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“You’re like, what, a fucking Snow White now?”
Yahaba looks up from where he is engaged in the semi-worrying number of birds that are currently trying to simultaneously perch (nest?) on multiple parts of his body. He tilts his head, inwardly cringing when he upsets the two sparrows that have taken refuge there. “I didn’t take you for a Disney person,” he tells Kyoutani coolly, giving the other boy a pleasant smile.
Kyoutani reddens, and Yahaba suspects it is not because of the freezing morning air. The boy scuffs his shoe on the sidewalk, and mutters a quiet yet angry, “whatever.”
The tips of his ears are red and that is not cute at all, Yahaba tells himself resolutely, and the birds flap their wings in response, as if to roll their eyes. “Nothing wrong with Disney,” Yahaba continues aloud. “I, myself, am more of an Ariel person. But alright, I won’t judge. Now, what can you do?”
Kyoutani huffs out a snort, almost as if to call Yahaba out on his white lie, because he’s always judging, but that’s probably Yahaba over thinking. At that moment, a crow chooses to dive down to join Yahaba’s little party, settling down by Yahaba’s feet relatively gently, but giving Kyoutani a face full of feathers as it shoots past. In that same instance, Kyoutani monotonously recites, “A crow’s brain-to-body ratio is equivalent to that of a chimpanzee’s, and not that far off from a human’s.” Then: “FUCK!”
“Holy shit,” Yahaba breathes, because this is gold.
“I can also talk to them!” Kyoutani yells, as if that was supposed to make it any better. He is now even more red, and absolutely, positively, livid. “Fuck you!” he adds, as if that would make Yahaba stop laughing.
It is 5:45 AM, on June 1st, in the Miyagi Prefecture, the night a comet fell from the sky and suddenly everyone has weird powers and Yahaba attracts birds and Kyoutani is a walking animal documentary and this suddenly all hits, because Yahaba cannot stop laughing.
*
He does, eventually, stop laughing, because he has an image to maintain, and they need to make it to practice. Which, for some reason, is still happening.
“Why are we even at school,” Hanamaki whines. “It’s like. Ass o’clock and this weird space rock crashed into Japan and everyone has SUPERPOWERS and yet! We are at school, setting up for volleyball practice like normal.”
“Shut up and get out the net,” Iwaizumi says as he passes, carrying a metal net post by himself. It’s probably not safe, but his shirt sleeves are rolled up and his muscles are positively rippling, so no one’s complaining. Especially not Oikawa, who pops his floofy halo out of the equipment room to loudly declare: “Team meeting!”
“I’m pretty sure volleyball is just ingrained into us now, Makki,” Matsukawa says, as they make their way into a loose circle.
Hanamaki sighs dramatically. “The world would be ending, and we’d still be here at 6 on the dot if we had practice, wouldn’t we?” He drapes an arm around Matsukawa’s shoulder, who continues dramatically, “What more would we want? Here, we have our friends... families... loved ones...”
“Mattsun!” Oikawa trills, clutching his heart. “I’m flattered!”
“-and Oikawa,” Hanamaki finishes, and Oikawa squawks indignantly, right on cue.
You don’t even have to be here right now, Yahaba thinks, with a stab of guilt, but quickly dismisses the thought.
No one acknowledges the fact that Kunimi lazily teleports into his spot and Yahaba has a gaggle of birds trying to nest in his silver tresses. Yahaba tries to shoo them off, but- like all other attempts this morning- failed. One decides it needs to do a number two, very close to where Kindaichi stands.
“So, uh,” Kindachi starts, “are we going to discuss this... thing?” He makes a large gesture with his hands, which is around the time Yahaba notices his slightly... blurry flesh?
This morning, Kyoutani had tried to stalk away during Yahaba’s laughing fit, but Yahaba had noticed and caught up, solely— and he would stand by this— out of the intention of annoying the fuck out of the other guy. Whenever a bird joined his exponentially growing flock, and brushed too close to Kyoutani, the boy would, without fail, release a new bird fact. So far, Yahaba had learned that crows are fearless bastards who chased eagles (Oh, this explained Karasuno, didn’t it?) and that the first bird domesticated by humans was the goose. Thank god the passing goose ditched his little winged parade a block from the school. Most of his new avian family would leave after a while, or if shooed them particularly hard, or bribed with bread crumbs.
Kyoutani, however, was not as lucky. Any passing cat that wound too close or stray would provoke a new fact recitation from him.
