Chapter Text
“Suga-senpai, is it alright if I — oh, ouch, close one — is it alright if I set them down here?”
Suga-senpai pauses on his likely riveting retelling of the first time he ever drove a car with his dad riding shotgun, and he nearly ran the car into the nearby river. Shouyou says likely riveting because it’s very hard to pay close attention to what’s being said when he’s trying to balance half a dozen packs of soda cans with the two only arms he has, especially when his senpai got distracted with showing him the way to the cooler in the backyard and began giving him a tour of the house instead. Shouyou’s balance is a little higher than average and he’s a bit sturdier than he was at fifteen, but contrary to what some people named Tsukishima say, he’s not a monster. He’s only got two fucking arms.
Wishing to have more is, unsurprisingly, something he thinks about quite often. Maybe if he had twice the amount of limbs he currently has he’d be able to get to where he wants to be faster, or hold onto what he has tighter.
Those two arms that he does have, however, are sort of tired. He falters a little on his balance when Suga-senpai turns to look at him wide-eyed, listing a little sideways and struggling to keep all the packs stacked where they’re supposed to be. “Um,” Shouyou says, “They’re a bit heavy. Can you help me? No worries if not.”
“Are you actually serious,” Suga-senpai says, sounding years older than his age. Shouyou nearly cries with relief when two of the packs are suddenly lifted from his arms, so he can actually see in front of him instead of getting a crick in his neck from tilting it to the left for so long. “You didn’t have to pick up all of them at once, I was just kidding. How long has it — we’ve been walking around for like, ten minutes, why didn’t you say anything?”
Shouyou sets down the rest of the packs on the ground with a thump, blinking up owlishly at him. “You said ‘bet you can’t pick up all six packs at once’ and then walked out! What was I supposed to think!”
“That I was kidding, ” Suga-senpai stresses. He sets down the packs he’d taken from Shouyou and fusses over his arms, which are kind of red from being pressed down by something heavy. “Did you not read the description I put in the group chat? It said let’s not get hurt! It’s only been half an hour since you’ve got here, your sister is going to kill me.”
“Natsu is ten, she’s not going to kill you,” Shouyou says, not bothering to stop Suga-senpai from fussing; historically, it has never worked. He was almost unbearable after their last game of the season in Shouyou’s first year, and if Shouyou hadn’t been feeling so shitty and in need of comfort back then, he probably would’ve died from smothering. “I’ve told mom she needs to stop letting her watch those action movies that are on TV because she’s started threatening to kill people, but mom just thinks it’s funny.”
“Your mother is a lovely woman,” Suga-senpai comments. Apparently satisfied that Shouyou has not given himself permanent nerve damage, he backs away and begins stacking all the sodas into a neat pile again. “Also, you really need to work on your impulse control. You shouldn’t just do things because someone said ‘bet you can’t’. That’s how Nishinoya almost drank bleach once. And crashed his bike into a tree. And then fell from that same tree a few minutes later.”
“Noya-senpai says that whenever someone starts a sentence with ‘don’t’ he immediately stops listening.” Shouyou sighs. “I think it’s a really good life philosophy.”
“And that,” Suga-senpai says, “is the reason why the two of you are the sole two members of our list of ‘most likely to commit a capital crime before age twenty-five’.”
“What’s a capital crime?” Shouyou asks. “Do you have to be in Tokyo to commit one?”
Suga-senpai doesn’t reply. He just pats Shouyou’s head like he’s a particularly cute puppy, and Shouyou just accepts it because head pats feel kind of nice. He’s the oldest in his family and for this past year, he’s been the oldest in the team — he sort of missed having someone else who he could look up to like this, someone older, a teensy bit wiser that he could go to for advice. Of course Coach Ukai was there, and so was Takeda-sensei, and they’re great, but they’re also adults. They were his teachers, not senpais, and Shouyou tried really hard these past few months to pretend he wasn’t a bit sad that there wasn’t anyone else on the team that he could use the honorific to refer to. And even if the age gap he has with the others isn’t that relevant, since they were all still born in the same year, sometimes the three, six months he was a digit older than them all felt sort of suffocating.
(The jokes never stopped, of course, with Shouyou being the oldest but also the shortest of them, with the sole exception of Yachi. Tsukishima was probably the one who was the most peeved out of all of them, when he found out, during his seventeenth birthday, that Shouyou had already been seventeen since June. He tried to play it off by making a joke about how Kageyama finally lost to Shouyou at something — in age — and Kageyama had simply replied that even though Shouyou had a six month advantage in being alive, Kageyama had still managed to become better at volleyball despite having been born later. Shouyou thinks that was the only time he actually managed to bite Kageyama’s hand when it tried to pull his hair — he always tried, but Kageyama was too fast —, and he’s still proud of it to this day.)
Suga-senpai checks the time on his phone. “We still have a little while before everyone else starts to arrive, so I think it’s fine if we just leave these in the kitchen for now.” He smiles at Shouyou. “Thank you for coming in early, by the way. I love planning things, but being a host is kind of stressful.”
“I think you’re a wonderful host!” Shouyou exclaims. “Just not a wonderful driver. Did you really drive into a river?”
“I think it was more of a really large puddle after a storm,” Suga-senpai says, standing up with a groan. Shouyou follows suit, though with less creaking and popping than his senpai. “And I only did it because my dad yelled at me and I turned the steering wheel on reflex. Anyway, I don’t need to be a good driver, Daichi can drive. Plus public transport exists and I’ll never own a car in this economy. I’ll be a passenger princess forever.”
“You’d make a pretty princess, senpai.”
“And that’s why you’ll always be my favorite.”
Sawamura-senpai really is a good driver, although Shouyou’s opinion might not matter much because he can’t drive either. But Sawamura-senpai picked him up at home earlier today, and anyone who can drive through those slopes up the mountain to where Shouyou lives is a hero in his book.
It’s a little after lunch now. They stopped at a roadside convenience store on their way here, grabbed some cup noodles and store-bought onigiris to eat on the go; it was early morning when they left Shouyou’s place, but Suga-senpai was super stressed about someone else arriving at the country house before they did, because that would be so unprofessional, and Sawamura-senpai kept having to reassure him that professionality is not an applicable concept when it comes to friendships.
Plus, have you met those guys? He’d said. We’re probably still gonna have people arriving way after sundown.
That set Suga-senpai off again about what they were gonna do if any of the guys got lost on their way there, and Sawamura-senpai had simply turned the volume on the radio up higher. Suga-senpai’s anxiety, however, didn’t let them have many breaks on their three hour drive to Iwanuma, a town near Sendai that housed four elementary schools, four high schools, and a two-story house on the outskirts of its urban center that would soon no longer belong to the Sugawaras. Suga-senpai’s grandparents own it, and nothing had happened to them, he explained, but they were getting older, and his parents were concerned about them being so far away should an emergency occur. They were going to sell the house and get themselves a smaller house in Sendai later during the summer.
They’re spending the week there, looking for places, Suga-senpai had said. And they asked if I wanted to invite some friends over to the house before they went on with the sale. Obaa-chan said I already had some good memories here, but — memories aren’t something you settle with the amount you have. You should always just make more.
And so, a week after high school graduation, Shouyou’s phone had started buzzing incessantly with text messages about this trip Suga-senpai wanted them all to go on, times and places and a lot of exclamation points to go with it. It was the most active the original Karasuno Volleyball Club group chat had been in about two years, with the exception of the yearly birthday wishes or periodic congratulations for personal achievements. It has been dizzyingly active ever since then, with new messages pretty much every day, photo dumps from Noya-senpai’s odyssey on trying to get back to Japan before the date of the trip, Tanaka-senpai’s countdown for it, Ennoshita’s checklist reminder of what to bring.
