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Aiya wasn’t sure how long she’d been waiting for this day. In some ways, it felt like it had been her entire life. But all that waiting was worth it if she was able to come to face it with the people currently standing by her side.
“Guh! The floor! It’s really not made of wooden planks!”
The gymnasium sprawled away from them in every direction like a yawning mouth. The ceilings were so high and the lights so bright that it made every inch of the room feel just as important as if they were standing at center court. The air was filled with the squeak of shoes pushing off the floor, the slap of volleyballs hitting hands or arms, and, most of all, the cheers and shouts of the hundreds and hundreds of fans filling the stands.
Kimura Aiya was a third-year at Niiyama Girls’ High School. She was also the captain of the volleyball team, and this was her first time going to Nationals. They’d left Miyagi early in the morning to make the drive to Tokyo for the chance to step onto the national stage. Although the ride down had been exhausting, standing here where she’d always felt at home, she could finally feel herself getting her energy back.
Aiya also felt her breath suddenly knocked out of her as something collided with her from behind. She knew who it was even before the excited voice demanded, “Kimura, look at the floors! They’re cool, right!?”
She gave a well-practiced sigh of long-suffering. “Yes, I see them. I’m standing on them, after all. What’s going on with you and the floors, Hinata? You’ve been talking about them all day.”
Hinata Natsu was Niiyama’s regular libero, and also the team’s vice captain. She was solid, dependable, and always hunting for ways to improve herself and others, which was why Aiya had picked her as vice-captain despite only being a second-year. Hinata was also loud, excitable, and had more energy than anyone Aiya had ever met. Even after getting up early like the rest of the team, and then staying awake the entire drive to Tokyo to talk with anyone who would listen about riveting topics like the floor.
Hinata peeled herself from Aiya’s back and gave a smile that was as bright as her curly orange hair. “Be more excited, Kimura-kun!” she scolded, although with her still-blinding grin, it was hard to tell. “We’re at Nationals! This is the first time Niiyama’s gone to Nationals in three years! And we’re going to win!”
One of the things Aiya liked best about Hinata was the way she always spoke with conviction. She would never say something that she didn’t absolutely believe in, which meant that here, standing on the edge of the gymnasium and probably blocking the entrance, Aiya felt more confident in their chances of winning than she had when their coach gave them a pep talk that morning.
“We’re going to win!” she said, trying to sound as confident as Hinata had when she’d said it. When she looked past Hinata and repeated it to the rest of the team, she thought she might be starting to believe it.
“Yeah!” the rest of Niiyama cheered back, and then, behind Aiya, marched out to center court.
Today wasn’t the day that would determine the ultimate victor of the tournament, but that didn’t make it feel any less important. Nor, when they finally staggered off the court hours and two games later, did it make victory feel any less satisfying.
As Aiya led her team back towards where their coach and their manager were waiting for them with proud smiles, she was so exhausted that she felt about to collapse. A look behind her (a look that required far more effort than it should have) showed that all her teammates looked the same. Which made sense, of course. They’d just won two games, after all, and the second had stretched past twenty-five points in the third set.
Except that, just as Aiya thought this, and just as she was reflecting upon how much she wished to collapse into bed for maybe ten years, there was suddenly a loud shout and the squeak of shoes against the floor as someone sprinted past her.
Well. “Someone”, but there was no one it could actually be, really, besides Hinata. Aiya had absolutely no idea where she pulled her boundless reserves of energy from, but just watching her running and shouting was draining what little energy Aiya had left.
Maybe that was how Hinata did it, she thought idly. She replenished her energy by taking it from everyone else. It would certainly explain a lot.
When Aiya and the members of the team who didn’t have infinite stamina reached the sideline, their coach gave them a sympathetic smile. “Great work today, everyone. You played well, and you should all be proud. But today is only the beginning. You’re going to have to work hard for the next few days and give it your all. But I have no doubt in your abilities and know you’ll be able to make it to the top!”
The eyes of her teammates followed her as she bowed deeply and shouted, “Thank you!”
Around her, her team took up the cry. Standing there in the middle of it all, high on victory hard-won, Aiya thought that the top couldn’t feel any better than this.
Tomorrow their battle would continue, but today they had won.
“Hinata-san?” called Nakamura, a first-year middle blocker and one of Niiyama’s regulars. “What was it that you were saying earlier about the floor in the stadium?”
From behind Nakamura, Saito, who was a third-year and thus entirely used to Hinata in a way that Nakamura wasn’t, groaned. Aiya and a couple other second- and third-years smiled at her in sympathy.
Hinata, for her part, either hadn’t heard Saito, or else was electing to ignore her. Either was possible, although Hinata and Saito had a unique ability to rile each other up that no one else on the team possessed. (That no one else in the world possessed, in Aiya’s experience.) Regardless, she grinned at Nakamura from where she was sitting across the room, chirped, “I’m glad you asked!”, bound to her feet, and plopped down on the floor in front of Nakamura.
A few first- and second-years—the ones who were still in awe of Hinata’s talent to the point that they hung onto her every word—gathered around to listen. Aiya joined them because she felt that it was her duty as captain to support her vice-captain in all endeavors, regardless of how strange or floor-related they may be. Also, this was the second time today she’d heard about the floor and Hinata, and she was just as curious about the reason as the rest of them.
