Work Text:
x
"Well, the truth is, I like you, Suga."
"I like you too, Daichi. I like you a lot."
x
The first time the two of them face off against each other, they are five and neither one of them know each other as Daichi or Suga. They won't know each other as Daichi or Suga, because they are just two kids at a park, three-minute friends on the playground asphalt determined to stave off the onset of summer boredom. Daichi, with the race-car bandaid on his cheek and torn denim overalls, doesn't think anything of Suga's straw sun hat or dull gold flip flops or the dot beneath his left eye, and stares on in heated competition.
Suga closes a wobbly circle with the chalk in his small hands, winning their game of tic-tac-toe. Grinning upward with a cheeky smile (the same one Daichi will come to know later as teammates, in fact) the fellow kindergartener offers an open palm to shake while his mother calls for him to depart. In his first act of diplomacy and good sportsmanship, Daichi learns that the shake of the hand is crucial to any game's end. So he does it, despite not wanting to lose in the first place.
The other boy holds his sun hat in place against the wind, smiles with something a little less mischievous, and lets go of Daichi's hand after a few seconds. Watching the boy he'd later come to know as Sugawara Koushi walk away with his mother, he almost calls after him—"hey, sunshine kid!"—for a rematch. But he doesn't, because it's not like he'll ever see him again, anyway. He will take his losses, badger his dad for ice cream, and be on his merry way.
No, of course he won't get to see him again.
x
(But, as luck would have it, of course they would. Because games are meant to be played, and they would be the ones to play them.)
"Sugawara-san, your shoelace—"
"Suga," the other boy calls without looking back with a bit of a pout. They're the last two on the running path today, even though Daichi usually doesn't regard himself that slow of a runner. (Well, maybe he is—it's hard to tell if he just needs a little more built-up stamina or if he's hit his ceiling already, but he sorely hopes for the former.) Nonetheless, the first year smiles to himself and scolds himself for never remembering; Sugawara Koushi is not Sugawara-san, but Suga. Just Suga.
So as Sugawara—no, Suga—slows down to tie his actually tie his shoe, Daichi bites his tongue and makes the mental note to remember. He slows down until he's jogging in place, kicking the dirt up around Suga by accident and sending him into the smallest coughing fit on the ground.
Daichi stops. "Oh, no, I am so sorry, Sugawa—"
He cringes at himself instantly, but Suga doesn't correct him this time. At least, not by spoken word. Instead he mouths the two syllables, su-ga in light teasing, because Suga does seem like the type to tease, from what Daichi's seen on the court from time to time with Asahi and the first-year manager, Kiyoko.
"It's okay. Keep running in place." Suga nods. "If we're gonna win one day, we have to keep trying hard, right?"
Daichi nods. "Yeah." He agrees wholeheartedly. "Let's keep going." He offers Suga a hand from the ground, thinks this is one those special times he gets to bond with a new teammate, and examines the boy named Sugawara Koushi. He notices the mole under Suga's eye, the soft strands of sand-colored hair stopping right at the back of his neck, and the boyish way he springs up on his heels and causes a small squeak with his gym shoes. He's just a tad shorter than Daichi—or perhaps they're the same height, depending on sneaker soles and posture—and smaller in frame and briefly-held hands, and for a moment, Daichi considers something strange, past all tangible attributes: for every time he's been compared to the earth, solid and prodding and present, Suga feels like air, like a stubborn breeze that refuses to move onto the next town.
'Ah,' Daichi tells himself. 'What a strange thought.' He makes the mental note to get more sleep tonight, because the fatigue is surely setting in.
Suga shows another grin and brushing the dust off his knees. "So, Sawamura—"
"Daichi." It gives him just a little too much glee to be the one correcting Suga this time, and the other boy can't help but laugh. They let the late-day sweat and heat stoke the fire in their bellies, quiet but ready to finish the evening strong.
"Okay, Daichi," Suga says, like he's made the name itself an embodiment of mischief. "Race you back?"
Daichi nods. "You bet. Are your shoes tied?"
"You bet," Suga mimics. "Have you caught your breath?"
"What? I wasn't—"
"Daichi." Suga blinks a couple of times.
"Alright, you caught me."
With a tilt of his head, beckoning up the road, Suga counts to five and gets the race started. Dashing up the pavement, the two boys laugh in between their sprints and ignore the impossible heat of summer.
