Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Is it a career ending injury?” 

“No, no, not at all. A career… halting, injury. You’ll need many months to recover. But if you take it slow, and let it heal properly, you shouldn’t be left with any severe pain or mobility issues. You’ll be back on the court just as you were before.” 

Aran nods along, taking this in for a moment. There’s a particular kind of heaviness in his chest, and he had thought that learning he’d be able to play volleyball again would have eased it. But whatever his body was feeling, it wasn’t reaching his head. And it wasn’t comforted by her words. 

“Okay, thank you,” he says, then: “When can I get out of here?” 

“We’ll have the discharge papers sorted shortly, so let whoever’s picking you up know they can come on down.”

“Oh, no, nobody’s coming,” Aran says. “I’m just gonna… head on my way.”

The nurse blinks at him, surprised, before saying: “Uh… no, you aren’t,” in an almost amused tone. 

“...what?”

“We are not discharging you to just walk out of the hospital, not after a surgery like that. You need to be cleared by OT to be discharged home alone - it would be medical negligence to let you go as is. If you want to leave today, you can call your family. Otherwise, you’re mine until further notice.”

“You… can’t keep me here,” Aran says. 

“True,” she replies. “But you’d have to sign papers saying you’re leaving AMA, which means your insurance won’t cover your next hospital visit when you inevitably have to call for help after falling when you’re home alone.” 

“...oh,” he says. 

“If there’s really nobody that can pick you up, we can arrange transport to get you home, but you’re not fit to be home alone, I won’t authorize a discharge without knowing you’re going into someone’s care. I don’t know if you noticed, but you can’t even stand up right now. Do you really think you can feed and care for yourself for the weeks until you can?” 

“Okay! Okay, I get it,” Aran says. “I will… call someone, I’ll figure it out.” 

She smiles. 

“Good. I’ll see about that discharge.” 

He watches the nurse go, shaking his head in bafflement and annoyed that they won’t just let him go home. He wasn’t exactly a ‘dependent’ kind of person - he’d been living on his own since he was nineteen, for Pete’s sake! He didn’t need anyone else… but… 

Well, he was going to be wheelchair bound for the time being… he supposed if he did get home, he’d probably just starve to death and rot in his bed, or try to get up and make everything worse. Strict or not, the nurse was probably right about the medical part of this… 

But there’s really nobody to call. 

Gao? 

No, no, that’s… he can’t put that on some acquaintance. 

Iwa?

Calling the trainer he’d worked with a couple of times around the Olympics seemed… like an over reach of their friendship. Besides, he wasn’t anywhere near Osaka. 

The problem is that his parents weren’t even close to Osaka. They weren’t even close to Japan. Both of them had moved back to Canada over a decade ago, following work and family obligations. Aran had stayed behind to chase volleyball - sure, he could have played volleyball in Canada, but Atsumu and Suna were playing volleyball here. Kita was here. 

He considers pressing Kita’s contact number, then chickens out and hits Osamu’s. 

The phone rings for a while, but eventually Osamu’s voice answers, sounding like his mouth was full as he chirps: 

“Yo, ‘Samu speaking, what up, Aran?” 

“Ah… hah… long time no speak, yeah?” 

“We saw each other at Christmas.”

“That was… six months ago.”

“Was it?”

Aran presses his hand over his eyes. “Yes. Listen, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but… I kinda need a big favour.” 

“Heard what?” 

“I uh… I got hurt,” he says, after a moment, glancing down to the leg that was casted up and aching. Pain meds would be needed. Lots of them. “Real bad.”

“Oh, shit-” Osamu says, and it finally sounds like he swallows what he’d been eating. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah, yeah… a couple of metal pins, a couple of stitches… a six hour surgery… doc says I’ll make a full recovery, but… it’s… apparently not advisable for me to go home alone. Since I… can’t walk for a few weeks. What are the chances you are open to letting your poor injured former upperclassman come stay with you for a little vacation?” 

“Oh, Aran, you know you’re always welcome here, of course you can!” Osamu says. 

Aran lets his breath out, relieved. “Oh, thank god-”

“Wait, sorry,” Osamu adds, quickly. “My apartment doesn’t have an elevator. Can you get up three floors?” 

“...no,” he laughs. 

“Also I don’t have a second bed,” Osamu replies. “Can you recover on a couch?” 

“...maybe this isn’t meant to be,” Aran sighs. “Three flights of stairs feels like advanced physio, not day-one type shit.” 

“Mhm.”

“Alright, well, thanks for taking the call.”

“No worries. Who else are you going to call? I can scratch Atsumu off the list right now, he’s-”

“I would rather stay in the hospital than live with your brother. I’m sorry.”

“No, that’s fair.”

Aran nods for a moment, before saying another goodbye and disconnecting the call. Shit. Okay. Think, think… 

Maybe he would just have to stay here. Or try to convince the nurse to let him go home alone without signing those scary papers. But what would he do home alone? 

He’s once again hit by a vision of falling over and starving to death on the floor of his apartment. He’s not stupid, he’s recovered from injuries before, he knows how to take care of himself, and… 

His phone starts buzzing. 

Incoming call: “Shin”

There’s a little red heart saved next to his name in his contact, an old high school decision that Aran had never had the emotional strength needed to delete.

He almost doesn’t take the call, but he knows Kita well enough to know that he simply has to. Otherwise, if he found out he’d ignored his call, there would be true hell to pay. 

He puts the phone to his ear. 

Before he can even say hello, Kita’s voice is shoving its way through the line. 

“And why am I hearing about you injurin’ yourself from Osamu?”

Aran cannot help but smile at the sound of his voice. They hadn’t spoken in a while. Truthfully, although it pained him, Aran had tried to consciously step back from their friendship. He’d clung on a little bit too long, and a little bit too tightly, to a high school romance that Kita hadn’t been able to commit to. 

And yet, now, the sound of his voice is like music. Aggressive, scolding music. It makes his heart ache, and just like that, years of trying to wrap up his heart is undone. 

“Hey… Kita,” he says, deciding to air on the side of caution and lead with formality. “Yeah…”

“What happened? And why is Osamu the only one who ever tells me anything anymore? I hear about Suna movin’ houses from him, I hear about you gettin hurt from him, next thing I know Atsumu’s gonna be dead and the only person who’ll be talking to me is Osamu!”

“I’m gonna admit, Kita, that last example sounds totally reasonable.”

“That’s not the point!”

Aran smiles slightly. “Sorry, Kita. I’ll… keep you updated better next time.”

“Good. Now, tell me, are you okay? What happened?”

“I’m… fine, there was just a bit of an accident, fucked up my leg and back pretty good. But the doctor says it’s fine, I just need rest and I’ll recover just fine.”

“That’s good. That’s good, I’m glad to hear that. But why are you calling Osamu instead of me, if you need someone to help you out?”

“Ah… well… you know, I know you’re busy with the farm…”

And the idea of making you dote and tend to me is equal parts humiliating and fantasy inducing.

“What are you talkin’ about?” Kita protests. “The farm is the perfect place for you right now, I still got all the equipment from my gramma, plus the place is fully wheelchair accessible-” then he pauses to mutter under his breath: “‘cept for the gravel road…”

“Kita, I can’t let you-”

“Aran, I insist,” Kita says, a little gentler now. “Please. It ain’t a bother, I want to help you out. And if you were asking Osamu for help, then I know you’re out of options.”

Aran sighs. “Yeah. Okay.” 

---

Kita’s not wrong about everything but the driveway being perfect for the situation. Grandma Yumie, a woman Aran had had a relatively precarious relationship with, had passed away several years ago now. But leading up to that, Kita had dutifully cared for and maintained the property they’d lived on. Adjustments had been made - she’d lived a good five or six years after she’d stopped walking, and the ramps had been installed swiftly. And Kita seemed more than happy to dredge out old equipment, benches and railings to assist Aran in his recovery. 

It seems overkill - Aran, after all, is not a 101 year old woman (the age Kita reported her being when she passed.)

But he appreciates it. He likes the attention, and the farm is…

What he remembers. 

Mostly. 

The same fields, the same walls. The old shed out back is still standing, but Kita’s thrown a fresh coat of paint over it, and there’s a new chicken coop, and new chickens, to replace the old rundown one from before. Everything seems… new new, like Kita had only started these projects in the last five years. The hospital arranges transport back to the farm, and Aran has never been a fan of being served, but he’s thankful there’s a care aid to wheel him up to the house instead of making Kita do it. 

But Kita is there, of course. 

And he looks… 

Well, Aran thinks, looking at him with something akin to nostalgia, but might just be good old fashioned love. He looked perfect. 

---

The touch of their hands is accidental. Aran puts his down on the seat beside him and feels his fingers brush over Kita’s hand. He immediately withdraws it, jumping slightly at the contact. Kita’s hands had been cold, soft - he opens his mouth to stammer an apology, but Kita has already looked away, curling his hand up against his chest. There’s a pink tint across his cheeks and the tips of his ears. 

Aran shuts his mouth and looks away again. The bus bumps and rumbles along, taking them off to their first practice match of the year. Kita was just a spare player, he probably wouldn’t even see the court. But they didn’t have a manager right now, so he came along to help keep score and run little errands. 

Aran didn’t mind at all, he’d found the guy fascinating, if not a bit of a weirdo. 

And so, so adorable when he blushed. 

But Kita plays it off like nothing happened. Fifteen years old and ‘not interested in romance.’ 

Aran realizes Kita is resolutely now, looking out the window, but he can’t get it out of his head. So, even though the guy is a bit of a weirdo, and even though he’d been prone to scolding them more than actually helping them, and got all high and mighty about cleaning and seemed more uptight that most adults in Aran’s life, he nudges him with his elbow. 

Kita looks over to him, curiously, asking what he wanted. 

“Do you wanna watch Fullmetal Alchemist with me? I downloaded a few episodes for the ride.” 

“Anime is for children.”

Aran narrows his eyes. “Oh, okay…” he says, before putting his earbuds in and watching the show himself. He expects Kita to get distracted, to watch over his shoulder anyway. Usually when people claim things are ‘for children’ it’s a guilty pleasure. But Kita’s not like that. 

Kita doesn’t. 

He does chemistry homework instead, and Aran doesn’t catch him even once sneaking a glance at his phone. 

---

Kita Shinsuke is thirty-four. 

He looks it. And that’s not to say anything bad about him. He spends a lot of time in the sun, he works hard, his hands are calloused, though Aran cannot help but imagine his skin would still be as soft as it was when they were teenagers. With blue overalls stained with mud and a farmer’s tan burned into his arms, he looks… old. Settled.

He dutifully listens to the care aid dropping him off and nods along and takes notes, and Aran wheels himself further into the home, taking note of the fact that Kita had been right. The place was set up already to give plenty of room to a wheelchair moving around, and the couple of steps Aran remembered from their youth, out onto the patio, had been flattened into a ramp. 

But the house was quite. The grandmother that had once dominated these rooms reduced to nothing more than a memory, a couple of pictures on the wall and an urn in a shrine, joining his parents. 

Aran hears Kita say goodbye to the care aid and the door shuts, but he’s lost in the memories of this shockingly familiar living room. How long had it been since he’d been here, a decade? 

---

The summer is hot, and the days drag on. Their few weeks of summer vacation are racing by all too fast, and soon enough they’ll be starting their third year. They do homework in the living room - an unbearable amount of summer readings - and Aran helps Kita with his English work. Kita did not, actually, need assistance studying, but he was dutifully in awe of Aran’s fluency, and didn’t miss a learning opportunity. 

When they finish as much as they can stomach in the heat, Kita cuts up fruit in the kitchen and brings it over, and curls his knees under him as he settles beside Aran. Aran, finally, has convinced him to watch Fullmetal Alchemist. Kita does not enjoy the show at all, but he does still suggest it as a way to take a break between studying hours. 

They chew on chopped fruit, and watch the show with drowsy eyes. The heat tends to do that.

Kita leans over, and puts his head on Aran’s shoulder. 

Like only kids can feel, the world is magic in that moment. He feels his heart skip, his whole stomach twisting in on itself. 

He moves his hand over to Kita’s to gently lace their fingers together. 

His boyfriend. Here in the sickly hot summer, with cold fruit on his lips and a show he was barely watching, Kita’s soft hair brushing against his cheek, it makes his heart soar. 

Then there’s a key in the door, and Kita isn’t just up off his shoulder, embarrassed by the brief display of clingy affection, but off the ground entirely, and wandering away as if having been uninterested in sitting with Aran at all. 

---

“Been a while,” Kita says, his drawl heavier in his voice than Aran remembered it. He glances back at him. “Do you still remember your way around?”

Aran nods. “I think so.”

“Great, let me set you up in the room, then. I did a bit of cleaning in preparation, but you have to promise me to be honest if anything is amiss.”

“I’m sure it’s fine.”

Kita pushes his wheelchair down the hall, into a room that was very clearly for guests and those staying over, everything about it was hotel-like and impersonal. But Aran knew that it used to be his grandmother’s room. He’s just cleared it out. 

