ㄒ乇卂匚卄 爪乇 - 𝕄𝕚𝕪𝕒 𝔸.

⁵ s᥆ ᥡ᥆ᥙ ᥕіᥣᥣ 𝗍ᥱᥲᥴһ mᥱ?

"What Osamu said is True, you are a pretty good player. Not exceptional but definitely pretty good. Not everybody can be like me though."

I turned around. Atsumu was standing at the entrance of the gym. "Thank you?" I said confused. What was he doing here? "You know these dumps looked pretty good. I don't know if you noticed that but before you play you always look in the direction you're going to play to. But that's nothing a little more training can't fix." I was even more confused now. Was he helping me? "You've got to confuse the opponent. Don't make your next play obvious." "Uhm how do I do that? Do I just look in the other direction or how?" I used the opportunity and asked some questions. "Hmm, let's say you are in a receive situation and you're setting from position 3. In addition, the middle blocker also already changed to 3. She will observe you. If she's really good, she will look at your eyes and posture. Don't let her look through you until the last moment when you play that ball." He explained. I kinda got what he wanted. "Like this?" I put the ball machine back on and it threw the next ball. I didn't raise my arms until the last moment and only looked at the ball. Then I did a quick set on B. "Yeah, exactly! You're a fast learner!" He exclaimed. "Thank you." He let me repeat it 10 more times. It went exceptionally well. "Okay, now for the other thing I've noticed..."

At some point, he stopped the ball machine and started throwing me the ball himself. Atsumu helped me with my balance when going deep down to set a ball. He told me I should train these deep lunges pretty often because, with passes like the ones I got from the first years, it would be really important. Of course, I didn't have the same talent he did but I thought I was doing well. Opposite to his thoughts, I believed he was an amazing teacher. It also seemed like he had a lot of fun explaining the things he loved. His praises gave me lots of confidence.
He tried to teach me the things my coach expected from me. After a while, I was kinda tired and started to stumble a lot. Tripping over my own feet and falling flat on my face. It made him chuckle a little. He wasn't half as bad as I had expected him to be. No, he was actually really sweet.
"Are you tired?" "No!" I lied. "It seems like you are." "100% definitely not!" I actually didn't want to stop. I had lots of fun while learning. "We can repeat this session, you know." "Really? You would do that?" My eyes were shining brightly. "Mhm yes. You're a good student. I had fun teaching you." "And you're an excellent teacher! And thank you for doing this. It's helping me a looot!" I was really happy. "No problem. I didn't think you would pick it up this well." He smiled. "Soo, do you always stay late to train?" "No, mostly on Mondays because coach is then often not there. But she always leaves early anyway." I explained hoping it would be okay for him. "Mondays you say... I can do that. Are you also free on Thursdays or Fridays maybe? We don't have practice on Fridays. It's our day off." "Fridays, yes. Thursday, I need to pick up my brother right after school, because it's our day off and my mom can't do it. Plus then I work afterwards." "Fridays and Mondays it is then." He decided. In all honesty, I don't know what happened in the last few days but he really did a 180. At first, he directly said no, and now he even asked me for two days a week. This was getting... amazing. And probably at the same time totally confusing. "Sure. I'm really thankful for your time. I owe you big time. Do you need me to do anything for you? Maybe pay you? You set the price of course! Or should I do something for you for you? You must be really busy." I asked hectically. He just laughed. I was pretty dumbfounded and awaited his response. "Don't worry about it. I don't need anything. See it as a favor." "For what?" "I don't know. Just accept it." I nodded. "Y/N, right?" "Uh yeah?" "Could you spell it for me?" "Huh yeah." I spelled my name for him and he gave me his phone. "Could you put your number innit? In case one of us can't come to these "lessons" ." I took his phone and put my number innit. After giving it back to him my phone rang in my bag on the bench. I went and grabbed it.
"You don't have to put my full name there you know." I deleted his first name and looked up. "Oh boy, I meant you can just call me by my first name." "Oh." That was embarrassing. "Do you really want to keep calling me and my brother Miya? Would be pretty unfortunate." "Oh well. Yeah, you're right." I put his first name down for his number and then put my phone back in my bag.

