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“Karasuno’s leaving now.”
Kuroo blinks once. Twice. Looks up from his beat up tennis shoes to meet Kenma’s heavy gaze and squints against the warm sunlight. The bricks are warm against his back, heated in the thick July humidity that settles in Tokyo during the summer and the suns rays flicker past Kenma’s head, turning loose wisps of hair into frail gold.
Kuroo grunts to indicate he’s heard but he doesn’t move, only shifting as the wall behind him grows uncomfortable to lean on. His back is pressed flat against the brickwork, legs splayed in front of him in a ‘v’ shape and hands clasped together in his lap, holding onto his fingers like a lifeline. His hands still shake. A breeze whispers through and the meagre daisies by his legs, squashed by too many feet moving around the last few days, seem to tremble with him.
“Kuroo,” Kenma says. Insistent in that own soft way of his. “This is your last training camp.”
Kuroo rolls his eyes. “I know that,” he mutters, not quite sulking but perhaps bordering on the line of grumpy kitten (he insists that he isn’t, when Kenma brings it up to him later).
“Sawamura-san was looking for you.”
Kuroo glances back down at the ground again. Ignores the heat at the back of his neck. Shoots the daisies a hard glare as they wave mockingly up at him.
He inhales. Exhales. Inhales again. Pushes himself off the ground, shaking out a cramp in his thigh. He puts his hands in the pockets of his shorts and uses his extra height to loom over Kenma.
“Ney, you’re not just using me as an excuse to say goodbye to Shrimpy, are you, Kenma?” He tauntingly draws out the ‘a’ in his friend’s name, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth when the question hangs in the air, unanswered. Kuroo knew the answer before the enquiry had even left his mouth.
It’s Kenma’s turn to look petulant and Kuroo barks out a laugh as a blush dusts Kenma’s freckled cheeks. Kenma shoots Kuroo a prickly look but he only claps his friend on the shoulder in response before striding past him, striding in the direction of the parking lot where Karasuno’s beat-up bus is sure to be waiting. He’s willing to help a friend in need because, well – he’s always this kind.
He doesn’t have to look back to know that Kenma’s following two steps behind.
Kuroo’s heart pulses in his chest erratically, like the jumpy needle of a seismometer at the height of disaster. The heavy heat sends trickles down his spine but he schools his features into some semblance of casualness as he ambles in the direction of the buses (no, Kenma, he’s not walking fast, this is how he normally walks, what kind of best friend is he if he cannot clearly see that?).
They round the corner and Kuroo wonders if it’s acceptable for him to duck behind the building again and catch his breath because the early afternoon sunlight is streaking Sawamura’s face but such warmth is nothing compared to the glow of his fond smile, the tug at his mouth visible even from afar as he corrals his rowdy teammates together. Kuroo stops and stares for a moment too long, heart shrivelling in his throat.
He can’t even finish about thinking of a hasty escape because Kenma is moving forward, moving past him, and the Shrimp has spotted them, breaking away from the group and bounding forward like an excitable puppy. Kuroo can almost see his invisible tail wagging.
“Kenmaaa!” Kuroo winces as the shriek cuts through the haze in his head. Hinata Shouyou is a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day but Kuroo is a firm believer that too much exposure to the sun results in unfortunate consequences.
He slightly fears for Kenma’s health.
Kuroo’s eyes flicker past Hinata and his gaze snags Sawamura’s; they share a grimace and Kuroo’s heart can’t seem to catch a break, pounding in the column of his throat, a silent scream of get me out of this mess. Sawamura tilts his head a little to the left, an inviting smile gracing his face. Beckoning.
Sawamura Daichi is like an anchor to him; tugging, tugging, an unstoppable force that he can’t help but follow after.
Squaring his shoulders and shaking them slightly on the way down, Kuroo manoeuvres around Kenma and Shouyou. He saunters over to Sawamura because he’s cool and collected and his heart isn’t tripping over itself in his chest, frantic fluttering like a bird trapped in a cage.
He stops in front of Sawamura. Pauses. Reminds himself to play it cool.
“Hey,” he says, because he’s not cool, he’s so lame, and he’s a little insulted that hyperactive fifteen year old Hinata Shouyou has more than game than him.
