Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It's no surprise you can't win the game by yourself. It's only natural. That's why there are six people on the court.

—Kageyama Tobio, Haikyuu!! Volume 3 Chapter 18

Oh, fuck—is the first thing Tobio thinks when he unfolds his university acceptance letter. For whatever reason, all of them had—at one point in their second year—agreed to open their letters together in their final year, and a year had passed since then and now he's sitting cross-legged on Yamaguchi's futon, staring at a piece of paper in his hands.

Chuo University.

"Kageyama-kun," Yachi says from next to him, and Tobio knows she's gotten into Geidai, knows it from the half-smile on her face and the way she turns to look at him and he wishes he could offer his congratulations but his eyes are too busy tracing the words again, again, again. "Is it—is it—"

What you wanted, he completes the sentence in his head. Tobio thinks it's strange to be eighteen and still not really know what he wants, not outside of volleyball, so wordlessly he turns the letter around and lets her read it.

Yamaguchi's peeking over her shoulder, and near-simultaneously the two look at him with identical expressions of excitement. "Chuo University—Kageyama—that's amazing, their volleyball's one of the best in Japan, and a sports scholarship," Yamaguchi says, reaching out to clap Tobio on the back in a way reminiscent of their Nationals days.

"Um," Tobio mumbles. "You—is it…" He gestures towards the letter in Yamaguchi's hands.

"Speak up, King, us commoners can't hear you," Tsukishima says where he's perched idly on a swivel chair, and Tobio scowls but there's no bite to the nickname, not anymore, not like when he'd met brown eyes from across the neat squares of a net and his stomach had swooped down and as they'd passed each other Tobio had heard a whisper, something that had sounded like king—ousama, a harsh hissing whisper.

"It's good," Yamaguchi says. "It's good enough." His expression doesn't waver, and Tobio resists the urge to ask, to reach out, because Yamaguchi's their captain for a reason, and if it's okay that means that it is.

Tobio bites his lip. "Okay."

He looks at Tsukishima, then past him to Hinata—strangely quiet now, a half-smile playing about his lips like it's unsure whether it wants to be there, but Hinata has never been unsure—and then his gaze drifts down to Hinata's hands. Both empty.

Chuo University. Their number 1 jersey must be on someone by now, synthetic fabric over skin.

Then a brief flash of panic—they won't be going together after all—and before Tobio has time to think about what that means because he's never really thought about that before, not for three years, the very real possibility of being alone, Hinata says, "Kageyama—there's something I haven't told you yet."

"You're going to Brazil," Tobio repeats after Hinata.

Hinata, to his credit, at least seems vaguely embarrassed. "Yes."

"And I'm the only one you didn't tell."

"Yes…?" Hinata says, his voice trailing off, and he must see something in Tobio's expression because he quickly adds, "I mean—I didn't know how you would react—because I know you thought we were going to Chuo, and I didn't know I wasn't going to Chuo either, and then things—happened—and—"

"And you'll be in Brazil."

"Um." Hinata's eyes are near-golden brown in the light through the windowpane. "Yes."

Tobio swallows. Somehow there's a gap between them now, and with every word it seems to be growing, and Tobio's never been particularly good at crossing gaps. Not for the first time, he wishes he could say something.

"That's far."

"We'll still talk, Kageyama—it's a pretty big time difference, but we've got Line, and I'll come back during the holidays, and you have Yamaguchi, and Tsukishima, and Yachi." Hinata's eyes are pleading, almost, and Tobio doesn't say it's not the same.

Hinata's the one in a different country, anyways, and he's always been better at changing than Tobio—and what is a few more years away? Tobio's spent an amount of time with himself, and only himself.

So instead he says "I'll still win", and watches as Hinata pulls an indignant face.

"You wish! When I come back from Brazil I'll be so much better than you, just you wait—" Hinata rambles on and on, and soon he's tugging on Tobio's hand again, talking about where he's going to live, what food he wants to try, and the beach volleyball courts, and the beautiful swaths of sand that stretches on for miles and miles, and the sea that reflects sunlight into people's eyes, and he's showing Tobio pictures of some faraway, perfect land, and Tobio can only nod and mumble and say things that he's sure he won't be able to remember hours later.

Hinata makes Tobio want to leave, too, leave for Brazil with him, go to somewhere with bright sunlight and somewhere that is safe, far away. He doesn't tell Hinata that he's going to the same school as Oikawa Tooru, the Grand King, the one on Youtube channels and the one with the serve and the setter that still, somehow, seems as far away as Brazil is.

He moves into the rental flat a week before. Miwa helps him with his things, and renting the flat, and also the van that's supposed to carry his entire life from Miyagi to Tokyo, because as she tells him over the phone, voice just as he'd remembered it, she doesn't trust him at all.

But it turns out everything he wants to bring fits neatly into two boxes, so Tobio ends up lugging the two boxes up the apartment block's stairs as the taxi (that Miwa had called for him, on account of her not being able to be there with him 'on your big day, Tobio!') pulls off into the endless Tokyo traffic.

And it's not like he hasn't been in Tokyo before—there had been the matches with Nekoma, and holidays Kazuyo had taken him on as a child. The rental apartment is small, too, but after he unpacks everything he has it looks big in comparison, and Tobio wonders if it's the same for everyone, too.

When he walks out to buy food, there's a stray cat perched on the gate of someone's house, a grey cat with piercing green eyes, and Tobio thinks he could get used to this—the cramped feeling of it all, the cats, the city lights, the convenience stores on every corner.

He spends the week alone and running, and the day before the first day tracing the flashing numbers of the clock on his nightstand with his eyes, again and again. It is noon in Brazil, which means the sun is out, and the crows are searching, arbitrarily, for a place to land.

On the first day of school, Tobio gets lost.

It's not surprising—if anything, he's expected it. The campus is huge, and Karasuno next to it must look like Hinata next to that 2-metre middle blocker from Dateko. In other words, Chuo University is a particularly conducive environment to get lost in.

He wanders around and it must be some kind of joke, that everyone he passes on the way is deep in some kind of animated conversation. And also that there are somehow no signs at all, because contrary to popular belief, Tobio can read most kanji now. He's squashed a volleyball in his bag, and a club application form that Tobio doesn't look forward to having to submit, but the gymnasium is nowhere to be found and he honestly hadn't been listening to the seniors who'd brought them around earlier.

In the back of his mind, a voice sounding suspiciously like Tsukishima's starts calling him an idiot, and Tobio can hear his laughter, loud as when they'd been first-years and freshly learning not to hate each other. He turns his head, just to check that he hadn't already passed any important landmarks, and because his life is a giant cosmic joke, immediately bumps into someone.

Shit.

"I'm—sorry," Tobio grits out, moving to stride past them, because he's got to get to the gymnasium by three-thirty and it's already three-twenty, and if something else goes wrong today he might just give up altogether.

"Tobio-chan," the other person says, and Tobio freezes, because this cannot be for real. Maybe it's a dream, he reasons. But no—he can feel some god's wrath descending upon him, at exactly 15:21:36 military time, coming down upon Hachioji City, Tokyo, Japan. "Didn't anyone tell you it's good manners to look at the person you're talking to?"

And with that sentence, the horrifying truth is cemented in Tobio's head. "Uh," he says, and really, Oikawa hasn't changed at all since high school—he's still got the same brown hair, brown eyes, and a face that confusingly misses out on being ugly. And it's strange, to see someone in-person that you've only been watching on phone screens for the past 2 years, the pixelated video quality that captures nothing other than the colour of the jerseys and the scoring of a point. He's forgotten what it felt like to stand in front of Oikawa and not be looking at him from across a net. "Oikawa-san."

Oikawa crosses his arms. "I was hoping you wouldn't show up."

Tobio's breath catches in his throat and he tries to think of what anyone else other than Kageyama Tobio would say. "Sorry to disappoint?"

Something passes across Oikawa's face, and, if possible, his expression seems to be growing exponentially disgruntled with every passing second. "Megane-kun's not a good influence on you, you know that?"

Tobio shrugs. Then a belated thought crosses his mind. Since Oikawa is here, and not in the gymnasium practising, then that must mean—

"Are you going to the gymnasium now?" he blurts. Maybe not a curse after all, then.

Oikawa frowns down at him. "So what if I am?"

"I'm going too," Tobio says gracelessly.

"The introductory session's at three-thirty."

"Well, you're not there," Tobio points out, and Oikawa scowls.

"Watch it, Tobio-chan. Are you sure you're going." Oikawa phrases it more like a statement than a question, and Tobio blinks at him.

"…yes?"

"Oh my god, you still don't get it," Oikawa says huffily, like they're still in middle school, then strides past him, leaving Tobio no choice but to follow, no choice but to try and keep track of his faded Aoba Johsai jacket before he fades away in the crowd.

Somewhere in Miyagi, there are new third-years standing in a gymnasium with scratched floors and high ceilings, and one day, sooner rather than later, they'll move on, and graduate, and maybe keep playing, or never touch a volleyball again, because that's just how it is, and in the grand scheme of things these third-years don't mean any more than the previous batch of third-years did.

This gymnasium is too big, Tobio thinks when he reaches up to set the ball. They use Mikasas here, not the red-green-white ones he's so used to. His hands are tempted to send a quick to the centre of the court, right where he knows either middles can get it, but instead he sets a high, easy ball to the outside, who cans it easily down the line.

