Takeda has always been a weak person, both then and now. 8 out of the first 8 years of his life has been spent in the hospital, with the sick stench of antibodies and medication filling his nose, body hooked up to tubes, tubes, and more tubes that kept him alive. His parents had encouraged him to exercise often back then – to strengthen his pathetic self – mainly because they are doctors, and they know other doctors who specialize in areas like Takeda who said that exercise is good for him.
Having been hooked up to an IV (more like five) and left to lie on white pristine sheets for the better part of his childhood, Takeda finds himself exhilarated that he is able to move.
It starts off as fifteen minutes on the treadmill, the kind they have in the rehabilitation part of the hospital. It moves on to laps around the hospital compound, five laps in the morning, to ten in the morning, to ten in the morning and ten at night, until Takeda is running fifty laps every day, occasionally more, never less. He relishes the burning ache in his muscles and the breathless feeling in his lungs that makes him feel like dying. It excites him and makes his heart pound faster than ever before, because every time he is gasping for air and feels Death's hand clutch around his heart, it just further asserts his mortality, that Takeda's heart is alive and working and cannot be determined by the monotone beeps or jagged measurements on the screen of a machine.
Takeda, playful and mischievous with unruly black hair, steals an athlete's training regimen at the age of 7, when he is on another escapade in the hospital. The strange kanji that he doesn't understand makes his heart pump and beat faster, because more strange words mean cooler stuff to learn, and the sparkle in his eyes burn brighter than ever. Even if he doesn't understand the words, what Takeda does understand is that they will make him stronger, better, make him feel alive. He consults his mother, one of the doctors in the hospital (both his parents work in the hospital that he is admitted in, Takeda practically spends every living hour in the building with the white-washed walls), and she slowly explains to him what they are, even roping his father in to demonstrate. Together, the two of them manage to make their son's eyes light up and his mouth form an excited smile because wow I never knew that there was anything other than running. He includes it in his daily exercise, and slowly but surely, Takeda's weak body isn't so weak anymore.
Once, another doctor – Iemitsu-sensei – takes Takeda's very own handwritten "training regimen", and Takeda is angry and embarrassed all at once, of his scratchy failures of copied out kanji and the random doodles around the paper that he did while he was bored. Iemitsu-sensei raises the paper above his head with his arm outstretched, all 190 centimeters and a bit, and Takeda can't do anything but frown helplessly when Iemitsu-sensei starts laughing. The entirety of his childish ego is bruised black and blue, and Takeda swears that the redness of his face is caused by the lighting. He knows that Iemitsu-sensei is just playing with him – Takeda is 8, going on 9, and his whole life has been spent in the hospital, and all the doctors there are like his relatives. But that doesn't excuse the fact that Takeda is embarrassed beyond belief, and so, with the only goal in mind being retrieving his paper, Takeda jumps.
He sails clean over Iemitsu-sensei's 190 cm and a bit, taking advantage of the way Iemitsu-sensei's grip slackens to rip the paper out of his hand, and land safely behind Iemitsu-sensei. (Takeda tumbles and rolls on the floor a bit, but he says nothing, not when Iemitsu-sensei looks so impressed).
"Well then," Iemitsu-sensei says, amused and intrigued, eyes twinkling like the stars in the sky as he crouches down to the 130 cm boy in front of him. Takeda is short for his age, but to be able to jump like that… "Maybe we should add star jumps and the like to this." He fishes a pen out of his bottomless pocket (Takeda swears that all doctors' pockets are bottomless, they're like voids, empty holes of space that can contain everything and nothing. They can pull anything out of them. He's even met one who pulled a Coke out of pockets. A Coke!) and scribbles something down at the bottom of Takeda's paper in that cursive doctor font that none but fellow doctors and nurses can read. Iemitsu-sensei smiles and ruffles Takeda's hair, before strolling off to do whatever it is that doctors do. Takeda stares at his leaving back, before glancing down at his edited training regimen and beams, because new thing to do!
