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2023 — spring
In the six years that he has lived there, there have been countless things about Brazil that have found their way home in Shouyou’s heart.
The family-owned cheesecake shop ‘round the corner from his townhouse in São Paulo, which makes an oreo variety of his dreams. The eclectic furniture store down the road where he bought his first proper dining table. Their home gymnasium in Vila Leopoldina, its cyan-blue linoleum, the scaffolding of the ceiling. The sunkissed lushness of Rio de Janeiro, the endless summer sky which had patiently watched him grow.
He’s fond of the pastel de queijo served at the bar on Rue Rodesia, fond of its fluorescent lighting and the vinyls and posters cascading down its walls. He loves the violently named cocktails at Guilhotina, of which has become their post-season celebration ritual. He loves the vibrancy of it all, the EDM that leaks through the streets at Superloft, the never ending peak-hour traffic-jams, the packed bars on Friday nights, and the underground arthouse venues.
São Paulo— Esse-pay— sings with a kind of beautiful chaos that he finds almost reminiscent of Osaka. Shouyou tells this to Atsumu one day at his 6am— Atsumu a whole twelve hours forward— when he had just wrapped up his meditation for the morning. His previous night had been punctuated with neon and eardrum-shattering music, his teammate Matheus having dragged him to some nightclub that he had been telling Shouyou about for months.
“It was like— Paaaaaaaa!! Y’know? Just complete sensory overload. Like walking down Dotonbori really, really drunk,” Shouyou laughs, double-knotting the laces on his trainers.
“Oh? Did it have the tourist trap shithouse takoyaki stands and store clerks yellin’ in Mandarin?” Atsumu laughs. In the background, Shouyou can hear the occasional clanging of cutlery and utensils— Atsumu always prepares dinner around this time. “As a Kansai local, it’s my duty to make sure that never happens to you.”
“Really?” Shouyou smiles, “Because you’re speaking from experience?”
“No! Not Dotonbori. Never Dotonbori. The shame would kill me!”
Atsumu sounds almost affronted, as if his mouth has tightened to an indignant pout. If Shouyou was there in person, he would have kissed him, just for that.
“You're sweet, Atsumu-san,” he says, “Let’s go to that club, when you’re here next month? I also found this really nice coffee place that I think you’ll really, really like. They have a whole ritual-type thing with all of these different kinds grown in Brazil.”
“Sure, but will your stomach be okay with that much?” Atsumu teases.
“It’s the off-season, it doesn’t matter—“
“Just pullin’ your leg. Take me there. I wanna go back to the place that does the— what’s it called— the yellow pudding shit.”
“The blancmange? I’ll make a reservation for us. Let me know what else— where else you wanna go,” Shouyou replies, starting his brisk pace around the block.
He lets Atsumu talk his ear off as he runs, as he watches the pink light of the sun illuminate the buildings on the horizon, as they cast patterns on his bronzed skin through the trees above. His neighbourhood is idyllic, almost peaceful in the early hours of the morning, and while part of him knows that it’s constructed entirely on his privilege, knows that there are hundreds of thousands of equal truths to this city, Shouyou can’t help it— he falls in love a little bit deeper with the industrial beauty of Vila Madalena, its dozens of little art galleries, the vibrant graffiti art adorning the streets. Falls in love with what it means to be here— in São Paulo, his fourth season with ASAS— with the process, with the people. And with the kind of concrete labyrinth that São Paulo is, he supposes it is poetic justice, that he was always meant to find his way here, someday.
It is a city for him, wrought by his own hands, and he has paved his own way just as Kageyama has with Rome. He is at the top of his game, has made the most improbable kind of shockwave through the Brazilian league as the most unlikely first-string opposite, has earned his titles after finding lift-off from the sand. And yet, part of him thinks that it isn’t enough.
The part of him that has been climbing for almost fifteen years, hands scrubbed raw and calloused, shirt stained with chalk, is sated. It has tasted bronze and silver and gold, has tasted the high of a five-set final, the high of a game-defining spike. But there is something else— something that he yearns for, that he can’t yet put his finger on exactly. Something he hadn’t defined in his ten-year-plan, inexplicable and hungry and confusing all at once.
He finishes off his run by dropping into a cafe, ordering an iced latte which comes served in a mug. Atsumu is talking about Osamu’s latest new onigiri venture, something about a food truck, something about a Lawson collab. He tells him about acquiring a black-market, top secret advance copy of Akaashi Keiji’s novel— something involving a drinking game after an MSBY match. Shouyou really does enjoy his mornings, feels like he can start his day right listening to Atsumu’s voice, its lilting candor, its wonder.
He's about halfway through his coffee when he abruptly interrupts Atsumu’s rant about the Red Falcons’ new rookie setter. He prides himself on his ability to listen, but he can’t help it, sometimes. Not when Atsumu’s like this, words blending together, excitedly talking about something or another. It’s so mundane, and yet—
“Tsumu-san, I miss you,” he says, unrestrained. “Very much.”
He can hear Atsumu on the other line choke and cough around his dinner, and he feels a little bit bad.
“What the hell, warn a guy, would’ja?” he manages to finally squeeze out, “Where’d this come from? Are y’dying? You’re not bein— held hostage or some shit right? Do I need to bail y’out?”
“No,” Shouyou laughs, “I just wanted to make sure you knew.”
There’s a beat of silence, and Shouyou can practically hear Atsumu blush.
“I do,” he replies, “I do know. An' I’m coming over right now, I’m going to take the next fucking flight over there and get there in the next five minutes to kiss you, otherwise I’m going to fuckin’ pass out.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Shouyou giggles, fiddling around with the hardened calluses on his fingers. “I’ll count the seconds.”
“Yeah,” Atsumu says, and his voice has gone all wistful, all thick and clammy with emotion.
Shouyou wants to reach out and press his mouth to his hands, like he always does when Atsumu’s heart stills like this, beautiful and candid and just as soft as his dreams. The distance between them always feels impossibly large, spanning continents and seas and billions of little lights— and feels like nothing at all.
“I’ll be there soon,” Atsumu says, and Shouyou smiles.
2019— spring.
Atsumu first confesses to Shouyou two days before his move to Brazil. They are only hundreds of kilometres from each other, on opposing sides of Japan— and not opposing sides of the world.
They’d seen each other only a week prior at his going-away party, Shouyou tucking him into his arms in farewell. He hadn’t said anything then, had just looked at Atsumu longingly under izakaya lights— looking beautiful and devastating and ears brushed pink from the cold, and thought, no, it would be selfish of himself to ask Atsumu to be his now.
But Atsumu ruins his plans and asks him out anyway, a week into his trip back to Miyagi to sort out his affairs, to spend time with Natsu and his mother for the last time in a while. A week into saying goodbyes— to Takeda-sensei, to Coach Ukai, to Washijo-sensei, and everyone else in between. He’d just returned from dinner with the Karasuno third-years— sans Tobio, of course— full on laughter and good memories, full on Yachi’s smiles and Yamaguchi’s good nature, on the image of Tsukishima flushed tipsy from one too many kahlua and milks. Natsu next to him, a futon laid out adjacent to his childhood bed— she’d been clinging to him the entire week.
“Are you sure?” he asks Atsumu over their LINE call, Shouyou’s chest fluttering at a hundred beats per minute, all of his atoms buzzing with a nervous kind of energy that betrays the kind of image that he’d built for himself in the V-league. His hands are sweaty, pooled in the fabric of his sheets.
“Yes,” Atsumu replies, and Shouyou clings onto the fact that he has never heard him sound more sure. “Besides, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all that shit.”
“Alright, then. We’ll work it out, won’t we?” Shouyou replies, tossing his good intentions to the wind— curse his selfish heart. “And when we see each other next, I’ll have enough fondness for you to fill an entire ocean!”
Back then, he had wanted Brazil and Atsumu both, as if they weren’t, in some ways, mutually exclusive. Because that’s the kind of person Shouyou supposes he was— desperate to defy odds, unable to stop himself from taking the things he so badly thought he needed, even if it meant squeezing himself into spaces that were not meant for him.
And in some ways, Shouyou thinks that he’ll always be like that. Always hungry, always climbing up. But when it comes to Atsumu— beautiful, open-hearted Tsumu, things are different. He had wanted things to be different, and still does.
