Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kageyama Tobio is the nineteen-year-old genius setter who makes waves at the 2016 Rio Olympics, playing for Japan. The game is lit up on screens across the globe, from Paris to Miyagi Prefecture. 

Kageyama will later attribute the win to teamwork, dedication, and, privately, a time in his life in 2013, when the question was: what does it take to conquer the world?

Hinata gets a part-time job as a delivery boy in Rio De Janeiro. It’s convenient, helps him pay rent, and, most importantly, is well within his skill set. Hinata is familiar with biking long, impossible, furious distances, and the job, compared to that, is frighteningly easy, at least after he stops getting lost, and learns to read the street signs.

[ dumbass shouyou ]

YOU DUMBASS 

[4: 05 pm] 

that’s the fourth time this week, isn’t it ? 

[4: 07 pm]

learn to fucking read 

[4: 25]

hello? 

[4:45 pm]

hinata?? Are u dead

  [5: 01 pm]

1 Missed Call

pick up idiot 

[5:08 pm]

2 Missed Calls

HINATA 

[5:23 pm]

r u ignoring me or r u in a ditch somewhere 

[5: 51 pm]

If ur dead im calling Natsu tomorrow. She deserves to know

 [6: 27 pm]

1 Missed Call

Gn stupid

 [11: 33 pm] 

Read 6: 23 am

It’s ok 

I’m alive 

[7:40 am]

IDIOT

fucking stupid 

where’d u end up this time

 [8:32 am]

funny story but I ended up going in a huge circle

I think I biked like a good 50 miles idk

[8:43 am] 

I got the delivery on time this time tho

I ended up exactly back where I started 

[8:47 am]

Here’s the thing: no one wants to listen to you cry about the grief inside your bones. It is for this reason, and this reason alone, that love is a sacrifice and that therapy is a well-paying job, if you’re good at it. 

Hinata has never been to a therapist, not even after his father died - he was young, then, really young, and his aunt had argued that perhaps he was too young to really remember his father all that much, and that seeing a lady who talked to him about loss once a week and psychoanalyzed the colors of his block tower might have more of a profound impact on him than the death itself. 

Who can say if his aunt was right, or if learning to properly compartmentalize grief would have done Shouyou any differently when he got older? A good therapist might say, yes, children don’t simply forget - they’ll always remember, in some way, and Hinata might have said something like, “no, I don’t have time for that. I have volleyball, and that’s all that really matters.”

A decent therapist might say to that, let’s unpack that statement. See where it goes.

Where does it go?

Shouyou is twenty, and he’s gone from Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, to Rio De Janeiro, the second most populous city in Brazil. He sometimes sleeps in a small apartment he shares with a roommate named Pedro, who is mild, agreeable, and entirely uninterested in volleyball. It’s okay; Pedro isn’t very interesting, himself.

In the day, he makes deliveries, and when he’s not making deliveries he’s playing beach volleyball, and when he’s not playing beach volleyball he’s pining for Miyagi, and then he’s back where he started. 

When Hinata first stepped onto the beach, something caught in his chest, tried to crawl its way up his throat. It tasted like shock, or awe, and it’s all he could do to swallow it down. 

Hinata never considered Miyagi to be small. As a child, he would bike up winding mountains in the cold of mornings that stained the clouds pink and bled like wounds into orange and red, all the way to the top, huffing and straining, all alone but for himself and the clouds and the great mountain. At the peak, there was volleyball, and something bigger than himself, bigger, even, than Karasuno. There’s nothing bigger than here, he’d thought. 

Brazil is endless.

The ocean rears back to collide with the horizon in strips of color, all turquoise and deep blue and white, so bold and bright that it nearly blocks out the sky. This will belong to him, and he will belong to it. He will not see Japan for two years.

Everything in Rio is different. He dreams differently, in Rio.

In Shouyou lives a house, and inside that house is an ocean. There’s a net, somewhere, and maybe a boat, but the most important thing in that house is a pile of bones sunk to the bottom, pecked white and clean, sitting on the ocean floor like discarded treasure. The bones tell him nothing, but the birds speak to him, sometimes, flitting above the surface of the water, up and into the clouds, wailing like children. The birds scream, and the house sits, and in his worst moments, a voice that sounds like a whisper caresses him, slinking off to where the dark things in him live.

The house has roots, still climbing, and there is an upset to the soil, something like closure, and separation, love, and self-loathing.

He’ll haul back the bones of the house on his back if he has to, and, well, that’s a lot to unpack.

Hinata’s alarm goes off, and he rolls himself half out of bed, fingers grazing against the carpet, one hand still clinging to his pillow. He got in a good seven hours, at least, and the morning has reared its head to greet him. He’s got deliveries in an hour. After that, volleyball. He squeezes his eyes shut again.

Wake up, idiot.

“Shut up, Kageyama,” Hinata says to the empty space between the couch and the coffee table, and all of a sudden, he’s just so tired that he aches.

It’s not fair, not really. These are not the ghosts his mother knew.

He’s sick.

Homesick, that is. 

Sun-sick, maybe, of the way the heat alternates between stifling and burning, always hot and always there. He can’t escape it, not on the beach, not on the streets, not in his apartment, and not in other people’s apartments. (He tries, he really does. He learns how to make love to strangers, in different beds, in different languages. He can speak Portuguese now, and Goku and company from dubbed versions of Dragon Ball Z are slowly teaching him English and Spanish. It’s slow, but it’s progress, debatably.)

He’s old enough to drink, and to look and to fuck, which makes him a man. He’s still restless, and small and looking to take on the world, which makes him a boy. The title, too, is up for debate.

He’s tired, too, more so than a boy or man has ever been, but he’ll put in his hours on the streets of Brazil, weaving over cobblestone, and then labor under the sun until his skin is brown, if that’s what it takes. I don’t need him, Hinata tells himself. I have myself, and wings, and a ball. That is enough.

He’s sand-sick, definitely. Sand refuses to push back, to give him the momentum he deserves. It shifts and sinks and lashes out at him, makes him graceless and immobile, makes him feel like a rookie at the sport he’s spun his entire life around. 

Every day, the sun sits like a jewel in the sky. It laughs.

Give me what I need, Hinata wants to scream. I need to jump. I need you to tell me that I have wings. Don’t keep me here, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t dare.

The sand does not give him that comfort, nor does it lend him momentum. In fact, it doesn’t give him shit. Hinata, it jeers, you have legs. You have feet. What do you need me for?

Jump, Hinata.

I’m on the court, he thinks, and then he jumps. He has no wings.

Dammit.

He hits the sand hard, and crouches down. I’m here. I’m on the beach. I’m in the sand.

Hinata straightens up, plants his feet. First, he sinks. Then, Hinata jumps.

Hinata Shouyou is eleven years old, and he believes in ghosts.

It’s some television program about the supernatural, the kind that children know they shouldn’t watch, lest they get scared, but do anyway, just to prove themselves wrong. On the screen, a white shape emerges, and Shouyou watches with wide eyes as it lets out an unearthly wail before shivering and receding back into the dark.

That night, when Natsu demands to cuddle, he opens the covers and lets her without saying a word. The next night, he begs his mother to let him sleep in her room. He drags a mattress into the doorway and swaddles himself in as many blankets as he can fit. He doesn’t sleep alone for a week.

Finally, his mother intervenes, a knowing look in her eye when he stutters, trying to explain the television program without sounding too incriminating. She kneels down, taking his shoulders in her hands, and looks him straight in the eye, determined to set this right. 

Aren’t you going to tell me there’s no such thing as ghosts?

No, she decides, because death is not an absolute. Just because something is dead, does not mean that it is gone forever.

That’s not very comforting. Ghosts are scary.

No, Shouyou. Ghosts, his mother says, are nothing to fear, as long as you know what they want.

He can hear it still, sometimes, his voice, like it’s something imprinted in his skin, carried on his back.

He breaks a dish. He gets lost on his delivery route. He eats bad fish. He trips in the sand and drops the ball, and there’s an admonishment in the back of his mind that reaches out and makes itself heard.

Dumbass. It is bitterly nostalgic, heavy with familiarity, and most importantly, unwelcome. 

Hinata brushes sand from his knees, picks up the ball, and shakes it off. 

The beach sits there sunning itself, a slim little sandbar marked by towers and steel-glass windows rising into the sky. It is common knowledge, here in Brazil, that these beaches are among the best in the world, offering a wonder here and there that cannot be seen anywhere else. There are beautiful men and beautiful women all warm around the edges. Girls wear pretty bathing suits that are red and blue and all sorts of colors, and they all trade words in different tongues, smile under their sunglasses and watch the clouds drift by.

A volleyball player stands at one hundred and seventy-two point two centimeters. Every day, he jumps, slams the ball down into the opposite court, and to a spectator it is like gravity has abandoned him, like he might just have wings. He is Japanese, and has lived here for two years, fighting to make a name for himself on a beach in Brazil. 

He steps onto the sand, breathes, and goes airborne. Past the sand, the shoreline glows green, like a gemstone, and the sun glares down at him with its famous, thousand-yard-stare. It grins.

You’re here now, Shouyou. Your move.

Shouyou is not scouted. Instead, he proves himself, all over again. Hinata Shouyou has to try out for the MSBY Black Jackals, a V. League team that is the top tier of Division 1, just like everyone else. 

Here’s a secret: Hinata Shouyou is not like anyone else. It shows.

On the first day, Bokuto ruffles his head - like so many before him - and leads him onto the court by the hair, bouncing on the balls of his feet, nearly shaking out of his shoes. Kōtarō possesses a contagious sort of enthusiasm, and the nerves in Hinata’s stomach (the ones encouraging him to hurl) relent until there’s nothing left but the pleasant buzz of anticipation.

“Warmups, first,” Bokuto informs him excitedly, “and then I wanna see you spike!”

“Already?”

“He’s been waiting a long time for this,” he says with a wink and a nudge, and another figure slides into Hinata’s eyeline, hands on his hips. His hair is blond, betrayed by dark roots. His eyes are heavy. “You have no idea.” This new player is tall - taller than Hinata, which is to be expected, although not as tall as Bokuto. “Disciple, Miya Atsumu. Atsumu, play nice,” he says, like he’s scolding him. Hinata can’t help but get nervous all over again.

“Always.”

Kōtarō - his only friend and, up till now, his only ally, sidles off to join Sakusa at the opposite side of the room, spinning a ball between his hands and whistling cheerfully, leaving Hinata alone. The two players turn to each other.

