Archive of Our Own ^omega

Chapter Text

Change had never come easily to Kageyama Tobio.

That was not to say that Tobio struggled with the mere concept of change. Plenty of things in life changed in perfectly natural, predictable ways that Tobio had never had trouble with at all. As the year passed, the seasons changed. As Tobio grew older, he grew taller. Day changed to night and night changed back into day again. These changes were constant, predictable, perfectly natural and acceptable.

Sometimes change could even be good. When Tobio practiced volleyball, his skills and abilities changed. He got stronger, his instincts became sharper, his reaction time became quicker. This change was a very good one, a change Tobio never stopped striving for.

It was his grandfather, who had introduced him to the sport. But being introduced to volleyball could not even be considered a change in Tobio’s life. For him, volleyball had always been there. Volleyball had been where Tobio’s life had first began, and it had been a part of him ever since. The purpose of volleyball was to change and grow, and that was a sort of change Tobio revered. So no, it was not change itself that did not come easily to Tobio.

It was when people changed, that the trouble began.

People had never come easily to Tobio. People were unpredictable and fickle, full of ideas and inclinations that seemed to come so easily to them yet passed Tobio by completely. They were outside of Tobio’s realm of control, acting on whims he rarely understood nor cared to understand. Tobio was just… different. In a way he’d never really been able to fully comprehend, but undeniably different in a way that seemed immediately obvious to everyone he’d ever met. Every one always seemed to notice. They’d call him strange, quiet, arrogant, too focused, too intense. Making friends was never something Tobio had been very good at when he was young. It sometimes felt to Tobio like he was born with a piece of himself missing, some piece that most people had that made them naturally understand things like jokes and socializing and whatever else it was that people with all their pieces understood.

But back then, Tobio hadn’t minded that very much. What good were friends, anyway? Most of the other kids he knew were more interested in things like manga and video games, things Tobio had never cared for. He had his grandfather and he had his sister, and they didn’t mind that he was different. They shared his love and passion for volleyball with him, they understood him. No friend could ever mean more to him than they did. He had volleyball, he had his family to share it with, and that was all that mattered.

It had felt so… stable. Constant. Like everything in life could change, but that was something that would always stay the same.

But when it came to people, nothing stayed the same forever.

It started when Miwa left volleyball behind. Something about not wanting to cut her hair? Tobio didn’t understand why she would want to stop playing volleyball, but their grandfather had reassured her that it was her choice, and that only she could know what was best for herself. Tobio supposed it was something he would just have to get used to. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if he had still had her around, even if she didn’t play anymore, but it was almost like she completely disappeared after she left the sport. She was always busy studying or out with friends, like by leaving volleyball behind she had left Tobio behind too. It was a bit lonelier, without her. But… that was okay. It was her decision, only she could decide what was best for herself.

As Tobio continued to play, he found himself growing dissatisfied with the opponents he faced. None of the other kids were as good as him, so his team always won, and won so quickly. The match was always over before it felt like it had even started. Tobio wanted to stay on the court longer, and the games were just ending far to fast. During one match, he found himself playing less aggressively, undercutting his own abilities so the match would last.

“Tobio,” His grandfather said to him as they were walking home that day, “In the second half of that match, you weakened your serves on purpose, didn’t you?”

Tobio flinched. He was worried his grandfather would be disappointed in him for not playing to his full ability, but when he explained his reasoning behind what he had done, his grandfather just looked thoughtful.

“Continuing to get stronger,” His grandfather told him, “Is exactly how you can ensure that you will be able to play more. Do you want to know why?”

Tobio nodded.

His grandfather smiled.

“If you continue to get stronger, then one day, someone even stronger will come find you. When that happens, the only way forward from there will be to learn from them, push the boundaries of your own skills, and surpass them so you can keep playing. That is how you will be able to play more.”

For as long as he lived, Tobio never forgot what his grandfather had told him that day.

“One day, someone stronger will come find you.”

Tobio resolved to never let himself grow so complacent again. He would always strive to get stronger. He would always strive to keep playing.

And when Tobio started junior high, someone stronger did come along.

Oikawa Tooru was the exact sort of person Tobio felt like he had been looking for. He was tall, dedicated, skilled, had an incredibly powerful jump serve, and he was an amazing setter. His every movement was refined, every skill meticulously perfected. For the first time, Tobio had a teammate who was better than him, and he wanted to learn everything that he could from Oikawa, so he could get stronger too.

The only problem was that Oikawa didn’t seem to have any interest in Tobio at all. Any time Tobio asked Oikawa to teach him, Oikawa brushed him off. Sometimes rather aggressively. Tobio did not understand why at first, but when he brought the issue up to his grandfather, his grandfather told him that it was because they might have been teammates, but because they were both competing for the same position on the team, they were also rivals. Oikawa wouldn’t want to risk loosing his spot to Tobio because he helped him improve. Tobio would have to catch up to him on his own.

This made Tobio feel a lot better about the situation. Rivals. He liked the sound of that. It gave a new, more refined purpose to his desire to improve. Now, he had a very specific goal in mind. Oikawa was a stronger player, the strongest player Tobio had ever met, so if Tobio was able to surpass him, then Tobio would be the strongest.

It was an exciting feeling. Tobio had never had more fun playing volleyball than he did when he was chasing after Oikawa. It felt good to have a rival.

But then, Oikawa left. He graduated and moved on to high school, leaving Tobio behind.

Tobio felt that loss very distinctly. It would have been... dishonest, to say that Oikawa had been a friend. Tobio was quite sure that Oikawa had not liked him very much, even though Tobio still wasn’t quite sure what he had done to earn Oikawa’s disapproval. But having Oikawa around had felt more important than a friendship. It had felt like a promise, that there really were people out there who shared Tobio’s love and dedication to volleyball, that he would meet more people who were stronger than him that he could play with and against so he could get even stronger in turn. So that he could keep playing on and on, for as long as he wanted. But now, Oikawa was gone.

It was lonelier without him. None of Tobio’s remaining teammates shared his dedication, so he found himself practicing by himself far more often. But that was alright. Tobio was used to practicing on his own. It was nothing he couldn’t handle.

But then, Tobio’s grandfather died.

And that was something Tobio did not know how to handle.

Emotions were another thing that Tobio had trouble with. His own emotions tended to confuse him just as much as other people’s did. He felt things very strongly, often times so strongly that it felt like the feelings were trying to rip their way out of him, rend his flesh until they had carved themselves an exit out of his body, but he wasn’t sure how other people seemed to be able to identify what it was they were feeling with so much ease. Tobio often felt his emotions more like physical sensations, rather than mental ones. Searing heat, buzzing electricity, chilling cold, crawling around beneath his skin. They all felt so similar, so it was sometimes easiest to identify what he was feeling based on where he felt it most strongly.

Good emotions, joy, pride, excitement, fizzing and popping like fire crackers and starbursts, those emotions he felt in his chest. Bright little bursts of light going off between his lungs and dancing circles around his heart.

That day, standing in a stiff black suit as he watched his grandfather get lowered into the ground, buried beneath six feet of earth, he felt that place in his chest empty out. Like the cavity between his ribs had been carved away until he was left hollow.

Miwa was there. She stood beside him throughout the entire ceremony, but they did not speak much. Some things just couldn’t be eased with words. At one point near the end of the ceremony, she reached out and took his hand briefly, squeezing it with her own once before she let go. It was something, but it only echoed in his hollow chest. Even with her right there next to him, Tobio had never felt more alone in all his life.

Miwa had been there, but now she was not. Oikawa had been there, but now he was not. Tobio’s grandfather had always been there for him, the one person who had truly been constant in Tobio’s life, the one person that had felt unmovable, unalterable, like everything in life could change, but that was something that would always stay the same.

His grandfather had been there.

But now he was not.

Sadness was something Tobio felt in his stomach. It was heavy, and it squirmed and squeezed, like a snake made out of cold lead trying to constrict the life out of him from the inside. It was always there now. A new constant for him to get used to.

Volleyball helped. Even alone, Tobio still had volleyball. So he did the only thing he really knew how to do, the only thing that felt truly certain in his life. He kept playing, he kept training, and he kept getting stronger. Always getting stronger. The only thing Tobio had any real control over was himself, so he practiced until he was exhausted, and then practiced some more, getting faster and faster, pushing further and further, until he could control his every movement, hone his body into a tool he could wield with perfect precision. With that tool, the ball simply became an extension of his own being. No matter where he wanted it, he could get it there, and he could get it there with the exact sort of ruthless efficiency that would ensure his victory.

Victory felt good. Accomplishment felt good. Or, at the very least, it was the one thing that didn’t feel bad. Even with that space in his chest emptied out, volleyball still grounded him. It didn’t make him feel light and bright like it used to, but it was the closest he could get. Control. It gave him control.

But no matter how much control Tobio gained over himself, he still could never control the people around him. Anger became an incredibly familiar emotion too. That one burned like fire in his throat, like molten flames searing at the back of his mouth, eager to dance out on his tongue. Anger made him loud. It made him demanding. He would feel it flare its fangs every time one of his teammates slacked off during practice, every time they missed a spike he’d set to them perfectly.

Why couldn’t they just try harder? Why couldn’t they just train more? Why couldn’t they just keep up with him? Why wouldn’t they just keep up with him? Why did Tobio always have to do everything alone, always have to be the one picking up the slack for them?

He began to resent the fact that volleyball was a team sport. It would have been so much easier, he thought, if he could just play all on his own, with no one else to drag him down. No matter what Tobio did, no matter how often he snapped and yelled and demanded, his teammates just wouldn’t match his pace. He’d throw a perfect toss, one that couldn’t possibly be blocked from the other side of the net, and the spikers would complain that it was too fast, too impossible to hit. It infuriated Tobio. He knew that if they just tried harder, just trained more like he did, then it wouldn’t be impossible for them to hit it at all, but no, no, it was Tobio’s fault for throwing the ball to fast.

“King of the court” They started calling him. The tyrant king.

A King nobody wanted to follow.

In the end, it was as if Tobio’s own dedication had betrayed him. He’d worked so hard to be the very best he could be, pushed others to share his effort, but then a day came when he tossed the ball and no one complained it was to fast. No one said anything about it at all.

Because no one was there to spike it.

Tobio would never forget that sound. The sound of a volleyball striking an empty court behind him.

Anger lived in his throat, but it shared that space with fear. Fear burned just like fire did, but rather than burning hot, it burned cold. Horribly, chillingly cold.

It was Tobio’s least favorite feeling. Some how it was even worse than the grief in his stomach.

He had thought, after his sister had left, and Oikawa had left, and his grandfather had died, that he could not possibly feel more alone.

That day, that ignored toss, proved him wrong.

He had fought as hard as he could to become the best so he could stay out on the court for as long as possible, and in the end, rather than taking him further, rather than helping him find players who could match his strength, his dedication got him benched. Off the court.

Rejected.

Alone.

...And then Tobio met Hinata Shoyou.

Though, that was not entirely accurate. Tobio first met Hinata even before he had the sound of that ball striking the court ringing in his ears, during the first match of that same tournament. It had been a joke of a game, really. Some no name school that just barely had enough members to scrape by with a full team, a gaggle of tiny little kids who’s hairlines hardly reached tall enough to brush Tobio’s chest. There had been no question, going in, who the winners would be. But as always, Tobio went into the game taking it completely seriously, determined to play to his full ability, like every point his team scored could decide the outcome of the match. It was the only way he knew how to play.

And on the other side of the net, one other boy was thinking the exact same thing.

For as long as he lived, Tobio would never forget what he witnessed that day. That fire, that determination, glowing in the eyes of that tiny boy with the wild orange hair. It was one thing to go into a game determined to make every point count, to play like victory was the only outcome that could possibly be acceptable when it was certain from the beginning that you were going to win. It was another thing entirely to go in with the exact same mindset when it was certain that you were going to loose.

“We haven’t lost yet,”

It was beautiful. It was incredible. It made Tobio remember those words his grandfather had said to him, about a stronger player coming along to find you. Tobio was certain that this was the exact sort of person his grandfather had been talking about, someone who could finally challenge him, just like Oikawa had.

It infuriated Tobio beyond words.

That kind of drive, that kind of passion, locked inside a body too short for its ambitions. What right did this puny player with no real skill have to that sort of determination? It was cocky and naive in all the worst ways. Sure, the boy had undeniable talent and athletic ability, truly remarkable athletic ability, but his movements were sloppy, uncoordinated, and his team was a mess. He knew nothing about what it took to actually become strong. Nothing. His determination didn’t make a difference in the end. His team lost, and he went home in defeat.

What a waste. That was all Tobio could think, walking away from that match. That boy would never make it far in volleyball, no matter how many passionate declarations of determination he spat out. A brilliant firework sputtering in the night sky, bright and beautiful as the sun for only a moment before it fizzled out into nothing and was forgotten. A fantastical dream of something great that could have been.

Time moved on, Tobio’s team lost a match of their own, and with the sound of that ball hitting the empty court echoing in his ears, for just a moment, he almost forgot about that wild, wasted miracle of a player.

And then, Tobio started high school.

Karasuno was not Tobio’s first choice, and it certainly wouldn’t have even been his second choice if he had known that the famed coach Ukai wouldn’t be returning to train the volleyball team, as Tobio had been led to believe. But in spite of this, Tobio ended up at Karasuno anyway. And, by some mad, cruel twist of fate, Hinata Shoyou, the firework Tobio had been sure he’d watched sputter out, also ended up at Karasuno.

And then, though he did not see it for what it was when it happened, Tobio’s life began for a second time.

Hinata was, in Tobio’s opinion, the very worst sort of person. He was loud, obnoxious, confusing, and he was absolutely awful at volleyball. Talented? Sure. Incredibly athletic? Undeniably. But in spite of all of his glorious potential, he was clumsy and unskilled. Couldn’t receive a ball to save his life. Tobio was certain the moment he found out they would be forced to play together that Hinata would be a dead weight that Tobio would have to drag around with him as he worked to advance his own abilities.

But Hinata, ever the stubborn bastard, seemed hell-bent on proving Tobio wrong.

Because despite all his short comings, figurative and literal, Hinata was fast, and he could jump like wings sprouted from his back every time his feet left the ground.

And he could hit Tobio’s sets.

Not only could he hit them, he wanted to. He demanded them, begged for them with a sort of ravishing greed that Tobio found nearly impossible to refuse.

And, most remarkable and confounding of all, he didn’t just want Tobio to set to him.

He also wanted Tobio to be his friend.

And some how, Tobio found it impossible to refuse that as well.

