falling into step
A Haikyuu! fanfic
by mew-tsubaki
- ^-^3
Chapter 7: When the Right One Walks In
In the end, Watari forgot to send Matsukawa a reminder text because he kept his phone off during the school day, so Matsukawa in turn forgot to bring the book. They realized this when they locked eyes at the usual meeting place, all gaping mouths and pointing fingers and wide eyes. But they burst out laughing at themselves, and Watari had to wipe a tear from his eye once he got closer to the truck. "Sorry," he said, but he didn't sound sorry at all with the delight lacing his tone.
Matsukawa waved him off, like "It's fine, it's fine." He looked at the time on his phone and pursed his lips. He raised his eyebrows at Watari. "…unfortunately, it's a bit on the late side if I left to get it now."
"Don't worry about it," the libero insisted. He leaned against the bumper, crossing his legs at the ankles. "You can just bring it next time. It's not as though I was going to sit here and blast through it so we could talk about it."
Matsukawa pouted.
"Wait…you didn't really think…?"
But the taller boy snickered and rubbed Watari's head teasingly. "Of course not, Watari. You really are a gullible guy."
Watari gave him a look. It wasn't that Watari agreed he was gullible. But something about Matsukawa kept him on his toes. "You, Matsukawa-san…"
Matsukawa grinned and waggled his eyebrows, as if saying, "Me, what?"
The shorter boy averted his eyes. "By the way," he started, changing the subject, "my apologies ahead of time if I'm flipping through flashcards when we next meet."
Matsukawa shrugged, a quiet "Well, it is that time of year." "Just don't forget to take care of yourself during exam season."
His warm words brightened Watari's mood. "I won't."
The black-haired teen ran a hand through his curls and turned away, clearing his throat. "And, since you can't study all the time…you're more than welcome to come over this weekend to borrow the book." He glanced back at Watari. "That's the simplest way to ensure I don't forget to loan it again," he added with a tiny chuckle at himself. He started to frown the longer Watari stayed quiet. "I mean, if you'll even have the free time to read it…"
Watari came back to his senses. "No, I promise!" he assured his friend hurriedly. He wasn't even certain why he'd gone quiet—maybe it was just from astonishment? "It may take a while, but I'll read it."
Matsukawa once more was pleased to hear Watari say that. His smile was easy and soft and bright.
Watari had to avert his eyes a second time.
"Ah, hey."
"Hmm?"
Matsukawa reached for Watari, turning his face towards him and tilting his head up slightly. He peered at the libero's injury in the streetlight. "It's gotten darker, the bruise… How's it feel?"
Watari was slow to answer, since the first thought in his head was that Matsukawa's fingers were welcomingly warm where the medic's had not been last week. "Okay," he said. "Mom says these things will always look worse before they finally get better. Although I have enough experience with that," he continued, flexing his right arm jokingly and poking the inside of his forearm. His arms didn't bruise as easily anymore, now that he'd been a libero for years, but those early injuries weren't something one woke up one day and suddenly forgot.
Matsukawa nodded, but then he eyed Watari up and down. "You've grown," he remarked. "Jersey #2 suits you."
He laughed at how the older boy had spun that, since Matsukawa no doubt missed his old uniform. "Yeah… I kind of miss #7, though," Watari teased.
"Hey, show some respect for #2." He pouted yet again.
"Yes, yes, Matsukawa-san…" His smile reached his eyes as Matsukawa finally opened the back door and did something resembling work, climbing in to right some packages that had fallen over. "I just can't separate the idea of #2 from being you, though. You're always going to be #2."
Matsukawa snorted. "What, can't picture me as #1?"
Watari chuckled lightly. "No."
Matsukawa made a face over his shoulder and threw Watari a peace sign. "Yeah, well, I'm a ten anyway." But he couldn't keep his face straight for long, and the both of them burst out laughing afterwards.
- ^-^3
When Sunday morning came, Watari got up and got dressed. He ate breakfast with his parents and watched two of the morning variety shows with them, waiting for Matsukawa's text saying when they'd get together. The message came mid-morning, so Watari kissed his mother's cheek and hugged his father's shoulders and told them he wouldn't stay out all day.
