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Shoyou’s not his first choice. He’s hardly his second or twenty-fifth.
“You’re an insane person,” Kei tells him. The other third years have left and Kei’s on the other side of the mountain from home. He’s settled against the window overlooking the garden. It’s a more familiar sight than the view from his own bedroom window.
Shoyou snorts. He’s rolling his socks into neat bundles. Kei thinks about offering to help but ultimately decides against it. He stretches his legs out and tells him he’s colourblind and useless. It gets him a perfectly matched striped pink bundle to his head.
“You help me then,” he smiles sweetly up at him. Kei’s seen him stare down boys twice his size and come out the victor. Kei moves to the floor and matches the socks.
“Why?” As Shoyou’s prone to be nosy, he nudges Kei’s knee with his own. Kei curses his past self for giving him fodder in the first place.
“Why what,” he flounders. He gets a raised eyebrow and there’s an amused quirk to his lips. He decides he hates him. “You should grow that mess out more,” he sneers at the ridiculous mop of hair, “cover your ugly mug. Maybe you’ll finally get a girlfriend,”
Shoyou hums. It’s maddening. It was so much easier to rile him up three years ago. Fuck Hinata Shoyou for growing up.
Kei hates it. The more he looks at Shoyou, he hates him. Shoyou’s longer hair that he’s been tying back with Tadashi’s hair ties (don’t get him started about Tadashi—) and the tilt of his smile carrying lessons beyond his years. His shoulders that have filled out and Tobio’s sweater stretching over them.
His face is sharper, his dead eyed stare more potent and he was taller. The latter was negligible to him. Kei still had a whole foot over him after all. Kei’s never felt smaller as he does beside Shoyou.
“Kei,” Shoyou taps his shoulder, his forehead creased as he observes his profile. “You’re worrying me, man,”
“Shut up,”
“No,” he abandons his clothes and settles himself in front of Kei. Kei impressively tries to dodge his eerily perceptive gaze. “We’re not blind y’know. What’s up?”
Kei purses his lips. It tells Shoyou more than he would have because the redhead’s a fucking telepath. Tobio’s downstairs, entertaining Natsu. Hitoka and Tadashi have long since left their sleepover—the last the Karasuno five could have since a particular someone was abandoning the country for the foreseen future. ‘I’ll be back,’ the infuriating, insane redhead would grin, ‘don’t try to miss me too much.’
As if, Kei had scoffed and pressed his palms to his damp eyes at the graduation. They’re separated already by work and burgeoning responsibilities and life. A year has run by since graduation and Kei’s too late to the pity party.
Tobio’s not spiralling. He’s naive, Kei reasons with himself. Tobio possesses the same brand of startling self confidence that only volleyball brained idiots like the freak duo would have. He believes, with all his heart (the cold, cold heart of the king) and more that Shoyou will be back. Shoyou will train from the ground up all the way in Brazil (Brazil, do you know far that is, Hinata? Can you spell it at all—?) and come back as he left and play with him. Against him? Kei doesn’t know. The freak duo is called as such because they’re such freaks after all.
People that can’t be compared to normal, sane people like him. People like Kei who have normal, digestible dreams. Kei, who’s life would probably run by without his knowing and he would sit somewhere like this, in a freak’s bedroom, wondering if he’s lost every chance handed over to him.
“Kei,”
People like Kei who only learn to love people when he will miss them. When they leave to another country, another continent—across the world. Kei couldn’t merely take a train anymore and drop into this freak’s house for the next two years and probably, forever. Not that he does it out of their scheduled study sessions and sleepovers nor does he plan to. He can’t. He’s never tried and now, he can’t ever try.
The 2012 Karasuno Boys’ Volleyball Club batch would try. The four of them making a motley crew with their manager as they talk tall about reunions and coffee dates and keeping in touch. It wouldn’t happen. It would fall apart. It’s the natural progression of things. Kei isn’t in touch with anyone from his middle school.
With the exception of Tadashi but Tadashi’s the exception to everything in Kei’s life.
Karasuno would fall apart. Without their sun, they would. Kei knows it. Kei hates it. Kei doesn’t like that he hates it. Kei doesn’t like that it’s taken him so long to know how much he’ll hate it.
