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1.
Shouyou beats him to it this time. Huffs of warm breath fog up the frigid air of December mornings in Miyagi. As they pant, sprawled out on the dark concrete floor, the door to the volleyball clubroom looming above them, Tobio finally feels at peace. The fond familiarity of settling back into old habits after five whole days of being thrust into an unfamiliar city with unfamiliar people and only the weight of the volleyball against the callouses on his fingertips to keep him sane makes a smile tug at the corner of his lips.
Shouyou’s earmuffs are askew, his bright orange hair stuck to his forehead, damp with the light sheen of sweat their run had produced. The freckles scattered across his face look starker against the paleness of his skin in the winter sun. Tobio wants to fix his earmuffs, and his fingers ache to run through the fluffy strands of Shouyou’s hair. And maybe most of his nights these days consist of wondering how it would feel to trace the freckles dotting the apples of Shouyou’s cheeks and whether they resemble any constellations, because Shouyou resembles the sun. But all he knows about astronomy is Oikawa’s excited rant to Iwaizumi one afternoon on the way back from practice in middle school, with Tobio trailing behind like an eager puppy to pester him to help him with serves again, and Tobio is an awkward teenage boy with serious emotional constipation, so he wills his hands away from their burning urge to mess up Shouyou’s hair more than it already is, and he shoves the boy with his elbows instead.
It ends up less gentle than he intended, and Shouyou winces, and Kageyama scowls because sixteen years into his life and the only time his limbs move like he wants them to is on the volleyball court. He really wishes they would listen to him more, but with the mush his brain turns into at moments like these, unguarded moments with just him and Shouyou and the emoji pins on Shouyou’s messenger bag smiling up at them, he honestly doesn’t blame them.
But Shouyou smiles back at his scowling face, all his bright teeth and his pink gums showing, and Tobio realizes, he must have missed him too. Tobio, in all the glory of his yelling and permanently furrowed brows and constant shouts of “dumbass”, has missed Shouyou. The realization that Shouyou has missed him too ignites something deep in his guts, and a lukewarm fire rushes through his veins, fizzing like the carbonated drinks he sometimes buys Shouyou from the school vending machine while he sips from his usual carton of chocolate milk. The winter morning gets a little warmer.
He momentarily forgets the discomfort and anger that had been gnawing him alive since the second day of National Youth Camp when Miya Atsumu called him a Goody Two Shoes.
Shouyou is right here, right in front of him, and he’s smiling his gummy smile, warm and familiar, and a voice in Tobio’s head that is suspiciously pitched like Shouyou’s tells him it will be alright.
There are parts of Shouyou lodged so deep in Tobio that he often wonders how they even got there, because even Tobio can’t find his way to them anymore. And granted that Tobio isn’t the best at feelings, or traversing the thoughts in his head, but Shouyou, as oblivious and bullheaded as he can be, always finds a way in, maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that he found a way to Tobio’s heart before Tobio himself did. Sometimes when the silence in his head gets too loud with no Shouyou calling for a toss to shatter its chokehold on Tobio, Shouyou’s voice tells him it will be alright. It has been, constantly, for the last five nights he spent looking up at a foreign ceiling with strange lights of a city he does not know casting shadows across his face. But only right now, with Shouyou so close that Tobio could reach out and feel the rhythm of his heart, all erratic from the strain of exercise, if he wanted to, does Tobio finally believe it.
“What did you do for the last five days?”
Tobio is curious, because he knows Shouyou has not been laboring around with the rest of Karasuno like anyone would expect him to, not when Tobio had told him he was moving forward and Shouyou’s usually soft face had sharpened with a determination that promised him that he would catch up, that he wouldn’t let Tobio out of his sight, no matter how much ahead he already was. That he would pull through and reach him, even if Tobio was a genius, and Shouyou an upstart whose only redeeming quality seemed to be his speed to any onlooker. Because Tobio knew that he was so much more, and someday, the world would too. Shouyou would make sure they knew, every single one of them.
“I was a ball boy!”, Shouyou grins harder, and there is a spark in his eyes that tells Tobio that there must be some inside joke he is missing out on, but he steps on the flare of jealously that threatens to claw at his heart and at whoever Shouyou shares this joke with, because he knows Shouyou will tell him, eventually, because he always does, and Shouyou’s smile after five days without it is too beautiful to dampen with petty jealousy.
Neither of them has the key to the clubroom, they soon notice. Tobio is about to let out an exasperating sigh upon the realization when Shouyou smirks his way, slowly and dramatically pulling out a volleyball from his satchel. Tobio finally lets the smile he’s been holding in break out, and he knows it’s not a pretty sight, not the way Shouyou’s smile is: Tobio looks menacing and a little maniacal on the rare occasions he smiles off-court. But Shouyou doesn’t jeer at it, only giggles like it’s the best sight he’s seen all morning, and god, Tobio has missed him so bad. A little sappy maybe, when they have only been apart five days, but he has.
He will never admit it out loud. Neither will Shouyou, he knows.
