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He hadn’t meant to do it. Well no, he had rather. He’d always meant to kiss Suga someday not just in his dreams and daytime fantasies. He just never meant for the timing to be so awful. Nishinoya suspended, Asahi supposedly gone… Daichi would become captain of a scattered and broken team. A fantastic start to his upcoming third year.
He kicked the ground at his feet as he walked home and replayed his earlier conversation with Suga in his head. Maybe if he approached it like he did a volleyball match—it was what he knew best, after all. Replay the match, evaluate his shortcomings and mistakes, really scrutinize the play-by-play, and then figure out the areas to improve.
Except then what? Practice? Practice what? He couldn’t practice a proper confession without confessing, and once he’d confessed, he’d confessed. After that it was pretty much a done deal. Game over. Well… Suga hadn’t told him game over exactly, he’d told him… Penalty? Time-out? His metaphor was falling apart.
“Suga…”
Daichi had found his newly-appointed vice captain sniffing in the equipment room, staring helplessly at the broken mop in the corner. He had volunteered to lock up, but Daichi knew when he was taking just a little too long.
“S-sorry…” the setter mumbled as he quickly wiped at his eyes with his sleeve. “I just… needed a minute.”
“No, I’m… Do you want to just meet us at Sakanoshita? I can… I can leave if you need some—”
“Actually... I could really use the company?” Suga smiled sadly and took a deep inhale, attempting to clear his nose.
“It wasn’t your fault, you know,” Daichi said, awkwardly shuffling closer. “We’re a team, we lost as a team. There were receives I missed too that cost us points.”
“But you’re still here. You didn’t leave just because you fumbled a few receives and… we didn’t just lose the game, we lost our ace .” Suga’s eyes drifted back to the broom. “Asahi left us, Daichi…” He left me!
The tears were welling up in Suga’s eyes again, and Daichi quickly muttered, “He’ll be back. That wimp. I’m sure he’ll come back after he’s settled down a bit.”
“I’m not so sure about that. He won’t answer any of my calls or texts. And I’m… I’m too nervous to go find him in class. He’d die of a heart attack if I caused a scene. And I’d probably cause at least a little scene.”
Suga let out a bitter chuckle, but Daichi was glad to see he could still make light of it even a little. Seeing Suga so despondent left him at a slight loss too. Daichi wasn’t sure if he should play the role of captain or teammate or friend for this situation.
“Asahi’s not just going to leave you ,” Daichi gripped Suga’s shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture. He decided what Suga needed most right now was a friend. “He might avoid club activities for a bit, but you’re special to him and—”
“What?” Suga’s eyes went wide.
“What do you mean, ‘what?’”
“Wh-what kind of relationship do you think we have?”
“W-well I… Aren’t—I thought you two were…”
“...dating?” Suga finished for him when the silence dragged on uncomfortably long.
“Yeeeeahhh… That.”
“Pft!” A chortle escaped before Suga could stop it, and his hand flew to his mouth to stifle the rest of his laughter. “Sorry—your… your face!”
Daichi felt his face grow beet red, whatever the expression might have been, as Suga continued giggling. Sure, it was better to see Suga smiling rather than crying, but it was happening rather largely at his expense.
“Suga!!” he shouted indignantly.
“I mean…” Suga wiped a stray tear from his eye. “I suppose I should be thankful you thought that of us and just accepted it. But you should know Asahi of all people would never make a move like that.”
“Ah, that’s… yeah. I guess he wouldn’t.” And maybe he felt a little more relief than he should have at that fact, but now Suga was looking at him with a peculiar half-grin and the unease came creeping back in.
“So you… You seriously wouldn’t have minded?”
“Well…” He only minded given his own feelings, but what Daichi said instead was, “It’s not like it matters. As long as it didn’t affect the team, which… It didn’t because you weren’t—”
“But you know I am .”
“Huh?”
“...interested in guys?”
“Oh.”
Why was that so awkward to hear aloud? Hadn’t he been working off the presumption that Suga was that way from the start? Hadn’t he hoped for it?
“Right. Just… not Asahi?”
The playful half-smile fell off Suga’s face almost instantly, and Daichi was rudely reminded of how this conversation had started in the first place. Because he had found Suga crying by himself from a mix of disappointment, guilt and what he knew now was heartbreak.
“Oh… sorry.” Yes, Asahi.
“Don’t be!” Suga attempted another smile as he whacked Daichi’s shoulder. Violence was the best method to convince people one was fine. “We’d have been awful together anyway.”
Again, his eyes wandered over to that damn mop, and Daichi grabbed the setter’s chin and pulled his eyes away from it and into a kiss. A distraction that served as a confession. A kiss that ended just as suddenly as it had been initiated.
“D-Daichi…?”
“I’m sorry!” He backed away immediately. Suga didn’t. “I’m… not trying to take advantage!” Wasn’t he though? “I just—”
“I need to think about it,” Suga mumbled, eyes to the floor.
At least he wasn’t looking at the mop.
“Right. That… makes sense.” Daichi cleared his throat. He needed to switch to captain mode if he wanted any hope of preserving that last vestiges of his dignity. “I’ll lock up, why don’t you go on ahead?”
“...you’re sure?”
“I can handle locking up a room—I am captain now, you know.”
They shared a grin before Suga offered his fist for a bump—just like they always did, and thank goodness for that.
“Oh. And Suga? Whatever—whatever your answer is… you’ll still be vice-captain, won’t you? You’re the best one for the job.”
“Well, duh!” Suga winked and stuck his tongue out at him. “Who else would you even get? Tanaka?”
