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It’s a Thursday evening and it’s raining just enough to mute the sound of vehicles crossing the streets. Kunimi is scrolling through his phone when he gets the distinct feeling that he’s being watched and lifts his head just in time to see Kageyama Tobio looking at him from across the street like he’s seen a ghost.
He’s standing under the roof of the building across from the bus stop where Kunimi is, and the first thing Kunimi notices about him is that he’s holding a bag of takeout from the exact same place Kunimi buys curry from whenever it’s his turn to cook. He still looks the same as he had when Kunimi had seen him last: eyes that never learned how to hide his feelings; blue and burning like the sky on a cloudless day, shoulders straight and tense like he was the string on a guitar, lips pressed into a thin line like he wasn’t sure if he should smile or not. When he realizes that Kunimi is looking back at him, his hands tighten around the plastic bag and he goes rigid like a log buried under snow for a long time.
Like the last time they met, his jacket is zipped to his chin. Unlike then, there’s the flag of Japan embroidered on it, a few paces to the left of his heart.
Kunimi smiles and it’s only a slight tug of his lips, easy to miss in the grey that often comes with rain, and he slowly raises his hand and waves. Kageyama stiffens like the air in his lungs won’t leave, and his blue eyes are wide and surprised, like they’re saying, Me? You’re waving at me? He’s never been the best at concealing his initial emotions about anything, his brain-to-mouth filter never the most functional, but as soon as he realizes that Kunimi is waiting for a response, he nods slightly, and then waves back.
There’s no space next to either of them where they’re stuck, Kunimi flanked by some of the guys from university he makes small talk with on the bus and Kageyama surrounded by high school kids pretending not to notice him, so neither of them make a move to cross the street and talk to each other. Instead, Kageyama nods at him as he leaves to get on the bus.
And Kunimi, knowing that it would be appreciated, waves again and mouths, Later .
. . .
Later is a sunny day two weeks after the bus stop incident. Kageyama curls his fingers around the loose material of the grey shirt Kunimi is wearing as he’s walking towards the bus stop, carefully not touching any skin, and the first thing he says to Kunimi is, “Your bag isn’t zipped up properly.”
Two years of a not-friendship that consisted of nodding at each other across the court and shaking hands under a volleyball net, a year of not having seen each other at all, and Kageyama still sounds the same as he always has. Curt, slightly awkward, only a little bit hesitant. His hand drops from Kunimi’s wrist after a beat and Kunimi turns to see that the zipper of his bag is, in fact, half open.
“Thanks,” Kunimi says. He pulls the zipper until his bag is closed properly, and if Kageyama notices the Aoba Johsai keychain on it, he doesn’t comment on it.
He’s wearing a yellow sweatshirt that is precisely the same color as the sunflowers Kunimi had seen in the countryside when he was eleven years old. They bring out the blue in his eyes like they’re sapphires in desert sand, and Kunimi only hesitates a beat before he offers him a polite half-smile.
“Sorry about not saying anything the other day,” he says, because he knows Kageyama is no good when it comes to small talk. He isn’t either, but between the two of them, he thinks he’s got a better chance. “It was raining and I was stuck. You know how it is.”
Kageyama has a band-aid on his palm and it’s got little Iron-man cartoons printed on it. His hair is slightly tousled from the wind, dark strands hanging over his eyes, and he’s tense like the bowstring on an arrow.
“Yeah, I get it.” He replies. The band-aid crunches when he curls his hand into a fist. Nerves have never been the best look on Kageyama, and Kunimi thinks back to the blotchy red on his knuckles when he’d pumped his fist in the air after the last point of the final game they’d played together.
Even now, it feels like there’s something in between them, the neat squares of the nylon strings on a volleyball net criss crossing his vision like it used to when they were sixteen and didn’t know any better. It feels like they’re worlds apart, though it would take one step, or maybe two, until the tips of their shoes are touching.
“There’s a vending machine down the street,” Kunimi says. The wind around them seems to still, settling onto the outline of their figures, and for a bare moment, the rest of the world melts and it’s just them, Kunimi daring not to hope and Kageyama with his eyes wide in surprise. “If you want, we could catch up.”
Kageyama doesn’t say anything, but he moves, brushing past Kunimi as he does. His shirt, the color of the sun, barely touches Kunimi’s grey one and he can’t help but notice the contrast between them.
Kunimi; the storm clouds, the grey, the dull, the ordinary. Kageyama; the sun, the flames that come with excitement, the brightest color in the universe, the extraordinary.
He stops a few steps ahead and tilts his head towards the open street.
And he asks, “You coming, Kunimi?”
Kunimi follows. He counts the steps, one and two and three, until he’s walking side by side with Kageyama. There’s nothing extraordinary about the way their hands brush as he does, but Kunimi’s heart skips a beat all the same.
. . .
Kageyama has a setter’s hands and they curl around the carton of milk he’s drinking the same way he held onto his jacket when he was in junior high and introducing himself to Kunimi for the first time. Kunimi, having said goodbye after an hour or so of catching up, is a few steps ahead of him when he feels Kageyama’s hand close around his wrist.
It burns where he touches, pleasant like the sunlight in the afternoon on hot summer days, and Kunimi turns to see that Kageyama’s eyes are bright and nervous.
For a moment it’s like being thirteen and back in Kita-Ichi before everything started going horribly wrong, like seeing Kageyama and seeing the promise of something more than what they ended up being again. Kunimi almost expects him to blurt out, I’m Kageyama Tobio, from class 1-D, pleasure to make your acquaintance.
“Can I see you again?” He asks this time, but the look in his eyes is the same as it was back then.
But this time, maybe this time, things will be different.
“Yeah,” Kunimi answers. Kageyama doesn’t let go of his wrist and it’s like the days when the sun slips through the gaps between the grey clouds as it rains, the extraordinary and the ordinary meeting in perfect harmony. “I’ll see you, Kageyama.”
The fingers around his wrist loosen their hold, and reluctantly, Kageyama smiles. A half-quirk of his lips, barely there and slightly awkward.
“See you, Kunimi,” he says, and Kunimi’s heart stutters and stumbles.
“Later,” Kunimi says, and he lets himself hope.
. . .