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As somewhat of a volleyball veteran and an Aoba Johsai alumnus, Hajime has seen his fair share of catastrophes. But this one definitely takes the cake! For starters, he seems to have lost an entire national men’s volleyball team.
Losing Hinata, Hoshiumi or Bokuto, yeah, that’s just gonna happen. But losing all of them—losing Sakusa —is a telltale sign of disaster.
“Guys?” His voice echoes down the eerily quiet hallway, seeps into the corners and returns to him distorted and unanswered.
Their shoes are all in the entrance hall, yet there is not a single sound to be heard. Not Atsumu yapping, not Sakusa grumbling, not Kageyama complaining, not Yaku kicking people, not Bokuto yelling about whatever it is that Bokuto yells about, not even Aran panicking.
“HeloooOoooo,” Hajime calls again to no avail.
Empty locker room, empty gym, empty showers and Hajime’s paranoia reaching the point where he would not be surprised if he ends up on the set of a slasher movie.
As he makes his way through the training facilities, he starts to wonder. Obviously, Hinata would be the perfect murderer, just because nobody would suspect it. Subsequently, there’d have to be a red herring… probably Ushijima, he just has that face. And if anyone would be the first victim, it’d be Suna, for the sole reason that nothing and nobody would be able to motivate him to get up and run away if he didn’t feel like putting in the effort. Otherwise, it might be Atsumu, because, let’s be honest, his fight-or-flight instinct isn’t the greatest.
Or, quite possibly so, Hajime thinks, he might have a zombie scenario at his hands. In that case, he should watch out for Hoshiumi jumping him out of hidden corners.
No , he shakes his head and pinches his nose. Think, Hajime, think.
There is but one thing that can make a dozen grown volleyball players abandon everything and vanish without a trace and it’s neither death nor the apocalypse: Food .
And indeed he finds them in the kitchen, huddled together over Atsumu’s laptop, sniggering and pointing, all in an unusually good mood, considering that—contrary to Hajime’s suspicion—there is no secret barbeque party that he missed the invite to. Damn, even Hyakuzawa is chuckling like crazy and there is an actual smirk on Kiryuu’s face.
Hajime foregoes both his zombie and slasher scenario in favour of making a mental note to have someone check for gas leaks.
“Whatcha doing?” he asks right into Bokuto’s ear, who is so glued to the screen that he doesn’t notice him approaching.
The wing spiker jumps with a little ‘eek’ and hastily slams the laptop shut, squashing Atsumu’s fingers between the camera and trackpad.
The blond bites his lip to suppress a pained yowl and from the look on his face, Hajime gets the feeling it might have been more merciful to kick him in the nards instead.
And, because a star-setter with squashed fingers will ultimately lead to the trainer’s, aka Hajime’s, head on the chopping block, he can’t even laugh at him. Damn it.
Bokuto.exe has stopped working permanently and so Atsumu is the one who looks up at him through watery eyes. “Haji-kun,” he greets him with a weak wheeze and a smile that is failing horribly in feigning innocence.
“Nothing against leisure time, but you guys know we have a quarter-final tomorrow, right?” Hajime asks.
Affirmative, though in places slightly panicked, mumbling all around and eyes that look absolutely everywhere but Hajime. The ceiling, the floor, the one strand of Hakuba’s hair that managed to escape the hair gel and is sticking out at a 90° angle.
“Hmhm…” Atsumu nods, fervently blinking away tears, voice too cracked to form any more words, fingers still inside his laptop.
“Then why is nobody stretching and what the hell are you all doing here?” Hajime furrows his brow and impatiently reaches for the laptop before the hands that are responsible for his salary receive any more damage.
“Nothing!” Hinata answers way too fast, slamming his hand down on the lid in a motion that is exactly zero per cent as casual as he thinks it is.
This time Atsumu actually screams, before he sags forward, whimpering like a kicked puppy. Hajime’s pretty sure he is just a couple of high-pitched, uncontrolled breaths away from crying.
And while Hajime may be unable to chuckle, that sure doesn’t apply to Sakusa, who snorts with the kind of sentiment that comes closest to amusement while still conveying profound disinterest in everything and everyone around him.
Yet, the wavy-haired spiker has placed himself at the centre of the pulk, hovering right behind Atsumu, squished against Komori and Bokuto, Hyakuzawa breathing down his neck and Ushijima hanging over his shoulder. Germ-city-central, so whatever they were looking at, it must be good .