“Can you do a transfer?”

“Yeah, on my good leg.”

Kita’s very good at this, and it takes no time at all to get Aran around and laying back in the bed. He winces as he settles in, body complaining. There are stitches in his back, he thinks, that rub against the bed, and that feels bad. But the bed is comfy otherwise, and he hadn’t realized how uncomfortable sitting in the wheelchair had been for his hips and lower back until he’s laying down again. 

“How’s that?”

“Very good, thank you.”

Kita smiles slightly, then carefully sits down at the edge of the bed. Aran tilts his head to look at him, feeling a little pathetic for not being able to care for himself, but otherwise sort of… content, to be drowning in nostalgia like he was. 

“Thanks for doing this again, by the way,” Aran says. “You really didn’t have to.” 

“Don’t be silly,” Kita says. “I should have been your first call.”

Aran smiles slightly. “No, no, you’ve got your own life. I didn’t want to intrude.”

“Aran,” Kita insists, voice stern. “I should have been your first call.”

Aran gives him a slight nod, though he’s not sure how to feel about that. Kita, of course, was endlessly pragmatic. If he harboured any leftover feelings for Aran, he was compartmentalizing them into oblivion. He was a robot, like that. He could do that. He could look Aran in the eye and tell him he sincerely thought they should still be best friends. 

But Aran isn’t like that. He doesn’t have that ability. And his heart aches.

“I know,” he says, because to tell Kita that it’s his fault Aran doesn’t come around as often would be unfair. But it was the truth, wasn’t it? Aran, after all, hadn’t wanted to break up. That had been Kita’s choice. So to tell him now that he should call… 

Kita seems satisfied at that, before shaking himself out and standing up again. “Well, do you need anything? Food, water, entertainment?” 

“Ah, right now, no, don’t worry about me. Seriously, Kita,” Aran says, trying to make his voice more stern. “Don’t worry about me. You’re already doing enough.”
Kita stares at him for a moment, before giving him a stiff nod. “Okay,” he says. “Call if you need anything.”

“I will,” Aran assures him. “And don’t be afraid to tell me to suck it up and take care of myself, if this gets to be too much work for you.”

“Never,” Kita replies, before turning to head to the door, and calling over his shoulder: “I took care of my Grandma for years and years and years, I can handle one young man for a couple weeks.” 

Aran nods slightly, and waits for him to leave the room, before laying his head back into the pillow and closing his eyes. His heart felt like it was going to burst. That couldn’t be good for him. 

---

“My parents are moving back to Canada,” Aran says, sitting with his legs stretched out across the pavement. Kita sits beside him, head lolled to the side to look up at him, looking more relaxed than Aran had ever seen him. “They asked me to go with them.” 

“Are you gonna?”

“Nah,” he says. “Everything I know is here. I don’t even remember what living in Canada was like anymore.”

“You should go.” 

“What?”

He sits up a bit, looking at Kita more properly. Kita’s soft, relaxed expression is now reading more like melancholy, a soft smile given to him when words were failing. 

“What are you talking about?” Aran repeats. 

“I think you should go,” Kita repeats. “Family is important. More important than anything.”

“I… don’t want to,” he says. “My parents understand that. My life is here - you are here.”

Kita stares at him for a moment, then pushes himself to sit up. They’re on the sidewalk, a little grassy strip beside the path in the shade of a tree they’d watched grow the last few years, planted by the school. School ended hours ago - summer vacation had officially started, and Kita and Aran were officially done with high school, with Inzarizaki, forever. A bird flits about them, casting shadows. The breeze cools his skin. 

Kita looks sad. 

“Family is more important,” he says, before looking down to his hands, looking properly shameful now. “Family is the most important thing, actually. It’s all we’ve got, at the end of the day.” 

“Shin, what are you talking about?” 

“You know, we ain’t in high school anymore. It’s one thing to play around and have fun and be stupid when we’re kids, but… my Grandma won’t… she won’t like the gay thing, so I don’t think I should put her through that.”

“Shin-”

“I mean it, Aran. I… you know, it would break her heart. To know that I… It just ain’t worth losing her, not over something I can choose not to do.”

“Shinsuke-”

“I’m sorry,” he finishes, looking up at Aran, eyes watering but not quite crying. “I wish I could love you, but… You know Grandma wouldn’t accept it. Never. Certainly not you. So. I think. You know, now that we’ve graduated, it’s time we… grow up. Be proper adults, do what we’re supposed to do.”

Aran hasn’t even really noticed how close he is to crying until hot tears are wetting his cheeks. He lifts a hand to rub them away, and can really only nod along. 

“Okay,” he says, because you can’t force someone to choose you, to choose something they’re not comfortable with. “Okay, yeah. Okay. I understand. Okay.” 

---

Aran dreams about volleyball, which is sort of embarrassing. He dreams about playing volleyball, about winning games, about his international escapades, about Atsumu’s stupid face. Everyone that he’d grown up with, everyone that he’d known, had scattered to the winds playing volleyball. The old national team still came together for the Olympics, but had made hometowns all over the world. Inzarizaki had stayed close to him, he was fairly certain, and apart from the permanent departure of Hinata Shoyo from MSBY, Atsumu had remained close with his teammates. But their favourite rivals had entirely scattered. Aran had taken several phone calls of Atsumu lamenting Kageyama’s departure to Italy, and Ushijima went abroad to Poland, and now, apparently, the games were a hell of a lot less fun. Romero’s retirement had been sort of the nail in the coffin - and then Atsumu had lost his place as the starting setter on the Jackals. It wasn’t his fault, not really. He was getting older, and there was a twenty year old hotshot there to usurp him just like he had fifteen years ago or so. Combined with a shoulder injury that had never quite healed right, Atsumu had, not in so many words, begun looking into his own next career move. 

It was sort of just the natural order of things. They were all getting… old, especially for volleyball. The sport was hell on his joints, and if Aran were being honest with himself, whether or not this particular injury was ‘career ending’ was sort of irrelevant - the pain from previous injuries was catching up, his body was slowing down. 

He’d stayed loyal to the Falcons. Fifteen years playing on the same team. Part of him feels bad about that - had he not been competitive? Everyone flying around the world, offered contracts with teams doubling their salaries. Hell, Kageyama probably could have thrown a dart at a map and gotten an offer from them within the year if he’d wanted to. But Aran had played at the Olympics, Aran had played well, he’d been great. But he’d never left. 

When he wakes up, he’s staring out over the unfamiliar familiar room, to the clean walls and orderly pictures. A painting of this very farm hangs on the wall. It’s impressionistic, sort of, and Aran’s sleep addled brain wonders if he needs glasses for a moment before realizing that no, actually, the painting is just stippled and designed that way. It’s a beautiful image, overlooking lush rice fields, the farmhouse up on the hill it rested on, that big shade tree shadowing it. 

Where’d that come from? Who painted that? 

Aran narrows his eyes at it for a moment, before yawning and sitting up and feeling an immediate burst of pain through his back and down his leg. He yelps, laying back again. Right. The major surgery. 

He stares up at the ceiling. 

He wishes he’d stop dreaming about volleyball. 

He also wishes he wasn’t in so much pain. He tries to sit up again, and it hurts, so he stops and lays down. This sucks, actually. 

He was hungry, and he had to go to the bathroom. He supposed he should call for Kita…? 

That didn’t feel great, though. He didn’t want to do that. 

Maybe he’d be fine…

It’s about eight minutes after he thought everything was fine, and now he’s on the floor. 

His back aches, his leg aches, the wheelchair has rolled across the room, pushed by his ungraceful collapse. 

Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. 

There’s a knock on the bedroom door. 

“...Aran?” Kita’s soft voice calls. 

“...yes?”

“I heard a thump?” 

“Yeah I’m on the floor.” 

Kita cracks open the door to look down at him, face impassive, if not slightly curious. “Why?” 

Aran frowns up at him. “Why?”

“Why did you get on the floor?”

“I fell.”

“Why did you fall?”

“I was trying to get up so I could go to the bathroom.”

“But you’re not supposed to do that,” Kita says. “The nurses told you not to do that. Do you think you’re smarter than the nurses? Do you think your body is better at healing than the statistical average, and their medicinal advice doesn’t apply to you? Or do you want to damage yourself even more, and be sent back to the hospital? You know you’re not supposed to be getting up, and yet, here you are, on the floor.” 

Aran blinks up at him. 

God, I missed him so much.

“Sorry,” he says. 

Kita huffed, stepping in and dragging the wheelchair closer before bending down beside him. “Here, let me help you.”

“Oh, Kita, no, I’m way too-”

And Aran is going to say way too heavy, but Kita doesn’t seem to give a shit, and seems to have no issues lifting Aran up off the floor. He doesn’t fully pick him up, but Aran can’t help but wonder if Kita would have been able to, if he wanted to. 

Aran gets settled in the wheelchair with a huff. 

“Thanks.”

“Don’t do that again.”

“Yeah I’ve learned my lesson,” Aran assures him, laughing softly. 

“Have you? Because I figured the surgery would have taught you your lesson, but here we are.”

“You’re mean this morning.”

“You disobeyed medical advice.”

Aran stares at him, and Kita is staring back. Aran has no hope of winning any kind of argument against him, so he just relents and puts his hands up in surrender. 

“Fine, fine, I swear, it won’t happen again.”

“Good,” Kita repeats, stiffly, before turning and grabbing the wheelchair handles to push him out of the room.

---

Kita’s gone, most of the day. He makes breakfast and dutifully sets Aran up in the living room with TV remotes and books from around the house and then disappears to do his chores. It’s a dull morning, and it’s… quiet. 

Aran feels bad, a little bit, about freeloading like this, but he tries to remind himself it really is just a few weeks, and then he should be able to start hobbling around on crutches and manage his own life again. He reads two and a half chapters of the book he was given, some long ass romance that takes place in a town so small in was almost incomprehensible. Then he gets bored of this, and after wheeling himself around, is able to find his laptop and the few other things he’d brought over, and sets himself up beside the couch in the living room. 

He checks a few emails - he makes a phone call to his mother, then he’s left in silence again, staring at his computer screen. 

No training. No exercise, no chores for him, just rest and recovery. It was almost a joke. He didn’t know what to do with himself. 

---

It’s Kita that puts his hands up Aran’s shirt, not the other way around. His soft hands brush across the skin of his chest, down his stomach, in makes his skin tingle and his heart leap. Kita’s hands are explorative, if not downright possessive, before reaching to grab him by the waist and tug him in close, pressing their bodies in against each other. Aran slots his knee in between Kita’s legs, pushing him back in against the wall, and hears maybe the most beautiful sound in the world - the softest, weakest little noise of want, falling from Kita’s lips against his will. 

“We need to slow down,” Aran says, lips still brushing against Kita’s, overwhelmed by the force that his boyfriend was. “Otherwise we’re going to make a big mistake-”

“What mistake-?”

“Sex in the club room?”

“Oh-” Kita pulls back, and Aran slides his hands up his waist, fingers tangling in the loose sweater he wore, eager to tug it up and expose the smooth skin on his stomach and chest, wanting nothing more than to strip him here and now. 

“I mean, the chances of someone coming by and catching us…” Aran says, hands tightening on the sweater, tugging on it. He sees Kita bite his lip, leaning in with the tug. It’s a different version of Kita - a rare one. The version for Aran only. The one that didn’t want to admit that the ‘someone might catch us bit’ sort of intrigues him. The one that liked when Aran pulled on his hair. It’s not the upstanding young man he pretends to be, not always. Not with Aran. 

“Good point,” Kita says eventually, removing his hands to instead cover Aran’s own. “We should get out of here.” 

“Your place?”

“Can’t, my Grandmother’s home. Yours?”

“Parents will be home.”

Kita stares at him for a second, before laughing, just slightly, a wonderful, musical tone that made Aran’s face flush hotter. 

“What are you laughing at?” Aran says, at the same time Kita smacks at his arm, so he steps back and lets him move away from the wall, brushing his uniform down. 

“Myself,” Kita says. “For a good few seconds there I genuinely considered having sex in the club room.”

This makes Aran laugh as well. 

---

The door to the house opens, and without looking up, Aran calls: “I promise, as soon as I’m back on my feet, I’ll come out and help you with the chores. How’s it been?”

“Uh… what?”

That is not Kita’s voice. 

It’s actually deeply terrifying, to have a stranger appear in the same room as him, especially when he can’t exactly run or defend himself at the moment. He jerks around, looking up to the man in alarm to get a look at him. 

Tall - maybe 6’3”, with dark hair swept back off his face and messy with sweat. He looks young - he looks absolutely jacked, wearing a tank top he’s in the process of sweating through, and mud on big, calloused hands. He’s handsome - no, that’s wrong. Handsome is too polite. This guy is hot.

“Sorry,” Aran says, in alarm, glancing around himself. “Sorry, hey, uh - no, who are you?”