And then, so subtly and incrementally that he never even noticed until it was far to late, Hinata became a constant in Tobio’s life. His presence had appeared like a paper cut, small and annoying but largely insignificant. But while Tobio hadn’t been paying attention, that paper cut had gotten infected, and that infection had spread into his blood and from there into every cell and organ in his body, until he turned around one day and realized that the tiny insignificant wound had gone septic and infected him down to the core of his being, and suddenly he couldn't find the place where he ended and the infection began. It was deeply alarming that such an intoxicating ailment had overcome him so completely without him noticing, but if Tobio was truly, deeply honest with himself, he would not have it any other way. Whenever he ran ahead of the rest of the team during conditioning, Hinata was right there beside him, refusing to let him win. When he stayed longer after practice ended, Hinata stayed too, spiking every set Tobio tossed his way. With every stride forward he took, every extra second he trained to make himself stronger, Hinata was right there on his heels, chasing him every step of the way. Hinata wasn’t just a teammate, hadn’t been for a long, long time. Maybe even had never really been just a teammate. Hinata was his partner, the other half of their notorious “freak” duo that had taken the high school volleyball scene by storm, and over time Hinata and volleyball were no longer just two separate aspects of Tobio’s life, they became extensions of each other. Hinata meant volleyball, and volleyball meant Hinata.

Slowly, that relentless sadness loosened its grip on him. The hollow in his chest filled back in. And every time Hinata hit one of his sets, he felt those old starbursts light up between his lungs. And for three years, that was the most constant, stable, unchangeable thing in Tobio’s life.

And now, those three years were nearing their end.

***

Tobio’s third year of high school brought with it a lot of changes, but at first none were so great that he had trouble handling them. Most notably, him, Hinata, Tsukishima, Yamaguchi, and Yachi were now the most senior members on the team, and were responsible for guiding the younger players. Tobio had never been the best teacher. Even though he’d gotten quite a bit better with it, his anger was still and eager thing, and he snapped at the second and first years more often than he should have. Yamaguchi, determined to take his new role as captain of their team seriously, had given him quite the earful after he’d accidentally made one of the first years cry by yelling at him for goofing off during practice. It was something he was still working on.

But alterations to the team were not the only new challenge their third year faced them with. Suddenly, they were being called into meetings with student councilors to “Discuss their futures.” Tobio found these meetings rather tiresome. He already knew exactly what his future held for him. He’d get scouted by a university with a strong team, graduate, join a professional team, and then keep playing volleyball, keep getting stronger. There was nothing complected about that. Even so, the councilor Tobio spoke to told him to research schools with the best volleyball programs so he could decide which one he might want to attend. Honestly he had just been planning to wait for one of them to scout him and offer him a scholarship first. It was undoubtedly gonna happen so he wasn’t sure why he had to waste time putting in the work himself. But when he mentioned this to Hinata, Hinata said that the councilor had told him to do the same thing, and unfortunately he seemed far more enthused by the prospect. And so that was how the two of them ended up lounging together in Tobio’s room after school that day researching universities with strong volleyball programs on Tobio’s laptop instead of doing their homework.

Hinata sat on the floor, leaning back against Tobio’s bed, the laptop in his lap. Tobio was stretched out on his back on top of the bed, his head level with Hinata’s, tossing a volleyball up into the air and catching it repeatedly.

“There’s so many good ones… How are we supposed to know which one to pick?” Hinata asked, sounding overwhelmed.

“Simple dumbass, we’ll just apply to all of them,” Tobio responded.

“Really?” Hinata asked, like it wasn’t obvious, “We can do that?”

“Of course we can, why not?” Tobio said, “The more we apply to, the more likely it will be that one of them will offer a spot to both of us.”

Hinata was quiet for a long moment. Tobio glanced over to find Hinata looking at him with an odd expression.

“What?” Tobio asked.

“You want to keep playing together after high school?”

Tobio froze.

“I… I mean, sure. Why not?” Tobio said, caught completely off guard. Hadn’t that been the plan? Hinata had specifically asked him if they could look for universities together. Hadn’t that been his intention too? To find a school they could go to together?

Hinata looked like he was about to say something, his tawny brows furrowed in the middle of his forehead, but he trailed off and cast his gaze down, fiddling with the hem of his shirt.

“Well… I guess I- its just...”

“Hinata,” Tobio started, his stomach dropping unpleasantly. His throat felt cold. “Do you… not want to go to the same university?”

“No!” Hinata burst out, his eyes flying back up to Tobio’s guiltily, “I mean- Yes! I mean- No, I don’t not want to go to the same university as you. I do! I… I want to keep playing with you. There’s no setter I’d wanna get tosses from more than you.”

“...But?” Tobio prompted, letting Hinata’s admission go unaddressed but privately feeling a bit smug about it all the same.

“But...” Hinata began. He sighed and turned away from Tobio’s gaze.

“...That’s the problem, isn’t it? I… I need to learn to play on my own. To be a strong player in my own right. If I’m always relying on you then… Then how can I ever get better?”

The cold in Tobio’s throat thawed slightly. So Hinata wasn’t trying to get away from him. He was just trying to make the best choice for himself, to make himself stronger. Tobio could understand that.

Even if he didn’t like it very much.

Tobio turned his attention back to the volleyball again, tossing it up into the air and catching it.

“You’re already strong in your own right Hinata,” Tobio said, “You don’t need me. You haven’t needed me since our first year. You’ve improved since then. A lot. No one in their right mind could say that you’re only strong because of me now. And you’ll keep getting stronger, no matter where you go.”

And we’re stronger together. we can keep getting stronger together. Together. Tobio thought, but did not say.

But out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Hinata was looking at him again, and his eyes were brighter now, shinning with that sort of warm admiration that melted the rest of the ice in his throat and made him feel just a bit too warm, like heat stroke in summer.

“You really think so?” Hinata asked him, using that voice that Tobio had come to learn meant that Hinata was trying to see if he could squeeze more praise out of Tobio, rather than actually just asking for confirmation.

“I wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true,” Tobio grumbled, turning away from the intensity of Hinata’s gaze, “...Dumbass,” He tacked on the end, just for good measure.

Hinata took a deep breath and Tobio glanced back at him just in time to see him nod slowly.

“Yeah… Okay,” He said, “...But what if none of the universities we apply to give both of us an offer?”

“Well, like I said,” Tobio told him, “If we apply to all of them, there’s a higher chance one of them will.”

That was where the topic dropped. But later that night, when Tobio was lying in his bed in the dark long after Hinata had gone home, he found Hinata’s words creeping up on him again. What if none of the universities they applied to gave both of them an offer? They’d end up on separate teams once again. Possibly even playing against each other at some point.

That thought did send a sparking thrill through Tobio. The thought of playing against Hinata, instead of on the same side as him. Hinata had promised that he would beat Tobio one day… perhaps that would be his chance to finally try and make that promise a reality.

But though there was a sense of thrill to that prospect, it was accompanied by a prickle of frost in his throat.

Tobio grimaced at his ceiling in the dark. Fear. The idea of him and Hinata going to different universities made him feel afraid.

But… Why? That was ridiculous. What did Tobio have to be afraid of? An angry sort of frustration heated him, and that was enough to melt the ice away. He resolved not to dwell on the strange feeling. He had much better things to focus on, like falling asleep so that he would be well rested enough to focus properly during practice the next morning.

The school year had only just begun. Him and Hinata still had plenty of time to play together, no matter where they ended up afterwards. The future was a distant thing, and it wasn’t worth letting it bother him.

***

It was a Wednesday afternoon, a few months later, when everything changed.

The spring tournament was beginning in just barely a week’s time, and the team was training with a sort of frantic energy that left the air of the gym feeling thick with tension. Their team was undeniably strong, and their coordination was finally fully falling into sync. It was his last year on this team, and Tobio was determined that they’d get to nationals just one more time before he had to leave Karasuno behind for good. This team had given him so much, during his time here. He was determined to pay that back in every way he possibly could.

Tobio had just left his last class of the day and was about to head to the gym for practice. He’d been held back longer than usual because he’d had to retake an important quiz he’d failed the week before. He was fairly certain he’d scraped by with a passing grade this time, as he’d tried to pay extra close attention so he didn’t get held back again and have to miss more practice, especially with the spring tournament right around the corner.

But just as he started to make his way down the hall, he heard his name being called.

“Ah- Kageyama!”

Tobio turned around to to see Takeda-sensei at the other end of the hall behind him, approaching him at a brisk pace and waving his arm urgently as though there was a chance Tobio would miss seeing him in the empty hallway. Tobio stopped and waited for Takeda to reach him.

“Ah, Sensei. How are you?” He said.

“Oh, ah, I’m good! Quite good! I’m actually very glad I happened to run into you, I thought I wouldn’t see you until I got to the gym,” Takeda said quickly, sounding oddly out of breath, “I know you’re probably on you’re way there now, but would you mind waiting a moment? There's something important I need to speak to you about.”

Tobio blinked. Something important? Was this about the quiz he’d had to retake? Was he in trouble for letting it interfere with his training time?

“...Of course Sensei,” Tobio said stiffly, “What is it?”

“Ah, well its- I just got off a call you see, and I- you- well-” Takeda broke off his stuttered speech with a sheepish laugh, “I’m sorry, It’s just, I’m not even quite sure how to say this...”

“Am I… In trouble for something?” Tobio asked, now feeling slightly alarmed by Takeda’s odd behavior. The volleyball team’s head coach was usually quite eloquent with words. Tobio wasn’t sure he had ever seen the man struggling so much to say something.

“In trouble? Oh, no no, of course not, not at all!” Takeda said quickly, waving his hands dismissively as if to ward off Tobio’s question, “No, its a very good thing actually, I...”

Takeda closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and when he opened them again his expression had turned serious, as if he had managed to steady himself.

“Kageyama, I… I just got off a call with a representative for Japan’s national volleyball team. They want to offer you a spot to play for them in the upcoming Olympics, after you graduate high school.”

Tobio’s brain stopped functioning. His neurons simply ceased firing off connections, his mind went completely blank, and he felt like the floor had dropped out from under him.

Japan’s national team

want to offer you a spot

National team

Olympics

Those words bounced around the insides of his now empty skull, incomprehensible.

“I’m sorry, you- they-” Tobio stuttered, struggling to string a sentence together as he gaped at Takeda, “...National team?”

“That’s right,” Takeda said, “Of course its not like you’d be a starting member or anything, but-”

“I accept,” Tobio said, his blood rushing in his ears, “Yes, I accept, how do I- what do I need to- the national team? Japan’s national volleyball team?”

“Yes, that's right,” Takeda said patiently, grinning at him widely as he placed an arm on Tobio’s shoulder to steady him as Tobio swayed slightly on his feet, “Japan’s National Volleyball team Kageyama. They’ve been keeping an eye on you and they’ve been very impressed with your performance, they want you in the V-league! Now, I know you’re eager to jump on this opportunity, and of course I absolutely encourage you to, but you still have time to consider your options further. I have some paperwork they sent me that I can give you to look over so you can-”

Takeda was still talking, but Tobio didn’t feel like he was properly registering the words coming out of his mouth anymore. He suddenly felt incredibly light headed. He was dreaming. Surely he was dreaming. This couldn’t possibly actually be real. But no, of course. Of course it could be real. This is exactly what Tobio had been working towards, exactly what he had always wanted. God, was this really real? Tobio reached his hand over and pinched his opposite wrist, digging his nails hard into his skin. Sharp pain bloomed from that spot, but somehow it failed to make this feel like reality.

The national team.

I’m headed for the world stage.

Right out of high school.

Tobio’s thoughts were racing at a hundred miles per hour, and yet none of it seemed to sink in. He felt strangely numb, still half sure that this was some sort of fantastical dream and any moment he was gonna wake up and realize that it wasn’t actually happening. But the seconds passed by and he had not woken up yet.

“And then we should probably talk about- uh, Kageyama?”

“Ah,” Tobio said absently, his attention abruptly snapping back to Takeda, “What?”

Takeda smiled, and gave Tobio a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

“You know what? Never mind, we can go over the details later, I know this must be quite a lot to process. Why don’t we head to practice? The rest of the team is probably missing you by now.”

“Yeah,” Tobio said, “Yeah, practice, right.”

Tobio turned on his heel and bolted down the hallway.

He heard Takeda call his name in surprise, but Tobio kept running, barely registering the sound of his feet striking the ground as he raced down the hallways until he reached the door leading outside that took him toward the gym.

“HINATA!” He shouted at the top of his lungs the moment he got the gym door open.

Everyone in the gym startled, turning to look at him with wide eyes. Hinata, who as it turned out had been in the middle of practicing his receives, startled worst of all, crying out in surprise as Tobio bellowed his name, and then crying out a second time when the ball he had been lined up to receive ended up hitting him square in the face.

“Gah! Kageyama!” Hinata snapped, rubbing ruefully at the red mark left behind on his forehead, “What was that fo-!”

“Hinata,” Tobio said again, at a slightly more reasonable volume this time. He stormed into the gym, marched right up to Hinata and grabbed him by the shoulders, “Hinata come with me. Right now.”

“Wh- huh? Yama, whats gotten into y-”

“Now,” Tobio snapped, dragging Hinata along with him as he once again left the gym.

“Kageyama, wha-?” He heard Coach Ukai begin behind them, but Tobio had already closed the door and began dragging Hinata around the side of the building.

“Kage- Kageyama! Cut it out!” Hinata snapped, and Tobio finally let go of his grip on the orange-haired spiker’s shoulders, letting him pull away, “What’s gotten into you, psycho! What happened? Why were you so late to pract-?”

“Takeda stopped me as I was leaving class. He got a call from Japan’s national volleyball team. They want me to play for them after we graduate. In the Olympics.”

The words left Tobio in a rush, like if he didn’t say them quick enough they suddenly wouldn’t be true anymore.

Hinata fell silent and stared at him.

Everything around them was quiet, and suddenly Tobio realized how hard he was breathing, and he wondered vaguely if it was because of his mad sprint to the gym or from the news he had just received. Maybe it was both. It was possible that it was both.

Hinata opened his mouth a couple times in quick succession like a fish gasping for air, but no sound came out.

“Seriously?” He finally said, so quiet it might as well have been a whisper.

“...Yeah,” Tobio confirmed just as quietly.

Another beat of silence passed, and then Hinata’s expression of dumbfounded shock broke out into the biggest grin Tobio had ever seen in his life, so wide it looked like it must have hurt.

“GWWAAAHHHHH!!! KAGEYAMAAAAA!!!” Hinata practically screamed, grabbing hold of Tobio’s arms and jumping up and down like a maniac, his grin blinding- “Kageyama, that’s amazing, I can’t believe it- You’re going to the world stage! You’re going pro Yama, that’s incredible-!”

And, ridiculously, it wasn’t until that exact moment, seeing Hinata’s excitement, that the news fully sunk in. Tobio had been offered a spot on the national team. He had a chance to play on Japan’s national volleyball team. In the Olympics.

And then abruptly Tobio was laughing. He grabbed hold of Hinata’s arms right back so they were locked together as his spiker continued to jump up and down and shout about how amazing it was, and Tobio could not stop laughing. The sound felt odd and stilted in his own ears but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“Oi!” Coach Ukai called out to them, just exiting from the gym, “What the hell are you two freaking out about? You know you’ve still got practice to do right?”

