Archive of Our Own

“Guys! There’s going to be a wayback machine at the tanabata festival!”

Heads perked up at the announcement, teenage boys looking at one another with varying expressions of excitement and apprehension. Kei shifted from foot to foot, ball still in hand from where he had been about to toss it to Yamaguchi. He eyed his teammates, expecting that this was likely going to spark anticipation among them.

“No way! So people are gonna get to use it?” Hinata screamed, voice loud and piercing even all the way on the other side of the court.

“I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of people there, they can’t possibly allow everyone to use the same machine,” Suga said diplomatically, switching from stretching one arm to the other. “There might be a waiting list or something.”

“Actually, I’ve heard they’ll have several throughout the city. There’ll probably be a line, but they’re saying it’ll be enough for anyone who wants to use it,” Ennoshita piped up. “If we get there early, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”

“What’s this ‘we’?” Kei finally spoke. “Who said anything about going together?” Yamaguchi gingerly took the ball from his grasp and began to bounce it on his arms. Kei raised an eyebrow. He was particularly active today.

“C’mon, it’ll be fun!” Noya, who’d been the one to originally run into the gym screaming about new technology, yelled again. “We should all head over together!”

“I have a family, you know,” Kei complained, as though he were actually planning on going with his family.

“There’s three days of festival,” Sugawara pointed out. “Nothing wrong with planning on going on one of the days, for anyone who wants to go.”

“That’s not a bad idea.” The Captain stood and clapped his hands, voice booming. “Alright, we’ll plan on a field trip, maybe on the first day. I’ll check with the coach. I’ll also be going with my little brother and sister the second or third day, so we’ll just plan it around our respective family outings.”

“I’m down,” Yamaguchi chirped.

Kei huffed. Great. Now he had to go.

“Me too!”

“Count me in.”

“Kageyama?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I’ll go.”

More voices chimed in until most of the team had verbally signed up.

“Guys!” Tanaka burst through the door in a whirl of fervent energy. “There’s gonna be a wayback machine at the tanabata festival!”

“We know,” half the boys droned.

--

Kei headed straight for the back of the bus without checking to see if Yamaguchi was following (he was). The back afforded him the most leg space, and, hopefully, the greatest amount of distance between himself and the gregarious idiots on his team. He settled himself in the second seat over, leaving the window seat for Yamaguchi, who hopped up happily onto the metal bench.

“What’s with the mask? Are you sick or something?” his best friend asked. 

“I don’t want to catch any diseases from the masses,” he answered, eyes flicking over to the rest of the team who was filing on the bus one by one.

“Hey! Tsukishima!” Hinata bounded from the front in three steps before crash landing on the seat next to his. “Are you gonna be using the wayback machine? I just asked around and almost everyone’s said yes.”

Wasn’t that the point of this whole thing ? he thought to himself. “No,” he replied. “I’m not interested.”

“Yamaguchi? You?” Hinata leaned forward in his seat to peer around Kei.

“Yeah, I think so. It doesn’t hurt, I guess. And I’m kinda curious.” Yamaguchi shrugged.

“I’m excited.” Hinata swung his legs back and forth. Kei snorted; his feet barely reached the ground. “I hope I get something cool. Like a volleyball player.”

“You’re already a volleyball player,” Kei countered.

“But like a pro volleyball player. Wouldn’t that be awesome?”

“Knowing you, that’s probably what you’ll get,” he sighed, resting his head back.

“Thanks! I also wanna see the Bon Odori. My mom gave me lots of extra money to buy food and stuff, too. Hey, if we pool our money together, maybe we can get even more food.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Yamaguchi agreed amicably.

Kei shuffled around in his seat until he was more comfortable, listening to Yamaguchi and Hinata chatter over their festival plans.

--

They ambled out of the bus in a single file line, gathering onto the sidewalk in a large clump of hungry, sweaty boys (and two girls). Sawamura took up the front while Sugawara took up the back, herding the team like a flock of wayward sheep through the crowded streets of Sendai. Yamaguchi shuffled along next to him, squeezed between Kei and Kinoshita. Hinata had already fucked off to bother Kageyama or whoever else.

“The machine’s this way,” Sawamura announced, walking backwards with his nose buried in a map of the downtown area. “Oh-- sorry, excuse me,” he bowed to an old lady he’d bumped into.

“Eyes on the road, Captain!” Chuckling rippled through the group, and the Captain waved his hand, signaling for everyone to settle down.

They wandered another three blocks before stopping in front of an open plaza. People were meandering to and fro, gathering around various food stands and decorations. Children shrieked and chased each other, swerving around young couples and foreign tourists.

“The machine’s up there,” Sawamura stated, jabbing his thumb at where a moderate-sized crowd had gathered. The bodies shifted like the gentle parting of the seas and metal glinted in the sunlight before being obfuscated again. “Who wants to use it? I’ll buy the tickets all at once so we can streamline this.”

Hands shot up in the air. Nishinoya elbowed Asahi, who only then raised his own hand. Yachi barely had her hand raised, lifted up at half mast like she was afraid of saying both no and yes, so somehow a nyes was better.

Sawamura counted them off one by one -- the corner of Kei’s lips creased in a frown as he watched Yamaguchi get included in the tally.

“...Six, seven, eight, nine.” The Captain turned to Sugawara, who had weaved through the crown to stand next to him. “Do you want to try it?”

“Sure,” Suga smiled. 

--

Sawamura returned after about five minutes, hands clutching small slips of paper. “Okay, the earliest time I was able to get was 1:05, so we’ll have to head out and enjoy the festival for a bit before gathering back here for lunch.” He held the tickets out like they were cards in a game of Old Maid. “Alright, pick ‘em. I don’t care who goes first.”

Fingers plucked at the tickets, followed by groans and excited tittering as the boys gossiped with each other about their assigned times. Yamaguchi waited until most of the tickets had been chosen before picking out his own, flipping the paper around to reveal a tiny 1:25 written underneath WAYBACK MACHINE -- 1 TICKET.

Sawamura extended the second to last ticket to Sugawara before pocketing the remaining one for himself.

“Oh no-- does anyone want to trade?” Asahi’s voice broke out over the din. “I really-- I really don’t want to go first.”

“Lucky! You don’t have to sit around waiting for the rest of us.” Nishinoya slapped him heartily on the back, causing Asahi to wince. “But if you don’t want it, I’ll trade ya.”

“No, wait, trade me! I have an even later time,” Tanaka argued, waving his ticket in the air.

“I don’t know if I want a really late time. I might get too nervous, then.”

“That’s it, give the ticket to me, Asahi,” Nishinoya beckoned. “1:40 is calling to you. It’s your lucky number. Good fortune, Asahi.”

“Uh-- my lucky number is three. And that has a four in it. That doesn’t sound super… lucky…”

“Hand it over,” Sawamura interrupted, extending an open palm towards Asahi’s chest. He obeyed, and Sawamura gave him his own ticket in exchange.

Asahi paled as he read the time stamp. “That’s not much better.”

“Three’s your lucky number, isn’t it? You’ll live.” He cupped his hands over his mouth as he shouted to the rest of the group -- some of whom had already begun to wander away in apparent boredom and/or distraction. “We’ll be back here to eat lunch at 12:30! I’m up first, if you want to be here to watch. Otherwise, do whatever you want.” He tilted his head at Suga. “Let’s go?”

The team fragmented into smaller groups, naturally pairing up and heading off in different directions. Kei bumped shoulders with Yamaguchi, a silent signal that he was leaving. Yamaguchi padded dutifully after him, long hair bouncing with each stride.

“What do you wanna do first, Tsukki? We’ve got a couple of hours.” He stopped walking for a second to stuff his ticket in his front pocket before jogging to catch up again.

Kei shrugged. “I’m heading to where there’s a bunch of decorations over there,” he tilted his head towards the several dozen colorful streamers dangling at the entrance of the shopping district.

“Cool, we can go window shopping while we’re here. I wonder if they have the new merch…” Kei’s eyes drifted to Yamaguchi’s pocket while he talked, unease clawing at his ribcage. “Tsukki?”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

They ambled in and out of a couple stores, weaving around small families and adoring couples, separating for short periods of time, but never for long. Yamaguchi was taller than most, so losing him in a crowd didn’t really happen very often, but he kept his gaze trained on his friend just the same. Hinata and the King found them another two stores and a street performer later, the redhead holding a blue popsicle that was currently melting all over his hand.

“Kageyama and I are gonna go write down our wishes,” he’d announced, blue lips sucking on blue teeth. Kei had to bite down on his tongue to keep from telling him to wipe his mouth.

And so he found himself five minutes later staring down at a thin rectangular sheet of paper, marker in hand, and doubt in mind.

“What’s wrong? Can’t think of anything?” Yamaguchi asked, stringing up his own tanzaku. It spun round and round in the breeze, his handwriting flickering in the corner of Kei’s vision.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t think of anything; it was that he couldn’t bring himself to write it.

“What’d you wish for, Yamaguchi?” Hinata asked.

Yamaguchi dipped his hands into his pockets, rocking back and forth in thought. “A good life. Past, present, and future.”

“And Kageyama?” Hinata turned to the other boy, who had just finished stabbing his pen into the strip of paper.