Tokyo was far enough from Miyagi that it didn’t make sense to drive between the two every day that Niiyama remained in the competition. So instead, they were accommodated at a high school nearby to the stadium, where they would remain until they either won or lost and had to return home. Right now, it was early enough in the competition that the school was relatively crowded with other teams, but Aiya had hope that her team would remain even when most of the others didn’t.
“Is this going to be a long story, Hinata?” Saito, who had decidedly not moved closer to listen, groaned. “We have to play tomorrow, and some of us don’t have infinite amounts of energy.”
The room that Niiyama had been assigned was large, wide open, and filled with futons and soft blankets. It was a very enjoyable room to spend time in with a large group and socialize, as they had done earlier in the day after everyone had cleaned up and rested. It was not very comfortable, however, if not everyone was in agreement on when it was time to sleep.
Hinata, predictably, whipped around to glare at Saito. “Shut up, stupid! It’s not a long story.”
Aiya was the captain, which meant that it fell to her to resolve disputes like this. Saito opened her mouth—likely to respond with something scathing—but luckily a year of being captain had allowed Aiya the chance to perfect her ability to glare intimidatingly. Saito closed her mouth, laid down on her futon, and pointedly turned her back on Hinata and the rest of their circle.
“Okay!” Hinata returned her attention to their small group. Her sunny smile spread across her face like it had never been gone in the first place.
It was the way she looked, unfortunately, when she was preparing to tell a long story. Aiya eyed her warily. “It isn’t a long story, is it? Saito’s right—we do have to play tomorrow.”
Hinata pouted. “It’s not, I promise! It’s barely even a story. It’s just something my… someone I know used to say.”
Whenever they travelled for away training camps, Niiyama’s team would often spend time as a group telling stories before they went to bed. Hinata was one of the best storytellers, because of how expressive she was and how deeply she got into it. She did also, however, have a tendency to go off on tangents, meaning that her stories were often the longest and kept them up past when they should have gone to sleep. Aiya had little hope that today would be different, so being prepared to cut Hinata off if she took too long was another reason why she sat down to listen.
“Someone you know used to say things about the floor?” one of the other second-years asked, her voice highly skeptical. Aiya, when it was phrased like that, couldn’t help but agree.
Hinata scowled. “Well when you say it like that, it sounds weird!”
Aiya, again, agreed. She didn’t point out to her vice-captain that she wasn’t sure there was a situation wherein it didn’t sound weird.
Saito, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have the same restraint. Despite the fact that she’d claimed to want to sleep and still had her back to them, she interjected, “Because it is weird! Who talks about the floor when they’re going to Nationals, what the hell, Hinata?”
Aiya was preparing to chime in should the situation escalate, but Hinata just pouted and said, “Stupid Saito. It’s not weird. He’s not weird, he’s…”
Nakamura gasped. “Hinata-san, do you have a boyfriend?”
Aiya figured that the answer was no, but she was surprised by the way Hinata’s face crumpled in exaggerated disgust. “Ugh, no! Tobi—he’s like six years older than me! Like basically my older brother. He’s… he’s one of the two people who taught me how to play volleyball.”
This last bit was said somewhat bashfully, like Hinata wasn’t sure she should have said it at all. On its own, this would have interested Aiya—Hinata was a very talented libero, but she hadn’t attended a powerhouse middle school. The few times their teammates had asked how she had gotten as good as she was, she had evaded the question, saying that she’d started playing in elementary school and leaving it at that. Considering how open Hinata was with the rest of her life, this behavior was strange.
“Was he a libero, Hinata-senpai?” one of the first-years prompted. “Is that why you’re so good?!”
Upon becoming a second-year and gaining kouhai that looked up to her, Hinata usually jumped between self-assurance and bashfulness whenever her skills were openly praised. Tonight, she blushed red up to the roots of her hair as their younger teammates stared at her with stars in their eyes. “N-no, he’s not a libero!”
Several of the others pouted. “What position did he play? How did he help you to become a libero if he wasn’t one?”
The scene of their kouhai pressing in closer to Hinata was somewhat amusing, but any desire that Aiya felt to laugh vanished as her vice-captain shot her a panicked look. For a moment, she was frozen and only able to stare back in confusion. Even during the times when Hinata didn’t want to be praised for her skills, she was still able to extricate herself gracefully from questioning. Aiya had never seen her like this, like she was a cornered wild animal on the precipice of being devoured.
The next second, Aiya’s instincts kicked in and she came to the rescue of her vice-captain with no further hesitation. “Hey! None of this has to do with Hinata’s story! It’s getting late, so Hinata, say the thing about the floor or go to sleep!”
Nakamura and the others pouted, but Hinata shot Aiya a grateful look. Settling down in her blankets, Aiya watched as the others turned back around, their previous questioning seemingly forgotten in the face of the answer to the one that had been bothering them all day. As the original asker of said question, Aiya was curious too, and she listened even as she prepared to go to sleep. A glance across the room showed her that Saito, for all her bravado about not being interested, had angled herself to be better able to hear. Aiya smiled to herself at the sight and resolved to tease Saito about it later.
“Right,” Hinata began. “So this person—”
“—Your brother,” Nakamura interjected.
Hinata glared. “Not my brother.”
“Basically your brother,” Nakamura amended.
