YEAR THREE 9/9 Solicitude & Allayment
Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise. ~Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
Kei Tsukishima is about ninety-eight percent certain that his personal space is about to be breached.
The soft pad of small footsteps behind him has him lifting the quill from the page in front of him with a jerk so he doesn't leave another stray streak in the ledger like he had three days ago. He can almost count down the moment to impact as the little feet leave the ground and slender wings beat twice. He tenses slightly with a blank scowl the last instant before a small body launches itself across his shoulder, sticky little hands circling his neck. His eye twitches.
Two hours. Why did he even bother bathing?
The last ten days he and the owls and Yamaguchi have spent with Suga's relatives in Sheru Bay have been nothing if not eventful. Actually, Kei didn't hate working in the thrush family shop, could see himself getting comfortable there even. Suga's aunt and uncle had been nothing but the epitome of hospitable and he and the others wanted for nothing.
The family patriarch had offered to let him do the shop books that first day they'd showed up, and Kei had easily stepped into the role every evening following. The rest of the responsibilities around the shop, such as manning the front— which Yamaguchi incidentally loved most, or stocking supplies had been menial chores that Kei couldn't bring himself to legitimately care about… but crunching the numbers on that ledger every night after they closed for the evening…
It had been centuries since he'd last been through formal schooling, decades since he'd actually applied any of the knowledge, and years of craving pretty much any form of mental exercise. He'd gravitated toward the position with a mortifying amount of enthusiasm, the scratch of the quill against parchment sending little zips of adrenaline through his fingertips and the slightly musty scent that would hit him with the turn of each crisp page a dose of nostalgia.
It's been centuries since he's last been through formal schooling, and he's had no academic challenge since. Picking up that quill and forcing his mind through the numbers and the process of balancing out that day's transactions… Kei finds it ridiculously cheesy, but it had called to him. Running books for Suga's relatives, his aunt and uncle spectacular, Kei could honestly see himself content here… if it weren't for the resident minions.
"Tsukki!" The child squeals in his ear making him flinch, and in a moment, the kid is squirming up his back, a small foot finding a distinctly uncomfortable purchase on the junction where one of his wings meets his shoulder.
"Hello, Taji." Kei says flatly.
The boy is aptly named; his wings are a lighter silver than Suga's, but with bright golden eyes and an infinite pit of energy, Kei would almost have to say he's more like Hinata— or perhaps Noya or Tanaka with how devious he can be. The boy leans forward over his shoulder.
"What'cha doin'?"
Kei stares straight ahead, resisting the urge to frown with sincere annoyance. He doesn't dare drop the quill back to the page while he's still afflicted with a diabolical little fledgling barnacle.
"Working." He says bluntly.
"Can't you do it later? I wanna play Volley!"
Of course you do.
A lead breath leaves Kei's lungs and he slowly sets the quill down before turning to eye Taji.
"I'm sure Bokuto will play with you." He says. The boy's face slips into a pout.
"Boku and Kaashi aren't home yet." He says.
"What about Yamaguchi?" He hears a snort behind him and turns to find the freckled crow leaning in the doorway, grinning like an idiot.
"If I get the ball, will you play?" Taji asks, ignoring his question completely. Yamaguchi raises a brow at him, his eyes creasing as his smile nearly splits his face.
Glad you're enjoying yourself.
"Half hour." Kei caves and the kid whoops on his shoulders, nearly wrenching him off his stool.
Taji scrambles off of him, his little wings batting him in the back of the head in his flailing rush. He straightens back up as the kid disappears out the door to retrieve the ball and glares at the crow… who promptly bursts out laughing.
"Nice to know the backup is useless." He mutters and the crow doubles over with a wheezing 'Sorry, Tsukki'.
Kei gets to his feet, his knees and spine cracking as he stretches them out, his eyes ruefully sliding toward the ledger one more time. He'll just have to finish after… probably still with a maniacal waif bouncing in his lap until he falls asleep there.
"He really is like a cat, you know?" Yamaguchi says, still chuckling. "He wants nothing to do with you until you ignore him." Kei's brow rises.
The sound of the ball bouncing down the hall curbs his retort, though, and he sets off to find the hurricane of disaster wrapped in a child's form… but he's not fast enough. There's another bounce and then a shatter and Kei's instantly in the next room, Yamaguchi right behind him. A glass bowl that held floating tealights lies in too many pieces to count beside the shelf it had sat on moments before.
"Taji, what did we say about playing in the house?" He asks, feeling a headache coming on. The boy looks at him apologetically before bending to clean up the mess and Kei once more reacts without thought, his hand snapping out to circle his tiny wrist.
"Ah, don't touch it." He says probably more sharply than he means as Yamaguchi bends beside him to start picking up the pieces.
"Go ahead, Tsukki, I got this." He says with a light smile. The ibis glares at him momentarily before scooping up the ball and tugging Taji along behind him; the freckled crow is well aware he'd have preferred switching the two tasks.
As he leads the boy outside, Kei wonders which deity he's managed to piss off that the universe has seen fit to fuck with him at this level. It's always seemed to take great pleasure in ensuring his misery as far as that went, but he's thoroughly convinced he unintentionally lit some small rodent aflame with an unattended campfire or perhaps accidentally deprived an orphanage of their weekly meal by taking down a deer or something. He's pretty sure he's had to have done something inherently depraved enough that the world has taken it upon itself to settle whatever personal vendetta it has with him in particular.