“To get to nationals,” he answered gruffly.

“Oh, I wrote to win nationals.”

A pause, then: “I need a new tanzaku.”

“Tsukki.” Kei blinked, tuning out the duo’s drivel to focus on the way his friend was looking up at him with patience in the crinkle of his eyes and the upturn of his lip. “Still need help?”

“I guess.” He furrowed his brows. “I hate these kinds of things.”

“Hmm,” Yamaguchi hummed, bringing a finger up to his chin. “If you could have anything in the world, what would it be? I’m guessing you don’t wanna say corny stuff like world peace.”

“No. That would never happen,” he acknowledged.

“Who cares if it can’t happen, it’s what you wish for,” Yamaguchi protested, shaking his head. “You could wish for something impossible -- all that matters is that it’s important to you.”

Kei uncapped the marker, fingers rolling the tube around as he pondered, concluding that if that was the case, then maybe he could write what he’d been thinking about after all. Yamaguchi averted his eyes as he scribbled his wish down, carefully and with great care for his penmanship, as though if he wrote it down neatly enough it might actually come true.

He stood on his tiptoes to hang it on the tallest branch, away from prying eyes and five foot tall gremlins.

The group made the executive decision that it was about time for lunch afterwards, and Kei marched in step with his teammates, Yamaguchi’s shopping bags slung around one arm while the other hand toyed with his belt loop. He made the mistake of looking over at Tadashi as they walked. Tadashi glanced his way at the exact same time as he passed under a fukinagashi, the long paper tendrils framing his face and carding through his hair. Given what they were there for, Kei had to wonder why anyone would ever want to be anything other than Japanese.

--

Unrest and rising tension rustled through their large group, and Kei looked up from where he’d zoned out to see Daichi standing and wiping the grass off his jeans. He reached for another takoyaki from their shared boat, though his stomach roiled now at the thought of putting food in his mouth.

“Is it time?” Yamaguchi asked, checking his watch.

“Looks like it,” he mumbled, blowing air onto his fried octopus and forcing himself to take a bite.

The rest of the team rose one by one, the chattering growing louder as they clambered over each other to follow Daichi like a flock of ducklings. Yamaguchi held the last takoyaki up to Kei. He shook his head no. Shrugging, Yamaguchi popped it into his mouth and wandered away for a moment to toss the boat in the trash, before extending a hand to help him up.

The wayback machine was blocked off by a row of chain link fences set in front of the park’s fountain wall. Water dribbled from the brick masonry, interlacing his friend’s voices with soft gurgling. The crowd that had been gathered earlier had lessened significantly, and only a handful of stragglers and nosy passersby were left to stare at their captain as he handed his ticket over to a young woman manning the station.

She clipped the end with a hole puncher then nodded to Daichi, gesturing for him to enter through the opened gate behind her.

“Daichi, don’t mind!” Suga cupped his hands over his mouth.

“What is he not minding?” Kageyama muttered around his grilled squid.

“I think he’s just trying to lighten the mood,” Yamaguchi replied.

“Maybe he means not to mind all these random people watching.” Kei glowered at the nearest stranger, who flinched away at his eye contact. Good. They had no reason to be here.

Sawamura stepped up to the wooden platform where the wayback machine stood. The machine itself had been hooked up to a cushioned chair. It wasn’t a whole lot to look at, and if it weren’t for what Kei knew it could do, he’d have passed it off as a pile of wires and abandoned scrap. Daichi settled himself in the leather chair, his hands gripping the armrests as one of the lab assistants attached a tube-like arm to the nape of his neck. She spoke to him while she worked, though Kei couldn’t make out the words from where he stood. The captain twitched his head in the tiniest of nods. The helmet came next, fitted around his head before the visor came down.

The woman looked over Daichi to talk to her partner, who must have pressed some sort of button on the tablet he was holding, because Daichi then went limp. His head lolled to the side like he was asleep, fingers twitching intermittently as though in the throes of a dream. In some ways, Kei supposed he was.

The effect didn’t last long; after a few minutes, Daichi woke up. The woman removed the machine from his head, unclipped the tube, and exchanged a few more words with him before he finally lifted himself up and rejoined the group.

“Well? How was it?” Nishinoya and Tanaka practically climbed on top of each other vying to get closer to their captain. Hinata joined in the struggle, popping his head in between Nishinoya’s arm and Tanaka’s shoulder.

“What’d you get?”

“Did it hurt?” Yachi asked, visibly shaking now that they were so close to the machine.

“Give him some space,” Suga chided, thrusting his arm between Daichi and the three main troublemakers.

“No, it didn’t hurt,” Daichi reassured. He grinned, his smile forced around the edges. “It was… a doozy. I need to sit.” He waved a hand at Asahi to step back before taking a seat on a nearby set of stone stairs. “Oh-- Kinoshita,” he added, nodding in thanks as Suga handed him a water bottle. “You’re set to go as soon as they’re done disinfecting the machine.”

Kinoshita’s turn passed by similarly, and he wandered back to the group five minutes later.

“I was American,” he said. “It wasn’t too bad, I guess. I wasn’t rich or well-known, but I had a good life.” This seemed to assuage some of the members of the team, who had begun to ramp themselves up with anxieties about what they were about to see. Most people lived mundane, long lives; if that was what Kinoshita got, why wouldn’t they?

Kei glanced down at Yamaguchi. He had a hand in his pocket, fiddling with his ticket, no doubt. Yamaguchi’s eyes were focused on the contraption, mouth pursed in thought. Kei’s attention flickered over to his nervous teammates then back to Yamaguchi again. Despite everything, his friend was standing straight.

Asahi and Hinata had their turns next; Asahi’s hadn’t ended up being anything special, either, but of course Hinata had to get an athlete. It probably explained why he was so much of an insufferable volleyball idiot.

“I was a soccer player!” he shouted, nearly bounding over the wire fence with a wide grin pasted on his face. “It was super cool, and I got lots of goals and stuff!” He danced around, lifting his feet and dribbling around an invisible soccer ball. With a flourish, he swung his leg out and slammed the imaginary ball off into the distance, his fingers and limbs twitching all the while like he was acting out a memory rather than simply playing around.

“That’s nice,” Suga cooed, his vote of support accompanied by various murmurs and shouts of assent.

“Are you gonna join the soccer team and leave us alone now?” Kei asked.

Hinata snapped around, eyes sharp and glaring, and Kei froze, wondering for a moment who he was talking to.

“Never!” Hinata barked before resuming his footwork and crashing into Kageyama.

“I’m next,” Yamaguchi stated, digging his ticket out and gripping it tightly. Kei’s heart dropped and he watched his best friend begin striding up towards the entrance, the rushing blood in his ears drowning out Kageyama’s insults. The attendant clipped Yamaguchi’s ticket and he passed through the threshold.

Kei shoved aside a stranger who’d ambled up to watch and paced closer to the main gate. The lady at the front glanced at him but said nothing, instead turning to talk to a shivering Yachi who was up next and looking like she was regretting everything, including being born.

Yamaguchi had already seated himself in the chair, hands clasped between his knees as he talked to the two engineers. He was grinning, but even from that distance Kei could see the slight wobble in the corner of his lips and his pinched brows. He was anxious, too.

The engineer he’d been speaking to tilted his head forward as she brought the tube-arm to the back of his neck, and Yamaguchi’s eyes found him then. Kei swallowed, fingers curling around the wire gaps in the fence that separated them. Tadashi smiled, his bangs falling into his eyes. He brushed them away from his face before the helmet came on.

After several heart-wrenching seconds, Yamaguchi crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut and Kei gripped at the wire mesh, ignoring the steel that cut into his skin. Yamaguchi was prone to falling asleep in uncomfortable places, leaning against railings and windows and Kei’s shoulder -- he looked the same now, his head rolling forward as he escaped into a world Kei could never know.

The visor lifted four minutes later, and Yamaguchi blinked in the bright sunlight, his nose wrinkling like he’d been woken up to go to school. The engineer approached him again, speaking as she pried the helmet off and disconnected the tube apparatus. Yamaguchi didn’t respond this time, just nodding and looking down at his hands, opening and closing them again and again.

Once released, he walked slowly off the podium and returned to the crowd, gait sluggish and hands still fiddling with his fingers and his waistband.

“What’d ya get? What’d ya get?”

“Anything interesting, Yamaguchi?”

“Tell us!” 

Voices bellowed all at once, and Kei was about to snap at them to shut up when Yamaguchi replied.

“Well… I was a woman.”

“Yamaguchi, nice!” Nishinoya brandished a thumbs up.

“It was a pretty normal life. Kinda difficult, but not as hard as it could have been,  I guess.” He shrugged, arms wrapping around his chest. “It was… yeah, it was good.”

Satisfied with his answer, the team coalesced around Yachi after giving Yamaguchi a few more supportive back pats and shouted words of praise. Kei felt an elbow dig into his side and he tipped his head towards Tadashi. His usual cowlick had gotten smashed down by the helmet, making him look like a slick-haired salaryman. He missed it.

“I’ll tell you more later,” Yamaguchi whispered. Kei didn’t let the cocktail of simultaneous relief and tension show.

