Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Hinata knows this story. It is an old story.

It’s a story that speaks of rose-colored skies and white-gold sunlight on freckled skin, of laughter that rings bright and loud and true on paths homebound. Hands that brush against each other as they sway, side by side, one bold move that has them pulling together and intertwining, stolen glances with blushes warming cheeks. Hushed whispers covered by the shadows, only heard under the covers, skin so close that it feels as though just wanting is enough, secrets that bear a heart laid open, and asking for vulnerability but never giving it in return. Friends put to the test with an ache in the chest that learns to sing a song of yearning, and words that never leave the tongue, a confession that spills out only when the other isn’t listening. Oceans to cover the distance that only grows, until it dies and dies and dies, a thousand lifetimes over, and there is nothing left but a dusty book on the shelf and a story that never learns enough to stop repeating.

This is a love story.

It’s a love story, but Hinata won’t admit it. That would mean to accept it, and it’s the last thing he wants to do. He just wishes it had a better ending.

But he’s already decided that it won’t be a problem. Not anymore, not for him, because he swears he’ll rewrite it all. He’ll find the right words and he’ll change it before it even reaches breakeven. It won’t shape into another tragedy, or be filled with the longing stares and the empty promises. And maybe that’ll be the easy part, because there was only one that really mattered.

Just one promise, and they named it invincibility.

So he’ll rewrite it. He’ll rewrite this whole life and this whole story, and it’ll be so different that the papercuts won’t cause him to bleed, and that he’ll run his fingers over the words and he won’t find any tear stains. He’ll rewrite it all so well that he won’t be able to see beyond it. He’ll stop before it gets too much, and he’ll hold himself enough to fall short of it, and maybe it’s wrong of him to do so, but he knows just as well that it’s definitely not going to go right either, and perhaps love stories are just words woven with warnings for young boys like him to run away while they still can.

Hinata knows this story. He knows the ending. And he’s decided to leave before he gets there. Cut his losses, quit while he’s ahead, before it can cause any damages on paper-thin hearts, reflect pain back on ocean-glass eyes staring at him. Before it can even get the chance to hurt him.

Because Hinata has seen this all before, and he knows the truth: that this love story is better called a tragedy instead, and no other title can cover that up. That for it to be a tragedy must mean that it held something so beautiful, so extraordinary, that it became more than two bright-eyed countryside boys could handle; that it grew too big inside their chests and exploded into something so grand and devastating, it shaped into the same phenomena that causes kingdoms to slowly crumble, because there are just some gaps caused by distance that can’t be bridged by time. That tragedies don’t have happy epilogues, and stories like these only end in ruin.

Hinata knows this story. He knows it better than anything else.

Kageyama does too.

This is how it begins: two boys, facing each other with a pink-streaked sky for them to carry on their shoulders, and a declaration of war said loud enough for the heavens to hear it.

The wind whispers something inaudible, but it is a revelation, the fulfillment of a promise. It is the words an old man once told his grandson, memorized over and over about better players and being found. It is something that they both don’t know just yet, but will learn about eventually. It is for the same reason that they won’t fall in love so much as they will grow into it, two lost souls learning to share the spaces left empty by the other. It is not the best beginning, and it could’ve gone a lot better—but it is the most honest version of it. It is honest, and it is true, and it is what they will learn to be patient for. It is wholly them.

And in time, they will get there.

After all, in order to reach the ending, you must first start at the beginning.

It is raining in the summer, and Shouyou is contemplating just how high he’d have to jump to reach the sky.

A little more realistically, just how high he’d have to go to touch a cloud, if it would feel as soft as it looks, like the cotton candy Natsu always asks him to get at festivals, or if it would just simply dissolve the moment he touched it. If the blue around him would overwhelm the rest of his body, the sky even bigger than the sea, or what the rest of the world would look up so high, when he isn’t the only one called small anymore.

What would it feel like to fall from such a great height?

The thunder rumbles, breaking him out of his reverie, and Shouyou blinks repeatedly to focus back on the solid ground beneath his feet. He’s standing by the entrance of the gym, back facing the long nets and the fluorescent lights and the dancing shadows in the corners. The captain had called for a break since they’d been going at it for a while, three practice sets in a row. Shouyou fixes his gaze to the sky, where it’s dipped in monochrome, and light makes blurry outlines on the clouds. The air hangs humid before him, and he swears that the sun was still shining around noon, hot and heavy, and that no one had seen this storm coming.

The rain brings a white haze to the rest of the field, and he can barely see beyond the downpour’s veil, drowning out every other noise other than the water hitting the ground. He can feel the mist just by standing close to it, how fast and strong it is, like a well-timed spike hitting over and over a million times without end. He wonders briefly, if this is why the rain comes, because the sky misses the land more than anything, and this is its way of saying hello.

“What are you staring at?” Kageyama asks, appearing by Shouyou’s side. He looks at Shouyou with a curious expression on his face and the slightest downturn of a frown, unsure of what’s happening. His eyes look a lot like a storm, Shouyou realizes, like his own blue is reflecting back on the sky above. Or maybe that’s where the rest of the sky is, held within Kageyama’s eyes for safekeeping as the rain passes. That’d be pretty cool, wouldn’t it? Maybe he’ll believe in it. “There’s nothing there.”

“There’s the rain,” Shouyou supplies, half-shrugging. “And I was just thinking, mostly.”

Kageyama looks out the door before turning back to him. “About what?” he says. In all honesty, Shouyou is a little surprised by the sincerity in Kageyama’s question, like he genuinely wants to know what’s going on in Shouyou’s head and understand it.

But looking back, maybe he shouldn’t really be, not anymore. Over the last few months, to his own shock, he’s learned that there is a whole lot more to Kageyama Tobio than he’d originally thought—which was just that he was arrogant as hell, liked milk to an insane degree, and was extremely skilled at volleyball. And while they’re still true things, it turns out that there are other parts of him too.

