Chapter 72: Meeting the Opponent
The next day, during lunch break.
Kageyama Tobio had arrived early at Karasuno's gymnasium and was practicing his jump serve accuracy alone, wanting to quickly achieve the terrifying ball control ability of Oikawa-senpai.
Following him into the gym were three yawning figures.
Ichise Guren, Hoshino Masaru, and Hyakuzawa Yudai.
"Yawn~"
"I knew you'd wake up early and come to the gym to practice receiving."
Ichise Guren said while yawning, his eyes still drowsy as he predicted Hoshino Masaru's behavior.
Hoshino Masaru looked thoroughly annoyed.
"Who told you to arbitrarily declare war on senpai! If I don't hurry up and improve my condition, that would be too disrespectful to senpai, wouldn't it?"
Ichise Guren gave Hoshino Masaru a very subtle look and said slowly.
"You're obviously really concerned about this, aren't you?"
"I'm not that concerned!"
Watching his two teammates start their afternoon friendly banter, Hyakuzawa Yudai let out another yawn. Though he didn't speak aloud, he was complaining madly in his heart.
'You two can just serve and receive. Why did Guren-nii wake me up?'
Remembering the scene of being woken up from his peaceful lunch nap by his cousin next door, drowsiness washed over Hyakuzawa Yudai. He prepared to sneak away to the club room floor for a nap while the others weren't paying attention.
Tilting his head and looking puzzledly at the two bickering people and Hyakuzawa Yudai who was already sneaking away, Kageyama Tobio couldn't understand what these three were here for. If they weren't going to practice, wouldn't it be much more comfortable to sleep at home?
Not sleeping at noon, coming to the gym, and then chatting?
Could chatting make you MVP?
Incomprehensible.
Fortunately, though the two who stopped their nonsense noticed Hyakuzawa Yudai had slipped away, they weren't too angry about it. Instead, they began serve-receive training.
"Bam!"
"Bam!"
"Bam!"
Ichise Guren's powerful jump serves really packed too much power. Although Hoshino Masaru, who had been receiving from this former captain for almost a year, could successfully receive his jump serves, his arms hurt from being hit each time, and the noise was indeed very loud.
Kageyama Tobio, whose serve training was interrupted by the noise, began to focus his attention, trying to restart his own training. After all, there were plenty of louder sounds on the court. If he couldn't block out distractions, what was the point of playing?
However, things never go as imagined.
Just as he focused and served what he thought would hit the water bottle, Hinata Shoyo suddenly rushed out and received it like a home run.
Hinata Shoyo, who got scolded by Kageyama Tobio, just grinned foolishly without caring. Instead, he looked toward the other duo also practicing receives.
"Oh! Hoshino! Let me practice with you too! Teach me more receiving techniques!"
Hoshino Masaru glanced sideways at Hinata Shoyo, who looked like a little puppy, and said helplessly with a shrug.
"Well, practicing together is fine. You receive one ball, I receive one ball."
"As for receiving techniques, all you lack is experience and daily accumulated practice."
"Ball sense can't be mastered overnight."
Hinata Shoyo's eyes widened.
"I see! So I just need to receive more balls?"
"...Mm...that's not wrong..."
"Yoshi! Guren! Serve me a hundred balls!"
"Are you an idiot?! He's not serving just for you!"
"Hahaha! Don't be so stingy! Hoshino!"
Ichise Guren, feeling like his serves were being treated as some kind of reward by the two, inexplicably felt looked down upon.
Rolling up his sleeves, with a sunny smile but a vein popping on his forehead, representing that Ichise Guren's inner state wasn't as peaceful as his appearance.
"Hey, I'm saying."
"Have you two decided who's going to get beaten by the ball?!"
"Huh?!"
Ichise Guren expressed his temper to the two with a trace of anger.
While the three were having their daily volleyball club routine, Kageyama Tobio had already served his second ball.
'Good! This ball feels right!'
The sound of his palm making tight contact with the volleyball attracted the attention of the three nearby.
But before the three could see whether the volleyball hit the water bottle, a figure rushed over.
Kageyama Tobio: 'Again?'
But immediately after, a sense of shock struck him.
The volleyball was received by the running figure using an extremely skillful force-dampening technique that perfectly neutralized the serve's power and spin at the moment of contact, accurately passing the ball to where a setter would normally be positioned.
The three on the other side were also attracted by this exquisite receive, but each had different thoughts.
Hinata Shoyo directly ran over to ask about Nishinoya Yu's height, since it was rare for him to see a player in the volleyball club who was even shorter than himself.
Ichise Guren felt somewhat troubled.
'Not good. This receiving level is higher than I imagined. If compared to him, won't Hoshino lose confidence?'
'My memory is too distant, and Nishinoya didn't have much screen time. I misjudged his receiving ability.'
Ichise Guren frowned deeply. He realized he might have messed up this time, because if Nishinoya Yu's receiving level was equivalent to his spiking power, then Hoshino Masaru's receiving level might only match Tanaka Ryunosuke's regular spiking level.
This gap didn't seem large, but if they actually faced off, with Hoshino's non-hot-blooded personality, there was indeed a chance he'd become discouraged.
But one of the parties involved, Hoshino Masaru, thought completely differently from what Ichise Guren imagined. Almost the instant Nishinoya Yu made his receive, Hoshino Masaru, as a fellow libero, judged:
'This is Karasuno's Guardian Deity.'
Then made his decision quite naturally.
'I'm no match for him.'
'This level of receiving technique is truly genius.'
Watching Hoshino Masaru's eyes turn dead-fish-like again, Ichise Guren silently complained in his heart.
'What was I thinking? This guy seems to have given up already.'
'...?'
Mentally shrugging, Ichise Guren wasn't sure what to do either.
First, the opponent he'd chosen for Hoshino Masaru was indeed a bit too strong in receiving.
Second, rather than letting Hoshino Masaru be defeated by Nishinoya Yu after making full preparations, judging their relative strength in advance and directly forfeiting might not be bad either.
Third, the decision could only be in Hoshino Masaru's hands. It was one thing not to see the opponent before, but now that he'd seen the opponent's ability, if Hoshino Masaru was unwilling, Ichise Guren would explain things clearly to Sugawara-senpai.
However, the desire to stir up trouble wasn't so easily abandoned.
"What's wrong? Hoshino-kun, is the opponent very strong?"
Ichise Guren brought up the topic as if unconcerned, and though Hoshino Masaru was smart, he was still just a first-year high school student and wouldn't overthink it.
He just assumed Ichise Guren couldn't tell.
"You might not be a libero, Ichise, but for liberos, this kind of receiving is obvious at a glance. His receives aren't something that can be achieved through solid fundamentals and continuous hard practice alone."
"This reaction speed and powerful ball sense."
"He should be that best middle school libero from Chidoriyama I saw when I was in second year of middle school, right? I can't remember his name clearly, but his receiving left an extremely deep impression on me."
Hoshino Masaru poured out all his feelings and thoughts from just now. Although it seemed very objective and emotionless.
Ichise Guren could still sense that Hoshino Masaru was still unwilling to accept it deep down. Though this unwillingness might be like Tsukishima Kei's competitiveness.
Usually unnoticeable, but if you really made him admit defeat, his fighting spirit would emerge.
Seeing Hoshino Masaru still had competitiveness and unwillingness, Ichise Guren smiled.
'Since you haven't admitted defeat yourself, then I'll give you a push.'
***
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