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iii. deluge
When he returns to his team’s changing room where the rest of the Nohebi Volleyball Club are packing things up following their exit from the Interhigh Tournament, Daishou kicks over a bench. A few of the kouhai flinch at the sound as it clatters to the floor, but no one else reacts. Perhaps they all believe they know how Daishou feels, with their loss fresh in their minds.
No chance of hell they know the real reason, though. Not all of it.
This week has been a blitz of bullshit from start to finish. First, Mika kicks him to the curb because he (admittedly so) doesn’t spend enough time with her. Getting knocked out of the Interhigh before they can even make it to nationals doesn’t feel too great, either.
Those, he can deal with. Not Kuroo, though. That’s a subject best locked away, with the key melted into a bullet and shot into the nearest black hole. Oh, god, he’s even starting to gripe like Kuroo. The nerve of that giant rooster-headed trash bag, being at the wrong place at the worst possible time.
The ache in his foot doesn’t quite ward away the knot in his belly that’s been there since he had seen Kuroo, no matter how long he’s tried to forget it.
ii. doubt
Another tournament passes by, with yet another early exit while Nekoma persists with every one of their nine lives. Kuroo will go out with a much better last hurrah than Daishou will ever get.
Well, at least Mika is talking to him these days. She’ll never date him again — she had said as much and he doesn’t blame her — but she is willing to let him teach her why he loves a sport more than her.
His trek home from the gymnasium takes him through a familiar neighborhood he hasn’t haunted in years — three years, to be exact. It’s exactly how he remembers it, and his feet find an old path no longer taken.
The Kuroo residence fits right in with the neighborhood, with the lone exception the top of a volleyball net poking over the fenced backyard. Daishou’s eyes widen when he hears the distinct sound of leather on skin coming from that direction. The disastrous silhouette of a familiar head of hair comes into focus as he approaches.
Daishou spies a stool near the garden fence, and he props himself on top of it to peer into the yard.
Kuroo steps on a small pedal at his feet, and a ball vaults over the top of the net. In less than a blink of an eye, Kuroo launches into the air and executes a picturesque kill block. Over and over, the ritual repeats until Kuroo’s shoulders are heaving from the effort.
“You know, they make special places to sweat your balls off. You should try it.”
The ball squirts out of Kuroo’s hand in the midst of resetting his contraption, and he shoots a glare in Daishou’s direction. “What do you want?”
Daishou smirks. “Just returning the favor, Kuroo-kun.”
“You’re too kind.” Kuroo wrinkles his nose and turns back to his previous task. “Don’t go through all that trouble on my account. Feel free to cease and desist at any time.” The ball unleashes, but Kuroo is a split second too late to knock it down. “Damn it.”
After a few more failed attempts, Kuroo drops the ball in the wilted grass and sighs. “Did I forget to put on my snake repellent this morning?”
Daishou snorts at the joke before he can stop himself. He always has taken an inordinate amount of pleasure in goading his old middle school teammate turned rival. “I thought you said I was a greasy rat man. I can’t be both.”
“You seem bent on trying, though.” Kuroo wiped his hands on the sides of his track bottoms and punted the ball into a nearby shed, its door ajar. “If you came to rub it in, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I’m not maladjusted.”
The rush of their old banter races through Daishou, unearthing something old and yellowed and best forgotten. It harkens back to a simpler time when they had been on the same side and mission, and neither had been in question.
A knot of something bitter twists in Daishou’s stomach when he remembers the day he got the letter in the mail telling him his application to Nekoma High School had been waitlisted. His mother had told him he needed to pick a high school. Nohebi had already accepted him, and that was that.
So what if it had crushed him to know the rift between the two of them could never be healed while they’re opponents? So what if he pushed every one of Kuroo’s buttons because at least one of them would be better off?
So what if they’re not currently rivals and none of that matters anymore?
“You wanna go get junk food and stay out too late?” Daishou blurts, and Kuroo’s wide-eyed stare matches the one likely gracing Daishou’s face, as well. Slowly but surely, though, it twitches into a smirk. “You look like an idiot.”
“Says the Emperor of Mimesis.” Kuroo stuck out his tongue, but he was fighting off a smile of his own. “As long as we go to that fish place near your house. I haven’t eaten there in years.”
Daishou quickly recalls the early years of middle school, the two of them venturing out with their newfound liberty together and getting into far more trouble than either of them would admit to their parents. What they know about one another from those days could get both of them (or at the very least Daishou) grounded for an entire school year. That restaurant had been one of their favorite haunts.
“As long as you’re buying,” Daishou teases, and Kuroo complains halfway down the block about something he will probably do anyway, and for a moment, the past few years feel like they never happened.
i. denouement
Maybe it really is like learning to ride a bike after all, Daishou muses while he listens to Kuroo prattle on about some stupid nerdy thing as he is wont to do. Once they get past the scrapes and bruises phase, there is a measure of freedom in it.
Of course, they still bicker like an old married couple and embarrass their friends wherever they go, but both of them enjoy the process thoroughly.
The start of college has come and gone. Busy doesn’t quite cover the monstrous amount of work ahead of them, yet it never deters them from the occasional detour to that little fish shop that Daishou will never admit to loving, as well. Mostly because Kuroo will always spring for his favorite ice cream from the convenience store next door.
This is one such day, a brisk chill in the air heralding the upcoming new year, and the two of them budge a little bit closer as they walk side by side on their usual pilgrimage. It’s . . . nice.
At peace in a way he hasn’t been for a long while, Daishou’s fingers seek out Kuroo’s, tangling together like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Rather than snatch his hand away like he would’ve done in the previous few years, Kuroo tucks the whole lot into his jacket pocket and starts to hum an aimless tune.
It’s not exactly Pavarotti, but the sound of ease they’ve waited so long to develop is still music to his ears.