Pigmented Memories

Chapter 2

-Yachi's Perspective-

I abruptly woke up to the sound of my alarm and briefly forgot where I was for a second. Then the memories of last night came flooding back to my lonely mind; memories of tenmusu sushi rolls, memories of of gazing into the moonlit waters and sharing secrets, and memories of falling asleep on Kiyoko's shoulders with not a care in the world about anything but her.

However, that wasn't the time for recollection. Since my alarm just went off, I knew that I had exactly 30 minutes until school started.

So just 29 minutes later I arrived at the school gates, food already digested, and uniform on. 

The school day was a blur, as usual, the only thing to think about being studies and revision until 3:50 when class ended and I got to the gym to see my favourite volleyball team. On other days I would join at 3:30 with the rest of the team but I had tutor at 3:35 with a younger student.

"Yachiiiiiii!" I heard Hinata call in his childish voice, just before hearing the sound of a ball hit the squeaky gym floor.

"Stay focused Shoyo!" Kageyama demanded sternly whilst I pushed the door open to see a lively room with many different aspects of volleyball being practiced by my determinded teamates. There were about six different balls on the ground, most likely because of my absence- I was the one to usually help out with picking them up. 

The sunlight peaked through the large windows from every side of the building, reflecting on the shiny wooden floors. There was a volleyball net set up on the further side of the room, and on my side, it looked like serves were being practiced. The stench of sweat subtly contaminated the air, and the noise of balls being bounced, dunked, and slammed would give you a migrane if you weren't used to it.

It wasn't exactly the most calming environment, but it was where I felt the most comfortable, and I think I could say the same for eveyone else there.

I began walking over to my usual spot next to Kiyoko to watch the game, until Yamaguchi jogged over to me and said "Hey, we're all meeting up tonight at the mall later to celebrate the Tournament, you wanna come?"

"Of course, sounds fun!" I said, "Hiyoko's coming, right?"

"Yep" 

We stood there for some time, both not really knowing what to say. My mind blank of any possible small talk, or just talk in general, I decided to observe the game instead. Woosh. Thump. Bounce. 

It all seemed to go by so quickly, the games. There was never much time for me the try to understand the movements and strategies, but for the players just a few seconds seemed like a whole minute of complex strategies and motivation. That was the one thing that made me feel like an outsider. The rest- I could learn fairly easily, but I could never grasp how that one moment before hitting the ball was so intense to the players, like slo-motion, even.

Thump. Woosh. Slam. That was a tactic called a quick set, I noticed. Kageyama, the setter, had an extremely fast set which nobody could meet in time, causing his notorious nickname- The King. Only Shoyo, the shortest, but most determined player could manage to cooperate with him, and exeed his standards.

Intruding my train of thought, Kiyoko waved over to me, holding her usual notepad and pen. "Look, what Tsukishima and Tanaka just did there was a double block, which is when you know there is going to be a strong attack, so you use two players to ensure it blocks the ball" she explains to me. She had an intelectual, spirited look on her face, as if explaining a hobby to me that she really loved.