Try Your Hardest | Ushijima Wakatoshi

Year 1: Part 1

Ushijima Wakatoshi was never one to get upset over many things, but an unfortunate series of events threw him off his game just a little more than usual that day.

He didn't get much sleep the previous night. He was studying until the wee hours of the morning for a midterm that he had to get a decent grade for in order to play on the team. Time had managed to fly right past him and before he knew it, he was only running on two hours of sleep before having to wake up to go through a strict training regimen. He was so tired by the time the test came around that he might as well have been asleep for it.

Stockpiling a lack of sleep, no breakfast, forgetting lunch money, and probably doing terribly on a test, just added a mountain of stress for practice after school. He got tired easily, he wasn't spiking the balls the way he wanted to, serving the way he wanted to, and all the hits he was supposed to receive just flew right past him, not awake enough to be attentive in the slightest.

Coach Washijou wasn't pleased at all with his performance and called him out several times in that day for it. Ushijima wasn't mad about it, he thought he deserved it for performing so horrendously. What was upsetting was the 100 serves he was ordered to do after practice once everyone was gone. What's more is that they closed the gym since practice was over. So he just had to imagine the court itself while he was outside in the cold.

There was a concrete wall behind the sports storage rooms usually used for tennis training that he was serving the ball against. He placed a few markers on the wall and tried to hit every exact target until he got to 100, or got them right at all.

After getting agitated when he failed to hit them, he held the ball in his hands and tapped his head with it, I'm going to make this one, he thought to himself with confidence.

And with all the strength of his frustration, he threw the ball up high, jumped up to meet the ball at the perfect position for him to sling his arm back and release it like a cannon.

The sad thing is, he definitely would have made that shot if someone hadn't run past the concrete wall. He couldn't blame her since it would be impossible to know he was practicing without being on his side of the building.

The ball hit the left side of her head and caused a loud echo, and she was unfortunately close enough to the concrete wall that when she lost her balance from the impact, the right side of her face was smashed against the wall.

She fell to the ground and didn't move at all for a good few seconds. He was scared to move as well, he had just put in all the strength he could muster into that one shot, and she took it straight to the cranium.

When he noticed her move, he quickly walked to her and knelt down to make sure she wasn't concussed or anything. He helped her sit up and asked her simple questions.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Umm, Shiratorizawa High School," she said dizzily.

"What country are you in?"

"Japan?" she said it like it was more of a question.

"Japan?" he repeated.

"I'm not?" she asked.

"You tell me," he stated so she can reaffirm.

"I mean, I know I just got hit, but as far as I know I'm in Japan," she was rubbing the side of her head that hit the wall, "that really hurt, you have a killer serve, or hit, or I don't know exactly what you were-" She abruptly stopped when she looked at the hand she was just rubbing herself with.