the afterfalls | 1745 words | originally posted for Kagehinaexchange tumblr

Notes:

This fic actually combines 3 alternating parallel universes:
i - AU where Hinata's older than Kageyama
ii - Canon timeline
iii - AU where Kageyama's older than Hinata

Dreams die instantly but people don't, not really.

Fortunately.

Instead, they die just a little inside when dreams do, then some of them come back up with a vengeance while the rest die a bit more as days go by until they die fully.

Hey, did you hear some rumours about the volleyball club lately? I heard they dethroned their ace.

The moment he lands, he will be Tobio the Hometown Hero instead of Kageyama the King.

Hinata doesn't believe in destiny, and that's how he has been living his life.

When the middle school he went to didn't have a volleyball team, he practised with just about anybody who would help. When the high school he went to didn't have a setter candidate in his year, he scouted relentlessly until someone could give him a toss high enough for him to fly. When he didn't secure a place in the national volleyball team, he played with all the neighbourhood teams until the national team's coach noticed him and allowed him a seat in the bench. When it was decided that he would need to be taken off the regular bench because his knee would never heal enough to allow him another match, he quit the team, returned to Miyagi and took on the position as the sports coach at Kitagawa Daiichi Elementary School.

Hinata doesn't believe in destiny, at least not when it doesn't include the parts where it could be changed.

Hey, did you hear about the volleyball club lately?

Wait, we have a volleyball club?

The first person Kageyama visits is Oikawa.

It's not like he even gets along with Oikawa, who had chosen to not pursue for a spot in the national team in favour of a career in auditing. They didn't even remotely like each other, so to speak, because it has been about a decade and Oikawa still calls him Tobio-chan and Kageyama still never fully trusts him. Tobio-chan, Oikawa often says mockingly, what a child.

But Oikawa's legacy in his volleyball career forms Kageyama's history, so mockingly or not Oikawa is part of him.

The kids are alright, Hinata thinks.

Those bright, smiley faces. Those hope-filled laughters. Those genuine friendships and sincere determination. Those sky-blue visions of their futures. Those goldmine of untapped talents. Those oceans of unlimited potential. Those naïve faces, those gullible minds, those growing bodies—they are more than alright.

It reminded Hinata of the reasons why he wanted to come back to Miyagi no matter what.

So it's true, I heard:

The King's gone.

Oikawa is, of course, still an insufferable genius.

"I knew something was up when you came back crying, Tobio-chan."

Kageyama would want to argue, of course he wasn't crying, who does he think he is? Kageyama doesn't do crying. He left the tears behind him when he boarded a plane to Tokyo. Kageyama is no child, Oikawa should stop treating him like one.

"So," the sound of Oikawa slurping is rather distracting, "tell me everything."

Of course, there's an exception to everything, because nothing ever works fully to Hinata's favour.

One particular student appeared to hate—no, that seems too much for someone that young to feel for an adult he barely knows, maybe detest? dislike?—him from the start. It's something he hasn't been expecting, because words have it that the entire school cheered with delight when it was announced that an ace from the national team will be returning and coaching them.

"Sensei, I've been so looking forward! Would you teach us how to jump as high as you could?"

"Sensei, sensei! I watched your match! You were so cool! Are you going to teach us to play as well as you could?"

"Sensei, you moved me! I'm now training to play sports thanks to you!"

But this boy, he looked away is such piercing disdain that he might as well had been saying:

"Sensei, you suck, why did you even come here?"

Hinata doesn't let it bother him, but there's an exception to everything and it seems like this boy is it.

Hey, are you really going there? We are going to miss you.

But it couldn't be helped, I guess. I had always wanted to join that school's volleyball team.

Karasuno, right? Really, is volleyball all you think about?

Oikawa doesn't say I told you so anymore. He kicked that annoying habit of his years ago.

But he keeps quiet, contemplates not just what Kageyama had just told him but also what to tell Kageyama back, because mockingly or not, Kageyama is his legacy and auditing career or not, volleyball was his history.

Yet, it seems like it doesn't matter how much time has passed, how mature they have become, how much more thoughtful Oikawa has chosen to be, there's no delicate way to say what he thinks:

I told you so.