Hajime would have suspected an advertisement for hand sanitiser or a new designer collection of lint rollers, but that doesn’t explain why everyone else is here too.
“You know, short of applying for Argentinian citizenships, I don’t know what you would want to hide from me that I might get angry about, but you have one minute for someone, anyone , to start talking or I’m getting the hazard bag with Bokuto’s old socks,” Hajime declares, issuing the highest of threats, before he steps back into the doorframe, to make sure nobody runs for it.
From the way Kageyama’s and Hoshiumi’s faces drop in disappointment as they see their exit route blocked, Hajime knows it was the right call. Not that he wouldn’t catch them anyway, but he isn’t the one who’s supposed to do the running in this gym, so why take the chance?
The team huddles together, heads lowered conspicuously.
There is whispering, there is gesturing, then more whispering and in perfect synchrony, fourteen faces turn up to look at him for one deathly silent moment.
Just as Hajime begins to wonder if they’d rather murder him than reveal their secret, they stick their heads back together for more whispering.
It’s definitely more than one minute, but Hajime figures it is a good team-building exercise, so he lets them do their thing anyway and grabs himself a glass of water from the sink.
He is mid-way through his second gulp when the team nods collectively and everyone straightens their backs again.
“You see, Trainer-san,” Yaku clears his throat. “You’re a meme.”
“What?” Hajime blinks at him.
“A meme… a contextual internet phenomenon amusing the masses,” Ushijima explains.
“I know what a meme is, why am I one?”
Yaku opens the laptop, finally releasing Atsumu’s fingers and shows him the Twitter page.
Iwaizumi Hajime (27), athletic trainer.
Yep, Hajime is a meme now.
“What the actual…” he whispers under his breath, shoves Atsumu aside and starts to scroll. “Who… who is the target audience for this?”
He slowly shakes his head in disbelief and that’s when he notices it. The second window behind the Twitter tab. He hovers the mouse above it and a tremor runs through the group.
Ahah! Gotcha.
He clicks it…
“What the hell is this supposed to be?” He looks up and starts staring at Hakuba, who is unlucky enough to be the next best person in Hajime’s general vicinity, with the steely glare that was specifically developed to rein in Hanamaki, Matsukawa and their most outrageous nonsense.
“We were ranking our favourites,” the middle blocker mutters, just barely comprehensible, fidgeting with his fingers and shrinking by the second in a rather futile attempt to hide behind Hoshiumi.
Hajime’s eyes snap back to the screen. The list is at least 20 items long but his gaze catches on the top.
In third place, there is “Training an entire generation of volleyball players and sending them out like Pokémon to get back at your high-school best friend” followed by a picture from their first preliminary game, with the team lined up and Hajime cracking his knuckles in the background.
In second place, “Protect him, he is too precious” and a snapshot of Hajime next to Ushijima, Sakusa, Suna, Hakuba and Hyakuzawa, who all needed to bend down their heads to look at him, probably taken during one of the public training sessions. Hajime feels heat rise to his cheeks and he quickly moves on to read the top vote.
It is titled “character development” and consists of two zoomed-in pictures of his biceps, one in high school and one from their most recent promotional campaign.
For a moment, Hajime’s anger evaporates as he feels his upper arm and a wave of pride sizzles up from his stomach to his chest, then he remembers what he’s looking at and he explodes.
“Suna!” he snarls, hand outstretched.
The fox-faced middle blocker is smart enough not to pretend he doesn’t have his phone on him at all times and hands it to Hajime without complaint.
He dials the number from memory.
> Hanamaki Institute for the chronically untalented, how may I help you? < The voice on the other end greets him.
“I will kill you!” Hajime growls.
> Why this time? <
“On the next occasion where you feel the need to make me into a meme, use a less recognisable picture, smartass.”
>Ahhhhhhhhh,< Hanamaki sighs and Hajime can hear him whisper ‘He found the Twitter’, then a pause and ‘No, I don’t think he knows about the Tumblr yet’.
“Who or what is a ‘Tumblr’!?” Hajime barks and behind him, an immediate and rather violent shuffle for the laptop unfolds.
He sends another death glare over his shoulder, which stops Komori right as his finger is making contact with the ‘Enter’ key.
The libero looks him straight in the eyes. Click.
Hajime makes a note to himself to include more suicide runs in the warm-up routine.
> Purely hypothetically, if I were to tell you it’s a type of cereal, would you believe me? < Hanamaki asks.