“Welcome to the team, Shouyou-kun,” Miya smiles. It looks predatory. “Do you remember me?”

“Should I?” The leer slides off of Atsumu’s face. “It’s nice to meet you,” Hinata adds, and tries for a smile that Atsumu does not return.

“Hinata,” Bokoto calls out from the other end of the court, “what do you think?” Atsumu spins on his heel and stalks away without another word, leaving Hinata to gape after him.

The first thing he thinks is: Miya Atsumu is kind of an asshole.

On the second day, Miya approaches him with a wild look on his face, and asks to set for him. He doesn’t mention the day before, doesn’t even look ashamed. He doesn’t need to. He is a good-looking man. Everything in Hinata steels him to say no; his shoulders tense up, and his feet lock hard into place. His hands curl around his refusal, into small fists at his side. Still, that drumming, thrumming energy under his skin doesn’t get the memo, and his heart beats out a harsh staccato rhythm against his ribcage. His pinky finger twitches of its own accord. 

He reaches for the ball.

Atsumu tosses the ball into a high arch - Hinata’s nailed tosses higher than that before, and faster, but it’s clean and direct and will be so easy to hit - and without thinking, he jumps up, and Hinata’s hand - that traitorous hand - makes contact with the ball like it’s an old friend.

It slams against the floor opposite, and the crack it makes echoes throughout the gym like thunder. Bokuto whoops in the background, punching a fist in the air, and Hinata examines his own palm. It’s not red.

The toss isn’t anything extraordinary, not yet, not really. It’s fast, though, and it’s good. He hasn’t felt that good in a while - sending a ball into the sand is nothing like the resounding sound of an indoor spike. It kind of sounds like his heart breaking.

It storms on the third night.

Thunder and lighting come in pairs, one before the other in a groaning chorus. The duos make their grand entrance hand in hand, like it’s the final show, and they’re the main act. They color the sky white, cracking through the night like a gunshot. 

Hinata doesn’t sleep.

On the fourth day, Hinata tries to settle in with the rest of the team, all of whom are extremely skilled, and extremely eccentric. 

Sakusa Kiyoomi, for example, is a native of Tokyo. He is twenty-two, like Hinata, and when he was only a second-year in high school, he was one of the top three aces in the country. He wears a white mask and gloves, and when he strips the things off he does so regretfully. Sakusa would have scared Hinata back when he was just a first-year, or at least unnerved him - Sakusa doesn’t glower. He stares. 

(“I asked about you, once, at a training camp a few years back. I didn’t know it then, but it was you, wasn’t it? The player who slowed down Shiratorizawa?”

“Huh?”

“We’re glad to have you. We watched you, you know, during tryouts. We watched your tapes, too. You were the team favorite.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Your reputation precedes you, Ninja. Also, you’re standing a little too close. Back up, a little. Further. A little more. Good.”)

Alright, then. Sakusa isn’t scary, just prickly, intimidating. He values personal space, at least, which is hardly an offense, and Hinata takes it in stride. There are four other teammates  - Barnes, Meian, Inunaki, Tomas. Barnes shakes his hand, and Hinata is sure that his face is as red as his hair. He’s missed this feeling: volleyball is a team sport, undeniably, and it comes easiest when the team knows itself and each other, and accepts both for what they are. Of course, let the record show that volleyball has rarely come easy for Hinata. 

Case in point:

“Am I as good as your other setters?” Atsumu demands, the second Hinata’s heels touch the ground. He is one of the top setters in the country. They both know that.

They both know what’s being unsaid.

“He’s still ranked above you,” Hinata retorts without thinking, breathing harshly through his nose. It’s true. He’s never been good at subtlety, never been good at playing coy. Hinata plays games, like everyone else, but only on the same court. “It’s okay, Atsumu-san,” he adds quickly, too quickly, “you’re very good.”

“Don’t worry. I’m good at other things, too.”

He can’t tell if it’s an innuendo, or if he’s talking about setting.

Atsumu doesn’t say a thing, after that. He looks down at Hinata, chest rising in slow motions, then clicks his tongue and turns away sharply, reaching for another ball. 

I get it, Shouyou. We all know he’s the goddamn best.

Hinata hears that loud and clear. He thinks he gets it, now.

The next day, when Hinata arrives, Atsumu is already on the court, halfway through his warmups. His movements are smooth and very practiced; his shoes barely squeak against the floor. He turns when he sees Hinata wave, and Hinata wonders if Atsumu looks more tired than the day before. In this harsh light, it’s hard to tell.

Atsumu saunters over to him, ball in hand, and Hinata meets him halfway.

“Toss to me,” is what he says in lieu of an apology, because that’s the goddamn best he can do.

Atsumu sets. Hinata spikes, and it’s like thunder and lightning. 

In his third year of high school, Hinata’s literature class reads The Old Man and the Sea. The author, Ernest Hemingway, is long dead. He was born in America, but wrote the book in Cuba. It is about an old man no one believes in, who cannot let go of a fish, and so he hunts it down even though everyone else thinks he’s crazy. In the end, it saves his life, and its skeleton serves as proof of his sanity. The book is in English, and too advanced for Hinata to understand on his own - English is his worst subject, hard as he tries.

Yachi seems to have this unwavering, undeserved sort of faith in him, though, because she coaxes him through it in her free time, helping him to make sense of it.

“You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food, he thought. You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman,” Hinata recites slowly to himself. It’s late into the night; the window reflects nothing but black. Even the street outside is silent, and empty. Natsu is asleep. So is their mother. He’s made a tent out of his blankets, propped a flashlight up against his cheek, and cradles the book carefully between his hands.

You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after, Hinata reads. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?

Hinata slides a finger along the spine and flips the book shut as quietly as he can. He clicks off his flashlight, and the yellow glow is extinguished, swallowed by the dark. He shoves the flashlight and the book onto the bedside table, and yanks the covers up to his chin.

If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him.

He rolls onto his back and wonders what it all means.

The next day, in practice, Kageyama tosses the ball to him with a deceptively light touch; he catches it between his thumbs and fingertips. Over the ball, he can just make out Kageyama’s eyes. From this distance, they look obsidian, angry. He knows better.

“Tobio,” he says softly, aloud, “I’ll stay with you until I am dead.”

“What are you talking about?” he snaps. He’s too far away to have heard anything.

“Nothing,” Hinata says, and tosses the ball back. The sky outside peers through the windows, spilling light onto the gym floor and blurring their movements golden.

Here’s a hint: it doesn’t mean nothing. It will come back to bite him.

“So, whaddya think?” Atsumu asks later, panting in his ear. He slings his arm around Hinata’s shoulder, steering them towards the locker room.

“You’re not what I expected.”

“What about now, though? Whaddya think?”

“I don’t know. I -” I think about you a lot, is what Hinata does not say, “I have a lot of thoughts,” is what he amends it to, “and I’m not sure. Yet.” 

Atsumu’s gaze slides down to meet his own, and his mouth twitches into a lopsided grin that exposes one particularly sharp tooth. “Mostly good, I hope?”

Hinata doesn’t have an answer for that, doesn’t trust himself enough. It’s apparent that Atsumu Miya, is, at the very least, a force of nature, a thing that is egotistical, magnificent, and very smart. He doesn’t know how much of it is genuine or self-deprecating, and perhaps the depressing thing is that he wholeheartedly understands.

When they reach the locker room, Atsumu immediately releases him, grabbing at his own shoulder. His face barely flickers into something like a grimace.

“Did you pull something during practice?”

“Nah, I’m just sore.”

“Is it bad?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You should get that kneaded out, before it gets too inflamed.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll…” to Hinata’s indignance, the setter doesn’t even try to sound believable. “It’s not that bad, right now, and it’s just in my right shoulder. I’m not -” 

“C’mon, idiot. I’ll do it,” he huffs, taking him by the elbow, much to Atsumu’s surprise. He manages to manhandle him onto a bench, perhaps a little harder than he should, but Atsumu is a big guy, and sometimes excess force is necessary. He would know.

“You’re stronger than you look,” he informs him appraisingly. From the bench, Atsumu has to look up at Hinata, and when he does, there's something there that frustrates Hinata inexplicably - he’s become adept with dealing with most difficult people - being attached at the hip with Kageyama Tobio for three years is a testament to that - but perhaps he’s lost his touch.

“You’re more of an ass than you look.” Hinata says, uncharacteristically bland, but Atsumu’s eyes, which had been lazily indulgent until now, only light up with delight.

“Oh, you’ve been looking?” Atsumu jeers, thrilled, leaning in closer. Hinata rolls his eyes, plants his hands on his hips.

“Take off your shirt.”

“I knew you couldn't resist me.”

“Your muscles are inflamed.”

“I can think of something else you can help inflame. If you want.”

“No,” he says shortly. Then, “if you mess up a set, how's that gonna feel, huh?”

“Not as good.” He winks. Cheeky bastard. 

“Strip.”

“Shouyou-kun, we’ve been teammates for such a short time, and already you’re taking advantage of me? And in a public place, nonetheless!” He puts a hand over his heart - or where his heart should be, if he has one. “I never expected this of you!”

“I’m helping you, you idiot,” Hinata bites out. “Now take off your shirt.”

Atsumu smirks down at him and complies, peeling off his shirt and flinging it aside. 

Hinata seizes him up.

It’s not that he’s exceptional. Hinata’s circle of friends, at this point, is almost exclusively pro-athletes, most of whom have trained all their lives to be at the peak of human condition. Hinata’s not blind. Hinata can call most of his friends objectively gorgeous - they’ve earned that, at least, and Atsumu is just as gorgeous as the rest. He’s a professional. 

Hinata pokes him in the shoulder, hard.

“OW, what the hell, Shouyou?”

“You are a pro, right? And you’ve gotten this far without at least trying to prevent basic injuries?” Hinata can’t help but be skeptical.

“Well, I -” Atsumu cuts himself off, lest he say something he really regrets. (Here’s a hint: Atsumu can, in fact, take care of himself. He’s a professional, and he’s done it for years. It’s just that right now, he doesn’t really want to. He wants Hinata to do it for him. For reasons.) “No,” he says, like a liar, “Osamu was always the worrier in the family, hehe.” Osamu the traitorous twin bastard, who left him to go work in food service. Atsumu will be happier than him one day. He thinks about that day a lot.

