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“Hey, Wakatoshi, what’re you reading?”
Tendou Satori announces his arrival with a cacophony of sounds: the plop of his butt into the seat next to Ushijima’s, the thump of his backpack on the floor, the screech of his chair as he drags it in closer. Even without the noise, it would be impossible not to notice him, with his bright red hair, bright orange T-shirt, bright smile even at nine o’clock in the morning after Sensei Midori knows he’s been practicing for two hours.
His friend – Ushijima Wakatoshi, with his dark mop of hair and perpetually stern expression – is equally hard to miss, despite his quiet nature. Like a number of other students, he usually sits near the middle of the classroom and takes notes studiously in small, neat handwriting. But Midori has seen him play volleyball. She knows that, even as a first-year, he’s in line to be the powerhouse of the school’s team and potentially one of the top aces in the country, capable of terrifying feats of strength on the court.
But right now, he shifts the magazine he’s reading to make room for Tendou to poke his head above his shoulder, catch a glimpse of the article in the center of the page.
“It’s a piece about the captain of the volleyball team at this school in Tokyo,” Ushijima explains. “Washijou-sensei gave it to me.”
“Damn, Wakatoshi,” Tendou complains, leaning back in his chair. “Do you ever read anything besides volleyball stuff?”
“I read other stuff.” Ushijima looks at his friend, eyebrows drawn together in confusion. “I read the manga books you lend me.”
“Well, okay.” Tendou sighs. “Do you read anything other than stuff on volleyball and manga?”
“School assignments.”
“Wakatoshi-kun! That doesn’t count,” Tendou says, waving his index finger at Ushijima in what’s clearly supposed to be a stern manner. “Haven’t you ever wanted to read something for fun?”
Ushijima considers the question carefully, then replies, “Well, I saw this fascinating manual on gardening in the school library once …”
Tendou splutters indignantly. “Gardening? Of all of the boring …”
The rest of his words are lost under a growing wave of noise rising in the classroom as the rest of the students wander in, take their seats, and start conversations on how hard the homework was or some new movie coming into theaters or which sports teams have the best shot at winning. But Midori keeps an eye on the two volleyball players in the third row from the back. She notices as their banter shifts into reading together, heads bent over the same desk. Ushijima points at something on the page, and Tendou nods so enthusiastically his forehead nearly hits the desk.
And she doesn’t miss that, when she calls the class to attention, Ushijima slips Tendou the magazine, to keep reading beneath his notebook.
The bus is always quiet after a loss.
Not just quiet – painfully quiet. Kimura can practically see the gears in each starter’s head turning, see them replaying every missed receive, every fumbled pass, every mistimed spike. He can see them agonizing over everything they’ve done wrong and willing their limbs to never make the same mistakes again – it’s evident in the way they sit, hunched over in their seats, foreheads resting on the cracking puke-green plastic.
Kimura would be lying to himself if he claimed he didn’t harbor the same thoughts. He knows, just as well as his teammates do, what they’re heading home to: a hundred practice serves each, followed by an endless round of drills until they can barely stand. He sits down near the front of the bus, pulls out his phone and texts his mother that he won’t be home until late, then leans against the back of the seat and sighs deeply.
It’s strange, to think that this was his final high school tournament. Not that there won’t be more games, more blockers to spike through, more chances to prove himself – he’s been scouted by a top university for the spring – but this was his last chance to play with his team. The third-years who’ve become his closest friends over the past couple of years, the second-years he’s entrusting the team to, the first-years he wishes he could watch grow …
A spark of movement catches Kimura’s attention. He turns to the front seat on the other side of the bus, and finds Tendou Satori – a first-year middle blocker, not quite skilled enough to play much during the tournament, but enthusiastic enough to cheer louder than anyone else on the reserves – slipping into a seat next to Ushijima Wakatoshi – a first-year wing spiker and the obvious pick for Shiratorizawa’s next ace. Ushijima hadn’t cried at the loss, Kimura remembers, but he had stood in the center of the court, hands curled into fists at his sides and eyes grim as an oncoming thunderstorm, until long after the rest of the team had left the gym – as though he couldn’t quite believe the match was over.
As Kimura watches now, Tendou bounces on the seat a couple of times to make himself comfortable, then rummages around in his bag and pulls out a volume of manga.
“I’ve got the newest volume of Bleach,” he tells Ushijima. “Want to read it with me?”
Ushijima turns slowly, as though just now noticing Tendou’s presence. “I haven’t read all the other volumes.”
“That’s okay,” Tendou says. “If you have any questions, I can explain what’s going on.”
For a moment, Ushijima just looks at the other first-year – but then, slowly, he nods.
