"What the hell, man?! That is insane!"
"It was a perfect text-book receive if I have ever seen one! You kill the ball's momentum and send it directly to the setter's spot!"
"Are you really a rookie?!"
As the silence was broken, it turned immediately into joyful chaos as Yuki was mobbed by all the players from the team. They were all patting him on the back and the shoulder, going all out to praise his last play.
Their reaction was understandable since no one thought Yuki would be able to handle that ace serve perfectly. In fact, it was the first time they all saw such a perfect ace, that if only Yuki couldn't receive it, Riku would be the one they flocked into right now.
Yuki was a bit overwhelmed though. While he was a popular guy in middle school, he had never experienced something like this, with about ten people surrounding and highly praising him like there was no tomorrow. He sent a glance elsewhere, asking for help to anyone who caught it. Akira who saw that just chuckled, coughing hard to get the attention of the others.
"Okay, everyone! That's enough! Don't you see how red our poor new superstar's face was? He would pass out soon if you don't go away! Oh, and Riku! Come here too!"
That was when they all realized they had forgotten Riku's presence. The blonde boy pouted, sulking because not only the ace serve he was proud of was stopped that easily, but also the fact that everyone seemed to forget about him quickly after just yesterday they all were praising his serve was like rubbing salts on his wound.
However, his attention right now was on the glasses boy who just stole the limelight. "Four-eyes! I demand a rematch!" He shouted childishly.
Yuki had a sweat drop on his face. 'Four-eyes? Really? Can he be more creative in his insult?'
"If you are not a coward, don't you dare to reject it!" Riku kept spouting his nonsense, didn't notice that everyone stared at him like he was crazy. It wasn't until Akira knocked some sense onto him that Riku woke up from his cringe monologue. "Ouch! What the hell, Uncle!" He pouted, rubbing his shoulder where Akira just hit him.
"Well, that is for being a prick." Akira smiled darkly. "Now, are you going to be a good boy and apologize to Kobayashi-kun for bothering him or do you want to get punished?" It seemed he heard about how Yuki ended up here and was not happy with it.
Riku gulped, chuckling nervously while trying to make himself look innocent. "A-A_Ahaha.. I don't know what you are talking about, Uncle…" He stuttered weakly, making his innocent words look weaker in Akira's eyes. Under his uncle's intense gaze, Riku finally wilted, bowing down quickly to Yuki.
"I am sorry for all the inconvenience that I caused you, Kobayashi-san! This humble Italian boy hopes you can forgive him!"
The sweat drop that had been on Yuki's face for a while was getting more intense at how absurd the scene in front of him right now. And by the reaction everyone had, it seemed he wasn't the only one who was dumbfounded about this situation.
"Well, Kobayashi-kun, how about it? Do you accept his apology?" Akira asked.
Having no idea of what happened and thinking it was no big deal, Yuki finally nodded albeit hesitantly. "Well, I guess so. It doesn't bother me too much."
"Thank you, Kobayashi-san!" The blonde boy was getting more dramatic, the bow suddenly turned into a kneel. "This humble Italian boy would be forever grateful for your mercy!"
Now, Yuki freaked out, officially. He took a step back quickly, didn't want to be associated with either the coach or his nephew. They were too strange to his taste.
"Well, enough for that, Boy! Get up quickly and don't embarrass us anymore!" Akira barked like he was the head of the samurai family reprimanding his son. "Now, Kobayashi-kun, there is a question I am wondering about. Can you satisfy my curiosity?"
Yuki turned his head around, silently asking for help from anyone there. In all fifteen years he had lived, never had he experienced something so dramatic like this. Unfortunately, Yuki forgot that Akira was the head coach of the team, and no players there wanted to get caught in this crossfire.
'Shit! Traitor, all of them!' He cursed inwardly. On the outside though, Yuki tried to give his best poker face so that he wouldn't show any inappropriate expression that could offend the coach. He didn't want to know what kind of punishment he would receive, especially after seeing how Riku reacted when being threatened by punishment.
"W-W-Well, A-Akira-sensei," Yuki cursed inwardly as he stuttered. "What is the question?" He smiled weakly.
Fortunately, even though Yuki didn't know whether Akira noticed it or not, the coach seemed to ignore his stutter and decided to ask directly, "How did you stop the serve from Riku before?"