“COOOACH!” Hinata cried, letting go of Tobio so he could spin around, “KAGEYAMA’S GONNA PLAY IN THE OLYMPICS!”

“He’s what?” Yamaguchi, Tsukishima, and Yachi cried together, exiting the gym right behind Ukai.

“He’s what?” Ukai repeated, looking flabbergasted.

Before either Tobio or Hinata could respond, Takeda arrived at a jog, hunching over with his hands on his knees when he came to a stop and breathing hard as though he had run the whole way there.

“He’s- huff- He’s right! I just got the call from a- huff- representative about the offer,” Takeda said between his gasps for breath. He finally straightened up, still looking winded but smiling broadly all the same, “They want him to play on the national team in the upcoming Olympics!”

There was a beat of silence while everyone absorbed that information. The quiet was broken when Tsukishima, looking very reluctantly impressed, said “Holy shit.”

Ukai burst out laughing then, stepping forward to slap Tobio solidly across the back.

“Well, I’ll be damned! Atta-boy Kageyama, suppose it was only a matter of time at this point huh?” He said, grinning wildly.

The rest of the third years crowded around them then, all shouting congratulations at once (well, Yamaguchi and Yachi were, Tsukishima was busy looking rather like he had swallowed something unpleasantly sour), and the second and first years began to crowd out of the gym as well, curious as to what all the commotion was about.

The rest of practice passed by in a blur of congratulations from his teammates and frenzied practice. The team seemed even more hyped up than usual after the news of Tobio’s invitation. Hinata told him that now that he was going pro he had to toss to Hinata a hundred and fifty times to prepare for what would surly be even more grueling training sessions in the V-league, and Tobio found no reason to disagree. They kept on practicing until it was fully dark outside, and everyone else had long since gone home, leaving Tobio with the last of their congratulations as they left. They went perhaps a bit later than they should have, in spite of Yamaguchi’s warnings that they only stay one extra hour, they stayed closer to two. It wasn’t until Hinata physically flopped boneless onto the ground, gasping for breath, that the two of them finally agreed to call it a night.

***

They locked up the club room behind them and began to make their way home, Hinata walking his bike along beside them. They could follow the same road away from the school for quite a ways before they would come to an intersection that would lead towards Tobio’s neighborhood in one direction, and towards the mountain pass Hinata had to bike to get home in the other. They walked in silence for a long time, before Hinata finally spoke.

“So… I guess this means we won’t be going to the same university after all, huh?” he said.

Tobio blinked, looking sideways at Hinata. The spiker kept his gaze straight ahead, not meeting Tobio’s eyes. He was still smiling, just as he had been smiling all throughout practice, but his smile had softened, looking more melancholy around the edges.

A small portion of the ballooning thrill that had been filling up Tobio’s chest all evening deflated slightly.

Yes, that was right. Tobio’s mind had been so thoroughly taken up by the news he had received that the thought hadn’t even occurred to him yet. He was going to the world stage, and training in the V-league would mean he wouldn’t have any time leftover for university. But Hinata would. Now, no matter which university scouted him, he would be going there without Tobio.

Because Tobio was moving forward. Skipping university altogether.

So… That was it then. Once they graduated, they would be going their separate ways after all.

“I’m going on ahead,” Tobio said, “Again.”

“Again,” Hinata agreed, almost neutrally, still not meeting Tobio’s eyes.

Tobio frowned, a spark of irritation stabbing at him.

“Don’t do that. It isn’t fun if you aren’t angry about it.”

Hinata chuckled, shaking his head. The action struck Tobio as incredibly out of character.

“Well, its kind of hard to be, I guess. I had a feeling something like this was gonna happen.”

“You did?” Tobio asked.

“Of course. Its what always happens. We go to take a step forward, and your stride is always so much longer than mine. You’re always finding a way to one up me, somehow. I wasn’t thinking Olympics level big but… you know. It was gonna be something.”

Tobio stared at Hinata, shocked. Hinata was not supposed to admit that Tobio was better than him. He was never supposed to admit Tobio was better than him, even if it was undeniably true.

But then Hinata finally turned his head to meet Tobio’s eyes, and all the the melancholy was gone from his expression. The softened edges had hardened once again into something fierce, something determined.

Something that made Tobio’s chest ache.

“Its not gonna be like that forever though,” Hinata told him, “You better not get complacent, because I’m gonna catch up to you. No matter if it takes a year, ten years, or twenty, I’m gonna catch up. Just you wait.”

Tobio felt an answering grin curl across his face, probably one of the ones that Hinata always told him made him look like he was planning to kill someone.

“I know. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Aw, Yama, that was almost sappy, but that ‘I’m about to murder someone in cold blood’ smile you’ve got going on makes it sound threatening instead,” Hinata told him, smirking.

Tobio lunged a hand out to jab Hinata in the ribs, an attack he wasn’t able to doge properly while walking his bike.

“Have you heard back from any of the universities you applied to yet?” Tobio asked while Hinata coughed and rubbed ruefully at his side.

“Not yet,” Hinata said when he recovered, “But we’ve still got plenty of time before graduation. I’m sure one of them will get back to me soon. A good one. Probably even several good ones.”

Tobio hummed in agreement, and they fell into a comfortable silence for a while as they walked, the only sound their foot steps, the clicking of Hinata’s bike, and the insects singing in the fields.

“Are you scared?” Hinata suddenly asked into the silence.

Tobio huffed out a disbelieving laugh, wrinkling his nose.

“Scared? Why would I be scared?”

“Well… I mean, its the Olympics Kageyama. A normal person would at least be a little nervous, you know?” Hinata told him, sounding exasperated.

A normal person. Tobio considered that, turning his attention inward. Did he feel scared? No. Fear happened when things went wrong. And getting an invitation to play nationally? That was the very thing Tobio had dreamed of all his life. There was nothing wrong about that.

But even as he thought that, the back of his throat prickled coldly.

Tobio frowned, confused. The idea of playing at the national level didn’t scare him, so where was this prickle of fear coming from? It seemed completely out of place. This would be a big change in Tobio’s life, But advancing in the world of volleyball had never been a thing that scared him.

“I’m not scared,” Tobio finally said definitively, hoping that if he made the words sound confident enough it would chase the odd chill away, “Its everything I’ve ever wanted. I couldn’t be looking forward to it more.”

“Yeah,” Hinata agreed, “I guess I can’t argue with that.”

The two of them had reached the intersection in the road where Tobio would turn one way to head towards his neighborhood, and Hinata would hop on his bike and ride the other way, heading over the mountain to make his way home.

“Well… I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Hinata said, hiking one leg up to straddle his bike.

“Yeah… see you tomorrow,” Tobio said. He turned down his road, and began to walk, but he had only gotten a couple of meters before Hinata called out to him again.

“Kageyama!”

Tobio turned.

Hinata was on his bike but was standing with one foot propped against the ground, keeping himself in place. He met Tobio’s eyes in the dark, and Tobio could once again see that small edge of melancholy in his expression.

“I’m really happy for you, you know that? I really really am,” Hinata said, “You’re the greatest volleyball player in our year. If anyone deserved this, it was you.”

“...Well of course,” Tobio responded after a moment, his throat tight, “It was really the only logical decision. They’d be idiots not to offer me a spot after all.”

“Asshole!” Hinata laughed, glaring at Tobio in rebuke, “You can at least pretend to be a bit humble about it, Ego-yama!”

Tobio grinned, finding that he much preferred Hinata’s glare over his melancholy.

“Don’t ride off a cliff and die on your way home, alright dumbass?” he said, turning around and walking in the opposite direction.

“Maybe I will! Maybe I’ll do it just to spite you! Then you’ll be sorry!” Hinata called after him, and then Tobio heard the sound of Hinata kicking off the ground and the clicking of his bike as he rode away.

Tobio looked up as he walked, the stars over head twinkling down on him. The night was quieter now, without Hinata walking beside him.

That cold fear in his throat stabbed deeper.

Tobio’s face twisted into a grimace, and he swallowed a couple of times to try to clear the feeling. Why was he feeling this way? He’d gotten the best news of his life today. He had no reason to be feeling afraid of anything at all.

He delved deeper into himself, rolling the emotion around in his mouth, trying to understand. Was he really scared about playing at the professional level, like Hinata said? No, when he thought about that, just that, about playing volleyball at a higher level against more strong players, all he could feel was excited anticipation. This fear is something separate, but related some how. Tobio pressed himself into it, and abruptly the image of Hinata’s smiling face flashed through his mind.

“So I… guess this means we won’t be going to the same university after all, huh?”

Tobio stopped walking.

It was that same fear he had felt before, in his room with Hinata when they had been researching universities. The fear of him and Hinata going their separate ways.

Tobio’s frown deepened.

Joining the V-league meant that he would no longer be playing on the same team as Hinata. And for some reason that is making him afraid.

Tobio felt a stab of hot frustration. Really? That’s where this feeling is coming from? That was so mind-numbingly stupid. Had he really gotten so used to playing with Hinata, so used to their partnership, that he was afraid of playing without him?

Tobio felt disappointment in himself well up inside him. Sure, he liked playing with Hinata, their super quick was exciting and thrilling and great for throwing off blockers. If Tobio is being completely honest with himself, he would say that tossing to Hinata is just a little bit more fun than tossing to anyone else he had ever tossed to. Him and Hinata worked well together, that was just a basic fact.

But had he really let himself form a reliance on that connection? How had he let that happen? When had he let that happen? Had he really been so careless?

Tobio clenched his hands into fists, and continued walking.

He couldn’t allow his partnership with Hinata hold him back from getting better and moving forward. Hinata had been the first one out of the two of them to suggest that they might both be able to get stronger by playing apart. Tobio had denied it at the time, but what if Hinata was right? What if they really had gotten too reliant on each other? Not just on Hinata’s end, but on Tobio’s?

The thought seemed ridiculous, but Tobio couldn’t think of anything else that could possibly be the cause of this strange fear he was feeling. God, how could he have been so careless?

Tobio gritted his teeth and sped up, jogging instead of walking so that the sound of his feet striking the ground rattled his body, hoping it would help shake the unpleasant thoughts loose.

When they graduated high school, him and Hinata would be going their separate ways. That was simply a fact now, and it was one Tobio would have to accept. Somehow, in his mind, Hinata and volleyball had become extensions of each other. Hinata meant volleyball, and volleyball meant Hinata, and now that was something that was trying to hold him back.

Tobio could not allow that to happen. If he was going to keep moving forward and getting stronger, he could not allow Hinata and volleyball to feel inseparable from each other. He couldn’t be attached to Hinata in that way.

It felt uncomfortably like taking a pair of scissors to his own chest and cutting a piece of himself in two, but Tobio hardened his resolved and forced the blades through anyway.

With that uncomfortable emotion seemingly untangled, Tobio resolved once again to set the whole issue out of his mind. High school wasn’t over yet. The Spring Tournament was just a week away now, and Tobio couldn't allow for any distractions. He would keep practicing, keep getting stronger, and he and Hinata would carry their team to nationals once again. That was the only thing that mattered.

***

Karasuno did not make it to nationals during the spring tournament that year.

They got close. They made it all the way to the final round of the preliminaries. But in their last match they were defeated.

Everything had been going so well, too. The team was working together far more smoothly than they had been at the beginning of the year, moving like a well oiled machine, perfectly in sync. They completely wiped the floor with their opponents in practically every match leading up to their last. Even the ones that had been close ended with the decided victory going to Karasuno.

They were the favorite to go to nationals that year. Tobio heard it, whispered in rumors in the halls and spoken aloud on the local news that covered the high school matches in their prefecture. It made pride bloom through him, like drinking something warm and sweet. The days when their team had been referred to as the fallen champions and the flightless crows were long behind them now. Karasuno was a powerhouse once more, and everyone knew it.

But it all fell through their fingers, in that final match.

The match had been against Aoba Johsai. God damned Aoba Johsai of all schools. Even though Oikawa Tooru had long since moved on, the fellow powerhouse school was still as strong as ever, and a loss against them still stung particularly badly for Tobio.

But it wasn’t the loss itself that hurt the most. No, what hurt the most was that Tobio knew that Karasuno should have won that match. Aoba Johsai was strong, but matched player to player, team to team, Karasuno should have had the advantage. Karasuno should have won.

No, it was not the loss itself that hurt the most.

The thing that hurt the most was that Tobio knew exactly how they had lost.

And they had lost because of Hinata.

Looking back, Tobio’s first warning sign that things were about to go horribly wrong came before the match even started. The team had claimed a patch of hallway floor against the wall near the gym, waiting to be called out to begin their warm ups before the match. The air around the team was thick with tension. There were nerves, yes, especially among the first years, but there was a feeling of excitement around them as well. This was it, their final hurdle they needed to clear to claim their ticket to nationals. All they had to do was win this last match, and they were confident that they could. All their training, all their work, every match they had already won, it was all leading up to this.

Tobio had been feeling good, that day, right before the match. He’d been feeling confident. That sense of pride had still been sloshing around headily in his veins. He knew that as long as everyone kept a clear head and played their part, that they could win this match and move forward.

But it was only then, right before the match began, that Tobio noticed that Hinata was acting strangely.

He had been uncharacteristically quiet that day, but Tobio had long gotten used to Hinata meditating before a match to keep his nerves at bay. He used old techniques he had learned from Asahi-san back in their first year to calm himself. He’d sit on the floor with his back against the wall, his hands folded in his lap, his eyes closed. When Tobio asked what exactly it was he was doing in those moments, Hinata always just said he was “visualizing” and refused to elaborate. Tobio had always felt skeptical over how well such a thing was supposed to work, but then again, he himself had never felt nervous before a match. If it helped Hinata play better, then he was happy to leave the orange haired spiker to his odd rituals.

But as he glanced down at him now, Tobio realized that Hinata wasn’t meditating today. He was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall as always, and his hands were folded in his lap, but his eyes were not closed. They were staring straight ahead, his gaze… almost glassy. as if he were seeing nothing at all even though his eyes were open.

Tobio frowned.

“Hey,” He said, trying to get Hinata’s attention.

Hinata didn’t move.

“Hey,” Tobio repeated, irritated now at being ignored. He kicked his foot lightly against Hinata’s knee, causing the boy to flinch.

“You aren’t freaking out, are you? I thought you’d grown out of that by now,” Tobio prodded him.

Hinata’s gaze drifted up to Tobio, as if just realizing he was there.

Tobio froze.

Though Hinata had moved his gaze away from the wall across from them and was now looking up at Tobio, his eyes were just as empty, just as sightless, as if he weren’t seeing Tobio at all. His normally bright brown eyes gone dull and foggy, like they had tarnished somehow while Tobio hadn’t been watching.

Then, Hinata flinched a second time, as though Tobio had kicked him again, and his vision cleared slightly.

“Ah- well, you know, maybe a little,” Hinata said, his expression stretching into a bashful smile that didn’t quite meet his tarnished eyes. He quickly shifted his gaze away from Tobio, back towards the wall, as if hoping to hide whatever it was his eyes might betray from him.

