This book will mostly be in third person, so please enjoy!
Third Pov
The practice was about to begin as usual, it was odd. Shoyo had only ever missed one practice, that was yesterday's. He hadn't even been at school and when he called the team to apologize, he rushed to get off the phone as he mumbled about court. The entire team had been worried, but Shoyo had assured everyone on the phone that he was fine. When the orange haired Decoy walked into the gym everyone got excited. They all jumped to see him and ask how he was except for Kei. Even Tadashi was asking how he was.
"Guys I'm fine! I just had to do something, it was a family issue. When I said court, it was a meaningless thought about volleyball. I promise!" Shoyo told them, smiling happily. The blonde middle blocker knew something was up, the boy wasn't the same. He was exhausted, it was noticeable if you looked in his eyes. Eventually the whole team knew Kei sensed something was up, they were all staring at Kei who was staring at Shoyo. The blonde shrugged it off and went to his phone to go on it. Soon enough practice had started. Shoyo was, getting a drink of water, he could barely keep his eyes opened and eventually collapsed onto the floor.
"Hinata!" Keishin said, running to check on him. The first thing that came across Kei's mind was that he was right, he should've made Shoyo leave. After Keishin and Kyoko checked on him they sighed.
"He's just sleeping, I'm scared he hit his head though. The nurse isn't here. Does anyone have a car? I know a lot of you live near here, but I wanna take Shoyo home. I can't leave though" Keishin said, and regrettably, Kei raised his hand. He had a car, he could drive. He drove to school every day because he didn't wanna walk or bike.
"Tsukishima I know it's a lot to ask, but can I give you his address and have you take him home?" Keishin asked, it made Kei sigh.
"I'm the only one with a car, so I might as well. I knew something was off with the shrimp" Kei told the team as he lifted the unconscious Shoyo into his arms, he had Tadashi grab his things and he went up to the changing room. He was gonna grab Shoyo's other things in the club room, his phone was up there.
"Hey Tsukki, if you knew something was off with Hinata then why didn't you do anything?" He asked as held the door open for the middle blocker.
"I didn't say anything because I didn't care enough. I still don't. I'm simply taking him home because no one else can and if I didn't say anything about my car then you would have" Kei told him, frowning at him. He set Shoyo down on the floor gently to go to his bag and grab his phone. Kei opened it and dialed the number for his mom.
"Shoyo? Don't you have practice? Big brother you need to focus or else you'll get dizzy and pass out again" A child said from the other end of the line.
"Where's your mom?" Kei asked.
"You're not Shoyo! Give Shoyo back his phone!" The girl said, but Kei sighed. Tadashi had gone back to practice, all Shoyo's school stuff neatly in his bag, including his school uniform and club jacket.
"Shoyo got dizzy and passed out again, can you please get me your mom or legal guardian so I can inform them on his condition?" Kei asked, looking down at Shoyo with curious eyes.
"What are you talking about? Shoyo is my legal guardian! It happened yesterday! Has he not told anyone yet?" The girl asked, but she sighed.
"Of course he hasn't, he loves volleyball and his family too much. If he passed out he was definitely stressing over everything.... Please bring him home" The girl said, causing Kei to kneel by Shoyo and give a look of pity.
"I'll bring him home, what's your name?" He said as he got all of his stuff and Shoyo's stuff together.
"I'm Natsu Hinata, Shoyo's little sister, see you when you get here" The girl said from the other end of the line, then the call was over. Kei got the stuff together and picked Shoyo up again. He was still knocked unconscious. He probably had a concussion. Kei would usually be an asshole and wake him up, but he felt bad for even thinking of the idea. He laid Shoyo down in the back seat and made sure he wouldn't get hurt while driving before putting his school stuff in the front passenger seat and turning on his car.
"Damn idiot, he's keeping secrets" He said as he glanced at the unconscious boy from hi rear view mirror. Once he got to Shoyo's house by gps direction from his phone, he brought Shoyo to the door in his arms. He didn't even have to attempt a knock because the door opened.