(Daichi ends up losing the race, but he can't get too mad about it. He'll take defeat if it means making a new friend.)
x
The next time Daichi loses in any memorable way, Suga has, too.
(Well, all of the team has. It was a collective effort.)
Sitting in the club room after the third years' retirement speeches, the first-year trio of Asahi, Suga, and Daichi all let the staleness in the room settle after their loss in the second round of interhigh. Asahi, the most timid of the group, breathes out a sigh up at the ceiling and collects his things from his designated compartment, zipping up his jacket to go home for the day. Suga is taking his sweet time undoing his laces, probably quiet over a bout of overthinking and well-hidden nerves.
"We've got Harukou prelims coming up in August," Daichi says to his friends, out of the silence. "Let's work hard!"
Asahi looks like a cat in flinching. Suga just stares over at Daichi, calmly over his shoulder, little mole peeking out from his white undershirt cloth. He notices that both of them are still red under the eyes from crying after their last match, and he concludes that his probably look exactly the same by now.
"A-ah, yeah, but you know, it's gonna be kinda tough without the third years," Asahi says. Daichi has come to know him as the resident glass-hearted wing spiker. He thinks it might be amusing to see Asahi as the ace one day, because he certainly has the power for it, even if he lacks the will at times, and he thinks that mix might get him into trouble someday.
"We still have to keep trying." Daichi picks up the half-deflated volleyball from the ground and pushes it into Asahi's chest. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." Asahi nods, still unsure, but something rises out of his smile. It kind of looks like hope, but Daichi can’t be sure. He nods over at Suga, who nods back, and the three of them share one more sigh and a round of high fives before departing for the day. They get a bundle of meat buns from the foothill store, somehow manage to annoy the rather lazy shopkeeper inside, and eat away at their miseries. After a couple of minutes, Asahi makes his usual split from the other first years, leaving Daichi and Suga alone.
“I hope you meant what you said, before,” Suga tells him after finishing his meat bun. “In the locker room.”
Daichi frowns. “Of course I did.”
“Good.” Suga smiles at the answer, fixated on Daichi’s small frown. It’s almost as if Suga likes seeing him like this, vaguely annoyed, or fired up, or whatever semblance of determination this is, but Daichi has to admit that he likes seeing the fight in Suga, too. They loosen up after a while, though, because they’ve had enough post-game tension to last for the next couple of weeks, and Daichi would rather enjoy his dinner in peace.
“Why would you worry about that?” Daichi asks anyway, because he knows it will bother him later, if he doesn’t.
Suga shrugs. “Not worried. More like...I’d like our glue to stay sticky.”
“I’m not following you.”
“Asahi’s a cowardly lion in a tall boy’s skin,” Suga says in the most endearing way possible, trying not to laugh. “And I’m a lot more scared than I let on.” He looks out at the night, and how long it takes for the sun to actually leave the sky when spring finally arrives. “You’re at the center of things. You hold us together. I think it’ll be that way for a while, even if we don’t have third years. So...if you work through your fears, I’ll work through mine, too.”
Daichi stops walking and plants himself firmly on the ground. Suga keeps treading along, hands swaying freely by his sides, until he gets Daichi’s drift to stop, too. He stops, looks over his shoulder, and offers a look combining befuddlement and something bemused. Sighing, Suga reddens under the light of the streetlamp and turns to face Daichi.
“Ah, I’m always saying strange things.” Suga laughs. “Was that too weird?”
Daichi finds himself shaking his head, because he doesn’t think it’s out of place at all. From what he’s learned on these walks home and their time on the sidelines, Sugawara Koushi is made of three things. On the surface, he is all wispy grace and easiness, and then at the mantle, someone scared and constantly overthinking. But by the core, his wonderful, wholehearted core, Suga is a push forward into the unknown. With his reassuring smiles, his fears that say, ‘hey listen, I’m scared but I know we can keep going’ in only the most human way possible, Suga seems much more suited for any sort of glue.
“No, not weird at all.” Daichi catches Suga by surprise with a smile, the first genuine one he’s really cracked on this terrible day, and watches his friend do the same. “I’m glad you’re on my team, Suga.”
