The Birth of A Volleyball Legend

Riku's journey as a volleyball player was pretty strange. Even though he started practicing from a young age, he had never joined any formal team before.

His school life before entering Tsunemori was non-existent, considering his father put him in a luxurious private school where most of the students came from an important family and had huge sticks on their asses – which explains why there was no volleyball club since those people thought that a sport that left them sweaty and smelly was beneath them. As for joining a non-school team just like him with the Thunder right now, that thought crossed his mind once, before his mother realized his grade fell off and decided to pull him out of the club.

So, yeah, even though Riku was no stranger to volleyball, he was basically still a rookie in the game.

It also explained Riku's peculiar skill st. On one hand, he was amazing at any basic skill that didn't need more than one person to train like spiking, passing, and serving. In another one, skills like blocking and receiving didn't come as naturally for him as the others, and he had to rely on his instinct most of the time to guide him. Hell, it was quite a miracle for Riku to excel as a setter, considering how hard it was to train to become one alone. It was only through sheer determination and hard work that he could finally do that, and the outcome was still far worse than his current self.

However, if there was one thing Riku was excelling at the most, it was the speed of his learning skills.

No, we didn't talk about him being in the class. It was a completely different story. But Riku on the court was like a sponge, always absorbing knowledge from everything. He first started to learn how to be a good setter and coordinate everything on the court by his first game with Tsunemori, learning how to coordinate with his teammates by the time he played together with Yuki, and right after that, as he accumulated more experiences, his paying style also had a tremendous change.

Oh, he was still flashy. He still liked to show off his skill once in a while. However, six months of playing volleyball as a team taught Riku one thing. Of how he had to know the right timing of when he should shine and when he should let his teammates shine. Not everything had to be himself, and to win a game, sometimes he needed to sacrifice something.

And that was what he did in this game.

Riku figured out pretty early that Yuki did really well at the beginning of the game. Not that it was hard to do, of course. If this was six or even five months ago, the urge to outshine his friend driven by jealousy would spark inside him. However, Riku believed he was more mature now as a player and as a person, so to see his friend was in the limelight, he decided to support him from behind.

However, that didn't mean he let Yuki do everything by himself.

Riku knew full well that the dynamic of the game could change at any time, and the momentum could shift crazily from one team to another just in a blink. That was why while he kept supporting his friend, he also kept his eyes closely on the game, waiting for the best time for him to shine.

And just as he thought, right when the ball was coming at him and no one paid damn attention to his movement, Riku realized that the opportunity he had been waiting for finally knocked on the door.

'Okay, this is my chance. I cannot mess this up. Wait patiently… And there!'

Thud!

The ball he just flicked passed through the opponent's blockers gently – albeit a little bit mockingly, falling to the ground slowly without anyone able to react quickly enough to save it. Two players dived forward, the captain and the annoying defensive specialist, trying to save the ball. However, all they got was a bruise from falling to the floor, while the fate of the ball itself was already decided a few seconds ago.

"OH YEAH!" Riku roared, punching his own chest pretty hard as adrenaline rushed through his head. A second later, Yuki jumped into his body, encircling one arm around his shoulder as he joined the celebration. "Good job, you Bastard! That is a nasty dump!"

"I know, right?! Can you see how dumbfounded they are?!" Riku replied with a glee.

The mocking tone beneath his words was a blatant provocation. However, no one cared enough about it. All the players there stared at him and Yuki in wonder, not knowing how to express the feeling. Riku himself didn't care about it. He knew that aside from his friend, no one knew his personality enough to judge his style clearly. One moment he gave the impression of a snotty brat who liked to show off, and in the next second, he changed into a veteran strategist who used the entire court as his chess board.

He would be bothered by it if no one could understand him. However, since Yuki was here, Riku knew there would be one player who wouldn't be bothered by his shenanigan, and for him, it was enough. The fact that the player himself was also amazing at his job and could coordinate with him far better than anyone else didn't help him calm down his excitement.

As the game was about to be continued again, the grin on Riku's face didn't disappear as he kept thinking, 'Come on, give us more! Let me and Yuki play more for a while…'

-0-

BAM!

"Shit! It is him again?!"

"Damn, go back to your position! Recover quick! He is starting to move!" Stay updated via empire

"No, keep your eyes on the setter! He is – "

BAM!

"HELL YEAH!" Riku clenched his fist as another one of his dump spikes managed to contribute one more point. Then, he turned around just to see his friend also had the similar reaction. "Nice defense, Yuki! I won't be able to pull something like this without your presence, you know?"

"Ha! Of course, I know it! Without me, you will not be able to do a lot of things!" Yuki snorted with a smug smile.

Riku could only shake his head at the playful banter they threw at each other. Sometimes, he wondered if this was his behavior starting to rub off Yuki or if this was just Yuki being his usual self.

It was in the middle of the first set, and the Thunder had already taken the lead by five points. It was all courtesy of Yuki and Riku who took over the game and ran amok to cause trouble everywhere. Even another timeout from the Phoenix's coach wasn't enough to stop their momentum.

Fortunately, though, after they were out of their astonishment, the other Thunder players decided to be supportive and let them do this. In their mind, since the combination worked well, there was no need to change it. They also didn't have to worry about their chance to enter the main team being affected by those two considering that they were still rookies in high school, and those two's chance to enter the main team was pretty slim.

Everything was so perfect for the two rookies, before the excitement that seemed to die on the stand a moment ago suddenly rushed once again when they saw a player rose from the bench.

'That's him!'