Chapter Text
Kourai was sulking. They had just won the Spring Tournament, and here he was, the scorer of the winning point, sulking on the bus.
“How could they lose to Inarizaki?” Kourai muttered.
“Huh? Who?” Sachirou knew exactly what he was talking about. He had been going on about it since the end of the third round.
“Karasuno! We didn’t even get to play them!” Kourai had been acting like Inarizaki wasn’t some powerhouse school and had only stumbled their way to the semi-finals.
“Well–”
“Who the hell cares?” Gao interrupted from the seat behind them. “We’re the best volleyball team in the country, and you’re worried about some random ass school from Yamagata!”
“Miyagi,” Sachirou corrected. The prefectures were in the same region, sure, hell, they were even next to each other, but those names weren’t even remotely similar.
“Whatever! We finished out our last year as strong as we possibly could have, get pumped!” Gao shouted, flexing his arms. Their juniors let out some shouts and woohoos, many of them still hyped up on the adrenaline from their win and having only heard Gao’s prompting.
“Is this about Hinata?” said Kazuyoshi from beside Gao. Sachirou decided to ignore the way his stomach dropped at the name. He also decided to ignore the realization that his stomach always dropped at the mention of that name.
“Of course it’s about him! Hoshiumi hasn’t shut up about him all year,” Gao complained. Sachirou wanted to call that an exaggeration, but it really wasn’t. Kourai seemed to always train with Hinata on his mind. Even though there had been such a gap in skill level, he acted like Karasuno’s number 10 had been right at his heels. Incredible how, after one match, the boy could motivate Kourai like this. The schools were separated by a six-and-a-half-hour drive, but with the way Kourai acted, you’d think he was watching Hinata rapidly improve each day.
“They didn’t make interhigh,” Kourai began. Gao sighed. When they had seen Date Tech representing Miyagi instead of Karasuno, Kourai had been baffled. Date Tech’s captain was not happy when Kourai approached him, demanding to know where Karasuno was. With the way the captain had acted, Sachirou suspected it had not been the first time that day someone had asked him that. Sachirou was more surprised that it hadn’t been Shiratorizawa Academy, personally, but he didn’t say anything.
“This was my last chance in high school to face him. I’m sure he’s just as disappointed as I am,” Kourai continued.
That was probably true. From what Sachirou had seen last year, Hinata appeared to be the same type of crazy as Kourai when it came to volleyball. He remembered the way Gao had described Hinata’s face after Gao declared he’d stop him next time. The way he seemed to light up at the prospect of someone almost a foot and a half taller than him, personally set on stuffing his attacks. Gao had said he was pretty sure Hinata would have smiled just as feverishly, regardless of whether he had been sick or not.
“Dude, I’m sure he was just disappointed in general. I mean, the whole point is to win.” Gao pointed out. Just after saying that, a realization seemed to hit him, and a smirk appeared on his face. “Hell, I bet you weren’t even on his mind. Didn’t he give you the Little Giant title anyway? He probably doesn’t even remember you.”
It was obvious bait. Even the first years knew that by now. Though it was usually a toss-up whether or not Kourai would bite, they’d all quickly found he almost always did in regards to Hinata. Sachirou tried hard not to think about why that was.
“He didn’t give me anything! It was my title to begin with!” Kourai exclaimed.
“It was very nice of him to hand it over so amicably like that,” Sachirou teased.
“Screw you guys,” Kourai said as the two other boys laughed.
“Seriously though, is this all over that title? I’ve never seen another player get you this worked up before. Which is saying a lot since everyone gets you worked up to some extent,” Gao said. Kourai began yelling at Gao again, but Sachirou found himself drifting away in his thoughts.
Gao was right about Kourai getting especially worked up about Hinata, but it was clear to Sachirou why he’d struck such a chord with Kourai. He replayed the Karasuno match from last Spring High in his head. The way the two boys played off each other from being so similar. Seeing Hinata slowly go from being a challenge to overcome to a reflection Kourai also wanted to see succeed. He remembered the way Kourai had looked at Hinata as he shared his epiphany over their differences. Sachirou had never seen Kourai look at anyone like that. He’d certainly never looked at Sachirou like that…
“Hirugami, back me up here!” Gao’s shout pulled him from his thoughts. But there it remained, that weird knot in his stomach. Why did this bother him so much? What was even bothering him?
“Huh, for what?” Gao tilted his head back and let out an exasperated sigh.
“Jeez! What is with you two? You’ve been acting all out of it for as long as Hoshiumi’s been poutin’! You’d think we lost in the first round or something.”
“I’m not pouting!” Kourai countered. He was very much pouting. And as always, it was quite cute when he did so. Not that Sachirou would say that out loud.
“You think he’ll go pro? You sound pretty confident,” Kazuyoshi said. Sachirou had forgotten he was there.
“Of course he will. He wouldn’t think to do anything else,” Kourai said. Gao rolled his eyes, and Sachirou laughed. Each was respectively exasperated and amused by how Kourai acted like Hinata was a friend he had talked with about the future plenty of times. Though even from what little interaction they had all had with Hinata, the two knew Kourai was right. Maybe it was Kourai rubbing off on them that made it seem like him facing off against Hinata in the pro scene was an inevitability.
As much as Sachirou wanted his best friend to have his long-awaited rematch, he couldn’t ignore that there was quite a loud part of him that was hoping Kourai never saw Hinata again.