His brow quirks with annoyance. Perhaps the most logical answer is that he was born. It's always been like this… he imagines it just seems like everything has condensed lately.
Kei isn't someone who likes excessive human interaction. He doesn't do physical contact and he doesn't like kids. How in hell Kuroo had seen fit to place him in a home with children who didn't know the first thing about boundaries so he could work in a shop that saw an excessive number of people beyond his daily mental limit is the riddle of the century.
They did need someone to manage connections between the groups, but Kuroo could have just as easily asked Ukai to do it as Kei and the others. The first raven had arrived three days after they'd split and two days after the first sentries had shown up. Kuroo had informed them that they had reached Ivoya and would likely split off into two groups shortly, so they were to expect another raven a couple days later.
Except the second raven never came.
Two days turned into four and then a week. Sentries— no more than a unit's worth ever at a time— had congregated in Sheru Bay, but he and Yamaguchi had remained invisible to them. The two owls had taken some flack, but the crows had backed off when Ukai had casually stepped in and pulled them away in a show of solidarity. But there had been no raven. They'd surmised that Kuroo and the rest of his group must have run into some hassle, and the cat had opted to forgo one rather than put them all at risk in an attempt to get a message out.
It had set them all on edge just the same. Tadashi had paced around the shop, constantly tidying the place despite there being no need. Bokuto had even sulked long enough that Akaashi had offered to teach him some of the more difficult knots… and the streaked owl had actually sat through it. Even Kei'd caught himself stopping by the local aviary multiple times a day to see if anything had come. Yamaguchi had even tried Ukai's to see if he'd received one directly but there'd been nothing.
And then, two days ago— five days since they were supposed to have received their second raven— there'd been something of a commotion as the sentry unit that had remained in Sheru Bay had condensed in the town square not far from the Sugawara's shop front. They'd all gathered and taken off without so much as a backward glance or parting word— as if they were in a hurry. They hadn't given any indication that they were preparing to depart and it had made Kei go cold.
The last forty-eight hours have been agonizing.
The universe is really taking a crack at him this time, because Kei doesn't care about people. He widely considers roughly ninety-three percent of all individuals beneath his notice, so why Kuroo left him in charge of keeping communication lines open between the three groups, he can't even scratch the surface of.
Kei doesn't care about people. Not enough to have been the one making sure they all stayed connected. But the universe is laughing at him, because somehow, by some twisted fuckery, every one of the beach crew have somehow made it into that last seven percent of people he can't pretend exist in an alternate dimension. Even Feathers, for fuck's sake.
Kei doesn't care about people… but he desperately wants them not to be the reason for the sentries' hasty exit.
Kei doesn't care about people… and like nothing he's ever wanted before, Kei wants them all to come back home.
Kei knows he's been out here longer than a half hour— it's probably much closer to two, actually. The sun is dropping over the trees to the west, but he's still settled back on his knees, his legs folded and toes supporting and propping him forward just a bit as he tosses the ball to Taji. Yamaguchi had joined them after cleaning up the broken bowl, occasionally chasing a ball that comes off the boy's arms so Kei doesn't have to get up.
The kid has decent reflexes and hand-eye coordination, but his ball control is almost nonexistent… although it has gotten better the last week. For only being some five hundred years old, Kei imagines he's not doing too badly. He bets Feathers would probably make some offhand remark like how he and the other Karasuno unit members were all perfect players and winning matches at that age or something, but the silver haired boy has enough determination that Kei's pretty sure he could make real progress if he had someone to play with constantly.
"Can we do something else? I'm tired of passing." Taji says as he bumps the ball back toward him a meter short and Kei catches it off a bounce.
"Passing is the most important part of a game. If your side can't receive a ball, no one else gets to play." Kei says with a frown.
Technically not entirely true, since he still played as a blocker regardless of passes… but the first touch on their side anytime a ball made it past him was always critical in determining if they could send it back.
"But it's boring!" Taji says emphatically, yet brings his hands together just the same when Kei tosses it to him again. An eyebrow arches.
Fair enough.
He played front line pretty much exclusively because Noya always rotated in when he hit back row, and he was middle blocker, so he was virtually never expected to cover hits. He'd gravitated more to the front because of height, but it was also something of a power trip to be able to deny the other team the chance to even get the ball onto their side.
He knew Noya found a similar satisfaction in being able to receive every one of the opposing team's serves or spikes, but it was probably a bit less malevolent. While Noya might be denying the other team the point, he was also initiating the next play for his own; Kei was barring access completely and shutting the other team down before the ball ever reached the libero. It had never been as reverberatingly gratifying to receive for Kei.
"Okay," He says with a raised brow, "What kind of hit do you want to do?" Taji puffs up.
"I want to be a setter!" An image of Feathers flashes through his mind and he sours a little.
"Why?"
"Because I want to be just like Uncle Koushi!" Kei blinks at the silver headed boy.
He supposes he should have seen that coming… but his inner critic is kicking in and he has to crush the urge to be petty and correct the boy. Sugawara might have been significantly older than Taji and his little sister, but they were still cousins.
"You will have to talk to him when he gets back. I'm not a setter." He says.
"Where is he?"
"He's on a trip." Yamaguchi says with a fragile smile and the boy looks at him fully.
