Archive of Our Own

It’s 7.40 p.m. when Chigaya finally reaches the Ajinomoto national training center in Choufu, the shirt under his down jacket clinging uncomfortably to his skin and his hair regrettably springy from the sweat. To his relief, he finds the registration table easily – spots the staff right smack in the middle of the large lobby already packing up the cards laid on the tablecloth – and announces, forty minutes late:

“I’m here!”

And he thinks, he must look stupid like that – face beet red and not from the cold, eyes darting around and his hand a tight fist around the strap of his duffel. There was nothing he hated more than being late. If he had an option, he’d rather not show up at all; it was like having his world collapse and everyone hating him, that sort of thing. He had thought, living in Saitama and all, that transportation wouldn’t be an issue. He’d arrive early, even. And the public transportation system, of all days, had chosen today to put the only bus to the train station out of service, which was just great, honestly. This training camp, however, was something he couldn’t miss.

The lady sitting at the front desk narrows her eyes and looks at him as if she’s trying to pick him apart.

“And you are…?”

Chigaya gulps, eyes the nearest exit sign, and is about to call it quits when he sees her face ease into a smile. The slight shift in the slope of her brows is enough to change her look entirely.

“Chigaya Eikichi,” she sing-songs, dragging the tip of her pencil down rows upon rows of checked names until it finally stumbles upon the only empty one. “Gotcha.”

By the time he reaches the cafeteria he’s already met with the first wave of people ambling out its doors. They’re all large, intimidating, and exactly the type of people he wants to avoid. He almost forgets they’re all around the same age. Ogano had told him earlier that a training camp like this, a national one at that, was a rare opportunity for him to size up the competition, maybe even befriend them. He passes the players stalking out of the cafeteria, each of them walking singly and staring straight ahead. Yeah, maybe tomorrow.

How he wished someone from Fukurodani or Nekoma were here, or hell even Ubugawa.

He collects a tray of food from the counter, and he’s at the utensil station when he casts a sweeping glance over the room. All of them unfamiliar faces, until–

“Ah! Kageyama-kun… Was it?” He’s beaming, and he probably does look stupid now. He points his head slightly at the empty seat. “Mind if I join you?”

Kageyama looks up at him, mouth stuffed with rice, and nods. For a setter of his calibre, Kageyama had a tendency to look kind of spacey whenever he wasn’t playing volleyball. He looks as if he’s always deep in thought, thinking about something far off. For a while he even looks like a kid, biting off a large chunk of his chicken katsu like it was the best thing he’s ever tasted.

Chigaya had spoken to him once at the training camp last summer, though he hardly counts it as a conversation. All that had transpired was him asking Kageyama, who had been standing closer to the grill, to pass him some beef. Kageyama did as asked, plopping a few slices onto his plate, and that was the end of that.

Chigaya clapped his hands together. “It’s such a relief to see a familiar face here.”

Kageyama nods further, mouth full of chicken this time.

Not knowing what to do next, Chigaya glances to the side and notices, for the first time that night, how quiet the cafeteria is. Occasionally he hears someone slurping his soup, but that’s about it.

It seems a little too awkward to ask him about his hobbies, because what else other than volleyball? Then he thinks to talk about the nationals, about how surprised but glad he was that Karasuno had made it through, and Kageyama smiles unexpectedly. It immediately puts Chigaya at ease.

Casting his eyes downward onto the cloudy surface of his miso soup, he admits, “We lost in full sets at the finals. We thought we had it in the bag. But, ah–” it’s getting uncomfortable for him to continue, the wound fresh and raw like he was a child who had fallen off his bike, even though he thought he was already getting good. In the corner of his vision he catches Kageyama nod, this time softer, slower. He understands .

“Oi,” a voice comes from ahead, low and grating. When Chigaya looks up he sees none other than Sakusa. He’s all too familiar with his name, it having been thrown around, namedropped in conversations about people they’d like to beat.

His hair is like a hurricane, and Chigaya figures, too, that Sakusa is one himself. The kind that tears through a path, wrings people dry – all without making a sound. It is the scariest of its kind; he holds everything in, contains it, and the dead look in his eyes suggests that if he were to walk right through a storm, he’d emerge unscathed. He has that kind of aura to him. It’s even worse experiencing it in person.

“I haven’t had the chance to watch the video replay yet, but why did Shiratorizawa lose? Was Wakatoshi-kun having an off game?” He asks simply.