“Oh.” Hinata looks very unimpressed, and Atsumu curses himself, because that’s not what he was going for. Then, he offers, “Do you want some help?” and Atsumu goes from internally hitting himself to internally patting himself on the back, because that’s more like it. 

“If you wouldn’t mind,” he says, as pitifully as he can. “I don’t know if I can reach back there.”

Kōtarō’s whistling is interrupted by a low moan, barely audible - he pauses at the entrance of the locker room, hand hovering at the door handle. He wants to pack up and go home more than anything, way more than he wants to catch an eyeful of something he shouldn’t. Is it worth it?

He waits, but whatever is behind the door falls silent. He lets out a breath, takes a few steps backward, and kicks the door open, slamming it against the frame as loudly as he can. Two of his teammates jump apart, one clearly annoyed, the other strangely guilty.

“Am I interrupting something?”

“Yes,” Atsumu says, at the same time as Hinata’s, “No.”

They look at each other, and Bokuto makes the wise decision to back out, and close the door behind him.

Atsumu’s tosses are good. Really good, actually, not that he’d expected anything less. His tosses are always easy to hit, the sign of a pro-setter. Of course, Hinata can’t help but think, I know they’re easy, but are they really fun? The answer is no, for now. Too bad.

Here’s the thing:

Hinata is trying to see Kageyama in this man.

He watches his serves very closely, is statically aware of his movement on the court at all times. He pays attention to his other teammates, too, obviously. Everyone is needed in the game, and Hinata is not so young or old as to forget that.

Still, when Atsumu flubs a serve during practice, swearing magnificently, Hinata waits for a scowl to emerge. It doesn’t, and he’s almost disappointed.

Atsumu is the one who tosses to him the most, and everyone - the team, the coach, themselves included - holds their breath going in. They want to see what happens. They want to witness one of two things: a revelation or a train crash. Hinata isn’t sure which of them he wants to cause, personally.

It’s not fair, not fair to pit a teammate against a partner whose absence is so magnificent, not fair to compare a setter barely capable of speaking civilly to his own brother and lifelong friend to the boy who watched Hinata fly and promised that he would make him invincible. 

It’s not fair, but at least it’s not working.

Hinata is notoriously, obnoxiously good with people. He’s friends with a lot of difficult players, many of whom he’s triumphed over at some point. Half of the time, he’s not exactly sure why, or how, but he thinks it has to do with his disregard for personal space or formality. He can’t be sure.

“Half of the time I don’t know whether he hates me, or if he thinks I’m just fun to play with,” Hinata complains. On and off the court, Hinata thinks, Atsumu likes to play games. 

“Can’t it be both?” Kenma asks him, and Hinata can almost hear him shrug. 

“I hope not.”

“He’s worried, probably,” Kenma tells him over the phone, and Hinata wrinkles his nose.

“About what?”

“He thinks you won’t like his tosses.”

“What? I like them plenty. Atsumu-san is a very good setter.”

“Yeah, but you spent three years spiking for Kageyama Tobio. Even the likes of Atsumu Miya would be intimidated.”

Hinata doesn’t mention that for those three years, he and Kageyama were skinny kids still learning the game by learning each other. He’s seen Tobio run into glass doors, throw a tantrum because a vending machine was broken, and, after one particularly long night at his house that consisted solely of playing video games and decidedly no studying, trip headfirst down a flight of stairs.

He doesn’t mention that Atsumu Miya is ranked with the top in the nation in his own right, either. 

“He shouldn’t be worried,” Hinata says instead, burying his face in his arms. “Kageyama Tobio isn’t the only setter I can spike for.”

If Kenma has any other thoughts on the subject, he doesn’t volunteer them. Instead, the conversation veers into video game territory, and the matter is abandoned with no further resolution. Maybe it’s for the better. 

Atsumu doesn’t know whether his teammates have his best interests at heart, they’re nosy assholes, or they’re just bored. It might be some combination of the three. Regardless, when two of them corner him in his own apartment, hands in their pockets and looking like bad mafia imitators, he can’t help but let out a snort. How lame; are they all still in high school, or something?

“You’re acting like a dick,” Sakusa informs him. “Even more so than usual.”

“Thank you,” he responds, leaning against the kitchen counter. He knows he’s acting like a dick, because he kind of is a dick, honestly. It doesn’t bother him.

“It’s okay, we know why,” Bokuto adds helpfully.

“Is that so?” Atsumu takes a long swig from his water bottle while maintaining eye contact, just to show how unbothered he is.

“It’s because you’re in love with Shouyou,” he says confidently. Atsumu chokes.

Hinata Shouyou is sixteen, and he loves volleyball more than anything else. He is not the best in his sport, not by a long shot, but he could be, he knows it. 

He’s young yet, soft and malleable in a way that leaves room for growth, and hard in the right places, gritty and unbreakable in a way that hurts his bones.

Hinata is not the best in his field, but he’s damn near close. He can taste it.

Kageyama Tobio is fifteen, and he’s getting dragged around by the nose by some hyperactive, orange-haired little first year who he hates (because he’s annoying and loud and comes out of nowhere, what the hell) and he won’t admit it, but he kind of loves it.

They argue all the time. They were arguing before they even turned in their application forms. Someone will snicker and point and say something like oh, look, they’re fighting like an old married couple, but they’ll be wrong, just a little, because there’s already an old married couple on the team and it’s not them. They’re always together, though, and they’re often fighting, and Hinata burns bright and hot and brilliant as the sun and Kageyama is whipped, so that has to count for something. 

What do you want, dumbass?

I want higher, faster, further. I want whatever you’ll give me.

He’ll give him whatever he wants, as high and as fast as he wants, because Kageyama Tobio aims to please: his aim is pretty goddamn good, and for a while, Hinata Shouyou is going to be pretty goddamn pleased. 

It won’t last.

There is a story about a boy who flees an island called Crete. He wears a pair of wings made by his father's hands, out of feathers, gold, and wax, and when he takes to the air, his pride gets the better of him. He flies too close to the sun, and his beautiful, human wings melt, to his father’s despair. The boy falls. The boy dies in the sea.

It is just a story. Here are the facts: The air actually gets colder the higher you go, the closer you are to the sun. Icarus would’ve been fine, depending on the crosswind. He would’ve made it, for all his ambition and his hubris weighed him down.

Why?

Easy. He had wings. He could fly.

Here’s the thing: everyone else is trying to see Kageyama Tobio in him, all at once, clamoring. They’re craning their necks, even, just to catch a glimpse. Hinata leaves Japan because he needs to find himself, he says, and those around him laugh a little at that, because when has Hinata Shouyou ever not known exactly who he was? When has he not used every opportunity to tell everyone who he was?

Hinata leaves Japan because there are parts of himself, burrowed deep, even deeper than the pieces of Kageyama that have wedged themselves into him like glass. Somewhere, there’s all Shouyou. He just needs to find it. He goes to Brazil because he needs to be faster, further, and higher, and only then will he meet Tobio again. It will take two years.

Somewhere across the world, Kageyama Tobio is aware of this, and he worries, but he also takes pride in the fact. There’s a lot of self-loathing going on there, a sort of darkness that Hinata had somehow managed to ward away in their high school years, but now it creeps back in his worst moments. Kageyama Tobio is once again alone with his thoughts, and that is never good.

He has a part of me, but I’m a part of him now, and he carries it around on his sleeve like -

A burden.

I was going to say a heart.

I know what you were going to say.

Alright, here it is, the interlude: 

Hinata is twenty and lives in Brazil, and all this time he’s been bleeding out for Miyagi. He’s sore somewhere; not in his joints, or his muscles, but somewhere deep inside that beats and sings with the grief of being torn away.

The sun laughs from its immovable place in the sky, laughs and watches his open wound. It festers.

(He fell in love with something, he let himself go, and he’ll come back on his own, blah, blah, blah, you know the rest.)

The sun burns feverishly in the sky, unrelenting, and casts a white shadow over the whole of the beach, lighting up the sand like hot coals under his feet and illuminating the ocean waves like colored glass. It is hot in Brazil, and rightfully so. Every day, Hinata manages to work up a sweat. 

It’s dangerous, living in an unfamiliar city, alone - especially if you’re young and exotic and surrounded on all sides. Rio De Janeiro is always alive, always watching from the windows, always moving, and Hinata feels the urge to move with it, like a fever under his skin. He is half-a-year into his service to beach volleyball. He doesn’t know it, but today, he’s going to meet an old friend.

Oikawa Tooru is not supposed to be here. Brazil is just a pit stop on the way to Argentina - he won’t be here long, but he may as well enjoy his time, anyway, with practice matches and seeing the sights (oh, the sights he’s gonna see. I know. You know, too), both of which should be pretty easy. The beaches here are unapologetically beautiful, so exotic in its color and vibrancy that even the locals are constantly, subconsciously aware of it. They’d have to be, anyway. Tourism is a tangible, visible, thing, and pride must have its seeds.

(The last part is a play on words. You’ll get it later.)

He’s not quite used to this place, yet, and it’s not used to him - he is not Ken Wattanabe, goddammit, are these people racist or blind - when something catches his eye and drags his attention to someone of short stature, vaguely familiar. Tooru can’t believe it.

Karasuno’s number ten, the little shrimp, all grown up. He is pink-white gone tan in deference to the sun, and he’s here in Brazil. “Is this real life?” he wonders aloud, in Japanese (he can’t cut the habit, and he won’t, because why would he?). 

The man who is no longer a boy gapes up at him, astonished.

[ tobiooo ノಠ_ಠノ ]

LOOK WHO I FOUND IN RIO! 

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[10:15 am]

Read 10: 20 am 

“You know, I was just getting ready to head to dinner. Show me where the good places are around here,” Tooru says with a smile. 

It’s then that he really looks at Oikawa, really looks, and doesn’t see the Grand King from high school but graceful lines of lean muscle, a long neck, and high, aristocratic cheekbones. Hinata looks and thinks I want and then, huh.

They go to dinner. It’s fun, and not what Hinata would’ve expected.

(They have dinner first. Later, they’ll go to lunch. Then, they’ll fuck.)

Later:

“Hey, Oikawa-san? Earlier today, for a minute - just for one, short minute - I actually got kinda down and depressed.” It’s a confession, one that he’s barely given to himself, because it sounds too much like defeat. He perks up, suddenly. “But seeing you has put me in a super duper extra awesomely good mood, so thank you!”

