Chapter Text
Tanaka doesn’t realise he’s staring again until Saeko’s thumb rubs along the gold letters, a dimple dipped in her brow and a half-frown resting on her face in such a way that Tanaka can’t work out if she’s hoping the letters won’t come off or irritated that they aren’t.
“Sorry.” He averts his gaze back to his cereal and wonders in an abstract sort of way what kind of face he’ll make the morning he wakes up and finds someone else’s name sunken into his skin.
“What for?” Saeko grins at him. “’S’not like you put it there.” She tugs at her sleeve as if it will magically grow a few inches and when it doesn’t her grin slips away again.
“You goin’ ta put a plaster over it?”
“Nah,” Saeko shakes her head slowly, “that’s way too obvious.”
“You could wear a jacket,” he points out. Sure, it’s sunny out, but Saeko’s worn her jacket on hotter days than this before, so it wouldn’t really be out of character.
“I could,” she agrees, fingertips softly smoothing across the letters this time, “but I’m not going to.”
“People will see.”
“Let them see.” She’s grinning again, but at what Tanaka’s not sure.
“You know who they are then?” He’s never heard the name before but Saeko doesn’t go to his school anymore; there’s countless names she knows that he doesn’t.
“No,” she flicks the name as if to prompt it into giving her more information, “not a clue. But I don’t see the point of hiding it. Could be years until we find each other, and even then, there’s no promising we’ll get along.” Tanaka shovels a huge spoonful of cereal into his mouth as he mulls that over.
“Why wouldn’t you get along?” What’s the point of being intertwined, he wonders, if not to get along?
“Well,” Saeko hums reasonably, “loads of reasons. Not everybody gets along with each other.” That’s true of course; loads of kids in Tanaka’s class don’t really like him much. And it’s not like he has any idea whose name might one day show up somewhere on his body, but he just has this feeling it can’t be any of them. Something warm that fizzles at the back of his throat that makes him sure, with no evidence to support it, that when he meets his person, they’ll be special.
“I’m going to get along with my soulmate.” He tells her matter-of-factly. “They’re going to be my best friend.”
“Yeah?” Saeko tips her head at an angle, face so fond it’s embarrassing. “You going to fall in love and all that too?” Tanaka feels his face flush.
“I don’t know!” He crams more cereal into his mouth and crunches it loudly in an attempt to drown out her cackle. A lot of people fall in love with their soulmates. Not everyone. But it’s the dream, isn’t it? To find your person, to find your name on them too, and to fall in love. Tanaka’s only nine, so he’s not sure he cares about the love part entirely. It would be nice, maybe. He wrinkles his nose. “But they’ll definitely be my best friend!”
“Best friend, huh?” Saeko’s gaze drifts back down to the name newly scribbled on the soft skin just below her left inner elbow crease.
As places for names to show up go, there are way worse ones. On the news just last week Tanaka saw a girl who woke up with her soulmate’s name lying across her nose like a lazy little worm. She didn’t seem to mind because the places always match on your other half, so her whoever was walking around with her name lazing across their nose too. She had actually laughed, a bright sound despite how self-conscious she seemed, and said she only felt bad that their name was a lot shorter than hers.
“A best friend wouldn’t be so bad.” Saeko stands up, clearly intending to make that her final statement on the topic when Tanaka was just about to tell her she’s lucky her whoever doesn’t have handwriting as ugly as her own. Maybe that’s for the best; she’d only dig her knuckles into the top of his head until he was forced to apologise.
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
Tanaka is a fresh-faced fifth grader, recently turned ten years old, when Kanoka Amanai transfers to his school. She’s been begging her mum for years to let her study at Tanaka’s school, but her mum is a strong believer in private education and same-sex schools.
“She’s forcing me to suffer because our dad left us.” Kanoka had muttered miserably last April when her mum had once again refused to let her change schools.
“Nah she probably just wants you to do what she did is all.” Tanaka’s pretty sure, despite her modern suits and swanky office job, that Kanoka’s mum is very traditional at heart. He’s been to their house a bunch of times and it’s still got tatami floors and sliding doors throughout. And there’s a picture on their bookshelf of her graduating class; she’s wearing the exact same uniform that Kanoka had to wear.
But now, suddenly, Kanoka’s here. He kind of knows only half the story. Kanoka is his friend but she’s really shy and doesn’t like to talk about her school all that much. All he knows is that she hated it and it was her homeroom teacher who finally convinced her mum to let her switch.
