#jnt

“My Ma had a sayin’,” Atsumu observed, fanning himself with a rainbow flag. “’They’re about as welcome as a rattlesnake at a line dance’. It’s the same with those idiots.” He gestured vaguely towards Hinata and Hoshiumi, who were watching the stilt performers and asking them irritating and slightly invasive questions like ‘how tall are your stilts?’ and ‘could you fit me under that skirt if I really, really needed to hide from the cops?’

“She’s never said any such thing,” Aran scolded. “Ya got that from a list of cowboy sayin’s on Tumblr.”

Atsumu gasped. “I would never!”

“Ya sent me the list.”

“False accusations,” Atsumu sniffed, and gave up on trying to gain a draft from the flag. “It’s just so hot yer hallucinatin’.”

Aran pointedly sipped from his water bottle and tipped his eyes upwards to his wide-brimmed hat. “Ya think I can’t handle a little heat?”

Atsumu, who had only just taken the time to don SPF at Sakusa’s insistence, chose not to comment.

Sakusa himself, dressed head to toe in protective gear and sunscreen, stood slightly menacingly in a shaded corner of the street. He held an umbrella over his head, presumably in case the roof of the shop he was sheltering under suddenly disappeared without a trace and left him at the mercy of the UV rays. Beside him, Yaku offered him a sip of water, which Sakusa refused with a face of disgust. Yaku shrugged, chugged the last from his paper cup, and sat on the ground to wait for Hinata and Hoshiumi to come back. Sakusa moved away in case the floor germs spread.

Atsumu waved at them cheerily. “Should we join ‘em?”

“Sure,” Aran agreed, already moving for the solace of the shade. It was by no means the hottest day he’d experienced, but the energy it took to wrangle just a single teammate was enough to compensate for another several hundred degrees.

“When are the others coming?” Yaku asked when they got close enough, having evidently given up on making small talk with Sakusa. “It’s getting too warm to stay out here and wait.”

“Aw, don’t ya wanna see the floats go past?” Atsumu protested. “That’s my favourite part.”

“That’s not happenin’ fer another hour,” Aran reminded him. “The others’ll be here by then.”

“Oh, on the next train, then?” Yaku guessed.

“Yup. Well, Bokuto will be here fer that because he’s bringin’ Akaashi, and Akaashi only comes on the train,” Atsumu nodded, quickly scrolling through his messages.

“Kageyama was supposed to already be here,” Yaku tutted, following Atsumu’s lead and examining the team groupchat. “Think he got caught up in something?”

“Probably. Ushi’s not here because he’s in France, Suna’s with Osamu-“

“Komori’s on his way,” Sakusa interrupted. “He’s bringing bug spray.”

“So that’s everyone.” Yaku stood and dusted himself off. “Oh, there’s Kageyama.”

On the opposite side of the street, Kageyama stood looking completely lost. He clearly didn’t feel confident enough to cross in case he walked into one of the performers, who were doing their best to edge away from Hoshiumi and his accomplice. As they couldn’t fully escape without moving too fast (or running), and therefore ruining the performance, they could only lead the duo further down the road and into Kageyama’s path. Kageyama, terrified of anything he didn’t understand – like snakes, or Fanta – was frozen and unable to either reach the group waiting for him under the shop awnings or join Hoshiumi and Hinata’s adventure. In fact, he actually just looked likely to be swept away among swathes of fabric and stilts.

“HINATA!” Atsumu yelled over Lady Gaga, who was booming from a speaker held by the lead performer. “RESCUE YER BOYFRIEND!”

Hinata, though he clearly understood who Atsumu was referring to, immediately refused to take another step forward. “WE’RE NOT DATING!”

“OH, BE SO FER REAL RIGHT NOW-“

“HE’S GOING TO DIE!” Yaku screeched. Panicked, Hinata swivelled just in time to see Kageyama almost get knocked unconscious by a wayward stilt as the performers tried frantically to both retain their grace and get as far away from Hoshiumi as physically possible.

“Don’t say that, he’ll start attacking things,” Sakusa huffed. “And by things I mean innocent performers.”

“Since when were ya the voice of reason?” Atsumu asked, slightly unnerved. “I don’t like it. Stop it.”

“You have known me since we were sixteen years old, Atsumu, I don’t see how you’ve only just realised-“

“Oh my god, someone save Kageyama,” Aran interjected, watching the athlete be whirled between the performers like a bowl between the chopsticks of a street magician.

“We just told Hinata to,” Yaku argued, and lobbed his paper cup towards Hinata as best he could. “MOVE IT, GINGER!”

“Woah,” Aran said, hands up in surrender. “Now I’m not passin’ judgement or anythin’, but one could say, Yaku, that yer hair is a bit-“

“Not now, Aran,” said Yaku dismissively, and cupped his hands around his mouth. “HINATA, SAVE HIM!”

