LET ME DOWN SLOWLY ⸻ sakusa kiyoomi.

𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 | purple setter

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PURPLE SETTER !!

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— kina tsukishima !

3.30pm, tokyo representative play-offs girls' finals

IGNORE HER.

Ignore her.

Ignore her.

Ignore her.

Fucking ignore her.

I run a hand over my right shoulder, the lightly tanned, delicate fingers of the hands I had tried very hard to keep in near-perfect condition and avoid from getting taped ghosting over the spots where the wall of an Itachiyama Institute corridor had bruised it a while ago. The bruise had been long gone since then, nothing left of it other than the expanse of skin I always had, not a trace of a scar. No. Nothing.

And yet I can still feel the way her nails dug into my wrist, and I retract my hand from my shoulder as Miho passes me a ball, motioning at me to spike it at her as per our receiving drills. Her face is a set expression of determination, her lamplike amber-yellow eyes contrasting her porcelain complexion and onyx hair. They fix on me when I spin the ball in my hands, about three metres away from the ace.

Throwing it into the air, I immediately pull my left arm back and right hand up for aim, taking two steps forward — on the second step, I lean back on my right leg as my arm pulls back, and a successful spike is delivered to the floor. Miho, as agile as ever, has her lightning reflexes in her advantage as she dives to the floor, forearms hitting my spike. The ball rises into the air, at a height where I don't need to crouch when I ready a set — even thoughts of Kousaka can't bring me down from the sheer joy of pushing up a perfect setup to my ace.

Running forwards, I fold my hands into a V-shape and set backwards to where Miho had started to run toward the net, back arching. One leg is in the air, ready to land for balance, and the slight sensation of the ball hitting my fingers just the way I like brings a smile to my face.

Miho slams the ball down on the other side of the net without hesitation, and the impressed murmurs of the slowly filling crowd begin to swell in the large gymnasium, as Miho lands from the jump. She says nothing as Itachiyama's number 28 tosses the ball over to her, wordlessly catching the ball and spinning on her heel to me.

"You okay? You seem rather off," Miho says, referring to this morning's behaviour and the contrast at which I'm acting now.

I bit the inside part of my lower cheek, and glanced at Miho. "Just... Itachiyama. The usual final bitterness, yeah."

"Oh yeah?" Miho's tone is lifted, but her yellow eyes are narrowed, boring into mine shrewdly as she openly examines my expression. "Then you better be in top form later — I want at least all your first serves to be service aces, and all your sets to win us points."

I raise my eyebrows at her. "Does that not always happen in every single game? There's a reason why —"

Miho groans, feigning a look of disgust — "Your arrogance never ceases to nothingness, doesn't it, Tsukishima-sama? How about that jump serve back in middle school when your serve went under the net?" — she snorts, laughing openly at that memory from back in our first year of middle school. "Oh yeah, service ace for the other team. Yayyyy!"

I scowl at the onyx-haired ace, letting out a huff. "That was my first jump serve, Akane-senshu, of course it would be shitty. It's not like yours wasn't, yeah?"