JSWGAS Chapter 80

“——Are you really planning to use me as a target if you want to learn jump serves?”

“How could I, Tōru? I’m definitely not angry that you keep aiming for me, okay?”

“But Kokonoe-san is definitely angry, right?”

“…”

“…”

Kageyama Tobio, holding a volleyball, obediently looked up at the two seniors who had fallen silent because of his words, blinking his eyes in slow confusion.

His former senior from Kitagawa Daiichi twitched his lips and turned to look at the other one: “…I wanted to ask this just now, but why is little Tobio on our court?!”

Today was the second day of the training camp.

The week-long training camp included room and board, taking care of students who lived far from the training location. After all, under the heavy training schedule, a group of athletic teenagers just wanted to pass out the moment they left the gym. Even the Kokonoe trio, who lived nearby, brought their futons to sleep in the communal sleeping area.

Most of the Kitagawa Daiichi students chose to form small groups with friends they knew well to train together. Kindaichi, after teaming up with Kunimi Akira, looked around, “Where’s that guy Kageyama?”

Kunimi Akira listlessly narrowed his eyes. Someone in their room had been snoring all night, disturbing him until he vaguely fell asleep in the middle of the night. Hearing the question, Kunimi reluctantly turned his head to look around. After spotting the target, he hesitated, “…Over there.”

Kindaichi followed his gaze, his eyes widening involuntarily in surprise: “…Isn’t that the Seijoh seniors’ training area? Why is Kageyama…”

Although the coach hadn’t forbidden the two schools from training together, the training varied greatly between middle and high school, and the two sides were unfamiliar, making it difficult to integrate. So everyone tacitly agreed to practice separately.

Kunimi Akira: “How would I know?” Seeing Kindaichi wanting to walk towards Kageyama, he called him back and reached out to stop him, “That guy seems to know that senior over there. Oikawa-san is also there, nothing will happen.”

His voice gradually softened: “…Going over there might just disturb them. Forget it, hasn’t Kageyama always been like that?”

Kindaichi stopped walking: “…What’s that guy up to?”

Kageyama Tobio was completely unaware of their conversation. He heard Oikawa Tōru’s question and answered seriously, “The coach said self-directed training, so I—”

“I wasn’t asking little Tobio that.” Oikawa Tōru interrupted him, glancing leisurely at the training area where the middle school students were, “How should I put it, those are your teammates over there. Is it really okay not to go?”

Kageyama Tobio: “…? It’s okay, there’s something I want to ask Oikawa-san about.”

Oikawa Tōru: “Wait, I don’t want to hear it—”

His refusal was a little late, and Kageyama had already said half of it: “Please teach me the secret to jump serves—”

Oikawa Tōru was silent for a moment, then suddenly turned his head with a smile, “Taka, where were we just now?”

Kokonoe Taka was practicing self-toss receiving. Keeping his arms level, controlling the movement of his feet, and finding the ball’s landing point. This training could improve ball control and required focus, so it took him six or seven seconds to react, “We were talking about the secret to jump serves.”

Oikawa Tōru: “…”

He choked a little, “Are you doing this on purpose?”

Kokonoe Taka casually spun the ball, glanced slightly at Kageyama Tobio, who was obediently standing beside him, and raised his chin, “What does it matter? You’re going to teach me anyway, right?”

Oikawa Tōru stubbornly said, “I never agreed to teach you—”

“Really? Tōru?” Kokonoe Taka wasn’t surprised. He sighed in mock sorrow, “Oh dear, what should I do? I remember last time during practice, someone said they would make good use of me, never waste my talent, and definitely develop new offensive techniques…”

His gaze shifted slightly, “Who said that again?”

Oikawa Tōru: “…”

Kokonoe Taka continued in an exaggerated tone: “Oh right, that person seems to have a motto, ‘If you’re going to hit, hit until the other person can’t stand up any more’—who is it?”

Kageyama Tobio instinctively let out an “ah” sound, successfully attracting the attention of the two. But he didn’t notice the threatening gaze of one of them, and bluntly answered Kokonoe Taka’s question, which was deliberately mocking Oikawa Tōru, “…Isn’t that Oikawa-san’s motto?”

