Clothes Swap / Same Team AU
Look, I know I’m late, I have a thing for every day lined up but editing is such a b-, I MEAN, uh. yeah.
words: some 3.9k, wtf is this
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I am burning
In your hands
The game becomes a play, it is our court
I am burning
In your mouth
My name goes soft, a call, a prayer
I am burning
In your eyes
I am reflected - a rising sun
How dare you make me feel
Divine
Daichi perked up at the mention of his name and looked over to where Kuroo was leaning against the wall with one shoulder, arms crossed, casually grinning.
Bokuto, meeting eyes with Kuroo, grinned back. “I like that idea…how about it, Sawamura? You up for a challenge?”
Daichi loosened his gaze from Kuroo’s shadowy profile. “Sure,” he said, as non-chalantly as he could manage and smiled as if this whole thing sounded like the most pleasurable game in the world. It didn’t quite, but that didn’t mean Daichi wasn’t ready for the thrill…
“Alright…who wants to battle Sawamura for best match captain, then?”
Bokuto, standing at the far end of their somewhat circle, looked around at all of them. The group of people gathered in the second gym was quite big, considering they were all third years.
It was the fourth day of their second week at training camp, some time around two or three in the afternoon. The sun was still up high and shining in through the tall greenishly tinted windows.
Apparently, as Daichi had found out at captains meeting the night before, it was tradition to use the fourth day as bonding day and that meant the following: all the first years got to take a hike down to the local pool to play in the water and cool down.
All the second years were gathered in the first gym: what exactly they got to do nobody had told Daichi and that, somehow, made him a little nervous. He wasn’t so much concerned for Tanaka’s or Noya’s safety as he was for the rest of his second years’ - and all the others’, to be quite frank.
The third years though, they got to play a little game of heir own, as it seemed.
Kuroo had explained it on their way to the gym, walking next to Daichi like had become habit lately, unnoticed only by one of the two.
“We usually manage three rounds, three sets each,” Kuroo had said, biting his lip. “For each round we choose two captains…those two will select a team of five more players, so all in all six.”
“And then we just…play?”
“Well, yeah…but don’t be fooled, Sawamura, it’s not as easy as it sounds like.”
Kuroo had glanced down at him quickly and Daichi had noticed how he’d been staring up at Kuroo all this time. Lucky for him, the pavement had been even.
“I don’t think it sounds too easy! You have to get a whole team of strangers playing well together, I bet choosing the right players is probably really important…”
Daichi had looked ahead at the group of people they were following shortly behind and wondered: if, hypothetically speaking, because it wouldn’t happen anyway (they were new after all), he were to choose five of all of them for a team…
Daichi’s first thoughts had gone to Suga and Asahi, of course. He knew them and they knew him and he had been captaining them since first year, really…but apart from them…Bokuto seemed like a good investment, initially, but not if you couldn’t manage his mood swings…Yaku was a great libero…..Kai would give a team stability…but so…so would…
“Kuroo?”
“Hm?”
“You’ll captain one of the rounds for sure, won’t you?”
“Probably…why?”
“Do you know who you will pick, already?”
That was when Kuroo had tripped on a speck of dust and come to a short halt before continuing walking as if nothing had happened, glancing at Daichi again. His gaze, short and soft and hopeful, had knocked something in Daichi aside, had made his heart stumble on it and forget its duty for a second.
“Sure do,” Kuroo had said, and it’d sounded like the truth for once.
A few seconds have passed since Bokuto had raised the question of Daichi’s rival and to Daichi’s utter horrification, no one seemed too eager to play against him until, with a cheerfull exclamation, Suga raised his hand.
“I will!”
“What?”
Daichi looked at Suga standing next to him, who was pouting now, with the shocked surprise sitting in Daichi’s voice.
“I’m vice but you are always taking all the captain duties upon yourself so I want to see what it’s like leading a team all by myself…” Suga pushed a finger into Daichi’s chest. “And you better be ready, because I will kick your ass.”
