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It’s after practise on a Friday and Yahaba is in the storage cupboard putting away the volleyballs when he hears someone behind him. He turns, sees it’s Kyoutani, and swiftly spins back around.
Kyoutani coughs. “You need help?”
“It’s fine, you can go change,” Yahaba turns to tell him.
Kyoutani is standing awkwardly in the doorway; one foot in, one foot out.
“Oh, okay, then I’ll just—“ and he thumbs over his shoulder. Yahaba gallantly tries to ignore how relieved he looks.
“Kyoutani! Get the box from the back of the cupboard for me will you?” Watari calls out.
Yahaba frowns. There’s no boxes in the back, only a few dusty nets. But Kyoutani is already dutifully walking into the cupboard, squeezing past Yahaba.
Suddenly, the door slams shut and the lock clicks into place. Yahaba can hear the keys jangling outside, and the only person who has keys, aside from him, is his supposedly loyal and supposedly ‘best friend’ Watari.
“Watari!” He yells from inside the cupboard. “Oi! We’re still in here you know!”
The libero cackles from outside the door.
“Oh, I know,” he replies, sounding much too gleeful for someone who’s going to end up in a body bag with all his internal organs removed. That is, of course, if what Yahaba suspects is happening, is happening.
Watari laughs again, the sadistic prick, and Yahaba can hear him walking away. Yahaba stifles a groan as he comes to terms with the fact he’s trapped in a stuffy storage cupboard with the person who’s been avoiding him for the better part of two weeks.
Spinning around, Kyoutani’s deer-in-headlights look is hard to miss, even in the dimly lit dark cupboard, which is actually starting to resemble Yahaba’s own personal hell.
Yahaba groans, “You think you could help me open it? Maybe if we shove hard enough the lock will break.” And I can enact my revenge on one certain libero , he thinks vindictively.
Kyoutani huffs, and brusquely gestures a ‘step-aside’ motion. He pushes his shoulder against the door and shoves, giving a low grunt as the muscles on his back flex. The sound going straight to his dick is a secret Yahaba is taking to the grave. A grave that will be dug very soon if they don’t escape immediately . ‘Rest in Peace Yahaba Shigeru’ the gravestone will read, ‘who died of over-exposure to ripped volleyball players’.
Yahaba joins Kyoutani in his attempts to ram down the door, however they were in vain. It won’t budge. Yippee.
“Watari will leave us here to fester for a while and be back soon, I’m sure.” Yahaba sighs, more to comfort himself than to Kyoutani. Resigned to their imprisonment, he settles down on the, unfortunately sticky, floor, between the crate of volleyballs and a rather precariously piled stack of soft mats. Kyoutani remains standing, and Yahaba doesn’t blame him. The only other space on the floor is directly opposite Yahaba, and God knows that’d be awkward.
Kyoutani still hasn’t acknowledged why Watari has locked them in here, but they both know. The knowledge is more suffocating than the silence, combined with the tight space, and the dusty smell coming from the mats- that might actually be suffocating him. Yahaba sighs again and starts playing with a loose thread on one of the mats. He doesn’t want to address it any more than Kyoutani, but unlike him Yahaba can’t let it show on his face.
It , namely, is Kyoutani rejecting him.
Two weeks ago, Watari hosted a get-together at his house. Said get-together was the first time in months the team had all seen the old third years since they’d graduated, and so to make up for it, the party was even more chaotic than usual.
It involved too-loud music, most of which had been Oikawa’s choosing, Kunimi, of all people, swinging from the chandelier, Kindaichi falling asleep with his head in the toilet bowl, and ultimately everyone having had a bit too much to drink.
Yahaba himself was on just the right side of tipsy, when he did what he’d been wanting to do for months: making a move on Kyoutani. An attempted kiss. There was a pressing of lips, noses smushed together, until Kyoutani had promptly shoved him off, called him a prat, and left the room. Yahaba didn’t see him for the rest of the night, and he woke up the next morning, head pounding and a fuzzy feeling in his mouth, attempting to piece it together. The realisation of the previous night’s events had made practise the next day somewhat awkward, to say the least.
To give Kyoutani the benefit of the doubt, he wasn’t treating Yahaba any differently, but he was avoiding him, and it showed. Their plays hadn’t been affected, thankfully, but the mood was different on court when the ace and captain weren’t as bonded as they should be.
