Ace of Hearts - Haikyuu || Short Stories || One Shots || Creative Rambles

If it Doesn't Feel Good || Tendou Satori

Fukumoto Taree couldn't remember the last time she had a moment of peace that wasn't scheduled out. Her life had become uniform years ago, following a to-the-minute itinerary planned out neatly in several colors.

Life was meant to be busy. People were meant to work. You didn't get anything in this world unless you put in the effort. Sure, miracles and fantasies could actualize, but only if you made it so.

That was a lesson she had learned early on as her mother struggled to make sure there wasn't too much month left at the end of her salary. And that was why Taree worked so incredibly hard at every task that faced her — to make sure that every sacrifice her mother made was worth it. She'd be everything her mother dreamed she could be and more.

Taree's memories were far too clouded for her to be able to pinpoint when she first felt the pressure to be (and do) everything. It must have been around second year of middle school, though, because that was also the first time she ever remembered feeling really, truly jealous. You know, that kind of jealousy that rooted itself deep in her heart and turned straight to anger at the indignity that someone dare have something she didn't.

There were plenty of times the green-eyed monster made appearances in her life. She'd been jealous of the other students who had fathers. She'd been jealous of the kids who saw their mother every night. She'd even been jealous of the people who had more to eat than whatever they could find on the marked down shelf at the corner store.

But she had never been as jealous as the day she first watched Tendou Satori play volleyball. That was the first time she witnessed what true freedom was.

Never before had Taree seen someone so unabashedly themselves, chasing the high of whatever made them happy with absolutely no regrets. Despite the reprimands, and a severe lack of people understanding him, Tendou was everything she wanted to, but never could be. He was himself.

That first time she saw him had been an accident — a small slip of fate that somehow forced her path across the volleyball practice after staying at the library at her middle school for just a little too long. It'd been a single, otherwise insignificant moment in a slide projector full of insignificant moments, but the look on his face when he blocked a spike made her realize that, maybe, she didn't know what real joy was.

It was just a moment and she hadn't lingered in it, immediately pushing past the open gym door and onward to her reality.

The second time was on purpose (though she wouldn't admit it). She had acted like it was a huge inconvenience for her to attend a volleyball practice match with the other members of the middle school student council, but she had been planting the seed in her classmates' head for weeks.

That game was the first time Tendou noticed her — with her clenched up fists at her side, acting like she wasn't incredibly invested in the outcome of the game, and the discernible frown on her face when he was subbed out and lectured. He thought it was weird how her eyes kept panning his way and he realized, all at once, that she wasn't there to watch the game. She was there to watch him.

Not a single word was shared between the two, but for the first time Tendou felt like he had somebody on his side.

And so, they watched each other out of the corner of their eyes for the rest of middle school — Taree living through Tendou's freedom and Tendou finding solace in knowing someone could actually see him.

The end of one era often means the beginning of another — unimportant moments bleeding into each other despite the feeling of finality — but Tendou and Taree both only had one option to move forward: Shiratorizawa. One for the academics and future opportunities, the other to chase what felt good. Both riding on skills that paved the way for a future they couldn't afford otherwise. Neither knowing the other would be waiting for them when they got there.