androgynous until laundry day

i've come to the conclusion that what it means is that kita's job as a rice farmer and supplier---specifically to his kouhai---is kind of the perfect combo of inarizaki's "who needs memories" banner and kita's diligence in routine and his belief that we're built on what we do every day. farmers need to tend to their fields every day; their harvest is literally built on that everyday maintenance and care, which is in turn informed by the memories of previous harvests and the experience wrought from them. at the same time, every harvest is a new harvest, every batch a new batch, and every grain of rice eventually (hopefully) consumed: who needs memories of previous meals when you have the one that's in front of you right now? all you need is right here.

this is also supported by atsumu's narrative that he's only just really getting his high school banner now. "in volleyball, the past is gone. there ain't no such thing as memories. all you need is right here. all i need are my muscles!" yes, he needs in that moment to play volleyball at the highest level are his muscles, but his muscles are built on the everyday maintenance, diligence and care---on training, on hard work, on repetition. he says there's no such thing as memories, and sure in the conscious sense one should really be focusing on the present when on the court, but there is such thing as muscle memory, and that muscle memory is pulling atsumu through the moment. his body needs those memories so that he can turn it into action, movement, game.

and this quote is probably a throwback to what kita tells the twins after karasuno loses to kamomedai. he poses to atsumu (and osamu, but mostly tsumu) that if results are everything, then all the third years that lose at nationals must mean nothing, before he says that the result can be "a good game" and that their everyday actions build up their bodies. he leaves them with the parting quote of, "even if i didn't win, i did build a whole lotta muscle. the world can throw anything it wants at me now---i ain't afraid."

it's funny, because even though kita's point was about the diligence of building good habits for healthy muscles and how it's not about the results, it's about the process (ie. the memories & the experience), tsumu seems to have metabolized it in a completely different way (ie. who needs those memories in this present moment?) but still managed to digest the same outcome. like two sides of the same coin, or running to the middle from opposite sides: it's all about my muscles in the present moment, it's all about the good game and not its result... the present moment is built on all the memories that have come before it, but all that matters in the moment is the moment itself. and we continue diligently to build muscle, so that we can rely on them to create more moments.

the process is the present, and the present is the process---not so mutually exclusive after all. and another thing both kita's and timeskip!atsumu's deceptively opposing views have in common: the results don't really matter; what you're doing is more important.

now, to go back to timeskip rice farmer kita (my beloved! 💖🌾), the spread is to show us yeah that there's a balance between kita's life philosophy and his high school banner, but also to show us the abundance of his rice fields, the success of his kouhai, the fruit of his labour---his results. the consequences of his everyday actions. just like that inarizaki captain jersey labelled with an underlined one, he's been working hard, and both the fields and the underclassmen and friends that he tended to are flowering and blooming, and benefitting from his hard work. metaphorically in their careers, and literally too because that's his rice on their dinner tables, grown with his own two hands.

and even though the chapter---and honestly, the inarizaki game itself---starts with atsumu, it's nicely bookended by kita and his satisfied smile. the captain that is always looking out for them, always watching, and always diligently, always with pride and care.

and we feel that pride when we look at his double-page spread. we understand it instinctively when we look at him standing to survey and appreciate his sprawling rice fields against a backdrop of sky and mountains, everything he's grown and everything he's proud of---all these moments like grains of rice, that he's created for himself and the people he loves through his everyday labour to build them and tend to them.