Chapter Text
It had started when he was twenty five years old, and in the past two years had only increased in frequency.
Ukai Keishin had rolled his eyes at first, when it came to his father's not so subtle pushes towards the daughters of his work associates and friends. 'So and so is such a great cook, it's a mystery why she's still single'. 'Random name here would make such a great wife, don't you think?'
No, dad. Unfortunately for you and the family inheritance, I'm not interested.
It was easy to give the noncommittal grunt or vague two word response and leave it at that. He just ignored his father's frustrated side eye and played dumb. But, ignoring it wasn't enough to make it stop, as he quickly realized.
Somewhere around a year later his mother started setting up the occasional marriage interview… which just felt like a date both parties were guilted into. He avoided such arrangements whenever possible, but once in a while he still found himself at the inevitable end of the rope.
Coaching the high school volleyball had been a blessing for reducing the number of interviews, at the time. He could always dodge one thing or another, and considering he barely had a lick of free time there wasn't much his mother could whittle out of his ridiculously busy days. It fell only on the rare occasions his shift ended early or a weekend practice with the Neighborhood Association was canceled that his mother was able to have her way.
Once the harvest season ended and Nationals were past, however, his mother wedged in for the long game. Where once there were tiny chips of free time there were now huge gashes, shoveled out blatantly and without subtlety. Marriage interviews started to become weekly. Shifts were shortened so that he could 'go out with his friends and meet some nice girls'. Invitations to mixers were slipped under his door. Suddenly he had dating profiles on the internet sending him matches. He was certain he'd never set up those profiles. Even more concerning was how the apps had ended up installed on his phone at all.
That one was a particular nuisance, since the language in the profiles were clearly his mother's words and not one of Shimada's pranks, like he'd first assumed. Never once would a 'woman with traditional values looking for a large family' be anywhere near something one of his best friends would pull for him, even as a joke. Really… it was quite the opposite.
Keishin chain smoked through half a pack of
cigarettes in order to confront his mother about that one, when he'd accidentally overheard her on the phone with his grandfather. Apparently the looming number thirty was not just some sort of milestone of adulthood and the moment one moved from being old to super old in the eyes of the teenagers on the Karasuno volleyball team, but it was also the number Keishin's parents had determined he'd be married by.
The information shocked him. It shouldn't have, but it shocked him.
He went to bed that night without confronting his mother and finished the rest of his pack of smokes trying to force himself to sleep.
……
It had been three days since Keishin had overheard his mother on the phone. What should he have done?
Reset his brain and tried to talk it out after breakfast the next day.
What he actually did?
Well, he'd played the coward. For the last three days he'd been sleeping over at Takinoue's house, on the couch, avoiding his parents. Was it responsible? Mature? Logical? Not even a little bit. But there he was, tangled in an ugly ass seafoam and mustard colored quilted blanket playing Smash Brothers and getting drunk off cheap beer with his equally single and pathetic friends.
Honestly, if it weren't for the nuptial doom looming over Keishin's shoulder he'd be enjoying every fucking second of it.
"You know, when my parents started asking me if I was ever getting married, I just told them I was saving up for one of those mail order brides and they shut straight up, never spoke of it again." Yusuke snorted, surprisingly chill considering he was getting his ass absolutely handed to him in the current round.
"Probably thought you were serious." Keishin snickered, though the moment of mirth was quickly shattered by one well timed Final Cutter.
"Good thing he wasn't." Makoto paused to evade yet another of Keishin's attacks, which was apparently a full bodied motion. "No one deserves to be forced into something like marrying this blockhead."
"Whoa, that's cold!" Though clearly Takinoue meant the comment rather than the game, as he'd long given up on victory, despite having picked the best character of the lot.
"Don't worry, man. Someday someone will be dumb enough to marry you willingly." Keishin said in his best reassuring voice.
"Better hope so or the two of you are really screwed."
"Yeah. But I'm not getting married." Keishin reiterated, which was the true crux. "I can't. Legally."
"Who cares about legally? Ring on the finger and you're married." With a click of the tongue Yusuke set down his controller and reached for another beer. "Just because you're into dudes doesn't mean you're gonna get out of it. Suffer. Like the rest of us."
"Why don't you just…do that?" Both sets of eyes on the room leveled on Shimada, who flinched under the scrutiny, though it was unclear why. Normally Makoto was the most unshakable of the lot of them. "I mean come out? You've been telling us you were gonna since, what? Middle school?"
Keishin's lips drew thin and he sighed out his nose, reaching for a cigarette. He reconsidered, since he couldn't light it indoors. Coming out to his friends had been weirdly easy. It had been a slip of the tongue and two guys that were actually sharper than they looked or acted, and since then there'd been no secrets. It was impressive considering they'd only been friends for a handful of months, at the time.
