Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kyoutani Kentarou has always been too much. He can’t remember a time when he wasn’t overflowing the space he was meant to take up, when he was just enough. He plays with his toys too hard, he talks too loud, and he feels too strongly. It’s exhausting, he knows, for people to be around him.

That’s the phrase his mother used. “He’s too much, it’s exhausting,” he’d overheard her saying to his father one day. He was supposed to be watching TV, but the pictures were too loud and he’d broken the remote, so he’d had to run away from it to the kitchen. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this, Genjirou.”

“You’re the one that wanted to have a baby,” his father had said, voice not yet rough from smoking the way it would be when Kyoutani was older. “I told you we should wait, or that you should quit your job.”

“I don’t want to quit my job,” his mother had said. “I make more than you; you should be the one to stay home with him.”

“Don’t you dare throw that in my face.” Now his father’s voice had started rising. Kyoutani hated it when his parents yelled. “I agreed to work night shifts for you, put my hopes of starting my own company aside for you, and now you talk about how much I’m earning?”

“I’m trying to be practical!” his mother had yelled and slammed her hand down against the counter top, sending a fork clattering to the ground.

The sharp sound of the metal against the tile mixed with their loud voices and the TV still blaring in the other room, turning into a whine that beat in on Kyoutani’s head, and he began to cry, small hands balled up in fists as he hit at his own ears to try to drive the sound out.

“Wh- Oh, now look at him!’ Suddenly, his mother had been crouching in front of him, trying to pull his hands away. The sudden touch was too much and he had lashed out at her, smacking her in the face. “Shit! Genjirou, could you help?”

“You’re the one who set him off, you should not know not to touch him when he gets like this,” his father had said, or maybe Kyoutani just imagined that he had said that. His memory is hazy, too caught up in his meltdown. It might have been any number of memories, stitched together later when this memory became The Memory, the important one.

The memory of the night before his mom left.

He’d stayed in his room for days after she had gone, refusing to come out. He hid under his bed, even going so far as to bite his dad’s hand when he’d dragged him out.

“I want mom,” he’d shouted, trying to hit any part of his dad that was available.

“Tough luck, kid,” his dad had said, holding Kyoutani as far from his body as he could while still marching him to the bathroom for a bath. “We all want shit we can’t have and she’s not coming back any time soon. Fucking bi-”

“But she’s my mom!” Kyoutani had wailed, because wasn’t that supposed to be how these things worked? “She’s my mom and I want my mom and I love her!”

“Well, I love her too, but that doesn’t change the facts, now does it?” Genjirou said, voice ragged. “Maybe she just didn’t love either one of us assholes enough to stay, you think about that?”

Kyoutani does think about that.

They make do. Genjirou picks up more and more shifts, even if it means leaving Kyoutani home alone longer than most kids his age are. Kyoutani has to learn how to get through his fits by himself. They sell the TV. They get rid of any toys Kyoutani can hurt himself on, or at least tuck them out of reach. They eat shit food and don’t talk much and Kyoutani knows it’s all because he's too much.

His mom calls, and sometimes he even goes to visit her. Only for a few hours, never overnight, just in a park or some small restaurant where his dad can sit in the car nearby and grab him when it’s time to go. His mother always wants to touch him, want to ruffle his hair or pick him up, but Kyoutani flinches back from it enough times that she stops.

The visits get less often.

Things with his dad get worse sometimes, but mostly they get better. Genjirou doesn’t yell as much, now that his wife is gone. He smokes more, but he drinks less. He's tired from work and rarely home, but he tries to find things for them to do together on his rare days off. Tries to find things Kyoutani can stand to do.

He forces Kyoutani to go to a volleyball game, and Kyoutani sees someone who is so strong that nothing can stop him. Someone who breaks through a wall of people, destroys them, and it’s a good thing. The press of the crowd around him falls away, the sound of the stadium falls away, and it’s just one player, standing alone and scoring points by being so much more than anyone else.

“I want to play,” Kyoutani tells his dad on the walk home. His eyes are closed because the crowd got too much again once the game was over; his hand is tucked into his dad’s so he doesn’t run into anything. “I want to be a volleyball player.”

“Yeah? You want to join a team, then,” Genjirou says. “You musta got the gene from me. I played in high school, y'know.” This is, of course, impossible, as Kyoutani’s dad had never been young enough to be in high school, but is an interesting idea nevertheless.

The problem, Kyoutani quickly finds, is that volleyball involves a lot of other people. Other people are one of Kyoutani’s least favorite things, along with crowds and loud noises and the mean dog on the way to the store who tries to bite him all the time.

“Your teammates aren’t your enemy, okaaay?” his middle school coach constantly tells him in the overly soothing voice used by teachers who are sympathetic to problem kids like him, at least until he tests their patience one too many times. It's almost worse than straight up yelling. “We’re all on one side here, okaaay? Do you think you can remember that?”

“They should just stay out of my way,” Kyoutani says, pressing a thumbnail into a scrape on his knuckle and wishing he was done with this conversation already.

“Kyoutani-kuuun,” the coach whines, leaning forward like getting into Kyoutani's space is going to help get his point into Kyoutani's head. “You can’t play volleyball alone, okaaay? You’ll have more fun if you’re playing with friends. Does that make sense?”

It does not.

Kyoutani isn’t stupid. People think he is, they almost always think he is, but he isn’t. It’s not like he hasn’t realized that volleyball is a team sport. But he’s the best out of all of his year there, by a wide margin. He’s not only the strongest but the fastest and has the best strategies out of all of them, and the others should fall in line and just work to support him if they want to win. He doesn't get why they don't see that.

“Oh, volleyball, that sounds fun,” his mom says when she next calls. She’s started a job at a new vet clinic, this one with better hours. He wonders if this means she’ll ask him to come visit again soon. It seems unlikely. “Are you making friends?”

“I don’t like them,” he says, clutching the receiver, toes brushing the tile floor of the kitchen. “They never listen to me.”

“You need to listen to them, too,” she says, just like the whiny coach. “And make sure you’re nice to them, and don’t get too loud and don’t—”

“I know,” he says, too loud and too angry. Too much.

“Don’t get upset with me,” she says, voice crackling down the phone line in a way that sets Kyoutani's head pounding. “I’m just trying to help.”

Genjirou grabs the phone. “Lay off the kid, Kana, would you? Volleyball is good for him and I— Oh, yeah? Well, it’s not like you’d know, would you, so why don’t you just— No, I’m not going to hand the phone back, not if you’re going to talk to him like that— Oh for the love of—!” He pulls the phone away and glares at it, dial tone shrilling away, before he hangs up. “C’mon, kid, let’s get the food in the microwave. We’ll need to leave in thirty if we’re gonna make the game.”

So, life goes on. Kyoutani gets stronger and stronger at volleyball and the better he gets, the more his team is willing to work around him. With him. Whatever. He’s the best and they know it, and the more they see that in actual tournaments, the more they’ll excuse his antisocial tendencies and unreliable moods, or whatever they’re dressing it up as this week.

He doesn’t care about his team, or the other team, for that matter. He doesn’t care about the referees or the dumb coaches or the people hollering in the stands. He doesn’t even care about the trophies or the scoreboard or winning. There's only one thing in volleyball that he cares about and that's the moment when the ball rises in the air and for an instant everything finally makes perfect sense.

There’s just the burn in his legs as he launches himself into the air, the whistle of the ball as it sails by, the flutter of the net waiting to try to thwart him. There’s the sharp, perfect smack of the ball against his hand, the reverberations down his arms into his stomach, into his soul, where he can take all of his too much and channel it into that one point of contact, forcing the ball to go where he sends it. The slam of it against the court. The weightlessness in the air, the sudden shock of returning to the ground. He's alone in that moment and everything is clear. Everything is right.

That’s the reason why he loves volleyball. Nothing else matters.

In his second year, he plays Shiratorizawa in an official tournament and gets destroyed. It’s the worst game he’s ever played in. The other ace, Ushijima Wakatoshi, is so much stronger than him that it’s a joke to put them on the same court. It’s obvious from the first set that he’s outmatched, outplayed, hopelessly outclassed. He’s just a pathetic little boy pretending at being a strong player. He loses his cool, loses his focus, and the ball stops listening to him. Nothing goes right.

“Good game,” Ushijima says to him afterwards, shaking his hand. He's looking down at Kyoutani, in the way that a soaring eagle looks down at a scrubby pigeon. Not even judgmental, because to pass judgement would imply they had any commonality on which to judge.

“It wasn’t,” Kyoutani says, furious at himself. At volleyball. At everything.

“No,” Ushijima says, unperturbed by Kyoutani's ferocity. “It wasn’t.” He turns and walks away, off to his next match without a backward glance.

He skips the post-game breakdown with his team, leaves early to walk home. Past the clinic where his mom used to work, past the grocery store, past the house with the mean dog.

It’s an ugly thing, with coarse hair and mean eyes. The second he comes into view it yanks against its metal chain, growling furiously, snapping, hovering over its bowl protectively. As if Kyoutani wanted to steal its stupid dog food, anyway.

The barking is hoarse and awful, like the yelling of his parents, like the buzzer signaling another lost point. It wants to kill him and he’s never even done anything to it, just walked down the street like a normal person, and suddenly it's more than Kyoutani can deal with.

“Fuck you!” he yells back at the dog. “Fuck you, stop barking at me”! He kicks a stone off the sidewalk. He’s not aiming at the dog, just wanting to startle it, but his aim is bad and the stone goes straight where his gaze was pointing, hitting the dog on the side.

It yelps and falls over in its scramble away, knocking over its bowl, only to jump up and growl more furiously, yellow teeth gnashing against the empty air. Kyoutani feels actual fear bubble up inside of him, as if the dog might manage to break the chain lashing it to the fence with the strength of its fury.

He remembers his mom coming home one night from a long shift where a cat had been intentionally hit with a car. It’s the worst kind of person who hurts animals, she’d said, ranting to his father. The worst kind of person. How awful of a, of a creature do you have to be to do that?

He runs all the way home.

The next day, Kyoutani goes back. Just to— just to check.

The dog is still there, still growling and snapping at him as fiercely as ever. It doesn’t seem scared of him or anything, which brings up a tangled mix of annoyance and relief. Annoyance that he came out of his way out of unfounded concern for some dumb dog that hates his guts, but relief that he hadn’t actually done any damage to it.

He’s about to turn back and head home, when he catches sight of the food bowl. It’s still tipped over from when the dog had hit it yesterday. That can’t be right though, surely, because the owner would have had to flip it back up to feed the dog. Right?

“How often do dogs need to eat?” Kyoutani asks his dad that night over microwave curry, his dad listening to the radio broadcast of some tennis match.

“Huh?” Genjirou is understandably startled. Normally they don’t talk during dinner, unless they’re listening to a volleyball match. “I dunno, maybe once, twice a day? I never had dogs, only cats, and only ones that hunted for themselves.”

“Oh,” Kyoutani says. “Mom would know, right?” He regrets saying that immediately after asking. They never talk about his mother unless it's for planning reasons.

His dad’s face goes through a series of expressions Kyoutani couldn’t hope to understand. “Yeah, she’d know,” he says finally. “Want to try to get her on the phone?”

“No,” Kyoutani says, too loud and too quick. “No, it’s not important.”

“Alright,” his dad says and doesn’t push it. He never does.

Kyoutani goes back to see the dog the next day again. The food bowl is righted this time, thankfully, but it’s empty. Maybe the dog already scarfed down all its food, he thinks to himself. But then, if it cleans its bowl, isn’t that worse that it went so long with it flipped over?

He doesn’t want to ask his mom, but he knows he needs to find out from someone.

The clinic his mom used to work at is a five minute walk from where the dog lives. Mind made up, Kyoutani doesn’t second guess himself as he marches into the shiny white building. The sound makes him recoil at first - there’s a little yipping dog in the corner of the waiting room, a TV playing some program with wildlife on one of the walls, a phone shrilling away as a receptionist talks loudly to an old lady clutching a very fluffy white cat about medications. The lights are too bright, fluorescence eating into the colors and turning them harsh and unfriendly.

Still, Kyoutani braces himself and gets into line behind the old lady. A little poodle wearing some kind of tutu sniffs at his messy sneakers. Somewhere in the back, a dog starts to howl.

“Can I help you?” A second receptionist, or maybe some kind of assistant, has come from another room and is looking down at Kyoutani with judgement in his eyes. Even Kyoutani can tell he looks more out of place than normal here, a scowling kid with no pet in sight. His shorts have grass stains on them and his t-shirt has a few holes near the hems. He doesn't look like he belongs anywhere near this nice, clean place.

“How often do you feed a dog?” he asks, stubbornly ignoring his unease.

“A dog?” the man asks, looking around as if searching for someone. “Is your mom or dad here?”

“I’m asking you a question,” Kyoutani says, voice getting louder as he struggles to remain calm. The noise is getting worse. “I just gotta know, how often do dogs eat? Is it once a day? Twice a day? What about water?”

“Is your dog a patient here?” the man asks. “Is he sick?”

“I don’t have a dog,” Kyoutani says. A cat is yowling somewhere. Is it hurt? “I’m asking about a dog. Just tell me how often dogs need to eat!”

“Please, lower your volume, you’ll upset the animals,” the man says. “So you don’t have a dog?”

“No! I just need information!”

“Each dog is different in their nutritional needs,” the man says. “You should ask your parents these kinds of questions, young man. Now, let’s go out and find them, okay?” He reaches out to place a hand on Kyoutani’s shoulder, probably to guide him out the door.

“Don’t touch me!” Kyoutani knows he isn’t supposed to yell in public, he knows that, but he yanks himself out of the man’s reach anyway. He can't handle being touched right now. “I just want to know how often dogs need to eat, it’s not that fucking hard!”

The man’s face has lost any sympathy it might have possessed before. “I’m going to need you to leave,” he says, steely. “You’re upsetting the patients and our clients.”

“Fucking fine,” Kyoutani snaps and hurls himself out the doors. He keeps going, putting several blocks away before he stops, panting, and presses his fists to the sides of his head so that the pressure is all he can focus on.

He’s furious, not just at the people at the clinic but at himself. He can’t even go into a place where his own fucking mom used to work and ask a question without freaking out. No wonder the dog hates him, no wonder everybody does. He can’t do anything right. He should just leave well enough alone.

Disgusted at himself, Kyoutani slinks home, his veritable tail between his legs. He grabs the volleyball and slams it into the garage door until he can’t feel his palms anymore and then he does squats until he tips over.

It’s fine. It’s all he’s good for, anyway.

His dad knows something is wrong, because he’s not an idiot either, but neither of them have ever talked about feelings if they can help it. Instead, Genjirou just goes out his way to give Kyoutani more opportunities to get his energy out via physical activity. It’s always helped in the past, after all. So it goes for all of summer, into the heat of August.

That’s why Kyoutani is at the park one Sunday, leaned up against a tree and drinking water after hours of hitting the ball back and forth. His dad is a more grueling task master than the Minimisan coaches ever could dream of, sending him through drills that drain Kyoutani’s energy while building his muscles and reflexes.

Now they’re taking a break, his dad off getting them something for lunch from one of the carts set up by the nice walking paths. Kyoutani is waiting for him to get back, cooling off a bit in the shade.

A loud, carrying giggle catches his attention, stabbing into his ears and ricocheting around his brain. Annoyed, Kyoutani looks around for the cause and sees two boys, not too far off his own age, laughing nearby as they walk. One boy, the taller one whose laugh was so annoying, is bumping a volleyball on his arms as they go, which is the first thing that makes Kyoutani’s eyes linger, but then he sees that the other boy is holding a leash for a medium-sized dog.

It’s not the same kind of dog as the one that hates Kyoutani, not even the same color or build, really, but it’s the same size and it looks so shiny and healthy, and before Kyoutani has consciously made up his mind, he’s on the move.

“Hey!” he calls out, voice rough. “Hey!”

“Hmmm?” the taller boy turns, grabbing his volleyball out of the air and tucking it against his hip. He has a soft, delicate face and sharp eyes that trail over Kyoutani’s sweaty form. “Can we help you?”

“You,” Kyoutani says, pointing at the other kid. “Your— your dog.”

“Oh, you wanna meet him?” the boy says and clicks his tongue at the dog. “Go on, he’s super friendly. His name’s Sora.”

“His name is Stupid, because he’s stupid,” the other boy says and trills another giggle. “Just like his papa, right, Iwa-chan?”

The dog-boy glares at his friend. “Shut up! His name is Sora. Don’t listen to him, Sora, he’s just jealous that you’re cuter than him.”

Kyoutani couldn’t care less. He’s standing stock still as the dog sniffs his hands and legs. Is it going to bite him? Is it going to bark?

Instead, the dog just sticks a surprisingly cold nose into his hand, sneezes, and sits down, tail wagging.

“You can pet him if you want,” the owner says. “He likes scratches around his ears.”

Kyoutani extends his hand nervously. What if he pets too hard? His fingers sink into surprisingly dense fur. “Doesn’t he get hot?” he asks before he can think better of it.

The owner just laughs. “Yeah, sometimes, so we always give him lots of water,” he says and lifts a water bottle in his other hand. “Just like you and me, I guess.”

Kyoutani starts to scratch the dog, at first very gently, and then with more confidence as the dog — Sora, that is — presses back against it and closes his eyes, tail thumping. He nearly jumps out of his skin when the dog flops over onto his back, presenting his stomach for more pets. Kyoutani has to kneel on the ground for that.

“Hey, he likes you,” the more annoying boy who called Sora stupid says. “Maybe Stupid has a type, huh?”

“How often do you feed him?” Kyoutani asks the owner, ignoring his friend. Sora doesn’t seem to be too fat or too thin, so the owner kid has to be doing that right.

“Twice a day. And treats, too, I guess. I think my little sister sneaks him stuff from the table, but I’m trying to stop her.”

“Fun police,” his friend grumbles.

“I am not,” the boy protests. “I’m trying to keep him healthy and you know my mom will be pissed if he starts trying to eat from the table. He’s only gonna get bigger, you know.”

“What do you feed him?” Kyoutani asks.

“Just kibble,” the boy says with a shrug. “Why, you thinking of getting a dog? The shelter I got him at was really helpful. They gave me all kinds of packets and stuff.”

“Where was that?” Kyoutani asks and commits the address to memory as best as he can. It’s not too far out of his way, he thinks, though in the other direction from his school and away from all the train routes near his house. Then he nods and gets up.

“You’re welcome!” The annoying kid calls after him, but Kyoutani doesn’t care about that.

He has a new lead.

Kaidoh Animal Shelter is nothing like the vet clinic. It’s painted a funky yellow color and has black pawprints on the sidewalk leading in, as if a dog or large cat had stepped in paint. There are big windows upfront that let passersby peek into some of the rooms where multiple cats are sleeping on cat trees or playing on the ground, and there are pictures taped up that advertise different dogs, cats, and even a few rabbits that are up for adoption.

It smells like animal fur when he steps in, which is to be expected, but it’s also surprisingly quiet. Maybe it’s a slow day, or maybe the animals they have right now just don’t have much of a draw.

There’s a girl in one of the rooms cleaning out a litter box. She has long, bleached blonde hair and a yellow shirt on that declares her to be a volunteer in big black kanji. She catches sight of Kyoutani and waves at him through the window before finishing up scooping the poop out of the box into an orange bucket. She comes out, bucket and all, and steps around the desk.

“Hello, welcome, hi!” she says. “Are you here to look at the animals?”

“I have some questions,” he says. “About dogs.”

“Oh, okay,” she says. “Mind if I take out the trash real quick?” she gestures at her bucket, which does smell a bit, and wrinkles her nose.

Kyoutani nods and she disappears into the back, where he thinks he can hear some dogs. While she’s gone, Kyoutani looks around the room a bit more. The windows to the cat rooms take up most of the wall space. Inside, they have whiteboards stuck up to the glass. Each of them seems to be full of lists. They seem to be of names and then notes. Stuff like “Haru - no breakfast Friday (surgery)” and “Christine - fearful of loud noises”. They must be notes for their care, Kyoutani realizes, and looks over them. He tries to guess which cat is which. Is the grumpy looking siamese in the corner the one that shouldn’t be pet on his rear end? Is the tiny tabby on top of the cat tree the one that gets jealous if others are fed first? He hadn’t even realized cats could have so many individual needs. He thought they were just cats.

“Sorry about the wait!” The girl is back, drying off her hands on her jeans. “You’re interested in learning about dogs?”

“I just have some questions,” he says and chews his lip. “Uh… you feed the dogs here twice a day, right?”

“That’s right!” she says. She’s cheerful, but not in an overly chirpy of a way. Her voice has a husky quality to it that makes it not too unpleasant for him to hear, though it’s a little loud for his liking. “They get breakfast and dinner. Well, we have a couple special needs cases here that need different schedules, but that’s the basics. We give kibble twice a day and on special occasions, we give wet food, too.”

“Wet food?” Kyoutani asks, confused. Do they put water on the kibble?

“Yeah, like from a can? Or even nicer stuff. Some people cook chicken for their dogs, or fish! So like I said, if it’s a special occasion, we’ll cook up something for them.”

“They can’t just have it raw? Dogs are hunters, right?” He thought they were just tamed wolves, basically.

She laughs, but Kyoutani doesn’t think it’s in a mean way. “Yeah, they’re hunters, but the meat we have in stores and stuff isn’t that fresh. It could make them sick. So it’s better cooked, just to be safe. I mean, not with seasonings and stuff, but plain. They go nuts for it.”

“Do they only eat meat?” Kyoutani asks.

“Oh, no way,” she says. “Cats only eat meat — obligate carnivores, you know? — but dogs eat all kinds of stuff. Actually, for the really sick dogs, we give them rice and scrambled eggs.”

Kyoutani cannot imagine a dog eating eggs. “That’s good for them?”

“When they’re sick, yeah!”

“So dogs can eat anything?” Kyoutani asks.

“Well, not anything. Not chocolate, or grapes, or onions, lots of stuff.” She grabs a book from the side of the desk and flips around in it. “Here, look.” She pushes the book toward him and he sees it’s a list of dog nutritional guidelines. A lot of it goes over his head, all broken down into kcals and talking about amino acids and stuff, but there’s a whole list of things dogs can and can’t eat.

“Sorry if it’s a little complicated,” she says, watching him frown. “That’s one of my own books — I’m going to become a vet tech, is the plan, I’m studying at Aobajousai right now. I just love this stuff.”

“Huh,” he says, fascinated despite himself. He never knew dogs were so complicated. Then he remembers his main reason for being there. “How do you— how can you tell if a dog isn’t eating enough?”

That brings a frown to her face. “Well, you mean if it’s leaving food behind a lot?”

“No, like…” he’s not sure he should bring up the actual dog. If she knew he’d kicked a rock at a dog, she’d probably stop helping him. She'd probably kick him out. “How can you tell if you’re feeding it enough?”

“Well, it should have a good weight.” She turns and pulls a paper out of a stack and hands it to him. It has a bunch of drawings of dogs at different sizes, labels going from EMACIATED to OBESE. “And you can compare to the numbers normal for the breed, too.”

“Thank you,” he says. “I— can I keep this?”

“Sure,” she says. “Good luck with your dog!”

Kyoutani doesn’t bother to correct her.

The diagram isn’t actually that helpful. The dog has so much fur covering it that he can’t easily see its body from a distance, and there’s no way he’s getting close enough to those sharp teeth to get a better look. But he’s pretty sure from walking by different times of the day that it’s not being fed twice a day. It makes him uneasy.

He checks some books out of the library, one about animal nutrition, and then a bunch to help him translate the scientific terms he doesn’t know. They aren’t very useful either, since he can’t weigh the dog, but they are interesting.

Now he has something to focus on besides volleyball, since his teammates are still annoying as hell. And he starts carrying chicken strips in his pockets when he walks around the neighborhood. He tosses them at the dog whenever he goes by. It makes him feel a little better and buys him time to walk by before the dog starts trying to attack him again.

As far as middle school memories go, it’s just about fine.

In his last year of middle school, his team plays Shiratorizawa again and loses again. Ushijima isn’t even there and they lose, and that should be his strongest memory from the tournament, but, weirdly enough, there’s another match that sticks into Kyoutani’s mind even more.

It’s the third round of the tournament. Kyoutani has played in all the matches, since the coaches know he’s the best and keep him in no matter what. His teammates, though, have been driving him out of his mind the whole time. Their captain has taken it upon himself to decide when Kyoutani is too much of a quote-unquote liability to be given the ball, based on how worked up he is and how many mistakes he’s made.

It’s fucking stupid. Even when he’s making mistakes, Kyoutani knows he’s stronger than anyone else on the court. The best strategy is obviously to funnel the ball to him. Even if he fucks up 40% of the time and hits it in 60%, that’s still a majority and better than the others can do, right? But not according to Tagawa, who insists that if Kyoutani is making errors that it throws off the team’s rhythm and means he needs a chance to calm down and refocus.

Kyoutani hates Tagawa.

They’re up against some no-name team, the kind no one cares about, and it’s clear from before they even start the match that his team is going to win. The other team is full of shrimpy kids who are more focused on telling each other “Don’t mind!” and “Nice pass!” then hitting the ball hard during drills, they look intimidated by just the sight of Kyoutani, and their setter is some pretty boy with a weird, polite smile aimed at absolutely nothing. It’s gross.

The setter is probably the best on the team, but he’s not even a good player. He’s trying in the beginning, probably, but he’s too cautious by about a thousand percent, and his spikers suck anyway. He clearly gives up when his team is a set and a half down, starts making plays as if he’s reading them out of a guidebook instead of actually playing a real match.

Not that Kyoutani can claim his team is any better. His setter is some second year idiot who flinches whenever Kyoutani shouts for the ball and messes up his tosses more than half the time. Kyoutani runs into a few kids that don’t know well enough to get out of his way when he’s in the zone, and Tagawa has the audacity to put a stop on Kyoutani getting balls sent to him when it wasn’t even his fault. He was trying to score points, which is the goal of the game. It just means he has to snake balls from other players if he wants to hit, which makes everyone more pissed off.

He runs into one of the first years hard enough that the coaches pull him out to look at his shoulder, even though it’s totally fine and he could have told them that. When they do, he hears a loud giggle that rattles through his brain, keying up some instinct to flinch, and he turns to see he’s being watched from the stands by some high school kids in white and green uniforms. One of them is actively laughing at him. It’s the worst, especially because he knows that giggle but can’t quite place where. He’s never been good at faces.

He gets put back in just in time to destroy the other team, who have the audacity to get all wet in the eyes about it as if crying after losing changes anything. They should’ve just practiced more if they were gonna whimper about it now.

He’s fuming by the time they’re lining up to shake hands, especially when he gets matched with the pretty boy setter. His fancy hair-do is only a little messed up from his sweat and he’s still trying to smile even though he’s obviously on the brink of tears, and it’s so, so infuriating.

Kyoutani barely touches their palms together, too keyed up to stand the feeling of skin on skin, before he drops his hand and turns to stalk away. He needs to get out of this gym, away from both these teams and the spectators, before he loses his mind.

He’s shocked when a hand lashes out, snake-like, and wraps around his arm, yanking him back. Nobody grabs at Kyoutani. Not if they want to keep their fingers, anyway.

“Hey!” It’s the dumb setter, voice thick with genuine anger. “What the hell?!”

Kyoutani stares down at where he’s been grabbed. He’s surprised by how strong the kid is, actually. “What the hell, what?” he asks, wondering what the fuck this kid even wants from him.

“What, you think you don’t owe us a respectful handshake? You think you’re that much better than us? You, you, you’re supposed to shake my hand and say good game, asshole!” His voice is shaking with fury.

Kyoutani snorts. Fat lot of good all that passion does the kid now. Maybe if he was less worried about being a respectful opponent than he could have been a good one. He remembers what Ushijima said to him a year ago. “It wasn’t a good game. Both sides sucked.”

He can see the boy’s free hand clench up, his stance shift, and Kyoutani wonders if he’s going to actually get punched. He’s honestly a little excited for it. Not even Tagawa would be brave enough to do that.

“Yahaba, c’mon,” one of the other no-names says, all gentle, and the setter’s body turns loose in a second. Kyoutani should’ve known he was full of shit. Lots of guys liked to do that posturing, knowing they’d never have to follow through since one of their friends would pull them back before they had to risk their pretty noses.

The second his arm is dropped, Kyoutani turns away. He grabs a volleyball and slams it into the wall, annoyed at the crushed anticipation of thinking another player could have turned out to be actually interesting, even if only off the court.

There’s another giggle from the stands, and Kyoutani accidentally hits a ball back into his own face. At least the sting of that provides some sense of release.

Kyoutani would love to be done with the volleyball club after that, but the coaches force all the third years to sit down with them and talk about their future.

“You’ve gotten a lot of offers of sports scholarships,” the head coach enthuses at him, all proud of himself like it was his direction that made Kyoutani a strong player. “You should think carefully about where you want to go, okaaay? A school like Wakunan could set you up really well to go far in tournaments and start your career as a pro, you know?”

“I don’t want to become a pro player,” Kyoutani says suddenly.

“They have a great system of— what?” his coach is so shocked that he drops his pen, scrabbling around for it on his desk. “But you’re so good at sports and you’re— what else do you want to do?”

“I want to be a vet,” Kyoutani says. He’d never even consciously thought it before, but now it seems right. He wants to work with animals, not like that one asshole guy who kicked him out of the clinic, but like the girl who answered all his questions and gave him fliers.

“Your grades aren’t good enough for that,” the coach says, then pulls them out and frowns. “Oh, I guess your math and science grades are actually… but you’d need to do better on English to get into any of the prep schools for programs like that, wouldn’t you? Are you sure you don’t want to go to a trade school, if you don’t want to be a pro? There’s a lot of school involved to be a vet, you know, and it's really hard subjects.”

“I’m not stupid,” Kyoutani says, fingers clenching on the sides of the plastic chair seat. “You didn’t even know my grades until a second ago.”

“Let’s calm down, okaaay? I’m on your side here, Kyoutani-kun.”

Kyoutani doesn’t even see the point of responding to that one. “Can’t I go to one of the sports scholarship schools and study there? They have to be good at other stuff, too.”

“I— I suppose that could work,” his coach says, looking disgruntled at the very idea. "But that's not really— have you thought this through? I'm just trying to look out for your future, Kyoutani-kun."

Eventually, his coach gives him a list of three schools that have invited him for volleyball and also have good science programs that will help him get into university for animal medicine. Johzenji, Aobajousai, and Oomasaki.

Kyoutani choses Aobajousai.

Chapter Text

High school should be fine. Middle school was fine — it wasn’t great, it wasn’t awesome, but it was fine. It was okay. It was passable. High school should be basically the same. Second verse, same as the first.

High school, unfortunately, is not fine.

Aobajousai is just so much bigger than Minimisan. There are more students in every class, more eyes watching Kyoutani's every move, more people buzzing around the halls. The buildings are bigger, easier to get turned around in, and everyone casts an eye over him when he asks for directions like they’re trying to figure out where he got dragged in from.

He knows it didn’t exactly help his first impression with people that he bleached his hair. Still, Aobajousai says they allow it, and he’s always wanted to try it. His dad nearly drops a plate when he sees him, but doesn’t comment otherwise.

Kyoutani likes to think it makes him look tough, like someone who knows what they’re doing and can force their way into fitting in anywhere. The other students seem to think it looks like someone pulled him out of a trash bin.

As always, other people are the worst.

By the end of his first day, Kyoutani has already wanted to throttle someone about fifty different times, and at least half of those were wanting to throttle himself so he could get away from the unrelenting noise of other people. The classrooms are so big and so full that they’re never fully silent and he stumbles over his words when he’s called on to answer questions, which makes him look stupid in front of everyone.

He’s not looking forward to volleyball practice, but he’s not dreading it, either. Aobajousai is a good school, a strong one, and has a lot of players, which means they'll be more regimented. Kyoutani’s never been anywhere like that before, but he figures it means there will be a greater amount of good players here. Players he can actually respect.

He gets lost on the way to the gym, of course. He ends up at the girls gym by mistake, which just is the fucking worst. He has to get directions to the boys gym, which is across the fucking campus for some fucking reason.

He’s not so late that the coaches have started, but he can feel people quiet down when he walks in. Then there’s a thrum of whispering and he realizes it’s not his lateness that made everyone pause. It’s just him.

All the other first years seem to be pairing up, but Kyoutani knows nobody will be approaching him. Good. He spins a ball in his hands and waits for them to get on with it.

Finally, the coaches make everyone line up and introduce themselves, starting with the first years. Kyoutani wasn’t impressed when he first cast his eyes around the gym coming in, so he doesn’t bother paying too much attention. He’ll probably be the strongest of them by far, anyway.

Then something does catch his attention.

“Yahaba Shigeru, Iwanuma Middle, 174cm, and I’m a setter.” The light voice is clear of the anger that had thickened it so severely the last time Kyoutani had heard it, but it’s still unmistakable. Kyoutani swings his head around and yes, just as he thought, it’s that kid who yelled at him in middle school. Frankly, Kyoutani is shocked he’s good enough to get into a place like Aobajousai. He wasn’t anything special, except for after the match.

Well, that means he’ll probably never set foot on the court, which is where Kyoutani will be spending all of his high school career. With any luck, they’ll never have to interact. Kyoutani zones out for the rest of the introductions, even the upperclassmen. He doesn’t see what he could gain from knowing the height of some wing spiker reserve player. Really, the only person he has any interest in is the current ace, but that’s just to topple him from his throne.

“Well then,” the head coach dude says after what feels like an eternity. “First years, you’ll spend most of your time under Mizoguchi-sensei’s care. I’m telling you now that he’ll work you to the bone, so no complaining that you’re surprised when he yells at you for slacking off, understand?”

Kyoutani eyes the assistant coach as he steps forward. He doesn’t look any tougher than his dad, so Kyoutani will wait to see if his reputation is deserved or not. “Don’t worry, children, we’ll start off nice and easy. Do warm up stretches for fifteen minutes and then I want ten laps from each of you — and the last three people to finish have to do an extra lap, but in flying falls.”

That’s not that bad, certainly not worth the moaning it sets off in some of the boys around him. Haven’t they ever exercised before? Then someone giggles and the hair on the back of Kyoutani’s neck stands up.

He knows that fucking giggle.

“Just because you’ve technically moved up a year, Oikawa, don’t think you’re so high and mighty as to laugh at the first years. If you find it so amusing, you should feel free to join them.”

“That’s so mean!” one of the second-years splutters, pressing a hand to his chest. He has a delicate face with sharp eyes, but it’s the tenor of his voice that Kyoutani remembers from his last tournament. He’d heard it then, too.

“You deserve it, dumbass,” another boy whispers, doing a much better job of keeping his tone low.

Kyoutani is on edge while he stretches, and for good reason. He’s barely settled in to do ground stretches when a sudden weight hits his back, someone else pressing down to push him deeper toward his toes with no warning.

“Hey!” he yelps.

“Hello to you too, Kyoutani Kentarou-kun!” It’s a sing-song voice, obviously affected, and it itches into Kyoutani’s brain like a termite going through a log. “It’s so good to see you again!”

“Do I know you?” Kyoutani asks as the other boy flops down beside him, beginning to do his own stretches.

The boy blinks at him, obviously taken aback. Maybe he’s supposed to be some kind of big deal. Then he starts to laugh, slightly less fake than the giggle but still annoying as hell. “You will! I’m the reason you’re here, after all.”

“No, you aren’t,” Kyoutani says, quite sure of this.

“My name is Oikawa Tooru,” the boy says, unbothered. “I’m very excited to play with you. I watched you play in your last tournament. I just knew I had to get my hands on you.” He grins, and it’s not a nice grin.

“What the fuck?” is all Kyoutani can think to say. He’s never been so creeped out in his life. He’s torn between wanting to punch this Oikawa’s smug teeth in and wanting to dart away like a scared rabbit.

“Don’t look so alarmed, Kyoutani-kun! It’s just that you have so much hidden potential, you know?” Oikawa rolls to his feet effortlessly. “Or maybe more like wasted potential? And I know I can bring it out of you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kyoutani says. “But I’m going to be the strongest player. I don’t care who I’m playing with.”

“Yes, exactly! Just like that!” Oikawa goes as far as to clap his hands. “Potential and poof!— waste!”

“I don’t like you,” Kyoutani says in as matter of a fact tone as he can muster.

“We’ll iron out the details later,” Oikawa says. “Just don’t go getting frustrated and leaving before I get my chance to play around with you, okay?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Kyoutani growls. “Leave me alone.”

“Too scary,” Oikawa says, clearly not scared in the least. “You’re like an angry animal — oh, like a mad dog! Get it? It’s a pun on your name—”

“It’s not,” Kyoutani informs him. His name is not written like that.

Oikawa has the audacity to pout at him about that. “It is,” he insists. “That’s what I’ll call you, then. Mad Dog-chan! It fits you perfectly!”

“Time to start running, kids!” Mizoguchi hollers, and Kyoutani is more than happy to take the chance to run the fuck away from Oikawa.

Even from the first practice, it’s obvious that Kyoutani is far and away the strongest of all the first years. He beats every drill and exercise easily, since he’s in the best shape and has the best form. It’s almost insulting that he has to keep practicing with them for so long, but thankfully, the end of the first week offers a chance to shake things up a little.

To test their abilities, the coaches set up three-on-three matches between the first years. There’s only two setters among them, so those two always play, but the rest of them rotate in and out as the coaches see fit.

Kyoutani is bouncing on his the balls of his feet, amped up to get a chance to actually play, even in a dumb three-on-three with losers.

Unfortunately, luck puts him on the side of the net that Yahaba is playing on. He would much rather have gone to the other side, where some bald kid is the setter, but Kyoutani thrusts the issue from his mind. The two setters equally matched skill-wise, neither awful nor great, so it doesn’t matter.

He calls for the spike and gets it, but the ball is too high and too far to the side. It doesn’t matter, because Kyoutani is able to crush it anyway, but it’s not a satisfying hit, and he knows exactly who is to blame.

He whips around to face Yahaba, who is blinking big doe eyes at him like he doesn’t even realize he did a shitty job of literally the only thing he needs to be good at on the court. He’s all confused innocence, then his lips twitch, just for a second, and suddenly Kyoutani knows, knows deep down to his bones, that Yahaba gave him a bad toss on purpose.

It’s confusing enough that Kyoutani pauses and the coaches interrupt.

“Nice power,” Mizoguchi says to Kyoutani. "None of the first years are able to block you right now. You're out of the game— go practice with the upperclassmen."

Kyoutani turns around to see Oikawa watching him. As he’s looking, the upperclassman gives him a wink.

Kyoutani is starting to really, really hate setters.

If Kyoutani was hoping that working with the older boys would be better, he is sorely disappointed. It’s almost like being back at Minimisan, just with taller boys and a larger gym. They suck just as bad and listen just as little.

It’s kind of unbelievable, in Kyoutani’s opinion. They’re supposed to be a top-tier team, able to go toe-to-toe with Shiratorizawa, but they can’t even handle a minor correction with getting pissed off. Oh, sure, they go on and on about respecting your elders and communicating with your teammates, but Kyoutani knows that's just stuff the weak say to try to hide their own issues. He’s better than any of the assholes he’s stuck playing with, second- and third-string reserve dipshits.

The worst, though, is when Oikawa corners him. They aren’t supposed to be practicing together, since Oikawa is first-string and Kyoutani isn’t, at least not yet, but Oikawa still somehow just shows up like the worst kind of bad smell, lingering around Kyoutani when he’s trying to mind his own business.

“You know, you’re good enough to be a starter this year,” Oikawa says one day, appearing suddenly at Kyoutani’s shoulder and making him fumble the ball he was spiking. “You could go about a handspan higher, by the way. If you really tried.”

“I know,” Kyoutani says. Honestly, he’s not sure what the coaches are thinking, continuing to make him practice with the reserves. It’s a waste of his talent. Also, he’s working on going higher, he’s just sore from the extra workout he did this morning. Fuck.

“You probably won’t become one, though,” Oikawa says and lets out a theatrical sigh. “So sad.”

“You don’t fucking know that,” Kyoutani says, disgusted. “If I’m good enough, then I’m good enough, and I am.”

“What a simple-minded way of looking at things,” Oikawa says. “Simple and so very wrong. Do you really think you can just brute strength your way into becoming a member of my team?”

“It’s not your team,” Kyoutani says and slams a ball into the wall, a little higher this time. Fuck Oikawa.

“It’s not your team either,” Oikawa says, his eyes crinkling as if Kyoutani has walked into some kind of verbal trap. “That’s the whole problem, isn’t it?”

Kyoutani looks at him with full contempt. “The team player speech? Really? From you?” Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to avoid finding out that Oikawa is actually a very impressive setter and player. Nobody seems to be able to shut the fuck up about it.

“Oh, you think because I’m naturally strong I was able to just muscle my way onto the team?” Oikawa grins at him, blinding. “Maybe that kind of thing works when you’re younger, but it doesn’t matter how much natural talent you have forever. Everyone hits a wall eventually, you know.”

Kyoutani fully tunes him out after that. Maybe that’s true for Oikawa, but he bets it isn’t for someone like Ushijima, and wouldn’t be true for him if people would just get out of his way. He doesn’t need to play nice, and anyway, he’s sick of trying to make himself smaller so other people can feel bigger. He’s sick of hearing that he’s too much, and Oikawa is the last person he wants to hear it from.

