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It’s not pretty.
It’s not impressive.
It’s not even properly knitted, filled with large spaces and frayed material.
But the scarf in the corner of Fukunaga’s room is near and dear to his heart, no matter how worn out it looks, or how the supposed pockets for his hands are just looped patches of wool. It’s precious to him, and every year, when the winter chill sets in, the scarf emerges from the corner of his room to the outside world.
He wears it with pride, head held high and small smile hidden behind the warmth of the scarf wrapped around his neck. The first time he wears it to practice this year, the third and second years carry on warming up as usual. Taketora does spare him a glance, but that’s all.
The first years, however… Inuoka chokes on his own spit, missing a ball that bounces off his forehead as he tries to stop coughing. Shibayama openly stares, blinking and rubbing at his eyes as if he’s seeing things. Lev isn’t there yet, but Fukunaga knows it’s going to be dramatic.
“Back to practice, kids!” Kuroo’s shout jolts Inuoka and Shibayama out of their states of disbelief, and they answer back with an affirmative before getting back to what they’re supposed to be doing. Fukunaga doesn’t miss the questioning glance at his back.
He glances back at Shibayama, eyes sparkling, and tilts his head to prompt the question the first year hasn’t asked yet. Nervously, Shibayama rolls the ball between his hands, glancing at the scarf, his feet, and then up at Fukunaga again.
“Are you really warm in that, Senpai…? It has tons of holes and the material doesn’t look very thick…”
“I’m warm.” His fingers brush over the delicate, frazzled wool of the scarf, and his smile grows bigger. He’s warm. Really warm. Not on the outside, because his skin is covered in goosebumps, but the beloved, ugly scarf has such value to him that it keeps him warm inside.
That’s all that matters to Fukunaga.
“O-Okay, if you say so!” Content with the answer, Shibayama turns back to warming up, just as Kai calls him over for a game of pepper.
“Fukunaga, hurry up in the changing rooms. Nekomata wants to work us hard today.” Nodding in understanding at the Captain, Fukunaga jogs into the changing room and removes his scarf very carefully, delicately. Not just so it won’t fall apart, but because it’s how he’s always treated it. He hangs it on the pegs above his bag fussing over it so it lays perfectly, spread out flat.
Once changed, he jogs back onto the court, holding a hand up in greeting as Lev races past, munching an apple, late as usual. The rest of practice resumes as normal.
Kenma takes multiple breaks, complaining he’s tired. Taketora shouts about enthusiasm and guts and makes things ten times as dramatic as need be. Kuroo tries to keep things in line, but ends up having his own argument with Yaku whilst running through drills, Kai watching them with a deadpan, exhausted expression.
Yaku’s anger soon turns to Lev, who makes more than the one allowed short joke per practice. Shibayama and Inuoka move everyone’s water bottles around discreetly, only noticed by Fukunaga, and they get away with it because of their airs of innocence. If only the rest of the team saw this mischievous, impish side of them.
A perfectly normal practice. It’s when practice ends that things go awry. The team have done their cool down stretches, heading to the changing rooms in one big group.
Fukunaga immediately notices that his scarf isn’t there. Panic rises as he jogs over to his bag and it hasn’t fallen into or behind it either. He checks under the bench, he checks behind the bench, he looks at the belongings of the people next to him.
“Shouhei…?” Kenma notices his frantic search first, and blinks when Fukunaga looks at him. He looks like he’s about to burst into tears, or on the verge of a panic attack. Sharp, golden eyes quickly catch onto the fact that Fukunaga’s ugly, tattered, disgusting scarf - which is so important to him - is nowhere in sight. He grabs Fukunaga’s wrist and drags him over to Kuroo.
“Kuro.”
“What’s up, Kit- Woah, Fukunaga, you look awful. You okay?” Fukunaga shakes his head, enough to dislodge a tear from the corner of his eye, biting deeply into his bottom lip as he tries not to cry, hands shaking and fingers twitching with distress.
“His scarf, Kuro. It’s missing.” Kuroo’s eye widen and it’s like he switches into a completely different mode, putting a hand on Fukunaga’s shoulder and squeezing it reassuringly, before taking a breath and speaking clearly in the room. His tone is cold and angry, but that’s understandable. This is an extremely precious item.
“Everyone open their bags, and look around them now. Be careful where you step. Fukunaga’s scarf is missing.” The rest of the team freezes up, even Inuoka and Shibayama. Although this was their first time seeing the scarf, it was clear from how Fukunaga lit up whilst wearing it that the scarf was incredibly important to him.
