Chapter Text
Despite Koushi’s best efforts to change, things between them don’t get much better.
He and Daichi don’t talk anymore, not like they used to, not like before all of this happened. They used to be able to sit down and tell each other their problems and come up with some solution for whatever was causing them friction, but now Koushi feels like he can’t even speak up. He feels like acknowledging the assault only opened up the door to something he doesn’t know how to control, revealed a knot of emotions too tangled for him to unwind.
He wants to blame Hiro for this. Maybe he does blame the man, just a little, because yes, Koushi chose to hide and chose to lash out and chose to push people away, but had he never gone through any of this, then he wouldn’t have anything reason to act like this. He’d be normal.
That’s all he wants, really, is to feel normal. He misses the person he was before, the life he had before, and he’s tired of faulting himself for all of the ways he’s different now. It was Hiro’s fault, his and his alone, and Koushi hopes that the man rots for the rest of his life, because Koushi isn’t sure he himself can escape a similar fate.
Regardless of who caused all of this, the fact is that Daichi has begun to drift away from him. Koushi wants to pin his distance on the upcoming changing of the guards, when the third years will step away and hand Daichi the captaincy, on all of the new stresses he’s preparing for and all the new things he needs to know. But he knows this isn’t the only reason, and for the first time since they got together, he is unsure of what will happen next.
“Um, Suga-san.”
Koushi’s feet hit the ground just seconds before he hears Ennoshita’s voice, and he turns to his underclassman with far too much intensity given the situation. The boy shrinks back a little before Koushi can compose himself, and once he does he follows Ennoshita’s pointing finger to the far side of the gym.
A volleyball sits against the wall, and Koushi almost asks why Ennoshita is making him look at one of their discarded warmup balls before it dawns on him that he never heard his set get spiked.
“Oh,” he says, flashing a smile that’s probably a little too wide. “Did I toss long?”
Ennoshita grins back, but his eyes are more than a bit wary. “Yeah, long and high and kind of… off the court completely.”
“Sorry about that. If you want to send it to me we can do it again, I promise I’ll pay better attention this time.”
“Sure.” Koushi goes to get the ball and tosses it to Ennoshita, who catches it without hesitation. He gets ready to bump it up, but just before he moves, he pauses with a frown. “Are you nervous about Daichi getting promoted?”
It’s a good cover, and not a total lie, so he nods. “Just a little. I think he’ll make me vice-captain since he told me he would, but there’s always a little doubt, you know?”
“You’ll be fine. You’ll be a good vice-captain.” The ball sails into the air, and the moment Ennoshita lands after his spike, he flashes a calm smile at Koushi. “And you two work so well together that anything else would just fall apart, so I wouldn’t worry.”
They practice for another few minutes, talking only to comment on technique or form or to clarify the positioning of the toss, and all the while he can feel his nervousness increasing. In a strange way, it’s nice to feel the kind of anxiety that begins clawing at him; it’s the normal type of worry, the same kind of jitters he gets before a big game, and he can’t keep his eyes away from the third years deliberating in the corner.
Practice ends, and in the wake of what should be excited anticipation, Koushi feels only dread. He has enjoyed the liminality of these few moments right before the decision will be made, his last few minutes of being a simple member of the team with no responsibilities. They’ll have to get their act together, and quick given the fast-approaching Preliminaries, and he isn’t confident he and Daichi can get on the same page in time.
Captain calls everyone over, having them all stand in a semi-circle around him, the vice-captain, and Daichi, who looks so nervous he might actually be vibrating. “We know how much you all respect Daichi,” the captain says, “but we should take a formal vote just to be sure of this decision. All against Daichi becoming the new team captain, raise your hands.”
No one lifts their hands, of course. Noya and Tanaka are grinning like idiots to Koushi’s left, Asahi shuffles from one foot to the other in anticipation to his right, and even Kiyoko listens in from across the room.
The captain nods. “Seem like it’s anonymous. In that case I would like to officially promote Sawamura Daichi to captain of the Karasuno boys’ volleyball team, effective immediately.”
