On the night Kageyama was going to move out of his parent's house for the first time, out of nerves he visited Suga. Caught a train and a bus, and knocked on his apartment door. Sugawara opened the door with first curious expectation, then an amused chagrin when he saw Kageyama.
"Excuse me!" Kageyama exclaimed as he toed off his shoes. "I'm sorry for visiting so late in the night!"
Suga welcomed him with a smile and a cup of hot tea before he glanced at the clock and blandly remarked, "Kageyama, you do know you have a phone, don't you?"
Oh right, Kageyama's face said. Suga sighed dully into his tea.
However, what's done was done, so Kageyama breathed deep and got to the point.
"I feel nervous leaving home," Kageyama confessed, curling his fingers around the heavy clay of the cup. Suga always giving the traditional cups to his guests. "And then I couldn't sleep."
After a few beats of silence, Suga prodded, "And you were wondering…?"
Kageyama shrugged, suddenly feeling ridiculous for how he'd bothered Suga on a whim. Retrospection was 100%, as always. "How to transition well, I guess," he answered, out of the side of his mouth, feeling more than a little silly now.
"You guess?" Sugawara echoed. "You travelled all the way here just to ask that?"
At Sugawara's face, Kageyama duly reflected on the mobile phone that laid forgotten underneath a pile of unused textbooks. Sorry, phone. He'd use you next time.
Sugawara rolled his eyes and leaned back to think on the question. "Well, if you're asking me how I moved out, all I asked myself was how I could make myself comfortable in this new dorm. I mean, that's what a home is right, a place to feel safe and comfortable in." Suga shrugged his shoulders and glanced across the table, but Kageyama had already started digesting his words, staring hard at the table as his brain tugged at that comment, broke it apart.
A rap on his head broke his concentration. "And you're staying the night" Sugawara grinned, a wry twist of the mouth. "It's a bit late, and I have the space."
"Ah… Thank you, Suga-san!"
All Suga did was chuckle, before leaning over the table for some gossip on how the others were doing.
When Kageyama woke up the next morning, his neck was a solid cramp from his shoulder up to his ear and the pre-dawn sunlight left the room of the inn grey and empty. Kageyama yawned, before his heart leapt in his chest in panic.
…Empty?
He scrambled up, his ears full with the sudden clamour of surprised voices inside his head asking him what was wrong. Ignoring them, he scanned the room, noting that the other pallet had been rolled up and put back onto the shelf, but his bag was still next to the basin… right next to Sugawara's bag.
Kageyama's shoulders drooped in relief as he stepped outside.
"Sugawara?" Kageyama called out.
"Up here!" came a voice… from above?
Kageyama squinted up, only to notice that there was a figure sitting on top of the inn's roof in a meditative pose, comfortingly familiar when they stood up, patted off their pants and jumped straight down from the roof. The little thump his leather sandals made on the dirt road was all the proof that Sugawara had just leaped down from a height of at least five metres without hesitation at all, without needing a roll or anything, and Kageyama tried not to gape. Did... did this Sugawara do parkour or something?
When Sugawara did a stretch, hidden muscles rippled. Kageyama… tried not to stare. Much.
("Damn Suga, did you shoot steroids?" Tanaka said with admiring awe. "I want that bod man."
Suga chuckled back a "Me too, Tanaka. Man, I look good.")
In the bright daylight, Sugawara was a weirdly built gangly teen beanpole, who grinned a grin that showed his whole rack of teeth and squinted his eyes shut against the sun as he attempted to see Kageyama properly. They smiled the same, tilted their head the same, and even rolled their shoulders a little the same way, demeanour slightly impish. This Suga gave him a small wave in greeting before blocking a yawn with his hand.
Kageyama couldn't help but smile. Maybe this quest thing Kiyoko gave him wasn't going to be so hard. He'd started yesterday, and already found Suga, of all people.
He'd found Suga.
An uncontrollable smile twitched across his face.
"Good morning, Kageyama!" Sugawara greeted, going inside the hut and holding the flaps open for him. Kageyama absently noted that the text floating above his head said [?].
"Good morning, Sugawara," he replied back, following him back inside. Now that Sugawara had shed his cloak, Kageyama noted that he had some type of weird armoured hakama worn with a rather informal light blue men's kimono, which made the scene all the more surreal because now he felt slightly underdressed in his ragged t-shirt, shorts and floppy sandals. Kageyama spent the few seconds wishing he could've made a better impression to this Suga (last time his arguments with Hinata and the vice-principals' toupee didn't exactly make Suga think he was a nice, untroublesome person right?).
Oh well. Nothing to be done now.
Inside, they packed up their bags in silence – Sugawara checked over his stuff and stockpiling water. He had ten waterskins, comparatively to Kageyama's zero, and Kageyama helped fill them all, pumping hard when the water started flowing slower up the pipes. When he did his own inventory, he took one of the thin pallets in the inn. It wasn't as if anyone used them much.
Afterwards, he picked up his sack and fishing rod, and let Sugawara have his peace by waiting outside.
Cloudy today, he absently noted, as the sun rose and lit up the rows and rows of slight cloud that peeked on the other side of the mountain range. The desert sky on their side was clear as ever.
("Good thing too," chimed in Yamaguchi. "This is really nice hiking weather! Other Suga seems to pack lots of water, but dehydration is still risky so be careful!" )
Yeah, he needed a water bottle or something.
("More than that, Kageyama," was Daichi, all wry. "Your bag's practically empty.")
Also true.
("Oh it's fine guys," Asahi assured, "this world's Suga will probably share some of his water. He'll take care of Kageyama so he doesn't die from a lack of survival instincts.")
...Oi. Kageyama narrowed his eyes, and Asahi gave a small hehe in return, totally unrepentant.
By the time all that happened, Sugawara had hefted up his pack on his back, all wrapped up in his cloak and prepared to travel.
"So you're heading to the Capital too, right? What do you have to do there, Kageyama?"
Following you? Was the answer Kageyama choked down, because even he realised that might be kind of creepy.
("Pfft, no kidding," Tsukishima snickered.)
Shut up, Kageyama growled back.
("Shhh, not helping," Daichi interjected. "Maybe say that you've always wanted to go to the Capital? I mean, it's that dark smudge in the distance you always look at right? It's not a lie.")
"I've always wanted to go to the Capital," Kageyama parroted.
New-Suga blinked at him really slowly, and Kageyama immediately knew he didn't believe him. Ugh. Lying was hard. "Really?" Sugawara doubtfully mused, as they started their slow trek up the mountain. "But it's so far away. I heard a friend say that the Capital is like, nearly a month away from the mountain range." Kageyama didn't miss how Sugawara's eyes slid to his pitifully small make-shift sack and fishing-pole combo, and added, "It's a bit far for an impromptu trip too, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Kageyama inadvertently agreed before stopping short. Uh, "I also want to travel because…"
"Something Kiyoko said might help," Ennoshita urged, and Kageyama reached for the black tablet in his sack and pulled it out, and noted that Sugawara… seemed to narrow his eyes at it? "That blessing they gave you is probably a good reason to start adventuring. It sounded kind of important? That'll convince him, probably."
