Work Text:
I.
In the grand scheme of things, really, it’s all Oikawa Tooru’s fault.
See, Tobio had been content to sulk on his couch until the new semester rolled around, but then Suga had knocked on his door so loud the neighbours started complaining, so, really, Tobio had no choice but to open the door, and one thing led to another, and, well.
So maybe it is Suga’s fault he’s been manhandled onto a flight to Japan, but Suga had never been much of a meddler until his annoying Argentinian (he’s actually Japanese, he just plays for an Argentinian team, Tobio, it’s not that hard to understand) volleyball player boyfriend came in the picture, if you didn’t count the times he’d dragged Tobio from practice studios at two in the morning to go to get shitty coffee from the 24-7 MacDonalds down the street.
Okay, so maybe Sugawara Koushi has been a meddler all along, but Tobio can’t find it in himself to actually frown at him from across the seat. It’s annoying, he thinks, to have friends you can’t get annoyed at. He settles for glaring at the obnoxious Amati at Suga’s feet, housed in its equally obnoxiously expensive case (the latter of which is an ostentatious monstrosity paid for by the aforementioned obnoxiously rich boyfriend). “I’d rather have stayed in New York.”
Suga pats his knee in what he probably thinks is a reassuring manner. “Don’t sulk, c’mon,” and Tobio’s not sulking, he tells Suga as much, “—you know you’d have done something stupid, like start practicing six weeks early and then tear another ligament, and then where would you be?”
“With my baby Steinway,” Tobio deadpans. “The sole joy in my bleak existence.”
Suga stares at him, unimpressed.
“You need to stop hanging out with the theatre kids,” he says.
Then: “And you need to take a break. Besides,” he cracks a grin, “Tooru knows all the good places to go to in Osaka.”
What the fuck.
“What the fuck,” Tobio all but shrieks, and maybe it is a little loud for five-forty in the morning, if the other passengers waiting to board their red-eye flights glaring at him are any indication to go by, but Tobio’s allowed this.
“What the fuck,” he huffs, at a somewhat more reasonable volume, “I don’t want to go on vacation with you and your dumb boyfriend.” He thinks about it for a second, and adds, “I don’t want to go on vacation, period.”
Suga merely hums.
“We’re in Hong Kong,” he says, all calm and serene, “And there are no flights back to JFK for another ten hours. Also, I gave Lev your keys, and he’s only coming back after Tchaikovskys, so—”
Tobio busies himself, studies the tacky print on the carpet and lets Suga ramble on. He counts to a minute before a sneaker is nudging at his.
“Can’t you guys just get along,” Suga asks, though it’s more of a statement, really, in a voice that says they’ve had this discussion one too many times.
Tobio scuffs at the carpet, which is an actual hideous shade of puce, god, airport interior designers suck.
“He’s obnoxious,” he says flatly, “And he doesn’t need me to like him, somehow you like him, and that’s fine, you can go on a stupid holiday with your stupid boyfriend without dragging me along.”
He glances up, and Suga’s looking at him like he’s a little bit of an idiot, before kicking him lightly in the shin, which, ow. “You know you’re still my darling little genius underling—”
Tobio rolls his eyes.
“I’m barely two years younger than you,” he mutters, “and you sure as hell aren’t my favourite senior because you keep hogging the nice studios.”
Suga kicks him again. Harder, this time.
“You’re going to enjoy the first holiday you’ve taken in five years,” he smiles at Tobio, all angelic and syrupy-sweet, which is a sure sign that Suga has a Plot with a capital P, “—or I’ll make sure Lev loses your keys in Russia, you know how clumsy he is, and whoops, say goodbye to your Steinway for another month because you know the landlady hates your guts and there’s no way she’ll fly back to New York in the middle of holiday season just to get you another set of keys.”
Tobio gapes at him. “You’re evil,” he hisses.
` ` `
from: leg
[10:02] suga says he dragged u out of ur apartment true or false
to: leg
[10:06] isnt it 4 am there
from: leg
[10:08] pre competition jiters u kno how it is :(((
to: leg
[10:08] Stop wasting your time go practice
from: leg
[10:09] oh wait no u dont know how it is actll bc ur gods gift to pianokind !
to: leg
[10:09] if I’m gods gift to pianokind and yet you keep beating me to first at Rachmaninoffs then this should be cake to you
from: leg
[10:11] holy cr ap are u being nice do u feel ok!!!!! did u accidentally eat semis brownies agin
to: leg
[10:15] Fuck off go practice
` ` `
There's someone in Tobio's seat.
