A/N 20/08/2020:

I love thinking of Tanaka as the big bro of the team. My younger siblings are of immense importance to me, as are most of my friends - and I pulled a lot of energy from that affection while writing this chapter. I'm not entirely sure if the events of this chapter come across that way, but that protective love and loyalty is what fuels Tanaka. :)

Trigger warning: in this chapter there are mentions of sexual harassment, but nothing happens.

"It's true, I'm a sucker for you. I'm a sucker for you"

They enter their third year as a strong duo, well-known by the other teams. They are called 'the scary ace and his sleepy-faced captain'. Ryuu says they don't know shit about who's the scary one out of the two of them.

In the few short months he's been captain thus far, Ennoshita has gained a new understanding for Daichi's prevalent frown. Since their team is made up of a bunch of rascals, he's had to be strict at nearly every instance to make sure they didn't run amok. They do love to test his patience. Except for Yamaguchi, maybe, who's the only one who doesn't aggravate Chikara on a regular basis. However, in all those months of his teammates behaving like utter buffoons, not a single time have they caused him to become even close to as angry as he currently is.

Ennoshita's face is the sickly white of curdled milk as he stares at his second-year players with pursed lips.

"Explain. Now."

He's so angry that he can't say anything more than those two words to keep himself from cursing out all of them. 'Are they insane?! If the fact that the vice-principal might kick them all off the team wasn't bad enough already, they currently face the very real threat of being charged with assault.'

For a second, there's silence. Then all 4 of them explode at the same time. Chikara blinks as they all cackle and try to shout over one another.

"They were shouting these horrible things, captain! We just wanted to help, but when I yelled at them they laughed at us, so I went to push him like 'gwah!' and-"

"You should've heard them, Ennoshita-san! They're too pathetic to breathe, threatening a girl 10 years younger! I'd gladly have smashed their-"

"Well, Hinata-, that idiot shouted back at them to not say such things, and then they came forward and started threatening him too! And I couldn't not help him? We can't play volleyball if they really did break his arms like they said! And anyway, he's an idiot, so he needed all the help he could-"

"It wasn't our fault, captain! They started everything, and when Tsukki jumped in, I thought I should-"

It's one large cacophony of angry voices – 4 red faces shouting at once, an ashen-faced Tanaka standing guard behind them. Ennoshita is right about to point at one of them, letting them explain things one by one in an effort to make some sense out of all this, when-

"They were targeting Yachi."

Miraculously, all four of the second-years shut up at Tanaka's low growl. There's a nauseous twist in Chikara's stomach. He hasn't really looked at Tanaka yet, even though he knows the ace was present at whatever showdown happened that afternoon. He can't allow himself to think about the possible consequences… about having to drop Tanaka as his vice-… Well, that's a matter for later.

"Ukai found us, later, when we-, when we'd made them stop." Ennoshita's stomach clenches even tighter as he fishes his cellphone out of his pocket with shaking hands, looking up coach Ukai's number and calling him right away. He walks a little farther down the hall, still keeping an eye on the others – but they all wait silently until he has finished the conversation with their coach and returns.

Ennoshita has to work very hard to keep a straight face as he regards the stubborn people in front of him. Yamaguchi is sporting a spectacular black eye and Hinata has a split lip. ''Being captain is a dream job', my ass. He's never felt as much out of his depth as in this particular moment. Voicing his opinion sure was a lot easier when his words didn't carry as much weight as they do now.'

"Ukai filled me in on what happened."

None of them react as they stare at Chikara's face, frozen.

"You might want to know that one of the men you attacked needed to get first aid, the other one went to the hospital for minor cuts and bruises, though they still need to check him for possible bruised ribs."

None of them look terribly saddened to hear this.

Chikara pinches the bridge of his nose, his mind still racing with different reactions, trying to decide which is the best one.

"You don't need to tell me why you did it. I know what happened now. But what I do want to know, is why you all behaved like headless chickens instead of using your brains to get out of the situation?"

This finally gets a reaction out of them. Hinata and Kageyama gasp like fish who've just been thrown on land, while Tsukishima looks like he just bit into a lemon. Yamaguchi pales, the only white face next to his confused teammates.

"Don't you guys have even a shred of self-control?"

"They were goading us," Tsukishima snarls, not backing down despite the way Ennoshita's sharp glare is making him blush.

"We couldn't let them hurt Yachi!" Kageyama barks. "They said they would take her and teach-… They said they were going to-…" his voice breaks lightly as he falters to get out the end of the sentence. "They were-"

"I know, Kageyama."

Chikara puts on his best 'disappointed captain' face as he feels most of the anger flow from his body. In all honesty, he doesn't know if he would've held back either, but-

"It's… brave that you guys tried to defend her, I'm not saying anything negative about that, but the way you went about it was just plain stupid. Why didn't you just alert authorities or other adults around you, the second those assholes started harassing her? Sexual intimidation is an offence punishable by law, let alone if they really were trying to-" he coughs to regain his composure.

