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"Okay, there's no way that isn't against the rules," Iwaizumi pants with his hands on his knees, scowling over at the net. "Bodyswapping? Are you fucking with me?"
The current play rotation puts Ojiro Aran within hearing range from across the net, who snorts. "They've been itching to try that out for ages," he says, rolling his eyes lightly.
A few steps behind him, Miya Osamu and Miya Atsumu engage noisily in some twin brotherly celebratory ritual or other. It involves, mostly, haphazardly thrown punches wildly lacking in accuracy for two nationally recognized athletes. "It used to be they'd get penalties for violating normal rotation rules whenever they'd swap places, and they'd have to switch back before the ball hit the floor."
Still, it had been working just fine for them, too, if the pixelated, intermittently malfunctioning Interhigh livestream Oikawa had managed to get his hands on was anything solid to go off on. But though it doesn't initially appear so in the flurry of chaos, the new and upgraded Miya attack has morphed into something else entirely.
Osamu had been in the back row during this particular rotation, with Atsumu in the front. It had been a while since Atsumu had last tossed the ball to his twin in this set, and at least half of the Aoba Johsai team had anticipated a back-row attack from Osamu. Every inch of the rally's setup had been pointing exactly toward that conclusion, too, but the second Inarizaki's libero dug up Kindaichi's spike, Osamu and Atsumu had swapped into each other's bodies right there on the court. Before anyone on Seijou's side of the net could piece their brains together fast enough to figure out what had even happened, the receive that had initially seemed off-course was set lightning-quick from the back by Apparently-Atsumu-in-Osamu's-body just in time for Apparently-Osamu-in-Atsumu's-body to slam directly down before Seijou.
"Shake it off," Oikawa says to Iwaizumi, who's still glowering over at the twins. "We'll manage. It's not the first time we've had to deal with new tricks thrown at us on the fly."
"Still nasty as hell, though." Hanamaki grimaces and wipes his brow.
"We'll manage," repeats Oikawa, waving his team into receive formation when the whistle sounds, signalling another serve from Inarizaki.
In the end, Seijou lose in straight sets, though they manage long enough to drag the second one out to a deuce, ending valiantly 27-29 before immediately getting to penalty drills without complaint. It's what Oikawa had been prepared for when Mizoguchi first informed them that they'd somehow managed to set up practice games and a mini-training camp with an assortment of schools from Hyogo, including, of course, the runner-up of the past Interhigh Nationals. It's only the first day – they'll manage.
"Oi," Iwaizumi pipes up suddenly through a mouthful of yakisoba later in the day, "you realize their captain never actually set foot on the court during those two sets?"
The finals had been the only broadcasted match of the past Interhighs. The black #1 jersey somehow remained on the bench the entire game, all the way until the harsh pierce of the gym's buzzer sounded one final time. Other than the grainy image of a dark red jacket staunchly draped across his shoulders and the way his team encircled him during timeouts like he was coach rather than captain, Oikawa has almost no gauge on Kita Shinsuke.
He drew no attention to himself on the side of the court, but on the opposite side of the net, Oikawa noticed things a camera couldn't possibly pick up on. The flickering glance of his teammates toward the side of the court, the instant, half-subconscious straightening of their shoulders. Occasionally, even their lazy-eyed middle blocker seemed to fix his slouching posture by a microdegree.
Captain to captain, they shook hands to signal the start of the practice match. Kita's grip was firm, with a sure hint of physical strength and a faint undercurrent of his energy core. His fingertips are slightly calloused as their hands slid against each other. Well-used, but just as well-maintained.
"I overheard their second years talking about him," says Kunimi, picking lightly at his tray.
Oikawa perks up. "Did you get to hear what his ability is?"
Kunimi shakes his head. "I don't think it's anything especially helpful for volleyball, or we probably would have seen it by now."
"Or maybe it is, " Hanamaki says, wagging his eyebrows in a truly unbecoming way, "and they're just keeping it as their secret weapon."
Kunimi has graduated from playing with his chopsticks to tearing a napkin up into when he says in an exact echo of Miya Atsumu's tone, "Kita-san," before switching it off and continues in his own bored voice, "just seems like a pretty regular player to me. Miya just seemed slightly terrified, that's all."
"Man. It's useful when you use that as diversions during matches, but it's still creepy when you just do it." Matsukawa grimaces lightly.
"I'm terrified of my captain, too." Hanamaki nods, now the picture of complete solemnity. "Whenever I see his ugly face – "
"Makki! I am the quintessential picture of beautiful and benevolent leadership!" Oikawa wails, indignant, and the conversation about Inarizaki's captain comes to an abrupt and violent end as Iwaizumi sends him a vicious kick from under the table.
