Work Text:
Shouyou loves the airport.
People from all over the world, all united in their common goal; to go as fast as they can, to get through security, to get to the terminal, to get in the boarding line, each of which involves standing or sitting for hours and hours. The “hurry up and wait” of it all does something to the mind, something that turns it elastic and fantastical.
He waits at his layover and looks at the businessmen in their suits, the families with exhausted children. There’s a baby crying and it sounds like steel beams tearing under the force of a bridge failure.
Stop being morbid. You’re going home.
The same thing that happens in airports seems to have happened over the past two years. There were nights when minutes seemed like hours, and days where he realized a whole month had gone by without him even noticing.
Just like the terminals and the hard faux leather seat he’s currently sitting in, it seems like a dream world, reality nothing more than a suggestion.
Did I really go to the other side of the world? he asks himself. The sand still embedded in the creases of his sandals makes it clear that yes, Brazil did happen, it was real.
Why? Why did he push himself that hard? Why did he have to do it thousands of miles away from everyone he’d ever known?
To be stronger, he reminds himself. To make it to the top.
A flash of sapphire blue catches his eyes, the passing windbreaker of a backpacker on their way to an adventure. He remembers the squeak of sneakers on golden hardwood, the freshly pungent smell of Air Salonpas, a tear-filled declaration at the top of concrete steps.
He opens WhatsApp. There’s a line of texts two years long, and he doesn’t have to scroll through many screens. Most of them are one-word replies.
I’ll show you, he thinks, looking at Kageyama’s profile picture, which is, of course, a volleyball.
As if he’s summoned him somehow, a message pops up.
>> Are u here yet?
Shouyou snorts and checks his world clock. It’s nearly midnight in Dubai. Which means it’s 4:57 in the morning for Kageyama. He doesn’t answer his question, instead opting to ask one of his own.
>> Why r u up so early?
There’s a pause, as if Kageyama’s trying to figure out the best words. Shouyou knows the feeling. Has wondered what he should type for the past two years. Had wondered what he should say for the four years before that. Words were always hard between them.
Volleyball, volleyball was easy. Volleyball even made words easy, sometimes.
You’re invincible.
I’m going to make you stronger, faster. We’re an unstoppable team.
I’m here.
I’m not going to abandon you like your other team. I’m in this, for better or for worse.
You can jump even higher.
I believe in you. You’re going to get better. We’re going to get better together.
Shouyou doesn’t know why he feels like crying. Thinking about Kageyama usually makes him angry, or determined, or jealous. Especially when Kageyama was competing in the Olympics, and Shouyou was in the same city, delivering food to earn his rent.
Unbidden, Takeda-sensei’s words appear in his mind.
He who would climb the ladder must begin at the bottom.
That’s where he’s been his whole life. Clawing his way up a mountainside, his nails broken and bloody.
At least he hasn’t been alone on his journey. He’s had people by his side. People who cared for him, supported him, gave him opportunities. He takes a moment for gratitude, before wondering what’s taking Kageyama so long to respond? He’s been typing and typing.
>>I can’t sleep
>>I want to see you.
Shouyou waits for the rest, but that’s all.
He wipes a hand over his face and pauses the chill playlist he’d been pumping through his earphones to block out the sound of announcements in languages he doesn’t understand. The time-warp of the airport must be making him emotional. He’s halfway through a thirty-five hour flight and things are hazy.
That’s the only explanation for why he clicks the video call icon.
“Hello?”
It’s dark. Kageyama clicks on a bedside light and blinds him before the camera adjusts.
Once it does, Shouyou can see Kageyama’s sleep mussed hair, shorter than he remembers. There’s a muscular arm over a white duvet, connected to a firm chest, and a well-defined shoulder—
“Do you sleep naked?” Shouyou says, his first spoken words to Kageyama Tobio in over a year.
Their last phone call had been accidental; Kageyama had given him a one-word answer to a question, and had tossed his phone in his gym bag, where it must have accidentally called him, because Shouyou got to hear a locker room full of people excitedly talking about volleyball for fifteen minutes, until Kageyama had shoved his bag into his locker a bit more, or something, and ended the call.
Shouyou had felt like an outsider looking in. Not for the first or last time.
“I have underwear on,” Kageyama answers, the low glow of the lamp enough light to show the blush stealing along his cheekbones. “I’m not naked.” He takes a minute, looks Shouyou up and down, assessing. “You’re wearing a lot of clothes. Thought Brazil was hot.”
Shouyou looks down at his hoodie and sweats. “I’m in Dubai.”
“Isn’t that even hotter?”
“The plane was cold,” Shouyou shrugs.
“You look…”
Shouyou mentally completes the sentence for him. Like a dumbass? A moron? A slob?
“Good.”
Of all the possible endings to “you look,” this was not one he expected.
“Excuse me?”
“You look strong. And, I, uh. I like your hair.”
Shouyou cut it before he left Rio. He wanted to make the best impression on the Black Jackals that he could. “Thank you.”
This is already the longest conversation Shouyou can remember having with Tobio.
“Where are you?”
“I just told you.”
“I mean, where in Dubai?”
“Dummyama, it’s pretty obvious I’m in an airport,” Shouyou laughs. Kageyama laughs too, a little one, more of a breath than anything. It’s a really nice sound.
