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“You’ve been there before at Christmas,” Shouyou is saying. “Don’t you remember last year?”
“That was because we were doing team stuff,” Tobio says. He’s thought it himself, and knows it doesn’t compare. They’d been pulling their team to nationals after a disappointing second year then, and time spent together was the norm. Not to mention that they hadn’t been a couple; Christmas Eve was just another day. This year Shouyou asked his mother if Tobio could join them, since Tobio’s family doesn’t celebrate it, which means it’s an occasion.
And the reason Shouyou wants to spend it with Tobio, not that his mother knows, is because Christmas Eve is a couple thing.
Of course Tobio is nervous. Every thump of train rails is echoed in his body, an external heartbeat slower than his own. He and Shouyou have done things together—slept together—and now he’s going to face Shouyou’s mother like nothing happened. It makes him feel like a criminal, some sort of Trojan horse boyfriend in the guise of a friend.
“So?” Shouyou asks. “We’re still on a team together. Just a different team.”
When there’s no response Shouyou nudges his leg; they’re seated side by side, squished between other passengers, and Tobio braces against the nudge so he doesn’t rock into the woman next to him.
“Well?” Shouyou says after another nudge, clearly waiting for a response.
Tobio looks up at the roof of the car, narrowly avoiding the gaze of another passenger. He swallows. His feelings of guilt are causing a montage of images to slide past his vision, images he doesn’t want to have in his head when he looks Shouyou’s mother in the eye—or his little sister, for that matter.
“We weren’t together then,” Tobio says shortly. Saying it makes him feel slightly breathless, because the reality of them being together is still mind-boggling to him. He’d never imagined himself in a romantic context, hadn’t known he could work that way, but with Shouyou by his side he’d wanted things he’d never wanted before. It had taken a long time to realise what it was he was feeling, but now he can’t believe he ever didn’t know. How had he explained away all his longing, his frustration, his energy? The rightness when they were together?
He doesn’t remember; that state of denial feels like a long time ago.
Does Shouyou’s mother suspect? If she does, does she mind? She’s always been nice to Tobio, her smiles as wide as her son’s. He shouldn’t have done anything. They shouldn’t have done anything.
“So what?” Shouyou says. “We were together in a way.” He leans forward a little. “Hey, almost there.”
Tobio looks outside. There’s frost thick on the ground, and the trees look like spindly cardboard cut-outs, the light curiously flat. Tonight is Christmas Eve, but the train is still too far from town for there to be strings of light and happy couples. Tobio envisions himself jumping from the moving train to avoid the upcoming encounter, then remembers Shouyou likes occasions like these. He likes visiting the shrine in the new year, and checking out local festivals, and making a big fuss on birthdays. He complains when Tobio drags his feet.
“Kageyama!”
“What?”
Shouyou stomps on his foot, but he doesn’t say anything—just stares at him in something like grim excitement, imploring Tobio to feel it too. It’s more the effect of Shouyou’s unflinching stare that cause Tobio’s stomach to jump, but if the point was to transfer some energy it works; Tobio feels electricity crackle down his spine.
My boyfriend, he thinks, staring back at Shouyou. It’s still weird, but it’s weird in a way he enjoys—like a question he can keep coming back to, poking at it endlessly.
Shouyou’s brows rise. “That’s better.”
Tobio puts a hand to his face, wondering what Shouyou saw. Is he smiling?
Shouyou grins. “Our first Christmas together. You better have a great present for me.”
“A toss.”
“That’s not enough anymore!”
Tobio laughs, surprising himself. Shouyou is nudging him again, and the thumping of the train is still like a heartbeat, but it doesn’t echo fear. He wonders what the evening will bring.
They make the rest of the trek in good spirits. Natsu no longer jumps on Shouyou and Tobio when she sees them, lingering shyly in the living room doorway as if she isn’t sure what to make of them, but Shouyou’s mother wraps them both in hugs after they’ve taken their shoes off. She complains about Tobio’s height the way she always does, and Tobio feels himself settle as Shouyou grins and chimes in. After a moment Shouyou notices Natsu’s reluctance.
“Hm?” he says. “What’s wrong? Have you not been practicing enough?”
Tobio watches the change come over her face—from that glowing longing to some sort of acceptance—and then she’s flying into Shouyou’s arms.