One of them being that Kageyama is actually nice.

It’s not all that obvious, and even then it’s not too often, but he is. A quiet sort of caring that only shines through when everything is loud enough to cover it all up, but Kageyama does care about other people. And maybe that means that he cares about Shouyou too, like when he buys Shouyou juice from the vending machine when he goes to get milk, or when he tries to share his homework answers to help Shouyou when he forgets to do his, even when it’s (misguidedly) all wrong. It’s just another truth he’s come to learn: that Kageyama is nice. He always has been—it’s just taken Shouyou a while to see it.

And now he welcomes it.

“What do you think it would be like,” Shouyou tells him as lightning flashes through the sky, blinding white against dark gray, “to fall from the sky?”

Kageyama only looks confused, but opens his mouth to give his opinion anyway. “It would hurt, wouldn’t it?” he says, like it’s obvious. His eyes catch silver with the remnants of lightning, and Shouyou thinks that maybe the rest are caught in his irises too, just waiting to be let out. “You’d probably die, dumbass.”

“I know that!” Shouyou argues, feeling a warm flush rise to his cheeks. Kageyama looks at him skeptically, and Shouyou huffs, crossing his arms. “But don’t you think it would be a little cool, at least? To see everything from up so high?”

He imagines being windswept, carried by air currents he can’t see, up and up and up until it’s like his whole world can be placed in the palm of his hand. Until all he knows is the top of the world, and never has to be afraid of looking down.

Kageyama nods, but Shouyou can tell that he’s already thinking about other things, presumably volleyball-related thoughts, and perhaps it might be best if Shouyou sticks to the dreams that remain tethered to the ground instead of chasing after dandelion wishes like this one. Still, it doesn’t hurt, and dreams are what’s gotten him this far anyway, right?

Kageyama probably thinks all of this is stupid.

“You know what?” Shouyou says, ready to backpedal as fast and smooth as he can. “Never mind, let’s just—”

“You’ll reach the top,” Kageyama says, ignoring Shouyou, his eyes no longer trained on the sky, but set directly on Shouyou’s own. “The top of the world. Maybe not like what you mean, but at least in volleyball, you will. Isn’t that what you said before? You’re not going back on it, are you?”

“What? Of course not!” Shouyou says, scowling. Setting his expression into something more determined, he looks straight up back at Kageyama and says, “I still—I’m still going to beat you! No matter how long it takes, I’ll get there. I’ll get there, and I’ll make you see me.”

“Good,” Kageyama says with a nod, satisfied. Then with one more look at the sky, the rain letting up slowly, drop by drop, he takes a deep breath, and looks back at Shouyou. Then, with a small smile, eyes flashing into something lighter, something important, he says, “But until then, I’ll be here to help you fly.”

And perhaps it’s a magic of some sort, or a heavenly force that he doesn’t understand and can’t describe, but it’s like a flick of a switch. The rain stops all at once, turning quiet so suddenly, and the clouds lighten up into a paler version of themselves. Sunlight breaks through the gaps, and shines down to dance with golden sunbeams, peppering light kisses on the ground.

And Shouyou stands there, right at the edge of it, eyes wide in awe. But he isn’t looking at the sunny sky. Instead, his gaze is caught on Kageyama Tobio, bathed in the new gentle light, and he looks like something Shouyou’s never seen before. Something entirely new altogether, and it causes Shouyou’s pulse to beat butterfly-quick in his chest for a reason he can’t quite define. It’s almost reckless, the way his heart is doing star jumps with the threat of escaping, but Shouyou can’t do anything to calm it down. He’s stuck watching the way Kageyama looks breathtakingly beautiful, even in sweaty practice clothes, and his eyes turn a million shades lighter with the rainlight sky to keep inside in exchange for the sun.

Maybe that’s another thing he didn’t notice about Kageyama. That he can be a world wonder without even trying.

Kageyama decides to turn back to him at that moment, just as the captain calls them all back to resume practice. Shouyou’s heart is caught in his throat with the words that he doesn’t have, and he tries to steel his expression into something more calm.

It doesn’t work, apparently, since Kageyama looks at him funny, and at this point he must be completely confused with everything Hinata’s been up to today.

“Oi, are you okay?” Kageyama asks him, eyebrows knit together in worry. “You look weird.”

“Fine! I’m—I’m fine!” Shouyou scrambles to say, bringing a hand up to rub the back of his neck. His face feels warm. Really, really warm. Hopefully he can just pass it off as exhaustion. “It was kinda sudden, the rain stopping, that’s all.”

Kageyama shoots him another look, not quite buying it, but he seems to let it go eventually. He begins to step away from the entrance, turning back to Shouyou, and gestures to the net with his head, “You coming?”

And just then, Shouyou feels his lungs expand with something he can’t quite name, something he’s on the brink of understanding, tied in with a little relief. His heart is still racing and his mind can’t keep up, but he has a feeling that he won’t really mind what’s at the finish line. Maybe it’ll be a good prize. A happy ending to all of this. He can’t really be bothered to think about it too hard right now, so maybe it’s better to just let it be, and see what comes out of it. Maybe it’ll even be something extraordinary.

He hopes so. He really hopes so.

“Yeah,” Shouyou says with a grin, jogging over to meet him, standing beside him on the court. He finds his footing, and comes back to where his dreams are rooted: here, in this gym, with a team full of people he can depend on. With a partner he can trust.

What do you think it would be like to fall from the sky?

Looking up, Shouyou watches as Kageyama smiles, small and genuine and beautiful, and unknowingly learns of a different type of falling altogether.

“Don’t you ever get tired of milk?”