"If you try to punch every human in the face who'd deserve it, you're going to make your life a lot more difficult than it needs to be. Please don't lower yourself to their level. I understand that you would want to protect yourselves as well as others when you needed to, but there's 5 of you?! 5, apart from Yachi! Do you really think they would have started a fight on their own? With just the 3 of them?"

"Well, Tanaka-san wasn't there until they were ganging up on the freak duo," Tsukishima murmurs, but Chikara ignores him.

"You should've just ignored them, comforted Yachi and taken her home."

"Besides-" he says, as he sees Hinata furiously open his mouth, "before you all tried to bash their faces in, they had not a single argument to support their case. And Yachi had 4 eyewitnesses. The fact that you fought them until one of them had to go to the hospital distracts from the real issue here. We should be talking about Yachi and other girls' safety, not the fact that you caused them to lose several teeth. Did any of you even pause to think how all of this affected Yachi? Ukai told me she was frightened out of her mind when you guys started throwing fists."

Ennoshita pauses, breathing heavily after his spirited lecture. His teammates shuffle their feet, uncomfortable about the idea of stressing out Yachi even more than she already had been. Regardless of what he just said, he can't honestly say that he doesn't understand what they were feeling or why they acted the way they did, even if he can't tell them that he approves. They really are lucky they weren't kicked off of the team – not that Ukai would just let the vice-principal have his way without defending the team, but still.

"Takeda and Ukai have escorted Yachi home – they're now explaining everything to her mother, and will go with Yachi if she wants to report these pieces of human-… Well."

He sighs, feeling like he aged 10 years in the last hour alone. "I get that you were all angry – I really do, but that's not enough to excuse all this. I'm not saying that you should never let out any of your anger – I agree that you have to go through your feelings in order to get over them, but you should always do so in a safe environment. Please don't just start fighting whenever you're angry or are having a hard time." He gives another meaningful look at Hinata and Kageyama, who, to be fair, haven't fought for many months at this point, but one can never be too sure.

"You'll all do 10 laps of diving drills tomorrow before practice, followed by two suicide runs."

It's a sign that they get the severity of the situation when not a single one of the boys in front of him protests.

Ennoshita turns to stare at Tanaka.

Kind Tanaka; who is loyal to a fault and too passionate for his own good.

"And you. Come with me."

The walk to the storage room at the end of the gymnasium is quiet. Neither of them says anything when Chikara unlocks the door so he can get out the box he needs. It's only when he's pulled the first-aid kit from its plank that Tanaka speaks.

"I don't need-"

"Oh shut the fuck up, Ryuu."

Miraculously, he does indeed shut up – moving to the bench Ennoshita points at, so they'll both have a place to sit. They don't acknowledge the tension in the air as Chikara starts to search the box for useful content; fishing out disinfectant spray and some Band-Aids.

Tanaka hisses – sucking in some air when Chikara sprays the disinfectant on one of the deeper cuts around his knuckles. He holds his breath for a second before letting it out with a huff and says: "I'm not sorry."

"I know," Ennoshita says as he takes Tanaka's left hand to clean the small wounds that now mar the calloused skin. It appears that he cut his own palm with his nails when he punched one of the assailants in the face.

"I'm not sorry that I didn't support you out there. You know I couldn't say something like that with our kouhais present. But even if I could have, I still think you were wrong."

"I know," Tanaka echoes, wincing a little as Chikara starts wrapping one of his hands with a thin bandage. "And I know I probably should have reacted differently, Chika – I do."

"I do," he repeats a tad more forceful as he sees Ennoshita's doubtful stare. "I should've just gotten the other ones to back off from those scumbags, but you should've heard what they were shouting, Chikara, I swear…" He trails off, eyes staring unfocused into the distance as Ennoshita reaches for the second-to-last bandage.

When he speaks again, Tanaka's voice is so soft that the only reason Chikara hears him is because their faces are only inches apart as he tries to patch up his friend's hands. "I hated them."

Chikara hums curiously, looking up when Tanaka doesn't reply and starts waving a hand in front of his face. "Ryuu?"

The far-off look disappears, and Ryuunosuke chuckles awkwardly. He looks like he's about to wave his comment away – but one look from Chikara gets him to continue talking. "I just can't handle it, you know," he says decidedly. "It's okay when they do it on the court – saying some shit to rile others up. You know that they don't mean it, it's just part of the game at that point. But these guys… I wanted-"

He pauses again, seemingly unaware that Chikara has paused in administering the last Band-Aid as he waits for Ryuu to continue. "I hate it. They're- bullies. They're bullies, that's what they are. Fucking scum." He scowls. "It was different. The last time I got mad about something like this was when Tsukishima was being a bitch to Hinata, and that's ages ago."

"And that's also just within his nature," Chikara says good-naturedly, trying to peel away the little piece of plastic covering the Band-Aid. Tanaka grins, his anger forgotten for a second as he looks down at their clasped hands. "I wasn't sure how much of it was supposed to hurt. Hurt-hurt, I mean. It's not okay if it's truly meant to sting."