Atsumu helped me break down the net and clean up the gym. He even waited for me to shower,  change into my normal clothes, and for me to lock up the gym.

"Thanks for helping." "No problem." Silence. "So what now?" He asked. "Hmm, do drugs?" I suggested. Shortly after I realised that this was not Mika and I should not be joking around like this. "Oke, never mind. I should not pull jokes like this. You might misunderstand." I apologized. "So what do you normally do? Cocaine? A little bit of speed?" He just continued. My shock shortly dissolved into laughter. "I only do the really expensive stuff. You know." I joked. "Amazing, bring me some next time."

We basically just sat at the entrance of the gym and talked. Somehow I didn't want to go home yet. My mom already knew I was practicing late and my brother was probably already sleeping. The babysitter was there and she would be staying until 22 anyway.

I didn't care what the plan was, I just accepted it. He was being unexpectedly talkative.

"Actually in which class are you, Y/N? I've never seen you around." "Oh 2-4, the pretty boring one. You?" "Oh, I'm in 2-2." "With Yoko and Asami, I see." "Who?" On the inside, I was dying of laughter at the moment. I found it terribly amusing that he didn't know them even though they were in one class. What made it even more hilarious was the fact that Yoko was always talking about him in the changing room. Well, I guess they weren't on a first-name basis. "Oh, they're girls in my team." "Ah interesting, in all honesty, I don't look much around in my class. It's also pretty boring." "We're both suffering then." He snickered at my comment. "So, I heard you were chosen for the U21 Training Camp last year. How was it?" He seemed surprised by my question but answered anyway. "Hmm, I guess it was pretty cool. There were lots of different really strong players. I not only got to play other positions but also improved my setter skills. It was truly amazing." Atsumu was talking with such an excited voice. "That sounds really impressive. I mean, after all, you are the best setter." "I sure am!" He exclaimed proudly. I chuckled at his reaction. "You aren't half bad either. I think you just need a little more training and confidence." He looked at me. "That's music to my ears."

On the inside, I was already looking forward to Friday.
"Maybe we should work on sending you there too..." Was he thinking out loud? "What do you mean?" I looked at him confused. "You are good, you just don't know it. You have good movement, good stamina, good ball control, and great technique." "But I have like 0 experience." I threw in. "We can work on that." "So you think, I have the potential to be called in for the youth training camp?" "Of course!" "Aren't you exaggerating a bit? My coach would laugh at you for saying this." "Your coach is a bitch. And trust my judgment." I nodded my head in agreement. "I think it might still be a bit exaggerated tho. I mean the people who go there are all people with God-given talent and they all put so much hard work into their play. Wouldn't it be unfair for me who by that point had only been working on my play for like 8 months to go there and steal someone's spot?" I voiced my thoughts. "You know the choices are not only based on talent or hard work, it is simply based on the performance the "judges" watch you do in games and the potential they believe you might have. I personally believe you have lots of potential." "Well, thank you. But I personally think my teammates also have lots of potential. According to your words they could all be chosen for this camp." "Want me to be brutally honest with you?" I nodded. "I think for example Mika has the same potential. Your third years are good players, but not excellent. Well, and we don't talk about the first years. How can someone's passes be so horri-." "No bad-mouthing my teammates in front of me." He sighed. "Okay. let's say.." He thought for a second. "They should focus on pushing up with their knees and not just stand there and let the ball fall on them somewhere?" I nodded in agreement. "Okay, well to be honest Mika has been there twice in middle school. Coach didn't let her play at all last year." "Proves my words, doesn't it?" I sighed. "Sure. The thing is I really really want to improve. I can't afford to play shitty and bring the whole team down. Now that last year's third years are gone, Coach is using Mika only as an opposite whose sole purpose is hitting lines. Although she is also good at setting." I explained. "Then theoretically why isn't she setting?" "That's what I have been saying for weeks now. Coach always marks it as a possibility but she never actually changes it. Instead, she wastes her time criticizing me and telling me I can't play anything else than setter!" I ranted. "Seems like she sees your potential and has a really horrendous way of teaching you."

Words: 1794