The ball was dropping. It had been on its way over the net and now it was dropping. Yuu was watching it, hoping it hit the floor. Asahi had made the serve. Now the ball was on the opposite half of the court.
"Alright!" Yoichi yelled, simulating Nishinoya as best as he could. The ball hit his hands, close by the wrists and it went up easily.
Kimizuki got busy moving to where the ball's new dropping point was. He stood underneath and raised his hands to make the toss. Hinata was already on his way, racing to the right side at what seemed to be at the speed of light.
Yuu looked at the ones on his side of the net to see if they were reacting. He had been playing against Hinata enough that he would know that he would act as decoy from time to time. That meant you had to keep your eye on the other players too. At first it had been difficult to keep your eyes away from the fast moving redhead, but Yoichi had once told Yuu to think of it as being attacked by more than one vampire. That had sort of helped. Now Yuu could at least think far enough as to keep his attention on all players instead of just the one taking the spotlight.
Watching his teammates, Yuu noticed that Tsukishima and Asahi were reacting. He ran over to where Hinata was at to jump up with the others but Tsukishima shook his head. Yuu didn't understand why and therefore he just suddenly stopped and went back to watching the ball as it went to the left where Tanaka had also jumped up. He wanted to run to block but it was too late. Luckily Daichi was there to receive the ball and it went up. Yuu wasted no time as he quickly tried to locate the dropping point of the ball and went to make a toss from there.
As he stopped under the ball and raised his hands, Yuu wondered who to toss to. He would rather toss to Asahi because they got along well. Daichi was out of the picture because he'd received, he hadn't tried tossing to anyone else except Tsukishima once. He didn't like that guy though. But he had tossed to Asahi almost all the way throughout the entire game and he had already been blocked a large number of times by now.
Although he would never say it out loud, Yuu knew he wasn't always that smart, but he sometimes had moments when he became intelligent. Apparently this time was one of them. If it hadn't been, he would have probably tossed to Asahi again, but he decided against that and as the ball hit his fingertips, he pushed it up in the direction of where Tsukishima was standing.
This caught the Kimizuki-copy off guard, but thankfully, he managed to react in time to send the ball across the net and scoring another point for them.
As the ball hit the ground, the coach named Ukai blew the whistle and marked the end of the game and today's training.
"What were you doing?" Kimizuki asked. He, Yuu and Yoichi were standing outside the gym. They had finished cleaning up and were all now ready to go. Today was the last day before the practice game they had against the school, which name Yuu had forgotten.
"What do you mean?" Yuu asked.
"That last play," Kimizuki said. "You didn't look like yourself."
"Are you starting to see through the filter too?" Yoichi asked, sounding slightly concerned.
"Don't pretend you didn't notice too, Yoichi," Kimizuki said before he spoke to Yuu again. "You looked like you were actually thinking."
"Now that you mention it, I did notice that too," Yoichi agreed. "What was that, Yuu-kun?"
"I… That's because I was thinking!" Yuu exclaimed.
"Come again?" Kimizuki asked, not believing he had heard that right.
"I never knew it was possible for one to think so much in such a short time!" Yuu said. "I mean, I almost planned out the entire attack… or so it felt like. I managed to rule out all my options of who to send the toss to and make up my mind."
"Now if this could just be brought back to our world, that wouldn't be so bad," Kimizuki stated.
Yoichi chuckled. "That's true," he agreed.
They were all silent for a bit before Yoichi spoke up again.
"Do you think they'll be able to fix it before the game tomorrow?" he asked.
"Who knows…" Kimizuki muttered. "The game is late in the afternoon, so maybe."
"They'll fix it! I know they will!" Yuu smiled confidently. "We have a guy with brains replacing me so it'll be fine!"
"Time to go home!" Daichi called from a little further away. Hinata was already on his way to get his bike while looking over his shoulder at Kimizuki. Tanaka was standing with Daichi and watching them. Kimizuki, Yuu and Yoichi got busy walking up to them and then they said their goodbyes and went their separate ways.
While Yuu was walking with Daichi he thought of how the last week had been. He admitted there had been both ups and downs. He had managed to argue with Kimizuki once or twice, but it had occurred way less often than the first week. He had also gotten better at school. In Japanese he had managed to actually write down some notes of his own. But where he, Yoichi and Kimizuki had improved the most, without a doubt, was in volleyball. Everybody knew that they hadn't reached the level of the players they were replacing but they had managed to learn the basics of volleyball at least.
"Receive," Daichi suddenly said, breaking the silence.
"What?" Yuu asked, not understanding what he meant at first.
"Receive," Daichi repeated.
"R-E-C-E-I-V-E," Yuu spelled, now understanding what the other meant.
"Memorize," Daichi said now.
"M-E-M-O-R-I…" Yuu hesitated while thinking. "Z-E." he finished.
"Intelligence," Daichi said then.
"I-N-T-E-L-I-G-E-N-S-E," Yuu spelled and Daichi frowned.
"It's two l's and a c instead of an s," he said and then paused before he spoke again, changing the subject. "You may not be able to spell it, but you actually seem to possess some of it." He said.
"Huh?" Yuu asked. "I don't think anyone has ever said that to me before, not you, not Kimizuki, not stupid Guren either."
"Yeah, you are not the smartest one I know, when it comes to education at least. But you do have some sense inside that causes you to act intelligently at times." He said.
"I don't get it. Are you saying I'm smart or not?" Yuu asked.
Daichi thought. "Both," he decided. "There are different types of intelligence. There is the one you gain through education and the one you gain through experience, just as examples. You have gained some of the former, but you are still lacking it, but in the world you come from, I suppose it's not used a lot. But you do seem to have some of the latter, and more than some people I know. You revealed that in the last play today."
"Kimizuki and Yoichi did say it looked like I was thinking." Yuu said.
"Because you were. You were putting your intelligence to use." Daichi said. "I hope you'll remember how that feels if you return to your own world." He said.
"Are you losing faith in them?" Yuu asked.
Daichi turned his head to look at Yuu. "Of course not," he said, but then he didn't seem so certain. "At least not yet."
"I'm never losing faith!" Yuu exclaimed.
"Of course you aren't," Daichi answered, smiling at the cheerful energy Yuu was displaying. If the others ever managed to find a way to undo this, this energy was definitely something Daichi would miss.