Archive of Our Own

Kageyama Tobio is born broken⁠—⁠marked across the soul with only one name. It’s a bright, happy looking name, written with two suns and not nearly enough shade. Tobio’s parents are already too busy to be welcoming a baby, but Kazuyo-san is there to smile down at him and to touch a finger to the characters across Tobio’s wrist when it only takes several days for the bit of red to crystallize into someone else’s name.

“This means your person has already been born, Tobio,” he says, though Tobio is still too young to understand. He’s more telling it to Miwa, who stands beside Tobio’s bed and frowns at her new sibling, unimpressed. Miwa has two names on both her wrists, unlike Tobio. She’s seven and already in elementary school. Miwa mostly finds Tobio disappointing⁠—⁠he’s quiet and relatively unfussy and doesn’t do anything besides eat, sleep, cry, and stare at nothing. Then once he’s walking and turning into a real person, he’s much more interested in volleyball than he is in the single name printed on his wrist.

It’s Miwa who drags him to look up possible pronunciations, sitting huddled together in front of the family computer while Kazuyo-san cooks them both dinner. Their parents are working late again, and already Tobio thinks this is normal.

Tobio is six years old. Miwa is fourteen. Next year Tobio will start his second year of elementary school, and get to play more volleyball games. He’s still much more interested in both of those things than he is in the characters on his wrists. But he tolerates Miwa’s interest because she’s bigger and older and nice.

“This one means ‘day,’” Miwa says, pointing at the first character on Tobio’s wrist. “It’s a sun. And this one means”⁠—⁠she squints⁠—⁠“‘To go towards.’” At Tobio’s blank look, she sighs. “‘To go towards,’” she says again, moving her hand closer and closer to Tobio’s face. “My hand is going towards your face.” Her palm meets his nose for a second, then she flips her hand around to tickle his throat, and Tobio laughs, twitching away. His big sister smiles wide. “It’s probably pronounced ‘Hinata,’” she says. “Or ‘Hyuuga.’ Like the character from Naruto,” she adds.

Tobio is still too little to read that sort of manga, but he recognizes what Miwa shows him on the computer. He stares down at the characters on his wrist then up at the image on the screen. Hinata from Naruto has cool eyes, so Tobio supposes that that’s okay.

“This one means ‘to fly,’” Miwa continues. “Like birds.” She mimes flapping wings. “And you.” She smiles. “This one means ‘sunshine.’”

Tobio knows what sunshine is. He automatically smiles. “Sunshine is nice.”

“I don’t know how it’s pronounced,” Miwa says finally, frowning. She moves like she’s going to touch Tobio’s soulmark, then she stops. There’s a small pause. Tobio keeps looking down at his wrist. Then he looks up and finds his big sister biting her bottom lip. “Do you want to hear about mine?” she says.

Tobio nods, suddenly very eager. He still doesn’t care about what all this means, but he likes sitting with Miwa. He likes having her full attention. He likes . . . not being left alone. “Please.”

Miwa smiles and they spend the rest of the time before dinner discussing the marks on her wrists. Miwa hasn’t met either of the people, so she doesn’t know how they’re pronounced either, but Miwa is older and wiser and has lots of ideas. She’s convinced the soul mark on her right hand is going to be the name of a girl in one of her classes and the one on her left hand will be a boy she’ll meet once she graduates university. She whispers to Tobio that she’s dating someone, but that his name doesn’t match her soulmark. Tobio gazes up at her, not understanding a lot of what she’s talking about, but nodding along regardless. But since his soulmark is on his right hand, he wonders if it will be a boy, too. When he asks, Miwa laughs and tells him not to worry too much about that⁠—⁠not until he’s in middle school. Then she asks him if he has any favorite classmates. Tobio just shakes his head.

Finally, Kazuyo-san calls them to the table. Between the first few bites he asks, “What is it the two of you were looking up before dinner?”

Miwa answers; Tobio is preoccupied trying not to spill his rice. “Our soulmarks,” she says. “I told Tobio what mine are, and we looked up his.”

Kazuyo-san turns his smile on Tobio. “Ah,” he says. “And what did you find?”

Tobio swallows his bite. “Day, closer, flapping, sunshine,” he reports, feeling pleased. He shoots Miwa a quick look and finds her laughing.

“The last name is probably Hinata,” she says. “Or Hyuuga. Written like ‘to go towards the sun.’” Kazuyo-san seems to nod, but Tobio returns to focusing on eating his dinner, so he misses her second sentence. “The first name is harder,” Miwa says. “It’s ‘to fly’ and ‘sunshine’ but I don’t know how it’s said.”

“It sounds very bright,” Kazuyo-san says.

Tobio looks up, sensing he’s been addressed. “Yes,” he decides. He finishes cleaning off his plate and looks hopefully at his grandfather’s face. “Can we play volleyball now?”

Miwa rolls her eyes. “He’d have been better off with ‘Mikasa’ on his arm. Or ‘Molten.’”

Tobio just continues to blink, waiting for the answer.

“He doesn’t even care that he’s got only one name.”

“Miwa.” Their grandfather’s tone is suddenly a little sharp, and Tobio darts large eyes between them confused.

His sister lowers her head. “Sorry,” she mutters. “It’s just . . . strange.”

“Strange,” Tobio parrots back.

Kazuyo-san shoots her another sharp look. “It’s different,” he tells Tobio. “But it’s not bad.”

Tobio still really wants to play volleyball, but he turns over both his hands to look down at his wrists anyway. He has the mark on his right hand, and then nothing on his left. Both Kazuyo-san and Miwa have marks on both of their wrists. And so do all of the people he meets when Kazuyo-san takes him to play volleyball. Tobio has to cover both of his wrists with stickers, but so do some of the ladies on the team. “Different,” Tobio says again.

Kazuyo-san nods.

Tobio touches the first character on his arm⁠—⁠the easiest one, that means day. Sun. He looks back up at Kazuyo-san. “Volleyball?”

Miwa sighs.

Kazuyo-san only laughs.

“You know, Tobio, our name, Kageyama, means shadow mountain,” Kazuyo-san says later, standing outside in the yard with Tobio as they pass a volleyball back and forth. Miwa has joined them and is doing most of the receiving, but occasionally the throw is soft and Tobio darts in to bump up the ball. They’ve been doing it for long enough that his arms tingle, but in a good way⁠—⁠the best way.

“Shadow mountain,” Tobio repeats. He’s already learned and memorized the kanji for mountain.

“It’s poetic that your soulmate’s name includes the sun,” Kazuyo-san says.

“Poetic,” Tobio parrots.

Kazuyo-san’s eyes crinkle. “Something that could be in a poem,” he says.

Tobio nods, pretending to understand. He looks down at his wrists, which are turned up to best receive the ball. The first character there is pretty easy to write, like mountain in Tobio’s name.

Kazuyo-san sends the ball towards Miwa, who cleanly returns the ball. “The two of you match⁠—⁠you and your soulmate,” he says.

“Soulmate,” Tobio says.

Miwa scoffs. “You don’t know that it’s his soulmate,” she says. “It could be his enemy.”

“Miwa!” Kazuyo-san scolds.

Tobio does not understand.

Kazuyo-san looks quickly between them. “It’s nothing, Tobio. It’s late. Let’s go back inside.”

Tobio just frowns, disappointed, but follows after his grandfather without pause. He’s clearly upset with his sister, who slinks alongside Tobio in equal silence.

“I’m sorry,” she offers finally, as they’re all taking off their shoes beside the sliding door. “Sorry, Tobio.”

Tobio bows to her even though he doesn’t get it and looks towards Kazuyo-san for guidance.

The man sighs. He sets a hand on Tobio’s head, stroking his hair, and then shifts so that Miwa can hug him. She does, holding surprisingly tight. Tobio shifts so that he’s part of the hug too, stifling a yawn. Bed sounds nice. It’s not until he’s older that he even understands what Miwa was saying, when he was six and she was not yet fifteen. All the kids in his class learn properly about soulmarks, and Kazuyo-san takes him aside to explain.

Tobio has a mark on his wrist for someone who will be very important to him⁠—⁠the most important person to him in the whole world. All the things other people say about that person being his enemy or his soulmate⁠—⁠about “love hands” and “hate hands,” about neighbors who’ve met people with only one mark and how something must be wrong with them⁠—⁠all of that isn’t what matters. What matters is “personal maintenance.” What matters is volleyball. What matters is the feel of the ball leaving Tobio’s hands when he sends it flying across the court.

What matters is that one day when Tobio is in his fourth year of elementary school, Kazuyo-san picks him up from volleyball practice and notices that Tobio has been making his serve easier so that he can play more. Tobio is shocked. He hadn’t realized it was obvious⁠—⁠he hadn’t thought it was bad⁠—⁠but now he’s worried he’s messed up after all.

Kazuyo-san just smiles, gazing out at the setting sun, and leans in to tell Tobio a secret. “All the best players get to stay on the court for a really long time,” he says. “If you get really good at volleyball, you’ll get to play lots more games.”

That’s all Tobio wants. To play lots and lots of games.

“And if you get really good, I promise someone who’s even better will come and find you,” Kazuyo-san finishes, like he’s imparting great knowledge.

Tobio stares up at him, enraptured, before sticking out his hand. He pulls the sweatband up his arm to expose the mark there and looks eagerly into his grandfather’s eyes. “Will they⁠—⁠will it be⁠—⁠this person?” Young and already filling with the beginnings of something close to despair, Tobio thrusts his right hand⁠—⁠His hate hand, the memory of kids at school whispers, but Tobio ignores it because Kazuyo-san has always told him that stuff isn’t important⁠—⁠forward, palm out to show the four characters etched there in red.

Sun. To go towards. To fly. Sunshine.

Tobio has memorized the meanings for the characters on his wrist like he has the ones for his own name; it helps that they match, an uncomfortable parallel that made this mother frown the first time she really took the time to read what the splotch of red on Tobio’s wrist had settled into.

Kazuyo-san simply smiles down at him, pleased.

The Kitagawa Daiichi volleyball club captain, Oikawa-senpai, has Tobio’s name written on his right arm. Oikawa-senpai doesn’t wear soulguards, or sweatbands like Tobio, so Tobio sees it first thing, but he’s too distracted by practice itself to mention it. More than that, Oikawa-senpai is really good at volleyball; his skill makes Tobio’s head spin. He gets to play volleyball, so it’s fine, but one of the other first years is tall and all of the upperclassmen are really good⁠—⁠Oikawa-senpai most of all. It’s intimidating.

Tobio approaches Oikawa-senpai after they’ve been dismissed to pack up the balls and straighten the gym, jittery with nerves because the older boy’s jump serves had made his arms hurt simply watching them, and because the name on Oikawa-senpai’s right wrist is Tobio’s own.

There’s no way Oikawa-senpai doesn’t know. Tobio had to turn in a club form, where he detailed his previous experience and the position he wanted to play. (Setter⁠—⁠the one who touches the ball the most.) His name had been on the form in kanji. Oikawa-senpai hadn’t said anything when he took the form, nor had he singled Tobio out for the entirety of practice, but when he sees Tobio approaching, his expression shifts into something resembling a smile.

He starts hitting the boy beside him⁠—⁠Iwaizumi-senpai⁠—⁠who is clearly his best friend.

“Tobio-chan,” Oikawa-senpai says. “Tobio the flying hero!”

If Tobio had thought Oikawa-senpai didn’t know, that sentence basically confirms it, and he straightens his shoulders before he can lose his nerve. “I⁠—⁠yes,” he says, then bows. He feels⁠—⁠shy, in the face of this sort of greatness. And more than a little anxious about what he’s about to do. Tobio has shown no one his soulmark since he started school and Kazuyo-san explained how he had to keep it hidden, but Oikawa-senpai is marked with Tobio’s name. This has to mean something. Though Tobio doesn’t know what, since Tobio isn’t marked with Oikawa-senpai’s name.

Oikawa-senpai doesn’t stop smiling when Tobio pushes up his sweatband to show his right soulmark, still spelling out a yet unpronounceable name. He opens his mouth to speak, still looking pleased, and then he abruptly stops. Tobio has pushed up his left sweatband, revealing the nothing underneath. He feels like he’s stripped naked in the middle of the gym.

“You,” Oikawa-senpai says. “You’re like Iwa-chan.”

Iwaizumi-senpai shoots Oikawa-senpai a look, and then quickly peels back a soulguard to show Tobio a blank right wrist. “You have got to stop doing that⁠—⁠what if I didn’t feel like sharing?” he tells Oikawa-san before he’s even done, pressing the soulguard back down to cover his skin.

Oikawa-senpai sticks out his tongue. “Ignore him,” he tells Tobio conspiratorially. “It’s not my fault I’m so important that the universe decided he needed no one else.”

With a sigh, Iwaizumi-senpai produces and peels the soulguard off of his left wrist, this one bearing the name Oikawa Tooru. Oikawa-senpai’s name is written with a river in it, and his first name⁠—⁠Tooru⁠—⁠is only one character. Tobio thinks of his own soulmark⁠—⁠of his own name⁠—⁠and frowns.

Oikawa-senpai grins even wider.

Iwaizumi-senpai punches him in the arm. “Stop that. Stop making that face.”

Oikawa-senpai continues to make whatever face he pleases.

Iwaizumi-senpai continues to frown.

Tobio glances between them, not sure what’s even happening. The rest of the club is finishing up with the balls and the net. Tobio should probably go help⁠—⁠he is a first year, after all.

“I’m sorry, Tobio-chan, really,” Oikawa-senpai says suddenly, drawing Tobio’s attention with use of his name. “Although I have to admit . . . I’m hurt that the universe didn’t see fit to make me your enemy, so that we match.” His eyes go a little sharp. “I’m still surprised it didn’t give me Ushiwaka,” he mutters darkly. “Or put my name on him⁠—⁠that’s all he says whenever we face each other, but I swear, my name has to be on him.” Oikawa-san breaks off with a cough, looking contrite.

Tobio is so very lost. “You’re not my enemy,” he says eventually. There isn’t anything else he can say.

Oikawa-senpai’s smile this time is . . . different. Harsher. Meaner. Confusing. “No,” he says slowly. “No, I’m not.” Then he grins wider⁠—⁠even more brilliant and terrifying⁠—⁠and sticks his hand in Tobio’s hair, ruffling the front of it beyond repair.

“One of the other first years is nearly 182 centimeters,” Tobio tells Kazuyo-san later that week, having rushed straight from practice to the hospital to tell him everything about the Kitagawa Daiichi Middle School volleyball club. “And the third years are really good.” He pauses. “One of them⁠—⁠the captain⁠—⁠the setter⁠—⁠he’s got my name on his arm.” Tobio raises his right hand and presses to the spot where his own soulmark sits in explanation. “But I don’t have his. His name’s not . . . Hyuuga-san. Why is that, do you think?”

Kazuyo-san looks back at him curiously, but Tobio can see that he’s tired. It is rather late. The nurses all know Tobio and Miwa intimately, and tonight’s head nurse always tells Tobio that he’s her favorite. That’s why they’d let him come back. “He has your name?” Kazuyo-san says.

Tobio nods. “It’s his right soulmark.”

Kazuyo-san shifts in his bed. “You’ll meet plenty of people in your life,” he says. “Some of them will wear your name⁠—⁠but you won’t wear theirs.”

Tobio nods again. His chance of meeting someone whose name matches his soulmark is even smaller than most people’s, since Tobio only has the one soulmark. But he’d never thought about being on someone else’s wrist⁠—⁠permanently marked on someone else’s soul. At least not anyone but his own soulmate. Or enemy. Whatever.

