I just logged into this account after a very long time, and I am blown away to find that it still has 1k+ followers even though the last time I wrote fic here was two years ago?? :0
So here’s another PSA: I write elsewhere now!!
If you’re still following this blog because you still love HQ!! and you still want to read my writing (which is so......*chokes up*), then you should come join me in my new { FIC TAG } or my new { AO3 } :”D
This blog will stay up as an archive because I couldn’t bear to delete any fics and I know some of y’all still like to read them. If you still want to follow this blog, then that’s cool; I just didn’t want anyone to miss the memo! And maybe I’ll see some of you around in my new works!!! ^.^
Hi there!! I’m sorry this reply is late. I’ve been meaning to get to it all week. I actually have a dozen or so asks just like this one in my ask box, so I thought I’d finally take the opportunity to address this, since I’ve never made an official announcement on this blog.
Short answer: Yes, I do still write!
Long answer: I don’t write on this blog anymore, and moved on elsewhere quite some time ago. I took a big step back from both fandom and writing in the past year, for various reasons, but am slowly getting back into it—and Haikyuu still has a very tight grip on me!
If you would still like to read my writing, you can find it here. The fics on here are still up for new readers and re-readers alike, but otherwise, please feel free to unfollow this blog (I’m very surprised by how many followers it still has, and that it’s gotten so many new followers, considering I haven’t written here in a year)! Thank you so much for everything. Maybe I’ll still see some of you around! :>
“I saw him kissing the mop in the supply closet,” their captain snickers, and pushes Asahi forward for protection when Suga goes in for a punch. “Hey, don’t go doing it in places where you don’t want other people to see!”
“I. did. not.” He glares at Asahi until the poor boy trembles under the heat, almost as if daring him to refute and promising pain if he did. “How unsanitary, Daichi. At least make up a believable lie, like a volleyball or something.”
“Umm, why would you need to practice, Suga? I’m sure you’re g-great — oh, god, I didn’t mean it to come out so weird. I-I just meant, you look like you would be good? I-I mean, not that you look like a player or anything, just that you look like someone who’s been kissed before and — you know what, I don’t know what I mean so maybe you should just ignore me—”
Daichi slaps him sharply on the back so that he splutters off with a cough, but Asahi looks infinitely grateful for it.
“That’s the thing, see? I haven’t been.” Suga stares at the sky, light throwing angelic patterns on his hair. “Been waiting for the right girl. And a girl like Shimizu, she deserves the best, you know?”
“Better than your moppy lips,” Daichi mumbles under his breath, and this time Suga moves fast enough to land a fist to his arm and even manages some serious damage — he’s that pissed. Rubbing his throbbing bicep, he wheezes, “But for real, Suga. I think you’re overthinking it, maybe?”
Suga buries his face in his hands, groaning into the lines of his palms. “Ugh. I’ve just... I’ve wanted to kiss her for so long. And I think she’s been expecting it. It’s gotta be perfect.”
“It will be perfect because you two are in love.”
“Oh, can it, Asahi. No one ordered all that cheese.”
Asahi shrinks once again, this time behind flyaway hair and blushing cheeks.
“Listen here, Suga,” Daichi starts, wisely. He claps a hand on his friend’s shoulder, squeezing it as an extra, reassuring measure. “Kissing’s easy. You just gotta lean in and touch your lips to hers. That’s all.”
Suga looks mildly impressed. “So you’ve done it before?”
“Uhh. Well, no. But you bring food to your mouth all the time.” He shrugs. “Can’t be much different than that, can it?”
Suga flings off his hand with a groan.
“I-I think Daichi’s got the right idea,” Asahi pipes up, rubbing his neck. “And you can’t make the kiss too long because then it could just feel gross. And you can’t make it too short because otherwise she might think you just tripped and caught yourself in time or something.”
“And remember to close your eyes,” Daichi adds, prompting Asahi to nod vigorously at his side. “I hear girls live for that stuff.”
“O-Okay. This is good stuff. I think I’ve got this.”
Suga nods determinedly.
.
This is Suga’s first kiss with Shimizu:
He leans in. He closes his eyes. He misses.
Amidst him typing a ferociously long hate mail to both his so-called best friends, Shimizu giggles, hooks his chin to bring his face to hers, and kisses him sweetly on the lips. Maybe she’s a little clumsy as well, and maybe it leaves all of Suga’s senses too foggy to remember to press send.
It’s Kuroo’s biggest fear realized. He’d often wondered, through those awkward stages in their friendship when Kuroo would level up a grade or college separations, whether Kenma had ever thought of him as replaceable.
Finding family in Nekoma hadn’t weakened their bond any, hadn’t rusted childhood memories and the years of volleyball when they’d only had each other to lean on. His budding friendship with Hinata Shouyou, so good for him in every aspect, hadn’t pushed Kuroo to the sidelines.
Kuroo had thought, somewhat, that college might tear them apart. He’d never admit it. Not aloud, anyway, or to Kenma, that he’d ever had flashes of doubt that one day they would mean less to each other than they ever had since their playground days. But they’d withstood the test of distance, withstood nights alone and wistful texts on lonely days.
The true test comes only now.
Winter nights are chillier this year than Kuroo has ever remembered, like the wind is playing wingman to this boy who’s always in search of new excuses to touch his boyfriend, to feel his boyfriend, to tuck his boyfriend’s small frame against his own until soon they both begin to doze.
“Kenma, if you need help keeping warm,” he offers lazily, lifting his blanket and shifting over on the couch. An open invitation for cuddling.
Kenma stalks by, manga in hand, doesn’t even pause at the couch. “No, thanks. I’m fine.”
He switches the kotatsu to high heat, burrowing deep under the blanket with a pillow for his head, and soon loses himself in his manga. Kuroo is left to uselessly pull his blanket up to his shoulders, shivering in the cool air. “You can come under here, too,” Kenma tries to offer, dully flipping a page, but he snidely turns his nose away.
Bokuto’s still tickled pink by his dilemma, and his reply to Kuroo’s complaints about losing Kenma to a goddamn heat-blanket is only ever Kuroo, stop being so lame, man.
Kenma slides in deeper, scrunches his nose in a way Kuroo knows means he’s wiggling his toes under the table. “If you catch a cold,” he mumbles, eyes flickering just once to his face, so Kuroo knows he’s serious, “I’m not taking care of you.”
“Harsh, Kenma, harsh,” he seethes, slowly slipping off his lonesome couch, the springs of the ratty cushion digging into his thigh. They need new furniture badly, but money is tight still, and last week’s budget had been blown on this kotatsu Kenma had wanted — so of course Kuroo had been unable to deny.
Kenma blinks once, looking up from his manga in question, when Kuroo eases in flush against Kenma’s back, pressing him to his chest as he gets settled. His frosted toes touch Kenma’s warm socks under the blanket, only because he’s curled his legs around his so they can properly stick to one another.
He prods the back of Kenma’s head. “Move over.” One half of the pillow quickly becomes his, though he’s not content with just one half and takes Kenma’s space as well, tucking his chin against the blonde’s neck to read over his shoulder.
Kenma pauses, finger lingering on the corner of the page, and Kuroo knows he’s waiting for him to finish reading even as he huffs, “The kotatsu’s big enough for both of us, you know. We don’t have to stick so close.”
“We don’t cuddle for warmth, obviously.” He prods him again, on his hip this time. “We cuddle because we love each other.”
Kenma blinks once, again, then rolls his eyes. “I don’t remember ever saying I love you...”
“Harsh, Kenma.”
But he’s grinning, fingers drawing patterns onto Kenma’s hip, lips occasionally caressing the shell of Kenma’s ear. It’s not a bad position to be tangled up in. Perhaps he would wait another month before considering sending their kotatsu to a dumpster demise.
The harsh words resonate through the hall, filling empty classrooms and the spaces between lockers, not any less subdued by shuffling feet. Then Kazuma leans back his head, laughing at the ceiling, and hums, “That’s what Misaki’s gonna say anyway.”
Terushima yanks off his tie and winds it into a whip-like structure, smacking his teammate with it. “Shut up, no, she won’t.”
“He’s sweating,” Takeharu snickers, prompting chuckles from the rest of the team as he’s the next one to avoid a hit. “He knows it’s true.”
“Yeah, I don’t know why you’re putting on such a show,” Kazuma scoffs, finally wrestling the tie from Terushima’s grasp, and now it’s his turn to dodge. “A leather jacket and some dumb new shoes and whatever else you’re going for isn’t going to impress Misaki.”
“Maybe he’s going for a one-hit K.O. for her heart. You know, since he’s already so lame in her eyes.” Eyes saddening in a horrible imitation, he copies the words they had all overheard in the club room (in Terushima’s defense, he had thought it was empty and the whole team didn’t have their ears pressed to the door). “‘Misaki, I’ve changed! I swear it! I only like you!’”
“I’m pummeling you all at practice,” Terushima grouches, kicking Numajiri right on his bottom so he tumbles into the gym, wheezing over his laughter. “None of you assholes have dates tonight, so you can snuff it.”
“You’re walking on thin ice as it is, buddy,” Kazuma teases, clapping his shoulder on his way in. “I wouldn’t exactly go around bragging.”
“Misaki’s gonna love me,” he states confidently, shrugging off his blazer to prepare for practice. “But you guys aren’t. Get ready for volleyball hell.”
It sets off a round of groans among the first-years, that the senpai have pissed off their volatile captain once again; he doesn’t feel things in his muscles like normal people do, and last time they had run thirty laps that he’d finished in an hour flat, only to look back, full of energy, to find all the juniors collapsed in various distressed states around the gym. It had been a stressful day for Runa especially.
Today is even more so. Their small manager runs from player to player, tissues in hand, water bottles ready, and even flusters to their content captain once, her voice cracking as it often does in his presence, “Um? Maybe you shouldn’t be so hard on them?”
“Nonsense!” Terushima bellows, hands on his hips. “We’re Johzenji! We can handle this much!”
His calls of “Right, team?!” are met with groans of agreement. A part of him isn’t even up to mischief at the moment; he simply thrives in this atmosphere, flourishes under grueling practices and new techniques and the sweat clinging his T-shirt to his back. This is what makes volleyball fun, pure and simple.
Hours into practice he’s still lost in the thrill, surrounded by weary, regretful third-years, when Runa’s squeaky voice disrupts his rhythm once again. “S-Senpai! Wh-what are you doing here?”
“Well, I thought I’d come see why I was stood up...”
The familiar voice carries, turning to ice in Terushima’s veins. Fuck. He’s a goner.
“M-Misaki,” he stutters, turning to the sound. Fuck. She’s in a nice skirt of all things. He’s a dead man walking. “Misaki, shit, I can explain. I didn’t stand you up on purpose, I swear—” The sun’s dipped behind rooftops, shading the sky purple, and it makes his excuses a little hard to believe. The team looks on, unanimously amused, as he flails limbs and attempts to talk his way out of this mess he’s created. “It was just, practice, yeah? You know how it is! Gotta get these butts into gear. Were you waiting long—”
“I was,” she replies, her tone clipped. But then her eyes flicker behind him, to weary teammates and volleyballs littering the gym, and back to his frame, to the sweat clinging to his every curve and the beat-up sneakers on his feet. His plans to impress her crumble before his eyes.
Misaki smiles, soft, like her fingers dragging through his limp, soaked hair. “But it’s okay. I like the you who’s really earnest about volleyball.”
Terushima swallows, hard and lumpish.
“What did I say?” Kazuma scoffs, nudging Numajiri and getting an equally hard shove back. “A total joke.”
“And the next thing on Sugawara’s list was these cute gummy vitamins,” she told him eagerly, pulling out two capped, plastic bottles that could last them well into the year. “He said to make sure to get these cute ones that are shaped like little bears because you love them so much. That’s so cute, Sawamura! I never would have expected that from you.”
She laughed, while he internally made plans that involved fire and his best friend’s unsuspecting flyaway.
Or, the one where Daichi comes down with the common cold and finds himself with a not-so-common nurse.
Yachi’s heard wondrous tales of inspiration; falling leaves creating an inferno of colors, the innocence in a baby’s smile, the monochrome shades of a dull, rainy morning. She’s heard of grand love stories inspiring poetry and loss inspiring those priceless paintings in museums that sometimes were too precious to even look at.
Yachi’s inspiration strikes in a much different way.
It comes in a flash on a typical evening, with Yamaguchi slurping tasteless cup ramen in her living room, eyes glued to the TV, while she fiddles with her camera. Water dribbles down his chin, though he catches it with the back of his hand — and that’s when Yachi notices.