Aiya stifled her laugh and Hinata sighed. “This person who is not my brother, but that I’ve known since I was nine, played volleyball when he was in high school. He… at one point, he got to go to a training camp in a national stadium. He told me about it later, about all the amazing players, and everything he learned, and what Tokyo was like, and…”
She paused and cleared her throat. “But one of the things he talked about first was that the floors weren’t made out of wooden planks, like most school gyms and local stadiums and things. And I know it’s kind of a silly thing to focus on—I thought so at the time—but he was so excited about it. Back then, he was the best volleyball player I knew and I admired him and I wanted to be as good as he was, so if he was excited about the floors, then I was excited about the floors. I promised myself that I’d go to Nationals someday and be able to see what he was talking about. And by now, I’ve been to national stadiums before, but today was the first time I was going for me, to play. It was the first time I felt what he’d felt, standing there, and it was just… it was amazing. So. That’s why I was making such a big deal about the floors not being made of wood.”
There was silence for a few seconds—everyone was evidently recovering from deep words from Hinata, who could be surprisingly insightful but usually wasn’t. Or they had fallen asleep. Probably a mixture of both. Eventually, the silence was broken by Nakamura, who squealed, “Awww, Hinata-san! That’s so sweet! Are you gonna tell him that you got to see it, when we get home?”
“I—maybe?” Hinata was blushing. “Although not for a while. They, um. He travels a lot for… for his job, so I don’t get to see him very often.”
“So he won’t be here to see us play at Nationals?” Nakamura pouted.
“Prob—Probably not.”
“Aw!” whined a first-year. “I wanted to see Hinata-senpai’s super cool volleyball teacher!”
Hinata blushed even darker, but was saved from having to answer by a drawn-out groan. The little circle all turned to look, and Aiya wasn’t surprised to see that it had come from Saito.
“Yay, Hinata’s so cool. Can we go to sleep now?”
Aiya prepared to intervene again, but Hinata was evidently grateful enough to escape answering questions that she didn’t snap back. Instead, she pushed back her blankets and settled onto her futon. One by one, the members of Niiyama Volleyball Club followed, the room finally falling into silence.
Aiya drifted off to sleep almost immediately, her thoughts a swirl of Hinata’s decidedly-not-a-brother and the slam of a volleyball against the court.
The next few days blurred together. Each morning, Aiya, Hinata, and their coach would assure the team that the reason they stood on the national stage was because they deserved to be there, and each day, the team would go out and play to the best of their ability. By nighttime, sets and games had passed in an unending haze, and Aiya could remember the slap of the ball against the palm of her hand, over and over until it was sound only.
Each day, Niiyama played their best, won, and remained in Tokyo to go on and fight another day.
When Aiya woke up on the day of the final round, she could immediately tell that things were different. They’d reached the end of the line—one way or another, it would all end here. Today was the day that a victor would be crowned and although Aiya hadn’t initially expected to get this far, she wanted that victor to be Niiyama. By the way her team was nearly silent—and this was a team that was never silent—she could tell that they wanted it just as much. They’d been working towards this for an entire season, after all, and by now they were so, so close.
Like she had on the very first day, Aiya paused inside the entrance of the stadium, taking in the sights and the sounds of all the people who had showed up that morning to watch them. This realization made her head spin.
Unlike before, she was not ripped from her musings by an overenthusiastic Hinata. Also unlike before, the rest of her team paused behind her, still shrouded in that same serious silence.
It was Saito, standing over Aiya’s left shoulder, who broke it. She spoke in a way that indicated she hadn’t quite intended to. “This is it.”
“This is it,” Aiya agreed, and the silence returned.
It was Hinata who next broke the silence and the mood. She was standing on Aiya’s right, but swiveled around to face the rest of the team. Aiya and Saito—although the latter not without an eyeroll—followed.
“Alright everyone!” She spread her arms wide. “This is the end of the line! After today, someone is going to step out of this gym as the national champion, and that someone is going to be us! Do you know why?”
Here, she paused for dramatic effect, waiting for a few wide-eyed first- and second-years to shake their heads. Aiya smiled at her vice-captain’s exuberant tendencies, but they did appear to be working. “Because we have everything it takes to win, that’s why! We’re strong, we’re talented, and we’re connected! We’ve practiced for this, and today is no different from any other game. So just focus on working together and getting the ball over the net, because…”
Aiya knew what was coming, and she grinned as Hinata spun around, smiled at them over her shoulder, bent both her arms, and hooked her thumbs so they were pointed down at the 10 on the back of her jersey. “… you all have me guarding your backs!”
The rest of Niiyama started to cheer, then they followed Aiya and Hinata onto the court for their warm-ups. The atmosphere couldn’t be further from the silence from earlier, but Aiya had never been one for silence anyway.
By the time warm-ups were finished, the whole team was in top form and the air was more charged than ever. As she stood off on the side of the court, drinking from her water bottle, Aiya noticed that Hinata seemed especially focused. She was standing on the court ahead of Aiya, the only one on her side of the net as she received their teammates’ jump serves. Hinata’s secret weapon had always been her ability to meet the ball from anywhere on the court, and with half of it to herself, she ran from end to end so fast that all Aiya could see was a blur of orange. She was beneath the ball before Aiya could even tell where it was going, each time killing its momentum and returning it perfectly to the setter’s position.