It’s only for two years – they both know as soon as they graduate Kanoka will be enrolled in a private all girls junior high – but that doesn’t matter right now. Because right now, for the first time, Tanaka has a friend in his class.
“This is Kanoka Amanai,” their teacher introduces, “she’ll be joining us from today.” Kanoka’s eyes dart nervously around at all the new faces. “Who’d like to show her around?” Tanaka has never thrown his hand into the air quicker, but it seems it wasn’t all that necessary, since no one else offers. Their teacher offers him a gentle smile. “Wonderful, thank you Tanaka.” And just like that she arranges a desk for Kanoka right next to his own.
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
Bullying is not a new concept to Tanaka. He knows other kids have gotten bullied and he’s almost certain some of the kids in his class wanted to bully him before too – they probably would have if Saeko hadn’t shown up to school the day after he told her what they’d said, shirt sleeves rolled to her elbows and mouth set in a fierce snarl, and loudly declared that if anyone had an issue with their family situation then now was the time to pipe up. And he already knew Kanoka had been dying to move schools, so he really shouldn’t be surprised, and yet, he is.
It takes him completely off-guard when he overhears two girls at the front of the class whispering about it as they huddle over the gap between their desks. And he knows by their tone they don’t mean it maliciously, that they’re not involved in the bullying, they’ve just heard about it, so instead of telling them off and defending Kanoka, he finds himself slowing his steps to catch as much of their conversation as he can.
“She had to transfer because she was getting bullied.”
“Bullied? Really? What for?”
“I heard it’s ‘cause she’s a bit weird and,” Satomi’s nose scrunches in on itself as she takes a quick peek at Kanoka over her shoulder, “she’s so tall.”
And well, Tanaka thinks, frowning as he makes his way back to his seat, that can’t be right at all. Because not only is being tall an absolute life advantage and something he imagines would make anyone instantly popular, but Kanoka is not weird at all. She’s kind and patient and cute and never laughs loud enough to disrupt anyone else like he often does.
Plus, she’s his best friend. She definitely would have told him if she was being bullied.
“I didn’t want you to know,” she admits when he asks her on their walk home; he’d never have been able to keep something like this to himself.
“How comes?” Tanaka doesn’t feel good about this at all. Aren’t friends supposed to tell each other stuff like this?
“Because you’re really cool.” Kanoka twists a section of her hair around her finger nervously. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to be friends with me if you knew I was a loser.” Tanaka stops dead in his tracks, blinking stupidly at the dirt footpath under his shoes until he notices Kanoka’s stopped walking too and is looking at him with apprehension.
“You’re not a loser.” He sighs at the flicker of shock that flashes across her face. He’s a pretty bad friend, he guesses, for letting his one and only friend believe they’re a loser. “You said so yourself, I’m really cool.” He puffs up his chest and poses in what he hopes is a cool way and then pokes out his tongue at her because he knows that always makes her giggle. “So, I’d only ever want to be friends with someone as equally cool.”
Probably he’s the loser. The signs are all there – no real friends aside from Kanoka who is likely only his friend because they live more or less opposite each other and happen to be the same age, no skills he can brag about or showcase to get popular from, and he certainly doesn’t get good enough grades to even attract friends who just want to copy his homework. Only Saeko waiting for him in their half-empty house…
But Tanaka doesn’t feel like a loser. And that, he’s always thought, is the deciding factor.
The beaming grin on Kanoka’s face when he lightly flicks her left ear certainly doesn’t make him feel like a loser either.
“Thanks Ryu-chan.”
“You just hafta promise me,” he tacks on when they’ve made their way to the edge of her garden, “if anyone ever tries to hurt you again, you’ll tell me.” Her eyes skitter away from his. “And I mean ever.” Not just in school, but in junior high or high school or university or wherever life takes her, he wants to be someone she can rely on.
“Okay,” she nods after a moment, nose pinking, “so long as you promise me the exact same back.” She holds out a pinky finger; he grins as he wraps his own one around it. It’s a promise.
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
Tanaka’s still in elementary school when a boy in his class comes into school one morning with a name printed perfectly between his shoulder blades. He shows everyone at break, lifting his shirt up to his neck in the playground; the sun gleams across the golden letters in a blinding way.
“I didn’t even notice,” he tells everyone, “my ma did when me and Fumi were in the bath.” Fumi is his little sister, which causes Tanaka to pause. They’re only eleven now, young enough to still be having shared baths, but suddenly Jurou who sits diagonally in front of him and sometimes snorts when he laughs has someone’s name forever on his skin.
