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Even from a young age, Ushijima Wakatoshi has felt like a triangle-shaped block shoved carelessly into a square-shaped hole.
It’s not the worst, oh no. It could be much different than it is, so much more unpleasant or unfavourable. He’s lucky in that way, he supposes blankly, but that alteration in experience between him and his team-mates still bares weight in his mind and gnaws at his logic.
As a child, no words come out of his mouth, and he’s perfectly okay with that. His parents, on the other hand, are not so okay with that. They prompt him with bribes that don’t work, rewards he doesn’t quite understand, and punishments he knows he’s definitely scared of. The only noises that are ripped out are grunts, huffs, and groans.
In elementary school, he begins to copy what the other kids were doing in regards to speaking and body language in an effort to fit in. However, starting conversations are like a ledge that is just too far away to walk to yet close enough to get to -- it’s a leap of faith. The children in his classes probably think of him as weird, but that’s fine. He just answers every question with an answer that’s as short and concise as possible.
It’s all fine, relatively speaking.
(“Introduce yourself with your name and a fun fact! I’ll go first. I’m Takahashi-sensei, and I like cats.” Their teacher, a slight woman with the name Takahashi Yui, says enthusiastically. She has her class of thirty children seated in a large circle, each dressed pristinely in the school’s uniform. Some look unimpressed at her ‘icebreaker’ and some look like overexcitable puppies.
They follow the line, with Wakatoshi waiting patiently for his turn. While the other students said their name and a fun fact, he ponders what facts are fun. He likes volleyball? That could be okay -- it seems to fit with the facts others have shared. He likes Hayashi rice? People would probably think he was strange for liking something so plain. He’s left-handed? Is that even something to brag about? He’s not sure. He supposes he’ll go with the ‘fact’ about volleyball, even if he can’t think of anything else.
“I’m Amano Yasuko, and I like to read!” One girl chirps, brushing a stray lock of deep chestnut hair from her face.
The boy next to her comes to life, grunting and mumbling. “Iwamoto Takahiro. I have a dog.”
Within minutes, they’re halfway around the circle and it’s Wakatoshi’s turn to speak. “My name is Ushijima Wakatoshi, and I play volleyball.” He mutters mainly to himself, and he’s glad when the teacher doesn’t ask him to repeat himself -- it’s all the more people to hear his lack of tones and iffy japanese.
Their first break arrives, and Wakatoshi is coerced into playing some sort of game with the other boys in his class; it’s called Hana Ichi Monme and Wakatoshi quickly decides he’d rather play volleyball.
When they finish the first round, there’s a slight sheen of sweat shining over his skin like a second layer. It’s not as much as the other students because of Wakatoshi’s stamina from his recreational volleyball, but he wipes it away gingerly. Some students are… connecting their hands? In mid air? And yelling?
He doesn’t understand.
“It’s called a high five! You should try it!” A nearby boy urges, his brown hair flopping over his forehead and slightly into his eyes -- they’re beautiful and brown, the colour of tree bark when the sun washes it’s rays at the crack of dawn. Wakatoshi blinks as the boy holds up his hands above his head, a huge smile on his cheeks.
Having seen other’s slap their hands together, he cautiously smacks the boy’s awaiting limbs, not expecting the other’s grin to lessen. “That’s it!” The boy, -- Wakatoshi remembers his name: Murakami Yoshihiro -- encourages, and they’re called in for the next block of learning.
As he turns away from Murakami’s stature, he can’t help but hear a sentence that’s a cold bucket over his head.
“God, he’s so weird. Is he a robot?”
Wakatoshi vows to make that little bit of effort to mimic the body language of others so that, maybe, he’ll have friends.)
One night, long after he’d been sent to bed, the sounds of yelling filter into his bedroom from across the hall. It’s rough against his ears, harsh, and unkind. He could recognise his mother’s voice pierce the quiet, his father’s soon following.
“He’s fine! He’s just a normal kid!”
“He didn’t speak for five years straight; let’s take him to a therapist!”
“No! He’s fine! You’re being ridiculous!”
Wait, were they talking about him?
