Who you are

Dear Coach // Special #2

"Where's Coach?"

The Karasuno team turned their heads towards their #13. Now that he had mentioned it, they hadn't seen him this entire practise.

The shortest player had voiced eveyone's thought out loud.

"Yeah, it's not like him to skip without saying anything, right?" Kageyama took another look around the gym one more time to make sure his eyes hadn't betrayed him.

"Maybe he's sick? He's been working hard for us lately." Sugawara suggested for his team, gaining some mumbles in agreement.

"Yeah, but wouldn't we've heard something in that case?" Tsukishima lifted a brow at his senpai, holding a volleyball under his arm and Yamaguchi nodding in concern for their coach next to his taller friend.

"Eh? Coach got sick?" Hinata butted into the conversation, sounding suprised.

"Hinata, you dumbass! Of course he could've gotten a cold! Coach Ukai is a human too."

"So the King is aware of that after all. I didn't think he was capable of figuring it out." Kei mocked, gaining a snicker from Tadashi and the bickering between the two first years began all over again.

"...Maybe we should go to his store after practise...? To check on him, y'know..." (Y/N) mumbled a bit. Fortunately, he didn't need to repeat himself.

"That's a gret idea! (Y/N), my dude, you genius!" Ryu gave a petty strong pat on his back, making his kouhai make an 'oof-' sound.

"Yeah! Let's get snacks and check on coach!" Yu agreed with a wide grin, but cleared his throat a bit when he saw the disapproving looks his captains were giving. The older libero cleared his throat, clairifying himself, "But most importantly, to check up on Coach of course!"

The two captains seemed satisfied with that and Nishinoya breathed out.

Suddenly Sensei came through the doors. He was lightly panting, taking a second to regain his breath.

"I'm so sorry for not coming before now." He bowed to the boys, having them sweatdrop and reply an 'It's alright, Sensei.'

"Anyways, Ukai-kun called me this morning. As you can see, he's not here today because he had some business to take care of."

The team glanced at each other, relieved that their coach wasn't sick at least .

"Um... Do you happen to know what kind of business, Sensei..?" (Y/N) asked his teacher, fiddling slightly with his fingers.

"Ah, yes. I think he needed to visit someone. He didn't mention who though." Takeda nodded at his short student, who a bit more than 15cm shorter than him. At least he had some students to not look upwards for, like his two skyscrapers of classmates.

"We can still go to Sakanoshita Shop, right?" The loud duo had hopeful lights in their eyes, making their captains sigh.

"I think that's alright. We can check on him anyways. Just to make sure." Asahi approved with a small smile at the two of them.

"That's enough small talk. Let's get back to practising." Daichi put an end to the small chatting break.

"Osu!"

-

Keishin had a small flower bouquet in his arm. He had just finished paying his respects and he was now kneeing in front of the name before him.

The blond-bleached man stood alone in the practically empty grave place. Most people were busy around this time. He placed the flowers down on the grave with an unreadable expression.

"You're too early to be here, old man." He had a small, soft smile as he began to talk to himself, as if the ghost belonging to the man would answer him.

"Not even halfway to hundred. I guess the good ones does die younger, huh? Right, ol' man?" He did a short pause.

"Two years. Time sure flies. And you didn't even see the season end. Wonder if you knew how the rest was. I'll give it to you though, you did a great job and worked hard. Shame this isn't something that could be avoided."

Ukai had a serious face as he took a deep sigh, closing his eyes for a moment.

"I'd prefer it if you could've finished up your work more properly, old man. But I have no other choice than be grateful to you either.

Thanks for giving me a voice. I'll come back again next year. I owe it to you after all.

It's the least I can do.

What do you say, huh?

Kazunari Tanaka."

On this day two years ago, 10th October 2016, Keisin Ukai's Japanese Voice Actor Kazunari Tanaka died from intracerebral hemorrahage (also known as cerebral bleed). He died at the age of 49 years old.

From what I heard, he had over 40+ roles from many different shows and games, such as Haikyuu, Bleach, Code Geass, Gintama, InuYasha, One Piece, Persona 5, JoJo's Bizzare Adventure: Eyes of Heaven, and more.

Please rest in peace.