And when he expects Suga to say something along the lines of, ‘I’m glad too, Daichi,’ Suga scrunches up his face before chuckling.
“Your team?” Suga asks. “I didn’t know they made first years captains.”
Daichi’s face turns a thousand shades of red. In petty revenge, he tries to steal the last precious meat bun from Suga’s grasp, only to let it fly over the road railing and towards a napping stray cat in the thistles. It runs off with their prize, thankful for dinner, and the two boys decide that this is enough to say goodbye to lost-match grieving.
“Hey, you wanna head back to the store and get some ice cream, actually?” Daichi asks, spur of the moment. “I think we’ll have enough time to get Asahi back, too.”
Suga shows no animosity towards the meat bun. “Yeah. I’d like that. We can have a contest over who gets a brain freeze first.”
“Okay. Gotta warn you though, I haven’t had one of those since I was seven. I’m very responsible about those things.” Daichi nods, more proud that he should be.
“We’ll see about that,” Suga says, issuing the challenge.
(And this time, Daichi loses again to both Asahi and Suga when he gets a headache on his first raspberry-flavored bite. And again, he doesn’t mind, because he learns that a day can go from bad to worse to completely and utterly okay by the end of it.)
x
They lose during Harukou preliminaries too, but Daichi picks himself up off the floor, smacks himself silly, and tells himself they have another two years to get this right. They will get this right, whatever right even means at this point, because losing just means needing a little more time to get off the ground.
Suga, on the other hand, is more shaken than usual. Daichi knows it’s all a matter of personal experience, and that people take their losses differently, but this time is something he’s never seen before. Suga is usually the most composed in the aftermath, but the tears are still running and he hasn’t said a word to Daichi, Asahi, or anyone else in the team. He wipes them off with his jacket sleeve and stares down at his open duffel bag in blankness. Under the invisible weight of his shoulders, Suga looks a lot smaller than usual, like the air he usually commands has turned into a harrowed hurricane.
“Suga, it’s time to get on the bus,” Daichi tells him, frankly still choked up too.
“Just a minute.”
“Suga, Kurokawa-senpai is calling us from the lot—”
“Just a minute!”
With a sigh, Daichi crouches down and helps Suga zip up his duffel bag. With a yank of the arm, gentle because Suga’s already getting up on his own, too, the two of them leave the stadium and make their way down the pavement. On the bus, while everyone else is asleep and forgetting the woes of another lost tournament, Suga stares out the window and Daichi watches him, too ignored by the other boy to be covert about his observations.
Wrinkles form on Suga’s forehead. I should’ve tossed the ball better.
Eyes go wide in remembering something much too late. Asahi likes it high, and away from the net.
The sound of a tongue’s click is almost lost under the rumble of the bus engine. I’m the reason we lost the first set.
It’s written all over Suga’s face.
“No," Daichi blurts out without meaning to. No one else around them wakes up from their naps, but Suga unlatches himself from the window and faces his teammate with something weary, like a breeze about to wither away, just when he needs it the most—
“If you’re over-thinking, and I bet you’re over-thinking, stop it. We lost as a team, and you know that. Get all those other thoughts out of your head.” Daichi tells him, firm and honest. “You did the best that you could, for your first official match.”
Suga nods, although it’s clear he’s still swimming in thought. “I want to keep playing, you know. I just...want to keep playing.”
“We all do.”
"I want to win."
"Me too."
That day, after everyone else has gone home to soak their feet and ice their bruises, Daichi ignores all his aches and asks Suga to go for a run with him, just like one of the first times they bonded in the spring. And like that first time, he still doesn’t feel like running at all, because he’s already had to deal with a whole day’s worth of pain and blatant court-related heartbreak, but there’s something freeing about peeling himself off the ground and forcing himself to move. Because for all the earth he is sometimes, he’d like to feel weightless, too. So he runs and runs and runs, carries Suga with him by the pounding of his feet on the pavement, tells him to keep going, too, and watches him regain his whirlwind form.
"Daichi!"
"Come on, Suga!"
Faster and faster, to brush off the bad tidings.
Farther and farther, because it's the only way to go.
And when they’re both huffing and puffing on the grass, unable to speak, throats coughing and sputtering from a lack of breath, Suga laughs first and flips over on the lawn to face Daichi. Sweat drips off a strand of his hair and makes him wink unintentionally when it lands in his eye, and the sight of it makes Daichi's chest swell. The sight of Suga happy, at least momentarily, at least in reprieve, makes Daichi feel a thousand times lighter.