Chigaya knows what he means underneath, a indirect provocation at Kageyama and Karasuno. Karasuno only won because Ushijima wasn’t playing at his best, right?

He watches Kageyama carefully in this long lapse of silence. Kageyama’s still chewing, and he only speaks after he’s swallowed.

“He looked like he was in tip top form to me,” he replies easily, meeting Sakusa in the eye.

Sakusa’s face scrunches up, looking absolutely repulsed at his answer. Chigaya imagines he’d look even worse without the mask covering half his face.

Kageyama responds effortlessly, almost as if he was oblivious to the annoyance emanating from Sakusa’s entire body.

Chigaya pictures this spiralling into a fight, but the two are quickly pushed apart by a boy that introduces himself as Komori Motoya, a second year libero. It is then that Chigaya remembers they’re still fifteen and sixteen-year-olds. If people could be this terrifying when they’re sixteen, he didn’t dare imagine what they’d be like when they’re twenty.

Komori slots himself in the middle and apologizes on Sakusa’s behalf. He looks friendly; maybe it’s the way his eyes crinkle in a smile, or the two bushy caterpillars he has for eyebrows that makes it seem like nothing can be his fault.

“You’re still holding back, aren’t you?” Kageyama asks this time. “You’re a lot more... average... than the reputation you seem to have.”

Chigaya watches him say this with a straight face in all his frankness. Kageyama looks a lot more intense from this close up, the look in his eyes saying he meant it all, but also without ill intent.

Komori snickers, hiding his choked laughter with the back of his hand, and Sakusa is positively seething.

When they finally leave, Chigaya releases the breath he’d been holding the past five minutes. “Ahhh,” he groans, “I almost crapped myself back there.”

Kageyama shrugs like it’s nothing, finishing the last of his soup which had already gone cold.

For a moment, Chigaya doesn’t know what’s scarier: the provocative atmosphere surrounding this camp, or Kageyama’s effortless response in face of it all.

Training will start bright and early at eight the next morning. Till then, the students have retreated to the large hall housing their futons and blankets, where they will retire for the night.

Chigaya’s still sticking to Kageyama, setting his futon right next to his. Kageyama doesn’t seem to mind, so it works for the both of them.

The other students, most of them second years, have settled in their own little clumps around the room. At this point, it’s already too late to squeeze his way in and make friends. Ogano’s just going to have to suck it.

“I can’t wait for winter to come,” Kageyama initiates conversation first this time, and it catches Chigaya by surprise. He’s fiddling idly with the hem of his shirt, hands by the back of his head as he watches the unchanging light on the ceiling.

“Oh, is winter your favorite season?” Chigaya asks in response.

Kageyama scoffs a little, “Nope, the snow’s annoying. But when winter starts, the Spring Tournament also begins.”

They both chuckle then, Chigaya making a promise to watch Karasuno’s match at the nationals, and Kageyama holding him to it.

Komori comes soon after, squatting between the two of them, and he hold his phone out to Chigaya first.

“I’m creating a chat group,” he explains. The pikachu charm on his mobile phone swings erratically as he shakes the phone in front of Chigaya’s face.

“All twenty-four of us?” Chigaya replies, slightly incredulous.

Komori shrugs, bounces a little in his squat. “It’ll be fun.”

Chigaya keys his number into the phone pad. Kageyama does the same. And when they’re done they watch Komori bounce off to the next island of people not too far away.

Chigaya is staring at his phone screen. On it, there is a chain of ‘hi’s and ‘hello’s from different numbers. He hates having to save each number individually, but then he thinks of Ogano and relents.

“Are you much of a texter?” He asks Kageyama, who’s ignored his buzzing phone all night. It’s sitting right by his head, but he does a damn good job at pretending it doesn’t exist.

“No,” Kageyama replies instantly, a little fed up.

Looking at the way his arms are crossed, still staring at the ceiling, Chigaya lets out a hot puff of air and leans over, clambering for Kageyama’s phone.

“Well at least say hi, Kageyama-kun.”

6:10 AM

+81 6-6856-7484

Ah… Sorry. My battery was flat. The name’s Miya Atsumu. I look forward to working with you all.

6:12 AM

+81 3-3981-0111

Tsk Miya-kun, late to the party

6:13 AM

+81 48-565-1010

Welcome Miya-san!