“Its just nerves. Nothing I can’t handle,” He said, but as he spoke his shoulders slumped, as if something had gone out of him, and his vision went glassy again as he fixed his eyes forward.

“...Nothing I can’t handle.”

Tobio frowned, something foreboding twisting his gut. He had seen Hinata’s nerves more times than he could count, had seen them even at their very worst, during their first year.

This did not look like nerves.

“Hinata-”

But before Tobio could properly interrogate Hinata about what it was that was causing him to behave so strangely, their team was called out to begin their warm ups, and the chance to speak was lost. Whatever strange emptiness had haunted Hinata’s eyes out in the hall, it seemed to have lifted from him once warm ups began. But even so, that glassy look put Tobio on edge. He resolved to keep a close eye on Hinata during their match today, even closer than he usually did, just to be safe.

They won the first set relatively easily. Relatively, of course, as Aoba Johsai didn’t let them gain any point they scored without a fight. Even despite their opponent’s efforts, Karasuno took the first set with a solid three point lead. All throughout the set, Tobio kept a close watch on Hinata, but it seemed like his fears had been unfounded. Whatever may have been bothering Hinata before the match, it did not seem to be affecting his performance at all, as he played just as well as he usually did. However, because Tobio was watching so closely, he did notice that though Hinata’s abilities were not suffering, there was a noticeable change in his behavior. He seemed to be playing with a different sort of intensity than he normally did. There was an odd, tense edge to his focus, like he was playing on a bed of nails rather than on a volleyball court. His expression was closed off, drawn in on itself with his brows furrowed, and through out the whole set, Tobio didn’t see him smile. Not once. Not even when his spikes scored them points.

If he hadn’t been certain before, there was no question now that something was bothering Hinata. But Tobio couldn’t figure out what. They had been doing incredibly well in the match so far. Whatever it was, it did not seem to be affecting his ability to play, so Tobio reluctantly resolved to put the worry out of his mind and force himself to focus completely on the match at hand. Whatever the problem was, Tobio could ask Hinata about it later.

But things took a turn for the worse in the second set.

Aoba Johsai came into the second set with a renewed sort of aggression, clearly unsatisfied with their performance in the first set and determined not to let it repeat itself. They began to play so brutally that Karasuno was quickly forced to go on the defensive. This time, Aoba Johsai claimed the victory by a lead of four points.

The moral of the team, so confident at the beginning, was starting to wane. But even so, that confidence was now replaced by a cold determination to claim the last set, and the victory, for themselves. They had not lost yet, and as long as they kept things together, Tobio knew they could still turn this around.

But Hinata, who Tobio could not help but continue to watch as the second set went on, was starting to become a concern. Towards the end of the set, as it became clearer and clearer that Aoba Johsai was going to take it for themselves, Hinata’s movements had started to become more erratic, more frantic. Tobio could see him starting to slip, and it was beginning to become concerning. The last point that won Aoba Johsai the set was scored when Tobio tossed the ball to Hinata, and Hinata swung a fraction of a second to early, missing the chance to spike, leaving the ball to fall uselessly onto their side of the court.

Tobio was starting to feel rather alarmed now. It wasn’t like Hinata to completely miss a spike, not these days. The rest of their teammates tried to reassure Hinata, telling him that bad luck couldn’t be helped, everyone messed up sometimes, but Tobio could not help but feel that the slip up had been more than just a case of bad luck. When Hinata’s feet had hit the ground after that last jump, Tobio had caught a glimpse of the expression on his face, and it had been one of deep, mortified panic. Despite their teammate’s reassurances, Tobio could tell that Hinata was taking that last miss hard. Harder than he should have been.

During the timeout before the last set started, Hinata was breathing heavily, his shoulders hunched in on himself, staring down at the ground. Tobio was done trying to ignore whatever it was that was going on. If this went on much longer, he was sure Hinata’s plays would continue to suffer because of it, and the team needed him to be playing at top capacity right now if they wanted to win the last set.

“Oi,” Tobio said, grabbing Hinata by the sleeve of his jersey and dragging him a couple of steps away from the others.

“What?” Hinata asked, a bit to sharply, his eyes flashing at Tobio.

Tobio frowned at him, and Hinata drew back a bit, looking away.

“Sorry. What?” He asked again, slightly softer this time.

“That’s what I’m trying to ask you, dumbass,” Tobio said, his frown sharpening into a glare, “Whats going on with you today? You’ve been acting strange even since before the match started. You haven’t gotten yourself sick again, have you?”

“No!” Hinata said quickly, batting off Tobio’s hand when he tried to press it against his forehead, “No, It’s… it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. I’m handling it.”

“Handling it?” Tobio snapped, “Is that what you’re calling that last spike? Handling it? If you’re not gonna tell me whats going on then you better at least get it under control, because if you make another play like that-”

“It was a mistake alright?!” Hinata suddenly snapped, rounding on Tobio with burning eyes, “Normal people make mistakes sometimes Kageyama, not everyone can be perfect like you!”

Tobio reared back like he’d been slapped.

Hinata’s eyes cooled almost the moment the words left his mouth, and regret washed over his expression.

“Yama, I- I’m sorr-”

“Perfect? I’m not asking you to be perfect asshole, I’m asking you to calm the hell down!” Tobio snapped, fisting his hand into the front of Hinata’s jersey and pulling him in close, “We need to win this set! If you don’t get you’re shit together we’re-”

“Hey!”

And suddenly coach Ukai was there, shoving Tobio and Hinata apart from each other.

“What the hell do you two thing yer’ doing? We’re in the middle of a match for god’s sake! If you two keep bickering like grade-schoolers I’m putting you both on the bench. What the hell has gotten into you two?”

“Me?” Tobio started, “hes the one who-”

“Nothing, Coach,” Hinata cut over him, “Sorry. Just- got a bit frustrated, that’s all. I’m- we’re fine.”

“Well then start acting like it, dammit,” Ukai snapped. He took a deep breath, running a hand over his face, and the next words he spoke were calmer. “We don’t have time for frustration right now, you guys still have one more set to win. Shake off the lost points you can’t get back and focus on the game that’s actually in front of you. One missed toss won’t loose you this game, but letting your frustration throw you off will.”

“Yes Coach,” Tobio and Hinata said together, and that was that.

But frustration still burned in Tobio’s chest. Why wasn’t Hinata telling him what was going on? Something was clearly wrong, why was Hinata keeping it to himself?

Ukai lead the two of them back to the others so he could go over the plan with them going into the third set. Yamaguchi cast a concerned glance over Hinata, and then shot Tobio a questioning look. So their captain had begun to pick up on Hinata’s odd behavior as well. Tobio shook his head at him, having no explanation to offer. If they didn’t know what was going on with Hinata, then there wasn’t anything they could really do about it except hope that Hinata would be able to pull himself together long enough to get them through the rest of the game.

But if Hinata’s performance in the last half of the second set was lacking, then it was absolutely catastrophic going into the third set. They managed to gain an early lead thanks to a string of Tobio’s serves, but things quickly began to go down hill from there. Hinata’s movements were just as erratic as they had been towards the end of the previous set, and he missed nearly as many spikes as he hit. Hinata’s poor form was throwing off the balance of the whole team, and they were quickly falling into a panicked sort of disarray.

In the end the final straw was when he collided with one of their second years mid air as they both went for the same spike. Neither of them were hurt, but Tobio, with a sinking feeling swallowing him whole, knew that Hinata wouldn’t be allowed to stay on the court after that. The whistle was blown, and Hinata was switched out. He did not meet Tobio’s eyes as he left the court.

Hinata spent the rest of the game on the bench.

And Karasuno lost.

They put up as good a fight as they could. Once one of their first year spikers came out to replace Hinata, the team was able to get back into sync and was able to make up some of the points they had lost. But without Tobio and Hinata’s quick, the corner stone of their offensive power, it wasn’t long before Aoba Johsai pulled ahead and left them behind in the dust.

Tobio stood on the court, his chest heaving, listening to the roar of the crowd, the cheers of the Aoba Johsai players across from him as they embraced each other, and the echo of the ball hitting the court on Karasuno’s side of the net. For the last time.

That was it. Their last battle.

They had lost.

And they had lost badly.

Tobio could feel himself shaking, could feel the world crashing down around him. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This wasn’t-

“Hey,”

Tobio flinched as a hand landed on his shoulder. He turned his head to find Tsukishima looking back at him, his eyes uncharacteristically soft around the edges.

“Come on. We need to line up.”

Tobio opened his mouth to respond, but only a gust of air escaped. He gave up and let his jaw clack shut again, settling for a stiff nod.

Everything else passed by in a blur. Tobio knew that at some point he shook hands with an Aoba Johsai player across the net, knew that they bowed to their audience and thanked them for their support, knew that their team gathered up their things and left the court, but even if he knew those things had taken place, he had no real memory of them. He felt like he was floating somewhere outside of himself, somewhere where the only thing that existed or mattered was the fact that they had lost.

It wasn’t until they were standing in the locker room changing out of their uniforms that Tobio felt himself drift back into focus. He looked around at his teammates. A couple of the first years had tears running down their faces, but were keeping their misery silent and to themselves. All around him he saw expressions of defeat and disappointment, echoing the feelings curdling inside himself.

But as he looked around the room, he realized that one face was missing.

“Where’s Hinata,” Tobio heard himself asking out loud.

“Takeda-sensei took him aside,” Yamaguchi said next to him as the captain packed his uniform into his bag, already changed. No tears ran down his face, but his shoulders were slouched, as though he were carrying the weight of their loss on his back. “He was… taking it real hard. Hinata was. Takeda is trying to get him to calm down, I think.”

“...Right,” Tobio said, feeling himself dip back into senselessness. He couldn’t imagine how it must have felt, watching the team loose from the bench.

Watching the team loose because he had been taken out.

Because he hadn’t been good enough.

And suddenly, a horrible, burning feeling welled up in Tobio’s throat, like his blood had turned to fire and was scorching him from the inside out. Like his insides had been carved away and replaced by a nest of buzzing hornets. Like the tide coming in to shore with the force of a crashing tsunami.

He heard himself shout, a single wordless bark of helpless rage, felt his body turn as he reared back and punched the locker next to him as hard as he could, causing a sharp metallic clang to ring through the changing room.

“K-Kageyama!” He heard Yamaguchi shout in alarm, but if he said anything else Tobio didn’t hear him. He sank to the ground until he was hunched over on his knees, tasting salt in his mouth as hot tears rolled down his face.

They had lost. They had lost because of Hinata.

The next time Tobio came back to himself, he was standing with the team next to the bus, waiting for his turn to board so they could return to school. Yachi was standing close by his side, not touching him but close enough to touch if she had reached out. Tobio glanced at her, wondering when she had appeared next to him. She offered him a sad smile. Her eyes were slightly red around the edges, but if she had cried there were no tears left in her eyes now. She didn’t say anything, didn’t try to tell him that it had been a good game, didn’t try to console him. He was grateful for that. Her familiar presence calmed him, somewhat. If only a little.

As the rest of the team boarded the bus ahead of them, Yachi turned to Ukai, looking nervous.

“Um, coach, have Takeda-sensei and uh- and Hinata come back yet?”

Ukai shook his head. His expression was closed off, and Tobio couldn’t guess what he might be thinking.

“Don’t worry, we won’t leave without them. They’ll be along any second now. You two go ahead and get on the bus, we’ll- ah, wait, here they are,” Ukai said, his attention shifting away from Yachi to look past her.

Tobio turned around to, clenching his hands at his sides.

Takeda was approaching them, with Hinata following along on his heels.

Hinata’s face was down turned, hiding most of his expression. Tobio felt that burning tide rising in his throat once more, and for one horrible moment he had the impulse to split his knuckles open again on Hinata’s face, just like he already had punching the locker. He wanted to grab the boy, wanted to shake him, wanted to scream.

Idiot idiot idiot. We lost because of you. What the hell were you thinking?

But then, as if he could feel Tobio’s eyes on him, Hinata raised his head and met his gaze.

His face was red and blotchy, and Tobio knew in an instant that he had been crying. There was a depth of misery in his eyes that Tobio had never seen before, the sort that hurt far past the skin, all the way down past the bones, all the way to the deepest depths of the spirit.

A punch would feel like nothing, in the face of that pain. There was nothing Tobio’s rage could say to him that Hinata didn’t already know.

An awful, sick feeling seeped into Tobio’s stomach. His split knuckles throbbed.

He looked away.

Him and Hinata did not sit next to each other on the bus. Hinata sat at the very back, away from everyone else, and their teammates had the good sense to leave him to himself. The drive back to school was silent. When they got there, they had a brief team meeting where both coaches said some words to them that Tobio did not hear, before telling them that practice would be canceled the next day to give them some time to rest, and sending them home.

But practice wasn’t canceled for the third years, because there would be no more practice for them at all. They were done. That was it. Their last battle was over.

Hinata was the first out the door, and Tobio didn’t have a chance to say anything to him at all. He thought that maybe that was for the best. He wasn’t sure what sort of things he would have ended up saying, had he had the chance to talk to Hinata that evening.

He walked home alone in the dark, and the night was very very quiet.

***

Tobio did not sleep that night. He lay in bed on his back, staring up at his dark ceiling, the image of Hinata’s misery plastered firmly on the insides of his skull. There was still anger in him somewhere, swimming around just beneath the surface of his skin, but it was accompanied by a desperate, miserable sort of confusion now. He knew how they had lost, but he still didn’t understand why. What was Hinata refusing to tell him? What could have happened that would make him play so poorly he practically sabotaged their match? Tobio knew Hinata. He wouldn’t do such a thing based on carelessness alone. Something was wrong with him, and whatever it was, he wasn’t sharing it with Tobio, and Tobio didn’t understand why.

When his alarm went off the next morning, Tobio had not slept a wink. He shut the alarm off, and got out of bed anyway. The lack of sleep didn’t matter. He’d just nap through his classes if he needed to. The only thing that mattered was that he needed to talk to Hinata. Tobio needed to know. He needed to know why they had lost.

But when Tobio got to school, there was no sign of his spiker anywhere other than Hinata’s bike already locked in the bike rack. Tobio searched for him, checking the gym first and finding it deserted, then trying the vending machines and then the bathrooms, but by then the bell rang for the start of first period, and he had been unable to find Hinata. He kicked himself internally for not thinking to check Hinata’s classroom while he still had time. He resolved to find Hinata during lunch break instead.

Tobio slept through his first handful of classes, and when lunch time rolled around, he immediately went to check Hinata’s classroom. But there was no sign of him there either. He asked some of the other students in the room, and they told him that Hinata had left the moment the lunch bell had rang, and they had no idea where he had gone.

Tobio began to grow even more frustrated now. Hinata was avoiding him. He was sure of it. First he had refused to tell Tobio what was wrong, and now he was avoiding him.