Tobio looks at the blue box he holds on his hand, at the little giraffe drawn on the cardboard. He takes another sip. “No,” he answers, half-shrugging. “It’s good. Helps you grow.”

Hinata shakes his head. “Never helped me,” he mutters bitterly, and Kageyama can’t help the little smile that rises unwittingly to his lips. Pointing at Tobio’s lunch, he asks, “Are you gonna finish your tomatoes?”

“You can have them,” Tobio says, and he holds out his bento box to Hinata.

“You can take some of mine then,” Hinata offers, as he picks out the carrots squished to the edge and drops them into Tobio’s lunch. Tobio watches him move, the way the sunlight filters through the leaves of the tree they’re under, dropping sunbeams on Hinata’s skin, turning patches of him even more radiant than he already is. His hair looks like it’s catching gentle fire, a warm hearth. “A fair trade.”

“Thanks,” Tobio says simply, looking away before Hinata catches him, and returns back to his milk box. His stomach feels funny—squishy, like his rice had been, but he knows it isn’t hunger.

Hinata hums lightly, a catchy pop song that Tanaka’s always singing in the club room before practice. They finish their meals in silence, and Tobio throws his milkbox away when he’s done with it, walking over back to where Hinata sits, resting against the tree with a calm expression on his face.

“Are you thinking about the sky again?” Tobio asks when he takes the spot next to him. If he’s being really honest, he’s not entirely sure how they’d come to an agreement like this in the first place. Hinata had just pulled Tobio out of his classroom one day, told him they were going to have lunch together and practice a little afterwards, and somehow they never really stopped. Sometimes they don’t even practice, too caught up in another one of Hinata’s stories or hypothetical scenarios, and Tobio feels like he should be at least annoyed or confused, but he isn’t. He likes this, whatever they have, whatever’s just beginning, invisible strings coming to connect them.

It’s shaped a lot like friendship.

Friendship that Tobio doesn’t have much experience for, like he’s a little boat in a big ocean, trying to reach stability and figure out just which way will lead him back home. He wonders if he’ll drown, or if the sea will be kind and tell him secrets instead.

For a moment, he’s reminded of when he and Hinata had fought over their quick—and there’s a heavy weight that settles on his chest when he remembers what it was like, to have Hinata avoid him while they were still figuring things out. He doesn’t want that to happen ever again.

“Nah,” Hinata says, eyes turning over to look at him, shaking his head slightly. The sunbeams follow his movements, like a slow dance on a boy’s skin.

“What is it then?” Tobio says back. He doesn’t know why he’s suddenly so curious, not when the only things that have ever mattered to him are volleyball, but he figures that this just might be a side effect of finally having a friend.

Hinata shrugs, and points to a cloud. With a serious expression, he asks, “Okay, you gotta be honest with me, Bakageyama. Does that look more like a cat or a frog?”

Tobio eyes the cloud in question, the wispy, puffy white thing floating aimlessly over their heads. “Cat,” he decides. “The edges look like they could be the ears. And there’s a tail there, I think. I don’t know.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too,” Hinata says, smiling. “What about that one next to it? Definitely a star, right?”

He squints. “I guess so. Could be a starfish then?”

Hinata snaps his fingers. “Yeah! Exactly!” he exclaims, and his grin is so bright that Tobio thinks looking directly at the sun might be less blinding, and looks away. There’s the funny feeling again. “Ooooh, that next one. What do you think?”

“A…bird?” Tobio wonders out loud.

Hinata nods. “What if it’s a crow? It could be like us!”

Tobio doesn’t know enough about the bodily structure of a crow to differentiate it from any other bird to confirm or deny it—just that the cloud looks like it has wings, and it honestly could be any other bird if he willed it—but he agrees anyway, because once Hinata has set his mind to something, he won’t see it any other way. Even in simple things like cloud-watching, he supposes.

Hinata stretches out his arm like he’s trying to grab it. “Then we’ll fly too! We’ll fly as high as them!”

He nods, eyes finding Hinata’s, and knows that it’ll be true. With more certainty than he’d ever known, he says, “To the top of the world, remember?”

Hinata grins. “I’ll meet you there.”

It’s just like that, then. Maybe other people aren’t as competitive with their friends as they are, but Tobio figures that it’s just the way they are. And if it works for them, then there’s nothing about it that needs changing. It’s a new thing, this friendship, and Tobio doesn’t have much practice, but he’s determined to see it through. Even if it’s not conventional, even if others might call it weird, it’s how they work. It’s theirs. And Tobio will do anything to keep it.

And so it goes.

By the time practice ends, the sun is halfway home in the horizon, sinking into the hills and taking the colors with it. With Spring High Qualifiers fast approaching, they’ve been practicing longer and harder, and Tobio is beginning to feel the steady thrum under his bones with anticipation. He’s excited and he’s nervous, and he has no idea what’s going to happen. There’s still a long road ahead of him, and he’s going to make it all the way to the top.

After all, he promised Hinata he would.

Wiping the sweat off his forehead as he changes out of his practice clothes, Tobio listens as Nishinoya recounts another one of his stories that seem almost too unrealistic, but possible enough for a guy like him. He’s got Hinata hooked on every word. Tanaka barks out a high peal of laughter while Daichi teases Asahi about one of his serves, and Tsukishima snickers over something Yamaguchi said in the far corner. It feels a lot like another day, simple enough without too much to worry, and it helps Kageyama relax, his shoulders loosening tension after a few hours well-spent analyzing his tosses.

It’s not that Tobio is worried they’ll lose after their first match, though that’s always a possibility. He has faith in his teammates after all; he knows that they’ll all do their best, and that they’re all highly capable. It’s taken some time, but he trusts them just as they trust him, and they wouldn’t have gotten this far without it. They’ve built themselves from the ground up, from the concrete itself, and they’ll do whatever it takes to be able to soar in the skies. He knows that much.

