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The noise of the roaring crowd follows Kei like a ghost, the type that sends chills down his spine if he doesn't take care to remind himself that no, he isn't scared of ghosts. It's no matter to admit that even he may feel chills down his spine, but he is less inclined to say he's scared to let go of the pounding of his heart in case he forgets what it feels like to get swept away by the ever-starving passion. Sugawara says 'you're just like Hinata' and he could laugh if he wasn't so incredulous at the thought. He does not chase victory like a thirsty man crawling through the desert, but the lights in the gym could be the sun, and he can't help but wipe the sweat off his brow and stare at the court like an open blue sky. Doors to the gym are shut, yet the ghosts still chase him out where the team packs their things and refuse to apologize for the stinging disappointment that could almost be stinging palms if they wished hard enough.
Their Interhigh comes to a close, and the third years are graduating. There's no room for regret in the knowledge that they did the best they could, but it doesn't make the bittersweet feeling of sweeping nostalgia any easier to swallow. They made it further than anyone could've dreamed. Growing up feels a lot like waking up from a dream.
Kageyama, in all the awkward honesty that's just a part of him as his setting, says he wishes he could play with this team more. Suga, Daichi, Asahi have tears running down their face, and that's not to say anything about the others. Tsukishima Kei does not cry. He won't, but his heart crawls up to his throat anyways. There it is. An ugly thumping, the ever-hungry yearning that demands him to be selfish. Demands him to feel something and stop pretending that he hasn't fallen in love with volleyball because he has. He has.
They're leaving the gym to grab some food when Kei at the tail end of the team sees a familiar red jacket and a hurricane disaster of black hair slip out a side door from the opposite end of the hallway. He turns to look at Tadashi, already staring at him with the instincts of best friends bound with familiar history. A nod, and Kei is breaking free from the back. Tadashi makes some faint excuse about him forgetting something back at their spot to those who bothered to turn around.
Kei doesn't break into a run, but his strides are urgent in a way he never expected and his pace only quickens when he manages to weave through the sluggish crowds of other teams wandering the halls. Pages flipping, arcs ending, this could be the end of all of it here. He still has so much to say, even if his mind cannot string together words into sentences, into an admission that could make the world halt if he uttered so. They shook hands after the Nekoma match, and yet it doesn't feel enough. The third years are graduating, he's changed but it doesn't mean he's stopped changing, and so many people have shown him what it means to be consumed by something. There's so much left to do. It doesn't feel enough.
Kuroo is standing by a wall just outside the doors, scrolling through something on his phone. A slight slouch, the lines of his body not lazy, rather a deliberate carelessness that comes with experience. On the cusp of adulthood, on the brink of being too far too reach. A ghost like the roaring crowd. The shivers from playing a good game.
He looks up. "Tsukki?"
"Kuroo-san." Hands to his knees. There's an ache somewhere in his heart and he swears his leg is fine now, but it feels like he could fall over in any minute. He didn't run, but his heart is pounding and it's reminiscent of the thumping adrenaline that comes with a point, a successful block. He unfurls and stands up straighter. "Thank you." ‘ I'm in love. I'm in love, and it's your fault. Thank you.’
"You've got more games ahead of you," he says.
Kei's fingers, wrapped with bandages, twitch. "I know."
Hands at his waist. Kuroo looks at Kei like he's looking at the sky, like the court is right there and he's one point from winning. Maybe he's already won the whole damn game, while Kei's just learned what it means to step within those lines. There's no crowd, but if there was one, it would be cheering. "Don't say 'thank you' like goodbye."
"This won't be my last time in Tokyo," Kei says.
A grin, sharp and cutting and honest with the glint of youth. "I know."
<->
Volleyball season is over, and the third years are retiring from their clubs. Kuroo’s been sending him cat pictures since he got Kei’s number after the Tokyo training camp. He attempted to stop him the first few times, but the pictures have long since become just another part of his routine. Along with such routine comes the occasional video calls, procrastination nipping at Kuroo's heels or so he says, and Kei's not one to pass up an opportunity to have any of his infrequent homework questions answered.