As the team shuffles around, searching for it - although Lev has no clue what he’s looking for - Kuroo eases Fukunaga into sitting down, trying to calm him so he can actually breathe.
“We’re going to find it, okay? Take a nice slow, deep breath for me, yeah? We’re not leaving until we find it. Nobody is leaving until we find it.” Kuroo rubs circles on his back, providing a constant comfort that manages to bring Fukunaga back to some level of coherency. He wipes at his eyes with the backs of his hands and nods at Kuroo in thanks.
He can’t talk right now. Not when his throat is so constricted and he’s pretty sure that his tearful voice would be too thick to understand. Kuroo pat his back a little harder with an encouraging grin.
“That’s more like it. You wanna sit here or help us look?” He adds gestures to his sentences, pointing at the bench for sitting down and waving his hand around the room for the searching option. It’s how he communicates with Fukunaga when he goes nonverbal, whether it’s for a few hours, or a whole week. Fukunaga is exceedingly grateful.
He copies the sitting gesture. Right now, his legs are shaking. Way too bad to stand up. Plus, he knows that if he starts looking, he’ll get frantic again, leading into a full-on panic attack. Kuroo stands and looks around his own stuff, making sure to communicate with the others in searching for the scarf.
“Uh, Kuroo…” Quieter than usual, Yaku’s unsure tone catches Kuroo’s attention and he immediately flocks to Yaku’s side. Following the amber gaze, Kuroo’s heart plummets to his stomach and he pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Oh no…” There, curled up in the blue plastic bin, is the shoddy scarf with an apple core on top. He wipes his hand down his face as Yaku crouches down and carefully plucks it out, trying not to catch it on the water bottles underneath, and picking off food in it.
Kuroo takes a deep breath and cups his hands over his mouth to try and ease the grimace off it. He slowly makes his way back over to Fukunaga and sits down on the bench next to him, putting both hands on his shoulder, one of his arms wrapped around Fukunaga’s back. And that gesture - supposed to be comforting - ends up upsetting the second year more than seeing the scarf would.
His face scrunches up in distress and his eyes fill with water, fists curling around the material of his shorts as a whine escapes. Kuroo takes his hands away for a moment before putting them back, squeezing comfortingly and tighter than needed as he rushes to offer comfort.
“Woah, woah, hey, it’s okay, it’s okay! We found it, Fukunaga, we found it. It’s just a little...” Not even bothering to hide his wince, Yaku holds up the tattered scarf. It’s even more tattered now. It’s frayed and ripped where it was formerly on the peg, and as much as Yaku tried, there’s still smudges over it from something that must have been in the bin before the scarf was put in.
“Oh, that’s what we’re looking for? I saw it on the floor and thought it was a cleaning rag!” And that’s the point when Fukunaga burst into tears. Taketora has to hold Kenma back from launching himself at Lev in a rage. Shibayama, Inuoka, and Kai all flock to Fukunaga’s side to surround him where Kuroo already isn’t.
The scarf is so, so precious to Fukunaga, and making him cry? That was excuse enough for Kenma to commit murder. Yaku brings the scarf over, placing it gently in Fukunaga’s hands before storming over to Lev and kicking him roughly in the shin.
“You absolute idiot!”
“Owie! What?! It was on the floor!”
“That’s his scarf! He’s had that for years!” Lev whines as he rubs at his sore shin.
“But- But I didn’t know… And shouldn’t it be replaced? It’s old and tatty!” Kenma snarls, struggling harder to get out of Taketora’s grip. He’s utterly furious.
“It’s from his birth parents!” Lev freezes. It’s common knowledge that Fukunaga is fostered. If the scarf was from his birth parents, he’d had it almost ten years, explaining the ratty state of it.
“I- I’m sorry…” Fukunaga pushes himself up from the bench, shaking off those trying to comfort him, the scarf falling to the floor, and races out the room too fast for anyone to shake off the shock and catch up with. Kenma sighs and sags in Taketora’s arms, making it safe for him to let go. Taketora reaches for the forgotten bags.
“I’ll drop Fukunaga’s stuff off on my way home. And Lev? Don’t throw stuff away if it isn’t yours.”
“I’m sorry…” Guiltily, Lev scoots round to pick up the ruined scarf, under Kuroo’s glare and Kai’s scrutinous gaze, making sure he doesn’t do any more damage. They’re not expecting for green eyes to light up with a bright spark, Lev donning a ‘V’ shaped smile.
