ONLY ME || Haikyuu x Male

PROLOGUE

One Year Ago

Hasegawa Ren just snapped someone's bone in half.

He sat on the cold wooden floor of the gym, his eyes round and jaw slack in horror, watching the referee call a timeout, the rest of his teammates huddling around the limp figure of Sugawara-senpai. His hand was shaky as he lifted it to his mouth, pure terror etched into every fiber of his being.

He'd just been trying to save the ball. It'd been going in. It would have hit the line. But Sugawara had already been there. And he...he hadn't seen. And he dove. And...

Hasegawa Ren couldn't move as he watched his teammates lift up the second-year, hauling him onto the stretcher that had seemingly materialized out of thin air. They carried Sugawara away, the whole gymnasium silenced by the horrors of what had just happened.

He couldn't move. He could barely breathe. The team that they'd been playing quietly shuffled off court, moving to sit down on their own bench, waiting for the moment to pass. And he didn't shift a single inch from where he sat, his legs tucked beneath him, his hands covering his mouth still.

The sound of footsteps echoed around the gym, and Sawamura Daichi, his captain, knelt down in front of Ren, a serious look on his face.

"Three strikes, Hasegawa. Three strikes, and now you're out."