“You killed the conversation,” Kageyama starts off on a nice note at breakfast. Behind him, the morning sunlight filters in through the high glass panels on the outer wall of the cafeteria, creating a warm pool of light across the floor – a welcome respite in the increasingly cold weather. There’s a distinct sort of stillness to the cafeteria air in the morning; it’s packed alright, there’s no empty table in sight, but the students shuffle about quietly, faces still warm and fuzzy from sleep.

“What? No one said anything after me?” Chigaya questions.

Kageyama hums a yes. He uses his chopsticks to break up the tofu on his plate. Once that’s in his mouth, he picks his phone up and turns it to Chigaya. “See?”

Of all things to be upset about though, Chigaya complains:

“You didn’t save my number?”

Kageyama shoves a mouthful of rice into his mouth, mumbles some excuse that comes out indecipherable. Chigaya pretends to pout, but it doesn’t unnerve Kageyama one bit.

“Fine,” he teases, “I’ll do it myself.”

Chigaya thinks, during the first timeout of the first game of the day, that he’s making good progress at this befriending thing. Kageyama seems to have warmed up to him, sometimes even initiating conversations between them. He doesn’t talk about anything other than volleyball plays though; it doesn’t come as a surprise.

He had known how good of a setter Kageyama was from the few practice matches they played against each other over the summer. Kageyama had this sort of discipline to him, something he followed to a tee; he’s crisp-clean swiftly cut, meticulous and never on the excess. When he fakes a glance to the left only to serve to his right, Chigaya watches the swish of his bangs, quick but also heavy, just like the intensity of his gaze.

Chigaya couldn’t fathom how the Kageyama on court and the Kageyama at breakfast could be the same person. Not even a little.

In between sips, he notices the setter from across the net looking right at Kageyama.

He’s staring, teeth catching the nozzle of his bottle, and makes little effort to disguise this fact. His hair is platinum blonde, a clean undercut that revealed darker roots.

Maybe this was his way of appraising the competition.

“How’d I do?” Kageyama approaches him after he’s taken his water break.

“Eh?” Chigaya gasps lightly, jolted out of his reverie. “Hmm, maybe a little harder, faster, like bam !” He punches a fist against his palm to emphasize it.

In the background, he hears the team on the adjacent court cheer. Chigaya can see the workings of Kageyama’s internal mechanism on his face, and when he eventually nods and says he’ll do it, he really means it.

Kageyama asks the rest of the players the same question. It’s a little awkward, but very endearing, and Chigaya doesn’t know why he’s feeling proud. It’s not like he’s known Kageyama very long either.

Apart from talking to Kageyama, he’s made a decent effort at learning the names of the other players at camp. There’s Komori standing at the back of the court and two other guys all the way from Hokkaido, but he gets both their names mixed up so he doesn’t even try. The only other person he recognizes on the other side of the net is Hoshiumi. He had remembered him from the day before in the cafeteria, boring holes into the pot of soup with his intense gaze. Maybe he isn’t a fan of miso soup.

He had seen him jump before on TV once, when his family had made a weekend visit to Odawara, and he had caught an old rerun of the Kanagawa prefecture’s men's volleyball finals.

The fact that the people at this camp aren’t the least bit approachable makes it impossible for Chigaya to make the first move. He’d actually like to avoid them, but alas, by virtue of being by Kageyama’s side the entire time, crossing paths with them is inevitable.

“Oi,” a gruff voice calls out from behind the both of them, and Chigaya’s thinking what Sakusa wants this time. When he turns around and sees Hoshiumi standing above them, he busies himself with a butterfly stretch and looks at his shoes.

Kageyama’s getting himself caught up in something again.

Hoshiumi looks at him square in the face, eyes wide and feral, and then bursts into a tirade, complaining about Kageyama’s lack of reaction to his plays.

Chigaya is all about done at this point. He watches Kageyama carefully for his response.

Still in his butterfly stretch, Kageyama shifts his body weight forward to apply more pressure on his thighs. He looks up, expression as still as the earth at sunrise.

Kageyama is really amazing , Chigaya thinks.

At long last, when he thinks that this entire ordeal is over, he hears someone snicker.

“ Heh , how cool and collected of you, Tobio -kun.”

Now Kageyama’s done it. He’s attracted these types like moths to a flame, and Chigaya’s never going to get the peace he desires.

