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Our world revolves around touch. We have five fingers on each hand and each fingertip has more than three thousand touch receptors.
We touch countless things throughout our lives, some of them voluntarily, a lot of them even unconsciously. Some of them are pleasant to touch, others not so much. We pretend to be picky about what we touch, but is that really the case? How often do we touch dirty things, things many people have touched before us? How often do we wash our hands? How often do we clean our phone screens?
Our fingertips are extremely sensitive. Do you remember the last paper cut you had? They are so tiny, they barely bleed, but they often feel worse than more serious injuries on other parts of our bodies. Did you ever burn one of your fingertips? You don't even know on how much you miss out when you suddenly can't use them anymore.
Most people don't really think about these things and they don't take good care of their hands and fingers, but to Kageyama it's different. Throughout his career, his hands have been called 'genius hands' numerous times, but he hates that, hates the implication behind that.
Yes, he is talented, very much so even, but his hands? They are not. They are the way they are - able to gracefully and precisely send a ball flying all the way across the court - because he maintains them. He trains them, he always keeps his nails short and evenly filed, and he never tapes them.
He simply does everything in his power to always make the most out of every time he touches a volleyball. He never, not even once, skips his pre-game routine.
"What are you scowling for?"
Kageyama jerks when he is suddenly torn from his thoughts. He must have been really lost in thought, so much that he didn't even notice Atsumu entering the room.
"It's just a game, you know?" Miya adds, and Kageyama hates it.
He hates the way he says that, acting all indifferent and cool. And he hates what he's trying to imply.
"You know damn well it's not," he replies, frowning even more than before, "At least not to me."
"I know it's never just a game to you," Atsumu says as sits down next to him on the bed.
He looks ready to go, all dressed up in their red tracksuit. He left the jacket open so that you can see his jersey with the Japanese flag on his chest right underneath. Kageyama glances over to the hotel room's door and sees Miya's sports bag right next to it. But he goes back to filing his nails without answering him.
"We have an hour left until we need to leave," Miya continues when he doesn't get a reply.
Atsumu sits close to him and Kageyama can feel his piercing gaze, but he keeps staring at his hands nevertheless. He flinches slightly when he feels Miya tuck a strand of hair behind his ear, but relaxes again when he starts to rub his neck and back.
"No one knows if this really is your last Olympics," he says softly, "And if it's your last, it's my last too, you know?"
"Then why do you not care?" Kageyama asks, angry all of a sudden, and finally looks up.
Miya knows him well enough by now to pull his hand back but not be offended. He knows that Kageyama generally doesn't like to be touched and the fact that he is one of the very few people who is allowed to at all, is honor enough. He knows that he shouldn't push his luck in a situation like this.
"Of course I care. And I'm scared," he says as he looks up at the ceiling and sighs, "I'm scared we lose. I don't want my last memory from the Olympics to be a lost final. And I'm scared that even if we win, it won't feel like a good last memory. I know everyone is going to say that winning a final is the best way to go, but I'm not so sure about that. I don't think I'm ready. And I'm scared I don't even get to play today and that I've already had my last game without knowing."
As he hears that, Kageyama feels slightly guilty for snapping at him. He still can't deal well with the fact that Miya often pretends not to have a care in the world. Even if he knows that it's not true, that it's just the way he'd like it to be, it irks him.
"But on the other hand," Miya continues, "It's okay. I got to play a lot of games. I scored many service aces. When I close my eyes, I can still hear the crowd scream my name, and I can feel the silence when I signal them to stop. I remember the feeling of fooling the opponent's blocks, seeing everyone dance to my tune. And I got to experience it three times already, in three different cities, on three different continents. I even got to experience in my home country. And I got to experience it with you."
Kageyama wants to say something to that, but Miya immediately shushes him again.
"And it's not where it ends. It's not the end of my professional career. And even when that ends, I can still play for fun. And when I can't play anymore, I can teach and I can watch. And I still have more in life than that. I'm still hoping you'll actually marry me someday, you know?" Atsumu says and pauses long enough for Kageyama to understand that he's finished with his monologue.
Kageyama's fingers unconsciously move up to touch the ring that's on a necklace below his jersey. He has been wearing it for nearly four years now, ever since Atsumu proposed to him. In his whole life, he had never agreed to anything faster, but he'd refused to ever put the ring on his finger because if he won't even tape them, how could he put a ring on one? And he'd expected to get into a huge fight about it with Atsumu, but he'd just pulled the necklace out of his pocket with a smug grin on his face, well-prepared as always.
"Still, it makes me sad," Kageyama says after thinking about it for a moment, "I had the chance to do what I love the most for all my life, even professionally for some part of it, but I don't know how to let go. If it's not competitive, a part of the fun will always be missing. And I'm not good with words, I could never become a coach like you. And obviously, we'll get married, and I love the thought of spending the rest of my life with you, but it's never going to compare to-"
Kageyama stops mid-sentence.
"You were going to say something cheesy like 'my first love', am I right?" Miya teases him and there's an unexpectedly warm smile on his lips.
Kageyama blushes, "I wasn't!"
"Mhhh," Miya hums, "I know I'll never be able to fulfill you the way volleyball does, but that's okay too. All I was trying to say is that I know you're scared and that I'm scared too. But as long as we have each other, we're not alone. We'll build our own future."
This time, when Miya reaches for Kageyama's face, he doesn't flinch and lets the soft fingertips caress his cheeks. The sensation sends shivers down his spine, and even more when his fiancé takes one of his hands. They interlock their fingers.
"This is going to sound incredibly cheesy and if you ever tell anybody I said this, I will deny it," Atsumu adds, "But think about it like this.. We're not even in our thirties yet. Everything up until now was pretty much pre-game. But as much as you love the routine, you love all the unpredictable matches as well. Even if you lose one, there'll always be a next. And life's like that too. We might not know what comes after that, and it'll have its ups and downs, but I promise you, it's going to be okay. And the one thing I know is that we are endgame."
Before Kageyama is even able to see the blush on Atsumu's cheeks or process any of his words, Atsumu leans in for a kiss and ends their conversation.
It's soft and warm and feels so good, Kageyama can't help but smile against the other's mouth and drink in every last bit of the kiss.
He knows that soon he might not get to touch a volleyball as often as he'd like anymore, but he's happy he still gets to touch the one person in the whole wide world he loves the most. And even if his body gets older and weaker, and his hands won't be those of a genius anymore, that's a thing his fingers will always be good enough for.
And something we often forget about is that our lips are just as sensitive as our fingertips. And he's lucky because he'll not only get to touch him, he'll always get to kiss him, too.