. @nikiforcvs asked me and i've been thinking a stupid amount about this fictional boy with <100 lines in a 400 chapter manga, so here's my gloss on the Bonk Monologue: It shows Sakusa is very sensitive to others' tendency to conflate pity and care.

The "tiny meteorite" bit is key. That is a statistically fucking unlikely thing to happen to a person. So this monologue illustrates what Sakusa has told us about himself—he is cautious and realistic. He gathers data. He analyzes it. He predicts outcomes.

What else do we know about Sakusa that can be useful in unpacking the Bonk Monologue? He tends toward hypochondria and is cautious about germs. I don't need to provide photo evidence of this, it's like his defining characterization for better or worse.

We also know that Itachiyama's captain was injured and they lost their game at Nationals (perhaps as a result; perhaps not), halting their rise from the quarterfinals. So Sakusa is speaking to a few situations via the Bonk Monologue...

1.) Hinata falling ill and Karasuno losing
2.) Itachiyama's loss
3.) Itachiyama's captain's injury
And (I will argue)
4.) Sakusa's general philosophy on how people should treat him (and other people)

Okay where am I going with this?

Given that we know Sakusa is a germaphobe/(relative) hypochondriac and that other people know this enough to call him out on it, it's safe to say we can assume that Haikyuu is not a perfect world and other people probably think his behavior is Fucking Weird.

These characteristics also suggest a tendency toward catastrophizing. Germaphobia is rooted in a lot of things, but all anxiety comes from an inability to stop your brain from fucking extrapolating 1,000 steps down the line to your inevitable death or some other terrible outcome.

This is why Komori labels Sakusa a pessimist.

I bet Sakusa has gotten a lot of reactions in life to his "condition" or anxiety like: Oh poor guy, he's never going to lead a normal life. Oh poor guy, he must really struggle to play sports. And these don't always need to come in the form of "oh poor guy"

"Oh you can't do that, can you?" "Oh I forgot..." "Oh let me do that for you" etc. etc. can all come off to the hypersensitive/aware person (i.e., the person with anxiety) as pity. Other people think it's care.

Both the Bonk Monologue and Sakusa's definite success in volleyball indicates he is a person who has done a good job at compartmentalizing the fuck out of his anxiety's negative spirals so he can use the benefits to his, well, benefit, namely...

Being able to quickly and correctly analyze a situation, its possible outcomes, potential unknowns, the existence unknown unknowns, and the course of action you can take to assure or increase the likelihood of a positive outcome.

So the Bonk Monologue is both a response to Hinata's situation and a great nugget of introspection re: Sakusa. It tells us how he wants other people to treat him and his anxieties. It tells him he very much thinks anyone who worries over his anxieties is looking down on him.

It tells us how those anxieties can be translated into his strengths on the court.

It does not, however, tell us about his weird fucking wrists. Only Akaashi can do that.

I think I'm done. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Here is my business card, which reads "Kiyose Haiji Expert."

Oh my addendum is all of this makes me VERY skeptical that Sakusa and Komori are friends.

Oh additional addendum: All of this is critical for anyone writing Sakusa in a ship because it gives you some meat for considering what care looks like TO SAKUSA. Please consider this.

finally if you don't know who kiyose haiji is WATCH RUN WITH THE WIND this is the product i'm slinging i will die for it https://www.crunchyroll.com/run-with-the-wind