"This way!" A voice said, then he saw it. A small girl leading the way, he assumed it was Natsu and followed her, they got to the biggest bedroom in the house and Kei laid him down on the bed.
"I assume you're Natsu. I'm Kei Tsukishima, I'm on your brothers volleyball team" He told the little girl, who had climbed on the bed and covered up her older brother.
"I figured, he has pictures. I've never really met much of his team, but he's happy and I'm happy. That's what matters!" Natsu said happily, climbing down and leaving the room. Kei really didn't have a choice but to follow her, so he got up from the bed and glanced at Shoyo one last time before leaving the room. He shut off the light and shut the door behind him carefully, he followed Natsu to the couch and sat down beside her. It was an awkward silence for a few minutes, but eventually she spoke up.
"You're not gonna take me away from Shoyo right?" She asked, but that was the least of Natsu's worries. Kei could tell something more was going on.
"No, I'm not going to take you away from him. I will definitely be hearing the entire story when he wakes up thought. I wanna hear everything that's been going on come from his mouth, but no. I won't take you from Hinata. He may be too young to take care of you and pass out to the point of stress over you, but if I try to do anything he might get worse" Kei explained, pulling out his phone to tell the team that he would be staying till Shoyo woke up. Natsu didn't need to be alone with her brother passed out in bed from stress, so Kei made the logical decision to stay. No he didn't care for the idea, but if he left he would have felt like crap for leaving Natsu alone. She looked no younger than eight or nine at most.
"You know you can leave if you don't want to stay, right? Shoyo will be okay, this happens when he worries so much over me" Natsu told him, but all Kei did was shake his head. He sat up a little straighter and put his phone on silent, placing it in his back pocket. He didn't feel it going off from the stream of worried teammates who were asking about how Shoyo was.
"I don't wanna leave. Hinata is a valuable player on the team and even if I'm not much of a friend, I still don't think it would be right to leave a nine year old alone in this house. I also would like an explanation, leaving will only give him the option to ignore my questions" Kei explained to Natsu, who nodded her head.
"Shoyo does that when he's nervous. He'll avoid questions and even get bad stomach aches, so be nice about it... He doesn't do well with stress" The girl explained as she colored in the coloring book she had out before Kei had gotten there with her brother. Kei watched her quietly for another ten minutes as he laid on the couch before Shoyo came out of the room holding his head.
"Natsu? How did I end up in bed? I thought I was at practice?" He asked, obviously not seeing the blonde laying on the couch on his phone. Natsu smiled and turned to Kei, looking at him.
"He's been here the entire time waiting for you to wake up Shoyo" She told him, then went back to her coloring. It took a few seconds for Shoyo's brain to compute that Kei Tsukishima, the guy who made fun of him for being short and never spoke to him outside of those remarks, was laying on his couch. He blinked down at him, but all Kei did was look up at him.
"Tsukishima? You're on my couch? Am I seeing things?" Shoyo asked, pinching himself and rubbing his eyes. He made sure he was awake before looking back down at the waiting middle blocker.
"Yeah, I'm on your couch. You're awake. You also have a lot of explaining to do, so sit down and tell me why your supposed mom isn't around" Kei told him, sitting up and making room for Shoyo to sit down. The anxiety and nervousness kicked in, but Kei dragged him into sitting down.
"Don't worry Sho, he already promised he wasn't here to take me away" Natsu assured him, making the high schooler a little less nervous about exposing the entire secret. He took a deep breath and hugged his sister.
"Go and play in your room, I'll let you know when you can come out" Shoyo told her, so she listened and skipped off to her room. Once she was in her room and the door was shut Shoyo looked to Kei, the happy smile on his face immediately fading into a frown full of stress, anxiety, nervousness, and worry.
"How much do you wanna know?"
"All of it, no detail gets left out" Kei said, crossing his arms. He didn't care about why, he just needed to make sure the volleyball teams asset on the court wouldn't end up passing out in the middle of a spike. Shoyo let out a loud sigh and nodded his head.