"Nice, Ennoshita!" A series of backslaps followed.
"This is a recording device that was given to me by a witch," Kageyama explained. "They gave me this blessing thing, and so I thought it was a good time to leave the village."
A pause. Sugawara's warm brown eyes flickered over him for a second, before his lips pushed up.
"Blessing thing?" Sugawara echoed him with an amused smirk, his brown eyes slightly teasing.
The next thing he knew, Suga would sigh at him in exasperation. Question his life choices over a ridiculously spicy lunch or dinner. Share something funny to fill his own awkward silences.
"He's not me, Kageyama," Suga said, slightly sad.
Kageyama deemed not to reply, getting distracted when Sugawara hummed in reply, head tilted in thought. "I… may have an idea what you're talking about. But hey, Kageyama," he said with a light laugh, pointing to Kiyoko's tablet. "Next time don't show this so easily to strangers." Sugawara plucked the black tablet from his hands and eyed it critically, before dropping it into his sack and drawing it closed, eyeing the fishing wire with curiosity before smiling and tying it with a flourish anyways. "Let's go then, shall we?"
Wheeling around, Sugawara increased his pace up the mountain, and with a mystified stare, Kageyama followed.
So… did he pass Sugawara's suspicion test or no?
The thing is, Sugawara Koushi and Kageyama Tobio were friends, yes, but they didn't actually start really talking until after Sugawara had gone to university and all the first years became second years. It started off as a mentorship role thing where Kageyama asked for setting tips, but slowly morphed into weekly café sessions where Sugawara guzzled coffee in a really, really unhealthy-looking fashion 'haha, Kageyama, this is just what all uni-kids do, don't worry' and lectured him on life.
Or more like, his emotional life choices.
Kageyama would begrudgingly admit, back then, that maybe he wasn't the most emotionally astute person.
"Kageyama," he remembered Sugawara frowning, massaging his temples. "Don't tell me you actually went into another texting war with Oikawa. He dislikes you, you don't really like him either, so why don't you just be the bigger person and let it go?"
Kageyama slumped deeper into his chair, and the wooden slats dug into his back. So he sat back up again, and wondered how Sugawara always somehow got the softer, padded seats that lined the walls before him. They looked comfortable too, all stylish red leather and cat patterned seat cushions. The café they liked favoured a softer cuter décor that most would consider quite frilly and girly, but Suga swore by this place's coffee, so here they went.
"…He just keeps replying," Kageyama replied to the table, mulish. "Then I just have to reply back."
"And then it makes you all angry before practice, which leads Hinata to come complaining to me," Sugawara patiently continued, voice ever pleasant. "I'd be totally fine with you re-establishing contact with Oikawa if it didn't lead to other team-members calling me with complaints, Kageyama."
Kageyama was not pouting. He wasn't.
"But… he was replying," Kageyama replied stubbornly, his eyes pulled to the side where he tracked a fly which had landed on the other table and watched it like it was the most fascinating fly in the world. Which it was. Ooh, it flew to the wall. Fascinating. "I couldn't lose."
"Do you know I'm friends with Iwaizumi now?" Sugawara changed the topic, as he hailed the waitress for his third cup of jumbo sized coffee. Kageyama eyed the extra-large mug as it was set down – that couldn't have been healthy. "You're remain as one of the few people who could make Oikawa seriously pissed off. We complain to each other. We also both wonder why you guys bother texting each other if you hate each other so much."
He didn't hate Oikawa, why did everyone think that? However, it was with a certain sense of shame that Kageyama started tracing the rim of his own cup of hot chocolate, staring at the cute pig cartoons painted all around the cup. For some reason, the pigs were orange. They reminded him of Hinata.
"…He gives good tips sometimes."
And that made Sugawara give the greatest sigh yet, as he drank half his coffee in one go and resurfaced like a drowning man, sucking in a huge breath.
"Volleyball," Sugawara muttered to himself, rolling his eyes. "That explains it."
And Kageyama drank his own hot chocolate, inwardly moping about his impending loss against Oikawa in his texting war. He looked at Sugawara, who still looked disgruntled and muttering something like how he wasn't actually a mother thanks, and dipped his eyes, curling a small smile into his cup as he took a sip.
Time to initiate conversation. After sitting there deliberating, Kageyama tentatively asked what he deemed the most suitable question. "How are your studies?"
"Why, I'm glad you asked, Kageyama!" Sugawara grinned at him. "You know what, funnily enough, we were actually talking about emotional intelligence in class today! I took really serious notes so I could share it with everyone on the team, haha." Then in a mutter half to himself, Sugawara rolled his eyes. "I think everyone can really learn from it."
When they passed through his village in all its decrepit, poverty-stricken glory, all Sugawara did was wrinkle his nose. Kageyama agreed, and took them through the most deserted streets to not bump into anybody. They passed his house, and Kageyama passed it without a glance, knowing he'd left nothing much in there.
Kageyama had never really liked that place anyway. He glanced at Sugawara, and tried again to start conversation.
Geh. Small talk. They'd both hated it, before.
Having debated long and hard over what question he should start with, Kageyama decided with a simple one.
"What is your favourite colour?"
"Green. You?" Sugawara replied, all easy.
"My favourite colours are orange and black. Um, what is your favourite food?"
"Spicy things."
Oh, still? That's familiar at least. Was there mapo tofu in this world? Kageyama wondered, dredging up past memories for any recipes he might remember. He hadn't been bad at cooking, back in the day. "I like milk products," he tacked on when Sugawara prodded him to answer his own question.
Tofu was pretty easy to make, if Kageyama remembered correctly. The mapo sauce though…
He'd cheated by using store-brand. Geh.
"I know how to cook mapo tofu, Kageyama!" Yachi volunteered, "I'm sure we can figure out a recipe together!" and Kageyama perked up for a few seconds before he forcibly reminded himself that Yachi was not real and so even if his subconscious might've volunteering it wasn't as if it was helpful. Dammit.
"My turn for questions!" Sugawara clapped his hands, waggling grey eyebrows at him for Kageyama's attention before pretending to think thoughtfully, finger on chin. "Alright! Well, Kageyama, tell me your deepest, darkest secret!" Sugawara said jokingly, and Kageyama blinked.
"Okay." He shrugged. "Which one?"
"Any, I guess?" Sugawara hummed, easily maneuvering through the potholes and dirty slush on the road they were in, somehow keeping his cloak clean.
"Well…" I'm reincarnated and you were one of my best friends in my past life and I think I've already gone crazy because I hear a lot of voices in my head including yours and you don't remember me and I can't remember the recipe to mapo tofu to cook it for you seemed like it would be a bit too heavy for a 'getting to know you icebreaker' conversation.
Kageyama took the easy way out.
"I used to like being alone," Kageyama said something he'd admitted to Sugawara before, "but not anymore."
At that, Sugawara looked a bit nonplussed, lips pursed as he scanned Kageyama's face. "Okay. Hmm, thinking about it, I don't know where you come from?"
Well…
"The village right up there," Kageyama nodded. "The one we just passed through."