He swallows, waiting until Ennoshita finally smooths the bandage onto his skin when he says "do you think… I'm damaged or something? Because of… Things that happened before? I know I shout 'n stuff, during matches, but it's not the same. I thought I was going to lose my mind when they were shouting shit about Yachi. I've never reacted that way before… It was… scary. What I felt. I thought-"

"You're done now," Ennoshita replies, in lieu of answering the real question. He can feel Tanaka's eyes on the back of his neck as he starts collecting the tiny pieces of plastic waste to throw them in the trash later. He crushes the plastic in his fist as he mulls over his answer.

"I… don't think you have to worry about anything, Ryuu. I know that you've had the unfortunate displeasure to have to deal with bullies and other idiots alike in your life, but that doesn't mean that you're 'damaged' or whatever shit you were calling yourself before."

Tanaka frowns at him, unconvinced.

"Don't pout like that. You know that I'm right. In the end you didn't do any- well, you didn't do much wrong. For as far as you had a choice, I mean. Ukai told me you only joined the fight to get our kouhais away from those assholes. Was he wrong? Did any of them lie about what happened?"

"Well… no. That is what happened."

"Well? What are you still looking uneasy for, then?" Chikara questions sharply. "You did what you could, didn't you? Don't see why the rest of it really matters."

"But I wanted to-"

"It doesn't matter what you wanted," Chikara hisses fiercely, "what matters is what you did."

Tanaka blinks, slightly taken aback but looking pleased at the same time.

"I know you went through some tough shit before, but trauma doesn't necessarily weaken you."

"Not that that means it strengthens you either," he adds, oblivious to Tanaka's mounting confusion.

"I have… no clue what you are talking about."

"Listen… Tanaka… You're awesome." He gives Ryuu a second to process this, but since the ace only starts looking more confused as the seconds go by, Chikara decides to go on before he gets bombarded with questions he's unwilling to answer right now.

"You are. You're great. But that's not because of the bullying. It's not the trauma itself that makes you stronger or kind, empathetic-, whatever… It's how you handle those issues that makes you a great person. Even when you're mad, I've never seen you treat anyone the way some people have treated you in the past.

"Of course not," Tanaka spits out, insulted by the thought itself. "I'd never-!"

"Well then that's all that matters, right? You should give yourself a little more credit, once in a while. It's not because you went through some… things that your character is suddenly 'tainted' somehow. I've known you for years at this point, and I've never seen you be anything but a loyal friend, a generally nice guy and a great senpai for the team. Someone they can look up to."

"-well, sometimes, that is." He grins. "When you're not being an idiot with Yuu. You didn't think the only reason they like you is because you're the ace, right?"

Tanaka is staring at Chikara, an intense but indecipherable look in his light grey eyes. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out, so he closes it again, still staring with that same focused look on his face.

Ennoshita lifts his eyebrow, unimpressed. "Yes…?"

Ryuu shakes his head a little, wonder seeping out of every syllable as he says: "How can you even… say that shit? With a straight face, no less."

Chikara laughs. "D'you think I could be friends with all of you if I got embarrassed by small stuff like that? It'd be waaaay more weird if I didn't say that I like your character. Obviously I do? Since, you know, we're friends and all? I mean, not that I'd randomly say any of those things to the others. Of course I like them, but I'm not insane? Noya would tease me for ages – the cost just isn't worth it? But that doesn't diminish the fact that I mean it, though. And you just… I thought it was a good time to be honest, 's all."

In all honesty, it's taking a lot of effort to look as unaffected as he's trying to achieve. He wonders if Tanaka is staring the way he does because he can hear the way Chikara's blood is rushing in his ears.

It's like Ryuu can sense Chikara's unease, because he drops the intense focus, grinning wide as he slaps Chikara on the back in thanks.

Ennoshita tries not to wheeze as he throws the key of the storage room at Ryuunosuke's face, ordering him to put away the first-aid kit as he goes to wait by the door.

He's in enough of a good mood that he lets Tanaka wrap an arm around his neck as they walk back to the school gates, his curses a lot milder than usual as he tries to stop his friend from all but dragging him along by his neck in his enthusiasm. Tanaka has always had the tendency to be more physically affectionate whenever he gets emotional.

The thought that, at the very least, he's saved from Narita and Kinoshita's sniggering in the background this time, is what eventually gets him to relax in Tanaka's hold, wrapping his own arm around Ryuu's broad shoulders as they stumble towards the exit. His small grin broadens slowly at the hiccups of laughter randomly escaping Tanaka's lips without rhyme or reason. For once, Chikara doesn't care about the weird looks they get from the lingering school personnel. He just throws back his head and laughs at the sky, invincible.

A/N: Notes for chapter 5:
I'm aware that police/adults don't always react in a positive manner to victims of sexual intimidation – but I wrote what I thought was the most realistic for Ennoshita's character – and I can't immediately see him tell the other to just beat the shit out of those assholes, even if they did deserve it

I hope you all have an amazing weekend ahead of you! The last chapter of this story will be posted next monday and I can't wait to see what you all think ^^
I send you a big hug - or head pat - or awkward wave, depending on which you prefer.