My Rival Set For Me For The First Time in Years, So I Kissed Him Against The Net

The air in the Sendai Gymnasium was heavy, thick with the smell of polished wood and the silent, vibrating hum of professional rivalry. It was a familiar scent, one that always made the hairs on my arms stand up, but today it felt different. Charged. The MSBY Black Jackals filed in, our bright orange and black gear a stark contrast to the stoic white and gold of the Schweiden Adlers already warming up on the far court. My teammates chattered around me, Bokuto already booming about showing them his ‘super straight,’ but my own voice was stuck in my throat. My eyes scanned their ranks, sweeping past the formidable presence of Ushijima, the electric energy of Hoshiumi, and landing, inevitably, on him.

Kageyama Tobio.

Three years. It had been three years since I’d seen him in person, not counting the grainy footage from match recordings or the occasional stoic magazine cover. He was taller, the lean muscle of his high school frame now solidified into the dense power of a world-class athlete. His shoulders were broader under the white Adler jersey, his hair just as black and unruly, but the line of his jaw was sharper, harder. He was practicing setting drills with a quiet focus, his movements economical and lethally precise. Every toss was perfect. Of course it was. A familiar, frustrating ache bloomed in my chest.

“Yo, Hoshiumi! Ushiwaka!” I forced my feet to move, plastering a bright, wide grin on my face that felt like a mask. I jogged toward them, my voice bouncing off the high ceilings. “Ready to get your butts kicked?”

Hoshiumi shot back a competitive grin, but Ushijima just gave a solemn nod, his gaze as intense as ever. The pleasantries were a blur, a necessary distraction. My path was a direct line, and my target hadn't moved. I stopped a few feet from him, my heart hammering against my ribs with a frantic, unsteady rhythm.

“Kageyama.”

He finished his toss, the ball spinning perfectly from his fingertips before he finally turned. His eyes—a deep, piercing blue that I remembered with an intimacy that felt wrong now—met mine. For a single, breathless second, the entire gymnasium seemed to fall away. There was no MSBY, no Adlers, just the weight of three years of silence hanging between us. I saw a flicker of something in his expression, a shadow of recognition that wasn't just for a rival.

Then it was gone. His face settled back into that familiar, impassive mask. He gave me a single, sharp nod. It was a curt, dismissive gesture that cut through the air and straight into my gut. It said everything and nothing. It said, I see you. You are my opponent. That is all.

My smile faltered, the corners of my mouth trembling for a fraction of a second before I forced them back into place. The warmth of my earlier greetings evaporated, replaced by a sudden, sharp chill. The chasm between us had never felt so vast. He turned back to his drills without another word, as if I were nothing more than a momentary distraction, already forgotten. I stood there, rooted to the spot, the echo of that silent dismissal ringing louder than any shout. We were no longer partners. We were strangers who knew each other’s bodies and movements better than anyone else in the world. And that, I realized with a sickening lurch in my stomach, was a far more painful thing to be.

The shrill blast of the whistle cut through the tension, and the game began. It was just a practice match, a warm-up for the week, but the moment the ball was in the air, the atmosphere shifted. It became real. Standing at the net, staring across the few feet of empty space at Kageyama, felt like staring across a canyon. He was my opponent. The thought was a sharp, painful sting.

The first rally was a blur of movement, but my focus was unnervingly narrow. My body knew what to do. My eyes tracked the ball, but my entire being was attuned to him. I saw the moment the ball was received perfectly by the Adler’s libero, saw it arc cleanly towards Kageyama’s waiting hands. My feet were already moving. The familiar Pavlovian response kicked in: see Kageyama’s hands, and fly. My muscles tensed, my body coiling like a spring, ready to jump and meet his set at the apex. I was ready for our quick.

But the set never came to me. His gaze was fixed forward, but I knew he saw me in his periphery. I felt his awareness of me like a physical touch. He knew exactly where I was, exactly when I would jump. And he deliberately, pointedly, sent the ball in a smooth, perfect arc to the other side of the court, right into Ushijima’s waiting palm. The spike was a cannonball, unstoppable. A point for the Adlers.

Kageyama didn't even look at me. He turned to give Ushijima a clipped, professional word of praise. It was a denial. A public refusal of everything we had been. The burn started in my stomach, a hot, acidic anger that climbed up my throat. He was erasing me. Erasing us.

“Don’t mind, Shoyo-kun!” Atsumu called, his own competitive fire stoked. “We’ll get it back.”