"Nice one!" one of his teammates says, patting Tobio briefly on the back. He seems nice enough—wide eyes, a cheerful look—but also distant, in a way, and Tobio doesn't really know how to feel about that, so he nods back at the guy. He glances toward the sidelines, where Oikawa's standing, his face blank, mouth pressed into a straight line. They hadn't said a word to each other until reaching the gymnasium, and even then Oikawa had simply extended his arm and said Application form, please, or we're going to have to kick you out, and something in Tobio had curled up, just a little, and as embarrassing as it is—he'd felt like a middle-schooler again, so young, so small.

They're going to hate me—the thought comes out of nowhere, and Tobio blinks and the referee blows his whistle and the coach is signaling for them to come over, like they're a team already.

Because, apparently, now they are, because the next thing Tobio knows his club declaration form's being handed back to him with someone's signature of approval, and he folds it into halves, just to have something to do. "Good job, everyone," the coach says, not quite like Coach Ukai, but not unkindly, either, and Tobio supposes he'll just have to get used to it. "Tomorrow's session is from four-thirty to eight-thirty—get some rest—"

The players are scattering, and Tobio looks around and realises he doesn't know a single person's name. The nice guy from earlier smiles at him, and Tobio thinks it's probably better for both of them if he doesn't smile back.

"I'm Kenta," he tells Tobio. "You're Kageyama, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"I've heard about you," Kenta says. "The Crows, right?"

"Well—yes," Tobio says jerkily, and dear god, this is pretty awkward. Yamaguchi, if he were here, would be laughing by now, and then he'd do a proper introduction of the both of them and everything would right itself.

But Tobio isn't sure how to do that, has never been sure, so he lets the silence between them trail on for a little too long.

Kenta glances around. "Well—Kageyama-kun, it was nice meeting you," he says, and at least he has the grace to keep smiling, and then he follows the rest of the first-years—who, somehow, seem to have already made friends with each other—out the door.

Tobio watches him go. Oikawa, it seems, is still leaning against the wall, still watching Tobio. And then one of the third-years walks up to him, says something that Tobio can't make out, but it makes Oikawa crack a smile—he does that so naturally—and he's swallowed up in the rest of them and Tobio's left by the benches at the side, clutching a plastic water bottle that, by now, has been reduced to a faded orange.

There's a part of him that wants to say something to Oikawa, but Tobio's sure it would be incoherent, something about middle school or Nationals or the last time they'd played across each other, and he wonders where Iwaizumi is at now, and the rest of them. Maybe Oikawa had left them behind. But for all of it they are on the same team now, and there's a sinking feeling in Tobio's chest.

They're going to hate me, he remembers thinking the day before his last middle school match, before everything had started to matter. They're going to hate me, but I don't care.

And then people had come along, and they'd taught him to care, but matches end eventually, and maybe Tobio is all the worse for that now.

And it's not like he means to, but when Tobio opens his phone he stares at Yamaguchi's contact for a little too long, and then like a man possessed (and just maybe, after weeks of calling for strategy in their third year, he's not a third year anymore, he can never quite remember, and somehow he still feels like a fifteen-year-old fresh from middle school, still upset, still angry), he clicks on the call icon and his phone starts vibrating in his hands.

It takes him a beat before he remembers it's Monday, and it's also 11pm, and Yamaguchi's probably busy, and shit—so Tobio fumbles to turn it off, but by then it's too late, and Yamaguchi's voice echoes in his flat: "Kageyama?"

"Um," he says, awkwardly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"No, it's okay, I was planning on taking a break anyway." Yamaguchi laughs, and it's light-hearted, but Tobio also kind of wants to ask what Yamaguchi has to be busy about, seeing as it's—well—the first day of school. "What's up? You're usually not up this late."

"Uh," he says, appropriately eloquent, watching the numbers on his clock blink at him. "It's—different."

Yamaguchi lets out a sigh; it comes through as a cloud of static. "I know."

Tobio feels something well up. He bites his lip. "I got lost today," he tells Yamaguchi instead.

There's a laugh, not unkind. "University campuses are confusing; Karasuno is so much smaller than Hitotsubashi University—I had to ask a couple of guys for help on the way, but the good thing is, they all seem pretty nice here."

Tobio thinks of Oikawa, and how he's definitely not that nice. "Yeah."

"How was your day?" Yamaguchi asks.

"Okay, I guess," Tobio says. "I—yeah. It was okay."

Yamaguchi's silent for a while more. "You know you can talk to us about anything, right? Like. All of us. Even though we're not in the same school anymore."

And Tobio says, "Yes", but not really, because Yamaguchi's nice, and Hinata and Yachi too, and even though Tsukishima can be kind of a Dick he still kind of cares, and Tobio doesn't want it to become a whole thing, about how he's the only one who can't—

What? Can't cope?

So he mumbles, "Uh, I have to go."

"Oh. Uh, okay, but we can catch up on the weekends! When you're less busy." Yamaguchi sounds brighter.

"Yeah," Tobio says. "See you."

"Wait, Kageyama—did you end up finding your way? In the end?" Yamaguchi asks, his voice staticky in the phone.

"Uh. Oikawa-san helped me. Good night," Tobio says quickly before hanging up.

He ends up going to bed around midnight and even then there is something he can't really place, a feeling that seems to amplify with every quiet whirring sound the fan in his room makes. It's not the futon, because he'd gotten a new one just for the occasion, a white one, and it's stupid but Tobio feels better thinking about it.

yamaguchi: wtf @kageyama you never told me oikawa was in the same school as you???

dumbass: WHAT HE IS?????

dumbass: YOU NEVER TOLD ME THIS I THOUGHT WE DON'T KEEP SECRETS FROM EACH OTHER @kageyama @kageyama

yachi: is he that mean guy from aoba in first year

tsukishima: we'd all be better off not knowing that piece of information

you [reply to dumbass]: well that stopped ever since you didn't tell me you were going to brazil

you: and yes we're in the same team now

"Nice set," Kenta says, smiling widely. He kind of, sort of reminds Tobio of Hinata—just that his spiking's much more consistent, his receives too, and he's not as fast.

Dealing with Hinata-types is easy, Tobio has since learnt, so he nods and does a thumbs-up back.

The whistle blows twice and the match ends. Tobio walks by the net and shakes hands with all of the other team's players and tries to remember their names—he's not very successful, but he will soon.

Next to them, the third- and fourth-years are still playing, and the first- and second-years plop down on the floor and watch, and uneasily, Tobio follows their lead.

It's Oikawa's turn to serve. Tobio looks, and Oikawa tosses, and runs forward, and—

Jumps. For a moment, Tobio thinks, he's frozen.

And then the next moment a ball slams into the court on the other side, and a whistle blows. Someone tosses Oikawa another ball, and he's back at the line again, and he serves for the second time and Tobio's breath is taken away, unfairly—ripped away from him forcibly, he imagines, like seeing VNL live for the first time, like having a wave slam into you while out at sea, like stepping into an ice bath in the middle of the Lut Desert.

Their libero, somehow, gets it up—but it's an overpass, and Oikawa's middle blocker sends it down without hesitation. Game over, Tobio muses, and watches as the players file off court.

"You know our captain?" Kenta asks suddenly, and Tobio starts.

"Um. No, not well—I watch his matches. Sometimes," Tobio states, and doesn't know why he's lying.

Kenta looks thoughtful. "You serve like him."

"No," Tobio says forcefully, and it's somewhat loud, and it startles even himself. Oh no. Now Kenta looks put upon. Shit. "Uh—I mean—he's—different."

Carefully, Kenta nods, and Tobio can tell that wasn't whatever he was supposed to say. His fingers curl in on themselves.

The coaches debrief them and immediately after they're done the first-years scatter into their own groups, and usually Tobio would have gone out to Sakanoshita convenience store with the rest of them, sit around while Hinata and Tsukishima bicker about something stupid (usually about Hinata's English grades), but there aren't any convenience stores around here, and they don't seem interested, anyway—and Tobio feels so—

"Bye, Kageyama," Kenta's nice enough to tell him, before he runs off to his other first-year friends—they must be all from the same school, Tobio notes, having the same faded jacket that's clearly been worn for a while—and as they head for the exit Tobio catches a hint of their conversation:

"—why were you talking to him? He looks kinda scary—"

"—but he's good, though!"

And then the door shuts behind them and Tobio turns away, a bitter taste in his mouth.

They haven't taken down the nets yet, and he's tempted to serve a few more, but when Tobio looks at the courts Oikawa's on one of them, right behind the line, idly spinning a ball between his palms.

He can't help it—he looks.

And then Oikawa looks up, back at him, and Tobio can't do anything other than hold his gaze. Oikawa arches an eyebrow, shakes his head almost imperceptibly. No way, Tobio-chan.

The message is clear. Tobio doesn't look at Oikawa any more after that. Instead he packs his bag, opens the gym doors, and leaves.