“Don’t even joke…”
Assuming he wasn’t remembering some distorted version of events where he blithely missed out on some dire offense he committed—besides the obvious—the replay didn’t seem quite so awful now to Daichi. And the one part that he had fumbled was the one part he couldn’t take back or fix. The rest was a waiting game.
Daichi kicked at the ground and muttered under his breath.
“This is all Asahi’s fault.”
Days went by after that where seemingly nothing had changed. They walked to school, they went to practice (somewhat quieter now without Nishinoya around), they blatantly ignored Asahi’s absence, and they ate lunch together as usual. The cherry blossoms began to bloom as spring rolled around, and Daichi kept his ear to the ground as the middle school volleyball tournament grew near, hoping to preview some promising new talent for Karasuno.
“It’s true we’ll have some holes in our lineup…” Suga noted, arms folded over the desk in the club room.
“Our senpai were blockers, so hopefully we’ll get some tall new first-years for our defense.”
“I doubt we’d be able to get another libero as good as Nishinoya…”
“We don’t need to worry about that, Nishinoya won’t be a third-year.” Daichi waved a dismissive hand as Suga frowned.
“But he said he wouldn’t come back unless Asahi—”
“He’s going to come back,” Daichi said firmly. “They both are.”
“You’re really that sure?” Suga was pouting, head tilted. Obviously unconvinced.
No, Daichi thought to himself. “Of course,” was what he said. “If I have to, I’ll drag them both back myself.”
“Scary!” Suga giggled. “Is that the kind of captain you’re going to be?”
“With Tanaka and Nishinoya to deal with?” Daichi raised a cautious eyebrow. “I’ll have to be.”
“That’s a fair point. Okay, so we’re hoping to get some new middle blockers…”
“Honestly, we have spikers covered—”
“What about a new setter?” Suga asked suddenly.
“But… we don’t need another setter, Suga.”
An expression Daichi couldn’t quite read flashed across Suga’s face before the setter began to make his rebuttal. “But I’ll be a third-year, and the team will need another setter to take over later in the year, right?”
“...”
It was a reasonable point to make. Too reasonable. But Daichi didn’t want to think about leaving the team before he had properly captained it. Actually, he didn’t want to think about leaving the team at all, captain or no.
“Let’s just keep our eyes open for one.” Suga punched Daichi's arm and grinned.
“Fine,” Daichi sighed. “”Think we should bring the first-years to see the tournament?”
“I’m sure Tanaka would love to go,” Suga shrugged. “Ennoshita might tag along too if Tanaka makes him. Tell them Shimizu is going and they’ll run on foot all the way to Sendai.”
“Maybe seeing the middle schoolers will push them towards maturity a little. They’ll have to be senpai to whatever new first-years we get.”
“Dream big, Daichi!” Suga laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’m not holding my breath!”
They laughed together as Daichi slumped in his chair. He shot Suga a wry grin that seemed to catch the setter off-guard, his expression suddenly shifting from mirth to uncertainty. A moment later, the smile fell from Suga’s face as he dropped his hands into his lap.
“You shouldn’t hold your breath either, Daichi.”
“What? About Tanaka?”
“I want to be your vice-captain. And always your friend. But I don’t think I want more than that.”
Right. That .
“Oh! That!” Daichi grimaced, but he tried to keep at least a partial smile. “Right. No, that’s fine! I expected that honestly. Don’t worry about it, Suga! Chin up!” He patted Suga’s shoulder with an old familiarity, urging him up. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the Sendai Gymnasium then?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. I’ll text Tanaka and Ennoshita about it. It’s last minute, but I’m sure they could make the time.” And Daichi sincerely hoped so. He wasn’t sure he wanted to spend the day alone with Suga tomorrow after this particular conversation. If he could just focus on being a captain, it would keep him nicely distracted from his shiny new position as ‘rejected.’
His walk home felt longer than usual as he trudged along, and he was nearly an hour later than usual as he kicked off his shoes in the doorway of his home, his nose immediately filling with the smell of his grandmother’s cooking from the kitchen.
“Did practice run late, Daichi?” she called, her small face poking out into the hallway.
“Ah, no… I just lost track of time walking home.” He smiled and gave the little old woman a hug as he entered the kitchen and peered over the stove.
“You have those worry lines your grandfather used to get,” she chided, poking his side. “You’re too young for that, Daichi.”
“I can’t help my genetics, grammy,” Daichi pouted and covered his forehead, moving away to pull a snack from the fridge.
“Snacking?! Dinner’s ready!” she huffed.
“I know, but I’m starving and I wanted to shower first. I promise I’ll have plenty of room for dinner in half an hour still!” He shoved the apple into his mouth and ran off to his room, dodging a ladle as he went.
While he could talk to his grandmother about most things, Daichi wasn’t keen on broaching the topic of his feelings for his volleyball club vice-captain. And while it would be easy enough to lie and say he got rejected by a girl, he felt even worse lying about it. Half-truths felt just as bad as outright deceit when grandma Sawamura was involved. Just this once, he’d be the misunderstood teenager and respectfully ask his grandmother for privacy.
“You got dumped, huh?” her head was poking into his open bedroom door.
“Grammy, I’m getting undressed!”
“With your door wide open? You don’t leave the locker rooms at school open while everyone changes, do you?”
“No, of course not—I wasn’t dumped!”
“Daichi…” she said menacingly. She always knew.
He sighed and pursed his lips. “Ok, I got a little dumped.”
“Oh, my little Daichi,” she clicked her tongue.