Tobio isn’t good at reading social cues, and Shouyou isn’t good at reading subtext, but they are both good at reading each other.
They know they missed each other, and that’s enough.
They race down the stairs.
As they pass the ball, Shouyou goes on a long rambling tale about the training camp he crashed, gesticulating like crazy and making adorable Shouyou noises that tug at Tobio’s heart. When he’s finished, he asks Tobio, “What about you?”
There are so many things Tobio wants to tell Shouyou, but somewhere along the way from his heart to his head, or his head to his mouth, or whatever the mechanics are (Tobio doesn’t pay attention in biology class, or any of his classes to be honest) they shrivel up and die and all he can bark out is some gruff insult that lights up Shouyou’s amber eyes and make them burn the same hue as his flaming hair and inadvertently leads to some kind of dumb challenge only Shouyou’s head can cook up. Tobio, being the lovesick fool that he is, only falls a little deeper.
Afterwards, when they’re climbing up the stairs to the club room, their senpais having interrupted their bickering, Tobio drinks in the intimacy of it all, of Karasuno’s corridors and their senpais’ loud welcomes and of Shouyou, most of all, of Shouyou. When he looks up at Shouyou’s back clad in the soft cream Karasuno sweatshirt ahead of him, the part of him drunk on the giddiness of this morning screams at him to pull Shouyou into his arms, and probably never let go. And all the thoughts running in his head condense into one as he dissects that urge, and he calls out to Shouyou.
“Hey.”
Shouyou looks back, the sun hitting his face and there are specks of gold in his irises and god Tobio is in so deep and he’s fucked, he realizes, he’s utterly fucked.
I missed you.
I love you.
“You can fly even higher.”
Shouyou blinks down at him, clueless.
Tobio is bad with feelings, and Tobio is bad with words. So, some things are better left unsaid.
Later, in the practice match against Date Tech, Tobio tosses to him.
I missed you.
Shouyou spikes the ball down perfectly into their opponents’ court.
I missed you too.
2.
Tobio looks at Shouyou as he runs up to the bunch of first years that have walked into their gym, curiously peering around.
These boys chose Karasuno, they chose the team that beat Shiratorizawa, the team that beat Ushijima Wakatoshi, the team that went on to Nationals and did not stop. The team that faced the strongest challengers, and their oldest rivals, but still soared. They are no longer flightless crows, and there indeed is a boy here who can fly, and Tobio is sure they have heard, and they want a look themselves, and as the kids take in all 164 centimeters of an over-enthusiastic Hinata Shouyou trying to be the best senpai he can be in his first week as a second year, Tobio wonders what they had expected.
And, just as they had seen him fly, had they seen him fall too?
Tobio had, and something deep inside him had broken at the sight. The sight of Shouyou on the ground, Shouyou who was supposed to fly and in his utterly endless love for the game had forgotten to take care of himself, broke them all, broke them more than the ultimate defeat to Kamomedai had.
But it wasn’t just Shouyou who had forgotten, they had too, all of them clad in black and orange, including Tobio. And what actually broke him was that he had known, he had felt the heat of his hands earlier in the match, and even noticed his erratic behavior the previous night, but Tobio, in his own utterly endless love for the game, and of setting to Shouyou, his teammate, his partner, his best friend, his first love, had let him fall. And when he did, with hundreds of pairs of eyes taking in the downright melancholic sight of a bird with broken wings, Tobio had been helpless.
The fall of a creature so perfectly meant for the skies that it hurt to take in his pathetic failed attempts to stand up, when he had been flying moments ago.
Tobio blamed himself, he had always been good at that.
When Ennoshita-san rounds up the second and third-years to introduce themselves to the newbies, Tobio finds Shouyou at the heart of the little huddled group of their juniors, laughing along with them as though this wasn’t the first time they had met.
Sneaky bastard, Tobio thinks, he’s always had a way of sneaking into people’s hearts, with his pretty smiles and stupid honesty and made-up words.
Ah yes, wouldn’t you know, Tobio’s brain supplies.
His neutral face returns to his usual scowl. Some of the freshmen that had been spying Tobio flinch.
He wonders how his reputation goes around these days, what preconceived notions of him these fresh faces have had imprinted onto their heads. Tyrannical king of the court? Genius setter who was invited to the National Youth Camp? One half of the freak duo with Hinata Shouyou?
Tobio doesn’t mind anymore, not really. He still attempts to melt Tsukishima’s face off with his glare whenever another mocking “King” gets thrown his way, but that’s only because it’s Tsukishima, and Tobio will desperately grab at any chance to antagonize that dude.
Tobio doesn’t mind anymore, because over the course of the past year he has realized that as long as he has a ball in his hands and Shouyou to toss to, he doesn’t really care how his reputation goes around in the high school volleyball circuit in Japan.
Tobio doesn’t play volleyball for fame. Kageyama Tobio plays because he loves volleyball like he breathes, and so does Hinata Shouyou, and that is all that matters to him anymore.
And he loves Hinata Shouyou too.
