Tobio noticed his father's sour expression the moment they all sat down to eat. Extra chairs had been added to the table so that his grandparents could sit down, and the extra addition made everything more cramped. Not in the good way either, in the suffocating, pressuring way. He shifted slightly in his seat, wanting to get up and bolt from the table and the silence blanketing over all of them. He'd never met these people in his life, and now all they did was sit and eat, and they didn't even say anything to anyone.

It was like a normal family dinner, but worse.

Finally, his father broke the suffocating silence, "You aren't going to say anything?" he asked.

The old woman looked up from the table first. Her eyes were blue like theirs were, but they were more severe like his father's. She had frown lines and wrinkles all over her face and her eyes were critical. The moment she opened her mouth, Tobio knew he wasn't going to like what she had to say. All she asked, however, was, "Well, where should I start?"

"How about the beginning." His father ground out, sending the old woman sharper daggers after she said one sentence than had ever been directed at him.

Then the part Tobio knew he wouldn't like came out of her mouth, "Well, for starters this place is still a mess. Just like the last time we visited." She sniffed and crossed her arms, not even sparing the surrounding room a glance to prove her point.

"You mean nine years ago?" his father asked, hysteria creeping into his voice, "Of course the house was a mess, Tobio was three!"

"Well now he's much older and it hasn't gotten any better."

Kageyama glanced over at his mother after that comment. She had her hands fisted in her lap, bunching up her skirts, the only sign of her frustration because her expression remained the same.

"I think it's clean." Tobio murmured, his voice barely carrying, as he gazed around their dining room.

It had seemed to him the house was always immaculately cleaned because that was what his mother did all day long, early into the morning until late at night. She cleaned.

The old woman chuckled, "Oh, my dear boy, of course you would think that." The woman he'd never met until now then gave him what he assumed to be an amused smile. Her tone was somewhat mocking, however. She continued on after that exclamation, "But if you actually look you can see dust everywhere."

"Like where, mom!" his father clenched his fist on top of the table.

She rolled her eyes, "Anyone with eyes could see it, isn't that right." She elbowed the man beside her, who nodded.

"Correct. And the food is tasteless." He commented.

"Your son looks messy. If he walks around like that all the time, people will assume he's uneducated." The woman continued the assault.

His father gave a growl of frustration, "I'm not home all day to regulate what he wears!"

"Well maybe if you'd had a good soulmate, she would be here to do such things, and clean and cook properly."

Kageyama thought he'd seen his father angry.

But it was never anything like this. He was red in the face, jaw set, and his fists were completely white he was clenching them so tightly. He could see his mother giving him concerned glances every now and then, looking like she wanted to say something, but for some reason wasn't going to.

"Look," the old woman let out a sigh, "you never were good at rising to our expectations, but I'll admit this is an…" the woman paused, "effort. And while your wife may not be your soulmate, or a good wife, at least you managed to get a wife at all."

"Speaking of which," the old man suddenly spoke up and turned to Kageyama, "let's see those soulmarks, son. You're older than eight, right?"

"Yes…" Tobio admitted hesitantly, knowing he wasn't allowed to show his soulmarks.

"Well let's see them." The old woman reached across the table and grabbed his arm, forcefully dragging up his sleeves when he tried to pull his arm back.

There were a few words written there by Oikawa and Iwaizumi, but it was hardly an interesting conversation.

What was written, made him a little embarrassed. He didn't want anyone reading his soulmarks, much less someone he barely knew, and he certainly didn't want this conversation to be the first thing they saw.

Night Iwa-chan~

Sometimes, I just wish you'd fuck off…

But goodnight Tooru.

The old woman stared at his arms for much longer than Tobio deemed necessary to read that little exchange before she finally said, "Oh, what an… interesting conversation." She smiled lightly, though it didn't reach her eyes and Tobio could instantly tell it was fake. "But neither of those names fit you, Tobio." She went on. "Do you have two soulmates?"