"Yeah, you guys try thinking about what your mothers would say." Keishin knew it would break her heart, and though he was unwilling to do what she wanted and stamp out his own happiness, neither did he want to face the consequences of what it would mean to be honest. He'd had enough of the disappointed faces of his family.
"My mother takes stuff pretty well." Shimada waved his hand, dismissively, letting the game loop back to the intro screen. "In fact, she even realizes that being ace doesn't mean I won't get married, cause I probably will, but she's trying and so I've got loads of space to figure stuff out on my own."
With a grunt Ukai melted further into the ugly blanket until nothing was visible but the beer can he was sipping from and loose locks of bleach blond hair.
"And there's no reason to tell my parents I'm bisexual unless I get a boyfriend, in which case I'll probably just blurt it out." Takinoue was such a liar. Keishin was pretty sure he'd stumble and babble until one of the other two spat it out for him. "Isn't there that guy you like, Kei? Just ask him out, already. Best case scenario you've got something to report back to your mom and we don't have to hear about it anymore."
"You can't just ask a guy out without knowing how he feels about that stuff." Not that Keishin was any good at things like that. His attempts thus far had fallen pretty spectacularly flat. "Maybe in Tokyo you can get away with it, but you gotta step carefully out here, so that's what I'm doing."
"And how is that going?"
"It's not."
Both of his friends were chuckling, now, but as Shimada leaned over towards the lump of blankets that was his friend he didn't wear any mischief on his features. "Just ask sometime when you guys are alone. From what you've said and what I've seen he doesn't seem like the kind of dude that will hold it against you, even if he's the straightest guy in the world, which I'm highly doubting. He's great with kids. Thirty and single. Smarter than you though that doesn't take much. Steady job. Can hold his liquor. Responsible but not a stick in the mud. Your mom would like him. Sounds like marriage material but isn't married. Gotta wonder why."
He wasn't wrong. About any of it, really. Keishin hated when that happened. "I'm not worried about him being a jerk about it, but I'm not used to looking like an idiot like you guys. And people get married after thirty all the time. Doesn't mean he's queer."
"Doesn't mean he's not. I'm gonna trust my gut on this one. And whatever happens, once you go home you'll have to figure out something to tell your mom. I'm still on board with a love confession. Recorded and posted online so the whole world can see those stupid ass heart eyes you're always making us stare at." Keishin could hear the smirk in his friend's words, though if he were any snarkier Keishin was considering knocking his glasses off his face.
…
Keishin ended up walking home that same night, intoxicated enough to not really care about the impending doom he would be sauntering into if his parents were still awake and waiting on him. It was nice and cool outside, his body was too hot and his friends passed out way too early.
This seemed the logical choice. At home he had more beer in the fridge, he could smoke all the way up to the front door and he had a couple of dirty magazines underneath his futon, stashed between his volleyball mags… which also sometimes doubled as imagination enhancers.
The comfortable haze hung around right until the point he saw lights above Sakanoshita still on behind the blinds.
Right. That.
For a moment he considered continuing his comfortable walk, until the breeze that had been keeping him cool decided to betray him and turn icy cold on a dot. Biting back at the hard shiver that seemed to shake him, relentlessly, he decided he was just tipsy enough to handle it and stomped his way up the stairs. At the last moment he remembered the nub of a cigarette between his lips, stubbed it on the metal handrail and shoved it in his jacket pocket.
Keishin fumbled for his keyring, the key clunked in the lock and he kept his head down as he pushed the door open. He could feel his mother staring from the adjoining kitchen but continued, anyway. He slipped his shoes off, set them beside the others on the edge of the genkan and shuffled towards his room.
"Keishin. You've been gone a while. Aren't you even going to tell me you're home?" Though the older woman didn't move, Keishin was all but paralyzed by her words.
"Ah, yeah. I'm home." He trilled, awkwardly.
"Ready to talk about it?" Now that Keishin was standing upright he could see the total of two lights, one in the kitchen and one next to the couch.
"Yeah, sorry. Was with Shimada and Takinoue." He said, on what felt like repeat.
"So your texts said. Some part of me knew it was true, despite hoping otherwise. I'm still sure you've been avoiding us." It was tea that his mother had been fiddling with in the kitchen. Keishin felt like an idiot for being unable to figure it out. "Keishin, you're too old for all of this immaturity."
"-M not being immature, just wanna live my life, mom." Did it sound as immature as his mother was accusing? Probably, but he was having trouble finding better words.
