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Being a setter required quite a lot of skills.
Precision, for example. Observation, a certain degree of speed.
Oh, and subtleness of course – because, no matter how good your play, without a good dose of dissimulation and “reading between the lines”, you're just like an open book to your adversaries.
Sugawara Koushi had most of those qualities.
Maybe not to the same extent as Kageyama, but he was a pretty good setter: he was rather fast, his tosses were spot on most of the times, and his ability to plan attacks and read the mood was excellent, too.
To be fair, even the debacle at hand was, all in all, a simple matter of sophisticated indirectness.
The plan wasn't too complicated.
He would take Daichi out with some girls.
He would make sure beforehand that Karaoke could be brought up as an option (leaving some pamphlets of famous Karaoke spots on Mayuko-chan's desk at recess for 13 days in a row had produced the expected result, after all).
Once there, he'd just have to put some particular effort in singing as off tune as possible, as to keep Daichi focused long enough for his intentions to unfold.
Which intentions?
That was all in the song he had chosen, of course.
“The Stalker Song.”
Pretty obvious, wasn't it?
It didn't get any more stark in the open than those lyrics.
'Please, don't be scared, I just like you.'
'Please notice me, I just want to get close to you.'
Daichi even lived in the third district, just like the protagonist of the tune!
That's why Koushi had thought it would be an easy win, this time.
And he had been royally wrong.
Not only Daichi seemed as oblivious as usual, but even Asahi – who wasn't a perceptive genius himself – had started to notice something, if only because he kept turning his head between the singing setter and his other teammate, a look on his face that Koushi could only read as “Did Captain receive too many balls with his face, recently?”.
Eh.
If only that was the case – a concussion is a disease carrying some chances of recovery, at least.
Daichi's denseness, on the other hand... he wasn't so sure, sadly.
The situation awfully snowballed the moment one of the girls – he didn't even really notice which one, really – joined him halfway through his desperate attempts to catch that dork's attention.
Attempts that included faking distress, wetting his lips, toying with his hair.
He was almost ready to just throw the damn microphone into the lady's face and jump onto the table, grab Daichi by the collar and yell into his face “What the HELL is wrong with YOU?!”
But he didn't – not out of his usual composure, no, it was purely because the music had come to a stop, making him snap out of it.
If that was a fortune or not, he had no idea.
***
“Why did you do that?”
The question he asked was, again, pretty straightforward in Koushi's mind – but still vague enough for Daichi to totally misunderstand.
“I like karaoke.”
No, he liked to drive his setter crazy, mostly.
“But you know I don't!”
Well, it wasn't exactly a lie – technically, it was a half-truth? Definitely, he was not liking karaoke in that exact moment.
“I just didn't know you were that awful!”
'I didn't know you were so dense either, but such is life, I suppose?'
Koushi snorted, shaking his head to try and level himself enough to keep his mouth shut one more time.
“Oh God, it was so embarrassing!”
“The girls liked it!”
The girls...?
Was that all that mattered? After his plan, his efforts, his...
… love?
He buried his face in his hands.
“But you thought I was awful!”
Trying to guilt-trip Daichi wasn't a morally correct move, but a big chunk of his fair-play had been tossed down the drain like a piece of toilet paper the very moment he had started scheming this whole night out.
“Since when you care about what I think?"
'Since when?! Since for-FUCKING-ever? And yes, it's my own thoughts, I can swear as much as I want while thinking, thankyouverymuch!'
He punched the dork on his shoulder, as hard as he could.
"Idiot!"
“Hey, calm down, I need my arms to play volleyball!”
'Oh, Daichi, my dear, you need a functioning brain, first of all, and to remove whatever you have in front of your eyes that prevents you from seeing things that are so, SO, SO obvious.'
“Then don't say stupid things!”
“Well, I thought you were kinda cute back then."
All of a sudden, breath got caught in Koushi's throat.
Did... did Daichi find him... cute? For real?
He chuckled, trying to dissimulate his surprise.
“Asahi was the cutest one, I swear!” he answered, words carefully calculated to analyze his Captain's reactions “Did you see his face? He was terrified of me!”
Not quite – poor Azumane was probably just trying to assess if the famous injury Daichi had sustained had left any permanent damage, or if he was just naturally gifted with such a high level of general obliviousness.
“Well, he's always pissing himself for something or other...”
Yeah, the moment he had figured out how hopeless the situation was, more than likely.
“He was TREMBLING! I'm sure he'll be seeing me in his nightmares tonight!”
The laughter that followed was drenched in despair, more than anything, but Sugawara Koushi was positive his best friend wouldn't notice anyway.
Sadly.
“You're evil, Suga. Poor Asahi doesn't deserve such a treatment!”
“Says who!”
Those words left his mouth before Koushi could hold back.