"I heard Mom say that we don't know what's happened to them. Does that mean he's dead?" Taji asks frankly, the gravity of the question completely lost to the child who likely has no real grasp of something as life-changing as death yet. He's probably only concerned with whether he'll have to find someone else to teach him to set.
But Kei sees Tadashi pale slightly, and he has the irrational urge to hurl the ball at Taji's head for his naive insensitivity; he has to remind himself again that he is just a kid and probably has no idea how his words might affect those of them hanging onto a fractured hope at this point. But the freckled crow's stricken expression is gone a moment later, even if the deep lines of exhaustion still carve into his face. Yamaguchi smiles mildly.
"I think there's a chance they are still out there somewhere." He says and not for the first time Kei is struck by the fond expression his face morphs into, even on the heels of the kid dragging his greatest fears into the open.
And with a measure of awed chagrin he is reminded of his most recent revelation regarding the freckled crow beside him.
Tadashi loves children.
The ibis has no idea how he'd missed it, and in truth, he feels really quite… awful about that. How often had he complained to Yamaguchi about a loud or obnoxious spawn monster? How many times had he drifted to the opposite end of a room from a kid in silent protest of its existence? Is there even a realistic figure for all the times Tadashi had just smiled with that quirky grin and a laugh?
He's been Kei's constant companion for centuries, and it is only in the last week where they've been in continuous contact with two very small and precocious avians that he's realized it. And it's made him feel a horrible gut-churning emotion he's rarely been subject to in his life… like he's been the most arrogant self-centered ass for belittling something the crow obviously holds in such high regard.
"Why did they leave?" Taji breaks his depreciating self-reflection and at the slight crease around Yamaguchi's eyes, Kei is immediately answering for him.
"To escape you." The boy looks at him and his eyes narrow.
"They did not." He says.
"Did, too." He rebuttals just as fast.
Was he really getting into a bickering match with a kid?
"Did not." Taji says emphatically.
"They told me so." He says flatly, minorly indulging his deviant impulse to needle the kid.
"Tsukki!" He glances at Yamaguchi with a smirk tugging at his mouth.
"What? It's true." He says and the freckled crow's jaw drops, but Kei can see the slight upturn at the corner of his mouth. A flimsy rebuke is coming, he knows, but Tadashi finds his banter entertaining all the same.
"It is not. Don't listen to him, Taji." He says turning back to the boy. "Tsukki's just being obtuse." Kei feels his jaw drop slightly.
Obtuse? Obtuse.
Well, then.
"Yamaguchi just says that because he wasn't there." He says matter of factly, and Taji finds the crow with a frown.
"Were you really not there?" He asks, a bit put out and Kei can't quite keep the facade in place. He huffs in amusement.
"Nope he wasn't. You're pretty gullible, aren't you?" He asks with a cheeky smirk. "Reminds me of someone else I know… let me think, who was it?" He says tilting his head, the image of Feathers' leveler popping into his head.
Hinata was tougher to get going now than he had been when Kei had first met him, but he can still get the small spiker to believe some subtantially outlandish things on occasion. He'd even gotten him to ask Suga to pick up a 'cow' egg from the market next time the thrush went into Sheru Bay. The silver haired setter had stared at him blankly for several moments while Kei had nearly lost it.
"Hmm. I know. You're just like—"
"Kuroo." Yamaguchi says and Kei frowns slightly.
"Eh… not really who I had in mind, but—"
"No, Tsukki! It's Kuroo!" He says sharply and Kei's head jerks up at him.
The freckled crow stares beyond the boy, his dark hazel eyes fixed toward the tree line. Kei pushes to his feet, his gaze searching for the black cat, his chest tightening in anxious anticipation.
And there he is.
Half slouched shoulders carried in a sauntering gait, black ears, wild hair with its permanent bedhead effect, the heavy locks that drop across his blind eye, his other gold eye already finding them— it is Kuroo. The cat is alone, which he finds odd, but Yamaguchi is right.
"Tsukki," he whispers, his voice half choked.
"It's him, Tadashi." He says quietly. Yamaguchi sucks in a gasp and turns to him, the exhaustion still etched into his face forgotten.
"They're back, Tsukki! I have to tell Bokuto and Akaashi! I'm going to the docks!" He yelps, his wings already beating for takeoff.
"Yamaguchi, hold on—"
The freckled crow is nearly out of earshot by the time he gets a word out and Kei doubts he'd hear it even if he weren't. The stress of the last ten days had been undermined by bone-deep relief; Tadashi was nearly in tears. Kei watches him for a few moments more before looking back at Kuroo who's making steady progress toward him.
He steps up beside Taji who watches the approaching cat with large golden eyes. He startles slightly and looks up at him when Kei drops a hand on his head. He bends down.
"Hey. Can you take this and go find your mom and dad? Let them know they are back?" He says, handing the ball to the small boy. Taji looks like he wants to argue, but Kei silences him with a look and the young thrush takes the ball with a scowl. As he turns to go inside, the ibis looks up at the cat, the peculiar increase in his pulse making him frown.
"You're very late." He says with level boredom, but he's sure there's a catch that he didn't intend that makes it much more severe.
Kuroo stops in front of him with a long look and Kei's brow furrows as he takes in the black cat. His shoulders sag a bit more than usual, his eyes dull— even the clear one, his ears are flicked backward in a look of distress or discontent, and circles rim the undersides of his eyes. The cat doesn't just look exhausted, he looks almost broken.
