My Ace Kissed Me After Our Final Loss

The heavy quiet of the locker room was a physical weight, pressing down on their shoulders just as surely as the loss had. It was a suffocating silence, broken only by the soft scrape of a sneaker on the tile, the rustle of a jersey being pulled over a head, the metallic clink of a locker door swinging shut. No one spoke. There were no words that could fill the chasm that had opened up on the court, the one that had swallowed their chance at Nationals whole. Each of them was an island of grief, adrift in the shared, stagnant air that smelled of sweat and shattered dreams.

Oikawa watched them from his spot on the bench, his knee brace already unstrapped and lying beside him. He was the captain. It was his job to say something, to offer a life raft in this drowning quiet. He pushed a smile onto his face; it was a familiar expression, one he’d practiced in the mirror a thousand times, but tonight it felt like stretching cold, brittle plastic. It didn’t reach his eyes.

“We fought hard,” he said, his voice ringing with a false brightness that sounded obscene in the funereal atmosphere. “There’s always next year for the second-years. Don’t let this stop you.”

A few of his teammates mumbled their thanks, their eyes fixed on the floor. Hanamaki and Matsukawa just gave him a weary nod as they shouldered their bags, their own faces grim masks of exhaustion. No one met his gaze for more than a second. It was as if they could see the lie written all over him, the gaping failure he was trying so desperately to paper over with cheap platitudes. He was their king, their leader, and he had led them to nothing.

One by one, they filed out, leaving him in the echoing silence. Iwaizumi was the last to leave. He paused at the door, his hand on the frame, his dark eyes locking onto Oikawa’s. There was no pity in his expression, only a deep, knowing familiarity that was somehow worse. He didn’t say a word, but Oikawa heard the question anyway: Are you okay? Oikawa kept the smile fixed in place until Iwaizumi finally turned and pulled the door closed behind him, plunging the room into a deeper quiet.

The click of the latch was deafening.

The moment it sounded, the smile slid from Oikawa’s face as if it had been physically wiped away. His shoulders, held ramrod straight by the sheer force of his will, slumped forward. The breath he hadn’t realized he was holding escaped his lungs in a ragged, empty sigh. He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, and dropped his head into his hands. The polished gleam of the championship trophy that would never be theirs burned behind his eyelids. He wasn’t a king. He was a fraud in an empty castle, and the only thing he had managed to conquer was his own team’s future. The hollowness inside him was a vast, cold cavern, and he was utterly, completely alone.

He couldn’t go home. The thought of his quiet, empty room, the sympathetic but ultimately unknowing look on his mother’s face, was unbearable. Home was for celebrating victories, not for nursing this gaping wound of a loss. Silence would only make the screaming in his head louder. So his feet, acting on an instinct older than conscious thought, carried him not toward the school gates, but back toward the gymnasium.

The hallway was dark, lit only by the emergency lights casting long, distorted shadows on the walls. His footsteps echoed, each one a lonely beat in the profound quiet. He pushed open the heavy double doors to the gym, the familiar groan of the hinges sounding like a sigh of resignation. The court was bathed in the harsh, white glare of the overhead fluorescent lights, which someone had forgotten to turn off. It was a sterile, unforgiving light that exposed every scuff mark on the polished floor, every speck of dust in the air. This court had been his kingdom. Tonight, it was just a big, empty room that mocked him with the memory of what he had lost.

A cart of volleyballs sat near the service line, left behind in the post-match haze. He walked toward it, his movements stiff and mechanical. His fingers wrapped around the worn leather of a ball, the texture a familiar comfort and a source of torment all at once. He held it, weighing the object that defined his entire existence. It felt heavier than usual.

He took his position behind the line. There was no whistle, no opponent, no Iwa-chan waiting for the perfect set. There was only the cavernous room and the voice in his head telling him he wasn't good enough.

He tossed the ball into the air, the arc perfect from years of muscle memory. His body followed, uncoiling in a jump, his arm swinging back. The slap of his palm against the ball was a sharp, violent crack that shattered the silence. It flew low and fast over the net, striking the floor on the opposite side with a satisfying, definitive thud.

Again.

He grabbed another ball. Toss. Jump. Hit. The sound echoed, a percussive rhythm of his failure. He wasn’t aiming for precision anymore. He was aiming to punish. Each impact was a penance for a missed block, a bad read, a moment of hesitation. He served until his shoulder began to burn with a deep, searing ache. He served until the skin on his palm turned a raw, angry red. Sweat dripped from his chin onto the floor, but he didn't stop. The physical pain was a welcome distraction, a loud, sharp sensation that almost—but not quite—drowned out the relentless whisper of Kageyama’s name in his mind. Genius. Prodigy. The one who went to Nationals. He grabbed another ball, and another, the motion becoming a blur of desperation, a frantic attempt to beat the inadequacy out of his own body.

Iwaizumi didn’t go far. He just leaned against the cool cinderblock wall of the corridor, listening to the muffled sounds of his teammates’ retreating footsteps. He could still see Oikawa in his mind’s eye, perched on the bench with that brittle, too-bright smile plastered on his face. The sight made Iwaizumi’s teeth ache. Anyone else might have been fooled by the performance, but he had been sitting in the front row for this particular show his entire life. He knew what came after the curtain fell.

He waited, counting the seconds in his head. He gave him five minutes. Five minutes for the forced charisma to drain away, for the crushing weight of the loss to settle fully onto his shoulders. Five minutes to be alone with the failure he would inevitably, unfairly, place entirely on himself. Iwaizumi’s own disappointment was a heavy stone in his gut, but it was nothing compared to the sharp, familiar anxiety he felt for Oikawa. It was a constant thrum beneath his skin, a protective instinct honed over years of scraped knees, broken promises from others, and the relentless pressure Oikawa put on himself to be perfect.

He knew, with an absolute and wearying certainty, where Oikawa would go. The gym was their sanctuary, their battlefield, and, for Oikawa, his personal torture chamber. After a loss like this, he would go there to punish himself, to serve until his arm felt like it would fall off, as if physical pain could somehow exorcise his mental demons.

The thought sent a surge of frustrated anger through him, followed immediately by a wave of deep, aching concern that swamped it completely. He pushed himself off the wall and walked back toward the locker rooms, his own bag feeling unnaturally heavy on his shoulder. He bypassed the team room and went to his own locker, the combination clicking open under his fingers from pure muscle memory.

He reached inside, past his neatly folded uniform and textbooks, and pulled out the small, white first-aid box. It was dented at the corners and stained with something he couldn’t remember. He popped the latches. Inside were rolls of athletic tape, antiseptic wipes, gauze pads, and a tube of ointment. It was his Oikawa kit. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d used it to patch up the setter's raw hands, tape his fingers, or clean the scrapes on his knees from a reckless dive. It was as much a part of their partnership as a volleyball.

Closing the kit, he tucked it under his arm and started the long walk toward the gym. He didn't need to hurry. He knew what he would find. As he got closer, a faint, rhythmic thud… thud… thud… began to echo down the empty hall. The sound was sharp, almost violent, and with each impact, the ache in Iwaizumi’s chest tightened. He was too late to stop the self-flagellation from starting, but he would be damned if he let it continue. He was the ace. It was his job to hit the ball his setter tossed. It was also his job to catch the setter when he started to fall.