Bonus Round 3: Gift Tags

[referees]

Feeling generous? In this round, you get to give creative gifts as prompts.

This round is CLOSED as of 7PM on July 7 EDT. Late fills may be posted, but they will not receive points.

RULES

• Submit prompts as a gift tag in the format below. You can specify the size and a characteristic of the gift, who the sender is, who the recipient is, and a one or two sentence note from the sender to the recipient. Descriptions of the package and the included note don’t have to be explicit, see below.
• Package: medium sized cube, rattles
  From: Kageyama Tobio
  To: Hinata Shouyou
  Note: These will help you get better.
• Envelope: manila, 12''x17'', very thick and heavy
  From: Tezuka Kunimitsu
  To: Kinjou Shingo
  Note: Enclosed - Play without regrets!
• Your prompt MUST include a relationship. Platonic relationships are indicated by an "&" between the names (e.g., Riko & Momoi). Non-platonic relationships use "/" (e.g., Riko/Momoi). Please don't say "Any pairing," either.
• Fill prompts by leaving a responding comment to the prompt with your newly-created work. Fillers can get creative with how to interpret the prompt: your fill can be about the character receiving the gift, one or both characters using the gift, what prompted the sender to send the gift—the physical gift itself can even be excluded from your fill. What’s important is that the gift tag is clearly the inspiration for your fill.
• Remember to follow the general bonus round rules, outlined here.

FORMAT

Bonus round shenanigans all happen in the comments below. Brand-new works only, please.

Required Work Minimums:

• 400 words (prose)
• 400px by 400px (art)
• 14 lines (poetry)

There is no max work cap.

Format your comment in one of the following ways:

If PROMPTING:	If FILLING:	If FILLING as a TEAM GRANDSTAND participant:
PROMPT: TEAM [YOUR SHIP] Replace [YOUR SHIP] with the name of the team you belong to, including Grandstand or Sports Teams Write it exactly as it appears on the team roster or your team will not receive points Place the prompt's relationship in the first bolded line of the comment. Including the canon isn't required, but it's nice. Below that, place applicable major content tags (when applicable; otherwise write "no tags" or "none") Visual example	FILL: TEAM [YOUR SHIP], [RATING] Replace [YOUR SHIP] with the name of the team you belong to Write it exactly as it appears on the team roster or your team will not receive points Replace RATING with the rating of your fill (G - E) Place applicable major content tags and word count before your fill (when applicable) NSFW FILLS: Please cross-link these fills and use clear tags in your comment. Written/text fills should be hosted at AO3 ONLY as a new, unchaptered work. Art/visual fills can be hosted anywhere. You may include a small safe-for-work preview of the fill in your comment. To place an image in your comment, use this code: <img src="LINK TO YOUR IMAGE" alt="DESCRIPTION OF YOUR IMAGE"/> Visual example	FILL: TEAM GRANDSTAND, [RATING] Replace RATING with the rating of your fill, G - E, as explained in the rules Place applicable major content tags and word count before the fill, where applicable NSFW FILLS: Please cross-link these fills and use clear tags in your comment. Written/text fills should be hosted at AO3 ONLY as a new, unchaptered work. Art/visual fills can be hosted anywhere. You may include a small safe-for-work preview of your work in your comment. To place an image in your comment, use this code: <img src="LINK TO YOUR IMAGE" /> Visual example

Posts not using this format will be understood to be unofficial discussion posts, regardless of what they contain. They, like all comments in this community, are subject to the code of conduct.

SCORING

These numbers apply to your team as a whole, not each individual teammate. Make as many prompts/fills as you want!

For prompts: 5 points each (maximum of 50 prompt points per team per round)

For fills:

First 3 fills by any member of your team: 20 points each
Fills 4-10: 10 points each
Fills 11-20: 5 points each
Fills 21+: 2 points each

All scored content must be created new for this round.

Etc.

If you're hunting through the prompts looking for what to fill, a good trick is to view top-level comments only.

Have a question? Check The FAQ first. If you still need help, feel free to contact the mods. Happy fanworking!

Comments

FILL: TEAM CHIHAYAFURU, G

[rosebrook]

Mentions of knee injuries
1439 words

The memories of that day would stick with Oikawa for the longest time.

It started out relatively nondescript. He woke up, took a shower, took his medicine, ate breakfast, watched the news, packed up his volleyball equipment, and then finally left his apartment to take the subway to the gym where his team was preparing for a match.

It wasn’t even that important of a match. Just a practice match to help condition everyone for the tournament that would be starting in three weeks. But Oikawa was feeling restless. He sat out the majority of the previous year’s tournament because of his knee and was only brought in when the coach knew that it was going to be a tough game and Oikawa’s serves and tosses would be essential to victory. This year was going to be his chance. He was sure of it. He made sure to keep his knee brace on at all times during practice; he attended physical therapy twice a month; he did everything he could to insure that he would be in the best physical condition that his body would allow.

Oikawa knew that they team they were playing today could possibly prove to be troublesome in the main tournament so the coach had agreed to let Oikawa serve first. His jump serves were already well known in the professional volleyball sphere so he hoped to use a lesser (but still strong) version of it to try and psyche their opponent out and make them a bit nervous for the main tournament.