He got his shoes on and stood, but he caught his reflection in the mirror that hung on the wall to the left of the front door. He hadn't paid much attention to his appearance before—after all, his mother kept after his buzz cut, and his stubble came in so slowly that he only ever had to shave about once every other week—but the bruise caught his eye, much as it had Matsukawa's several days ago. Absentmindedly, he touched it, but it didn't really hurt anymore.
"You're walking around, looking as though you've been in a fight."
Watari jumped at his mother's voice. He glanced at her standing a foot away, the television forgotten, and mustered a small smile. "I'll be fine. The neighbors won't talk, Mom."
"Of course not. They know you're a good boy, Shinji." Even so, she sighed. "If you're going to meet a friend, though, are you sure you don't want me to cover that up?"
He blushed at the thought of her putting makeup on him, and he held up a hand to stop her. "No! That's perfectly all right. I'll see you two later." And he hustled out.
At least that gave him a comical anecdote to share with Matsukawa when they met at the hardware store minutes later and got walking. "Your mom's a blunt lady" was the first thing out of the older boy's mouth.
"I know…" Watari's shoulders sank as he groaned.
"It's not a bad thing, Watari. Bluntness is sometimes a kindness," Matsukawa told him.
The shorter teen gave him a thankful glance. "You're a natural, you know."
Those thick, black eyebrows went up.
"At comforting others. You always say the right thing."
But Matsukawa shook his head. "I say what I think is the best of about three options. It's on you to take it well," he added nonchalantly.
Either way, Watari was happy. He bumped his shoulder against Matsukawa's arm, another sign of gratitude.
They passed by the bus stop and walked for a while until the block was behind them. They walked for another block before Matsukawa darted a guilty look Watari's way. "I hope you don't mind…"
"Mind what?"
"Not driving there. I don't have the truck today."
Watari made a show of taking a deep breath and exhaling. "I'm fine, Matsukawa-san. If I didn't have the stamina for this, I would have no right standing on the volleyball court."
Matsukawa nodded, but the corners of his mouth curved up smoothly. "I prefer walking most places anyway."
The libero couldn't help it—his eyes dropped momentarily to Matsukawa's long legs. Of course Matsukawa had no problem with all the walking. Watari was a tad jealous….
After the third block, they hooked a left onto a decently busy street. It was similar to the part of town where the hardware store was located but had less foot traffic than the theater neighborhood downtown. There were more mom-and-pop shops located here, as well, and they passed a complex with three sets of two business stacked one on top of the other. The middle bottom store had a light, mustard yellow sign with burgundy lettering: Sekitan Apothecary.
"Ah!" Watari pointed and slowed, but Matsukawa kept walking. "Is that—"
"Yes, it is, but Sunday's an extremely busy day, so we're not stopping." He frowned when Watari jogged up to his side. "Sorry. Didn't mean to sound snappish."
"Don't be. You're there the rest of the week. You can't want to spend your day off there, too." The shaven-haired boy patted his shoulder, and the unusual bout of tension vanished from Matsukawa's body language.
Two streets over, they were in a purely residential area, but Matsukawa's neighborhood was unlike Watari's. Here there were a handful of traditional houses, and Watari was excited when Matsukawa led the way to a large, two-level home two houses into the second street.
The house was a weird and wonderful mesh of old and new, with a black, Japanese-tiled roof and sliding doors as well as a wide second floor and all the natural, Western amenities. Watari caught a glimpse of the dining space—an old, low table feet from the kitchen—as he followed Matsukawa upstairs in a daze. On the staircase, he was distracted anew by countless pictures on the walls in assorted wooden frames, some images black-and-white, others in blinding color, clearly from Matsukawa's childhood.
Matsukawa glanced behind him as they arrived on the second-floor landing. He made a face as Watari kept darting his eyes between one shrine visit picture in particular and the older boy. "Just ask, already," Matsukawa grumbled.
"Is that you? And your sister?" Obviously, it was. The two adults in the picture in the nice dress and pressed suit, with Matsukawa's eyes and hair and an ever-present hint of a smirk, were Matsukawa's parents. Matsukawa and the girl shared the same black curls as them, although young Matsukawa's bright eyes were black compared to his sister's brown gaze. She was also twice his height.
