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Gaijin. It was not like Lev hadn't heard the term before, far from it. He heard it on the daily. At school, on the train, in line at the store, whenever he set foot outside his home. People didn't sit next to him on the train and looked at him in disdain. When he stumbled or tripped because he was 80% leg and 20% teenage brain under construction, he received tuts and sharp words about "tourists not knowing how to behave". Usually, Lev shot back, in perfect Japanese. Their looks were always worth it. Lev loved proving them wrong, proving to them that he was Japanese and they could go suck it.
Today was no such day.
Lev struggled with the ticket gate at the station. He'd forgotten to take his ticket card out of his uniform jacket and his mother had washed it. It had been acting up ever since and Lev bit back an annoyed groan when the gate beeped twice, displaying the information: "Unable to read. Please seek out assistance."
"Gaijin", the girl behind him muttered and squeezed into the left lane, tapping her card and passing through the gate.
"Do you need help?", one of the station workers asked in heavily accented English.
"It won't read my card", Lev replied in Japanese. "I'm sorry."
"Oh, no problem!", the worker continued in English as if Lev hadn't just replied in perfect Japanese. "Follow me."
The worker directed him to the extra gate and after four tries, the gate finally beeped once and let Lev through.
"Thank you very much", Lev said again, in Japanese and perfect polite speech. "Please excuse the disturbance."
The worker bowed and stubbornly replied in English: "Have a good journey, sir!"
Lev looked at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he was being messed with, before deciding to drop it and making his way to the platform.
It was a fifteen minute ride to school. Inuoka took the same line, his stop was coming up in two. Lev liked riding to school with Inuoka. His teammate always sat next to him and while they didn't chat (Lev, for all that people assume different, is very much aware of train etiquette), it was nice. Sometimes they shared headphones.
But Inuoka had early class duty, so Lev was riding alone today.
He took out his phone and groaned inwardly when he saw that he'd been added to yet another extended family group chat. Messages rolled in at the speed of lightning, cyrillic letters and excessive emojis that did nothing to help Lev understand what was going on.
It was not like he could read Russian. Or speak it. Or even understand it.
He recognised some of the names, at least, the ones he'd saved to his contacts. His mum and her sisters were texting back and forth and Alisa was throwing in the occasional message too. But the majority of people in the group chat were strangers to Lev. He managed to decipher a name (Sasha — very helpful, he had two uncles and four cousins with that nickname).
One of the unknown contacts asked a question. Lev usually wouldn't pay attention to it, except there were three letters he definitely recognised. Лев. His name.
Ah, shoot. Either someone had asked him a question or asked a question about him.
He switched to his private chat with Alisa and started typing, the familiar Japanese characters appearing on the screen.
Lev: stop adding me to random family group chats??
Alisa: aw but they wanna know about you :(
Lev: i cant understand a word theyre saying though
Alisa: just put it in google translate
Lev: nah. I'll just leave the chat
Alisa: you can't do that!!! That's so rude. Just mute it.
Lev: i'm already in five muted russian family group chats???
Alisa: but this one has cousin sasha and uncle vanya
Lev: which cousin sasha? Nastya's son?
Alisa: no, the one from jekaterinburg
Lev had no idea he even had a cousin Sasha in Jekaterinburg. He muted the group chat and put his phone away, staring out the window instead.
There was nothing Lev was more envious of than his sister's ability to speak Russian. His parents somehow just hadn't stuck to it with him. Lev had been able to speak and understand some as a child, but the second he'd entered pre-school and was surrounded by Japanese only, he'd lost it all. And his parents, too exhausted at the end of their workdays to force him to speak Russian, settled for Japanese with him.
As such, Lev's Russian vocabulary was limited to useful things like "hurry up", "stop", "bring me that" and counting to three.
Not exactly helpful in a conversation. With a human at least. Could work with a dog, maybe. Too bad Lev was a cat person.
The announcement for his stop came up and Lev filed out of the train, ready to start the day.
"Say, Haiba", Teshiro said during lunch break. "Are you a halfie? Or full-on Russian?"
Lev stopped with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth. "Huh? Why d'you ask?"
Teshiro shrugged. "Curiosity."
"My parents were born in Vladivostok", Lev said. "They came here just after the Soviet Union collapsed. So, I guess I'm full-on."
"Oh! Do you have dual citizenship?", Inuoka asked.
"Nah, Japan doesn't allow it. I only have the Japanese passport", Lev said. "It's way stronger, too."
Shibayama poked around in his food. "I think it's unfair to make people choose. I mean, Russia is home to you too, isn't it?"
Ah. The dreaded question.
Was Russia home? Lev had been to Vladivostok a grand total of four times. Just after his birth at the age of four months, then at three years old, at eight years old and three years ago when he was twelve.
