Chapter Text
A short blast on a whistle marked set point for Karasuno, and Ennoshita watched Nishinoya half-jog back to the sidelines. Tsukishima silently replaced him, gearing up to serve.
“You look tired, Chikara,” Nishinoya ribbed him. Ennoshita always looked tired, but this time he had good reason. “Still three more days of training camp left, you should get excited.”
Three more days. Ennoshita wanted to sob.
“Yeah, I don’t think I can-”
“SERVICE ACE!”
The rest of the team erupted into cheers. Ennoshita’s breath was knocked out of him when Nishinoya leapt onto his back, pumping his fist into the air higher than Hinata’s, who had jumped so high he could have landed on Asahi’s shoulders. Their Nekoma opponents looked irritated, and even over the din Ennoshita could hear their libero telling off another player for skipping out on receiving practice one too many times.
From the corner of his eye, Ennoshita saw a ball launch in his direction and instinctively dove to receive it. It landed limply in his arms. The lack of rebound threw him off, and he only had time to register the texture of fabric before overbalancing and landing in a heap on the gym floor, Nishinoya still on his back.
Noya hopped up and pulled Ennoshita into a sitting position, slapping his shoulder yelling “don’t mind!” Still dazed, he shook his head and looked down at the bundle of cloth in his hands. Uncrumpled, he saw it was a Karasuno gym shirt and a yellow practice jersey bearing the number 5.
A primal yell split the gym and he saw Tanaka to the right, bare-chested, and shouting congratulations at Tsukishima for his winning point.
“Nice kill! Come on, celebrate!”
“No.”
“Senpai’s orders, off with it!” Tanaka grabbed at the hem of his shirt and tugged roughly upwards.
“No.” Tsukishima insisted, fighting to keep his shirt on with one hand and his glasses on with the other. Yamaguchi hid a snicker behind his hand, making no attempt to help. Nekoma’s captain watched through the net with unconcealed glee, biting his lip in a way that made Ennoshita blush.
He looked over at Tanaka again, and his chest contorted with emotion. This was all his fault. It just wasn’t enough that he was so loud during the day. He brought an energy to Karasuno that no one else could duplicate, and Ennoshita appreciated, even liked that about Tanaka. There were a lot of things he liked about Tanaka. His contagious enthusiasm. His talent for the game. His insistence on showing off his back muscles.
Get it together, Chikara, you hate him right now, remember? he reminded himself, forcing a glare in Tanaka’s direction. Tanaka looked over at him with that feral grin and winked.
Ennoshita stood quickly to hide the blush creeping up his neck and tightened his grip on Tanaka’s clothes. He marched toward him with every intention of shoving the stupid shirt down his stupid throat.
“Hey, Ennoshita, help me take Tsukishima’s shirt off!”
“Put your clothes back on,” he shoved the shirt and jersey into Tanaka’s chest. Tanaka reached to grab them and Tsukishima, having been released, turned to leave immediately. His long strides took him out of the gym in a matter of seconds with Yamaguchi right behind him.
“Call me senpai!” Tanaka yelled by way of goodbye. They ignored him. He flicked his wrist to drape his clothes over one shoulder and turned back to Ennoshita, who was still glaring.
“What’s the matter, want me to take yours off instead?” Tanaka raised his hands and wiggled his fingers threateningly.
Yes please. “No thanks.”
“You look tired.”
No kidding.
“C’mon, let’s get to dinner. Gotta eat all the good stuff before they get packed up.” Tanaka nodded towards an approaching group of players. Their blue shirts gave them away as Fukurodani. “Those guys eat everything.”
They passed the Fukurodani team on the way out and Ennoshita overheard one of them.
“Akaashi, we should take our shirts off when we win.”
“I don’t think so, Bokuto-san,” said the other player, without looking at his captain.