As the days pass, there comes a time where Takeda can now cleanly sail over Morino-sensei, who is 205 cm and a bit. Everyone oohs and aahs at this show, and Takeda basks in all the attention because really, who'd expect a sickly child to be able to turn into this? And Takeda is no longer sickly, of course, he's a strong boy now, and he can jump.
The first time Takeda touches a volleyball, he swears that he's seen the light, found a new god, a new religion, and everything in his life has finally fallen into place like he's found the missing puzzle piece.
It's in middle school, and his class is currently having a volleyball module for physical education. The volleyball is heavy and hard and lands on his forearms with a silent "thunk" that rings in his ears and makes his blood sing in his veins, because just a gentle hit of the ball and the ball can soar over the net and what not. It's amazing and beautiful, and every time Takeda serves and scores a point with his serve, it's like he lives.
But that's just receiving, and when it comes to spiking, Takeda thinks that this, this is what he was born for, what he was meant to live for.
And when his friend – Sasori is a good friend, the best of friends, the one in a million, but Takeda is biased when it comes to him, because Sasori is willing to set balls for Takeda long into the night after school, just because Takeda asks for it – sets the ball a tad too high, and Izumi-sensei is shaking his head while telling Takeda to leave it, the ball's too high for you to reach, Takeda smiles, grins, beams with all the force of a rising sun and
Jumps.
The ball hits the palm of his hand snugly, and it feels like coming home. It stings and rings and the pain makes his hand throb, even as he lands from that amazing jump (he rose above the net! He could see past it, see the dumbstruck faces of his classmates that used to tease him about his height!) and Takeda can't keep the brilliant smile off his face. That jump was one of his better ones, and judging by the look on Izumi-sensei's face, Izumi-sensei is amazed.
When Takeda gets pulled aside by Izumi-sensei after class, he whole-heartedly accepts the club application that Izumi-sensei pushes into his hands, and laughs care freely as he stares at the disbelieving faces of the volleyball club when he hands in his application later. Izumi-sensei is chattering excitedly with the coach – Coach Asuma, if Takeda's memory serves him right – and Takeda can hear smatterings of "amazing, I swear… Never seen anyone jump like that… the future of the club…" amidst the conversation. Coach Asuma looks at him calculatedly, and beckons towards the setter of the first string, telling him to set a ball for Takeda. The setter stares at the boy who is a good two heads shorter than him, and snorts, looking back to the coach as if saying really? Him?
Takeda can tell when someone is going easy on him, and when the setter purposefully sets an easy and low ball, Takeda refuses to hit it. Coach Asuma sees it too, and pulls the setter out to give him an earful. When the setter returns, all scowly and angry at the kouhai bouncing on his feet before him, he gives a particularly nasty ball that spins out of control and in the wrong direction.
Takeda is elated, because his hours of fifty laps a day and pushups and sit-ups and crunches and star jumps and what not can finally be put to good use, so he dashes from one end of the court to the other and jumps, smashing the ball down onto the opposite court with a satisfying crash that leaves the setter's jaw hanging. Takeda is laughing and jumping as he bounds over to Izumi-sensei and shoots off about that one hit and how it felt against his palm. Coach Asuma is scribbling something down furiously on his clipboard and his eyes dart over to Takeda's 140 cm and a bit – still short for his age – and he murmurs something low and quick to the captain.
All of a sudden, everyone is surrounding him and towering over him with their impressive 150 cm and above, which makes Takeda feel all the more elated because everyone is just so tall! And the club is talking about moves and signs and secret weapons and decoys, a conversation that Takeda can barely keep up with, but nods excitedly anyways because he's going to learn it all and he'll be part of something that actually appreciates him, and won't laugh at him about his height.
On a normal basis, anyways, the moment he jumps, people shut up about how short he is.
Takeda is extremely proud about the way he helps bring his school, his team, his team, to the nationals, and help them clinch the top trophy, even by a teeny bit because really, all their opponents were scarily good, but that just makes Takeda's heart pump even faster and adrenaline to shoot through his veins at blinding speeds. They won, they won, and Takeda was part of the team that helped them win. His parents are so, so proud of him, and so is Iemitsu-sensei and all the other doctors that watched the match on television, or the recorded one that his parents brought back to pass around the hospital. Takeda takes this brilliant feeling of euphoria and victory and holds it, memorizes it, files it away some place important in his mind, and vows to play volleyball again when he goes to high school. Volleyball is as easy as breathing, but as important too, and it's practically a bodily function and necessity to play volleyball now.