This time around, the studying, Kuroo for his entrance exams and Kei for his finals, gets derailed when Kuroo manages to get Kei on a 45 minute tangent about dinosaurs. Somehow after that, the English puns Kuroo's scrawled down in the margins of his notes make Kei cringe so hard he considers hanging up three times and makes Kuroo's stomach hurt so much he almost starts crying.
"These aren’t tears!" Kuroo exclaims defensively. The hand that comes up to wipe at his eyes ruins any progress of convincing Kei, not that it matters when he's unable to fight back the smile he doesn't realize holds a measure of fondness. Kuroo blinks and points at the camera cheerfully. "Ah! You’re smiling."
Kei wrinkles his nose, tries to wrestle his lips into a frown. "I'm not."
With the tables turned, Kuroo's answering smirk speaks volumes about how little he believes him. Rolling his eyes, Kei places an elbow on his now forgotten homework and props his chin up. In equal parts curiosity and a desire to move from the self-satisfaction exuding in waves off of Kuroo's pixelated figure, Kei gets Kuroo talking about university.
Kuroo's program of choice, a communications and managerial sort of course from what Kei understands, reminds him of Nekoma's clean connections and elegant efficiency. From one move to another, the boy with sharp eyes and even sharper plays makes plans upon plans where he comes out on top. It feels right in a way he can't really explain. Behind horrifyingly loud laughter and an even louder personality, there's the quiet pursuit of something just beyond Kei's periphery. He can't quite see it yet; Kei hopes someday he will.
"And volleyball?" he asks.
The answer comes immediately.
"Always."
Eventually, they do both end up studying again. Kei's thoughts find itself coming back to 'always' and the absolute conviction in his words. There's this restlessness that comes with a revelation that is less of a revelation, and more like how pieces fall into place. He hears such an answer and finds himself in between the lines, searches and realizes that his own answer might be just the same.
It feels right.
<->
Somewhere down the line, Kuroo-san becomes Kuroo which becomes Tetsurou by accident after he sends one too many memes at 2 am when Kei is trying sleep for once, and he never does relearn how to call him Kuroo-san again so maybe it is for the best. Somewhere down that same line, Tetsturou manages to coerce Kei into telling him his address, but never mentions it again and eventually Kei forgets he even gave it until much later.
March ends and the cherry blossoms wake up, dragging April along with them. Spring smells sweet in the air. Kei would think it was beautiful if he could stop sniffling every couple of seconds. Sugawara isn't around to hound him about bringing tissues, but he's always been good about being responsible for himself. The limited time strawberry desserts only partially make up for it, but spring has a long way from becoming one of his favourite seasons.
In the second week of April, a letter arrives in the mail.
"Kei," Akiteru says, opening his bedroom door. He pulls his headphones down and looks up with a mix of mild curiosity and confusion. "There's something here for you. From Tokyo?” Kei sits up properly this time instead of flopped over on his bed and takes the small envelope, barely bigger than his hand, that Akiteru passes to him.
His brother has a faint smile on his face as he does double-take after reading the address. “You made friends there.” There’s an undercurrent of pride there, happiness.
“Hm, yeah…” Kei hums noncommittally. Thinks for a second before continuing to say: “Maybe I’ll tell you about them sometime.”
The smile on Akiteru’s face becomes more permanent and he even ruffles Kei’s hair before he walks out. “You better.”
He’s meticulous (read: a perfectionist), but he’s never been one to open up envelopes without accidentally creating a massive rip, so it’s with great pain that he flops over to snag scissors from his desk. The postage stamp, a maneki-neko , along with the address has Kei rolling his eyes at the realization. There’s a small bulge in the envelope, nothing visually noticeable until he actually opens it up and tilts it. A picture and a button fall onto his bed.
Kei’s already hitting the dial on his phone, listening to the ringing as he inspects the photo.
One of the teachers during the Tokyo training camp had come by the third gym and asked the boys to take a group picture together. Tetsurou stands just off-center, arms around Kei’s and Bokuto’s shoulders, grinning brightly. Akaashi’s beside Bokuto, leaning his weight onto one of his legs and volleyball in hand looking like a model. Hinata and Lev are caught mid-jump, both with equally ridiculous yet infectious smiles spread across their faces. There’s a half-frown on his own face, but even the present Kei can tell he doesn’t really mean it.
