Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Amidst everyone's shock and excited reactions, Koji is frozen.
' a practice match with Aobajohsai ' he thinks to himself. He can feel his chest and throat tighten along with the tremble that begins in his hands.
' not here, not here, not now. stay calm. why are you still letting him control you? stay calm, don't cry, not here ,' his mind chants to him as he tries to tune back into the conversation taking place.
"They want Kageyama as the setter for the entire game," he hears the condition and can't help but sigh. Of course he would do this. What a competitive bastard. Takeda proceeds to give them the details of the match but Koji can't continue to focus on what's being said. He feels sick to his stomach at the thought of seeing him again, of seeing anyone again, and he begins to think of excuses to get out of going to the match. He was eerily silent for the rest of practice as he tried to postpone his crying, keeping it together pretty well.
"Say, didn't most of the people from Kitagawa go to Seijoh?" Suga questions Kageyama on the walk home after their short talk, and Kageyama looks over to Koji.
"Oh.. yeah, I suppose so," he admits thinking about it.
"I just thought it might make things hard for you," Sugawara admits, and Kageyama blinks.
"Maybe, if we were on the same team, but if they're my opponents, I'll fight them with everything I've got," Kageyama says with a determined tone, and Koji begins to fidget with his hands more now that the topic has been brought up again. He took slow and deep breaths as unnoticeably as he could from his spot next to Kageyama.
"Koji-senpai, are you feeling okay?" Kageyama turned to him and asked him softly, noticing the signs of his spiral.
"That's right, you transferred from there! How're you feeling about this match?" Tanaka pipes up, and Koji thinks about seeing him more and more and he really doesn't think he can do it.
"I feel fine," he says in a monotone voice, using every muscle in his body to hold back his cries of protests and heartbroken sobs, keeping everything back. There was no way he could go to this match. He definitely was going to come up with an excuse. He would probably skip school for two days and say he was sick.
-
As soon as Koji entered his house, his façade broke. He felt the heavy rise and fall of his chest as his vision blurred due to his tears and he stumbled his way to his room.
"Stop, please just stop, stop," the words escape his mouth in small whispers, over and over, as he reaches his room and drops his bag onto the floor.
"Tell them the truth, please, tell them, stop them," his cries increased as he fell to the floor, his mind overwhelmed with the flashes of everything that had happened. He felt like he was taking every hit all over again. Experiencing every ounce of pain and betrayal for the first time all over again.