It makes Shouyou’s chest feel a little funny when he looks at it. If he scrolls back to before Suga-senpai sent the invite, the messages just read kind of distant — full of warmth and care when sent, but too far apart from each other and short. A variation of Happy birthdays! for Suga-senpai on June 13th. A bunch of photos from different angles of Shouyou’s, Yachi’s, Tobio’s, Tsukishima’s and Yamaguchi’s graduation in the last week of May. Congratulations to Azumane-senpai on getting that internship he wanted. Yachi for getting accepted into her college of choice.
And, of course, if he scrolls just a bit further back, there were the live texting reactions of the last high school National tournament Shouyou ever played. But he never scrolls that far back, and he’d had the chat muted until the conversation moved on from it.
Everyone’s busy, he knows. They don’t see each other every day like they used to, and there are things he simply doesn’t know about his senpais anymore — he’s not there to see them happen, and has to hear about them after the fact, be it hours or months later. Like the fact that Tanaka-senpai hadn’t ended up trying out for his university’s volleyball team, but managed to become a T.A. for one of his physical education classes. Or that Kiyoko-senpai was working part-time at the same store as Kunimi, the wing spiker from Seijoh.
Everyone’s just busy. They’re not growing apart. Shouyou will keep telling himself that until he actually believes it.
“What’s our wonderful host doing, leaving all those packs of highly burstable cans out on the floor?” It’s Sawamura-senpai’s voice from down the hall, near the entrance door. He’s finally finished bringing out everything from the trunk of the car, if the borderline impressive pile of snacks, pre-packaged ramen and bags of ice are anything to go by. He sets down the last of the things — the actual luggage, one bag for Shouyou and Sawamura each and two for Suga-senpai — and gives the two of them a bemused look. “Does our wonderful host by any chance want his guests to trip over hurdles and crack their heads open before they make it to the backyard?”
“You keep making it hard to believe that you’re the realist in this relationship,” Suga-senpai complains, but there’s a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “That sounds quite a lot like pessimism to me.”
“This will be the first time in eight months that Tanaka and Nishinoya are in each other’s vicinity,” Sawamura-senpai says, flatly. “If anything, a cracked skull is me being optimistic.”
Shouyou raises his hand like he’s waiting for a teacher to call upon him to answer. “Suga-senpai bet that I couldn’t carry all the soda cans by myself and I couldn’t let that stand.”
Sawamura-senpai blinks at him, and then turns a glare on Suga-senpai. “Why would you do that. You know Hinata has a complex about proving himself.”
“Yeah,” Shouyou agrees vehemently. Then, “Wait, hey, I don’t have a complex. ”
“Oh god, we’re never gonna move on from this fucking hallway,” Suga-senpai says as if he hadn’t heard him, throwing his arms up in exasperation. “Okay, big man, help us get all of these dangerous hurdles to the kitchen. I’ll make sure to tell the double trouble duo that cracked skulls will make Daichi really mad. ”
The two of them continue bickering the entire way to the kitchen, which ends up being on the other side of the hallway than they were headed towards. Shouyou, now carrying only two of the soda packs, falls into step behind them, laughing quietly to himself as Suga-senpai continues saying the most absurd things to get Sawamura-senpai to crack a smile, and Sawamura-senpai keeps watching him prattle on like it’s the most entertaining thing in the world. They seem to be in their own little universe, so much so that they don’t question it when Shouyou excuses himself to the bathroom after they finish stacking up the cans in the freezer, even though Shouyou he’d gone to the bathroom immediately after they arrived, and they don’t seem to notice that he turns the opposite way after crossing the kitchen door.
Shouyou loves his senpais. He’d missed them so much, and being around them like this — knowing they’re going to be all together in the same place for the next five days — has left him giddy, had left him unable to properly sleep the night before. But their casual references to things Shouyou has no idea about only remind him that they’re practically living together while Shouyou hasn’t seen either of them in three months, and their easy familiarity just makes him miss Kageyama.
Ah. Putting a name to the feeling. Somehow it doesn’t make him feel any better.
He walks in the direction Suga-senpai had been leading him to before, quietly opening the sliding door that leads to the engawa and peering outside. From what he’s seen so far, this house seems to be a good mixture of modern and traditional, similar to his own. The kitchen is all white tiles and wooden cabinets painted a pale green, while the genkan and hallways are made out of the same dark, creaky wood. The rest of the rooms downstairs are covered by wide tatami mats, and the sliding door, just like all the windows, are lined with shoji instead of curtains. It’s very homey, very lived in. Shouyou can imagine a younger Sugawara running up and down these halls.
He leans against the banister of the door and takes a few deep breaths. It smells earthy and damp, like June, like summer; the backyard is well kept, but the grass rises taller and wilder near the cherry trees that line the property, which had effectively hidden the house from view before they turned a corner on the highway. On the engawa, a rocking chair sways gently with the breeze, which also makes the rain chains dangling from the roof clang softly once in a while. The house is not isolated enough that they can’t hear the sounds from the road from here, but it’s very muted, and not that many cars are going by. Some cicadas sing their little symphony from one of the bushes. It’s quiet and still.
Those are two words that few people would likely associate with him, but Shouyou’s used to being easily misunderstood. He’s never liked the silence much, sure, but he has started to associate it with tranquility rather than boredom, ever since he started doing those meditation exercises that Coach Ukai recommended to him at the beginning of his second year.
It doesn’t matter if you can’t sit still for a full hour, he had said. D o thirty minutes. Fifteen. Ten minutes. You don’t have to sit down, either. Just turn off your phone. Do something with your hands that’s not homework or volleyball. Maybe it’ll get easier to do it for longer, then. Every ability is a muscle.
And you won’t know what’s the furthest you can possibly go in developing an ability until you’ve gotten there. Shouyou knows this well enough. And you can’t get anywhere if you keep standing in the same place. He knows this too. He knows quite a lot by now, about winning and losing, about working hard, about listening to what his body tells him. Three years isn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things, but it’s enough time to grow.
He supposes he didn’t know how much he depended on his team to make him feel like he was in motion.
Practice, then home, then practice. Friendly matches a few times a month. Preliminary rounds for the Interhigh. Qualifiers for the Spring Tournament. Rest, then practice some more. Shouyou knows how much he improved during high school — and he knows how much the team as a whole did as well. It was easier to see progress, he thinks, when he was not only noticing it in himself, but having others point it out to him, seeing others progress in tandem. Becoming better together. High school was filled with so much motion.
But now high school’s over. And even though it’s only been a few weeks since graduation, Shouyou feels like everything has suddenly halted to a stop.
He can’t remember the last time he went so long without playing volleyball. He still makes it a point to do a little lone practice every day, jog every morning — but volleyball is a team sport, and there’s only so many times he can serve against the wall of the local gym before he goes insane. He’s trying not to feel disappointed, too, that he so far hasn’t run into the others there, because it happened so often last summer it became sort of a running joke. He’d walk into the public gym downtown to see Yamaguchi and Tobio passing a volleyball in the corner, and just as he was about to laugh, he’d hear some sort of dismayed exclamation or a You’ve got to be kidding me and turn around to see Tsukishima behind him, resignation clear on his face.
