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He never understood why people cry. He frequently watched his classmate cry, for a broken toy, for something he said, for the stupidest reason, really, and he never understood them.
Tobio was a strange child, even his own parent said that. He was always so quiet, with his big, sharp, blue eyes watching you like they could see your soul and understand everything inside you. And then he opened his mouth and, obviously, he didn’t understand anything because he had the super power to always say the wrong thing. Or maybe the right one, but in the worst possible way. Than he stayed there, watching you cry, blinking like he couldn’t understand what was happening, never showing a sign of wanting to help you calm down, like it was all so foreign that he didn’t know were to start.
And it was exactly that.
Even since he was younger, Tobio never shown interest in other people. He never wanted eye contact, even when his parents, he never wanted to play with other children, he prefer his quiet time alone and if someone tried to play with him he got distressed very quickly. His distress was also strange. He didn’t cry. He never cried, even as a baby. He got angry instead. Trashing around, kicking the air or anything in his reach, and, growing up, throwing a fit and destroying everything near him. When he grasped more complex word, listening to adults around him, he even started to insults everybody, causing his parents to feel ashamed for his behaviour a lot.
Tobio was not an easy child, but nobody never questioned his behaviour. He was just young, he would grown out of it. It was just his personality. Maybe he was just a difficult child. Nobody never thought there was something more behind this until he was in school.
During the kindergarten year Tobio was frequently alone. He never wanted to play with other children, and when forced to, he become distressed very quickly and often hurt his classmate. He wasn’t a bad child, his teacher often told his parents, he was just different.
They tried to make him interact with his peer, but if some day he could play with them, other he was just too stressed and the teacher was forced to let him calm down before trying again. It was difficult, for him, because he didn’t like being unhappy, and for his teacher and classmate, because they were not sure on how to approach him.
When he started grade one things became more difficult. He was not used to making friend and children that age were very cruel with someone so different from them. He was often showing bruises and black eye from all the fight he got into.
When his parent tried to understand he couldn’t really explain what happened and got anxious and frustrated with them, shouting and throwing stuff around. He was often punished for his behaviour, but nothing never changed, because he was not doing it on purpose, it couldn’t be helped.
It was in fourth grade, when they changed teacher, that something happened. She was a young lady, recently graduated and with an open mind. She didn’t get angry with his manner and tired to help him how she could. She understood that changes were difficult for him, so she never forced him to change sit in class. She tried to stick to a routine, never changing plan at last minute unless strictly necessary and she tried to put him near quiet and friendly classmate. With this simple thing his grade went up quickly and his fits were mostly gone.
It was during a meeting with his parents that she suggested he could have Asperger’s Syndrome.
The silence in the room was suffocating.
Tobio had some memories of that day. He was sitting in a chair, perfectly still, watching outside of the window, but listening carefully. They always thought he was not listening because he never looked at them, but he was.
Unfortunately he never had the capacity of reading the atmosphere and he didn’t really understand why his mother, who was usually very talkative, was so silent.
“What does that mean?”
Everybody in the room jumped, not expecting the young boy, usually so quiet, to talk. The teacher smiled at him, trying to explain, but a harsh sound came out from his father mouth and the lady didn’t say a word, letting the older people speak.
“No, he doesn’t have it. He’s not stupid. I will not stay here to listen to such nonsense” were the following word, harsh and definitive. In a heartbeat he was outside the room, not waiting for his wife or child, both unsure of what to do.
“Kageyama-san...” the teacher tried to say, but said woman just shock her head, silencing the girl.
“Please, don’t say anything. I will try to talk with him”
...
The following months were really strange. His usually so careful routine was torn in to pieces and his father tried to introduce him to many and many young boy his age - “trying to prove a point”, as his mother said one day. Tobio started numerous sport, sometimes only for a lesson, sometimes for more, but every time he was home his father never looked at him.
Tobio didn’t understand. He was not sure of what was changing, but he didn’t like it.
Until, one day, his father brought him to a gym with high celling and squeaky pavements. Boys his age were running and smiling, throwing ball in the air.