“I’d really rather not talk about it.”
“I know. You shower and eat dinner. I’m going to go run some errands.”
“Now? I can go with you after dinner if—”
“Just little things, Daichi, don’t worry so much!” But she rubbed his arms and her eyes crinkled as she gave him a toothy grin. “You stay here and nurse your big, broken heart.”
“...thank you, grammy.”
It was difficult to be the misunderstood teenager when his grandmother was so good at understanding him and what he needed. Just as well, he thought to himself as he slunk into the shower and turned the water on at full blast. The hot water was a blessing to his aching muscles, and as he felt the day’s exhaustion finally take hold, he let himself cry quietly under the running water.
Taking a deep breath, Nishinoya threw the ball in his hands against the wall, watching it carefully and examining the angle of the rebound before diving to receive it. He ended up a little too far forward—the ball hit his upper arms and bounced way off to the side instead of up. Noya cursed as he went tumbling to the ground.
“Ah, shit…”
It really was difficult to practice receives on his own. Bouncing a ball against a wall provided some level of unpredictability in the ball’s eventual trajectory—if he threw it wildly enough—but there wasn’t any way to put real power into it. During a game, spikes, serves, hell, even some blocks would go hurling to the ground at much higher speeds. He needed to practice with at least one other person.
“Should’ve asked Ryuu to help me…”
“Will I do?”
Noya whirled around to find, “Suga-san!”
“Hey!” Suga waved before tucking his hands into his pockets. “Must be rough trying to practice receives on your own…”
Serves were really the only thing in volleyball that could be practiced completely alone, but leave it to Noya to try to find a way to practice something as reactionary as receives all by his lonesome. While on suspension, no less…
“I really needed to work on my block-follows. Next time, I’ll be sure to receive every single ball I’m on the court for!”
“Ahh… Noya, I wish I had your resolve. It’s like you haven’t let that match get to you at all.” Suga smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“You mean like Asahi-san?” Noya scoffed. “I’m not apologizing for what I said to him, if that’s what you’re here for. I don’t think I was wrong!”
“I’m not asking you to apologize. If anything, I wish I could be as direct as you sometimes. Especially with Asahi.” He used to be, back when they were just friends, and Suga hadn’t complicated things by attempting to ask for more.
“You’re too easy on him,” Noya pouted. “All you need to do is just get right up in his face and tell him what’s what. At the very least, you gotta make him hear you out before he runs away. And if anyone can get through to him, it’s you, Suga-san! He’s too scared of Daichi-san, and I’m… well, I’m just a first-year .” Noya picked up the ball at his feet and gripped the skin of it tight between his calloused fingers. “A first-year who needs way more practice. Will you give me some serves, Suga-san? Make ‘em wild and powerful!”
“When have you ever seen me make a wild and powerful serve?” Suga shook his head, but took the ball regardless.
“No time like the present to give them a try, right? Fast and unpredictable—that’s what I need to be able to receive in my sleep!”
“I’ll give you unpredictable, how’s that?” Suga laughed as he took position several feet away. His serves could certainly use more overall accuracy. ‘Passable’ would only get them so far.
Twenty minutes later, Suga’s palms were red and stinging, and Noya’s… everything had taken a considerable beating. He had been determined to receive every ball, even ones that would have gone out-of-bounds. His tenacity knew no limits today.
“Noya…” Suga panted as they took a breather for water. “All this extra practice… won’t you come back to the team? Even without… Asahi?"
Noya glared stubbornly at his water bottle, not wanting to turn such a hostile look on his senpai. “I meant what I said about that too. I won’t come back until Asahi-san does. He has until the end of my suspension to figure that out.”
“But you’re one of the best liberos in the prefecture! The team needs you more than—”
“Why do you keep talking like he’s not coming back?” Noya turned his glare to Suga now, his expression perhaps marginally softer.
Suga bit his lip. “Because… he probably…”
“Have you talked to him? Is that what he said to you? Coward!”
“No! No, I… I haven’t talked to him at all. But he won’t return my calls or messages. I just think that we all have to maybe prepare ourselves for the idea that… he might seriously have quit. And if that’s the case, you’d be the one with the most wasted potential, Noya.”
“Like I said!” Noya snapped his bottle shut with a scowl. “He has until the end of my suspension to figure it out.”
“Why… are you placing so much on this?” Suga tried to keep his voice from shaking. “You’re so attached to Asahi. You’d even go so far as to… why?”
Now it was Noya’s turn to fall silent (an event so rare, somewhere in the world a pig sprouted wings), pursing his lips and shoving his hands back into his pockets. “I don’t know! But it… it just feels wrong to not have him there. Maybe because he’s the ace. I’m not entirely sure.”
“It’s not your fault, you know,” Suga whispered, parroting Daichi’s earlier words mostly to reassure himself.
“I’m not blaming myself for him leaving! But, in that case… what about you, Suga-san? Are you really okay with the idea of him just taking off?”
No, Suga thought immediately, heart sinking. But I don’t know what else I can do.
He felt he was failing all of them. The setter was supposed to hold the team together, but he couldn’t even bring Asahi back, and without Asahi, they’d lose Noya. As great a loss as that was for their ragtag team, it was probably a greater personal loss to someone of Noya’s talent. Their team would be a-shambles for any new first-years they’d get, and Daichi… He knew Daichi was trying his best to become a good, dependable captain. Somehow, Daichi still dreamed about Nationals. When Suga considered how little he’d managed to contribute as vice-captain, as setter, as a teammate… He felt he was disappointing Daichi most of all.