Daichi, then, laughed and so did the other third years with him, including Bokuto, who clapped his hands and demanded a pairing for the third round, since him and Kuroo had already been picked for the first.
“We will!” Onago yelled slamming a fist into the air and Masaki, staring at Onago with squinted eyes, nodded.
“I will destroy you.”
“You fucking wish.”
They would have started an argument if Bokuto had not yelled at them to shut up, stomping his feet, visibly eager to begin.
“What about we show you how it’s done, then?” Bokuto grinned and settled eyes with Kuroo, who pushed off the wall, finally, and walked up to the center of the circle.
“Alright then, first round, me versus Bokuto. Second round, Sawamura versus Sugawara. Third, Onago versus Masaki. If we can still stand, that is.”
Bokuto rubbed his hands together, his face alight, fire and flame. Daichi wondered, shortly, if this was a good idea after all. “Line up, people, line up, it’s time for us to choose!”
They formed a semi circle around Bokuto and Kuroo, who both grinned like kids on Christmas Morning.
“Who goes first,” Bokuto asked without looking at Kuroo, scanning the players surrounding him as if he were to choose his team in an arcade fighting game. It was a little uncomfortable, almost, being evaluated like that, from top to bottom, and suddenly Daichi remembered who Bokuto was, after all. Top 5 aces on national level. Nationals every year. Spikes of the like of Oikawa’s serves. Daichi gulped down the thing in his throat, anticipation and anxiety warring in his stomach.
“Be my guest,” Kuroo answered, dripping sweetness and benevolence. He was less random with his selective eyes, focusing on certain players as if picking grapes from a vine. When Kuroo’s gaze landed on Daichi, time grew chewy like gum candy. Daichi looked back when not even wanting to, when knowing it would be more clever to avert his eyes, but he couldn’t: Kuroo looked at him and smiled, differently, softer. It was only for a second but Daichi felt his ears turn hot, and saw, unsurprisingly by now, how Kuroo’s face turned somewhat red, how Kuroo’s fingers gripped into his biceps while the moment lasted. Daichi looked away at once, and focused, instead, and truly with all his might, on Bokuto.
Bokuto smiled, feet wide, stance strong, his hair sticking up as if it was live-wire, and said something Daichi was not ready to hear. “Suga-kun?”
Suga, next to him, tightened like a guitar string.
“Yes?”
“I like to choose my setters first,” Bokuto explained, as if this was a refined theory on how to pick the perfect team for a cross-school practice match. Suga grinned.
“Sure,” he said and walked over to stand next to Bokuto, beaming. Daichi was glad. He was also prepared to wait a while for his turn to be picked - if at all; what with his spiking and blocking not being the best his only real asset were his receives and neither Bokuto nor Kuroo seemed like the guys to focus on strong defense in a game like this. Ultimately, he should have seen it coming.
“Your turn,” Bokuto declared, flashing Kuroo a look and a winner’s grin, because he had just managed to snatch away the only true setter of them all and what was a team without a setter.
“Sawamura”, Kuroo answered immediately, with a certainty like a vow, gospel, not sparing Bokuto a glance, and Daichi could hear a coin falling onto pavement somewhere outside, maybe in his mind.
His feet lifted while his brain still struggled to catch up with his suddenly fleeing heart, with the way Kuroo had said his name, like that, always like that…by the time he had moved over to stand next to Kuroo, Bokuto was already discussing his next possible picks with Suga loudly.
Daichi closed his eyes for a second, dwelling in the feeling of standing on the other side of the chasm, as Kuroo bumped his upper arm with Daichi’s shoulder lightly.
“You okay?” he asked, staring straight ahead and Daichi looked up to him, sharp features in profile. “You shouldn’t have wasted an early pick on me. Could have gotten one of the best players.”
Kuroo then, laughed, glanced down at Daichi and his eyes filled with warmth so subtle Daichi could have pretended not to notice, like sunrays kissing your skin on an early day in May. “I did.”