It’s different now. Yamaguchi and Tsukishima just got into college, and Yamaguchi is preparing to move cities, looking for cheap places in Tokyo since he didn’t get a dorm placement. Tsukishima is staying in Sendai but his parents decided to give him a trip as a graduation present, so he only got home from Hokkaido a few days ago. And Kageyama
Well. Neither Shouyou nor Kageyama are going to college. That should leave them in the same boat, but while Shouyou is idealistic, he isn’t naive. He knows they’re not on the same boat. If this is a race, Shouyou and Tobio are close enough on their own lanes that they can almost touch each other — but despite it seeming like they’re almost on even ground, Kageyama is several laps ahead of him. It was easy to forget sometimes when they were on the court together, but it’s hard to forget now.
His phone buzzes in his pocket, and Shouyou startles. For a second, he fears it’s Suga-senpai asking him if he accidentally drowned in the toilet, but that worry is squashed easily; he’s probably been making out with Sawamura-senpai in the kitchen this whole time. Instead, what Shouyou sees makes him hide a smile behind his hand.
[From: Kozume Kenma]
how far away from civilization is this house
i hope the closest police station is a hundred kilometers away
i may need to dispose of a body
[From: Hinata Shouyou]
Already?? You said you guys only left like forty minutes ago!
Who is it??
[From: Kozume Kenma]
i appreciate the lack of judgment in your tone. kuro keeps telling me i shouldnt kill people
but you get me
[From: Hinata Shouyou]
Ok so Kuroo-san is still alive
[From: Kozume Kenma]
not for much fucking longer
ok i might need to dispose of two bodies
[From: Hinata Shouyou]
That’s already half the people in the car with you!!! Who are you going to keep alive then
Is it Akaashi-san
[From: Kozume Kenma]
akaashi
nice. jinx
i’m pretty sure he wouldn’t stop me either. i would blame him from giving the aux cord to bokuto but he already seems to regret it enough
[From: Hinata Shouyou]
Is he playing Hatsune Miku
[From: Kozume Kenma]
what the FUCK is up with him and hatsune miku
she’s not even real
why does she have so many songs
[From: Hinata Shouyou]
Don’t let Bokuto-san hear that! She’s his emotional support vocaloid
[From: Kozume Kenma]
she’s his emotional support voca what
prepare the body bags
[From: Hinata Shouyou]
I don’t know if Suga-senpai brought any…
wait Tanaka-senpai is coming. He probably did then lol
[From: Kozume Kenma]
he’s alright, sugawara koushi
see you in two hours or more if i kill kuro before then and we have to hitchhike.
miss you
[From: Hinata Shouyou]
I MISS YOU TOO!!!!!!
He pockets his phone feeling a little warmer inside. Surprisingly enough, he hadn’t been the one to invite the four of them, even though he had thought about it — it wasn’t his house they were going to, after all, and it wouldn’t be cool to invite people without Suga-senpai being okay with it first. But Sawamura-senpai had texted in the groupchat about a week ago that he’d invited Kuroo, and Kenma had texted him a few minutes later about how he, Bokuto and Akaashi were likely to tag along — all approved by Suga-senpai, of course. Apparently they’d all been hanging out when Sawamura-senpai called to invite Kuroo, and Bokuto got jealous about not being invited, and everything snowballed from there.
He hasn’t seen Kenma since… he doesn’t want to say since Kenma graduated, but it definitely was a while ago. He went to visit Kenma in the apartment he started renting with Kuroo last December, so it’s been a few months, but not that close to a year. Even so, Shouyou misses Kenma desperately. They’ve always been kind of in a long-distance friendship, but late night calls and gaming sessions online can’t beat being side by side with someone.
And it’s so exciting that people other than Karasuno are coming! Don’t get him wrong, he loves his team, but he also misses playing against the other teams — and he has played against them, but not, you know, everyone. Eventually they all started graduating.
Shouyou shakes his head before his thoughts start going down that lane again. He’s not going to be all gloomy and emotional and wistful during this trip, even if he feels gloomy and emotional and wistful, because this is supposed to be a happy trip. Everyone’s getting together, and he really doesn’t know when it’ll happen again, so he’s going to be fine and enjoy it to its fullest. He’s going to laugh with his friends, and play some good volleyball, and try to pretend like it doesn’t feel as though he’s running out of time to become something.
His phone buzzes again.
[From: Kozume Kenma]
sometimes the fact that bokuto is an adult with a paying job feels like it should be a joke
who the fuck hired this guy
even if it is just to hit balls really hard over a net
Shouyou smiles close-lipped at his screen, but puts it away without replying. It really is crazy, that not only Bokuto is still playing volleyball but now getting paid for it — it’s crazy that someone can make a living playing the sport, even if it’s also what Shouyou’s aiming for. He’s proud of Bokuto, too. Not only still doing what he loves but playing in the major league, straight out of high school. The MSBY Black Jackals, Shouyou knows. Atsumu mentioned he was trying out for the same team this summer.
What about you, Shouyou-kun? he’d asked in one of their Skype calls when the subject came up. Plannin’ on trying out for any this season? I bet you already have at least one offer—
Shouyou had changed the subject. Atsumu let him get away with it, because he’s a lot nicer when he’s not inside a volleyball court.
“ Shouyou! ”
He has a split second’s notice to straighten his posture and try to make his position more stable before there’s the full weight of another person’s body clinging to his back, and it’s only sheer reflex that has him managing to catch it without overbalancing them both to the floor. He still stumbles a little, but it’s so familiar that he finds himself laughing instead of getting mad at it.
“Noya-senpai!”
Nishinoya Yuu is, as always, the result of a chemical reaction between an overwhelming passion for anything and everything, restless ambition and loud but sure confidence concentrated down into a boy-sized package. He clings to Shouyou’s back, legs going around his waist and voice screaming in his ear, and Shouyou lets him lightly tug at his hair, squeeze him until he wheezes. “Did you grow taller?” Noya-senpai is yelling, a mix of self-righteous fury and fondness in his tone. “I thought you’d stopped doing that after the spurt in our third year! Wasn’t three centimeters enough? Are you going to cross into the enemy territory of one hundred and seventy centimeters?”
Shouyou outright cackles when Noya-senpai tries to wrang him into a headlock, dropping his arms from where he’d been holding him up by his thighs and letting him dangle. “Noya-senpai,” he says again, kind of lightheaded. “I’m still proudly in the sixties! One sixty-eight! You just haven’t seen me in a long time!”
“Clearly too long!” Noya-senpai yells back. He lets go of Shouyou’s neck and falls with grace down to the ground, putting his hands on his hips and beaming. His dyed fringe is pulled back by a pair of sunglasses, and he’s several shades tanner than the last time they saw each other, the last time he was in Japan for more than a month. “You almost look like an adult now!”
“Aw, that was almost nice,” Shouyou teases, laughing again when Noya-senpai hits him on the arm. “When did you get here! How was Cuba!”
“It was great! I love Cuba now. My grandfather on my mom’s side would have a stroke. And just right now! Suga-senpai told me to come get you to say hi to everyone!”
Shouyou’s heart starts racing. “Oh? Everyone’s already here?”
“Most of us, I think!” Noya-senpai’s smile turns sly. “We took two cars. Last time I checked, Kageyama was in the other one.”
“Oh, yeah?” Shouyou says, airily. “Thought Tsukishima would’ve thrown him out the window. Lucky for him, I guess.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Shut up.”
Noya-senpai’s grin turns less teasing, more fond. “It’s good to see you, Shouyou.”
Despite his slight annoyance and embarrassment, Shouyou finds himself relaxing a little as well. “It’s good to see you too, senpai. You’ll have to tell me everything.”
“I will!” Noya-senpai slaps Shouyou’s back with a bit more force than necessary, and then grabs his arm. “Now come on, before they send out a search party. The band’s back together again!”
Shouyou, letting himself be led down the hallway, finds that he can’t quite wipe away the dumb grin from his face, nor calm down the stupid beating of his heart.