“You aren’t even listening to me,” Oikawa sighs eventually, though he looks more amused than anything else. “Well, I tried. I guess you really won’t understand until we have a chance to get on the court together, hm?”

That doesn’t seem likely to happen any time soon. Kyoutani and the other reserves are given chances to play in practice games against weaker schools or other reserve teams, but Oikawa doesn’t play in those. He’s usually on the sidelines, observing with the same annoying giggle ringing out once in a while, but doesn’t get put in. No, the great Oikawa is kept fresh for practice games with the first string players only, and Kyoutani isn’t allowed anywhere near them.

The second-string setter sucks, too. He’s some third year unceremoniously dumped on the sidelines via Oikawa’s talent, and it’s obvious why. He sets like crap, too far back from the net, like he’s scared of a fight. It makes Kyoutani’s power lower than it should be, the piece of shit, and he just stares at Kyoutani when he tries to correct him.

The third years he plays with all fucking blow, in Kyoutani’s opinion. They’re the ones he’s supposed to have so much respect for, to look up to, but they make almost as many mistakes as he does as a first year and can’t even back it up with the same level of athleticism he does. Pathetic. What exactly is he supposed to be learning from them?

Then comes a day when they are sent to another school for a practice match. Both the reserves and the active players go, with two matches being pitched in the same gym. Kyoutani couldn’t care less about that, really, except it makes the bus more crowded than normal. Normally he gets a whole row to himself but today someone sits next to him. He has to press up against the window to avoid them touching the whole fucking way, giving himself a headache from the buzz.

From Kyoutani’s perspective, it’s not even that bad of a match. It’s not great, obviously, because everyone is obsessed with showing their asses and not listening to him, and they lose fucking 2-0, but that’s to be expected with these fucknuts.

Apparently, some people think differently. He’s going to get his bag out of the changing room when someone else grabs it first, holds it up high out of his easy reach.

He turns and sees that the locker room is empty except for him and a group of third years, all other reserve players. The first string is still playing and the second year reserves are still helping clean up, so it’s just him and them.

“What?” he asks, folding his arms. He’s not going to reach up for his bag like a kid being taunted by an older sibling. “What do you want?”

“You could have really hurt Tezuka,” the third year with the bag says. “You know he has a bad shoulder.”

Kyoutani grunts. He vaguely remembers someone talking about something like that, but he couldn’t place it to a specific person. “So?” he says instead.

“You’re a problem,” another one says. “And you don’t seem to be able to take a hint, so let us get it through your head. The coaches here will never move you up to first string if you have such a shitty attitude, and they’re about done even letting you play with us. You’re too much of a liability to everyone on the court around you, and you don’t even help us win. In a week or two, you’ll be sent back down to the rookies.”

Kyoutani just glares. “Sounds like you’ll get what you want, then,” he says.

The one with his bag tosses it at him suddenly. He gets his hands up in time, but it still hits him in the chest, making his breath rush out of him.

“Maybe you don’t care about this club, but we do,” the other talkative one says. “You’ll scare off the other first years if they think high school volleyball is about people like you. You’ll ruin it for everyone.”

“We don’t want you in this club anymore,” the one who threw the bag to him says. “So we’re telling you now: stop coming. Stop coming to practice, stop coming to the games, just stop coming to the club.”

“We won’t warn you again.” That’s a different one, but Kyoutani doesn’t really care.

“Or what, you’ll fight me?” he asks. “You’ll beat up a kid two years younger than you?”

“No,” one says with distaste, as if they weren’t the ones cornering him all alone. “We’ll talk to the coaches and get them to revoke your scholarship. You’ll have to change schools.”

Kyoutani freezes and stares at them. Of all the nasty, cowardly schemes, they’d managed to hit on one that actually mattered to him.

“Do you understand?”

“Fuck you,” he says, instinctively. “Fine. This fucking club sucks, anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah,” says one. “Don’t let the door fucking hit you on the way out.” They turn and leave.

Well, Kyoutani thinks to himself. It’s not like he was fucking gaining anything from being here, anyway.

It’ll be easy enough to stop going. It’ll be easy enough to turn the other way out of his final class of the day, easy enough to spend his afternoons by himself. It will probably be better for his grades, anyway, since he has to reteach himself half the shit from class every night thanks to being unable to concentrate in the actual work periods. It’ll be nice not to deal with assholes anymore.

But he’s shaking when he gets off the bus, shaking as he heads home. He’s not angry, because it’s fine, and he’s not scared, because that’d be stupid, and he should be better than all that anyway. He’s not upset and he’s not sad, because there’s nothing to mourn here. It was something he tried that didn’t work out, and there’s no use fucking crying over spilt milk, is there?

All the justifications in the world won’t help him hold his pencil steady, unfortunately, and he has to throw down his homework in disgust. The cupboards are pretty bare, both him and his dad slacking off on shopping this week, and Kyoutani could probably make do but the idea of a walk sounds good just about now.

“I’m going out!” he hollers to his dad, who grunts back.

He heads to the grocery mart, pulls a cap way too low over his face so he doesn’t have to make eye contact with the cashier.

Habit swings him by the house with the dog on his way back. It barks as soon as it hears him coming, pulling on its chain so hard he’s surprised it hasn’t choked itself out.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he says and rummages in his pocket for chicken strips. He throws them over and the dog descends on them as furiously as ever snatching them up and making them disappear so fast it’s like a magic trick. “I bet you don’t even taste them, huh? You don’t even enjoy them.”

The dog just roots around in the dirt for more, licking the ground where any bits might have fallen. Kyoutani could easily walk by now, safe while the dog is distracted, but something about the frantic energy the dog has itches at him.

“Calm down,” he says. “You’re just going to make yourself sick, you idiot.” He takes another strip from his pocket and throws it. “Eat that, okay?”

The dog catches it out of the air, teeth snapping. It shakes as it swallows it down and stares at him. He’s never stuck around this long before and they’re at an impasse.

“You’re a fucking mess,” he says. “You know that? If you want food so bad, maybe you could try being fucking nice instead of being such a jerk to everyone all the time. Nobody is going to want to give you shit if you just growl at them. Dumbass.”

The dog is just shaking, staring at his hands. It doesn’t look up at his face.

Suddenly, Kyoutani is seized by an urge he’s never had before. It’s stupid for sure, but he can’t stand the way the dog is just… trembling like that, the way it always growls at him when he walks by.

“Look,” he says, easing another strip out of his pocket. “I have more chicken, right? But you can’t be an asshole if you want me to give it to you.”

Slowly, telegraphing his movement, Kyoutani takes a step forward. The dog freezes, stiff as a board, and Kyoutani freezes too. He holds his breath, but the dog doesn’t lunge.

“That’s right,” he says, holding his hand out with the chicken on his palm. “Easy does it.”

Very, very slowly, the dog reaches out. For a second, Kyoutani feels teeth against his skin and thinks he’s made a colossal mistake, but then there’s a brush of movement and the chicken is gone and all of his fingers are still there.

The dog leaps back with its prize, going to the other length of the chain and eating with nervous, backward glances at Kyoutani as if he might try to take it away again. But when it finishes, it takes a nervous pawstep toward him, one after another, and looks at his hands.

“See?” Kyoutani says, pulling more chicken out of his pocket. “That’s not so hard, is it?”

He feeds the dog the rest of his stash like that, one strip at a time out of his hands, and he doesn’t get bitten once.

It turns out that he was right — quitting volleyball is easy. He ditches class, not for the first time, and looks up some gyms nearby he can train at, instead, and heads to one of them after school. It’s adults, of course, but they don’t nag at him the way that coaches would, so it’s fine.

It takes about two weeks for anyone to bother him about it, and of course it’s Oikawa.

“So the rumors are true,” the chirpy voice slices into his ears as he’s about to leave the school gates. Oikawa is leaning up against them, already changed into his practice gear. “I guess I had to see it for myself. You’re really not coming to practice anymore, hm?”

Kyoutani shrugs. He didn’t owe Oikawa anything before, but he sure as hell doesn’t now that they aren’t even teammates.

“I have to admit, I’m a little surprised,” Oikawa continues, as usual not requiring any audience participation in his little monologues. “I thought you’d be too stubborn to leave so soon.”

“There’s nothing on your dumb team that’s worth it for me,” Kyoutani says. “There’s no point.”

“Oh, did they tell you they were moving back down to the rookies?” Oikawa says. So the coaches were planning on moving him down. Idiots. “What, too scared to face the other first years again? I never took you for a coward, Mad Dog-chan.”

Kyoutani is just so, so over it. “Fuck off,” he says, curtly, and spins around. He shoves his hands in his pockets and stomps away.

Oikawa’s giggle trails after him. “See you around, Mad Dog-chan! I’ll always be glad to take you back, you know!”

Kyoutani swears to himself, right then and there, that he’ll die before he ever plays volleyball with fucking Oikawa Tooru.

He falls into a new routine. He goes to school, ditching classes whenever it gets too much to study on his own, then goes to the gym after, where he stays until the sun has gone down. He stops by the food mart on the way home and checks in with the dog.

He’s gotten to the point with the mutt that it’ll always eat from his hand. He no longer has to throw the food, it goes all still as soon as it realizes that it’s him approaching. It still takes the food to the other side of the yard to eat, as if it feels guilty for taking it from him.

It’s not a very healthy dog, Kyoutani has realized. His research on animal biology and dogs more specifically have taught him that much. It’s skinny, he can tell now, for all that its matted fur tries to hide it, and it has terrible amounts of fleas. It’s tail is crooked, like it got broken and healed poorly, and it’s terrified of its own shadow.

The thing isn’t even really a mean dog, he decides eventually. It’s just a scared one. All of its barking and growling are meant to keep people back, because the second they come close it flinches like it's expecting a kick to the chest.

It takes him a while, but he realizes he feels bad for the thing. He spends more and more time with it, feeding it more food and filling up its dish from his own water bottle. As the weather turns hotter, he finds himself filling up the dog’s bowl higher and higher, but no matter what, when he gets there the next day, the bowl is dry.

“You need to pace yourself,” he tells her — he’s seen her piss enough times now that he’s pretty sure she’s a her — as she slurps down the water he’s poured out into her bowl as soon as he steps back from it. “I can’t come more than once a day, y’know, I have classes and shit. If you drink it all at night you won’t have any when it’s hot out again.”

Unsurprisingly, she proves incapable of understanding his advice.

It’s fine, as routines go, so Kyoutani should have expected something to go wrong.

It’s his day off from school, which normally is a pretty good day for him, all things considered. He can catch up on his work and visit the dog during the day time, which is a different experience. She’s less reactive during the day, he’s found, making him think she might be spooked by the darkness. Like a kid, he thinks. In any case, she’s a little more chill during the daytime.

It’s a hot day, unusually warm for June, and he’s loaded up a second water bottle so he can drink on the way over and still fill up her bowl. He’s looking forward to seeing her. He’s wondering if in a few weeks, he might be able to try to pet her. Not when she’s eating, obviously, but some other time.

The first sign that something is wrong is the lack of barking as he gets close. The dog always barks when she hears people coming, only quieting down when she realizes it’s him. But this time, it’s silent. No sound of her growling, no clank of the chain.

She’s lying on the ground, head on her paws, and barely lifts it to acknowledge him as he stops in front of her. Her eyes are strange, sunken in almost, and her mouth is open in quiet pants.

“You don’t look so good,” he tells her, and holds out some chicken.

She takes it, which is a relief, but then it just drops out of her mouth, like she’s too tired to keep it in. She just puts her head down, staring into the distance.

“Are you thirsty?” he asks, starting to feel a little desperate. He uncaps the bottle and pours it into the bowl - dry, as always.

She twitches a little when he reaches past her to grab the bowl, but otherwise doesn’t react. It’s like she’s too tired to even be scared of him. That, more than anything, convinces him something is wrong.

Heart pounding, Kyoutani reaches into his pocket and pulls out his cell phone. He’s never called his mom from his cell before, only from the landline, but he had dutifully programmed her in when he’d gotten it.

“Ken-chan?” Her voice is full of unmasked surprise. “Did I miss a call this week, I’m so sorry, my schedule is —”

“No,” he cuts her off as quickly as he can. “I have a question for you, about, about a dog? I think she’s sick.”

“Oh.” His mother’s voice changes, turns crisper, cleaner. “What are the symptoms?”

“She’s not interested in food or water, and she’s just lying down,” he says. “Usually she’s really active, but today she’s… she hasn’t even stood up.”

“How long has she been like this?” his mom asks.

“I don’t know,” he says. “She’s — I only see her once a day, she’s in this yard near — I saw her last night and she was fine, I think, maybe a little quiet?”

“She’s out in a yard?” his mother asks. “What’s the temperature outside like?”

“It’s hot,” he says. “It’s really hot and… she doesn’t get enough food or water, Mom. I bring her water every day but it’s all gone when I get back, she drinks it all.”

“It could be early heat stroke,” she says. “Can you do some things for me, Kentarou?”

“Yeah,” he says, and follows her directions as she asks him about the dog’s gums, her saliva, where she is in the yard.

“Can you get her into some shade?” his mom asks, and Kentarou looks for some but can’t find any. “Do you have any cool water? Not cold, but cool?”

He does. He unpacks his gym bag and wets his change of clothes and his towel, and puts them again her paws, her stomach, and her head. She just blinks at him as he does so, and doesn’t fight him off.

“You need to find the owner and get her to a vet,” his mother says. “Only her owner can authorize medical care, and she sounds like she’ll need more serious treatment for her… underlying issues. A dog really shouldn’t be living outside like that.”

“I know,” he says. “Thanks, mom.” He hangs up.

He sits with her until she lifts her head a little bit, leans over to the bowl and starts lapping up water, slowly. There isn’t a whole lot left, but he takes that as a reasonable sign that she’s out of immediate danger and gets up.

He’s never paid too much attention to the house behind where the dog lives. It’s just a house, a little nicer looking than his house, but maybe that’s just the newer paint job. There’s a plant in one of the windows and some stickers on another, the kind a kid puts up and their mom or dad tries to scrape off.

He curls his hand into a fist and raps on the door once, twice. When there’s no answer, he does it again.

There’s no answer, and he can hear the dog panting behind him. She still looks too tired to hold her head up for more than a few moments.

Kyoutani has always thought that the best part of volleyball was when the world narrows to just him and the ball and he knows exactly what to do. There’s no question, at least not for him, about what is nice or proper or socially correct. There’s just the path in front of him, and his ability to fling himself along it, regardless of the consequences.

This is a moment like that, he thinks.

And so, Kyoutani steals a dog.

Chapter Text

The shelter is closest, so that’s where Kyoutani goes, dog bundled in his arms. She doesn’t fight him as he scoops her up, resting her head against his shoulder. She weighs even less than he expected, ribs pressing against his chest.

The same girl that he’d met before is at the counter again, reading through a pamphlet. She’s wearing scrubs now, instead of a volunteer shirt. Her eyes widen when she sees him.

“Oh my gosh,” she says. “Is that your dog?”

“No,” Kyoutani says. “She’s sick, really bad. My mom said it was probably heatstroke.”

“Oh no,” the girl says. “The vet isn’t in today, but I can call him— here, let’s get her to medical.” Kyoutani follows her past the rooms of dogs who all start barking as they go by, into a back area that the girl scans a keycard to get into. She brings them into a small room with a metal table and a sink in the corner, medical equipment scattered around.

“Put her up here,” she says, putting a towel over the table, and Kyoutani does so. “Oh, you poor thing. I’m going to call the vet, I’ll be right back.”

Kyoutani waits with the dog while the girl steps out. Her eyes are wide, whites all around them, but she doesn’t seem able to do much more than look around.

“It’ll be okay,” he says awkwardly, gently scratching at the dog’s head. “It’ll… they’ll fix you right up, okay?”

“Okay, he’s on his way in,” the girl says, pulling gloves on as she re-enters the room. “I can do some initial checks before he gets here... do you mind helping me?”

“No,” Kyoutani says. “Just tell me what to do.”

Following her instructions, he helps hold the dog still while she takes a temperature from the poor thing’s ass, weighs her, and feels around different parts of her body. She refreshes the cool clothes on the same places Kyoutani had put them before. She keeps up a stream of commentary to both the dog and Kyoutani the whole time, explaining what she’s doing.

“That’s as much as we can do for now,” she says. “I’m afraid I’m not able to set an IV or anything by myself yet… I’m only in the first year of my vet tech program.” She strips the gloves off, tossing them. “Would you mind giving me some more information about how you found her? My name is Nakata Mina, by the way.”

“Kyoutani Kentarou,” Kyoutani says. “Yeah, what— whatever you need, I guess. I don’t know a lot, though.”

Nakata asks about where he found the dog, what state she was in then, what he did for her, if there were any humans nearby. Kyoutani is careful in his answers. Nakata seems to be upset about the dog’s condition, from how she’d sounded during her exam, but she also probably has to report stuff like stealing dogs to the police. He makes it seem like he just found her on the side of the road, not in a yard.

“You’re that kid that came in before, aren’t you?” she asks. “Is this the dog you were asking about then?”

“Yeah,” he says. “She, uh, I see her at the park a lot. I’ve been worried about her, but I’ve never seen her so fucked up before.”

“She’s been badly neglected,” Nakata agrees. “Poor darling. You did the right thing, helping her.”

The vet, when he arrives, is a tall man with dark hair and a sharp chin. He shuffles Kyoutani out of the room, all business, and keeps Nakata to assist him.

Kyoutani sits in the waiting room, hands clenched on his knees. His mind is white static without any task to focus on. The cats are meowing behind him, going about their day, but Kyoutani doesn’t turn to look.

Finally, what feels like an eternity later, Nakata comes back out.

“Oh, you waited,” she said, smiling. “I was hoping you would, I forgot to get down your contact information to update you—”

“Is she going to live?” he asks.

Nakata hesitates. “I can’t make any promises,” she says. “She’s in a bad way right now, for sure. Years of not being cared for properly meant she had less defenses when she started getting overheated, and the doctor thinks there might be some underlying infection, too. We started her on an IV, and we’re giving her some oxygen support, too, but it’s… the next few days will be the hardest ones for her.”

“But she has a chance?”

Nakata nods. “She does. She’s a fighter, I can tell.” She hands him a form. “Here. If you put your information down, I can call you with updates.”

“Can I come in to see her?” Kyoutani asks. “After school? I just— I usually come see her every day.”

“Of course,” Nakata says. “I’ll see if the vet is okay with you coming to the back, but he usually doesn’t mind if it’s the people who helped rescue them. If she lives, it’ll all be because of you, you know.”

Kyoutani just shakes his head. If she lives, it’ll be because she’s tough, not because of him. He didn’t even know enough to know she was sick until she was literally keeled over in front of him, and even then he had to call his mom for help.

It’s harder than normal to concentrate at school. Don’t these idiots know there’s a dog fighting for her life out there while they sit around and gossip? He’s forced to skip class more than normal, just to avoid losing his mind completely.

He gets a text, presumably from Nakata. Seems stable today, it reads. Def. an infection. Started her on antibiotics. Reacting a little more to her surroundings now! Doc says you can visit today if you want.

Kyoutani does. Nakata leads him to the back, where there’s a wall of metal kennels on one side and a weird unit on the other with plastic and some kind of machinery hooked up.

“That’s our intensive care unit,” Nakat explains when she sees him looking. “We can up the O2 to help support any patients with difficulty breathing.”

“Is she in one?” he asks, trying to peer around the semi-foggy clear plastic.

“Not anymore,” she says. “She was for a bit but… she’s doing better today, and we only have the one. They’re really expensive… We had to use it for another patient. She’s breathing okay on her own now.” As Nakata speaks, Kyoutani sees that there’s a grubby-looking kitten in the unit, eyes crusted close and breaths shaky. It looks like it’s on the edge of death, to him.

“She’s over here,” Nakata says, directing Kyoutani to one of the ground-level kennels. He crouches down to see the dog is lying down in the corner of one of the metal cages. One of her legs has been shaved and there’s an IV set into the front of her leg, tubing coming out of the bars to the bag stand next to it. Nakata crouches to open the cage slowly, then stands up and steps back. “You can say hi, if you want. She’s still pretty out of it, but is doing a bit better now.”

Kyoutani kneels down in front of the cage. “Hey,” he says, awkward in front of a stranger. He reaches in, puts his fingers near her nose.

There’s a small thumping sound, making him jump back slightly, and Nakata gasps.

“She’s wagging her tail!” she says, excited. “Oh, I haven’t seen her do that before!”

Kyoutani hasn’t, either, but it’s true. The dog’s bent tail is tapping against the side of the crate as she sniffs Kyoutani’s hand. “Is that… why is she wagging her tail?”

“She must recognize you,” Nakata says, smiling widely. “She knows you saved her.”

Kyoutani can only stare, shocked.

He visits every day after school and the dog continues to improve. She’s sitting, then standing, then her IV is out and she’s in a larger room where she can walk back and forth, drinking from a bowl. She has to be shaved to get rid of the terrible mats and fleas, making her skinny and strange-looking, like an alien. She’s still in the medical ward, but Nakata says that it looks like she’ll be able to be put up for adoption soon.

“Oh,” Kyoutani says when he hears that, heart sinking. “She’ll… she’ll go to a new family, then.” That’s nice, he tells himself. That’s what she deserves.

Nakata doesn’t look happy, either. “Well,” she says, “hopefully…”

“What d’ya mean, hopefully?” Kyoutani asks. “That’s what going up for adoption means, right?”

Nakata bites her lip. “Of course,” she says. “And we’ll do everything we can to get her adopted, it’s just… Most people who come in only adopt puppies, or small dogs. And she’s at least six, maybe older, and she’s a larger breed, and she’s… well, she’ll probably always have some special needs. We’ll probably end up waiving her adoption fees, if we can, but… there’s a chance she won’t get adopted, Kyoutani-kun.”

“Then what?” Kyoutani demands. “She just stays here forever in these little kennels?”

“...We don’t have the money to keep animals here forever,” Nakata says,her eyes wet. “We don’t… we want to, obviously, but we have to set a maximum length of stay, or we’d go bankrupt in a year.”

“So what happens to her then? If she doesn’t get adopted?”

“We’ll try to find another rescue that will take her,” Nakata says. “It’s too bad she isn’t a purebred, but there are a few that take mutts. But if they don’t have room… we’ll have to put her down.”

“So she could get totally better and get killed anyway,” Kyoutani says, voice going thick and angry. “You’ll just kill her anyway, because— because she’s not young enough, or sweet enough, because she’s too much work—”

“We don’t >want to,” Nakata says.

“But you will,” Kyoutani says. “I thought you worked to save animals, not kill them.”

Nakata’s eyes fill with tears. “The only way we can save any of them is by doing it this way,” she says. “If you have some hidden source of money to save them all, I’d love to hear it, but this is the reality right now.”

“It’s not good enough,” Kyoutani shouts and storms out.

She’s not wrong, though, is the problem, and it’s not her fault. But Kyoutani can’t stand the idea of the dog working so hard, fighting so hard, and just dying anyway. Why’d he even try so hard to save her, to take her out of that yard, if she might just get killed anyway for not being cute and young enough? For having problems?

There’s only one solution that he can see.

“Dad,” he says at dinner that night. “I’m getting a dog.”

Genjirou looks up at him, thick brows pulling down over his eyes. “What? No.”

“I am,” Kyoutani says.

“We can’t get a dog,” Genjirou says, staring at his son like he’s grown a new, alarming appendage. “Where’d this come from?”

“Why not?” Kyoutani asks.

“We don’t even have a yard,” his dad says. “And dogs are needy, and expensive, and messy. We don’t have time to get a dog. You’ve never asked for a dog before.”

“This is different,” Kyoutani says. “I’ll take her on walks, and she’s free to adopt, and I’ll train her. I’ll do all the work, you won’t have to do any.”

“Did your mother put you up to this?” Genjirou shakes his head. “No, no way. You say you’ll look after it but then I’ll end up having to. I know how this shit works. I don’t like dogs. They’re fleabags.”

“You don’t even know her! You aren’t giving it a chance!”

“My decision is final, Kentarou! Don’t argue with me!”

“I’m not asking you permission,” Kyoutani growls. “I’m getting a dog, and that’s final.”

They fight for well into the night, the kind of fight his parents used to have, but Kyoutani won’t back down. Both of them threaten to play the ultimate trump card, calling his mom, but neither of them pull the trigger on it. Both of them yell. Kyoutani breaks a cup.

Finally, they go to bed with something of a compromise. Kyoutani is going to get a dog, but he’s going to start helping out at his dad’s construction company four times a week to cover the costs of the dog’s supplies, and if his dad ever has to lift a finger for ‘the thing’, then she’s going right back and Kyoutani can never get a pet again until he moves out.

I’m taking her, Kyoutani texts Nakata. My dad agreed.

OH MY GOSH that is the best news EVER, she texts back, apparently not still upset with him. At least someone isn’t. I’m so relieved, OMG. Can you come in tomorrow morning to do some of the paperwork? I’m not scheduled in the afternoon, classes.

I have school, Kyoutani types out, then deletes. School is less important than this. He can always be late. Sure.

He shows up bright and early, school uniform on and his backpack hanging off one shoulder. Nakata meets him up front, carrying a clipboard.

“I’m so happy,” she tells him, ponytail bouncing up and down. “I was so worried, and it’s clear you two have a special connection, so this is perfect.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kyoutani says. “Well, she better be well-behaved or my dad will kick both of us out, probably.”

Nakata frowns. “Have you ever trained a dog before?” she asks. “She’s doing her best with the potty training here, but she’s new to it…”

“I haven’t,” Kyoutani admits. “I… I’ll figure it out as I go.”

Nakata frowns and then nods, coming to a decision. “Hold on,” she says, and runs to the back. She reappears with a stack of books. “These are some of the dog training and behavior books we recommend,” she says. “You should borrow them, read up before she’s ready to go home.”

Kyoutani reaches out and touches the spine of one of them. “You sure?” he asks. He bets the shelter doesn’t normally let people borrow their books like that.

“Positive,” she says. “I know you’ll be careful with them.” She turns her attention to the forms, drilling Kyoutani about his address for the microchip and a bunch of other information. “Oh, have you decided on a name for her yet?” she asks. “We were going to just assign her one for her adoption profile, but since you’ll be taking her…”

“I… don’t know,” Kyoutani says. “I’ve never named anything before.”

“Well, there’s no rush,” Nakata says. “Just pick one and call her it consistently when you get her, and she’ll learn it in no time.”

Kyoutani is debating dog names in his head the whole time he walks to school. He doubts there’s much chance of him concentrating in his classes now, so he only bothers to go to science and math. He skips the others, holing up in the library with the books Nakata had given him.

He’s concentrating deeply, trying to commit every bit of information to memory, when he hears someone cough near him. He ignores it, figuring it’s just some other kid ditching, but the cough just keeps coming, until it’s practically right on top of him.

“Don’t fucking cough on me,” Kyoutani says, annoyed, and tries to find his spot in his line again.

“I need to talk to you,” says a hushed voice.

“No,” Kyoutani says. He’s definitely lost his place, now, which is fucking annoying. This is a book by some lady that works with abused dogs and she’s talking about making them feel safe, their first night home. It’s pretty important information.

“No, just like that? What if I was about to offer you 10,000 yen?” The voice is incredulous now, and, frustratingly, becoming slightly recognizable. Kyoutani doesn’t want to remember this kid’s voice, but he guesses that kind of thing just happens when someone yells the first time they meet. The fact that he’d been a pussy every other time they met is just a disappointment.

“I’d tell you to leave it by my bag. Now, fuck off.” He starts to read again, pretty sure that will drive Yahaba Shigeru, Iwanuma Middle, 174cm, and I’m a setter off.

“Fine,” Yahaba says and Kyoutani thinks he’ll get his peace and quiet for a second until he hears the other boy settling to the ground next to him. Right next to him, so close that he can feel the heat of Yahaba's body against his. If they were any closer, they’d be pressed side-to-side.

Worse, Yahaba begins to hum. It grates in Kyoutani’s ears, making it impossible to concentrate. He tries to grit his teeth and deal with it, but he can feel himself going hot with annoyance.

“I’m going to punch you,” Kyoutani says. Giving him a fair warning.

“That will get you kicked out of the library,” Yahaba says, sounding ever-so calm and amused. “So will yelling at me, so be careful of that, too.”

“Go choke yourself with your own sweaty ballsack,” Kyoutani growls and is pleased to hear Yahaba sputter at the vulgarity of his words. Serves him right, fucking priss.

“If you talk to me, I’ll go away,” Yahaba says, voice lilting over the words. Something of his cadence smacks of Oikawa at his worst, and Kyoutani would love nothing more than to punch both of them at once.

“Fine,” Kyoutani growls, regretting it already. “What the fuck do you want?

Instantly, Yahaba turns to face him, all business. “You need to help out the club for the cultural festival,” he says.

Kyoutani makes a face, unimpressed. “Pass,” he says. He hadn’t even realized a cultural festival was coming up, although he supposes he’s seen some posters hung up. Gross.

“You can’t pass. Just come by and hammer a nail or hand out a flier or something. There is literally no job too small for you to do. I don’t even care if you manage to screw it up, just show up and do something.”

“I’m not doing that stupid shit,” Kyoutani says. He has better things to focus on that helping out a dumb club he hasn’t even gone to for weeks.

“Well, you have to,” Yahaba says, uncaring. “You’ll be kicked out of the club, otherwise.”

“So what?” Hadn’t he already been, essentially?

“So what?” Yahaba echoes, sounding shocked. His eyes narrow. “You really want to be the kind of guy who drops out of his high school club after a few measly months because he can't be bothered to put a piece of tape on a poster and stick it to a wall? Do you realize how that will look to people? To your parents, to your future employers?"

Kyoutani just snorts. Trust this pretty boy to be the kind of guy so concerned about what people he hasn’t even met yet think about him. “Do I seem like the kind of shallow guy who cares about that kind of shit?”

Yahaba rolls his eyes as if Kyoutani is being intentionally difficult, when that’s obviously Yahaba’s whole play here. “I haven’t put that much thought into what kind of guy you seem like, to be honest,” he says, like Kyoutani should be upset that he doesn’t warrant Yahaba’s attention. “I’m just going to keep bothering you until you agree, you know. I’ll show up wherever you are, all the time, and just be around you in the most annoying way possible until you cave.”

“You don’t have that much patience,” Kyoutani says. Yahaba seems like the kind of popular kid that wouldn’t be caught dead talking to Kyoutani if they weren’t in total private, so he doubts the threat is real. Well, probably not. Yahaba does seem pretty interested in annoying him.

“Maybe not,” Yahaba says in an airy tone that sets Kyoutani’s hackles on edge, “but I only need to have more patience than you do, right? And that’s pretty easy. So, if you don't want to become my newest, bestest companion, come by the clubroom and do something, okay?" He gets up, flashing a twinkling smile that makes Kyoutani just despise every fiber of his being. “Be seeing you soon!”

Kyoutani considers not going. He doesn’t want to help to begin with and the fact that Yahaba thinks he can strongarm him into it is even more reason not to give in.

Unfortunately, both of Yahaba’s threats have some truth in them. The club hasn’t gone as far as kicking him out yet, even though he’s not attending practice, but if he starts making a stink, there’s a chance they will, and that will void his scholarship. Maybe a few weeks ago he could have figured out something with his dad to make that not matter, but definitely not now that they’re fighting.

Secondly, he just can’t risk Yahaba following through on his threats to follow Kyoutani around. Kyoutani likes his routine, what little of it he has, and he’s already about to throw a huge wrench into it by adopting a whole-ass dog. The last thing he needs is some jerk kicking at his heels, probably scaring his dog by being crybaby, and being all… weird at him. Setting him on edge.

So, as much as it pains him, Kyoutani cuts short his time visiting with the dog — the still unnamed dog — that afternoon afterschool and heads back into the clubroom. People are spilling in and out, both ones he vaguely recognizes and several he doesn’t, at all. There are even girls here, which is weird.

He’s about to go in when he sees Oikawa walking by, talking to his friend.

“—wouldn’t have suggested it if I knew you’d be such a baby about it,” Oikawa was saying. “Why, I never took Iwa-chan to be so shy!”

“I’m not shy, idiot,” his friend was saying. “Not all of us have secret dreams of being a model, okay? I don’t get why you’d want me on the posters, anyway.”

“What can I say?” Oikawa shrugs. “I thought it would make a good piece of memorabilia for you when you’re old and even your body has broken down and left you with nothing… you’ll be able to look back on it and say, well, I may have still been ugly and stupid, but at least once I had muscles— ow! Ow! Iwa-chan, my hair!”

“Fuck you, shittykawa, fuck you,” his friend growls, aggressively digging his his knuckles into Oikawa’s fluffy hairstyle and ruining it. “You’re the worst person, probably ever.”

“You love me anyway though, right, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa asks, pulling himself out of his friend’s grasp and grinning down at him. “I’m your favorite.”

“My favorite pain in the ass, maybe,” his friend says. “Now hurry up.” He grabs Oikawa’s arm and tows him in the direction of the club room.

Kyoutani does not want to go in there if Oikawa is there. Not a chance in hell. But if he doesn’t, he’d have to deal with Yahaba, who is almost as bad. It’s a real conundrum, which happily solves itself for him when Yahaba himself exits the club room and taps down the stairs, arms full of a stack of posters.

Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Kyoutani waits until Yahaba is right next to the corner where he’s been deliberating next moves. He reaches out and grabs Yahaba’s arm, towing him around the other side of the building. Yahaba makes some sort of quiet squeak and goes tense, but otherwise lets himself be pulled along.

“What are you doing?” Yahaba asks, yanking his arm out of Kyoutani’s grip. He’s already re-affected his look of cool composure, which is infinitely annoying.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Kyoutani says. Yahaba was the one who told him to come here, anyway, what does he think he’s doing?

“I’ve been in the gym or the clubroom like a normal person, you— you— lurker!” Yahaba shakes his head, bangs flopping across his forehead. “What on earth do you want?”

Kyoutani stares at him for a moment. Is he playing dumb? “You said I had to do something for the stupid festival.” If he knew Yahaba would forget, he would’ve just not turned up.

“So?” Yahaba shifts the posters around in his arms like he’s trying to find a way to plop a hand on his hip. “Go to the clubroom and get an assignment like the rest of us!”

“I don’t want to deal with all those guys.” Oikawa is a nightmare unto himself, but he could also stand to avoid the third years who told him to leave in the first place. All he’d fucking need is them thinking he was trying to grovel back.

“Go bother someone who cares,” Yahaba says, flicking his bangs around again. Does he not know he can just cut them shorter?

“Just give me a fucking job to do before I beat your pretty face in,” Kyoutani says with his best aggressive expression. He just wants this to be over with as quickly as possible.

Yahaba licks his lips and blows air out of his mouth, visibly weighing what to do. He’s not intimidated by Kyoutani at all, which is different and strange and, at the moment, deeply frustrating.

“Fine,” he says, in the tones of someone long-suffering. He holds out his armful of posters. “Go hang these in building C, okay?”

Kyoutani looks down at the posters for the first time. “Challenge the Champions?” he read aloud. “What the hell?” The posters are weird, big pictures of different people with words under them. The biggest face is Oikawa’s, obviously, but there’s some girl holding up her fingers to her temples like she’s playing psychic and a bunch of smaller people in various poses.

“Don’t worry, you don’t have to take part,” Yahaba says, which is not an explanation, “so you don’t have to feel bad about not having any special skills.”

“I’m strong,” Kyoutani points out, because duh. He is, in fact, pretty special in at least one way, and Yahaba should know that.

“We already have Iwaizumi-san for that,” Yahaba says, freeing a hand to tap at one of the smaller figures. It’s Oikawa’s friend, flexing his biceps in a corny pose with Arm Wrestling! written underneath it. “Look, just put them up in Building C and you can go back to ignoring this club completely.”

How strong could this Iwaizumi really be? Kyoutani doesn’t remember him, but maybe he was on the active roster. He can’t be that strong, at least, not stronger than Kyoutani is. He doesn’t look very impressive.

He grunts, taking the posters and turning away, wondering if he should swing by to test out Iwaizumi himself.

“Wait!” Yahaba’s voice stops him and turns back. “I need proof that I actually got you to take part so the coach doesn’t accuse me of just putting them up myself.” There’s a camera in his face and a click and Yahaba sighs. “There,” he says, looking down at his phone.

Kyoutani frowns. He can count on one hand the number of photos he’s had taken of him recently — that was always his mother’s thing, not his dad’s, and it’s not like anyone else around him would bother. “You better delete that once you’ve shown it to the coaches, you freak,” he says.

Yahaba snorts unprettily. “Do you really think I want you taking up any of my phone’s memory for even a second longer than I have to?”

That doesn’t deserve an answer and Kyoutani doesn’t give him one, and thankfully, this time when he turns away, Yahaba lets him go.

It’s only a few days before the dog is ready to go. He takes her home on a Saturday after school. He stocked up on supplies, dog food and beds and toys and a leash. He got a special kind of harness for her, too, since she had a lot of bad mats around where the chain was around her throat, so he doesn’t want her pulling on it when she goes on walks.

“Not that she’ll be up for too many long walks for a bit,” Nakata tells him. “She’s still pretty weak. She’ll let you know when she’s feeling better though, you can count on that.”

“I can carry her if she gets too tired,” Kyoutani assures her.

“I know,” Nakata says. “She’s gonna end up pretty spoiled with such a good dad, huh? Good for her. Have you decided on a name?”

“I was, uh, thinking Coco,” he says. “Y’know, ‘cause of her eyes?” It turns out his dog has huge brown eyes, all liquidy when she stares at him, which is a lot of the time.

“Aw, I love it,” Nakata says and writes it on the paperwork. “Well, there you go. Sign here and you’re officially the owner of Coco. Let me go get her from the back.”

Kyoutani signs the paperwork, fingers only a little slippery. It feels insane, doing this, because he’s not… he’s not dad material, not even for a dog. If she had any other option, he wouldn’t be doing this.

Nakata comes back, walking Coco on her harness and blue lead. She walks unsure on it, staring side to side, but wags her tail when she sees that it’s Kyoutani waiting for her, nosing at his hand where she knows he keeps treats.

“I’ll miss her,” Nakata says. “And you, of course! It’s been nice having someone to talk to on my shifts around here. Oh, but maybe I’ll see you at the Aobajousai cultural festival?”

“What?” Kyoutani balks at that. “You— how’d you know I went to Seijou?”

Nakata laughs. “You came in wearing your uniform, silly,” she says. “I went there and my sister still goes, so of course I recognize the uniform. Are you in any of the clubs?”

“No,” he says. “I— no.”

“I figured,” she says. “Or else you wouldn’t have time to come in and check on Coco so much! Well, I was the same way, you know. I volunteered here instead of doing any school clubs, and it worked out for me. My sister likes sports, though, so she’s in the volleyball club.”

Kyoutani does not like two parts of his world colliding this way. It makes him uneasy, though he can’t say why. “Oh,” he says.

“Well, maybe I’ll see you around there,” Nakata says, never one to let his lack of response deter her. “And if you have any questions or problems with Coco, you have my number. Have a good one, kid, okay?”

“You too,” he says, more bemused than anything, and takes Coco’s leash.

She’s good on the walk back home. She walks slowly, careful with how she steps, and hides behind him whenever a car rumbles by, but she doesn’t pull at all.

“This is our room,” he tells her as he opens his bedroom door. “I set up some pads in the corner if you have an accident, but please don’t, okay? You have a bed here, see, I think it should catch the sun, and your water is here. I’ll refill it morning and night for you. And we’ll go on walks then, too, okay?”

She stands in the middle of the room, shaking slightly and just looking at him.

“Do you want to play?” he asks her, and picks up one of the toys he bought. It’s made to look like a duck. When he holds it around the middle, it squeaks.

Coco does not like that. She presses herself back against the door, refusing to move until Kyoutani has hidden the toy from sight.

“Okay, okay,” he says in his most soothing tones. “No squeaky toys. Too scary, huh? Um…” Slowly, once she calms down, he searches through the toys to find one that doesn’t make any noise. “This is a classic,” he says, holding up a tennis ball. “No weird sounds, either.”

He holds it out for her and she sniffs it politely but doesn’t do anything else. She probably doesn’t know how to play, he realizes, or isn’t sure if she’s allowed to.

Kyoutani settles down on the floor. “Like this,” he says, and gently rolls the ball toward her.

She watches it go by.

He collects it and does it again, to no avail.

“You catch it,” he explains, and rolls it a few times between his own hands to demonstrate. She tracks it when he rolls it, at least. “It’s fun,” he promises.

Finally, he rolls it to her and she sticks a paw out, stopping it from rolling. “Yes! Good girl!” he praises, feeling stupid at the voice he’s using. All the manuals had said dogs respond better to high pitched voices, so he’s trying his best, but he’s glad no one can hear him.
He brings her out with him for dinner.

“Why’s it on a leash inside?” his dad asked. “Is it trying to run away?”

“It’s to help her bond with me,” Kyoutani says. “And she’s not an it.”

Genjirou snorts, unimpressed. “We’ll fucking see.”

That night, Coco paces the floor of Kyoutani’s room. He knows it’s not that she needs to use the restroom, because he’d just taken her out and she’d done everything she needed to, but she can’t seem to settle down in the new place.

