Chapter Text
Tobio has never been a fan of the art of divination.
For one, he finds it really disorienting to receive visions or hear voices. Watanuki says that he makes a decent channel for the voices of fate to speak to him but apparently he doesn’t have the right temperament for it. Tobio doesn’t understand how anyone could possibly have the temperament for something as violating as some higher power rooting around in your brain just to plant information in the most inconvenient way possible, but he keeps his opinion to himself.
The other bone he has to pick with divination is that he severely dislikes all the complicated rules and steps regarding what you can tell someone of what you Saw, how much you can tell, and when to tell them, if at all.
You can receive all the visions in the world but you pretty much have to keep them to yourself and do nothing with that knowledge or you’ll break one of the sacred rules of magic and the planet will spontaneously combust or something. Unless someone asks to know of their future, essentially entering a contract with you, you have to keep quiet about what you do know. And you can only reveal how much you’ve been paid for so you have to be smart about the details, but you can’t cheat them out of knowing what they’ve paid for either since you’re bound by your word and your magic.
It’s a massive headache for literally no reason and if Tobio had his way, he’d just never receive another vision ever again.
Except since when do things ever go his way? Answer: they don’t.
He knows as soon as he wakes up from the strange dream about a dragon and a frozen river that he has just received a vision. He’s annoyed, sure, because it’s disorienting to have such vivid dreams and have weird instincts be artificially planted in him by the threads of fate, but Tobio doesn’t think much more of it because the few visions he has received haven’t ever really gone anywhere.
Usually, he dreams of some strange stuff and then just moves on with his life for the most part. He might tell Watanuki, and sometimes, he’ll even dream of something relating to a customer or visitor to the shop, but usually, Tobio’s premonitions don’t actually mean much to him.
But then it quickly becomes very clear to him that this isn’t the kind of dream he can just ignore. For the first time ever, Tobio is plagued with a repeating vision. Not all the dreams are the exact same, but they’re all similar enough that there is no real room for doubt.
Tobio dreams that he is in a world of nothing but ice and snow, the sky an endless canopy of grey above him. He dreams of a dragon, forgotten and old and closer to magic than any spirit he has ever met before. Sometimes he is only a witness, but sometimes, he is the dragon itself. Covered in pale scales that are now coated in a layer of frost and ice, weakened and weary and lost . Stuck. Cold, so very cold, and fading. Succumbing. The creature curls up tighter, tucking his snout into the meagre warmth his body provides, and keens into the void in the vain hope that someone will hear. Someone will come. Someone will help and he will be remembered once more. Someone, anyone, please–
Over and over again, night after night, Tobio wakes up trembling from a cold he does not feel, weeping tears from a hurt that is not his own. He feels hollowed out, like someone has scooped out his insides and turned him inside out for the world to see. There is an aching in his soul that scares him because he can’t tell if it is his own or not.
Something about his dreams sinks a hook into his very being and pulls, calling out to a deeply buried part of him that wants to reach out into the universe for whoever will be waiting to reach back. It gets to a point where even his magic starts reacting without his input, curling out towards something unknown.
It scares Tobio more than he cares to admit. The aching cold in his dreams, the desperate longing that doesn’t feel like it’s his but burrows deep within him nonetheless, the fact that his magic is going beyond his control to the extent that he has to constantly regulate it consciously lest it start leaking and searching on its own.
And the worst thing is he doesn’t understand. He can’t figure out why this is happening or why he’s reacting so strongly. Tobio has never met any dragons– they’re exceedingly rare even for most spirits, most of them old and reclusive– and he doesn’t know what connection it is that has him constantly Seeing visions about this one either.
When Watanuki finally asks him about his growing exhaustion and paranoia, Tobio has to fight back the sudden overwhelming urge to start crying because the gentleness with which his mentor asks him makes him feel as fragile as glass and it is a tipping point to his incredibly frayed nerves.
“I keep having visions,” Tobio tells him, rubbing furiously at his eyes to ease the burning left behind from an unpleasant mix of lack of enough sleep and the sudden onslaught of his own turbulent emotions. “Every night I See the same thing.”
Watanuki watches Tobio carefully, lips pulled into a mild frown. “And?” he prompts.
Tobio takes in a shuddering breath, shaking his head as if to physically clear away the fogginess of his thoughts. “There’s a dragon lost in the snow. He’s always calling out.” He pauses. “My magic keeps trying to call back.”