So they have all of their firsts here, in Brazil; in Shouyou’s little Villa Mada townhouse.
It is here that Shouyou cooks for Atsumu for the first time, buys said dining table just for the occasion— and they haul it down the street together in lieu of hiring a pick up truck because Atsumu’s pride is personally affronted on his behalf to pay an exuberant amount for delivery when his townhouse is not even a few minutes away. He cooks moqueca baiana, begs Tia Lana from next door to show him how to make it for literal weeks beforehand, and she relents only when he agrees to clean her garden, to prune the bushes and all.
Shouyou, over-excited, christens the bright yellow dining table with a generous bunch of dried flowers and mismatched cutlery, sets the pot of the seafood stew down with farofa and a celebratory bottle of Coruja beer. He concedes that it isn’t very good at the first bite, but he looks up to see Atsumu staring at him as if he’s hung the stars from the sky, and thinks that all of the effort has been worth it.
They share their first bath here, a mess of tangled limbs and sweat, and it's been a long time coming, ever since Shouyou had inspected the place for the first time and been entranced by the size of the master bathroom, with its frosted glass and its luxurious hotel-room view. He buys fancy dried rose petals for the occasion and completely forgets about them until Atsumu leaves for Japan— but it is perfect anyway, with the heat of Atsumu’s shoulders pressing up against his, hair clinging to his forehead, their fingers lacing together under the water like some kind of secret.
They have their first kiss here, too.
It happens in the sunroom, Atsumu’s favourite place in the house. The room feels like a greenhouse with its warmth, with its floor to ceiling windows, with its beautiful glass roof, with the array of thriving plants that Shouyou had been given as gifts by one of his green thumb teammates. In the spring, he opens the french doors al fresco style, sits in the cushy chairs overlooking his tiny patio, and chugs down iced barley tea imported from Japan.
Atsumu catches him there, one morning, the light brilliant and vivid and cascading down his skin, bends down and plucks the well-worn copy of Ancient Tillage from his hands. And with the kind of care that he’s known for, he tilts Shouyou’s chin toward the sky, circles his mouth with his. It is hot and gentle and slow, and Shouyou reaches his hands around Atsumu’s neck to press in deeper, to drink up every last bit of the tension that has been present ever since he had taken his hand at Guarulhos International, Terminal B.
It disappears after that, the tension. It disappears with every kiss that Shouyou leaves to Atsumu’s collarbone, disappears with the layers of cotton and fabric and silk that fall to the floor. And while Shouyou has seen this situation play out countless times in his dreams, has dreamt of Atsumu’s kiss for months and months upon almost a year, those dreams disappear too, replaced by a reality that is somehow a thousand times sweeter.
It’s a reality bathed in sun and the kind of freedom that comes with knowing what you want, and Shouyou’s neck sears with warmth from Atsumu’s breath on his skin, sears with the heat of their thighs pressed together, sears with the lightness he feels in his bones.
It’s another first, but it’s also a last. It is the last time he wonders what it would feel to be held and touched and cherished like this— by someone who knows his everything so deeply, all the thorns and all the hunger stitched in between his wings— and incrementally, bit by bit, Shouyou allows himself to be undone.
2023 — spring
“Hey, Tsumu-san?” Shouyou asks one Sunday morning, cutting in between an anecdote about Osamu-san opening the new Fukuoka branch of Onigiri Miya. “What are you going to do, when you reach the top?”
“Hmm? Are you trying to tell me somethin’? Do you mean like the bedroom kind? Because if you’re gonna start brainstormin’ about what you wanna do to me next month, I’m all ears.” Atsumu’s words come out all at once, like a flood, and it’s as comical as it is endearing. Shouyou laughs.
“No, no. I mean— when we win Olympic gold? Like— when you’ve reached the top of your game. When you’ve ticked off all of your goals,” Shouyou explains. “Sorry, I sprung this out of nowhere— it’s a bit early for this, isn’t it?”
“An’ when has that ever stopped you?”, Atsumu replies, amused, and Shouyou can hear the smile in his voice. He likes these moments the best, the kind of candid introspection that wells up between them from time to time. For Shouyou, Atsumu has become a steady sort of comfort, his presence a place of rest.
“I haven’t decided yet,” is what Atsumu says, finally. “I mean, ideally I pictured myself playin’ on the court until my knees give out, but I dunno...”
“What about coaching, Tsumu? I think you’d be amazing at it!” Shouyou asks.
“Wha— how’d you…?” Atsumu splutters, caught off-guard, and Shouyou just giggles. “I dunno, can you imagine me rearing a bunch’a young sprouts? Ugh, god, no. I don’t know yet. I haven’t figured it out.”
Shouyou just smiles, because he knows Atsumu, knows how he would never be content with just letting be, knows that he wouldn’t be able to help himself, knows that his love for their sport traces a slightly different path to his. Atsumu’s volleyball is the kind of care that he imparts to all his spikers, all his teammates, all of their staff. And he knows this, has seen it— Shouyou knows Atsumu’s heart like his own.
“I can see it, though?” he replies, “Coach Miya has a nice ring to it. Just think of all the tiny high schoolers— Miya kantoku! Did you see my toss! Or something like that. I think it’d be cute.”
“God no, okay, please stop,” Atsumu shudders through a giggling Shouyou. “It’s your turn to pay up now. What’re you gonna do?”
“Maybe I’ll open up an onigiri shop here—“ Shouyou says, coyly, slowly.
“Don’t you dare—“
“It’ll be called Onigiri Hinata, and I’ll serve nothing but negitoro.”
“Stop! Stop, stop, stop!” Atsumu yells, “Why do you both do this to me, you’re just as bad as one another—“
“There’s a huge market for it here, y’know? I’d probably make a killing. I could move you over here, Tsumu-san. We could sit on our onigiri empire and drink martinis out of our penthouse suite all day,” Shouyou teases, brushing the sweat out of his hair. It has gotten long again, he notes, as long as it was in his third year of high school, long enough to stick to the back of his neck unpleasantly.
“What does that make me, the trophy wife?” Atsumu sounds amused.
“Yep,” Shouyou laughs. “You’ll be head to toe in the ridiculous designer streetwear pieces like Kenma wears, and we’ll adopt one of those pocket-sized dogs that’ll fit inside of a handbag.”
“Is this what you daydream of, when you think of me?”
“Nope,” Shouyou replies, and his voice drops a half-octave lower, at knifepoint, and its candor is still light, breezy, but its air has changed.
“Tell me then, Shouyou,” Atsumu laughs, and he can tell that he’s caught on, because through the feigned nonchalance, he can hear the undercurrent of something else. “What do you daydream of, when you think of me?”
Shouyou, who had been perched across his kitchenette organising breakfast, moves slowly, carefully, to his favourite chair in the sunroom. There is a half-pomegranate and a cup of earl grey nestled in his hands. He counts his steps as if they are heartbeats, the sound reverberating in his ears. The light is overcast, today. Later, it will storm.
He thinks of Atsumu, his golden lines and his freckled skin, the way his jersey shorts stick to the back of his thighs. Thinks about him here, green and gold and fingers reaching up to paint colour into the planes of Shouyou’s back, blonde hair contrasting lush against the fig and the fan palm and the trailing string of hearts. Their legs, locked together, hips sliding up against one another. Atsumu’s voice, just as reverent as his own.
He rolls a pomegranate seed in between his fingers, bringing the ruby gem to the light. It bursts, juices spilling over the pad of his index finger and thumb.
Everything, he thinks, I dream of everything. I dream of you here, with me, in winter, in summer, in autumn and in spring. I dream of Brazil, and I dream of your apartment in Osaka, and I dream of all these spaces at once, and I’m not sure which one to call home.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Shouyou says, his tone still light, teasing. He clings onto Atsumu’s every next word, lets himself get dragged down by the husky quality of Atsumu’s whisper. Lets himself become a thing of beauty.
“Hey, Nii-chan,” Natsu asks, “Are you watching the ladies’ V-league game right now?”
“Nah,” Shouyou replies, “But I could. Who’s playing at the moment?”
