Chapter Text
Suga spins and throws his head back, smooth grey curls bouncing with life, catching the soft sunlight coming in through the kitchen blinds. He whips an arm in the air, tongue sticking out to catch the honey that trails downwards from the grooves of the wand he's holding. Swallows, laughs at himself, then spins again. The little speaker he has next to the stove is singing out something impossibly bright from twenty years ago, and he remembers all the words to it, is mouthing as he dances. Shakes his shoulders, shakes his head. His feet smooth on the floor now, the tied ends of his apron flying with the movement of his body, his smile so wide on his face it looks almost painful. Spinning golden strands of honey that shimmer in the morning air, fairy prince with fairy wand. Face turned towards the ceiling as he finally sings along, voice faint and only for himself, the enjoyment of it all only his. Youthful and charming and best friends with himself, a friendship second only to the one between him and the moment. Free as a kite, knees bending as he changes between poses, face mock-serious now as he stomps forward in time with the beat, then cracking into mirth again, eyes closed. No more honey left in the grooves.
Tetsurou wants to melt into the doorframe he's leaning against. He feels so unbearably light that he has to dig his nails into his palms not to fly away. Suga has a way of doing that to people, turning bone to butterflies wherever he lands. Blissful surrender in every curl of his fingers, every gesture of his hands like he's trying to catch the wind, every fall of his feet like he's dancing flowers into blooming. More honey.
Suga dances with himself and ignores the stack of pancakes he's supposed to be bringing out to everyone. They sit on the counter and steam away opaquely, and Suga dances, unaware, and Tetsurou is weightlessness made conscious.
He turns away and breathes out, shakes his head. Steps away from the music, through the hallway and back into the world of humans. The same honey-sunlight is bathing the entire living room, and all those humans are glittering motes in the air. Michimiya and Azumane are setting the table, carefully lowering the pot of soup on a jute trivet, counting out pairs of chopsticks. The clock on the wall says it's barely eight in the morning, but they're all wide awake. Michimiya keeps inhaling loudly through her nose then sighing, and Azumane fumbles with the plates more than once.
Koutarou is swinging his Wii controller around in front of the couch like an idiot, and while Tetsurou would take a moment to laugh at him were this any other morning, he's only grateful to Akaashi for keeping him distracted by kicking his ass, because otherwise he would give it away in a second. (They'd honest-to-God debated keeping him in the dark, but it would've been too cruel. To Koutarou's credit, he's giving all of his soul to the game, swatting at Tetsurou to get him out of the way, cursing as he drops a point.)
Tetsurou rolls his eyes and makes his way over to the balcony. The doors are open even though it's near-freezing outside, but Daichi is only in a sweater and his house slippers, elbows on the rail, back turned to the still-sleepy surfaces of Tokyo. Behind him a blue-pink sky, and the rising sun glimmering on a hundred windows. Beside him Shimizu, the cold breeze sending her long hair flying in strokes of black against the blue-pink sky. She looks awake, too.
Daichi looks awake; he probably hasn't slept. He's staring right at Tetsurou, something unreadable on his face. Tetsurou thinks back to Suga dancing in the kitchen, so lost in the joy of the present that he has no idea or care for what the future holds. The flowers are blooming now. The honey is dripping now.
Tetsurou smiles back at Daichi, steps outside barefoot, shivers.
'No day will be more perfect,' he says.
✶
'All right,' Suga says, claps his hands. 'First Saturday breakfast of the new year, let's eat well! Akaashi, I've put your soy cream next to the juice— Asahi, milder soup in the little— okay, you've got it. Let's eat!'
Tetsurou purses his lips, licks them, anything to hide the smile. Clears his throat when Akaashi stomps on his foot under the table, and murmurs his thanks before reaching for the soup. To his right, Koutarou's having just as hard a time with no virtual tennis matches to distract him now, and has decided to hide his emotions by stuffing his mouth full to bursting with his first forkful of pancake. He nearly chokes, swallows his sweet-smelling coffee, clears his own throat. Tetsurou feels Akaashi stomp on his foot, too.