“Handa Katashi,” he replies, sounding a little confused. Eventually, a look of realization crosses his face, and he says: “Oh, sorry, you must be Ojiro. Shin mentioned he had a guest staying with him - heard you had a pretty major surgery.”

Shin? 

Shin. 

Nope.

“Not that major, not career ending or anything, so I’ll be back on my feet soon,” he says, tightly. “Does K- Shin know you’re here?” 

This makes him laugh. “Yeah,” he says, wiping dirt off his hand on his shorts. “I’m just popping in to use the bathroom. Don’t mind me.”

“Uh-huh,” Aran replies, tilting back in the wheelchair to watch Handa head down the hallway, walking through the house like he owned the place. Goddamn. What? What? ‘Shin?’

Who the hell was that guy!?

Wait-

Wait. 

Was it possible Kita was seeing someone? No, surely that would have come up, right? I mean, Kita just went off on him about not calling him for help, so surely if he was seeing someone, he’d have mentioned it? Especially if that someone was going to be coming in and out of the house uninvited! 

Aran presses a hand over his mouth, staring off at the wall in horror and trying to stop his mind from flooding with images of his Kita Shinsuke underneath the weight of that gorilla. 

It doesn’t work. It’s all his brain is thinking about now. He feels a little bit ill, imagining Handa learning all the things Kita liked most in bed. He was a lot more… adventurous, than it looked on first blush, he’s sure there was all manner of interesting things that Kita was letting that buff fucking mountain do to him. 

But Kita had said he wasn’t willing to date men!

Oh, god…

No, no, don’t spiral-

“Alright, dude, see you,” Handa calls, waving to him as he returns from the bathroom and disappears out the front door again. 

“Yeah. See you,” Aran calls, voice strangled in his throat. 

He looks like he’s twenty!

What is Shin doing running around with some college kid?

Oh my god I need answers-

The front door swings shut, and he pulls out his phone to hurriedly call Osamu. It takes a little bit, but eventually he gets an answer. Osamu’s chippy voice calls: “Yo, Aran, how’s the injury?”

“That doesn’t matter,” he says, dropping his voice to a hiss. “Is Kita seeing anyone?”

He can hear Osamu being confused, scoffing on the other end before saying: “Uh… I don’t know, why?” 

“Because some hot ass dirty man just came wandering through his house like he owned the place!” 

This makes Osamu laugh, a cackling, annoying noise before he catches his breath and says: “Aran - what?”

“I’m not making a joke! There’s some buff dude wandering around, calling him Shin and using the bathroom!” 

“Okay, okay,” Osamu says. “Look, if Kita’s dating anyone, he hasn’t told me shit. But that’s just who he is, he’s a private guy! So what if he’s dating someone?” 

“So what? So what? So what is that if Kita’s dating someone I should have known about it!” 

“Woah, woah,” Osamu says. “Jealous, much? What’s wrong with you?”

Aran scoffs. “Jealous isn’t the word I’d use. I’m… justifiably indignant that Kita might be seeing some dude and not have brought it up. And after he made such a big deal about me not telling him about the injury! It’s ridiculous. And… And, Osamu, this guy looks like he’s in college, can’t be older than like, twenty. That’s crazy! Kita can’t be running around with some twenty year old.” 

“Yeah, this isn’t jealousy at all,” Osamu says. “This is a normal response. Look, dude, just ask Kita. He doesn’t mind straightforwardness, it’ll be fine.”

Aran groaned. “You really don’t know anything?”

“This is the first I’m hearing of it.”

“Shit.”

Osamu snickers on the other end, before saying: “I didn’t know you were still hung up on him like that.”

“What?”

“You and Kita, you broke up like fifteen years ago, right? I figured you’d be off in athlete land partying with the most fit, attractive people in the world. Didn’t think you would be this jealous of Kita maybe having a boyfriend.”

“I… no, I…” Aran runs a hand over his face. “It’s not like that. I… Kita broke up with me because he didn’t want his grandma to know he was gay,” Aran says. “I… the idea that he’s gone and gotten himself a male partner means…”

“That he got over it and didn’t pick you?” 

“...yeah.”

“I mean it’s been fifteen years, Aran,” Osamu says, and now he sounds… pitying? It shuts down Aran’s anger response with some kind of humiliation. A tone that says: did you really think he’d be in love with you after all this time?

“I… I know,” Aran says. “I just…”

“Just ask him,” Osamu says after a minute, and Aran can hear the sympathy creeping into his voice. 

Aran nods slightly, before forcing cheer into his voice and saying: “Well, hey, what about you, are you seeing-”

Osamu hangs up on him.

Oh. 

Aran stares at his phone, sends him about eight angry emojis, and then puts it away to go back to staring at the wall and wondering when, in fact, his life had gotten so off kilter that Kita Shinsuke might have fallen in love with someone else. No, he hadn’t expected Kita to wait around with him. He hadn’t expected it at all  - Aran certainly hadn’t, he hadn’t harboured any belief that he’d ever get his Kita back. But that was different. That’s because Kita had told him he wanted the nuclear family, he wanted the wife and kids, to do his grandmother proud. Aran would have tried to convince him otherwise if he had thought it was possible, but he hadn’t thought it was possible. 

It hadn’t been possible. 

And yet… 

---

“No, I’m gonna live forever,” Atsumu says, folding his arms back behind the couch, an arrogant display of confidence. “I know it.”

“Shut up,” Osamu says, at the same time Suna adds:
“You won’t live past forty.” 

“What the hell is that?” Atsumu says, glancing over to Suna, who was still distracted on his phone. “Did you just fuckin’ curse me?” 

“Maybe.” 

“What did I miss?” 

Aran lifts his head, turning to look back over his shoulder as Kita came into the little living room. Normally they didn’t meet at the twins’ place, for any myriad of reasons, but Kita hadn’t been willing to host and Suna had what he called a ‘pest infestation’ which turned out to be two nieces that had come in for a family visit. Aran had offered, but the twins had insisted. 

It was nice here though.

He’d gotten really, really used to seeing Kita in Kita’s own home, in the place he was most comfortable and familiar with. The version of Kita that was in somewhere different was… 

Well, if Aran had known better, he’d say he was more relaxed. Like he wasn’t so afraid of the Gods watching him err. 

“Suna just cursed Atsumu to die at forty,” Aran replies, giving Kita a smile as he scooted in front of them on the couch. 

“Oh, okay,” Kita says. 

“No, not okay!” Atsumu wails. “Kita, tell him he’s not allowed to curse you!” 

“Well it sounds like it’s too late for that,” Kita replies, and then-

Sits down on Aran’s knee. He shifts a bit to get comfortable, then leans back against Aran’s shoulder to wrap an arm around himself and steady him. 

It occurs to Aran that with Osamu on his other side, Kita might not have wanted to sandwich himself in between them, and clearly hadn’t wanted to go across to sit with Atsumu, and-

Nobody says anything. 

Suna has begun snickering, because Atsumu is complaining loudly about how rude it is to curse someone without consent, and Osamu is pulling out his phone to google other curses he can place on his brother, and none of them, not one of them, seems to blink twice at the display of affection. 

Oh, right. 

They’d told them they’d started dating already. 

Is this… normal? 

Kita was never this affectionate though. Not at the farm, at least - he’d actually demanded Aran agree to keeping their relationship a secret from their parents. 

But the twins’ parents were out, and it was just them here… 

In the safety of a strangers’ house. 

And their friends didn’t care. 

And Kita had wanted to sit with him. Aran thinks he could stay like this forever, he hopes Kita never has an available chair. 

He puts a hand on Kita’s back, and presses a kiss to his arm, trying, psychically, to transmit how much adoration was building in his chest. But then everyone is distracted because Atsumu has decided to forgo politely requesting the curse to be undone and instead has attacked Suna. 

---

He’s just about ready to die with boredom and the inescapable mental image of Kita having sex with anyone that wasn’t him when the door opens. He lifts his head, seeing Kita come in with his head down, distracted by his phone. That was unusual for him - he normally didn’t pay that much attention to it, especially when he was still muddy from work. 

He carefully takes his shoes off, and Aran wheels himself back a bit to look at him more properly as he comes in the door towards the living room. His overalls are stained with dirt and grass, and it looks like he could really use a shower, but instead of trudging off to do exactly that - usually his first task when he came in from working - he looks up to Aran with something akin to shock on his face, and says: 

“Ushiwaka is retiring.” 

“What?” Aran says, adjusting how he sat to sit up a bit more, though his back protests the movement. “Really? Who says? He announced it?” 

“Not officially, no,” Kita says. “Osamu messaged me.” 

“Osamu? Why does Osamu know?” 

Kita has to think about this for a moment, before lifting a hand to draw a pattern in the air as he says: “No, well… Okay, so Osamu got it from Atsumu, who got it from Sakusa, who got it from Iwaizumi who got it from Oikawa who got it from Hinata who got it from Kageyama who Ushijima told he was retiring. Which, now that I’m saying it out loud, doesn’t seem like a reliable source of information. So Ushiwaka might not be doing anything, actually.” 

Aran raised his eyes. “Really, he’s retiring?” 

“According to the train,” Kita says, heading into the living room, crossing his arms. “I supposed it’s about that time - I mean, he’s our age, after all. It just… he’s still performing close to the top of his game, I don’t think anyone was expecting him to tap out now.” 

“Did Osamu have any other information on it?” Aran asks. “Like, did he get injured recently, or…?”

Kita shrugs. “He hurt himself last year, apparently, which might be contributing to it. I think Osamu said Atsumu said Sakusa said Iwaizumi said Oikawa said Hinata said Kageyama said that Ushijima had been taking a lot more physiotherapy sessions with his training, his shoulder is apparently wearing out really fast in games now. But nothing that should have ended his career.”

“Well is he coming back to Japan, then?” Aran says. 

“I don’t know. Osamu said he’s still getting gossip trickling in, and we’ll probably know more when Ushijima makes an official statement, but…” 

“No, I agree,” Aran says quickly. “That’s insane. I… I mean, he’s been playing on our national team since he was sixteen - well, youth team then, but… it's just.. I can’t imagine Japanese volleyball without him in the discussion.” 

“Neither can I,” Kita says, before looking down at himself. “I’m covered in dirt. I’m gonna go shower, okay? Need anything before I go?” 

“Uh… no, no, I’ll be okay.”

Kita gives him a nod, heading down the hall for a moment before stopping and glancing back at him. “Oh, by the way, Atsumu is coming home for some… family event, next week, so I was gonna go out for a drink with them, do you wanna come? It’ll require getting you into the truck but I think we can make it work.” 

Aran gives him a nod. “Mhm. Yeah, that sounds great.”

---

Despite the surgery and various aches and pains that came with recovery, Aran finds himself actually enjoying the quiet solitude of Kita’s farm, and the pleasantness of a slow summer. He thinks it’s been years since summer was filled with sunny, warm days, drinks with friends, board games and puzzles and watching TV. His summers had always been… work. 

Prep for whatever game was coming next, hitting his next target at the gym, keeping in shape to make sure that 22 year old outside hitter the Falcons just recruited didn’t take his spot. Running. He spent a lot of time running. But now his leg was broken. 

So he spent a lot of time doing puzzles, instead. 

It was liberating, he thinks, to stay put. To enjoy the calm. 

Kita likes puzzles. He likes puzzles the way every eighty year old likes puzzles, with intense commitment and complete dedication. Aran spends most of his time searching for pieces secretly watching Kita work. He’s methodical, and specific, and sorts through pieces like a machine, checking colours and shapes for exactly what he’s looking for. 

“Wobbly tooth with a yellow tint… wobbly tooth with a yellow tint…” Kita mumbles under his breath, tapping pieces like he’s counting them to mark them inadequate for what he’s looking for, before shifting to sit forward on his knees and lean over to investigate a new patch of the spilled pieces. 

Aran would be lying if he said he hadn’t spent a considerable amount of time trying first to find Ushiwaka’s instagram, and then scan through the last few months of admittedly painfully boring posts to try and see if there was any indication of why he might be retiring. 

The entire concept intrigued him. Not about retiring - he knew what retirement was - but about choosing to leave. Ushijima had not yet been ousted by the incoming wave of talented volleyball players. Hell, he’d been Japan’s team captain for the last Olympics they’d competed at, to walk away seemed crazy. 

It was also the idea of playing without him. Aran had been lucky enough to be recruited for the national team a more than once, but the idea of going back next year, if he made it again, and not having Ushijima on team Japan was… wild. 

Outlasting Ushijima for years playing volleyball seemed impossible.

And yet. 

But the instagram account hadn’t really clarified anything for him. Considering within the last six months he’d only made ten posts, most of which seemed bland and in service of making sure people knew he was technically still alive, there was nothing to indicate he was choosing to retire at all. 

Maybe Osamu’s insane train of gossip had gotten it’s message wrong. 

“Ahah!” 