Aiya wasn’t sure how long she stood there watching, but when Hinata finally left the court to retrieve her own water bottle, she had to blink herself out of a daze. “Those were some really nice receives,” she managed as her vice-captain came to stand beside her.
“Thanks,” Hinata smiled, then started drinking from her water bottle.
Aiya stared at Hinata without really seeing her, her mind racing through the past few days and everything she could remember about their time at Nationals. It felt like she was on the precipice of something, but she wasn’t sure what. And so she was saying, “Hey Hinata? The person who taught you how to play volleyball… what position did he play?” before remembering the way Hinata had looked the last time someone had asked her that question.
Sure enough, Hinata froze and slowly started lowering her water bottle. Before Aiya could apologize, however, Hinata was doing the one thing Aiya hadn’t expected her to do: answering.
“Um. There… were two main people who taught me. The one I was telling you about a few days ago—the one who said the thing about the floors—he’s a setter. My… the other person started as a middle blocker, but now he’s an opposite hitter.”
The use of the present tense surprised the question out before she could stop it. “Do… they still play?”
“Yep!” Hinata smiled a proud, sunshiny grin. “They’re both really good, too!”
This interaction had only raised more questions than it answered, but before Aiya could decide what to say next, their coach called the team over for a huddle. Immediately, Aiya put Hinata—put everything that didn’t have to do with winning Nationals—out of her mind.
Today was their day, and it was finally time to seize their place in the sun.
“I—I’m so sorry, they totally read me when I tossed to Nakamura…”
“What? No, it’s my fault—I didn’t block it and they got a one-touch…”
“If I hadn’t—”
“No, I should have—”
Niiyama Girls’ High School, as it turned out, lost in the final round of the National Championships. To say that Aiya was crushed would be, to put it lightly, an understatement. They had come so far, gotten so close, only to be blocked from taking that last, final step. As it turned out, there would always be someone better, someone unbeatable, after all.
As they shuffled away from the court for the last time, Aiya knew that she should be a good captain and say something to reassure her team. But she couldn’t think of anything to say that would give comfort, because she couldn’t think of anything that she wanted to hear.
She side-eyed her vice-captain, who was walking somberly beside her. Hinata had always been the one who was more inclined to dramatic rousing speeches, but right now she looked as dejected as Aiya felt. Hinata had been the one most convinced of their victory out of anyone, after all—their loss was likely hitting her the hardest.
The Niiyama Volleyball Club was never silent, but they were silent now. Their coach, leading them out of the gym, realized this, too. She paused like she wanted to say something, just like Aiya did, but, just like Aiya did, paused and ultimately remained silent. They crossed the stadium.
Their coach was out the door, and Aiya and Hinata had almost reached it when they were stopped by someone shouting. Aiya heard it first, but the rest of the team stopped when they noticed her do so.
“Natsu!” It was an excited male voice, quickly growing in volume. “Natsu! Hinata Natsu!”
Aiya went to nudge Hinata beside her, wondering about the use of her given name, but her vice-captain was already looking past the rest of the team, in the direction of the shouting. She looked confused for a second before breaking out into her usual ear-to-ear grin and taking off running in the direction they’d come. “Nii-chan!”
For a moment, Aiya was frozen, staring at the spot where Hinata had been standing and trying to process what she’d heard. The next, she was running back into the stadium herself, barely even noticing the fact that the rest of her team was following behind her.
Aiya—and the rest of Niiyama—skid to a stop at the sight of Hinata’s familiar orange hair. She had her arms and legs wrapped around a man dressed in jeans and a grey hoodie. It was hard to tell much else about him by the way he was holding onto Hinata, but as he spun the two of them around in a circle, Aiya noticed that he had the same messy orange curls as she did. They undoubtedly looked related. Suddenly, Aiya thought back to the night after their first day at Nationals, when Hinata had told them the story of the person who had taught her volleyball and insisted that he wasn’t her brother.
Eventually, the man stopped spinning and set Hinata back down on the ground. With a start, Aiya noticed how short he was—he didn’t look that much taller than Hinata, who was as short as her position as libero would have suggested. It made them look even more like siblings, and Hinata had called him nii-chan, after all. But then why had she said…?
“Nii-chan, what are you doing here?!” Hinata grinned. “I thought you had training!”
“Yeah, but we train here in Tokyo. It isn’t far, and there’s no way we were going to miss your first time going to Nationals!”
Hinata pouted. “You came all the way here to see us, and we lost…”
Before Aiya or Hinata’s brother could comment on that, Hinata abruptly made eye contact with Aiya and her smile returned. She reached out and tugged at her brother’s hands. “Nii-chan, nii-chan, come meet my team!”
It occurred to Aiya that Hinata’s excitement to introduce them to her brother seemed at odds with how she’d talked about him in the past. Or… how she hadn’t talked about him? The subject of her story from a few days ago seemed like a different person from the man standing in front of her now. Somehow.
That was as far as Aiya’s thought process got, however, before Hinata dragged her brother over to the rest of the team. And all at once, everything she was thinking came to a screeching halt. Because Hinata’s brother, the man they were looking at right now… she knew this man.
She wasn’t able to pick out where from, though, until Hinata grinned and said, “Everyone, meet my brother, Hinata Shouyou!”
