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Daichi hates days like this, when the sun is still shining while it rains and there is lightning in the sky even though it is perfectly clear outside. A sunshower, they call it. One of the worst weathers to be out in, in Daichi's opinion.
He hadn't brought an umbrella with him since the morning forecast had said nothing of rain and Daichi hugs his bag close as he makes a dash for shelter. The longer he stays out in the rain, the higher the chances of him catching a cold, which would suck considering that it is his birthday tomorrow.
But it's not like he is going to be doing anything on his birthday. After making the move to Tokyo for university, Daichi had left all his friends back in Miyagi and had been too busy trying to adjust to city life to form any meaningful connections with those around him. He had coursemates and his volleyball team, but he was not close enough to any of them to be celebrating his birthday with.
His mom had told him to come home over winter break but Daichi had been stubborn, insisting that he would be fine by himself and that he would stick to his original plan of returning during summer. Daichi regrets his decision now, when he is cold and hungry and getting rained on.
A shadow falls over him and Daichi scowls, tugging his hood further down over his head, anticipating more rain since the clouds have started moving in. There is a pressure in the air, weighing down heavy on him, and the rain falls in sheets so thickly that it makes Daichi feel blind. It doesn't feel warm anymore, his surroundings darkening so abruptly that it makes Daichi look up in alarm.
The sun is gone. In its place is a mass of swirling greys and blacks, which look like no cloud Daichi has ever seen. It feels ominous, especially since it is coalescing right on top of Daichi, and if this is a weather condition, it is officially Daichi's least favourite one.
Daichi hurries, trying to get out from under the ominous mass before something happens. He knows that something is going to happen—he has an innate sense for these sort of things, like an inbuilt storm warning which screams at him to get away from the thing building up in the sky above him.
Too late.
Static ripples through the air, making Daichi's hair stand on end. His heels stick in the ground, bringing him to a complete stop as he raises his head to the sky.
There is someone far above him, materialising in the midst of the swirling mass. Daichi can't look away, his feet rooted to the ground, immovable. There are so many things wrong with this situation, which had started from a sudden sunshower and culminated in this, and Daichi wholeheartedly regrets not going back to Miyagi when he had the chance. Now that he is looking at the figure in the sky this closely, Daichi thinks that they are falling, their head facing down and their feet up, a cape of red fluttering around them as they plummet to the ground.
"No, no, no..." Daichi mumbles, trying to move his legs, to get out of the way of whoever—or whatever—is falling out of the sky. But he is stuck in place, his feet seemingly buried in the ground and a force holding his neck rigid as the figure falls towards him.
It is almost on top of him now and Daichi makes out a head of black hair, red eyes, and a strangely familiar face before he shuts his eyes tight and braces himself.
But the impact doesn't come and, strangely enough, neither does the rain. It feels like the rain has stopped, along with everything else.
Tentatively, Daichi opens his eyes.
There is a face in front of him, upside-down and attached to a body suspended in midair, a face that he knows and—
"Sawamura?" says Kuroo Tetsurou, captain of the Nekoma Volleyball Club, long time rival of Karasuno, and official pain-in-the-ass.
Daichi hasn't seen him since Nationals.
"What the hell."
---
Daichi makes it home in one piece, which is a miracle considering how his day has been going.
"Take your shoes off," Daichi grits out as Kuroo attempts to follow him into his apartment without stopping to remove his footwear.
"My bad." Kuroo bends down to tug his boots off, lifting his head to sneak glances around Daichi's tiny one room student apartment.
Kuroo is dressed strangely, from his tall boots to the long flowy coat which makes Daichi think of the medieval fantasy games he has seen around. There are so many questions Daichi should be asking Kuroo but Daichi is cold and wet and hungry, which doesn't put him in the mood for asking questions. He dumps his bag on the ground along with his waterlogged coat, shivering as the cold hits him.
Kuroo doesn't seem to have the same problem, squatting by Daichi's front door with his boots neatly lined up beside him. He is dripping rainwater, his hair plastered against his head, but he doesn't seem all too bothered by that.
"You're Sawamura, aren't you?" Kuroo asks as Daichi turns away from him to look for a towel.
"Yes." Daichi locates the towel and grabs it, turning back and tossing it at Kuroo.
"And you know who I am?" Kuroo catches the towel and, infuriatingly enough, drapes it over a knee instead of actually using it.
"Yes. It's only been a year, Kuroo. What do you think my memory is like?" Daichi grabs clean clothes out of a drawer and darts across the room, shuddering as the cold starts to seep into his bones. He can feel Kuroo's eyes on him as he stops before the bathroom door and his hospitality gets the better of him as he asks, "Do you want to use the bathroom first?"