His thoughts are interrupted by Kita finding the wobbly-tooth-yellow-tinted piece he wanted, victoriously sticking it into the slot it belong and looking up at Aran. 

“You do puzzles weird,” Aran replied. Kita did, in fact, do puzzles weird. He did puzzles like a printer, finding all the edges and then filling it in one row at a time, searching for each puzzle piece individually. He had all his pieces laid out, and would try them one by one into each spot, and when one clicked, he’d start over on the next space, only occasionally skipping pieces that were obviously the wrong colour or shape. 

It was the equivalent of trying to guess a combination lock by starting at 0001. 

“And yet,” Kita says, waving his hands down to the puzzle to indicate it’s half-complete status.

“And yet,” Aran agreed, laughing softly. 

Kita’s eyes shift down to what Aran was working on. The puzzle was just a collection of flowers and different plants done in a painterly style, and Aran had started building a purple hyacinth in his own little space, since Kita’s method didn’t leave much room for teamwork. 

“You’re doing it out of order,” Kita says, before going back to his piece searching. 

Aran sighs. “Consider it… removing unnecessary pieces from your potential pool of matches.”

Kita hums a response, and doesn’t look back up at him. 

Aran goes back to watching him, fiddling with a purple edged piece and not quite committing to trying to find it’s home. He focuses more on the slight sunburn across Kita’s cheeks, the soft curve to his face. He’s gained weight, Aran thinks. It makes him look soft, it makes him look… 

“So who’s Handa?” Aran says, before he can think it through. Kita glances up at him. 

“Handa?” 

“Handa Katashi, he came wandering through like he owned the place. Are you and him…?”

Kita blinks at him, before seeming to realize what Aran was insinuating and waving a hand frantically. “No, no, no, nothing like that,” he says. “Handa is doing some landscaping for me.” 

“Landscaping?”

“Yeah, I’m cleaning the place up,” Kita says. “But I’m just one guy, I can’t do it all by myself. So he’s helping me put the retaining wall up, in the back, to extend the yard a bit and open up the chicken run.” 

“Oh,” Aran says. 

“Did you really think I was sleeping with some twenty year old kid?” Kita says, raising an eye. 

“Uh - no, of course not,” Aran laughs, waving a hand dismissively. “Obviously not.”

Kita stares at him for a moment, before saying: “You’ve always worn your heart on your sleeve, you know. It’s easy to tell when you’re lying.” 

Aran huffs. “Well… given his informality and the fact he was just walking through your house…” he mutters, crossing his arms. “It’s not an unreasonable guess.” 

“He’s twenty, I couldn’t get him to respect me even if I tried,” Kita says, before smiling slightly and looking back down at the puzzle. 

Aran narrows his eyes. 

“What’s that smile for?”

“I’m not smiling.”

“You totally are, why are you smiling like you’re plotting something?” 

“I’m not smiling.” 

“You are.”

“I just… think it’s flattering that you think I could still pull a college kid if I wanted to,” Kita says, looking up at him with an expression that borders on smug. 

“Please,” Aran says. “You could get anyone you wanted, you look great.” 

Kita scoffs. “That is not true. The sun has not been kind to my skin, I look ten years older than I am.”

“You do not,” Aran says. “You look…” Gorgeous. Adorable. Incredible. Handsome. Stunning. Perfect. “...good. If anything, I’m surprised you’re not married, I thought that was… you know, that was your whole plan. Marriage, kids, the whole schtick.” 

Kita’s smile falls, and he goes back to looking at the puzzle pieces. “Well you know why I didn’t do that.” 

“I… I mean, you told me that was your plan,” Aran says. 

“No,” Kita replies, though he’s almost interrupting Aran as he does. “I told you I wasn’t going to date a man. I never said I was going to marry a woman. Besides, Granny kept me busy, especially in her last few years, I hardly had a moment to myself if I wanted to try and date.”

Aran nods slightly, running his finger over the edge of a puzzle piece. 

“I mean, your Granny’s been gone a few years now. Still haven’t been able to find the time?”

Kita’s jaw tightens. 

“Sorry,” Aran says immediately.

“It’s fine,” Kita replies, pulling back from the table and glancing behind him at the clock. “We should get going, though, we don’t want to be late to dinner.”

“Right,” Aran says, taking a deep breath. “It’ll be nice to get out of the house for a bit. Even if it does include having to see the twins again.”

“They’re not that bad,” Kita says. 

“...eh, well…”

---

“So I say to the kid,” Atsumu is saying, sitting up a bit to lean over the table as he talks, animated partly by personality, partly by beer. “I say, look. I’m not here to cause trouble, but I’ve never backed down from a fight, so if you’re gonna start causing problems, I’m gonna start throwing punches-”

Aran snorts, putting a hand over his mouth as he does. 

Kita groans, putting his hands over his face as he leans forward on the table. Everyone there has a soft, red warmth to their cheeks now, nobody less than two and a half drinks in, and the glasses at this particular establishment are generous. Aran’s the only one not currently suffering from inebriation, because Kita had loudly reminded him he’s on a whole cocktail of pain medication, and isn’t allowed to drink right now. Kita holds himself together well, but the twins tend to get loud. 

“I’m serious,” Atsumu says. “This young fucker is ruining team cohesion. You know what I saw him do the other day? So, because he’s some big star, coach pulled a few strings and got Iwaizumi to take him on as a client, right, so we’re in the gym, I’m there on my own, he’s having his session with Iwaizumi, and Iwa’s doing his whole… oh, you have to take things slow and steady, pushing yourself too hard leads to injury, slow down, don’t stress if you don’t hit every goal right away, you know, is usual thing, he doesn’t want his athletes to hurt themselves before they even see the court-”

“Something he started pushing after you sprained your ankle before that charity match, if I remember,” Osamu said. 

“Shaddup,” Atsumu replies, using one hand to clamp down over his brother’s mouth before continuing. “Anyway, this guy… goes off on him! Gets mad when Iwa tells him to take a break, then gets even madder when Iwa tells him to watch his mouth, and then you know what he said? You just don’t know what it’s like, I need to be better and prove to - some fucking asshole on the Frogs or something - that I’m better than him! You don’t know what it’s like to always lose! To Iwaizumi-fucking-Hajime! I swear, this kid doesn’t even know basic fucking volleyball history. He thinks I’m irrelevant because he got put on as the starter last match, and doesn’t give a shit about any of his seniors. Doesn’t even know what a favour coach did by getting him in with Iwaizumi. I hope Iwa drops him.”

“Oh my god,” Aran says, laughing softly. 

“If I were Iwa I would have punched the kid,” Atsumu finished, before yanking his hand away from his brother’s mouth and adding: “Did you just lick me?” 

“Yes. What did Iwa do?” Osamu replies. 

“Nothing. Well… He yelled back, obviously, Iwa always does, but not nearly enough for the situation, honestly the idiot got off easy,” Atsumu replies. 

There’s a soft snickering noise, and Atsumu’s eyes dart over to lock onto Kita, who has a hand folded in front of his mouth to muffle it. 

“You laughin’ is scary as shit,” Atsumu says. “What is it?” 

“Just… it brings me great joy to see you suffering from the idiocy of your juniors,” Kita replies, soft and sincere. 

“Hey!” 

This brings a round of laughter to the rest of the group, and for a brief moment, everyone pauses to take drinks from cold glasses, and nibble on the rest of their dinners. Aran leans back in his seat - awkwardly shuffled into a corner with his leg extended out to the side, and enjoys the relative… simplicity of being back in his hometown, with his hometown people. 

“Oh,” Astumu says, because he’s incapable of not being the loudest in any room. “Speaking of, I figured out why Ushiwaka is retiring.”

“Really?” Osamu says. “From who?”

“From Kageyama,” Atsumu replies, glancing between them. 

“Wait, wait-” Aran says. “If you’re still talking to Kageyama, why the hell was there this whole game of telephone initially?” 

“Well of course I can reach out to Kageyama,” Atsumu says. “It’s a matter of who chooses to talk to who. I don’t chit-chat with Kageyama on the weekends, so he doesn’t text me to tell me gossip. He tells Shoyo, who tells Oikawa and down the line it goes. But I have his number, and I didn’t wanna wait for the gossip to reach me, so I jumped the line.” 

“Oh, speaking of,” Aran says, pointing at Kita. “Why the hell is Kita giving me gossip updates? Why aren’t I anywhere in the gossip train?” 

“You have social media, dude,” Osamu says. “I just assume you see it on Atsumu’s story or whatever. Kita won’t know anything if I don’t text him, and I feel bad about that.”

Kita gives Osamu a grateful little salute. 

“I… don’t really check up on Atsumu his updates are usually annoying,” Aran says. “I feel like one of you should at least think of me. How much gossip have I missed?” 

Atsumu and Osamu shrug in unison, before Atsumu says: “Anyway, Ushiwaka-”

“Yes, tell us,” Suna says. “He’s the only person I can’t stalk online for information, he’s so boring and impersonal.” 

“Well,” Atsumu says, leaning forward on his hand and putting on a deeply immature secret sharing tone to his voice. “Apparently Ushiwaka is moving to France to get married. To a certain evil chocolatier. Kageyama’s words, not mine.” 

Aran raises his eyes. “Wait, really?”

“That’s why he’s quittin’?” Kita echoes. “Pretty sure there’s no law against being married and playing volleyball.” 

“Well,” Atsumu says. “It’s apparently not exactly cause and effect. Kageyama said it was more about… priorities. Ushijima’s been a superstar in volleyball since he was thirteen, and he’s just… he wants something different. Apparently this thing with the chocolatier has been long term and he just… wants to settle down. He’s also… he’ll be thirty five in a few weeks, he’s old, in volleyball years.” 

“In volleyball years?” Osamu echoes. 

“It’s like dog years, but for knee problems,” Atsumu says. 

“I think dog years are dog years for knee problems,” Aran says. 

“If you’re a German Shepherd,” Suna replies. 

“German Shepherds are known more for their hip problems,” Kita corrects. “But any purebred is prone to issues.”

“None of us are purebreds,” Osamu adds. “We’d all be mutts.”

“Mutts with knee problems,” Aran says. 

“Either way,” Atsumu says, waving a hand to try and shut everyone else up. “I just… wanted to pass along the gossip. Fairly, and to everyone. The… monster era is coming to an end. We’re all… old, and in pain. I heard Iwa - okay nobody’s allowed to repeat this to anyone outside this circle,” Atsumu says, leaning in. “I heard from Iwa, that Oikawa is thinking about skipping the next Olympics."

“No way, really?” Aran says. 

“Mhm. Apparently he’s been having - well, knee problems - but also, when he heard the news about Ushijima… Iwa’s saying Oikawa might only play one more season to confirm that he outlasted him and then step back. And… between you and me-” here everyone leans in, waiting to hear what Atsumu’s hushed tone indicated. “I think if Oikawa retires, and he’s not playing professionally anymore, Iwa might leave Japan to go be with him. Ninety percent of what keeps that man going is the appeal of playing against Oikawa. I mean, they’ve been married and living separately for a decade, if Oikawa gets a day job, Iwa will be gone before we can blink.”

“Shit,” Aran says. “You’re gonna have to find a new personal trainer.” 

Atsumu laughed, nodding. “I know. And that’s such a hassle.” 

“Well, what about you, then?” Kita says. “You’re only a year younger, you’ve gotta be dealing with knee problems by now.” 

“I’m… holding up pretty good, actually,” Atsumu says. “All things considered. I mean… definitely slowing down, don’t get me wrong. I look at videos of some of the shit I pulled off in my twenties and I can feel my joints crying.” 

“Yeah, you know, you’re taking the second setter demotion pretty well,” Kita says. “If I’d tried to make you sit out during high school you’d have completely flipped.” 

Atsumu shrugs, looking a little contemplative for a second. “Ah, I dunno,” he says, shaking his head. “Maybe I just… you know, I get what Ushiwaka is doing. The whole… next phase of your life thing. I don’t think I need to be the greatest setter in the world anymore. I mean I already did that.”

“Eh, debatable,” Suna says. 

“Don’t tell me you’re thinking of quitting too,” Osamu says, laughing simply at the suggestion. “Volleyball wouldn’t be volleyball without you in it.” 

Atsumu laughs with him, but Aran doesn’t think it’s particularly sincere. 

“No, no,” Atsumu says eventually, waving a hand before looking back down to his drink. “No, obviously not. Not yet, I mean. Not while I’m still mostly knee-problem free.” 

Aran tilts his head to the side, watching Atsumu wipe condensation off his glass. 

“What about you, Aran?” Suna asks. “Thinking about retirement yet? I mean, considering you’re casted up like you are.”

“Oh, the doctors said the recovery is worse than the injury,” Aran says, immediately, waving a hand. “It’s not career-ending by any means, so…”

“Good,” Osamu says. “Because if Atsumu’s staying, someone I like has to also stay, I am not flying out to watch the Olympics just for this idiot.”

This makes Atsumu snort, and nod slightly. 