Aiya wasn’t even the one to process this information first. From somewhere over her shoulder, there was a strangled noise and then Nakamura’s equally strangled voice saying, “Hinata… Shouyou? Like the professional volleyball player? On—on the Olympic team?”
Hinata Shouyou smiled proudly. “That’s me! Number ten on Team Japan!”
Numbly, Aiya’s eyes slid from Hinata Shouyou—the actual Olympian, now Aiya realized why he’d looked familiar—to Hinata Natsu, her very own vice-captain, still in her jersey. Her jersey, marked number ten. Part of Aiya’s brain remembered last year, at the way tiny first-year Hinata had insisted on taking number ten with all the force of a typhoon, and everything clicked into place.
Hinata Natsu—the vice-captain and libero of Niiyama Girls’ High School Volleyball Club—was related to Hinata Shouyou, a world-famous professional volleyball player on Japan’s 2021 national Olympic team.
Aiya was reeling with the shock from this revelation and possibly re-examining her entire perception of her teammate when all higher functioning came to a screeching halt in the face of an even bigger revelation. Namely, that there was an Olympic volleyball player standing in front of her right now.
She was brought back to reality before she was able to spiral too deeply into the repercussions of this thought as Hinata—her Hinata, Natsu—appeared beside her. She linked their arms together and smiled at her brother. “This is Kimura Aiya! She’s the captain and a wing spiker!”
Hinata Shouyou smiled at her. “It’s nice to meet you, Kimura-san.”
Internally, Aiya took a deep breath and screamed.
Externally, she somehow managed to bow. It was easier to address her “N-nice to meet you, Hinata-senshu,” to the floor than to the actual person.
Aiya stayed in her bow a few seconds longer than necessary to collect herself to be able to function like a normal human. So her vice-captain was siblings with an Olympian. That was… fine. So her vice-captain had been taught how to play volleyball by an Olympian. That was… also fine. At least, it explained why she was so good.
When Aiya returned back to the present, Hinata had progressed in her introductions to Nakamura. As their middle blocker straightened up from her own bow, she asked, “Are you the one who taught Hinata-san how to play volleyball? She told us it hadn’t been her brother.”
Hinata Shouyou gave a dramatic gasp like Nakamura had said something highly scandalous. It was exactly something that his sister would do, she thought with equal parts fondness and exasperation. “Of course I did! Everything that Natsu knows, she learned from me!”
Hinata—Natsu—poorly muffled her snort. “I learned almost nothing I know from you.” And then, as her brother instantly started protesting, she turned to a very confused Nakamura. “That wasn’t him that I was telling you that story about. Nii-chan did teach me how to play, but it’s hard to play volleyball with only two people, so we would often practice with—”
Hinata cut herself off, tilting her head as if she was just realizing something important, and side-eyed her brother. “Hey, nii-chan, where’s Tobio-nii? He came, right?”
Hinata Shouyou frowned. “Yeah, of course he came! He was right behind me. He must’ve—hang on, let me go find him. I’ll be right back!”
And with that, and one more hug to Niiyama’s Hinata, he bounded back into the gym. Aiya—and the rest of the team, she assumed—stared numbly until he had vanished into the crowd of people. Then, as one, they rounded on the remaining Hinata sibling, all with varying levels of incredulous disbelief.
Niiyama’s vice-captain raised her hands in surrender and stared back at them with wide eyes. “H-hey, what’s with that look?!”
“When you were telling us that story that night,” Saito began, her voice slow and a mixture of emotions, “or even during the entire two years before that that you’ve been on the volleyball team, it never, not even once, occurred to you to mention that you know a professional volleyball player? That you’re related to someone on Japan’s Olympic team?”
Aiya expected Hinata to argue back, because she always argued back when it was Saito, even though Saito had just voiced what all of them were thinking. Saito seemed to be disbelieving and angry, but Aiya… Aiya felt hurt. She had been friends with Hinata for two years, after all. Close enough friends that Aiya had picked Hinata to be her vice-captain over any of the third-years, and for reasons beyond her skills as a player. Hinata was obviously close with her brother. She had picked her jersey number off of his. He and his career were important to who she was. So why had she kept something so important from them? From Aiya?
The rest of the team, by now, had adopted Saito’s protests. Their voices overlapped each other with various demands of Hinata. They all fell silent, though, when Hinata finally collected herself and began to speak. “Okay, look, this isn’t what it seems like. I have a reason I didn’t tell you, okay? I thought—”
“I found him!”
The sudden and loud interjection caused most of Niiyama to jump, including Hinata. She instantly cut off before even beginning her explanation. Aiya recognized the voice as belonging to Hinata Shouyou, and she had expected to live her entire life without ever once feeling the desire to smack an Olympian across the face, but that was exactly what was happening now. Something big was hinging on the explanation that Hinata was about to give, and Aiya thought she would scream if she had to hang on this edge of suspense for much longer. After all, Hinata Shouyou may be an Olympian, but it was Hinata Natsu that was Aiya’s friend.
This rationality and resolve evaporated, however, as soon as she turned around and saw the person that had returned along with Hinata’s brother. This time, the disbelieving exclamation didn’t come from Nakamura.
“You’re… you’re Kageyama Tobio,” Aiya heard herself stutter, with the distinct impression of watching this whole scene from a vantage point outside of her body.
