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Tobio and volleyball would always be inevitable. It was set in stone the moment Kazuyo-san accidentally let a stray ball fall into the grubby hands of a five-month-old Tobio. He liked the way the leather felt under his hands. It was smooth yet grippy. As an infant, the only time he had control over the ball was when he hugged it with all fours. The standard volleyball was much bigger than his head, and he looked foolish, as a ludicrous extension of the original volleyball.
But soon it would grow to be the opposite; the ball would become an extension of him. Once he was old enough and joined a team, Tobio could be found practising with his worn-down ball even outside of training. First, his hands grew big enough that he could almost palm the ball with one hand, then he grew tall enough to block spikes from teammates two years his senior. He liked how fast he was growing, and how fast he was improving, but he disliked the changes that came with it.
Nobody could keep up. It was frustrating — a blessing and a curse. A king among common folk, by skill alone. He was not yet the egocentric teenager he would grow to be. Kazuyo-san was there to teach him not just about volleyball, but how to be a good person. But no matter how good of a person Tobio tried to be, he could not shake off the overwhelming, all-consuming desire to go in search of more worthy opponents, those that would push his current abilities beyond, those that would humble him when he saw how far he could go.
But then came Oikawa Tooru.
Oikawa Tooru did not have the inborn talent that Tobio did. It was clear to the keen player that Kageyama Tobio was a prodigy, and Oikawa Tooru was not. For a while, Tobio looked at him with stars in his eyes, wondering how on earth someone could be so skilled just through hard work, yet be content and see eye to eye with his teammates who were at best ‘good’? Did he simply ignore the frustration that gnawed away silently inside him, as Tobio did?
He devised that he must know why, and how . He tried his very best. He was polite and did all the things that he learned from Kazuyo-san. He bowed and spoke with respect, and in his mind admired the boy so much that it was embarrassing even to ponder the topic for more than a few seconds. So why, why did he feel like the villain?
Oikawa simply hated him, because Oikawa was a person of poor character who hated people for no reason, Tobio surmised. It was emotional on Oikawa’s part, logical on Tobio’s.
He never stopped respecting Oikawa, despite disliking him personally. But a new emotion towards Oikawa arose — fear.
Tobio feared him, more than ever. And within the next few years, he would fear his entire team too. They looked at him like he was not one of their own, like he belonged to a different world. He, admittedly, had also lost track of his attitude, and was no longer able to see himself as an outsider, observing the nuances in his language, and the delivery and tone of his requests. Kazuyo-san was hospitalised, and with no one to set him straight, Tobio found himself stumbling through dark thoughts.
He had always known that he would outgrow Kazuyo-san, but he just didn’t realise how soon that would be.
On a day the same as any other, Tobio became truly alone for the first time. Miwa lived out of town, and his parents knew nothing about volleyball, which was equivalent to being out of town in Tobio’s mind. Neither his mother nor father showed any interest, so naturally, Tobio stopped trying to tell them about it — which was an issue, because that seemed to be the only thing he was willing to initiate conversation about.
So naturally, naturally, he stopped talking to them.
Nothing about his life was ideal, other than the fact that he still ran on raw talent and a hunger to get better, like a drug. In his mind, only volleyball was worth it, and the court was able to contain him no longer.
He felt the loss of Kazuyo’s presence like a wave, that swallowed him whole and washed him out to sea, only for him to look back frantically at a shrinking shore of an unattainable, long-lost past. The current took him under. He lost all sense of direction, and since then, he’d never know if he was doing the right thing, communicating to his teammates in the way he intended, maintaining relationships to feel a sliver of what Kazuyo-san was to him, once more.
So, his sets became more unreasonable, more impossible, and he began to feel a humiliating sense of insecurity. He knew he was good, but why didn’t his teammates think so? His body ached with loneliness, but he would always dismiss it — growing pains, he shrugged.
Tobio foolishly fell into the habit of letting it all out on the court — his frustration, his anger, and disappointment. It was the only place that felt like it was his to own, a place where he could be in his purest element. Foolishly, he failed to recognise the way the eyes of his teammates narrowed, the way they replied to him with the same chilly impatience of his own remarks. And he knew deep down that one day he would go too far, but again, he just didn’t realise how soon that would be—
“King.”
The mere thought would make him shudder. He had been branded a Demanding and Egocentric King, who would never realise his true potential because no one wanted to serve a Demanding and Egocentric King, and the Demanding and Egocentric King, was too egocentric to see that the truth was: nothing about his abilities lacked, and it was his character that ostracised himself as a player, a person. With every demand, Tobio unknowingly struck another hole in the crumbling relationship he had with his team, until it all came tumbling down right on top of him.
There was a boy, small and orange, that Tobio saw himself in. A young boy with talent far greater than the rest of his team, but where was his technique? His strategy? His height? He was far more unrefined than Tobio, so without another thought, he dismissed him as an anomaly.
Then the anomaly challenged him, when no one ever dared to challenge Tobio. It did not take him by surprise — the determination in his eyes was one Tobio often studied himself, in the mirror. He spoke of an empty promise under a blazing sky, one of unrealistic desire and one that sounded completely corny and cliche.
But he believed him. Tobio was determined to see the challenge through and hold the boy accountable for his promise.
The Demanding and Egocentric King’s fort crumbled, at last. The moat flooded, at last. Tobio was benched, at last.
It devastated him, of course. He felt like his team had thrown him out into the trash, that he was no longer needed as if to say ‘See? We can function perfectly fine without you’.
If only Kazuyo-san could see him now.
