Work Text:
01.
It's not realistic, not in the slightest, because he's supposed to always be there for Hinata, always make him invincible. His world crashes to an end too abruptly, too quickly, with the sound of screeching tires ringing in his ears.
02.
It was a hit-and-run.
The murderer got away with it.
03.
Tobio doesn't live, but he has a presence- a strong one, too, for he was strong even when living. Hinata can sense it, and he talks to him sometimes, his voice faking cheerfulness.
"It's lonely without you, you know?"
Hinata says one day, and some awful part of Tobio wants to smile at these words, twisted and pained but a smile nevertheless. Hinata misses him, and that is more than satisfying.
04.
Sometimes he visits the others, and their reactions differ. Sugawara talks to him, just like Hinata. He talks about his studies and his hobbies other than volleyball (he likes knitting, apparently, and he doesn't care what other people think of that), and asks Tobio questions as if he can hear his answers. Kageyama answers them anyways, and Suga nods like he can hear, although it's evident that he can't when he sometimes nods too soon or a fraction of a second too late. Kageyama doesn't like to hang around Suga much. It's too normal. Suga speaks as if he's still there.
05.
Nobody else talks to him. He's lonely.
06.
Sometimes people visit him instead of the other way around. The volleyball team organize a group field trip to Hokkaido, where Kageyama's grave lies with the rest of his deceased family members'. Suga holds Daichi's hand, grips it hard. Nishinoya does nothing, fists clenched. Asahi stares at the ground. There are some sniffles from some others in the group, but Hinata just looks angry.
07.
Many months pass, and it's painful watching them grow, while he stands in a stationary line. He's left behind in the dust.
08.
Hinata matures. His personality becomes a little less bubbly, a little less friendly, a little less happy. He talks to Kageyama every night. He cries sometimes, and Tobio watches passively. There is a heavy aching in his chest. Hinata is talking to someone who doesn't even exist anymore. The feeling of dark satisfaction comes back.
09.
There's almost nothing to do. Tobio feels himself spiraling into madness, but he doesn't care. There are other spirits that mingle around on the earth, of course, just to look and feel the waves of nostalgia. His great grandfather had told him that if you headed straight for the sun, you'd be reborn in a different time period. He'd left shortly after, and Kageyama wonders occasionally how his new life is.
There's nothing to do.
10.
People die, and their spirits come and go. Kageyama stays and waits, waits, waits. He wants to see that smile again.
11.
Hinata doesn't talk to him anymore.
12.
Kageyama wonders if he's forgotten, but sometimes Hinata cries into his pillow at night, and Tobio occasionally cries with him, though the tears that fall are dry. Hinata is sad, and at the times when Kageyama accompanies him to school, it's obvious. Suga is doting and caring. He's cheerful in school. He's such a good actor that it's hard to tell if he's being genuine or not. But Suga sometimes cries at night too, when there's nobody but Kageyama's presence around to hear, and Kageyama knows he's hurting. It doesn't give him the same grim sense of satisfaction.
13.
More months pass. Kageyama longs for one of them to die, so they can both wait together for the others, for Hinata. It's selfish and Tobio scolds himself for the ugliness in his thoughts, but they don't stop coming into his mind. Kageyama is lonely, an empty soul hovering in existence.
14.
Suga and the other seniors go to college. Hinata is younger, so he still has many more months of high school to go. Kageyama wishes for his death. He's lonely. The grim satisfaction when Shouyou cries for him dulls and weakens, and then all of the sudden Hinata doesn't anymore. When the high schooler flops into bed at night, he pulls the covers up to his chin and sleeps. Nothing more, nothing less. An empty void of black settles in Kageyama's stomach, and he tries to cry, but the tears still don't seem to fall.
15.
Hinata may miss Kageyama, but Kageyama misses Hinata so, so much more. Kageyama cries his dry tears more often than not.
16.
Tobio visits Suga and the others.
When he whisks his way into the tiny apartment that Suga and Daichi are somehow able to afford, (Maybe they both work part-time at some shop. Maybe they balance their schedules really well. Kageyama wouldn't know, because he never bothered to learn about that stuff.) Suga is alone. He looks up immediately from the book that he's reading when Kageyama enters the room. He must not have morning classes.
"Kageyama?"
He asks uncertainly. Kageyama says, 'Yes, it's me.', but it goes unheard, as everything he says does. His voice sounds foreign even to his own ears. Suga smiles.
"How's Hinata?"
He asks aloud, and the silence is terrifying, but Suga doesn't seem scared at all. He nods even though Kageyama didn't even say anything; thumbs through the pages of the book sitting idly on his lap.
"Make yourself at home."
Suga says, gesturing to the comfy looking couches around him, and Kageyama must have become a really big crybaby, because he cries his dry tears, cries because somebody is talking to him as if the crash never happened.
17.
Kageyama goes back home to Hinata. If Hinata notices, he doesn't show it.
18.
Suga finishes college and gets a job as a Japanese Language teacher in a new elementary school. Daichi gets one at the same school as a gym teacher. He proposes, and Kageyama is happy for their engagement. The void of black in his stomach grows.
He's jealous that they can love each other; jealous that they can talk to each other; laugh at each other's jokes.
19.
2 years pass. Kageyama witnesses Hinata hit his growth spurt and grow, and grow, and grow, but he never quite reaches average height. Suga and Daichi quit their jobs and move together down south. Kageyama doesn't want to travel that far and look that much to find them. They slip from his mind, slowly but surely, and Kageyama slips from Hinata's, more and more each day.
20.
Hinata quits volleyball when he goes to college. Kageyama hears a phantom squeaking of sneakers on a gym floor, a reminder of what could have been.
21.
Hinata talks to him for the first time in seven years at the tail end of his college career.
"Kageyama?"
He says, slowly, uncertainly. Kageyama's breath hitches a little bit, and he really misses Hinata, really misses his old smile, the way he talked, the way he bounced on the balls of his feet whenever he walked with him. Kageyama misses all of that, all of him.
"I'm going to move on."
Hinata says, and that's that. The void in his stomach grows larger, much, much larger, threatening to swallow Kageyama whole.
22.
Hinata gets out of college, lands a pretty good job, and proposes to a girl that he dated for three years. The world crashes down around Kageyama when she gasps, blushes, and cries out,
"Yes, Shouyou! Yes!"
The void swallows him. Kageyama cries, and his tears are wet. They stain the ground below him for a tenth of a millisecond before disappearing, quick as they came.
23.
Kageyama leaves. He aims for the sun, but it wouldn't matter if he landed on the moon.
24.
Maybe in his next life, somehow, Shouyou will be there.
25.
He is.