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It’s strange, playing college volleyball.
It’s not that the volleyball itself is strange – Wakatoshi still spikes the same way, serves the same way, blocks the same way as he does in high school. And it’s not even that the scale is strange – he’s used to high stakes, all eyes on him, carrying a powerhouse school on his shoulders. It’s strange how different this game feels, even though he’s playing the same position, spiking the same way, serving the same way.
Wakatoshi spikes, and there’s no Yamagata to save the ball if it gets sent back, no Reon to steadily send it his way, no Shirabu to toss it high and a little bit to the left. No Goshiki to marvel at the skill of his senpai, no Kawanishi to smirk at their opponents’ inability to keep up, no Semi to critique everyone from the sidelines. No Tendou to leap into the air, deadly as the east wind, and send the ball straight into the ground. No team to cheer when he scores a point.
It’s not as though Wakatoshi is playing alone, of course – he has new teammates who can set, block, and serve just as well as his old teammates could. But he’s never been good at building friendships, at gaining trust, and he knows about as much about these new teammates now as he did on the first day of practice three weeks ago. Sometimes, he steps onto the court and he can’t remember any of their names.
Sometimes, he steps onto the court and he feels as though he’s playing alone.
There’s something happening at the coaches’ table – Wakatoshi shakes off thoughts of his old team to turn and stare at the head coach in consultation with the coach in charge of spikers, their heads bent together over a stack of diagrams. He should be watching the game, he knows, should be paying attention to every spike, every receive, every strength and weakness of this team that he’s expected to make his home for four years – but he can’t help watching the coaches instead, hoping as he’s never had to hope before –
The head coach meets his gaze and holds out one hand. Beckoning.
Wakatoshi steps out of the reserves with his head held high, as though he expected this. He bows to the coaches, takes the number of Kogami – a second-year wing spiker who injured himself in practice last week and was instructed to take it easy – and holds it up in time with the referee’s whistle.
It’s strange, playing college volleyball. Strange to step into a match halfway through the second set, strange to bring legs not yet tired of jumping and arms not yet tired of spiking into the midst of limbs already battle-worn, strange to join a rhythm Wakatoshi didn’t start. He’s been following his senpai in practices for the past few weeks, yes – but following them in a game is different. More pressure, less certainty. He knows, intellectually, that he’s being put onto the court to relieve another spiker, to stun the opponents with his serves, to help his team win – yet at the same time, he doesn’t quite know what’s expected of him.
Wakatoshi steps onto the court with his head held high and his hands shaking imperceptibly, like a soldier wielding a weapon he’s never tested.
“It’s your serve,” his captains says, tossing him the ball.
Wakatoshi nods, heads to the back line. Examines the players across the net, decides where to aim. Stretches, shifts his legs –
“Come oooooon, Wakatooooshi!”
At first, Wakatoshi wonders if he imagined the shout. But then, it comes again, louder – and he couldn’t have imagined that enthusiasm, those inflections, that voice so perfectly. No team to cheer when he scores a point – how stupid of him, to believe that for even a moment.
Wakatoshi tosses the ball – raises his arms – and serves straight into the back left corner of the court. An untouchable ace.
Satori is waiting when Wakatoshi emerges from the locker room.
“I can’t believe they didn’t put you in until the second set!” he exclaims, falling into step with his former captain and heading for the campus entrance as though he’s been playing in this gym his whole life. “I mean, did your coaches not realize they had the best ace in Miyagi on their team or something? Served them right when you came in, though – that first serve of yours, man, gave me goosebumps. And when you hit that one block-out, just inside the point line – that was incredible. There are some great people on your team, though – I swear your libero must have supernaturally enhanced reflexes, and that middle blocker with the short black hair, man, he’s almost as good at read blocking as Taichi. I guess college volleyball really is on a whole other level …”
Wakatoshi listens to Satori’s analysis of the game closely, nodding along and occasionally supplying a name or number. Satori is wearing jeans and a purple T-shirt – close in color to Shiratorizawa’s uniform, except that it’s brighter, and has the name of his new school printed across the front. His hair is a bit longer, and there’s something on his wrist that Wakatoshi doesn’t recognize – a leather bracelet. Yet he keeps pace with Wakatoshi easily, grinning and teasing as though nothing’s changed – as though this isn’t the first time they’ve seen each other in over a month.