Actually, Tobio backtracks— there's someone in the seat in the cafe he's been frequenting for the past week to avoid Suga's annoying boyfriend. It's a nice enough seat, at a table tucked in the corner of two bay windows overlooking the bustling streets below.
It's a nice seat, but it's not his; Tobio is decidedly not forming an attachment to this stupid cafe and this stupid city when he’ll be gone in a month, but he marches up to the man with the most ridiculous orange shade of hair (it must have been dyed; no one comes out from the uterus looking like a fucking tangerine) all the same, makes sure to cough pointedly at him.
The man looks up, and he's got the nicest pair of eyes Tobio's ever seen, blinking up at him in confusion. “Can I help you?”
Tobio wills himself not to stare.
“Yeah, um— sorry, I,” he fumbles, Japanese syllables heavy on his tongue from years of sparse use, and he can feel his ears going red, god, get it together, Kageyama Tobio.
He sets his cup of coffee down, points with his other hand. “This is my seat.”
“Oh,” the man starts, “I'm really sorry, I— can move?”
(See, Tobio’s only human, and the man’s forearms are looking ridiculously good, in the rolled-up sleeves of his black hoodie, as he fiddles with the pages of his book.) And, despite what Semi Eita says, Tobio’s not socially stunted enough to kick someone out of their seat in a public space, so.
“We can share?” he offers.
There’s a second where the man just stares a little blankly at Tobio, and Tobio’s really going red, Jesus , whatever the fuck happened to giving no shits. But the man’s face splits into a grin like the sun, bright and radiant and real, and Tobio finds himself smiling back.
` ` `
His name is Hinata Shoyou, and he hates unsweetened coffee, and likes to poke at unsuspecting conservatory students catching up on the past semester’s coursework.
“Are you from around here?” he asks, and Tobio decides to abandon his Word document, which really, is just the single, pathetic sentence that’s been sitting there for an hour or so.
“No,” he answers, and Hinata’s looking at him, expectant, so he figures, why not. “Well, yes, but I don’t go here.”
“You go to college, though?” Hinata’s leaning in, on his elbows. “You look like you go to college.”
Tobio nods.
“Here?”
“Juilliard.”
Hinata’s looking at him a little blankly, now, smiles in a way that looks like he has no idea what Tobio is saying, which is a little annoying, because, one, it’s Juilliard, and two, there aren’t that many Japanese musicians out there making a splash in the classical music scene except for him and, well. Suga, maybe, if one can even be considered Japanese despite never having been to the country for the first eighteen years of his life.
“That’s,” he offers Tobio weakly, “nice?”
“I do music,” he says, maybe a little standoffishly, because Tobio is good at what he does, before pushing up the sleeve of his hoodie and lamely showing Hinata his braced-up wrist, “but I can’t at the moment, so— ”
And he cuts himself off, because Hinata’s laughing, a little hysterically, and suddenly Tobio feels like the butt of a joke he’s missed. He feels his brows knit, and Hinata must see the frown on his face, because he’s gasping out a “wait, wait!” between all that laughter, and then he’s holding up two fingers in a splint.
“I do sports,” Hinata quirks a smile at him, “but I can’t at the moment, so.”
` ` `
operation stop kageyama from getting carpal tunnel before hes 30 and ugly
suga >:D
[08:50] KAGEYAMA MADE A FRIEND
[08:51] I THINK
legman
[08:59] 🥳🥳🥳🥳
semisemi
[09:18] wait u mean u actually dragged him out of his house
suga >:D
[09:23] o ye of little faith
` ` `
They fall into a routine, him and Hinata— who’s now Shoyou to him, apparently.
(“Shoyou is fine,” he’d said, eyes darting around the shop when Tobio had called him Hinata-san a little too loudly. Huh.)
Sometimes Tobio gets there early, and he’ll slide a frappuccino laden with whipped cream across the table as Shoyou settles down.
“Are you sure you should be drinking this?” he’d asked, the first time. “Since you’re an athlete, and all.”
But Shoyou had waved him off, snorting. “You sound like ‘Tsumu.”
