~ Haikyuu Oneshots ~

a Day in da life of: Aka Ashi

Made by H_K_Cat

A piercing sound rang in my ears, rudely awakening me like it did every day. I groaned softly as I patted my nightstand searching for that damnably loud alarm clock.
Getting up was as much of a struggle as any other day; it wasn't that I didn't want to see my friends or family or something, I actually just couldn't get up. I always felt exhausted. My entire body felt heavy, like a few thousand enormous rocks were tied to my body, keeping me down in my bed.
There was a rock added every morning. Or so it felt.
It also felt like I'd never lose this looming feeling of hopelessness, which kinda sucked, but what could I do about it except fighting through, right? Talking wasn't an option; I hated talking about my feelings and my previous therapist had only worsened my state during my time with him.
I was expected to attend school that day, though, so I had no choice but to get out of bed.
Getting up ended up taking me an hour (a new personal record!), causing me to -just barely- miss the bus. This meant I had to run to school if I wanted to keep up my "high-functioning" façade, which, just for the record, I did. I didn't know for how long I'd be able to keep it up, but I would sure as hell keep trying.
My feet hit the ground hard with every step I took zooming down the streets. I almost managed to run alongside the bus at first, but after a while got so far behind I lost sight of it because I, unlike the white block of steel, had (a lack of) stamina, especially since I hadn't exercised in two weeks (yay for spring holidays).
I grabbed my knees, leaning on them for stability's sake, bending over and letting a few wet coughs escape my throat.
Damn, I really need to work on my endurance.
I lifted my head to place my surroundings. Concluding I was at an intersection about ten minutes walking-distance from the Fukurodani Academy, I decided to grit my teeth and push through the last few minutes of running. With my luck, I'd arrive right after the second bells rang, but I should at least try, right? Thank God, I was mistaken.
I threw myself through my classroom door a second before they got closed. I apologetically bowed to my teacher, which she waved off with a kind warning.
The rest of my day wasn't anything worth mentioning. I attended the eight hours of classes I always did on Mondays without struggle and spent my breaks with my best friend, Bokuto.
The same friend I spent my breaks with was waiting for me at my classroom door after the lecture was finished. He did this every day, which made me wonder how he so frequently skipped the last minutes of his eighth-period classes without getting in trouble. I never asked, though, as I secretly kind of appreciated those peculiar little mannerisms of his. Don't tell him I said that.
"agHkAA Ashi!" Bokuto didn't wait for a response. He just hooked an arm around my shoulders and pushed forward, forcing me to walk along with him, while he chattered on about all types of things. Even after two years of being on the same team as Bokuto, I'd never managed to gain the ability of following the guy's train of thought. I didn't mind that, though. Listening to his excited babble always brightened my day, regardless of whether or not I could follow his stories.
Before I knew it, Bokuto and I arrived at our school's volleyball gymnasium.
I pushed the men's locker room open with my shoulder to head inside, but Bokuto caught my wrist before I could.
"Wait. Can I please have a banana?", he asked.
I hesitated the urge to roll my eyes, but still reached into my school bag for a banana for my mans Bo Kut O. "I thought you'd never ask."
I handed him the banana, which he immediately inhaled (sorry man inhaleren is gewoon zo mooi)(tru dat bro)