"I figured you would say that, this might take a while" He told him quietly as he picked up the living room and made it neater.
"When I was born, my father was excited, there was nothing he had wanted more than a son. According to him our family had the perfect dynamic. Everything was fine until I turned five. That was when my mom figured out that she was pregnant with Natsu. My father didn't like that. He had told her to get an abortion and she refused, so he left. Months into the pregnancy she couldn't even look at me anymore, she was repulsed by my appearance and it definitely had an affect on not only me, but the way I lived. I looked too much like him apparently, so I ended up basically surviving by myself" Shoyo began, only stopping to let out another sigh and sit back down on the couch.
"Time flies through the pregnancy, I had been relying on the neighbors to eat and survive at that point because my mom was never home. She was around so little that all she did was pay the bills from a different place. She basically did that so I could live even if she didn't like my existence because of how I looked. Then Natsu was born and I had to take care of a baby at six years old. I had no idea what I was doing so I was at the neighbors house more and more. She calls the neighbors mom and dad, that's how much they were around more than our own mother. So to put it in an easier way, she basically abandoned us. When I was old enough to start doing odd jobs around the age of ten with distant relatives, I did my absolute best and swore that I would give my four year old sister the life she deserved. That went on until I could find bigger odd jobs at the age of thirteen. I had fallen in love with sports and they was one of our most favorite things to do together and still is to this day. My first real job was a water boy, I wasn't proud of it but I could at least save money to sustain my sisters life and keep her happy. Over the years, after our father left us, he sent the child support to me, I have a bank account and a credit card just for the 54,896 yen (Roughly 500 USD) that he gave me for both her and me. My middle school gave us food that they could spare and the teachers paid me in cash for all the odd jobs I would do after school while Natsu would be picked up and watched by the neighbors. When I got to Karasuno, my middle school had already informed the principal of what had had been going on. Before school and after it before volleyball and even during lunch some days I would do random things, get paid in cash in singles and fives depending on how helpful I was. Then the principal and I made a deal. I started getting financial help from the school. I get paid for just showing up to volleyball practice, every win in a game, whether it be practice or not, I get paid" Shoyo explained, his face went into his hands so he could take a moment. He had never actually said a conversation with anyone about his situation. It made him emotional.
"Wait... So you've just been living by yourself with your sister since you were six?! Why did no one call child services?!" Kei actually had some sort of emotion in his voice, it was rare for him to have such an emotion of shock. Kei didn't know what to do, he had just heard a cluster fuck full of information and his heart was racing in horror at the sun of Karasuno High Volleyball team told half of how he lived his life.
"I was convinced my mother loved me... That she loved Natsu" His voice cracked at his sisters name, his eyes filled with tears as he hid his face more.
"I was so stupid! How could I have thought she loved us?! She wasn't even a mother in the beginning, how could I think she would come around and love Natsu at least?" Shoyo asked as he began sobbing.
"I wasted months researching so I could have custody of Natsu. The nights of endless studying and researching, it took even her waking up from the light of my laptop to persuade me to go to bed and even then I could only sleep with nightmares clouding my mind. I'd wake up early every morning to do more studying for school and then send her off with the neighbors to take her to school, leaving to do any sort of job I could to help support her for the month. I wasted so much of my life not taking custody of her or getting help from child services because I hoped she would change and love me. Love Natsu. My sister goes to bed without a mom or dad, only me and even then she is happy. I just can't keep up, there's so much to do. High schoolers aren't supposed to have proper jobs because it impedes on our education. But I can't go without a job. I don't have anyone to support Natsu if I don't. I can't just focus on school and volleyball while she sits innocently. She isn't what made my mom snap, it was my father and no matter what anyone says my sister and I are being punished because he couldn't handle the fact that my mom was gonna have my sister. She is the only thing keeping me going at this point! Volleyball is dust in my head the minute I leave that gym! I finally got her yesterday Tsukishima. I wasn't in school because I was in court!" Shoyo explained, his heart hurt with every word that he told Kei, the tears just refused to stop spilling down his face and he hated it. He was being quiet, he didn't want Natsu to see him cry, hear him cry, he didn't want his little sister to know that he was vulnerable and weak and struggling to give her the life she deserved. Kei was in more than just horror at that point. His teammate, the sun that had always shined so brightly in that court was a mess. He was a like a dying star that was about to explode under the weight of the stress, anxiety, and worry over one small girl. Shoyo really was a star, could only take so much before collapsing and bursting.
