#mostly because i had to perform blood sacrifice to keep it under 5k sdfjksjf

[nishi-key]

evergreen (G; for the middle blocker kindaichi yuutarou)

my piece for the middle blocker zine, which i only bothered to post now because i completely forgot that my blog is my portfolio. i received my copy of the book recently. thanks to everyone who made it possible! it’s absolutely gorgeous!!

rest of the fic under the cut. it’s...a bit of a read.

The plant is a young purple shamrock, for now nothing but clumps of tiny triangular leaves sprouting out from the soil in an overly-large pot.

It’s a present to Yuutarou for his thirteenth birthday, and though it’s not exactly on his wish list, he takes and looks at it as though it’s the vast, fragile universe—and it is, in its own special way, he figures. It’s a life smaller than he’ll ever be. He now holds its existence like he holds his food or homework or volleyball, and for a boy without much of a concept of what life is beyond these things, it feels incredible.

His mother names the flower with a bright grin on her face. “I got it for you because it’s one of the easiest plants to keep at home,” she tells him, “but the woman who sold it to me said it’s magical.”

Yuutarou raises an eyebrow.

“No, it’s true! It’s a magical shamrock that’ll watch over you, and everything you do. Take care of it well enough and it might just have something to say about your luck and successes.” She winks.

He knows better than to believe her; he’s not a baby, and he’s not about to get manipulated into poring over a bunch of leaves under the impression that it’ll give him a better life. He does thank her for the thoughtful present, though, listens to her drone on about how to keep it alive and promises to try his best with it as he takes it to his room and places it on his desk. Not a bad spot, he thinks, and makes a mental note to water it for the first time. Maybe later.

The plant is doing fairly well, from the looks of it.

It’s like owning a pet, having a plant under his wing, only not as cute and cuddly. It’s more of a new, relatively simple chore he carries out without the need to get nagged. It’s nothing special, nothing remotely interesting, so when his friends find out on the first day they come over, it’s anything but momentous.

"Wait, your mom said it was magic?" Kunimi asks once he finishes relaying the story, now months old.

"Yeah. I guess she was just trying to find a way to get me to give it lots of attention. Dunno why she bothered; it’s not really that needy." Yuutarou shrugs.

Kageyama stares at it with more wonder in his eyes than Yuutarou had when he’d received it. "You should take care of it, magical or not," he says, gingerly touching the tips of the flourishing dark purple leaves. "It’s pretty big, having to keep something alive like this."

"I know. I will," Yuutarou assures him, and relishes in his small smile and nod—not a sliver of doubt in the back of his mind, though there should be, about how well both he and Kageyama’ll be able to keep the important things alive as the years go by.

The plant is generally satisfied, and gradually gains more color, the pinkish white of flowers beautiful amidst the purple.

He doesn’t become a popular guy by any means. He’s easily the tallest kid in the volleyball club but his attacks don’t make the crowd go wild, and they never defeat Shiratorizawa. He’s pretty good at English and Science but his Math teacher always tells him he should do better. He’s welcoming and conversational but his circle of friends is small, his confidence and complete trust concentrated only on two in the bunch.

He wishes for more, as anyone would, and sometimes he finds himself looking at his plant (which beams along with him at every compliment Mom gives), thinking of the magic, but he instantly feels ridiculous, knows that wishes are for people who don’t know how to take action.

So he tries to stay content instead, and like this—with his friends’ bravery and Mom’s cooking and Dad’s advice—the years fly on by.

The plant was fine yesterday. It was.

In their third year, unexpectedly and out of nowhere, Kageyama gets mad at him.

"What the hell? That sucked," he says, eyebrows already knitted, after Yuutarou spikes one of his tosses and lands it out of bounds. "Did you slack off over break or something?"  

"Huh?" Yuutarou blinks at him. It’s three thirty and barely anyone on the court has jumped, let alone found a reason to get frustrated. "No? I—we both just miscalculate sometimes, or do something wrong without meaning to. It happens.”

