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Tobio gets along in Karasuno perfectly well, better than anywhere else he’d ever been, but even as they take Nationals he can’t help but feel like he’s missing something. It had felt almost perfect, the year he’d been a first year, so close to something he couldn’t quite identify, and then the third years had graduated and it was lost. He knew then that he still had a ways to go, that there were still things he had to learn. He took his departing teammates’ words to heart, practicing harder than ever, focusing more on his studies, paving a path for his future.
He and Hinata end up at different colleges, rivals once more, and Tobio feels lost but anxiously excited, looking forward to putting his improved skills at getting along with others to work. It doesn’t really occur to him that there will be people he knows at the same school, and it somehow flies over his head that he might already know people on the volleyball team. It was never a question of whether or not he would join it, but he hadn’t thought about who else might be there, once he knew Hinata wouldn’t be.
That’s why it’s a surprise when he walks into the gym on the first day of practice to a familiar laugh echoing through the wide open space. Sugawara is as gorgeous and cheerful as he was when he went to Karasuno, except now there’s something a little different, something a little more. Tobio can’t see the uncertainty that Sugawara had floundered in when Tobio had arrived and swept his position away in the blink of an eye, and there’s no trace of the sadness of graduating and leaving his friends to pursue his own path, either.
Now, he stands tall and strong, even more so than Daichi ever did, bright number 1 emblazoned on his shirt as he laughs at something his vice captain has said, volleyball held aloft in one hand. It takes a moment for Tobio to realize that Sugawara is still shorter than he is, that it’s his confident aura that makes him seem bigger than everyone else in the room. Tobio gets a broad grin before Sugawara calls order to the gym to start figuring out everyone’s strengths and abilities, and he smiles back before he’s even thought about it.
A month later, finally standing on the court again for a real game, Hinata bouncing excitedly on the other side of the net, Tobio feels whole. Sugawara yells a cheer and smacks Tobio on the back eagerly with that sunshine bright smile, and Tobio finally feels like he’s exactly where he’s meant to be. Like he’s found home.