since my old twt is locked im gonna paste the thread here:
this is [handwaves] much closer to how volleyball works in us college teams than in chinese university teams or youth teams, but it will work better for the au !! don’t think too hard about the logistics. wwx used to play outside hitter in high school and he was so good at it he got a scholarship coming into uni. however wwx knew that if he played as an outside hitter for the team, jiang cheng wouldn’t make the cut, and yu ayi would never forgive him if that happened.
it just so happens that their starting libero just graduated, and their other one is currently on a study abroad. so, wwx fills in as the new libero. he was always a pretty good defence player for an outside hitter, but this was a whole new ballgame.
lqr, the team coach, was very confused about this whole thing. he was promised a strong outside hitter to replace their recent graduate, but instead he got wwx, who apparently has a tendon injury and can no longer jump to the same capacity as he once could. Lwj is also, to say the least, not pleased. Lwj is a first year setter prodigy and yeah, he is good at what he does, and he is also getting gradually more frustrated at their new libero who seems to be very confused about what he’s supposed to do.
His passes aren’t bad, lwj decides, but he’s constantly in the wrong position. Its almost like he’s.. never played libero before.
and then old man lqr is like “wangji stay behind and help wei wuxian practice his serve receives” and they spend extra hours at the gym where lwj teaches wwx how to set and pass the way he wants them and how to do libero things. (also sometimes wwx is staying behind running laps as punishment, 1 lap for every ball he drops during practice, sometimes wen ning, their middle blocker, is also running with him because he’s so bad at serve receive)
So wangxian spend a lot of time alone together in the gym, lwj sometimes wakes up wwx at like 5 am for morning practice and wwx is all like [whines] “why do you hate me lan er gege all you do is bully me” but he’s genuinely super grateful that lwj is helping him out
One day, they finish their drills and doing their cool downs when wwx is just like “hey lan zhan can you set a few for me”
And they bring the ball cart up to the net and lwj sets wwx a few to outside, and he watches wwx smack that ball so fucking hard that his entire world stops
the ball lands square into the back corner, right on the line.
“Did you aim that” lan zhan asks
And wwx is like “ahaha no i just got lucky” and he thanks lwj for indulging him and runs to go pick the ball but lwj stops him and hes like “again.”
And he watches wwx aim every spike perfectly, he starts telling wwx where to aim, starts calling different plays, he’s like “two” and he does it “line” and he does it”
And lwj is just standing there like what the fuck
and they end up hitting every ball in the cart and wwx realises after his adrenalin rush what he just revealed and hes like “lan zhan, please you cant tell anyone” and lwj is like why?? youre so much better than jiang cheng heck you’re even better than nmj maybe
But lan wangji doesnt say any of that, because wwx must be hiding it for a reason, as frustrating it might be for the team. “Let’s go get dinner” he says instead.
(lwj finds out that dinner was wwx’s first meal he’s had that day and since then he starts showing up to practice with a banana in each hand, and then he realises he greatly miscalculated everything when he watches wwx eat the banana)
Anyway, i just think it would be really homoerotic of them to be very good at peppering and to warm up as a pair before games and i think eventually lwj finds out about wwx’s situation but he respects wwx’s choice to keep it a secret
Uhh other thoughts: - Wangxian volunteer at a volleyball summer camp - They Go To The Beach (beach volleyball + rip lwj) - Lwj helps wwx stretch and wwx is really fucking loud about it - wwx starts doing back court hits as a surprise attack technique
I think they would also make an amazing beach duo !!! maybe they enter tournaments together in the summer and eventually go pro, play provincial games or smth!! oh yeah also they fall in love !! and make out a lot about it, i think everyone except them thought they were dating
Wow this is so long… aaaa anyway i love volleyball and i love wangxian, thank you for reading <3
romaincrisis
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