It’s the setter from earlier, the one with side swept blonde bangs and a sly smile. The hand on his hip and the tilt of his head does nothing to make him seem amicable .

“Miya-san,” Kageyama greets instantly.

Miya-san?

Oh .

“You know, my first impression of you was pretty badass, but after that match, it seems like you play like a little goody-two-shoes .”

At this moment Kageyama’s face scrunches up into something detestable, like Miya’s stepped on a raw nerve and ground it in with the back of his heel.

Casting his gaze upward, Kageyama remarks, “...You don’t say?”

Chigaya doesn’t know how long this staring competition persists. His hands are growing sweaty and his thighs are aching. Eventually, he excuses himself to go to the bathroom for a piss. He’s sure Kageyama will understand.

“Did anything happen back there?” Chigaya asks when he sees Kageyama at lunch. When he had returned from his toilet break, they were immediately whisked away to different stations. He had ended up in the weights room with a bunch of faces he vaguely recognized from Volley Mag Monthly . Efforts at conversation were commendable, but he’d rather sit with Kageyama at lunch anyway.

“Oh hey,” Kageyama turns when recognizes his voice. He shuffles further down the line, picking up a small dish of teriyaki salmon and placing it on his tray. Chigaya shuffles beside him.

“Nothing happened. He just walked away after that,” Kageyama says, not particularly bothered. But he had to be, Chigaya figures, judging from the way the crack had broken through Kageyama’s cool exterior.

Chigaya raises his eyebrows. “So he just walked away. Just like that?”

“Yep,” Kageyama nods. He reaches for a carton of milk in the fridge. “Just like that.”

They settle at the same spot they sat in this morning. Now, the sun had reached its zenith in the sky; it’s nowhere to be seen through the high glass panels. Instead, there is a thin river of light running by the windows.

“So… you know him from before?” He asks Kageyama.

Kageyama shakes his head, his cheek resting against his propped up fist. Idly, he pushes the beansprouts in his bowl around.

“He had a feature in last month’s Volley Mag Monthly .”

“Really?” Chigaya gasps. “Didn’t you too?”

Kageyama’s mouth wobbles in embarrassment.

“Ah, yeah. His page was just next to mine.”

In the afternoon, the lot of them are put into a fancy little lecture room. Coach Hitaki’s talking about strategy, playing back clips of old matches from years ago, and Kageyama must be some kind of genius because he isn’t taking any notes. He just has his hands clasped in his lap, looking attentively at the screen.

It lasts for almost three hours, maybe even four, and before he knows it he’s back in the students’ quarters waiting for his turn to take a shower.

He spots the latest issue of Volley Mag Monthly lying on someone’s futon, and suddenly spurred by some unfound confidence, he approaches the guy and asks if he can borrow it to read. He flips it open to the table of contents, scanning down the list until he sees:

YOUTH ON THE RISE: 10 Up-and-coming Players You Need to Look Out For

He skips through the preceding pages, stopping to glance at the full color spread of Tokyo’s representatives – it’s printed so well that he can make out the face Bokuto’s pulling in Sakusa’s general direction. He finally reaches the article, flipping the pages until he reaches Kageyama’s page.

He’s seen the page before, albeit somewhat poorly since the entire Shinzen volleyball club was poring over the same magazine. Unlike the photographs of the other featured players, the journalist had chosen to use a picture of Kageyama in the heat of a game. Chigaya can picture Kageyama trying to smile head-on at a camera – he recognizes the disaster before it can even manifest.

Kageyama has his arms raised above his head preparing to send a toss, and the shot captures the moment perfectly: the ferocity in his eyes, the level of concentration, even the subtle swish of his bangs.

The short paragraph at the corner of the page is what it is: short. Kageyama’s a man of few words. The interviewer’s even included the ellipsis in Kageyama’s responses, the dots trailing along the page in broken chains. Chigaya has to admit though, Kageyama does look pretty badass.

His gaze slides to the adjacent page and halts, and he wonders why he hadn’t noticed it earlier. Next to Kageyama Tobio’s page sits none other than Miya Atsumu’s.

In his picture Miya’s sitting on a bench, a white towel draped over his head, his body half bent over with his elbows on his knees. And maybe that’s why Chigaya doesn’t recall; his distinctive blonde hair is covered, only the ends of it peeking out from underneath his towel. Face sunken in the half-light, he casts his eyes to the side.