And Tobio hadn’t asked who ‘Tsumu was, but Shoyou talks a lot, so.
So, Tobio learns all about ‘Tsumu— who likes peach-flavoured water (which Shoyou thinks is the most disgusting thing in the world, because it’s literally all chemicals ) and occasionally cheats people into buying sushi for him (chuutoro is his favourite, gross , Shoyou absolutely cannot stand raw food). And Shoyou’s team, with the mean captain and the brooding outside hitter, whatever the fuck an outside hitter is, that ostensibly hates everyone but Shoyou swears— on his signed-by-living-legend-Nicholas Romero volleyball— that he’s really nice, Omi-senpai is just really awkward, but he shares Hersheys with Shoyou when their coach isn’t looking, and by god, they’re the good Hersheys from the fancy American stores.
He learns about other stuff, too, like the fact that Hinata Shoyou has a giant sweet tooth, a sister in Miyagi, and a love for volleyball that rivals Tobio’s own for music.
So Tobio offers bits of his life, too, tells him about his hatred for Baroque, and Baroque tuning, and Bösendofer pianos— and German musical styles in general. He shies away from questions about his actual playing, because oh, by the way, I was one of the biggest musical talents in this country and then I flew across the Pacific and never looked back and some beat reporter still curses my name occasionally when I beat one of the “real” Japanese pianists who have “actual national pride” at Chopin’s, again, might not the best topic to bring up over coffee. Still, he indulges Shoyou with stories about his idiot roommate who likes rock ballads way too much than is humanly possible, and his somewhat annoying brother figure, and his even more annoying boyfriend, and.
They split a slice of cheesecake, one day, and Tobio recounts that time Semi had accidentally stolen a whole cake from the Music Tech students, and it feels easy, to just sit there, laughing over coffee with a cute guy, and simply be.
` ` `
“Run this by me again: you’re in Japan, and you forgot to tell me that three weeks ago before I scheduled your shoot with GQ?” Tobio’s agent says, all too calmly, and he regrets answering the phone, because Tobio may be a little slow on all things outside of music, but he’s not a complete idiot, he can tell when he’s about to be murdered.
(It helps that he’s been through this whole song-and-dance before, too.)
But he’s answered the phone, and he’s not about to hang up on Shimizu Kiyoko, who is, on a bad day, a force of nature in a pantsuit.
“It was, well—” He meets Suga’s gaze over the kitchen island, mouths a quick sorry, “Suga’s fault?”
The man in question squawks at him, and throws a Pop-tart at his head, which is excessive.
“Koushi,” Oikawa gasps, from where he’s leaning against the door frame, “my Pop-tarts.” He's staring way too mournfully at the too-bright packaging on the floor. “I had to fly them in all special and shit.”
“Pity,” Shimizu’s voice is crackly, filtering through the speakers of Tobio’s iPhone, but it’s dry all the same. “But what am I supposed to do about GQ?”
Oikawa brushes by Tobio, makes grabby hands at the loaf of milk bread on the kitchen island. Mid-bite, he whips his head up. “Aren’t you like, some prodigy pianist that music snobs here either love or hate?”
He points a chunk of bread at Tobio. “GQ Japan execs’d probably combust if they got an exclusive with you or something.”
` ` `
Oikawa Tooru is a genius, and he’s the reason why Tobio isn’t getting murdered by Shimizu Kiyoko the moment he steps back onto American soil, but Oikawa Tooru is also the reason why Tobio has to trudge through the front doors of the Japanese headquarters of GQ at an ungodly hour when he could have spent the day procrastinating essays with Shoyou at their cafe, so really, Tobio can’t decide if he hates him less, or more.
ur annoying boyfriend is very fucking annoying, he texts. Suga sends back half a dozen frowny faces and two hedgehog emojis, like Tobio is supposed to be able to decipher his emoji gibberish at seven thirty in the morning .
but also tell him thanks ig, he adds, because Tobio is a man with manners, and a bigger person than Oikawa Tooru, and— “Shit.”
Tobio blinks at the man he’s run into, before registering the coffee that’s dripping down his own dress shoes.
“Um,” says the other man. He’s staring at Tobio, and Tobio looks at the man, really looks at him, and for someone who’s just spilled coffee on his loafers, the man is surprisingly attractive.