“You have,” she notes, “freckles on your wrist.”
For Yamaguchi it’s nothing more than a passing glance. Freckles are old news; he’s still discovering new ones on his body every now and then even.
But Yachi is compelled, in a sudden way, to turn his hand over in hers and snap a picture of the cluster of faint, delicate marks on the inside of his wrist.
Yamaguchi looks over curiously, watching her smile in content down at the photo she’s taken. “What are you going to do with that?” he wonders, before bringing more ramen to his mouth.
“It’s perfect for my class project!” she decides, so proud of this first picture she’s taken. A small patch of her own hand had gotten caught on film as well, cradling his, but it brings warmth to the picture. This must be what inspiration feels like, she muses, and is a little surprised it hadn’t taken some grand moment (like connecting the perfect quick strike at a national level volleyball match) to feel like she’d made a grand achievement.
“It’s okay if I use it, right?” she asks, biting down on her lip in worry.
Yamaguchi smiles, warm and generous. “It’s fine. Glad I could be of help, in my own way.”
It’s when she’s developing the photo, not many days later, that Yachi realizes there are more than just freckles on Yamaguchi’s wrists. Fanning across his palm, there are cuts and bruises there, old and faded scars as well. This is what years of volleyball training, drive and focus and determination, have done to the hands of a boy who might usually have warm, soft ones (to match the person).
The freckles, then, are like a small, rare patch of delicacy among the roughened forest of markings on Yamaguchi’s palm.
She titles the photo: Lotus.
-:-
Yachi’s project returns to her at the end of the year with praises in the margins that make her flush prettily. Yamaguchi accompanies her to return her camera to the art department.
“Seems kind of like a shame, a little bit,” he chuckles sheepishly, rubbing his neck. “I got used to having that camera around. And you were so good with it.”
Yachi slips a hand into his, giggling. “It was never mine, you know that, Tadashi-kun. But if it means that much to you, I can still take lots and lots of pictures of you with my phone!”
“You’ve probably taken enough pictures of me for a lifetime...”
“A lifetime is longer than six months,” she hums cheerily, and drags him along a little faster so they would still make their dinner reservation when their errands were over and done with.
It’s later that night, Tadashi asleep on the bed behind her after a nice dinner that had turned into a long walk that had turned into a giggly race home, when Yachi finally opens up her album of photos.
Yachi’s sentimental but she’s had practicality embedded into her growing up with just her and her mother, and she’s had to learn to throw things away after becoming an interior design student who brings home projects by the dozen after each school term. But her mother’s asked specifically to see this one, photography an old, lost passion of hers, and while putting it away Yachi can’t resist a quick look over the past few months.
Lotus stares back at her first.
Ah, I remember this, Yachi thinks fondly, tracing those freckles she had found by a stroke of chance. Her inspiration. When Tadashi-kun and I were still just friends.
Maybe it had been chance, maybe it had been fate, when she and Yamaguchi had ended up on the same campus. Faced with the unfamiliarity of the adult world, of course they had stuck with each other. Comfort. Warmth. Someone familiar.
Back then Yamaguchi would stop by her apartment with an armful of cup ramen, exhausted from crunching numbers in math classes all day but still too shy to accept her offers to cook him dinner. He’d just smile sheepishly at her lectures in this adorable way that made her pea-sized fury fizzle out, and then even she could not resist a cup of her favorite flavor.
They try harder now, to eat balanced meals, to go out, to try new things. Yamaguchi’s gotten himself the barest, most lowest-level of jobs in an accounting office, and Yachi’s mother employs her artistic skills occasionally with proud declarations that her daughter is more competent than half the employees at her company. They manage. Somehow they’ve managed to become adults together in this new, unfamiliar world.
But it wasn’t always that way, Yachi remembers. It had taken time to get here, time she had captured with her camera in a series of freckles she could now trace in reality if she so wished.
She turns the page, and time turns with it.
-:-
“Yamaguchi-kun, you’re sweet,” Yachi laughs, even as he sinks into his chair.
“I’m an idiot is what I am,” he groans into his hands. “I can’t believe I walked around all day like this.”
“But you were just doing a good thing!” she insists, and is grateful he can’t see her smiling as she comes up behind him, scissors in hand. The pink blob in his hair stares back at her menacingly. “There’s probably no way that boy could have found his parents if you didn’t put him on your shoulders.”
“He didn’t have to put gum in my hair as a thank you,” Yamaguchi grumbles, mortified as he suddenly realizes why Hinata hadn’t seemed to be able to stop giggling when they had met for drinks earlier.
“I’ll fix it up for you really quick!” Yachi exclaims, opening and closing her scissors in one quick snip. Then, she pauses. “Um, though are you sure you don’t want to go to a hairdresser?”
“There would be none open at this time, anyway,” he points out, looking weary. “And I trust your artistic sense the most, Yachi. I trust you the most as a person right now too, basically, since no one else bothered to tell me.”
Yachi bites down on her lip, her blood pumping, not sure what to say to such nice things. She settles on a vague, “Mm-hmmm... o-okay.”
The gum is removed with another quick snip, easy enough. The bigger project is fixing his now lopsided hair, but Yachi can see a vision of how he should look, and it’s with his trust and pinpoint accuracy that she begins to bring that vision to life.
Her hands delve into his hair and occasionally her fingers brush his ears, and Yamaguchi closes his eyes at the sensation. They fall into easy conversation.
“Tsukki’s arriving next week, he said,” he tells her, his voice ringing with joy. “He also said not to bother going to pick him up at the airport, but, well, I had to pretend I was going through a tunnel at that part.” They share a laugh.
“I’m always so impressed by Tsukishima-kun,” Yachi muses, turning her attention to the other side of his hair. “He’s doing so well in such a big, fancy university abroad. I-I’d be so nervous!”
“I think you would do well, Yachi,” Yamaguchi says, his laugh gentle and sincere.
“O-Only if I had you there to share cup ramen with me,” she murmurs, her ears burning.
Eventually she manages to contain the mess his hair had become, and she hadn’t even sacrificed much of it to do so, something Yamaguchi seems eternally thankful for. Yachi presses him back down into the chair when he makes a move to get up, chirping, “Let me clean you up first!”
There are little hairs sticking to his neck that Yachi knows would only bring him prickling discomfort that often accompanies a haircut, so she gently begins to swipe his neck clean with a handkerchief. And it’s then that she notices the trail of freckles dipping into the collar of his shirt.
“Yamaguchi-kun, you have freckles on your back, too?” she blurts out, staring at them closely, though she’s mindful of touching him without permission.
“They’re kind of all over the place,” he explains, his mouth slanting. He’s not fond of them himself, that much is clear.
But Yachi — she’s entranced. They’re just as beautiful as the ones she had spotted on his wrist not long ago, thriving even though they existed in a place where not many would ever get the chance to appreciate their elegance.
“Do you mind,” she begins shyly, shuffling her feet, “if I take a picture of them?”
His surprise is clear even as he says, “Uh, sure.”
Yachi’s camera is never too far from her these days; she’s always waiting for bursts of inspiration like the first, and finally, it has arrived again.
“I-I’ll... have to... p-pull back your shirt a little...!” she warns him, her face reddening.
He suddenly shifts in his chair, hands on his lap, knees bumping together. There’s a split second of embarrassment, then his voice is so soft she barely catches the words under his breath. “...Mmm. It’s okay.”
Yachi feels a certain boldness to hook her fingers under his collar and peel back the fabric covering his skin, hiding his freckles from the world. She can see where the smooth curve of his shoulder blade begins, can see the spots peppered over it in ways she thinks she could make patterns out of if she stared long enough.
By the end of the night, she’s created more constellations on Yamaguchi’s back than there might be in the night sky.
-:-
A kiss, Yachi feels, has been a long time coming.
It’s funny to say but she’s not sure exactly which one of them confesses first. It seems they’re running on the same wavelength as they often are, and both simultaneously begin rambling about their feelings to the other and then backtrack to let the other go first and apologize for their rudeness. So it takes a moment before either realizes that the other had definitely said I like you.
A month into this thing they call a relationship, and not much has changed still. They had already spent so much time with each other, more so than with anyone else, already trusted each other with complaints and secrets. Maybe they had been a couple for a while and everyone had realized but them.
It takes a month before their schedules allow them the picnic Yachi has been yearning for ever since the weather had cleared. They make the trek to a secluded part in the park, a basket in Yamaguchi’s hands and Yachi’s trusty camera around her neck.
“Mm, that was so good!” Yachi squeals after their meal, and flops back down on their picnic blanket for a good, long rest.
But her view of the sky is suddenly obstructed by Yamaguchi’s face, as he settles at her side. And that’s when he kisses her.
Yachi feels as if steam could come out of her ears. “Wh-wh-wh—?!”
“I-It wasn’t gross, was it?” he asks, his voice anxious. Yachi thinks this is what wringing hands would sound like, if hands made a sound when they were wrung.
“N-No, of course not!” she splutters, though her world is still spinning and she feels as if she’s falling into the sky. “It was really nice!”
“So I can do it again...?”
She covers her eyes in her embarrassment, then peeks between the cracks of her fingers to find Yamaguchi smiling at her in his fond, embarrassed way. He likes her a lot. She doesn’t have to doubt that, right now, and maybe she would never have to.
“D-Do it again!” she cheeps, putting every ounce of her courage behind the declaration.
It’s an afternoon of kisses after that — quick, soft ones that dissolve into shy giggles, jittery like their stomachs, as they kiss any place they can reach on each other’s faces. Some time during, Yachi pulls out her camera and snaps pictures in between their bouts of affection.
Looking at them after melts her heart. There’s Yamaguchi’s handsome face up close, smiling, or with red on his cheeks, or his nose crinkled in the most adorable way.
“What’s your project about?” he finally asks, dragging a finger up her cheek. “Do you have a theme?”
“Human,” she tells him, still looking through the candid photos she had taken. Some were much too blurry, or too silly. But others would fit nicely into her album.
“Mm. And are you sure taking pictures of just freckles is going to work out?” He sounds worried on her behalf.
But Yachi hooks a finger and runs it across the bridge of his nose, where his freckles are most clustered. “Of course. Because freckles are a part of you, make you who you are — an essential part of the person who is Yamaguchi Tadashi.” Feeling bold, affectionate, she croons, “One of my favorite humans.”
His smile is bashful, even after the afternoon they’d had. “Take as many pictures as you want, then. I’m here.”
She takes one for each freckle of his face.
-:-
Yachi stops breathing when Tadashi stirs behind her, worried she had disturbed him with her lamplight. But he stills not long after, and she turns back to her album.
Finally she’s reached the last page — the most recent of the photos, for it had only been recently that they had reached a point when she, for the first time, could trace the cluster of freckles upon his bare hip.
The title had been simple. Intimacy.
It had taken most of her courage again, a long chain of stutters, and a steadily pinking face for her to beg that she could include the picture. And Tadashi had assured her again and again, that it was all right, but still she hadn’t stopped bowing her head to him for a week straight after.
She’s flushed as she remembers another; the single freckle she had found on the inside of his thigh, that she had immortalized on film only for her embarrassment to overpower her artistic sense. It sits in her diary now, only for her own viewing.
Tadashi stirs again, this time when she closes the album with a snap that’s much louder than she had intended.
“Mm... still awake?” he mumbles, sleepily.
“Just doing some reminiscing,” she replies, putting her project out of sight. When she gets into bed with him, she has to marvel, “Did you ever think six months ago that we would end up at this point?”
“No, but. Well. I hoped.”
He sounds sheepish, and it makes her giggle into the dark. She assures him, “I hoped, too.”
He falls back into slumber quickly, but Yachi lies awake thinking and reminiscing for a while yet, of this project and everything it’s given her. Her favorite project of her favorite human.
Perhaps it was one for keeping after all.
-:-
extra:
Yamaguchi sees the album only once.
He’s dropping off soup for Yachi’s sick mother on her behalf, and in exchange he receives his girlfriend’s old photography project.
“Tell her good job on it,” she tells him, proud. Then her eyes narrow, shooting fear into his heart. “And you two had better last. I’m not having my daughter’s dreams crushed.”