“I meant, um, are you waiting for your flight, like, in the place by where the plane pulls up?”
“The terminal?”
“Yeah.”
Shouyou looks around. He’s in a terminal, but not his. His terminal is chock full of people and Shouyou wanted somewhere more quiet, so he could meditate, maybe even do a little chair yoga. His whole body feels like it’s been chewed up and spit out, and he’s only halfway done.
“I saw the cutest dog, earlier,” Shouyou says. “Little puppy. Grey with floppy ears, big eyes. It was a miniature pitbull.”
“In the airport?”
“Yeah, she was going home with her family. Lemme send you a picture,” Shouyou says. He picks the cutest one, of the dog sticking her head out of the little carrier her owner had been using to cart her through the airport.
“That’s really cute,” Kageyama says, and he smiles.
Not a smirk, not a taunt, not a “heh, I win.” A real smile.
He’s beautiful.
“Yeah,” Shouyou breathes.
“Tell me more about your day.”
“I had a sandwich for lunch, or was it dinner? Wait, what day is it?”
“Tuesday.”
“Okay, then. Breakfast, maybe? But yesterday.”
“What was it?”
“Egg, I think.”
“How do you not know?”
“I don’t remember!” Shouyou giggles. “Every day seems like… a dream at this point.”
“This feels like a dream,” Kageyama agrees, so softly that Shouyou’s not sure he was supposed to hear it.
“What does?”
“Talking to you. Knowing you’re coming home. I’ll get to see you soon.”
“You’re seeing me now,” Shouyou says, with a little bit of a wiggle. Something about Kageyama’s voice, his words, the way he’s mostly naked and sleepy-looking. It’s affecting him more than a midnight phone call with an old classmate should.
“Not the same.”
“Did you miss me?” Shouyou asks, half-joking.
“Yes,” Kageyama answers quickly. Too quickly. Shouyou wasn’t expecting that.
“Oh.” He recovers. It takes a minute, but he gets there. “You could have called me, you know.”
“When?”
“Oh, I don’t know, any time in the past two years?”
Kageyama’s not looking at the camera. He’s fiddling with one of his nails, as if it’s not perfectly manicured.
Shouyou doesn’t let him get away with his silence. “Why didn’t you call?”
Kageyama sighs, as if he really needs to ponder his reasons for silence. “I wanted to.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Why didn’t you?” Kageyama asks, as if he’d deflect Shouyou’s question, bounce it right back at him, block the spike.
“You didn’t seem like you wanted to talk to me!” Shouyou exclaims.
“I did!”
“What, with all the one-word messages?”
“I didn’t know what to say.”
Kageyama sounds sad with the admission, but Shouyou doesn’t let him off the hook. “You never sent me any messages first, either.”
“I didn’t know what to say,” Kageyama repeats.
“Why not just call?”
“Because—”
“Hm?” Shouyou asks. Maybe he’s pushing too hard. Maybe he should just accept Kageyama’s answer, as lame as it is. But he’s not known for accepting what the world says is an answer. He’s more used to making his own meaning out of things.
He’s also running on fumes, has no idea what day it is, and really should get another sandwich.
“Because why?” he asks.
“Because it hurt too much,” Kageyama says. “It hurt.”
Shouyou’s shocked into silence. That seems to be all the opening Tobio needs to keep going.
“I missed you so much, and whenever I saw you’d sent me something, I didn’t know how to tell you that, so I just… didn’t say anything. And I know, I know that sucks, but I was trying to make it here and then in the Olympics and then… I just kept thinking about how alone I was, and like, the team’s been great, and Miwa’s come to see me a few times, even, but it’s not the same, Hinata. No one else is you.”
Kageyama’s never said so many words linked together in his life, as far as Shouyou knows. Not in the six years they’ve known each other, at least. Shouyou’s pretty sure Tobio wasn’t a garrulous middle schooler or child, so he feels safe saying that the last paragraph he spewed was the longest monologue he’s ever recited.
“Shouyou.”
“What?”
“Call me Shouyou.”
“Why?”
“Tobio,” Shouyou says. The effect is immediate. Tobio gasps, and his tongue darts out to wet his lips. “Call me Shouyou.”
“Shouyou,” Tobio tries, and Shouyou gives him a pleased hum as a reward.
“Why?” Tobio repeats, his voice a hoarse whisper.
“You basically said I’m your soulmate,” Shouyou smirks. “Least you can do is call me by my first name.”
“Dumbass, I didn’t say—”
“You basically did,” Shouyou insists. He’s being a little shit, and it feels so good. “Sorry Tobi, those are the rules.”
“Tobi?”
“Yeah, fuck it, I’m going straight to sweet endearments.”
“I like it. Shou.”
“You trying one out too? I’ll allow it,” Shouyou snorts. He likes it. He likes the giddy, nervous, excited feeling that’s washing over him. The emotions make themselves right at home, here in the airport, where the hustle and bustle of travelers surrounds him.
In the hurricane of sound and activity, Shouyou finds his moment of zen, his place of peace, his eye in the storm. Here, in this refuge, he can enjoy the sweet smile Tobio gives him. This one not for a cute dog or funny story.
This one just for him.