"Grey, destitute, poor, extremely isolated?" Sugawara pointed backwards, and Kageyama nodded in reply. Sugawara was definitely looking at him peculiarly now, a slightly speculative gaze, and even before he spoke up, Kageyama added, "It's just, someone told me to go to the desert town before I started travelling to the Capital."
"Who was it?" Sugawara asked pleasantly, and Kageyama saw in his eyes the determined glint of slowly being picked apart and figured out, making him sweat a little. A trick question? Where was the grenade?
"A witch," Kageyama finally replied. "The one who gave me the blessing told me to go to the town."
At Sugawara's speculative hmmmm, Kageyama swallowed, painful and dry. He knew Suga (Sugawara) enough to know that the smile he'd had on ever since they met, as familiar and pleasant as it looked, was fake.
(He's giving you the grilling, huh," Daichi said sympathetically. "Don't worry, we all know you'll get through his barriers sooner or later. You were basically his little brother, you know?")
("Shut up, Daichi," Sugawara cut in pleasantly.)
("You can do it, Kageyama," Asahi assured, just like usual. "Suga's a territorial porcupine. Once you're in, you're in forever. It just takes a little time.")
Of course. Trust, he chanted to himself, was not built in a day. Wasn't that what he'd learnt the hard way before? If he could do it when he was actually fifteen, he could do it now.
So Kageyama curled his fingers tight around his fishing pole, and continued building his list of ice-breaker questions with determination.
"Favourite animal?"
"Hmm, pigs. Don't you think they're cute?" Sugawara smiled at him, a chuckle at the back of his throat. Lie, Kageyama thought.
Kageyama nodded. "I like birds. Crows are fluffy and quite intelligent even though one nearly clawed my eye out once. Foods you don't like?"
"Kageyama," Suga had once said to him at a team reunion back at Miyagi, back when team reunions had been comparatively easy, right at the cusp of adulthood. Asahi's new apartment had a view of the river, a long flowing line of silver that was soon blocked by a curve and a rise of apartment buildings. "How're you doing?"
Off the balcony, inside, Kageyama heard the furious bellows of a few of the louder members and a loud explosion from the TV. A shriek from Hinata, and Yachi's stammering. Yamaguchi's snicker.
"Good," Kageyama answered, holding himself straight on the balcony stool. "You?" Suga's face crinkled into lines long familiar, like a laugh was bubbling just underneath his next word.
"I'm good too, Kageyama," he teased. "So nothing else to tell your old sempai? No juicy gossip?"
Kageyama frowned and thought hard about what people thought were interesting conversation topics. "Hinata tried to adopt a cat again?" He tried. He counted it as a success when Suga chuckled.
"Okay, but anything about you?"
Kageyama tried again to find interesting things about himself, but after a too long pause Suga let him off the hook. "Alright Kageyama, no need to hurt yourself. Let's talk about that last prefectural match instead."
At his words, Kageyama lit up. Man, that last play by number 7 on the field had been amazing, and he'd wanted to discuss it for hours but everyone was partying and no-one wanted to talk tactics with him because Hinata had been drawn into Nishinoya and Tanaka's mysterious schemes in the kitchen straight after they'd arrived.
Suga sat there for the next hour engaging in volleyball debate with him, their legs swinging from their seat on the table.
The Capital was a faraway place that Sugawara estimated would take approximately a month of by walking. Walking, camping, foraging until they hit the roads, where there would be traveler inns and cabins that they could sleep in.
"You don't know how to light a campfire?" Sugawara had asked him in surprise.
Well, he had been a country boy at heart back in Miyagi too, even though he'd never roughed it this much in Japan. Kageyama awkwardly plopped his small potato sack onto the floor, while Sugawara cleared the ground of foliage. "What do I do?"
"Just collect some twigs for now," Sugawara directed, "and we'll go from there." Sugawara, with characteristic patience, then ran Kageyama through the process – clearing the undergrowth, building a stack of kindling, telling him how if there were rocks around they'd put a circle around the fire, but this'll have to do. Then, after telling Kageyama to back up, Sugawara narrowed his eyes in concentration, pointed at the stack of kindling and said, "Fos."
A spark traveled from his finger straight into the kindling. The next second, Sugawara was feeding the small fire with bigger sticks.
Kageyama was gobsmacked.
("Shoot, was that magic?" Noya asked, intrigued.)
(Hinata screamed in his head. Something garbled like, "You're too cool, Suga-sempai!")
("Impressive," Daichi laughed. "You're a wizard, Suga!")
("Shut up, Daichi.")
"Was that magic?" Kageyama asked, mesmerised from the totally-normal-looking fire that was actually magic fire holy crap. "That's really cool."
Sugawara glanced up at him, surprised, before glancing down. "You should try it sometime," Sugawara replied, focusing on bringing up the flames. "It's a good skill to have, and it's more common than some people think." They settled around the flames, and Sugawara pulled a few food items from his bag. Kageyama volunteered to cook, since Sugawara had built the fire right?
Cooking was done underneath Yamaguchi's constant encouragement, 'You can do it, Kageyama!', dipping his eyes to watch the pot, warm and bright within the small clearing they'd found in the sparse forest. Sugawara was hammering the last peg of his tent into place, and the moment he finished, he threw a warm smile at Kageyama and plopped himself next to the fire too, staring in interest at the pot of stew Kageyama had been attending.
"Smells good, Kageyama!" Sugawara exclaimed, his brown eyes bright at the prospect of food. Kageyama grinned in pride. "And food always tastes good with company."
True, that.
When he glanced up, Sugawara was humming a soundless song, taking inventory of his backpack. There were still words Kageyama felt that he wanted to say but they just—just like usual, really—wouldn't come out, just kinda stuck in his brain, whirling about.
I'm glad you're here, he thought at Suga instead, and finished stirring the stew.
"Can you teach me magic?" Kageyama asked over dinner.
"Hmm," Sugawara hummed, noncommittally. "I'll think about it. What about you tell me about you instead? What did you do in your village?"
"Uh… Not much?" Kageyama answered honestly, but by the stillness of the smile on Sugawara's face, it wasn't what he wanted to hear?
That night, Kageyama slept underneath the stars on the pallet he stole from the inn, under the small sheet he packed from his house. The clearing they chose was bathed in white-silver moonlight, gleaming against Sugawara's tent. His own tiny hands were greyish underneath the moon when he held them up, looking past the gaps into the sky, rewinding the day in his head. What would make Suga feel more comfortable with him?
"I know, I know!" Hinata bounced. "Make him breakfast! He looked pretty happy with dinner today!"
Yeah, Kageyama felt pretty happy seeing Sugawara praising his food.
"Or talk about something nice," Asahi advised. "You guys just need to know each other more."
"Why am I acting so suspicious though?" Suga wondered. "I'm usually much friendlier than this!"
"Well… none of us ever met you during your younger teens, Suga," Daichi pointed out. "Maybe this is your edgy teen phase you've never talked about?"
"I think all I did was listen to angry rock bands when I got moody," Suga reminisced, still sounding bewildered over his counterpart's behaviour.