“It’s okay,” he says to her, sleepily. “This is your home now, okay?”

She whines a little.

Finally, Kyoutani levers himself off the bed and picks her up. Feeling her heart racing, he puts her in the bed next to her, holding her still. “We need sleep, both of us,” he tells her. He holds her like that all night, feeling her go from panicked to calm.

The next night, she jumps onto his bed herself, no encouragement needed.

She sleeps in his bed every night from then on.

Chapter Text

The cultural festival is a crowded, energetic event, the kind of thing Kyoutani would usually avoid at all costs. Too many people milling about the school grounds, bumping into each other, their voices layering into a cacophony of sound that goes straight into his temples like a spike. Still, Kyoutani hunches his shoulders and muscles through it, focused on his goal.

The volleyball club room is crowded, with people spilling out the front. It seems their Challenge the Champions idea had caught on in a big way, or maybe it was just their Oikawa-centric marketing strategy. The past few days Kyoutani hasn’t been able to turn anywhere in the school without meeting that guy’s eyes from some poster or another. It’s deeply disconcerting.

“Welcome to Challenge the Champions!” says the short girl manning the front booth when Kyoutani reaches the front. “It’s a hundred yen per ticket, and different champions take a different number of tickets to challenge. All the profits go to the boys volleyball club and the photography club!”

“How much to challenge the arm wrestling champion?” Kyoutani asks, keeping his voice low and head ducked down. He can hear Oikawa crowing about something nearby.

“Iwaizumi-san? He’s one of our most popular champions!” the girl says with a grin. “That’ll be four tickets, so 400 yen!”

Kyoutani forks it over and heads to the back corner where the guy is sitting, chatting with some bald kid and laughing.

“I’m here to challenge you,” Kyoutani says, sitting down across the table and sliding his tickets onto the desk.

“Sure thing,” the guy says and gets into position. He has his sleeves rolled up again all the way to his shoulders, which looks stupid. Kyoutani only rolls his up to his elbows, because he doesn’t need to show off for anyone.

He knows he’s going to lose the second they start. Iwaizumi, it turns out, is not fucking around. Kyoutani’s arm starts tilting back only a few moments in, shaking as he does his best to turn the tides.

It’s a useless endeavor. With a slam, Kyoutani’s hand is forced down to the desk.

“Twenty seconds,” the bald kid chirps. “Wow, Iwaizumi-senpai, you’re all fired up.”

“Good job,” Iwaizumi says to Kyoutani and nods to the bald kid.

“Again,” Kyoutani says, tossing more yen at the ticket seller. He’s prepared this time, he knows what to expect and will win.

“Twenty-eight seconds! Wow, Kyoutani-san, that’s better than most people can do!”

“Again,” Kyoutani grits out.

“Twenty-three seconds!”

“Aga—”

“Come on, give someone else a turn!” That’s some other guy, waiting in line behind him. “You clearly aren’t gonna beat him.”

“Sorry, kid,” Iwaizumi says, shaking his arm out to the side. “Train some more and come back next time.”

Kyoutani is furious. He storms out of the club room, and out of the festival altogether.

“I’m plenty strong,” he says to Coco that evening, lifting weights in his room while she watches him. “I’m the fucking strongest.”

She wags her tail at him.

“Well, you think I am, anyway,” he says. “I’ll find something I can beat Iwaizumi at, just you wait.”

The next few weeks fly by. He’s busy working with Coco, getting her fully housetrained and gaining her weight back. She’s slowly becoming more comfortable in his home, but she’s still scared a lot, particularly of other people. He’s nervous to leave her loose in the house if he’s not home in case his dad comes home, because she’s growled at him before, but he feels bad leaving her cooped up in his bedroom for too long.

He takes her to a lot of parks, including one where she can go off leash and run. Nakata had told him that she’ll need to run off her energy a lot, not just go on walks. At first, she doesn’t know what to do. Then she gets so excited, like a puppy, running full pelt all around. It takes her a bit to learn how to take turns without falling over, but she gets it down eventually.

Her fur is growing out, too, and Kyoutani takes a lot of care to brush it out and keep her from getting matted, going as far as giving her baths when they come back from the park. At first she hates it, shaking and whimpering as he moves the shower head around her, but then she gets used to it. She’s growing out a beautiful coat, a brown pattern his research has told him is called brindle, paler around her stomach. She lets him brush her out with few complaints, even though he can tell she’s anxious about being touched around her belly and paws.

It’s wild how much she trusts him, he thinks. She didn’t before. Nakata says it’s because she knows he helped her when she was sick, knows that he rescued her, but he can’t really believe that. It’s not like he even did all that much. He just carried her to the shelter, is all.

He gets home from school one day to find that Coco has pulled his dirty laundry out of the hamper in his closet and shredded it. She hides from him when he walks in, scooting her bony length under his bed and shaking so hard the frame rattles.

“Get out from there,” he tells her, crouching down. “I’m not gonna — I’m not gonna yell at you. I know it’s fucking boring in here.” It takes a lot of chicken to convince her to come out again.

He texts Nakata for advice. He picks up some things to keep her busy while he’s gone, a bone to chew on and a toy he can stuff with treats that she has to work at to get the reward from. Those help a lot, and outside of one chair-chewing mishap when he doesn’t put enough peanut butter in, she calms down after that.

He doesn’t have as much time to go to the gym, he’s so busy with her, but he doesn’t mind. Taking her on so many walks keeps him active, especially as she starts being able to run with him, and he has weights at home. He misses volleyball, for sure, but he can practice spikes at the park while she sniffs around and tries to roll in clover patches.

It’s a good few weeks, up until the phone call comes.

He’s doing homework on the floor of his room. Every few moments, a tennis ball is dropped on the books next to his knee and he obligingly rolls it for Coco. If he doesn’t, she’ll start play-growling at him, which he can’t help but find kind of funny.

His phone ringing takes him by surprise. His dad knows he’s at home at this time, so if he was calling to say he’d be late or something, he’d call the house phone, and Nakata only texts him, usually just pictures of animals around the shelter and demands for return pictures of Coco. He doesn’t exactly spread his number around, since nobody else is particularly interested in talking to him.

He frowns at the caller ID. “Mom?” he says, picking up. “Were we talking this week?” It’s Friday, which means it’s not likely that they were scheduled to talk, but not impossible.

“Can’t I just call my son to say hi?” his mom asks.

“I mean, you don’t,” he says, puzzled. He stands up to pace about the room, feeling weird talking to her while sitting on the floor.

“Kentarou-chan,” she says scoldingly. “I just wanted to catch up with you, baby.”

“Okay…” he says.

“How are you? Do you still have that dog?”

“Yeah, I still have Coco,” he says. “She’s learning how to shake hands. Well, paws. Paw to hand.”

“That’s wonderful,” she says. “You know, I wasn’t sure about your father’s decision to get you a dog, but it sounds like you’re doing incredibly well with her.”

Kyoutani can’t help but feel some pride at that. “She’s a good dog,” he says gruffly.

“I’m sure, I’m sure. So, how is school? Are you making friends?”

“Uh,” he says. “School’s fine.”

“I’m so glad,” she says. “You know, I was so worried about you for so long, Ken-chan, but it seems like you’ve been doing so much better lately. I’m really proud of you.”

They hadn’t seen each other much in person lately, Kyoutani wants to point out, but maybe that’s unfair. “Thanks,” he says, instead. “Uh, how are you?”

“I’m… well, actually…” she trails off, clearly searching for words, and Kyoutani feels a kiss of foreboding along his neck. “I wanted to talk to you about something actually. Some things, maybe I should say.” She gives a self-conscious little laugh.

So it wasn’t just a call to say hi, after all. Obviously. “What’s up?”

“Is your dad home? Maybe I should talk to him first, actually…”

“He’s at work right now,” Kyoutani says. “He works until 8pm every night.”

“Oh, right. I forgot.” She laughs again. “Well, I have some exciting news! Do you remember Fugunaga-san?”

Kyoutani does not. “Uh…”

“I introduced you to him last time you came up here, didn’t I? He’s one of my neighbors?”

Vaguely, he thinks he remembers someone coming up to them briefly, at the end of his visit. “Oh, yeah.”

“Well, I have some exciting news,” she repeats herself. “Over the past few months, Hiroaki and I— that is, Fugunaga-san and I, we’ve gotten a lot closer and, well. We’ve decided to get engaged, Kentarou!”

Kyoutani freezes. He has to be hearing wrong. “En… engaged?”

“That’s right! The wedding will be in October, I’ll send you an official invitation, of course. You’ll come, won’t you?”

“I… you’re getting married again?”

Her voice loses some of its enthusiasm. “Yes, I am. And— oh, well, it’s too early to really be telling people, but… you’re going to have a new younger sibling.”

“What?”

“I’m pregnant, Ken-chan,” she says. “I’m going to have another baby. It’s why the wedding is so soon! Not that I need a big ceremony for my second wedding, of course, but still. I’ll be four months along then.”

“You’re… you’re starting a new family?” Kyoutani knows his voice is rising, but he can’t seem to stop it.

“It’s not a new family,” she says. “I’m expanding our family, sweetheart. Won’t you be excited to be a big brother?”

“I don’t want to be a big brother,” he says. “I don’t— I didn’t think you wanted a family.”

“Of course I want a family. I’ve always wanted a family, Ken-chan, how can you say that?”

“Because you left!” he shouts, voice echoing off the walls and reflecting the words back at him, mocking. “You fucking left our family!”

There’s silence. “That’s not fair, Kentarou,” she says, voice as quiet as his was loud. “You know that’s not fair. I didn’t— I didn’t leave because I didn’t want a family anymore.”

“Then why? Were we just... not good enough for you? You need to get a fucking redo, hope you do it right this time?”

“No! It wasn’t about being good enough, it was…”

“What? What was it, Mom?” He’s never had this talk with her. Never wanted to. But now his stomach is sour, his throat scorching with the emotions bubbling up from his gut, poisoning him. His fingers flex on the plastic of his phone case. “Why the fuck did you leave, then?”

“You don’t know what it was like,” she says, and now she’s getting louder, too. “You don’t… I was still so young, and your father and I couldn’t agree on anything, and you were… Kentarou, you have to know you were a difficult child. I’m not saying that makes it right, but you have to understand — I was doing what I thought was best for all of us.”

“Yeah fucking right. You were doing what was best for you,” Kyoutani says. He can’t stop shaking. “Now you get to try again and have a better job and a better husband and a better kid who's not so fucked up, right?”

“That is not what I’m doing,” she says. “How dare you accuse me of—”

“That’s what it fucking seems like to me,” he interrupts, not interested in what she has to say. “Why do you even bother calling, then? Why have dad even bring me for visits? If we’re so, so — difficult, to deal with, why even bother?”

“You’re my son,” she snaps, voice cracking across the phone line. “And I love you, though when you act this way I can’t remember why I do.”

“Go to hell, mom,” he says and throws the phone across the room. It smacks off the wall, leaving a scuffed black mark, and falls, screen going dead. Maybe he’s broken it. He can’t bring himself to care.

Kyoutani sinks to the ground, digging his fingers into his hair to press against his skull, the bases of his thumbs pushing into his eyes. There’s a whining sound in the room and he realizes it’s coming from him.

He hasn’t had an episode like this in years, but his body easily falls back into old patterns. His muscles tremble and shake, his vision blurring as his brain decides the input is just too much, and his hands itch for him to tear into something, to rip something apart until his skin breaks open to, just to release some of the incandescent, overwhelming energy inside him.

His head thuds against the floor and he hears a whimpering that isn’t coming from him.

Looking up, blinking as he tries to focus, he realizes Coco is halfway to the corner, shaking with fright. Her tail is tucked up so far between her legs that it’s pressed to her stomach, and her eyes are wide.

He’s the one scaring her, he realizes, closing his eyes. She’s already terrified so much of the time, and she trusted him, and now he’s the one making her afraid. That’s what his mother meant, when she said she hadn’t thought it was going to be a good idea for him to get a dog, and she was right, because he is out of control. He is a fuck up.

No wonder she left.

Then there’s a weight against his shoulder and a wetness on his ear, his hands, his face. Something nudges in between his arms and his body, forcing him to uncurl, and a small, shaking body is pressed into his lap.

“C-coco?” He opens his eyes to find her looking at him, and she rewards him with a tongue bath. She’s panting, still so scared, but—

She’s scared for him. She’s trying to help him.

Kyoutani does something he hasn’t done in a very long time. He begins to cry.

He stays like that with her for hours. Her weight is comforting in his lap, and every time he tries to move she whines and licks him, so he has no choice but to stay still. Slowly, he lets go of his own head and buries his hands and face in her fur, petting her in small circles. The repetitive brush of her fur over his hands feels good, feels soothing, helps him reground himself back into his body.

His dad comes home early, thunders down the hallway to Kyoutani’s room. When he opens the door and strides in, Coco growls.

“I-it’s okay,” Kyoutani tells her, voice weak. “He’s not… it’s okay.”

“Shit,” Genjirou says. “Your mom called me.”

Kyoutani nods and hides his face in Coco’s back, not wanting to have to deal with his dad’s expressions.

“She’s a bitch, you know that? She shouldn’t’ve… She should never have said that shit, and she shouldn’t have left, and she’s just… she’s just a bitch.”

“Don’t call her that,” Kyoutani says, muffled. “She’s my mom.”

“Yeah, well, she’s a shit one. You don’t have to talk to her again, you know that? I have sole custody of you, so neither of us owe her shit.”

“She’s my mom,” he says again.

“Shit,” Genjirou says. “You… you okay?”

Kyoutani does not answer that, because he doesn’t know how to.

“Look,” his dad says. “Why don’t you… take tomorrow off, from school and from the construction company. My treat. Just… rest up. Okay?”

“Sure,” he says dully. “Whatever.”

He does end up taking the day off. He sleeps in, not setting an alarm, but Coco nudges his hand and licks inside his ear until he gets up to let her pee and give her breakfast. She’s more subdued than usual, content to come back in after only a walk to the corner, and jumps back up on the bed with him.

On Sunday, he feels a little bit more like a human. Coco seems to sense it, and pokes at him until he harnesses her up for a longer walk. They wander the neighborhood, avoiding the areas near where her old yard was, but Kyoutani can feel his mind slipping without a proper distraction.

Without meaning to, he finds himself back at the shelter. He’s immediately regretful, worried Coco will think he’s bringing her back, but she seems more interested in finding all the spots where other dogs have peed before and covering them with her own stink.

Nakata is inside, just finishing up the morning meds rotation, from the looks of it.

“Kyoutani-kun!” Nakata says when she sees him. “And Coco! Is everything okay?”

“Just out for a walk,” he says.

“Aw, well thanks for bringing her in to see me!” Nakata says and crouches down so Coco can smell her. “Hey, pup, remember me?”

Coco doesn’t seem sure about it, but a few treats quickly win her over so that she’s wagging her tail and letting Nakata rub her ears and rump.

“She looks like a totally different dog,” Nakata enthuses. “She looks so good!”

“She is,” Kyoutani says. “She… I thought I’d scared her a couple nights ago, but maybe I didn’t.”

“Oh?” Nakata says.

“Yeah, I… I was upset about something, and she got really freaked out, but then she, like, comforted me.”

“She sees you as her pack,” Nakata says, nodding like this made all the sense in the world. “Of course she wants to look after you in return! She knows you keep her safe, after all.”

“Huh,” he says and scrubs at Coco’s ears. “Well, she’s good at it.”

“You have a special bond,” Nakata says. “A lot of rescues are like that, they get especially close to their owner. They know how much you mean for them.”

Kyoutani nods and shuffles his feet. He’s not sure what to do now. Coco probably needs a break before she walks too much more, but he’s out of conversation topics.

“Hey,” Nakata says, cutting into his thoughts. “Wanna help me out with something?”

“Er, can I bring Coco?”

“Sure! We’ll give her some water, too. Just follow me.” Nakata leads him to the back, into the medical unit. Coco sniffs around her old haunt, though she doesn’t seem to remember much about it. She happily flops down in the corner when given a chance.

Nakata gets them both gloves and opens one of the kennels and pulls out a squealing bundle.

“This is a two-week old kitten,” she says and hands it to him. “I have seven to bottle feed every few hours, and my volunteer helper won’t be in until noon. Want to learn how?”

Kyoutani stares down at the tiny thing she has given him. The kitten is barely the size of his hand and is staring blankly around with bright blue eyes, mewling pitifully and struggling against his grip. It gets part of his finger in his mouth and slurps at it, trying to nurse.

“That one is Wasabi, he’s spicy,” Nakata says, and starts producing more and more kittens from the kennel, like a magician performing a trick. “Then there’s Unagi, Tama, Toro, Nigiri, Sashimi, and Miso. I may have been a little hungry when they got admitted.”

“Uh-huh,” Kyoutani says. Wasabi tries to wiggle around and nearly falls out of his hand. “He’s so—”

“They’re crazy, aren’t they? Well, only when they wake up, which is pretty much just to poop and eat. Okay, unfed kids go in this box, fed kids go back in the crate.” She starts pulling out supplies in a whirl, dumping them on the table. Cotton balls, wet wipes, some water heated up in the microwave, a big bottle of what looked like milk but smelled weird, and two smaller bottles with orange nipples on top.

“These guys are getting about 10ml every feeding,” she says. “That’ll go up as they get older, but the number of feedings will go down. Right now, they’re getting fed about 7 times a day.”

“What about night time?” Kyoutani asks.

“They go home with me, or the vet,” she says. “Or one of our volunteers. Silly squirts don’t know if it’s day or night yet - they can barely see or hear. Okay, give me Wasabi?”

Kyoutani hands the tabby back over and watches as Nakata holds him upright, unfazed by his increased squalling. She dabs a cotton ball in the warm water and rubs it on his—

“Oh,” Kyoutani says, as the kitten stills, relieving himself into the cotton ball. “Uh…”

“They can’t go by themselves yet,” Nakata explains. “Their mom usually stimulates them, so without her around, we have to mimic that. Then they’ll start learning how to use the litter box and boy, will they be offended if you try to stimulate them after that!”

“Their mom does that?” Kyoutani asks.

“Oh, yeah. I mean, with her tongue, obviously.”

“Gross,” Kyoutani says, impressed.

“For sure,” she says. “Then, if they make a mess, use the wet wipe to clean it up.” She pops the kitten around to wipe his butt, then puts him back on the towels. “Now, feeding time.”

She shows Kyoutani how to get a little drop of the kitten formula on the tip of the fake nipple so the kitten tastes it, then how to get it on their tongue. He’s surprised that Wasabi totally gets into it right away, curling his tongue around the bottom and sucking so hard little bubbles appear.

“Easy, little man,” Nakata says, pulling it back slightly. “They can get too excited and aspirate themselves — like when you swallow water wrong, only worse, because they’re babies.”

She cleans up his face after he eats and holds him up to show Kyoutani his full belly. It’s engorged, sticking out like a round little ball. “Isn’t it cute?” she says. “They’re so funny at this age. Ready to do one yourself?”

No way, Kyoutani wants to say, but that would be backing down from a challenge. Instead, he braces himself and nods, accepting the calico kitten named Nigiri. He stimulates her, takes hold of the bottle, and goes in for the kill.

“Slow and steady,” Nakata coaches him. “These guys are perfect to learn on, they basically feed themselves. There, that’s perfect, Kyoutani-kun, you’re a natural. You should really become one of our volunteers.”

After watching him feed one more, they start to feed side-by-side to get through them faster.

“What happened to their mom?” Kyoutani asks while he feeds Tama and she works on Unagi. “Is she dead?”

“We dunno,” Nakata says. “A guy found them under his garage, no sign of mom, but that doesn’t mean she was gone. They leave their kittens for a while, to keep from leading predators to them by accident.”

“So, what, they might have just gotten kidnapped? Their mom might just come back and find them gone?” Kyoutani can picture it, a pretty calico like the one he first fed, coming back to check on her babies only to find them missing. She’d done everything right, hidden them like she was supposed to, and she’d never even know why they were gone. Would she think they got eaten? Did cats grieve? And the kittens, they’d never understand why one day their mom left and just never came back. They had a mom who wanted to be with them, and they wanted to be with her, and it still got ruined.

“Hey,” Nakata says in a careful voice. “They’ll be okay. We’ll find them all families for sure, cute little kids like these. They’ll be pampered and loved. They won’t even remember.”

Coco butted against his leg. Gently putting Tama into the crate with his siblings, Kyoutani kneels down to pet his dog and calm himself down.

“It just sucks,” he says to Nakata in way of explanation.

“It does,” she agrees. “Want to feed another?”

He nods.

Kyoutani goes to school on Monday, and even manages to sit through all his classes. It’s not easy, he feels as if there are even more noises than usual, as if the typical whispered gossip has been turned up to a dull roar, but he knows that must be his imagination.

He ducks his head and refocuses on his own work, doing everything he can to drown out the other students around him. He wishes he was an island, totally untouched by anyone around him.

The day grinds on, inevitably, until he can finally head to the gates. No skipping means no detention, which means he actually is with the mass of students leaving for once instead of ducking out with the other fuck-ups.

He sees a familiar puff of hair in front of him and frowns, not in the mood to deal with Yahaba. He intentionally slows his pace, dropping back. The rest of the student crowd seems to part around Yahaba as well, like he has an invisible force-field that must come with being popular, keeping the common folks away. He sure doesn’t seem to mind it, his face blank and just a trifle smug, as if this is just his due.

It must be a volleyball thing, Kyoutani thinks, because that bald kid from the club jogs up to step behind him, the only person apparently allowed to get close. Yahaba even graces the kid with a smile, though of course it’s only a small one. Yahaba’s probably too cool to smile showing his teeth, or whatever.

“—can’t continue like this.” Months of carefully honed instinct alerts Kyoutani to the danger behind him and he ducks out of the way, stepping on some girl’s foot but ignoring her cussing him out. Oikawa and Iwaizumi pass by where he was a second ago, heads ducked together.

“I mean, I agree, but I don’t know what you think we can do,” Iwaizumi says. “We’re not even in the same classes. There’s not much we can actually do.”

“Don’t be so silly, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says. “I am, after all, Mr. Popularity, and as much as I hate to admit it, you do have some sort of appeal to… some people, I suppose. Those who idolize muscles over looks and brains. If we set an example…”

“You know there’s a risk to you, right?” Iwaizumi says. “People could make assumptions.”

“You don’t think we should do it?” Oikawa says, stopping suddenly. Kyoutani, who has been carefully skulking behind them, has to dodge back to avoid stepping on their heels. Oikawa stares at Iwaizumi with an intensity that would send Kyoutani running for the hills. “Iwa-chan, you are comfortable with it, aren’t you?”

“Obviously, I am!” Iwaizumi says, shoving a hand through his hair. “That’s not what I’m saying, idiot. I just… I know people’s opinions matter to you, or whatever.”

“Aw,” Oikawa croons, turning back into his normal, play actor-self. Kyoutani hates people who can do that. “Iwa-chan worries about me! That’s so sweet, but you don’t need to. With a face like mine, not to mention my skills, I never have to worry about public opinion turning against me.”

With that, they thankfully take a left turn where Kyoutani goes right, saving him from overhearing anymore of their weird conversation. What the fuck were they even talking about, anyway? Scheming about making something popular at school. And what the fuck was Oikawa saying about people who look up to Iwaizumi? Anyone with any sense would see that Iwaizumi was much more worthy of admiration than Oikawa was. Ugh.

More sure than ever that he would never understand people, Kyoutani headed home.

There’s a fancy envelope in the mail the next morning, addressed to him and him alone. It’s heavy cardstock, cream colored, and it feels like an unexploded mine in his hands when he picks it up.

He can’t skip school. He’s skipped too much already, and he does actually have to keep his grades up. He’s skipped so much already and it’s just a fucking envelope. He’s fifteen, nearly an adult, and he’s not such a weak ass bitch that he’ll have a mental break down over a fucking piece of paper.

He puts the envelope in his school bag, where it taunts him all the way on the walk to school, like a brand against his leg. Just one class, he tells himself, just one class, then I’ll pull it together.

He heads for the emptiest place he can think of, a spot by the E building where the dumpsters are.

He’ll take a minute to calm down before he confronts it, he decides. Coco isn’t here, so he has to avoid having a total meltdown. He pulls his phone out and plugs in his earbuds, turning the volume up high as he turns on some music.

Unfortunately, throwing the phone into the wall hadn’t been the best for the audio quality. It mutes in and out now, pretty much at random. It makes it a terrible listening experience, and does nothing to mask the sound of someone walking up, pausing, and then continuing forward.

Kyoutani opens his eyes to find Yahaba in front of him, pulling off his jacket to put on the ground. Too good to let his precious ass touch the dirt, Kyoutani guesses, because Yahaba sits primly on his jacket and pulls out a book to read.

He’s ignoring Kyoutani, at least outwardly, but that doesn’t make the situation any less weird. Of all people, Kyoutani can’t think of any good reason for Yahaba to be out here, hiding by the dumpsters like he’s… like he’s anything like Kyoutani.

“It’s rude to stare,” Yahaba snaps, disgust at Kyoutani’s whole existence dripping from his tone. Does he think that he can just show up and bother Kyoutani into doing stuff for him, since it worked for the festival? Is this some weird new form of bullying?

“I thought you weren’t going to annoy me if I helped out with your fucking festival,” Kyoutani says.

“I’m not here to annoy you,” Yahaba says, as if someone like him could have any other reason for being out here in the one place Kyoutani is. He taps his book, though Kyoutani knows he hasn’t made any progress in it. “Leave me alone.”

“You leave me alone first,” Kyoutani says. “This is my spot.” There’s no fucking way he’s opening that envelope in front of an audience. No fucking way.

“I’m not bothering you,” Yahaba says. “So just pretend like I’m not here.”

“If I could do that, I wouldn’t be talking to you,” Kyoutani points out. He was here first, and now Yahaba is here. What, is he mad that Kyoutani isn’t running off to let him take over the area like he so clearly thinks he deserves? “This is my spot and you’re contaminating it with your… your… freakishness.”

Yahaba flinches and goes still. When he looks up at Kyoutani, his eyes are burning with an anger that Kyoutani has never seen from him before. “Oh, is that what we’re calling it now?” he asks, his tone low and dangerous. He looks like the pictures Kyoutani had studied of dogs about to bite, heads lowered, legs stiff, and Kyoutani can’t help but take a step back. “Fine, I’ll take my freakishness away from your wonderful little spot.”

In a flash of movement, he’s up off the ground, spilling his books into his bag and sweeping up his jacket. Without a glance backward, he storms away, leaving the space cold in the absence of his sudden fury.

Kyoutani leans back against the wall, feeling his heart hammering inside his chest. Maybe it’s just that he was already so worked up, but something about Yahaba’s anger had actually gotten to him. He hadn’t thought Yahaba even had that kind of emotion in him.

He must have just imagined it, Kyoutani reassures himself. It’s just that he’s so freaked out, he’s like Coco, seeing threats in empty shadows.

There’s only one way to solve the problem, or at least only one way Kyoutani knows. Confront it head on.

Gritting his teeth, he pulls the envelope out and opens it, unfolding the cream and red card inside.

You’re invited, it reads in curled strokes, to the marriage of Fugunaga Hiroaki and Kyoutani Kana, to be celebrated with a small gathering of friends and family...

Chapter Text

The next few months are rough. Kyoutani feels raw around the edges, unsettled and unhappy. Coco picks up on his mood and is more anxious than usual, stalling out some of her progress. The main problem is that Kyoutani is fighting with his dad, making everything more stressful than it needs to be.

It starts the night Kyoutani announces that he is, in fact, going to attend the wedding. His dad doesn’t understand why, doesn’t understand how Kyoutani can still want a relationship with his mother at all, and Kyoutani doesn’t have a good explanation for him.

It’s not that he thinks he’ll like going to the wedding. He knows it’ll be torture to get through, that he’s not happy to see his mother starting a new family without him and that spending the day around people he doesn’t know in a place he’s never been will just be an exercise in torment.

He has to go, though. He has to see it happen with his own two eyes, has to face up to it happening so he can stop conjuring demons in his head about it. He can’t be a coward, not about this, or it will haunt him forever.

Genjirou doesn’t get it. She’s not his mother, so he can’t understand why Kyoutani can’t just excise her importance out of his heart with surgical precision, why the wound still bleeds, and it infects their relationship. It’s not like they ever were warm and cuddly with each other, but they always had an understanding, rocky at times but solid. Now, they don’t.

They fight, constantly, nearly every time they’re together, which makes working at the construction company a fucking warzone. And because they’re fighting, Genjirou is mad at Coco, and Coco can tell, and gets freaked out about it, and growls at Genjirou more, which makes him more angry, which makes him force Kyoutani to spend his whole summer break working at the company rather than getting any free time to relax. Shit upon shit upon shit.

It comes to a head one day during summer vacation. He’s helping out at a construction site for some apartment complex, just doing grunt work for his dad, the stuff the employees call ‘bitch work’ when they think the boss isn’t listening.

Kyoutani’s tired, Coco having woken him up multiple times the night before, and he knocks over a pile of materials. His dad loses his shit about it, hollering first about the loss of the money, and then going on to hit on his more general grievances about how Kyoutani is selfish and not going to amount to anything, and Kyoutani is just fucking over it.

He tosses down his hard hat without a word and turns away. He knocks into someone leaving the convenience store as he goes, hears his father apologizing for him like it’s Kyoutani who’s the asshole, and keeps walking until his vision is clear again.

He doesn’t even realize how far he’s gone until he hears the shouts and rubber squeaks that trigger something deep in his brain. He’s turned to it, stepping toward the gym, before he remembers he doesn’t play volleyball anymore and stops himself.

It’s a training camp, he can tell at a glance, too many kids for it to be just one school. Some of them are inside, playing, while some are running laps or doing stretches.

Two boys are set apart from the others, tucked under a tree. They’re sitting, one holding a cloth to the other’s elbow. Kyoutani can see a red tinge on the cloth, signs of a cut underneath.

He looks at their faces and scowls. Why does he always have to run into fucking Oikawa everywhere he goes?

“You really don’t have to nursemaid me, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa is saying. His voice is quieter than normal, but Kyoutani had accidentally drawn fairly near. Now he just has to go still and hope they don’t notice him. “It’s honestly just a scrape.”

“I don’t trust you to keep pressure on it until Yahaba gets back with the bandaids,” Iwaizumi says in a low growl. “If I turn my back, you’ll be back in there trying to play again.”

“That’s where you should be, Mr. Ace-in-training,” Oikawa says. “There are other people who can look after me, even if you think I can’t. People that aren’t meant to be working on their own skills right now.”

“What, you think I’m so rude as to inflict you on some poor first year or worse, one of the other team’s managers? No way.” Iwaizumi is quiet for a few moments, and then, in a less confident voice, continues, “Do you really mind?”

Oikawa’s eyes had closed, but now they pop back open. “Hm? Mind what?”

“Me looking after you,” Iwaizumi says gruffly.

“What brought this on?” Oikawa asks, tipping his head to the side. “I wasn’t aware my opinion on your nursemaiding mattered to you. Wow, is this what they call character development?”

“Don’t be stupid, I’m trying to be serious here.” Iwaizumi glares for a moment before his expression turns softer, more unsure. What does someone like Iwaizumi have to be unsure about, anyway? “I just mean that… I know a lot has changed since middle school, and I don’t want you to think… I don’t want it to seem like I don’t trust you, or respect you or whatever. Because I do. I just… I like taking care of you, I guess.”

There’s a moment where the air goes thick, the two boys staring at each other and Kyoutani staring at them. His heart is speeding up and he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t really care about either of them, doesn’t get what the fuck they’re talking about or why they both seem so overly intense about it, but he feels like he needs to hold his breath, as if he’s balancing over a drop. Oikawa’s face is absolutely blank, the only time Kyoutani has ever seen it without some pretense or another twisting his features, and Iwaizumi is frowning not like he’s angry, but like he’s scared.

Then the moment passes and Oikawa bursts into peals of laughter, hard-edged, and he slams his hands against Iwaizumi’s chest to push him away.

“Gross, gross, Iwa-chan’s being all sappy!” he says, far too bright and far too loud. “Iwa-chan’s trying to be all cutesy, I can’t stand it! I’ll get cavities, disgusting!”

Iwaizumi falls back, expression clouding. “I was just trying to—”

That only makes Oikawa’s giggles raise in volume. “Ah, ah, I can’t take anymore, Iwa-chan, I’ll die of sweetness overload! Have mercy!”

“Oh, fuck you, shittykawa,” Iwaizumi says and throws the cloth down. “I don’t know why I even bother trying to have an actual conversation with you sometimes, you know that?” He shakes his head and gets up. “Stay here, you ass.” He turns and goes back into the gym, shoulders tight with annoyance and something like disappointment.

Oikawa falls silent the second he turns away, staring after him so hard Kyoutani’s surprised Iwaizumi can’t feel it burning into his back. He doesn’t look amused, not anymore, but Kyoutani wouldn’t be able to place what his expression actually is, either.

It seems like as good a time as any to make his escape, but he pulls back when he sees Yahaba jogging up, carrying a first aid kit. All he needs is to be recognized and called out for eavesdropping.

Yahaba draws up shorts, looking down at Oikawa. “What’s wrong?” he asks. “Are you—”

“I’m grievously wounded, Yahaba-kun, I may bleed out if you don’t give me medical care immediately!” In a feat of surprising strength and dexterity, Oikawa grabs Yahaba’s arm and pulls him into the ground, throwing himself into his lap in almost the same movement. “Tend to my injuries, my sweet underclassman, only the gentle touch of a beloved kouhai can save me now.”

“You just scraped your elbow,” Yahaba says drily. “I honestly don’t think it’s even bleeding anymore.”

Oikawa rolls, burying his face in Yahaba’s stomach. “Nobody is nice to me today,” he says, muffled. “You’re supposed to be nice to me.”

“Poor Oikawa-senpai,” Yahaba says with absolutely no inflection. “Poor, poor Oikawa-senpai. So brave. So hard working. What an inspiration.” Still, he runs a hand through Oikawa’s hair, petting him like a cat, and Kyoutani finds himself irrationally annoyed.

It’s just that Oikawa’s so weird, he tells himself as he walks back to the construction site. Making Iwaizumi, who is actually cool, feel bad for trying to be nice to him and then demanding that kind of attention from Yahaba. And when had those two become so close, anyway? As if Yahaba needed any excuse to become more annoying, now he was all chummy with the worst person in the whole school? And wasn’t Oikawa the captain now? What kind of captain threw themselves in the lap of their underclassman and demanded head rubs and called them beloved?

Ugh, Kyoutani thought to himself. Just another host of reasons to be glad he wasn’t still in the volleyball club.

Kyoutani gets on the train to Iwate alone. He’d stopped off at the shelter that morning, leaving Coco with Nakata, who said she and her sister would be more than happy to look after her until Kyoutani got back. He’d said goodbye to his dad then, as well, though his dad didn’t respond. He’s still furious that Kyoutani is even going.

The scenery slips by, becoming formless as his eyes refuse to focus. The tinny sound of the music through his earbuds makes him feel like he’s the one glitching out, his internal hardware smashed up and unable to output correctly anymore.

Fugunaga is the one that picks him up from the station. He’s a short man, not imposing physically in any way, but he casts a long shadow against the tile station floors. He holds out a hand for Kyoutani’s bag as they push through the turnstile and Kyoutani gives it to him.

“I’m glad you decided to come,” Fugunaga says. His voice is… just a voice. Not memorable, but Kyoutani supposes he’s going to have to learn to remember it. “It means a lot to your mother. And to me.”

He must be a pretty good guy, Kyoutani figures. A lot of men wouldn’t want to deal with a woman’s kid from another marriage, especially if she didn’t even have custody. Kyoutani’ is just a weird obstacle to her future, and Fugunaga must love her a lot and have a pretty open mind to be okay with that.

“Yeah,” Kyoutani says, following Fugunaga to a small brown car. There’s a few dings in the paint, it might be secondhand, but it’s nice. Comfortable. “It… thanks for inviting me.”

“Sure,” Fugunaga says. He follows all the traffic rules pulling out of his spot, stays exactly at the speed limit the whole drive. “And she told you that she’s… that we’re… expecting?”

“Yeah,” Kyoutani says again. He should say something else. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Fugunaga says. He lets another car merge over, slowing down politely. He’s a polite guy. A safe driver. “I’m excited… I’ve always wanted kids. Wanted a family.”

“Yeah,” Kyoutani says. He’s always wanted a family, too.

“You’re a… you play volleyball, right?” Fugunaga says. “Your mother said you did. I never did sports, in school, but I was in brass band, and sometimes we went to support the teams. Boy, those games could get competitive, huh?”

“Yup,” Kyoutani says.

“Is your team any good?” Fugunaga asks.

“They’re in a tournament right now,” Kyoutani says. He couldn’t avoid hearing about it. “I’m not, though.”

Fugunaga shrugs. “Ah, well, it’s more important to focus on your studies, anyway,” he says reasonably. He pulls into a space, peeks out his door, frowns, and redoes his parking job. Gets better in between the lines. “Your mother is getting some last minute tasks done for tomorrow, but we can get you settled in. Do you like watching television shows? Playing cards?”

It turns out Fugunaga has a large television, a comfortably saggy sofa, and 51 out of the 52 cards needed for a proper game of solitaire. They settle on watching TV, but there’s nothing much on, so they flip through the channels.

“In high school volleyball news, Osawa High School will be representing Iwate again at this year’s Spring Interhigh! Osawa beat out top competitor teams from all over the prefecture to advance to the national tournament, even dark horse competitors Yakushi High School. They will be facing stiff competition this year, so make sure to support our hometown boys!”

“Stay on this channel a second,” Kyoutani says, leaning forward. “They might cover—”

“Other known teams advancing this year include Rokkaku from the Chiba Prefecture, Hakuryuu from Gunma, and Shiratorizawa from Miyagi. Shiratorizawa, of course, in the home of famed super-ace, Ushijima Wakatoshi, though the favorite to win remains Itachiyama Institute, which secured their place in the finals last week.”

Kyoutani leans back and snorts. Of course Shiratorizawa is advancing again, and of course Seijou isn’t. Oikawa can talk a big game all he wants, but nothing he does on the court will ever be enough to stand up against Ushijima’s pure strength.

“Bad news?” Fugunaga asks, blinking at him.

“Nah,” Kyoutani says. “Nothing unexpected.”

The wedding itself is not that bad. It’s stiff and boring, more than anything, but Kyoutani doesn’t have experience with any other weddings to compare it to, so he doesn’t know if that’s the fault of this wedding in particular or just the genre. It’s a mish-mash of traditions, but none of them have a good answer as to where the semi-unwanted result of a disastrous first marriage is supposed to go, so he gets put along the side, tucked out of the way. That’s just fine for him.

His mother looks younger, weirdly enough. Kyoutani would have assumed she’d look older than the last time he saw her, because of how time works, but she doesn’t. Maybe it’s just the make up, or maybe she really does love this guy, or maybe pregnancy hormones are the real secret to anti-aging, but her eyes are bright, her skin glows, and she steps more lightly as she makes her way to her new husband than he’s ever seen her walk before.

His grandparents aren’t here, which is of no surprise to him. They’d apparently disowned his mom way back in the day, when she got pregnant and then hitched the first time. History repeats, apparently, but at least she looks happy with Fugunaga.

He focuses on his feet. Where they are on the ground, the way his weight shifts over them. The nice shoes pinch his toes, another good piece of sensory feedback to keep him grounded, and there’s a bit of a lift to them that changes his perspective on things. So he focuses on his feet, then on the food, and gets through the night mostly unscathed.

“I’m so glad you came, Ken-chan,” his mother says, watery-eyed. Fugunaga is warm-faced with sake, but she’s only drunk on emotions, wrapping him up in a hug. He stiffens, focuses on his feet, and allows it.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m glad I came, too.”

And, in a way, he is.

Things are calmer, after that. His father is less angry, so although they aren’t in a good place with each other, there’s no more eruptions of yelling. Coco chills out a little. Kyoutani takes up Nakata on her offer of him starting to volunteer at the animal shelter. The school year ticks on.

Aobajousai has an athletics festival in the fall, before the weather turns sour. It’s a hot day, especially when so many students cram into the gyms for some of the events. Kyoutani takes part in as many as possible, especially whenever he sees Iwaizumi compete.

He does not join the volleyball exhibition, but he does watch. Yahaba and Oikawa are the two side’s setters, which must be a blow to Yahaba’s pride, going against Oikawa like that. Some of the third years are back, it seems, though he’d thought they’d quit after interhigh. He doesn’t recognize a ton of the other people playing, except for Iwaizumi, of course.

Iwaizumi, unfortunately, is very, very good. It makes sense why Oikawa called him the ace. He smashes spikes in the volleyball match, pulls off dunk after dunk in the basketball game, and storms ahead during the track race.

Baseball, Kyoutani decides, will be his salvation, because he can take the spot as pitcher. Except Iwaizumi hits a home run off him, which sucks, but Kyoutani can do that too. Or a double, which is almost as good, especially if he moves fast enough to make it a triple, or maybe even an in the park home run, and he almost does, except…

Except then Iwaizumi is right there, in his catcher pads, with the ball for the tag, and Kyoutani tries to dance around him but he can’t, and then he’s smashing into the ground, face first.

