time is on your side

by dictura

Summary:

“Sometimes I think you fall in love with everyone who tosses to you,” Kenma says, and Shouyou tries not to spit tea into his laptop keyboard.

In the game of volleyball/love, Hinata Shouyou just wants to be good enough. Kageyama Tobio will never stop. Miya Atsumu doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks he deserves. Kozume Kenma observes. (Oikawa Tooru will take everything he can get.)

Hinata and his setters, over the years.

Chapter 1: just wait and see

Notes:

For endgame spoilers, see last chapter notes.

“Sometimes I think you fall in love with everyone who tosses to you,” Kenma says, and Shouyou tries not to spit tea into his laptop keyboard.

“But Kenma, you tossed to me too, remember?”

Kenma just shrugs. “Not much. And it still kind of worked.”

Shouyou blushes at the memory. He’s shared and shares a lot of things with Kenma, including firsts.

“We never fought on the same side,” Shouyou says finally, his hand on his chin. “Maybe that’s why! Not that I don’t still love you as my best friend.”

Kenma makes a neutral sound at that, but he’s smiling softly and looking at Shouyou—his own way of saying it back.

***

The first time Shouyou fell in love, it was with a red palm. He didn’t know when he met the determined eyes of the boy who said “We’re going to win” that love was the thing stinging on his skin, but he was fifteen then, and his father had been gone since he was young, so there wasn’t much he knew about that yet.

He learned over three long, hard, perfect years. He learned it through a fistfight and tears and a beautiful set that floated in the air in front of him. He learned it in frantic study sessions and match-watching sleepovers and over shared meat buns and in the smell of their mingling sweat after they fell into each other at the end of so many, never enough, tournaments.

He learned it significantly later than most of his teammates, according to Yamaguchi. Though, as Shouyou has been continuously reassured, Kageyama didn’t manage to figure it out first. For that, Shouyou has always been grateful, because there’s volleyball and there’s what other people call love, and for him, one has always come before the other.

“Toss to me,” he says to Kageyama outside the gym in their third year. For them, the tournament is lost; for them, the year is over—but this is as close as Shouyou can get to saying that, for him, in this, volleyball and love are maybe the same thing.

“At least get changed, dumbass,” says Kageyama, and Shouyou thinks that’s as close as he’ll get to hearing it back.

***

Palm buzzing, his head thrown up to the stands, Shouyou can hear his friends calling, “Welcome home.”

He does not hear Tobio muttering, “Took you long enough.” By now, he might’ve known how close that is.

***

When Miya Atsumu points at him and says, “I’m gonna set to you one day,” it digs in somewhere in Shouyou’s brain along with the memories of hand signals, the feeling of bandaging Natsu’s first scraped knee, the combos of his main in Smash Bros. Indelible, although he’s not sure why at the time. All he can do is stare and feel the goosebumps on his skin.

When he glances over to Kageyama, hoping he’ll provide some context, all he sees is his partner glaring holes into Atsumu’s retreating back. So Shouyou decides he’d better not bring it up, for his own health. Kageyama has a tendency to get more murderous than usual around other strong setters, and the blond Miya is basically a monster.

Still, something in Shouyou’s world feels tilted off its axis, so when the first years are in the bath later that night, and when Tsukishima and Yamaguchi are focused on each other, Shouyou turns to Kageyama. “Hey, Yamayama?”

“What?”

“When we’re the best in the world, will you still toss to me?”

Kageyama snorts. “That’s big talk coming from a scrub who forgot to hit today.”

“Shut up, you jerk,” Shouyou scowls. “I’m going to the top! Anyway, will you?”

“Of course,” Kageyama says, scowling back. “Don’t ask stupid questions, dumbass.”

But after Shouyou rinses out his hair, he catches Kageyama staring at him, with that constipated look like he’s thinking too hard. And although he splashes his setter in the face instead of going any further down that path, when he crawls into the futon next to Kageyama later, he feels, for some reason, that he’s glad he asked.

***

“Why him?” Kenma asks, after that post on Instagram. The one he’s spent a week talking Shouyou off the edge about, the one his best friend needed to make so badly because of his first real boyfriend.

“What do you mean?” And he can hear Shouyou smiling on the other end of the line. “He tosses to me.”

Kenma almost rolls his eyes. “I mean, of all the guys who have. Why him?”

Shouyou hums. “He cares so much and tries so hard, you know? To be liked and cool and the best. And I just—I get that.”

“I see.”

“Yeah.” There’s silence for a moment, and then a grin that’s audible. “And he’s hot, obviously.”

“You are in a dating pool of professional athletes.”

“Yeah.” Shouyou says. “But even still. Kenma, if you could see the way the muscles on his back—”

“Shouyou,” Kemna sighs, “we talked about this.”

“Right.” A pause. “Well, he also just…he smiles at me. You know?”

Kenma bites back a laugh. “He smiles at you.”

“Yeah! Like—like there’s no one else in the room. Or in the whole world.”

Kenma nods, chewing his lip. “I think I get that.”

***

“I still can’t believe it took three powerhouses to take that shrimp down,” Atsumu mutters against the window of their bus.

“I can’t believe you propositioned him like the romantic lead of some shoujo manga.”

Atsumu backhands his twin in the solar plexus. “Yeah, you’d know about those, asshole.”

“Like you’d be the lead with a face that ugly.”

“It’s the same as yours—”

Kita shoots them a look from the front of the bus that stills the air, and they both go quiet.

Atsumu leans back against the window and thinks about Hinata Shouyou.

***

When Kiyoko finally says yes to a date with Tanaka, Shouyou finds their normally grounded wing spiker floating in a daze for weeks.

“Tanaka-senpai, what’s it like to be in love?” he asks, in a break between sets. He is, on one hand, curious, but he also knows by now what effect it has when he gives his upperclassman the opportunity to brag, and Shouyou will take any edge he can get to win their game. (It’s a practice match, but: still.)

Tsukishima snorts, spitting up some of his sports drink, and Yamaguchi smacks him helpfully on the back.

“Ah, Hinata, my precious junior,” says Tanaka, smiling beatifically. “Being in love is like…” He puts a fist over his heart, looking up at the ceiling. “It’s like…”

“Yeah?”

“It’s like there’s no one else in the whole world,” Tanaka finally decides. “Like looking right into the sun.”

“Wow—”

“That’d blind you,” Kageyama points out, from right behind Shouyou. Shouyou glances up at his setter, who’s got that vaguely constipated look. He hadn’t noticed Kageyama listening.

But Nishinoya totally ignores that, smacking his best friend on the back. “That makes me so jealous, but I’m kinda hyped up, too!”

Shouyou grins at their libero. “I bet you’ll fall in love with someone like—like a supernova! Like fwah! And boom!”

“There’s no sound in the vacuum of space,” Tsukishima says, sounding bored.

“And yet, you’re always saying something,” Kageyama mutters.

“What was that, your majesty?”

Ennoshita doesn’t let things devolve past that, fixing them both with an almost Daichi-worthy glare, but as Shouyou meanders back toward the net, he wonders about it. Looking into the sun.

He looks up to find Kageyama watching him, and waits expectantly for a signal for their first play, but Kageyama is just staring like he’s the vending machine, so Shouyou gives him a thumbs-up and says, “We’re going to win this.”

Kageyama snorts. “Obviously.”

When the ball touches down on the other side of the court, he can’t imagine the world just having one person. The best team of six wins.

***

“Beach volleyball is all about trust,” Lucio tells him. “You and your partner have to believe in each other no matter how the momentum swings or what mistakes you make. It’s a lot harder than you might think, building that relationship with just one person.”

Not really, Shouyou thinks to himself, even as he nods along. Trust is the only way I know how to do it.

***

Of course Hinata’s the sun. It’s stupid that Tanaka would say that about anyone else.

This is not the cause of any self-reflection on Tobio’s part. There’s no reason for anything to change. There are the matches ahead of them, and there’s Hinata, and he’ll give them everything he has.

For Tobio, volleyball and love have always been the same thing.

***

“People hook up? At training camp?!”

“Not so loud, Lev,” Kenma says, looking extremely unimpressed. “And yes. We’re teenagers. It happens.”

“Uwah! Do you have a training camp boyfriend, Kenma?”

Kenma’s eyes barely leave his console as they slide towards Shouyou, peering at him through his hair. “No. That’s not my thing.”

“I wish I knew that last year,” Lev says, suddenly downcast, plucking at a clump of grass.

Kenma huffs lightly, but doesn’t reply. Shouyou looks between them. “Was there someone you liked last year? They didn’t come back?”

Lev nods stiffly, looking away. Shouyou, unsure how to respond, pats Lev’s grassy hand. “Maybe you’ll meet someone nice this year? You’re really pretty and tall and your spikes hit the floor like bam! I bet someone already has a crush on you.”

Lev turns back uncertainly, and Kenma looks up briefly, studying the exchange. Shouyou just smiles, and as usual, it proves to be infectious.

“Thanks, Hinata,” Lev says, and he ruffles Shouyou’s hair. “You’re so cute sometimes. I bet someone has a crush on you, too.”

Kenma lets out half a snort, biting his lip, as Shouyou shoots to his feet. “I’m not cute! I’m totally the cool type!”

“Sure,” Lev concedes easily. “But not as cool as me, though!”

“I’m way cooler—”

“Get your shoes on, dumbass, we’re up again soon.”

Shouyou spins to where Kageyama is now looming and then looks back down at the grass for his shoes. Lev glances up at Kageyama, his expression as innocent as always. “Do you have a secret training camp boyfriend, Kageyama?”

Kenma barely manages not to laugh this time, but it’s a close thing. He has to actually hit pause.

But Kageyama’s just blinking back with his usual scowl. “What?”

“Kageyama’s only interested in volleyballs,” Shouyou says, pulling on one shoe.

The scowl deepens. “You idiot—”

“I don’t know about that,” Kenma says, flatly as ever. “There’s at least one other thing he keeps his eye on.”

Kenma and Kageyama exchange a look, one that Shouyou doesn’t quite understand, although he’s seen something like it on the court. Kenma, assessing his enemy for a weakness. Kageyama, recognizing a difficult opponent.

But Kenma turns back to his game in short order, and Shouyou’s other shoe is tied. So he brushes grass from his calves. “I’ll see you guys at dinner!”

Shouyou takes off, not bothering to wait to see if Kageyama will run after him.

***

Kenma doesn’t make a habit of approaching other humans, but there is someone for whom he’d make this exception.

“You should say something, to Shouyou,” Kenma says to Kageyama, as the taller boy straightens up from the water fountain.

“About what?”

Kenma doesn’t make a habit of eye contact, either, but it seems the best way to meet Kageyama’s obtuseness. Kageyama, predictably, scowls.

“Well—what about you? What do you want from him?”

“Shouyou’s my best friend.”

“And?”

Kenma sighs and drops his gaze. “And he deserves better.”

Kageyama doesn’t say anything to that, not even a noise of surprise or indignant rage, so Kenma ventures a glance up at him again. He’s just staring at nothing now, his hands clenched into fists as his sides.

Kenma’s made himself uncomfortable enough for weeks to come, so he takes that as a cue to walk away.

He doesn’t get to hear Tobio mutter to himself, “Yeah. Obviously.”

