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Captaincy is difficult. Captaincy is standing out in front of the team, leading them into battle. Captaincy is standing behind the team, supporting them when anyone falters.
Captaincy is the game of pushing and prodding and supporting. The captain is the bastion of the team, the only one never allowed to falter, never allowed to doubt in front of others.
Captaincy is lonely, even with a vice-captain by his side. Daichi knows that without Sugawara, he’d have long since burnt out. Sugawara, with his violence and kindness and patience, always there beside him. But even Suga has moments when he doubts, and Daichi is the one who has to stand firm.
Captaincy is seeing Karasuno grow and evolve. It is seeing a team that has the potential to go to Nationals. It is the feeling of growing and growing and growing and he loves it so much, even as he has to corral Nishinoya and Tanaka and really too many hyper-active idiots.
Captaincy is suffering, in Kuroo’s opinion. Captaincy was trying to get Kenma to participate a little more, trying to whip Lev into some semblance of actual volleyball player and not just a (giant) body of (giant) potential.
Really, sometimes he wishes they could swap Lev with a trained monkey, because at least the trained monkey wouldn’t keep pissing off the libero.
Captaincy was also watching his team click into place, directing them, helping them find their place. It’s the warm glow in his chest as he looks at his team and thinks, this is a good team. Captaincy is suffering, but he wouldn’t give it up for anything else. (Apart from maybe, y’know, Lev actually being good at volleyball. That’d be nice.)
Captaincy is also isolating and lonely in its own way. Kuroo just doesn’t naturally have the temperament to be a captain; he’d much rather enjoy the chaos than have to intervene and stop it. But captaincy means responsibility, and it means taking charge. Kuroo isn’t the type that really enjoys having power, so it never quite sits right with him.
When Kuroo meets Daichi for the first time at the Karasuno-Nekoma practice match, his first thought isn’t nondescript or even steady, it’s something more like ah, here’s a man who knows how to carry a captaincy.
He kind of resents Daichi for it, really. Kuroo is still stuck somewhere in why am I captain what do I do and Daichi is already everything Kuroo aspires to be, even when he didn’t know.
Daichi is the centre of gravity for his team, and it takes Kuroo exactly twenty minutes into the train ride home to realise he finds this ridiculously hot.
Or maybe it’s that he finds Daichi ridiculously hot? Because being attracted to the idea of captaincy means also being attracted to Bokuto, which is only slightly weird.
Two weeks later, Kenma looks at him with narrowed eyes, and tells him that he’s changed.
Then he’s back texting the little shrimpy on Karasuno’s team before Kuroo can ask just what Kenma means.
Perhaps this is what Kenma means: the way he catches himself one day, modulating his voice to impose order on the noisy training gym.
When Karasuno comes over for the joint training camp, Kuroo wants to go up to Daichi and tell him I think you’ve changed me.
He watches Daichi lead his team, the way they follow his commands, listen up when he talks, but also the way they look to him with so much trust and respect, even the tall glasses dude.
The captain of Karasuno is Daichi and Daichi is the captain. Daichi won’t always be the captain of Karasuno, just like how Kuroo’s tenure as captain of Nekoma only lasts for one year. He’s attracted not to captaincy but to Daichi, who carries the captaincy like he was born to.
Kuroo finally manages to corner Daichi after days of thinking. They’re sitting outside on the grass, enjoying the quiet that captains don’t really get much time to enjoy. He’s going to do it. He’s going to ask Daichi out.
“Hey,” Kuroo begins, before being interrupted by Kai.
“Lev,” is all Kai says. His expression says the rest.
Captaincy really is suffering.
And Daichi has the temerity to laugh.