Suddenly, the crowd went wild when the Shiratorizawa's school idol and Girls' captain entered the court. She wore a smile as her fans looked adoringly at her. She was a pinch server and stepped back, in a distance for a jump serve and you remember what her specialty was.
Ahh. It was that glorified normal jump serve.
"I wonder why they're making her enter."
"I honestly want to root for the super pretty girl at the other team."
"Whaa~ I feel you. She's a good libero too. But it's Hanazono-san we're talking about here. Even Niiyama Girls' is pretty wary of her. Whaaa~ I hope she'll go easy on them."
The boys looked at the ace as they hears the crowd talk about it. They were half-worried yet half-curious at the same time. This would be the real opponent you'd encounter so far. So how would you fare so far?
The crowd suddenly went wild when the Girls' captain tossed the ball up and sent it flying. And you expected the direction it was going since it flew directly towards you almost as if it was an open challenge. And you only blink lazily when you saw it.
You bet the noise will turn up a notch this serve was failed to be received.
But you really weren't a fan of satisfying crowds no matter what court you were in.
Especially when you intercepted her serve in the truest textbook definition of a receive. And even your teammates looked at you wide-eyed at how you received it the same way you've been receiving everything from the very start, as if it wasn't any different.
The crowd suddenly went dead silent when you did so, and you only inwardly groaned, wanting to drag your feet out of here. Not out of boredom but because you were now going to start being branded as a bully.
You looked at the shocked expression of the Girls' captain, as well as her team. You have no common sense to know what was wrong but you were only relying on what your eyes could see for now. The captain looked like she wasn't expecting that. But didn't she watched what was happening on the earlier parts of the set? How would she not know you receive the same way you've always done so?
But truthfully, even if that was your current concern, you only really wanted to know one thing— you wanted to know why she was doing all of this. And your answer came when you see the Girls' captain's eyes wandered around the gym, looking past you in a stricken expression.
And contrary to your expectation, she actually wasn't looking at Ushijima or the audience. She was looking at the Niiyama Girls' High.
Ahh... the so-called, queens. You could feel it as you look at her eyes. You've seen how Niiyama Joshi was treated the first time you laid your eyes on them, enough to know enough of what was going on. From professional standards, those girls are probably the cream of the crop among the girls playing here.
And the Girls' captain might be the only one who could pick up a fight with them. Or that was expected of her at least.
She didn't orchestrated this whole plan to have you in this sort of exhibition match from the very start. This wasn't done to humiliate you even.
This was done as a last ditch effort to satisfy herself.
To make herself feel good.
Before she faces Niiyama Joshi in her next match. You were asked to play as a pull of confidence. She needed to crush someone to draw out her self-esteem. It was as simple as that. And which explains the treatment between the established hierarchy in their club— For someone to gain self esteem, someone else had to lose theirs.
You wanted to laugh. This was an athlete that could break any moment, with a fragile sense of confidence, a fragile reason to play, a fragile will. But who were you to judge anyway. You try to look at this athlete, this pitiful creature.
She was like a bird, pretending to be an eagle— being choked from the inside of that costume she couldn't handle. But she a stubborn little bird trying to fly despite that weight.
Then you just needed to bring her down.
—
Hanazono Chiho was a junior high volleyball star, someone drafted by the Niiyama Girls' High. But she wasn't a born genius. And wasn't someone born into a good family either.
But it used to be. It used to be a household where her mother would play with her everyday even after her work, and would even tease her when she failed to even toss a ball up. And with a father who was always watching them.
But she wasn't someone who played with that image in mind. Not anymore.
She was someone who played to get the attention of a father who suddenly kept looking after someone else. And someone who played to be like the image of her deceased mother who was once a national volleyball player.
There were expectations of her that she could not easily fulfill. But the end line was the same.
She had to be as powerful a player— powerful enough to make her father look her way and strong enough to resemble her mother. It was a sport she had been doing and had been told to do ever since she could remember. But that wasn't her starting point.