Luckily, Kageyama Tobio—the best setter in the V. League and also on Japan’s Olympic Volleyball Team—did not appear to have heard her. It would have been difficult for him to do so over the way Hinata squealed, “Tobio-nii!” and threw herself into his arms. He seemed utterly unsurprised by this turn of events—admittedly common enough for Hinata, but only to people who knew her—or with Hinata’s Hinata-ness, and caught her easily. He was grinning, which was an expression Aiya had only rarely seen on his face, despite her thorough watching of every interview of his that she was able to find on YouTube.
“Good to see you, Nat-chan,” Kageyama Tobio said to his armful of Aiya’s vice-captain. If Aiya had anything left within her to be surprised, she was sure that she would be as she wondered how the hell Hinata knew Kageyama Tobio. He was on the same team as Hinata’s apparently-an-Olympian older brother, but Niiyama was in Miyagi and the national team trained in Tokyo. Even if Hinata had met him when she came to visit her brother, that didn’t seem enough to explain a level of closeness that resulted in him calling her “Nat-chan” and her calling him “Tobio-nii”.
As soon as Hinata and Kageyama Tobio separated, they went through the round of introductions again. Hinata linked arms with her brother on one side and Kageyama on the other. “Everyone, meet Kageyama Tobio! He’s on the Olympic team with my nii-chan, and they were teammates in high school! He’s um,” she paused and sheepishly looked away. “He’s the one I was telling that story about.”
Aiya thought back to the conversation she’d had with Hinata before their game. It felt so long ago now. There were two main people who had taught her how to play volleyball, she’d said. And, the one who said the thing about the floors—he’s a setter.
Kageyama Tobio. Hinata Natsu, vice-captain of Niiyama Girls’ High School Volleyball Club, had been taught how to play volleyball by Hinata Shouyou and Kageyama Tobio.
Both of the two of them had turned to look at Hinata curiously. “You tell them stories about Tobio? And not me?”
“It’s because she was freaking out about the floor not being made of wood,” Saito—who seemed to have recovered from being starstruck at the opportunity to antagonize Hinata—explained.
Kageyama Tobio nodded with the utmost seriousness, either oblivious to the animosity in Saito’s tone or choosing to ignore it. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? Jumping, running, diving… all of it just feels different than it does on wood.”
Hinata was nodding before Kageyama even finished his sentence. “Exactly! It’s all like guh!”
She was all big arm movements and excited bouncing. Kageyama was nodding along, seemingly completely accustomed to this esoteric method of communication. Aiya shared a disbelieving look with several of her teammates. All of them saw Hinata every day, after all, and Aiya still wasn’t able to tell the difference between what nonverbal sounds Hinata made in which specific situations. She had thought it was something that no one would be able to understand but Hinata herself.
When, somehow, Aiya caught the eye of Hinata Shouyou and they shared a look of camaraderie, she felt a detached sort of panic and the need to regain a handle on her life before it spiraled any further into the void of incomprehension. “So!” she exclaimed too loudly, drawing all eyes to her. “Um. H-how do you know Kageyama-senshu so well, Hinata-kun?”
Too late, Aiya realized her mistake as Hinata’s smile turned absolutely devious. Her brother and Kageyama exchanged concerned looks and immediately tried to pull their arms free. Aiya took a precautionary step backwards.
“Tobio-nii and nii-chan have been dating since nii-chan came back from Brazil!”
As Aiya was trying to remember when Hinata Shouyou had been in Brazil, the two pro volleyball players ahead of her adopted looks suggesting that they were waiting for the other shoe to drop. As if Aiya wasn’t already reeling like she’d just received a serve to the face. By now, she thought, there was nothing that Hinata could say that would shock her more.
“Aaaand they’re definitely going to get married someday! I’ve already called dibs on planning the wedding!”
Or… not. Aiya blinked as the two professional volleyball players dissolved into protests, directed at a very smug and uncaring Hinata. Aiya blinked again, and again, and again, in hope that between one blink and the next the world would snap back into place. It would be so nice, she mused, if something made sense for a change.
So far, though, no luck. A part of her noticed that Hinata’s brother and Kageyama weren’t even protesting Hinata’s assessment of their forthcoming marriage.
“Why are you the one planning it? Didn’t Miwa-oneechan say—”
“We can plan our own wedding, dumbass Shou—”
“Maybe you should propose to me first, stupid—”
Aiya’s attempts to regain a hold on the situation had, it seemed, achieved exactly the opposite. She had entered this stadium that morning, she remembered, for the battle to claim the national title. Nowhere in the realm of possibility had she considered bearing witness to two Olympians and one of Aiya’s own teammates argue about wedding planning.
There was enough evidence to the contrary that Aiya hadn’t believed Hinata to be lying, but the revelation that she was in a position to plan their wedding completely shattered the scrap of possibility that Hinata hadn’t told them about being related to Olympians because she wasn’t close with them. She was obviously very close with them, very proud of them, and their chosen careers had had a big influence on her life. So, then, what possible explanation could remain for Hinata’s decision to have not told them? Not told Aiya?
