Work Text:
I stroll through the streets of Miyagi, stuffing my hands into my jacket pockets. My breath forms small white clouds in front of my mouth as my eyes scan the signs on shops. Cmon, I know it’s around here somewhere. Finally, I see it; a small, run-down building illuminated only by street lights, a huge sign reading Sakanoshita Market.
I can't help but smile briefly to myself, thinking back to our high school days, spending hours and hours in this very store. I take a deep breath of encouragement before walking towards the store, pushing open the door. In the front of the store I find around a dozen boys, sitting around a table, talking and laughing. Upon my entrance, most of them turn to look at me, except for a tiny ginger and a taller one with dark straight hair, who appear to be arguing about something, and a blond haired boy watching them with a look of amusement on his face.
One of the boys, who had been standing, speaks up: “Sorry ma’am, but the stores closed,” I observe his clothes- a white shirt underneath a black jacket, ‘Karasuno Volleyball Club’ embroidered on the chest. Ah. Volleyball players.
“Oh, I know. I’m looking for Keishin Ukai, is he-'' I start.
“Here, Hinata, I grabbed you a pencil from the office. Try not to use the whole eraser, would ‘ya?” I hear a rough voice say as a man pushes through the door that leads to the back. He tosses the pencil towards the table, and the tiny orange-haired one from before attempts to catch it and fails.
The man then goes and sits behind the counter, popping open a newspaper and not even looking up. I can’t help but giggle softly.
“Uh, coach? You got a visitor,” a pale, skinny player with gray hair raises an eyebrow.
I can’t help but suck in a breath as Keishin puts down the newspaper, finally looking up at me. I grin, and his eyes go wide before a smile spreads across his face. “Well well, look who finally made it back!” he laughed, standing up from the counter and walking towards me. He pulls me into an embrace, and I sigh happily at the familiar scent of cigarettes and cheap cologne. We pull away, and I turn to face the team, who stare with confused expressions.
“So, ol’ Sakanoshita is still where the Crows come to hang out?” I joke as I look back up at him.
“Ever since I started coaching the team, yeah,” he smirks down at me. My eyebrows raise.
“You? A volleyball coach? How the hell did I not know about this?” I smack his arm.
“Well if you visited more often you would,” he rebuts.
“Sorry some of us have careers, Keishin,” I elbow him in the arm lightly, although my voice shakes slightly toward the end of the phrase.
“I just told you, this is my career now!” He defends himself, voice gruff as always. I could only laugh.
“How good of a job are you doing?” I look at the players, observing them; there are certainly a few boys who are quite tall, and even though it seems like a rather random group of kids, something about them radiates passion. The mess in their hair and faint traces of sweat on their skin is a telltale sign of true hard work.
“Sawamura Daichi, Captain of the Karasuno High Volleyball Club, ma’am. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” a tan boy with short, dark hair stands up and bows to me. The rest of the team follows suit, bowing and handing out greetings as well. I smile widely.
“It’s nice to meet you all, I’m Watanabe Himari,” I bow slightly to them. “You boys are very courteous! I’m assuming this is your training, Sawamura? I can’t imagine Keishin whipping you all into shape like this.”
Keishin grunts at me, and Sawamura laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “You’d be surprised, ma’am.”
“He doesn’t wanna say anything cause we’ll have to run extra laps tomorrow if he tells the truth,” one of the boys, with a buzz cut and unruly clothing, cackles out, eliciting laughs from a few other boys.
“Tanaka!” Sawamura scolds him. “Apologies, ma’am,” he nods his head down in my direction.
I can’t help but laugh. “I see I’ve been proven right.”
“Don’t you all have families and houses to get back to?!” Keishin barks, waving his hand at the door and turning to grab a pack of cigarettes off the counter. “It’s about time to wrap this up anyway.”
“Yes, sir,” the boys say, a few laughing through it, and they begin packing up their belongings. I turn to Keishin as he searches his pockets for a lighter.
“You didn’t have to go kicking them out, man,” I laugh, leaning against the counter.