Holding the magazine flat open like this, it almost looks like he’s eyeing Kageyama.

Chigaya examines the page further. Miya’s answers to his questions are eloquent and lengthy. He’s a talker, a thinker – he stands out amongst pages of friendly smiles and victory signs.

At that moment, he hears people start to walk through the door, their shower slippers slapping loudly on the tiles. Chigaya slaps the magazine close like he’s been caught, and hurriedly returns it to where it came from.

That night, Chigaya gets invited to play cards with some of the other middle blockers. He’s not sure whether to extend the invitation to Kageyama, since it is a middle blocker thing after all, but his dilemma solves itself when he doesn’t find Kageyama in the room.

To: Kageyama Tobio

Couldn’t find you but I’m going to play cards with some of the players. Let me know if you wanna hang out!

By Kageyama’s futon, he spots something light up and vibrate.

Of course.

Chigaya’s smiling when he turns around and heads down the hallway to the lounge, where the rest of them are waiting for him.

Time passes quickly at camp, with mornings blending into afternoons, and afternoons folding into nights. Chigaya’s kept busy at every moment, exchanging tips and receiving feedback, and then using spare bits of his time to practice in the gym with other players. Before he notices it, he’s already made new friends.

Still, Chigaya finds himself sitting with Kageyama at every meal. It’s nice like that, the two of them. Kageyama still looks like he’s by himself, and Chigaya goes out of his way to make sure he doesn’t eat alone.

He’s taking his first sip of vegetable soup when he locks eyes with Miya Atsumu, sitting a few tables behind with Sakusa, Komori, and Hoshiumi. He inhales a mouthful and ends up burning the roof of his mouth, sputtering manically as he attempts to wave the heat away with his fingers. And Miya quickly shifts his eyes away, looking down at his own bowl now, probably feeling as warm as Chigaya’s throat right now.

“You doing okay?” Kageyama asks in concern.

Chigaya waves it off to his clumsiness. In his head, he’s still swimming around the revelation that Miya was looking over, not at him obviously, but at Kageyama. When he sees Miya push himself up from his seat with his tray, he assumes that he’s leaving. But what actually happens is this:

“Yo, Tobio-kun,” Miya slides a chair out and plops down beside them naturally.

“Miya-san,” Kageyama greets with a courteous nod. Chigaya does the same, but it looks like Miya doesn’t even hear him.

“Why didn’t you join us? Hoshiumi straight-up ranted about you ditching for a whole five minutes.”

Kageyama tilts his head in confusion. “I didn't think I was invited.”

“But I waved !” Miya throws his hands up.

“I didn't think you were waving to me!”

“We even made eye contact!”

“I thought that was a coincidence!”

There is a long lapse of silence where the both of them are just staring at each other, Miya with his hand to his temple like he's just participated in the dumbest conversation in his entire life.

“Well, I’m just going to make it clear to you right now. You, Tobio-kun, are hereby invited to eat with us,” he declares and looks at Chigaya. “You…”

“Chigaya Eikichi.”

“Yes, you too.”

He waves a finger and circles it in front of Kageyama’s forehead. “And Tobio-kun, stop scrunching your face like that. You're going to get wrinkles when you’re twenty.”

Kageyama’s expression tenses, and Chigaya watches his shoulders scrunch all the way up to his ears.

“Fine, Miya-san,” says Kageyama with a hint of exasperation.

“Hey, drop it with the -san , you make me sound like I’m thirty and dying.”

“Alright, Miya...” Kageyama drawls, long and hard, and then a spark flashes in his eyes like a rogue strike of lightning.

“... san .”

For that, Kageyama receives a flick on his forehead, and the furrows on his forehead return. Chigaya watches this unfold before him, and he's trying to come to terms with this recent development. All of a sudden he feels like not supposed to be there. He feels like an outsider, an intruder.

Maybe, for the two of them sitting across him, absorbed in their own little narrative, they've even forgotten that he was there at all.

The next time he’s in the cafeteria with Kageyama he does end up sitting with Miya and his friends. Again, he’s feeling out of place, like a child at a grown-up’s party, and he ends up finishing his meal too quickly because he’d rather eat than talk.

“Chigaya-kun, you must be starving or something!” Hoshiumi says a little too loudly, attracting a few turned heads. Obviously what Chigaya needs right now.

