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Koganegawa wants a lot of things in life, like to become the best setter ever who can always pull off cool looking dump shots, grow taller than Aone-senpai, marry Sakunami, and make it so Futakuchi-senpai praises him after every play. People always tried to talk him out of his various dreams, saying that they are unrealistic or weird or impossible to control, but Koganegawa doesn't care. He knows what he wants.
Even Sakunami, who usually tries to be supportive of Koganegawa, is taken aback when Koganegawa starts listing his dreams as they walk home one night after practice, Sakunami trotting to keep up when Koganegawa forgets and walks too fast for the difference in leg height. It was Sakunami who'd brought up their future plans, what they wanted to accomplish next year in the club and beyond, but when he hears Koganegawa's answer he starts to splutter and stops walking.
"What's wrong?!" Koganegawa asks, worried Sakunami might have tripped or choked.
"Wh-what was that last one?" Sakunami asks, eyes wide as he looks up at Koganegawa.
"I want to make it so Futakuchi-senpai praises me after every play! Right now he always is telling me to toss lower or more forward or-"
"Not that one," Sakunami says, waving his hands to cut off Koganegawa's run away train of thought. "The one about- about me."
"Oh, that!" Koganegawa nods, proud of himself for figuring out what Sakunami meant. He can clear that up easily! "I want to marry you, Sakunami!"
"You- I- what?" Strangely, Sakunami doesn't seem any less confused than before, still staring at Koganegawa as if he'd started speaking gibberish. Could Sakunami have hit his head too hard earlier? Sakunami was very close to the ground, Koganegawa didn't know if that meant he might fall over more and hit his head.
"I want to marry you," he says, making sure he speaks slowly in case Sakunami is having a hard time understanding him.
"Do you… do you know what marriage is, Koganegawa-kun?" Sakunami asks, which hurts Koganegawa's feelings a little. They're in the same class, they work on their homework together, Sakunami should know he's not some kind of idiot.
"Of course I do," he says. "I'm not a little kid, I know what marriage is."
"Then why do you want to marry me?" Sakunami asks. His cheeks are turning red under the moonlight and Koganegawa worries he might be getting cold.
"That's simple!" Koganegawa exclaims, glad Sakunami asked him something he knows the answer to. So often people don't ask him those kinds of questions and he has to guess, which is stressful, but this is easy. "You always look after me, and we work great together on the team, and you are very small and cute, so I think we would do really well together!"
"Koganegawa-kun," Sakunami says. "You can't just… you think I'm cute?"
"I think you are super cute," Koganegawa says, nodding. He's glad Sakunami is finally starting to get what he's saying. It's not like him to be so slow on the uptake. Usually he's the one having to explain things to Koganegawa, not the other way around. "After all, you're so tiny and you have such big eyes!"
"I don't think that's really…" Sakunami pauses and rubs his face, looking confused and tired. Koganegawa is starting to really worry that he might be getting too cold from standing still outside. Should he offer to carry him home? No, Futakuchi-senpai had gotten mad when Koganegawa tried to carry him, so it seemed that people who were shorter than him didn't like it when he did that. People under 190cm were often really insecure about their heights, Koganegawa had discovered.
"Do you want my scarf?" he asks, pulling it off and draping it around Sakunami's neck. "See, it looks cute on you! Because you're cute!"
"I- I need to go," Sakunami says and actually runs away from Koganegawa, leaving him watching his retreating back with confusion. Had he upset Sakunami somehow? Was he colder than Koganegawa had thought?
He spends all night worrying about it. He decides to ask Sakunami what was wrong the next day at school, but to his surprise, Sakunami seems to be avoiding him. He's not at the corner where they usually meet up in the morning and during both class and practice he's always busy with someone else whenever Koganegawa tries to speak with him. By the time afternoon practice starts, Koganegawa is feeling rejected and sad. Sakunami is his favorite classmate and he hates being ignored. He's not even playing on the same side of the gym as he is.
"You aren't concentrating at all today!" Futakuchi-senpai says after another combo miss. "Are you even trying?"
"I'm sorry!!" Koganegawa says. Now he's letting down even more people he likes... "I'll do 100 sit ups to make up for it!"
"That's not the kind of thing you need to be working on!" Futakuchi-senpai snaps. "You need to be trying to focus on matching the spikers! We'll all be trying our best to get the ball to you, but you need to be able to put it somewhere where the spiker can actually hit it!"
