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Daichi gets a weird feeling in his chest when he sees him, like when he ran into Ukai at the grocery store once while he was shopping with his mom and siblings. It’s the feeling of remembering everyone is just a person who does things like buy toilet paper, or, seeing Kita Shinsuke get his order at the counter of the crowded bubble tea shop, drink taro milk tea with extra boba.
Daichi’s here to get drinks too, a group order. He called to order beforehand because it seemed like a jerk move to try to order fourteen wildly different drinks for the team and Kiyoko and Yachi, (and two for their coaches, and another one for the nice hostel owner who let Daichi borrow her foldable shopping cart to carry all the drinks) at the counter during the evening rush hour. Daichi feels a twinge of regret as he watches the top of Kita’s head, easily followable with his black gray hair, weave through people and leave the store.
After his name gets called a few moments later and Daichi tucks the bags of drinks in the shopping cart, he pushes open the door with his toe and steps out, drawing in a sharp breath at the sudden embrace of cold air. Someone leaning against the wall next to the door looks up with the chime of the door’s entrance bell.
“Which way are ya goin’?” Kita asks, swirling his cup. With the crowd gone, Daichi can see him entirely. He’s wearing a black hoodie and blue jeans, the nice kind that fit snug around the ankles. (The kind that Daichi wouldn’t think to pack with him to bring to Tokyo.) Daichi suddenly feels underdressed in his sweatpants and club jacket.
Daichi swallows and tips his head to the left. Kita pushes off the wall and moves to join him, and they begin to walk in silence.
It feels like a set up for a joke. A fox and a crow go on a boba run. A crow and a fox prowl the streets of Tokyo together. Where is the punchline?
“It’s chilly,” Kita says. He doesn’t look at Daichi when he says it, his eyes remaining forward.
“Yeah.” Daichi doesn’t know why he’s suddenly forgotten how to have a conversation. He continues hurriedly, “It’s great. I hoped it would be chilly ‘cause the last time I was in Tokyo for training it was really hot.”
Daichi watches Kita’s eyes widen a little before his face relaxes and he takes another sip of his drink. “Yeah,“ he says softly.
Daichi almost wants to thank Kita, but he doesn’t know why. “Good game,” he says instead, louder than he meant to. He clears his throat and tries again. “It was a good game today.”
Kita tilts his head to the side, still facing forward. “Maybe they’ll get seeded together next year,” he says. “That’d be nice.”
Daichi flushes a little at the way Kita so casually implies that Karasuno will be back next year for nationals. It’s like he doesn’t know just how rare all this is for them. Or maybe he doesn’t care about that.
“They better be,” Daichi chuckles. “I think some of my teammates were ready to play you guys all over again right then and there.”
“Yes, it’s excitin’. The game isn’t finished for them yet.” Kita says. It startles Daichi because he was thinking that exact same thing. It’s the kind of simple, pithy thought that Daichi has been having a lot of since he became captain.
“Captains,” he blurts out. Kita seems to get it and nods, stepping over a crack in the sidewalk.
“I cried when they gave me my jersey,” he says. “I think everyone was surprised.”
“I cried when I got my jersey too.“ Daichi says. Their eyes meet, and Daichi gets thrown off by how Kita smiles in answer, with his mouth closed, with his whole face. It’s so all consuming that Daichi breaks eye contact and looks up, scratching the back of his neck. “I cried like a baby. I don’t think anyone was surprised, though.”
“I had a dream during winter break,” Daichi continues, “where the club didn’t exist. It felt so real I went to the gym just to look through the window and make sure it was still there.” He laughs a little, realizing how crazy this must sound to a fellow captain. “And then I found some of my teammates playing hanetsuki right outside.”
Kita doesn’t laugh. He looks thoughtful. A couple beats of silence broken only by the skipping of the shopping cart’s wheels over the sidewalk cracks pass by before Kita asks, “Was it gone?”
That was the same thing Sugawara and Asahi had asked Daichi when he told them about the dream, but instead of teasing, Kita seems genuine. “No, of course not.”
Smile in answer, complete with eye crinkles. Maybe when Kita’s older he’ll have wrinkles there. It’s a nice thought.
They start to speak at the same time and Daichi tips his head. “You go,” he says.
“Did ya have a difficult time once?”
Daichi stills, his hand tightening around the cart handle. “What do you mean?”
“I may be talkin’ out of place.” Daichi shakes his head and Kita continues. “It’s the way ya hold yourself on the court. Did ya get injured once?”
“Yeah, I did.” Daichi blinks. “I ran into someone in prelims.”
In the following silence Daichi adds, “It wasn’t a concussion.” He’d gotten used to saying that when he’d arrived at school the day after that game sporting a palm-sized red mark on his cheek. In the continued silence he adds again, “But I lost a tooth.”
“They pulled you out.” Kita says quietly. It’s not a question. Daichi nods.
“I was wonderin’.” Kita explains. One of his hands is tucked into the front pocket of his hoodie now, pulling it down, and Daichi can see the pale skin of Kita’s collarbone and neck lit up in the street lights. “We watched the tape of that game, but they cut that part out.” He chuckles a little, a dry laugh that fills Daichi’s chest with fuzzy warmth. “Ya just came in and out all abrupt like in the footage. Some people were guessin’ you were teleportin’.”
Daichi laughs along, and then realizes Kita hasn’t apologized or said, that sounds scary, or are you ok? and Kita seems to pick up on his train of thought because he continues, “It happens. Osamu got a fever the day of the Interhigh finals and had to sit the whole game out.”
“One of the twins, right?” Daichi asks. Kita nods.
“We watched that game. I didn’t know that was the reason he was on the bench.”