***

“Hey, Tobio, nice to see you didn’t start sucking after last year. So, from the #1 ranked setter to #2, do you think you could—”

“No.” Tobio turns his back and walks away.

Atsumu jogs after. “I haven’t even asked you yet!”

***

“Hey, Shouyou,” Atsumu calls across the net. “If we win this time, can I get your number?”

Shouyou looks surprised, moves a little closer to the net—but Tobio scowls. “No,” he snaps off, before Shouyou can even open his mouth.

“Aw, Tobio, so possessive—”

“Why not, Yamayama? We’re going to win anyway.”

Tobio’s face shifts into his weird approximation of a smile, which Atsumu has always found to be deeply evil. He’d be intimidated, but—

“I like a guy with confidence.” And Atsumu offers Shouyou his own smile, which he’s sure must be much more pleasant to look at. “Tell you what, if you win, I’ll give you my number—”

“Sumu,” Osamu calls, looking bored, “win now, flirt later.”

“Don’t play with your food,” Suna chimes in.

Atsumu should be indignant at this treatment—it is, after all, insubordination—but he does need to serve first.

“I keep my promises,” he says in parting, “so we’re about to beat the shit out of you.”

***

Inarizaki wins three sets to two, but Atsumu never does get Shouyou’s number.

“Just ask someone from another team. Or your training camp, or something.”

“I don’t have their numbers to ask them, genius.”

“Maybe if your personality wasn’t so shitty, you’d have friends.”

“Maybe if you weren’t such an asshole, I’d—”

Suna sighs. “If you Miyas don’t shut up and let me nap before our next game, I will kill you. And we will lose.”

***

Hinata frowns down at his phone on the bus home. “Miya Atsumu just DMed me on Instagram. He says I owe him my number.”

Tobio huffs. “Just ignore him. He’s trying to get in your head.”

“That’s what I thought, but…we already lost?”

Tobio turns to look out the window. He never feels settled after a loss, but this one roils in his gut. To be second to someone like Miya Atsumu, so smug and impulsive and unflinching.

I’m gonna set to you one day, but first, I’m gonna kick your ass in next year’s Interhigh, so you’d better be ready.

When we’re the best in the world, will you still toss to me?

I keep my promises.

“Hey, earth to spacey-Yama—”

“Don’t write back,” Tobio blurts out. “I hate that guy.”

“You hate most people,” Hinata shoots back, but he closes the app.

“I hate some people.”

“Okay, you murder-glare at most people.”

Tobio does exactly that to Hinata, but adds: “But I don’t hate you.”

Hinata rolls his eyes. “It’s fine. I won’t be friends with your mortal enemy.” He holds his head up and sniffs. “But you’re buying my drinks next week.”

Tobio shifts in his seat, glances over. “I’ll buy you one. That’s it.”

“One drink? I’ll have to tell my new friend Miya you’re not even his archnemesis—”

“Two.” Tobio sighs, but when Hinata’s thumb hovers over Instagram, he caves. “And one meat bun. Final offer.”

Hinata grins. “I don’t need friends when I have you, right?”

***

There are moments of, if not friendship, then uneasy peace between Tobio and Tsukishima Kei, and they’re sharing one of them when they happen to be walking down the hall toward the gym together.

They’re stopped by a girl with a letter in her hands. Tobio tries to step aside—he’s pretty sure he’s never seen this girl before, so there’s no way it should be for him—but a familiar sinking feeling takes a hold of him again when she presses the letter into his hands.

“Please accept my feelings,” she says, head lowered, blushing.

This has gotten no less awkward for every time it’s happened, and it’s especially hard to respond to a girl when he doesn’t even know her name. Tobio gulps. “Uh…”

“He’ll read it and get back to you,” says Tsukishima, as unaffected as ever. “We have to get to practice.”

This is enough for the girl to bow and flee, and for Tobio to heave a sigh of relief.

“I wonder about the girls of this school,” Tsukishima says, shaking his head.

Tobio frowns. “Don’t you get a lot of confessions?”

Tsukishima raises an eyebrow. “I used to, until I told them all I was gay. I think it’s gotten around by now.”

“Are you?” Tobio blurts, before he can think better of it.

“You really are that oblivious.”

Tobio scowls at that, but tries not to take the bait. “Maybe that’s what I should tell people.”

“If the shoe fits.”

The third time’s the charm. The armistice is broken. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Tsukishima sighs. “My office hours are over for today. You’ll have to find someone else to spell it out for you.”

They make it to the club room without violence, but it’s a close thing. Hinata zeroes in on the letter in Kageyama’s hand immediately.

“Another one? Who was it this time?”

Kageyama takes out his gym clothes and throws the letter into the bottom of his bag. “I don’t know. I didn’t recognize her.”

“It was Suzui,” Tsukishima says, taking off his tie. “She’s in your class.”

Yamaguchi’s eyes widen. He looks up from tying a shoe. “She’s one of the prettiest girls in our year.”

“Definitely top three,” Nishinoya adds. “Though I prefer older women myself.”

Hinata’s face scrunches. “What did you say, Kageyama?”

Tobio shrugs. “Nothing. We left.”

Hinata clutches his chest. “So heartless! If it were me, I’d never leave a pretty girl behind.”

Tobio snorts. “Maybe that’s why they don’t confess to you.”

Hinata sighs dramatically. “It’s true. No one will ever notice me with a tsundere like you around.”

“Who wouldn’t notice you? You’re a human pylon.”

“Poor Hinata, doomed to only be noticed by the one man with no sense of romance,” Yamaguchi says, and Tsukishima chokes back a laugh.

“Imagine the confession,” says Nishinoya, grinning.

Hinata leaps immediately on top of a bench, flattening his hair and putting on his best scowl. “You suck, but I know your name, I guess. Not that I’m going to use it, dumbass.”

Tobio pulls his gym shirt on slowly, hiding a blush, as the room erupts in snickers. He manages a good scowl of his own when he pulls it down.

“Your impressions are terrible, you moron. Put your shoes on.”

“Theirs is a star-crossed love,” Yamaguchi says to Tsukishima as he leaves for the gym.

***

How long have you known?

Known what?

Tobio sighs. Putting this in writing is a surefire way to give Tsukishima ammunition forever. But then again, he said he was, too, so: That I’m gay.

This time, Tsukishima takes a maddening amount of time to reply. Tobio is considering actually studying when he gets back: You really are that oblivious.

It takes real restraint not to throw his phone. Tobio manages to type: To what?

Tsukishima sends a picture back. It’s of Tobio and Hinata—it must be at the end of a game. They’re in uniform, and their faces are sweaty, but their arms are around each other, and they’re both grinning.

Tobio stares at it. He knows, intellectually, that moments like that happen, that sometimes he looks at Hinata after a win and he loses all inhibitions and he’s just happy, in a way that he’s never really been—

—but he didn’t think anyone else could see it.

But even if Tobio has no interest in girls, even if he’s more likely to appreciate, occasionally, the lines of another guy’s body on the court or, less occasionally, the fantasy of another guy when he’s alone in his room or the shower—it doesn’t mean anything about him and Hinata. That has nothing to do with him being gay, that’s just—volleyball. And even if there are days it’s not, when it’s just movies and video games and staying up too late and laughing until he wants to throw up because there’s only ever one person who’d try so hard to put a smile on his face—it doesn’t mean he’s missing something.

That’s what he wants to text back. But he doesn’t. He stares at the picture, and doesn’t say anything at all.

***

It’s the last night of the last training camp of high school, and Shouyou has had one of the best weeks of his life. Seeing old friends. Making new ones. Dedicating every minute of every day to volleyball. It’s everything he loves best.

So he really doesn’t want to cry, not now. But that keeps feeling like it’s what he’s about to do, since he went to the bathroom after dinner and looked himself in the mirror and suddenly remembered: this is the last time.

He wants to go find someone to play with for just a little bit longer. He wants to crash the Nekoma room and trash talk Lev again. He wants to find his first-years and give them just a little more sage advice.

Instead, he’s blinking hard and his hands are trembling. So he’s looking for a quiet place outside.

That was the intention, anyway. Instead he finds Kageyama at the top of the hill behind Shinzen, sitting under a tree and staring off into the horizon.

So he sits beside him.

“What are you doing out here?” Kageyama asks, frowning.

“What are you doing out here?” Shouyou counters, frowning back.

Kageyama looks out into the distance again. “Just thinking.”

Shouyou leans back against the tree trunk, spreading his legs out in the grass. “Me too.”

They sit for a while in silence, listening to the cicadas calling.

“This is our last training camp together,” Shouyou says finally. Because he can’t keep it out of his head.

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to miss this.”

Shouyou can feel Kageyama’s eyes on him. “We’ll still be playing volleyball.”

And that’s the thing. Shouyou knows what Kageyama will be doing after high school. He’s already been scouted for a V. League team. All of Karasuno celebrated together.

He hasn’t gotten around to telling them what he’ll be doing after he leaves school. It’s easy enough to just say, “Play volleyball, of course!”

But on his team, only the coach and Takeda know exactly how he plans to do that, and how much he’ll leave behind to do it.

He knows they’ll celebrate it, too. That they’ll all support him and cheer him on.

But he’s going to miss them so much. And—more importantly—

—he wants to tell Kageyama first, as his partner, but for some reason, every time he’s tried to say it, it won’t come out.

Shouyou looks out at the horizon. The sun is hanging low in the sky. It feels like the right time.

“I’m moving to Brazil.”

“What?”

Shouyou turns, looks at Kageyama’s disbelieving face. “I’m moving to Brazil to play beach volleyball.”

And suddenly Kageyama’s hands are on Shouyou’s jaw, and he realizes how close they’re sitting together. How weird it is that he no longer feels the need to flinch.

“Why would you do that?” Kageyama demands.

“Do you remember Johzenji?”

Kageyama frowns. “The team that trained with two-on-twos?”

Shouyou moves to nod, feels Kageyama still cupping his face. “Yeah. I got the idea from them. They had to be flexible because they had to learn to do everything for themselves, and—I need to get better at everything. So I’ll play two-on-two where they’re the best at it. In Brazil, on the beach.”

“It’s a completely different game.” Kageyama’s brow furrows. “And how will you find a place to live? Do you even know the language? Who will you play with?”

“Coach Washijo is helping me.”

“From Shiratorizawa? I thought he hated you.”

Shouyou moves to nod again, and yet—“Yeah. Well, not really. Kageyama, could you let go—”

But Kageyama ignores him. He moves even closer, until their noses almost brush, his hands still caging Shouyou’s face. “Hinata—why are you doing this?”

He’s close enough to kiss, Shouyou thinks. He’s not sure why, then. Instead he breathes into Kageyama’s chin and says, “Because I want to stay on the court the longest.”

Kageyama’s eyes flash. “Then stay on it with me.”

And that’s what Shouyou wants, maybe more than anything. It’s been a long time since his dream was to beat Kageyama Tobio. Now he wakes up every day because he can stand next to him.

But he says, “I can’t do that yet.”

“Why not?”

Kageyama looks actually confused. Actually upset. And Shouyou almost laughs at that, because he’s never had to explain this. “Because we don’t all get scouted out of high school, Yamayama. Some of us never made All-Japan, remember?”