“I have been! Of course! Stupid!”
Practicing? Tobio thinks, until he remembers Shouyou talking about Natsu earlier in the year. He'd been bragging, telling anyone who would listen that his sister was going to be a world-class volleyball player one day. Tobio took this with a grain of salt, but he's known since he met her that Natsu has just as much energy as her brother. If she wants to, she can go far. Part of him hopes—for her sake—that she doesn't have the same laser focus on volleyball Shouyou has. He's seen Shouyou struggle through a hundred different things to get where he is now, knows Shouyou can take it, but the thought of Natsu facing that pressure makes him worry. He even worries she'll meet a player like him, or like Ushijima, who sees the Hinatas of the world and wants to crush them for their presumption.
Natsu is still berating Shouyou. Tobio watches Shouyou laugh at something she says and wonders when he stopped wanting to crush him. If he was feeling kind towards himself he'd guess early on, but he knows it's not true. Even after he and Shouyou became teammates, part of him had wanted to keep pressing him down just to see him struggle back up. He’d pushed and pushed, and Shouyou had pushed back each time.
How could Shouyou have fallen for him after all that?
"Go put your things away," Shouyou's mother says. "You're okay for a late lunch, right? A light one. We have to save space for the chicken."
"Yep!" Shouyou says. "And then we'll go out for a bit. I want to see the town!"
"What town?" his mother asks, laughing, but it doesn't seem like she expects an answer. Natsu lets Shouyou go, and he and Tobio walk to his room, stuffed bags in tow.
"You're being really quiet," Shouyou complains as they dump their things. "Are you still worried?"
"No," Tobio says. He's not worried, just thinking. When they sit down for lunch he tries to fix his thoughtful mood, focusing on the present.
"What are you working on?" he asks Natsu. At least, if she does pick up volleyball, he'll never struggle to fill silences with her.
"Everything," she says. "Yamamoto-san says it's too early for us to specialize."
He inclines his head. At her age he'd already known he wanted to be a setter. "Do you wish you could?"
"Yeah. I want to spike."
Tobio looks at Shouyou wordlessly.
"Not my fault!" Shouyou says. "Spiking is objectively the coolest."
Natsu grins. "Yeah!"
"Didn't you think Kageyama-kun was cool when you went to see them play?" Shouyou's mother asks.
Natsu’s cheeks are glowing with Hinata-family-fervour. “Yeah! But they all were, and spiking is the most fun.”
Tobio doesn’t agree, but he lets the subject drop in favour of less repetitive ones. Shouyou’s mother asks about their team, their courses, the train ride, and Shouyou answers for both of them. Soon they’re clearing away dishes and Shouyou is tugging at him, saying they should go out and see the town before the sun has set completely, but it takes a while to get ready. By the time they leave it’s twilight, edging towards dusk, the air cold and sharp. Tobio’s gift—small and not whatever great thing Shouyou is expecting—is tucked into his jacket pocket, and he touches his gloved hand to it often in reassurance that it’s still there.
“There,” Shouyou says, pointing with the hand that isn’t clasping Tobio’s. “The lights! See?”
Tobio knows where what passes for a town centre in Shouyou’s town is, and the colourful lights come from there. He lets himself be tugged along. All passersby seem to come in sets of two or more. Does no one go out on their own on Christmas Eve?
There’s a small market at the town centre, lights twirling around trees and stalls. Laughter and noise press in around Tobio, and it means little to him, but Shouyou’s face is a window into a world where coloured lights and days of the year actually matter. Shouyou whips his head around, looking at everything: scoping out games, food, things to look at. They pass two full restaurants, the advertisements outside all catering to couples on Christmas Eve; the stalls taper off.
“Is there anything you want to do?” Tobio asks, stopping by a tree. They’ve walked through the main event, it seems, without stopping anywhere. Is there a point? A group of high school kids runs by laughing, and he pulls Shouyou out of its path.
“This is what I want to do,” Shouyou says. He looks around. “This is a good spot.”
“For what?” Tobio begins to ask, but he shuts up when Shouyou unzips his coat. Huh?
Shouyou holds his coat open, rooting around until he magics something out of an inside pocket. “Here! Ta-dah. Merry Christmas, Kageyama.”