"Eh?" Yuki tilted his head confusedly.
"I mean, what do you think when you are facing the ball before?" Akira amended his question. "The serve from Riku before was a nasty one, not a lot of people could stop it as perfectly as you did. Do you mind sharing with us your thoughts about it?"
Seeing everyone was also eager to hear his perspective, Yuki pondered for a second, imagining what he did earlier inside his head before saying, "Well, I don't really know how to explain it, but the ball came straight to my face with a high speed, so I took a step back because I didn't want to get hit like that. After that, everything seemed to be natural for me. Just bent my knees slightly to distribute my weight evenly and help me stay balanced, relaxing my arms to make sure they would absorb the impact and kill the speed, then I used my forearm to guide the ball so it could go toward the direction that I wanted. So… Yeah… If you asked me how I did that, it is probably… An instinct?"
Looking at the unsure expression on Yuki's face, everyone twitched their mouths slightly, cursing him inwardly as Yuki himself didn't realize how outrageous what he just said was. This was the first time everyone, even Riku and Akira felt devastated for the monstrous talent that someone had in volleyball.
'What are you, a monster?' Someone mumbled from the crowd. 'Don't you need to, what, I don't know, judging for the ball first or something similar?'
"I mean, yeah, I did that too," Yuki replied. The one who had that question was taken aback for a second, then blushed in embarrassment as he didn't realize he had said that quite loudly. "Of course, I also need to observe where the ball would go. However, I saw how Agostini-san did his serve yesterday, and while it was impressive, all of them just used brute force, no trick hidden in it at all. I guess this time would be the same, so I just moved without hesitation the moment the ball was released from his hand."
Riku felt like he wanted to cry. This ace serve was something that took three full years for him to develop, sacrificing time, sweat, blood, and even money until he perfected it – he begged his parents to pay some professional players to train him. Well, he thought it was perfect. Even in Italy, not a lot of people his age could follow its movement, let alone receive it perfectly like what Yuki did.
'Wait a second!' Riku suddenly stopped his train of thought, lightning seemed to strike into him as he realized something. 'Follow its movement?!'
"Anyway, since we all are ready, let's start the sparring," Akira said. "Let's-"
"Wait a second, Sensei!" Akira suddenly interrupted, startling everyone. He stared intently at Yuki, making the glasses boy nervous a bit. "I just want to ask one more question. You said you made a judgment based on the serve you saw I did yesterday, right?" Yuki nodded, still didn't know what happened. "Then, can you track down that kind of fast movement in the air?"
All the players there widened their eyes as they also just realized that too. It was one thing to receive the serve perfectly, but it was a completely different story if Yuki was able to track down the ball's movement from Riku's serve. That showed he had a pair of dynamic eyes and an incredible brain that could process everything from Riku's serve that happened less than three seconds before giving the command to the body to move accordingly. To put it bluntly, if Yuki was indeed able to do that, he had some sort of God-speed reaction.
Yuki who didn't realize it was something incredible though, just rubbed the back of his head confusedly. "Well, yeah. Is there something special about it? I thought everyone could also do that."
Everyone twitched their mouth speechlessly, then just sighed tiredly, giving up thinking of Yuki's ridiculous talent and decided to just accept it.
"Well, okay, everyone!" Akira raised his voice once again. "Since we are delayed for fifteen minutes because of this last play, let's do our sparring for just one set."
That was when all the players there realized they were there to play a game.
"Okay, let's make the team. Noriyuki, you are with Riku, Ogawa, Ren, Asahi, and Koji. The rest of you who I am not mentioning would be the second team. Is there any question?"
From the reaction of all of them, Yuki knew there was something unusual with how Akira selected the players for both teams. However, since he didn't know them well enough, he decided to ignore that and join the five players who would be his temporary teammates.
"Nice to meet you, Senpai." Yuki bowed politely.
"No need to be so formal with us." One of them waved his hand nonchalantly. It was a boy with a sharp face and bald head, features that could be recognized easily by anyone from afar. "My name is Yoshi, by the way. Aoba Yoshi from the third grade. I am the opposite hitter of the team. Nice to meet you."
Yuki still nodded politely even though he had no idea what the opposite hitter was. After that, one by one, the other four players also introduced themselves to Yuki.
"Hirano Fuji, second grade, a middle blocker." The tallest boy out of all of them introduced coldly. Yuki wondered if he had ever met and offended his senpai or what.
