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there's a part of grief that not even the soul can grasp, something so sacred and innate to human nature that we will never fully cope. that's how this felt.
“i was really hoping you’d pick up” sobs choke through the other end of the phone. “because i miss you— a lot.” the unease sits on kageyama’s chest as he replays the voicemail. hinata’s voice sick with a sadness so indescribable that it tears and thrashes against his chest. “and i just miss you so much. and i cant-“ heartbreaking, it really is. to listen to such a desperate plea for him, to listen to the choked out words and how he can just imagine hinata so distraught, half way across the world. “i can’t say that i love you because those are huge ass words” each word laced with a sickening sorrow, as kageyama listens again, and again, it tears him apart.
this wasn’t the first time a voicemail sits in his inbox from hinata unanswered, no reply in sight. it wasn’t supposed to be this hard.
six months ago, kageyama brought it up like this.
“don’t you think it’ll be hard to still do this when we move?” this, referring to how they’ve become. physically intertwined, spending most of their free time together, and when they spend their occupied time together they couldn’t keep their eyes off of each other. sneaking glances in practice, in class, shy smiles turning into proud grins and sneaky smirks.
“what do you mean?” hinata goes still, his hand that was tracing patterns into kageyama’s palm now retreating to his own. hinata’s head rests on kageyama’s shoulder gently, his legs thrown over the taller boy’s legs. this is how it usually went, comfortable silence between the two of them. content with the knowing weight between them.
“i just mean like us, how is this going to work?” kageyama’s a little nervous now, fiddling with his ears, like he always did when he was nervous. he feels the small pitter patter of his heart over their hushed voices.
“what’s us?” hinata smirks, they’ve never had this conversation. suddenly excited to finally put dust to ashes about this. hinata has always thought of them as boyfriends, ever since they kissed for the first time.
practice ended early, a once annual event, the two of them taking extra long to walk to where the road split, and when kageyama stared down back at him the way he always did hinata couldn’t resist anymore. it’s been history since, a history of exploring, learning, talking, knowing. he’s enjoyed it, he thinks to himself. even if the weighing feeling of impending doom lingered behind it all and stored itself neatly behind hinata’s heart, it didn’t matter. it didn’t matter that only a year from now they’d leave a 10,000 mile distance between the two of them, both of them committing to a promise of a destiny that would meet again.
“together.” kageyama confirms, nodding his own head in affirmation. “but don’t you think it would be better if we gave each other the space to grow, while we’re gone” and kageyama doesn’t know where it comes from, this inherent need to make sure that he could be enough for hinata, to confirm it within himself that there is no one out there that could inspire hinata better, toss better, challenge him more. its not like it’s been eating at him since they met, or every time they’re together, or even now.
hinata’s eyebrows scrunch together, and he pulls his knees back into his chest and pulls back until the armrest of the couch digs into his lower back. “what are you talking about kageyama?” his tone is icy now, treading on insulted.
“are you not sure? of me?” hinata asks tentatively, as if he’s scared the own answer in his mind will match the one kageyama gives. scared that even after all the work they’ve done, the trust they’ve built, it will never be enough.
“no. no, of course not.” kageyama sighs. it’s never easy, communicating what lays on his heart. “i just mean, don’t you want to at least see what’s out there?” his heart drops, because kageyama has never wanted to know, never needed to know.
he’s always been sure of one thing, that hinata matches his soul like no other. there’s never been another to meet him exactly where he was, never been another to give into the pressure and the demand that kageyama gives. but he knows that hinata is capable of more, knows that hinata knows it too. that’s why he chose brazil, why he chose to take temporary losses for a long term win.
“as long as you are with me, you’re the greatest” he remembers, a fond memory that lingers and leaves soft marks on his heart.
he knows hinata will reject the idea of needing more, of kageyama pushing him away to find more. kageyama didn’t feel as if he was the more, knew that if hinata came back then he could settle, that every worry and insecurity he had about not being hinata’s final partner would settle and retire, only leaving room for eternal and unforgiving love. that’s what he believed, at least.