"Try again,” Kageyama instructs, or maybe orders, but Yuutarou doesn’t want to think of it like that. “And make it score this time.”

"I will, I swear."

The image of the calm, collected Kageyama’s deepest scowl to date unwarrantedly plasters itself onto the forefront of Yuutarou’s memory, stays there all the way home. Maybe it was a bad day, he thinks, tells himself that everyone has the right to lose their cool when things don’t go their way—and right at that moment loses his own when he sees his plant sagging.

It isn’t even that bad; the flower stems are only a little bent and the leaves a little wrinkled, but his breath hitches and he drops everything and sprints downstairs so urgently that Mom has to sprint back up with him to make sure he doesn’t trip on his own feet and die trying to bring a plant back to life.

"It’s not the end of the world, Yuu," she tells him, caressing his back as he attempts to rejuvenate his charge. “These types of plants can look under the weather when the temperature isn’t quite right. It happens."

He drinks her words in the way he wishes the plant drinks the water, feels himself cooling down in its place. A little too cool perhaps, when he stares at the moist leaves and sees a poorly-spiked ball and glaring blue eyes and realizes that it isn’t hot at all, but he shuts his eyes, listens to the soft echoes in his mind:

“It happens.”

The plant is healthy again. It just needed a little water.

A 500-yen coin greets him on the floor of the hallway the next day and he picks it up, turns it in his fingers, stares at it for long enough that a still-sleepy Kunimi somehow finds time to join him.

“Find that on the floor?” he asks. “Keep it. Looking around for the owner and the Lost and Found are too much work.”

“Is that really okay?”

“Think of it as a reward for all the effort you’ve been putting into Math lately.”

Yuutarou, unable to argue with the logic and his desire for a reward, pockets the money.

Right before lunch, they’re handed back their tests, Yuutarou’s sporting a high 95 circled in red right beside his name. He grins from ear to ear when he sees it, offers the paper to those who ask to see, and practically brandishes the thing in Kunimi’s face when they meet up to eat.

Kunimi smiles in earnest, says, "Looks like today’s a good day for you," and it’s the best thing Yuutarou has ever seen.

At practice, he runs faster and jumps higher than ever before. His teammates clap him on the back, tell him he’s doing good today, and he makes conversation about Nationals because it feels right. His grin is almost permanent on his face, until a serve hits Kageyama’s and all hell breaks loose, the livid setter grabbing a trembling wing spiker, several inches taller, by the shirt.

"You have the nerve to talk about Nationals," Kageyama demands, above the litany of apologies, "with a serve like that?"

"Kageyama, calm down!" Yuutarou cries as others yank Kageyama’s hands away. "It was an accident, okay? He said he’s sorry."

"That’s not the point!"

"We’re going to get better," Yuutarou continues. "That’s why we’re here at practice. To improve. Better to make all the mistakes here and correct them so we don’t repeat them when it matters."

It comes out of nowhere, but it works. Kageyama pauses, his balled fists relax, and he averts his gaze, clicks his tongue and mutters an apology before turning away. Yuutarou supposes it’s good enough, but his stomach twists in not-so-subtle knots when their captain sets a hand on his shoulder and tells him he did well, and the rest of practice feels like floating on air.

When he gets home that evening, his shamrock is thriving. He isn’t sure why that scares him, ever so slightly.

The plant is fluctuating from bright and beautiful to complete garbage.

"You don’t think it’s actually magical, do you?"

They eye the plant on the desk, still and harmless, like it’s a monster on top of Yuutarou’s desk.

"What makes you think it could be?" Kunimi asks.

"Whenever something good happens to me, I get home home and see it perfectly fine. But whenever something bad happens, it looks dry and sad,” Yuutarou explains. “I can’t figure out if it reacts to what happens to me or if my day is determined by how it’s feeling."

"That’s dumb," Kageyama says immediately, like Yuutarou hadn’t just finished honestly speaking his mind. "There’s no way a plant can be magic. You probably just pay more attention to it on your good days and end up neglecting it on your bad ones so it reacts to how you treat it. Simple enough."