"That was taken at my first Shichi-Go-San," Matsukawa stated, the grumble still evident in his tone, though Watari could tell he wasn't angry but embarrassed. "Kako was nine at the time, I was three—but she still acts at times as if she's still that much taller than me."
"You're cute in your formal dress."
"Yeah… Like everything else around here, old clothes still look best." He continued after pointing out the bathroom at the end of the wide hall and letting Watari in to his room, "No doubt you noticed the house. It's Taisho-era, which is why it's the mishmash it is, Eastern and Western. But that fits in with the family business. It's called an apothecary, but it's really a specialty pharmacy, since my parents and sister can do compounding. My mother's great-grandfather started the business after getting out of mining, and no one ever bothered to update the name." He shrugged after pulling out two leaf-patterned cushions for them to sit on, and he closed the door. "Even my first name and my sister's are old. We're an old-fashioned family." He stared when Watari remained quiet. "Uh, Watari…?"
"Your room…is huge."
"Is it?" Matsukawa looked around. "I guess, compared to Hanamaki's or Oikawa's, yeah… But Iwaizumi's and Sawauchi's are about the same, though they also live in old houses."
Matsukawa clearly misunderstood. Watari took everything in, in one fell swoop. The room was about the size of a small apartment. Hell, if it just had its own electric cooktop and a washroom hidden behind one of those sliding doors, Watari would call it an apartment. Compared to the modern bed-desk-dresser combo Watari had in his bedroom at home, Matsukawa had a low table in the middle of the room, much like the dinner table downstairs. He had two low dressers standing side by side, too, atop one of which was a closed, thin laptop and a freestanding flat-screen television, the latter hooked up to a gaming system placed on the other dresser. All the wood matched, even the bits of the bedframe not hidden by sheet, which Watari wasn't certain he would've expected for someone who didn't seem to care about appearances or aesthetic coordination.
So Watari looked instead for hints of Matsukawa around the room, and he spotted them. The wastebasket full of snack wrappers. The volleyball in the corner of the room by the foot of the bed, near his old Aoba Johsai duffle bag. The clothes hanging in the open closet opposite the dressers—there was a lot of black and gray, but there were greens, too, especially some deep, earthy hues. Huh. So there was some color to Matsukawa. Blacks, grays, pine greens—they really all did suit him, Watari thought cheerily to himself. And, though there was a surprising lack of posters, for movies and music alike, Watari spied something that he knew to expect.
"All right, you can no longer tell me you only 'like' reading," the libero said, stifling a laugh as he pushed some shirts aside and revealed the stacks of books on shelves built in to the back of closet. They were actual stacks, too, not organized into rows as one might typically do.
"And you can no longer say you practice manners," Matsukawa quipped, coming up behind him and half closing the closet. "I graciously invite you in to my abode and the first thing you do is rummage through my closet?"
His tone was too silly, Watari had to laugh. "'Abode'?"
The greatest thing occurred then: A red tint appeared on Matsukawa's ears and seemed to spill into his cheeks at having dug his own hole with his unusually literate word choice.
Ah. Another color to add to the ever-expanding palette of Matsukawa Issei.
"Just—step over there, will you?" Matsukawa murmured. He tugged on the back of Watari's t-shirt, pulling him to the right so Matsukawa could do some rummaging himself, pushing this and that shirt aside to block Watari's view.
Watari didn't mind, though. "That's a lot of polo shirts," he pointed out.
"Yeah, well, they fit me best outside of formalwear." He said something else which was lost to the muffling of cloth, but he emerged for air a few seconds later and passed two books to Watari. "Here."
The younger teen eyed the titles. An anthology and a novel, Wish You Were Here Yesterday. "So the movie's based on this? It has a different title, though," he commented, skimming the novel's back.
"A lot of movies based on stories are like that, especially foreign ones," Matsukawa said. He closed his closet and motioned for Watari to take one of the cushions around the edges of the table. "Although sometimes the movie's absolutely nothing like the story except for maybe a scene. Iwaizumi likes some old movies aside from those cheap kaiju ones, and he told me once that Kurosawa's 'Rashomon' has little to do with Akutagawa's short story of the same name."