"Just ignore that grumpy, he is just like that." Another boy came in. He had this bright smile as if the sun was never going down. "My name is Okamura Daichi, by the way. I am also from the second grade and the libero!"
Yuki nodded, at least knowing what position Libero was in. It was for a player who specialized himself in the art of defense, guarding every inch of the court so that the other could attack with ease.
"Hello, my name is Yori Sakai from the third grade. Nice to meet you." Another boy suddenly approached him. In Yuki's impression, this was the politest out of everyone else. "I am the setter of the team, so don't hesitate to ask the ball for me, okay?"
"Ah, yes! Thank you, Senpai!" Yuki nodded, still with the same politeness.
"And as for me, just call me Kaede! I am from the second grade!" Another bright boy came from behind, his smile was as bright as his blond hair. "Even though I am still his backup, I am also the opposite hitter! And I will grab his position sooner or later!" He said it while pointing his finger at Aoba.
Inwardly, it wasn't his position that attracted Yuki's attention, but the unusual color hair that his senpai had. Unlike Riku with his natural one, it was clear that this Kaede painted his hair deliberately to make this color, and Yuki didn't know whether it was allowed in this school or not.
As for the position….
"Wait, we have two opposite hitters?" Yuki frowned.
Aoba who heard that raised his eyebrows slightly. "You know what is the opposite hitter?"
"No, I have no idea at all," Yuki admitted frankly, startling all of his teammates. "What I know is having two people in the same position is never a good idea. And I don't know what kind of role I have here, so what would happen if somehow I fit into that position as well? Is this some sort of a team specialized in one thing or what?"
Yuki blinked a few times when he saw the shock reaction from the five people in front of him. "Really? This is a team specialized in one thing?" He didn't expect the random guess he threw would hit the target perfectly.
"Well, you sure have a sharp mind," Aoba said dryly. "And yeah, this is a specialized team. Not only us, but the other is also the same. It would take a long time to explain though, so we can do that at the other time. But to make it short, we are a bunch of players that were expected by Akira-sensei to survive any apocalypses, while the opposite team is the one that can break any wall in front of them."
Yuki furrowed his brows, having a hunch about why Akira formed the team like this.
"Well, no need to overthink it. Let's prepare ourselves first."
"Sure."
-0-
"Come on, Sensei! Start the game quickly!" Riku shouted, starting to get impatience.
Akira who was on the sideline ignored his nephew, checking for both teams to see whether they were ready or not. After making sure everything was okay, he gave the ball to Yuki's team to serve first.
"Damn, Sensei." Kaede cursed. "You really want to pit our defense against their offense, huh?"
Yuki who overheard that mumble couldn't help but nod in agreement. While his volleyball knowledge wasn't too much, he knew that the one who served would have to be defensive on the first play.
"Don't worry, everyone! Just stay focused!" Yori tried to calm down the others. "Don't be distracted, Kobayashi-kun. Yoshi, give us a good serve!"
After Akira blew his whistle, Yoshi threw the ball in the air, hitting it with a not-so-great power. It was just a standard overhead serve which the messy-haired boy on the opposite side received it perfectly.
"Mine!"
Yuki was surprised to see Riku suddenly run to the ball while all the other players took a step away, giving him the path to get the second contact. He kept staring at the blonde boy while using his peripheral vision to track down all the opponent's movements, trying to figure out where Yuki would toss the ball. However, what he didn't expect was for the half-Italian boy to not toss the ball. Instead, he extended one of his arms high to the sky, reaching the ball with one hand before swooping it down gently over the net.
It wasn't just Yuki who was frozen on the spot. In fact, Hirano, the middle blocker who also guarded the front line also didn't expect Riku to dump the ball straight in the first place. And no, it wasn't just those two. Almost everyone had their mouth hanging open, looking at the ball bouncing on the floor in disbelief. It wasn't until Riku shouted in excitement that they woke up from their daydreaming.
"Ha! Now, our score is even, Four-eyes!" The blonde boy pointed his finger at Yuki, smiling smugly. "Come on! It is just the beginning! There will be more chances for me to beat you today!"
Yuki just shook his head, trying to ignore the provocation. Inwardly though, he didn't notice something burning in his heart.
'Well, isn't this interesting…'