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Nishinoya rolled to the side to receive the ball Hinata had just spiked. When he got up, he noticed he was suddenly lightheaded. His held his hands out to see that they were shaking. He looked across the gym and made eye contact with Coach Ukai, holding out one of his hands and exaggerating the shaking just as Asahi slammed the ball down onto the other side of the net. Kinoshita reached towards it but wound up bumping it into the wall behind him.
“Take a ten minute break everyone,” Ukai called out. “Go get some water or something.”
Nishinoya basically sprinted to his bag to get the juice he kept there. He also found a bag of chips Tanaka had given him at lunch.
“Is it a good idea to be eating chips right now, Noya-san?”
Nishinoya turned around to see Hinata standing there with a water bottle. He took a long sip of his juice before he answered.
“Probably not but I’m going to do it anyway.” He put a small handful of chips in his mouth almost defiantly, following them with another long sip of juice. It probably wasn’t anything good to look at but he really didn’t care in that moment.
“You good Noya bro?” Tanaka asked, sitting down beside Nishinoya. He nodded and held up his hand, exaggerating the shaking again, taking the last sip of his juice.
“Ah, got it.” Tanaka nodded knowingly. He reached into his own bag and pulled out a small candy bar. He held it out to Nishinoya. “Want it?”
“Do you just keep food in your bag for me?” Nishinoya asked.
“Yeah. That’s what good bros do,” Tanaka said.
“Broooo!”
“Broooo!”
Nishinoya took the candy bar, unwrapping it quickly. Better to be safe than sorry.
“Nishinoya-senpai, aren’t you going a little overboard on the snacks?” Hinata asked as Nishinoya shoved the candy bar into his mouth.
“Probably,” he said around the mouthful of chocolate. “I don’t really care, though. This is a problem for future Nishinoya.”
“Okay…” Hinata seemed unsure but thankfully he dropped it.
Good. Nishinoya really didn’t want anyone else to know. He had only told Coach Ukai and Takeda -sensei because he had to. The only person he had told willingly was Tanaka, who was practically his brother. They sat in silence for the next few minutes until Coach Ukai called them all to “get their asses back to practice.”
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An hour later after practice was over and he had put the net away (which he and Asahi got stuck doing that day), Nishinoya was changing in the clubroom when his head started spinning. He felt really tired all of a sudden. Groaning, Nishinoya reached into his bag.
Outside, Hinata and Kageyama were arguing like usual.
“Seriously, dumbass, how did it take you until we were halfway to Ukai’s store to realize you forgot your jacket?” Kageyama asked.
“You walked home without yours in the snow once and didn’t realize until you got home!” Hinata exclaimed. “If anyone’s the dumbass here, it’s you.” He pushed the clubroom door open and paused when he saw Nishinoya still in there. His eyes widened as he saw what the libero was doing.
Nishinoya ripped open a small, square, paper package and pulled out something that made the clubroom smell like a hospital. He rubbed the unknown thing on his leg just under his shorts. He then pulled out a syringe with a clear liquid in it and stabbed it in his leg where he had just rubbed the square thing.
“I hate that I feel like shit without this stuff,” he muttered, not even flinching at the needle entering his skin.
Hinata shut the door quietly and turned around to leave quickly. He slammed face-first into Kageyama’s chest.
“Watch where you’re going, dumbass!” Kageyama snapped.
“Noya-san is doing drugs!” Hinata said instead of arguing back.
“…Huh?”
“I saw him inject himself with something and he said he feels like shit without it,” Hinata explained, keeping his voice lowered for once.
“We should tell Coach,” Kageyama said, eyes widening.
“No, that’ll just get Noya-san banned from the team,” Hinata said quickly. “Let’s just talk to him about it tomorrow.”
“Fine,” Kageyama agreed.
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Practice was cancelled the entire weekend due to Coach Ukai’s mother getting hit by a car. He had to be in the hospital with her and he didn’t trust the team to do things the right way in his absence, no matter how hard Daichi and Ennoshita tried to corral the rest of the team. Finally on Monday, Coach Ukai’s mom forced him to go back to his normal life, claiming she “hadn’t gotten a minute’s peace with all his worrying over her”.
Nishinoya was anxious about going back to practice after the weekend. It was going to take some getting used to, but he had to do it. There was no way he was giving up on volleyball.
The team was doing a mock match, with odd numbers on one side and even on the other. That split up most of the “power duos” who tended to play better off of each other, namely Hinata and Kageyama, or Nishinoya and Asahi.
“Shit,” Suga muttered as the ball went off his fingers on a block. “Cover!”
Nishinoya dove to receive the ball towards the front of the court, sliding on his stomach. He winced as he felt the floor slide against his skin where only moments ago there had been a thick, hard block of plastic.
