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“Kageyama who?”
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It’s strange to wake up day after day with a name on his lips and a blurry picture in his mind. Stranger yet when he asks around and no one knows whom he’s talking about. “Kageyama who?” they keep repeating and he has no answer. He doesn’t know this person, either, yet he keeps dreaming about them still, every night, always the same, over and over.
Someone with soft, black hair and blue, blue eyes; a familiar voice that seeps into his skin, reverberates somewhere deep within him. Someone with long hands, calloused yet gentle where they touch him (his arms, his shoulders, up his neck and settling on his cheek, warm, so wonderfully warm), and a scary face, maybe, except he’s become too accustomed to it to be intimidated anymore, likes all the little expressions he finds in it (scowls and death glares and many pouts; smiles that shiver down his spine, but not unpleasantly because they’re also proud and, rarely, very sweet).
Someone who plays volleyball with him, always, all the time; who tosses to him—tosses that are like nothing he’s ever seen, fast and precise, and perfectly suited to his hand. Someone whose Jump Serves are majestic, a little like the Grand King’s, but he’s pretty sure his heart doesn’t soar when the Grand King serves, not like this (not like it’s been seized by that motion and sent to flying right with the ball). Someone who practices receives with him and does it impatiently, with the occasional yell or insult, driving him to his limits and beyond, but at the end of the day there’s a sweaty hand in his sweaty hair, almost praising, and one of those rare smiles only reserved for him.
Someone who’s always there by his side, somehow, whether it be volleyball practice or school trips, lunch breaks during lessons, impromptu study sessions, a lazy afternoon at the park, or the early hours of morning on his way to school. Someone who calls him dumbass and idiot and he kind of doesn’t mind, finds it endearing even, who takes his hand in theirs and pulls him close, and closer still, and nuzzles his hair with a contented sigh on their lips.
Someone who used to kiss him.
Someone he used to kiss.
Used to?
But that would make it a memory, wouldn’t it, and he doesn’t remember this person. Surely he wouldn’t forget a person that important to him, would he? No. This ‘someone’ only exists in his mind, isn’t real, isn’t there. Is nothing but a ghost living within him.
(Kageyama who?)
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The taste of defeat is a bitter one, it always has been. When it repeats the bitterness spreads and poisons, again and again...
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“Tobio,” you whisper, “Tobio.” A touch on the cheek, such a small reassurance. Confirmation that the other boy is still there with you (whether it’s for your own sake or his, you’re not so sure). “It’s not your fault, you know that, right? You know that, Tobio. We’re a team! We’ll show them next time, okay, we’ll—”
“It’s fine,” he says, “It’s fine.” But his voice is all wrong and his eyes are too far away. “I’m fine, Shouyou. Just—I’m fine.”
He doesn’t look fine.
He looks defeated.
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Tobio.
It comes to him one day, unbidden and without warning. One minute he’s in volleyball practice, minding his own business, and the next he sees (thinks he sees?) a flash of black and blue out of the corner of his eyes, hands that aren’t really there tossing an entirely imaginary ball, and then he’s leaping, flying before he knows it, spiking at air (and nothing but air).
When he comes back down, breathing hard and feeling confused, bereft, he’s left staring at the hand that refuses to sting, that didn’t even make contact with a ball (but it should’ve; the ball comes to wherever he jumps, no?); that didn’t connect after all.
And there’s a name in his head, echoing, echoing.
Tobio.
Kageyama Tobio.
Shouyou’s staring and staring and staring, and he feels like he knows, almost, it’s on the tip of his tongue, or the edge of his mind, slipping between his fingers as it remains out of reach just so. He should know—he should—but in the end he doesn’t know anything at all.
The frustration keeps gnawing at him endlessly.
(That person, that ‘someone’ (his someone?) is supposed to be a ghost—so why is it that with each passing day Kageyama Tobio seems much less like a dream and too much like a memory waiting to be remembered?)
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“Kageyama,” you say but nothing happens.
“Tobio!” you scream and it’s not enough anymore, not nearly enough.
The space beside you remains unoccupied. Silence stretches into infinity.
So you wait, you wait. Minutes, hours, days. You wait, longer than you have ever waited before. (You don’t know it, yet, but it isn’t the last time you will be waiting, neither the longest, not even close.)
When he finally, finally comes back you all but jump into his arms, not caring who sees, not caring about anything but touching him everywhere you can reach, kissing him over and over, on his mouth, his nose, his forehead, his cheeks; holding him, holding him there with you.
"I love you,” you whisper, “I love you, I love you,” and in your fervour you almost don’t notice that he doesn’t respond. Makes no effort to kiss you back.
-
“Don’t run away,” you say one evening, but it is not yet a plea, not yet (you’re still stronger than that). “Don’t. Tobio—”
“I’m not running away,” he says, snaps, and it sounds defensive, like a dismissal. “I’m not.”
You may have never been particularly good at reading people, but you know a lie when you hear one.
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It doesn’t take long before it all comes crashing down.
He comes crashing down, mid-jump, falling and falling hard, knees trembling and buckling and then folding under his own weight—the heavy weight of realisation that rips right through his mind and threatens to tear him apart at the seams, thread by frail thread.
He remembers.
Kageyama five steps below him, scowling and telling him to try becoming stronger.
Kageyama giving him the perfect toss, fitted right into his hand when he’s spiking on blind faith alone.
Kageyama telling him he’ll make him strongest after all, together they can be invincible.