It was the match of the Shiratorizawa Junior High volleyball club against Kitagawa Daiichi Junior High. Hanazono Chiho had watched out of curiosity as her final match for Junior High just finished. But this final match proved to be different, as a single man, a super ace completely destroyed the other team with his raw power.
His name was Ushijima Wakatoshi. And he was glorious.
It was practically love at first sight as his dangling figure in the air was something she couldn't forget— that strength, that confidence, that power. She couldn't forget it, even now as she ingrains the memory of the athlete's majestic figure in her head.
She had never seen something so close and something so far at the same time. He was so powerful, so strong and so superior.
It was her starting point.
Ushijima Wakatoshi was her starting point. She, who had wanted to prove something to a family that didn't exist finally found another reason to continue on. She could finally have another reason to continue.
She wanted to be someone who could be with the ace, to be worthy of him. And she proved her worth even if she didn't went to Niiyama Joshi— when she became their rival, when she was picked for the Youth camp.
Hanazono Chiho could do anything for the athlete. She went to Shiratorizawa instead of Niiyama Girls' for him, trained twice as hard because of him and even changed, worked hard to be his type— all to be someone worthy to be by his side.
And maybe it was why she couldn't accept you.
She could accept Miyazono Hanako when that third year became Ushijima Wakatoshi's first girlfriend. The senpai was a hard-worker and had a natural charisma even she couldn't help but acknowledge. She was acceptable, cheerful, and passionate. And she was somehow fit for him— a fact she loathed but eventually accepted.
But not you.
You didn't look like you had anything in common with the athlete. Not with those otherworldly looks, that uncaring attitude, or that lack of passionate glances towards the sports or anything in particular. She could not accept how you were by his side and how he actually lets you.
But when you so easily received a jump serve she was so known for, it suddenly felt off.
And she realized too late on the sudden burst of your performance.
When she was finally able to spike, you received it, changing the direction of the ball towards the other side of the net but still retaining the strength she put on it. She had never experienced having her strength suddenly used against her.
And along with it, your image suddenly feels familiar.
Like how a single player could single-handedly affect a match to this extent.
You did have something in common with Ushijima Wakatoshi.
And she senses it with the way she looks at you and feels this ominous sense of superiority baring its teeth.
Talent.
To think she was brought down by the very force she was so obsessed with. And this infuriated her.
"Why?" She gritted her teeth after the match, her figure on the floor as she failed to receive a spike from a first year from your team and the whistle confirming the score and who won the match. Her ears turn deaf at the excited cheers of your team, as she finally breaks.
Why did someone like you have to be here?
Why did someone like you... have to bring her down to earth?
Why were you even hiding it?
This is... unfair.
She suddenly stormed her way towards you. She wanted to slap you as a last ditch effort to get even but you grabbed her hand. And when she felt your palm hold her wrists, she felt it.
It didn't show. But your hands were all covered in callouses and healed blisters.
There was a saying how you could always tell what kind of person a person was, just by looking at their hands.
And this was one of those moments where she felt that this was applicable.
You look like you've been playing ever since you could walk, maybe even having played for more games than her... and she was calling you unfair?
It was an extent she could never imagine. And something she could never do.
She feels it as she looks at you again— an ominous sense of pressure, similar to those professionals, similar to... her mother. Like a natural born elite. And she could only gulp. Who in the world were you?
"Everything about you is small." Your voice reverberated as you look at her.
"Your will."
"Your motivation."
"Your goal."
"Everything about it is small." She hears you say and her eyes widened.
She suddenly glared and look at you angrily. "It's not. My goal isn't small."
"It isn't." her voice shakes as she tries to assert herself. "I just... I just want to be with him." She grits her teeth.
She hears you sigh as you stood there.
"Then why do you want to be with him?" You ask and she suddenly stops short.
Why did she want to play with the super ace?
She had always seen him play from the stands. From how he looks so marvelous, so glorious...
"Because his playing was beautiful. It was powerful." she tried to find her words. She was so obsessed with him. So why was she having trouble trying to explain her feelings to you? And she could only listen to herself.
"It's what I envisioned in my head as the perfect challenger. He was perfect, strong, superior and I-I... I want to be with-"
"Then be like that." You say to her flatly.