He shrugs. “Eh, this is around the time they usually pack it up anyways. It’s a weeknight,” he glances at the boys who are filing out of the store and pulls a lighter from his apron pocket and a cigarette out of the package, bringing it to his lips. I can’t help but keep my eyes on him as he does so, observing his face and features. His hair is much longer than the buzzcut I had grown used to as a teenager, and he’s certainly aged — not necessarily in a bad way, but in a way that’s noticeable. He seems tired. He lights the cigarette, taking a small inhale and blowing the smoke in my opposite direction. “Speakin’ of which, what are you doing here? Work holiday or something?”
I shrug. “Yeah,” I fix my hair and clear my throat. “Hey, can I get a drag off that?”
His brows furrow. “You smoke?”
“Occasionally,” I shrug once more. “Socially. Or when I’ve had a shit day.”
“Shit day, eh? What’s up?” he inhales the cigarette once more. He props himself up against the counter next to me and leans his head back, blowing the smoke up into the air.
“I’ll tell you if you let me get a hit,” I grin slightly.
The corner of his mouth curls up, and he eyes me slyly. “Pshh, got back and already so demanding,” he hands over the cigarette regardless.
I bring it to my lips, the bitter taste of the filter filling hitting my tongue, shortly followed by the taste of tobacco as I inhale deeply, my eyes fixed on the floor. My lungs burn, but the sting is refreshing. To be honest, I just lied to Keishin— lately, I’ve been smoking much more than just ‘occasionally’. The burn in my lungs reminds me that I am, in fact, a living, breathing person in the moments that I start to forget that simple fact.
I hold the smoke in my mouth for a moment as I hand the cigarette back to Keishin. Our eyes lock as I blow the smoke out of the side of my mouth, and he watches me with curiosity in his eyes. “Thank you,” I mutter, taking a deep breath.
“No problem, kid,” the old nickname slips off his tongue naturally, and I can’t help but grin to myself.
A silence falls over the store, and I look through the large glass windows at the street outside. The warm yellow of the streetlights is few and far between, only one of them being visible from the inside of the store. But, the unmistakable beginnings of a storm begin to appear: the light illuminates the drops of rain as they begin to fall
“Fuck…” I mutter to myself, although it’s apparently loud enough for Keishin to hear.
He clears the smoke from his mouth before speaking: “What’s up?”
I turn my head towards him, nodding it toward the outside. “It’s raining.”
The expression on his face appears playfully confused as he looks down at me like I’m not being serious. “And? What, is your car a convertible or something?”
“I don’t have a car, Keishin,” I explain. “You don’t need a car in the city.”
“Ah, right. So what, you walked here?” He raises one of his brows.
I sigh. “Yeah, and now I’ve gotta walk back and get wet.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he takes a final drag of the cigarette that’s somehow already almost down to the filter before putting it out in the ashtray on the counter. “I’ll give you a ride. Where are you staying?”
It occurs to me suddenly that I haven’t yet mentioned that I wasn’t exactly ‘just visiting’ Miyagi. I’m not sure that I want to, either; it’s big news, and it has to wait until the time is right. This is the first time we’ve spoken in years, I can’t give him the sob story yet… I swallow nervously, my brain scrambling for an explanation, before Keishin interrupts my thoughts.
“Actually, I was gonna go out with the guys later anyways. Would you wanna come with us? Decompress a little? I’m sure you’ve had a long day of traveling,” he suggests, taking his white store apron off and revealing his matching red tracksuit in full. What a dork. He looks just like the old man— I hope he can’t read minds, cause he’d kill me if he knew I thought that, I think fondly to myself.
“That sounds really nice, actually. God, I can’t remember the last time I saw them,” I laugh as he hangs his apron up on a hook next to the desk. “Do you think I’m dressed properly for a bar?” I gesture to my black heeled boots, blue jeans, and black peacoat.
He waves his hand dismissively, letting out a ‘pssh’ sound. “This place is a shithole. You’ll be the best dressed person there, I’m sure.”
I smile at his ever-unserious remarks. “If you say so.”