Kageyama nodded and glanced at his mother who was staring at his soulmarks with that same odd expression she'd had the first time she'd seen them. Then he turned to his father to see if he was looking at Kageyama, only to see he was just glaring at the old woman.

"Are they good soulmates?" the old man asked, taking another bite of the food that was supposedly plain.

"Yes." Which was actually the truth for once. If anything, he was the bad soulmate between all of them. Always lying and sneaking around, and hiding things from them, spying on them. He'd done horrible things he thought he would never do to anyone, much less the people he was destined to be with, but here they were.

"Well at least you did one thing right." The woman commented, glancing over at his father before turning his arms over and admiring his marks with an odd fascination.

His father said nothing, but had his arms crossed. He still looked furious and unhappy.

And for once he actually understood why his father was so angry and agreed with those feelings. His grandparents were rather unpleasant and Tobio just wanted them to leave. He didn't like how they were insulting his mother and father or how they forced him to show his soulmarks.

Finally, the woman let go of his arms and Tobio yanked down his sleeve as fast as possible before the old man continued the interrogation they were giving his father, "So where's he going to school?"

His father turned to the man and answered shortly, "Kitigawa Daichii."

"Isn't that a local school." The woman said with a raised eyebrow and pursed lips like it was some distasteful thing.

"Yes." His father said curtly. "For the last time, we can't afford a prestigious school in a big city like Tokyo."

"Well then how is he supposed to meet influential people?" The old woman demanded, "Why, he'll just be friends with all these small town folk and never get anywhere in life."

Tobio didn't understand why these people he'd never met were so interested in where he went with life, but he planned to play professional volleyball. He just didn't say that out loud because it wouldn't go over well. His parents wanted him to be something practical.

"That's not happening. I make sure that if Tobio has someone he'd like to be his friend, he bring them home so I can assess whether they'd be good for him or not."

"So you do the bare minimum?" The woman raised an eyebrow and chuckled humorlessly.

"I'm trying, mother, but I told you we can't afford a prestigious school for him to meet influential people right now, alright? He has a very structured lifestyle. He gets perfect grades, he—"

"If only you'd been like Tobio." The woman cut off with a sigh.

"I was like him!" his father slammed his fist down on the table causing Tobio and his mother to jump. His father's parents just stared at him impassively until he said, "I did everything you fucking asked!"

The façade of a polite family dinner finally broke away at that point. "Don't curse at your mother!" the old man shouted, his mouth twisting in anger, eyes flashing.

The woman, however, didn't look bothered by the outburst and just said, "Yet you're still here." She wrinkled her nose and gave the entire room a critical look. Gave his father and mother a critical look, so judgemental it was like she'd been saving it so it could gain power. And even though it wasn't directed at him, Kageyama felt exposed and judged by their looks. He could only imagine how his parents felt.

He knew they didn't have a lot of money, knew they had enough to pay the bills and eat, and he knew if he truly wanted something his parents could financially get it for him.

But he knew they didn't have enough money to get something this size in a big city like Tokyo, knew his parents would never put themselves in that position.

He was confused as to why not living in a bigger city was such a huge deal.

"How are you going to make it big if you never take any risks?" she demanded, pressing down suffocatingly.

"Risks!" His father growled as if unaffected, "Risks are for when you're twenty years old, not middle aged with a wife and child! If you wanted me to make it big so damn bad you would've given me the money to do it. I'm not interested in that crap anymore, I'm not going to spend our money to fulfill your dreams!"

The woman leaned back in her chair, "You're such a disappointment, honestly." The woman shook her head.

"Get the fuck out." His father growled.

"Honey," his mother started, the first time she'd spoken, and of course it was to play peacemaker. She was always the peacemaker. "They're your parents."

Kageyama wasn't sure why his mother said that. Of course they were his father's parents but they were rude and mean. Tobio didn't even know them but they came in and acted like it was alright to just expose his soulmarks without his permission. They thought he looked uneducated, they insulted their entire way of life.

However, the comment his mother made seemed to calm his father, though Tobio had no idea why. He wanted the man and woman to just leave too. They made him feel extremely uncomfortable, vulnerable, and weak.