As quietly as he’d come, he tiptoes back to the safe haven of his bedroom and tries with all his might to put those awful thoughts to rest. It doesn’t work, of course, and the next morning, he emerges from his room sporting dark, heavy eyebags that drag his eyes down with shadows.
A week later, his father packs his bags and says a reluctant goodbye.
It becomes increasingly lonely and frustrating in his mother’s house, oppressed by her slapping hands that make contact with his own whenever he gives into that comforting, warm feeling and flaps his hands with a small yet fun curve of his lips. She reiterates many times that, ‘it isn’t appropriate. He shouldn’t do it.’ And so, he finds himself sitting on his hands whenever that sensation spreads over him.
(“Don’t do that! It-It’s weird, and inappropriate!” A hand reaches out and taps his own, albeit tentatively. The hand-flapping he’d been doing was suddenly halted as he flinched away from his mother, who sat across from him.
Her eyes were glued to his hands, mouth pinched painfully between her lips. With a feeling that was miles away from the words she’d just snapped, she grasped his smaller hand in her larger, bringing it close to her chest. “If you need to do…” she pauses to cringe. “That. You can sit on your hands. No one wants to see that.”
He learns that whatever he was doing with his hands is somehow -- wrong -- and that it’s bad.
Wakatoshi can’t help but suck in a breath as his mother leaves the room, wishing she was different.)
When the new adventures of high school approach, Wakatoshi can’t help but find himself absolutely terrified for what would come. Would the kids be nice? How would the volleyball team compare to the one at Shiratorizawa Junior High?
The snake of dread crawls through his veins, slithering its way to his chest and leaving coldness in its wake -- is this what nervousness feels like? A fluttering in his ribcage that won’t cease? He knows people call them butterflies, but this is like his heart was jumping rope and skipping for exercise it doesn’t need. It gets enough already, pumping blood through his veins every day without fail.
His hands shake as he arrives at his first volleyball practise, so he confines them to his pockets and surveys the scene in front of him. He knows he’s a good player, perhaps even a volleyball star.
In a haze of spikes, sweat and water-breaks, Wakatoshi’s apprehensiveness melts away to reveal the deadpan, stoic persona he has always had -- people seemed to find it… amusing? And intimidating? Endearing? He isn’t quite sure what to make of it, each time someone talks to him and expects an answer.
Everyone’s voices have different tones and expressions that seem to effortlessly go along with their desired meaning, and it’s like a joke he’d never been clued in on. Facial expressions confuse him; how does someone even do that? How does he give his voice the right quality of sound? The best he could manage was a sort of flat timbre, almost akin to a robot. It isn’t great, he can admit that to himself privately, but it isn’t like he could change it. Some days he tried, and his team looked at him like he was utterly insane.
He hates feeling like he’s a lesser human because the most human-like sentences he can manage ended up being deadpanned out.
And then comes Tendou Satori.
Satori is everything he was not -- loud, charismatic, and the best part? He exaggerates his emotions and visages. It’s almost comical in a way, how their friendship forms. Satori is, in essence, his opposite. The sun to his moon. The fire to his ice. It’s nice, he muses one day after practise. It’s nice being versed in how his friend feels, helped by how Satori’s much easier to understand in comparison to his other team-mates.
If Satori’s happy, he can expect a large, million-watt smile to overtake his face and light up his usually scheming and analytical eyes. If Satori’s sad, he can expect fat tears to roll down his face and the skin on his cheeks to be ripened with a red flush that would only go away if he applied something cold. Wakatoshi had stood and watched in confusion one day as Satori rubbed an ice cube, preaching how it fixed everything. He still didn’t quite understand the need, but if it made Satori feel better, then it’s okay in his books.
Of course, there will always be times that Wakatoshi has no idea what Satori is implying, and finally, he feels comfortable enough to ask. It’s a small request that Satori had said a few weeks into their budding friendship, and he’d eventually taken the offer up.