Watanuki stills at that. His gaze is unbearably heavy as he presses his lips into a thin line and nods once in what might be grim resignation.
“He is calling for you then,” he concludes, and it is said with enough neutrality that it sets Tobio’s teeth on edge.
This isn’t his mentor right now. This is the Shopkeeper.
Tobio eyes him warily. “Why me?” he asks, the words coming out flat. “I don’t know any dragons and there really isn’t any reason for them to know me either.”
The smile Watanuki offers him is one that lacks any humour. “Well, clearly you are mistaken about that, aren’t you?”
It’s cagier than Watanuki has been with Tobio in a while. There is something about the careful stillness he holds himself with, the oppressive awareness of how he’s presenting himself. Some of it is the default persona he slips into while dealing with customers but far more guarded because Watanuki is aware that Tobio is watching him in wait for something to prod at.
After spending nearly every day together for five years, they are both well versed in reading one another whether they like it or not.
Tobio thinks of this as he narrows his eyes at his mentor and states grimly, “You know something.”
Inclining his head with a wry smile, Watanuki shrugs. “I always do.”
He isn’t wrong, and Tobio knows why his mentor never says anything despite having the knowledge but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t annoy him now.
“I don’t suppose this is the part where you tell me what you know?” he tries anyway, despite knowing the likely outcome.
Watanuki offers him an apologetic pat on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, Taka-kun.”
Tobio sighs, shoulders slumping. “Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say.”
Man, fuck the laws of divination.
Humming, Watanuki eyes him over the rim of his sake cup, a calculative gleam in his mismatched eyes. Tobio straightens under his contemplative gaze out of nothing but sheer reflex, already wary of whatever test Watanuki is going to throw his way as he tends to when he gets that particular look in his eye. As is the tendency with mages and spirits, Watanuki likes to lead Tobio around in circles rather than simply give him a straight answer.
One day, when he’s old and retired from volleyball and his Bridge duties, Tobio is going to study the correlation between magic and how it makes one prone to unnecessary dramatics.
“What would you tell a customer in your position, Taka-kun?” the older man asks.
Tobio bites the inside of his cheek to keep from scowling. “A customer who’s Seeing visions that I can't explain to them?”
“A customer who needs to undertake a journey before arriving at the destination you know they must end up at,” Watanuki corrects.
Pausing, Tobio narrows his eyes slightly. “Are you sure I can’t just tell the customer their destination?”
Watanuki’s laugh rings in the parlour like bells as the man shakes his head in fond exasperation at his apprentice. “Yes, I’m sure, Taka-kun. That is the balance of all things: a journey before a destination. No one can or should get in the way of that.”
Tobio huffs and crosses his arms, but doesn’t argue. He knows and respects the laws that govern magic and nature. They exist for very important reasons and as someone who exists in two worlds, Tobio is better versed in those reasons than most others.
So, he gives up on his indignation and decides to think about Watanuki’s question instead. “If I can’t tell them the end of the journey,” he muses aloud, “then I guess I’d tell them the start. Help them get on their way.”
Watanuki looks pleased as he sets down his empty cup and nods at Tobio. “Indeed. Well done, Taka-kun,” he says warmly and Tobio promptly flushes at the praise. “Then I suppose I should tell you the start of your own journey?”
Tobio has the horrifying thought that this sounds like the start of one of those quest things that Shoyou rants about from the games he plays with Nekoma’s pudding-head setter.
“What’s your price, Watanuki?”
The smile on Watanuki’s face sharpens into something that has Tobio eyeing him warily. “You will enter a binding contract with me,” he announces, as though having simply been lying in wait for an opportunity like this to present itself.
“I am not becoming your slave for eternity,” Tobio refutes immediately, eyes widening in alarm.
He’d thought they were past this, dammit!
His mentor snorts at his panic, swatting at the air in lazy dismissal. “It isn’t eternal servitude, Taka-kun,” he drawls, rolling his eyes like he thinks Tobio is being particularly ridiculous for his perfectly valid fears. Watanuki levels his gaze on his student, a mischievous smile on his lips that does nothing to put Tobio at ease. “Enter a binding contract free of a time constraint that dictates you agreeing to just one of my requests unconditionally.”