Kuroo looks surprised, his eyes flitting to the bathroom and then back to Daichi. "Nah, I'll be fine. Go ahead."
Daichi doesn't ask again, hopping into the bathroom and shutting the door. It is only after he emerges from the bathroom, thoroughly defrosted, that he starts to wonder if bringing Kuroo back home with him was a good idea. As he had reminded Kuroo, it has been a year since they met at Nationals and while they had been cordial to each other, they hadn't actually progressed past the acquaintance-rival stage before parting ways.
When Kuroo had fallen out of the sky and almost on top of Daichi, he had only brought Kuroo back to his apartment because Kuroo had looked as cold and wet as him, only less equipped to deal with the winter rains, decked out in his bizarre clothing as he was. Now that Daichi is warm and functioning again, he feels like he should have questioned the "falling out of the sky" part more closely before taking Kuroo along with him.
Kuroo is in the exact same spot Daichi had left him, sitting by his boots by the front door. Despite the awkward location, Kuroo looks comfortable, his legs taking up the width of the entryway, crooked at the knees to fit the narrow space. As Daichi steps out of the bathroom, Kuroo looks up and a corner of his lips twitches before it smoothens out into a smirk.
"Do you need the..." Daichi jerks a thumb towards the bathroom, faltering as he takes in Kuroo's appearance.
Kuroo looks strangely... dry for someone who had looked like a drowned cat less than fifteen minutes ago. His hair is back in its usual spikes and his clothes are devoid of the water and mud stains they had picked up on his way to Daichi's apartment. The towel Daichi had thrown at him is draped across his lap but it looks unused, just as clean as the rest of Kuroo.
"No, but thank you," Kuroo says, somewhat amused.
Daichi frowns, taking a step in Kuroo's direction. There is something in Kuroo's hair, small and unobtrusive but undoubtedly there once Daichi sees it. Kuroo tilts his head up, his eyes fixed on Daichi as he stops before him, his expression neutral as Daichi reaches a hand out towards his head.
Kuroo has horns, two of them, sharp under Daichi's thumb and startlingly lifelike. When Daichi tugs on one, it doesn't come off and he tries again, more forcefully.
"Ow! What the hell, Sawamura?" Kuroo slaps Daichi's hand away and curls his hands over the horns protectively.
"Okay," Daichi says, dropping his hands and taking a step back, his heart pounding in his stomach. "What's going on?"
Kuroo stretches, getting to his feet with the same catlike grace Daichi has seen from him during matches. Daichi takes another step back. He forgot how much taller than him Kuroo was, at least a ten centimetre difference between them, and it feels like more with the both of them stuck in the narrow entryway of his apartment.
"I thought you were taking this remarkably well," Kuroo comments, straightening out his clothes and leaning against Daichi's shoe rack. "You have terrible self-preservation instincts, Sawamura."
"Kuroo?" Daichi says warily.
Kuroo is exactly as Daichi remembers him, from the way he looks and talks, but there is something different about him at the same time. Daichi had shrugged it off as part of growing up, graduating and going from high school to university, but now he thinks that doesn't seem to be the case. There is something intimidating about this Kuroo, who feels too well put together, confident and sure as he smirks down at Daichi.
Also, there was that "falling out of the sky" part that Daichi definitely should have questioned.
"I am Kuroo," Kuroo says, "but just not your— your world's Kuroo."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Where do I even start?" Kuroo sighs, running a hand through his hair, his thumb sliding across the curve of a horn. "Do you know about alternate worlds?"
"Like in fiction?"
"So you're from one of those worlds, huh?" Kuroo raises an eyebrow. "No, like in reality. Alternate worlds exist in reality. I'm from the Quest world. To be honest, I have no idea what world this is but I wasn't supposed to end up here. Must have been the rain."
"So, what," Daichi says slowly, "are you saying that you're an alternate version of Kuroo Tetsurou then?" It sounds dumb saying it out loud, like a bizarre plot from a story he has read, but he can't see any other explanation for the situation he is in now.
"That's exactly it, although I have no idea what your world's Kuroo Tetsurou is like. But he must be as devilishly attractive as me if you didn't figure out the difference immediately."
Daichi snorts despite himself. "Is that what you call yourself? Devilish sure, but attractive?"
"Glad to see some things don't change across worlds." Kuroo grins and there is something fond in the way he looks at Daichi.
Daichi crosses his arms before him, still suspicious. "How do I know you're not lying? If you're actually planning to rob and kill me in my apartment I feel like I should be prepared."
