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They reunite in the court, and neither of them attempts to make the story any different. Tobio knows when Shouyou returns ( you know, he texts one day, when it is night for him and morning for Shouyou — you can call me by my first name ) from a text from the man himself, but neither of them say a thing about catching up.
That can be done here, with a volleyball in Tobio’s hands and a light in Shouyou’s eyes. Catching up is done the same way Shouyou leans down and catches a receive like he made them spike to that location, in the way Tobio tosses the ball up and his teammate spikes it with unwavering strength. He can relearn the way the sand has changed Shouyou as a player, the grit smoothing out his flaws into something tempered, the unsteadiness of ground making him just that much more steady. He is relearning the frustration that burns like kindling in his bones when he scores a point, the foolishness that is smothering down a grin because he loves the game always but this feels like kicking it into overdrive.
They lose, but it doesn’t feel like loss. It feels like something settling in his bones instead, it feels like the whistle being blown is coming home. Tobio has spent all of his high school life with Shouyou on the same side of the net as him, a monster given human form, a will o’wisp here to take his soul away, but he has always spent longer without him there at all. Shouyou has only been on the other side of the court once in middle school, but he’s been a rival ever since. Their competitions have ranged from little to large, but this particular loss feels like resetting a timer, letting a clock tick once again. Tobio has survived and thrived without Shouyou there, but his return feels a bit like everything turning back into orbit.
“I win this one.” Shouyou grins, and Tobio wants to ask for a rematch, wants to begin all over again.
They are alone the night after the match, after victory and defeat dinners for their respective teams. They are alone in the night, and it reminds Tobio of high school, of practicing so late they almost forget to go home, of tossing a volleyball at each other outside until the moon begins to wane.
It’s full now, and Tobio is reminded of something he learned in literature class so long ago, when girls would giggle it behind the curve of their palms. Natsume Soseki said the moon was beautiful, and the people read that and translated it as I love you . Tobio had never understood then, because the moon was the moon, and if he’s being honest, he still doesn’t understand it now. He thinks of it though, staring up at the sky, the silence between him and Shouyou just like another competition — The one who breaks it loses. Tobio’s not going to break it first, he already lost the match.
“Kag- Tobio.”
His name makes him pause, but he doesn’t look away from the moon just yet. He doesn’t know why. Maybe he’s trying to see what the poets saw.
Maybe it’s an impossible effort, because he’s just a volleyball player. He was never the type meant for words, not when actions would do the trick fine.
“Tobio.” The name sounds angry, now, and Tobio turns his head to see Shouyou, looking like the sun. He doesn’t know how many times Shouyou has called his name right now, he realizes absently. He looks furious, hands clenched and eyebrows furrowed, mouth a slant. All Tobio can think of is the sun now, the moon now waned and forgotten, all he can see is Shouyou, annoyed but full of passion, something that will burn him to the very bottom of his soul.
“What.” He asks, because he doesn’t know what else there is to say. Tobio is not good at words, but Shouyou’s anger is beginning to make his own annoyance rise. Shouyou glares at him right back, and Tobio watches as his curled fist comes forward, not a punch but the beginnings to a fist bump.
“You’ve gotten even better.” Shouyou admits, but he says it’s like it’s something rancid, his face scrunched up like it isn’t something he said unprompted. Tobio doesn’t even hesitate before his reply, “Good job on not barfing.” It makes Shouyou scowl again, but he doesn’t put away the raised fist.
“I won , and it’s been like two years all you have to say is —”
“We’re invincible.”
Silence. Shouyou’s face is so surprised and open it almost hurts, but Tobio does not take it back. He glares at the man before him instead, remembers today, with the two of them on opposite sides of the net. Remembers the first time, with Tobio furious, hands grabbing onto the net, demanding to know what Shouyou has been doing all his life. He remembers two different moments but the same promise, one where he uttered the words to Shouyou, one where the words were said to him.
Tobio glares at Shouyou, but he doesn’t take the words back because he doesn’t take back things that are true.
Tobio is one of the best volleyball players in Japan. He knows his abilities. He was in the Olympics. He consistently has the best numbers of all the setters in Japan. He joined a national league right out of high school. He is a genius, he is a prodigy, he has made volleyball into an artform because volleyball is his oxygen and that is what you do for your passions. He is very hard to beat, and he puts a lot of pride into that.
But god, today, with Shouyou back in the court, he felt —
“You’re so fucking stupid, Baka-yama.” Shouyou starts, and Tobio splutters, opening his mouth to ask what the fuck before he sees a flurry of movement and Shouyou, closing the distance.
Tobio knows Shouyou on the court, a wildfire given a name, a dare to look at him you always end up falling for. Two years will not change the experience of knowing Shouyou — Oikawa made it an artform to understand his spikers, but Tobio could never manage it. It was easier to understand Shouyou though, someone whose hunger was matched up to his, who breathed volleyball like it was the only thing needed to survive, the world’s best decoy because he made sure you would never look away. Tobio knows Shouyou, but now he is relearning him all over again.