Curious, he peeks into the album from the safety of the doorstep, before he can begin the long trek back home to their apartment. He finds the same pictures Yachi had shown him over the semester, each memory they had made. But she’d taken a pen and scribbled notes along the margin of each photo, and for the first time, he reads:
wrist — when i was too nervous to hold his hand.
back — when i felt a little bit braver.
face — when tadashi was brave enough too.
hip — when i knew that this would last.
notes:
· for dear winny bear, who is sick and needed a pick-me-up C:
· the symbolism behind the lotus flower is that it blooms despite growing in very terrible conditions. the seeds are planted in river beds and have to survive strong currents and water creatures to fully grow. and then, when they bloom, they’re like a splash of something beautiful in their murky environment. i thought they matched the first scene, and yamaguchi, very well!
pairing: daichi/yui
rating: m
word count: 10,238 (chapter 1/4)
There are two dormant instincts that arise once again when Yui reunites with Sawamura: feelings she'd thought she buried back in high school, and a familiar yearning that's long since passed the realm of an innocent, school girl crush.
Begging and sniffling and pleading prove fruitless. He can dirty his cheeks with streaks of tears and bite his trembling, pale lips as much as he pleases, but Tooru’s getting glasses and that’s that.
“I told you not to read all those sports magazines under the covers at night,” his mother scolds him, before passing over thick, black frames that slip on the boy’s nose and don’t do much to help him see past his blurring tears.
“It’s not the end of the world,” Hajime grunts, when they’re face-to-face that afternoon.
Tooru’s still hiccuping through his sobs, wiping carelessly at his eyes under the frames so harshly that they’ve swollen red. “B-B-But! I look so ugly!”
Hajime wrings his hands, unsure of how to console his own best friend, before one hesitantly curls around Tooru’s fingers. His smile is a little unsure, unpracticed, at the boy’s inquiring glance, but it’s the words that matter and they ring clear. “I think you look really nice.”
— fourteen years old.
All the girls think Oikawa Tooru is dreamy. Power, good looks, charm, smarts; he’s got it all. And sometimes, when there are no practice matches lined up and the volleyball team hasn’t trained for long enough, he comes to school wearing pretty lenses to match his pretty looks, drawing crowds outside his classroom during every break.
“Satomi-chan from the track team said my glasses make me look really cool and she wants to take me out for hot chocolate,” Tooru boasts to his reluctant best friend, catching up with Iwa-chan when his glasses have adjusted to the cold and the fog has cleared away.
Hajime grumbles something intangible, shoving tight fists into his pockets and snuggling his nose against the scarf Oikawa’s sister had knit him for last year’s Christmas, his initials horribly crocheted on one end.
Tooru adjusts his frames on his nose, pulling them up smartly from the side, and taunts, “Don’t be jealous just because I look so good in glasses, Iwa-chan. We can get you some, too, though I doubt they’d help that.”
He waves his hand in the general direction of Hajime’s face, clicking his tongue in sympathy, and gets an angry jab to his side for the remark.
“You look like a toad, ugly Assikawa!”
— eighteen years old.
Entrance exams are upon them, and with their sneakers hung up somewhere safe for the time being, the library has become a sort of second home. And Tooru, when he’s in that deep sort of concentrated trance like when analyzing a volleyball match, will casually slip his glasses into his hold and take the earpiece between his teeth, gnawing at the plastic like it gives him answers.
Hajime notices — every clack of his teeth, perfect and white behind gummy-like lips, or eyebrows that do a funny mating ritual before they come to meet in the middle. Oikawa Tooru is handsome, if that word even does him justice, and Hajime’s throat has made an annoying habit of closing up snug and tight every time his best friend hums absentmindedly in thought.
“Stop staring, Iwa-chan,” Tooru drawls, looking particularly devilish with his knuckles pressed to his cheek, his glasses dangling from his fingertips. “I know it’s distracting how great I look, but it’s kinda hard to think when you do that.”
Hajime stares down at his book instead, not really seeing the words. “Like I’d ever look at you,” he murmurs, and dry swallows the lie to feed to the butterflies in his stomach.
— twenty-five years old.
Picking new frames has become a taxing affair. Poor Hajime is stuck impatiently tapping his fingers against the counter, glaring at the back of Tooru’s head as he absolutely has to try each pair.
“What about these?” he asks, popping up from behind the counter in classy, brown specs and blinking at the saleswoman. “I need something not so obstructive, you know? Otherwise kissing is kind of hard. Will these work?”
She looks faint at his words, spoken from such a deceptively innocent face, as color rises to her cheeks. But not more so than when he hooks Hajime’s fingers, shuffles him just a little forward, and presses their chapped lips together. It lingers, more than just an experimental touch.
Hajime wakes up every morning after to classy, brown specs and a matching, pretty smile.
I really, really, really wanted to flesh that one out into a full fic, gahhh. I love aged-up, angsty reunion fic so much. But it was like 2am and I was already late and I really wanted to finish the week not super behind <.< So this was just a condensed version of the idea I had.
BUT THANK YOU FOR LIKING IT. AND THE MESSAGE. It was one of my fave ones to write, too :)
A doctor's appointment, Yui thinks, isn't exactly the ideal place to run into an old crush.
It could be worse. She could be here with one of those embarrassing infections, or some cringeworthy story about how something had somehow gotten stuck in some part of her body. Instead, she's here with a six-month-old in her lap, flipping through picture books when the receptionist answers the ring of her phone.
"Michimiya-san?" Yui glances up at her name. "I know Harada-sensei is your usual doctor, but he's tied up with a patient at the moment. If you're all right with it, Sawamura-sensei says he can see you now.”
She startles a little at the familiar name. It's expected, for it's been years now since she's heard it or even seen the boy she remembers being attached to it in her memories. She doesn't remember anymore, where he'd gone for school or what he'd studied or which path he had taken in life. It had really brought it into perspective, that they had just been two people who knew each other because they happened to play volleyball.
"That's fine," she agrees with a smile, putting her past behind her, and scoops up the boy in her arms. "I think Hiro here is getting restless, too."
He smothers a small yawn, and both women smile as Yui follows the colored hallway down to room 1K, where it reads Sawamura on a neat plaque hanging on the door. She can see a broad, steady back from over the chair in the corner, a man hunched over some papers on the desk. He doesn't flinch even when she knocks.
"Ah, come in, come in," he greets her, still busy shuffling around files as she slowly heeds his words and takes the chair beside the standard clinic bed. Hiro shifts a little in her arms, blinking away the sleepiness, but it seems difficult for the boy.
Something niggles in the back of Yui's mind. This voice, so familiar, yet a tinge deeper and more mature (though back in high school the thought had seemed impossible).
"So, you're not my usual patient, Michimiya-san," the doctor begins, procuring what she assumes is her file as he spins in his chair. "But I think this should just... be procedure..."
The faint, baffled look on his face tells Yui that he's in the same state as her: trying to process this unexpected reunion, and all of fate’s workings that could have led to this moment.
He snaps out of it first. A grin splits out across his face. "I can't believe this. Michimiya?"
Yui is not so quick to snap out of her trance. "Huh?"
"I thought it might be you," he chuckles, flicking his file once. "Or, at least, I wondered, when I saw the name. It seemed like too much of a coincidence, though, so I convinced myself it couldn't be."
She tries blinking away her daze, taking in her old high school acquaintance. It's Sawamura Daichi for certain: same face and same crooked grin and same powerful shoulders. But he's got a five o'clock shadow in the middle of the day and bags pulling down his eyes — a testament to his life as a doctor. And he's bigger now, bulkier — a testament to growing up (and how much time has passed between them).
"I, uh, yes!" She grins enthusiastically, cheeks flushing a little like some memory her body had not forgotten about being near him. "It's good to see you! How have you been?"
"Busy and overworked, but well," he hums, still smiling. He does seem truly happy to see her, which Yui can't understand; she feels like her heart has jumped into her throat, a sensation she had long since forgotten. "I'd ask if everything is well with you, but then you wouldn't be at the doctor's, would you?"
Just like that, his happiness slides into professional curiosity, his gaze drifting from her to the boy in her lap. She remembers this well; his hard, serious face, and how quickly he falls into it. So many parts to him are so familiar that it almost hurts.
"The file says Hiroshi-kun is running a small fever," he reads, but it's obvious enough from the toddler’s flushed face. "I'll check his temperature, check for any infections, and prescribe him some antibiotics. And he should be healed up within the week, if everything goes well. Sound good?"
"Yeah, sure." She taps her toes together, soothingly running her fingers over Hiro's hair. Worry purses her lips when he doesn't stir.
"Don't worry, Michimiya, children get sick all the time," he assures her, his smile comforting. "It's good you came in before it became a more serious problem. Fevers are never anything too bad, I promise."
She returns his smile with a tiny, grateful one of her own, clutching the child to her chest.
“Let me just glance over his history again real quick, hmm...” He loses himself in whatever is on his paper, his expression serious in a way she had always found to be handsome. Something on the paper gives him pause, however.
“Michimiya Hiroshi.” He traces over the name, a hint of surprise coloring his tone. “A younger brother?” he guesses, with another polite smile. “Or a cousin?”
Yui’s heartbeat rises to her ears, her chest feeling hollow. She knocks her knees together, suddenly interested in her worn-out shoes. “Actually, he’s my...”
His gaze drops on the paper, the words staring back at him like drops of twisted ink.
Relationship to patient: mother.
-:-
Her best friend is sympathetic. “So what did you do?”
“We just... went on with the check-up like I was some normal patient,” she tells her, speaking in hushed tones into the phone so as not to wake Hiro. “Mao, it was... so awkward. He looked so shocked. I didn’t know what to tell him.”
“You don’t owe him any explanations,” Mao huffs. “It’s not like he bothered to keep in touch.”
“Neither did I, though,” she defends him, chewing on her bottom lip. “Even though I wanted to.”
“You’ve both changed a lot, Yui, and it’s not like he should have expected you would have stayed the same,” her best friend reasons. “It’s been years now. Obviously you were going to become an adult.”
“I guess...” She twists the phone wire round her finger, still unsure. In her mind she can’t stop replaying Sawamura’s choked looking face and his clipped tone, the way he’d looked at her so differently.
“How’s Hiro?” Mao asks, abruptly changing topics. “The medicine working?”
Yui gladly grasps at the out, sighing, “It’s too early to tell, but I gave him some before bed and he seems to be sleeping soundly.” She pauses for a beat, hears even breathing from the closest room, and smiles.
“Tell the kiddo I’m bringing him the best souvenir when I get back from my business trip. That’ll fix him up quick!”
Yui dissolves into giggles, flopping down on her side onto the couch, and for a single moment she forgets about how her reunion with Sawamura had gone horribly, horribly wrong from how she’d always daydreamed.
-:-
There are worse things, Yui realizes later that night, than messing up a chance encounter with an old crush. There are much more horrifying things in life, like the clock ticking close to one in the morning when she hears wails in Hiro’s rooms, her blood turning to ice. Like bursting in on her son having a fit on his bed, sweating bullets and leaking tears and plagued by some nightmare that’s got him looking terrified to be in his own skin.
“Hiro?” she calls out to him in alarm, reaching to cradle him, but pulls back at the first touch when his skin burns.
And Yui, for all her old captain days and cool head in sticky situations – she panics. The medicine’s not working and her parents live nowhere close and her best friend is on a business trip on the other side of the world, probably immersed in some meeting at that very moment. There’s no one to turn to.
She lunges for the phone, her fingers instinctively shooting over the digits she’d been given just that afternoon, that she had unconsciously burned to her memory.
There’s only a second of hesitation that plagues her – the phone’s on its third ring and she’s tapping her foot and wondering if this is the right call – but then there’s a click, followed by a grumpy, “Hello?”
“Sawamura?” She swallows hard, hearing the croak in her own voice. “I... sorry. I know it’s late but I-I didn’t know who else to call.”
She hears hasty rustling on the other end and can only assume he’s shooting out from under his blankets, taken by surprise. “Michimiya?”
“Sawamura, Hiro has gotten way, way worse and I don’t know what to do.”
“Send me your address,” he replies immediately, followed by two steady thumps of his footsteps. “I’ll be right over.”
And like they’re magic words, Yui feels every last bit of her panic drain away.
-:-
Sawamura looks even worse than he had that afternoon when he shows up at her door; unshaven and weary-eyed, his first button popped open and a small first-aid kit in his hand. But still he’s a reassuring presence, as he’s always been, and she feels relief wash over her.
“Show me to him,” he requests seriously, shucking his shoes and quietly following her inside.
At any other moment, any other dilemma, Yui might have been the one leading the charge, bullheadedly moving forward as she’s always done. But this is her son running his first serious fever, looking so much in pain. She lets Sawamura take the lead this time, and trusts him with everything she has.
