The cicadas in Hyogo sang a different song. Higher-pitched, more frantic, a shimmering wall of sound against the humid air. It was a dry heat here, not the wet, heavy blanket of the Amazon he was used to. Yasuri shifted the strap of his new school bag, the stiff fabric unfamiliar against his shoulder. He walked with a dense, rolling gait, his 180cm frame moving with an economy that made him seem slower than he was. Heavy. Stable. A rock in the current of uniformed students flowing toward Inarizaki High.
He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. A dry, pebble-like sound. A habit. He passed a convenience store, its window plastered with a tourism poster. A vast, deep blue ocean stretched to a clean horizon. A primal knot tightened in his gut. The kind of open water where you couldn't see the bottom, where anything could be rising from the crushing dark below. He looked away, focusing on the cracks in the pavement. Rivers were fine. You could see the banks. You knew their moods. The ocean was a different, hungrier beast.
In Class 1-5, the noise was a familiar brand of chaos. It had a focal point: a boy with bleached blond hair yelling at his identical, grey-haired twin over what looked like a half-eaten onigiri.
“It was mine, ‘Tsumu! I wrote my name on it!”
“It didn’t say ‘Samu,’ it looked like a smudge! A good servant knows not to smudge his master’s food!”
Yasuri’s eyes, the colour of still creek water, slid past them. Atsumu Miya, the one who crackled with static electricity, a constant broadcast of ego. Osamu Miya, a dense, quiet gravity, pulling everything inward. A black hole of appetite and patience. Between them, a boy lounged in his chair, long limbs folded awkwardly under his desk, his phone held up to record the conflict with a slouched, detached amusement. Suna Rintarō. His energy was a lazy drift, a slow current that noticed everything but was moved by nothing.
Yasuri took an empty seat by the window at the back. He set his bag down, unbuttoned his gakuran without taking it off, and rested his chin in his hand, his gaze fixed on the grounds outside. He didn't need to announce himself. He was a shape in the corner of their vision, a large, quiet presence bracketed by the silver glint of his angel fangs piercings and the dark, jaguar-spot tattoos coiling beneath the sleeve of his white undershirt. They’d know who he was soon enough. For now, he just listened to the cicadas and waited for the bell. The school uniforms were ridiculous. Stiff and formal. They felt like a cage for the shoulders.
The second the final bell rang, the twins were gone. Suna unfolded himself and slid out the door, phone still in hand. Yasuri followed the general tide of students, his large frame parting the crowds without effort. He didn't need to ask for directions to the gym. He could hear it. The rhythmic squeak of shoes on polished wood, the percussive thud of volleyballs. A language he understood better than the clipped, formal Japanese the teachers used.
The gym doors were propped open. A wave of familiar smells washed over him: sweat, rubber, and the faint, sharp tang of spray-on muscle relief. It smelled like effort. Home. Inside, practice was already a living thing, a chaotic organism of warm-ups and casual drills. Atsumu was setting for a tall, solid-looking spiker—Ginjima, maybe—while Osamu peppered balls at the libero, Akagi. Above it all, a voice cut through the noise, calm and absolute.
“Ten more laps, Aran. Your form is getting sloppy.”
Yasuri’s gaze found the speaker. Kita Shinsuke. He stood off to the side, not participating, just watching. His presence wasn't loud like Atsumu’s or heavy like Osamu’s. It was… correct. Every line of him was perfectly perpendicular to the floor. No wasted motion, no nervous energy. He was the frame that held the frantic painting of the team together.
Yasuri stepped over the threshold. He didn’t wait for an invitation or an introduction. He just walked to the edge of the court, toeing off his school shoes and slipping on his court shoes from his bag. The action drew a few eyes. A big guy. New. Foreign.
He took a minute, just standing there, feeling the room. His eyes were half-lidded, his head tilted slightly, as if listening to something no one else could hear. The energy in the gym was a series of competing currents. Atsumu’s was a pulsing, aggressive rip tide. Osamu’s, a deep, pulling undertow. Suna, who now leaned against the far wall, was a patch of dead-calm water. It was a powerful, messy ecosystem. Dangerous. He could work with this.
“Oi.”
The voice was Atsumu’s. He’d stopped setting and was staring directly at Yasuri, a ball balanced on his hip. The gym’s ambient noise died down.
