Chapter Text
Spring Interhigh, six years ago
A low, continuous hum could be heard along with the soft chattering of the team members of Niiyama Volleyball Club, all of them ecstatic to step out into the city of Tokyo to compete in this year’s tournament. Shizuku glanced at Ichika, a fellow first year, who was peacefully snoring away with her head against the reclined backrest. She envied her friend's innate talent of being able to sleep anywhere she found comfortable — compared to her, Shizuku always had trouble with dozing off in cold places — air conditioned rooms, trains — and this bus was no different. Shizuku looked up and glared at the culprit of her plight. She stood up just a fraction of a second to nudge the wretched fan towards Ichika instead. Judging by her friend's shift in position, she might have found the sudden decrease in temperature to be more comfortable, even.
At the beginning of the ride, both of them had been happily exchanging their small itineraries planned for when they reach Tokyo, as chances like these rarely happen when they get to venture out Miyagi, the prefecture which they represented for the girls’ division. Considering that they were first years, being picked as part of the starting lineup was no minor feat at all, and held more expectational weight which might even come close to that of a senior member of their team. Niiyama Joshi had been crowned with a good reputation among the female high school bracket participants, so much so that they were automatically exempted from the first round in the Nationals.
Shizuku resigned to gaze outside the window for the remaining travel time, knowing that Ichika wasn’t going to wake up any time soon. She plugged in her earphones and hit shuffle on the playlist she had been curating specifically for this trip, slotting her phone back in her pocket and resting her chin on her palm. Today, her ears were graced first by Chara’s Kataomoi — a song that she and Ichika had discovered a few months ago while having an anime marathon.
In this world they lived in where everyone was bound by the physics of sound, Shizuku had already deduced one irredeemable fact: that the soulmate system itself, as enchanting as it was made to sound, was still unfair as any man-made one. This was the same thought that crossed Shizuku’s mind when that prior statement proved to not be ultimately true the day she and Ichika had made the discovery themselves. The two of them were disjointedly connected — Shizuku could hear what Ichika would be listening to, but it would not, and would never work the other way around.
Despite this, they chose to be friends. They cared not about their flawed connection even if they both knew that they were destined to grow apart; that they were still going to be separated no matter the kind of bond they built in their younger years. Shizuku believed that choosing to stay with Ichika for however long the time they were permitted with would be far better than letting some invisible force separate them from each other.
It wasn’t like the two of them were the lone cases anyway — there were plenty of others who didn’t follow the predetermined design — some have either cheated, never bothered to follow the sound, or, with time, soon found out that they were not exactly good for each other.
Shizuku could still remember the day her grandmother Ryoko sat her down to explain everything to her the day she told her about the case with Ichika. Their talk only made the conditions more outrageous than Shizuku had previously imagined them to be. Ryoko gave her a detailed lecture that the sound she had to look out for would have to be loudest of them all; the most distinct, the most clear.
Even after learning such from Ryoko, finding the “most distinct sound” wasn’t exactly something Shizuku had dreamt of accomplishing. Juggling both her responsibilities in school and in volleyball was already a chore to begin with — being part of a college preparatory class and playing as the middle blocker in their volleyball team — but the thought of wanting to finally hear even just a faint melody would always sit at a random corner in her mind, bugging her day to day routine whenever it got the chance to, like an ever-present mark embedded on the walls of her head.
Morning runs with Ichika around their neighborhood were chances for Shizuku to ponder about her soulmate’s whereabouts. She’d have her earphones playing music as they jogged down the empty streets, her eyes flickering at the houses they passed by as she hoped that she had already passed by theirs — if they lived in the same town, that is. For all she knew, they might as well be living somewhere far, in places like Tokyo or in her grandparents’ hometown, Hyogo. Shizuku didn’t even know if she would ever be ready for a long-distance relationship.
But like her grandmother had said, all things reveal themselves in time.
On a small sojourn she and Ichika took around the streets of Miyagi after school, they wound up cycling around the vicinity of another one quite far from theirs. They both didn’t know this one, having only been acquainted with the Aoba Johsai and Shiratorizawa girls’ volleyball club on a number of practice games they accepted every now and then.
Students were already dismissed as they exited in groups, halting Shizuku and Ichika on their bikes as they tried to recognize the uniforms. They waited for the crowd to pass until the path was clear again before turning around the farthest corner.
Then, Shizuku heard something. She instinctively pressed on the brakes, her body jolting forward from the abrupt pause of momentum. Ichika did the same, peering into her friend’s face to gauge what was happening. For a while they stayed like that, bathed under the orange sky brought by the afternoon sun with their feet planted firmly on the ground.
Tapping her heel against the concrete, Ichika gave in to her growing impatience.
“What, did you forget to clean-”
Shizuku shushed her in an instant and put a finger on her lips.
It was a song. The melody and vocals were faint, and Shizuku couldn’t register what the words were in her head, not when she was starting to decide whether to silence her friend’s incessant tapping behind her.
Then it grew louder.
And louder.
And louder.
Everything happened in a flash — Shizuku wordlessly abandoned her bike on the side of the fence, sprinting towards the nearest entrance that led to the back of a gymnasium. Ichika followed suit and didn't bother asking questions as soon as Shizuku disappeared from her sight, knowing what her sudden actions meant.