A cheer fills the room, and Koushi allows himself to smile at the scene that unfolds. Noya gets a running start and tackles Daichi to the ground, Asahi rushes over like he wants to do the same but just ends up awkwardly hovering over the pair of them, the third years look on like proud parents, and Takeda tries to congratulate their new captain but can’t find a safe way to do so without risk of getting dragged into the growing dogpile.
After a few minutes, things settle and people climb off of each other and Daichi brushes himself off with a smile. His gaze falls on Koushi for the briefest moment, and the grin drains off his face as he turns away.
Before Koushi can question what the newly uncomfortable look on Daichi’s face means, Tanaka speaks up. “What about vice-captain?”
Daichi freezes, eyes going wide as the team’s attention falls back on him. “Well, you see…” He glances to the third years, whose expressions are stone cold and whose shoulders are wound tight. “We’ve – or, um, I’ve decided that it’s better for all of the adjusting if I announce vice-captain a few days after announcing captain. It helps you guys get used to the change one step at a time.”
Koushi knows a lie when he hears it, and he feels something as cold and sharp as a knife pierce his chest. The rest of the team seems to accept this explanation, even if Asahi and Kiyoko share a confused expression between them, leaving Koushi alone in experiencing the sensation of a rug being pulled out beneath his feet. He doesn’t even have the mental space to get mad about this, because he genuinely can’t understand what just happened, why Daichi would ever do anything other than hand him the vice-captaincy the first moment he could.
He tries to talk with Daichi about it, to ask about him making such an odd choice, but Daichi is surrounded by their teammates and Koushi can’t find enough room for a private conversation. The rest of the team bursts with excitement around him, a dozen different tiny celebrations happening all at once, and even in the middle of all of these people he can’t help but feel alone.
“Care to tell me what’s going on?”
It takes Koushi the rest of the week to find the guts to confront Daichi. He’s spent too much time in his own head at this point, spent too many hours questioning why things happened the way they did, wondering if all of this was his fault or if it was just some big misunderstanding. He can’t handle his own perseverance anymore, can’t block out the insecurities that circle around and around but never land. Vice-captain still hasn’t been announced, and he just wants to know why.
To his credit, Daichi has made it incredibly easy for Koushi to pull away from him. By the time Koushi realizes the other boy is avoiding him, he’s gotten so good at it Koushi couldn’t find him if he tried. Even now, when he calls out to Daichi on the walk from the school building to the clubroom, Daichi does his best to wriggle away.
“Very Suga of you, don’t you think?” Koushi says when he catches up, trying to fall in at Daichi’s side, but he’s going so fast their steps fall out of sync.
Daichi frowns over his shoulder, genuine confusion in his eyes, and slows down. “Did you just turn your own name into a verb? And I don’t know what you’re talking about, nothing’s going on.”
“That’s what’s very Suga of you. The running and the clear lies and the pretending everything’s fine.” They make it to the stairs leading up to the clubroom, Daichi moving up the first few steps before sighing slightly and turning to face Koushi. “Can we at least talk about this?”
“About what?”
“Come on, Dai, you’re a terrible liar. You know what I’m going to say.” He begins to creep up the stairs, and Daichi does the same in an attempt to keep distance between them.
“You’re a terrible liar, too, you know,” he says, almost under his breath.
“Is that what this is all about? Is this some convoluted way to get back at me for being a douche the other day?” And the day before and the day before that, but he doesn’t say anything about that part. The clubroom is empty, the lights turned off and the whole space bathed in shadow. Daichi flicks on the overheads, staring straight ahead as Koushi continues. “I want to say that’s shitty, but maybe it’s fair, I don’t even know. But if it’s that, will you just tell me?”
“I already said I’d appoint a vice-captain a few days after I became captain, and I plan to stick to that. It’s not been that long.”
“Yeah, I guess, but I just thought you’d… let me in on it?” The sentence ends like a question, uncertainty creeping into his voice. “If we’re going to lead this team together, then we need to be on the same page. And if it’s not going to be me…” He swallows around the sudden lump in his throat, his own words hollowing out his chest, like after everything, this is the worst thought he’s ever spoken out loud. “If it’s going to be Asahi or Ennoshita or something, please just let me know.”