Kageyama fell asleep curled around the ashes of the campfire facing Sugawara's tent, comforted by their banter.
That night, he didn't dream.
The next morning, when Kageyama mentioned that they were going to join one of the small roads that lead to one of the main roads that led to the Capital (a fact he'd heard from the rare trader that would willingly come up to his village for business), Sugawara looked uncomfortable.
"Do you want to continue camping?" Kageyama asked, confused.
"Yeah, let's do that," Sugawara said in relief, clutching his pack a little tighter, and this time it was Kageyama who slowed, who started piecing the dots together.
When they happened across the next small village, Sugawara drew up his hood and let Kageyama do all the talking. Only after they'd left the village and wandered back into the forest again, ignoring all the nice, easy to tread roads for a birds-eye route towards the Capital instead, did Sugawara draw the hood back down.
The next day, Kageyama woke up early, only to find Sugawara already up. Up, and in a tree, where he was meditating, facing the sunrise. When he noticed Kageyama awake, Sugawara again jumped down – but not from a five metre height this time, but somewhere along the lines of… ten? And he'd walked off as if there was nothing impressive about that fact at all, leather zori silent even among the branches and dry leaves on the ground while Kageyama crunched through every pile, broke every branch on the ground.
The night after, when Kageyama had been pretending to sleep, he watched Suga quietly close his tent, and walk like a shadow by Kageyama's head. Through the smallest crack of his eyes, he watched as Suga didn't climb the tree, but instead took one leap off the ground and ran up it, the last jump letting him reach out and swing onto a thick, sturdy branch near 15 metres up, the branch creaking slowly underneath his weight.
Then to Kageyama's near disbelief, he wrapped the cloak around his head and seemed to disappear, the only indication he'd left from the sudden shake of the branch to one further away, until all Kageyama noticed was the chirping of some bugs in the distance.
The next morning, Sugawara was up on a tree meditating to the sunrise again, like nothing had happened that night. He'd leapt down the tree with a sunny, "Good morning, Kageyama!" Ignoring the hubbub in his head, Kageyama stifled his questions and greeted back.
On the fifth day, they passed another village, and a village man reached out and touched Sugawara's cloak.
"This is nice fabric," the man, [Clever-eyed Profiteer] stated. "Veery nice. Not from around here, are you? Hmm, the east? Want to trade for it, son?"
"No, thank you," Sugawara replied with a grin, before patting Kageyama on the back. "Me and my friend still have a ways to go, you see!" Sugawara laughed, before shrugging. "Believe me, I could use some coin too."
When the man laughed back, Sugawara ushered them both out of the village as quickly as possible. Once half an hour away from it, Sugawara turned to him, eyes tight.
"You say you got a blessing, right? You can see words floating above heads? What did he have?"
Kageyama clutched his fishing pole, uneasy.
"Clever-eyed Profiteer. Why?"
Sugawara didn't answer, just picked up his pace.
And Kageyama followed, eyes trained on the back of his head.
The next day, they were attacked.
"Hit me," Suga sobbed into his fifth tissue. "Or distract me. Or something. Or at least give me another tissue, this one's already soggy."
Kageyama dug into the pocket of his suit and gave him another tissue, eyes still trained on the vision of Yachi in a white dress, listening to the priest as they prepared to exchange vows. Yachi was beaming enthusiastically forward at the priest, sneaking glances at her husband-to-be, a nice young oceanographer who was so perfect, quirky and intelligent that even Tsukishima couldn't find things to negatively snark at. Hinata, defying stereotypes, was her best brides-not-maid, because 'he's my best friend and deserves the spot, girl or not!'
After the kiss, when Yachi and Hinata's eyes found his, when everyone clapped and roared and whistled, Kageyama was already on his feet clapping with all his might, palms already starting to sting, heart swelling for Yachi, one of his two, best, best friends. Suga on his side was struggling to both clap and stem the flow of snot with at least ten tissues on hand. One soggy tissue, he remembered, landed on his shoulder.
Thank goodness the suit was rental, he remembered thinking as he handed a still watery-eyed Suga to Daichi, who only grinned and handed Suga alcohol of all things. Washing his hands of his two sempai, he walked towards his best friends, the bride, Hinata and the groom, determined to congratulate Yachi.
In the predawn glow of the sky, Sugawara's grey hair seemed almost black, a dull fluffy mop that sat atop his head as he did his usual inventory check. Sitting on the side, Kageyama silently finished the last of the trail mix that Suga had given him, wiping salty fingers on his shirt and cleanly folding the cloth pouch the mix had been in, handing it to Sugawara so that he could finish inventory.
Moments later, a huge chatter of birds spiralled into the air from his right as they screeched a panicked trail in the air, a large black swoop before the trees bent and his ears echoed at a huge boom of a shockwave shaking the world apart. He stumbled and dropped to the floor, even as Sugawara quickly rose, his eyes trained on the smoke and the glimmering red that told that something had caught alight. Kageyama was flabbergasted. This world had bombs?
"They've come," Sugawara said quietly, face sombre. A second of contemplation, before he glanced at Kageyama and knelt in front of him. "I still don't know if you're a spy or not, but if you are innocent I'm sorry for dragging you into this due to my paranoia," Sugawara said quickly, efficient as he pulled his pack close and pulling a full-sized staff from the bag.
Kageyama tried not to feel surprised that Sugawara apparently had an inter-dimensional pocket in his bag. Sugawara was apparently a ninja so… like, why not have an inter-dimensional pocket-bag?
"This is a staff that was given to me by my mentor, who was also a sage, one blessed like you. If you're really who you say you are, the staff will protect you. If not, then you're more capable than you look, and I don't have to worry." Sugawara finished with a gentle smile and pushed the staff into his hands, before he plunged his arm into his bag and took out something, slipping it into an inside breast pocket just in time for a shadow to flit into the clearing. The shadow cleared unnaturally slowly, revealing a cloaked figure similar to Sugawara's, except… Something felt wrong. Kageyama shivered.
[Chaser Assassin], his title said. The man underneath grinned.
"I found you, Sugawara. Hand it over."
The mellow smile Sugawara gave the assassin reminded him of days far past, on a court under bright lights and loud cheers, when Suga looked at the opponent's team and gave them that exact same smile. A veneer of friendliness covering hardened analytical steel.
"Hmm, any chance of you telling me who sent you?" Sugawara asked.
"No. Your time's out."
The first strike came from the assassin, a dark blur of the arm too fast for Kageyama's eyes to follow, a gleam of silver... thrown straight at him. Before Kageyama could even blink, or even go into cardiac arrest from what is happening what is that a knife, Sugawara flickered in front of him, catching the (he saw now) shuriken caught between two fingers. Kageyama was left staring at Sugawara's back as he stood protectively in front of him.
"Wha—"
"Wow, your aim is really bad!" Sugawara interrupted Kageyama cheerfully, addressing the assassin. "I was waaay to the right, you know?" Playfully tossing the shuriken up and down a few times in his hand, Sugawara gave a small contemplative hum before with a snap of his wrist, threw it straight back at the assassin's jugular. The attacker cursed, ducking in a whirl of cloth before glancing up and noticing that Sugawara had disappeared up into the trees in one jump, and with a rustle, had left.
