Chapter Text
Sakusa Kisa, the younger sister of Sakusa Kiyoomi, could more or less be known as her older brother's mirror image. From looks and hobbies, they could be mistaken as fraternal twins to the strangers eye.
Her facial structure is a bit more softer than his, her nose is rounder than Kiyoomi’s but still pointed. Mid-length semi-curly hair that barely counts as brown but isn't pure black either, dark brown eyes, and moles on her face located on her lip and under her right eye.
Growing up, she followed many of the things her brother did, she aspired to be like him. She thought he was so cool, and being the kind brother that he was, he saw it as endearing. She thought volleyball was the coolest sport once her brother started playing and even asked him to teach her so they could play together.
They were so similar, it was uncanny.
She didn’t find it embarrassing, it was just that no one could compare to him. Being so close in age, it was bound that they would enjoy each other's company, be similar, and have matching personalities.
Even so, as time passed, she was consistently being compared to him by the adults as they made it more of an insult. They would chuckle at her for following her brother all the time. It made her second guess herself, as she felt nearly invisible, when they never addressed her by her name anymore.
Kiyoomi’s little fan, Kiyoomi’s twin, Kiyoomi’s puppy, Kiyoomi’s shadow.
I mean, who would like to be compared constantly to your sibling every time you guys were together? Saying one was better than the other, right in front of your face, thinking it was hilarious to say.
When asked on her thirteenth birthday what she wished for, with full confidence and not an inch of hesitation she stated, “To be better than Omi!”
The adults and everyone gave her a pity chuckle, thinking she was just stating it to be funny. But she made sure to look at her brother, to let him know she was deadly serious.
Kisa felt that having a light rivalry with her brother was something to motivate her. She needed this motivation to not feel like his shadow anymore. It’s not like she made that statement out of hate. Even after the party, she made sure to clear that up with him.
He just chuckled and nodded, ensuring that there were no hard feelings with the statement.
He even said, “I’m excited for what you’ll make of yourself. It gets tiring to be Kiyoomi’s shadow, right?”
I’m not his shadow. I can do things and be noticed as Kisa, not just Kiyoomi’s shadow.
As time passed, she scored everything Kiyoomi did, sometimes even better.
She was a shining star in school, with the best grades, and even graduated high school as valedictorian. At the beginning of the year people would know her as Kiyoomi’s sister, but by the end of the year she was known as Kisa. She was proud of herself as she was making her name to be known. She continued playing volleyball for her school's team too. Kiyoomi would come to almost all of her games and she would go to all of his.
Although they were fun rivals, they were each other's number one supporters. After good or bad games, they held hours on end conversations about what they did, the ‘what ifs’, and what they should've done. She was thrilled for him when he was chosen for All-Japan, his huge games nearing the end of his high school career, and even his biggest achievement so far; being an outside hitter for the MSBY Black Jackals team.
Now, at the age of 20, Kisa had a different path than her brothers.
She is a college student at her hometown’s biggest university. Although she doesn't want to be in the big league like her brother, she still plays for her school's team. She has fun now, not too stuck up about her competition with her brother, but they find ways to be sarcastic with one another about who is the best or how many points they scored at their games.
Currently, she is in her last year at the university. Smarter than her brother, Kisa was able to begin university classes before high school graduation, having a two-year head start over the rest of her class. She took classes in the summer and replaced all her unnecessary high school classes with college courses. It was easy to say the least, choosing to be a business major would help her decide on a solid career once she graduated. During her time in school, she took language courses and in total knows four languages. Japanese, English, Spanish, and JSL (Japanese Sign Language).
In all, she’s doing great for herself. She found who she is and who she wants to be. Her brother takes note that she stopped having the cloud over her head about being better and became her own person. She was more lively than he was, not too introverted. She grew out of her nervous phase when making eye contact with others and made easy conversation with people in her class and team. She, thankfully, still had her cleanliness and even had a quick mouth to people she didn’t like. Sarcastic and funny towards her friends, she ended up being a lot of people's light in the room. When she was mad though, she ended up going completely silent at some points refusing to speak. She's stubborn and most of the time would resort to conversing in sign for days on end until her anger subsided. It wasn’t ideal for anyone that didn’t know sign language, so Kiyoomi was forced to start learning from her if he wanted to understand anything that she was saying.