“A-ya-ko,” a tall girl with green glasses from a different class sounds out, eyes gleaming excitedly, “do you know her?” Ayako, Tanaka thinks, is a nice name. None of the kids in their class are called Ayako. Jurou shrugs.
“Not yet.” It’s kind of unimportant to him it seems. “But I bet she likes cop shows!”
“Ehh?” A shorter girl with blue ribbons tied around her pigtails this time. “What makes you think that?”
“Our names are on each other’s backs,” Jurou points out, as if it’s obvious, “cops always stand back-to-back with their partner’s, right?” He drops his shirt, Ayako’s name blinking out of sight, to pull a dramatic back-to-back pose with nobody, arms held out and fingers pointed into a gun. He takes aim with one eye winked closed and all the girls burst into giggles. “She’s definitely gonna be my partner.”
Tanaka’s never considered that the placement of names might not be random before. Jurou is obviously a fan of cop shows himself, so has decided that their placement has meaning. But the soft skin between Saeko’s left forearm and inner elbow seems totally random to Tanaka; unless maybe her meaning will come later?
That night before he climbs into bed is the first time Tanaka slowly inspects his hands and feet in case a name has snuck up on him without him noticing. If the placements have meaning, he supposes, then surely his will be somewhere he uses for volleyball. Even the skin between his fingers and toes remain stubbornly nameless.
But Tanaka’s not worried, he’s only eleven, he’s still got years before his soulmate should show up.
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
All things considered Oujitsu isn’t all that different from elementary school. Over half of the kids in his class come here too, though not that many of them are in his class now, which is nice at first until he works out that almost all the new ones were also from his elementary school, just different classes, and none of them have changed their mind about wanting to be his friend.
So he winds up sitting on his own and eating lunch on his own and, now that Kanoka’s attending some prestigious girls school that’s two busses away, walking home on his own too. And it’s not all that bad; he’s done it before after all.
Only Oujitsu has a volleyball team. That Tanaka’s on. And that makes all the difference.
He’s been dreaming of making it onto a volleyball team for as long as he can remember and even though he’s not number five – his mum was number five and he really wanted to wear her number – he figures what that really means is he’s just not number five yet; he's working towards it.
His teammates are all pretty awesome too. None of them directly want to be his friend; there are no sleepover invites or requests for his line I.D. – which would hardly matter since he doesn’t have a phone – and none of them ever ask if they can play volleyball with him outside of practice.
But they all love volleyball almost as much as he does, they include him in every game and he’s never found himself left alone to clean up after practice. Some of his upperclassman have even taken to ruffling his hair after a particularly good rally so he knows he must be doing something right, volleyball-wise at least.
Which is why, when Kanoka knocks on his door one Sunday afternoon in the July of his second year, with eyes so puffy and red that she doesn’t even need to tell him for him to know, he invites her along to their next practice.
She skips her last two periods, a very un-Kanoka-like thing to do, and even then she doesn’t manage to get there until practice is half-over.
“Yo! Amanai!” Tanaka jogs over to her when he spots her loitering uneasily in the doorway.
“I don’t think I have the right shoes.” She mumbles, face flaming when his captain and coach appear either side of him to introduce themselves.
“They’ll do for a taster session”, Gotoda, his captain, assures and offers her his hand to shake. Tanaka has no comparison, but he still thinks he’s been lucky in getting Gotoda as a captain. He’s kind and patient and when Tanaka had explained how his friend was getting bullied in her own school and how he’d really like for her to try taking up volleyball, he’d said yes before he’d even finished asking.
“I apologise in advance,” coach Yashiro sighs in exasperation as a couple of Tanaka’s teammates have already started to yell across the gym at Kanoka that they’re the team’s ace, “they’re very excited to have a girl to show off to.” She turns and blows her whistle at them, rallying them into a line. “Now introduce yourselves to our guest civilly,” she instructs, which goes well until Doko, who’s third in line, blows Kanoka a kiss and Yashiro gives up completely, telling Gotoda he's in charge of running drills with the team.
“Ah–” Tanaka starts, moving a step closer to Kanoka.
“You too Tanaka,” Yashiro interrupts, making shooing motions with her hands, “miss Kanoka and I are going to have some girl time.”
“Oh.” He looks at Kanoka worriedly, but she seems okay with that plan, so he nods. “Alright, thank you coach.” And salutes as he runs backwards to his team.
