Work Text:
Kageyama Tobio has been standing outside the mostly empty train station for what feels like eons now. The sun is bearing down on him, but the air is slightly cold on his skin. It’s a disturbing contrast, a discomfort that would be solved if Miwa had arrived on time. She was supposed to pick him up thirty minutes ago, but until now, Tobio is unable to spot his sister.
“She always does this,” he mutters to himself as he shifts his weight to his right foot, hand gripping his luggage. He’s home for the summer, something he didn’t want to do in the first place, and it’s already going downhill.
He doesn’t blame Miwa, though. He blames the gods or the universe. Or maybe himself.
Tobio digs through a pocket in his duffel bag to pick out his earphones. He opens his phone’s music player and has to physically stop himself from opening a playlist titled “for royalty”.
Tobio doesn’t know why he kept it. All it does is remind him of hushed whispers in the club room after dark, feigning “cleaning duty,” and searing kisses that turned out not to mean anything at all, especially not now four years after the fact.
He scrolls past.
Three more randomized songs later, Miwa finally pulls up in front of Tobio.
“Tobio!” she calls, grinning from the driver’s seat as Tobio moves to load his luggage.
“You’re late,” he says as he gets into Miwa’s minivan.
Miwa shrugs. “Mom and Dad are really excited about you coming home. I had to help clean the house,” she explains, taking a turn out of the airport. “It’s been a while, you know.”
Tobio stays silent. It has been a while. He can’t fault his parents nor Miwa for that. He barely came home since graduating from high school and pursuing a career in professional volleyball, under many obvious excuses of practice and competition and the like. Some of them were true, of course, but Tobio can’t deny the avoidance tactics he’s learned throughout the years.
He didn’t want to confront loose ends.
The only thing that convinced him to actually come home—and stay for a while—this time around was the fact that it was Hinata Shoyou’s homecoming from Brazil.
Tobio had already established a career for himself in Schweiden Adlers in the past four years. He’s not coming home because Hinata’s return is threatening that. He admits, though, that news of his partner’s return lit up a familiar fire in him that he hasn’t really felt since high school.
When he’s by himself, maybe he can also admit he just misses his best friend.
“Are you going to the bonfire later?” Miwa asks him. He only just notices they’ve pulled up in front of his childhood home. “With the others?”
Tobio nods. “No choice. Sugawara-san threatened me to,” he muses with a small laugh.
When he turns to Miwa, she’s smiling at him, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “It’s been a while since I heard you laugh, Tobio,” she says softly. “Welcome home.”
Tobio lets that settle in him. “Tadaima.”
—
It’s not long before Tobio receives a barrage of messages from Sugawara.
sugawara koushi
kageyama! [4:32PM]
did u arrive safe [4:32PM]
you better show up later [4:33PM]
i’ll drag you from your house if i have to [4:33PM]
Yes, Sugawara-san, I’ll be there. [4:34PM]
See you later. [4:34PM]
:0 [4:35PM]
Tobio lets out a fond laugh for his senpai as he continues unpacking. He goes quiet, though, when the familiarity of the room he grew up in begins to seep into his skin. It really has been a while.
He’s forgotten all about the photos of their first year team he’s put up all over the room. Photos of him and Hinata. Him and the Karasuno team. Him and the other first years. Him and the other first years when Yamaguchi became captain in their third year, freckled teammate bearing the number 1 on his jersey.
Tobio standing close to Tsukishima, fingers almost touching.
That was the only reminder of what they had, whatever it was, that Tobio allowed himself to put up on his wall. It’s a miniscule detail, one that only the two people involved would even notice.
Tobio looks away before his throat can clog up. It was the only photo he ever indulged himself in, a small touch of skin. Meticulous posting of the photo on the wall. Smoothed out edges, carefully taped to beige. A single photo, a group photo, handled with care, as if it may be the last memento of the two of them.
Well, he wasn’t wrong.
It’s useless, anyway. Tobio remembers everything.
—
Tobio goes out of his room in time for dinner. He politely answers his parents’ questions with the awkwardness of someone who has forgotten how to eat with family.
It’s not that Tobio never came home. He just didn’t stay long.
“You must be excited to see Hinata-kun again,” his mother said.
Tobio nods, truthful. “I’m surprised he’s back in Miyagi first thing,” he says.
“Why?”
“I thought he would be out applying for V.League,” Tobio answers, swallowing his food. “That’s what he last told us.”
His mother’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise at the same time Miwa turns to him. His father observes the exchange. “You’ve kept in contact with them?” It’s Miwa who asks. He can’t blame them. He barely graces their family group chat.
