Chapter Text
For the most part, Kageyama had gotten good at dealing with bizarre situations. For the most part.
What he hadn’t gotten use to was quiet. Had their ever been a day in Kageyama’s life that he’d been aware of a soundless space? He didn’t think so. His middle school days had been plagued with the reverberations of his own forceful yells, and don’t even get him started on high school. The entirety of his time there could be dwindled down to screams of passion, and the distinct smacking sound that emerges from the direct hit of a volleyball. However, at the age of 24 his biggest ‘destroyer of peace’ should have been his own thoughts. He hadn’t been so lucky.
Instead he woke to the tune of early morning cartoons, and a mop of grey and black hair restlessly shaking his body from slumber. Any moment of downtime always left him with the overwhelming sense of anxiety that only those who have taken care of young ones could understand. If their quiet, it usually means trouble. And of course, because there were two little devils under his roof instead of one, two brothers for the matter, there was constant bickering.
But today, on Bokuto’s first day of school ever, both 4 year old Bokuto and 6 year old Akaashi were... silent. It’s nice to have quiet, he wants to believe, but knows already that he can’t.
Kageyama stealthily inclines his neck to be able to look into the car mirror, catching a glimpse of a pouting Bokuto whose head is pressed stiffly to the car window, lips quivering, and then to Akaashi who has the same bored expression as always.
Kageyama remembers a time when Akaashi’s resting face wasn’t a slight frown, but that time was before the incident. He didn’t have much room to talk either, he was a much different person because of it as well.
“Bokuto, is there something wrong?”
He supposes this is normal, really. Bokuto doesn’t really leave the house much, on a count of taking two kids below the ages of 10 anywhere is a total fucking nightmare, thus his first-day-of-school-meltdown is not improperly placed.
“It’s just..” Bokuto lets out weakly, and Akaashi looks as though he’s going to explode from annoyance.
“Bokuto’s afraid that the aliens are going to take his toy owl!” Akaashi accuses, immediately sinking back into his seat and returning to his default scowl. There was a time when Kageyama would have done the same, but he’d been on Bokuto duty for the last two years of his life now. He knew the only real solution was a crafted tale so foolish only a 4 year old would be able to believe it.
Turning completely around to face Bokuto (He’d already pulled off on the side of the road. Hell, maybe they didn’t need an education.), he tells him,“I don’t have to coach today. I can... I can fight off the aliens. I’ll make sure they don’t lay a hand on your pal Hoot.”
It is at this exact point in his life that he is so glad there’s not a secret camera somewhere filming this exchange.
It’s also at this exact moment that he sees the light reach Bokuto’s eyes, the glum expression completely transforming to mystified wonder in an instant. How he wishes he could be that single-minded.
“Do all dads have to fight aliens before their kids go to school?” Bokuto questions animatedly, “Did you fight aliens on Akaashi’s first day too?!”
Literally, what?
He wants to laugh, can feel the cackle racing from his throat, but he knows that Bokuto is being undeniably serious, and is in fact just curious if Kageyama had had to chase aliens from their property before sending Akaashi off to school as well.
“I don’t think so, Bokuto.” Kageyama begins lightly, trying to form this conversation into something coherent. What the hell, Bokutos 4, coherent didn’t exist. “But Akaashi didn’t have a Hoot I had to protect either.”
“You’d really do that for me, dad?” Bokuto’s eyes light up brighter than electricity’s capacity, and if Kageyama doesn’t have to kill the smile stretching across his lips to fein sincerity than he’s not human.
“Of course, now lets get you two to an alien-free school.”
____
It’s not until he pulls in to the massive line at the Elementary School that he begins to panic. It was easy to send Akaashi off, it hadn’t been long since Mr. and Mrs. Ukai’s accident, so he hadn’t had the boys too long. Had no idea what it felt like to be a dad, and lacked the emotional attachment due to the fact that he lacked most emotions at the loss of his old friend/coach. He’d simply pulled into this same line two years ago, though admittedly not in a hatchback as he did now, and Akaashi practicially flung himself out of the car, calling backwards, “Bye, Kageyama.” And there he went, along with Kageyama’s ability to sleep in.
Today was different. Today it felt as though he was truly sending off his own. Kageyama potty trained Bokuto, though he’d be damned if the kid didn’t make it difficult by refusing to use his mini toilet unless someone (Kageyama) made a flushing sound after he’d finished his business. He’d been an astronaut with Bokuto and saved the world from aliens so many times, using old snow boots to substitute for space apparatus, that he’d started researching astronauts to make their adventures a little more interesting each time. And Bokuto called him dad.
Akaashi called him Kageyama, but that didn’t make it hurt any less when Akaashi began to unbuckle his seatbelt and sling his Spiderman backpack over his shoulders, his hand braced at the door. Though Akaashi hadn’t known his parents well, they’d been who he’d clung to for 4 years, putting he and Kageyama in an awkward position.