The morning feels like butter. Bright yellow and light and so good it's almost bad for you. To his left at the head, Suga is drinking his horrid green smoothie merrily, engaged in discussion with Shimizu about something a student said last night, laugh like birdwings. All the way at the other end of the table, Daichi is pretending to tell Azumane and Michimiya what happened at his own workplace last night, but if Tetsurou ducked under the table right now on pretence of retrieving a spoon, he knows he'd see Daichi's fists clenching and unclenching on his knees, one leg bouncing up and down. He's lucky Suga isn't onto him yet; then again, maybe Tetsurou can only tell because he knows.
He takes another swig of his juice, breathes in deep after it's gone down. The clock reads a little after eight, and they're all wide awake.
'Koushi,' Daichi says then, a little too loud. Tetsurou and Koutarou have to stifle twin snorts. 'You know I hate to interrupt meals, but—'
'Oh, no, that's fine,' Suga cuts in, raises an eyebrow gamely. 'Out with it already, you've been acting up all morning. What stupid travel idea have you and Bokuto come up with this time?'
'Hey!' Koutarou says. Tetsurou and Akaashi both stomp on his left foot.
'Am I wrong?' Suga laughs. 'Let's hear the pitch.'
Tetsurou desperately wants to squeeze someone's hand, restrains himself. Squeezes his own knees so hard it hurts. Grits his teeth. Stares at his soup, trying to work up the steadiness to look at either one of them instead.
Out of the corner of his eye he sees Daichi push his chair back, stand up, make his way around the table from behind Azumane, Akaashi and Shimizu. They all turn one by one to look at him too; Azumane's losing the poker face contest by far, with such competitors.
Koutarou's squeezing Tetsurou's knee, too, now. One arm around the back of his chair. The morning is butter and Tetsurou is barely breathing.
'Actually,' Daichi says, and how is his voice so steady, 'I came up with this one all by myself.'
Suga takes a quick second to glance at the way everyone's staring at him, then turns back to Daichi, half-frowning, half-smiling. 'Yes?'
Koutarou makes a small sound in the back of his throat. Tetsurou wonders if his machine is going to activate, neon red lamp ready to light up.
Daichi goes down on one knee.
'Here's the pitch,' he says, but Suga’s already putting his hands to his mouth even as Daichi reaches into his pocket. The box is powder-blue velvet, and Tetsurou had half a hand in picking out the ring inside. It's going to look so good on Suga’s finger, he thinks, when the box opens.
The box opens. Suga makes a half-gasp, half-cry of a sound, and Daichi laughs, puts a hand to his mouth too.
'Well?' Suga says, voice full of light and tears. 'What is the pitch?'
✶✶✶
The stone of the parapet is so cold against the back of Tobio's head that he can't feel it anymore. The sky's blue-black, no stars. On his right, three floors below, the road is as empty as it'll get, given that it's three in the morning. Still the occasional car, a little laughter from whoever's stupid enough to go clubbing on the Champs-Elysées. If he cared enough to straighten up, lean over and crane his neck, he'd just barely be able to see the golden-bokeh insides of Paris sliced open by the boulevard, the Arc tall and proud at the end. The Christmas decorations are still up, turning the entire place into a mess of coloured light like the whole world is a kaleidoscope.
Tobio doesn't care, and he wishes he hadn't noticed the fucking parapet, because now he's freezing and he can't feel the back of his entire body, laid out as he is on the stone. One arm dangling over the edge, one foot pressed to the floor of the balcony. Only a bathrobe, though a thick one.
'Kageyama Tobio doesn't know how to read score,’ Kei's voice crackles over the line in perfect English, and Tobio can hear him smirking. 'Rather, score hasn't evolved enough to keep up with Kageyama Tobio.’
'That's a new one,' Tobio says. ‘I like it. Someone put her in touch with the douchebag who wrote my Berlin review.'
'Berlin douchebag had it absolutely right. You're an unbearable terror. Now listen.'
It's three in the morning, and the road is as empty as it'll get. On the other end Kei's probably on break, leaning back in his chair, sleeves rolled up, laptop too close to the edge of the table and cigarette posed on the ashtray. Waiting for his coffee to reach a bearable temperature before swallowing it down in one go like a fucking animal. Tobio laughs to himself at the image, then clears his throat as Kei makes an annoyed sound, listen to me.
'From the moment he steps out onto the stage and sits at the Shigeru Kawai, you know that this isn't going to be a night like any other. There is talent, there is skill, and then there is the cold cruel fact of undeniable genius. I don't think, after all these centuries, that I need to wax poetic about genius. Rather, let me wax poetic about Kageyama Tobio, which is the same thing.'
