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"Good afternoon passengers. This is your captain speaking. I would like to welcome everyone on Rightwing Flight 77A from Tokyo to Miyagi. We're currently cruising at an altitude of 33,000 feet at an airspeed of 400 miles per hour. The time is 6:48 pm. The weather looks-"
Kageyama's head stops registering the words at this point. He closes his eyes and attempts to stop thinking, about anything and everything. The past two weeks have been so exhausting and restless that even the smallest actions feel incredibly draining. Letting out a deep sigh, he pushes his seat backwards and tilts his head to the right as his mind slowly flickers into darkness.
..........
The first thing he discovers when he opens his eyes is a big, big room decorated with expensive mahogany furnitures, motivational quotes and athletes' posters. The next is the face of Sakusa Kiyoomi, who stands close to the door in a corner, looking down at his phone. Kageyama takes a glance across the room and finds other familiar faces. There's so much running and laughing and shouting and - food? Oh yes, food!- in this room. Kageyama blinks in surprise as his gaze gets fixed on the other side of the room where some players and managers from Fukurodani barbecue fresh meat. The smell of those spicy, juicy yakiniku makes his stomach growl and he proceeds take a step towards the food corner, but stops in the midway. Where is he? How did he get here? What is he doing here? Backing down, he walks towards the masked spiker for answers.
"Sakusa-san, good evening." The spiker gets startled a little hearing his name being called; he looks up from his phone,
"Kageyama."
"Can you tell me what's going on here?" Kageyama asks, in a more monotonous voice than he intended to.
Sakusa throws a what-did-you-just-say look at the setter and stares for a good half minute before adjusting his mask and replying, "We're having a party to celebrate the end of week long training camp."
"Training cam-" before he could finish his word, he gets interrupted by a loud "KAGEYAMA!!!"
"KAGEYAMA-KUN, WHERE WERE YOU??!? WE'VE BEEN WAITING!!" A very excited Hinata comes running towards them, while flailing his hands.
"Slow down, dumbass!"
"EVERYONE'S LOOKING FOR YOU. LET'S GO - oh, hi Sakusa-san!!!"
"hi," Sakusa responds, with the least possible enthusiasm in his tone.
"You're really good but… WE'LL BEAT YOUR TEAM NEXT TIME, SO BE PREPARED!!" Hinata grabs his teammate's hand and drags him along as he runs to the opposite direction, "LET'S GO, KAGEYAMA-KUN!!"
"Let go, dumbass!" Kageyama snatches his hand from his grip and runs ahead. On his way, he spots the third years sitting together, talking and drinking juice. Sugawara notices and waves his hand at him,"Having a good time, Kageyama?"
He puts his running into a halt and waves back, nodding.
"Hinata, don’t run inside the room," Their captain, Daichi Sawamura, says, laughing from beside Kiyoko as Hinata runs past Kageyama, screaming “AAAAH”. Kageyama nods again, now towards Daichi and then joins Hinata in their mini race.
.........
The setter sits in the between Hinata and Nishinoya as Tanaka leads the discussion.
"So, we all want to throw a party for the third years, right?"
"We 'all' might not the correct word in this case, but not that you'd care," Tsukishima mutters.
"Tsukishima, you have something to say??" Tanaka retorts.
"no, go on."
"But who's going to talk to coach Ukai?"
"Chikara will do it!!!"
"why is it always me?" Ennoshita asks in a low voice that's barely audible.
"RIGHT, RIGHT. HE'S MORE CONVINCING THAN US, UKAI-SAN WILL DEFINITELY LISTEN TO HIM," Nishinoya jumps from his place.
"OOOUH," Hinata agrees. Suddenly he notices Kenma walking by him and excuses himself from the group to talk to him.
The rest of the first and second years continue to discuss what to bring and how to organize the party, with no participation from Tsukishima and occasional nods and “hmm”s from Kageyama.
…………
Kageyama sprints towards the yakiniku, behind him follows Yachi, they run with their highest speed, only to find Fukurodani's managers and some players cleaning it up. Kageyama stops abruptly and a small figure bumps into him immediately after.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Kageyama-kun!" Yachi repeatedly bows, her body shaking as she begs for forgiveness.
"Ah, it's ah, okay-"
"What are you guys here for?" Akaashi asks while wiping the chopsticks and putting them in an down.
"I wanted to get yakiniku but-"
"Oh right, I didn't see you two here earlier," Misaki, Fukurodani's manager, turns around to face them. "Why didn't you come eat with everyone, Hitoka-chan?"
"I-I was too nervous and there were so many people I didn't get a chance."
"Well, looks like you guys are lucky." Akaashi speaks with much more enthusiasm in his voice than before, taking out a plate from the cupboard and handing it to Kageyama, "Misaki-san was originally planning to devour it after everyone's finished eating but you two deserve it more right now."
Kageyama bows a thank you to the other setter and takes the plate, plopping into the seat beside him. He stares in awe at the plate full of meat for a while before Yachi joins him and they start digging in. Yachi is a much slower eater than Kageyama, so he tries to be careful to not eat too fast and startle her. Munching on a piece of meat, Yachi points to the left side of the room. His eyes follow her finger to find Shiratorizawa team sitting there, talking among themselves unlike the other teams in the room.