Yahaba looks up at him now. The lighting is reflecting on his dyed-yellow hair giving it an almost neon complexion. Kyoutani is currently scowling at the floor, as if the force of his glare will burn a hole into the ground and they can tunnel to safety. Yahaba huffs. Not such a bad idea when the alternative is rotting away because Watari is the worst friend ever . Lamentably, that huff drew Kyoutani’s attention, and he’s now scowling at Yahaba. Oh goody.
He could scream. Instead he lets out a frustrated grunt and says, “I’m not going to... you know, do anything. Don’t worry, message received.”
Kyoutani returns to scowling at the floor. As the scowl somehow builds in intensity, he bites out, “What?”
“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I truly didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, and I think it would benefit everybody if we could at least be friends.” There. Take that, Watari. Yahaba can address the elephant in the room and everything can go back to normal.
Kyoutani still isn’t looking at him, but the scowl is clearing slightly which means he’s listening.
"Is my- is it all so bad that you have to avoid me though?” Yahaba means to sound nonchalant, but it comes out as more of a whine. Dammit, Kyoutani even messes up how emotional he sounds, which is something he’s usually good at controlling.
Kyoutani coughs, “I just... I just need to get over it.”
“I haven’t acted any differently towards you, I’m not going to send you any extra tosses than needed, and I wasn’t intending to do anything about it, really. Why can’t you just forget how I feel about you and—“
Kyoutani harshly cuts him off. “Do you have to be so cold?”
Yahaba blinks back the hurt and chooses his next words carefully.
“I’ve never had something like this before.” Yahaba hesitates, “I don’t know how to deal with unreciprocated, um, feelings.”
Kyoutani visibly winces at his statement and Yahaba has to school his face into a carefully blank expression.
“I’m really sorry,” he repeats.
Kyoutani finally meets his eyes. “It’s fine. You were drunk, shit happens.” He shrugs. “We can’t help being attracted to whoever we’re attracted to.” He swallows and gives Yahaba a small smile. It’s not the smile that brings out the dimple on his right cheek, but for now it’ll do.
Yahaba thinks they’re done, but Kyoutani continues. “I mean, it was a bit shitty of you to use my feelings against me, but apart from that, it’s fine.”
Now it’s Yahaba’s turn to scowl.
“What? Use your feelings against you? What the hell do you mean?”
Kyoutani glares back. “You know how I feel about you.” And wow, the way Kyoutani spits it out is like one of Iwaizumi’s serves to the head.
Yahaba had sort of assumed that they were at least shakily friends. Yes, they had both made it abundantly clear that they hated each other to begin with, but since Yahaba became captain and had gotten so much closer to Kyoutani, enough to develop feelings in fact, he had thought they were at least a little buddy-buddy. And could be something more. Kyoutani essentially saying he still hates him hurts a lot more than he’d like to admit.
He wishes he could go back to the arguments, Yahaba thinks absently. At least then they could speak more than a few words to each other before lapsing into an awkward silence.
Yahaba returns to fiddling with the thread on the mat, trying to occupy his hands as his mind buzzes. There’s something off about the tone of Kyoutani’s voice, but he can’t place it.
And, for the life of him, Yahaba can’t conjure a response. I thought you were my friend? I thought I could give you sloppy toppy but you actually despise me? What is an appropriate reply to being told you’re disliked?
Kyoutani beats him to it. “Doesn’t get more unreciprocated than that,” he mutters under his breath.
Yahaba very bravely doesn’t tear up. Sure, the first real crush he’s had since his first year is mocking him in a storage cupboard that stinks of sweat and dried rubber, but other than that, life is swell.
“God, I get it okay? Please stop going on about it,” he chokes out.
Kyoutani’s head snaps up at the sound of his voice. “What are you getting so worked up about? It’s me who has to deal with these feelings, it’s me who has have their crush only wanting to make out with them as a drunken mistake, and it’s me who has to—“
“Wait, wait wait wait,” Yahaba halts him. “What— what do you mean? Crush?” He sputters.
“I can’t believe you’re making me say it out loud, but yes, my crush on you.” Kyoutani looks hurt as he says it, and the tips of his ears have gone bright red. The cuteness of his ears is something that needs to be addressed at a later date, for now Yahaba has to work out what in the fucking fuck is going on.