Several rings later, the phone is picked up.
"I got mail," Kei says, foregoing the typical 'hello.' He sets down the picture in favour of the golden button, rotating it in the lamp light. On the back, a tiny number ‘2’ scrawled with black marker in Tetsurou’s handwriting.
"Ah, it finally arrived,” Tetsurou answers wryly. There’s rustling on his end, the sound of a fan whirring faintly in the background. "You never did get me a present for graduation."
Kei thinks about chronic bedhead, something that even adulthood couldn't outrun as proven by the occasional morning selfie he's sent. He rolls the button between two fingers, sets it on top of his desk rather than keep it on his bed. Small and precious, easy to get lost. Something tells him he shouldn’t be so careless. "A hairbrush then."
"You wound me," he huffs, light and exasperated in a way he doesn’t actually mean. "Include gel if you send me a hairbrush."
Kei scowls at his phone, as if somehow his disdain could travel through his phone and find its way to Tetsurou's apartment. It doesn't really need to, not when he puts all of it in saying: " No ."
"Well I tried," Tetsurou sighs dramatically. "Anyways, feel free to throw it out if you don't want it.”
Feel free to throw it out. Oh Tetsurou, so like him to send a piece of his heart and expect it to be cast away. So like Kei to feel the ache and know that this isn’t enough, that there’s more to be done.
With all the stubbornness that comes with being a headstrong teenager, Kei digs his heels in, bites back like a child. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
In the end, a package containing a hairbrush, gel, and a small dog plushie makes its way to Tokyo and onto Tetsurou's doorstep. He calls Kei in a fit of teasing gushing about how his favourite student did remember him, but the ‘ thank you’ that follows his spiel is the genuine article. Kei frames the picture and keeps on his desk. He takes a photo and sends it to Tetsurou.
<->
The truth of it is, Kei keeps the button in the pocket of his school bag.
Kei may be in his second year, but he's still young so he can get away with acting like the bonafide know-it-all he is just to rile up Kageyama because it's fun, pulling all-nighters for the hell of it, and making plans for the future the same way one writes and rewrites the same line in different words. There’s confidence in the way he pretends to see through the world like a glass snow globe, knows that detachment isn’t the same as being oblivious and unable to make connections. Kei is in high school; chocolates are more than just sweet treets and letters in shoe lockers aren't just challenges to the death, no matter what Hinata says about Kageyama's terribly phrased confessions.
Literature teaches him there’s more than what meets the eye; everything is a symbol of something. He can search up the meaning all he likes, but understanding what it means to be Tetsurou’s dearest person isn’t something that he can just find the answer to. All it does is give him a headache.
Which is to say, Kei keeps the button close by. It’s terrible manners to treat another’s sign of affection so carelessly after all.
Tetsurou never brings it up, and out of respect, neither does Kei. They could play this game for the rest of their lives, Tetsurou pretending like Kei doesn’t know while Kei pretends that he doesn’t know that Tetsurou knows he knows. It’s all very convoluted really, and Kei has better things to do than to keep his mind on the merry-go-round of this twisted ‘will-they, won’t they’ , not that he can help it though.
In all fairness, Tetsurou never does lie to him; Kei just never asks.
<->
On the first night of Tokyo Training camp in his second year of high school, Kei returns to his room from a shower and sees a text on his phone. Towel wrapped haphazardly around still dripping hair, he thinks about a faintly familiar gym absent of some familiar faces as water droplets hit his phone screen. He almost laughs; imagine having a presence so big that it leaves living ghosts behind. There’s nothing surprising about it though. People end up bleeding into each other, taking the best and worst parts and fitting those pieces into themselves.
Rooster-Head: miss me yet?
After a match, Kei always asks for the footage so that he can rewatch parts he missed, think about all the ways he can play better next time. Played out on his laptop screen, he fixates on every single movement. Kei is reminded of all the ways in which the game can change, how a shift in perspective opens up venues for strategies and answers to peek through. His mind is in search of epiphanies.
