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Joy is the real proof.
-Oswald de Andrade, Manifesto Antropófago
ZEROETH
2015
Why does this feel like it’s the last time they’ll ever see one another?
The ball hits the floor, preceded by a satisfying smack off Shoyo’s forearms, preceded by the serve from Kageyama. Before that, the floor again. Now returned by gravity, the ball rolls off to one side as its impact continues to echo throughout the gym. He and Kageyama stare at one another. Challenge hangs heavy in the air between them. There’s a million things he could say, and none of them feel right. Saying anything feels dangerous – like it could unravel the past three years and all their momentum. This equilibrium they’ve created must be stable, lives forever entwined with a third greater, in volleyball.
Shoyo can track the course of their futures along the trajectory of that serve receive and he’s pretty sure – no, he’s definitely sure – that Kageyama can too. So that’s it then.
“See you later, Kageyama!”
“Yeah. See you later.”
Θ
2014
Hinata has been in the middle of tying up his hair for five minutes now, and he hasn’t gotten any further along in the process. He’s reading an email on his phone, giggling at something Kenma most likely sent him as he fumbles with a hair tie. Two little charms click against one another on the band as he plays with it on his fingers. Probably one of the ones he’s stolen from his little sister, if Tobio had to guess.
Hinata’s leaned over his lap, phone perched on one knee, and his hair’s falling at odd angles, strung about with sweat. Hinata reaches down to tap out a reply. This is only going to prolong the process of them getting out of the club room and on the way home, so Tobio takes matters into his own hands and reaches around Hinata’s shoulder, tugging the hair tie off his spread fingers. Hinata multitasks typing out a row of exclamation points as he blows a raspberry – presumably the latter is directed at Tobio. Whatever. Tobio is busy.
Tobio cards both hands through Hinata’s gross, sweaty, post-practice hair and pulls the strands back. He tugs locks at each temple into place, then combs unruly ginger strands down from Hinata’s crown. Tobio ties the scruffy little tail off with two twists of his hand, realizing belatedly that Hinata’s gone still, phone forgotten.
Hinata looks at him over his shoulder, possibly processing the cause-and-effect of Tobio taking his hair tie. Tobio squints at Hinata’s pink cheeks. He’s just about to make an argument of it when Hinata blinks away and says, ”Um, thanks Kageyama!”
Weird. Tobio steps away to grab his bag. “You were taking too long.”
“Rude! Just one second.” Hinata turns back to hit send on his message. Above him, aloft, the ponytail sticks up straight in the air. It’s ridiculous looking, it can hardly be called a ponytail. The flat ties and headbands Hinata usually put his hair in to keep his bangs out of his eyes had never looked cool, and Tobio reminded him of that often, but they somehow were more dignified than this. Tobio grins to himself and considers counting it as a win.
Finally on their way out, they pass the water-stained mirror propped up in the entryway and Hinata must notice his reflection cause he exclaims, “Oh! It’s cute!”
Tobio stops and looks. In front of the mirror, Hinata is shaking his head back and forth with a stupid grin on his face and watching the ponytail bounce. It’s more stupid than cute, but Tobio is realizing that the stupid part actually adds to the cuteness. He squints and wonders distantly if he should like that as much as he does.
“You need a haircut.”
“Yeah, right. You’re just jealous of how cool I look!”
Tobio is, but Hinata doesn’t need to know that. Hinata also probably doesn’t need to know how many arguments Tobio’s been having with himself about this sort of thing lately. The sheer impracticality of another three centimeters of hair. (Just below his brow line; tickles his ears wrong; sweaty against the nape of his neck; not long enough to look right anyway – just to name a few.) In any case. Hinata shaking his whole, stupid head just to see the ponytail wiggle makes it easy to dismiss the thoughts and the arguments both.
“Dumbass. Long hair is a pain to deal with when you go pro.” Damn it. Tobio looks away. There’s an unrecognizable feeling in his stomach.
“Yeah that’s true,” Hinata flips his head back and snorts again at his reflection. “But it’s fun. Bossy-yama. I’ll cut it eventually, probably.”
Tobio glares at the wall, thoughts inexplicably focused on the stippling in the plaster paint, as if looking into the corner will stop him from hearing things that aren’t being said, that Hinata couldn’t possibly be thinking about. He tenses, wanting for once to agree with Hinata’s inane statement, yeah, it is fun. I think it'd be nice to grow it out. Does this feel right, to you, too? Just to see if he gets it, because despite being Hinata, he usually gets everything. Tobio glares at the wall, considering the texture of the chipping paint with an intensity that risks boring through plaster, concrete and metal siding.
