114 A Feeling

'Lower it gently…'

Feeling the pressure of the ball landing gently onto his fingers, Haruto pushed his fingers forward where he placed the ball in a direction that was slightly above him.

He then noticed a streak of white hair pass by him as the person went up to smash the ball.

Coming down the middle quickly, the person tilted the soles of his feet inwards where he transferred all the force that came from his run up into his jump.

'He sure jumps high seeing it up close.'

Haruto thought to himself as he carefully watched Hoshiumi's every movement despite having finished his role already.

Seeing how the ball opened up to his right side, Hoshiumi gazed at the set and noticed how Haruto placed it near his right shoulder.

This in turn opened a pathway for him to hit down a cross that appeared towards the right corner.

–BOOOM

Even with a tall wall of blockers that would overwhelm a person of his size, Hoshiumi easily spiked above their hands and got the ball to quickly dip where it landed in the right corner.

"Whew, that was a good spike."

Haruto whistled as a grin followed when he approached Hoshiumi to give him a high-five.

"You also have some good hands."

Hoshiumi replied back when he recalled the set Haruto gave him.

The way it floated towards his right shoulder where he purposely aimed to have the hitter open up to a cross where he noticed the blockers were a bit absent.

Added to the fact he also made the set a bit higher so he could at least match with the apex of his jump.

'Well he does surround himself with some high leveled setters so I guess he's using them as a reference. But that's still impressive on its own.'

Hoshiumi had noticed throughout the camp that Haruto had been very earnest when it came to challenging himself with high leveled players from each category.

Sakusa, Komori, Atsumu and many others. He seemed to always want to learn more.

"Could you give me a set?" 

Kageyama came from his position in the back row and spoke a bit to Haruto.

"I'll see about it."

"Make it good alright."

"Don't worry my sets are always the best!"

"...."

Kageyama felt his face crumple when he noticed how Haruto was trying to tease him that he decided not to say anything since he had said this very sentence many times and it felt strange hearing it come back to him.

"Do you think you can incorporate quicks now?"

Back to the nets as his team was now serving, Hoshiumi requested as he placed his hands on the back of his head.

"Oh? How often would you want to do them?"

"I'll come up when the pass is good or when the sets are tight."

"Gotcha."

Haruto nodded to Hoshiumi's words and his fingers began to rub themselves together so his senses could match together to give him more control when he's handling the volleyball.

*Tweet

The coach blew the whistle and Kageyama spun the ball in his hands before he threw the ball high up in the air.

Following through with his approach Kageyama pulled his arm backward and swung through the ball.

–BOOM

The ball did a sharp curve downwards as he ripped past the ball and quickly got into place where he watched the other team pass his serve.

'I need more work…'

Kageyama thought as he felt like his hand could do more improvement in the way he contacted the ball.

While he thought of ways on how to improve it, Haruto was at the front where his eyes sharply followed the direction the ball went each time it got passed around.

'The one on the left straggled off but the setter is too far to do a quick so it's probably not him…'

With each touch that began to reach towards it's third one, Haruto was slowly ticking off the players in front of him to narrow down his options on who would get the ball.

'High chance it's either the middle or outside..'

Haruto's right leg began to open up towards his right side where he took an early pivot foot ready to use it as a boost for his block.

And right beside, Haruto didn't notice that Hoshiumi did the exact movements as he did as they were oddly in sync with each other.

The ball fell into the hands of the opposite setter and flew quickly to the outside where Haruto and Hoshiumi were already set in place.

"These guys are really placing me against these two…"

Komori gave a wry smile as he did his approach trying to match the toss given to him but the sight of two very skilled blockers made him give out a sigh.

Komori who was placed as an outside hitter rather than his role as libero, jumped up and swung at the ball, however he faintly stopped right as he was about to make contact and attempted to make a faint right over the block.

–BOOF

"Touch!"

Haruto however was quick to move his arm and just caught the ball with his fingers where he pushed it upwards for his team to get.

"Yeah, Yeah."

Atsumu who was on Haruto's team playing as a libero, ran up to the attack line and smoothly passed it upwards making it easier for Haruto to use it.