“—really sorry, by the way, I’m Miya Atsumu, but just Atsumu is fine, Miya just makes me feel like you might be calling my brother, y’know,” maybe-Miya-Atsumu-but-just-Atsumu is saying, with a maybe-Kansai accent that sounds sort of cute, if you’re into maybe-Kansai people in sharp suits who spill overpriced coffee on your shoes at seven in the morning. “So anyway. Dinner?”
Tobio feels like there’s something he’s missing here. “What.”
` ` `
Miya Atsumu takes him to a Gucci outlet after their respective shoots are done (Atsumu’s an athlete, apparently, and isn’t that a coincidence, meeting two objectively attractive athletes within the same month), and is somehow charming enough to talk Tobio into getting the most garrish shoes he’s ever seen.
(“No,” Tobio had said, eying the strip of pink-red-green along the sides of the shoe.
“But you’d look so cool in them,” Atsumu whined, “And I’m buying you shoes—”
“ —because you ruined mine,” Tobio frowned.
But then Atsumu was holding up a hand, pointing at him with the offending shoe in question, steamrolling on, and maybe Tobio was into maybe-Kansai men in sharp suits, “—and I’m taking you to dinner, so.”)
So, Tobio finds himself in an upscale sushi place (which, it’s all rice and seaweed, how do you make something like that upscale) of all places, garrish Gucci shoes sitting in their bag beside him.
Atsumu waves the menu in his face from across the table. “Do you eat raw meat?”
“I guess?” Tobio offers. Then it hits him.
“Wait,” he squints at Atsumu, “is this a date?”
Atsumu lowers the menu, lifts a corner of his mouth in what he probably thinks is a roguish smirk. It’s dopey, is what Tobio thinks it is; he’s spent all of half a day with Miya Atsumu, and the other man might have the face of a greek god, but his charm is frat boy all the way.
“Depends,” he hedges, winking at Tobio. (And Tobio takes the frat boy thought back— Miya Atsumu, with his open-collared shirt and his hair still artfully tousled, is a menace). “Are you going to give me your number?”
` ` `
Atsumu slots into his life easily, like the last piece in a puzzle Tobio still can’t quite yet figure out. He bullies Tobio into giving him his number and his Snapchat, and then proceeds to send Tobio pictures of stray dogs and post-workout selfies that Tobio definitely does not stare at for the entire eight seconds that it fills out his screen.
Atsumu gripes about his players a lot, too, like how Sakusa Kiyoomi— and that name is strangely familiar, Tobio’s not quite sure from where— is stupidly pretty, but he’s also very much of a bitch, apparently (Tobio sends him a snap of his unamused face, captions it with a says the biggest bitch ever, and gets about a million crying emojis back), and how he misses an injured teammate of his (who has forearms to die for, tobio babe you gotta see him), and how his stupid brother won’t give him free food even though they shared a fucking womb for nine months and then a house for seventeen years.
He doesn’t seem to mind Tobio’s dry comments— which, Shoyou doesn’t either, but whereas he’d laugh and carry on with whatever anecdote he’s talking about, Atsumu is childish enough to snark right back at him, so.
So, Tobio finds himself offering Atsumu the same stupid stories he’d told Shoyou, except he finds himself doing it over text, curled up under the coverlet where he doesn’t have to stop himself from smiling dumbly at his phone.
Tobio feels like Shoyou’d probably tease him if he let himself smile that dumbly at him— and then he’d probably know that Tobio’s maybe half in love with him, too, and that would be the end of the world.
` ` `
from HOMEBOY SEMI
[00:07] suga says ur actll gg out regularly
[00:07] like every single day holy shit
[00:08] if wed known this was how to get u to hv a social life we’d send u on vacation ages ago
to HOMEBOY SEMI
[00:16] what the fuck did you do to my phone
from HOMEBOY SEMI
[00:18] oh wow he actually answers
[00:19] who were you texting b4 bc ur literally never on ur phone and why is the answer cute coffeeshop mystery man
to HOMEBOY SEMI
[00:20] no and no and how do i change contact names
[00:21] SEMI
` ` `
You have (5) unread message(s).
from maybe atsumu
[00:24] HAH
[00:25] SUFFER <3
from shoyou
[00:24] LMAO OH MY GOD
[00:24] how are u this bad at tech
[00:27] okay okay ims orry so you open phonebook […]
` ` `
Tobio’s right about the teasing, though, when Atsumu sends over a picture of a frowning terrier.
dats u , the caption reads. Tobio snorts. Atsumu’s grammar fluctuates all the time, slides between academically verbose when he starts bitching, and unbelievably incoherent when he gets all soft and shit.
