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The only time Kei has ever seen Kageyama drunk was on the night of his engagement banquet. The party wasn’t over yet, but Kageyama—who usually knew better than to over-indulge—had become unwieldy, the etiquette that was normally second-nature to him lost to his increasingly slurred ramblings. Kei had no choice but to make his excuses for him and lead him back to his quarters, a scathing reprimand already at the tip of his tongue.
But before Kei could give him a piece of his mind, Kageyama slumped down against the door, body going limp so quickly that Kei couldn’t help but be alarmed. Do you think I’ll ever meet him? Kageyama asked, staring down at the space right past the tip of his pinky finger, face unreadable.
It doesn’t matter, Kei wanted to say, but couldn’t find it in himself to be so cruel, even if it was the truth. A year from now, that glimmering red string, visible only to Kageyama, would be smothered by heavy red silks for all the kingdom to see. It was unlikely Kageyama would ever meet the person on the other end of the magical red string, and even if he did, it was nearly impossible they would be a suitable alliance for the royal family.
Not even fate itself was above the duties of a prince. Kageyama should have known this better than anyone. And yet here he was, solemn and brooding, and Kei realized that he was not looking at the face of Karasuno’s crown prince but that of just a boy. A boy with hopes and dreams and fantasies about meeting his soumate, foolish as they might be.
💘
Kageyama is tying the silk ribbon around his left hand when Kei hears the whistle of an arrow fly past.
Except, there is no arrow. Kei confirms it with a practiced scan around the venue, the expanse of which is draped extravagantly in thick red silks, unmarred. Kageyama looks over his shoulder toward him, but no one else seems to notice anything amiss. Even Hinata doesn’t flinch, his body—usually so restless and fidgety—perfectly still, gaze trained at the feet of the emperor and empress ahead.
Then the crowd gasps. Kageyama looks down at the ribbon in his hands, the other end—once tied to Hinata’s right hand—hanging freely above the floor, the fabric ripped into two separate pieces, held in two separate hands. It doesn’t take long before whispers of bad fortune float their way to Kei’s ears, then the royal family’s. The red ribbon, torn! That’s a bad omen if I’ve ever seen one.
A glint of light catches Kei’s attention out of the corner of his eye. He sees it then—a thin metal needle, embedded into the floor in front of where Hinata and Kageyama are standing.
Kei whirls around, searching the crowd in the direction it must have come from. His eyes flit over gossiping ministers and panicked courtesans and nervous guards, only to land on a shadowy silhouette behind a large jade screen, brought as part of Hinata’s dowry.
Kei excuses himself as inconspicuously as he can as not to alert either the guests or the enemy, and gives chase.
💘
It doesn’t take long before Kei notices that he can see the red thread attached to the intruder’s pinky, which can only mean one thing. Kei tries not to think about it too much—uses it to his advantage instead, following the string even as the man darts in and out of alleys with all the ease and familiarity of an alleycat. Eventually, the intruder notices it too, because he stops running as soon as they’ve lost the other two guards that Kei brought with him, having come to the realization that there’s no point in running as long as they’re matched for pace.
It comes as a welcome reprieve to Kei—he’s not sure how much longer he would’ve been able to keep up.
“Ohoho, fancy meeting you here. Not quite the introduction I had in mind, but it’ll make a great story for the grandkids.”
Kei can only see his eyes through the mask he’s wearing, but he just knows that the man is smirking. A flash of irritation burns hot in Kei’s chest, and then he’s lunging, sword drawn. It seems to catch the intruder off-guard—Okay, straight to business, I can work with that—but the upper hand Kei gains from the attack doesn’t last. By the time Kei realizes what he’s doing it’s already too late: the intruder jerks his arm back suddenly, the force of which snaps Kei’s pinky back to an unnatural angle, weakening his grip and allowing the sword to fly out of his hand and clatter to the ground at the intruder’s feet.
With Kei disarmed, the intruder doesn’t waste a moment before launching his attack, making full use of the increasingly inconvenient connection between them. Kei barely has time to react before a deadly combo leaves his eye black and his jaw bruised and his hands quite literally tied behind his back. Even so, Kei puts up a valiant fight—he manages to knock the man off balance and land a very satisfying kick to the man’s stomach, even if the stomach isn’t exactly what Kei was aiming for.