Kageyama still remembers going to pick up the boys for the first time. Being handed a two year old in one arm and a shy little boy with dark curls latching on to his leg. Of course he’d been close with Ukai after he graduated from Karasuno, he’d helped him begin his ascent to soon-be professional volleyball player, and he knew Bokuto and Akaashi as well. Yet, to be their God parent, and then to be told that his older friend and his spouse were gone, and oh hey, here’s two kids that are now yours, it was a lot for him to take on fresh out of college at the age of 22. He’d had to give up a lot, but he wouldn’t accept a volleyball career in exchange for them in a million years. The adjustment hadn’t been easy, he’d never claimed to be the perfect parent, but the first time Akaashi really put his trust in him, falling asleep on Kageyama’s shoulder while they watched Power Rangers, is something he knows will never escape his memory.
“Akaashi, wait!” Akaashi stops, his hand on the edge of door handle. “Maybe I should come in with the two of you, make sure Bokutos okay?”
Bokuto’s expressions lightens until it darkens again when Akaashi remarks, “No, Kageyama. People will think Bokuto is a baby.” He turns to Bokuto. “Do you want that?”
Bokuto aggresively shakes his head, sending the gray tuffs of his hair in a frenzy, as though Kageyama hadn’t spent a good 15 minutes earlier making sure every hair was in place.
“No way! I’m not a baby!” Bokuto’s defiance is clear as he crosses his arms over his chest, an expression that can only be described as sulking but not trying to sulk passing among his features.
Kageyama rolls his eyes. Is it really going to be like this every morning for the next 10 months?
“Are you going to take him in, Akaashi?”
Akaashi ponders for a moment, clearly alarmed at the corner he’s backed himself into.
“Yeah, I can show him where his room is.” Akaashi sounds defeated, but he’s reaching for the door again. Bokuto hesitantly mocks his actions, peaking over the seats to give Kageyama a glance that could make serial killers weep.
Just as Kageyama begins to open his mouth to question Bokuto’s panic, Bokuto’s concern vanishes, replaced by resolve.
“Akaashi.” Kageyama starts, and he swears he’s gonna pull himself together and just let the two kids go to school, that he’s gonna get rid of this ache in the pit of his chest as he watches Bokuto pull his astronaut backpack that’s nearly twice his size over his shoulders, but he just knows that’s not gonna happen.
So when he finishes with, “Watch out for your brother,” Kageyama can feel the minute his heart snaps in two.
___
Kageyamas not really sure what to do with his life after he finally leaves the school parking lot after a good 10 minutes of sitting there and heavily breathing. He supposes he had promised Bokuto he’d go home and protect Hoot, but home didn’t quite feel like home without Bokuto running around in his underwear, toy angel wings strapped to his back because they were the closes thing he could find to owl ones. Home wasn’t right without two little boys with their big round eyes peering over the makeshift net Daichi had helped Kageyama assemble in the backyard when he’d first moved in, their minds bouncing with fantasies of being able to one day look over the net.
That’s how he found himself over at Daichi’s, sitting across from him with a cup of coffee in his hands.
“I had a tough time letting go of Kuroo this morning too.” Daichi admits, and Kageyama lets out a relieved breath.
He supposes he really did luck out by getting a coaching position right along side his former teammate, and then later becoming neighbors with him. If he was being honest, after high school he hadn’t really planned on keeping in touch with anyone he knew from Karasuno, on account of Kageyama not exactly being the most apt at keeping in contact with others through technology. But when Ukai began contacting him and commenting on the games he was playing in college, asking to meet up to provide tips and assure he went pro, he wasn’t in the position to deny help. Ukai and Daichi had been the closest friends he’d had since high school, and it was hard to believe how in an instant one half of that was taken from him.
In another string of bad luck, Daichi had lost his wife Yui a year ago to cancer, leaving him ironically with two boys the same age as Akaashi and Bokuto. It certainly wasn’t uncommon among them to watch one another’s kids when needed, the four boys often providing entertainment among themselves, along with quite a bit of trouble.
“I imagine Kenma had an opinion about that.” Kageyama chuckles, thinking of Daichi’s oldest who had to be the smartest 6 year old Kageyama had ever seen.
“Oh, he did. Told me they were just going to school, not an internment camp. I don’t know where he learned that. I can’t imagine they’re teaching about internment camps in the second grade.”
Kageyama smiles with understanding, just yesterday Akaashi had went on a 20 minute rant about space, foregoing basic information and skipping straight into advanced astronomy. Though Kageyama feels as though this has more to do with Bokuto’s fear of aliens than Akaashi’s actual interests in the universe.
Kageyama releases a loud sigh and looks over the rim of his mug at Daichi.
“What are we gonna do from 8 to 3 now without them?”
“Volleyball.” Daichi answers after a long pause.
