Sports Drabbles: Volleyball

“Aaaaugh, Yaku-san, I’m dying, can’t we stop?”

Lev was sprawled dramatically on the gym floor, breathing hard, covered in sweat, and surrounded in a halo of volleyballs. Volleyballs he had failed to receive properly. Yaku quietly bemoaned his fate, having to teach and overconfident and incompetent beanpole to play volleyball, practically from the ground-up. This was not what he’d signed up for.

Okay, well, maybe he had volunteered to whip Lev into shape, but that was only because having a semi-regular on the team who sucked that much was just embarrassing. Nekoma had a reputation to uphold.

Yep. That was it.

Yaku was tempted to go over and give Lev a good kick in the ribs and chuck a few more balls at him, but he looked so pathetic that Yaku decided to go easy on him. Just this once.

“Alright, alright, we’re done for the day.”

Lev cheered quietly, lifting his arms in celebration then letting them fall back to the floor with a wet splat.

“But you’re cleaning all this up,” Yaku added. Lev groaned but pushed himself to his feet and started corralling the balls.

Yaku watched briefly, then joined in. He was a good senpai, after all. That was it. It had nothing to do with the way it made Lev grin at him, or the way that that made Yaku’s heart flip.

They cleaned up quickly, and Lev bounced out the door with a wave and a thrown out, “Seeya, Yaku-san!”

Yaku yelled after him, “Where was all that energy half an hour ago!?” and grinned when he heard Lev laugh in response.

He let the expression soften into something maybe a little fond. He was alone. Nobody would need to know.

The smile slipped when he heard muffled yelling. The words were unclear but one of the voices was definitely Lev’s, pitched loud and excited. He put on his best Scary Senpai Face and headed for the disturbance.

He found Lev grinning down at Karasuno’s shrimpy number ten, looming over him even as HInata bounced up on the balls of his feet. Their faces were awfully close together, Yaku noticed, and something about that made him uneasy.

“Oi!” he barked, and Hinata made a small “eep!” kind of a noise and ducked down instinctively to hide behind Lev’s unnecessarily long legs.

Lev blinked at Yaku, his posture shifting from the cheerfully competitive stance he’d had with Hinata to something more guarded, defensive.

“Yes, Yaku-san?” he asked, careful, and the hesitation, faint as it was, made Yaku feel abruptly terrible.

He jerked his head in a “follow me” gesture. Lev obediently disengaged from Hinata (with a subdued but cheerful goodbye) and followed Yaku back to the gym.

“I thought we were done,” he whined.

“Shut up.”

Yaku’s emotions were a roiling, bubbling mess and he wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. He liked to think of himself as a pretty self-aware kind of guy -- he could recognize jealousy when he felt it.

The thing was… this was Lev. And Lev wasn’t like Kuroo, who was quick and clever and could read the affection behind their mutual bickering. And he wasn’t like Yamamoto, who was loud and hardheaded but who knew when to stop and listen and take things seriously,

This was determined, hapless, hopeless Haiba Lev, who took everything at face value and couldn’t be tactful to save his life.

Why, oh why did it have to be Lev?

Yaku would have to approach this carefully. Plan his course of attack, prepare for the potential reactions and responses.

Or, you know, fuck it.

The gym door clicked shut behind them, and Yaku grabbed Lev’s collar and yanked him roughly down into a kiss.

“Mmph!” Lev said, long arms failing.

Yaku stepped back, set his jaw, and crossed his arms. And he waited.

For a long few seconds, Lev just blinked. Yaku was just starting to panic a little when Lev suddenly grinned and pointed at him.

“That’s why you’re such a jerk!”

Of all the responses Yaku had considered -- that hadn’t even crossed his mind. He wasn’t quite sure how to respond so he settled for a quick kick to the leg.

Lev danced out of the way, giggled, and declared, “You liiiiike me!”

Yaku had a crush on an actual eleven-year-old, apparently. He couldn’t believe that this was his life.

“Shut up,” was his eloquent reply.

Lev stopped snickering abruptly and leaned down, eyes sharp and bright.

“Make me.”

So Yaku did.