When it came to volleyball, she was the loudest on the court. The complete opposite of Kiyoomi, when she hit a spike, jump serve, or block, she would yell in excitement. For someone who didn’t have that much muscle, the ball would never fail to make the loudest sound when it hit the floor. Kisa wasn’t much of a bulky person but she kept her figure. She loved focusing on her legs for workouts but hated having her shoulders too wide, but everything else is fine. She never focused on having abs, she doesn’t care for them on herself. She was decently tall for a girl, being at a solid 5’8”, which is definitely helpful for blocking. Her teammates thought she was amazing, she made all the games fun regardless of winning or losing. They even thought she was insane for not accepting the captain position, but Kisa knew that she was not a leader or person to look up to.
At some points, she does think about the idea of being going pro. It never hurt, but the thought was always pushed out when she noticed that her love for volleyball was not enough to take a position like that. She already refused to take the captain position, what right did she have to think about going pro? She accepted the fact that, compared to her brother, her priority wasn’t volleyball. Nothing was wrong with that, she would never want to continue something she didn’t have motivation for anymore, and if volleyball was one of those things then so be it.
Of course, she will finish her last year of volleyball with her team, but she was excited about graduating and doing something more. She at least wanted to live her last year of college, full of youth and excitement, before heading out into the big world.
What was waiting for her was something she would expect the least.
September 2nd, Thursday
“Oh come on Kisa, what is so wrong with the date I set up for you?” Her friend, and captain, Hana had been begging for her to go on this double date for the past two weeks.
It was the beginning of the fall semester for them. The sun was warm, being able to wear jeans and a tank top comfortably, as they were heading their way towards their class for the day. Both girls had similar classes, so walking together was common.
“Hana, I told you I’m not interested in dating. Why do you continually ignore that?” Kisa laughed dryly at her friend, who was pouting and giving her the puppy dog eyes.
“Because,” Hana sighed, “You're one of the few on the team who’s single. I mean at this point it looks a bit sad Kisa.”
“Ouch captain.”
“Sorry! Sorry! I just, I don't know. You’ve never had a boyfriend before and we’re in college! When we have games, I feel bad when it's your brother coming to support instead of a boyfriend.” She understood her captain's intentions, but couldn’t let the moment of a snarky remark pass.
“So you’re pitying me?” Hana’s eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped.
“Oh my god, no! Did it sound like that? I am so sorry.” Worry filled Hana’s voice as Kisa began to laugh hysterically. Although being captain of the team, Hana was the nicest person Kisa has ever met. Hana could never bring herself to be rude to anyone, no matter how they treated her, she had too kind of a heart. Kisa enjoyed pulling her strings a bit, sometimes too much.
Kisa knew what Hana was trying to get at though. She’s never dated. It’s not like she was too busy to date, it’s just that no one piqued her interest. She didn’t get ‘butterflies’ or was ‘swoon over’ for the hottest boy in school. Kisa just kept to herself, and at this point, she isn’t in much of a rush to date.
“Hana, really, I’m fine with being single. I rather not date someone I have no interest in anyways. Plus, my brother is my biggest supporter, why would I want to lose that?” Hana gave her kind eyes, understanding Kisa was never going to give it a chance.
“Fine, fine. I’ll let him know later that it won’t work out.”
Kisa let out a sigh of relief, “Thank god.” Both girls gave each other a light giggle and walked into class.
It was an easy day for Kisa since she only had three classes this semester, one class being on its own individual day. Every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday she had classes some time the morning. They were some of the easier ones so classwork for them only took two hours out of her day.
She unlocked her apartment door and walked in, making sure to leave the keys on the hook and place her bookbag near the cubby shelf.
Kisa shared an apartment just outside of campus. She hated living in the dorms last semester so she asked her parents if they could help pay for off-campus living, although her brother was not very fond of the idea at first.
“Do you really need to live off-campus?” Kisa was on the phone with her brother who had just finished practice and had a little bit of free time.
