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Chikara finds the existence of rest stops quite fascinating.
They tend to go unnoticed by the majority, invisible and nonexistent unless during times of dire. They stand on the side of the fast, ever-changing highway of society, coexisting within the ecosystem.
They’re always there, always inclined to assist travelers in need, but… People never seem to truly appreciate them. At least, not as much as one would think.
As their name goes, rest stops, people never truly mark them as their final destination. It's just a stop for people to take a moment to rest, maybe taking a dump or two and buying some intakes, but never truly more before they continue on their journey.
They’d say words of gratitude to no one in particular before leaving, and never mention anything of it once they reach their desired destination.
If said rest stop has quite the fancy accommodation and favorable services, it may receive some extra attention from the public, perhaps earning the title rest stop of the year or something. But still, no sane person would ever commit a long, tedious trip just to visit one singular rest stop, no matter the amount of love and care put into its construction, or the amount of fascinating architecture, if any, that was painstakingly invested into it.
It's funny, and sad, and perhaps an irony to think about, as Chikara often sees himself as a rest stop on his own.
He once considered his skill of having an all-rounded capability on many things a blessing. He’s the damage control, the peace amongst the chaos and the chaos of his own peace. He speaks with firm factualities, and gives advices as brutally raw as possible (To everyone else, at least. Still needs work on confronting himself).
Does that mean that he’s no longer appreciating his jack-of-all-trade-ness? No, obviously. But it does make him question whether people tend to keep him around for the sake of having him, or just for his skill asset.
(He thought that his inner turmoil was a comedy, and that his vision of seeing himself in something as odd as rest stops of all things is the joke, but when he thinks about it more…
Yeah, Chikara can definitely see himself as a human, glorified version of a rest stop.)
For every text from a friend asking him about the solution of a math equation, every girl who had greeted him in the hall before class and ran away with a slight pink on their cheek, or for every “Nice kill!” Nishinoya or Tanaka threw his way after a successful spike, all lead him down the same train of thought.
He fears it. He sometimes laughed, sometimes weeped at the thought. It may be a harsh title, a slap from reality for him, but it is sadly adequate.
Rest stops are for convenience, and everyone likes things that could offer them more of it. But convenience alone isn't enough to be one’s point of interest, as the multiples of old, shabby, abandoned stops across the country had taught him.
(Maybe one day, once his once-valued skills are helpless against the ever-changing demand from society, he’ll be as old and greasy as they are.)
For every time he walked down the hall during recess, trying to find a friend to listen to or to have a chat with while munching down his lunch, only to find all of them preoccupied with someone else. For everytime he saw Daichi-san’s impregnable defense, unyielding leadership overshadowing his own in any way possible.
People’s lives can become complicated in the absence of rest stops, but at the end of the day, just like everything else in the world, they’ll find something as its substitute. People adapt, and they adapt well. The absence of any lunch or snack shops can be easily negated by buying them prior to a journey. The need to take a dump every now and then can be… Minimalized, with extra precautions beforehand.
At the end of the day, or maybe in the far future, the need for rest stops are no longer a thing.
(The need for him will no longer be a thing)
Chikara finds the existence of rest stops, sadly, quite fascinating.