There are things right in front of him that he needs to focus on. Tobio tears his eyes away from the wall and pushes the door open, shaking his head blank.
“Whatever. Do what you want.”
Hinata stares at him for a second, then he laughs and jumps up, cuffing him on the shoulder. He strides past Tobio and turns off the overhead light. Blue shadow and twilight stretch into the club room as he steps outside. “Thanks! I will!”
Tobio locks the club room behind them both.
Θ
When he first gets to Italy, Tobio’s teammates are resolute that he has to take a tour of the city. He chooses an architectural tour - it stops by one of the modern stadiums - and prepares for a day under the unrelenting sun.
“The greatest buildings in Rome were built with an ancient formula, opus caementicum. It has lasted since antiquity.” Their tour guide explains while they bake in the sun. This is unpleasant, but the listen along booklet that’s provided has a Japanese translation, so it’s good practice. “Just as important, they were built with rigorous care by masters of Roman architecture. They had the right foundations to last for millennia of life.”
Tobio wouldn’t know this, would likely never know nor care to, but future research a whole Olympics later would show that opus caementicum’s strength comes from its ability to self-heal when exposed to water. The cement was originally made from calcium oxide, gypsum, and volcanic ash. The aggregate included, amongst other materials, lime clasts which can react with water and form new calcium carbonate crystals called Tobermorite. Undersea, these crystals grow inside the resultant concrete, sealing its wounds. The sea walls, cities, roads and viaducts built by the ancient Romans have survived much in thanks to the durability of this self-maintaining material.
The stadium is more interesting on the inside than the outside in Tobio’s opinion. It goes without saying. The volleyball courts are in there.
Θ
SECOND
2013
Shoyo is sitting on the back stoop listening to the insect sounds that fill the late evening when he's struck with a feeling of misalignment. Rather, the sudden understanding that he has felt misaligned: numb, fuzzy limbs overlaid his own like sheets of cellophane. He raises a hand and stares at the evening light in his fingers. Through the fog of fever and structural collapse, Shoyo had stumbled out into the sun and seen his own shadow. It looked different now that Shoyo knew it could betray him. Everything was different now that he knew that wanting something wasn’t enough to make it happen.
He’s not supposed to practice yet—and he doesn’t. Still, Shoyo picks up his volleyball, gives it a spin just to feel it real, solid, in his hand. The sound of the leather rips him through the heavy evening air, and Shoyo remembers the tired, too, buzzing at the edge of consciousness when Takeda-sensei invoked his future.
It’s a good thing he can remember. Shoyo shakes his head as the feeling stirs and doesn’t quite leave his skin. Shoyo decides the feeling is extremely weird and he squints against it - intent on shaking away the thoughts harder when his chest aches all at once with sense memory: Takeda-sensei’s hands in his own sweaty palms, anchoring him. Burning it into him. This too is volleyball.
Shoyo shuffles in place with his volleyball cradled against his chest and tucked under his chin. The leather is cool against his skin. When he spiked, his skin stung with the impact. He could always feel the ball even after it left his palm. It must be the same, Shoyo thinks. Something about the force of impact. If it’s anything like a spiked ball, the ache in him will fade. And if his shadow’s different now, so be it. He’s facing forward.
Shoyo hugs his volleyball and listens to the night air, to everything else alive and bright at the edge of the woods. He can’t practice yet but he will again soon. Shoyo breathes deeply and knows it’ll be alright.
Θ
Shoyo is the picture of adolescent health again within weeks. Less than two, more than one — the time seems to stretch while he’s in bed. By the end, it’s barely anything at all. Graduation comes and goes, their third years finally out spreading their wings in the real world.
It hasn’t faded, if anything the feeling is bigger and brighter than before. Shoyo can feel the heat under his skin. The itch of threading the needle. Breathing a little hard after a jump, asking for extra tosses. Wanting harder, faster, more— It goes unsaid. There are no glances or whispers. There’s his team, and their expectations for each other. Shoyo is grateful for that, and for the advice Coach Ukai gives when he heads to Sakanoshita and announces his plans for after graduation. Combined, the effect is enough to moderate his worst habits; altogether it shines at some point on a distant shore that guides him onward.
