Archive of Our Own ^beta

             “Psst, Kei.”
             Tsukishima rolled over in bed, away from the source of the whisper. He shut his eyes tighter and groaned.
             “Kei. You awake?”
             He felt a finger lightly prod at his blanketed shoulder. The exercise of clutching at his receding unconsciousness grew more and more futile by the second, so he turned over roughly, tossing off his covers and glaring at the owner of the finger and voice that so rudely woke him up.
             “What?” he whined. Akiteru smiled back at him, an unperturbed blur of blond. Of course his brother would wake him up the day after his birthday, the one day he was allowed to sleep in. Not to mention, since it was his twelfth, he’d been up late enduring endless affection from his family and a cellular assault from Yamaguchi. As he felt around the nightstand for his glasses, Akiteru rocked back on his heels, crouched eagerly next to his bed like a vulture.
             “Aw, c’mon,” he chuckled. “Aren’t you excited?”
             “For what?”
             Akiteru’s smile, and the faint furrow of disbelief in his brow, grew clear as Tsukishima put on his glasses. He knew, of course, what his brother was talking about, but that didn’t mean he was going to play along.
             “Don’t be ridiculous, Kei. You couldn’t have forgotten.”
             “Forgotten what?”
             Unable to keep up his facade, Tsukishima glanced away from Akiteru, sitting up in bed and folding his arms. In spite of what he was sure was a convincing display of ignorance, he could see realization dawning on his brother’s face out of the corner of his eye.
             “Oh, I get it.”
             He winced, startled, as a light karate chop thudded onto the top of his head.
             “You’re trying to look cool, huh? Don’t worry. I’m your big brother. I already know you’re lame.”
             “H-hey!” Tsukishima whipped around to shoot Akiteru an offended glare. That glare became hard to maintain as his brother laughed and ruffled his hair.
             “I was wondering why you didn’t talk about it at all yesterday. I was gonna ask you, but Mom made me promise not to bother you.” Tsukishima knocked his hand away and regained his pout.
             “I’m not trying to look cool. It’s just not a big deal, that’s all.”
             “Of course it’s a big deal. It’s your soulmate. Even you have to be a little curious.” Akiteru sat back fully, resting his chin on his arms, which in turn rested on his knees. Tsukishima did, admittedly, feel the tiniest drop - okay, a wave - of curiosity at the prospect of finding out who his soulmate might be, but he tried to push that curiosity aside.
             “I just don’t get why everyone gets so worked up about it.” He rested his back against the wall behind him, drawing his knees to his chest in a similar position to his brother. “All the girls in my class always freak out whenever their twelfth birthday comes around, and the teacher just lets them sit there for half an hour until they see their soulmate. It’s really annoying. And they never recognize the guy, anyway, so what’s the point?”
             “Well, of course you probably don’t know them yet,” Akiteru responded. “The point is that if you ever do see them, you might recognize them then. And anyway, it’s fun. There’s no reason not to do it, is there?”
             “Yeah, there is,” Tsukishima grumbled petulantly. “If I do it now, I’ll fall asleep. ‘Cause you woke me up.” Akiteru grinned back at him, tilting his head.
             “Well then, if you do start to fall asleep, I can just wake you up again.”
             Tsukishima frowned at him, trying not to let his expression show how badly he wanted to be convinced. He’d resolved not to have his soulmate vision yesterday, in class, when half the girls in his grade, plus Yamaguchi, had spent the whole day pestering him to do it. Now, however, sitting in front of his brother, away from the judging eyes of his peers, he had to admit that there really wasn’t a reason not to do it. He sighed, glancing away again.
             “...Fine.”
             “Great!” Akiteru stood with a slight bounce, clapped his hands together, and sat down next to him on the bed. “Okay, now sit with your eyes closed and concentrate.”
             “I know how to do it,” Tsukishima protested, squeezing his eyes shut.
             “It’s gonna take longer than you think,” his brother cautioned, ignoring him. “Thirty minutes is a long time to sit there doing nothing. And when you get the vision, it’ll be pretty blurry. But I promise it’s worth it.”
             “How would you know?” He could still distinctively feel sleepiness stinging at the back of his eyes. “You haven’t even found your soulmate yet.”
             “Well, yeah. I’m only seventeen.” Akiteru’s voice took on a defensive edge, before melting into excitement again. “But now I’ll definitely know her when I see her. I can tell from my visions that she’s-,”
             “Super cute, I know.”
             “Yep.” The bed creaked as his brother shifted his weight. “But enough about my soulmate. You need to concentrate on yours.” His tone turned lilting and syrupy, almost teasing. “So, what are you hoping for?” Tsukishima watched floaters slowly cross his blackened vision, changing shape and color.
             “I don’t know.” For once, he was being honest. He really hadn’t put much thought into who he wanted his soulmate to be. “Does it matter? They’re your soulmate, so you’ll end up liking them no matter what.”
             Akiteru hummed.
             “Sometimes the universe likes to throw a wrench in the works,” he commented cryptically. “Anyway, you’re supposed to be concentrating on your soulmate, so talking about what you want will probably help.”
             “I don’t know,” Tsukishima repeated, squeezing his eyes shut tighter. “Someone cool, I guess?”
             “That’s too vague.” His brother laughed. “Like a delinquent, or a popular girl?” Tsukishima shuffled, feeling a faint flush of warmth in his cheeks as patterns danced across the backs of his eyelids.
             “Just… someone smart. And good at things.”
             “Wow. I guess you weren’t completely lying. You really haven’t put a lot of thought into this.”
             “There’s no point in thinking about it,” Tsukishima shot back irritably. “Your soulmate’s your soulmate, no matter what.”
             “Okay, okay. What about looks? What do you want her to look like?”
             Tsukishima sighed, dropping his chin onto his arms. If he hadn’t thought much about what he wanted his soulmate’s personality to be, he certainly hadn’t thought about her looks. When classmates asked what type of girl he liked, he usually just responded with a shrug, and he’d never had a crush before. Truth be told, he had very little to go off of. Still, as his room fell silent save for the faint rustling of branches in the autumn wind outside, a single thought reached his mind.
             “Blue eyes.”
             The two words left his mouth almost of their own accord, and he immediately felt sheepish as another short silence fell over the room.
             “Well now, that’s specific,” Akiteru remarked, sounding faintly amused. “Where’d that come from?”
             “I-I don’t know.” Even though he was telling the truth, Tsukishima could tell his tone wasn’t convincing. “I just feel like my soulmate has blue eyes, that’s all.”
             “It must be the call of destiny,” his brother said dramatically. “It’s working. Keep concentrating.”
             “How much longer?” Tsukishima groaned.
             “Another twenty minutes, at least.”
             “Seriously?”
             His brother continued to pester him throughout the remainder of those twenty minutes, asking him endless questions about his soulmate that he had no idea how to answer. Still, talking about his soulmate had made him even more curious, and as time passed, he began peering through the patterns in his vision for any sign of a figure beginning to emerge. Finally, as his sight remained dark, his patience started to wear thin.
             “What if she doesn’t show up?” he asked frustratedly.
             “Don’t worry. She will.”
             “But what if….” He racked his brain for some explanation, shifting position. “What if I can’t see her ‘cause my eyesight’s already bad?”
             “Don’t be silly.” Akiteru laughed. “Even people with glasses have soulmates.”
             “But-,”
             At that moment, something melted through the darkness of his eyelids, hazy and glowing. Tsukishima was accustomed to blurry vision, but this was different - like viewing something from under the surface of a pool, or looking directly at a point of light too bright to make out clearly. His breath caught in his throat as he began to make out the edges of a silhouette - someone’s head, then their shoulders, then soft, sloping lines curving down the edges of their arms, to their legs, to their feet. His soulmate stood, suspended in a void, a mess of glowing color.
             “What is it?” Akiteru asked, audibly excited, from the real world. “Do you see her?”
             Tsukishima ignored him. The person in his vision moved, walking forward slowly with one hand suspended in front of them. Somewhere in the world, right now, his soulmate was taking these exact actions, moving in this exact way, some indiscernible distance away from him. He felt excitement rise to his own chest, and studied the figure closely for any hint as to what they were doing. As he watched, their features became clearer - short, dark hair, a lean build, and finally, piercing through the light surrounding them, a set of shimmering sapphire eyes.
             The figure’s hand suddenly moved up, and Tsukishima inhaled sharply as he recognized the familiar motion. His soulmate jumped straight up, arms extended in the air above their head, fingers spread in preparation for a volleyball Tsukishima couldn’t see. He watched as they set the invisible ball and descended back down to the equally invisible earth. And then, from within a face of cloudy light, those deep blue eyes studied something off to their right and glittered.
             Tsukishima’s body stiffened. Something was wrong with the figure in front of him. He studied every detail he could make out - short hair, lean build, and in those eyes, something he couldn’t help but recognize. He felt as though he knew this person in some vague way, and as the figure walked over and crouched to pick something up, he knew somehow that his soulmate was a boy.
             His eyes flew open, and the figure was gone.
             “Well?” Akiteru leaned over, smiling expectantly. “Did you see her? What did she look like?”