“I win again,” Suga tells him, even though Daichi is itching to say, ‘oh please, I let you have that one.’
They just lie there, content with the vague sky of stars, and let the night carry them away.
“Thank you, Daichi.” Suga’s voice is sweet, but his whispers ring heavier than the levity they usually reside in; it is a breeze swooping down in low volumes, howling through the tunnels of some formerly vacant heart. It fills Daichi up and occupies the small space in his chest, but instead of dying down, it churns his insides and makes him relive another familiar sensation.
When he looks at Suga, he realizes it feels like losing.
(Because even when he swears he won’t get distracted by things like crushes and fleeting first loves, Daichi knows that Suga might win against him, anyway.)
(Because, well, he hasn't lost so far.)
x
"I can't believe this," Suga says, pointing to the screen and gleaming at the silver pixels of a solid second place. At his lowly rank of fifth place, Daichi snaps himself out of his setter-induced fever and curses the heavens and, well, Nintendo, for creating such a highly involved game, because he surely cannot balance staring at the back of Suga's head and throwing turtle shells at the same time. As Suga excitedly wiggles his fingers for the next round, finding his pink controller on the rug and cheering on a wobbling Toad, Daichi finds his usual Mario and tells himself he'll win this time. Just once, because it is impossible to let Suga have twelve straight wins.
"Daichi!" Suga laughs, slipping into fifth place after the other boy launches a turtle shell at his cart. Looking over from the floor of his bed, he pouts and sends Daichi into a sudden tailspin, both in game and the recesses of his messy, adolescent mind. Letting his head sink into the neatly done covers of Suga's bed, Daichi knows he has suffered another loss when he has a Koopa telling him he's going the wrong way and Suga manages to surge into a respectable third place. Watching the back of Suga's head lean forward in excitement, a flash of cheek's skin and a tiny mole to match with it, Daichi grimaces, wonders why he's deserved to live like this, and resigns himself to a twelfth Mario Kart loss.
"Aw, Daichi, you're not even trying. Even Asahi's races are more daring than yours." Suga says, claiming another second place finish in the end.
"That's because he plays with Nishinoya. He's only a first year, but he's...rowdy." Daichi rolls his eyes as Suga pauses the game and goes to scrounge around for the other games on the shelf under his television. He honestly has more books than anything, all ranging from popular fiction novels to volleyball manuals, and the simple fact of that endears Daichi even more. He tries not to think about this, tries to listen to Suga tell a story about his uncle, a professional gamer in Tokyo who lives off nothing but instant ramen and Yebisu beer, before realizing that he's still just too distracted to focus on anything.
"He doesn't even celebrate the holidays with us, which is a shame..."
Suga turns to face him, eyes flickering in acknowledgment. The main menu music plays on like the world's worst symphony—or whatever music is considered romantic these days, because Daichi has no idea—and he feels like making a mad dash out Suga's window.
"...Because we have this great hot pot spread around Christmas time, and..."
Damn his flourishing adolescence. It hits Daichi like a hundred ace services to the face. At the start of their second year at Karasuno High, Daichi is both infatuated and infuriated, because crushes are so terribly all-encompassing and of course, of course it had to be Suga, the setter to his occasional spiker, the wind to his earth—no. Daichi could not think like this right now. He tells himself crushes are stupid. This whole thing is stupid. Daichi tells himself he doesn't like everything about Suga, whether it's the way his volleyball jersey falls on his shoulders, his growing wisps of beach-colored hair, the way he laughs, the way he loves the hell out of the team in the same way he does—
"Dai...chi!" Suga calls him back to reality with that chirp of his voice, always a little insistent, something a little more teasing as they've gotten to know each other.
"Huh?"
"I said, do you want to spend your last day of freedom doing something else?" Suga grins. "I imagine losing twelve times has taken the life out of you, by this point. It's clear you're not listening to me."
Daichi feels his face go red, a phenomenon that has downgraded itself from one of the world’s great wonders to a small town's quirky roadside attraction. It is no longer as unprecedented as the first time he felt his cheeks glow, but the sensation of it still startles him into awareness anyway. Trying to form words and failing at the endeavor, he just ends up nodding along to Suga's first suggestion.