“Azumane,” Kuroo called out then, immediately after, eyes still on Daichi and only moments later, when it was so much too late, he looked up and greeted Asahi win a grin. Daichi looked to the side to see that Bokuto had, unnoticed by him, with Suga’s help, picked Yaku-san for libero, and was just about to go for Masaki, captain of Ubugawa High.
*
“MATCH POINT KUROO’S TEAM; 24-22!”
Somehow, miraculously, they were winning. Daichi didn’t know how to explain it. In overall strength, Bokuto’s team was better, probably. He had a true setter, and himself, which already accounted for the value of an average volleyball high school team, and the rest of them were all top-class players as well.
Yet, somehow, the team Daichi was on was winning. It had been close, they had lost the first set but the longer they played together, the better they seemed to connect and it was all Kuroo’s doing.Daichi wasn’t sure how he was doing it, despite being a decent captain himself, but Kuroo somehow managed to position every last one of them so carefully and precisely and correctly that all they had to do…was play. There was no need to worry about a ball that had flown over your head - you knew your team mate had it.
It had all begun to unfold right before Daichi’s eyes within the first few minutes: they had been three points behind, Bokuto had slammed home a ball that had been received as a one touch Asahi had not quite brought down.Daichi had been in rear, keeping book of all the balls trying to touch ground within his perimeter, when he’d seen Kuroo step up to Asahi, and Asahi almost flinch away.
“Hey, Azumane,” Kuroo had said, quietly, and Daichi had had to try hard to hear. “Don’t worry about that one. You are your team’s ace, aren’t you?”
Asahi had nodded, carefully, and Kuroo had grinned at him with an earnesty Daichi had rarely seen before.
“Exactly. There’s a reason I picked you. Be my ace. We will win, I just need you to play a big part in that.”
Asahi’s face, having been stone, had subtly begun to melt into a relieved smile. “Of course.”
“Alright, listen to me…” And Kuroo had leaned in, talking to Asahi in whispers for a few seconds.
“Got that?” Clapping Asahi on the back almost gently, Kuroo had taken position again, and Asahi, to Daichi’s utter surprise, had nodded, looking determined enough to kill a man.
Or at least the equivalent of that for someone as peace-loving as his ace.The next spike of Asahi’s had almost ripped Yaku’s arm off.
Washio was serving. In the short amount of time they had played together, Daichi had learned to trust him completely. He hadn’t been sure why Kuroo had picked the tall Fukuroudani player at first, there was nothing initially pinpointable about his skill set but by now he did: Washio had a calm sense of strength to him, like an animal so dangerous it knew no one would ever dare touch it.
The ball flew over the net at a wicked angle, directed, of course, at Suga. Masaki stepped in immediately, recovered the ball barely and sent it flying in a bow that made it easier for Suga to place it for Bokuto. The two of them had turned out to be a good match - Suga was, not unlike Akaashi, as Washio had commented, able to read Bokuto’s moods and redirect them into something useful, like straight spikes that left Daichi’s skin red and raw and almost burnt.
Which also meant that Daichi was ready for it when it came. The smash had been powerful, Bokuto’s yell broke out of him the moment his palm made contact with the ball and it would have been almost pleasing to watch, if Daichi did not have to make the split-second decision of where to step out to to get that fucking ball. He could not, he just could not let it fall to the ground, such an ending wasn’t even an option in his mind. There was nothing else but the one occupying thought, for his team, for his captain, for himself: GET THE BALL INTO THE AIR.
Daichi guessed right, jumped right, the ball hit his forearms in a moment of pain so extreme his arms went numb momentarily, but the ball was - Daichi offered a rapid thankful prayer - flying up in a beautiful high arc.
Kuroo’s finger tips connected to it with a sound as soft as butterfly wings. Back attack. Daichi should have guessed it so.
Faintly, as if through a wall, he could hear people on the other side of the net shout but for some reason, Daichi was sure no defense would save them from this.
Onago hit the ball with perfect form. It slammed down in the far right corner of Bokuto’s court, a few steps next to Kai, who had tried to move quickly enough but didn’t manage.
They made the point.
They won the match.