The woman harrumphed anyway and stood up, walking over to the entry to grab her purse in a huff, "Oh no, we know where we aren't wanted." She declared. "We don't have forever, but cut us out of your life if you want," the woman sniffed, her bottom lip trembling and Tobio almost rolled his eyes at how she tried to be the victim all of a sudden.

"Mom…" his father looked tired and placed a hand on his forehead, "I'm sor—"

"I don't want to hear it," she screamed, abruptly angry, "don't take our advice!" she wagged her finger, hand on the doorknob, "But you will be left with nothing one day or another and then you'll wished you'd made it big instead of hooking up with some random woman and having a baby with her all because of one bad experience!"

"One bad experience! She was my soulmate, it wasn't supposed to be a bad experience!" his father defended.

"Well, it was, and you somehow made the situation worse!" the woman looked directly at his mother now, her gaze filled with utter hatred before she adjusted her stony glare on her husband. "Hurry up, dear," she growled, "we're leaving!"

The old man gulped down the rest of his food before standing up and following the woman out of the house with a slam.

The house went quiet.

And they sat there saying nothing for a long time.

It was his mother who spoke first, and her voice was barely a whisper, "Don't you think you were a bit harsh?" she asked. "They're old, after all, and they just want to make sure you're well off."

"I would be better off if they didn't question all of my life choices."

Kageyama piped up from the other side of the table, "Papa, what were they talking about? When they mentioned your soulmate." He asked.

"It's nothing Tobio," his father growled after a beat of silence, and on the second part of his sentence, his voice softened, "just finish your dinner and go up to bed."

Tobio went silent for a long time, mulling his father's response over in his head before saying, "Okay." He didn't want to argue right now. His father was obviously stressed already, and if Tobio was being honest he was stressed by the entire dinner as well.

Even as he finished his meal and washed his dishes his parents still sat at the table, and they didn't seem to have any intention of moving.

They didn't move even after he said goodnight, kissed his mother's cheek, and hugged his father.

He knew they didn't move because instead of going to bed like he was asked, he secretly sat on the stairs and pressed as close as possible without being seen.

Now, Kageyama didn't mean to eavesdrop, he was just wondering if his parents would move if he left, but they didn't and started to talk about things Tobio couldn't help but hear.

Maybe he had meant to eavesdrop just a little.

"Do you think they're right?" His father's deep voice filled the dining room first.

His mother didn't answer for a long time and for a minute he thought she wasn't going to but then she asked, "About which part?"

"All of it."

"Well…" his mother started, "I don't think the house was a mess. And I don't think my food was bland."

Kageyama peered around the corner in time to see his father nod. "Dad ate all of it anyway. It obviously wasn't bad."

He looked back over at his mother, waiting for her to say more. "I don't think they were right about Tobio. I thought he looked educated tonight."

"He's in middle school, of course he's educated. It's not as if he has a choice whether to go to school or not."

"True."

"It also doesn't matter if he looks educated or not! What matters is that he is!" his father's voice suddenly turned frustrated.

She nodded in agreement, "I don't think they were right about anything, really. How could they be when they don't know anything about you?"

Tobio was pretty sure that was her way of pushing his father to let his parents in on his life more. Except Tobio didn't want him to do that, would be perfectly fine if he never saw his grandparents again.

"It doesn't matter. They knew enough to make complaints and that's already too much."

"But Tobio didn't even know them. Do you really want him to never have a relationship with his grandparents?"

"Of course I would want him to have a relationship with them if I thought they would be a good influence on Tobio. But as it is, they'll fill his head with ideas of 'risks' and 'fame'. Just like they filled my head with that nonsense. Knowing them I'm fairly sure they meant investments and business deals but I thought it meant women and doing illegal things to get money. And without real help from them of course I would, I was just a dumb kid."

"It was because of you taking your parents advice however, that you met your soulmate though, right?"

"I wish I'd never met that woman. If I could go back and never talk to her I would."