Oikawa raises an eyebrow at that. “Oh? Treat me to lunch, then.” The way to a man’s heart is through the stomach, isn’t it? Hinata doesn’t really have time for that, but that’s okay. It can lead to other things, too.

Lunch, first. After -

Well, alright then.

It’s been a long time since he’s spoken to Tanaka. They send a few texts here and there, but these days, they’re both too busy to sit down and talk, but Hinata has not been in Brazil long enough to ignore the aching for Japan. When Tanaka volunteers a Skype call, he jumps at the chance.

The connection goes to shit pretty much immediately, which is to be expected, and for the first five minutes, Tanaka’s face is a blur of color that moves and freezes, on and off. Eventually, after they can make out each other’s faces as more than pixels and the audio will only cut out occasionally, Hinata is confiding his past week when he lets it slip. It’s innocuous at best, but it’s enough.

“You’ll never guess who I met up with!”

“Who?”

“The Grand King! I didn’t even know he was gonna be in Brazil, but he was pretty surprised to see me too!” Hinata laughs. “We played beach volleyball. He’s not very good at it, though, not yet, but I’m sure he’ll improve.”

“Woah…did you guys, like, hang out?”

“Yeah, and then he took me to dinner.”

“He - he took you to dinner?”

“A few times.” Hinata hesitates. “Well, all week, so far, but that’s mostly because we’re super hungry after practice, and it costs less to split the difference.”

“Wait, so this entire time, you’ve been having dinner with him? After you spend the day playing volleyball with him? For a week?”

“That and - other things.”

Maybe Hinata blushes too hard, or Tanaka has become more observant since he last saw him. Whatever it is, it’s not the right thing to say.

“Hinata.”

“What?”

“Tell me you didn’t.”

“I...didn’t?”

“You had sex with Oikawa?” Tanaka hisses, his eyes bulging. “Oikawa Tooru? From senior high? That Oikawa? After a week?”

How many do we know, Hinata thinks, but bites his tongue.

“Once,” Hinata insists instead, defensive on instinct, and almost immediately flinches because it’s a lie. Technically, it was more than once, more like one continuous week. To be fair, he’d lost count. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?”

“No,” Hinata agrees. “Are you turning purple?” He can’t really tell. The screen is glitching again. “Should I call Kiyoko-san?”

“I’m - I -”

“Ryūnosuke?”

“I'm at a loss for words!” 

Despite being at a loss for words, he yells at Hinata for the next twenty-five minutes.

The story, the short version, goes like this: 

Hinata Shouyou, formerly known as Karasuno’s number ten, spends a week playing beach volleyball with Oikawa Tooru, The Grand King (also known as Shittykawa, according to Hajime, bastard-of-a-best friend he is). Oikawa relearns the basics, relearns himself, and remembers that he loves volleyball. Hinata, on the other hand, feels less alone. 

Hinata’s uninteresting roommate, Pedro, reads One Piece. Hinata finds out, and it is a joyful occasion. Pedro presents his own peace offerings: Naruto and My Hero Academia recordings, dubbed in Portuguese. 

Hinata and Oikawa play more volleyball. Hinata sets. They win. They eat together, a lot. It’s fun. Somewhere in between these things, they sleep together. That’s really not the important part.

It doesn’t last, of course. Oikawa belongs in Argentina, and Hinata belongs to the beach (for now, at least). When Oikawa says goodbye, he makes sure to include a threat - of course it’s there, of course, he‘s going to beat everyone, and then he’ll beat him, too, blah, blah, blah. Hinata sees it for what it is, though, and shakes his hand enthusiastically.

“Alright, take care of yourself, Shrimp,” Oikawa says, and means it. He pauses carefully, and adds, “Shouyou,” just to see his eyes light up.

The end. 

Really.

“Why don’t you try asking that guy? He’s reaaally good, but during free times, he’ll pair with anyone.”

“Are you Ninja Shouyou?”

“Me?”

“Please partner with me!”

Okay, back to present day.

“Man, Tobio-kun must’ve been having the time of his life in high school.” The ball falls to the ground, rolls out of bounds.

“Huh?”

“I -” Atsumu stops at the look on his face. “I mean, you two were the Freak Duo, right? Karasuno’s not-so-secret secret weapon?”

“Yes.” There’s no point in denying it, although that loyal part of Hinata vehemently disagrees; Karasuno was a team. They were talented, determined, and they loved each other, and that was almost enough to carry them to a win at nationals. That’s all there was to it.

“You’re Kageyama Tobio’s greatest weapon,” Atsumu says with great confidence, dismissively. Present tense. Hinata gets tense. “Greatest allies, greatest enemies” Atsumu shrugs, and the words are familiar somehow. “Everyone knows that on-court rivalries really work to get the blood pumpin’, eh? You made each other the players you are today. But he’s only one man, right?” He watches Hinata carefully, as if for confirmation. “If you could do that for him, imagine what you can do for us.”

Okay, so maybe Hinata does remember him after all this time. The Miya Twins beat them, once, after that first encounter, and now that he’s up close and personal with the evidentially ruder, snobbier twin, he can’t help but feel something hot prickling in his veins and coloring his face. Is this hatred?

No, that’s not it. He’s felt this before, in different ways, more with some people than others. Whenever he gets this way, all worked up without explanation, it’s always explosive. He takes a deep breath.

“I learned a lot,” Hinata says. “You’re teaching me a lot, too.”

“Is that what you really think of me?”

“Sure.”

“Have I taught you as much as he did?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Let me know when you do.”

“Are you doing this on purpose?” Hinata demands. Their faces are lot closer than they were a few seconds ago.

“Am I upsetting you?”

“You -”

Atsumu looks very pleased. “Go on,” he sneers, “don’t hold back on my account.” Don’t hold back, Shouyou, not for me, he thinks.

“You amaze me,” Hinata allows, and the narcissist in Atsumu can’t help but preen under the praise, until he continues, “with your continuous ability to be an asshole.” 

Shouyou says it with a graceless sort of wonder, unthinkingly honest in the way that a child will loudly proclaim an unpleasant-looking man on the street to be exceedingly ugly, or inform an older sister of the acne lighting up her forehead. 

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Now isn’t a good time to tell you that I like you a lot, is it?”

“Not really, no.”

“Hm. Go back on the line again. I wanna try something.”

Hinata has this dream where he wakes up in a bed that does not belong to him, and something is Not Right. 

In the dream, he leaps out of bed, tearing back the covers with a ferocity that doesn’t quite fit him, and turns to shake his companion awake.

“Wake up,” he snarls, livid as an animal, stomping away from the bed. He throws the blinds apart, furious, and yanks the nearest window up with strength he didn’t possess mere moments ago - he is fuming, raging, roaring in his mind all the while. 

“Go on, Shouyou-kun,” coaxes a voice from the bed. “Kill him. He’s alive, but he could be dead, and as long as you really love him, it won’t matter, right?”

Hinata struggles with the window briefly, before it goes skidding and slams into the frame above, rattling in its slot - Atsumu shouts in protest while he ignores him - and bright light, real light, shoots onto their faces and nearly blinds the both of them.

The dream ends just as his vision is beginning to white out.

Before Bokuto and Sakusa ambushed him in his own kitchen, it was the strange absence of irritation that alerted him to it in the first place; maybe it’s because he’s been bred to kill on the court, not to nurture, and nondestructive tendencies don’t come naturally to him anymore. Still, when he realizes that he’s spent an entire practice session with Hinata basically screaming in his ear, whooping like a Bokuto-in-the-making, and Atsumu hadn’t once felt the urge to tell him to shut the fuck up, Shouyou, he thinks -

Ah. This might be bad.

Hinata is a ray of sunshine, of rage, and of unintentional aggression. When he forgets that he hates Atsumu’s guts (it’s unfortunate, but a frequent side effect of getting to know Atsumu beyond acquaintance), he watches him play with the shiny-eyed awe of a little kid seeing fireworks for the first time. Atsumu thinks that’s pretty cool, that someone can watch him play and be so swept up that they forget that they think he’s an asshole, on and off of the court.

Sometimes, Hinata walks as if there are springs on the balls of his feet, like he has an endless supply of energy. Hinata is ecstatic to be here, he can tell, and it shows. He grins like a maniac all the time, switches between joyful and crazy-intense, and when someone makes a good call, he’ll bound over to grab them and shake them, chattering in excitement.

Atsumu can imagine it now, his energy pulling Karasuno along. Atsumu can recall their high school years in technicolor detail; he remembers Kageyama Tobio, the goody-two-shoes with a stick up his ass and no sense of humor, who had the world’s most entertaining hitter to play around with. He’d meant it, what he’d said to the pair when he first played opposite to them - he really did believe he’d see Tobio-kun again, believed that he was gonna make it pro and they would run in the same inevitable circles, and he really did believe that he’d toss to the redhead someday. 

Why? Because he wanted to.

[ osamu the shithead ]

So, I heard that you’re into the shrimp 

I’d say I was surprised but it’s not exactly a new development, is it?

[10:15 am] 

Fuck off

[11:12 am]

Is he going to be meeting mom and dad soon

[11:20 am]

Read 11:40 am

Everyone has ghosts, empty things. For Atsumu, it’s his brother, the one who promised when they were very young to never leave his side, to always be his partner. Look how that ended up. 

Shouyou and Tobio-kun, he muses, probably have each other. Atsumu wonders, briefly, how this has shaped them as people and as players (there’s no real difference, is there?) but he doesn’t think too hard about it, because Miya Atsumu can do a lot of things - play volleyball, piss people off, make a good bowl of ramen, text with his eyes closed - and the most important of those things is being able to keep up with the narrative.

Who’s tossing to him now, Tobio?

Does it matter?

Well, duh. Obviously.

What does that even mean?

It means that I made a promise, and sure, I’m an asshole, but I keep my promises, okay?

They perfect the quick strike, the one that was born years ago and then abandoned (he left it behind, along with two other things, but he could never forget it. It’s not in his nature). This one is different, uncertain, but it takes Hinata higher, faster, and further than he’s ever gone. 

It feels like a relief, like this entire trial has been one giant inhale of air, and when the ball hits the court he’s exhaling, letting it out in one big whoosh.

From the sidelines, Orivier sends them a thumbs up, and their coach begins to make plans in his head.

“DID YOU SEE THAT?”

“We all did.”