Yuutarou frowns. "These types of plants don’t need to be watered all the time. They’re really easy to keep alive."

"Then why’s yours dying every other day?"

"It’s not dying!"

"Why are you yelling?"

"Because—" Yuutarou yells until he realizes he is, and he pinches his mouth shut, because arguing is too much work. He exchanges glances with Kunimi instead, thinks maybe they won’t be inviting Kageyama over next time.

He sees the both of them out half an hour later, silently eats his dinner and washes up, and when he once again steps inside his bedroom, his shamrock’s flowers and leaves are falling.

The internet is packed with good reads on effective plant care, he finds, and he stays up after doing his homework to go through them. At practice, he messes up the timing for the block and brings the other team to match point. He hears his teammates sigh.

I’m a terrible blocker, he thinks, and he doesn’t look them in the eye for the rest of the day.

Online sources are limited and inconsistent, he decides, so sometimes he spends his breaks in the library, reading up on plants and how they work, the effects of temperature on their consistency and growth, the effects of anything at all to their resilience. In the hall, two sprinting boys knock him aside in their haste, and he apologizes to their retreating backs.

I’m such a pushover, he thinks, and in class he shrinks in his seat.

Science tells him nothing, so he scours for reliable material on the unexplainable, because that’s what his plant is. It follows no rules, it’s unpredictable, and it’s ruining his life. If he can’t control the magic, he cries in his mind, he can’t control his life.

"Yuu, it’s getting really late. You can do that tomorrow. Go to bed," says the person who brought this magic to him, standing by his doorway minutes before midnight. "If you don’t sleep early, you’re not gonna reach six feet."

Yuutarou has nothing to say to that; he buries his face in his book.

"Yuu. Can you hear me?"

He frowns.

Mom does too. "Okay, well, if you feel like talking tomorrow, I’ll be here. Get some rest, okay?"

She closes the door as quietly as she can, and the click of the lock shatters Yuutarou’s cold facade as well as his heart. I’m an awful son, he thinks, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

At practice, Kageyama’s mood only plunges, and Yuutarou doesn’t know what to do with him either. He sends tosses that are too fast and complains when no one can get them. He talks about getting faster, where’s the improvement, we have to win, we have to win—until the we’s become I’s, what used to be fun and challenging now a mere test of strength against what’s apparently a beast, a monster.

Yuutarou’s patience plunges too. No matter what, he thinks, I’ll never be worse than this guy. And he feels better about himself.

The plant has recovered.

Everything on the court gets worse the louder Kageyama yells, and when tournaments roll around, he’s the only thing Yuutarou’s sure he can block out. He hates that he has to; he still tries to treat Kageyama the same as before, but the minute he hears that sharp voice demanding he move faster jump higher match my pace, he cracks just a little bit more, and he’s well past breaking point.

He has been for a long time; he’s known that since he and Kunimi first spoke privately with their coach.

Their final match of the year, as a team, is no different. He tries and he tries but there’s nothing he can do about the monstrous toss. His jumps are futile, his words don’t go through. The time-outs don’t clear any of their heads. Kageyama never listens, never slows, and Yuutarou’s tired of moving too slow for him.

So he doesn’t move at all.

He stops in his tracks, keeps his eyes on Kageyama’s focused ones and watches them change—wide in anticipation, wider in surprise, even wider in confusion—as the alarmingly-fast ball rises and falls for the last time. Kageyama is benched, and the glare he used to direct at Yuutarou and the rest disappears under the shadow of his fringe, and that’s the last that Yuutarou needs to know about that.

They lose, of course. But the defeated look on Kageyama’s face convinces Yuutarou he’s won something. He feels stronger as he heads home, like he’s conquered a heavy weight on his shoulders, like he’s done something right for the first time in his life. The night sky is dark but it’s as though the clouds are making way for a bright sun overhead, one that tells of a future where nothing will ever make him feel so small again.