It was by far the funniest superpower Yahaba could ever fathom, and it was just Kyoutani’s luck he got stuck with it.
“Yes!” Oikawa trills, way too much energy for way too early in the morning. Yahaba may be able to maintain a polite cover of alertness and smiles at this time, unlike some asshats, but where the hell did Oikawa get this type of energy? “That’s what the team meeting is for! We’re going to go around in a circle, and everyone is going to announce their new... talent. I’ll go first! I...” He paused for dramatic effect, to which both Iwaizumi and Kyoutani rolled his eyes in the corner. “Can read minds!”
This was followed by a chorus of “Oh no”, “Jesus fucking Christ”, and Yahaba’s personal favourite: “HOLY SHIT WE’RE ALL DOOMED”.
“Oh, shut up Trashkawa, don’t forget to mention that you can’t control it!” Iwaizumi snapped.
“How is that supposed to make it better,” Hanamaki deadpans.
“I guess that means he can’t pump us for info?” Watari suggests hopefully.
“But we’ll never know,” Matsukawa sighs, “We’ll let our guards down, then BAM! Blackmail material acquired.”
Oikawa grips his chest above his heart with both hands. “Mattsun! I’m hurt that you’d think I’d do that.”
“OK!” Iwaizumi steps in, deciding it was time to move on. “I’m a telepath? Or so I think? I was informed that was the term for it. I can send thoughts. With my mind,” he added, for clarification, as if that were the confusing part.
Matsukawa could extend some of his joints (he demonstrated with his middle finger) and Hanamaki could change his hair colour (from his usual pink to an almost normal brown, ignoring the neon yellow dick sprouting from his part). They had obtained the most mundane and harmless powers Yahaba had seen so far, but he was sure they’d find some way to make trouble with them. Watari was able to flick back and forth around a minute from current time, which was actually pretty powerful and dangerous, but Yahaba doubted his best friend would do anything with it. He was a saint.
Kunimi did the teleporting thing again when it was his turn and Kindaichi explained that he could sometimes phase through things, explaining his blurry arms. Yahaba gestured sweetly at his birds, and everyone looked to Kyoutani for his explanation.
He offered no explanation, but after a minute of a staring contest with Oikawa, the third year burst into laughter. “Mad Dog-chan!” he screamed and giggled. “Mad DOG-chan! It’s perfect! ANIMALS!”
“Oi, Oikawa. You gotta explain the joke to the rest of us non-mind-readers here,” Hanamaki reminded him.
“He talks to animals,” Yahaba volunteers. “Also, he’s got this mimetic infection thing that makes him tell animal facts every time he touches one.” It is a sign from god that Kyoutani needs to suffer when a new bird swoops in through the gym's open window, brushing pass Kyoutani's arm to perch on Yahaba’s hair. He delivers.
The rest of the gym dissolves into laughter.
“You change your hair colour!” Kyoutani yelled in defense.
“Yes, yes I do,” Hanamaki coughs out, bowed over in laughter, “But I don’t go Natural Geographic on everybody. Holy shit, what do you think happens when a swarm of something appears! Will you just not stop?”
“Like an army of ants!” Watari says, looking very intrigued with the notion.
“A murder of crows,” Yahaba agrees, smiling pleasantly at Kyoutani while he says it. Kyoutani, for his part, goes even redder.
“I’M RIGHT HERE!” he bellows, but everyone ignores him.
“It’s karma for everything,” Oikawa declares, looking as delighted as Yahaba felt inside. “Karma, Mad Dog-chan,” he sings, dragging out the syllables.
Kunimi is sitting off to the side, already bored with the situation, and Kindaichi is hovering next to his friend, looking unsure whether or not to sit down but in reality it looked more likely that he was going to phase through the ground. Iwaizumi looks just about fed-up with this nonsense, and Yahaba prepares himself for the subsequent scolding.
He watches Kyoutani's face go a surprising shade of scarlet, and thinks, that perhaps, there is some normalcy to all this weirdness after all.
*
The rest of the school day passes by fairly uneventfully. Surprisingly, people are already adapting to their powers. Yahaba finds he can keep the birds away if he humours them and chat with them about their day.
