𝟸 & 𝟺

-twenty-one-

"I still need to think about it..." were the last words that evening. Before you made your way home, went straight to your room, and tried to forget the madness of everything.

You didn't really need to think about it; more wanted to let it slowly pass by in your mind. Let other things accumulate infront to the point where it was merely a distant event. Nothing reoccurs and nothing happens in response.

You wanted an excuse to not think about it. Merely let it drift off to the side for days if possible. The sheer thought of anything remotely related was heavily avoided till your mind was rested enough to sustain any reference.

That didn't happen till the next morning.

You slowly arose to the shaded sun over the roofs of the Pickett houses all in a row, the sun caused up top over the windows and against the siding. How the mists of clouds only covered wisps of the light, acting as a decoration to the creation. The sky had been a beautiful hue of pink and blue, pastel shaded. How pale the colours had been from the frost like clouds spread thing along the sun and skyline. The mixture of the tones had the edges of the sky set to a blaze of purple and white, the colours blended in to the horizon line behind the houses.

How the autumn appearance had slowly started to descend more and more upon Sendai, the leafs in every corner of the yards and the trees bare for comfort. Stripped of any protection, cover. Anything they could hide their immediate imperfections behind.

You felt that way thinking about the jerseys, the numbers. The one piece of protection from them being a choice against it.

You couldn't think of any way in which people who would recognize you could pick you out from a number mentioned the previous day.

Club and school volleyball always had the joy of the numbers. Not rankings, jersey numbers. Every team roster had a number and a player beside it. A position was to follow on most formal outlines.

Alway beside your name, you had the number 8. Even if it was more noticeable in your first year at Karasuno, club was the first time you chose the number.

You found it rather striking, and unique. How this number could also be rotated, in the shape of infinite.

Infinity meant everything. Nothing ended, nothing started. It was constant, continuous.

Everything kept going in the same pattern, around the same loops. It drove a car around the same circular track forever. It never ended. There was no way to tell where it started.

Nichika always found with you, that she could never point out where the passion started, or where it would end. She would figure never, to which she was right all the time. At games and tournaments, she always figured it would fizzle out, the infinite breaking the one time. She would always be deceived  when one thing or another would prove just how endless you were to the game.

The number 4...seemed to be different. Not geometrically, or anything mathematical. It was simply a number that could be doubled, thinned out, a square and be squared, and even just a main number.

But associated with other numbers, more or less 2, and you had various thoughts. Some in which not even the most creative or intellectual people would stem across.

"2 & 4. Add them together, you get 6. Multiply them, you get 8. Take 4 away, you get 2 again. Put them side by side, you get 24. Reverse mirror is 42. 2 was the number of matches it took to have me sitting in front of the TV, endlessly watching. 4 was the number of years it took her since graduating high school to become one of the best pro's in Japan. 6 was the age my parents reconciled, moved apart and grew together. It meant family issues all over. 8 was the age I looked at volleyball seriously for the first time, turned on the network and studied everything. All the stats, the plays and the lines. 24 was the number of days that separated our birthdays. Bokuto being 24 after mine; Mom being 24 after his. Both birthdays included 2 or 4. She was 42 when she was killed."