His friend always answers in his usual chirp, giving a quick brief of how he was feeling at that current moment. Sometimes it was, “I’m mad at Semi-Semi for stealing the last serving of ice cream.” And, “I’m so tired because of practise! Aren’t you?” Or even, “I don’t know I’m feeling, Wakatoshi-kun. Do you wanna get ice cream later?”
And to the latter, Wakatoshi replies, “it’s winter, Satori.”
“That’s the best time to eat it! We can get Hayashi rice tomorrow.”
Life is good, even if there are a few hiccups.
One time, after (yet another), win against Aoba Johsai, their captain at the time had pulled them in for a group hug. It’d been extremely uncomfortable, an awful and uneasy tingling sensation spreading across his skin. He’d had to awkwardly explain he didn’t enjoy the feeling human touch gave him, and even after a few attempts of hugs afterwards from disbelieving team-mates, he’d stated; “I do not enjoy being touched. Please do not touch me.”
And it hadn’t happened again, much to his happiness.
In his third year, it gets better. Textures no longer make him want to puke his guts out right then and there, and his team is incredibly helpful -- especially when he’s found he’s fallen into that familiar non-verbal hole. Sometimes he can feel it coming, like a wave that’s far off in the distance and slowly approaching with the sea, crashing over him with an unbearable weight. Other times, it’s like a switch has been flicked and words no longer seem to want to come out. When either of those situations play out, Wakatoshi merely writes on a notepad or signs a reply to those who talk to him. Once, it had happened during a game and he’d had to awkwardly twist and maneuver his hands into the shapes of the signs that meant, ‘non-verbal. okay.’ or other smaller replies, not unlike the ones he’d say if he were verbal.
Even their coach -- who’s usually harsh and stern -- seems to understand that although it's not ideal, it doesn’t affect his volleyball playing. He still scores just as often, powering through enemy blocks with a scary force that is not impacted by his lack of voice or how he can often be found, cradling a spare volleyball in between his large hands.
His team picks up on his ‘quirks’ pretty easily, noticing how he avoids making eye contact at all cost, how he cringes each time it’s his turn to help put up or take down the volleyball nets. They can see how he sometimes drifts off during class while mindlessly gnawing on the back of his pencil, or how he likes to stand with his back slightly hunched and his hands to his chest, before catching himself doing it unconsciously and straightening up.
Wakatoshi is grateful for his friends -- is that what people call them? -- that aid him in studying for his English tests and exams, because english doesn’t make sense, it’s so confusing, and half the words sound fake. If he has to describe it in a few words, he’d borrow a phrase from Satori’s most-used list and eagerly call the English Language a hot fucking mess.
It gets even better when a first year joins their starting lineup; a hyperactive boy named Goshiki Tsutomu, who’s incredibly eager to learn and ‘prove himself worthy’. (That part confuses Wakatoshi, because Tsutomu is already worthy).
Tsutomu, Wakatoshi likes to think, is a personification of a younger him. A younger him who is often confused by the things his coaches and team-mates say. A younger him who is easily distracted on the court. A younger him who stares at people often for an ‘inappropriate’ amount of time.
There will always be differences between the two -- Tsutomu hasn’t seemed to learn how to turn on his ‘inside voice’, even if voices cannot be inside. He’s always answering questions with an enthusiastic and resounding, “yes!” Even if it takes time away from things he needs to do, like practise volleyball or study. It’s refreshing, and Wakatoshi takes joy in helping the younger one practise.
It’s a secret sort of pleasure, like a parent looking fondly at their child doing something for the first time, whether it’s riding a bike, taking steps, or saying their name back to them. A small spark of warmth is rocketing around, prompting a smile to his face. Wakatoshi is later told that Tsutomu looks up to him, and this time, he doesn’t have the heart to stop the urge to flap his hands, even if he can practically hear his mother saying, “stop it! Stop it!”
All the good things he’s been told by Satori about his developing social skills go out the fucking window when Wakatoshi meets Oikawa Tooru. It’s meant with the best intentions, he swears. One volleyball star to another.
“You would’ve done well at Shiratorizawa.”