--

Kageyama returned with a scowl on his face that ran deeper than normal. The team parted around him without too much of a fuss, with the exception of the usual suspects.

“Kageyama,” Hinata hissed, bouncing on the balls of his feet and still barely able to contain himself ever since his memories returned -- although Kei would be hard-pressed to remember a single event where Hinata was able to contain himself. “What’d you get? Was it bad? You look like that time you accidentally drank spoiled milk.”

“It’s fine,” he shrugged Hinata off.

“No, tell us,” Kei sneered. Far be it for him to miss out on an opportunity to make fun of the setter, especially when he was so tense he felt like his stomach was about to flip inside out. “What sort of royalty were you reincarnated from? Nigerian prince, maybe?”

Kageyama glared but said nothing except for a short, stilted: “I wasn’t royalty.”

“What were you then, Kageyama?” Hinata prodded. “It’s okay if you weren’t anything cool, most people just live normal lives. Oh! How’s this? If you don’t wanna tell us your occupation, tell us what country you were from, at least.”

Kageyama glowered at a pebble by his foot. “I’m not sure what country that was.”

“What? How can you not know the country?”

“God damn it,” he snarled, grabbing Hinata by the shirt collar and whispering angrily into his ear.

“You were a dog ?” Hinata yelped.

“Idiot! I whispered it to you for a reason!” Kageyama yelled, shaking Hinata by the shirt that was still crumpled tightly in his fists. “Dumbass!”

“Oh-- no way,” Kei stifled a cackle. “The king was nothing more than a lowly mutt?”

“You were a dog, Kageyama?” Tanaka guffawed. His partner in crime had already left to try his luck at the past life simulator, which was a point of relief for Kageyama, although Nishinoya’s return was going to be like a boomerang returning to smack him across the face once the initial wave of teasing was over. “An athlete and a canine -- this team’s starting to make more sense!”

“Don’t make fun of him,” Sugawara scolded.

“I like dogs! They’re really cute!” Yachi squeaked, which did not help, and only served to fuel their laughter.

“Yeah, you’re a good boy, aren’t you?” Kei snorted. Yamaguchi snickered with his mouth hidden behind his hand.

“All of you, shut it!” Sawamura bellowed, rubbing his knuckles across his forehead and cradling a bottle of water. “You’re making a scene.”

To Kageyama’s benefit, Nishinoya came barreling in right after, and he’d actually gotten a woman as his past iteration, which took the heat off of Kageyama almost instantly.

--

They scattered once more after Sugawara had completed his turn with the wayback machine, Daichi yelling after all of them to behave and that he was going to be heading home early. Suga frowned, but only shouted to add that he'd be at the Bon Odori that evening if others wanted to group up again. He received a few shouted confirmations and then everyone had wandered off.

Yamaguchi skipped along by his side, smiling and jabbering about his newest obsession -- some show Kei hadn’t bothered to watch other than the time he’d been forced to watch the first three episodes with Tadashi. Despite his cheery outlook, his friend’s mannerisms belied whatever experiences he’d witnessed that afternoon. He’d rub a hand up and down his upper arm, or suddenly walk slowly with a faraway look in his eyes, behavior that years of friendship told Kei that Yamaguchi was still there and not here.

He bit down an angry retort when Yamaguchi blinked up at Kei with a distracted “what?” after a particularly long stretch of silence.

“I said,” he responded, pointing at a lucky charm for pets at one of the local stands, “what if we got that for Kageyama?”

That hadn’t been what he’d said. He’d actually asked Yamaguchi if the trip through the wayback machine had been worth it, but clearly the other boy hadn’t fully processed it enough to be able to talk about it.

Yamaguchi chortled, nose crinkling as he finally grounded himself in the present. “He’d throw it back at you.”

“I would never spend money on him anyway,” Kei shrugged, picking up and paying for a set of hand towels his mother would appreciate. He rubbed the soft material in between his fingers, staring down at the printed frogs leaping from one lilypad to the next. “At least you didn’t get a dog.”

Yamaguchi shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t think being an animal would be all that bad. You know? Life’s pretty simple for them. Like, animals can feel sad and scared, but I don’t think they can feel any of those emotions to the extent humans can.” Kei frowned; Yamaguchi talking about negative emotions didn’t sit right with him. “But I guess they can’t feel as happy as we can, either,” he continued. “It’s a trade-off.”

“So you were… happy,” Kei stated. It was a question, but he refused to phrase it like one. Doing so would show outward interest. If Yamaguchi was going to share details about his previous life, it had to be because he wanted to, not because Kei asked him to.

“Yeah, I could say that.” He crossed his arms over his chest again. It was a foreign gesture on his friend of seven years and he held back the urge to slap his arms down. That’s not Yamaguchi, he thought, that’s whoever came before.  

“Well, good.” He’d accidentally stated that with an air of finality that ended the conversation, but he couldn’t take it back now.

Yamaguchi didn’t open up again until several hours later when they’d sat down on a park bench sipping ramune while the sun set, painting the sky various shades of pinks and blues behind Ennoshita’s gang. They’d arrived early and so far the only others were the calm second years. Cicadas buzzed in the trees overhead and Kei leaned his head back to peer up at the branches. As a kid, he used to capture them in a glass container until he could feel the glass vibrating underneath his fingertips. Did he do that in his past life, too? he wondered idly.

“Hey, can I borrow your headphones?” Yamaguchi asked and Kei obliged.

“And your-- um, your phone, too? I wanna look something up.” He raised a brow but passed his phone along as well. Tadashi’s parents still hadn’t bought him a smartphone, so he often borrowed Kei’s whenever he felt the need to search for something.

He slid the headphones on, the bright screen shining a white rectangle onto Yamaguchi’s face in the encroaching darkness.

Not wanting to be caught staring, he glanced over at Ennoshita instead. The three teammates had taken up a park bench diagonally opposite to them, far enough away to give them space, but also near enough that they could approach each other if they needed to. They were chatting with each other, holding ice cream cones and laughing about something one of them must have said. Kinoshita hadn’t gotten anything special, and neither had Ennoshita, who’d reported being an office worker somewhere in the Netherlands. Narita had declined to use the machine, stating a lack of interest in what couldn’t be changed.

“Here,” Yamaguchi nudged him gently, holding out his headphones. “Listen to this?”

Kei shrugged and muttered a “sure.” 

The soft crackling of a phonograph record filtered through the headset, accompanied by several violins, then a woman’s voice singing a language he couldn’t understand or identify. He slid one of the ear cups off, giving Yamaguchi a quizzical look, though he already had his suspicions.

“That was… one of my favorite songs,” Yamaguchi let out a quiet, nervous chuckle, his hands squirming and clasping each other. “I--” he glanced up at Kei as if seeking permission to keep talking. “I lived in Budapest.”

So the language was Hungarian. Kei’s heart thumped against his ribcage, making him feel queasy and nervous.

“I was born in 1917,” he continued. “And I died the winter before my birthday.” Yamaguchi laughed at this, a more genuine snort, though he scratched at his cheek, something he did whenever he felt awkward. “That sounds kinda funny to say.”

“I guess so.”

“I had a little sister.” Yamaguchi swung his legs as he spoke, getting more and more comfortable with telling his story the longer he talked. “And an older brother. I was a seamstress for a little while, before getting married.”

Kei’s heart sank, which was dumb -- this wasn’t Yamaguchi he was describing, though in a way it was. Getting jealous over some long-dead people didn’t make any sense. But he couldn’t suppress the biting envy that someone in the world had held Yamaguchi in that way, even in a different life.

“Budapest was beautiful, back then.” He leaned back to look up at the tree branches rustling gently in the breeze. “I don’t know what it’s like now. I’d never thought of going before.”

“Do you want to go?” he asked.

“Yeah. That would be nice, I think. I still remember all the streets near my home growing up. Though I guess those probably don’t exist anymore. Or they look really different now.” He smiled at Kei. “When I was young, like sixteen or seventeen, one of the stores on the main street had this cute puppy that would bark at me whenever I walked past.”

The song playing in his left ear ended and he pulled the headphones off, letting them drape around his shoulders. “How much do you remember?”

“Not everything.” Yamaguchi shook his head. “Just bits and pieces, mostly the important parts of my life and then some random details like that. But I remember them in really specific detail, like-- like it was yesterday.”

Kei nodded, at a loss for what to say.

“After I got married, I had a son.” He held a finger up. “My only son. He liked pogácsa and track and field. Also kinda weird to remember, but I think I was a good mother.”

“I’m sure you were.” Yamaguchi would be a good mother in any life. Or father.

“I did the math,” he gripped his knees. “He might still be alive. He’d be 74 this year.”

“Are you going to go see him?”

“I don’t know how. I’d have to find him first, and then… he might not want to see me. Or even if he did, I don’t speak Hungarian anymore.” He rubbed a hand through his hair. “Communication would be difficult.”

“There’s services now for that,” Kei spoke, despite himself. Something inside him trembled at the thought of Yamaguchi pursuing his past life, but the look in his eyes told him how much this was affecting him, even if Yamaguchi was trying to downplay it.