“He’s a really good setter,” he feels the need to tell Kazuyo-san. “But he won’t teach me anything.”

Kazuyo-san makes a noise in his throat. “Well, you’re teammates, but you’re also rivals too,” he says.

Tobio latches onto the word a little desperately. He’d had lunch that day with Kunimi and Kindaichi, the other first years, and the topic of soulmarks had come up. Tobio has never really been excited to talk about only having one soulmark, but because of Iwaizumi-san, he’d been a little brave, showing them both that there was nothing under his left sweatband. There had still been a pause⁠—⁠Kunimi thinking and Kindaichi clearly uncertain how to respond⁠—⁠and Tobio had felt not for the first time like he was floundering. A rival . . . it’s a softer version of an enemy. And Tobio’s whole life is going to be volleyball, so surely the person on his wrist is someone who also plays.

If you get really good, I promise you someone who’s even better will come and find you, Tobio thinks.

“Well, he’s really, really good,” he tells Kazuyo-san again. “So I guess it’s okay if I’m his rival.” He guesses it’s good that Oikawa-san isn’t the name on his soulmark, because of Iwaizumi-san.

Still.

Tobio searches for a distraction, glancing at the taped games he’s brought from home. “Can we watch a game?” he says.

Kazuyo-san looks incredibly sorry, but declines. “I’m not really feeling up to it tonight.”

Tobio grips his hand, and nods. He leans in for a quick hug, shifting away before Kazuyo-san can react. “Can I tell you more about practice?” he says, not meeting the man’s eye. “The other first years⁠—⁠Kindaichi and Kunimi⁠—⁠they’re really nice. Kunimi’s a wing spiker and Kindaichi is a middle blocker. We had lunch together. I showed them the name.” Tobio checks in before he goes too far and finds Kazuyo-san smiling. He grins back, and then keeps talking.

Tobio’s second year of middle school is hard. Tough. Lonely.

Miwa’s away at university, and she’s into the final stretch now, and therefore even harder to reach by phone. She texts when she remembers to, asking if Tobio’s eating enough for dinner and offering to harass their parents if they forget his birthday. Tobio laughs, tells her off, and misses her more.

Kazuyo-san starts spending more and more time in the hospital. Tobio always visits him, but it’s not the same as if he were home. Since Oikawa-san and Iwaizumi-san have graduated, Tobio is now the team’s main setter, and that should be good, but it comes with a surprising amount of strain. Kunimi and Kindaichi are good enough friends, but they don’t want to practice as much as Tobio needs.

Then it’s just Tobio, in the house, going to practice, not going to the hospital, all alone.

Miwa comes back for the funeral. Then she leaves.

Tobio watches taped volleyball games alone, goes to school and volleyball practice alone, and plays volleyball with his team, somehow feeling even more isolated.

Miwa still calls and texts, but it’s not really the same.

She’s hurting too. Tobio starts letting her go to voicemail, until the two of them mostly just communicate through single sentence messages.

On the worst nights, when Tobio’s parents are working late and there is only enough food to make rice with little-to-no seasoning and not even volleyball can fill all of his empty spaces, Tobio traces the lines of the sun on his wrist and thinks⁠—⁠hopes⁠—⁠prays⁠—⁠that the words his grandfather said to him were true. That one day someone better will come find him, and that it will be this person written on his arm.

Middle school remains awful.

Or maybe⁠—⁠

Maybe Tobio is the one who’s awful.

He doesn’t know.

There’s no one around for him to ask.

The ball flies high.

No one is there to send it hurtling across the court.

Tobio sits on the bench.

Hinata Shouyou is a reckoning. He bursts into Tobio’s life with all the finesse of a wrecking ball and somewhere in the middle of their new captain telling them the only way they’re going to join the Karasuno volleyball club is if they learn to get along, Tobio gets a glance at Hinata’s club form and sees⁠—⁠

Sun.

To go towards.

To fly.

Sunshine.

⁠—⁠how he writes his name.

Tobio’s own soulmark is carefully covered with his ever-present sweatbands⁠—⁠the new ones he got in celebration of getting into Karasuno⁠—⁠but immediately he’s self-conscious about how short his sleeves are, barely reaching the middle of his forearms. He fights the urge to tug them down and glances instead at Hinata’s wrists, a terrible, reflexive, hopeful thing that he thought the world had beaten out of him. Then he breathes easier because the other boy is wearing soulguards. Thin, should-be-flimsy, athletic-grade soulguards. Tobio had looked at a similar pair in the store once and thought angrily about the money his parents left him for emergencies, and then bought the significantly cheaper sweatbands with several allowances instead.

Tobio decides that it doesn’t matter, because his and Hinata’s wrists are covered. Hinata clearly knows Tobio’s name⁠—⁠he shouted it at him once he got over the shock of seeing him⁠—⁠and he’s also shouted his own name at Tobio. There’s no question that Tobio is not the name on one of Hinata’s wrists, and that’s good, that’s fine, that’s great.

But standing outside the Karasuno gym gaping at the closed door with the idiot kid the universe has decided to hitch him to, Tobio decides it’s actually awful, not good, not fine, not great.

It’s awful and Tobio is livid, already coming up with reasons why the fault rests entirely with Hinata Shouyou, who has a stupid, stupid name. How dare it be written with so many sun radicals when his hair is so bright it makes Tobio’s eyes hurt. How dare he be at Karasuno. How dare he be trying to join the same club.

How dare he keep Tobio from getting to play volleyball.

“I swear I’ll get along with him!” Tobio lies desperately, banging on the gym doors.

The captain⁠—⁠Sawamura Daichi⁠—⁠pulls them open. “Will you really?” he says.

Tobio can’t stop himself from telling the truth⁠—⁠“I would rather do everything than play with him!”⁠—⁠and Sawamura-san laughs, tells him that’s against the rules, and closes the doors in his face.

Hinata stands next to him silently for two long moments, before opening his mouth. “Are you an idiot?” he says.

Tobio closes his eyes and counts to ten.

The solution to their problem ends up being a proposed three-on-one match against the other new first years, but Tobio is going to have to help Hinata learn enough to at least receive a ball, if he wants to win. It means getting to the gym before class early for practice, and sacrificing lunch and probably dinner, but it’s not like there’s anyone waiting up for Tobio at home. And Hinata really, really sucks.

Tobio tells him as much over and over, watching the other boy stumble and fail to bump the ball. “I’m not going to toss the ball to you,” he says. “I’ll toss to Tanaka-san instead.”

They’ve been joined by Sugawara-san⁠—⁠vice captain and the team’s starting setter⁠—⁠and of course Tanaka-san; both of the third years frown. Tobio holds his ground⁠—⁠he’ll toss to anyone who will help him win but tossing to Hinata would do the opposite. And he’s still a little mad about the soulmark thing. When he got home last night, he didn’t do something stupid like try to scrub the words off his arm, but he did text his sister, It’s pronounced ‘Shouyou’ and then turned off his phone. It’s back on now because he’s not an idiot, but Miwa’s messages are still being ignored.

Hinata simply stares back at him, expression not unlike the one he wore the previous month at the Sendai City Gymnasium. Tobio is almost angrier that he remembers that⁠—⁠the occasional thoughts he’d had for the kid with all the wasted potential now soured by the knowledge that that same kid was the one whose name was on his arm.

Hinata opens his mouth. “If I receive a ball in a way that is worthy, will you toss to me then?” he says. His voice is just as strong as it had been when he was telling Tobio he’d win, one day. That he’d stand on the court.

Tobio stares firmly back. “I’ll toss to anyone if it will help me win,” he says, out loud this time. “But that isn’t you. Especially since you think it’ll be easy to fix your receives. They suck.”

Hinata squawks, but Tobio goes back to practicing with Tanaka-san. They have so little time. Everything is resting on the results of this match. Tobio would be miserable if he couldn’t play volleyball all through high school but getting to play it without playing as setter would almost be worse. It would be like getting put back on the bench, but this time for three whole years.

His second day of classes goes poorly, the early start leaving him distracted and sleepy. The beginning of lunch is spent with his face down on the desk, drooling, and it’s only the kindness of the girl who sits behind him that has him getting up in time to investigate the school vending machines. Tobio wants milk, and for it to be Saturday, and for his team to have won.

He listens with half an ear as Hinata and Sugawara-san practice receiving, turning the information in Hinata’s awkward sentences around in circles in his brain. Hinata talks about middle school⁠—⁠God, he’s really fixated on when Tobio beat him in middle school⁠—⁠which further confirms that he hasn’t got Tobio’s name on his arm. (He’d have said.)

“So, are you only playing volleyball so you can defeat Kageyama?” Sugawara-san asks.

Tobio doesn’t know why he pauses. It’s not like this is the first time he’s heard his name during the conversation.

Hinata doesn’t really answer. “I want to be strong enough to beat Kageyama,” he says instead. “I don’t want to lose.”

Tobio chews on that sentence as well. That was similar to what he’d said last month too⁠—⁠and just yesterday, when they’d been standing locked out of the gym. Hinata had said he wanted to stay on the court for as long as possible.

Sugawara-san laughs. He tells Hinata that he should think of Tobio as his greatest ally instead of as his greatest enemy, and the use of the word⁠—⁠while softer than half the things Tobio’s heard from so-called friends in his fifteen years of life⁠—⁠still makes what little food he’d eaten turn to ash in the pit of his stomach.

Hinata, at least, seems about as pleased to hear the words out of Sugawara-san’s mouth as Tobio is. But that’s probably just because Hinata is as annoyed with Tobio as Tobio is with him. Hinata clearly doesn’t like him, and Tobio squashes down the little boy in him, the one that only wanted the person whose name was on his arm to like him⁠—⁠to love him⁠—⁠so that the rest of the world could be wrong, for once, instead of unkind.

Yawning, Tobio retreats with his milk in hand, back to his classroom and afternoon lessons. He still thinks about it, when he should be listening to his teachers, or catching up on his lost sleep. He thinks about how Hinata is clearly stubborn⁠—⁠Tobio has to give him that. He thinks about how Hinata obviously loves volleyball. How he’s got great reflexes. How his jumps . . . How his jumps have the potential to be amazing. How he really was wasting his time, all through middle school.

Then he thinks about Hinata’s name with its two suns, and how it’s the one stamped across Tobio’s wrist.

Because he sucks. Hinata really, really, really sucks. Kazuyo-san had said that if Tobio got good enough someone better would come, and Tobio had been a naïve child, but he’d truly believed that that person would be the one whose name is on his arm. Because . . . if they weren’t . . . if they weren’t, then Tobio didn’t have a soulmate, and that idea was the most terrifying of them all. Worse even than not having volleyball.

So curse Hinata Shouyou. Curse him for sucking. Curse him for loving volleyball. Curse him for diving across the gym to receive the ball despite his exhaustion. Curse him for (inadvertently) standing beside Tobio when they face down that asshole Tsukishima.

Curse him for spiking Tobio’s impossible toss down hard onto the opposite side of the net.

“I’m here!” Hinata shouts, already leaping, and Tobio’s hands move of their own accord. But it means nothing that he does that. It’s just about winning, that’s all.

After they win their practice match against Aoba Johsai, Tobio finds Kindaichi outside the bathrooms, washing his hands. Despite having sought the other out, Tobio spends the first awkward exchange of eye contact mentally cursing the name on his right wrist. Surely this is Hinata’s fault. Their first meeting happened outside a bathroom when the idiot was dealing with an upset stomach due to nerves, and also, he threw up on Tanaka-san on the bus ride over here, so this is clearly a pattern, and Tobio is has probably inherited it by way of like . . . soulmate magic, or something. Only⁠—⁠no⁠—⁠Hinata’s not Tobio’s soulmate. Hinata’s not Tobio’s anything. Tobio is nervous, staring down his former classmate, and it’s bleeding into his thoughts.

Tobio opens his mouth to speak, but Kindaichi gets there before he can.

“Don’t apologize,” Kindaichi says. “I’m not going to apologize either.”

Tobio swallows the sudden pit of anxiety that had been collecting in the back of his throat and nods. “Right,” he says.

The last time they looked at each other like this Tobio ripped the soulguard off of Kindaichi’s left arm, peeling back the protective covering in search of something to soothe his wounded pride. There had been a completely foreign name on Kindaichi’s right wrist, but the one on his left arm was Kunimi’s name, and they had nearly come to blows. Tobio had stared, shocked into silence, and Kindaichi had been staring too⁠—⁠obviously he hadn’t said anything, or showed Kunimi his left wrist. Already Tobio had felt awful. Even angrier. Itching for the fight they hadn’t been able to really have on the court.

Guilty.

But then Kunimi had fucking . . . Kunimi had Kindaichi’s name too, on his left wrist, and Tobio had been alone, on the outside, without friends.

He wants to apologize, but he can tell from Kindaichi’s eyes that if he does, that’ll really be the end.

“You haven’t changed,” Kindaichi says, breaking the silence. “You’re still the same person. A person I want to beat.”

“Right,” Tobio says.

“We’re going to beat you next time,” Kindaichi continues. “This isn’t some ‘reconciliation.’ We weren’t all that close before anyway. So don’t you dare tell me ‘sorry.’” Unbidden, his eyes flick to Tobio’s right wrist, quick enough that Tobio almost convinces himself it’s a trick of the light. But he knows better.

Tobio nods his head. “Right,” he says for the third time. He breathes through his nose. “It’s pronounced . . . Shouyou,” he says. “Hinata Shouyou. On my arm.”

Kindaichi’s eyes jump down to Tobio’s right wrist more obviously this time before they zero back in on his face. “You⁠—⁠”

“It’s him⁠—⁠”

They’re interrupted by the kid himself, Hinata’s dumb bathroom song colliding into Tobio’s sentence with all the subtleness of a newborn learning to talk. Hinata has the wherewithal to immediately retreat out of sight, but the damage has still been done.

Tobio throws his shoulders back and lifts his chin. “We’re going to win,” he tells Kindaichi, ignoring the gaze⁠—⁠Hinata’s⁠—⁠that he can feel on his back. “Next time we play you. We’re going to win.” His piece said, he nods, then turns.

“Did you cry?” Hinata asks him, before they’ve even left the vicinity of his former friend.

“Didn’t you have to use the bathroom?” Tobio snaps at him, but Hinata is unfazed.

“Seriously, Kageyama. Did you cry? It’s okay if you cried. Onion head’s annoying⁠—⁠he had me convinced you were going to throw me to the wolves or something.”

Tobio’s head is starting to hurt. He stares down at Hinata with speechless confusion. “Onion . . . head.”

Hinata just grins, hands coming up to do something around his stupid, orange hair, before leaning back a little to look at Tobio with a surprising amount of focus. “You’re sure you’re alright?” he says.

Tobio feels . . . funny. Inside. But he’s fine, other than that. “Go shit,” Tobio tells him crassly. “Or throw up. Or whatever. But don’t you dare do it on me once we get back on the bus.”

“Shut up, Kageyama!” Hinata says. “You’re the worst! I’m not going to throw up on you! Or on the bus!”

Tobio deadpans right back at him. “It literally just happened,” he says. “You literally just did that.”

Hinata flails at him.

Oikawa-san shows up before they can leave the Aoba Johsai campus with a challenge, announcing that he’s going to crush Tobio⁠—⁠his cute kouhai⁠—⁠specifically at Interhigh. Tobio tries not to stare too obviously at his right hand (he’s pointing with it), knowing what’s on the wrist just above it. Thank God Oikawa-san was wearing soulguards during the match. Tobio would hate to have to explain that to the rest of his team.