Still, the lack of arms leaves Kei ultimately a sitting duck to the designs of one very clever, very skilled, and—as Kei is about to experience to the fullest extent—very annoying fighter.
“Don’t hold the sloppy handiwork against me,” the intruder says, wrapping the red string around Kei’s body a few more times for good measure. “I promise I could do a much prettier job of tying you up if only we had a little more time.”
Kei has long stopped struggling—there’s no way he can untangle himself in time anyway—and is instead trying his best to focus on anything other than the intruder’s stupid flirtatious quips.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m your soulmate, of course,” the intruder replies with a wink. “Lucky you. I’m a catch, you know.”
Kei rolls his eyes so far back he’s surprised they don’t get stuck. “Why did you throw that needle? Who was your target?”
The man clutches his chest in dramatic offense. “I’ll have you know my aim is unparalleled.”
It takes a second for Kei to see past the shameless boasting, but when he does his brow furrows in confusion. “Why target the ribbon?”
Finally satisfied with his handiwork—or perhaps simply having noticed the shouts of the royal guard closing in—the man finally steps away from Kei. He scrambles up the alley wall without breaking a sweat. Pausing at the top to look back at Kei, eyes sparkling with interest, he says, “Take me out to dinner sometime and maybe I’ll tell you,” before dropping out of sight without a sound.
💘
What would you do if you ever did meet him? Your soulmate? Kei asked once, long after Kageyama had resigned himself to the reality of his situation, if not quite yet to the (certain ginger-haired) specifics of it. In high society, official marriages between soulmates were astonishingly rare. More often than not they were relegated to the status of concubines, or ignored completely. Kei thought bitterly of Akiteru, cast aside by his soulmate for being too low-ranking an official to be considered a suitable match.
But Kageyama was different. Beholden as he was now to the wishes of the emperor and empress, there would come a day when he was not beholden to anyone or anything except his own sense of duty. It wasn’t unheard of for an emperor to give up everything for a soulmate—emperors had destroyed empires for less.
But Kageyama only scoffed. I hope I never do.
💘
Unsurprisingly, the marriage between Kageyama and Hinata is called off. The intruder and his sabotage is swept under the rug, better to lose an alliance than to lose face. The incident is determined to be divine intervention—fate, if you will. The irony is not lost on Kei.
Even though the public thinks the ribbon ripped of its own accord that day, Kei is tasked with investigating the intruder discreetly, as a potential threat to the royal family’s security. Kei starts with the nail in the floorboards, its shape and material so peculiar it eventually leads him to a single blacksmith by the name of Yamamoto Taketora.
There, he finds credit slips stamped with the talon-like seal of the wealthy Kozume family. For a while, his investigation goes cold there—the matron denies any knowledge of the transaction, and their status prevents Kei from prying any further. He settles for stalking each member of the family, uncovering all the sordid but ultimately irrelevant secrets of their family and business—the affair between the patriarch and his wife’s head lady-in-waiting, the steward’s embezzlement of the family funds, the uncle’s illegal counterfeit incense business.
And then one day, Kei spots a short red-haired man disguised in a fake beard and farmer’s hat sneak through the Kozume mansion’s back gates. It all becomes obvious then—why Hinata seemed unsurprised during the incident, why the intruder’s only target was the ribbon. It doesn’t take a lot of questioning before Hinata comes clean to the royal family about his secret relationship with the Kozume family’s only son and heir. They’re not soulmates—wouldn’t have needed to resort to sabotaging the ceremony if they were—but then again, neither are most relationships of noble gentlemen. In the end, the royal family lets him off with a slap on the wrist and a fine of a thousand gold ingots, gifted discreetly with the rest of their annual offerings so as not to draw any more attention to the unhappy event.
Everything is solved, except for the identity of the intruder.
Why are you still so interested in that case? Kageyama asks, on the third morning he finds Kei asleep at his desk, the candle burned down to the wick.
Kei remembers golden eyes and unruly bangs, and lies, No reason in particular.
💘
Everything Kei could have wanted to know (and much, much more) is all in the dossier that Kageyama casually hands him the next day, eyes knowing. How did you get all this? Kei asks, bewildered. Kageyama shrugs—Hinata's a terrible gossip.
