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Yachi’s nineteen when she finds them. Derby is making its comeback hard and fast, though all she remembers is the Roller Game scene of the 90s, crackling through the TV set. Over 20% of her prefecture is parks, and the biggest star from her town she can remember is a trans boy who skated for the Tokyo Bombers, and the most motivation Yachi’s ever felt is the quiet kind that tells you to keep staying alive.
Nineteen is pretty young to find your people, but it’s also pretty long to have gone without them.
*
She’s a graphic design student, and the world feels out of focus. If she could reach through the screen and adjust some values here and there, she might finally stop having to strain. Two-thirds through her first year and she is thinking of the design company her mother works for — how they’ll probably recruit her into an entry-level job if she just stays where she is for another year and a third. All she has to do is stay still. All she has to do is—
“I’m so sorry!” Yachi says, and the person she barrelled into doing the opposite of staying still says it simultaneously — which makes the whole situation much worse, in her opinion, because she’s clearly the one who needs to be doing the apologising. Okay, so if I bow really low now, I won’t have to look them in the eyes, or at whatever I just knocked out of their hands, for another few seconds. Oh my god, what if it was a baby? No — this isn’t a disaster. This isn’t a disaster. Breathe.
Unhelpfully, the bow brings her directly at eye level with the once-stack — now-graveyard — of flyers the stranger had been carrying.
Actually, Yachi thinks, this is definitely a disaster.
“No, I mean I’m really, really sorry,” Yachi tilts ten more degrees into the bow, her voice dropping to a scandalised whisper. “Oh my god. Look at your fliers! They’re all over the ground. They were so glossy, too.”
The fliers are very professionally produced, even if she has no idea what they’re advertising at first glance. It’s on brochure paper in an inkjet blur of dates and venues and contact details and SEEKING LINEUP MANAGER, and there’s a professional logo for the Karasuno Rollerbirds stamped into the bottom left corner, and all of that almost mitigates the hilarious contrast of the centrepiece graphic, which is an amateurish drawing of someone on roller skates halfway into the act of falling over. It kind of represents how she feels right now, at least.
When she surfaces from the bow, the stranger is looking her dead in the eyes. Yachi’s eyes are out of focus now, half from the collision and half from sheer anxiety, but it’s impossible not to register that the person she ran into is literally, aesthetically flawless. More to the point, they’re probably immensely and justifiably judging the hell out of her, but the flawlessness doesn’t exactly make that any easier to swallow. Yachi tenses up, feeling ready to shatter into a thousand pieces at any moment now, and fixes her eyes as quickly as possible on the view of the arts campus building just past the stranger’s face.
Cautiously, they adjust their gaze to fall just short of Yachi’s eyes. They still haven’t said anything, though for a moment their eyebrows raise as though they might be about to. It’s just as relieving as it is mystifying, and Yachi is more than ready to fill the gaps.
“I’m just going to pick these up for you,” she smiles, equal parts bright and choked, “and, like— get out of your way, okay?”
Without waiting for a response, she bends down and starts gathering the scattered fliers into the neatest pile she can muster before thrusting them at the stranger. At the very least, it stops her from apologising for a moment or two. Rather than taking the fliers, though, they glance down at them, push up the frame of their glasses, and let their eyes meet Yachi’s for another intense split-second.
“If you’d like,” they break the silence, at last, “feel free to take one for yourself, too.”
Yachi stares back, and immediately regrets it, because their hair is incredible. This isn’t the time to be thinking about that, though, because they clearly expect an answer, and from the look on their face it’s entirely possible Yachi’s blurted it out loud — or worse yet, she’s encountered an actual mind-reader, and they’ve been listening to her existential crisis grimly play out the whole time without saying a word, because that’d be way too mortifying, and blow her cover besides, and now that Yachi’s realised she’s a mind-reader it’s entirely possible the government is going to—
“O—Of course!” Yachi says, emphatically, swiping about three of the fliers — the fliers whose meaning she still hasn’t parsed in the slightest — from the top of the pile before almost tossing them back. “I’m definitely interested!” Rambling like this beats theorising about her inevitable death, at least. “My name is Hitoka Yachi! I’m a first-year graphic design student here! I’d really like to thank you for your patience, and— I’ll be in contact soon, okay?”
“Kiyoko Shimizu,” they incline their head, some of the hair tucked behind their ear falling out of place in the process. They fix it so quickly it might never have happened at all, then pause, as though they’re going to stop there. “Actually, I wanted to say that I appreciate you showing interest in the position. Most students I’ve asked didn’t treat roller derby as an option.”
Before Yachi can figure out a reply that doesn’t betray her total ignorance of what she’d just committed to, Kiyoko straightens up the stack of flyers, bows again, and rushes off in the direction of one of the Karasuno campus buildings. Hitoka gives herself a minute to stare after her, as though standing still like this might compensate.
*
The moment she gets home, Yachi plugs the landline in and looks up roller derby, and the Karasuno Rollerbirds, and the Tokyo Bombers skater that grew up a fifteen-minute walk away from her house. He was 170 centimetres and lighter than derby fame would suggest and he’d changed his name a year after Yachi, then once again to skate in the Roller Game League. Crash of the Titans, she remembers now. She’d never heard anyone in her town call him by anything else.
Then she looks at the flyer for the managerial position, and when their next practice session is happening.