Tobio ends up waking early the next day—4.30 am, to be exact. 5.30 pm in Rio. Hinata must be out on a beach somewhere, playing volleyball, like in all the pictures he sends in the chat, the ones of sunsets and him with other people and him, with a team, playing volleyball. He has nothing to do. He eats breakfast—he isn't hungry and ends up downing a cup of plain yoghurt—and then he walks to the bus stop. Down the street, the wildflowers are blooming. Somewhere in Tokyo Yachi must be bent over a sketchpad, making something beautiful out of nothing at all. The stray cat looks at him as Tobio passes and her eyes are spring-green. Yamaguchi's studying engineering and by now he must have had the first classes, and unlike Tobio, he must have had retained something already. It's cold in the morning and Tobio isn't tired, but he should be. And Tsukishima—he doesn't know, but he can fly even higher, Tobio knows he can. The gym's unlocked, the nets still there—a forever volleyball court, Tobio had wondered at it, what a concept it is—and Tobio takes his volleyball and throws it up, and jumps—

He ends up leaving the gym at 7.30am, when the sky is brighter and the sun out. He thinks back to Oikawa's knee brace, the white one he's had since third year of middle school, and wonders if it came from being too lonely. He wonders how Oikawa has been doing and is angry at himself for it.

yamaguchi: guys how's classes

dumbass: LMAO imagine having classes [selfie attached]

tsukishima: lmao imagine being stoopid

dumbass: h E Y. what did we say about manners

tsukishima: that's rich coming from you

dumbass: >:(

yachi [reply to yamaguchi]: so blessed. so moved. so grateful. cant believe this is my life. never going to take it for granted. always going to give back. thank you

yamaguchi: yachi r u ok

yachi: this is how i cope

you: theyre going ok

tsukishima: do you even understand anything

you: no

tsukishima: that's what i thought.

It's their first team run. They've been running for approximately ten minutes, according to Tobio's internal running clock, and half of the first-years are falling about the place. Kimura—Tobio vaguely recalls his name—is hanging on to Miura, which doesn't make sense, because it's harder to run for two people than it is to run on your own, and another lanky middle blocker, vaguely reminiscent of Tsukishima in every way except for his personality, is barely keeping up the pace, lagging behind the group. Tobio keeps his head up and runs, mainly because he's sure he'll get lost if he goes too fast.

They run down the crossing, passing a few houses that line the street, where there's nothing ahead of them except a line of street that promises to curve up ahead. The seniors shout vague lines of encouragement that Tobio barely hears. He lets his mind drift. Slowly, their batches start to separate—the slower ones fall back, and the faster ones keep pace. Tobio finds himself near the start of the group, staring at nothing at all. There's a flash of something that his right eye catches, and instinctively he turns—and he's face-to-face with Oikawa, who's also turned at just the right moment.

"Hell no," Oikawa says. But he doesn't slow down.

Tobio takes that as a sign. "Oikawa-san."

"You know we can just—not talk, right?"

"Okay."

So Tobio focuses on the view ahead and keeps running. He feels good, anyway; today's a good day, just the right temperature. Oikawa weaves his way to the front of the group, calling out vaguely supportive sentiments to his juniors, and Tobio—purely to get away from the congested middle-of-the-pack—follows. The road opens up before him.

"You know, Tobio-chan," Oikawa mutters, "you can run with your batchmates instead. That's what most people tend to do."

"But you're running alone," Tobio points out, because they're at least a distance of 10 metres ahead of the rest by now. The only sounds he can hear are Oikawa's footsteps, and then his own.

Oikawa huffs. "There's really no talking to you, is there?"

And Tobio doesn't know what that means at all, but he's sure it isn't anything good. Oikawa's a nice person to run alongside with, he notes. The rest are all slower, and running with them would make him uncomfortable.

He shoots Oikawa a sideways glance. The latter's staring resolutely ahead.

"Okay," Tobio says, and tries to speed up, to get out of Oikawa's way, because to slow down would mean running with strangers and the thought makes him—not want to do it.

But Oikawa speeds up too. Which makes no sense. Tobio turns to look at him again.

"You're not going to win," Oikawa says, strained. "You had better know that."

"I know," Tobio says, vaguely confused. "You're the setter."

"Well, yes, but that's not what I'm talking about—" Oikawa grits out, and Tobio wonders if Oikawa's suddenly started speaking in English, because nothing he's saying is making sense anymore.

"Um," Tobio says, and decides to do what he always does in these situations: run away.

Except. Oikawa follows. And at this point all Tobio can do is to keep running. In silence. They run past a Burger King, and then past more unknown buildings, and then they're finally forced to come to a halt in front of a traffic crossing, a monorail line stretching over the top of it. A red Mazda roars past them with its windows rolled down, the driver's arm dangling out the front window, with a cigarette hooked between his index and middle finger.

Oikawa's looking across the road, Tobio notices. The rest of the team's a good 200 metres behind; Tobio can just barely see the first one in line. They're alone.

"Oikawa-san," he finds himself asking. "What happened to Iwaizumi-san?"

Oikawa glances sideways at him. His eyes are a darker brown than Hinata's. "He went to another university. A sports science one in Tokyo."

"Oh," Tobio says.

"We still see each other on the weekends," Oikawa says abruptly. "If you were curious. And this team is a good one."

But not great, Tobio hears. Not like high school. Never like high school.

"Hinata left too," he says, just to have something to say back. Suga-san had taught him in his first year, if he was ever stuck talking to someone he didn't really know, to share something they both had in common. Well.

"Oh, Chibi-chan," Oikawa says, lightening up. "Where?"

"Rio," Tobio tells him.

"Brazil."

Tobio nods. "He's going on ahead."

Oikawa turns away. "You had better catch up."

"I will," Tobio says, and the light turns green, and Oikawa's the first to run across. Tobio follows.

Tobio doesn't really like Tokyo-brand curry, he finds out.

He's tried two brands so far, the first ones he sees when he walks into the nearest convenience store on the way back from the bus stop, and they both taste—okay. But different, and he's only able to take a few bites before scraping the rest into the bin. Eating it makes him feel—strange, somehow, in a way that he doesn't like.

So he ends up eating protein bars instead, the nutty ones that make him less hungry, because practices are longer than they were in high school and it's hard for him to have any energy left to do anything and it's also hard for Tobio to admit to himself that he's tired, but he is, and he knows because his eyes threaten to close whenever he sits on his futon for too long after practice. There aren't any more after-practice food runs now, so Tobio's gotten into the habit of lurking around after practice, waiting for Oikawa to leave the gym, then going in himself, just to have something to do.

Hinata would have stayed, too, but he isn't here. And even if Hinata were here there wouldn't be any need for Tobio to wait, anyway, because Hinata is Hinata and he's all Tobio is not.

He still sees the stray cat sometimes, but he's scared to pet her, so instead he'll stop to watch her for a while before going on. She seems happy, at the very least.

you: does tokyo curry taste different from miyagi curry

yamaguchi: kageyama you know i love you but wtf r u on

you: it tastes weird

tsukishima: is your curry expired

tsukishima: knowing you that's probably all it is

you: no i bought it two days ago

yachi: hmm

yachi: i'll try tokyo curry and let you know!

you: thank you yachi

tsukishima: stop enabling him

dumbass: rio curry tastes different!

tsukishima [reply to dumbass]: how did you graduate from high school again

tsukishima: remind me

dumbass: so MEAN >:((

dumbass: anyways miss yall. mwah love yall gtg bye

During practice, Tobio slips.

It's nothing major, and it's embarrassing, and he's fine. Still, though, the way it happens is strange, because one moment he's looking up at the ball, moving to get beneath it, and the next the lights are blurring and his eyes are tired, and then his foot catches on something and he ends up sprawled on the floor, and the ball falls somewhere in front of him and the whistle blows.

He does the only logical thing—Tobio pushes himself up, and that's when he realises that he's tired. Which is strange, because while he should be tired—they've been playing for 2 hours, everyone's tired—it's not the kind of tiredness after a long match. He feels—different.

"You good?" Kenta asks, slapping him on the back.

Tobio nods. "Sorry," he mutters, but none of his teammates look mad at him, more amused if anything.

"It's okay. Happens to the best of us." Kenta gives him a quick smile. "Next one."

Tobio nods. The rest of the game goes fine. His sets aren't the best, but they're okay, if somewhat inaccurate, and his team ends up winning, 25-18, but at that point Tobio barely cares, because the lights are starting to seem strange again.

"Take it easy, Kageyama," one of the second-year seniors tells Tobio when they walk off court, and his eyes are brown and kind like Suga-san's. Tobio hopes, at least, that he looks friendly enough when he nods and tells his senior thank you.

He sits on the bench and leans his head against the wall behind and closes his eyes.

"Quite a fall you took there, Tobio-chan."

Tobio does not bother opening his eyes. "People fall down in volleyball, Oikawa-san."

"I really wish you hadn't met that glasses guy," Oikawa mutters.

Tobio opens his eyes anyway, blinks them a few times. Oikawa's standing in front of him, looking triumphant. For some reason. Tobio has a pretty good idea of what. "We weren't even playing together."

"See, when you hear a loud thump on the other end of the court, people tend to look." Tobio looks away. "And, Tobio-chan—step up your game, would you? I'd hate for my precious junior to be having off days now."

With that, Oikawa walks away, and Tobio shuts his eyes again.

Fucking hell. Oikawa.

And when Tobio pushes the gym doors open on a Monday morning—to think that before then he'd been in a good mood—he's just in time to see Oikawa slam a serve crosscourt.

Shit. This is, Tobio's brain registers, a novel situation. And not a good one for him.

He closes the door, but then someone's footsteps grow nearer, and then the door's being slammed open again, and Oikawa's staring at him, a displeased expression on his face.

"I was just going," Tobio says.

"There's no rule against students using the gym, you know. Even if the student happens to be Kageyama Tobio."