And Shoyo is moving forward. Growing all the time. Yet as normal as things are, he still knows. On websites, on DVDs, there is footage of him collapsing; burned into plastic and metal and grey matter. Diving drills after a practice game: an awesome match against Date-kou’s new line-up. Shoyo’s body remembers the ground like a phantom limb. Wood, polyurethane resin and sweat greet him on each rep.
They tell him he’ll be back. He says he knows that, that’s what the diving drills are for.
These days Shoyo is constantly aware of his body. In its own way it’s awesome to be so in tune with his senses after the fever leaves him. He’s a frayed nerve, raw and oversensitive. It makes him jittery with energy that he channels into conditioning and studying. A travel guide for South America sits on his desk at home, under this year’s trig textbook, besides a printout of the latest sports nutrition guide Coach Ukai recommended. There’s an empty space in the middle of all the books on his desk where his practice ball usually sits.
“Waaaa- that’s so cool!” Shoyo says, upside down and casting blue shadow over the page of Yachi’s sketchbook. She’s practicing her sketching, he’s practicing drills — they’re out in the park on one of the Saturday afternoons that they inevitably end up spending together ‘cause half their study sessions turn into hangouts. “It’s just like the posters you make for the team!”
She whines, “Nooo, don’t look! I’m not done yet!”
A thermos of chilled barley tea sits next to Yachi, two plastic cups in the grass alongside it. Shoyo leans to one side to pick his up, and the beaded condensation on the outside makes Shoyo’s fingers damp. Yachi has barely touched her tea in her concentration.
“It looks done to me.” Shoyo says as he scoops his volleyball out from under his arm and sets it down in the grass. He plants his hands on his knees and squats next to Yachi, leaning over her shoulder in his effort to be nosy. She’s drawn him from the back, knees bent, arms forward ready for a pass. He doesn’t get it, how a smudged pencil mark looks so much like a folded knee, but looking at the drawing Shoyo can almost imagine he’s someone else, watching himself from Yachi’s viewpoint in the grass. It reminds him of last year, mopping up sweat in the Shiratorizawa gym.
Yachi chews her lip and grumbles, “I just can’t get it right.”
Shoyo blinks, “What’s wrong?”
“Moving stuff is so hard to do. People are so hard. That’s why I’m practicing this sorta gesture drawing, — I want to get better, to loosen up! But every time I try, the drawing gets all stiff again!” She squints and pouts. She looks so frustrated that Shoyo frowns reflexively too. “My mom says I just have to keep practicing, but I don’t know how this is making me any better. It just gives me a headache.”
Shoyo thumps into the grass from his squat, sitting next to her. First things first, he thinks, and hands over her neglected iced tea. Yachi huffs and takes it. While she sips at it moodily, Shoyo thinks hard at her sketchbook.
“I don’t know if it’s the same,” Shoyo wiggles one hand, considering the disciplinary overlaps between drawing and volleyball, “but if you’ve hit a wall, maybe you’ve got to practice it a different way?”
Her eyes go round for a second, ponderous, before she squints again dourly into her tea. “Maybe. But that feels like an excuse.”
“You’re really good at helping me look at things in new ways when we study though, and uh, you always have cool ideas for projects.” Shoyo bumps her shoulder with his and blinks. “Are you just frustrated right now?”
Yachi stares for a long moment, her expression focusing more and more like she was working on a puzzle and had jumbled the pieces by accident.
“Guh,” she sighs and smacks her head against her sketchbook. Shoyo yelps, but Yachi just laughs. Her expression swings wide and open all of a sudden as she turns her head up and says, “How could I forget. Right, thanks Hinata-kun. That gives me an idea.“
“Sure?” Shoyo cocks his head, confused. He fidgets with the snap lid on the thermos, rocking it back and forth as he takes a sip from his tea.
“It’s hard, but I wanna do it right,” Yachi says after a moment of adjusting her pencil lead. Shoyo tips the thermos back down into the grass and stretches out his knees. “Even if I mess up, I’ve still learned something. Hopefully the right thing, um.”
Shoyo nods into his cup, hanging off it like a guppy mid slurp. Yachi flips past the drawings she’d done that afternoon of him so far and settles on a smooth, blank page. “Something like ‘that looks bad when I draw that way’ – or ‘that didn’t look bad, but it should look this way’. Hm.”