Bokuto’s protests continued until after the Karasuno players left the gym. Ennoshita took a deep breath of cool night air, enjoying the quiet breezeway that connected their practice areas with the cafeteria. A quick dinner, then back to the second years’ room. If he skipped the showers, he’d be able to get at least a couple hours sleep before everyone else went to bed. But after that he’d have to deal with—
“I don’t think that’s his first name,” Tanaka commented.
Ennoshita was snapped out of his thoughts. “What?”
“Bokuto-san,” Tanaka turned and pointed, continuing to walk backwards down the sidewalk. “The Fukurodani captain. I don’t think that’s his first name.”
“So?” There was a turn coming up and Ennoshita briefly considered allowing Tanaka to continue off the sidewalk, falling ass-first into the damp grass. Instead he sighed and reached out, turning Tanaka back around by the shoulder. His hand pushed against the shirt still draped there. “You should put those on. You’re going to catch a cold.”
“So,” Tanaka continued ignoring the shirt comment and jabbing a thumb at his chest, “We get to call our captain by his first name. They don’t. Ha!”
“Go us,” Ennoshita responded without enthusiasm. Fukurodani’s camaraderie had no effect on his sleep schedule, which was currently his only concern.
“Yeah!” Tanaka agreed. He thrust his chin into the air with pride. “Go us!” After a few more seconds of walking, he continued. “Hey, now, there’s a thought…” he began in a sly tone, looking over at Ennoshita with a devious smirk.
Oh no. “What?”
Tanaka leaned in confidentially. Ennoshita could smell the salty sweat on his skin. “Does that mean next year, when you’re captain, everyone’s gonna call you by your first name?”
Ennoshita almost stopped in his tracks, but covered by pretending to kick at a rock on the sidewalk. He honestly hadn’t thought about it. All of the underclassmen called their captain ‘Daichi-san’. But the co-captain didn’t. And if he appointed Tanaka as his own co-captain, then every day at practice, he would hear—
“Well, Chikara?”
Ennoshita flushed, head to toe. “Tanaka, that’s embarrassing!”
“Sorry, sorry,” Tanaka put a hand behind his head in false apology. “Just practicing.” He brought his other hand up and walked with his fingers laced on the back of his scalp.
“It’s fine.” Ennoshita sighed. “I’m just really tired, I didn’t sleep well.”
“’Fine’, huh?”
If Ennoshita had seen the smile Tanaka gave him then, he might have forgiven him for his lack of sleep.
After inhaling his food, Ennoshita walked the few blocks back to the makeshift-dorm they were staying in. Their usual lodgings were undergoing renovation, but one of Takeda-sensei’s friends lived nearby and was travelling. The team was staying in the empty house, after swearing to their teacher (and to Daichi) that they wouldn’t break anything or go digging through personal belongings.
But Ennoshita’s loyalty to his promise was tested. He wanted nothing more than to search every inch of the house for a pair of earplugs. He hadn’t slept in two days.
Because Tanaka snored like a freight train.
He usually kept a set in his bag in case he couldn’t move his futon to the opposite side of whatever room they were staying in, but they were nowhere to be found. And now he was stuck sleeping in a tiny room with the other second years for a full week with nothing to muffle the cacophony next to him. Every bit of space in the room was taken up by bedrolls. Only Nishinoya slept slightly apart from the rest, next to the door. This had been agreed upon by everyone beforehand – he tended to sleepwalk, and no one wanted to be stepped on.
Tonight, the rest of the team would be in the cafeteria socializing for a little while longer, and Ennoshita planned to take full advantage of the quiet. He was still daydreaming about his two hours of uninterrupted sleep when he reached the door of the house and realized:
He didn’t have a key.
He checked the top of the door frame and kicked over a few rocks in the front flowerbed, but no luck. If he wasn’t so sapped of energy, he would have cried. He sat down on the porch and put his head in his hands. He was so tired. He just wanted sleep.
“Oh my god, is he dead?” Ennoshita was jolted awake at the sound of Hinata’s voice. He pushed himself up off the porch, one arm tingling from being underneath him for so long.