He cringes to himself at the thought. With the way he has been avoiding Shouyou like the plague since their return from Nationals, it would be tough luck to expect his feelings being reciprocated. As if his luck concerning any romantic escapades with Shouyou wasn’t bad enough already, with all his emotional repression and absolutely disastrous way with words.
And it is stupid to avoid Shouyou, he knows, and the hurt on Shouyou’s face when he refuses extra practice with just the two of them mirrors his own, but the bated breaths of the crowd when gravity finally mauled the monster that is Hinata Shouyou to the ground are fresh in his memory and they come rushing down every time his hands itch to push Shouyou past his limits, like he always has, all this time.
So Tobio takes the easy way out, and avoids Shouyou, because the memories hurt more than the utter dejection on Shouyou’s face every practice Tobio tosses more sets to Tanaka-senpai and pretends he doesn’t hear Shouyou’s high pitched cries of “Toss to me, Kageyama!”
The first years have spread out across the court, along with the more enthusiastic of their senpais, and of course Shouyou, and Tobio realizes how awfully silent the boy has been to Tobio today. No taunts, no squabbles, no challenges. Shouyou hasn’t talked to him at all today, Tobio gathers with a start.
He wonders if Shouyou is avoiding him, just like Tobio has been, all this time, and the idea leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, and god wouldn’t that be the perfect payback, but does Shouyou even have an ounce of malice in his body to even extract payback? But Shouyou is full of surprises, and Tobio knows best that he isn’t all sunshine like some people make him out to be; he’s seen Shouyou’s eyes go blank and so calm it almost chilled him to the bone, and Tobio loves those parts of him too, but no way in hell does he want to be on the receiving end of Shouyou’s anger, and not because of something as petty as Tobio avoiding him because he isn’t able to let go.
We don’t need memories, the Inarizaki banner flashes in Tobio’s mind and he contemplates the meaning behind those words. But Tobio has never been good at these things, and the thought of the Inarizaki motto brings with it the image of Miya Atsumu pointing at Shouyou across the court, a mix of resolve and awe and the humiliation of recent defeat washing over his features, along with something else that Tobio would rather not read, not yet, not when he knows he has that look too, etched somewhere on his own face when he looks at Shouyou himself.
Tobio looks back at Shouyou, on court with the freshmen, and wonders if Shouyou remembers the other setter’s words as vividly as he does. If Shouyou had felt the anxiety bleeding through Tobio when Miya Atsumu had uttered them.
Tobio would play with Shouyou forever, if he could, although he will never admit it out loud, and the concept that another setter, and particularly one that seemed to live off riling up Tobio, wanted to steal his spiker, his Shouyou, sucker punched him in the guts with a wave of pettiness he could not quite explain.
Does love work that way?
He feels that same burst of envy flicker through him as he digests a first year set for Shouyou as he calls for a toss, the same glee that Tobio has heard the infinite number of times Shouyou had asked the same of him in this very same gym shining through his voice.
Dread coils in the pit of his stomach, Tobio is being left behind.
People might proclaim Tobio a genius, and Shouyou might grit his teeth every time the very same people tell Shouyou he isn’t special, not without Tobio, but Shouyou does not play volleyball because he believes he is special.
Shouyou plays for his infinite love of the game, and as long as he can stand on court, any toss would do, any setter would do.
And something in his eyes had snapped when Atsumu had promised to set for him someday, and maybe Shouyou had registered what Tobio had known all along, what Atsumu had seen that day too: Shouyou was special, and Shouyou didn’t need Tobio.
The first-year setter’s toss goes up higher than intended- the nervous boy grimaces, “It’s a little high!”
But Shouyou is still smiling like he was granted everything he has ever wished for, and he jumps, and Tobio can hear the gym go silent, as he flies, flies so high, and as he slams the ball down across the net, his eyes find Tobio’s.
Look, I’m moving forward, even without you.
And Tobio comprehends just how stupid he has been, all this time.
Tobio can’t hold back Shouyou, not when all the boy knows is to fly, and not when Tobio falls in love all over again every time he does.
Shouyou is still staring straight at him, as the first-years cheer around him, and Tobio recognizes the challenge in his eyes, would recognize it anywhere. And Tobio has never been one to step back from a challenge so he stares right back, his teeth flashing in a smirk.
He picks up one of the balls that have rolled his way, and steps on court, marching straight for Shouyou.
The freshmen part for him, amazement overwhelming their features once more, because do they get to see the freak quick in person now?
And who is Tobio to refuse them a show.
“Set for me, Kageyama!”
Shouyou’s grin is so wide, and so familiar. Tobio has missed this. Tobio has been a fool, but he is even more of a fool when it comes to all affairs involving one Hinata Shouyou.
“Shut up, dumbass.”
Shouyou’s grin only grows wider.
And when Tobio tosses to Shouyou, he jumps faster and higher than he ever has, and as Tobio falls in love all over again like he always has, his lungs burn to scream out the words he has been holding back all this time.
I love you.
But Shouyou is so bright, and his cascading rush of feelings squeeze his throat so hard the words never leave, and now the first-years are all over Shouyou once more, and Shouyou’s tiny body gets eaten up by the rowdy and elated little crowd.