"Since his strength is what you aspire to have. Be like that." Your voice echoed in her ears. "You don't really like him anyway." You scoffed.
"You don't want him. You don't like him. You just like the idea of a superior athlete, of strength, of power. You mistake feelings of admiration, of a goal for love."
And when she heard it, she realized.
Someone weak like her have always admired the stoic athlete. Not for who he is. But for his strength— a strength she needed to have, to be noticed, and to be like her mother. Then nothing really changed. Her goals were still the same. It was only warped.
Ahh... She didn't want this. She didn't want to play with a reason... like that. With a goal that will never even happen.
"I don't know what you really want. Or why you're playing." she suddenly hears you sigh a you scratch your head.
"Ahh. What I'm saying is. There are no good or bad reasons to play... as long as it's a reason. As long as you have a reason, it's fine. Even if it's childish, even if its petty, even if it's lame, anything can be your starting point."
"...Even if it's impossible?" her voice breaks and you look at her, at this little bird. "Oh?" You raised an eyebrow. "Good, you're finally looking at me. Then we can really talk." she watches you grin and she glares in embarrassment.
"E-even if it's impossible, can it be a reason?" she repeats herself and you lazily look at her.
"I don't know. I don't know what impossible means." you honestly say and the alumni who hears laugh nearby. And it was the first time Hanazono Chiho realize— how she had not paid attention to her surroundings for a short while and she realized how these guys were actually watching close by.
"You kids get so worked up over a reason or a goal to play. You're all still young and green." She hears you say and her mouth is in a thin line. "It's not like you lot only have a single reason to play anyway." you complain and her eyes widened as she hears it.
Ahh... That's right. She doesn't only have one reason. Then she doesn't have an impossible goal to play anymore. And she has a reason in fact.
She'll play for her mother. She'll play to preserve her memory. Not for anyone else. But because once upon a time, Hanazono Chiho had a family and that her mother was the only family she really has until the very end.
"Ahh. Ahh. Clara-chan, you made her cry." Tendo Satori says and you glared at him. "I did not!" You gave her a tissue she immediately took.
But the Girls' captain wanted to know one more thing. "C-Can I... really be like him?" she suddenly asks, sniffing.
"Be like Ushijima?" You raised an eyebrow and she nods. "No. Your constitution is different. He's a volleyball idiot and you're not that much of a volleyball idiot yourself."
"She isn't talking about that, Clara-chan!" Tendo Satori says in the background but you waved his comment off. "It's common knowledge for hard-working people to be strong once they try, do I really need to remind something as cheesy as that?" You complain and you look at her again.
"Though if you can copy someone to that extent, or put enough work to be someone else. Then you must be a hard worker— a hard worker who could've used all of that shit in volleyball instead." You shake your head, annoyed before flicking her forehead as you gave her a lecture.
She only rubs her forehead, slightly teary from the force you used before bowing, "I-I'm sorry." she says and you only nod. These kids make a big deal out of every single thing, do they?
"A-And thank you!" she says and you frown.
Was this girl a masochist or something? You judged her internally, who in the world would say thank you for having their forehead flicked? You only waved your hand at her as you headed out.
—
"How did you know she was copying someone?" Tendo asks you curiously as you make your way out of the gym.
"I have a similar teammate. It's easy to tell with body movements alone." You say and they looked at you suspiciously and how that was theoretically impossible before you add. "That and I was told by my teammates that she's copying a senpai from her looks to how she plays." you say and they only sighed before nodding.
"Clara-chan's so dense but she's pretty perceptive no?" Tendo says to the stoic athlete who only nods.
"Only in athletes." Ushijima spills and they finally realized.
Why you can handle talking to Kageyama Tobio, Goshiki Tsutomu, the problematic Girls' captain and the ever-famous Ushijima Wakatoshi even if you seem to lack social skills.
"So she's pretty good with volleyball idiots?" Tendo realizes and the athlete only nods, before realizing something was off with the the red head just said. Ushijima Wakatoshi looks at him, what was that suppose to mean?
And the red head only whistles before going ahead to pester you for more details.