Tobio nods. “They added me to this, um, Line group. I barely reply, though. Sorry,” he tacks on, feeling bad about neglecting his family. He admits to his own faults, but it remains heavy all the same.
When he looks up at the faces of his family, he’s surprised to find not hurt but…hope? Of sorts.
His mother smiles at him. “I’m really happy to hear you’ve kept in contact with them, Tobio.”
Tobio manages a small smile. He has a feeling he knows what his mother really means to say. I’m happy you haven’t closed yourself off from them. His mother, really, is too kind. Here is her son who has barely spoken to them since he left Miyagi and she still finds it in her to wonder about his well-being.
Idle chatter continues on at dinner. Tobio helps Miwa clean up afterwards. They fall back into a familiar routine, Miwa washing the dishes and Tobio drying them off.
Miwa breaks the silence. “Will you be okay later?” she asks, glancing at him.
Tobio turns to her quizzically. “Yes?” he says, but it sounds like a question. “I mean, yes. It’s just Karasuno.”
“Yeah, well…” Miwa trails off, averting her eyes. She clears her throat. She hands him the last plate. “Well, tell me all about it when you come back.”
Tobio is confused, but before he can ask about it, Miwa’s phone rings and she’s out of the room to answer it. Tobio drags the ends of the drying towel over the plate as he worries for his sister. He tells himself it’s just her being weird.
He finishes up at the kitchen and goes up to his room to change out of his clothes. He puts on his earphones, deciding to jog to the beach where the bonfire will be. He skips past the playlist again.
“I’m going now,” he announces to the house and his family responds with a chorus of “take care.”
Tobio is normally not confrontational about his feelings when it comes to people. This was made obvious in his middle school years and his early years at Karasuno. Confronting people he cares about is something he stumbled through in high school, a feat he had to truly learn after high school, after it all ended. It just doesn’t come as easily to him as it does to Yachi or Hinata.
He allows himself to confront his feelings for Tsukishima on his jog. He tells himself it’s because he’s seeing Tsukishima in a few minutes, tells himself it’s to prepare. He even puts on the playlist Tsukishima made for him.
Except… what was there to confront, really? He and Tsukishima had started something—Tobio still doesn’t know what it was—on a whim. They also ended on a whim. He can’t explain why. He just knows he had accepted an offer from the Adlers at the same time Tsukishima got accepted to university.
Their paths never crossed again after that. Or, rather, Tobio made it so.
Tobio’s spent the last four years promising himself not to dwell so much on Tsukishima’s intentions. On Tsukishima turning away from him the day of their graduation. On Tsukishima letting the flowers meant for the taller boy wilt in Tobio’s hands.
After all these years, he still doesn’t want to blame Tsukishima. For all its vagueness, he wants to say he understands. They were going on different paths. It would be hard. They didn’t need to talk about it. They both weren’t confrontational in the first place; they were bad at processing their emotions. Tobio thought they were both so brilliant, the decision just clicked for the both of them.
He told himself it didn’t matter how much it had been a spear through Tobio’s heart to see Tsukishima turn away.
Tobio will admit it broke his heart but only to himself.
In Tokyo, Tobio almost fell in love again. But this was before he learned to confront the people he cares about, and so he watched Ushijima Wakatoshi tell him, “I’m sorry, Kageyama.”
Ushijima didn’t realize it then, but he had freed Tobio with those few words. After that, Tobio forced himself to learn to reach out, to confront. He asked Miwa to add him to the family group chat. He re-downloaded Line. He allowed himself to be added to the Adlers chatbox and even kept in contact with Kindaichi and Kunimi. He messaged them sparingly, but it seemed enough for them that he was in their sphere.
It’s only Tobio who feels bad for rarely sending updates, for letting his own family hear about him through the news, especially after he racked up attention as a big rookie. But he never heard a word about it from his family or his friends.
Miwa later told him they were just happy to hear him doing well. And to take his time.
It takes seeing Tsukishima Kei again after four years, glowing in the dim light of the bonfire, for Tobio to understand what Miwa meant.
Take your time, she’d said.
Tobio feels a prickle on his skin as he catches sight of Tsukishima. He’s still a distance away from the group, already huddled around the fire. He lets out a breath as Tsukishima meets his eyes.
Tobio maintains eye contact with Tsukishima for all of two seconds before Hinata Shoyou disrupts it.
“Bakageyama!” Hinata exclaims. “You’re late!”
Tobio wrenches his eyes away from Tsukishima. “I jogged here,” he says, wiping the sweat on his neck. “Sorry.”
Hinata gives him that blinding grin. Tobio, admittedly, misses seeing it. “It’s no problem. We just arrived, anyway,” Hinata says, dragging Tobio to sit beside him, diagonal to Tsukishima.
