Chapter Text
You don’t wake up thinking, Today I will disappear.
That would be too dramatic. Too honest.
You wake up thinking about volleyball.
The ceiling of your room is familiar—small crack near the corner, the faint shadow cast by the curtain rod whens you forgot to tighten. Morning light seeps in through the blinds, pale and dull, like it’s unsure whether it should bother showing up at all. You stare at it for a moment longer than necessary, cataloguing nothing, feeling everything and nothing at the same time.
Your body feels… off.
Not sick. Not injured. Just heavy in the wrong places and light where it shouldn’t be. Like you’ve been assembled incorrectly. You sit up slowly, because if you don’t, the room tilts—just a little—and you hate that. Hate the weakness of it.
You swing your legs over the side of the bed. Your feet touch the floor, cold against skin, grounding you.
Get up, you tell yourself. Practice day.
That’s enough to make you move.
Downstairs, the house smells like toast and miso soup. Your mom hums quietly to herself, the radio murmuring something forgettable in the background. Everything is normal. That’s the worst part.
“Morning,” she says when you enter the kitchen.
You grunt in response. It’s sufficient. She’s learned not to expect more before 7 a.m.
A bowl is already set out for you. Rice. Grilled fish. A perfectly reasonable breakfast for a perfectly normal high school boy who plays an absurdly demanding sport.
You stare at it.
Your stomach tightens—not with hunger, exactly, but with something sharper. Something closer to resistance.
“I’m not that hungry,” you say, already reaching for a glass of water.
Your mom pauses. Just for a fraction of a second. It’s subtle, but you notice. You always notice.
“You barely ate dinner last night,” she says carefully.
“I had practice,” you reply. “I was tired.”
She watches you as you drink the water. You keep your expression flat, bored, unaffected.
After a moment, she sighs. “At least take something small.”
You grab a piece of toast. You don’t look at it. You don’t think about it. You just hold it long enough to make it look convincing.
“See?” you say. “Fine.”
She doesn’t argue. That almost makes it worse.
Karasuno’s gym is loud in the way you’ve learned to tune out.
Shoes squeak. Balls thud against the floor. Hinata is yelling about something—probably nothing. Nishinoya’s voice cuts through the noise like a siren, and Tanaka laughs too loudly at his own joke.
Normal.
You stretch with the rest of the team, movements precise, efficient. You’ve always been good at this part—knowing exactly how far you can push without drawing attention. You’re tall, after all. Long-limbed. People expect you to be a little stiff in the mornings.
Yamaguchi glances at you from beside the net.
“You okay?” he asks, casual.
You arch an eyebrow. “What, is that your new hobby? Checking my vitals?”
He shrugs, but he doesn’t look away. “You just seem… tired.”
“I’m always tired.”
“That’s not—”
You stand up, cutting him off. “Focus on your serve, Yamaguchi.”
It’s not mean. Not really. Just deflective. You’re good at that too.
Practice starts. Blocking drills first. You like blocking—like the clarity of it. Either you’re there, or you’re not. Either your hands close the space, or they don’t. No ambiguity.
Except today, something’s wrong.
Your timing is off. Not badly—just enough to notice. Your jump feels delayed, like your body is responding half a second slower than your brain tells it to. You land harder than usual, knees protesting with a dull ache.
Again.
And again.
“Tsukishima!”
Ukai’s voice snaps you out of your head. “You’re late on that read. Watch the setter’s hands.”
“I am,” you say automatically.
Ukai frowns. “Then adjust.”
You grit your teeth and nod.
Adjust. Right.
You tell yourself it’s nothing. Lack of sleep. Stress. Growth spurt, maybe. It wouldn’t be the first time your body betrayed you in some inconvenient, awkward way.
But as practice drags on, the dizziness creeps in again. Not enough to make you stop. Just enough to be irritating.
By the time scrimmage starts, your arms feel like they’re made of glass.
You notice it when you go up for a block against Hinata.
He jumps—explosive as always—and for a split second, you misjudge the height. Your hands barely graze the ball. It slips past, slamming into the court behind you.
“Point!” Hinata cheers.
Normally, you’d scoff. Throw out some cutting remark about luck or poor set-up.
Instead, your vision flickers.
Black at the edges. Like someone’s turning down the lights.
You land, stumble half a step, and catch yourself on the net.
The gym goes quiet.
“What the hell was that?” Kageyama snaps.
“I slipped,” you say.
But Yamaguchi is staring at you. Wide-eyed. Concerned in that soft, earnest way you’ve never quite known how to deal with.
“Tsukki—”
“I said I slipped.”
Ukai blows his whistle. “Water break. Now.”
You head straight for the bench, heart pounding too fast for someone who barely moved. You grab your bottle, hands trembling just enough to annoy you, and take a long drink.
The water sloshes unpleasantly in your stomach.
You’re fine, you tell yourself. You’re just off today.
But the thought doesn’t stick like it used to.
It starts small. It always does.
Skipping breakfast because you’re “not hungry.” Cutting portions because you ate “too much” yesterday. Telling yourself lighter means faster, sharper, more efficient.
Volleyball rewards control. Precision. Endurance.
You excel at control.
And no one questions it at first. Why would they? You’re disciplined. Analytical. Not prone to excess of any kind. If anything, people admire it.
What they don’t see is the math running constantly in your head—not numbers, exactly, but calculations of space. Of weight. Of how much of you is too much.
You stand in front of the bathroom mirror that night and pull at the hem of your shirt, evaluating angles and shadows like a critic dissecting a flawed performance.
Your reflection looks… fine.
That’s the problem.
Fine isn’t enough.
Yamaguchi starts walking you home more often.
You don’t comment on it. He doesn’t either.
It’s quiet between you, the kind of silence that used to be comfortable. Lately, it feels heavy.
“Hey,” he says eventually. “Did you eat after practice?”
You sigh. “You sound like my mom.”
“Answer the question.”
“I had something.”
He nods slowly. “Okay.”
But his eyes don’t leave your face, and you have the uncomfortable realization that he’s learned how to read you. Learned the tells you didn’t even realize you had.
That night, you lie in bed staring at the ceiling again.
Your muscles ache in a way that feels deeper than usual. Not the satisfying soreness of hard work, but something hollow. Draining.
You press a hand to your stomach.
Empty.
Control, you remind yourself.
But for the first time, the word doesn’t feel empowering.
It feels fragile.
Like glass.