Hello sweets
How are you? I really hope you are doing well!
Can you please if I'm not bothering you have number 8 with Wakatoshi?
reqs are open :)
8. larger than fiction
ushijima; 1,283 words; fluff, one-sided love, but it's literally not angst. just trust me on this one lol.
when you think of superheroes, you do not think of him.
you do not think of the way his raw strength and power might be a blessing from the gods. you do not think of how his absolute trust and knowledge in his own abilities might be thrust upon him by some careless divinity. you do not think he was chosen or birthed into this world with his one purpose already pressed into the curves of his body, the lines of his hands.
“uwah… wakatoshi-kun is really blessed, isn’t he?”
you blink, looking up from your sideways phone, propped up on your desk, playing the newest mv of the latest boyband debut.
“he is?”
this time, its your friend who blinks back at you, stuttering.
“you… you don’t think so?”
you quirk your lips, eyes sliding back to the mv, where a boy with cherry lips and fire-engine hair is winking at the camera.
“no. not really,” you say, taking a long sip of your half-finished strawberry milk, thinking back to the events of the past summer.
b-bam! thump-thump-thump. b-bam!
“out,” you say, squinting at the place where the ball had landed, just a hair’s-breath beyond the line. by the time you look back up, he is already standing back, another ball in his hands.
“one more,” he says, as he tosses, his heels rocking back for a second before he takes his first step, and then another. you watch as he jumps, his entire body a defiance, a motion against the pull of the earth, the laws of gravity — he reaches up with a hand drawn behind his head and when he swings it forward to meet the falling arc of the ball, you swear the earth beneath you shudders.
b-bam!
ushijima lets out a breath, looking up at you from the other side of the fluttering net, and you wonder briefly if you were to map out all the different parts of him onto a gridded scale, parse him out into perfect squares, which bits might be the ones that contain all that strength, all that perseverance. and then, you laugh to yourself, nodding as you shoot him a thumbs up to signal — good, this last one was good.
he smiles, nods, and walks back to the baseline.
what a stupid question, you think, because the answer is, and has always been, obvious —
all of him.
in the hallway, the bell rings.
“ah… isn’t it a little sad?”
“what, that that volleyball-idiot ushiwaka doesn’t even realize that the prettiest girl in our year is in love with him?”
“yeah… i mean, really — how thick can he be? poor girl.”
you finish your strawberry milk and click off your phone.
“nee — you wanna come watch a movie with us tonight?”
you flash your well-meaning friend a smile, but you shake your head.
“sorry. i’ve got plans.”
b-bam! thump-thump-thump. b-bam!
“again,” he says, already picking up another ball.
outside, the sun has long since set, and the moon and stars have shed their cloaks of silver-kissed clouds. the night is deep and dark and laden with the sweet promises of youth — out there, teenagers just like you are laughing, eating popsicles, trading texts, watching movies, chatting about the latest manga updates, but here, it’s just you and him and one more ball.
briefly, you think of the walk home later, of how he’ll diligently walk on the outside of the sidewalk, of how he’ll watch to make sure you close the door before he’ll turn and leave. you think of how the following morning, he’ll be there at 7:45am right on the dot, and how he’ll bow to your mom as she thanks him for taking care of you.
b-bam! thump-thump-thump. b-bam!
“and… that’s one hundred!” you say, smiling wide as you reach out to pick up the scattered volleyballs around you, tossing them at him one at a time, watching as he diligently returns each to the large blue ball-bin with a dig. the ones he misses, he picks up to toss back to you, so he can try again.
“thanks,” he says, when the two of you have finished locking up the gymnasium, turning towards the main road where the bus stop is. out here, girls giggle in pastel pleated skirts, lips glittering with strawberry-flavored gloss. out here, boys gather in clusters to hype each other up before shoving one of them towards a group of giggling girls. out here, the summer ebbs and flows, crests and crashes against the jagged reefs of oncoming adulthood, and ushijima walks beside you, one hand on his sports bag, the other tucked into his jersey pocket.
“no problem,” you say, as you get to your front door and he stills to wait for you to walk away. you grin, waving a hand over your shoulder, “same time tomorrow?”
“un.”
you do not turn to check if he’s still watching.
months later, when they lose to karasuno, you don’t tell him you’re sorry, or that he did the best he could.
because both of you know that his strength and power comes not from the gods, but from uncountable hours of condition-training, and that his absolute trust and knowledge of his own abilities comes not from divinity, but from an entire lifetime of trying and failing, and trying again until failure is no longer a word in his dictionary.
because neither of you think that he was chosen for this, because you know that this is the choice, and that he is the maker. and that every morning, he wakes up to make it, again, and again, and again.
because he is not a superhero, so this losing is not a tragedy.
because he is not a superhero, and this is just one more tally on the calluses and tick-marks that mar his hands from the number of times he’s fallen and gotten back up again to find that you were right there by his side.
“tonight,” he says on the bus-ride back to school, where goshiki is sniffling next to a perplexed tendou, where shirabu is methodically un-taping each of his fingers, he turns to you with a steady, hard-lined look in his eyes.
“we practice a hundred more spikes.”
you nod, leaning against the back of your seat with a soft smile.
“alright,” you say, you don’t need to look to know that he’s smiling too.
“thank you,” he says, when, after some unnamable hours of spike-practice, you’re finally locking up for the day.
“yeah, of course,” you say.
“you… you’re my best friend,” he says. on your usual walk home, the main street is quiet for once, because it’s so damn late. you wonder if your parents will be worried, but then again, they know who you’re with, so they’ve no reason to be anyway.
“yeah,” you say, “i know.”
you turn to find him looking at you, and you wonder if you were to parse yourself into perfect squares, which bits of you ushijima would be most afraid of losing. and the answer comes, obvious, as the stars that shine bright in the night —
all of you.
because he is not a superhero, and you have never needed anyone’s saving.
because he is just a boy, who’s first and only love is the sport he plays. and you’re just a girl, who wouldn’t have him any other way.
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