Kageyama finally lowers his hands, seems to catch himself and shift back. He looks down into the grass and scowls. “When are you leaving?”

“I have to train for a while before I go—Coach Washijo’s rules. I’ll leave for Tokyo a little after graduation to work with some people there, and then—”

“How long will you be gone?”

“Two years.”

Kageyama lets out a breath, looks out into the sky again. “You’re coming back.”

“Of course I’m coming back. I made you a promise, didn’t I?”

Kageyama looks back at him again and smiles. Not one of his scary game day smiles. This one’s small and almost shy—a rare one Shouyou usually only sees on late nights alone together, when it’s easier to make Kageyama laugh and then he looks over like he is now, with a brightness in his eyes like stars.

(Later, Shouyou will think he should’ve known because of that. Now, he’s just happy that Kageyama wants him to come back.)

“You’d better work hard, then,” Kageyama says, relaxing back into the tree trunk.

Shouyou leans back, too, looks into the oranges and pinks that are starting to spill across the sky. “I’ll come back and wipe the floor with you.”

“I’d like to see that,” Kageyama replies, but it’s the first time Shouyou can remember it not coming out sarcastic. In the moment, Shouyou interprets it as the truest instance of their friendship.

That’s why, maybe, he chooses to be corny. “I’ll miss you.”

Shouyou hears Kageyama sigh, but he doesn’t say anything back for a long moment. So Shouyou elbows him.

Kageyama grunts indignantly. “Oi, Hinata—”

“You’re supposed to say you’ll miss me too, you jerk.”

Kageyama sighs again and goes quiet. Shouyou is ready to be offended when he feels a hand on top of his in the grass.

“Of course I’ll miss you, dumbass. You’re my…”

Shouyou waits a while to hear exactly what of Kageyama’s he is. He turns his hand over. Their fingers entwine.

Finally, Kageyama manages, “You’re my best friend.”

“You finally admitted we’re friends, huh.”

“Shut up.”

Shouyou does. They sit and watch the sun set, and neither of them let go.

Chapter 2: go ahead & light up the town

“Did you know that I’m in love with Kageyama?” Shouyou asks, when it’s made obvious to him that most of Karasuno does.

“Yes.”

“Kenmaaa! Why didn’t you say anything?”

“It’s rude to tell someone else how they feel.”

“Not if they’re your best friend! Not if they don’t know!”

“Would you have believed me?”

“Of course!” A beat. “Maybe.”

Shouyou can hear Kenma sighing.

“You still could’ve told me.”

“How did you find out?”

“A girl in our class confessed to me,” Shouyou groans.

“She’s not the first, though?”

“Yeah, but when she came up—” Shouyou grimaces, throwing himself down on his bed. “I was walking with Kageyama, and she said, ‘I’m sorry, I know you can’t accept my confession, and I respect your relationship with Kageyama, but—’”

“She thought you’re dating Kageyama?”

“She didn’t even give me a chance to say I’m not! She just said she needed to express her feelings since we’re graduating soon and gave me a letter and ran away! And so I turned to Kageyama, like, isn’t that funny, even though it isn’t really funny at all, but he said, ‘Yeah, as if I’d end up with a dumbass like you,’ and…”

Shouyou isn’t exactly sure what comes after that, or at least how he’s supposed to describe it to Kenma.

What did come after that is that he smacked Kageyama and called him an idiot, and then they continued to the vending machines, where Kageyama agonized for way too long only to buy the same milk as always, but what came after was also that Shouyou went to the bathroom, and he opened that letter, and when that girl wrote she knew she had no hope but it was her last chance to say something, his own heart sank into his stomach, because he was running out of times he would watch Kageyama’s brow furrow as he stared at his drink options, and suddenly, that felt very important.

“And you realized you wanted him to,” Kenma prompts, after a moment.

“I know he won’t feel the same way, though,” Shouyou replies, resigned.

“How do you know that?”

“I’m not—” Shouyou bites his lip. One day, he’s going to be the best, because he can. And when he gets there, Kageyama will be waiting. And there’s nothing about that he wants to change. “I just know.”

“You could talk to him,” Kenma ventures neutrally. “I don’t think he’d be upset with you, Shouyou. And…”

Kenma obviously doesn’t want to say that Shouyou’s running out of time—time at Karasuno, time in Japan—but they’re both acutely aware. It was Kenma, once, who started them calling each other, as much as it surprises anyone who finds out. The first time he did, he sounded like he was hyperventilating.

Because Kuroo graduated. Because Nekoma was different.

Because things change, and people change and leave no matter how hard you try, like a ball slick with sweat slipping from your fingers.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Shouyou asks again, this time quieter, less indignant.

There’s a pause. Shouyou waits. Kenma is someone who collects his thoughts. “I guess I hoped he might do something to change your feelings.”

“Why?”

Kenma makes a non-committal sound and there’s a pause again, another sigh. A question he doesn’t want to answer, then, but he does. “Because you still don’t think you’ve caught up to him.”

Shouyou swallows. And when he’s quiet for long enough, Kenma speaks again.

“And because…because someone else could love you, without making you feel like that.” Kenma’s words rush more than usual, stumbling on themselves. “Probably—a lot of people could. You’re special, Shouyou. But everyone can see that for you, it’s always been Kageyama.”

Shouyou sighs. “Hearts,” he says, “are as stupid as he is.”

“Yes,” Kenma agrees, and his usually soft voice is resolved. “They are.”

***

Hinata Shouyou isn’t Kenma’s first love.

That distinction belongs to the first person who came along and inserted himself in Kenma’s world, the one who stayed and never left until he did, and Kenma didn’t handle it—hasn’t handled it. Not that he’s really gone, but—he’s not there every day, not even every week, and the change is still dizzying.

But Shouyou is about to be as far out of reach as he can be, and there are some things Kenma would like to understand before he can’t.

It’s in the spirit of this that on one late night, when they’re curled up on the couch together rewatching Bleach, that Kenma peers over at Shouyou through his hair and says, “Do you want to practice something with me?”

Shouyou stirs with excitement, as he does at the notion of any physical activity. (If Kenma didn’t find him so adorable, this would be exhausting to live with.) “Practice what?”

Kenma keeps his voice as flat as usual and glances back toward the television. “Kissing.”

“Kissing?” Shouyou nearly squeaks, and Kenma doesn’t have to look over to know that he’s blushing.

Kenma shrugs. “I haven’t kissed anyone before. It could be interesting.” He forces himself to look back over at Shouyou, who immediately looks away and—yes—is blushing furiously.

“I’ve only—” Shouyou winces. “As a dare, at parties. But not with a guy I think is—” And then he clams up, looking mortified.

Kenma just watches him, waits. And finally prompts, “A guy you think is…?”

“You’re really pretty,” Shouyou blurts out. “And really nice. And so even if you aren’t the—the person I didn’t even know I liked, I mean, I noticed, but you’re my best friend, and I don’t want things to be weird, and I don’t even know if you like boys—”

“Shouyou, do you remember the first time I called you?”

“When Kuroo graduated. You were really upset. And I—” And then Shouyou blinks. “Oh.”

“Yes.”

“You never told me.”

Kenma shrugs. “Nothing ever happened.”

Shouyou makes a sympathetic face and then buries it in a throw pillow, letting out a frustrated noise. “I know that feeling,” he says, muffled.

Kenma smiles wistfully, not that Shouyou can see it. “Anyway,” he says, “I don’t think it would be weird for me. But I don’t want to do it if you’d feel uncomfortable.”

Shouyou looks up, shakes his head. He’s blushing again. “No, I…I think it could be fun!” He bites his lip. “I might not be good at it, though.”

“Well,” Kenma says, tapping his chin—a mischievous smile now in full view—“that’s why we’d practice.”

Shouyou smiles back, then, as if Kenma’s asked him to line up for spiking drills.

***

“Did you and Kenma ever…”

Shouyou curls into his boyfriend’s shoulder, hiding a blush. The memory of long, lazy afternoons between high school and his departure to Brazil, lips and hands on each other. Sharing a bed on that other continent, the brush of long hair against his neck. They’d called it practice—even admitted it was fun, that it all came naturally—but never dating. He knows he doesn’t need to be embarrassed—he’s older now, surer of himself, and anyway, it’s not like Kenma has ever shown any shame about it. But although his terminally introverted best friend was never the person he was practicing for, the idea of those in-between days still makes him feel warm. It’s just an echo, one of a gentle buzz under his skin that never had the chance to grow into something more, but—Shouyou shared and shares a lot of things with Kenma. Including love.

Shouyou shakes his head, nuzzles a collarbone. “We never really dated. And we were never—like this.”

An arm repositioning around him, a kiss on the top of his head. “Good.”

Shouyou laughs at the pleased, decisive rumble in his lover’s voice and lets himself be pulled into a dizzying kiss, and then, he’s definitely not practicing anything.

***

“Anyway, this isn’t about love,” Shouyou protests to Kenma, blushing heavily. “I’m just wondering what you do after—um. So, this week—”

“You and Oikawa spent the week together.”

“Yeah, and it was awesome, we—”

“And you had sex.”

Shouyou winces. “Is it that obvious?”

“You asked me to Skype you.”

“Yeah, but how did you—”

Kenma silences him with a penetrating stare, but then, that’s what Shouyou both loves and dreads about his best friend. He can see through anyone.

“That part was really great too,” Shouyou rushes out, unable to look up. “But now I don’t know, um, what to do.”

Kenma tilts his head slightly. “What do you want to do?”

Ditch everything. Fly to Argentina. Find himself in another new place in another language but where there’s at least one other person who he doesn’t have to prove himself to, who laughs like chimes in a breeze, who looks at him like he’s the sunrise. To feel the redness in his palm and meet the eyes of someone who’ll smile back at him. To see Kageyama on television but feel like he’s finally, maybe, over it.

Shouyou swallows it all down as far as he can. “To keep being friends!”

Kenma makes a face. “You know this isn’t the kind of advice I have much personal experience with.”

Shouyou makes a face right back. “It’s not like I’ve been…this is the first time it’s come up for me, too, Kenma!”

“I doubt it’s the last,” Kenma mutters, but as Shouyou squawks indignantly, he says, “Just message him. Ask him how Argentina is. Talk about volleyball. You’ll be fine.”

“But what if…” Shouyou gulps. The worst-case scenario is not anything Tooru would do. He already knows what he wants and what he’s capable of. (What he’s willing to leave behind.) There’s nothing but certainty in every word he speaks, in every smirk, in every line of his body.

It’s Shouyou who came here looking for something. It’s Shouyou who’s in danger of grabbing hold of the first lifeline he sees.

“What if he doesn’t want to talk to me,” he finishes half-heartedly.

“Then he’d make a pretty bad friend,” Kenma says simply. “But you have plenty. You don’t need him.”

Shouyou nods slowly. “Yeah. If he doesn’t want to talk to me, then…”

I don’t need him, Shouyou thinks, but he’s not thinking of Tooru, who already texted him when he landed, whose tug at his heart is fresh but gentle, coaxing, fingers on his sleeve.

He’s thinking of a message history of what is now months of almost nothing, of one-word replies, of cajoling the Karasuno group chats just to see if a certain icon will pop up, to see if he can rile up one person enough to make his presence known. He’s thinking of the Olympic games, so close and yet so far, and a boy who said he could be invincible, and a man who might always be just out of his reach.