Tobio left Hinata’s classroom, and began to wander the school aimlessly, keeping a lookout for a flash of wild orange hair. He checked the gym again, but still it was empty. He ended up running into Yamaguchi and Tsukishima first, sitting together on the stairs that led up to the club room.

“Hey. Have either of you seen Hinata?” He asked as he approached.

The two of them glanced at each other, and then Yamaguchi shook his head, frowning.

“No, we haven’t. I just assumed he was with you. Are you... sure he even came to school today?” Yamaguchi asked.

“His bike was parked in the rack this morning,” Tobio told him.

Yamaguchi’s frown deepened. Him and Tsukishima shared another glance that Tobio wasn’t sure how to intemperate, before Yamaguchi turned back to him.

“Maybe he just wants some time to himself. He took the loss yesterday pretty hard. Maybe it would be best to just leave him alone,” Yamaguchi said.

It was Tobio’s turn to frown now. He wasn’t sure what to say to that. Honestly, Tobio didn’t give a shit if Hinata wanted to be alone. He was hiding something from Tobio, and Tobio was sick and tired of wondering what it was.

“...Just let me know if you see him,” Tobio said, before he turned and started to walk away.

“Hey.”

Tobio looked back over his shoulder to see that Tsukishima had stood up and taken a couple of steps forward, his eyes on Tobio.

“What?” Tobio asked, his voice a bit sharp around the edges. He’d never had much patience for Tsukishima’s bullshit at the best of times. Right now was decidedly not the best of times.

“Don’t-” Tsukishima sighed, his face twisting like the words he was going to say were causing him physical pain, “He knows, alright? Hinata knows he fucked up. Biting his head off over it isn’t going to change what happened.”

Tobio blinked, taken aback. It almost sounded like Tsukishima was… defending Hinata? What the hell? Since when did he do things like that?

“I wasn’t planning to bite his head off,” Tobio snapped, “I just need to talk to him.”

“When it comes to you, those two things tend to mean the same thing.”

Tobio opened his mouth to refute that statement, but no words came out. He gave up, snapping his mouth shut, and walked away quickly so that neither of them had time to say anything else to him.

A minute later, he ran into Yachi near the vending machines, who as it turned out, was looking for Hinata as well.

“I checked his classroom, but the other students in there said he wasn’t around,” Yachi told him, “I haven’t been able to find him anywhere. I was just about to go check the gym.”

So it wasn’t just Tobio that Hinata was avoiding. He wasn’t sure if that made him feel any better.

“Don’t bother,” Tobio told her, “I already checked. He’s not there.”

“Oh…” Yachi said, looking put out. As if through some sort of unspoken agreement, they both ended up sitting on a bench together, Yachi pulling a wrapped sandwich from her pack for lunch. Tobio hadn’t brought any lunch with him. Sleep deprived and deep in the haze that had been haunting his mind all day, he hadn’t thought to pack anything. Yachi seemed to realize this, and offered him half her sandwich, which he reluctantly accepted, even though he didn’t really feel hungry.

“Maybe he’s not avoiding us on purpose,” Yachi said through a mouthful of sandwich, “Maybe he just wants to be alone right now.”

“Yamaguchi said the same thing,” Tobio told her.

“Kageyama, do you… know what’s going on with him? He usually doesn’t act like this, and that match… He seems really upset,” Yachi said.

“No. He hasn’t told me anything. He won’t talk to me,” Tobio told her, taking a bite of his half of the sandwich. It tasted like ash in his mouth.

“...Are you… angry with him?” Yachi asked.

Tobio looked at her, and found her regarding him with a look that he guessed landed somewhere between nervous and sympathetic. Tobio swallowed his bite of sandwich.

“I…” Tobio started. He had planned to say yes, yes I am angry. I’m angrier than I can ever remember feeling in my entire life. I’m so angry I want to grab him by his hair and shake him until he’s forced to tell me what the hell is going on.

But the words caught in his burning throat. He wasn’t sure why.

Tobio never had been good with emotions. He’d never been good with voicing those emotions either.

“...I don’t know,” Tobio said, finally, “I don’t know what I’m feeling.”

It felt like a lie, but it also felt like the truth. Tobio didn’t know what to think about that.

Tobio felt like maybe he didn’t know anything anymore.

But Yachi seemed to understand. She nodded, and the two of them ate the rest of their lunch in silence.

The lunch break ended and they went their separate ways. Yachi stood up on her tiptoes and patted him on his shoulder before she hurried off. He found it in himself to appreciate the gesture.

The rest of Tobio’s classes passed in a blur. Teachers talked, worksheets and homework were passed around, but Tobio watched it all go by as if through a thick fog. More often than not he just watched the clock, waiting for the day to be over.

When the last bell finally rang, Tobio’s feet carried him towards the gym. It seemed a bit pointless. He wasn’t technically a member of the volleyball team anymore, and even if he had been, practice was canceled today. But his feet carried him there anyway. Maybe he was hoping to check one last time before he went home to see if Hinata was there.

He did not think Hinata would be there.

But when he opened the door to the gym, to his surprise, it also wasn’t empty. Yamaguchi was there, and so was Tsukishima, and Yachi too, along with all of the first and second years, setting up the net and fetching carts of volleyballs like it was just another normal day of practice. Yamaguchi, standing with Tsukishima not far away from the gym door when Tobio entered, turned and smiled when he saw him.

“Hey,” He said simply, as if it were any other day of the year.

“What are all of you doing here?” Tobio asked.

“What does it look like? We’re getting ready for practice,” Yamaguchi said, “Its not technically an official practice day, so… we thought we’d join in, if at least one more time. Make a few more good memories, before the year is over. What are you doing here?”

Practice. That sounded nice.

But he knew it wasn’t why he had come.

“I was looking for Hinata,” Tobio said. One glance around the room made it clearly apparent that he wasn’t here. Bright orange hair wasn’t exactly hard to miss.

“...He’s not here,” Tukishima said dryly, pointing out the obvious, “Were you never able to find him during lunch?”

“No,” Tobio said.

His throat burned.

“Well… do you wanna join in? Maybe Hinata will show up later,” Yachi said, coming up beside him.

Tobio knew Hinata would not be showing up on his own.

“Yes, I’ll join” Tobio said immediately, “But not yet. I’ll be right back.”

If Hinata wasn’t here, then there would only be one other place that he would be right now.

Before any of the others had time to question him, Tobio tuned on his heel and walked back out of the gym. The moment he was outside, he started running.

His feet carried him towards the bike rack. And just like he had been expecting, finally, finally, he caught sight of the flash of bright orange hair he had been looking for all day.

“Hey!” Tobio snapped as he approached. Hinata went completely still, his hands freezing where they fiddled with the lock on his bike.

Tobio stopped several paces away.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He asked.

Hinata slowly straightened up, and turned his head to look at him. He was hunched in on himself, looking like he was waiting for Tobio to explode like a bomb.

“Kageyama-” he started quietly.

Tobio didn’t let him finish.

“I said, what the hell do you think you’re doing. Everyone else is in the gym already. You’re late,” Tobio growled, his hands curled into fists at his sides to keep them from shaking.

Hinata blinked at him, and then turned his face away so Tobio couldn’t see it.

“Yeah, I know. I thought they probably would be.”

“Then what the hell are you doing out here?” Tobio asked.

“I don’t think… I deserve to be there,” Hinata said, so quietly Tobio almost didn’t hear him.

“What?”

“I said I don’t deserve to be there!” Hinata snapped loudly, his shoulders hunching in tighter, “We lost yesterday because of me Kageyama! We lost because of me. I failed the team. I...”

The venom left his voice, and the last words he spoke were small and quiet.

“I failed you.”

Tobio stared at him. At the back of his orange haired head. And something inside of Tobio snapped.

He closed the distance between them in three paces, and grabbed Hinata by his shoulders in a vise like grip and wrenched him around so that the shorter boy was forced to look at him.

“I already know that!” He roared, his blood pounding in his ears, “I was there dumbass, I saw the whole thing! I don’t care that we lost, alright? I don’t give a shit, I just want to know why! What’s been going on with you? Why are you acting like this, why are you avoiding me?”

Hinata stared back at him, looking aghast.

“What do you mean you don’t care that we lost?” Hinata snapped, looking just as angry as Tobio felt, “Bullshit you don’t care! That’s the only thing you care about! Just hit me already alright? Punch me in the face, push me over, I know you want to, just get it over with!”

Tobio froze, just starring at the boy he had trapped by his shoulders, and suddenly, like a hole being teared into a balloon, he felt his anger sputter out of him. He grasped after it, taken off guard by its sudden retreat, but once it was gone it didn’t return.

I don’t care that we lost.

That wasn’t true. Of course that wasn’t true, why had he said that? But still, for some reason, in that moment, it just… didn’t feel important anymore.

He let go of Hinata’s shoulders, and took a step back.

“What are you doing?” Hinata asked him, staring at him with an almost betrayed look on his face, “What are you waiting for? Hit me.”

“I’m not going to hit you,” Tobio told him.

“Why the hell not?” Hinata snapped at him, “We lost because of me. Aren’t you angry? I know you want to hit me, alright? Its fine, I know I deserve it, just-”

“Hinata,” Tobio said. He stepped forward again, reaching for Hinata, but this time instead of grabbing the boy by the shoulders he placed a hand on either side of his head to hold him still. Hinata jolted when Tobio touched him, but once Tobio’s hands were in place he didn’t pull away. Tobio tilted Hinata’s head upward so he was forced to meet Tobio’s gaze.

“Tell me what’s going on with you,” Tobio said firmly, “Tell me what’s wrong.”

For a moment Hinata just looked at him, his tawny brows drawn together, his normally bright honey-brown eyes dark pools of misery. Then he sighed deeply, and it seemed like when all the air left his lungs, all the fight he had left him as well.

“Do you remember...” He stared slowly, “When we looked up universities to apply to together? On your laptop when we were supposed to be doing homework?” Hinata said.

Tobio blinked. Whatever he had been expecting Hinata to say, it had not been that.

“Of course I remember,” Tobio said.

“I got responses. From all the ones I applied too,” Hinata said.

“You did?” Tobio asked, so surprised that he let go of Hinata’s face, “When? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Freed from Tobio’s grip, Hinata’s head drooped, and he stared at the ground in between them.

“The response from the last university I applied to came in the day before yesterday. The night before our match...”

He paused for a moment before he continued.

“...I didn’t meet the standards to get a scholarship,” He finally finished, “Not for that one. Not for any of them.”

Tobio stared at him. The school grounds around them were perfectly quiet, aside from Tobio’s own heart beat thudding in his ears.

“What?” Tobio asked, so quietly he almost didn’t hear the words over his own pulse, “Why the hell not?”

“They don’t offer volleyball scholarships to anyone below a certain height range,” Hinata said. His voice had gone strange, and he said the words dispassionately, like they were talking about the weather or the morning news or something else that didn’t matter, his expression still hidden by his drooping head, “And tuition for any of them would be way to expensive without a scholarship, even if I was some how able to pass the entrance exams, so-”

“That’s bullshit!”

Hinata flinched and finally whipped his head up to look at Tobio, his eyes blown wide.

“So what if you don’t meet some stupid height requirement? Height has never mattered to you, it shouldn’t matter to them either! They’re idiots, all of them, if they think that's a worthy reason to reject you!” Tobio said, practically shouting the words.

Hinata stared at him, looking shocked. A long moment passed, in which Tobio went back to listening to his own pulse drumming in his ears. And then, to Tobio’s confusion and dismay, suddenly Hinata’s breath hitched, and he began to cry.

“...Thanks ‘yama… That-that’s really nice of you to say,” He sobbed, his shoulders hunching inward as he raised an arm to wipe at his watering eyes.

Tobio’s breath hitched as a cold, awful fear clogged his throat. And with a sudden strike of clarity, Tobio realized that no, he had not been angry. Ever since the moment Karasuno had lost, the horrible burning feeling that had consumed Tobio had not been anger at all. It had never been anger.

It had been fear. Fear so deep and cold that it burned like fire.

Hinata looked tired. He looked worn. He looked so hopeless in that moment that a sudden, terrible, horrifying thought creeped its way into Tobio’s head.

“Hey, quit that!” Tobio snapped, lunging forward and grabbing Hinata by his hair, tangling his fingers between the orange strands and squeezing tightly.

“Gahwa!” Hinata squawked in pain and surprise, removing his arm from where it was hiding his face so that he could grip Tobio’s arm with both hands, trying to shake him off,

“Kageyama! What the hell, cut that out!”

“No, you cut that out!” Tobio growled, leaning down so he could force Hinata to look him in the eyes, “What’s gotten into you, crying over some stupid college applications? What, is this it? This is the reason why you played so shit yesterday? All because some stupid university told you you couldn’t play just because you’re short? That's never stopped you before, what’s so different this time!?”

The two of them stood staring at each other in silence, locked together by Hinata’s grip on Tobio’s arm and Tobio’s grip on Hinata’s hair. Tobio realized that he was breathing really hard, like he had been running for hours, and Hinata just looked at him. The look of pain and annoyance drained away from his face, leaving him looking so very, very tired.

“...I don’t know Kageyama. Its just so… its so frustrating,” He said, his voice horribly soft, “Its always the same. Every step of the way, its always the same thing, over and over again. And you- you’re going to the Olympics Kageyama. You’re so good you don’t even need to go to university and I’m just… so far behind,”

Hinata pulled away, and Tobio let him, releasing his grip on Hinata’s hair. Hinata took a couple of steps back, massaging at his head ruefully, his eyes closed as he let out a small, tired sigh.

“When that last rejection came in, it just felt… it felt so final. They’d seen me, and they had decided I wasn’t worth their time. That was all I could think about, the whole match. All this time, all this work… It didn’t make a difference to them. Even if we made it to nationals this year, they’d still only see a too-short player who could only play well because he had a genius setter tossing to him. God, ‘Yama, I- I’m so sorry. I let you down, I let everyone down-”

Hinata’s breath hitched again, and his pressed his hands over his eyes as if attempting to block the tears from flowing.

“...No matter how far I go, no matter how hard I train, someone is still gonna look at me and only see how many centimeters I’m lacking. That's how its always been. I thought that if I could just get us through that match, maybe it would prove something, even if just to myself, even if just to you, but I… I fucked it. I fucked all up and now I haven’t proved anything to anyone. If anything I’ve just proved them all right, that I don’t deserve a chance… That I’m not worth anyone’s time.”

Tobio’s throat constricted.

No, He wanted to say, No no no, please, you can’t do this to me, you can’t leave too-

“So what?” he said instead.

Hinata opened his eyes.

“W-what?” he asked.

“So what? Is that gonna be enough to scare you off? All this work, all this time… You’re just gonna let these last three years go to waste? That’s it? You’re giving up just like that? What about all those promises you made? About making it to the world stage? Were those all just talk? I thought you were better than that, Hinata,” Tobio said, his voice rasping like his tongue was coated in sandpaper.

Please. Please be better than that.