https://youtu.be/bfoJmCUFVF4 - heEHeE

, not even peeling it first. He never did. That's Bokuto rule #69420 for you: Never peel Bokuto's fruit unless you want him lecturing you for wasting "nature's fruit cases" or something. How he hadn't caught cancer from pesticide exposure yet, I had no idea.
When he was done eating, I escorted Bokuto into the changing room at last.
I greeted all the teammates that were already present. After that I went to switch my school uniform with some sports outfit I threw into my bag that morning.
I glanced over at Bokuto, thought about whether he'd be sad if I died or not, then forced my gaze back to my navy blue sports shirt. I had to stop thinking so much about death. That was the only thing my former therapist and I agreed on; my preoccupation with death -suicide, to be more exact- had to go if I wanted to stop waking up feeling like shit every day.
I squeezed my shirt, like I would be able to push the thoughts out of my head if I tightened my knuckles hard enough.
Bokuto seemed to notice, slapping my back in a friendly manner. "Hey hey hey, you okay?"
It didn't sound mocking in any way, which definitely caught me by surprise. Bokuto being serious was a foreign concept to me.
"I'm fine, thanks", I replied, quickly pulling my shirt over my head to excuse myself from Bokuto and his -somewhat unexpected- honest concern.
Bokuto luckily didn't push it. He waited until I was all done dressing up before entering the gymnasium. I hadn't been in there for a couple weeks, but I was glad to find standing on the court still had a familiar feel to it.
After warming up, we started doing some drills. As per usual, our main focus point was defence. Our offence line was strong, with Bokuto on it, but the defence lacked a bit. We practiced diving, block defence, all that fun stuff. When we neared the end of practice, coach Yamiji shut down our defence drills for the day and demanded for ten minutes of a 4v4 match. I was on a team with Bokuto, Washio and Konoha. We were up against Sarukui, Anahori, Komi and Onaga. I only then realised how small our team actually was. Eight people.. that's not even enough subs for all the positions.
Anyways, we had been playing for seven minutes or so when something went wrong... let me elaborate on that.
Konoha dug a spike from Anahori perfectly. I made sure to position myself right under the ball, then flicked my wrists gently right after the volleyball hit my fingers, neatly setting the ball up for Bokuto to hit. And boy, did he hit it. A straight, right down the line. Komi didn't stand a chance.
Bokuto, of course, got overly hyped up by his kill.
Immediately after his feet got back on the ground, Bokuto turned to face me with the certain type of spark in his golden eyes he'd show from time to time. That certain type of spark I was envious of. I wished I could feel like that, but I hadn't encountered an emotion besides numb or sad in a while. Instead of drowning in self-pity, however, I flipped a switch on my thoughts, feeling happy for my teammate- no, for my friend.
"Did you see that? That was so cool!"
I forced a small smile onto my face. "Nice kill."
Bokuto flashed me a toothy grin before he marched back to the three-meter line. He might as well have been skipping like a little child.
Bokuto was happy and we were winning, yet I started crying. I.. I don't know, I just got really, really, really sad all of a sudden. The looming feeling of doOm AnD GLoOm crushed me without warning, causing me to burst out in tears on the middle of the court as I tried to convince everyone around me I was alright.
"Are you sure you're alright?", Bokuto asked me while placing his hand on my shoulder. His eyes, though standing kind, pierced through mine like he was going to gently beat me up if I dared lie to him.
I took a second to -quite shakily, but still- breathe and think, then carefully shook my head. I hated being the centre of attention almost as much as I hated talking about whatever wreck of thoughts my brain created, but I knew damn well I couldn't put on this play-pretend any longer.
Bokuto didn't hesitate for a second; he pulled me in close and held me tight to his chest as his baseball tee soaked up my salty tears.
I quickly excused myself from the gymnasium when I noticed coach Yamiji coming up to Bokuto and I, saying I'd be back for the pep talk-type of situation we always concluded in our training sessions, but I decided to pull a bamboozle on everyone and never went back inside. Instead, I sprinted the fuck back home, somehow going even faster than I did that morning when I thought I was gonna be late.
Having arrived home, I instantly ran to the bathroom to continue crying. After half an hour of tears and snot, I managed to exit the bathroom. Despite my efforts, I ended up on the big, red couch in my living room five minutes later anyways.
The sound of my phone buzzing shook me out of my thoughts. I had absolutely no idea for how long it'd been buzzing already. I hesitated to pick up, which in the end caused me to miss the call, as I did, in fact, zone out completely for half a minute or so.
I slid my phone out of my back pocket while I pressed the home button. My phone screen lit up. The twenty notifications on it told me Bokuto had been calling me non-stop for the past hour.
I couldn't ignore him for any longer unless I wanted the dude to show up at my doorstep within the next few hours. A simple text message would have to do.
I turned on the tv to message Bokuto, but stumbled onto a teleshopping show instead. It was an advert for some hitman service. With the straight white couple sitting on a car, I thought it was going to be a car commercial at first. Then the woman turned her head dramatically and asked her husband -or cousin. Or both.-: "Did you hear about the new hitman business?", which made me question my judgement about the ad being a car commercial. The husband nodded, saying: "It's making a killing." Then the two shot the camera man. Huge letters appeared over a picture of the couple that read "We aim to please! Up for hiring! 30 pounds per murder."
Finally! Someone to kill me. I want a cool death. Being shot is cool, right? Yeah, it is.
I, being super excited for this perfectly amazing opportunity, pressed down "30" on the remote. Instead of putting me on a call with a hitman, though, the bullshit device zapped me to some sort of boring sports programme.
A deep sigh escaped my lips. I almost wanted to zap back to the teleshopping channel, but then something caught my attention. A bar at the bottom of my screen said "suicide". Wow, tv, what a way of grabbing my attention.
A man dressed in a navy blue suit shuffled his papers in his hands before looking into the camera and starting to talk. "Today, the NCAA mourns the loss of one of their biggest stars: Kevin Day. Day was only twenty years old when he attempted to deepthroat his racquet. His last words are reported to be quote: "I'm not a gay whore", unquote. After having said this, Day proceeded to spit on his racquet to then shove it down his throat, killing him almost instantly." *look at the video in the banner of this story*
I quickly turned off the tv with shaky hands. I felt like I was about to puke. I launched myself forwards in my chair, shuddering intensely. The tears didn't take long to show up. My eyes seemed to pull a Niagara Falls on me.