Shoyou nudges his sneaker at Tobio’s, puts his One Piece manga on the table. “Who are you texting?”
Tobio nudges back at him. He’s not fighting down a blush, he’s not. “A friend.”
“Hm,” Shoyou hums, “You seem happier. When we first met you were all,” he waves his hands in the air, “frowny and scowly and meany.”
“I was not ,” Tobio huffs.
“Was too,” Shoyou argues, “I thought you were gonna beat me up for stealing your seat.” Which is ridiculous, Tobio thinks, and he tells him as much.
“Plus,” Tobio crosses his arms, “You’re an athlete. I bet you can bench press me without breaking a sweat.”
He regrets saying it the moment he sees Shoyou’s eyes light up, and he’s grinning at Tobio in a way that startlingly reminds him of one Sugawara Koushi.
“No,” Tobio says, kicking at his seat. “No way in hell.”
Shoyou pouts at him, a hundred percent puppy eyes and all, and Tobio suddenly finds himself very decidedly ignoring the swooping feeling in his stomach.
` ` `
Suga catches him by the door, when he’s shoving his feet into the ugly Gucci shoes Atsumu had bought him.
“You seem happier,” he says, an echo of Shoyou from two days before.
And Tobio thinks about the way Shoyou’s taken to hooking his foot around Tobio’s ankle underneath the table; the rustle of pages being turned as he taps away at the seemingly endless pile of coursework he’s somehow accumulated; the way the late morning sunlight would colour Shoyou’s hair bronze.
He thinks about the way Atsumu and him are exchanging breakfast pictures like tacky Instagram influencers; the way he’s come to look forward to hearing whatever complaint Atsumu has about, well, everything, because Atsumu complains a lot, actually; the way he’d texted back a y , and then a ye , and a imean yeah sure , in rapid succession like some honest-to-god loser when Atsumu had asked him out to a friend’s art exhibition an hour earlier.
“A special someone?” Suga’s looking at him, expectant, a grin twitching at his lips.
Tobio grabs his scarf, smiles at Suga and holds up two fingers— for victory, for two, or as a crude piss off — or maybe for all of it, really.
Suga’s delighted cackle follows him out the door.
` ` `
II.
Tobio’s been in a good mood, lately, which is a sure sign that things are going to go to shit.
He nods a hello at Oikawa, who waves lazily, spatula in hand, before doing a double take at Tobio. Which is rude, because first of all, Tobio can play nice.
And maybe he doesn’t have to, because Oikawa the annoying argentinian-but-actually-japanese boyfriend is surprisingly not as annoying when he’s making pancakes with the blueberry syrup that Suga must’ve told him Tobio likes. Go figure. Tobio’s rifling through the ridiculously large fridge and pulling out a carton of milk, when Oikawa makes a choked noise.
“A month in Osaka, and the Jackals have already made you a fan?” Oikawa whistles low. “Did not see that one coming.”
And Tobio’s confused, duh, because it’s six in the morning, and how is he supposed to know what a Jackals is. He asks Oikawa as much, and he gestures at Tobio’s hoodie. “S’a Jackals hoodie. Only the biggest franchise in V1?”
So.
So it all clicks, and Tobio can’t play sports to save his life, the closest he’s gotten to professional athletics was making out with maybe an NHL or an NFL player (they look the same to him, to be honest) at one of the dumb parties he’d let Semi to drag him to, after he’d won a Eugen d’Albert; but it clicks.
It clicks, and he’d bet half the trophies on his shelves that Hinata’s better at volleyball than he says he does, good enough to be a professional athlete, whose hoodie Tobio is wearing, apparently— because the way Hinata pulls a hat down low when he leaves in the evenings, the way he avoids dropping names the way Tobio avoids mentioning the fact that he hangs with people who’ve won international competitions before they could even legally drink, is one of those people himself.
Tobio gets it.