“Yeah, I know. I’ll-- I’ll think about it. I’d need money from my parents.” He let out a short laugh. “I’m a kid again.”

Kei didn’t say anything. Asahi and Sugawara were approaching the plaza where they were sitting, marking the impending end of their conversation.

“Why didn’t you want to do it, Tsukki?”

He blinked. “I’m not interested in the past. What’s done is done. Either my past life was great, and I’ll hate this one, or my past life was terrible, and I won’t be able to stop thinking about it. What’s the point?” And I don’t want to lose myself .

He kept his mouth shut on the rest of his emotions, still not quite capable or willing to articulate them. The deep-seated fear of what was to come if he took that leap kept him in place.

“I guess that’s true,” Yamaguchi conceded. “I don’t regret it, though.”

--

The Bon Odori started as soon as the last stragglers of their team bounded up. They’d corralled themselves in a corner, Kei sitting on the sidewalk next to Asahi who’d also been forced to sit because they were “too tall” and blocked the view of the team midgets. Yamaguchi curled himself up next to Kei, arms brushing against his and legs lined up parallel to each other.

He watched as the rows of dancers swayed to the beat set by the drummers, lifting their arms and legs and waving the fan in their right hands. They synchronized their movements, twirling in rhythm to the music. His eyes followed their colorful clothes, jumping from red to blue to yellow. Some wore yukata with kanji written on the thin cloth. One of the women turned to face him, grinning as she stretched her arms into the air. He averted his attention, then peeked at Yamaguchi, who was still focused on the performance.

You didn’t dance like this back then, he couldn’t help but think as he watched Yamaguchi wipe a bead of sweat away from his temple. His mind continued roiling with turbulent thoughts of Yamaguchi’s past life, of the experiences he’d had and now gotten back. It didn’t sit well with him. 

The thought of losing his Yamaguchi to one that had already died long ago terrified him.

After a couple minutes, the dancers began gesturing to the crowd, pulling them in and inviting them to take part. Hinata and Nishinoya leapt into action, followed by the upperclassmen and eventually Kageyama.

“Come on,” Yamaguchi stood, holding a hand out for Kei to take. Tadashi’s hand was warm and sturdy, and Kei allowed his friend to lead him into the ever-growing circle. Yamaguchi marched in front of him, following the crowd and moving his limbs in sync with everyone else. The drum beat grew stronger, seeping into his skin and muscles until he was copying everyone else, the motions coming naturally to him after years of tanabatas with his older brother. Yamaguchi glanced over his shoulder at Kei, grin dazzling and bright, and Kei tried not to let the image of the boy he’d fallen in love with haunt him that night.

--

They arrived at the gymnasium early the next day, still tired and mildly sore. Kageyama and Hinata were already running laps around the court like the insects they were, while the rest of the team stretched and warmed up on the side.

“Morning,” Kei droned as they entered, dropping his water bottle and joining their team on the ground. Although the previous day’s outing had improved morale, tensions were still high as the spring high preliminaries were approaching. Electricity crackled in the background, ever present in the way his teammates spiked and set and received with every ounce of energy they had.

Kei hadn’t asked if Yamaguchi had practiced with Shimada after they’d returned from Sendai proper, but the intense expression on his face suggested it didn’t matter. Whatever it took to improve his abilities, Yamaguchi was going to take it.

A corner of his mind, just a tiny piece, felt relief at Yamaguchi’s continued determination after tanabata.

Despite the entire world’s perception of him, he didn’t hate volleyball. When he got into the pace of the sport -- really got into it, when the rhythm of the ball hitting his palms and of his chest heaving breath after heavy breath melted together -- it was the only moment where he could forget everything. Forget the spring high, forget the upcoming school semester, forget that his father was going off on another business trip, forget that Yamaguchi’s soul had uncovered its past self. Every concern his overactive mind conjured up during the day (and late, late at night) dissolved until there were only chess pieces and a target.

But no matter how long the rally, gravity would eventually take over and so would his thoughts.

Nishinoya and Tanaka whooped and hollered the moment the rubber ball sprang into their side of the court, the latter barely keeping his shirt on.

“Kageyamaaa, that was too fast,” Hinata complained, punching the air above his head with his tiny fists.

“I know, shut up,” Kageyama growled.

“You can’t blame him, he has to get used to having hands again,” Kei smirked. The jab didn’t make him feel better, but he could pretend it did.

Kageyama whipped around and glared at him before shoving him aside to fetch another ball. “My hands work fine,” he grumbled underneath his breath.

“Then set me another ball this time!” Hinata shouted, pausing for a second as if to think before adding, “Inuyama.” Kageyama’s hand gripped the redhead’s hair so fast Kei didn’t even see it happen before he was already begging for mercy.

--

“Do you wanna hang out at my place?” Yamaguchi asked that afternoon after they’d wrapped up and were munching on a couple of meat buns.

“Sure,” Kei shrugged. Since they were in the middle of summer break, he didn’t have much homework to do anyway, and spending time at Yamaguchi’s house or his own felt pretty much the same at this point.

Yamaguchi’s mother greeted them at the door, smiling brightly at Kei as she returned to watching her TV show. Kei bowed in response, following Tadashi towards the back of the house.

Yamaguchi showered first while Kei gathered the clothes he always left behind in Yamaguchi’s drawer. After a failed attempt at wearing Yamaguchi’s pajamas when he was younger -- and consequently damn near choking himself because his limbs were too long to fit in the garment -- he’d started leaving his own set in his friend’s room. He supposed that allowing Yamaguchi to hold onto that memory as potential blackmail truly marked the start of their friendship.

“Your shower’s not draining well,” Kei announced when he returned from the bathroom, cleaning his ears out with a towel.

“What--? Oh, yeah, the plumbers are gonna be coming tomorrow,” Yamaguchi answered, his eyes flicking back to his computer monitor.

The headline HUNGARY IN WORLD WAR II flashed in bold text at the top of the current webpage. Too late, Kei averted his gaze. He padded over to Yamaguchi’s bed, mind already running through what he’d seen. If he’d been born in 1917, he’d definitely been old enough to live through the second world war and remember it.

Kei’s stomach clenched. He had enough trauma to deal with in one life, he didn’t need to pile on another lifetime’s worth. It continued to escape him why Yamaguchi and the others would be interested in even entertaining that possibility.

He turned his music on full volume, sinking into Tadashi’s bed -- that smelled like him, his brain supplied -- aiming to at least distract himself for a while. He almost didn’t notice when, twenty minutes later, Yamaguchi left the room, only just catching the movement from his peripheral vision. He shut his eyes and rubbed at his face with his hands, feeling the beginnings of a headache oncoming.

The mattress shifted and he opened his eyes again to see Yamaguchi sitting on the bed next to his legs. His mouth was moving and Kei removed his headphones to catch the tailend of what sounded like “-ind this.”

“What?”

“Um-- I was just saying, it took me a really long time to find this. Like, I spent all night googling stuff.” He held up a sheet of paper in his hands then flipped it around. “It’s um-- it’s me. Do you want to see?

Against his better judgment, he took the sheet from Yamaguchi and held it closer. The image was grainy and in black and white, but it was clearly a photo of a young woman. She – Yamaguchi — was smiling and holding a small child in her arms that looked remarkably like her.

“I remembered— I remembered that I hired this photographer to take a picture of myself and my son back in, like, the early 40s. I didn’t– I lost the picture, but I thought– it had to be out there somewhere, right? I stayed up all night searching for this,” he let out a breath that was almost a soft chuckle. “I only just found it. It was on some obscure Hungarian blog.”

“Good job,” Kei said. His tongue twisted itself trying to find something else to say, but nothing came. The memory of Yamaguchi’s past self superimposed itself on the Yamaguchi before him. Short, brown hair, light skin, western features -- she didn’t have freckles, he thought. The boy didn’t either.

Yamaguchi stood, grabbing scissors from his desk and cutting the image out, then tucking it into his wallet.

“Have you… decided on seeing your…” Kei’s voice nearly failed him, “...son?”

“Oh. I-- probably. But I’ve got so much to do right now, it’s--” he ran a hand through his hair, “--kind of a lot. I don’t know if I’m ready for that. And besides, we’ve got the spring high coming up.” He smiled.

Kei nodded, convincing himself that the relief he felt was because Yamaguchi still had freckles.

--

“I’m home,” Kei announced later that night, slipping off his shoes in the genkan.

“Woah, Kei. You grew even taller,” a chillingly familiar voice greeted him and he turned to see his older brother standing at the doorway to the kitchen. “You totally passed me by a long time ago.”

“ Nii-chan .”

Akiteru rested a hand on his hip, cocking his head slightly to the side. “Hey. Long time no see.”

“...Hey,” he replied tentatively, standing and picking up his bag. He hadn’t seen his brother in months, and even then had only spent the twenty-some minutes of dinner sitting quietly across the table before excusing himself back to his bedroom. He shuffled his feet, eyes flicking in the direction of the staircase, then back to his sibling, unsure of what to do. “What are you doing here?” he decided to ask.

“Thought it would be nice to see my little brother,” Akiteru answered, opening the door wider. “Come outside with me? Mom says food will be ready in thirty.”

--

“It’s really been a while since we’ve gotten to talk,” Akiteru spoke again once they’d headed out to the backyard together.

