Haikyuu!
Higher
Chapter 01: Growth

31 minutes… that's all Hinata had on the court.

Aika could do nothing but watch sadly as her perky friend burst into tears, claiming that he would one day defeat Tobio Kageyama, the frightening setter that had just defeated their tiny, inexperienced team. She frowned, biting her lip.

She knew what it was like to be defeated, to feel like something you love was slipping away. She knew better than anyone. Reaching down to her wrapped knee, she hesitated. Instead, she picked up her cane, the one that braced her if she could no longer walk, and practically hobbled down the stairs, towards Hinata. As she reached him, she gently placed a hand on his shoulder.

"We'll get 'em next time," she promised Hinata. The orange-haired boy and the black-haired boy both turned to look at her. She grinned. "It's not just about winning or losing. Having fun is a big part of it, too. As long as everyone is okay, then it was a good game."

Kageyama seemed to scoff at that, but Aika simply ignored him. Her eyes were fixed on Hinata's teary ones, the two of them sharing their look, the one that had brought them together in the first place. She smiled broadly at him, sealing their promise.

"Right," Hinata finally murmured. "Yeah! We'll be the best in the entire world!"

Aika laughed, flipping her long, red hair over her shoulders. "Hold it there, tiger. We gotta be the best in Japan first. But we'll do it. We'll rise to the top. Together."

"Shoyo Hinata! Wait!"

"Sorry, no can do, Aika! I wanna practice!"

"Shoyo! Don't run! Ow, dammit!" Aika cursed as she tripped over her school slippers. From her place on the ground, she looked up, seeing Hinata – Shoyo's – orange hair disappearing into the crowd of taller students. "Ugh. He's way too energetic for his own good…"

She stood up, brushing off her skirt as she bit her lip.

Karasuno High was a much bigger place than she thought it would be. Even though it was definitely not the best when it came to academics, it was the only place that she wanted to go to high school. It was the only place she could achieve her dream.

Well… it was Shoyo's dream first. I suppose that I'm imposing my own dream on him. I wanted to be the best, too, but since that won't happen, it's up to him. And I have to support him.

As well as keep him in check. For as talented and hardworking as Shoyo was, he was hard to keep up with. He was never one to rest, even if his body was absolutely exhausted. It was always the one thing about him that really irritated her.

"Excuse me…" she mumbled as she pushed her way through the crowd. She had to get to the gym, before Shoyo embarrassed himself so badly that he couldn't recover. "Sorry, please let me through."

There were too many people. Aika could feel herself getting boxed in, and she hated it. She felt as if something was suffocating her. She could feel her pulse rising and she finally screamed.

"Move you idiots!"

Almost as soon as Sawamura was finished with his speech, the door to the gym burst open.

"Shoyo Hinata, if you leave me behind one more time, I swear that I will turn your bones into dust and your blood into jelly, and I will destroy you!"

All the boys whirled around to see the girl with long, wine red hair pulled up in a ponytail. She glared at Shoyo, marching right up to him and glaring up at him. Even though Shoyo was small, she was much smaller, standing at around the same level as his nose.

He shook, his face draining of whatever color it had. "S-Sorry, Aika… I got excited," he apologized nervously, shuffling his feet.

She sighed. "Geez. I'm mad 'cause you went to play without me. I thought you were finally getting the hang of controlling yourself until you can play. Instead, you're here fighting with Kageyama. You let your excitement get the best of you again. Plus, you left me in a crowded hallway. Alone."

"C'mon, Aika, I didn't mean anything by it! I just wanted to play!"

"And I thought that we agreed that we'd meet the team before you started causing trouble!"

"Ah… sorry… I forgot. I got too excited again." Shoyo, for once, looked ashamed. "I'll make it up to you, I promise! I'll apologize if you want me to!"

"Shoyo…" She sighed, then lifted her cane, gently smacking him over the head. "Get back to practicing, stupid!"

Shoyo nodded eagerly. "Yes, ma'am! I'll make you proud!" He dashed off, immediately picking a fight with the black-haired boy next to him.

Glancing at the girl, Kageyama realized where he'd seen her. Her hair had been shorter, and she'd been limping, but she was definitely that girl who'd been with Hinata when he'd sworn revenge. It seemed like they'd stuck together since then, and had gone to Karasuno with the same intentions.

But there was another time, as well. Some other place he'd seen her.

Then, he remembered. After all, wine red hair wasn't very common.

"You're Aika Yamada," he murmured, just loudly enough to be heard. "You're that setter from Yukigaoka that everyone was talking about. The one whose plays carried the team to Nationals."

She frowned, her expression falling. "Once upon a time, that was me." She sighed, reaching down to her leg, like it was a habit. He noticed that there were bandages wrapped around her right knee. "I don't really get to play much anymore." She smiled self-deprecatingly, but quickly turned around to lecture Hinata when his shouting got a little too loud.