“no. no. i don’t want to know what’s out there- what are you even saying kageyama?” hinata stares daggers into his eyes, splintering the conversation with a dangerous dark alley, he knows it would probably go like this. “just spit it out, what’s going on?” hinata pleads, and he can tell the edge in his voice is just a facade. hinata’s hands shake and he watches the smaller boys chest rise and fall in a rhythm unnaturally panicked. his eyes erratic, and if he looks too close he could see a glint on them. not now, don’t back down, he thinks.
“i just think maybe we could benefit from the time apart, you know.” and kageyama thinks it’s easier this way, to lie and make himself look careless. he turns away from hinata, not bearing to watch as small tears leak from the corners of his orange eyelashes.
“you make no sense. you know that?” hinata says, moving to stand off of the couch. “one week we can sit here and talk about our futures and then now you’re just choosing a life without me because you think we need space” hinata seethes.
“whatever this sudden doubt you have is, i hope you’re happy with it in tokyo.” he says, and the words bite ice pick holes in kageyama’s facade of a defense. blood oozing and draining from the cracks. it’s easier this way he thinks, trying to force the undeniable dread that sits in his mouth, slacking from the way he knows it’s over.
kageyama remembers the last time he saw hinata with his own eyes, crying in his doorway and begging kageyama to explain, to just tell him “why do you think i don’t want you” and he hates the way hinata knows his heart, sees through him as if he were translucent. and when he shuts the door and hinata nearly screams in anger, he thinks about how hinata won’t regret this, and that if it’s meant to be they will come back together, right.
kageyama has always pushed the things he’s loved, away, into the furthest cabinet in his mind that he could find. and when the feelings got too strong as they did with hinata, it became time to do some spring cleaning. he knew that as long as in his destiny they were together, there was no need for physical togetherness.
th voicemail plays a few more times, as if kageyama can convince himself not to reply if he only listens a few more times. it’s not the first time, nor will it be the last.
late at night, when hinata lays there and ponders his grief, he’ll always think of kageyama. and when he calls a few times and doesn’t answer like usual, he can’t help but leave a pathetic voicemail. his voice cracking into the receiver in hopes that maybe this one will be the one that convinces kageyama to reply. it doesn’t. it never does. hinata wonders if there’s something he did in a past life to deserve this, to sit there in this endless pit of grief and desire. how could something so good end in such turmoil, how could love go to waste. no. not waste, there was nothing wasteful about their love.
years ago, younger versions of them grew up and danced ribbons of love around each other. of passion, devotion, of matching colors and desires. they matched, and hinata had met his partner. in every sense, even if they wouldn’t know that for years. and as their love grew and bound past the limits of friendship, he thought that something so good he was deserving of. the way they knew each other was unexplainable to others, the way kageyama could see into hinata’s eyes and know every thought on his boundless mind. the way hinata could read the endless and unrelenting anxiety on kageyama and soothe it over with only a look. they communicated that way mostly at first, with telepathic gazes and eye contact so ethereal there was no denying a more intense chemistry.
hinata
you know you could at least answer me. someday. 22:46
this is stupid, kageyama.
22:52
did you watch my game?
22:53
is it stupid if i hope you did?
22:57
i actually fucking hate you. you did this.
23:37
—missed call 23:42
—missed call 23:43
—missed call, voicemail (2:44) 00:02
this was a few nights a week, at this point. every time he listens to the voicemails and feels the regret wash over him like a tidal wave. he’s never gained the courage to respond, never been able to face the fact that he was wrong. leaving hinata ripped and bleeding, never been able to accept that it would never be enough. even if hinata came back today, a year from now, five, that he would never be satisfied. he sees himself as a detachment from hinata, unable to match him and be enough.
