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Kageyama glared down at his phone. It was brand new and was causing severe problems at the moment. He had only had two people contact him since he’d gotten it, so he only had two phone numbers on his contact list. One was his father, who was at work and would not be able to help and would ask questions Kageyama didn’t want to answer. The other was Hinata, who was likely practicing volleyball by himself and would… he would try to help. He’d probably ask a lot of questions but at least Kageyama knew that Hinata wouldn’t be disappointed in him if he refused to answer.
Kageyama dialed Hinata’s number.
“ ‘Yello?” Hinata said after the first ring.
“Uh,” Kageyama said. Talking on the phone made him nervous. Talking to Hinata made him less nervous now that they’d established that Kageyama was terrible at communicating and trying hard, but still. Not being able to see Hinata’s face made talking difficult.
“Kageyama, I know it’s you,” Hinata said. “I have caller ID.”
“Oh. Uh.”
Hinata sighed into the phone and sent a rush of static into Kageyama’s ear. “What is it? Just tell me, don’t worry about it. Just say words.”
“I’m lost.”
“…What?”
Kageyama glanced around. The few people on the street weren’t looking at him but he still didn’t want to be overheard. “I’m in Tokyo and I’m lost. My phone’s new and it’s fucking up and it won’t tell me where I am or where I need to be and you’re one of only two numbers in my phone at the moment because you won’t stop texting me, even when I’m in class. I need you to get me home.”
“Uh. Oh. Okay!” Hinata sounded excited. Kageyama could hear some enthusiastic rustling and clicking in the background. “This is cool! I’m like your tech expert and you’re an agent in the field and we have to get you back to report to base that—”
“No,” Kageyama said. “I’m Kageyama and you’re Hinata and I need to get home. That’s all.”
“Why are you in Tokyo, anyway?” Hinata asked.
“I—”
“Oh, and where are you?”
Kageyama rolled his eyes. “I’m either in Itabashi or Kita ward, I’m not sure. I’m outside Sanhori Dental Clinic at block 14, and I need to get to the train station and I need to know what train to take to get me back.”
“Mmmhmm.”
Kageyama waited. He fiddled with the collar of his shirt, pulling it from under his backpack strap. He flattened his bangs. He picked his nose surreptitiously.
“Okay!” Hinata yelled.
Kageyama almost crammed his whole finger into his nostril before yanking his hand away. “Yes!”
“You wanna go left.”
Kageyama started walking.
Hinata cleared his throat after a moment. “So, uh, what were you doing in Tokyo?”
Kageyama didn’t know how to answer that, so he said, “I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Why not?” Hinata asked.
“You realize that question is still going to make me talk about the thing I don’t want to talk about, right?”
Kageyama could practically hear Hinata shrugging his shoulders over the phone. “I guess. Is it embarrassing?”
It was embarrassing. “Where do I turn?”
“Oh, sorry, uhhhhh at the train tracks.”
“There are no train tracks.”
“What? Where are you? What block are you on?”
Kageyama looked up at the street signs. “I’ve been walking west ever since you told me to turn left at— Oh goddammit. Which direction should I be heading? North, east, what?”
“Uhhhhh north? Wait I can’t find the little compass arrow.”
“You are terrible,” Kageyama informed him. “You truly suck at this.”
“So call someone else and have them help you!”
“I don’t have any number but yours!”
“I’ll give you someone’s! Suga’s! Hold on—”
“I don’t have anything to write with!” Kageyama was yelling. People were looking. He took a breath and hissed, “Just call him on your home phone and tell me what he says.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No!”
“Oh. Okay, give me a sec.”
Kageyama spent the few minutes it took Hinata to call Suga walking up a street to see if he could see train tracks. Then he realized he was assuming Hinata had given him the correct directions anyway, and the odds of that happening were low enough that he sighed and walked back.
“Hey, Kageyama, still there?” Hinata asked.
“Yes,” Kageyama said.
“Cool, okay, Suga, you there?” Presumably Suga affirmed that he was there, because Hinata said, “Awesome, let’s do this! Okay, Kageyama, where are you now?”
Kageyama named the block. Hinata repeated it. There was silence. Then Hinata said, “Go back the way you came, east, until you can go left at the end of block 14.”
“Right,” Kageyama said, and he turned and started walking.
“Suga says hi,” Hinata said.
“Hello,” Kageyama said.
“Kageyama says hi back,” Hinata said. He paused and then added, “Suga wants to know why you’re in Tokyo.”
“Tell him I don’t want to talk about it.”
“He doesn’t want to talk about it,” Hinata said. “He told me the same thing, too. I guessed it was something embarrassing. What do you think it is?”
Kageyama rolled his eyes.
“Suga says it’s not anyone’s business but yours,” Hinata said after a long moment. “He told me to apologize.”
“Are you going to?”
“No.”
“I didn’t expect you to. Tell him I appreciate his respect for my boundaries.”
“Kageyama says he appreciates that you respect him. Uh, his boundaries. You respect those. I don’t want to assume you respect him because he’s a big dork.”
