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It’s a quiet ride home.
The windows are open; chilly wind wafts into the minibus and it makes her shiver slightly in her seat. Usually no one minds when it’s this peaceful; the bus was also filled with this kind of steady hum when they were going there. Not even Nishinoya and Tanaka, in all their distracting and raucous antics, have the energy to fire up some harmless prank that would drive present and future captains Daichi-san and Ennoshita-san nervous, irate, or both. No one can even hear Kageyama’s signature “Dumbass Hinata!” or Hinata snapping back at the setter. Coach Ukai and Takeda-sensei, who usually hold lively conversations while the former is driving, don’t even seem to feel like chatting. It’s quiet. Too quiet. But she tries her best to give it the benefit of the doubt—to be fair, everyone’s sleeping right now, anyway, so there’s that.
She sinks uneasily into her chair and tries to ignore the depression hovering in the air. She’d give anything—almost anything right now just to make these people, this team, feel better. The team whose sufferings she’d seen during the numerous training camps and matches, the team she’d seen that was determined to bring back the pride that was supposed to be theirs, regardless of the countless flying falls they had to take.
The team that welcomed her warmly as their new manager. The team that had the unforgettable look of pride in their eyes when she wore her own personal varsity jacket—Karasuno High School Men’s Volleyball Club.
Shimizu-senpai, beside her, is also asleep. Her head is inclined slightly to the direction of the window. The passing twilight sky makes a stark, aesthetic contrast against her milky white skin and raven hair. For a brief second, she looks outside, and notices that the first star of tonight has already shown itself. Well, she thinks, at least it won’t be raining when we all walk home tonight. She observes her upperclassman for a while—it never escaped her how beautiful the senior manager is. And then it hits her: how is she going to manage an entire team all by herself? How will she ever do as great a job as Shimizu-senpai? Her usual nerves over the most menial of things strikes her square in the gut, she shudders in her seat. Maybe she should get another manager? No, of course not; she couldn’t do that. The idea is doable, but far-fetched. What would they say? She had been oriented very well by Shimizu-senpai on what to do and what to not do. Any mistake or negligence on her part would wholly and only be her fault. Shimizu-senpai had managed everything on her own when the cloak of management had been passed onto her by her predecessor, so why can’t she? She and Hinata had already talked over her insecurities and they have already established that Villager B can fight, too.
She takes a deep breath, and decides to look somewhere else. Are they there yet? She’s seated at the aisle, and across, to her right, is Tsukishima-kun. She covertly glances at him, and is surprised to find that he is wide awake, seated with his arms folded, quite relaxed, but not entirely—there’s a certain rigidity in his pose that hints alertness. For what, she doesn’t know.
Only when Tsukishima looks at her from the corner of his eye does she realize that she has been goggling. She quickly looks away; she can’t explain herself why she’s been staring, nor can she ask Tsukishima about what he’s feeling right now. For all she knows, all she’d get is a nonchalant shrug and indifferent remark somewhere along the lines of, “we were probably okay…but who are we kidding, they were better”; Tsukishima-kun has been more driven than the first time she met him, but she knows that that emotional barrier called his personality he’d erected between himself and everyone else will always be there. And on Yachi’s part, she wouldn’t ask him to be anyone else, anyway. She’s fine the way Tsukishima-kun is.
It’s still quiet, even when they get to Miyagi and to school, and everyone makes a beeline immediately for the gym, with Captain Daichi muttering something along the lines of, “let’s hurry; we still have to walk home.” After a little kerfuffle about the where the gym keys are, the doors are opened, and Yachi swears she feels the atmosphere drop a tad even lower when they all enter.
Unlike all the other times when they get here, they don’t assemble in front of the white board to discuss their game plan. Usually Coach Ukai would stand there, give a little recap of the match and his opinion on their performance, but tonight is different. They all have a nonverbal agreement to assemble at the center of the court. Everything feels odd, unnatural—even otherworldly.
Takeda-sensei takes his usual place beside Coach Ukai. The team stands before them.
“So,” Coach Ukai says, and it’s surprising how very little regret she hears in his voice, “We lost.”
It’s not like they had just been handed the news. They all know this. Yet somehow, some people in the team look quite aghast, as if only now did their situation look real.