“Did you see how FAST it was? You were all like wishaw then I went bam and the ball went whoosh! Can you believe it?”

“I saw it with my own two eyes.”

“Atsumu, you’re - that was -” he beams, a radiant thing - “amazing. Thank you.” He reaches out for him, to grasp his shoulder, to shake his hand, to hug him, anything.

Atsumu doesn’t show it, but he's ecstatic - he’s done the impossible, he thinks. He harnessed the sun, and now he’s touched the famous, minus-tempo quick strike and shaped it into a new image, his and Hinata’s own. He’s on top of the world. “Can I toss for you forever?” he asks, breathless. Aw, damn. He can’t hide how pleased he actually is, not from Shouyou. He meets his eyes, daring him to say something. 

I can’t help it, Shouyou. That’s just how I feel.

Hinata himself doesn’t quite know how to feel, only that this reminds him of something old and something good that he’s forgotten, or maybe something that he never got in the first place.

When he checks his palm, it is bright red.

It’s just them in the locker room, and Hinata was feeling perfectly fine until Atsumu made the executive decision to open his mouth and run with it.

“Is this why people hate you, Atsumu-san?” 

“Of course not,” Atsumu clasps his hands together, looking wounded. “Good friends are just hard to come by, ya’ know?”

“Oh, really?” asks Hinata, who makes friends wherever he goes. “So you can say and do whatever you want to them, and they’ll resent you forever, and that’s okay with you?”

“It doesn’t bother me. If it’s meant to be, they’ll come back for you.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Are you talking about that time last month when you got your finger stuck in a picnic bench, but you were too embarrassed to call the fire department to come and saw the bench apart, so you texted Bokuto to come and help you instead, but you forgot to tell him to bring any actual lubricant, so when he got there he just spat on your finger and pulled as hard as he could?”

“He told you about that?”

“Yeah. Is that what you’re referring to?”

“Yes, yes I am.”

“Okay.” Hinata turns, headed for his own locker.

“Where are you going?” Atsumu calls after him.

“To go put on clothes!”

He finds himself mumbling, “No, don’t,” before clapping his hand over his mouth.

“What?”

Cautiously, Atsumu lowers his hand.

“I said, do you wanna go to my place after this?” He hesitates, and takes stock of his surroundings. Most people don’t like being propositioned in locker rooms, he surmises, based on Hinata’s careful expression. Alright, so maybe he could have waited.

Hinata takes pity on him, though. “Buy me dinner first.”

“Okay.”

They go to dinner and Hinata correctly guesses that Atsumu has never been here before based on the time he takes examining the menu. That’s okay, he says, it’s an adventure for both of us, and promptly orders a bowl of chocolate ice cream off of the desert menu for his main course. 

They’re halfway through a bottle of Chardonnay, much to their waiter’s horror, laughing about the worst receives they’d ever made (“Once, I made two recieves in a row with my face -” “Yeah? I kicked a guy out of bounds just so that I could get to the ball first -”) when Atsumu opens his big, dumb mouth and says,

“You know, I watched recordings of all of your games, back to back, on repeat for a month straight, after you beat us that first time. It’s kind of embarrassing - I couldn’t believe it, when I watched the reruns. It was like a dream.”

“Karasuno’s old games?” Hinata asks, sounding strangled. “Kageyama was a genius. I get it.”

“No, you,” Atsumu clarifies, like an idiot. “I watched your spike over and over, and I just...I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. I made my teammates practice it with me, and everything. Osamu wouldn’t get off my ass about it, and he was the only one who could spike fast enough. The team was good, I’ll give them that, but you were the one to watch. In fact, I think I was in love with you for two weeks, give or take, hahaha...ehehehe…” he trails off as he realizes what he’s said. “Um.”

“Is the first offer off the table?”

“What?”

“Your place,” Hinata specifies. “You asked if I wanted to come over.”

At sixteen, Kageyama Tobio is not a particularly sexual being. It’s not that he has an aversion to it, or anything - he likes sex just fine, alright? It’s just that he’s always been too busy thinking about volleyball to have room for much else. Volleyball for breakfast, volleyball for lunch, volleyball for practice, volleyball for dinner, and on spins the wheel. Sex, in his mind, for the longest time, is this abstract, distant thing that he won’t have to worry about for a long time.

No one should have to worry about sex, whether they have a lot or a little or none at all. It is perfectly fine to wake up in your own bed, or someone else’s, or even a borrowed mattress. 

Eventually, of course, Kageyama Tobio does worry about sex. He’s a teenage boy, and maybe he’s a late bloomer, or maybe he’s just been too busy, but his first sex dream kind of traumatizes him. It is visceral and uncanny, full of strange sensations and disjointed visuals that make him feel hot everywhere and cold nowhere, and the relief he gets doesn’t feel like gratification at all. In the dream, his hands grip onto a head of thick, orange hair, and when he finds release, he’s staring into a flushed face that he thinks he knows.

When he wakes, he wonders what it means.

He eats breakfast, goes to school, and goes to practice. Then he has a realization, one that is a long time coming. After that, he starts to worry.

They fall into bed together. It’s a natural thing.

Are you in love with me yet? he asks with his hands, with the sinuous roll of his hips. He meets Hinata in a hot, open-mouthed kiss, and he surges up into it, breathing life into him.

Hinata drums against Atsumu’s bare thigh, fingertips tapping against skin, a universal signal: Go. I’m ready.

Are you in love with me?

I could be, if I tried.

Would you? For me?

No answer.

After:

“Atsumu?”

“Yes, Shouyou-kun?” It comes out like a croon, and Hinata can’t help but reach out to swat one broad shoulder with the back of his hand. It’s barely a tap, but Atsumu jerks back and feigns hurt, as if Hinata had jabbed hard into muscle. “You wanted to say something?” He props himself up on one arm and graces Hinata with a slow, lazy smile.

Hinata isn’t ungrateful, and he knows when to be appreciative. He takes it in. 

Atsumu’s muscle mass is evident, especially now; Hinata’s seen it rippling, straining during practice, and now he’s seen it in action between the sheets. Those sheets are now strategically at his waist, positioned at his hips like a renaissance painting, drawing attention to the dark happy trail that leads to the space between his narrow hips. His pectorals are covered in a thin sheen of sweat - it’s not an unfamiliar sight, not out of place in a team locker room after a good workout, but Hinata has never been good at lying to himself, not really, and Atsumu’s hair is disheveled from when foreign, familiar fingers had gripped it in a fit of passion. His mouth tells the rest of the story. You don’t get that fucked-out playing sports, not even volleyball. 

You’re kind of an asshole, Hinata thinks, but in here, you’re a vision. 

Atsumu seems to follow Hinata’s train of thought, eyes trained intently on his face, smugly watching him drink the sight in.

(Hinata wonders what he sees.)

“Oh, c’mon, no need to thank me now. You weren’t too bad yourself.” The corner of his mouth is curled into a smirk, only just perceivable, and Hinata can’t help the heat that flares up again, tugging at the base of him. Atsumu basks in the afterglow like few can. To be fair, it was very good sex.

“I wouldn’t think so,” he informs him lightly, “given how many times you -” 

“Ah, well, what would you expect? You surprised me, Shouyou. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Hinata can’t help but smile at this, more knowing than he should be. He spent two years in Brazil, learning how to make love to strangers. He shared a thousand kisses. He bedded a king.

“There you go again, underestimating me.”

“I could never underestimate you.”

Ah, well. He supposes not.

“You said something, the other day. About -” Hinata can’t bring himself to say it - “about high school. What did you mean by it?” 

He doesn’t dare say his name now, not here. Hinata has enough tact for that, at least. Atsumu levels his gaze at him, serious now. Hinata holds his breath.

“On the court, Shouyou, you’re like - you’re like a miracle. I don’t know where you came from,” Atsumu starts, and Hinata has so many answers for him (I came from the concrete, from the sky, from the mountains, from the beaches of Brazil, from something that Tobio Kageyama awoke back in Miyagi; I’m an amalgamation, I’m a sum of - of - ) but can’t bring himself to offer any of them, “but I didn’t - I don’t want you to go back. I don’t think you do, either. If you can, ah, if you know what I mean.” 

You can’t afford to, is what Atsumu means. You’re too bright, too hot, and you’re burning through us like a comet. It’s too late for us now, it’s together or not at all. 

Something in Hinata shivers and awakens, tells him to pay attention to this. This is important.

“At the top of our game, we’re going to be unbeatable,” Atsumu vows, something dark and beautiful sweeping over his brow, and in this moment he looks magnificent, like he is cut out of marble.

“You’re -” Hinata cuts himself off, his mouth open and catching on something that Atsumu cannot fathom. The word has been building for a while, settling in the palms of his hands and grating against his ribcage, groping around blindly for his heart, and Hinata’s never been good at ignoring things, but he is phenomenal at wrestling with himself; and so it seems that denial and awareness have come to a trembling standstill.

“I’m what?”

“You’re incredible,” Hinata finishes lamely, flushing, but Atsumu seems satisfied with his answer nonetheless, grinning ear-to-ear in such a way that would look ridiculous on someone else, but only serves to accentuate the fact that he’s still irritatingly, undeniably handsome, even after all of this.

“Yeah? You think so?”

“Yeah,” he agrees numbly, and lets Atsumu press him into the sheets again, mouthing hungrily at his throat.

He’s pressed flat against the bed, pressed slick against an Atsumu who is hell-hot and determined to imprint himself onto Hinata’s body, maybe even his soul. The room swells with their breath, raggedly torn between their mouths, in and out and in and out, and groans ripped involuntarily from his throat and into the open air. He opens his legs wider, giving him easier access, and clings to a body in the dark, burning under his skin.

The entire time, he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t dare.

Invincible, he was going to say. With me, you’re invincible. 

“So, you and Oikawa, huh?” Atsumu peers knowingly over Hinata’s shoulder, catching a glimpse of text conversation. Hinata hastily scrolls up. 

“Shut up. Who told you that? No one knows that. Now come on, we need to practice.”

“Hey, whoah, slow down, what do you think I know about?” He grins like a shark, and Hinata gives him a long, hard look before he relents, hands up in surrender. “Okay, it was just a guess. That selfie got a lot of reblogs, you know.”

“Yeah, two years ago.”

“I don’t blame you,” he shrugs, “I guess we’ve all got to live in the moment, don’t we?”

“I thought you lived for practice,” Hinata says coolly, “what’s stopping you now?”