“Out!” the ref yells, insult on literal injury.

“Nice hustle,” Iwaizumi says, offering him a hand up. “You shoulda stayed at third, though, let someone else drive you home.”

Kyoutani snorts, or tries to, but there’s a spectacular splash of blood through the air and he realizes it’s coming from him.

“Geez,” Iwaizumi says. “Go to one of the med tents and get that taken care of, okay?”

“Iwa-chan’s injuring first years now?” Oikawa calls from where he’s hanging over the fence, munching on an orange. “I should have known you’d become a bully.”

“Shut up, Oikawa,” Iwaizumi says, without any heat to it. “Hey, can you make sure he gets to the tent alright?”

“I can get there myself,” Kyoutani growls. He’s not a child. He’s a year younger than them.

“Sure, I can take the Mad Dog for a walk,” Oikawa says as if Kyoutani hadn’t spoken and makes a whistling sound like Kyoutani would for Coco. “Heel, boy.”

“Go absolutely fuck yourself,” Kyoutani says and turns the other direction. There’s a second medical tent on the other side of the grounds and he heads there rather than deal with Oikawa. He gets a lot of looks, especially since he doesn’t have anything to staunch the blood flow with, but it’s worth it, it really is, to avoid the Worst Person in Aobajousai.

Still, he’s starting to feel a little… fluffy, around the edges, by the time he gets to the tent, enough so that when they stick a cloth in his hand and direct him to a seat, he doesn’t realize until he’s already in it that he’s next to the Second Worst Person in Aobajousai, Yahaba.

"What happened?" Yahaba asks, putting his phone away. He doesn’t look injured, so Kyoutani doesn’t know why he’s even here. Maybe his face was putting people off their lunch and he is being quarantined for public health reasons. Or maybe he’s too worried about messing up his pretty hair and faked some kind of hurt to get out of having to do any work. They seem equally likely.

"Knocked into someone playing baseball.” Kyoutani holds the towel firmly to his nose, wishing it blocked more of his view of Yahaba, who is perched in his seat and leaning forward like seeing Kyoutani all banged up is simply fascinating to him.

"Why did you let it get all—" Yahaba waves a hand at the blood stains, which are, admittedly, a little excessive.

Kyoutani does not want to say he was trying to avoid Oikawa’s quote-unquote help. "I was too busy trying to get to home base to care about my appearance,” he says instead.

"Trying, as in, you didn't succeed?" Yahaba asks with narrowed eyes, a predator sensing weakness in the herd.. "Sounds like you would have been better off caring about your appearance to me."

Fucking asshole. "Listen, you—"

"Hey!" Kyoutani doesn’t even realize that he’d dropped his hand from his nose to point until Yahaba lunges forward to grab the towel from him. "Were you even paying attention to what she said? It hasn't even been two minutes, you idiot." Yahaba presses the rag back into place.

They’re suddenly extremely close, Yahaba’s hand a solid weight against his face and his eyes fixed on him. He has surprisingly large eyes, Kyoutani realizes, and freckles across his nose. It doesn’t seem like he should be allowed to have freckles on his nose, somehow. It doesn’t seem right. They’re not even dark freckles, not the kind most people would be able to see and remark on, but the pale ghost freckles Kyoutani would never have noticed if he wasn’t suddenly right up next to him. Intimate freckles.

"If you don't keep it pinched shut for ten minutes it won't close up," Yahaba is saying, from what seems like much farther away than could possibly be true.. "Here." He grabs Kyoutani's hand and places it back on the towel, forcing him to take it back even though his mind is screeched to a halt. "Now you have to start the count over."

“Fuck off,” Kyoutani manages to say. It’s not a great come back, and he knows it, but he’s off his game in more ways than one. “Why do you even care, anyway?” Last time they’d talked, Kyoutani had been under the impression Yahaba would have preferred him dead in a grave rather than exchanging words with him.

Yahaba raises his eyebrows and comes over all bland. He gives an elegant, one-shouldered shrug. “You're still officially on the volleyball team. If you compete in other events and pass out from blood loss or something, it'll embarrass the team."

Of course it’s some jackass reason like that. This guy really is the most shallow person on the planet, only ever thinking about appearances.

"More than losing at Spring Highs did?" Kyoutani asks, feeling the heat build in his veins. "Some championship team you all are, if you can't even—"

Yahaba stands and looks down at Kyoutani, and Kyoutani thinks it’s no wonder he hasn’t ever noticed his freckles before. At this angle, all he can see is the ice in his eyes.

"If I were interested in the opinion of someone who couldn't even hack it for more than a few weeks of practice, I'd fucking ask for it,” Yahaba says, vicious and cold. He turns on his heel and leaves.

Kyoutani can only stare after him, completely unsure of what to make of this.

Winter arrives like a boisterous child, swirling in one day and overturning everything in its wake. Snow carpets the ground overnight, the temperature plummets, and it feels as though spring will never arrive.

Coco does not care for the cold. Too many years spent out in it, Kyoutani expects, has made her not at all interested in dealing with even short bursts of it now. She goes outside for her bathroom needs only and even then with the greatest of sighs. She spends as much time as possible splayed out in front of the radiator, warming her toes. He cannot convince her to go on walks for love or treats, and she seems to think him foolish for even trying.

Kyoutani finds himself in need of more activity, now that Coco has abandoned him. He briefly considers going to the gym he’d been stopping at before, but decides against it. It’s so close to Coco’s old house, and he tries his best to avoid that neighborhood. He doesn’t know if anyone ever took note of him hanging around the dog, or if her owners even cared that she disappeared one day, but he’d rather not risk it.

He finds a new gym, instead. It’s open late into the evenings, which is nice, and is within walking distance of a small grocery store, which is even nicer. They have volleyball players, ones from a local league for adults, and they’re willing enough to let him join in their practices without too much fuss. One of them, Kiyoshi, tries to stick his nose in his business a few times, but he also has good tips on weight training, so Kyoutani bides it.

One night, he arrives to find most of the players aren’t in the gym. It’s annoying for trying to do drills, but whatever, he thinks to himself. He’s not about to whine about more space.

“Where’d everyone go?” one of the girls asks him and he shrugs.

“They’re probably trying to get that cat out of the laundry room again,” one of the guys says.

“Cat?” Kyoutani asks. They have cats at this gym?

“Some feral thing,” the man explains. “It crawls in every once in a while over the winter, trying to get warm, and then puts up a racket when anyone tries to get clean towels. Pain in the ass for the employees, y’know? Kiyoshi has a soft heart about it, but I think someone should just stick out some rat poison. That’d take care of the problem.”

Kyoutani drops the ball he was holding and heads to the laundry room. Just as predicted, most of the players are circled up around one of the machines, peering at something behind it.

“Here, kitty kitty,” one of them calls in a baby-voice. “Come on out please…”

There’s a ferocious yowl in response.

“He’s not gonna come out if you’re all crowded around like that,” Kyoutani says. Shit, who would? Buncha giants looming around, acting all suspicious. “There’s no way.”

“You have an idea?” Kiyoshi asks.

“Borrow a trap from a shelter and bait it with food,” Kyoutani says. “Here, let me do it tomorrow.”

He puts out the trap, with a jar’s worth of beef baby food acting as the bait, and covers it in towels to make it look safe. Once the cat steps in to get the food, it’ll swing closed behind it. After thinking a minute, he has them put it near one of the dryers, where it’s nice and warm.

He’s called back the next morning, his trap having worked. Obviously.

The cat is a big orange tom, not as old as Kyoutani had been expecting from his crackly howls. He’s all raised fur and screeching while he’s in the trap, so Kyoutani grabs the whole thing and takes it home with him. He doesn’t want to bring this guy into the shelter, not when they’re already so full and he’s so mean.

“Don’t attack this guy,” he tells Coco as she gives the shaking, screaming trap a dubious look. “He’s just scared, like you were. Be nice to him.”

Gently, he opens the trap. There’s an orange blur, and the cat is under his bed, pressed into the corner and breathing heavily.

“Wanna bet on how long it takes Dad to notice?” Kyoutani asks Coco.

Coco peers under the bed. There’s a yowl and a hiss. Coco exits the room.

Coco, Kyoutani thinks, is a smart dog.

The cat, who he is currently just calling Bastard, remains under his bed for a week. He slides food under there, and has to vacate the room if he wants it to get eaten. Coco is alarmed, then curious, and ultimately bored by the new, angry creature under the bed, which she is now too fat to fit under.

Then, in the middle of the night one night, Kyoutani feels a thump of weight against the covers. Something pokes him on the face. Still mostly asleep, he murmurs to Coco that he’ll take her out in a minute and continues to drift.

The face full of purring cat fur, on the other hand, wakes him up.

Like a switch has been flipped, Bastard remains cuddling him all night and follows him around all morning during his pre-school routine, rubbing his scent on every available surface. He sniffs Coco’s nose, making her go cross-eyed and confused, and pops up onto the windowsill.

Kyoutani tries to keep Bastard confined to his bedroom, but one night he gets back from the gym to find his dad already home and the door open. His dad is smoking a cigarette out the living room window, lounging in his chair, Bastard smugly curled up on his lap.

“Uh,” Kyoutani says, watching Genjirou pet Bastard’s fur.

“There’s a cat here,” Genjirou says.

“Sure is,” Kyoutani says.

“You realize you have to pay for this one, too, right?” Genjirou says.

“Yeah,” Kyoutani says. “I will. He’s… I’ve been calling him Bastard.”

“His name is Daidai,” Genjirou says with calm authority. “I will not have a creature named Bastard in this house.”

Kyoutani figures that’s fair enough, and Daidai is here to stay.

In March, Kyoutani graduates his first year of high school and gains a new little brother. Fugunaga Ichiro is born on a cool spring day, with the cherry blossoms in bloom. Kyoutani gets a picture on his phone and stares down at it, trying to figure out what emotions he’s feeling. He’s not sure if he’s feeling any.

“Cute kid,” Kiyoshi says, looking over his shoulder. “Nephew or something?”

“Something like that,” Kyoutani says and puts his phone away.

So Kyoutani gains a family member. He’s invited to meet the little thing a few weeks later, but he turns down the opportunity for now. He doesn’t want to broach the idea of getting a ride from his dad, and the train is expensive. Plus, he just isn’t the kind of person meant to be around babies, he thinks. All the pictures they’ve sent of this tiny, somewhat goblin-looking creature in perfect knit cozies and tiny little boots and nice staged photoshoots for each week he adds onto his life total — that’s not something Kyoutani could fit into. He’d just ruin it.

Maybe when Ichiro is older, he’ll feel something more. Something brotherly. Then again, maybe not.

The new school year is the same as the first. Kyoutani doesn’t return to the volleyball club, of course, because Oikawa is still there, and Oikawa must be avoided at all costs. He goes to school, takes Coco on walks, volunteers at the shelter, and hits the gym. The highlight of his first month back is nursing Daidai through getting his balls cut off.

He’s coping better, he thinks. He’s not skipping classes anymore because he’s used to the noise now. It still bothers him, the crowds still bother him, but he’s managing. His grades are improving. He can start looking at university programs, soon, design his own little cram school thing. He might be able to ask Nakata for some guidance there, though she’s even busier with her course load this semester than he is.

Genjirou even reduces his days at the construction company down to just two. Daidai has thawed him out on the concept of pets, it seems, or maybe he’s actually impressed by Kyoutani’s grades for all he ho-hums about his chances of actually getting into university. Kyoutani isn’t going to question it, just accept the free time and spend it at the gym.

He goes to the grocery store down the street from the gym pretty frequently. It’s convenient enough, within walking distance of school and a slightly longer hike home. They have a rotating staff of part-time workers, but mostly by the evening hours when Kyoutani comes in it’s just the older couple that owns it. They leave Kyoutani in peace.

Then, one Monday afternoon, Kyoutani makes the mistake of coming in early. He’s skipping the gym that afternoon, needing to take Daidai in for a follow up appointment at the vet to check his stitches, and so he ducks in to do his shopping before heading home. He’s still in uniform but not thinking about school, so it takes a second before he realizes why the figure in front of him seems so familiar.

It’s Yahaba, all decked out in a grey button-up shirt, khaki pants, and a ridiculous pale green apron. It’s the same uniform that the other employees wear, Kyoutani is pretty sure, but on him it just seems totally wrong. Like he’s a character from a kids TV show, about to burst into a full song and dance about how everyone should be friends. The apron strings are tied in a little bow around the back, for fuck’s sake.

He’s stacking up watermelons, humming and then actually singing along to whatever radio station the store is playing. It’s not a song Kyoutani recognizes, but Yahaba knows all the words, even moving his hips — his ass — to the beat.

Kyoutani is so distracted that he doesn’t realize Yahaba has finished his task and is standing up until they almost run into each other, only saved by Yahaba’s quick reflexes.

“Ah sorr—” His face visibly goes blank with surprise when he sees Kyoutani, then his eyebrows furrow. “What are you doing here?”

“I shop here,” Kyoutani says, annoyed. Obviously. What else would he be doing here? “What are you doing here?”

Yahaba points down at his apron, as if Kyoutani could possibly miss it. It has white scalloping around the edges. It’s a military grade weapon. “I work here,” he says.

“Why?” Kyoutani asks. Why, in this safe place of his, where he could buy food in peace, why would he be cursed with Yahaba in an apron of all things?

Yahaba raises one eyebrow. “Are you asking me to explain the concept of jobs to you?” Yahaba is a bitch, and he’s always been a bitch, and Kyoutani doesn’t even know why he tries talking to him.

“Why here?” Kyoutani says, not rising to the bait.

“To personally bother you,” Yahaba says, which is evident, and then rolls his eyes. “Because it’s close to school and Matsukawa-san put in a good word for me.”

Kyoutani has no idea who Matsukawa-san is.

Yahaba rolls his eyes again. If he keeps it up, he’ll strain a muscle. Maybe he’ll have to wear a bag over his head. That’d be nice. “Aw,” Yahaba coos down at Kyoutani’s basket, apparently bored of being annoying on the previous topic and, magpie-like, out searching for a newer, shinier annoying topic. “Are you trying to grow?”

Kyoutani glances down and realizes he’s only grabbed milk thus far. It’s not even all for him. It’s not his fault that he and his dad drink different kinds of milk. It’s not his fault Yahaba is, what, 6 centimeters taller than him, at most?

“Sh-shut up,” Kyoutani growls as rudely as he can manage. “You— you look stupid in that apron.” Hah.

Yahaba doesn’t look impressed. He flaps the hem of said-apron at Kyoutani, fluttering his eyes and smiling. “No, I don’t. I look adorable.” He’s practically doing a little twirl, he’s preening so much. “Would you like to buy a watermelon?”

“No!” Kyoutani says and storms away with as much dignity as he can muster, though he still has to finish shopping and pay.

All the while, he can’t get the stupid image of Yahaba in his stupid, stupid apron, teasing Kyoutani with that stupid, stupid grin on his face out of his head.

Now more than ever, Kyoutani thinks Yahaba must have been sent to earth specifically to make him suffer.

Chapter Text

Kyoutani has two options, as he sees it. He can avoid the grocery store forever, making sure he never runs into Yahaba there again, or he can take it like a man and prove that he isn’t going to let some pretty kid push him around.

Obviously, since Kyoutani is tough, he chooses the second option. It means he has to rearrange his schedule to make sure he’s always there when Yahaba’s on shift, but if that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes.

They don’t really talk, which works perfectly for Kyoutani. He just needs to get used to seeing Yahaba like this, make it stop having any kind of weird power over him, and then he’ll be fine. So he goes to the store, picks out his groceries, and lets Yahaba ring him up. Yahaba never does anything too unprofessional, despite the looks he’s constantly sending Kyoutani’s way, like he’s measuring up Kyoutani’s whole life worth and finding it amusing yet unimpressive.

Then he disappears for a week, for some training camp. The break in the routine leaves Kyoutani more frustrated than ever, but luckily, Yahaba’s back the week after, not a hair out of place. Of course.

And so life continues.

Coco appreciates the change in weather. Kyoutani takes her on runs and to the park. He’ll spike a ball and she’ll chase after it, nosing it back to him as if she’s dribbling a football so he can spike it again. It keeps both of them in shape. Sometimes people stop to watch her, like she’s performing a trick for them, but Kyoutani’s silent intensity usually drives them off right quick.

Not always, though.

“I wish I could get my dog to do that.” That voice is probably the only one that could make Kyoutani turn and pay attention. Iwaizumi looks incongruous in a tank top and baggy shorts, shading his eyes. His dog is licking at his hand where a frisbee is loosely curled between his fingers. “I doubt Sora has the dexterity for it, though. Fetch, boy.” With an easy flick of his wrist, he sends the frisbee sailing across the park, golden dog racing after it.

Coco turns huge eyes on Kyoutani, all her muscles tensed. He sighs. “Go on,” he says and she’s off, racing after Sora and the frisbee both in a gallop, tail a blur.

“Cute dog,” Iwaizumi comments, staring after them. His expression is drawn, even as he obviously is trying to be polite.

“Thanks,” Kyoutani says, only slightly begrudging. Iwaizumi, at least, is strong enough to earn his respect. For now. Someday, Kyoutani will beat him. “Her name’s Coco.”

“Cute,” Iwaizumi says. The dogs return, both trying to hold the frisbee at once. Sora gets distracted, apparently noticing Kyoutani for the first time and bounces around him in circles, licking at him. “Sorry,” Iwaizumi says. “He’s a little lonely right now.”

“Ah,” Kyoutani says. He thinks it might just be that Sora can smell the chicken in his pocket, but what does he know? Not his dog.

“He’s used to getting to go to the park with both Oikawa and I,” Iwaizumi says. Kyoutani hadn’t known he was so chatty. “But Oikawa hasn’t been able to come lately.”

“Oh,” Kyoutani says, doing his best to add to the conversation. He, for one, is grateful Oikawa isn’t there, but Iwaizumi obviously is not. And neither, supposedly, is Sora, though he seems mostly immersed in smelling Coco’s ass right now. Maybe that’s a sign of stress, for him.

“He has a girlfriend now,” Iwaizumi continues, frown deepening. “So he’s too busy. Which is fine. I mean, obviously it’s fine. He should be spending time with his girlfriend, she probably has to put up with enough shit from him anyway, he can at least make sure he spends his free time making it up to her.”

The intricacies of Oikawa Tooru’s dating life have never weighed on Kyoutani’s mind before. “I guess,” he says, retrieving the frisbee and throwing it again. “I’d rather spend time with a dog, personally.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Iwaizumi says, warming to the topic even further at the hint of a receptive audience. “I mean, it’s great that he has a girlfriend. I’m happy for him! But Sora misses him and it’s not like I can explain to him why he’s not around anymore. Or around as much, I guess.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I mean, I kind of thought Oikawa wasn’t going to date at all this year, honestly,” Iwaizumi says. “He’s always going on about how much time he’s putting into being captain, you know, he was always making plans for it from when we were practically in our first year.”

Kind of arrogant of him, but that tracks. Kyoutani just nods.

“She’s really nice, of course,” Iwaizumi hurries to reassure Kyoutani, as if he was worried. “She’s great. Too good for him, absolutely. Not— not that I’m saying that he deserves a bad girlfriend, because obviously not. He’s just really annoying, sometimes.”

“Yes,” Kyoutani says, because finally, something they can agree on.

“He’s not as annoying to her, probably,” Iwaizumi says. “He can put on an act in front of people, you know? But he’s actually not like that, at all. I dunno how much of that she gets to see. Maybe he does show it to her. That’d probably be good.” It does not look as though Iwaizumi considers it to be good, at all.

Kyoutani throws the frisbee again.

“I just… it’s annoying that he keeps breaking plans with me,” Iwaizumi says. “It’s not like I’m mad that he has a girlfriend, but he should at least respect people’s time more. It’s like he’s avoiding me on purpose to make me mad or something.”

Seems like something Oikawa would do, Kyoutani thinks. “Huh,” he says aloud.

“It’s whatever, though,” Iwaizumi says. “He can do whatever he wants. I’m not, like, his keeper or anything.”

“I think your dog is trying to eat poop,” Kyoutani advises him.

“Shit,” Iwaizumi says, and runs off to stop it.

Kyoutani grabs Coco and beats a hasty retreat while Iwaizumi is occupied. He may have a great amount of admiration for Iwaizumi’s strength, but he’s finally started to understand what adults mean when they say someone needs more friends.

If Kyoutani was hoping that would be the most awkward interaction he has with a volleyball team member that month, he’s in for an unfortunate shock. Like something out of a greek tragedy, his bad luck is heralded with a clap of thunder as he makes his way to the grocery store one Sunday afternoon.

It’s been an overcast day, clouds swirling into thunderheads in the way of all ambitious summer storms, but Kyoutani hadn’t thought they’d actually turn into anything until that night. He had enough time to run his errands, he was sure, and get back. Maybe he’d get drizzled on, but nothing terrible.

Actively mocking him, the skies split open he is just over halfway to the store and it takes seconds for him to become drenched from head to toe. The wind lashes against him, but it’d be worse to turn back now, he’s sure. The storm can die down while he shops, then he’ll just sprint home.

He notices Yahaba at the checkstand the minute he arrives, of course. It’s impossible not to notice, since they both have to look away quickly to avoid making eye contact when Kyoutani enters.

He shakes his head, getting some of the water out of his hair, but it does nothing for the cold water sticking his shirt and pants to his skin. He should have brought a jacket, probably, but it’s a belated consideration now. At least the store doesn’t have any fans going.

Kyoutani takes his time shopping, lingering over the cat food options as if Daidai hasn’t been eating the same brand since Kyoutani brought him home. He pokes an excessive number of peaches. He overanalyzes the onions. He dithers over dairy. In short, he does everything possible to give himself time between arriving in the store and checking out, keeping one ear out for a break in the rain.

It doesn’t come. Finally, Kyoutani has to give up the ghost and accept his fate. If he stays any longer, he knows, Yahaba might feel obligated to offer him help finding things, complete with snarky commentary, and that seems like a much worse fate than dying of hypothermia could ever be. At least there could be some dignity in that.

When he finally approaches the till, he thinks he might not have worried. Yahaba is asleep or doing his best impression of it. His arms are folded on the counter, forming a makeshift pillow that he’s resting his head on. It shouldn’t be a comfortable position, but Yahaba looks annoyingly at ease, elegant almost, leaned over like that.

Kyoutani stops in front of him and waits. There’s no way Yahaba is actually sleeping on the job, he reasons. He cares too much about appearances for that, since someone other than Kyoutani could walk in at any moment. No, he has to be faking it, which means he’s just trying to mess with Kyoutani.

Just as Kyoutani loses patience and opens his mouth, ready to give Yahaba hell for being a piece of shit even when he’s not doing anything, Yahaba springs up, looking as alert as ever. Fucker.

“This all for you today?” Yahaba asks sweetly, like he always does.

Kyoutani just grunts, already holding his money out. The sooner he gets on the road, the sooner he’ll be home. He’ll change into dry clothes and have both his pets lie on him and go to sleep for real.

Yahaba is holding out his change when something flickers across his face and he tugs it back, holding it close to his chest.

“What the hell?” Kyoutani asks and pushes his hand further forward. He’s not going to get in a tug of war over his change with Yahaba, if that’s what he’s aiming for, but he’s not leaving without it, either.

Yahaba smiles at him. “The cultural festival is coming up,” he says, thunder grumbling outside like it’s also fed up with his shit.

“I know what time of year it is,” Kyoutani snaps. Like he could miss it. “Give me my change.”

“You need to help out again,” Yahaba continues, inevitable.

Of course. He should have seen this coming. “Why can’t they send Iwaizumi-san to tell me these things instead of you?” he asks. More importantly, why must they always send Yahaba? Maybe he volunteers, the sadist.

Yahaba eyes widen. “Iwaizumi-san?” he echoes, voice dropping in an inflection of — no, he can’t actually be trying to mimic Kyoutani’s voice. That’s too far. “You actually remember one of our senpai’s names and use an honorific for him? Are you the real Kyoutani or are you some poor fool that just looks like him?”

Kyoutani can feel the blood rushing to his face, and he hopes it translates into intimidating rage, rather than embarrassment. “How do you get even more annoying every time we talk? I know who Iwaizumi-san is, okay? That’s not weird.” Iwaizumi is practically a celebrity at Aobajousai, after all, being the ace of the volleyball team and the winner of almost every athletics event. And being Oikawa’s friend, or whatever, but that isn’t the important part.

“Yes, it is.” Yahaba hums for a second and then a thought visibly strikes him, making his lips twitch. “Oh! Could it be because he beat you at arm wrestling last year?”

How could Yahaba even know that? He wasn’t in the room when it happened, Kyoutani had made sure of it. He doesn’t want Yahaba to know that. As far as Yahaba should know, Kyoutani is the strongest person ever, who has never lost at anything.

Uncaring of Kyoutani’s personal pain, Yahaba just gasps and his smile grows. “I’ve heard rumors that some weird kid has been following Iwaizumi-san around and challenging him to all kinds of things only to lose… could that weird kid be you?”

How dare he? How dare any of them? Kyoutani hasn’t been following Iwaizumi around. He’s taken advantage of the occasional opportunity — opportunities that the school provides, even — to test his own abilities against the strongest person at the school. That’s not weird. That’s totally normal, and the fact that Yahaba has been sitting around gossiping about it, about him losing—

“Shut up,” Kyoutani growls. For once in agreement with him, thunder claps again, and the lights flicker.

“It is you!” Yahaba bursts into laughter, the kind of unrestrained laughter full of snorts and gasps, turning him red-faced with merriment. It should be ugly, because Yahaba is an ugly person inside, but unfortunately, it actually looks good on him. Absolutely disgusting.

“It’s not fucking funny,” Kyoutani snaps, hands balled into fists. “I could take you in any of those competitions.”

This doesn’t slow down Yahaba at all. He waves it off, continuing to laugh. “Sure, sure, but I wouldn’t actually care,” he says dismissively, because life is a lot of fun when you don’t care about anything, apparently.

"Will you just get to the fucking point?" Kyoutani says. "I don't have all day."

“Fine,” Yahaba says, finally getting himself under control. “You know the deal. Cultural festival, competitions, do something for it, photographic proof for the coaches. Can you handle that?”

Kyoutani is so done with this smug bastard. “Yes. Though the posters you gave me last year were shit. Give me something less ugly this year.” Preferably with at least 80% less Oikawa staring into his soul.

“Not my call,” Yahaba says with a shrug. “First-string players like me are too busy practicing for the Interhigh to do decorating.”

“I don’t want to deal with some idiot first year,” Kyoutani says, assuming Yahaba was just fishing for an opportunity to say he’s on the first string. As if it matters, with Oikawa there. The reserve setter could be anyone and it wouldn’t matter, they’d never play. “Can’t I work with Iwaizumi-san or something?”

Yahaba sighs theatrically. “You’re the most high maintenance slacker I have ever met, and no, Iwaizumi-san is even busier than I am. He’s the team’s ace, after all. He doesn’t have time to babysit you.” He looks at Kyoutani with raised brows, then finally relents. “Okay, here. I’m sure the posters will be done pretty soon. When they are, I’ll grab some and bring them here, and the next time you come in I’ll give them to you to hang up and tell you where to put them. That way, you don’t even have to go anywhere near the clubroom.”

Finally, something approaching actual helpfulness from this guy. Kyoutani doesn’t know why he couldn’t have just led with that in the first place. “Perfect. Now give me my change.”

Yahaba hands it over and makes a little flappy hand gesture at Kyoutani. “Shoo,” he says.

Just as Kyoutani thinks he may actually be free of this nightmare, his bag slung over his arm and shoulders bracing for the iminent torrent of rain, the loudest clap of thunder yet sounds, lighting following mere seconds after. The lights die.

Kyoutani freezes, spooked despite himself. Then he gathers himself and steps forward to the usually automatic doors, pushing on them just as a thin blue light from an electric lantern shudders on.

“Here,” Yahaba says as it becomes obvious that the doors are not opening. He steps up to the side of the doors and hits some button. Nothing happens, and he hits it again.

“Why isn’t it opening?” Kyoutani asks, starting to get a little alarmed. He’s never loved power outages or the idea of being stuck somewhere. The grocery store isn’t small, but it seems to be shrinking by the moment, as Yahaba fails to get the doors to listen. There has to be another way out, right?

“Why should I know? Just cool it for a moment, will you?” Yahaba’s tone is bland enough that Kyoutani is pulled from his worry into annoyance, and he focuses on that as Yahaba turns away and gets on a cell phone, talking in polite tones to someone on the other end about the issue while Kyoutani paces.

“Well?” Kyoutani prompts as Yahaba slides his phone back into his pocket.

“It’s stuck closed while the power is off,” Yahaba says. It’s hard to tell what his face is doing, in the strange light of the torch. “Apparently it’s a problem they’ve had before, though it was supposed to be fixed last year.”

“So we’re trapped?” Kyoutani translates. Fucking hell.

“Just until the power gets turned back on. They say it shouldn’t take too long. Just an hour or so.” He sounds totally unaffected, of course, and why shouldn’t he? He was probably supposed to be here for that long, and now no new customers can get in. It’s all fine for him, but Kyoutani wants to get home.

He’s going to be freezing by the time he can get home, and who knows if the heating will even be on if there are outages. “Fuck!” he says, kicking the door.

“Hey!” Yahaba says, finally showing some emotion. “Don’t break anything!”

“I’m going to break your face,” Kyoutani says, rounding on Yahaba and glaring. “If you could have just been less of an asshole for just ten seconds, I could have been out of here before the power went off at all!”

As always, Yahaba seems utterly unmoved by Kyoutani’s threats. He either has no self-preservation or he truly thinks Kyoutani is supremely unthreatening. “You’d just be stuck outside then,” he says with a scoff. “If the power is out here, the trains will have stopped running too. We’re on the same grid.”

“I don’t take the train,” Kyoutani says. He can walk home regardless of the weather, thanks, and anyway, that train line heads far out into the country, not stopping anywhere close by. He doubts any of the Aobajousai students take it home, most preferring to walk, like him.

Yahaba visibly gives him a once over, holding up the lantern as he does so “You were walking around in this weather?” he asks, tone blank.

“So? What’s it to you?” Kyoutani narrows his eyes, expecting some kind of weird new mockery.

“Then you should be thanking me,” is all Yahaba says. “It’s dangerous to go running around in a storm like this.”

Oh, that. Kyoutani sniffs. “I can handle it.” He doesn’t melt in the rain, he’s perfectly capable of making it home like this. It wouldn't be fun, sure, but it’d be fine. Better than being stuck here, that’s for sure.

“You can’t tough-guy your way out of being hit by lightning, or a tree branch, or hypothermia,” Yahaba says, as if he’d know. He steps close to Kyoutani, until they’re practically right up against each other in the lantern’s circle of brighter light.

“Hey, personal space!” Kyoutani says, trying to control the urge to jump back.

“You’re shaking,” Yahaba says. “You really are freezing, aren’t you?”

Kyoutani had been using the flames of his anger to avoid thinking about how cold he’s feeling, actually, but now that Yahaba’s pointed it out, he is shivering uncontrollably. His clothes are still heavy and wet, sticking to him more with every shaking breath. It’s pretty miserable.

He’s not going to admit that to Yahaba, though, and lying probably won’t work, so he takes another tack. “Well, if you had let me out of here, I’d be on my home to where there’s a heater and dry clothes,” Kyoutani says. “So it’s really your fault, again.” That’ll get him.

It does not get him. “You should have stayed home to begin with,” Yahaba says, eyebrows raised. He stared at Kyoutani for a moment, at his wet shirt, and Kyoutani can just see the dark of his eyelashes fringing his eyes, and it just really sucks.

“Come on,” Yahaba says suddenly, turning. Kyoutani is so busy being relieved he’s stepped away that it takes him a second to realize that Yahaba expects him to follow him. “There’s some spare clothes and stuff in the back office.”

Kyoutani dithers for a second, not wanting to admit too much weakness in front of Yahaba, but a new trickle of water down his spine makes up his mind. He follows Yahaba into a little back room he’s never been in before, the novelty turned ominous by the way the lantern doesn’t reach any of the shadowed corners. Yahaba is rifling through a bag on the lone table.

“Here,” Yahaba says and Kyoutani puts his hands up in time to catch a pair of sweatpants and a long sleeved shirt. “They might not fit you very well, but at least they’re dry.” He keeps messing around in the bag for long enough that Kyoutani realizes he’s expected to change here, with Yahaba still in the room. Into Yahaba’s clothes, apparently.

With more speed than grace, Kyoutani chucks his own wet clothes to the side. There’s no underwear, obviously, so he keeps his own wet pair on, which is still uncomfortable but much more bearable. Yahaba’s sweatpants are a brand Kyoutani owns but in a size longer, which is annoying. The shirt has a cartoon drawing of a lemon on it, which seems apt enough, and is definitely too tight on Kyoutani’s frame.

“You’re skinny,” Kyoutani says, meaning thank you, because at least both things are dry and a normal temperature.

“Taller than you, though,” Yahaba says, grinning at the scant few centimetres of extra fabric around Kyoutani’s ankles. Dickhead. He holds out a towel. “Here,” he says.

Suddenly, the surreality of the situation hits Kyoutani. He’s stuck in a small store with a guy who normally does everything he can to show his utter disdain for Kyoutani, and now he’s, what, offering him extra clothes and towels and making sure he’s not chilly? Is this a really weird dream?

“For your hair, stupid,” Yahaba says, not clearing up any of Kyoutani’s confusion. Instead, he sighs and steps up close again, flipping the towel over Kyoutani’s head and rubbing vigorously. “You’ll catch a cold otherwise. What are you, feral?”

“You’re such a dick,” Kyoutani says. Actually, he usually doesn’t dry his hair with a towel, not wanting the curl to turn to genuine frizz, but this feels… nice. Very nice. Probably just because it’s drying him off, of course. He lowers his head a little, letting Yahaba get a better angle, and maybe his eyes close a little bit.

Yahaba thankfully reminds Kyoutani to come back to himself, stepping away just as suddenly and holding up the towel between them. “Touching your hair won’t bleach my towel, will it?” he asks, voice all faux-concern.

Kyoutani’s eyes spring open. “Don’t be fucking stupid, of course it won’t. God, you can’t even be—” nice for five seconds, he manages to stop himself from saying at the last moment, at least. Why should Yahaba be nice to him? If he’d actually said that, Yahaba would’ve probably started laughing at him again.

Annoyed at himself now, Kyoutani grabs his wet clothes and heads back into the main area of the store, squinting to avoid running into anything. He makes his way to the front by the doors, and slouches down, glaring down at the barely visible ground, cursing himself.

It doesn’t take long for Yahaba to come back out after him, if the movement of the light is any indication, but at least he doesn’t pop up next to him again. He’s silent, which should be a relief but is instead disconcerting. When Kyoutani looks up, he’s back on his stool, fake-asleep again.

Kyoutani just doesn’t get Yahaba, he decides. He doesn’t understand why half the time, he’s smiling and acting like nothing matters, and then he’ll turn around and be furious about an offhand comment Kyoutani makes. He’ll treat Kyoutani like a pest he’d love to be rid of, then go out of his way to help him. He’s confusing with the way he switches around what he acts like depending on who is around. And he has dumb hair, and dumb eyes with a truly dumb amount of eyelashes.

Yahaba looks up, meeting Kyoutani’s eyes, and Kyoutani startles, looking away as quickly as he can. Embarrassing.

“What?” Yahaba asks. “Is something wrong?”

He could write a list. “I’m stuck in a tiny grocery store with an asshole,” Kyoutani says.

“Wow, I have no idea what that could feel like,” Yahaba chirps back without missing a beat. That taken care of, Kyoutani expects him to go back to pretending that Kyoutani isn’t here, but instead he keeps looking at him for a second, face lit up by the bluish light. Kyoutani kind of wants to go over and see if his secret freckles are visible, in this light. “Want to do something?”

“What?” Kyoutani startles before realizing there’s no way Yahaba could know what he was thinking.

“Settle down, I mean like, play cards, or something. Well, not cards, unless you have some, but you know what I mean. Something to make the time go faster.”

It’s not the worst idea in the world, though it could go poorly. “Fine,” he says, walking over. “But if it’s boring or stupid, I’m out.” Or weird, he wants to say, but then Yahaba might ask what would be ‘weird’ and Kyoutani isn’t sure he could explain.

“How about a contest?” Yahaba says and starts looking around before heading toward a stack of water bottles. “Ah. Like bowling, see?” he says as he starts to arrange them into a triangle formation by the door. “We’ll roll, um…”

Kyoutani can help with that, at least. “I have some tennis balls in my bag,” he says. “I pick them up for my dog, but they should work just as well for this, right?”

“That’s perfect,” Yahaba says, in possibly the first bit of praise he’s ever given Kyoutani.

They set up about three and a half meters away from the target bottles, the lantern lighting the aisle between them. Kyoutani splits the two tennis balls between them.

“How about we play as each pin is worth one point, and whoever has the most after five rolls wins?” Yahaba asks, curling his fingers around the tennis ball as if testing the weight of it.

Sounds fine to Kyoutani. “What’s the consequence if you lose?” he asks.

“Being a loser, of course,” Yahaba says with a flash of a smile.

Kyoutani only snorts. “Obviously,” he says. “But there should be something else, too. It’s more fun to play for something.” It’s game theory, or something. Maybe not. It’s still more fun.

“Fine, fine,” Yahaba says. “How about each game’s winner gets to ask a question and the loser has to answer it honestly?”

Kyoutani considers it, making a face. He’s an open book, really, so it’s not like it’s dangerous, but the idea of them getting to know things about each other… “Gross. Fine, but nothing too personal, okay?” He doesn’t need to know about Yahaba’s girlfriend troubles or whatever.

“Fine by me,” Yahaba says. “Ready to play?”

For a ramshackle little game they put together on the fly, it turns out pretty well. The fact that the bottles are full means they have to actually score a good hit to knock them over, and the unevenness of the floor provides an element of almost-randomness.

Kyoutani wins the first game easily, since he throws harder than Yahaba. He doesn’t even take as long to line up his shots, which needlessly raises the tension. He can’t help a little gloating “Hah!” when Yahaba finally takes his last shot but misses the center of the pins, only knocking down two of the edge ones and clinching the victory for Kyoutani.

“As your question,” Yahaba says sourly.

Why do you have freckles would be an insane question, so Kyoutani searches for another one. “Why do you care so much about me participating in the cultural fair?” Kyoutani asks. For a club that has never bothered him for the rest of the year, it’s weird that they suddenly need him to put up posters for an event that’s not even about volleyball.

“I don’t, personally,” Yahaba says, setting the bottles back up. “But I do what I’m asked to by the coaches and captain.”

“I meant you the club, not you personally,” Kyoutani says.

“Money,” Yahaba says. “More members on the club means we get a bigger cut of the school budget for activities like training camps and stuff, so they keep quitters on the roster as long as they don’t join some other club… but is you don’t participate in anything we do, it’s pretty clear you aren’t part of the club anymore.”

Kyoutani makes a disgusted noise. “I should have known it was something like that,” he says. Good to know he has value as a yen sign to the coaches, if nothing else.

Yahaba wins the next round. “What’s your dog’s name?” he asks.

“Coco,” Kyoutani says, frowning. He’d tell anyone that. “Don’t be a wimp.”

“You’re the one who said not to get too personal,” Yahaba says.

“I didn’t mean ask me stupid shit you don’t care about,” Kyoutani says. That’s boring, and would also probably mean by some social convention fuckery he’s only supposed to ask dumb shit about what Yahaba’s favorite color and blood type is and he would truly rather fling himself into a sinkhole.

“Hey, having a dog might be your most redeeming feature,” Yahaba says, a touch defensive. “Though I’m more of a cat person.”

“I have a cat, too,” Kyoutani says, unable to stop himself. Oh, like Yahaba cares.

“So much information without me having to knock over anything, you’re spoiling me,” Yahaba says, fanning himself and pretending to swoon.

“You’re so annoying,” Kyoutani growls, because he could really say that to all of Yahaba’s antics. “Let’s play again.”

Just for that, he plays extra hard the next game and destroys Yahaba. Just to prove how it’s done, he decides to think of a question that’s actually interesting.

“Why did you come to Aobajousai? You can’t have been invited on a sports scholarship because we’re not permitted to get part time jobs.” Hence why him helping out at his dad’s company is more of a volunteer thing in exchange for Coco’s supplies instead of money. “And if you assumed I was taking the train, you don’t live nearby. That line doesn’t stop anywhere close.”

“I came because I wanted to play on the same team as Oikawa-san,” Yahaba says and the admiration just oozes off of him when he says the name. “He’s the best setter in the prefecture.”

“That’s stupid. If you went to a different school, you might have a chance of playing in more games, but if you’re on the team with someone who is the best at your position, obviously you won’t,” Kyoutani says with a frown. “I’d never go to Shiratorizawa with Ushijima there.”

Yahaba tips his head to the side, hair fluttering in the dim light. He seems to be actually putting a lot of thought into his words. “It’s not about playing in games for me. Oikawa-san plays volleyball in a way I admire. It’s about more than just his technique, though that’s of course amazing, too.” His voice gets warmer as he discusses it. “It’s how he uses his players, how clearly he knows to work with them no matter what else is happening…” He sees Kyoutani is staring and ducks his head. “I guess for someone who isn’t a setter, you might not be able to understand if you’ve never played with him.”