*
What she finds is the only venue in the prefecture, run-down and a bus ride away but buzzing with something about to happen. She’s there early in a floaty silhouette and pale gradients, with a transparent bag shaped like the head of an alien. It’s easier to remember being terrified by Kiyoko than the specifics of how she’d looked, but she knows she wants to impress her on the follow-through.
Putting Kiyoko in context here is different, though, in a way that makes Yachi feel more visible than she should. She hadn’t given much thought to the willowy girl in the velvet pencil skirt being part of a scene, but it’s hard to avoid now that she’s surrounded by the skaters taking time off the track. Back when she’d seen glimpses of Roller Game, they’d been wearing standard sports uniforms. Today, to put it bluntly, she’s never seen so few straight people in such a crowded room. Assuming by appearances is a complex thing, especially as Yachi has no idea how she’d assume by her own appearance, but she sees the choppy-cut hair under the helmets and the fishnets and her heart blooms with the kind of low-key terror that comes with too much kinship too soon.
It’s too late, if anything. But it makes her pause before she weaves her way through the rows of empty seats, her footsteps alerting Kiyoko and the throng of teams here for practice before anything else.
When she spots Yachi, Kiyoko catches her eye, then glances in the direction of a quiet spot. When they’re standing on the edge of the room, out of earshot from where the skaters filter in and out of the track area, the other girl gives her that same meaningful flicker of her eyes before she speaks.
“I’m sorry if I made things uncomfortable the other day,” she says. It’s the kind of apology that she’s totally going out of her way to make, so Yachi doesn’t read the tautness of her voice as anything other than her disposition. “Words don’t always come naturally to me in new situations.”
“No, no, no, you’re in good company!” Yachi waves her hands in front of her chest, because she really should be the one apologising, again, and it’s only her fear of accidentally turning this into an apology competition that stops her from doing just that. “I mean, I don’t know if you could tell, but words were kind of coming too naturally to me back there, so.”
“Admittedly,” she smiles, dry but unjudgmental, “I may have gathered.”
The smile fades as soon as it came, and Yachi isn’t so out of touch with her emotions that she can’t identify the surge of what comes next as fondness. They stand in silence for a few seconds, before her compulsion to tell the truth is too much for her to bear.
“Okay, so, I have something to tell you,” she swallows, then manages to blurt in the space of a breath, “I said I’d come here because after I ran into you I started panicking and I couldn’t really stop, but I don’t actually know that much — or anything, really — about roller derby, so I’m really really sorry for getting your hopes up but I’m probably definitely not the manager you’re looking for at all. But then I looked your team up, and the history, and I was super, super amazed by it all, so— I kind of came here anyway? If you’ll have me?”
Kiyoko looks at her earnestly for a few seconds, then breaks out in another unguarded smile.
“That’s fine! Actually, I’d be worried if anyone agreed to take the position so quickly,” she admitted. “So there really is no pressure. You’re welcome to be a spectator for as long as you want.”
For a moment Yachi suspects that’s the most words she’ll get out of Kiyoko today, but Kiyoko shows her around, then points out the regional teams that are here today for practice. Right now it’s Karasuno and Wakutani on the rink, and while Kiyoko doesn’t directly introduce her to anyone yet, she can feel their glances occasionally on the two of them as they walk. Mostly, though, their focus is entirely on the glassy stretch of the track in front of them. Intense — that’s what they look like even now, more so than Yachi’s ever been about anything.
Kiyoko points them out as they walk. The one at the front of the line shouting orders when the coaches aren’t, and looking distressingly normative compared to the rest of them, is the captain Sawamura: he’s a blocker. Right behind him with the silver hair is Sugawara: they’re a jammer, and the brain behind all the strategies and signals they started off with. The other jammer with the jet-black undercut is Kageyama: they’re newer, but from the way Kiyoko talks they have some serious history of the complicated kind. Then there’s the rest of the blockers: Nishinoya and Tanaka (the first’s skin as drenched in calligraphy as the second is pierced, and both shouting at each other with practically every stroke of their skates), and Tsukishima and Yamaguchi (the goth contingent, Yachi thinks, then immediately judges herself for thinking that). Ennoshita, Narita, and Kinoshita are the other blockers, though their part-time schedules mean they end up playing less often.
The one with the stripe on her helmet and glitter streaked through her beard and the technicolour hairband peeking out: that’s Azumane, the pivot. And the one right behind her with the same helmet is her main competition. Kiyoko talks about all of them with the same slightly sparse neutrality, but it’s obvious she finds Hinata intriguing. He’s been here for a year; he’s a natural talent; he turned up having so many problems with Kageyama that, in Kiyoko’s words, “we were all sure there was going to be a problem of the legal kind”. Something must have changed, because she talks about them like they’re a matched set now. As they circle through, Kageyama grasps onto Hinata’s hand, flips the cover off their helmet and presses it onto his right as they swing him forward, round the next breakneck bend.
It’s a dance— it’s flying. And they’re all wearing wings on their backs, like it’s natural. She needs to be a part of this, Yachi thinks, but then she catches a glimpse of herself in the glassy tracks and it’s back to you don’t belong here, I see you, I see you.
*
“Like I said before, there’s absolutely no pressure,” Kiyoko says before she leaves, then smooths out her skirt. Then fixes her gaze on the skaters streaking past in the distance, as though she’s talking to them. “Either way, would you like to exchange numbers?”