Yachi looks up from the page with a fierce determination, her arm moving in circles from the wrist to start, then from her elbow. She draws in arcs, pencil never leaving the page. Shoyo watches her and idly rolls his ball back into his lap, resting his elbows on the cool leather. When he looks across the clearing, he doesn’t see anything like it. The shapes on the page loop back on themselves, coiling and intersecting.
“What are you drawing? The idea you had?”
“Mmhm!” Yachi pauses, tipping her pencil hard into the page. She looks toward the sky. “I remembered this lesson I had about training your eyes. Because your brain sees what it wants to see, and it’ll fill in the gaps.” She looks forward again, picking up where she left off. “So to draw you have to teach yourself not to make stuff up, you have to actually look. I think that’s what I need to practice.”
Shoyo gasps and jumps in his seat, “It is like volleyball!”
“Kinda..! No, yeah! It is!” Yachi grins. “Do you wanna try too?”
“No way, I can’t draw.” Shoyo shakes his head. He settles back down to watch her, curious to see what she’ll sketch next. But she stops and lifts her pencil, thinking for a moment, before she pushes the sketchbook into his lap with bright eyes like she’s been personally issued a challenge.
“It isn’t hard! It really is like volleyball, um. Like when you were practicing hitting the minus tempo last year, and adjusting to the new? Coordinating the um. Timing with your jump. It’s like that, only just with your hands and eyes.”
Then she stands, dusting herself off. “Try me! I promise you can do it, just move your hand and draw what you see! Oh, and don’t look at the page. That’s cheating.”
Shoyo picks up the pencil; the heel of his palm drags heavy as he does. The pencil scrapes on the page. He said he couldn’t draw, but he’s still surprised at how clumsy it feels, this foreign application of graphite on paper. And, how odd the plastic body of the mechanical pencil feels against the meat of his palm. Every nerve inside him tells him to look down and check how he’s doing, but Yachi had looked very serious when she said not to. Shoyo feels sweat drip down his neck as he scrawls Yachi’s outline. Each inch he moves the pencil feels like a mile. A circle and a loop where he thinks her head is, then, clumsily divided in two as he slides the pencil across the paper to scribble in a dot, an arc, an eye. How do you draw an eye again, was that something he had ever learned? And had he ever really paid attention before to what an eye actually was? Forget the eye, what does a line even mean— is it the place where shadow gathers beside her nose, where her cheek ends and her eye begins? Is it the curve of her nervous smile? Okay, well, he thinks he can draw her chin, and then somewhere behind her jaw there’s an ear. Right. One of her ears pokes out from her hair, under her sidetail—her hair is always so stylish, he wonders if Natsu would like her hair done like that. Shoot, Yachi’s hair. How do you draw hair? Ear first. A tiny curl hooking into the page, his fist clamping down in tension. Where to go from here? He has to think strategically. Follow the ball. Down along her chin, one side of her neck. A loose curve for her shoulder. Her blouse is impossible. What’s the name of that shape, the one that comprises the soft, pretty ruffle in her sleeve where it crushes up against her arm? Her skin looks soft where the cloth folds against it – Shoyo doesn’t know if a line can capture that. He’s never had to know these things. What is that shape. It’s not a circle or a square or anything like the triangles they’ve been learning about in math. Is there even a name for that shape? Could he ever know?
“I’m not sure I’m doing this right,” Shoyo calls, grimacing.
“Um, that’s okay!” Yachi sounds nervous, maybe embarrassed. “You don’t have to keep drawing, I just thought it’d help explain!”
“Let me finish.” Shoyo meets her eyes, noticing the way she shivers after. Was that a little much? Oops. He adds, “Please?”
“Um, okay! If you’re sure!” Yachi fiddles with her hands. Shoyo loops lines on the page.
In the end, there was nothing of Yachi at all. Nothing that he could see, at least. Maybe the ghost of an arm forming in an elliptical limb or a wavering block of skirt.
“Yep, mine looked like that too when I started.” Yachi commiserates as she flops into the grass beside him. “I get lost on the paper, gah. It really is good practice though!”
Getting lost? Shoyo looks down, trying to find the path he’d traced, and decides that that was an apt description. He knew where to move his hand mid-air to connect with a ball, but here, right in front of him, he realized he still didn’t know the shape of a person.