             Tsukishima stared back at him, his eyes still adjusting to the light in his room. He hesitated, the excitement in his chest suddenly replaced with a choking sense of apprehension. None of the boys in his class, at least the ones who ever talked about it, had male soulmates, and none of the girls’ soulmates were female, either. And, of course, his brother’s soulmate was a girl, too, and a super cute one, as he was constantly reminding anyone who would listen. For the first time in his life, as he watched Akiteru tilt his head, still waiting for a response, Tsukishima was struck with the awful, undeniable feeling of being different.
             “I-I didn’t see her,” he lied, scooting hastily to the edge of his bed. “This is stupid. I’m going to get breakfast.”
             “What?” Akiteru called after him in disbelief as he stood. “No way! You totally froze up there for a second. There’s no way you didn’t see her!”
             “Yeah, well, I didn’t.” Tsukishima turned as he opened the door, watching his brother get up from his bed with a bemused expression. “I didn’t see my stupid soulmate. Maybe I don’t have one.”
             With that, he turned and stalked out of his room.

             Tsukishima let out a long sigh, leaning against the uncomfortable plastic seat that was currently assaulting his back. The room was far too loud, the people in the stand cheering with an unnatural amount of enthusiasm for a middle school volleyball tournament. In fact, he thought, there were far too many people here to begin with - probably just parents and bored classmates looking for an excuse to get out of school.
             “Kitagawa Daiichi’s playing next.”
             Tsukishima turned to see Yamaguchi perched on the edge of the seat next to him with a piece of paper in his hands, lined with a grid of wrinkles from where it had been folded. The paper displayed the tournament bracket, and his friend’s eyes searched it with glimmering curiosity, obviously taken with the same enthusiasm as the crowd around them.
             “They’re supposed to win the whole tournament, right?” Yamaguchi looked over at him, and he gave only a disinterested hum in response. His friend looked back at the paper and chattered on. “People say they’re really tall. And their setter’s supposed to be amazing, too. Everyone calls him the King of the Court.”
             “King of the Court?” Tsukishima scoffed, somewhat amused. “That’s way too dramatic.”
             “Yeah,” Yamaguchi agreed with a sheepish smile.
             Suddenly, the crowd around them roared. Tsukishima winced irritably, eyes instinctively drawn to the other side of the gym, where a group of players dressed in blue and white were making their way onto the court. They were tall, admittedly, but at a cursory glance, Tsukishima could tell none of them were taller than him. Still, if they were the picks to win the tournament, he expected they must have some sort of extraordinary talent ensuring their victory. As they approached the side of the gym where he was seated, milling around to start their warmups, he scanned Kitagawa Daiichi for the setter Yamaguchi had mentioned.
             He froze. There was the setter, taking his place in front of the net - a boy with short, dark hair, a lean build, and deep, piercing blue eyes that shone with cool concentration.
             Tsukishima swallowed, hard. He was sure he was just overreacting; plenty of people had dark hair and blue eyes, and besides, years had passed since he’d had his first and only vision of his soulmate, sitting in his bedroom the day after his twelfth birthday. Even so, as Kitagawa Daiichi and some less popular team lined up across the court from each other, he couldn’t help but find something familiar about those eyes, about the way that figure moved.
             “What’s their setter’s name?” he asked, still staring at the court. Yamaguchi regarded him with slight surprise.
             “Kageyama, I think. I don’t know his first name.”
             The referee’s whistle sounded, and the game began. Tsukishima concentrated on maintaining his relaxed posture, trying to look disinterested even as he kept his eyes trained on Kageyama. He could tell the setter was talented, moving with an air of grace and precision that surpassed anyone else on the court. As questions raced through his mind, he found himself forgetting to breathe. His soulmate was a volleyball player, matching this exact age and physicality, and a setter, no less. He grew even more irritated at the boisterousness of the crowd around him - if it weren’t for their noise, he might have time to close his eyes and concentrate long enough to check on what his soulmate was doing right now.
             And then, halfway through the first set, Kageyama tossed the ball so quickly that it shot past his wing spiker, thudding to the ground several feet outside the court. Tsukishima blinked as the setter whirled around, snapping in a voice loud enough for the entire gym to hear.
             “You have to move faster than that! When are you going to start taking this seriously?”
             Tsukishima stiffened, brow furrowing in disbelief. The wing spiker, a tired-looking boy with short, dark brown hair, mumbled what seemed to be an apology and jogged casually back into position. A couple of rows in front of Tsukishima, a young adult spoke up loudly, apparently to the man sitting beside him.
             “What? He should be apologizing to that spiker, not yelling at him. That toss was impossible.”
             “That’s the King of the Court for you,” the other man remarked with a sigh. “Always bossing his teammates around like he’s the only one playing. He’d be a perfect setter if it weren’t for that attitude.”
             “Scary,” Yamaguchi commented with a shudder. “So I guess ‘King’ is an insult.”
             Tsukishima hummed again. The mixture of nervousness and excitement faded from his gut, replaced with a hollow sense of conflict. As the game continued, the point margin narrowing, Kageyama continued setting ridiculous toss after ridiculous toss, growing visibly and audibly more agitated every time a spiker missed. He was, without a doubt, the most needlessly intense player Tsukishima had ever seen, and he couldn’t help but feel irritated when the setter continued lashing out at his teammates even as the second set began. Finally, Kageyama sent yet another lightning fast toss to the right side of the court, and Tsukishima watched along with the rest of the crowd as it thudded to the linoleum, untouched. Not a single spiker even tried to approach it.
             Tsukishima could see the look of shock and betrayal in the setter’s sapphire eyes, a look that only irritated him more. This was only a club activity, a middle school one at that, and yet Kageyama looked as though his world was crashing down around him as the coach switched him out. Tsukishima scoffed disdainfully, thoughts drifting back to his conversation with Akiteru when he’d first seen his soulmate. Sometimes the universe likes to throw a wrench in the works, his brother had said.
             If the jerk on the court below him was his soulmate, the universe had thrown in a pretty big wrench.

             “Tsukki!”
             The fist bunched in the collar of Tsukishima’s gakuran was trembling. Just a few inches from his own face was Kageyama’s, eyebrows lowered, head cocked slightly to the side. And shadowed by the fringe of his black hair were those gunmetal blue eyes, closer than Tsukishima had ever seen them, shining like hardened ice. He returned the other boy’s glare with a smile, almost as a challenge. If this person was anything like he’d been during the middle school tournament, he wouldn’t put it past him to hit him.
             Instead, Kageyama roughly released his collar and turned away in a single, fluid motion. Tsukishima watched with dull interest as he walked away and slid his bag over his shoulder, before bending over to pick up the volleyball at his own feet.
             “Let’s go,” Kageyama said in a cold monotone to the orange-haired boy he’d been practicing with.
             “Running away?” Tsukishima asked. “I guess the King isn’t what he’s cracked up to be.” Kageyama kept walking, and he called after him, spurred on by some sense of resentment with a source he couldn’t identify. A part of him wanted the setter to turn around. “Maybe I’ll win against the King this Saturday, too.” He tossed the volleyball idly up in the air.
             Suddenly, orange flashed across his vision, and he stared in astonishment as the redheaded boy seemingly flew past him to catch the volleyball before it could land back in his palm. He’d been so absorbed in watching Kageyama leave that he’d almost forgotten the other boy was even there.
             “Shut up with the ‘King’ crap,” the boy snapped as he landed, turning to glare at him. “I’m here, too. I’ll spike the ball over your head at the match.” The intensity of the boy’s expression irritated him. Tsukishima lifted his chin to fix him with a dangerous glare.
             “Huh?”
             The redhead shrank back, apparently trying to mask his obvious fright by shaking a fist at him.
             “W-what? Hey. You wanna fight, bastard?”
             Despite his words, the boy’s voice was anything but intimidating. Tsukishima sighed, collecting himself, before forcing a smile. This situation was beginning to get out of hand.
             “Let’s not get so intense,” he replied. “Let’s do this cheerfully, for fun. It’s only a club activity, after all.”
             “What do you mean, ‘only’?” the redhead shot back, spreading his feet in a hostile stance.
             “I mean it literally,” Tsukishima responded, turning away. “See you later.”
             “Hey, you! Stop!” the boy shouted after him. “Who are you guys?”
             Tsukishima came up beside Yamaguchi and stopped, looking back at the obnoxious tangerine of a boy.
             “First-year, class four, Tsukishima Kei.”
             “I’m Yamaguchi Tadashi,” Yamaguchi added with a smile.
             “We’re your teammates starting today,” Tsukishima continued, internally shuddering at the thought. “But enemies for now.” He looked away, trying to keep his gaze from drifting over to Kageyama. Inevitably, he failed, glancing directly back at the black-haired boy. “Looking forward to seeing the King’s tosses.”
             With that, he tore his eyes away from the sour-faced Kageyama and walked off, Yamaguchi following shortly behind him after a brief farewell to the other two first-years. As soon as they were out of sight, Tsukishima’s pace quickened, his mind overtaken by a storm of bitter disappointment. He heard the rapid thudding of footsteps as Yamaguchi hurried after him.
             “Tsukki, wait up!” his friend called out. “Is something the matter?”
             Tsukishima kept glaring at the road ahead. There had been a part of him that was clinging to the memory of his soulmate, of that graceful boy with beautiful blue eyes, a vision he’d never told anyone about. Though he’d never admit it, he’d still hoped somehow that Kageyama was that boy, that he’d found him, that he could finally stop hiding, and it was that hope that had driven him to seek him out in the first place. But Kageyama hadn’t looked at him the way someone looks at their soulmate. Instead, all he’d seen in those eyes was intensity, arrogance, and cold, undisguised dislike. And the feeling was mutual. His feet struck the pavement almost violently as his eyes narrowed.
