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2.
“Hitoka-chan,” Shimizu-senpai said, once, “remember that there are somethings in life are worth fighting for, no matter what.”
It was lunchtime, and they were on the Karasuno school building’s rooftop. Hitoka was sitting with her back to the hot metal railing, picking through her bento without much appetite. She’d overcooked her eggs that morning, and her rice was too sticky, the kernels gelatinous.
Shimizu-senpai was leaning against the banister, arms folded along the top, face lifted to the sun. Her own lunch lay on the floor, forgotten. Hitoka tilted her head to look up at her, and was momentarily breathless: Shimizu-senpai, delineated with liquid gold, hair caught afire with afternoon sunlight.
Not for the first time, Hitoka wondered why Shimizu-senpai chose to eat lunch with her, and not her senior-year friends. Shimizu-senpai was popular; anyone with eyes could see that. People swooned in the school’s hallways, when Shimizu-senpai walked past. Hitoka, meanwhile, was a nonentity, with nothing to recommend her.
3.
Shimizu-senpai had laughed, when Hitoka told her this, early on in their friendship. “You have a very low opinion of yourself, Hitoka-chan,” she’d said, and ruffled Hitoka’s hair. “You’ve plenty to recommend you: you’re smart, creative, a wonderful conversation partner. You’re really cute, too, did you know that?” This last was said with one of her rare, quirky open-mouthed smiles: lips pulling back, briefly, to show a very white, snaggletoothed grin.
Hitoka had spluttered, tried to protest, but it was hard, to argue with Shimizu-senpai when she was smiling at Hitoka with such open, candid affection. Hitoka was starting to realize that Shimizu-senpai could be distractedly unguarded, when she wanted to.
Shimizu-senpai had quietened, afterward, looked pensive. “Earlier, you answered yourself. It’s hard to be friends with people who don’t see you as a person, Hitoka-chan.”
Hitoka was not entirely sure what she meant, but repeating the question out loud would be silly. It didn’t stop her from reiterating it to herself, though.
5.
Anyway – that day, on the roof: when several minutes elapsed, and Hitoka did not reply, Shimizu-senpai turned to look at her, and caught Hitoka staring. She smiled, a knowing, wry set to the line of her mouth. Hitoka colored, cheeks burning.
Shimizu-senpai’s hair fluttered in the wind.
“Were you listening to me, Hitoka-chan, or are you daydreaming about something else?”
7.
Hitoka remembers the conversation now, standing outside the nondescript office door, steeling her shoulders, her folder under her arm: remembers the don’t forget how important you are, Hitoka-chan, and the sometimes the things you start on a whim are the ones that become the most important to you and the you can do this, you can do this, you can do this.
She wonders what Shimizu-senpai went on to do, if she became a lawyer or a doctor or a motivational speaker. It’s strange, how it is only after the important people in your life leave that you realize you know so little about them.
“Come in,” a voice calls, from the other side of the door.
If she doesn’t get this job – well. Hitoka’s mother has always been supportive, but, “I didn’t know you were going to make volleyball your life, Hitoka.”
Hitoka turns the handle. She takes a deep breath, and steps into the room.
11.
“Good afternoon,” Hitoka says (you can do this, you can do this, you can do this), “I’m here to apply for the coaching position?”
13.
There is a tall, dark-haired woman on the other side of the desk, standing at the window with her hands clasped behind her back. She turns, slowly, chin-length black hair quivering. Her smile is even more blinding than Hitoka remembers.
“Hello, Hitoka-chan.”
end.