sugar high // daisuga week drabbles

here's to teenage memories

DAY 5: nostalgia / challenge

~

"Look what I found!"

Suga pulls a cardboard box down from the shelf with a mischievous smirk.

"Oh, no, what did you find now?" Daichi groans, sitting back from the box he's been filling with clothes from their dresser. Suga just grins and holds up a familiar black sports jacket with white lettering. "Shit, that's my Karasuno jacket! I've been looking for that!"

"I know!" Suga exclaims. "It looks like you made a whole box for volleyball stuff. Look."

Suga tilts the open box toward him, and Daichi's jaw drops. Inside is a collection of Karasuno memorabilia that he thought he'd misplaced or discarded years ago. His jacket is in there, as is the medal from winning the prefectural Spring High qualifiers, along with a stack of pictures. "Oh my god," he breathes, picking up the photos and thumbing through them. Some he remembers well—all of them posing with their club jackets to welcome Yachi to the club. A few outtakes for the club poster. Some selfies from when Hinata got a hold of the camera. But there are some he didn't know were being taken at the time. There's one of him, Kuroo, and Bokuto from the training camp at Shinzen. Another of him and Ennoshita talking while the rest of the team practices. A blurry one of him and Suga in the club room.

"I can't believe you put all this away and forgot about it," Suga says, picking up Daichi's Karasuno jacket. "Try it on!"

Daichi coughs out a laugh. "It's been ten years. It probably doesn't fit."

"What, have you gotten bigger?" Suga teases him. "Just try it."

Daichi sighs and takes the jacket, tugging it on over his shirt, and is pleasantly surprised to see that it does still fit, for the most part. It's a little tight across his back where his shoulders have gotten broader, but he's relieved that it still zips up.

"Looking good, Captain." Suga hooks his chin over Daichi's shoulder, wrapping his arms around his waist and smiling at him in the mirror. Daichi finds himself grinning right back, and for a moment, he's not nearing thirty and about to move into his first house; if he closes his eyes he can practically hear the first-years bickering, feel the dull ache in his thighs, hear the sound of shoes squeaking and volleyballs hitting the hardwood floor.

He's happy that the memories of his third year are all good ones. No, they didn't win nationals, but they'd made it farther than he ever imagined they could. He remembers the exhilaration of perfecting a new technique, the buoyancy of a hard-earned victory, the sheer euphoric disbelief of even making to nationals. And he remembers the more bitter things, too, all the training camp penalties and the crushing weight of defeat on the national stage. But even those aren't bad memories. Because they all began with volleyball. And volleyball, he thinks, looking over his shoulder at Suga, taught him how to love.