Koganegawa thinks of who will mostly be in charge of getting the ball to him and can feel tears threatening. He holds back a sniff and looks down. "I'm sorry…" he says, tone flatter than normal.
"Are… are you sulking?" Futakuchi-senpai asks, sounding horrified. He's such a caring senpai. "Um, I know you are trying your hardest and… you'll… be okay? Sometime? Just focus on practice and-"
"Sakunami is mad at me!" he admits all at once, looking up with watery eyes. "He's been avoiding me since I gave him my scarf yesterday!"
"Or not," Futakuchi-senpai says. "I'm sure you guys will make up later, so for now let's just-"
"I don't know what to do, Futakuchi-senpai!" Koganegawa wails. "What if he hates me forever?"
"Oh my god," Futakuchi-senpai says. "I'm sure your scarf was just smelly or something and he was embarrassed to tell you. Can we get back to volleyball now?"
"What if he doesn't forgive me?" Koganegawa asks, holding his face in his hands. "What if we never are friends again and he avoids me until we're both dead?"
"Well, presumably he'd just have to avoid you until one of you is dead," Futakuchi-senpai says. "After that, the avoiding will kind of take care of itself."
Koganegawa bites his lip, feeling tears well up in his eyes.
Futakuchi-senpai winces. "Okay, okay," he says, holding up his hands in the international sign of defeat. "Why don't you tell me what happened?"
"I gave him my scarf because he looked cold," Koganegawa says. "But then he just ran away and he's been avoiding me since then! I don't understand, should I not have given him my scarf? I thought about picking him up, but I didn't because I thought he might like it, especially because he didn't seem happy when I was talking about how tiny he is when I explaining why I want to marry him, but maybe he's hurt that I didn't pick him up after all?"
"You were explaining why you want to what?" Futakuchi-senpai asks, wearing a shocked look close to the one Sakunami had given him when he had asked something similar.
"To marry him," Koganegawa repeats slowly. "He got confused by that, too!"
Futakuchi-senpai opens and shuts his mouth a few times. "I'm going to buy Moniwa-san a present," he says. "Something really nice. A good tie for his job interviews, maybe."
Koganegawa isn't sure why Futakuchi-senpai has started talking about unrelated things, but he tries to remain patient. Futakuchi-senpai frequently talks about all kinds of random topics that Koganegawa doesn't understand, but he usually returns to the subject at hand eventually.
"Do you think, perhaps," Futakuchi-senpai asks, sounding as if he is trying to keep his tone as light as possible but failing despite himself. "Just, you know, perhaps, Sakunami might have run away not because you gave him his scarf, but because you said you wanted to marry him?"
"Why would that make him run away?" Koganegawa asks. He supposes the timeline could work, but it doesn't make sense. "Isn't me saying that showing that I want the opposite of him going away?"
Futakuchi-senpai takes a moment to breathe, looking up at the ceiling as if trying to collect himself. "Do you understand what marriage is?" he asks.
"Why do people keep asking me that?" Koganegawa asks, starting to get annoyed. "Of course I do!"
"Humour me," Futakuchi-senpai says. "What does it mean when you get married to someone?"
"Well, there are legal benefits, obviously," Koganegawa says. "But the main point is that you love someone and want to spend the rest of your life together."
"And do you understand it's, it's not just love in a friend kind of way?" Futakuchi-senpai asks.
Koganegawa gives Futakuchi-senpai a disbelieving look. He knows he's a year below, but there's no need to treat him like he doesn't understand anything. "Obviously," he says.
"And you still want to marry Sakunami? You feel that way about him?" Futakuchi-senpai asks.
"Of course!" Koganegawa says. "Sakunami is the best!"
"And have you and Sakunami ever talked about this before?"
Koganegawa thinks about it. "Not that I can remember?"
Futakuchi-senpai looks at the ceiling again. "I'm going to buy Moniwa-san a tie and a nice shirt," he says. "Something in a color that will bring out his eyes."
"Senpai?" Koganegawa prompts when Futakuchi-senpai stays silent for a bit longer.
"Koganegawa," Futakuchi-senpai says, looking back down as if he's finished steeling himself. "I think - and you should probably trust my instincts on this, not yours, okay - I think that the reason Sakunami ran away is because you confessed your feelings to him out of the blue and he doesn't know how to handle that, so it freaked him out."