It was in the moment they put a ball in his hands that he knew what love was.
A rare smile could be seen on his face. He followed his team mates, never leaving the ball behind, never leaving it out of sight, even when he was throwing it.
He didn’t know what was so appealing. It was just a ball, like many other, it was just a sport, like most of what he tried, it was just a gym, like all he saw before. But the smell inside, the sound of ball not falling on the ground, the sensation of happiness when it finally felt and one team was cheering it was… Beautiful.
For the first time in his life he felt attached to something. He wanted to know everything about it, what every player was called, how to do difficult thing, how to win. He asked his mother to bring him to the gym, because he wanted to be there every single moment. He was so frustrated every time they forced him to go back home, but he quickly found an alternative in watching the matches on television.
In the following month he knew every detail of the player in the Japanese national team, their statistic, their favourite play and how much they weighted.
He was obsessed, and his mother was worried.
His father was happy, frequently saying how a boy so passionate about a sport – “a sport mind you, not some strange stuff” - could have something so bad as autism.
Tobio didn’t care, really, he never worried of what his parents thought of him, he just wanted to do something that made him feel good, not frustrated and anxious like most of the thing in his life. He could have asked for help, he could have told somebody, but he never knew how to approach people, especially with something that was like a second nature to him, no matter how unpleasant.
He could not see his mother eyes always fixed on him. He could not see the worry and the exhaustion in her gesture. He should have paid attention, but he didn’t.
So the day he was waken up by screams and slammed door he was totally confused. Hearing his mother cry, shouting, was not something he expected that Sunday morning. He didn’t move, to confused to do anything. He just listened. He should not have done that.
“He’s a monster! He’s not son of mine”
“How can you say that! He’s just a child”
“I don’t care, no son of mine could be stupid! I raised him to be intelligent, not some sort of freak!”
“How dare you, you piece of shit! He’s also my son and I don’t think there is nothing wrong with him!”
“He is handicapped! He needs to be fixed!”
“GET OUT OF MY HOUSE, NOW!”
“You can’t tell me what to do woman! It’s my house, not yours”
“Tobio is upstairs and I will not leave you with him a moment more, you need go get the hell out”
“You go out bitch and bring the spawn of Satan with you! I don’t want to see either of you until he is fixed!”
The silence was so loud. It echoed in his head, leaving an unpleasant sensation tingling on his skin. He could not move, he could not do anything. He just waited, thirty-seven infinite second, before everything, every sound, every smell every sensation, come back with full force, leaving him hysterical in his mother arm, trashing around while the woman took him out of the house with just his pyjamas on and his volleyball in his hand.
...
Life was hard.
Getting up every morning was strange and frightening, and he wanted to go back home. He wake up in different places, sometimes a hotel, sometimes a room in a friend’s house, sometimes he didn’t know where he was because his mother made them move during the night while he was sleeping.
He craved his routine, the sensation of always knowing where he was and what he was doing, but know every moment was a mystery and he didn’t like it, at all.
“Can you at least try Tobio?” his mother begged him after the umpteenth time they were forced to move because the hotel couldn’t have complain for the shouting in the morning. Tobio wanted to say it was not his fault, he was trying, but he just couldn’t do it.
“You need to wait a little bit more, ok? Can you be a good boy for me?” she asked, tired, trying to make eye contact with her son, but he moved his head, looking at the floor, and the woman sighed.
Tobio believed he was a bad child. He couldn’t even do what his mother was asking him to do, he couldn’t stay put, he couldn’t stay silent, he couldn’t behave. He was a bad child, and he couldn’t do anything about it. He tried, so hard, but he couldn’t. He just stopped trying.
…
His mother wanted to see a doctor, but his father never let her. They were still fighting for the divorce and until everything was settled she couldn’t really do anything that her soon to be ex husband really disliked if she wanted to have the custody of her son.
So they waited, and waited, and waited, but even after the finalisation of the divorce she couldn’t bring him to see a doctor without the father consent. It was frustrating, it was horrible, but they had to make it work somehow.