             Yamaguchi had obviously noticed that he was acting strange. But not even Yamaguchi knew about his soulmate, and he wasn’t about to tell him. Instead, he offered only a quick, vague, stormy excuse.
             “Guys who are intense for no reason get on my nerves.”

             “Tsukishima.”
             The person standing in front of Tsukishima’s desk was, frankly, the last person he wanted to see. Kageyama was always the last person he wanted to see. And yet, there he was, his hands fidgeting as he shuffled his feet in an uncharacteristic display of nervousness. He felt a strong urge to put on his headphones and ignore his teammate, but unfortunately, he’d forgotten his headphones today.
             “What do you want?” he asked instead.
             “Um, so….” Kageyama’s eyes flitted around the room, his face visibly twitching with the effort of warding off his usual glare. “There’s an English test tomorrow. Would you p-please-,”
             “Nope.” Tsukishima closed his eyes and folded his fingers together, resting his chin against them. He could practically picture Kageyama’s expression as he felt the setter lean against his desk.
             “W-why not?” his teammate protested.
             “I don’t want to. And if it’s tomorrow, it’s too late to start studying anyway.”
             “I-I’ve been studying with Yachi! But she’s not here today, so….”
             As Kageyama trailed off, Tsukishima was struck by how different he was in class than when he was on the court. Half the time, he slept through the teacher’s lectures, and the other half, he seemed to meander through the day on autopilot. While Tsukishima was certain he could never match the other boy in talent when it came to volleyball, he was also completely certain he had him beat in almost every other field.
             “I’m not going to teach you,” he said firmly. “If you paid attention during class, you wouldn’t be in this situation, anyway.”
             “B-but…!” Kageyama’s tone took on a hint of desperation. “I’ll teach you how to do a jump serve!”
             Tsukishima opened his eyes, staring at his classmate in disbelief.
             “I don’t want to know how to do a jump serve.”
             “What?” Kageyama looked equally disbelieving. “Why not?”
             He sighed. Talking to the setter was like trying to talk to an entirely different species, and he knew it. He racked his brain for some way to get rid of him, coming up empty. If it were any subject other than English, he could just pass him on to Yamaguchi, but unfortunately, that was his friend’s only weak area. He sighed again, resigning himself to his fate and resting his chin against his hand, leaning away from where Kageyama’s were planted firmly against his desk.
             “Why do you even want to study? It’s not like we have a training camp coming up.”
             Kageyama suddenly looked like a man who had learned he was on death row, his eyes taking on a faraway glaze as he stared into the middle distance.
             “If my English grade gets any lower, I’ll have to get a tutor,” he admitted helplessly. “I won’t be able to attend practice on Tuesdays or Thursdays.”
             “The death of a King,” Tsukishima remarked with a smirk. “How tragic.”
             Kageyama glared back at him, wounded. And then, to his surprise, the setter’s hands left the desk, and he took three steps back, chest expanding as he took a deep breath in. Tsukishima realized what he was doing a moment too late.
             “Wait, you idiot, don’t-,”
             “Please teach me!” Kageyama shouted, throwing his entire upper body downward in the deepest bow Tsukishima had ever seen. He winced as everyone who was still in the room turned to look at them, visibly alarmed, some of them snickering.
             “Fine, fine, just stop shouting,” he hissed, half-standing to grab Kageyama’s shoulder and force him to straighten up. He enunciated his words clearly as he stared into his teammate’s eyes, trying to shove their meaning through his thick skull. “I’ll help you for twenty minutes after practice. And I’m only doing it this once. Got it?”
             Kageyama, despite his own illiteracy, was as readable as an open book. The conflict between his dislike for Tsukishima and his need for a good English grade was written clearly on his face, but the latter had already won out. The setter nodded roughly, his back stiffening.
             “Fine. Th…. Th….”
             “Have you forgotten Japanese, too? It’s ‘thanks.’”
             “Tch. Th-thanks.”

             Tsukishima resisted the urge to roll up the worksheet in front of him and smack Kageyama on the head with it. If there was one thing he’d learned in the past fifteen minutes, it was that teaching was his absolute last choice as a career option.
             “For the last time, the plural of ‘child’ is ‘children’, not ‘childs,’” he explained slowly through gritted teeth. His teammate glared stubbornly at the worksheet, then up at him.
             “Why? That doesn’t make any sense.”
             Tsukishima sighed, folding his arms and leaning back. He could hear the rest of their team several feet away, chattering and eating meat buns outside the Sakanoshita Store. He and Kageyama sat on a nearby half-wall, an English worksheet between them, marred almost completely by wrong answers. Glancing up at the darkening, orange-tinted sky, he silently asked whatever deities were listening to grant him patience.
             “It doesn’t have to make sense.” He grabbed a nearby pencil and forcibly erased the offending answer while Kageyama watched with a stormy expression. “English breaks its own rules all the time.”
             “Then what’s the point of having them?” Kageyama folded his own arms. “Volleyball isn’t like that.” Tsukishima rolled his eyes.
             “Not everything is like volleyball, King.”
             “It should be,” the setter insisted angrily. “Volleyball has rules, and so does English.”
             “You know what, fine. Let’s go with that analogy.” Tsukishima smacked his hand down onto the worksheet, lowering himself to Kageyama’s eye level. “English is like volleyball, if all the referees had eyesight like mine.” With that, he grabbed his glasses and pulled them away from his face, squinting as Kageyama turned into a colorful blur. “So now the rules only mean anything half the time.”
             Through the haze of his teammate’s features, he could make out Kageyama blinking, two dark lines that were presumably his eyebrows drawn up in surprise. Then, to Tsukishima’s own surprise, the setter let out a puff of laughter, turning away with a hand to his mouth. Tsukishima leaned back and huffed, putting his glasses back on. He tried not to observe Kageyama’s involuntary grin or the faint color tinging his cheeks too closely now that he could see his face clearly.
             “You would be the worst referee,” the setter remarked, glancing back at him with a smirk.
             “And you would be the worst English teacher,” Tsukishima shot back, tapping the rim of his glasses. “Luckily for me, glasses exist. You can’t buy a better brain.” As Kageyama clicked his tongue, he feigned a look of surprise. “Oh, but you can buy a tutor, can’t you? Well, since you don’t seem to want to accept the rules, I guess that’s what you’re going to have to do.” With that, he swung his legs over the side of the wall and prepared to push himself up.
             “W-wait! I haven’t finished this worksheet yet!”
             Tsukishima jumped as a desperate hand grabbed his shoulder, turning to glare at the setter.
             “How unfortunate. Maybe you would have if you hadn’t spent the whole time arguing with me.”
             “Tch….” Kageyama visibly grinded his teeth, his next words seeming to cause him physical pain. “I won’t argue. Just teach me for ten more minutes.”
             “No.” Tsukishima jerked his shoulder away, hopping down from the wall. He stiffened as his teammate thudded to the ground behind him, grabbing his arm again.
             “Wait,” he repeated.
             “Would you stop that?” Tsukishima snapped, whirling around and yanking his arm away. Kageyama’s eyes flitted around for a moment before landing on something behind him.
             “If you help me, I’ll…. I’ll buy you a strawberry soda.”
             Tsukishima stared at him, annoyance overtaken by surprise.
             “How did you know I like strawberries?”
             Kageyama blinked. He looked as confused as Tsukishima felt.
             “I didn’t.”
             For a moment, the two of them just looked at each other. Finally, Tsukishima closed his eyes, wondering why he was even considering the proposal. On the one hand, being in Kageyama’s presence was like sitting in a classroom with a flock of birds sharpening their talons on the blackboard, but on the other, a strawberry soda did sound good right about now. And after all, it was only ten more minutes.
             “You have to buy me one every day for the rest of this week,” he declared, opening his eyes.
             “Th-that’s extortion!” Kageyama protested. He smiled.
             “It’s less expensive than an English tutor.”
             Kageyama grumbled, slapping a hand onto his worksheet and pulling it from the wall.
             “Fine. Just explain it so I can understand.”
             “Uh-uh-uh,” Tsukishima waggled a finger in the setter’s face, delighting in his irritated expression. “First, the soda.” Kageyama clicked his tongue, set the sheet back down, and walked off toward the nearest vending machine.
             Tsukishima leaned against the wall and watched him go, folding his arms against his chest. The others were finishing up their meat buns, Daichi telling off Nishinoya and Tanaka for something while Sugawara laughed in the background. Yamaguchi, Hinata, and Yachi were chattering excitedly among themselves, eyes sparkling with an amount of energy that Tsukishima couldn’t fathom still having after an entire afternoon of practice. He let his eyes drift back over to Kageyama, watching as the black-haired setter pressed a button on the vending machine. He couldn’t help but chuckle a bit at his teammate’s scowl, at the way his lips pursed together to form an endearing pout.
             Tsukishima’s train of thought crashed. That chuckle had bordered dangerously on affectionate, and he was almost certain that in the past, he’d never thought of Kageyama’s glare as anything other than irritating. He focused intensely on trying not to show how flustered he was, staring off to the side as his teammate turned away from the vending machine, strawberry soda in hand.