“What do I do after I turn left at block 14?” Kageyama asked, pausing at the corner where he had started. He kicked at a rock and pretended it was Hinata’s smug face.
“He wants to know what he does after he turns at block 14.” Hinata asked. He was silent for a while and then said, “Oh, that’s all? Okay, cool. Hold on, let me tell him that and then I’ll get the rest from you and you can go back to whatever you were doing. Kageyama?”
“Yes.”
“All right, Suga says you continue down this street for a while and then take a right at the train tracks, cross over them when you can—he said to be super careful there so, like, pay attention and stuff. Take a right when you’re across the tracks, then turn at the end of block 34 so you’re between 34 and 30. Take a left at the end of 30, then an immediate right, and then you’re heading straight for at the right station. You gotta take the pedestrian overpass but then you’re totally in Kami-Nakazato. He said it’s about ten minutes walking according to the map app he’s using. So just keep going while I get what trains you take, okay?”
“Yes,” Kageyama said.
“Hey, Suga?” Hinata said, and Kageyama switched hands because his ear was getting hot. He wondered if either he or Suga was on speakerphone. If not, that meant Hinata had a phone pressed up against each side of his fluffy ginger head. The image made Kageyama snort.
“Kageyama?”
“Yes?”
“You okay? Did you sneeze or drop the phone or something?”
Kageyama suppressed a grin. “No.”
“Huh. My phone’s being weird. Well, Suga said to take the train leaving on the Kelhin-Tōhoku line towards Omiya. The light blue train. You transfer at Tohoku Shinkansen toward Morioka, then get off at Sendai and you should be good to go!”
“You’ll need to tell me that again when I get there,” Kageyama said. “I won’t remember that. And ask him which direction I should go.”
“I hung up on him already.”
“Oh my god, you’re terrible at this,” Kageyama groaned. “Write it down so you remember.”
“If I’m so awful, you should have just called Suga in the first place!” Hinata snapped.
“There are only two numbers in my fucking phone,” Kageyama hissed. “I couldn’t call Suga because I don’t. Have. His. Number.”
There was silence from Hinata. Kageyama pulled his phone away to check that he hadn’t hung up. The little numbers kept clicking away though, counting the length of their phone call. This was the longest Kageyama had ever been on the phone. He heard a tinny mumble and put the phone back to his ear in time to hear Hinata say, in a rather choked voice, “…scary asshole about it. Who’s the other number in your phone? Maybe you should have called them instead.”
“It’s my father. And I don’t want to talk to him.”
More silence on Hinata’s end, but there was a sniffling in the background that gradually faded. Kageyama said, “Hinata?”
“Are you okay, man?” Hinata sounded serious.
Kageyama swallowed hard. He’d really hoped that he wouldn’t be asked this kind of question. “I am. I’m okay.”
“But, like, really? Are you? Because you’ve been really tense the whole time, even for someone who’s lost in Tokyo. I won’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about it. Unless it has to do with volleyball, cuz that’s basically all I talk about with people.”
Kageyama sighed. He was approaching the train tracks that he needed to cross, so he said, “Hold on, I’m at the tracks and I’m being careful like Suga said.”
He pulled the phone away from his face and listened carefully as he crossed just in case any trains were coming. He also considered what he should say. Thinking before speaking was always a good idea.
Hinata was so earnest. And Kageyama was supposed to be working on his communication skills. Kageyama’s current situation wasn’t relevant to volleyball… Actually, it kind of was. Maybe having one other person on the team know would be helpful.
He made it to the other side of the tracks without incident and said into the phone, “I am in Tokyo because my father told me I should seek out internships. For applying to universities. It’s supposed to look good on my application. But it means I wouldn’t be able to play volleyball.” He cleared his throat. “I had an interview today. He got me one. At a clinic. Not the dental one I was across from but. Yeah. It didn’t go well. I, uh. I planned it to not go well. So he’ll be mad at me but I can keep playing volleyball.”
It was eerie how often Hinata would fall silent on the phone. Maybe Kageyama was worse at communicating than he’d thought. He was terrible at maintaining conversation. Kageyama followed the street he wanted, between block 34 and 30, and made his way around the corner so that he was heading along block 33.
“Hinata?” Kageyama said. He spotted the pedestrian overpass that would take him into Kami-Nakazato Train Station.
“Do you think about the future?” Hinata asked, and Kageyama groaned so loud that the old man passing him on the street jumped back a little bit.
“This is not a good time for a deep conversations,” Kageyama said. “But no. I just want to play volleyball with everyone. And I’m going to keep doing that with absolutely everything I have, and you’re going to do it to or else I’ll hit you in the face with like fifty volleyballs. Per day. You know I could do it.”
“Yeah,” Hinata said, and it sounded like he was laughing a little, which was good. “You’re really talented, you could do it.”
“Tell me what trains to take again,” Kageyama said. Hinata told him. Kageyama knew he’d get back home just fine.
THE END