This should be all new; the feeling of Shouyou’s lips on his, waking up with a furnace of a person pressed against his chest, bickering over who used up all the hot water, navigating adulthood. It should be new, but instead it feels like it isn’t, it feels like something Tobio forgot but is just remembering how to do again. It feels like acing a class, and maybe it’s just that Tobio has never aced anything in his life that wasn’t volleyball. Maybe it’s because it feels that natural, maybe it’s because it’s just something slotting together. He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t really care, to be honest.
What he cares about is the way Shouyou likes to hold his hand to drag him to places, intertwining their fingers together. What he cares about is how Shouyou always turns to look at him when he enters a room.
Tobio is oblivious, but he is also not a denier of truths. He has known this feeling since he was in high school, with the two of them feeling like they were immortal, setter and spiker, a duo to make other teams quake. He has known the name of this for a while but has never pushed it further. He has let it set there, simmer, tucked where he puts things that are absolutes.
Like this; volleyball is everything, work hard and your people will find you, do not settle, and what you feel for Hinata Shouyou might be love.
He says might because he’s still not sure. Perhaps that is the name for this, perhaps it’s not. Perhaps it isn’t enough. Nothing really makes sense to him in the world outside of volleyball, and love is not volleyball. Or maybe it is? What he feels for Shouyou though, he thinks love but he also pauses because.
Maybe this does not have a name. Maybe it is not meant to.
Tobio doesn’t think it has to, but he also thinks it might be easier to call it love , even if the name of it sounds unfamiliar when he tests it aloud in his bedroom at night.
Either way. Love and invincibility sound like synonyms, but volleyball is still absolute, and he doesn’t think it will change anything. So he did not say anything, not even when Shouyou left — Why should he, when instead of goodbye, Shouyou looked at him and said see you later instead?
(He’s right and wrong. Knowing he is in love with Shouyou doesn’t change anything. Letting Shouyou know he is, well. That does.)
It’s funny, Tobio thinks, as Shouyou facetimes Kenma, expressive as he always is, catching up with his best friend.
It’s funny, because Shouyou was the one that came back, and that day was Shouyou’s homecoming. A return back to the scene of Japanese volleyball, an event that makes everyone return back to watch this advent. Like an eclipse, where everyone wants to see it. Like Shouyou is the goddamn sun and they’re all planets finally finding an orbit again. That match was like homecoming, and it was like catching up, too. Tobio waited two seasons for this, what with knowing Shouyou landed back in Japan in the end of March and waiting until his first match of the season in October. Two seasons, each day filled with an anticipation he couldn’t describe, something like excitement thrumming under his fingertips every time he touched the court and staying when he stepped off it.
Tobio remembers talking to Kei about it in August, Tadashi drunk and asleep against the table of the izakaya they sat in. Remembers Kei asking if he’s seen Shouyou yet, and Tobio’s shake of the head. Remembers his answer, when Kei looked long-suffering just like he always did and asked why.
“Because.” Tobio had said, and it was stalling, uneasy in his mouth because Tobio was never good with words. “It isn’t time yet.”
“... You two really are the same wavelength of stupid.”
He doesn’t think he was wrong. He isn't. Him and Shouyou meeting on the court again was correct, and they’ve never talked about, but he’s sure Shouyou feels the same.
It’s just funny, Tobio thinks, because it was Shouyou’s homecoming that day, that match, but it felt like Tobio’s too.
An interviewer asks Tobio if there’s room for any romance in his life as a professional athlete, and he scrunches his nose and thinks hard about it.
“There’s no room for any more.” He says after a moment, honest as can be.
“What did you mean by that?” Shouyou asks when the interview plays on the tv, head tilted as he puts his feet in Tobio’s lap, moving them too close to his face for a second. Tobio frowns and grumbles that he should watch where he’s kicking, but he answers Shouyou.
“There’s… volleyball, and there’s you.” He starts, “There’s no room for any more.”
There’s silence from Shouyou, and Tobio looks up, ears warm at the silence, before he’s met with the sight of Shouyou looking like he might cry a little. Shouyou moves so that the distance between him and Tobio is miniscule, cups Tobio’s face something gentle, eyes so intense Tobio never wants to look away.
“I’m gonna kiss you, Tobio.”
“What are you waiting for, idiot.”
Shouyou laughs, and it fills up the room. Tobio leans in and kisses him, and thinks yeah, yeah. There’s no room for anything else but this.
(Not with the way Shouyou mouths at his neck, not with the way he says Tobio , not with the way he closes his eyes and all he sees is red-orange hair and a challenge he’ll always answer.)
“To-bi-ooo.”
“What.”
“Thanks for making me invincible.”
“... You too.”