What does that Mean. "Okay?" Tobio replies, staring back at Oikawa.

Oikawa glares. "Either come in or get out. Anyone told you that you look like an idiot, standing there with your mouth open half the time?"

Tobio thinks concentratedly, and he's pretty sure that people have, half of those times being contributed by Tsukishima. "Um. Yes?"

"That wasn't a question." Oikawa shoves a ball at Tobio, who takes it confusedly. "Just. You know what, since I'm feeling so nice today, just come in. And stop gaping. You look like a fish."

It's been a long time since Tobio's watched Oikawa practise serving, he realises. The latter must have been here for a while, because he looks just about as tired as Tobio'd felt yesterday. And he can't help it: his gaze trails down to Oikawa's right knee.

"Oikawa-san—"

"What."

Contrary to popular belief, Tobio does indeed have a voice of reason somewhere in his head, except it only speaks in conveniently unimportant moments. Never during exams, never during competitions, and it's not speaking up now, either.

"Uh," he says, intelligently. Maybe today he'll channel Iwaizumi-san. Okay, maybe not. Tobio points at Oikawa's leg.

"What." Oikawa shoots Tobio a side glare. "You really have to work on expressing yourself, Tobio-chan, or what'll happen to your hitters?"

Tobio swallows the bitterness back down and tells himself that Oikawa is still, even after all these years, terrifying. "Your—knee."

"What about it?" Oikawa sounds off, but Tobio very much does not dare to meet Oikawa's eyes.

"You know. Is it—" Tobio swallows again. "—okay now?"

"It's better," Oikawa says shortly.

"I was just—wondering."

"It's okay. I've got Iwa-chan and my parents. They do enough worrying for me," Oikawa says, almost as if he's trying to lighten the mood, but that makes no sense, because he's talking to Tobio, of all people, whom people never lighten the mood for.

Tobio mulls this over. "Okay."

"You're a strange one." Oikawa sounds thoughtful when he says it.

"You looked tired," Tobio clarifies. "Just now. So I thought…"

Oikawa tilts his head at him, and for the first time, he doesn't look pissed, or unhappy, or jealous, and his face isn't scrunched up in that weird look that he used to do back in middle school. "Okay, Tobio-chan. Okay."

And then he turns around and picks up another ball from the cart.

So he wants to be alone, Tobio realises. Yamaguchi had told him that once, in their second year—you know when someone wants to be alone, right, so don't pry.

Tobio walks carefully to the door, and lets himself out.

After practice, when he reaches his bus stop and gets off, the stray cat is there, back arrow-straight, licking leisurely at one paw. On a whim, Tobio pauses before her. She doesn't seem angry, or suspicious—unlike all other cats he's had brief interactions with before—and he takes that as a good sign.

Cautiously, he crouches down to her eye level. She looks at him calmly. Bracing for the worst, Tobio reaches out—and pets her.

She's soft, he notes. And, more importantly, she doesn't seem to care.

"Hello," he says. It's late now, with moths circling under streetlamp halos, and no-one around to witness Tobio talking to a cat, so he might as well. "It's cold today."

She makes no sound.

"It's been cold since forever, but it's still summer now. The beginning of it, maybe. I'm cold but practice makes it better. Warmer, because you sweat, and because all you have to do is just one thing."

She seems unbothered, so Tobio stands back up.

"I'm lonely," he says to no-one in particular, because there's a difference between thinking something and saying it out loud for the very first time.

I'm lonely, he thinks, and everything—somehow—is worse now. And the ache of their absences is worse than ever, and today's practice had been, too, and Tobio doesn't feel like he's part of something. The world is loud, and big, and vibrant, but he just feels—hollow. Confused.

And he doesn't want to go back to his rented room with its futon and whitewashed walls. Or go to school tomorrow and go to class, go to lunch, go to practice.

Tobio crouches down and gives her one last pat, careful, and then starts the long walk back.

Your Direct Messages

dumbass: how's chuo kageyamaaaa

dumbass: and the great king ofc

you: he's ok

you: still with a shitty personality but less shitty

you: how's rio

dumbass: it's SO GREAT HERE OMG

dumbass: the people are so friendly!!! and i've made a buncha friends already

dumbass: and also the beaches are so pretty and the food

dumbass: is to DIE FOR.

dumbass: you've gotta come here so i can show you around

you: maybe

dumbass: that's not a no!

you: it's not a yes either

dumbass: i'll take that

dumbass: and go sleep, don't you have practice tomorrow

you: ok mom.

dumbass: i hate you im never talking to you again

you: goodnight

you: stay safe

dumbass: i KNEW you care about me after all

"Tobio-chan, you ever try sleep sometimes?" Oikawa's voice echoes beside his ear. "I hear it works wonders as a beauty treatment."

Tobio opens his eyes and looks gracelessly towards Oikawa. "Huh?"

"It's the end of practice." Oikawa gestures around them—sure enough, the gym is empty, and the view from the window is dark. "Everyone's gone home."

"Oh." He hadn't realised. "Why are you still here?"

"Why else?" Oikawa cracks a tired smile. "To play."

"It's late."

"Early for you."

Tobio frowns, because that isn't true. "You need to rest your body, Oika—"

"Don't push it." Oikawa smiles tightly at him. "So you're trying to become Iwa-chan now?"

Tobio glances away. Still, he doesn't leave, because this is the most amount of words he's said all day and who'd have guessed it would be to Oikawa, of all people. Again, though, Tobio doesn't know a lot of people. Maybe five, if he counts their coach.

"Not practising, Tobio-chan?" Oikawa asks, spinning the ball on one finger. Tobio's never learnt how to do that.

"Maybe—not," Tobio says.

Oikawa whistles. "That's a first."

"Um, Oikawa-san," Tobio says before he can stop himself.

"What."

"Um. Is it—hard? Being here?"

Oikawa side-eyes him. "What does that even mean."

"Like," Tobio says, and now he's regretting this. "Being here. When you first came."

"Are you asking me for advice settling in?" Now a grin's made its way onto Oikawa's face, and yes, Tobio definitely regrets this.

"No," Tobio says reflexively. "I mean. Yes."

"Next time, try not looking like you want to die whenever you ask me for help, Tobio-chan."

"Oikawa-san. Are you going to tell me or not," Tobio says.

Oikawa's silent for a while, and the expression on his face, Tobio notes with surprise, is actually vaguely serious. "It wasn't that hard, actually. From what I can remember. You've got the whole thing about childhood friends moving away, but we still meet up regularly so that didn't really matter. And Tokyo isn't all that different from Miyagi."

"But it is," Tobio blurts out, and Oikawa shoots him a Look when he says that, the one that Tobio still can't figure out.

"It is?"

"It's—so—" Tobio hesitates. "Big. And—and isolated. And you're—the only one I know."

"Big word for you," Oikawa snarks, but then he must see the look on Tobio's face because he relents. "Okay, I know, but it really isn't all that bad. You get to know other people, interesting ones, and you get to have nice things. Like parties. Or whatever. Once you make friends, that is."

Which isn't exactly something Tobio's good at doing.

"Wait—oh, god, I forgot you can't make friends."

Tobio scowls at Oikawa's teasing manner, but he's right. It's hard, when you don't really know what to say and on top of that apparently you don't look all that friendly. It sucks.

"You'll be fine, Tobio-chan," Oikawa says carelessly, throwing the ball lightly at Tobio, who grabs ahold of it. "It's normal. You'll struggle, but you'll get it in the end. Like you always do."

They both pretend Tobio doesn't hear the bitterness in Oikawa's last sentence.

"Thank you, Oikawa-san." Tobio must be tired if he's resorting to asking Oikawa for advice. He'll need to get more sleep somehow. "I'll see you tomorrow?" And he wants to tell him, don't stay back too late, but then it would become a whole Thing and Oikawa would hate him even more than he does now.

"Yeah," Oikawa says distractedly, already making his way to the end line.

Tobio considers telling him that sometimes, and now more than ever, he feels like things won't ever get better, whatever the hell that phrase even means, and he'll be stuck and confused and alone and things will be like they were in middle school again, because the ending is always the same, anyway. And if he were anyone else, like Hinata, or maybe Yamaguchi, Oikawa would have listened.

Instead he ducks his head and mutters a hasty goodbye.

Tobio doesn't manage to get more sleep that night, but before he heads back to his rented room he does manage to catch a glimpse of the grey cat, perched on a brick wall surrounding someone's house, staring at him with those green eyes.

"Kageyama-kun, Oikawa-kun," the coach calls, and Tobio looks up from guzzling down water, placing his bottle back on the bench. "Both of you come here for a while, would you?"

Cautiously, carefully, Tobio walks over. He tries not to look at Oikawa.

"As you know, we'll be playing a practice match sometime in the next month with Keio." Tobio nods and tries not to look like this is news to him, because while he tries to pay attention during debriefing sessions it isn't always easy. "You're both very accomplished setters, and your captain and I have decided that a 6-2 rotation would be…what's best for our team."

Ohhhh, that makes sense—is Tobio's first thought.

His second thought is Ohhhh no. Tobio knows, even without looking, that Oikawa has the same tight smile on his face he used to give Tobio in middle school, and he knows without a doubt that whatever careful amicability between them—a more generous person than Tobio might have characterised it as a relationship bordering on cordial—will be gone after this. If it had ever existed at all, in a world outside Tobio's own wishful thinking.