Of course, before they focus on the Interhigh preliminaries, they’ll need a libero, and probably an ace. (It’s not Hinata, no matter how often the idiot insists.) He and Hinata will need to practice their miracle quick. He, Hinata, Tsukishima, and Yamaguchi will have to better integrate into the team.

Still Tobio feels . . . almost ready. Excited. Prepared. Because he’s got a team⁠—⁠his team⁠—⁠at his back.

They lose the Interhigh preliminaries. Aoba Johsai defeats them in round three, and Tobio lets them by sending Hinata his impossible toss.

“I’m sorry,” Tobio tries to say, as Hinata grabs him by the front of the collar and throws him down in the grass.

Hinata shows up to the gym and throws volleyballs with Tobio until they’re both exhausted and lying collapsed, miserable together on the floor.

Hinata says, “Don’t you ever act like tossing to me is a mistake!” and Tobio thinks, Oh. He’s my friend. Fuck soulmates and enemies. He’s my friend.

The night they get back from the Nekoma training camp, Tobio and Hinata have their first real fight. It’s bad. The two of them are usually always “fighting,” as the rest of the club calls it, but really that’s just competing. They compare every grade on every test. They race to see who can get to the gym first, who can get the club room first, and who can change out of their uniform first. Volleyball dominates most competitions. Tobio keeps a running tally of all of his wins and losses in various games and practice matches, and the first time he shared it with Hinata was an accident, but Hinata didn’t think it was weird; Hinata was keeping track, too. Tobio and Hinata are no strangers to competition.

But they are to fighting. And this is a fight. A real one.

Hinata says he wants to open his eyes. That if he doesn’t open his eyes, it’ll be like he’s not even playing.

Tobio listens to him say all that and feels terribly afraid.

No, he thinks. Not like this. Not when Tobio has finally started to figure out this team. Not when Hinata is the only one who can spike his tosses⁠—⁠his too fast, impossible tosses⁠—⁠not when they can use their miracle quick to succeed.

“You’re being selfish,” he tells Hinata. “I told you⁠—⁠I’ll toss to anyone, but only if they’ll help me win.” He does not need to say, If you try to spike with your eyes open, that won’t be the case. He turns his back, and Hinata lunges at him, tackling Tobio and taking him to the ground.

“Toss to me!” Hinata shouts, scrabbling at Tobio’s shirt and at his waist, grabbing to hurt.

“No!” Tobio gives it right back to him, snarling.

They have to be pulled apart by Tanaka-san, who punches them both in the face to get them to stop. It hurts, but not as much as the feeling in Tobio’s chest. That feeling doesn’t go away⁠—⁠not when he’s accepting the band-aid Tanaka-san plasters on his cheek, not when he and Hinata are going their separate ways without making eye contact, and not when he happens upon a flyer advertising a volleyball workshop for kids at the genkan of his home.

“Learn with the pros!” it advertises. There’s even a cutesy photo. Tobio glares at it feeling personally offended and not really knowing why.

The house is still and quiet; it’s not late enough that both of his parents are there, but his mother is too busy working to do more than acknowledge Tobio’s presence. He goes through the motions of his nighttime routine: scarfing down a lonely dinner as quickly as he can so that he can get through as many taped matches as he can stomach⁠—⁠tonight it’s not many at all⁠—⁠and then, if he’s feeling up for it, at least a half hour of setting practice, both of those things also done alone. He’s dreading the coming day. They don’t have club activities because of the maintenance in the gym, so besides school, Tobio will have nothing to distract him. He’ll have nothing else to do.

Before bed he checks his phone to see if he has any messages from Miwa, but he thinks that ship sailed the moment his sister stopped pestering him for more information about “his Shouyou.” It’s probably too late to call her anyway⁠—⁠she has to get up early in the morning for work.

His chest still hurts.

Falling asleep is hard, and the next day, when he and Hinata are no longer speaking to each other or seeking each other out during lunch, that’s harder. Still the fear sits icy in Tobio’s chest⁠—⁠the terror of messing up, of being useless to the team, of being put back on the bench, waiting for Sugawara-san to graduate, as is his place.

The moment the bell rings announcing the end of school, instead of going home before sunup because they don’t have practice, Tobio goes in search of the volleyball class for kids, hoping to find . . . clarity.

He finds Oikawa Tooru, instead.

His former senpai is standing beside one of the kids the workshop was clearly geared towards, wearing an Aoba Johsai t-shirt and white pants. He spots Tobio and looks momentarily shocked. He’s there because Aoba Johsai has Mondays off⁠—⁠it’s an entirely sanctioned rest day. The kid is his nephew.

Clearly satisfied with having explained that much, Oikawa-san moves to be on his way.

“Oikawa-san!” Tobio says.

Oikawa-san pretends not to hear him.

“Oikawa-san!” Tobio repeats. He bows, frantic, but Oikawa-san remains unmoved. “Please!” Tobio says, still bowed over. “Please! I need your advice!”

After a small pause, Oikawa-san takes a picture of Tobio bowing, forcing his poor nephew to do his dirty work and seeming way too pleased about the entire situation. Tobio keeps his head down because he needs answers but can’t help but glance at Oikawa-san’s wrists once he’s been released from the bow. Both of them are covered since they’re out in public and he has⁠—⁠Tobio swallows bile⁠—⁠fans, but Tobio entertains that he can still see them, the four characters of his name across Oikawa-san’s skin.

“Tobio-chan,” Oikawa-san says, catching him looking. “Please tell me this isn’t some sort of belated confession. As I’ve said, Iwa-chan⁠—⁠”

“What? No, no, no!” Tobio says⁠—⁠stutters⁠—⁠his cheeks going hot. He wrenches his eyes away from Oikawa-san’s right wrist and slaps a hand around his own to rub at the sweatband covering Hinata’s name like some sort of nervous tick, which probably isn’t helping his situation. At least Oikawa-san knows that Tobio hasn’t got Oikawa Tooru written there. That’s got to count for something. Or help. God, Tobio thinks his ears are on fire.

There had been a brief, awkward time in middle school where Tobio might have had something resembling a crush, but Oikawa-san’s name wasn’t on Tobio’s wrist, and then he had been gone, and Tobio had been all alone, and things like crushes were less important in the grand scheme of things.

“Well?” Oikawa-san says, dragging Tobio free of his memories. “What do you need my advice on, then? I don’t have all day.”

Tobio doesn’t either. Tobio has until the qualifiers for the Spring Tournament, and those start in a month. “Say⁠—⁠say Iwaizumi-san was trying to do something before an important competition⁠—⁠a new combination⁠—⁠”

“Tobio-chan,” Oikawa-san interrupts. “You’re clearly here about that little Chibi-chan if you’re asking me about Iwa-chan. Let’s not pretend.” Oikawa-san pauses, clearly thinking. “It’s a bad comparison, anyway,” he says. “Iwa-chan and I have a bond.” He puts emphasis on the word “bond,” then waves his left hand in the air in case his meaning was not clear. His nephew looks on, bored.

Somehow Tobio’s ears feel even hotter. He doesn’t know what to say. He needs to say something⁠—⁠change the subject, ask his actual damn question, literally anything⁠—⁠but instead he just stares down at his feet, his mouth a harsh line. He looks back up, floundering.

Oikawa-san’s eyes have gone sharp. “Oh,” he says, because he’s not an idiot. “Or it’s not different, maybe.” He’s never been an idiot, even when he was making a fuss, or calling everyone on the team childish nicknames. He’s figured it out. He’s very clearly figured it out, and Tobio holds his right wrist harder, scared.

Then he realizes this means Kindaichi hasn’t said anything . . . and feels even more off balance. They don’t talk. They don’t see each other. Neither of them has apologized. And yet . . .

Tobio shakes his head, gathering his thoughts, and faces his former senpai head-on. “Hinata wants to start opening his eyes for our quick attacks,” he says, ignoring all the rest; it was unasked, so he’s not being impolite. “He’s been doing them without looking but now he wants to look⁠—⁠he wants to hit them on his own.”

Oikawa-san casts Tobio’s right wrist one last look, before turning his gaze on Tobio’s face. “That would be amazing, if you could make it work.”

The praise sits uncomfortably in Tobio’s belly along with that feeling from the night before, which Tobio is now starting to realize is guilt. “But Hinata’s really bad,” he blurts out. “He can’t⁠—⁠he can’t.”

Oikawa-san continues to look at him, gaze dark and too-knowing. “And I suppose you told him what to do instead,” he says. “You told him to do it how you want instead.”

Tobio bites back the instinct to say that what he wants works because it didn’t; Aoba Johsai just beat them at the Interhigh preliminaries by blocking their quick during the final rally.

Oikawa-san moves to walk past Tobio, expression unconcerned. “If you’re not even trying to listen to Chibi-chan, you’re just being a dictator, don’t you think?” He wasn’t even still at Kitagawa Daiichi for the birth of Tobio’s unfortunate nickname and still Tobio’s skin feels too tight. “Deciding your way is best and not even trying another because you’re scared is pretty cowardly, don’t you think? Besides.” Oikawa-san smiles, something less feral this time, and he very purposefully raises his left hand to rub his cheek against the soulguard covering the underside of his wrist. “The one who takes control of attacks is the spiker, not you.”

Tobio’s hands curl into painful fists.

Oikawa-san glances back towards his nephew. “If you can’t figure that out, you’re just a tyrant king,” he tells Tobio. “Takeru. Let’s go.” His nephew hurries past Tobio with one last curious glance, and then the two of them continue making their way down the stairs, leaving Tobio in their wake.

“Tooru? What was that about?” Tobio hears Takeru ask.

“It’s interesting. I wonder if Chibi-chan is like me, and has two marks,” Oikawa-san replies⁠—⁠a non-answer and confirmation that he’d figured out Hinata’s name is the one on Tobio’s wrist.

Tobio stands uncomfortably on the stairs for a very long time.

Later that afternoon, Ukai-san corners him outside the Sakanoshita store and tells him to try a falling toss⁠—⁠one that stops just at Hinata’s point of contact. “You’ve been sending them so that the ball goes right through where his hand is⁠—⁠which is what makes it so deadly⁠—⁠but now you need to make it so that it gets to his hand and just . . .”

“Stops,” Tobio realizes.

Ukai-san nods. “It’ll be much more difficult,” he says. “You’ll have to account for all sorts of things depending on the sort of pass you’re making⁠—⁠where you’re putting the ball . . . Do you think you can handle it?”

Tobio doesn’t have to think about it⁠—⁠he lets Oikawa-san’s words wash over him in his memory. “I’ll do it,” he says, getting to his feet in the Sakanoshita store. The guilt in his stomach isn’t gone, but it’s finally starting to abate.

Ukai-san grins.

The falling toss works. Hinata spikes it against Fukurodani, and then again against Ohgiminami, and Johzenji, and then when they beat Shiratorizawa⁠—⁠five debilitating sets with Tobio sitting out at the start of the final one due to exhaustion, and Tsukishima blocking Ushiwaka⁠—⁠qualifying Karasuno to represent Miyagi at the Spring Tournament and reducing the entire team (mostly the third years) to tears.

Miya Atsumu has Hinata Shouyou written across the underside of his wrist, too. He doesn’t wear athletic sweatbands or soulguards or any of the other usual things at the training camp⁠—⁠in fact, he almost seems proud to show off his soulmarks, the one that is Hinata’s name most of all. Tobio notices it at dinner on the fourth day. It’s taken him embarrassingly long to do so, but he has good reason. Since they’re both setters, Hibarida-san has no reason to put Miya-san and Tobio on the same team, and so most of his interactions with Miya-san have been across the court separated by a net. Tobio wouldn’t have been able to make out the name even if he had been rude enough to be looking.

But at dinner on the fourth day, Tobio sits close enough to Miya-san to read the characters that make up his left soulmark, and once he does, he finds he can’t look away. That afternoon Miya-san told Tobio that he was a “goody two shoes” on the court, so Tobio sat with him hoping he’d figure out whatever the hell that meant. Instead, his eyes catch on the kanji marking Miya-san’s left wrist, and he ends up with a whole other slew of burning questions.

To make matters worse, Miya-san has noticed the staring, and he’s looking back at Tobio with a bright grin. “Something you want to ask, Tobio-kun?” His accent is stronger this late in the day.

This would be the time for Tobio to bring it up⁠—⁠to say, “What did you mean when you called me a goody two shoes?”⁠—⁠but instead he just keeps eating, cheeks feeling warm.

It’s Hinata’s name.

Someone else in the world is marked with Hinata’s name.

Miya-san seems to realize he’s not going to get an answer out of Tobio, but that doesn’t deter him. He lifts his left arm, tilting his palm up so that Tobio⁠—⁠and presumably the rest of their table because they’re not alone⁠—⁠can get a better look at his soulmark. “It’s my soulmate, Hyuuga-san,” he says. He smiles. “I saw you staring, Tobio-kun.”

Abruptly, Tobio realizes that Miya-san doesn’t know how Hinata’s name is pronounced. But then, of course he doesn’t. Why would he? Miya-san doesn’t know Hinata⁠—⁠not like Tobio, who learned the correct pronunciation for the kanji on his wrist when the idiot it belongs to hollered it in his face and vowed to one day beat him at their sport. To Miya-san, those four characters are just kanji⁠—⁠to go towards the sun, etc. But to Tobio, they’re Hinata’s name.

He knows they are. He looks at them all the time when they’re comparing tests, or when Ukai-san is going over new position rotations. He sees them every day in his phone⁠—⁠Hinata being his most texted contact after his sister. (Though Hinata mostly texts him, rather.)

He looks at them whenever he takes his sweatbands off at home.

Seeing them on someone else’s skin is jarring, and not only because Tobio is still not used to the casual display of closeness. A surprising number of people at the training camp aren’t covering up their soulmarks, and it makes Tobio feel awkward, committed as he is to keeping his brokenness hidden from the rest of the world. It’s different from being at Karasuno, where the rest of the first years and most of the second years are equally secretive about their soulmarks.

Not that Miya-san⁠—⁠or anyone else at this table⁠—⁠seems particularly bothered by Tobio’s staring. Tobio is flanked on either side by Miya-san and Komori-san, who dragged a grudging Sakusa-san to sit next to them in apology for how they’d invaded Tobio’s meal the night before. Broccoli Number Two⁠—⁠Chigaya is at the table too, sitting between Sakusa-san and Miya-san. He, at least, looks discomfited.

Feeling like he should say something to break the silence, Tobio pointlessly clears his empty throat. “How do you⁠—⁠how do you know that name is your soulmate, Miya-san? Have you . . . met them?” he asks, then internally winces when his voice cracks in the middle of his sentence. He feels and sounds like a little kid.

Miya-san smiles even wider. “I’m glad you asked, Tobio-kun,” he says, like Tobio has done him a great service. “I haven’t met them.”

For some reason, Sakusa-san shifts like he’s going to get up. He subsides after a look from Komori-san, however.

Miya-san just continues smiling. “I know Hyuuga-san is my soulmate because of this,” he explains, then puts down his chopsticks so that he can show off his right wrist.

Tobio leans close and makes out the kanji for Sakusa Kiyoomi⁠—⁠all five characters of it, which he recognizes from many an article in Volleyball Monthly. Startled, Tobio turns to face Sakusa-san, who looks utterly bored by the conversation. (Although that may just be because most of his face is covered with a mask.) It’s clear he already knew his name was on Miya-san’s arm.