Tobio desperately wanted to know why he felt that way. What had happened with his soulmate? His mother nor father ever talked about either of their soulmates. They never really talked to him about their past at all. This was the first time Tobio was getting to learn anything about his parents.

Kageyama, deep down, though he didn't want to believe it, had always known his parents were right about bad soulmates. Of course there were bad soulmates because there were bad people. He never would've thought his father knew about that personally though.

His mother stared and leaned back in her chair, studying his father's face as Kageyama often found himself doing to others. "And what… what if you hadn't met her? What would you have done then?" she said carefully.

"Are you asking if I would've still slept with you that night?"

Kageyama almost gagged, he didn't need to hear about that.

He didn't know the details, but he knew to make a baby people had to get naked and he thought that was embarrassing and disgusting and he hated thinking that was how he was able to exist now.

"I suppose so." His mother said softly.

"Yes. I wouldn't trade what I have now for the fame and wealth I might've been able to accumulate. I love you… and I love Tobio."

Kageyama hadn't heard his father say that in a while. "I want to do better, want to give him better than what I had. But I think I'm failing."

"I think you're doing a little better than your parents. But I think there are things you could consider."

His mother had always worded things better than he was ever able to. He wanted to be tactful like her, but he could only ever let the first thing he was thinking spill from his mouth and reap the consequences.

"Okay," his father let out a short laugh, "I can try to do things differently…"

Before his father could continue Kageyama then did the stupidest thing he could do in that situation, but he felt he had to. He couldn't just go upstairs after everything he heard and not reveal he'd heard everything.

He didn't really want this to be another lie.

So he stepped out from behind the wall, knowing they might be angry at him. Knowing they had every right to be angry at him for this. It was wrong to eavesdrop on private conversations after all.

Tobio's mother, always more observant, noticed him first. "Tobio?" she asked, and he could almost see concern in her eyes.

His father turned, "What's wrong?" he asked. "I thought we told you to go to bed."

"Nothing is wrong." Tobio admitted.

"Then why are you out of bed?" His father's eyebrows furrowed.

"I was listening," He slurred the words out, going so fast, he almost hoped his parents didn't catch what he was saying. But of course, they did.

"That was a private conversation." His mother scolded. "You shouldn't have listened in. It wasn't your place."

"I know. But I wanted to know about papa's soulmate."

"I thought I told you it was none of your damn business."

"I know papa, I'm sorry." Kageyama bowed straight down at ninety degrees. "And I'm sorry I showed my soulmarks at dinner." Even mentioning soulmates was risky business when it came to his family, but both of his parents looked too tired to care much about what Kageyama said. He could understand, he felt fatigued as well after that dinner and he was counting on that exhaustion to help him get through this conversation.

"We're not mad at you about that Tobio." His father shook his head. "There's no need for you to apologize for your grandparents."

"Oh, okay." He was fairly sure that would be the response he got, but he wanted to make sure. "Goodnight again." He wanted to get out of there before they could think to scold him more about the eavesdropping.

"For real this time, right?"

"For real," Kageyama confirmed and his father let out a tired sigh.

"Goodnight, Tobio." He said and his mother repeated the gesture before Kageyama went up to his room. He knew more about both his parents than he ever had, was starting to get an idea of what their old life was like, their life before him. But he could see they always clammed up about it when he was in the room.

Kageyama had a taste now, and he wanted to know more. But he wasn't going to get anything more out of them unless they were extremely drunk or something which he knew wasn't going to happen.

Tobio crawled in bed after he brushed his teeth and turned off the lights. He laid in the dark then, nightlight illuminated next to him so he could see the ceiling he was staring at. Tobio knew he had to find some other way to get to know more about his parents, and now he knew the people who had that information.

Kageyama didn't like them, didn't like his grandparents at all, would gladly never speak to them again, but if they would be able to tell him about the things he wanted to know about… maybe he could feel closer to his parents and close the rift he could feel starting to separate them.

Maybe if he showed them he understood they could all get along better.