“It’s the Red Rabbits against Himeji,” she answers. Through his iPhone screen he can see her wearing a distracted grimace on her face. She’s in the middle of clipping her nails, her hand care kit splayed in front of her. “Miyu-san’s on fire today. The Red Rabbits are up 20 to 10 in the third set.”
“Hold up, lemme see if I can get a stream working,” he replies, knowing very well the monumental effort it is to find reliable volleyball live streams above 360p outside of Japan. There’s one Nico Nico simulcast channel that he uses to watch Atsumu’s and Natsu’s games, when he can, but he’s not quite sure whether his VPN still has money in it.
“You’d better get in quick, I think the match is gonna end soon,” Natsu giggles, her expression shifting to a wince. “Oh shit, that block-out was nasty.”
“How’s Kanoka-san doing?” he asks, curious. He’s fond of Kanoka, having met her at an end-of-season V-league party. He’d still been pining over Atsumu then, still in the relentless flirting stage, and he’d allowed himself one drink which had somehow become two, and three, and a few tequila shots, and she had stopped him from toppling over on the way to the bathroom, had given him some very good advice about volleyball and men and love.
“She’s brilliant,” Natsu smiles, “She’s slated to receive MVP this season again, I think. That’s what the rumours are saying, at least. And she’s—“
His sister goes uncharacteristically quiet, and Shouyou squints to discern why.
“She’s— she’s grown out her hair, Nii-chan, did you see?”
Natsu’s blushing, and he can identify it in an instant, because they are one and the same— both Hinata siblings share the same penchant for reaching for the spot behind their ears when they’re embarrassed.
“Oh?” Shouyou says, his face splitting into a grin, “Nacchan, is there something you wanna tell me, maybe?”
“No!” she refuses, adamantly, “No. I mean, yes— I mean, she’s much too old for me anyway, she’s your age—“ (That hurts, just a little bit.) “— But, a girl can dream, anyway! I mean. It wouldn’t even work anyway, with her in Tokyo an’ me in Otsu next year—“
Shouyou just laughs as Natsu flails her arms around.
“— Oh, but I shouldn’t— you and Tsumu-nii are much further away— gyaaaaaaah, I’m a mess, Niichan. I’m a mess. My only redeeming factor is my spike,” she wails, the clippers abandoned, the nail file in front of her about to fall off her desk.
“Nacchan,” Shouyou replies, “You don’t really believe that, do you? Because if you do, we’re going to have to have some words, y’know.”
“No! Stop that. Stop the Big Brother mode,” Natsu replies, “I’m an adult now! I’ll be on the Arrows next year, y’know?”
“I know, Nacchan, I was the first person you told—“
“Oh! They won,” Natsu interrupts him, and her face breaks out into the most lovely smile.
There’s a beat of silence, temporary, and then: “Y’know? I didn’t really realise how much we actually talked to each other until you moved away from home.”
He’s only just managed to get the damn stream to work, only to see the Red Rabbits pile into a group hug, to catch a glimpse of Kanoka’s new hair, gathered in a ponytail at the base of her neck. Natsu’s words register slowly, and they work their way from the back of his skull down to his spine, and rest somewhere in his rib cage, next to his heart.
“Oh. Really?” Shouyou replies, suddenly realising the monumental weight of loss on his shoulders. “And now you’re moving away from home too, huh.”
He won’t be able to see through Natsu’s move, won’t be able to help her into her new place, won’t be able to be there for her and swing by to drop off a home-cooked meal. Won’t be able to help her pack her things, to take her around neighbouring Osaka, to be there for her first V-league game of the season.
Division one, he thinks. Not even he was able to land a spot on one of the top teams straight out of high school— he knows this to be fact, knows that Brazil was a necessary step in his growth. But his chest swells with a complicated mixture of pride and shame— pride, because this is his little sister, his goddamn joy, who had followed like a flame in his footsteps and jumped higher and brighter at her tender age than he could have ever dreamed of. Pride because he has made the road hospitable for her first, has mapped its pitfalls and its turning points and its forks, and has given her the keys to the path he knows so well. He was the one who had taken her to their local little league games, who had recognised the same kind of love for volleyball in her smaller form, had convinced their mother that the trip out to Niiyama Girls’ would pay off, in the end.
And after all of this, while Shouyou doesn’t regret leaving for Brazil in the slightest, the shame that he feels for not being there for her is something immense, paid futilely in only weekly phone conversations and sending each other memes and kaomoji over LINE.
Can you forgive me one day, he thinks, for this distance?
“I mean, Otsu really ain’t that far from Osaka, y’know? Maybe I’ll bother Tsumu-nii every weekend for you,” Natsu replies, with a smile. “I’ll give him my best. My best punch.”
“Nacchan!” Shouyou laughs. “Don’t tease him too much. He already whines enough about how you hate him, y’know?”
Shouyou glances over at his phone at the mention of Atsumu. He hasn’t replied back in a little over twenty hours, which is— unusual, for him. But Shouyou shakes it off, because if he counted all the times they briefly fell out of contact, then he would never stop counting, and that’s a dangerous thing, in long distance.
“As he should!” she yells, with a huff, and Shouyou’s suddenly reminded of his own high school self, petulant and jealous and unwilling to give up.
Atsumu had attended one of her games, once. It’d been Spring Nationals, in her final year of high school, and he happened to be in Tokyo at the right time for the finals match. He’d bought her the biggest bunch of flowers that he had ever seen— it had been Atsumu’s own suggestion, and Shouyou had gladly paid for half, since he couldn’t attend himself. They were gorgeous, this arrangement of bright blooms that Atsumu later had told him that he had picked out himself to mean certain victory.
And yet Shouyou had learnt later that she had accepted them with disdain, sticking her tongue out at him— up until she had set them aside gently, propped them up against a bench so they would not topple— and then proceeded to leap into Atsumu’s arms and cry her eyes out for a solid ten minutes. Atsumu had told him that he had apologised to her, then, for not being the brother she was missing.
Their very public display had made a fuss on news outlets and on Twitter— National champion Niiyama’s ace, photographed with National team player Miya.
“At least Samu-nii gives me food,” Natsu says, pouting. “I want his onigiri.”
“More than you want my cooking?” Shouyou teases.
“No offence,” Natsu grins, “but you can stay over there in Brazil if it means that I never have to eat your curry again.”
“Hey! That was the one time! I’m a good chef!” Shouyou protests.
“Knowing how to cook scrambled eggs and fried rice doesn’t make you a good chef, Nii-chan.”
He sticks his tongue at Natsu, like old times’ sake— like she had done at Atsumu some months ago— and is immensely pleased when she does it back.
Incidentally, São Paulo is the first time Shouyou learns what it means to live alone.
Even in Osaka, cutting costs and making it on a meagre starter V-league salary meant that the dorms were the most viable option at the time. Meant that he had roomed with a one Sakusa Kiyoomi, all sharp lines and biting scowl and a loyal streak a hundred miles wide. And despite his adamant introversion and his penchant for making himself disappear, Shouyou had never once got the sense that he lived alone, when he’d lived with Kiyoomi.
Never once, because of the stark smell of cleaning products on Sundays. Because of the tea towels folded with pinpoint precision in their linen drawer. Because of the freakishly neat organisation of their cutlery, the succulents on their windowsill. Because of the one time their monstera developed a fungus gnat infestation and he had woken the next day to see it completely gone from their entire apartment, incinerated with the rest of the burnable trash.
Never once does Shouyou feel like he lived alone, because he could come home and talk his thoughts, on volleyball strategies, on Matsujun’s new detective drama, on their mutual love of seinen manga. Could talk about anything and nothing, and Kiyoomi always listened, even if he wasn’t interested in the topic in question. Even if said topic involved his rather embarrassing fixation with their team’s current setter.
And when he moves to São Paulo, Shouyou realises that he has made himself used to it, because he discovers that his sunroom plants are a poor substitute for Kiyoomi’s steady advice, his level-headed comments. He names his weeping fig Kiyochan, because its leaves droop like Kiyoomi’s curls, and rather unsurprisingly, it doesn’t talk back.