But it was not Kazuyo-san who found him. Instead, that same small and orange boy found him one unextraordinary spring afternoon, bounding into the hall before stopping and pointing at him with the most horrified and confused glare. Tobio could not have been more disgruntled himself. The promise would have to be put on hold for a few more years — he couldn’t exactly win against him in a match as teammates .
Volleyball consumed his first year of high school, as it would for the next two. Two fateful matches in his first year against Aoba Johsai—one loss, one win—decided for them that they would progress to battle greater opponents. Oikawa was one thing, Shiratorizawa was another.
Tobio was used to playing among the better now, as he surprised himself with his own increasingly selfless playing. Among a team of some good, some great, some amazing, even, he was finally able to find his ground, and he saw what others saw in Oikawa — the value of being a setter, a player for others. Perhaps he wasn’t so shitty after all.
To some, nationals was a dream. To Tobio, it was proof that he was doing something right, tangible proof that his sets were good, that his team was good, and that he was no longer the player he was in middle school as he took his team further than Kitagawa Daiichi had ever gone.
“But I wanted to take this team further.”
He would never have the same team again. The third years graduated, and Karasuno lost the solid foundation that Daichi, Azumane, and Sugawara had brought to the team.
But in his third year, when he and the others rose to lead the others, they took their team further than ever before in Karasuno’s Volleyball Club history, placing third in the nation.
And then it was over! For almost all of them. Yamaguchi stopped playing, Tsukishima went to college, and Hinata… well. He couldn’t say.
They kept in contact, the way old teammates would, the way rivals would, the way people with some indescribable bond would — meaning that they did nothing but pine silently, 18,558 kilometres apart.
Now, Tobio has always been weird about Hinata. There’s an unspoken connection between them, whether it be the promise made at fifteen or their affinity for the sport, and their playstyle that revolved around each other to the point that he couldn’t imagine volleyball without Hinata, because who else could hit his sets like that, if not him?
Turns out people can, but they just don’t want to. That was the realisation that scared Tobio the most. There was no need for Hinata, but why did he long for him so much? To just play volleyball? Hey, can you hit another one of my sets for me?
“I’ll see you next week, okay?” crackled Hinata’s voice from over the phone, the excitement in his voice evident, yet underpinned by a sense of nervousness. Tobio knew that feeling well.
“Yeah. Next week,” Tobio replied, ending the call.
Next week would be the first time Tobio would see Hinata in years — and their first-ever official match against each other since middle school. He had no expectations for the outcome of the match whatsoever in true honesty. He was sure, for whatever reason, that Hinata had no such expectations either. It was unspoken. One would say that he would win, but in actuality, the fact that this would be their reuniting match outweighed the topic of who would walk away the winner.
Secretly, Tobio did not mind at all, pondering upon the possibility of the MSBY Black Jackals winning. Like a guilty pleasure, he would often imagine Hinata’s face, of joy and triumph, then of his own, one of pride and satisfaction. He had watched Hinata come so far, after all.
And when next week came, Tobio’s composure vanished from plain sight when he saw that small orange boy, now a man, challenge him once again in a familiar hallway. This time, he privately wished Hinata would win, going against all his instincts as a respectable and feared player.
Despite all this, it did not impede his performance. He served some of the best jump serves that the Japanese League had ever seen, and almost as a retaliation, Hinata and Atsumu replicated the freak quick in all its different forms, as if to prove to Tobio: Look. We can do this too. Remember this? Remember this, long ago?
Long ago was years within reach, within comprehension, and if you asked Tobio, he could recall with pinpoint accuracy every volleyball-related high school memory of his.
But when Hinata left for what was quite literally a far-off land, every blurred moment of endeavour felt like preparation, for a moment to prove to himself and Hinata something that he wasn’t quite sure of yet. True — Tobio played volleyball because it meant the world to him, but another reason settled below the surface, one that he would not realise until the triumph of MSBY’s win would wash over them all. He cheered too, when Hinata’s team won. It was well deserved. They all played as well as he could. The orange boy from so long ago had kept his promise, and for the first time ever, Tobio relished in his defeat.
It became so apparent, in that moment, what he needed to do. All it took was one glance at Hinata, at the light that hit his hair, its ends wet with sweat and pushed back off his forehead. All it took was three steps under the net and into his arms. They were both taken aback. In all honesty, they had never hugged before. Ever. Hinata was very much a hugger, but he had always gotten that vibe from Kageyama that their friendship transcended physical bonds, and that Kageyama was simply not much of a hugger (and that was okay) and showed his affection in different ways.
Tobio’s arms, which usually felt so heavy after an intense game, found their rest in the nooks and crannies of Hinata’s body, around his waist, gripping the back of his sweat-soaked jersey tightly. The ghostly ache of long-gone growing pains subsided, soothed by Hinata’s presence. Hinata’s physicality meant Tobio had something to clutch onto, to hold tightly and bury his face in.
He muttered something for the first time, not exactly sure why or how, a little more desperate than he intended.
“What?” Hinata chuckled, his whole body shuddering as Tobio gripped him tighter for all those times that he had never hugged him before.
“Don’t go,” Tobio repeated, exhaling.
“I’m not going anywhere with you like this,” Hinata laughed, and Tobio felt Hinata’s wide grin rub into his chest and his shoulder. He knew what Hinata meant. They both did.
And Hinata was right, and not in just the present sense. He was not going anywhere, because the meaning between them that had been written since the moment they met, had never faded, or changed.
Two boys, now grown, found themselves in volleyball; in each other. That was all they needed to conquer the world.