“Has it?” he asked from where he was sitting on the porch, hands on his knees as he scanned the grass, idly searching for the crickets filling the air with their continuous chirping.

“Even when I come home, you usually never leave your room other than to eat,” his older brother continued, pacing towards the basketball hoop at the end of their yard, volleyball gripped in his hands.

Kei frowned. His relationship with his brother had been frayed for years now; after everything that had happened between them, he couldn’t help feeling guarded and ill at ease whenever Akiteru came to visit. A twinge of guilt twisted his heartstrings, but he wasn’t even sure how to express himself around his sibling anymore. The days of playing dinosaurs and sharing popsicles were long gone.

“Is that so?”

Akiteru turned to look at him, the light from their dining room shining onto his face. “You look a bit different. Have you used the wayback machine? Mom told me you went with your team to the tanabata yesterday.”

The question tugged at his insides. “No, I didn’t.”

“No? Why not? Afraid you’ll get something bad?” his brother asked, outward tone teasing, but with an underlying seriousness drifting just below the surface.

“Something like that,” he replied.

Akiteru hummed, bouncing the volleyball up against the backboard. The rhythmic thump, pat, thump, pat set a metronome in his heart, tracking the passage of time and the flow of intermingled, hectic thoughts.

“You still play volleyball, right?” Kei asked, releasing one of those thoughts into the night air.

“Yeah, I’m on a team,” his brother replied without missing a beat.

“Do you enter tournaments?”

“Yeah. We do.”

His eyes drifted down to the ground again. An unidentifiable emotion bubbled at the forefront of his conscience, something akin to relief or bewilderment. His thoughts switched to Yamaguchi, to his friend’s earnest efforts in improving his volleyball skills, always pushing himself, trying for more even when no one had asked anything of him; had he been like that in his past life, too? He peered up at Akiteru. What of his brother?

“You want to know why I’m still playing after what happened in high school, am I right?”

Kei’s nails dug into his palm. The desperate shock and despair on his brother’s face when he’d gotten caught on the sidelines and his subsequent breakdown played in sharp relief in his mind’s eye.

Akiteru caught the ball with both hands, head tilted up and facing the sky. “I’m still playing… because of what happened in high school.” He turned to look at Kei. “I have a lot of regrets about how things went down. I can’t take anything good from the experience at all. What you saw was such a disgrace.” He picked at the seams of the volleyball. “We can’t say that we only have one life to live anymore,” he sighed, “but I think that’s all the more reason to make the best of it. I want to make this one worth remembering. I want to experience everything life has to offer. I know how good it feels to land a spike, and how proud the roar of a crowd makes me. I also know the pleasure of working with my hands and making something no one else has ever made before.” His attention drifted towards the waning moon hung up far above. “I want to be somewhere I can give it my very best until I’m completely satisfied.”

“I see,” Kei replied simply, the corners of a hidden smile tugging at his lips. “So you… liked the life you had before this one.”

“Yeah, mostly,” Akiteru answered, sitting on the porch next to Kei, so close they were touching. “It really helped me with figuring out some of my current problems, you know? It was pretty insightful.” He tipped his head. “There was just one thing that that life was missing.”

“What?” Kei raised his eyebrows, wondering when had been the last time he’d had this much physical contact with his sibling.

Akiteru leaned in closer, soft grimace betraying his inner emotions.

“A little brother.”

--

Kei awoke the next morning with an uncharacteristic chill and the ghost of a headache pounding against his temples. The alarm next to his bed read 5:50. He pulled the covers over his head, shoving his face underneath his pillow in an effort to fall back asleep. His dreams had been frenzied and restless, interspersed with images of dogs in shop windows and faceless children. He’d seen Yamaguchi in his dream, he was positive, but he hadn’t looked anything like what Yamaguchi was supposed to look like. A stranger by his side.

His alarm beeped loudly, breaking through any last hopes he had of getting extra sleep. He slammed his thumb down on the snooze button and sat up, blinking in the sun’s rays. He groaned. He had half a mind to skip practice that day, except-- Yamaguchi would definitely be there.

Apparently half the team had decided to call out that day, too, given that it was the last day of tanabata and many of them actually wanted to spend time with their families. But Yamaguchi was there, as were the idiot duo, Sugawara, Ennoshita, and Tanaka, along with the coach.

Sugawara clapped his hands together as the de facto captain, declaring a game of pepper and assigning Kei to a group with Kageyama and Tanaka. Yamaguchi had been paired with Sugawara himself.

“Try not to run away with the ball,” Kei said pointedly to Kageyama. He tossed the ball in the air and served it to Tanaka, marking the start of their warm up game.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kageyama asked. Tanaka leapt and spiked the ball in the setter’s direction.

“When you play fetch, you’re supposed to return it.”

The volleyball whizzed past his ear like a missile at breakneck speed, so fast he didn’t even have time to flinch. Kageyama stood a meter away, hand hanging by his side, breathing heavily and eyebrow twitching.

“Woah, you asked for that, Tsukishima!” Tanaka cackled, trotting across the court to retrieve the ball.

Kei rolled his neck, keeping his expression reserved and cool despite his hammering heart. His hand quivered as he fixed his glasses and he wiped it against his shirt to hide his apprehension.

Kageyama clicked his tongue but said nothing, mouth twisted into a scowl.

The rest of their game of pepper passed by without incident, in part due to Kei keeping his mouth shut and Kageyama probably not wanting to get a detention for reckless endangerment of his teammates. Kageyama’s sets landed neatly in the palm of his hand every time, which sparked a flicker of irritation but he just frowned and aimed the ball in Tanaka’s direction.

--

“It’s hot today,” Yamaguchi remarked as he sat down next to Kei on the steps leading into the court. Kei nodded, mouth full of food. After half a day’s worth of exercise, the humidity was unbearable, but he couldn’t stand to eat inside where it smelled like sweat and rubber.

“You okay?” Tadashi asked and Kei swallowed, glancing over at his friend.

“Fine. Why?”

Yamaguchi shrugged. “Nothing,” he replied, unboxing his bento. Kei’s eyes wandered to Yamaguchi’s meal, a couple of spoonfuls of rice packed alongside cooked vegetables and some sort of meat that looked almost like curry but ran a bit too liquidy.

“What kind of curry is that?” he asked.

Yamaguchi gestured with his chopsticks. “Oh, that’s goulash. I told my parents about my past life and my dad’s been going a little crazy in the kitchen lately. He wanted to make something Hungarian.” He lifted a piece of potato. “I’m not sure he did it right, though. Do you want to try?”

He shook his head. “No.”

Tadashi plopped the potato into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully before stating: “Yeah, it’s a little tough.”

Kei puffed out a short laugh. “Maybe he should let you make it.”

“I don’t remember how to make this,” Yamaguchi protested, swirling his chopsticks in the brown broth.

“Ah.”

They sat in silence a while longer, eating peaceably and ignoring their teammates’ raucous yelling from across the gym. A distant memory niggled at the back of his mind, just beyond his reach. He watched his best friend temporarily abandon the goulash for his rice, the phantom memory taunting him, invisible yet ever-present in the space surrounding them. It must have been part of his dream last night, the one where Yamaguchi had worn a stranger’s face.

“Akiteru visited home last night,” Kei started, unsure where he was going but hoping the words would lead him somewhere.

“Aki-niisan! How is he?” Yamaguchi asked around a mouthful of rice.

“He’s fine.” He paused. “He tried out the wayback machine yesterday. Said something about being an only child.”

Tadashi tilted his head. “That must have been hard for him. I’m sure he was glad to see you again.”

Kei rested his chin on his fist, the rest of their conversation that night filtering through his mind, along with everything else left unsaid.

Had Yamaguchi lived a life worth remembering? Had it been worth it to find out he had a son and to experience World War II? None of the facts he’d unearthed about himself in his last life were relevant to the person he was now, at least none  that Yamaguchi had chosen to divulge. He struggled to comprehend how those memories could be helpful or insightful in any way, the way they’d apparently been for his brother.

Why did you do it? the question danced around his vocal chords, but his lips refused to move. Was it worth it?

A slight breeze picked up and the smell of paprika and meat wafted in his direction. He glared at his own onigiri, frustration at the foreign intrusion building.

“ Shut up ! Shut up ! Shut up !” Kei’s tumultuous thoughts were cut short, his attention ripped out of his inner world in time to see Hinata crashing into the volleyball net pole, having backed up and tripped over his own feet at Kageyama’s outburst. Even Tanaka’s expression was wide open in shock.

“What’s going on?” Yamaguchi asked, craning his neck and leaning backwards to peer into the gym. “Are they… squabbling?”

The aggression in Kageyama’s tone and distinct lack of “dumbass”es didn't make his yelling sound like any of their usual brainless arguments.

“Gee, what’d you do to piss him off, shorty? Miss a set?” Kei teased, keeping his tone lilted but flicking his eyes from teammate to teammate in an effort to gauge what the hell had happened.

“You don’t get to fucking talk, either!” Kageyama roared, storming halfway across the gymnasium by the time Kei stood up in defense. “You’re so full of yourself when you were too much of a coward to even try!”

