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You may not look like it (with your scowl that could scare even the well-meaning third years off; brows furrowed and lips downturned. Your voice gruff and your words harsh—honesty clawing its way out of your throat, like a growl) but you have always been a firm believer in soulmates.
Because as it goes, being forced to turn your back from your golden childhood to face the reality of your grandfather wilting away in a bed—in a room—that smells too much of antiseptic, bitter and a different kind of strong under your nose rather than the comforting menthol of a Salonpas you've learned to love; your big sister who had always hit your sets, bumped your passes, dug your serves now wielding a scissor, learning to snip away at someone's hair instead, rather than handle a ball; and your absentee parents, who have been with you for the measly range of the wake to the memorial service, and only then; the world that which revolves around you halts, a Mikasa ball twirling on your fingertip suddenly stops turning on its axis.
And you realize there are spectators at the bleachers, at the court, at the entrance exam of a school you failed to get into, at practice with people you were supposed to call teammates, but they never come to you, and waiting on a soulmate is all you really have.
Your soulmate is a gift left to you by Kazuyo-san because he was no longer there to cup your small hands and teach you how to set. It was in his will; you would like to believe. That one last thing he imparted to you.
On a golden day like every other in a golden childhood you will never again have, Kazuyo-san gift wraps inevitability and calls it a promise. Someone even better will come and find you.
You, a child; you, now a broken teen, have never doubted him at all.
Therein, at a junior high school in Miyagi, a boy stands regal, and your eyes are immediately caught. Your blues tracts his tuffs of brown mid-air, the reddish pink on his hands after a ball hitting the inside of a court reverberates throughout the whole gym, the whites of his teeth as he smiles and says praises at your teammates for a job well done.
Right there , you think. Someone who can stay with you on the court forever.
But your
soulmate
is not what you thought he was and you've thought wrong for more than the better half.
He was better than you, this magnificent boy whom you look up to with stars in your eyes. The belief that has never once laid static clings tighter to your heart.
Soon the twinkle dies out. A star is a light that shines even at the darkest of nights for how long a star will ever be a star; yours is a light at the tail end of a firefly on the verge of flickering out, for this boy, mighty as he is, had never, in the first place, wanted to find you.
And for a long while, you could not even find yourself.
(Your heart, however, remains as is—discouraged, yes, but firm, still.)
Then comes along a boy with orange hair. Definitely a scrub, rough on the edges—does not even know how to serve properly, but you see him chase a ball still at your team's twenty-second point of the second set; you see him dig, face first to the ground even when he's always a second too late.
By first-hand experience, you are painfully familiar with people who easily give up, and you can recognize with a concerning intimacy someone who will never stop chasing something even if it seems like hope dictates otherwise.
So despite his utter lack of ability, you, for all you are worth: a lonely boy, a broken teen, a player observed but unattended, a firefly on the precipice of darkness, take him seriously.
(Despite your differences, there lie two similar stories both told in loneliness; despite your differences, there lie two similar stories bound by a desperate yearning to remain in the court the longest.)
Thus a spark is lighted.
And although you’ve heard a ton of promises in your measly lifetime, only one has truly mattered.
(One day I promise you, someone even better will come and find you.)
But on this fateful day, you hear a vow.
The sunlight arches over both of you, but atop a staircase outside the stadium—where the boy has lost and you, losing—his eyes seemed to be soaking up the rays, changing the color into something lighter. For a moment, his iris’ are gilded and you have this one passing thought that this is, perhaps, the closest you will ever get to experiencing something golden again. And this poor tired thing you call a heart thumps, like the beating of a bird’s wings inside a cage once more.
Your soulmate is your birthright, so you push this boy to become better no holds barred because you’ll be damned if this one slips past your fingers, too.