Then afternoon practice happens. Ever since the Spring Tournament, Kyoutani had been showing up almost regularly, and the two of them had developed some sort of comfortable rhythm. They weren’t... friends, per say, not friends who walked to school together or ate lunch with each other. But Kyoutani was responding to Yahaba’s digs with less bite, and sometimes Yahaba would find Kyoutani at his side at the end of a long practice. On the court, it was coming together, somewhat.
They were going to make it work, because Yahaba refused to disappoint his senpais next year. It wouldn’t be long until Oikawa passed down the captaincy, nor until the third years retired completely. In fact, the captaincy should’ve been passed down weeks ago, by tradition, but Yahaba wasn’t ready and the third years were still showing up like nothing was wrong. No one had brought it up, and Yahaba sure wouldn’t be the one to.
Coward, squawked the crow perched on the gym’s window, but Yahaba ignored him. He would need to start giving these guys names soon.
Could you dive bomb Kyoutani again? Yahaba asked the crow politely, adding a ‘pretty, pretty please?’ at the end
Don’t involve me in your weird flirting, Grumpy— yes, that’s a good name, Yahaba decided— huffed, but did it anyways.
“A behaviour called “anting”, crows will rub themselves in crushed ants to use as parasite repellant,” Kyoutani recited, and the gym fell silent and as everyone digested that fact. Then: “What the fuck?”
“Crows are badass,” Hanamaki muses, and Matsukawa hums an affirmative in response. They go on to some bird-pun-related tirade, but Yahaba isn’t listening anymore. He’s watching Kyoutani, who slams a volleyball into the ground in frustration, then seemingly jerks for no reason, looking mortified.
“PISS OFF!” Kyoutani hisses at Grumpy, who is pecking at the ground in front of him. “What the HELL?!” he yells, ducking down to get at the crow.
And Yahaba isn’t quite sure at what point he got attached to his birds (maybe when he started naming them, or oh, calling them his family, oops), but his feet are carrying him across the gym in long strides, and he almost reaches Kyoutani when the other boy looks up at him with an expression Yahaba cannot read. Then, he bolts.
“Hey!” Yahaba calls out, “We’re in the middle of practice here!” He almost debates going after Kyoutani, but what the other boy does is none of Yahaba’s problem, is it? Still, the look on his face is somewhat worrying, and Yahaba hopes Kyoutani knows what he was doing. With a sigh, he stoops down to pick up the volleyball that Kyoutani left behind, then nearly freezes when he rises again.
Oikawa, who had previously been staring pointedly at Kyoutani, is now looking at him curiously, and Yahaba has learned to fear that look. It’s the look Oikawa gets when he has something on his mind, and he’d almost figured it out, and had just received the final pieces. It’s Oikawa’s pre-Eureka! look, surely followed by a smug grin when he reaches the Eureka! stage. It is the look Oikawa had given him when he offhandedly announced how gay this team turned out to be, or whenever he mentions some potentially-helpful-super-great-of-Oikawa-san-to-tell-his-poor-naive-kouhai tip about *cough cough* leading a team, maybe?
It is the look Oikawa wears when he has something possibly life-changing to tell Yahaba, and Yahaba does not need to talk about the captaincy right now.
So he shoots Oikawa his most pleasant smile, and when that doesn’t work, he tries to ignore him. He senses Oikawa already edging away from Iwaizumi and towards him during clean-up, but through a mixture of well-placed birds and his newly-acquired Oikawa-avoiding techniques, Yahaba manages to avoid Oikawa until the last mop is put away. Then finally, he bolts.
*
Yahaba ends up going for a jog later, having been chased out of the house because his mom was not willing to tolerate bird droppings in her clean living room. He’d texted Watari an apologetic note that he didn’t walk home with him after school, but the libero just replied with a chipper “it’s ok” and a happy kamoji. He’d also started naming the birds, or at least the ones that have stuck with him. There’s seven that he’s counted- perfect for Snow White’s Seven Dwarfs, he realizes. The theme even fits with Grumpy, who upholds his name by angrily pecking whenever Yahaba slacks off or just takes a water break. The birds lead him around town, to various parks and trees, but for the most part he just runs. Until, at least, he almost trips over himself while avoiding a stray dog that darts between his legs.
The “adult dogs have 42 teeth” is almost fond this time, despite the gruff voice.
Yahaba laughs quietly under his breath, and Kyoutani’s head snaps up to glare at him.
“What are you doing here,” Kyoutani snaps, tone accusing.