             “Here.” Kageyama extended the soda in front of his face, stormy blue eyes contrasting with the pinkish red of the can’s fruity label. “Now teach me.”
             “Manners, King,” Tsukishima teased, taking the can from him and cracking it open. He sat back down on the wall and sipped at his soda, hoping to chase away his strange thoughts with the sweet taste of high fructose corn syrup and artificial strawberry flavoring. Kageyama set the worksheet back down between them, glaring at it like a long-awaited enemy.
             “How many of these do I have to get right to get a C?” he asked, sitting down with his legs crossed.
             “More than that,” Tsukishima replied, taking only mild sadistic pleasure in the despairing expression his words provoked. “So make sure you actually listen to me this time.”
             The remaining ten minutes passed more easily, though he couldn’t tell if that was because Kageyama was actually complaining less or because he now had a sugary drink to make the experience more enjoyable. Regardless, he did find himself studying his teammate’s expression more and hating each passing minute less. Begrudgingly, as he drained the last drop from his soda can and Kageyama filled in the last blank, he admitted that spending time with the setter wasn’t always as terrible as he’d made it out to be.
             “There.” Kageyama let his pencil drop, glancing up at Tsukishima. “Is that good enough?”
             Tsukishima picked the sheet up and looked over it, cringing at some of the answers before fixing his teammate with a contemptuous smirk.
             “For a normal high school student, no. Absolutely not. But for you, it’s nothing short of miraculous.” Kageyama growled irritably, snatching the sheet back from him.
             “So did I pass?”
             “Barely.”
             “Hey, Tsukki!”
             Tsukishima glanced over as Yamaguchi walked up to the two of them, schoolbag slung over his shoulder and a bright smile on his face.
             “Are you ready to walk back yet?”
             “Yeah.” Tsukishima hopped down from the wall, tossing his soda can into a nearby recycling bin. As he joined Yamaguchi, stopping briefly to pick up his bag, he looked back over his shoulder at Kageyama. “Try not to fail, King. And remember you owe me sodas for the rest of the week.”
             “I’m not gonna fail,” Kageyama retorted with a glare, before jerking his head away to direct that glare to the side. “A-and I’ll buy you your soda.”
             “Don’t forget,” Tsukishima practically sang. As the two of them began to walk away, Yamaguchi called out a brief farewell to their setter, and then turned to him with a strange smile, one eyebrow raised.
             “I’m surprised you two didn’t kill each other,” he remarked. “Actually, I’m surprised you agreed to teach him in the first place.” Tsukishima shrugged, keeping his eyes on the street ahead.
             “He’s not completely insufferable, sometimes. And I got a soda out of it.”

             “Oh! I just realized I’ve never asked you guys before. What were your soulmate visions like?”
             Tsukishima stiffened at Yamaguchi’s words, slightly crumpling the juice box in his hands. Fortunately, the question didn’t seem to be directed at him; he was sitting on the outside of the group, still unsure how he’d been roped into sitting with the other first-years on the rooftop during lunch. Yamaguchi was looking between Hinata and Yachi as he spoke, and as he glanced over his shoulder, his next words confirmed Tsukishima’s reasoning.
             “Tsukki won’t tell me about his,” he commented with a grin. Tsukishima looked back down at his lunch.
             “Shut up, Yamaguchi.”
             “Sorry, Tsukki! So what about you, Hinata?”
             “Well….” Hinata sounded a bit sheepish, rubbing the back of his head with an embarrassed smile. “I… actually haven’t had mine yet.”
             “What?” Yamaguchi’s voice was understandably shocked, and across from him, Yachi stared at the redhead in surprise. Even Kageyama glanced up from his milk box with a look of mild interest.
             “Yeah.” Hinata laughed, his crossed legs fidgeting. “I’ve tried a bunch to do it since my twelfth birthday, but I just can’t sit still that long.”
             “That does sound like you,” Yachi commented with a tinkling laugh of her own. “Maybe you should try it after practice sometime? You might be tired enough then to concentrate.”
             “Great idea, Yachi!” Hinata leaned toward her enthusiastically, and Tsukishima stared at him, only half-surprised that the obvious idea had never occurred to him before.
             “Careful,” he advised, adopting a sinister grin. “Your soulmate might be long gone by now.”
             “H-huh?” Hinata suddenly looked nervous. “You really think I missed her already?”
             “Probably not,” Yamaguchi reassured him with a glance at Tsukishima. “Most people don’t meet their soulmates until they’re adults, I think.” Hinata let out a sigh of relief, his expression quickly returning to its usual chipper smile.
             “So I still have plenty of time. What about you, Yamaguchi? What does your soulmate look like?”
             “Well….”
             Yamaguchi hesitated, and Tsukishima noted with surprise that he seemed flustered, looking down at his plate and scratching the back of his neck before answering. He didn’t miss his friend’s brief glance at Yachi as he began to speak.
             “She’s… pretty short. And blonde.”
             Tsukishima’s eyebrows shot up. Yamaguchi had told him about his soulmate vision before, of course - in fact, he’d gushed about it constantly in the days after he’d had it - but he hadn’t bothered to put two and two together until now. Yachi’s cheeks tinged a light shade of pink, her brown doe eyes widening in what was almost certainly the same realization.
             “R-really?” she asked.
             “Oh, cute!” Hinata chimed in obliviously. “What about you, Yachi?”
             “U-um.” Yachi now looked completely flustered, staring back at the redhead with a nervous smile. “It’s kind of hard for me to tell. The first time, I totally freaked out when it started happening and opened my eyes right away.” Her eyes flitted over to Yamaguchi. “I-I think he’s our age, though. A-and he’s pretty tall.”
             “Maybe he plays sports!” Hinata responded helpfully. Tsukishima wanted to smack him in the face. Kageyama continued sipping idly at his milk carton.
             “Yeah, that’s possible.” Yamaguchi had turned almost completely red, and he spoke quickly, looking everywhere but at Yachi. “What about your soulmate, Kageyama? W-what does she look like?”
             There was a brief pause. To Tsukishima’s surprise, Kageyama reacted to Yamaguchi’s words with an uncharacteristically troubled expression, his brow furrowing and his hand freezing halfway to his mouth. He set his milk carton down and swallowed before speaking, slow and hesitant.
             “He’s… a volleyball player.”
             Tsukishima couldn’t disguise his shock. He stared at Kageyama with his mouth agape, words escaping his lips before he even had the chance to think.
             “Your soulmate’s a boy?”
             The setter visibly flinched before looking up at him with a glare.
             “Yeah. Is that a problem?”
             Tsukishima met his gaze for a few seconds, regained his composure, and turned away, trying to adopt an air of disinterest.
             “No.”
             For a moment, the air was silent and tense. Tsukishima could still feel Kageyama’s eyes on him, but he couldn’t bring himself to care, his mind suddenly racing with half-completed thoughts and realizations stretching back to the day after his twelfth birthday. If Kageyama’s soulmate was a boy, then the likelihood that he was Tsukishima’s soulmate suddenly felt far higher. But he couldn’t be. Tsukishima had already accepted that.
             “I-I think it’s cool!” Hinata chirped, his tone genuine, if nervous. “Your soulmate’s a volleyball player! That’s like… like… guoh!”
             “Wait, is that why you started playing volleyball?” Yamaguchi asked, reviving the conversation in a slightly more eloquent manner.
             “No,” Kageyama replied. His voice was still terse, his words low-pitched and guarded. “I was already playing volleyball before then.”
             “Since second grade, right?” Hinata asked. Kageyama gave a grunt of assent, and then Yamaguchi laughed.
             “That makes sense. Volleyball is like breathing for you. I can’t imagine you’d get into it for something silly like finding your soulmate.”
             “But….”
             Tsukishima glanced up as Yachi spoke, her expression unusually solemn. She tilted her head to the side.
             “Love is like that for some people too, right? Like breathing.” She glanced down at her plate, twirling her chopsticks around. “You can’t really help it, but you can’t imagine life without it. I don’t think that’s silly at all.”
             The group fell silent again. After a few seconds, Yachi jumped, her head whipping around anxiously.
             “S-sorry, was that stupid?” she asked, dropping her chopsticks. Yamaguchi laughed, his eyes shining.
             “No, I think you’re right. Love is to some people like volleyball is to Kageyama.”
             Kageyama sipped at his milk, having regained his usual blank expression.
             “Yeah. That’s what I think, anyway,” Yachi continued, calming somewhat. “It’s just that… people usually make fun of girls for being excited for their soulmate vision, even though everyone gets them. I don’t see why it’s a bad thing to look forward to finding your soulmate.”
             “Yeah!” Hinata’s eyes sparkled. “I’m getting excited to find mine now, too!”
             Yachi smiled at him shyly, and Tsukishima focused on finishing his lunch. As the other first-years continued chatting among themselves, the bubbly atmosphere returning, a single question rattled around in his head. He cast a furtive sideways glance at Kageyama.
             What if you find your soulmate, but they’re not who you expected them to be?

             As the weeks passed, Tsukishima found himself butting heads with Kageyama just as much as he used to, but somehow, the malicious edge to their words seemed to have dissipated. He no longer actively disliked being in the King’s presence; in fact, he found that he actually enjoyed teasing him, watching his brow crinkle and his eyes light up in his signature glare. And then, during the prefectural finals, he sensed a sort of connection between them as they faced Shiratorizawa together, a trust in each other’s abilities that ran deeper than his pragmatic mind would normally allow.