“What’s got you so pent-up, Shouyou-kun? I’ve got a handle on things. Do you?”

“Get a handle on the ball, and let’s get moving.”

“I could’ve used your hands on my balls this morning -”

Hinata reaches up to smack the back of his head, whap.

“Hey!”

A conversation on the street:

“Brazil? What’s in Brazil?”

“Sand, I guess. Beach volleyball.”

“Beach volleyball? Are you stupid? That’s a completely different sport!”

Hinata wrinkles his nose, indignant, like a little cat. “It’s not so different,” he argues. “A lot of players switch to beach volleyball, just for a while, and when they come back, they’re different. I need that. I need to be better.” I need something different, is what he doesn’t say. “When I come back, I’ll meet you again. That’s what we said, right? You and me, the top of the world.” 

“You’re telling me this now?”

“Better now than never.”

“But why?” is what he settles on, desperately. Why can’t you stay here, right where I want you, is what he means.

“I wanna go somewhere, Kageyama. I - I can’t just stay here, forever. I won’t. And neither will you, so - so of course I’m gonna go somewhere.”

“What, it isn’t big enough for you here?”

“No.”

What Hinata means is that he needs this more than Kageyama needs him, and it doesn’t have to be goodbye, not a real one, because they’ll always have Miyagi, and it’s not like he’ll be dead, so they’ll still talk and everything, but Kageyama doesn’t see it that way. Hinata is Karasuno, Hinata is walking home together and not eating lunch alone and watching the morning sky bleed into the mountains and going to Nationals and Hinata is volleyball and larger than life. 

When Shouyou tells him that he’s leaving, he realizes that this place was never going to contain him forever.

Bokuto, for once in his life, is minding his own business. At least, he’s trying to, but his curiosity gets the better of him, and against his better (questionable) judgment, he strides into the locker room, banging the door open, without taking any sort of precaution. Well, he asked for it.

“Hey, hey, hey, what’s all this racket - oh - WHAT THE FUCK. Not my eyes, holy shit -”

“Get out!” The glare Atsumu settles at their outside hitter half-convinces Hinata that if he tried, he could kill him with his eyes alone. 

More teammates shuffle in, lured by Bokuto’s strangled screaming, only to stop at the doorway and peer in, as if the entrance is plastered in yellow tape. CRIME SCENE - DO NOT CROSS. Hinata concedes that Atsumu cannot, indeed, murder anyone at this point, which is a real shame. Right now, Hinata kind of wants to kill himself.

“ME? I’m just trying to change! You get out!”

“Well, we’re busy -”

“We can all see that.”

“It’s occupied right now.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“Hinata!” Bokuto calls out, hand clapped over his eyes, “Are you okay? Is the brute hurting you?”

“I’m...fine.”

“He was more than fine a few minutes ago,” Atsumu huffs. Hinata clenches up, and he hisses. Serves him right.

“GET OUT!”

“You can’t just tell us to get out, this is our locker room, too.”

“Fine! Then get - get out of him!”

“Ew, gross.”

“I’m not the one having sex in the locker room!”

“Yeah, you wish.”

“No, I don’t. I wish you would put some clothes on and express your - your exhibitionist tendencies somewhere else. I - I change here! Now I’m never going to be able to take my clothes off in here ever again without remembering you two doing it like horny rabbits against the lockers.”

“Is that my locker?” Sakusa whispers from behind him, quietly devastated. 

“You’re welcome.”

“I am so sorry, Omi-chan.”

“Gross, don’t say his name while I’m in you. Especially with honorifics.”

“After this, Atsumu, you’re dead.”

“You need a starting setter. You can’t replace me.”

“I hope Hinata takes you home and eats your head, like a praying mantis.”

“Why am I the girl in this scenario?”

“I mean, you are the one getting -”

“Hey, don’t point at -”

“At this point, if you don’t want to see anything else you don’t want to see, you should just stop asking me to pull out, because -”

“You can still keep it up? We’re right here, bro. We’re all staring at you.”

“I know.”

“...”

“Ew.”

“Hey, guys, Coach wants to know what the holdup is, because he - oh my god, what the hell.”

“Is he still asking?”

“Just get out of him!” Bokuto wails.

“Are you asking nicely?”

“I DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS!”

“GET OUT!” Hinata shrieks, to which the group gladly adheres, with the exception of Bokoto, who remains in a state of shock, red in the face. When he opens his mouth again, Hinata blindly gropes into the open locker nearest to him, seizes his water bottle, and chucks it as hard as he can into the doorway.

It clatters loudly against the doorframe, hollow metal against metal, and when Bokoto screeches, “I’M GOING, I’M GOING!” and proceeds to get gone, Hinata can finally sag forward against the bench, forearms aching, in relief.

Atsumu has the good grace to wait for one good, long moment, tapping his fingers against the bench seat, before asking,

“So, shall we pick up where we left off?”

Smack.

“Ow!”

“What did you mean, when we first met?” Hinata sends the ball his way, and Atsumu lunges to the side to receive it.

“Hm?” he grunts, and the ball spirals over the net. Instinctively, Hinata takes a few steps backward, bracing himself.

“You asked me if I remembered you.” Hinata frowns, remembering his own vibrant high school career. “We played against you, I know that, but...I don’t know. You seemed kinda upset after I told you I didn’t.” The ball hits his forearms with a resounding smack and soars back to Atsumu, who reaches out to catch it with one hand, balancing it in a curved palm before wedging it snugly between his arm and his hip.

“It ain’t your fault,” Miya shrugs. “I was young, angry. I just lost a match.”

“And?”

“And you inspired me. Your quick was impossible - I’d never seen anything like it. Neither has anyone else.”

“Didn’t you replicate it immediately after, with no practice?” Hinata grins, credit where credit is due.

“Nah, not really. I’d been training with Osamu for my entire life. We were partners.”

“Just like me and Kageyama.”

“Not exactly,” he shoots him a side eye. “But something like that. You knew each other for what, a year? More or less? That was...remarkable, Shouyou. On the other side of the net, you’re scary. A spike like that means trust. It means knowing. It’s not the same for any two players. You know that. After the match, after we lost, I said, ‘Shouyou-kun, one day, I'm gonna set for you’,” he grins, cat-like, “and I was right, wasn’t I?” He laughs, and Hinata goes quiet for a while, thinking.

“Miya?”

“Yes, dear?”

”I’m glad you were right.”

“Mm. Shouyou?”

”Yes?”

“What would you do, if you couldn’t play volleyball?”

“I don’t know.”

“Neither do I,” Atsumu confides, like it’s a secret, and this time, when he laughs, Hinata joins in, amazed.

Hinata is seventeen years old, and his own house is too far away. He’s shivering on Kageyama’s doorstep, tugging on his sleeve, when the thought strikes him.

“Why are they never home?” Hinata asks out of curiosity, blinking rainwater out of his eyes. The top of his head is soaked, and his hair is plastered down by the rain; it’s dribbling down his forehead and over the bridge of his nose, but he doesn’t even think to brush his hair back. “You’ve met my mom, and my sister. I feel like I've never met your parents. I know they exist, though.”

He and Kageyama were racing, as usual, when the sky turned an angry gray and began to weep in earnest, and it was only when the clouds began to shift and turn dark that Kageyama reached out to snag his wrist, dragging him down a back road and towards the closer of their houses.

When they’d arrived, the door was locked tight, and the windows were dark, gaping things. The lights are always off when Hinata visits; he’ll follow Kageyama through the living room and up the stairs as he flips on the light switch ahead of him, waking up the rooms as they go along. There’s something distantly sad about it, Hinata thinks. The house is big, bigger than his, and always clean, but sometimes it feels so empty inside. Barren. Hollow.

Kageyama turns away from him to fit the key into the lock. “I told you,” he says evenly, “my mom is overseas right now.” His hair is wet, too, slicked down and shiny against his face.

“But what about your dad?”

“He’s at work. He’s always at work,” Kageyama repeats dully. It’s not even resigned, it’s a simple statement, a fact: All fathers are absent, say Kageyama’s empty eyes. 

Hinata doesn’t know why, but he reaches out to take his hand. It’s cold, and from this distance he can faintly hear Kageyama’s teeth chattering, sliding against each other, click, clack. His skin is cold, as cold as Hinata’s. Kageyama hesitates, but doesn’t pull his hand away. His other hand is still twisted around the key. The front door is halfway open already, a mouth to the darkness of the house, but he makes no move to go in. All around them, the rain pours.

I’m sorry.

It’s okay.

Mine is dead, is what Hinata doesn’t say, but he was never absent.

Hinata squeezes his hand, and brushes past him, over the threshold. Kageyama follows, and locks the door behind them.

Okay, so here’s where we’re at so far. Pay attention:

Atsumu is in love with Shouyou. Someone else is also in love with Shouyou. The world will keep spinning for an eternity or so, until it doesn’t, at which point, it won’t matter. Shouyou is in love with - well, at this point, it doesn’t really matter, either. 

Shouyou doesn’t read romance novels, or any of that crap. He likes action anime - Naruto, Dragon Ball Z, that sort of thing. That’s not to say that there is no romance in either of those: Naruto is, functionally, a love story between two boys who, by all logic, should hate each other but just can’t commit to that, so really, in the end, they commit to each other. It’s very obvious. Still, to some viewers, it’s all in the subtext. Hinata can read in Portuguese, Spanish, English, and Japanese now, but somehow subtext will always escape him. 

Atsumu, on the other hand, has a solid grasp on both subtext and irony, despite not reading many romance novels himself. Hinata’s not the swooning damsel who is perpetually caught unaware of her suitor’s advances (first of all, Hinata’s an athlete. He doesn’t swoon. Secondly, he’s aware of most of them, he just doesn’t know what to do), but between the two of them, Atsumu has taken it upon himself to assess the situation with his - shall we say - rather wonderful analytical skills. 

Hm, he thinks. Alright. So that’s how it is. That is - disappointing, but he can work with that.

If he can’t have all of Hinata, he’ll love him in halves. He gets one half, and the other half will go to - well, that’s up to Hinata to decide.

Atsumu Miya saunters over, props an elbow over Shouyou’s shoulder, and lowers his eyelids, casting a look that seems perpetually unimpressed but Kageyama can decipher as something else. "Tobio-kun. Would ya’ mind not picking a fight with my wing spiker, hmmm?"