The coach continues talking, something about how they, as the two setters, should work together to draw up a roster of players, or strategies for game day, or something like that, and Tobio half-listens and now more than ever he wishes he were someone else. Somewhere else. In Rio, maybe, setting to Hinata on some beach somewhere with a long coastline, or even somewhere in Tokyo where he can catch glimpses of Yamaguchi and Yachi and—god forbid, he's really getting pathetically desperate—Tsukishima. Somewhere familiar.

Oikawa doesn't disagree with anything the coach says, just keeps quiet. Tobio scuffs his shoe against the polished court floor. It makes an embarrassingly loud screech.

After a while, and after more vaguely encouraging words, the coach wanders off, and out the door with the more seasoned players, the fourth-years who seem to be pretty friendly with him now.

"Oikawa-san—" Tobio realises, belatedly, that as always he has no idea what to say, or how to say it.

"Not now," Oikawa says sharply, and then strides off towards the benches.

He remains there, staring at nowhere in particular, even as the other players leave, even as the hands on the wall clock tick closer towards nine o'clock, even as the place becomes unbearably quiet, even as it's just the two of them left.

Tobio stays and tries to look, tries not to look.

He really hadn't meant to, and he wouldn't have minded not playing either, as a first-year, and it wouldn't have been unusual, for him not to play, but it's too late now, anyway, and Tobio feels twelve again, twelve and confused and scared. Somehow, no matter whatever happens between them, Tobio always ends up in middle school again, in the gymnasium that smelt of Salonpas and nothing else. He doesn't know how to get out of it.

I've always admired you, he imagines himself saying. Oikawa-san. I've never wanted to be seen by anybody except you and one other person.

No, that's not right. It's a strange thought to think, and an even stranger one to lend voice to.

Without acknowledging Tobio, Oikawa wheels a cart to the endline, takes a ball in his hands.

And then Tobio watches as Oikawa serves again, and again, into the other court, form perfect on every single one, still with the same closed-off look on his face. But when he reaches the last one and lands, the sound of it echoing throughout the gymnasium, Tobio sees his knee buckle, and before he knows it he's rushing forward.

"Oikawa-san, let me—"

"No," Oikawa says, loud. He plops to the floor, gingerly stretching his leg out in front of him. Tobio recognises what this is: testing, to see how much farther he can go, how much is too much before things inevitably fall apart.

But it's been too much, since middle school, since forever. Maybe—maybe Tobio is responsible, in some way, for overseeing such destruction of something so beautiful.

It's too late now.

"Don't," Tobio says. The words leave a bitter taste in his throat. "Don't do it."

"Don't tell me what to do, Tobio-chan," Oikawa spits out.

"Iwaizumi-san will kill me if you fuck up your knee," Tobio says quietly, crouching down next to Oikawa.

Apparently, that doesn't lighten the mood, because Oikawa whirls on him, gets right up in his face, so close Tobio can catch the overhead lights glinting off his eyes, and he shouts, "Haven't you done enough? You've been here, ever since middle school, and high school, and now in university, too—when will you leave me alone? When will you let me—let me—"

And Tobio's—scared, by this, no matter how hard he tries not to be, no matter how he knows that anger is how Oikawa gets rid of everything inside him, just like he does, but when Oikawa raises a hand he can't help but flinch away, close his eyes—

But nothing hits.

Instead he hears Oikawa say, "Tobio." Softly.

Slowly, Tobio opens his eyes, looks back at Oikawa, who's staring at him.

"You thought I was going to hit you."

"No," Tobio protests.

Oikawa breathes out, slowly.

"I was going. To hit you. You."

Tobio looks at the floor. He has to say something, so—

"But you wouldn't hit me. You stop. You've—always stopped."

Oikawa chokes out a laugh. "But you never really know, do you?"

"You've always stopped," Tobio repeats.

"That doesn't make it any better, Tobio-chan, do you have no self-preservation instincts at all?"

'Is…that a question?"

"No! You clearly don't!"

There's an awkward pause, and in that pause, Tobio thinks: but there is a difference, between choosing to hurt someone and choosing to not, and Oikawa's always stopped. And Tobio's fought before, anyway, with Hinata, and they've always stopped.

"…As if middle school wasn't enough," Oikawa says quietly, and buries his face in his hands.

Tobio sits and waits.

"Look, I don't know why I do this." Oikawa's voice is quiet, controlled.

"Do what?"

"I thought middle school would be the last time for this to happen, you know? I wasn't planning on you coming to Chuo. I wasn't planning to play with you. I wasn't planning to—to do whatever this is, all over again."

Tobio doesn't quite know what to say to this, so he doesn't say anything.

Oikawa laughs humorlessly. "But I guess things have a way of working out differently."

Tobio tilts his head to stare at the ceiling lights. But I came to Chuo because of you, Oikawa-san. He swallows it down, and in that moment he knows it's something he'll never tell Oikawa. He supposes it will rot in his mouth till the day Oikawa leaves.

"But why?" he asks.

"Why what?"

"I mean." Tobio turns to look at Oikawa, who doesn't meet his gaze. "You're so good, Oikawa-san. You're the best player I've ever met. I don't understand."

"I don't understand either," Oikawa says, bending slightly to rub at his knee, and Tobio feels a brief flash of panic at that.

"You have to keep playing," he blurts out uncomfortably. "You can't—keep—doing this. You can't."

"I know that, Tobio-chan, I'm not stupid!" Oikawa makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat.

"Then why." Tobio's voice rises sharply.

"Because." Oikawa exhales. "Because I'm not like you. If—if I stop, then that's all I have left. And it's not fun, playing without being good."

Okay, now Tobio's confused. "But you are good."

"Yes, but—I need to keep polishing that. Over and over." Oikawa's hand clenches itself into a fist. "Or it might go away. I know it won't, but I can't help it, I can't help practising even though it makes everything so much worse, and I make everyone around me worse, too. But I can't—I need to do this, because every day that goes by is fleeting, and someone might just—take it away. Like that. And I won't be able to play any longer. And things are better now than in middle school, but still, the thought is still there, and—" And they both know what he's referring to.

"Then why do you want to keep playing," Tobio asks.

Oikawa shoots him a look. "Because it's fun. Volleyball is fun. Geez, Tobio-chan, isn't that why you play?"

"But whatever you just said doesn't sound fun," Tobio points out, because it doesn't, it sounds like plain torture, and he wouldn't be happy if he played like that, either. "It doesn't sound fun at all. It just sounds—sad."

"Well—" Oikawa says, and then he pauses, and then—oh, fuck, Tobio realises and his stomach sinks—he looks like he's going to cry.

"Wait, I mean—" Tobio backpedals. "Um."

Oikawa raises a hand to swipe at his eyes, and then he leans his head back and stares at the ceiling.

"This fucking sucks," he says to no-one in particular, and then louder, "This fucking sucks."

Tobio sits there and plays with his shoelaces awkwardly. He's done with talking today, he decides.

"And the thing is I'm supposed to lead you around, I'm your senior," Oikawa says, stiltedly, to Tobio. "You're good but you're also younger and way more dumb."

Tobio shrugs half-heartedly, not bothering to follow the other's thought process any longer. "Okay, Oikawa-san."

"It's been seven years, Tobio-chan. Why're you still here?"

"Uh," Tobio mumbles, caught off guard by a question that comes from absolutely nowhere. Absentmindedly, he wonders if this is how Yachi feels when she'd taught him English.

Because it's you. Because you're you and somehow you make everyone want to chase after you, want to be the best alongside you.

"I dunno."

Oikawa sighs, clearly giving up, and then pushes himself to his feet, favouring the left one slightly more than his right. "Good night, Tobio-chan."

"Good night, Oikawa-san."

Tobio stays for a little while longer after Oikawa leaves, and he must doze off somewhere along the way because when he wakes up it's already ten-thirty p.m. and the lights paint purple streaks across his vision whenever he blinks.

At least Oikawa doesn't seem as mad at him anymore, for whatever reason Tobio can't pinpoint. That's good, but Tobio's too tired to keep thinking about it, too tired to do anything but lug himself back to the flat—he briefly considers staying in the gym for the night, but then vetoes it when he considers the prospect of someone else finding him in there—and spend an uneasy night on a futon he'd gotten from IKEA the night before, with the LED numbers on his clock taunting him into a tenuous kind of sleep.

It takes him the next morning to realise that Oikawa might have had referred to him as someone he cared about. Not that it matters.

But also it kind of does.

dumbass: how's everyone doing

tsukishima: great, actually

yamaguchi: same :) me & tsukki ran into each other yesterday u u

yamaguchi: photo attached

dumbass: WHAAAAATTT i'm so jealous

yachi: classes are great actually! & i've been really enjoying myself so far

you: things r ok

Technically, Tobio isn't lying. Practice is okay. Oikawa doesn't look like he wants to murder Tobio anymore, and even goes as far as telling him Nice serve! after a service ace, so Tobio counts that as a win. He guesses that Oikawa must have gotten over whatever funk he'd had on that day, and the process of 'getting over it' had probably, at one point, involved a screaming Iwaizumi over the phone, and maybe a few snickering witnesses, i.e. Oikawa's past Aoba Johsai team members.

But also. Practice is practice. Practice is practice is 4 hours every day of a schedule that consists of 12 hours spent in school that consists of another 5 restless hours spent in and out of sleep that consists of another 7 hours spent on other things and Tobio thinks that silence is familiar but has a habit of grating on you, like something that never quite lets up.