Living alone also means that Shouyou has to now take responsibility for everything that goes on in his household, from stray cockroaches and crawlies with fifty billion legs that look like something out of One Piece, to paperwork and visas and other boring things that he can’t help but be careful with, lest he end up on Japanese media for like— tax evasion or something. It means footing the whole damn shame of an electricity bill come a particularly warm season when he has overused the air conditioning. It means that he is the only one to blame when he leaves fruit a little bit too long in the fridge.
He thinks about Nacchan, who will likely experience the same, soon— the Arrows’ dorm arrangements are single rooms, after all. Asks— who will swat the geji geji for her during the humid Kansai summer, who will stuff her fridge with daifuku and melon ice cream bars, who will remind her to turn off the A/C while she’s sleeping, lest she catches a cold?
Atsumu, he learns, is moving out too, into his own apartment out in the centre of Umeda— and it is a wide two bedroom with an unusual amount of space, with a view of the city that makes him feel weak in the knees. He shows it to Shouyou over video call a few times— “And this is where I’ll display all our awards, and there’ll be a space right here for our Olympic golds—“ and he’s sufficiently impressed. Atsumu shows him the marble countertops of the kitchen, with its fancy German appliances, shows him the walk-in wardrobe, and through all of the clinical new-ness, through the glitz and the glamour, a small part of Shouyou wants to make it his own. Wants to have his hoodies strewn at the backs of chairs, wants his Pompompurin mugs haphazardly scattered in the sink. Wants to mess it up, just a little bit, because he’s selfish and a little bit feral and wants Atsumu to think of him when he is thousands of kilometres away.
Shouyou thinks about the spaces they inhabit, thinks about the spaces he would like to inhabit, someday. Thinks about his little townhouse of three winters, the garden with a lot of light, his bedroom cast in shadow. Thinks about how it is a place that he has made for himself, decorated the walls with the contents of his memories. And yet, it feels like too much, sometimes. Feels like that his place is too large for one person, feels like his voice echoes down the halls.
Shouyou wonders if it’ll ever really feel the way his childhood home felt in Miyagi, with its paper walls and its thousand leaks and its constant smell of something delicious on the stove.
And for all his confidence in himself, for as much as he loves this city and all of its diamond-cut reflections, for as much as he is comfortable with being alone, he’s not sure it will.
Me (8:21 pm)
> ok!!!!!!!! i booked that restaurant
> tsumu can u bring me……… like a small bag of rice
> just a tiny one
> like a tiny tiny one
> i miss kita-san’s rice
> maybe some tsukemono too??? they don’t make them here like osamu does
> all they have here is pickled ginger and fukujinzuke
> if u cant that’s ok
> maybe i can get the obasan in liberdade to make it for me hehe
Me (10:47 pm)
> wait will that even make it ok through customs
Me (11:30 pm)
> tsumu, bokkun is asking me if u can pass along a copy of akaashi’s book to me
> is ur suitcase full yet?
Me (12:22 am)
> tsumu i’m going to bed!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> goodnight!!!!!!!!! 💛
(Read 12:30 AM)
Tsumu (3:47 am)
> i’ll bring u rice, and yea all good
Tsumu (4:01 am)
> i love u. hope ur dreaming of me.
Atsumu arrives in São Paulo on a Monday morning.
Shouyou picks him up at the airport with a heinously sweet frappuccino that he knows that Atsumu will ask for— he’s right, because Atsumu kisses him on the cheek for it— and takes him by the hand to the taxi stands. They are stuck in peak hour traffic for a solid hour, and it’s not the worst— he’s experienced peak hour Rio— but Shouyou can tell that Atsumu is exhausted because the frappuccino very pointedly does not work.
Shouyou has already made their bed when they arrive in Villa Mada, and he takes Atsumu’s things for him like a considerate boyfriend, while he lets him join the land of the undead for a little bit. He checks in later, and Tsumu has planted himself face down on Shouyou’s four hundred thread count sheets, right in the crack between two pillows. His socks are still on.
And because he’s a considerate boyfriend, Atsumu’s first meal in Brazil is simple, but classic SP fare all the same: freshly baked pizza from a place around the block. It’s far cry from the overpriced take-out stuff that they have in Japan that costs an absolute fortune. The crust is hollow, filled with a fragrant air, the toppings simple but delicious. They sit on the couch, and Shouyou chromecasts old episodes of the Nodame Cantabile drama, because Atsumu has a soft spot in his heart for every single josei series under the sun.
“Shouyou—“ Atsumu takes his hand, all of a sudden, catching him from taking another slice of pizza.
“Hm?”
“You’ve got— sauce—“
Shouyou looks down and sees a line of tomato smeared down his thumb, Atsumu’s fingers travelling across his wrists. He can feel every callous, can feel the weight, the size difference between their hands.
Atsumu stares at it as if he means to bring it to his own lips, to slowly lick from base to tip, to plant the pad of his thumb to the softness of his tongue. He can trace his heavy gaze to his fingers, and Shouyou lets him, would let him, would always let him— but after a moment, Atsumu drops his hand, gives him a serviette instead.
“Oh,” Shouyou says, “Thanks.”
Atsumu looks away quickly.
Something in Shouyou’s throat stirs, unpleasant, longing, confused.
As the hours blend into days, Shouyou becomes more and more aware that Atsumu is— quieter.
He is quiet, when Shouyou takes him ‘round again to see the new colours at Beco do Batman, proudly showing him one particular graffiti that he likes, which is seamless with the tree behind it. He is quiet, after their meal at Mocotó, a sprawling eatery with bright orange walls serving up Northeastern cuisine. He’s quiet against a fire-bloomed sky at sunset point, against the periwinkle sky at dusk.
Shouyou asks him, time and time again, if he’s okay, because the whole foundation of their relationship has been built from the wreckage of poor communication, and Shouyou cares far too much for them to go down like that. Atsumu will smile at him, that too-bright, heart encompassing smile, and tell him yes, he’s fine, no, there’s nothing wrong.
Shouyou’s left wondering if something’s shifted, because for all of his newfound quietness, Atsumu’s pitch is feverish when they are together. He moans, sweet and languid, when Shouyou opens him up on his fingers, presses into every touch with a sort of pliable obedience that sets Shouyou alight. He sings, and sings, and sings, and there is definitely a note of desperation in the timbre of his voice as Shouyou fucks him with his tongue, as he leaves thumbprint bruises on the insides of his thighs, as he whispers praises, over and over until they will take.
Shouyou burns with the same kind of white-hot flame, because he’s never seen Atsumu quite like this before, and while the tears that leak from the corner of his eyes aren’t new, the way that Atsumu cries his name feels like he’s hearing it for the first time again. The way that Atsumu clasps their hands together in a white-knuckled grip, the way that he kisses as if they are running out of time.
They are on the cusp of— something, Shouyou thinks. Something that had been brewing for the past few weeks— long, drawn out silences and late answered texts. He thinks it’s like being able to smell the scent of rain before the clouds open. He prepares his heart for the inevitable storm.
2020 — spring
They have their first argument in São Paulo, too.
It is the same Spring at the cusp of Shouyou’s first season with ASAS, with Atsumu about to leave. It’s explosive and silent all at once, and Atsumu’s heart bares itself at his throat as he cuts Shouyou down with his words, as Atsumu comes to the realisation that Shouyou inhabits a place here, in São Paulo, with a setter that isn’t him, with a world that is not his own. Shouyou retaliates with the loss belonging to him, with the kind of vitriol that comes with being alone.
Atsumu later explains that he felt like he was peering into Shouyou’s life from the outside, some bystander there for occasional phone sex and sweet words. And the both of them work out their guilt for hours, sitting crossed legged on the hardwood floor of Shouyou’s living room, honest and open and paving down the boundaries that they had desperately needed from day one.
That day, whoever Shouyou’s been praying to hears him, because Atsumu’s flight gets cancelled. Something about the destructive winds. He receives the text when they are still lying in bed, awake, skin pressed up against one another in an attempt to bring their bodies as close as their hearts, and Shouyou cries, because the prospect of an extra twenty-four hours together feels like a little bit of grace.
2023 — spring
Me (8:21AM)
> samu-san!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> is tsumu ok? did something happen?
Samu (8:22AM)
> oh hey hinata-kun
> ?