"Handle it? He doesn't need to do anything to handle it," Koganegawa says. "Things are great like they are now!"
"I… you need to talk to him about that," Futakuchi-senpai says. "About what you want and, uh, expectations for the future and all that." He closes his eyes and rubs the bridge of his nose. "So just… do that. Not now. Later. On your own time. Can we please go back to practice now?"
"Okay, Futakuchi-senpai!!" Koganegawa says. "Thanks for giving me advice!"
"A really, really nice tie," Futakuchi-senpai says as he walks back to the net.
That night seems as good a time as any to be later, so Koganegawa waits for Sakunami by the school gate, waving excitedly when he comes into view so he can be sure Sakunami won't miss him somehow.
Sakunami's shoulders slump a moment before squaring again and he keep walking, doesn't try to run away when Koganegawa matches his pace to bounce alongside him as they leave the school grounds.
"Hi," Sakunami offers.
"Hi!" Koganegawa says. "I missed you today!"
Even though he's just stating the truth, that makes Sakunami turn pink again. He looks down, hands tightening on the straps of his backpack. He always holds on to them, as though it might slip off if he doesn't. It's one of the things Koganegawa finds so cute about him.
"Futakuchi-senpai said I should talk to you," he says when Sakunami stays silent. "I didn't mean to freak you out."
"You didn't, um, I'm not freaked out, exactly, just… surprised? Confused?" Sakunami shakes his head. "I didn't know you thought of me like that."
"Oh," Koganegawa says. He thought it was pretty clear, but apparently he was wrong. "Does that mean you don't want to marry me?"
"Koganegawa-kun, we're fifteen," Sakunami says in a reasonable tone. "We're way too young to get married."
"I agree! I don't want to get married until I'm twenty-eight," Koganegawa says. "That's ages away!"
"Then don't you think it's a little early to be talking about marriage stuff? With anyone?" Sakunami says, looking up at the night sky and bitting his lip.
"Isn't planning in advance better?" Koganegawa asks. "That way you can be prepared!"
"Okay, but most people don't plan quite that far in advance about things like this," Sakunami says. "I- I don't."
Koganegawa looks down. "Oh," he says. "Okay, then."
"People our age think more about, um, dating and stuff like that," Sakunami says. "Is- is that something you're interested in?"
Koganegawa honestly hadn't thought about it that much. Marriage was easy to think about, since it was so far away, but dating was right then. He wasn't sure if he would be able to do it right and he'd hate to mess it up. He wasn't sure people were allowed do-overs if they made mistakes in dating, which seemed unreasonably stressful.
"Maybe?" he says. "I don't know how to date someone, though. I'd screw it up."
Sakunami swallows. "Well, if you were to date me, um, I could help. I can tell you what you're supposed to do and um, if you mess up, I can tell you how to fix it."
That honestly sounds perfect to Koganegawa. Sakunami is always the best at helping him with things, always amazing at setting up situations so Koganegawa can preform well even if he's confused. It's one of the reasons Sakunami is his favorite.
"I'd like that!" Koganegawa says quickly, worried Sakunami might retract the offer, because now that he's thought about it, it seems completely wonderful. "What should I do now?"
"Okay," Sakunami says. "Okay. First rule: don't talk about marriage stuff for now, okay?"
Koganegawa nods. He had sort of figured that out, maybe, but it was good to have it as an official rule. He'd be sure to remember it. "I can do that," he says. "What else?" He hoped some of it would be more exciting.
Sakunami blushes. "We can- we can hold hands. When we walk home at night like this, I mean. If you want to." He lifts one of his hands carefully from his backpack and stretches it out to Koganegawa, still blushing.
"Understood!!" Koganegawa says and grabs Sakunami's hand, squeezing it. "Is this okay?"
"Maybe, um, a little bit lighter?" Sakunami says with a wince, and Koganegawa soften his grip, realizing he was kind of gripping it as hard as he could, which might be painful. "That's perfect," Sakunami says, and twines theirs fingers together.
"Got it!" Koganegawa says. He's embarrassed to have messed up on his first real boyfriend duty, but Sakunami doesn't seem to mind. And as they walk the rest of the way toward their home, hands swaying as they chat and look up at the stars, Koganegawa decides that focusing on the present might be the better choice, after all.