"You have what he's carrying, boy?" the man demanded. "This a ploy?"
All Kageyama did was grip the staff tighter. Even if he did know what was happening, it wasn't as if he was going to tell a guy who was obviously trying to kill Suga.
The man shot him a disgusted look. "Tch, useless."
This time, Kageyama barely saw the shuriken, a gleam of silver metal in the darkness that headed straight toward his neck, and inside his head there were more than a few screams of panic as Noya and Yachi simultaneously broke through record levels of pitch ("WE'RE GONNA DIE AAAAAAH"). Kageyama, privately though, just felt... slightly unwilling. No, not even just slightly unwilling.
He had just met Kiyoko, just met Suga, he was going to travel, he finally, finally found something to live for—
But what if he died, and he went back to the real world? Maybe...maybe that wouldn't be too bad.
Then time stopped.
No, Dear.
The whole world froze in a wave power, washed into a dark, fathomless blue as a woman's voice echoed in his head. Not like when Karasuno did it, as if his brain was their living room and he was just their awkward, unwilling host. No, this voice was someone he didn't recognise, for one. Too... smooth. Deep, and had some foreign inflection in it. Refined, like an edge of silk.
You can call me a sort of mother, the voice offered. I chose you, after all, out of all those others you came with all those years ago. You probably don't remember, the voice mused, before Kageyama seemed to feel a distinctive shrug of dismissal in her voice as she continued. Well, we don't have time for that now, do we, Kageyama Tobio?
Blue shone off the edges of the shuriken that had frozen in place, a silent promise of his death the moment time started again.
Do you want to live?
Even though he'd only met the Sugawara of this world for a week, would he be sad if he died? Probably. It was probably enough of a reason to live.
I'll give you power to live, the voice said, just say my name when I leave, okay?
And it was to the echoes of laughter that Kageyama blinked his eyes open (when had they shut?) and whispered
"Benzaiten."
The staff in his hands shook a little, flaring a brilliant azure in his hands that filled the clearing in an explosion of colour—and the shuriken in front of his eyes stopped. It drooped through the blue light like it was viscous, until the weapon landed softly on the ground.
The man had already moved to try follow Sugawara, crouched low, muscles bunching to give chase, but in all of those three seconds, the man had frozen mid-squat, recognition starting to dawn as he looked at the staff, before looking at Kageyama with amazement.
"Sage," he breathed, near reverent. "An azure sage…" The man's eyes flickered to his face, searching for something before the sharp crack of a branch breaking deeper in the forest echoed like a snap around the forest. The man stopped himself and breathed deep, before turning his back on Kageyama. "I'll return for you later," the man shot back at him, before in one powerful jump, he disappeared into the dark as well, the rustling of leaves the only trace left.
Silence. Kageyama's hands started trembling, suddenly feeling cold—
("Okay, one, two! Breathe, Kageyama!" Ennoshita encouraged. "In, out!")
Kageyama took two deep breaths. In. Out.
In.
Out.
Then he hauled himself onto his feet with the staff, digging it deep into the earth when he wobbled a little too much from shock and adrenaline.
He wasn't a ninja like Sugawara but he wasn't unfit. If his heart was going to start racing, then he'd better give it a better reason to do so than fear. He took a few seconds to assess his physical condition before setting a good running pace for himself - a habit from his old athlete days - and set off in the direction that the assassin had went. When an explosion rocked the ground, and Kageyama narrowed his eyes and calculated, adjusting his direction accordingly.
The next explosion bloomed a plume of smoke that rose up from the trees, and Kageyama sped up, heart kicking in his chest, because he had to be there. Sugawara had seemed really competent, but at most he was fourteen, and the assassin had looked in his early thirties.
Another crackle of flame, closer but still too far away. Kageyama gritted his teeth and pushed his pace a little faster.
This was what Suga meant to Kageyama:
A humid Tokyo night, summer stifling. Sugawara, bumping shoulders with Daichi and Asahi. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi behind. Hinata bouncing, yelling, neon lights reflecting into the night.
Kageyama hands in his pockets, half absent-minded over the latest play he wanted to perfect, content to nod.
"You aren't listening to me, Kageyama!" Hinata, the skip in his step slightly lost, and Kageyama floundered, as he always did, as he always tried not to be. Just as he was about to rise to defend himself, Suga glanced back with a laugh on his lips.
"Kageyama's probably just thinking about that game we just saw, Hinata!" Suga grinned at them both, and Hinata brightened up.
"Ooh, which play were you thinking about, Kageyama?" Hinata bubbled, skipping and bouncing along again.
Suga gave him a wink, and Kageyama gave him an awkward twitch of the lips back.
"Congratulations, Suga!" Daichi yelled, and everyone crowded in front of the restaurant. Noya clambered over both him and Tanaka, to launch himself at Suga with a huge shout of "Cheers, Suga-sempai! Congratulations!" Hinata was going to attempt the same before quailing at Kageyama's most poisonous glare. His back hurt dammit, from Noya's elbows.
"Thanks everyone!" Suga yelled back over the din, and they all proceed to fool around for the next twenty minutes instead of doing the sensible thing and file in for their dinner reservation. They figure it out, eventually.
Kageyama approached Suga when the dinner had finished, and everyone was wondering how to get home the fastest way so late.
"Here," Kageyama pressed a gift into Suga's hands, struggling to find more words, but instead ended all of his thoughts with a, "Congratulations... onyouracceptance."
Kageyama was not mumbling nor blushing in embarrassment, thank you very much.
"Thanks, Kageyama!" Suga, to his surprise, took the present and put it with care on top of a bag already nearly overfull with presents, and drew him into a tight hug. "It means the world to me that you're here!"
"Of course," Kageyama replied. Why wouldn't he? Especially since Hinata and Yachi and everyone else was going to be here too.
Suga's eyes were laughing at him, Kageyama decided. Why?
"Did you have fun?" Suga asked instead, drawing them both back into the most rowdy part of their crowd. Kageyama hummed indecisively in reply, voice quickly swallowed by their friend's laughter.
A door creaking, a hand that switched on the light. Brown eyes full of concern.
"Are you alright, Kageyama?" Kageyama looked up from his corner, a ball of blankets. "Hinata isn't back yet, I'm sorry. Anything… I can do to help?"
Kageyama found it in himself to pull a cushion closer to him, and Suga took the hint and sat down on it, close, but far enough for Kageyama to breathe. Silently, they both watched the moon rise, and then gently fall from its zenith.
More than just a weekly lunch meeting, or a constant presence he could rely on to call, or text, or to ask questions of, or to laugh with or laughed at or laugh to. He was more than a flash of a kind smile, an earnest willingness and enthusiasm to help and guide. He was a friend, but not, because for someone that he'd let that close a word like friends didn't cut it, because he had built friends, known friends, and Sugawara was a friend but also someone like… a safe harbour. A person that he'd always imagined a big brother would've been like.