The front of the house looks like it has become the epicenter of an explosion of sound, a delightful cacophony that throws Shouyou back in time at least two years, dizzying in its familiarity. From two muddied, kind of beat up cars, a seriously concerning amount of drinks and food is being unloaded; someone forgot to turn off the radio somewhere, so one of the cars has both of its front doors open and some pop-ish American song blasting from its speakers. Everyone’s talking all over each other, back-slapping and yells of hello making it seem like an entire crowd is talking — but it’s just Karasuno, all fourteen of them, live in living color. Shouyou’s cheeks hurt from smiling.
Suga-senpai has Tsukishima in a headlock — and Shouyou knows that if Tsukishima really didn’t want to be fussed over like this he wouldn’t be, because Tsukishima has a good twenty centimeters on Suga-senpai — while loudly congratulating him on his college acceptance. Sawamura-senpai is off to the side, Azumane-senpai’s arm thrown over his shoulder, the both of them snickering to each other at Suga-senpai’s mother-henning. Behind them, Tanaka-senpai and Kiyoko-senpai are unloading the last of the luggage from the trunk of the blue car, while Yachi seems to be yelling something into the car that’s still playing music.
“Hinata!” Ennoshita-senpai exclaims as he passes him by, carrying a cooler in one hand and a bagful of snacks in the other. “Oh, you look taller. Narita owes me five thousand yen.”
“Narita doesn’t know what you’re talking about,” Narita-senpai says flatly, hefting up a large cardboard box filled with toiletries and kitchen stuff — dish soap, disinfectant. He playfully smacks the box against Ennoshita’s back before smiling at Shouyou. “Heya.”
“Hey!” Shouyou exclaims, jumping up and down in place. “Hi, Ennoshita-senpai! Tanaka-senpai, Kiyoko-senpai, hi!”
Tanaka-senpai glances over his shoulder and then screeches, dropping what he’s holding into Kiyoko-senpai’s hands apologetically before rushing over to him. Shouyou and Noya-senpai haven’t even properly stepped out into the front yard, but Shouyou’s already laughing even before Tanaka-senpai engulfs him into a hug. He smells like aftershave and brand new clothes, like this is his first time wearing this shirt — off-handedly, Shouyou remembers that the last he heard, Kiyoko-senpai was working at a sports clothing store.
Shouyou sinks into the hug, grabbing the back of Tanaka-senpai’s t-shirt tightly. “Senpai!”
“Shouyou! What the hell! When Yachi said you weren’t in the car with them, I thought you weren’t coming!”
Oh, yeah. Shouyou might not have let it slip that he was coming earlier than intended on purpose. He’s not that good at keeping secrets, but it’s worth it to see the surprise on his friend’s face, the way everyone out on the yard has turned to look at Tanaka-senpai’s screams and now he has a bunch of people throwing smiles in his direction. He smiles back as he peers over Tanaka’s shoulder, but lets himself enjoy this a little longer. Tanaka-senpai gives really great hugs.
They part after a few moments, Tanaka-senpai ruffling his hair. “Missed you,” Shouyou says earnestly, ignoring the way Tanaka immediately starts blushing. “How’s Tokyo?”
“Still the biggest city in the world, last I checked,” Tanaka-senpai says with a cheeky grin. Out of all his senpais, Shouyou would say Tanaka is the one who has changed the least since graduation. Narita is wearing his hair longer, Ennoshita gave up on the fringe, Azumane-senpai rarely wears it up anymore. Suga-senpai has lost a bit of his Miyagi accent, his words taking on the sharper sounds of the Tokyo-raised, but Tanaka still looks warm and boyish, hair shaved close to his head, smiling with those too-sharp canines of his. “Still not big enough for some people though, like this guy,” he continues, gesturing at Noya-senpai.
Noya-senpai juts his chin out defiantly. “The whole country’s too small to hold me in it!”
Tanaka claps him on the back. “Truer words have never been spoken. Now come on, let’s stop hogging him. If you want to say hi to him again you’ll have to get in line, he’s got fans.”
Shouyou laughs it off, embarrassed but quietly pleased — as soon as Tanaka-senpai steps aside, Yachi is rushing up to him with her arms wide open. Shouyou catches her when she jumps, too, just like he had during their last Spring Tournament, when they won against Kamomedai and officially moved onto the semifinals. Shouyou remembers the sheer euphoria of it, Kageyama’s hand clasping his own so tight it almost hurt, Yamaguchi crying with his head tucked underneath Tsukishima’s chin; how he’d managed to balance Yachi with one arm only is a mystery that can only be explained by adrenaline.
Now he’s got two arms though, and he catches her easily enough. She squeezes her own arms around his neck. “How dare you keep a secret from me!” she exclaims, muffled into his shoulder.
Shouyou laughs and pats the back of her head. “Sorry, sorry, Yacchan. I wanted it to be a surprise!”
“Well, you’re not allowed to do that anymore,” Yachi complains, pushing away from Shouyou’s chest. He lets her down and she punches his shoulder, and he pretends it hurts just so she’ll stop frowning at him. “There was no one to sit in between Kageyama-kun and Tsukishima-kun in the backseat and I had to keep doing damage control from up front. I thought Yamaguchi-kun was going to crash.”
“But he didn’t!” Shouyou says brightly. “Tadashi’s a very good driver. He probably just threatened to crash the car so Kageyama and Tsukishima would shut up.”
“Well it didn’t work,” Yamaguchi comments, walking up behind Yachi and slapping Shouyou on the shoulder. “Still don’t know whether we’re better or worse off for it. It’s good to see you, Shouyou. I thought you’d up and left for Brazil already without saying goodbye.”
His tone is teasing, like he’s just cracking a joke, but Shouyou’s smile feels a little plastered on his face. He plays it off well, laughing and pulling Yamaguchi for a hug as well. Yachi squeaks as she’s caught in between them, but doesn’t move away, so it ends up being a hug with two many limbs, but a good hug nonetheless.
Shouyou’s move to Brazil has been the Karasuno Volleyball Club’s worst kept secret since halfway through Shouyou’s second year of high school. Of course, he’s still not ready to go — he’s still got a year to prepare for it before he’s allowed to go, another year to save up as much money as he can possibly make in the meantime (still unsure how worthwhile it’ll be, considering Brazil’s currency is way stronger than Japan’s), another year to settle everything he needs. Moving to another country takes months and months of preparation, he’s learning. Every time another document he needs for his visa application appears he wants to cry. The people at the notary’s office must be tired of seeing his face.
He didn’t actually plan on telling anyone until it was a bit closer. His mom knew, Natsu knew, Coach Ukai and Takeda-sensei knew. The only person he’d actually told was Kenma, because Kenma is his best friend and Shouyou doesn’t know how to keep things from him. It was one of the very few times Shouyou remembers ever seeing Kenma be truly taken aback.
Is it really too small for you? Kenma had asked. This whole country?
It isn’t a matter of big and small, Shouyou replied. It’s about what I need.
Volleyball is a team sport. Whatever you do reflects not on yourself, but on your team. On your school. He’d seen it up close when it started to weigh down on Yamaguchi in their third year, had felt it in his bones when he collapsed during their first ever match against Kamomedai. You can work on yourself, try to improve as a player, but you will never win alone.
At age seventeen, Shouyou found out that maybe he was a little selfish.
Kenma had been quiet for a long time, so long that Shouyou remembers thinking the call had disconnected. Then he’d said, Sometimes I worry about that hunger of yours. What will you do if you never find something that’s enough to satisfy it?
I’m going to pour it into everything I do, Shouyou had replied.