But then it clicks, again, and Tobio remembers Atsumu saying, off-handedly, that he had a ‘bit of a thing’ for a teammate who’s sitting out of practice because of an injury, or something. Atsumu, whose gym selfies usually have him wearing the same black and gold on the hoodie Tobio’s wearing right now. Shoyou’s hoodie— Shoyou, who had wiggled two taped-up fingers in his face, whose cheeks colour pink whenever Tsumu— Atsumu comes up in conversation.
So maybe the hot guy he goes on coffee not-dates with is maybe-dating the other hot guy who took him out to dinner and sends him stupid gym Snaps, but it’s not like Tobio was expecting anything from either of them, it’s not like he even had a chance anyway, he’ll be fine.
` ` `
“What the fuck, Kageyama, you can’t just cancel your date with the cute coffee guy and then mope around in your room all day.”
“This is not a good vibe!” Suga’s pounding on his door, and it feels like deja vu, but Tobio is really not in the mood right now.
“Yeah,” he yells back, “yeah I can, so you can fuck off with your perfect life and your perfect boyfriend and leave me the fuck alone.”
There’s a shuffling of footsteps, and Tobio takes in a shaky breath, before Suga speaks up from the other side of the door. “You’re overthinking things again, y’know—”
Tobio wrenches the door open before Suga can continue. “What is there to overthink, Suga.” He swipes a tired hand across his face. “Look, for all I know and care they’re probably together and good for them. Good for them, because I’ll be out of this stupid country soon.”
“But you don’t know that,” Suga crosses his arms. “Because instead of asking Miya Atsumu or Hinata Shoyou about it you just assume the worst of people. Because it’s safer that way, isn’t it.”
Because you’re a coward, Suga’s glare seems to say.
Tobio slams the door in his face.
` ` `
There’s a rap on his door, then another.
Tobio feels the way the wood trembles, minutely, from where his back’s still pressed against it. There’s some light streaming through his haphazardly closed curtains, and Tobio gropes about for his phone. A black screen stares up at him. Go figure.
Groaning, he pulls himself to his feet, tries to pop off the crick in his neck before cracking his door open.
Oikawa’s on the other side, surprisingly, with a Happy Meal in his hands, which is even more surprising.
“What do you want,” Tobio asks, though it’s more of a statement than it is a question.
Oikawa holds out the Happy Meal like it’s some — peace offering, or something. Tobio thinks on it for a moment, before taking it from him. Something about beggars and choosers.
“You and Koushi should talk,” Oikawa says, as Tobio digs around the bag. Chicken nuggets instead of a burger, the way he usually has them.
“How did you know." Tobio stares at him.
Oikawa stares back at him, raises an eyebrow. “Koushi went out to get them.”
Oh.
It’s a little awkward, then, Tobio clutching his Happy Meal and his chicken nuggets, Oikawa fidgeting with the laces of his hoodie in the doorway.
Oikawa makes a noise of frustration, drags a hand through his hair. “Look,” he says, “Koushi can be a little mean sometimes. But you don’t get to yell at him like that, and I really think you should come down so you can both apologise, and then you can go back to being all frowny at me because I’m not worthy of him or whatever.”
Tobio feels a corner of his mouth turning down. “Like, right now?”
Oikawa glares at him. “No,” he folds his arms over his chest, “eat your fucking Happy Meal and, like, sort out your thoughts or whatever. Emotional evaluation and all that.”
So maybe Tobio is staring at him a little blankly, which only serves to make Oikawa huff a little defensively. “That’s what my therapist says anyway, shut up.”
Tobio stares some more. And then some.
“Wait,” he says, slowly, “are you, like— mother henning me?”
Oikawa yanks at his hoodie string, winces when it cinches the hood too tight around his neck. Opens his mouth. Closes it, like some overgrown goldfish, Tobio thinks, maybe a little hysterically.
“Eat your fucking chicken nuggets,” Oikawa grumbles.
` ` `
Tobio types out a fought with suga how to say sorry , before deleting it.
Retypes it, and deletes it. Rinse, repeat, before he finally sends Lev a curt heard u won, and receives a snap of a river as he’s finishing his chicken nuggets. The flash lighting is horrible, but the keys dangling from a long-fingered hand are all too familiar.
wit luv from russia xoxoxooxx is the accompanying caption.
Tobio heaves a long-suffering sigh.