“If you want to cry, cry; but I suggest get it over with immediately, because we have some things to discuss,” adds their coach, with a smile. Silence hangs in the air for what felt like an eternity of seconds, and when no one moves a muscle, he adds, after chuckling, “Thought so. Well, I don’t have anything to say except you all played very, very well. I know it sounds cliché and insincere, especially when you hear it after losing, but I’m saying this not because I have nothing else to say, but because it’s the truth and I mean it. Yes, we lost; yes, I feel that regret too. Yes, I also wish that we could have advanced much further. But I know, as you all know this: we went down fighting, and we fought very hard. We lost, yes, but the hard work, the nerve you showed back there, facing the nation’s top players, is more than I expected from you guys. And I daresay that we, the Fallen Rivals, had them making a run for their money back there.”
Most of the team smile.
“I have been with you for quite a while now, enough to give me the gall to give you all credit for your hard work. You’ve all played tremendously well. You’ve all been so strong, and brave, and you’ve all improved exponentially, and before I start sounding like Takeda-sensei here, I want you all to clap for yourselves.”
The team laughs, and a round of applause echoes in the gym.
Takeda-sensei takes the floor.
“First of all, I want to thank all of you for entrusting me this post of being your club’s adviser. I was by all means inadequate, but still you listened to me,” (there’s a mumble of “no, thank you, sensei”) “I regret it too, yes; no use denying the elephant in the room—we lost. But the thing is, unlike the first time we lost, that time with Aoba Johsai, and the many times we lost to other teams after that, we developed an entire arsenal of offensive and defensive tactics against our opponents—an accumulation of our learnings from our mistakes and private training sessions. And you may or may not have observed this, but we exhausted them all to the fullest ever since, and in no way should any of you think that you are not good enough. They were better, yes, but that doesn’t mean you’re not good yourselves. The beauty in this is that we don’t start from square one: we’ll have to adjust a little, yes; but what we already have at our disposal, we can only add to them. And our gameplay will only get better and better, till we will be as great as those whom we look up to.”
No cryptic literary reference, no figure of speech that would drive Hinata and Kageyama confused. It almost doesn’t sound like sensei.
And then, before she knows it, sensei has already beckoned their captain to the front. Yachi braces herself, and makes an urgent mental note to not start crying like some deranged child. For what she knows will be the first of many, many times, she knows she has to be strong for this team.
Daichi-san clears his throat before speaking. “Well, seems like coach and sensei have already said what I’d have say,” he smiles, and the crowd exhales. “But, I want to give my personal thanks. Thank you, all of you, for making my—our—dream of coming to the national stadium come true. If it weren’t for each of you, we wouldn’t have redeemed the name of Karasuno. And—” their libero’s unmistakable sniff is heard right before Daichi-san blinks away his tears, “I, ‘hem, thank you. Thank you so, so much. I’ve nothing more to say except pick up from where we stopped, and improve more and more from there. Thank you all.”
Only simple words, but speaking volumes. Everyone in the team is significantly crying now. Shimizu-senpai, beside her, side-hugs her closer, and whispers, “I know you can do it, Hitoka-chan,” and then and there, she instantly breaks her resolution: she starts tearing up.
The rest of the third years come forward to give speeches, and though the atmosphere is much lighter than a half hour ago, with laughter bursting every now and then between the sniffs and tears, she knows the tears of pain and even frustration will be showing tonight, when they’ve all individually gone home.
Ennoshita-san is invited forward to give a speech as the new captain, but what exactly he says escapes her. Overwhelmed by the moment, and finding it hard to stop, she let her emotions overtake her, at least just for tonight. Tomorrow, she promises herself, I’ll stop being afraid.
--
“Yachi-san?” Ennoshita-san beckons, as the team starts packing out.
“Ennoshita-san?” she jogs toward him, armed with the water bottles, prepared to clean them.
“I have a request. Would you kindly get our stats from all our practice matches since Shiratorizawa match leading up to nationals, and our stats on the actual nationals matches? Also, if you could make diagrams and charts, it’d be so much better. Is it alright?”
“Yes, sir!” she exclaims, with a fervent salute, effectively knocking her brow with the water bottle.
Their captain chuckles. “The records are with Shimizu-senpai, so you can just make a report from them. Thank you, Yachi-san.”
She bows a little, as their captain leaves.