“Personally bothering you,” Yahaba shoots back without missing a beat, and Kyoutani’s brows furrows in confusion, like he might’ve believed him. Yahaba sighs, “No, you dolt, I’m on a run.” He points at his jogging shoes and shorts because Kyoutani still looked like he needs evidence. “It’s not like I exist to personally ruin your life, Kyoutani, the world doesn’t revolve around you.”
Kyoutani snorts at that, but he still hasn’t shaken his confused expression. It’s the same expression he wore when he left practice this afternoon. Yahaba pauses. “Are you ok?” he ventures, tone careful, one he’d adopt if he were talking to a wary stray. “You’re acting weird Kyoutani.” He runs through a mental list of the possibilities. “Oh. Is it about your power?”
Kyoutani looks even more confused, hand stilling where he was petting the dog. “What? What, no?” he goes quiet, looking down. A half-shrug. “More of a curse than a power, anyways.”
Yahaba hums, taking in those words. “No, I wouldn’t say so.”
Kyoutani bristles, doesn’t meet his eyes. “What would you know.”
“Nothing,” Yahaba says nonchalantly, despite having a worrying feeling growing in his stomach. “Everything. I wouldn’t know, Kyoutani, if you don’t tell me.”
“It’s a curse, ok? This is a curse, it’s stupid, I LIKE ANIMALS. I don’t wanna avoid them,” he explains, his voice gruff.
“Ok?” Yahaba says carefully. “So don’t.”
“I can’t! Without makin’ a fool outta myself everytime I so much see a dog!” Kyoutani groans, throws up both hands. “Ok, fuck off, you don’t get it. That wasn’t even why—“ He cuts himself off, making to turn tail.
“Oh.” And Yahaba remembers that Kyoutani, at the very core, is still a regular person, with regular feelings. He may be dense and act prickly all the time, but once you got past that, he was just a boy who fed the strays and liked volleyball. “Oh. I’ve been sorta mean, haven’t I.”
Kyoutani’s eyes widen and flick back to him at a lightning rate. “W-what?”
“You have feelings too. We made fun of you.” Yahaba says, taking Kyoutani’s hand in his. “I’m sorry.”
Kyoutani shakes his head furiously, blush high once again. “No, uh-“ Yahaba realizes he isn’t meeting his eyes, and is about to ask what’s wrong when:
“Oh. Sorry,” Yahaba says, checking himself and slipping back into Calm and Control because oh, he definitely just grabbed Kyoutani’s hands out of nowhere there, didn’t he. “Sorry,” he repeats, dumbly.
Kyoutani is already beating a quick retreat, and Yahaba wants to go after him, but he is still rooted into place, heart hammering with adrenaline from yelling and maybe—maybe—disappointment? He is not quite sure what it is, but then the stray barks and breaks the spell—but not before Kyoutani is out of hearing range.
“Well shit,” Yahaba says, trying to convince himself that his heart rate from the yelling and not from holding his crush’s hand.
Keep lying to yourself, Sleepy chortles, resting on a nearby roof.
You’re so gay, says Grumpy, which makes the rest chirp in agreement.
Yahaba can’t argue with any of them.
*
He’s trying to routinely set up the next morning when he thinks he hears Iwaizumi. Yahaba turns around though, and his senpai is nowhere to be seen. Neither is Oikawa, which, is worrying—not because they could be doing something not school-appropriate (they probably are), but because Yahaba could walk in on them at any second.
Yahaba! Iwaizumi’s voice calls again, and Yahaba closes his eyes and counts to three because yes, that is his most level-headed sempai, in his head.
Iwaizumi-san? he says (thinks?), with all due respect, get out of my head.
Ok, Yahaba, I’m just banking on the fact that this got through. This isn’t a two-way thing, but you should know that if you say no, it won’t be pretty. Oikawa says you’re avoiding him.
There’s a pause, in which Yahaba wants to say “yes, YES, I very much am.”
And I told him to stop harassing you, but he says this is important, so please come to the club room right now? He’ll leave you alone after, I made him promise.
Iwaizumi heaves the mental equivalent of a sigh.
The last please is somewhat ragged and tired and it’s just because of that that Yahaba picks up his things and walks doggedly to the club room, wearing an expression much like one would wear to his execution, or maybe to a confession to an unlikely and probably straight crush, not much difference between the two, was there?
“Iwaizumi-san? Oikawa-san?” Yahaba calls, hand poised to knock on the club room door, when it’s yanked opened and he’s pulled inside, to the squeal of a delighted Oikawa. Iwaizumi rubs at his temple, looking positively done for the day, even if it were only a quarter past six.