The other teachers call the boy "Tobio-kun", no -chan behind, because he loathes it. The hero who flies, that's what his name says, how dare anyone add -chan behind, his glare would say. It looks like the boy doesn't like speaking a lot, prefering to play or train by himself if he could, leaving other people to guess his intentions from his body languages.

He's a pretty peculiar boy, from what Hinata gathered, because he's not exceptionally bright in studies but a once-in-a-lifetime prodigy in sports. It's not even because he was born with the talent but because he trains ridiculously hard; what a lucky little boy, really. Sometime there are teachers who would catch him spying on the junior high school boys playing in the field or watching DVDs of sports games—he's phenomenal, they say. Excellently observant, magnificently fast learner; it's a pity he doesn't bother with books.

Hinata doesn't understand him.

By default though, he should. They have so much in common, except for the parts about being intelligent and observant or whatever, but why does it feel like the boy hates his guts?

So he goes to him one day, tries to strike up a chat. Pretty easy of a task, Hinata's good with kids, even troubled ones.

Except Tobio isn't in the least troubled.

"You wasted your chances," he says to Hinata.

Start it all over again, or repeat history?

Sometimes they are not mutually exclusive.

The thing about Oikawa hating him has never surprised Kageyama.

Oikawa was never one to hide behind the securities of a pretense so he started calling him names Kageyama hated, saying things Kageyama wouldn't stand listening, deliberately ruffled his feathers, pulled his hypothetical tail whenever possible—come to think of it, it was like Oikawa was waiting for their relationship to turn into a straight up rivalry, from both sides.

Oikawa's difficult like that. He's like a cat in human suit, polishing his nails as he holds those furs he plucked from your body.

It wasn't until Kageyama got a spot in the national team that Oikawa told him the real reason he chose to stop volleyball after graduating university.

Hinata was telling himself, just earlier on, that he would hear the boy out. It's just an elementary school kid, what harm could it be?

But it hurts, deep down to the core, that it takes just an elementary school kid to tell him what went wrong with his entire volleyball career, entire life, those very things that he didn't want to admit to himself.

If only he went to a school with a volleyball team, if only he was good enough to attract more members to be trained as setters, if only he was more resourceful, if only he was more aggressive, if only—

"You're right, Tobio-kun," he replies. "I didn't miss the chances I had, I didn't see the chances I could have had, but guess what?"

Up close, Tobio's almond-shaped eyes are less intense than normal. It makes him look really precocious, and strange as it seems, Hinata thinks that he's beginning to feel rather fond of him.

"I didn't regret how it all turned out to be."

Let's try again. One more chance, just one more chance.

Give it to me, I'll take them all.

I told you, Tobio-chan.

Volleyball, you see, or any sports for that matter, stops becoming a game and starts becoming a business when you're being paid for it.

Hinata has a choice: he could spend more time justifying his life decisions to this boy, this little boy with an unbelievably bright future and prove to him that he didn't waste a single moment of his life, or he could convince him into compensating.

Don't do what I did or do what I didn't get to do, basically.

He'll repeat again and again: I regret nothing, there's nothing shameful about what I have done.

So fly, Tobio-kun.

I'll show you how to use your wings, so take me when you soar high above.

That day, a fallen king meets a wingless crow in Karasuno's gymnasium.

On the way back home, a boy stops him.

"You're Kageyama Tobio, right? Could you teach me how to play volleyball?"

Kageyama wonders about these kids, little boys who are just beginning to understand the intricacies of real life. Do they decide on a future they want to see themselves in and think about the consequences? Do they choose a sports and think about whether or not it suits them? Do they bet their lives on those worthless books and think about how none of the things they are reading now would matter in the future?

Do they stop a jaded adult and think about things that had happened to him, whether or not they would end up just like the said adult?

"Do you like volleyball?"

"Very much! My favourite player of all time is the Little Giant of Karasuno, have you heard of him? But I've seen you play! You're very cool!"

Of course, like every cliched scene ever, the sun would set in front of him, the sky's scarlet rays would distort his perceptions, and that's why he decides to play along, just this one time.

"Let's see what you have."

"Does that mean you're playing with me?"

"I'll tell you after I play you."

The boy jumps and skips away and Kageyama has to shout.

"Your name?"

And then the boy looks back at him, absorbing the colour of the setting sun, all red and passionate eager and unlike Kageyama, happy.

"Hinata. Hinata Shouyou."