“Kageyama!” Sugawara all but calls out, wobbling over to hug his kouhai. Daichi has a hand on Sugawara’s shirt to steady him, chuckling at his boyfriend.
“Sugawara-san, are you already drunk?” Tobio asks into the hug, smiling.
“Nope,” Sugawara giggled, pulling away. Daichi’s look behind Sugawara tells Tobio that the older actually is drunk. Not that Tobio minds.
“Sure, Sugawara-san,” he tells him before gently maneuvering him back to Daichi.
Tobio goes around to greet the rest of his teammates, holding a particularly lengthy conversation with Yachi and Asahi about the new Schweiden Adlers uniform, with Nishinoya about his plans to travel, and, of course, with Hinata about his time in Brazil. Yamaguchi laughs with them, but the man beside him, Tsukishima, doesn’t make much of a sound.
Tsukishima’s sharp observant eyes give him away, though. Like he’s doing a read block, Tobio thinks.
“Kageyama!” Hinata calls out. They’ve finished two or three cases of liquor at this point. Hinata is tipsy, but definitely not drunk. “I’m joining the V.League soon. And my team will defeat you.”
Tobio smirks at him. “You don’t even know yet what team will accept you.”
“Look, Mister Number One Setter,” Hinata challenges, his eyes glinting. “Just you wait.”
Tobio feels himself firing up at the quip. “Sure,” he shoots back. “We’ll see.”
In a way, Tobio is glad nobody asks him about his work here. Nobody treats him any different despite all the accomplishments he’s managed to tie to his name the past years in the Adlers. Here, he is just Kageyama Tobio, former Karasuno setter. Genius setter, if he wants to be generous to himself.
Tobio’s companions for most of the night shift from teammate to teammate. He stays rooted in his seat while the rest of the group moves around, catching up with each other. The seat beside him fills and vacates every few minutes.
At some point, someone takes a seat beside him and takes longer than usual to leave. Tobio knows because he’s counted the minutes. He drinks from his bottle. Thinks to himself, Tsukishima has always been the exception, hasn’t he?
He’s tipsy, but he’s not so uninhibited to not realize Tsukishima is sitting beside him.
Tobio doesn’t know what to say. His heart is hammering in his chest. He wants to believe it’s because of the alcohol. He can’t tell. He’s done his best to stay in his seat so that he didn’t have to approach Tsukishima out of politeness. Not that politeness was ever a norm between them. Tobio just figures four years might have eroded those dynamics somehow.
“King,” Tsukishima says, breaking their shared silence.
Tobio nods at him, fingers gripping his bottle. “Tsukishima.” He tries his best not to look affected.
Tsukishima stands up and gently tugs at Tobio’s arm. “Let’s go there,” he says, motioning to the beachfront.
Tobio moves to protest, wanting to say that the group expects them to be here, but one glance at the group tells him they don’t even notice.
Tsukishima says as much.
“Okay,” Tobio breathes out, following Tsukishima out of the group.
They set their flip flops on the sand and sit on them, still knocking back their beer bottles. Tobio remembers Tsukishima isn’t a lightweight.
Tobio wants to look at Tsukishima, wants to turn to him and ask why he’s brought Tobio out away from the group. He wants to ask why he’s sitting here beside him and not a thousand miles away like he said he’d be.
Tobio takes another sip instead.
They sit in silence. Somehow, Tobio has forced himself to get over the initial awkwardness of being around Tsukishima. Before it all happened, Tsukishima was his best friend. The tension of their annoyance for each other from freshman year had ebbed come third year and they began treating each other as legitimate close friends. Perhaps they got too close.
This is the first time they’re seeing each other since they parted ways after graduation. Tobio supposes he can’t blame Tsukishima for his silence. Tobio himself doesn’t even know what to say.
But Tsukishima can never really keep things to himself. “D-do...um,” Tsukishima stutters, breaking the silence. A first, in all the years Tobio has known him. Tobio feels a fleeting sense of pride to realize he can fluster Tsukishima. It’s quickly replaced by dread, though, over what Tsukishima has to say.
“Pardon?” Tobio prompts when Tsukishima falls into silence again.
“Are you seeing anyone?”
It takes all of Tobio’s willpower to swallow down the liquor in his throat. It’s been four years and this is the first thing Tsukishima asks. Tobio has a lot to say. He wants to lie, just to hurt Tsukishima, if this question proves anything. But he’s not cruel and he’s never been one to lie.
He settles on, “Why?”
Tsukishima is silent again, leaving Tobio in the dark the same way he had all those years ago. Tobio feels a prickle of annoyance.