` ` `
to: leg
[08:12] so you do have my keys
[08:12] its 2 am there why the fuck do you have my keys and why the fuck are you at some river
from : leg
[08:17] ‘hello and congrats lev!! i knew you could win tcaikovsky this year now that im not hogg ing all the trophees like a hoggr’
to: leg
[08:20] congratulations. wonnderful. phenomenal. bravo. wunderkind. truly the mozart of our time.
from : leg
[08:22] ew nevermind never ever ver ever do that again holy mary mothr of god
to: leg
[08:23] okay but congratulations i guess
[08:23] if you didnt win tchai i wouldve told yaku morisuke about the blueberry incident
from : leg
[08:23] u WOULD NOT
[08:28] also u fought wi th suga??????!!!
[08:29] !
to : leg
[08:30] no
from : leg
[08:30] 🤔
to : leg
[08:32] maybe
from : leg
[08:33] 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
to : leg
[08:33] who fucking snitched
from : leg
[08:36] u we’rent being all 😡😡😡 in the back when suga facetimed just now
to : leg
[08:37] ok fuck u too
from: leg
[08:37] go apologise!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!! !!
to : leg
[08:38] no
from : leg
[08:40] but who will u trail after like lostt baby duck when spring sem starts!!!!!!!!!!!!!
from: leg
[08:43] incoming call — duration: 01:48:56
` ` `
Tobio absolutely does not have a heart attack when he turns the handle of his door to find one Sugawara Koushi in the hall, hair in disarray like he was running his hands through it.
“I’m sorry—” “Sorry—” they both say, at the same time.
“Look,” Tobio kicks at the linoneum floor. “I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”
“No, it’s—” Suga starts, then chews on his lower lip. “Tooru says I meddle too much, sometimes. And it’s true.”
“You were right, though,” Tobio says, “I just jumped to the worst possible scenarios when— when Shoyou and Atsumu have been nothing but nice to me this whole time.”
“God,” he lets out a humourless laugh, “they probably think I’m an asshole, huh?”
“Yeah,” says Suga, “about that.”
` ` `
“No, no no no,” Oikawa is saying, as Tobio and Suga descend the stairs to the foyer.
He’s gripping the handle of the front door with one hand like it’s personally offended him. “The only reason why I’m not kicking you off my doorstep right now is because Bokkun would get mad at me. So go. Kageyama Tobio is not h—”
Tobio meets a familiar set of eyes over Oikawa’s broad shoulders. “He is literally standing right there,” says Miya Atsumu.
The world tilts a little. He takes in the sight before him: Oikawa Tooru standing in the doorway like some kind of deranged doorman in fluffy neon green alien slippers, Miya Atsumu and Hinata Shoyou on their doorstep, looking like they’d ran all the way from the nearest Monorail station.
There's a brush against his elbow, and the world rights itself, briefly. “If you want them to fuck off,” Suga murmurs from beside him, "just say the word. What do you want, Tobio?”
What do you want, Tobio?
It echoes in his head, that question. He’s not alone, he knows, with Suga an arm’s length away from him, and his friends back in theStates. He’s not alone, but Tobio’s lonely, is what it is, has been lonely ever since he’d dumped the keys to his family home in Sendai in a trash bin in the JFK airport all those years ago.
He’s sick of asking himself what-ifs, as it stands.
He turns to Suga. “Can you and Oikawa run to the store real quick? I think we’re out of milk.”
Suga blinks at him, before throwing him a fleeting smile. “Yeah,” he says, “we can do that.”
` ` `
“So,” Shoyou says, “don’t freak out.”
Tobio’s not freaking out. He’s going to be stuck in the same place with, oh, just the two people he’s maybe managed to fall half in love with, but Tobio’s been winning more trophys on national television than you can count since he was three. He’s not freaking out.
Atsumu shifts, drops his duffel— practice gear, if his freshly showered hair is anything to go by— on the seat next to Shoyou and settles into the couch next to Tobio, knocks their shoulders together. “Five minutes,” he says, uncharacteristically soft.
“Okay,” Tobio manages.
“I wasn’t— We weren’t trying to fuck with your feelings, if that’s what you were thinking,” Atsumu begins. “Hell, I didn’t even realise I liked Sho until you pointed it out in one of your last texts.”