he knows it’s his own problem, but be thinks that it can’t be fair to put that onto hinata, to hold him back. not when he saw the passion burn hot and white in his eyes when they played together. is it punishment? to love someone so much they’d rather rid them from their life than keep them around in their own sorrow. he knows hinata’s words are meaningless in their lackluster hatred, knows that after all the angry and ruthless texts come through there’s almost always a voicemail, chucked full of pleading cries to just “figure this out” “come talk to me” “don’t fucking give up you coward” instead, kageyama tries to accept that he’s sealed their fate. maybe it is giving up, giving up in the hopes that the love he will love from afar will find better, won’t settle for someone too cowardly to admit that he won’t ever be enough for himself, so how could he be enough for hinata? so he eats the guilt for dinner and goes on to the next day, practices and lives life in such a benign routine that there’s no time to risk relapse into his lover's life.
that would be until he saw him, at least. season opener against their rival team, he sat on the bench as the rotation without him worked as they would to fend off tricky points. he watches with his tongue in his cheek, silent, his eyes focused so strongly that they feel as if they would dry to sand any moment. but this is how it goes now, maybe a year ago he wouldn’t talked to his team mates and conversed lightly, but not now. not as his teammates worryingly shifted their eyes to each other and spoke hushed around him. as their coach calls a time out, he leans down to grab his water bottle, but on return of his gaze back into the crowd he notices something. something so familiar it ignites a flame so blue in his chest that he almost feels smoked out.
there he was. sitting next to yachi, who supportively stares back at kageyama, as if knowing. her hand lays gently against hinata’s leg, and he thinks about how he used to be able to do that, before, everything. hinata looks at him, but he isn’t at the same time. his eyes empty, gone is the toffee glazed magma eyes that used to have such passion and wonder wherever they landed, and what remained was something sad, defeated. they may be glancing in kageyama’s direction, but if they had before peered into his soul they now gaze into the beyond, as if he was see through. the towed away boxes of stored away feelings and dangerous future plans shake dust from their imaginary storage and kageyama tries to ignore the way his heart yearns and screams for hinata all the way from across the court. tries to ignore how badly he would love to scramble up the steps and kneel before him, to ask for forgiveness and explain. But he won’t.
instead he walks away and meets his team, who raise their eyebrows and try to find the same place he was there staring at, but fail to. how could he expect them to, kageyama kept hinata close to his heart so possessively that no one else needed to know of his failings, of his inability to love him right. to do right by him.
the game came and went, as it always did. but not without kageyama’s pulse beating so fast he was sure he might be setting himself up for a heart attack. he has to see him, has to explain, has to plead and beg to be understood, feeling as though his last chance to make things okay, not right, but okay was now.
“no, don’t fucking follow me.” is what he hears from hinata as kageyama steps about ten steps behind him. well, this is going great, kageyama thinks but doesn’t stop. “kageyama i’m serious i didn’t come to talk.” hinata says, the threat in his voice loose, he knows it too well.
“then what did you come for” kageyama beckons, trying to match his pace. for once, it seems that shorter legs make their way faster on the pavement than his own.
“yachi said she wanted to watch the game, if i would’ve known it was you i would’ve stayed as far as i fucking could’ve” he spits. unrelenting in his pace forward, and kageyama has no idea where he intends to go.
“you’re trying to tell me you came to tokyo with yachi for a volleyball game and it wasn't to see my game.” and kageyama knows how it sounds, but it just makes no-
“not everything is about you, prick. maybe in our time apart you’d think you’d learn that.” hinata throws back his own words into his face like scalding water, and it does just that, leave stains of maroon on his face and chest in embarrassment.
“hinata, can you stop walking so fast so we can talk” kageyama huffs cold air as he continues to try to match his pace, but with every stride he catches up on, hinata only seems to move faster.