Kenma sighs. “You can’t just replace him, Shouyou.”

Because Kenma knows. He always does.

“You have to find a way to be happy on your own.”

No one has ever accused Hinata Shouyou, human ball of sunshine, of being less than happy. But not just anyone is Kozume Kenma, the person who would’ve been the love of his life if the gods had been kind.

Shouyou sighs back and, not for the first time, wishes they had been.

***

Oikawa is different under the Brazilian sky. Clumsier, on the sand. The sunburn across his nose brings out freckles on his skin.

And, in a sea of unfamiliar faces speaking still-indecipherable languages, he is especially gorgeous.

Shouyou never made the space for this in his head in high school, but back then, a couple of years were a long bridge to cross, and his heart’s kingdom already had its sovereign.

But Oikawa learns to stomp his feet to jump in the sand, and then his tosses find their way to the palm of Shouyou’s hand. Some barbecue and a few drinks later, years and lesser kings feel like they mean nothing at all.

In the morning, Oikawa has become Tooru, and Shouyou is able to find a lot of room in his mind for how attractive Tooru is. So much so that he’s a little frustrated it took him this long to think about anyone else this way—anyone not Kageyama-shaped.

Tooru is distinctly, thoroughly not. But he also comes in the form of home, with the memory of the sunrise over the mountains, the squeak of shoes against the floor of a gym. He takes his first sip of a caipirinha and squints until he decides that he likes it. It’s what Shouyou kissed him for, he figures, later in the night. And the taste of sugar and lime in Tooru’s mouth is something Shouyou decides that he likes.

Which is fine, because they have at least enough time to do it all again.

***

How’s Argentina?

Lonely. Come visit me.

Shouyou wants to say yes. He at least wants to say he wants to. Instead, he says, Brazil misses you.

Do you miss me, too?

Does he miss Oikawa Tooru or does he miss the smell of Miyagi on his skin? He doesn’t know, so instead, he says, It was amazing getting you know you better. You’re amazing.

Aw, Shouyou, you’re going to make me blush.

You already know you’re awesome, though.

True! But did you know that you’re amazing, too?

No, Shouyou wants to say. But I want to.

***

Kenma’s right: Tooru is the not the last.

Do you pick up everyone you play with over there

Shouyou makes a face at his phone. It’s not like I don’t have standards!

So only most of them

It’s not that many people, Shouyou writes, and then after a moment: I guess it just gets lonely.

Do you want me to come over

Shouyou chokes out a laugh. Do you have two days to spend on an airplane

No. And then: But I can.

Pedro calls Shouyou over to marathon some Attack on Titan, and he doesn’t send Kenma a real answer, just a string of heart emojis.

But when he gets up the next day, Kodzuken’s Twitter announces a change to the stream schedule for next week.

***

Shouyou never had to explain to Tooru why he moved across the world to try to get better—desperate for a chemical reaction that’ll realign him so that, some day, he can stand in the same space as a prodigy and be worthy.

There’s no one else in the world hungrier for exactly that. Shouyou feels it, like holding himself up to a mirror: the first kisses, first touches uncertain, all gentle brushes and glances and careful, prodding gestures until the opening is so obvious that he takes it. And then all that follow are greedier—demanding to be seen, remembered, to be more and better than anything before or after.

Kenma’s right: Tooru is not the last. But there are mornings after that Shouyou’s fingers trace his lips and he feels the ghost of a mouth he remembers well.

***

Kenma spends most of the ride from the airport back to Shouyou’s apartment yawning or nodding slowly, but it doesn’t stop Shouyou from needing to talk a mile a minute.

Because Tooru had showed up before just when he was feeling so homesick and empty the sand could’ve swallowed him. And though Shouyou isn’t the same person fumbling on the beach and stuttering in the language, though he has no trouble, now, finding people to play with him—Kenma still feels like a drink of water in the desert. Like Shouyou could spend another decade lost in mazes of foreign streets if he could just bottle his best friend.

They get to his apartment and Kenma shuffles immediately to bed, and it’s only the afternoon—Shouyou’s going to duck out and run some errands—but Kenma, wordless and still dressed in rumpled sweats from the plane, snatches his wrist and tugs at him.

So Shouyou turns out the light in the middle of the day, crawls into his narrow bed, and lets himself be used as a body pillow by his best friend. It’s too warm and Kenma’s joints are sharp, though the bits of exposed skin pressed into Shouyou are distractingly soft, and for a solid five minutes Shouyou is certain he’ll stay awake with his hyperawareness of all of that combined with the fact that it is not at all time to be asleep, and yet—

—when he wakes up, the sun has almost set, and Kenma is murmuring something incoherent as he slowly disentangles their legs.

When the two of them wake up enough to address that they’re pressed up together in a small space, their noses nearly brushing as they face each other, Shouyou blushes. Kenma just blinks and looks at him, in that assessing way he does.

“I thought I would sleep on the couch while you’re here,” Shouyou says, with an awkward chuckle.

“That’s not necessary,” says Kenma. “Unless you’d be more comfortable.”

The couch he and Pedro share is adequate for watching anime together but absolute hell to fall asleep on—from Shouyou’s painful personal experience—and, besides, as he raises his head, he finds himself not at all groggy, as he would usually be from an unscheduled nap. So Shouyou says, “No, this works better,” and means it.

Kenma gives him a smile, for that, and then moves to sit up. “Got anything to eat?”

“I was supposed to get groceries, then I fell asleep with you,” Shouyou says sheepishly, rolling himself out of bed. “But we can go out. I know the best places.”

“Sounds good. Pick the nicest one, it’s on me.” Then Kenma frowns down at himself. “I guess I’ll need to change.”

“Pick the nicest clothes,” Shouyou throws back at him. “We’ll take a picture for your fans.”

Kenma just smirks at that, opens his bag full of oversized graphic tees and skinny jeans. “Where’s your shower?”

***

Tobio is only dubiously interested in social media, but the algorithm knows something that surfaces this picture to him immediately: Hinata and Kenma together, eating barbecue in Brazil.

Tobio frowns to himself. First Oikawa and Hinata bumping into each other, and now this. A visit? Kenma and Hinata have their arms around each other. Hinata’s face is bright and flushed, like he’s just been laughing. Kenma’s smiling, as much as Tobio has ever seen him do so. Tobio swallows, something stuttering in his chest.

He likes the picture, even as he scowls at the comment Oikawa’s left, with far too many heart-eyed emojis, and the fact that Hinata wrote back.

He gets a text not long after from an unknown number: Is that streamer Shouyou’s boyfriend?

Who is this?

Answer for answer?

Tobio hits call on the number, and hears the other end pick up after one ring. “So, is he?”

“How the hell did you get my number, Miya.”

“It’s a funny story, but more importantly—”

Tobio hangs up and blocks the number.

***

The fact that Shouyou says it as they’re lying in bed together, his hand gently brushing hair away from Kenma’s face, softens the blow.

But it’s still a gut punch. “You can’t go on ignoring it forever if you still love him.”

Kenma lowers his eyes, feels his breath catch. He forces it to shudder out, takes another in. “It’s worked so far,” he mumbles.

“You’re not happy.”

Kenma chuckles weakly. “I’m not a happy person, Shou.”

“Maybe you could be, if you got what you wanted.” This time, a hand pressed against Kenma’s chest, over his heart. “Or if you could move past it.”

Kenma huffs lightly. “Unlikely.” He still can’t look up.

“I don’t think it’s unlikely that he could love you back,” Shouyou says. “I would, if I were in his shoes.”

Kenma looks back up. Blinks. His heart must beat tellingly fast against Shouyou’s palm, but if Shouyou notices, he doesn’t show it. “Would you?”

Shouyou nods, unhesitant. And then bites his lip, quiets a moment. “I think in a different life,” he says, slowly, “we would be more than best friends, Kenma.”

Kenma’s never been one to act recklessly. He waits, watches, collects his thoughts. But when it comes to Shouyou, he’s had about enough.

So he kisses him, because that’s the only logical response.

Shouyou kisses him back, and that much isn’t surprising, because this is not the first time. What Kenma doesn’t anticipate is the way the kiss turns hungry, how Shouyou’s hands dig in at his hips, how his find their way under Shouyou’s shirt to trace his abdomen, the insistent thrumming of his heart as their bodies push together, the way his skin feels on fire when Shouyou lets out a muffled moan.

Kenma pulls back, his eyes closed and his brain, for once, completely blue screened. He feels a finger on his nose, and opens his eyes to see Shouyou looking at him sheepishly.

“I don’t think—this isn’t us,” Shouyou says, as flushed as he is.

Kenma can only blink back.

“Sometimes I wish it was,” Shouyou says, his voice low, almost hoarse. “But I don’t think I can be the one to make you happy, not from here, and not with…everything.” He winces. Almost looking guilty. “But Kenma—I really want you to be happy.”

There are two Kenmas at this moment, and one of him wants to cry, for a long time.

But the other usually wins, when it comes to this.

Kenma puts his fingers on Shouyou’s lips. “I want you to be happy, too.”

Shouyou takes his hand, then, and this time he leans in. The next kiss is long and lingering, sweet and quiet. It’s who they are here, now.

They both lie back after that, hands still entwined. And Shouyou says, “In a different life, I would’ve asked you out just to see if you’d say yes.”

“I would have.”

“I would’ve built you a Minecraft castle to try to impress you.”

“I wouldn’t be impressed. But I’d know you tried really hard, so I’d think it was cute.”

Shouyou huffs. “I would’ve made it really cool! And I would go with you to game launches, and bring you food, and send you all the stray cat pictures—”

“Shou,” Kenma says, smiling up at the ceiling with watery eyes. “You wouldn’t have to try to impress me. I love you already.”

Shouyou squeezes his hand, at that. “I’d do it all anyway, because I love you, too.”

***

Kenma doesn’t become Shouyou’s latest, that night, though they fall asleep warm and wake up in each others’ arms. But when he opens his eyes, Kenma knows that he can’t go on ignoring it.

“I’ll tell him, when I get back to Japan,” he tells Shouyou over morning tea.

Shouyou smiles. “He’s lucky.”

Notes:

Please know that I love every ship/character in this fic even while I am (apparently) determined to make them all unhappy.

Chapter 3: you'll come running back

The latest time Shouyou fell in love, it was with a red palm and the sound of the ball hitting the floor to rapturous applause.

Though maybe it was before, at tryouts. Do you remember me, Hinata Shouyou? I told you—

—you would set for me today. And Shouyou had flashed his most winning grin, because of course he remembered. Because this moment had been waiting for him.

Miya Atsumu grinned right back, because he had.

Shouyou has worked long and hard. He doesn’t think of his spot on the Jackals as a foregone conclusion, but when he gets it, he knows he’s more than earned it. He knows it’s just a matter of time—and more work—to show them he should start, to show them what he can be. It doesn’t hurt that Atsumu sees that, too.

And maybe it’s not the first, second, or hundredth perfect set from Atsumu’s hands he falls for, or the way he slings his arm around Shouyou at the end of a practice, or the delicious onigiri he shares, or the nights spent watching match tapes together or playing video games. Maybe it’s not even the way Atsumu finally lets out a frustrated sound and leans in, grabbing Shouyou’s face but kissing him so—surprisingly—gently, and waiting, then, pulled back, with the only expression of hesitation on the setter’s face Shouyou’s ever seen. Maybe it’s not even the way that he laughs, uncontrollably and with his whole chest, when Shouyou shoves him down and kisses him back.