It was silent for a second and then everyone started screaming, cheering, whooping, yelling disbelief. Everyone except for Kuroo. “Great save,” he said, grinning broadly and Daichi, temporarily stunned by the rushing feeling of blood boiling, coursing through him at high speed, by the victory he helped secure, by the way Kuroo’s teeth flashed white as snow, by the way Daichi’s own sweat stuck to the insides of his hands all of a sudden, gulped down a lump of air and relief and wonder.
There was a second where he considered doing something eternally stupid. Then, when Komi jumped on Kuroo to mess up his hair and they broke eye contact, the moment was over.
*
Daichi would be hoarse tomorrow, yet he yelled like his life depended on it.
“LEFT! LEFT! GET IT!”
The ball made contact with Kuroo’s palm, his fingers flicked down, the ball slapped on the floor behind the net with a satisfying smack, making noise follow it like a wave. Kuroo pumped a fist into the air, motioned at Kiyoko to turn the count from 15-16 to 15-17, and turned to accept a row of high fives, grinning. Asahi cursed loudly, and both Suga and Daichi looked at him before looking at each other. It was weird seeing the two of them on the other side of the court - it was even weirder to feel so secure with a certain someone on his own. Daichi grinned and slapped hands with Kuroo. Both their palms burned.
“Nice block.”
“It’s what I’m known for.”
“I thought you were known for that nightmare hair of yours.”
Kuroo stopped for a second, staring at Daichi, tongue-tied, and Daichi grinned, clapping a hand on Kuroo’s chest, feeling extremely bold. “Don’t worry, I kinda like it,” he said, smiling in Konoha’s direction.
“Nice work, everyone! Let’s take the next one, too!”
An all-encompassing “Yes, captain!” greeted him in return and Daichi did not look at Kuroo again. Which did not mean he stopped grinning.
*
Four sets later Daichi was sitting on the gym floor, leaned back against a wall, breathing heavily. The third round had been more exhausting than the one’s before them, both physically and mentally.
He had played for Masaki, together with Bokuto, Sarukui, Suga and Kuroo, and had ended up on the winning team yet again. The sensation of it was still subtly beating in his veins, the only thing keeping his brain from passing out on him. The others were strewn around randomly across the ground, like dropped thumb tacks, most gasping for air desperately, some - not breathing at all.
Daichi pulled the end of his towel across his face again, knowing it wouldn’t help much. He was drenched, tired, his arms felt like blocks of cement, his legs worse. Beside him, Suga put his bottle of water down.
“Three out of three…good job, captain.”
Daichi looked over, smiled, bumped fists with Suga for a second, both of them too exhausted to really try.
“This was fun, wasnt it?”
“And good practice, too.”
“You did a great job, by the way,” Daichi said, wanting to confirm this between them.
“So did you. So did the others…I don’t even know how we lost that first match, Bokuto is on a whole other level, Daichi… Honestly, I was so sure we’d win.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“What?” Suga looked at him, somewhat shocked, and Daichi laughed lowly.
“Your team was stronger than ours.”
“Then why did we lose?” Daichi shrugged his shoulders, slackly, and let his gaze climb over the bodies of team mates, of these people he barely knew but already felt fond of, like an extension to his immediate family. Some kind of responsibility for them bloomed in his chest like a first daisy after a long winter, careful and fragile.
Kuroo was lying on his back some few feet away, legs thrown out away from himself, pressing a water bottle to his forehead, emptying his lungs over and over again, lips parted. The rise and fall of his chest was steady and mesmerizing to watch, like a pendant swinging from side to side. Daichi grabbed the flask to his right, unscrewed the bottle, suddenly dying for a drink.
“Kuroo…is a special kind of captain,” he then said, more to himself than to Suga, really, and Suga, Daichi thought, understood.
*
When Daichi looked up the sky looked like black velvet fabric. The street lamps lining the paved walkway down the line of gyms were devouring all of the stars’ light - even the moon looked somewhat dim, milky and out of focus.