“Thank you for coming,” Iwaizumi says quietly, while Oikawa ushers him forwards to the lone chair.
Yahaba steels himself, and plasters on a polite smile. “Yes, Oikawa-san?” he starts. The set-up is somewhat discomforting, with Yahaba sitting down looking up at two very tall volleyball players. Especially with Iwaizumi angled towards the door, as if to block any escape.
Oikawa is peering down at him, a grin spreading across his face. His eyes are narrowed, and he looks to be in deep concentration. It’s weird that his senpai has yet to say anything, Yahaba thinks, since Oikawa is usually impossible to shut up.
Oikawa frowns indignantly, as if he heard that, and then Yahaba remembers, and backpedals, quite literally. His arms windmill as he tilts back in the plastic fold-out chair. Iwaizumi starts to help him, but Oikawa’s reaction time is pitifully slow, which only confirms Yahaba’s hypothesis. He sighs, prompting the older boy again. “Are you reading my mind, Oikawa-san?”
This seems to catch him off guard, for whatever reason Yahaba didn’t know. It wasn’t like Oikawa was ever subtle with the things he did.
“Please don’t,” Yahaba continues, before Oikawa could recover and spill out some expansive excuse. “I’d really rather if you kept out of my mind, please and thank you.” These powers were really causing trouble, Yahaba sighed. It wasn’t just Kyoutani that was getting fucked over by them, and at this rate Oikawa might dig out what happened yesterday. “Could you just get on with it already?”
“Get on with what?” Iwaizumi looked genuinely confused.
“The captaincy?” Yahaba asked carefully. “What else? Isn’t that what you called me down to talk about, Oikawa-san?” When that garnered no immediate reaction, Yahaba furrowed his brows. This wasn’t a careful let-down, to say he wasn’t fit for the position, nor was it an appointment, it wasn’t set up like anything Yahaba was expecting. None of this made sense for a talk about the captaincy. So that was another mystery in his life, one to be approached later, but right now to be reshelved, right next to the mystery that was his crush on Kyoutani.
But the knowledge that he had escaped this responsibility for another day took the weight off his shoulders, and Yahaba found himself letting out a careful breath. A moment too soon, because at that moment Oikawa positively shrieked. Much like one of this fangirls, Oikawa Tooru let out a sound that could be classified as no other but a shriek.
“OH MY GOSH,” he breathed. “Oh my GOSH, you and Mad-Dog-chan BOTH?”
“Wait, what—“ Yahaba stuttered at this turn in the conversation. “What about Kyoutani now?”
“YOU HAVE A CRUSH ON HIM TOO!” Oikawa squealed, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Wait, no, no I don’t, I thought, what.” Yahaba said very eloquently, because the gravity of those words said aloud was too much for him, words he never thought he’d ever hear, utter himself, much less from another person. “I thought—I thought, this was about the captain position, Oikawa-san.”
Now it was Oikawa’s turn to look confused. “What’s wrong with your captaincy, Yahaba-chan? If you had any problems with it, you could’ve asked me any time, you know?”
“The problem is that it’s MY captaincy, Oikawa-san, what do you mean it’s my captaincy? But wait, what? You called me over to ask me about my CRUSH?” Yeah, ok he still could not say that aloud without grimacing.
Oikawa waves a hand dismissively, as if the reason for Yahaba’s sleepless nights could be skipped over as easy as that. “Of course the position’s yours, Yahaba-chan, I thought we decided that ages ago. But tell me, Kyoutani?”
“No, WE did not decide that, when did we decide that?” Yahaba threw up his hands, because these were two topics he had shelved in the “only touch when necessary” place in his head and now they were both open and up for discussion, it seemed like. “And YES, Kyoutani, ok?”
“Last year, yes,” Oikawa replied, looking gleeful, like a 6 year-old with his Halloween candy, or more accurately, a 6 year-old with an armful of milk bread watching Star Trek for the first time. “and YES.”
Just then, the small window shakes with a series of rapid pecks, where Grumpy nips at the lock. Iwaizumi, who had been confusedly observing with growing irritation, climbs up a chair and lets the corvus in.