They’ll be fine.

Looking around at all his teammates, his friends, Tobio knows they will be. They’re all just countryside high school boys, but Tobio knows that they’ll go far, and he’ll make sure to do his best to take this team even further. By some peculiar force, his gaze catches on Hinata’s fiery existence, just as it always does, where he’s bouncing on his toes with excitement, zipping around the club room to fill the walls with chatter. Something tugs at his chest then, like a soft pull made from air as he watches Hinata’s smile light up the room, and it feels a lot like…longing? But for what, exactly? Tobio tries to understand it, but the revelation seems to be made out of smoke, disappearing before he can even reach it.

A hand claps on his shoulder, and Tobio jumps slightly in surprise. Looking to his right, he finds Sugawara’s sunny smile, wide and reassuring, with just the slightest glint of mischief in his eyes. Aside from being a reliable senpai, Sugawara always seems to be up to something these days. Tobio doesn’t know if he quite trusts it.

“So,” Sugawara says, and immediately Tobio knows that he doesn’t, and that the older setter is probably-most-definitely up to no good. “Whatcha lookin’ at Kageyama?”

Tobio tilts his head in confusion. “I’m looking at you?”

Sugawara waves a hand. “No, no. Before that.” His voice drops to a whisper, changed into something more like a secret. “You were staring at Hinata.”

Tobio flushes, eyes widening. “I wasn’t!” he exclaims, horrified, feeling his face turn exceedingly warm in an instant.

Sugawara only hums, undeterred, and Tobio has never seen anyone move their eyebrows like that before. “It’s okay, my precious kouhai. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

His confusion only grows. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

Sugawara’s eyes turn enormous, like he’s just realized something, and then he’s nodding furiously, clapping Tobio’s shoulder repeatedly. “I see,” he says, and Tobio wonders what that must be like, because he, quite frustratingly, does not see. “Alright, then. I’ll leave you to it. It’s only a matter of time, I believe.”

“Are you talking about my tosses today?” Tobio asks him, grasping at straws, hoping for any sort of answer that makes sense at all. “I know my last few ones were a bit off, but I’ll be well-adjusted for everyone’s favorite kinds by tomorrow.”

Sugawara laughs, and shakes his head, a knowing smile on his lips that’s beginning to drive Tobio insane. Is he missing something here? He definitely is. “No worries. You did well today, as always,” Sugawara reassures him lightly. “I’m talking about something different. Something more feelings-oriented. Ah, well, I’m sure you’ll understand soon. I’ll see you tomorrow, bright and early!”

“Okay…?” Tobio says, and decides to leave Sugawara’s cryptic messages be. Maybe people just get weirder as they get older, or Sugawara’s just messing with him. It might be a mix of both. Maybe he can ask Hinata what he thinks, since he usually has a better grasp on people.

Slowly, the club room empties out, and Tobio packs his things into his bag. Slinging it over his shoulder, he announces his goodbye, and opens the door, welcoming the breezy evening air. The sun’s nearly gone in the sky now, placing everything in pinks and oranges, tinges of deep blue slowly creeping over the sky. Stars are beginning to peek out like freckles underneath a warm sun, and the thought of that reminds him of something else that he isn’t ready to give a name to.

Just as he’s almost to the school gate, he hears a familiar voice call out for his name, and it’s scary how familiar it is. How easily he welcomes it, when it used to be a nuisance. Maybe he’s sailing a little closer to home than he’d realized.

“Kageyama! Wait up!” Hinata shouts, running over to him. Briefly, Tobio wonders if it’ll turn into another race, already preparing himself to sprint—but then Hinata stops short of where Tobio stands, lightly panting. “You walk past Sakanoshita, right? We can walk home together!”

Tobio blinks at him. “Okay,” he says. A part of him wonders if this is just a one-time event, or if Hinata expects this to become a Thing between them. (Secretly, he hopes it’s the latter. It would be nice not to have to walk alone.)

“So what did you think?” Hinata asks him as they stop by the bike racks for him to unlock his bike, and he rolls it in the space between them.

“About what?”

“Nishinoya-senpai’s story!” he answers, eyes lighting up with excitement. “It was really cool, don’t you think? He’s amazing! Weren’t you listening?”

Tobio shrugs. “Not really. I only heard the first part.”

Hinata frowns, squinting up at him. “Well, anyway,” he says. “It was super awesome! I can’t believe he did all that, especially without getting caught! I don’t think I could tell stories as exciting as Nishinoya-senpai does, though.”

“You tell stories just fine. You can be pretty loud, but your voice is okay,” Tobio says, without much thinking. Once he does register what he just said, a split-second too late, he immediately regrets it, feeling his face burn with embarrassment. “Actually, uh—”

“Oh my god, really? Kageyama, do you really think so!” Hinata says, but they’re less questions than they are declarations, and Tobio looks away, trying to hide his face with his hands. “You do, don’t you!”

“Shut up, I never said anything,” Tobio mumbles, hating how the mortification seeps through his body like a heavy wave of heat. He shouldn’t have said it like that, maybe never spoken at all, because Hinata knows what it means. Somehow, he’d gotten it into his head that whenever Tobio thought something was just okay or fine or alright, it actually translated to something he found pretty cool or more or less awesome, as Hinata would say. So now he’s under the impression that Tobio likes his stories.

(Which, to be honest, is actually true, but that’s not the point here.)

“You totally do!” Hinata exclaims, and he’s bouncing on his toes, getting closer to Tobio, face blown wide with a toothy grin. “You like my voice! Kageyama likes my voice!”

