[Memory Integration Process: Orphanage Training Period - Continuing...]
[Timeline Shift: Age 7, Two weeks after establishing training routine]
[Status: Processing volleyball development memories...]
The morning alarm hadn't even gone off yet when Ryu's eyes snapped open in the darkness of Room 7. Two weeks of early volleyball practice had trained his body to wake before dawn, and the excitement of learning something new - even if he was spectacularly bad at it - made it impossible to sleep in.
Beside him, Kenichi was already sitting up, pulling on his worn sneakers with practiced quiet. The older boy had become something more than just a protector in these past weeks - he was becoming the big brother Ryu had never had, the patient teacher his father might have been if fate hadn't intervened.
"Ready for another session of creatively redefining volleyball physics?" Kenichi whispered with a grin.
"I'm getting better," Ryu protested softly, carefully lifting his father's volleyball from its place beside his pillow. "Yesterday I actually got one to go forward instead of backward."
"True. Though it did somehow end up in that tree, which is impressive considering trees aren't usually volleyball targets."
They crept out of the room and down the familiar path to their makeshift court, where the net waited in the gray pre-dawn light. Two weeks had given them a comfortable routine, though "comfortable" might not be the right word considering Ryu's spectacular and consistent failures.
"Alright," Kenichi said, setting up the practice balls. "Today let's work on reading the serve. I'm going to try different types, and you tell me what you think is coming."
"Different types?"
"Float serve, topspin, maybe a jump serve if I'm feeling ambitious. Your dad was famous for being able to read serves before they even crossed the net."
Kenichi moved to the service line, bouncing the ball a few times. "Okay, watch my toss and my approach. What do you think this one will be?"
Ryu studied Kenichi's stance carefully. "Um... a regular one?"
"Very technical analysis," Kenichi said dryly. "This is a float serve - no spin, so it'll move unpredictably in the air."
The serve came over looking deceptively simple, but just as it reached Ryu's side of the net, it suddenly dipped and curved to the left. Ryu lunged desperately to get under it, arms outstretched, but the ball hit his wrists at a weird angle and ricocheted straight up into the air.
They both watched in fascination as the ball climbed higher and higher before finally coming down and landing squarely on Ryu's head with a solid thunk.
"Ow."
"Well," Kenichi said thoughtfully, "that's certainly one way to keep the ball on your side of the net."
"I hate float serves," Ryu mumbled, rubbing his skull.
"Let's try a topspin serve. This one should be more predictable."
Kenichi's second serve came over with obvious forward rotation, dropping quickly as it crossed the net. Ryu positioned himself carefully, arms locked together in the receiving stance they'd practiced dozens of times.
The ball hit his platform and shot sideways at a perfect ninety-degree angle, smacking into the fence with enough force to make the chain link rattle.
"How?" Kenichi stared at the fence in bewilderment. "How did you make it go perfectly sideways? That shouldn't be physically possible."
"Maybe I put spin on it?"
"Reverse spin? Anti-gravity spin? Ryu, I think you're inventing new laws of physics."
The third attempt was even worse. Somehow, Ryu managed to receive the ball with his elbow, sending it in a high, wobbly arc that cleared the fence entirely and landed in the neighboring yard, where it promptly got stuck in a rose bush.
"Okay," Kenichi said, climbing over the fence to retrieve the ball. "That was actually impressive. I've never seen anyone achieve that much height on an elbow receive."
"I wasn't trying to use my elbow!"
"I know, which makes it even more remarkable. You're like a volleyball magician, except instead of making things appear, you make balls disappear into impossible places."
By the time they'd worked through six different serves, Ryu had managed to hit the fence four times, the tree twice, his own foot once, and Kenichi's shoulder (completely by accident). The only place he hadn't successfully sent the ball was toward any of the intended target areas.
"I don't understand," Ryu said, flopping down on their concrete step in frustration. "I watch the ball, I position my arms, I try to create the platform like you showed me, and it still goes everywhere except where it's supposed to go."
"You know what?" Kenichi sat down beside him, pulling out the familiar volume of Haikyuu. "Let me show you something that might help."
He flipped to a page showing Hinata struggling with basic receives, balls flying in random directions despite his best efforts. "See? Even Hinata went through this phase. The difference is, he never stopped trying."
"How long did it take him to get better?"
"Months. Lots of months. And he had the advantage of being fictional, so his improvement was dramatically accelerated for plot purposes."
"That's not encouraging."
"What is encouraging is that every great player goes through this phase. Your dad probably hit a few faces with volleyballs when he was learning too."
"Really?"
"Probably. Though knowing your dad's skill level, he probably apologized to the volleyballs afterward."
They sat in comfortable silence as Ryu flipped through the manga pages, finding odd comfort in Hinata's struggles. At least he wasn't the only person in the world who seemed incapable of making a volleyball go where he wanted it to.
"Kenichi?" Ryu said quietly.
"Yeah?"
"Do you think I'll ever stop being terrible at this?"
Kenichi looked at him seriously. "Ryu, I think your terrible phase is going to make your eventual improvement that much more satisfying. You're building character through creative failure."
"Is that a real thing?"
"It is now."
Meanwhile, two floors above them, two faces were pressed against the window of Room 7, watching the morning practice with growing resentment.
"Look at him," Takeshi said, his voice thick with the kind of jealousy that had been eating at him for weeks. "Gets to play with volleyballs every morning while the rest of us do chores."
