Chapter Text
Tobio could only stare at his hands. No one was there, and the ball hit the floor. The sound of the ball in the almost silent gymnasium echoed through his ears. What was wrong with him? Did he say something wrong? He didn’t understand.
Two sensations brought him back at once. One was the pull on his skin of his left canine, dragging his lower lip between his teeth. At the same time, his mom’s hand had reached over and started rubbing his shoulder.
“People suck, Tobio, they suck even more to you.” Tobio knew what his mom meant, but he couldn’t make a sound yet. It didn’t feel right. He knew what to say, but the idea of words felt wrong. The idea of the vibrations his throat would make felt so wrong.
“By the way, my little hero,” his mom continued, “when we get home, take a shower.”
He shot her a dirty look across the car to where his mom stared out at the road. But she must have seen it as she let out an amused laugh, a smile pulling at her cheeks.
“Don’t give me that look, you may have rinsed your face and hands in the bathroom before you left, but you still stink of sweat.” She wasn’t wrong. But the reminder of his trip to the bathroom only made it all worse. Was he really that horrible a being? Was there really something so intrinsically wrong with him?
“Hey, baby, look at me.” His mom was now glancing at him with worried eyes for a short moment before looking at the road. “What happened? You seem more upset. Tobio, what’s wrong?”
Tobio shook his head, staring at his lap. His mom didn’t seem convinced of his answer, but let him be for now. She understood that he couldn’t talk right now, and focusing on driving meant that Tobio couldn’t sign or type to communicate with her.
“You know, I think I need to have some words with your coach.” His mom’s hands now tightened around the steering wheel. “He knows why you struggle to communicate, and instead of helping, all he does is watch. It’s not your fault he screwed you over in this Tobio.”
Tobio let a small, awkward smile taint his lips. He loved his mom. She reached over and pulled him into a loose side hug, then let go to continue focusing on driving.
Tobio closed his eyes and took a moment to inhale the familiar scent within the car. It made his eyes feel heavy, and his heart a little lighter. He took in another deep breath through his nose and kept his eyes closed. He held his breath for a moment and leaned his head against the car window. The small bumps and rattles as the car moved against the smooth asphalt felt nice, and the cold glass was a great relief against his warm skin.
Volleyball had been Tobio’s special interest since his grandpa showed him videos of it as a child. The rhythmic magic sound of the ball was what caught his attention first when he was only five.
His grandpa taught him how to pass the ball soon after. By the time he entered junior high, Tobio had already done many late-night deep dives on Google into the rules and history of the game. Tobio could rattle off the scores and how each point was won in the most recent national games. He could give someone an entire historical lesson on the origins of volleyball and explain even the most obscure volleyball rules.
When he made the team in Junior high, his grandpa got him a book on volleyball drills. Tobio still had that book heavily annotated on his nightstand by his bed. His grandpa’s age and health caught up to him in Tobio’s second year of Junior high. After practice and school, Tobio would sit with his grandpa in the hospital every day. They would work on Tobio’s homework quickly, then watch volleyball games, both old and recent ones, and analyze what was happening until visiting hours ended. His grandfather died just a few weeks before Tobio’s third year at Junior High started.
Tobio let out his long-held breath and took in another long, smooth breath of air, this one he let go directly after. The bumps of the road made his head lightly bounce against the window, but he kept his eyes shut and let a moment of rest enter his mind. His fingers slowly bounced against his thumbs in a comforting pattern.
He never saw the other car hit him and his mom. The first sign of something wrong had been his mom telling him to keep his eyes closed as she audibly lost her breath. He could hear the tires screech. Tobio listened to his mom he began purposefully keeping his eyes squeezed shut after the head bounced extra hard against the car door. He felt oddly weightless for a moment, but his right leg started to throb and ache.
He couldn’t look. Tobio’s mom had told him not to look, so he couldn’t. He felt the glass from the windows and the windshield rain down around him as pressure built along his legs. He thinks his nose is bleeding from the airbag; that was all that made sense for the liquid, thicker than tears, slowly dripping down his face. Everything felt as if it were muffled. He could feel the aching in his legs and along his chest. Tobio’s breathing felt constrained by the tight pressure of the seatbelt and something else pressing against his body.
His mom wasn’t saying anything. All Tobio could think about was how he couldn’t look at her right now. He couldn’t hear her breathing, and a deep part of him knew there was nothing he could do to help her. He just couldn’t let his last image of her be something bad. Especially because she had told him to keep his eyes closed. His eyes were watering from how tightly he had them clenched, but he still refused to open them.
It took him a few minutes to hear the sirens, but it was long enough for the pain to truly start hitting him. Nothing felt okay in his right leg. It all hurt so much, and it felt like it was on fire. He wished so much he was unconscious that he didn’t have to think or process any of this right now.
“Hey there, kid, can you hear me, kid? You there?” He felt a hand about to touch his face, and he flinched away. He partially opened his wet, teary eyes to squint at the paramedic kneeling beside him in the car doorway.
“My mom?” He croaked out, and he could see the slight frown of the paramedic. Tobio was right. His mom wasn’t okay at all.
“Can you tell me your name?” The paramedic was slowly showing his movements as he began to wrap a C-collar around his neck.
“Kageyama Tobio. 14. Mom said if anything happened, Aunt Mika and Miwa-nee need to be called.” he rattled off his godmother’s and sister’s information, trying to focus on the paramedic’s hands as they began testing for major head trauma. Everything felt numb, and he could barely even think of anything as he rattled off his emergency contact’s information outside of his mom. The only reason he could give the information was that his mom had drilled it into his head.