Tobio thinks he can hold the words back a little longer.
3.
Tobio is aggressively toweling his hair to get rid of the rainwater when Shouyou steps out of his bathroom.
His orange hair is half-wet and patched all across his forehead, the wet clothes clutched in his hands dripping onto Tobio’s floor.
Tobio freezes.
Shouyou’s smaller frame is drowning in the fabric of Tobio’s shirt, the pale expanse of one shoulder exposed where it has slipped down. It hangs past the old shorts from Tobio’s early middle school years that Tobio had lent him, dug up from the very bottom of his closet. For a moment, Tobio’s brain conjures up the scandalous idea that Shouyou is not wearing any pants underneath, and Tobio almost chokes up.
“Kageyama, could you put these up somewhere to dry?”
Tobio is snapped out of his thoughts by Shouyou shoving the wet mass of his summer uniform at Tobio, fingers trembling slightly.
Tobio prays he has not caught a cold.
They had almost been at the fork in the road where they parted every evening when the rain had started, sudden and pounding and unforgiving, and Tobio, in one of his rare moments of courage outside volleyball, had grabbed Shouyou’s smaller hand in his and made a run for his house, Shouyou’s bicycle rattling loudly as he pulled it harder by the handle to keep up with Tobio.
“You can’t get sick, who am I supposed to practice with then, dumbass?”
Tobio had promptly answered the quirk of Shouyou’s brows as they were heaving at the genkan of Tobio’s house, rainwater rolling off their bodies and onto Tobio’s mom’s precious doormat. She wouldn’t mind, Tobio guessed, not when she barely lived at the house enough to call it a home.
“It’s late.”
“You can stay over”, Tobio promptly declared. It wouldn’t be a first. Shouyou had been over, a few times, nights spent laboring over homework none of them really understood, or binging reruns of old volleyball games, loudly commenting on each play to each other.
“I’ll call my mom and tell her”, Shouyou sighed.
Tobio did an entire victory routine internally as Shouyou stepped to the side, dialing up his mother’s number, the cute tangerine charm on his phone clinking as he shook his head to rid it of rain.
Tobio had not wanted Shouyou to succumb to sickness and miss practice, obviously, but the split-second decision to bring his best friend back home had also been triggered by the indescribable need to spend more time with Shouyou, away from the bustling corridors at school and the known realms of the volleyball court. Just him and Shouyou, beyond volleyball.
They were more than just partners on court, and Tobio so desperately wanted to clutch at the more in that phrase and wring the most he could out of it.
Shouyou was his best friend, on the court and beyond it.
When Shouyou finally hung up on his mom, he was frowning, although Tobio had heard Shouyou’s mom’s boisterous affirmation on the other end of the line loud and clear just moments ago.
“You sure your folks won’t mind?”
“They’re not here anyway”, Tobio flatly replied, and Shouyou’s face darkened, just like it had the first night he had come for a sleepover and felt the resounding emptiness of Tobio’s house. But he knew better than to probe, and open up old wounds, so he just shrugged noncommittally at Tobio’s answer and started unlacing his shoes.
Tobio dropped his bag on the floor, a small smile threatening to break through.
Now, as Tobio watches Shouyou break eggs over a pan as he unevenly chops vegetables on the old chopping board, because I am so much better at cooking than you are, Kageyama, let me help, warmth sears through Tobio’s body.
It is different from the heat that had flustered Tobio up to the roots of his hair when Shouyou had stepped out in his clothes; this tingles and flutters, that had burned. Tobio discerns he prefers this, at least at this point of time, when he still does not even know how to prevent his face from reddening into a tomato at some of Shouyou’s more adorable antics.
His house feels more like a home than it has in months, or years really, and Tobio could take up his headspace to rant about his parents and their absolute inability to act like parents, but with Shouyou here, making egg rolls across from him, wearing his shirt, he feels a high that he would rather not sour with another mental tirade regarding his parents.
Shouyou laughs at his culinary skills every few minutes, or tells him stories of Natsu or Kenma, and Tobio responds with shorter stories of his own, school, volleyball, and everything in between.
Later, as they hungrily devour the pretty decent meal they had cooked up, Tobio looks out at the porch. The rain had not stopped, the unpredictability of summer storms making it pound harder still, and he could make out flashes of lightning in the distance.
Shouyou follows his line of vision, to the heavy droplets of rain pitter-pattering against the blur of grass in Tobio’s yard. He flinches at a howl of thunder not too far away. Tobio ponders if Shouyou if afraid of thunder.
Shouyou chews his rice thoughtfully, his eyes stuck on some invisible spot on Tobio’s dinner table. The silence is comfortable. It always has been, with Shouyou.
Shouyou looks up, an expression on his usually open face that Tobio can’t quite read.
And then Shouyou smiles his characteristic grin again, his face lighting up under the soft LED lights hanging above them, and Tobio’s heart wrenches at the sight, his cheeks heating up despite himself, but this evening has been too much already, so Tobio hurls back the walls that ready to put themselves around him, and lets himself bask in Shouyou’s light instead.
