Warning: This fic contains numerous manga spoilers, meta-humor, and cursed Fullmetal Alchemist references. Read at your own risk.
I wrote this spur-of-the-moment in a HoshiHina fit: on paper, in a dark room, at night, with the power out…. (To watch my embarrassing attempt to read the original handwriting, visit my YouTube channel, Stylin' Breeze.)
"Can I just ask you something?" Gao began after the game.
"Hm?" Kourai skeptically raised an eyebrow.
"What was with that teary outburst earlier?" said Hakuba, giggling.
"Huh?" Hoshiumi gawped, not getting the picture until Kanbayashi playfully reenacted Hoshiumi's farewell declaration to Karasuno's middle blocker.
"'I'll be waiting for you, Shouyou Hinata.'" Now the whole team settled into varying degrees of laughter.
"What?" Hoshiumi protested.
"What do you expect?" team captain Suwa chuckled.
"Tell me. Were you relieved like the rest of us when Karasuno's #10 was taken off the court or heartbroken?" Nozawa teased.
"You wouldn't understand," said Hoshiumi, prudishly folding his arms.
"It must be a thing between shorties," jabbed Hakuba with a vicious smile.
"Hey!" Hoshiumi seethed.
Suwa patted his talented kouhai's back.
"Just because you're the Fullmetal Alchemist doesn't mean we don't appreciate you." Kourai shook irritably at being compared to the height-sensitive protagonist.
"If he's Edward, what does that make Karasuno's #10? Alphonse?" Nozawa posed.
"Or Winry," Keiichirou snickered.
"I will transmute you all to mush!" Hoshiumi protested.
"OK, OK," Suwa clapped to tamp down on the fun. "We got to get moving for tomorrow."
"Maybe Shouyou Hinata will be waiting for you in the stands," the libero started again.
Hirugami giggled quietly.
"Don't those guys understand anything?" Kourai kicked the brick of the hotel foundation that evening, then hopped up and down from the pain in his toe.
"They jest because they respect you," Sachirou assured. "Only you could pull off a total anime moment like that," he grinned before his smile turned sinister. "Heck, if this were an anime, you two would be so shippable."
"Ugh, you're gross. Worse than Gao," he frowned, recalling his peer's ill-advised attempt to push the Fullmetal Alchemist metaphor by proposing turning Hinata and Hoshiumi into a chimera like Nina and Alexander—a suggestion met by grumbles and groans.
"You read all that manga. You know about rivals."
"OK, sure," Hirugami laughed. "But I get what you're after. Both of you are trying to prove yourselves, and he feels like a copycat, right?"
Hoshiumi didn't like the laying bare of his psyche, particularly coming from someone who wasn't himself.
"You wanted the game to prove something, and I think it did, just not to you." He was referring to Hinata's statement that he no longer wished to claim the name of "Little Giant". Hoshiumi reacted none to kindly to the casual casting away of the moniker.
"Who does he think he is?" Hoshiumi griped.
Hirugami sensed his friend's conflict here. "The Little Giant" was a cool title, and Hoshiumi had been recognized as better than the former holder. Yet Shouyou Hinata hailed from the same school as the original, which surely meant he should fight for it even more than Hoshiumi, right?
There was another piece too: Kourai Hoshiumi couldn't claim to be the standard-bearer of proving height wasn't required to succeed in volleyball as long as Shouyou Hinata stood in the way.
"What are you going to do if he never faces you again?" Hirugami asked.
"He will," Hoshiumi contradicted simply, and Hirugami politely smiled.
.
In the Inter-High, Kamomedai advanced to nationals, but Karasuno didn't.
In the following Spring Tourney, Karasuno advanced to nationals.
Kamomedai didn't.
The ball hit the floor. Ambient crowd applause erupted through Kourai's headphones. The Miya Twins engaged in a shoulder-to-shoulder bump at victory.
Karasuno had lost.
"Stupid Miyas," grumbled Kamomedai's ace.
He took off his headphones and rolled flat on the bed. He'd watched every one of Karasuno's games at the Spring Tournament. He hid what he was doing from the team to avoid annoying questions and comments, although stupid Hirugami saw right through it. Everyone else may have forgotten that silly declaration of Kourai's to be waiting for Shouyou. Kourai hadn't.
Instead, Shouyou Hinata had come to nationals searching for him, but contrary to Kourai's word, he wasn't there.
Hirugami texted him a simple hello.
"What's up?" Kourai typed back, hoping to sound nonchalant and conceal his depression.
"I saw Karasuno's game. How are you feeling?"
Hirugami's intuition got on Hoshiumi's nerves. When he didn't text back, Hirugami called.
"What?" Kourai answered irritably.
"Nothing. I just know you. You're upset that Inarizaki beat them and not you."
"And?" he pretended it wasn't on the money.
"Nothing. Just hoped to cheer you up with some ice-cream."