*
Kiyoko keeps the boundaries firm, probably because she really doesn’t want there to be any pressure after their first mix-up on the manager issue, and waits for Yachi to text first. Yachi looks at the entry in her phone and waits three days longer than she’d like to, then accidentally pours all of her enthusiasm into what she does send.
★hitoka~chan★: hey!!! it’s yachi. i guess we never really see each other around university because you’re a medic and that’s way more intense than anything i can imagine doing and being a manager on top of that probably means you’re superhuman, or something. so how are you doing? i’ve been thinking about the whole manager thing and i really want to see everyone in action, so if you wanted to we could meet up at the next game?
★hitoka~chan★: but there’s no pressure if you are busy!!!! i just hope things are going well, ok?
She has to scroll to read back on the whole message. She doesn’t even know if this counts as hitting on her. A few minutes later, her phone pings up with the response.
Shimizu: Don’t worry. Of course I’m not too busy to meet you. I know I’ve said it already, but you should take all the time you need for this decision.
Yachi’s halfway through texting back when the next message comes through:
Shimizu: Business aside, it’ll be a pleasure to see you again.
That was all the push she needed to switch messaging tabs to Yui’s. They’d known each other long enough to have a standing mutual arrangement for panicking into each other’s inboxes, even if a significant portion of the time they'd known each other had involved them dating and panicking about each other.
★hitoka~chan★: so OKAY yui is it weird if i’m flirting with the woman i mentioned??? the one i ran into the other day who asked me if i wanted to help manage her roller derby team with her? i mean she’s not the one in charge of whether i get hired or not and it’s more a volunteer thing than a job thing and it’s all kind of low key but???
★hitoka~chan★: well i guess that does sound kind of weird now that i've said it but. do i have a chance?
(｀-´)>michimiyatan: well it’s definitely weirder than our relationship was. and that’s saying something
Hitoka leans against the back of her desk chair; the ceiling definitely is an attractive view right about now. She’d held out for several days on the text message to play it cool and Kiyoko had responded immediately, and it's maybe even harder to divine what she means in writing. Her simultaneous bluntness and reservedness is both totally valid and kind of cute in Yachi’s opinion, but it doesn't exactly make it any easier to get a read on her in the flirting way specifically. After a long interlude of ceiling-staring, Yachi goes back to staring down her messages with Kiyoko, to devise the perfect reply.
★hitoka~chan★: okay!!! i understand if you’re busy with manager things but it’d be cool to catch up after the game, then?
Shimizu: I can do better than that. :)
*
A weekend later and she’s staring death in the face at the front row of the rink. As it turns out, what Kiyoko had meant by better was the best seat in the house.
Before she leaves to prep the team, Kiyoko makes sure — really makes sure — that she's alright, that she has an exit strategy through her aisle seat, that the rails are high enough. For a few moments, Yachi’s foolish enough to pretend to both Kiyoko and herself that she’s alright. (She has a vested interest in performing her total chill-ness to the former, after she sees her draped in a leather jacket with spikes as long as her eyeliner wings; she can’t find any such reason to keep fooling herself.)
Jittery was a less accurate way to describe it than profoundly cataloguing the details of every worst-case scenario possible, including the ones that involve alien kidnappings, but then Karasuno had skated out with their Halloween-sale wings flapping in the jetstream and any thoughts of an exit strategy had vanished. An lanky announcer with a choppy bob (oh, we’re in for a ride, it’s Saeko today, someone behind her had whispered) had taken the mic to go rapid-fire on their names — number two-sixty-three! your captain! Dai Hard; number one-forty-nine! Sugar ’n’ Spice; number three-eighty-seven! Raven Mayhem, and the line-up keeps going, circling past the rails like a foraging flock.
It’s when the opposing team skates out that it hits her: Yachi can’t manage this, in any sense of the word. She can’t even be a part of this. The pressure’s threatening to force her heart out of her body, whichever way out hurts the most, and this isn’t even a ranked match.
The Nekoma Hellcats streak through in crimson, and the names and numbers are as much of a blur as their captain’s obnoxious smirk at this speed; her heart’s going too fast, her brain’s going too slow, her stomach’s going too far away. She could tell from sitting in on practice that Karasuno was something special, but watching it play out like this isn’t something that’s ever happened to her, and maybe it’s helplessness, she feels, actually. Karasuno brings in their first five: Hinata, Kageyama, Tanaka, Noya, and Sawamura. So does Nekoma, but her blood’s pounding so strong in her veins she can’t put a name to a face, or an alternative haircut.
After the fanfare, it starts. It’s swirling in front of her and all around her and it’s heady and it’s definitely nothing at all like the drills she’d watched before. It picks up and it dies down and it’s bruises and fishnets, colliding in the rough. It’s the cheer after the spill. It’s freedom. Her lucidity starts to trickle back after the shortest blocker from Nekoma starts gaining on Kageyama, when she realises she knows what’s going on and she’s invested, even if she hasn’t started managing or meeting Karasuno yet.
(“Cheetah Slicks is on the hunt. They’re prowling hard through the jungle,” Saeko says, then sucks her breath in through her teeth. “So if a tree falls in a forest… yeah, I think you get the idea. It’s all down to Slayhound Ace now. What douchebag let him break the brand like that, anyway?”)