"Okay, first, you have no way of knowing if I'm lying so you're just going to have to take my word for it. Second, if I wanted to rob and kill you, I'd probably have done it way earlier. You have no defences, Sawamura," Kuroo scoffs and Daichi shifts uncomfortably. "But anyway, do you have magic in this world? Judging by your reaction to these" —Kuroo gestures to his horns— "I'd wager no."
"Magic?"
"Actual magic. None of that sleight of hand bullshit. Like this." Kuroo turns his palm upwards and a ball of flame bursts into life in his palm.
Daichi jumps, his back hitting the wall, and Kuroo closes his hand over the fire. When he opens it again, the fire is gone and in its place sits a single rosebud, its petals just unfurling. There is a small grin on Kuroo's face as he flicks his eyes up to look at Daichi.
Daichi leans his weight against the solid wall behind him, feeling somewhat faint as he asks, "How do I know that you aren't just pulling these out of your sleeve?"
"Why is it so hard to believe it's magic?" Kuroo mutters. He turns to place the rosebud on Daichi's shoe rack then takes a step forward, easily crossing into Daichi's space. Before Daichi can react, Kuroo reaches out and runs his hands through Daichi's hair.
His hair had been wet, fresh out of the shower, but as Kuroo's hands pass over his head, he feels the remaining water dissipate, leaving his hair dry and his head warm. This is probably how Kuroo had done it, Daichi realises, looking fresh and clean like he had been through a shower even without stepping into the bathroom.
"...so you're a magic hair dryer," Daichi concludes as Kuroo steps backwards, reaching up to touch his hair tentatively.
Kuroo frowns at him. "I don't know what that means but it sounds insulting."
Daichi hums noncommittally. "Can you go back then? To your world or whatever it is?"
"I can... but not yet." Kuroo explains, "Crossing worlds takes the strength out of me. It uses up magic, which I don't have an infinite supply of. Unfortunately."
"So," Daichi says, sensing where this is heading.
Kuroo smiles at him, all saccharine sweet and sincere, and Daichi remembers that look. He only has bad memories from all the times Kuroo had looked at him that way and sprouted out some terrible and bad idea right after. "Let me stay here for a while? Please, Sawamura?"
"I don't take in strangers." Daichi crosses his arms against his chest.
"Wow, this world's Kuroo is doing a terrible job."
"He is," Daichi says, feeling guilty because it was not only Kuroo's fault that they had lost contact. "But he's him and you're you."
Kuroo looks surprised but it only lasts a moment before he gets back into the swing of things. "I get it, but still. Sawamura, it's pouring outside. You can't throw me out in that. Think of the goodness in your heart."
"Well, since you have magic you can probably find a way to survive in the rain."
"I need to save my magic so I can get out of this world. Come on, Sawamura, help a familiar face out."
Daichi stares him down flatly. "Wait. If I keep saying no, you're just going to use your magic to do something anyway, aren't you?"
"No, never," Kuroo insists, placing a hand over his heart. "Okay, maybe," he concedes as Daichi doesn't buy it. "I mean you're the only one I know in this strange and confusing world."
That brings up another question that Daichi had meant to ask Kuroo from the start, when Kuroo had almost fallen on top of him and called out his name like it was the most unexpected thing in the world. But Daichi's stomach growls, unhappy about not being fed immediately, and it echoes in the narrow space between them.
"Fine," Daichi relents, stalking away from Kuroo before he can see the expression on Kuroo's face. He hasn't had anything to eat since morning and he has had a very stressful day since then. Daichi is starving and in the face of his stomach collapsing in on itself, other-world Kuroo could be a minor inconvenience for all he cares. "Stay until you get your magic back but don't rob or kill me, and try not to touch anything in my apartment."
"Sure," Kuroo says, perking up instantly, his saccharine smile dissolving into his usual smirk as he follows Daichi to the stove.
---
"Sawamura."
"No." Daichi wolfs down his instant ramen, ignoring the pair of eyes staring at him from across the table.
Kuroo droops, dropping his elbow onto the table and propping his face in his hand. "I'm just curious about how it tastes. I've never had food from this world."
"Still no."
Kuroo taps his fingers against the surface of the table. Then he stops. "I'm hungry?"
"Are you now."
"Starving," Kuroo emphasises.
"Have a good meal once you get back. Thanks for the meal." Daichi slams the empty bowl back on the table then makes to get up.
Kuroo sulks, his eyes following Daichi as he goes to the sink. On his way back to the table, Daichi snags an orange off the side of the stove—the last fresh fruit he has in his apartment—before sitting down across Kuroo.
