His cousin Akemi owns a handmade recycled notebook, with garlands of dried petals and leaves on its covers. Her tight handwriting spreads over the white pages in a rainbow that surpasses the seven colors: gold, red, purple with silver sparkles, apple green, orange, bubblegum pink with a feeble trace of scent, turquoise, lilac, the classical blue and black. The calligraphy and the pens have changed throughout the years, but the notebook is far from complete.
What can his cousin scribble so much about in that notebook? He asked her once and, with utmost seriousness, she replied it was her personal book of quotes. Bits of songs, stray verses, pieces of dialogues from movies or TV shows, maybe even from animes, words stolen from inspirational speeches, proverbs from before Noah's Ark, fragments from books. As it tends to happen, before they're deemed worthy of the notebook, all those quotes scatter through napkins, the margins of her school notes, stray pieces of paper: a whirlwind of stolen words fluttering in his cousin's bedroom.
Yamaguchi never asks her what's the point of it: he guesses that, like any other collection, there exists some sort of enjoyment in the process that escapes him.
Sometimes, though, he thinks he might get it. Words have never come easily to his lips. It's not like he's shy or a total social inept. He can fill in the blanks in conversations during family reunions; he can share pointless chatter with his classmates even if they aren't close to him; he's never gotten a bad grade in Japanese. Words in general are not a problem: only those that count in critical moments, the ones that need to be said at a given time because someone needs to hear them.
At a crucial moment, he tends to be struck dumb, his tongue in knots inside his mouth, his mind a blank blackboard. There are people who can always keep a cool head and fearlessly snarl pathetic over their shoulder, like Tsukki. Or there are people like Sugawara, who seem to have a gift for unraveling a tangled mess of words and strike on the right one to say at the precise moment. Even the captain, who seems so stoic compared to some of their louder teammates, knows instinctively what he has to say, what the other person needs to hear. Yamaguchi still remembers the void in his stomach, the thundering of blood in his ears when at long last his opportunity to play in a match arrived… and his serve, the sole weapon at his disposal, failed. He thought nothing could ever make him feel remotely okay after that and yet, that next time you'll get it from the captain made it possible that, at least, he could leave the court with his head held high.
That gift of finding the right word at the precise moment is something that eludes him.
He is even less likely to come up with poetical words like Takeda-sensei's, nor will he ever possess the charisma needed to lift the entire team's moral like Noya-san does, with proclamations that should sound ridiculous but ring so true coming from his lips.
Maybe he doesn't have a notebook with carefully decorated covers but, in a way, Yamaguchi has also been collecting stolen words throughout his life, filed in a corner of his mind. Perhaps with the secret hope that there will come a time when words like that could become his own, that there will come the day when they might help him when he needs them most.
But words don't come to his lips, they get lost in the marshland between his memory and his mouth and he falls silent when he should speak, when he knows there's something the other person needs to hear but he can't pronounce it. He's felt this way all those years ago, when they found out that Tsukki's brother had lied for years about his status as a regular on the team; when he could see that illusion shattered into pieces all around his friend but was incapable of doing anything to help. Now he sees Tsukki standing once more in front of a wall, a wall that maybe his friend is not completely aware of, but that still rises insurmountable before him and against which he will undoubtedly crash. He knows he has to say something, but he doesn't share Tsukki's cool calm, he doesn't have Sugawara's gift to comfort people, or the ability to calm them down and give them their confidence back like Daichi. And he's not sure that Tsukki would appreciate words of comfort that ring of pity, not from him or anyone else. Rather than that, he'll pretend that he doesn't care, so well it might fool the rest, but never well enough to fool Yamaguchi.
He thinks about walls impossible to jump over, he thinks about the stormy look of someone who no longer believes themselves capable of taking the leap. He remembers the dark shadows over Kageyama's features, the tremble in his voice when he admitted how terrifying it was to toss a ball behind him only for no one to spike it.
Kageyama, I'm here!
While Yamaguchi thinks, hesitates and remains silent, Hinata just jumps. And somehow, speeches that should sound ridiculous ring sincere and every word seems to hit the nail, dispelling the fog of fear, breaking through the restraints of uncertainty keeping the other person frozen on the spot. He still remembers the look of absolute incredulity on Kageyama's face when Hinata told him that he tossed to him just fine, that it was time to leave the past behind, that here and now, he would always be there to spike any toss he sent his way. When he told him he would trust him 100% because there was no other way and Kageyama stared at him as though he couldn't quite believe such person could exist.
Villager B can fight!
And Yachi, terrified by the gang of still unknown boys, by her own fears, dared to take the leap as well, pushed forward by the absolute certainty in Hinata's voice.
Hinata, like Kageyama, has a brain that's all muscle according to Tsukki, and he never seems to think twice before taking action, if he even thinks at all. And yet, he knows, maybe instinctively, what he has to say at the right time so Kageyama, for the first time in his life, starts making an effort to work with other people; so Noya-san returns to practice even after the captain could not convince him; so Yachi gets over her insecurities enough to give Karasuno a chance and become their new manager.
Stolen words are no good this time either, though, because Hinata has none for Yamaguchi.
But what would you say to Tsukishima?
And isn't that the heart of the matter? Even if he tries to make them his own, Hinata's words, so effective when it came to Kageyama, would never work with Tsukki. Regardless of his talent at achieving the impossible from someone like Kageyama, Hinata does not know Tsukki, he's not his friend, he could never know what to say to him.
That's Yamaguchi's role and, for once, he won't stay quiet when he needs to speak up.
And for once, it works.
Now Tsukki has knocked down his wall and it's Yamaguchi's turn to do the same. There still remains some residual fear dragging him down, the memory of that match against Aobajousai still stings somewhere inside him.
As long as I'm here, you're invincible.
Kageyama didn't even blink when he blurted out those words, so certain of them, and he didn't cower at the stunned looks from everyone else; he wasn't unsettled by the Karasuno Neighborhood Association gaping at him as though he had three heads. In that moment, he only had eyes for Hinata, as his words were meant only for him to reach.
None of them could hardly forget them, though, and Hinata must have known it when he stood before Aobajousai and threw Kageyama's own words back at him, repeating each one of them as though they had been engraved on his mind. Maybe they were. Kageyama's reaction was the usual response at any emotional moment that unsettled him, but they could all see, underneath his usual brusqueness, how much it affected him knowing that Hinata had remembered his words, that he had treasured them enough to give them back when it was Kageyama who needed them.
Yamaguchi leaves the bench to face a rival much more fearsome than Aobajousai, but his hands no longer tremble as he turns the ball between them.
He will never be able to assure his team that they can rest easy because he's watching their backs, like Noya-san; and even less can he blurt out such a melodramatic declaration like as long as I'm here, you're invincible, in all seriousness like Kageyama and Hinata, who are beyond all possible shame or uncertainty.
But he has gotten this far working his fingers to the bone and for once, he feels confident enough without the need of anyone else's words.
The trust in Tsukki's voice when he tells him hit them hard is more than welcome, though, and he prepares to serve hoping that, this time, his actions will be louder than all the words he'll never say.