             The thought had occurred to him, of course, that his initial impression a year ago had been correct. In fact, the thought occurred to him almost constantly; every time his gaze drifted inadvertently to Kageyama’s face during practice, every time a classmate brought up the topic of soulmates, the idea that Kageyama was his entered his mind unbidden. As time passed, his stubborn refusal to even consider it began to fade, leaving only a strange mixture of curiosity and deep, irrational anxiety. He wasn’t sure whether he was afraid of being proven right or wrong, but in either case, he never took the opportunity to find out. He didn’t keep track of Kageyama’s schedule, after all, and without knowing what the setter was doing at the moment, his visions wouldn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know.
             On top of his apprehension, various non-soulmate related distractions continued sweeping his attention away from the problem altogether. After the match with Shiratorizawa, he began spending more time with Akiteru for the first time in years, the frost between them slowly thawing as he silently forgave his brother for what happened in high school. His relationship with Yamaguchi also became closer, his timid, self-conscious childhood friend flourishing into a force to be reckoned with, both on and off the court. And finally, most annoyingly, he found himself more motivated to practice than he’d been since he was twelve, this irritating, Hinata-like sense of determination pushing him to push himself where he never would have considered doing so before.
             It was during one of these spikes of motivation that Kageyama once again approached him in class, fingers wrapped tightly around a notebook labeled ‘English.’ Tsukishima smirked at him as he stopped at his desk, tilting his chin up to stare down his nose at him.
             “Failing English still, King?” he asked loftily. A touch of pink tinged Kageyama’s cheeks.
             “Sh-shut up,” he responded with a glare. “I just need some vocabulary words.”
             “Fell asleep in class again?”
             “It’s important to conserve energy,” Kageyama replied solemnly. Tsukishima raised an eyebrow.
             “It’s also important to not fail your classes.”
             “I-I know!” He slapped his notebook down and pulled out a sheet of notebook paper, leaning down to glare directly into Tsukishima’s eyes. “That’s why I’m asking you to help me.” Tsukishima’s heart skipped a beat at the setter’s proximity, but he maintained his composure with a contemptuous stare.
             “That’s not a very polite way to ask, King.”
             “Tch. I’ll buy you a strawberry soda.”
             “There’s a start,” Tsukishima commented, slightly surprised that Kageyama remembered. He reached out and took the paper from him, glancing over the list of words that were conspicuously missing their definitions. He recognized most of them; his own class had gone over them earlier in the year, though he wasn’t sure if he still had the list. “Shouldn’t you get these from someone in class 1-3?”
             “I….” Kageyama glanced away, voice lowering to a mumble. “I don’t know anyone in my class.”
             “Huh?” Tsukishima leaned in, wondering if he’d misheard him. “It’s been half a year, and you still don’t know a single person in your own class?”
             “No,” the setter responded irritably. “I just told you I didn’t.”
             Tsukishima scanned his face disbelievingly, then sat back with a sigh. For a brief moment, he considered passing his teammate on to Yamaguchi, whose ineptitude at English hopefully wouldn’t matter for something as simple as a vocabulary list. Then he remembered his friend’s handwriting and shuddered; he hadn’t known the true meaning of the phrase ‘chicken scratch’ until he’d first tried to borrow notes from Yamaguchi. Being made to decipher them was a fate he wouldn’t wish on anyone, not even Kageyama. He opened his eyes.
             “Fine. I’ll help you. On one condition.”
             Kageyama eyed him warily. Tsukishima took a deep breath in, incredulous at himself for asking what he was about to ask.
             “You have to teach me to do a jump serve.”
             Kageyama blinked at him for a moment, and he stared back, already beginning to regret his words. And then, to his surprise, Kageyama’s mouth twisted into a satisfied grin.
             “Deal.”

             “This word means ‘to find.’”
             Tsukishima pointed at the upside-down list and pulled the definition from memory, watching as Kageyama scribbled it down. The setter’s leg bounced restlessly, his eyes flitting over every few seconds to the rest of their team, still scattered around the gym as they finished up their extra practice. Tsukishima snapped his fingers, and Kageyama jumped, absentminded expression disappearing.
             “Hey, pay attention,” Tsukishima chided with a disapproving frown. “You have a supplemental exam over the break, right?”
             Kageyama simply grumbled in response, glancing over as Hinata, Tanaka, Daichi, and Asahi ran forward in a synchronized attack. Tsukishima sighed. He supposed it was unreasonable to expect the King to focus on his English homework anywhere within a ten mile radius of people playing volleyball.
             “I know your brain only has so much capacity, but at least try to focus on something besides volleyball, for once. There are only a few definitions left. And we’re going to keep practicing after that, anyway.” Kageyama perked up at that last sentence, a glint of resolve sparking in his eye. He nodded and positioned his pencil over the paper.
             “Fine.”
             The two of them spent another ten minutes filling out the vocabulary list as the others’ practice wrapped up. Only a few seconds after they finished the last word, several sets of footsteps approached where they sat on the bench. Tsukishima looked up to see Daichi standing in front of him, holding out a set of jingling silver keys.
             “I never thought I’d say this to you, Tsukishima, but don’t stay too late, got it?”
             Tsukishima narrowed his eyes, unsure of whether to feel complimented or insulted by the captain’s bright, strangely proud smile. He took the keys from him and nodded.
             “Okay.”
             “I’ll stay behind, too!” Hinata suddenly popped out from behind Daichi with his fists clenched in determination. Tsukishima fixed him with a glowering stare.
             “No.”
             “Huh?” The spiker looked taken aback, then offended. “Why not?”
             “Because then it’ll turn into spiking practice,” he replied dryly. “One volleyball maniac is enough for me, thanks.” Hinata growled angrily, but Kageyama didn’t react, simply looking on with an idle gaze. Tsukishima guessed that ‘volleyball maniac’ didn’t register as an insult to him.
             “Fine, Stingyshima.” Hinata whirled around to face Sugawara as the vice-captain made his way toward the door. “Sugawara-san, will you give me a toss?”
             “Nope! Sorry, Hinata.” Sugawara beamed, looking utterly unapologetic. “My mom made tofu for dinner, and there’s no way I’m missing out on that.”
             “Seriously?” The redhead deflated.
             “H-hey, Hinata.” Yachi stepped toward the group, eyeing Hinata with a sympathetic smile. “Since we have some time, and it’s after practice, why don’t we try that thing we were talking about a while ago?”
             “Oh!” The sparkle returned to his eyes. “You mean…?”
             “What’s this about?” Daichi glanced between the two of them with an eyebrow raised.
             “Yachi’s gonna help me have my soulmate vision!”
             “You haven’t had it yet?” Sugawara asked incredulously.
             “Nope! I always have way too much trouble sitting still!”
             “Is it okay if I join, too?” Yamaguchi inquired as he approached, flashing a smile at Tsukishima. “Since I’m not walking home with Tsukki today.”
             “Sure!” Hinata nodded fervently. “You’re done with practice?”
             “Yep. Shimada-san was busy today. Anyway, I’m pretty curious to know who your soulmate is.”
             Tsukishima watched as everyone filtered out of the gym, talking about soulmates, of all things, while leaving him alone with Kageyama. The door clanged shut, and he turned around on the bench, surprised to see the setter already watching him expectantly from the middle of the court.
             “You coming?” He held a volleyball in his hands, practically buzzing with the energy he’d built up over their study session. Tsukishima stood and walked over to him, annoyed to feel his heart pounding faster in his chest.
             “Patience, King.” Though he would never admit it out loud, even as he cast Kageyama a condescending smirk, he felt a surge of eagerness to get his hands on the ball, too.
             “Whatever.” Kageyama glanced down at the volleyball and spun it between his fingers. “I learned from watching Oikawa, so I guess… just watch what I do.”
             “You know I asked you to teach me, right?” Tsukishima asked snidely. “I’ve been watching you serve for half a year. How am I supposed to learn from watching you now?” Kageyama stared back at him evenly, sapphire eyes gleaming.
             “You’ll figure it out.”
             The setter turned and walked toward the boundary of the court, and Tsukishima stared after him, blinking. There was no hint of irritation or dismissiveness in Kageyama’s words; he meant exactly what he said. He believed Tsukishima would figure it out. He couldn’t help but smile as his teammate bounced the ball against the linoleum, sharp eyes searching for his target on the other side of the net the others had left out for them. Tsukishima stepped back onto the sideline.
             And then he inhaled slowly, observing every small detail of Kageyama’s posture as he tossed the ball up in the air and took his running approach. He threw it several feet forward, then took five long steps before planting both feet on the floor, throwing his arms out behind him, and launching himself into the air after it. The shoulders in his muscles tightened as he drew his right hand back like a spike; he seemed to hover at the peak of his jump, the arc of his body granting him an extra foot of height - or at least the illusion of it. Finally, he released his wound-up tension in a wave of kinetic force, striking the ball with the palm of his hand and sending it over the net with the speed of a bullet. It landed just inside the far boundary of the opposite court, bouncing the rest of the way and thudding against the wall.
             Kageyama landed. Tsukishima had seen his serve a thousand times before, during practice, at tournaments, throughout training camps, but this was the first time he’d truly observed it; it was the first time he noted that the setter’s eyes never left the ball, sharp and lively in contrast to their usual blank glaze, and it was the first time he realized with complete, inexplicable certainty that he’d studied Kageyama’s silhouette like this before.