Well, he’s right that Kyoutani doesn’t understand. “I don’t want to play with that guy. He’s annoying.” Sure, Oikawa is a good setter, but the spiker’s strength can make up for a setter being a little weak, so it doesn’t matter if he’s playing with a great or just good setter.

“He’d make you a better player,” Yahaba says, obviously defensive of his idol.

“I’m fine on my own,” Kyoutani says and Yahaba just sighs like he’s being obtuse.

“Why do you keep challenging Iwaizumi-san to things?” Yahaba asks after winning the next game.

He thought that should be obvious. “Because I want to be the best. That guy is strong, so if I can be stronger than him, then I’ll be the best.”

"You really think if you happen to beat him at baseball or something that it will mean you've become better than him at anything else?" Yahaba asks.

"No," Kyoutani says. "But it's a start."

"Well, it's not just him you'd have to overcome, you know," Yahaba says. "I mean, Hanamaki-san is probably the second-best arm wrestler in the club and I doubt you could beat him either."

Kyoutani has no idea who that is. “I’ve never tried. I could beat him.”

“Do you even remember who he is?” Yahaba asks, propping a hand onto his hip.

“It doesn’t matter,” Kyoutani explains. “I could beat him.”

Somehow, this fails to convince Yahaba. “How long did you last against Iwaizumi-san?” Yahaba asks.

Kyoutani looks down. “Twenty-eight seconds,” he admits. “But that was last year.” He’s trained a lot since then, and now he knows what to expect. It’s entirely different.

“Hanamaki-san lasted almost seven minutes at the last training camp. And Iwaizumi-san’s only become stronger, you know.”

“Hmmph,” Kyoutani says. If he can beat Iwaizumi, he’ll have beaten this Hanamaki guy by proxy anyway, so there’s no point in focusing on beating second place. Kyoutani only aims for first.

He doesn’t always achieve it, of course. For instance, in the next game, which Yahaba wins, again.

“Ooh, a streak,” he congratulates himself, the sore winner that he is. “Hmm, let’s see… Why do you skip class so much? I know you do, last year when I was trying to find you it was a total pain to track you down because of it.”

Knowing he caused Yahaba some inconvenience without even being aware of it is nice, but he’s still mostly offended. “I don’t skip that much anymore,” he says. He hasn’t the whole year, except for those few days around when he’d heard from his mom.

“Well, why did you skip so much back then?”

Kyoutani considers lying and rejects it, not willing to be a coward. He said he’d answer honestly. It’s just hard to explain, especially to someone like Yahaba, who’s clearly been thriving at Aobajousai since his first day there. “I don’t like being surrounded by people, especially people I don’t know,” he says, groping for the right words and, as always, finding them lacking. “People are so loud and needy and… it just is tiring, okay?”

Yahaba holds up his hands in surrender to the defensiveness in Kyoutani’s voice. “Okay. I didn’t know it was a sore spot.”

“It’s not,” Kyoutani snaps, because it isn’t, or it shouldn’t be, or whatever. He just hates having to explain how he finds things that most people find so easy to be so fucking impossible sometimes.

At least he manages to win the next game.

“Good strike,” Yahaba says, all sugary and fake.

“What are you the most afraid of?” Kyoutani asks, because if he had to get vulnerable he’ll be damned if Yahaba doesn’t, too. Maybe he’ll say something stupid, like spiders, and Kyoutani can start wearing a lot of spider pattern shirts to scare him. No, that’s stupid. Unless it worked?

“Being different from other people, I guess,” Yahaba says. “And especially if they find out about it.”

Kyoutani was hoping for something far more concrete and less… ridiculous. “That’s stupid,” he tells Yahaba. “Everyone is different from other people.” Kyoutani’s never known any other way of being than being different, fucked up in some fundamental way, but being scared of it is pointless.

“Perhaps,” Yahaba says after a short silence, and his voice is back to perfectly bland. “Still, that’s my answer.”

The next round, Kyoutani decides to ask something more neutral, in hopes of getting a response they won’t argue about. “What do you plan to do after high school?” he asks.

“Oh, whatever is expected of me, I suppose,” Yahaba says, voice still politely empty of any real emotion. “University, maybe. Stay in Miyagi, almost definitely.”

That tracks, but isn’t very interesting. He wonders if Yahaba has any goals for himself, or if it’s all about what’s expected of him. Maybe he doesn’t even admire Oikawa after all, he just knows he’s supposed to. That would be kinda nice, actually.

Yahaba takes even longer than typical the next game, which is deeply annoying, turning every throw into a three act play. Still, it works for him, as annoying as it is, and Kyoutani is starting to come to terms with his upcoming defeat when, with a sudden hum, the power comes back on.

“Oh,” Yahaba says instead of taking his final shot. He turns off the lantern and checks the door, which opens, finally. “Well, you’re free to go,” he says. “Try not to get hit by lightning.”

Not finishing the game seems poor form, like leaving a task unfinished, but Kyoutani doesn’t know how to say that without making it seem like he’s begging for Yahaba’s attention. Instead, he starts to grab some of the water bottles. “I’ll help you clean up,” he says.

“You don’t need to,” Yahaba says, clearly surprised. “It’s only a few bottles.”

Which is true enough, so Kyoutani ignores the words and just starts restacking them back on the shelves. Then they’ve gotten them all back in position, and the tennis balls are back in Kyoutani’s bag, and he has nothing to do but put his wet sneakers back on and grab his bag. “I’ll bring your clothes back clean when I come shopping again,” Kyoutani says. He supposes he could return them at school, but the grocery store seems like a strange peace zone between them. It’s the only place they’ve managed to speak for more than a few minutes without fighting.

“Sure,” says Yahaba, who probably doesn’t want Kyoutani coming up to him at school anyway. “If I’m not here, just give them to whoever is, I’ll let them know to expect it.”

That won’t happen because Kyoutani only shops when Yahaba is working, but he figures that would just invite a whole host of other questions. Speaking of questions…

“You were going to win that last round,” he says. “So I guess it’s fair for you to ask me another question.”

“You might still have beaten me,” Yahaba says, though he only would have needed to knock down three bottles to secure his victory and would have done that, easily. “The point gap wasn’t that large.”

“Just ask a fucking question. Ask something you can answer, too, if it bugs you that much.”

Yahaba hums and taps a finger against his lips a couple times, distracting as always. Then his eyes widen for a second and he turns sweet as poison, smiling in a way that makes Kyoutani want to back up a step or several. “What’s something you like about me?”

“What the hell?” Kyoutani growls.

“Oh, come on,” Yahaba says as if Kyoutani is being silly for his reaction. “Just one itty bitty compliment. It can be as shallow as you want. Here, I’ll even give you one first. Hmm…” He makes a huge fuss about thinking hard before grinning at Kyoutani obnoxiously. “I think it’s sweet that you pick up tennis balls you find for your dog. Very cute, Mad Dog-chan.”

Kyoutani rears back, both at the name and the compliment. “Don’t call me that,” he snaps.

“Now it’s your turn,” Yahaba says, unrepentant.

Kyoutani pauses. He could be just as much of a dick as Yahaba is, clearly picking something he doesn’t actually find worth complimentung as an excuse to make fun of Kyoutani by calling him cute. But that would be sinking to his level, and Kyoutani doesn’t want to do that. No, he’ll give Yahaba an earnest compliment, whether he likes it or not.

Now, to figure out something that isn’t too weird. He runs back over the last few minutes, to the time before Yahaba came over all evil again. “You— your voice is nice, I guess,” he says and instantly knows he made a mistake when Yahaba stares at him with wide eyes. “When you hum or sing along to the music, I mean.”

“Oh,” Yahaba says, eyes wide and face blank. “Th-thanks.”

“Don’t make a big deal out of it,” Kyoutani snaps, regretting all his life’s decisions. Before Yahaba can say anything else, he hurries out, welcoming the rain this time. At least it cools down his overly hot cheeks.

“Coco,” he says when he gets home, looking into her big brown eyes. “I have bad news. I’m an idiot.”

Coco just whuffs at him and licks the raindrops off his skin. It doesn’t even make him feel better.

Chapter Text

Six days later, Kyoutani trades Yahaba’s clean clothes for a stack of posters. He chooses a busy time, which pays off; they don’t have time to speak except for Yahaba telling him that he’s to put them up in the D building and Kyoutani indicating that he understands. It’s the last time Kyoutani visits the grocery store during Yahaba’s shifts for a couple weeks, not wanting to tempt fate again.

The posters still have far too much Oikawa for his liking, but at least Iwaizumi’s section is larger. There’s no picture of Yahaba on it, which surprises Kyoutani, who assumed they’d just advertise the most popular members.

Yahaba’s not even one of the so-called champions, Kyoutani finds out when the cultural festival actually occurs. He’s just recording results and selling tickets, which is unfortunate. Kyoutani wants to challenge Iwaizumi, obviously, but the idea of Yahaba being able to make comments on it while it’s happening is a terrifying prospect.

No, much safer to wait until he’s on break, Kyoutani decides, and then has to lurk around for ages until Yahaba actually leaves. It’s for the best, though, because as much as Kyoutani tries, he’s unable to beat Iwaizumi before using up his allotted three attempts against one champion and he has to go home, tail between his legs.

Interhigh comes soon after the cultural festival, Kyoutani knows, but it still catches him by surprise when Kiyoshi brings it up to him one day as they’re practicing.

“I heard your team lost in the finals,” he says, having waited until they’ve finished a three on three game together and are stretching to end the night. “I heard they played well the whole time, though.”

“Can’t have played that well, if they lost,” Kyoutani points out, unimpressed. Every once in a while, Kiyoshi still asks him about his choice to practice at the gym instead of with one of the supposedly best teams in the prefecture. Kyoutani wishes he’d drop it.

“I wonder,” Kiyoshi says. He’s a non-confrontational guy, but only in the sense that he won’t push much in any particular moment — he’ll sure as hell bring a topic up again, and again, and again. Less like a dog with a bone and more like a kid worrying a tooth, just gently poking until eventually there’s a break.

And there’s always a break, one way or another.

For Kyoutani, it comes a few days after they return from summer vacation. It’s late and he’s popped into the grocery store to buy a fried chicken meal from the premade section to eat on the way to the gym, and there’s a new kid there checking him out, some brown-haired chick with twin braids.

“What happened to Yahaba?” he asks, affronted to see someone else in that apron.

“Yahaba?” she asks, blinking at him. “Oh! That other part-timer? He had to quit for now to focus on his school club. He’s in a sports one, I guess, and won’t have much time until his season is done or whatever.” She shrugs.

Kyoutani is, briefly, offended that Yahaba didn’t have the decency to tell him. Running into him at the grocery store is a routine, goddammit, and he can’t just go changing it around for no good reason, even if Kyoutani technically stopped showing up first. He’s been in the volleyball club for years, why would he suddenly not have time now?

It must be because the third years have left, he decides. Yahaba would therefore be the starting setter, and need to spend his free time practicing instead of fucking around humming and stacking strawberry milk in a mom-and-pop shop.

It’ll be his grade that’ll be the seniors, then, Kyoutani realizes. He thinks of the kids he saw only briefly as first years and tries to picture them viciously competing for their last chance to play in a real game. It’s hard to imagine, but they must be. Probably all fired up with that zeal that people like Kiyoshi are sure Kyoutani’s missing out on, not taking part in his school team. Wanting to bring the winner’s banners home.

It’s like they think there’s a whole different part of the sport that Kyoutani’s never been able to see, he thinks to himself, the way people like Kiyoshi and Yahaba talk about it. The way they talk about teamwork, it’s nothing like anything he’s ever experienced, that’s for damn sure.

It rankles him, because it’s his sport, and he’s clearly better than Kiyoshi or Yahaba are. He’s not missing anything.

Just like that, he finds himself changing direction, heading back to school. He’s already wearing his work out clothes, and he’s never forgotten the route to the 3rd gymnasium.

The door is open to try to let cooler night air in, so there’s nothing for him to even knock on. He just steps in, looks around. Takes a moment to let the familiar sounds and smells wash over him. It’s been a long time since he was in a gym just for volleyball.

“Can I help you?” some overly tall first year asks, looking askance at his hair and his chicken. “Um, we’re not supposed to bring food in here if it’s not—”

“Where are the coaches?” he asks.

“Um?” the first year says and looks around for help before visibly sighing in relief. “Yahaba-san, there’s a guy here who’s—”

“Where’s the coaches?” Kyoutani asks again as Yahaba walks up, another couple players behind him.

One of the boys, a bald kid, smiles at him. “Oh, it’s Kyoutani-kun! It’s been a long time since you’ve been here, huh?”

Ignoring that, Kyoutani finishes scanning the gym and realizes there’s no one adult-shaped around. The coaches must have stepped out. That’ll likely mean they’re in the office. He grunts and turns, planning to go find them there.

“Hey!” Yahaba’s shout takes him off guard and makes him turn back around. “If you’re going to show your face here for the first time in ages, you could at least be polite and properly greet people first!” He looks furious, having stepped between the other kids and Kyoutani.

“Woah, woah, woah! Easy, Yahaba, easy,” the world’s most annoying voice breaks in. Oikawa, looking very much not retired, smiles wolfishly at Kyoutani. “Hey. It’s been a while! I’ve been waiting for you. Welcome back, Mad Dog-chan!”

Kyoutani realizes he’s gotten himself into something much more frustrating than he’d been planning.

They make him do a number of drills to check his skills, as if he’d just been sitting around on his ass the whole time he’d been away, but ultimately Oikawa announces that Kyoutani will be allowed to rejoin the team. Allowed. So gracious of him, Kyoutani snorts to himself, but doesn’t raise a fuss.

He could leave any time he wants to, he reminds himself, and then sticks around. It’d be pretty pathetic to come back and then leave again immediately, especially when he’d gotten everyone’s attention for it. And it’d be kind of cool to play in a high school tournament, especially since it’s clear that he’s far and away the strongest second year on the team. If he can wait out Oikawa and the rest, they’ll have no choice but to make him the ace next year and then he could beat a lot of strong opponents.

It also wouldn’t hurt to see if he could get a sports scholarship for college, a practical part of him points out, to save up for vet school, and there was no way he’d be able to do that if he never played in a tournament at all. So, not leaving is a smart decision.

The players avoid him and he avoids them in return, with the sole exceptions of Oikawa and Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi gives him a lot of useful pointers, training him well, and Oikawa… well.

Kyoutani can’t deny Oikawa is talented. Nor can he pretend that he doesn’t need to match with the team’s setter. He just doesn’t like the guy, especially how much he watches everyone like he knows secret reasons behind their behavior that even they don’t know yet.

The libero kid, the bald one, makes a few attempts to talk to him, as does one of the weird first years, but Kyoutani ignores them. Yahaba, he notices, doesn’t seem to be paying attention to Kyoutani’s presence at all.

Which is fine. Why wouldn’t it be?

It just makes it really obvious that Yahaba had no intention of playing that well next year, no matter what he says, though. From how he talked, Kyoutani would have thought Yahaba would be the kind of setter to trail after a strong spiker like him, begging to play together in hopes of pretending like some of Kyoutani’s skill was his own.

Instead, every time Kyoutani checks on him, on the nights he goes to practice with the team instead of by himself, Yahaba is always focused on playing with the third years, or the first years, or just practicing his serve endlessly, hair flopping all over his face as he stares down the court.

“Something caught your eye over there?” Oikawa asks one day as they are taking a pause on practicing some sets and he catches Kyoutani looking over. “Interested in how jump serves, perhaps? I could help you with them, if you really want.”

“I don’t need your help,” Kyoutani says, glaring. “Let’s just focus on attacks, okay?”

“Hmm, or were you looking at something else?” Oikawa says, ignoring Kyoutani’s response utterly, as is his usual way of things.

“I’m not looking at anything,” Kyoutani says. “Are you done with the break yet? I can go more.”

“Yahaba is rather interesting, isn’t he?” Oikawa says, watching as the boy in question hits a water bottle set just on the courtline with his most recent serve. “Don’t you think?”

“I don’t fucking know the guy,” Kyoutani says, over-vehement. “He’s not interesting to me at all.”

“Huh!” Oikawa says and claps his hands. “Wait here!” Without a backwards glance, he bounces off to where Yahaba has started collecting his practice balls up. While Kyoutani watches, helpless, they talk for a few moments before Oikawa leads Yahaba back over.

Kyoutani stares, a little bit horrified, and is annoyed that Yahaba doesn’t even have the decency to glance at him. Instead, he keeps his eyes fastened to Oikawa, like he’s afraid of missing a moment of his beloved captain’s face.

“You toss for Mad Dog-chan while I observe, okay?” Oikawa says to Yahaba, an arm draped casually around Yahaba’s skinnier shoulders as he spins a ball on his other hand. “There’s certain things I can pick up better if I’m not the one tossing, so I’ll be counting on you. We’ll start with a five ball. Send it nice and high, Yahaba.”

Oikawa had never mentioned wanting to see Kyoutani spike for a different setter. He’d certainly never mentioned wanting to see Kyoutani spike for Yahaba.

“Isn’t there someone else who can toss?” Kyoutani asks. Yahaba hasn’t even looked at him in weeks, disgust radiating off him, and just being here is already exhausting enough.

Oikawa just laughs in his face. “Of course other people could toss,” he says like he’s explaining a basic concept to a slow child. “But Yahaba’s the one that I asked. So go on!”

Kyoutani opens his mouth, ready to argue more — certainly it’s more important for Kyoutani to work with Oikawa himself, or Yahaba was busy with his own practice, or whatever, but there’s an arc of movement and he realizes that Yahaba has already set the ball in motion, bumping it high once before sending it into a proper toss in an arc to Kyoutani.

It catches him off guard and he has to go from standing casually to a sudden jump to hit and the ball skids off his palm, barely tipping over the net.

He’s rounding on Yahaba before his sneakers even touch the ground. “Don’t just toss before I’m ready!” he yells, pulse pounding.

Yahaba looks at him with a blankly polite face, just a hint of a smile and raises his hands into some weak, placating gesture. “Sorry, sorry,” he says, voice mild. “But the captain said go, so I thought you’d be ready.” He looks so innocent and unassuming and so, so full of shit.

“You fucking liar,” Kyoutani growls, taking a step forward until he can glare right into Yahaba’s wide eyes. He knows other people are watching them, knows what it looks, that they see him as some violent delinquent bullying poor, defenseless Yahaba, but he also can see the way Yahaba’s eyes dance up and down Kyoutani’s furious form and grow heavy with anticipation, the way his smile curves just slightly more real for a second.

A sharp clap makes Kyoutani jump, pulls him back. “Okay, okay, settle down you two,” he says with unbroken cheer. “Mad Dog-chan, please focus on volleyball and be ready for the toss. Yahaba, how about you try that toss again, mm? I haven’t seen what I wanted to yet.”

Yahaba licks his lips and looks down, the whipcord tension leaving his body as quickly as it appeared. He takes another ball from the basket and looks up at Kyoutani, face actually blank this time. “Ready?”

Kyoutani feels his heart going extra fast in his ribcage, feels Oikawa watching him. “Just toss the damn ball,” he says.

Yahaba continues to ask Kyoutani if he is ready for each and every ball, and says nothing else, not even in response to Kyoutani’s increasingly rude replies. Oikawa just calls out attack patterns for them to use, watching them keenly all the while.

“Good job,” Oikawa says at the end of the practice. “I learned a lot of interesting things.”

Whatever the fuck that means, Kyoutani thinks, and wonders if this was all just to fuck with him, or Yahaba, or both of them. Obviously Oikawa knows they don’t like each other. He probably just wanted to see what happened if he made the two marbles knock into each other.

“I don’t think it’ll be that useful to you,” Kyoutani says. “His tosses aren’t as good as yours, even in this kind of drill.”

Oikawa just smiles at him. “Hmmm? Are you saying you’re glad to play with me already, Mad Dog-chan?”

“No!” Kyoutani says and storms away, not even bothering to avoid the balls he has to kick out of the way as he goes, slamming out of the gym. The frustration keeps him going as he heads up to the locker room, pounding at his temples. He splashes some water on his face from the sink before starting to get changed out of his sweaty practice clothes into his regular sweatpants and t-shirt.

There’s the sound of the door opening, making Kyoutani turn around as he yanks his shirt over his head. It’s Yahaba, of course, because it always seems to be Yahaba when Kyoutani would prefer anyone else.

“Ugh,” Kyoutani says, feeling his headache already returning. “What’re you staring at?” Next thing he’ll know, Yahaba will be telling him he’s not allowed to use the changing room or some shit.

Yahaba sniffs and closes the door, skirting around Kyoutani to make it to his own locker. “You’re not supposed to leave practice until you’re dismissed,” he says.

He should’ve known. "You're so fucking— Can't you go five seconds yapping at me about the fucking rules?" Kyoutani asks.

Yahaba turns and smiles, but his cheeks are pink. “If you prefer, I can sing about them instead,” he says and Kyoutani can feel the drop coming in the sickly-sweet way the words drip off his lips. “Since you like my singing voice, and all.”

Kyoutani slams the door as he leaves, wishing he could slam Yahaba’s face, and knocks past the other second-years as he goes.

“You two really rile each other up, huh?” Oikawa says from where he is waiting underneath the stairs like a complete creep. “How funny.”

“Fuck off,” Kyoutani says, not turning around.

“My, that’s no way to talk to your captain,” Oikawa says and closes the gap between them with long strides. “It’s really quite interesting, you know.”

Oikawa clearly wants him to ask what’s interesting, and Kyoutani won’t give him that satisfaction, he won’t, he— “What is?”

“How different my little Yahaba is around you,” Oikawa says and smiles. “I really am so glad you came back, you know, Mad Dog-chan.”

“Stop fucking calling me that,” Kyoutani says, though he knows it’s a losing battle.

A few days later, he’s back at the public gym, training with Kiyoshi. Oikawa doesn’t care that he sometimes skips out on school practices, as long as he shows up to at least two per week.

“You haven’t been by as much,” Kiyoshi says as they run drills. “Busy with school?”

“Kinda,” Kyoutani says. “I’ve been… I’m training with the team again.”

Kiyoshi raises his eyebrows, clearly surprised. “So the lone wolf rejoins the pack, huh?” he says, voice mild as ever.

“As if,” Kyoutani says with a bark of laughter. “I’m not cut out for all that teamwork crap. I just want to play in the tournaments.”

“You seem to get along with everyone here alright,” Kiyoshi says. “We would have asked you to leave if you were a troublemaker.”

Kyoutani doesn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t get in fights with the adults at the public gym, it’s true, but they mostly stay out of his business. Everyone at a public gym is focused on their own shit, not looking at him. “Eh,” he says, not bothering to try to find the words to explain it all.

“Maybe you just need to find the right sort of people to play with,” Kiyoshi says. “You have a lot of talent and you’re not a bad kid. Don’t you have any friends at school?”

He can’t help but snort at that. “Are you fucking with me? No way,” he says.

“There has to be someone you talk to,” Kiyoshi says, and now he has that concerned adult face on. It’s been a while since anyone’s bothered flashing that Kyoutani’s way, but he finds time has not made the heart grow fonder.

“I’m fine,” he says, curt. “I talk to people.” He talks to Nakata, sometimes. His dad, occasionally. Yahaba insulted him the other day. “There’s just no one around worth getting to know.”

“Maybe if you gave them a chance, they’d give you one, too,” Kiyoshi says, but lets it drop after that, which is a relief. Kyoutani can only contain his derision for so long.

Kyoutani receives number 16 for Spring High. He can overhear some of the team gossiping about it, about how high a number it is compared to the other second years, but he doesn’t care. It’s just a number on his jersey, nothing more.

Knowing no one is going to want to sit next to him, Kyoutani uses his isolation to his advantage by claiming the entire back row so he can lie down and doze on the way to Sendai. Being in a team bus is nostalgic, almost, but mostly it’s just rattle-y and too early in the morning.

He’s not in the starting line up, of course. Too new to the team. He doesn’t have any real hopes of being put in until the team starts to struggle and hits whatever wall they’ve come up against in past years, but it still grates him to stand on the side of the court, useless. He watches plays go by that he knows he could have done better, spikes he could have hit stronger, blocks he could have snapped through, and grinds his teeth.

The gym is louder when he’s off the court. There’s so many people in the stands, he realizes, hollering in every direction, so many bodies in one space. There are coaches yelling, players crying out, noisemakers going off and cheer squads singing. The air is almost sticky with the smell of sweat and deodorant spray. The A/C is turned on full blast for the overheating players, but the sidelines are cold.

Finally, the buzzer sounds Aobajousai’s victory and Kyoutani can’t get outside fast enough. The sun is welcome on his skin and just having the walls behind him instead of around him sets him more at ease. He had the forethought to grab a ball back inside, thankfully, so he sets about bumping it on his arms.

It might be the only time he actually gets to touch a volleyball until they face Shiratorizawa in the finals, he realizes, and wonders if he should have bothered coming today at all.

There’s the crunch of footsteps on the grass near him, weight shifting.

“Hey,” Yahaba says.

Kyoutani catches his ball and scowls. “What do you want?”

Yahaba looks at him for a moment and licks his lips. “You’ve never been a reserve before, have you?” he asks.

Kyoutani grunts. He’s always been a starting player, obviously. He’s always been talented, or at least strong.

“You know, volleyball isn't like a lot of other sports,” Yahaba says, settling into a slight lecturing tone that reminds Kyoutani of one of the coaches. “Even though we still call reserves benchwarmers, at these official tournaments they don't give us a bench to sit on. We have to remain standing.”

"Why the fuck are you talking about stuff that I already know?" Kyoutani asks. He doesn’t need a history lesson, he’s well aware they don’t literally sit on benches. How dumb does Yahaba think he is, exactly?

“The players on the court are always moving, staying warmed up, but for us reserves, we can be stuck just standing for hours,” Yahaba says by way of explanation, not dropping his lecture-tone one iota. “And if we move around too much, we risk getting yelled at by the refs or distracting our team. So you're just standing there, unable to move, getting more and more tense. Especially if you have the mindset that you could be put in at any moment, it can almost be harder on your body than playing is.” He shakes his head, rolling his shoulders back as he talks as if to illustrate.

“So you’re here to tell me to relax?” Kyoutani translates, annoyed. He could have just said that.

“No,” Yahaba says as if that were obvious. “I’m here to show you the stretches you should do between matches tomorrow and the small ones you can do while the team is playing so that you don't lock up or cool down too much. That way, when the coaches look for someone to put in, you'll be ready."

That sounds… surprisingly and genuinely helpful. Something more has to be going on.

“Did Oikawa send you out here?” he asks, still suspicious, but lets Yahaba lead him through the stretches all the same. Yahaba is a quick but efficient teacher, staying fully down to business with no breaks for teasing or sly remarks, which is a welcome surprise. He’s even gentle about the way he touches Kyoutani to correct him.

Somewhere in the middle of him going through a few more active stretches to do between matches, two of the first years arrive. They don’t interrupt, just start passing to each other until Yahaba and Kyoutani are done.

“It looks like we’ll be playing Datekou tomorrow,” one of them says, reporting to Yahaba and not sparing a glance for Kyoutani. “Wakunan and Karasuno also moved on.”

“Right,” Yahaba says, grabbing the ball Kyoutani had been using and passing it to the other first year to carry back. “Oikawa-san will want the video of their matches, but then we’ll be heading back. Let’s go get packed up.”

He leads the way back into the gymnasium and Kyoutani follows, mind already focused on the next day.

Actual volleyball games have always been strangely ephemeral in Kyoutani’s memory. There’s so much adrenaline coursing through him, so many actions to take and split-second decisions that he has to make and move on from just as fast, that they seem to exist in their own timestream. As soon as he steps off the court, it’s like the match happened years ago already, the memories hazed over so that only a few moments stick out. He’s able to go through the videos, of course, and it’s not like he can’t recognize the moves he made or why, but they’re such intense experiences that they automatically cloud over.

For Kyoutani, then, the match with Karasuno is made up of a series of moments.

A missed serve.

A hit spike.

A perfect block.

And, more than anything, the feeling of Yahaba’s hands clenched in the front of his jersey, the wall against his back, the fire in Yahaba’s eyes as he finally dropped the mask for a second and showed Kyoutani that there was something in him that felt just as too much as Kyoutani did, too. That he was just like Kyoutani, in some deep down way.

Kyoutani can’t put a name to the feelings he had in that moment. He was furious, shocked, maybe a little alarmed, maybe a little vindicated. But then, when he was put back on the court, he felt calm. Clear. Like he knew exactly what he needed to do.

It didn’t matter, though. Not in the end. They lost. The team lost, and Kyoutani stood by as they fell to pieces, in one way or another. Stood by as they listened to the last words from the coach. Stood by as they began their final clean up on the court.

He blinks, and he finds himself outside again. He sits down on one of the benches, breathes in the air, and tries to figure out what emotions he’s experiencing.

He blinks again, and someone is sitting next to him.

“The bus is almost packed up to go,” Yahaba says. His voice is soft. He’s changed back into his travel clothes, blue shirt and white track bottoms. He looks a lot smaller now and his eyes are rimmed with red. It’s so different from just a half hour before; it’s surreal.

Kyoutani snorts, just a little. “Aren’t you going to punch me or something?” he asks.

“Why would I do that?” Yahaba asks, reddened eyes dipping closed for a moment like he’s too tired to keep them open.

"You said if I dragged the senpai's moment through the mud, you wouldn't forgive me," Kyoutani says, shrugging a little. "Usually when guys say something like that, they'll back it up with punching. And clearly it's not like you're the kind of guy who'd never think of doing something like that."

Yahaba gives him an assessing once-over. “You didn’t drag their moment through the mud. You played well, once you got your head back together.”

“It was my spike that lost the first set,” Kyoutani says, looking away as the words bubbling out of him. “The scores were close. If we had won that one, or if so many of my spikes hadn’t been blocked, then—”

The soft weight of Yahaba’s hand on his shoulder cuts him off.

“Did you see how Iwaizumi-san looked when we went to line up?" Yahaba asks, fingers gentle where they’re resting on Kyoutani. "He was probably thinking about his spikes that got blocked and the balls he couldn't save. I could be saying 'What if I had just scored with one of my serves?' I was brought in as a pinch server and didn't score a single point through a serve. What does that make me? I'm sure everyone else who stood on the court today feels the same way."

Kyoutani looks up at Yahaba’s tired face. "So what are you saying? That everyone made mistakes so it doesn't even matter?" He knows that’s a fucking lie.

"No. That's not what I'm trying to say at all,” Yahaba says, voice growing more sure with every word. “I'm saying the same thing I said before. Every point gained or lost belongs to the team as a whole. That's the philosophy Aobajousai works under, that the senpais have passed down to us. We win or lose, not as many individuals, but as one team. So no one can take sole responsibility for a win or a loss. We have to shoulder it together. And today, I— I saw you become part of that. But if you run away now, and blame yourself, then you'll just stay the way you were before and the team will, it will—" his voice cracks as he speaks and he stands up, turning to face Kyoutani where he sits. "We need you. For next year. For our revenge. So please, keep lending us your strength!"

He extends his hand, palm up and Kyoutani stares up at him. He thinks about how it felt, to go back into the game with a clearer head and have Oikawa still serve to him right away, like there was no question he could be trusted.

How the third years had been fine with changing plays to cover his receives so he had more chances to spike.

How Yahaba had tossed to him when he was on the court.

He thinks about what Kiyoshi said, about giving someone a chance.

Kyoutani reaches out and grabs Yahaba’s hand, using it to pull himself up.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

Yahaba’s hand is warm in his grasp.

Chapter Text

Kyoutani debates whether or not he should go to the ramen restaurant with the team. He knows what Yahaba said, but he still was only on the team for a handful of weeks — surely this kind of thing is more about saying goodbye to the third years for the people that will be really upset about losing them, right?

He heads home and showers, takes Coco for her walk and feeds both her and Daidai. He pretends at flipping open his textbook before letting it fall closed and lying back on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Daidai curls on his stomach while Coco stretches out near the fan.

His phone rings a half hour before the team is meant to meet up, startling Daidai off. He sits up and answers it, barely glancing at the ID.

“Kentarou-chan!” his mom says, a bit breathless. She usually sounds that way when they talk recently, caught up with her new baby. “Ah, I’m glad I caught you!”

“Hi,” he says, unsure. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, yes, I’m fine! Well, I feel like I haven’t slept in about a week — Ichiro-chan is still colicky, can you believe it? My poor little man.” She laughs a little. “You know, it’s so funny, you were never nearly so fussy as a baby!”

“I wasn’t?” he asks. He can’t remember her or his dad ever mentioning him as a baby, though he supposes now that she has another kid around she might get reminded more. It’s strange to hear himself compared favorably, though.

“Oh, no,” she says. “You were so quiet as an infant, actually, just staring at everything around you. It wasn’t until later that you got, well, you know…”

“Yeah,” he agrees. He certainly got well, you know… “So… why’d you call?” he asks after he senses they’ve sat in the silence of that long enough.

“I wanted to ask how your volleyball tournament went! I set a reminder in my phone about it and everything,” she says, sounding quite proud of herself. “Did you win, sweetie?”

“No,” he says, swallowing. He supposes it is very good of her, to remember that he had the tournament today. To make sure she took the time to call him, even with Ichiro being sick. “We lost, actually.

“Ah,” she says, concern layering over her voice. She never likes to hear about things not going well for him. Never likes to hear about him feeling negatively at all. “Oh, well, that’s okay. You’ll get them next year, right? No need to be upset over it now.”

“I am, actually,” he says, halfway a revelation. “Upset about it, I mean.”

There’s a pause over the phone line. “Oh,” she says. “But you sound— alright.”

“I am alright,” he says, watching Daidai bat at Coco’s tail. At some point, she’s going to lose patience with his antics. Sometimes, talking to his mom and watching them, it feels like he’s existing in two different worlds. “I’m just also upset about it.”

“Oh,” she says again. “Are you going to quit playing, then?”

“No,” he says, and that one he doesn’t have to think about. “I think I’m going to be playing more, actually. In fact, I have to go. I’m supposed to meet the rest of the team for ramen. I’ll talk to you later, Mom.”

The ramen place grows quiet when he enters the back room where the team has gathered, the other boys turning to look at him in a wave of motion. There’s a moment where everyone seems to be holding their breath, and then he sits down on the far end of the room and, collectively, they seem to decide he isn’t here to cause a scene.

He squints at the menu, hoping he hasn’t settled himself in for an entire evening of awkwardness out of trying to prove a point to himself and the version of his mom that exists in his own head. He’s not sure what goes best with that. Tonkotsu, maybe.

Then there’s movement in his peripheral vision and Yahaba is settling down next to him. The libero, Watari, sits on Yahaba’s other side, seamlessly connecting Kyoutani to the rest of the team.
Kyoutani furrows his brows at them, trying to figure out what they want. Yahaba props his head on his hand and smiles at him, innocent mask back in full effect, but Watari gives him a covert thumbs up. He doesn’t think Watari is the kind of guy to play along with an evil scheme, so maybe it’s alright. Maybe.

The two of them begin chatting as soon as they’ve ordered, of course.

“Poor Oikawa-san,” Watari says, surveying how many hungry kids are crammed into the room. “Do you think his wallet will survive this?”

Yahaba shrugs with what Kyoutani would have thought was atypical nonchalance toward Oikawa’s potential suffering. “If he’s low on money, I’m sure his fan club will buy him lunches for the rest of the year. Ah, they’ll probably bury him in gifts tomorrow, won’t they?”

“I think it’s nice,” Watari says. “And he usually shares, at least.”

"I wonder if any of them will stick around next year," Yahaba says, clearly still on the topic of the fan club. Kyoutani had noticed an awful lot of people hanging around to just watch practice.

"Some of the ones I talked to seemed to be getting into watching volleyball."

"It's more fun playing when people are cheering," Watari says. "But I don't think any of us have the appeal Oikawa-san does."

"Maybe if we dress up Kunimi as something cute, like a kitten," Yahaba says with alarming seriousness as he cuts his eyes over at the first years.

"He'd never agree," Watari says, but he doesn’t sound nearly as concerned as he ought to.

"We could get him while he's sleeping," Yahaba suggests.

"Kindaichi would probably wake him up," Watari says and taps his chin. "Hm, unless maybe you told him it was an order from his new captain? "

"You're going to be the new captain?" Kyoutani asks, because at least that is something he can kind of understand out of all that… concerning nonsense.

"Yes," Watari says instantly.

"Don't say yes," Yahaba says with a frown. "It's all the second year's decision. We haven't voted yet."

Watari just leans around Yahaba to speak to Kyoutani directly, much to Yahaba’s obvious displeasure. “Oikawa-san has been mentoring him for months,” he says. “So the rest of us are going to vote him.”

Kyoutani grimaces, wondering if he should really be one of the people asked to vote on such a thing. He’s pretty sure the only two second years he could consistently pick out of a lineup are sitting next to him right now.

Yahaba, of course, misinterprets it. “What’s that look for? Don’t tell me you want to be captain.”

That’s a chilling thought. “I don’t want to be captain,” Kyoutani says.

Watari smiles at him. “Don’t worry,” he says. “Yahaba’s actually pretty easygoing.”

“Why the ‘actually’?” Yahaba asks as he smacks Watari’s shoulder until he leans back. “I’m almost always easygoing!”

“Not around me,” Kyoutani says. He could think of a lot of words to describe Yahaba, but easygoing would appear nowhere on the list.

Surprisingly, that makes Yahaba go red. “I— that’s— I’m working on it,” he says, mainly to the table counter.

Kyoutani wants to ask what’s got him all up in a knot now and why he seems to think Kyoutani wants him to be easygoing, but he’s cut off by the arrival of the food. If there’s one thing an entire team of teenage boys can agree on, it’s the importance of eating a lot of food as quickly as possible, especially when someone else is footing the bill. The room is mostly silent except for eating noises until the third years get up to start doing speeches.

Kyoutani tunes the speeches out. They aren’t meant for him, exactly, even if he has grown perhaps a seed of respect for these particular upperclassmen. They all reference events he wasn’t there for, memories he doesn’t have, and he doesn’t want to focus on that right now.

He watches the boys next to him, instead. Yahaba is riveted, of course, nodding slightly whenever they say something he agrees with like the world’s weirdest bobble-head. He joins in on booing and tossing rice at Oikawa when the team apparently decides he’s grown too sentimental and he clears his throat a suspicious number of times when Iwaizumi gets choked up. He even turns bright red and sinks down on his chair during the speech from Hanamaki, which Kyoutani doesn’t entirely understand but references some training camp escapade with a pineapple.

Watari catches him looking at one point but just smiles.

Then the speeches are over and Oikawa begins to wail over the bill. Group by group, the team begins to drift off. Unsure what he’s meant to do, Kyoutani sticks close to Yahaba and Watari, figuring he can copy his cues from them.

“It’s sad, isn’t it?” Watari says as they watch the third year starters clump around the receipt. Oikawa is crying and faking heart palpitations while the others laugh at him. Matsukawa is pretending like he might order something extra.

“Yeah,” Yahaba says, his dreamy tone not at all fitting the scene they are witnessing. “It’s going to be so different without them.”

“It’s a new beginning, too,” Watari says, nudging Yahaba with his elbow.

Yahaba nods and looks to Watari. “The junior high tournament is coming up. Will you go with me to look at their third years? We can get an idea about who to pay attention to next year.”

“Of course,” Watari says, and then suddenly he’s turning and smiling right at Kyoutani. “Kyoutani, you should come with us too!”

“Eh?” Kyoutani and Yahaba both say, equally caught off guard by this sudden swerve.

Watari just continues to smile. “It’s a good idea for the ace to take part in stuff like this! I think Iwaizumi-san went last year.” He holds out his hand. “Give me your phone and I’ll put in our numbers so we can meet up.”

Kyoutani can’t come up with any reason for saying no, not with Watari looking at him like this is so obviously the normal thing to do, so Kyoutani hands over his phone.

“Great!” Watari says and hands the phone back, now boasting two new contacts. At least he didn’t put them in under embarrassing nicknames or with emoticons. “We’ll text you about it soon, okay?”

“Yeah,” Kyoutani says and beats a hasty retreat which is foiled somewhat when he runs straight into Iwaizumi. The third years apparently peeled off from each other when he was occupied.

“You’re going to go to the junior high tournament?” Iwaizumi asks and waits for Kyoutani to nod. “That’s good. Oikawa and I went together last year, you know.”

“Is it that important for the, uh, ace to go?” Kyoutani says. It feels strange, calling himself the ace to Iwaizumi.

“Sure,” Iwaizumi says, apparently unbothered. “I mean, the captain is the most important but… Being the ace is about more than just being the strongest, right?”

“Right,” Kyoutani says, in what he hopes is a reasonable imitation of someone who knows what Iwaizumi means by that and has put a lot of thought into what qualities other than strength an ace needs to have.

“You have to be the backbone of the team,” Iwaizumi continues. “When it comes down to it, everyone’s gonna look at you, looking for what your mood is, whether you still believe in them, all that. Especially if the captain can be kind of excitable, or flashy, it’s important to… keep everyone grounded, I guess.”