Daichi presses his mouth into a thin line and says nothing, instead reaching for the buttons of his uniform shirt and beginning to undress. Koushi is always the first to change into his practice clothes, or the last, or he does it in the bathroom stall where no one can see. He’s done this for months, and he thinks Daichi thinks it’s because he’s developed an odd relationship with privacy and nudity, but the truth is that he has a bandage adhered to his thigh even now that he isn’t willing to let anyone see.
Maybe that’s where the distance started, maybe in some way related to nails and straws and camel’s backs the cutting led to Daichi making this decision. Koushi certainly wouldn’t put any trust in a person who acted like he’s acted these last few months, someone so flighty and standoffish and strange.
So this could all be Koushi’s fault. He did choose to take things out on his own skin – that is objectively, undoubtedly his fault – and then he chose secrecy instead of honesty, and running instead of facing himself, and in the end it’s not so much like hapless dominos falling as it is like the intricate weaving of a spiderweb he himself created.
He’s not fit to lead, maybe. Probably. He won’t be the kind of vice-captain that Daichi deserves, that the team deserves, that they need to get any further than a miserable loss in the second round of Interhighs. Everything he does and says and thinks is clouded by the memory of Hiro’s hands, every inch of him inside and out is soaked through with the man’s stench, and now it’s gone so far that it’s destroyed the one thing in his life he thought was assured, the only thing he felt he could rely on.
But he can’t even blame Hiro for this, not like all the other things he blames the man for. Hiro didn’t force a blade into his hands, didn’t make him run when his teacher tried to have a simple conversation, didn’t tell him to snap at and retreat from everyone who wanted to help.
This is Koushi’s fault. He’s done this, he’s ruined himself, and he can’t even get mad that Daichi’s treating him like he isn’t here. He wouldn’t meet his own eyes, either.
“Are you catastrophizing again?” Daichi asks, just like Koushi had asked him back before everything fell apart, and there is no humor in his voice. “There’s no need to panic about it.”
Such confident words from the person who doesn’t have to worry over this. Or maybe he is worried over this, maybe he keeps looking anywhere but Koushi’s face because he already knows the outcome and can’t bear to embrace it. “I just want to know,” Koushi says, subdued.
Daichi runs a hand over his face, stretching the skin of it into something tired and gaunt. “You don’t, though. You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do. Please just tell me what’s going on, even if it’s awful.” Daichi’s expression doesn’t change, and something pleading creeps into Koushi’s words. “I can’t stand not knowing why. What’s keeping you from giving me the position? Or not giving it to me, whatever.”
“There’s not an easy way to say this.” Koushi’s stomach drops, but Daichi seems unaffected as he continues. “But over these last few weeks, and with everything that’s happened before this, I’m not so sure any more about making you vice-captain. I don’t think you have the – the mental space to take on leading a team on top of everything else going on.”
He expected this, he knew it would happen, but it still hits him with enough force to almost bring him to his knees. “You don’t have faith in me.”
“I – Suga—” A sliver of emotion, of regret or sorrow, crosses his face. “I wish I didn’t have to do this, but I have an entire team that I have to lead now. We don’t have a coach, we don’t have a lot of support, and if we’re going to get anywhere close to nationals we need to be at the top of our game.”
“And I’m not a part of what makes nationals happen. I’m a burden to the team.”
“Come on, you know I didn’t say that.”
“Will you give me a chance to prove myself, then?”
Daichi says nothing.
“That’s what I thought.” The anger that flares in him isn’t from frustration at this situation, or from a feeling of betrayal, but rather from the deep, simmering recognition that he did this to himself. He killed his chances of making vice-captain, he ruined his relationship with Daichi, he destroyed every last scrap of trust the other boy had in him. But it’s too much to think about on top of everything else, and with a level of finesse he didn’t know he had, he redirects the fire. “Were you just not going to let me know? Were you going to wait forever for me to figure it out on my own? Did you really think it’d be better to do things like this?”
“We don’t have to do things like this,” Daichi snaps, fists clenching. “We don’t have to do anything like this, but you get mad about everything I do now, so forgive me for not wanting to be yelled at all the time.”
“I wouldn’t yell at you if you just—”
The door to the clubroom swings open, Ennoshita and Narita stumbling in, though the moment they see the scene unfolding before them, they back out with wide eyes. It shatters the tension anyway, and Daichi breaks away and moves to leave.