“Thank you, Tobio.”
Tobio’s eyes widen, and there is a waterfall crashing down in him, and he’s sure that by now his heart has wrung itself so hard he will never be able to get it back into shape again, and there they are, those words again, clawing at his larynx, struggling to burst forth again.
I love you.
But then, the embarrassing teenager that he is, Tobio is choking and coughing on some stray piece of food, and Shouyou laughs as he helps him to a glass of water, his eyes particularly soft.
Tobio wonders if he had heard the pulsating sound of Tobio’s heart, if he had heard it spell out the words he could never seem to say.
When Tobio turns off his lights that night, Shouyou tucked in neatly on the other side of his bed in a spare blanket, he tries again.
“Good night, Shouyou.”
Shouyou might be asleep already, but Tobio hopes, even in the spell of some queer dream, he hears it.
4.
Tobio and Shouyou unbox their lunches at their usual spot on the school terrace, the acrid shadow of resentment at the recent loss to Date Tech at the Prefectural Qualifiers finals hanging heavy in the air.
Shouyou has been a shadow of his usual self the past week, quiet but for volleyball practice, and Tobio contemplates if it only is the dissatisfaction of loss, or something more. He doesn’t push, he knows Shouyou will tell him, when the time comes.
Tobio pokes at the sandwiches he had packed that morning, soggy and unappetizing- he had forgotten to wrap them in clear foil to keep them fresh once again. He sighs, and pries at Shouyou’s bento box, all pretty and organized, veggies cut into stars, and with faces on the onigiri. Tobio has never been a picky eater, but he would gladly exchange lunches. Although, he guesses, his soggy sandwiches would be just as unappealing to Shouyou.
Shouyou is staring off blankly into space once again, like he has been so frequently recently, and Tobio, because he wants to hear Shouyou rambling about the latest game Kenma told him about again, wants to see Shouyou’s gummy smile again, wants Shouyou to hurl insults at him again, but also because he really wants the onigiri with the seaweed cut into a scowling face, very suspiciously similar to his own, pokes at Shouyou’s cheek, breaking him out of his reverie.
“Eh?”, Shouyou blinks up at him with wide eyes.
“Stop blanking out, dumbass, it’s creepy.”
“I was just thinking!”, Shouyou protests with pouty lips, and Tobio kind of wants to kiss them right then to be honest, but he brushes off the thought before a telling blush reddens across his face.
“Don’t think too much, you’ll hurt your head.”
“Stupid Kageyama! I scored more than you in the last English test!”
“Only because you bribed Yachi into extra study sessions with your stupid tasty egg rolls.”
“Did you just admit my egg rolls are tasty?”
“Shut up, dumbass.”
Shouyou throws his head back, laughing, screechy and stupid but melodic and perfect anyway, and a part of Tobio worried beyond measure that he himself was unaware of lightens at the sound. He has missed it.
“Can I have that onigiri?”, Tobio has not forgotten the other objective of his mission.
“Because my onigiri are tasty?”
“You can have this if you do”, Tobio cringes as he thrusts out his questionable looking sandwiches and Shouyou eyes them dubiously.
And then Shouyou is laughing again, louder, and there’s a small smile playing on Tobio’s lips, and he could freeze this moment and the pure ecstasy he feels at the ring of Shouyou’s laugh if he could, but he really, really wants that onigiri right now.
As if on cue, his stomach growls, and Shouyou is wheezing, his bento almost falling off his lap, so Tobio takes hold of it and grabs the onigiri with the scowling face anyway, hurriedly stuffing it into his mouth.
“You can’t even make fucking sandwiches properly, Kageyama-kun!”
“Shad op”, Tobio mumbles as he vigorously chews on the delicious onigiri, sandwiches forgotten at his side.
When Shouyou recovers from his bout of maniacal laughter, Tobio helps him finish off every last condiment of his bento, and Tobio’s disaster sandwiches too are gulped down by both in fast bites with scared faces, because Tobio and Shouyou don’t waste food, and they are perpetually hungry.
Later, in the bright sunlight of the midday sun that casts stark shadows across the concrete of the school roof, with Shouyou’s phone speakers blaring out some k-pop song he is currently into, he says, “Hey, Kageyama-kun?”
Tobio hums in reply, trying to grasp the few English words in the song that he understands.
“What do you want to do, after this?”
Shouyou could very well mean after lunch break is over, but that far-off look momentarily flutters across his face again, and Tobio finally understands, at least a bit, what Shouyou has been spending long hours wondering about, all this time.
“After high school?”
“Yeah.”
Shouyou is looking up at him, and there’s uncertainty written all over his face, and Tobio has never seen him like this, so unsure. Shouyou always knows what he wants. One more toss, one more hour of practice, one more pork bun, Shouyou always knows.
“I want to keep playing volleyball”, Tobio responds. He’s always known. And sincerely, Tobio cannot conjure up any other future in his head.
“Me too”, Shouyou sighs.