“what makes you think i’d want to talk to your dumb ass” and hinata stops to abruptly and turns to face him that kageyama nearly walks through him and has to lean onto his toes to prevent it. maybe he wanted the fight, all this time as he then responds
“i don’t know, all the texts and voicemails.” and hinata’s eyes go aflame at that, and he raises his hands and shoves kageyama’s chest backward. he thinks internally that maybe the distance is good. even if the shove is so forceful it leaves welts of hurt on his skin.
“you really are just a big fucking dick” hinata says, pushing him again with every word. and kageyama lets him, lets him push and slap until eventually hinata’s attempts at hurting him slow, and his head hangs. his shoulders shake and when he looks down at hinata he sees small water droplets fall down to their feet, making small water puddles below them in the pattern of specks on the concrete. it solidifies in kageyama’s chest and sits there like heavy bricks, the weight of it all crashing on him and the last six months of pushing it down, yearning for more. yearning for a brain that would let him believe they could have each other and that could be enough.
he grabs hinata’s wrists between his palms, and feels the way hinata’s pulse rages beneath his skin, warm and steady. a reminder of a connection to a heart that he loved, still loves.
“hinata” is all he can bear to say, and he isn’t sure if he pulls him in or hinata steps forward but either way the shorter boy crumples into his chest and his jersey soaks through in the spot right below where hinata’s face lays.
“i’m so fucking stupid” hinata says, laughing now. but kageyama knows it doesn’t indicate any type of joy.
“i can’t believe i actually thought we were something” he meets kageyama’s gaze and his eyes are lined with red in a way that pulls dusty strings in kageyama’s heart.
“we did.” kageyama whispers back, begging for the words to form in his head before they all pour out mercilessly onto this already broken table. “we did.” he says again and hinata’s lip quivers. his wrists still warm in kageyama’s grasp. he won’t let go, can’t.
hinata backs up and wipes his face into the shoulder of his t-shirt, trying to pull his own arms back and succeeds with one. but then kageyama grabs onto the other harder, desperate to not let go. and says
“wait” and it’s so gentle and it’s like every word he’s tried to say over the last year line up behind it, emotion in tow. “i can’t let you go again” he says, and hinata peers up at him like he used to. when he was afraid kageyama would snap and yell at him like they did in middle schools. it softens the layers of rubble that sit atop his achey heart.
“no, you don’t get to do this kageyama” hinata says, and when he hears his own name come from his lips again he can’t help but close his eyes, memories and small town fears rushing back to him like how traces of scents bring people back to childhood nostalgia.
“no, please hinata just wait.” he says, and hopes that his eyes plead with the desperation that begs at his tongue to just say it. “i need to explain” and hinata bites his lip as if he had something meaner in mind.
“the sick part about this all is that i’ve never stopped waiting for you, kageyama, and of course when it’s convenient for you.” he stops there, shaking his head. kageyama lets go of his hand, but he doesn’t leave. loyal, like he always was. is. hinata faces the lakeshore, and the moon bounces off it and guides light to his pale face. he looks a little older now, grief does that, he thinks. sadness digs beneath his chest and burrows itself there, unmoving in its truth.
“i never stopped loving you.” kageyama says, and he shocks himself that it doesn’t come out in a quiver, that his eyes don’t sting automatically at the omission.
“i felt like i had to let you go.” he continues, interrupted by how hinata’s eyes attentively stare back at his.
“if this is just going to be some dumb excuse about how you felt like we could benefit from time apart just save it honestly. look at me” and kageyama follows orders, looks at him and takes him in under the midnight lighting. he remembers him like a prophecy, and wishes he could follow it in crashing their bodies together and trying to mend their books together physically.
“no, just let me finish” and it comes out a little snappier than he’d hope, but hinata’s lips purse and he doesn’t go any further, so he guesses it worked.
“i felt like i needed proof that you weren’t going to find someone better than me.” he starts, and his hands fiddle to find something solid to latch onto.
“i didn’t feel good enough for you, felt like no matter what i did i wouldn’t be satisfied knowing you didn’t at least try other options.” his breaths are few and far between, gasping down air as he can.