Maybe it’s the first freak quick attack that lands in practice, even faster, even stronger than it ever had been. The lightning-fast smack of the ball on the other side of the court. The stunned and then triumphant looks of his teammates.

When Shouyou meets Atsumu’s eyes after that, sees the giddy smile on his setter’s face, that’s probably when the thing stinging on his skin becomes love.

***

Tobio doesn’t make a habit of approaching other humans, but when he sees his third Miya-Hinata picture on Instagram within a week, the last not even volleyball-adjacent, he makes an exception.

Are Miya and Hinata dating, he texts Tsukishima, and he’s left on read for a frustratingly long time until Tsukishima responds, even more frustratingly, obviously.

At a loss of how to follow that up, Tobio replies, I have more service aces.

You should ask out Ushijima. I bet that’s in his criteria.

Tobio turns off his phone and stuffs it under a pillow.

***

Let’s see who’s happier in sixty years, Osamu once said.

One morning, Shouyou is slipping out from under his arm (at the crack of dawn, because of course he rises with the sun), and Atsumu grabs him around the waist, anchors him to the bed. Shouyou laughs and protests but Atsumu winds him around, kisses him quiet, tangles their limbs together, and promptly passes out.

When Atsumu wakes up the second time, Shouyou is fast asleep, and Atsumu knows then: I’m winning.

***

“Would you mind not picking a fight with my wing spiker, hmm?”

The way Atsumu leans on Hinata’s shoulder does not say my wing spiker, as in belonging to my team. It says mine, as in this is my Hinata Shouyou, and I will fight you for him.

Tobio likes his chances of winning, if Miya Atsumu were the only one he was fighting. But a smile is growing on Hinata’s face as he looks at his setter. That just-one-more smile. That did-you-see-my-awesome-play? smile. And Tobio remembers, When we’re the best in the world, will you still toss to me?

He grits his teeth.

***

Six months is not enough time.

Six years is not enough time.

When Miya Atsumu finally kisses Hinata Shouyou, he’s terrified that he hasn’t waited long enough.

And then Shouyou and Tobio look at each other through the net, and he knows it’s something time can’t fix.

***

When Tobio was young, his grandfather told him that if he played long enough, someone better would come along and find him.

In some ways, he can’t help but grin at Hinata digging his serve, because in some ways, he’s been waiting for it his whole life.

But when the ball hits the floor on their side of the court and Hinata runs to Miya, again and again, he thinks—he waited too long.

***

“I guess you’re not the worst,” Kenma concedes to Atsumu, when he manages to a) entertain Kenma, at least, with the fight he puts up in Smash Bros Ultimate, and b) muster up the politeness to offer him not only a drink, but the cider that Shouyou must have told him is Kenma’s favourite, even after his chipper boyfriend ducks into the bedroom to take a call.

“High praise, from a professional gamer,” Atsumu says, smirking, as he sets down Kenma’s cider. “If you grew up with Samu, you’d understand why.”

“Not that,” Kenma says dismissively, picking up his drink. “I mean for Shouyou.”

Atsumu raises an eyebrow. “Huh? Not the worst? What the hell is the bar?”

Kenma has already decided Atsumu is, in fact, more than not the worst, but maybe pretty okay. So he levels with him. “Shouyou falls in love with everyone who tosses to him. So the bar is Kageyama Tobio.”

Atsumu looks disgusted, but not surprised. “That smug, second-rate little shit—”

“But he’s not good for Shouyou.”

Miya Atsumu really has no right to call anyone else smug, given the smile that crosses his face at that. “But you think I am.”

Kenma sips his cider. “I’m considering it.”

And then Atsumu’s eyes narrow. “You were a setter, too, weren’t you? When you played in high school?”

But Kenma simply ignores the question. “I’m invested in Shouyou’s happiness, emotionally and as part of my business. Please take care of him.”

Atsumu frowns down at his beer. “Why do I feel like this is a shovel talk?”

Kenma gives him his best catlike stare. Blinks once.

“It’s always the quiet ones,” Atsumu mutters to himself.

***

Is Hinata happy?

Tobio’s convinced he’s going to be left on read until he gets a message back at two a.m. Yes.

Do you ever wish you were the one he was happy with?

Tobio immediately regrets hitting send, but it’s the kind of thing he can only say at two a.m., when it feels like only the void can answer.

Only the void, and terminally nocturnal Kozume Kenma, who has never exactly been Tobio’s friend. Shouyou is happy the way we are. What about you?

Tobio did always find Nekoma to be annoyingly tenacious.

***

“Tobio,” Atsumu says with a smile so wide even Tobio can tell it’s not genuine. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Miya.” Tobio shoots him a blank look. “I’m meeting the old Karasuno team for dinner here. What are you doing here?”

“I’m early. Got a little excited about meeting my boyfriend’s old family.”

Tobio’s brow furrows. “I see.”

“Aw, you aren’t gonna disapprove of me, are you, Tobio?”

Tobio sighs. “Hinata always did have terrible taste.”

“We can’t all live on Power Curry alone.”

Tobio has never been one to pick up on social cues. (He has tried to learn. He’s still trying.) But he can see clearly enough to know who he is: the best at what he does. And since what he does is who he is, very little rattles him.

But Miya Atsumu, obnoxious and too damn good to ignore, has always gotten under his skin, and now, Tobio can read the situation well enough to know he’s found a new way to do it. “Since you’re asking—you’re an asshole who doesn’t deserve Hinata.”

Miya’s unhinged smile becomes an almost feral grin. “Let me guess,” he says, stepping dangerously close. “You think you’re the asshole who does?”

Tobio just scowls, because that’s not even close, but—

“You had your chance,” Miya growls low, in his face. “Six fucking years. You try to take away the most important person in my life and I will gut you.”

Tobio finds clarity, though, in this, as if they’re on opposite sides of a net. He reaches into a deep well of calm: the certainty that he knows the next play. “The way you say it, you make it sound like you know I can.”

Something flashes in the other setter’s eyes that Tobio’s never seen before. Something desperate. Miya shifts back.

“If you tell him now, you’ll tear him in half,” he says, his voice less hostile, but completely decisive. “If you care about him, you wouldn’t do that.”

“Hey! Kageyama!”

Hinata is rushing over, dragging along a flustered Yachi.

Tobio turns to him, fondness already overriding Miya’s rankling effect. “Hinata, you dumbass, let go of her—”

But Hinata has already dropped Yachi’s hand. “Atsumu, you’re here already?” And his smile turns teasing. “Are you excited to meet my friends?”

“Nah,” says Miya, and throws his arm around Hinata, kisses the top of his head. “Just really fucking hungry.”

Hinata shoots him a dubious look but says, “Well, the fatty tuna here is really good, so you’re in luck. But first, this is Hitoka…”

Miya smiles like a model son-in-law through every introduction, and Hinata orders dinner for him. When it turns out they’ve gathered for Daichi and Suga to announce their engagement, Hinata leans into Miya’s shoulder, his smile like sunlight.

Tobio hasn’t tried to take anything, but he’s already gutted.

***

Sometimes, it’s as easy as it was to connect on the court, and Atsumu has nothing to worry about. Shouyou invites Osamu over for dinner to practice his Brazilian recipes; Osamu threatens to steal him the night he makes fish stew in some kind of delicious coconut sauce. (Atsumu doesn’t trouble himself over this; Samu is the uglier twin, and anyway, he’s not going to get back on the court and toss.) Atsumu eats the leftovers in the middle of the night, as usual, and Shouyou pretends to mind.

They go on double dates with Kenma and Kuroo, who finds Atsumu hilarious, and Bokuto and Akaashi, who does not. Shouyou orders dinner for Atsumu, who hates reading long menus. Atsumu slips extra egg onto Shouyou’s plate and bolts down the rest of his drinks when Shouyou’s face is getting too flushed. Atsumu gets the shovel talk from a wide variety of Shouyou’s friends, the scariest of which is somehow the tiny, cheerful ex-libero who Skypes in with his giant, shy boyfriend and tells Atsumu gleefully, “We all love Shouyou, so take good care of our precious junior or they’ll never find you!” Shouyou’s family is a lot easier: his mother gushes about the Jackals matches they’ve watched and insists on stuffing him full of food for their entire visit. Atsumu earns her love by eating until he thinks he might never be able to move again. And though Natsu watches him with wary eyes at first, he finds his way out of it by accompanying the Hinatas to Natsu’s high school practice.

All it takes is a few tosses to confirm a Hinata family trait. “Okay,” Natsu decides, as they head home. “You can date my brother.”

Shouyou looks back at her in mock hurt. “Natsu! What are you, my dad?”

She sniffs. “I was holding out for Tobio to come back,” she says, “but I suppose this guy will do.”

Atsumu freezes. She’s joking, he knows she is, but—

Shouyou just snorts. “Come on, you have to at least admit Atsumu’s cuter.”

Natsu tilts her head away from her brother. “Maybe,” she concedes. “Points for liking Ouran High School Host Club and not scowling all the time.”

Atsumu finally sputters. “Really, cuter? You couldn’t have gone with sexier? A way better setter? Totally superior sense of humour? Best hair in the V-League?”

“That one goes to Bokuto,” Shouyou says thoughtfully. “And nope. Cuter.” He punctuates that with a kiss on the cheek, and damn it, Atsumu blushes.

“I guess I see it,” Natsu says breezily.

***

Sometimes, it’s harder. Atsumu stays up too late and snores like his lungs are possessed. Shouyou wakes up too early and steals all the covers. Shouyou wants Atsumu to be less caffeine-dependent. Atsumu wants Shouyou to stop being so irresistible to everyone he meets.

The elephant in the room is too big to talk about, so it always becomes about something else. Like when Oikawa Tooru comes back to Japan and Shouyou goes out drinking with him to catch up. Except that it’s not until Shouyou’s out that Atsumu finds out he was one of Shouyou’s Brazil flings, via the perpetual V. League gossip pipeline, and it doesn’t matter—shouldn’t matter—except that the pressure of who got there first has been sitting on Atsumu’s chest for their entire relationship.

“You’re home late,” Atsumu comments as Shouyou stumbles in, pausing the game tape he’s been watching.

“Mmm,” Shouyou says, and he’s smiling and a little flushed as he shakes off his shoes and wanders over. “We got to talking about—”

“—how you never told me an internationally ranked setter is your ex-boyfriend?”

Shouyou stops short of the couch. “About how Iwaizumi’s doing, actually.”

Atsumu folds his arms. “So that never happened?”

Shouyou sighs. “It was one week in Brazil. We’re just friends.”

“And you never told me because…”

Shouyou throws up his hands. “It never came up! Why does it matter? I don’t have a list of everyone you’ve slept with.”

Atsumu grits his teeth. “I don’t go for drinks all night with everyone I’ve slept with. He matters to you.”

Shouyou frowns. “Well, yeah. Friends do. We were talking about the guy he actually likes. Why is it such a big deal, Sumu?”