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
“Sooo,” Gotoda flings an arm around Tanaka’s shoulders at their next water break, slotting his head ear-to-ear with Tanaka’s and watching Kanoka’s serving practice, “is she your soulmate?”
“Ehh?” Tanaka almost headbutts him his head jerks so sharply to stare at him.
“Is that a no?” Gotoda raises an eyebrow at him and grins teasingly.
“I don’t have a soulmate.” Tanaka doesn’t think that’s so weird; he only became a teenager a few months back.
“You don’t have one yet,” Gotoda points out, smirking as he turns back to look at Kanoka, “so she could be yours and you just don’t know it.” Tanaka watches the corners of Kanoka’s mouth dip down determinedly as she tosses the ball up and the way her eyes light up in surprise when her wrist collides with it almost perfectly. None of her serves have made it over the net yet, but that’s only because she’s not hitting it hard enough.
“I don’t think it’s gonna be Amanai,” Tanaka admits after a moment. He’s never even really considered it could be her if he’s honest and as far as he knows Kanoka doesn’t have a name yet either. It’s not something they’ve ever talked about.
And it’s not as if he’d hate it if she were because she’s definitely the kind of friend he hopes sticks with him for his whole life. It’s just, he sort of figured when he met his soulmate he’d know it was them. He’d see their face for the first time and, with or without their name, his heart would thump a whole new rhythm that let him know he’d met his person.
“Hmm,” Gotoda nods like he understands, “that’s a bummer. She’s pretty cute and definitely has volleyball potential.”
“She’s a natural,” Tanaka agrees, grinning when she lets out a small whooping noise as her next serve goes far enough that it bounces off the net.
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
Kanoka gushes about how cool coach Yashiro is and how fun she thinks volleyball is almost the whole way home. She tells him coach said she’s welcome to come by for practice every Sunday, so long as they don’t have a game the following Monday, and has even said she’ll contact Kanoka’s school's coach if she wants, even though she’s sure if she approached and asked herself she’d be welcomed onto the team.
“Of course! You’re a natural!” Tanaka hasn’t seen her so happy in ages, and he tells her so, which only seems to make her happier. Coach Yashiro had even gifted her one of their old volleyballs so she could still play at home if she decided joining her school’s team wasn’t for her.
“But I think I want to be on a team.” She grins as she tosses Tanaka the ball. “You looked like you were having fun on yours.”
“Yeah they’re good guys.” Tanaka tosses it back to her, laughing when she fumbles it and it bounces onto the floor. She jogs after it to pick it back up.
“I just need some real shoes and I’m all set I think.”
“Saeko probably has some you can have.” She has at least a dozen pairs of old trainers and, as fond of them as she is, Tanaka knows she won’t begrudge giving them to Kanoka to have a new life.
“Thanks Tanaka.” Kanoka hugs the volleyball to her chest tightly. “You’ve really saved me, you know?” Tanaka does know because he feels the exact same way about volleyball, but the fondness in her voice makes him feel overly embarrassed all the same.
“What are friends for?” He nudges her with his shoulder. She nudges him back, before racing him the rest of the way home since she’s pretty certain her mum is going to go ballistic; she not only skipped two classes but she’s an hour late home.
They stop, panting at the edge of her garden, like they always used to, and Tanaka watches the way her eyes crinkle when she smiles and finds himself remembering what Gotoda had said, about it being a bummer that Kanoka’s not his soulmate.
“Hey, Amanai,” he pauses when she looks at him in earnest. She really is so cute and so fun, and anyone would be lucky to have her as a soulmate. He decides not to ask her if she has a name, she’d have told him if she wanted him to know, and even if she doesn’t he already knows she wasn't made for him. “Come by whenever to pick out some trainers!”
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
The night before he turns fifteen Tanaka stands in front of the bathroom mirror using one of Saeko’s compact mirrors to check the back of himself. It doesn’t exactly matter, he tells himself, only around half of the population find their names in junior high anyway. He just had this idea that because Saeko found hers when she was fourteen, he’d find his at fourteen; they’re alike in a lot of ways and he just figured they’d match in this way too.
The back of his neck and behind his ears remain painfully blank. His back too. There’s no name wrapped around a thigh or tucked under an armpit or tickling his ribs. Still no name hidden between his toes. Nobody anywhere. He’s separating the hairs in his right eyebrow, just in case a teeny tiny one is lurking in the strands, when Saeko wanders past the door and snorts.
