Silent || Kagehina

O n e

Hinata's POV

Today marks my two months at Karasuno High. It may not seem like a huge deal to other first years attending, but it's certainly special to me.

Why, one may ask?

I'm able to retain my dream of becoming an ace, despite me being mute and almost deaf. Although, what's convenient is that I can hear extremely loud sounds, so that's how I know I'm not completely deaf; it's reassuring.

I can hear someone yell, "Hinata!" That's also reassuring that I can tell who's calling me by the sound of their voice, but it barely surpasses a whisper in my ears.

However, I'm unable to hear the ball being set to me. I just have to trust that my setter, who happened to be my worst enemy in middle school, will set the ball to me. Occasionally I'll be disappointed once I realize the ball wasn't set to me, but my team has dubbed me as 'The Ultimate Decoy', making me more useful than ever.

I'm incredibly thankful for those around me; I'm surprised I haven't really been made fun of. Only one or two imbeciles called me a freak, but one of our wing spikers, Tanaka, placed them in their rightful positions.

I just wish that accident didn't happen, I'm still in disbelief that the cause was my stupidity.

Oh well.

I walk into practice a bit later than usual and our captain, Daichi, lightly scolds me, but also asks me if something is the matter. I give him a confused look and he responds with, once again realizing I have to lip-read due to how quiet he is, "Sorry. I shouldn't be too hard on you, you're only late by a few minutes anyway."

That's what I guessed he said, so I assumed I was right, and he walked away from me. Nishinoya, our libero, beckoned me over to the team huddle, in which I enthusiastically joined in.

Within these two months, Daichi has gotten surprisingly fast at using JSL while talking to the team. His normal talking sounds like an unpleasant sizzle to my ears and I was easily able to express that by writing on paper a few weeks ago after practice had finished.

With that being said, I'm surprised at my ability to learn JSL rather quickly. I'm able to sign languages in confidence and the mistakes I make while signing are scarce.

Without using JSL, I think my favorite sentence to physically hear is, "Karasuno, fight!" It's because it's loud, so it's easy for me to hear, even though I'm mute and I can't join in, and it's undoubtedly overpowering. Everyone's voices syncing together is so satisfying; it'd be empty without one of our teammates' voices. Everybody plays an important role; everybody is included.

Our unforgettable team break is usually said before games, but this time, it was said here— in practice. I glanced over at our third year setter, Sugawara, hoping he could give me an explanation.

Despite Daichi signing accurately, I still have those rare occurrences where I fail to understand him, so I seek Sugawara's assistance. Suga can sign as well, but he goes slower so I can comprehend better.

Suga signs, "We're having a surprise practice game against Aoba Johsai. Get ready, because it's going to be a blast!"

I give him a warm smile and an understanding thumbs up; we part our ways. It's sad to see him on the bench, but Kageyama, my former enemy and the now starting setter of my team, is more talented than him. Although Suga is a genuinely kindhearted and intellectual teammate, I suppose Kageyama just tops him in his well rounded nature.

I hear our coach, Coach Ukai, call the team over to discuss our game plan. He doesn't use JSL, but he typically uses a board to describe how our setup will look. He obviously knows I'm deaf as well, but he treats me like a regular player, which is fantastic! I'm one of the starters and—

Thankfully I had mostly paid attention to Coach Ukai, but he blew his whistle, snapping me out of my thoughts. My head shot up and my eyes darted at the approaching players, I recognized 'The Great King', also known as Oikawa Tooru. He was pretty friendly, but he looked so intimidating on the court.

I cracked my knuckles and signed to Suga,

"This will be fun, let's see how well I do today!"

(A/N: There wasn't much dialogue in this (of course, cause' Hinata's mute), but I wanted to include this information in the first chapter as an introduction. This is because some people skip the prologue, thus leaving them confused throughout the book).