"Good pass."

Haruto mumbled as he raised his hands in front of his face, anticipating for the ball to arrive.

He was able to feel the sharp stares of the people on the opposite side of the net pressing onto him and a faint smile began to grow.

'Kageyama probably feels this pressure on the daily… It's a bit different but this sort of pressure is what keeps me on my toes..'

Haruto leaned his body forward in an attempt to set in front of him. The blockers began to shift themselves reading his body language but…

–SWOSH

As he contacted the ball, Haruto arched his back and pushed outwards towards the line on the right hand side of the court. Baiting the blockers for a second.

Kageyama quickly ran from the back row and jumped right before the attack line where he swung his hardest at the ball Haruto had given him.

It quickly flew through the air and passed by the space between Komori and the antenna.

"T-Touch!"

However despite not placing a solid block on Kageyama, a person was able to pick up his spike where it flew back onto Haruto's side.

The person who received the ball gave a strange look as he thought back to the play that happened and began to doubt whether the two were actually in positions where they hardly played in.

"Free ball!"

Haruto's team called out and Atsumu slowly walked up where he passed the ball once again for Haruto to use.

'Now what should I do..'

Haruto's brain began to turn as he thought about his next course of action.

He noticed that some people began to move prior to him touching the ball and saw Hoshiumi running down the middle.

Recalling his prior words, Haruto jumped up to create an internal rhythm for him to use for the quick and use his fingers to push outwards.

'...Hmm?'

Finishing his movements for the quick it swiftly went towards Hoshiumi but a lingering sensation was still present on his fingers.

Leaving him a strange feeling.

"Nice set man!"

"Ah yeah!"

Haruto pushed the feeling away as he noticed that Hoshiumi was able to score a point once again.

His team quickly gathered where they each celebrated the point before returning back to their position.

Haruto who was at the net once again placed his hands behind his head to cover the net.

At that moment he subconsciously rubbed his thumb and pointer finger together as he waited for the sound of Kageyama serving again.

***

"Doing serve receive again?"

"Nah I'm feeling the urge to hit since I've been playing as a setter the entire time today. I need to ignite my inner spiker once again."

Holding a ball in his hand, Haruto began to hit the ball against the wall as he and Kageyama waited for the other people they usually practice with to come over.

It was the end of their main training and the nets were open for more extra training like it has been for the past few days.

"Heyo! You two really worked pretty well in your positions today.."

Kimori waved his hand happily as he walked to where Haruto was and alongside him was Sakusa with his usual empty look.

"Setting was pretty fun but I still prefer hitting."

"It's the same for me."

Haruto and Kageyama shared similar views as they loved their current positions and that was something that would never change.

"Haha I could feel that judging with the way you play when you're in your usual roles. So what do you want to do today?"

Komori chuckled a bit as he stretched his body and waited for the opinions of everyone there.

"I wanna hit."

"I wanna set."

"Same."

The three said their preference and Komori felt the opinions of everyone here were similar.

"Same I feel like I need to go back to my roots since being a libero wasn't really that fun for me."

"Hey, being a libero is plenty of fun."

"Meh setting is still superior."

Atsumu whistled as he quickly joined the group while he had his hands resting on the back of his head.

"We have five so we could do some hitting lines and…"

"Wait I can call someone and we can do an actual game."

Haruto quickly stopped Komori who was counting on his fingers and ran up to a person who had white hair.

The four watched as Haruto began to talk with him before dragging him over to where the rest were waiting.

"With him we can do a 3 vs 3."

Haruto smiled as he patted Hoshiumi on the shoulder which caused him to immediately frown.

"Stop doing that."

"Hmm?"

"You're going to make me shorter if you keep pressing onto me like that."

Haruto was stunned when he heard Hoshiumi say this with a straight face and he had to turn his head away to prevent himself from bursting into laughter.

"L-Let's go to t-the net."

"Y-Yeah…"

Haruto stuttered a bit as he spoke with his face turned away and Atsumu followed along as he also tried his best to keep in his laughter.

With the six warming themselves up for another match, the final day of the training camp was slowly approaching.

***

I hope you enjoyed it. Peacu.