He heads up to his room in high spirits, but in the moment he opens his door he also reels back, drops all of his things, and tries to blink himself out of what he hopes is a cruel dream.

The plant is dead.

“It had to be a pest or something,” Mom says. “I can’t imagine how else this could have happened.”

The once-beautiful leaves of his shamrock are curled in on themselves, shrunken and weak, holes drilled into them like they’d been set ablaze. It makes Yuutarou feel sick but he can’t tear his eyes away, only blinks the wetness out of them as his chest grows heavy and his stomach sinks.

"We’ll do a little more research on this, okay? I remember reading that these kinds of plants can resurrect, or something like that. Maybe it still has a chance."

"Please throw it out."

Mom seems to stop breathing. "What?"

Yuutarou sucks in all the air he can find. "Let’s just throw it out."

"Ah—but—" She pauses, then gently rubs his shoulders. They’re higher than hers already. "Okay. Okay. Let’s just get a new one, yeah?"

"No."

"No? You don’t want to replace it?"

"I don’t."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

He feels her gaze on him, piercing and studious, but she doesn’t say anything he doesn’t want to hear. She sighs, takes the pot, and moves to head out the door. "I’ll bring this to the yard for you, all right? Dinner’ll be ready soon. Oh! And how was your game?"

The question sets his skin on fire, punctures his heart like it’s a dying purple leaf. "We lost," he mumbles, turning away. "We lost."

The plant has been buried underground for quite some time.

“Okay, Kindaichi, your turn!”

He steps to the front of the line and grabs a ball from the cart, tries to calm himself down even in the face of Oikawa’s toothy grin. It isn’t Yuutarou’s first time hitting his sets but the nerves never leave, and every run-up for a spike is like the moment of truth, make or break, match point.

He knows it shouldn’t be, and it makes a difference, but when he runs and swings and ultimately misses, he still clams up, turns to Oikawa with a barrage of excuses and apologies ready to leave his mouth, and the only thing that stops him is Oikawa’s still-smiling face.

"Your timing’s a little slow, huh?" he says. "Think you can go a little faster than that?"

The word ‘slow’ makes him want to shrink. But he looks at Oikawa’s patient gaze and reminds himself this isn’t middle school anymore. This isn’t Kageyama anymore, and Yuutarou is six feet tall, has a voice he’s used only a few times before, a voice that might as well wilt and die with his shamrock if he doesn’t ever use it again.

"Maybe," he says, but before Oikawa can beam too much, nervously adds, "but right now, can I not?”

Oikawa’s smile vanishes for the first time, and Yuutarou has to conceal his cringe for the better part of a minute before it comes back, wider than ever. "Well. I appreciate your being straightforward," he says, clapping a hand on Yuutarou’s shoulder, and Yuutarou has to work on controlling his gape instead. "I’ll accept that answer for now. Practice with me so I can get your timing right, okay?"

The yes that escapes from Yuutarou’s smiling lips is as loud as it is elated.

The plant is doing wonders for the garden soil it’s buried in.

Somehow he finds himself standing in front of Kageyama again one day, his own team fresh from a loss in their practice match. It’s odd to see him clad in black, but that’s the least of Yuutarou’s problems, now that the King of the Court stands before him wearing a different kind of crown.

He hadn’t come up with that nickname but he’d embraced it all the same, and when he’d heard that Kageyama’s school was coming over, he’d been intrigued rather than enraged. It would make for good entertainment, he figured, getting to watch Kageyama yelling at people he isn’t required to care about, and a good way to know for sure that where he is and where Kageyama is truly are meant to be different.

But that’s not what he sees, and ultimately, he ends up here, yelling at Kageyama and not the other way around, because Kageyama is different—from his faces on the court all the way up to the lightning-quick toss he now manages to score with. It has Yuutarou’s fists trembling as he screams, "Don’t apologize!" in front of a bashful King’s face, and he honestly can’t believe he has to.