A minute and a half in and Hinata flashes forward, the stripes still on his helmet. Kageyama had been making gains steadily, avoiding the blocks of the one with the permanent helmet-hair and the industrial piercing with a stoic grace, but Yachi had almost forgotten why they were jammer until now. He’s coming up behind Kageyama, and it’s about to happen. She knows. She knows.
(“Raven Mayhem’s coming up fast to the engagement zone.” A throaty chuckle. “If you think this is something, you shoulda seen him running to the bathrooms before we started up.”)
Kageyama tears off the helmet-cover and it’s nothing like before — their hand is a blur, their face is a blur, their name is a blur. They’re swooping down, feasting on whatever they can find. It’s a hunt for something Yachi’s never tasted.
(“The King of the Spill’s taking off their crown. Whoo! Is it just me or is it getting hot in here.”)
Kageyama does the switch again and hurls Hinata by the hand, hard, and this time Hinata doesn’t just skate: he soars.
(“He’s scraping. He’s scratching for it. What do you call an athlete like this again? A little… a little too much on the insurance bills.”)
There’s a fire in his blood, and a flight in his bones.
(“And for all you newbies, Raven isn’t just a name. Careful there, Icarus. Don’t fly into the— ah, whatever. You aren’t here for a history class. Knock ‘em dead, kid.”)
There’s that feeling again: something is happening and she’s part of it already, could keep being a part of it if she wants to.
Yachi gets to her feet, grasps onto the rails and screams her lungs out, screams everything out until it’s ricocheting off the tracks.
*
Karasuno lose. It hardly matters. It’s still the most incredible thing she’s ever seen.
*
“I want to do it!” Yachi says when Kiyoko comes back to check on her, before the crowd properly simmers down. “No, I’m being serious, that was amazing! It made feel like, like— I’m here. I’ll do it. I’ll be your manager. Okay?”
Kiyoko flashes her that brilliant smile again, and it feels something like recognition.
“I wondered if you’d feel that way,” she says, then, in a way that makes Yachi suspect she has personal experience in feeling that way. “I’m glad you do, but you don’t have to decide now. Would you like to come see the team?”
“Yes!” Yachi beams, before the part of her that isn’t running solely on adrenaline reminds her to play it cool. “I mean, sure, if that’s— if that’s alright?”
The other woman glances over her shoulder and beckons, then ducks under the railings. Yachi follows, until she’s face-to-face with Hinata. More accurately, she’s standing by the track until Hinata barrels up, still a frenzy of motion in his neon-orange skates. His hair is a shock of the same colour, bleach-bright, and his whole being still seems tinged with electric heat after the jams.
“Shimizu-senpai said there might be another manager coming!” He properly radiates excitement, like a miniature sun barely contained in a person-shaped receptacle. Even on her energy high, Yachi kind of feels like she might burn up any second now. From the look Kageyama’s wearing as they hover in the background, wiping lipstick off their face, she isn’t the only one. “That’s you, right, Yachi-san?”
Kiyoko looks halfway through throwing a meaningful look at Hinata before Yachi nods. There’s no point keeping her aspirations under wraps at this point, really. Before she can elaborate, Hinata’s wattage goes straight into overdrive.
“That’s so cool! I can’t wait! Wait until Shiratorizawa sees we have two managers! I really like your hair clips, by the way — I think we buy them from the same place?” Hinata punches the air at least twice through his monologue. Yachi nods again at all of the above, because that seems like the thing to do. “Ah— did you see Kageyama and I in the first jam?” A pause, then he takes it upon himself to properly explain with hand motions. “The thing where they switch over the cover really quick? — and then I go: whoosh! We’ve been practicing that for weeks now, you know!!”
“I did!” Yachi lights up again; she’d been trying to figure out a way to work her enthusiasm into the conversation without coming on too strong as a future manager. “At first I was like, oh my god, I’m going to die, but then I was like, oh my god, I’m alive? Maybe that sounds silly, since I was just spectating. But… but I’ve never seen anyone on skates look like they were about to take off and fly.”
“Whoa! That’s just like how it feels!” Hinata’s eyes widen, delightedly, and Yachi can feel the grin spreading across her face too now, too fast.
*
After that, Yachi goes to all their practices. Technically, she’s their manager on trial, so she still has a back door out if she wants it.
In reality, she hasn’t been thinking about exit strategies for a while now.
There’s an upcoming series of unranked bouts in Tokyo, and with the amount of practice the Rollerbirds have already put in, Yachi swears they could’ve skated the whole distance there by now. The jams are measured out in minutes, but she can see the earnest machinery behind each second now, and the effort it takes to build it all up. Every strike of Kageyama’s is a tactical one, and she watches them flagellate themselves if they miss. Sugawara gives them fallbacks and formations, and tutors Yachi in JSL off the tracks so she can talk to Tanaka when his hearing aids are out. One day, in a whisper, Yamaguchi comes up to asks her whether she thinks Pinch Splitter or Shrieking Violent is a more brutal-sounding name, because he’s asked Tsukishima for opinions twice now and she won’t stop coming up with better puns than him. Kiyoko watches Yachi play diplomat and laughs quietly, then recounts an old adage about scavenging crows.