“Shut up,” he hisses, hoping that Hinata will listen this time, groaning into his hands. “I don’t—I didn’t—that’s not what I meant, you dumbass.”

“Nuh-uh! No take backs, Kageyama! There’s no point in lying, ‘cause you wouldn’t be this embarrassed if it wasn’t true,” Hinata says, and there are actual sparkles in his eyes, what the hell. “And I think it’s sweet! It just means we’re good friends now.”

“Oh my god,” Tobio says, and he hates this, maybe this is why he never made friends to begin with, and he takes it all back, all of it, this is dumb and stupid and embarrassing—

“And for what it’s worth, I like listening to you too! Even when you mostly shout sometimes, it can be pretty nice when you’re just talking. You should share more stories, you know,” Hinata says, pink glittering the tops of his cheekbones, and it stops Tobio right in his tracks, whirring around to look at the middle blocker properly.

“You—what?” he croaks out, and it feels like his heart is failing him, and he wonders vaguely what sort of crimes he did in his past life to deserve this. The heat on his face grows even warmer, and not even the breeze can cool it down.

“I like your voice too!” Hinata says easily, a pleased flush to his ears, and Tobio has no idea how he can do stuff like this—spill his feelings like they’re not heavy things his heart has learned to carry over the years, like he isn’t afraid of drowning in them.

“Stupid,” is all Tobio can manage to say, pointedly looking away, and choosing instead to focus on the road before him. “You can’t say stuff like that. It’s embarrassing!”

“Yeah, a bit,” Hinata admits, but the cheeky grin is still on his face, and Tobio wants to wipe it off.

“A bit?”

“Okay, okay,” Hinata says, raising an arm in surrender. “I’ll stop. But that just means we’re friends, you know? You can’t be friends with someone and not get used to the way they sound.”

Tobio hums, placid. Hinata’s words are still ringing loudly in his ears, and he wants to make it stop. It almost makes him miss the days when Hinata was afraid of him.

(Almost. He can’t deny that this is…nice. It’s nice too.)

“I mean,” Hinata says, and the change in his tone startles Tobio. He sounds unsure, as though he’s trying to balance his weight without the certainty of which side will be safer. “We are friends, right? Kageyama?”

When Tobio finally looks at him, he finds the quiet determination that always seems to favor Hinata’s features, but there’s a nearly-missed current of nervousness there too. Hinata looks at him head-on, with eyes made from the sunset itself, bright and golden with flecks of the evening wrapped around inside his irises, like the sun is setting within him instead of the horizon. Tobio feels his mouth run dry at the extraordinariness of it all; what kind of person do you have to be, to be able to hold the sun inside of you?

Hinata Shouyou is a curiosity all on his own. Tobio wonders if he’ll ever be able to understand all of it.

“Yeah,” he says, and it comes out sure and strong, but softer and fonder than he would’ve liked. “Yeah, we’re friends.”

And Hinata beams, so incredibly bright, and Tobio is inexplicably drawn to him like a moth to flame, but he could care less about getting burned. Maybe he should, because it’s dangerous, and boys like Hinata aren’t the type to ever hold back, but Tobio will do his best to keep pace. It’s what he’s good at. It’s what he’s been doing for years.

Finally, they reach the intersection of where their paths diverge, and Tobio stops by the streetlight, not sure of where to go from here. His home isn’t too far from here, not as Hinata’s is, so it won’t take too long for him to walk there. He’s already dreading all the homework he has to face.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Kageyama!” Hinata says, hopping on his bike. Even when the moon comes up to bid them hello, his eyes still carry the sun, and Tobio is entranced by it. “Make sure you bring some good stories with you, okay?”

“Dumbass,” Tobio says without any bark, feeling the heat crawl back to his cheeks like it never left. Hinata laughs, a sweet sound that fills the air, echoing in the oncoming night. “See you tomorrow.”

And then Hinata’s off, pedaling up the mountain, and Tobio is stuck at the foot of the hill, watching him go. He’s not really sure what happened, to be honest. His heart feels like it’s flipping in his chest for reasons he can’t explain, but he’s sure that Hinata is the cause of it. And he’s not all that certain he wants to find out why.

So Tobio decides it’s a matter for another day, tucks the memories into his pocket, and heads home. He’s already got so much to think about, and he’s not going to let the likes of Hinata Shouyou bother him for the rest of the night, either. He can think about it some other time.

(He doesn’t, however, fully succeed in keeping Hinata’s sunset eyes out of his mind. Especially when walking home together decidedly does become a Thing between them, and Tobio is faced with the dilemma of the similarities between Hinata and the sun nearly every day.

But he must admit—it’s not all bad.)

“Has Sugawara-san been talking weirdly to you lately?” Kageyama asks him one day, plopping down to sit next to him while the team rests on break. “He keeps saying things that don’t make sense.”

Shouyou sets his water bottle down, glancing over to where the aforementioned setter is striking up a conversation with their captain. Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary, and every interaction Shouyou has had with Sugawara has been on the same level of weird and gentle mixed together as it’s always been.

“No?” he says to Kageyama, who’s got a frown on his face and his eyebrows pinched together. It’s a funny look on him. “What kinda stuff has he been saying?”

Kageyama flushes almost instantly, quickly averting his eyes. “Just—weird stuff,” he says, and Shouyou quirks up an eyebrow at his vagueness. Kageyama’s usually pretty blunt about things. “He keeps saying that I’ll know what he’s talking about eventually, but I don’t know when eventually is.”

Hinata hums thoughtfully, before gasping in a striking revelation. “Kageyama!” he says, trying to keep his voice low. He pulls Kageyama’s arm to bring him a little closer, causing him to lean down to where Hinata holds up a hand to whisper in his ear. “Do you think—what if Sugawara-san’s psychic?”

“Psychic? What the hell does that mean?”

