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He picked it as his club activity, because it was mandatory.
He didn’t anticipate that it’d turn out like this, with his hand stained red from the force of the ball—the ball that Kageyama just tossed perfectly to him, for the first time.
“Nice hit, Kunimi! Let’s do it one more time!”
Kageyama is grinning, genuinely, and Kunimi didn’t know it then, when they played together for the first time in the gym of Kitagawa Daiichi and they were just twelve years old and Kunimi still cared enough to try—but a lot of things can change in three years’ time.
Three years isn’t a lot of time at all.
They haven’t seen each other since the last day of middle school and Kunimi hasn’t forgotten, but he hasn’t been obsessing over it either, not like Kindaichi has.
What happened, happened. It was a game, and Kunimi knows when to let go—when to stop trying.
But he’s still playing, a different ball, a different game, a different court. But they’re all still playing at the same game and that's nothing new.
“Kunimi, you idiot! That was your ball!”
A sigh, a slight bow of his head in lieu of an actual apology to the coach and he’s walking off the court in measured steps to retrieve the ball that had hit the ground just inside of the line.
A couple of guys throw some don’t mind!’s his way but he’d rather not hear it if they don’t mean it. That’s how it’s always been anyway.
(That’s how playing with Kageyama has always been, he corrects himself.)
As he takes his place in front of the net again, Kindaichi quirks a brow and gives him a deep, etching frown.
The ball is served and it soars in an arc over Kunimi’s head. He watches as Oikawa bends his knees, getting ready to toss and—
“Nice block!”
His palm stings red and it feels like he just hit someone he doesn’t like, but less satisfying.
He tries a little harder for the rest of practice, to hit the ball in a way that does.
(It never did, and it makes him bury his frown against the hem of his jersey.)
Oikawa tells them the news after they’ve put away all the equipment and cleaned the gym. He makes a big show of it until Iwaizumi hits him on the back of his head and chews him out for wasting their time.
For most of the team, they all shrug and leave with the time and date of the practice match filed in their heads, muffling yawns against their hands as they trudge home.
For Kunimi, it feels like a palm tinged red from force.
“Oh, Kindaichi-chan, Kunimi-chan,” Oikawa calls out after they’ve already begun to walk away. They stop, craning their heads to see Oikawa with a finger on his chin and Iwaizumi gripping the back of his jersey, halfway through pulling him back into the gym. “You guys were in the same year as Tobio-chan, right? And you played with him on the team in middle school?”
Kunimi hesitates but Kindaichi doesn’t.
“Yeah,” he replies, the slightest scowl marring his face. “He’s no big deal.”
Oikawa blinks before his smile returns—the one that’s dangerous in how charming and disarming it looks to the average person, “Tobio-chan is a big deal to me so please play your hardest during the practice match with Karasuno High next week!”
And when even Kindaichi turns to stare at the side of his head, Kunimi can’t deny the fact that Oikawa looks right at him when he says that.
“Understood, Oikawa-senpai.”
As they turn again to walk away again, leaving Oikawa and Iwaizumi alone in the patch of light from Aoba Jousai’s gymnasium 3, Kunimi can feel Kindaichi’s gaze linger on Oikawa, then to him and he wonders what exactly does everyone know.
“Are you?” He asks, when they’re two blocks away from where they have to split off to go their separate ways home. “Are you going try harder? Play better? As Oikawa-san said?”
“I’ll play volleyball,” he snorts, something of a smirk marking the corner of his lips.
Kindaichi doesn’t look satisfied with his answer but does squint suspiciously at his mouth. They arrive at Kunimi’s street and he turns away with a short wave before Kindaichi can ask him anything more—anything that he doesn’t have an answer to right now.
(There are a lot of things he can’t answer to right now—too much, Kunimi thinks.)
Tuesday comes faster between classes and practices and Kunimi doesn’t feel particularly ready by the time he’s tightening his laces on the benches, watching Kindaichi challenge Iwaizumi to a round of arm wrestling.
Until Karasano arrives—Kunimi doesn’t feel ready until Karasano arrives and he sees Kageyama dressed in black and white and looking like he’s meant to, and his grip hardens as he double ties his shoes, just in case.
Kunimi might have felt bitter if he was twelve years old and hitting Kageyama’s tosses but it’s the first time they’re seeing each other after spending three years playing on the same team—getting worse and worse until three years became too much.
How can he be, when that orange-haired number 10 hits Kageyama’s tosses like they’re always his first—perfect.
Kunimi can only stand there shocked, frozen as the rest of his own team, as the ball slams past him and no matter how hard he might have tried, he knows that he would never get something like that.
Maybe this is what it takes—talking to other people, being on different teams, playing on opposite sides of the net—so they can see each other for the players that they couldn’t be when they stood together, side by side.
As Kunimi’s eyes track Kageyama’s movement on the other side of the court, he thinks he prefers seeing Kageyama’s face when they play anyway, if only so he could always see that fierce determination in full bloom.
“One more time!”
When the ball rises above their heads, Kunimi feels the urge to want to hit it back for the first time, feel his palm turn as red as the first time he hit Kageyama’s toss.
They haven’t made up yet, nor have they apologized.
But they’ve got time. It's only the spring of their first year after all.