             Kageyama turned back around and paused, looking taken aback. Tsukishima made his second realization; he had forgotten to breathe, and was now staring at his teammate with a look of amazed shock that was a completely disproportionate reaction to seeing a serve he’d witnessed dozens of times before.
             “What?” the setter asked, disconcerted. Tsukishima quickly collected himself. Whatever strange, instinctive sensation had just crashed through his brain, he could deal with it later. For now, he was here to learn a jump serve.
             “You look completely different when you’re on the court,” he remarked truthfully, then smirked. “If only you could manage that level of concentration in English class.” Kageyama scowled, pulling another volleyball from the nearby cart.
             “English is boring. Volleyball is… volleyball.”
             Tsukishima affected an air of surprise.
             “Really? I thought they were pretty much the same thing. They both have rules, after all.”
             Kageyama glared at him and shoved the volleyball into his chest. He didn’t miss the faint tinge of red coloring the setter’s cheeks.
             “Shut up and serve.”
             Tsukishima gave a shallow bow, accentuating it with a one-armed flourish.
             “Of course, King. You say ‘jump serve,’ I say ‘how high.’”
             “How high?” Kageyama tilted his head to the side, seeming genuinely surprised by the question. “As high as you can. It’ll be more powerful the higher you jump.”
             “You….” Tsukishima stared at him in disbelief, then shook his head. “Nevermind.”
             He walked away from his shockingly dense teammate and made it all the way to the serving zone before he realized he had no idea what he was doing. He had never been a strong server; he could occasionally aim for the net at what he judged to be an opportune moment, but he was nowhere near as powerful as Asahi or as accurate as Sugawara, and, of course, he had no secret weapons like Yamaguchi. And yet here he stood, attempting a jump serve when he barely knew how to aim a regular serve. Logically, he knew he would never learn anything if he didn’t start somewhere, but that didn’t make his impending failure any less daunting.
             Bouncing the ball a few times against the court, he ventured a glance at the sidelines. Kageyama was watching him with that same sharp look in his eye - single-minded, focused, almost analytical. It was a look that brooked no self-doubt, that expected nothing less of him than his best. Tsukishima raised the volleyball over his lower face to hide his smile. Then, he tossed it into the air with one hand, trying to mimic Kageyama’s running approach as he swung his arms back and leapt. The jump was deceptively difficult; trying to balance his timing and stance without losing momentum was nearly impossible, and though he tried to raise his legs as he’d seen his teammate do, he realized quickly he hadn’t jumped nearly high enough. He swung his arm forward in a last-ditch effort to salvage the toss, and the tips of his fingers just barely grazed the ball, sending it forward a grand total of fifteen inches or so.
             He landed, watching the volleyball bounce pathetically to the floor. For several seconds, the air was silent, and he couldn’t bring himself to face his teammate. For the first time in his life, he had done something decidedly, unrenouncably uncool.
             “You suck,” Kageyama commented bluntly. Tsukishima turned to see that his expression had barely changed, save for his slightly raised eyebrows. He glowered at the setter to mask his embarrassment.
             “So sorry my serve wasn’t up to His Majesty’s standards.”
             “You can’t focus on jumping your highest if you’re worrying about your timing so much,” Kageyama continued, approaching him and utterly ignoring his quip. Tsukishima couldn’t help but feel defeated. “Your toss should match your running approach, not the other way around.”
             “And here I thought you just did things on instinct.”
             Kageyama didn’t so much as blink as he replied.
             “I do. I have good instincts.”
             Tsukishima scowled at him. A part of him wished they could go back to studying English so his teammate could play the fool again, but unfortunately, it was too late to escape his fate. Kageyama was a surprisingly effective teacher; his brash way of speaking kept his instructions clear as day, and his obvious talent shone through his intuitive understanding of the movement behind the serve. Still, that talent made the gap in their abilities glaringly apparent, and though Tsukishima had expected as much, he was still somewhat disappointed when he’d only managed to hit a single serve in-bounds by the time they stopped half an hour later.
             “You’re going to need to practice for a while. Maybe another year or so.”
             Tsukishima shot him a glare. He knew that, of course, but that didn’t make the setter’s words any less irritating. The two of them sat against the wall, each holding a bottle of water as they cooled down. Through his exhaustion, it occurred to him that this was the first time he’d ever been truly alone with Kageyama.
             “I have other things to work on,” he replied, staring ahead. “So maybe another ten years.”
             Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kageyama tilt his head quizzically.
             “You can work on other things and practice your serve. Just practice more.”
             Tsukishima stared at him disdainfully.
             “Not all of us are monsters like you, King.” With that, he uncapped his water bottle, taking a few swigs of the refreshing liquid inside, kept cold by the winter air. He quickly registered that his teammate hadn’t responded yet, and he glanced over, closing the bottle and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. To his surprise, Kageyama was staring into the bottle in his own hands with an unusually troubled expression, one he could’ve sworn he’d seen him wear once before.
             “Do you… think I’m weird?”
             Now Tsukishima was really taken off guard. Kageyama’s voice was laden with self-consciousness, but he hadn’t thought the King was self-aware enough to be self-conscious in the first place.
             “Of course I do,” he responded matter-of-factly. “You’re obsessed with volleyball, and you drink milk at every meal.” His teammate looked up from his water bottle, eyes round with astonishment.
             “That’s why you think I’m weird?”
             “Well, yeah.” Tsukishima leaned away, unsure of what to expect. “Why else?”
             Kageyama’s fingers drummed restlessly against the plastic of the bottle.
             “Because… of my soulmate.”
             Tsukishima hesitated, a dozen different emotional responses clashing in his head. For one thing, he was shocked that Kageyama was opening up about anything, to anyone, but especially to him. For another, the fact that he was bringing up his own soulmate immediately set off emergency alarms in Tsukishima’s head, putting a stop to every train of thought running through it. In the end, he opted not to respond at all. As he’d hoped, after a pause, Kageyama glanced down and continued.
             “People stopped talking to me after I told them about my vision. They said I was weird. That I was… gay.” He practically whispered the word, as though it were a curse. As though he’d learned it as one. He looked up, eyes gleaming with conflict. “But none of you cared. And you don’t think I’m weird because of it. I… I don’t understand.”
             Tsukishima’s mind flashed back to his own soulmate vision, to the silhouette of a boy whose blue eyes stained his memory. He remembered his own initial fear, his sense of isolation, his unwillingness to share what he’d seen with anyone, even his own brother. He recalled secreting that vision away, treasuring it even as he hated it, and hoping someday he’d be able to take it out of hiding. As Kageyama’s blue eyes searched his face, he smiled a genuine, undisguised smile.
             “Why would I think you’re weird? I’d be insulting myself.”
             Kageyama blinked, brow furrowing.
             “What do you mean?”
             Tsukishima let out a breath.
             “My soulmate’s a boy, too.”
             For a full ten seconds, Kageyama was silent, expression frozen and uncomprehending. Then he slowly opened his mouth.
             “Really?”
             “Yep. So if that’s enough to make you weird, then I’m also weird.”
             “...Heh.” Kageyama’s tensed shoulders relaxed, and he let out a quiet, breathless laugh. His eyes shone with relief, his lips curling into a small smile more gentle than Tsukishima had thought him capable of. He felt his cheeks heating up. Before his composure could go completely out the window, he forced his eyes away and stood.
             “I doubt you would, but don’t go around telling people.”
             Kageyama’s voice regained its steadiness, undercut with solemn resolve.
             “I won’t.” He paused, then spoke again, more reluctantly this time. “There’s no one I could really tell, anyway.” Tsukishima glanced back at him with a smirk, softening his tone from scathing to just sarcastic.
             “I’m sure you could find someone if you really wanted to.” He placed a hand on his hip and jerked his head at the net. “Now, I would prefer to go home sometime before break starts, so let’s get this place cleaned up.”
             “Yeah.” Kageyama nodded with a content smile. As Tsukishima turned to head across the gym, the setter’s nervous voice stopped him in his tracks. “Tsukishima…. Th-thanks.”
             Tsukishima observed the faint pink dusting his cheeks, the way his pride still seemed damaged by having to thank him, but much less than it would have been before. Dozens of potential snarky replies entered his head. Instead, he smiled and gave a short, just slightly exaggerated bow.
             “Of course, King.”

             Tsukishima flipped a page of the sports magazine he was reading. His eyes scanned idly over the words, barely registering their meaning, and he found himself having to reread the same paragraph several times. Finally, he sighed, closing the magazine and tossing it onto his desk. Outside, the sun shone through his window against a clear winter sky.
             His phone buzzed. He picked it up from his desk and perked up as he read the notification. It was from Kageyama.
             About to take my English exam.
             He smiled faintly, typing out his instinctive reply.
             Try not to fall asleep until after you’re done.
             He watched the screen for a few more minutes, but Kageyama didn’t reply, presumably already in the exam room. He took in a slow, deep breath and laid his phone back down on the desk. A strange mixture of anxiety and anticipation swirled in his chest, enough to make him second-guess himself if he hadn’t spent the past three days convincing himself to do what he was about to do. He glanced up at the clock. Kageyama’s exam would conclude in forty-five minutes.
