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There’s a round of laughter as Fukurou wraps up his story of the antics his teammates pulled on their last outing at Kinosaki Onsen, and their father uses the subsequent silence to redirect the conversation to Sachirou and his plans after graduation.
Things could have gone better.
In his defense, the last time the whole family had been together was when Shouko got engaged and it didn’t feel like the right time to bring it up. But maybe, Sachirou concedes, there was a better time to announce his impending volleyball retirement than Fukurou’s celebration dinner following his team’s victory at the V.League championships.
It’s just that… They asked and he thought it meant they would also listen.
Somewhere in the streets of Sendai, his body instinctively reaches out for Kourai before he remembers where he is, closes his fist, and chooses to breathe.
So walking out of dinner hadn’t been his best move. So turning off his phone in an unfamiliar city was probably worse. He’s not running away from his problems, he’s just—postponing them. Indefinitely.
He doesn’t know how long he wanders out in the cold. He stumbles upon a less crowded area of the city and has just decided to catch his breath a little when a door opens, the chimes of a quaint-looking barbershop catching his attention. A woman comes out, hums thoughtfully to herself as she takes him in, and asks if he would like a haircut.
“Uhm,” Sachirou replies eloquently. He tugs at his hair with a frown. “I don’t need a haircut.”
She raises an eyebrow at him. “That wasn’t the question though, was it? Would you like a haircut? You look like you could use a haircut and I’m offering one.”
Sachirou thinks about wants and needs and how there are worse things in life than accepting a haircut from a total stranger. Even if she ends up shaving off all his hair to keep in a bag with the rest of the suckers’ she managed to drag off the street, it’s not the end of the world. He used to have a buzzcut after all.
Hair grows back, he thinks. He uncurls his fist and nods.
She smiles as she leads him into the shop. It’s deserted aside from the receptionist who doesn’t even spare them a glance. No witnesses, then. He looks at every single sharp thing in the room and grounds himself in Kourai’s words—the cornerstone of every impulsive bone in his body—it’s not like you’ll die.
“I have a brother,” she says, ushering him to a seat. Sachirou stares at his reflection and wonders, is he being set up on a date right now? Is that what this is? Does he give off those bisexual vibes that Kourai is always pestering him about? Because he hasn’t told his family that either. She must see the look on his face because she laughs and shakes her head before continuing, “He’s around your age. Big fan of the Adlers too, won’t shut up about ‘em.”
Sachirou is about to ask where she got that idea until he realizes he’s still wearing Fukurou’s jacket. “Oh,” he says, “did he come see today’s game?”
“Wanted to,” she answers, wrapping a sanex strip around his neck and pulling the black sheet over him. “I couldn’t take him, so he watched it on TV with a bunch of teammates. Kept texting me updates all through the first set ‘til I told him it was rude to be on his phone while he was with friends. They win?”
“Three sets to one.”
She nods, seemingly pleased with this. “Didja have anything in mind for your hair?”
“Whatever you think would look good, I guess.”
“Can’t tell if you’re adventurous or don’t give a shit, but I like you. Call me Miwa, kid.”
He considers that a win, breathing out shakily as a pair of hair scissors approaches the back of his neck. “You ever play volleyball, Miwa-san?”
“Yeah,” is all she says for a moment. Sachirou hears snipping and feels a few hairs fall to the ground. He thinks absently about whether it would be appropriate to break down in the middle of the shop to mourn the loss. “Quit in high school though.”
Ah. The universe is really something, huh?
“Why?” he asks.
Miwa shrugs in response. “Why do people do anythin’, really?”
He throws the words around in his head while she continues to comb through and snip his hair. “I don’t get it,” he decides. “I mean, there has to be more than that, right?”
“Does there?” she asks him, brow raised at his reflection. “I told my grandfather it was ‘cause I didn’t want to cut my hair, but that was just me tryin’ to find somethin’ to blame. In the end, I just didn’t like volleyball as much as I thought I did.”
He remembers that conversation he had with Kourai, three years ago now. He’d said the same thing, I just don’t like volleyball that much, with an inexplicable sadness weighing down on his chest and knuckles that Kourai had to patch up in his house before sending Sachirou home.
What was it he told his kouhai at last year’s Spring High? He could quit whenever he wanted, but if he ever decided to quit volleyball for real, well…
“Your grandfather,” he says before he can stop his mouth from running off, “what did he say?”
She laughs so hard that she has to take a second to recover. It’s a good look on her—the carefree smile that lingers after—and he wants that in his future, too. She wipes away a few happy tears that managed to slip through and gets back to work. “He was fine with it, really. I think he was more concerned about the fact that I also used the opportunity to tell ‘im I had a boyfriend.”
As the guilt begins to set, he wonders how things would have played out if he stayed.
“Where are you from, kid? You looked a little lost out there when I saw you.”
“Nagano,” he tells her. And then, “Went to see the game with my family.”
She lets out a low whistle. “That’s pretty far. If you aren’t here for a haircut, what brings you to this part of the city alone?”
“Went out for a walk,” he says, throat suddenly dry. She hums in response and waits for him to continue while she sprays something into his hair to dampen it. “Or something. Say, Miwa-san, I don’t suppose you make a habit of picking up strays outside your shop?”
“Remember how I said I had a brother your age?” She combs through his hair for a little longer, the sensation easing some of the tension keeping his back rigid against the squeaky barber’s chair. “You looked just like him when he’s had a fight with one of his little volleyball friends or gotten off a call with our folks. I haven’t always been the best sister, but I love that boy more than anythin’ in this world. I see you standin’ outside all dressed up in your Adlers’ jacket and I know someone out there’s gonna feel the same way about you.”