Unconvinced, Tobio frowns. “That sounds a lot like I’m about to get conned into terrible workplace conditions.”
“It’s not like you really have a choice,” Watanuki points out, sounding more than a little smug as he rests his chin on steepled fingers. “How else will you get rid of your dreams?”
At this, Tobio hesitates. “I could ask Ushijima-sama,” he points out but he doesn’t sound very convinced of himself. They both know that Tobio would much rather avoid owing any debts to a clan of magic users even if they’re on rather friendly terms right now. There’s no telling how that might lead to him getting dragged into the politics of mages before he’s quite prepared to deal with them.
At the moment, Tobio is lucky enough to be tied to Watanuki’s name in the world of mages and spirits. The Shopkeeper of the wish granting shop is a notoriously neutral party who keeps himself well removed from mortal affairs and is powerful enough to maintain this status quo without anyone being able to pressure him into taking sides.
When Tobio does step into the political landscape of the magical world to represent his status as Bridge and magical proxy of the Kageyama clan, he’ll be lucky enough to start from this incredibly neutral base.
However, it is one thing to be friendly with the traditionalist Ushijima mages, and it is another to owe them in such a manner that they may pressure him into any kind of political alliance before he has the necessary understanding of their stances and plans.
Tobio likes Wakatoshi and considers the older boy a close friend, but in their world, lines have to be constantly drawn and maintained. Unfortunately, unconditional trust is a luxury and a foolishness that is too easily exploited. Until Wakatoshi can take the mantle as clan head, at least, Tobio cannot truly trust the Ushijima clan to not take advantage of him or his status as Bridge.
“You could,” Watanuki concedes with a nod, but his eyebrows are raised because he understands the nuances of such a decision even better than Tobio.
Sighing in frustration, Tobio scrubs at his face. “You already know what request you want me to agree to, don’t you?” he says, levelling a displeased glare at his needlessly cryptic employer.
Watanuki doesn’t even try to shy away from it. He simply shrugs and nods. “I do,” he admits easily. His gaze softens. “I’ve known since the start that I’d ask you someday, Tobio.”
The use of his first name catches him off guard as it does every time Watanuki uses it instead of his mage name. He swallows, looking away from the almost overwhelming affection in Watanuki’s smile. “If you already know,” he says instead, “then why don’t you just ask now?”
The elder mage shakes his head. “It is not time yet,” he says, “but someday, it will be. I’d like you to say yes when that day does arrive.”
Tobio watches him with a frown. “I don’t like this,” he declares.
Watanuki just smiles. “I know. Will you agree to these terms?”
The vagueness of it all has a nauseating nervousness pooling in the pit of Tobio’s stomach, but unfortunately, he’s not exactly swimming in options. Sighing deeply, he nods in defeat. “Yeah, I agree to your terms.”
He hadn’t noticed the tension in Watanuki’s narrow frame until it left the man in one breath. With a start, he realises that his mentor had been nervous Tobio would refuse.
Just what on earth is this request?
The air around them wavers, condensing as the magical bond takes form between them. It feels like a tug on his navel anchoring him to Watanuki, the magic of it weaving itself into his own. Just like that, a contract is established.
“Good,” Watanuki breathes, more to himself than to Tobio. “Now, the start of your journey, yes?”
Scowling, Tobio crosses his arms. “Sure.”
The smile on Watanuki’s face is entirely too amused for it to mean anything but trouble for Tobio. “Have you ever been to the Hyogo prefecture, Taka-kun?”
Tobio has a bad feeling about all of this.
Atsumu has always been one to trust his instincts.
Coach will laugh and call it genius intuition or whatever flowery term, but Atsumu knows better. He knows that no words can really describe the absolute certainty he has sometimes, the way he just knows when he has to be in some place or when someone has good or bad intentions regarding him. It’s too unshakeable, too resolute, too sure for it to be something so simple as intuition.
Atsumu just knows that this is beyond comprehension; knows that it’s in his blood.
He isn’t alone in this either. Osamu is the same, and so is their mother, who in turn claims that she gets it from their late grandmother.
What other people will shallowly call ‘twin telepathy’ to describe the connection he shares with Osamu is in fact an incomprehensible certainty in what his brother will do, something that is bone deep and too ingrained in them for either to really be able to pick it apart.
Like a premonition or a calling. Like magic.
