HAIKYUU!! // one shots

14

⌲ ❝ iwa-chan ❞
『 oikawa tooru × iwaizumi hajime』

⸙.

『第二世界症候群は単なる症候群ではありません...それは祝福です。』

"Today, we will win once more."

As the words of Ushijima struck my head countless times, I've been reminded by the constant undeniable fact that he would actually do it... they would actually win once more, and we would never win.

"What can we do? They have that left-handed strong ace, to begin with, and we have no ace."

"No, it is too early to give up!" I yelled, trying to raise the spirits of my once-again-depressed teammates. "We have no ace, but we have our strategy that could cover that gap. We are Seijoh, and we will win next year."

Next year... one more year, and I'll graduate. Once I graduated, I'll still play volleyball, but I wouldn't play with my current team again. Once I graduated, I'll never get to play with Makki and Mattsun, and I'll never get to see my cute little juniors playing with us again. Once I graduated, I'll never get to feel the satisfaction I felt when our strategies come together and we perform it as a whole team. Once I graduated, I...

"O... O-Oikawa-san?"

I fell to my knees, not minding the audience looking at us, not minding Ushijima's whole team walking away from us, holding the trophy in his hand. I feel like there's something that I would like to get out of, but I can't. I feel like I should say something, but nothing's coming out of my mouth instead of whimpers. I feel like I should wrap my arms around them and cheer them up, but it was covering my wet eyes instead.

Once I geaduated... I don't have any friends again.

"S-sorry, everyone..." I looked at them, and all I could see was the pinch of surprise that their captain was sobbing on the floor. "I am the captain of this team. We are only starting our journey, but we have never achieved anything so far, and it was because of my incompetence. Sorry about that... sorry about everything... sorry about---"

"No."

I looked to my right side. From the audience, a man stood up from his seat, looking straight into my eyes. His eyes were sharp and direct, and if looks could kill, he could bury me six feet under the ground just by his eyes. I saw the uniform that he was wearing--- he was from out school. However, he seems completely dissatisfied with the situation.

Ah... I do have a friend, after all.

"I-Iwa-chan..."

Makki looked in the direction that I was staring. "Who?"

"Iwa-chan..."

"You think you could win like that? Do you think you could achieve something like this? While you're sobbing your heart out on the floor right now, countless players have been training on their courts, and even Ushiwaka is thinking about the mistakes that he has made on your match. Everyone is thinking about how to improve themselves, yet here you are."

Iwa-chan... a childhood friend of mine. As far as I can remember, he was with me ever since, playing with me, talking with me, listening to me, and watching all my games.

"Crying like a pathetic little dog."

He did say that I'm better than the rest, and I should never be compared to average players. If I have everything, then why? Why did I lose? Why do we keep losing? Why are we losing our hopes right now? If I am that good, how come that we could never enter the nationals?

"I taught you volleyball because you told me that you feel useless, staying at home with that syndrome of yours that you don't even know about. I taught you how to play for you to have fun. I taught you how to befriend the ball so that you won't feel lonely without me. I taught you everything... to make you happy."