Bashfully, Chigaya nods, lying, “Yeah, those practice matches really wore me out.”

“Plus,” Komori adds, picking up a fine specimen of smoked salmon with his chopsticks. “They feed us like kings here.”

Sakusa has his mask off to eat, but he uses his own chopsticks that he’d brought from home.

“I hear tomorrow’s going to be interesting,” says Miya after a sip of water.

“Oh, really? How so?” Komori responds with a question.

“Yeah,” Miya continues. “They’re having us switch positions.”

This revelation catches Kageyama’s interest, and he stops eating to look at Miya now. He still maintains the cool exterior of nonchalance, but the light in his eyes gives him away.

“Ahh,” Hoshiumi sighs in anticipation. “I hope they give me setter. I’ve been meaning to give it a go.”

Pointing to both Miya and Kageyama, he adds, “I’m going to show you two up!”

Snickering, Miya slaps Hoshiumi’s finger away. Kageyama rolls his eyes.

To be honest, they’re not as bad as he’s made them out to be. They get along, in their own way. It’s just a really steep, steep wall to surmount before he can really feel like he’s in the right place.

When Chigaya returns from his card game close to midnight – the rounds of poker were unending – Kageyama’s not in his futon. A quick glance around the room revealed that most of the beds were filled, counting out the middle blockers of course. It’s hard to make out specific faces in the dark and Chigaya has to squint.

He spots Sakusa sleeping with his headphones on, a straight as a log. Komori is curled into a foetal position beside him, wound tight in a blanket cocoon.

And well, Kageyama’s almost sixteen. He’s definitely old enough to look after himself, so Chigaya doesn’t know why he’s walking out the door again.

Just making sure he’s alright, he supposes.

At night the heating in the halls is turned up, but somehow a chill lingers on the surface of his skin, like the first snowflake of the season teetering precariously on the tips of his hair. He’s careful not to get caught, it being after curfew and all.

The first gym he passes is empty. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

The second one is, too, and Chigaya is about to turn behind and head back when he hears the ring of two familiar voices laughing. It lasts briefly, whipping past him like an unstoppable express train, leaving him unexpectedly and completely dumbfounded. Only after it had long disappeared and he’d just recovered from its absence did it really sink in. The more he replayed the voices in his mind, the more indistinct it became, until he was left with just the sound of a generic voice rehearsed from memory.

So now he knows where Kageyama is, which was the point of him being out in the hallway anyway. With that settled, he should return to the students’ quarters to get to bed. He knows this very well, and yet he’s approaching the door of the second gym with steps quicker than his mind can process.

He peeks from behind the door, just inching his face out a little so that he doesn’t get caught.

The lights in the gym are turned off except for the last row. The two of them stand not directly under, but between the faint boundary of light and shadow, tossing a volleyball back and forth. It goes up in a perfect arch, landing comfortably, predictably, in the nest of Kageyama’s palms.

The shadows at their feet are drawn long, converging into each other, until they disappear into the sea of black.

Kageyama’s head is tilted upwards and only upwards as he watches the ball go, but Miya – Chigaya notes with interest – oscillates his gaze between the ball and Kageyama. And it goes on, the smirk on his lips ever growing.

Everything clicks then.

Chigaya takes this as his cue to leave, his steps back to his room light.

“Don’t you think the people across the net a little too overpowered?” Chigaya heaves, resting his hands on his knees, as he addresses the player next to him. The fact that Kageyama, Miya, Sakusa, Komori, and Hoshiumi ended up on the same team can’t just be mere coincidence. The player next to him has a pained expression on his face, and the noncommittal grunt he gives doesn’t indicate agreement nor disagreement. Well. Chigaya will take whatever he gets.

Hoshiumi does a little dance, and Miya gives Kageyama a high-five.

For the final day of training camp, each of them have been assigned a different position to play. Chigaya’s been assigned as a wing spiker, and he’s finally made it to the front of the rotation.

The game continues, and Chigaya’s team has managed to throw Hoshiumi off by making him take first touch. He shouts for Miya, and Miya rushes up from the back of the court, jumps right before the attack line, and sends a toss Kageyama’s way.

It’s over before he knows it, the crash of the volleyball on the linoleum hitting him first.

When he looks across the net, he sees Kageyama looking at his own hands, as if trying to internalize it as well.