Hinata stared at him. He stared at him with his wide, shining eyes, his face wet with tears.

And then, he laughed.

It wasn’t his usual laugh. It wasn’t high or loud or wild, but he laughed. Softly and a bit bitterly, but he laughed.

He looked at Tobio, and though his eyes were watery and tired, they were bright too.

“Seriously? That’s what you’re worried about? I didn’t say anything about giving up asshole!”

Hinata sighed and rubbed his hands over his eyes again, clearing away the rest of his tears.

“...Just because I’m upset doesn’t mean I’m giving up, alright? I just… I’m gonna find something. Somewhere that will take me. Even if I have to start back at the bottom again,”

Hinata’s jaw clenched, and even though his brown eyes were still damp with tears, they were as hard as steel.

“I’m not giving up. I’m not letting you win that easily.”

And suddenly, like the sun peaking out from behind a storm cloud, Tobio was no longer afraid. It didn’t matter if none of the top universities wanted him, didn’t matter if he hadn’t been scouted by a professional team. Hinata had never had the luxury of the easy road, had fought for every single step he’d ever had to take, and he’d never backed down before. Not once.

But still… Tobio couldn’t help but be angry on his friend's behalf. He had seen first hand just how hard Hinata worked, just how much he had improved over these last three years. A firework that had refused to sputter out, still shinning brighter than the sun even now. He’d proven himself to be a capable player, no matter his lack of height, and proven over and over again that he had what it took to stand on the court, but still, after all this time, he was still fighting tooth and nail for every step forward.

Tobio sighed, letting all the fear-tainted air in his lungs escape him, making him feel lighter.

“Okay,” he said, “Good.”

Hinata blinked at him.

“I- you- What?” he stuttered.

“Good,” Tobio said again, “Now come on. We’re already late for practice, the Captain’ll be pissed if we miss it all together.”

Hinata stared at him, looking confused.

“...That’s it? You seriously aren’t going to hit me? Aren’t you angry?”

“Maybe. Probably at least a bit… Maybe a lot, actually,” Tobio said, “But you’ll have to settle for getting your hair pulled. Come on. If you really aren’t giving up, you’re gonna need all the practice you can get.”

Tobio turned away and began to walk in the direction of the gym. For a gut wrenching moment, he heard nothing, but then there was a quick patter of foot steps behind him as Hinata ran after him and fell into step beside him.

“...I’m sorry,” he said after a moment.”

“You already said that,” Tobio reminded him.

“It’s still true.”

“You’ll just have to make it up to me then,” Tobio said, “I’m tossing to you a hundred and fifty times today. You better hit all of them.”

“...Yeah. Okay.”

***

Despite Hinata’s determination, the next couple of weeks clearly weren’t easy for him. He hid it well, kept up a brave face, but Tobio could see how much it was weighing on him. He was quieter, more focused, more intense, and he didn’t smile as often. Tobio missed that smile, even if he would rather get flayed alive than admit that out loud. The days passed and still Hinata stayed somber and focused. They still had schoolwork and tests to complete and despite how insignificant a few annoying tests seemed now that Tobio knew he’d be jumping right into the professional world the moment he got out of high school, his parents and Takeda were both annoyingly insistent that he still study and focus on making sure he managed to scrape by with enough passing grades to actually graduate. So, reluctantly, that’s what he focused most of his time on. Besides, now that they didn’t have volleyball practice any more, it wasn’t like he lacked time to study.

Despite the fact that he would have really liked to, Tobio avoided talking about the offer he had gotten around Hinata. There wouldn’t be any good in rubbing salt in the wound that was the fact that Tobio got to go pro the moment he graduated, while Hinata was still struggling to figure out where he would be going at all. Tobio constantly wanted to ask Hinata if he’d made any progress in his search, but he trusted Hinata to tell him when he found something. Tobio badgering him about it wouldn’t make that happen any faster, only serve to continue to remind Hinata that he hadn’t found anything yet. It was getting excruciating though, all the waiting.

Then, finally, something changed.

It was a Monday morning. Tobio had spent the weekend catching up on homework since he had absolutely nothing better to do (and that was saying something), but the whole time his worry over Hinata’s situation pricked at the back of his mind like a particularly sharp popcorn kernel stuck between his back teeth that he simply couldn’t pick out no matter how hard he tried. He’d been expecting to receive a message from Hinata, asking to train together in the absence of school practice or maybe just study for their upcoming tests together, but no message had come. In fact, he’d heard no word from Hinata at all. This wasn’t necessarily unusual at this point, the two of them had recently been very busy with their respective preparations for graduation after all, but Tobio would have liked a chance to see his friend all the same.

Tobio left the house even earlier than he usually did that morning to ensure that he got to the club room first. Even though the two of them were technically no longer members of the volleyball team, coach Ukai had kindly agreed to let them hold onto their key so they could keep practicing in the gym before everyone else got there in the morning. As Tobio entered the school grounds however, he was greeted with the sight of Hinata locking his bike into the bike rack right at that moment, several feet up ahead of him.

Hinata looked up and met Tobio’s eyes at almost the exact moment Tobio spotted him. There was a beat that lasted hardly half a second, and then Hinata bolted.

“Hey!” Tobio cried out, charging after him. He pushed his legs as fast as they could physically go, but Hinata’s head start had decided the competition the moment it had begun. Even so, Tobio managed to close most of the distance between them, and was only a handful of steps behind when Hinata flung himself the final meter forward to the club room door, sealing his victory. The both of them collapsed on the ground then, clutching their sides and gasping to catch their breath.

“Bastard you- huff- had a head start!” Tobio gritted out, glaring at the shorter boy.

Hinata looked up at him and, to Tobio’s surprise, blinded him with a bright toothy smile, the sort of smile that Tobio hadn’t seen in weeks.

God, how he had missed that smile.

“You’re gonna have to be quicker if you want to catch up then, lazy-yama!” Hinata quipped, laughing lightly. His voice sounded different, more free, like a heavy weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and abruptly, just like that, Tobio knew that the search was over.

“What is it?” Tobio asked quickly.

“...What’s what?” Hinata asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“You found something,” Tobio said, and it wasn’t a question.

Hinata froze, and then he smiled even wider, laughed even higher and brighter, and Tobio knew he’d been correct.

“Dammit Kageyama, how did you do that? I wasn’t planning to tell you yet!” Hinata cried in dismay, but he was still laughing.

“What? Why not?” Tobio asked, offended, feeling a burning curiosity boil in his chest, “Tell me what it is!”

“No, not- Not yet,” Hinata said infuriatingly, shaking his head, “I can’t tell you, not yet. Nothing’s been finalized, but we- I found something. Coach Ukai has been helping me look into it, and I’ve been talking to my mom about it and- “

Hinata took a deep, shaky breath, like he was physically holding himself back from telling Tobio what it was.

“Nothing’s finalized yet. But I might have found something.”

Tobio wanted to grab Hinata by the hair and shake him until he spilled whatever it was he was hiding, but he bit down on that impulse before he could follow through with it. However stupid they probably were, Hinata would have his reasons for keeping whatever he had found to himself for now.

So Tobio waited. And waited. The week passed, and still Hinata didn’t tell him what it was he had found. Tobio held himself back from asking again, knowing that the stubborn orange haired nuisance would tell him whenever he was good and ready, and not a moment before. Though Hinata was no longer acting as gloomy as he had been, it would have been a lie to say he had completely gone back to normal. There was an odd nervous energy about him. He fidgeted more, even more than he usually did, and he spaced out more as well, staring off into the distance as though he were thinking really hard about something, an action that Tobio warned him he would hurt himself doing but that didn’t stop Hinata from constantly getting lost in thought anyway. So lost that Tobio sometimes had to jab him in the ribs to get him to hear anything he said. But whatever it was Hinata was risking his minimal brain cells for thinking about it so damn much, still he said nothing to Tobio to hint at what it might be.

It was that Friday afternoon when Hinata finally told him.

They were standing across from each other in Tobio’s backyard, passing a volleyball back and forth aimlessly. Hinata had asked if Tobio wanted to study for their upcoming tests together after school, and they had both ended up going to Tobio’s house, like they usually did. They’d lasted about thirty minutes before Hinata had then suggested that they head outside and practice volleyball instead. Tobio, feeling like he was starting to go cross-eyed staring down at his notebooks, had made no attempt to refuse.

“Beach volleyball,” Hinata said as he bumped the ball to Tobio.

Tobio frowned, confused, as he bumped the ball back.

“Huh?”

Hinata didn’t look at him, simply shuffled his feet slightly to the left so he could bump the ball back up again, and took a deep breath.

“The thing I found, that you asked about. I’m going to join a beach volleyball league.” He clarified, “Coach Ukai has been helping me get the details ironed out. We found out about the opportunity from Coach Washijo.”

“...Why beach volleyball?” Tobio asked, his heart pounding as he listened eagerly to the secret Hinata had finally decided to share with him. He stepped forward to bump the ball passed to him.

“In beach volleyball, you only have two people to defend your entire court. You need to be able to do everything, be good at everything,” Hinata said, “If I do this, I’ll be able to become much stronger.”

“Well, that sounds perfect then,” Tobio told him, “I didn’t even know there were any beach volleyball leagues in Japan.”

Hinata’s brow furrowed. He bumped the ball.

“That’s the thing. It’s not in Japan. It’s in Brazil.”

Tobio stumbled. He almost missed the ball, but managed to reach it in time to send it back again.

“In… In Brazil?” He asked, “Where’s that?”

“South America,” Hinata said, “I’m moving there the day after graduation. I’ll be there for two years.”

Brazil.

Day after graduation.

Two years.

An odd sensation over took Tobio then. He was abruptly reminded of a video he had seen once, something Tanaka had shown them during their second year. It had been of a sink hole opening up in the middle of a road and swallowing a car whole, its gaping maw expanding down into a dark, bottomless pit from which nothing could climb back out. At the time, watching that video he remembered it being slightly interesting, if just a bit alarming, that such a thing could just happen. That the earth could choose to open up and just swallow whatever it pleased if it felt like it. Now, Tobio wondered if this is what that car must have felt like, if cars had been capable of feeling things, falling down down down into that cold, devouring darkness.

This was it. The final nail in the coffin. It had really already been certain before, but there was absolutely no denying it now. When high school ended, Tobio and Hinata would be going their separate ways. They wouldn’t just be on different teams, occasionally seeing each other on opposite sides of the court. They wouldn’t even be in the same country.

Tobio would leave to play for Japan’s national team, and Hinata would be going to Brazil.

Tobio caught the ball instead of passing it back, holding it firmly between his palms so that he could look Hinata in the eye.

“Good,” Tobio heard himself saying, “That’ll be good for you. It’ll be the perfect opportunity for you to get stronger. I think you’re making the right choice.”

Hinata looked back at him, his expression unreadable. Tobio had never found it easy to guess what other people were thinking, but Hinata was usually different. Tobio could usually asses his mood like it was second nature, guess what he was thinking without even trying. The fact that he had no clue what Hinata was thinking in that moment was off putting.

“Its a long way away,” Hinata said, his tone of voice revealing nothing more than his expression had, “I’ve never been so far away from home before.”

“Are you scared?” Tobio asked him.

Hinata laughed then, in a soft wobbly way that edged just shy of sounding a bit hysterical, shifting his eyes away from Tobio to stare at the ground in between them.

“Yeah. Yeah I’m really scared actually,” He admitted, taking a shaky breath, “But I think… I think I need to do this. This is what I need. In order to get better. In order to get stronger.”

Hinata lifted his gaze again, looking back up at Tobio, and something strange in Tobio’s chest tightened as those sharp brown eyes locked onto his, so piercing and intense that they seemed to glow with a powerful, burning light, like a pair of miniature amber suns prepared to raze the land with their glare and incinerate any obstacle in their way, leaving nothing behind but blackened, scorched earth.

“I promised that I was going follow you to the world stage, and that I was going to beat you one day. And I’m gonna do whatever I need to in order to make that happen,” Hinata said, and Tobio could do nothing but believe him.

Tobio took a step forward, and then another, and a third, and kept walking until he had closed the gap between them and was looking down directly into those burning eyes. He pushed his hands forward to press the volleyball he held against Hinata’s chest, and held it there.

“You’re going to have to catch me first, if you’re going to beat me,” Tobio said, “So you better not waste any time. You better jump until your legs give out and receive until your arms feel like they’re about to fall off and then you better keep going even after that because I’m going to be waiting for you,”

Tobio leaned down, so close that their noses nearly brushed, and lowered his voice to a fierce whisper,

“And when you finally get there, I’m going to crush you in front of the whole world, and prove once and for all which one of us is truly the strongest.”

A full body shiver racked through Hinata’s frame, and finally his unreadable, closed off expression shattered, and he smiled. He smiled with every single one of his teeth, his burning eyes blazing and his lips pulled back into what was really closer to a snarl than a grin. Then he lifted his hands up and placed them over Tobio’s on either side of the ball, something that made the tension in Tobio’s chest squeeze even tighter.

“We’ll see about that Kageyama. We’ll see.”

Tobio inhaled sharply through his nose, and for half a moment he felt a pressure build up in the back of his throat, like he was preparing to say something else, something he wasn’t sure he’d be able to predict or control, but then in a flash Hinata snatched the ball from his hands and swept away from him, running several feet before turning back to face Tobio and holding the ball up in preparation to throw it.

“Toss if for me this time! I wanna spike it!”

Tobio felt himself smile. He couldn’t possibly imagine refusing such a request.

***

Graduation day finally arrived.

The ceremony took place in one of the larger gyms. They had all the graduating third years stand in rows in front of the stage, while the student’s families sat in chairs set up behind them. The first half of the ceremony was taken up by what felt like hours and hours of different faculty members and a few students giving long boring speeches about… something. Presumably school related. Tobio had started spacing out about three seconds into the first speech. The only time he actually payed attention was when Yachi went up on stage to talk. She had ended up getting the highest grade score out of everyone in their year, and because of that the school had decided to make her write a speech to deliver at graduation. She’d been proud of her academic accomplishment, but had lamented that she would have been a bit more slack with her grades if she had known they were going to make her deliver a speech in front of their whole year and everyone’s families because of it. She’d been incredibly nervous about the whole thing, but Tobio thought she ended up doing quite well. Her voice wavered slightly at the beginning, but grew steadier the longer she talked. Tobio had already heard the speech a hundred times at that point, because Hinata had made her rehearse it to him and Tobio every day during their lunch break for the whole week leading up to graduation to try and help ease her nerves. But he didn’t mind hearing it again. It was a good speech, as far as speeches went. Mostly because she talked a lot about her time as manager on the volleyball team and how it had helped her with her self confidence, and any speech related to volleyball was always going to be more interesting than a speech about anything else. But mostly it was a good speech because Yachi was the one giving it. He applauded with everyone else when the speech was finished and Yachi gave a quick bow before darting off the stage and returning to her spot in the rows of third years. A few rows up ahead of him, he saw Hinata throw her a double thumbs up and a wide smile as she rejoined the crowd. Then Tobio proceeded to space out again as another faculty member took the place behind the podium to give another speech.