There’s a box shoved against his chest. Scratchy and real as Shoyou’s imminent departure. “What’s this?” Kei asks, mechanical and swallowing the more complicated of his feelings.
“A little token,” Shoyou drops down in front of him as if he’d never left. Kei hadn’t noticed he’d moved at all. “For farewell. I planned to make it a thing, giving these but,” he shrugs as someone blessed with poor intelligence is wont to do.
“A last hurray, huh?”
It would have gotten an immediate slap to the head for Tobio. For far less, actually. Shoyou has better things in his repertoire to hit him with. “Don’t say that, Kei,” he sighs with the downturned eyes and a kicked puppy expression.
As much as Kei appreciates Shoyou’s proclivity to cling onto persons receding in his presence, he would deal with that than this emotional warfare. He thinks he could anyway.
“You’re actually leaving,” Kei comments instead. He sounds casual to his own ears.
Shoyou laughs excitedly, throwing his head back and kicking his legs out. Kei rolls his eyes. “Yeah! You’ll be free of me very, very soon,”
“Yeah,” Kei wishes the earth would swallow him up with how downtrodden he sounds.
Shoyou’s vigour softens. He nudges Kei with his heel. “Open it,”
“I’ll do it later.” Shoyou has a knack for getting the most specific gifts for people. Like, it’s downright weird. He’s seen people cry over meat stew Shoyou’s made with particular ingredients gathered from the mountains their grandmothers had lived in. Allegedly. It doesn’t spell anything good for Kei now, in his weirdly emotional precipice.
“Kei, c’mon, open,”
“You’re insufferable,” Kei tears the wrappers and into himself when he hears Shoyou cheering. He folds like a cheap lawn chair. When did this start anyway? Since third year training camp with Fukurodani or worse, when they spent the second year national training camp apart?
Shoyou is insufferable. Infuriating. A pest. He should kill himself before Kei has a chance to. He’s come close but there are minor factors impeding it. There are the legal repercussions on one side and the sunny grin he wears now on the other.
“Not everyone,” Kei starts slowly, nailing the condescension he’s well known for. The brand new volleyball sits innocently in his lap. The pads of his fingers don’t even crinkle the plastic covering it. He can’t. He won’t. “Not everyone,” he starts again, watching Shoyou tilt his head, “has volleyball for brains, idiot,”
Shoyou rolls his eyes, unflappable. Kei’s stare has sent first years running. Shoyou’s helpless charm had brought them right back. “Say thank you, Kei,”
“I’m not going pro,” he tells Shoyou as much as he tells it to himself.
“And I’m not telling you to,” Shoyou matches the insulting cadence of his. Copycat.
“No, seriously—“
“You don’t have to be a pro to play volleyball, Kei,” Shoyou’s teasing smirk is charming or it would be on anyone else. “It’s not a crime, y’know. You can play without being on the league,”
“And where will I?” He’d like to know the answer to it. Very much, actually. He’s been asking it himself.
“Anywhere,” Shouyou says like the simple minded fool he is. Kei will strangle him someday. “Go out,” he points to the window through which the net he had put up with his sister.
“Are you kicking me out?”
“I’m asking you to play,”
“We’re out of school, Hinata,” Kei aims at scathing and falls somewhere on exhausted. “We can’t play anymore,”
“Why not?” Simple. Minded. Fool.
Kei tells him so.
“Don’t be so down, Kei. I know you’re not.” Shoyou returns to his pile of clothes which will be stuffed into a suitcase and flown off to Brazil with him.
“Volleyball is a team sport.”
“Really?”
“Sarcasm really does not suit you, Shoyou,”
Shoyou smiles, cheeky and self satisfied. “You really really tempt me, Kei,”
Kei huffs. A moment passes and another and another before he could hope to put his entangled thoughts in words. Shoyou’s moved onto the books he’s gathered over the past two years. Kei’s torn between being impressed and being proud. He voices neither.
“Karasuno’s out,”
“There are other teams.” He straightens after his absent remark, hurrying to assure. “There can be no other team like Karasuno, of course—but,”
Kei crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow. Surely, Shoyou must remember they’re of the same team right? He’d seen him spill blood, sweat and tears for the team. He’s done it himself, right beside him.