He purses his lips at the sight, but remains steady.
“Get me a washcloth, damp with warm water,” he instructs her, pulling up a chair beside the bed. “And a jug of water for drinking.”
Yui nods once, racing out of the room. I knew that, I knew that, she berates herself the whole way to the kitchen and back, frustrated at how her brain had shut down in her panic.
Sawamura’s swiping a thermometer to Hiro’s forehead when she returns, looking significantly less frantic than her. “He doesn’t have an ear infection and his breathing’s not obstructed in any way,” he murmurs quietly, accepting the tray she hands him. “I got him to down some liquid medicine, and we’ll need him to drink water from time to time. We’ll flush the rest of the fever out.”
“And... the nightmare?” she whispers, looking sadly at her troubled son.
“Fever induced,” he replies calmly, rinsing out the cloth. “It’ll pass eventually. Sometimes it’s best not to wake the child or they’ll only be confused or frightened.”
“So now...?” She bites down on her lip.
Sawamura places the cloth carefully over Hiro’s forehead, then turns to her. His eyes gleam in the lamplight. “Now, we wait.”
-:-
Yui’s content to pull up her own chair at her son’s side, take his hand firmly into hers and stroke his cheek occasionally, smiling when the nightmare seems to slowly fade away and his breathing evens out.
Sawamura doesn’t leave her side.
Occasionally he’ll rinse out the washcloth or check his temperature again. But mostly he soothingly rubs Yui’s back and murmurs assurances to her that everything would be okay – I promise. Sawamura’s promises have always carried the weight of the world.
“Sorry I panicked so much,” she whispers, full of shame. “Ahh, I feel so useless. I couldn’t help him at all.”
He slowly starts rubbing her back again, up and down. “It’s not your fault, Michimiya. It’s normal for parents to panic, and for a first-time fever as well. You just wanted to protect your son.”
Yui peeks out at him from under her bangs, hiding a meek smile. He’d always gone easy on her, even when she’d told him not to.
“I didn’t know you wanted to be a doctor, Sawamura,” she makes conversation, looking at him closely.
He scratches the back of his head; at least that hasn’t changed. “Mm. It was something I sort of decided along the way. I only recently started working at Harada-sensei’s practice, though. How about you?”
“I work in the animal shelter three blocks down,” she tells him fondly. “One day I want to open a vet clinic. Maybe.”
“Maybe?” he echoes, his grin teasing. “What happened to the Michimiya who would always say definitely!”
She chuckles, her hand unconsciously squeezing her son’s. “She came really close not too long ago. But then she became a mom.”
“Ah.” He nods once, sobering up quickly at her answer. But neither of them really seems to know what to say after that.
-:-
It’s not that Michimiya wants to hide anything. She’d already decided that if Sawamura asked, she would tell him. But he seems to be doing the polite thing and awkwardly skirting around the topic, afraid to bring up something taboo. It’s almost endearing in a way; she’s never known Sawamura to be hesitant.
“He looks like you,” he murmurs, some time in the night.
Some time in the night, the two had also bumped their chairs together, and occasionally their arms press, or their knees touch, or she steals his armrest and his space along with it. Neither of them moves away.
“Doesn’t he?” An affectionate look plays on her face, as she teases her son’s bangs. “I was hoping he would.”
“Maybe he’ll be a volleyball player, like you.”
“Ah! A good dream!” she giggles, collapsing back in her chair. Sawamura seems to like watching her laugh, seems enthralled by it. She shyly tucks her hair behind her ear to hide her face. “He’ll be captain one day for sure. You know he’s already showing signs of crawling?”
“A lot of babies start crawling by six months, though,” he tells her carefully.
“Yeah, but he just turned six months not too long ago,” she insists, and when he still looks unconvinced, she lands a hard punch on his arm. “Oh, let me dream, would you!”
“Sorry, sorry. He’s going to be a star.”
They wrinkles their noses at each other.
-:-
Sawamura finally asks some time in the early morning, early enough that the sun’s still hidden beyond the horizon, but late enough that they’re both cradling cups of coffee in their hands.
Hiro hasn’t stirred in hours, looking peaceful in sleep, so the two had finally sunken back in their chairs and relaxed, their heads bent together.
“Michimiya?” he begins unsurely, swirling his coffee in his cup. “I don’t... want to pry...”
Ah, this is it, Yui thinks, but surprisingly doesn’t feel the ice in her veins that usually accompanies this topic.
“You can just not answer if you want to,” he continues cautiously, still dancing around the topic. It’s unlike him. But then, how would Yui know, when this is their first time together in so many years. “Why isn’t your husband home?”
She stares down at one of her palms. “Mm. That would be because... I don’t have one.”
Silence. At first. Then Daichi shifts restlessly.
“So, Hiro’s father...?”
“–is not in the picture,” she finishes for him, rather curtly. “We were never married. Just together. For a little while. Until we weren’t.”
He frowns. “You didn’t want to get married?”
Her breath comes out in short puffs. “Hiro’s father... was not a good man.” She runs one foot over the other, rubs one arm to settle the goosebumps, and stares hard at her coffee – hoping, hoping, hoping he would leave it at that. “He let me think he was, at the beginning. But he wasn’t. And I didn’t want him anywhere near a – my – child.”
She can hear Daichi’s mind at work, picture him connecting thoughts and pieces of information together, drawing his own conclusion. She imagines his hard, serious face, and swallows.
“So you never told him.”
“No.” She bites the inside of her cheek. “Do you think what I did was wrong?”
“Wha! – No, of course n – it was your choice,” he asserts quietly, his voice firm. “And you only do what’s best for your son. That’s all I’ve seen from you tonight. So, no, Michimiya.”
Yui feels her chin tremble, even though she doesn’t feel sad in any way. It’s the elated kind of trembling, the kind that warms her toes and rushes blood to her cheeks. The kind she’s associated with him for as long as she can remember.
“Thank you.”
She rests her cheek against his shoulder, and, for what feels like the first time in a long while, she closes her eyes.
-:-
Hiro’s fever breaks at four in the morning, bringing with it the final form of relief.
“So I should be heading home,” Sawamura pipes up, after looking over the boy one last time and declaring him well on his way to recovery. “Call me if something drastic changes. But he should be okay.”
“Sawamura, I-I can’t thank you enough.” Yui trails after him diligently, wringing her hands. To think that he’d come all this way, stayed so long, and all for an old high school acquaintance. “I-If there’s anything I can do. If there’s some fee I can pay you for a home visit!”
“Michimiya, stop that.” He scowls, turning back at the door before he can slip on his shoes. “Why are you talking to me like that? Like we’re just some doctor and patient – strangers.”
“We sort of have been,” she begins softly.
He shuts her up with a firm poke to her forehead, insisting, “We’re friends. I did this because you’re someone close to me.”
Despite herself, Yui feels something warm and ticklish rise up her neck. She’d longed to hear those words for many, many years after all. Maybe she’d never stopped yearning.
“Now, go to bed, okay?” he instructs her, much more kindly. “Your son might be okay now, but you look exhausted. Get some rest.”
They both could use the rest. They’re both covered in this weary atmosphere of two people who had spent an entire night looking after a sickly child, looking battle-worn and sleep-deprived. And she’s reminded once again that he’d had no obligation to come over at all, but he’d still done so instantly at her call. She bites her lip.
“Sawamura, I–”
“Hm?” he inquires absentmindedly, looking for his shoes in the mess she has piled up at her front door.
“I just – I know you said – but still. Thank you.”
He turns back with a kind smile, no doubt a “no problem” ready to leave his mouth. But Yui’s earnest look leaves him speechless, as does her hands slowly running up his arms, soothingly drawing circles on his shoulders, tangling into his hair. She leans in.
“Thank you so much, I couldn’t have done this without you, I just wanted... hmm...”
Daichi drops his first-aid kit when she kisses him, the hard thud echoing through her tiny apartment. Yui takes two steps forward, melting against his chest, and presses her mouth to his more urgently.
There’s a beat, a stillness, and then Sawamura kisses her back just as much direly, his large hands pressing into her hips, his mouth tipping open so he can deepen their kiss. Yui hums low against his tongue, putting all her weight on him as she struggles to get even closer, to feel him, never mind the impossibility when they’re already pressed together in every possible way they can be.
The night, with a sick child on their hands, had passed so slowly. But the morning, when they both have warm lips upon their own, passes in a blur.
-:-
“Maybe... you should clean yourself up before you go,” Yui suggests uncertainly, rocking on her feet. “Have some breakfast, too. Or who knows what the neighbors might think.”
They both simultaneously turn red at the thought of what would surely cross an outsider’s mind, to see such a roughened up man leaving Yui’s apartment in the early morning.
“I have to get to the clinic, though,” he tells her regretfully, even though the thought of a morning with Michimiya sounds so inviting. “I’ll be quiet when I leave, I promise.”
“Okay. And... call me? When you get home?” she adds, trying to smother a pleased smile and failing spectacularly.
Sawamura seems to be facing the same problem, but promises, “I will.”
He hesitates once, then quickly kisses her cheek before slipping out the front door, leaving no traces of himself behind.
It's a rare instance to see Daichi this keyed up, to see him roll his watch or tap his knee or just fidget restlessly as he walks around in circles. But then, Yui relents, it's a rare instance for his worlds to mesh together.
She skids to a stop before him, pink in the face and still in the midst of catching her breath, but chirps, "I'm here!"
Daichi strokes her cheeks, looking relieved to finally see her face. "They're inside. You remember everything I told you, right?"
She starts counting them off on her fingers. "Don't ask Kuroo-kun about his hair. Don't ask Bokuto-kun how school is going. Don't bring up Ushijima Wakatoshi around either Iwaizumi-kun or Oikawa-san. And, oh yeah." She giggles. "Don't call you teddy bear in front of your friends."
He knocks their foreheads together. "They would just... never let me live it down..."
"It's okay, Daichi, I understand," she laughs. "Nicknames are a one-on-one thing. Got it."
He grins, grateful to have her full support. "Should we go inside then?"
"I was born ready." She bounces eagerly on her heels, letting him take one of her hands.
Gritting his teeth, he pushes open the door to his favorite bar and hopes for a perfect night without a hitch. An impossible wish, with friends like his, he knows. But maybe Yui, as amazing as she is, could make this night bearable.
It's much warmer inside, and Yui gladly lets him shrug off her coat and hang it on a nearby rack, retaking her hand instantly after. Despite it being his favorite, she's never been before, it being so far from both their apartment and her own school, so she takes a moment to take in all the classiness with curious eyes. The moment doesn't last long, however, when Suga quietly sidles up next to them.
"So you're here, Michimiya," he greets her kindly, accepting her hug. "I thought Daichi was looking a little green."
"Isn't he cute when he worries?" Yui bursts out, as her boyfriend glares at the setter.
"Oh, the cutest," he teases, grinning right back at his best friend.
"You can't blame me," Daichi grumbles. "I'll bet these fuckers – I-I mean, guys," he corrects himself, with a glance towards Yui, "would find some sort of thrill in embarrassing me."
It was Yui who had asked, frequently in fact, to meet his friends, the boys he spent all his time with when he was not with her. Daichi had been reluctant, even when his friends had gotten wind of this and expressed their own (worrying) interest in meeting his girlfriend. Yet somehow, with Suga (the traitor) as the middle man, they had reached this point.
"That's what friends are for," Yui insists, brightening up. "Is that them over there, waving at us?"
Daichi cringes as he recognizes the familiar faces. "That would be them."
"Let's go!" This time, it's Yui who drags him by the hand, and Suga, who's still awaiting his drink, happily waves them off.
-:-
The first clue that tips Daichi off that this night would not go well is that they're all wearing bow-ties. All of them. Matching, hideous ones of a bright red color and yellow polka-dots. Except for Iwaizumi, who had probably refused snappishly. Even Moniwa had allowed himself to be roped into this business, though he looks rather uncomfortable as he yanks at it.
"You guys all look so nice!" Yui exclaims, clapping her hands together, and Daichi groans quietly. She's only encouraging them.
"It was Kuroo's idea!" Bokuto tells them.
"We wanted to look our best for Sawamura's girlfriend," Kuroo drawls with an oily smile, which only widens at Daichi's hard look.
Yui smiles radiantly. "You did it for me? Wow, I should have dressed up too!"