Tobio takes the square package Shouyou holds out. There’s a Christmas card stuck to it, decorated with two penguins, but Shouyou hasn’t written anything on it besides Tobio’s name. Tobio already knows he’ll keep the card somewhere despite that, just because it has his name in Shouyou’s handwriting on it; Shouyou doesn’t have a monopoly on useless sentimentality.
“Open it,” Shouyou says impatiently.
Tobio takes his gloves off to unwrap the present. It’s well wrapped, but not well enough wrapped to have been done in-store; he can imagine Shouyou wrapping it carefully, tongue poking out the side of his mouth.
“It’s a CD,” Shouyou says before he’s done unwrapping. “The band you like on my workout mix.”
Tobio looks down at it, discarded paper becoming a ball in one hand as he holds the CD up to the light. He’s never asked about the songs on Shouyou’s playlists, never registered a preference, but Shouyou noticed what he liked anyway. How do you do that? he wants to ask, but it feels like something he ought to figure out himself.
Tobio pulls Shouyou with him a few steps, rounding the tree, and leans down. Shouyou isn’t expecting a kiss, and the difference in their heights doesn’t make it easy, but Tobio manages to brush his lips against Shouyou’s. His hand, already full of wrapping paper, fists in Shouyou’s scarf. Shouyou’s exhale is a puff of warm air against his mouth after that brushing of lips, and Tobio kisses him again, more solidly this time; Shouyou has turned his face up to meet him. Fire licks through Tobio, even like this, even in public. He wonders if he’ll ever stop burning.
When they pull back he glances around, but no one is watching them; people disgusted with couples probably know to stay inside on Christmas. Tobio’s breathing is too loud, too erratic.
“Thank you,” he says. He takes a steadying breath. The CD fits in his pocket, alongside its slightly bent card. Shouyou wears a smug expression.
“Knew you’d like it,” Shouyou says. “You’re allowed to have interests beside volleyball, you know. Most people listen to music and find stuff they like. They have favourite bands and songs and albums.”
Shouyou doesn’t call him volleyball robot, an old insult, but the implication is there. “I know,” he says. His fingers trace the dents along one side of the CD case. How many other CDs does he have? Three? All of them are from childhood, gifts from clueless relatives. This one was picked by someone who knows him, who knows what he likes even when he doesn’t.
The question from earlier floods back into his brain. Tobio remembers staring Shouyou down a thousand times, remembers yelling at him, challenging him, acknowledging him only when he felt that something flicker between them on the court or outside of it. He thinks of hoping Natsu won’t run into any players like himself.
“Why did you start to like me?” he blurts. He sounds younger than he is, and more insecure. He’s sure of Shouyou, no matter how he sounds; always has been, in his own way. The occasions when he doubted Shouyou were few and far between.
He remembers Shouyou’s fists meeting their mark, remembers fights.
“Eh?” Shouyou’s brows are high. “Are you fishing for compliments?”
The thought that the answer could be complimentary has Tobio’s stomach squirming pleasantly, but he pushes that feeling aside. “Of course not. I just wondered.”
“Isn’t it natural?” Shouyou says. “We care about the same things. It’s easy to be with you.”
The pleasant squirming stops. In fact, whatever was causing the squirming inside his stomach begins to congeal. We care about the same things. It’s easy to be with you. What Shouyou is describing sounds like a marriage of convenience, somehow.
“And you’re…” Shouyou pauses. He looks away, his cheeks warm. Tobio watches with laser focus, willing him to continue, and eventually he does. “It’s not a choice, is it? How you feel about someone.”
It’s never felt like a choice to Tobio either—but would he choose differently if he could? Is there anyone who would fit him as well as Shouyou does, who understands?
Shouyou sighs in something like impatience, getting into his answer. “Who wouldn’t! Have you looked at yourself?” He gestures up and down Tobio’s body, seeming frustrated at having to explain.
Tobio looks down at himself, only realising belatedly what it is Shouyou means. His cheeks flush. “I just wondered,” he says quickly, before Shouyou can embarrass them both further. If they get into discussing physical attraction they’ll both end up frustrated. He loves Shouyou’s compact body, his strength, the glow that seems to surround him and everyone he stands close to. He loves the stubborn set of Shouyou’s mouth and the way his eyes get when he’s determined. Awareness of Shouyou’s body close and available would make their stay in a house with thin walls and family interminable; better to pretend the winter clothes make him forget, even if nothing could.