“The scholarship kid. From Brazil, right?” Atsumu’s tone was laced with a challenger’s condescension. “Ya just gonna stand there lookin’ pretty or are ya gonna play?”
Yasuri didn’t answer. He simply moved. The team was lining up for receiving drills, a long, snaking queue. Instead of going to the back, he walked to an open space near the front, halfway between Ginjima and Osamu. It was a deliberate choice, slotting himself into a gap in the team’s energy field. He felt Suna’s gaze lift from his phone. He felt Osamu’s focus shift for a fraction of a second.
And he felt Atsumu’s irritation spike. It was a sharp, hot sting in the air.
“Get to the back of the line, new guy. We do things a certain way here.”
“Atsumu.” Kita’s voice was quiet, but it landed like a stone. “Let him be. Coach’s orders.” Kita didn’t explain what those orders were. He just stated a fact and turned his attention back to Ojiro Aran’s running form.
A smirk ghosted across Atsumu’s face. “Coach’s orders, huh?” He tossed the ball he was holding high in the air. “Fine. Let’s see what the big man paid for.” He looked at Yasuri. “You’re an opposite, yeah? The Jaguar of the Amazon, or some stupid thing they called ya.”
Yasuri remained silent, his weight settled evenly on the balls of his feet. His stillness was unnerving. It seemed to amplify Atsumu’s manic energy.
“Alright, then. Let’s see ya hit one of mine.” Atsumu backed up to the setter’s position. He wasn’t looking at anyone else. The receiving drill was forgotten. This was a duel. Osamu took a half-step back, giving them the space. Suna finally lowered his phone, a flicker of genuine interest on his face.
Atsumu tossed the ball once. “I don’t go easy on anyone. If ya can’t keep up, that scholarship was a waste of money.”
Yasuri didn’t nod. He just watched Atsumu’s hands. Watched the muscles in his shoulders, the tension in his neck. He felt the intent long before the ball was in the air. It wasn’t a welcome. It was an interrogation. A test designed for failure.
Atsumu tossed the ball. His form was flawless, terrifyingly so. It was a viciously fast set, shot like a bullet toward the right pin, deliberately too quick, too low, a set that demanded a spiker already be in the air. It was a set meant to humiliate.
But Yasuri wasn’t looking at the ball. He was feeling the rhythm. The anger in Atsumu’s fingertips. The tiny shift in his weight that betrayed the trajectory a half-second before it happened. He didn’t think. He didn’t calculate. He just moved.
Three explosive steps. His approach wasn’t graceful. It was force applied to the floor. The takeoff was a rupture, his heavy frame launching upwards with deceptive ease. For a moment, he hung in the air, a dense, silent mass. His eyes, still half-lidded, found the tiny gap between the two practice blockers who’d scrambled to get up. The tip of his tongue poked out from between his lips.
He didn’t swing with his whole arm. It was a compact, powerful rotation of the torso, a whip-crack of force channeled through his shoulder and into his hand. His palm connected with the ball.
There was no sharp *crack*.
Only a dead, hollow *THUD*.
The ball didn’t fly. It fell. It dropped like a stone, straight down, hitting the floor inside the three-meter line with so much topspin it bounced backward toward the net. It was an attack of pure weight and precision, not of flashy speed. The kind of point that didn’t just score, it ended the conversation.
Silence.
The squeaking shoes stopped. The balls stopped bouncing.
Suna Rintarō stared, his phone forgotten in his hand. Osamu’s eyes were wide, a flicker of disbelief on his face.
Atsumu stood frozen at the net, staring at the spot where the ball had impacted the wood. His face was a mask of stunned fury and something else. Something that might have been respect, or perhaps just sheer shock that his perfect, malicious trap had been turned into a statement.
It was Coach Kurosu who broke the silence. He had appeared at the gym entrance, his arms crossed. He hadn't been there a moment ago.
His gaze was fixed on Yasuri, who was now landing with a quiet finality, his breathing even.
“Alves-kun,” the coach said, his voice calm and assessing. “They gave you the scholarship paperwork, yes?”
Yasuri gave a slow, single nod.
“Good,” Kurosu continued, stepping fully into the gym. “But did anyone from the selection committee tell you exactly what we expect from you in return?”