Work Text:
Hinata burst through the double doors which slammed open and closed again behind him with a crash. He stopped abruptly to take a deep breath through his nose and sigh loudly.
“Air salonpas?” a voice said from behind him.
Hinata turned around to find Kageyama looking at him with an unreadable expression, just having burst through the doors himself. Hinata took another deep breath, sniffing the air. Then he shook his head.
“No. It’s like…” another sniff to determine what that smell was. It was something close to metal but also synthetic mixed with a hint of sawdust. Almost like the way it smelled when he’d used to bike past a construction site. “New.”
“New?” Kageyama asked, discreetly sniffing the air too. Then he rolled his eyes. “Of course it smells new, the arena was completed just a few months ago. Dumbass.”
The setter was right. The arena was indeed completed just a few months ago. The floors were still fresh and clean and bore no marks from shoes. The chairs had not yet been worn down from thousands of people sitting on them. Years of high stakes games had not yet permanently set a smell of sweat and cooling spray. No tournaments had been held here.
Yet.
Hinata and Kageyama looked at each other for a moment, smiling at their luck.
“Hey! Demon duo! Wait up!” The doors flew open again and revealed a dozen men in matching red tracksuits. The person calling after them was tall and broad shouldered, with spiky white and black hair.
“Sorry, I got excited!” Hinata apologised, as Kageyama belted “Don’t call us that!”
Bokuto walked up between the pair and swung an arm around each of their shoulders.
“We sure are far from the smelly old gym number 3 now,” he said and sighed.
“It’s just thirty minutes away by train,” said Kageyama, confused at his teammate’s sentimental moment of reflection.
“I meant figuratively!” Bokuto said and playfully hit Kageyama round the head. Hinata laughed and earned himself and Bokuto a shove from the setter as he wiggled out of the spiker’s grip.
“Hey now, settle down everyone. Don’t forget what we’re here for,” said the captain of their team, before the play fight got out of hand. Bokuto dropped his arm from Hinata’s shoulders as Kageyama took a step back and let go of the front of Hinata’s shirt. Hinata himself stopped trying to reach for Kageyama’s neck.
“Sorry,” they all said in unison, fighting to keep their faces neutral. Hinata was the first to start laughing, closely followed by Bokuto. Their captain sighed.
“It’s gonna be a long two weeks,” he said, before signing to the team to follow him to their bench. Bokuto happily bounced after them, but Hinata grabbed the back of Kageyama’s red jacket with Japan written on the back in white roman letters. Kageyama turned around to look down at the man he had known since they were boys. Hinata looked up at his destined rival. His destined partner.
“We’re here. We’re on the world stage,” Hinata said. There was something eerie about his eyes.
Kageyama smiled. The same determined smile he’d shown when they first met eight years ago. The same determined smile as when they said goodbye in their third year of high school. The same smile as when they met again in their first game facing each other since middle school. The smile he only ever showed Hinata.
“I won’t lose,” Kageyama said.
“Neither will I,” Hinata retorted. Not when I have you. He thought.
“We will stay on the court until the end,” Kageyama concluded. Hinata nodded, eyes blazing.
Together they stepped onto the court of Ariake Arena. The Olympic Games of 2020 were about to begin.