             He walked over to his bed and sat down, leaning his head against the wall and stretching his legs on top of the comforter. Taking another deep breath in, he quieted his nerves, settled into a comfortable position, and closed his eyes. He doubted he would have trouble concentrating on his soulmate; ever since he’d spent the day practicing jump serves with Kageyama, even after winter break began, it had been all he could think about. Still, this would be the first time he attempted to see his soulmate since he was twelve, and even after all this time, the idea was still strange to him.
             Four years ago, Akiteru had asked him what he wanted. His answer was still the same as it had been then - he didn’t know - but now, his uncertainty came from a completely different place. Some people, he knew, spent their entire lives searching for their soulmates, but in a matter of minutes, at the age of sixteen, he was potentially about to find his. The idea of something that lifechanging was unsettling to him, but on the other hand, the thought that he was wrong was equally unnerving.
             Crisp notes of birdsong came to him from outside his bedroom window. Gradually, his breathing slowed, his overwhelmed emotions settling into a feeling of serenity. As he watched patterns fade and shift across the black landscape of his eyelids, he decided that, whatever emerged from them, he would accept it. 
             A faint light pierced through the darkness of his vision. He froze, an anticipatory breath catching in his throat as he watched that light spread, dancing like sunrays in water, to form the shape of a person’s upper body. He gradually made out the person’s silhouette, light giving way to faint color: short black hair, sapphire blue eyes. The figure was sitting, hazy hand extended as if holding a pencil, legs bouncing restlessly against an invisible floor. Tsukishima’s anxiety melted, and he smiled.
             Kageyama Tobio was a jerk. He was unnecessarily intense, naturally egocentric, and slow-witted at everything that wasn’t volleyball. He and Tsukishima were polar opposites. And yet, as he’d spent the past few months getting to know him, largely against his own will, Tsukishima had found that something within Kageyama resonated with him. He had a passion, a simple love for volleyball that Tsukishima had forgotten a long time ago, and he found that whenever the setter expected something of him, he couldn’t help but push his instinctive cynicism aside and believe in himself, too. Over time, the traits that had most irritated him about his teammate gradually began to come across as endearing, and the two of them had even begun to connect with each other and balance each other out.
             Kageyama Tobio was his soulmate. He gazed into the vision’s glimmering blue eyes. He could picture Kageyama’s face, lips twisted in a pout of concentration, brow furrowed as he struggled to translate words Tsukishima had likely taught him just a week ago. He let out a huff of amusement. Imprinting the vision into his memory, right next to the graceful boy he’d seen when he was twelve, he opened his eyes. He’d found his soulmate, and now he could look forward to getting to know him, and finding out all the little things he could love.
             He was staring out the window when his door swung open. His peace and happiness at finding what was to be the love of his life were disrupted by annoyance at his brother for coming in without knocking for the thousandth time.
             “Kei!” Akiteru was waving around a sports magazine and grinning like an idiot. “I found an interview that mentioned the Miyagi finals! They even said Karasuno blew everyone away!”
             “Please knock before you come in my room,” Tsukishima chided with a withering stare.
             “Sorry,” Akiteru replied, stepping even farther into the room and beaming in a way that didn’t suggest remorse. “Were you napping?”
             “No.” Tsukishima swung his legs over the side of his bed, while his brother made himself comfortable at his desk chair. It had been several years since they’d been close enough for Akiteru to utterly disrespect his personal boundaries and property like this.
             “Here, let me find it.” His brother flipped through the magazine, oblivious - or more likely, indifferent - to the fact that he absolutely did not care. He stared out the window again. There was one surefire way to shut his brother up.
             “I found my soulmate,” he said casually.
             He heard the slap of paper dropping to the floor. Looking over, he saw his brother staring at him with comically huge eyes, mouth agape, hands frozen in the air as if they were still clutching the magazine. It took a solid ten seconds for Akiteru to manage any words at all.
             “W-what? Seriously?”
             Tsukishima nodded. Akiteru’s expression lit up in an overjoyed smile, and he jumped up from the desk.
             “That’s amazing!” Tsukishima began to regret his decision as his brother swung an arm around his shoulder, ruffling his hair with the other hand. “So, like, you met her in real life?” He paused, delight dampened somewhat by confusion. “Wait, I thought you couldn’t get your soulmate vision to work?”
             Tsukishima looked away. For the second time that day, apprehension seized his throat. Eventually, he pushed through his fear and spoke.
             “I lied. My…. My soulmate’s on my volleyball team.”
             The arm dropped from around his shoulder. He couldn’t help but cast a nervous glance at Akiteru, whose stunned expression faded gradually as he understood. His tone was much softer when he finally replied.
             “That’s why you didn’t tell me.”
             Tsukishima nodded, swallowing hard. He glanced away, but Akiteru leaned down into his line of sight, smiling gently. His brother reached out and ruffled his hair again.
             “I’m happy for you, Kei. Nothing’s gonna change that.”
             Tsukishima stared back at his brother. Relief flooded his chest, and again, for the second time that day, his anxiety melted away in the face of overwhelming happiness. He smiled, small, hesitant, and utterly genuine. And then his brother pulled his hand back, bounced in place, and clapped his hands together, face split in an ear-to-ear grin.
             “Now, who is it? You have to tell me. Is it that little orange guy?”
             “Hinata?” Tsukishima could feel his own face blanch. “No. Please don’t say such things.” Akiteru gasped.
             “Wait, is it Tadashi? It’s totally Tadashi, isn’t it?”
             “No!” Tsukishima’s cheeks heated up. He was beginning to regret telling his brother anything, for a completely different reason than he’d expected. Akiteru bumped him with his shoulder.
             “Oh, come on, tell me! Is he cute? Is he tall? He has to be tall, right? Did you talk to him already? What’s he like? Oh, this is so exciting! Tell me everything!”
             Tsukishima sighed and resigned himself to his fate - drowning in the affection and support of his older brother.

             Acting natural throughout the day they returned to school was the most difficult thing Tsukishima had ever done. He generally considered himself to be a composed person - though Hinata sometimes managed to break that composure through sheer idiocy - but playing volleyball with Kageyama during morning and afternoon practice put his nerves to the test in a way they’d never been tested before. During class, he found his eyes involuntarily drifting to the setter at least once a minute, cementing in his mind the similarities between the way he sat and the posture of the figure in his soulmate vision. Inevitably, at lunch, as he and Yamaguchi sat alone in the courtyard, his friend cast him a worried glance and spoke up.
             “Tsukki, is everything okay? You seem a little distracted today.”
             “I’m fine,” he replied truthfully. Everything was fine. It was better than fine. But explaining everything to Yamaguchi was a task for an entirely different day. He looked his friend in the eye. “Actually, Yamaguchi, you can walk home without me today. I’m staying late after practice.”
             “Okay.” Yamaguchi still looked concerned. Tsukishima smiled at him.
             “I’m fine, really. It’s a good thing. I promise I’ll explain everything to you later.” As he spoke, Yamaguchi’s eyes went wide, his hands freezing above his lunchbox. Tsukishima blinked at him in confusion. “What?”
             “N-nothing.” His friend’s surprise melted away, his eyes suddenly shining with something like pride. “It’s just…. I haven’t seen you smile like that since we were kids.”
             “...Oh.”
             The rest of the day, miraculously, passed without incident. Beyond the occasional passing comment during practice, Tsukishima didn’t talk much to Kageyama until the team was wrapping up extra practice. As everyone dispersed to the side of the court, cooling down with towels and cold water, Kageyama approached where Tsukishima was settled against the wall and wordlessly sat down next to him. He cast a sideways glance at the setter and quickly looked away as butterflies fluttered up in his stomach. Embarrassed at how flustered he was, and trying not to let it show on his face, he focused his attention on the others’ conversation.
             “So, did you ever manage to have your vision, Hinata?” Sugawara was asking, smiling as he took a seat next to Hinata on the bench. The redhead nodded cheerfully.
             “Yep! It took a while, but Yachi was right. Using up all my energy at practice really helped.”
             “You were still pretty restless, though,” Yamaguchi chimed in with a chuckle.
             “So what did you see?” Nishinoya seemed to apparate in front of Hinata, eyes sparkling. For the millionth time, Tsukishima marvelled at his boundless energy.
             “Was she cute?” Tanaka asked.
             “I think so.” Hinata tilted his head. “She had this cool hair that went down to her shoulders, and gold eyes.”
             “Cool hair?” Daichi looked faintly amused.
             “Yeah! It was dyed, I think. The top was black, but the rest of it was blond.” He straightened suddenly, legs bouncing with excitement. “Oh, and I think she plays sports, too! She was wearing a red thing that looked kinda like a tracksuit. And I think she was on her phone.”
             “So… dyed blond hair and a red tracksuit?” Sugawara exchanged a glance with Daichi.
             “Yep!”
             Tsukishima stared at Hinata along with everyone else. Judging by his teammate’s faces, most of them seemed to have reached the same conclusion he had, their expressions ranging between hesitant and amused. He could practically see the same question floating in the air above their heads: should I tell him?
             “W-well, I’m sure you’ll meet her soon, Hinata!” Asahi said eventually, sweating with nervousness, or perhaps just from practicing all day.
             “Y-yeah. Very sure.” Daichi added with a smile. Hinata blinked up at him in confusion, but as he opened his mouth to speak, the captain quickly clapped his hands together. “A-alright, everyone! Let’s get everything cleaned up!”