The future has been eating away at him, Tobio grasps, and he wants to pull Shouyou into his arms and tell him it will be alright, but Tobio knows he would not believe him, and that there are some things only Shouyou can do for himself, and he must let Shouyou do them, because he knows he is strong enough, so he just nods back.
“If I had my way”, Shouyou breaks the silence after a few moments, and his mouth is curved into a small smile, genuine and soft and sad, as if he knows that he cannot, indeed, have his way, “I’d play volleyball with you all my life.”
Shouyou sets all the bones in Tobio’s body on fire, and Tobio knows, right then, that he is doomed, that planets could explode and Hinata Shouyou would still continue to play his heartstrings like they were a beloved instrument he’d been playing since his fifth birthday.
I love you.
I love you so much.
“Me too”, Tobio mutters to the ground. He can’t look up at Shouyou, not when he is a burning flame and Tobio is just a moth who can’t help but get closer only to burn.
He knows Shouyou hears him.
He hopes Shouyou doesn’t hear the thoughts in his head.
5.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium is easy to get lost in, especially with the entirety of the Japanese high school volleyball scene milling about its vast halls and endless corridors.
Tobio sighs as he checks another corridor with no sign of Shouyou. Where had the idiot run off to now; he had rushed off as soon as they were done changing after the Inarizaki match, with puffy red rimmed eyes and tears that had hardly dried off yet, shouting he needed to find the washroom.
Tobio had checked three boys’ washrooms already, fearfully spying the entrance to a girls’ one too, because Shouyou was an idiot just like that. And Shouyou is still missing.
Tobio speculates about what the fuck could have delayed Shouyou so very long, and silently prays it isn’t one of his infamous bathroom encounters again.
In the black of the Karasuno volleyball club jacket, Shouyou would be much less noticeable than the bright orange of the jersey he had on prior, but Tobio had figured, that with his mop of bright orange hair sticking out no matter how tiny he seemed to be among the hugest teenagers in Japan probably, he would find him soon.
Evidently, Tobio had been wrong.
He sweeps another empty corridor out of the corner of his eye, and is about to turn back, to go search an entirely different wing of the arena, where it was entirely illogical for Shouyou to go pee when there was an array of perfectly usable washrooms on this side, all of which Tobio has thoroughly checked already.
Tobio hears a giggle, and his body reacts faster than his brain, because he has the sound memorized, and he would recognize it even in the farthest corners of the strange halls of this looming gymnasium.
Tobio’s feet follow the sound, down one passage into the next, and he freezes, because there he is, Shouyou in all his 164 cm (168 now, as Shouyou so often likes to remind the entire team) glory, leaning against a wall in a very secluded corner, and why would he be giggling now when the last Tobio had seen of him was furiously rubbing off tears, and was that Miya fucking Atsumu fucking kabedoning him against that very wall.
Tobio’s brain very helpfully short circuits at the shoujo manga scene unfolding right in front of him, and he just stands there, gaping, still hidden from Shouyou and Atsumu and whatever the fuck the two were up to.
Atsumu whispers something to Shouyou, and he giggles once more, Atsumu dopily smiling down at him, and Tobio sees Shouyou push back Atsumu’s sleek phone into his hands. Atsumu quickly returns his phone into the pocket of his white Inarizaki track pants, and his now free hand reaches out to cradle Shouyou’s cheek and all the sirens in Tobio’s head are blaring at the loudest sound setting and he rushes forward, and shouts, “OI HINATA!”
Shouyou and Atsumu swiftly spring apart, and Tobio realizes, closer now, just how close the two had been seconds ago. His head is positively reeling now.
A grimace settles over Atsumu’s face upon registering who exactly had interrupted their little rendezvous, and Shouyou can’t even look at his face, although he is blushing harder than Tobio has ever seen him in their entire almost two years of acquaintance.
“You have a knack for spoiling things for me, dontcha, Tobio-kun?”, Atsumu smiles an extremely douchey smile that he probably reserves just for Tobio, because the dude was smiling like Shouyou had hung the moon and the stars just moments before.
“Atsumu-san”, Tobio bows, because he knows Shouyou is out here of his own free will, and seemed to be enjoying himself quite a lot actually, and that rules out the option of picking a fight with Atsumu on the pretense of him bullying Shouyou or something equally shady that Tobio’s mind could cook up, to justify his petty jealousy.
“Hinata, everyone is waiting for you”, he grits out, slowly, and Shouyou jerks up, gazing at the clock at the far end of the hallway, eyes widening at the time.
“I- I didn’t realize h-how long it had been”, Shouyou stutters out and Atsumu supplies a “cute” from the side that seems to fluster Shouyou even further, and Tobio wants to challenge Miya Atsumu to a fistfight right then, but he also completely agrees with him.
“B-bye, Atsumu-san!”, Shouyou chirps out as he rushes towards Tobio, and Tobio feels like he can finally breathe again.
“Goodbye, Shouyou-kun”, Atsumu winks, and Shouyou’s cheeks redden to almost match his hair at the action, and Tobio just clenches his fists tighter, trying to calm his fight or flight response.