Damn, he had been so close to spilling out just how unfair and ridiculous the circumstances were from his point of view, but, for the umpteenth time, his self-control came to the rescue, even if a little belatedly.
By the looks of it, he wouldn't be able to hold himself back much longer.
“You were dissing him just a minute ago!” he hurriedly added, coupling his statement with some more laughing, for good measure “A-anyway, you really caused a sensation with Mayuko-chan!”
There.
Maybe mentioning one of “the girls who had liked karaoke so much” would do the trick, and finally give him some semblance of an answer. Honestly, he didn't even care if it was rejection, at that point – he just needed a closure, one way or another.
The clueless look on the dork's face caused Koushi to sigh.
“Daichi, you're so dumb. Mayuko, the pretty girl with braided hair, the one who took us all to that awful place known as karaoke.”
Daichi's expression didn't change at all. Could he dare hope that...?
“Oh my god Daichi, I can't... I just...! Well, whatever, she was glued to your side for the whole night, eh?”
“Really?”
This time Sugawara Koushi couldn't stop himself in time.
“Aaah, come on, you cannot be so dense!” he added some nice elbowing to try and patch up such a colossal slip of his self-containment “She really fancies you! Did you get her number?”
The answer he received, though, hit him like a bucketful of ice cubes.
“Yeah, I did.”
For a second – just a tiny second, really – Koushi found himself battling back a couple of tears.
That was it, right?
It was over.
He had been obsessing over an answer, whatever that could be, and there it was, right in front of his very eyes.
“OOOH, NICE ONE, CAPTAIN!” his voice rose without his consent, but maybe it was for the best, wasn't it? “You're in the springtime of your life, enjoy the ripe fruits of– ”
“She said her elder sister plays volleyball in some sort of neighborhood association, so I thought it could be useful to keep in touch just in case.”
And, in the same way, an overwhelming sadness had crushed him just a second before, joy washed over Koushi's mind and body. He bit his lip in a vague attempt to keep some semblance of poker face – and ending up looking a lot gloomier than intended.
“... you're hopeless, Daichi. I pity you.”
“I think like a proper captain, you should learn from my immense experience. Moreover, I was too enraptured in your fantastic performance to really bother about anything else.”
Huh?
What?
Had Daichi just...?
Sugawara Koushi turned around way too suddenly for it to be casual. He pushed Daichi, praying the joke would be a decoy and overdoing it a little.
"Next time will be bowling time. I'll trash you all!"
Bowling? Really?
That was the best he could come up with?
"I don't like you when you play bowling, you get too competitive and scare the first-years!"
Phew.
Sometimes, his Captain's obliviousness was really a godsend.
"Tsukishima was not scared of me!"
"Yeah, but Kageyama almost peed himself when you managed 5 strikes in a row!"
Oh, come on.
Kageyama had just been angry that, for a change, he couldn't be the best at something.
"He was AMAZED, Daichi. That is the right word. Amazed." he diplomatically replied.
He found himself whistling, and if that wasn't a dead giveaway of his current state of mind, then he really didn't know what could be.
There was a brief moment of silence.
Then, Daichi's voice echoed again.
“We should do it again, soon.”
“What? Bowling?"
“Karaoke. But just the two of us.”
Just... just the two of...?
Sugawara Koushi gasped, badly, waving bye-bye to any remains of his now shattered composure.
“W-what?” he painfully articulated “So that you can openly laugh in my face?”
He wasn't even sure his own bluff was still plausible, but it was too late to draw back, too late to change plans. The ball had already been tossed, waiting for a spiker to hit it or miss it.
“No, that's not it.”
“Then what is it?”
The Captain hesitated, making the tension pumping through Koushi's veins skyrocket.
“I can teach you a thing or two. Singing is not that different from receiving, it's just a matter of practice!”
"Really?"
"Really!"
Crack.
Something inside Sugawara Koushi's mind snapped, so powerfully he could almost hear the sound in the back of his mind.
It was...
Yes, it was just like being on the court, during a difficult match – the moment when all you can think about is 'The Hell with it, it's all or nothing, here.', the moment when something reckless surfaces to your consciousness and you just find yourself speaking, spellbound.
"Teach me, then. Now!"
His words surprised even himself, but the look on Daichi's face was surely a lot more stunned.
"Now? It's past eleven, Suga, don't you think it'd be better to–"
No, no, no.
He wouldn't let his poised, wise Captain talk him out of it.
Not this time.
Not after all of those cues that didn't make sense, not after he had gone so far.
"Tomorrow there's no school nor practice, why don't you sleep at my place? We can sing and play video games all night long, my parents are not home anyway! You can teach me how to sing like a beautiful nightingale and I'll prepare my special marshmallow hot chocolate for you, what do you think about it?"
'Say yes, say yes, say yes, I beg of you, Daichi, say yes...'