It didn’t matter if he had Asperger’s or not, one night his mother said, combing his hair. Tobio looked at her, puzzled, but she just petted his hair saying that it didn’t matter. Tobio just looked away, too unsettled by the staring. He didn’t like being watched and he really didn’t care what his mother meant. Only volleyball was important and needed to be understood, the other staff were meaningless.
...
At this time he was in 6th grade, the last year before junior high school. The situation was stable, his mother found a place for them to live, but she was always at work, trying to make enough money for them. Tobio learned how to cook, he was often hungry and his mother forgot to cook or was too tired to do it.
Tobio didn’t complain, it was finally a routine and he was happy like that. He had his ball, he had his computer and his book and video tape about volleyball, and he was content like that. No need to talk, no need to look at someone in the eye, no need to pretend to be a good child. It was like heaven.
When he started 7th grade he happily joined the volleyball team. Everybody was so good and he quickly started to improve, watching other, learning from them. He was glad to have some amazing senpai and he looked up mostly at Oikawa. He wanted to be like him so desperately that everything in his body ached when he didn’t talk with him. It was the first time he felt anything like that for a person, but he didn’t question it. He was a volleyball player, he was someone he wanted to be, that was enough explanation for him.
He never understood why Iwaizumi-senpai seemed so angry with Oikawa-senpai that day. They were shouting, he knew it was about him, but he couldn’t understand what he did wrong. He couldn’t ask to teach him the jump serve? Was he really that bad that he couldn’t even ask?
It didn’t matter. His admiration for Oikawa-senpai grew stronger everyday, it amazed him how his heart could beat so fast while watching Oikawa-senpai taking the best setter award. He wanted that too. He wanted everything that Oikawa had.
So he started training a lot more. Nobody was ever home, so nobody noticed the long straining hour he spent in the gym. He tried to set more and more, faster, sharper, stronger. He wanted to be perfect, he wanted to win every single game and make Oikawa-senpai see him not as a nuisance, but as someone worthy.
But things don’t usually go as planned, that was the hard lesson Tobio needed to learn.
...
During the next two year Tobio grew more and more irritated with his team mates. They didn’t try enough, they never wanted to get better. They had all the potential, but didn’t want to use it and that made Tobio absolutely furious.
He was even more frustrated with the orange haired boy he met in the first match. He had so much talent, he could be the best, he could defeat everything in his path, but he didn’t work enough for it. He was rough in the edges, only relying on his instinct and hoping for a good result. He was so frustrating to watch, because he could taste his desperation to win, but he didn’t work enough for it and that was so frustrating that Tobio couldn’t stop himself from screaming. He was his enemy, he needed to defeat him if he wanted to play more, but something in his brain told him to tell something at that idiot because he was wasting both their time. He could have done so much in three year, but know was too late.
At least he could see that he wanted to win. Not like his team mates, always complaining and wasting precious time to get better.
More. Faster. He wanted it all. He wanted to win at all cost.
He didn’t understand at first what “king of the court” meant. Well, he didn’t even understand that it was referred to him until one of his team mates called him that during practice. He didn’t care, he was always called something strange by other, weirdo, freak, abomination (that one mostly from his dad the rare time he spoke to him), so being called King didn’t really meant anything to him.
Until the day that no one was there. Nobody wanted to spike his toss, nobody wanted to be near the king. King was the name of someone not worthy, of someone who couldn’t win, of someone how couldn’t play volleyball and all he wanted to do in his life was playing volleyball.
Meaningless.
Everything was meaningless without volleyball.
All the time he struggled to find a meaning to things were like forgotten memories, too far away to really be important. At that time he thought that understanding thing, finding the meaning behind word he didn’t know was a waste of time. Only volleyball had real meaning in his life, everything else was a detour in the path of his life. His life had a meaning while playing volleyball, but if they took it from him everything was dull and dark. He felt like he was inside a bubble, at the bottom of a swirling ocean, far away from the light he craved so much.
MEANINGLESS.
In that moment Tobio understood what real defeat was.