Usually they’re too busy doing every task that needs to be done around the rink to pause, but Kiyoko and Yachi sit together in the crowd when they need to take a mental break, swallowed up by the empty rows. The first time it happens, Yachi doesn’t fail to register how Kiyoko’s forearm comes to rest on the edge of the seat behind her. As the world comes back into focus, it’s details like this that Yachi starts to notice again first.
*
When it happens the second time, Yachi dares to lean back into the gesture. And okay, maybe she loses her focus then, but it’s in all the right ways.
*
Texting Kiyoko is different to talking to her — Yachi says far less because she’s overthinking her messages in every way it’s possible to overthink them, and Kiyoko says far more, so in the end it balances out. The whole team knows JSL for when Tanaka needs it or Kiyoko’s nonverbal, and Yachi’s getting there too thanks to Suga’s lessons on the side, but Yachi suspects Kiyoko’s also more talkative in private anyway.
Unintentionally, she starts finding a home in Kiyoko’s life. She used to be a basketball player in high school, but she left it behind when she started asking people to call her Kiyoko. She dyes her hair purple for the holidays, then lets it fade out just as med school starts up again (but she wears the spiked leather jacket all weeks of the year). She hates the sensation of rain on her skin just like Yachi does, but she’s fond of the really, really terrible texture of carpet underfoot. She lives on her own. She is nothing if not deathly serious about snack food brand loyalty.
Sometimes at practice, Kiyoko will turn to her, say something calmly mischievous about what’s happening on the track, and hold back her smirk expectantly until Yachi reacts. Meeting her eyes in moments like those is like being taken somewhere new. She doesn’t want to assume Kiyoko’s acting closer with her than anyone else, though, until Nishinoya points it out to her.
“Ryuu-kun and I were always kinda worried that she puts up with too much sensory overload because she’s watching out for us.” He’d regarded her very seriously, then, from under his eyebrow piercings. “Seeing you two work so well together, it’s— too much!” Then Nishinoya had started wiping tears from their eyes, and then they’d bowed so low they nearly keeled over. Yachi had waved her hands gauchely until the whole thing had ended, feeling as though she’d just received some kind of official blessing.
Although they do do a lot of working together, the way Nishinoya had said it hadn’t seemed like he’d meant solely professonally. And there’s something strange to the thought that she’d been good for Kiyoko, even a fraction as much as Kiyoko and derby had been good for her. It’s not a feeling she’s used to; she gives it time to grow.
*
(“It’s a class trip. For arts students,” Yachi says to her mother over breakfast, the words too-quick around her cereal. “It’s a week in Tokyo, but that’s a really short time for the number of things they’re taking us to see. It happened on really short notice — they had to cancel it, so I didn’t mention anything, but then they managed to get their hotel bookings after all? Lucky, right?”)
The build-up to Tokyo is made of sweat and wavering smiles — not just for Yachi, but for them all. The first time she’d sat in on their practice she’d thought that this was the hardest a person could ever work, but today proves that wrong, and the next day, and the day after that. The team believes in what Hinata and Kageyama have and she does too: it’s special, and even if they are working through their issues as both a team and a couple, it’s nothing if not earnest. The coaches doesn’t let any of them slack, though: Yamaguchi’s still practicing that sudden weave of theirs, Noya figures out how to reverse bridge right before Asahi speeds forward, and Ukai makes Tsukishima wall up against him until she walks off the track in defeat.
Yachi’s still technically a trial manager, but the trial part is seeming increasingly nominal. She’s on the tracks laying cones out for Kageyama, and the coach with the bleach-blonde shock of hair that scared the living hell out of her at first starts asking her about strategy. When the university starts forgetting to take Hinata’s ADHD into account, she files some documents for him; the next time they have a practice match, she makes a poster, because it seems the thing to do.
She can really call this a part of her life now, Yachi realises, and it’s a part so large she’s starting to realise how little the other parts were giving her. It’s so large, in fact, that it’s precarious, like something might bring her crashing down any moment now.
(It’s a week before the day on the tickets that her mother finds it: a hostel booking on the other side of town to where Yachi had said, booked under their team name. Yachi considers telling her that it’s the name of their art collective, but she doesn’t reckon it’ll fly. When her mother says I need to talk to you she’s ready, maybe always has been. She always knew deep down that this couldn’t find its way home.)
*
It isn’t about the queerness of it per se; her mother’s gone through a lot herself as an openly gay businesswoman, and she’s always been at least quietly amicable on the subject of Yachi’s gender. For better or worse, Yachi’s always felt obligated to give her credit for that. But Yachi’s never been like her mother, who thinks of bravery in terms of the stakes and the payoff, and who’s hedging her bets on her until she sees the chips down. So they were bound to come to this point sooner or later.
“You aren’t even managing your academics,” her mother says from across the kitchen counter, running water into a glass from the tap. After a point, it overflows into the sink, but she’s stopped paying attention. “These skaters, they’re— it’s everything for them. That’s how they can be so bold. I don’t have any complaints if you take this all the way, but I know you, Hitoka.”
The implication hangs there, and it sounds too much like Yachi’s doubts for her to let it go — or maybe, her doubts sound too much like her mother’s voice.
“Maybe… maybe it’s everything for me too?” Yachi tries, curling the tablecloth in her fingers tighter than she’s really conscious of. “Look, Mom, maybe— this is what bold looks like, for me? Maybe you don’t get to decide what bold looks like.”