"No, no, you look lovely." It's Oikawa's turn up to play, and he slides out of his seat smoothly with the same flirtatious grin he saves for when he's surrounded by a horde of girls. Taking Yui's free hand, the one not in Daichi's iron grip, he presses a kiss to her fingertips. Yui gasps softly, red on her cheeks, and it makes his eyes twinkle.
"Okay, that's enough now," Daichi snaps crabbily, batting him away and accidentally smacking his nose in the process. Yui shuffles a little closer to him, still looking slightly winded by the experience.
"My ndose!" Oikawa whines, his hand clapped over it as he plops back down, and Iwaizumi can be heard muttering "your own fault" at his side.
"Here, come sit here, Yui-chan!" Bokuto calls her over eagerly, patting the spot between him and Kuroo.
Daichi looks reluctant to let her go, especially if it means sending her off between the two of them. But Yui shoots him a curious look, and he's forced to release her, however hesitant. She wedges herself between the two boys, almost smothered by their height, and quickly falls prey to their questions.
He huffilly settles down beside Oikawa, ignoring his crude look, and watches over her.
"Stop acting like her guardian," the setter sniffs. "They're not going to eat her, you know."
"I don't want to hear that from you."
"He's right, though," Suga pipes up, coming up behind them with his drink. He takes the seat next to Daichi, rather forcefully even, as everyone has to move down one to make room for him. "Michimiya can get along with anyone."
He juts his head towards the other end of the table, where curiously enough, Yui is giving Kuroo's clenched bicep a firm squeeze, awe on her face. Bokuto can be seen tripping over himself to roll up his sleeve, exclaiming, "Feel mine next!"
"What the hell are they doing?" Iwaizumi grumbles, bemused, echoing Daichi's thoughts.
"See? Anyone!" Suga repeats, smiling into his drink.
-:-
An hour later finds Daichi alone at the bar counter, waiting on a drink for both himself and for Yui, who's moved over on the table now to talk to the other boys. Sitting next to Iwaizumi had seemed to make her nervous at first, what with his angry face, but he's an easy boy to talk to. Certainly the most sane of the bunch. And Moniwa on her other side is a relaxing presence. Daichi is at least glad she seems to be enjoying herself.
Suga catches up to him, leaning against the counter. "Why are you moping over here by yourself? Shouldn't you be happy your friends and your girlfriend get along?"
"A little too well, don't you think?" he murmurs, watching her and Moniwa bend their heads together, laughing over something on her phone, and narrows his eyes.
Suga whacks his arm. "You're ridiculous. What's really bothering you?"
He sighs. "The plan was to come in, greet them, and leave for our usual Friday night movie date. This is cutting into my plans."
"But in a good way."
Daichi shrugs. "Maybe. But Yui and I haven't had much time alone together lately, what with exams."
"Want me to create a diversion so you two can sneak out the back?" Suga says it partly in jest, but even he can see now how agitated Daichi seems to have had his alone time with Yui cut into. "At least she's having a good time, Daichi, even if it's a different sort of date."
Forced to relent, his face softens. "Yeah."
-:-
Despite the intial meeting, Oikawa is the one who seems to put Yui at most ease. Dealing with girls is second nature to him after all, with the fanclubs that chase him before every game, and his kind smiles visibly relax her.
"Want me to come with you?" he jokes when she excuses herself to the bathroom, and it only makes her giggle. ("You're disgusting," Iwaizumi grumbles, much to his chagrin).
"So, what do we think of Sawamura's girlfriend?" Kuroo asks as soon as she's disappeared from view, bending his head over the table.
Iwaizumi raises an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware we were here to pass some sort of judgement."
"Well, we gotta make sure our Sawamura's in good hands." He shrugs. "I'm sure no one has anything bad to say?"
"I think she seems exactly like Sawamura's type," Moniwa pipes up. "Sweet."
"And she plays volleyball!" Bokuto whoops cheerfully, as if that makes the perfect woman. To him, it probably does.
"They've known each other a long time," Iwaizumi brings up coolly. "It's not our place to meddle."
"We're not med–"
"Wait, shh, here she comes," Oikawa shushes them, jutting his chin towards the bathroom door, where they can see Yui patting down her skirt as she makes her way back over. He holds up a hand to cheerily wave to her, except her view of him gets blocked when suddenly a boy steps in her path, startling her.
"Who's that?"
"How would I know?"
"Shh!"
They overhear, "Can I buy you a drink?" and Iwaizumi scoffs, rolling his eyes.
"Um, no thanks," they hear Yui outright refuse. "I'm actually trying to get back to–"
"Just one drink," he persists, and Oikawa narrows his eyes. "Then I'll leave you alone if you still want me to, I promise."
"Well, I'm sure you're very nice, but–" Her eyes flicker to Daichi, who's still at the bar and seems to unfortunately have finally taken Suga's advice to not watch over her every second of the night.
"You won't know how nice I am until we sit down and talk, though, will you?" he laughs, and moves to put a hand over her shoulder. Oikawa, with the clearest view, makes a motion to stand up, as does Bokuto, the closest to her.
But Yui plucks his hand off her and flicks it back to his side, taking him completely by surprise. The grin never slides off her face. "Thanks, but that's my boyfriend over there, and I'm kinda super, duper in love with him, so nothing's going to happen, okay?”
His mouth parts, soundless.
Yui simply skips around him, still her chirpy self as she returns to their table. "Ooh! Pretzels!"
The boys exchange curious looks.
-:-
By the time Daichi returns to the table with the drink he had promised Yui, his friends are all getting to their feet, gathering their things or putting on their coats. Yui sits amidst the noise, munching on pretzels and waving goodbye at each of them individually. Her face lights up further when she spies Daichi.
"What's going on?" he wonders, baffled.
"We're leaving. Uh, a volleyball emergency!" Bokuto excuses them, only confusing Daichi further.
"We're giving you time with your girlfriend," Iwaizumi translates as he passes by.
Kuroo claps his shoulder, leaning close. "And we approve."
"I wasn't really looking for your approval," Daichi tells him flatly.
"Well, you have it nevertheless!" he laughs, trailing after Bokuto.
"Sorry we took up so much of your time," Moniwa apologizes sheepishly, bringing up the rear of the group.
Did Suga say something to them? Daichi wonders, perplexed, but watches as the boys catch Suga on the way out and drag him along, ignoring his confusion. "What got into them?"
"I mentioned how Fridays are usually our date nights," Yui pipes up, looking a little guilty. "Sorry, I didn't mean to run your friends off. I think they were just being considerate."
He takes a split second, before a grin breaks out across his face. He eagerly slides into the spot next to her, handing her her drink. "Don't be sorry. I really wanted us to be alone."
"Yeah," she admits in a tiny voice, leaning into his side so far their cheeks press together. "I really liked meeting your friends, but... I did, too."
Slowly, so slowly she just happened to look one day and find it to be true, his presence had slowly bled into every corner of her apartment.
It’s in one half of her closet, in the ties in her underwear drawer, in the little handmade cup in her cupboard that reads “Daichi ♥” in her messy scrawl. It’s in the extra house slippers by her front door, in the tin of coffee grounds sitting in her pantry (because god knows she can’t stand the bitter stuff; how could he drink it every morning?), in the red toothbrush in her bathroom that complements her blue one.
It’s in this moment: a sunrise beyond her living room window, time ticking away with each lazy kiss.
“I’m...going... to be late... to work,” he hums in between each one. But the hand on the small of her back never pulls away.
She scoots a little closer, makes herself comfortable between his legs, and runs her palms down his broad chest. “Call in sick.”
He breaks the rhythm for the first time to chuckle, resting a hand on top of hers. “You know I can’t do that.” Her lip juts, the plumpness almost beckoning him towards another kiss, but he pulls himself away at the last second. “No matter how much I want to.”
Her pinched face persists all the way to the door, where he slips on his shoes, takes one step out of her apartment, and turns back at the last second to slips his hands into hers.
“Thanks for dinner last night,” he tells her, then eyes her half-covered form. She looks particularly inviting wearing only the dress shirt he’d been in last night, sleeves rolled to her elbows and the hem barely past her hips. “And... after.”
Yui grins cheekily as she leans in, bumping her nose against his. “Thank you for after the after, you big stud.”
With a cheeky grin, a kiss to her forehead, and a rather giggly poke to her side, he departs for work in the one pressed suit he keeps in her apartment for the nights when he unexpectedly stays over. Yui had taken a comb to his hair that morning while he sipped his coffee and also pressed fluttered kisses to his ear the whole while – a usual occurence. He grins almost victoriously at the memory, and tucks one hand into his pocket as he strides away.
"You look really sexy when you're walking away!" Yui suddenly catcalls from the hallway.
And he ungracefully scuffs his shoe on his next step, nearly tripping all over himself at the unexpected declaration. Yui is cracking up at his flustered reaction when he looks over his shoulder, even more so when he glares. The effect had probably been lost by his burning face.
He walks away with as much dignity as possible, Yui's giggles trailing after him.
God, he loves his girlfriend.
-:-
For Daichi and Yui, there has only ever been each other.
They're college sweethearts of sorts, though it had taken a lot of dancing around feelings and meddling friends for the two to finally end up hand-in-hand. Now, he wonders how he'd never noticed her feelings.
Yui looks at him with gems in her eyes, like little stars centered around his universe, and he loves every second of it. Loves when she looks at him affectionately, or shyly, or adoringly, or with any other emotion no one's ever seen but him. She likes holding his hand even when they're all roughed up from volleyball, likes staying awake when he works late because going to sleep without him feels wrong, likes calling him at work just to ask about his day and tell him she's been thinking about him.
Yui: the center of his universe as well.
So it's like a hand seizing his throat to see that universe slipping away.
-:-
He's only just descended the final step when he peeks into his bag and finds that he'd left the most important file still sitting on Yui's dresser. With a small curse under his breath, he makes a one-eighty change in direction and takes the stairs two at a time, glancing worriedly at his watch as he reaches her floor again.
He's watching the seconds hand tick ominously, in fact, when a burst of giggles has a chill crawling up his spine.
Yui's still leaning in the doorway, still dressed in his wrinkled dress shirt that's rolled up the elbows and does nothing to cover her thighs, except now she's got herself a stoic, bespectacled companion that he recognizes as her next-door neighbor. But he's not so stoic at the moment; he's traded in his poker face for a soft smile instead, and Daichi remembers how despite a rocky start to their meeting, he'd fallen for Yui's charms (as most often do) and warmed to the girl. More than warmed, maybe. Burned.
Daichi clears his throat loudly when she gives his arm a playful squeeze.
Yui whips her head around in surprise, and the sight of him standing only a few paces away has her face radiating joy.
"What are you doing back?" she exclaims, clutching his shirt as he steps close. "Did you decide to skip work after all?"
"No, unfortunately." He trades looks with her neighbor, who awkwardly steps back. Mutou-kun, he remembers, or how Yui calls him. "I forgot some papers on your dresser. Can you grab them for me?" He looks down pointedly at his shoes, and though Yui's vibrance dulls a little to hear he's not staying, she obligingly turns and disappears into her apartment.
"Sorry if she's bothering you," Daichi says curtly. "She tends to let time get away from her sometimes."
"Not at all," he replies, his voice soft and faded.
They delve into uncomfortable silence, broken by the pitter patter of Yui's feet against the floorboards, before she reappears again. He accepts the file under her arms with a quick, grateful kiss, never looking away from Mutou's flat gaze.
"You're coming over after work again tonight, though, right?" she murmurs happily.
"Of course.” He gives her a stern look. “Now, you probably left the toaster oven on again, didn't you?"
The horror reads plainly on her face. "Oh, shoot! Bye Daichi, bye Mutou-kun. Love you!" Before the door shuts behind her, they hear her stammer, "L-Love you, Daichi, I mean, of course. Eep!"
Mutou has another faint smile on his lips, but Daichi's not so amused.
-:-
If someone had asked whether Yui was a jealous person, they might not have received a straight answer. But it would have been a very telling one.
"Me? Jealous. Gosh, I don't think I'll ever, ever have to worry about that with Daichi, though! He's a good person, you know? And I know that best of all. Like sometimes after work he goes drinking with the people he works with, and if there just happens to be a woman there, am I going to get upset just because he's drinking with his work friend? Doesn't that seem silly? And Daichi... he said he loves me. So I don't have any reason to doubt that."
If someone had asked whether Daichi was a jealous person, the answer might have been a little curt.
"Yui is her own person. She is not mine to have."
–and a little hesitant.
"But still..."