When Oikawa Tōru was a third-year middle school student and Kageyama Tobio was a first-year, he had asked Oikawa Tōru for the secret to jump serves. At that time, the latter deliberately ignored his request. Instead, he very enthusiastically explained his motto to his junior—Kageyama Tobio was deeply impressed by Oikawa Tōru’s answer, which was one of the reasons why he thought Oikawa Tōru had a terrible personality.

Kokonoe Taka couldn’t help but laugh, turning his head under Oikawa Tōru’s displeased and about-to-erupt gaze, coughing lightly to cover it up, but still unable to resist the laughter that leaked from the end of his tone: “Hmm—it seems little Kageyama understands Tōru very well.”

Oikawa Tōru: “…Whoever wants little Tobio’s cute and hateful understanding can have it! —Seriously! Oikawa-sama doesn’t need such useless things!”

Kageyama Tobio pursed his lips unhappily, but still answered without thinking, his eyes filled with a pure and clear seriousness. He had always been like this, from childhood to adulthood, never changing.

“Because Oikawa-san is really amazing.”

Without hesitation, without reservation, there were many things Kageyama Tobio didn’t understand, from why his sister had to give up volleyball to avoid cutting her hair, to the meaning of the strange gazes of the two seniors after he said these words. He solely focused all his sensitivity and attention on volleyball, putting everything else behind it, which made these words incredibly powerful.

Oikawa Tōru bit his back teeth, only he could hear the vague and strange sound of teeth grinding. He suddenly raised an extraordinarily beautiful smile, almost sickly sweet to the point of making one’s hair stand on end.

“Little Tobio ah…” He noticed the helpless and knowing gaze his childhood friend was giving him, and his voice flowed from his lips, filled with a inexplicable gnashing of teeth, “You’re really a hateful and cute annoying junior.”

“Your Japanese is terrible, Tōru.”

There were so many things wrong with Oikawa’s words, and they seemed like both blame and praise. Kageyama Tobio’s volleyball-filled brain couldn’t handle such a complex subject, so his mouth moved before he could think, “Thank you…?” After four or five seconds, he realized, but couldn’t analyze any of the emotions contained in Oikawa Tōru’s words. Instead, he fully agreed with Kokonoe Taka’s words: Could it be that Oikawa-san is a stupid who isn’t good at studying?

Oikawa Tōru had completely lost his temper.

He glared at Kokonoe Taka, who was leisurely waiting, and said in a bad tone, “I don’t accept useless students.” He paused, “If Oikawa-sama teaches you and you still can’t do it—then do frog jumps around the court?”

“No no no,” he denied self-deprecatingly, “Or should we write a sign and have you hold it up and run around the gym three times, shouting ‘I’m an idiot,’ how about that?”

…

…………

“You’re already proficient at overhand serves, right?” Oikawa Tōru said. He had learned the technique of ignoring annoying bystanders without being taught.

“Yes.” Kokonoe Taka affirmed, grabbing a volleyball and standing outside the white line, steadily hitting an overhand serve with perfect placement, “It’s not difficult after mastering the technique, feels similar to a three-point shot.”

“That kind of confidence is also annoying—” Oikawa Tōru dragged out the end of his sentence.

Kokonoe Taka was very familiar with Oikawa Tōru’s occasional blunt expression of emotion, he knew the other wasn’t lying, but frankly replied: “Yeah, sorry.”

Oikawa Tōru lightly hummed in dissatisfaction, finally getting to the point.

“Jump serves are actually powerful overhand serves where you run up and jump near the end line. If you have to say it, you can think of it as a combination of overhand serves and spikes. Although they have the characteristics of being fast, powerful, and having a flat trajectory. But they also consume a lot of stamina, and if you don’t control them well, they can easily hit the net or go out of bounds.”

Oikawa Tōru was a good teacher to some extent—as long as he didn’t deliberately make trouble.