Before he can act on it, Tsukishima speaks again.
“I went to your house. After graduation,” Tsukishima says carefully. “I told your mom I wanted to talk to you, but she said you’d already left for Tokyo.”
“Did you,” Tobio says flatly. He doesn’t mean it to be mean. Tsukishima doesn’t seem to mind either, likely expecting it.
Tsukishima takes a swig from his bottle. “I left you messages on Line,” he says. This is new. Tobio wouldn’t know, though.
“I deleted the app. I only reinstalled it recently.”
“I unsent the messages, anyway,” Tsukishima continues. “I was surprised when you came back to our group chat. I still didn’t reach out, though.”
Tobio ignores the sting he feels over that last part. Instead, he asks, “What did the messages say?”
Tsukishima turns to look at him, holding his gaze. Tobio feels caught, but Tsukishima averts his eyes after a few seconds. “I’m sorry,” Tsukishima murmurs, barely above a whisper. He rests his forehead on his knees, head turned sideways towards Tobio.
Tsukishima keeps his eyes on Tobio this time.
Tobio looks away. “I was never angry at you. Not really. It was hard to,” he admits.
Tobio doesn’t tell him he still has dreams of them sneaking out after practice in third year, pretending to be held up by something so that they wouldn’t have to walk home with the rest of their team. Spent as much time as they could alone together at the club room. Kissing. Touching. Leaving marks on each other. Tobio would wake up sweating after each of those dreams.
“I’m glad to hear that, King,” Tsukishima says, though he doesn’t sound anywhere near glad. He keeps his eyes on Tobio.
“I would still appreciate an explanation, though.”
At this, Tsukishima lets out a breath, as if relieved he’s being given the chance to explain himself. Tobio himself doesn’t understand why he’s asking for—closure? Either way, four years is a lot of time. And Tobio has always been weak when it comes to Tsukishima.
“I don’t tend to dwell on regrets, Tobio,” Tsukishima begins, the sound of Tobio’s first name rolling so cleanly off his tongue, “I don’t think there’s a point to it. But if there is one thing I regret, it’s missing the chance to ask you to go out with me.”
How long has Tobio wanted to hear those words from Tsukishima? All those school days in high school wishing that this time, this weekend, Kei will ask. Except Tsukishima never did.
In the dim light, Tobio notices that the sharpness in the lines of Tsukishima’s face has softened over time. He looks as he was before—still as handsome as ever—except softer. Gentler.
“I waited, Kei,” Tobio whispers, wistful.
Tobio notices just then that Kei is blinking away a few stray tears. “Sorry, sand in my eyes,” Kei lies, pretending to blow air into his eyelids.
“Here,” Tobio offers, scooting closer. “Let me.” He removes Kei’s fingers from his eyes and replaces it with his own, gently blowing over them.
Tobio knows there’s no sand inside Kei’s eyes, but Kageyama Tobio is 21 years old, deprived of a love he should have had, and he will not be leaving this place without a kiss.
When he’s done, Tobio puts a small distance between them, but still close enough for him to see Kei’s eyes darting to his lips. Close enough to feel his breath on him.
“I never meant to let you go, Ki—” Kei begins just as Tobio says, “When will you kiss me?”
Kei stops to look at him, startled. “I- are you not with anyone? Hoshiumi? Ushijima? That Romero guy?”
“I waited, Kei,” Tobio repeats, hopeful.
Never slow on the uptake, it’s only a moment more before Kei leans in to capture Tobio’s lips in a gentle kiss.
As Tobio pushes back into Kei’s kiss, Kei reaches for his hand and intertwines them. His other hand rests on Tobio’s nape.
Tobio can hear faint cheering from his former teammates, but now, drowning in Kei’s kiss, he can’t bring his senses to care for anything else.
Kei’s kisses are just as he remembers: searing, soft, loving.
Tobio will have time for the questions later. Tobio has lost all this time with Kei, the questions will have to wait. The answers will have to wait. Later, Tobio will demand all of them from Kei, who will give them to him in full, in truth, leaving nothing out.
In turn, Tobio will tell him about the dreams, about the one time he found himself on a train to Kei’s university, carrying the same kind of flowers that were left to wilt years ago. Tobio will tell him about the playlist, how it remains in Tobio’s phone since the time Kei first made it. Tobio will tell him about the photo he keeps in his room. Kei will show him that the same photo is his phone’s wallpaper. Tobio and Kei will tell Miwa about the bonfire together. She’ll be expecting a good story.
Right now, Kageyama Tobio and Tsukishima Kei are 21 years old and their lives are finally meeting.