"Shiratorizawa gives off a different vibe than others. They're quite supercilious.”
Supercilious… he searches for the word in his head but find nothing; should he ask her what it means or nah? Confused, he remains sitting there, chewing his food without any response.
“Look! It’s Ushiwaka!”
Kageyama looks up to see the ace sitting on an arm chair attentively reading a magazine, a little far away from his team, but nowhere close to the players of other teams. To Kageyama, he looked very nonchalant and carefree and for some reason, it frustrated him. His already there frown goes deeper, creating a perfect V shape on his forehead.
“Ushiwaka-san may-” his eyes travel down on where he placed the plate, there’s only one piece of meat left. Yachi realizes this too and suddenly starts shaking lighting, muttering something to herself.
“Kageyama-kun! You can have it, I’m full already!” She springs out of her chair and quickly walks away before Kageyama can form any sort of response to her statement. Hesitantly, he picks up the meat and shoves it in his mouth as his face turns the shade of a ripe tomato.
………
The corner where Aoba Johsai players are gathered is the noisiest. Kageyama stands in the audience along with many other players of Seijoh, Fukurodani and Datekou to watch the arm wrestling between Seijoh’s Ace Iwaizumi Hajime and Fukurodani’s Ace Bokuto Koutarou. They’re both very muscular and strong and in terms of volleyball skills Bokuto maybe be superior to Iwaizumi, but still, he finds himself lowkey rooting for his senpai.
After couple minutes, when neither one of them shows any sign of giving up, frustration fills the atmosphere, and Kageyama huffs and turns his attention to the Miya brothers, who are talking with Hoshiumi and Broccoli several feets away. Hoshiumi says something and Miya Atsumu breaks down laughing, smacking his brother’s back. Kageyama feels a curiosity rise inside him, wanting to know what they’re talking about, and instantantly, Atsumu turns around, noticing the younger setter. He waves his hand and gestures for him to join them.
Talking with them feels harder and more uncomfortable than he would have imagined. The blonde spiker scowls at him every time their eyes meet and the twins talk about things other than volleyball that Broccoli and Hoshiumi seem quite familiar with; gulping, Kageyama clenches his fists and stays there, despite his mind’s protest. At one point, Atsumu asks, “Tobio-kun, do you think your pretty manager over there would let me take her out for lunch?” Kageyama leans his head back to see who he was talking about - Kiyoko-san. “Chances aren’t great but you can try.” Osamu makes an “ouch” sound with mouth. The sense of discomfort grows and at some point, Kageyama gives in to his mind’s protests and takes his leave from there.
As he walks back to Seijoh’s table, he sees Fukurodani’s players surrounding their ace Bokuto, who sat looking down and his face dark in gloom.
“It doesn’t matter, you’re still in the top 5, but he’s not!!” One of the players says as he pats Bokuto’s back.
“But they didn’t get to see how strong I am! What’s the point if he beat me in front of all these other players! No, no, no, Konoha, nothing matters anymore,” the owly ace groans, throwing his arms over his head.
Kageyama diverts his attention to the crowd, where Kindaichi is now replacing Iwaizumi’s spot, and Koganegawa Bokuto’s. The former puts Koganegawa’s hand down with seemingly much ease, his teammates applauds, back-slapping and congratulating him with words like “Bravo! Two in a row!”, “That’s Kindaichi for you!”, and one particular “Of course! Gotta see whose kouhai he is!”. Kageyama feels something sting inside him - a familiar feeling that’s become so distant after joining Karasuno he thought he’d forget about it; but it’s old, buried there without him realizing, lingering in a corner of his heart. He grits his teeth and takes a step back, proceeding to leave the crowd when Tanaka calls for him, “Kageyama! Go and show them how strong you are! Go, go, you can do it!”
Hearing that, he freezes and slowly turns around to face everyone. Oikawa glares at him, standing there beside Kindaichi with his arms crossed over his chest, but soon his frown turns upside down and he throws the younger setter a mischievous smile, “Yeah, Tobio-chan, why don’t you wrestle Kindaichi? Let us see which one of you improved more.”
Swallowing hard, Kageyama stands there in uneasiness as every one’s gaze pierced through him, he forces his eyes shut, not wanting to think.
“Son, we’re here. Wake up.” the soft voice startles him, breaking off the world in his dream.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Sendai airport. Local time is 8:02 pm and the temperature is 29 degree Celsius. For your safety and comfort, please remain seated with your seatbelt fastened until the Captain turns off the Fasten Seat Belt sign. This will indicate that-”
Kageyama opens his eyes to find the old lady, his neighboring passenger, smiling at him. It soothes his heart, pushing away the unsettling feeling he had from the dream.
“Here, drink this. They’ll let us out in a couple of minutes.”
“Thank you, Obaasan.”
“I’d like to thank you for joining us on this trip and we are looking forward to seeing you onboard again in the near future. Have a nice evening!”
Kageyama picks up his coat and his bag and heads out, climbing down the stairs. He stands there on the concrete ground, taking a deep breath in Miyagi’s fresh air, as he rubs his eyes to clear his vision. He feels the rough gnarled beard poking his palm. ‘I should shave before going to bed tonight.’ he thinks as he takes a step towards home.