“Omi, the people here are disgusting. I can’t continue to share a bathroom with five other people anymore.” It was true, her dorm mates weren’t up to her clean standards and never really bothered to work with her on a cleaning schedule.
“What if you get a stalker? Someone following you to your apartment at night? Someone breaking in? Have you considered those things yet?” She could hear her brother's worry on the other side of the line.
“Let's be real for a second, would you even bother to come to visit me in my dorm?” There was silence on the other end, giving Kisa her answer, “Exactly, I’m living off-campus. It's final.”
She's gotten quite used to her apartment and can at least handle living with one other person. She keeps good order around the place and her roommate, also a fellow libero teammate, respects it.
“Kisa? Is that you?” A voice called out from the bathroom.
Kisa walked to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, and walked to the living room as she plopped down on the couch to turn on the small television.
“Yeah Mio, it's me.” She heard the shower turn off and some movement until the door opened to show her roommate wrapped in a towel.
“Hey! How was class?” Mio had her hair wrapped up, looking a bit red on her face since she took a hot shower, and sat on the couch.
“Pretty good. A professor totally went off on a kid who was popping gum in his mouth, it was hilarious.” They both giggled and had continued small talk about their day until Mio decided to finally get dressed.
“Hey, is it alright if I borrowed this shirt? I got a double date tonight.” Kisa quirked her eyebrow in interest.
“Is it with Hana?”
“Yeah, how’d you know?” Kisa chuckled, knowing that Hana indeed did not let the guy know it wasn’t going to work out. Kisa got up from the couch and went to their shared room. She stood at the door frame and observed the shirt Mio was holding up, making sure it wasn't a new piece of clothing she hasn’t worn yet.
She shrugged, “Just a hunch, but yeah that's fine.” Mio nodded and brought the shirt to her bed.
The apartment they shared was small, but it was comfortable. They had one bedroom, but sharing was no big deal since they had a big enough bathroom and a walk-in closet to make up for it. The living area was a decent enough size to fit half a couch and the kitchen didn’t have a dishwasher, but it was fine for Kisa since she felt that dishwashers didn’t clean well enough.
They both have similar tastes in decoration style and furniture, so agreeing on things was easy for them, hence why they agreed to move in together. They allowed neutral colors, not too bright and not too dull, and made it their own by the time they fully moved in. They had a couple of plants, a bookshelf, fluffy pillows, round tables, basically their dream apartment.
Now fully dressed, Mio walked back to the living room where Kisa returned to, “Look! Hana sent me a picture of the guy I’m going to be with, want to see?”
“Uh, sure I guess.” Mio handed her the phone and she looked at the image of the mystery man.
She was thankful she denied it, but she made sure not to make any faces until Mio said something.
“He’s cute right?” She looked up from the phone to see Mio with a genuine smile on her face. Kisa could tell the girl was excited, so she was going to avoid crushing her friend's spirits.
Keeping a small smile, being as nice as possible, “Yeah, he’s alright. Good luck tonight.” She handed Mio back the phone and Mio nodded.
“Thank you, I’ll be out at 6 if that's cool. I want to say don’t expect me to be back tonight, but I don’t want to jinx myself. I’ll text you if anything.” Kisa nodded and looked down at her phone to check the time.
5:38 p.m.
“Make sure you don’t overdo yourself and don’t get too drunk. Remember that last time? You almost started strip-.”
“Okay! Kisa, I don’t really need to be reminded about my drunk adventures that I remember!” Kisa bursted into laughter once she saw how red in the face her friend got, hearing about the embarrassing moment the last time she got too tipsy.
Getting up from her spot on the couch, Kisa went to get her bookbag and started walking towards the bedroom, “I’m going to do a bit of work, let me know when you leave.” Mio gave her a thumbs up, drinking out the water bottle Kisa took out earlier.
She placed her bag on the rug and climbed on the bed. She wasn’t much of a person who liked to do her homework at a desk, even though being on the bed gave her bad posture, she liked being under warm covers.
While typing up some answers for a mini quiz, she felt her phone buzz. She stopped mid-typing and picked up the device, reading a text she got.
Omiii - Got a game next week in your area, want to come?