“The feeling I gave you for spiking before, do you still remember it?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s pretty much that kind of approach,” Oikawa Tōru said, “Only this time you have to toss the ball yourself, find the best hitting point for yourself, and control your strength in the air, and—don’t step on the line. Don’t be like a stupid bird caught in a bird net, okay? I’ll laugh at you.”

“…Forget about it.”

“No, I will never forget!”

Toss the ball, tossing it to the front and above your dominant hand in the first step of your approach. The height and distance should be tried out slowly, there are no techniques to be lazy about, and you should aim to hit the ball at the highest point of your jump.

When taking the second step, swing your arms naturally, keep your eyes on the ball, and finally take a big step with your right foot, swing your arms in an arc on the sides of your body, quickly follow up with your left foot, bend your knees and push off the ground to jump.

Kokonoe Taka found it difficult to describe the feeling after jumping up and being in the air. Glancing at the opposite court, it was wide, and the ground gradually receded behind him, as if he was really flying.

Straighten your body and contract your abdomen, raise your right arm with your elbow bent, and at the highest point, mobilize the strength of your body, retract your abdomen and raise your shoulders, driving your arm to swing with all your might—

“Bang!”

The ball went high over the net and slammed into the wall.

Oikawa Tōru laughed loudly and mocked, “Wow, what a perfect home run—”

Kokonoe Taka sighed: “Please restrain yourself a little when you laugh.”

He took out another volleyball from the ball basket, “Any suggestions, Oikawa-sensei?”

“Hmm,” Oikawa Tōru touched his chin, his tone brisk, “Since you asked—don’t make the ball toss so deliberate, and for the approach, don’t deliberately slow down to coordinate.”

“—Hmm, let me demonstrate for you.”

A powerful jump serve requires not only proficiency in one’s own movements, but also the player’s own concentration.

The shouts, footsteps, and hitting sounds of other people training came from all directions, converging into a noisy river, but it only bypassed Oikawa Tōru, who was standing on the end line.

—Or rather, the focus he had reached at this moment had completely made him ignore these external disturbances.

The front court was empty.

Oikawa Tōru slightly pressed the volleyball.

The familiar feeling.

…The feeling came.

Toss the ball, approach.

Jump, soar.

Then, use the rotation of the whole body to drive the arm to swing.

The middle and lower part of the volleyball came into contact with his palm, making a dull “bang!” sound, and slammed towards the opposite court with a sense of power.

Oikawa Tōru’s body landed smoothly in the court following the force. He looked satisfied at the volleyball falling within the boundary, and turned his head triumphantly: “That’s how it is—”

As a result, he met two pairs of focused eyes, looking at him shining brightly.

He shuddered and was silent for a moment.

“It would be nice if girls were staring at me so intently.” He sincerely said, “…But being watched by you guys like this makes me feel like I’m going to throw up.”

Kokonoe Taka withdrew his eager gaze and responded with friendly and unwavering support: “Remember not to throw up on the court. What do you think, little Kageyama?”

Kageyama Tobio performed as stably as usual: “Ah…if you throw up on the court.” He was a little embarrassed, but under Kokonoe Taka’s encouraging gaze, he still spoke frankly, “Cleaning it up would be very difficult.”

“…”

Oikawa Tōru took a deep breath, his tone cordial and friendly.

“If you can’t talk, you don’t have to talk.”

“Eh? But I can…”

“No, you can’t.”

“…”

“Also, how long are you two going to watch?” He pointed to the court, “Should I ask you to start practicing?”

The two people who were targeted by him, one deliberately acted like an idiot, and the other was a real idiot who was brought along by the one acting like an idiot.

“It would be great if you did that, if Tōru encourages me, I’ll be very motivated.” Kokonoe Taka turned his head, “Little Kageyama thinks so too, right?”

Kageyama Tobio slowly looked at the two seniors next to him, one raising his eyebrows and looking relaxed, the other smiling in a strangely dangerous way. The radar for detecting danger rang so sharply that he finally chose to remain silent like a mute after hesitating.

Oikawa Tōru had never found Kageyama Tobio so agreeable.

Kokonoe Taka sighed in depression and disappointment.!