—
Oikawa is a habitual early riser anyway, but sleeping without the comfort of his own bed always leaves him just a little bit more restless. He doesn't dream during the night, and wakes early enough before his alarm in the morning that he decides to go out on a run on the second day, instead of continue to try and force himself back to sleep.
Quietly he puts in his contacts and shoves on his running shoes, stepping around his still-sleeping teammates before slipping out and sliding the door shut as silently as he can manage, an cringes slightly at the loud creak of the wooden floors despite his best efforts.
The training camp has them gathered in the dorms of Ryukoku High, just slightly out of Kobe city limits at the foot of Mount Maya. Mindful of the time and a lack of familiarity with his surroundings, Oikawa sticks to the gated perimeters of the school.
This far out from the city, the school is shielded by thick greenery that hangs heavy above the brick walls covered by a layer of ivy. The sun has just fully broken out of the horizon, and the morning mist lingers just a little, yet to be replaced by the stifling humidity of summer.
On his final lap before he heads back indoors, he sees the outline of another figure by the vending machines lined up outside the dorm entrance.
"Inarizaki's captain." Oikawa slows down to a stop as he recognizes the silver strands of hair dipping into black ends, somehow still immaculately parted down the sides of his forehead despite the run he'd clearly also just been on. "Out for the early worm?"
"Aoba Johsai's captain," Kita returns coolly with a slight tilt of his head in Oikawa's direction in acknowledgement. "You should cool down properly."
Oikawa, who had been gearing up for a bout of – he doesn't even know, really, starts.
"A proper cool-down," Kita repeats himself quietly and firmly. "It's important, so that you don't wind up sore before the end of the training day."
Kita isn't even looking at him, punching the vending machine keypad carefully like he's been put in charge of keying in the launch code for a satellite at JAXA headquarters instead of trying to purchase bottled unsweetened genmaicha. It's so unlike Oikawa to feel chastized, but something about Kita's tone makes him suddenly sympathize with the Inarizaki underclassmen's instantaneous snap to attention under their captain's watchful eye.
Maybe Hanamaki's right. If it weren't for the super-volleyball regulatory rules that strictly forbid players not currently subbed in on the court from using their powers, Oikawa might be seriously inclined to think that Kita's is just projecting intimidation aura to whip his teammates into shape. He's been standing here for no more than thirty seconds, Kita's said no more than fifteen words to him in total, and yet he feels inexplicably compelled to take an extra lap around the school, and then another at a walking pace on top of that as a proper cool-down.
"I – " Oikawa runs a hand through his hair, scratching the back of his neck. It is so unlike him to feel so chastized. "I mean, yeah. You're right."
After taking his drink, Kita picks his change up from the vending machine and carefully deposits the coins into the pocket of his jacket, zipping it closed. Once again, he nods shortly at Oikawa, who just watches the ceding image of the dark red track jacket and the printed Inarizaki High School Volleyball Club as it disappears once again inside the dorms.
"What the fuck," he says aloud to the vending machine. Briefly, the words Thank you! flash by on the display screen before turning back to black. Oikawa is left feeling, inexplicably, like the early worm that was just got by the bird.
—
That night, Oikawa sets his alarm a full hour before the rest of them are set to wake up, and slams the stop button on his phone half a second after it goes off for the first time the next morning lest it – god forbid – wake Iwaizumi up any time before his mandated eight exact hours of sleep. When he slips out of the dorms by the east-facing entrance, he's greeted by the slanted glare of sunrise and Kita Shinsuke tying his shoelaces on the steps.
Kita finishes his second double knot before standing up. "Oikawa-san," he says in slight greeting.
And so, over the next few days, Kita becomes Oikawa's running partner with the gradual rolling out of sunrise.
The rhythmic sound of their shoes hitting the terrain shifts against gravel, asphalt, soil still wet with morning dew, but throughout, Kita keeps his pace steady. Oikawa finds something grounding in the near-periodic nature of it, the silence stretched between them that draws more attention to their feet against the ground, the thump of his pulse, the huff of his breath.
Oikawa knows the value of consistency. Oftentimes he thinks that even a hypothetical win against Shiratorizawa, no matter the grandeur of the stage, would never be able to fully rid him of the lingering aftertaste of loss parried by years of frustration. Open palms burning red with the repeated impact of synthetic leather against flesh. Sometimes it's almost mechanical in his mind – the threshold of consistency that clearly distinguishes real indicators of skill from flukes and sheer dumb luck that he knows only turn into lazy, complacent inertia.
So when he was old enough to finally start thinking about properly developing an ability beyond the basic formation of his energy core, it was always momentum he kept coming back to. The force that drives the ball over the net; the undeniable impetus that orchestrates the game's outcome.