Me (8:22AM)
> idk he’s been different!!!!!!!
> quiet????????????
> he won’t tell me what’s wrong
> i hope it’s ok if i ask u
Samu (8:23AM)
> oh.
> he was like that before he left for yours, too.
> i wouldn’t worry too much.
> i think he’s just trying to think things out.
Me (8:23AM)
> oh……………..
Samu (8:23AM)
> you two will be fine.
> really.
> i’m expecting you over next time you’re here
> i made a TKG onigiri for u to try
> i’m calling it the shouyou special
The first time that Shouyou had experienced a Sao Paulo storm was at the turn of the New Year.
His teammates had talked about it, teased him about it whenever the weather came up in conversation— just wait until you’re here for the rainy season, Shouyou, you’ll have an absolute blast— but it happened when he least expected it, on January the First. And while his family members were eating osechi under the kotatsu, while Atsumu was out with Osamu, visiting their grandmother in Amagasaki, he’d been miserably trying to patch the leak in his roof above the laundry room. It’d taken him a lot of duct tape, and he’d spent a solid hour in a very uncomfortable position, and had gone through at least two rolls of paper towels and three buckets.
Shouyou wasn’t afraid of storms, hadn’t ever been afraid of storms. If anything, thunderstorms had always felt like a challenge to him, their unpredictable rhythm, their moments of charged silence.
But this one had felt particularly awful, because there was no one there to wait it out with him, and he’d been left with only candles scrounged up from the back of the storage cabinet and a phone on five percent battery. That night, he’d slept in the sun room, hugged the cushion to his chest that no longer carried Atsumu’s scent, watered the dozen vibrant house plants that couldn’t feel the rain.
This isn’t how he feels, when Atsumu finally takes his hand in his, on a Friday evening. And at twenty-seven and two months, he realises that the thunderstorms weren’t what he was afraid of at all.
The skies are clear, crystal, and through the glass roof of that little sun room, the night is bright enough for Shouyou to make out the whisper of constellations, nary a cloud in sight. It is dark; the trellis of fairy lights that Shouyou had hung up years ago illuminating their hands, their faces.
“I’m thinkin’ about moving here,” is what finally tumbles out of Atsumu’s mouth, careful and quiet, and Shouyou stops counting the beats in his chest, the stars above them.
There is a kind of numbness that settles into his throat, because he knows the weight of those words, he knows what they mean, for a one Miya Atsumu who has never so much as lived anywhere that wasn’t a twenty minute drive from his birth place, his home town, his local shrine. From Osamu.
“No,” is what Shouyou replies, instinctively, and he knows that he’s made a mistake when Atsumu’s face twists into such an expression of betrayal, of confusion, of hurt, and he opens his mouth, follows up quickly with, “No! I didn’t mean it that way. I meant— I couldn’t do that to you, Tsumu. I could never ask you to move here with me. I know—”
“Do you not want me here?” Atsumu cuts through, and Shouyou knows he is trying to be as patient as possible, but his emotions are readable all on his face, all in plain sight, and here, hands nestled in on the sheepskin rug and the small mountain of cushions, Shouyou can feel his discomfort, can see his wrists tremble. “Am I not— part of your ideal, am I not part of your Brazil? Your dream? Your reach to the top?”
“That’s not it! That’s not— don’t put words in my mouth, Atsumu—”
“I can’t stand it here, you know. I can’t stand it, every time I come here, because every time I leave, every time I get on that fucking plane and have to leave you behind, I miss you more, y’know?
“And I know that I’ll miss you more, because you’re you, Shouyou, everyone wants a part of you, everyone thinks that they own a part of you for themselves,” Atsumu has dropped his hands. He throws another up to say he isn’t done speaking. “Sometimes I just— I don’t know, Shouyou. I know we’ve— we’ve talked about this before, this distance. I know that it fucking sucks, and there’s nothing we can do about it— but I want to do something about it, y’know?
“And here I am, gathered my wits about me finally, because you know that I’m a fuckin’ coward, Shou— and you tell me no?” There are frustrated tears pooling at Atsumu’s cheeks.
Shouyou keeps himself steady, fights the urge to wipe them away, fights every single part of him that is itching to scream back. He breathes, in and out, and his body knows how to calm down, because he has done it every single morning for seven years. It listens.
It listens, because it has to. It listens, because he has trained his body for this, has learned to perform under shatterpoint situations, under the split-second cutting edge of a spike, a receive, a serve. But he feels fragile, all the same, under the weight of all these feelings, under the weight of the complicated tangle of here, and there, and home.
And they have had ten, fifteen, twenty different iterations of this argument alone; it is the one point of contention in their relationship that keeps coming back, and back, and back, no matter the cost, no matter the outcome, no matter the honeyed words and the make-up sex that follows. Because their biggest enemy is distance, and the further Shouyou flies, the more urgent his heart becomes.
“Ever since I got here, I’ve wanted you next to me,” Shouyou says. Atsumu listens. “I still want you next to me. I meant it, the other day. I still mean it. I don’t just want to love you in the off-season, Atsumu.”
“Then what’s the matter? What’s keeping me from stayin’ here—”
“I’m not sure whether I want to stay here,” is what Shouyou replies.
The words immediately feel foreign in his mouth, as if he is betraying some kind of fundamental part of him that has made up the building blocks of his bones since he was a child dressed in evergreen.
Now that he has spoken them aloud, they take flight. They feel more real, somehow, and Shouyou can finally characterize the nagging feeling that had been kindling in his chest since he had seen the newspaper images of Natsu crying into Atsumu’s sweater, ever since their Team Japan FIVB Nations’ League gold. They feel real, and tangible, and it tastes just a little like hope.
“You’re joking,” Atsumu says, quickly. “You love it here. This is what you’ve been working up to your whole life, right? You can’t just— Shouyou—”
“I know,” he laughs, nervously. “But I’ve just played my fourth season here. Things are different now, aren’t they? I’m really happy here, but lately I— lately I just don’t know.”
Atsumu wipes his own tears. His hands find purchase again in Shouyou’s, before it becomes too much for him— he casts his arms around the small of Shouyou’s waist, and Shouyou can feel him bury his face in the crook of his neck, can feel the gentle warmth of his mouth pressed to his pulse. Thinks about the rush of his heartbeat pulsing through his veins, thinks about the stars scattering evening light across the leaves of his plants like slivers of jade. He thinks about the boy around him, his smile of candle light and summer storms, and holds him tighter.
“Can you give me some time, Atsumu?” Shouyou asks. “I won’t make you wait long.”
“Yeah,” Atsumu replies, muffled. “Yeah, I can.”
He stays like that, on Shouyou’s shoulder, hair brushing up against the skin of his back. He stays like that for minutes, or hours, or days, Shouyou isn’t sure— the only thing that he’s sure about is Atsumu, his comforting warmth, his care. The rush of emotion that wells up in him is immense, and Shouyou feels overwhelmed, almost, by the intensity of his feelings for him.
Atsumu’s love is an uncomplicated thing, mercury-hot and beautifully loud, and it takes all of Shouyou not to want to possess it all to himself, in a country that is thousands of miles from where it truly belongs.
2021 — winter
They have their first kiss in public here in São Paulo too.
It’s a June where neither of them have any championship qualifiers to go to, a June with a comfortable sun and a comfortable wind, and amongst the hundreds of thousands of people around them at São Paulo’s annual Pride Parade, they are nobody. No one stares twice at them, as Atsumu clutches Shouyou’s hand as if he worries that he will lose him in the crowd, as Shouyou angles his body protectively over Atsumu’s to prevent either of them from being pulled away by the flow of movement. They both get lost anyway— in the colours, in the music, the floats, and it is every bit mesmerising as it is absolutely overwhelming, and Shouyou’s almost relieved when he pulls them away at the turn of the afternoon.
Shouyou brings them to one of his teammates’ apartments in the heart of the city to refuel, to get ready for the night, introduces Atsumu to their team’s libero, to their second-string setter, who had both invited Shouyou to a party hosted by a mutual friend. The setter— Lucas, is a tall São Paulo local that has five years and a good fifteen centimetres on Atsumu, but he claps him on the back in greeting as they exchange introductions with the aid of Shouyou’s Portuguese. Lucas is already dressed to the nines, wearing a breezy white v-neck that exposes the line of his muscle, dressed in dark leather and satin ribbon, and he grins from ear to ear when Shouyou tells him that his outfit is on fire.