In high school – Karasuno High School to be exact – Takeda joins the volleyball club again, and earns the name of The Small Giant because of his height, and his jumping prowess. Everything is fine and dandy in the club, and Takeda even experiences his first loss, against this one school called Nekoma or something, and apparently it was this big battle of the trash masters, crow versus cat, something Takeda really didn't understand because really? Crow versus cat? Why not eagle versus lion or something?
But all the first loss does is make the blood in his veins sing and his determination spike even further, as loss is painful and the taste of it burns his tongue but at the same time, it is oh so delicious. It is real and tangible and as bitter as the sweat running down his face and Takeda smiles, which kind of creeps out his teammates and Nekoma a bit, but who cares? Takeda is delighted that he has found a worthy opponent, and his teammates back him up with their own way of expressing support and determination, and together they make their way to the nationals again.
This time, this time it's different, because high school is a totally different level from middle school, and the aura is much deadlier, thicker, and it presses down on Takeda like it's trying to suffocate him, but all Takeda does is inhale it in with a smile on his face, already bouncing on his toes with excitement. It's unusual for a first year to be made the ace, but Takeda embraces the title, along with The Small Giant, of course, and he makes Karasuno High School a name to be known and feared.
They lose, but there's always next year.
Next year, Takeda is hungry for victory, eyes bright and shining as he shows the world how The Small Giant takes flight with the black crow wings on his back that helps him soar. He has grown, but is merely 164 cm, even with his growth spurt of 14 cm. It was something amazing, shooting up from 150 cm to 164 cm, but in comparison to the 170 cm to 190 cm and a bit of his teammates, Takeda is still the shortie of the team. They bulldoze their way to the nationals, fighting tooth and nail akin to one of the trash battles of real animals, like stray cats, and they make it to the finals.
But the finals is where it all goes down, when the opponent spikes a ball that veers off course and Takeda dives to hit it, receive it and keep it off the ground, but it hits him straight on the head and knocks him unconscious. A spiked ball travels at an unimaginable speed, and one knock to the head doesn't bode well for the small teen. He hears some screams and shouts, feels something shaking him and it faintly registers in his mind as his captain, his sempai, and Takeda tries to smile and say "go and win" but his voice and vocal chords and voice box fails him, and everything goes black.
Takeda wakes up to see white-washed walls and pristine white sheets, with nothing in his mind, except a name and a ball rolling around in the blank darkness of his memory. The ball is white and blue, round, firm and hard, and Takeda feels a ache in his heart when he tries to reach out to it. It's there, so close, almost within reach, but not quite there.
An unfamiliar face walks into the room, tear streaks drying on her face, and she introduces herself as Takeda's mother, and Takeda feels the stirrings of memories, a bright smile and ruffling of hair, with the murmur of pushups and movement and playing. His mind may not recognize her, but his body does, and he instinctively reaches towards her, even though he is sixteen and a teenager, not a child that cries for his mother every time he has a nightmare. Takeda breaks down nonetheless, not crying for his lack of memories, or his confusion with the world, but mourning for the smiling black haired boy that appears in his mind in flashes, the boy that was Takeda Before.
When he learns about volleyball, his past life, his club and sempai and kouhai and the nationals and The Small Giant, Takeda dubs the laughing black haired boy as The Small Giant, no longer Takeda Before. And Takeda aches, aches to touch a volleyball again, feel that harsh sting on his palm with that beautiful sound of coming home, but he classifies volleyball as The Small Giant's forte and territory, and he has no place to try and take that title from Takeda Before. Takeda is different from The Small Giant, and volleyball was part of his life, and Takeda cannot, will not, take that one last beautiful memory of nationals from the smiling black haired boy.