“Yeah,” Aran says. “Don’t worry. I’ll be good to go long before then.” 

I am getting old, though. 

I’m older than Ushiwaka, at least. By a few months. 

Old by volleyball years.

“We already lost Bokuto, and Tsukishima,” Atsumu says. “Team Japan isn’t gonna look the same next time.” 

“I don’t think Tsukki ever played on team Japan,” Suna says. “He was offered last year but declined because he was recruited as a keystone speaker in a French conference for interdisciplinary utilization of Annales methodology. And then he retired right after, when he got offered a position in the archives in Tokyo National. He wasn’t old at all, real or dog years.” 

“Why do you know that?” Osamu says. 

“I follow him on instagram,” Suna replies, before correcting to: “Well I follow him with my secret account. He blocked my real account.” 

“Haha. Blocked,” Atsumu says. 

“Real nice,” Aran replies. 

“I didn’t know Bokuto had retired,” Kita says, looking over to Osamu accusingly. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Osamu leans over the table. “Bokuto retired three years ago,” he says. “I am begging you to get instagram. He got a dog and is working with Kuroo as the head coach of a children’s league. This is old news.”

“If dog and volleyball years are similar,” Atsumu says. “I wonder what dog-volleyball years are.” 

“I hate the sound of your voice,” Osamu replies. 

“We have the same voice, dumbass.”

“And I think dog-volleyball years is just basic multiplication," Kita adds. 

---

Kita laughs, as Aran lifts him up to sit him on the rough, wooden work bench in the dark shed. Lit only by the tiny, swinging bulb above them, the dust in the air made it stuffy to breath, but everything felt so concealed and isolated. Darkness, even though it was the middle of the day. Privacy, even though Kita’s grandmother was thirty feet away in the kitchen. 

“Careful,” Kita says, but he has to say it between Aran’s rough kissing. “Careful! There are… there are sharp objects… on this bench…” 

“I’m being careful,” Aran replies, before his hands have yanked Kita’s belt off. “It’s just been ages since we-”

“My grandmother is-”

“In the house.”

“I have work to do-”

“I’ll help you finish after.”

“Aran-”

Aran pulls back, just enough so that he can look down at him in the dark, completely messed up and disheveled down, the red glow on his face noticeable even in the dark. 

“Do you really want me to stop?” Aran asks, putting his hands on Kita’s hips. 

Kita stares at him for a moment, looking guilty as all hell before very softly saying: “No.”

“What do you want, Shin?” 

Kita swallows, and Aran feels his body flush hot as he watches his boyfriend’s eyes narrow to a borderline predatory gaze. 

“I want you to take my clothes off,” Kita says. “And then I want you to-”

---

Kita is… drunk. Drunk Kita isn’t especially interesting, that’s for sure. He’s sort of like normal Kita except his usually neutral face is more glare-y.

He’s also not super steady in holding and transferring Aran around. So after a brief trip to the ground on the gravel driveway, to which Kita continued to apologize profusely, Aran is finally helped inside, and slowly taken back to his room. 

“Well, that was nice to see the whole gang again,” Aran says. “Minus Akagi, but he’s… busy as always I imagine.”

“Mhm.” Kita agrees, leaning heavily on Aran’s wheelchair as he pushes him down the hall and into the room. Now they have to do another transfer, and Drunk Kita’s oddly weak grip comes back to haunt them. They do a false start, which has Aran wincing and laughing and asking for a breather, and then try again. 

“Kita, careful!” Aran laughs, before he’s twisting and very awkwardly getting tipped back against the bed. 

“I’m always careful!” Kita says, directly before getting yanked down with him, stumbling into the bed. 

“Ow.”

“Sawry,” Kita mumbles, face pressed into the blankets. “Are you in bed yet?” 

“Sort of,” Aran laughs, shifting and using the knee he could move to nudge at Kita’s stomach. “You’re laying on me.” 

“Oops.”

Kita shifts, pushing himself up and lifting a hand to run through his hair, messing it up more than it already was. Aran is suddenly, entirely, too aware of how close they are. 

Kita doesn’t seem to care. Kita is laying over him like it’s the most natural thing in the world, face flushed, eyes wandering. He’s almost smiling. 

And then he stops smiling. 

“I’m still mad at you for not telling me you got hurt,” Kita says, pouting at him. “When did I stop being your first call?” 

Like fifteen years ago when you told me to stop making you my first call?

He moves carefully, lifting a hand to rest gently on Kita’s arm. 

“Sorry, I… didn’t think you’d… I just figured you had your own life going. Big farm, lots of work, family… you know…”

Kita nods slightly, before saying: “I think I just miss you,” he says after a moment. 

“Yeah, Kita,” Aran says. “I miss you too.”

“And-” Kita starts, immediately, sitting up again. “When did you start usin’ my family name like that? You don’t need to be doing that, I’m not some… senior that you need to respect, I’m just…”

“Shinsuke,” Aran finishes, brushing his thumb across his arm. It does feel more natural, this way. To be close. Intimate. 

“Yeah, that,” Kita says, looking over to him with a bit of a pout. And then he groans, and lifting both his hands up to press into his eyes, shifting to sit on the edge of the bed. “Dammnit, I’m sorry. I don’t usually drink, it feels like my head is filled with cement.” 

“No, it’s… it’s okay,” Aran says. “I like a little bit of emotion from you.”

This makes Kita laugh, glancing over at him. “This isn’t emotion, this is a… beer induced breakdown.”

“Well if this is your breakdown then you are the most well-composed mess I’ve ever seen.”

Kita smiles for a second, before looking over at him. “I meant what I said, Aran. I really do miss you. And… you know, I know what I said, I know why we broke up, but… I dunno. Maybe I was just stupid, I didn’t think breaking up would put fifteen years of distance between us. I thought we’d stay friends.”

“I… wanted to respect your wishes,” Aran said. “I didn’t think I could be close to you without… risking outting you, and I wasn’t willing to do that to you, so…” 

Kita nods slightly, before saying: “You know, you’re probably right. If I’d had you within reach I probably wouldn’t have been able to keep my hands off you. Risk be damned, there was always something so… hot about it.” 

Aran raises his eyes, pushing himself to sit up a bit on his elbows, intrigued. 

“Oh?”

Kita laughs, looking away as if embarrassed. “The… taboo of it all. Do you remember having sex in my shed? I think about that every single time I go into that shed, and the idea of getting caught… I don’t know. You know, I… did everything my grandmother wanted of me, but… I can’t deny that there was something incredibly enticing about the risk of it all crashing down. Like maybe a part of me wanted to get caught, so that I didn’t have to choose if I’d tell her.” 

Aran, perhaps for the first time in his life, wisely chooses to stay silent. Kita was known for his triads about life and the nature of things, drunk Kita seemed no different. 

“I mean we know what I chose, right?” Kita says. “So maybe I wanted her to walk into the shed - you know, that day, I’d already decided. I’d decided a year before I ever told you, I knew I’d never be able to tell Granny anything. But, if we’d gotten caught, if it’d been forced out of me, I wouldn’t have had to make that decision. I would have been given an excuse to choose you, because there’d be no option to choose family anymore.” 

“You wouldn’t have tried to do damage control?” Aran asks, tentatively. 

“Nah,” Kita says. “I think… because my grandmother was so… strict about our family image, a lot of what was lurking beneath the surface I could ignore. She’d never say anything disrespectful in public, so I rarely had to hear it. But I think… if I’d actually heard her hate gay people - hate me, out loud, I would have been able to walk away. And… gods forbid she end up being racist about it, I wouldn’t have stuck around for a second. But she never was. Never out loud, so I never knew, and… I was scared. Of finding out.” 

Aran tries to sit up, but his back ends up hurting and he can’t really do it with the way his leg is positioned, so it’s a little awkward for him to reach out and put a hand on Kita’s back, to get his attention. 

“Shin-”

Kita looks over to him, eyes shining wet. 

“I’m sorry, Aran,” he says. “I’m a pretty miserable drunk. I should have warned you. I’ll be okay by tomorrow.” 

“Don’t apologize,” Aran says, lifting a hand up to Kita’s cheek, brushing his fingers across his skin. Just as soft as he remembered, regardless of what Kita said about the sun. “I have been in love with you since we were teenagers, it is not too late to-”

Kita shakes his head, pulling back from his hand. “No, I just told you, Granny-”

“Shin,” Aran repeats. “Your grandmother’s been gone for years-”

“You just don’t get it!” Kita says, standing up suddenly and throwing his hands in the air. He doesn’t even look back at Aran, though his voice is uncharacteristically volatile, wavering and cracking over his words. “You just… don’t get it,” he repeats, and then he has gone and left the room, door swinging just with a bang behind it, loud enough to make Aran wince. 

---

Aran drops his bag down in the corner of the locker room, before slowly sauntering over to where Kita was down on his hands and knees, scrubbing the small patch of wall underneath the lockers.

Before Aran can say anything, without looking up, Kita says: “Before you tell me it don’t matter if the wall here gets cleaned, consider that I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing this for me.” 

Aran stares at him for a moment, and then looks behind him, and around at the empty locker room. He thinks about this for a minute, before slowly bending down, grabbing one of Kita’s cloths and dipping it into the soapy water. Kita stops, looking up at him in surprise now as Aran wanders over to the other end of the lockers, kneeling down to start working in from the other end. 

“And what are you doing?” Kita says.

Aran slowly turns to look back at him. “Well that’s a bit hypocritical, don’t you think.”

“Well I know you ain’t doing it cause you like cleaning, so what’s up?” 

“I’m doing this for me,” Aran says. 

“You’re doing it because you like your walls to be clean?”

“I’m doing this because I wanted to ask you out to boba after school, and I need you to be ready to go before five if we’re gonna make it before the store closes at five-thirty. So consider me selfishly invested in the cleaning of this wall.” 

Kita stares at him for a moment, seemingly baffled by Aran’s decision to meet him in his frank directness. In fact, Aran is pretty sure he’d missed the confession in the sentence entirely in his surprise over the matter. 

They clean in complete silence for ten minutes, before he hears Kita clear his throat, and then, softly, say: “Yeah, I’ll… uhm… I’ll go out with you.” 

Aran smiles slightly, but focuses on cleaning.

---

Aran is spared from any great, length conversation not by Kita’s natural forgiveness (he was not known to forgive) nor any great revelations. Merely that Kita was hungover, now, and completely uninterested in any conversation. And although Aran was fairly certain not talking about it would make it worse, he somewhat guiltily was relieved he wouldn’t have to. 

You just don’t get it.

Kita was right. Aran didn’t. 

Had he not all but admitted he had been as in love with Aran for the past fifteen years as he had been with him? Had he not basically asked for a second chance, admitted to having regretted his decision, having wanted to stay with him? Aran hadn’t tried to push, he had been overwhelmed by the instinct to kiss him but had held back - probably smartly, though maybe not. Maybe a grandeur gesture would have gotten through to him. 

You just don’t get it. 

What don’t I get?

Maybe it was merely the ill-timed mention of his late grandmother. Kita had adored that woman, and treating her passing like it had any silver lining probably wasn’t smart. 

Yes, he decides, that’s it. 

Unfortunately, he comes to this conclusion after Kita has helped him into his wheelchair for the morning and taken him out, so he’s left to consider this point of view and watch anime on his phone for an hour. Then he gets bored, and wheels himself around the house to look at things. 

It’s all pretty much the same, and Aran has gotten used to the few changes in the few weeks he had been here. 

So he settles back and grabs his laptop off the coffee table, and works on sending some emails to and fro. He sends an email off to Iwa, wondering if he was going to have any hours available for extra post-physio training to help him get back up on his feet after the cast comes off. However, he words this email with the request “if you’re still around by then,” which occurs to Aran after he hits send reads like a vague threat against his life without the context of the gossip around Oikawa’s potential retirement. 

Oh well. 

He stares at the email for other reasons, too. 

He probably still has six weeks or so in the cast, which is… irritating to say the least, but he supposed he’d have to suck it up. That would put his physio starting mid-July, which means he probably wasn’t going to be actually training or playing until autumn…

He tries to imagine himself in autumn, living in his little apartment again and jogging around the outdoor track near where he lived. Going to the gym every day, preparing for the next big event. He tries to imagine the loud, busy volleyball gym his team practiced in, and then the roaring, loud stadiums of national competitions - of the Olympics. He had loved it, he’d loved it all. He thinks he’d have been heartbroken if this injury had ended his career. 

And yet-

A bird sings outside. And he has to reckon with the fact that that life did not include gossip with his friends, slow, quiet afternoons putting puzzles together, going out for dinner with his most favourite people in the world. 

He had friends, of course he had friends. And he saw Atsumu constantly, it was almost impossible to keep the man out of his hair, but… 

You know he kind of wished he could help Kita build that retaining wall, too. 

He wished everything was getting to dinners on time and long, loud, stupid conversations. 

Maybe he understood why Ushiwaka - why any of them - had retired before an injury took them out. 