And it's been three weeks in total since the start of practice and strategies are fine and their 6-2 rotation is working, and it's nothing new to Tobio, but he still barely knows the names of the people on his team, and the only one who ends up remotely talking to him—usually in the form of brief encouragement during practice—is Kenta. And Oikawa, Tobio supposes, if he counts, but they don't talk much, and he tries not to feel disappointed at that, because the former really doesn't like him all that much, still.

And. He overhears some conversations during practice, sometimes, when some people say that the first-year setter has got a face and an attitude fit for a king's, and they glance at him, as if he's some kind of wild creature, wary and nervous, and Tobio has to pretend he's heard nothing, and it's not like these snippets happen often but when they do it leaves a sour taste in Tobio's mouth.

And the thing is that before, before the conversation in the gym had happened, Oikawa would talk to him sometimes, during practice, brief offhand lines—more of insults, actually—but Tobio could tell he never really meant them in the way that some people do, and it had just been another Oikawa thing.

But now when they pass by each other on the way to practice, or when they're doing drills, Oikawa never acknowledges Tobio in any way other than a slight nod. As if they're complete strangers. Tobio doesn't understand why.

And it, somehow, makes everything bad again.

He's tired, actually. It's a novel sensation but he finds himself drifting off in classes, and even practice, on particularly long days, is a struggle.

Volleyball is fun and it's still fun but everything outside of it is not fun anymore and Tobio doesn't know what to do with that. He doesn't know what to say.

Five days after the Oikawa Breakdown Situation (as Tobio has resorted to calling it in his head) he ends up calling Hinata.

Hinata picks up almost immediately. "What's up?" There's various background noises that come crackling through the phone, and Tobio can vaguely hear people yelling—something, in a language he doesn't understand.

He grunts. "Where are you."

"At a beach." Hinata's voice rises with excitement. "Dude, the food here is so good—you gotta try it—and everyone here's obsessed with volleyball—they're all like. Variants of you. But way nicer!"

"Hey," Tobio complains half-heartedly.

"And I've been improving so much—do you know how hard it is to play beach volleyball, the sand's always getting in your eyes, and it's so much harder to jump, I swear—so when I get back to Japan we'd better have a one-on-one match because I'm going to beat you now," Hinata natters on, and Tobio has to bite back a smile. He's forgotten how easy it is to be with Hinata, who does enough talking for the both of them (and some more).

Instead he says, "It's 931 to 925 now. And I'll still win when you come back, because you suck." When you come back. When will that be?

"So mean, Bakayama," Hinata whines. "I know you miss me, though. Especially with the Grand King being there."

Tobio doesn't know what to say to that. He bites his lip and says nothing.

"Kageyama, you still there?"

"Yeah," he says, but it comes out jerky and awkward.

"Wait, isn't it midnight in Japan?" Hinata sounds bemused. "You sleep at 9 pm."

"I…yeah," Tobio says.

Hinata's voice is gentler now, when he speaks, and Tobio almost wishes that he would be mean, that he would hang up or tell Tobio to fuck off, because it's so much harder when people aren't mean but they're also not—there. "You can't sleep?"

"Um," Tobio says. "Not really."

"I used to not be able to sleep too, before big matches and stuff like that," Hinata says, and all Tobio can think about is how everyone is just made up of bits and pieces of everyone else they love. "My mom told me to picture myself on a ship, and that water is pouring into it, like the Titanic, you know, and it's sinking and you're watching it happen, and somehow that worked for me, I dunno."

"Isn't that scary, though?" Tobio asks. "Like. Drowning."

Hinata makes a thoughtful hmm sound. "It was calming, actually. Like. Everything's going down, and it's not because of you or anyone, it's just how things are, and all you can do it wait to swim."

"I'll—I'll try that. And you're okay, right? You're doing okay?"

"Don't worry, Yama, I'm peachy," Hinata says, and then Tobio hears someone shouting his name on the other end of the line, and then Hinata says again, "Pedro's calling me, I gotta go, love you, byeeeeeeeeeee—" and then the call cuts off abruptly and Tobio's left staring at a silent phone in his hand.

He tries to sleep after that, curling up on his futon and shutting his eyes. He tries to picture himself on a ship, and water gushing through a hole, but all he can feel is this vague sense of rising panic, and the cold, and when morning rolls around he doesn't feel like anything has changed, and dear god, he wants to sleep, and he wants everything to go back to the way they were.

you: sometimes i feel like

you: sometimes i feel like everything

you: sometimes i feel like everything is bad again and it's too much and i don't like how things are changing

you: sometimes i feel like i'm in middle school again

Message draft(s) deleted.

"Tobio-chan," Oikawa calls the minute practice is over. "Come here for a minute."

Apprehensively, Tobio walks over, because Oikawa is standing with the rest of the third years and although most of them look friendly, he hasn't really had a chance to talk to them yet, and also Oikawa is smiling in the way that means that he's thought of an idea that he thinks is a good one, but Tobio has enough experience to know that whatever Oikawa's idea of a good idea is is most definitely not a good idea.

"Oikawa-san," he says stiffly.

"Tobio-chan," Oikawa says, still smiling. "Since it's been three weeks, and we still haven't had a team outing, today's a pretty good opportunity for one, isn't it? Look, it's 6p.m., and it's the first time we're ending so early in ages!"

"Uh," Tobio says, slightly put off. Why is Oikawa so cheerful today? And, also, is Oikawa actually asking for his opinion? And, also, is Oikawa asking him to be on the team outing, or not?

"You're scaring the kid, Tooru," one of the third-years say, and he looks friendly enough—at least, he's smiling at Tobio, and not like the way Oikawa smiles at him. "He probably thinks you're weird."

"Hey," Oikawa squawks. "He most definitely does not—Tobio-chan, tell Ko-chan that—"

"Uh," Tobio says, slowly backing away, because he feels very much like he's dealing with a bunch of wild animals now and to the extent of his knowledge that's how one should deal with them.

"You see," 'Ko-chan' says. "He agrees with me."

"No, he doesn't! Just for that, Tobio-chan, you're coming with us, whether you like it or not—"

And that's how Tobio ends up in some kind of ramen shop, perched on the edge of the bench next to Oikawa Tooru (of all people, and now he's regretting having agreed to this) and listening to ten other guys talk around, over, and on top of each other.

'Ko-chan' is actually Kosaka, and he seems to be a pretty okay person, maybe a mix of Iwaizumi-san and Tanaka-san, and he's also one of the contenders for captain next year, along with Oikawa. As Tobio looks around, though, it's startling to realise that most of them are third-years, with only two second-years, and him being the only first-year, and he starts to wonder if spending time with this ragtag confusing jumble of people he's barely talked to before can be considered a 'team outing'. Maybe.

Kosaka leans forwards excitedly. "C'mon, Tobio, what do you want—it's Tooru's treat, so feel free to go all out—"

"Do not listen to him, he's a bad influence—" Oikawa interrupts.

Well. Free food is free food. "The tonkotsu ramen would be nice."

"Good choice," Kosaka cheers, and turns his attention to a second-year who startles when his name is called.

Tobio glances at Oikawa, who, all of a sudden, is looking deeply captivated by the menu before him. "Oikawa-san, you don't have to buy me food if you don't want to. I know—"

"No, it's on me," Oikawa says easily, passing the menu to his left. "That's because you're not a dick, unlike Ko-chan here—"

"Birds of a feather flock together," Kosaka says happily, and Tobio can't help but snort.

And now that they've placed their orders the table dissipates into small conversations between a few people, and Tobio feels undeniably awkward, now doubly aware that he's among people who've been friends for a year or two, who've probably seen each other cry after lost matches, and that awareness is amplified by the (also awkward) fact that no-one's talking to him, either.

Which he doesn't mind—prefers, actually—but in such a cramped situation and with nothing to do other than stare at the wall behind Kosaka, who's opposite him, it's a tad bit unnerving.

"So—uh—Tobio-chan," Oikawa says.

Tobio decides he'd prefer not talking, but he turns slightly to let Oikawa know he's listening.

"About Wednesday," Oikawa says, and Tobio has a pretty good idea of where this is going and it's making him feel slightly uncomfortable. "I just—um. Pretend it never happened, okay? Don't—don't tell anyone."

Oh. So this is why Tobio's here.

And the realisation sends a sour taste sinking into his tongue, and he knows he should expect nothing more from Oikawa, but Tobio's—

Upset. That he can't. That he still can't. That he still can't catch up to Oikawa, that he will never be closer to him than whatever strained relationship they'd had in middle school and it had been stupid, and futile, to hope otherwise all along, and from tomorrow onwards Oikawa will never speak to Tobio ever again.

Or even worse, he still will, but in that faux-nice way of his, the one where he smiles and says Nice serve and doesn't let his eyes betray his emotions. Tobio's never been good at that.

And Tobio's last tie to Miyagi will be cut, and Oikawa Tooru will become nothing more than someone whose name is familiar to his ears.

The air suddenly seems oppressive, and Tobio's all too aware of his heart beating in his chest.

It had been stupid of him to hope otherwise. Oikawa hates him, after all. It makes no sense for things to change, not even—

It's been seven years, Tobio-chan. Why're you still here?

I thought you would look back. At me.