“Suga-san?” Noya pressed, demanding an answer.
“It’s not about how I feel,” Suga managed at last. “I’m vice-captain. And Karasuno’s setter. Whether or not Asahi… or you come back to the team, I’ll play.” I have to.
It was all he knew how to do.
Not that Suga had ever been superstitious really, but he was beginning to wonder if the mole under his eye was to blame for his recent troubles in life.* Admittedly, he wasn’t some tragic hero with grueling difficulties like growing up with a dead parent or the fate of the world resting on his shoulders… but these weren’t typical, run-of-the-mill issues either. At least, that’s how he felt about it anyway. Terrifying Asahi with the truth of his feelings had been non-ideal, but they had managed to put it behind them neatly enough. Thankfully, it never affected how they played together. Probably. Maybe. Suga hoped so anyway. Besides, his confession had been months before the Dateko match.
Honestly, Suga hadn’t expected that to go anywhere; they lived in near-rural Miyagi. He could count the number of straight couples he knew at school on one hand--with the tip of his index finger touching the tip of his thumb. Statistically, the odds had been against him from the start. He just sort of needed to get it out.
In retrospect, when he really evaluated his feelings for Asahi, it now felt like a crush that got blown out of proportion thanks to playing on the same team. The special connection between the setter and the ace… Everyone always played it up, and Suga felt there was good reason for it. The ace couldn’t shine without the setter to send him the ball. No matter who received it, Suga was the second point-of-contact, and third was frequently Asahi. He’d slam home the point, look amazing while doing it, and Suga’s pathetic little heart would pitter patter with pride at their teamwork. Setters always adored their aces.
Even off the court, they were good friends, but Suga couldn’t deny now the frustrations he had felt with Asahi’s insecurities and frequent bouts of negativity. Having Daichi around helped mitigate it some, but… Suga had his own share of self-doubts, and he knew he couldn’t always depend on Asahi for a pick-me-up.
Sure, his crush had gotten pretty intense, but now that Asahi had supposedly quit the team, it was difficult for Suga to pretend they could have ever had a functional… anything that wasn’t volleyball. His hindsight and off-the-court vision was 20/20, but seeing clearer now wasn’t going to bring Asahi back to the team.
Every replay was useless; he didn’t know which play to fix. Even if he did, he couldn’t go back in time to fix them.
Then suddenly, like a serve from the crowd, waaay out of left field, Daichi had kissed him.
Suga played that over and over in his head ad nauseam, and still he couldn’t make sense of it. Nor could he have ever seen it coming. He prided himself on his observational skills and his ability to read other people, but apparently his radar had some serious malfunctions with Sawamura Daichi.
And with himself apparently. No matter how much he thought about it, evaluated it, he couldn’t decide if it was something he truly wanted to pursue. Of course, he’d already told Daichi he’d made up his mind, but he hadn’t really. He just didn’t want Daichi stuck in the same limbo waiting on him for an answer. Chances were high Daichi was already putting the entire incident behind him and moving on with his life.
When Suga thought about the opportunity he had discarded, his chest ached, and he kicked himself for being so contrary. Did he or didn’t he? Was it Daichi he cared about, or was he just sad and lonely about Asahi abandoning them? Would it do any good now to know either way?
Suga rolled over in his bed, groaning in frustration and burying his face into his pillow. He needed the new school year to start so he could keep busy and take his mind off things. Homework, responsibilities—that’s what he needed right now. And, bittersweet though it was, he needed volleyball too. Maybe the addition of a new crop of first-years would do the team some good. On some level, Suga felt sure they all needed a fresh start.
“I never could’ve imagined that we’d get those two for our team… and that they’d be more work to manage than Tanaka and Nishinoya,” Daichi sighed, rolling his head from side to side in an attempt to stretch out his stiff and sore neck. There were stress veins he hadn’t known existed before Kageyama and Hinata entered their lives.
“You say that, but you look excited for the 3-on-3 tomorrow,” Suga giggled, bumping their shoulders together. “I was surprised you put yourself on the team against them instead of playing with them.”
“I’ll get a better look at how they play if I’m across the court from them,” Daichi grinned. “That and I can’t give them too much of an advantage over Tsukishima and Yamaguchi.”
“At Hinata’s skill level, I wouldn’t really call those two at any advantage. At all.” Suga raised an eyebrow and stuck his hands into his pockets as they walked. “Or are you putting them at a disadvantage on purpose?”
Daichi allowed himself a little smirk then, looking sideways at Suga. “You saw them practice these past few days. They thrive under pressure. Put them at a disadvantage, and their potential will grow exponentially. The best thing I can do for them is to tip the odds against them so that they develop faster.”
Suga whistled and let out a nervous laugh. “Is being captain bringing out a sadistic side of you, Daichi?”
“It’s possible!” Daichi barked, grinning wide and baring his teeth almost menacingly.
“Scary…” Suga giggled unconvincingly.
“Though if I’m going to be honest, I feel less like a team captain and more like a babysitter in a daycare these days…” Daichi sighed, shoulders slumping and marring his usual, perfect posture.
“Thank goodness you have me around to help, huh?” Suga winked.
“You’re on surprisingly good behavior, all things considered.”
“Hey! What does that mean?!”
“Sometimes you can be just as incorrigible as Tanaka; and you can get just as carried away!” Daichi half-scolded, poking his index finger into Suga’s forehead.
Suga pouted as he batted Daichi’s hand away. “I’m just—”
“But!” Daichi stopped walking suddenly, falling several paces behind. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and smiled, his gaze softening with the fading evening light. “You’re still the best vice captain I could’ve asked for.”