Θ
Concrete is everywhere, and even more common than its use is its propensity to cracking. It’s vital around the globe despite being subject to such mundane limitations. As common to the world as concrete, and as common to the concrete as cracking, is the life that will engulf it without exception. São Paulo, home to 1,521 square kilometers of roads, skyscrapers, overpasses, parks, sidewalks, people – flourishes in concrete.
It matters to concrete, where its component parts come from. The binder, the filler, the water: these will determine the durability of the final product. And water is essential to setting and curing concrete. It starts the whole reaction.
The first stage of hydrolysis goes quick. Spitfire. The reaction begins, the cement burns itself out releasing calcium and hydroxide ions. After chewing through the available material it’ll move to stage two, the dormancy period. The rapid heating slows, and seeds of calcium hydroxide and calcium silicate hydrate crystals grow and develop. The water slows too, stuck seeping through material as the concrete grows thick with the fruits of their reaction. But this is not the end – tricalcium aluminate and tetracalcium aluminoferrite develop within the structure in diffuse euphoria. The water, stubborn, reacts with every molecule it butts against in its forward crawl. Once again heat blooms within the concrete, and so it shall as long as water and unhydrated silicates remain.
It matters. If the water comes from a poor source, it can corrode the resulting structure from the inside out. Different aggregates produce different strength concretes, different cements have different mineral properties. Regardless, the binder and the filler will react with water. They will heat and expand. In an exothermic process, they will form new and better, stronger chemical bonds. Even the best concrete will still be porous in the end, and it will soak up whatever you give it.
Before home games Shoyo brings breakfast to Ibirapuera Park. He eats surrounded by plants and concrete that all transform and thrive, just like him.
Θ
Gravity inverts. Shoyo hits the sand in three parts; his stomach hollows out, swooping as the twinge of instability echoes up his ankle, and then through his knee. For just a second, for just one second—. His ears ring as the blood rush of adrenaline pumps through him and his heart rockets him back to the present. Get up. Get up.
Falling is a common occurrence in beach. After all, diving for the ball while defending the court is key to the game. Sand goes flying as Shoyo jumps back up, bouncing twice on his feet. But.
An electric bolt of protest shoots up his ankle. He shakes it out, tests it again – smiles into his grimace cause it feels just a little, tiny bit wrong. Falling by accident is just as much a part of the game as diving, but it’s still embarrassing. Just a little. The sand shifts under the ball of his foot as he makes a decision.
“Ei,” Shoyo glances over to Heitor, “Ehhh um segundo, por favor?”
“Sussa-- Ei, precisamos de um minuto.”
Their opponents, a pair of students from the university nearby, idly chat with Heitor as Shoyo waves to them cheerily. Walking off the court feels worse than falling, something Shoyo is keen to move his focus away from.
His mind right now is a lot like a jumbled binder of loose leaf pages, covered in aphorisms and advice and diagrams and lists of the so-many-things that come with living in a foreign country and trying to make his career possible, aside. Shoyo shakes his head. A reminder looses itself from his mind: this is practice too. Patience is worth the effort. Great – just what he was looking for.
Shoyo breathes in and out, mindful of his gait as he crosses the sand towards his bag and water bottle. Deep breaths expand his lungs, then his diaphragm, moving oxygen through the blood in his veins, from his bones through his heart, from the top of his brain and all the way to his toes. That oxygen circulates power through each of his muscles; with just one breath, he’s connected to everything around him through aerobic metabolization. Thank you, oxygen. And thanks to you too, muscles. Shoyo exhales and smiles to himself, feeling centered with such a simple thought. Strict but kind, the sand shifts under him as if in reply.
Shoyo tugs the top of his water bottle open with his teeth and takes a big glug of his electrolyte drink. He wiggles his foot, lips pursed in a frown as he drinks. It doesn’t feel like he’s done something to his ankle, his range of motion looks fine after all, but the loose-leaf instincts in his brain say strength in the ankle comes from strength in the rest of the leg. It’s nothing, and it’s also nothing worth risking injury over. Shoyo starts running through sets for a cooldown workout in his head as he tests his balance. He stands on one foot, hydrating dutifully, and watches Heitor make his way over.
“Beleza?” Heitor asks. Shoyo glances back to the net, the student pair pointing towards the city skyline emphatically. Heitor follows his eyes. “Ah, acho que eles estão indo embora. Disseram que uma barraca onde queriam ir vai fechar em breve. Quer encontrar outro jogo?”