"Hinata... You.... You were in court yesterday?" Kei asked, but Shoyo wiped his tears as best he could.
"I was in court to get custody of Natsu... My mother was supposed to show up... She never did. I got her by default and because I was already paying the bills and had the houses papers I got it changed to my name. I own a house, pay a lot of bills, don't know how to drive... So many responsibilities are sitting on my shoulders and I'm barely keeping up... I don't know what to do anymore Tsukishima. I work my ass off to get her in my custody and care, but now I don't know what to do next" Shoyo told him, he could control his breathing now, but to Kei he looked like an absolute train wreck and the blonde didn't know how to help. He couldn't do anything but sit and watch the middle blocker in front of him cry. Kei finally was able to react and pulled Shoyo close, his arms wrapping firmly around Shoyo's body to let the orange haired boy cry into his chest. Kei was glad he decided to stay instead of leaving after putting him in bed. He made the right decision. The blonde may not be the nicest, but he knew when things were wrong and needed to be fixed or made right.
"I'm moving in" He told him, the words hadn't even computed in his own head. It shocked them both. It took a second for the words to process in Kei's head before he felt confident in his decision. Shoyo was frozen in shock, he looked up at Kei with wide eyes filled with shock and confusion.
"Natsu is gonna need someone mature in her life to look after her when you can't. I have the ability so I'll start working. I know we don't get along, but even if we argue and get on each others nerves a child is still a child and obviously you need someone to help you. Hinata you're an absolute wreck. If you don't get help paying bills and feeding Natsu and making sure she gets to school, then you'll crash and burn and it'll be the end of you both" Kei explained, he didn't really like the idea of moving in with Shoyo but if anything he'd be helping out a kid who genuinely didn't know what was going on or how much her brother was secretly struggling to keep her happy. He didn't want Shoyo to end up like his brother, hiding that he couldn't do something when Kei held such high standards for him without realizing it.
"Do me a favor... Make sure I have a room to put my stuff in by the weekend. When that comes, we'll be telling Coach Ukai and Takeda together about what you're going through and that's not an option. They'll come here together and we'll sit down on this couch to tell them what you're going through. It will make it easier for you to get out of practice at a more reasonable time and you'll be able to spend time with your sister. I'll be able to help you with bills and doing things you can't do when you're too busy" Kei was doing his best to explain things, but the moment he mentioned Shoyo telling Ittetsu and Keishin that he moved away at the speed of light. It was like the speed he used on the court and Kei didn't understand why he was afraid to tell anyone.
"No!! Please, I can't just yet. They might try to make me quit volleyball, or they might try to take Natsu away. Please. I can't. At least let me prepare myself... Please, just let me have my peace with Natsu for a night or so... I wanna spend time with her without the worry of my mother or child services or Ukai and Takeda. Please... Just a night or two" Shoyo said, at first his voice was loud and filled with panic, but it got quieter and weaker as he spoke. Kei truly was weak. He was weak to Shoyo and his words when they were filled with strong emotions. He had hidden that fact deep inside him the whole time he had known Shoyo. Ah. Yeah, Kei was weak alright. How could he say no to Shoyo now?
"Alright. Today is Thursday, right? I'll be moving in on Saturday morning and unpacked by Sunday afternoon. I'll talk to Takeda and Ukai with you, but you have to tell them everything" Kei told him, Shoyo nodded his head silently.