This Sugawara wasn't his Suga, even though they were both kind, and they both laughed at Kageyama's sincere attempts at communicating clearly (but not hurtfully, never hurtful). He was weirdly sly, and kept asking Kageyama weird questions, and seemed to have a shady hatred for roads. He could run up trees like a ninja, and had weird fantasy powers, and they'd only known each other for a week but. But.
Did that even matter?
When Kageyama dived between Sugawara and the assassin, his mind rang with a clear emphatic no. It didn't matter that Sugawara was not Suga, that he'd never be Suga, and that he'd never get him back for real. He'd just get to know him again. They'd be the best of friends again. He will get to know Sugawara, no matter what, and that couldn't happen if he was dead.
("You know, I'm suddenly not so worried anymore," Suga murmured softly.)
"Back off," Kageyama said to the stranger coldly, gripping the staff Sugawara had given him in between them. A quick glance above his head, "You're not welcome here, Chaser Assassin."
"Sage," the assassin immediately leapt back, "you're not involved in this. If you hired this boy to protect you, believe me that after this is done I will gladly escort you wherever you need to go."
Suga behind him scoffed, dragging himself up as carefully as he could. His right leg and arm were both charred black. "Don't believe him. He'll just kidnap you." A wheezy grunt of pain followed.
"Are you okay?" Kageyama asked, holding the staff up and remembering what that feeling was like. The blue light that came with the weird voice had been… warm, in a pins and needly way of I don't want to die adrenaline fueled rush.
I don't want Suga to die, Kageyama told the staff silently, squinting to see if it had started glowing yet. Please, he belatedly added, when he saw the assassin had drawn his arms back for a throw. More explosives are coming, I think. Do I need to say it?
"Benzaiten, please?" Kageyama whispered.
The staff paused for a minute before starting a stuttering humming glow, blue bleeding through his fingers before spreading out through the entire clearing, covering him and Sugawara in the blue light.
The humming in his fingers tingled when the man paused at the light, throwing a small bomb to test its effect. When all the bomb did was slow down in mid-air and slowly drop towards the ground like the shuriken from before, he dipped low and ran headlong into Kageyama's spherical bubble of light, veering around him for a shot at Sugawara. The moment he touched the light though, the assassin froze in mid-jump.
Eyes widening comically slowly, the assassin immediately backed up until he'd extracted himself and stood a few metres away into the trees to avoid his glow, narrowed eyes glaring at the blue staff in Kageyama's hands.
Well, Kageyama reflected, this was going surprisingly well. Thank you, he thought at the staff, then up at Benzaiten, because he wasn't brought up without manners.
"Leave," Kageyama then insisted.
In reply, the assassin sat on his haunches beyond the light of his staff, trying to wait him out.
To be fair, the humming in hands was getting harder to hold. The light was already shrinking from its previous diameter. Kageyama risked a glance at Sugawara, who had hauled himself into a kneeling position, face in a grimace of pain, fingers shaking against his knees, and with Kageyama being the tiny twelve year old kid he was right now, they wouldn't be running anywhere anytime soon. He couldn't fight either. He'd never punched anybody wanting to harm them before.
"Sugawara," Kageyama asked. "Is this blue thing magic?" He shook the glowing blue staff as emphasis.
Curious brown eyes analysed him, before Sugawara replied. "Yes, it is," Sugawara stated slowly. "But Kageyama, we both know you can't hold this for long – you can leave me behind if you want."
At that, Kageyama just turned around and ignored the rest of Sugawara's speech, and wrapped his mind around this new knowledge that apparently he could do magic.
If he could do magic with this staff, he could… probably do other spells as well. The only spell he'd ever heard Suga do was the firepit one though.
Fos?
Maybe he could… light the guy's cloak on fire or something. That seemed like something he could do. Could something like this become bigger too?
"Remember that the fire is just a chemical reaction, Kageyama!" Yamaguchi suddenly piped up in his head. "Combustion is just applying enough heat to decompose materials, that then release chemicals, which then interact with oxygen, which emits heat, and oh no, I'm not explaining this very well but um. Fire is self-sustaining, so just make sure you have enough heat and fuel and it should do the rest by itself! Suga never had fuel, so you probably treat umm, magic as the fuel. And then use magic as heat, to heat up the magic fuel. Since it's all just magic, you can probably direct it anywhere, so make sure to focus in the direction of the assassin, okay?" Yamaguchi heaved a deep breath afterwards before stuttering, "You got that, right? I mean, I hope you did."
Yeah, he did.
"Wow, amazing, Yamaguchi!" Tanaka claps. "You've been thinking about this a lot, huh?"
Sounded complicated though.
"Stop complaining, Bakayama," Hinata's voice loud like a whack to his head. "Other-Suga is depending on you!"
The blue light was thinning, but still there like a filled up water bubble, and magic was probably the hum of weird tingles in his arms so… what? Imagine?
That sounded stupid.
"Just DO IT!" Came a simultaneous yell, and Kageyama readied his staff in front of him.
Alright, alright.
So… he looked at the staff in his hands. Imagine the magic around him as fuel, and direct it towards the assassin, and then heat it up? Furrowing his brows, Kageyama pushed. Instantly, all the fading blue light still floating in the shrinking sphere around him became a thick beam of blue that swung towards the assassin. For heat, Kageyama took a split second to imagine the campfire, the flash of light, the small satisfied smile Suga had when he murmured his spell as the kindling lit up, crackling dry. Hot summer nights, the heat of a stove as it cooked something, the warm swathe of yellow light as a door opened late at night, the flash of an orange-tinted smile.
"Fos!" Kageyama yelled, imagining heatheatheat, and immediately the stranger slackened his stance in offence, forgetting to dodge the blue light as he stared at Kageyama in disbelief.
"What, you're threatening me with that useless campfire spell?"
Anything extra was cut off, because a huge fireball erupted from the end of Kageyama's glowing staff, eating up the trail of blue light in half a second, hitting the assassin and continuing into the forest, lighting up the morning into a blaze of blue-white that even had Kageyama blinking from sudden tears. The assassin had been hit slightly as he half-dodged, getting thrown into a nearby tree, and Kageyama soon smelled the faint smell of burnt meat.
The assassin took a glance at the fireball still continuing burning trek through the forest and at Kageyama standing in front of Sugawara, staff in hand and already summoning another wave of blue light. With a small dip of his staff, the runes immediately lit up with azure light again, and the air in front of Kageyama shimmered.
With a curse, the assassin disappeared into the forest.
Then all that was left was Kageyama, Sugawara, and a huge trail of burning trees that… didn't seem to be extinguishing itself out anytime soon, if Kageyama's squinting was correct.
A burning branch snapped and fell to the ground. Somewhere in the distance, a tree groaned as its bark was burnt and licked by flames, splitting and cracking.
("Whooooo! You did it, Kageyama! Fire! Fire! Fire! Go, Yamaguchi! Yay!" Hinata celebrated in his head.)
However, Kageyama stared at the unholy destruction he had wrought, before shuddering into himself from shame and whirling himself around.