They order delivery from a Lebanese restaurant nearby, a large plate of varied stuffed flatbreads— esfiha, as they are called here in SP, but there is more alcohol than food, and Shouyou’s mid-twenties stomach already groans at the inevitable hangover he’ll have tomorrow. He is mildly— only mildly— peer pressured into drinking when outside hitter Gabriel lovingly, painstakingly makes him a cocktail which ends up being ninety percent gin, and taps his shoulder with an invincible kind of smile, saying, “Where we’re going, Shouyou, you’ll need this.”
It turns out that he does, because when Atsumu returns from the bathroom, he has to do the biggest goddamn double take of his life.
Atsumu’s wearing a shirt of see-through lace, black, and it looks so soft to the touch, the embroidery so intricate that he’s sure it must cost a small fortune, the mesh exposing his collarbones, sternum, the metal bud pierced through his nipple, the bare skin of his chest. Pants that define every inch of the muscle on his thighs, make him look like he has legs for days. Gucci belt, leather boot, subtle heel. And around his waist— Shouyou curses, he really does, caught off-guard and deliriously, feverishly turned on— a dark half-corset, accentuating his Olympic athlete-trim figure.
Shouyou already had thought that he was something to be revered before, but after this, he is more than ready to get on his knees.
Atsumu saunters down casually, and there is a kind of self-satisfied smirk that he wears when the occupants of the living room turn their heads toward him, but he maintains eye contact with Shouyou the entire time. With every goddamn step, with the way he slides his left hand slowly— slowly— down the railing of the staircase, inch by inch, and Shouyou can hear himself intake a sharp breath, can feel his pulse in his ears, and everything feels simultaneously like cotton and steel.
Someone wolf-whistles behind them, and Lucas taps him on the shoulder, teases something about keeping his boyfriend on a leash tonight, but Shouyou has half the mind to just forget about the event altogether and take Atsumu back to his place like this.
“Hi,” Shouyou says, dazed.
He giggles, just a little, completely shell-shocked, completely enamoured. Shouyou wants to reach out and touch him, snake his hands around his waist possessively, wants to bundle the lace around his fingers, wants to close his mouth around the silver of Atsumu’s rings.
All he can think about is the satisfaction, later, of undoing every single knot, unravelling every single rung, every loop in Atsumu’s corset, hearing him moan as the fabric loosens from his waist, as it falls to the floor without sound.
“Hey,” Atsumu replies. He still only has eyes for Shouyou, even when one of the ASAS ladies’ opposites yells at them in Portuguese to get a room. His eyes are twinkling; they are lined with kohl, and the wing is perfect. It’s sharp, It’s symmetrical, and if he wasn’t so incredibly, incredibly hard, he would be giggling at the mental image of Atsumu huddled over a sink perfecting its shape. “Fancy seein’ you here, Hinata-san.”
“I— fuck, Atsumu, are you— where did you learn how to do eyeliner like that?” Shouyou laughs.
( Later, when they are between their third and fourth club, in the line trying to conceal a half-downed bottle of vodka like god damn twenty year olds on their first night out, Atsumu will tell him.
“Omi-kun taught me this trick using the blade of a knife,” he grins, and Shouyou just gapes up at him. )
When they get there, Shouyou’s teammates and all their associations in tow, he finally understands what he’s been missing. The air is charged, and it’s a completely different kind of energy to the parade, earlier. Everyone is completely off their face, for one, and the musky smell of sweat is about twenty times worse than that of their locker room after a match, but he’s never seen anything like it— it makes something in his heart just sing. He clutches Atsumu’s hand tighter, because he can, and allows himself to get swept away by the feeling.
Because they’re just— here, surrounded by all these people in these beautiful outfits and they’ve run a mile and a half between different places and different drinks— and there’s flecks of emerald confetti everywhere in Atsumu’s hair, clinging to the side of his face; and in all the chaos, and through all of the highs, they’re really just the same as every other faceless couple there. They are all the same, in this strobing, pulsing light, jade and chartreuse and lime and a hundred thousand variations of the same vibrant green.
Shouyou comes to this realisation, and kisses Atsumu then and there. It’s their first kiss in public, their first kiss where he hasn’t needed to think of consequences or time or any other bullshit— and it tastes like freedom and light and all of the things that they have fought for to get to this point, to this golden moment; it tastes like Atsumu’s love, uncontainable and bright and a product of the sky.
It is here, high on adrenaline and love and whatever the fuck was in the bottom cabinet of their libero’s kitchen, Shouyou comes up for air. For a split second, the briefest of moments, he forgets the plans he's been making since he first knew how to breathe.
He almost thinks that he could die like this.
2023 — spring
When Atsumu finally lifts his head from Shouyou’s shoulder, he smiles.
His smile is clear, beautifully so, the kind of smile that washes over his face after a perfectly timed set, a gorgeous spike.
And Shouyou, frenetic, with the same energy as running up at minus tempo, demanding a toss— “Give me a kiss?”
He does. He does, and it’s wonderful, and it’s everything that Shouyou has dreamt of, sobering and lovely and with a desperate bite. It’s an apology kiss, but also a promise kiss, and it’s every little thing in between— and Shouyou feels himself falling further, the wind pulling him in familiar directions.
He falls, and falls, and falls, with every scrape of teeth placed against his jaw, with every movement of Atsumu’s hips sliding against his own, with every caress of fingers dragging down the beats of his spine. They are still here, in this little room with its little glass roof, with its thousand leaves and thousand lights and thousand memories, and Shouyou takes solace in such a fact. They are still here, still together, after four years, after hundreds of cumulative flights, after all of that goddamn distance.
Shouyou presses in deeper, desperate, thighs burning, Atsumu beneath him, hair fanned out on that damned wool rug. His eyes catch constellations, as Shouyou sinks himself down, one of his hands to Atsumu’s chest to keep himself steady, to match the frantic pace that they both cannot help but set.
Both of them are usually relentless with their words. They have to, after all, long distance is hard, and phone sex is harder, and the both of them have gotten really quite good— but they are wordless, this time.
Wordless, as Atsumu reaches up to swipe his thumb along the crest of Shouyou’s bottom lip, asking for purchase. Wordless, as Shouyou lets him, tongue tangled around his finger, cobweb-slick of saliva trailing behind in its wake. Wordless, as Atsumu moans when Shouyou bottoms himself out, grinding himself down even harder, as he cries, their foreheads pressed together.
Shouyou knows Atsumu’s tells well enough not to need any words, anyway. He knows how his breath begins to hitch when he’s close to release, has committed his fucked-out gaze to memory, heavy-lidded and red-mouthed and teary. He knows that sometimes, his legs shake, his teeth clamp down on his own lips, he scrambles for Shouyou’s hands.
And then—
Atsumu flips their positions, takes him pressed down against the plush fur of the rug, the dozen cushions strewn around haphazard, and Shouyou just as well can’t see his face, but he is everywhere. And it makes Shouyou whine and hiss when he moves, when he snaps his hips perfectly against him. It makes him somehow, deliriously harder, because from this angle, this position, he feels like every inch of him is connected with Atsumu. He counts his kisses again until his mind doesn’t know anything past ten, until he can feel Atsumu’s hot breath against the nape of his neck.
“Shouyou— Shou,” Atsumu breaks the silence, brokenly. “Please.”
He repeats it; again.
“Please, Shouyou—“ as if he’s the one who’s currently at the mercy of the other. As if Shouyou was capable of doing such a thing, head spinning, toes curling, unrepentantly full.
“Only you,” Shouyou gasps, with all the coherency that he can muster. Knowing it’s what Atsumu needs. Knowing it’s what he needs. “Only want you.”
Here, in a room of glass and jade, in a room of first kisses and first arguments and first storms— in a room where only the heavens are their witness, Atsumu presses a kiss to Shouyou’s wings.
“I really did want to lick it off your finger, y’know,” Atsumu says, later, when they have finally retired to bed, two rounds plus one in the shower after. “That fuckin’ pizza sauce.”