His joints are sore. His apartment back home is quiet, and dark. 

He sort of wants a dog. And he really wants Kita. 

He thinks he could be happy, living a much slower life than the one he does now. Helping Kita run the farm sleeping in with him on days when there was nothing to do. 

If that’s even an option. 

It very reasonably might not be. Aran wasn’t sure what he just didn’t get, but he’s fairly certain that drunken outburst was a sign that maybe Kita wasn’t as interested in letting Aran into his picturesque farm life. 

He didn’t know, though. He didn’t know anything. 

He hears laughter, muffled from outside, and turns to look over his shoulder in time to see the front door open. 

And-

It’s fucking Handa. 

Well, it’s Kita too, slinking in behind him. But Aran feels himself resisting the urge to stand up despite his leg and try and fight the man right now. 

Handa is holding one of his hands in the other, looking around a little bit awkward, and Aran notices that it looks like he’s in some amount of pain. Not enough pain for Aran to feel bad about being angry at him, though. 

“Go sit at the table,” Kita says, to Handa, before disappearing down the hallway. 

Handa does as asked, and then notices Aran staring at him. 

“Ah… crushed a finger with one of the cinderblocks,” Handa explains, even though Aran certainly didn’t ask. 

Good. 

Wait no that’s mean.

“Sucks,” Aran says, instead. 

Kita reappears after a moment, carrying a first aid kit. 

“Let me see it,” Kita says, before taking a knee in front of Handa and reaching to turn his hand over. “Your nail was bleeding, so I’m gonna bandage that, but… I don’t know, I feel like maybe you should go to the emergency room anyway, you could have damaged the bone…”

Aran tries not to give a shit about Kita doting on and caring for Handa, especially when he himself was currently patient #1 and monopolizing most of Kita’s attention as it was, so it’s not like he had any reason to care. 

He stares off into the distance, at a turned off TV, and listens to Kita play nurse with a growing resentment for a twenty year old kid who really hasn’t done anything at all. 

“Ow,” Handa says. “Ow-”

“Okay,” Kita replies. “I’m not a doctor, but I’m sure something broken, or at least… fractured, I’m gonna take you to a hospital,” he says. 

“No, Shin-”

“I mean it. Medicine is not to be taken lightly. Your body is the only thing on this planet that you have, if you do not care for it, you are throwing away your greatest tool and asset. Even if it’s just a finger. An index finger is important for grip strength and dexterity, if you neglect it now and it gets worse, and it doesn’t heal, you may damage your only body irreversibly. And for someone who is making his living landscaping, you should be more cognizant of the health of your body. So I insist, let me take you to the emergency room.”

Aran smiles slightly. 

“...okay,” Handa says, and then Kita is calling: 

“Text me if there’s an emergency!” before he’s taking Handa by the arm out of the house. 

---

Aran does not end up texting Kita at all, and instead tries to pass the time in the living room watching old Fullmetal Alchemist episodes from his place in the wheelchair. He gets an email back from Iwaizumi saying he could definitely make that work, but Aran is fairly certain there’s a note of trepidation in the writing. Probably because of the implied death threat. 

It’s almost dinnertime when Kita comes home.

Aran glances up at him, surprised. 

“Long wait in the emerg?” Aran calls. 

“Hours.”

“You didn’t have to wait with him, he’s a big kid, he can handle waiting alone.”

“Well, he got hurt on my property,” Kita replies. “I don’t want to get sued for negligence. So I wanted to make sure he didn’t leave without seeing a doctor.” 

Aran hummed, feeling particularly childish now for the jealousy brought on by Kita’s baseline normal amount of care for the average person. 

“How is Handa doing?” 

“He’ll be fine,” Kita says. “The doctor said his finger bone was fractured, but only slightly. They didn’t even cast it, just wrapped it tight against his middle. So he’ll be fine in a few weeks. Sucks, though. He probably won’t be lifting any cinderblocks for me this month. We’ll have to finish the wall in July.” 

“If you wait long enough, I’ll do it for free,” Aran says, before he can think it through. 

Kita looks at him, slightly judgementally, eyes roaming down, over his casted leg, then back up to Aran’s face. 

“You’ll be longer. You won’t be able to do it until late August, maybe September.” 

“Yes, but I will do it for free,” Aran repeats. 

Kita narrows his eyes. 

“I’m not sleeping with Handa,” he says. 

“I just don’t like him,” Aran replies. 

Kita huffs, then says: “Sorry about being gone. Were you able to eat at all? I know the cabinets and stove are too high to really use from a wheelchair. I missed lunch.”

“Not really,” Aran called. “I am very hungry, but I didn’t want to be a bother. You said to only text in emergencies…”

“Stupid,” Kita mutters back. “I’ll make an early dinner, then. Hold tight.”

“Holding!” 

---

Kita is a pretty good cook, and they eat in companionable silence. Occasionally, over his shoulder, Kita glances at the paused anime on the TV as if trying to recognize it. Aran watches it for a little bit, before saying: 

“Do you remember this show?” 

“It’s the one about the blond kid with the magic powers.”

Aran narrows his eyes. He has no idea if Kita has any memory of this show based on that description. 

Kita looks back at him. 

“...sort of. I tried to get you to watch it all throughout high school. You hated it.”

“Oh, it’s that show,” Kita says, then: “You’re still watching that?”

“Rewatching. It’s really good.”

“It’s… fine,” Kita concedes. 

“I got you to watch at least half of it. Surely you remember something other than blond.”

Kita shrugs. “I’m gonna be honest, Aran, I mostly agreed to watch the show hoping we’d get at least to second base. But you were always a little too invested in it.” 

Aran has begun choking. 

“Breathe,” Kita says, frowning. 

It takes Aran a second to recover, rubbing his chest for a moment before saying: “What was that? You did what?”

“Yeah, when a hot boy asks you to watch anime with him you don’t say no. I mean, it’s the same reason you’re asking me to wait to do landscaping so that you can do free labour, yeah?”

“I’m not trying to get to second base with you!” Aran replies, before having to rethink his own words. Well…

It makes Kita laugh anyway, and he waves a hand. “Whatever. My point is I wasn’t paying a lick of attention to that show, I was hoping you’d put your hands on me. And frankly, I’m a little offended that you thought I was actually watching it.”

“It’s a good show!”

“It’s fine at best!” 

“That’s-” Aran has to stop himself from shouting, breaking into laughter instead. After a second he hears Kita do the same, putting a hand over his mouth. It’s a very nice sound. 

---

The next week passes with all the eventfulness that a slow summer promises. Without Handa around, Aran’s in a bit of a better mood, but he still wishes he was able to help out more. Kita deals with his chickens, his garden, and whatever efforts are to be done in the rice fields. He keeps ominously referring to “getting the combine out” and Aran’s been too afraid to ask. 

The next few days after that came with Atsumu’s departure. Him and Osamu hadn’t been too chatty about what he’d come back for, though Aran figured it was something in a long line of family issues they were both tasked with resolving as the eldest sons. (Their parents did not acknowledge the thirteen minute difference.)

Or, perhaps, it had just been a friendly visit. It could be hard to tell, since either way led to frequent screaming matches. Aran did not understand their family.

Either way, Osamu tells Kita and Kita tells Aran that Atsumu’s flying out on Thursday, so they plan one more visit for Wednesday. 

It’s melancholy, in a way things aren’t usually. 

Maybe it’s just because Atsumu is leaving Osaka again. Maybe it’s just because everyone had been home. Maybe it’s just because it felt like they were all so old now, or maybe Aran was just getting sentimental. 

But it feels like the first goodbye. 

Or, maybe, it feels like a last goodbye. 

Aran is fairly certain he can hobble his way around on crutches now, his back isn’t so sore, and he’s been getting a bit more comfortable moving and adjusting on his own. But Kita insists on not risking anything and pushes him through the doors to Onigiri Miya in the wheelchair instead. 

“Hey!” Osamu calls from behind the counter. “Just give me a minute, I’m still cleaning up.” 

Atsumu is sitting by the counter, chewing on a meal absolutely made after the kitchen was closed, and glances up as they enter. 

“Hey,” he echoes. 

“Hey,” Aran says. “Exciting to head back to real life?”

“Mhm,” is the reply, and it’s missing Atsumu’s usual level of stupidity. It almost seems like he feels the melancholy too. 

“What, gonna miss us?” Aran teases. 

“Always,” is the reply, which catches Aran off guard for its sincerity. Osamu, behind the counter, glances over to eye his brother for a second, but ultimately decides to ignore it. 

Osamu cleans up, and right as he’s finished, Suna is dragging himself in with perfect timing to stand in the doorway and wait for them. 

“We’re coming,” Osamu calls. 

Suna decides to wait outside. 

They walk slowly, along old, familiar river banks. The sun is setting, late in the summer hours but leaving everything in a nice, warm glow. There’s nothing quite like a summer sunset. 

They talk about everything - about nothing. Atsumu can’t leave silence for very long, and ends up mumbling nonsense about his last game, about his current training, about his mother and the fact that he can’t come home for even one week without being put to work on chores. Osamu tells him he should have taken up his offer to stay on the couch, instead of going home, and Atsumu gives him the middle finger. 

They make it up the hill, towards the old Inarizaki school. It’s ground is a little rough, but Kita doesn’t complain as he pushes the wheelchair. He doesn’t talk at all, actually. They head around the back, they wander. 

Suna tells a story about the new coach on his team, and how he doesn’t think they’re getting along well. He doesn’t like him at all. 

They hear the sound of volleyballs, and it feels a little bit like a ghost of a memory. Aran thinks he’s making it up, in his head, when he hears it the first time. 

But he notices Osamu and Atsumu turn their heads as well. Kita turns him around, and they all unanimously agree that it’s so late.

So they wander. 

They know their way around this school like it was yesterday that they were running its halls. They find the old gym, the old step out front of its entrance. It’s been given a fresh coat of paint since they’d been here, but probably about ten years ago. It looks old, again. 

There’s the telltale sound of a volleyball being spiked into the ground. 

“Okay, nobody make a sound,” Atsumu says, creeping forward slowly to peer around the open gym doors and look inside. 

“Hot take,” Suna says. “We shouldn’t be secretly watching high school kids.”

“Shh,” Osamu hisses, which makes Suna roll his eyes. 

“Whew, those kids are good,” Atsumu says, after a moment. Aran cannot be realistically wheeled over to see what they’re looking at, but he hears the bang of the volleyball hitting the ground again, and then-

Screaming. 

Probably because of the adult man watching them. 

“Ah, shit, sorry-!” Atsumu shouts, putting his hands up. “We’re alumni! It’s normal for us to be here! I-”

“Holy shit!” one of the kids inside shouts. “Are you Atsumu Miya?” 

Atsumu immediately perks up. “Why yes I am.”

“...did you come to watch us practice?”

“No,” Atsumu says, immediately. “And don’t tell anyone I did. We were just wandering by, reminiscing about the ole’ school…”

“We?” one of the kids says. 

Four other heads pop into view, and one of the students screams again. 

There’s three of them. Two kids look about average for high school volleyball players, tallish, a little lanky - clearly they haven’t started weight training at all, so first or second years. The third one is a young girl, her Inarizaki jacket zipped up to her chin, looking at everyone with wide, scared eyes. 

Either a manager or a girlfriend. Probably the former. 

Atsumu, emboldened by their recognition of him, steps up into the gym to look around. 

“Yep,” he says. “Just coming to take a gander at the place. Lots of good memories in this gym - you two on the team?” 

“Yes sir!” the slightly-taller boy says, shaggy hair almost blocking his eyes and making him look goofier than he probably was. “Uhm…”

The other one was looking through the crowd at Aran. 

“Is that-”

Aran gives them a wave, and the student squeaks, balling his hands up in excitement. 

“It’s so cool to meet you, Mr. Ojiro!” the kid shouts, before immediately growing more serious. “Wait, are you hurt?” 

“Unfortunately,” Aran called back. 

“You’re not gonna be out of the game, are you?” the kid says, and suddenly all of them are scampering forward, all concerned. “That looks serious-”

And now he screams again, probably because Suna had bent himself around Osamu to look at them. 

It occurs to Aran in that moment that the three currently most famous Inarizaki volleyball alumni have just wandered into the practice of two Inarizaki kids who like volleyball enough to be still practicing at eight-thirty in the evening. 

One of them looks like they’re about to have a heart attack. 

Gripping the volleyball like he wants to crush it, the slightly-taller-one says: “Mr Miya do you have any advice for getting better at setting? I want to get better at setting.” 

Aran is a little bit concerned that both kids are going to have a heart attack. 

“Well, let’s see here,” Atsumu says, wandering around like a volleyball guru, hands on his hips, thinking deeply. “Obviously, it’s important to always keep yourself in shape, just being good at setting isn’t enough, you need to have great stamina, even better endurance. If you’re not already, I’d start running. Daily. And building up your basic skills. And eat healthy, too! Talk to your coach if you don’t know how to feed yourself, make sure your body’s in good condition, and it’ll be much easier to hit higher and higher levels of gameplay.” 