“Fine.” Then there’s the grind of the ice machine, before Yachi can even respond. When Madoka comes to sit across from her at the dining table, the water sloshes over the rim. “Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though.”
I’m doing this, Yachi repeats to herself, as Madoka goes on. It’s already happening.
*
By the time it’s over, though, Yachi is exhausted. Half the time she’d felt too yielding and half the time she felt like all of her sharp unlikeable edges were coming out too quick and half the time, somehow, it felt like both at once— and the mathematics of that make about as much sense as how she feels about it all. Mostly, she feels exhausted.
It’s only recently she’s realised a relationship doesn’t have to be a tug of war.
When she brings it up with Hinata and Kageyama, she resents how she’s gone from her mother’s biggest critic to her biggest apologist. They’re outside the roller rink, shivering against the cold, and somehow Hinata’s managed to coax the whole story out of her.
“I know it sounds weird—” Yachi tries again, and she’s resenting the strain in her voice too, now, “—or specific, or something, but you know how sometimes it’s easier not to argue, because it feels like you haven’t proven yourself yet, and until you prove yourself to the person who knows the most about you, it feels like they’re always going to be right?”
“Ah… no, I guess I’ve never really felt like that,” Hinata says, thoughtfully.
“That does sound weird,” Kageyama says, at the same time.
“But? I think I get where you’re—“ Hinata starts, and Yachi’s almost relieved when Kageyama cuts in, because putting it diplomatically would’ve been tense for her, and if there’s one thing that eases the tension here it’s that Kageyama has approximately zero interest or skill in putting things diplomatically.
“Hinata, don’t be moronic. You don’t have to say you relate to something just for the sake of it.”
“No,” Hinata throws Kageyama a glare, but his arm stays around their waist. “I mean, nobody’s made me feel like that? And if they did, I’d be pretty… irritated? Yeah! The one who knows the most about Yachi-san is Yachi-san. This is what you want to do, right?”
“Yeah,” Yachi says, and the answer takes her by surprise. This isn’t just about Kiyoko, or getting away from her mother, or not having filled in her forms for the design firm yet. She hasn’t felt like herself in years, and now, sometimes, she feels the way Hinata looks when he weaves through a pack of jammers twice his size. “Yeah.”
*
She isn’t sure why she tells the next part to Kiyoko and not the other two. Maybe it’s the look she’d seen in Kiyoko’s eyes, even for a split-second, back at the bout with Nekoma.
“Then Mom told me she knew him. Back before he skated for the Tokyo Rollers, when he was at Karasuno University. I mean, I had no idea, she’d— she’d never mentioned. She said he was burning himself out living like that, the way that only a really brave person could keep doing.”
—Crash? Kiyoko signs.
—Yeah. Yachi signs back, because that one’s easy enough.
—It’s probably not my place to tell you whether you’re brave, Kiyoko starts, and if Yachi’s focus had been anywhere but her hands she might’ve been certain whether or not she’d seen the other woman flush. But the look in your eyes after the match with Nekoma was just like his, you know.
—You think? Yachi asks. The other woman doesn’t reply so that she can take Yachi’s hand in both of hers, and maybe it is possible to feel like you’re flying when you’re not on skates, or even watching.
*
She packs for Tokyo, anyway. Tomorrow there’s going to be a bed there booked in her name, and if she doesn’t reach out to what’s already waiting there for her she might just die. There’s no way she can promise her mother that she’ll be able to keep being brave if she takes that first step, but right now it feels more like running away for survival. All she needs is to start.
It’s hard to know what to pack for this kind of thing, so she ends up laying out everything until her closet is half-empty and the surface from her bed disappears from sight under pastels and hopefulness. It’s more like she’s moving out. Folding everything meticulously as possible seems like the best way to kill time until night comes, so that’s what she does, as slowly as she can. It’s not enough. Now that she thinks about it, this really is the closest thing to running away she’s ever done.
Once it’s finished, Yachi sits on the edge of the bed and stares out at her packed suitcase — then stares out at the new gaps in the clutter of her room. It’s happening. So she needs to talk to someone, right now.
When she flips open her phone, the notifications are already there, so many that she has to scroll through them before she can even get to answering them.
DRAGONHEART86: im with yuu rn and we wanted to say GOOD LUCK !!!!! WE’LL DO YOU PROUD!!!! FIGHT !!!
X_ROLLING_THUNDER_X: Im with ryuu and he was talking about how emotional he was that were all going to tokyo tomorrow (Dont tell him i told you that LOL) & how glad he is youre here. So believe in us like we believe in you, okay?!
Ts☽kkishima: Good luck.
azumane-san: ah, i should have said this earlier, but -- i wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done for us so far. it goes without saying that we’ll respect your decision if being manager isn’t the best choice for you (…but, ah, maybe it doesn’t go without saying, so i wanted to say it? ^_^;;) anyway, see you tomorrow
shriekingviolent: thanks again for the name advice, yachi-san! nervous for tomorrow? i think, i might be, a little…..
Shimizu☆: How are you feeling? :) There’s no need to talk about it if you don’t want to, but I wanted to check in, honestly.
shouyou ꜀( ˊ̠˂˃ˋ̠ )꜆: so i know things have been difficult but!!!!! (dont worry i told bakageyama not 2 gossip abt you!!!) i wanted 2 make sure u were OK and remind u that u r the BEST actually (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
shouyou ꜀( ˊ̠˂˃ˋ̠ )꜆: (IT’S OK if ur not ok so if u want to talk about it i’m wide awake!!!!!!!!)