The third gym is different this year. Kei rewinds the footage of his memories, holds up the two in comparison like some spot-the-difference picture. He’s taller now, maybe even wiser. His blocks have improved, are still improving. Hinata’s jump increased yet again, but that’s the least of it in comparison to the fledgling rookie player he was before. Lev spends more time standing than he does collapsed on the floor. Akaashi is just as intimidating as ever with his easy to hit sets and casual elegance, so maybe not everything has changed. Or so Kei thinks, up until Akaashi sets to Hinata and nearly calls him 'Bokuto-san.'
They make eye contact through the net. Hinata slams the volleyball down with a powerful spike. Kei doesn’t block it properly. He doesn’t say anything, but he hopes Akaashi doesn’t feel too bad about it.
<->
Sometime in September, Kei loses Tetsurou’s button.
He doesn’t understand why his heart rate skyrockets when he digs his hand in the pocket of his bag and finds it empty. He doesn’t understand why his hands start shaking when he realizes it’s not in his jacket pockets either. There isn’t much time to find it in between the end of the day and the start of clubs, so Kei winds up at practice, even when he wishes he could take some time to search for it.
Kageyama once told Kei that he has the expression of a rock, and while it pissed him off in the moment, it serves him well enough to pull a convincing act of nonchalance. He plays well enough during their practice matches and even riles up some of the first years for fun to take his mind off of it. However, Kei isn’t surprised when Tadashi somehow takes notice and comes up to him during one of their breaks, questions on the tip of his tongue.
Kei beats him to the chase. “I lost something.”
“Headphones?” Tadashi asks.
He shakes his head. “No, a button.” It’s hard to get the words out. The admission of losing the button makes it all the more real and it sounds heavier than he expected, but he never intended on placing so much emotional emphasis on such a tiny object. Rather, it just happened .
“Kuroo-san’s?” Tadashi, being the one Kei immediately texted after his phone call with Tetsurou, has already heard about it, although doesn’t quite know what Kei feels about it. Neither does Kei really.
“Yeah.”
A nod. “Okay, I’ll look for it too.”
After practice, they end up emptying out his bag, turning the pockets of his clothes inside out, and even retracing his paths throughout the school. The students who were on cleaning duty shake their heads when they ask if they’ve seen a button. Kei feels worse and worse, but drags Tadashi home anyways. It’s his problem and he’s not about to waste someone else’s time on it. If worse comes to worse, he can just say sorry to Tetsurou.
That evening, Kei writes and rewrites an apology, but can’t bring himself to write it. Tetsurou sends him a cat picture, which makes him smile a little. He doesn’t respond though. Kei still doesn’t know how to act or what means to have someone’s heart in his hands, but the button may be the closest thing to that and he lost it. He lost it.
Despite Kei’s half-hearted ‘don’t worry about it’ , it’s Tadashi who comes to the rescue, ambushing him in Homeroom two days later. He’s already pulling off his headphones when he sees Tadashi walking over, a hand closed into a fist by his side. Hope and relief swell in equal portions.
“It fell by one of the lockers in the changeroom. I thought maybe Hinata lost another button, but the pattern was different,” he explains, dropping the button into Kei’s upturned hand.
Kei exhales loudly, like he had been holding his breath since the moment the button vanished. “I’ll buy you fries later,” he promises. Tadashi grins and pumps his fist in the air excitedly.
The bell rings and he begins to walk away to his desk, but only gets two steps away before he stops. Turns around and locks eyes with Kei. Classmates all around him are already sitting down, but they pay the others no mind. Tadashi’s head tilts to the side like he’s just seeing something for the first time.
Says, “He matters a lot to you, huh?”
<->
On the first night of Tokyo Training camp in his second year of high school, Kei sits on his futon, homework spread out in front of him and listens to the shouting of the boys in the hallway like some sort of song. It could be if he tried hard enough. In theory, there are an infinite amount of ways to answer a question, although the matter of whether or not the answer is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ is a different story. Tetsurou, for all his teasing and sly remarks, never lies to Kei.
The truth of it is, there was never truly another way to answer his question.
Me: yes
<->
With all the privilege that comes with knowing a person for over ten years, Tadashi more-or-less dives rather than jumps onto Kei's bed, which sends him flying a couple centimeters up in the air before settling, sprawled limbs and all. Kei, on the other hand, sets their bags against his bedroom wall and flops down on his desk chair with an exhausted sigh.