They both stare at him with wide eyes, before nodding quickly. 

Osamu is staring at his brother like he’s an imposter. 

“You boys don’t need Atsumu’s advice.”

Everyone is surprised to hear Kita speaking, none more so than the three students, who seem baffled that anyone would dare consider their words more important than Atsumu’s on matters of volleyball. But Kita isn’t looking at them, he’s looking at the ground, zoned out, in thought. 

“Atsumu was a genius, but he wasn’t born gifted by any means. What made him great was his desire to constantly outdo himself. Or, well, outdo his brother. Some of us learn temperance and diligence from our ancestors, some of us from our circumstances, some of us from our friends. But you kids already know that. You have each other - if you’re here this late at night, you’ve already got everything Atsumu had before he was great. All you have to do is not quit. You’ll be terrible for a while. And then you’ll be mediocre, and if you’re lucky, with a good enough team, you’ll be great. And if that’s not good enough for you, you were never going to make it in volleyball to begin with.” 

The kids stare at him for a moment, before the girl, who had yet to speak at all, says: 

“Who are you?” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Kita says, before backing up and pulling Aran’s wheelchair with him. “It’s getting late though. Shall we go?” 

Atsumu and Osamu nod in sync, and the former turns around to give them a salute.

“Just keep practicing,” he says. “You already looked great, just… keep at it. Don’t let yourself feel like you’re ever good enough. And meet the guys on rival teams, they’re probably pretty cool too.”

“Yes sir! Thank you sir! Would you maybe consider coming back and-”

“No.”

“Okay! Thank you!” 

The old Inarizaki team pulls away, the kids watch them from the doors to the gym. Everyone walks and pretends they can’t feel them staring. 

“Don’t turn around,” Suna mumbles, lifting up his phone with the camera turned on to check behind them. “They’re still there.”

“This is weird,” Osamu says. 

“I can’t help that I’m famous,” Atsumu replies, putting a hand on his chest. “I’m just that cool, you know.” 

“They recognized Aran too,” Kita says. “And Suna.”

“Yeah, but they only asked me for advice,” Atsumu says, grinning back at them all for a moment before they’ve turned the corner, and they’re heading around the front of the school now, to return to their slow, meandering walk around their old haunt. “You know, it’s a great honour, being this school's greatest and bestest alumni. Really, an honour.” 

“Oh, shut up,” Osamu says. “Like you needed any more of an ego boost.” 

Atsumu snickered. 

“And you should be careful with your advice, Atsumu,” Suna drawls, slowly. “Give it out too well and in three years that kids’ gonna be competition.” 

“Ah, let him have it,” Atsumu replies. 

Osamu stops walking. It takes everyone else a second to notice, and they all slow as well, turning to face Osamu. Atsumu walks the longest, before turning to look back at him. 

There’s a stare down for a moment, before Osamu says: 

“You’re planning on retiring, aren’t you?” 

Silence.

Aran actually holds his breath for a second, unsure why it was such a tense moment. Maybe it’s just the way Atsumu looks back at him, as if terrified of the words being put out into the world. 

After a second, the admission comes meek and shy: 

“Yeah.” 

“If it’s because you lost your position to that new setter-” Kita starts, undoubtedly about to go off on some tirade about how it’s not about accolades or titles but personal happiness, but Atsumu cuts him off. 

“It’s not about that,” he says. “It’s not, I promise it’s not, if it were about that I’d be… doubling down and working harder and proving I’m the best setter in Japan, I know how to work hard, it’s not that.” 

“What is it, then?” Aran asks, perhaps only because he’s becoming increasingly invested in the reasons someone might walk away from the sport they all love so dearly. 

Atsumu looks almost embarrassed for a second, before saying: “Sakusa’s retiring. Or… he did, actually, he already told the coach, he just hasn’t made it public. He-” and now that he’s speaking, it’s like he’s unable to stop himself. “He can’t play like he used to, the wear on his joints is giving him damn near crippling pain, some days. Hyper extending like he does while leaping around, he’s wearing every kind of compression brace he can find, it’s just not… he just can’t keep playing. He’s in too much pain. And I… It’s not like… It’s not that I think volleyball is… is better with him around, but… You know I keep thinking about letting him just leave? And we… we’re not a thing, we’re not, we never were, but that was because we had volleyball. I never asked… I haven’t dated anyone in a decade,” he settled on, eventually. 

Osamu nods slightly, after a second. And Atsumu repeats:

“I haven’t dated anyone in a decade. Not because I can’t but because… you know deep down I always loved volleyball more than I loved anything else. And I just… the idea of letting him go, and not seeing him every day anymore, and just… him moving on to a new phase of life, meeting new people, getting a new job… I keep thinking… You know maybe I’m ready to love something more than I love volleyball. Maybe I don’t care that some twenty-something year old is gonna be the new hottest setter in Japan, maybe I just want to give myself a shot with this guy I adore. I haven’t… done that before.” 

“You’re banking a lot on this guy saying yes,” Suna says. “Sounds like you’re planning on ditching the dating step and going straight to marriage.”

“No, it wouldn’t be like that,” Atsumu says. “I promise, I know I’m prone to… stupid ideas, but this one isn’t like that. Even if he didn’t feel the same way about me, I’d still retire. I’m… done, I’m ready. I’m…one hundred and seventy-nine dog years, and it’s done a fucking number on my knees, and maybe I want to still have my knees around when I teach my kids how to play volleyball. So, I’m… going to retire. And I’m gonna ask Sakusa if he wants to get dinner, and I’m… going to be the best damn… whatever job I end up taking… in Japan. And I’m really excited to do it.” 

There’s a bit of silence, and Atsumu looks over at him. No, scratch that, Aran realizes. He’s looking at Kita. 

He was never quite able to shake his need for approval from him.

“I think that’s a phenomenal idea,” Kita says, when there’s enough of a silence he knows he needs to speak. Atsumu visibly relaxes. “The world will be better for whatever it is you set your mind to. And Sakusa is great. Very clean, well dressed. Out of your league.” 

Laughter ripples through the small group. It’s almost sad, but sad in the same way graduation was. A good kind of sad.

“Okay, so-” Suna starts. “Did you just… do that dog-year multiplication really fast or-”

“No, I googled it the night after we got dinner,” Atsumu said. “I was curious. Apparently it’s not just times seven there’s like a diminishing return on years for dogs.” 

Aran lets his breath out. 

“Hey, you know, if you’re looking for a career change, gossip around town says Iwa might be looking to pass on his client portfolio,” Suna says. 

“Guys stop, I think I accidentally threatened him the other day because of that joke,” Aran says. 

---

Atsumu flies out of Hyogo, and a small piece of their summer is changed. Not dramatically, mind you, Astumu hadn’t been living here in a long while. Neither had Aran. But those few blissful weeks had made it feel like high school all over again. They had good friends. 

Aran has decided his wheelchair confinement is over. Kita has some opinions about this, but he will not listen. Crutches are not comfortable, and his leg hurts when it’s not propped up, but he gets pretty good and moves himself around with them. Good enough that, one one nice, sunny morning, he’s able to take himself out back of the house, and down into one of the old, folding lawn chairs left by the porch and enjoy the sunlight. 

“You’re up early,” Kita calls, making him jump and open his eyes, looking through the light to find where Kita was coming around the corner with a basket of fresh brown eggs. “And you’re hobbling around like you want to permanently damage your back.”

Aran narrows his eyes at him. “I’ll be fine. The doctors said I was okay to start using crutches whenever it was comfortable.” 

Kita does not seem convinced, but takes a few steps up the porch to be on the same level as him. 

“Besides,” Aran says. “I’ve been cooped up for so long, I may as well be one of your chickens. Let me enjoy the freedom crutches bring.” 

“My chickens listen to what I say,” Kita replies, before turning to walk inside the house. 

“I doubt that’s true!” Aran calls after him, before deciding it wasn’t his problem and closing his eyes to soak up the sun. 

---

“Hey,” Kita says, scooting in suddenly as Aran is just sitting down on the couch in the living room. He hangs himself over the back of the couch, pushing in close beside Aran as he presents his phone to him. “Show me how to instagram.”

Aran stares at him for a second, before saying: “Wait, really?” 

“Yes, really! I tried to set up an account and now I don’t know how to find anyone. I think there are like a hundred people pretending to be Atsumu online,” Kita says. 

“No those are fan accounts,” Aran replies. 

“He has fan accounts?” Kita said, incredulously, before saying: “Wait, what’s a fan account?” 

“It’s a… actually you’re probably better off not knowing. Here, come here-” and he pats the spot on the couch beside him. 

Kita complies, pushing himself up and hurrying around to sit down beside Aran and lean into him. Aran takes his phone, glancing over the newly opened instagram account. 

“So what made you suddenly flip and decide you needed to join the modern era?”

“Well, Atsumu’s retiring,” Kita says. “And Osamu’s not always reliable on the gossip. I mean, I missed Bokuto retiring, apparently! So I want to be able to keep up on my own. But this site is confusion and I can’t find anyone.”

“Here…”

Aran quickly taps in a few buttons, searching through to find all their friends, quickly tapping follow on the first dozen people that came to mine. Atsumu, Osamu - himself. Suna, Ginjima, Akagi, Omimi… 

“Do you have any family you want to keep up with?”

Kita shakes his head. “No, not really. Find that boy Atsumu thinks he’s going to marry, I want to see how that goes down.” 

Aran snorts, nodding and doing exactly as asked, hurriedly finishing up. Shortly after doing so, a message comes in on the account. 

“What’s that?” Kita asks. 

“Uh… Suna, asking if this is Atsumu impersonating you,” Aran replies, opening the message. “He’s skeptical.”

“Does that happen?”

“Identity theft online? Yeah.” 

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry, nobody’s gonna steal your identity,” Aran says. 

“Well tell Suna it’s me.”

Aran does as asked, though does take a moment to mentally note the irony of Aran typing “it’s me” to assure Suna that Atsumu isn’t pretending to be Kita. 

Suna sends back: unlikely.

Kita frowns. 

“Here, why don’t we post something to prove it,” Aran says. “Like, of the farm, or you. Something that makes your page feel like you.” 

“Oh… okay,” Kita says, glancing around. “What should I post? What does one post on instagram?”

“Anything you want,” Aran laughs. “It’s like a personal photo gallery? So like, your interests, your hobbies - life updates. Like, for example, when I came out here after getting injured, I posted a photo saying how nice it was as a post-surgery recovery location.”

Kita narrows his eyes. “Mhm. If people are posting stuff like that, that explains why Suna always knows everything.”

“Yeah it’s sort of just free information,” Aran agrees, before turning Kita’s phone camera on. “Here, come on, let’s take a photo, you can use that as your first post.”

“Sure.”

Kita scoots in closer, and Aran feels his hand on his shoulder, a little bit awkward in the position on the couch. He lifts the camera up to centre it, consciously aware of the way Kita leans in more to make their reflected image in the phone screen look nicer. 

Aran’s pretty sure he can feel him breathing. 

He takes the photo, and then Kita pulls away. Aran has to walk him through how to make a new post and select photos and where to find all the buttons, and Kita listens dutifully and seriously before taking his phone back to begin typing what Aran quickly realizes is a much too long caption. 

Ah, to each their own. If every one of Kita’s posts was going to come with a mini essay on whatever he wanted to talk about, that was his choice. 

In the meantime, he pulls open his own phone to find the account and follow him. It’s about the same time that Kita presses post, so when he refreshes the page, he sees it come up. 

He’s shocked by…

How old he looks. 

He hadn’t really paid attention to the photo when it was on Kita’s screen, but not that he was looking at it it felt like an outsider’s perspective. His own face, how it always had been, but suddenly so… different. Like he was realizing he wasn’t eighteen anymore for the first time. 

He doesn’t look bad, neither of them do. 

He really, really likes how they look, actually. 

Maybe it’s just the togetherness of it. Maybe it’s just that, if Aran ignores everything he knows about their lives, he can visualize a different world this photo comes from. One where their slow, summer days together are the normal, not a new experience, where Kita is always sitting that close to him, where they never separated, where things felt… at peace. 

Where Aran was recovering for more than just going back out on the court. 

For the first time, that miscellaneous heaviness in his chest takes shape. 

He wished the injury had ended his career. 

It’s scary, having to choose to walk away from something. High level sports was an all-in or all-out sort of thing. Sure, he could find a local league to play in, maybe he could work as a coach or trainer, there were ways to still be in the game without playing, but he’d never be playing again. No more Olympic villages, no more contracts and offers, no more incredible spikes scoring winning points. 

“Like maybe a part of me wanted to get caught, so that I didn’t have to choose if I’d tell her.”

You just don’t get it.

Aran glances over to look at Kita, who’s absorbed in looking at his phone now and catching up on years of social media abstinence. 