“Because you’re it for me but I’m not even—” Atsumu’s mouth snaps shut. Because the rest of that sentence is what they don’t talk about, and because now, Shouyou is starting to look irritated, which almost never happens.

“You’re not even what?” Shouyou asks, his voice low. “My first real boyfriend? Who I live with? The reason I came out to our entire fanbase? Give me a clue.”

It’s too late to avoid pissing Shouyou off, so he might as well say it. “Your first love,” Atsumu says. “I’m not him.”

“I had feelings before I met you. That doesn’t mean—”

“You still have those feelings,” Atsumu says, and it hurts to keep looking at Shouyou as his eyes flash in anger, his fists clench, his lip trembles—but he doesn’t deny it.

“Atsumu,” Shouyou says, his expression softening. “I love you—”

“Would you? If he’d come to you first?”

Shouyou bites his lip. “That’s not fair,” he says, shaking his head. “If the past were different, we’d be different. But it’s not.”

“And if he asked you now?”

“That’s never going to happen—”

“If he did.”

The silence hangs too long between them, and Shouyou just stares into Atsumu’s eyes with a blank expression until Atsumu starts to think—this is why he’s never tried to talk about this, because this is how he loses him—

“You’re it for me,” Shouyou says, finally. “And there’s a lot I’d do to show you, but—I can’t change who I am, or who I was before. It’s up to you whether you still want to love me.”

Atsumu blinks. He expected anger—a lot more, worse. Denial, maybe, to gloss it over the way they’ve been. He didn’t expect this.

“But I don’t get all of you,” Atsumu answers, staring back.

“No one would,” Shouyou says. “It’s up to you if it’s enough. I’ll be waiting.” With that, he leaves the room, and Atsumu hears the sound of him washing up, getting into bed.

Atsumu takes a shaky breath, turns the volume down, the game tape back on. He stays up not seeing it at all.

***

When Shouyou wakes up and there’s no heavy arm draped over him, the sheets cold on the other side of the bed, he wonders if that’s it, and it hits him like a ton of bricks. He gets out of bed feeling numb. But his mouth is dry from one too many drinks last night, so his feet carry him towards the kitchen—

—Atsumu’s there at the counter, scooping rice out of the rice cooker.

“What are you doing?” Shouyou asks without thinking.

Atsumu looks over. There are bags under his eyes. He looks like he does when he’s stayed up all night doing something incredibly stupid, like trolling homophobes in the YouTube comments.

“I’m making you egg rice,” he says, as if it were obvious.

“That’s my favourite.”

Atsumu snorts. “Yeah, I know.”

“So that means…” Shouyou swallows. “You’re staying?”

Atsumu cocks his head. “Where would I go? My heart is here.”

Shouyou ugly cries until the rice is cold, but then, even as he soaks Atsumu’s shirt from last night, he can feel Atsumu’s chest shaking, his own hair getting damp.

They shower and start over, make egg rice together. Atsumu doesn’t ask again about Kageyama, and he laughs at stories about the others who came before. Shouyou doesn’t ask again if Atsumu wants to love him.

***

Tobio wasn’t going to say anything. He was going to leave and keep it to himself and not because of stupid, smug, not nearly good enough Miya Atsumu, but because that’s what you do when you love someone: you don’t try to tear them apart.

But they’re standing on his balcony, and the sun is settling into dusk, and it reminds him too much of the buzz of insects, of their toes dug into the grass, lingering under the shade of a tree after a long day’s practice and the things he was so close to saying then. Of the fact that they’re running out of time, again.

“Do you remember the training camp in third year?”

Hinata nods, a grin rising. “Yeah, when that guy from Shinzen—”

“No—not that. The last night. When…”

When they sat together for most of the evening, talking and not talking. When Hinata told him he was going to Brazil.

When Tobio took his face in his hands and asked why he would do that. (When he almost begged him to stay. Almost showed him why he had to.)

Hinata nods again, looking back towards the sunset. “When I told you I was leaving.”

“Would it be different? If I told you then?”

Hinata frowns. “Told me what?”

Tobio sucks in a breath through his teeth. Because this is also what you do when you love someone: you tell them the truth. “If I kissed you then.”

He’s always found Hinata’s face expressive, but this is the first time he sees so many variations in an instant, like a cycle of grief: shock, guilt, anger, sadness, and then something like resolve.

“It wouldn’t have changed much,” Hinata says, his voice thick.

“Oh.”

Tobio looks back into the sunset, but before he can process the black hole in his chest, Hinata continues. “I would’ve just loved you like I always did.”

Tobio’s body moves on instinct, and then he has Hinata’s face in his hands again, too many years later, and this time—

—this time, Hinata gently pries Tobio’s fingers from his jaw, sets them back at his sides. “It’s not the same now, Tobio,” he says softly.

His name. Tobio nearly chokes. “But I still—I still love you. Now.”

Hinata looks down, biting his lip. “You want me then, not me now. You don’t know me now.”

Tobio’s stomach drops in all the messages he barely answered, the time together he should’ve asked for. Still, he demands, “How is it different?”

Hinata reaches out for the balcony rail, turns back to look over the edge again. “I used to always think that love and volleyball were the same thing. But they’re not, really.”

A silence stretches while Tobio tries to grapple with that idea. He wouldn’t know. He’s only ever fallen in love with one person.

“I was thinking of going back to Brazil,” Hinata says, shooting a glance over. “But I don’t want to leave until Atsumu’s shoulder gets better.”

“I would never hold you back,” Tobio says, before he can stop himself.

Hinata just smiles softly, wistful. “You’d never let me catch you, either.”

And now there’s this pain in Tobio’s throat that it’s hard to even speak through. “I never thought you needed my help with that. Shouyou…”

But Hinata is looking into the sunset again, and the sky is getting darker, casting shadows on his face. “In volleyball, you need a rival to inspire you to keep getting better. But in love…in love you should always feel good enough. Like you’re the best.”

“That’s why I never said anything. Because I was never good enough for you.” Because Hinata’s the sun. Because it would be stupid to think that anyone else could compare.

And when Hinata looks back, he laughs, and even though Tobio is burning up, he tries to drink it in. Wants to memorize it. “We’re both idiots,” Hinata says.

Tobio can’t bring himself to laugh. He manages a grim smile. “Yeah.”

And Hinata hugs him, because he’s never hesitated even when everyone else did, because he’ll forgive anyone almost anything, because volleyball is a sport where you always look up, and maybe, for Hinata, so is love.

“Soon you’ll be the best in Italy,” he says into Tobio’s shoulder, “until we come and beat you.”

Tobio swallows hard and pats the love of his life on the back.

We, he said.

***

After, Shouyou says his goodbyes, steps outside Tobio’s door. Leans heavily on it.

He pulls out his phone, opens the messages app. His chat with his boyfriend is near the top, because it always is, because Miya Atsumu is the kind of person who is all in. There’s not a single thing he hasn’t wanted to share since they’ve been together.

And this is the first time Shouyou hasn’t felt the same way.

He types, deletes. Types, deletes. Sucks in a shaky breath.

He closes the message app, stumbles forward. Finds the doorway to a stairwell, steps inside. Opens his contacts and here he doesn’t have to scroll far, either. Presses call.

It takes five rings, and the voice of the person who picks up is sleep-rough, disoriented. “Shouyou? What’s wrong?”

But I still—I still love you. Now.

Shouyou lets out a pained whimper. His face feels wet.

“Shouyou, are you sitting down?” Shouyou shakes his head. His breath hitches, or was that on the other end?

“Please sit down, okay?”

He sits down on the steps, too fast. He might bruise.

“Now breathe with me, okay? We’re going to count it out, you remember? Breathe in, one, two, three, four…”

Shouyou tries, he really tries, to breathe, but the sobs that are wracking his chest keep throwing off his rhythm, and it’s taking all he has not to just scream.

Would it be different? If I told you then?

“Where are you? I’ll come get you.”

Shouyou shakes his head again, realizes no one can see him, lets out a sound.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong? Just start from the beginning. Whatever it is, I’m here, okay?”

“I…” Shouyou tries to breathe. Wipes his face on his sleeve. “Kenma, I…”

Kenma waits, but Shouyou keeps choking on the words.

“I’ll find you. Just wait right there.”

“He loves me. Tobio—Kageyama—he said he loves me. That he…he always…”

There’s a pause. And then Kenma asks, “And what did you say?”

“I don’t know,” Shouyou moans. “That it’s different now. That it’s too late.”

Another pause. “Is it too late?”

Shouyou nearly laughs at that, but he’s had years of practice being completely transparent. “It should be.”

“Shouyou, do you know what I told Atsumu, when I came to stay with you?”

“Not to hurt me, or he’d wake up on fire?”

“I didn’t actually say that, but sure, that too,” Kenma says dismissively. “I told him the way you fall in love with everyone who tosses to you.”

“I keep telling you, Heitor and I—”

“In different ways,” Kenma adds. “Like with you and me.”

Shouyou sucks in a breath. “So he knows. About T—about Kageyama.”

“Anyone with a functioning brain would’ve known about that anyway. Do you know why I told him?”

Shouyou shakes his head. Kenma, who can’t see him, still knows. “Because of all the people who fell in love with you, he was the only one who’d risk breaking his own heart to have it all. Because for Atsumu, being with you is worth it even if he loses.”

Shouyou swallows, thinks of the fierce joy on Atsumu’s face after a hard-earned win. The laughter vibrating in his chest when Shouyou kissed him back.

“I admire him for that,” says Kenma. “I don’t know if he loves you more than any of the others have. But he loves you better.”

“What if it’s my fault,” Shouyou blurts out.

“What if what’s your fault?”

“Kageyama,” Shouyou swallows, his mouth dry. “I never told him. Do you think…do you think I didn’t love him better?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“But it would’ve been different, right? If I’d taken a chance?”

“Shouyou, I don’t think it’ll help—”

“I need to talk to him,” Shouyou is on his feet, then. “Kenma—I’m sorry I woke you up. I have to go—”

“Shou, don’t—”

But Shouyou hangs up, and in a blur, Tobio is answering his door again.

Shouyou barely catches a glance of his red eyes, his crumpled face, before he’s bowing deeply. “I’m so sorry.”

Tobio closes the door behind him. “For what?” His voice is rougher than earlier.

“I should’ve told you I loved you, when I knew. It’s just that we were almost graduating and it felt like the worst timing and I thought if I did and you—then I’d never be able to go to Brazil, and if I did and you didn’t, then, you might not toss to me when I came back and—” And Shouyou sucks in a breath, and finally glances up, to Tobio bewildered in front of him. “And I was a coward, and if I’ve been brave, like—” He cannot, should not say that name right now—“If I’d taken the risk, you’re right. It could’ve been different.”

Tobio just blinks at him. “You were afraid of losing me?”

“And myself,” Shouyou sighs. “If I didn’t go, I—I was afraid I’d never be good enough on my own.”

Tobio steps closer, reaches for Shouyou’s hand, tentative. Shouyou lets him take it, looks at their entwined fingers. Swallows.

“Not just—at volleyball. Never good enough for you.”

“You’re such an idiot,” Tobio says, but it sounds—different. Shouyou’s eyes snap to his face. There’s a deep affection there he’s never seen before. Maybe that he never knew to look for.