The first serve went perfectly. Their libero made contact but it was just a second too late and the ball soared directly into the net and fell to the ground. Oikawa’s teammates cheered him on and a few gave him a thumbs up. Oikawa was happy, but still a bit disappointed. His knee still felt in good shape so he decided that he’d put more force into the next serve to make sure that not even their libero would be able to touch it.

He backed up from the serve line and did a running start. Perfect. He threw the volleyball from his hand and jumped. Perfect. His hand made direct contact with the ball and it sailed over the net. Perfect. He landed with both feet on the ground and-

*pop*

Definitely not perfect.

Oikawa did his best to contain his shout of pain and instinctively reached down to grab his knee, but this action put his body off balance and he fell in a way that his head made direct contact with ground, and then everything went dark.


When he woke up, he found himself in a small hospital bed and was still a bit disoriented not knowing how much time had passed since he fell. Luckily for him, a nurse was beside his bed the moment he woke up, and she immediately began to take his vitals.

“Oikawa-san, do you remember what happened?” the nurse asked him after shining a pocket scope into his eye.

Oikawa blinked and thought for a moment before answering her question. “I remember falling and hitting my head during a practice game.” His eyes then widened in realization. “How much time has passed since I passed out?!”

“It’s only been a few hours so no need to worry about that; however, I do need to let you know that you did get a concussion from your fall, and the doctor predicts that it will take a few weeks to heal, but-”

Oikawa laughed and rested his hand on his head. “A few weeks? No problem! I might have to miss the first game of the tournament, just to be safe of course, but it sounds like the concussion will be gone for the later and most crucial games. That’s a relief.”

Oikawa turned to the nurse ready to make add in some stupid joke about concussions when he noticed that she had a sad sort of smile on her face. Then it hit him. That look was one of pity. Something was definitely wrong. Oikawa felt himself start to breathe quicker when the nurse began to give him more details about his condition.

Knee injury. Torn ACL. Buildup of damage over time. Surgery. Physical therapy. That much he could deal with. It would be obnoxious to have to sit on the bench yet again because of injury, but there was more dreadful news.

The extent of your injury has spread to such a degree that it is unwise for you to continue playing volleyball.

The nurse went into details about the specifics of the injury and then into his stay in the hospital for both ailments. Oikawa nodded along with her explanation, but barely process the words themselves. His entire mind was filled with bitterness. Why did this happen to him? He had been so careful. He barely even got much a chance to play as a professional athelete.

Over the course of the next two weeks, he got visits from some of his current teammates as well as friends from Aoba Jousai. His current teammates were sympathetic, but Oikawa could tell they cared more for the team’s loss rather than Oikawa himself. His teammates from Aoba Jousai, on the other hand, cared mostly about Oikawa himself and understood his passion for volleyball. He was able to hold himself together during these meetings since they chose to not talk about Oikawa’s situation and instead talked about their own lives. His friends all appeared to be doing relatively well and Oikawa couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy hearing about the progress they have made towards their own life goals.

The day after one of Iwaizumi’s visits, the nurse came in and gently placed a fruit basket on the bedside table. Oikawa turned to look at it and noticed that it was mainly filled with peaches, apples, and pears- Oikawa’s favorite fruits.

“A young man dropped this off at the front desk for you. He said you two used to play volleyball together. I told him that he was allowed to bring it up himself so you too could visit, but he said that he wouldn’t want to bother you,” she said as she began to unwrap the plastic of the basket.

“That’s odd,” Oikawa thought. “Practically all of the Aoba Jousai guys have visited me at least once. They easily could have heard about my favorite fruits in the past, but why wouldn’t they want to see me?”

The nurse passed Oikawa one of the apples along with a note that came with the basket and then left the room. Oikawa took a bite from the apple as he opened the note.


“Oikawa-san, I’m sorry to hear about your career ending injury.”
--Kageyama Tobio

Oikawa immediately crumpled up the note and threw it down on the bed.

“Who the hell does Tobio-chan think he is, sending me something like this? What a passive aggressive display. He’s sorry?! Yeah right! He’s probably laughing about the fact that this ‘career ending injury’ is going to keep me out of the game for good. Now he doesn’t need to worry that I’ll interfere with his professional career,” Oikawa muttered to himself angrily biting into the apple.

Then it really hit him. Career-ending. He knew from the start that his knee wouldn’t fully recover, but this was the first time that he really thought about how permanent all of these changes would be. This was the end of everything that he had worked for. All of his work throughout middle school and high school meant nothing now. Kageyama had been witness to all of his efforts. The doctors and nurses said that he couldn’t play volleyball anymore, but they didn’t understand the depth of what that really meant to him. His teammates from Aoba Jousai knew about the depth of his love of volleyball, but they all did their best to avoid that topic not wanting to upset him. Kageyama was the only one that truly understood what this injury meant for him and directly addressed it. Both of them saw volleyball as not just a sport, but a way of life and now Oikawa’s volleyball life had come to an end. Even though he didn’t want to admit it, Oikawa realized that he would have done the same thing for Kageyama had their positions been swapped. The two of them understood each other when it came to volleyball.

It was a good thing he hadn’t dropped off the gift personally. Oikawa wouldn’t want Kageyama to see him sobbing over a crumpled up note and a half-eaten apple.