"Oi. I hope you've got a half decent reason." He murmurs when Kuroo doesn't answer, his heartbeat increasing yet again.
Anger, he realizes with surprise.
"Does being caught up with a snake nest count?" He asks flatly and Kei's brows rise.
"You never sent another raven. Do you have any idea how worried everyone has been?" He snaps in a low voice, and Kei is instantly trying to reel his temper back in, because this — this scalding emotion burning through his veins— this is neither something he is experienced with nor prepared for.
People were beneath his notice as a general rule, they rarely ever even had the chance of making him this livid. But even as he tries to curb the impulse, he's stepping forward, his hand closing on Kuroo's shirt.
"Yamaguchi hasn't slept in two nights. Bokuto has been massively depressed and it's seriously terrifying that he's surrounded by ropes and rigging every day. Akaashi has been sullen and frazzled just trying to cope with his bipolar leveler. Noya and the others have been asking about you when they send ravens, and we've had nothing to tell them." He spits, and hates how it feels like he's lost all control. The cat stares at him with an even, unblinking gaze.
"And you, blondy?" He asks, and Kei loses his hold on his temper like he hasn't legitimately done in centuries.
"I'm fucking pissed." He growls into the cat's face.
No.
No, no, no. He really needs to get things back under control. He needs to slow his breathing and pulse, needs to release Kuroo's shirt. He doesn't get angry— just like he doesn't care.
The cat watches him with a decidedly lacking expression, a brow creeping up his forehead.
"This I can see." He murmurs and despite the cat's overall lackluster demeanor, the response is so Kuroo that Kei loses all train of thought.
He does let go of Kuroo's shirt. But that arm cocks back and flys forward to connect solidly with the black cat's jaw amid a fuzzy white blanketing feeling in his mind. And before he can process it, words are falling from his mouth as Kuroo stumbles, sharp and accusing.
"Now you can feel it."
He stares down the black cat as he straightens back up, the slightest huff of appreciative amusement whispering from his lungs. Kei expects to be defending himself from a retaliation; he did, after all, just punch Kuroo. But the cat just looks back at him with a bizarre apathy that is reminiscent of Kenma.
"Do you feel better?" He asks and Kei's rationality slides a little more.
He just hit this damned furball; the cat should be far more upset. And Kei has the completely juvenile urge to bring that fury to the surface, do whatever he can to make the cat every bit as irate as he is himself. Kei is used to shutting people down with a handful of words, but this is the first time he's spoken with the intention of getting a rise. Needs to get that reaction, because he's honestly thrown off by the cat's lack.
"I will fucking skin you, you bastard." He sneers and the cat… nods?
"You're within your rights to be upset. I know better than most anyone how stressful it is to care about someone enough that you fear you might lose them." He says with a frown and Kei glares at him.
"Bull. If that were true, you wouldn't have put everyone through that." He says icily and the cat draws in a heavy breath and releases it in a sigh that leaves him entirely unsure, his anger losing steam.
"You're right, Tsukki. I should have kept up, no matter the circumstance. I should have done things differently, should have made other choices. I failed and for that, I'm sorry."
The use of Yamaguchi's familiar for his name is distracting as hell, and the frank acknowledgement of his negligence leaves Kei feeling as if he's had his feet cut out from under him. The cat nods once and moves to step around him, but the ibis is still struggling to rationalize his sudden compliance and his hand shoots out and grabs Kuroo's shoulder.
"What the hell. You apologize and that's supposed to be it?" He asks and the cat takes a gentle, but firm hold of his hand and removes it, another soft exhale leaving his lungs.
"Go home, Tsukki. The others should be getting there about now. I have to talk to Sugawara's relatives a moment, but I'll send the raven for Noya and the others, so go ahead." He says, ignoring Kei's question and he frowns darkly.
"I'm not finished, Cat." He barks shrugging away his grasp on his arm.
"Well I am, Tsukki." Kuroo says with a heavy cutting tone, turning a cold look on him.
Kei pulls up short, because while Kuroo can get brisk and even annoyed, he doesn't issue unspoken and indirect orders like this… because that is what that was— an order to drop it. And he's never had an expression so tortured and devoid of warmth.
"I've been through enough hell the past three days to last me a lifetime, and more than enough to ignite an eternal guilt in my soul anytime I remember it without you busting my balls even further. Go home, Tsukki." He says flatly and turns away from him once more, just as Taji bursts back out the door.
Kei watches as Kuroo easily scoops him up without a word and meets the boy's parents at the door with a nod. Kei knows the black cat is much more like him and not generally comfortable around kids, but he holds the boy with such careful fondness— as if he's terrified the child might break, but unable to bear the thought— that it flips a switch in Kei's head.
Something happened.
The others should be getting there about now. Kuroo hadn't said who.
And in an instant, dread is curling in Kei's gut. His limbs react on impulse despite how his mind feels like it just plunged five meters under water. He spins, his wings jerkily snapping him into the air, the feathers splayed wide with each stroke to gain as much traction against the air as possible in a bid to reach top speed in record time. He's barely cleared the trees at the edge of town in his rush, his mind spinning.
Kei didn't care about people. He didn't. But…
I've been through enough hell the past three days to last me a lifetime.
As he drops across the sand that stretches out between himself and the home he hasn't been to in ten days, his wings are starting to lose feeling from the way he strains them.
Kei didn't care about people.
