Picture the Silence - Oikawa T.

Chapter 6

Sounds of balls hitting the floor echoed throughout the gym. It was practice time after lunch. Sachi was currently taking pictures of the drills happening in gym one, which consisted of the Aoba Johsai and Nekoma teams. They were doing simple hitting lines, with the setters switching every ten minutes.

"Do you mind setting it a little higher next time?" a voice that Sachi recognized as her friend, Kuroo, asked the brunette setter on his team. "My sets are perfectly fine; it's you who can't hit them, but I'll see what I can do," Oikawa retorted with a sickly sweet smile, motioning for Kuroo to move to the back of the line to avoid holding up practice.

Eventually, the time was up, and Oikawa switched with Kenma, moving to one of the hitting lines. During this time, Sachi was getting pictures of the outside hitters when Oikawa struck up a conversation with her.

"Make sure you get a good angle, okay?" he said, giving her a half-smile as he watched the next person go up. "Yeah, yeah, just make sure it looks nice," she replied, snapping a picture of Yamamoto, the outside hitter for Nekoma. He had excellent contact with the ball; in the picture, it seemed as though the ball molded to his hand.

Eventually, Oikawa was up. "Four! Four!" he called. He turned and prepped to hit, but the ball never came. Oikawa ignored it, waited, and once again called 'four.' He went to prepare to hit, but again, nothing came. This repeated four more times before the coach, who was hitting the balls for the drill, yelled at Kenma to quit messing around and set outside.

After what seemed like forever, Oikawa finally got a set. Once again yelling 'four,' he turned to the ten-foot line and went to attack.

The camera shuttered in burst mode from the moment Oikawa prepared to jump to the moment he landed. Sachi had been exposed to volleyball for a while but had never seen a setter at such a high level of hitting this young. She had seen Kenma hit once or twice when he missed the second ball, but it was nothing compared to Oikawa's attack. She knew he was good, not that she'd ever admit it, but not this good.

After hitting, Oikawa ran under the net to shag his ball while Sachi followed him with her eyes. He eventually went to the other side of the court where the right-side hitters were, sending her a smirk when he found her looking at him. To which she scoffed and refocused her attention to taking photos.

The only players who didn't move during this drill were the middle blockers, who never really needed to hit from other positions. Eventually, they stopped hitting lines and decided to do a simple 6-on-6 practice set. They split up the players from Nekoma and Seijoh. Oikawa and Kuroo were placed on the same team, which definitely worried Sachi as she sensed a strong sense of animosity between them.

The set started with Oikawa serving. He did his famous jump serve, hitting it directly at the corner next to Fukunaga, who was in the backrow. The blowing of a whistle signified the winning of a point, 1-0 for team one.

Oikawa managed to get two more serves off team two before Yaku got the ball up, sending it to Kenma, who set it to Iwaizumi for a kill. 4-1, Kenma's serve.

The match went on with constant back-and-forth between the players and the constant clicking of Sachi's camera. She was as deep in thought as the players. 'I'm always so surprised at how passionate people are when they play their sports,' she thought, her camera clicking continuously. The aura of the players grew as the points got closer and the rallies longer.

Drive and determination are dangerous tools in the hands of people with a strong will. This wasn't even a real match or a game that counted for anything, yet they were playing as if their lives depended on it.

She smiled as she watched her childhood friend let out a cheer as he blocked a hit from Iwaizumi. She swore she even almost saw a smile on Oikawa's face, which she was convinced would've been a full smile had it not been Kuroo. But one thing she didn't fully understand was the conflict between Oikawa and Kuroo.