Level Horizon (Haikyuu!! WingedAU)

Year Two.80 1/2; Catalyst

Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a super hero. ~Marc Brown

~ Three Months Later, Winter's End ~

"Kagayama! Get up!"

Yuu Nishinoya rolls over with a groan, his face planting into a warm, breathing pillow.

Shouyou's always been like this. It didn't matter that it was way too early to be awake, he was always vibrating with energy and irrationally excitable. It could be the fact that mom had made his favorite breakfast dish, or worse yet, made Noya's favorite breakfast. It might be the first lily opening on the vine outside their doorstep, or he found a fascinating bug on the ceiling of their barracks, or he swiped a sweet bun from the sentry mess to share. Even that one time they'd gotten ahold of that bottle of sake as kids—even in the middle of a lovely hangover and a painful scolding from their mom, Shouyou had been stupidly bubbly.

He couldn't keep himself awake much past sunset, but Shouyou'd be damned if he wasn't wide-eyed and bushy-tailed at unholy hours of the morning. It's ridiculous really; Noya doesn't even mind mornings. But this is pretty much how he's woken up for the last seven hundred years—a neurotic redhead dragging him out of bed before he's ready to be awake. He hadn't even needed the morning bell in the rookery barracks. He frowns slightly through the wisps of slumber.

He will take his adopted brother's insanity over the sterile, cold rigidity of every morning of those six months after they'd fled, because Noya still hadn't needed the bell. He'd always been half awake minutes before, expecting to be leapt on by an ecstatic ball of sunshine. And the realization that it wouldn't be coming, that they had no idea what had happened to Shouyou or Kageyama, as he'd fully woken had always been... heartbreaking.

"Come on, Tobio! It's snowing!"

Of course, there was usually always a reason for his psychotic exuberance—even if Noya would classify the vast majority of them as 'completely insignificant'. But...the short crow's eyes slide open, sleep scattering.

Snow?

The beach might frost over pretty good on occasion, and it wasn't unusual for the stream to form a film of ice now and then, but it didn't snow on the coasts. At least, it hadn't through all three winters since they'd come to the beach. And considering that they'd migrated every year before that, the novelty of snow, real and cold and wet and falling from the sky... was foreign. They knew what snow was, had trained in the mountains in the spring before it had all melted, but Noya doubts any of them have ever really experienced it.

And in a heartbeat, he's sitting up with excitement.

Shouyou is tugging on Kageyama with an electric smile, his whole body vibrating with energy, but Kageyama sits simply staring out the large window. Daichi is also leaning up on his elbows with an awed expression while Suga watches with a quiet smile from the doorway. Tanaka climbs to his feet, drifting toward the window with a slack jaw, and Noya follows him.

Shouyou is right.

Snow, light and wispy, drifts down among the palm fronds and sea grasses, a thin dusting already coating the sand.

"Isn't it amazing?" The redhead says off his shoulder and Noya turns toward him with a grin.

"Yeah!" He says, his eyes darting around at the others.

Kenma is up, but Kuroo still appears crashed out, Yaku is blinking drowsily at them while Lev is nowhere in sight, the girls have disappeared, too, and Akaashi is sitting up lazily, but Bokuto is still snoring.