They returned to the court to a different kind of energy. The air was no longer just humid; it was sharp, crackling with a specific, focused intent emanating from the service line. Atsumu was waiting. He wasn’t grinning anymore. His face was a mask of cold concentration, his eyes fixed on Yasuri with an unsettling intensity.
Practice resumed. The ball went to Ginjima, a solid pass. Ojiro smashed a cross-court spike. A standard drill. Then it was Atsumu’s rotation to serve again.
He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. The first serve was a statement of purpose. It was lower, faster, aimed not at Yasuri’s center but at the far-right corner of his receiving zone. It was a technical question: can you move that fast, that precisely, after a break?
Yasuri could. His feet slid across the floor, a whisper of movement. His platform was there, angled perfectly. The ball shot up, a little less clean than before, but still playable.
Atsumu got the ball back. He didn't even look at the rest of the court. His second serve was a jump float, the ball wobbling erratically through the air, dying just as it crossed the net. A serve designed to test reflexes, to punish anyone who committed too early.
Yasuri read it. He lunged forward, his long frame unfolding, his fingers just managing to scoop under the ball and bump it up. It wasn't pretty. It spun sideways toward Osamu, who had to scramble. But it stayed in play.
"Nice cover, 'Samu!" Ojiro yelled.
No one praised Yasuri's receive. They just saw the near-error, not the near-impossible save. He felt Suna’s phone camera on him again, a dispassionate glass eye recording his struggle. The heat from the coffee was gone, replaced by a sour, acidic churning in his stomach. The caffeine had crossed a threshold. It was no longer a tool for focus; it was static, making the lights of the gym seem too bright, the shouts of his teammates too loud. A fine tremor started in his hands, one he couldn't still.
Atsumu served a third time. And a fourth. And a fifth. It was a barrage. A systematic dismantling. He alternated vicious jump serves that hammered at Yasuri’s stamina with deceptive floats that frayed his nerves. He targeted the lines, the seams between players, always pulling Yasuri into the play, forcing him to move, to think, to burn energy he didn't have.
Yasuri’s body kept responding. His training was too deep, his movements too ingrained to fail completely. But tiny cracks were showing. A half-step of hesitation. A platform angled a degree off. A receive that sent the setter diving. His movements, usually fluid as water, became subtly jerky. The coffee was corroding him from the inside. Each thump of his heart was a painful jackhammer against his ribs.
Kita watched from the sideline, his face impassive. He wasn't watching the ball. He was watching Yasuri. He noted the slight sheen of cold sweat on his forehead, the unnatural pallor under his brown skin. He saw the way Yasuri’s braid, usually swaying with his movement, now seemed to hang heavily, a dead weight.
The final serve from Atsumu was the worst. It was a replica of the first one he’d sent in the match, a full-power jump serve aimed directly at the chest. But this time, Yasuri was frayed, his systems overloaded. He got his arms up, but his core wasn't braced quite right. The force of the impact didn't dissipate. It shuddered through his arms and into his chest, knocking the air from his lungs in a painful gasp. The ball ricocheted wildly out of bounds.
Atsumu let out a triumphant shout. "There it is!"
Yasuri didn't hear him. The gym tilted violently. The floorboards seemed to wave. A wave of nausea, hot and sharp, rose up his throat. He felt the blood drain from his face. He could not be sick here. He would not give them that.
He put a hand out, bracing it against the cool concrete of the gym wall. His vision narrowed to a tunnel. Without a word, he turned and began walking, his steps stiff and deliberate, toward the exit.
"Hey, where're you goin'?" Atsumu called, annoyed. "The drill's not over!"
Suna lowered his phone, his usual smirk gone. "Guys," he said, his voice quiet. "I don't think he's okay."
The whole team turned to watch Yasuri’s retreat. He made it to the doorway before his legs gave out. He didn’t collapse so much as fold, sliding down the wall into a crouch, his head bowed between his knees, one arm wrapped tightly around his stomach.
Silence. Then a chorus of worried voices.
"What the hell?"
"Is he hurt?"
"Yasuri!"
Kita moved before anyone else. "Everyone, stay here. Continue your cool-down stretches," he commanded, his voice cutting through the noise with absolute authority. He walked over to where Yasuri was huddled, his shadow falling over the younger boy.
Yasuri didn't look up. He was breathing in short, harsh gasps, fighting the revolt in his gut. The familiar, dreadful feeling of losing control was a far worse sickness than the nausea.
"Can you stand?" Kita’s voice was low, devoid of panic.