He decides to go back to school, to Karasuno High School, and relives his life, staying far, far away from the bouncing sounds of balls hitting floor boards and the swish of the net in the gym, ignoring the sting in his heart and ache in his palms because empty palms aren't home.
Takeda tries to forget about volleyball, and as the years go by, it doesn't work out.
He grows up to become a teacher, and returns to teach at his alma mater, wanting to give back to the brilliant school that had made and broken him, but put him back together in the end. Takeda still exercises, and has a volleyball right at the back of his cupboard, and whenever he feels like crying, he just takes it out and spins it in his hand, reciting all the roles of a volleyball team under his breath, hurried and fast, and everything comes to his lips like he's been reciting it all his life. But he never plays volleyball, never receives, never spikes, never sets, and sometimes he feels like crying.
When the principal tells Takeda that he has to be in charge of a club, his mind instantly shoots to volleyball, but he shakes it out of his mind and requests for a list of available clubs. Two days later, the principal tells him that he is now officially the new teacher in charge of the volleyball club. He is shocked and uneasy, but later finds out that it was his mother who sent the application in, trying to get Takeda to find that one constant love in his life again.
Takeda agrees, reluctantly, trying to shove his excitement and desire beneath layers and layers of stop no don't do that you're digging your own hole. The first time he goes to the gym, he is greeted by a tall boy – taller than him – with black hair, and a boy with silver hair and a mole under his left eye. Coach Ukai welcomes him into the group, and reminds Takeda fondly of Coach Asuma, stern and harsh but a huge teddy bear hidden under all those layers of stern. There is a tall boy with long hair and filled with awkwardness, a first year with no hair – at least, he looks that way, it was probably just a shave – and a boy shorter than him with yellow hair amidst the black.
A year passes by, and all of a sudden, only four people are left, one Sawamura Daichi, Sugawara Koushi, Tanaka Ryunosuke and Nishinoya Yū. Azumane Asahi has sort of left, and with four people, there is no team. Takeda tries to boost the low team spirit, and encourages them in whatever way he can. When the two first years come, they shock Takeda, because they're what the team needs, and the short one with orange hair is everything that The Small Giant used to be.
Two more first years join, and some second years come back, and soon everything is fine and dandy, because they have enough people, and Takeda has managed to convince Coach Ukai's grandson, another Coach Ukai, to come to Karasuno and coach the boys. Everyday they train, and train hard, and the boys are getting stronger and more powerful and maybe this, this is what a coach must feel like, Takeda thinks. Proud and delighted and bursting at the seams when he sees his boys shine and fly and grow and soar. It reminds him so fondly of his own team, smiling boys and laughing teens as they gather together and hold the trophy high above their heads and peace signs in the air, Takeda riding on the shoulders of the tallest member. It is the one sole picture on his table top, framed with gold edges and glass flowers. It is beautiful and perfect, and he can see his team reflected in the team that he helps now.
"Sensei!" Hinata yells, bouncing and bounding and exploding with happiness, running up to him. "Wanna try playing volleyball?"
Takeda explodes into a blush, because he's stayed away from his obsession for so long, so so long and now, it's right there in his reach. The other members are nodding and grinning, beckoning towards him, and Takeda slowly walks towards the net. The beautiful net and the wonderful, delightful, amazing volleyball that once was his life. He tries to deny the offer, but a push of Coach Ukai (who really is so much bigger than him) and he is sent sprawling over to the net.
"It's really easy, sensei!" Nishinoya grins, holding his hands out. "To receive, you whoosh, boom, pow!" And Nishinoya carries out a perfect receive, the ball glancing off his forearms silent and quiet, straight to Sugawara. Takeda laughs, nodding along and pushing his glasses up while the other members look on with either fondness or irritation at the shortest boy on the team, because really, what kind of explanation is that to their sensei? Sawamura hits Nishinoya on the head, offering to re-explain it to Takeda with proper, understandable explanations, but Takeda just laughs and says that it's okay. He remembers the feel of a ball bouncing off his forearms, the silent hit and reflect, and Takeda doesn't need to relearn it.