The volleyball team had just missed the opportunity to go to Interhighs once again, and Ukai-san and Takeda-sensei have upped the intensity of their practices. They haven't gotten nearly as far as they did in their first year, but no one on their team cared about that. Their eyes are on the future, ready to wrestle a chance of their own from the universe.
Karasuno is going to make it to Nationals again.
He sits up. "Tsukki."
Kei looks over at Tadashi, who sports a serious frown on his face. "Hm?"
“We're competing in the Spring Tournament prelims,” Tadashi says, eyes refusing to break contact with Kei's. Kei wants to look away, but he feels like it would count towards some sort of loss. For what, he's not quite sure. He doesn't, which really is what counts. Tadashi laughs slightly, shaking his head. “Kageyama and Hinata would throw a fit if we didn’t.”
Kei raises an eyebrow. “I take it you’re not retiring.”
“I can’t,” Tadashi says emphatically. He points a finger at him. “Plus, you’re not retiring either.”
In the end, Kei ends up looking away first. His eyes drift to his desk, gaze roaming over frames holding pictures of the volleyball team in its different versions over the past three years. The picture of the Tokyo training camp, still in the same place he put the photo when he first got it. A heart without a heartbeat in the shape of a golden button that he could never throw out. In the corner of his eye, a roll of athletic tape nearly finished, and his own fingers wrapped too.
He has had this talk with the advisors already, career forms and consultations pouring in. The future looms like some shadowy stranger over a small child. Tell his past self that he didn't want to quit his volleyball club in favour of academics and he's sure that he would have laughed. Volleyball demands Kei to be selfish, more selfish than he's ever been. He wants to play more games, knows he can be better, do better.
“We’re going to see through to the end,” Kei says.
Tadashi smiles brightly at him. He almost sees a shadow of Sugawara in him then, asking questions he already has the answer to and always, always, wanting the best for those he cares about. As a captain and as a friend, he asks: “And after?”
'Always' echoes through his mind. A part of Kei thinks that perhaps he already knew his answer back then, in that moment.
There is no forgetting 7 year old Kei chasing after Akiteru, wanting to get better just to be like his big brother. 10 years old in the gym with older students, chasing improvement's tail. 14 years old, volleyball trophies shattered and a dream dropped like a heavy weight too big for trembling truths. 16 years old and the blue sky of the court makes itself known to him, victory like water in a parched throat, a ghost, and love of the game. Almost 18 and still running. Almost 18 and in perpetual motion, climbing a steep mountain to see the view.
Kei nods.
“I'll play.”
<->
They place third in Nationals.
It's a rush, a whirlwind. A type of epic montage that movies would be jealous of. Are they jealous yet? They should be. Every serve, spike, dig, has Kei gritting his teeth and set on the edge of his seat. Only, it's not a seat. He's on the court, an underdog story written in each footstep. Kei is crafting these unforgetting moments with his hands, bringing life to victory like Prometheus creating fire. An uphill battle, a struggling and daring climb up a mountain that thrums in his blood. The ghost of a crowd doesn’t haunt him. It echoes and roars in time with the pounding of his heart. Every victory, every loss makes Kei want to shout on the court. He does. The open sky listens to his declarations. ‘ I'm here. I'm here.'
Who knew playing would make him feel so alive?
<->
Later, just after the awarding ceremony and the team is packing up the last of their things, Kei's phone buzzes. Mechanically, he checks his own bag to make sure everything is still inside. Half of his thoughts in a different place, feet pulling him in the direction of a half-familiar place and a more than familiar person. Sweat towelled off but in desperate need of a shower, Kei slips on his Karasuno jacket over the shirt he's switched into and shoves his hands in his pocket, toying with Tetsurou's worn button.
Tadashi, for all the confidence he's grown into over the years and his sense of duty and responsibility fuelled by his role as Karasuno's captain, never does leave behind his eager kindness nor his uncanny ability to read another person like the back of his hand. He stands tall over Hitoka and some of the other crying first years offering his own brand of comforting words and encouragement. Shouyou and Tobio are both glued to the TV screens, looking at the reruns of previous matches throughout the Spring Tournament.