I know better than most anyone how stressful it is to care about someone enough that you fear you might lose them.
As the net and top of the house come into view, the ibis grits his teeth with a scoff.
Kei didn't care about people… but hell if he wasn't damn invested in everyone's wellbeing.
As he drops on the sand outside, he's met with an odd stillness and he pulls in a breath trying to stabilize his erratic pulse. There's a wagon out front that he's never seen before, but there's no one around and no horses that are normally used to pull that type of cart. A mound of blankets sits in the box, dusty and disturbed, and his ears almost feel as if they are muting over before a soft sound from inside draws his attention. The front door opens and an orange head of hair he knows all too well steps through, his attention focused behind him.
"Yeah, I know. I'm just going to check on them." He says quietly to someone behind him and a small breath escapes the ibis.
If Hinata was fine, so was Feathers. And 'them' implied the others were still here, right? The redhead lets the door close with care, the action far more subdued for someone like the small spiker who occasionally rivaled Noya and Tanaka on volume level. When he turns around, he freezes at the sight of Kei, and the blond is struck by the way he looks haggard just like Kuroo had. He stands at the top of the steps for several moments before pulling in a little breath and drawing himself up as if bracing for a coming impact. He steps off the porch, padding right up in front of the ibis. His nervousness is blatantly obvious and his silence is rapidly putting Kei back on edge.
"Hey, Tsukki." He murmurs quietly and Kei blinks.
Really? The shrimp, too? Did he look like some pitifully miserable moron who needed to be coddled with some ridiculous pet name or something? What exactly was he doing wrong in projecting his dislike of that sobriquet?
Kei ignores the way it irks him coming from the redhead. Right now, the other boy's subdued attitude is grating on his stability; what he really wants to know…
"What happened, Hinata." He says, his voice keeping impressively level for how very off balance he feels after the barrage of emotions he's gone through in the last fifteen minutes. The redhead's almond eyes avert and he looks at the ground, his bottom lip catching in his teeth.
"Ano…" he says softly, "there's something you should probably know."
What? What should I know? Don't just say something as useless as that, idiot.
The redhead reaches forward tentatively and catches his wrist, a completely baffling action. He tugs on it, beckoning him forward after him, but refusing to meet his gaze. The dread is back as he trails after the redhead, his gaze straying to the front door as Kageyama steps through it. The avian heir's expression is devoid of pretty much all emotion, his eyes sunken with fatigue like Hinata's, his complexion pale.
God dammit, what the hell happened?
"Eto… I know you won't like it," Hinata says softly, "I mean, I know you don't like kids, but…" Kei's brow furrows in complete bewilderment.
Eh…kids? What…
What did that have to do with the sun or tides or anything? And why is Kageyama watching him with such a tired expression? That damn crow had a permanent scowl affixed to his face and it's fucking missing, and nothing makes any sense.
What is going on?
A shrill giggle echoes from around the house and he hears the gruff voice of Tanaka.
"Oi, don't just jump like that! I'm not observant enough to notice all your obliviously suicidal ideas before you initiate them." The bald crow grouses. Kei blinks and the redhead pauses and turns back to him with a determined look.
"I know you don't like kids, but you can't kill this one." He says releasing him as Tanaka rounds the corner, trailed by a pair of sweaty horses from the reins in one hand, a bundle of squirming child under the other arm.
"Oh, Tsukishima. Good to see you, Blondy. Oi, Natsu. We have company." He says with a nod in his direction and promptly sets the kid back on her feet.
The first thing Kei notices are her wings. They are in pitiful condition, the feathers having been hacked down to the embedded quills; she can probably fly as well as any of the cats… or Hinata or a bald winged Feathers. The next thing he notices is the orange hair, a direct match to the shrimp's. The kid stares at him for several moments before she pads over cautiously to the small spiker, her brow furrowing just a bit.
"Kiyès sa?" She says and Kei's head tilts in bafflement as Hinata turns to her with a frown.
"Eh… sorry, what?" He asks apologetically. The little girl points at him.
"Non?" She asks and Hinata's face smooths out.
A foreign language?
"Oh! This is Tsukishima. He's an ibis." He says easily before turning toward him with an unnerving amount of excitement that makes him look quite demented with his pallid appearance. "Tsukishima, this is my sister, Natsu." Kei frowns, barely able to believe what he's hearing.
"Sister?" He echoes.
"Yep, we stumbled across her by pure chance."
"What happened to her wings?" He asks, unable to stop himself and the kid frowns up at him.
"Pi bon pase ou genyen. Blan zèl pa bèl." She mumbles.
"Natsu!" Hinata says with an embarrassed frown.
"What'd she say?" Kageyama asks, a small smile tugging on his mouth— and Kei turns to look at the redhead, because he's curious, too.
"Eh— it's probably not something I should repeat." The bald crow smirks.
"That probably means it was something hilarious. Come on." The redhead peeks up at him uncertainly.
"She um… I think she said she'd rather have her wings than yours." Kei deadpans as Tanaka laughs.
Not killing this kid is already going to be a challenge, he can tell.
"Well as much fun as it might be to sit back and watch her make an ass out of you, we have to figure out what we are going to do with these guys." The bald crow says around his mirth, a thumb jerking toward the horses that he's just brought back from getting a drink at the stream.
"Any ideas, Hinata?" When the redhead bounces over to Tanaka, his little mimic following after him, Kei has to marvel at how easily the boy is distracted.
