Chapter Text
The slap of the ball hitting the wooden floor was satisfying to Tadashi. In his first year, the sound was smaller and didn't echo in the rafters, but he was a third year with 184 centimeters of height in his favor now. Except for Tsukishima, no one on the team was taller, and he had power and leverage unique to his height that meant this would be the year he would finally get a chance to start.
But he had work to do, even if he was the team captain.
"Gwah!" Yachi exclaimed as she watched the ball speed to the floor. "That was the best one yet."
Tadashi colored at the compliment but didn't brush it off like he used to. It was a hard habit to break, but he needed to be rock solid mentally as well as physically in his new role. It was up to him to show Karasuno's largest crop of freshmen in nearly a decade how to be strong on and off the court. Instead, he gave a quick nod and said, "One more, Yacchan. Maybe a little higher."
"You got it," she chirped as she took another ball out of the almost empty hopper and lobbed it up in front of the net.
His long legs coiled after his run-up, Tadashi launched himself into the air and hit the ball with every modicum of strength he could muster. It barreled to the floor with almost a crack when it hit, but it landed mere inches out of bounds.
"Damn it," Tadashi grumbled. "I keep doing that."
Yachi gave him a broad grin. "You'll get it, Tadashi. I'll help you as much as you need."
"I know you will," Tadashi said as he offered her a weak smile more out of courtesy than belief in the statement. What he needed was something he could only give himself.
With a sigh, he grabbed the hopper and wheeled it to the other side of the Karasuno High School second gymnasium to collect the stray balls. It was the fourth such trip of the night, and he figured it should be the last. It was nearly nightfall, and while he didn't mind walking home in the dark, he wouldn't ask Yachi to risk her safety just for the sake of some extra spiking practice. Their third year had not even begun yet; there was no point in burning himself out before they even hit Golden Week.
As they finished rounding up the stray balls, Yachi nearly jumped out if her skin when a quiet voice said, "You should extend your elbow more."
Dropping the pair of volleyballs in his hands, Tadashi spun around to see Kageyama standing in the door of the gym. He would ask what his new vice-captain was doing there so late, but he had a pretty good idea. "Bottle drills again?"
Kageyama nodded. "I still can't get more than three out of six."
Chuckling, Tadashi replied, "Give it time. Eventually, you'll have them hula dancing for you if you keep glaring at them like that."
Tadashi nearly laughed at Kageyama's puzzled expression, but he just shook his head. "Well, good luck. I'm going to walk Yacchan home. You need the key?"
"Takeda-sensei gave me a set." Without preamble, Kageyama started to stretch, and Tadashi knew the conversation had officially ended.
It was about halfway to the train station before Yachi asked, “What are bottle drills?”
Tadashi explained, “It’s this idea Ukai-san came up with to help Kageyama work on his serve accuracy. There are a number of common formations that teams use for receiving serves. What the drill does is mark the various weak spots in these formations — opportunities to score service aces — with empty water bottles. Kageyama serves from the other side and tries to hit the bottles with his serves.”
Yachi’s eyes grew wide. “Can anyone do that? That seems impossible to me.”
“Oikawa-san from Seijou could do it.” Tadashi frowned. “Kageyama has been working on these drills for a long time, and I don’t know if he will ever do better than three out of six.”
“What’s three out of six?”
“Three hits out of six balls.”
Stopping in her tracks, Yachi threw her arms in the air. “How can anyone do better than that?”
Tadashi reflexively tugged Yachi back onto the sidewalk when her flailing nearly sent her hurtling into the street. “I don’t know if he can, but I know he’s going to try until he does. It’s the front ones that give him the most trouble.”
Yachi frowned. “But what if he doesn’t try his regular jump serve?” When Tadashi raised a brow, she continued. “What if he did the serve you do?”
“Huh,” Tadashi mused. “I’m pretty sure he could do it if he tried. I don’t know how much ball control he’d have, or if the trajectory can be pinpointed like that, but it’s worth a shot. If Takeda-sensei finds out how much extra time Kageyama’s logged in the gym since the Spring Highs ended, he’ll take his key away.”
Quickly, he texted Kageyama to try the jump float as Yachi had suggested, and they resumed their walk in silence. Everyone always got quiet when the Spring Highs came up. It was a sore subject for the whole team, but for Kageyama in particular.