She sighed, carrying two cups of tea from the kitchen to the long, low table and slowly placed herself on the zabuton before gesturing that her son do the same. "I know that's how it feels, but your father and I are worried about your lack of direction."
"What?" Keishin caught his ankle on the leg of the table but still somehow managed to plop onto his seat without making a scene. "My direction is working at the store, eventually taking it over when you retire, helping dad with the harvest until he retires and maybe hiring someone to do that work cause it sucks and coaching the Karasuno team with Takeda just like grandpa done. That's more figured out than like…half the people I know."
"That's not what I mean." His mother clutched the edge of her cup and glanced down. "We just want to make sure you aren't taking on too much by yourself. That there will be someone to take care of you, cook for you, and eventually take care of you when you're old."
Keishin was surprised. Not once did she mention inheritance or legacy, though he knew there were implications laced finely throughout. He'd pick it apart when he was more sober. "I'll find someone, I ain't old yet. I'm just barely hittin' the age people get hitched these days, mom."
"And most date for years, Keishin. We know you're avoiding looking. At first we assumed that's why you started coaching at the school so often, that maybe there was a teacher there you had your eye on, but-" she sighed, cutting the sentence before it could shudder her emotions. "-there aren't any women of age involved in the volleyball club. You're like your grandfather, obsessed with the game. Just so you know, Ikkei's wife was chosen by his parents for that very reason and he loved her very much. I don't see why you won't let us help you."
Keishin still didn't like being compared to his grandfather, despite the fact it seemed to happen every other day. He was far from a carbon copy and it always felt a bit pathetic, others seeing him for the man his grandfather was despite his own achievements. Hell, that comparison was the only reason everyone pushed him and thought he somehow wasn't living up to his potential.
Damn it, he was living up to his own standards. The fact he happened to tread some of the same roads as his grandfather and his parents should be a kind comparison, not some sort of 'done that, what's next' sort of thing.
He was not drunk enough for his conversation. Keishin reached out for the cup of tea his mother had pushed in front of him and downed it. He barely felt it though he'd probably burned his tongue.
"You know what? Until you guys started pushing me, I was finally starting to be happy with my life instead of just wading through. I mean yeah, not all sunshine and rainbows but I was gettin' there." There went his mouth. No stopping it now. The barricade had been lifted. "I have a job, good friends, good company, a way better idea of what's possible instead of livin' day by day. Turns out mentoring the next generation is damn fulfilling …and instead of talking it through, we do what we always do in this family and just skirt around the issue and never actually get anywhere! You guys just assume I need help because you never actually bothered to ask!"
It felt like his chest was pressurized, but he wasn't sure if it was anger or simple frustration. His mother, on the other hand, didn’t bother to move. She simply clasped her hands in front of her on the table and watched him.
"Keishin, are you telling me there is someone you like?"
"Yeah, there is!" He blurted before he could stop it. The tumbling stones were only starting to drop, it seemed.
"Are you telling me you're seeing someone, even?"
"Yeah." Wait, that was a lie. Keishin had answered before fully comprehending the question. He felt the pressure invade his throat.
His mother's eyes leveled as though this were the most serious conversation they'd ever had and Keishin was both rattled and unnerved. He had to think this through, carefully. He could still fix this.
"If that's true, then you can tell me her name, right?" Either she could smell the lie or had realized his tongue was loose and his mind was slowed.
Okay. One breath and correct yourself. "Takeda."
Oh fuck.
Keishin's lips had severely misunderstood the assignment. He was frozen, stunned at his own words as though he were watching this human car wreck from outside his own body. The name of his crush in the place of a supposed girlfriend. Continuing to flail hopelessly instead of correcting 'seeing someone' to 'working on it'. What the hell was wrong with him?
Right. Alcohol.
"Takeda Ittetsu?" She formed the words carefully, rolling the name in her mouth, thoughtfully. "The teacher at Karasuno? The coach that took over when your grandfather retired or a different Takeda?"
Despite the fact Takeda was a very common family name Keishin wasn't aware of any other Takedas in the area.
Keishin still couldn't move, a fact which was likely signing off on his own death.
His mother put a hand to her cheek and considered a little longer before lifting her gaze. "I see why you were so hesitant to tell us. But… actually he's very much like the types of women we've been trying to match you with. I can't see a reason to object."
Which meant that all of his fears and reservations since middle school were entirely unfounded. If Keishin's spirit were anywhere nearby it had just officially passed into the afterlife.
In fact, his mother was now smiling, though the edge of concern seemed to be connected to a separate thought, entirely. "And also, it looks like your father owes Ikkei some money."
Wait, what?