Another glance shows that Komori-san also looks unconcerned, but Chigaya’s next bite of rice is slowly falling back onto his tray and the table beside it. He does nothing to remedy the situation, clearly not having noticed. Tobio doesn’t blame him. He too feels like a ship lost at sea.

Miya-san sits back in his seat. “He’s one of the nation’s top three aces,” he says, picking up his chopsticks so that he can resume eating. “So of course he’s my enemy. That means Hinata-san is my soulmate.”

Tobio twitches, telling himself that it’s a coincidence that Miya-san delivered that final sentence with the correct pronunciation of Hinata’s name.

Sakusa-san continues to look unaffected. “I don’t think of you as the competition, though, Miya,” he says tonelessly.

Miya-san just grins, but it’s Komori-san who responds to his cousin. “You do realize that means you think of him as your soulmate, right?”

Sakusa-san glares at him.

Miya-san snorts. “Please,” he says. “We all know that’s not the case.” He shoots Sakusa-san a misleadingly kind smile. “I’d never dream of getting between you and your precious Wakatoshi-kun.”

Miya-san says Ushijima-san’s name in a completely different register than the rest of his sentence. Sakusa-san looks like he can’t believe he’s forced to share the same air with Miya-san. Komori-san simply keeps eating. Tobio shifts to get up and fetch napkins for Chigaya, who has finally unfrozen long enough to realize that part of his dinner is now on the table. The other first year gets up instead, looking relieved to have an excuse to abandon Tobio.

Unfortunately for Chigaya, no one speaks while he’s gone. Once he gets back with napkins to carefully mop up the mess of rice around and on his tray, the silence continues. Then Sakusa-san huffs out a breath, exhale muffled by the fabric of his face mask, and finally looks away from Miya-san.

As Tobio and the rest of the table watches, Sakusa-san rolls up his sleeves in explanation, fingers nimbly peeling off both his soulguards. They’re so thin⁠—⁠expensive⁠—⁠and probably make receives feel like they’re simply hitting his bare skin. Tobio makes a note to ask him what brand he uses later. Then he gets distracted by Sakusa-san’s soulmarks: the kanji for Miya Atsumu on his left wrist and Ushijima Wakatoshi on his right. The red looks particularly striking against the paleness of Sakusa-san’s wrists.

That done, Sakusa-san reapplies his soulguards, rolls down his sleeves, and stands, ignoring Komori-san’s noise of protest. He leaves, giving a vague mumble about the baths⁠—⁠the same one he gave the night before, after he’d interrogated Tobio about Ushijima-san.

“Sorry about him,” says Komori-san. He’s not done with his food, but he’s shifting in his seat like he’s going to follow.

“It’s fine. We are soul enemies, after all,” replies Miya-san.

Tobio ignores them both, mulling over the information alongside the rest of his dinner.

It’s not until later that night that Tobio wakes with a sweat, overwhelmed with the realization that what bothered him about Miya-san’s soulmark was not that he was walking around displaying Hinata’s name to the entire camp. What bothered Tobio was that Miya-san had Hinata’s name on his left wrist. What bothered him was that Miya-san might be Hinata’s soulmate. That would make Tobio his enemy. And an unrequited one, to boot.

It’s the biggest week of Tobio’s life and the start along the path he’s been working towards from the moment he first got his hands on a volleyball. He can’t afford to be anything less than a hundred percent, well rested, and at the top of his game.

It takes an unacceptable amount of time for Tobio to fall back to sleep. Yet somehow despite that, Tobio wakes the next morning in top form.

Camp ends with Hibarida-san having them swap positions, and Tobio gets to experience Miya-san’s sets firsthand. They’re glorious, but they also make something that feels an awful lot like jealousy burn in the center of his chest. Tobio finally does ask Miya-san his question, but he gets an answer that leaves him even more confused and even more off balance. The entire time they’re speaking Hinata’s name is visible on Miya-san’s wrist, which doesn’t help matters.

So camp ends with Tobio’s feelings all messy, but Hinata⁠—⁠fucking Hinata⁠—⁠picks through the tangles and forms them into a towel crown, which he places on Tobio’s head.

Karasuno finishes their practice with Date Tech, they head to Tokyo for the Spring Tournament, and they get so, so far.

They don’t win. They don’t reach center court. Hinata’s not even there, at the end. But Tobio doesn’t feel the real loss until afterwards, standing huddled among his team wishing that he’d been able to walk with them for just a moment longer.

Sugawara-san tells him that that is worth winning many times over.

Privately, Tobio agrees.

When it finally happens⁠—⁠when a member of the Karasuno High School volleyball club finds out about Tobio’s soulmark or lack thereof⁠—⁠that person is of course Tsukishima Kei. It’s the first training camp of third year. Karasuno has lost at Interhigh and the Spring Tournament twice now and lost the third years (Tobio still occasionally texts with Suga-san) and the second years both. Almost everyone at the camp is brand new, save the other Karasuno third years . . . and like . . . Lev. Tobio is Yamaguchi’s vice-captain, and he’s still sort of scared about that, but doesn’t hate it.

He’s always worried he’s going to break the first years⁠—⁠this year more than last year, when the team still had Tanaka-san to keep him in line. At training camps, the extra responsibility means he’s usually one of the last people to shower, since he ends up spending a lot of time helping the new members with their serves.

Tobio is therefore alone in the bathrooms with his shirt off when Tsukishima sees his soulmark.

His sweatbands are in the room they’re all sleeping in. He’s brought the soulguards he wears to bed for these sorts of things, but he really doesn’t want to put them on. They make his arms itch. Or they don’t, and Tobio forgets he’s wearing them until he really shouldn’t be.

Tobio sighs. Everyone is so close now that a lot of them don’t wear anything covering their soulmarks at night, but Tobio does, and so do Tsukishima and Hinata. He sometimes wonders if that means their arms are marked by people they all know and socialize with as well, but mostly he doesn’t think about it. It’s only when he’s freshly showered and clean, and the facing prospect of putting something on his arms⁠—⁠no matter how painless and lightweight those things are⁠—⁠that Tobio entertains the thought of telling someone. Of telling Hinata. They’re already basically enemies anyway, probably. Rivals. Friends.

Tobio sighs once more, reaching for his right soulguard, and then the door to the bathroom opens and Tsukishima walks in. He notices Tobio is there of course, but he doesn’t react beyond a small nod. Even Tobio and Tsukishima are what Tobio would call friends at this point.

Tobio stops breathing, every single cell in his body primed for an attack.

Tsukishima steps further into the room, then strips off his own shirt and starts complaining about the Nekoma first years butting in on his blocking practice. “It’s Kuroo-san,” he tells Tobio darkly. “The man has university to focus on but he’s still finding ways to bother me. I bet he shows up to the first Nekoma practice of the year and tells all the first years about ‘Karasuno’s megane middle blocker who you should bother whenever you play them at a training camp.’”

Tobio still hasn’t moved, too busy having a heart attack because he isn’t wearing his soulguards, but he can’t help but make a noise of protest. “He probably tells them that you’re Karasuno’s best middle blocker,” he offers. It’s third year and their last Interhigh and Spring Tournament before some of them go off to college and others join the V.League or train in Brazil. And Tsukishima is good⁠—⁠Tobio tells himself he doesn’t feel weird about offering the praise. His face isn’t hot or anything.

Tsukishima appears to be staring at him, eyes narrowed, hands still partly in his shirt. He squints a little harder, lifting a hand to lose his glasses for his shower. Then he visibly freezes, gaze zeroing in on Tobio’s bare arms. Because Tobio has no luck, he’s looking at the right one, the one with Hinata’s name.

Tobio’s cheeks do warm now. “Tsukishima⁠—⁠” he starts to say.

Tsukishima’s eyes track to Tobio’s left arm, taking in the blank space where a soulmark should be before he puts up a hand, halting Tobio in his tracks. “I can’t believe this,” he says. “This is hilarious.” Tobio flinches, but then for some reason Tsukishima continues, “You don’t have anything you want to ask me, do you? You don’t need any advice?”

Tobio blinks. “No?” he says finally.

Tsukishima . . . laughs.

Tobio doesn’t know what that means. He decides to disregard it. “You don’t⁠—⁠” he starts to say, then regrets doing so immediately because he knows better than to show weakness in front of Tsukishima, and now he has to finish the sentence or risk silent judgement. “You don’t think it’s weird? That I’m weird, because of it?”

Tsukishima’s eyes are practically sparkling behind his glasses. “King,” he says with great relish. “I guarantee the only thing I feel right now is sorry for you, since the universe decided to tie you to that useless idiot.”

Immediately Tobio goes to defend Hinata. He’s still not the best at volleyball but he’s not useless.

Seeing the look on Tobio’s face, Tsukishima only laughs more. “Amazing,” he says, turning to finally discard his glasses. “This is absolutely amazing. But speaking of Hinata he was looking for you, so you should probably head back.” It’s clear Tsukishima is now done with the conversation.

Tobio heaves another sigh, slapping on the soulguards and tugging on his shirt. He pauses before leaving the bathroom. “Don’t tell anyone,” he says gruffly.

Tsukishima raises an agreeable hand.

When Tobio gets back to the room they’re all sleeping in, Hinata doesn’t appear to have been looking for him⁠—⁠bastard Tsukishima⁠—⁠but he perks up and comes over to bother Tobio the moment he sees him anyway. He’s filled with stories from practice and ideas for them to try their next game.

“Kageyama⁠—⁠listen⁠—⁠”

Tobio listens to him babble with his chest doing something funny and chalks it up to residual nerves. A person⁠—⁠even if it was just Tsukishima⁠—⁠has just looked at Tobio’s soulmark. That’s worthy of the butterflies in Tobio’s stomach.

He worries that Tsukishima is actually going to tell someone for the entire rest of the training camp, but by the time they’re on the bus heading back home, it’s clear he isn’t planning to. The most he does is grin whenever he sees Tobio and Hinata, but Hinata doesn’t notice⁠—⁠and Tobio is used to ignoring Tsukishima’s barbs⁠—⁠so that’s all fine.

It’s third year. This time they’re going to win Interhigh and then the Spring Tournament. Once he graduates Tobio will have to get an apartment in one of the big cities, since that’s where most of the professional teams are based. He obviously has more important things to be worried about.

(And it’s not like⁠—⁠it’s not like Hinata has a matching mark with Tobio’s name on his own wrist. He’d have said, were that the case.)

The most surprising thing about graduating from high school and moving to a new city after being scouted to play for a professional volleyball team is⁠—⁠is Miwa, actually. Tobio texts her the moment he officially makes the decision, an almost involuntary confession he isn’t intending to make. It’s the morning after he’s officially signed the papers, anxious and jittery and bowing to Takeda-sensei and Ukai-san both, who’d gone above and beyond to help him navigate the world beyond Karasuno. Tobio is alone in his house and he hasn’t told Hinata, even though Hinata knows. Hinata had been loitering beside Tobio in the Tokyo Metropolitan Gym avoiding Itachiyama vs Kamomedai in second year when the recruiters first approached him. Hinata had been standing beside him the first month of this year, when they’d come again, and more seriously. Hinata had been the first person Tobio revealed his plans to⁠—⁠the team he was considering⁠—⁠even though the decision had basically been made.

That was just how they did things; Hinata came to Tobio over lunch having already decided to go to Brazil; Tobio came to Hinata after practice with the information that he’d chosen the Schweiden Adlers in Tokyo. Both of those conversations had ended with Hinata running off, but he’d come right back and nothing had changed.

So by all means Tobio should tell Hinata that things are now official. Instead Tobio reaches for his phone and thumbs through his contacts to his sister, sending an innocuous, I’m moving to Tokyo next year.

Miwa replies immediately. She doesn’t call, but her messages are just as enthusiastic. Exclamation points and a rambling sentence about the Spring Tournament⁠—⁠she’d been watching, Tobio’s sister, and she’d seen him get two service aces off a libero who trained under Komori Motoya⁠—⁠and an offer to get him in touch with her realtor. Coincidentally her lease is up at the end of the month, and she’s been considering swapping locations for something closer to a better train stop. She offers to help him look at apartments, to help him learn his own important train stops⁠—⁠adult type things that Tobio hadn’t really been thinking about beyond in the abstract.

It makes some painfully tight muscle unlock in Tobio’s heart, and his finger is hitting the call button before he can change his mind.

“Tobio?” His sister’s voice doesn’t sound any different than it had last time they spoke, but Tobio is finally old enough that that doesn’t bother him. He doesn’t feel the distance of too large an age difference, or feel resentful that Miwa is an entire world away and all grown up. “Is everything okay?”

“Neechan,” Tobio says. It’s all he can say for the first few seconds. He’d never blamed Miwa. Not really. She’d been there when she could, and gone away when she had to, and she’d always replied to text messages, eventually. She’d been there for every birthday, even when the snow and upcoming holidays made getting home to Miyagi difficult. She’d never let Tobio feel totally alone⁠—⁠not for very long, at least.

Still. With nothing but memories and the occasional cake shared between them, Tobio had let himself believe that they’d never be more than the calling sort of relatives. The texting sort. Maybe they’d see each other when their parents weren’t too busy to hold family gatherings, or for important things, like weddings. Funerals.

They wouldn’t be like Hinata and Natsu.

But Miwa watched his game. Miwa saw his two service aces. Miwa offered to help him find an apartment.

On the other end of the line, Miwa has gone abruptly silent, and Tobio swallows a lot of air. But Miwa doesn’t try to fill the quiet⁠—⁠she’s just like him, in that regard. Older, wiser, smarter. His big sister. The first person who shared volleyball with him when Tobio was small.

“I⁠—⁠” Tobio says finally. “I’m glad you answered.”

Miwa’s voice is thick. “I’m glad you called.”

It’s probably good that they don’t share the same home anymore. Tobio might start crying in front of her. How horrible. How completely unlike him. How like Hinata. He clears his throat because it itches; not to stave off tears. “I don’t⁠—⁠I was assuming I’d just live with the rest of the team.” The information about team accommodations had been included in all those papers Tobio just signed.

Miwa makes a noise of agreement. “That makes sense,” she says. “Well, if you want, we could still⁠—⁠I mean I’m not busy next weekend, if you want.”

Tobio swallows. “I want.”

“Awesome,” his sister says. “I’ll pick you up at the station.” She pauses. “Tell Mom and Dad.”

Tobio scowls. “They already know,” he mutters.

For all that Ukai-san, and shockingly, Shiratorizawa’s coach Washijou-san, had done their best to help him with the logistics of signing with a professional team, his and Miwa’s parents had still wanted to be involved. And their insight had been useful, if not also detached. Tobio could probably get away with letting them know he’d signed the contract over text and get a response thirty minutes later letting him know they were happy for him and that he would be alone again that night for dinner.

“Fine,” Tobio says louder, for Miwa’s sake.

His sister is definitely smiling. Tobio loves that he can tell. “Next weekend, then,” she says, then goodbye.

The apartments Miwa’s realtor ends up showing the two of them are far better than the Adlers’ dorm, optimally located to get Tobio to the private gym the team uses, and all seem to contain two bedrooms. Miwa never extends a formal invitation and Tobio never outright asks, but he’s under-age regardless, and as the newest member of the team, his salary isn’t out of this world. Their parents, in a stunning show of serving well out of bounds, offer to help them with the initial fees⁠—⁠deposit, key money, commission for the realtor, etc.

So, within weeks of graduating and saying goodbye to everyone at Karasuno, Tobio finds himself not so alone in a brand new city⁠—⁠living with his big sister⁠—⁠having signed to play professional volleyball for one of the top Division 1 teams in the V.League, and with the whispers of the senior national team and the 2016 Olympics already settling in behind his ears.