Atsumu only nods at Tobio, tight lipped and sickly-sweet Tobio-special smile back in place. He had not been happy with Tobio’s obtrusion, at all.
Tobio leaves first, with a still red Shouyou who keeps looking back at the Inarizaki captain in tow.
A few hallways later, when Tobio has finally sort of calmed the blazing envy coursing through his body, he smacks Shouyou lightly in the head, turning the full force of his glare on him.
That seems to break Shouyou out of whatever daydream involving Miya Atsumu he was still in, and he yelps, glaring back.
“What the hell was that for, Kageyama!”
And Tobio has so many answers, and so many questions too, but he does not even know how to explain the brunt of his feelings to himself, let alone to Shouyou. So, he grunts out, “What were you off doing fraternizing with the enemy?”
And Tobio expects Shouyou to laugh, because anyone would, he sounds like a very disgruntled child, but Shouyou just stiffens in response, blush back in place, and now Tobio is sorry he even asked, because he would rather not hear his explanation.
Shouyou blurts out a very expressive “Eek!”
Maybe Tobio is more curious than he is jealous.
Then Shouyou exhales loudly, stopping altogether in the semi-crowded corridor they are in, as if he is about to make a life shattering announcement, and no, Tobio is not curious anymore, whatever had passed between those two could rest.
“He asked for my number.”
Tobio lets out a breath he did not know he was holding, half his braincells reassuring him that it might as well be perfectly platonic, while the other half screamed that it absolutely was not and he knew it perfectly well.
Shouyou is fidgeting with his fingers, and the space around them almost empties out, and Tobio remembers why he came to find Shouyou in the first place, in addition to his constant worrying about him; they need to get back.
But Shouyou has shuffled towards the nearest wall, and he looks like he has more things to say, and though Tobio knows those things might as well agitate him further, but he closes in the distance between them anyway, because this is Shouyou, and he will always listen.
“He also told me I was pretty”, Shouyou’s gaze is fixated on the linoleum floor, his eyes covered by his bangs.
You are.
“Do you like him?”, Tobio’s voice strains, all his suspicions finally confirmed in Shouyou’s words, and what they imply.
“He’s very handsome. And nice.”
Shouyou will cramp his neck with how hard he is staring down, is the only coherent thought Tobio’s mind can make out right then.
Tobio’s heart breaks a little because he is better at reading subtext now, and Shouyou’s lack of a proper answer speaks more volumes than a simple yes or no would have.
But Shouyou has more to say, and his shorts are crumpled from how hard he is fisting them, and he finally looks up, fear dotted across his face.
“Kageyama, does it bother you? That I like men too?”
And Kageyama finally understands, all of Shouyou’s apprehension and anxiety was not a lead-up to a booming declaration about whatever had conspired between him and Atsumu, no. Shouyou was afraid, afraid of how Tobio would react to his sexuality.
Tobio kind of wants to smack Shouyou’s head again, and laugh and tell him that he dreams about kissing Shouyou every day, so no, he wouldn’t hate Shouyou for liking men. He wants to dissipate all the fears that have racked up Shouyou’s brain and set his face to express such vulnerability and worry, but he also doesn’t want to give himself away just yet, not when Shouyou’s face is so open and soft as he waits for Tobio’s answer. This is about Shouyou, and his feelings are too, but this conversation between them is not about Tobio, and his feelings, it is completely Shouyou’s own, and Tobio loves him, so he will let him have it.
“No. Not at all”, Tobio replies, soft but firm, and when Shouyou looks into his eyes in disbelief, searching for lies, Tobio gives him a small smile.
It’s alright.
Shouyou’s shoulders sag in relief, and Tobio takes in just how strung up he must have been, just to hear Tobio’s opinion. His heart jumps a little at the revelation.
Shouyou is smiling, warm and familiar, and Tobio finds his own smile stretching out despite himself.
Tobio’s previous jealously disappears into thin air as he basks in the comfort and intimacy of the moment.
“Say Kageyama-kun, do you like anyone?”
Tobio jerks back into reality. He expects to find mischief on Shouyou’s face, but his amber eyes shine with sincerity, still soft from their earlier exchange.
Tobio’s heart beats out of his chest.
No. I don’t like anyone.
I love you.
Tobio opens his mouth, and this time, his throat isn’t blocked by the weight of his emotions.
I love you.
“Hinata! Kageyama! Where the heck have you two bastards been? Ennoshita is sick with worry!”
Tanaka-senpai’s voice breaks in through the quiet of the now empty hall. The moment breaks. Tobio swallows his confession.
On the bus back to Miyagi two days later, Tobio swears to himself that he will get it out next time, no matter what.
+1
Tobio and Shouyou walk home together, Tobio leading Shouyou’s bicycle as the other boy chomps down hungrily on a chocolate flavored protein bar, greedily clutched in both his tiny hands.
It’s spring now, and Tobio picks up a stray cherry blossom petal that has probably flown their way from the trees that line their school, floating in the warm breeze that promises a hot summer to come.