On one of their only days off from volleyball practice, Suga and Daichi toss to each other anyway. With ball mid-air, Daichi lets Suga talk on all night about the books he's read recently, the weird dreams he's had, his strange relatives in big cities, everything large and small trailing along every facet of his life. And at times, when Suga thinks he's talking too much, Daichi just laughs and tells him to keep going, because he says he doesn't mind.
Because he really, really doesn't. Not when it comes to Suga.
x
94.
Suga is satisfied.
76.
Daichi is not. He slides ¥200 over to the other end of the desk for Suga's steamed milk bread fund, as per their bet's sole condition: if one beats the other on their weekly English quiz, the loser has to treat the winner to a snack. Letting the fantasy of fresh meat buns slip from his mind, Daichi grumbles, leans back against his chair, and stomps his shoes on the hardwood. It is the summer of Daichi's second year at Karasuno High School, and he has become good enough friends with Suga to make these sorts of wagers, but it doesn't mean he'll be able to read his mind. Daichi has always been decent in school, above average but not amazingly so, and he just can't admit to himself that English is one of his weak spots.
"I mean...it's not a bad score," Suga says. "I just think you need to work on your tenses," he suggests, looking over the half-crumpled test paper, "and then I think you'll be set."
"Tenses? I thought it was a matter of spelling."
Looking closer at the paper, Suga does everything he can to keep from cracking a smile. "Um, okay...maybe that, too." He does not succeed in keeping a straight face.
Daichi presses his forehead to the tabletop in exasperation. He usually doesn't like to let people see him this ill-composed—there's something unnerving about that, to be frank—but it's the end of the day and he and Suga are the only ones left in the classroom. With their gym bags on the ground, the both of them had been so excited to play that they forgot practice had been cancelled today, and it had taken Asahi's reminders to not show up for the afternoon. Daichi peers up from his haze, right up at Suga, who's taken to staring out the window, sunken eyes the color of butterscotch. He thinks that he wouldn't mind if Suga happened to look at him in this instance, to find him in his funk, because he's not just a good enough friend. He dares to call Suga his best friend, even if it's not out loud.
'Look.'
And that is what Suga does, when no one else gets to. Sawamura you're-so-mature-for-your-age Daichi reddens when he notices just how long Suga's hair has gotten, and how the baby fat has trimmed off his cheeks in the year and three months he's known him. He smiles, the kind that relieves seriousness but in no way extinguishes it, and drums his fingers on the desk.
"Well, another interhigh has gone and passed," Suga says, with a sigh.
Daichi frowns, sting of defeat balmed just by Suga's presence. "Yeah," he smiles fondly anyway, keeping eyes absently on Suga. Even for the cute little mole under his left eye, Daichi always notices that kind squint in Suga's eyes first before everything else.
"They told us second years to elect a new captain by the end of spring." The gravity of things volleyball brings him back from the highs of his silly year-long crush. Daichi stops his grimace from turning into one at all, resulting in a lopsided mess of a smile, and at this, Suga just gives up a chuckle and his attempt at being utterly joyless.
"Why haven't we chosen yet?"
"I don't know. Busy?"
"I think it's because we've already chosen without saying anything." Suga raises his eyebrows and stares at him straight on. Daichi gets the message and reddens, because surely he must be joking.
"Well, captains can't go around scoring seventy six's on their English quizzes—"
"It's you, Daichi," Suga tells him. "Of course it's you. Asahi agrees."
"Well," Daichi says, almost forgetting how to form words, "I don't know."
"I think you do, though." Suga smiles. "It's yours. Once you eliminate whatever doubts you're having, you'll see that."
"And you two? Asahi's got the power of an ace. You'll be the team's official setter, by the third year," Daichi argues.
Suga shakes his head. "Nah. There's something about you." He sets his head in his arms so now they're both sharing the small table of the desk, and they're much too close, almost to the point where their heads could bump together with one foul swoop, but Daichi doesn't mind. Well, his poor little heart must be beating at a billion times a second by now, but he's gotten quite good at controlling his nervousness around him, so he tells himself everything is fine. Lying head-to-head with Suga like this is fine.
"So?"