“He’s moving, dumbass,” came Kageyama’s retort.
A gasp from Hinata. “Zombie!”
Ennoshita tried to reassure the first years that no, he wasn’t dead, but all that came out was a sleepy groan. He waved his half-dead arm in their direction and saw Hinata duck behind Kageyama, still muttering about zombies.
“No apocalypse today, sorry,” Ennoshita mumbled. “Just fell asleep on the porch is all.”
The rest of the team made their way up the sidewalk, chatting loudly about their victory over Nekoma and some event during dinner that involved three sets of chopsticks, a plate of curry, and a squirrel that had come in through a window.
“Why didn’t you knock?” asked Tsukishima, walking up the porch steps and pulling off his headphones. “Yachi came back hours ago to do homework.”
Ennoshita barely heard him; he was too focused on Tsukishima’s noise-cancelling headphones being stuffed into a duffel bag. He wondered idly if Tsukishima would rent them to him for the night.
“Oh look, the door’s unlocked!” came Hinata’s voice again. It faded as the first years entered. “We’re back, Yachi-san! How was studying?”
Ennoshita heard Yachi’s muffled response and thunked his head back against the concrete. Maybe he would sleep out here where it was quieter. If he got mugged and taken to the hospital, they might have earplugs he could use. He was near to dozing again when he heard Nishinoya.
“… and they’ll never get all the fur out of that curry pot. Oh, hey, Chikara, what’s wrong?” Noya’s face appeared in Ennoshita’s field of vision.
“Yeah, Chikara, what’s wrong?” Tanaka also popped into view. Noya gave him an approving glance that Ennoshita might have imagined.
He turned his head slightly to look at Tanaka. Fuck you and your perfect face and the stupid noises that come out of it. “Nothing.”
Nishinoya looked concerned. “You’re sleeping on the ground, man.”
“I’m trying, but people keep talking to me.”
Noya clapped once. “Come on, Ryuu, let’s get this guy to bed.”
“Yes sir!” Tanaka snapped a sharp salute.
“One, two—” they said together, and Ennoshita felt himself lifted off the ground. Tanaka’s grip was strong on his upper arms, and Noya kept his feet from dragging. They carried him into the house and up the stairs, still talking about the squirrel and the curry. He was too tired to care, and was fast asleep by the time they dumped him onto his futon.
Ennoshita’s dreams lapsed into a nightmare about a rabid, motorcycle-riding bear wreaking havoc with a chainsaw and he woke to Tanaka’s snoring again. The clock on his phone told him it was barely midnight, so he had to deal with at least another seven hours of noise before he could go down to the kitchen and eat breakfast. He noticed that he was still wearing his shoes and gym clothes, so he decided he would go to the bathroom and change. That might kill a few minutes. Maybe he could take his futon and sleep in the tub. He had a brief mental image of waking up and pulling back the shower curtain to Coach Ukai or someone else taking a piss right next to him and decided against it.
His duffel bag was next to his mat (he made a mental note to thank Kinoshita and Narita in the morning) and he made his way across the hall, not bothering to be quiet. If they could sleep through Tanaka’s snoring, they certainly wouldn’t hear Ennoshita brushing his teeth. He did tiptoe around Nishinoya’s futon before noticing it was empty. There was no telling what part of the house he was in. Maybe he was sleeping in the bathtub. When he got to the bathroom, Ennoshita checked behind the shower curtain before relieving himself, just in case.
Three hours later, Ennoshita lay on his futon having gone through Karasuno’s entire season history in play-by-play, mentally drafted himself a study schedule for finals, and named every member of their class in alphabetical order, and still Tanaka snored on. Ennoshita wondered if he could get away with smacking him, or at least rolling him over so his face was buried in the pillow. Maybe he could use his gym bag and hit Tanaka in the face. Maybe he could cover Tanaka’s mouth with something. Like his own mouth. Maybe kissing Tanaka would shut him up. The idea was unrealistic, but it did have the benefit of distracting him for another twenty minutes.