And fuck, doesn’t that bring a spike of guilt in Tobio’s chest. Shoyou reaches for the hand resting on Tobio’s knee. “Is this okay?”
Tobio swallows. “Yeah.”
Shoyou thumbs at his hand. “Thing is, I like Tsumu, and I like you. We both do. And I get it if you don’t want to be anything more with either of us, but I really don’t want to lose our friendship.”
Tobio chokes out a laugh. “But I’m just—” he casts a disbelieving look at Shoyou, and then at Atsumu. “I’m just some jerk you met a month ago. Who ghosted you, on some stupid hunch.”
“Hey.” Atsumu nudges at his shoulder again. “I don’t think any of us here are saints anyway. Shoyou here once left expired milk in my locker over the mid-season break, which is worse than ghosting, in my — ow!”
Shoyou stomps on his foot, and Tobio lets out an involuntary snicker. “He stole all of my orange Gatorade,” he tells Tobio with an eyeroll, before squeezing his hand. “And you’re more than just a jerk. You’re, like, secretly patient, and nice, and funny.”
“And incredibly sexy and talented, if your trophys are anything to go by,” Atsumu chimes in, and Tobio can feel the tips of his ears turning beet red.
“Oh my god,” he says, hoarsely, “you did not Google me.”
Shoyou gives him an impish grin. Tobio wrenches his hand from Shoyou’s to bury his face in his hands. “You’re both lucky you’re hot,” Tobio mutters.
“Wait,” Atsumu splutters, “does that mean—”
“Boyfriends?” Shoyou asks, warily.
Tobio gives them a half-hearted glare, fighting the smile that’s been tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You know I live halfway across the world, right?”
“Then we’ll fly out. Like, all the time. Or move leagues,” Atsumu says.
“But I’m not— How do you know I’m worth it?”
Shoyou tugs at his hand again. “You are.” He looks Tobio in the eye. “Kageyama Tobio, you are worth all of the effort it would take.”
Tobio’s heart catches in his throat. “Oh.”
“We’re yours if you want us.” Atsumu tells him, linking their pinkies with Tobio’s free hand.
What do you want, Tobio?
Tobio takes Atsumu’s hand. “Yeah,” he breathes, relishes the weight of both Atsumu’s and Shoyou’s hands in his, infinitely warmer than the ivory keys of a Steinway. “I do want you.”
` ` `
EPILOGUE.
“Kageyamaaa!” Lev hollers, “your boyfriends are on TV!”
Tobio steps out of the kitchen, pitcher and glasses in hand, just in time to see Yaku swat at Lev’s shoulder. “You idiot,” he grouses, “his boyfriends are always on TV. They’re in the V-fucking-League.”
Snorting, Tobio drops on the couch next to Semi, passes him a glass. Semi takes a sip, before frowning at him. “What the fuck.”
Tobio arches an eyebrow at him.
“This is fucking Gatorade. You’re insane. What kind of music major drinks Gatorade, should I be calling S—”
“Shut the fuck up.” Tobio picks up a loose piece of sheet music off the coffee table and throws it at him. “My boyfriends are on press duty tonight.”
Right on time, the screen cuts from a commercial to the familiar black-and-gold of the Jackals’ media room. Atsumu, his hair tousled and damp, is fiddling with his phone as Shoyou ques a reporter in with that brilliant smile of his.
(Semi waggles his brows at him as Tobio’s phone chimes, and Tobio thinks he should get an award for not shoving the other man off the couch entirely.)
“Question for Hinata-san: what are your comments on the pictures circulating on Twitter of you and a dark-haired man? How has this affected your relationship with Miya-san?”
Tobio’s living room errupts into a chorus of boos. Lev pats Tobio's knee sagely. “We’re getting Suga’s moms to sue that beat reporter."
“Hm?" On screen, Shoyou’s face is a picture of innocence, and Tobio fights back a smirk. “Oh, Tobio? He's our boyfriend.”
Next to him, Atsumu leans into his own mic. “He has, like, two Grammy. Isn’t he amazing?”
Gu-ra-mi. God, Tobio’s totally into that Kansai accent. He reaches for his phone, before he’s hit in the head by a crumpled-up piece of paper.
“Whipped,” Semi glares at him, with no heat and a twinkle in his eye, “you guys are so whipped.”