“Hey, Tsukki’s not--” Kei lifted an arm across Yamaguchi’s chest which he took as a cue to stop talking, though his lips were curled in distaste.

“I’m a coward?” he repeated, anger and shame boiling within him.

“Yeah. You are. You suck at volleyball cause you don’t try and you didn’t use the machine so you couldn’t get something as shitty as a dog !” Kageyama snarled. “Now you get to sit on your high fucking horse and shit on everyone else about what they got but for all you know you were a fucking worm !” He clenched his fists and for a brief moment Kei was afraid he was about to throw a punch but Kageyama didn’t move, only shuddered and gritted his teeth, nostrils flaring in unfiltered rage. Hinata stood a few paces back, sheepishly rubbing his hands together.

“We’re sorry, Kageyama. I didn’t mean-- it was just a joke. Kenma got a barn cat as his past life, living as an animal is actually pretty cool!”

“Yeah, don’t sweat it, Kageyama,” Tanaka piped up, apparently over his shock and trying to appear like the cool senpai he wasn’t again.

“None of you understand,” Kageyama muttered, low enough that Kei was fairly sure he was the only one who could have heard, before stomping outside. The court plunged into icy silence. Nobody dared to move until Coach Ukai ordered everyone to continue eating and then trotted after Kageyama.

Kei’s stomach roiled. Like eating now would be possible.

--

Sugawara and Ennoshita had managed to calm tempers down enough to resume practice after lunch, though the team remained mostly quiet, banter practically non-existent except for the occasional hollering from Tanaka whenever he landed a solid spike. Even Hinata refrained from bouncing off the walls the way he normally would.

Kageyama returned with his head bowed after speaking to the coach. He avoided meeting anyone’s eyes, but he didn’t yell anymore, or even speak beyond a shouted warning. Kei stuck close to Tadashi, trading looks and communicating without speaking.

You think coach scolded him? Yamaguchi’s raised eyebrows inquired.

Kei shook his head minutely. I don’t think so . He set his hands on his hips, watching the setter grumble an insult in Hinata’s general direction before grabbing a new volleyball. He rolled his eyes. He’s probably just embarrassed. 

A gentle nudge against his ribcage averted his attention from Kageyama to his friend again.

“I’m practicing with Mr. Shimada tonight,” Yamaguchi finally used his voice. “Don’t wait up for me, okay?”

--

As promised, Yamaguchi scurried out of the locker room before the rest of the team, bag flung haphazardly over his back. Kei watched as he left, an indescribable emotion settling into his core. He rolled his shoulders to disperse it before turning to his own things again.

“Kageyama! Are we still going to Ukai Senior’s tonight?” He heard Hinata yell.

“Duh,” Kageyama answered. “And pull your shirt down, dumbass. I don’t want to talk to your nipples.”

“We’re definitely getting the super quick down tonight!” he continued shouting at about ten decibels away from breaking glass.

Wherever exactly the other two freshmen were going, it was in the same direction he was headed, so they ended up peeling off all together, Kageyama and Kei on the far ends of the sidewalk while Hinata tugged along his bicycle between them.

Kei was about to slide his headphones on when a question Hinata asked froze his hand in place.

“So what was it like?”

“What was what like?”

“Being a dog. Kenma says that he enjoyed being in the moment more as a cat. I don’t really get it, though, we live in the moment, too?”

“That’s because you have the instincts of an insect,” Kei jabbed.

Hinata stuck his tongue out.

“Well? What was it like?” the redhead prompted again.

“Why are you asking?" Kageyama muttered gruffly.

“I just wanna know. I didn’t get an animal as my past life, so I know what it’s like to be a human, but not what it’s like to be a dog. Was it fun?”

“I don’t know,” Kageyama shrugged, disarmed by his honesty. “It was… simple.”

“Simple, like… how? Like, easy? Or like…?”

“Like, straightforward. I had my–” he glared at Kei as if challenged him to say anything before continuing, “owners, and  I lived with them. It was a two-story house and I slept in the living room.”

“What kind of dog were you?”

Kageyama breathed in, shoulders loosening now that it was clear he wasn’t being made the butt of a joke. “I’m not sure. Doberman… I think.”

“Uwah. You were scary as a dog, too.”

“Shut up,” he snapped, though there was no heat in it.

“Was it worth it?” Kei asked, fingers digging into his headphone’s ear cushion.

“Piss off.”

“I’m not being difficult. It’s just a question. You don’t have to answer it.”

Kageyama’s eyes narrowed. “Was what worth it?”

“Using the machine.”

“I don’t know. What does that even mean? It was like a dream, then I woke up.” He shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. It doesn’t mean I’m a freaking dog.”

“So it was easy. For you.”

“You got a problem?”

He clicked his tongue. “All I’m saying is you had an easy life. Being a pet dog isn’t exactly a traumatic experience.”

He shrugged. “I guess.”

“And it hasn’t really changed your attitude, anyway. You were always aggressive and prone to barking at people.”

Kei teetered as Kageyama shoved him, stumbling over his feet before righting himself up again. He held back a snort, usual glee over hitting one of Kageyama’s nerves lightening his mood. Kageyama, satisfied with that much, hunched his back and stormed on ahead, leaving Hinata to yelp and chase after him.

Kei let them go, slowing down his own pace to lengthen the gap between himself and his teammates, thoughts whirring in the back of his mind, though he couldn’t quite decipher them yet. Faster than he’d anticipated, he stood in front of his gated house, staring at the light that shone through the front window and into their yard.

His brother was still home, his father almost done packing for his work abroad. He’d enter through the door, announce his arrival, his mom would greet him, his brother would do the same, but in a more annoying manner, and he’d head upstairs to drown himself in music and homework until dinnertime came. He’d eat enough to keep anyone else from telling him to eat more, then he’d go back to his bed and hope he wouldn’t dream about Yamaguchi.

His hand gripped around his phone, flipping it around and searching for his youtube app. The Hungarian song Yamaguchi had searched was still open, a black-and-white picture of Budapest serving as the backdrop of the video. He hit play and tilted up one of the headphone cups towards his ear. The mournful voice of the Hungarian woman tickled his eardrum, sinking into his beating pulse and into his every cell. He stood behind the fence, swaying lightly on his feet, eyes half-lidded. The song ended with one last crescendo and he came back to the twenty-first century, his heart still pounding heavily.

Eating dinner at Yamaguchi’s tonight

He sent the text before he’d even fully thought it through, legs heading away from his home and off towards an unknown destination. There were few buses left at this time of the evening, and he worried that he might need to ask for a ride home, exposing his lie to his family, but he figured he would come up with a solution to that if he needed to.

The bus ride was quiet, street lamps flickering on and casting light into the interior of the vehicle in predictable patterns. Only a couple of other people accompanied him on the route to the city, their shadows extinguishing and flickering back to life. Apprehension tightened his chest, but resolve kept him going.

If the idiots could do it and come away just the same from it, then he could handle it, too.

And if it could bridge the gap, if he could finally understand —

The wayback machine was still set up and running, to both his dismay and relief. He’d made it this far; he really would be a coward if he backed down now.

There was only one person ahead of him and within ten minutes he found himself staring down the metal chair, feeling as though he were about to be sentenced to death by electrocution.

“Any questions about the machine?” one of the operators asked while fiddling with a device in his hand.

He had millions of questions, but none the attendant would be able to answer. He shook his head no.

“Okay. If you sit down, we’ll be applying the nozzle to the base of your head. This tunes into your brain stem to stimulate buried memories.” Kei listened as he obeyed, hands clasped and fingers twitching. He gritted his teeth as the cold suction cup was connected to the nape of his neck. It didn’t hurt at all, but the foreign object sucked at the tiny hairs and pinched his skin.

“The process is simple,” the operator continued, the visor now in his hands. Kei flicked his attention away, his heart jumping at the sight. “It’ll feel just like falling asleep. You’ll get very sleepy, then the machine will begin repeating some of those memories from your past life. You won’t relive all of it, and how much gets brought back varies from person to person. They’re nothing more than dreams; nothing can hurt you.”

Maybe not physically , Kei corrected, though he kept quiet and nodded, lips pursed.

“The memories will start to fade after a while if you don’t keep them active; if your past life is something you’d like to remember, you’ll have to engage with those memories in some way.”

Kei raised his eyebrows. Yamaguchi had never mentioned that fact, nor had any of the others. Yamaguchi’s constant engagement with his past clicked together, like a treasure chest Kei had been able to unearth from the sand. He wanted to remember.

“Should we get started?”

Kei’s eyes finally met the visor, his mind processing what he was about to go through. “Yes.”

The helmet fit snug around his head, heavy with the weight of memories. He gripped the armrests that trapped him in the seat, nails digging into the leather. His vision blurred for a moment before focusing on a spot in the middle distance.

“When you’re ready, just lower the visor and we’ll get started.”

Kei nodded, hand shaking as he lifted it. No sense in dragging this out any longer.

The visor shut out all light the instant it clicked closed, leaving Kei in a black void. He could hear the operators mumbling directions to each other before making out a soft beep and then–

It was as though a heavy iron blanket had been thrown over his chest and the floor pulled out from underneath him. His soul tugged out of his body moments before a deeper exhaustion infiltrated every sense, removing every piece of Kei, electron by electron. He would have panicked were it not for the water-logged fatigue soaking his neurons.