Yasuri gave a short, jerky nod. He used the wall to push himself up, his legs unsteady. He kept his eyes fixed on the floor, unable to meet anyone's gaze. The shame was a physical weight.
"Infirmary," Kita stated. It wasn’t a suggestion. He placed a hand lightly on Yasuri's back, not to support him, but to guide him, a steady and impersonal pressure. He led him out of the gym, away from the twenty pairs of stunned eyes.
The walk was silent. The antiseptic smell of the infirmary was sharp, cutting through the fog in Yasuri’s head. Kita directed him to sit on the edge of one of the beds, then methodically pulled the privacy curtain closed, encasing them in a small, white world. The sounds of the school faded.
Kita didn’t ask if he was okay. He didn’t ask what happened. He pulled a small trash can over and placed it by Yasuri's feet, a practical, unspoken acknowledgement. Then he sat on a nearby stool, his hands resting on his knees.
"How many?" Kita asked after a full minute of silence.
Yasuri stared at the linoleum floor. The question was so direct, so precise, it cut through his disorientation. "Four," he managed to say, his voice raspy.
"Four cans of coffee. No food. High-intensity exercise." Kita listed the facts like an equation. "The result is logical."
Yasuri wrapped his arms tighter around his midsection. The discomfort was immense, a twisting knot of physical sickness and profound humiliation. He had failed the most basic rule: maintain control.
"This is not like you," Kita continued, his tone still observational. "In practice, your movements are always correct. Your decisions are efficient. You do not waste energy. This... was a waste. An incorrect procedure."
The word "incorrect" resonated with something deep inside Yasuri. It was the word his father used. It was the word his mind screamed at him when he thought about food.
He finally looked up, his strange green eyes meeting Kita's. The usual calm indifference was gone, replaced by a raw, stark vulnerability that was more unsettling than any outburst could be.
"It is hard to be quiet," Yasuri said, the words coming out rough, as if torn from his throat.
Kita waited. He didn't prompt. He just listened.
"Here," Yasuri gestured vaguely at his own head. "It is loud. The coffee... it makes the body fast, but the mind quiet. For a while."
The confession hung in the sterile air. It wasn't an apology. It was an explanation.
"My father," Yasuri began again, his voice dropping lower, flatter. "He did not like noise. Or mistakes. Being small and fast and quiet... was better. Safer." The story was there, in the space between the words. A childhood spent like a prey animal, learning to be invisible.
He took a shaky breath. "Food is heavy. Slow. I cannot have it inside me when I need to be fast."
Kita's gaze flickered to Yasuri's arm, where the jaguar tattoo peeked from his sleeve. The spots and rosettes that looked like a warrior's mark now seemed like a form of camouflage. Armor for a boy who learned to hunt by being hunted.
"At school in Brazil, too," Yasuri added, his gaze distant. "The other boys... they did not like my skin. Or my mother's family." He touched the side of his face, a fleeting, unconscious gesture. "They said things. Did things. It was better to be fast."
There it was. Not all of it, but the foundation. A life built on the principle of evasion. A body disciplined into a weapon of escape, fueled by anxiety and black coffee because sustenance itself had become a liability. The fortress he’d built around himself was starving him.
Kita processed the information. He saw the threads: the abusive father, the racist bullying, the resulting anxiety, the disordered eating as a coping mechanism, the caffeine as a crutch for that mechanism. He saw a boy who had survived by turning his body into a finely tuned machine of avoidance, and that machine was now breaking down.
He did not offer sympathy. He did not say he was sorry. Words like that were useless. They were an incorrect procedure.
Instead, Kita leaned forward slightly. "Yasuri," he said, and the use of his name was deliberate, anchoring. "Running on caffeine is not sustainable. Your body collapsing is not efficient. Your methods for control have resulted in a loss of control."
He stood up, his posture as ramrod straight as ever. "This is an incorrect procedure."
Yasuri watched him, the nausea finally beginning to subside, replaced by a hollow ache.
Kita looked down at him, and his gaze was no longer just observant. It was analytical, yes, but something else was there, too. A flicker of resolve. He wasn't looking at a broken teammate. He was looking at a flawed system that needed to be overhauled.
"We will establish a correct one," Kita stated, with the same finality he used to announce the end of practice. "Together."
He wasn't offering comfort. He was offering structure. He wasn't promising to fix Yasuri's past, but to fix his present. For Yasuri, who had only ever known how to build his own cages, the idea that someone else would help him draw a new blueprint was a terrifying, disorienting, and profoundly altering thought. Kita did not see a victim. He saw the jaguar's bones, and he was calculating how to make them stronger.