Kyoutani has never done very well with metaphorical language, but he does his best to translate. “So it’s important to stay calm.”

“Or get pumped up,” Iwaizumi says. “It depends on the situation. Just finding a good balance with everyone, you know? So it’s good to know what kind of people you might see next year, but it’ll also just be good for you to spend time with Yahaba.”

“Because he’s going to be captain next year,” Kyoutani says, glad he knows that. “All the second years are going to vote for him, and Oikawa’s been mentoring him.”
Iwaizumi nods and looks back to where Oikawa has slithered up between Yahaba and Watari and is talking to them. “Yeah,” he says, and there’s the smallest frown on his face. “Yeah, they’ve gotten really… close.”

That explains Yahaba’s occasional downturns in personality, Kyoutani does not say, but does think very loudly.

Too loudly, he guesses, because Iwaizumi gives him a look. “You know, Oikawa is a really good captain. And a good guy in general, not that I ever said that.”

“He is a good captain,” Kyoutani says, because he can admit that. “He’s just confusing.”

Iwaizumi frowns a little more. “He’s just in his own head about everything,” he says. “Yahaba is, too, I guess, which is why they… get each other, I suppose. Well, a lot of reasons, but that’s one of them.”

“It’s hard to believe anyone gets Oikawa more than you do,” Kyoutani says, because haven’t they been bestest friends forever or whatever? “But they are weirdly close, I guess.”

“I wouldn’t say they’re weirdly close,” Iwaizumi says, looking even more distressed than ever. “Oikawa’s just protective over Yahaba.”

Kyoutani snorts, trying to imagine Yahaba needing protection from anyone. “Sure,” he says, because he supposes Iwaizumi would know best.

“Yeah,” Iwaizumi says, but now he looks properly concerned as he watches Oikawa give an evil grin and Yahaba dissolve into giggles.

Kyoutani excuses himself, resigned to the fact that he will never understand any of the three of them at all.

He realizes later that Watari has laid a neat little trap for him. By putting the numbers in Kyoutani’s phone, Kyoutani has to be the first one to reach out. Perhaps this wasn’t meant to be a trap, but for Kyoutani, who has never begun a text conversation with a peer in his life, it certainly feels like one.

Sometimes, the only way out is by just bulldozing through, he decides and starts a group chat with the both of them the next day.

this is kyoutani, he types.

He gets a nearly instant reply from Watari. (((o(*°▽°*)o))) Hi Kyoutani!!! it reads. How are you today!! Are you sore from the game ☆⌒(>。<)? You played really well, right Yahaba?

Yahaba’s response is much slower and, thankfully, much calmer. Yes, it says. You both played really well. Are we planning for the junior highschool tournament here? It’s a week from tomorrow.

They continue the conversation in that way, with Watari littering the chat with kaomoji and Yahaba and Kyoutani valiantly keeping them on track. Eventually they settle on a solid plan, meeting up at the stadium. They probably could have planned that without exchanging numbers, Kyoutani thinks, but Watari sure seemed to enjoy himself.

He has to get up early to work out and make it home to shower in time, coming back from the gym while his dad is still having breakfast.. Genjirou watches him with surprise.

“I didn’t think you went to the gym this early,” he says.

“I don’t usually,” Kyoutani says, grabbing a banana. “I’m going to— me and some guys from the team are going to watch the junior tournament.”

His dad stares at him for a moment and then nods, taking a drag on his cigarette. “You need some spending money?” he asks.

Now it’s Kyoutani’s turn to stare. His dad has never offered him spending money before. “Uh, I guess,” he says. “We might get food or something.”

His dad nods and grabs his wallet. The whole thing is so strange that Kyoutani doesn’t know what to make of it.

Yahaba is already at the stadium when he gets there, wrapped up in a puffy jacket and fiddling with his phone. He waves at Kyoutani when he gets there.

“Hey,” he says. “Watari should get here soon.”

Kyoutani grunts and heads over to the vending machine while they wait, buying a soda for the caffeine. He briefly considers whether he should ask Yahaba if he wants something, but that’d be weird, right? He’s not sure what the rules are when you have spending money.

Yahaba doesn’t start a conversation, so Kyoutani assumes that means they should wait in silence. He completely finishes his soda and squashes the can to chuck into a bin with no sign of Watari anywhere. More and more of the junior high kids have arrived, swirling around the high schoolers like minnows in a stream.

“Where is he?” Kyoutani finally asks. “The tournament is going to start.” It’s been nearly a quarter of an hour since they arrived and the tournament is set to start on the hour.

“Watari isn’t usually so late,” Yahaba says, looking up from his phone, which then buzzes in his hand. It’s a text just to Yahaba, it seems, because Kyoutani gets nothing.

Whatever it says, Yahaba doesn’t seem to like it one bit. His eyes narrow in a way Kyoutani recognizes well by now and he puts the phone up to his ear, apparently calling back right away.

“Something came up?” he says suspiciously into the phone and listens to Watari’s response, too quiet for Kyoutani to make out. “A family thing? What kind of family thing?” Another pause, then, “What does she have? … It isn’t flu season.”

Kyoutani makes a mental note that Yahaba will be the kind of fucked up captain who requires doctors notes for absences.

“You—!” Yahaba darts a quick look at Kyoutani, turns a bit pink, and ducks around the corner. Kyoutani can still make out a few of his words, if he strains, but he elects not to listen in. Whatever fight Watari and Yahaba are having, he’s sure he doesn’t want to be involved.

The wisdom in that choice appears when Yahaba comes back around the corner, phone stowed away. There are two bright spots on his cheeks, a telltale sign of annoyance, and he in general looks like he’s a second away from biting someone’s head off. Unfortunately, Kyoutani’s head is the only one around.

“He’s not going to make it,” he says, sounding very put out over that fact.

“Are you okay?” Kyoutani asks, mostly for his own safety.

“I’m perfectly fine!” Yahaba snaps and then visibly attempts to pull himself together. “I just— let’s just head in, okay?”

Not reassured in the slightest but not wimpy enough to run off, Kyoutani nods and follows Yahaba in.

The stadium they use for the junior high tournaments is smaller than Sendai, but it’s still grand and full of excited energy as the kids prepare. There’s not the layer of desperation that comes with high school tournaments — even the oldest of these kids can keep playing on teams for three more years — but everyone is still out to prove themselves.

They lean against the railing instead of sitting, watching the different jersey colors wander the floor.

“Oh, hey,” Yahaba says and points to the red of Minimisan’s team colors. “That’s your junior high team, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Kyoutani says, peering at them for a second without much interest. He doesn’t feel any kind of attachment to his old school. He catches sight of dark gray and purple across the gum. “And there’s yours.”

Yahaba jumps and stares over, taking a moment before responding. “...Yeah,” he says, sounding nonplussed.

“What’s that pause for?”

“I just didn’t realize you remembered what team I was on,” Yahaba says and shrugs a little.

Kyoutani stares at him. “You yelled at me after a match, of course I remember it,” he says. He can’t believe Yahaba would think he could just forget something like that.

Yahaba turns pink again and shifts his weight side to side, like he’s preparing for a dig. “Oh, I guess I just thought… well, you never brought it up, so I assumed you didn’t remember.” Then, with a touch more defensiveness in his voice, he continues, “I can’t have been the only one to yell at you. You were really—” he cuts himself off, biting his lip.

Kyoutani has to snort at that. “Everyone else was too scared of me to yell,” he says.

“I was scared of you, too,” Yahaba says. “I just forgot for a minute.”

“Well, that explains one time,” Kyoutani says with a touch of dryness in his voice. As if Yahaba was ever scared of Kyoutani in his life. “What about all the other times you’ve yelled at me?”

Yahaba looks at him for a moment and then his face changes, turning polite and distant again. “I’m sorry about that,” he says, stiffly.

“Gross,” Kyoutani says automatically, making a face.

“What?”

“You acting all wimpy and nice,” he says, ears burning. “It’s gross. Just act normal.”

“Fine,” Yahaba says and relaxes, wonder upon wonders. “Apology redacted, then.”

“Good,” Kyoutani says, and they get down to business actually watching the kids play.

The junior high games are surprisingly fun to watch. The majority of the players are shit, of course, but Yahaba doesn’t seem to mind if Kyoutani says they’re shit as long as he explains why, so they end up actually talking out the strengths of some of the players and whether some of them could improve to the point of being not-shit anymore.

There’s two matches in the morning and then a break for lunch. Yahaba leads them to a fast food place around the corner that makes their meals quick even if it’s too packed to find anywhere to sit. They bring their stuff back to the stadium instead and sit on the steps.

“You eat a lot,” Yahaba says as Kyoutani finishes off a bucket of chicken. Yahaba himself had eaten a hamburger much more sedately and was now nursing his milkshake and last few french fries.

“I worked out this morning,” Kyoutani says around a mouthful, mostly just to make Yahaba wrinkle his nose at him.

“We’re supposed to be using this time to rest and recover from the last tournament,” Yahaba says primly. “So don’t overwork yourself.”

Kyoutani rolls his eyes. “Shut up, captain,” he says. He knows his limits.

“I’m not officially— oh, forget it,” Yahaba says with a sigh and changes tack. “You realize the coaches are around here somewhere too, right? If they catch you saying anything against their orders, it's them you have to worry about getting in trouble with, not me."

Kyoutani would much rather take his chances with coaches than an actually pissed off Yahaba any day, but he’s pretty sure Yahaba is only poking at him to fill the time. He doesn’t actually mind it, he realizes. It’s weirdly… comfortable, sitting here, with their knees bumping together and Yahaba fake-fussing about things.

They’ve tossed their empty containers and dusted off their hands, ready to head back in, when a voice stops them.

“Yahaba-san?” A kid with short black hair and a smattering of freckles is standing behind them, holding a cheer banger in a loose grip. He’s probably about their age, maybe a year younger.

“Otake-san, hey.” Yahaba says, clearly recognizing the guy despite Kyoutani being unable to place him. “What are you doing here?”

“Watching my brother’s team,” Otake says and looks at Kyoutani. “You’re, um?”

“This is Kyoutani,” Yahaba says when Kyoutani remains in confused silence. “He’s on our team, too, he just wasn’t around for that training camp. Kyoutani, Otake-san is from one of the teams we train with sometimes.”

“Oh, nice to meet you,” Otake says and apparently runs out of things to say entirely, scratching his head awkwardly, just kind of staring at Yahaba.

“Good luck to your brother’s team,” Yahaba says, fully in his polite-boy persona now.

“Thanks,” Otake says, radiating awkwardness in a way that sets Kyoutani’s own teeth on edge. “It was, um, good to see you. Are you going to do the training camp again this year?”

“Probably,” Yahaba says smoothly. “We don’t have any definite plans yet, though.”

Otake turns fully red at that, which makes no sense. “Oh, good. I’ll see you there then, maybe?”

Yahaba nods and makes no promises, which makes Kyoutani wonder if he’s planning on dropping Otake’s team from the training camp roster or something. Or maybe he just finds Otake unpleasant for some reason.

He waits until they’re back in the stadium bleachers before pouncing. “That was awkward as hell,” he says. “Did you yell at him about something, too?”

“No!” Yahaba says, finally dropping his dumb polite look and turning pink instead. It’s a much better look on him. “I don’t... I don’t go around just yelling at people, okay?”

That makes Kyoutani special, he supposes. “Then what did you do to him?” he asks, still curious. “He looked like he wanted to die just talking to you.”

Yahaba shifts in his seat a little, taps his leg, and then speaks in a burst of sound, words tumbling together. “We kissed, okay? At training camp. But we didn’t expect to, you know, keep running into each other.”

Kyoutani can’t help but stare at Yahaba after that. He never knew that— “You like boys?” he asks, just to be sure he didn’t misunderstand.

“Don’t you ever listen to school gossip?” Yahaba asks, an undertone of actual anger in his voice. “Yes, I’m gay, everyone who talks to anyone has known that for years.”

“Do I look like the type of guy who listens to gossip?” Kyoutani asks.

“You look like the type of guy who might try to punch me for looking at him,” Yahaba says and then shakes his head with a sigh, releasing his death-grip on the railing. “Is it a problem for you?”

“No,” Kyoutani says right away, then thinks a little deeper. He snorts. “Though if you like that guy, you have shit taste. He seemed like a wimp.”

“You think almost everyone is a wimp,” Yahaba says. “And I don’t really like him. We don’t keep in touch.”

“Oh,” Kyoutani says. “Good.”

“Good?” Yahaba repeats, slanting his eyes at him.

“I don’t think the team captain should be kissing other team’s players,” Kyoutani says, and decides that’s true even as he says it. “It doesn’t seem right.” In fact, just the idea of Yahaba kissing that random guy is awful.

Yahaba laughs. “I can’t believe that’s what bothers you about this. You’re such a weirdo,” he says with no animosity. “If it makes you feel better, I promise not to kiss any other school’s players until I leave the club, okay?”

That does seem like a good plan. The idea of Yahaba kissing some random guys from Datekou or Karasuno, even if they weren’t as dumb and wimpy as Otake seemed to be, was just as bad to think about. Kyoutani really does think he’s hit on something important here. It should probably be made into an official rule not to fraternize with other team’s players.

He thinks about it more later, when he’s gotten home. He never knew that Yahaba was gay. Is gay. He feels like Yahaba should have mentioned it to him, but he knows that doesn’t actually make any sense. He just feels like he should have known earlier.

He doesn’t have a problem with it, he knows that. A couple of the women that come to the gym and play with Kiyoshi and all of them are together, and they seem fine. So he knows he doesn’t have a problem with gay people, or at least he doesn’t think he does. And he doesn’t have a problem with Yahaba, generally, at least anymore, at least not when he thinks about him just by himself.

But he doesn’t like the idea of imagining him kissing Otake. It’s not just that Otake seemed kind of wimpy, though Kyoutani supposes he only met him for a few minutes. He tries to swap out Otake in his mental image with some other guy, one that’s not so wimpy.

His first thought is the strong bald kid from Karasuno, the one that was so annoying. He’s not a wimp, that’s for sure. He tries to remember if he was taller than Yahaba or not, since he’s pretty sure that’s important for kissing, but he can’t remember.

He doesn’t really know how Yahaba would be with kissing in general, he realizes. Kyoutani hasn’t seen a lot of kissing, since he doesn’t watch a lot of TV or read manga or anything, and it’s not like people are just walking around kissing each other in the hallways. Yahaba probably had to take Otake to some kind of secondary location to kiss him at training camp, which is weird. That means they had to, like, talk about it, which is even worse than them just kissing.

He reminds himself that he’s not thinking about Otake, but about Yahaba kissing that other guy, from Karasuno. He doesn’t have any hair, so Yahaba couldn’t touch his hair, which is good maybe, because Kyoutani doesn’t like the idea of Yahaba touching someone’s hair. But he’d have to put his hands somewhere, wouldn’t he?

He tries to imagine Yahaba putting his hands on the number nine guy’s waist, and he hates it. It’s a bad mental image, just bad all around, and he decides maybe he just still finds that guy really annoying. It was a bad idea to use him for this exercise, Kyoutani realizes, because he had already realized that the idea of the captain kissing people from another team was no good.

He tries again, substituting the Karasuno kid out for Hanamaki. That’s one of their team members, even if he’s retired now, so it should be fine, but the mental image is still… bad. It’s worse, actually, because it makes Kyoutani kind of want to slam a volleyball against something.

Maybe he just doesn’t respect Hanamaki enough, he thinks. He has to do this exercise with someone he does respect, or it simply won’t work. He knocks mental-Hanamaki to the side and inserts Iwaizumi, the person he respects the most.

It’s still really, really bad.

He’s going to have to work on this, Kyoutani thinks. If Yahaba gets a boyfriend — and oh, fuck, what if he already has a boyfriend — than Kyoutani will have to be able to keep his cool or he’ll come off as a huge asshole. And he doesn’t want to be a huge asshole.

He’s just going to have to keep practicing, he decides, and tries to fall asleep, plagued by images of Yahaba kissing various boys. His dreams, though he doesn’t remember them, leave him frustrated and unsettled.

Practice resumes the following Tuesday. All the second years step aside with Irihata to vote on the next captain. Yahaba looks surprised when Kyoutani votes for him, though he doesn’t know why he should be. It’s obvious that Yahaba is meant to be the next captain, so he wouldn’t vote any other way.

Irihata sends the other second years to practice while keeping Yahaba, Kyoutani, and Watari behind.

“You three will have a lot of weight on your shoulders next year,” he says. “I don’t have to tell you how much the team will be relying on you as the core. Yahaba, you’ll be the captain. I know it probably seems like Oikawa has left big shoes to fill, but remember that there are a lot of different ways to lead a team to success. Don’t focus on trying to be like him, focus on trying to be the strongest version of yourself.”

“Right,” Yahaba says.

“Watari, you’ll be the third year with the most on-court experience,” Irihata continues. “As the libero, you’ll also be the center of our defense. It’ll be your job to keep everyone steady, no matter what gets thrown at us. Your flexibility with positions has already let us become stronger, so expect to be called on even more, next year.”

“Yes, sir!” Watari says, very serious.

Finally, Irihata turns to Kyoutani. “And you, Kyoutani, you’ll be the ace of the team. There’s no question you have the raw power to make up the spearhead of our offense. What’s the most important is that you provide that same strength and stubbornness toward inspiring the rest of the team around you. Do you think you can do that?”

It suddenly feels like a lot of pressure. “Yes,” he says, mouth dry. “I’ll do my best.”

Irihata nods. “Good. Remember, Aobajousai has always been built around teamwork, not individual glory. It may seem cruel at times, but we’ll make whatever decisions are for the best of the team as a whole. If we get some kind of super-ace, or amazing setter, or genius libero next year, we may pull any one of you out. Same goes for the first years you got used to playing with last year.”

“We understand,” Yahaba says. “We want Seijou to be strong.”

“Good,” Irihata says, and then smiles. “Privately, of course, I don’t think any of you three have anything to worry about in terms of starting positions. Just focus on growing the rest of the team and I have high hopes for next year.”

For the first time, Kyoutani spends practice trying to pay attention to everyone but himself. He still is working to learn the names of everyone on the team, let alone their positions. None of them are at ease with him, though Yahaba and Watari’s general acceptance of him seems to help. Still, the second years view him warily, probably thinking of his florid history, and the first years are cautious.

The real breakthrough comes weeks later when they run a three-on-three match. Kyoutani isn’t even playing, instead watching on the sidelines with Yahaba. The two first year starters, Kindaichi and Kunimi, are playing, though.

Kindaichi has some talent, Kyoutani admits now, watching him. Some of it is just that he’s so freaking tall, but it’s not all that. He has good stamina, and his blocks are good. Even his spikes show some promise. He’s easily alarmed, though, and still a bit terrified of Kyoutani, which is a major hurdle.

Kunimi is a little more complicated. He’s clearly really smart, watching everything going on, but he’s lazy. Mizoguchi, the assistant coach, is always hollering at him for not trying hard enough, even in the three-on-three.

“I thought we were still supposed to be taking it easy,” Kunimi says, which only makes Mizoguchi squawk harder.

During a break, Kyoutani is near enough to Kindaichi and Kunimi to hear them talking.

“You really shouldn’t talk back to the coaches,” Kindaichi is saying to Kunimi, looking very worried. “You know he’s going to yell at you.”

“He’s going to yell at me anyway,” Kunimi says with a shrug. He raises his fingers into fake quotation marks. “I’m difficult, you see.”

“But you don’t have to be,” Kindaichi says, which just makes Kunimi sigh. “You could just… behave a little more.”

“I really, really could not,” Kunimi says with a tone of finality.

Kyoutani thinks about that for a bit. He’s also difficult, always has been, and he also could never try to just behave. He wonders if Kunimi might be a bit like him. He wonders if there are other people that are.

The next time Mizoguchi starts going in on Kunimi, Kyoutani steps in.

“Leave him alone,” he says, aware his voice naturally sounds like a growl. “He plays fine in matches, just let him manage his energy himself.”

Mizoguchi sputters at him, clearly furious. “Kyoutani, what the— That’s not your call! Especially you! And you can’t talk back to a coach like that!”

“Easy,” Irihata says, watching them with interest. He never seems to get worked up at all, Kyoutani’s noticed. “Let’s give Kyoutani a chance, hm?”

“What were you thinking, making an enemy of Mizoguchi-sensei like that?” Yahaba asks him after, eyes round. “It sets a bad example for the ace to disagree with the coach like that!”

“It sets a bad example for the coach to go off on one of the starters, too, doesn’t it?” Kyoutani asks. “It’s not like anyone responds well to getting hollered and nagged at, y’know.”

“Coming from you?” Yahaba asks and seems to be about to say more when he notices Kunimi lurking next to them.

“Thanks,” Kunimi says, blunt but quiet. “You didn’t need to, but thanks.”

“It’s whatever,” Kyoutani says, unsure what to say to Kunimi’s face. “I always get told off for having too much energy, it’s just annoying to see someone get told off for the opposite.”

Kunimi just hums and lets it drop, but after that, there’s a noticeable shift. He willingly works with Kyoutani on drills and his silent acceptance seems to affect the rest of the team, too. They all start listening to him more, looking to him about stuff that they used to just listen to the adults or Yahaba about.

He’s no Iwaizumi, and he probably never is going to be. Kyoutani will never have three years of helping to carry the team on his shoulders, he’ll never be the guy they all know they’ve always been able to turn to in a pinch.

But he’s not the broken gear jamming up the works anymore, either, not the double-edged sword that they bring in when shit gets desperate and pray it doesn’t hurt them too badly. He’s not the stray dog growling in the shadows.

Slowly, he’s growing into something else for them, and for once, Kyoutani is excited to see what that might be.

Chapter Text

In addition to working on being the best leaders they can be, Kyoutani and Yahaba can’t slack off on the actual volleyball skills, either. As the setter and ace, their timing together is key. They spend a great amount of practice time training one-on-one, working on finding a rhythm together.

It’s strange, in a way, to spend so much time with Yahaba in front of other people. Though he hadn’t realized it, Kyoutani has gotten used to their interactions being fairly private — in school corners, the grocery store, even when they went to the middle school tournament together — but now they have the whole team around them.

Kyoutani knows that the coaches are watching them, too.

Obviously, they can’t monopolize each other’s time completely. Yahaba still has to work with all the potential spikers, after all, and Kyoutani has to go through blocking and receive practice the same as anyone. Plus, there are the times when they want Kyoutani to practice spiking off of Watari, or Kunimi, or a few of the other players they have training to do sets.

“They aren’t looking to replace Yahaba, if that’s what you’re so worked up about,” Watari tells him one day when he catches Kyoutani grimacing over at the other side of the gym where Yahaba is helping coach Kunimi through a set up. “Our play style is just to be flexible. Everyone should be able to fill in for almost any role, if need be.”

“I’m not worried about that,” Kyoutani says, grumpy at being caught looking. “I don’t care who I spike off of, as long as I can score.”

“Right,” Watari says. Watari has a way of agreeing in a way that is not dismissive enough that Kyoutani can fight him on it, but also makes it super clear that he’s only humoring him. “Want to try again? Remember, I can only jump from here, so you’ll need to adjust your lead up a little.”

Despite what Watari says, Kyoutani likes it best when he gets to practice with Yahaba. It’s the most practical, since it’s the way they’ll be scoring the most points, and also it’s… different. Working with Yahaba like that.

He’s not as good of a setter as Oikawa is. There’s a gulf of talent between them, that’s for sure. They all know Oikawa will probably be going pro in a few years, it’s just a question of how much college he wants to get through first before he gets scouted. Yahaba doesn’t have that kind of skill, nor the drive to create those opportunities for himself. He doesn’t love volleyball the way Oikawa does, or even the way Kyoutani does.

He loves the team, though, that much is obvious, and he’s tenacious. He has expectations, the kind that force people to live up to them.

Spiking for Oikawa was like being sent into battle by a tactical leader, having a diamond-sharp sword placed in his hand so all he had to do is swing. Spiking for Yahaba is like being loosed from a leash that was holding him back, like catapulting himself forward to devour whatever lies in front of them. It’s messy, it’s vicious, it’s dirty.

Kyoutani kind of loves it.

He’d never tell Yahaba that, though. He’d probably have a conniption.

They’re working together one evening when the gym doors open, letting the cold air in from outside. Some of the team are still warming up and groan at the burst of chill, but settle down when they see it’s Oikawa and Iwaizumi coming to visit, the way a few of the third years do every now and again.

“Iwa-chan and I got accepted to the same university!” Oikawa trills out as he bounces across the room to Yahaba and Kyoutani, directing a huge grin at Yahaba. Iwaizumi is trailing behind him. “We got scouted at the same time, isn’t that nice? We’ll get an apartment together and go to classes together and play on the team together and—”

“How far away will you be?” Yahaba cuts Oikawa off, which Kyoutani is beyond grateful for. Luckily, Yahaba is in captain-mode, which means he is focused and not interested in conversation, at least until he takes a water break.

“Only a few hours,” Iwaizumi says, nodding a hello at Kyoutani.

“Good. Bring your team to play practice matches with us during breaks so we can win all our tournaments,” Yahaba says and turns away, bouncing the ball on the ground a few times.

“Captain Yahaba is scary!” Oikawa says and eel-like, reaches out to wind his arms around his junior and rest his chin on top of Yahaba’s crown of hair. “So business-like!”

“Hey,” Yahaba says, wiggling a little within Oikawa’s hold but not putting much effort into freeing himself. He could definitely stick an elbow in Oikawa’s gut, from what Kyoutani can tell, but he seems mostly content to let Oikawa wrap around him like a particularly loud fungal system.

Kyoutani looks away, annoyed. Oikawa isn’t even a team member anymore, he has no right to come in here and get all handsy and distract the captain. It’s rude and it sets a bad precedent, or something.

“Yahaba,” Oikawa continues, voice dropping into a more normal range, “what drills do you have everyone doing? It doesn’t look like you—”

“Don’t backseat captain me,” Yahaba says, which, good. “If you want to be useful, go help Kunimi with his serves.”

“Bossy!” Oikawa teases but Kyoutani hears him trot away, clearly happy to go bother Kunimi as well.

“Ready to get back to it?” Yahaba says to Kyoutani and then seems to notice that Iwaizumi is still standing near them, frowning at nothing. “Iwaizumi-san, are you here to play as well? We could use someone to practice blocks against.”

“Yeah, of course,” Iwaizumi says after a little jump and pause, which is a relief to Kyoutani. He likes training with Iwaizumi, but he never seems to come by on his own.

They work together for the rest of practice, Oikawa remains safely across the gym, and the two seniors even stay to help with clean up. Unfortunately, the mix up of people lowers Kyoutani’s guard, and he finds himself caught walking out with Oikawa, who was lurking by the school gate.

“You and Yahaba seem to be getting along really well,” Oikawa says in the tones of someone who is trying to say way more than what they actually are saying. “It really warms my heart.”

“I bet,” Kyoutani says, a little intrigued despite himself. He can walk away whenever he wants, if he needs to.

“No, really!” Oikawa laughs a little, like he’s an actor in a play and he’s supposed to punctuate his lines. It makes Kyoutani’s hair stand on end. “Why, when I first saw you together at the middle school tournament so long ago, I thought to myself, now those two are an explosive pair! And now look at you.”

“You were watching that?” Kyoutani says and wrinkles his forehead. Of course he was. “Gross.”

“Little Yahaba looked about ready to punch you right there! I was excited, of course, because I’ve never seen an actual brawl on the court before,” Oikawa says. lowering his voice a little, most likely because Yahaba and Iwaizumi are coming up the path toward them. “Imagine my surprise to learn more about you two later!”

Kyoutani makes a noncommittal noise, about ready to leave this conversation.

“You’re good for Yahaba, you know,” Oikawa says, because he has a scam artist’s knack for knowing the right hook.

“You were just talking about him punching me,” Kyoutani says, trying not to seem too interested. He watches Yahaba out of the corner of his eye where he’s talking to Iwaizumi with a weird expression. “You’re a kind of fucked up guy, you know that?”

Oikawa laughs again, this time a little more realistically. “Oh, you have no idea, Mad Dog-chan,” he says and then collects himself. “What I mean is— Yahaba’s spent a lot of time trying to make himself smaller and nicer and more palatable, you know? And I’ve tried to talk him out of it, a bunch of times, because it’s not good for him, but at some point that’s all just words. But you— something about you makes him forget to try to be small and nice. You’re good for him.”

“Cool, I’ll continue inciting him to violence, got it,” Kyoutani says.

Oikawa wags a finger at him. “You’re misunderstanding me on purpose, and we both know it.”

“You could just say what you mean,” Kyoutani says, but Yahaba and Iwaizumi are arriving now and he’s lost his chance to pin Oikawa down on anything. He probably planned it like that.

“Yahoo~” Oikawa calls out in a very different tone of voice. “Yahaba, are you walking to the train station?”

Yahaba shakes his head. “I have a shift at the grocery store today,” he says and glances at Kyoutani. “Which I guess means I’m walking in your direction.”

“Ah, too bad, I was looking forward to talking to my beloved underclassman some more,” Oikawa says. “But sadly, Iwa-chan and I are heading the opposite way.”

“Tragic,” Yahaba says, chalk dry. “If only we went to the same school or you had my cell phone number.”

“He’s so mean to me!” Oikawa says plaintively, and tugs at Iwaizumi’s sleeve. “Iwa-chan, tell him to be less mean to me!”

“We’ll see you guys later,” Iwaizumi says instead. “C’mon, Yahaba has to get to work.” He drags Oikawa away, waving over his shoulder.

Yahaba is quiet while they walk, and not a good kind of quiet. His face is all weird, in a way that rings alarm bells in Kyoutani’s head.

“What’s got you all worked up?” Kyoutani asks eventually, trying to put what Oikawa had said to him out of his mind.

“What?” Yahaba says, clearly having not heard a damn word Kyoutani had said. “Sorry.”

“And you yell at me for having bad concentration,” Kyoutani says, rolling his eyes as they wait at a stop sign. “I was asking what’s got you all…” he waves a demonstrative hand at Yahaba’s face.

“I’ll need you to translate that. I don’t speak vague hand gesture,” Yahaba says, probably half to be a dick and half to buy himself time to formulate his answer. Kyoutani has gotten a little bit wise to his crappy tactics, after all this time.

“You’ve got your weird polite company face on,” Kyoutani says, looking at how the faint glow of the walk sign illuminates Yahaba’s cheeks. “Even though nobody’s around.”

“You’re around,” Yahaba says, which, again, same shit.

“I’m not polite,” Kyoutani points out, knowing Yahaba can’t even try to argue that point. “You only use that face with me when you’re being a dick and you’re not being a dick.”

“Do you want me to be a dick?” Yahaba asks in that tone of voice that used to make Kyoutani kind of want to hit him. It doesn’t anymore, having somehow managed to bypass fight or flight into some weird other response that Kyoutani hasn’t been able to pin down yet. Luckily, Yahaba doesn’t seem to notice Kyoutani’s consistent inner turmoil about it, and just shakes his head. “Sorry, it’s just reflexive at this point. I’m just… confused about something.”

“Is it about Iwaizumi-san?” Kyoutani says and glares as Yahaba has the audacity to look surprised. “Don’t look so shocked. I’m not an idiot, you know. You started looking like that when you were talking to him earlier, so it doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together.”

“I’m just so flattered to find out you apparently keep such close tabs on me,” Yahaba says in a fake-precious voice, eyes wide and reflecting what look like stars but are probably, like, airplanes and satellites and shit. “I never realized I occupied so much of your attention span.”

“See, now you’re being a dick,” Kyoutani says, wishing Yahaba would keep the little pinpricks of light out of his eyes, no matter what they’re from. “What did he even say to you?”

Yahaba frowns and shrugs just a little. “Not really anything,” he says, sounding unsure. “Just some stuff about how much Oikawa-san enjoyed training me to be the next captain and how he'd miss me. It was just… off somehow. I don't know. He seemed weird earlier, too. Usually he yells at Oikawa-san for grabbing me but this time he didn't."

Kyoutani isn’t sure what face he pulls at that. He wishes Iwaizumi would have yelled at Oikawa for that. “Does Oikawa grab you a lot?” he asks. “He’s never grabbed me.”

“That just shows he had a working sense of self-preservation,” says Yahaba, which are big fucking words from the person with the longest track record of grabbing Kyoutani out of everyone he’s ever met. “I don't think he does it, like, a lot, but he does sometimes? He only started doing it when he became captain and I became his reserve setter. Or…" His mouth twists a little and his voice drops. "Although I guess it could be when everyone found out I was gay? They happened at the same time."

Kyoutani snorts at that. “Isn’t it obvious, then?” he says, surprised that Yahaba hasn’t figured it out. Isn’t he supposed to be good with people and all that crap? “Iwaizumi-san probably thinks Oikawa has a crush on you or something.”

Yahaba actually stops in surprise, looking dumbstruck by the very idea. “You don’t actually think that’s what it is, do you?”

“Why not? Is it really such a weird idea?” Kyoutani says over his shoulder. He doesn’t stop and turn around, because… well. He’s a little more interested in Yahaba’s answer than is probably warranted. Shit, he hopes he’s not going to have to start putting Oikawa in his mental imaginings of Yahaba kissing a guy. He’s trying to make sure he’s not homophobic, but surely he doesn’t deserve to be tormented, right?

“It’s just— Oikawa-san doesn’t— The person that— Iwaizumi-san really shouldn’t think that!” Yahaba says, trotting to catch up and scrubbing a hand over his face like the idea that Oikawa could like him is the worst thing that could ever happen to him. “If Iwaizumi-san thinks that, then… Oh, what a mess…”

“I might be wrong. Don’t freak out about it,’ Kyoutani says, because Yahaba in a meltdown is sometimes funny but also a bit unpredictable.

“I’m not freaking out about it,” Yahaba lies. “I just— oh, nevermind.”

“Shouldn’t you be flattered, anyway?” Kyoutani asks, unable to stop the bubble of curiosity inside of him. He’s never had a crush, after all, so it’s natural to be a little fascinated by the whole concept around them. “Isn’t Oikawa supposed to be, you know, really good looking?”

“It’s not about that,” Yahaba says. “It’s just… oh, I can’t tell you. He’s not my type, anyway.” He sniffs a little.

“You have a type? Gross,” Kyoutani says, and tries to imagine what kind of type that might be. It’s not Otake, and not Oikawa, he knows that, but it’s not like Yahaba has ever shared about a guy he actually finds attractive, now that Kyoutani thinks about it. “What is it?” Kyoutani hears himself asking.

Yahaba sticks his hands in his pockets and slides back into dick-mode, like settling into a second skin. “Do you want to sit around and gossip about boys with me, Kyoutani?” he asks, voice lilting. “I had no idea you were into that kind of thing.”

Kyoutani should have known better. “You’re the worst,” he says, and is thankful when their paths diverge.

Kyoutani goes to see his mother in February. It’s her birthday month, though Kyoutani can’t come on the exact day, and Fugunaga had asked if he would visit. Said it would mean a lot to his mom if he did, and that it’d be good for him to meet his new brother.

Ichiro is both smaller and larger than Kyoutani expects him to be. He has huge eyes, which he mostly uses to stare at the brightest lights he can find moving around, and he babbles endlessly. Fugunaga and Kyoutani’s mother hang off his every little noise, hoping for one to be a word.

Kyoutani brings them a box of chocolates and some tea. He looks down at Ichiro’s face and wonders if they’ll look at all alike, or if their respective fathers’ genes are too strong. He reaches out to touch a chubby little cheek, surprised at how warm it is.

“Careful,” his mom says immediately.

“Do you want to try to hold him?” Fugunaga asks and Kyoutani can feel his mother blanch.

“Sure,” he says, because he’s held fragile things before.

Fugunaga shows him how to support the head, how to cradle the body against him, and Kyoutani does it. Ichiro looks up at him, a little goopy around the mouth and nose, gurgles a little in an undefined baby way, reaches up and…

Kyoutani doesn’t feel anything.

It’s kind of a relief. He was worried he’d be angry. He was worried he’d fall in love. But Ichiro is just a baby, one he’s connected to through genetics but nothing else, not at this point. Maybe someday that’ll be different, Kyoutani thinks, and that seems about right. He’s… open to it, but he won’t feel like he’s missing something if it doesn’t happen.

It’s probably the best outcome he could have hoped for.

His mom sweeps the baby away as quickly as she can, of course, but later, when they’re sitting having tea, she brings it up again, more gently. Fugunaga has stepped away, settling Ichiro down for bed and Kyoutani will be leaving in a few minutes for the train station.

“I’m surprised,” his mom says. “I was— don’t be hurt, baby, but I was a little worried about how you’d be around him.”

“Yeah,” Kyoutani says, because, well, yeah. “I’ve held kittens and stuff before and they’re even smaller.”

Her mouth twitches a little. “Don’t let Hiroaki hear you say that,” she says in a conspiratorial tone. “He gets so upset when I compare our human baby to an animal one.”

“But humans are animals,” Kyoutani says.

“You’re telling me,” Kana says, and laughs a little. “You know, I’m actually… I’m really proud of you.”

“What do you mean?” Kyoutani asks, frowning.

“You seem to be doing so much better, recently,” she says. “I couldn’t tell for sure until you were here, of course, but you really… I was so worried about you for so long, Kentarou-chan.”

Kyoutani could just react in the moment. He could tell his mother that she doesn’t get to be proud of him, that she gave up that right. He could say that if she was so worried, she could have done a lot more to help. He could point out that she wouldn’t really know if he’s doing better or not from a single four hour visit in the last year, that she doesn’t even know what his baseline is or what better even means. That her idea of better and his are probably way different.

But then he thinks about being on the court, after Yahaba had yelled at him. Of deciding he wanted to change.

His mother will never decide she wants to change, he realizes. He could yell at her, he could list out everything she’s done that has made his life harder, that has made him hurt, but the one who would walk away more fucked up about it would be him.

It’s not fair, he knows, but he’s starting to get used to that.

“I should go,” he says instead.

You didn’t come to the store today… you better not be buying from our competitors, Yahaba texts him on the train ride back. It’s a roundabout way of asking if Kyoutani is okay, but Yahaba is a roundabout guy.

i was travelling, Kyoutani texts back. didn’t realize i needed captain’s permission to go out of town for a day, damn

Well, you do, Yahaba responds instantly. Too much time on a train or a bus is bad for your back. You should have cleared it with me.

Kyoutani smiles down at his phone. don’t worry, captain, he types. i don’t think i’ll be doing it again

There’s a pause, and then, finally, another text comes in. I was joking, Yahaba says. You know I was joking, right? It’s just weird not to see your ugly face around when I expect to.

have you considered a mirror? Kyoutani asks, and gleefully ignores the three calls that come in immediately after.

On the first day of Kyoutani’s third year of high school, he finds Yahaba Shigeru, known violent jerk with no concern for life nor limb, shover of people into walls, and yeller about every rule known to man, hiding out in the bathrooms because he’s terrified of the first years.

It really puts things in perspective.

Kyoutani was just planning to take a whizz before heading to the changing rooms, only mildly interested to see what kind of first years they’d get this year. When he enters the bathroom, however, he sees Yahaba gripping the sides of the sink and staring at his reflection as if he owes it money

He whirls around when Kyoutani enters. “What are you doing here?” he basically yells, accusatory.

“It’s a bathroom,” Kyoutani says, disgruntled and disturbed. “Take a wild fucking guess.”

Even when Kyoutani’s done, Yahaba is still sagged against the wall, covering his face with his hands and looking like he is just wilting away. Kyoutani dries his ands and steps closer, trying to figure out if Yahaba has come down with some wild head injury.

“What’s wrong with you now?” he asks when he fails to see any obvious signs of concussion.

Yahaba lowers his hands to uncover a sincerely green-tinged expression. “Want to switch with me?” he asks. “You can be the captain and I can be the juvenile delinquent.”

Kyoutani isn’t going to sit around and take that from Yahaba, of all people. “I’ve never even shoplifted, you know,” he says. Stealing Coco does not count, as that was a good deed and therefore should be legal, in Kyoutani’s opinion. “And why are you freaking out about being captain now? You’ve been captain for ages.”

“First years,” Yahaba says with a shudder, as though that explains everything.

“You’re afraid of the first years?” Kyoutani asks, just to be completely sure he’s hearing right. “You’ll yell at me for breathing wrong but you’re afraid of some first years?”

“It’s not… what if they don’t listen to me?” Yahaba says. “Oikawa-san made everyone listen to him so easily and I—”

Kyoutani can tell Yahaba’s just going to go into a weird little spiral, which is dumb and not something they have time for, anyway. He grabs Yahaba’s wrist and tows him out the bathroom toward the gym.

“Kyoutani!” Yahaba yelps. “Hey!”

“Don’t be a baby,” Kyoutani says, because he cannot believe this. There were moments he was scared of this guy. This is basically an insult to him specifically. “Literally the first thing I thought when I met Oikawa was that I wanted to punch him, so I’m pretty sure you don’t have to worry about making a worse first impression than that.”

“You want to punch me, like, all the time,” Yahaba says woefully, but at least he starts actually walking the right direction instead of forcing Kyoutani to do all the work of dragging him.

“Not all the time,” Kyoutani says, then regrets it, then feels stupid for regretting it, and then thankfully they are at the gym and Watari is waiting outside of it. Watari will save them.