“I knew for a lot longer that I loved you, and I never said anything, either,” Tobio admits. “So you win.”

“Four hundred thirty-five to four hundred thirty-three,” Shouyou says, automatic.

“If I could keep you, I’d always let you win.” Tobio’s voice is a hoarse whisper, now, his eyes lowered between them.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Shouyou replies, and Tobio looks back up. “Then you wouldn’t be the person I fell in love with.”

This time, when Tobio moves to kiss him, Shouyou throws his arms around his neck and falls apart. And it feels exactly like he always thought it would—an awkward, clumsy struggle with no victor. And it feels exactly like he always hoped it would—he puts one hand on Tobio’s chest and feels his heart racing, his solid body warm, and Shouyou explodes, a supernova event, almost forgets everything else he’s ever wanted because all he wants is this.

But there’s a knock at the door, and they pull apart slowly, reluctant to relinquish the moment. Shouyou is memorizing what Tobio’s face looks like, like this. Awe-struck.

A knock, again. Tobio moves to his doorway, answers. Shouyou watches.

“Sir,” says a man at the door. He’s wearing a suit. Shouyou’s never seen him before. “The car for Hinata has arrived.”

Shouyou frowns, but his phone buzzes.

I tracked your GPS. Kenma.

“Give us a minute,” Shouyou says, and the man can barely nod before Tobio closes the door on him.

Tobio’s taken his hand again. “Stay,” he says. “Please.”

But Shouyou remembers, now, everything else. Atsumu’s face, his eyes distant, his mouth drawn tight after a loss. The slump in the line of his shoulders.

“I can’t,” he says, and with his other hand, he pries Tobio’s loose gently. Sets it at his side. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s too late,” Tobio says, and it sounds devastated. It sounds final. Shouyou can’t bear to see what it looks like. He nods.

“Do me a favour,” Shouyou says, though he knows he has no right to ask. “The next person you love—tell them. Tell them every day.”

He manages to look up, and regrets that he does. Tobio’s eyes are bright with tears. “There’s not going to be anyone else.”

“I think there will.” Shouyou chokes out a laugh. “I think I’m going to hate him.”

“You never hate anyone,” Tobio says. “Even if they deserve it.” His arms curl around himself, at that.

“Even still,” Shouyou insists. And his empty hand feels cold.

“I’ll do it,” says Tobio, after the silence stretches on too long. Shouyou nods, turns to the door.

“Shouyou?” Tobio calls as Shouyou turns the knob, his voice small. Shouyou pauses.

“If you’re ever not happy anymore—”

And if he asked you now?

“Don’t wait for me,” Shouyou says, not turning back. “Please.”

He doesn’t wait to hear if Tobio will promise him that.

Chapter 4: the kind that you need

Atsumu has spent the past fourteen and a half hours trying very hard to be fine.

His boyfriend went to say goodbye to the former love of his life, before that guy—Japan’s current #1 ranked setter, also known as Atsumu’s archnemesis—blessedly, finally fucks off to Italy, where he can cease making bedroom eyes at the love of Atsumu’s life during V. League matches. Shouyou went to say goodbye to him alone, at his apartment, because they will not be at the going away party, because they will be travelling to work with a sponsor, but—Atsumu has had many conversations with his brother rationalizing that this would be fine. A simple goodbye between old friends. And soon he gets Shouyou absolutely, indisputably to himself in Japan.

These would all be good things, smooth sailing in the universe according to Miya, except that Shouyou was supposed to call from Yachi’s before bed, the way he always does when one of them is travelling, and he never did, and he never answered any texts, and Yachi has not seen him, and Atsumu has spent from last night to today past lunchtime mostly panicking, with a part where he maybe passed out on the phone while shrieking at Samu.

He has been tearing an old train schedule to shreds for the past fifteen minutes when the key turns in the door and he springs towards it like he’s been catapulted.

Shouyou’s a blur, his shoes not even off when he throws himself into Atsumu’s arms.

“Shouyou what the actual fuck are you okay did something—”

And Atsumu cuts himself off when he sees a similarly exhausted Kenma standing in his doorway, giving him one of those long, meaningful stares of his.

“I’m not hurt.” Shouyou says into his shoulder. “I love you so much.”

Atsumu strokes his hair, shooting a curious look back at Kenma. “I love you too, Shou. What—”

Shouyou shakes his head. “I need to sleep. Then we’ll talk. Okay?”

It’s only then he looks up, and there’s something zombie-like to his normally bright eyes. Atsumu can only nod back. Shouyou kicks off his shoes and beelines for the bedroom.

Kenma doesn’t come in. Instead, he says, “Want to get a coffee?”

Atsumu’s brain isn’t going to stop now, so he puts his shoes on.

***

Once they finally sit down—Kenma with some kind of mocha monstrosity, Atsumu with as many espresso shots over ice as they’d give him—Atsumu says into the quiet tension, “Well?”

Kenma sighs. “This is something Shouyou has to talk to you about.”

Atsumu really, really wishes he had something in his hands to rip apart. “You asked me here and you’re not gonna—”

Kenma holds up a hand. “I’m just explaining why I can’t tell you everything.”

Atsumu tries to be calm. He takes a long sip of his drink. It is bitter and gross and what he asked for. “Okay.”

Kenma sighs again. “Kageyama confessed to Shouyou.”

Atsumu grips the edge of the table, wills himself not to flip it. “That goddamn piece of—”

“Shouyou had a panic attack, so he called me.”

“He called you?”

“Yes,” Kenma says. “I have some experience in that area. I’m also his best friend.”

Atsumu tries to swallow the edge in his voice. There are black circles around Kenma’s eyes. “Okay.”

“So then—”

“I told him,” Atsumu says, a burning feeling in his gut. “I told him that if he said anything to Shou it’d tear him apart.”

“I need you to calm down,” Kenma says. It’s remarkable how bored he manages to sound when, as is evident from the way he just hand-delivered Atsumu’s boyfriend, he’s extremely invested.

If Atsumu could bottle being that mentally unflappable, he could win the next Olympics. Instead, he sucks a chip of ice into his mouth. “Okay.”

“Shouyou was spiralling, a bit,” Kenma continues. “He got to thinking it was his fault for never telling Kageyama he loved him back in high school.”

Atsumu is standing in front of an oncoming train. He nods. Stays there.

“He went back to apologize.”

Nods again. He can hear the squealing against the tracks.

“Kageyama kissed him.”

Atsumu snaps the ice chip in his mouth in half with a crack. Impact. “And?”

“He left after that. My driver picked him up. We were up talking most of the night.”

“I see.”

“Atsumu?”

Atsumu refocuses. He’s not sure what he’s been seeing. It isn’t this coffee shop, or Kenma. He looks over at Shouyou’s friend. It’s hard to read Kenma’s face at the best of times. But Atsumu thinks he might look a little sad.

“You’re right,” Atsumu says finally. “This is something Shouyou should’ve told me.”

“He will.”

“So why did you?”

“You’re angry.”

Atsumu does not want to take it out on Kenma. He really doesn’t. “Well aren’t you a fucking mind-reader,” he says anyway, with a smile like a knife’s edge.

“I’d rather you be angry at me.”

“Because you’ve always been such a selfless guy, right?”

To Kenma’s credit, he doesn’t look away for a second. “You’re right that I had other feelings for Shouyou once. But I knew it was a lost cause, and you know that I moved on.”

Atsumu pries off the lid of his cup. Puts another ice chip in his mouth.

“I knew this would happen eventually.”

Atsumu wants to scream, but he keeps his voice low. “He was leaving.”

“Do you know why I like you, Atsumu?”

“My charming personality?”

“Because you knew this would happen, too. And you decided to be with Shouyou anyway.”

Atsumu snorts. “So what, I get points ‘cause I was the only one of Shouyou’s simps man enough to 1-v-1 Kageyama Tobio?”

“Yes,” Kenma says, wearily. “A lot of points, actually.”

Atsumu crunches down on his ice again. “What did he say about the kiss?”

“You’ll have to ask Shouyou about that.”

Atsumu shoots him a feral grin. “But I’m really willing to be mad at you about it.”

Kenma sighs. “You were right.”

“About what?”

“It tore him in half,” Kenma says, and sips his drink. “But he wanted to come home to you, even like that.”

Atsumu sucks in a breath. “You could’ve told him I’m a jealous, selfish shithead and only second best. You could’ve told him to pack his bags to Europe. Coming from you, he would’ve listened. So why didn’t you?”

Atsumu has never known Kenma to initiate physical contact, so he nearly jumps out of his skin when he feels his shin get kicked. “You’re my favourite jealous, selfish shithead who loves Shouyou. I thought we established this.”

Atsumu almost laughs. “It’s because Kuroo likes me, isn’t it.”

“It doesn’t hurt, but not really,” says Kenma. “You made me understand something about guts.”

Atsumu raises an eyebrow. “What?”

Kenma shrugs. “I’m a student of the human condition.”

Atsumu’s not sure what to say to that, or if he even wants to know what goes on in the mind of someone so good at finding other people’s faults. A silence lingers. Atsumu watches Kenma dig out bits of stray whipped cream with his straw and lick it off.

“Kenma?”

Kenma looks up, straw dangling above his cup.

“Thank you.”

Kenma blinks. “I did what I did because you make Shouyou happy. If one day he decides you don’t—”

“He’s your friend. I’m not. I get it.”

But Kenma tilts his head, considering. “We could be friends. You’re interesting, at least.”

Atsumu snorts. “I’m flattered.”

Kenma gives his barest hint of a smile. “You should be.”

***

Despite the caffeine and against his better instincts, Atsumu passes out on the couch when he gets back to the apartment.

He wakes up to the smell of a Brazilian bean stew Shouyou knows he loves, and for an instant, he almost smiles despite the killer cramp in his neck.

Then he remembers.

“It’s no use bribing me,” Atsumu says, his voice rough with sleep, and not enough of it. “I’m going to be pissed anyway.”

Shouyou freezes in place, then very gently sets down the utensil he’s been stirring with. He turns.

The look on his face is devastated. On any other day, Atsumu would run to him. On this one, Atsumu barely has the will to move.

“Kenma told you what happened.”

“Some, yeah. You want to fill in the blanks?”

Shouyou nods slowly. “What do you want to know?”

Atsumu rubs his face. Would like to scratch his own eyes out. Doesn’t. “I wouldn’t say I really want to know, but I need to know two things, I guess. Did you kiss him back?”

Shouyou swallows hard, but he doesn’t look away when he says, “Yes.”

“Did you tell him you love him?”

Shouyou’s eyes are bright with tears and his body is shaking. But he doesn’t look away this time, either. “Yes.”

Atsumu rubs his face again, sighs. “At least you were honest.”

“Sumu—”

“What the fuck am I supposed to do with this, Shouyou?” Atsumu says, and he can’t, won’t, look at him. “You’ve spent our entire relationship loving someone else. Most of your entire fucking life. What am I supposed to do with that?”

“I fell in love with you, too,” Shouyou says. “I chose you.”

“How am I supposed to just—forget about this?”

Atsumu can hear him taking a few hesitant steps closer. “It’s over now. We had that conversation and—and I never had closure, you know, because he never said anything, and it’s not like I was going to, because why would I, when I’m with you? But we—but we finally said it and we know why it didn’t happen and it couldn’t and—I’m here. And it’ll never happen again.”