"Yamada… Oh! Didn't they have a nickname for you, too?" Sugawara asked suddenly. "Something like 'Control Queen,' wasn't it?"

Aika flushed. "Remember. It was a long time ago. But… you know my name, but I don't know any of yours," she said, her tone saying that she would rather make small talk than anything else.

"You're really loud today, volleyball club!"

Hinata and Kageyama continued to make their loud declarations of war, even as the vice principal of the school walked in, a sour look on his face. Aika sighed, crossing her arms. Somehow, she knew how it would end, even without having to see anything else.

"I'm very sorry for Hinata's actions today." Aika bowed in apology to the captain, whose name, she learned, was Sawamura. "He tends to leap before he looks, and he's a bit too energetic for his own good. I'm hoping you'll let him back into the club."

He smiled down at her sweetly, a complete change from the way he'd acted towards Kageyama and Hinata. "It's alright. I just don't like people who don't play as a team. They'll learn, but until they do, they're not on our team." He smirked slightly, looking back to the rest of the club practicing.

"I see." She mirrored his smirk. "I'm sure they won't let you down."

Sawamura smiled again, looking down at the incredibly small girl. "I know they won't. I have a lot of faith in them. So, you'll wait for them to come join us?"

She nodded. "I have to. I'm supporting Hinata. Training him. It's for my own, selfish reasons, of course, but I still can't leave him behind," she replied.

"That's what it is, is it?" He paused. "Your leg?" he suddenly blurted.

Aika hesitated for a moment, knowing exactly what it was that Sawamura was talking about. Her hand drifted down towards her leg. "It's healed, captain. Trust me, it's healed. But it will never be the same, and I will never be able to play volleyball again."

Sawamura glanced down, knowing just how hard an injury like hers was to come back from. "Well. Until you see that Hinata has become the best, you can stay," he said softly.

"Thank you, Sawamura senpai."

Kageyama bounced the volleyball up and down against the court, taking deep breaths in and out. He tried to control his heartbeat, feeling it growing as he made contact with the ball. He thought back to the look on Yamada's face as they asked her about her former name.

"I didn't know that Yukigaoka had such a good player," he blurted out of nowhere. "Especially a girl, the Control Queen. What happened to her?"

Hinata finally paused, putting down his water bottle. "She played until the beginning of second year, but she stopped after the Interhigh. I think it had to do with her leg," replied the spiker.

"Leg?"

Nodding, Hinata focused his big eyes on Kageyama. "I don't know the specifics of it. She doesn't want to talk about it." At that point, both Tanaka and Sugawara had paused as well, their gaze turning towards the freshmen and their conversation. "She asked me not to ask her, 'cause she says it's way too painful for her to remember why she doesn't play anymore."

As if remembering something, Sugawara gasped. "She still has to have bandages and a cane for a leg injury that happened almost two years ago?" His voice shook, as if it was such a horrible thought.

"Hm?" Hinata even sounded confused as everyone looked towards him.

Sugawara bit his lip. "It's just… most injuries that don't heal after a year… they do permanent damage. If she hasn't recovered by now, even with physical therapy, it's likely that she'll never be able to play again. At least, not like she did when she was still the Control Queen."

She'll never be able to play again.

To both Kageyama and Hinata, two freshmen who loved volleyball more than anything, those words were horrifying. They couldn't imagine the sport they loved being taken away from them, and never being able to play it again. If that happened to either of them, they wouldn't know what to do, but Yamada seemed so strong.

Looking down at the ball, Kageyama frowned. He glared at the colors, knowing that, as a setter, the ability to move around freely and jump to set the ball or even dump it over the net was the most important thing. A setter that couldn't move wasn't even a setter.

He couldn't imagine it.

"Don't pity her." All eyes turned to Hinata. "She hates that. If you pity her, she'll get mad at you. Just treat her like you would if you didn't know that. She's still a player, whether she's on the court or not."

Kageyama didn't want to admit it, but it was a lot more thoughtful than he would have been. He wouldn't let himself bring anyone else down.

Although Aika knew that Hinata wasn't ready yet, she didn't want to help him. She knew that he had a lot of potential inside of him, but he didn't know how to bring it out. There was only so much she could do for him, especially since she was nowhere near as good as she used to be.

"Excuse us."

She looked over to the two new figures who entered the gym, and frowned. They were both incredibly tall boys. One looked bored out of his mind, while the other was in awe.

"These are the other two freshmen joining us this year," Sawamura explained. He even looked short compared to the newcomers, and he already looked down on her. "Kei Tsukishima and Tadashi Yamaguchi."

Aika frowned. She'd seen them both before. They were in her class, and they seemed nice enough.