They have walked down this very same path so many times before, and the fresh memory of their seniors’ graduation ceremony reminds Tobio that time is ticking away. He just has one more year of playing with Shouyou by his side left; trepidation settles at the pit of his stomach. But the cherry blossom petal clutched between Tobio’s calloused fingertips feels like silk, and as he gazes at Shouyou in the pale moonlight, something in its fleeting softness promises Tobio that he still has time, and Shouyou by his side.
Shouyou carefully folds up the protein bar wrapper, and stuffs it into his bag, to be thrown into a trash can when he comes across one. He catches Tobio’s studying his actions.
He must see something on the known planes of Tobio’s face, because he blushes, and Tobio thinks, this is new, and maybe he unknowingly blushes a bit too.
“What’s that in your hand, Kageyama-kun?”, Shouyou exclaims, in an attempt to break whatever strange charm had settled over them.
“Eh?”, Tobio intelligently retorts, still too lost figuring out the blush that had formerly graced Shouyou’s face.
“That”, Shouyou delicately plucks the petal from Tobio’s fingers, turning it over in his, a guarded expression on his features, as if he was afraid of giving away too much.
He’s behaving peculiarly, Tobio thinks.
He looks down at their shadows on the grey concrete of the familiar street, crisp in the light of the waning moon.
Shouyou’s hands still look like a kid’s, but Tobio knows the strength that lies in them, and he wants to hold them in his, and ask them to lend him some of their strength, the strength to finally get the words that overcome him so often when he is with Shouyou through to him.
Shouyou calls out to him, his voice unreadable, and quiet, like it almost never is, “Tobio.”
Tobio snaps his head at the use of the name.
Shouyou has fear written all over him, and it is reminiscent of that day at the Nationals, after the incident with Miya Atsumu, when Shouyou came out to him. Tobio remembers Shouyou’s unanswered question from that day, and he wants him to ask the same of Tobio again, so that Tobio can tell him the answer that he couldn’t that day. But there is also a resigned melancholy in the furrows of Shouyou’s brow, and it scares Tobio as much as it saddens him.
“I’m going away, after graduation. To Brazil.”
Tobio’s mind goes absolutely blank.
He had anticipated Shouyou would not be by his side on court anymore, or a few classrooms away, in a year’s time, not that he would be miles away, on the other side of the planet.
Shouyou is not done. He continues.
“I’m going to train in beach volleyball. So that I can come back stronger.”
And that is when the panic rolling off Tobio in waves stops, because Tobio can read between Shouyou’s words.
I’m going to keep moving forward.
And Tobio knows he can’t stop him, can’t hold back a boy who was meant to fly, not when Tobio was the one who promised him that he would reach heights he had never even dreamt of before.
Tobio can’t be angry, or sad, not when a part of him has known all along that only someone like Shouyou could move to a different hemisphere and take up an entirely different sport just for his love of volleyball, all for his love of volleyball, not when his love for Shouyou only swells at his declaration.
And then Shouyou, once more, throws Tobio into another loop of wondering just how much he could love one person-
“So that I can come back stronger, and stand by your side.”
Tobio is seventeen, and he doesn’t know many things about the world, but he knows he wants to spend the rest of his life with the familiar weight of a volleyball in his hands, and with Hinata Shouyou by his side.
He pushes Shouyou’s bicycle against the nearest wall, and he takes Shouyou’s hands in his, the lone Sakura petal fluttering to the ground.
Shouyou’s eyes widen in surprise, and he opens his mouth, to say something, but Tobio beats him to it.
“I love you.”
Shouyou’s eyes widen even more. His mouth is hanging open, but his fingers tighten purposefully in Tobio’s hands, and before the horror of anticipating rejection can latch onto Tobio’s mind, Shouyou surprises Tobio too.
Shouyou pushes their entwined hands back against Tobio’s chest, and before Tobio can dissect what’s happening, Shouyou’s fingers are grabbing onto the collar of his jacket, and he’s being pulled down, and Shouyou is on his tiptoes, and he instinctively closes his eyes just as Shouyou’s lips meet his.
Shouyou’s lips are soft against Tobio’s own chapped ones, and they faintly taste of chocolate, and it is a bit awkward, and they do bump their noses, but it’s Shouyou and him, and they’re kissing, and that’s all Tobio could ask for of a first kiss, and then he’s smiling into it, and he can feel Shouyou smile too.
Shouyou is giggling when he pulls back, his cheeks flush, hands still at Tobio’s collar. Tobio puts his own over them.
“Was that an affirmative?”, because Tobio still cannot believe this is actually happening.
And Shouyou leans up again, and this time Tobio cradles his neck as he leans down too and meets him halfway, less awkward, but just as exhilarating.
Their foreheads are still pressed together when Shouyou whispers, “I love you, Tobio. I love you too.”
Later, as they hold hands and circle down the same alley again, because the moon is still high in the sky and there are more kisses to be exchanged before they feel perfectly natural and their noses don’t bump anymore, Shouyou asks him, “You’re not mad about Brazil, are you?”
Tobio shakes his head, his face soft, “As long as you can stand by my side again, I’ll never be.”