"It's not fair," Hiroto agreed, though his voice lacked its usual aggressive edge. Instead, he sounded tired and hurt. "How come he gets special treatment? Just because his dad was famous?"
Behind them, Koji sat on his bed, trying to look invisible while he listened to their conversation. The smaller boy's hands fidgeted nervously with his blanket, clearly wanting to be anywhere else but trapped in the room with them.
"Kenichi never helped us learn stuff," Takeshi continued, his hands pressed against the window glass. "Never spent extra time with us or brought us manga or anything. But the celebrity kid shows up and suddenly he's like a big brother."
"Hey, Koji," Hiroto said suddenly, turning away from the window. "Didn't Kenichi teach you some volleyball stuff before? Like, basic serves or whatever?"
Koji shrank back against his pillow, his voice barely above a whisper. "Maybe a little..."
"A little?" Takeshi's eyes narrowed. "What kind of little?"
"Just... just some serving practice. Sometimes. When there was time." Koji looked like he wanted to disappear entirely.
"But now he spends all his time with the new kid instead, right?" Hiroto pressed. "Doesn't teach you anymore?"
Koji nodded miserably. It was true - before Ryu arrived, Kenichi had occasionally shown him basic volleyball movements during their afternoon free time. Nothing special, nothing intense like what Ryu was getting, but it had been something. Now those casual lessons had stopped entirely.
"See?" Takeshi said, his voice getting louder. "Even Koji got dropped the moment someone more interesting showed up."
"That's just how it is," Koji said quietly, though his voice carried hurt. "Kenichi's busy now."
"Busy with someone whose daddy was rich and famous," Hiroto muttered. "Must be nice to have parents who actually mattered."
They watched as Kenichi showed Ryu something in the manga, both of them laughing at whatever they were reading. The easy affection between them was obvious even from a distance, the kind of relationship all the watching boys craved but had never experienced.
"I just don't get it," Takeshi continued, his breath fogging the window. "We've all been here longer. We all need help too. But nobody cares about us like that."
"My dad left when I was four," Hiroto said quietly. "Didn't even say goodbye. But somehow that's not as sad as having parents who died in an accident. Like my abandonment doesn't count because it wasn't dramatic enough."
Below them, Kenichi was helping Ryu gather up the scattered practice balls, ruffling the younger boy's hair with obvious affection. The simple gesture of brotherly care was something none of them had ever received.
"You know what would happen if something broke that volleyball of his?" Takeshi said suddenly, his voice taking on a different quality.
"What?" Hiroto asked warily.
"He'd cry. He'd cry and maybe then everyone would remember that other kids here have feelings too."
Koji shifted uncomfortably on his bed. "Takeshi, that's his dad's ball..."
"So? What about our stuff? What about what we've lost?" Takeshi's voice cracked slightly. "Why is his loss more important than ours?"
"Because his parents are dead," Koji whispered. "That's different than - "
"Different how?" Hiroto interrupted. "My dad might as well be dead. At least dead parents can't decide they don't want you anymore."
They watched as Ryu carefully cradled his father's volleyball against his chest, the protective gesture making it clear just how precious the object was to him.
"I'm not saying we should break it," Takeshi said quickly, though his eyes remained fixed on the volleyball. "I'm just saying... if something happened to it... maybe things would be more fair around here."
Koji pulled his blanket up to his chin, his voice barely audible. "Mrs. Hayashi said we're supposed to look out for each other..."
"Mrs. Hayashi says a lot of things," Hiroto said bitterly. "Like how we're all part of one big family. But families don't have favorites, do they?"
The two older boys fell silent, each lost in their own thoughts about fairness and loss and the particular cruelty of being children who had been abandoned by the adults who were supposed to love them. In their young minds, Ryu's grief seemed somehow more valuable than their own, his loss more worthy of comfort and care.
Koji curled up smaller on his bed, wishing he could warn someone about the dark thoughts brewing in his roommates' minds. But he was just as powerless as Ryu was, just as dependent on avoiding their anger. All he could do was hope that their jealousy would fade before it turned into something worse.
None of them were truly cruel children. They were just desperately lonely ones, watching from a window as someone else received the kindness they all craved but had never known.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Current Status:]
[Host: Yukitaka Izumi (Soul: Ryu Miyamoto)]
[Level: 1 (11/100 XP)]
[Skill Points Available: 0]
—
[Stats:]
- Serving: 2/100
- Receiving: 1/100
- Setting: 3/100
- Spiking: 0/100
- Blocking: 0/100
- Stamina: 15/100
- Jump Height: 28/100
- Game Sense: 15/100
—
[Abilities:]
- Empathic Connection (Level 1) - Active
- Critical Strike (Level 1) - Locked
—
[Active Quests:]
- Daily: Complete 1 hour of focused volleyball practice (Deadline: 10 hours)
- Tutorial: Successfully receive 10 serves in a row (No deadline)
- Main: Find Your Team (Deadline: 30 days)
—
[Status Effects:]
- Memory Integration (25% Completed) - (Processing orphanage training period)
- Identity Crisis - Severe guilt and emotional distress (12 hours)
- Family Bonding - Enhanced emotional connection, +10% XP gain from family activities (62 hours remaining)
- Emergency Sleep Mode - Forced rest for mental stability (6 hours remaining)