Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
unedited ---
1st Person ●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●
Yachi offered to sit next to me on the bus since Hinata wasn't coming to Tokyo right away. He had cried into my shirt when he got his exam back. "I let you down!" Is what he told me, but I more just felt bad for him. Even after all the studying we did, he still failed.
Neither he nor Kageyama was going to arrive with us, so I didn't know how I would survive the time before. All I had to talk to was Tsukishima and Tadashi, but they don't know sign language well enough to speak to me.
I had to cancel my lessons with Oikawa to go on this two-day trip. He assured me that we would still meet up afterward and that I wasn't going out of his sight. He had been much more into teaching me to serve lately. I wondered why he wanted me to perfect it so badly when we would play each other in the spring tournament soon.
I exited the bus by myself and the rest of my team started to walk into the gym. "Hey, big guy!" Nekoma's captain put his hand on my shoulder, "have you been working on that serve?" "Yeah." "Good, because I've been pushing my libero to catch it." "That's nice." "We've also got a big guy like you. He's a new first year. I think you're only about an inch taller than him." "Really?" "You bet! Blocking you is going to be a piece of cake." "Oh." Kuroo slumped down. "You aren't very talkative." "I don't like speaking all the time. I'm going to have to now that my teammate is gone." "Small ginger? He knows sign doesn't he?" "Yeah. We probably are going to lose." "It's not fun when you agree with me."
We walked into the gym and saw four other teams doing warmups. I was feeling the nerves build up on me. I didn't recognize the teams, as they were from Tokyo. I wish I prided myself more on knowing other teams, otherwise, I wouldn't be feeling this. I may be the tallest here, but for some reason, I felt very small. The first team we were playing was Fukurōdani. I wasn't in the starting lineup as Ukai worried about communication. He was very observant about my mannerisms and noticed how unsure I was to play without Hinata. "Just calm down for a bit. I'll sub you in if you think you can handle it."
I watched my team play and I got stung with guilt and restlessness. These were National level teams. How could we do this? We lost the set 16 to 25. It wasn't the flying lap that hurt either. I was always good at those. What hurt was everyone looking at me stand up from the bench. I was Karasuno's biggest player and yet there I was, shaking, not even in the starting lineup. What kind of player am I?
3rd Person ●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●
After losing to Ubugawa, Hinata and Kageyama finally arrived. "I'm sorry I wasn't here! How have the games been?" Hinata signed to Jun. "I haven't been in all day." "Are you feeling sick?" Hinata asked, trying to jump up and reach his friend's forehead. "No. I was too nervous. Now that you're here I'll be okay," he held onto Hinata's shoulders, speaking to him instead. "You don't have to be nervous if I'm not around. I don't want my presence to be the factor of you being able to play or not," Hinata spoke since he couldn't sign all the words. "It's okay. I've just been nervous about a lot of things this week." "Okay. Well, I'm glad to be here now!"
