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Hinata is so very far away.
For years he’s been far away from home, making it work with the clothes on his back and the skin of his teeth alone. He has been fighting his own battle for so long that sometimes it’s hard to remember what it was like to be in a team.
(Only sometimes. Not today.)
Karasuno is so very far away. An ocean away. A lifetime away. Three generations away.
Karasuno is ancient history. There is no Ukai senior, no Little Giant, no Guardian Deity, no King of the Court, no Spear nor Shield, and no Greatest decoy.
His three years of High school are so very far away. His friends are too; scattered across the world like drifting messages in bottles, wandering in deep blue oceans just waiting to be found. What are the chances of being found by their intended recipient, Hinata wonders, for the world is oh so very big, and his friends are oh so very far away.
None more so than Tsukishima Kei.
He’s always been so far away; physically the vertical distance between them reached upwards to a foot, emotionally it continued past the light year mark. Over those three years they’d been teammates the distance between their shoulders had grown (a few centimeters for Hinata, another two inches for Tsukishima), but the distance between their hearts had been reduced to a memory. All that was left was the nanometers between the molecules in their lips, pressed flushed against one another, enjoying this newfound excitement that had come only from crossing boundaries that were never meant to be crossed.
But that was then, and now is now, and Tsukishima is so very far away.
Hinata misses him. He misses him like he misses his mother’s udon, like he misses Natsu’s incessant whining, like he misses Kageyama’s jump serve, Yachi’s shaky smiles, Yamaguchi’s pats on the back, the feeling of a court- grounded and solid- beneath his feet. Hinata misses Tsukishima like he misses his home, the distance between both stretching endlessly across the oceans as he stares them down.
Beep! Beep!
Hinata is taken out of his reverie by the sound of his phone, he stops stirring his and Pedro’s dinner and wipes his hand on his apron. His footsteps are accompanied by the soft call of ‘I’m coming over, please wait” in Japanese, a habit he’s picked up to not forget his own voice- his own language. One he has only barely managed to use in the time he’s spent in this country.
Hinata is so very far away.
Yet as he sees the name blinking on his screen, he remembers that distance cannot be measured in meters alone.
It’s the difference in height. It’s the difference in time. It’s the difference in the length of their calls, and the length of their sighs. It’s the time spent daydreaming about one another. It’s the endless ocean, and the milliseconds it takes for a voice to carry through it.
It’s their hearts connected with no mind to the distances of the universe.
“Stingyshima!! I was wondering when you’d call.”
“I was busy, shrimp. I can end the call if that’s how you’re gonna be-“
“No! Don’t be such an ass.”
Tsukishima chuckles, and suddenly there’s nothing but micrometers between them again, and Hinata is so very far away, but his lover is never more than a heartbeat away from him.
“I missed you, Shouyou.”
“I missed you too, Kei-kun.”