Kei pauses, because he knows Tobio like the back of his hand, and he's right. The moment he stops Tobio bursts into laughter, louder than he meant for it to come out, and claps a hand over his mouth. A weird echo of his laugh stays frozen in the winter air for a second before falling away to the street under the hotel, and he clears his throat, all serious again. Kei's still laughing on the other end.
'Is she...' Tobio motions. 'You know?'
'Oh, I know,' Kei says. 'Yeah, she is. Anyway — '
The journalist is actually genuine, which, when Tobio already doesn't care either way, it's a bonus. In the first place, they didn't set up this article-reading tradition for Tobio to feel good about himself, it was more so that Kei could hold a one-sided debate with journalist of the month about how fucking wrong they were about whatever compliment they'd given Tobio. Just a month ago he'd barked up a storm because someone called Tobio "as regal in person as he is on the piano", because clearly they haven't seen you after your fourth shot of vodka in as many minutes, and quite frankly I'm sick of the whole world taking you for some sort of angel descended just to play weird hipster piano for the rest of us mortals, and —
Tobio is seriously freezing, and his brain can't completely process what Kei's saying, only his voice and with it the reminder that Tobio really fucking misses him. Tobio really fucking misses everyone all the time, it's kind of an occupational hazard for at least three months a year, but right now, he really fucking misses them. Spent new year’s eve with complete strangers in some bar on a boat. He misses Kei's stupid bitter coffee and that mysterious dipping sauce Yachi makes with her fried chicken and Yamaguchi’s completely shit taste in music. Hell, he even misses Oikawa-san.
Kei is saying something about Tobio's unique composition style as Tobio unsticks himself from the parapet and sits up, clutching the edge when it makes him dizzy. Right foot's fallen asleep, fuck; down he goes, sitting heavily and leaning back against the stone carvings that make up the barrier of the balcony. From here his room looks so warm and cosy he could cry, but if he goes inside he'll fall right into bed and knock out before he can say good day to Kei, so he waits out in the cold, twists his foot at the ankle to get some feeling back. Pure sensation rises up like fire ants crawling in his muscles; he grits his teeth and keeps moving through it as the blood flows in.
'Oh,' Kei says, and it's not every day that he's caught off-guard. Tobio wishes he'd paid attention to the rest of the article, but it's too late. He'll read it in the morning.
'What?' he says. God damn it, his foot.
'I will end by saying that Kageyama Tobio is a pianist,' Kei reads out, voice a little quieter now. 'This I know. That a piano is traditionally played with one pair of hands, I also know. I have seen more than my fair share of performances over this past decade, from the masters to the completely unknown, from Hollywood to the Tchaikovsky conservatory, and every time, what I have seen is a piano and a player. This I know. This is not news to me.
'But tonight,' he continues, 'at the first performance of the new year, I saw an instrument, and then another one.’
Tobio stares at the floor.
'And as I went home in the wet Parisian winter and unwrapped my scarf, I couldn’t help but think to myself, what a lonesome thing to be.'
✶✶✶
There is a travel plan, because after thirteen years of being with someone you kind of develop an idea of where they'd want to get married. And as it is, it was thirteen years ago, when both of them were still wiry-limbed and didn't know what to do with their hair, that Daichi and Suga had decided that they were in this for the long haul, whatever the fuck the long haul means when you're all of sixteen years old.
They'd happened to make this monumental decision in the middle of nowhere, nestled in the green hills of Fukushima, on a stupid high school trip to reconnect with nature, or some bullshit like that. Tetsurou only wants to know if there'll still be mosquitoes in October; ten months of warning is just barely cutting it.
'No mosquitoes,' Daichi sighs, cheeks still red, one hand clutching Suga’s as if it's the first ever time. 'And they have two amazing hot springs.'
‘Hot springs are completely useless to me, thanks,' Tetsurou says, putting his phone away once the good morning to his father sends. Daichi rolls his eyes but lifts a hand in apology. 'And your folks still don't want to come?'
'Spoke to all four last week, they prefer the civil ceremony down here,' he replies. 'To be fair, can you imagine how bored they'd be with all of us?'
'Bored isn't how I'd put it,' Shimizu says dryly. 'I think it'd break your mother's heart to see how quick you can down a pint.'
'Oh, you're a smartass. Also, you haven't seen my dad down a pint.'