For Oikawa, it has always been about control. Rinse, repeat, until a new pattern has been allowed to bloom in its wake.
By the first time Seijou get to play a full match against an Inarizaki lineup with their captain on the court, he can already tell it isn't anything like that with Kita.
The razor-precision of the clean receives he gets back in the air and the instant sharpening effect of his presence on the rest of Inarizaki's ferocious playing style catch Oikawa less off guard than the rest of his teammates. By now, he knows that every step that Kita takes, every minute shift of weight, is done deliberately so. It's never calculating in the least, but rather deeply imbued with intention. It must be why strength emanates from him, even in the visual absence of an ostentatiously displayed on-court ability.
Be so good that no one can deny it, so that it comes to be something they expect. Beyond even just that, there is the culminating marriage of effort and discipline, treated artfully and with care; the clear, obvious conclusion that can only raise the one question – well, how else would it be?
The next morning, Oikawa finds Kita, once again setting off eastward at first light. With the lift of the morning mist, there are no blind spots in the open field. When the sound of their footsteps falls into sync with one another, it might be that Kita Shinsuke is inevitable, as inexorable as the certain trajectory of the sun across the canvassed horizon.
—
On the penultimate day of the training camp, it's Kita who extends the offer to Oikawa after their run, just before the two part ways back to their respective teams' assigned quarters.
"Tomorrow is our last day here, and a free day on the schedule – how would you like to take a hike around Mount Maya in the morning instead?"
Oikawa blinks once, twice. "We only have to be back here before dinner, no?" Kita nods in affirmation. "Then sure, why not! Do you know where we're going?"
"Yes," says Kita. "I've been up a couple times. The view from the top is top three in the country. Kobe, Osaka, Nishinomiya, Sakai. Amagasaki as well."
"Quoting travel guides at me now, are we, Kita-kun?" Oikawa arches an eyebrow, grinning.
Kita huffs out a light laugh. "I will see you tomorrow, then, like always."
"Yeah!" chirps Oikawa, then levels a finger in the direction of Kita's jacket collar. "But you'd better watch out in practice today, Kita-kun. Seijou will be closing this training camp with a bang!"
//
"My sister moved to Kobe a few years ago, just as I was starting to develop my ability." says Kita quietly, his eyes fixed on the horizon.
Mostly in amiable silence, Kita and Oikawa had spent the morning hiking up the long Tengu Trail. Once they reached the summit, they lingered while Oikawa took a few pictures for his family before making their way back down through Aotani to find themselves at the dry landscape terrace at Tenjo-ji; temple in the sky.
By chance, they seem to be the only two people at Tenjo-ji, the crowds gathered at the utmost summit of the mountain somehow having vanished somewhere along the stone steps as they strayed further from the cable lines. Its reconstruction is fairly modern, he'd read from a plaque near the entrance, but the temple site itself dates back centuries. He supposes it all contributes to the liminality of the experience, the sight of Kita's profile against the backdrop of an endless sky with a smear of clouds.
Oikawa inclines his head as an indication to keep going. With Kita, it never seems like he needs to say much.
"It's something like clairsentience," Kita continues, turning his head slightly to smile at Oikawa. Oikawa's mind reels , and suddenly it makes so much sense that it hurts.
"Wow," he breathes. "Oh, wow."
"It's a simple enough concept, I think." Oikawa can faintly recall: the ability to gain information and history about objects and places through touch.
Oikawa shakes his head, half in awe. "No, you just – go on. How does it work?"
"It's easier to start with inanimate objects. With training, you familiarize yourself with the ball so you can get a feel for it later on. You stay on the court, so that your body knows where to move. That's more of what I did at first." Kita exhales, lightly rolling his shoulders back. "But my sister took me up here once, and that was the first time I realized how rich everything is."
He taps his fingers lightly against the railing. "This place is special, I think. You know, the old Tenjo-ji has been in the mountain since the seventh century, all the way until it was burned down in the seventies. When they reconstructed it, it was reconstructed here, bright and open underneath the sky. But when I close my eyes, it's like I can fully see all that it is now, and all that it used to be."
Oikawa vaguely thinks he understands what Kita means. The temples his parents would take him and his sister to every year on the new years have never quite felt the same as this. Unlike the mountain temples hidden deep in the folds of the hills, he's here with Kita Shinsuke, under the open sky where warm summer breezes pass through periodically like a gentle reminder.
"Well, I think I get it," Oikawa says finally. "But you know, Kita-kun, I think I can see into the future, too. I know I will be seeing you next year Spring Nationals," he says blithely with his chin tilted towards the sun, and Kita laughs, simple and light.
"Of course, Oikawa-kun."
"I'll be keeping an eye out for you."