"Tumble, Like Jack and Jill."
From Jo's Playlist: Mr. Brightside by The Killers
Jo was dreading her conversation with Kuroo on their routine walk home.
The train ride, as per usual, had been uneventful. The boys worked through another level on Kenma's game but this time Jo chipped in when they appeared stuck. Kenma would nod to himself when her suggestions actually worked out and her shoulders relaxed when he listened
It was nice. It felt normal. As normal as she could feel as her first week came to a close.
Even walking beside Kuroo in silence after Kenma peeled off made her chest comfortably warm. The quietness wasn't awkward. She focused on the chirping of the birds perched on the powerlines and inhaled the sweet scent of the spring flowers blooming. She took in the familiar shadowy silhouettes of the rooftops. Her feet avoided the cracks in the sidewalk without thought.
"Did you ask your dad about this weekend?" Kuroo asked, breaking the silence.
Jo nodded, kicking a pebble with the toe of her black sneaker. Careful to avoid his eyes. "Yeah. My parents aren't quite comfortable with it yet. But they said next time might work," she tried to keep her voice light but she couldn't help the frustration that slipped in.
She understood their worry. She did. But it didn't make her feel any less adequate. Any less young adult that already nipped at her heels like a hound.
Kuroo didn't scoff. She risked a glance to him and saw that his face didn't twist into a teasing grin. Instead, it stayed serious, his brows pinching together. "That makes sense. Hopefully they'll be more okay with it in the next few weeks. There's talk we may face an old rival,"
"Who?"
The sly grin that only appeared when he was strategizing grew on his face. "Kurasuno High. Our coaches used to pit us against one another back in the day, way before my time,"
Jo tipped her head in his direction. "Why's that?" Every rivalry had a story. Either some class wronged the other, the coaches had it out for one another, a difference in student body population, or it was a high income school versus a low income school.
Her track team had enjoyed showing off to the bigger high schools in their state. A thrill would shoot through her veins when they proved that yes, we are just as good as you, and better. A rush she felt when she overlooked a mountain's edge or a city from high above. A rush of more.
Kuroo stopped at his gate and Jo lingered at hers. He leaned his forearm on the flat top of the brick wall. His grin narrowed in a feline way. "Our coaches wanted to face one another in nationals. It never came to be while Kurasuno's coach was still there, but I'm hoping they've got their stuff back,"
"Did something happen?" Jo leaned against the wall that divided their property.
He shrugged, grin faltering into a thoughtful tug of his lips. "They went to nationals once. But that was it. The team fell apart not long after. But word is that they have a good group of first years. I want us to be good enough to see them at nationals this year. And to beat them," he said with a sly grin.
"Then Titus and I will work you boys to the bone so you are," she said, fingers curling around the gate latch. "I can promise you that," a mischievous smile quirking her mouth.
Kuroo laughed gently and shifted on his feet, his eyes suddenly not meeting hers. His shoulders tensed and his fingernails scratched along the grit of the concrete. "I was wondering," he began.
Jo paused, the latch halfway from its lock. She lifted a brow in need of being plucked, waiting as he wrestled with his words.
"Want to grab a coffee after school on Monday?"
A rush overtook Jo's nervous system. Without a second thought, a quick "I would love to," slipped from her mouth, followed by a pang of regret.
It felt like betrayal to the experiences she shared with Matteo. Like she was ripping out that chapter of her life.
But when she entered the savory smelling kitchen and saw her mom pushing vegetables around in the pan, she admitted timidly to herself she could move along. She didn't have to stay alone, despite the guilt that nawed on her ribs.
She could step onto the next train and see where coffee with Kuroo would take her.
The phone call with Bri was as awful as Jo anticipated.
She tried. She tried so hard to make her voice seem as light as air, but the fakeness of it all was undeniable. It didn't take long for their small talk to fade into silence.
"Listen, Jo," Bri hesitated.
"It's fine, you don't need to say anything," Jo said, staring at her ceiling. She kicked her feet up against the wall, her sweatpants falling down to her knees to show her hairy legs.
"Did Matteo tell you?" she asked, relief swelling in her voice.
Jo swallowed thickly. She pushed the heels and balls of her feet against the wall and pushed, focusing on the strain of her sore thighs and not the hurt bubbling in her stomach. "Yeah he called the other day. For real, you two are such a sweet couple." The words stuck to her throat like flies to honey.
"I'm glad. I was worried you would be hurt. It wasn't our intention," she said.
It never is, Jo thought.
But the hurt was still there. The flowers of their relationship freshly ripped up from the useless soil. Not from them dating, heavens no. Though it didn't help.