“I can fix this! Or- Or rather Alisa can fix this! She’s really good at knitting!” Dubious silence. Kenma’s death glare remains just a vicious and deadly. One of these days, he’s probably going to snap and attack Lev and no one will be able to stop him. For now though, he snatches his gaze away and grabs his bag to head home. It’s permission enough.
“Alright, Lev, you have this one chance to redeem yourself. One. Chance.” Lev gulps as the changing room empties out, Yaku’s threat weighing heavily on his mind. He clutches the scarf closer to his chest, before grabbing his own bags and running home as fast as possible, stopping at one special shop on the way.
~
Next morning, the team aren’t surprised that Fukunaga is late. They’re not expecting him to be on time after an emotional suckerpunch like yesterday. Eventually, he shows up, no scarf in sight. He’s shivering, hunched over with his shoulders drawn up to his ears, and a frosty tinge to his cheeks.
Kai steers him towards the radiator before he can even shrug his coat off. Naoi vanishes from the gym - saying something about hot drinks - and Nekomata pointedly moves his chair closer to the student, ‘accidentally’ knocking his coach jacket in Fukunaga’s lap.
“Let’s get some spiking drills done. Kenma, set for this side of the net, and… Hmm… Shibayama, can you set for the otherside?”
“Yes, Captain!”
“The rest of you, line up. Spike down the line, move to the back of the next line.”
“Osu!” They move into drill position, Taketora taking the first spike from Kenma’s side, just as Naoi enters with three plastic cups of hot chocolate. One, he keeps for himself. The other two go to Nekomata and Fukunaga, struggling to keep warm.
“Here we go. There’s extra sugar in yours, Fukunaga.”
“Thank you.” His quiet gratitude is returned with a nod and a soft, almost fatherly smile, before Naoi jogs over to the stool next to the net. From here, he can tally up who’s getting the most out. It wouldn’t be good training if silly mistakes became habits.
“Kuroo, try bringing your elbow in tighter. Inuoka, don’t land on the sides of your feet, are you trying to get injured!?”
“N- No coach, sorry Coach!” Nekomata chuckles from the bench, startling Fukunaga.
“He’s going to drive you all insane, once I retire~.”
“Hm?” He tilts his head to the side questioningly, wide eyes blinking. He can almost forget the heavy weight on his heart from yesterday, but… Not quite.
“-Senpai! Fukunaga-senpai!” Skidding through the open gymnasium door, Lev brings with him a flurry of snow, an icicle stuck to his sleeve, and a gift wrapped in red paper. Fukunaga blinks, wondering how Lev can grin so wide without his face splitting. Stumbling over his feet, Lev throws himself onto his knees at Fukunaga’s lap, holding the present out eagerly.
“Open it, open it, open it~!!!!!” Raising an eyebrow, Fukunaga picks at the excessive cellotape, aware that practice has been put on hold as the team anxiously watches. That’s a little worrying.
“I tried my best, and Alisa supervised, so it should be okay! I think…” He flips the present over so that he doesn’t catch a peek before he finishes opening it, another one of his weird behaviours that no one questions.
He picks off the last bit of tape and whips away the wrapping paper. His eyes widen, drawing in an amazed breath, and he can feel the sting of salty tears. Softly, he brushes the fingertips of his shaking hand over the gift.
He recognises the material. It’s his scarf. His beloved, precious, irreplaceable scarf. But it’s different.
“Aha, I hope you like it! I tried using red ‘cus that’s our team colours, so you’ll always have Nekoma with you too!” Where the scarf was formally torn, ripped, frayed, and falling apart, there’s carefully knitted patches of red wool, holding it together. Nothing has been changed about the parts that were still together, it’s just been fixed.
Improved. There’s even little black stitching around the edge where the scarf frayed the most, making sure it’ll stay together for much longer than it could have. It looks uglier than before, but the meaning… The meaning of the scarf, how valuable it is to Fukunaga, rockets up. Suddenly, the scarf that was his most important belonging before is even more important than his life.
He doesn’t say that aloud, knowing the team will protest a scarf being more important than a life, but that’s exactly how he feels. His eyes water up and one tear breaks free as he launches himself at Lev, arms around his neck and burying his face in his shoulder.
“Thank you… Thank you…” Lev almost shouts with glee at the hug, but when he feels grateful tears soaking his shoulder, he smiles softly instead, wrapping his arms around Fukunaga’s back and holding him tightly.
“Merry Christmas, Senpai.”