Chapter Text
It was bound to happen sooner or later, Yahaba thought as he left the grocery store shaking his head. He had only purchased about half of the items on his list, but at this point, he wasn't sure he cared. He just wanted to leave.
That was, only after spending ten minutes or so hiding in the frozen food section to avoid being spotted by Kyoutani, who he had nearly collided with in the meat section.
Yahaba stopped just outside the doors to collect his thoughts, his breathing a little more ragged than he cared to admit and a cold sweat percolating in the palms of his hands. However, when he looked back into the shop through the wide front windows, Yahaba nearly dropped his bags when he made eye contact with a cranky-looking Kyoutani at the register while he was paying for an enormous bag of dog food.
He all but ran to his bus stop.
When he barreled into the house, panting from his desire to enfold himself in regular surroundings after his brush with his high school devil, Yahaba's mother Kaori shot him a concerned glance. "Shigeru, did you miss your bus?"
Shaking his head, Yahaba wheezed, "No, Mom. I just ran from the bus stop. I just . . . wanted to get home."
Taking the bags from her sweaty son's hands, Kaori shot a glare at Yahaba's still-shod feet and left him in the entryway. When he looked down, he noticed a freshly mopped floor everywhere but underneath his feet, where he had completely missed the doormat.
He toed off his shoes with a sigh and headed straight for the linen closet for a towel to clean the mess he had made. All the while, his head was filled with thoughts of someone he was sure he'd left behind along with Aobajousai.
Yahaba Shigeru and Kyoutani Kentarou didn't run in the same circles. Yahaba had been on student council and got the vocal solos in the school choir concerts; Kyoutani had skipped class to smoke behind the building while stuffing his face with fast food. Those things might not have bothered Yahaba had the two of them got along a little better than oil and water.
That had all come to a halt two years ago when Yahaba had graduated with honors and Kyoutani with . . . well, Yahaba wasn't sure how Kyoutani had managed it with his allergy to good attendance. Now Yahaba was over halfway to his accounting and business degrees, and Kyoutani was doing whatever a school-less Kyoutani was wont to do.
After he touched up the dirt he'd tracked in, Yahaba headed to the kitchen to help his mother put away the groceries, almost bumping into every piece of furniture on the way as he wondered what Kyoutani had done with his life since graduation.
It wasn't until he heard the screech of the cat, whose tail he had just maimed with his foot, that Yahaba snapped out of his reverie. Over the refrigerator door, Kaori gave him a hard once-over before she asked, "Are you all right, or did Karupin wrong you in some egregious way?"
Yahaba reddened. "Sorry, Mom. I just, um, bumped into someone I never thought I'd see again and it kind of threw me." He sighed, the sound of his reasoning weak and ridiculous even to his own ears. "I cleaned up the genkan, by the way. Sorry I didn't pay attention."
"Thank you, Shigeru," Kaori said with a short bob of her head. "Did you want anything in particular for dinner?"
Shrugging, Yahaba answered, "Not really. Nothing too heavy, I guess. It's been hot, and I don't want to make myself miserable."
"So, stir fry and fish again." Kaori huffed. "If you don't stop eating nothing but vegetables and rice, I'm just going to start getting those steamer bags for the microwave so the rest of us can eat normal food."
Scowling at the pot of curry paste he was putting in the spice cabinet, Yahaba grumbled, "It is normal food."
Kaori's face softened as she picked up on Yahaba's rumblings. "I know you don't like it when it's hot, but you need to eat different foods to keep your body healthy. If you want, next time you go out, you can pick up an extra fan so you can keep your room a little cooler."
However, Yahaba couldn't help but think his mother was concerned about the wrong thing. It wasn't his diet that had him all out of sorts at the moment; it was the unsolicited run-in with the guy who had made his reign as the Aobajousai volleyball captain a stressful nightmare.
"You remember Kyoutani, right?" he blurted before he realized he didn't want to explain any of this to his mother. These weird feelings, these ancient stresses left behind years ago.
"Of course," Kaori replied as she pulled out the cutting board. "The one you wanted to strangle, right?"
Yahaba nodded. "Yeah, that one. He's who I bumped into at the store. I um —" He shrugged sheepishly. "I might have forgotten some stuff because I panicked and ran to the checkout after I hid in the freezer section."
"Shigeru . . ."
Kaori's heavy sigh lanced through the room. Yahaba knew they were both thinking the same things. The long, sweaty, sleepless nights they had both suffered through as Yahaba had stayed up to nearly midnight every night to finish his homework and studying because he didn't return from practice until well into the evening. The frustration of fighting with someone every day who seemed to want anything but Yahaba to succeed as the team captain. And there was always that lovely panic attack before the Interhighs because Yahaba's best spiker had skipped practice for almost a week to do who-the-hell-knew-what.
"I'm fine, Mom," Yahaba finally said, his voice carrying little reassurance for either of them. "I'll finish the shopping tomorrow. Do you need help with dinner, or can I go work on my paper?"
She shot him a resigned smile. "Go do your homework, Shigeru. You need your sleep, so lights out before midnight, okay?"
Yahaba couldn't even find it in himself to be annoyed at his mother's not-so-subtle order. "I will."
Yet at he sped up the stairs to crack open his laptop, Yahaba still couldn't shake that weird feeling in his gut after his earlier encounter.
The feeling he would see Kyoutani again.