It was from the absence. Wilting naturally, the blossoms of their friendship was seeming to fail in the chill of the prolonged spring. Jo had left the garden, and as much as she wanted to deny it she could not climb the wall to tend to the flowers and bushes and ferns that lay there, covered in frost.
Perhaps she could tend to a single rose. Or two. Her thoughts drifted to April and Maria. The three had been thick as thieves. The original trio that had started it all.
But right now her fingers were too tired to prune away the weeds that were choking the stems and sapping away the life.
Bri kept chatting in Jo's ear about the spring holiday her old friends were currently on (she had stowed away from them to speak to Jo, a thought that did warm her frosty chest), and after a moment she was put on speaker for the rest of the group to talk. Jo listened to their muffled voices with a racing heart and shaking fingers that curled into her palm. Her feet thumped against the wall systematically.
The phone buzzed with a text. Jo pulled it away from her ear, tapping it to speaker and mhm-ing as Leo rencounted a waterfall he and Matteo jumped off of the other day. Are you kicking the wall? Kuroo asked.
Jo froze the thumping of her heels. Legs suspended halfway above, she grimaced and bent them to her chest. My bad. I'm on the phone and have the jitters. She had no idea the walls were as thin as papyrus paper.
Friends from Italy? Came his reply a moment later.
Yeah, just catching up.
Perhaps you could visit them over summer break.
Jo stared at the words on the glowing screen. She could visit them during summer. She had about two weeks off of school.
But they would already be in session, and who would she even stay with? No. The pull of her brother's farm called to her heart. It sang to her, a cacophony of cicadas and crickets and chucks-will's-willows.
Her heart strained. As though if it reached far enough, stretched hard enough, it could travel to that point in time several months from now.
"-osaphine?" rang Bri's soft voice.
Jo snapped out of her revere of deep summers spent in truck beds and chasing sunsets with music blaring. "Yes? Sorry I zoned for a minute. It's been a long day,"
Leo's laugh filtered through the crappy speaker. "Dodo," he said endearingly. "She asked how the volleyball club was,"
A grin wrestled to appear on her face. "They're fun. I ran into an old classmate from the States, actually. He introduced me to the club and the boys seem really nice,"
"Boys?" April jumped in, humor laced under her accusing tone.
Jo scrunched her eyes closed. A minor detail she had been leaving out, knowing they would poke fun at her for it. And she didn't want to appear as though she were boyfriend hunting. "Yeah. They're a handful but they're funny." And they were. She found herself snorting in humor on several occasions as the team gave Lev a difficult time with his technique. They were a family with one another.
She enjoyed watching the comradery.
The phone call continued well into the night. All the whole Jo gently thumped her feet against the wall as the thousands of miles between her and the old group magnified. The chasm in her chest grew, yawning its mouth to an impossible size and impossible to cross.
The hill was beginning to wear on Jo. Far more than it should have, even for a Monday morning.
Her thighs screamed and her lungs burned and her throat was sore and her chest ached with every heave of breath. Her vision blurred and she blinked back into focus, staring at the broad shoulders of her father far ahead of her.
She had barely slept the previous night. Memories of her and Matteo circling her head like planets around the sun. She swiped through her phone, reliving that year of utter bliss through the photos and videos she kept.
Her and Matteo cooking dinner to swing music in the flat. His grin softening his sharp features and his off key voice singing along to Frank Sinatra while she hummed along.
April, Maria, and Bri exploring the hidden alleyways of the city. Friends she missed above all else.
The whole group staying up late and watching the bustling city from high above on April's balcony. Spilling their guts about their hopes and dreams and desires and fears and shames.
Things she had to let go but couldn't. She couldn't let go of the handle of that suitcase. She couldn't step off the platform to the next train.
Her foot caught on a crack and she stumbled. Her palms singed in pain when they scraped along the concrete. Her heart pounded against her chest rapidly. Too rapidly. She glanced at her FitBit and her blood turned to sludge in her boiling viens.
"Dad," she croaked. When had her throat gone so dry? It was like sandpaper against her vocal chords.
Her vision swam and her heart jumped high into her sandpaper throat. As her face fell to the sidewalk she just caught sight of Kuroo jogging up the hill. His amber eyes rose to meet her darker ones, dark circles rimmed around his narrow lids. Suddenly they widened in alarm and he opened his mouth before black swirled and swallowed her whole.
AN: So now school is kicking my butt. But oh well! I hope everyone is doing well, I love hearing from you all :) Please let me know what you think, your reviews mean the absolute world to me. Much love!