“You know what I mean,” Kei’s amusement tips the redhead off. He grumbles some more but eventually says, “You can play again,”
“I’m not looking for permission.” And he’s not. He’s looking for something far more embarrassing. It makes him cringe thinking about thinking about it.
“It’s not—“ Shoyou clicks his tongue, lips pursing together as he finds the right phrasing. For all of his oafish ways, he’s careful with the things that matter. Kei could use a lightning from the sky to strike him down for thinking his indecision is important for Shoyou.
“Forget it,”
“No.” He can be so stubborn. “Any team would be lucky to have you, Kei,”
“Sho—“
“You’ve gotten loads better at read blocking!” Shoyou says, bright as sunshine. Kei feels his skin tingling all over. Shoyou doesn’t intend to spare him. “You could pass for a spiker with your aim and,” he leans forward and Kei follows him helplessly, giving this supposed secret the privacy it demands, “don’t listen to Tobio. Atsumu-san says aim matters more in a serve—and your aim is spot on!”
“How’re you still talking to that rival school’s setter?” Kei asks before he could develop second degree burns from Shoyou’s grin or the hot blood rushing to his cheeks. Whichever is quickest. “Didn’t he graduate two years ago?”
“There are these things called phones,” Shoyou brandishes the device in his face. Someday, Kei will strangle him. “You can use it for more things than making yourself seem busy,”
Kei makes a rude gesture. Shoyou laughs. It muffles the crackling plastic Kei removes from the ball with slow, reverent touches. Last he’d gotten a ball, it was from Akiteru. His brother had been brimming with glee and Kei had felt it too. He didn’t think he’d ever feel it again.
And he doesn’t. Not now, no. It feels heavy, pressing against his chest. Shoyou’s asking him to play. It’s the easiest thing in the world. It’s as impossible as moving to another country on a wish and a will.
Unbreakable will.
Shoyou tries. He tried so hard. It’s writ all over the now sparse bedroom and the luggage close to bursting. Kei looks through the window past the makeshift court Shoyou had put up with his sister. He wonders if he looks long and hard, he’ll be able to see Shoyou on a beach somewhere, soaring in the sky.
“I don’t know how you do it,” Kei admits, as honest as he’ll ever be. “It’s an insane plan. You’re staking everything on a dream,”
He hasn’t ever said it in so many words but Shoyou tilts his head, wiped off any discernible emotion and he knows. Kei knows he could have written essays and Shoyou wouldn’t have been swayed. “And?”
“And,” Kei hesitates. He’d fling himself off a cliff if he were the one to cast misfortune on this boy and his ridiculous dream.
“What if it all goes wrong?” Shoyou questions, knowing and bemused. Kei looks away. “Well,” Shoyou drags, looking up. “What if it all goes right? Do you ever think about that?”
Kei drags a palm down his face.
“I don’t.” He startles at Shoyou’s declaration. “Maybe it’ll go wrong or right if left alone but,” Kei stares helplessly. He still can’t figure out what goes on underneath that orange mop. “I’m not going to let it play out just like that,”
Kei watches Shoyou push himself off the desk and move to the window. He looks down but Kei knows he isn’t actually here at all.
“I’m going to make it all worth it. All of it. I’ll come back and I’ll be everything I want to be,”
“You sound sure,” Kei says for lack of anything better.
“I am sure. Wanna know why?”
Kei swallows, “Sure,”
“I’m going to make it happen.” There’s the lightning Kei wished for them. An entire storm ignited by Shoyou and his unflinching declaration. God, this guy—“Are you, Kei?”
Is he?
The ball stares back at him. It doesn’t give him an answer. He pushes his glasses up and rubs his eyes. He sees Tadashi in his mind’s eyes. Akiteru. Kuroo. Bokuto. Tobio. Daichi. Shoyou. “Fuck off,”
Shoyou laughs.
Kei gingerly takes the ball out and folds the wrapper. He discretely places it in his bag. “I think I’ll try out for some teams,”
“Pro?” And seriously, is this guy a mind reader?
Kei cannot agree. Nor can he disagree. One of these is easier to face than the other. He gives a short nod.
“Damn,” Shoyou cups his chin with a palm. “So you and Tobio go pro before me, huh?”