Kageyama always answering his “one more”, always, always (no exceptions).
Kageyama after their devastating loss against Aoba Johsai, apologising for nothing (and then promising everything).
Kageyama flickering. Flickering during practice, once, twice; Kageyama explaining his condition in the quiet of his room, trusting him with it, trusting Shouyou. To keep him anchored to this world, linked to this existence, fleeting as it is for the boy with the blue, blue eyes.
To keep him there.
Shouyou remembers.
Everything.
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He keeps flickering.
Flickering uncontrollably, more and more with each passing day, disappearing right in front of your eyes even as you grab onto him, grab hold of any parts you can reach. But there are less and less parts for you to reach for each time it happens.
(Still you keep on reaching out for him, terrified, desperate—because what else can you do, what else?)
The lesser the parts, the lesser your memories, and the lesser the other boy’s connections to this world (and you may very well be the last that yet remains for him).
Until one day you don’t even notice when he’s gone.
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Thus longer and longer do the periods in between grow, and so does the size of the gaping hole in your heart, grows deeper and deeper, and deeper still.
When it starts to hurt, when you feel like suffocating, like the silence that bears down on you has become oppressive, overwhelming to the point where you just might break after all—
You begin to forget, too.
(It's just a natural reaction, after all...)
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With trembling hands, he barely manages to lift himself off the floor, yet unaware of the burning ache in his legs, unaware of his teammates fluttering around him like a flock of anxious birds. Unaware of anything besides the deafening sound of his own heartbeat, that wild rush of blood in his ears, thumping, thumping. (There’s an empty, hollow space in his chest where something rears up, carving relentlessly, out, out, out.)
He answers their enquiries about his wellbeing without thought, a mumbled litany of the same name falling from his lips like a shaky prayer, Kageyama Kageyama Kageyama.
(Tobio)
No one knows whom he’s talking about, of course (too late, too late), confused and worried looks being shared all around, but Shouyou doesn’t care, doesn’t listen because he knows, he knows. (Finally.) It’s a relief and it’s a burden, all at once.
He knows Kageyama Tobio is real, and he’s not just a dream, not just a ghost, not a figment of his overactive imagination that continues to haunt him every minute of every hour, day and night. He’s real and Shouyou was wrong, all this time, completely wrong (and how could he, how dare he forget). Kageyama Tobio is real, so very real—every toss and every spike, every win and every loss, every argument and every fight, every laugh and every shared silence, every touch and every kiss—he’s real. Of course he’s real.
(Kageyama who?)
He’s real and he isn’t.
The realisation hits him like a freight train mere seconds later, derails and scatters his thoughts all over again (and how often has he been picking up the pieces already?). Suddenly he feels sick, unbearably sick.
(Kageyama Tobio is real and he isn’t.)
(He’s supposed to be real but he isn’t anymore. He was real, once (how long, how long ago?), and now he isn’t because he’s gone, flickered right out of existence, and Shouyou let him—he let him—and now he’s the only one who remembers.)
(Kageyama Tobio is a ghost, after all.)
Shouyou ends up vomiting all over the floor.
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“Stop it,” you’re pleading, choking on the words because you know it’s probably the last conversation you’ll ever have with him. “Stop it!”
You’re touching thin air, fabric, skin, thin air again. You’re crying and you can’t see anything and you’re burying your face, your hands, your everything into nothing, and the flickering happens right under your grasp (yet so out of reach), and you try, you try, you try your best to hold on but it’s not enough, it’s not enough.
(How do you hold on to an existence that is barely even there anymore? That doesn’t want to be?)
“What are you doing? Why are you running away! I’m right here, Tobio, I’m right here, right here!”
It’s too late.
It's too late when you realise that you’re the only one still holding on.
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You know.
For a long, long moment after, you still know, you keep on knowing. It might be seconds, might be minutes, it doesn’t matter.
You hold on.
For a long, long while after, you still hold on. To the memory, the name and the face; to everything you ever held dear about that person deep, deep within you. (A smile and a touch and a kiss. A perfect toss meant just for you.)
He was—is—was that ‘someone’, your ‘someone’, and it’s not your fault when you finally, finally let go. When your eyes glaze over, veiled under the relieving shroud of oblivion, and you proceed to forget, everything, all at once. It’s not.
(But the regret and the guilt still lingers, despite. It feeds from you. It will keep feeding for a long, long time to come.)
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...
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Nothing remains.
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...
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(Unless it does.)
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...
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He wakes up a little later in the infirmary, blinking back the half-formed image (of...?) behind his eyelids, head pounding and muscles aching and a taste as foul as vinegar in his mouth. He’s not alone, though, and soon he’s met with more worried looks, more raised eyebrows, more questions. But his mind draws a complete blank as to what even happened just a few minutes ago. They keep asking him and he keeps shaking his head, shrugging his shoulders, looking back with his brown eyes wide and innocent and oblivious.
He doesn’t know.
He doesn't know anything.
When they tell him, recount the events for him, he gapes, uncomprehending and a little bit shocked. When they ask him what he was talking about—when they present him with a name he doesn’t know, maybe, thinks he doesn’t know, probably—he throws his teammates a quizzical look, eyebrows pulled tightly together and mouth pursing deep in thought.
He stares for a long, long moment, and then he wets his lips, and then he finally asks,
“Kageyama who?”
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(It’s strange to wake up day after day with a name on his lips and a blurry picture in his mind. Stranger yet when he asks around and no one knows whom he’s talking about...)