“What else of me did you put on the internet?” Hajime sighs in exasperation.
> Well, technically I-< the other starts, but Hajime interrupts him.
“Hand. Me. Matsun.”
There is hasty whispering and the swishing and swooshing of rapid gestures, then he hears Matsukawa hiss ‘Play dumb’ and Hanamaki clears his throat.
> Who’s Matsun? <
Hajime hangs up.
For a moment he stares at the phone, questioning not only himself and the mechanisms that move the universe, but also if he can afford to squash a phone that isn’t his, as he clenches and unclenches his fingers slowly.
It is Aran of all people, who can not keep the snorts in any longer and reminds Hajime of the room full of people, all of who are once again focused on the laptop, tapping the screen and giggling.
Komori has taken over control and Atsumu is nursing his fingertips with still-watery eyes but an impish turn to his lips.
Hajime takes a deep, steadying breath.
“Alright, this ends here and now. Atsumu, laptop! Everyone else, training!” He cracks his knuckles.
“But… but…” the blond perks up with an audible gasp, eyes suddenly shining with the kind of enthusiasm that Hajime knows painfully well from a certain other setter and that he has long since identified as the ignition spark for a truly nuclear amount of absolute and utter nonsense. “Haji-kun, we have a chance here! To study the development of a global hype movement first-hand with the resources to control the spread and content ourselves while documenting the causes and effects on the subject of interest. We could write internet history, we could be famous!”
“Ahah.” Hajime crosses his arms over his chest, looking down at him with a raised brow, “And, if it’s not too much of a bother, but on your way to worldwide fame, can I ask what exactly you thought all of this was? Girl Scouts summer camp bake sale?” He makes a swivelling gesture, pointing out the Olympic rings on the fridge, the glass in his hand, the door, the clock above the door and all of their clothes, right down to the underpants.
“Oh… yeah,” Atsumu’s ears flush bright red and he chuckles weakly, “That.”
Hajime flexes his shoulders and the joints in his lower neck pop loudly.
“Is anyone else feeling the overwhelming urge to switch career paths to meme historian?”
Bokuto’s and Kageyama’s hands shoot up, but Hinata gently tugs at their elbows. “He said meme historian, not meat historian.” And they both deflate with visible disappointment.
“For all I care, you can also become meat historians,” Hajime deadpans dryly, “I just want to know if we can start going over the strategy against Italy anytime soon or if I should just flush it down the toilet because half my team is otherwise occupied with my biceps?” He pulls the starting lineup for tomorrow’s quarter-final from his back pocket and waves it in front of the team.
For a moment everyone looks at him and his notes, then Suna slowly leans closer to Sakusa and mumbles: “Is there usually a time when we are not occupied with his biceps?”
Komori sniggers like the maniac he is, and Hakuba’s cheeks flush a much too bright pink.
“Sure, when we’re occupied with his glutes,” Sakusa replies, not even trying to keep his voice down.
“Excuse me?” Hajime splutters.
“They are very respectable,” Ushijima nods solemnly as if that would make it any better. “A good inspiration.”
“Yeah, you should be thankful for our interest!” Hoshiumi exclaims, slamming his hand down on the table with an accusatory glare, “I have been doing extra squats for weeks now but none of you guys have even noticed.”
All eyes turn to the spiker and his backside. Sakusa is smart enough to preventatively grab Bokuto by the collar before he can satisfy his curiosity through evaluative groping of the glutes in question.
Hajime looks at Yaku, the last sane person in the room, and mouths ‘Help me’.
“Well, why did you think you got hired as the athletic trainer?” The libero raises a brow at him. “Did you really believe anyone would do those nasty jumping jacks if we didn’t actually see them paying off?”
Hajime opens his mouth to protest, but then he realises he is not getting paid enough to deal with any of this and also the libero kind of has a point. Maybe. To some degree.
And perhaps it is time that someone appreciated Hajime’s personal efforts. Maybe. To some degree.
“Whatever,” he mumbles.
“Oh. My. God,” Atsumu giggles, “Haji-kun is blushing.”
“I am not blushing!” Hajime yelps.
“Blushing,” Kiryuu nods.
“Definitely blushing,” Sakusa adds.
“One hundred per cent blushing,” Suna confirms.
“Couldn’t be more blushing even if you tried.” Yaku clicks his tongue.
“TRAINING, NOW!” Hajime yells and until the day he dies he will keep denying with all his might, that his voice may or may not have been a few pitches too high.