Shouyou’s eyes widen. He laughs.
“Tsumu, that’s gross,” he replies. “I can't believe you.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault, you looked amazing, that day— you always do, but—“
“I can't believe you somehow managed to go a whole league season sharing a dorm with Omi-san, after I left,” Shouyou remarks.
“You can’t tell me you’ve never done it before! Like when you’re eatin’ fries or somethin’— and there’s no paper towels around so you just lick them from your fingers. It’s the best part!” Atsumu pouts. This time, Shouyou presses a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth, fond.
“It doesn’t count when you do it to yourself! I’ll forgive it if it was you— but don’t go around licking other peoples’ hands!” Shouyou’s openly laughing, now, their earlier argument already feeling miles away.
“I don’t!” Atsumu whines, “Just yours, Shouyou-kun! Just yours. I swear.”
“I can think of other things that you could lick off my fingers, though,” Shouyou says, evenly, devilishly, and part of him is eternally thankful for both of their professional athlete stamina as Atsumu snakes his hands down his sweatpants again.
Atsumu leaves on a Tuesday morning.
Things are still slightly— tense, maybe?— between them. Shouyou’s not sure, but something seems to have changed since their argument, maybe in anticipation of the future. Atsumu still seems to zone out, from time to time. But instead of nonchalance, Shouyou’s met with a warm smile, every time, and it makes him think that they will be okay.
He zones out again, while they are waiting at the departures gate. Both of them not wanting to say goodbye, not just yet. Atsumu looks good, face mask slung beneath his chin, peach pink Off-White hoodie sitting oversized over a pair of tight leggings. His eyes are vacant, as he’s staring off into the next year.
“You thinking about something, Tsumu-san?” Shouyou pokes him.
“Yep,” Atsumu says, leaning ever-so-slightly toward him. “I’m thinkin’ about Samu’s onigiri.”
Shouyou laughs and jabs him in the side, and Atsumu just grins.
“Really?”
“Uh huh,” Atsumu says, “And Nacchan’s game winnin’ tip at Nationals.”
“I still wish I could’ve seen it in person.” Shouyou’s smile softens.
“And I’m thinkin’ about who’s gonna sit next to me on the plane. I hope it’s someone who at least smells nice. Or better yet, no one at all.”
“Sure,” Shouyou replies, “I’ll send out a prayer for you.”
“Thinkin’ about those fucking incredible pork rinds.”
“Those were really good.”
“And your seafood stew,” Atsumu continues.
“Don’t remind me—“ Shouyou covers his eyes. Atsumu laughs.
“I’m also thinkin’ ‘bout your middle blocker’s crazy hybrid serve.”
“Wasn’t it amazing?”
“And fuckin— Hyakuzawa’s fake spike to Ushijima during the last VNL.”
“I still can imagine that scene in my dreams! It was so incredible!”
“I’m thinkin’ about your perfect set to me that one time— durin’ your first match with the Jackals, your goddamn perfect C-pass. I’m thinking about you.”
“Tsumu-san—“
“And I’m wonderin’—“
Atsumu leans over and grabs his hand, and Shouyou startles.
“And I’m wondering what it would be like, if it was our last time— doin’ this,” Atsumu says, wistfully. “Like— the last time you’d be sending me back to Japan by myself. Would’ja cry, Shouyou? Would I cry?”
Shouyou’s thumbs brush against the backs of Atsumu’s knuckles, slowly, softly, feather-light.
“You’d definitely cry,” he teases.
“Yeah,” Atsumu agrees, voice wavering, and in an instant, in no time at all, his eyes are glassy, they are tear-bright, and Shouyou wipes the salt away with the edge of his sleeve. “Yeah, I would."
Every few weeks, Shouyou will go out of his way to pick up supplies in Liberdade, will visit a tiny Japanese grocery nestled in the middle of the street with a huge gingko out the front. Komatsu-san and her husband know him by name— just Shouyou is okay, he reassures them, no senshuu honorific needed— and they hail originally from Kanazawa. He goes a few days after Atsumu leaves, noting that his pantry looks rather peaky after having to fend off both of their collective appetites for three weeks.
His favourite thing about it isn’t the range of items or the selection— if it were about that, he would go to the new shiny Marukai around the corner— instead it’s the display of handmade wagashi out the front, the onigiri packaged similarly to any other Lawson’s back home.
He swears he has the same conversation with them every time, in which Komatsu-san will ask him if he still isn’t single, to which he will reply yes, my boyfriend and I are doing fine, to which Komatsu-san will reply with— ah, that’s too bad, Nakashima-san who owns the ramen-ya next door has a successful nephew your age. Shouyou will laugh, as always, and order a sleeve of sakuramochi and a few onigiri to take home.
He buys instant ramen and instant miso soup in the foil packets, stocks up on Kirin iced tea and houjicha. Allows himself a single Garigari-kun. Has lunch at said ramen restaurant, avoiding eye contact with Nakashima-san by making himself as un-obvious as possible, ordering in Portuguese.
Shouyou thinks that he’s incredibly lucky, to be living in a place where his homeland has such a presence as this. He’s lucky, to be able to head down the street and see a vibrant red torii gate, to hear people weave seamlessly between the language he’s learnt and the language of his native tongue.
(He wonders what it must be like, for Tobio.)
In a way, he feels a little bit ungrateful, because his instant miso soup isn’t anything like his mother’s, which is just a little bit sweeter, a little bit more fragrant, smells more of the sharp savoury note of seafood. His attempt at curry is passable, at best, but as Nacchan’s observed, it tastes a bit awful next to how their mother makes it. The gyutan here isn’t anything like Miyagi’s best, the okonomiyaki is fantastic but not Osaka-great, and nothing could ever compare to the satisfaction of eating freshly made onigiri by the hands of Osamu-san.
Shouyou feels a bit miserable, trying to will his sad little dinner into something amazing. Trying to remember tastes and mouth feels and smells, much to his own detriment. He feels like he’s taken something for granted, feels like some sepia-coloured film with frames missing.
And when he video calls Natsu the next morning, sees the hamburg steak and the assortment of greens nestled in front of her, demi-glacé sauce and all, he isn’t spiteful in the least— just thinks about what it would be like to be there, just remembers the last meal that they’ve had together had been over nine months ago.
Shouyou had thought that he was done with mourning his youth. And in some ways, he thinks he is. He’s ready to give up the boy who dreamt for blind greatness, who had jumped with his eyes closed expecting Tobio to catch him. He’s ready to give up the boy who dreamt of mere glory, of the laurels of being called an ace.
What he isn’t ready for, is to stop craving the sincerity of a dinner prepared by his mother, a bento box wrapped in cat patterned furoshiki. He isn’t ready to accept dinners without Natsu’s incessant complaining, without Atsumu’s penchant for stealing the best cut of meat off his plate.
And while there is some beauty in being alone, in the quiet reflection of dinner, in the overwhelming contentment that comes with cooking by himself, Shouyou thinks that he has done his time.
He isn’t ready, Shouyou thinks. He thinks that he doesn’t ever want to be ready, for such a loss as this.
He and Tobio call each other once a month.
It had been once a week, once, when the both of them had split up to their respective countries for their first foreign league seasons. The both of them would call to share stories, mostly of their new teammates, of getting hopelessly lost, of miscommunications a mile wide. He’s the one that mostly talks. But Tobio chimes in every so often, comments on a particular player’s technique when they replay through game tape, adamantly recites his meal plan when Shouyou asks if he is eating well.
Though, the one thing that Shouyou has learnt that Tobio’s particularly good at is giving advice. It sounds rather at odds with what people expect of him— he’s aware that Tobio is awkward for the most part, but amongst all of the long silences and the fumbling and the “what the hell, why are you asking me”s, he tells things as it is, in their most simple, most honest form. It had saved Shouyou in a pinch, before, amongst disagreements with teammates, amongst problems with his landlord, on the rare case where he’d suffered from overthinking things through.
So Shouyou does what he always does, when he needs help.