It was difficult—her need for an answer felt like a blazing fire—but Aiya tried to push the question out of her mind. Now wasn’t the time to ask. She would need to get Hinata alone, for long enough for them to have an actual, serious conversation. She couldn’t think of anything she’d felt the need to discuss as urgently as this, and it was to the point that Aiya thought it would actually prevent her from enjoying the opportunity to meet two professional volleyball players.
“It’s nice to meet you both,” said Saito, cutting off both Kageyama and Hinata Shouyou’s argument, as well as Aiya’s thoughts. “Since Hinata has told us absolutely nothing about you.”
She probably should have scolded Saito for that remark—surely Hinata had a reason—but a part of her felt validated by the way the other two looked just as surprised as Aiya felt. Hinata Shouyou pouted at Saito and asked, “Really? But Natsu tells us stories about you all the time!”
“We didn’t even know that she had a brother until a few minutes ago,” Saito confirmed.
“Although,” mused one of the other third-years, “maybe we should have figured it out sooner. You two have the same name, and you do look a lot alike.”
Hinata and her brother exchanged a glance, the exact same expression on their faces. It made them look even more alike and Aiya felt the strange urge to laugh. Kageyama, though, frowned. “Why didn’t you say anything to them, Nat-chan?”
Hinata looked as if she very much did not want to be having this conversation. When Saito repeated the question much less gently, though, her uncomfortable look quickly turned into a glare and she looked more willing to speak. Aiya couldn’t help but wonder if that was what Saito had been after. Bicker with Hinata to remind her of something familiar and get her to calm down. It sounded almost sweet, in an odd way.
“I didn’t think it mattered, okay?” she exclaimed. Then, at the hurt expressions on the faces of the two Olympians, Aiya, Nakamura, and several other of their teammates, “No! That’s not what I—ugh!”
With a deep breath, Hinata composed herself enough to say, “I didn’t want to say anything to you, because I didn’t want it to change the way that you saw me. Last year, I didn’t want you to let me onto the team just because my brother plays professionally. And then after that, I didn’t want people to think it was why I became a regular, or vice-captain, or anything. I wanted all my accomplishments to be because I earned them, not because of nii-chan or Tobio-nii.”
Aiya opened her mouth to protest—of course they wouldn’t have let her onto the team just because of who her family was—but someone else beat her to it. It was Saito. She was glaring as she said, “No one would have thought that, you absolute idiot. Give us more credit than that. Plus, if the only reason you’d been able to get anywhere was because of who your brother was, you wouldn’t have gotten far enough for it to matter. Someone else’s talent wouldn’t be able to cover for you if you didn’t have any. If you sucked, we wouldn’t have picked you for the team, or as our vice-captain. This isn’t the kind of thing where your accomplishments can come from anywhere except for you.”
As Saito finished speaking, Hinata had an expression on her face that suggested she believed herself to have fallen into some sort of parallel reality. Aiya, too, was having a hard time believing that Saito had just put so much effort into complimenting Hinata, however aggressive her approach was. But even in her disbelief, she didn’t miss the knowing look that Kageyama Tobio exchanged with Hinata Shouyou. Or the way both of them smiled.
“I—I know that now! I was just talking about last year.”
“So then why didn’t you say anything this year?”
“Because I knew you’d ask why! And I didn’t know what to say!”
“Idiot. You knew you were just delaying what would have had to happen anyway, right?”
“Well I’m introducing them to you now, aren’t I?”
“Are you?” Hinata Shouyou asked, cutting off his sister’s back-and-forth with Saito and drawing everyone’s attention back to himself and Kageyama. Both of them looked amused but with those same odd knowing smiles, like they had realized something that no one else had.
Hinata huffed and gestured at the two of them aggressively. “That’s nii-chan. That’s Tobio-nii. They’re the reasons why I play volleyball and why I’m a libero. They’re also the worst.”
“I was wondering about that, actually,” said Aiya, thinking it best to interject. “How they’re the reason why you’re a libero when neither of them are liberoes. I, um. I’d just assumed it was because you’re short.”
Saito barked out a laugh, Hinata Shouyou started making offended noises, and Kageyama tilted his head and regarded Hinata curiously. “I’ve also wondered about that. You seemed so insistent on being a setter when you were in elementary school.”
For some reason, Hinata blushed and ducked her head. “Um, it’s because I wanted to play volleyball with nii-chan and Tobio-nii when I was in elementary school and they were in high school. But Tobio-nii’s a setter and nii-chan’s a spiker, and you can’t play a game with two setters and a spiker or two spikers and a setter. There has to be a receiver. So if I wanted to play with them, I had to receive. So I got good at playing as a libero pretty quickly.”
Aiya blinked several times at the still-blushing Hinata. She’d learned more about her vice-captain, she realized, in their few days at Nationals than she had in the entire two years they’d known each other before that. Hinata was never quiet, unless, it seemed, it came to information about herself.
But, no, she thought, watching Hinata’s brother hug her again and Kageyama ruffle her hair. That wasn’t quite right. It was easy to see, by the way Hinata interacted with them, that Hinata would have loved to show off about her family. That the only reason why she hadn’t was so that she didn’t scare off Aiya or their teammates, or make them feel inferior. Entirely unnecessary, of course, but illuminating nonetheless.
Either way, now that Aiya was able to see it, she was going to make sure that Hinata never had to hide again.