In volleyball, you are presented with two choices, and two choices only: evolve or repeat. Shouyou refuses to be stuck in the same place, moving but not going anywhere.
But word got out, because of course it does. Kenma will take Shouyou’s secrets to the grave, but Yamaguchi accidentally walked into the room while Takeda-sensei was helping Shouyou fill out some of the visa requirement forms, and Yachi had been just behind him. Shouyou loves the two of them desperately, but by the end of the week, the then third years were already glancing at him when they thought he wasn’t looking, and he’d been cornered and given a very heartfelt speech by Tanaka-senpai about growing up and leaving the nest. The only person who never directly referred to it was Kageyama, and Shouyou has left it like that, even though he’s sure Kageyama knows.
It’s rare, however, to hear it mentioned out loud like this. It’s not like Shouyou’s ashamed of his choice, but he feels the anticipation-tinged melancholy that clouds over his friends whenever the topic comes up. In the past year Noya-senpai has been out of the country more often than not, backpacking through Southeast Asia, but there’s still the certainty that he’s coming back — his visa won’t let him stay elsewhere for too long, and his life is still here. Shouyou, however, will be across the ocean for two years; and no one has said it, but he doesn’t need to be a genius to know some of his friends are afraid he’s never coming back.
(He’s afraid too. A choice as big as this is bound to change a life. What if he goes, and becomes someone unrecognizable? What if he comes back, and his home doesn’t fit quite right?)
Shouyou doesn’t have very long to linger on his uncertainty though, because then Azumane-senpai is coming up to greet him as well, and he’s swept up in a tide of fond hair-ruffling and jumping for joy at how cool his senpai looks, and Kiyoko-senpai tries to pull him in for a hug but doesn’t manage to stop Tanaka and Noya-senpai from joining in. Suga-senpai yells at them to stop blocking the door, Sawamura-senpai repeats his words even louder, and by the time everyone has said their hellos and all the food and luggage has been safely brought inside, Shouyou feels winded, like he’s just ran a marathon. His stomach gnaws with how hungry he is.
As everyone walks into the house, their voices fading behind him, Shouyou frowns, not moving from where he is. He stares intently at the car that isn’t Tanaka-senpai’s, almost glaring at it.
Not even a few seconds later, a dark head of messy bed hair pops out from the backdoor, which had been left open. It turns to reveal Tobio, squinty-eyed against the sun and ruffled like he’s just been ripped out of his own bed. He swings his legs out of the car and stretches, his ratty blue shirt riding up as he does so. Shouyou pretends not to notice.
“Bakageyama,” he calls out instead. Kageyama stops in his tracks immediately, gaze zeroing on where Shouyou’s standing, near the front porch. “Don’t tell me you’ve been asleep this whole time.”
Kageyama blinks like he can’t quite comprehend what he’s seeing, eyebrows furrowing. “You’re here.”
“Yeah,” Shouyou says. His mouth feels a bit dry. “So are you.”
They stare at each other. Something in Shouyou itches to come closer to where Kageyama’s sitting, all sleep-soft and bewildered, but there’s some sort of static tension in the air, like the world’s slowed to a stop. If either of them move an inch it’ll dislodge, and everything will come crumbling down. Or maybe the world will just go back to spinning, and Shouyou will lose the nerve to look into Kageyama ’s eyes like this, searching.
Kageyama is so heart-achingly familiar in the best and worst of ways. He looks surprised to see Shouyou and uncertain about it — Kageyama doesn’t like surprises, but if what Yachi said is anything to go by, he was upset when he thought Shouyou wouldn’t be coming. Nowadays he’s worlds better than he used to be at being a friend and being part of a group, but Shouyou has always liked to think that Kageyama was… different, when it was just the two of them. More easily riled up but more relaxed, eyes more genuine, some gestures kinder, although clumsy. Like whatever he saw in Shouyou was something he recognized, and — and Shouyou has always felt the same way.
He gets up from the car, throwing the cat-shaped pillow Shouyou knows Yamaguchi keeps in his car back onto the seat. Shouyou stays stuck in place as Kageyama comes closer, the sketch of a smile on his face, and he dares for a second to think that maybe Kageyama is going to hug him, but of course, he doesn’t. He just comes closer and then… stares some more, hands flexing at his sides.
“Long time no see, Kageyama,” Shouyou says. He finds himself smiling.
“It’s only been three weeks,” Kageyama rebukes, as if it means anything. And Shouyou still — balks at the fact. It really hasn’t been long, in the great scheme of things. But still.
Shouyou makes a face. “We used to see each other every day. Don’t tell me it doesn’t feel weird to you too.”
“...Maybe,” Kageyama says, after a long pause in which his face twisted every which way before settling into a grimace. He’s always been a terrible liar. “You still haven’t grown any taller.”
“Kageyama!” Shouyou shrieks, and it’s like a dam’s broken — he jumps forward to kick Kageyama’s knees but Kageyama catches his wrist and wrangles it behind his back, so Shouyou hooks his ankle behind Kageyama’s and they both go tumbling to the floor.
“I could’ve cracked my head in that rock, dumbass,” Kageyama yells at him, and they struggle for a few seconds to see who’ll manage to keep the other on the ground. Shouyou sits on Kageyama’s stomach and he wheezes, but the momentary victory distracts him and then Kageyama is flipping him over and trying to make him eat grass.
“I bet if you had hit your head it would just echo,” Shouyou shrieks back, and Kageyama tackles him again.
It’s weird. It’s so weird how it’s so easy to fall back into things with Kageyama like this — it’s been so many months, years of seeing each other every single day; sixteen and seventeen and then eighteen. Months of summer vacation filled with scrimmages in each other’s backyards and the back of apartment buildings, racing each other to the local gym where the neighborhood association team let them all practice when school was out. Late evenings in the cold, stuffing their mouths with steaming ramen outside convenience stores, fighting for Yamaguchi’s mom’s tuna mayo onigiris, stealing bites from each other’s soy sauce boiled eggs. That one weekend he spent at Kageyama’s place because both their families were out of town and they didn’t feel like being alone, so.
And then they graduated. And it hasn’t been that long, really, but it’s been a whirlwind since then. For most of them, it’s the summer vacation before their first semester of college, so while there’s uncertainty, there’s also excitement, something tangible to look forward to. Yamaguchi and Yachi are going to Tokyo for school; Tsukishima is staying in Miyagi and moving in with his brother, everything all but set for him to join his university’s volleyball team when the school year begins.
But Shouyou’s not going to college. Kageyama isn’t either. But Kageyama has been the apple of scouts’ eyes since halfway through their second year season, and he attended the national training camp three years in a row. And Shouyou… got two offers straight out of graduation. Which is great. It’s more than he’d expected. They had made him waver a little in his decision, to wonder, maybe, what if he decided to stay?
He’d declined them both.
Kageyama hasn’t mentioned anything — offers or tryouts or whatever it may be. It’s only fair, of course, since Shouyou hasn’t either, but Kageyama knows about Shouyou’s plans, while Shouyou has no idea what Kageyama is going to do, other than go pro, of course. It’s not like there’s another path to take. Kageyama will have to be taken out of volleyball courts kicking and screaming even when he’s on his deathbed after living a long, fulfilling and successful life.
Shouyou likes to think they’re made out of the same stuff. But Kageyama is several laps ahead in the race, after all.
“Ha!” Shouyou exclaims, forcing both his arms open so he can try to make Kageyama lose his balance. It doesn’t work, of course, but it makes them both stop, heaving for air. Kageyama’s holding onto his wrists, knees on each side of Shouyou’s torso, keeping him pinned down to the grass. There are twigs pressing into his back, and the sweat makes every inch of skin exposed itch. Kageyama’s head is shielding the sun, so there’s a sort of a yellowish halo of light around it, and Shouyou has to squint to be able to make out his face. “ Okay. I concede.”