Tobio clears his throat, gives himself a mental shake. Not now. “I was remembering our first year at Karasuno,” he says. “Because of Natsu. And before that.”
Shouyou’s head tips to the side, birdlike and curious. “Isn’t that all part of it?”
It is?
Brown eyes narrow in suspicion. “You think I started liking you because you learned to be nice?”
“You’re saying it didn’t help?” Tobio asks. Shouyou has cursed him and told him to go bald more times than he can count, and it hasn’t always been affectionate.
“Maybe it did,” Shouyou says. “I’m not sure. Are you stalling? Did you forget my present?”
“Who says I got you one?”
“My eyes. I found a present a while ago. If you only got something for Natsu I’ll—”
Tobio places his hand over Shouyou’s mouth. Maybe he’s learned to be nice, but he doesn’t need to be nice with Shouyou. He raises an eyebrow, and Shouyou mirrors him. Amusement bubbles in Tobio’s stomach, and he ends the wait, drawing his gift from his pocket.
“It’s nothing big,” he says, but Shouyou is already tearing at it, ignoring the wrapping the lady in the shop had been so careful with. The charms fall out into Shouyou’s hand.
“Pick your favourite,” Tobio says. “The other one is for me.”
Shouyou looks up. “They match.”
“Not exactly.” Together they make up their team’s colours, though the charms on the end are the same. “I know you have a hundred phone straps, but—”
“I’ll take them off,” Shouyou says. “I’m just putting this one on.” He looks up. His cheeks are flushed as he hands back the matching strap to Tobio; it didn’t take him long to decide.
Tobio raises his brows again. “Are you okay?”
Shouyou punches his shoulder, trying to hide the giddiness Tobio has already glimpsed. “Stupid! I wasn’t expecting something just for me, that’s all.”
His mood is obvious, though he tries to hide it. Tobio loves it when Shouyou gets overwhelmed by some emotion like this; energy pours off his body, and right now it’s an awkward energy Tobio recognises from when they were first starting to push boundaries in their relationship, when Shouyou had swung wildly between being forward and being shy. Tobio wants to be back in their apartment, building and dismantling that energy slowly.
He shakes himself. Not here. Not here, and not now; doesn’t he keep reminding himself of that? They’re heading back to Shouyou’s house soon.
“What were you expecting?” he asks to distract himself.
“Something volleyball-related, of course.”
That had been Tobio’s first instinct too, but he knew there wasn’t anything like that Shouyou needed; they lived together, after all.
“Is that bad?” Tobio asks.
“We wouldn’t be together if I thought that was bad,” Shouyou says. Slowly, they start to wander along the lit street again. When Tobio catches Shouyou looking longingly at a stall selling hot drinks he treats, pushing a steaming cup into Shouyou’s hands. They continue on, until Shouyou’s long sigh draws his attention.
“What?” he asks.
“It’s stupid,” Shouyou says immediately. “I’ve looked forward to being here for ages. We always spent Christmas together, the three of us.”
Tobio nods.
“But now I kind of wish we were back home.”
Home. Not here, where Shouyou grew up, but at university, in their apartment near the gym. “Yeah,” Tobio says. There’s nothing he can add. He wishes it too, fervently.
“Next year we can come back after Christmas. For New Year.”
Next year. It still makes Tobio’s insides shiver when Shouyou says things like that, confirming he feels the same: that they belong together, that one year can only roll slowly into another, their presence in each other’s lives fixed. Shouyou has stood at his shoulder for years now; he can’t be shaken off. Tobio doesn’t want to shake him off.
They make their way back unhurried. When they get to the house Natsu and her mother are watching a winter-themed movie, and they slide onto the couch as if they belong there. After the movie it’s time to watch Natsu open presents. Tobio can’t help glancing at Shouyou across the room as the night wears on, needing to see what he thinks of everything, and he finds Shouyou looking back just as often. The something between them flickers and glows, an almost tangible thing brighter than the mini Christmas tree on the windowsill. It’s warm—Tobio is warm.
He wonders if coloured lights will matter to him next year. At this rate, it seems likely.