He puts a hand down, on Kita’s knee, to get his attention. Kita glances up, looking curious, and Aran is struck by how close they’re sitting.

I want this. 

Truthfully Aran had always wanted it. If Kita hadn’t been here, he probably would have gone back to Canada with his parents. Even when Kita hadn’t wanted him, he’d been his anchor for staying. 

“Aran?” Kita prompts, after a moment. 

“I know that… I know that you know I’m in love with you,” Aran says, after a minute, voice soft. “And… I know we didn’t talk about it, but… that night after dinner, you said some things that made me think-”

“I was drunk,” Kita says, and suddenly he’s pulling away again, and that warm closeness evaporates. Kita pushes himself up to his feet, tucking his phone into his pocket. 

“But you weren’t acting stupid.” Aran replies. “You told me you’d have wanted to stay with me - well, hell, Shin, I want to stay with you too. And I want this -  if you’re… if you’re afraid of me trying to change you, or not liking the farm lifestyle, I am… ready to stay. To stay here, to be yours, to make this place mine, I don’t want you to change at all, I want to be a part of it. And I get it, I… hate it, but I get what you did fifteen years ago, but things are different now.”

As he’s speaking, Kita has turned away from him, the back of his hand pressed to his mouth as if he’s barely able to receive what Aran was saying. When Aran takes a breath, Kita turns around, and almost shaking as he lifts a hand. 

“I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression,” Kita says, as evenly as he could. “I’m sorry if I got too comfortable flirting, or if I was too friendly, I don’t know, I-”

“Shinsuke,” Aran says, shifting to the edge of the couch the best that he can. “It’s okay. I…” he lets out his breath, trying to steady himself and be as rational and straightforward as he could be. Kita liked that. “Just… tell me you don’t like me like that, so that I can reckon with that properly. Otherwise I’m always going to feel like a door is open, and I… I want that open door, believe me.” 

Kita stares back at him, before shaking his head again. 

“I told you, when we were kids, I wasn’t… I wasn’t gonna disappoint my grandmother like that,” Kita says. “I told you. I told you, I couldn’t do it, this isn’t fair-”

“Shin-” And he grabs at his crutches, to push himself up so that he could be more level with him, since Kita was starting to look skittish, arms wrapping around himself nervously. “I… I know you loved her. I know you did, but she’s gone. You don’t have to live your life based on making her happy when she’s not around to-”

“I know that!” Kita says, and it’s so loud, and so suddenly, that Aran actually flinches back. “Goddamit, Aran, you think I don’t know that? It’s not about what I can do on earth, it’s not about what I can do with my lifetime, the point is, is that I…” he cut himself off, lifting a hand up over his mouth again, and Aran realizes he’s stopping tears from overflowing. 

Uh-oh.

“You what,” Aran says, trying to move towards him as gently as he can. 

“I never told her!” Kita finishes. “Not even on her deathbed, not even once she was so confused she didn’t know who I was, I never told her, and now she’s dead, and she’s watching me from Heaven, and I’ll never know if she’s disgusted with me, or if she’s angry, and pissed off, I’ll never know. And… and you’re right, I do think about sleeping with Handa on occasion, of course I do, but every time I have a thought like that I’m overwhelmed by the image of my grandmother disowning me from the afterlife. And I wouldn’t know if she did! And one day I’ll die. And I’ll have to meet her there, and… and face whatever it is she thinks of me.”

Aran shifts his weight, and to his surprise when he reaches out a hand, Kita doesn’t pull away. He lets him rest his hand on his arm. 

“She might have been okay with it,” Kita says, after a minute, as if talking himself through it. “She might’ve. But I won’t know. So… it’s not about you, it’s not about us, it’s not anything. I… I wish she had walked in on us when we were eighteen, I wish she had screamed at me, and disowned me, and hated me, so I could at least know, but the not knowing, the not knowing is eating me alive. So… I can’t… I can’t… be with men, I can’t… go against what she wanted for me, not now, not ever, it doesn’t matter that she’s gone. I can’t do it.” 

Aran squeezes his arm, gently, before saying: “Can we sit down.” 

Kita sniffs, before nodding slightly and looking away, helping Aran back up a bit so they could both retake their seats. Aran moves in as close as he can, and Kita jumps, slightly, when he realizes that Aran has pulled him in close. 

“Can I… point something out, that… maybe you already know?” 

Kita nods slightly. The red, puffy look under his eyes doesn’t suit him at all - especially not when his cheeks are still dry, like he’s shoving every physical reaction his body feels down as deep as he can. 

“Your grandmother already knows,” Aran says. “If she’s watching you from Heaven, then she… has heard you talk about it, has seen you think about it, she may have been able to ask any… number of your ancestors who saw us having sex everywhere but the bed. For better or worse, regardless of what she thinks, she knows. She knows you, now. If she despises you for it, she’ll despise you whether or not you punish yourself your whole life for who you are. If she doesn’t, she’s watching the most important person in the world to her ruin his life in her name.” 

The tears in his eyes spill over. It is the worst thing Aran has ever seen. Kita is not built for crying - everyone who knows him knows that, but more than any of them, Kita himself knows it. He’s never known what to do with emotions that he can feel, anxiety in his chest, sadness in his throat, happiness in his smile, he’s bad at filtering them out. 

So when he cries, it is brutal. It is overwhelming and uncontrolled and without the grace or elegance of someone who’s had a healthy dose of bad days to temper their feelings against. 

“Your choices have been made for you, Kita,” Aran says, softly, lifting a hand up to delicately wipe the tears off his cheek, holding his face. “The same as if she’d found out all those years ago. It’s not in your hands anymore.” 

Kita stares at him a moment longer, before another terrible, painful sob rolls through him and he says, with a voice weak from crying:

“I’m so afraid.” 

And Aran reaches out to hold him, doing the only thing he can think of, which is to hold him and hug him tight against his chest, and run a hand through his hair and try to convey, with every cell in his body, that anything that scares him will have to get through Aran first. 

And he feels Kita hold him back. 

---

“Are you sure you can walk?”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure-”

“I still think you should be using the crutches-”

“Shin-” Aran grabs him by the face, holding him steady. “The doctors cleared me - I’ve already started seeing physio - it’s not that big of an injury. I can walk now.” 

Kita looks back at him, doubtful, so Aran ends the conversation by pressing a kiss to his forehead and then pushing past him to get out of the truck. His leg is feeling weak, all things considered. But it’s a relatively short walk, and it’s good to get a bit of exercise with it, so he thinks he’ll be okay. 

Kita disappears for a moment, before coming back around with a bundle of flowers in his arms, and taking Aran’s arm under the guise of being cute to help him walk through the grassy, sunny cemetery. 

“Thank you, for coming with me,” Kita says, after a moment. 

“Of course,” Aran says. 

It’s a beautiful day - mid August, the sun is as hot as ever, the blue sky gorgeous. Aran is very glad to be walking now, but physio has been a lot slower. He hadn’t felt the need to push himself to get better - he wasn’t trying to make an season deadline. It had, it seemed, been a career ending injury. But that was okay. 

There were other things to do in life. 

Kita knows the way intimately. He wanders across short, green grass to find the white stone tombstone, carefully stepping forward to lay the flowers down at its base. 

“Hey, Granny,” Kita says, a waver in his voice. 

“Hello, Mrs. Kita,” Aran adds, glancing around and honestly sort of expecting a ghost to appear. But the world remains silent. The trees are blown, slightly, by a breeze, and the sun warms his skin. 

“You… uh… you probably already know why we’re here,” Kita says, stepping back and reaching a hand out to lace his fingers together with Aran’s. He squeezes his hand in return, and tries to convey that everything will be okay. 

“This is Aran,” Kita says, after a second, and then points up at Aran as if there was another person he might be referring to. He hesitates before continuing. “Uhm… You probably remember him? He was on the volleyball team, when I was in high school. He came over a few times. We… oh, god, what am I doing, you already know what I’m gonna say-” 

Aran squeezes his hands again. 

“I… I love him,” Kita says, after a moment. “I do. I like… guys. Which… you probably know, since you probably watches us drive up here together, and you… probably watched him kiss me goodnight, and… you know, you probably know everything, but… you didn’t raise a coward. And you certainly didn’t raise a liar, so I’m sorry it took me so long to say this to you, but… I’m doing that now.”

Silence. 

Of course there’s silence. 

The breeze tugs on the branches of the sparse trees, curling across his skin, a few stray bugs landing and investigate the two new people, the clouds puff and drift slowly above them. 

Nothing changes. 

Kita swallows, glancing down for a second and then looking up at Aran again. 

Aran nods, before saying: “I promise I’ll take really good care of him. He’s really special, you have a fantastic grandson-”

Kita smacks him. 

“Stop it.”

“It’s true!” 

And there’s a moment of silence, before Aran looks down to watch Kita suddenly start laughing, leaning in to press his forehead against Aran’s shoulder. 

“The world didn’t end,” Aran says, after a moment. 

“The world didn’t end,” Kita mumbles back, before tilting his head to look up at him. Aran stares at him a moment, before leaning down to press a soft peck to his lips. 

Kita smiles slightly, an almost authentic look, before Aran is getting smacked again. 

“Let’s go,” Kita says, and then they turn in unison to start walking down the quiet lane of the cemetery, Kita wrapping his arms more tightly around Aran’s now that he doesn't need to hold the flowers.

After a few steps, Aran says: “So how do you feel?”

Kita is quiet for a moment, contemplative, before saying: “I think I’m okay. Do you think she cares?” 

He lifts an arm up, to wrap an arm around his shoulders, pulling him in. “I think she loves you.”

---

Kita breaks up with him, and he’d have been lying if he said he didn’t think about ditching Japan and running back to hide with his parents. He thinks the heartbreak might kill him, actually. But he has a career to build. Atsumu is only a year behind him, and undoubtedly will take the professional volleyball world by storm when he graduates. He’s not sure if Osamu is going to try and go pro yet, but Suna was talking about it. 

He has an undeniably talented cast of friends, and in this moment, despite the heartache, despite the misery of Kita breaking up with him, despite feeling like it’s never going to get better, his entire life is stretching out in front of him. 

Maybe he’ll become the best volleyball player in the world. Maybe he’ll move to Italy, or Brazil, or somewhere fantastic to continue his career, who knows? The world is wide, the possibilities are endless. The Olympics! He really, really wants to go to the Olympics. And he wants to play on team Japan. 

He wants to play for Kita. 

So he thinks, maybe, that there’s plenty of things to do, still, in his career. And maybe, if he’s lucky, their paths will wind back together somewhere down the road. 

But until then, he’ll play as hard as he can.

He hopes he doesn’t take a career ending injury any time soon. 

---

“So,” Kita is saying, slowly, as he paces in front of Aran and momentarily blocks the view of the TV, making Aran shift just slightly to see around him. “Atsumu and Sakusa did, actually, get together. Atsumu wasn’t delusional.” 

“For once,” Aran replies, glancing up at him before Kita drops down into the seat beside him. 

“We should invite them over, next time they’re in Hyogo,” Kita says. “Do like… a double date thing. That would be weird, right? Double-dating with Atsumu? That feels weird. But the good kind of weird.” 

Aran smiles. “The good kind of weird. I agree. Did he mention any more about what he’s planning on doing now that he’s out of the game?”

“I think he’s taking Suna’s steal Iwa’s job suggestion sincerely,” Kita replies. “Especially because Iwa’s set to move to Argentina next summer.” 

Aran lifts his head. “Is he? Damn, you took to social media like a mini Suna.”

“What? No, Osamu told me. I haven’t even opened that app since I got it,” Kita says.

This makes Aran laugh. “Well how does Osamu know?”

“Uh… Osamu got it from Asumu, who got it straight from Iwa, so… a slightly more reliable train of gossip,” Kita says, giving him a small smile. “Oikawa hasn’t announced his retirement though, so… not sure what the story is there.” 

Aran laughs, nodding slightly. “Well, probably for the best. It was never really our business, was it? Even if it was a good guess.”

“Mhm.” 

And Kita glances back up at the TV, then over to Aran, then back at the TV. 

“What are you watching?” Kita asks. 

“Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood,” Aran says. 

“Has… has that always been the title?”

“No, no, this is the sequel series,” Aran explains, waving to the screen. “We never got there - but it’s pretty good on its own, if you wanna watch with me.”

“Sure,” Kita says, sitting back against the couch and folding his hands on his lap, staring steadily off at the TV. 

Aran turns back to watch as well. 

Kita clears his throat. 

Aran looks over at him. 

Silence. 

Kita stares at him. 

Aran stares back, for a moment, before suddenly the gears of his brain click into place, and he says: “Oh, shit-”

And he hurries to stand up, bending down to lift Kita up, tossing him slightly to adjust him in his arms. 

“Oh, my God, finally,” Kita says, as he wraps his arms around Aran’s neck and lets him stumble over the furniture in his haste to get him to the bedroom. 

“I know, I know, I know-”