Lev obviously didn't remeber the first two times and the third one was foggy at best. So, by all accounts, he'd been to Russia once.
It had been exciting at first. Lev had never flown international before and the last time he'd been on a plane was for the family ski trip to Hokkaido. But the initial excitement had died down surprisingly quickly.
They were picked up by relatives who looked like Lev, were tall like Lev, laughed like Lev, but didn't speak like Lev. His parents and Alisa chattered away with them in the car with no one bothering to translate for Lev or speaking in a language he could understand. Granted, he'd already sucked at English then, but his English was better than his Russian.
They got to the house were Lev's maternal grandparents lived, whom he only knew from grainy Skype video calls where his parents forced him to duck into frame and smile and wave and pretend to understand what the unknown relatives at the other end of the line were saying.
"Lyovochka", his dedushka had started upon seeing him and that was the only part Lev had understood of what his grandpa had said. His nickname.
Twelve was an age where you were looking to find your independence and independence was hard to come by when you were quite literally dependent on your parents and sister to even communicate. No one spoke Japanese. His family's English was even rougher than Lev's own. They knew more Chinese, thanks to the proximity to the border, not that it helped Lev.
After two weeks, Lev's mum had found him in the backyard, pulling at grass.
"Lyovochka", she'd said. "What's the matter? Davay, everyone's inside and waiting for you."
Lev had pulled a whole bundle of grass out of the ground and his vision had blurred over.
"No one's waiting for me", he'd said and his voice had been watery enough for his mum to notice immediately. "I wanna go home."
And vocalizing that thought had opened the floodgates and the tight, uncomfortable coil in his stomach unwound as his tears spilled over.
Homesickness was a shitty feeling.
"Oh, Lev", his mum had said and pulled him into her arms. "You are home. This is home. This is your family."
Lev had been crying too hard to disagree with her, to tell her the people inside the house were strangers at best, strangers who looked like him, but whom he could never talk to.
"I wanna go home", he'd repeated. "Mum, can we catch a plane back to Tokyo tomorrow?"
"Oh, солнышко", his mum had said. Lev hadn't understood her. "We can't do that. But look, everyone's so happy to have you here. Dedushka hasn't seen you in so long."
So Lev had just cried until he couldn't and sat through the remaining week until their flight home.
So, no.
"Russia's not home", Lev told his friends. "I've been to Hokkaido more often than to Russia."
"Really?", Shibayama asked with wide eyes.
"Really", Lev said and leaned over the table. "Teshiroooo, let me have your gyoza!"
The text arrived in the middle of practice. Lev checked his phone during a water break more out of habit than necessity and frowned when he saw five missed calls from Alisa, three from his dad.
"Oi, Lev!", Yaku yelled. "Put that phone away!"
"Ah, sorry!", he called. There was a tight coil in the pit of his stomach again. "My family tried to reach me."
Yaku immediately lit up. "Alisa?"
Lev was already opening his text messages.
And sure enough. There it was.
Alisa: Lev, come home. Dedushka just died.
Oh.
Lev didn't have many memories relating to his grandfather. Such was the fate when you didn't have a shared language between you.
He did remember a booming laugh and big, calloused hands ruffling his hair.
Lev didn't go home. He knew home was where his mother was crying, where the phone was ringing nonstop with relatives calling, where people were mourning a man he'd scarcely known.
"LEV!", Kuroo yelled at him. "Follow the damn ball! Read block! Don't just bounce around!"
Lev clenched his jaw and swallowed around the lump in his throat. "Sorry!"
"Okay, time!", Naoi-sensei called. "Gather round. Lev, are you getting sick? Your timings are off and you're not concentrating."
"Only a matter of time until a spike hits you square in the face with your zoning out today", Yaku muttered.
Lev shrunk into himself. "Ah. Sorry, Yaku-san."
Yaku blinked at him. "Seriously, are you okay? Fukunaga! Check if he has a fever!"
Lev couldn't pull his head away fast enough for Fukunaga to grab his head and press his forehead to his senpai's cheek.
"Cool with a chance of clouds", he announced.
"Now that that's settled", Naoi-sensei said and continued, giving out instructions and tips that Lev knew he should be listening to if he knew what was good for him.
But somehow, the words didn't stick. His entire mindspace was occupied by one sentence.
'Dedushka just died.'
Lev's grandfather had died before Lev could have ever had a conversation with him.
The coil in Lev's stomach tightened impossibly further and nausea rose in the back of his throat.
"Excuse me", he croaked and took off towards the bathrooms before anyone could answer him.
He didn't vomit in the end.