Kageyama Tobio: Families are difficult. Yours shouldn't stop you from doing what you need to.
sawadai_84: as your captain im suer I wll see you all @ 630 AM sahrp tomormrow,
sawadai_84: dont forget yoru Team Jackkets
sawadai_84: they are impaornt !
sawadai_84: This is Sugawara-san! Daichi’s a little drunk right now so I’m currently holding his phone for him, ahaha. By the way, he’s telling me to say good luck to you all!
sawadai_84: …At least, I think that’s what he’s saying.
For her. All this, for her. That’s it — that’s enough to bring her from whatever expression she’d been wearing previously to a watery grin. She goes through all of the messages one by one and sends back literal paragraphs of thanks and encouragement, even if none of them start out aiming to be literal paragraphs. By the time she’s done, she’s exhausted by enthusiasm as a general concept, but it suddenly feels like a given that she wants to go to Tokyo.
There’s one more message that she wants to send, because it suddenly feels very important to ask.
★hitoka~chan★: so i never asked, how did you get started?
Shimizu☆: Sometimes all you need is a little curiosity.
Emboldened, Yachi gives the response a few minutes before she clicks send and breathes.
★hitoka~chan★: that’s a specific way of putting it, but i think i understand what you mean, shimizu-san.
Shimizu ☆ : I suspected you might, actually.
*
They wait on the platform for thirty minutes, but it feels they’ve been waiting for longer than that. The rink’s always been an exception from reality, almost, but it hits Yachi again how improbable it is that the group of them are together here, blaring like neon sirens, the morning sun flashing off their piercings. It’s the kind of world she’d only dreamed of, walking into classes late so she wouldn’t have to hear the roll call.
Daichi is about as pale as she expected him to be after the previous night’s text messages, but he has a solemn energy about him, especially after Suga buys him coffee. Tanaka and Noya flash her a coordinated thumbs-up when she first comes onto the platform, and Asahi chances a nervous smile that says something between ‘are you ready’ and ‘please don’t laugh at their tacky 90s windbreakers, they bought them together like it was a serious rite of passage in their relationship’. Hinata and Kageyama are on their way, their captain reports, getting dragged here by Saeko from a last-minute exam retake as they speak.
“Saeko-san the announcer, you mean?” Yachi glances up from checking all the tags on their baggage. She’s just about satisfied that she’s written everything she needs to on hers, but it’s taken a while to convince Tanaka to write a name that isn’t just his skate name on his.
“Yesssss!” Nishinoya perks up, something like idolisation coming into their eyes. “No, she’s actually Tanaka’s sister, for real. Sis kept it on the down-low at first because she thought it would look like a conflict of interest, but now she embarrasses him every game. It’s great.”
“The way you say it makes it sound like you and Tanaka-san are related,” Tsukishima deadpans, with a raise of her eyebrow. “…That would explain a lot, actually.”
“Skate-sibs ’til the end!” Tanaka and Noya whoop in unison, completely missing the implication. Tsukishima turns around and goes to buy another coffee. It’s so early Yachi can barely think, but the whirlwind of conversation keeps turning faster and faster as she checks everything’s in order for the journey. Kiyoko joins her as soon as she’s finished arranging things at the ticket desk, the determined billow of her black faux-fur coat behind her making it look like she’s dressed up for the occasion.
Kiyoko always looks focused, but she’s never looked this focused. Daichi might be the captain, but it’s hard to miss that Kiyoko really is the manager, from the moment she steps into action and starts organising this storm of a team into a directed flow. By the time the train glides out of the station, they’ve already won their own team victory against the day’s administrative concerns. It’s only then, when they’re seated in a booth together, that the both of them sit back like the rest of the team and properly take a chance to breathe.
—So this is it, huh? Yachi signs, her gaze half between the stretch of field flashing past the window and Kiyoko herself. Thanks again for checking in on me yesterday, by the way. I think it just kind of hit me that this was happening.
—It’s not a problem, Kiyoko signs back. Really. A pause. I actually feel the same before most games, so it was good to talk.
—I’m glad! Yachi grins too-quick, then quickly directs her gaze anywhere but Kiyoko’s eyes. Wow, though. I’d underestimated how intense they were all going to be as soon as we got here. It’s going to be a while before I can deal with them all like this the way you did.
—I was thinking the same about you, actually, comes the reply. It’s obvious you have a lot of time for people. It’s something I’ve always admired.
Kiyoko glances out at the view then, leaning her elbow on the windowsill so she can cover the lower half of her face with her mouth. For once, Yachi doesn’t try to choke her own smile into something more subtle. When the train shifts on its rails, the other woman’s leg gently knocks against hers, and it stays there for the next twenty minutes.
The train ride’s calmed down into sporadic silences by this point anyway, but Yachi could thank whatever god of luck had blessed her with a phone notification then, because at least it gives her an excuse to look anywhere else.
DRAGONHEART86: nice chat you’re having there with shimizu-san
★hitoka~chan★: what?!?!?!?
[DRAGONHEART86 has been idle for 10 minutes.]
★hitoka~chan★: …no, really, /what/???