Sawamura shoots him a wry smile. “Hi.” He glances over Kuroo’s shoulder, at the back of Hinata’s head. “I didn’t expect to be waiting around for so long.”
“I know you’re secretly glad that your favourite captain came to say goodbye to you.”
Sawamura schools his expression into one that is duly unimpressed and cocks an eyebrow before glancing around exaggeratedly. “Funny, I don’t see Bokuto-san around here.”
Kuroo huffs out a laugh and fakes a wince, placing a hand over his chest and inclining his head to glance at the space the worn tarmac leaves between their feet. One more step and their toes would be touching. It might as well be infinity.
“Ouch, Sawamura-san. You wound me, really.”
The teasing is safe ground. He can work with this.
But with the summer sunlight enveloping them, highlighting the clusters of faint freckles across Sawamura’s cheeks and sifting through the strands of his hair, throwing long shadows across his face, Kuroo feels like he’s losing his footing on the familiar ground he’s built up for the two of them.
Sawamura looks like he’s carved from marble; unmovable, indestructible, but his features engraved with the utmost care, a loving touch – the soft swell of his lips and the dimples by his mouth completely at odds with his weighty composure.
I like you hangs heavy on Kuroo’s tongue as they regard each other for a few heartbeats. I really, really like you.
There’s a gravity in Sawamura’s eyes that makes Kuroo forget they’re only seventeen.
He doesn’t know who looks away first; maybe they both break at the same time.
Sawamura looks over Kuroo’s shoulder at Hinata and Kenma again.
“It seems like those two are getting on well.”
Kuroo glances back and hums in agreement. It seems that the Shrimp is primarily talking at Kenma, eliciting a few noises in response from the setter but Kuroo knows Kenma better than he knows himself and the way his eyes shine like that says a lot more than any words possibly could.
“Do you...have a problem with it?” Cautious. Apprehensive. Kuroo is reaching tentatively past safe ground.
Sawamura focuses back on Kuroo and smiles again, this one wryer, like he’s in on some joke that Kuroo doesn’t know about. “No. I don’t.”
There’s something hidden deeper in Sawamura’s gaze. Kuroo doesn’t know if he wants to read too much into it.
He opens his mouth again but is cut off as Karasuno’s coach yells something about not making it back to Miyagi before the sun sets and to get their asses on the bus now. The heavy atmosphere between him and Sawamura dissipates as the Karasuno captain takes a step back, shooting him an apologetic look.
He starts to turn away, finally reaching the point of actually rounding up his teammates onto their bus home, but pauses. Sawamura turns back to Kuroo and takes another step forward. Closes the infinity. Kuroo could count the eyelashes fanning across his cheeks.
Sawamura stretches up on his tiptoes and briefly wraps an arm around Kuroo’s neck in a half hug. Kuroo swears that whole universes form in the way their bodies press together, sparks and booms and a flicker of ephemeral invincibility; brief, but he can’t help but think that Sawamura lingers as he drops back down and steps away for good this time.
If he hadn’t been so caught off guard, maybe Kuroo would have made a comment about their laughable height difference. But instead he only stares as Sawamura shoots him the gentlest smile yet and a “see you around, Kuroo” before turning around for good and shooing the last of his team members in the direction of home (a home, Kuroo realizes with a pang, he knows nothing about). He doesn’t look back as he gets on the vehicle.
“You’ll catch flies.” Kenma’s monotone voice sounds from his left as his friend joins him; gaze following Hinata’s bounding steps onto the bus. Kuroo starts. He closes his mouth, ears tingeing with embarrassment.
The engine rumbles to life and his mind reels. Begins to wander.
Sawamura Daichi is the flutter of the volleyball net as a ball shoots past it; the glimmer of pride kindling in his chest after a successful block, the buzz of the blood in his veins, hours after training has finished for the day.
Sawamura Daichi reminds him of everything he loves about volleyball.
He knows he loves volleyball. He doesn’t quite love Sawamura Daichi.
But as Kuroo watches the bus speed off into the distance, throwing up dust as it finally turns the corner and turns out of sight, he thinks that it wouldn’t be so hard to try.