             Beside Tsukishima, Kageyama capped his water bottle and stood, looking utterly unaffected by the conversation they’d just heard. In fact, Tsukishima doubted he’d been listening at all. He felt his nerves continue to jitter as they put everything away and swept, the temptation to chicken out and go home growing with every passing second. But he’d already told Yamaguchi to go home without him, and besides, this wasn’t an ordinary confession. This was his soulmate.
             He was one of the last people to leave the gym, stepping aside to let Daichi pass after the captain locked the door. To his surprise, Kageyama was still lingering by the steps, apparently waiting for him as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He steeled himself and approached the setter, who wordlessly turned, and the two of them began walking toward the hill.
             “U-um, I wanted to say thanks,” Kageyama grunted suddenly, avoiding eye contact. “I passed my English exam.”
             “Oh. Congratulations.”
             The two of them fell silent again, and Tsukishima cringed at the awkwardness in the air. Before, he would’ve just slung an insult at his teammate by way of conversation, but he couldn’t think of a sarcastic reply through that annoying cloud of butterflies. The thought struck him, suddenly, that even if Kageyama was his soulmate, he might not be happy about it. But as far as he knew, they probably didn’t live anywhere near each other, and sooner or later, their paths would diverge. Now was the time to say something.
             “Want me to buy you a soda?” Kageyama asked suddenly, before he could even open his mouth. Tsukishima looked at him in surprise, then sighed, hoping he didn’t sound as relieved as he was, and more importantly, hoping his smile didn’t betray the affection he felt.
             “Yeah. Sure.”
             They stopped in the shopping district, at a bench next to a vending machine that stocked strawberry sodas. Most of the shop windows were dark by now, the streetlights above them flickering, but the moon was full. Tsukishima watched its light illuminate the grass next to the sidewalk, each blade waving slowly in the chilly breeze, as he settled on the bench. He heard faint beeping as Kageyama bought the soda from the machine beside him.
             Eventually, the setter approached him, handing him a strawberry soda. Kageyama was silent as he took a seat on the bench, holding, predictably, a box of milk. Tsukishima cracked open the can and sipped at it, relishing the sweet flavor. Finally, he spoke.
             “What was your soulmate vision like?”
             He could see Kageyama looking at him in surprise out of the corner of his vision. The streetlight above them flickered.
             “I… don’t remember it too well. I only saw it once.”
             “Really?” Now it was Tsukishima’s turn to look at his teammate in surprise. The setter nodded.
             “Yeah. I had it on my twelfth birthday.” Kageyama paused and sipped at his milk before continuing. “My sister really wanted me to do it, I think.” Tsukishima huffed in amusement at the coincidence.
             “My brother was the same way.”
             Kageyama’s eyes remained fixed on the silent storefronts across the street. A hint of sadness gleamed in his irises.
             “I was really excited at first, since I saw him playing volleyball. But when I told people at school….” He trailed off, brow furrowing, gaze dropping to the sidewalk beneath them.
             “Is that why you only had your vision once?”
             “Yeah.” He nodded. His fingers tightened around the carton in his hands. “Everyone said I was weird, so I never tried to have a vision again. But….” He looked up at Tsukishima, eyes glinting, lips twitching in a faint smile. “But I know now that they were wrong.”
             Tsukishima met his gaze with a resolute smile of his own. After a few seconds, he spoke.
             “So why don’t you have your vision again?”
             Kageyama blinked. The thought had obviously not occurred to him.
             “I… don’t know.” He suddenly looked nervous. “Should I?” Tsukishima’s smile turned to a smirk. He raised his soda can to his lips and looked away, speaking in a teasing tone.
             “Your call, King.”
             Another silence fell over them. After a moment, Tsukishima glanced back at Kageyama to see the setter’s eyes were already closed. He raised an eyebrow.
             “So am I just supposed to sit here for thirty minutes?” he asked. It was a foregone conclusion that he would stay, of course, but he was still curious to hear why Kageyama thought he should. In response, his eyes still closed, the setter grinned a nasty grin.
             “Your call.”
             Tsukishima clicked his tongue, shooting his teammate a glare he couldn’t see. Clearly, both of them still hated losing.
             “Fine. I’ll keep you from getting mugged, King. Wouldn’t want someone to steal your crown.”
             “Shut up.”
             For once, Tsukishima obliged. For a few moments, he watched Kageyama’s expression settle into one of concentration, and then he took his phone from his pocket. He took a mental note of the time and slid his headphones over his ears. This was how he spent a lot of nights, anyway: sitting on a bench or swingset, gazing up at the sky, listening to music and the sound of his own thoughts. And this time, he had a strawberry soda to sweeten the deal.
             Of course, the thoughts he was listening to focused only on one thing. In thirty minutes, barring some catastrophic oversight on his own part, Kageyama would learn the truth. His legs bounced with restless anticipation, a thousand different scenarios running through his head. What if Kageyama was upset? It hadn’t been too long ago, after all, that the two were at each other’s throats almost constantly, and Tsukishima hadn’t exactly been delighted to meet Kageyama. He’d rejected the idea of the other boy being his soulmate out of hand. What if Kageyama did the same?
             He tapped at his playlist, nervously skipping over every love song. Slowly, painfully, five minutes passed, then ten, then fifteen. Kageyama said nothing. He was grateful his teammate had his eyes closed; he knew he was doing a miserable job of concealing his anxiety at this point, his foot tapping rapidly against the sidewalk, his fingers drumming against his thigh. Thirteen minutes later, the music faded from his headphones, and he drained the last drop from his can of strawberry soda.
             For another two minutes, Kageyama was silent. Tsukishima jumped when he finally spoke.
             “I see him.”
             Tsukishima heard the note of wonder in his voice and saw the way his lips remained slightly parted as he watched something only he could see.
             “Well?” His own voice was quiet. Any louder, and he was afraid it would break with nervousness. “What does he look like?”
             “He’s blond,” Kageyama replied. “I remember that now.” Tsukishima exhaled slowly, stuck between marvelling at the borderline confirmation that he was Kageyama’s soulmate and the fact that Kageyama had somehow forgotten such a basic detail.
             “What’s he doing?”
             “Just sitting there, I think.” Kageyama frowned. “Wait, he’s moving. He’s putting his arm out beside him. I think he’s reaching for something.”
             Tsukishima’s hand reached Kageyama’s shoulder.
             For a moment, his teammate was still, freezing at the light touch. Tsukishima could see the surprise in his expression even though his eyes were closed, feeling the muscles beneath his fingers stiffen. And then he watched in slow motion as Kageyama’s eyelids lifted, two moonlit sapphire eyes fixing on him. When Kageyama spoke, his voice barely rose above a whisper.
             “It’s you.”
             Tsukishima nodded.
             “Yeah.”
             He held his breath. Kageyama’s expression remained stunned for a moment longer, and then it melted into a smile, his eyes shining with pure, unadulterated happiness, pink dusting his cheeks. Tsukishima felt his own cheeks begin to heat up. He’d never seen Kageyama make that expression at anything other than volleyball.
             “I found you.” Kageyama’s words were joyful. Tsukishima gazed back at him with a relieved, equally joyful smile, before twisting it into a smirk and raising an eyebrow.
             “I found you first.”
             “Shut up.” Kageyama’s tone was utterly devoid of venom. Tsukishima dropped his hand back onto the bench as the setter turned with his whole body to face him. “You’re my soulmate.” Kageyama lowered his own hand, fingers falling lightly on top of Tsukishima’s. The butterflies in his stomach flitted around uncontrollably.
             “Yeah.”
             A thought suddenly seemed to strike Kageyama, and he lifted his chin, eyes glinting.
             “I’m not going to toss more to you during matches, though.” Tsukishima laughed.
             “Yeah. And I’m not giving you free English lessons, King.” He reached behind him with his other hand and picked up the empty can, wiggling it with two fingers in front of Kageyama’s face. “If you want my help, you have to pay up.”
             Kageyama’s smile turned into a grin.
             “Deal.”
             At sixteen, Tsukishima had found his soulmate, and his soulmate had found him. The two of them spent the next few hours talking about anything that came to mind - volleyball, exams, classes, how they’d spent their break, family, childhood, each other - anything to make the conversation last just one more minute. Tsukishima spent the entire time ribbing Kageyama, of course, but now he couldn’t stop smiling, and when Kageyama snapped back at him, all hints of malice had melted away from his tone, too. When they finally left to head home, they walked with their fingers intertwined.
             “I have to go home this way.” Kageyama stopped at the start of an intersection, pointing with his free hand to the street branching off to their left. His eyes glimmered with disappointment. Tsukishima laughed.
             “Why the long face, King? We’ll see each other tomorrow.”
             “Shut up.” Kageyama looked away, blushing. “I don’t have a long face.”
             “Yeah, you do.” Tsukishima squeezed his soulmate’s hand. “We can’t stay up all night. We have practice in the morning.” That put a glint of resolve in the setter’s eyes, and he nodded.
             “Yeah. Okay.”
             Kageyama let go of Tsukishima’s hand and stepped back. For a moment, as he stood there, Tsukishima just looked at him - at the way the moon formed a haze of light around his silhouette, at the piercing blue of his eyes. He wrote the sight into his memory and filed it away with the other visions he would treasure forever. The third of many, he hoped.
             Finally, he raised a hand in farewell, smiling.
             “See you tomorrow, King.”
             His soulmate smiled back.
             “See you tomorrow.”