"Here." Daichi rolls the orange across the table, where it bumps against Kuroo's elbow before coming to a stop.
Kuroo drops his gaze to it. "It's an orange," he observes.
"Good. You're familiar with it so you know how to eat it." Daichi leans to the side to pick at his sodden bag on the floor.
"I wanted ramen," Kuroo laments, picking up the orange anyway and rolling it between his hands.
"You just told me that you're a great demon who doesn't need to eat. Ramen is wasted on you," Daichi retorts, pulling sodden papers out of his bag with a grimace.
Kuroo peels the orange, muttering, "Just because I don't need to eat doesn't mean that I don't want to eat. Some things really don't change across worlds."
Kuroo's muttering strikes a chord in Daichi, reminding him of what he wanted to ask before he got distracted by his stomach. Daichi puts the unsalvageable bits of his papers aside, straightening up to face Kuroo across the table.
"Kuroo," Daichi asks and Kuroo looks up at him curiously, "is there a Sawamura Daichi in your world?"
"Not in my world. But there is a Sawamura Daichi in another world I know of. He has a better sense of self-preservation than you and the skills to go with it but." Kuroo pauses to pop an orange slice in his mouth. "It surprises me how alike the both of you are."
Kuroo continues to take the orange apart, his eyes fixed on it as he rips out slice after slice methodically. The air around him feels somewhat glum, like he is still sulking about being deprived of Daichi's instant noodle stash.
"You and this world's Kuroo are alike too," Daichi blurts out abruptly. "Apart from the magic and the demon part."
"Are we?" Kuroo glances up.
"Very."
"But you aren't in contact with him anymore, aren't you?" Kuroo finishes up the orange and rolls the skin up into a ball. "You said something about not seeing him for a year."
"We weren't really friends," Daichi says. "We were in different schools and our volleyball teams were long time rivals."
"Hmm." Kuroo drums his fingers against the table. "It's a shame that you aren't in contact with your Kuroo. I mean, my world doesn't have a Daichi or if he exists, I don't know where he is."
"What about the Daichi in the other world you know about?"
Kuroo's fingers still. "We've... met."
"Oh," Daichi says.
Kuroo clears his throat, his fingers tapping the table again as he asks, "Also, what's 'volleyball'?"
---
"The rain's stopped."
"Huh?" Daichi startles awake, half-drowsing against the side of his bed.
The movement sends his laptop sliding down towards the floor and Kuroo puts a hand out to steady it, carefully taking it from Daichi's lap and placing it on the floor. The last volleyball video Daichi had been showing Kuroo is gone, replaced by a whole stream of autoplay videos vaguely related to volleyball.
Kuroo is close, his chest pressed to Daichi's shoulder, the rest of him warm against Daichi's side. Somewhere along the way, Daichi had started leaning into him, his head dropping onto Kuroo's shoulder as sleep started to creep up on him. He sits up now, pushing himself away from Kuroo and tapping on his keyboard to pause the video.
"Did you say something?" Daichi asks, yawning.
"The rain's stopped," Kuroo says, "and my magic's back. It's about time I got out of this world."
"Oh," Daichi says, his brain still lagging from his brief not-nap. "Bye then?"
Kuroo looks pained. "At least offer to see me out of it or something, Sawamura."
Daichi stretches the cricks out of his back, getting to his feet in slow motion, his movements still weighed down by drowsiness. "You know, I'm still half-convinced that I'm dreaming or something." He sits back down on the floor. "So how are you getting out of this world?"
Kuroo scowls. "I've spent almost a day with you and you still think this is a dream? You're unbelievable." He sighs. "Usually, I can open a portal anywhere in the open but since this is a world I've never been to, I rather not take any chances. I'll have to go back to the place that I entered this world from."
"You mean back to the park?" Daichi asks.
"The place where I first met you, yes."
"I'll take you back there," Daichi says agreeably. "I doubt you know the way. But since you fell out of the sky, do you have to get back up there for it to count?"
"No, that was a miscalculation," Kuroo admits sheepishly. "I don't usually go around falling out of the sky into new worlds."
"You nearly killed me," Daichi recalls.
"But I didn't. I stopped in time," Kuroo argues. "If I killed someone every time I entered another world I'd never get anywhere."
It is dark outside when Daichi leaves his apartment with Kuroo in tow. It is still cold from this afternoon's thunderstorm but Daichi doesn't feel it as much now when he isn't drenched to the bone. He takes an umbrella with him, just in case Kuroo sets off another unusual weather condition with his departure from this world.