Suga swallowed, not trusting himself to speak.
“Not that I was really worried,” Daichi continued. “But we make a much better team than I thought. And… I really appreciate—”
“Whaaaaat… are you getting so sentimental for all of a sudden?!” Suga spun and punched Daichi in the arm, hard enough to send a jolt up to his own shoulder.
“Ow!!” Daichi immediately clutched his arm and staggered. “I have the 3-on-3 tomorrow!”
“Exactly!” Suga hopped out of reach of a retaliating blow. “So worry about that, not… just worry about that! I mean, you’re up against the genius setter from Kitagawa Daiichi, remember?” Suga paused then, eyes falling to the ground. “Say, Daichi… you’re not seriously gonna forbid Kageyama from playing as setter if they lose, are you? I mean, he’s really, really good. I’m no match for that level of skill, for sure. To not make him the regular setter just because of this seems a bit—”
“You saw what he was like at that tournament,” Daichi’s voice was firm. Captainly. “It doesn’t matter how talented he is, if he can’t learn to listen and accommodate his teammates, his skills are no good to anyone. Not just setter, it’d be hard enough having a player in any position be that self-centered.”
“I know you’re right, but…”
“Let’s just see what happens tomorrow. And—” Daichi darted forward and slugged Suga’s arm in payback, though his blow was considerably less forceful. “—don’t just give in to Kageyama that easily!”
“I’m not!” Suga huffed, feigning a confidence he didn’t feel. “I’m just trying to think about what’s best for the team. And I’m trying to be a good senpai to the kouhai who’s very obviously gonna take over for me next year. Just… readying the baton, ya know?”
“Finish your leg of the race first!” Daichi frowned. “Don’t talk about baton-passing now .”
It was really unfair how optimistic and reassuring Daichi could be at times. He always had to make sense and make it difficult for anyone to just wallow in self-pity. A part of Suga just wanted to bow out to Kageyama’s overwhelming talent and call it quits, but Daichi wasn’t having any of it. And he knew it wasn’t because Daichi was playing favorites or valuing seniority over skill; he still genuinely believed in Suga’s abilities as setter to lead the team during a game. Even after he failed with Asahi. If only Suga could see himself with Daichi-vision…
“Fine. Let’s just focus on the 3-on-3 tomorrow,” Suga grumbled, feeling encouraged despite himself.
“I won’t go easy on them, you know!” Daichi beamed, squaring his shoulders and allowing for a rare twinkle in his eye.
Suga felt a dangerous pang of affection for that smile and stopped himself before he punched Daichi again for being far too charming all of a sudden. He’d always been decent-looking, but lately it seemed to Suga that Daichi was getting handsomer with each passing day.
Unfair, Suga thought to himself. His heart was prone to romance. He’d fallen for Asahi because setters always had close relationships with the team’s ace. Now he was falling for Daichi because they were co-captains of the team together and proving they had a great working relationship off the court as well as on it. And because he’d been kissed. It was all too easy. The situation, the circumstances—was he developing feelings for Daichi because everything was conveniently in place for it to work out? Or did he genuinely care about Daichi ?
As they parted ways at the usual crosswalk to go home, Suga lingered to watch Daichi’s figure walk off into the distance and shook his head. Of course he cared about Daichi. Just as he had cared about Asahi. He cared about having and keeping their companionship as teammates and as friends. He cared about their well-being and happiness. The question wasn’t whether or not he really cared about him, the question was whether he wanted to risk the friendship he already had with Daichi for something that had potentially drastic consequences. Given what had happened with Asahi, Suga wasn’t keen on pushing his luck.
Suddenly his phone buzzed with a text from Tanaka.
Suga-san!
Think you’d be able to let us into the gym early tomorrow too?
They really wanna smash Tsukishima’s face into the ground!
And… well… we need all the practice we can get.
The setter sighed and scratched his head. He really was worrying over some truly unnecessary things. He needed to direct his focus on the troublesome new additions to the team first and foremost, not his fickle teenage heart. He texted back:
How early is early exactly?
“A practice match with Aoba Johsai… and with Kageyama as the team’s setter for it…” Daichi was pacing, arms crossed and brows furrowed.
“I don’t know why you’re still on about this, I already told you I’m okay with it. Anyway, we’ve already agreed so what’s the point in dwelling on it?” Suga was hunched over Daichi’s desk, lazily watching him pace back and forth while he nibbled on his lunch. “Sit down and eat your bento, you’re making me antsy.”
“I just wanna know why they would set a condition like that…” Daichi grumbled, but he took his seat as Suga asked. “Aoba Johsai has a lot of Kitagawa Daiichi alumni, but I didn’t think that extended to the coaches.”
“Maybe one of Kageyama’s former teammates suggested it?”
“They’d all be first-years—hard to believe they’d have enough influence to make their Coach ask us to—”
“Or maybe their coach wants to see what Kageyama’s capable of. He’s talented enough to get all kinds of attention. Maybe they wanna size him up for future tournaments. You know a lot of schools pull out flashy new first-years as a total surprise at Interhigh even though they never pull them out for practice meets.”
“All of that just sounds worse,” Daichi groaned, slumping in his chair. “Like they can make demands of us and we’ll just comply because we’re not a powerhouse team anymore…”
“Daichi!” Suga warned, flicking his forehead. “You’re getting too hung up about this!”
“Me? I think it’s weird that you’re not !” Daichi crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow at Suga.