“We’re not done talking about this,” Koushi calls at his retreating back.
Daichi slams the door on his way out.
It’s a horrible kind of apprehension that takes hold of Koushi for the rest of practice, devoid of anything to look forward to, just the slow build of anxiety as the end of the night draws nearer. He doesn’t want this, wants nothing more than for this to all blow over, but given both of their track records for avoiding things, he knows they can’t just hope to get over it.
So he goes up to Daichi once they get everything cleaned up. It’s his responsibility to lock up now, and even though he doesn’t have to, Koushi sticks by his side just like a good vice-captain would.
“You’re set on this, aren’t you?” Daichi says as he closes the door to the storage room, and Koushi doesn’t respond.
They stand alone in the gym, their teammates having long since gone home and even Takeda leaving them to their own devices. Koushi couldn’t ask for a better setup, but even in such perfect circumstances he can’t bring himself to start the conversation.
He doesn’t need to, in the end, because Daichi gets things going all on his own. “I’d actually really like to hear you finish whatever you were saying before the others walked in. Something about not having to yell at me if I just… did something. I’d love to know what that something could be.”
“I don’t know what I was going to say,” Koushi admits, and it’s the truth. He would’ve probably stumbled to finish the sentence, but Daichi doesn’t seem to believe this.
“Were you about to say that you’d stop yelling if I was, what? Better? If I listened to you? Because from my point of view it feels like no matter what I do it’s a problem.” His voice takes on a harsh edge, words all knives and needles. “Leave you alone? There’s a problem. Try to talk to you? It’s a problem. Try to help you when you’re panicking? Guess what, it’s a fucking problem.”
“I never said you leaving me alone was a problem.” It’s out of Koushi’s mouth before he can stop himself, and Daichi’s face twitches in an emotion he can’t name. “Hey, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No, no, of course not. And you didn’t mean to lie to my face about the blood on your shirt, right? Or to avoid me for weeks, or to scream at me in the middle of class, or to attack me just because I made the best decision for my team.”
“Attack you?” He rolls his eyes. “That’s dramatic as hell and you know it. The only reason you didn’t like me confronting you was because you didn’t like what I had to say.”
“That sounds familiar.” Daichi crosses the floor, Koushi mere inches behind, and begins collecting his things like they’re done talking.
“Not as familiar as you sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong. If you kept your distance we wouldn’t have to do any of this.” Except, that’s not true at all; if there’s anyone who’s not responsible for this whole situation, it’s Daichi. It’s Hiro’s fault – no, at this point, it’s Koushi’s fault, his and his alone, but he can’t put that into words, not before he carries on in his anger instead. “When I asked you to get away from me during that episode, I meant it. It wasn’t some weird roundabout way of asking you to come closer. And you just didn’t listen.”
Daichi lets the jacket he just picked up fall out of his hands, and he twists with dizzying speed to face Koushi. “So I was just supposed to leave you by yourself in the middle of a panic attack? What kind of useless boyfriend do you think I am?”
“You didn’t have to leave, at first. I just wanted you to step back, but you wouldn’t, so then I just wanted you away from me.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” he says, half-frustrated, half-confused.
“Yeah, because I was freaking the fuck out. Sorry I didn’t have the right mindset for meaningful conversation.” Daichi heads towards the door, and Koushi moves to block him, jumping out in front of him and refusing to budge. “Thought you in all your noble boyfriend bullshit should’ve been able to figure that part out.”
“Guess I’m not so perfect, that must be such a hard revelation for you.”
Koushi can see it in his eyes, the moment he quits pretending he isn’t invested, the moment he plants his feet and truly enters this argument, truly becomes determined to fight this thing to the bitter end.
“And you wanna know what?” He pauses like he really needs an answer, and Koushi gives a sardonic nod, a humorless grin carving his lips. “I don’t care what you think is best for you. I don’t care that you think running away will fix all of this—”
“I am not running away anymore.”
He waves a hand in front of him. “Sure, sure, like you aren’t unloading on me just so you don’t have to think about your own shit.” That stings, just for a moment, but Koushi pushes down on the feeling. He is so very good at pushing down on things these days. “But even though you keep running, I’m not going to give up on you. I’m not just going to let you hurt by yourself, and I’m not going to let you keep hurting yourself. If you think that’s annoying, you’ll just have to deal with it.”