Hinata, who had been sulking in the middle of the road for the past few minutes, finally decided his point was made and began to make his way towards the performers. This only made things worse, however, as the performers began to panic that a second Hoshiumi was now coming to harass them with questions about how to avoid the police, and what the toughest wood was (for the purpose of making innocent-looking-yet-deadly swords). In their haste to get away, they began moving faster, making Kageyama spin so quickly his eyes were almost visibly swirling.

“Who knew getting a grown man to cross the road was this hard,” Sakusa commented, though he was just as invested as everyone else.

When Hinata eventually managed to get a hand on Kageyama’s arm and drag him, practically kicking and screaming, away from the whirling colours, almost the entire group broke out into cheers. Sakusa refrained, sniffing snobbishly at the (definitely homosexual) reunion hug.

“I hope someone tells ‘em,” Aran noted, watching Kageyama pick Hinata up and spin him around aggressively. “I hope a drag queen stops ‘em and congratulates ‘em on their marriage.”

“Why marriage?” Yaku asked.

“Well, they’re not just datin’, are they?” Aran pointed out. “They’ve been married since high school, in my opinion.”

Atsumu nodded sagely, and opened his mouth to add something, but instead a different voice said-

“Who’s married?”

“Komori!” Yaku welcomed. “Finally! Tell these morons they’re engaged.”

“Kiyo, Atsumu, you’re engaged,” Komori said solemnly.

Even Lady Gaga couldn’t salvage the awkward looks that followed, as Sakusa and Atsumu edged slowly apart and Aran bit his lip to avoid a grin.

“We meant the star-crossed lovers over there,” Yaku clarified, as Hinata grabbed Kageyama’s hands and started dragging him across the road.

“Oh, my bad,” said Komori cheerfully, without a shred of remorse. “Those two, too.”

By the time everyone had managed to regroup, Bokuto having been rescued from the sperm bank people (or was it the other way round?) and Akaashi having been rescued from the train station, there seemed hardly any point in trying to remove Hoshiumi from his riveting conversation with a stray kitten.

“I vote we leave him there,” Komori said, as the kitten left a long, red scratch across Hoshiumi’s face.

“Aw, but then he’ll miss the parade!” Bokuto pointed out.

“He’s a grown man, he’s perfectly capable of findin’ the parade by himself,” Atsumu shrugged.

“But why bother gathering here if we’re not going together?” Hinata countered.

Sakusa side-eyed him. “We’re all third wheeling you two anyway, it’s not exactly a bros trip.”

“Never say the words ‘bros trip’ again,” Komori admonished. “I’ll take away your bug spray.”

Sakusa hugged the small can close to his chest in defiance and turned his pleading eyes on Aran. “You have sense. You’ll leave that demon here, won’t you?”

“Well…” Aran hesitated. “We did all come here together…”

“Besides, what if he gets lost?” Bokuto agreed.

“Only you could get lost here, Koutarou,” Akaashi sighed. “All the streets lead back to each other, it’s not like he can end up on the other side of town. Unless he really tried…”

“I think we should take him,” said Kageyama, unexpectedly.

“For some reason, I didn’t think you’d want to,” Atsumu observed.

“If we take him, nothing bad will happen because it will all happen to him,” Kageyama reasoned.

“We’re taking him,” Aran said immediately, to a chorus of nods.

“HOSHIUMI!” Yaku yelled, because apparently he was the foghorn of the group today. “We’re leaving.”

Hoshiumi stood up, still holding the stray kitten. “Okay. Can I keep Jeremy?”

Jeremy hissed and struggled.

“No,” Yaku told him. “Pick something else.”

Hoshiumi obediently linked arms with Kageyama. “I’ll take this guy, then.”

Kageyama scowled. “I don’t want to be taken.”

“Yeah,” Hinata agreed, sporting a matching scowl. “Pick something else, Hoshiumi.”

Hoshiumi shrugged. “No.”

“Don’t bother trying to convince him,” someone called from another table. Surprised, they turned to see Iwaizumi, subtly decked out in pride converse and a pin badge, as well as Oikawa (pride flag cape & rainbow crocs) and two men they hadn’t seen before, one with startling pink hair.

“Iwa!” Oikawa hissed. “You promised not to talk to them!”

“I couldn’t watch any longer,” Iwaizumi said apologetically. “I just couldn’t bear it. Someone’ll get killed if they keep provoking Hoshiumi like that.”

“Ever the sensible one,” the man with pink hair sighed, though he didn’t seem upset.

“Couldn’t stop him from parenting if we tried,” the other agreed, and drained the last of his drink. “Still, he did promise it was our day…”

“Exactly!” Oikawa exclaimed, pointing triumphantly. “Even Mattsun says so!”