“Yachi-san!”
She flinches.
“Come on; I’ll walk you to the bus stop,” says Hinata.
“Oh, you can go ahead, Hinata-kun; I still have to clean these bottles.”
“I’ll help you!”
“Oh, no, no; this’ll only take five minutes. Everyone’s still talking outside, I’ll just catch up,”
Hinata isn’t one for tact, but something unspoken goes between them as he throws her a look between confusion and hesitation. She gives him a reassuring nod, saying that it’s okay, and concedes that he may walk her home.
She makes her way to the back of the gym, where the sinks and faucets are, where they usually wash their bottles. There are twelve bottles to be washed, and she thinks that maybe she had miscalculated when she told Hinata that this “will only take five minutes.”
She spends a quiet moment serenely washing them one by one, making sure each bottle is thoroughly washed before leaving it to dry. The events of today reel again and again in her mind. The winning spike of the opponent. The infinite second that had everyone’s mouth left open. The cheers that erupted in the stadium as the whistle rang out. The shock. Registering the truth that they lost. That moment when the team lined up before them, at the stands, and bowed a solid ninety degrees and thanked them for their support. Sugawara-san’s tears as they walked out of the court in dignity. Kageyama-kun gritting his teeth every now and then in frustration. I should have done better, he had whispered darkly. Hinata’s glum silence that he did not break until they got here to Miyagi.
She’s on her tenth bottle when she notices her eyesight is clouded.
”Eh?” she touches a wet hand on her cheek as she feels a teardrop roll down.
They’ve all worked so hard. I know this is sports, but…Daichi-san…Asahi-san…Sugawara-san…Shimizu-senpai…they’ve all dreamed about this for years…they all worked so hard….pushed themselves to their limit and even beyond. Why? As much as she wants to call it unfair, of course, it’s not the case. Surely as theirs have worked hard, the other teams have trained very hard too. Still, ever since her first time seeing them play in that practice match a few months ago, and saw how great everyone in the team is, she believed that nothing would be impossible, that even the third years, upon graduating, would have bagged the national trophy.
(She’s already this deep in, and she hasn’t even assumed the fullness of the managerial position yet.)
“They’ll leave you behind if you don’t hurry up,” says a cool, deep voice, accompanied by a tall figure looming beside her.
She squeaks. “Tsukishima-kun!”
“Stop crying. It makes our loss seem more pathetic than it already is,” and he scoots over to her, grabbing an unwashed water bottle, and starts doing what should be her job.
“S-sorry…I’m sorry,” she sniffs, over the sound of running water. “Tsukishima-kun, you don’t have to—”
“No. Let me. Wash and wipe your face; I think you wouldn’t want anyone seeing you’ve been crying harder than the rest of the team combined.” It sounds nonchalant, borderline mean, even, but knowing Tsukishima-kun, she knows he wouldn’t have said it any other way.
To her surprise, he finishes before she’s done washing her face. She’s fishing her handkerchief from her pocket when he punctures the silence with, “Why were you crying?”
“I—” she sniffs, but this time successfully pushes down the urge to cry again, well knowing that it’d annoy the boy before her. “I just thought that you guys trained so very hard, you never gave up, and it’s just kind of unfair—I know I’m being stupid, this is volleyball, it was fair and square, and all, and I shouldn’t even be this so emotionally invested, I mean I’m not even a player, I’m just some deputy manager who hasn’t even properly started yet—”
“No.” With the single ray of moonlight that managed to shine through, she sees that Tsukishima’s face shows that he’s also agitated. “It’s reasonable. Knowing you, I’d have thought you didn’t care if you hadn’t cried,”
Knowing you. Her lower lip quivers.
“It’s a club. Manager or player, just the same. And if you hadn’t noticed, the role of main pillar of support has been transferred to you fifteen minutes ago.”
A fresh, new stream of tears blots her front and she hastily wipes them with her cuffs. She starts hicking, and it’s when she knows she’s already sobbing. “Sorry, it’s not just that—I’m just—I’m just used to having Shimizu-senpai around, and I’ve been quite scared all this time—oh dear, this is disgraceful, you have a weakling for a manager,”
“Of course not,” there’s almost a soft something in his parlance. “You—”
“Yachi-san!” Narita-san’s voice rings out from a few meters away, behind Tsukishima. “Yachi-san, we’re locking the gym!” And, faster than Narita-san could see Tsukishima, Yachi finds herself circumscribed within the towering frame of Tsukishima Kei. She’s nearly suffocated when Tsukishima wraps his varsity jacket around her small frame.