It's Kageyama's turn, and stumbling over his words and he tries to explain it to his sensei, he mumbles "you just wait for it to land and then you hit it." Now it's Sugawara to hit Kageyama, because honestly, that explanation doesn't explain anything. How to hit it? Land where? Hit how? But Takeda just laughs again, because of muscle memory burning in his veins, thrumming through his muscles, and he remembers.
Hinata bounces around eagerly as he tries to teach Takeda how to spike, going on and on about Sensei, Sensei, when the ball hits the snug of your palm and Takeda understands, because it feels like coming home. All three of them demonstrate, and soon it's Takeda's turn.
He receives the ball like he's always done it, like there hasn't been a three year and more gap from the last time he played volleyball. Nishinoya oohs and aahs over him with punches of Sensei are you sure this is the first time you're playing volleyball? Takeda laughs and rubs his head, saying "I played it, a long time ago," and Nishinoya nods like he's known it all along.
Takeda isn't as good as Kageyama or Sugawara, but he likes to think that he can set pretty well, and the ball flies true through the air, and Hinata smashes it down into the other court. Takeda shivers a little at the loud bang, because that used to be the melody running through his mind when he was feeling frustrated. The sound of a ball being smashed down into the opponent's court to score a point is the best thing Takeda has ever heard.
Kageyama spikes for Takeda, high above his head, but Hinata scares him at the last minute and the ball veers off course, flying higher and diagonal and Sugawara is saying "Ah, Sensei, that was a bad throw, don't hit it-"
But Takeda hears nothing. There is a ball high in the air, he is on the court, the lights are on him. It's just him, the court, the net, the ball, and the squeak of his shoes on the court as he runs forward, hands behind him, the throb of his heart ringing in his years, his eyes fixated on the ball. Now, for one pure, perfect moment, he is not Takeda-sensei, he is Takeda Before, The Small Giant of Karasuno High School and he jumps.
Black crow wings unfurl and spread behind him, helping him to fly.
The ball hits his palm, that resounding, perfect slam that leaves his palm stinging and blood burning. It hits the opposing court, just at the edge, spinning on the ground before bouncing off and hitting the wall. It is one of his better shots, at the edge where practically no one can save, not even the best libero in Japan of his time, and Takeda beams like there's no tomorrow. It's beautiful and awe-inspiring and perfect, and Takeda wonders how he had been able to resist the lure of this wonderful sport for so, so long.
It feels like Takeda Before has forgiven him, merged with him, and Takeda has no qualms about playing volleyball now. It is in his muscles, in his blood, throbbing through his veins and addling his mind.
There is a deafening silence in the gym, punctuated by the bouncing of the volleyball. Takeda breathes, deep and breathless, and doesn't turn around to face his students.
And suddenly Hinata is jumping on him, eyes shining and mouth open as he rattles on about Sensei, Sensei and so is Nishinoya, the third years are staring dumbstruck at him, because that shot was so close to the boundary and it was planned? Tanaka looks torn between celebrating and crying tears of awe, and Kageyama is trembling in the spot. Tsukkishima and Yamaguchi have their jaws on the floor, and Takeda laughs, happy and joyous and delirious and perfect, going crazy with the adrenaline still burning in his body.
But Coach Ukai has his eyes wide and he's vibrating, feet moving robotically to Takeda. He stops right in front, towering over Takeda and Hinata and Nishinoya, and in a trembling voice, breathless and desperate, says "Small Giant?"
The whole team freezes, and Hinata's eyes dart furiously from Coach Ukai's shaking form and wide eyes to Takeda's red face and breathless form. "Sensei?"
"Maybe," Takeda finally says, looking up and grinning, and shrugging Hinata off him. When Hinata tries to grab Takeda back while exploding and mumbling "Small Giant, Small Giant" over and over again, Takeda dances out of his reach, eyes laughing and mouth curving up, a hand reaching up to push his glasses up. Coach Ukai is gasping and his mouth opens and closes like he's a dying fish, and Takeda laughs, bright and happy, because yes, he is The Small Giant!
Takeda might have forgotten the glory, the lights, the fame of being The Small Giant, but he will never forget volleyball.