Empty

●Chapter Nineteen●

The next morning, Kuroo and I met in the hall of Karasuno's floor to talk to Ukai. 

"You ready for this?" I asked. 

"Ready as I'll ever be." He sighed. We gathered up the balls to actually walk to him and Takeda's room. We knocked on the door and waited till we heard Takeda tell us we could go in. 

"Oh, I didn't expect to see you two.l this early. What can I do for ya?" Takeda asked, Ukai standing next to him. 

"We were wondering if we could talk to Ukai...in private." Kuroo asked. 

"Oh, of course. I'll head out for a while." Takeda said. He walked out and left us alone with Coach. 

"You two good? What ya need?" He asked, a small hint of worry in his voice. 

"We wanted to ask...is it okay if we come talk to you with mental health issues? We thought maybe talking to someone would help." Kuroo explained. 

"I already said this to Suga, if you ever need to talk, come to me. It'll be in complete confidence. I don't care how often you need it, or how long. I just want to make sure you guys are okay." 

"I appreciate it. A lot." 

"You guys need to talk now? What's prompting this?" 

"Remember that little sleepover?" I asked. 

"What about it?" 

"Kuroo had a bit of a breakdown. Smoking, drinking, trying to get black out crossfaded. I...I took a knife from him...and you know my issues." We both looked away. 

"Kuroo, what's up? What's going through your head?" He asked. 

"I feel like a failure. Worthless. Just...kinda shitty in general."

"I'm sorry kid, I know how hard those thoughts can be. But yeah, you guys can come to me whenever you need to." He said. 

"Thank you, I appreciate it." Kuroo said. 

"Suga, have you been okay?"

"No breakdowns, but intrusive thoughts are hell." 

"How bad? How hard are they to ignore and avoid?"

"On a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst, maybe a six."

"That number goes up, get me immediately and we'll talk." Hs said. 

"Will do."

"Good, anything else you guys need?"

"I think we're good for now." Kuroo said, giving a small smile. 

"Alright, wanna help me wake Hinata and Yamaguchi since Tsukishima and Kageyama are little brats?" He asked, rolling his eyes at our unhelpful first years.

"On it." I laughed. 

"Thanks guys." He said, going back to getting his things together for the day. We walked into the first year room, seeing Tsukki and Kageyama dressed and on their phones while the other two slept. 

"You get Hinata." I told Kuroo before waking up Yamiguchi.

"You two could be a bit more helpful, ya know." I scolded the other two. 

"No. And what's this idiot doing here?" Tsukki asked, nodding towards Kuroo. 

"None of your business. Go wait outside for the rest of us. You too, Kageyama, Go." I rolled my eyes. The two of them left, leaving us with two half awake first years who didn't wanna wake up. I can't say I blame them, I know Hinata, at least, isn't completely used to this kind of training just yet. He barely got any practice in middle school, so it's likely practicing this much is taking it out of him.