Wakatoshi is struck by the sudden, overpowering urge to grab Satori’s hand, to pull him into some storage closet or bathroom stall and ask what he’s really thinking – but he pushes it down and simply keeps walking, leading the way to his dorm. It’s only when he has to pause in the lobby to swipe his ID that he notices Satori’s backpack, slung over his shoulder – packed almost to bursting, as though he intends to stay the night.
“Do you think they’ll have you start in the next game?” Satori asks as they board the elevator.
Wakatoshi shrugs and hits the button for the seventh floor. “I don’t know. It’s rare for them to put first-years in the starting lineup, especially at the beginning of the season.”
“But surely you impressed them today,” Satori insists. “I mean, I know I’m biased, but you scored, what, ten points in the third set?”
“I wasn’t keeping track.”
There are a few seconds of silence as the elevator rises, then settles with a creak on the seventh floor.
“That’s pretty fast,” Satori says. “The one in my building takes twice as long. But then, my building’s only got four floors, so it’s not like that many people use the elevator, anyway. I mostly take the stairs, unless it’s super late at night, because you never know …”
As Satori launches into some story about how he found his friend having sex with her girlfriend in the stairwell at one A.M., Wakatoshi leads the way to his room, fumbles in his jacket pocket until he finds his keys, then wrestles with the lock. It’s been over a month since he moved in, and he still isn’t entirely sure how to lock and unlock his door – as Semi used to say, all his talent is concentrated in volleyball.
But eventually, Wakatoshi prevails – the door swings open, revealing a small, dim room with two twin beds pushed against opposite walls.
“So, it’s pretty obvious which side of the room is yours,” Satori remarks, glancing pointedly up at the walls – one side (his roommate’s) is covered with posters and photos while the other side (his own) is largely bare. “It’s a good thing I came to visit, otherwise you would’ve been staring at white paint –”
Before he can finish that thought, Wakatoshi finally – finally – crosses the distance between them and crushes Satori in a hug.
His skin is slightly cooler than Wakatoshi’s – a fact oddly comforting in its familiarity. He smells like sweat, and oranges, and rain. And Wakatoshi might be imagining this, but he thinks Satori is ever so slightly thinner than when they last saw each other – bonier, as though he hasn’t been eating enough.
For a moment, maybe two, Satori is completely still. And then he exhales, slumps, sinks into Wakatoshi’s arms. His arms encircle Wakatoshi’s shoulders and he starts to trace patterns lightly into Wakatoshi’s back. Wakatoshi drops his forehead to Satori’s shoulder and just breathes. His chest is tight, but it still feels strangely as though this is the first time he’s breathed properly in weeks.
They stay like that for a long time – many seconds, maybe even minutes – and then Satori extracts himself slowly and says, “Okay, I don’t know about you, but I really want to sit down.”
Satori sits down on Wakatoshi’s bed and bounces a little, grinning invitingly. There’s the briefest pause, and then Wakatoshi flops down front-first, his face landing in Satori’s lap.
“Hey,” Satori says. Wakatoshi feels fingers combing through his hair – gentle, as though he’s something delicate, something worth holding.
“I thought you had a test today,” he tells Satori, voice muffled.
“Yeah, well. It was in the morning. I finished early and hopped on the next train – even brought my stuff to class with me.” One of Satori’s hands reaches the base of Wakatoshi’s scalp and he smiles in contentment at the sensation, nuzzling into his partner’s waist.
“Thank you,” Wakatoshi says.
“What, for coming?” The hands still for a moment, then return – tracing Wakatoshi’s neck, his shoulders. “Did you really think I wouldn’t?”
“I … I don’t know.”
“And pass up a chance to watch my incredible s.o. in action?” Wakatoshi feels a shift – and then he’s rolling onto his side, and Satori is lying down next to him, grabbing both of his hands and pulling even closer. “Never.”
One of them moves closer – or maybe both of them do – and then they’re kissing, mouths opening easily, easily as ripples on the ocean shine when the sun comes up. Wakatoshi hadn’t quite realized that he’d missed this, hadn’t quite thought that he’d needed this, but now that it’s happening – now that Satori is close and tangible and here – he doesn’t ever want this to stop.
“Your roommate?” Satori half-gasps the question in between kisses, then moves to mouth at Wakatoshi’s neck.
“Gone home for the weekend,” Wakatoshi replies. He tilts his head back against the pillow, closes his eyes, wonders if Satori would stay in here the entire weekend if he asked –
His phone buzzes.