Kei learns that the man’s name is Kuroo Tetsurou. His family has worked as the retainers to the Kozume family for five generations. He’s a passionate patron of the opera; his favorite food is grilled mackerel. It was Kuroo who initially proposed the plan to Hinata; Kenma knew nothing about the plot until after the fact. Just like that, all of Kei’s questions are answered. Still, his curiosity lingers. Morbid and insatiable.
Kei doesn’t do anything about it. He doesn’t permit himself to. He leaves the dossier in the ever-growing pile of scrolls in the corner of his study. He goes about his duties—keeping guard, shooting withering glares at slacking new recruits, handing Kageyama his ass during their nightly sparring match. He doesn’t look at the red string tied to his pinky. He doesn’t think about golden eyes, or unruly bangs, or Kuroo Tetsurou.
Fate, as it turns out, has different plans.
💘
A month after the anticlimactic conclusion to what Kei has termed the soulmate incident within the privacy of his own mind, Kei arrives at the Kozume mansion gate with a note from Kageyama tucked safely against his chest. He almost doesn’t notice Kuroo—this time, there’s no mask, no black clothing and glinting weapons. He’s dressed respectably, in dark red robes that would show no hint of his mischief if it weren’t for the scraggly kittens pawing at the hem of his raised sleeve, eyes trained on the scraps of fish clutched in his hands. He looks astonishingly normal. If it weren’t for the bright red line drawn taut between them, Kei might not have noticed him at all.
But—the bright red line. But—Kei notices, and then there is no going back.
Kei announces himself to the guards at the gate. Kuroo turns around, wide-eyed. The guard moves to let Kei in, but freezes at a single wave of Kuroo’s hand. Kei’s eyes dart around for an escape; Kuroo closes in with unflinching determination.
“I was beginning to think you didn’t enjoy being tied up quite as much as I’d hoped,” Kuroo quips, lips already halfway to a smirk. “So, Tsukishima,” he drawls, clearly delighted by the newfound knowledge of Kei’s name, “where are we going for dinner?”
“Nowhere,” Kei says, doing his very best to look past him. “I’m just here to deliver a message from his highness. For your master.”
Kuroo quirks an eyebrow. “Really? I’ll take you to him then.”
Kuroo snaps his fingers; the guards open the gate. Kuroo leads him into the Kozume family compound, down winding paths past lush gardens and imposing stone statues of mythical beasts, seemingly rehearsed tour-guide commentary included. Kei makes the obligatory acknowledgements required by etiquette, but is otherwise entirely occupied with the herculean task of trying not to think about the absolute enigma that is his soulmate, which is very much like trying not to think about an elephant.
They arrive at their destination before Kei gets a chance to recover himself. Kuroo announces them; Kei offers the note along with his greetings. Kozume Kenma opens the note in front of them and reads. Near the end of the note, his mouth quirks into half a smile. He promises to send his response first thing in the morning, then dismisses them both with a half-hearted flick of the wrist.
Kuroo leads the way back through the compound. “What do you like to eat? I know all the best places in town.”
“I already ate.” It’s not a lie—he grabbed dinner on the way here, only partly in preparation for this specific scenario.
“Dessert then. Shaved ice?” Kuroo continues, undeterred. Kei shakes his head.
All too quickly, they reach the gate of the mansion. Kei turns, all reckless impulse, and blurts out the question that has been plaguing him since he learned Kuroo’s name: “Why did you do it? Risk everything like that—you could have been executed. And all for what? Loyalty? Love?”
Kuroo blinks. “Why not?” When Kei doesn’t respond, Kuroo presses, “Don’t you believe in love?”
Kei stays silent. He isn’t sure what he believes. He doesn’t get very long to sort through it before Kuroo’s throwing an arm over his shoulder and all but dragging him into the street.
“So what’ll it be? Custard buns? Red bean soup? Strawberry tanghulu?”
Something must change in Kei’s expression, because suddenly Kuroo’s face splits into a grin. “I know just the place. My treat.”
“Fine,” Kei gives in, too focused on how close Kuroo is to be annoyed by the smug satisfaction emanating off of him in waves. Convinces himself that it’s only fair to give him a chance; that principle—and not the appeal to his sweet tooth, or the terribly endearing mess of Kuroo’s hair, or the potential for a more artful repeat of the ending of their first encounter—is the motivating factor in his decision to crumble like mung bean cake under Kuroo’s puppy eyes. “Lead the way.”