Sachirou doesn’t mean to cry, really. “Oh,” he says, barely above a whisper. He was just joking about breaking down in the middle of getting a haircut.
The rest of it goes by in a blur—a couple of finishing touches, drying off his hair, taking off the black sheet he distantly remembers parading around as a cape while his brother got a haircut and didn’t want Sachirou to feel left out, and brushing off some of the hair on his neck.
“Looks good,” Miwa says, taking a step back to admire her own work. She is nothing and everything like Shouko. “Do your parents know you’re here, kid?”
He shakes his head.
“You come from a volleyball family?” she asks.
“Yeah,” he replies quietly.
“Told ‘em you were quitting, huh?”
“Over dinner,” he says. “Didn’t stick around for too long after that ‘cause they all looked disappointed, but I guess it can’t be helped. Turned off my phone, too.”
She spins his chair around and frowns at him. “They’re probably worried about you. Go turn on your phone and call ‘em, kid. Here’s the store’s business card if you need the address. I’ll wait for them to come get you before closing up.”
“I’m eighteen,” Sachirou grumbles.
“And you have no idea where you are,” Miwa tells him, rolling her eyes. She pulls another card out of her pocket and hands it to him. “This one is mine. I’d tell you to come visit the next time you’re around, but my brother’s friend’s friend’s sister got me a job with a modeling agency and I don’t know how long I’ll stick around in this old place. If you ever need a chat or another haircut, just give me a ring, yeah? Now go make that call while I take care of a few things.”
He turns the card over as she retreats to a sectioned off portion of the shop. It reads Kageyama Miwa and Sachirou looks up at the ceiling to contemplate the meaning of life. “What are the odds?” he wonders, pulling his jacket just a little tighter around himself. He turns on his phone, deletes every missed call from his history, and calls his brother.
“Sachirou,” comes the immediate response, all breathless and desperate. “Fuck. Don’t ever run out like that again. You don’t know where anything is out here in Sendai. Are you actually crazy? Are you lost? Just tell me what you see and I’ll—”
“Nii-san,” he cuts in. “I’m okay. Sorry for the trouble.”
There’s a pause from the other side of the line, and Sachirou almost thinks that there’s no going back from all this when Fukurou finally tells him, “It’s okay.” It’s his brother, so he believes it.
He rattles off the address on the business card that Miwa gave him and sheepishly admits that he doesn’t remember where they were supposed to stay the night.
“Shouko went to check in with mom and dad at the hotel. I said I’d keep looking for you and tell them as soon as I find you,” Fukurou says. “You can stay with me at the apartment tonight, if you want. Should we talk? I think we should talk. I’ll be there in ten minutes, you little shit. See you soon.”
The call ends and Sachirou's heart pounds loud in his ears to fill in the silence.
“Someone comin’ to get you, kid?”
He jolts at the sound of Miwa’s voice. “My brother,” he tells her. And then, because he can’t help himself, “Is there any chance that your brother is Kageyama Tobio?”
“You know him?”
“We played them last year at the Spring High quarter-finals. Kageyama-kun was really good,” he says, and he doesn’t even have to lie to her face about it. “Probably even better this year.”
“Well, my brother’s got volleyballs for a heart,” she says with a laugh. “What about you…?”
“Sachirou.”
She smiles and taps a perfectly manicured finger to his chest. “What about you, Sachirou-kun? What’s that heart of yours made of?”
He purses his lips before deciding to bring out his phone. He turns it over to show her his lockscreen and says, “This is my dog, Natsuki. Had her since I was twelve years old when I saw her shivering alone in the rain with fresh blood all over her ears and her fur matted down her back. Begged my parents to let me keep her and they said we could only keep her ‘til she was all better, but who can say no to that face, right?”
“Didja tell your family that?”
“Well, I tried, but—”
“People give my brother a lot of crap just ‘cause he thinks differently, but he can actually be very smart,” Miwa says. “I told him I wanted to quit even before our old man. Tobio, in all his seven year old glory, looked me in the eye and said he didn’t know why anyone would want to quit volleyball. But he’s the one who told me to, in the end. I’ll miss you, he said. I told him I wasn’t going anywhere and he said he knew that.”
She shakes her head with a chuckle. “My point is, if someone’s bothering to come get you in the middle of Nowhere, Sendai at eight o’clock in the evening then maybe no one understands what is and isn’t important to you better than you do, but they’ll probably understand that this is what makes you happy if you let them.”
He’s about to respond when all one hundred and ninety-seven centimeters of the Schweiden Adlers’ Hirugami Fukurou come through the door.
Miwa, to her credit, only laughs. “Well, isn’t that a twist, Sachirou-kun? Are you hiding Nicolas Romero in your pocket, too? My brother would love an autograph.”
“Miwa-san—”
“I can get that arranged,” Fukurou says, catching her off-guard. “Consider it an apology for all the trouble we’ve caused tonight. You took care of my brother, I can get yours an autograph from my friend.”
“I wasn’t even gonna ask for anything, but since you offered…” She grins, all teeth and red lipstick, and offers her hand. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Hirugami-san.”
Sachirou isn’t quite sure what’s happening. Are they flirting? Doesn’t his brother have a thing with that Jackals’ middle blocker? Kourai once sent him an article on their unresolved sexual tension once and it scarred him for life.
He’s brought back into reality when he feels his brother grab his arm.
“I believe we’ve overstayed our welcome,” Fukurou says.
“I’ll cash in that autograph after you two talk,” Miwa says as she ushers the two of them out the door. She turns to Sachirou. “Don’t be a stranger, Sachirou-kun. You ever need some time away from those volleyball idiots of yours, just come find me.”
“Or a haircut,” he says with a smile.
She smiles back and nods. “Or a haircut.”