It's funny. Daichi is twenty-nine this year and head of security (who let him), but to Tetsurou he's always going to be twenty-one like he was when they first met, barely out of their undergraduate programs and already launching into one of the most ambitious master's of the country. Back then Daichi's hair was longer, his choice in shirts horrid, and his attendance stellar, all of which often makes Tetsurou wonder if it wasn't fate that out of the two of them, it was Daichi who managed to actually do something worthwhile with his degree. Not that it would've changed anything if Tetsurou wore uglier shirts or came to class more often, he supposes. Not that anything would've changed anything, probably.
Suga is twenty-nine this year too, and he actually doesn't look a day above twenty-one, so Tetsurou doesn't have to do any mental gymnastics. Glowing skin and glowing smile, hair still unfairly beautiful after all these years of dyeing it, and not a class passes out from under him that doesn't weep on graduation day. Tetsurou'd never heard of high-schoolers crying on graduation day until Koushi landed his job; it's ridiculous. They're both ridiculous, and now they're getting married, and it's ridiculous that they took so long.
'Tetsu's tearing up,' Koutarou announces, pointing from where he's sprawled on the armchair. 'You can't see it but he's totally tearing up on the inside.'
'How does one tear up on the inside,' Tetsurou says, but he has to clear his throat right after. 'Do not look at me. I do not have emotions.'
'That's my line,' Akaashi says. 'You're definitely tearing up, Kuroo-san.'
'I'm tearing up,' Michimiya declares, and to no one's surprise, she actually is. Nose bright red and eyes wet, nothing on her face but happiness. 'But only because I can't wait to cannonball into Mishima's hot springs.'
'You can't cannonball into springs.'
'Oh yeah? Try me, Daichi.'
Kenma still hasn't replied to his message, which is how Tetsurou knows that he hasn't looked away from his spreadsheets a single time all night. If he was asleep he would've texted fuck off, but he clearly has no idea where his phone is right now, which means Tetsurou will have to take a detour to his place and yank him away from his computer, make fish and rice, and then monopolise his flatscreen to play Red Dead Redemption. On the first weekend of the year too. Life is so hard, incessantly.
'Right,' Suga says on cue, bringing a hand down on his thigh. 'Invitations. Bookings. Dates. Daichi, I can't believe you didn't warn me, now I have to get planning out of nowhere.'
'Babe, your mom told me she'd give me your hand herself if I didn't ask for it already.'
'Be that as it may. I — oh!' His eyes light up, and he looks at Daichi with pure joy for a split second, before looking around at them all. 'Oh, you guys, invitations.'
'Why do you look like that?'
'Because,' he says, 'you're finally going to meet the greatest, and worst, musicians in this country.'
✶✶✶
Suga-san is getting married.
Tobio's still sitting on the edge of the bathtub, towel wrapped around his waist, phone held at a stupidly high angle so that his hair won't drip on it, and he's spent the past five minutes gaping at the message on his screen. No matter how hard he squints the innocent grey speech bubble doesn't disappear, and nor do its contents.
Happy new year, it's been months!
Call me when you can. Your Daichi-san proposed.
It's ridiculous that they took so long, but Tobio isn't any less stunned. Even though it was almost six months ago for Suga-san's birthday, he still remembers last eating with them like it was yesterday. Yamaguchi had choked on a bite and nearly killed himself, and the restaurant was warm and stuffy and smelled so delicious it was making Tobio dizzy. He remembers what Yachi was wearing, something light and flowery, hair loose over her shoulders, face red from the heat of the grill. Yeah. Daichi-san and Suga-san had looked every bit as happy that night as they have since Tobio first met them in high school, and in a way, he thinks he's so surprised at the announcement because it's funny that they're finally thinking of giving it an official ring, as if it's necessary.
Still— he gets it. Knows what it's like to have something with someone that you want to yell to the whole world about. Even if neither Daichi-san nor Suga-san is the yelling type. Well, Daichi-san, maybe. He hasn't forgotten enough of high school for that.
Right. They're getting married, and Tobio's dripping onto the mat, and he needs to get dry and dressed and call back. Springs up and puts the phone away on the counter, stares at himself in the still-steamy mirror.
Then Tobio tries a smile, because he's happy. Then a grin, because he's happy. Then a laugh, because he is happy. Then takes a deep breath, and starts his day.