“It’s just one practice match.” Suga shrugged and wrapped up the remains of his sandwich. Talking about his position on the team relative to Kageyama was making him lose his appetite. “I’m more concerned that we’re about to go into it without Noya and—”
“...”
An uncomfortable silence smothered them with that simple, incomplete sentence. Suga bit his lip, and a familiar furrow returned between Daichi’s eyebrows. When had shy, timid Asahi become some scary boogeyman whose name they couldn’t say aloud?
Suga shook his head and forced a smile. “But hey, it makes for a better opportunity to see Kageyama and Hinata in action, right? I am excited to see how their teamwork will develop now that they’ve managed to—”
“You can say it.” Daichi cut in, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Say… what?” Suga gave a cautious head tilt.
“I miss Asahi too.”
Stupid, Suga thought bitterly as he bowed his head. All this time, I’ve been acting like Asahi abandoned just me, but all three of us were friends weren’t we? Of course Daichi’s been upset about it too, he’s just been… thinking outside of himself and his own hurt. Asahi hadn’t just stopped going to practice, he’d stopped coming by their classroom, he’d stopped walking with them before and after school. He couldn’t separate their friendship from volleyball and left them in all aspects. Not that Suga didn’t understand why, but…
“Let’s focus on the practice match with Aoba Johsai!” Suga slapped a hand down on the desk, startling half the students in the classroom. “One thing at a time, Daichi! We’ll tackle next weekend, and then we’ll figure out what to do with Asahi. But right now, our kouhai need us most! Chin up!”
The least he could do as vice-captain was support his captain. Daichi was far more crucial for holding the team together—the past several weeks had made that abundantly clear.
Daichi met Suga’s smile with a grin of his own and sat up a little straighter. “I really don’t know what I’d do without you, Suga.”
“Spiral into despair, apparently,” Suga joked, resisting the urge to punch Daichi again for that smile.
More than anything else, it was difficult to suppress the pride he felt for being able to restore the usual cheer on Daichi’s face. He wanted to punch himself for that one. If only there were a subtle way to tell someone, ‘stop being so wonderful and making me like you when I shouldn’t!’ Yes, that would help tremendously.
Suga was the one who had promised to Daichi that they’d take each challenge one at a time. But the practice match with Aoba Johsai only highlighted how incomplete their team had become without Noya and Asahi. All the while that he watched them play, Suga was thinking about how he could convince the two to come back. He still felt responsible for their departure and as setter and vice-captain, he felt it was especially his duty to get them back. Otherwise, he wasn’t sure how he could continue facing the team, especially Daichi.
Truth was, he still felt he wasn’t up to the task he had set upon himself… but after watching Noya come to practice merely to storm out again after learning of Asahi’s absence, it was now or never. Something had to be done.
“I have to do this!” he swore quietly to himself, bracing to head over to Asahi’s classroom.
“Do you want me to go with you?” came a voice in his ear.
“GEEZ—Daichi, you nearly gave me a heart attack!” Suga clutched his chest, eyes wide as he wheeled around.
Daichi couldn’t help but laugh—he’d only half done that on purpose.
“He’s gonna feel like we’re trying to ambush him if we both go,” Suga groaned, straightening his posture as his heart rate steadily returned to normal. “He’d run off and leap out the window before we ever got close.”
“Like a stray cat?” Daichi laughed.
“One of the really jumpy ones!” Suga agreed. “So just… I’ll go handle it.”
He couldn’t just depend on Daichi for everything, after all.
All things considered, Daichi thought things could be much worse. Of course, much of his confidence came from the phenomenal progress Hinata and Kageyama were making in their teamwork with each other and with the rest of the team. As far as troublesome first-years went, at least managing their outbursts was fairly straightforward. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi were a little harder to pin down, but they wouldn’t be on the team if they didn’t want to play.
At any rate, the most troublesome one now happened to be a third-year, so he could cut the kids some slack. After that, Daichi only wished that Suga could cut himself some slack too. It was painfully obvious how much he still blamed himself for Asahi. He had thrown himself into his vice-captain duties without complaint, and there had been times when Daichi thought they could maybe be okay—that the team could still be strong even without Asahi… that Suga could be all right without him. But then a faraway glance or a falter in Suga’s smile told him the truth.
Daichi crossed his arms and leaned his back against the hallway window, watching out of the corner of his eye for activity out of Asahi’s classroom. Suga had gone inside plenty determined, and of course Daichi trusted him, but he couldn’t help feeling antsy. He stared at the wall clock, watching the seconds tick, tick, tick away. When it started to drive him mad, his eyes darted to Asahi’s classroom door, slightly ajar but with otherwise no sign of activity. Occasionally he’d glimpse students moving around inside, lingering after school just like they were. The little stain on the pinky-toe edge of his right slipper caught his eye eventually, reminding him of the time Suga made him spit out his tea with a well-timed smack. Other students walked by, sometimes glancing his way and Daichi looked away from them at the ticking clock until—
Asahi burst out of his classroom, head bowed and footsteps frantic.
I should’ve gone in with Suga…
Suga ran out moments later, but it was clear he wasn’t about to give chase. Rooted to the window, Daichi watched from afar as Kageyama approached Suga, full of questions on what he’d just seen.
Once Kageyama also took off, Daichi made his way over to his friend, making his steps deliberately louder so as not to startle Suga again.
“No good, huh?” Daichi sighed once they were side-by-side.
“Daichi…” Suga sniffed miserably.
“Suga—”
“I failed, Daichi!” Suga choked before turning to bury his face into Daichi’s shoulder. “He won’t listen to me anymore—I don’t… I don’t know what else I can do!”