“It is our day,” Iwaizumi argued. “I just don’t want any deaths on the team-“

“Blah, blah, anyone would think you wanted to win the Olympics,” Oikawa interrupted. “Makki and Mattsun have come a long way for us, you know, at least spend time with them.”

Hinata, ever lacking in social skills, chose this moment to wave enthusiastically at Oikawa. “Tooru!!” he greeted. “I didn’t expect to see you here!”

“You didn’t expect to see me at pride?” Oikawa snarked, but he stood to hug Shoyo with a grin. “Iwa, I’ve decided. We’re joining these guys.”

“What about us?!” ‘Mattsun’ complained, helping Oikawa to disentangle their chairs and drag them over to join the bigger table. “We don’t even know them.”

“Volleyballers, this is Makki and Mattsun,” Oikawa introduced quickly. “Makki and Mattsun, this is the Japanese volleyball team. You know them already.”

“They’re Hanamaki and Matsukawa,” Iwaizumi elaborated, pointing at each in turn. “Sorry for the intrusion.” He made no effort to dissuade Oikawa from inserting himself into the group, knowing full well there was no stopping Oikawa. Ever.

Another group walked by the window, blasting Super Bass. Oikawa immediately began chanting the words; Sakusa, who had removed his mask to sip tentatively at his drink, started to mouth along too.  Iwaizumi, looking very close to killing himself, said, “Let’s move on, shall we?”

-

The parade began happily enough. After Bokuto managed to grasp the concept of drag queens, he immediately became their biggest fan, screaming and cheering whenever one went past. Akaashi simply kept a hold of his hand so he didn’t run out into the road and trample anyone, and smiled agreeably whenever Bokuto pointed something out to him.

“Simp,” Atsumu muttered under his breath; Sakusa looked at him questioningly, but Atsumu just flashed him a grin and offered to top up his friend’s SPF.

Oikawa, meanwhile, had tugged Iwaizumi, Hanamaki, and Matsukawa into a circle to dance. Hanamaki appeared to be doing his best, but Iwaizumi and Matsukawa were just observing - Mattsun was multitasking by recording, snickering, and daring Makki to do stupider and stupider moves. Oikawa looked like he was about to start breakdancing, as Iwaizumi covered his eyes and tried very hard to become invisible.

Hinata and Kageyama had somehow found a row of vendors and covered themselves in pride flags, from pin badges to face paint to literal flags stuck in their buttonholes, pockets and collars. Kageyama was finding it especially hard to move as he was encrusted with rainbows, but seemed content to stand still and watch Hinata, who was constantly being offered people’s numbers. Kageyama gave a satisfied nod every time Hinata turned one down, and every moment of hesitation deepened his scowl by another millimetre.

Yaku looked ready to pass out from heat on the sidewalk, leaning heavily on Komori, whose eyebrows seemed to enjoy Dolly Parton immensely. Aran had been sent on a mission to find more water.

“You’re going to be 60% water by the time you’ve finished,” Hoshiumi commented.

“All humans are anything from 45-75% water,” Bokuto recited, and beamed proudly. “Isn’t it amazing that I still remember that from university?”

“It’s so amazing,” said Akaashi, before anyone else could react. “You’re so smart.”

“Thanks, Keiji! Never as smart as you!”

Atsumu gagged.

“Homophobia,” Oikawa accused, seeing him. “Two people being innocently gay, and you’re gagging?”

“Oh, please,” said Atsumu. “Me? Homophobic? Me?”

“Yeah, he’s gay too!” Hinata agreed.

“Bi, thank you so much,” Atsumu corrected.

Oikawa gasped. “A woman kisser!”

“You’re a woman kisser, moron,” Iwaizumi said.

“Only in theory!”

“Just say you don’t like women,” Atsumu advised. “Less embarrassing than admitting it’s them that don’t like you.”

“Everyone likes women,” Hinata disagreed.

“I meant romantically.”

“Oh.” Hinata shrugged. “Well, I like women in all senses, anyway.”

“That’s not the point, Shoyo, because women like you back.”

Kageyama made a discontented noise. “I wish they didn’t,” he muttered.

“What?” asked Hinata. “Did you say something?”

“No.”

“He did,” Atsumu teased. “He said that-“

Kageyama threw a flag at him. “Stop!”

“Chill, dude, I didn’t even hear you,” Atsumu assured him.

“I did,” said Komori idly. “Do I get a free flag too?”

“No!”

“Guys, shut up,” said Yaku. He’d finally collapsed onto the pavement. “You need to hear my last will and testament.”

“You’re not dying,” Iwaizumi dismissed, but he knelt down and felt Yaku’s pulse. “Oh. Well, you’re probably not dying, but maybe we should-“

“Hospital?” Yaku asked.

“Hospital,” Iwaizumi agreed.

-

-

--

“…So who gets his money?”

“Bad timing, Koutarou.”