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The scene before him unfolded like a tragedy.
He had borne witness to many last matches. They never closed with reverence, but carnal brutality. The volleyball shattered into silence, and a wrongness filled his insides, unsettling on his lungs. The sweat dripped off his face. The lights bore down upon him, a physical blinding force, heavy on his limbs. The crowd roared dimly. His last match of his high school years.
Bow. Listen. Shake the hands of the referees, who stood miles and years away in front of the white court lines. Listen. Stretch. Listen, this time to the choked sounds of his teammates. He patted their unbroken backs, letting his hand linger on their shoulders. He emblazoned the sight of the court on his eyes, memorizing the squeak of their shoes, the faint scent in the air. Then he turned away, one last time.
He gripped hard on the shoulders of “I should haves” and the phantom “Next year” that would arrive without him. It was not the time for his sadness, yet.
A missing member. He returned to the building to find his setter, who would shepherd their next team into success.
Akaashi stood in the emptying hallways. He was half-eclipsed in the shadows. He had no expression on his face, studying his shoes.
When Bokuto approached him, Akaashi spoke in an even tone. The things their team had done well. The things their team would continue to do. He spoke, detached, about the next year that would come for him and only him. The shadows slid across his face, pooling in the collar of his jacket. He spoke about the new members and the hope for next year. He spoke about new strategies and interesting matches that he’d seen for the tournament. He spoke about what the third-years would do in the future, an hour from now, a year from now. He spoke and spoke and spoke and spoke, uninterested in anything but his sneakers.
Akaashi never cried. Not at loss, not at winning. For two years, he stood stoic and unmoved beneath the harsh lights.
But his face folded, slowly, in the middle of a distracted sentence about spikes. The bridge of his nose crinkled, the dignified stream of words never stopping. His mouth screwed up into an ugly line. He gnashed out the next sentence about match points, heavy tears rolling down his face. His hands balled up into fists, thin arms shaking like he could no longer control the emotions inside. He finally closed his eyes, tears brimming from his eyelashes and rolling down his cheeks, his entire face creased in a horrible and painful grimace, like all his strength was breaking inside him.
Bokuto wrapped his arms around him, letting the tears fall hot on his shoulder.
Akaashi’s hands eventually rose up, unfurling from his fists, and gripped the jacket by the shoulder blades, knuckles against the jutting bone. Long fingers entangled into the cloth, and Akaashi choked into his shoulder. It was a strange sound. Bokuto had never heard it, the ugly sound, hoarse and rattling like all the ragged emotion was ripped from his throat. He bore that, too, without flinching. The jacket fabric pulled taut, fingers clawing the strength of his back, but he held him close and looked at the unfeeling wall.
There were never any clean wins. They always embedded fragments inside of him. He tried to keep the high school court in his mind, but he would only return a different man to a different place. He could feel, fading from his memory, the morning light breaking into the club room. Their practice gym, volleyballs littered against the ground, the faint sounds of other clubs coming in like waves through the open gym door. The feel of the net against his hands, the rattling of the cart, the enclosed space of the storage room. His teammates, grinning beside him.
That sight of the volleyball tossed only for him, precise and unwavering, by a setter who stood on the same side.
Just as he took those away, he would leave something behind. Just one thing for just one year.
They would remember his unrelenting strength, but he hoped Akaashi would someday remember this sad and broken kindness.