Except, much to his dismay, Oikawa recurdles like Wakatoshi has slapped him and the meanest, nastiest sneer overtakes his once flippant and effortlessly pretty features. Wakatoshi isn’t sure how to react, and Oikawa makes that decision for him; he storms away in a whirl of anger and… Shock?
Wakatoshi only wants to give good advice.
When he tells Satori after their practise match, he only gets a pitiful expression and a sigh long enough to wrap around the entirety of Japan at least thrice. “You really said that to him?” Satori asks in disbelief, hands fidgeting as they always do. Today, he’s tossing Wakatoshi’s spare volleyball up and down in their shared dorm room.
“Yes? Is there anything wrong with it?” His voice comes out like usual; an automatron that’s possessed his vocal cords.
“Wakatoshi-kun,” his friend explains idly, “what you said implies that his current team-mates aren’t good enough. That they’re weak. Would you like it if someone said that I was weak?” And suddenly it’s like the roof above them has split open, revealing light and a truth Wakatoshi hadn’t exactly thought of before.
“No, I would not like that.” He admits a few seconds later, when his mind has comprehended that situation and drafted it into a scene that plays in his head like a broken record. “I would find it insulting. Should I apologise?”
He knows that apologising is something you just do when you’re in the wrong, and he is. His bluntness just seems to rub people the wrong way and his lack of brain-to-mouth filter gives others the wrong impression of him, so he’s well-versed in the art of saying sorry.
“Perhaps wait a few weeks, Wakatoshi-kun. Let him get over the blow to his ego.” Satori says lazily. He’s stopped playing with the ball, having set it down next to the head of Wakaatoshi’s bed, and pulled out a manga from god-knows-where.
“Okay.” Wakatoshi replies a beat later, sated at the explanation from the ever-reliable Satori. With wilted hands he grabs at the weighted blanket obscuring the sheets of his bed, and carefully drapes it over his broad shoulders. Satori doesn’t even blink at his actions, so used to seeing that specific comfort item next to who he considers to be his best friend. With no need for prompting, Satori wordlessly hands Wakatoshi the manga he was reading merely a few minutes ago, watching Wakatoshi immerse himself in the adverts that unhelpfully litter the pages.
Once, Satori might have questioned Wakatoshi’s enjoyment of reading such simple things such as adverts. But, he understands the differences between them as people.
(“Hey, Wakatoshi-kun?” Satori hangs upside down from the top bunk in their dorm room.
“Yes, Satori?” Wakatoshi rumbles back, sounding slightly similar to the thunder that occasionally thrashed across the dark sky.
Satori swings back up to the bed with a practised grace Wakatoshi knows he’ll never manage. “Why do you always read the ads? The manga is much more interesting!”
With a flick of the page, Wakatoshi lets his eyes seep down the page until they find a new advert -- this time, displaying some sort of carbonated drink. “The storylines are very complicated. There are things that I’m expected to imply, such as emotions or feelings.” He says after a few minutes, turning another page.
There’s a silence that permeates the room as Satori thinks about his friend’s answer for a minute, taking it in. “Makes sense.” He confesses, and that’s the end of that. “Do you think we have time to get in a last-minute practise before the first round of the Summer Inter-high? I want to make sure we crush those losers.” He ends his sentence with an almost malicious grin. Usually, Wakatoshi would wonder why Satori has that smile on his face, but he knows that it’s their third year; their final chance to attend Nationals and beat those cunning and smug foxes who defeated them last year in the quarter-finals.
Nothing’s changed.)
He apologizes to Oikawa exactly two weeks later at a shared training camp, where the setter looks at him with a sort of distrust Wakatoshi is unsure how he gathered. Of course, he had explained that, “I didn't mean to imply that your team-mates are weak. Merely, that I would have liked to play with you on my team. I’m sorry.” It garters a narrowing of Oikawa’s eyes, and an unenthusiastic reply that is a reply, none-the-less.
Satori stands behind him, around the corridor, probably listening in. When he turns that corner, a soft smile rests on his friend’s usually devilish and playful features. It lights a fire in Wakatoshi’s stomach -- one that was doused in gas and only able to be put out by the one who lit it.