"I'm sorry!' He immediately yelled at Sugawara behind him, who was staring blankly at the burgeoning forest fire himself, face pale. "I didn't mean to do that! Really!"
"It's um, its okay, Kageyama," Sugawara said to him, his smile stuttering from pain. Kageyama immediately dropped the staff and hovered around the wound. Second degree burns, maybe? Probably? Was it numb? "We should probably get away from here though, just in case?"
"Are you okay?" Kageyama twitched his hands closer, stopping a few centimetres from skin. Burns need to cool down, right? Release some of the heat? Water?
"It'll be fine if we get back to our camp since I got some stuff for burns," Sugawara said. "Here, give me the staff for my right hand, and you can come under my left, and we'll hobble back, okay?" Kageyama nodded with determination, and handed over the staff so that Suga could carefully leverage himself up, while Kageyama ducked underneath Sugawara's left arm, a surprise huff of breath coughing out when Sugawara leant more weight on him than expected. Those muscles weren't for show. He was heavy.
"Yes, that's fine!" Kageyama gritted out, frowning at the direction that the camp was at. This must be nothing compared to what Sugawara was feeling. "Let's go!"
Kageyama, intensely scouring for any forest debris that might trip them both, missed the curious look Sugawara sent him as they hobbled back.
When they settled down back to their bags, Sugawara promptly found a first aid kit, and underneath Kageyama's amazed eyes, most of the damage disappeared when Sugawara mumbled something into some smooth bandages and rubbed the suddenly wet cloth over his burnt leg and arm.
"That's amazing!" Kageyama enthused, trying not to clap. Sugawara shot him an amused grin, before wrapping bandages over the affected areas (the skin was still a bit pink, Kageyama noted. Did that mean whatever healing he did wasn't complete?) and hauled his pack on his back again.
"We need to leave, Kageyama. More might come," Sugawara said softly, and Kageyama nodded before holding his own small sack and fishing pole, and ran to catch up with Sugawara, who had already forged forward in the opposite direction of the burning clearing.
Kageyama was busy staring at the sunrise (a warm orange) when Sugawara broke the silence.
"Thank you for saving me."
Kageyama looked at him in surprise, before shaking his head furiously. "It was no problem, Sugawara!"
"I owe you a life-debt," Sugawara just replied mildly. "That's a pretty big thing where I come from. First, I'll give you that staff you used before, okay? Then request anything you want of me, and I'll do it to the best of my ability."
Kageyama stopped in his tracks.
("Think before you say anything." Ennoshita advised.)
"I… didn't save you so that you could give me things," Kageyama decided to say, slowly. His fingers gripped his potato sack tighter. "A… a thanks is enough."
Sugawara was definitely staring at him curiously now, considering him like he was a complex puzzle, and Kageyama set his mouth in a solid, determined line. As Hinata had complained in the past, he could out stubborn everyone. Hah, want to force him to take a reward? You wish!
"A life-debt is still a debt," Sugawara said, after a period of silence from both of them, in which Kageyama refused to give and Sugawara waited for an answer. "Even if you don't accept it, to me it's a matter of honour, okay? Give me that, at least?"
Kageyama caved.
"Okay. I have one request."
Sugawara smiled, satisfied. "What is it? I will do my best to fulfil it."
The request was embarrassing though, and so extremely cheesy. Kageyama started marching forward, eyes averted to the side and tried to reason out that this was Suga, who had once known everything about him, so there was no shame to be felt! Right?
Sugawara trailed behind now, looking somewhat bemused.
"…be my friend?" Kageyama finally muttered, trailing off embarrassingly at the end. He'd meant to sound at least somewhat assertive! Ugh. Kageyama refused to stop marching forward and instead sped up when Sugawara paused, and it was quite a while before Sugawara's light footsteps caught back up to him again, a hand on his shoulder wrenching him backwards.
"Wait, wait, wait. Kageyama. By that you mean like, you want my loyalty? Or my life? Or something?" Sugawara's face filled his vision as he was twirled around, and Kageyama just scowled at hearing those things. What was Suga's life like here? "You don't want me to agree with your every whim?" Sugawara continued to blather, and Kageyama was horrified at the very thought, starting to get super suspicious and concerned about Sugawara's life. Did people extort him? Was he part of the yakuza? Was that why assassins were after Suga?
"No! None of that!" Kageyama replied, shifting his stare over Sugawara's shoulder when all the other boy did was give him his an intimidating incredulous look. Trying to shift backwards, he was stopped by Sugawara's hand, whose grip was rock solid. "Just… be my friend. And do friend things. You don't have to listen to me all the time, that's stupid."
Then he started sweating when all Sugawara did examine him again, all smart and calculative and guh. He wasn't used to confronting Suga, because no-one liked to anger Suga, because an angry Suga was extremely scary.
("Tell me about it," Daichi grumbled.)
(Suga chuckled, slightly evilly.)
Kageyama braved to inch his gaze up to look at Sugawara's eyes. Guh. Still so analytical. Kageyama quickly glanced away again, and stared at… the sunrise. What a beautiful sunrise it was today. Marvellous, especially if he ignored all the smoke from the small forest fire he was refusing to think about. Stunning backdrop.
A few moments later, Sugawara finally let go of his shoulders, before patting Kageyama on the shoulder.
"Kageyama, okay, I'll be your friend. So, first thing as your friend, let me officially give you this staff!" Sugawara shoved the staff into his hands, plucking the fishing pole and the small sack off him in the process. "And I'll take care of these, because I have a perfectly good bag that will hold all of this without adding weight."
Kageyama watched as Suga stuffed the whole pole and the sack into his large backpack, and felt bewildered when Sugawara shot him a purely Suga smile at him.
"Wha—?" was all Kageyama managed to say before Sugawara winked.
"I take my friendships very seriously, Kageyama Tobio. Now, are you going to accept my gift or not? I'll be really hurt if you don't though?"
Kageyama gripped the staff a little tighter. The staff already felt familiar to his hand somehow. Sugawara nodded in approval before cheerfully dragging the other boy forwards with him. "Now, let's get to know one another. How old are you, Kageyama?"
"Twelve. Umm… you?" Kageyama ventured, wriggling his arm so that it was more comfortable, tucked against Sugawara's elbow. Sugawara glanced down at him in surprise.
"Twelve? But you look… Nah, wait. I'm fourteen years old, if you want to know. So, two years older than you, huh." Sugawara tapped his chin absentmindedly, before shrugging. "Eh, whatever. So what did you do with the assassin out there? I mean, even I've never seen such a large application of fos before. It's like… the second most minor fire spell in existence. I didn't even know it was possible! How'd you do it?"
Kageyama, having promptly used the staff as a walking stick, traced the intricately carved whorls on the wood and thought back. The first time was because of the voice asking him why he didn't want to die. The second time was because he wanted to save…
"Because of you," Kageyama finished, stepping over a large root.
Sugawara laughed incredulously, voice momentarily drowning out even the small forest fire burning behind them, the sudden burst of sound enough to make a bird angrily squawk at them and fly off. Then he nudged Kageyama in the shoulder. Ow. That was unexpectedly bony. "Okay, no joking. Seriously, how?"