The bit of consciousness left over floated in the dark, waiting. Time passed, or maybe it didn’t. How long had it been? Was he done already? Maybe he hadn’t had a past life, and there wasn’t anything to watch.

He opened his eyes to a big, black nose and a wet pink tongue reaching forward to lick a stripe across his face. He fell backwards, spluttering and giggling, rubbing at his face with the collar of his tiny shirt.

“ Péter ,” a familiar, long-forgotten voice called out to where he was now sitting in the long grass, nails digging into the soft dirt. The air smelled of dung and the hefty stench of barnyard animals. He diverted his attention from the cow -- now chewing on her cud and glancing at them with disinterest -- to his mother. She had long, brown hair that whipped in the wind, getting into her mouth as she opened it to scold him.

His family’s farm house stood in between two patches of wheat fields that stretched out into the horizon, miles and miles of golden waves he’d play in, picking up bugs and poking sticks into animal dens. His little sister began to tag along as soon as she could walk (and be annoying), but he never really stayed out as late the evenings she didn’t follow his every step.

The cows were the most treasured part of the farm, and his parents hid the fact that beef and cows were the same thing, only death separating the two concepts, until he was eight. He spent the rest of that day hugging his favorite cow and crying into her short, bristled fur until his little sister had been sent to make him come back home for dinner.

After that point, he’d been declared old enough to help around with the barn, and his father put him to work carrying materials to and fro, shearing the sheep, harvesting the wheat, and other menial tasks. He’d fortunately been spared from having to play grim reaper to any of the cows, though he did have to milk them on occasion. That much was acceptable, but he still avoided naming any of them.

Around four months after his 14th birthday, his father began to act strangely, working harder and longer than before, brow knitted and mouth pursed in a thin line. He spoke in grunts and brief shakes of his head. Zita tugged on his sleeve late one night, asking what was wrong with papa. He shrugged and ushered her to bed, his own sense of foreboding looming dark in the back of his mind.

Three weeks later, the decision had been made. They were closing the farm and moving to the city. Kei’s -- Péter’ s -- heart dropped to his feet, the reality of his life crumbling to pieces and disintegrating into the wind hitting him like a tornado. By Christmas, they’d packed up all of their essentials into 2 pieces of luggage and a trunk and piled into the back of his aunt and uncle’s car. He stared out the window of the automobile as they left, too suffocated with the knowledge that this was the last he’d see of the land he’d grown up on to enjoy his first ever car ride.

They moved into a tiny two room apartment. His parents slept in one room while he and his sister slept in the other, along with the chair, the table, and their suitcases. It was loud outside their window, the sounds of drunk people chattering and cars chugging down the cobblestone streets waking him in the early morning. He shoved his head underneath his threadbare pillow, yearning for the stench of animal dung and hay and the far-off crowing of their rooster instead. Zita would clutch to his side with her small fists, eyes screwed shut with anxious dreams and turbulent nightmares. He would wake her when they seemed worse than usual, but there was no remedy for being uprooted from their childhoods.

Before long, talk began of what they were expected to do now in the city. The concept of school was tossed around enough times that he eventually threw a fit, throwing a pan onto the ground and screaming that he wanted to go back to the farm, not sit in a chair for days on end. His rant was cut short when his father backhanded him across the cheek, and he bit back the last few words he’d wanted to scream, swallowing bile and confused rage at having been displaced at such a young age. The tantrum did serve a purpose, though; once his dad had composed himself, he offered him two choices -- school or work.

The next day, he headed out into the streets, knocking on local establishments and shop windows, asking if anyone was in need of an extra pair of hands. A small tobacco shop eventually accepted his offer, the owner pointing to the back and ordering him to get started. It wasn’t the farm, but the menial labor made him feel at home.

His sister chose school instead; although they’d both had a fundamental teaching at a rural elementary school, she was still behind several grades. He’d walk her to school in the mornings before heading off to work, then walk her back home at the end of the day. It didn’t take her long to acclimate to the city culture, and half a year later she had started walking to school with one of her new friends instead.

Mornings cleared, he began to wander the streets after breakfast, sitting by the river to smoke and watch tourists make fools of themselves.

After finding out about his aimless endeavors, his mother started sending him out with tasks to complete -- buy a pound of apples, fetc h a copy of the news, go visit your aunt; he obeyed them grudgingly, in some cases leaving early so he could still enjoy his people watching by the river.

Once summer had gripped the city with its heat, his mother patted money and a piece of paper in his hand, shooing him out the door with strict orders to buy a new dress for Zita. Sighing, he headed off in the direction of the weaver’s, hands in his pockets and fingers fiddling with his wallet. Maybe if there was cash left over, he’d be able to buy himself some sweets.

The bell jingled as he entered, and he massaged the back of his neck which was already covered in sweat. It was going to be a hell of a day.

“Morning,” a cheerful voice greeted him. “What can I help you with?”

“I was just--”

Yamaguchi .

Kei’s heart froze and Peter’s tongue tripped over itself.

“--Um, I have money,” his mouth felt like cotton and he winced at how stupid he sounded. “For– I have measurements for a dress,” he finally hobbled to a conclusion like a gymnast with a limp.

Yamaguchi looked almost exactly like the photo he’d shown Kei all that time ago – yesterday, 80 years in the future – she wore a long dress and short, brown hair tied back into a bun. She was just a bit younger, face smoother and lacking coming years of stress.

“Oh. What are they?”

Stupid. “These,” he answered dumbly, digging his mother’s crumpled handwriting out of his pocket and patting it on the counter in front of Yamaguchi. She picked at the paper with her thumb and forefinger, uncrumpling it gingerly like she expected it to be trash instead.

“They’re for my sister,” he blurted out.

“Okay. We can make this. It’ll take a week. Is that okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s fine,” he responded hastily, eager to leave and aching to stay. He handed off the payment to her with as steady hands as he could, before nodding to her and rushing out the door.

He’d made it halfway down the street before realizing he’d forgotten to ask for her name.

–-

The week passed by agonizingly slowly; Kei would stare at the multitudes of people walking past the bridge, eyes scanning for Yamaguchi without even meaning to. He’d never seen her before and had no reason to believe that she’d pass by the same spot he’d been spending every morning, but hope burned brightly at the bottom of his heart like a warm weight.

Once the week was up, his mother had barely gotten the order to go down to the weavers’ past her lips before he was out the door already. He brushed a hand down the front of his vest, controlling his breathing before pushing his way in. Yamaguchi was there, the tip of her tongue sticking out in concentration as she threaded a needle into a worn dress shirt.

He cleared his throat and she glanced up at him.

“Good morning,” she grinned and Péter’s knees quaked. “The dress for your sister?”

“Y-yes.” He nodded, not risking opening his mouth any further. A foot couldn’t fit in a closed mouth.

She rummaged around through several drawers before pulling out a long, yellow sundress, immaculately woven with tendrils of the stars themselves.

“I hope she likes it,” Yamaguchi chirped, extending it to Kei – to Péter – he no longer knew which he was supposed to be, or if there was even a difference.

“Thank you,” he muttered, gripping the soft fabric in his farm-hardened hands. “I will… I will bring my business back here.”

Yamaguchi stared at him with eyes wide open, the corner of her lips quirking knowingly. “I look forward to it.”

–-

He ripped a hole in his pants three days later and brought the offending material to his chagrined mother.

When he brought his ticket to the weavers', Yamaguchi had looked up at him with recognition in her eyes.

“That’s a shame,” she’d said non-chalantly as he showed her the pants. “But I can get those fixed pretty quickly. You can take a seat if you’d like.”

He would like.

He finally asked for her name then, while she worked the cloth with her deft fingers.

“Réka.”

–-

Péter started walking Réka home from work every evening under the thinly veiled guise of keeping her safe. She accepted the offer with a smile, the first of many. It didn’t take long before she looped her arm around his, and asked him more about his family life, his work, his values.

His heart jumped and clattered about his chest every time he found himself in her company, and it took all his concentration to bite his tongue and keep from swallowing it.

They shared their first kiss underneath a locust tree near her house. She was kind in all the ways Yamaguchi would be, and yet at the same time more quiet, more careful, less direct. Her eyes spoke depth about her thoughts that she had yet to give life to.

After four years of courtship, he brought her to a bar on the other side of the city, one he'd had to save his hard-earned money for, but the look on her face when the band started playing had been worth 10 years' salary. He took her hand while the night was still young and rocked her to and fro to the sway of violins and piano strings.

They married a few years later, and moved into a small apartment across the river from where he used to sit and watch passersby. Zita visited with her friend once a week after school, probably in a partial attempt to get some peace from their parents.

Réka never gave up her weaving, though she stopped going to work after Péter assumed ownership of the tobacco shop. She sat in her wooden chair every morning in the rising sunlight, hands playing over the strings in her loom much like an angel would a harp.

She knitted a cow plushie for his birthday, grin so wide and blinding he couldn’t even pretend to be annoyed.

“It’s important you don’t forget your roots!” she’d chirped.