*
Their first game at Tokyo that feels like a chance at a win is with the Shinzen Skaters. Their every move is as a well-oiled machine, if the machine was designed to knock you over from three angles at once. When they goatherd around Tsukishima for the third time Yachi can’t help but grimace, but Coach Takeda shoots her an easy smile.
“You know,” he says, “it’s a miracle that we’re doing so well against a team that ranks consistently above us without Hinata and Kageyama. It’s an incredible learning experience, when you think about it!”
Yachi can’t help but smile back, then, before she goes back to keeping score. Since the train had pulled in, Tokyo’s been one exhaustion after the other, but Karasuno’s pulling through. It’s not winning, exactly, but it’s learning, and the way it’s taking its losses is scaring the hell out of the rest of the teams. She can see it: Karasuno’s a small-town team — so small-town it’s surprising there’s even a derby scene there in the first place — and its mess of desperate prodigies are learning to survive together so fast it’s electric. She’d be scared, too.
And that’s before Hinata and Kageyama turn up. Saeko must be done with subtlety about the sibling thing, because she throws the doors open and uses the time-out to give Tanaka a noogie before tearing out again. The doors haven’t even stopped swinging before the duo start lacing their skates up.
“Are those the ones that gave the Hellcats so much trouble way back when?” Yachi hears one of the skaters from Saitama murmur behind her, and it takes all she’s got not to tell them herself like some kind of soccer mom.
“Let’s roll!” Hinata yells, and even if Kageyama’s right is subdued, they’ve both got the same look in their eyes. They’ve been held back for only half the meal but they’re hungry for a victory, and Yachi vibrates with the pride of it. Maybe Yachi’s hungry, as well. Kiyoko feels it too— Yachi can see that much. They’ve barely talked during the whole match for the intensity of it, but Karasuno’s so close to a victory that they don’t dare to jinx it.
When Kageyama starts skating forward, Yachi knows she couldn’t jinx it if she tried.
The heats whiz by in minutes — they are minutes, she guesses, but it’s still a surprise. The whistle shrieks out over the tracks and Hinata and Kageyama don’t even look like separate people. Yachi doesn’t realise she’s sweating until her hands start slipping off the rails; until she draws her hands down against her tights and feels it. Her first official move as lineup manager is to send Noya, Yamaguchi, and Tsukishima out there with the two of them, walling in anyone who dares to stop a crow in its flight. Suddenly she’s so glad she’s been trying so hard, that she came to Tokyo, because this is what it’s all for.
The announcer’s voice comes in crackling over the speakers: Sailor Moonshine’s punishing out there — and Shinzen might be riding together, but they’re dying together too — Karasuno’s blockers coming together, goatherding like they’re farmers and it’s time to go to market — and the King— Raven— the King— they’re truck and trailer, they’re coming forward, they’re switching their cover, and—
They win. They win. It’s a grand slam, and then Kageyama calls it off. It’s not even what she needed, but they’re her team, and it’s her win. Between Karasuno’s orange and black and Shinzen’s purple and green and the shimmering stretch of the tracks, the whole world’s kaleidoscopic. The twelve of them come whooping around the oval, Kageyama’s hand tight in Hinata’s even if they aren’t going to execute a whip this time. Daichi’s teeth are gritted around his mouth guard and maybe also against his tears, but Tanaka and Nishinoya aren’t even pretending not to cry. Kiyoko’s standing beside her, now— their shoulders could touch, if she wanted them to. Even as Yachi screams over the crowd, it’s a very, very prominent thought.
We did it, Yachi’s saying, and Kiyoko’s taking her hands in hers again, we did it. She looks Kiyoko in the eyes but the other woman’s gaze is drifting: on the frenzy of Karasuno wings, then on the ground, then somewhere in the area of Yachi’s lips. They stare. It’s a dance— it’s flying. It’s long overdue.
“Can I,” Yachi whispers, and Kiyoko nods, subtly parts her lips. It happens in a matter of seconds— she holds Kiyoko’s gaze, then steadies her hands on the other woman’s shoulders, then lunges in to close the final distance between them.
It’s like breathing in air, even if she’s steadily aware that she’s losing it. Kiyoko’s hands ghost against her waist, unsure, so Yachi presses forward in encouragement, then slowly draws out of the kiss to make sure they aren’t moving too fast. There are a lot of things to notice here: Kiyoko’s way, way taller than her, and now her face is way, way more flushed than Yachi had expected, and her eyes are properly on Yachi’s now, and it’s like magnetism, one that she’s been feeling for a long time now.
It doesn’t have to be the only time, it hits her. So they kiss again. The rink roars with victory; the crowd’s focus is probably anywhere but on them as the skaters circle round, but even if it were, Yachi can’t particularly say she cares. Kiyoko’s pushing her back against the rails by her hips, and Yachi’s fingers come to lace around Kiyoko’s neck, and then through her hair, and— alright, maybe waiting for the adrenaline boost of the win to figure this out was a belated choice on both their parts. But now? It’s freedom.
*
Bravery isn’t always knowing what you need to be; sometimes, it’s knowing what you can’t be. Bravery doesn’t have to be standing still until you’re exhausted. Sometimes bravery is running away as fast as you can. It’s flying. It’s a love letter. It’s a ticket out of town. Something’s happening, and Yachi’s a part of it.
Nineteen is pretty young to find your people, but here she is. Here she is.