Daichi felt the tears seep into his shirt and Suga’s pain bleed into his own heart. Raising a tentative hand, he gently cradled Suga’s head against him and hoped Suga would consider it a comfort. He could never be Asahi—they were supposed to have put that behind them anyway—but Suga was relying on him. As a friend. For Suga, Daichi would be anything. Anything he could be.
“It’s not your fault,” Daichi said firmly. “He’s being a coward.”
“I’m sorry—”
“No apologizing!” Gently, he shook Suga’s shoulders. “None of this is your fault—nobody blames you.”
“Daichi…” Suga hiccuped helplessly.
“We knew this was always going to be a possibility…” Daichi reminded him softly.
Not a possibility they wanted to consider, never how they imagined their team would turn out for their third year, but it wasn’t going to do any good to dwell on it or to try and drag Asahi back kicking and screaming. They’d have better luck trying to convince Noya to reconsider.
“I thought that if we just gave him some time and space…” Suga whispered as he pulled away. “That that would be enough. But he’s still so afraid and unsure. It hurts him this much even now and… and I did that to him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Suga! Asahi’s just…”
Weak. Cowardly. A giant with a glass heart. The words sprang to Daichi’s mind, but he couldn’t bring himself to say them out loud. For all his faults, Asahi was still his friend, and he had been a great ace for their team once… most of all, he was still precious to Suga.
“We’ll figure it out,” Daichi managed eventually, reaching out and wiping away a tear from Suga’s cheek with his thumb.
“Daichi…” Suga’s hand flew to his cheek where Daichi had just touched, his eyes wide.
“S-sorry!” Throwing his hands behind his back, Daichi hurriedly looked away. “A-anyway… Let’s go! The—we…”
He turned abruptly and marched, moving as naturally as a wind-up toy robot.
Stupid…
Daichi had been quite proud of himself for the past few weeks in which he had demonstrated notable self control. After being rejected, he had endeavored (with some difficulty) to act as naturally as he could around Suga.
Well… ok, so it hadn’t been that difficult. They had been friends first and foremost for long enough that it was easy to just be as they had always been. But every so often, Daichi would get the urge to touch him. Not in any indecent way, just… sometimes he wanted to reach out and tuck Suga’s hair behind his ear. Sometimes he wanted to boop Suga on the nose when he was giving him one of those mischievous little grins of his. Sometimes when they walked, he just wanted to take Suga’s hand in his own and lace their fingers together to see how well they fit. Sometimes he just wanted to lean his head against Suga’s shoulder and let the hours slip away.
Despite his feelings, he’d manage to resist all of that… and then he went and wiped away a tear from his face like in some cliched romance movie. Twice now, he’d overstepped his bounds without thinking, and both times had been while Suga was vulnerable and crying about Asahi.
Get a grip! Dachi told himself. You’re acting like a creep, and Suga isn’t interested in you. His feelings are for…
“...Asahi?”
Daichi stopped just short of the gym to find the man of the hour, hunched by the doors of the gymnasium, peering nervously inside to observe the team practice.
The big wimp…
Daichi moved closer just as Asahi expressed shock at overhearing Hinata shouting about Nekoma.
“There’s a practice match on the last day of Golden Week,” Daichi spoke up at last, jolting Asahi into an immediate fight-or-flight response. Except it was Asahi, so really, it always defaulted to flight .
“Don’t run away!”
“B-but… you’re scary when you’re mad!”
“I’m not particularly mad right now!” Daichi darted forward to grab the hem of Asahi’s blazer and pull him down from the walkway railing.
For the past month, he’d been letting Suga bear the burden of Asahi’s absence, the guilt, the heartbreak—it was time to take his turn. As captain, as a teammate, and as a friend, it was time that he finally gave Asahi a proper talking-to. Whether he wanted to or not!
It encouraged him to know that Asahi seemed to still have interest when Nekoma was mentioned. It was strange, perhaps, for them to have any investment in a rivalry from years before their tenure on the team. None of them had ever met anyone from Nekoma, prior or current, nor was there even a lingering connection in the faculty given they no longer had a coach. But fated rivals were such a romantic notion for athletes, and anything that could tie them to the powerhouse team Karasuno had once been was bound to get them excited. If Asahi still cared about any of that, to any degree, then Daichi would see to it that he put on that black and orange jersey again.
“But I… I just can’t face Suga or Nishinoya again…”
“Geez… you really are a wimp!” escaped Daichi before he could stop himself.
He wouldn’t call Asahi a wimp to Suga when he was so worried about him, but this was different. This was tough love. Asahi didn’t need any more coddling or reminding about things that were past—he did an excellent job on his own of letting the memory of the Datekou match hold him down and hold him back. He knew Suga of course had already told Asahi that the loss hadn’t been his fault, and he knew Nishinoya would undoubtedly welcome him back to the team with open arms.
Not to mention… Daichi was tired of dwelling on that match. He was tired of dealing with everything that had followed it. He was tired of what it had done to everyone on the team, in particular his closest friends. It was just one loss! They could move past that! Especially when Daichi considered Hinata and Kageyama, even Nishinoya… when he thought about the hope the underclassmen brought for the future of their team, he couldn’t bring himself to be tied down by the past anymore. What kind of captain would he be if he simply let the kouhai do all of the leading and inspiring?
As for Asahi…
“If you still think you might like volleyball… then that’s enough of a reason to come back.”
There he’d leave it. The rest would have to be up to Asahi, even as untrustworthy as that seemed.