After going through as many fantasy variations as he could of Tanaka not snoring due to Ennoshita’s mad kissing skills, he settled on trying to turn him over to face the other way. If Tanaka woke up, well they’d have a couple seconds silence at least.
Ennoshita could see the curve of Tanaka’s bare shoulder in the moonlight coming through the window. He was sleeping in a sleeveless shirt. Ennoshita reached out a hand, and as soon as he made contact with skin—silence.
“Sorry to wake you, Tanaka, but you’re snoring really loud. Can you turn over?”
No response.
“Tanaka?” he shook him slightly. Still nothing. “Whatever,” Ennoshita mumbled to himself, pulling his hand away and laying back down. Immediately, the snoring started up. He grabbed at Tanaka’s shoulder again, preparing to shake him enough to rattle his brains, but the moment they touched, Tanaka’s breathing calmed. Deep, slow breaths told Ennoshita he was still fast asleep.
Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.
He situated himself on one edge of his futon, careful to maintain contact with Tanaka. If this worked, he might survive training camp after all. He stared at his hand, resting casually on Tanaka’s shoulder. His fingers twitched, aching to trace the lines of muscle. He wished he could rest his head there instead of on the tatami mat between them. The thought of that and the peaceful silence put him to sleep within seconds.
He woke up when his elbow hit the floor with a thunk. Tanaka had thrown his arm off, and was sitting up to stretch. Ennoshita could see the strain his muscles were putting on what was left of his shirt. Maybe that’s why it didn’t have sleeves anymore.
As Ennoshita peeled his face off the floor, he reassured himself that no one would say anything about his sleeping position. No one noticed things like that anymore. They learned early on that when you have several people sharing a room, some are going to take up more space than others. Every member of the team had been rudely awakened at least once with Noya sprawled on top of them, and Kageyama often complained of waking up with Hinata’s feet in his face.
Ennoshita could confirm Hinata’s accidental antics first-hand. He had woken once to see Asahi staring at the ceiling, shellshocked, with Hinata’s pinky toe shoved up his left nostril. He gave Ennoshita a look that said, plainly, help! Ennoshita had smiled and run a fingernail down Hinata’s heel. Hinata giggled in his sleep and pulled his feet away, freeing Asahi from his fate. The memory made Ennoshita snort.
“What, you’re gonna laugh at a guy that takes his morning stretches seriously?” Tanaka jibed.
Awake for thirty seconds and already trying to pick a fight. Ennoshita tried to hide a smile.
“What’s funny, eh?” Tanaka made a tough face. “How about I pin you to that futon and make you tell me?”
Well, as much fun as that would be… “Just thinking about that time Asahi-san was too polite to tell Hinata that his toe was stuck up his nose,” he mumbled into his pillow.
Tanaka roared a laugh and slapped a thigh in mirth and they spent the rest of the morning trading stories about the team’s travel mishaps. The time Hinata barfed on Tanaka’s track suit and he wore shorts all winter because the smell wouldn’t go away. The time coach Ukai took them to the wrong building when they walked in on a little kid’s birthday party and had been been chased out by a tiara-wearing 6-year-old with a piñata baton). The time Tsukishima’s glasses got stepped on by a sleepwalking Noya and he had to wear Takeda-sensei’s for a match and the rest of the team called him ‘professor’ for a week.
Ennoshita was in a much better mood for the rest of the day, despite his continued sleep deprivation. The knowledge that he had a plan for a full night’s rest ahead of him kept him going. He even subbed in for Daichi during their third game against Fukurodani, and his solid receives kept the ball in play until the point count reached the 30s. They lost the set when one of Tanaka’s spikes went out-of-bounds.
“Tanaka, pay attention to the ball!” Daichi barked.