-:-
Daichi had been entrusted with a key to Yui's apartment from the very first day she had ever moved in; never before has he ever felt like an intruder for entering her home. But tonight, he pauses at the door, and hears two distinct voices waft down the hall. A high pitch, obviously Yui's. And the low, soothing voice of a man.
"No way, you're making that up!" Yui laughs, and he hears the clinking of china.
"I promise you, I'm not," her guest replies, a smile in his voice as well. Her neighbor.
Daichi slams the door shut a little harder than he needs to, and the conversation comes to a halt. There's a clinking sound, then Yui appears in the doorway. "Daichi, is that you?" He moves into the hallway for a better view, and her eyes light up. "It is you! You're here early."
"Am I interrupting something?"
"No, of course not." She leads him into the room by the hand. There's her neighbor in the chair in the far corner, a cup of tea against his mouth. When he spots Daichi, however, his hand joined with Yui's, he slowly puts down his drink. "Mutou-kun and I were just having some tea. Did you know, he fixed that staticky thing the TV kept doing!"
"Oh?" He remembers, then, that Mutou works at some tech company.
"Yeah, he said there was no need to waste time or money looking for someone when he was right next door. Isn't that sweet?"
Yui flashes them both a blinding grin, but something pricks at Daichi's skin at her words. Mutou-kun is right next door and is a sweet person who can fix Yui's problems.
"It was," he agrees, and smiles warmly. "Thank you."
But Mutou seems to see something in his eyes, for he springs to his feet and plucks his sweater off the back of his chair. "It was no problem. But I've clearly overstayed my welcome."
Yui releases Daichi's hand to follow her neighbor to the door, chirping, "Not at all! Stop by again, Mutou-kun. And not just to fix my TV either." Her laugh, cheerful and full, prompts a chuckle out of him as well.
Daichi stays rooted in the living room, staring at his empty hand.
-:-
Dinner is an unbearable affair. Yui whips it up at the speed of light, to make up for his unexpected early return, and Daichi would have been content to eat in silence and just watch her face, occasionally brush fingers over the tabletop. But Yui has dinner conversation in mind.
"So Mutou-kun said," she tells him, in between mouthfuls, "that he turned down the promotion because he's happy where he is now. But isn't that, like, so cool?" She waves a chopstick about. "He could be directing his own tech company right now if he wanted to."
Daichi hums something intangible, shoving rice into his mouth. But Yui has never needed anything tangible from him to carry on a conversation.
"And you should have seen him with those wires! I kept hovering over him, worrying he was going to cross two wrong ones and fry himself or something. And he said–" she laughs sheepishly, realizes she's forgotten her food, and says around a mouthful– "'Yui-san, I'm a professional, you know.'"
Yui-san.
Daichi thinks of the six years of friendship and the three months of awkward, early-relationship jitters it had taken for him to shed Michimiya.
Clean up is nicer. Amidst picking up dishes to wash, Yui presses her hand against his cheek and asks fondly, "And how was your day, Daichi? I haven't even had a chance to ask."
He tilts his head to press a quick kiss to her palm, then grunts "uneventful" as he passes by her, grinning. These are the nights he's used to; joking as they put away dishes and laughing over soap bubble creations. But the sense of unease that's slowly been creeping back up his neck doesn't really go away, only dulls for the moment, and returns full swing when Yui makes a grab for the remote, squealing, "Should we check the TV, then? See if Mutou-kun's worked his magic for us?"
A low rumble starts at the back of his throat, one Yui is too far away to hear.
"Wow, it worked! Look, there's no static or anything – Daichi? Are you okay?"
Concerned, perhaps over the hard expression on his face, she switches off the TV, sets down the remote, and worriedly flutters over to his side. The hands she rests on his face, however, get brushed off, but she only has a moment to look hurt before he's gripped her shoulders and brought her forward to smash his mouth with hers.
"Mm?" She struggles from the shock for a moment, eyes shooting open.
But Daichi's fingers nimbly wander under her shirt, drifting across her skin, down to grip her hips and play with her waistband. He feels her melting against him despite the roughness of the kiss, feels her kissing back with just as much ferocity, running her hands over every inch of him as he does to her.
A small oomph! tumbles past her lips when he pushes her to the wall, holding her wrists still against the surface as he devours her whole. She gasps out a small, desperate "Daichi!" when he moves to her neck, but by this point he's already twined her legs around his waist, hitched her up into his hold, and found her mouth again.
They kiss hungrily all the way to the bedroom.
-:-
"Now what was that all about?"
They're panting from the rush, blanket pulled up to only partly cover their indecency, when Yui rolls onto his chest and huffs loudly against it.
Daichi's fingers tangle into her hair, stroking it affectionately, though he still has one hand tucked under his head as he stares at the ceiling. Even he's not quite sure of his knee-jerk reaction – to run his hands all over her skin, hear her rasping his name, assure himself that they still love each other.
"Hmm... I think I was really jealous," he muses, and feels her shift to look up at him. "Of Mutou."
"Mutou-kun?" she echoes in surprise. "B-But! He's just a friend–"
"The rational part of me knows it, Yui," he groans, and scratches her scalp. "But, fuck, I see you with him and I just..."
Yui takes a moment to contemplate, drawing circles on his chest, then pipes up in a small voice. "Do you want me to stop talking to him?"
He unhinges his jaw to splutter, "No! God, no!" And it's the hardest thing to say, because the answer is yes, he never wants to see that pretty face in her apartment again. But Yui is his girlfriend, not his to own. "It just gets under my damn skin, Yui, that he's right next door. That he gets to get up every morning and see you. He could walk out of his apartment any time of day and see you. Could come over whenever he wanted. He's so close to you. And it – fucking – eats at me that he's the closest to you."
"Daichi."
He's scowling hard at the ceiling now. "Sometimes I don't get to see you for a week? And I can only wonder how many more times he gets to see you when I don't. Because, Yui, I want to be around so much more, I do. You don't think I want to be able to see you any time of day? But he gets it so easily and it–"
"Da-i-chi," she persists, and both her hands land on his face with a sharp slap, like her usual method of pumping herself up. She smiles at the shock on his face, and pulls herself up to kiss him thoroughly, nuzzling his nose in an affectionate gesture.
It’s a sobering moment. Like one of those instances when you roll the power ball lottery at the market and come out with a trip for two to the hot springs. Or when your hand connects with the perfect toss and your score flips to 25.
Daichi gazes upon Yui, all bundled up in a poofy coat and a hat shaped like bunny ears and a scarf pulled to her reddening nose, staring transfixed at the falling leaves, and realizes, Holy shit, I’m in love with my girlfriend.
A rather silly notion, he knows, to outsiders looking in. But they’ve been together what’s nearing two years now, and they’ve never moved past the realm of “like.”
“I l-l-l-l-like you, Sawamura,” she had stammered, on that fateful graduation day.
And he, after careful consideration, had answered the same. “I like you, too, Michimiya. I think.”
Not the most graceful of confessions. But it had taken several romantic dates to every restaurant they could find in couple magazines, a few stolen kisses on her doorstep, and a plushy he had won her at a festival booth, for that “I think” to fade into nonexistence.
He likes her. Of that, he’s been certain.
(After all, you don’t french in the back of a movie theater with a person you dislike, right)?
But now. He loves her.
He loves her, he loves her, he loves her, like he loves pretty smiles and untamed hair and the smell of citrus against his nose when he wakes in the morning to find her burrowed under his blankets.
Loves that perfect arch to her lip when she’s standing in his kitchen and pouting a little as she contemplates whether he’s in the mood for two sugars or three in his morning coffee. (Because three sugars is for when he gets back up long after she’s dragged him to bed and dozed off herself, to study under lamplight – and she’s gotten scarily good at telling).
Loves how she’ll press chaste kisses to his neck every time she passes behind him.
Loves when she spends a day on shopping with her friends, laments about her empty bank account sorrows over dinner, but her shopping bags are only full of things that had made her think of him.
Loves those days when she’s a little sad, a little insecure, and she sniffles into his neck, looking for reassurance that he thinks her beautiful.
Love moments like these.
“Look, Daichi!” Yui exclaims, cheeks a bright crimson from both the cold and her excitement. Under her hat he can see how the wind’s nipped at her hair until it’s a barely contained mess, or how her lips have paled after so long into their walk. But she cups her hands, catches leaves of golden and fiery red in her palms, and what he loses himself in most is how she radiates.
“Aren’t they pretty?” she chirps, bounding over to dump a few into his hands.
Only Yui could find this much to be excited about in a bunch of homeless leaves, he thinks, obligingly holding out his hands. But then, that’s another thing he loves, isn’t it?
Loves that she’ll take pity on those things others might see as unwanted. (Like an abandoned plushy with a missing eye she’d spotted on a festival booth shelf, which even now has a home on her bed, with a horribly stitched button for a new eye).
“Yeah, they are.” He grins, catches her gaze.
They say it in unison. “Not as pretty as you, though.”
Daichi stammers over his own tongue, taken by surprise. But Yui bursts into laughter, wheezing out a “You’re so cheesy!” that he doesn’t even have the heart to argue right now.
God, he loves her laugh. Loves her.
“Mmm, but Daichi, I’m cold,” she complains, letting the leaves fall finally to the ground, and leans into his heat. He’s always so warm, as she’s affectionately murmured into his ear more times than he’s probably even worn a scarf (though one time the snow had needed shoveling, and her kitten-patterned scarf had been the closest within reach, and his friends have certainly never forgotten that).
They settle for hot chocolate from a nearby shop, when even slipping her fingers under Daichi’s shirt doesn’t unfrost them (only makes him jump in a way that makes her giggle, only makes his ears go red in a way that spreads to her cheeks as well).
The vendor pours an extra shot of chocolate syrup into Yui’s per her request, and her day is made. He’s really not supposed to, he chuckles, but no one alive can resist her sweet smile; Daichi might have dumped in the entire container.
Yui’s content to sit on a bench outside now that she’s got something warm in her hands, and he watches fondly as she blows quick puffs of air onto her cocoa to cool it. She loves sweets but can’t handle hot foods (she loves her coffee with five sugars and prepared twenty minutes before she wakes up in one of his old, faded T-shirts).
When she plops her head onto his shoulder and sighs contently, he tries to glimpse at her face, but all he catches are eyelashes. He’s sure she’s smiling, though. She always is.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just... hm...” He can hear her faint smile as she hums. “This is nice, isn’t it?”
He kisses the top of her head, then rests his cheek there. “I love spending time with you,” he murmurs, though it’s a different kind of love that he really wants to convey. If only it didn’t make his throat close to delve into the unknown.
Because would she love him in return? he wonders. Love him even though he’s addicted to studying and coffee and sometimes forgets to call when volleyball practice runs late. Love him even though romantic gestures aren’t his strong point, even though he stumbles over endearing speech and is still a little startled when she plops down into his lap, needing to guide his arms around her waist. Love him even though it took two years to realize he loves her.
“And I love spending time with you,” she sighs, burrowing deeper into his side. “Can we stay like this as long as possible?”
“For as long as you want,” he promises, stroking her hair, and realizes that if it’s Yui, maybe he doesn’t have to just wonder.
Yui begins it, takes him completely by surprise when he opens his shoe locker one early morning to find a chilled orange juice packet sitting neatly inside, a slip of paper tied to the cap with a pretty ribbon.
He looks left and right, but finds no one in the hallway with him this early; no one waiting impatiently to see his reaction to this unexpected gift. Curious, he dislodges the paper, unrolls it carefully, and peers at the message.
Good luck in your first practice match today!!! Here’s a little something to give you a boost. I know you’ll knock ‘em out of the court \o/
(Figuratively, of course. Don’t actually knock them out of the court. That’s an out. But you knew that).
– Michimiya ♥ ♥ ♥
His mouth twitches, and he barely catches himself from erupting into a giant grin before someone can come along and find him smiling to himself.
The girls’ team captain is a nice person, he thinks, uncapping the juice. He’d mentioned to her just once or twice, mostly in passing, how badly he wants to win this match and start the volleyball season on a good note. It’s good for team morale, which has been dangerously low for as long as he’s been on the team. And frankly, it would stroke his ego (though he’d never admit it to the bubbly, carefree girl that is Michimiya Yui).
That she’d remembered his hopes, that she’d remembered they had a practice match today at all, and that she’d probably come early to drop off her gift (because he knows the girls’ team doesn’t have practice today, not with the boys’ team using the court), leaves him touched.
There’s no time to track her down now, not when the net still needs to be set up in the volleyball gym. But he thinks of her as he takes the first sip, and it’s like downing liquid courage.