Shizuku had her back pressed against a wall as she tried to catch her breath, which only proved to be futile as her heart hammered in her chest nonstop. Nearing footsteps accompanied the loudening song, along with a conversation whose topic she could barely make out. She felt overwhelmed — nauseous, even. It was frustrating to not be able to get out of their hiding spot and know who the person on the other side was, because for that, she and Ichika needed to risk being caught. She knew she couldn’t, and that made it all the more infuriating.
The volume finally reached its loudest when the footsteps stopped.
“Ah, I forgot my knee pads.”
Shizuku’s eyes widened. That was their voice — his, if she was gauging the tone. It was soft and low; boyish yet flat, leaning towards monotonous, even. Some part of Shizuku was helplessly telling her subconscious to ingrain it in her memories, but right now, she couldn’t seem to do such a thing.
The two weren’t able to linger around any longer upon hearing more voices approach them, and frankly, Shizuku didn’t know if she was ready to meet him or not. They found themselves quietly circling the building, going back to where they haphazardly left their bikes, and pedaling back home as soon as they got on.
That was it. After that, there was nothing again.
Shizuku was promptly robbed of the chance to come across that person again, and the half-hearted experience only subjected her to be plagued by the ever-growing desire to grab hold of the opportunity one more time. Her other teammates who got to learn of her unfortunate tale on the other hand found it fit to guess which school it was that she and Ichika had (trespassed) wandered off to: Date Tech, Johzenji, Wakutani — none of them rang a bell.
Far too immersed in her thoughts, Shizuku failed to notice that Ichika was awake until she leaned against her shoulder, laughing quietly when she jumped at the contact. She took off an earbud and blinked at her.
“What’re you listening to?” Ichika yawned.
Shizuku pressed the power button of her phone to check the song. She held up the device to her drowsy friend. “It went to Mr. Taxi just now.”
“Shoujo Jidai? Don’t tell me you’re gonna study Korean now.”
Shizuku pursed her lips. “Maybe. I don’t know. You’re the one giving me ideas.”
The hiss of the bus doors opening suddenly tore through their conversation. Shizuku looked up to see that they were momentarily stopped in front of a high-rise building — quite possibly where the reservation that had been booked for them within their stay in Tokyo. Ichika muttered an expletive under her breath when their captain announced that they had arrived, standing up with Shizuku to get their things from the overhead compartment.
Upon stepping outside, the team gathered in a messy two-line formation as they walked towards the entrance of the building. A cluster of black jersey jackets with the same prefecture name printed on the back caught Shizuku’s attention. Their group stood in front of an inn just in the next corner. Shizuku immediately averted her eyes when she thought she had made eye contact with one of the tallest members.
The entrance hall buzzed with lively voices, an array of team colors seemingly looking like a sea of tags that represented high schools from all over the country. Shizuku fiddled with the hem of her shorts, tugging on it slightly as their team weaved through the crowd. There were a few who glanced and turned their way as they walked by, not passing up the chance to whisper something about who they were. The attention was surely something Shizuku had to get used to.
Their team halted temporarily at an unoccupied space in the lobby — something about their manager having to coordinate an important matter. Shizuku took this chance to shrug on her jacket again, uncomfortable with the surrounding eyes attracted to their group. She leaned against one of the columns, softly humming along to a Girl’s Generation song she had been listening to when she got dressed earlier. Her eyes were trained on the ceiling as she patiently waited to be prompted once the affairs were done.
Ichika joined her by the column and nudged her with an elbow. “Someone nearly crashed into Amanai-senpai,” she pointed to where their senior was. “...nearly crashed into her chest, more like.”
Somewhere not too far from where they were, Kanoka was currently holding a shorter guy by their underarms with a look of subtle worry written all over her face. She was asking him something that the two of them couldn’t catch.
The guy in question was Nishinoya Yuu — the famed libero from Chidoriyama. Judging from the colors of his jersey, he must be attending Karasuno. Shizuku figured that it must have been them whom she saw outside the building. She had to admit that she expected Shiratorizawa to be their counterpart in representing Miyagi, but it turned out that the goddess of luck finally smiled upon the fallen crows and they managed to snatch that opportunity away from such a powerhouse of a school.
It was nice to see new faces in the lobby every once in a while, anyway.
“Do you think it was on purpose?” Shizuku grimaced while eyeing the scene in front of them.
Ichika shook her head. “That number 10 bumped into him. What a relief she caught him before…”
Her friend’s voice seemed to trail off when Shizuku became more sensitive towards her surroundings.
There was no song — just a faint pattering of rain and wind — most likely a track made for meditation or winding down.
Shizuku searched for him among the crowd, looking for something to affirm her doubt. There were a lot of players who were wearing some sort of hearing device in and over their ears, making the distinguishing more difficult than it already was for her. She stood still, eyes darting from person to person as she searched for the possible source of the sound. Unfortunately, even after a few other tries, she was forced to give up when their captain called their attention to start lining up and get ready for the opening ceremony.
Ichika studied her face. “Nerves getting to you again?”
Shizuku laughed and adjusted the strap of her bag over her shoulder, giving Ichika a dismissive ‘nah’ as she found her spot in the line.
She did feel someone eyeing her from afar, however.