“Maybe you should shave your head, someone could be stuck under all that hair.” Their eyes lock in the mirror and she sighs, expression shifting. “You’re being silly Ryuu,” she comes up behind him and ruffles his hair, “loads of people don’t get them at fourteen.”
“Some people never get them.” He doesn’t know why he says it. The number of nameless people is less than half a percent. The number of people who end up not even liking their soulmate is actually a lot higher. But Tanaka wants one. He wants to know there’s someone out there perfectly designed to be his best friend, providing of course that he doesn’t scare them off.
“Sure,” she concedes, brows dipping in slight concern, “but some people also find their name when they’re fourteen and make it to nineteen still having never met the person it belongs to.” She’s talking about herself now, the name on her forearm decorated with black ink question marks, as she tends to do these days when she’s bored at work.
“Mum and dad found each other when they were twenty-six,” he reminds her.
“Yeah,” she knocks her shoulder into his, “and how old were they when their names showed up?”
“Sixteen.” He knocks her right back. That was their favourite way to be sappy and reminisce about their names; a decade-long wait to the exact day that they locked eyes just before their mum caught their dad as he tripped and almost fell onto a train. My hero, he used to coo at her whenever he saw her, I’ve been looking for you.
“Exactly.” She wraps an arm around his shoulders and plants a kiss into his hair. Before he has time to dwell on the fact that his parents aren’t here anymore, spent ten years waiting and looking for each other only to get rear-ended by a drunk driver one random evening without really having the chance to enjoy their happily-ever-after, Saeko tugs sharply on his ear lobe. “You’ll find your someone, kiddo. Now hurry up and put a top on, dinner’s ready.”
He waits until her footsteps have faded down the corridor before double-checking the skin stretched over his heart. It’s really unusual for children to find their name in the same place as their parents. Unusual, but not impossible.
Still nameless.
Well, whatever. He’s sure it will turn up.
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
It takes Tanaka about half a day to come to the conclusion that high school is way, way better than junior high ever was.
He chose Karasuno mostly for their volleyball team, but a smidge because absolutely nobody from his junior high school is coming here – it’s just far enough away that no one else could be bothered with the journey. But Tanaka likes the journey. He likes the walks to and from the bus stop. And he likes eating his breakfast amongst the early morning bus people and the afternoon nap he gets to have on his return.
And he likes that he gets another chance to find a friend or two; hopefully this time he won’t be too loud or too energetic and scare them all off.
But most of all he likes that when he introduced himself to his class this morning, no one knew who he was or anything. Not a single person, all day long, has looked at him with that soft, awkward pity he’s grown accustomed to. A fresh start, Saeko had said after he’d told her he was applying to Karasuno, will do wonders for you, kiddo. And Tanaka doesn’t want to hope for too much, but Karasuno sure does feel like the kind of place where wonders are possible.
In fact, he’s already decided that Karasuno is at least five-hundred times better than Oujitsu by the time volleyball try-outs roll around and he meets Nishinoya.
Nishinoya is easily the coolest person Tanaka has ever seen in his entire life. He jumps as if gravity doesn’t exist and when he runs Tanaka has to really pay attention to even see his feet touch the ground; he’s like thunder and lightning, like a shock of magic thrown straight at Tanaka when he wasn’t expecting it. Nishinoya hollers around the gym and screeches Tanaka’s name, trusting him with the ball and guarding his back as if they’ve been friends for years.
“You’re really great!” Nishinoya enthuses in his face after try-outs, hands flapping excitedly; the shock of orange in his hair wiggles as he bounces on his toes. “How long have you been playing volleyball?”
“Since forever,” he can feel his face heating up in embarrassment. His mum played volleyball. Before he could even walk she had started to teach him how to play. It was like their thing; playing volleyball makes him feel close to her. A lifetime of practice to be only a normal level of good seems almost useless in the face of how awesome Nishinoya is.
“Me too!” He nods rapidly. “I could sense that about you, ya’know? Your aura is like,” he pinches his eyes closed and presses his palms together, “all volleyball!”
“Yeah?” Tanaka watches as the grin on his own face mirrors itself onto Nishinoya’s.
“One hundred percent, it’s all like,” he rolls his hands in the air, fingers dipping forwards then up like a wave on water, “super-smooth and steady you know?”
“You’re like lightning,” he tells him. “Zapping and rolling everywhere, like thunder and lightning.” Nishinoya’s laugh cracks into the gym, painfully bright and happy, and Tanaka decides on the spot that he’ll do anything to be his best friend.