The game ends 25-21. Chigaya stumbles over to where Kageyama’s stretching and collapses on his back, all the aches and sores from the previous three days catching up to him all at once.

“How was it? Spiking,” Miya ambles over and squats next to Kageyama painlessly. Chigaya can only watch in admiration.

Kageyama breaks into a smile easily, saying, “I had a great time! Your tosses are easy to hit.”

Miya lets out a low, smooth laugh, as if carried over by an autumn breeze.

“People who can’t hit my tosses are nothin’ but scrubs,” he says, lifting his eyes to something in the distance.

This strikes Chigaya with a sense of unease. The air around them is all of a sudden heavy, swollen like a ripe fruit. And it must have also touched something deep in Kagayama as Chigaya watches his eyes grow as the moments pass.

When Miya’s gaze finally returned to Kageyama, the moment ends as quickly as it began, as if slapping a book shut.

Miya is standing up and readying himself to leave when Kageyama asks, “By the way, Miya-san, what did you mean when you called me a goody-two-shoes ?”

Miya’s eyes curve into crescents, and he replies like the answer’s obvious, “Literally that. Someone who’s diligent, honest, and obedient.”

When stretching is done, all of them gather around Coach Hitaki for a final debrief.

“Thank you, again, for putting in all the effort that you did here,” he says with utmost pride. “And when you return to your respective teams, please do not think of this training as anything different from the training you do with your team. It would be ideal for you to push each other to greater heights.”

They’re packing up their bags when Chigaya asks, “What do you think Miya-san meant when he said that people who can’t hit his tosses are nothing but scrubs ?”

Kageyama doesn’t look up from his belongings. He has them all spread out on the futon in front of him, wondering how on earth he had managed to fit them all in his duffel in the first place.

“I’m not sure...” he trails off, finger tapping on his laundry bag. He stuffs it in one way, contemplates it for a moment, and rotates it around in the bag.

“But,” he adds a moment later. “I think I know where he’s coming from.”

“Oh?”

Kageyama takes a while to find the words, but when he does he says, “Back in junior high I was the kind of setter that went ahead. If someone didn’t deserve my toss, they wouldn’t get it. But now, uh, I- Since Karasuno-”

He stops, pauses a little to reorganize his thoughts.

“In another instance, I suppose, had my life not gone the way it did, then, well… I might have been just like him.”

Chigaya nods slowly, realizing that he has treaded onto a new territory.

Kageyama packs silently, his face simmering in frustration as he tries to squeeze the sides up with his thighs so that he can pull the zip.

When that’s all done and they’re waiting for the rest of the students to finish up, they sit side by side along the wall of the room. The silence between them is comfortable.

Chigaya wonders what Kageyama might’ve been like in junior high. He wonders what might have happened in between to shape him into the person he is today.

Beside him, Kageyama looks down at his palms again. Now, it is not blooming red with the fresh, exhilarating sting of a good spike. In his right palm, his life line and fate line diverged cleanly from his wrist.

When everything’s over, email addresses exchanged and pictures taken, they descend down the stairs together. It’s the first time in five days that Chigaya’s put on his winter coat. It feels foreign on his skin, and it’s like learning to walk around with a new weight.

Through the glass front doors he can see the sunset spread across the sky in loving brushstrokes, orange, yellow and red in streaks.

“Tobio-kun,” Miya calls, “Catch ya later at nationals, okay?”

Miya walks ahead, and Kageyama’s gaze trails after him until he’s lost in the crowd. The students, Japan’s most promising fifteen and sixteen-year-olds, all disperse in different directions.

“So… which station do I need to go to again?” Kageyama turns to ask Chigaya.

Chigaya chuckles. “Let’s just go there together.”

When they reach the train station, Kageyama pulls out his phone from his pocket, one new notification right in the middle of his screen. It’s from an unknown number – Kageyama’s still got that bad habit of not saving numbers in his phone – but Chigaya recognizes it instantly.

4:50 PM

+81 6-6856-7484

Tobio-kun! Let’s push each other to greater heights~

Kageyama reads it and stuffs it back into his pocket, the corners of his lips quietly quirking upwards.

Chigaya bids Kageyama goodbye when he has to take a different train, and he waves until he has to turn at the corner. His arms and legs are aching with an all-new determination, and he’s anticipating his return to Shinzen with all the tips and strategies he’s learned.

He’s going to have lots of stories to tell.