“Stay still; we don't want you getting embarrassed,” whispers Tsukishima, and Yachi adheres to his suggestion.
She’s always noticed, but it hasn’t really occurred to her just how really tall Tsukishima is, until now. And boy is she glad that this lanky giant is her teammate, because never has she felt this shielded, this safe.
“Tsukishima, is Yachi-san there?” Narita-san asks.
“She just made her way back to the gym seconds ago,” Tsukishima’s chest vibrates when he answers, and it’s kind of muffled from inside his jacket. Tsukishima-kun smells like a long day’s work, and a very faint trace of mildly-scented bath soap.
“Oh. I’ll be going ahead. See you on Monday.”
“Okay.”
He unfurls the jacket around her and she steps away, once the coast is clear. Her face feels hot, of course—she’s not keen on physical contact, let alone intimate proximity. Tsukishima looks like what he did was no big deal, however there’s a vestige of alertness behind his bespectacled eyes.
“I had to.”
“I—I und-derstand.”
“Stop crying already.”
She sniffs, one last time, and wipes her cuff across her eye, with a timid chuckle. “Okay. Thank you, Tsukishima-kun.”
He doesn’t say she’s welcome, instead just walks away, with a laconic “Well, hurry up. We’re leaving.”
But for one last time, she pipes, “Um!”
He turns, torso in her direction.
“You’re not giving up, Tsukishima-kun! And neither am I!” she exclaims, in the most cheerful and most motivating voice she could muster. She gives him a smile, one with a glimmer of hope.
And she could swear, she gets one in return.
There’s a delicate silence about Hinata when he walks her to the bus stop that night. He waits for her bus to arrive, and as she waves goodbye, Hinata notices her puffed eyes, which surprises her, since he’s the kind to be impervious to such things. He doesn’t allude to this, however. He just gives her a grin—the grin that he gives everyone when he’s piped up, or wants to be, with a thumb up, and says, “We’re going to work even harder from now on, Yachi-san!”
A frisson of excitement travels across her spine. Every end is a beginning, after all. She repays his thumb up with hers, assenting, “Osu!”
Months later, the reformed and much less numerous Karasuno High School Men’s Volleyball Team is to assemble at the gym before class. A new year, a new term. She organizes the files, charts, and diagrams into one folder into which Captain Ennoshita can look. In another folder are the application forms of the first years wanting to try out. In her hand is the announcement that Aoba Johsai has invited them to a practice match on the last week of the month. Apparently their new captain is Yahaba, their other setter.
Her heart is thumping like mad in her chest. She’s the first one to make it to the gym. Wanting to have the place all prepared before they arrive, she does all what a sensible manager would do—retrieve the volleyballs from the stock room, does minor cleaning of the floor, refreshes the scoreboard back to their 00-00 marks. Just then, a slim, tall figure walks in, and she’s sufficiently surprised that he’s unaccompanied.
“Good morning, Tsukishima-kun.” She greets amiably. “Where’s Yamaguchi-kun?”
“On his way.” He notices the folder of the application forms, and picks it up.
Yachi approaches where he stands, and, noticing Tsukishima’s apparent scowl of disappointment at the meager number of applicants, starts stuttering, with a wild motion of her hands, “Well, I’m sure there are still o-others that will want to apply in a f-few d-days! We got to n-nationals and I’m p-pretty sure that’s enough to g-get them interested!”
He snaps the folder shut with one hand. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Well, I just t-thought you’d be disappointed…” she looks away from him. It’s kind of spooky how probing Tsukishima could look if he wants to. “As I am…”
He sniggers, and it kind of relieves her that it’s the one he usually does. “What’d you say to me back then?”
She looks up, blinks. “What did I say?”
“Well, I’m not giving up,” he hands her back the folder with a smile. There’s very little of his usual mockery in it. Maybe it’s only when he’s provoking Hinata does he show it. The smile he gives her is almost uncharacteristic: it’s almost friendly, even welcoming, and kind of makes her feel conscious despite of herself. “Are you?”
She gives him one in return.