“You’re right, Daichi-san, I’m sorry!” He fell to his knees dramatically. “Our team just looks so cool I can’t help but watch!”
Sugawara came over to Ennoshita, who was bent double, still catching his breath after the extended set. “Nice receives,” he said. Ennoshita nodded his thanks. “You’re going to be a great captain.”
“You think so?”
“You inspire your team, Ennoshita-san.” Suga nodded towards Tanaka, still begging Daichi’s forgiveness. “But you will have to keep your ace in check.”
“Any tips on that would be great.”
“I don’t think you’ll have too much of a problem,” Suga said. Ennoshita looked at him quizzically. Suga leaned over to whisper, “He missed his spike because he was too busy watching you play.”
Curse his sleep-addled brain, there was no making sense of this right now. Before he could ask for explanation, Sugawara smiled and left, moving towards the captain. Ennoshita watched him touch Daichi gently on the arm; Daichi stopped yelling immediately. He was forcibly reminded of the night before, when just a small amount of contact was enough to stop Tanaka’s snoring.
Well, if that’s how a captain and vice-captain are supposed to work, Ennoshita thought, we may just manage after all.
When the team was prepping for bed that night, Ennoshita put his plan into action. Under the guise of looking through his bag, he shifted his futon slightly closer to Tanaka’s. He would wait until the rest of the second years drifted off, then roll over and lay a hand on his arm. With their beds a few inches closer, he would be able to sleep with his head on the pillow instead of having his cheek plastered to a tatami mat. He still had a crick in his neck from the night before. Just in case, he set the alarm on his phone a minute earlier than usual. Everyone else would gripe at him in the morning, but it would give him a chance to roll over with no one the wiser.
Once Coach Ukai called ‘lights out’, Ennoshita focused on his teammates. He knew their sleep patterns; he’d had nothing else to do for the past three nights but listen to them breathe. One by one they dropped off, but Tanaka stayed, stubbornly, awake.
Wonder what’s keeping him up? Ennoshita thought. Maybe he ate some peppers at dinner and it cleared his sinuses. A few more minutes passed, and he drifted closer to sleep, ideas getting more surreal as his consciousness faded into dreams. Maybe I have magical snore-curing powers. Maybe he died and I’ll have to level up my snore-curing power to bring him back to life. Maybe when—
He heard the snuffling breath that heralded Tanaka’s snoring and was instantly awake again. Ennoshita reached for him, aiming for his forearm but touching the back of his hand instead.
Perfect, blissful, silence greeted him. Ennoshita was falling asleep again almost instantly, unable to resist snaking his fingers in-between Tanaka’s. He would let go as soon as his alarm went off.
“Um. You need something?” Tanaka asked.
Ennoshita’s heart rate rocketed like he’d done four laps of diving receives. He dropped Tanaka’s hand and stuttered an apology. “Oh, I’m- you- snoring?”
“What?” The tone was curious, not accusatory, which Ennoshita took as a good sign.
He took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself. “You don’t snore if someone’s touching you,” he explained as simply as possible.
“That’s…” Bullshit? A stupid excuse to try to hold someone’s hand when they’re sleeping? “kinda cool.” Ennoshita sighed in relief. “But why are you grabbing my hand—”
Oh shit oh shit oh shit.
Tanaka sat up, visible in the moonlight coming from the window “—when you could be grabbing these guns right here!” He flexed his arm in Ennoshita’s face and slapped at his bicep, wiggling his eyebrows for good measure.
“Tanaka, go to SLEEP!” came Daichi’s voice from the next room. Tanaka roared with laughter and flopped back down onto his futon. His face was turned away, but his arm was still out towards Ennoshita. Palm-up.
Ennoshita stared at it, heart still hammering from being caught. Tanaka flexed his wrist up, bringing his hand off the floor.
Surely, surely he wasn’t suggesting what Ennoshita thought—hoped—he was.
Tanaka wiggled his fingers.