Tendou beams and opens the book. His grin seems completely out of place in the somber bus, like wearing red to a funeral. But as he and Ushijima start reading, heads bent together, voices whispering in analysis of characters and strategies, Kimura finds himself starting to smile, too.
It’s funny, he thinks, how it’s only now, after their worst loss, that he feels confident about his team’s future.
There’s something going on between Tendou and Ushijima.
Eita knows there is, even if the two of them don’t. They’ve seen Tendou and Ushijima sitting next to each other in class, and huddling in the same seat on the way back from practice matches even when the bus is half-empty, and practicing together long after everyone else goes home. They’ve seen the way Tendou and Ushijima watch each other during matches, Tendou’s eyes tracing the lines of Ushijima’s arms when he spikes as though he could look at nothing else for the rest of his life and Ushijima tracking Tendou’s blocks as though they’re capable of winning an entire championship match by themselves. They’ve seen how Tendou jumps to his feet and cheers when Ushijima scores a winning point, and how the corners of Ushijima’s mouth lift into a smile when he hears. Eita’s seen more than enough, honestly.
They know there’s something going on – even if Ushijima and Tendou don’t. Maybe even because they don’t. Because, well, of course they don’t. Ushijima wouldn’t know romance if it hit him over the head with a brick, and Tendou’s too focused on the overdramatic romantic subplots in his manga to realize that something similar is happening to him in real life.
Not that it’s romance, exactly. Eita doesn’t think those two idiots are aching to kiss each other in the rain, or stroll through the park holding hands, or any of that disgusting couple stuff. It’s more like – there’s this unresolved tension between them. Tendou watching at Ushijima, and looking away just before Ushijima starts watching him. Words on the tips of both of their tongues that neither of them know how to say. It’s frustrating to watch, Eita thinks – like being on the same team as two magnets that refuse to connect, in defiance of all the laws of physics that demand that it must happen.
He says as much to Yamagata one day at lunch, as they grab sodas from the vending machine outside the gym. Yamagata looks at Eita for a long moment, then replies, “If it bothers you so much, why don’t you tell them to get their shit together?”
Eita freezes, one hand halfway to the keypad. “You think that’d work?”
Yamagata shrugs. “Maybe. I don’t know. Dude, if I knew the first thing about relationships, don’t you think I’d have a cute girlfriend by now?”
Eita concedes that point, and reaches out to press the button for a coke.
“Anyway, it’s enough to have to watch them do whatever the fuck it is they’re doing, I don’t want to deal with you complaining about it, too,” Yamagata goes on.
The coke drops to the bottom of the machine with a clatter. “Yeah, okay,” Eita says, reaching in and grabbing it. “But what do I tell them?”
“Something. Anything.” Yamagata opens his own can and takes a long gulp. “Just stop bothering me about it.”
Eita nods, then walks around the corner of the gym to find the two miscreants themselves, sitting with their backs to the red-brick wall of the science wing. They’re sitting right next to each other as usual, one of Tendou’s legs sprawled at an angle across the top of Ushijima’s and his head pillowed on Ushijima’s shoulder. Ushijima’s got a book open on his lap – at a closer look, it appears to be their biology textbook – but one of his arms is curled around Tendou’s back, hand lightly stroking the nerd’s bright blue Fullmetal Alchemist T-shirt. Both of them are reading the same page of the textbook, seemingly unaware of Eita standing nearby, or the sun beating down from overhead, or – well, anything. They’re ensconced in their own little world, and Eita doesn’t think they could break them out of it even if they wanted to.
“Disgusting,” they mutter. They take a sip of their coke and head back to their classroom – that textbook reminded them that they completely forgot to do their own bio homework.
Tsutomu can’t find the bathroom.
It’s his first time at Shiratorizawa’s annual summer training camp and, so far, everything has been going incredibly: he got to sit next to Oohira on the bus, and fifteen out of his twenty practice serves landed in just the right spot, and he was only a few seconds behind Ushijima during their sprint workout. And today’s only the first day! Tsutomu can only imagine what might happen during the rest of the camp – he’ll improve his spikes, and wow his senpais, and get all of them to admit that he’s definitely going to be the ace one day … If he manages to, well, locate a toilet before his bladder explodes.
Because, see, Tsutomu can’t ask one of his senpais for help. If he did, he’d remind them that he’s only a first-year, with less knowledge and experience than the rest of the starters. Or, even worse, he’d make them think that he’s a little kid, who can’t even manage to go to the bathroom on his own. They’d never see him as a cool ace that way. This is a task he has to complete alone.
Tsutomu imagines that he’s like a samurai in one of the old stories, on a noble quest to find and defeat the dragon that’s been terrorizing a nearby village. He’s the greatest warrior to ever visit this place in a thousand years – a little bathroom (or, dragon, he means dragon) should be no problem for him. He starts marching the way he imagines a samurai would march, with his head held high and his sword ready for battle, eyes and ears scanning the horizon for any sign of –
Wait. What was that?