With a small hum of a sigh, Suga remains unmoving from his spot on the desk.
"Take it," Suga tells him. "And I'll support the team all the way. I'll support you, all the way."
Both of them try sitting back up and knock heads in unison, sending them into troubled fits of laughter.
"Daichi!"
"What? That was your fault!" Daichi winces, head throbbing.
When they settle into comfortable silence, vaguely streaked with determination and all things ready, Daichi holds his hand out to shake. Suga takes it without a problem, gives a firm tug to yank Daichi forward, and flicks him on the forehead with a darting finger. With hands still held on the desk—at this point, it's past any sort of handshake, something the neither of them realize until the grip naturally falls away—Suga laughs at Daichi and watches him in his quiet fuming.
"I'll help you out, captain," Suga tells him. "Even if it means tutoring you on your tenses. Captains don't go around getting seventy-sixes, after all."
Daichi lets up, watches Suga stuff the ¥200 into his pocket, and smiles until he feels the corners of his mouth ache.
"Don't forget spelling," he tells Suga. "You'll help me with that, too, right?"
Suga nods. "Of course. What are co-captains for?"
Hands stay held on the table. Captain and co-captain.
Daichi likes the sound of that.
x
Their third year begins with a bluster, but not of Suga’s making.
The equipment room obscures itself in the usual shadows, but there’s something about it today that makes it look like midnight. Suga is busy untangling volleyball nets, hands extra finicky with the thread and breath hitched over something other than the strain of manual labor. At his legs sits the broken push broom from yesterday’s debacle, untouched and ready to be thrown out. But Daichi gets this strange feeling that things like this shouldn’t be thrown out, because that would mean something permanent, it would mean a kind of loss they’re actually admitting defeat to, and this is the last thing the new team captain wants. So he just stays by the door, scans for the right things to say, and realizes that some things just take working out.
“He’ll be back soon," Daichi tells Suga from the door.
Suga flinches because it’s clear he wasn’t aware of Daichi being there in the first place. He bows his head, nods a little bit, and lets go of the tangled nets in his hands. Asahi’s obvious absence during practice today has hit everyone hard, like aftershocks rolling off their backs, but Suga has taken it to heart in the most seeping ways, making space quietly but unsettling everything else all the same. He wonders how long it will take Suga to get up, to find his bearings again and stand up as Karasuno's official setter.
"I know." Suga brushes his knees off, offers Daichi a curt smile that fades off in a matter of moments, but keeps his eyes alight. He nods, throws down a couple of stray volleyballs back into the cart, and leaves the broken push broom on the ground without a word about it.
"Ready to go home?"
"Yeah. Things will be better tomorrow." Suga pats Daichi on the shoulder like he’s the one who needs it—and well, he actually kind of does—and walks past him, smile regaining its form. Daichi leans against the doorway, tired as tired can get but alleviated by his best friend’s touch.
It never takes Suga long to get back up, but Daichi's beginning to wonder if he ever really falls in the first place.
x
For today's practice match, Daichi goes up against Suga for the coin toss and hears the other hum in all easy grace. He's been in a great mood all week actually (barring the extra antsiness in the tips of his toes) and this is something that both delights and unnerves Daichi. Suga wins the coin toss, lets Hinata try serving because he sorely needs the practice, and hears Kageyama scream obscenities on his side of the court when he misses. From opposite corners of the net, faces thinly obscured by braided twine, Daichi exchanges a smile with his co-captain and watches the ball sail over to the other side.
'These first years are hard to manage, aren't they?' Daichi says with nothing but the exchange of sighing glances.
Suga laughs at the end of his. Without certainty, Daichi thinks he's saying, 'yes, they certainly are.'
'But it's kind of fun, isn't it?'
Tanaka receives the ball readily (although not as solidly as either Nishinoya or Daichi can) and passes it over to Suga, who's volunteered to work with Hinata today. ("Because you know, Daichi, I'd like to make sure everyone can hit my toss!") Suga has never been one for lightening quick sets or anything overwhelming, but he's put in a lot of work with the team, and it shows. He'll play the game his own way, even if he's not on the court for every match.