It had been a fiasco, and it uprooted the entire team chemistry when Kageyama had broken his arm diving for a ball in the Inter-High Prefectural Finals. Their scared first-year back-up setter had imploded in the final set to the point where Nishinoya had taken over setting for the spikers.
Kageyama hadn’t been allowed to even touch a ball until after the Spring Highs because he had broken both his radius and ulna clean through. Tadashi almost tasted the vomit he had to swallow at the sight of jagged bone protruding through flesh. One of the first years had fainted, and Hinata cried so hard that he couldn’t play anymore.
Tadashi had never loathed playing in a game more. Not because he had earned it, but because his fellow middle-blocker couldn’t.
The healing alone had taken six months, on top of intense physical therapy. Tadashi couldn’t count how many angry laps Kageyama had run around the gym during practice because it was all he was allowed to do. But as soon as he was cleared to play, Kageyama had turned into a man on a mission, despite Takeda-sensei’s warnings to ease back into it.
So Tadashi made a point of leaving Kageyama alone in his recovery because if anyone on the team was capable of exceeding his own limits, it was Kageyama Tobio. But he never stopped keeping tabs on what Kageyama was doing and thought he might even be brave enough to say something if he decided his vice-captain was overdoing it.
“He’ll be okay, right?” Yachi asked after they left the train, as if she had been reading Tadashi’s thoughts.
“As all right as a guy like him will ever be,” Tadashi replied. And he meant it. If Kageyama could overcome what had happened with him during middle school and be the player he was before his injury, he wouldn’t stop until he got there again and then some.
He bade Yachi a quick goodnight and waited outside until she flipped her light on-off-on to let him know she was safely in her apartment before leaving. Without Yachi for the distraction, his thoughts dwelled on Kageyama.
Tadashi didn’t even realize he had returned to the gym until he stood in front of the door.
Pushing the door open, Tadashi blinked in surprise when he saw Kageyama perform a perfect jump-float serve and hit one of the bottles on the other side.
“You usually miss that one,” he remarked.
Kageyama stiffened at the sound of Tadashi’s voice but didn’t seem too startled. “It was a good idea.”
“Not mine,” Tadashi admitted. “Yachi thought of it, and it seemed worth a shot.”
Nodding, Kageyama picked another ball out of the hopper and turned it in his hands. “Changing serve speeds will expose the enemy’s weaknesses.”
Tadashi chuckled. “They’re the opponent, not the enemy. It’s volleyball, not war.”
When Kageyama’s jaw clenched, Tadashi had an uncomfortable moment of clarity that this wasn’t as obvious to both of them as it should have been.
“So, how many are you at now?” he decided to ask instead.
“Four of five.”
Jaw slack, Tadashi watched as Kageyama performed yet another perfect jump-float serve and hit the final target. “That’s amazing. If you can do that in a game . . .”
“Not until I get all six,” Kageyama growled before stomping to the other side of the court to reset the water bottles.
Tadashi chortled before fetching a few stray balls. Round after round, Kageyama missed the same mark: front row, between the middle and the right side hitter. The tension in Kageyama’s shoulders was obvious when he started missing targets he had hit repeatedly.
It was when Kageyama missed all six and roared in frustration that Tadashi decided that enough was enough. “That’s enough, Kageyama.” He looked at the clock on the wall. “It’s past midnight. Go home and get some rest.”
“No.” Kageyama picked up another ball and fixed his gaze on the offending bottle. “Not until that one goes down.”
Tadashi gritted his teeth as he ripped the ball from Kageyama’s hands. He tossed it in the air, and with practiced precision, executed a perfect jump-float serve. When the target skittered across the floor in reply, however, both of them were surprised.
“There. It went down, Kageyama. Now please go home before you hurt yourself.” He pushed a still shocked Kageyama towards the door, where his bag was sitting. “Out. I’ll clean up.”
To Tadashi’s genuine shock, Kageyama did as he was told without a word. When he was sure the other boy was long gone, Tadashi rounded up the balls and bottles before rolling the net away. He was just locking up the gym when his text alert sounded.
← Thanks.
→ Take care of yourself. We need you more than we need your serve.
→ You practicing again tomorrow?
← At 10:00 and then again at 18:00.
→ I’ll be there.
Tadashi huffed as he headed for home. So much for leaving Kageyama on his own.