“Wow, Bakayama,” Hinata says over video call, as Tobio shows him awkwardly around the new apartment and tries not to notice how uncomfortable he looks in the tiny window at the top of his screen. “You’re so grown up with your own place.”

“Shut up,” Tobio says, ears feeling hot. He fumbles the phone a little on his next circuit of his brand new bathroom, opening his mouth to say something suitably barbed about Hinata’s own bathroom shenanigans. “Do you like it?” is what comes out instead.

If Hinata is surprised by the vulnerability he doesn’t show it. “Yeah,” he says, exuberant and excited as always. “I especially like all the orange things you have,” he adds. “What possessed you to choose that particular shade?”

Now that he mentions it, Tobio notices that the color he chose for his bath towels matches Hinata’s hair. But that’s not why he picked it. “I don’t know,” he deadpans. “Surely it can’t be because of our former high school.”

Hinata starfishes dramatically onto his bed. “Don’t say that! I can’t believe we graduated!”

Tobio watches him fondly with a smile, before schooling his expression into unaffected blankness. “But we graduated,” he says.

Hinata crows.

“Tell me about practice,” Tobio interjects. “What’s your coach like?”

Immediately Hinata perks up. “Takahashi-san? Well . . .”

Tobio parks himself on his own bed, content to listen to Hinata ramble on about the in’s and out’s of beach volleyball for as long as the both of them can stay awake.

It’s nine o’clock on a Wednesday, and Tobio has⁠—⁠once again⁠—⁠forgotten to go grocery shopping but is now forced to reckon with the limits of his funds, having splurged the night before for takeout. Practice went long and hard and Hoshiumi-san had wanted to practice serve defense for an unreasonable amount of time, favoring Tobio, who was the youngest, over Ushijima-san, whose anything would be nastier due to the spin but whose seniority both in age and length of time on the team had saved him from Tobio’s fate. Tobio loves his team and really enjoys playing with both Hoshiumi-san and Ushijima-san, but Hoshiumi-san has energy to rival Hinata; it was only Hirugami-san barking at the two of them not to overdo it that saved Tobio.

To make matters worse, tonight Miwa returns from her week-long stint doing hair for some boyband’s music video abroad, and by the time Tobio comes to the conclusion that they do not have any food, it’s too late to rush out and buy anything. His sister has already texted him that she’s ten minutes out . . . and that her entire hairdressers kit is easily accessible in her carryon.

Tobio wastes even more time scowling up at his perfectly serviceable bangs, before tapping into the other text message conversation he was engaging with earlier that day: a very important competition with Hinata, who was convinced his life was the hardest after his beach volleyball coach, Takahashi-san, put him through two hours of practice that the asshole only described as, Worse than anything you did all three years of high school. I didn’t even know that was possible, to be honest.

Late for practice and already dreading the disapproval he’d be getting from Suzaki-san, Tobio had snapped a picture of his empty fridge with the caption, I may starve before you even have a chance to beat me, in an attempt to one-up Hinata’s misfortune. Possibly he’d even thought that the text would serve as a reminder for him to go grocery shopping after practice, but no.

At least Hinata hasn’t done more than read both messages.

With a sigh, Tobio sets down his phone, resigned to his fate. Miwa is his big sister. She’ll probably give him hell for it, but she’ll buy him food. There’s a restaurant a block from their place that he’s been wanting to try, but with the start of the season, he’s just been too busy . . . this’ll be a perfect opportunity. It’ll just require some groveling and probably putting up with teasing for the rest of both their lives⁠—⁠something warm curls in Tobio’s belly when he thinks about his newfound closeness with his sister.

Although that could just be the hunger.

Several minutes later, Miwa steps into the apartment with her suitcase, looking exhausted but pleased. She immediately bends to take off her shoes and slip into the fuzzy purple slippers she leaves in the genkan, the door clicking closed behind her. Then she rises. “I’m home.”

“Welcome back,” Tobio replies, caught awkwardly just within their living room in sweats and a t-shirt.

Miwa grins at him. Then she reaches into her bag and brandishes what can only be the hairdresser’s kit.

Tobio pulls a face.

Miwa laughs. “I’m kidding,” she tells him, putting it back in her bag. “Sort of,” she adds, significantly quieter with another quick look at Tobio’s perfectly decent bangs.

For both their sakes, Tobio pretends not to hear. He hasn’t seen his sister in nearly five days, and while he’s no stranger to living basically alone, he’d gotten used to having someone else around to share meals and watch games with.

Miwa looks a little worn down by the travel, but she also seems shockingly perky⁠—⁠bubbly, and clearly excited. She’s also rather . . . pink. The color extends past both her cheeks across the tips of both her ears, and Tobio can’t figure out if it’s because of the weather or something else. It is mid-November, after all.

“Neechan,” he starts to say.

“I met him,” Miwa interrupts, before he can move any closer. “Tobio⁠—⁠I met him.” She flashes her left wrist, waving the hand in the air. “Kenta-kun.”

Tobio blinks. “Oh,” he says, taken aback.

“We’re going out this weekend,” Miwa says. “My name is on his left wrist too.”

“Congratulations,” Tobio manages. His stomach feels messy, all of his muscles coiled like a spring. It’s not likely that that is because he’s hungry, but Tobio doesn’t have time to think more about why his face feels hot. “I’m happy for you,” he says. He’s aware he sounds like some sort of robot attempting to play at human yet can’t seem to think of anything more to say.

Miwa doesn’t seem to notice. “Yeah,” she says breathlessly, going over to plop herself down on the sofa. Her head dips a little automatically when she catches sight of the photographs of herself, Tobio, and Kazuyo-san placed right next to the television, before she turns her full attention back to Tobio. “He was the director,” she explains. “For the music video. My name is on his left wrist too.”

Tobio doesn’t say, You said that, because he’s not actually an asshole. He’s just surprised. He hadn’t thought that this was what he and Miwa would talk about this evening. At most, he’d been expecting they’d get into it because of the food.

Tobio comes over to sit beside Miwa on the couch, the odd feeling in his stomach not letting up. “I’m glad,” he says. “That’s great.”

His sister narrows her eyes⁠—⁠seeing all. She’s still flushed with the joy of having found her soulmate, but now she’s got that big sister look on her face. “What about you?” she says, unfortunately more aware than Tobio; the moment she says the words is the moment Tobio understands that his stomach feels full of knives because his sister finding her soulmate has made him intimately aware of the soon-to-be-distance between him and his own.

That is if Hinata even is Tobio’s soulmate. Tobio would be remiss to forget that.

Miwa reaches out and takes hold of Tobio’s right hand. “Have you made any progress on telling him before he flies halfway across the world⁠—⁠”

Tobio wrenches his hand away from Miwa, flushing. “No,” he mumbles. “No⁠—⁠I don’t”⁠—⁠his eyes light on the stack of DVDs with taped matches he set aside for tonight’s viewing⁠—⁠“We don’t have any food. Let’s watch a game.”

Miwa blinks rapidly a few times. “We don’t have food? You haven’t told him? What game?” she asks, all three questions coming out in quick succession without pause.

Tobio picks up the recording of EJP Raijin vs the Tachibana Red Falcons game from last week, which he’d intended to watch in preparation for facing the Falcons this weekend.

Miwa sighs. “Fine,” she says. “But after the first set I’m getting us takeout. And you’re going grocery shopping tomorrow. And I’m going to require at least an hour to talk about Kenta-kun. I think you’d like him a lot. He’s a fan of volleyball⁠—⁠knew who you were and everything.”

Tobio settles deeper into the couch and tries not to look too smug about getting free food and being well known among the J-pop scene. “Deal.”

As they start to watch the game, most of Tobio’s focus is on the Falcons. Hakuba Gao looks like he’s gotten even taller and Ojiro Aran remains a frightening force on the left side; the Adlers won their last game when they faced them last season, but it was one set difference by the skin of their teeth. Besides that was a team without Tobio; this is Tobio’s debut season, and he wants⁠—⁠no, needs⁠—⁠to do well.

Miwa seems most interested in Suna Rintarou, however, whose torso hasn’t gotten any less terrifying since graduating high school. And there’s always Komori-san, who is a delight to watch for his impressive serve defense alone.

“I just think he’s handsome,” Miwa tells Tobio after the second time Suna-san gets one of his notorious cross shots past the Falcons’ middle blockers, and Tobio spends the remainder of the rally wishing for death. “Was he that handsome when you faced him at the Spring Tournament, Tobio?” his sister continues, because she is a terrible person who lives to cause Tobio pain.

“No,” Tobio tells her, ignoring her as she asks for clarification on just what he’s answering. “No⁠—⁠give me your⁠—⁠give me your⁠—⁠” Tobio gets his hands on both of his sister’s, pushing up her sleeves so that he can confirm that Suna Rintarou is nowhere to be seen.

Miwa only laughs, before going back to watching the game.

EJP Raijin is up two points and continuing to pull ahead when there’s a buzz from the door, startling both of them.

“Were you expecting someone?” says Miwa.

“No,” says Tobio.

As one, they swivel their heads to face the door.

The buzz comes again, before the intercom clicks on to let the person speak. “Kageyama! Open up! I brought food!” says a voice from the apartment lobby, loud and horribly familiar.

Miwa still looks confused, even as recognition dawns behind her eyes. “Isn’t that⁠—⁠isn’t he in Miyagi . . . training?”

Tobio is back to wishing for death. There’s nothing he can do, however. Miwa pauses the game and Tobio gets to his feet to go answer the door, scrambling frantically for a pair of soulguards before he goes.

“Hinata?” he says hesitantly once he gets to the door.

“Buzz me in. I’m freezing, Bakayama,” Hinata says.

Flushing, Tobio does as much, growling at his sister not to say anything.

Miwa mimes zipping her lips.

Tobio finishes applying the soulguards to his wrists, and anxiously smooths the right one down.

Hinata comes inside behind a veritable wall of takeout, which explains why he’s in the middle of a truly insulting sentence detailing just what he thinks about Tobio’s survival skills when he first catches sight of Tobio’s sister, still frozen on the couch in front of the television showing the game. To his credit, Hinata doesn’t drop anything when he sees Miwa, but he does turn an embarrassed shade of pink, clashing with his hair.

He thrusts the takeout containers at Tobio, who only takes them because he’s a professional athlete with professional athlete reflexes. “Woah⁠—⁠dumbass⁠—⁠”

Hinata ignores him and bows, and Tobio can tell he’s blaming Tobio for this somehow which is honestly hilarious. Hinata introduces himself in a rush of sudden nerves. “Good evening, Miwa-neesan! Please pardon my intrusion!” He sounds like he’s talking to a teacher, and Tobio fights the urge to cuff him on the back of the head.

His sister’s not an idiot and she knows who Hinata is, but she’s also not mean, so she doesn’t comment. She simply dips her head and says back, “Shouyou-kun. Nice to see you again.”

Hinata bows some more. He’s still all pink.

Tobio fights the urge to roll his eyes, carrying the takeout over to the living room table and setting it down. “Dumbass,” he says again⁠—⁠but fondly this time.

Miwa darts a gaze between the two of them. Once she determines neither of them are going to break the silence⁠—⁠Hinata because he looks just as embarrassed as he did when he forgot to spike the ball during their first match against Inarizaki and Tobio because he’s enjoying how embarrassed Hinata is⁠—⁠she gives Hinata a very kind smile. (Tobio gets a sharp little glare that lasts no longer than a second.) “We’re in the middle of watching a game,” she says. “From last week. EJP versus the Falcons.” Hinata is nodding along. “Would you like to join us? Oh, I love pork curry,” Miwa adds diplomatically, glancing down at Hinata’s takeout haul.

Tobio is embarrassed to note it contains an excess of all of his favorite foods. He adores his sister.

Hinata has never missed a chance to watch volleyball, and he nods, skittering through the room to land on the couch as far away from Miwa as possible, shoulders locked uncomfortably and clearly not knowing what to do with his hands. It’s kind of cute, but it does mean the only open spot for Tobio is between them. Miwa’s expression is falsely blank; Hinata still looks embarrassed.

But then Miwa hits play, and Suna-san pulls off yet another cross shot, and Hinata’s love of volleyball wins out. “Gosh,” he says, eyeing the replay with disdain. “Those are still so nasty.” He darts a quick look at Tobio, who finally sits down on the sofa, ignoring the waves of glee coming off his sister when he chooses to sit closer to his friend than her. “I know you’re playing the Falcons on Saturday but”⁠—⁠Hinata gestures⁠—⁠“gross.”

Tobio agrees. On screen, almost as if in direct response to Suna-san’s cross, Ojiro-san fires an equally nasty cross shot just past his head. “He’s gross too,” Tobio says, frowning.

Hinata hisses in sympathy.

Hinata’s takeout options end up being okay, and he, Miwa, and Tobio make good headway on finishing almost all of the boxes. The leftovers can go in the fridge, to tide them over until the next time Tobio texts Hinata in desperation. (He knows Miwa is going to make him still go grocery shopping tomorrow, but still.)

“I didn’t text you in desperation,” Tobio protests, pausing the game and flushing as Hinata unlocks his phone and fucking shows Miwa the photo he sent him.

“Oh, he’s in your phone as ‘Kageyama Tobio’?” Miwa says. “That’s a wasted opportunity.”

Tobio narrows his eyes. “What am I in your phone?” he asks.

“That’s just his display name.”

Lame, Miwa mouths.

“But you think so?” Hinata stares down at his phone screen with his mouth pursed.

“Neechan.”

Miwa doesn’t answer Tobio. “Absolutely,” she tells Hinata instead.

Hinata goes quiet, frowning harder down at his phone, before he clicks around on the screen and his face lights up.

“I will end you,” Tobio tells him seriously, not interested in whatever tragedy Hinata has wrought on his contact name. “Don’t show me⁠—⁠” Tobio breaks off, ears turning even pinker despite himself when he sees that Hinata has changed his name to My Setter Bakayama.

“I’ll have to change it later. I can’t be on the same team as you if I want to beat you,” Hinata says.

“As if. I’ll beat you,” Tobio retorts automatically. His face still feels hot.

“But you understand.” After a mild pause, Hinata changes keyboards and adds an emoji next to Bakayama. It’s the baby bottle⁠—⁠“Because you like milk and you’re a baby, Bakayama.”

Tobio glares. Hinata hasn’t been afraid of his glares since the start of first year, so he just giggles.

They finish the rest of the match, and their dinner. Tobio tries not to notice that Hinata has catered his choices both towards Tobio’s preferences and his V.League diet. Miwa refrains from commenting on the attractiveness of any more of Tobio’s high school competitors-turned-colleagues. The Tachibana Red Falcons win the final two sets against EJP Raijin.

Afterwards, Tobio and Hinata put the leftovers in the fridge, loudly debating what the game results will mean for the state of the 2015-2016 league. Miwa disappears to finally put her suitcase away, which is the point where Hinata lets slip that he really did just jump on the first train to Tokyo the moment he saw Tobio’s sad excuse for a fridge photograph three-ish hours ago. He hadn’t even told his parents.

A horrified Miwa emerges back out of her bedroom and has him do that immediately, and Hinata suffers through a massive dressing down of epic proportions. “Disowned” and “Disappointment to the family name” and “You’re lucky you’re my only son,” are only some of the things Tobio gets to hear by virtue of sitting next to the idiot on the couch.