The next morning Kageyama woke up, his entire room blurry for a moment before his eyes adjusted to the light streaming through his bedroom window.

The night before almost felt like a dream, even though he knew it wasn't because he remembered going to that birthday party, and if his grandparents hadn't come over he would've been in deep trouble.

So he knew last night was real, and in a way it was a good thing they came. They helped get him out of trouble, and they revealed things he never would've known about his parents otherwise.

That morning, he hurried and dressed for school, wanting an early start to the day. "Bye mama!" he called and slammed the door behind him, hurrying off to school.

The morning was a little warmer than it had been in past weeks, but not warm enough he looked odd in his long sleeved shirts, and cool enough that the sun actually felt nice. It was clear today after days and days of cloudy weather, so the change was nice.

He could feel it was going to be a good day.

As he was walking, something bright flooded the corner of his eyes, but when he turned there was nothing there. Kageyama stared at the spot where he'd seen the bright thing before he shrugged and kept walking to school.

Then, he saw it again.

Tobio whipped around, this time much faster, wondering if something was wrong with his vision because the bright orange flash was gone before he could catch whatever it was yet a second time.

Maybe it was a bee.

"Hey!"

"Ack!" Kageyama screamed, jumped, and whirled around, heart in his throat, to see the boy from the park. His hair was still carrot colored, and grin still impossibly wide.

"Yamayama-kun, funny running into you again." He said with a grin. "I thought it was you I saw, but I had to make sure."

Kageyama rolled his eyes, "Dummy, we live in the same town. And it's not funny!"

Hinata tilted his head before shrugging, "Where are you going Yamayama-kun?" he asked.

"School." Tobio muttered, starting to walk again, but this time Hinata followed him.

"Cool. Wanna skip?"

"Skip what?" Kageyama asked, raising an eyebrow.

"School. We could go somewhere else and hang out."

"No, I have to go to school. And you need to go to school too. Won't they call our parents if we don't show up?" Kageyama didn't want to get in trouble again.

"Well… anime characters skip school all the time and don't get in trouble." Hinata reasoned with him.

"We aren't anime characters."

The shorter boy pouted and crossed his arms, obviously not liking Kageyama's logical response.

"Besides," Kageyama added, "I have volleyball practice today, and I don't want to skip that."

"You play volleyball?"

Kageyama nodded, "Yeah, and I have a responsibility to be at practice, and I also have to get good grades, so I can't skip school with you today."

"Well what if we planned it for some other day?" Kageyama was about to clarify he couldn't skip any day when Hinata added, "Or we could just hang out on the weekend!"

"I don't have a phone though." How would they plan it?

"We'll meet this Saturday! Right here… by that store!" Hinata pointed over to one of the small shops across the street and turned back to Kageyama with a grin."

"Um… what time?"

"Noon! I'll for sure be there, pinkie swear!"

Tobio didn't think this was a very good idea, but last time he and Hinata hung out it was really fun. Playing around and goofing off with him, made him far happier than it should've made him. He would have to make sure to remember his shoes this time though, and dress more appropriately for the weather if he was to go.

"So what do you say?" Hinata asked, his eyes too hopeful for Kageyama to even consider saying no.

"Okay," Tobio agreed softly. He could leave, hang out with Hinata, and get back before his parents even noticed he was gone, he was sure of it. Besides, he wanted to have fun with Hinata, and he was sure his parents would say no if he asked.

They would want to meet him, and considering Hinata had just suggested they skip school he already knew the orange haired boy would not be up to the standard his father, and possibly grandparents, had set for him.

The boy gave him a huge smile and said, "Okay, see you then Yamayama-kun, bye!" Hinata waved before speeding off in the other direction, a tiny blur as he ran.

The boy certainly was fast.

Kageyama readjusted his backpack and started walking again. Now though, he was smiling. He had something to get him through the week. He had something to look forward to.

A/N When you can't help but add sunshine boy back in, make your readers hate someone else, and ended the chapter within 2.8k but the edited version is like 4.5k. Reviews always appreciated!