"What about Takeda's place where we play in the winter…" He says easily and Kei glances over at Feathers, an eyebrow creeping up his forehead.
"So… Kuroo was unusually moody over having adopted some random kid? Because between you and me, Crow Prince, that's a pretty weak argument." There's the slightest irritation in Kageyama's glance, but the avian heir's normal aggression is markedly absent.
"Natsu is Hinata's sister. But she isn't the reason Kuroo's so cross. We um… we almost didn't make it." He says and Kei briefly wonders if he's stepped into an alternate dimension, because Feathers talking to him in any kind of civil manner is unheard of.
The crow princeling nods at him and holds the door on the porch open in invitation. The personality swings of the black-haired crow and his leveler are unnerving and Kei immediately casts about for anything that might seem out of place as he warily starts for the porch. Kuroo was the one who stopped into town, so Kenma must also be fine, but… he hasn't seen Sugawara and Sawamura.
"We got caught in a snake nest." Feathers says quietly, breaking his thoughts. "It's a miracle we're alive. Still," He murmurs, leading the way inside with a frown of torment, "We almost lost them." He finishes with a nod.
And as Kei steps through the door, he's met with a sight he isn't prepared for. The golden cat is lightly draping a blanket across Suga and Daichi, both sleeping soundly… but the thrush is ghostly pale and his wings glow brightly.
Meaning he's injured.
"It's um, not just when wings are hurt that they light up. No matter where, if the injury is bad enough, they glow anyway. We… didn't think Suga would make it." Kageyama murmurs at his shoulder. "He's still not 'fine' exactly, but Kuroo refused to let us stay in one place too long. The snakes are moving around right now— the nest we were in? Kuroo said it was toppled. I'm not positive how he did it, but I have a hunch. The sentries disappeared from the area didn't they?"
Kei glances at him sharply before nodding once.
"Thought so. Kuroo took drastic risks to save our lives. And even then, we were pretty sure we were going to be bringing them home in shrouds. Daichi's probably going to have wings like mine when he molts next fall." He says, watching the sleeping level pair with a troubled gaze. That distress irritates Kei, even as his gaze slides to the avian prince's white tipped feathers.
"I suppose I should be impressed you all came back then. Plus one even." He drawls and cobalt eyes flash his way with a touch of annoyance, but there's… amusement there, too.
"That is its own story." He murmurs with a smirk before watching Kenma pull out more bedding. "Heh, we have a new level pair." Kei jerks slightly.
"Level Pair? Tanaka and…?" Kageyama's smirk widens just a bit.
"Yeah, took us off guard, too."
"How did they figure this out?" The crow prince shrugs.
"I don't think they realize it yet. They're probably the only two that have slept since we left the nest. Tanaka caught a bolt in his wing and Natsu… well, she's been pinioned, so they both glow." Kei's mouth drops, the revelation of the bald crow and the kid being levelers neatly pushed aside.
"Pinioned? What the fuck." He mutters.
"She's been a captive in the snake nest for centuries; Suga didn't think she's ever flown. She seems normal for the most part, but… she does things sometimes." He says, his gaze dropping into a steep frown. "Like she literally clung to Tanaka for over a day after we got her out. Or you raise a hand to scratch your head or something and she'll flinch. You won't hear it so much around Shouyou or Tanaka, but if she says 'regrèt', it means 'sorry'. It's her automatic response if you've startled her or something.
"As far as we can tell, they never did anything more permanent other than the pinioning, but you don't need to physically injure to cause pain. You asked about her wings. We were guessing that was how they would punish her when she did something 'wrong', because they weren't like that even a week ago. That kid might, um— might have more baggage than any of the rest of us. I've never… been more grateful that Momma Yu brought Shouyou back to the rookery when she found him." He says and Kei stares at him.
The door clacks open and Natsu bounces inside, quickly followed by her brother and her… leveler. The very idea strikes him as nothing but bizarre.
Why, yes, Kei, had in fact, wanted his world flipped upside down. This is going to take some getting used to.
"What about Noya? We could—"
"If you guys are going to be loud, go back outside. You will wake them." Kenma cuts the redhead off with a flat look and he slaps his hand over his mouth with wide yes.
Kageyama drifts toward his leveler and Kei finds himself evaluating the interactions between the girl child and bald crow. They are uncannily familiar with each other to the point that Kei can almost see the comfort the other's presence brings even if every touch or word is nothing but platonic.
He frowns slightly and slips back out the door, silence and solitude his only desire. Feeling rather wrung out, he leans against the railing, his gaze watching the red light from the setting sun break across the waves of the ocean.
The universe must really be laughing, he muses sardonically. It's always been like this, though. Ever since he was little, it's been fucking with him, but this… this somehow seems to take the cake.
Yamaguchi isn't his leveler.
He's found no one else on the planet he could ever tolerate like he did the freckled crow— no one else he wanted to. There is nobody whose company he prefers more, no one he'd sacrifice as much for. There's no one he cares about as much as he does Yamaguchi… but they aren't levelers.
He's been with the crow for centuries and neither of them have ever glowed with their injuries. Yamaguchi had even sprained his wing literally days before meeting the cats and freak pair, so they'd had a perfect opportunity to test it out… but there had been nothing. No freaky glowing like Kageyama and Hinata. Tadashi had never said a word, but Kei was all but positive that knowledge had put him out for weeks.
"Hey."
