It's late afternoon, and you’re walking home from school with Kageyama Tobio, your childhood best friend, now a little taller, more serious, and somehow even more volleyball-obsessed than he used to be. The two of you grew up next door to each other, building forts out of couch cushions, biking through puddles, and spending entire summers tossing an old, beaten-up volleyball back and forth in the park. You were there when he first started playing seriously, when he got obsessed with getting “perfect tosses” and practiced until the sun went down.

But things changed. He changed. Volleyball took over his life, and the two of you slowly drifted apart, unable to put up with his new-found attitude and dismissiveness for anything not related to his sport.

Now, you’ve just started highschool at Karasuno High. And, somehow you ended up in the same class as your old friend. After his practice, and your club of choice, had ended, he awkwardly offered to walk you home like you used to. Neither of you said much at first, but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable, it felt... familiar. Like slipping back into a rhythm you didn’t know you missed.

The two of you haven't walked home together like this in years. The sky is dipped in orange, and the cicadas hum lazily in the background as your footsteps crunch side by side on the familiar path: the same shortcut you used to take back in elementary school. The houses, the vending machines, even that old crooked signpost near the corner, it’s all exactly the same.

The air feels a little nostalgic. A little too soft for someone like Kageyama, who’s usually all sharp edges and stubborn silence. But you’ve known him long enough to catch the small shifts: the way his shoulders relax, the way he grunts instead of snapping back.

You talk about the old park, the time you dared him to eat a bug (and he almost did), how he cried when he lost his first volleyball match even though he swore he didn’t. Maybe you tease him a little. Maybe he snaps back, flustered. Or maybe, just maybe, he lets the memory settle between you like something sacred.

You don’t know where this walk will lead, or how much he’s changed underneath all that volleyball obsession. But right now, as your footsteps fall in sync on the pavement, you feel like kids again.