Kageyama narrows his eyes suspiciously, unmoving. “Who taught you that word.”
“I downloaded a vocabulary app on my phone.” Shouyou tries to open his arms even wider, to no avail. “I didn’t want to lose the habit of learning new words just because Yachi isn’t around every day anymore.”
“You keep talking like everyone’s gone so far away,” Kageyama says after a moment, some weird intensity in his voice. Shouyou loses his breath a little as he squeezes his wrists tighter. “Well, everyone’s still here. You’re the one who’s—”
You’re the one who’s leaving.
“Kageyama,” Shouyou breathes out, stunned. Kageyama drops his wrists as if they had burned him, scooting back so that he isn’t pinning Shouyou to the ground anymore. He doesn’t stand up though, just stays on his knees next to him while Shouyou scrambles to sit up. “I don’t — Tobio.”
Kageyama tenses at being called by his first name, refusing to meet Shouyou’s eyes. It feels like all sounds have been muffled except for the crying of the cicadas, the wind ruffling the grass and trees. There’s laughter and voices from inside the house, but it might as well be cities away, continents away. There’s only them, looking and not looking at each other, close but not touching anymore, teammates who are no longer on the same team. They’re Hinata and Kageyama, side by side, but Coach Ukai is never going to call their names in tandem again, never say Good job supporting your partner again. They’re never going to race to the Karasuno gym again, loser buys the other lunch.
A gust of wind makes Shouyou’s hair fall into his eyes, but he doesn’t move to right it. Kageyama’s staring at his own hands, clenched over his knees. He cut his hair since the last time they saw each other, and it does little to hide his face now. His eyes are troubled, mouth pressed into a tight line.
They’re so good at not saying the thing. Shouyou remembers their fight during their first year, the first time Shouyou remembers being truly upset at him — but after fighting, they’d both gone on to do what needed to be done to fix their problem separately, without saying a word to each other. And that has been their approach for all the subsequent fights, of which there were a lot. And Shouyou thought that was fine, that he and Kageyama don’t need words to understand each other, but…
Maybe Shouyou should have said something. About going away.
He licks his dry lips. “Kageyama,” he says, but Kageyama still won’t look up. “I’m not — there’s still a while before I go,” he tries, but it sounds like a feeble excuse. “And I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.”
Kageyama does look up at that, but he won’t meet Shouyou’s eyes. “Whatever. I don’t care.”
Liar, Shouyou thinks. Liar, you’re such a bad liar.
He’s about to try and say something else when the front door slams open, and Tanaka-senpai’s voice calls out, “Are you two done killing each other?”
Shouyou whirls around to see Tanaka smiling wickedly at them, waving around a spatula he probably has no idea how to use. Hilariously, he’s got a pink apron tied around his waist, which reads, Meat isn’t the only thing I’m smokin’. He very obviously doesn’t pick up on the tension between them; when he’s assessed that neither Shouyou nor Kageyama are actively bleeding or injured, he pokes his head back inside the house and hollers, “Nope, still alive!” There’s a choir of voices in response to that, likely ranging from Oh thank god to Fuck, I was hoping this time they’d do it. That last one’s probably Tsukishima.
“Tanaka-senpai,” Shouyou says, doing his level best to smile encouragingly at him, as if his heart isn’t trying to crawl up his throat. “Do you guys need help?”
“Glad you asked, dear kouhai!” Tanaka-senpai exclaims. He waves the spatula around some more. “We need extra hands to get the barbecue going! We’re split into prep team and grill team! Which team do you guys want!”
“Uh,” Shouyou draws out, when it seems like Tanaka is trying to communicate something telepathically to him by the wiggling of his eyebrows. “Grill team because I’m not allowed within two meters of a knife?”
Tanaka-senpai claps his hands together, slapping himself with the spatula in the process. “Good, Yamaguchi was betting you wouldn’t be able to remember that rule,” he continues, as if nothing had happened. “I’m on grill team too! You gotta tell me why that rule exists, though.”
“I will,” Shouyou promises. And then, like a branch trying to reach out, he grins at Kageyama and says, “Bet I’m faster at grilling than you are at prepping.”
Kageyama scowls in response. “I won’t lose,” he says, and it’s so achingly normal that Shouyou’s heart almost settles.
Tanaka-senpai laughs out loud. He looks young and sharp and soft at the same time, the June sun dousing his skin golden, painting golden splotches on the yard and porch. “You two never change,” he tells the two of them, sounding fond. “As sure and certain as the sun and the mountains, the two of you. That’s good. If you change, you die. Or at least that’s what my sister says.”
Shouyou frowns. He doesn’t like that. “If you don’t change you die,” he argues, standing up and wiping the dirt from his pants. He turns to help Kageyama stand, but finds him already upright, wiping at his mouth — he isn’t the only one who ate some grass. “Isn’t that what evolution means?”
“Yeah, yeah, but I mean change, ” Tanaka-senpai says, stressing the word. He leans against the banister of the door. “You can grow and become better at things, drop bad habits and get better ones, but I can still look at you and know it’s Shouyou. I can look at Kageyama and know he’s Kageyama. That’s what I mean. You don’t change. If you change, you die.”
One time, when Shouyou was younger, he found a butterfly’s chrysalis out in the backyard of his house. He’d picked it up and ran inside excitedly, yelling at his dad about his finding. I’m going to pop it open to see the worm grow wings, he’d said, and his dad had barely managed to take it from his hand before he’d done it. You can’t cut a chrysalis open, his dad had chided, holding it carefully in his hand. You won’t see a half worm, half butterfly if you do. If you cut it open you’ll either see a worm that’s half rotten, and if it’s open then the worm will die.
The process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay. Shouyou hasn’t thought about that in years. He tries to think about his father even less, because even though it’s been years since he passed, every time he remembers it’s like the wound is fresh again.
Someone calls for Tanaka from inside the house. He glances over his shoulder and yells something back, before turning to them with a close-eyed grin once more. “I ‘m going to be calm,” he warns them. “People will try to verbally abuse the chef but I’m going to be so chill about it.”
Shouyou puffs up his chest. “I’ll fight anyone who’s mean to you!”
“That’s why you’re my favorite,” Tanaka-senpai cackles. Then he says, “And you’re alright too, Kageyama. Let’s go in — we’ve got some hungry mouths to feed.”
When Tanaka goes back in, Shouyou opens his mouth to bet Kageyama to a race to the kitchen. But before he can do that, Kageyama is shoulder-checking him and climbing up the steps to the porch, casting him nothing but a quick glance before he goes on ahead. And Shouyou, alone for a few moments outside, feels his heart sink to his stomach.
His phone buzzes in his pocket. He glances at it, but doesn’t reach to grab it. Five days, he thinks. Five days with this team, five days with Kageyama before they get swept up with the rest of their lives again.
Maybe they need to talk.
“Wasn’t Kuroo from Nekoma coming?”
The question is asked as everyone is scarfing down the food Shouyou, Tanaka and Ennoshita have been painstakingly grilling for the past hour or so. Suga-senpai brought out some foldable plastic tables and chairs, but everyone’s just eating off paper plates around the grill instead or sitting down on the ground; bite-sized slices of meat and vegetables, corn roasted with butter, the Korean dipping sauce that Kinoshita prepared. Shouyou’s so busy eating that it takes him a few seconds to realize who even asked the question.
It’s Kageyama, of course, downing the rest of his plate with an isotonic drink, because he’s a weirdo. He’s at the table, idly picking at one of the bowls of peanuts Ennoshita-senpai had brought out, and repeats the question when everyone looks at him questioningly, likely not having heard him.