“Of course, you can stay with Tobio⁠—⁠it’s too late for you to go home by yourself!” Hinata’s mother finishes the conversation with. “And give him my love. The apartment looks lovely. I’m glad at least one of you is a functioning adult.”

“Mom!” protests Hinata, but he’s smiling as he hangs up the phone.

Grinning back, Tobio asks him, “Was that what it was like after you snuck into the Miyagi training camp in first year?”

“Shut up!” Hinata shouts back immediately. Then he subsides, flushing as he most likely remembers Tobio’s sister lives here too. “It was worse,” Hinata offers eventually. “In the morning it was Daichi-san and then at lunch it was Ukai-san and Takeda-sensei.”

Tobio grins some more but hides it behind his hand.

Hinata shakes his head. “That training camp was still the best,” he says. “Better than yours.”

Tobio rolls his eyes. For two long moments, they simply sit together on the couch in peaceful silence. They’ve been doing that a lot, now. In high school, towards the end of second year, there had been the start of that easy camaraderie. The stress of classes and first training camps and first competitions had left them, leaving only coexistence. By the end of third year, that coexistence had mellowed into ease⁠—⁠an ease that Tobio doesn’t have with anyone else, not since Kazuyo-san. It’s nice. Tobio thinks he’ll miss it the most, once Hinata heads to Brazil.

But that’s not for almost two years. Tobio shouldn’t be . . . ruminating (verb: to think deeply about something, thanks Yachi-san). He breaks the silence by speaking. “We don’t have a guest bedroom. You’ll have to sleep on the couch.”

If she weren’t in the bathroom, Miwa would probably have some choice words about Tobio’s hospitality, but Hinata simply shrugs. “Fine,” he says. “I don’t have to go home immediately tomorrow⁠—⁠it’s my off day.” Then he adds, looking shy, “You have practice tomorrow, right? Can I come?”

Tobio feels a little like he’s punishing the puppy he never had. “It’s a closed practice,” he says quietly.

Hinata nods like he’d been expecting that.

“But we can get lunch . . . after?” Tobio adds. “I’m sure Hoshiumi-san will be glad to see you.”

Hinata’s expression goes very intense, and he nods. “How tall is he now?” he says, fingers already reaching for his phone. “I think I grew almost two points of a centimeter last week and I need to compare. Do you think his vertical reach has increased or decreased since high school? Is he as formidable in the air⁠—⁠or more⁠—⁠”

Tobio throws one of the cushions at him, amused.

Hinata takes the hit with zero grace, almost toppling off the couch, but he doesn’t throw the thing back at Tobio. That’s good. Tobio’s sister is still present in the apartment and probably would not appreciate them attempting to murder each other in the living room. Although maybe she would be alright with it if Tobio spared her expensive couch . . .

Several squawks later, Hinata is resettled on said couch and the cushion has been set back in its place. He’s been lured onto the Adlers’ website and sits pouring over Hoshiumi-san’s stats on his phone with single minded focus.

Tobio is just watching him⁠—⁠and occasionally providing scathing commentary⁠—⁠just to see him flail about in annoyance. Hinata’s actually rather subdued this evening; probably because he’s trying to make a good impression on Miwa. Of course Tobio’s sister still hasn’t come out of the bathroom to rejoin them, and Tobio is starting to worry. His bedroom’s . . . fine. He hasn’t got anything she could be snooping around in⁠—⁠hasn’t really done anything with the room beyond what Yachi-san suggested when Miwa told him he needed to buy bedclothes. But maybe Miwa’s found something incriminating despite all that. Tobio should go check immediately.

“Oh,” says Hinata suddenly, looking up from his phone and at Tobio. “Kageyama. I didn’t bring a toothbrush. Or a change of clothes.”

All thoughts of his sister leave Tobio’s mind, the horrible image of Hinata without clothes eclipsing everything before he gets his shit together. He fights the urge to thwack Hinata with the cushions again. “Idiot,” he says. “You can just use mine.” There’s a noise from the hallway towards the bathroom, but when Tobio looks, his sister emerges looking absolutely put together.

Hinata nods. “Okay, thanks,” he says, and there is another noise, but Miwa still seems composed.

Tobio decides it’s not worth thinking about and gets up to grab his own phone.

Ushijima-san has Hinata Shouyou written on his wrist as well⁠—⁠the right one, the same as Tobio. Tobio remembers this fact in the middle of attempting a block, and it’s only years of conditioning that keep him from fumbling the toss when Heiwajima-san gets it back up off the one touch. The ball sails almost as perfectly as Tobio had intended, and Hoshiumi-san slams it down on the opposite side of the net for match point. His and Tobio’s group comes out the winners of the scrimmage.

There is a chorus of “nice kills!” from the rest of Tobio’s teammates, but Tobio is too busy staring blankly towards Ushijima-san on the other side of the net to do more than take the back-slapping congratulations silently. It’s early-spring, it’s balmy, and most of the 2017 Japanese National Team is in Kagoshima for a training camp in advance of the 2017 FIVB World League. Technically this is neither Tobio, nor Ushijima-san, nor Hoshiumi-san’s first time at one of these training camps, but they’ve been gravitating towards one another again regardless⁠—⁠the product of being players on the same professional team. A large amount of the so-called Monster Generation is present too⁠—⁠most notably Miya-san, who also has Hinata’s name on his arm. But thankfully, Miya-san is too busy talking with Ojiro-san and Sakusa-san to notice Tobio’s distraction.

Tobio probably would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for the fact that Hoshiumi-san is standing on the court next to him. He clocks Hoshiumi-san glancing between Tobio and Ushijima-san and quickly averts his eyes, but the damage is done. And when Hibarida-san releases them all from cool-down stretches to visit the showers and have dinner, Hoshiumi-san matches pace with Tobio and Ushijima-san, glancing between the two of them even more curiously.

Two steps of silence later, he raises a hand, pointing at Ushijima-san. “You’re not wearing soulguards,” he determines, sounding almost gleeful to have figured out what it was that caught Tobio’s attention.

Tobio does another quick glance around for Miya-san, heartbeat accelerating like a rocket. The other setter is thankfully occupied. Although if Tobio is any more obvious in his glancing, things could go south fast. He turns back towards his companions.

Ushijima-san is staring down at his own wrists, blinking. “Ah,” he says. “No, I’m not.”

Now Hoshiumi-san points happily at Tobio. “That’s what tripped you up,” he says. Then he repeats himself with confusion. “That’s what tripped you up? What, have you never seen a soulmark before?” Hoshiumi-san narrows his eyes. “Aren’t you both from Miyagi?” He blinks, suddenly looking horrified, and addresses Tobio. “It’s not your name, is it?”

Startled, Tobio turns to deny that statement emphatically, but it’s Ushijima-san who answers. “Kageyama-kun’s name is not on my wrist,” the man deadpans.

Tobio nods along frantically. His heart is still going what feels like a mile a minute. “Your name isn’t on my wrist either, Ushijima-san,” he says, because he feels the need to say so. Ushijima-san simply nods back; he’d clearly been expecting Tobio to clarify.

Hoshiumi-san squints between the two of them. “Then why were you staring?”

This time Ushijima-san doesn’t respond⁠—⁠most likely because only Tobio knows the answer to that question. But it’s okay. Tobio can salvage the situation. He’ll just say something completely normal⁠—⁠or lie and say he wasn’t looking⁠—⁠anything but the truth⁠—⁠ “That’s Hinata’s name,” Tobio says, because his mouth is a traitor, and his brain is too fucking slow to stop it. “On your⁠—⁠on your right arm.”

Hoshiumi-san draws in a great lungful of air. “Hinata Shouyou?” he says⁠—⁠bleats, more like.

Tobio shuts his eyes and counts to five because surely someone is going to overhear them. Only when he opens his eyes again no one has come over to inquire about his former teammate, and Hoshiumi-san looks suitably chagrined.

“Hinata Shouyou?” he repeats, his volume significantly lowered this time.

“Hinata Shouyou,” Ushijima-san confirms. He looks at Tobio. “Did you not know?”

Tobio feels put on the spot. “No⁠—⁠I⁠—⁠I did⁠—⁠” And he had. He remembers Hinata talking about it right after they’d beaten Shiratorizawa for the first time. He’d said something about how them winning meant he was worthy of being Ushiwaka’s fated enemy, and then he said something about Tobio still being his real enemy, and Tobio nearly had a nervous breakdown at how close to the truth that statement might have been. It’s not unsimilar to how he feels now. “Me too,” Tobio says, in a rush.

Hoshiumi-san’s mouth opens and closes. “You what?”

Blood roaring in his ears, Tobio flips over his right wrist and slides the edge of his thumb underneath his soulguard. He can still back out . . . but instead Tobio grits his metaphorical teeth and pulls the thing clean off, exposing Hinata’s name to the open air.

Hoshiumi-san leans right in, gawking, but Ushijima-san simply blinks impassively and keeps a more respectful distance away. Tobio gives his hand a little twist, watching the way Hinata’s name catches under the overhead gym lights. They really ought to head for the showers like everyone else⁠—⁠that’s where they’ve all gone, Tobio realizes. Shaking off his nerves, Tobio reaches for the soulguard on his left wrist.

“That’s⁠—⁠” Hoshiumi-san appears to be having some sort of reaction, but Tobio is too busy preparing himself for the real leap of faith.

He unveils his blank left wrist. “I don’t have two⁠—⁠”

“That’s unfair!” Hoshiumi-san finishes finally, seemingly unconcerned with Tobio’s lack of left soulmark. “You both have his name?”

Tobio exchanges a look with Ushijima-san, who helpfully turns his own wrist over to show Hinata’s name. He’s the third person Tobio’s seen with it as their soulmark, but it still makes something unpleasant twist in Tobio’s stomach. But at least Ushijima-san has Hinata’s name on the same wrist as Tobio does. Unlike Miya-san.

Tobio gives himself a mental shake and tries to focus on Hoshiumi-san, who seems to have finished speaking while Tobio was lost in his thoughts. He has no idea what Hoshiumi-san was saying. “Ah⁠—⁠”

“That is so unfair,” Hoshiumi-san says, clearly not having needed Tobio to respond anyway. “He’s my rival. You’re both way too tall.” The way he switches gears in the middle of the conversation is disorienting. “So he’s both your enemies, then?” he asks. His eyes flick to Tobio’s other hand and he pauses. “Or your enemy.” He gestures at Ushijima-san. “Your . . . both?” He’s looking at Tobio like he’s expecting some sort of answer, and the panic sinks right back in.

Tobio shrugs uncomfortably. He doesn’t know the answer and he doesn’t want to talk about it. Luckily, Hoshiumi-san doesn’t seem to need him to, muttering to himself about the unfairness of the situation.

“I’m his rival. I’m the Little Giant,” he says, tone going grim as he adds, “I cannot believe Hinata Shouyou tried to give the name back to me in 2013.” Then his expression goes wild again. “You’re both⁠—⁠so tall⁠—⁠” He whirls to face Tobio first. “Is your name on his wrist?” he says. “Hinata Shouyou’s⁠—⁠is yours?” He looks at Ushijima-san now, but Ushijima-san is shockingly composed.

Tobio finds himself unintentionally looking at Ushijima-san’s hands. They’re both at his sides now, so Tobio can’t see, but he . . . he realizes he doesn’t know if Hinata has Ushijima-san’s name on his wrist. That hadn’t ever come up. And then Ushijima-san had graduated and debuted into the V.League and Tobio and Hinata’s focus had shifted from trying to defeat Oikawa-san and Ushiwaka to trying to defeat the Miya twins and Sakusa-san.

Is Miya-san’s name on Hinata’s wrist, Tobio wonders⁠—⁠for the first time since he found out about Miya-san’s soulmark at his first All-Japan training camp. That thought is almost worse.

In a surprising show of awareness, Ushijima-san presents the group of them with his left wrist, which has three characters on it. Recognizing the first as the kanji for “heaven,” Tobio blinks. Tendou-san?

“I am not the name on either of Hinata Shouyou’s wrists,” says Ushijima-san, formal to a fault.

Tobio is relieved. “Ah,” he says. “I . . . don’t know if my name is one of Hinata’s soulmarks,” he tells Hoshiumi-san. “I haven’t . . . told him.”

Now Hoshiumi-san is looking at Tobio like a senpai would, and Tobio fights the urge to shift back a few steps. Their age difference suddenly feels really large.

“Oh,” Hoshiumi-san says.

Ushijima-san simply lowers his hand, nodding seriously in response to Tobio’s words.

Tobio really feels uncomfortable in the silence, but he doesn’t want to break it.

Thankfully, Hoshiumi-san does it for him. “Well, since we’re sharing. Here are mine.”

Hoshiumi-san peels his soulguards and holds out his wrists. Tobio knows better than to bring up the scandal from last year when the Adlers won the league for the first time and their celebratory photograph featured a Hoshiumi-san who had just scored the winning point and was sporting a slipped soulguard. Yet when faced with Hoshiumi-san’s bared soulmarks, he can’t help but remember. Things have pretty much cooled down since then, but every so often Hoshiumi-san will be reminded that a good portion of the volleyball world thinks he is unrequitedly soulbound to their captain, and the Adlers’ public relations team has to ban him from all social media.

Technically speaking, Tobio⁠—⁠along with the rest of the team⁠—⁠does not officially know the name that is actually Hoshiumi-san’s left soulmark, but having played him in high school, it’s not been hard for Tobio to guess. Especially since the only reason the rumor was still floating around was because Hoshiumi-san refused to put it to bed by showing the entirety of his left soulmark⁠—⁠saying that his soulmate didn’t want that information to be public knowledge.

Tobio looks at the kanji on Hoshiumi-san’s left wrist and confirms that it belongs to a former part of Kamomedai’s iron wall. The name on Hoshiumi-san’s right wrist is unknown⁠—⁠it has the kanji for “to design,” “long,” and the numbers “two” and “three.”

“It’s Sachirou,” Hoshiumi-san says, pressing gentle fingers to the kanji on his left wrist with a smile. “And this one is pronounced Enaga Fumi.” He brandishes his right wrist at the two of them, looking intense. “She’s a sports journalist. She wrote the article.” Hoshiumi-san’s expression is honestly terrifying, but Tobio spent three years on a team with Hinata, so he is unbothered. “She is clearly going to attempt to bring down the Schweiden Adlers. Avoid her.”

Hoshiumi-san says that last sentence so intensely that Tobio commits the name to memory⁠—⁠no way is he leaving something as important as his volleyball career up to the chance that this Enaga Fumi’s name is one of Hoshiumi-san’s soulmarks for a completely mundane reason.

“And yours is that guess blocker of yours, yeah?” asks Hoshiumi-san.

Ushijima-san nods. Tobio feels vindicated, and then a little surprised. But he supposes the two of them had seemed rather close when he’d seen them interact.

“Right now, he is in school studying to become a pastry chef,” Ushijima-san says. “After he graduated from culinary school in Japan, he went to Paris to study further. It has been hard.”

The memory of the day Hinata got on a bus to the airport and then flew off to Brazil while Tobio was at a camp not dissimilar to this one preparing for his 2016 debut on the national team hits Tobio like a sucker punch to the gut. “Oh,” he says. For some reason he wants to say something about how he understands. But that doesn’t make any sense. Surely a friend moving to another country to study is not at all equivalent to a soulmate moving to another country to study.

Ushijima-san seems content to respond with thoughtful silence, and for once, even Hoshiumi-san lets the quiet hold.

Then the door to the gym bangs open to reveal Miya-san and Bokuto-san. “There you are⁠—⁠they’re still in the gym!” Miya-san says, clearly shouting to someone over his shoulder. “You’d better not be overdoing it⁠—⁠although I’d be glad to take your spot, Tobio-kun.”

