Haikyuu: Crimson Ascent

Chapter 4: A Season Unspoken

Winter sunlight seeped through a light sky, diffused and muted, as if the world itself had inhaled and was holding its breath in anticipation.

Three months had elapsed since the previous rally, the previous careless laughter ringing in the gymnasium. Three months since the ball had touched his fingertips again.

He sat silently at his desk, a mechanical pencil clutched in his hand, eyes darting over a review booklet with the practiced indifference of one who had done this too many times. Pages turned. Scribbles were scrawled. But none of it penetrated with any real presence. The heater in the corner buzzed softly, the only noise competing with the scratch of graphite on paper.

Outside, the snow grew thin to slush and bare sidewalks. Winter was pulling out, grudgingly but inexorably. In its train came the first whispers of spring—the acrid scent of thawed ground, the random trill of a bird returning too soon, and the way light struck windows just slightly differently now.

It was entrance exam morning.

He had awakened before the alarm went off this time. No jarring shock, no groggy resistance. Just silent acceptance, the sort that comes after weeks of performing the same routine, day after day. The air in the apartment still retained a lingering cold, but it no longer annoyed him.

His breakfast, like most mornings, was toast, eggs, and black coffee, all of which he devoured with mechanical efficiency. The rituals had grown to be comforting, a pattern that substituted the one he left behind.

He gazed too long at the vacant seat in front of him.

There were mornings when his mind wandered. Not towards plays or methods. Not towards statistics or competition. But towards that sense of movement in tandem with others. That intangible connection between players without a word. It had been pleasant. It had been transient.

But he didn't return. He hadn't even visited the gym again.

He had convinced himself that it was a distraction. That now was not the time. That volleyball would have to wait.

But inwardly, he wasn't convinced that was real—or if he had secretly entombed it before it entombed him.

A chill wind whistled through the small cracks of the apartment window. He tightened his coat and threw his exam bag over his shoulder, double-checking his student ID one last time. All was well.

He walked to the train station by himself, the platform abnormally crowded with students in the same uniformed nervousness. Some were silent, headphones on. Others talked in anxious outbursts, laughing too loudly, attempting to fill space fear left behind.

He sat by himself.

When the train arrived, he was roughly pushed, but he didn't care. He gripped the railing, letting the gentle sway of the carriage rock his mind into tranquility.

He recalled late nights leaning over his desk, mechanical pencil tracing across practice pages. His fingers still flinched sometimes, as if they wanted to place a ball rather than perform math equations.

A memory floated into his head, unwanted.

Late December. Just following New Year's.

He had been strolling by a little court in back of a neighborhood community center. There were a few younger children, playing in the cold with red noses and big coats. The ball bounced strangely on the hard ground, but they didn't mind.

One of them had bobbled a pass, and the ball had rolled close to his feet. Without thinking, he had crouched down to retrieve it.

It weighed less than he remembered.

The kid came running up to him, looking for something.

Instinctively, he threw it back underhand.

The boy smiled and thanked him before racing off into the game.

He had silently nodded and turned away.

That was as close as he had come to holding volleyball in three months.

He blinked back into the present as the train braked to a halt. Students poured out in a mob of practiced haste. He trailed behind, steps unvarying.

The exam hall was a hovering structure. Clean, neat. Sterile.

He walked in unceremoniously, found his seat, and sat. Students stretched around him in tiers—some chewing anxiously on pen caps, others studying until the minute.

He simply stared at his blank test sheet, waiting for the proctor to give the signal.

And as he sat there, pen poised, a quiet voice echoed in the corners of his mind.

"If we'd had one more year."

He didn't know who had said it. Maybe it was someone on the team. Maybe it was himself.

But he pushed the thought down, gently but firmly, like pressing a thumb against a closing lid.

The signal came. Pencils scratched. Time began to move again.

He worked through the sections slowly, steadily. The equations made sense. The vocabulary clicked into place. The essays flowed, not perfectly, but with practiced rhythm.

Hours passed like a dream he couldn't wake from.

When it was done, he stepped outside again. The air felt different.

The clouds had parted a little. Sunlight came through, not warm, but no longer biting.

He didn't feel relief. Not yet. But he felt something release in his chest.

He walked with no specific place to go. By small cafés full of students. By a bookstore. By a gym where two kids were playing with a volleyball in the parking lot.

He stopped.

The ball's impact on the ground rang out for a second too long before one of them picked it up.

Last month, he'd run into one of his former teammates at the convenience store. They'd shared a few stilted words before lapsing into silence. The connection had dissipated quicker than he anticipated.

He turned and continued walking.

But for the first time in a very long time, he did not silence the sound.

He let it linger there, next to him, while the chill wind of late winter was replaced by the first kiss of spring.

(End of the Chapter)