“Beleza!” Shoyo confirms first, clicking his water bottle shut. The beach is dotted with bodies, scores of people rimmed with orange, out enjoying the last sunlight the day had to offer. They could find another pair of opponents easily but– but. He’s slowly learning the difference between buts. When was it worth pushing through the nerves, when was it better to pull out the KT tape and calisthenics. Shoyo grins apologetically at Heitor and says, “Mas eu ainda deveria jogar pelo seguro. Posso te pagar um jantar?”
Heitor claps his shoulder with an easy smile. “Eu nunca vou dizer não para isso, cara. Vamos.”
His first year in Rio rolls into the second, and somewhere along the way Shoyo starts to understand that his body has forgiven him. The mental rictus of every fall out on the sand softens in the sun. His shadow looms, but it’s ready to be molded into something new. When the buzz inevitably returns, it’s accompanied by certainty – his muscles, sore with the strength of supporting mobile joints and elastic tendons. Stacked textbooks, sticky-tabbed; his first and second spiral notebooks filled with nutrient intake charts and schedules; a standardized grocery list for each week; the proprioceptive memory of a body five meters away; five centimeters away.
He and Pedro keep separate calendars, but the marker is still taped to the fridge by a string. Each day he uncaps the marker and scribbles off another box. His time here is approaching its limit, and he knows that leaving Rio, which in some ways but not all is equivalent to going back to Japan, is an open question. Necessity demands certainty, and certainty is best fed by change. Shoyo caps the marker and opens the fridge to get breakfast started. He’s hungry, he’s got work soon, and this time next year no matter what he’ll be somewhere new, doing something else. Eggs, rice, veggies, protein smoothie. With volleyball he’s building himself a life that’s elastic, a life that he can do what he wants with, and Shoyo wants to do it all.
Θ
FIRST
2014
Kageyama Tobio is, before all else, a setter. He decided that long ago, in a totally different world, one where his grandfather was still alive. He could be described as an athlete, but that word can also refer to racehorses – and Kageyama Tobio is at the very least a human being. He knows that much by the feel of a volleyball balanced in his fingers, nothing separating his skin from smooth, synthetic leather. Eating, sleeping, conditioning— all necessary for life and volleyball both. Hair trimmed above his brow line, nails oiled, filed and buffed neatly. Muscle and bone, a body he’s sculpted into the shape of someone born to play.
Maybe this is all why the realization is fast and unobtrusive for Tobio. He’s late, so he is informed by several judgmental forum threads, to realize this sort of thing in his third year. On the next site, he’s told he’s got his whole journey ahead of him. So he’s getting mixed messages, but that’s fine. Tobio knows what path is ahead of him and it’s looking clearer every day. His future is traced along the arc of a volleyball, his home is the court. This certainty has lived with him his whole life. It must be why even now, facing these strange forum threads he stumbled into, Tobio can feel his dinner settling comfortably in his stomach, and why he can feel the space around his body in even measures. He’s calm even as he realizes that he is a setter, but he is not a man.
There are three things that Tobio learns from the forums that night.
After, Tobio switches off his computer and leans back in his desk chair. He tucks his fingertips underneath his thighs, feeling the pressure steady him. The familiar woven seat fibers against his skin settle the million racing thoughts, enough so for him to pull out his journal and really consider things. Tobio thinks it through, pen scratching over the page, looping around endlessly as he attacks the issue.
Through all his endless scribbling, though, he can’t seem to write down the word. It’s as if by defining it on the page, it’d be made real. His failure to find a solution would be real. It’s frustrating to know exactly what he wants. It’s even more frustrating to want two things. And worse yet, to consider it a separate thing entirely. As his infinite scrawl comes to the end of the page, eyes still averted from a word unwritten, the calculation becomes devastatingly simple: this changes nothing.
The Karasuno Men’s Volleyball Club climbs to third at Nationals that year. After wading through the flood of scouts eyeing him for upstart v.league teams and old institutions alike, he officially secures his place. Eating, sleeping, conditioning — he molds his body. Tobio is just as much an athlete as he is a racehorse, born to the world for sport.
