It was a chilly day, the ones in which the sun would shine but the biting wind blocked out all chances of warmth. The type of weather you would expect from the later end of summer, where things slowly started to slide into fall as leaves dried up and the grass crinkled under warm shoes.
But that was a long, long time ago.
That day, I was watching a crow from the window of the upstairs bedroom, having found myself with some mundane extra time and always willing to take a few moments to appreciate the beauty of nature. The bird itself was perched delicately on the utility pole that was planted central-right to my room, providing the perfect view of sharp beak coming through dark feathers as the crow preened. It looked up after a while, swerving it's head sharply to inspect it's surroundings in the way that birds do-but then...it seemed to look at me. A brief eye-lock that maybe lasted 2 seconds before the crow took off in a flurry of plumage.
I can clearly remember it squawking, the noise deep and familiar before taking off, heavy flaps of black wings meeting cold air, and finally it's shrinking dark figure as it disappeared into the distance.
In my serenity, I had jokingly thought about Karasuno, then instantly felt crushing sadness. It had ended, after all, and Lauren(my past best friend) and I were a bit...in denial. That is, if denial meant two teenage girls sobbing over a cup of cold hard soda and rewatching the anime three times.
There were many regrets.
There were many tears.
There were many whimpers of despair the next morning when I woke up with Lauren's arm across my face, chips sprinkled all over us, and realized that it was a Tuesday.
#yolonot
I sighed, and pushed off from the windowsill where I was bird watching to walk down the stairs and into the kitchen. Shivering slightly as the warm carpet faded to the cold tiles of the kitchen floor, I threw open the refrigerator door and groaned.
I forgot to get milk.
I forgot the freaking milk.
And apparently also bread, cereal, and Windex.
I threw on a thick coat, slipped in my shoes, closed the door behind me and started walking down the street, ready to do another supply run. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to make it to the store, because almost exactly three minutes and twenty seven seconds later, with the thought of the crow still on my mind,
(Oh God someone call the ambulance!
Hurts...it hurts...
Stop the bleeding!
NO! Don't touch it hurts goddamn it! It stings!
Fuck! Come over here!
Ahh...so many blurry people. They should calm down and slow down...
Weeeeeoooooooeeeeeeeeoooooo
It's coming!
Throbbing, everything's throbbing. It's so annoying...
Hang in there! Stay awake! Awake!
Eeeeeooooooooeeeeeeooooo
The noise is so loud. Can't they be more quiet? My head is ringing...
Oi! Can you hear me?! You're gonna be okay!
But it's getting dark...
Open your eyes! Stay awake!
It's too hard...I just wanna go to sleep...
Stop! Open your eyes! Open your ey-)
Because almost exactly three minutes and twenty seven seconds later, with the thought of the crow still on my mind,
I died.
Sugawara Koshi was born on the 13th of June in a remote hospital at the middle of a small town named Torono.
Healthy, screaming, and female-which took her parents by surprise as they were wholly expecting a boy(luckily, they had painted her room a nice, mellow, gender-neutral yellow). Although never the less, Sugawara Kazuno and Sugawara Akihiro loved their child from the moment they first cradled the small, wrinkly body in their arms, swathed in a thin pink blanket.
A few days later, once Kazuno and her newborn were discharged from the hospital, they were wheel-chaired to their house and the new mother happily introduced her unusually quiet child to her new home.
The baby herself, however, had a reason for not as joyful as her parents. In fact, she was more confused than anything because the last time she checked, she was a highschooler in her third year, had control of her limbs, seventeen years old, didn't feel the need to sleep 24/7-and, oh, let's not forget-dead.
Definitely not an infant in Japan who had just spent the past few months floating in a womb and re-experiencing birth.
It was pretty traumatic.
Everything here was new, different. Koshi's perception skills sucked and her head reeled tried to take it all in. But there was all the time for questions-that is, between constant naps as the sleepy days quickly turned into crisp months before she knew it. There wasn't much to do as a newborn, after all. She still had to finish developing.
Man was that a weird thought.
There were a...few problems that came up. Mainly regarding that fact that SHE HAD FREAKING DIED FOR GOD'S SAKE and OH MY DANCING WAFFLES I WAS REBORN. Then some mental breakdowns over MY FAMILY. LAUREN. MY FRIENDS. MY LIFE. I WAS ALMOST DONE WITH HIGHSCHOOL GODDAMIT.
Sometimes, yeah, it did get sad. But what can you do but accept and move on? It's not as if she could reverse time and fix her mistake in her death.