“Shh! Not so loud!” Shouyou says, looking around them. Thankfully, no one seems to have heard them. “You know, like he can read minds and stuff? Or see the future!”

“Then if he can read minds, why are you making it seem like it’s a secret? He’d know if we figured it out, wouldn’t he?” Kageyama points out, and that truly does have Shouyou stumped. It’s a good question.

“Well, maybe. But just in case! What if everyone finds out and he’s not allowed to be on the team anymore?” Shouyou sneaks another glance at the older setter, where he’s still caught up in a conversation with the other third-years. No one still seems to have noticed. Sugawara isn’t onto them yet.

Kageyama thinks it over before nodding. “Then what should I do? What do you think he’s talking about?”

“I’d be able to answer that better if you told me what he was telling you, you know,” Shouyou says, taking another sip of his water bottle. Kageyama’s cheeks color a light brush of pink all the way over the bridge of his nose. Shouyou feels something warm squirm in his stomach, and thinks to himself that blushing is a good look on Kageyama. “Is it really that weird? That you can’t even say it?”

He squints. “It’s not something illegal, is it?”

“What? No!” Kageyama says, the pink only deepening into something more rosy. He’s not looking at Shouyou again, his eyes trained on the wall meters away from them. “It’s not like that, dumbass!”

“Then you wanna tell me so I can help?” Shouyou can’t help himself from being curious. What if Sugawara really is psychic? That would be so cool! Maybe he could tell Shouyou how to become one too, and then he could read Kageyama’s mind whenever he isn’t really saying what he means. But then he doesn’t really need to, because he can usually figure it out anyway, and Kageyama usually comes around to clarify when the words don’t come through all that smoothly. Maybe he could use it to understand Tsukishima instead. Figure out how to annoy him better. Now that would be fun.

“I can’t,” Kageyama says, a little helplessly, sighing. “It’s embarrassing, alright? And I don’t really know how to explain it. He kinda just pops out of nowhere sometimes.”

“Hm,” Shouyou says. Then he snaps his fingers, looking at his friend. “Then the moment it happens again, you gotta tell me so I can be there, okay? That way we can both figure it out. Kinda like an ambush, except we gotta be really careful about it.”

Kageyama agrees, but he sways with uncertainty. “I’ll…try,” he says, grimacing, but it should be enough for now.

Shouyou smiles to himself, and kicks the ground to put him back on his feet. “Okay, now that’s over,” he says, and he flashes Kageyama the biggest grin he can muster, and puts on the puppy eyes that used to work so well on his mom back when he was a kid. He picks up a ball that’s rolled over to his side, holding it out for Kageyama. “Toss to me!”

Kageyama snorts and rolls his eyes, but he picks himself back up and takes the ball from Shouyou. “Fine,” he says. “But after you’re working on your serves, got it?”

“Yep!” Shouyou exclaims, feeling a smile stretch wide on his lips. His palm is already stinging with the ghost of a spike, his fingers itching to hit the ball with all the force he can muster. “Toss! Toss! Toss!”

They position themselves on the court, and Hinata readies himself for what’s to come. He throws the ball over to Kageyama, who tosses it—always with the perfect trajectory, always where it should be—and Shouyou’s running before that even happens. Then he jumps with all the force he can muster, and then hits the ball to the other side of the net. It falls with a loud thud, bouncing back high into the air with the repulsion. Shouyou whips his head to find Kageyama with a light smile on his lips, satisfied, and he feels a warmth spread in his chest, the same thing that always happens after a good spike with Kageyama.

Maybe that’s just all there is, when he gets giddy and tingly when Kageyama’s around. He’s just been waiting for so long for something like this, a true partner, someone to set for him, that it just fires him up each time without fail. It’s just volleyball. Maybe not just—because volleyball is everything to him—but it’s the reason for it. That’s all there is.

“Once more!” Shouyou calls, and Kageyama grins, sharp and ready, and all his other thoughts fall away to focus on the ball before him.

“Ready…”

“Get ready to eat my dust, Bakageyama!”

“Set…”

“Like hell you’ll win!”

“Go!”

Shouyou takes off, feet pounding on the earth as the wind whips past his face, and he lets out a bark of laughter, a grin splitting his lips. He can hear Kageyama not too far behind him, much closer than he’d like to win, but the pacing only fuels him even more, and he kicks up his speed, trying to go faster.

It’s three days before Nationals, and Shouyou figures that this is a good way to burn off excessive energy and anxiety all at once. He’s so incredibly excited to finally be able to step on one of the grandest stages in Japan—to stand where the Little Giant stood, and to finally make a name for himself. It almost feels like a fever dream, but here it is now, laid before him, and all he has to do is grab it.

It’s all going to be so cool and fun, and it’s the first step to reaching his goal. He’s going to play and play and play, and it’ll be amazing.

Shouyou yelps when Kageyama suddenly steals the lead from him, willing his legs to go faster even when his lungs begin to burn. Kageyama doesn’t even bother to hide the smug smirk on his lips, and Shouyou huffs in annoyance, narrowing his eyes in concentration. He can see his breath puff out in tiny wisps of smoke around him, and he’d be sweating terribly by now if it wasn’t for the cold. Picking up his pace, Shouyou pushes himself even farther, determined not to lose.

When he’s close enough to Kageyama, he sticks an arm out to shove him, causing the setter to stumble a bit. He laughs, bright and loud, and only looks back to watch the angry expression on his friend’s face.

“Oi! Dumbass, that’s cheating!” Kageyama yells, scowling.

Shouyou lets the wind carry his laughter behind him. “There aren’t any rules except win, Bakageyama!”

Kageyama shouts at him again, another roar of insults that bounce right off him; it’s been long enough that he already knows Kageyama doesn’t mean any of them. It’s almost like a reflex by now.