There are voices coming from a nearby room. Tsutomu looks to his left and finds a door ajar. Those could be allies. Or enemies. Or, even worse, his teammates engaging in what Semi calls mouth to mouth action. (The last time he went into an unfamiliar room without caution, he found Ushijima and Tendou touching in a whole lot of places. It’s an experience he’d rather not repeat.)
Tsutomu looks both ways to ensure that he is, in fact, alone in the hallway, then tiptoes towards the door, imaginary sword at the ready. It takes a few seconds and a lot of deep breaths, but eventually, he gets close enough to the room that he can peek inside and see – Ushijima and Tendou.
Ushijima and Tendou! His senpais! But they aren’t doing anything scary or inappropriate – they’re just sitting in the middle of what appears to be a storage room, poring over a diagram of some kind. Or, well, Tendou is perched on a table and Ushijima is standing next to him. But they’re definitely reading, and from what Tsutomu can hear of their conversation, they’re talking about teams they might face at the next tournament.
Tsutomu leans in closer, hoping to hear more – he’s going to play at the next tournament, after all, and he wants to be prepared – but miscalculates and hits his head on the door with a dull whack.
It swings open, leaving his senpais to peer at him – Tendou with amusement, and Ushijima with … something. Reading Ushijima’s expressions is a talent Tsutomu has yet to master.
“Hey, Goshiki,” Tendou says, waving.
“Hello! Tendou-senpai! Ushijima-senpai!” Goshiki squeaks. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you! I was just! Um!”
“Bathroom’s that way,” Ushijima says. He points down the hallway in the opposite direction from where Tsutomu had been walking.
“Oh!” Tsutomu can feel his face going the color of Tendou’s hair. He quickly bows at the waist, to hide it. “Thank you! I’ll just be going, now!”
He sprints off down the hallway, Tendou’s laughter following him all the way to the bathroom.
There are two boys sitting together on a bench in the center of the platform.
Jin has been watching them for a few minutes, now, from her post at the small coffeeshop just inside the station. It’s ten o’clock in the morning – late enough that the morning rush has mostly dissipated, businessmen invigorated for another day of cubicle-watching and commuting students reminded of why mornings aren’t so bad after all, but early enough that nobody’s come in for a midday pick-me-up – and she’s bored enough that she doesn’t feel guilty about watching a couple of strangers. Especially when those strangers are so interesting to look at – one of the boys has this mop of red hair sticking up as though he stuck his finger in an electrical socket when he was younger and never quite recovered, and the other, dark-haired boy has biceps so impressive she’s tempted to measure a coffee cup against them.
She isn’t sure how long they’ve been sitting there. All she knows is that when she looked up from handing a well-dressed woman in spiky black heels her double espresso, there they were, curled up on that bench as though it belonged to them. The dark-haired boy is holding what looks like a map of the central Japan train system, and his friend points eagerly at it as though explaining the particular advantages of each line. Their heads draw closer to the map, then bump together, like two magnets in an electrical field.
Jin wonders where they’re going, what they’re doing, how they know each other. It’s clear that they’re good friends, although she can’t say exactly why – maybe because of how the red-haired boy takes a drink from his friend’s water bottle, or because of how the dark-haired boy offers his friend an apple from his backpack, or because of how they always seem to be touching, whether it’s one hand on top of the other, or legs twining together, or chests falling into each other as one tries to see what the other is pointing at.
She doesn’t know how long she watches them. Maybe a few minutes, maybe half an hour. Long enough that she loses track of how many mugs she’s washed, how many times she’s scrubbed the same counter, how many minutes have ticked by on the huge clock suspended in the center of the train platform.
Long enough that she’s startled when the whistle blows and the next train comes thundering in, ready to drop off old passengers and receive new ones.
As the train pulls in, the red-haired boy jumps to his feet, then pulls his friend up next to him. The red-haired boy opens his arms, and the dark-haired boy steps into them – or maybe the dark-haired boy opens his arms and the red-haired boy steps into them. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t think it matters.
Jin loses track of the two boys for a moment as people flood off the train, lending the station momentary chaos – a five-minute downpour in the middle of a sunny day. When the platform clears again, the dark-haired boy is gone, and the red-haired boy is waving – waving with both hands in the air, like a little kid watching a plane go by, or a girl sending her lover off to sea with no knowledge of when he’ll return home.
The train leaves, as quickly as it had come. And the boy droops. There’s no better word for it – he droops, like a flower caught in a hurricane, or a snowman suddenly shoved into a greenhouse.
Jin looks at the boy, then at her empty counter. She nods to herself twice. Then, she waves him over and offers him a free drink.