What other things come out of his mouth, he doesn’t remember. They might be a little cruel, a little untrue, a little overconfident of him, but it helps him hold his head up high, and look Kageyama straight in the eye as he nods in agreement with everything Yuutarou had gotten off his chest, and says:

“Next time we fight, we’re going to win again.”

The we is a shot right through the heart. The way Kageyama leaves with his new partner is a dagger to his back. But as he looks to the ceiling, despite the feeling of defeat, he can neither help his smile nor understand why. He retreats to his own team with Kunimi, thinks about how Kageyama has changed, and how he isn’t the only one who has.

The plant is a dwarf lemon cypress, a fair height and vibrant green, and it’s been growing in a pot inside one of the second story bedrooms for the better part of a year now.

He finds it after another devastating loss to Shiratorizawa, and the first thing he thinks is it’s so beautiful. His eyes are still a little puffy from the tears but he stares at the bright leaves all shaped like miniature trees, gently runs his fingers through them, feels his heart swell.

“Oh, you found it.”

Mom stands by the doorway, leaning against the frame and smiling at him. Yuutarou shouldn’t be surprised—it’s her room, after all—but his mouth can’t make words and his eyes are wide, only able to stare at her.

“Purple was pretty, but also pretty depressing, so I figured you could use something green this time. The color of life, environment, renewal, and growth,” she says, like that stare had demanded an explanation. “And I thought it might be nice to get something taller, so you can get taller and tower over everyone on the court.”

The smile on her lips and in her eyes is so warm, and Yuutarou sniffles, breathes out a laugh. The first thing he thinks to say is incomprehensible, something he never would have asked three years ago. “So it’s magic too?”

“Hmm. The saleslady didn’t say it was magical this time.” Mom stands beside him and rests a hand between his shoulder blades. “But I’d say that the plants never had the magic from the start. It’s the amount of love and care you give it to keep it alive despite everything that happens in your life, good or bad, that makes it magic. Agree or agree?”

This time, Yuutarou’s laughter finds its voice. “Agree.”

“Do you want to move it to your room and take over now?”

“I’m fine with keeping it here for a while.”

“Okay. But only until you turn twenty; that’s when I’m legally allowed to stop caring about you so much.”

“Aww, make it thirty.”

“Too much! Twenty-one.”

“Twenty-nine! I’ll help you with it anyway.”

Mom’s shoulders shake with her giggling. “Fine,” she says, and Yuutarou leans on the shoulder he used to cry on as a child.

The plant has thrived even more since its discovery, basking in the heat, surviving in the cold.

“Captain Kindaichi sure handled that arrogant first year pretty well earlier, huh?”

Yuutarou snaps to attention and raises an eyebrow at the grinning teammates that surround him. “What?”

“The first year who yelled because our play wasn’t ‘the best we could’ve done’. You pulled him aside during the time-out and talked to him, right? Nice, nice.”

“It wasn’t much,” Yuutarou says, hunching over and pulling ahead of rest of the group leisurely strolling on the lamp-lit sidewalk. “And it’s not entirely new either. Kyoutani-san was like that to the third years back then, and Yahaba-san learned to deal with him, so I should be able to do something like this.”

“Yeah, we know, we’re just complimenting you, dumbass. Where’s our thanks for thinking you’re the best captain we could’ve hoped to have this year?”

“Well, thanks,” Yuutarou deadpans, but he doesn’t walk any faster. “I never asked for compliments, though. A captain’s only as good as his team, anyway; I lead, but we all do our best together. And when I inevitably screw up, you’re all there to pick up the pieces.”

“Or,” Kunimi interjects, sending a slap to his arm, “you could stop being all mature for a second and learn to take a compliment.”

The rabble erupts in a chorus of laughter and haphazardly-thrown punches, and he makes a face at them, glues their grins to his memory, and announces that they’re making a stop at a nearby store for some snacks, captain’s treat. Only for a while though, he emphasizes once the cheering dies down, so he can still get home in time to help Mom with dinner.

The plant has seen bad days and better days, but it grows. And it’ll keep on growing; Yuutarou will make sure of it.