“He took it hard,” Kita says. “He was torn up about how he was eatin’ and sleepin’ right and he thought he could power through it. Folks often think they can control things like that if they do everything right. But things just happen sometimes, and when they do, all ya can to do is keep takin’ care of yourself until you’re well again. It’s foolish to think just ‘cause ya do things right you’re exempt from ever gettin’ an injury or gettin’ sick ‘cause it’s unavoidable. I think what matters is that you do things right every day so you can be ready for when it happens. So at first, I didn’t understand why he felt bad about it. I get it now, though. It was rude of me to think that Osamu wouldn’t be hurt that his routine failed him, even if it was inevitable.”
The tone of his voice makes Daichi realize Kita blames himself, at least partly, for Osamu getting sick.
There’s no point in feeling responsible for something like that, Daichi wants to say. It’s like you said, it happens sometimes. What else can you do but wait until their fever breaks? What else can anyone do but be there when they step back onto the court? Then Daichi takes a sharp breath and wonders how much of this he’s actually saying to himself. Before he can dwell in that feeling, Kita lifts a hand.
“Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to go off on a rant.”
Daichi swallows his words. It’s probably nothing. “It’s okay,” he says, and then continues on a sudden impulse, “Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“How does it feel?” Daichi asks. He regrets the words as soon as they come out of his mouth. What is he doing, asking the captain of a team that got defeated on their first day of nationals how he feels? He opens his mouth to take it back, but Kita tips his head to the side, thinking it over.
“It feels amazin’.” Kita says, turning to look at Daichi. The wind picks up suddenly, rustling Kita’s hair. Daichi doesn’t know when they stopped walking, but they’re standing in the middle of the sidewalk and Kita’s smiling again, the city lights dancing in his eyes. Daichi wonders faintly if Kita is the kind of person who smiles a lot. He must be, if this one day that Daichi has known him is accurate at all. They stand there, paused for a second in time, a streetlight above illuminating them both.
A yell up ahead breaks it. Kita turns his head and Daichi lets out a shaky exhale and follows his gaze. It's Hinata and Kageyama out for a run, Tsukishima trailing behind on the bike they’ve been borrowing from their hostel.
Daichi turns back to Kita but the moment is already gone. Kita has a calm, focused stare trained past his shoulder to the three first years. “They’ll get sick out here.” he says quietly.
“They’re idiots.” Daichi says, but his tone lacks the usual exasperation. He’s about to turn his head back around to yell back at them when he feels a hand on his shoulder.
Daichi’s eyes widen. Through his thin and ratty jacket, Daichi can feel the bend of each of Kita’s fingers, squeezing Daichi’s shoulder once before withdrawing.
“Play well, Sawamura.” Kita says. Suddenly the air is thick with something, premonition maybe. Kita dips his head and Daichi hurriedly returns the gesture.
Kita smiles as he turns around. When Kita smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkle up. Like a fox, Daichi thinks. Geez.
Before Daichi can catch up on what’s going on, Kita’s waving and he’s walking away in the opposite direction. From the back he looks like any teenager in Tokyo, a faceless stranger that is quickly forgotten. Daichi’s mouth is slightly ajar. His shoulder feels like it’s glowing.
He was supposed to go the opposite way, Daichi realizes. Gosh.
Daichi pulls his gaze away and keeps walking forward, waiting until Hinata and Kageyama are arms length away before he lets go of the shopping cart and bops the top of their heads gently with two fists.
“I told you to come out earlier if you wanted to go for a run,” he says. “You’ll get sick out here.” The calmness of the night makes everything different somehow, draining any irritation out of his voice.
“He got impatient for boba,” Kageyama says, pointing at Hinata. Hinata smacks Kageyama and rummages around the shopping cart for a drink and plucks it out. Daichi doesn’t stop him.
“And I had to go so they didn’t get lost,” Tsukkishima mumbles, catching up to them on the bike. He crosses his arms and leans them on the bike handles. “Who were you talking to?” he asks Daichi.
“Ki-The captain of Inarizaki. Did you guys not recognize him?” Kageyama and Tsukishima shake their heads. Hinata growls as he tries to puncture his cup with a straw.
Daichi looks at them incredulously, but after thinking it over for a second, it does make some sense that they wouldn’t recognize Kita. They each had their own pocket wars in the rotations today, Tsukishima with Suna, Kageyama with Atsumu, Hinata with everyone, and Kita wasn’t in the game footage they watched of Inarizaki yesterday.
But, god, still. To Daichi, the entire court was held in Kita’s upturned palms. When Kita stepped onto the court the first time, his hands closed around Karasuno like cupped hands to a firefly. Daichi didn’t just feel like Kita had been watching Karasuno, but like he had been understanding them, how they got to nationals, and why, and what they had to do to keep being at nationals. He is terrifying. And he is also the most respectful person Daichi has met at nationals who he didn’t already know from the Tokyo training camp.
Kageyama and Hinata start jogging back to the hostel with Hinata pulling the shopping cart behind him, leaving Daichi and Tsukishima behind. Daichi thinks about what Kita said about losing, “amazin'”. Daichi wonders if he’ll feel the same for the inevitable end that is rapidly, rapidly approaching him.
“What did he say?” Tsukishima asks, breaking Daichi out of his stupor.
Daichi opens his mouth but nothing comes out. For possibly the first time, he has nothing to say. Or rather, it’s nothing he can put into words. Tsukishima’s eyes widen for a second, realizing this as well, before he slips back into his usual indifferent, half lidded gaze.
“Well,” Tsukishima says. The wind picks up, carrying the word away. He tips his head at Daichi and pushes a foot off the ground, turning and pedaling to catch up with Hinata and Kageyama.
As soon as he’s a few steps ahead Daichi turns to look behind him, but nothing’s there.