In the time it took the emergency response people to get him out of the car and to the hospital, they determined he had some head trauma, and that orthopedic and pediatric surgeons were needed on standby at the hospital. Tobio was given some pain medication and an IV. Tobio just kept repeating his information and his emergency contacts, like his mom taught him as a kid.
Tobio was stuck in the hospital for nearly three months. He had a minor concussion, multiple severe bruises from the seatbelt and airbag, and his right leg was completely shot. Part of his bone was beyond shattered, and some of the muscles were torn. He would most likely need crutches for the rest of his life.
No more volleyball. He had been crushed when he’d heard, but after a moment thought back to his last game. Was this karma? Had he truly been that awful to his teammates?
“Tobio-nee, Mom wants to know if you want anything to do from home.” Natsu had stuck her small head into the room to talk to the boy, from where her brother and mom were waiting down the hallway.
Aunt Mika and her family were going to stop by his house to start packing up his belongings and putting them either in storage or in his new room at their house. They had asked if Tobio wanted to wait till he was out of the hospital and go with them. But, he had strongly refused, Tobio couldn’t go back into his and his mom’s home. It felt too wrong, especially if he had to pack up everything in their lives into boxes. Tobio worried his lip, glancing about the room, then at his hands.
“Could you please ask Aunt Mika to get my sketchbook and pencils… Also, some books or something,” he thought for a moment longer, “also ask when I can have my phone again.”
Tobio’s concussion meant he hadn’t been allowed to look at his phone since waking up after surgery. Aunt Mika had been in touch with the school, but he had no clue if anyone had reached out to him. He hoped Kunimi or Kindaichi would at least send something, even if it was mean. It felt incredibly quiet, with only the doctors, nurses, and the Hinata family to talk to. He wished for someone else to talk to, no matter what that person said to him.
Natsu gave a firm nod, then ran out of the room again. Tobio sighed, then looked out the window. Miwa had brought flowers and sat with him for a few days, but her job and classes in Tokyo didn’t let her stay longer. She would be back in a few weeks for the funeral. But no one else had visited. His room was empty and so quiet.
Tobio ended up getting caught up and even slightly ahead of his schoolwork while staying in the hospital. Probably because he had been trapped in a bed with barely anyone to talk to. It was quite lonely.
Shouyou and Natsu still had school, and Aunt Mika had to go to work. Miwa called him and tried to visit again, but her job was taxing and important. Plus, her finals were coming up soon. She loved the job a lot, most of the time, so Tobio wasn’t too upset about it. Uncle Aki (Aunt Mika’s husband) would try to video chat with him and the Hinata family when he could, but he lived in America for work, so that wasn’t very often.
Tobio also got very good at sketching. His leg may no longer work quite as well, but his hands were still just as good as they used to be. Aunt Mika had brought him charcoal, pencils, and more as he continued drawing. She was so excited that he was showing any interest in something after the crash.
Tobio mainly drew his visitors or his mom. He would also randomly pause videos of volleyball games to draw the players. Aunt Mika would always take home some of his art to hang on his walls in his new room. She wanted it to feel more lived in and less sterile for when he would move in.
He even gave Aunt Mika one of his drawings of his mom. Aunt Mika had cried getting it, and Tobio had felt so uncomfortable. But Aunt Mika said she was happy crying, so he just nodded and looked the other way. He even gave her a few incredibly stilted shoulder pats to comfort her once she hugged him.
His therapist greatly encouraged his artwork, asking to see his recent sketches and know about the story of each image. She explained that it was something that helped Tobio feel productive. This was very important, especially as he lost access to his previous way to feel productive with the loss of volleyball due to his injuries.
Tobio still hadn’t heard from anyone in his life outside his sister and the Hinata family by the time he was leaving the hospital. Aunt Mika explained that the school knew what had happened to him, but that they were under strict instructions to answer anyone who asked about Tobio with the fact that they could not say anything.
Tobio’s fifteenth birthday occurred before he was released from the hospital. When Tobio first woke up on his fifteenth birthday, he held his breath. He had some quiet plans with the Hinata family. There was no one else in the area to celebrate his birthday with. But there was something very important first. He quickly took off his hoodie that he had worn to bed last night, and began scanning his arms.
Iwa-Chan, are you coming to practice??
Tooru.
Why is my mom saying we have dinner tonight with both families?
We do?!?!?!!
Oh. His arms were covered in other small notes, doodles, and conversations with a few loose scribbles. Tobio held his breath no longer in excitement. He knew the names and nicknames his soulmates used for each other. He also knew both of those handwriting styles. Tobio put on the hoodie he kept next to his bed.
They already hate him, and Tobio wasn’t enough of a masochist to give them a new way to humiliate and reject him. He could live only watching from afar, no matter how much it would constantly hurt. He was used to being lonely by now.
It wasn’t like he ever planned to see them again anyway. The doctor already confirmed that Tobio couldn’t play Volleyball ever again without majorly injuring himself further.
His new room was similar to his old one, but he could tell the difference. He was still bed-bound even at home, and after a discussion with his school, he wasn’t even going to go back to school before the year ended. A deal was made that his teachers would put together packets and tests to do at home that could count as his graded work and allow him to graduate with the rest of his classmates.
The next few months passed in a similar fashion. Tobio attended physical therapy, had some meltdowns, and ended up bonding with Shouyou and Natsu a lot more.
He was even able to drill Shouyou on a few very basic passes and drills for volleyball from a chair in the backyard. Well, until Aunt Mika came out and lectured them for being reckless with Tobio’s still-healing leg and confiscated the volleyball. But it only took them a day to steal the ball back again each time they were caught.