Daichi thinks, just as Kageyama is precise and perfect in his formations, like a budding prodigy should be, Suga floats on like a mid-air miracle. He is the wind, the type one falls in love with when it comes like the sign of a new spring, and Daichi thinks he'd like to have more of those, past the interhigh and nationals, past high school, and possibly for years to come. He watches Suga land, feet gracing the grateful earth, his shoes squeaking like the time they ran together in their first year, and Daichi begins to wonder if the other is capable of stealing his breath away, too.
(If Suga can be both the wind and a constant winner, maybe he can be a wizard, too.)
(Or maybe he's just having strange thoughts again. Daichi settles on the latter.)
'Wind, winner, wizard...wind, winner, wizard...'
"Hey!" Suga shouts from his side. "You're not lookin' too captain-y today, Daichi! Get it together!"
"Well, look who's winning first, Suga!" Daichi tries to tease, but his words end up stumbling. Tanaka tries to stifle his laughter to the point where he looks like he's about to explode, and Ennoshita looks equally pained in telling Tanaka to shut the hell up. Today is just one those rare days where Daichi can't focus on reprimanding them though, and he settles for quietly handling receives instead.
The wind. Suga lifts up to block Daichi's quick, smiling at him on the way down like he's got secrets to tell, mischief in gentle ounces.
The winner. Suga is never defeated for too long, and it shows in the way he leaps and cheers and runs, endless whether he's on the sidelines or the court's terrain.
The wizard. Suga puts this all together and becomes something enchanting, enthralling. It is everything Daichi has fallen in love with for the past two and a half years, and it is something he'll keep in his heart and the fire in his belly. Daichi can't help but smile at Suga again when they meet by glances across the net, and he thinks that maybe today's the day to say it. There must be a million ways to tell him, indirect like ‘I like the way you play’ or ‘I like the way you laugh.’ Daichi might even go for something cheesy and elegant, like ‘I like the way you lift yourself up, and how you make still air into something less stifled,’ but he knows he’s no poet like Basho.
As simple as the earth they stand on, as straightforward as he’s ever been, Daichi knows there’s only one way to say it.
I like you, Suga.
"Daaaaai-chi!"
But for now, with the bewildered first years confused and his co-captain laughing at his feet, Daichi thinks he should focus on the game.
Determined and springing, Daichi does make a bet with himself in the meanwhile. If he loses this practice match—and he doubts he will this time, because Suga can’t keep beating him at everything—he’ll tell him, slow and steady and honest. I like you Suga, I like you a lot. But hell, it won’t happen today, because if his first love has taught him anything, it’s to keep coming back up, to play when your heart is sore and pounding with things it can’t help.
(But a mere five seconds later after his declaration of not losing to Suga, Daichi misses a receive he usually makes in his sleep.)
x
"Well, the truth is, I like you, Suga."
It's just the two of them by this time, with nothing but a dropped volleyball in between their feet. The sky is fading into lavender hues, just the kind of sky a boy like Suga would belong to, even when Daichi swears the forecast had called for typical summer rain. But it's all clear, perfect confessing weather, and he has just made his admissions.
Come what may, despite all the fears still rambling on in his head, Daichi can't bear to look away from his co-captain. He can't, when Suga's smiling and lifting his toes in this sort of bubbling nervousness, like the stratosphere is about to carry him away for good. And well, Suga has always felt like the human embodiment of ascension to Daichi anyway, like a constant uplift and an alternative form to flying.
Sugawara Koushi, cunning co-captain and cool as a summer night's breeze, nods to set himself right on course. Eyes sink into something wholeheartedly sincere, and delicate hands fold in front of him like he's folding up love notes. It's unreal, how lovely Suga sounds in confessing back, and he might be overthinking his momentary stammers, his trifled attempts at breathing properly, but all Daichi sees is someone he can hold on to. That he will hold on to. He doesn't even claim victory when Suga tells him, 'you beat me to saying it first!' because all the other losses haven’t felt like losses at all.
"I like you, too, Daichi. I like you a lot."
Daichi smiles wider than he’s ever smiled in his life, takes Suga’s palm in a handshake that refuses to let up, and walks him home like he’s just won nationals, the lottery, and the Sugawara Koushi sweepstakes in the same instance.
x
“So, you like me, huh, Daichi?”
“Maybe ‘like’ isn’t the word for it.”
“What?”
“It’s more like...ah! Forget it. It’s way too early to throw that word around.”