Kei blinks and looks down to find the golden cat just off his elbow with a luminous look full of study.
"Kenma."
"It's a lot, huh." He says and Kei has the presence of mind to recognize that the socially stunted cat is attempting to start a conversation. Which means he has something to say. Kei isn't sure he cares at the moment… but indulges the cat and offers a response all the same.
"We were all waiting wondering what happened to you guys." Kenma looks blandly toward the waves.
"We were caught in the middle of a figurative typhoon. The last week has been pretty tough." He murmurs and a spark of ire hits Kei's gut again.
"You mean to say that at no point, you had even a couple moments to send a raven stating that you were at least still alive?" The cat looks back at him with a minimal frown.
"So much happened that things fell through the cracks. Tsukishima, can I ask you for something?" Kenma says, his head tilting and brows furrowing. The golden cat rarely speaks to him at all, and Kei watches him with wary curiosity despite the well-practiced look of disinterest on his face. The small feline seems to take it as an invitation.
"Go easy on your ribbing for a couple weeks… at least for Shouyou and Kuroo. The others will probably hold up fine, but those two are fragile at the moment." Surprise flits through his expression for just an instant before a disparaging smirk tugs at his mouth.
"Fragile my pinfeathers." He mutters but the cat shakes his head once.
"Shouyou is struggling to reconcile two very harsh realities that one hopes they never have to. Trading one life for another— especially when you consider them equally important or nearly so— is something that can destroy you. And when you take a life for the first time, even if you survive, there's a part of you that still dies. Shouyou has yet to come to terms with things that happened at the nest, and nearly losing the thrush and crow— the leadership backbone of their former unit, has only exacerbated it. He's nearly been through two breakdowns already… Shouyou is indeed fragile right now." The cat says quietly and the ibis is quietly stunned for the— how many times has he been off balance today?
Hinata killed people? Kei frowns in consideration before his umber eyes slide back to the small cat's intent golden orbs.
"And our rabid furball commander?" He drawls and Kenma looks away.
"You might want to watch your remarks for you own safety. It's been years since he was last like this, but you're just as likely to lose teeth as you are to see him falter under pressure if you harass him. Kuroo is the kind of person who, no matter the mistakes anyone else might have made, he will never blame anyone but himself for anything that goes wrong."
"That's a stupid mentality. You can't keep idiots from being idiots."
"But you can still protect them." Kei's frown deepens despite the cat's amusing lack of contention on the 'idiot' point.
"Not always."
"You're more right than you will ever know, Tsukishima, no matter how Kuroo might try to prove you wrong." He says, leaning onto the railing beside him.
"We used to have a large clan, Kuroo and I. Centuries ago, but there were almost twenty of us at one point. There's only he and I left, so I'll let you draw your conclusions. The last time I saw Kuroo like this, we'd just lost two people, a level pair, our last two besides ourselves. The time before that was when he lost that eye, but the injury was hardly the reason. I'd have been unreachable and untraceable once I'd been put on a boat bound for the continent; he'd have never seen me again.
"Kuroo doesn't handle loss or even the threat of it. He spirals— and that makes him volatile. And he knows that. But no matter the mental risk, he always shoulders it because he can't not care. I chose to be his leveler and grounding point— his one constant, because no matter how it hurts, he readily opens himself back up to that inevitable pain. And for that, I could never call him a coward. I love Kuroo because he can't be anything but who he is and at his core, he cares about others ever before himself.
"But he's like everyone else. He's not invincible and he isn't immune to despair. He must be approached with the same respect and regard as everyone else and I will safeguard his sanity to the very best of my ability. If you can't curb your barbs at least for a short while, I will resort to other means to see you do for the sake of all involved." The golden cat says with a small smile and nods toward the east.
Kei follows his gaze up the beach warily, Kenma's threat ringing with disconcerting clarity in his head on the heels of a lecture that is more than Kei's heard him speak in the last three years combined. And against the red sky, he catches sight of incoming shapes— three.
Yamaguchi and the owls.
Kenma turns to leave but pauses a moment.
"I hope you consider it at least. You would be afforded the same courtesy." He murmurs, the smile still there, honest and benign.
The cat hadn't meant to alarm him in any way; he'd merely intended to inform him. Which somehow makes his threat that much more unsettling. Kei watches the cat step back inside silently, his mind clicking through his words.
The ibis doesn't go back inside the rest of the evening. Not to join Yamaguchi in reassuring himself that everyone really is all back and okay. Not when Bokuto and Akaashi freak the crap out of Natsu until Tanaka and Hinata calm her down. Not when their last six members finally show up as the sun is dropping behind the ocean horizon. Not when Asahi has to restrain Noya from irately picking a fight with Kuroo for having not been with the rest of the Karasuno group when they needed help, for letting Suga get so injured. Not when Hinata exuberantly tells his brother and anyone who will listen about how Sugawara let slip the real nature of his and Daichi's relationship. Not to join the others in scoping out places to sleep around the injured thrush and his crow leveler as night begins falling in earnest.
When the freckled crow finds him still on the porch as night is dropping into deeper blackness, his face pulled into a tired but happy smile, Kei's face set into an unreadable mask.
"If we don't go get a place soon, we might be sleeping out here." He says, the tension of the last ten days gone from his shoulders, mild content present in all of his features. The crow is truly happy here, surrounded by these people… and Kei can't fault him for it.
"Yamaguchi."