Tobio frowned and tugged a finger at the neck of his stiff black suit, trying to loosen the choking collar as time crawled on at an excruciating pace and the current speech-giver’s bland voice droned on in the background. Tobio’s gaze wandered absently around the gym, but he found his eyes catching again and again on the tuft of bright orange hair several rows up ahead of him, swaying from side to side as though the boy the hair belonged to was shifting restlessly on his feet. That wasn’t the least bit surprising. If Tobio found being forced to stand still for this long unpleasant, then he was sure it was nothing less than absolute torture for Hinata. He wondered how much trouble they would get in if the two of them were to sneak out of the ceremony to go practice volleyball in their gym instead. Probably quite a bit. If they left the ceremony now, they wouldn’t get their diplomas, and if that happened, they wouldn’t be able to graduate, which would be no good at all. It would be kind of hard to play in the Olympics if Tobio was forced to retake all three years of high school. Even getting out of this stifling ceremony wasn’t worth that. Besides, the volleyball gym would undoubtedly be locked, so they wouldn’t be able to get in anyway. Oh well. Maybe after the ceremony finally finished he’d ask Hinata to go to the park with him tomorrow so they could practice then instea-

Tobio’s breath hitched slightly as his train of thought came to an abrupt stop.

Except they couldn’t do that.

Because tomorrow, Hinata would be getting on a plane and flying half way across the world to another country.

This was it. After today, him and Hinata would be going their separate ways.

Tobio clenched his jaw and forced his eyes to wander else where. He wasn’t sure how that fact kept managing to slip his mind. It was like it was somehow stuck at the fore front of his thoughts and yet kept slipping out of his perception of reality at the same time. For a moment it would feel like any other day, and then in the next reality was being altered severely and permanently. After today, everything was going to change.

No. He wasn’t going to mope about this. He’d known this was coming for months now. Both of them were moving forward to better things, there was no reason for his gut to feel so heavy over it. Hinata was going to Brazil to get stronger, and Tobio was advancing to the top league in Japan. This was a good thing. For both of them.

Tobio distracted himself by imaging what it would feel like to play with and against the players he would meet on the world stage. Sparks sputtered to life and pooled in his lungs, making him feel slightly lighter. Yes, focus on that feeling. That feeling. That was the only feeling that mattered. He was going to play on the national team and get even stronger and that was the only thing that mattered.

Finally, the last speech reached its end, and it was time to actually start handing out the diplomas. One by one, they began calling students up onto the stage, handing them their diploma, and sending them back into the crowd. This somehow managed to be even more boring than the speeches had been, and seemed to go on for multiple eternities. Tobio waited for what felt like at least five eternities before his name finally echoed off the high ceiling of the gym.

“Kageyama Tobio”

Tobio’s feet carried him forward past all the other students, and he kept his eyes fixed on the stage ahead of him. He stepped up onto the stage, was handed his diploma, there was some polite applause, and he returned to his spot in the crowd. He rubbed his thumb against the smooth texture of the document’s casing as the next student was called forward.

Once the very last student had finally received their diploma, the vice principle went up on stage to give another speech, and then finally, finally, the ceremony was over. The lined up third years let out a cheer as their families applauded behind them, and just like that, Tobio was no longer a student at Karasuno high school.

It was... a strange feeling.

The ranks of former students broke as many of them headed to the back of the gym to find their families, and many others intermingled to look for their friends. The room was filled with noise now, excited chattering filling up the space as people called out to each other in the crowd.

“Kageyamaaa!” Hinata cried out as he ran towards Tobio, waving his diploma over his head like a victory banner, “We did it! We defeated high school!”

“Remarkably,” Tsukishima quipped with a dry smirk, suddenly appearing at Tobio’s side, “Honestly I’m surprised the two of you were able to scrape enough money together to bribe the school into giving you passing grades. Have you been hosting car-washes or selling lemonade in your spare time?”

“Hey, we studied! Really hard! We didn’t even need to bribe anyone, we passed all by ourselves!” Hinata told him, smacking him in the arm with his diploma.

“Careful idiot, you know they’ll make you do the three years over again if you damage that, right?” Tsukishima asked him.

“They will?” Hinata gasped, hurriedly looking it over to make sure it hadn’t been harmed by his attack.

“Don’t worry Hinata, he’s just joking. Probably,” Yamaguchi said as he joined them, smirking.

“Oh come on guys, don’t tease him, its our graduation day! You have to all get along just this once,” Yachi said as she reached them too, but she looked more amused than exasperated.

“Yeah Tsukishima! And Yachi got a higher grade score than you did, so you have to do what she says!” Hinata said, throwing a supportive arm around Yachi’s shoulders.

“Right, of course,” Tsukishima said, rolling his eyes, “I suppose I have no choice, then.”

“Your speech was amazing Yachi!” Yamaguchi told her, “I’m not sure what you were so nervous about, you did great up there!”

Yachi laughed sheepishly, rubbing a the back of her neck.

“Thanks, I’ll take your word for it, my heart was beating so fast I couldn’t hear a word I was saying! I’m just glad its over with now,” She said.

As a group they began following the rest of the new graduates towards the back of the gym to find their families. Yachi’s mother found them first, rushing forward to envelop her daughter in a tight hug as she gushed excitedly about how well Yachi had done with her speech. Yachi’s face blushed bright red, but she was smiling widely too as she returned the hug. Tsukishima’s mother and older brother reached them next. Neither attempted to hug him, something Tobio doubted the tall blond boy would have appreciated if they had, but Tsukishima’s brother did clap him proudly on the shoulder. Yamaguchi’s father appeared too, ruffling his son’s hair and grinning at him broadly.

Tobio hung back, not wanting to interrupt their individual celebrations. To his surprise, Hinata hung back with him.

“Where’s you mother?” Tobio asked him, glancing through the nearby crowd. Tobio had only met Hinata’s mother a couple of times, since if he and Hinata hung out after school it was usually at Tobio’s house, but he knew what she looked like and as he scanned the crowd around them he could see no sign of her.

“She wasn’t able to make it. Natsu came down with a cold earlier this week, and she wasn’t able to get anyone to watch her on such short notice,” Hinata said. He also scanned the crowd around them, before looking back at Tobio.

“Are either of your parents here?” He asked.

Tobio looked away.

“No. Too busy.”

Hinata nodded, and didn’t press the issue. He’d been over to Tobio’s house countless times after school during the last couple of years, and he’d never met Tobio’s parents. He had seen enough to know how they were, even if Tobio never talked abut it.

Tobio imagined what it would have been like, coming into the crowd to find his grandfather and sister waiting for him. He imagined his grandfather smiling and patting him proudly on the back, and the thought made his stomach feel heavy and cold. Maybe Miwa would have come, if the university where she was studying cosmetology was closer. She’d actually messaged him that morning, something neither of the Kageyama siblings did often, offering him congratulations and saying she would have been there if she had been able to take time away, but things just hadn’t quite panned out. Tobio didn’t hold it against her. At least she had been thinking of him.

“Hey,” Hinata said.

Tobio looked over to find Hinata giving him a look with raised brows and an expectant smile. In his hand he held up the key to the volleyball gym.

“Where did you get that?” Tobio asked him, raising his brows right back.

“Does it matter?” Hinata asked.

Tobio supposed it didn’t. While the others were distracted with their families, Tobio and Hinata slipped outside into the fading afternoon light.

***

Their last race to the gym ended in a tie.

Once Hinata had unlocked the door and the two of them had slipped inside, they stored their diplomas out of sight in their bags, shed their stiff jackets, and dropped everything on the sidelines of the court. Then they set up the net, grabbed a ball cart from the supply closet, and began to practice.

Hinata threw ball after ball to Tobio, who set them expertly for Hinata to spike. Over and over they did it, until the light outside the windows began to turn orange as the sun set and Tobio’s arms began to numb and Hinata began shaking with the exertion of jumping over and over and over again.

Throw

Toss

Spike.

Throw

Toss

Spike.

Tobio felt the previous discomfort that had been building up inside him during the ceremony shed away as he moved his body through the familiar motions. He found himself thinking that if time were to stop right then and let him stay there, in that gym, tossing ball after ball after ball up into the air and listening to the dual thunder crack of the Hinata’s hand hitting the ball and the ball hitting the court on and on for the rest of his life, for as long as he lived, it would have been a life well spent.

A ridiculous thing to think.

But there was… a feeling in this. A feeling that chased away everything else. A feeling that he got when he set to Hinata that he never got setting to anyone before. It was a subtle feeling, one he rarely even noticed unless he was looking for it. A feeling that was centered in his chest, but also seemed to spread outward into every other corner of his body as well, to the ends of his fingers and down to the tips of his toes. A warm, soft feeling. A… full feeling? No… completed. A feeling like being completed. Like everything in the world was exactly as it should be.

But… that feeling didn’t just come to him when he set to Hinata. Just being around Hinata made him feel that way. He rarely noticed it in the moment because of how subtle it could be, but thinking about it now he knew it was true. Hinata was unlike any other person Tobio had ever met. Tobio usually struggled to tell what other people were thinking, but with Hinata it was often so easy to asses his mood that it was almost like second nature to Tobio. He thought that maybe it was because the two of them were incredibly similar, in some ways. Hinata understood Tobio’s love for volleyball like no one else did, because Hinata loved volleyball the same way. Hinata understood Tobio’s drive to get stronger because it was the same drive that powered Hinata. Being around Hinata was easier than being around anyone else Tobio had ever met. Being around Hinata was even easier than being alone.

He’d be lonely, when Hinata left for Brazil.

And suddenly, like a cold bolt of lightning ripping through his body, the fear was back. The creeping, choking ice that had been haunting him on and off all year, the fear he had never understood. But not now. With a sudden strike of clarity, Tobio understood completely.

Tobio had thought that he was afraid because he had gotten to used to playing on the court with Hinata, that he had become so used to it that a part of him had begun to believe that he wouldn’t be able to play as well without Hinata around. But that wasn’t it at all.

Tobio knew how to play without Hinata. He had played with a large variety of other players over the course of their high school career, and he’d learned how to adjust to all of them. That was one of the most important things Karasuno had taught him, how to match his tosses to the needs and preferences of any spiker he was playing with so he could utilize their individual strengths and abilities to their fullest extent.

Tobio could adjust himself to play with any spiker, he was sure of that.

He did not need Hinata on the court.

But playing with people on the court was not necessarily the same thing as being friends with them. Tobio knew that all to well.

Tobio had never been very good at making friends.

With Hinata gone…

With Hinata gone, Tobio would be alone again.

“Oh! That was the last one!”

Tobio blinked, realizing that Hinata hadn’t thrown him another ball to set. He looked around to find Hinata peering into the ball cart they were using, which was now empty.

Hinata straightened up, glancing over at the balls scattered across the other end of the court and then turning back to Tobio with a mischievous smile.

“Come on!” He said, bright-eyed despite the fact that he was breathing heavily, “Lets gather them all up so we can start again! I bet I can grab more than you!”

Tobio stared at him, as if seeing him for the very first time, somehow feeling light headed and horribly heavy simultaneously.

Hinata’s brow furrowed, and his excited expression faded into one of concern.

“Kageyama? What is it?”

“Uh-,” Tobio said, jolting out of his stupor. He could feel words building up in his throat like they did when he was angry, when he was about to say something forceful and mean, but he could feel no heat behind these words. If he let them get out, he had no idea what they would be. He wouldn’t have any control over what would say.

Tobio clenched his jaw, and swallowed the words down.

“Yeah,” he forced out instead, “Let’s start again.”

But Hinata’s brow only furrowed deeper. He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, the door to the gym opened.

“There you guys are! We were looking everywhere for you!” Yachi said as she stepped inside, followed closely by Tsukishima and Yamaguchi.

“We should have known you two neanderthals would be in here making a mess,” Tsukishima said dryly as Yamaguchi devolved into a fit of laughter.

“Did you two seriously sneak out of our high school graduation so you could come here and practice? You guys know we’re not even on the team anymore right? How did you even get in, this door is supposed to be locked!” Yamaguchi added, still giggling.

“Oh come on guys, this was our only chance! We had to fit in one last practice session before I left!” Hinata complained.

Tobio felt like he had swallowed cold shards of glass.

One last practice session.

“Really I’m not sure why you guys are acting so surprised,” a new voice said, “The world could actively be ending by way of a thousand nuclear explosions and those two would still choose to spend their final moments tossing a ball at each other in this gym.”

“Suga!?” Tobio and Hinata cried together in shock as their former upper-classman stepped into the gym around the other third years, smiling broadly. Tobio’s fear was momentarily abated by the sudden unexpected joy that firecracker-ed through his chest.

“Not just him!” Another voice piped up, “Come on you guys, get out of the way, you’re blocking the door!”

Tsukishima and Yamaguchi were abruptly shoved aside as Tanaka and Nishinoya burst into the gym as well,

“Hinata! Kageyama!” They shouted together, throwing their arms up.

“Guys!” Hinata cried, rushing forward and throw his arms around the both of them as Daichi, Asahi, Shimizu, and Ennoshita entered next. Suga wrapped his arms around Hinata, Tanaka, and Noya, and the rest of the group followed suit, until everyone was wrapped up in a big group hug.

“Kageyama, what are you waiting for?” Suga called, “Get your butt over here!”

Tobio sighed, but obediently stepped forward so Suga could drag him into the embrace as well.

“What are you guys doing here?” Hinata cried, tears actively rolling down his face as he still stood wrapped up between Noya and Tanaka, “You didn’t even tell us you were coming!”

“We wanted to surprise you!” Daichi said, grinning as he ruffled Hinata’s hair.

“You guys are the last of our original group to make it to nationals,” Asahi added, “We wanted to be here to see you off!”

“Besides-” Noya added, wiggling free of his spot in the group hug so he could grab Tobio by the shoulder, “What’s all this stuff we’ve heard about a national team? When were you gonna tell us about that? We had to hear it from Tsukishima of all people!”

“Ah yes, his majesty's grand offer,” Tsukishima said, smirking at Tobio from where he was trapped between Yamaguchi and Yachi, who had dragged him forcefully into the group hug with them, “Who could possibly forget about that? What would it do to his poor ego, if we stopped talking about it for even ten minutes?”

“Aw, there's no need to be jealous Kei, I’m sure they would have invited you too if they knew how warm and fuzzy your personality is!” Ennoshita said, making Tanaka and Hinata laugh.

The group untangled themselves from each other, and Daichi glanced at the mess of volleyballs scattered across one end of the gym with amusement before he turned his eyes to Hinata and Tobio.

“Come on, let’s get this place cleaned up! We’re getting meat buns to celebrate! You two are coming, right?” Daichi asked.

For some reason, Hinata hesitated, glancing at Tobio. There was a touch of that previous concern back in his eyes.