The ball went crashing down on the other side of the court from one of Hinata’s spikes as Nishinoya sat up slowly and put his hand on his stomach, trying to soothe the pain that came from the tape being ripped off his skin. He hoped he would never have to feel that again, as even with his high pain tolerance, it hurt like hell. However, he knew in the back of his mind that it would probably happen a million times more over the course of the rest of his life. He almost felt like crying, it was so frustrating sometimes knowing that this was something he would have to live with until he died.
“Hey, Noya-san, what’s this?” Hinata asked, picking up the object from the floor. It was about 5 centimeters long and had a square back. It rounded out at the top and was milky white on all sides and flat on the bottom. A pale-yellow circle and a pink square could be seen under the white. There was a patch of white medical grade tape on the bottom, just bigger than the plastic part. The tape was in the same shape as the plastic with a small hole cut out at the top. A small, thin plastic tube came out from the hole, barely a centimeter long. “Did this just come out of your shirt?”
At once, everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at the two shortest members of the team.
“Give it to me,” Nishinoya said, standing up. He grabbed the object out of Hinata’s hand. “Fuck, and I just put that on this morning too.”
“What is it?” Yamaguchi asked from behind Nishinoya, leaning over a little and examining the object.
“It’s nothing,” Nishinoya said hurriedly, shoving the object into his pocket.
“It’s obviously not nothing,” Asahi said from the other side of the net.
“Yeah, just tell us what it is and we can all go back to practice,” Suga said.
“I’m not getting out of this, am I?” Nishinoya groaned loudly.
“Nope,” Tanaka called from across the gym. “Just tell them, bro. It’s not a big deal.”
“Easy for you to say, Ryu!” Nishinoya yelled back. “You’re not the one who’s got to deal with people treating you like you’re made of glass because one of your organs doesn’t work properly anymore!”
“What do you mean one of your organs doesn’t work properly anymore?” Daichi asked, immediately concerned. “Are you okay, Nishinoya?”
“I’m fine.” Nishinoya sighed, knowing there was no hiding it anymore. “Six months ago I got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.”
“Six months?” Suga demanded. “How the hell did you keep something like that hidden from everyone for six months?”
“It wasn’t everyone!” Nishinoya protested. “Ryu and his sister knew because I spend as much time at their house as I do at my own, and Coach and Sensei knew because I had no choice but to tell them.”
“But that doesn’t answer the question of how you hid it for so long,” Daichi said.
“At first I was only taking insulin shots before I ate or when my blood sugar was high-” Nishinoya started to explain. He was cut off by Kageyama’s triumphant yelling across the court.
“Hah! I knew he wasn’t taking drugs in the clubroom, dumbass!”
“No you didn’t!” Hinata shouted back. “You didn’t argue with me when I told you, you just said we should tell Coach Ukai!”
“You guys thought I was taking drugs?!” Nishinoya yelled.
“I saw you inject yourself with something in the clubroom on Friday,” Hinata said.
“That was insulin!” Nishinoya exclaimed. “I was high because I overdid it when I was low during practice!”
“Oh.” Hinata nodded like he knew what high and low meant in this context, or how practice correlated to any of it.
“Anyways” Nishinoya continued, “my mom took me to the doctor Friday night, and I got an insulin pump. I thought I would be able to hide it for longer if I played my cards right in changing rooms, but then the stupid thing had to go and fall off three days after I got it.” He took the object in question out of his pocket and glared at it as though it had personally offended him.
“But why hide it in the first place?” Kiyoko asked. Apparently the conversation about Nishinoya’s malfunctioning pancreas was interesting enough for her to insert her own commentary.
“Because my mom has been babying me since the diagnosis,” Nishinoya said. “She almost pulled me from volleyball because she was so worried about it. She acts like I can’t take care of myself without her constantly on top of me making me check my blood sugar every ten minutes. I didn’t want you guys to do the same.”
“We know you can take care of yourself,” Asahi said. “We’re not going to baby you. But it’s important for people to know these things.”
“Alright, as heartwarming as this conversation is getting to be,” Coach Ukai interrupted, “do you need to go do something with that?” He pointed at the insulin pump.
“Yeah. I need to go put another one on,” Nishinoya sighed. He hesitated for a moment before asking a question. “Is it alright if someone comes with me? I want to try to put it on my arm so maybe it won’t get hit next time I dive but I don’t think I can reach there by myself to get the tape to stick.”
“I’ll go,” Tanaka volunteered. “Not like I’ve never helped you with diabetes stuff before.”
“Alright,” Coach Ukai said. “Just get back here as fast as you can. We still have a practice to finish.”
“Yes Coach,” Nishinoya said, racing toward the clubroom with Tanaka in tow. Now that the team knew and wasn’t going to treat him like a child for it, he felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
“Wait, a second,” Hinata called after the two. Nishinoya stopped and turned around. The orange-haired boy’s eyes were wide in a mix of shock and… fear?
“What?” Nishinoya yelled back.
“Was that plastic needle thing in your skin?!”