"What's up, Tsukki?"
"What do you think about taking that trip to the mountains after the first frost?" He asks, his voice quiet. The crow's hazel eyes leap to his face, surprise zipping through their shadows. Kei looks back at him, open and honest, waiting only for the freckled crow to give the word. A small smile settles across his mouth, the corners of his eyes crinkling just a bit.
"I'd like that."
Honestly, he'd almost suggested it last fall, but Kuroo had mentioned the snakes moving around, and he'd discarded it for another time… but if he keeps putting it off, it will never come to pass. And it was something Yamaguchi had asked for, a soft smile on his face at the time not unlike the one he wears now. Except the one that stretches his mouth now is better… there is no wistful hope, just mild happiness accented with a slight darkening in his cheeks. Kei wishes he'd look like this more often.
I love Kuroo because he can't be anything but who he is.
Kei doesn't know what love is.
He's felt nothing in his life that was so definitively profound that he could have termed it 'love'. He's had no groundbreaking moment of realization or a point where everything was somehow different. He is sure he was loved… his parents had told him often enough when he was very small, and his memories of them are colored with nothing but warmth and concern. He's sure his brother probably loves him as well, although he hasn't seen him in centuries so that may have changed. But Akiteru had also showered him with quiet affection, had radiated pride at being his brother, and had likewise sought to shelter him from the world. The big common takeaway that he gets from those relationships is, at its root, the desire to keep someone else safe.
But one can desire to protect something for ulterior reasons— even possessiveness for completely selfish motives could be skewed to fit that bill. He turns back toward the beach, his umber gaze seeking out Yamaguchi.
If there is one thing he'd want to protect, it would be the freckled crow.
He's quiet and kind, brilliantly smart, loyal to a fault, and he adores kids. He likes the strangest foods— seriously, soggy potatoes, really? He enjoys sleeping in and he hates earthquakes as the tremor three days ago had reminded him so well; the crow had nearly had a panic attack.
Yamaguchi is shy, often hanging back as a wall flower, but Kei has seen a quiet strength within him, feels it slip to the surface on occasion. He's frequently timid, but every blue moon or so, he will actually rise against Kei, himself.
It had even happened in the last year.
Kei had toyed briefly with the idea of seeing if a leveler bond could be completed between a cat and avian after learning of the thread between himself and Kuroo, if for no other reason than in the spirit of discovery. The cat was, at the very least tolerable, and Kei had imagined it might not be hell to be tied to him for the rest of his life, but when he'd idly voiced the thought to Yamaguchi, the crow had gone dead still before rising to his feet, his entire frame rigid. The freckled crow hadn't been able to meet his gaze at first, but his voice had escaped in an icy candor.
"Why would you destroy two people like that?" He'd asked and it had definitely caught Kei off guard.
"It wasn't a serious idea—"
"Then why even consider it? You have to be either stupid or blind to not see how much Kuroo and Kenma care about each other. They are all but levelers already, they live for each other. You would come between them on the whim of curiosity?"
The crow's snapping eyes had jerked up to his with a fierce glare. Kei himself had been quietly stunned to see the meek crow standing over him, his wings agitated into a threatening display. His mind had told him to backtrack, because this was something the crow legitimately felt strongly about, but his mouth had already been running.
"Stupid, Yamaguchi? You're completely overreacting; it's not a big deal." Kei had said dismissively. The crow's face had smoothed into incredulity.
"Not a big deal." He'd echoed in a dead voice and he'd looked away with a scoff and a pained grin that had left Kei's chest feeling somehow tight, and he'd wanted to do something he'd never had the urge to before, and take the words back.
"That's right," Yamaguchi had continued, his hands fisting, "I forget, other people don't matter to you, their lives are merely a passing notion. My mistake, I'll remember next time." He'd said stiffly and stalked off, leaving Kei absolutely steeped in suffocating emotions that had made him want to crawl into a hole somewhere and sleep for the next hundred years while that confrontation blew over.
Yamaguchi had been wrong.
While most people don't matter to him— a number he is grudgingly being forced to admit isn't quite as large as it was three years ago, there is one person who matters more than any other.
Kei doesn't know what love is.
Because if love is the desire to protect something, then he doesn't feel love. Wanting to keep Yamaguchi safe...that's just a symptom— a side effect— of the underlying feeling at its center.
If Kei has his way, Yamaguchi will never again wear an expression like the one he'd put on his face that day. If Kei has his way, Yamaguchi will never again feel the emotions that generated it. Kei doesn't just want to protect the crow, Kei would see him content.
And fate and leveler bonds can burn in hell. There is no one else he would want to face the future with.
A/N: Ahhh... year three arc concluded- and on a LONG chapter at that (almost 9000 words, goodbye 100k word milestone). I thought about splitting it, but eh, have a bit of emotionally invested Tsukki and a little Tsukkiyama with your sigh of relief.
None of you would know this, but in every novel I haven't taken to a publisher (all of them, lol), one of my big pivotal characters always ends up biting it. I have a penchant for killing AT LEAST one high impact character and I SERIOUSLY almost killed those two... what saved them is that they are a significant part of the Karasuno team in the series and it felt wrong to kill them off before they'd even graduated after winning nationals- i.e. if I were writing this another couple years or so from now, I might have XD
Well, you can all sleep easy again for the night; I am going to go for some ice cream after this one. Have a wonderful evening, guys!