Tsukishima gives Kageyama a flat stare. “You know it’s been two years since he graduated. He’s not from Nekoma anymore.”
“Don’t piss me off.”
“But I’m so good at it,” Tsukishima drawls, casually dodging the swipe Kageyama makes at his face. He maneuvers around the grill and sets his plate down on one of the tables. “And I wouldn’t know, I’m not his keeper.”
Shouyou looks up at the sky. It’s late afternoon now, but since it’s summer, the sun still has a while to go before it goes down. At least the heat’s abated a little, or maybe he just spent too long near the fire, because now the breeze is almost chilly against his bare arms.
He’s shoulder to shoulder with Yachi, underneath the shade of one of the cherry trees. Kiyoko and Tanaka are eating off each other’s plates as they sit on the engawa, Narita and Kinoshita playing footsies on their opposite sides, sharing a can of soda. Azumane-senpai is resting against one of the wooden columns, waiting for Noya-senpai to come back from the kitchen; Ennoshita is sitting on the grass across from Shouyou and Yachi, while Yamaguchi takes both his and Tsukishima’s plates back to the grill to fill them up.
It’s been so long since all of them have been together like this. It makes Shouyou feel small, but not in a bad way — like he’s safe inside this bubble that Karasuno is.
“Kenma texted me like an hour ago,” Shouyou says around another mouthful. “He said they had to take a little detour because Bokuto read the map wrong, but they should be here soon.”
“Of course Bokuto read the map wrong,” Tsukishima says. “Can he even read?”
“Why is he reading a map, doesn’t he have a phone? ” Sawamura-senpai asks. He looks tired but content, holding onto his paper plate, like he used to look after a productive practice match back at school. There are sunburns high on his cheekbones, and Suga-senpai is plastered to his back, arms snug around his waist. “ I don’t even know how to read maps.”
“Reading maps rocks!” Noya-senpai exclaims. He’s just getting back from the kitchen, where he’d gone to grab beers for everyone who had requested one — Shouyou and the others his age, of course, are still not legally allowed to drink, which Suga-senpai had repeated quite emphatically. Noya-senpai distributes the beers between Tanaka, Kiyoko, Sawamura, Narita and Azumane-senpai, before cracking one of the cans open for himself. “Sometimes you don’t have an internet connection and knowing how to read a map can save your life. I speak from experience.”
“They’re taking a paved highway in one of the most populated provinces in the country,” Sawamura-senpai says flatly. “Not hiking up a mountain in the middle of nowhere in Laos. Not everyone is you, Nishinoya.”
“No, but they surely wish,” Noya-senpai says happily. “Bummer they’re late for the high school reunion, though. We made enough food for them to have some, didn’t we?”
“High school reunion?” Suga-senpai asks. It’s muffled from where his cheek is squished against Sawamura-senpai’s shoulder, but he’s frowning at Noya. “This isn’t a high school reunion.”
There’s a pause in which everyone just sort of stares at him. Shouyou takes another bite out of his corn.
“Uh,” Tanaka-senpai says. His apron has been discarded somewhere on the grass, and now there’s a red headband on his forehead, which of course, does nothing, considering his head is shaved. “We all went to high school together, we all graduated, and now we’re having a get together. That’s the definition of a high school reunion, senpai.”
Suga-senpai detaches himself from Sawamura-senpai’s back, making a dismissive gesture with his hand. “I’m too young for a high school reunion. It’s only been, like, two years since I graduated. I still know what everyone is up to, it’s hardly enough time for anyone to do something interesting. Like get married or have a baby or go to jail.”
“All the three options that adult life holds for you,” Sawamura-senpai deadpans.
“Wait,” Shouyou says, confused. He exchanges a look with Yachi, but she just shrugs, taking long sips of her strawberry milk. “If this isn’t a high school reunion, then what is it?”
Suga-senpai frowns at him, pouting. “Wait, did everyone think this was a high school reunion?”
“Yeah,” Yamaguchi says, slowly. He sidesteps Suga-senpai to hand Tsukishima his plate back. “That’s what it said in the email Sawamura-senpai forwarded us with the rules. Weren’t you the one who wrote it?”
Suga-senpai is deathly still for a second. Then he turns narrowed eyes at Sawamura-senpai, who just takes another sip of his beer, unphased. “I didn’t write any emails, ” Suga-senpai says. “I sent everything you guys needed to know in the groupchat.”
“Actually,” Kiyoko-senpai pipes up, an amused grin on her face, “you just sent a PowerPoint presentation with five slides about the trip. And you didn’t mention things such as what we needed to bring, specific dates other than ‘mid to late June’, or how exactly to get here.” She gestures at Sawamura-senpai. “He wrote the email with all that information and forwarded it to us.” Sawamura tips his beer at her.
“Once a captain, always a captain,” Azumane-senpai calls out, and everyone toasts to that — Shouyou with his half-eaten corn, Yachi with her strawberry milk, Kageyama with his Gatorade.
“I see how it is,” Suga-senpai says, crossing his arms petulantly. “The trip that I planned was co-opted by my boyfriend. I know who the real ones are.”
“Sure, babe,” Sawamura-senpai says. Tsukishima pretends to gag.
“This isn’t a high school reunion,” Suga-senpai continues, addressing everyone at large. “This is a do-it-yourself rendition of our summer training camps. Only without adult supervision because we’re the adults now, and we’re responsible.” Someone audibly laughs at that, but Suga-senpai acts like he didn’t hear it. “You thought we were all going to get together and not play some volleyball? Come on! For old time’s sake!”
“Well, yeah, volleyball’s always a given,” Tanaka-senpai says, scratching his head. “But what do we have to train for? I mean, except for you three. Good luck with that, by the way.”
Tsukishima, Shouyou and Kageyama all echo some sort of thank you, and Shouyou is reminded again of this — that out of all fourteen, twelve players, only the three of them will continue playing after high school. He hopes the dismay doesn’t show in his face.
“Do you need a reason to play volleyball?” Suga-senpai demands. Tanaka-senpai raises his hands in surrender.
From inside the house there’s a crash, then the sound of muffled cursing, followed by what sounds like someone being slapped. Then, before any of the can react, a head of spiky gray hair pokes out from behind the sliding door, startling Azumane-senpai so badly he drops his beer, and it’s only Noya-senpai’s reflexes that keep it from smashing on the floor. Azumane-senpai’s screech makes Shouyou’s ears ring.
For a moment, Bokuto Koutarou seems a bit cowed at the reaction he gets, his hair almost drooping alongside his expression. But he quickly recovers, beaming and pumping a fist in the air. “Hey, hey, hey! Did someone say volleyball?”
“Bokuto-san!” Shouyou calls out excitedly. He drops the rest of his food back on his plate with quick apologies to Yachi before racing across the yard and jumping up the engawa to tackle Bokuto in a hug, which Bokuto returns just as enthusiastically. He actually lifts Shouyou up from the ground a little, cradling his head like he’s a kid, and Shouyou shrieks with laughter. “You’re here! I knew you were coming but you’re here!”
“My disciple!” Bokuto exclaims. He squeezes Shouyou tighter before dropping him to the ground, and then he’s waving at all the others. “Hi! Hello! Tsukki, Kageyama, Yamaguchi, you guys looked so cool at Nationals! And you, Hinata! Wasn’t the center court the coolest? I told you it was the coolest!”
Shouyou nods so hard it feels like his neck is about to snap off. That was the last time he and Bokuto saw each other — he’d gone to cheer them on at every game they played back in March. “It was so cool, Bokuto-san, it’s so cool you played there three times!”