“Hey,” Watari says, and looks at where Kyoutani is still holding Yahaba’s wrist, which unfortunately causes Yahaba to yank it away and try to look all captain-ly as if he didn’t have to be pulled here against his will.

“How do they look?” Yahaba asks, voice a pitch deeper than it normally is. Dork.

“Like first years,” Watari says. “All a mixture of terror and excitement and acne. There’s a few characters, but that’s not such a bad thing. Ready, captain?”

Kyoutani glares hard at Yahaba, daring him to wimp out. It works, and Yahaba squares his shoulders and nods.

They go in, the three of them all together. The gym is fuller than it has been in months and louder, too, but the new kids quiet down when they see who has arrived. Kyoutani can hear a few whispers but tunes them out, walking over to the other third years instead.

The first practice goes fine. Yahaba gives a small speech, the coaches do their whole spiel and hand off the first years to Mizoguchi for now, and they begin to practice. Yahaba has the third years and a few of the second years winding through the new kids as they work, getting an eye for their base abilities.

All the first years are spooked by Kyoutani, which is about what he expected, so he keeps his comments to them short and to the point. He corrects a stance here or a drill there and moves on. He’s not the type to play extra nice to put them at ease, couldn’t even if he wanted to, but he figures they’ll get used to him in time and realize his energy isn’t focused at them, specifically.

Last year’s regulars spend a little time together after practice, talking about the candidates. There’s a tall kid that might make a good blocker if he stops cringing away from the ball like it’s going to bite him, a short setter-wannabe who hasn’t spoken more than two words to anyone the whole practice, and an overly enthusiastic wing spiker who has managed to hit both of the aforementioned kids in the face from across the gym that are particularly noticeable right off.

“Do the first years seem scared of me?” Yahaba asks at the end of the discussion, right as they’re heading out.

“They’re first years,” Kyoutani says. “They’re scared of everyone.”

Yahaba just rolls his eyes. “They’re scared of you, not everyone. And that actually makes sense. Being afraid of me doesn’t make sense.”

“Ah,” Kunimi says from the back of the group, tone flat. “That might be my fault.”

“What did you do?” Yahaba asks, sounding weary already.

“Not really anything. I overheard them talking about how scary Kyoutani is, so I told them about the time you threw him into a wall and yelled at them,” he says and shrugs. “Now I guess they think you’re scary.”

“Kunimi!” Yahaba says, horrified even as the others begin to giggle, just a bit. “I— That’s not completely—”

“I didn’t tell them anything that’s not true,” Kunimi says. “And now they’ll definitely listen to you.”

“He’s not wrong,” Watari says, holding up a hand to hide his grin.

Yahaba visibly eyes candidates for his outrage before settling on Kyoutani. “Shouldn’t you, I don’t know, be mad that they don’t think you’re the scariest or something?”

“Nope. I’m glad people are finally starting to see your true colors, captain,” Kyoutani says and grins wolfishly, deeply amused by the whole thing.

Kyoutani still goes to the old gym on Sunday and Mondays. The club doesn’t typically hold practice on either day, declaring them rest days, but Kyoutani thinks he might go insane if he doesn’t burn off some extra energy for that long.

It surprises him when Watari asks if he can join him one Sunday afternoon.

“I like working out,” Watari says by way of explanation. “And you seem to be really good at it, so…”

Kiyoshi almost drops over from shock when he sees Kyoutani bringing another kid with him, but he recovers and plays along as gamely as possible, trying not to seem too thrilled about it while shooting Kyoutani little happy looks every five seconds.

Luckily, Watari is genuinely focused on working out, which Kyoutani appreciates. In deference to the coaches' rules, they don’t do any actual volleyball, just cardio and some of the machines.

“This was nice,” Watari says. “It’s a good gym. Mind if I tag along again sometimes? I’ve been looking for a place with more arm-focused machines.”

“Sure,” Kyoutani says. “Is this some special libero training?”

Watari turns red with a startling immediacy. “No,” he says and twiddles his thumbs. Kyoutani didn’t know people actually twiddled their thumbs. “There’s this girl I like, actually, and, well, she likes guys with good arms…”

“You already have good arms,” Kyoutani says. He didn’t know Watari talked to girls.

“Thanks,” Watari says with a little laugh. “But, I dunno, I guess I wanted to just make sure they’re really good, you know? I’m gonna ask her to go to the zoo with me at the end of the month.”

“Oh,” Kyoutani says, a little confused. “You think she’ll say yes if you work out more?”

“No, no,” Watari says, smiling a little. “It’s more for my own confidence than anything else.”

“I guess,” Kyoutani says, still confused.

“It’s not rational,” Watari says. “Most stuff with crushes isn’t, unfortunately.”

“I’ve picked up on that,” Kyoutani says, thinking of Yahaba’s whole weird meltdown about Iwaizumi maybe thinking Oikawa had a crush on Yahaba. “I don’t really get it.”

“Have you ever had a crush?” Watari asks, tone mildly curious.

Kyoutani is about to say no, then pauses. “I dunno,” he says. “I don’t know what having a crush is like.” It feels weird to admit like that.

Watari rubs at the back of his head. “It’s hard to explain, really,” he says, thankfully not seeming fazed at all by Kyoutani admitting that he doesn’t know something like this. “For me, it’s like… When I’m near her, I’m really focused on what she’s thinking and feeling, all the time, and wondering what I can do to impress her. And I think about her a lot, when she isn’t around, and when she is around it’s hard to stop looking at her, because I just keep noticing new things about her.”

“Huh,” Kyoutani says, not sure if he really understands that at all.

“But different people have crushes differently,” Watari says and then makes an impressive face. “Yahaba, for instance, is incredibly embarrassing around all of his.”

“Yahaba has crushes?” Kyoutani asks immediately, alarmed. Multiple crushes?

“I mean, yeah?” Watari says. “I’m assuming that’s how he realized he was, you know, into guys to begin with.”

“I guess I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Kyoutani says, and deeply wishes he could go back to that time.

Watari frowns at him, posture changing slightly, rocking back a little. “You don’t have a problem with it, do you?” he asks.

“No!” Kyoutani says, too defensive. “I just— I can’t stand the idea of him acting even more embarrassing. He’s already embarrassing enough.”

“Yeah, around you,” Watari says and then his eyes go wide. “I mean— Do you want to know which girl I have a crush on?”

Kyoutani doesn’t know why this is suddenly so important, but he figures it would be impolite to say he doesn’t care. “Sure,” he says.

“Her name is Nakata Ai,” Watari says. “She’s on the girls volleyball team, she’s a middle blocker, she was a reserve last year but is hoping to get to play this year. She wear her hair in these cute little clips and her phone case has a cat charm on it and—”

“Oh, Nakata-san’s little sister,” Kyoutani says. Nakata has talked a few times of how proud she is of her, and has a bunch of pictures of the two of them in the back of the shelter. From what Kyoutani can remember, she’s a round-faced girl with bob-length brown hair. Sometimes she’s holding a fluffy black cat.

“You know her?” Watari says, absolutely shocked.

“I know of her,” Kyoutani says. “She seems, uh, cute.” She is, probably, he thinks. He’s not a great judge of such things, though.

“She is,” Watari says, a bit strangled. Then he realizes where Kyoutani has been leading them. “Are we going to the store Yahaba works at?”

“I always go here on Sundays,” Kyoutani says with a shrug. “You just followed me. But it’s good to eat after working out.”

“I see,” Watari says and they enter the grocery store, the automatic doors sliding shut behind them. “I see,” Watari says again in a different tone, as he catches sight of Yahaba hanging out behind the checkout counter.

“Watari, what are you doing here?” Yahaba asks, looking a little dismayed at the sight of his supposed best friend. He keeps darting suspicious looks between Kyoutani and Watari.

“He came to the gym with me,” Kyoutani says bluntly. “He’s trying to impress a girl.”

“Oh,” Yahaba says, not looking altogether pleased by this explanation.

“And what are you doing here?” Watari asks, seeming quite amused.

“I’m working, obviously,” Yahaba says.

“Yeah, he’s always lurking around here at this time,” Kyoutani says with a shrug. It seems like no matter when he leaves the gym, he always happens to run into Yahaba at the grocery store. Not that he’s complaining about it.

“Oh, is he?” Watari asks, lips trembling with some kind of private joke. “I thought you were thinking of quitting working part time to stay caught up with volleyball and school?”

“I’ve cut down my hours,” Yahaba says, sticking his nose in the air. “I only work here on Sundays and Mondays, when we have time off from practice. And my grades are fine. It’s nice to have some spending money, is all.”

“Right,” Watari says, drawing out the word a little.

“How was your weekend?” Kyoutani asks Yahaba, like he normally does. Usually Yahaba has something funny that he’ll start complaining about. If Kyoutani just makes a few random noises, Yahaba will just keep ranting, getting more and more worked up about stuff like people being rude about some band he likes online or why some moba game is actually trash. He gets all pink in the face about it while Kyoutani shops and it’s really very entertaining.

“Yeah, Yahaba, how was your weekend?” Watari repeats, still fighting a grin.

“It was… fine,” Yahaba says. He’s glaring, but it’s at Watari, not Kyoutani, and it’s just not the same.

Kyoutani is a little disappointed, but thankfully, the next Sunday, even though Watari comes to the gym with him, he begs off going to grab food after.

“I’d like to keep my head where it is, thanks,” he says cryptically. “You have fun, though. Tell Yahaba I said… you know what? Don’t tell him I said anything. I’ll see him tomorrow.”

Kyoutani’s not sure if he imagines it, but he thinks Yahaba looks a little relieved when he sees that Kyoutani came in alone that night.

“No Watari today?” he asks, faux casual.

“Nah,” Kyoutani says. “So, what’s crawled up your ass lately?”

“Okay, ew, but actually, a new episode of Last Cinderella came out and it seems like they are going to try to redeem Chiyoko — remember, I told you about Chiyoko, she’s the one trying to break up Sakura and Rintaro? — and I saw on the message boards someone saying that in the next episode—”

With the sounds of Yahaba complaining about some dumb romantic drama filling the grocery store, thing settle back to rights within Kyoutani.

It’s strange, he thinks, how he normally hates people chattering, but with Yahaba, it’s kind of nice. Maybe it’s just that Yahaba has a nice voice, as much as he regrets ever having told Yahaba that, smooth and clear when he’s not intentionally being an ass with it, but it’s not just that.

Kyoutani can’t put his finger on it, exactly, but something about Yahaba just feels like home.

Chapter Text

One of the biggest changes from rejoining the volleyball team in Kyoutani’s daily life, other than going to actual practices, is how he spends his lunch break. In previous years, he had found a quiet spot to eat by himself, using the extra time to study to make sure his grades stayed good. Now he eats with Yahaba and Watari and an occasionally rotating cast of other teammates, out in the open. He still studies, some of the time, especially when Yahaba and Watari are working on the administrative side of club business, but he gets drawn into their conversations regularly.

They’re sitting below the tree that Watari claims is the best to eat under one warm June day, Kyoutani is studying for a mathematics exam coming up. Yahaba is sorting through papers he’d had everyone in the club fill out that morning for the cultural festival. They’d all had to put down a potential talent they could be the champion of, the club planning to stick with the old favorite.

“It’s so weird having a cultural fair without me having to track you down and bully you into participating,” Yahaba comments, sorting another paper into a pile. He has three in front of him, which Kyoutani assumes are yes, no, and maybes.

“Yeah, you can be pretty fucking annoying when you put your mind to it,” Kyoutani says, unbothered. It’s certainly a different experience, filling out a form and learning all about the festival plans in the gym rather than from Yahaba accosting him against his will somewhere. Still, those memories have a strange fondness to them now, a nostalgia. Maybe he’s just going soft.

“Please, you’ll make me blush,” Yahaba says, flapping a hand, and then pulls a face at the paper in front of him. “Why do so many of our club members have such terrible handwriting? You’d think they have better coordination than this…”

Watari takes the paper from Yahaba and also frowns at it, confused. “I think this says… wait, no, that wouldn’t make any sense.”

“I didn’t know Kunimi can lick his own elbow,” Yahaba says, catching Kyoutani’s attention. Can people actually do that? “Although, I don’t think you can really make a competition out of— Kyoutani, stop that!”

Kyoutani, who had lifted an elbow up and was craning his neck at it fruitlessly, looks up to see Yahaba watching him with amused horror. “What? I just wanted to see if I could,” he says. Maybe Kunimi can teach him the secret.

“Worry about your own talent instead,” Yahaba says. “I’m not letting you sign up with arm wrestling just because Iwaizumi-san did it.”

That’s just unfair. “Why not?” he demands.

“Because you never managed to beat him,” Yahaba says with cruel dispassion. “It would just be a big let down for all our fans.”

“Are you trying to pick a fight with me? I’ll beat you at arm-wrestling right here, right now,” Kyoutani says and starts to roll up his sleeves. He could take Yahaba, no sweat.

“Keep your shirt on,” Yahaba says disdainfully, unimpressed with Kyoutani’s forearms. “I’m not going to arm wrestle you. I don’t arm wrestle. Pick another talent. Even you have to have at least one other thing you’re good at.”

“Tough talk from the guy who still has a blank sheet,” Kyoutani says, because he saw Yahaba grimace and hide his unfinished paper away earlier. “It’s too bad you can’t put down being an asshole.”

“Play nice, you two, or I’ll have to get the spray bottle,” Watari says, making Kyoutani remember he’s been sitting there the whole time, apparently still puzzling over the handwriting. “I think this says juggling, by the way.”

“That has potential,” Yahaba muses. “The juggling, not me being an asshole. I don’t know how I’d turn that into a competition.”

“And yet you two manage it every day,” Watari says and gets one of Yahaba’s sharp elbows to the gut for his troubles. “Hey!”

“You’re supposed to be on my side,” Yahaba says. Unlike Kyoutani, he has apparently built up a resistance to Watari’s puppy eyes of innocence.

“I don’t take sides,” Watari says, flashing those same puppy eyes. “I’m completely neutral at all times. Though you should probably pick another talent, Kyoutani. And you need to think of one, Yahaba. Our captain and ace need to participate in a unique way.”

“Ugh,” Kyoutani says, annoyed. He thought arm wrestling would have been perfect. “Am I allowed to do something physical, at least?”

“Don’t worry, Kyoutani, none of us are holding our breath waiting for you to come up with any other type of talent,” Yahaba says, tilting his head at Kyoutani in the way he always does when he thinks he’s being ever so clever.

“I’m going to fucking hit you,” Kyoutani says, unimpressed. “On the day you stop being captain and can’t kick me out of the club, I’m just gonna walk up to you and hit you.”

Yahaba doesn’t have the decency to look even a little intimidated. “I’m terrified,” he says, only the corner of his lips quivering out of the polite mask into the smallest of smiles. “Have you ever even been in an actual fight or are you all talk and no action?”
In fact, the closest experience Kyoutani has ever had to actual fights have been with Yahaba, but saying that seems ill-advised if he wants to win this little argument, so Kyoutani is slightly relieved when Watari waves a hand in between them.

“I wasn’t kidding about the spray bottle,” Watari says. “Kyoutani, how about you compete with people to see how many push ups you can do in a minute? I’ve seen people do that on TV.”

“Yeah,” Kyoutani says, thinking of warm ups with the rest of the team and comparing himself to them. “I can win at that.”

“Excellent! And you,” Watari says, turning to Yahaba. “Come up with something, okay? The festival needs to go well, Ai has put a lot of work into it.”

Yahaba looks confused for a moment, and then a terrible expression of glee crosses his face. “Ai? You call Nakata-san Ai now?”

Watari turns red, like he’s been caught doing something indecent. “She said that I could,” he says, unable to keep the pride from his voice.

“That’s adorable,” Yahaba says and mimes wiping a tear from his eye. “I can’t believe it, my little Watari is growing up and calling girls by their given names already. I remember when you couldn’t even look at a girl, let alone talk to one.”

Kyoutani wonders if this is because they are dating now. Do people who are dating always call each other by their first names? He tries to imagine someone calling him Kentarou, but it feels strange, since he doesn’t have a good voice to put it in. Then he tries to imagine someone calling Yahaba by Shigeru and that feels even stranger. He hopes Yahaba doesn’t start to date anyone any time soon, if that’s what they’d be calling him.

The funny thing is that, actually, Kyoutani does less to prepare for this festival than any other. As one of the starters, he’s exempted from the set up and decorations, so long as he helps on the actual day. The underclassmen and a few of the third years that will never be regulars do all the work, making it the first year that Kyoutani doesn’t hang up the posters.

Just as well, he thinks when he sees them. He can’t imagine hanging up posters that feature his and Yahaba’s faces so prominently on them. At least the largest picture is of some chick from the girl’s team who is supposedly a heartthrob and, according to the poster, the Queen of Sudoku. Still, Yahaba and Kyoutani are the second-largest, with a close up of Yahaba smiling at the camera and an action shot from last year’s spring high of Kyoutani jumping for a spike.

“Get used to it,” Kunimi says when he overhears Kyoutani grousing about it during practice. “You’re the ace, remember? Just wait until the festival is done and they start putting up the posters for Interhigh’s cheer section. You’ll be all over them.”

“Exactly,” Yahaba says. “Though it’d help if you could smile for once in your life, or at least stop making such scary faces while you’re playing.”

“You’re one to talk, captain,” Kunimi says. “Why do you think they used a photo of you not on the court?”

“Quiet, you,” Yahaba says. “You know we’d be using pictures of you if the good shots hadn’t gotten mysteriously erased.”

“Some mysteries may never be solved,” Kunimi says, and speed walks to the other side of the gym.

The festival is different from anything Kyoutani could have expected. They all arrive early to find the underclassman putting the last touches on the club room. It’s been scrubbed top to bottom, free of teen boy-stink, and decorated with streamers and whiteboards to record wins and losses.

Kyoutani is set up toward the middle of the room, where there’ll be space for him and a challenger to do push ups. Next to him on one side is Sudoku girl, Amane, who Kyoutani has heard through the grapevine has god-like receives and therefore has become substantially more interesting to him. On his other side is Kunimi, who Yahaba has moved from elbow-licking to speed chess based on some insider information from a guilty Kindaichi.

Yahaba himself is to the side of the room, in Kyoutani’s sightline when he’s actually competing, with Watari next to him. Yahaba is doing mental arithmetic with Kindaichi manning the calculator as referee, and Watari is playing rounds of some fighting game.

Nakata Ai, Watari’s maybe-girlfriend-but-they-aren’t-totally-labelling-it-yet-Yahaba-leave-it-alone is the ref for Kyoutani’s challenges. She smiles at him when she gets in, hair pushed back into two ladybug clips.

“Nice to meet you,” she says. “It’s funny, I feel like I already know you from Mina-neesan and Shinji-kun.”

It takes Kyoutani a moment to translate Shinji-kun to Watari. “Oh,” he says, awkward. “Well, same, I guess. Watari never shuts up about you.”

“He better not,” she says with a grin. “So, are you ready to kick some ass in the name of volleyball player’s pride? Crush some dreams?”

So, ultimately, Kyoutani likes Nakata.

There’s a break rotation for the champions. Watari and Nakata sign up to take their breaks together, obviously, which leaves Kyoutani and Yahaba to grab a spot together as well. Kyoutani isn’t really sure what to do on these breaks. He definitely appreciates them — he gets enough challengers that he would start to get pretty tired if he didn’t get some time off — but he’s not sure what he’s meant to be filling his time with at the fair. Going to other clubs because he’s suddenly an ambassador for his? Hiding out? Falling asleep?

Easier than trying any of those out is just sticking to Yahaba, who has two years of experience under his belt. In the morning they hang fairly close to their own clubroom, just going to the bathroom or to grab snacks, but they get a longer break in the afternoon.

“It’s our chance to enjoy the festival for ourselves,” Yahaba says. “Is there anywhere that you want to make sure to see?”

Kyoutani just shrugs. “I don’t really know what’s around,” he explains. “I didn’t spend time hanging out at the other ones.”

“You just came for Iwaizumi-san? That’s adorable,” Yahaba coos. “I’m sure he’d be flattered to know how much you admire him.”

“Shut up,” Kyoutani says. “"I know you call Oikawa all the time. You say stuff sometimes that's obviously something he said. It’s a different kind of annoying than the stuff you come up with on your own."

Yahaba turns pink. “Let’s go check out some of the games,” he says, changing the subject. “You’re a competitive freak, you’ll love them.”

If Kyoutani’s a competitive freak, than Yahaba must be just as bad, because he accepts every challenge Kyoutani gives him at every game station they stop at and is the first one to admit to keeping score between the games. Kyoutani grabs an early lead by focusing on the shooting games, but Yahaba snatches victories back at the water-scooping games. They end up spending the most time at a ring toss booth they find, since they’re about evenly matched there, and end up aiming for best twelve out of twenty-three when the exasperated literature club members ask them to leave.

“We were tied, too,” Yahaba says, pouting as they walk away. “I really wanted to see your angry face when I beat you.”

The absolute slander. “As if,” Kyoutani snorts. “I would have won.”

“Now the world may never know,” Yahaba says with a dramatic sigh.

“We can play another shooting game to settle it,” Kyoutani offers.

“Nice try, but no. Anyway, I’m hungry, let’s go find something to eat.”

“Chicken,” Kyoutani says, both a preference and a descriptor, and Yahaba makes a face but points them in the direction of the food stalls anyway.

The basketball clubs are running the fried chicken booth, giving out chicken in little cardboard holders that are printed with a basketball in Aobajousai colors. The kids working there are all chatting about news of some big scout coming all the way from Tokyo for the next tournament to find new talent, and whether some girl is going to accept an offer from Miyagi or hold out for a better university offer.

“Must be nice being able to trust in getting into university like that,” Yahaba says as they sit down, spreading a paper napkin over his lap.

“You’re smart enough to get into any of the schools around here,” Kyoutani says with surety. He’s spent a lot of time looking up university acceptance requirements, and he knows Yahaba’s grades from their lunches. “Weren’t you planning to stay in Miyagi?”

“I…” Yahaba looks down, a lot more unsure looking than the last time they’d talked about future plans. That had been over a year ago, Kyoutani realizes, when they’d been trapped in that grocery store together. “I don’t really know what I’m going to do. That’s what my parents expect me to do, anyway.”

“Screw them,” Kyoutani says immediately. “My dad wants me to stay and do construction like him, but I’m not gonna. It’s my life, the way I figure it, so as long as I find a way to make it work, it’s none of his business.”

“What do you want to do, then?” Yahaba asks.

“I want to be a vet,” Kyoutani says. “My mom was one before she— well, she was one, is the point. So I want to go to veterinary school.” He hasn’t talked to his mom since his last visit and doesn’t foresee that changing any time soon. But there’s still something that he likes about feeling connected to her through caring for animals, even if it’s not with the actual her. It might not make a lot of sense, he knows, but Kyoutani isn’t too worried about his feelings not making sense.

“That’s impressive,” Yahaba says, clearly choosing his words carefully. “I figured you’d say pro volleyball player or something.”

“Eh. That’d be fun, but it’s hardly forever, you know? And I love working with animals,” he says. “My dad says I’m too stupid to get in, but he doesn’t know how good my grades have been these last few years. I mean, that's why I chose to come here over the other schools that invited me, because the school has such a good reputation academically, so I have a chance." He smiles. His grades have been very good recently, even with the added workload of practice. Irihata had even commended him on it privately.

Yahaba looks at him for a moment, an unreadable expression lingering on his face. It doesn’t seem to be judgemental, at least, and Kyoutani is pretty good at spotting judgement.

“Well?” Kyoutani pushes when Yahaba just stays silent. “I told you my embarrassing dream. Tell me yours.”

Yahaba swallows and studies his cardboard box, folding it flat and then opening it back up again. “My parents want me to be a programmer,” he says. “That’s what they do, and if I stay in Miyagi, um, I don’t know if I’d be able to have the self-confidence to stand up against them.”

It never ceases to confuse and enrage Kyoutani how Yahaba will sometimes lose all his backbone and let people walk all over him. It’s like there’s an entirely different person that takes him over, when Kyoutani isn’t around, and it’s not a person Kyoutani respects. “But if you did?” he says.

“Well, I’ve been thinking about how much the volleyball club has meant to me. In so many different ways,” Yahaba says and rubs the back of his head self-consciously, a gesture he must have picked up from Watari. “And I’d kind of like to give back to it, if I could. So I was thinking of becoming a teacher, of mathematics maybe, since I’ve always been good at that, and then become a club advisor.

“Huh,” Kyoutani says, imagining it for a moment. An older Yahaba surrounded by teens, teaching them volleyball and still trying to send them to nationals. “Sounds like you’d enjoy it. You should go for it.”

“It’s not that easy. I told you, if I stay in Miyagi I probably will end up doing whatever my parents want me to, and I don’t have the money to go somewhere else, even if I did get in,” Yahaba says glumly. “So really the only way I could do it would be if…”

“If you got a sports scholarship?” Kyoutani finishes for him.

“Yeah,” Yahaba says, and does a half-hearted shrug as if he’s pretending he doesn’t care that much even though he obviously does.

Sounds doable to Kyoutani. “If we make it to Nationals, you’ll definitely get one. Being the captain and setter and all. And you still might even if we don’t, if we play well.” Oikawa and Iwaizumi both did, after all, and he’s sure a few others from the top eight teams did, too. He notices Yahaba is staring at him, mouth parted slightly. “What’s that look for?”

“Nothing,” Yahaba says and looks down, lips twitching up at the corners. “If you want help studying… I’m pretty good at it.”

Kyoutani blinks at Yahaba, surprised. Even after telling him, he didn’t think Yahaba would take Kyoutani’s dreams so seriously. “Thanks,” he says. “That’s nice of you.”

“You don’t have to sound so shocked,” Yahaba says, dusting off his hands. “C’mon, our shift starts in less than ten minutes.”

They work through the rest of the afternoon. The trail of people coming in wanes some, but there’s still enough to keep everyone fairly busy. Kyoutani has a few chances to chat with the other club members and even talk to the girls about some of their volleyball tricks. Kyoutani has played with enough women at the gyms he goes to that he’s not overly fussed about guys vs girls playing volleyball, which they seem to appreciate despite his general demeanor.

Near closing time, the older Nakata stops by to see her sister.

“You all look so cute in your little school uniforms,” she enthuses, making her younger sister roll her eyes.

“You were wearing the same one a few years ago, so knock it off,” she says, annoyed in the way only a younger sibling can be. “Are you going to pay or not?”

“I want to challenge, ah, Watari-kun, is it?” Nakata says sweetly, looking at Watari with bright eyes. Watari visibly swallows and nods.

“Kick her ass, Shinji-kun!” the younger Nakata cheers.

“The family test,” Yahaba says under his breath as they watch the two play. “A grand tradition, I suppose. Watari says her and Ai are really close, so her approval would mean a lot.”

“Huh,” Kyoutani says. “I don’t think I’d really care what anyone I’m related to would think of someone I dated.”

“No?” Yahaba says, glancing at him sidelong. “I guess I should scold you in the name of filial devotion or whatever, but I’m the same way. Besides, it’ll be a long time before I’d introduce anyone I’m with to my parents. They’d don’t even know— well, they don’t need to know, not yet. Maybe when I leave home.”

Kyoutani nods. “My dad just thinks all relationships are doomed to fail, anyway. He’s a fucking pessimist.”

“Whereas you’re surprisingly optimistic,” Yahaba says, and he doesn’t seem to be teasing. “Who would have thought it?”

“I’m not an optimist,” Kyoutani says, rolling his eyes. “I don’t bother with any of that dumb shit. If you want something to happen, work toward it happening, and it either will or it won’t. There’s no use getting worked up about it ahead of time.”

“Philosophy of a Mad Dog,” Yahaba says. “Truly inspiring.”

Kyoutani snorts and kicks him lightly. “Shut the fuck up, Captain Anxiety. You’d be better off following my way of doing things instead of second guessing yourself all the time.”

“Is this your way of saying I’m capable and awesome? Why, Kyoutani, I’m flattered,” Yahaba says, fluttering his eyelashes while kicking Kyoutani back, not as lightly.

“2-1, game goes to Watari!” Nakata Ai announces. “Put it on the board.”

“Well done,” the older Nakata says and glances over at Kyoutani and Yahaba. “What are you two champions of, anyway?”

Watari says something too quietly for Kyoutani to catch, but which makes both of the sisters laugh.

“Mental arithmetic for me,” Yahaba says. “And Kyoutani here is who can do the most push ups in 60 seconds.”

“Ugh, no thank you to both of those,” Nakata says. “Sorry, Kyoutani, I want to support your club, but I own a calculator for a reason and I did not inherit the enjoys-physical-activity-gene like Ai did.” She waves a quick goodbye and heads out, reminding Kyoutani about the surgery the vet has set up on Sunday that he’s invited to watch.

Someone comes in then to challenge Yahaba, pulling him away from their conversation. Kindaichi is on break, so Watari takes over giving them the numbers and checking the answers.

The younger Nakata comes back over to Kyoutani, sitting on the desk next to him. “That went well,” she says. “Shinji-kun is always good at making a first impression, even if he is kind of a dork.”

“Are you allowed to call your own boyfriend a dork?” Kyoutani says, and then remembers that Watari said they aren’t using those terms. “Er, I mean, your own…”

“It’s encouraged, actually,” Nakata says. “If I don’t, who will? And don’t worry about it. I just wanted to make sure Mina-neesan liked him, but I’ll probably ask him to make it official this Sunday. I made him a box of chocolates and everything. They won ‘t even poison him, probably.”

“Oh,” Kyoutani says, taken aback by how matter of fact she is. He shouldn’t really be surprised, given how her sister is, but it still feels weird considering they’ve never technically met before. “Well, congrats.”

“Mm, thanks,” she says. “So, when are you and Yahaba going to get your act together?”

“What?” Kyoutani says. He can’t follow the sudden topic shift, especially since it’s not like him and Yahaba have even been fighting today. The kicking, he guesses, but even that was lowkey. There won’t even be bruises.

“When are you going to ask him out? I think you’ll have to do it, from what Watari says. He’ll be too scared to do it.” She shrugs. “Make sense, given his past.”

Kyoutani is going to need her to take about ten steps back in this conversational path. “You… you think Yahaba and I… what?”

She stares at him. “Come on, you two have been flirting literally all day, and Watari says this is toned down because there’s so many people around.”

“Flirting?” Kyoutani repeats, utterly shocked. He’s been flirting? When? How?

“Yeah?” Nakata says. “You have to know you’ve been doing it. It’s literally so obvious.”

“It— it is not,” Kyoutani sputters. “I’m not— we are not — I’m not Yahaba’s type.”

“Right,” Nakata says, drawing out the word for so long it becomes an entire sentence. “Look, if you’re not into him, that’s your business, I guess, though you might want to tone it down a little, but you seriously can’t claim he’s not into you.”

“What the fuck? Why would you even think that?” If there’s one thing that Kyoutani can be sure of, it’s that there’s no way Yahaba is interested in him. It just… it doesn’t make any sense. It does not compute.

“Because I have eyes,” Nakata says, unimpressed by Kyoutani’s mental crisis. “Look, you don’t have to believe me, but I’m telling you. That boy?” She nods at Yahaba, who is still talking to the kid he just beat, apparently giving him pointers. “He’s so into you that it’s embarrassing for both of you. If you don’t think so, just pay attention to how many times he comes up with some inane reason to touch you. Yahaba-san has, like, the iron version of a personal bubble, but he’s all over you. Like I said, embarrassing.”

“Kyoutani, are you okay?” Yahaba has turned back to them and is frowning.

“Bathroom break,” Kyoutani says, and bolts.

He pulls it together for the rest of the day, mainly through the tried and true strategy of doing his best to ignore Yahaba entirely and throwing himself into the activity in front of him. Since there’s an end of day rush, this works well enough, as he gets a fair amount of challengers.

Cleaning up, however, proves a different story, especially as Yahaba won’t stop talking to him.

"I hope we made enough that the coaches treat us to a nice meal at the end of training camp again," Yahaba says as they put the boxes away. He’s been stifling yawns here and there through the whole clean up process, and when Kyoutani turns to look, he’s arched his back into a long stretch of his arms that makes his shirt ride up. “What?” he asks, catching Kyoutani staring.

“Nothing,” Kyoutani says hurriedly, glaring down at the box of decorations that he has just put away. “Can we go home now?”

"You can't!" Nakata exclaims, clearly having been listening in to their whole conversation. "The rocketry club is going to do a fireworks show. You two should come with us!" She smiles, all innocence, and Kyoutani decides he is more than a bit scared of her.

"A fireworks show?" Yahaba says doubtfully. "Is that really safe?"

"I'm sure it's fine, if they got approved," Watari says with a shrug. "And it'll be really cool. You two should definitely stay to watch it, it'll only be another hour."

Kyoutani is about to say he needs to get home, but Yahaba catches his eye and shrugs, a small smile flickering around the corners of his mouth. “It could be interesting,” Yahaba says. “You don’t get a lot of chances to see a school burn down, I guess.”

Well, Kyoutani can’t leave now. "Are the food stalls still open?" he asks. "I'll stay if they are."

They are, obviously, and the four of them get to sample a fair amount of the different festival foods before picking out a spot on a hill far enough away that Yahaba deems it safe for them to watch from. Watari pulls two towels out of his duffel bag and they spread them out to sit on. Watari and Nakata are tucked up all cozy on theirs, and the towels are small enough that Kyoutani can’t help but bang his knee into Yahaba’s thigh a few times as they get settled in.

“It should be starting soon,” Yahaba says, voice pitched quiet enough that it’s clear he’s only talking to Kyoutani.

“Good,” Kyoutani says, matching Yahaba’s volume as best he can. “I want to get home in time to have a bath before I go to sleep. My arms ache.” Also, he has far too many thoughts swirling in his head, thoughts that make it hard to meet Yahaba’s gaze, but that’s his own business.

“I’m not surprised,” Yahaba says with a smile. “You must have done thousands of push-ups today. You shouldn’t have done so many against the people you were already obviously beating.”

"If you don't try your hardest, it's disrespecting your opponents. Iwaizumi-san told me that," Kyoutani adds before Yahaba can make fun of him for the sentiment.

"Did Iwaizumi-san also tell you that spikers are useless if their arms are too sore to hit the ball right?” Yahaba asks,seemingly unimpressed by Kyoutani’s deflection tactic. “Here, let me.” Before Kyoutani is sure what he’s getting at, Yahaba has pushed his hands to the side and replaced them with his own, longer fingers digging into the muscles. It sends a shiver up Kyoutani’s spine, even though all the points where Yahaba is touching him seem to burn with extra heat.

“I’d never be useless,” Kyoutani says, but his eyes are closing and he leans into the contact, unable to help himself. Usually he doesn’t like being touched without warning, but this is— this is nice. “You’re good at this,” he says, voice coming out strange in the taut night air.

“Oh?” Yahaba says, and switches arms. It’s hard to tell if he is affected at all, especially with his eyes closed, but Kyoutani is too scared to open them. “Well, that’s good, I guess. I need my ace in working condition.”

“Calling me your ace makes it sound weird,” Kyoutani complains, but it feels like it’s coming from miles away. He’s thinking about what Nakata said, about Yahaba finding excuses to touch him. Does Yahaba touch him more than he touches other people? He can’t think of any time that Yahaba has rubbed Watari’s arms, or Kunimi’s. Can’t imagine him scooting up so close to Kindaichi. Does that actually mean something?

“But you are, aren’t you?” Yahaba says, pulling Kyoutani’s focus back to the moment. “I’m the captain and the setter, so that makes you my ace.”

“Weird. You’re a weird guy,” Kyoutani says, but what’s really weird is his own reaction to it. It is a weird thing to say, the kind of whack shit Oikawa used to spout off, but it isn’t actually freaking him out at all. It’s kind of nice, actually.

He opens his eyes and Yahaba is right there, much closer than he expected. There’s barely a breath of space between them. Less than that, because Kyoutani realizes he can feel Yahaba’s exhales against his skin, can track how they speed up. Yahaba’s eyes are full of reflected lights from the festival, turning them deeper and darker than normal.

“Um,” Yahaba says, more a sound than a word, really, seemingly just as frozen in place as Kyoutani is. He bites his lip and Kyoutani is helpless against the instinct to stare at his mouth, at the pink of his lips.

“Look, it’s starting!” Watari exclaims and the moment is broken with an audible crack as the first fireworks explode in the air above them, blue and green lights dizzying in their brightness. Kyoutani startles back and Yahaba does, too, face shuttering.

Yahaba doesn’t look at him for the rest of the firework show, eyes fixed on the sky and face perfectly blank except for the colors reflecting off his cheeks. He’s entirely still, except for the slight movements of his breathing, and Kyoutani feels a well-worn sense of dread fill his stomach.

“That was so cool,” Nakata says when the finale is over, eyes bright. “I can’t believe students put that together.”

“Yeah,” Yahaba says, sounding all wrong, choked off. “I need to catch my train,” he says, and is up in a flash, disappearing into the remains of the festival crowd.

“Is he okay?” Watari asks, watching him go. “Kyoutani, did he—”

“I have to go,” Kyoutani says, needing to be gone before Watari can finish whatever question he is about to ask. Not wanting to answer it. “I need to feed my dog.”

As he walks home, Kyoutani replays those moments right before the fireworks again and again in his mind, trying to come up with a different explanation, a different interpretation, but there’s only one.

He’s never been good at reading moments or expressions, at knowing what people are feeling or thinking. But he’s pretty sure about two things.

One, is that if they hadn’t been interrupted, Kyoutani is pretty sure he would have tried to kiss Yahaba.

Two, is that right before Yahaba gained control of his expression and went blank the way he always does, there was a second where there was an emotion writ large across his face, one so clear that even Kyoutani could read it.

It was horror.

Kyoutani doesn’t see Yahaba at all on Monday. There’s no practice, for one thing, but Yahaba doesn’t even join him and Watari for lunch, and isn’t anywhere to be seen after school by the gates. He’s not out sick — Watari says he’s not, at least, and Kyoutani thinks Watari would know — but he’s pulled a disappearing act.

Kyoutani thinks about going to the grocery store, where he knows Yahaba takes an evening shift every Monday, but he can’t make himself go through with it. It’s not that he’s running from a confrontation, exactly, he’s just—

He doesn’t know what he would even say. That he’s sorry for almost kissing him? That he didn’t realize that Yahaba would find the idea just so terrible? That Nakata had put some weird ideas into his head and gotten him all mixed up to the point that he had thought that someone like Yahaba would be interested in kissing somebody like him?

That all sounds just horrible, even thinking about saying it outloud to Yahaba’s blank, judgemental face makes Kyoutani feel like dying.

He decides to wait. Yahaba can’t avoid him forever, after all, they’re on the team together and Yahaba takes nothing more seriously than the team. He’ll just follow Yahaba’s cues then, back off and stay backed off. It’ll be fine.

On Tuesday, Kyoutani makes it to practice early. Watari is there first, it being his turn to unlock the gym, but Kyoutani helps him and the first years set up. He does his best to look busy and not like he’s peering over his shoulder every time the door opens, but he thinks it's probably a lost cause.

Yahaba usually comes in early, too, even when it isn’t his turn to unlock everything. He’s an overachiever that way, thriving on responsibility, and Kyoutani has heard Watari complain that half the time he gets there to unlock to find Yahaba has already done so and is practicing his serves.

That’s why it’s so surprising that the coaches arrive and practice begins before Yahaba actually shows up, cheeks flushed and hairs out of place from running to the gym.

“I’m so sorry,” he says to the coaches, bowing multiple times. “I missed my train this morning, I deeply apologize for being late.”

Irihata frowns, but stops Mizoguchi from yelling. “Don’t let it happen again,” he says. “Why don’t you select the drills and get warmed up?”

Yahaba and Kyoutani usually work together in the mornings, but Yahaba sends Kyoutani off to work with Watari, not meeting their eyes. He puts himself with the first year setter, who is still hideously shy, and goes as far as placing them on complete opposite sides of the gym.

“What’s wrong with our dear leader?” Kunimi asks, sidling up to Watari and Kyoutani as they clean up. “Last time I saw him this flustered— Actually, I don’t know if I have.”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Watari says, but he looks awfully worried, and he keeps darting looks at Kyoutani.

“Uh-huh,” Kunimi says, deadpan. “He seems fine. If he finally snaps and kills someone, can we at least point him at Karasuno?”

The conversation pivots to Karasuno and their fancy setter then, which normally would be something Kyoutani would be invested in, but now his mind is snagged on Yahaba’s behavior.

It’s clear that Kyoutani messed up, it had been clear since it happened. Yahaba was pissed at him, or grossed out, or whatever the fuck, and that was fair enough, but now it was spilling out so bad that the whole team had noticed Yahaba’s weird behavior.

Honestly, if Yahaba had just rejected him or punched him or yelled at him, actually confronted him, then Kyoutani could deal with it, but this squirrely behavior was the worst. There was nothing he could do about it, and it was going to get them all in trouble if they didn’t squash it right now.

He slips out of class a little early so he can wait by Yahaba’s classroom door. Yahaba’s head is ducked when he comes through the doorway, his shoulder slumping just slightly, and it’s wrong enough to make Kyoutani furious. He grabs Yahaba’s elbow and tows him around a corner in the opposite direction of the stream of students.