He can see Noya and Tanaka up ahead, right at the finish line, and grins to himself. After last time’s running incident (wherein he and Kageyama had ended up facing Ushiwaka in Shiratorizawa), he’s careful not to go any further in fear of Daichi’s wrath and the threat of being benched—something that works wonders in keeping both he and Kageyama in line. Willing himself to go even further, Shouyou can hear Noya from here, and there’s only a few meters left to go.

Suddenly, Kageyama appears next to him, and Shouyou begins his own series of shouting, because he’ll be damned if he doesn’t win this race. He’s already behind on their scoring; he can’t afford to lose again. Just ten meters now, then five, three, two, one…

“I win!” Shouyou exclaims loudly the moment he passes his upperclassmen, skidding to a stop, and stumbling a little at the sudden stop in momentum. He braces himself on his knees, breathing heavily, eyes looking at his rival. Kageyama’s breaths come out short and quick, a hand on his hip as he tries to catch all the air back into his lungs. He walks over to him. “Told you I’d beat you!”

“Dumbass,” Kageyama says, and Shouyou can’t help his lips from quirking into a smile. Kageyama gets less and less coherent the more tired he is, and it’s secretly something Shouyou finds hilarious. “What’s it now—ninety-eight for me?”

“And now ninety-six for me,” Shouyou tells him, clapping him on his back, and laughing when Kageyama startled at the touch. “You better watch out, Kageyama! I’m gonna catch up to you in no time.”

Kageyama scoffs, but there’s that glint in his eye—the one that catches fire in declarations of war, and Shouyou can’t help but hold his breath in awe. His eyes match the view of the sky exactly, a vibrant, calming color, and the sunset spills orange generously into the deep blue of his eyes to create a whole new color all together, blending together beautifully. It’s dangerous and formidable and lovely all at once.

“You better hurry up then,” Kageyama says, lips titled into a rare smile, and Shouyou feels those star jumps in his chest again, his pulse beating lightning quick possibly for reasons other than the high adrenaline running through his veins. He feels his cheeks warming, even in the cold air, watching the way the sky keeps a hold over Kageyama’s eyes, and wonders just how far it stretches. It makes sense, in a way, because boys like Kageyama Tobio have always been made for the heavens, and all boys like Shouyou can do is desperately and determinedly try to bridge that gap. It’s just like what he’s said before—Hinata Shouyou, who sprouted from the concrete.

“Yeah,” he says, because it’s the only word that he still has, his throat gone dry. He doesn’t understand what he’s feeling, and there’s an ache in his chest that’s pulling his heart in one direction like a fishline. And he’s felt something like this before—every time he watches an ace go up to spike the ball, and all the blockers can’t do anything about it—but this time it’s different. He can’t really explain it, but it is. Where volleyball is a bright yellow string tugging him to the skies, this feeling here in his chest, it’s red and abstract and not something he can grasp to inspect for answers.

Looking at Kageyama, at the way the world seems to stand still just for him, the feeling grows even stronger. And Shouyou could probably give it a name if he thought about it, because it’s familiar, this pull, but it’s never been tied to another person before. A sport, yes, the Little Giant and all his aspirations, but never like this. Never to someone so near, so close. Never to someone so easy to reach.

It feels a lot like want. Like something out of those romance novels his classmates are always talking about, or something from his mother’s bedtime stories about two star-crossed lovers destined for tragedy. Shouyou thinks he’s seen it in pictures before.

“Is there something on my face?” Kageyama asks him, and it breaks the spell he’s in, from watching the sunbeams find home on the setter’s skin. “You’re staring.”

Shouyou feels his cheeks burn. “No, I’m not!”

Kageyama squints at him suspiciously. “Yeah, you were.”

“I wasn’t!” he argues back, and oh boy, his face is so warm. “I was looking at the sky, and you just happened to be standing there!” It’s not the best excuse he’s ever given, but it’s better than the alternative of admitting the truth and only receiving the embarrassment of a lifetime.

Kageyama looks at him in scrutiny, and Shouyou does his best to hold his ground. “You’re weird,” he says after a moment, finally deciding on what to say.

Shouyou lets out a sigh of relief. “Not as weird as you!” he chirps back.

Offended, Kageyama raises an eyebrow. “I’m weird? You’re the one always staring at nothing!”

“And you’re obsessed with milk!” Shouyou says back. “You’re always drinking it!”

“At least I don’t come up with random questions to text people at three in the morning!”

“Hey!” Shouyou says, furrowing his eyebrows and crossing his arms. “Those are really important questions, you know!”

Kageyama rolls his eyes. “Last night, you asked me if snakes were sad they didn’t have arms! And remember when you called me just to ask me what my favorite color was?”

“They don’t have arms, Kageyama! They can never play volleyball—”

“Dumbass, they can’t even stand.”

“—and if we’re friends, then obviously it’s important that I know what your favorite color is!” Shouyou reasons, trying to make Kageyama understand. “What if you go missing and it’s the only clue I have to finding you?”

Kageyama blinks, and it’s almost as though the fight drains out of him, and his shoulders slump the slightest bit forward. Then, with a much softer, maybe even small voice, he says, hesitant, “You’d look for me?”

Shouyou is taken aback with surprise. “What? Of course I’d look for you! You’re my friend!”

Kageyama’s cheeks color with a pale shade of pink. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” Shouyou says, crossing his arms. Kageyama gets like this sometimes, whenever he brings up something along the lines of the bond they share. It’s like Kageyama still can’t believe they’re friends; but how could Shouyou ever possibly forget such a thing, when Kageyama himself is the reason why he got a taste of seeing what the other side looked like to begin with? “I wouldn’t let a serial killer get to you! I’d fight them with my super awesome spike!”