“There’s always volleyball.”
With that, the two of them begin contemplating new plays and routines for their university team because of course there was always volleyball. Hadn’t that been Kageyama’s motto for the vast majority of his life? Though he couldn’t play as he wished, he could coach.
There was always volleyball.
____
A few hours later and Kageyama is anxiously waiting in the Elementary School pick up line. He tries to kid himself that the overwhelming feeling that racks his body at the sight of Akaashi and Bokuto emerging from the school is just a sigh of relief, a realization that his kids are okay, but in reality he knows it’s happiness.
He missed them.
Except his fondness gets quickly overpowered by confusion once he sees that Akaashi has Bokuto by one strap of his backpack, practically dragging the 4 year old back to their car.
“Geez, Bokuto! We’ll come back to school tomorrow.” Akaashi says. his scowl seeming even more indignant than usual.
“Wait, do I get to go every day?” And just like that Bokuto is fluorescent. He could start floating and Kageyama wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.
“Every day but Saturday and Sunday,” Kageyama calls out the window. “Unless you’d like to move your bed here.”
Bokuto looks hopeful, “Dad, can I?”
Kageyama chuckles as they settle into the car, backpacks slung in the floor. He can tell Bokutos on the drowsier side by the way his excitement is more contained than usual. By the way he’s talking, he should’ve made at least 10 grand gesticulations that a sleepy Bokuto just can’t seem to muster.
“I don’t think it’s recommended, kiddo. Besides, Hoot has permanent residence at our house, and you can’t leave him behind.” Kageyama reaches in the back seat to tame Bokuto’s hair, lightly combing through the thicket of gray strands. “So, your first day was good?”
“Dad, it was the best. Mr. H is the coolest.” Bokuto’s grin in that moment was so sweet it gave him a tooth ache.
“And you, Akaashi? Is second grade everything you’d hoped it would be?” Kageyama fixes a few of Akaashi’s loose strands as well, mainly just to watch him sputter with annoyance.
“It was whatever.” He says plainly, running his tiny fingers through his own hair and then shrugging his shoulders.
At least school can never change Akaashi, Kageyama thinks, biting back a smile.
That night Kageyama gets tricked into renting Zootopia, as Bokuto explains that Mr. H had said that it was a must see. Kageyama thought it was an assignment the teacher had given the kids, but after he’s selected the rent option and paid the three bucks, he realizes Kindergartners don’t have homework.
All through the movie Bokuto talks relentlessly with devotion about Mr. H, to the point that a very engaged Akaashi dumps an entire bowl of popcorn on Bokuto’s head, forcing Kageyama to spend a good 30 miuntes digging for kernels in his mop of gray locks.
When he’s done and he’s missed what actually happens to bunny cop Judy, he has to ask, “So, why did we watch this?”
“Because dad. Mr. H said that this movie proved that people, and animals, can do anything!”
What a message to give Kindergartners.
Kageyama gives it about a week before Bokuto’s jumping off of every surface imaginable believing he will soar into flight. He needs to set a reminder to check and make sure all the windows are locked.
“He told us that even though he was short, he could jump and see over a volleyball net! Do you think I can do that, dad? Can you measure how high I can jump? Please, dad?”
At the word volleyball, Kageyama is taken aback. It’s not that its an uncommon sport, it’s just that when he sent his son off to Kindergarten he didn’t exactly expect him to come back and explain his teacher shared a bit of Kageyama’s obsession.
“You're 4 years old, Bokuto.” Akaashi pipes in. “Of course you can’t jump high enough to see over the net yet.”
A look of pure revulsion flushes across Bokuto’s face, as though he’s just been told the worst lie of his life.
“Mr. H said that we could do anything if we tried hard enough!”
And, as Kageyama was beginning to learn, if Mr. H said it could happen, Bokuto full heartedly believed it could.
____
Their lives took on a pattern after that. Kageyama drops Akaashi and Bokuto off at school, wastes most hours while they’re away brooding, coaching at the university with Daichi, and always getting an earful about Mr. H.
Despite Kageyama’s first impression of the man based on Bokuto’s accounts, which suggested that Mr. H was some kind of mixture of sunshine, candy, and god rolled into one, things only get more concerning from there.
With every new story Bokuto lives to tell him—and he means lives to tell—his curiousity grows to an insurmountable amount. Even during volleyball practice he finds his mind drifting to Mr. H and these fucking crazy stories Bokuto keeps telling him.
“Dad, Mr. H says that Dorys are becoming extinct and we need to save them!”
“Oh my god, dad, Mr. H told us today that the sun is a star and that if it ever fell it could kill us all.”
“Dad, I’m made 98% of WATER. Shouldn’t I drown? Mr. H says the other 2% is potential.”
“Please, just—dad, I painted the sky today.”
That’s it. Kageyama was nearly dying to know who Mr. H was.