I nodded, my jaw tight. Fine. If that’s how he wanted to play.

The next time we were on offense, Atsumu sent a high toss my way. It wasn’t Kageyama’s pinpoint set that felt like an extension of my own will, but it was powerful and precise. As I launched myself into the air, my vision expanded. I wasn’t the same player I was in high school. I saw the court laid out below me, a grid of possibilities. I saw the blockers shifting to cover my straight shot. And I saw him. Kageyama was positioned perfectly, his body angled to receive a tip or a block-out, his eyes tracking my every twitch. He knew my old habits.

But he didn’t know my new ones.

At the last possible second, I twisted my torso, using my core, and angled my wrist sharply. My palm connected with the ball, not with full force, but with a controlled snap that sent it careening off the very tips of the blocker’s fingers. It landed in the one spot on the court he couldn’t reach.

The whistle blew. Our point.

I landed on the floor, the impact jarring up my spine, and my eyes immediately found his. For a second, just one, his mask of indifference slipped. I saw it—a flash of surprise, of unwilling admiration, quickly swallowed by frustration. A silent acknowledgment. You’ve changed.

A savage, hollow satisfaction filled my chest. I had scored on him. I had shown him I didn’t need him. But as I turned to accept the high-fives from my teammates, the victory felt strangely empty. Every point became a war of attrition, a silent, vicious dialogue across the net. He would use his genius to exploit my teammates, and I would use every ounce of my new skill to claw back a point against his defense. We were a gravitational force, constantly aware of the other’s position, pulling the entire game into our personal orbit. We were playing against each other, but it felt like we were only playing for each other, two halves of a whole trying to prove they could exist on their own.

Sleep was a useless endeavor. The silence of the dorm room was too loud, filled with the phantom echo of a ball hitting the floor and the lingering image of Hinata’s triumphant, challenging glare. I threw the covers off, my body too restless, my mind replaying every point of the match. His new feint shot. The controlled power. The way he’d grown. The thought was a burr under my skin, irritating and impossible to ignore.

A faint, rhythmic sound pulled me from the room and down the deserted hallway. Thud. Scrape. Thud. It was the unmistakable sound of a volleyball and sneakers on a wood floor. I knew who it was before I even reached the gym. Only one idiot would be practicing at this hour.

I stopped in the shadowed doorway, my hand resting on the cool metal frame. There he was, in the center of the court, illuminated by the stark overhead lights that left the corners of the gym in deep darkness. He had a machine set up, firing balls at him in rapid succession. He was drenched in sweat, his orange practice shirt clinging to his back and chest, his hair damp and stuck to his forehead. He moved relentlessly, diving for a ball, scrambling back to his feet, his body a constant blur of motion.

The sight ignited the familiar anger in my chest. Dumbass. He’s going to injure himself before the week is even over. The criticism was automatic, a well-worn groove in my mind. But as I watched, another feeling crept in, something deeper and more complicated. His form wasn’t the clumsy, desperate flailing of high school. It was controlled. His platform was solid, his footwork economical. He’d absorbed everything, from his time in Brazil to his training with the Jackals, and forged it into something formidable. Something that didn’t need me.

The anger soured into a bitter ache. He had scored on me. He had looked at me with the eyes of a true rival, and the victory in them was earned. I should have been satisfied. This was what I had always demanded of him—to be stronger, to stand on his own. But watching him now, so complete and self-contained, a profound sense of loss hollowed me out.

A ball shot from the machine, low and fast to his left. He dove, his body parallel to the floor, and with a perfect extension of his arm, sent the ball in a gentle, perfect arc right back toward the center of the court. Right to the setter’s position.

My fingers twitched.

My entire body went rigid, fighting an instinct so powerful it was almost physical. My hands wanted to be there, under that ball. My muscles remembered the exact feeling of meeting his approach, the split-second calculation of height and speed, the satisfying slap of his palm connecting with a ball I had placed perfectly in his path. It was a phantom limb, a part of my own body that was missing. The urge to step out of the shadows, to walk onto that court and toss for him, was a painful, visceral pull in my gut. It would be as easy as breathing. And it was the one thing I could not allow myself to do.

He got to his feet, breathing heavily, and ran a hand through his wet hair, completely unaware of my presence. He was alone on the court, but for me, the space was crowded with ghosts. I stood frozen in the doorway, a spectator to his solitary effort, trapped between the burning frustration of our present and the undeniable, aching pull of our past.