“Yes,” Tobio said quickly before Hinata had a chance to say anything, turning away from his spiker’s scrutiny, “Thank you, Daichi-san.

Cleaning up after themselves took no time at all with so many people to help. It seemed like barely a moment had passed before the net was down and all the balls had been returned to the storage closet, leaving no sign left that they had ever been there at all.

Hinata locked the door to the gym behind them, and that was that.

One last practice session.

***

The walk to the Sakanoshita store was just as chaotic and loud as Tobio remembered it being back in his first year. Hinata was walking his bike along side him as he spoke animatedly with Tanaka and Nishinoya about his and Tobio’s struggles with scrapping together their passing grades on their exams. Yachi was excitedly telling Shimizu all about the graphic design program at the university she was planning to attend, and Asahi and Daichi were laughing uproariously at something Yamaguchi had said, while Tsukishima walked along side them failing to suppress a smirk of amusement.

Tobio drifted along at the back of the group, letting their ambient conversation wash over him like a warm draft. It was a sort of soothing familiarity that most of this day had been lacking. But the comfort of it was undercut by the piercing knowledge that it would be the last bit of familiarity Tobio would feel for a long while.

He watched as Hinata began flailing one of his arms wildly as he recounted the story of a particularly impressive save one of their second years had made during a practice match they had played against Date Tech earlier that year. His other hand just barely managed to keep his bike steady next to him, the usual skip in his step only serving to unsteady it further.

Though Hinata had admitted to Tobio that he was nervous about his move to Brazil, Tobio wouldn’t have guessed it from the way he was acting now. He seemed completely unbothered, enveloped by the surrounding warmth of the rest of their teammates. Tobio wondered if Hinata simply didn’t have enough room in his head to feel more than one thing at once, and maybe the joy of being surrounded by their old teammates again had completely pushed any sort of fear out of his mind. Tobio wished he could just feel the same way.

“Hey!” Suga said, elbowing Tobio in the side. Tobio repressed a flinch. He hadn’t noticed that Sugawara had sidled up beside him as they’d been walking. “You’re being quiet- Well, quieter than usual I guess. Something on your mind?” His former sempai asked, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.

“...No,” Tobio started, glancing over at Hinata once more before quickly darting his eyes away again, “No, not really. I was… Just thinking about the new training program I’m going to be joining with the V-league.”

“Ah yes, of course,” Suga said with a knowing smile, “Suppose it makes sense something like that is taking up most of your head space right now. Its not the least bit surprising that the big leagues were in a hurry to scoop you up the moment you got out of high school, considering how good you are. Our little Tobio, an Olympian at nineteen! Oh how fast they grow up!”

Suga wiped an imaginary tear from his eye before he continued.

“It really is so surreal, seeing how far you’ve come. I’d like to think I had some sort of small hand in your development, even if its only my own vanity talking.”

Tobio frowned. Suga had said the words lightly, as if he did not mean them very seriously.

“Of course you had a hand in it. I don’t think I’d be nearly as good as I am now, if I hadn’t had you there to guide me during my first year,” Tobio told him.

Suga whipped his head around to stare at Tobio, his playful expression melting into shock.

“What, seriously? You were better than I was even back then! Surely I didn’t have all that much to teach you!”

“Not when it came to raw skill,” Tobio said, “But you were much better than me at getting along with the rest of the team. You’re good at reading people, good at looking out for them, good at knowing what they need. I… wasn’t, back then. I’m still not perfect at it yet. But I have gotten better, mostly thanks to you. We were competing for the same position on the team, so you could have left me alone to struggle by myself in the hopes that it would make it easier for you to surpass me, but instead you chose to help me out. I… never did thank you for that. So. Thank you.”

Tobio was surprised by his own forwardness. He hadn’t even had a chance to think about it, before the words had suddenly just come spilling out of his mouth. But he knew that every last one of them had been true.

Suga’s look of shock crumbled, and suddenly real tears started to leak from his eyes.

“...Well I’ll be damned! You really are all grown up, aren’t you?” Suga nearly sobbed, wiping at his face, “Look what you’ve done, you’ve gone and made me cry! Oh Kageyama, I’m so proud of you!”

Tobio huffed in surprise, taken off guard by Suga’s emotional outburst. The sight caused erratic, confused starbursts fizzle to life in his chest. He wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he waited in silence as Suga regained control over his emotions.

“It’ll be amazing, seeing you on TV, playing in all those big crazy matches,” Suga said, wiping the last of the tears from his eyes, “I’d ask you if you were nervous about it, but I guess I’d be shocked if you were, considering how composed you always are when it comes to volleyball.”

“I’m not nervous about it,” Tobio said, “It’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of. I am looking forward to it. It’s just...”

Tobio faltered, taking a breath. It was like the words he’d spilled out earlier had opened some sort of hole inside him, letting more of his thoughts leak out, and for once he found himself wanting to keep talking.

“It’s going to be different, for a while. It feels… strange. Leaving Karasuno behind,” He admitted.

It felt even stranger, to say the words out loud.

Suga blinked at him, taken by surprise once again, but this time his expression softened sympathetically.

“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. It’s exciting, moving on, growing up, but its also… different. I’ve been quite enjoying university, learning knew things, meeting new people… but I still miss all you guys sometimes. You just... loose something old every time you gain something new, I guess. But… you don’t have to loose it for good. We’re all still here for each other, even if we’ve all gone our separate ways now. That makes things a bit easier for me.”

Suga looked forward at the rest of their group with a fond smile.

“Just make sure you still make time for all us little people once you’re a world-famous star athlete, alright?”

Something in those words eased some of the cold tension built up in Tobio’s throat. Suga had always carried a very calming presence with him back when they had played together, and it seemed he had lost none of that in the time since Tobio had last seen him. Tobio found that he was very happy that their former teammates had returned to visit them.

“...Of course I will,” Tobio said, feeling a bit lighter.

As he shifted his gaze away from Suga to look forward, Tobio caught Hinata looking back over his shoulder at him. It was only a quick glance before Hinata abruptly turned away again. but it wasn’t so quick that Tobio missed it.

***

The sky was lit glowing orange by the sunset when they reached the store. Ukai was waiting for them behind the counter when they got there, and to their pleasant surprise, Takeda was to. There were more joyful greetings as Ukai and Takeda greeted their old students, before turning to the now graduated third years to give them their congratulations. When Daichi tired to buy pork buns for all of them, Ukai surprised them by waving his money away.

“Eh, just take them. They’re on the house, just this once.”

Then he shooed them all back outside so they wouldn’t crowd up the shop if any other customers showed up. They sat down on the curb to eat, and began to dig into their food. Hinata sat down next to Tobio, so close that their knees nearly brushed.

“You know,” Yamaguchi said as they all ate, gazing up at the bright amber sunset, “I think these past three years might have been the most exciting my life has been so far. Its kinda sad, that its all over now, huh?”

“Don’t get all sentimental on us now Tadashi, you sound just like Asahi!” Daichi teased him, making Yamaguchi blush.

“Hey! There’s nothing wrong with being sentimental! Let him have his moment!” Asahi argued, placing a supportive hand on Yamaguchi’s shoulder.

“Yeah Daichi, don’t ruin it for the boy, you only get to graduate once!” Noya added, placing his had on Yamaguchi’s other shoulder, “He can be a bit sappy just this once, he’s earned it! Breaking free from the heavy shackles of high school is no easy task!”

“Well I’m sure it would certainly seem like a difficult task, if you nearly failed your final exams,” Tsukishima muttered.

“Hey! I scraped by didn’t I? We can’t all be smart-asses like you nerds!”

Tobio bit into his bun, feeling the heat and savory flavor bloom in his mouth. Listening to the friendly bickering of his teammates around him felt good. It felt familiar. He felt wrapped up in it, like a cocoon of pork-scented warmth.

Slowly, Tobio felt the ice start to melt. Not with angry flames summoned into his throat to momentarily fend it off, but by the steady warm glow reaching up from his chest.

Yes, he was closer to Hinata than he was to anyone else. But Hinata wasn’t the only friend he had managed to make during high school. He had all their former teammates, Suga, Yachi, Yamaguchi, and… well sure, fine. He guessed he even had Tsukishima, in a way. Karasuno had taught him how to play better with others, but it had also taught him that he was also capable of just… making friends. He doubted he would ever be as naturally sociable as Hinata was, but he would manage on his own. He had found a place for himself among the other players at Karasuno, as their teammate, and as their friend. He could make a place for himself somewhere new, too.

He wasn’t alone now, and he wouldn’t be alone even after he had moved on.

He would manage.

He would be alright.

Tobio took another bite of his bun, and the warmth of it melted the last of the ice away.

***

It was fully dark out by the time Tobio and Hinata departed. They said their goodbyes to the group, everyone shared one last tearful hug, wished Hinata luck on his trip to Brazil, and they all went their separate ways.

Though the sun had long set, the sky was clear and the moon was just a sliver shy of being full, so there was plenty of light to see by as they made their way down the road. They had walked this path countless times over the past three years, following it to the intersection at the end where Tobio would turn one way to head towards his neighborhood, and Hinata would hop on his bike and ride the other way, heading over the mountain to make his way home.

The night was quiet, except for the chirping of insects and the clicking of Hinata’s bike. It felt strangely mundane, walking down this road now, knowing that it would be for the last time. It almost felt unreal, still warm from the joy of getting to see their former teammates again. It was almost like graduation had just been a particularly vivid day dream, and tomorrow he would return to school and race Hinata to the club room like they always did. They would play volleyball with Yamaguchi and Tsukishima and Daichi and Suga and every one else, and at the end of the day they would find themselves walking down this same path together once again.

Except now they had graduated, just like everyone else had.

And there would be no returning to Karasuno.

Kageyama was joining the national team soon, and in the morning, Hinata was leaving for Brazil. With every step they took, Tobio felt that heavy reality finally, slowly, sink all the way in.

They didn’t speak, as they walked. Tobio wasn’t sure there was really anything left to say.

No, that wasn’t right. Now, there was only one thing left to say.

The only thing left to say was goodbye.

All to soon, they had reached the intersection, and stopped as one to stand there in the road, lit dimly by the stars and the moon and the distant street lamps that didn’t reach out this far. Tobio stared straight ahead out over the dark field, breathing in the night air, feeling the soft breeze tug at his hair, hearing the chorus of insects and frogs that sang on in the distance, feeling all to painfully aware of the boy standing silently next to him and the fact that this was it.

“Well… this is it,” Hinata said, echoing the very same thought bouncing around inside Tobio’s skull. Tobio finally turned to look at Hinata, finding that the other boy was already looking back at him.

His eyes seemed to glow, even here in the dark.

“...Yeah,” Tobio responded.

He could do this. He wasn’t afraid. He didn’t have to be afraid.

He didn’t want to say it.

He forced himself to say it anyway.

“So... this is goodbye.”

His fear might have faded, but that deep dark falling sensation had returned, and Tobio felt as if his feet were glued stuck to the road below him. He felt like he couldn’t bring himself to move, locked firmly in place by Hinata’s gaze.

“No...” Hinata said, slowly shaking his head, “No, I don’t like goodbye. This is just… See you later.”

Tobio blinked. See you later. Yes, that was easier. See you later. Because two years was a long time, but it was not forever. Hinata would be back. They would meet up again at the top, just like Hinata had always promised, and that would make the distance worth it. This wasn’t goodbye.

Tobio hardened his resolve.

He could do this.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “See you later.”

And so they’d said the last thing there was to say. That was it, it was time to go. And yet still, Tobio didn’t feel ready. It felt like there was still something else, something he was forgetting. The words he had swallowed down back on the court felt like they were trying to claw their way back up his throat, like all he had to do was open his mouth and they would spill out.

So Tobio didn’t open his mouth. Feeling like he was physically cutting off a piece of his soul in order to do so, Tobio shifted his feet to get them unstuck from the road below him, and began to turn away.

Just walk away, Tobio told himself, Just walk away and don’t look back-

But before Tobio even had the chance to take a step, there was a clattering as Hinata’s bike fell to the ground, and before Tobio had a chance to process what was happening, Hinata had thrown his arms around Tobio’s middle and captured him in a tight embrace.

Tobio inhaled sharply, every muscle his body locking up.

“I-” Hinata said, his voice muffled where his face was buried in Tobio’s chest,

“I’m gonna miss you.”

Oh.

Tobio couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t even move. He just stood there as his throat froze over and burst into flames simultaneously. His jaw locked, a bolt of lightning streaked down his spine, the skin on his arms prickled, his stomach filled with lead, and the blinding-bright heat of a solar flare burst outward from the place under his heart in between his lungs, searing against his ribs like it was trying to rip him apart from the inside.

It was too much. It was all way to much. Tobio’s first impulse was to shove Hinata away from him, to turn around and run as fast as he could in the hopes of escaping all this awful, overwhelming feeling that was trying to tear him to shreds. But when his hands landed on Hinata’s shoulders he couldn’t bring himself to push the boy away. He just stood there stiffly was he went supernova, clinging to Hinata’s shoulders like that point of contact was the only thing keeping him standing. He let his face fall forward until it was resting on top of Hinata’s head, buried in his wild orange hair. The pressure in the back of his throat was unbearable, as all the things he wanted to say but didn’t know how tried to strangle him.

He never had been very good with words.

“Dumbass,” Tobio managed to grit out, but his voice cracked pathetically as he said it, causing the insult to sound so frail and weak that it carried no venom behind it.

Hinata squeezed him tighter for half a moment more before letting go just as abruptly as he had latched on. In one smooth motion, he picked his bike up off the ground and began to run away with out looking back.

And just like that, the storm of emotions went with him. Tobio suddenly felt so cold and empty, without Hinata’s arms wrapped around him. He stared at the sight of Hinata’s back retreating into the darkness, and something somewhere inside of him broke.

“Hey!” Tobio shouted, loudly and abruptly, maybe with a bit more force than necessary. Hinata stumbled as he startled and skidded to a stop, nearly dropping his bike again in the process. He whipped around to look back at Tobio, and even in the darkness Tobio could see that there were heavy tears rolling down his face.

“Y-yeah?” Hinata called back, his eyes wide and glossy.

“I'm gonna miss you too!” Tobio yelled at him, the words tearing themselves from his throat forcefully. It felt like it broke a hole through his chest, to say the words out loud, but he couldn’t take them back now that they had gotten out.

For a moment Hinata’s tear-ridden eyes widened in surprise, and then his expression split into the widest, most breathtaking grin, shining brighter than the moon and the stars and everything else in the whole universe.

“Dumbass!” He shouted back gleefully.

Tobio felt himself smile.

Hinata turned away again and broke back into a run. He jumped onto his bike mid stride and rode away into the night.

Tobio couldn’t bare to watch him go a moment longer. He spun on his heel and began to run in the opposite direction, as hard and as fast as he could, feeling every strike of his feet against the road like another stake through the chest.

He didn’t bother to wipe away the tears that dripped down his face. Maybe if he ignored them, it would be easier to forget that they were there.