“Kyoutani, I made a move on you at the party, and you rejected me. What the fuck else have we been talking about for the past ten minutes?”
Kyoutani is still scowling, but Yahaba knows his scowls, one has to in order to understand Kyoutani, and this is not a scowl of anger, rather one of confusion.
“Yahaba you were drunk . Shitfaced! I wasn’t going to make out with you just because you felt like it!”
“I wasn’t that wasted!” Sure, he had been tipsy, they all had been, but he still knew what he was doing. “I wasn’t so drunk that I didn’t know what rejection looks like,” he says bitterly. Yahaba feels he should stand up for this conversation, his neck is getting rather sore from gazing up at Kyoutani trying to read his expressions. What’s stopping him is the fear that his legs will give out if he does.
Kyoutani eyes him up, but he’s looking less and less upset and more and more nervous.
“You at least said something about not doing it if you hadn’t had something to drink.”
Well duh, Yahaba thinks, he’s never had the guts to make a move sober. So what if he’d relied on alcohol to loosen him up? But oh, oh , he now realises how else that little nugget could be interpreted. He curses his drunken self. Why did he have to tell Kyoutani at the time?
Fuck his wobbly legs, Yahaba needs to look Kyoutani in the eye for this. He stands up and takes a shaky breath. “Kyoutani, I fear we have not been having the same conversation," Yahaba eventually says.
“Yeah, you—“ Kyoutani looks somewhere over Yahaba’s shoulder as he finishes his sentence, “You like me?” He asks quietly.
Yahaba breaks out into a shaky smile. “Yes, and I admit I needed the alcohol for nerves to make a move. But, Kyoutani, I want to... I want to kiss you sober too. I like you.”
Kyoutani hesitantly smiles back. “I like you too. Fuck, I thought you were trying to kiss me because you knew how I felt, didn’t mean it back, and just wanted to kiss someone. Like you did with Oikawa that one time.”
Yahaba shudders at the memory. Going along with his senpai’s plans in order to make Iwaizumi jealous was not one of his finest moments.
“I mean, I hoped you felt the same, but I wasn’t certain. And it didn’t help that you told me, I believe the exact phrase was, “I’m not doing this”, either,” Yahaba replies.
Comprehension flickers across Kyoutani’s face. “I meant I’m not kissing you when drunk.”
Yahaba laughs. “I gathered.” He steps forward, and Kyoutani’s breath hitches.
“Now, since we are both patently sober, we could...” He trails off, and Kyoutani pulls him forward. It’s nothing like he expected, which was fierce passion and all heat. Instead, Kyoutani softly presses his lips against Yahaba’s, and their mouths slot together. He tilts his head, and lets his tongue run along Kyoutani’s mouth. Kyoutani’s hand curves around the back of his neck to draw him in closer, and his hand gently pulls on Yahaba’s hair.
Eventually Yahaba pulls away with a gasp. “Um.” Kyoutani’s pupils are blown wide and he’s smiling sweetly, showing off the dimple Yahaba loves so much. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a while.”
Kyoutani ducks his head. “Same,” he mutters. His lips are cherry pink.
They resume kissing, but this time it’s hungrier. It’s not aggressive in any way, just passionate, and all the misunderstandings between them fade away.
They’re eventually broken apart by a loud rap on the door.
“You two! Make yourselves presentable! I’m unlocking the cupboard,” Watari’s voice sings from outside.
Yahaba immediately remembers the death sentence he gave Watari, but for some reason it doesn’t need to be so painful anymore, maybe he can keep a couple of organs.
As the door swings open, Watari takes one look at Kyoutani’s red face and Yahaba’s messy hair and cheers triumphantly. “I knew it would work!” He starts punching his arms up and down, and Yahaba rolls his eyes affectionately.
“Be careful about your last words, because you are still a dead man walking .” The venom in the statement is slightly detached by the way Yahaba is still smiling and how he gently curls his fingers into Kyoutani’s. He turns to face him. “Come on, let’s go get changed and you could, um, maybe come round?”
Kyoutani grunts. “Sounds good,” he says looking down at their hands.
Yahaba smiles to himself. It will be good; they will be good.