Kageyama kind of wants to hit something. The ball, into the opposite court, first and foremost - if not, then the ball directly into Atsumu Miya’s smug face would be a decent consolation prize.

“I didn’t pick one with him. He picked one with me.” Kageyama makes sure to emphasize that second part, and takes satisfaction in seeing his handsome face twitch in annoyance. 

Adlers, one. Jackals, zero.

Here’s the thing about the game: it’s the adrenaline rush, the savage joy and the boiling blood that sets his heart pounding with a giddy, animalistic glee that strips back his layers and exposes him to the court, to the bone. Hinata has been told that he is a ball of boundless energy, of pure athleticism and will, and all he needs to do is concentrate.

Across the net stand giants, a lot of them. Nicolas Romero, to name one. Tobio Kageyama, Kōrai Hoshiumk, Tatsuto Sokolov. There, that’s three. 

Hinata’s not snarling, but he is something inhuman, more or less, instinct and practice learned in his joints. When the whistle blows, he’ll be up on his feet, faster than the eyes can see, up in the air. This is the fight and the flight, two birds killed by one stone. This is going to be fun.

The gymnasium lights glare white hot, searing their reflections into the wax polish of the floor, glowing like the sun. 

You were a crow, once.

Now what? What are you, Shouyou?

The spectators roar their resounding response, throbbing in his chest. 

MSBY, they scream. JACKALS. JACKALS.

Hinata has confronted giants before.

Once, when he was sixteen, he stood toe to toe with a giant that towered over him by twenty-seven centimeters.

I’m Hinata Shouyou, from the concrete, Hinata had said to the giant, and meant it. Hinata says what he believes, because it burns its way through him like fire, through the day, through the night, and through the morning. Sometimes it comes out like a war cry, like liberty or death, but sometimes it comes out like truth, as if knowing is being through transitive property.

He thinks of sidewalk cracks and green-stemmed weeds stubbornly peeking up and out of the ground, wedged between two hard places, wholly unwelcome but still fighting hard to reach the sun. He thinks of the earth shrinking below him in one whoosh of movement, of the fabric of Kageyama’s jersey clenched in his fist, of the smack of a volleyball against the ground before it rebounds, up, up and anywhere.

I’m going to beat you, and go to nationals, he’d said. To Ushijima, it is a throwaway comment that boasts three things: naïveté, arrogance, and hope.

How foolish.

For Hinata, and maybe even Tobio, it rings clear and clandestine in its truth.

It’s the truth, after all. The concrete is where barren things learn to grow.

He catches a glimpse of Kageyama’s face beyond the net, and for a second, something familiar in his chest stutters, because he’s here, in the flesh. He doesn’t know who reaches out first - maybe it’s both of them - but their hands find each other from across the line, and they grasp together like a challenge. A promise. 

Tobio’s face is close. Really close. The spectators are screaming. He wonders why.

If Hinata was a romantic, a real one, he’d call it ivory, but in truth, Tobio’s face is a white shock, slack in disbelief and something untouchable.

For one, brief, impossible moment, it looks like grief. He looks sick with it.

When Kageyama Tobio was a teenager, all those years ago, the King of the Court, he’d turned to Hinata and asked him, what does it take to conquer the world?

It’s 2018, and Hinata answers: what does it take to fly?

On his right, Atsumu prepares himself. First things first, he thinks, we gotta make sure we say a proper hello.

He gives a piece of himself to the ball, and sends it into the air. 

Hinata surges up to meet him halfway.

Stupid sand, Kageyama thinks reproachfully when Hinata defies gravity and the quick slams itself onto the floor with the velocity of an incoming bullet.

Hinata flashes him a smile from the other side, beatific. All around them, the stands are screaming themselves hoarse, because this is what they came to see. Next to him, Miya Atsumu looks like he could piss himself, he’s so smug.

God, Kageyama thinks, I hate sand.

“Hey, I thought that guy looked familiar. Is it me...?” The World’s Ace, Nicolas Romero, is in awe. “Or is that Ninja Shouyou?” Romero whispers, pointing a finger over his own shoulder.

Kageyama freezes, and next to him, Ushijima blinks, a gesture that, for him, is plenty expressive. Romero misunderstands their blank stares. 

“What? You haven’t heard of Ninja Shouyou? How do you not know him when you’re Japanese?” he exclaims, and  Kageyama fights the urge to roll his eyes. “My son is saying he wants to play beach volleyball now, all because he watched him on TV!” Romero confides then, and something in Kageyama bristles with pride and envy and an old possessiveness he thought he’d killed after high school. Ushijima’s eyes flit over to him, just for a second, and Kageyama ignores him, but clings to a few select words: Japanese, ninja, beach, and Shouyou.  

“By ninja, do you mean that last dig of his?”

“Tobio, you noticed it too?” Romero asks, excited, and internally, Kageyama glowers, because that’s Hinata Shouyou, the Decoy of Karasuno. 

He texts him at least three times a week, and FaceTimes once a month. 

When he was sixteen, he fell in love with him and never stopped - not that he’ll ever tell him. He had his first sleepover at his house, on a borrowed mattress on the floor of his bedroom. 

He’s his third emergency contact - not that he’ll ever tell him - which, in actuality, is impractical because they’re not family, and they don’t even live together (for the past two years, they haven’t even been in the same country, much less the same page), but if something happened to him, selfishly, he’d want Hinata to know, wherever he was.

Hinata is his first partner, his best friend, and his greatest rival. He hasn’t seen him in years, and now he’s just across a net, better than he ever was.

Of course he’s noticed.

He’s not the only one, though, and Kageyama is not so selfish as to ignore the fact that Hinata is here with him, finally, on the world stage, where he belongs. Of course, eyes that aren’t his own will be glued on his back: the Jackal’s number twenty-one is a miracle to be reckoned with, to be feared and admired in equal parts.

The fact, then, that Nicolas Romero recognizes him for what he is (what the world will see him as) has Kageyama gritting his teeth - in a grimace or a smile, he can’t decide. 

Even across the world, it seems, Hinata’s a force of nature. 

Not that he needs to tell him.

Okay. It’s time for another brief intermission:

Summer is almost here. Summer means separation, means cicadas singing in the trees, means ice cream smearing sweet and sticky down wrists, means peeling sunburn, means trips to the lake, means graduation. Summer means a lot of painful things, but the key word here is almost. It’s not here yet, which is the important thing. Practice is over - for the day - and Daichi is ready to pack up and head home when he feels a gentle tap on the back of his neck. He turns and gets an eyeful of ash blond hair and an innocent expression that immediately sets him on edge.

“Hinata has a question,” Suga informs him innocently, one hand firmly planted on Hinata’s shoulder. There’s something just a little off about the image - Daichi can’t put his finger on it. Hinata looks a little too worried. Suga looks a little too thrilled.

“A question?” He can’t help but be weary, especially when Suga practically shoves Hinata towards him. 

“Ah, I thought it might be best for you to explain it to him, Daichi.” His fellow upperclassman shoots him a smile that is perfectly angelic, spun out of sugar. Nothing out of the ordinary here. “I’ll see you at the gate,” he adds, and briskly turns away, heading for the doors of the gym at a pace that borderlines on a jog. Daichi watches him go with a frown. Suspicious, he thinks, but his attention is suddenly pulled back to Hinata, who is twisting the hem of his shirt, looking discreetly uncomfortable.

“Alright,” he cautions. “What seems to be the problem?”

“Nothing, I just - I just had a question.”

“About...volleyball?”

“No,” Hinata admits, a first for him, “about what happened this week, with that other boy who wouldn’t give my ball back when it rolled into the street. I was walking home, and I dropped it, and he picked it up and started waving it around, so then I started yelling, and I kept asking him to give it back, and he then said, ‘blow me, shorty’, and threw the ball into a ditch.”

“Oh, man. Let me guess, that’s why Kageyama came in with a black eye, right?” Daichi almost chuckles - he imagines Kageyama’s face morphing from disgruntled to pissed to furious in the blink of an eye, and the horror of the other boy’s face upon realizing that he had messed with the wrong kid. 

“He said, ‘blow me, shorty’...”

Yeah, that would do it. He’ll have to have a talk with him later about the downsides of fighting even off of school grounds, about the integrity of the club and setting a good example for others, but for now, Daichi thinks he understands.

“Yeah…”

“So, what’s the confusion?”

“Well, the entire conversation confused me, to be honest. Kageyama wouldn't explain it to me, I tried asking Tsukishima about it, but now I’m even more confused.” Daichi wracks his brain. “Daichi?”

“Yes, Hinata?” 

“What’s fellatio?” Hinata asks with a perfectly straight face, and Daichi can suddenly identify Suga’s carefully composed expression from earlier.

“Oh, dear god.” Suga, you bastard. From around the corner, he can almost swear he hears a giggle. God can’t hear you.

“Asahi, get over here.”

“Captain?” The third-year edges closer. He has that look in his eye, that look that animals get when they know they are going to die. Daichi sighs, and pinches the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. He’s seen his own father do the same. Oh, god, he’s becoming an old man already. He knows that he’s a coward, at least.

“I’ve got to meet Suga at the gate. Could you, uh, help explain something to Hinata, here?” Daichi demands. It’s not a question. “It’ll be real quick, and then...then you can go.” Asahi gulps, Hinata shifts from one foot to another, and Daichi flees the scene.

The withering look Suga gives him - captain, my ass - when he arrives is almost enough to cow him into regretting the decision. Almost. 

What have we learned?

Okay, three things, at least - the first thing being that Kageyama is protective, when he wants to be. Kageyama, who regularly deals in emotional repression and would rather not deal with people in general, gets himself into a fight when he is fifteen because someone who was not him threatened Hinata, and that shit does not sit right with him. Sure, he gets a black eye for his troubles, but have you seen the other guy? I have. His nose was broken, last time I checked.

Secondly, Suga can be evil when he wants to be, a fact that Daichi can appreciate. Sometimes.

Thirdly, Daichi is the team Dad, but he’d rather bite off his own thumbs than initiate a sex talk with any of the underclassmen. That’s what Asahi is for, anyway, to do the dirty work that Mom makes Dad do.

That’s all very nice. But what do we know?  Three more things, at least.

Hinata’s sexual naïveté will not last. Kageyama is possessive, and hurt, like a caged animal that’s been kicked one too many times. Suga, once intoxicated, will not shut up. 

As per usual, Daichi will suffer because of it.