It’s at the finals of the Spring Interhigh that something goes wrong. They’re mid-way through playing a game against Karasuno, but the lights are too bright. The crowd’s cheers and jaunts feel like they’re plugged into a massive speaker, and his usually comforting volleyball jersey is itchy and uncomfortable against his skin. It’s absolute hell, and his throat is closing up.
When Wakatoshi attempts to combat this by breathing deeper -- like Semi-kun had said, his brain helpfully reminds him -- that awful, pitchy and breathy sound of the air inflating his lungs feels like it too was put through a speaker.
breathe breathe breathe--
CAN’T
too loud too loud
-- exhale -- what’s happening?
too bright, too fucking bright.
itchy. itchy. itchy. god wHY ?
have to win. go to nationals. have to win. LAST YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL. have to make dad proud.
His hands are flailing, but he regains control of them enough to sign the familiar symbol in JSL -- help. Olive green meets grey, and their coach calls a much-needed time out (even if they don’t need it in the sense of the game).
Karasuno just stands there, slightly confused as the referee blows their whistle, reluctantly leaving the court and huddling on their side. They sneak befuddled looks at the Shiratorizawa volleyball team, some purple-clad players looking slightly worried and others uncaring. Reon, the unofficial team-mom, was the former. Shirabu, their angsty and sarcastic son, was the latter.
Satori’s teasing of the blond-haired crow is forgotten as he grabs the noise-cancelling headphones from a purple box and guides a trembling Wakatoshi to sit down on the bench between their coaches. Within seconds of the headphones being slipped over his ears and his sight obscured by his own hands, it’s better.
He no longer wants to tear off his own skin and wallow in his self-pity. His volleyball jersey isn’t itchy, and the crowd feels like it’s a few miles away. Satori sits next to him, tapping thrice with attentiveness -- Wakatoshi can grasp at the meaning with tired and fatigued hands: touch?
“No.” He grunts out and exhales deeply.
A heavy jacket is shrugged over his broad shoulders, and he relaxes even further -- the weight has always soothed him, even as a child. He wears thick-soled shoes to school, swaddles himself in a leather jacket (that’s suspiciously like the one his father once had), and covers that in a weighted blanket; he finds it hard to sleep without one, so it’s always in his room. Even his belts are usually thick, even if you usually wouldn’t notice it.
Their time-out is over, and Reon is substituted in for him. Satori eventually goes in, and Wakatoshi just sits in silence as the game continues without him. Karasuno’s unsure about the new development, but it’s only short-term as Washijou switches Wakatoshi back in as soon as he’s well enough to play.
The game goes on, just as it does, and they lose.
It’s a valiant fight against those scrappy crows, but one that ends in defeat. He can see Shirabu and Tsutomu struggle against their tears, both eventually letting those fat drops seep down their faces. Wakatoshi snakes an arm around Tsutomu, letting the younger lean his weight on his senpai as he surrenders to the body-shattering sobs.
He’s not really sure how to comfort someone, but it’s better than nothing, his brain supplies. Oikawa’s in the audience with a scowl etched onto his face, but Wakatoshi doesn’t care. He’s got one thing on his mind -- his (apparently) sad kouhais. His muscles are screaming in protest, but he ignores them.
After three long years attending Shiratorizawa Academy in Sendai, Miyagi, Wakatoshi graduates. He has a position with the Schweiden Adlers all lined up, signed even after the mess of the Miyagi prefectural finals. Satori, much to his dismay, doesn’t pursue volleyball, and instead makes a journey to Paris where he goes to culinary school.
Wakatoshi is surprised, but after a while, he admits it does suit Satori.
He gets his diagnosis from a therapist only a few weeks after graduation: ASD. Autism Spectrum Disorder. The therapist he sees is a warm welcome in comparison to his old coach because she’s kind and listens to him -- it’s the most he’s spoken in months, detailing his flapping hands and rocking body, his thing during the finals, and all the other ‘quirks’ he assumed everyone else had.
Spoiler alert: they don’t.
He’s allowed to flap his hands and flick his fingers all he wants! His mother was wrong, for once in her life!