Their walk back to the park is silent, pensive, and Daichi finds himself absently glancing Kuroo's way. Apart from the strange clothes and the horns, he looks exactly like the Kuroo Tetsurou from Nekoma Daichi remembers.
The last time they met was at Nationals, after their last match when they were both still running high on adrenaline and emotions. Karasuno and Nekoma's Battle of the Trash Heap had come true and then it was over, or at least over for those of them who were in their third year. This year, they had restarted a legacy that would be carried on by the current and future members of the Karasuno and Nekoma teams. Those like Hinata and Lev would be seeing each other for another two years, fighting their way through the regional competitions and then back up to Nationals to fulfil the promise between the two teams.
But what about them, the graduating batch of this year, who had gone on to become university students and working adults, no longer high school students of a high school volleyball club, once part of and now suddenly distanced from the legacy, the rivalry, they had rebuilt?
After that last handshake with Kuroo, Daichi hadn't thought much about him after leaving Tokyo, with the stress of the university entrance exams already looming over him. Returning to Tokyo had been like a rush of nostalgia for him, reliving memories from the training camps and Nationals that were still fresh in his head. But he hadn't thought about contacting anyone from the Tokyo teams, not Nekoma nor Fukurodani. Not Kuroo.
But here Kuroo was unexpectedly, even if it wasn't really him, and now that he is leaving again, it feels strange and kind of sad that meetings between Daichi and Kuroo had only ever ended in partings with no sure way of meeting again.
"We're here," Daichi says as he comes to a stop.
Kuroo looks around them. "I can't really tell since everything looks different at night so I'm going to have to take your word for it."
Daichi nods, suddenly at loss for words. Kuroo glances at him, measuring, before he turns away. He raises a hand, drawing sigils in the air before him quickly, leaving a trail of glowing red in the shape of each sigil. If Daichi had not believed Kuroo about his magic earlier, he does now when there is no other explanation for what is happening before him or why the sky above them has started to darken, swallowing up the light from the streetlamps all around them.
The air crackles with static as if there is another storm on its way and Daichi looks up. But there is no rain, no lightning, just the quiet, powerful thrum of magic as it pulls the fabric of his world together and then apart, all at Kuroo's will.
Kuroo had been right when he said that robbing and killing Daichi would be an easy task, given the amount of power he has at his fingertips, which he pours out into the wall of sigils floating before him. He could have taken the damn ramen for himself instead of sulking about it like a five year old or stopped Daichi when Daichi clicked on the tenth or so volleyball video while rambling on about the sport, but he didn't. It was a miracle that Daichi had survived this day with Kuroo to make it to his birthday.
Kuroo drops his hand and the light trailing from his fingertip breaks off, marking the end of the sigils. "Looks like there is a way out," he tells Daichi, triumphant and grinning as he turns around.
"Back to your own world?" Daichi asks, staring at the glow of the sigils behind him. "Don't get lost and end up someplace else again."
Kuroo hesitates, his grin fading slightly. "Actually," he says haltingly, his gaze straying to the ground and then back up to Daichi again. "I'm not going back. I'm going to the Fighter world, where Daichi is. The other Daichi. It's his birthday, you see."
"Oh," Daichi says. The same as his. "Some things really don't change across worlds, do they?"
"They really don't," Kuroo says softly.
It happens quick, quicker than Daichi can catch, as Kuroo leans in, resting his fingers under Daichi's chin and pressing his lips to Daichi's. Kuroo smiles ruefully as he breaks away, saying, "Happy birthday, Daichi. My love is going to kill me dead if he finds out I did that. But I hope you find someone as nice as me to spend your birthday with."
And with that, Kuroo is gone.
The glowing wall of sigils is gone and when Daichi looks up at the sky, it is as clear as a night sky can be. Even if there was an unexpected bout of rain, Daichi has an umbrella with him this time.
It takes Daichi a while to remember to move, instead of spending the night alone in a park just rooted to the ground, staring up at the sky. As he turns to leave, his phone chimes softly in his pocket.
It is past midnight and the first birthday wishes have started to pour in, from Suga and Asahi and his family and the rest of the Karasuno volleyball team. Daichi scrolls through the messages on his way home, smiling at them and replying to each one of them in turn.
At the end of the list, there is a message that reads:
"Happy birthday, captain crow! A little birdy told me that it was your birthday today AND that you were in Tokyo all this time ∑(ﾟДﾟﾉ)ﾉ We should meet up sometime.
p.s. It's Kuroo btw. You know, (ex-)captain of the Nekoma volleyball team? Tall, dark, and devilishly handsome? Just in case you lost my number for some inexplicable reason."