Tobio frantically slaps his soulguards onto his wrists and ducks his head. “I’m close to beating you for serving,” he tells Miya-san.

Miya-san scoffs. “You wish.”

“No, it’s true, I checked.” Sakusa-san appears beside Miya-san like he’s been summoned, although he’s clearly here to talk to Ushijima-san and looks⁠—⁠as he always has in all the instances Tobio’s seen him recently⁠—⁠exhausted. Not for the first time, Tobio looks at him and feels grateful he did not choose to go to college.

“Oi⁠—⁠Omi⁠—⁠” protests Miya-san.

“Wakatoshi-kun. About that last spike⁠—⁠” interjects Sakusa-san, ignoring Miya-san.

Tobio tries not to glance too obviously between the three of them, knowing what he knows about Sakusa-san’s soulmarks. Instead, he falls into step beside Bokuto-san, who smiles happily down at him as they all leave the gym. Unbidden, Tobio’s gaze drops to Bokuto-san’s uncovered right wrist, Bokuto Koutarou flashing back at him. Then he feels embarrassed, but Bokuto-san simply smiles some more.

“Hey.” The outside hitter shifts to nudge Tobio gently in the shoulder. “It’ll all work out, yeah?”

He’s earnest and smiling and Tobio smiles back, actually believing it. “Yeah,” he says.

Somehow, Tobio manages to forget that at some point in 2018, Hinata will no longer be in Brazil, and will return to Japan with the express purpose of beating Tobio. He has no reason to forget this fact. His exchanges with Hinata are brief, but they’re not entirely non-existent. And usually when they do text, one of them finds a way to update the other on the overall score, which leads to declarations of supremacy and a mention (usually on Hinata’s part) of how once Hinata comes back, Tobio is going down.

Still, Tobio is very busy and easily distracted by the 2017-2018 season, not to mention all his exploits on the national team. So he forgets, until he’s reminded on one cold day at the start of February by Tsukishima.

They’re on a call because Tanaka-san’s birthday is coming up and Tobio has no idea what to get him. In between the mocking banter and the⁠—⁠as always⁠—⁠surprisingly useful information (Tanaka-san has been eyeing some of the new ISC windbreakers but as he is still a college student for the remainder of the next two months, his price bracket is drastically different from Tobio’s), the asshole mentions how “Hinata is coming back in a month and Yamaguchi is already making plans for all of us to go get him at the airport.”

He says some other things after that⁠—⁠probably about how he absolutely is not going to go pick up Hinata at the airport⁠—⁠but Tobio doesn’t hear any of it.

Tobio is too busy panicking, because Hinata⁠—⁠Hinata is coming back to Japan.

In a month. Right in time to catch the tail end of the 2017–2018 season, so that he can⁠—⁠presumably⁠—⁠attend tryouts and get in practices on a complete team before a portion of them head off to train with RYUJIN NIPPON. Tobio’s stomach does a funny little swoop as he realizes that Hinata won’t be trying out for the Adlers, but he doesn’t have the brain space to figure out what other teams Hinata could pick. His thoughts are a mess . . . He finds himself rubbing the mark on his wrist like some sort of nervous tick. It’s uncovered⁠—⁠he’s alone⁠—⁠and somehow that makes it all worse.

Tsukishima is still talking⁠—⁠he’s surprisingly verbose once Tobio gets him on the phone, which Tobio secretly thinks might be because he misses them. Tsukishima, Tobio, Yamaguchi, Hinata, and Yachi have a group chat and occasionally Tobio has a crisis worthy of a phone call (Tanaka-san’s gift case in point) but it’s not the same as living out of each other’s back pockets. More than that, Tobio and Tsukishima are the only two of them who’d even continued playing volleyball after high school. Well . . . discounting Hinata, but Hinata’s in a whole different time zone.

“⁠—⁠and of course, the most important thing will be the crossdressing. I expect you to go all out . . . Wow. Nothing? You really aren’t paying attention.”

Tobio checks back into the conversation with his thoughts still in something of a blur and mutters out a sentence he hopes conveys that he’s “got to go. Sorry.”

Tsukishima is used to it. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Just make sure you don’t get him anything for below the waist⁠—⁠” Then he hangs up, abandoning Tobio to his hysteria.

Tobio doesn’t know why he’s panicking. He and Hinata have talked . . . sort of. They’ve texted in the group chat, once or twice. And, as mentioned, they’ve even messaged each other privately. About three months after Hinata left, Hinata sent Tobio a message on LINE. It was a photo of him and Oikawa-san in Brazil, which Tobio had immediately shown to Ushijima-san (who’d conveniently been walking past him in the locker room) in hopes that his teammate might have some sort of insight into what the hell it meant; Ushijima-san knew Oikawa-san, after all. Tobio had gotten another message almost an hour later, this one from a user he hadn’t realized was still in his LINE contacts. Given that Oikawa-san’s message was entirely laughing emoji, Tobio had determined the best course of action was not to reply to either of them.

But while he hadn’t texted Oikawa-san any more beyond that, he had texted Hinata, even if it had mostly been one-word answers to Hinata’s increasingly less frequent questions and a perfunctory Happy Birthday both years on June 21. There had been congratulations after the Olympics⁠—⁠in the group chat, so not privately, but Tobio was counting it⁠—⁠and a string of enraged exclamation points after Tobio got a service ace off Komori-san the last time they played EJP Raijin (Tobio replied with a smirking emoji, and he was fucking proud of himself). It wasn’t anything substantial⁠—⁠nothing like the conversations he and Hinata used to have in the dark at training camps or before they parted ways to head home after a late practice when no one else was listening⁠—⁠but Tobio was fine with that. He hadn’t thought it was strange.

Now, though, when Tobio pulls open his messages with Hinata and sees that stupid smirking emoji and nothing else, he feels not unlike how he’d felt that first day in the Tokyo Metropolitan Gym, facing Tsubakihara Academy. He feels like all his carefully honed spatial awareness⁠—⁠like all the mental pathways Hinata carved into him through hyperactive perseverance and orange tenacity⁠—⁠have gone awry.

Like some sort of train wreck happening in slow motion, Tobio presses his fingers to the message bar at the bottom of his screen, opening up his keyboard. I heard you’re coming back in a month, he types. Ready to lose? It’s not too late in Japan which means it’s not too early in Brazil, so Tobio doesn’t have to wait long for Hinata’s reply.

Don’t you mean are you ready to lose? Hinata responds, which doesn’t make sense, and Tobio sets the phone down after sending an equally nonsensical reply of, You wish.

Then he gets up to put on a game and scrolls through the ISC website on his phone instead of responding, narrowing down options for Tanaka-san’s gift. Hinata⁠—⁠and the low buzz of panic in his belly because of his looming return⁠—⁠is put soundly out of Tobio’s mind.

So naturally the disruption carries over into practice the next day.

Tobio is a seasoned professional. He’s been playing volleyball professionally for three years. All of those years he was also on the national team. He’s played in the Olympics. He lived with his sister until he turned twenty, then he moved out⁠—⁠he does his own laundry, cooks his own meals, gets public transportation, has memorized many more kanji. Fumbling sets and misjudging distance is something Tobio left behind his first year of high school, when the gym was too big and he needed a few moments to readjust. The private gym the Schweiden Adlers use is almost more Tobio’s home than his apartment, at this point. And messing up his serves is not the worst thing to have happen (they all have bad days). But getting distracted and sending Hoshiumi-san one of Hinata’s tosses elevates the entire experience into Tobio’s top ten worst practices.

To his credit, Hoshiumi-san does manage to spike the ball past all three blockers, but he’s barely landed back down on the ground before he’s shooting Tobio a curious look. Something on Tobio’s face must warn Hoshiumi-san off, however, since he doesn’t give Tobio grief.

Tobio apologizes regardless, head bowed.

Hoshiumi-san waves a hand. “No, it’s fine,” he says slowly, clearly mulling it over. “I’d always wondered . . . I think I like it better when I have more time in the air, but it’s good to know I can hit those too.” He pauses. “I mean of course I could. I’m better than Hinata Shouyou.” He gets that twitchy, competitive look in his eye that has Hirugami-san clearing his throat and urging them back into formation for Heiwajima-san’s next serve.

Tobio falls into position in the front row and does his best to breathe. He doesn’t fully recover, but he doesn’t get worse. Tobio knows he’s good enough that on his bad days he’d still make it into Division 2, but with everyone else on the team at his level and more, his mistakes really show.

In the locker room after practice, Tobio gets in one of the first showers, where he sticks his head under water that isn’t quite warm enough yet, trying to get himself under control. In the seconds where the chill feels like it’s gone straight through his skull to touch the tender flesh of his brain beneath it, Tobio thinks of bright orange hair and a too loud laugh, of boundless energy and the Brazilian sun. He’s never resented the fact that he and Hinata had been in the same country in 2016, but now he does; if not for the Olympics, Tobio wouldn’t know firsthand what Hinata’s life had been. He wouldn’t be able to think of Hinata shirtless on a beach⁠—⁠one that Tobio had visited firsthand.

When he gets out of the shower, most of the team has left, but Ushijima-san is sitting on one of the benches looking down at his phone, clearly been caught in the middle of packing up his things by whatever it is that’s on the screen. He’s frowning⁠—⁠an expression so microscopic that it’s only because they’ve spent the last three years playing together that Tobio realizes Ushijima-san is disgruntled.

“Ushijima-san,” Tobio says, coming over to start collecting his own things out of his locker, which is right beside Ushijima-san’s, and Romero-san’s.

Ushijima-san continues to stare down at his phone. “Satori sent me this,” he says. “It’s a meme. Of me.”

Tobio spends a few seconds just digesting the fact that Ushijima Wakatoshi knows the word “meme,” which Tobio himself only knows because he follows Miya Atsumu on Twitter, and his sister (and Tsukishima Kei) are mean. “Oh,” he says.

Ushijima-san tilts the phone towards Tobio so that he can see. “It is because of my name,” he says. “In case that was not clear.”

It hadn’t been, so Tobio nods, staring down at the photo of Ushijima-san’s face pasted onto a photograph of a cow. The turmoil of his feelings for Hinata has been briefly forgotten. “I don’t understand the purpose of the meme,” Tobio adds.

Ushijima-san is quiet for a long while. Then he says, “I do not either. Satori is not helpful.”

Tobio thinks. “You should ask Oikawa-san,” he says. “He knows a lot about memes.” Oikawa-san keeps sending Tobio all sorts of memes⁠—⁠mostly of Tobio⁠—⁠but he does it at ungodly hours due to the time difference, and then is missing in action whenever Tobio tries to follow up or ask for clarification.

Ushijima-san stays silent for another few moments. “I believe he has blocked my number,” he says.

“Oh.” Some of Tobio’s panic is starting to trickle back in. “I could send it for you.”

Ushijima-san forwards the photo to Tobio, who messages it to Oikawa-san, and then puts his phone away. His lock screen is a photo he took after Karasuno lost to Itachiyama in third year, arms thrown about each other and smiling despite that fact, because they’d made it to the center court. In it Hinata’s cheek is pressed right against Tobio’s. Looking at it makes the panic come back in earnest.

“Now,” says Ushijima-san, his own phone having vanished away. “Something has been bothering you.”

Tobio goes to deny it.

“It is affecting how you play.”

Well . . . fuck. Tobio can’t argue that. “Hinata is coming back to Japan next month,” Tobio says, the words tumbling out in a burst of oversharing. But having said that much . . . Tobio can’t bring himself to say more. What is there to even say, besides that for some reason the knowledge that Hinata will be returning has put him into a chaotic disarray? Maybe this is the reason Hinata’s name is on Tobio’s wrist⁠—⁠he’s his enemy after all, because of the breakdown he’s currently causing Tobio from all the way across the world.

Ushijima-san stares impassively at Tobio. “I find that when Satori comes to visit from Paris, he very much appreciates it if I pick him up from the airport with flowers.”

Tobio’s soul leaves his body. “What?” he manages.

Ushijima-san continues to look at Tobio with frightening blankness, which is clearly not indicative of lack of inner thought, since the next words out of his mouth are, “Ah, are you and Hinata Shouyou not in a relationship? My apologies.”

Tobio continues to feel like he’s choking on air. “What?” he says again.

“I’m sorry for having assumed,” says Ushijima-san. “But forgive me . . . is his name not on your wrist?” They both look down at Tobio’s uncovered right wrist, where Hinata’s name sits.

Tobio blinks furiously, searching desperately for the correct words. “I’m not⁠—⁠” he starts to say. “I mean I don’t⁠—⁠” he tries again.

Ushijima-san nods. “I understand,” he says, very kindly. He doesn’t say more. Tobio wishes he would⁠—⁠he doesn’t understand and would love to. “You obviously have a lot to think about,” Ushijima-san continues. “I will see you at practice tomorrow.” Then he stands, goes to collect his bag, and exits the locker room, leaving Tobio alone on the bench with his thoughts.

What the fuck?

What the fuck?

What the fuck?

Ushijima-san has been doing so much of life for longer than Tobio⁠—⁠middle school volleyball, high school volleyball, professional volleyball . . . all of it, really. He went to the All-Japan Youth Training Camp before Tobio. He joined the national team before Tobio. He found his soulmate before Tobio, and somehow maintains a long distance relationship with the other man.

If Ushijima-san looked at Tobio and thought . . . somehow . . . that he and Hinata were dating⁠—⁠

Tobio gives his head a furious shake.

No.

That’s. That’s stupid. That’s not . . . It’s Hinata. Orange, stupid, annoying Hinata. Hinata who was there, that day in April, to slam Tobio’s ball onto the other side of the net. Hinata who kept being there⁠—⁠who told Tobio he was invincible and pushed him to the apex of his limits. Hinata with his laugh to end wars, his commitment to volleyball to rival Tobio’s. Hinata who always understood, even when Tobio was clumsy with lack of practice and keeping his personality hidden behind painfully tall walls.

Hinata.

Tobio is in love with Hinata.

Hinata with his name, written across Tobio’s arm.

The grip Tobio has on his phone is hard enough that the screen lights up, the part of the photo that’s him and Hinata with their faces smooshed together the only part visible through the gaps between his fingers.

Hinata.

Five minutes later, Tobio swallows his pride and bites the bullet. Tsukishima, he texts. I think. I think I’m in love with Hinata.

The reply is prompt, yet scathing. You’re only realizing this now? King.

Given that Tobio’s realization is totally Tsukishima’s fault⁠—⁠he was the one who mentioned in passing that Hinata was coming home in the first place⁠—⁠and given that Tsukishima already knows Hinata’s name is Tobio’s soulmark, Tobio feels absolutely zero shame when he shows up at Tsukishima’s apartment at three a.m.

Tsukishima opens the door without his glasses, squinting down at him from the darkness like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. Since he’s not wearing his glasses, he might not actually be able to tell what it is he’s seeing⁠—⁠or who.

“It’s Kageyama,” Tobio says, trying to be helpful. “I think I’m in love with Hinata. Can I come in?”

Tsukishima does not slam the door. He does look briefly up at the ceiling. “Why?” is all he says. “What was the sin of my previous life?”

Tobio continues to stare. He won’t enter someone else’s home without permission.

Finally, Tsukishima opens his door. “King,” he says. “Please. Do come in.”

Tobio steps quickly into the genkan, bending to take off his shoes.

Tsukishima watches him do so. “Take off your shoes,” he says. “Stay a while. It’s not too late to impose.”