Watari nodded and put the books on the table. He flipped through the pages of the anthology with Matsukawa straightening up an already neat bed in the background. He stole a peek at this sight, bemused with Matsukawa's ingrained host manners…and the embarrassing number of pillows at the head of the bed. Watari slept with one, two pillows at the most. Really, these childish aspects to his senpai were starting to break down the distinction of senpai and kouhai in Watari's mind, but he still showed respect for someone older than him by only a month. "Matsukawa-san, what's with the anthology?" he asked, getting back on track.
Matsukawa sat across from him on the other cushion. "That has some of my favorites, which I also want you to read," he answered, plucking it from Watari's hands. He leaned to his left and opened the bottom drawer of the TV-topped dresser, digging for and withdrawing a half-used notebook. He flipped to a blank page and tore it into strips. "This one, this one, this…and this, too," the taller boy stated, bookmarking each one with a lined strip of paper. Happy with his handiwork, he closed the book and passed it back.
Watari shook his head, quirking an eyebrow at his friend. "I feel as if I've been given required reading."
"Pretty much." A wolfish grin followed.
The libero rolled his eyes. He went to the anthology and did a quick page count. "I'm not sure how soon I'll get through all of these."
He sensed more than saw Matsukawa deflate.
"But," Watari started, his thumb paused in the middle of the collection, "this one's just a few pages, so if you don't mind me reading when we're together, I can read it now." He sneaked a look up at the other male.
The grin was still there, just less wolfish and more content. Matsukawa nodded and reached for his laptop, and music filled the room a minute later. It, like Matsukawa's theatrical tastes, tended towards the odd side.
"Matsukawa-san…I'm not sure I can concentrate with that playing…"
The volume dulled, but the music was still present.
Watari lifted his eyes from the printed word, observing his friend once more. Matsukawa was lost in his own world, but the excitement remained in his eyes. At this, Watari relaxed, and he lost himself in a world of artists and feathered beings that didn't exist.
- ^-^3
:3c All right! So, since anything I have to say about Matsuwata could potentially give away the story at this point, I'll just stick to defining/explaining a few things that were brought up, especially with regard to Mattsun's family (as I've been told by friends before that they don't always know things about Japan that I do and tend to use in my stories—sorry! ;w;). Firstly: Taisho Era—this was Japan after the Meiji Era; Taisho was 1912-1926, coming on the heels of the Meiji Restoration (1868-1912), when Japan was embracing many aspects of the Western world (such as fashion, food, and architecture), so it's entirely possible for Mattsun's family home to be the "mishmash" it is. Secondly: Sekitan Apothecary—the apothecary really is as Mattsun describes it, though the name "Sekitan" means "coal" and comes from his ancestor's mining background (even Mattsun's ancestors, like Mattsun, did as they pleased…*lol*). Thirdly: movies and books—Kurosawa Akira is renowned for his films, though what Mattsun says of Rashomon is true, about it having nothing to do with Akutagawa Ryuunosuke's "Rashomon" save for one scene (in reality, Kurosawa took the main plot from Akutagawa's "In a Bamboo Grove"); as for the short story Watari starts reading and the light novel, Wish You Were Here Yesterday, those are based loosely on two manga by Bikke, Kabe no Naka no Tenshi and Shinkuu Yuusetsu, respectively (though the title Wish You Were Here Yesterday is of my own making), and I highly recommend reading them just for fun (you don't have to read them in order to continue with reading this; in addition, Bikke's Senpai is another brilliant read -w-). Fourth and fifth: Shichi-Go-San and kaiju movies—Shichi-Go-San means "7-5-3" and is a sort of early coming-of-age ceremony for Japanese children at those ages (cute pics of little ones in kimonos standing in front of shrines abound); "kaiju" refers to monsters in movies like Godzilla, which explains why Iwa-chan was mentioned in the same breath. ;] What else… Ah. With Mattsun's background, I realized it would make sense for his family to be pretty well-off, so "designing" his room was fun. And Mattsun in black, gray, and green is a favorite thing of mew's, so deal with it. ;P
Thanks for reading, and please review! Ch8…things might get rough for Watari. XD
-mew! B3