“Ooh! Is that why you use the libero toss so much, Hinata-senpai?” asked a first-year, and Aiya had to think to remember the conversation that they’d been in the middle of.
“Yep!” Hinata crossed her arms and grinned proudly. “I love setting! Tobio-nii taught me how to do the libero toss. Plus, that way I could toss to nii-chan when we were playing with just the two of us!”
“It was really fun!” Hinata Shouyou confirmed. “Your tosses are great, Natsu! They’re my favorites. After Tobio’s, of course. Oh, and Atsumu-san’s are also really good…”
Hinata made a face. Aiya took a second to process the fact that an actual Olympian ranked her vice-captain’s tosses up with the two best setters in the V. League. Both of whom were also on the Olympic team and members of the monster generation. Somehow, in less than an hour, her life had turned into something that was barely recognizable.
“I’m sorry that the two of you came to watch us play and then we lost,” Hinata was saying, and suddenly, Aiya’s life fell from the clouds and back into the harshness of reality.
“What do you mean?”
“Um. That if you and Tobio-nii were going to come all the way out here to come watch, I wish we had won? So that you coming would have been worth it?”
Hinata Shouyou had an unnerving look on his face. “Why do you think your game is only worth it if you win?”
Hinata’s only response was to blink several times. One of Niiyama’s other third-years offered, “Because if we lose, that means everything we’ve done was for nothing. There was someone better than us, someone we weren’t good enough—hadn’t trained hard enough—to beat.”
Hinata’s brother and Kageyama exchanged a long, unreadable look. More than that, they had an entire conversation with their eyes and facial expressions. It was impossible for Aiya to understand—impossible for anyone outside of the two of them to understand. Eventually, together, they turned back to Aiya’s team.
“I used to think that,” Hinata Shouyou confessed. “That losing a game meant it was all over and had all been pointless. But if you love volleyball enough, that’s never true.”
It felt like every member of Niiyama was holding her breath, hanging onto the edges of their metaphorical seats and Hinata’s brother’s words.
“Nothing feels better than winning, right? It’s proof that all your hard work was worth it. You were able to achieve your goals with your teammates by your side.”
Aiya glanced behind her at the faces of her teammates and found that they were already looking back.
Kageyama Tobio jumped in. A part of Aiya couldn’t help but be impressed by the way they were perfectly attuned to each other’s thought processes. “But winning doesn’t mean you’re the best and losing doesn’t mean that it was all for nothing. Losing is better sometimes, actually, because it shows you what you still need to improve.”
“If you love volleyball enough, one game is never the end,” said Hinata Shouyou. “Even if you don’t go pro, or even if you don’t play when you’re in college. If you decide to keep playing, it does matter how, just that you do. And in that case, every time you play and every time you lose will teach you how to be better so that one day, you’ll be the ones to win.”
“It’s probably disappointing to know that this was the last time you’ll play officially with this group,” said Kageyama. “You can play together on your own, of course, but it’ll never be the same. But it was going to happen eventually.”
Aiya blinked, trying to reconcile this rather stark look at reality with the rest of the motivational speech. Then, when she still didn’t understand, she blinked again. Hinata’s brother groaned like he’d been expecting something like this to happen. He elbowed Kageyama in the side. “You’re supposed to be making them feel better, Bakageyama! That wasn’t encouraging!”
Kageyama elbowed him back. His cheeks were pink and his eyes were narrowed. “Dumbass Shou! Shut up!”
They would have kept bickering, probably, but didn’t get the chance. Something about their relationship reminded Aiya of Hinata and Saito, and she at least knew how to deal with those arguments. She bent at the waist in a deep bow and the rest of Niiyama followed, echoing the cry of, “Thank you very much!”
When Aiya straightened up, the Olympians among them looked taken aback by the public display. It was at that moment that the rest of the world came back to Aiya, and she realized that she, her team, and two professional volleyball players had just had a long, ostentatious conversation in the national stadium, probably blocking the entrance. And without letting their coach know what they were doing.
She was the captain, which meant that she was in charge of doing the damage control that came along with this revelation. Her eyes automatically flew to her vice-captain. Hinata was making faces at her brother and Kageyama, but she seemed to feel Aiya’s gaze. Straightening up, she said, half to the two of them and half to the rest of the team, “We probably need to leave before Coach actually kills us for disappearing without telling her. I’ll meet up with you in a bit, nii-chan, Tobio-nii.”
“You didn’t tell Coach, Hinata?!” Saito demanded, even as Hinata and Aiya began herding the rest of the team out of the stadium and waving goodbye to Hinata Shouyou and Kageyama Tobio. Aiya was looking for it this time, so she caught the amused glance that the two of them shared as Hinata snapped back at Saito. She still wasn’t entirely sure what it meant, but she thought she was beginning to get an idea. It made her smile.
It was one of the many events of the day that made her smile, actually, in an outcome she hadn’t been expecting when their team walked dejected off of the court for the last time. That loss—the final loss of Aiya’s high school volleyball career—already felt far away.
Aiya wasn’t sure yet what she planned to do with her future after she graduated high school in a couple of months. But if she never played volleyball again, or even if she played every day for the rest of her life, there still wouldn’t be a group of people that she would rather have gotten this far with than the ones standing beside her right now.
Hinata Shouyou and Kageyama Tobio were right, and Aiya wouldn’t have traded this day for anything.