He needs to leave. He needs to—

"Okay, Oikawa-san," Tobio says stiffly. "I have to go, actually, I've got something on today—"

"Wait, Tobio-chan—" For some reason, Oikawa's voice is tinged with a hint of desperation that sharpens his syllables.

But Tobio stands up and walks out, hastily, and the moment he's out of sight he breaks into a run, and he runs down the street, in a direction he doesn't recognise, among unfamiliar buildings and his bag's thumping against his side but he lets it and the wind garbles his thoughts and that's all he's aware of.

Somehow, he makes it back to his flat after panting out confused questions to people along the way, one of them being a girl slightly older than him, who'd looked inexplicably concerned and who had been nice enough to walk him all the way to the nearest bus stop, and if Tobio were a crier he would have cried then but he hadn't, he'd just pressed his lips together and thanked her and felt bad.

He's hungry but he can't really find it in himself to buy something, not now, so he tries to sleep instead, smushes his face into his pillow but he can't stop thinking about how Oikawa had looked last Wednesday, the way his eyes were glistening gold. Brown and gold.

Isn't it lonely, he wants to ask Oikawa. To have no-one know anything about you.

But he knows that isn't true, because Oikawa has Iwaizumi-san and the rest of Seijoh, and he doesn't need Tobio. He never has.

So now he is alone. So there is nothing other to do than to watch volleyball videos on his phone, and that's what Tobio does for the rest of the night, squinting at a tiny screen, rewatching and rewatching old Adlers matches, the scores long memorised, until the sun comes up and his clock shows 6am.

Tobio has a headache.

It starts in morning practice, when he's serving in an empty gymnasium, and then it gets worse, until by second-last period he's barely managing to keep his head upright, because the lights dig into his eyes and—it hurts, a dull ache across his forehead, and he tries to discreetly rub at his temples but it isn't helping.

The teacher calls him over once class ends, and Tobio thinks he's in trouble but he just looks at Tobio and tells him to get more rest. Tobio tells him okay.

He starts thinking that it might be a pretty bad one this time when he has to stop and sit down for a while when he's heading to the gymnasium. Waiting it out doesn't seem to help, and they have to practise the 6-2 rotation today, but thinking of seeing Oikawa's face makes Tobio feel sick. Strange. Playing volleyball has never made Tobio feel this way before.

Still, he has to go.

So he goes.

Thankfully, Tobio manages to get through practice without dying. Today's about strategy, anyway, so all he has to do is sit on the floor and watch Oikawa and Kosaka move magnets around on a whiteboard and nod and nod and listen to other teammates suggest things and rub at his temples and try not to be too obvious about that last part.

They end early, at 7pm, and everyone gets up to go and Tobio does, too, but that makes everything so much worse and he blinks black spots out of his vision.

"Hey—Kageyama, right?" Kosaka asks, and Tobio wants to tell him not the time because his mouth is filling up with acid but instead he nods. "You okay? You left yesterday—"

"Yeah, I'm sorry," he says, and he knows it's abrupt but he can't help it. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Kosaka says, and Tobio can feel the other watching him carefully.

"Thanks," Tobio manages to choke out, and then his legs take him stumbling to the bench, where he sits down heavily and covers his face and closes his eyes.

I can't. He feels five years old and confused and he wishes, dazedly, for this to end.

It hurts. Like a second heartbeat, like one heart isn't enough for his chest to have.

He hears bursts of loud chatter that fade with each time the door opens and closes and he doesn't know how much time passes before the gym is finally quiet. He hears his heart beating, again and again. The lights dye his eyelids afire with redness.

"Tobio-chan," someone's saying distantly. "Tobio-chan."

Who calls me that.

He raises his head and the lights pierce into his eyes and suddenly, he's back in middle school, in a gym for the first time, looking up, and up, and somehow he already know he won't be able to catch up.

"Tobio-chan," someone's saying impatiently. "Look, we gotta go, they close the gym—"

No, they're lying, no-one ever closes the gym, because once I stayed till 10.30pm and no-one came in, no-one woke me up.

"Do I have to do all the work around here—"

And then an arm reaches for his arm and tugs, and then he's standing up, and the world wavers around him.

"Tobio—"

Teach me your serve, Oikawa-san. Why won't you teach me.

The gym tilts and the lights do, too, and

"What's—"

he is twelve, and he is looking up

"Don't be an idiot, are you—"

at the gym lights, and he is

The first thing he's aware of is something soft beneath his head. The second, that there are lights above him.

Tobio opens his eyes. Oikawa's hovering above him, and his eyes, Tobio notices, are particularly brown today. He's frowning, for whatever reason, and Tobio feels dazed, like there's a veil between him and reality.

He presses his hands against the floor, ready to sit up, but Oikawa pushes him back down. "Don't you—get up."

There is, from what Tobio can gather, no-one else in the gym. He tilts his head to the side and looks at Oikawa, who's staring at him with an expression bordering on concern, but that makes no sense. His feet are propped up on a bench, and his head aches, but it's a foggier kind of ache than what he remembers from before.

From before. From before—what?

"Oikawa-san," he says.

"Tobio," Oikawa says quietly, the -chan suffix dropping away from his name, and something must have happened before this because aside from volleyball, Tobio's never seen Oikawa look this serious before, and he doesn't understand. "How—how are you feeling?"

"Uh. I'm okay," Tobio says, because he really is—aside from the confusion, and the tiredness, and the fogginess, which are all typical symptoms afflicting any university student anyway.

Oikawa's face twists.

"Don't you dare lie," and his voice echoes throughout the gymnasium, harsh and loud, and for the first time, it registers with Tobio that Oikawa really is—serious.

"I'm not," Tobio protests. "I'm just tired. That's all."

Oikawa ignores this. "What day is it today?"

"…Tuesday?"

"Where are you right now?"

Vaguely, Tobio thinks that this is stupid, but Oikawa looks really into whatever's going on right now, and so he decides it's best to humour him. "Um. The gym at Chuo University, Tama Campus."

"Do you—" Oikawa swallows, his throat bobbing. "Do you know what happened?"

"I…" Tobio's first instinct is to say yes, but all he remembers is—the pain, and the lights, and Oikawa's voice. He'd fallen asleep on the gym floor, maybe, which wouldn't be the first time, anyway. "Not…really."

"That explains a lot," Oikawa says, sardonic, his voice hardening. "Care to explain?"

"Explain…" Tobio frowns despite himself. "Explain what?"

Oikawa stares at him—incredulously, Tobio thinks, and with a healthy bit of anger in the mix. "Why you passed out."

Passed out, Tobio thinks. Isn't that something that only happens to sick people? He's not sick; he's perfectly fine, and he feels fine. Ergo, Oikawa is wrong, which is maybe not something Tobio should say to his face.

So he settles for: "I didn't pass out. I fell asleep."

Oikawa looks like he's another sentence away from—ironically—decking Tobio in the face.

"Are you fucking stupid."

"No…?" Tobio hedges.

"I had to lug your dead weight over to the side of the gym—and you're heavy, by the way—and make sure you were still breathing and alive, so—yes, I would very much appreciate an answer to my question," Oikawa snaps, and for some reason, that makes something in Tobio flare up. Anger isn't exactly accurate. Maybe—more of a realisation, that he no longer wants to be here, in the gymnasium with a towel beneath his head and looking up at Oikawa Tooru, looking up at someone that so clearly does not want Tobio to be here, and he wants, simply, to trudge back to his flat and catch a glimpse of the grey cat and lie on his futon and sleep for the next twelve hours.

"I'm fine," he says stiffly, and sits up, ignoring the way his head feels like a television channel screening static. "I'm fine, and I'm leaving now."

Oikawa makes a frustrated noise. "No, you're not."

Tobio considers. "It's pretty obvious you want me to go, Oikawa-san."

While Oikawa's scowling at him Tobio tries to get to his feet, but—a hand catches his wrist, gentler than he would have expected.

"Don't be an idiot, Tobio-chan. For once in your life."

To sit down and talk to Oikawa about something other than volleyball. To have the chance to put something into words. Tobio closes his eyes and it's not fair, it's not fair that this comes only now, when it's so extremely clear that Oikawa, in the least, does not care about Tobio. Chances are always coming at the wrong times these days.

And Tobio thinks that he has always loved Oikawa, from middle school till now. That he has always been chasing. But the thing is that he's too tired now. It's natural to sicken, running after someone who never once glances back.

Maybe it's time to stop.

"Oikawa-san," Tobio says, and his voice sounds foreign even to his own ears. "I need to go."

The grip around his wrist tightens briefly, then loosens.

"Don't be an idiot, Tobio," Oikawa repeats. "Don't you dare do something you'll regret."

And the cruelest part of it all is that Tobio will never stop loving Oikawa, will never stop looking forward at someone who won't turn to meet his eyes.

Loving, he remembers haltingly, is nothing but a habit, and who is Tobio but someone made out of habits? It's not fair. It's not.

Tobio steps to the side and pulls his hand away. Oikawa's arm falls limply to his side.

"Fucking hell, Tobio—"

"Good night, Oikawa-san," he forces out, and he grabs his bag and leaves.

Your Direct Messages

dumbass: kageyama are you ok

you: yeah

you: why

dumbass: just wondering

dumbass: you been sleeping?

you: why

dumbass: you're messaging me at increasingly strange times and it's WEIRD. i'm trying to do stuff in the day bakayama

you: oh

you: sorry

dumbass: no it's whatever don't stop i just want to know if you're okay

you: i am

dumbass: okay

dumbass: :)

Tobio sees the grey cat and that's when the Oikawa situation hits him all over again, and he has to sit down on the bench on the bus stop because his head starts to feel fuzzy, and he puts his head between his knees and takes deep breaths.