“Oh, pull your head out, Daichi.” Daichi gives him a dark look, but Koushi isn’t fazed; in fact, he’s been waiting quite a while to say this. “You think you can make everything perfect and whole and like it used to be, but you can’t. You can’t do it, because it will never be the same, we will never be the same, and you just won’t accept that.”
“And you’re not even willing to try. It’s all doom and gloom and ‘my life is ruined forever, better give up’.” He glances away, his voice growing quiet. “You used to always take everything in stride, but now it’s like you’ve just rolled over because you think it’ll be too hard.”
Some emotion other than blind fury builds within him, and no matter how hard he tries to get rid of it, it still sends his voice quivering. “Yeah, it’s so awful for you that I didn’t just get over it. So terrible that I’m not dealing with it the way I’m supposed to, limping to you and begging for your eternal wisdom. Do you want me to act like some broken little fragile flower so you can fix me?”
“You’re twisting my words. You’re twisting everything, honestly, and you’ve done it since this started. It’s not ridiculous for me to want to help you get better.”
“But you don’t want me to get better, do you? You just want me to be like I was before.”
“I never said—”
“No, but you show it.” He balls his hands into fists to keep them from shaking. “You wouldn’t let me be vice-captain because I don’t fit the picture of me you have in your head anymore. And it’s not even about the position, it’s the fact that you won’t even let me try.”
He crosses his arms tight over his chest, jaw set and eyes hard. “I didn’t give you the position because I don’t think it should be your priority right now.”
“You don’t get to decide that,” Koushi says. “You have no idea how I’m feeling or how I’m doing.”
“Right, because cutting yourself means you’re doing great.”
Everything stops. The tension, the back-and-forth rhythm of their argument, the anger in Koushi’s veins, the anger on Daichi’s face, it all drains away as the silence stretches, the words hanging in the air between them. Dread, heavy and choking, explodes in Koushi’s chest, worming its way up his throat until it pulls the air from his lungs. His knees go a little weak.
“What?” is all he can croak out, whispery and broken and trembling.
Daichi laughs, he laughs, and his eyes are equal parts wild and distraught. “That was a… a shot in the dark. I wasn’t actually sure that was what was going on, it was just a hunch, but now that I… gods, Koushi. And you’re going to lie to my face and tell me that you’re fine?”
Rage floods back in, because Daichi is looking at him like Koushi’s the most pathetic thing he’s ever seen, because rage is easier than the overwhelming shame that this reveal brings, because the cracked and crumbling thing Koushi has become shatters into a thousand pieces like glass thrown against the floor and he doesn’t have the time to acknowledge it.
“You know what, no, I’m not fine. I’m not fine, everything I have ever known got flipped on its head and I can’t shake it and I want nothing more than to just forget about it, and you keep trying to force me to face it like that won’t just make it all worse.”
“If you’re looking for my sympathy,” Daichi says, far too calmly, “then you’re not getting it. Not now. Nothing will change for you if you don’t face this, and you know it.”
“Maybe I don’t want things to change. Maybe I’ve decided that it’s better to stay here than to have to relive it. It’s going to hurt too much, it’s going to hurt like it did before, and I cannot go through that again.” That hits too close, and for a second his head spins.
Daichi shrugs and turns away. “Then maybe I don’t want to deal with this, with any of it. It’s not worth getting treated like shit all the time just because we’re pretending we’re still together.”
“Pretending?” Koushi echoes.
“Yes, pretending. All we’ve done these last few months is ignore each other and snap at each other and hide things from each other. Does that sound like a relationship to you? Two people who can hardly stand being in the same room as each other? Because it doesn’t to me.”
Koushi’s chest clenches. “The hell are you on about?”
“Exactly what you think.” There’s nothing on Daichi’s face but cold, collected certainty. “What’s the point of calling ourselves a couple if neither of us really wants to be around the other?”
“You’re breaking up with me.”
“I think we broke up weeks ago, to be honest.” Daichi grabs his things one by one, Koushi watching in mute horror, and crosses the threshold of the gym’s main door. “Now get out of here, I have to lock up.”