“i felt like if you went and found someone else, i could’ve been okay with that. i felt like i could never have been enough, hinata.” and he blinks out the blurry sting that grounds him. and at least he’s said it, even if hinata moves on now and hates him forever, he’s admitted his part and opened his heart to be slain. revealed his truth to be stoned. worth it so that hinata can gain closure, to finally move on like he’s wanted all along, at least what he’s told himself it’s what he wanted.
“all i wanted was you.” hinata replies, so fragile that kageyama barely hears it, and when he finally meets hinata’s golden eyes they’re wet with tears. longing and yearning for the connection they once had.
“i tried to show you that, i tried to make it obvious kageyama.” and he knows hinata did, always willing to reassure and make it known that his love was always enough.
“stop talking about us like it’s in the past” kageyama pleads, hands clasping around hinata’s in a prayers motion.
“you did this kageyama, you put me in your past and left me stranded.” hinata cries at him. so much raw emotion that it burns in his ears.
“im sorry” is what he musters. “you never left my mind, never was there a day i didn’t think of you.” kageyama says, a silent prayer. a plea of forgiveness to the universe. an ounce of mercy
“you never tried” hinata says, and there’s a gentleness to it that kageyama knows he doesn’t deserve, doesn’t ask for. but is thankful for nonetheless.
“i felt like you didn’t care, you ignored me, shut me out and i made a fool of myself.” hinata says again, and kageyama feels the door of fate between them teeter between shut and open, and it scares him more than anything he’s felt before.
“let me prove it to you” he says, and he feels the way his nose crinkles as he fights back tears. “let me try again, please. let me make it right.” and he brings hinata’s hands up to his lips and kisses his knuckles, like how they used to. familiar, hinata’s eyelids flutter and he has to do a double take at the way his heart slowly gets up from being knocked down.
“i- i don’t know.” hinata says and shakes his head. “i don’t know if i can do this again kageyama” and his names sound religious coming from him, sacred. “let me try then” kageyama replies, desperate. “please.”
hinata can only nod, gulping down the thick saliva sitting in his throat, the uncomfortable lump never going away.
“i love you too much to let you go again” kageyama tries, vulnerable, open. and hinata’s mouth gapes, he knows he said it earlier but it only registers now. neither of them admitted that in the past, only meaning more now as distance grew the heart fonder.
“how can i trust you again” hinata asks, maybe more to himself than kageyama but he’ll answer anyway, he’ll never leave hinata to question again. it might kill him, might leave him hurt and destined for eternities despair, but worth it to never leave hinata like this again.
“i’m not asking you to. i’ll prove it to you” kageyama offers, shyly. it’s like they’re middle schoolers again, building trust after so many fights between the two of them. he doesn’t mind restarting, as long as he has hinata again, as long as his prophesized partner remains next to him. because love is proof, loving is effort, love is trust. he knows this because hinata is love, pure and steadfast. a constant in his life, even when he could not be the same.
“okay” is all hinata can bring himself to say, and he feels as his whole body shakes from all the emotion he’s felt standing here. it’s as if time stood still around them, as if the universe cleaved open and sat them here. the world is still and quiet, inviting their bond to be reconciled.
“okay” kageyama replies, and they sit there for a second, neither of them making any move, that being before kageyama hesitantly reaches and pulls hinata to him, chest to chest. hinata breathes in his scent and shudders, as if his innate sense of being collides with kageyama’s again and agrees wholeheartedly. his walls of hurt and betrayal collapse, laying in rubble at his feet which now are stuck where they are, in between kageyama’s enveloped in a mysterious safety. a questionable trust. a question and answer, is what they always were.
they stay that way for who knows how long, comfortable in each other's silence just as they used to be. and when one of them pulls away, they know it’s not forever.
kageyama knows he can be enough, knows that with work and honesty and trust that they will be complete again, and years from now when they look back on this as they lay together, intertwined and full of love, he remembers
“as long as you’ve got me, you’re the greatest”