-:-
She’s already a little red when he finds her in the hall. When she sees him coming, it’s all she can do to keep from burying her face in her hands.
He drops a strawberry juice box into them instead, and has to grin at her unbidden shock.
“A thank you for your gift,” he murmurs into her ear, keeping their exchange private. A few of her friends look on curiously from inside the classroom, but he doesn’t really mind.
Michimiya shyly returns his departing wave, and he sees when she tosses the juice back and forth in her hands, before finally peeking at the bottom.
Thanks for the boost. We won 19-25 on the third set.
He smiles when she smiles.
-:-
It’s a sporadic tradition, he’ll admit. They don’t have practice matches around every corner, after all, nor do they always have spare change in their pockets. But opening their shoe lockers on the mornings of matches and finding that juice packet waiting inside, a small good luck message tucked beneath the ribbon they now pass back and forth, gives them both a special kind of courage.
But it’s nearing the end of their third year when Sawamura first catches wind that Michimiya has more than just volleyball worries these days.
“What if I fail, Mao-chan?” he overhears her whine in the cafeteria, trailing after her friend with a tearful face. “Then I’ll have to go to some high school on the other side of town or something, get up so early that I’ll probably fall asleep on my bike or in the middle of practice. And we’ll get separated!”
“First of all, you’re ridiculous,” her friend drawls, plopping down at an empty table. Michimiya takes the seat across. “And second, if you don’t make it into Karasuno, then I won’t go either.”
“Mao-chan!” she chirps happily, and lunges in for a hug.
Sawamura, however, looks down at his tray of food, and frowns. More than once he’s heard Michimiya fret at practice about awaiting some exam result or not understanding a homework problem. She’s a smart girl, he knows, but studying and test-taking have never been her strong points.
Still. He hadn’t known she wanted to go to Karasuno. Like him.
-:-
There are no practice matches scheduled in the weeks to come. So Yui is understandably taken aback when she opens her shoe locker and finds a familiar ribbon tied up in a bow awaiting her.
There’s no juice packet this time, though. Instead, it’s a tiny eraser shaped like a rabbit, and a note card almost three times its size.
For good luck on your entrance exams. I’ve heard the one for Karasuno isn’t bad, so let’s get in together. I know you can do it.
– Sawamura
Also, I hope a rabbit is okay? The lady behind the counter said girls like that sort of thing. And a rabbit’s paw is supposed to be lucky. I don’t know. Sorry.
Yui presses the note card against her mouth and dissolves into giggles.
-:-
Sitting in an empty classroom only heightens his solemnity. But it’s fitting for this mood, only days after losing their last chance at an Inter-High victory. They’d been so hopeful. And he, running on adrenaline from Michimiya’s orange juice. It seems a waste now.
The clock ticks, and he counts six hundred seconds before finally deciding it’s time to go home (and mope under the covers instead). Lifting his head is a challenge of sorts, but not more so than gathering his things and seeing game plans scribbled along the margins off all his notes. A waste.
He doesn’t recognize the small envelope in the corner of his desk, however.
It’s white, spotless, no name written on the back. Curious, he slips out the message first.
I’m sad to hear you lost :( The girls did too. But I’ll cheer you in Karasuno as well!
Sorry if the gift is weird. It was the only volleyball-related thing they had at the convenience store. But it works in a way.
– Michimiya ♥ ♥ ♥
A band-aid falls out of the envelope next, littered, as Michimiya had said, with volleyballs. For his hurt, he realizes, and feels like he’s been stitched back up good as new.
-:-
He forgets to tell her of the match against Nekoma, so concentrated on Asahi’s return and the new coach and meeting new-old rivals.
Michimiya’s team doesn’t share the gym with his anymore either, so it’s hard to keep track of each other. To continue the tradition as they had.
But he tells her of their complete and utter defeat in a crowded hallway, and there’s the juice box waiting for him at the end of the day. The new message reads, Here’s to climbing to the top.
He wonders, how has Michimiya always known what to say?
-:-
Spring High doesn’t allow them the chance to carry on their tradition.
“Because you keep winning all your matches! And playing more!” she playfully whines, shoving his arm. “I’m not made of money, you know!”
But it’s all in jest, they both know, because his defeat at the Inter-High had been the first time there had been silence between them. Even Michimiya hadn’t known what to say – or perhaps she’d realized that the decision to keep playing was one he had to make on his own. Her silence is a message all on its own.
“Thanks, Michimiya,” he hums, and smiles warmly her way. “For all these years. I’m gonna keep winning.”
She notices how the sun reflects so perfectly in his warm eyes, but he doesn’t notice when she seems suddenly winded at his side.
-:-
The match against Shiratorizawa, Sawamura thinks, would probably be the most important of his high school life. So this continued silence from Michimiya kilters him a little off track.
But then it all makes sense, when he spies her in the distance.
“We came to cheer you guys on!” she exclaims, catching up with him outside the stadium, her friends on her heel.
And then, “I-It’s not just for you or just from me or anything!! It’s for everyone! W-We have one, too. So... um!!”
The prayer for victory takes him a little by surprise. Normally they exchange trinkets, never anything this serious or heavy. But then he spies their ribbon, which she’s tied around the charm like a makeshift holder, and he (thinks he) understands. This is an important match, and it calls for extra luck.
“Oh, thanks! We’ll be counting on you to cheer us loudly!”
He accepts the charm with a grin, and wonders why Michimiya would ever play off her gift, red as a sun-dried tomato. It’s just tradition, after all.
-:-
Somewhere along the line, it stopped being tradition and Sawamura never noticed.
But it’s impossible to miss now, when he opens his locker for what would be the final time, and finds the trinket tucked into one of his shoes this time. Like it’s for safekeeping. Like it’s more important than just a two-hundred yen can of juice.
Surrounded by hundreds of milling students abuzz about their recent graduation, he slowly peels out the note from inside.
Attached to it, with their usual ribbon, is his second button.
He’d given it to Michimiya this morning – because who else would he give it to, if not his closest female friend. But he doesn’t understand this gesture one bit, just as he feels he hasn’t been understanding all of Michimiya’s shy glances lately.
He pulls apart the note, the button and the ribbon tucked in the pocket over his heart.
Meet me up on the roof? I’ll wait for you forever.
I got a little injured yesterday. It looks bad, but it's actually okay.
She thinks of these words now, and traces his face with her gaze. Sawamura doesn't seem to notice, so focused on explaining an equation that he's yet to realize his charge has distracted herself. He doesn't seem to notice a lot of things, when it comes to Yui.
But Yui, she takes notice. She remembers. Actually okay, he had said, about the black and blue covering half his face. But something — a scratch, a cut, a skid mark — had slipped undiscovered under the dark colors, deeper than expected, and had made a home of his face.
Past his eyes, beneath his temple, she spies the faintest of scars etched into his skin.
It's quite a subtle marking, easily unnoticed, not at all detracting from his (handsome, she thinks, with a flush) face. A faint white line runs right along his hairline, fading well before it can enter competition with his sideburns.
It jumps when he grins, because his eyes crinkle in this warm way that make her feel warm in a whole another way. It stretches a little, like the hard line of his mouth, when he shoots her a firm, disapproving look.
Like now. Oh, shoot.
"Michimiya, are you listening?" he asks seriously, setting down his pencil. "You said you were serious about wanting to review calculus for your entrance exams. Or are you bored? Should we take a break?"
"N-No!" she assures him, flushing a little that she'd been caught staring so intently. Or that Sawamura had caught her slacking. Either possibility is horrifying, when it comes to him. "I'm here and ready to learn, captain!"
Her fumbled mock salute makes him smile, amused, before he turns back to the problem at hand.
And Yui is gone again.
A small part of her, whenever she sees it, always remembers those old wives tales about — kissing — the pain away. Maybe her kiss would cure his scar, she allows herself to dream. Like a soulmates thing. Sort of.
Her mouth, the traitor, catches up with her thoughts, and before she can stop herself: "Sawamura, your scar is kinda really manly."
It should be her who does the blushing and stammering, but instead he's the one to gasp, just the tiniest puff of air, before spluttering over his own mouth. "What?"
Yui tucks her chin on the back of her folded hands, too captivated by his reaction to feel shy, and laughs. "It makes you look all dangerous. You could tell people you got into a gang fight and won."
He narrows his eyes, still fighting down the red on his face. "We have enough delinquent rumors surrounding the team with Asahi around, that big lug. We don't really need the vice-principal looking into us anymore than he does. We're, uh, not on the best terms with him."
"Yes, I remember," she giggles, thinking of those first day rumors about a flying wig of sorts that Sawamura had basically confirmed to be true. "But Azumane doesn't have scars, does he?"
"It's a volleyball injury," he reminds her feebly.
"A sports injury makes it even manlier!" she squawks, waving a hand about. "And this way you've got the dangerous look but you're not actually dangerous, you know? Makes you more approachable." She pulls a pocky stick from the carton on her desk, chews thoughtfully on one end, then adds, "Girls like guys with scars."
His face shines pink, all the way down to his neck, and a passerby might have worried that he was choking. Yui just cocks her head and ignores her own heartbeat.
"I'm not interested in... that." He clears his throat loudly.
"In girls?" she asks, almost feeling her stomach plummet to her feet. Had she just wasted six years of creating her sweet, high school love story?
"In dating," he confirms. He clears his throat again, a couple more times.
"Oh." Still a little disappointing, but her stomach slowly creeps back into place. "You might not have to do the whole dating shebang, though. A scar kind of gives you a pass for secret kissing rendezvous, I think."
"M-Michimiya..." he protests, his voice weak. Probably he's wondering how a quick study meet-up had turned into a conversation like this.
"I mean, girls don't necessarily always want to date guys with scars, they just want the thrill, you know?" she goes on, though inwardly she's agonizing over finding her misplaced mouth filter. At this point she's just repeating everything she'd heard Chizuru and Mao say during a brief lunchtime discussion over some girly magazine.
"I'm not that kind of guy, though." He sounds almost defensive.
"Not even if girls were throwing themselves at you?" she challenges. Maybe she just wants him to say that she'd be the first girl he'd invite to his secret spot in the back of the school. "Can you say that for sure, though?"
"Yes. I only want to kiss—"
Her chair creaks a little when she rocks forward, lips parting, doe-like eyes boring into him as she waits. She’s transfixed by his every word.
He turns crimson this time, putting a foot in his mouth as he looks down at the papers, and swallowing several times. He uselessly picks the pencil back up, as if she’d let the conversation die out now.
“You only want to kiss who?” she prompts, captivated. Winded. A little too eager.
“N-Not who. Just... you should only kiss people you like,” he recites, like he’s some little boy on the playground repeating something he’d overheard his mother say.
Yui collapses back in his chair and belts out a soft laugh, almost delirious from the letdown of the exchange that had gone nowhere.
Sawamura shoots her a firm look from over their joined desks, maybe thinking that she’s laughing at him. His scar tightens along with his expression. “We really need to focus now, Michimiya.”
“Yes, yes, sensei,” she responds automatically, smothering her giggles as she straightens back up, then admits sheepishly, “I actually, uh, didn’t hear a word you said before. Can you explain it again?”
He huffs but, as he so often does, complies with her wishes.
They bend their heads together.
-:-
You should only kiss people you like.
She thinks of these words now, and traces his face with her fingers. Sawamura hums against her, shudders when she trails that old scar from his high school days, but doesn’t pull away.
Yui wonders which it is: whether he’s become that sort of boy, or whether he still only kisses people he likes.
Another peck, on her bottom lip, then another, on one corner of her mouth. Then Sawamura is looking at her — scalding her, practically, with a gaze that hot. Yui remembers how silly she’d been, wanting to be the first girl he secretly kissed at the back of the school, and thinks of how silly she is now, so elated to finally have it come true after so many years.
“Aren’t the others going to wonder where we are?” he murmurs, gently brushing back some bangs from her forehead.
“Sawamura, you dragged me here,” she reminds him, just barely keeping from rolling her eyes.
“I know.” He shrugs, then grins boyishly despite his older face. “I was just so happy to see you again.”
She kneads her thumbs against his shoulders, over his shirt, and bites down a smile. “Me, too.”
It had been a perfect scene out of a movie, reuniting at a volleyball match at their old high school. Hinata had invited them all so his sister could have her own personal cheering squad for her first practice match ever. Kageyama had clubbed his head, told him he was certainly overdoing it — it wasn’t even an official match — but Hinata’s always played the part of the doting older brother.
And everyone got to see everyone again.
