Work Text:
It goes like this ;
Hinata Shoyo, a child of the sun, was not afraid of flying too close to it. With raven black wings he did not worry about melting the wax or drowning in the sea like icarus. All he knew was to fly again and again and again only to meet nothing but cold empty air and tall walls. He ran and flew and fell and flew and yet he couldn't see the other side. Hinata Shoyo was stuck.
"To break the walls in front of the spiker, is a setter's job."
In comes Kageyama Tobio. Unabashed and unafraid the bird took flight again, the rusty dark walls open up to a wide endless sea, untouchable horizon in between and above— a limitless sky. The sun rises.
and like this ;
Kageyama Tobio's world is small. His world is a room that closes in slowly, very slowly. The walls melt and groan and silently sink in while he tosses the ball front and behind and up and there. The ball hits the wall and falls on the cold cold floor. The thud thud thud of the ball hammers against his ears. No one is here, only the walls and him and a ball no one will pick up.
"Kageyama!"
A voice echoes in the room, the walls inch back, unsure, slowly softly—
"I'm here!"
—and then all at once. The sun shines through, the voice flies by. Kageyama Tobio holds on, hoping he can fly with the sun, to the sun.
and then ;
Shoyo wonders if he will ever stop fearing the walls. Sometimes the sky is dark, pitch black dark and looks too much like a wall he can't look beyond. The sky is also wide and open and merciless and there's no place to rest.
"As long as I'm here, you're invincible."
He leans against those words. His wings stop burning. Shoyo wonders if this is what the world means when they speak of soulmates— someone who hands you the sky but also opens the door to a home when you've flown for too long. Kageyama bloomed on this earth in winter with a year's worth of warmth in him and handed Shoyo the sun and sky and all.
and then ;
Kageyama stands at the crossing, the lights turn red, the seconds tick away, it turns green, he stands unmoved. Shoyo's defiant angry eyes burn in his thoughts and he breathes heavily. betrayal.
He looks at his hands, nails trimmed and shaped to perfection, looking so innocent and pretty, and yet and yet, it is these same hands which have tossed and tossed and tossed and pushed everyone away till he was cold and alone— a deep unending wedge between him and everyone else. Callused and hurt, he realises—
ah, It is fear. He is afraid of losing the sun that has walked to him. He is scared of Hinata opening his eyes and running away to someone else to break and rise over the walls.
The light turns red. He can't move. The familiar room with four dark walls is closing in again.
on the other side ;
"He wasn't the first friend I'd made, he was a partner."
Shoyo gets on his bicycle and leaves and she starts crying. Among all the protagonists in the volleyball club Shoyo was the first person who befriended Yachi, the Townsperson B and she can't help but cry in pain for him.
The mountains are huge and the road to home is long, even on a cycle. His cheeks sting in pain against the cold air and heart stings because. Because.
He pedals faster and faster , the tears blur the light and star and sky into one shapeless blob and yet he's nowhere close to home. Home is far and he doesn't know how long until he'll reach there. The mountains are huge and the sun gets swallowed.
then and now ;
Kageyama had wrapped the wings of the "greatest decoy" around him and with the same hands that had handed him the sky, pointed at him and told him to be proud of it. These are your wings, they take you to the sun, do not abandon them. Your wings, unafraid of the sun, are worth more than a thousand crowns.
When Kageyama is still a seed, unwatered and parched and thirsty, the sky refusing to break into rain, he is crowned the king of the court for trying to bloom by himself. He is —too fast, too rushed, far away, we can't keep up, we must cut him off. They make him king of no one and leave the court. His crown doesn't fit and his cape is lopsided and he is alone— what must be done with a king who has no one to rule?
It's the sun who helps him bloom, who rules the skies and hides behind the sky and makes it rain and suddenly he is no longer alone. The sun crowns him, recrowns him , king of the court. It fits perfectly on his head, the cape sits comfortably on his shoulder— the king is no longer alone. I wear my wings and you wear your crown and together we are invincible.
then it goes like this ;
"You can fly even higher."
Shoyo wonders if he is a fool to not fear the sun. They say the sun burns bright and destroys everything that comes close to it so why not him? He is the child of the sun, he was born to fly to the sun and maybe that means he was born to fly too close and crash and burn until only unrecognizable ash remains but then so be it. If Kageyama who has given him the sky says he can fly higher, then he will. Shoyo will fly high because he knows Kageyama will bring up the ball to him, here, there and anywhere. Everywhere.
later ;
Sometimes, having wings isn't enough. You need to stand on quicksand, panicked and sinking to learn to use them. So, Shoyo goes to the other end of the world to learn how to fly. Kageyama, wearing his proud crown, stays.
The sea between them is wide and blue and the sun sinks for one while it rises for the other. They are apart and no longer sharing one orbit but they are tied by a promise— to win over the other. To be strong and stand beside each other and rule.
To be—
"I'm here"
"You're here"
—together and invincible again. The sun shines, the flower blooms and together they reach for each other.