"Okay, sure, why not? It's been ages since my last sleepover!"
"Perfect! Let's go, let's go! It'll be awesome!"
As Koushi turned around, he made sure to keep his eyes focused on the concrete – the tears he had so painfully held back were streaking his cheek.
***
Sugawara Koushi had always been the master of reliability.
He was solid, consistent and dependable – which, in layperson's terms, it meant that he was boring, repetitive and probably way too scared to change things mid-match, even when he realized his own course of action wasn't the best possible option.
However, even if way more rarely than average, even if it cost him a lot of mental energies, there were times when he managed to push through his own barriers, to find those fifteen seconds of insane courage that could change the path of things forever.
He and Daichi had kissed.
To be more precise, Daichi had taken the initiative first, unsteadily pressing his lips against Koushi's ones – which went way beyond the setter's wildest dreams.
Of course, given the half-decade of pent-up desires weighing on Koushi's mind and body, a kiss was not nearly enough to quench his thirst. And that was the reason why, he had been totally unable to stop.
Rather, he had pushed Daichi on his bed as soon as the Captain was distracted enough to lose balance.
The fact that it had taken just a few seconds of making out for such a sturdy man's legs to give way was incredibly encouraging.
And then?
Well, they had done a few... things .
Things that involved them getting rid of their t-shirts and Daichi's uniform's pants to be unceremoniously unzipped. Things that had left them both panting and entangled on Koushi's tiny bed.
“S-Suga...?”
Daichi's voice was feeble and weirdly remissive compared to his usual thundering tone.
“Mmm?”
“W-Where did you learn... I mean... that thing with your hand...?”
The setter broke out in a sound laughter.
“You're so, so naive, you know? Like you said before, it's all a matter of practice. I just practiced a lot. By myself.”
Daichi's cheeks quickly gained such a cute, bright shade of red that Koushi couldn't keep himself from smacking a kiss on both.
“... I'm not sure I wanted to know what...”
“Well, I did it thinking about you, if this makes things better?”
Red turned quickly into egg-plant purple.
“N-No! I-It doesn't! Too much information!”
It was amazing what a couple of hours could do, right?
What a handful of minutes before was downright irritating – Daichi's denseness, of course – had now become adorable.
Sugawara Koushi grinned.
“Okay, okay. I'm sorry, Daichi!”
The other boy sighed.
Koushi was fully expecting some sort of uncomfortable silence to take over, but, much to his surprise, his Captain spoke again.
“... what about that thing with your mouth then?”
'Oh, Daichi, you have seen nothing of what a mouth can do, trust me...'
“Ooooh. That's called a hickey. Did you like it?”
He earned a distracted nod.
“... where did you learn that? You did it on yourself too, or...?”
Awww.
Wasn't he just adorable?
“Yamaguchi.”
Koushi's answer was purposefully vague and, in fact, it elicited the response he had hoped for.
Daichi quickly shifted his position, propping himself up on his elbow to shoot a blatantly jealous look at the setter.
“Yamaguchi?! You and Yamaguchi...?!”
Another, louder laughter erupted from Koushi's mouth, so hard he had to clutch at his stomach.
“Oh my God, absolutely not, Daichi! It's just that Yamaguchi has a ton of experience with these things. We have a lot of time to chat from the bench – he gave me a few tips. If I ever managed to show you that I was interested, that is.”
The expression on the Captain's face, completely clueless and confused, was almost worth a picture.
“... experience? Yamaguchi?”
Sugawara Koushi shrugged “Of course. He's been dating Tsukishima for almost three years, now.
Daichi's eyes widened.
“Did you really think they were just friends?”
“Y-Yes...?”
“Your naiveness should be protected by law, Daichi! I'm pretty sure they've gone all the way already, you know? Yamaguchi wasn't explicit about it, but that smirk on his face...!” he stopped for a moment, smiling to himself.
Yamaguchi was really a lot less innocent than anybody thought.
“Oh, and apparently there is a very good reason why Tsukishima is hesitant to change his shirt in front of us. I think I've seen the marks myself a couple of times. But don't worry, I left the hickey on your thigh, so you can strip in the lockers without any problems – just keep your boxers on!”
“S-Stop it...!”
Daichi's face was basically auto-combusting and the awkward silence the setter had sort of mentally prepared for finally set in.
It was, however, short-lived.
“... I might be dense, but you never noticed either.”
Koushi blinked.
What on Earth...?
“I've had a crush on you for the last... I don't know, 2 years? So, at the very least, this is a deuce, don't you think?”
He didn't have the time to think about anything at all, let alone to come up with a reply. In a moment, Daichi was on top of him, pinning his pale wrists on the pillow.
“But I don't like losing, Suga. And, at heart, a deuce is a loss so... Ready for round two?”
Sugawara Koushi couldn't ask for anything more.