Haikyuu!! Cursed Gender Swap!? Ushiwaka Became a Girl!? - The Struggle of Special Training and Pair Selection

Morning practice was cancelled. Or rather, to be precise, none of them were in any condition to move properly. The discomfort of their feminized bodies wasn't going to disappear after just one night of sleep. Even so, the option of *not* playing volleyball simply didn't exist for Hinata Shouyou. "Kageyama! We're going to the gym! Special training starts now!" At the entrance to the second gymnasium, Hinata shouted at Kageyama Tobio. The morning light painted the still-unused floor white. The air was crisp and cool, and each deep breath chilled his lungs. "Shut up. You're way too energetic for this early." Kageyama turned around, his sleek black bob swaying. He was still tall as ever, and even in the girls' jersey, his shoulder width and arm length remained unchanged. But his fingers were much slimmer than before. "Of course I am! Yesterday, we got in touch with our rival schools. Everyone's meeting up at Kaguramine. So we've got no choice but to go! And before that, we're gonna get even faster in these bodies!" Hinata clenched his fist. The hem of his skirt swayed softly. He'd changed into the girls' gym uniform that morning, thinking about ease of movement. Though the chest area still felt strange. The elastic band pressed against him in a weird way. "Hey. Are you wearing the gym uniform properly? The one Shimizu-san taught you about yesterday." "I'm wearing it! Properly! Even the bra! Why are you checking!?" "…No reason. If it's hard to move in, just say so." "I'm fine! It bounces a little, but I can still jump!" "Bounces, you…" Kageyama, uncharacteristically, stumbled over his words. His cheeks were slightly red. Because of the girl's face, the color showed even more clearly. Hinata was a little surprised to find that he'd already gotten used to this face without realizing it. "Whatever! Just toss the ball already! We're trying the new breathing technique, right!?" "…Yeah." Kageyama picked up a ball from the cart. In his now-smaller, feminized palm, the volleyball looked absurdly large. They'd been practicing all yesterday too. The sensation in his fingertips was just different. A deviation of mere centimeters changed the trajectory of the toss. "Here we go. Start with a normal toss." Kageyama sent the ball up, soft and light. The height wasn't bad. But it was just slightly off from Hinata's jump timing. Hinata twisted his body mid-air and forced himself to connect with the ball. It hit the court with a dull thud. "…Were you able to match that?" "So close! Just a little more!" "'A little more' is the furthest thing there is." Kageyama stared at his own hands. He clenched them, opened them, clenched them again. Slimmer fingers. Shorter reach. The gap between the image in his head and his actual body. That gap was steadily amplifying the frustration inside him. "…One more." The sound of feet kicking against the floor. Hinata took off running. Kageyama tracked him with his eyes and flicked his wrist. Second ball. Third ball. The balls flew back and forth between them with dry, crisp sounds. Before long, the distance between them naturally shrank. "Oi, Hinata. Next time, come in faster. Aim right here at your top speed." Kageyama pointed with his fingertip to a spot just barely above the net. Those familiar, confident eyes. "Yeah! I'll give you my fastest!" Hinata dropped his center of gravity. His body, lighter now after the feminization, was actually easier to jump with. He kicked off the floor. Ran. Two steps, three steps, pulled his arm back hard— "Toss!" Kageyama's fingers launched the ball. Hinata's body floated upward. Their eyes met. The ball was sucked into his palm. *Smack.* With a satisfying sound, the ball returned to Kageyama's hands. "…?" Kageyama was frozen. "Eh, Kageyama, that just now—" (*That felt amazing. A toss that actually fits Hinata's hand. Finally, I got it up.*) The voice didn't come through his ears. It resonated directly inside his head. "…Eh?" Before they knew it, the two of them were close enough to touch if they reached out their arms. A radius of three meters. The range where the love-visualization curse activated. (*He's faster than before. The girl's body makes him lighter, and his timing when he jumps has changed. Matching that is hard. But that last one—it really connected. I want to keep playing this fast volleyball with Hinata.*) …He could hear all of it. Kageyama's inner voice. "H-hey, Kageyama—" "Wh-why!? Is it the curse again!? Did we get too close!?" Kageyama jumped back two or three steps. His face was bright red all the way to the tips of his ears. Against his now-fairer, feminized skin, the crimson stood out vividly. "You, just now, in your head, you said you wanted to play faster volleyball…" "Don't say it! You could hear that!? Damn it, why now!?" Kageyama started running from one end of the court to the other. His long hair flying wildly, one lap, two laps. As if trying to escape from his own inner voice. Hinata watched with his mouth hanging open. "…Why are you running away?" "I'm not running! This is part of my solo training! Running!" "You were totally running away just now!" Hinata burst out laughing. From the bottom of his gut, a loud, carefree laugh. When he laughed, his chest bounced a little, and the fabric of his gym uniform rubbed against him. But right now, it was so funny that he didn't even care. "You really have nothing in your head but volleyball, do you!" "What else is there!?" "I don't know! But I'm happy! Me too, Kageyama! I want to play faster volleyball with you too!" Hinata shouted at Kageyama from the middle of the court. He still didn't know exactly how his own inner voice sounded to the other person. But there was no need to hide it. Kageyama stopped running. "…Aren't you embarrassed?" "Why would I be? It's what I really think. I'm just not hiding it. Besides, your inner voice—it was kind of ticklish, but it didn't feel bad." "What do you mean, ticklish?" "I never thought you thought about me like