He did cry, though. Ugly crocodile tears, runny nose, the whole ordeal, his wet sobs echoing off the tile of the gym bathroom. The single-layer toilet paper had rubbed his nose raw from blowing into it.
'Dedushka just died.'
"Shit", Lev rasped.
He could have learned Russian. He could have asked his parents to enrol him in Russian school on Sundays. To talk to him in Russian. To send him to a school that offered Russian on the curriculum.
His parents could have raised him in Russian to begin with.
But they hadn't. They hadn't done any of it and now Lev had missed his chance.
Dedushka was dead and Lev had never even talked to him. His swollen eyes started burning again. Lev grabbed more of the too-rough-toilet-paper and choked down a watery sob.
Knock, knock.
Lev stilled.
"Lev?", Kuroo asked. "You in there?"
Lev tried not to breathe. But who was he fooling. Kuroo could see his feet under the stall door.
"Look, me and the guys are worried 'cause you stormed off like that", Kuroo said and Lev could hear him scratching the back of his neck. "Something happen?"
Lev shook his head. As if Kuroo could see him through the closed stall door.
"You know you can tell us?", Kuroo tried. "Or, well, tell me? Teshiro, Inuoka and Shibayama are hot on my heels, you know. Fukunaga and Yamamoto are holding them off, but even their defense isn't imprenetable."
Lev would have laughed any other time.
"Look, you're having me worried here", Kuroo continued. "Are you hurt? Sick? Need the nurse?"
Lev shuffled his feet, vision blurring again as fresh tears welled up. This time, he couldn't bite back the sob.
"Shit", Kuroo swore. "Lev, what happened, man? Do you want me to leave? Get one of the first years?"
Somehow, the idea of his friends seeing him like this was worse.
"No", Lev managed to get out and it sounded wet and raspy.
"Okay", Kuroo said. "What do you need then?"
Lev wiped his nose and reached up to unlock the stall door. It swung open, revealing Kuroo, brows furrowed in worry.
"Oh man", Kuroo said. "What's going on? Trouble at home?"
Ah. And that made the tears spill over again.
"My grandpa just died."
The words were out before Lev knew it and saying it out loud was... final. Decisive.
Irreversible.
His bottom lip started quivering and Lev bit down on it hard, hands clenched into fists on top of his thighs.
"Fuck, I'm sorry", Kuroo said and squatted down, one hand awkwardly resting on Lev's shoulder. "Were you... were you close?"
Lev laughed, wet and ugly. "Never even had a conversation with him."
"Oh." The confusion was audible.
Why. Why, why, why had Lev opened the door. Here he was, bawling his eyes out in front of his captain over a relative who was, by all means, a stranger.
"I missed my chance, Kuroo-san", Lev hiccuped. "I could've learned Russian and talked to him. But I didn't and now he's dead."
"Lev...", Kuroo started.
Lev choked on a sob and pressed the heels of his hands to his puffy eyes. "I'm sorry, Kuroo-san, you should get back to practice—"
"Hey now", Kuroo said and squeezed his shoulder. "What kinda captain would I be to leave now?"
"Nationals—"
"—are in four weeks", Kuroo said. "Don't think about that. Captaincy means taking care of your team, you know? So, listen to your old senpai and let him comfort you."
"You're only two years older", Lev managed to get out.
"I know", Kuroo said instead of spouting exaggerated metaphors. "Do you want to go home, Lev?"
He didn't know.
"Or", Kuroo said, picking up on his hesitation, "you could sit on the bench with Coach Nekomata today and watch practice from there. Learn from your senpais."
Coach Nekomata. Lev teared up again against his will.
"Ah, grandfatherly vibes, I'm sorry", Kuroo said hurriedly. "Okay. Okay, here's what we're gonna do. Pork buns."
Lev blinked through his tears. "Pork buns?"
"It's what Karasuno's Sawamura does for his team", Kuroo said. "What do you say? We let practice be practice and all grab pork buns? My treat."
"I'm not hungry", Lev said.
Kuroo smiled. "That's okay. Just take it for what it is. Us taking care of our own."
"Kuroo-san", Lev rasped. "Thanks."
Kuroo stood and held out a hand. "Come on. We'll stop by a konbini and buy you some proper tissues."
"Okay", Lev said.
"The fancy ones with aloe."
"Okay."
"Go wash your face. We're leaving in ten. Alright?"
"Okay."
"Lev?" Kuroo squeezed his shoulder again. "I'm sure even if you never held a conversation with your grandpa, he loved you a whole lot. And he was obviously important to you."
Important.
Kuroo was right.
Maybe dedushka had virtually been a stranger. Maybe Lev hadn't known him at all.
But he'd still been important to him. He'd been family. Lev's family. Never the same way as it was for Alisa, and his mum and dad. But still. Lev had the right to mourn.