Chapter Text
Over the course of the year, Bokuto takes enough tests that he has, on paper, graduated from high school. At the insistence of his friends to get him further out of his shell and to really return the life into the boy, he’s persuaded to try out for the MSBY Black Jackals. It was amazing, walking onto even the practice gym of a Division 1 team with Ushijima at his side, letting Bokuto nervously chat his ear off after he filled out a form in the lobby. It’s been so long since he’s really paid attention to the world around him that it comes as a pleasant surprise when he saw three familiar faces in open surprise staring at him, two of whom wear the Black Jackals uniform already while the third also has a number pinned to his back. Hinata Shouyou, Atsumu Miya, and Sakusa Kiyoomi.
Hinata literally cried. It hit him all at once, Bokuto realized, that nobody had probably told Bokuto of his return and being alive. He managed to pish down the guilt and the anxiety to just hug the kid and crack a joke. Sakusa just nodded his head at him before walking off with his arms still at his sides to talk to Ushijima.
In the gap between tryouts and getting the results once the season is over and the weeks before the next stop, Bokuto books himself a flight a flies over to Korea.
In his smartphone, theres a list of names and information he could get from the internet. The Korean, even though he’s actively been trying to use it and there are days he barely notices his thoughts are in that second language, comes to him quickly. There’s a nice old lady at the airport who he helps into a taxi. He goes to the family bakery he remembers going to so often after practices with the rest of the guys and is surprised to learn that the lady who usually worked behind the counter every time he had visited is still there and remembers him!
Yes, they have a nice chat over tea and pastries.
Yes, she recognized him as Bokuto Koutarou as well.
And yes, apparently some of the guys still visit since just like him, they’ve also continued to the professional world and are on teams in the area.
The next place he goes, after dropping his stuff off at the hotel, is his “father’s” company building. The man was actually quite kind. Even though it’s more than cruel that he accepted Bokuto having been bought , he hadn’t hit him. He hadn’t taunted him or called him names. He gave him money. He gave him volleyball back. He came up with nicknames for him and would sometimes take him out before the wife, the true monster, would come home.
It’s strange having a grown man in a suit that costs more than his apartment sobbing all over him, repeating how sorry he is and that he never meant for Bokuto’s life to have been so bad , that he’d do anything to make it up to him. He has a new number in his phone, too much money to need in his whole life in his bank account, free dinner, and a hole in his heart he hadn’t realized was even there being filled. After learning that Kim is no longer married or legally bound to that demon woman...well...you can’t blame Bokuto for telling his second dad that his mom died a few years ago, leaving his first dad single, and that he thinks they could get along really well.
Kim promises to visit at least four times a year and go to see some of his games since the company has offices and stores in Japan so that’s a plus.
The next day, Bokuto tracks down the friends he left behind. Seven of them are on Division 1 teams in the area as players, one of them is the athletic trainer for one of those teams, and four are on the National team, prepping for South Korea’s match against Italy in a week. It’s overwhelming and tear jerking. Off course they figured things out, all of them having been deep in the volleyball world. They’d have known of the high schooler who disappeared just before Kim Jin-Seong appeared suddenly reappearing as a try-outee on a D1 team. Of course they recognized him in the online article, even with the black highlights gone, leaving him with his natural white sprayed and styled to stick up.
He spends four days, two more than intended, in Korea. He gets the email confirming his acceptance on the team in the middle of a shopping spree. After the email, he gets hoards of texts from his teammates, family, and friends congratulating him…
And then sending him lists of things they want from Korea if it doesn’t bother him and that they’d pay him back. His appa refuses, though, shoving a credit card into Bokuto’s face and telling him to go wild with a mischievous look on his face.
When he returns to Japan, it’s after too many massages, re-learning how to put makeup on his face to make himself look more delicate, hair pampered until it’s as soft as a cloud and he’s too pleased to put any product in it, and a smile that is more true and bright than any he’s given since his “revival”. Mingling with the Kanji on his phone are Korean characters with emojis and profile pictures filled with energy. Kuroo was the one who picked him up from the airport.
“What the heck happened to you? It hasn’t even been a week!”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You’re...wearing a suit. And I’m pretty sure that’s legitimate gold used for the embroidery. And you have three more suitcases than you went with. Please tell me you aren’t in debt or sold your apartment or anything.”
“Or, all of this? They’re gifts! My appa insisted on paying for all of it, isn’t that great?”
“. . .appa?”
“Oh yeah - here, I have a photo. This is my dad-”
“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN BY YOUR DAD THAT IS NOT BOKUTO-SAN-”
“Yes, that’s Kim-”
”OBR:NorbSIKNHswipbgnwsOIKHBRngikepSNSGOjnbEGBojbWRBHBhoiknG.”
One day, he promises himself, he’ll have his two families meet. But for now, he settles for video calls with his friends and father across the sea, to going out for yakiniku with his friends and family here in Japan. He feels exhilarated at his first official game of the season, joy increasing when they win, exploding when he sees the third richest man in Korea in the front of the stands, dressed in a suit with a too-big jersey thrown over it, flanked by two bodyguards who look too amused to be anything less than friends as well. There’s also a deal, all of a sudden, between the Korean and Japanese volleyball associations that will have them fund team trips to each other’s countries for practice matches and training camps. To say the least, he thinks he causes more than one person to go into shock (again) when he boisterously greets about half of the Seoul Fire Eyes in Japanese, the foreigners replying with cackles and broken Japanese before attacking the wing spiker, utterly destroying his hairstyle while belting out Korean at breakneck speeds.
All in all, it was fun. And one day, everyone will be there in one place.
The past doesn’t bother him anymore. Sure, there are days where he wakes up in the middle of the night, panicked and unreasonably scared but...it’ll work out. It always does. There’s so many people supporting him, only a phone call awake, never annoyed and only concerned and kind when they pick up.