But there was something about Tsukishima that made her nervous. It might have been because he was so tall. Yet even knowing that his height worried her, she also knew that it was definitely something else.

It scared her.

She couldn't stop thinking about it, even as she left the gym. She bounced the volleyball in her hands against the cobblestone. Tsukishima scared her, and it wasn't just because of his height. It wasn't even the way he spoke, or the words he spoke.

It was the uncaring look in his eyes, even as he blocked spike after spike.

To her, it looked like volleyball meant nothing to him.

As she approached the gate, she paused. She hadn't walked home alone since she met Shoyo, and she usually always waited for him. But it was late, and she had to go home. Her brother was probably waiting for her. Not to mention that Shoyo was probably going to leave early in the morning again.

Sighing, she sent Shoyo a text, telling him that she was going to go home, and that she'd see him later. She would let him practice until Saturday.

It was all that she could do.

Saturday morning arrived quicker than Aika ever would have admitted. As she walked into the gym, much later to the game than she thought she'd be, she immediately froze.

There was already so much tension between the Hinata-Kageyama team and the Tsukishima-Yamaguchi team. She froze, seeing the same tension that there used to be between Hinata and Kageyama. But for now, it looked like the orange-black duo were a team, rather than enemies.

"Sugawara senpai." The silver-haired boy looked over to her and smiled warmly in greeting. "Why does it feel less like a practice game and more like a death match?"

He laughed nervously. "I suppose it's because Tsukishima is provoking everyone. He's got a real great attitude for it. But that won't win him a game."

"No, it won't. Especially not one against Shoyo." She glanced towards her friend. "The more excited he gets, the more powerful he is."

"Even against Tsukishima?" asked Sugawara.

As Tsukishima blocked more and more of Hinata's shots, Aika nodded. "No matter what wall is in his way, I don't think that Shoyo knows what it means to give up. He'll keep spiking until something breaks – him or his opponent."

"What if it's him?"

She shrugged. "Then he loses." Her nonchalant gaze turned towards Tsukishima, then to Kageyama. "But without Kageyama snapping out of it, they'll definitely lose. He's afraid of tossing." She frowned, some sort of sympathy coming to her face. "A setter that's afraid to set… isn't a setter. He's a coward."

Sugawara's gaze hardened at her words, but he couldn't deny that she was right. She knew what it was like to be a setter, but she was much more bitter than other people.

"You never know. Maybe things will change."

Things did change. They changed faster than Aika would have liked. So fast that even her mind could barely keep up with the rest of the game.

Kageyama and Hinata pulled off quick ball after quick ball. Even if some of them were flubbed, it was clear that they were the duo that could understand each other best. They both knew what it meant to lose, and they both knew what it felt like to want to get just one more point.

To Aika, it was bittersweet.

Her Shoyo, her best friend, was becoming a better player than she had ever expected. He was fast, with good reflexes and even better jumping ability. He was learning how to apply them to actual spikes. He was inexperienced, but he was learning. His abilities were slowly coming out, forming a brilliant attacking pattern that was all his own.

It felt like she was being left behind. She was just a setter with a bum leg, and nothing more. She couldn't ever live up to what Kageyama could do. His technique and control were beyond anything that she'd ever seen.

"He really is a genius," she murmured. Sugawara glanced at her, his gaze filled with worry. "It took a while for them to fall into a rhythm together, but they'll be a force to be reckoned with."

The vice-captain continued to look at her as she watched Hinata, with his eyes closed, spike yet another one of Kageyama's tosses, making it without being stopped by Sawamura, Yamaguchi, or Tsukishima. The room went deathly silent as they tried to process what had happened.

Aika was the first to move. She picked up her bag and turned towards the door, her eyes hidden from view.

"Yamada?" Sugawara followed her with his gaze.

She didn't turn back around. "I've seen everything that I need to. I'm leaving."

It was like he was the only one who noticed the heavy doors of the gym opening, then closing behind her, separating her from the players.

"Yamada…"

Hello, my penname is Chiyuki. I don't like doing author's notes very much, as I feel they ruin the continuity for those who wish to read a story in one sitting, so this may be my only one. If it isn't, this will be my longest. Any others will be to inform you of a new story being posted, as I also write in less popular categories.

"Higher" is a slow-burn Haikyu! story with Tobio Kageyama being paired with an OC, Aika Yamada. This romance will be probably painfully slow at points, so please bear with me. Also, despite this being a romance, I also use these stories as a platform to study characters that I have a lot of love for in a closer way. Almost every character in the series has a moment to shine, but I have chosen to flesh out many characters and present them in the way that I see them. "Higher" is simply one platform in order to do so.

I hope you enjoy this story. Feel free to send me PMs about anything at any time, as I mostly will not reply to reviews in this story. If you're interested in me as an author, please follow my tumblr, xChiyuki, as all news and commentary will also be there. Thank you.