“Let go!” Yahaba snaps once he recovers from his surprise at being grabbed. “What’s your problem?”

“What’s your problem?” Kyoutani asks, letting Yahaba go and stepping back to give him some space, though he keeps himself between Yahaba and the exit. “Stop avoiding me!”

Yahaba has the audacity to look surprised. “I’m not avoiding you,” he says, eyes wide, and then he purses his lips a little.

Kyoutani is not going to play that game. “Don’t fucking avoid me,” he says again. “You’re the one who gave me the fucking speech on teamwork so just, whatever it is, just forget it and stop avoiding me, okay?” He doesn’t want to say it out loud, not all of it, but he figures that’s clear enough. He’ll back off and push those ideas out of his mind, but he needs Yahaba to go back to normal.

Yahaba raises his hands. “Okay, okay,” he says.

“Good,” Kyoutani says and turns away, heading out to the usual lunch spot.

To his relief, Yahaba follows him.

Lunch is strange. Watari keeps staring between them, frowning at Yahaba like he’s trying to solve a puzzle, and Kyoutani is desperately worried that he’s going to push it and Yahaba will run off again. To try to stop that from happening, Kyoutani ends up carrying more of the conversation than usual, which he isn’t all that comfortable with.

Things are a little easier at afternoon practice, and remain that way into the next few days, but they don’t go back to normal. Yahaba isn’t avoiding Kyoutani anymore, so he can’t say anything else, but he’s still being weird. He’s focused during practice, at least, still calling orders and throwing himself into drills, but he’s a total space case outside of the gym. He’s distracted, staring at nothing and taking longer to respond. Kyoutani is trying not to look at him too much, because it’s making him feel weird in a bad way, but he can tell Yahaba seems… tired.

On Friday, something finally changes. Yahaba is nearly late for practice again, though he squeaks in under the wire, and during lunch he’s extra out of it.

That afternoon, he calls Watari and Kyoutani over during a break in the drills.

“Hey,” he says. “Can I ask you guys for a favor?”

“Of course,” Watari says, looking concerned. “Is everything okay?”

“I’ve been having a volleyball-related problem,” Yahaba says. “Nothing serious, or anything, but I could use both of your help with it.”

“What’s wrong?” Kyoutani says, frowning. He can’t think of any problem he’s seen Yahaba showing in practice lately. His serves are getting better, his sets are fine, and his receives are better than Kyoutani’s are, probably. Not that he’d ever tell him that.

“It’ll be easier to show you,” Yahaba says, managing to look both mysterious and pleading at once, which is a feat. “Would you two mind meeting with me here on Sunday to work on it? It’ll be worth it, I promise.”

“Both of us?” Watari asks, looking even more confused.

“Yes,” Yahaba says. “It shouldn’t take too long, I hope, and I’ll treat you both to lunch or something.”

“Sure,” Kyoutani says, shrugging. If it’s for volleyball, he’ll do whatever, and frankly he’s just glad that Yahaba wants to spend time with him outside of lunch and practice after being so weird before.

“Whatever you need,” Watari says, dubious.

“Thank you so much,” Yahaba says, and he does look genuinely relieved. “I’ll send you the details tomorrow, okay? Or maybe Sunday morning.”

Saturday they have a practice match, which they win quickly, and Kyoutani thinks about offering to see if they can all just stay behind then instead for whatever Yahaba’s issue is. The idea is squashed when Yahaba gets a text, makes a face, gets a series of other texts and makes some more faces, and then asks the coaches if he can leave from the other school since it's closer to his place and will save him a train trip. They agree, of course, and Yahaba slips off, promising he’ll run the breakdown of the whole match with the team on Tuesday.

“That’s weird, right?” Kyoutani asks Watari on the ride home. “I mean, I get that it’s more convenient for him or whatever, but it’s weird, right?”

“It’s definitely unusual for him,” Watari says. “I know he said he’s having problems with a volleyball thing, but… well, has he mentioned anything else to you?”

Kyoutani snorts. “Obviously not,” he says. “Yahaba’s not about to start confiding shit in me over you anytime soon. Or, like, at all.”

Watari tilts his head slightly, watching Kyoutani gravely. “You might be surprised,” he says. “Yahaba really cares about your opinions, you know.”

Now that’s laughable. “Are you fucking kidding? Yahaba tolerates me because of volleyball and that’s it,” Kyoutani says, and is surprised at how bitter his voice sounds. He almost sounds like his dad. “He’s made that perfectly clear.”

Watari purses his lips. “Okay,” he says, slowly, then nods decisively. “You and I need to talk. Come back with me to my place tonight, my parents won’t mind having an extra for dinner. They always make too much, anyway.”

“Uh,” Kyoutani says, confused and alarmed. “Why should I—”

“Because it’s about Yahaba,” Watari says. “I usually try not to interfere, but, well. There’s limits to everything. If you’re still under the impression that Yahaba hates you then we need to talk. You can think about it as being for team unity or whatever, if it helps you stomach it.”

Watari had actually had him on the hook from it’s about Yahaba, but Kyoutani figures he doesn’t need to say that. “Fine,” he says, trying to sound disaffected about the whole thing. It’s a weak attempt at best.

Watari is quiet on the way to his house, a nice place not too far away from Seijou itself. He calls out a hello as they enter and introduces Kyoutani to his parents and two sisters while Kyoutani stands by awkwardly. He’s never gone to someone else’s house before, he realizes, except for his mother and Fugunaga’s place. This home is nothing like that one or the one he shares with his father.

Watari’s parents are both in the kitchen, unloading groceries together and laughing over something on the radio. His two sisters are sprawled out in the living room, the older one helping the younger one with math homework.

“This is Kyoutani,” Watari says, smiling. “He’s one of my teammates, is it okay if he stays for dinner?”

“S-sorry to intrude,” Kyoutani says awkwardly, the polite words fumbling on his tongue.

“Of course, more the merrier,” Watari’s mom says, beaming. She’s pudgy and sweet-faced, smile wrinkles just beginning to form around her eyes. “It’s good to meet you, Kyoutani-kun! Are you a third year, too?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kyoutani says.

“Will the lovely Ai-chan be joining us for dinner, too?” Watari’s dad asks, tone teasing. “I had more questions I wanted to ask her.”

“No!” Watari says, turning bright red in less than a second. “We’re going to my room now, goodbye!” He grabs Kyoutani’s arm and drags him up the stairs.

“Tell her she’s welcome anytime!” Watari’s mom calls after them and the family erupts in giggles as they leave.

“Sorry about them,” Watari says, kicking his door closed. “My parents are, ugh, embarrassing. I told them that we’re dating and they are just being insufferable about it. They’re the worst.”

Watari’s parents don’t seem like the worst to Kyoutani, but he decides not to say that. He doesn’t want to tell Watari that he’s wrong about his own family, after all. Still, they seemed pretty nice to him.

“So, uh,” Kyoutani says, and runs out of words. He lets his eyes wander around the room so he doesn’t have to look at Watari, but he isn’t really taking in much of what he sees other than the basics like bed, books, training weights.

“Sit,” Watari says, pointing at the floor. He sits down next to him, crossed-legged and very serious. “Okay. Like I said, normally I try not to interfere too much, but sometimes I have to make exceptions for Yahaba being, well, Yahaba, and apparently this is one of those times.”

“I don’t really know what you’re talking about,” Kyoutani says, which is the simple truth.

“You seem to think Yahaba is, like, good at social interactions and knows what he’s doing and makes smart choices for himself. I don’t know how he managed to con you into thinking that for this long, but it is simply not true. Yahaba is my best friend in the entire universe, but he is a world class idiot when it comes to dealing with his own emotions,” Watari says. “So, with that in mind, why don’t you tell me why it is you think Yahaba dislikes you and I’ll tell you why that is absolutely not the case.”

Kyoutani stares at Watari for several moments, flabbergasted. He’s never heard Watari say anything so negative about someone ever, let alone about Yahaba, and the idea of Yahaba being somehow an idiot about emotions is just— Yahaba is one of the most in control of his emotions people that Kyoutani has ever met.

Except for the times he lost his temper at Kyoutani, actually, now that he thinks of that, but surely that’s— different.

Watari taps the ground in front of Kyoutani to pull him out of his thoughts. “You two were getting along fine at the festival. Did something happen after that?”

Kyoutani realizes that if he wants to understand anything, he’s going to have to explain some things to Watari that are, well, deeply embarrassing to say out loud. “Uh,” he says. “Not… not after the festival. Kind of… during it.”

Watari raises his eyebrows and stays quiet, which is a mean trick to make Kyoutani keep talking and, unfortunately, works.

“It had just… Nakata-san— uh, the younger one, your Nakata-san, she had said some stuff to me earlier that had made me think maybe that— Well. During the fireworks show, I thought that maybe…” Kyoutani coughs. It’s not like he’s ever felt particularly confident in his speech, always being better at doing things than yattering on about them, but he’s never felt quite so strongly that the words he was grasping for are disappearing while he’s in the midst of trying to catch them.

Watari just sits there, patient and inevitable.

“I thought maybe… I thought maybe we were going to kiss,” Kyoutani says, looking down at his own hands, blinking down at his own calluses unseeingly.

“Ah,” Watari says, and there is a hitch of surprise in his tone. “And then?”

Kyoutani can still picture Yahaba’s horrified face. “Well, we didn’t, obviously,” Kyoutani says. “And then... Yahaba made some excuse to leave right away, and he’s been avoiding me ever since, and acting all weird, and he’s just— I dunno. It probably made him upset.”

“Probably,” Watari agrees, which makes Kyoutani flinch. “Not for the reason you think, though. But I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest. And I’ll remind you again that Yahaba is my best friend.”

“I know that,” Kyoutani says.

“Good,” Watari says. “Do you like Yahaba?”

That makes Kyoutani look up, frowning. “Yes?” he says. “Why would I— I wouldn’t have almost kissed him if I didn’t like him.”

Watari looks at him for a moment and Kyoutani gets the sense that he’s being judged on some playing field he wasn’t aware he had even entered onto. “That’s true,” he says, and his shoulders loosen a little. “You wouldn’t, would you?”

“Why does that even matter?” Kyoutani says, getting a little more agitated. He digs his thumb into his palm. “Yahaba didn’t want to and now he doesn’t want to deal with me at all anymore.”

“I don’t think he is,” Watari says, leaning back a little. “I get why you think that but… I don’t think that’s it. Really.”

“Even you noticed how weird he’s been acting,” Kyoutani points out.

“True,” Watari says. “He’s been acting unusual lately but… I dunno. If it was what you were thinking, I’m sure he would have talked to me about it. He’s been avoiding me just as much as you, for the record.”

That’s both disconcerting and reassuring. “I still don’t get it, then,” Kyoutani says.

“Maybe we’ll find out tomorrow,” Watari says. “I just— Yahaba tries to be as hard to understand as possible, which seems to really work on you sometimes. But if I can offer my advice, it’s to assume that when he does something strange, it’s almost always because he’s scared of something.”

Leaving him with that to chew on, Watari switches the topic seamlessly to the practice match, keeping them busy until they are called down to dinner.

Kyoutani is the first to the gym the next morning, but he isn’t alone for long. Watari arrives not long after, and they barely have enough time to greet each other before two other boys arrive, ones that Kyoutani was absolutely not expecting.

“Hanamaki-san, Matsukawa-san, it’s good to see you,” Watari says warmly, with some confusion evident in his tone. “Did Yahaba ask you to meet him here, too?”

“Yup,” Hanamaki says, putting a little pop on the sound. “Your new captain sure is a sneaky little guy, that’s for sure. He didn’t tell you we were coming?”

“No,” Kyoutani growls, frustrated by being in the dark. “He didn’t even tell us what volleyball problem he’s having.”

“Oh, I see,” Hanamaki says, lips trembling as if fighting off a smile. “Well, you better prepare yourselves, because Yahaba’s problem is… well, how would you describe the problem, Matsukawa?”

“Just the worst you could imagine,” Matsukawa says flatly, shaking his head as if saddened by having to say it aloud. “Pesky, hard to get rid of, constantly growing worse when you aren’t paying attention…”

“Really over the top,” Hanamaki chimes in. “Impossible to ignore, attention-sucking—”

“Exhausting to deal with,” Matsukawa agrees.

“Gross, too,” Hanamaki says. “Like, just incredibly icky.”

Watari seems to be having some kind of revelation dawning over him, but Kyoutani is still lost and growing more alarmed by the moment. He can’t imagine what kind of volleyball problem could be described this way and that he didn’t notice despite playing alongside Yahaba every day. Is he concealing some kind of career-threatening injury?

Before he can demand more, clearer answers, a voice breaks through the morning air behind him, making him go stiff all over. It’s a voice that shouldn’t be here, not now, not anymore, a voice Kyoutani thought he was done having to deal with, and yet—

“-so nostalgic, returning to my former kingdom, so to speak, even if it has only been— Ah.”

Kyoutani turns to see that two people have turned the corner to the gym from the main path. Yahaba is shielding his eyes against the sun, and next to him, looking utterly ridiculous with a big hoodie covering his hair and pink sunglasses ineffectually obscuring his wide eyes, is Oikawa fucking Tooru.

At least Oikawa looks as horrified to see them as Kyoutani feels to see him. He stares for half a second, mostly at Hanamaki and Mastukawa, and then tries to bolt.

He’s foiled by the fact that Yahaba, perhaps expecting something like this, is blocking his way back the way they came. He has to dodge left, which gives Hanamaki more than enough time to close the distance between them and grab him. Hanamaki seems to take great enjoyment in this particular task, making sure to knock Oikawa’s glasses and hood off in the process of manhandling him back to the group.

“You tricked me!” Oikawa wails at Yahaba, then looks more closely at the group. He frowns. “Is this some kind of intervention?

“This isn’t an intervention, this is a three-on-three game,” Yahaba says calmly but firmly. “And it’s for your own good. Think of it as me returning the favor from my first year.”

Kyoutani stares at Yahaba in utter confusion. Any ideas he had previously held about how this day was going to go have been thrown out the window and he finds himself completely at sea.

Watari apparently doesn’t have that problem. “Which way should we divide up teams?” he asks calmly, as if this is a totally normal series of events. “Third years versus alumni?”

"No way," Hanamaki says. "We were promised a chance to beat Oikawa. We'll take Yahaba as our side's setter."

That, at least, Kyoutani can understand enough to react to. If he’s going to be thrust into some weird sudden match with the previous team members who, frankly, he hadn’t missed, he’s at least going to play with the setter he actually likes. “Yahaba and I need to work on our coordination,” he says, trying his best to sound third year-ly and confident. “So we need to be playing on the same team.”

“Let’s choose randomly,” Yahaba says, but he’s suppressing a smile.

They draw straws and Kyoutani ends up on a team with Yahaba and Hanamaki, which is acceptable, facing off against Oikawa, Watari, and Mastukawa. Kyoutani would rather play with Watari, but since he’s at least getting to play with Yahaba, he doesn’t think it’s worth raising a fuss.

Yahaba, however, has different ideas about it.

“It’s too bad we’re on the same side, really,” Yahaba says in the tone of voice that means he’s building up to some bullshit, and, hopefully unrelatedly, also seems to be making Kyoutani’s stomach flip over. “We could have restarted our competition from before, finally broken our tie.”

It’s the first time either of them has directly referenced the cultural festival since it happened. That can only be a good sign, right?

“Don’t be stupid,” Kyoutani says quickly, before Yahaba can take it back. “I would obviously win.”

“You really think so, do you?” Yahaba purses his lips, eyes running over Kyoutani like he’s sizing up his potential for the first time. It’s totally an act, but it’s still kind of… hot.

“Of course,” Kyoutani says, stretching out his fingers. “I’m the ace, after all.”

“Well then, ace,” Yahaba says, his smile half-spun sugar and half-poison. “I’m sure you wouldn’t mind running a little side competition of our own, would you?”

Kyoutani is intrigued, of course, but the logistics of Yahaba’s suggestion still elude him. “Like what?” he asks, leaning forward a little. “Obviously you can’t plan to score more points than me. You’re a setter.”

Yahaba presses a hand to his chest, all faux-shock. “I’m a setter? Thanks for clearing that up for me, Kyoutani, I was never sure.”

Kyoutani bites down a grin. “Shut up and tell me what you have in mind,” Kyoutani says, throwing in an, “Asshole,” at the end to keep up his part.

“Which is it, shut up or tell you?” Yahaba asks, eyes wide.

“You fu— tell me,” Kyouyani growls, face warm.

Yahaba ducks his head as if his bangs will do anything to hide his evil grin. “Mm, I was thinking we could compete over receiving Oikawa’s serves,” he says lightly. “It’s okay for me to receive, since Hanamaki-san has a pretty good toss. Whoever makes a clean receive of more of his serves wins. Sending it back as a free ball doesn’t count.”

That all makes sense, Kyoutani thinks, and nods. “What does the winner get?” he asks. “We never came up with something last week.”

Finally, he’s hit on something Yahaba didn’t expect. “You’re right,” he says and trails off, thinking.

Kyoutani is struck by a plan of attack and before he can take the chance to examine it too much, he plunges in. “How about the same thing as before?” he says, thinking back to the day at the supermarket and looking away so Yahaba can’t do some freaky mind-reading shit by making eye contact with him. “Whoever wins can ask a question and the other one has to answer it honestly.”

It’s a neat trick, he thinks to himself, if he can get Yahaba to agree to it. Whatever Watari might say, clearly Yahaba had some kind of… negative reaction to whatever happened between them at the festival. But now he’s acting so—

If Kyoutani flat out asked him, Yahaba would just dodge and deflect. But both of them seemed to treat the questions they asked each other that day as kind of sacred — Kyoutani hadn’t lied once, and he’s realized Yahaba didn’t either. No, he’s pretty sure if he asked Yahaba something like this, he’d get an honest response. One way or another, at least he’d know.

There’s a long pause. “Sure,” Yahaba says, voice much quieter. Cautious. “I don’t see why not.”

A throat clears and Hanamaki’s voice breaks in, making both of them jump. “If you two are done flirting, can we start the match?”

Kyoutani can feel himself flush all over with embarrassment and annoyance, but Yahaba just takes a long breath and steps to the side into the receive formation.

“Of course,” Yahaba says, only the slightest tremble in his voice, seemingly shrugging off Kyoutani’s gaze boring into his back.

“Oh?” Hanamaki says, apparently mostly to himself, and looks between them, eyes narrowing.

Kyoutani doesn’t want to deal with that, so he steps to his place and focuses on the side across the net, where Matsukawa is spinning the ball and readying for his serve.

Whatever Yahaba’s sinister plan is and however Oikawa may be involved, it apparently involves a lot of volleyball. They play for hours, only taking short breaks between sets to drink water.

When their bottles run out, Yahaba and Oikawa volunteer to fill them back up. Kyoutani is busy stretching out his legs from a particularly long jump that had ended the last set, but when he looks up, the other three are watching the setters leave.

“So,” Watari says, conversational. “A pesky, hard to get rid of problem, huh?”

“I stand by it,” Hanamaki says. “Oikawa is all those things and more. Especially when him and Iwaizumi are in a tiff.”

“Is Oikawa-san and Iwaizumi-san being in a tiff the reason that Yahaba’s been so strange for the last week?” Watari asks, folding his hands like a teacher.

Matsukawa shrugs. “We don’t have any of the details,” he says quietly. “Apparently Oikawa has been M.I.A. since Monday. Seems he’s been hiding out with junior there since he knows Yahaba would never rat him out.”

“I can only imagine the suffering he’s been going through,” Hanamaki says. “Yahaba, I mean. Imagine having Oikawa live with you.”

Kyoutani can only agree.

“Is he okay?” Watari says, and Kyoutani is surprised to hear him say something against Oikawa like that, but he quickly follows it up. “Oikawa-san, I mean. He looked… bad, when he first showed up.”

Kyoutani hadn’t noticed, not wanting to linger looking at Oikawa, but now that they mention it, he had lacked a certain pep about him that Kyoutani had grown used to. He hadn’t been as annoyingly insulting, for one thing, but he also looked all pale and subdued in a very not-Oikawa way.

“He’s perked up now,” Hanamaki says. “I assume that’s what all this is for. Oikawa’s not Oikawa if he isn’t playing volleyball and getting reminded that he’s just an idiot every few minutes.”

“Who’s an idiot?” asks the idiot in question, walking back in with a handful of water bottles. “Were you talking about m—”

“So, Oikawa, how do you feel about potentially losing your firstborn son to marriage?” Hanamaki cuts in. “Assuming Kyoutani is planning to make an honest man out of him, of course.”

“What,” Kyoutani says, because there can only be one person Hanamaki is jokingly referring to, and when did the conversation even become about that and what the fuck?

“Do you think we need to give him a refresher course on safety?” Matsukawa asks. “Or an encore for Kyoutani here?”

“What,” Kyoutani says again, feeling his blood start to boil.

Watari places a bracing hand on Kyoutani’s shoulder, as if to hold him back, and leans to whisper in his ear. “They’re just trying to change the topic, don’t worry abou—”

“You shouldn’t meddle and cause problems, Mattsun, Makki,” Oikawa says, a seriousness in his voice that catches them all by surprise. “If Yahaba wants advice from any of us, I’m sure he’ll ask for it.”

“Ask for what?” Yahaba asks, stepping back into the gym with the second half of the water bottles. There’s a strange look on his face, and Kyoutani is worried for a moment that he’s overheard them talking and gotten upset, but it’s not that kind of look. It’s almost… guilty.

“For me to destroy you in this three-on-three, of course,” Oikawa says smoothly. “By even thinking to challenge me in a setter battle, you’re asking for it.”

“Yes, yes, I’m in awe at the sight of your prowess,” Yahaba says, rolling his eyes. “Can we get back to the game?”

Hours pass as they play, all of them willing to keep going after the first game is over. It’s a good match up, with Kyoutani and Hanamaki providing a stronger offensive line and Watari and Matsukawa the tougher defense. Oikawa outclasses Yahaba in terms of skill, of course, but Watari isn’t used to spiking and takes a while to warm up to it, and Kyoutani and Yahaba have the advantage of synergy.

As they get more tired, the play devolves until finally they are all panting and, when the final point is struck, most of them fall to the gym floor with various groans. As the other boys chat about being hungry, Kyoutani rolls his head over to face Yahaba.

“Which of us won? I lost count in the last few sets,” he admits.

Yahaba shifts where he’s sitting so he can look down at Kyoutani, lips twitching slightly. “I don’t know. I was never keeping count.”

Kyoutani sits up, feeling his brows dropping into a thunderous frown. “What? Why would you propose a competition and then not even—”

As usual, Yahaba is unimpressed by Kyoutani’s shows of anger. “I wanted you to be playing full force on receives from the beginning,” Yahaba says, looking quite proud of himself. “We'll be going into the Interhigh soon and the underclassmen will be relying on us for defense. If you're able to receive Oikawa-san's serves that well, you should be able to handle whatever gets thrown at us there."

That does make sense, in a Yahaba kind of way. “You manipulative piece of shit,” he says, ire quickly turning into amusement. “I can’t fucking believe you.”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” Yahaba says, pleased. “And I figured you would keep track, anyway.”

“What are you two talking about?” Watari asks, breaking into their conversation with a quizzical look.

“They were running a side competition,” Hanamaki says from where he’s seated besides Yahaba. “I overheard them setting it up. Something about who could receive more of Oikawa’s serves properly. He shakes his head. "Kids these days. I would never make a bet related to Oikawa's serves."

“So immature,” Matsukawa drawls from the other side of the net. “That reminds me, we should all get ramen again sometime soon.”

“I just want to know who won,” Kyoutani says, trying to keep his disappointment under control. It’s not like it really mattered, not if the point for Yahaba was just to make Kyoutani play more seriously on defense, but he was planning to use that honest question if he had won it.

"Well, if it's just my serves, I can tell you," Oikawa says in a carrying voice. "I always pay attention to stuff like that!" He raises a finger and wags it at them. "Both of you did pretty well, though I noticed several areas you could improve on that I'll be discussing with Yahaba later—"

"Get to the point," Kyoutani says, barely refraining from rolling his eyes.

“Get to the point, please,” Yahaba corrects him, the ass-kisser.

“No sense of dramatic timing,” Oikawa says with cloying mock sadness. “Fine, fine. It was close, but Mad Dog-chan received three more of my serves than Yahaba did!”

“Hah!” Kyoutani can’t help but crow in victory, grinning at Yahaba.

“I want a rematch,” Yahaba says instantly.

“I thought you didn’t care who won,” Kyoutani says.

“Just because I had an ulterior motive doesn’t mean I don’t care,” Yahaba says, wiping his sweaty bangs off his forehead and momentarily distracting Kyoutani totally.

“So, what did Kyoutani win?” Matsukawa asks.

Kyoutani ducks his head down, messing with his shoelaces. He doesn’t hate the alumni, not even Oikawa, really, but he doesn’t always like their brand of teasing and he definitely doesn’t want to deal with it about this topic in particular. He can’t exactly stop Yahaba from telling them, though.

“Bragging rights,” Yahaba says lightly, making Kyoutani look up at him. His expression is completely neutral, no sign at all that he’s lying.

There’s a slap to Kyoutani’s back, making him turn back to Hanamaki, who is clucking in disappointment. "See, you still have room to grow, kid,” Hanamaki says. “You have to extort your captain into buying you things, not just getting a sense of superiority over him. You should already have that!”

"Don't listen to him, Mad Dog-chan," Oikawa says. "People who don't treat their captains with love and respect are just small and jealous types!"

Kyoutani ducks away from Hanamaki’s hand. “Leave me out of this,” he grumbles.

“I’m still hungry,” Watari says. “We should go get food somewhere.”

The group decides to go to the mall food court nearby. Kyoutani doesn’t love the mall, especially on a busy day like this, but he’s not too upset about it as long as he can stick close to the others and not be expected to talk too much. He zones in on his burger, ignoring the conversation around him.

“I’ll be right back,” Yahaba says and slips away from the table, looking down at his phone while he rounds a corner. When he returns, his smile is a little more stilted and his movements more carefully measured. Fake Yahaba.

Kyoutani jostles him with his knee. "What's up with you?" he asks, pitching his voice down.

Yahaba smiles down at his fries. “Is that your reward question?” he asks, also quiet.

“No, dick, it’s just a normal question,” Kyoutani says, despairing of ever getting a real answer out of this guy. “You really go out of your way to be impossible, don’t you?”

“Only when it comes to you,” Yahaba says and presses his own knee against Kyoutani’s leg. The contact should be jarring and unwelcome, like when Hanamaki had clapped him on the back earlier, but instead it’s just nice.

“Gross,” Kyoutani says, and doesn’t pull away.

Enough time passes that Kyoutani is starting to wonder if it’s rude for them to be camping the table for this long when they finished eating hours ago. Oikawa is clearly thriving off the attention of his old teammates, the teasing and the genuine interest both, and nobody seems much inclined to move.

Then a silence comes over the table and Kyoutani looks up to see that Oikawa has come over all ghost-like, pale and eyes bulging.

“Iwa-chan,” he says, and Kyoutani turns.

Iwaizumi is indeed standing nearby, staring at Oikawa with just as much intensity. Is this the effects of their, what had Hanamaki called it, their tiff? Weird and gross.

“H-hey,” Iwaiumi says, looking utterly miserable. Then they both just stare at each other.

“Wow,” Hanamaki says, overly loud. “I suddenly remembered that thing I need to be doing. Right guys?”

“Yup, that thing,” Matsukawa agrees immediately, moving to stand. “Let’s get right on that.

“Uh-huh,” Watari says, already moving toward the exit.

“What?” Kyoutani asks, feeling his face creasing in confusion. “What’s going on?”

Yahaba tugs at his arm. “C’mon,” he says quietly, and leads Kyoutani away from whatever fucked up shit is going on with Iwaizumi and Oikawa now.

Kyoutani is confused enough to let Yahaba pull him along without protest, especially when they make the turns needed to leave the mall and head through the surrounding area to a park instead. It’s not one Kyoutani is familiar with, since it doesn’t allow dogs, but it’s a lot less crowded than the mall was.

Yahaba leads them to a stone bench that's practically private in the dusk, shadows long under the setting sun, and settles himself down on it cross-legged. Kyoutani joins him.

“Any chance you’ll explain what the hell is going on to me?” he asks as Yahaba frowns at the slab underneath them, looking like the dictionary definition of pensive.

“Ask me again when I know how their conversation went,” Yahaba says and rubs his eyes, sighing. “I hope I did the right thing… I just needed Oikawa-san out of my house.”

“Oikawa was in your house?” Kyoutani confirms, tracing patterns onto the stone instead of looking up. That is what Hanamaki and Matsukawa had said, but Kyoutani had hoped it was one of their weird jokes, if only for Yahaba’s sake.

“It’s a long story,” Yahaba says and pokes at Kyoutani’s thigh with his foot, voice losing a bit of its dark cast. “You still haven’t asked your question. You worked so hard for it; you shouldn’t let your prize go to waste.”

Kyoutani pauses, thinking. The sparks of a plan that had appeared to him when he first suggested the truth game again are coalescing in front of him, but he finds himself unexpectedly nervous. He needs to play this right, he knows, or it could ruin everything, and he has to do it with just his words. If he pushes too hard, Yahaba might run away again, but if he doesn’t push enough, Yahaba will find a way to wriggle out of it.

“Hey, no need to look so serious about it,” Yahaba says, breaking his train of thought. “It's not like I'm in the habit of lying to you constantly and this is your only chance to make me answer honestly, you know.”

That makes Kyoutani snort, but he does look up to find Yahaba studying him closely. The light is hitting him in a particular kind of way that picks out the frayed bits of his hair where he needs to get it cut and the small patch of skin on his neck that is slightly peeling from a sunburn earlier in the month. It makes him appear less ephemeral but no less beautiful, less like a piece of art and more of someone solid that Kyoutani could reach out and hold.

Kyoutani has never been good at playing it safe. The only way he’s ever known is to barrel through and deal with the consequences when he falls back to earth.

“Is it true that you were flirting with me?” he asks, meeting Yahaba’s gaze.

“Yes,” Yahaba says, throat working over a swallow. His voice is blank of emotion in the way it always is when there is some deeper emotion hiding underneath it. “I was.”

Kyoutani digests that for a moment. Knowing he needs more. “You do that a lot,” he says, trying to keep his own voice neutral to match Yahaba’s.

“Yes,” he says, voice quieter. “I do.”

“You have for a while,” Kyoutani says. “Why?”

Yahaba’s eyes flutter. “At first it was to annoy you,” he says.

That’s not surprising, and also not really what Kyoutani was asking about. “And now?”

“Do you mind it?” Yahaba asks, shifting a little when Kyoutani doesn’t answer. Not moving back, but not settling into where he is, either. He frowns, slightly, and turns away as he speaks, breaking eye contact. “I still do it to annoy you sometimes. You’re cute when you’re annoyed.”

Kyoutani breathes out, feeling a knot of tension he wasn’t aware he was carrying around inside his stomach begin to loosen, begin to unwind. “You think I’m cute,” Kyoutani says, the words foreign on his tongue, the concept strange where it hangs between them.

“When you’re annoyed,” Yahaba says drily and then bites his lip. “And other times. Most of the time. All of the time.”

“Oh,” Kyoutani says, trying to process. “That’s…” He’s not even sure what word he’s looking for to complete the sentence. No matter how many times people said Yahaba liked him, somehow it had never crossed his mind that Yahaba might find him cute.

“Can you finish that thought maybe?” Yahaba’s voice is sharp, crackling into near-panic. “Before I throw up?”

“What?” Kyoutani asks, alarmed and confused. “Why would you do that?”

Yahaba twists his head back around to stare at Kyoutani, mouth open and closing for a few moments before he finds his words again. “Because? I just told you I have a crush on you and you might— you might get angry, or be disgusted, or quit the team, or avoid me, or—”

None of what Yahaba is saying makes any sense, but it all seems to come down to the idea that Yahaba doesn’t think Kyoutani likes him back, which is absurd but easily fixable. Because if Kyoutani likes Yahaba and Yahaba likes Kyoutani, then Kyoutani can act on an urge that he’s been pushing down for ages.

Kyoutani leans forward, and it’s only after he begins the motion that he realizes he’s both moved too fast and too far to the left and instead of pressing their lips together the way he had planned, he knocks his cheek into Yahaba’s, sending him reeling back. Yahaba flails out, grabbing at Kyoutani’s arms and yanking him down with him.

They fall off the bench, Kyoutani only barely managing to catch himself on his forearms so he doesn’t land entirely on top of Yahaba, his skin burning, and Yahaba is staring up at him, nonplussed.

“Uh,” Kyoutani says, feeling his face burning, and Yahaba starts to smile.

“Well, this is off to an excellent start,” Yahaba says and whip-fast, he has a handful of Kyoutani’s shirt front and is pulling him down into an actual kiss.

Kissing Yahaba is...

Well.

Kyoutani has spent a lot of time imagining how Yahaba kisses, especially since the festival. He’d thought about how he might angle his neck, how he might close his eyes. The way his lips might taste, the way his skin would feel.

Kyoutani has spent a lot of time imagining how Yahaba kisses and yet, faced with the real thing, he finds himself totally unprepared. Nothing could have prepared him for the way Yahaba presses up against him, for the way his hand grips Kyoutani’s hair. Nothing would make it less overwhelming to feel that sliver of a smile against his own lips and feel the graze of teeth against him.

By the time Kyoutani can bring himself to pull away, he’s not sure how much time has passed. He has to blink hard to refocus on Yahaba smirking beneath him. Then he realizes that despite his best efforts, he did end up crushing Yahaba a little, and he sits up, offering his hand so Yahaba can sit up as well.

“So,” Yahaba says, in the conversational tone that means he’s up to some bullshit. “I win that one, then.”

“What?” Kyoutani asks.

“Our first kiss,” Yahaba says, waving a hand. “I won it.”

Kyoutani stares at him. “You can’t win at kissing,” he says.

“You hit me in the face,” Yahaba says with an exaggerated pout, poking at his cheek which, yes, does have a bit of a red mark on it. “I’m pretty sure that means I win.”

“I want a rematch,” Kyoutani says instantly.

Yahaba flutters his eyelashes at him, at his cutest and most annoying. “Are you asking me out, Kyoutani?”

“Why are you making it sound like an insult when that’s clearly what I’m trying to do?” Kyoutani snaps, glaring.

Yahaba shrugs, grin widening. “I told you,” he says. “You’re cute when you’re annoyed.”

Kyoutani huffs, still unsure how to deal with that. “You have twigs in your hair. You look ridiculous.”

As expected, Yahaba immediately starts to run his fingers through his hair, looking for any twigs or leaves that got caught in it. “You probably think I look adorable,” he teases anyway. “You probably think I’m the most adorable person you’ve ever seen.”

“You’re the most annoying person I’ve ever seen,” Kyoutani says and tries a new, exciting tactic where instead of letting Yahaba come up with some snarky response, Kyoutani kisses him instead.

This time, Kyoutani has a better idea of what he’s doing and tries to be more confident, not just following Yahaba’s lead but pushing in on his own. It seems to be effective, judging by the noise Yahaba makes when Kyoutani pulls away.

“I won that one, right?” Kyoutani asks, because two can play at that game.

Yahaba is blushing all over. “Yeah,” he says. “You— yeah. Yup. Definitely, yes.”

He’s flustered, Kyoutani realizes. Not just because of the kissing, but because it’s Kyoutani doing it. “You like kissing me,” Kyoutani says slowly.

“Yes,” Yahaba says.

“You like me,” Kyoutani says, because he has to be sure.

“Yes, Kyoutani, obviously I—”

The words come bursting out of Kyoutani’s chest, thick with confusion and frustration. “Then why did you run away? On the night of the festival, I thought we were— but then you left and were avoiding me, and I thought I got it wrong, but now— you’re so confusing!”

Yahaba looks at him for a moment and his expression softens. “I don’t mean to be,” he says, licking his lips, and he’s not putting on any kind of front. “I just… I got scared. Like I said before, I thought you might be upset, or not want to be around me anymore or, or something like that.”

“Why would you think that?” Kyoutani asks, trying to think of anything he’s ever done that would make Yahaba think he might react like that.

Yahaba looks down, face darkening. “Other people—”

“Fuck other people, then,” Kyoutani says and grabs at Yahaba’s arm, squeezing tight to make sure Yahaba looks up at him and sees him, not whatever he’s thinking about in the past. “I”ve never been like other people and neither have you, so just, don’t compare us to them, alright? Just be you. Can you do that?”

Yahaba stares at him for a second, eyes wide, and then he pulls his arm away lightly, not so much that they lose contact but so that Kyoutani’s hand isn’t wrapped around Yahaba’s arm but his palm.

“Yeah,” Yahaba says, tangling their fingers together so that they’re holding hands. He leans forward so that their foreheads knock together and stays there, closing his eyes. “I think I can manage that.”

Kyoutani has mostly trained Coco to walk easily on her leash, but she always starts pulling a little when she realizes they’re getting close to her favorite park. Kyoutani doesn’t ever really scold her for it and especially not today, when he’s excited, too.

Yahaba is standing under a tree, trying to look casual and mostly succeeding. Someone else might be fooled by the looseness in his posture, the way his hands are in his jacket pockets as he looks out over the grass around him. Kyoutani knows better, though, and can tell that it’s a studied looseness, that his hands are actually gripping the inside of his pockets, and that he’s not really taking in any of the grass around him.

“Go on, girl,” Kyoutani says, unclipping Coco’s lead.

With his permission given, she bounds away toward the center of the park, tail wagging as she begins to sniff at the fenceline. She pays no interest to any of the people around her, much more invested in getting her energy out.

“Hey,” Kyoutani says, approaching Yahaba. With the self-consciousness that comes from newness, he leans in and brushes his lips against Yahaba’s cheek, pulling back right away. It’s embarrassing enough that Kyoutani might have stopped doing it, if it didn’t embarrass Yahaba just as much.

Like now, when Yahaba’s cheeks go pink with both awkwardness and pleasure. “Hey yourself,” he says, turning slightly on his heel so they are angled more closely together. “Is that her?”

Kyoutani nods and whistles. “Coco! C’mere! There’s someone I want you to meet!”

Yahaba takes a deep breath as Coco races back over to sit by Kyoutani’s feet, curious why she was called back so quickly.

“This is Yahaba,” Kyoutani tells her. “He’s kind of an asshole, but we like him anyway.”

“Rude,” Yahaba says and gingerly reaches a hand out for her to sniff, just like Kyoutani had told him. “Hello, Coco. It’s… nice to meet you?”

Coco gives his hand a thorough check, sniffing at every cranny of it. She looks back at Kyoutani and he nods at her encouragingly.

“Did you bring the treats I gave you?” Kyoutani asks and Yahaba nods, reaching into his pocket. “Give her a couple and she’ll be your friend for life.”

“Sounds too good to be true,” Yahaba says skeptically but pulls out one of the chicken treats Kyoutani had pushed on him that morning. “Here, Coco. Eat up.”

Now that she knows that treats are involved, Coco is much more enthusiastic about her new acquaintance. She gobbles up the first offering and licks all of Yahaba’s fingers to make sure she didn’t miss any bits, then whines and stomps her feet, hoping for more.

“Can I?” Yahaba asks.

“Yeah, she can have a few more,” Kyoutani says, and watches as Yahaba feeds her another couple treats out of his palm. Yahaba winces a little at how wet she’s making his hands but doesn’t complain, lips twitching slightly when she begs.

Kyoutani has a vision, suddenly, of what a future could be like. Of him and Yahaba, older and living with each other, both with jobs they’re happy in and surrounded by Coco and Daidai and maybe even more animals, too. Yahaba would bellyache about the mess, probably, but Kyoutani would clean it up, and Yahaba would fill their home with weird, annoying music or tv shows, but he’d turn them down when Kyoutani asked. Kyoutani would be a vet, maybe even at a shelter or a rescue, and Yahaba would be teaching volleyball to dumb kids, and it would all just be…

More than enough.

Perfect.

“I don’t want to spoil her dinner,” Yahaba says around a laugh, breaking Kyoutani from his daydream.

“Yeah, that’s enough. Don’t worry, it’s easy to distract her. Look here, girl,” Kyoutani says, and pulls a tennis ball from his pocket. Immediately, Coco is tensed to go, watching him like a hawk. “Go on, fetch!” He wings the ball through the air, sending it whizzing toward the tree line with Coco in hot pursuit.

“She’s cute,” Yahaba says, discreetly wiping off his hands on his jeans.

“She’s the best,” Kyoutani agrees. “Thanks for coming out with me and her.”

Yahaba shrugs, dipping his head a little. “Well, I need to get the approval of my boyfriend’s dog before we get too serious. What kind of guy do you take me for?”

“Oh, I dunno,” Kyoutani says, fighting the smile off his face. “Kind of a shallow jerk, is what I figured.”

Yahaba sticks his nose in the air. “Good thing your dog is a better judge of character than you are,” he says as Coco drops the tennis ball by his feet.

“Yeah, yeah,” Kyoutani says. “You gonna throw that thing or what?”

Yahaba bounces the ball in his hand, making Coco grumble. He smirks sideways at Kyoutani. “Bet you I can throw further than you can,” he says, eyes dancing.

Kyoutani grins, competitiveness soaring. “You’re on,” he says.

Let the games begin.