The smell of freshly cooked rice floated through the Hinata family kitchen. It was 6:30 in the morning. Normally, at this hour, the house would be silent, or there would be the racket of Shoyo running around looking for his lost knee pads.
But today, there was a different sound.
Crack, whisk, ssshhh.
Hinata's mother walked into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes, and stopped dead in her tracks.
Shoyo was standing in front of the stove. He wasn't wearing his disheveled pajamas, but his school gym clothes, worn impeccably. He was cracking eggs into a bowl with a one-handed dexterity she had never seen before, beating them with rhythmic, controlled movements.
"Shoyo?" she asked, confused. "What are you doing up so early? And what are you doing cooking?"
Hinata turned around. His expression wasn't his usual sleepy grimace. His eyes were clear, alert.
"— Bom dia, mãe," he said, with a soft smile.
"Bom... what?"
Hinata blinked, shaking his head as if shooing away a fly.
"Ah, sorry. Good morning, Mom. I'm making breakfast. I need protein. Rice is good for energy, but if I want to rebuild muscle fibers, I need eggs. And if we had some chicken, that would be ideal, but this will do for now."
His mother looked at him as if her son had been swapped for an alien.
"Muscle... fibers? Shoyo, you're just going to school."
"School is training for the mind, Mom," he replied, sliding a perfect French omelet onto a plate. "And the club is training for the body. Everything requires fuel. Is there coffee?"
"Coffee? You're fifteen. Drink your milk."
Hinata sighed, a long, resigned exhalation that seemed to carry the weight of years of adult life.
"— Saudades do cafézinho..." he muttered under his breath, grabbing the milk carton. "Fine. Milk it is. Calcium for the bones."
At that moment, a small whirlwind of energy came running in. Natsu, much smaller than Hinata remembered, launched herself at his legs.
"Big brother!"
In the past, Hinata would have yelled or nearly fallen over. This time, without even looking down, Hinata slightly flexed his knees to lower his center of gravity, absorbed the impact of the hug, and lifted Natsu with a single fluid motion, settling her on his hip.
"— Oi, pequena," Hinata said, and his voice cracked a little. He squeezed his sister tight. In Brazil, loneliness had been hard sometimes. Having her here, so small and loud, was a gift. "You're very light, Natsu. You have to eat more if you want to grow strong."
"Why are you talking funny?" Natsu asked, poking his nose. "And you smell like Dad's soap."
"It's discipline, Natsu. Discipline," Hinata said, placing her in her chair and setting the plate of eggs in front of her. "Eat up. It's on the house."
The road to Yukigaoka Junior High was a slope Hinata knew by heart. Or at least, he thought he did.
He got on his bike. His mind calculated the distance: 3.5 kilometers. Average incline of 4%.
"— Let's go," he told himself.
He started pedaling. At first, he wanted to accelerate, to feel the wind, to race like he used to. But his legs protested immediately. Lactic acid built up in his quads within minutes.
"Slow down. Control your breathing. Inhale, exhale."
He dropped the pace. Instead of pedaling like a maniac, he adjusted his posture. Back straight, elbows in, using his body weight on every pedal stroke. he wasn't going fast, but he was going efficiently.
He saw other students passing him, running or joking around. He stayed in his bubble of concentration. He wasn't a kid going to class; he was an athlete doing his morning cardio session.
He arrived at the entrance of Yukigaoka. The old building, the cherry trees starting to drop a few late leaves. He left his bike in the rack and walked toward the shoe lockers.
That was where the atmosphere changed.
There was a tall boy in front of the lockers. Very tall for his age, lanky, with dark hair falling over his eyes. He was standing still, almost trying to make himself invisible.
Wakana Gojo.
Hinata recognized him by sight, though they had never spoken. In his past life, Hinata would have been intimidated by his height (nearly 1.80m already in junior high) and would have felt envious.
Now, Hinata only saw potential.
"Good height," Hinata analyzed clinically as he changed his shoes. "Long arms. If he had confidence, he'd be a decent middle blocker. Or at least a good wall for spike practice."
Hinata closed his locker with a soft click. Gojo jumped at the noise and shrank back, expecting some mockery or comment.
Hinata simply looked at him, gave a nod of his head in a silent, masculine greeting, and walked past. Gojo stood there blinking, surprised by the lack of hostility and the strange respect in that short boy's gaze.
But the peace didn't last long.
"Ah! It's gonna fall, it's gonna fall!"
A female voice, high-pitched and full of panic, echoed in the entrance.
The door flew open and a girl stumbled in, carrying an absurd pile of craft boxes that blocked her vision. She had dyed blonde hair (something prohibited, but teachers ignored for some reason), a short skirt, and a presence that screamed "look at me."
Marin Kitagawa.
She was heading straight for Hinata. The crash seemed inevitable.
In a normal romantic anime, they would collide, fall to the ground, and hands would touch accidental places.
But Shoyo Hinata had received serves from Toru Oikawa at 100 km/h. A girl with boxes was moving in slow motion for him.
Without stopping his stride, Hinata pivoted on his left foot. A simple, economical, and elegant dodge. He rotated his body 90 degrees, letting Marin pass through the space he had occupied a millisecond ago.
But he didn't let her fall.
When Marin tripped over her own feet, not finding the obstacle she expected, one of the top boxes slid off.
Hinata's hand shot out. Not with desperation, but with precision.
Thwip.
He caught the box in mid-air, just before it hit the ground, and with his other hand, he gently supported Marin's elbow to stabilize her.
"— Opa, careful there," Hinata said, his voice calm near her ear.
Marin froze. She looked down. The orange-haired boy was holding her with surprising firmness for his size. But what caught her attention most wasn't the save.
It was that he wasn't blushing, or nervous, or looking at her chest. He was looking her in the eyes with absolute calm, handing the box back to her with a slight smile.
"Your center of gravity is way too high with all those boxes," Hinata explained as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You should carry the heavy ones at the bottom."
He placed the box on top of the stack, gave her two gentle pats on the shoulder (the universal sports gesture for "good job"), and turned around.
"See you."
Hinata kept walking toward his classroom, leaving Marin Kitagawa with her mouth open and Wakana Gojo watching the scene from the corner, totally perplexed.
"Who... is that?" Marin whispered, feeling her heart beating a little faster than normal. Not out of love, but out of the sheer surprise of not being treated like the "clumsy pretty girl," but like a teammate who needed a technical correction.