Atsumu sighs. Looks up, finally. “You can’t tell me it didn’t mean anything, because it did. And I can’t tell you it doesn’t matter, because this is the one thing you knew that’d really fucking hurt me. What do you want me to say right now?”

Shouyou just looks down, his face tight, his voice small. “Are you leaving me?”

“No. And you know that. You know I wouldn’t and that’s why you let it happen.” Atsumu bites his own tongue. Draws blood.

He’s never hated himself for how far gone he is for Hinata Shouyou. It’s spent so long being the best part of him.

“That’s not why—” Shouyou swallows. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“Yeah, I didn’t come up for you at all, I bet.”

“You did. You do. I—I want a future with you. A whole life. Where this is just…” Shouyou lets out a shaky breath. “One stupid mistake I made.”

Atsumu raises an eyebrow. “Kageyama waited years for that mistake.”

Fate was never made for Miya Atsumu. He’s always made his own. He did the day he told Shouyou they’d play together one day. And he did the day he kissed him.

Shouyou looks down again. “And I thought I was waiting for him. Or—back in Brazil, I thought I was learning to be good enough for him. But that’s not what I needed to do. I needed to find you.”

“Why?” How does Shouyou expect him to fight against the current of soulmates?

But there’s fire in Shouyou’s eyes that makes Atsumu feel less like he’s drowning in it. “Because you never made me doubt. Because you make it easy to choose you over anything else, because I know you’d always choose me, too. Because you see who I am now and all the places and people I belong to, and—you love me.”

Atsumu sighs again. Tries to swim. “I know it means something that you came home, Shou. I just…”

“I told him he can’t keep waiting for me,” Shouyou says, quiet again. “But I can wait for you, if you need me to.”

Atsumu buries his face in his hands again. “Two days,” he says. “I’m going to Samu’s for two days, because that’s all we got until I have to get back to practice, anyway.”

“The physiotherapist said—”

“I know what she said, but that’s when I’m going back, and you’re not allowed to worry about me when we’re fighting.”

“We’re fighting?” Atsumu shoots him an exasperated look. “Okay, we’re fighting, but I don’t want to fight you.”

“I don’t want to fight you either!” Atsumu says, nearly yelling now. “Don’t kiss other people!”

“I know!” Shouyou almost-yells back, and then, he’s swallowing, blinking back tears. “I know.”

Shouyou is crying, now, in the quiet, trembling way he does when he doesn’t want anyone to find out. And shit. It’s not as if it doesn’t kill Atsumu to feel like he’s come in second, again, but he made a choice and he keeps his promises, and if it’s hard and grueling and exhausting to make it work then it’s no less than he would do to have everything he loves.

“Fuck,” Atsumu says, and opens his arms, because he can’t not anymore, and if that makes him an idiot, he doesn’t care. “Come here.”

Shouyou barrels into him, and Atsumu, against his common sense, buries a hand in orange hair and strokes gently.

“You’re not supposed to worry about me when we’re fighting,” Shouyou says into his chest.

“Shut up or I’ll smother you.”

He does for a while, and Atsumu can feel his breathing slowing. Can feel his own calming down to match.

“I don’t deserve how much you love me.” Shouyou’s voice is small again.

Atsumu snorts. “That’s shit. Don’t say that just because you were a selfish asshole once. Think about how real selfish assholes feel.”

Shouyou chokes on a laugh. Atsumu rubs his back. “I really don’t deserve how much you love me,” he says again, but it almost sounds like he’s smiling.

“Whatever,” Atsumu says, and kisses the top of his head. “Pay it forward in your next life or something.”

***

Atsumu packs his bags for two days, because he at least has to have some dignity.

“Why are you here if you already know you’re not going to break up?”

“Have some fucking sympathy, Samu. My boyfriend loves someone else.”

Osamu stops short of throwing rice at his head. It’s a close thing. But as much as he would obviously like to, he now takes his rice very seriously. “Not really, or he would’ve dumped your ugly ass and gotten on that plane.”

Atsumu throws up his hands. “This is just like in one of your stupid mangas! They’re first love soulmates who end up together in the end and I’m just the side piece. Any minute I’m gonna have some secret come up that makes me obviously shitty so I can be written out!”

Osamu snorts and folds up another onigiri. “You read them all, huh. Good thing you’re already a shitty person.”

“Takes one to know one.” Atsumu sniffs indignantly. “You could at least give me something to eat. What kind of brother acts like this in a crisis?”

“How is this a crisis?”

“Are you even listening?”

Osamu sighs, covers the tray of onigiri he’s assembled with care, sets them out to be picked up. He stops by the walk-in freezer and takes out a pint of red bean ice cream. Sets it and a spoon in front of his twin.

“See, that’s more like—”

“It’s not a crisis,” Osamu says. “Shouyou picked you. The other guy is leaving. Roll credits. But if you insist on whining while I’m trying to work, then eat your fucking ice cream instead.”

Atsumu shoots him a look, even as he’s prying off the lid. “You are such a dick.”

Osamu sighs again. “And anyone with eyes can see you’re worse, but Shouyou loves you anyway. God only knows why, but he looks at you like you’re the sun, the moon, the whole damn sky. No one else was ever gonna change that.”

Atsumu stops with a spoon halfway to his mouth. “You serious?”

Osamu nods. “Yeah. I mean, if it were up to me I’d replace you with Kageyama and pay for the privilege, but Shouyou—”

Atsumu groans, and says around a scoop of ice cream in his mouth, “I’m going home.”

“Good,” says Osamu, pulling out more sheets of nori. “Someone there actually wants to see you.”

Atsumu stops short of flinging a spoonful of ice cream at his brother’s head. It’s a close thing. But he needs the whole pint in these trying times.

***

“I thought you were staying another day,” says Shouyou, standing nearly breathless by the door.

He’s rocking on his heels—he ran up to the entrance as soon as he heard footsteps, but is now unsure if throwing himself at Atsumu is appropriate. If they’re still fighting.

Atsumu, on his end, just looks exasperated as he drops his bag on the floor. “Eighteen years with Samu was long enough. Turns out another day was too much.”

“Ah,” says Shouyou, and he’s trying not to smile, because witnessing the Miyas roasting each other is one of the things he considers a perk of his relationship, but he’s not exactly sure what face he’s supposed to have, right now.

Atsumu has kicked off his shoes and lets out a sigh. “And I missed you,” he says, not quite at Shouyou, but maybe at the wall beside him. “So if you still have some of that bean stew—”

“—I can heat it up and bribe you?”

Atsumu smiles, and this time, he meets Shouyou’s eyes. “Assuming you still even like me. What kind of welcome home is this?”

Shouyou isn’t sure if it would be best described as a tackle or a hug, but whatever he does next is met with enthusiasm, because Atsumu’s doing it back. Until he starts to laugh, his whole chest shaking like it did the first time they kissed.

“I never thought you would pick me,” he says, when he surfaces. And Shouyou would be terrified to hear this, but Atsumu’s still laughing. “I’m such a—a second season character.”

“I met you in my first year of high school,” Shouyou points out.

“Still,” Atsumu says, and his cackling seems almost hysterical. “It defies all rules of storytelling.”

“Well,” Shouyou says, tapping his chin. “I think we’d be a sports manga. So picking the second guy to come along is like rooting for the underdog. Doesn’t everyone?”

Atsumu wheezes, then manages to stop to raise an eyebrow. “Wait, are you saying that I’m not #1—”

Shouyou’s eyes widen. “No, not like that—”

“Because as soon as I’m back out there, I am taking back that record—”

“Of course you are!”

“—and then on the national team, I’m going to start—”

“No one said you wouldn’t!” Shouyou offers a sheepish, sorry look. “Is this something bean stew can fix?”

Atsumu cocks his head, considers. “Make-up sex first,” he says, very seriously. “Bean stew after.”

Shouyou flushes and grins. “I thought you’d never ask.”

***

It’s not like Tobio to drink too much, even at his own going-away party. And it’s not like the clock to get away from him, but he is drunk. So it’s gotten late. And he has chosen the wrong person and the wrong question but everything is wrong, lately, and soon, he’ll be gone from this place, anyway.

What does Shouyou see in that asshole

Tobio doesn’t know what time it is in Japan, much less Argentina, but he somehow gets an answer. Shouyou just wants to be loved. Have you ever tried that?

OBVIOUSLY

Did you ever bother telling him? Or did you just wait until someone else did?

I’m not the only one who didn’t say anything

But you’re the one who’s never tried to move on.

Tobio types and deletes. Types, deletes.

Oikawa adds, Miya is a sociopath with a God complex. But he loves Shouyou out loud.

Did you ever

What?

Love him. Or tell him you did

There’s a pause. Three dots that drag on. Everyone who sets to Shouyou probably falls in love with him a little bit.

Doesn’t it piss you off then

No, says Oikawa, and then a minute later: He deserves it.

***

How’s Italy?

Tobio leaves the message on read for a week that feels like six years.

It’ll be a lot more interesting when you get your lazy ass over here to try to beat me.

I didn’t say I’d try, Hinata fires back on the same day. I said I will.

This is the love Hinata—Shouyou—can offer him still, always. The love that Tobio always considered enough, until he realized maybe it wasn’t all there was.

When Tobio was young, his grandfather told him that if he played long enough, someone better would come along and find him. He might’ve known from the start that it’d be Shouyou, someday, in volleyball. And maybe he should’ve known on that day Miya Atsumu proclaimed his intentions that he could be outplayed in love, too. But he hasn’t known they were different for very long.

I look forward to it, Tobio replies.

***

In their first weeks of dating, Atsumu’s kisses are desperate, all tongue and teeth and holding onto Shouyou too hard, like he’s anchoring himself to reality.

“Take it easy,” Shouyou says, teasing in his voice, but Atsumu’s heart is flailing like he’s trying to dodge an impossible block. He needs to go higher, faster, now, before whatever it is he’s holding in the air falls down.

But weeks turn into months, and leaving a toothbrush at Shouyou’s turns into practice gear, hand cream, his favourite hoodies, his stash of ice cream—and when it’s then his phone charger, and his battery is dying on a night he’s sleeping in his own place (Shouyou is visiting friends in Tokyo; Atsumu is painfully bored), he texts, why don’t I live where my phone charger is, and Shouyou replies, move in then, coward.

When Shouyou comes home, Atsumu shows up on his doorstep with a pile of boxes and his heart in his throat. Shouyou just laughs until he’s breathless and makes room in the closet.

In their next game against the Rockets, their receive barely digs a wicked serve, and Atsumu is hardly able to run and crouch under it, much less assess his avenues of attack.

He still sends a lightning-fast set to the far edge of the net. Shouyou’s still there to slam it home.

“How’d you know I’d be there?” Shouyou asks, breathless.

Atsumu just grins. “You’re always gonna be, aren’t you?”

Shouyou grins back, slapping his hand.

From then on, Atsumu kisses Shouyou long and languid, like he’s got all the time in the world.

Notes:

So: I love every one of these ships/characters but this fic was my convoluted excuse to imagine a world wherein Atsuhina is endgame in canon (or a world relatively close to it). Please imagine Kageyama does find his own happily ever after (I do). And thank you for sticking around to the end!