It’s a shock he has to get used to, over time. However, he finds solidarity in the similarities him and his team-mate, Kageyama, share. Kageyama also has autism, and he said once that he remembered their match, wondering what had happened and why their star player had been subbed out.
“It was too bright, too loud, and not good.” Wakatoshi explains brokenly. He reminisces about his time in high school, the games they played, and the team-mates he found in Tsutomu, Shirabu, Semi, Reon, Yamagata, and even Kawanishi.
“Makes sense.” Kageyama concludes as he reaches into his shoulder bag and pulls out a strange looking thing -- plastic, coiled, and a bright green. It’s spiralled into a shape mildly resembling a cup, he thinks, as his new enemy-turned-friend hands it to him.
Kageyama explains, “it's a tangle. Good for stimming.”
And, at Wakatoshi’s blank expression, “the thing we do when we flap our hands? That’s called stimming. This just, err, helps it.”
He accepts the toy with curiosity, (“it’s called a Tangle, Ushijima-san), and experimentally maneuvers it between his fingers like it would suddenly bite him. It doesn’t, much to his delight, and his lips curl up in a small smile as he continues.
“It improves hand, joint, and muscle motion.” Kageyama says, even when they both know Wakatoshi isn’t listening. He’s too enthralled by this new development, and after their practise, he immediately texts Satori. Texting is easier to start a conversation with in comparison to calling or talking face-to-face.
WAKATOSHI: kageyama-san gave me this item. i believe it is called a tangle? i like it very much.
SATORI: that’s amazing, wakatoshi, but it’s 4am in paris (๑◕︵◕๑)
Shit. He’d forgotten Satori was in Paris, and not in Japan, with him (where it was currently 12pm).
WAKATOSHI: i apologise, satori.
SATORI: it’s okay, big guy. i like hearing from you (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.)
He curls his lips into a small, soft smile, and slides his phone into his pocket. His phone is what his team-mates, (read: Hoshiumi), call a ‘brick phone’, despite the fact it is not a brick. Satori had ordered it for him when Semi had thrown his old phone to him, and not thinking, Wakatoshi had spiked it like a volleyball.
Needless to say, the screen was cracked and it no longer worked. So, this ‘brick phone’ was a good idea.
In the whole scheme of things, there are good and bad days. Good days are when he wakes up to a cute text from Satori, (they’d begun dating in their final year of high school), and goes to volleyball practise with his new team-mates, some of which he’d played against before. Bad days are when the social cues he’d been trying to understand just don’t work and it’s all wrong , and he would get overwhelmed at things he’d been fine with previously.
It’s a work-in progress, Satori had once said. But, life is good.
He’s been told by his therapist that talking about it was a great first step, so he has done that -- he’s opened up to Kageyama about his time in high-school and how he’s managing some of his symptoms.
His new teammates don’t treat him any less -- they merely trust him to handle the ball with the cannon-like skills he’d trained so hard in his youth to polish and perfect. Hoshiumi sometimes teases him for not understanding jokes, but that’s okay. He just flicks a text to Satori, asking what Hoshiumi meant by a particular idiom or phrase.
And, when Satori is asleep -- he’d have to remember to convert their time-differences -- his captain, a responsible and helpful man named Hirugami Fukuro, explains in place of Satori.
The Tangle Kageyama has so graciously given him on that fatal day is well-used, and there’s a reminder on Wakatoshi’s phone to buy his new friend something nice for Christmas because that’s what people do in thanks? Satori had suggested it, and it had seemed right.
When Satori visits, it’s a world of nice nights spent with the now chocolatier and tagging along to Wakatoshi’s games. It’s always nice, seeing his lover’s beaming face amongst the crowd, especially when his cherry-red hair is always recognisable. Even when it’s cropped close like it is.
Overall, Wakatoshi still feels like a triangle-shaped block shoved carelessly into a square-shaped hole. But, unlike when he was a child, he’s carefully adjusting himself out of that hole and into the correct one. He has his new team-mates, his old teammates, Satori, and his therapist.
It’s a hard road to take, but it’s the right one.