“Shoyou—“ Kei sighs. He means to say he hasn’t decided on a team yet. He hasn’t even been to the tryouts. They remain an unclosed tab on his computer. But, “I’m not Tobio,”
And he’s not. That’s the heart of it. He’s not a gifted genius. He’s not an overzealous athletic freak set on swallowing up generational talents (and he will; Kei knows Shoyou will do just that). He’s supposed to be the sane one.
Shoyou stares at him. “I know. Just how stupid d’you think I am?”
“Very,” Kei’s answer is involuntary, practiced and right there. The gratitude and bafflement, less so yet not at all strange. “Isn’t it stupid? Chasing a game?”
“D’you think that?” He asks, distracted with the contents of his desk. Kei’s hardly seen him use it.
Kei would have said yes without a moment’s hesitation. Then, a lifetime ago. Now, he mulls it over. The self satisfaction that floods his veins when he shuts out an attack and his red palms when he makes one himself. The desperate dives for a dig and the arms embracing him after a win or a loss. “No,”
“Then it’s not.” Shoyou’s stupider than he’d thought. He’s as brave as he knew he’d be.
“You’re still stupid,” he says. He has to. “You’re the one moving across the world with nothing but a bag and a dream,”
“Yeah,” Shoyou chuckles. “Isn’t it exciting?”
Kei’s perceptive. Not as eerie as Shoyou but he can spot the tension to the set of his shoulders that hadn’t been present when he had announced this mad plan first. “Your Ma’s going to feed a village with all that,”
Shoyou tilts his head too, listening to the ruckus they had ignored till now. He laughs and doesn’t deny it. Bingo, if one Hinata’s down, use another. They all seem to possess the same unflinching optimism. “Natsu’ll have to get used to it,”
“She will,” it sounds earnest to his own ears so he adds, “she’s not a baby like you,”
“I know,” Shoyou intones, wearing a smile. “It’s just been, well, it’s always been us,”
Kei knows. There’s a reason they organise their sleepovers on the other side of the mountain. Sprawling space that whispers with ghosts and overworked mother and son. “You know we’ll take care of them, right?”
Shoyou flounders, his mouth opening and closing like that of a fish. It’d be hilarious any other time. “Yeah,” he admits at last, abashed and pleased.
He’d prefer it if the redhead had more confidence in them for more than their skills on the court. He reaches forward and swats at his calf. Shoyou makes a scene of yowling in pain and coming after him. He laughs despite himself.
It’s idiotic. Shoyou’s trademarked all of the idiocy in the world. To think that Shoyou didn’t have a team. Hell, he had a team. Shoyou does too. Now, he knows, as Kei knows. The team that awaits both of them with open arms, on and off the court.
“Hey,” Kei will say later, deceptively casual. “Don’t be an idiot and forget all about us okay?”
And Shoyou will roll his eyes but his smile will be fond. Apprehensive yet excited. “I should be the one saying this,”
Kei will shake his head. He’ll fall short of condescending and lay somewhere avoidant. Shoyou will fly away. Tadashi will call him a softie when he stares into the distance throughout the send off. Kei will glare at him but then he’ll mark his calendars for spotty video calls and convoluted voice calls across the earth. He’ll let his four bestest friends be loud and so fucking strange and smile to himself.
Shoyou won’t forget Miyagi. Or Japan. Or Karasuno. Or him. He’ll call Tadashi with pasted on cheer and worries he won’t breathe aloud. Kei’ll eventually be dragged in and he’ll retaliate by directing Shoyou’s worries to arthritis, trance syndromes and pica. Tadashi’ll pretend to disapprove but he’ll be the one pointing to various strange illnesses that fall upon canines. Kei will relay it all, effectively leaving out the canine bit.
That is why Shoyou will be apprehensive when Kei calls him first with Tadashi clutching his arm and crying in joy. “I made it,” he’d say, wondering how he’d look in green.
Shoyou, halfway across the world and becoming the best player and person he can be, will grit out, “You bastard.” Kei will hear the grin and let himself be burnt.
(Tadashi calls him a softie a couple more times in between but it doesn’t matter because it’s not true. Akiteru will weep over Kei’s friendship and embarrass the bloodline).