteen years old and a bird stuck in a tree, broken wings and all.)
The snake makes its way down to your stomach. You’re cold. The concrete is wet and you can’t tell if it’s from your tears or the rain or—
“Dumbass,” Kageyama sits next to you, tossing you a red sports drink. “I’m right here.”
“Like you’re one to speak,” Your voice cracks. He rolls his eyes and doesn’t mention that your fault lines are moving.
—
Izumi’s eyes are kind. Nice. You forgot how pretty he was. Looking at him hurts now.
(He smiles at you, and you want to cry. Regrets pooling behind your eyes. You tell yourself it's over now. Done with. Will it ever actually be over?)
He was in the basketball club, right? You can’t remember. Your middle school memories are filled with begging and crying and the pain of breaking in a new volleyball on your bare hands.
(He congratulates you. You want him to say ‘We should catch up sometime’ or ‘I heard about this cool place down the road’ or any other stupid fucking excuse to spend time with you. He doesn’t.)
(You lost that chance after all, didn’t you?)
—
They pass you a card, a key to the universe, a birthday. Sixteen, it reads. Happy Birthday, it also reads. You trace the embedded letters, trailing your fingers to the fold of the card and opening it.
It’s your mother’s handwriting:
To my favorite (and only) Son.
(It’s capitalized as if it’s a holy word. As though the word Son will come to haunt her if she doesn’t capitalize it.)
(The capitalization was probably a typo. A mistake. That doesn’t stop you from thinking. Wondering. Your mother is watching you, her son. Your sister is watching you, her older brother.)
You wonder what your father would say if he were here. Would he call you his son or his Son? Or maybe neither of those. Maybe he wouldn’t call you anything, he certainly doesn’t bother to call you on the phone.
(Daichi calls you, though. Happy Birthday, he says. I’m glad I have the chance to play on the same team as you.)
—
You’re the little giant. You’re not. You want to be. Will you ever be?
You contemplate dyeing your hair black, late one night. The cashier of the run-down store is staring at you as you skim your fingers across the boxes of hair dye on display in aisle three. Daring you to make the leap. You wonder whether you would fall or fly.
There’s a girl on the box of black dye — she has soft hair. Pretty hair. You want that. You also want to be the Little Giant.
Successful volleyball player. You heard they were an insomniac mangaka now.
Respected by their team. You heard the laughs in the background of one of their high school interviews.
Short, but can fly even higher than their predators. Ah, that one holds true. But you already can fly, can’t you?
(Do you really want to be them, or do you just want to escape yourself?)
—
Hoshiumi has a smug grin. You want to wear a grin like that.
(Or maybe you want to wipe it off his face. You haven’t decided yet.)
—
Before you discovered volleyball, there were lines drawn in pencil on the wall of your room. Your mother drew them, the lines. She also wrote the numbers next to them and dotted her c’s. She was always smart like that.
After you discovered volleyball, the lines became your own. You took the pencil out of her hands and stabbed the top of your head trying to reach up, up, up and measure yourself. Measure your limits, just to break them anyways.
—
(A figure stands in the way. You spread your wings and shed your feathers over them, blinding them with cartilage and debris.)
—
The first time someone approaches you, you freeze. They ask you if you’re Hinata Shouyou and, for a moment, your mouth locks. You don't know what to say. Your tongue swells up as you wonder if you really are Him, or if you’re just an incomplete boy posing as him. If you’re just faking your time on the court.
You really shouldn't be proud of me, you want to scream. I didn't actually try, did I?
(Your bleeding hands and cramped toes tell you differently. You ignore them.)
The microphone in your face is going to electrocute you soon if you don't reply, so you nod.
—
It gets easier, over time. Your eighteenth birthday comes and goes like an ocean’s tide, never sticking around long enough to make it feel real, like it actually happened, but all the evidence is there regardless. You're getting older, volleyball is slipping through your fingers like it’s sand.
(It's only the start, though. The applications lying on your desk are proof of that.)
—
You don't know how it happened or where it came from, but the nickname Ninja Shouyou fits you and you swear to yourself that you'll live up to the name. Your name.
—
You’re twenty years old and Kageyama’s in Rio. You watch him on the screen as he plays for Japan and you wonder if he’s thinking about you at all right now.
(You think about Izumi and his smile and how you don't even know where he is now.)
(“Dumbass.” “I’m right here.”)
—
Your sister skips school to meet you at the airport the day you return to Japan. Your mom has tears in her eyes but only smiles as she welcomes you back. You let her draw another line above your head and you both giggle when it turns out you’re just a bit taller than her now.
(Natsu has her own felt-tip lines on the wall now, too. You promise her that you’ll be there for her next game.)
—
Kamei Arena Sendai smells like icy hot spray and fresh Onigiri. Atsumu smiles at the familiar smell while you get a rush of excitement. Kageyama greets you outside of the bathroom. The adrenaline rushes through your bloodstream at an all time high.
The world is watching. The city is watching.
(Your friends are watching.)
—
The game is over. You won. Your team won the game.
(And all you can think about is the next one.)