Swinging around on his heel, Daichi suddenly punched Asahi’s arm with a decent amount of force. Of course, as he said, he still wasn’t particularly angry or anything. Only…
That was for Suga.
“All right! Head home and rest up! Starting tomorrow I’m gonna see what you guys are really made of!” Ukai clapped his hands as he urged the boys along at the end of a long evening playing against the alumni association.
Strangely full of ups and downs both with regard to the game and with the turmoils of individual players, it had felt to Daichi like an oddly long match. Somehow in the span of one dramatic evening, they’d managed to gain back Asahi and Nishinoya, obtain a new interim Coach thanks to the secret efforts of Takeda- sensei, reaffirm Hinata and Kageyama’s bizarre new partnership, and finally work Suga and Asahi through the slump of the past month.
It had been bittersweet, watching Suga tearfully ask Asahi to let him toss to him again. But seeing them both in better spirits and playing together just like they used to was a relief he hadn’t known he could feel. Just yesterday, he could not have imagined that he would now be walking home after practice with Suga and Asahi by his side as if the past month had never happened. It was almost surreal.
“Those two really are something…” Asahi murmured, his voice full of quiet awe as he chatted with Suga.
“The past few weeks have been really amazing with the two of them around,” Suga laughed. “A real roller coaster at times or like being in a zoo; I swear I’ve never seen Daichi get so mad—and you missed when they knocked off the vice principal’s toupee!”
“They did what??”
“It was an accident, but it just… it landed on Daichi’s head and—”
“Ohh… kay, that’s enough of that!” Daichi might have been mostly spacing out in his own head, but that day was now a point of trauma, and he was not fond of being reminded of it.
“Aww… come on, Daichi, it was funny!” Suga cackled.
“Maybe if the toupee had landed on your head, you’d think differently!” Daichi huffed, crossing his arms.
“Guess it’s still too soon, huh?” Suga teased, then bumped shoulders with Asahi. “I’ll tell you about it later when Daichi’s not around.”
Asahi saw a vein twitch in Daichi’s temple on the other side of Suga and immediately stammered, “Th-that’s okay!”
Suga giggled as Daichi turned his face away, and the three walked in silence for several paces before Asahi timidly added, “A lot’s happened even in just one month, huh… I’m starting to feel really bad about making you two deal with all of that on your own.”
“We wouldn’t have been able to rely on you anyway!” Suga slapped Asahi’s shoulder before wrapping his arm around Daichi’s. “And Daichi and I make a fantastic team; don’t underestimate us!”
Allowing himself a little swell of delight at Suga’s statement, Daichi fixed Asahi with one of his more intense stares. “This just means you have to work harder to make up for it, ace! We’ll all be counting on you.”
“Especially Hinata!” Suga sing-songed. “Now he has a proper ace on the team to look up to and everything!”
“R-really?” Asahi’s eyes seemed to glimmer with hope and maybe even a little pride.
“And don’t forget Nishinoya!” Suga pointed at Asahi’s chest. “He was gonna quit if you didn’t come back, you know! You would have robbed a star libero of a promising high school volleyball career! You have to work extra hard just for Nishinoya, okay!”
“Okay, okay!” Asahi distanced himself with a whine. “A-anyway… I’m… I’m this way, so… I’ll see you guys tomorrow?”
“Don’t be so chicken about it!” Daichi barked. “Of course we’ll see you tomorrow!”
The two waved Asahi away, who seemed almost heartened by Daichi’s scolding, and continued on their way. Daichi noted that Suga still kept their arms linked. Against his better judgments, he dared to scoot just a little closer to Suga as they walked.
“Hey, Daichi…”
“Hm?”
“He’s gonna show up to practice tomorrow, right?”
“If he doesn’t, I’ll drag him in myself!” Daichi promised.
“Okay…” Suga nodded his head, his eyes fixed on his feet. “Hey… Daichi?”
“What is it?”
“...do you still like me?”
Daichi stopped in his tracks then, his heart beginning to race with guilt. Gently extracting his arm out of the link Suga had made, he nodded his head once.
“I’m sorry. If I’ve done anything to make you uncomfortable—I’m trying to put my feelings behind me. It’s just taking some time—”
Suga quieted him with a sudden kiss. It was probably just as shocking as the first kiss they had shared a month ago in the gym’s storage closet, though not nearly as quick. Suga’s lips lingered on his, deliberate and sure. And warm. And soft. And when Suga finally pulled away, Daichi had half a mind to just pull him back for more.
“I’m sorry,” Suga half-whispered, and Daichi began to fear the worst until Suga shyly added, “I… I lied to you back then. About only wanting to be your friend. But the truth was I just wanted to be sure of myself. I didn’t want to hurt you…”
“Suga—”
“And! And I needed to prove myself. Prove that I could be a good vice-captain to you and the team, and prove that I could contribute and make up for everything that happened. I felt like if I could bring Asahi back, then I wouldn’t be… useless. Ya know?”
“Suga—”
“I know it’s selfish of me to say after putting you through all that, but if you still like me, I just thought that maybe… but it’s really up to you, so… so what do you say, Daichi?”
“I—”
“And if you say no, I would totally understand, and I’d still be vice-captain, so—”
“Suga!!!”
The setter jumped before looking frantically around them, suddenly concerned about passerby though he hadn’t been earlier during their extended liplock. “Not so loud, Daichi!”
“Suga, if I’d known that Asahi rejoining the team was gonna end like this , I’d have dragged him back kicking and screaming weeks ago.”