They aren't crying yet, but Kei knows that the tears will be saved for when the third years are alone. The blue sky of the court, the rebellion of those who were called 'flightless crows.' Karasuno showed them, didn't they? Chasing after the ball, playing like a thirsty man after water, and an unquenchable thirst for the game. Found family in the middle of it all.
Over the bent heads, Tadashi looks up and makes eye contact with Kei. He cocks his head in the direction of the hall like a question. Tadashi grins and winks, which Kei rolls his eyes at, but there's no denying the half-smile filled with fondness that spreads across his face a second later. Kei turns away like he did so long ago. Makes a loose fist around Tetsurou's button, feels his heart beat in his fingertips.
The gyms have done some remodeling since the last nationals. Regardless, Kei manages to find his way to the same set of doors and walks out into the cool evening air. They call it the Spring Tournament, but the shiver that runs down his spine reminds him that winter still has its grasp on the weather. Tetsurou stands by the same wall Kei found him by two years ago. The scarf Kei mailed to Tetsurou for Christmas is wrapped around him, a deep warm red even in the shadow.
Golden eyes lock with his, and before Kei can even make a sound, Tetsurou crosses the last few metres between them and wraps his strong arms around Kei's neck, pulling him into the sturdy line of his body. A fleeting joke about how this scene could've been a stock image in some romcom doesn't make it past the tip of Kei's tongue as he rests his head on Tetsurou's shoulder and wraps his own arms around him. His heart isn't thumping as hard as it was years ago, but being around Tetsurou has never lost the feeling of victory, of singing adrenaline and a connection drawn back to the start. Of a feeling of home in another person.
“Good job,” Tetsurou says, voice slightly muffled from the fabric of the scarf.
“Thank you.” The night air stings cold against Kei's cheeks, but Tetsurou's fingers are playing with the longer ends of his hair and he's wrapped up in the arms of someone he loves. Oh, he thinks, I’m in love. The last game of his high school career rests in the hollow of his bones, asking him to fly higher, go further than he first thought when he was but 15 stepping into high school for the first time. Oh, I'm in love.
“That wasn’t your last time in Tokyo?” On 'Tokyo,' he squeezes Kei a little tighter.
Kei laughs. Breathes in fresh air and Testurou’s faint cologne. “Not even close.”
<->
Life becomes warmer, brighter, and sweeter when the seasons change. So maybe Kei will ever learn how to love spring the way he loves fall, but the blossoming flowers don’t wait for anything, much less for him to come to terms with it all.
After Nationals, the third years officially retire. None of them want to leave quite yet, and it takes the combined strength of Kei and Tadashi, along with some of the second years, to physically drag Tobio and Shouyou away from the gym at the end of the club’s send-off. Hitoka laughing sheepishly at them by the side as she fusses about the next manager in line.
There are lessons in the calluses, bruises, fading scars, and scratches on his lenses accumulated over the years. Histories written in the ache of his thighs and crooked fingers, the type that twinge with a phantom pain months after it heals. The last three years feel more like a trick of the light, one that he could catch in the corner of his eye on early morning train rides to school, rather than some sort of formula or notations that tell him the who, what, where, when of it all.
Sentimentality is something of an indulgence, but Kei can’t escape bittersweet nostalgia the same way he can’t escape the spring allergies that come with the pollen. Even behind his mask, he sneezes at the sunlight. Even behind his hesitance and half-hearted complaints, Kei stays around to take photos after the ceremony. In the background, the Nationals banner sways in the breeze, still hanging from the side of the school building. A new picture makes its way onto his desk later on, the five of them grinning at the camera, immortalized in their youth.
Before he leaves, he indulges. Turns around to take in the sight of Karasuno. For all of Kei’s spectacular memory, wielding embarrassing memories like an arsenal of weapons with that shit-eating grin of his, he couldn’t begin to start recounting his high school experience. His memories become an apparition, the echo of what it feels to lie against the slightly cool, worn wooden planks of the gym. Kei wonders on some nights, face aglow with the light from his phone, where he would be now if he quit volleyball. If he hadn’t found his love for it.