Θ
IN TRANSIT
If mixed concrete remains in motion during the curing process, the ultimate set time can be prolonged. If you have ever seen a concrete mixing truck in your travels, you’ve witnessed one of the countless mundane examples of our human effort to fight entropy. By remaining in motion, water is manually worked through the concrete. It is being pushed to build every chemical bond it can, to expel every bit of heat energy it’s able to before time runs out. And every option is exhausted. For just a little while longer, the concrete remains malleable.
Θ
THIRD
Tobio’s palms itch. Today was incredible. All he wants is to get back out on the court and play more volleyball.
They’re a small group at a low table, an unofficial reunion with the people who didn’t have to head out early, so it’s a different scene than their old team dinners after being defeated. For one thing, as Hinata would be happy to remind him, they’re not all losers. They’re not even all players. Everyone’s changed and grown up in their own directions, and Tobio can’t help but be excited.
Sugawara gets up from Daichi’s side at the other end of the table. Tobio glances after him, watching him head over to the bar to order another drink. Tobio’s palms itch, like he can sense where he’s headed before he gets there.
He makes himself reflect: his stomach feels settled– it was metabolizing a good meal after a really, really great game of volleyball; he was surrounded by friends who knew him; and yes, there have been so many opportunities to tell Suga in the past three years over countless times they’ve met for tea or exchanged updates via text and video call, so it’d be categorically impulsive for Tobio to tell him now; Tobio wants him to know. Tobio digests the thought as he sets down his chopsticks and stands. He shuffles past Hinata’s chair, and goes to get a drink.
Kageyama’s drink ends up taking a little longer than Suga’s; it’s a good excuse to stay at the bar, half in a euphoric daze and half lulled by the wood grain in the varnished bartop. Once he’s back at the table, the afterparty continues like nothing’s happened. That’s more disorienting than the alcohol is.
While trading goodbyes outside, the street noise is a balm for Tobio’s frayed nervous system. He feels a little bit like he’s on new legs, being around others while someone else, anyone else, knows. Sugawara gives him a hug when it's their turn.
“It’s so great to meet you," he says quietly, and Tobio hugs him again in wordless reply – because he can feel a sentiment there that he doesn’t quite understand, but as with so many things, he trusts Suga.
In his peripheral, waving them off, Hinata turns to Tobio and says, “The Adlers are staying at the same hotel, right? Wanna walk back?”
It’s a nice night out, calm enough for the city. The further they weave through the buildings back towards the inns and hotels, the more things quiet down. If it weren’t for the stark lack of verticality, it’d almost be like walking home with Hinata from school. The familiarity is still there, at least. It’s easy.
“I know we just played each other," Hinata says as they pass a freshly painted garage, walking his shoulder into Tobio’s arm.
“You won. I know.”
“–Shut up. I was going to say, I know we just played, but–,” Hinata breaks into a grin, looking up at a passing street lamp, “It made me want to hit your tosses again. Like, twice as much as usual.”
“Beat me again and we’ll see.”
“Yeah, alright.”
There’s a lull in the conversation that Tobio doesn’t find entirely unpleasant. Hinata hops over a crack in the sidewalk, sneakers scuffing on loose gravel.
He says, “I heard you’re planning to go overseas?”
Tobio nodded. “There’s a team in Italy that’s interested.’
“You’re interested too.”
“Obviously.” There was so much more of the game to play out there in the world. Different players, different cultures, different ways of approaching the ball. Of course Tobio wants to play abroad.
“How’s your Italian?”
“Better than your English, hopefully."
“Shut up.” Hinata rolls his eyes. “I bet once you learn Italian, English will be easier too. That’s how it’s been for me.”
“Oh, right. You were speaking Portuguese? During the game, with Romero.”
“Yeah! Man, he’s so cool. I totally forgot he was on the Adlers, I was too psyched up!”
“He’s awesome.” Tobio agreed. “Are you fluent?”
“Not at all! Well – conversation’s way easier now, but I still gotta translate so much stuff in my head,” Hinata hums, then brightens as he says, “You know what helped me? My roommate in Rio had this whole stash of translated manga, it made it so much easier to figure out words. I wonder if I could find more online. Hm.”
“Probably. You can find anything online.”
“Oh! That reminds me,” Hinata pauses, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Did you ever figure out the women’s league thing?”
What.
“What.”
Hinata doesn’t even have the decency to look fazed, “Like we talked about?”
They haven’t talked about it. And as far as Tobio is concerned, there’s never even been an it. Tobio is vaguely aware he isn’t moving or answering, but apparently he doesn’t need to because Hinata is already paused with his head askew in thought.