Not feeling like wallowing, Hoshiumi bit the bullet and forced himself up. When he got to the parlor, he was amazed to see someone accompanying Sachirou though: his older brother Fukurou.
Fukurou Hirugami started professional volleyball last year, but thankfully he wasn't so well known that being seen in public with him risked a fiasco.
"Hey, Hoshiumi—or should I say, 'Little Giant'?" Fukurou began in a way that felt unintentionally patronizing. Kourai's frown was unmoved by the flattery.
They ordered, and Kourai scarfed down his treat while the brothers chatted. (Why couldn't Akitomo be as nice as Sachirou's older bro, he wondered.)
"Hoshiumi, I'm very sorry about the finals. What are your plans now?" the professional player suddenly asked.
Kourai bit hard on the spoon.
"To go pro," he stated without hesitation.
"You have the guts to say that to a pro, but the scary thing is I think you really mean it," Fukurou laughed and fished out a business card. "Think about how hard you want it, and then give me a call. I have a few connections."
Staring at the card, Hoshiumi couldn't believe what had just happened. It was so sudden. Here was a ticket to go professional, to chase his dream of taking the volleyball world by storm.
But what was the point? He felt like he had unfinished business, like he had let his fated rival down. Was Hinata disappointed when he got to Tokyo and found Hoshiumi wasn't there, as disappointed as Hoshiumi was in the Inter-High?"
But that was the past. Hoshiumi was leaving high school in a couple of months. Maybe it was indeed time to move on….
"Sorry for setting you up like that," Sachirou texted later, "but I thought it'd get you out of your funk."
Once again, Kourai hated how intuitive (or should he say nosy) Sachirou was, and he hoped his brother Fukurou wasn't the same.
"It's fine. I'm going to do it," he texted back.
"Sure you're not going to think about it more?"
"Of course I am! And I'm going to say yes!" he replied as if those two positions could be held in tandem.
"OK," Hirugami texted back, wearing an airy smile on his side of the phone screen.
.
Hoshiumi became pro.
The next year, he attentively followed Shouyou Hinata's rise through nationals until Karasuno's defeat at the hands of Itachiyama.
And then, Shouyou Hinata vanished from the face of the earth….
"Kageyama! What happened to that middle blocker you used to set for?"
A bitter scowl formed on Tobio's face at the very impetuous first question from his new teammate, Kourai Hoshiumi.
With an unreadable air of contempt but begrudging respect, Kageyama answered, "I don't know."
If Sachirou were there, he would have noticed it (and likewise Fukurou did notice it), but Hoshiumi deflated. A rush of other, more appropriate greetings followed from the rest of the Schweiden Adlers, Kageyama's new team.
Hoshiumi slinked to a corner of the locker room and started getting changed for the first practice with the new recruit. Even so, his mind was stuck on the "Greatest Decoy" of last season, who made no appearance anywhere in the volleyball world since graduating high school.
I'm still waiting, Shouyou Hinata, so where are you?
"So, tell me," Fukurou said, eyeing the moping wing spiker. "What's so special about Shouyou Hinata?"
Kourai didn't expect that name to come out of the new vice-captain's mouth, and doubtlessly he learned it from Sachirou. Why were brothers always conspiring against Kourai Hoshiumi?
"I hate siblings so much," Hoshiumi retorted.
"I don't know where that came from, but I'll drop the subject!" Fukurou chortled, sensing the discomfort the question produced, and the vice-captain never brought it up again.
Kourai Hoshiumi made a real name for himself with the Schweiden Adlers, very much bolstered by the undeniable talent of setter Tobio Kageyama.
And then a familiar face resurfaced, first in a social media post with current Argentina player Tooru Oikawa, and then, again, obscurely in the beach volleyball scene in Brazil.
Hearing Shouyou Hinata had switched to beach volleyball made Kourai privately panic. Had he moved on? Beyond their fated rivalry, more importantly had Shouyou Hinata abandoned the quest to prove those not blessed with height can excel at indoor volleyball?
But that discovery drove Hoshiumi to excel even more. The Little Giant Kourai Hoshiumi rocked the Japanese professional world. But amidst all that glory, he'd tell himself later that he only forgot about Shouyou Hinata for a split second.
Then, the "Strongest Distractor"—or whatever his name was—came back to Japan….
Hoshiumi had goosebumps when he returned to the locker room. He'd been childishly excited to see Shouyou Hinata again, like they were old friends, not enemies. And Shouyou had been equally excited to see him. Right away, he could tell Shouyou Hinata had matured.
That just pumped him even more for the delectable match to begin.
"Happy?" said a deep, grinning voice behind him. Hoshiumi couldn't believe it was Kageyama, glowing with energy. "He's here, so are we going to take him down?"
The match was a loss, but Hoshiumi left the court happier than he had ever been.
Thank you for reading!
Visit my YouTube channel Stylin' Breeze to hear my attempt at reading the atrocious original handwriting!