that! You're always saying I'm in the way, in the way!" "Shut up. That's because it's true. When you're in the way, you're in the way." "But that last one—I wasn't in the way, was I?" Kageyama bit his lip and stared at the floor. Silence. High up near the gymnasium ceiling, the sound of a ball rolling echoed faintly. "…No. That one wasn't in the way." "Right! Then one more! Don't forget that feeling! I'm definitely gonna smash your toss!" "You said it. Then jump to me at your fastest." "Obviously!" Their new special training began. If they got too close, their inner voices became completely audible. So they learned, through their bodies, the limit of the distance where the voices could be heard, while syncing their tosses and spikes. Too far apart, and they lost the timing. Too close, and unnecessary voices flooded in. But within those voices, passionate words about each other were hidden. "(Kageyama's inner voice) Hinata, your approach was slow just now. Commit harder on the jump." "I know! I'm doing it now!" "(Kageyama's inner voice) …Your jumping form really is amazing." "!?" Hinata's concentration broke for an instant. The ball grazed his fingertips and hit the net. "Don't just stop suddenly!" "Y-you! Just now, in your inner voice, you said I was amazing!" "How should I know! It leaked out on its own!" "Y-you idiot! If I hear something like that, I'll—I'll get all weird too!" Hinata's heart was beating a strange drum. The love-visualization curse broadcast every thought they had about each other like a private announcement system. The two of them, faces bright red, still repeated their tosses and spikes over and over. And then, after a while, the gymnasium door slid open with a rattle. "Good work, you two. You're both working up a nice sweat." Standing there was Sugawara Koushi, his silvery, fluffy hair tied lightly at the nape of his neck. His feminized body was supple, yet conveyed a core of strength. "Sugawara-san! Were you watching!? That was fast, right!?" "Yeah, I was watching. Your breathing seems to be syncing up. That's a relief." Sugawara smiled softly. Seeing that face always made Hinata feel a little at ease. "But you two are pretty red in the face. Are you okay? Your curse voices were leaking pretty spectacularly, weren't they?" "S-Sugawara-san, you could hear that!?" "I can't hear everything. From outside the gym, I could only hear your actual voices. But from the inner voices, I could tell those two were up to something again." "We weren't up to anything!" Kageyama turned his face away. Sugawara chuckled and turned toward Hinata. "Hey, Shouyou. Can we talk a little during lunch today?" Sugawara said it with a slightly serious expression. Hinata blinked. "With me? Sure, that's fine." "Yeah. There's something I want to talk to you about. After second period, can you come up to the rooftop? It's not a secret from Kageyama, so don't worry." "…What if he overhears?" "It's fine. I'll talk to Kageyama myself later. I just wanted Shouyou to hear it first." Sugawara's light brown eyes looked straight at Hinata. Serious, but gentle. "…Okay." —When second period ended, Hinata headed alone to the school rooftop. The rooftop during lunch break was windy. It had been so hot until recently, but the color of the sky was already shifting toward the end of summer. Hinata liked high places. Because they reminded him of the feeling of jumping. "You came. Want to sit over here?" Sugawara was sitting in a spot sheltered from the wind, in the shadow of the water tower, opening a handmade bento box. Next to it was another bento box containing rice balls. "Here, if you'd like. I made extra this morning." "Sugawara-san, you can cook too!? Thank you!" Hinata bit into a rice ball. White rice and salmon filled his mouth. "Delicious!" "Good. I thought you might be hungry." For a moment, only the sound of the wind could be heard. "…Shouyou. I've always been jealous of Kageyama." At the sudden words, Hinata froze with the rice ball still in his mouth. Sugawara continued, his eyes looking somewhere far away. "Kageyama is a genius. His talent as a setter is truly incredible. The things I've built up slowly, watching countless players—he had them from the start. When he started playing in matches and the team got stronger, I was happy, but somewhere in my heart, I always felt frustrated." It was a feeling Hinata knew too. The sense of inferiority toward Kageyama. But to think Sugawara-san felt that way. "…You did, Sugawara-san? But you're always so kind to Kageyama." "Yeah, I am. I am. But that's separate. Kageyama is the king of the team, and he's an important kouhai I want to support. But his talent was so dazzling that some nights, everything about myself felt meaningless." The wind gently swayed Sugawara's silver hair. "But one day, I realized something. What I felt toward Kageyama was love for volleyball—the feeling of 'I don't want to lose to him.' Being jealous of a genius is proof that I haven't given up on volleyball yet. Once I thought of it that way, I felt a little lighter." "Sugawara-san…" "Why the long face? I'm fine now. If anything, from here on, I'm planning to work that genius to the bone." Sugawara grinned. That familiar smile—not just kind, but with a hint of mischief. Hinata's chest swelled with the realization that this person, too, loved volleyball so deeply. "…I get it." Hinata swallowed his rice ball before speaking. "I don't want to lose to Kageyama. Someday, I want to become the kind of player he *wants* to toss to. But at the same time, I want to reach the top together with him. Those two feelings get all tangled up inside me sometimes. When I hit Kageyama's tosses, I feel frustrated and happy and like I'm about to cry. I used to wonder if that was weird." Once he put it into words, the feelings he'd never been able to express well came spilling out. "It's not weird." Su

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Episode 3

Name: Haikyuu!! Cursed Gender Swap!? Ushiwaka Became a Girl!?
Author: Novelia

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