THIS IS AMAZING AND I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT. My fave parts are “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. and 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. and 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.
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IceBreeze Tue 24 Apr 2018 08:42PM UTC
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