She slinks her way over to him, and he gazes at her. She's beautiful.

"This sucks," he tells her, and he can feel something warm prickling the back of his eyes. "Everything hurts. Everything hurts and I don't know how to make it better." He's dizzy, now, but that no longer comes as a surprise. Everything is starting to dissolve. Unravel.

Tobio stretches out his arm, and she—actually—pads across concrete, coming to a stop before his hand.

"Okay?" he asks her. She makes no move, so he reaches out and pets her gently on her head. She's warm, so warm against his palm, and Tobio, all of a sudden, feels like crying.

A car whizzes by and he realises, with a start, that it must have been raining at one point, because ihe car's wheels send up a spray of rainwater.

"You know," he says, but doesn't know how to continue the sentence.

So Tobio sits there and watches her, and she doesn't seem like she's going to leave, and he stays until his head feels a little less airy, until he's watched several more cars whizz by.

Something strange happens over the next few days. Tobio's gotten into the habit of staying back after practice, to wait till Oikawa finishes practising so that he can slip in, get a few extra reps in, nothing too bad, nothing worth being concerned over.

Well.

Him and Oikawa barely talk during practice anymore, and Tobio finds that it gets easier and easier to ignore everyone around him—to put his head down, speak only when spoken to, to nod instead of offering encouragement because his throat is too dry to form words. And Oikawa's bright as usual, of course, but Tobio catches him wincing after a dive, or after landing a particularly hard serve, and he knows the others are noticing, too, by the way Kosaka makes Oikawa stretch before training starts, supervising him with an eye keener than even Tobio's trigonometry teacher in high school, and the way Kenta passes him Salonpas, unbidden, and the way Chuo's coach pulls him to the side after practice and talks to him quietly, Oikawa smiling and nodding and mouthing reassurance all the while.

Whatever he says is bullshit, though, because Tobio finds himself having to wait one hour more to use the gym, one hour on top of four hours of daily practice, one hour that he knows Oikawa knows his knee cannot stand. And he peeks in from the small window encased within the gym doors, watches intently as Oikawa serves, again and again, and sets, again and again, watches as he digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, watches as he stretches his leg out, carefully, as he places a hand on his right knee, until he cannot bear to watch any longer, and that's when Tobio looks away and stares into a darkening sky and listens to the hollow, empty sound that a ball makes in a deserted gymnasium.

He tries. Kind of. Because Tobio's an idiot that doesn't know when to stop, according to Tsukishima. He sits on the bench more and lets Oikawa play, and he tells himself it's not because he's been feeling more out of it lately. He doesn't play on the same team as Oikawa until Coach says they have to. He even considers telling Iwaizumi-san about it—he does have the latter's number saved in his phone, after all, some long-forgotten memory from middle school—but that keeps slipping his mind, because Tobio doesn't do much more these days except for go to class, go to lunch, go to practice, try to sleep, try and fail.

Still, though. Nothing seems to change—

—until it does.

Of all instances of tragedy that it could have been, the deciding factor ends up being a practice match. Tobio's team is winning 23-20, and Oikawa's up to serve, and he throws the ball—he's up in the air—and he's flying—and then he lands and there's a thump, and a curse, and Tobio, peering around the middle blocker in the front row, sees Oikawa, crouched on the floor, his right leg extended gingerly in front of him.

The whistle blows. Service ace. Oikawa doesn't get up, and then Tobio's ducking under the net, running over to him, but his teammates are already surrounding him, asking him questions Tobio can't make out, and Tobio's heart falls to his knees and he doesn't know what to do with his hands anymore.

Shit, he thinks, over and over again. Shit. He watches, frozen, as Kosaka slings Oikawa's arm around his shoulder, leads them stumbling over to the side, calls for someone to help bring them to the infirmary.

I should have said something.

And it shouldn't have been possible, but Oikawa looks so small for someone even taller than Tobio is, hunched between two people, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead and dark shadows beneath his eyes, his expression twisted into a grimace, and despite himself Tobio wants to do something. Anything, because it's better than staring, better than watching Oikawa—the person that he is—crack open in front of him and everybody else. And the worst thing is that Tobio had seen it coming. Had seen it coming, a surety looming in front of him, and he'd done nothing anyway.

Fuck. Fuck, and his heart is pounding.

"Kageyama-kun," he hears, then someone's touching his shoulder, pulling him away, and Tobio wants to slap his hand away, to shout.

Instead he lets Kenta lead him back to his side of the court. "Kageyama-kun," Kenta says, because he's so unfailingly nice to everyone even if the person he's talking to is Kageyama Tobio. "Are you okay? You look—"

"I'm fine," he says shortly, and Kenta—thank god—doesn't push.

The rest of practice is spent in an uneasy mood, and with most of the third-years gone from the other team, Tobio's team beats them in straight sets, 3-0. They thank each other and practice is over and Tobio barely listens to anything the coach is telling them, and throughout it all his heart is thumping in his chest, in his ears, filling the whole gymnasium with its sound.

And because he's an idiot Tobio ends up outside the infirmary after practice ends, shifting from foot to foot, for some reason too scared to look at anything other than the sun dyeing the horizon a confusing orange-purple colour. He can hear voices inside, one of them distinctly Oikawa's but less bright, more tired, more flattened-out.

Two weeks rest, he catches. No volleyball till then. Take it easy, Oikawa-kun—knee brace—ice and rest.

Don't be an idiot anymore, Tooru, Kosaka says.

When have you ever known me to not be one, Oikawa says, and the nurse—or whoever it is—laughs at that, but Tobio doesn't find it funny at all.

Fuck, he feels like a stalker, and in the back of his mind he imagines how weird this must look.

And then the door swings open, and at the gust of cold air from inside Tobio flinches, stumbling back from it. But it's not Oikawa, it's just a person in a neat white uniform, and she's looking at him with a kindness that must not come easy.

"Are you okay?" she asks. "You've been here for quite a while already, haven't you?"

"I—uh," Tobio stutters, and finds himself searching for words that won't come. "Um. How did you know?"

"Your silhouette," she points out. "The door's translucent, you know."

"Oh," Tobio says, and so it is. "I'm sorry."

She laughs a little, seeming completely unbothered by Tobio's unsatisfactory responses. "It's okay—you're looking pale, actually, did you want something—"

"Uh," he says, but it's nothing, he wants to say, it's just that he's tired, and practice makes his head fuzzy, but that's not the point, that's not why he's here. "I'm okay—I just wanted to check—um—" Feeling more and more like an idiot with every passing moment, Tobio gestures vaguely towards the inside of the room, making sure to keep out of sight of anyone inside who's currently peering toward his direction.

"Oh!" she says instantly, and even Tsukishima would be impressed by her abilities to grasp what's going on in any given situation, second only to Yachi. "You mean you wanted to check on Oikawa-kun?"

"…yes?" Tobio says awkwardly.

"You're from the volleyball team, aren't you?" she asks, smiling when Tobio nods. "I should've guessed. Yeah, he's going to be alright—it was just a minor sprain, so he'll be resting from practice for around two weeks, and then he'll be back. There's no need to worry."

"Um, it's just that—he's not very good with resting," Tobio blurts out.

"I gathered as much, but he's got you guys, right?" she says, pausing for Tobio to nod. "So as long as you all make sure he's following doctor's orders, he'll be fine. From what I've been seeing, he's having it pretty good—the two guys in there, and you, too, and others, I assume."

And for some reason Tobio's tempted to tell her that it doesn't work like that, that Oikawa is Oikawa and not like that, that he won't ever stop until he can't anymore. It's not like that, he imagines himself saying.

"Would you like to see him?" she asks, and he shakes his head.

"I—I have to go, um, now."

"Well, if you're sure. You still look tired, though, make sure you get enough rest. That's important for a volleyball player…"

She ends up sending him off with a piece of candy that she summons from somewhere in her jacket pocket, and with more reassurances that everything, someday, will be fine. Tobio unwraps the candy while he's waiting for the bus, and is pleased to discover it's orange flavoured, and he slips it onto his tongue and thinks of Oikawa, and the way he had looked utterly broken, and the way everything made wrong can never be right again.

you: good evening, iwaizumi-san

you: can i talk to you about something?

iwaizumi-san: Kageyama?

you: yeah

iwaizumi-san: Of course. What is it?

you: oikawa-san

you: he hurt himself today and i'm

you: he was practising a lot over the past few days

you: like after practice and everything

you: and i didn't say anything and i didn't stop him and today during practice after a serve he couldn't get up and they said he'll recover in 2 weeks or so but he can't play till then

you: and i didn't do anything to stop him

you: i'm sorry i didn't do anything to stop him

iwaizumi-san: Yeah, he told me about that just now. Mainly because I forced it out of him.

iwaizumi-san: But it's not your fault, Kageyama

iwaizumi-san: And he knows it too, he's just a bit of an idiot. And also a dick

iwaizumi-san: So don't worry

you: okay iwaizumi-san

you: thank you so much and good night

iwaizumi-san: Good night, Kageyama

iwaizumi-san: Sleep well.

Tobio does not, in fact, sleep well.