Tobio sits with legs crossed, his phone propped up against his desk. It’s late there, over in Rome, but both of them are still in their off-season break, both of them willing to indulge just a little bit. He can see that Tobio’s wolfing down some indulgence himself— milk pudding, Shouyou thinks, as he recounts the past three weeks to him, talks about some of the ladies V-league games that Nacchan has made him watch.
And when they are comfortable, when the conversation lulls, Shouyou asks.
“Hey, Kageyama,” he fiddles with a loose string on his shirt. It’s one of Atsumu’s old t-shirts, an Inarizaki VBC training tee, one that he had pinched from him years ago, its colours faded ever so slightly. “Where do you go, when you’ve reached the top?”
Tobio stares at him for a moment. His words don’t require any explanation; he can tell Tobio understands, because he looks pensive, a kind of recognition flashing in his eyes, something that has stretched back years. And for the briefest of moments, Shouyou feels like he’s fifteen, back on the grass outside Sendai Arena, barefoot, having pummelled Tobio to the ground— the moment of understanding that had flickered between them then, still kindling within them now.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Tobio replies, and he is frowning, but his eyes are sincere.
His eyes are so blue, over their grainy phone call. Have they always been that blue? Shouyou can’t remember. He tries to remember.
“Home,” Tobio elaborates, casting his gaze away, as if he cannot bear to face the truth, “you go home.”
That night, Shouyou dreams of Atsumu.
Shouyou’s notoriously bad at remembering his dreams. His dream dreams, the one where they are pure subconscious mind and not something he conjures himself. Frankly, he can count the number of ones he can remember on his hand. He thinks that this is the first time that he’s dreamt of Atsumu, but he isn't sure. It might be the first, or the fourth, or the fourteenth, or the four-hundredth.
In his dream, Shouyou is crying. He’s not sure how or where, but there are crocodile tears streaming from his face, catching onto his cheeks, his hands, rivulets down his neck, his collarbone, his wrists. He cannot stop, his body won’t let him stop, and when he breathes in and out and in and out, he finds that it does not listen.
He thinks that he’s sitting on a windowsill. It’s high up into the air, with the sun breaching the horizon gently, sky a familiar shade of jade. Everything is hazy, awash with a kind of nostalgia that also makes his throat burn. Someone touches his waist, and he doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is.
“Atsumu,” Shouyou says, in acknowledgement.
And then, a split second panic blossoms at his throat. His mouth fills with loss, the death of a concept, a lightness on his back that wasn’t quite there before.
“Oh, Atsumu,” Shouyou repeats, urgently, “What have you done with my wings?”
The figure behind him wraps his arms gently around him. His arms are warm, warm against the chill of the air at dusk, warm against how his body feels, shaking and cold and lost.
“I have melted their wax,” Atsumu whispers, against the wind. “I have made them anew.”
Shouyou turns to face him. Atsumu smiles, and it is the most golden thing that Shouyou has ever seen. He gives him a kind of gentle nudge as he untangles himself from Shouyou, straightens the crisp white shirt that he’s got on.
“They will last now, no matter how close you creep to the sun,” Atsumu says, full of affection— and Shouyou feels his body unfurl as he takes the leap, takes to the skies.
Shouyou wakes from his dream, abruptly.
He calls Atsumu up at 3:05am, in a frenzied daze, heart pounding, the adrenaline rush from flight.
Atsumu picks up on the first ring.
“Shouyou?” he sounds concerned; he knows what time it is over in his side of the world. “I’m here.”
“I know,” Shouyou replies, breathing deeply, “I know. Stay right where you are.”
2023 — summer (winter, in japan)
It is Nacchan that he sees first, at Kansai International’s west arrivals gate, all fiery red hair and sunflower smile, and god, she’s grown at least another centimetre or two since the last time he was in Japan. Any further and they will be the same height, Shouyou thinks, slightly worried, but mostly proud. She’s got her new Toray Arrows track jacket slung over her shoulders, one of his own hand-me-down track pants tied up to her waist. And because Shouyou knows her, he knows that it’s all deliberate, so after he takes her into his arms in a hug that lasts for years, he tells her that the electric blue looks good on her.
“Doesn’t it?” Natsu grins, “Tsumu-nii says that it clashes with my hair, but I think he’s wrong.”
“He’s one to talk,” Osamu laughs, bumping fists with Natsu next to him. “You should’a seen what his hair was like in high school, Nacchan, you would’ve had a heart attack.” He pulls Shouyou into a quick hug, too, helps him with his maxed amount of cumulative carry-on and packed luggage, all three suitcases and his Vabo-chan backpack.
He isn’t going back to Brazil this time, after all.
“Good to see you, Shouyou-kun,” he says, placing his Onigiri Miya cap squarely down atop Shouyou’s mop of hair, fondly. He looks good too, Shouyou thinks. “Brought some onigiri for you, if you’re hungry. It’s in the car.”
“The TKG one is really good, Nii-chan, you have to try it,” Natsu says, pulling on the sleeve of his long-sleeved tee. Shouyou rotates Osamu’s cap over to her.
“I can always count on you to have my back, Nacchan,” Osamu replies, satisfied, and he begins to wheel Shouyou’s suitcases away. Shouyou makes a sound of protest, but Osamu just winks at him, motions to a figure standing a few paces behind them. “Come, I’ll race you to the car,” he says to Natsu, grinning.
He sees Atsumu next, who has been watching the scene unfold in front of him, half-amused, half shell-shocked, and Shouyou can tell that he’s somehow nervous, because his hands are stuffed in his pockets, cheeks dusted with a faint sheen of red. Shouyou steps toward him and smiles.
“I’m real, you know,” he says, lightly.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Atsumu mumbles, “Any time now, my fuckin’ alarm’s gonna go off, and then I’m gonna spend the rest of the day servin’ hundred and twenty kilometre spikes an’ piss off Inunaki.”
“Yeah?” Shouyou says, a suggestion of a laugh on his lips. “How do I prove it to you, then?”
“Tell me, Shouyou,” Atsumu says, reaching for Shouyou’s hands, “What’re you thinkin’?”
“I’m thinking that I bought you the best souvenir ever. Seriously. I can’t wait to show you it. You’re going to lose your mind.”
“Uh huh.”
“And I’m thinking about how the guy on the plane next to me snored really, really, really loud. There was a screaming kid behind me too, y’know? I was put right in front of the baby bassinet.”
“All that professional athlete money, and all for what?” Atsumu laughs, his eyes sparkling.
“I’m thinking about Samu-san’s TKG onigiri. Were you the one who told him that I liked it?”
“Sure did.”
“And I’m thinking about poor Inunaki, now. It’s a good thing that he has forearms of steel, huh?”
“Hey, I wasn’t that mean.”
“But I’m thinking about you, mostly,” Shouyou says, squeezing Atsumu’s hand. “I’m thinking about getting to hit your tosses again. I’m thinking about how your hair’s gotten long.
“I’m thinking about how I’m going to kiss you. One kiss for every day I’ve been away,” Shouyou teases, watches Atsumu go bright pink at the ears. “If that’s okay, I hope.”
“I told you already, you don’t need to make it up to me, you haven’t— you haven’t got anything to apologise for,” Atsumu mumbles.
“I know,” Shouyou replies. “But I want to. Call it my fondness debt.”
“I won’t lose to you, then,” Atsumu grins, “I’ll pay you back, double.”
They’re really in the thick of it now, still in the crowd surrounding the arrivals gate, breathing in the stale airport air, the noise cacophonous and deafening. It’s seven in the morning, Japan time, seven in the evening in Brazil, and Kansai International is hideous, all peach-pink pillars and drab grey floors. And Shouyou thinks that it’s never looked more vibrant, never looked more alive, never looked more goddamn beautiful as he casts his gaze up to see the text on the signs, the familiar benches, the vending machines.
Casts his gaze up to see Atsumu, who is smiling, now, smiling as he raises Shouyou’s knuckles to his lips, and Shouyou thinks that here, they are still nobodies, still bathed in that bright emerald light, still unafraid and young with the world at their fingertips.
“And I’m thinking—” Shouyou starts. Atsumu listens.
Shouyou counts his heartbeats. He breathes in, breathes out, reminds himself where he is, where he’s been, tucks away memories in places where he does not forget.
“I’m thinking that I’m finally home.”