He’s just being practical, Ennoshita thought, but there was no way he was missing this chance. He reached out and his fingers slid over Tanaka’s palm. It was flat and wide, rough from practice, and warmer than he would have thought. Their fingers interlocked again, and Ennoshita finally slid into a peaceful sleep. His last imagined thought was of a gentle squeeze, and Tanaka’s thumb tracing soft designs onto his own.
Ennoshita woke warm and completely rested before any of the other second years. It was nearly time to get up, judging by the sunlight coming in through the window and the shuffling noise of Takeda-sensei cooking breakfast downstairs. He reached for his phone to check the time, but found himself unable to move. His arm was completely numb.
The memory of the night before rushed back to him and he grinned with embarrassment and glee. Even if Tanaka thought it was just to keep him from snoring, they had still fallen asleep holding hands, and Ennoshita was going to keep that memory fresh in his mind for as long as possible. He looked down at his dead arm. Or at least tried to. So far as he could tell, they were still holding hands, but Tanaka had rolled over in the night, trapping both of their arms beneath him. That’s when he noticed Tanaka’s other arm flung over his chest. No wonder it was so warm.
This would be harder to explain to their teammates.
Ennoshita tried to roll Tanaka back over, but couldn’t shift any weight with his arm numb. He would have to wake Tanaka up without everyone else hearing.
“Tanaka,” Ennoshita whispered.
No response.
“Tanaka, wake up.”
He couldn’t risk being any louder without alerting the other second years, and there was something he’d been wanting to try anyway. Might as well give it a go while he had the opportunity and a solid excuse. He leaned over as far as he could, putting his mouth right next to Tanaka’s ear.
“Ryuunosuke?”
Tanaka’s eyes shot open. He looked around, blinking hard in the sunlight, and saw Ennoshita’s face inches from his own. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, fighting to focus his vision.
“Hi,” he said.
You wake up drooling on the floor, half on top of another guy and all you can say is ‘hi’?
“Hi,” Ennoshita responded. Tanaka just yawned and closed his eyes again. “Um,” Ennoshita said, trying to keep him from falling back asleep, “you should probably roll over.”
Tanaka mumbled into the floor. “Make me.”
“I tried, I can’t, my arm’s asleep.”
“So am I.”
Apparently Tanaka wasn’t much for nuance when he was still waking up. Now wasn’t the time for subtlety. “The alarm is about to go off, and everyone is going to see you on top of me if you don’t move. You know what they’ll think?”
Tanaka opened one eye and looked at him. “Am I bothering you?”
“N-no.” Had he been any more awake, he would have lied.
“Then I couldn’t give a shit what they think.”
Well, his confidence was admirable. Still, Ennoshita didn’t want to spend the last two days of training camp enduring jibes from the rest of the second years. Not that anyone on the team cared about his sexuality—it was one of those things that everyone knew and nobody talked about. Like Daichi and Suga. But they would tease him and Tanaka both if they woke up to see them cuddled together.
That thought woke him up completely. They were cuddling. This wasn’t some keep-from-snoring convenience position or sorry-you-woke-up-with-my-elbow-in-your-kidney room-sharing mishap. This was early morning, arms-wrapped-around-each-other, snoozing-until-the-alarm-goes-off cuddling.
It had never occurred to him that Tanaka might like him back. All his bravado, over the past week especially, had that been flirting? He had to ask before he was awake enough to know better. “Tanaka?”
“Oh my god, Chikara, let me sleep.”
The sound of his name was all the confirmation he needed. He reached up with his free arm and touched the one Tanaka had flung over his chest. His fingers trailed the line of Tanaka’s forearm and Tanaka’s embrace tightened in response. Ennoshita took a deep breath to muster his courage and shifted from his position on the pillow to rest his forehead against Tanaka’s. He opened his mouth to say—something, he wasn’t sure. A confession, maybe? Tanaka’s eyes flicked open and down to his lips. Their noses brushed together.
And Ennoshita’s phone alarm went off.