Kita seems to have some idea on what it is, Atsumu thinks. Their captain watches them far too closely with eyes that just seem to know for there to really be any doubt. He never says anything, but he never reduces it to anything else or something simpler either. There’s something similarly odd about the older boy like there is about him and Osamu, and it’s part of why the twins like Kita so much.
It’s also why Atsumu immediately takes to Kageyama Tobio: a sureness that this is someone like him. Someone just as strange and inexplicable, and not just in the same sense that Kita or even Shiratorizawa’s Ushijima Wakatoshi feel familiar. Someone who is other like he and Osamu are.
As soon as the first-year had set foot onto the court, every nerve in Atsumu’s body had fired off a demand to look. To pay attention. This was someone similar to him. Someone who set off his senses, made it feel like his blood was buzzing in his veins and had the hair at the back of his neck standing up like there was electricity in the air.
This was someone important.
He knows that the feeling doesn’t have anything to do with how strong someone is at volleyball. Despite what Osamu might claim, Atsumu is in fact capable of thinking of more than just volleyball. Besides, Hinata Shoyou more than proved that perception wrong since he doesn’t set off Atsumu’s senses at all but he’s obviously someone to keep an eye out for nonetheless.
Kita probably knows. The older boy had kept glancing over at Tobio with a thoughtful frown and it had been enough for Atsumu to guess that Kita probably sensed it too– whatever it was about Tobio that made him like Atsumu, Osamu and Kita.
But all that is to say that Atsumu knows better than to ignore this strange ingrained sixth sense of his. So when he wakes up that morning with the sudden urge to visit a shrine– the Arikoyama Inari shrine in particular– he doesn’t even stop to question it before promptly informing Osamu of their new plans for the day.
Osamu bitches about it, of course, because he wouldn’t be Osamu if he didn’t bitch about literally everything, but he trails along behind Atsumu dutifully and only demands that they grab pudding from a konbini on their way back.
Quietly, Osamu tells him, “We’re gonna run into someone today.”
Atsumu grins. “I hope it’s someone interesting.”
Needless to say, when the twins find Kita and Tobio just beginning to climb the steps leading up to the shrine, they are far from disappointed.
Tobio looks from the twins to Kita and back, his uncertainty written clear as day on his face as he waits for one of them to say something and break the ice. Kita, for his part, mostly just looks resigned.
“Fancy runnin’ into you here, eh, Tobio-kun? And with Kita-san of all people,” Atsumu says cheerfully, deciding he may as well get the ball rolling if no one else would do it.
“It’s nice to see you again, Miya-san,” Tobio mutters, bobbing his head in greeting and blinking blankly at them.
Osamu peers at their unexpected company thoughtfully. “I didn’t know Kageyama-kun was so familiar with Kita-san.”
“Yeah!” Atsumu chimes in. “You’re visiting and everything!”
Tobio and Kita exchange loaded glances that only serve to intrigue Atsumu even further. It’s been a while since he’s felt so drawn to anything, but there’s just something about this shrine or this whole situation that makes him want to push and push until he finds something satisfying enough to sink his teeth into.
He thinks he’s going to buzz right out of his own skin with all the energy just bubbling away under the surface, making feel like he could run a marathon or just straight up explode right here, right now.
“We’ve only recently discovered that Kageyama-kun and I are…family friends, so to speak,” Kita says finally.
“I have to meet someone at the shrine and Kita-san was kind enough to show me around,” Tobio adds, shrugging his backpack higher up his shoulders.
Atsumu pouts. “You should’ve texted me and said you’d be in town. Hey, hey, maybe we can play volleyball after your shrine visit? I wanna see if you’ve improved since we played you, Tobio-kun.”
At this, Osamu scoffs and looks away. “It’s not like you’ve gotten any better yourself.”
“Shut up, ‘Samu!”
Kita frowns down at them and instantly has the twins falling silent. “Please don’t make a ruckus. This is a shrine.”
“Yes, Kita-san.”
Tobio blinks at the Inarizaki trio. Shifting his weight, he awkwardly points out, “I have an appointment of sorts. Really don’t want to be late for it.”
Nodding in understanding, Kita offers the first year a polite smile. “Of course, Kageyama-kun. Let’s not delay any further. You two,” he turns to address the twins, “I expect you to be on your best behaviour.”
“Yes, Kita-san.”