Immediate disbelief… When he looked at Sugawara, all he did was smile and did a go on gesture and waited. And if he knew Suga as well as he did, Sugawara wouldn't let it rest until he got something.
His answer wasn't a lie though. What to do.
"Use my explanation, Kageyama," Yamaguchi encouraged. "I'll go over it with you, if you want. Suga seems like he wants something more sciency anyway." Kageyama nodded, before freezing and rubbed his nose and tried his best to seem like he wasn't talking to the voices in his head in front of Sugawara.
Good impression, good impression, good impression…
"I watched you light the campfires," Kageyama explained, gesturing a little. "Fire needs fuel and heat and oxygen. I though magic could be the fuel, and fos was obviously fire related and probably heated things up." Then he stopped and awkwardly shrugged. "That's it. You couldn't move, and I had to do something."
Sugawara adjusted his backpack clearly in thought, before giving a small chuckle.
"Mysteries will be mysteries, I guess. Say, Kageyama. Want me to teach you magic? I only know a little, but it'll fill in the time until we get to the Capital."
Kageyama stopped watching the passing forest mulch, incredulous. "Even though I started a forest fire?"
Sugawara gave him a bemused smile. "Yup. Whaddya say?"
"Yes!" Came Kageyama's exuberant reply, with no hesitation at all. "When do we get started? What do I need to prepare?" Kageyama's mind bubbled with excitement, because magic was probably what let Sugawara jump into trees and do ninja-ey stuff right? That would be great! Kageyama let himself have a brief moment of envy at the thought of his past life. Imagine if he had access to all this magic stuff back on Earth! He would be able to jump three metres, no problem!
"Woah, slow down, Kageyama!" Suga patted his shoulder. "We'll start at dinner, is that alright?" Kageyama nodded earnestly, before setting forward with more determination. This time, instead of awkward silence and a closed off hood as he lead the way, Sugawara made the effort to match his strides and babbled random facts about the forest as they passed. That hole in the tree indicated that woodpeckers lived around the area, the amount of dried poop around showed that there was probably a nest of rabbits around somewhere close. Kageyama just listened to all this with his most studious face (it wasn't constipated, no matter what Hinata said, dammit).
He was going to grip this inch that Sugawara gave him, and take a mile.
"Hehe, getting attached already, Suga?" Asahi teased later on that day, when Sugawara looked at Kageyama's failing attempts to catch fish from the river and roasted an extra three that he gave all to Kageyama.
Suga grinned in his mind. "Knew I'd come around sooner rather than later."
That night, Kageyama reminisced, in a happy mood because of how well dinner went that night. It was the warmest Kageyama had ever felt, and he felt justified to hold it close to his heart as his mind wandered. His happiness lead to him to an old memory, one of a still blundering-in-life Suga.
In his memories... He'd always looked up to Suga. First, in a peripheral-sempai way. Later, in a human-being way.
Suga wasn't without his flaws though. Working too hard been one of them.
Once, Kageyama stayed out a lot later than usual because Suga had run late, so late that the café waitress had come over with a small sympathetic smile and gave him a free tea, on the house. After sipping that as slowly as possible and still seeing no Suga rushing through the door with an apologetic smile on his face, Kageyama paid for the extra tea when he scanned the café and saw the waitress busy with another customer before hunching into his coat into the early evening. He hurried down streets, walking past his usual bus stop and turned right at the strange two-branched tree, down five doors to a smaller, worn apartment building.
The guard that day recognised Kageyama, as he punched in the building's pin and the doors opened. When the man gave him a kind smile, he bowed back politely before moving up the stairs to the second floor. Carefully looked for the right door, just in case (Room 218) and knocked loudly.
Inside, there was a bang and a yelp, before there was a scrabble of fingers struggling with the lock and a sleepy Sugawara was staring up at Kageyama before his eyes widened in horror.
"Kageyama, is it time already? Oh no, I'm horribly late, aren't I?" Suga groaned, glancing at the clock he hung above the tiny kitchenette he had. "I'm really sorry, Kageyama. Want to come in?"
"It's fine, Suga-san," Kageyama said even as he noted how haggard Suga looked this time, with deeper eyebags than usual, and his grey hair a little oily and bedraggled compared to its usual impeccable style. "I got worried when you didn't come. Excuse me." Kageyama stepped inside and toed off his shoes, wiggling his toes a little in contemplation before looking Suga in the eye. "You look tired."
"Ahaha, is it that obvious?" Suga laughed, voice dry. "It's been a rough week. I was about to head out, I promise! I think I dropped off when I was trying to do some last minute reading…"
"Its fine," Kageyama reiterated, watching Suga walk down the small hallway to sit on the floor, where there were numerous books laid out. "Is there anything I can help with? Not that," Kageyama backtracked, "I can't help much with academics but. I wish. To help." Kageyama finally snapped his mouth shut, meaning sufficiently conveyed.
Then he continued to stand in the hallway, arms straight down his sides, staring at the lightbulb.
Suga's familiar, fond chuckle. Something loosened in his chest when he heard it, and Kageyama let himself look lower to see Sugawara had propped his chin with one hand, looking bemused.
"Oh, Kageyama," was all he said, before he waved Kageyama over, filling the silence with gossip about his week in university. The tutor was being unreasonable again, his group-mates being phenomenal, and the work he was being swamped with since mid-sems were coming. "I'm prepped enough though," Suga said as he poured tea for the both of them, before booting up his computer. "The only thing I need to do is to watch this video on this study about the effect of natural noises on the human psyche…"
Kageyama perked up, swallowing his tea. "Let's watch it together!"
Suga raised an eyebrow. "You know that it's just going to be an hour of people talking about whale noises or something, right?"
"I like whales," Kageyama insisted earnestly.
"Ahaha, alright! Lemme find the link, Kageyama."
They settled next to each other, listening to the voice coming out slightly tinny out of the speakers and Kageyama fell asleep in the first half-hour. When he got woken up after the video had ended, it was to Suga's knowing grin and two cups of instant ramen. Dinner was slurping cheap noodles to some stupid videos that Suga had loaded in the background for noise, sitting cross-legged surrounded by reference books Kageyama half-understood.
When he left, warm and toasty and holding a back of snacks to take back with him from an insistent Sugawara, he carefully noted that Sugawara had looked a little less haggard and he patted himself on a job well done.
Extras:
Suga's actually not really that patient – unless he knows them and acknowledged them as a friend. Then the patience usually multiplies by 10000x as he nods and grins and complains about how dumb the problems are in his head instead. He's patient, of course, if the topics are not too stupid. Kageyama, fortunately, had always stayed juuuuust within the 'not-that-stupid' range because Suga realises perfectly that Kageyama doesn't mean to do most of the things he does, they just sometimes happen. To Suga's chagrin and slight pride, he is one of the people Kageyama reaches out to the most.
Kageyama doesn't know what to do with friends. It's okay, because his friends know what to do with him so most of the time they tease, but also ultimately explain what they're doing and why. Tanaka is the best at this because Suga is too lenient with Kageyama. It's Hinata that successfully drags him out the most though.