Ace to Ace. | Asahi x reader |

1: You caught my eye.

Miss. Miss. Miss.

Every single one was a miss no matter what you adjusted or did differently. It kept on getting worse and worse. As you threw the ball into the air again, running forward with your four steps counted out, you felt your hand connect with the ball. Yet, no matter how strong that connection was, it still spun way too far out of bounds.

You could hear the yells, the passes, and the running footsteps of the boys in the other gym. Every single one of the noises reminded you how painfully alone you were. The rest of your team hardly even showed up for practice, let alone stayed after for extra time. Even your best friend would turn a blind eye whenever you said you were going to practice serving a bit more.

Maybe if you learned a strong serve you could get Karasuno an ounce of an advantage, maybe you could earn the girls a win that you so desperately craved. It wouldn't just be left up to chance for you to win.

As the team's ace, this is what you were supposed to do, right? That's what they made it seem like anyways. They always told you how important it was for you to play well at every game. It could never escape your mind how much they relied on your jumping and attack power.

The girls' team at Karasuno had never been something to write home about, but you being the ace was just that much more proof that the team was not made to go up against the best of the best.

The average image of a female volleyball player fell along the lines of the opposite of you. You were shorter, chubbier, and most people that saw you in the lineup would ask where your libero uniform went. It wasn't uncommon for you to be laughed at when they found out your true position.

Don't get it wrong, you were a force when put on the court. Once you were serious in your play and whenever your attacks connected with the tosses from your setter, people would look at you with wide eyes and angry faces. You loved wrecking people's expectations by a mile, that was why you took the title of ace proudly.

The pressure still never got any better. There's six people standing on that court alongside you during a game, yet here you were on the court all by yourself attempting to teach yourself how to do a jump topspin serve before your game in two weeks.

You tried again and again, and you slowly began to get more in but it was clear that this still wasn't completely practical for you to be doing in a game situation. So keep going until it is. Keep going.

You did just that. You kept going until the noises from the boys' court were gone, but you didn't notice. All you could think of was counting your steps and throwing the ball in the same way as you did the time it struck the very back corner of the court.

Your head was empty, your mind entirely focused on the task at hand. Your sight had tunnel visioned to the white lines on the gym floor. It was only you and this court and this Mikasa volleyball.

Except it wasn't. On the concrete steps leading up to your gym stood a tall figure. Sweat from his own practice was still dripping down his face and rolled down his back as he stood and watched you throw that ball into the air once again. He could see the sweat building as you did rep after rep. It was fascinating how completely in the zone you were.

He could see exactly what the issue was that was causing your inconsistency, but he could never approach you on a normal day, let alone when you were in such an intense state. He had struggled with his own serve just the same. Every one of your movements caused him to think of his own grueling pain and frustration when he was learning.

Contemplating approaching you still, he caught himself staring at your legs as they took the approach, then following them up your form as you jumped into the air. You truly flew higher than anyone of your height should be able to.

Don't stare. Don't be rude. His mind was screaming as he continued to do the thing that he was telling himself not to do. You were just so encapsulating and pretty- Oh no, she really is pretty. And I'm staring at her? Stop staring at her.

He finally broke his eyes away from you as you ducked under the net to retrieve some of the balls from the other side of the net that you had hit over. He watched as you picked one of them up and threw it as hard as you could across the room to the wall.

That frustration was something he understood all too well, and he wanted to call out and help more than anything, but as the ball hit off the wall and went in the direction of where he was standing, he walked away from the doorway quickly. He left before you could see him.

What was her name again? She's the ace, right? I should know her name.

He let out a sigh as he looked into the stars that dotted the sky. You were a girl that was in the classroom next to his and he couldn't even remember your name. He had just stared at you for a few minutes and admired your power and form, but he couldn't find the name to match the face no matter how far he searched in his mind.

In his mind, Asahi vowed that he would approach you tomorrow. It was only right for aces to stick together, to represent the school as best as they could with prelims coming up, right?

I wasn't taking a break, I simply just wrote this entire book out of nowhere. Anyways here's an Asahi x reader that no one (including me) was expecting. I just felt like this sweet boy needed more love than he has <3