Wakatoshi had put it on vibrate that morning, so that he’d be sure to hear the alarm reminding him to cut his run short. He could probably ignore it now, except that it just doesn’t shut up, like a bee repeatedly banging its tiny yellow head against a car window.
“Don’t –” he starts to say.
Satori grabs it. He has to reach around Wakatoshi to do it, as the thing had fallen from his jacket pocket onto the floor when they came in, and it’s almost embarrassing how his hand brushing Wakatoshi’s waist raises goosebumps on his skin.
“It’s your team’s group chat,” Satori says, scrolling through messages. “The – captain, I think – suggested that the whole team go out to dinner, and now everyone’s arguing about where to go.”
“Oh.” Wakatoshi rolls onto his back and reaches out his right arm, aiming to pull Satori back onto the bed.
“What?” Satori asks. He turns and looks at his partner, one eyebrow raised, but doesn’t move from his position half-on, half-off the bed. “You’re going, right?”
Wakatoshi hadn’t planned on joining his team for dinner.
He rarely joins his team for much of anything, besides practice – they aren’t friends, and they have no common interests besides volleyball, so he doesn’t see much point. But after he says as much to Satori, Satori explains that, maybe, if he hung out with his team a little bit, they would become friends. (This is what happened with us first-year, remember?)
That, combined with Satori’s assurance that Wakatoshi’s teammates invited him along because they genuinely do like him, not just as a formality, is enough to convince him to get out of bed, shower, and put on clean clothes. They walk together to a small ramen place a few blocks away from campus, where the team occupies five tables pushed together near the back of the restaurant.
When they open the door, half the team shouts, “Ushijima!” Even some of the second- and third-years – even a couple of people who Wakatoshi didn’t think knew his name.
He looks at Satori, not sure how to respond. Satori just grins and pushes him forward a little bit.
“Hi,” Wakatoshi says. He pauses, then waves.
The team gestures at him to come forward, then moves aside to make room for him and Satori near one end of the table.
“Great job today,” the captain says, patting Wakatoshi on the back. Several of his other teammates echo him, with enthusiastic shouts and praise for his spiking. Wakatoshi accepts their compliments with a nod and tries to return them in kind, but his voice is lost in the cacophony.
“And who’s this?” the libero asks, pointing at Satori.
“This is Satori,” Wakatoshi replies. He reaches a hand beneath the table and pulls Satori’s chair closer to his own.
“Tendou Satori,” the boy himself clarifies with a wide grin. “Wakatoshi and I were teammates in high school. I took the train up to see your match.”
Wakatoshi’s almost surprised how seamlessly Satori fits in with his teammates – how he talks and jokes with them, telling stories from high school and asking about strategy. He’s almost surprised, except that he remembers their first year at Shiratorizawa, how Satori’s enthusiasm had helped pull together four of the most competitive people he knows into a group of friends that he now can’t imagine life without.
He knows he should be paying attention to his new teammates, listening to their conversation, maybe even learning their names once and for all, but he keeps finding his gaze pulled to Satori, like a flower turning to soak up the light of the sun. He watches Satori’s easy smile, the way he throws his head back when he laughs, the glint of mirth in his dark-red eyes.
And once, when he looks at Satori, he finds Satori looking back at him. Wakatoshi’s never considered himself particularly romantic, but he would swear that for that moment, time stands still.
After dinner, they bow out of following the team to the captain’s apartment for a victory party and instead return to Wakatoshi’s room. Satori borrows Wakatoshi’s laptop and spends an hour going through various social media accounts, compiling a document of photos of their team (group shots from tournaments, candids from training camps, and a collection from Semi’s Twitter that Wakatoshi’d been previously unaware of titled “Selfies with Ushiwaka”), then uses at least half of Wakatoshi’s print quota to print them out – because you can’t keep your walls bare like this, Wakatoshi-kun, it’s just sad.
They tape the photos up all around his room, Satori talking all the while – telling stories of his new college friends, his Snapchat arguments with Semi, his occasional phone calls with Goshiki – then collapse on the bed. It’s too small for Wakatoshi by himself, much less for both of them together, but they make it work, Satori’s head on Wakatoshi’s shoulder and Wakatoshi’s arm pulling Satori to his side. It’s cramped, a little sweaty, but Satori is talking and Satori is smiling and Satori is here.
Wakatoshi looks from his partner, falling asleep on his shoulder, to the photos of his teammates, grinning at him from above his bed, and thinks that maybe this college thing isn’t so bad after all.