Sawamura and Yui.
“Mm, you’re right,” she agrees slowly, still rubbing his shoulders thoughtlessly. He seems to like it. “Should we go back then?”
“Wait, but—” He anxiously presses her back against the wall, when she makes to go, and she watches his face run through a plethora of emotions before he lands on nervous. “Does this mean... you’re my girlfriend now? B-Because, you know, I’m not that kind of guy.”
Yui meshes her lips together and fights a grin. So she’d been right. Here’s her sweet, high school love story, finally reaching its climax.
“Hmm.” She fingers his scar again, pretends to ponder. “Maybe I’ll date you if you wear a leather jacket. Ooh! And drive a motorcycle! Girls love dangerous guys with scars, you know,” she laughs.
Her eyes twinkle at the crease that forms between his eyebrows. He’s putting serious thought into it, like the Sawamura she remembers having a (insanely embarrassing, looking back) crush on.
“Well, I could do the jacket,” he agrees slowly, hesitantly. “But isn’t a motorcycle too much of a hazard...?”
“God, I love when you talk sexy to me,” she croons, and he only has time to look surprised, embarrassed, flushed, before she smacks their lips together. She laughs through the kiss, at her own awful teasing, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
Except for when the vice-principal rounds the corner and finds their mouths practically plastered together. Then he minds.
Before he is a friend, he's a fixture on the other side of the gym.
"The boys' team sure is rowdy when they practice, huh?" her captain grumbles, shooting a subtle, irritated look to the roughhousing taking place not too far from their net. Two boys have started a bout of wrestling over a game console while their teammates pick sides and cheer them on, and it makes it difficult to concentrate on practice. More than one girl scowls their way.
But he melts quietly into the background, focused on adjusting his kneepads rather than joining the fray. He nods gently when spoken to, speaks politely to his captain, and has one of the most eager smiles she's seen when he's placed on the court.
Sawamura Daichi, the boy she follows with her eyes.
-:-
friend.
Before he is a partner, he's a conversation that takes place in a crowded hallway.
"Ah!" she hears, as she's trying her best to shove her way through a group of boys twice her size, her chirpy "excuse me!"s going unheard. He breaks away from his small gathering of friends, and grins in that soft way she's burned into her mind. "You're on the girls' volleyball team, aren't you?"
Yui swings back from the rush, nervously tucking a lock of hair behind her ear before she remembers her hair is most definitely not long enough to do so. "Yeah! Michimiya Yui! M-My name, I mean."
He chuckles. "Sawamura Daichi. I've seen you practicing. You have a really powerful spike!"
Yui has to wonder why that burns her up just as much as being called cute by the pretty onee-chan who had lived across the street from her years ago. She knows she's the weakest link on the team by far, though that hasn't stopped her from trying her hardest and hopefully never would. It feels good, that someone had noticed.
"Well, it's only okay," she plays off, and she's not tuned to him yet, so she doesn't notice when his expression hardens into one of disapproval. "B-But! It'll be the most powerful spike in the prefecture one day! I swear it!"
This time, she does notice the impressed gleam in his eyes, even though she'd felt a little silly pumping her fists aimlessly at the sky.
"I like that," he laughs. "Practice with me some time? It would do my receives good to practice with the most powerful spikes in the prefecture."
"You're silly." A shove to his arm only makes him grin, and when Yui returns it, she's not as shy or jittery in the stomach as she'd thought she would be. He's so easy to talk to. "But sure!"
"Sawamura, come on," his friends call then, some already shuffling away when the two glance their way. "We're going up to the roof."
"Shoot, gotta go." He hops a few steps away, then looks over his shoulder one last time. "Nice meeting you, Michimiya."
"Let's be good friends," she chirps back, waving him off.
He smiles.
-:-
partner.
Before he is a goal, he's a captain standing unsurely at her side.
"Well, I'm not surprised you were named captain," she huffs to him, as they overlook the joint practice between their teams. Practicing together had done them both wonders over the past two years after all, that immediately they had thought to bring the rest of their teams together as well. It's gone much, much better than either of them had imagined.
"I just want us to win so badly," he tells her, his voice urgent.
She recognizes that gleam in his eyes, determined and desperate for the victory. Tense shoulders. Locked jaw. A crease in his eyebrows. These are all sides of Sawamura she's come to know, in those late evenings when they'd sit on the gym steps after their private practice and talk about dreams and goals and how they both found volleyball.
"And you will," she tells him softly. "Honestly, Sawamura, if you don't win after everything I've seen you're capable of, then... I'll set the stadium on fire in protest!"
He has to laugh at that. It settles in her stomach, filling her up on pride. "You don't have to go that far. But thanks, Michimiya. Let's win together."
She makes a small face, looking down at the ball in her hands and rocking on her heels. "I don't know. I don't really think it's possible for my team. Though, I hope..."
This time, after two years of friendship, she does recognize the sudden silence. Oh, crap.
The inevitable lecture comes in a curt voice. "Michimiya, you'll never win if you don't believe you will—"
"Urgh! I know, I know!" she whines, digging her fingers into her hair. He must have told her as much a hundred times already. "I'm sorry. I just... get worried kinda easily. But we'll win the next match for sure!"
"There's the Michimiya I know," he hums approvingly, nodding once. "I'm glad we're captains together."
"Yeah." She glances at her shoes. "Me, too."
-:-
goal.
Before he is a crush, he's someone who's a million miles away from her.
"I decided to stay on the team," he tells her one warm, spring afternoon, when they'd bumped into one another and settled against a window ledge, such is their ritual now.
Yui glances up from her folded arms, pulling back from the ledge to give him a proper look. Her face expresses surprise, but part of her had always known this would be his choice. He's made of determination and pride and the tenacity of a proper captain, always steady in those beat-up sneakers of his and even more so when dressed in all black. Karasuno has always been his perfect fit.
"What about entrance exams?" she asks curiously.
"I suppose I'll have to juggle both." His mouth slants — a moment of uncertainty. But it passes quickly. "I will juggle both."
"You've always been super, duper smart!" She bumps into his shoulder encouragingly. "I know you'll do it. Ahh, I kind of wish I had stayed, too. But... I could tell it was time for me to go. And I need to focus on studying myself."
He smirks. "Good luck to us both."
"Please rub off on me a little, oh, Great Sawamura," she jokes as he turns to go, making him laugh.
But it's not a joke, not really. It never has been, when it comes to her and Sawamura and the distance between them. He's always been in a place she believes she can't reach, not where she currently stands — but every part of her yearns to stand at his side like she used to.
The view of his broad, steady back, before he disappears around the corner, is just another reminder.
Her heart races.
-:-
crush.
Before he is heartbreak, he is flutters in her chest and heat dribbling down her neck.
"I-It's not just for you or just from me or a-anything!" she squeaks, the tiny charm in her grasp carrying the weight of the world.
"Oh, thanks!"
Oblivous to her thrumming heart, he shoots her a quick, grateful look before catching up to his team. Yui collapses against her best friend in a mess of incoherent noises, her head spinning.
"Not the brightest boy, is he?" Mao drawls, patting her back. "I thought that was as obvious as you could be."
"Don't talk about him like that," Yui protests, pouting. "He's really smart and intuitive. Most of the time."
"Wow, you really like him, huh?" Chizuru marvels. After all, Yui has never been one to counter Mao before, at least not in the absence of jest.
She hides her face behind her hands. "So much."
-:-
heartbreak.
Before he is a lover, he's a rejection that cuts like going cold-turkey on a nicotine addiction.
"Wouldn't it be strange, with how long we've known each other?" he says awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck. "It would be like dating a sibling or something. Maybe?"
"I've never thought of you as a sibling," she mumbles to her shoes, and wishes she had the courage to meet his eyes and say it boldly to his face. But every last drop of her courage had become a puddle on the ground the moment she'd stammered out her confession.
"Sorry, Michimiya, I just... I don't know."
I don't know.
"That's not a no?" her friends console her helplessly. "And he's thinking about it, isn't he?"
"...I'm afraid he'll say no," she mumbles into her pillow, her face buried deep into the cushion. She can sense Mao and Chizuru exchanging worried looks behind her, staring at her helpless form laid out on her bed. She doesn't have the strength to muster a reassuring smile, though. Instead, her chin wobbles. "God, you should have seen his face. He was absolutely shocked, like he'd never even thought about me."
So when he calls her out to the roof next morning, his nerves written plainly on his face, her heart aches.
"So, I talked to Suga last night," he begins, rocking on his heels in a boyish way she'd thought he'd shed not long after entering Karasuno.
She waits for it.
"He said that if I don't know, then... I should at least give it a try? Or else I'll never know. You know?"
Her astounded fumbling at that makes him chuckle, but she can barely process two thoughts into one coherent sentence let alone formulate them into spoken words. "S-S-So, y-you mean — a-a-are you saying...?"
"You're a great girl. And a good friend, too." He smiles warmly. "Sooo. Do you, maybe, kinda, wanna go out some time?"
-:-
lover.
Before he is happiness, he's a fidgety silhouette in the distance, nervously expecting her for a first date (of many).
"I've never done this dating thing before," she tells him awkwardly, as they fall into step together. Her ears are slowly returning to a normal color, but still hued a blaring red from his unexpected you look pretty. "Are we supposed to do anything special?"
"Uh. Maybe just what we feel like?" He's just as awkward as her, having traded in his beat-up sneakers for a much nicer pair, and it's an endearing sight. It had been for her.
Yui taps her chin thoughtfully. "I think Mao just might throttle me if I suggest the arcade or a batting cage or something."
"Ahh, too bad." He strokes his own chin. "That sounds kinda fun. B-But, you've been thinking about this a lot longer than I have, huh? So I don't mind if you want to do something a little more, umm, romantic?"
She grins, and not just at his adorable fidgeting. "Batting cage sounds perfect!"
It's not ideal, being in a fluttery skirt Chizuru had picked out, or having her carefully styled hair mussed by a musty helmet. But she hits five home runs and Sawamura whoops in cheer, looking absolutely impressed by her strength. And Yui figures this is ideal enough for her.
By the time they've settled on a pair of swings with steaming meat buns in their hands, her hair's back to being its usual mess and she's probably grimy from all the sweat. She bites into the bun and hums gleefully.
"This didn't really feel like a date, though, did it?" she asks in worry. Maybe Sawamura might have wanted a nicer first date ever with a prettier, cleaner girl.
He cups his neck, looking bashful. "Well, I don't know about you, but I was always kinda aware that this was a, you know, date. But I still had fun." He shrugs, so obviously trying to play it cool. "I think this could be really good."
Yui forcefully swallows a mouthful of meatbun. "You mean...?"
He grins. "Maybe next time we could try the arcade?"
"Sounds perfect!"
-:-
happiness.
Before he is something more, he's shy first kisses and hesitantly intertwined fingers.
Yui loves it, his unbridled attention — the way he'll perk when she walks into a room, put his arm around her shoulder and kiss her forehead, introduce her to his friends as my girlfriend. It makes up for all the incessant teasing from their teammates, though Yui playfully sticks out a tongue at their jeers and one firm look from Sawamura is enough to shut the boys up.
She's the first person trusted with a key to his new apartment, and that thrills her.
"Don't tell Suga, I'll never hear the end of it," he whispers, and her only answer is a sloppy, giggly kiss on his cheek.
Sundays are times just for her. Around school and internships and studying and volleyball and friends, he takes out one day in a week to devote entirely to her, even if it just constitutes her stretched out over him on the couch as they flip channels on his crummy TV, occasionally kissing when one of them feels particularly affectionate. Yui doesn't know how she got so lucky (but a small part of her makes a note to buy Suga a mega-ultra-good present for his birthday).
And, of course, they'll always have volleyball.
"I know you'll win!" she says confidently.
He's as dashing as ever in his uniform, just minutes before joining his team on the court, and even more so when he smiles crookedly. "I will now that my good luck charm is here," he breathes, draping her in his team blazer. "Keep this safe for me?"
She rolls up the sleeves so they fit, swimming under the shoulders, and presses her lips to his — a prayer charm for victory.
-:-
something more.
Yui likes these peaceful nights, in Daichi's arms, even if she can barely keep her eyes open.
Daichi chuckles and kisses the top of her head when she smothers a long yawn, wearily collapsing against his chest. "Sleep, Yui."
"'m too tired to get up," she mumbles lazily.
He promises, "I'll carry you to bed."
A smile slides onto her face, and for the few seconds that sleep evades her, she twists and twists and twists the band on his finger.