Tobio stands to his full height, fighting the urge to fidget. He doesn’t know what to say.

“Well?” Tsukishima is just as uncaring a bastard as always.

“I think I’m in love with Hinata,” Tobio says again. “That’s it.”

Tsukishima looks incredibly pained. “I know,” he says. “Trust me. We all know.”

Tobio blinks. “You do? I mean . . . Ushijima-san was the one who told me, but⁠—⁠”

Tsukishima barks out a startled laugh, before abruptly stopping. “You’re serious. Oh my God. That man. Anyway, you being in love with Hinata is a bad thing, why?”

Tobio is starting to wish he hadn’t come. But who else was he going to bother with this? Yachi? She would have cried on the spot. “Because⁠—⁠this!” Tobio says and thrusts out his right arm. He’s not wearing soulguards. He went traipsing onto the subway without soulguards in the middle of the Adlers’ home turf.

Tsukishima squints down at Tobio’s hand. “Because of your right hand? Gross⁠—⁠”

“Because of my soulmark!” Tobio says.

Tsukishima blinks. “Which is Hinata’s name . . . isn’t that a good thing?”

“It’s on my right arm!” says Tobio.

Tsukishima is shockingly silent.

Tobio tries really hard not to fidget.

After an unreasonably long amount of time spent doing nothing, Tsukishima lets out a drawn-out sigh, and pushes up the right sleeve of his shirt. Tobio panics. “Wait. No. Please don’t tell me you have Hinata too⁠—⁠or me⁠—⁠I am not in love with you, Tsukishima!” he shouts. His voice is way too loud for the stillness of Tsukishima’s tiny student apartment, especially given that it is three a.m.

Tsukishima freezes with his hand around his forearm, staring at Tobio blankly. His eyes aren’t visible because of the darkness, but Tobio doesn’t need to see them to know that they are filled with judgement. “I’m just going to pretend you didn’t say that,” Tsukishima says. “So that I can continue to give you advice, and you’ll leave my apartment.” He pauses. “Is that okay with you?”

Tobio nods frantically.

Tsukishima nods as well. “Good. Don’t make this weird.” Then he finishes uncovering his wrist and holds it out for Tobio to see.

The characters read Tsukishima Akiteru. “What?” Tobio says.

“It’s for my brother, Akiteru,” Tsukishima says, with the same disdainful air he’d had all through high school, even though both characters in his brother’s name are jouyou kanji and also, Tobio has met Akiteru-san several times. “It’s on my right wrist.”

Reminded, Tobio can’t help but shoot Tsukishima’s left arm another suspicious look.

“It’s not your name. Or Hinata’s⁠—⁠it’s someone I haven’t met yet. And none of your business.” Nothing gets past Tsukishima.

Tobio is content to let it go. Not because he trusts Tsukishima, but because he knows Tsukishima would not spare Tobio’s feelings by keeping something like that from him. Still . . .

“You’re the worst.” Tsukishima shoves up his left sleeve, and Tobio sees enough to confirm that the soulmark is neither his nor Hinata’s name. “Happy?”

“Yes.”

Tsukishima rolls his eyes. “Anyway⁠—⁠I’m showing you this because it’s my right soulmark.”

Tobio nods more slowly, confused.

“My brother. Whom I⁠—⁠and if you tell him this, I’ll deny it to my grave, so don’t bother⁠—⁠love. His name is on my right arm.”

Tobio nods once more.

“So, you understand?” says Tsukishima.

Tobio stares at Tsukishima for a long time. Tsukishima stares back, looking exhausted.

“Does what I’m saying make sense?” Tsukishima says finally.

Tobio continues to think. “Yes,” he determines. It really does make sense⁠—⁠proof on Tsukishima’s hand notwithstanding. Tobio certainly doesn’t think of Hinata as his enemy, and he didn’t prior to realizing he was in love.

Fuck.

Tobio is in love.

With Hinata. Stubborn, pretty, orange Hinata, who he hasn’t seen in nearly two full years, and who he texted sparingly without any meaningful conversation. Hinata who hits Tobio’s miracle tosses, who flies across the court like the crows they were in high school, who will return to Japan in less than a month. Hinata who Tobio will not see until the start of the 2018-2019 season; he’ll be busy with the national team, and Hinata will be busy with fan events and brand deals and the other less glamorous sides of professional volleyball. Tobio won’t see Hinata for another nine months . . . though he realizes rather suddenly he hasn’t said his plans out loud to Hinata, and he should probably do that. Just so the dumbass doesn’t expect him at the airport next month, or anything.

Tobio is in love with Hinata.

Tsukishima yawns, oblivious to Tobio’s inner turmoil. “Awesome,” he says. “I have class in less than five hours, though, so if you’re done⁠—⁠”

“I’m not going to tell Hinata about my soulmark, though,” Tobio says before Tsukishima can finish. He feels certain and steadfast in his decision⁠—⁠no longer off balance to the point of affecting his performance in volleyball. “He doesn’t have my name, so if I told him⁠—⁠I was in love with him, it would just make things weird,” Tobio adds. He only stumbles a little in saying the words, which is good. He’ll probably be perfectly capable of talking about it by the time he sees Hinata again. Maybe he’ll even have moved on.

More likely he won’t⁠—⁠it’s Hinata, whose name covers Tobio’s right wrist, and who Tobio would have been waiting for regardless of that fact. But Tobio has spent the past six or so years being Hinata’s friend, not his soulmate nor enemy. He can certainly do however many more.

“Thank you, Tsukishima,” he says, realizing he hasn’t offered his thanks. “I⁠—⁠uh⁠—⁠appreciate it⁠—⁠”

“God, don’t hurt yourself,” says Tsukishima, holding up a hand. Then he presses two fingers between his eyebrows, pausing. “You know what⁠—⁠never mind⁠—⁠I don’t care⁠—⁠that’s really good, Kageyama. I’m happy for you. Please . . . let me go back to sleep.”

“Pardon my intrusion,” Tobio tells Tsukishima dutifully, before shoving his feet into his shoes and hustling back out of Tsukishima’s door.

He goes back to his apartment, climbs back into his bed, and falls into peaceful, dreamless sleep. Oikawa-san calls him sometime before sunrise, shouting at Tobio in what has to be Spanish. Unable to understand, Tobio hangs up the phone. He does not pick up Hinata from the airport⁠—⁠that task falls to Yamaguchi, who sends Tobio, Tsukishima, and Yachi a photo of the two of them still standing at arrivals. Hinata is tan, smiling ear to ear, with hair just as bright as Tobio remembered. He doesn’t hold Tobio’s absence against him⁠—⁠thinks it just makes sense to wait to see each other for the first time on the court. (They see each other at Tanaka-san and Kiyoko-san’s wedding regardless but agree that that moment doesn’t really count.)

With the end of the season, Tobio’s world narrows down to his time on the national team, with training camps in Tokyo and Kagoshima and friendly matches played abroad, and competition after competition representing Japan. In September, Tobio manages five service aces against France in the second round of the World Championship, standing in the middle of a court in Varna, Bulgaria, listening to the roar of a crowd. Several months prior, Tobio found out that Atsumu-san was not one of the names on Hinata’s wrists⁠—⁠something that had long tormented him with the stubbornness of a hangnail. The fist pump he makes in both instances could absolutely not be compared.

The ball flies high.

Hinata is there to return it hurtling across the court.

Tobio plays and plays and plays.

Hinata wins.

It’s everything Kazuyo-san said it would be and more.

At the after-game, celebratory reunion dinner, Hinata spills water on Tobio in the middle of the restaurant, and that’s how Tobio finds out that Hinata Shouyou has Kageyama Tobio written on his left wrist. They stand staring at each other in the aftermath, Tobio with both of his hands around Hinata’s perfect, warm shoulders, as the fucker smiles at him, all soft and beautiful.

“That’s my name,” says Tobio.

“I⁠—⁠I know⁠—⁠”

“My name! Your soulmark is my name! Your soulmark is my name!” Tobio shouts on repeat, not even changing up the emphasis, still holding Hinata around the arms. He shakes him.

Hinata hollers right back. “Your soulmark is my name!”

“Yeah, I know!” Six years. Tobio’s known this idiot for six years, basically seven, at this point. Eight, if they wanted to count their meeting at this same gymnasium in May 2011⁠—⁠all that time spent carrying around each other’s names on their souls.

Tobio can’t believe this is happening.

Tobio tells Hinata he loves him.

Hinata says it back.

Their entire asshole group of friends cheers.

Hinata kisses Tobio⁠—⁠his first kiss⁠—⁠and it’s just as good as playing volleyball.

For the rest of the night, Tobio tucks himself into Hinata’s side and Hinata lets him. Or maybe, Hinata pulls Tobio into his side, and Tobio lets him. Regardless, Tobio spends the evening pressed up against Hinata shoulder to hip, warmed from the inside out by the sun itself. Hinata keeps holding Tobio’s hand⁠—⁠the right one⁠—⁠so that when they tilt their fingers just so their soulmarks line up. Hinata and Kageyama, bound together by a red string of fate. Tobio keeps wearing Hinata’s MSBY jacket, and not even the disapproval of Hoshiumi-san is enough to deter him.

They do the rounds. They talk to so many people⁠—⁠Kunimi and Kindaichi, who grin wryly at Tobio and Hinata’s clasped hands; Kuroo-san, who wants to do even more videos with Hinata and Tobio; an excess of former members of the Karasuno Volleyball Club, many of whom are outwardly crying.

But eventually they find a moment to be alone, surrounded by their friends. “Where are you staying?” Tobio says.

Hinata blinks. They are still holding hands. It feels a little silly, but every time Tobio goes to let go, he looks down and catches a glance at Hinata’s soulmark, and is too flustered to follow through. “At”⁠—⁠Hinata rattles off a hotel name that Tobio recognizes⁠—⁠“why?”

Tobio’s face feels hot. He’s not at all equipped to handle this. “Me too,” he says.

Hinata’s entire face is starting to light up. “Kageyama,” he says, like Tobio fucking complimented him on his receives or something, which is just unfair, because Hinata’s receives are fucking amazing now, so plenty of other people have probably complimented him, and Tobio would never do it to his face anyway⁠—⁠he’d rather be caught dead. “Are you asking if you can go home with me?”

There is a sputtering noise, and when Tobio glances to his right, he catches sight of Osamu-san hitting Atsumu-san aggressively on the back.

He turns back towards Hinata. “What? No,” he lies.

Hinata is practically sparkling. “You are,” he says. “Kageyama. How forward of you.”

Tobio is going to kill him. “I’m not asking if I can go home with you,” he says, to the sound of more sputtering, and hitting, and then Atsumu-san loudly saying, “Samu! You’re going to break my back!” in the background. “But if I were, I’d take it back⁠—⁠you’re the worst⁠—⁠”

“I’d love to go home with you, Bakayama,” Hinata says, eyes still all sparkly. Despite his exuberance, his cheeks are bright pink.

Tobio swallows, his own embarrassment forgotten. “Right,” he says. “Good. Me too.” God, it’s like once he starts talking, he can’t stop.

Hinata just laughs. Then he drags Tobio in even closer, and they spend upwards of ten minutes simply making out⁠—⁠something Tobio hadn’t really understood the appeal of before, too busy being absorbed by volleyball. He’d been too busy in pursuit of furthering his career, his skills. Too busy in pursuit of Hinata, really, since Tobio was partly getting good so that someone better would come find him and beat him. But not beat him for good, or anything. They could go back and forth, trading wins and losses forever, and Tobio would be happy. Speaking of . . .

“I’m going to win next time,” Tobio tells Hinata, pulling away from his mouth so that he can breathe. It’s terrible that he needs to do that; kissing Hinata is far superior.

“Oh, you wish. I’m going to win next time. And the time after. And we’re taking the league.”

This is doing nothing to help with Tobio’s needing-to-breathe-and-not-kiss-Hinata-for-long-enough-to-do-so problem. He leans back in, grinning like a monster. “You wish⁠—⁠”

“The two of you are gross,” says Atsumu-san, interrupting them.

Tobio parts enough from Hinata to glance towards him and his brother, noticing that each of them is holding a glass. Since the season’s started, Tobio knows Atsumu-san’s contains water. Osamu-san’s though . . . The non-volleyball Miya twin looks a little flushed.

Catching Tobio looking at them both, Osamu-san slaps Atsumu-san on the back of the head this time. “Tsumu,” he says. “You absolutely cannot talk⁠—⁠”

“Atsumu-san!” interjects Hinata, before the Miya twins can really start to go at it.

Atsumu-san looks briefly relieved, still rubbing at the back of his head and glowering at his twin.

Hinata doesn’t appear to notice. “Atsumu-san,” he says again. His voice is still breathless from all the kissing and Tobio is fucking pleased. Even if Hinata is⁠—⁠at this moment⁠—⁠saying someone else’s name. And another setter’s, to boot. “Kageyama is my soulmate!” Hinata continues, before Tobio can actually get mad.

Atsumu-san nods, apparently distracted from the antics of Osamu-san. “Uh . . . yeah,” he says. “Believe me. Shouyou. We all know⁠—⁠”

“I’m really sorry your name isn’t on my arm, though,” Hinata barrels on, sounding actually apologetic. “And that I’m not in love with you at all.” Osamu-san barks out a startled laugh, but Hinata just keeps going. “But it all worked out⁠—⁠you and Omi-san⁠—⁠”

As if summoned, Sakusa Kiyoomi appears beside the twins wearing his signature mask. He dips his head briefly in Tobio’s direction, before leveling what Tobio can tell is a smirk at his soulmate. “Hinata is my favorite of your enemies,” he says.

Osamu-san is the one who laughs. “That reminds me. Hinata. What’s your name on LINE? I need to add you.”

Hinata blinks, giving out the information without pause because he’s a well-meaning idiot, and Tobio reaches out to nestle a hand into the hem of his shirt. “Kageyama?” Hinata asks.

“Dumbass. Don’t just give that information out,” Tobio tells him, back to staring at his lips in hopes of getting more kisses. “This is why they won’t let you post on Instagram.”

“This was my debut game!” Hinata protests, in explanation for why the @ninja.shouyou account has not been touched since he was in Brazil. “Once I’m allowed, I’ll get more followers and beat you.”

“Uh huh.” Tobio boasts close to nine-hundred-thousand followers on Instagram, and his manager keeps saying he’s closing in on clearing that one million mark. This is particularly impressive, since he doesn’t do things like post shirtless pictures (Atsumu-san) or have an attractive and darling significant other (Bokuto-san) or have an uncanny propensity for social media (Hoshiumi-san, and shockingly, Ushijima-san⁠—⁠though that may solely be on account of the number of times Oikawa-san (whose social media following Tobio does not like to think about) ends up tagging him). Though Hinata now has a significant other (Tobio’s not so arrogant to say he’s attractive) and has always had the uncanny propensity for social media and . . . fuck . . . would Hinata post shirtless pictures?

Tobio tilts his head, not sure how he feels about that.

Hinata blinks back at him. “Kageyama?”

“I’m just happy,” Tobio manages, because he is. Though now, of course, he feels like an idiot for saying that.

Hinata simply sparkles harder. “I’m happy too,” he says, and Tobio . . . Tobio can’t believe he spent so long thinking he was broken because the universe only gave him Hinata’s name.

“You make me invincible,” Tobio says, their own little “I love you.”

Hinata tightens the grip he has on Tobio’s hand.

Maybe Kageyama Tobio was born broken, but it was only so that when Hinata came along he could fill all Tobio’s cracks with gold.