“What’s wrong?” Yahaba starts to ask, but then a gruff voice muttering, “Male crows have no penises.” floats in through the now-open window. Grumpy gives Yahaba what he interprets to be a self-satisfied smirk before lighting off Iwaizumi’s hand, just in time to settle on Kyoutani’s (buff, Yahaba’s mind unhelpfully supplies) arm as he barges in through the club room doors.
“Would it hurt for you to knock?” snaps Yahaba, out of habit more than anything.
Kyoutani growls at him, but doesn’t manage to get a word out before Oikawa squeals with glee. Iwaizumi seems to catch on, though, and grabs his boyfriend by the scruff of his collar. “Ok, no,” he says gruffly, shaking his head. “Just, no, ok, Oikawa? We’re leaving them. Alone.”
“But Iwa-chan!” Oikawa is already whining, as Iwaizumi drags him towards the door.
“I can’t believe I thought what you had to say was actually important.” Yahaba can hear Iwaizumi grumbling as they exit. The black-haired boy pops his head back in, addressing Yahaba. “Sorry for the trouble. But uh, you’ll make a good captain, ok? And as for the other thing, talk to him about it. I, uh, am not really the one to ask about for... this kinda thing. But I think if it were me, I'd like to know.” And then he’s leaving, dragging a pouting Oikawa with him. Oikawa manages to throw a peace sign up and smirks at Yahaba, mouthing ‘go get him’. The door finally clicks shut behind the Seijou power duo, leaving Yahaba in the room with a scowling Kyoutani.
“What was that all about?” Kyoutani asks, petting Grumpy with one hand. He scratches the top of his head just how the crow likes.
“Captain stuff,” Yahaba says, since it’s not exactly a lie.
“Mmm, you’ll do well,” Kyoutani says offhandedly. “You can trust Iwaizumi-san if he says he believes in you.”
Yahaba throws both his hands up. “Did EVERYONE know except me?”
Kyoutani tilts his head at Yahaba. “What, that you were gonna be captain? Yah? Who else, dummy?” He gestures to himself. “Me?”
Yahaba pauses. “Well, no, not you, and not Watari, because he’s Libero, but.” And then he stops, and shrugs, because there was no arguing this one. He also knew, really, he had just been lying to himself all along.
Kyoutani snorts, a soft smile lighting his face, and Yahaba’s 99% convinced it’s because of that bird on his arm. That doesn’t stop his ears from heating up, though, and that 1% from settling in, because there’s something bothering him from his and Oikawa’s exchange. “You’re stupid sometimes,” Kyoutani says. “Is that what you were stressed about?”
“No,” Yahaba says automatically, because this was an ingrained response now.
It doesn’t seem to tick off Kyoutani majorly though, he just shrugs another huff and continues to pet Grumpy.
“What are you even doing here, with my bird?” Yahaba asks Kyoutani, tone much more accusatory than he’d intended.
Kyoutani rolls his eyes. “He’s not YOUR bird, he’s his own bird. He came up to me, said—” then Kyoutani stops, face reddening, as he looks to be suddenly replaying the memory.
Yahaba narrows his eyes. “Grumpy?” he asks the bird, and it flies off Kyoutani’s arm, ignoring the other boy’s “Wait, don’t—“ to rest at Yahaba’s feet.
What did you tell him, Yahaba asks, but at the same time he realizes the word that had been bothering him since his and Oikawa's conversation. “Wait, ‘too’?”
If crows could snort, Grumpy would have snorted. Kyoutani was still eyeing the crow with distaste, but he looked up, eyebrow raised at Yahaba’s outburst.
I told him, Grumpy said, breaking the thick silence, to kiss you already.
Judging from how Kyoutani reddens and starts on his feet, both of them had heard that. But this time, Yahaba is ready, and he recovers from his shock quick enough to lunge at Kyoutani before he manages to twist the doorknob.
“Let go of me!” Kyoutani snarls, kicking out. His foot packs power but misses, clipping the nearby locker instead. Yahaba flails back, because Kyoutani had always been stronger. But Yahaba played smarter, and he hooks a foot around Kyoutani’s ankle and flips them over as they come crashing to the ground. The impact does little to knock the wind out of both of them— Yahaba because he was cushioned, Kyoutani because he was used to it— but the position change is what makes them freeze.
Kyoutani recovers first, though, and is already pushing Yahaba off.
“Oikawa said that you liked me back!” The words come rushing out of Yahaba’s mouth before his mind can catch up.