On the bright side, she have a better idea of life now. Previous knowledge. She had a clean slate and was in sense a entirely different person.
It was exciting.
And so, with a few struggles, she accepted the fact of her new life and was slowly became accustomed to the different perks and habits of it. So, for a while, she was fairly was a certain…freedom that came with being a child, and she felt strangely weightless at the prospect of not having any duties to fulfill. She didn't have to do anything, and anything she did could be excused with the fact that she was a baby(not that she did anything bad. She didn't want to cause trouble for her...new...parents). There was no expectation to reach, no pressure to succeed-all she really had to do was learn how to walk and talk.
It was different to say the least.
Time passed, and nearly a year into her existence, Koshi made a discovery that left her flabbergasted. Something that changed everything.
The first time she looked into a mirror.
Dusty gray hair that curled slightly at the ends framed light brown eyes tinted a light, almost unnoticeable slate color. A small mole dotted right underneath the left one topped it off, all set in a soft pale face, chubby with baby fat.
After a second of digging out information from her brain, Koshi connected all the dots that she didn't even think of before.
Her name, Sugawara Koshi.
The fact that she was in Japan.
Her face.
It...couldn't be, could it? Not to mention she didn't remember the vice captain of the Karasuno volleyball team being a girl.
'You've been reborn! Isn't that prove enough that this isn't impossible?' A small voice in her head said, and after a few days of mulling over this possibly extremely important information, she came to a decision.
Koshi decided to wait until she saw another sign. There was nothing she could prove with just her appearance, and it didn't help her any to chase her thoughts in circles trying to find out if this was canon or a AU-or maybe just a terrible coincidence. It didn't matter what it was, but if she saw another piece of evidence, she would assume she was in the Haikyuu world. As breathtakingly, awe-inspiring, and mind-boggling as it was.
She wouldn't get that evidence until almost two years later when watching the sports channel on TV. It was the Interhigh-Preliminaries for volleyball, and after a few matches, she finally saw Karasuno. Stepping up in their familiar dark blue-orange uniforms, a memory of a dream. It was a team completely unknown to her, but the school and name itself was proof enough. That night, when all the lights were shut off and her parent's breathing evened out as they drifted into the soft embrace of slumber, Koshi stayed awake. For a while, she just stared up at the ceiling, more than a little in shock.
After that, for hours, she pondered the future. What would be her role in the world? Strategies? Ideas? Plans? Until she finally fell asleep an hour before the sun started to rise on the horizon, thoughts still cycling in her brain.
She was a girl. The Karasuno that she knew was a male team. How did all the members even meet?! Oh god what if she screwed things up!?
However, how 'Koshi' would fit into the plot was just one of her worries.
Strangely, as she started to enter elementary school, she noticed that her personality started to change.
Before Koshi, she was Anna. Shy, optimistic, yet joke-loving Anna who had a pretty good sense of humor, if she did say so herself. Anna who tended to have the occasional mood swing, but a mainly agreeable people-pleaser personality. Anna who was a bit impatient, had stage fright, and a procrastinator who lazed around on her computer all day until the pressure finally got to her and she did her homework. Anna who sucked at dodge ball and hated gym, but actually did pretty well with soccer and volleyball. Anna who was a jack of all trades, but a master of none-although she could get fairly close to being one if she tried. Anna who was stubborn and loved reading and crooned over animals. Who was stressing over semester finals and worrying about friends while thinking of the best ways to try and manipulate those around her.
Anna, who was now Koshi, yet not at the same time.
Because Koshi had different genes than Anna, but Anna was the brain inserted into the body of Koshi. It was all a little confusing, but went something like this-a lot of your personality comes from your family, your body, your genetics. Koshi was fairly different from Anna. Koshi was soothing, thought of others, encouraging, dedicated, perceptive, and mainly had one general side. On the contrary, Anna was awkward, honestly rather selfish, sly, and had two sides. The meek, timid, indifferent student and the happy, lively, humorous friend.
This wasn't Anna's body anymore. It was Koshi's. And Koshi's body came with DNA that made up the basics of Koshi's personality.
So, to find a compromise, Anna's mind and Koshi's body started to slowly, gradually merge together. The effects weren't obvious because of how unhurriedly the process happened, but if you compared Koshi from high school to Koshi from elementary, you would find a large difference. But lets not get to ahead of our selves right now, the story needs to be told from the start.
You'll be highly mistaken if you thought that Koshi's tale started in high school. Oh no, there was much more to the vice captain and senior setter of Karasuno. Much more, especially now that she had a different mind.
And it all started out with a sunny August day.