One morning he awoke to Réka bent over, face twisted with nausea. She gripped his shoulders tightly, burying her head in his neck while whispering the confirmation he was waiting to hear.

Henrik was born on July 15th, 1938. The midwife handed over what looked like a sack of potatoes and wailed like a banshee, and if this was what fatherhood was like, he would willingly burn down a village for the little mandrake.

Their life resumed to normalcy, at least as far as normalcy could look with a new child in a tiny apartment. Réka took care of Henrik while Péter worked, and they would sit together in their minimalist living room after dinner, listening to the radio as Réka sewed, or knitted, or weaved.

Her sewing needles clattered to the floor a year later in early September, her hands trembling as she struggled to pick them back up. Germany was in Poland and France had just declared war.

The threat of impending war and Poland’s occupation weighed heavily on their daily routines. People smiled less; went about their business then returned home, less than eager to spend more time outside. The changes were subtle, but palpable. Their Jewish neighbors disappeared one day after hasty goodbyes, stating only that they were heading off to another continent.

Henrik grew quickly, babbling his first words then walk-stumbling across the living room in what seemed like no time at all. He had no knowledge of war, and therefore no fear.

Opinions shifted, and people began to discuss their ideas of Germany and the war, like they knew something. He kept silent, sure he wouldn’t stop arguing if he started, and just charged his customers their totals. Réka would say nothing but cross her arms over her chest anytime the subject was brought up with family and they left the subject taboo within their household.

It was the day after Henrik had managed to read his first sentence, Réka’s finger guiding him along line by line, that he’d received the news in the mail. He’d sensed this was coming, and would have liked to have truthfully said he was surprised when he turned over the letter in his hands, but he wasn’t.

Réka cried the entire night in his arms, urging him not to go, to find some other solution, even though there could never be another one. So he held her tighter, letting the front of his shirt dampen with her tears.

“I’ll come back,” he promised in the softest of whispers. “I’ll come back to you.”

After his training, he was stationed at the border of the Soviet Union under the Royal Hungarian Army. The nights were most difficult; at least during the day he had the weight of his pack and the smell of motor oil to occupy his thoughts.

They were to push in an invasion behind the Germans, coming in from along the river once most of the city had been cleared. Not all of the vehicles they'd ordered had arrived, so they were forced to cram together and make do with what they had. 

The rifle felt sharp and cold in his hands in steep contrast to home, to Réka, to his child. They successfully took Voronezh after a four week struggle, the blood and grime of his battles sinking into his psyche.

The camaraderie with his troopmates kept him afloat. Not everyone meshed well with his own personality, but so many of the other soldiers came from similar situations – young men drafted into a war they hadn’t started but they were expected to end.

He and Ervin spent evenings talking about their families, staring up at the stars and passing a bottle of p álinka back and forth. Sometimes Ger gő would join in, stringing along Alajos and Alfonz. If the nights were cold, they wouldn’t mention it. They’d complain about it. Loudly. One particular evening Gergő made a grotesque comment about the Soviets that nearly made Alfonz choke on his cigarette.

He smiled around his bottle, making a note to omit his friends’ tomfoolery in the next letter to Réka.

Every letter that he did receive from her he’d shuffle away quietly in his inner pocket, folding her writing into tiny squares that fit comfortably right next to his heart.

About a year later they were shipped off to the outskirts of Stalingrad, surrounded by German forces on their side, and Soviets on the other. Réka had just sent him a photo of herself and Henrik. He’d grown substantially since he’d left, and according to Réka, was talking a mile a minute now. He had no idea how much she’d spent to take that photo, but couldn’t find it in his lonely heart to feel upset about it.

They were set to begin their next invasion on Sunday. Tensions ran high as they always did right before an important operation. The Soviets had been aggressive in their side of the scuffle and most of the allied armies being composed of Germans and Romanians meant they felt out of place both in the face of their enemy and amongst supposed friends.

The morning of, he awoke early – not having ever really slept in the first place, anyway – and sat by a nearby riverbank. He lit a cigarette and watched as the birds flitted from tree to tree.

“This will be a quick victory ,” their commander had announced the evening prior, back stiff and arms tense. Always a German, no matter how much his changed name or Hungarian education tried to suggest otherwise. “Win and go home .”

It was cold in the Soviet Union. Colder than he’d ever felt back home, his toes and fingers long having grown numb. Their support had failed to bring in food and other materials, yet again, and the hunger biting at his stomach competed with the frostbite.

Réka , he pondered her name over and over again, using her name as fuel to light the waning fire underneath his skin. Réka , he thought once more as he loaded his empty rifle with shaking hands. Réka, he chanted as he ducked behind a tree, ears ringing from the shot that had just crumpled Alfonz.

Bark spat in his face from another shot, and his breathing came in rough and unsteady. He swiped his sleeve across his mouth, ignoring the blood and focusing instead on the placement of the enemy.

Another bullet shook the branches above his head and he sat up onto his knees, shuffling to peer around a bush. The barrel of a gun glinted in amongst the snow, and he crawled closer, his own gun at the ready.

If he centered his aim, he could go home.

Just one more shot, he told himself, one more Soviet body and they’d all be able to go home. He’d played his part, more than he’d ever wanted, and if they won this, it would be over.

He tilted the rifle at a higher angle, the memory of Yamaguchi’s warm arms wrapping around him, whispering for him to come home.

His finger curled around the trigger, teeth gritted as he steadied himself, and then there was nothing.

–

Darkness engulfed him as he awoke, confused and disoriented. He couldn’t see and the panic was beginning to overtake him when a weight lifted off his head and bright light pierced his eyes. Wincing, he glanced around, groggy.

“A little confusion is normal,” he heard, and he looked up to see the attendant with the visor in his hands. “The feeling should pass in a couple of minutes.”

He stumbled to a standing position, bowing hastily – a motion that suddenly felt too foreign – and headed off the podium. He shuffled his feet along the ground as his brain worked to come back online, mouth still filled with the taste of grit and blood. Then, like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle clicking together to form a larger image, the floor solidified underneath his shoes and brought him back to the present.

Réka , he mouthed, the sight of her youthful face crystal clear before his eyes, her wide grin and slender arms crossing across her chest. Kei froze, leaning against a fence at the lingering feeling of nausea, before digging into his pocket for his phone, heart rattling heavily.

“Yamaguchi,” he mumbled, pausing for a moment, almost fearful with anticipation. He flicked the phone screen on to see his lockscreen, a selfie Yamaguchi had taken of the two of them, his best friend’s smile wide and open in contrast to his own sardonic half-smirk.

Kei could still feel Réka’s solid body cradled in his arms, the soul thrumming underneath her skin unmistakably none other than his best friend’s.

His vision blurred and it took him a moment to figure out that it was because he was crying. A teardrop splattered on his glasses lens and he removed them, rubbing his arm across his eyes and clearing his throat. Emotions running high, he found the bus stop to his town – the last one for the night – and clasped a shaky hand around his phone.

He hadn’t lost himself, Kei decided as he watched the streetlamps whiz past in streaks of yellow. It was more like he’d gained a second self, and frustration gurgled within him that no one had adequately described it like that. Probably no one would have been able to explain it to him in a manner that would’ve satisfied him.

The streetlamps came to a stop and he descended from the bus, the August night air feeling warm against his Russian-chilled skin. Before long, his feet dragged him to his destination, and he took a moment to read the family name chiseled into the stone gate.

Come outside , he typed, shooting the message off before he had any time to rethink it or come to his senses.

A couple of minutes later a shadow moved across the windows, blocking the light from inside, before opening the door and stepping out into the courtyard.

Yamaguchi’s eyes were open wide with surprise but his mouth was already open to tell him about his latest practice with Mr. Shimada, or what he’d just had for dinner, or what was on TV that night. But before he could get a word out, Kei spoke first.

“Réka.”

Yamaguchi froze, recognition painting sharp lines of pain across his face before softening into tears.

His voice stumbled as he gave way to their previously forgotten language, shaky from disuse in the past couple of days.

“Péter?”

He nodded and Yamaguchi sprang forward, wrapping his arms around Kei’s chest tighter than he ever had before.

“Y-you went– Péter? The machine–” He swallowed. “Tsukki?”

“I promised I’d come back.”

Yamaguchi wailed harder, pressing his face against Kei’s neck. Tears soaked into his shirt collar and Kei rubbed a hand against his best friend’s back, waiting for him to catch his breath. He chanced a soft kiss to the top of his head, and when he didn’t recoil, ventured for another.

When he’d calmed down again, Kei lifted his head to look at the stars which twinkled much brighter in their small town than they did in Sendai.

“I need you to know…” He licked his lips, the words to his emotions burgeoning within him. “That’s not me.”

Yamaguchi peeled away from his chest, looking up at him with watery eyes.

“This is, though,” he continued.

Yamaguchi huffed a small chuckle. “I know that. I’m not her, either.”

“So this is you?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, sadness and shock abated. “This is me.”

Their lips met and it was simultaneously brand new and intimately familiar, having done so a million times and never at all. They parted after a minute or two, and Yamaguchi peered up at him in earnest, thumbs hooking around his belt loops.

“Welcome back.”