It works, because Kyoutani immediately freezes. “What,” he asks, his ears reddening. The note in his voice is cautious, but there’s a hint of hope, and it’s all the confirmation Yahaba needs.
And all the tension goes out of Yahaba’s spine, because, holy shit, how long had they been dancing around each other because of this?
Very fucking long, Grumpy tells him, huffing.
Shut up, Yahaba shoots right back. To Kyoutani, he presses a finger down onto the other boy’s chest. “Me. I like you. That’s what,” he says. “Do you like me back?”
Kyoutani still looks adorably confused. “Like... like like?” he asks, but the tension in his body is also dissipating.
“Yes, you dumb oaf,” Yahaba says, rolling his eyes. “What are we, 10?”
Kyoutani huffs at that, but then breaks out into the goofiest grin. It’s a rare expression on Kyoutani’s face, and it’s the first time Yahaba’s ever witnessed it, much less been the object of. “Oh. Okay. Yeah, I like you too.” And now it’s Yahaba’s turn to get flustered, burying his hands into his face at the blatant confession.
“You couldn’t have been less blunt, couldn’t you?”
“I thought you wanted me to be blunt, what the fuck—“
Please kiss already, Grumpy cuts in.
“Traitor,” Yahaba says, but he’s already leaning down and Kyoutani is rushing up to meet him. It tastes of sweat and feathers and trees and their teeth clash awkwardly, but they made it, they finally got here, and Yahaba is kissing the boy he likes, the boy he’s going to go to Nationals with, his ace. Then suddenly there’s distance between them again, too much distance, and Yahaba realizes they’re separating.
He sits up, rolling off Kyoutani, who’s still lying on the ground, looking somewhat dazed. Grumpy settles in on top of the boy’s stomach, looking very satisfied with himself. Kyoutani pushes himself up onto his shoulders, running one hand through the crow’s feathers. It looks like he’s saying thank you, and Yahaba’s suspicions are confirmed when Grumpy chortles a smug ‘you’re welcome’.
“He reminded me of you,” Yahaba says, before he can stop himself. Apparently, that’s becoming a trend around Kyoutani. “That’s why I named him Grumpy.”
“What the fuck?” Kyoutani spits out. His face contorts into a twisted grimace, and they remain in that silence for a little while longer. Then Kyoutani swivels to stare down Yahaba. “You never said ya could talk to them too!” he says, tone accusatory.
Yahaba blinks innocently. “I didn’t? Must have slipped my mind, oops,” he says, giving Kyoutani a perfect smile despite the fluttery feeling in his stomach with Kyoutani’s eyes on him like that.
Kyoutani growls and buries his face into his arms, lying flat down on the floor again. Grumpy pecks at him.
Yahaba observes them for a while, aware of the sun rising and the growing chatter of students as the school hour approaches, but not quite caring. Then, once he decides that he does need to make an appearance in class, and Kyoutani’s presence wouldn’t hurt either, he leans over and pecks his new boyfriend’s(?) cheek. “Up and at ‘em, Prince Charming,” he sings, ignoring the waver in his voice. The air feels fragile, like the dawn hours when he's aware he's awake but still desperately trying to cling to his dreams, and each move makes him feel like he might resurface and break the illusion.
Then Kyoutani snaps up violently and bumps their heads together, successfully shattering any sort of weird daydream Yahaba may have built up. “Prince Charming?” Kyoutani hisses at the same time Yahaba cries, “Ow!”
“You said I was Snow White,” he reminded Kyoutani while nursing the superficial bump on his forehead. “Doesn’t that make you Prince Charming?”
Kyoutani turns a vibrant shade of red at that, and so Yahaba continues. “I suppose Oikawa would be the evil stepmother—making Mattsun and Makki can be the evil stepsisters—I guess that makes Iwa-chan the fairy godmother right? Hmm, and Watari, Watari would be-”
“Aren’t you confusing your fairy tales?” Kyoutani cuts in.
“Maybe,” Yahaba admits with a grin. “But I wanted you to shut me up.”
“What?” Kyoutani asks, with the most adorable frown. “Wait what—oh.”
Because Yahaba is kissing him again, and it is 7:45 AM, on June 2nd, in the Miyagi Prefecture, and the night before a comet fell from the sky and everyone’s got weird powers but it happens to be more than a cosmic joke on them, because Yahaba attracts birds and Kyoutani is a walking animal documentary and Yahaba and Kyoutani are KISSING, so maybe things could get weirder after all.