#kageoi

Takeru remembers ‘Tobio-chan’ clearly now. He’d taken a photo of the boy and his uncle. Afterwards, Tooru kept looking at it and laughing maniacally to himself. And then he kept looking at it, with somewhat of a wistful expression.

“I—!” Uncle Tooru gawks at him.

Takeru’s mother’s expression turns extremely sly. “What’s this, Tooru? Do you have a little crush on our national setter?”

Wait, what?

“Mum, what’re you talking about?” Takeru puts his phone down.

“Why, Tooru’s ‘Tobio-chan’ is none other than the Japanese men’s national volleyball team’s setter, Kageyama Tobio!”

“The K-Kageyama-senshu?!”

Takeru doesn’t even know how to begin to process this. Kageyama Tobio is so cool. He went to the Olympics at nineteen.

Everyone loves Kageyama. His uncle isn’t special.

“Oh my god.” Is his uncle hanging onto the past, back when he was Kageyama’s senpai, because he can’t move on or something? He thinks he read a storyline like that in a manga. “Uncle Tooru. You are so lame.”

His uncle actually looks hurt. Before he can defend himself, Takeru’s grandma innocently pipes up.

“Oh? Is Tooru seeing someone?”

Now Uncle Tooru’s face turns beet red. He holds his hands out in front of him and pleads with them all.

“Please. Can we just— calm down for a sec?”

Uncle Tooru turns to Takeru first.

“Not cool, Takeru. Don’t bully your elders.”

Then he looks at Takeru’s mum. “You’re not funny, shut up.”

And before he can be chastised for his language, “Dear mother. Of course you would be the first to know if I started seeing anyone.” Uncle Tooru says his next words very deliberately and slowly. “Since you have not heard anything, it clearly means that I am in fact not seeing anyone. Least of all Tobio— Kageyama-senshu.”

A moment passes. And then Takeru’s mum singsongs, “But I bet you wish you were~”

Uncle Tooru glares at Takeru’s mum, but then he sighs. With his head on the table, he says, “Yeah. Maybe. Fuck. Maybe I’ve just wanted Tobio all along.”

For some reason, Takeru’s mum sends him a glare after Tooru says this, as if to tell him, this is your fault.

Takeru throws his hands up. He didn’t mean to send his uncle into a crisis! He didn’t think old people even got crushes anymore! God, Tooru looks worse than when Takeru’s best friend’s crush started dating someone else.

“Alright, I’m out.” Takeru’s mum stands up and Takeru goes to follow. She stops him in his tracks. “Oh no you don’t. Why don’t you stay here with your uncle? Kageyama is your favourite player, right? Maybe you can bond over your shared love for him.”

Takeru shudders. He does not think the admiration he has for his favourite volleyball player is the same as the yucky gooey feelings his uncle has for his once-kouhai at all.

“What a lovely idea!” Takeru’s grandma says.

Then she takes her daughter’s arm and the two of them leave.

Takeru is left in the room alone with his uncle, who still looks defeated. But hey, surely it can’t be that bad, right? Takeru’s seen how Kageyama interacts with other people outside of matches. He’s sure he’s nice, or something. If Uncle Tooru were just to talk to him…

“Do you have his number?” Takeru asks suddenly. Not because he wants to play wingman for his uncle—that’s beyond gross—but because he’s realised that he could actually meet Kageyama some day if he and Tooru start dating. Even if the thought of that is pretty gross too.

“Wh— And what would I do if I had his number, Takeru?” Uncle Tooru says, exasperated.

Takeru shrugs. It’s not like he’s ever asked anyone out before.

“Dunno. Text him? Shouldn’t you know? You had a girlfriend that one time. How did you get her to date you?”

“What girlf—”

“The one that dumped you and you got all depressed about it.”

“I— That was— She—” Tooru tries and gives up. Then he groans. “Tobio’s just… different, okay?”

“Because he’s a dude?”

“I mean— Not just that?” Uncle Tooru is making a weird face. Like he can’t really believe that he’s talking about boy feelings with Takeru.

Takeru can’t believe that this is happening either. And he really wants to go back to playing on his phone, but he feels bad if he just leaves Tooru alone, so he tries to cheer him up.

“Well, he’s really cool and all, but you know, you’re not that bad either. And you play for the national team too, even if it’s for another country, so like… He probably wouldn’t say no?”

“Takeru…” Uncle Tooru kind of looks like he might cry. Takeru hopes he doesn’t and is already preemptively moving away. “When did you grow up so much!”

And then Uncle Tooru is holding his arms out to hug Takeru, and he’s so fast that Takeru can’t avoid it, and it’s really not that bad actually, even if he’s blushing from his uncle’s words.

Uncle Tooru,” Takeru asks when the hug has gone on too long, “can I go now?”

Tooru lets him go, smiling at him.

Takeru picks up his phone and starts to look for his mum, but stops before he leaves the room entirely. Uncle Tooru is on his own phone now, looking at a picture of something.

“Um. Good luck, I guess?”

Uncle Tooru laughs and waves him away.

tooru shows up to the next family gathering with tobio in tow AS HIS PARTNER and takeru is sooooo starstruck and cannot stop talking to him and hovering around him actually and tooru is like psst buzz off i wanna spend time with my boyfriend but takeru is like

YOU WOULDN’T HAVE A BOYFRIEND IF IT WASN’T FOR ME

and then maybe tooru has to tell tobio the story about how his nephew helped him realise he had feelings for tobio and tobio is chuckling and tooru is: enamoured while takeru is: starstruck

tobio, beautiful and handsome: haha. i guess i have you to thank for then, huh, takeru?

takeru: t-there’s nothing to thank me for omg kageyama-senshu you are so cool i watch all of your matches and can i just ask you how in your last match did you—

tooru, pushing takeru aside: okay okay this is not an interview don’t you have some homework or something to do?

takeru, grumpily stomping away, muttering to himself: stupid uncle and his stupid stupidness.

tobio, later: he’s sweet.

tooru: he's a brat.