“...No, right, that makes sense actually. Okay,” he nods as he buffers, biting his cheek. “Remember, like, a few years back? You sent me this thing–”
Tobio is stunned into prickly silence – annoyed that Hinata’s even able, willing, to speak it into the air. Tobio doesn’t need to explain it to Hinata. Hinata already knows him. Before anything else, he is a setter. This doesn’t mean anything, why does he even care, and Tobio feels frozen in the street lights, pinned in place by too many unspoken words over years together and apart.
“That’s not – there’s nothing to talk about.” He finally says, lame and bordering on childish.
Hinata shrugs, “Okay.” And for a second it sounds like he’s going to leave it.
“Well,” Hinata picks at the lining of his jacket. “I know a lot of what I have in mind depends on where I end up. So I’m not worrying about it too much for now.”
“I don’t know why –“ Tobio starts only to stop. Awareness hits him in the face harder than the nerves. Hinata furrows his brow, wholly taken by a loose seam just long enough for Tobio to hide in plain sight. Process. Until – that warm feeling he hadn’t known the name of years ago knocks against his ribs like an old friend.
“You played on women’s teams.” Tobio remembers abruptly. It jogs a vision — the gymnasium of his childhood. His grandfather’s team running across the court, their shoes squeaking on the waxed wood and begging him to join them. He swallows the memory. “In high school.”
“Huh? Yeah. Before then, too.”
“What was it like?”
“Ah,” Hinata stretches back and says. “It was really fun. Everyone had super different play styles, so I got to practice hitting lots of kinds of tosses. Kinda like beach.”
“It didn’t feel,” Tobio hesitates and decides there’s no better word for it. “Weird?”
“Maybe at first? But we hadn’t even started at Karasuno yet at that point, and back then I just wanted my own team.” Hinata’s mouth twisted into a smile. “It was different.”
“I don’t know if I want things to be different.” Tobio realizes in real time.
“Aren’t they already?”
Tobio looks at Hinata then, really looks. His expression is brazenly simple. When has Hinata ever been anything but. Tobio doesn’t really get Hinata half the time, but it is nice that he doesn't have to. Hinata has always pushed at him, meeting him more than halfway, and their orbit is instinctual even now after so much distance.
“That’s not what I mean.” Tobio says without elaboration. It occurs to him that the words are staring at him, but it doesn’t feel right to start talking about potentials that might end his career. Change it. Had he ever been afraid of change before? Or had the sport made time feel endless against all logic. None of this is worth dwelling on, he might as well start making retirement plans, and the thought of that alone makes him sick and distant. Impossible.
“Volleyball is what decides it, right?” Hinata cocks his head with a no-nonsense look, and Tobio is shocked by the relief he feels. Hinata said it like he wasn’t doing something wrong. Hinata said it like he was doing exactly what was right for his journey.
“Obviously.”
“Then you already know what to do.”
Tobio’s face twitches. “You make it sound simple. Dumbass.”
“It is simple! Idiot!” His elbow returns a shove, and then they’re roughhousing on the sidewalk like they were boys again. A laugh makes it out of Tobio’s chest, met with a snort — more elbowing — and then a full belly laugh from Hinata as Tobio gets him in a headlock. The muttered tally, well into the thousands, makes them both break out into giggles once again and Tobio’s face aches from grinning.
Bright as ever, Hinata tosses him one of the smiles that make Tobio jealous of how effortlessly beautiful he can be. Hinata says, “It’s nice having something to look forward to, right?”
Tobio feels all the years of instinct and discipline they’ve burned into memory together. Tobio nods, lets out a breath, and finds that it’s easy to smile back.
Δ
Concrete is everywhere. It is a material renowned for its durability, though like all things it’s subordinate to time. Change is inevitable, concrete will always crack – it’s not a matter of if, but when, and figuring out the way concrete will crack is part of building a sound structure.
When a building does come down inevitably, the concrete isn’t thrown away. Even if disaster strikes, if something new replaces it, or if salt seeps in and corrodes the rebar, — concrete can be recycled and live on. Recycled concrete aggregate lines roads, highways, and riverbanks; it can be used in landscape design and soil stability; it can even make its way into the formation of new concrete, new structures. Despite the mundanity of this unassuming material, it’s clear we haven’t yet exhausted the possibilities for concrete. No matter what, it can always become something new.