Bokuto throws his head back and laughs. “Even as a pro, I sometimes sort of miss the rush of playing there,” he tells Shouyou like it’s a secret. “Akaashi, are you coming?” He calls over his shoulder.
Akaashi appears almost immediately, looking like he’s been run over by a car. He’s wearing glasses now, eyebags so deep they look like bruises, but his expression is always sort of soft when he’s interacting with Bokuto. He bows at Suga-senpai, then at everyone at large. “I hope it’s okay that we entered without asking,” Akaashi says to Suga. “The door was unlocked, and Kuroo really needed to use the bathroom.”
“You didn’t have to say that, ” comes Kuroo’s voice from down the hallway.
“It’s alright, oh my goodness,” Suga-senpai says. All his previous self-righteousness about having planned the trip is gone, and now he’s back in host mode, smiling sweetly at Akaashi as he climbs up the engawa. “Let me help you guys unpack the things from the car — I’ll tell you where the kitchen is, you can drop the food and drinks there…”
He leads Akaashi back towards the entrance of the house, and Sawamura-senpai follows them both a second later. Bokuto goes on to greet everyone properly — slapping Azumane-senpai and Noya-senpai on the back, high-fiving Kiyoko and Tanaka, enthusiastically calling out everyone’s names. He even manages to get a hug from Kageyama, which is a feat. Yachi makes him a plate, and he thanks her so profusely that she blushes beet red all the way to the roots of her hair.
There’s an unread text from Kenma from two minutes ago that reads, come pick me up i’m scared, so Shouyou dutifully turns back towards the entrance and waves his arms until Kenma, hair tied in a bun and fiddling with the edge of his shirt, notices him and makes his way towards him. He isn’t big on being super touchy in front of other people, so Shouyou just nudges his shoulder as a hello, and Kenma nudges back.
“Bokuto-san’s alive,” is the first thing Shouyou comments. “Didn’t have the guts to do it?”
Kenma rolls his eyes. “You sound like Tora. It would’ve been too much effort, anyway.”
“Oh, Hinata!” Bokuto calls out. He’s sat down next to Yachi where Shouyou used to be, and Yachi just mouths an apology at him. “We made that detour you asked us to!”
“Huh?” Tsukishima asks, frowning. The quickness with which it becomes suspicious is almost offensive. “Hinata asked you to detour? For what? He said you got everyone lost.”
“We had to pick something up on the way,” Bokuto explains, munching on his food. “Was it supposed to be a surprise?”
“What?” A voice drawls from behind Shouyou and Kenma, and Shouyou witnesses half the team’s faces drop — in shock or in despair, it’s hard to know. “Ya didn’t tell everyone you invited me, Shouyou-kun? Should I be offended?”
Shouyou feels everyone staring at him, but he refuses to be embarrassed about it. Suga-senpai told them they could invite more people if they just ran it by him before sending the invite, and when Shouyou had asked if his friend from another school could come with, Suga-senpai had just sent a bunch of laughing emojis and a Sure!
And Atsumu — Atsumu has been a really great friend these past couple years. In fact, Shouyou wasn’t even the one who reached out to him first; he’s never found out how Atsumu got his Line info, but they’ve been texting on and off since the summer after their first match against each other, and they met up for lunch once when Shouyou was visiting Kenma in Tokyo last winter. Atsumu is prickly and proud and sometimes kind of mean, but he’s got a good heart underneath it all, and a hunger Shouyou recognizes. They don’t get to see each other often, but Shouyou misses him anyway.
“Atsumu-san!” Shouyou says, grinning. Atsumu smiles at him as well, ruffling his hair, but that smile turns sly as he turns it towards the rest of the team. “Everyone, you know Miya Atsumu! And Atsumu, I’m pretty sure you know everyone too, right?”
“How could I forget,” he drawls, but he puts his hands up when Shouyou glares at him. They talked about him being non-threatening towards Shouyou’s friends, because it’s very important to him that all his friends get along. Atsumu runs a hand through his hair, not as yellowish in color as it was when they first met, now shaded towards an actual light blonde. “Hi, Tobio-kun.”
“Miya-san,” Kageyama replies, looking absolutely bewildered. He keeps stealing glances at Shouyou like he’s trying to say, Are you serious?
Atsumu waves a hand. “Miya-san is my brother,” he says, grinning. “Call me Atsumu!”
“I,” Tsukishima begins, looking haunted, “should not be as surprised at this as I am. You would make friends with a rock if it could talk, Hinata.”
“Maybe so,” Shouyou agrees. “I texted Tendou-san too, but he was busy with work. Bummer he couldn’t come.”
“I hate you,” Tsukishima says. “Viscerally.”
“I don’t know what that word means!” Shouyou exclaims, jumping on the balls of his feet. “This is going to be so fun! Guys, come on, let’s eat!”
He pulls both Kenma and Atsumu down to the yard to get them some food, not offended when Kenma takes his plate back to eat it by himself on the engawa; big crowds like this tend to overwhelm him. Atsumu strikes up a conversation with Yamaguchi, of all people — but Shouyou remembers Atsumu commenting on how much respect Yamaguchi had earned from him back during spring, when they made it to the semifinals at Nationals. Everyone seems to get over the shock of having an ex-rival among them soon enough, or rather, after Bokuto cracks a joke about a bunch of random animals in the middle of a murder of crows.
Suga-senpai comes back with more food to make on the grill, Kuroo and Sawamura-senpai in tow. Tanaka-senpai beats Kinoshita to the task, and as dusk begins falling, the smoke keeps rising, food being dished on plate after plate. It’s a summer’s night, and Shouyou is warmed most of all by the people around him, the conversations, the laughter. After a while, he sits down next to Kageyama on the grass, having left Yamaguchi and Tsukishima on their own devices talking about the MSBY Black Jackals lineup with Atsumu and Bokuto.
Kageyama glances at him, but doesn’t say anything. Shouyou didn’t realize he was hoping for something until he didn’t get it.
Still, he throws his head back to watch the sky. There’s some stars twinkling here and there, but Shouyou doesn’t recognize any constellations. His face is flushed and the night is warm, and Kageyama’s shoulder is pressed against his own.
“Tobio,” Shouyou murmurs. “I’m not leaving you. You know that, right?”
Kageyama hums. It doesn’t sound like an agreement nor an argument, merely an acknowledgement. “I know.”
“In your head, maybe,” Shouyou continues, just as quietly. “But you don’t believe me.”
At that, Kageyama turns to look at him. His eyes are just as dark and deep as they’ve always been, a fiery pit. “I’ve always believed in you.”
“You’ve always believed in me about volleyball,” Shouyou completes, and when Kageyama doesn’t argue, he continues, “And this is volleyball, too. The reason why I’m going. So — believe in me, and believe me, okay?”
Kageyama looks down at his knees. “Tomorrow,” he says, “let’s play on the same team. For old time’s sake.”
For old time’s sake. Just as Suga-senpai had said. Shouyou doesn’t think two months or even two years ago qualify as the old times, but he can sort of understand the nostalgia, the looking back at who they were and what they did at the very beginning of everything.
Shouyou’s been doing a lot of thinking about beginnings. He’s avoiding the endings, but it seems like he can’t outrun them as much as he’d like to. More often than not, his conversations with his mother start with, So, when you go, or, when you’re back.
For old time’s sake. It’s summer again, a pause between breaths, the gaps between a season and the other. They’re a couple of years older, a couple of centimeters taller, somewhat more experienced. Shouyou will spare thoughts about endings when he’s done starting anew.
“Okay,” he agrees. “Tomorrow.