“And to think, he’s grown up so much,” Suga is saying weepily into Daichi’s shoulder, “I’m so proud.” Karasuno’s former captain only nods in agreement, smiling at Suga’s open display of affection. It’s befitting, perhaps, of the nature of the reunion - the crows of Karasuno, gathered together in Japan for the first time in years. It’s worth flying out for.

Although he rarely drinks, Suga is hardly a lightweight, and it is an anomaly that tonight, of all nights, he’s had one drink more than he’s accustomed to. His limbs are loose, and, unfortunately, so is his tongue. He continues, more brazenly than Daichi would have expected - “First he’s off having Brazilian flings with Oikawa, then he’s the secret weapon of a V-League Division 1 team. What is he going to do next, I wonder….” The last bit he murmurs into Daichi’s side, muffled enough that it could have been mercifully ignored, but his voice manages to carry even through the gentle din, and on his other side, Kageyama’s head snaps up with enough force to crack his neck. 

“Wait, what?” Kageyama croaks. His eyes are wide, and he swivels to face Suga. “What did you say?” he repeats, so quiet, it could be a whisper.

A heavy, deadly quiet falls over the table. A combination of teams, friends and acquaintances, exchange glances. Suga squirms. “I - ah, I didn’t -” he stumbles over his words, knotting his fingers together in a gesture that looks faintly like a prayer. “Nothing. Just that I’m proud of how far Hinata’s come.” Next to him, Daichi winces at the wording.

“He said that Oikawa and Hinata slept together, in Brazil.” Tsukishima clarifies from the adjacent table, sounding bored, but the glint in his eye betrays his amusement. Yamaguchi nudges him, making broad cutting motions across his own neck with his hand. Abort. Abort.

“What the fuck,” Kageyama says, and Suga shakes his head slowly, looking guilty.

“I heard it from Tanaka,” he tells him, somewhat apologetically, and the mentioned man shoots him a look of betrayal. Kageyama turns to Tanaka, leveling a glare on him instead.

“What the fuck,” Kageyama says. Tanaka freezes.

“Ask Hinata,” he blurts. “I have nothing to do with this.” 

Kageyama excuses himself. Then, he calls Hinata. Shouyou answers on the second ring. “Hello? Oh, hey! Is everyone there? I’m sorry that I couldn’t make it, but -” 

“What the fuck,” says Kageyama.

“Excuse me?”

Then, another voice that is definitely not Hinata joins in, “Who is that?” It’s fainter, a background noise, but Kageyama, being very observant, can just pick up on it.

“It’s - ah, it’s an old friend.” There’s Hinata again, a little quieter, as if he’s angling his phone away. Kageyama can be very astute. He listens closely.

“A rude one, apparently.”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t you say your friends were in town? I thought you were meeting up with them in the morning?”

“Afternoon, actually. Now, shh, I’m on the phone.”

Then, “Ah, it’s Tobio-kun. What a surprise.” 

Kageyama hangs up.

Kageyama is his first setter. His first rival. His first partner. His first - his first something. 

Once, when Tobio is seventeen, in an empty gymnasium, Hinata tells him that he'll stay with him forever, or something like that, until he is dead. He goes home that night and lays awake for hours, turning it over and over in his head.

That means something. That has to mean something.

Doesn’t it?

Tobio is twenty-one years old, and he does not believe in ghosts.

His grandfather is long dead, but before that, he was alive, and very kind.

"You know, Tobio,” he’d once said, “If you get really, really good, you'll get to play lots more games. The best players get to play lots and lots of volleyball. If you get really good, I promise you...somebody who's even better will come along and find you."

Tobio does not believe in ghosts, but he does believe in hauntings. Occasionally, the words will come back to follow him, to linger, and he’ll believe them, even if just for a moment.

For the longest time, Kageyama knew that somebody was Hinata Shouyou. He doesn’t know how he knew, but he knew it in an abstract way, in the way that a child, once old enough, is certain that an absent father will not return home, or that a soldier, once experienced enough, knows that he will not go home at all. He knows because Hinata promised it to him once, told him that he’d be with him at the top of the world, and he believed him, because Hinata does not lie. It is in his nature. He only speaks the truth.

His grandfather never met Hinata. He would’ve liked to introduce them. He wonders if his grandfather would have known, too, if he would have seen Hinata and the way that Tobio looked at him, and then asked with knowing eyes, ah, who is this?

Tobio might have said, this is Hinata Shouyou. He’s the boy from the concrete, the boy who grew wings.

Atsumu’s apartment is bigger than any apartment Hinata’s ever rented - his place in Brazil could easily fit thrice into the space Atsumu has made for himself. What’s even more miraculous is that he doesn’t have a roommate. Of course, without a roommate, he seems to have developed a penchant for walking around naked, something that Hinata - and likely the neighbors, depending on the hour - can appreciate. 

When Hinata wakes, all loose-limbed and lazily content, he stretches and rubs the sleep from his eyes only to realize that the bedside next to him is empty, spare for the indent on the pillow. Then a flash of color catches his eye, and he creeps forward onto the end of the bed, craning his neck to see Atsumu on the terrace overlooking the five stories.

In the morning light, he is a nude Adonis, all muscle and ideal proportions hand-chiseled by an artisan. Hinata’s most vivid memories of Atsumu are the ones in the dark, with only the backlight of his shadow against a sliver of moonlight, a black silhouette in his bed.

He doesn’t think he’s ever seen him like this.

Hinata tugs on a shirt - it could belong to him or Miya, but from the way the neckline nearly slips over one shoulder, he guesses it’s the latter - and pads out to join him on the balcony, slinging an arm around his waist. 

The streets below are empty. The city is not yet awake, and for now, he and Atsumu are the only two creatures on the earth, leaning against each other in the silence. He leans slightly over the edge, inhaling the morning air.

Wait, dumbass.

What?

It’s only been three years, you know. It felt like longer. I wanted you to stay.

Tobio, that’s not fair.

Just - just wait. Please. I thought you were going to wait.

What?

We were gonna wait. Right?

You went to the Olympics without me. You can’t tell me to wait, not now. 

Fair enough.

One conversation on a balcony:

“You know, Shouyou, I won’t be mad.”

“Huh?”

“If my brother came back to the game,” Atsumu says carefully, spelling it out, “even after all this time, I’d jump at the chance.” Hinata looks as if he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing. Atsumu can hardly believe it, either.

“It’s not the same thing.”

“It’s really not,” he agrees, “but I was hoping that you’d at least learn something from me after all this time.”

[ dumbass shouyou ]

6: 10 am

Do you want to meet up for coffee

Sure! 

When

[6:14 am]

3 hours 

Down the street

the one with the brick walls.  Painted green

See u then

[6:18 am]

Hinata doesn’t really drink coffee. He’s hyperactive enough on a good day, and he’s found from experience that the addition of excess caffeine or sugar has the potential to get him bouncing off the walls. Kageyama knows this, so why he’d want to get coffee into him is anyone’s guess. Maybe he’s still upset from last night. Maybe he’s trying to poison him.

Or, maybe, it’s the first olive branch that Tobio could think of. No one ever said Tobio wasn’t dumber than bricks. The line here is unreasonably long, and Hinata took one look at it before beelining to an empty table. At least the atmosphere is nice - despite the overabundance of customers, it’s reasonably quiet. Music plays dimly in the background, something gentle and unassuming. On another day, he’d find it calming, but today is not that day. “Stupid Kageyama,” Hinata mutters to himself, “making me nervous. Ass. I bet it’s on purpose.”

“Excuse me?”

He looks up. Speak of the devil, and he’s here, looking irritated. Or confused. With Kageyama, those two things kind of go hand in hand. Speaking of which, he’s holding two cups and cradling a small paper bag in one arm. Kageyama doesn’t like scones, especially the cheap ones from coffee chains. He bought Hinata coffee and a pastry - how considerate, Tobio - and now he’s glaring at Hinata because he hasn’t sat down yet. 

He’s too busy staring. 

The first thing he thinks is he combs his hair differently. He’d seen it yesterday, during the match, and before that, even, but with Kageyama standing only a table’s length away from him, it’s different. He can’t make fun of it now - it’s not the right time, and besides, he looks handsome.

“I got you -” he brusquely shoves the paper cup at him - “hot chocolate. And one of those pastries from the window. If you’re hungry.” Hinata takes the bag and sits.

“Thanks, Kageyama.”

“Hinata.”

“That’s me,” Hinata looks up. Kageyama is still standing, stiff as a board, but the look on his face feels very familiar, if not strange. He straightens up. Pay attention to this. It’s important.

“I’m sorry about last night.”

“What are you apologizing for?” Hinata asks, not to excuse him, but because he wants to know.

“You were gone for awhile. It - it made me nervous, I think,” Kageyama offers as explanation. “And - I don’t really know you. Your friends, I mean. I don’t know anymore. You were gone.” He clears his throat, and it’s a mutual comfort that neither of them have the courage to acknowledge the ghosts in the room. Then again, they don’t really need to. They’re looking right at each other.

“I’m here now.”

“I’m glad. I’m sorry. I just - I just don’t want to wait anymore.”

The two regard each other.

“Hinata, I - I never - even in high school, you were - I -”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to say it.”

“Alright.”

“The team’s outside already.” Hinata jabs a thumb at the window next to them - across the glass, Nishinoya is making faces at them, while Asahi covers his own face. “We should go. I hope they don’t expect us to buy them all coffee, too. I wonder how they found us?”

“Small world, I guess?” Tobio says, a small smile breaking across his face. It’s like clouds parting.

Nah, he thinks, it’s pretty big, and stands up, reaches across the space to take Kageyama’s hand. He doesn’t startle this time, not like all those years ago, but instead relaxes into it and leads him out, palm-to-palm, to greet their friends.

They venture into the world, and the sunlight paints them gold.

Here’s the story. Pay attention:

Hinata Shouyou is twenty, and he wakes up in Brazil, in a bed that is not his own. Beside him, someone else is tangled up in the sheets, boneless and dreamless and dead to the world. 

Hinata is not.

Somewhere across the globe, Kageyama Tobio cracks one eye open, curls inward and yanks his covers up to his chin, savoring the lonely minutes that stretch between waking and his alarm. Outside, the sun toils in the horizon, biding its time.

Day has arrived.

Together, they’ll drag themselves, bare-knuckled and bone-weary, out of bed and into the morning light.