They made their way from light circle to light circle like following a predestined path of really large bread crumbs, steps falling into one rhythm. The air had cooled down by now, and Daichi enjoyed inhaling deeply, feeling the oxygen fill his chest and breathe out, with every exhale, the pent up feeling of having to do something. Of having to deal with this situation. It wasn’t helping much, though, because the situation was walking right beside him, arms swaying slightly, eyes in the shadows of his mussed up hair.
“Wanna take a walk later?” Kuroo had asked at dinner, as if the answer wasn’t really all that interesting to him, as if Daichi’s presence was by no means a necessity, and Daichi, being the idiot that he was, had nodded. “Sure.”
Now, he was too aware of Kuroo’s hand brushing his every now and then, too focused on letting the breaths he was pulling in like a drowning man come out as naturally as possible. This wasn’t a walk. This was torture. Somewhere in his mind a question rose, stubborn like a drum: Was Kuroo able to tell how fast his heart was beating? Was Kuroo able to tell?
Daichi shivered when a cool gust of wind ran up his arms, causing goosebumps to cover his skin, creep down his back. Daichi pulled his hands up to try and rub the feeling away. Next to him, gently, Kuroo stopped, pulling at the sleeves of his jacket behind his back. The red was too bright in the light of the nearest lamp post. Daichi didn’t understand what was going on until it was too late.
“Here.” Kuroo held his jacket out by the collar, in a position comfortable enough for Daichi to just slip into it. The goosebumps on his naked arms were not subsiding.
“You’ll be cold, though.”
“It’s fine.”
“But-”
“Put on the damn jacket before you catch a cold, Sawamura.”
Kuroo looked at Daichi, exasperated strictness in his voice demanding obedience, and Daichi felt his cheeks grow hot. He was not sure if he was looking at Kuroo the same way Kuroo was looking at him. He was not sure if anyone had ever looked at him like that. Kuroo’s lips parted and caught Daichi’s eye like a laser point on a white wall. Seconds passed, and Kuroo never looked away.
“Daichi-”
Then, finally, Daichi turned around and stuffed his arms into the sleeves of Kuroo’s jacket, if only to get a chance to avert his eyes and hide his burning, burning face. He grew warm immediately. It was like pulling on a sweater you had just finished ironing, the warmth of it comfort, the feeling one of clean sheets and home.
The sleeves were a little too long for Daichi. Kuroo’s fingers were gentle when he rolled them up once on each side, meticulously. Daichi stared down at Kuroo’s hands and let him. He wanted to say something. His ‘thank you’ got lost in an exhale too loud to be just that. The light of the street lamp made him feel a little dizzy or maybe it was the fact that he could not seem to catch a breath despite all the air entering his body. Daichi rolled his tongue, dry in his mouth, cleared his throat, tried again.
“It suits you,” Kuroo said in the second before Daichi had done more than open his mouth to speak. They locked eyes and Kuroo grinned. His lips were bitten red. Daichi thought he had to do something to escape this, this, which was certain death. So he did what came closest to it: he grabbed Kuroo’s hand with one of his, as if that had been the plan all along, turned in direction of their dorm building and started stomping, pulling Kuroo with him.
“Come on, it’s late, we should get back.”
Kuroo chuckled in amusement and let himself be pulled. “Definitely.”
“You wanna say something?”
“Nah. I’m good.” Daichi was so very close to dying.
They got back to the dorms some ten minutes later, parting at Karasuno’s door. Kuroo’s mouth lay down on Daichi’s once, shortly, sweetly, with intention. Daichi’s heart gave out. Daichi’s knees gave in. Death was a pleasure he welcomed right then and there. The door in his back saved his life.
“Sleep tight, Sawamura,” and Kuroo did not kiss him again.
When Kuroo turned to leave, he swung his jacket over his back casually. Nekoma’s dorm room was at the end of the hallway.
Bonding day, my ass, Daichi thought, heart racing mind, none making sense, unable to look away until Kuroo became shadow, disappeared. He wished he would still have a red-colored jacket. He felt cold without it.