Youth nips at their heels, ready to set into the world and conquer it in their own ways. The five of them are heading on their separate paths, scattered across the country, and Brazil apparently from what he’s heard. As for Kei, in the following school year he'll be in Sendai University and playing volleyball yet again. They’re all moving onto bigger and better things, and Kei’s not about to wait around to seize those opportunities anymore.
<->
Two days later, Kei gets on a bus.
<->
Despite Kei’s intensive preparations, deciding to go even before early March and purchasing the tickets soon after, he doesn’t quite take into account how terrible it is to wake up early in the morning for travel.
The coach bus pulls out of the station just as dawn begins to crawl its way up from the horizon, pulling orange and pink from the ground like colourful yarn. Wrapping his jacket around his torso as a makeshift blanket, Kei listens to music through his headphones and watches black melt into a colourful landscape above the lush green grass and large sections of rice fields for as long as he can keep his eyes open. The constantly rumbling of the bus manages to lull him to sleep for the first hour, but unfortunately, his luck doesn’t last as long as he hopes. After waking up during their first pit stop, Kei, for all the little sleep he does get the night previous, finds himself unable to stay asleep for longer than 40 minutes at a time. When he startles away the third time, he gives up and rests his head against the cool window.
Under his jacket, Kei pulls out Tetsurou’s button again, running his thumb over the familiar patterns engraved onto the now dulled golden button from the hundreds of times he’s rubbed at the shine like a good luck charm. The ‘2’ on the back of the button when he first saw it has long since faded over the years. Kei can pretend to lack sentimentality, but in the end, he’s the one who finds himself on the bus to Tokyo, clutching a memento that means more than anything he could ever vocalize. What does it mean to be the person closest to someone’s heart? He doesn’t know if there’s a right answer. All Kei does know is that Tetsurou makes him want to be a better person, not just for him but for himself.
Maybe it all boils down to this: 15 and in love; 18 and in still love. Some things don’t change after all.
<->
Just half-past 9 on a weekend in Tokyo, Kuroo Tetsurou opens his door.
Kei watches as Tetsurou’s expression goes from jaw-dropping shock to bright excitement that could almost be giddy, before settling into a fond happiness. Dressed in wrinkled grey shorts and a white t-shirt, Tetsurou leans to the side, arm braced against the frame. His eyes are half-lidded with the last vestiges of sleep, but his irises glint gold like every iteration of sunlight Kei has ever seen. A sunrise in the making. Tetsurou seems softer somehow, losing the sharp edges in the folds of his bedsheets, but never any less stunning as he’s always been. He steals the breath from Kei’s lungs every time. Makes his words fall out onto the floor.
The birds chirp in chorus with the rattling of a distant train and ringing bells as Kei stands there, dazed. Here he is in Tokyo, on the figurative doorstep to something new and the literal doorstep to someone old, and he’s floundering over feelings that he should know by heart by now. Maybe he should have written this down, thought of something on his way here, but every little thing feels too much and not enough all at once.
“It’s out of the blue, but…” Kei opens his mouth, closes it. Tetsurou’s gaze is fixed on his, comforting in its weight and silent encouragement. There’s no rush, only coaxing the words out slowly. He settles for the truth. “I kept it.”
“I know,” he says. Not at first, not entirely. However, Kei is anything but cruel, and Tetsurou has learned to trust him.
Kei exhales. He pulls out his hand from his hoodie, unfurls his fingers which shake almost imperceptibly. In his palm is a button from his own uniform. No number on the back, but meaning the exact same thing. A hesitant look flashes cross his face, averts his own eyes with a faint blush. “I have something of yours.”
Tetsurou reaches his hands out.
One takes the button without touching Kei’s palm, slipping it into the pocket of his shorts. The other gently cups Kei’s face, makes him look at Tetsurou properly for the first time since he opened the door. He looks at him with so much tenderness Kei’s heart aches, tells him to lean in. Tetsurou presses his lips to Kei’s, kissing him like he’s already won the whole damn game. Like Kei himself is the victory that he’s been waiting for.
When he steps away, it’s Kei who smiles widely, looking heartachingly young and in love. Tetsurou’s hand falls from Kei’s face and down to his fingers, grabbing his hand.
“Come inside,” he says.