“It’s okay, because I’ll be the first to say it when the time comes.”
“Is that a challenge?”
“Maybe it is.”
“All right, but I’m telling you, you can’t win them all.”
“Too late.”
Why?”
“Because I think I already have.”
x
“It’s good to have you back on the team.” Daichi flashes Asahi a million dollar smile, though he’s eating daggers for how much practice the ace has missed. Gulping down the juice from his bottle, Asahi grins back rather nervously, rubs at the back of his head like he’s turning his bun like a doorknob, and finds no excuses to come up with, because he knows he has none.
“Sorry,” Asahi says, like a kitten rather than the bearded lion he’s trying to grow himself into.
“It’s fine. You better spike a thousand times harder when interhigh comes along.”
“That might be kind of a stretch.”
“A billion times better, then.” Daichi teases.
“Daichi!”
“A trillion.”
“There are limitations to the human body, you know," Asahi squeaks out in defeat.
Daichi groans away all the knots in his back, watches Suga speak to the first years like he’s whispering to a bunch of rowdy puppies, and throws up a scoff out of no where. He thinks it might be a mix of proud and amused, because it feels like all the first years are falling in love with Suga themselves, and Daichi jokingly wonders if he has any competition. When Hinata and Kageyama point over at Daichi, presumably to ask him further about something, Suga turns to face him too, showing a smile a little more tender than usual. He bites his bottom lip and stares down, shy as Daichi feels about the whole thing, and goes back to coaching the underclassmen without missing a beat. He throws a peace sign up in the air for them, says something that makes even Tsukishima a little flustered, and sends them off on their merry way. The first-years work a little harder after that, trouncing the second-years at a game of, ‘who can block better?’ in three straight sessions.
Watching Suga cheer from the sidelines for both sides, the team he’s seen grow into something magnificent, Daichi holds his breath, watches that knowing smile erupt on his co-captain’s face because it can only get better from here, win or loss, and lets himself catch his air in cherishing. He tosses his head back, tells himself that today is surely the day, and lets the heat simmer across his face.
“So, have you told him, yet?” Asahi asks him, with the smallest trepidation. “You said you would.”
Daichi nods, pressing a finger to his lips. “I did, but we haven’t announced it yet.”
“What? We? So you guys are together, then? Since when?”
“A week, today.”
“It's an anniversary!" Asahi tries to joke in his observation. Daichi kneads him with a finger to the rib.
Embarrassed, Daichi shakes his head next. "It's all still really new. I don't care who you date in the future, Asahi, but I'm telling you...it certainly keeps you on your toes." Sighing out the static prickling behind his ears, Daichi gets up to stretch and forget anything like anniversaries. After all, he still has to combat kissing, but that's hard enough when the thought of kissing Suga for the first time feels like stepping on the court to play a big game, thrilling and threatening to collapse every system in his body.
But Daichi is certainly determined this time. Suga has won every other game they've played, but Daichi knows he won't lose this one.
(And thus begins his mission: be the one to kiss Sugawara Koushi first.)
x
Suga takes Daichi's hand as the latter's locking up the door, hums a tune Hinata taught him this afternoon, and watches the sun set for the oncoming evening. When Daichi feels the numbness between his fingers, probably a combination of repeated volleyball spikes and hormonally triggered electricity, he takes pause, leans against the door, and takes a good look at the boy he’s taken care of the courts with.
Suga, in all of his grace. Suga, like breathing in fresh air.
Relishing in a deep breath, a sigh for the ages, Daichi smiles, leans in towards the other boy to kiss him for the first time like promised, and is rebuked with a proposal instead.
“Race me to the end of the road, and then you can kiss me.” Suga smirks and gets a head start, laughing in his sprint. He looks over his shoulder in the same way he’s done for three years now, teasing but full of never-ending heart, telling Daichi to come along, too.
And when Suga trips over himself and lands in the grass, dizzy over Daichi and how far they’ve come, the Karasuno captain takes his opportunity to make his own heaven on earth. Slow and steady and honest, Daichi digs in to claim certain, hard-fought victory—
—before Suga sweeps up, steals the air out of Daichi, and kisses him first.
“Looks like I win again.” He smiles in their separation.
Daichi sighs and rolls his eyes up to the sky, before letting Suga claim his victory prize in further kisses.