𝖊𝖆𝖌𝖑𝖊+𝖑𝖆𝖒𝖇 [ᴜꜱʜɪᴊɪᴍᴀ ᴡᴀᴋᴀᴛᴏꜱʜɪ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ, ᴅᴀᴛɪɴɢ ꜱɪᴍ ꜰꜰ]

𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖑𝖔𝖌𝖚𝖊

At last June 2nd had come, the day of the first round of the qualifications for the Interhigh Tournament. It was everything so new from me, since, before I was transfered to Karasuno High School as an exchange student, the school I attended in Italy didn't have a volleyball club. What was more like volleyball were some matches during physical education, and sometimes some friendly matches against other classes or schools, but nothing so serious; of course, I always watched, never played.

　

I didn't make many friends while I was in Japan, even due to my difficulty speaking japanese, since I wasn't fluent yet, but I fortunately got on well with the girl who hosted me, Haruka. I wasn't the first exchange student she allowed to stay at her home: her family had been hosting foreign students for years, so they definitely knew how to put people at their ease.

Haruka and I were in the school newspaper club: I wanted to join since I had never experienced such thing, and she had decided to follow along not to make me feel alone during the meetings or when we had to go to other schools in Miyagi to write our sport articles.

　

The night before the beginning of the Tournament the boys were nervous, and we all spent most of the evening at the gym, trying during practice the signs that Sugawara used to make the players understand what he intended to do, talking about the best teams according to Coach Ukai and their major charateristics, and stopping Azumane-san before he could start with tearful speechs like "this is gonna be our last Interhigh".

"There are no teams participating to lose, they all want to win; do not forget it. If you look only upwards, you risk tripping over the ant". These were the last motivating words of coach Ukai before he let us go home; we would have had to wake up early the next morning.

　

　

Haruka and I had arrived at the Sendai City Gymansium by bus together with the volleyball team, Coach Ukai, Takeda Sensei and Kiyoko, the manager every boy drooled all over.

You could definitely tell how the guys were excited, but even we were amazed by the passion we were surrounded by.

We got off the bus and Hinata and Kageyama started racing to the main entrance, as their usual.

"Hinata and Kageyama live only by following their instincts" said Yamaguchi

"Like insects" replied Tsukishima.

As they were speaking, they had been surpassed by Tanaka and Nishinoya who were even more excited than the weid duo.

Right outside the venue there were two boys who had "Ou" on their sweatshirt's back.

"Let's see the first block... Tori-Torino?" said one

"Ohw, Karasuno. If I'm not mistaken it was a strong team until recently"

"Yeah, but not anymore"

"How was... how was it called?"

"Eh, how?"

"I think the Fallen Champions or the Flightless Crows-"

As they were speaking, they suddenly got surrounded by all the Karasuno members.

"Flightless? What do you mean?" said Tanaka coming up behind them with a creepy face

"Come on, let's go!" stepped Daichi in taking Tanaka away, "I'm sorry" he added later

"Don't start picking a fight yet!"

"Yes..."

We all got into the venue in group. Everyone started commenting "they're all dressed in black, the guy over there doesn't even look like a high school boy!". Some of them recognized the prodigy setter from Kitagawa Daiichi, "King of the Court" Kageyama, and the Chidoriyama's middle school winner of the award "Best Libero", Nishinoya. Nobody knew Hinata, but they were all distracted by Azumane and the rumors surrounding him, like the fact that he had failed school twice, that he extorted money from a Kita's student or that he selled prohibited substances in the streets; of course none of these rumors were true, that's the reason why Sugawara and Daichi tried to cheer him up. Finally Nishinoya enoyed the conversation and showed him right away what being bold really means.