“Would that even work against them?” Kageyama asks, tilting his head and looking genuinely confused.

“Mhm, yeah, probably! Maybe if you toss to me, one of our quicks could injure them and we could escape!”

“Do you think—”

“What the fuck,” Tsukishima deadpans, “are you two even talking about.”

“They’re having a serious conversation, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says, nodding furiously, one hand under his chin. But there’s a teasing lilt to his words, a mischievousness to his smile. “Very serious.”

Ah, sarcasm. Shouyou’s getting better at telling when other people are equipped with it—and Tsukishima is particularly fluent. Yamaguchi’s a lot nicer about it, though. But he’s generally nicer about most things, really, which is why he and Shouyou get along much better.

“It is serious!” Shouyou says. Sighing, he decides that the whole thing is probably useless by now, and that he’ll have to give it up. At least Kageyama isn’t thinking about the whole staring thing anymore. “And anyway, do you—do you really hate it?” he asks, rubbing the back of his neck as he turns to the setter. Laughing nervously, he adds, “The texts, I mean. I can stop if you want.”

“No!” Kageyama says almost immediately, and the quickness of the honest admission catches Shouyou off-guard. “I mean—” Kageyama looks at him with an expression he doesn’t understand. “No,” he repeats, much more slowly, and he’s blushing again, that same one that makes Shouyou’s stomach do weird things thinking about how pretty it is, and what it would be like to feel the warmth of his cheeks on Shouyou’s palms. “I don’t. I don’t hate them.”

“Oh,” it’s Shouyou’s turn to say. His heart is like a stone being skipped over a calm lake, tumbling over and over until he begins to finally sink. Then the wind blows swiftly, tickling his ears like it’s sharing him a secret, and Shouyou smiles, gentle. “That’s—that’s good. I like sending them.”

Kageyama nods, but he doesn’t meet Shouyou’s eyes. The rest of the team is beginning to run back to the gym now, but Shouyou feels like they’ve been suspended in time, and that this is something important, untouchable. “Just,” Kageyama says, “maybe try to send them when I’m not asleep, you idiot.”

He lets his smile turn into a full-fledged grin. “I’ll do my best!” he exclaims. “Oh, you better ready yourself, Kageyama! Natsu’s been collecting a lot of magazines with those best friend quizzes, and there are tons of questions I’m already thinking of asking you!”

Kageyama’s blush only seems to deepen, and Shouyou’s heart swells enough for him to call it a success. “Whatever,” he says, trying for a flat tone, but it’s just like before—Shouyou’s already cracked the code, and he knows that whatever actually means cool, but he doesn’t bring it up, figuring that Kageyama deserves a little break at least.

“Hinata! Kageyama! You’re up!” Sawamura calls, his hands cupping over his mouth. “Back to the gym!”

“Ready for another race?” Shouyou asks, even if he already knows the answer. He stretches out his arms, already preparing himself for what’s to come.

Kageyama grins, sharp, and his sky-eyes turn gold with fire. “Always.”

Hinata’s hands are warm.

Tobio tries not to think of it as some grand revelation instead of just a little fact he noticed when Hinata had grabbed his arms, going on about having hands of a god or something. But it sticks with him, rubbing him the wrong way and nagging the back of his mind as they continue on with the match against Kamomedai. It’s probably just nothing. It’s their second game of the day, so it’s not that hard to imagine that they’re a little more sweaty and hot than usual.

Still.

It isn’t that Tobio’s held Hinata’s hands before and knows how warm he normally is—because that definitely hasn’t happened—but he has been around Hinata long enough to know that he’s a little hotter than usual. Maybe he’s being paranoid, since the touch was so brief and quick to begin with, and Hinata had been spiking all day, but he can’t help but wonder if something’s up. Maybe it’s nothing. Hinata seems fine, his usual bright and bouncy self, so maybe there really isn’t anything to worry about.

Tobio puts the thought aside as the whistle blows and the ball goes up again. He doesn’t have time to think about anything else other than volleyball right now.

They lose the first set, and from then on it becomes one rough rally after another. Serve, receive, set, spike, block, receive again. Tobio has always enjoyed the thrill of it, the thundering of his heart beating louder than the cheers of the crowd, the adrenaline that rushes in and out of him like blood. He keeps his eyes on everyone on the court, watching the blockers and timing their movements. It’s the setter’s job, after all, to create openings for the spikers. Tobio does his best, locks down accuracy and precision and keeps at it until his movements are as consistent as breathing.

Even with his other teammates by his side, Tobio can’t help but feel Hinata’s fiery aura—like he knows where the middle blocker is without even looking. He’s especially fired up this time around, and Tobio knows it has something to do with Hoshiumi Kourai and a battle of little giants, and Hinata is trying to prove himself. He can hear Hinata calling for each toss without any words, and Tobio finds himself giving it to him when it feels right; he watches each time Hinata jumps and soars, right up into the air, slamming the ball past the blockers each time. The announcer roars with the words of Karasuno’s first-year combo’s super quick, and Hinata reaches the peak with every jump.

It’s at a standstill point in the game when Hinata turns to him, a wild look in his eyes. Something’s changed now, a shiver in the air, and Tobio doesn’t do anything else but look back and listen to what he has to say.

“If someone was going to give me a nickname,” Hinata says, his eyes trained on a view ahead that only he can see. “Then I think the Strongest Decoy is a good one.”

And it’s like a culmination of what Tobio’s been trying to tell him right from the start—that Hinata doesn’t need to be the ace to be the coolest, or that he doesn’t need to chase after who the Little Giant once was to feel validated about his position. That being a decoy isn’t something to be ashamed of. It never has been.

“I’ve been saying it all along,” Tobio says, and he begins to walk back to his position on the court. “The Strongest Decoy is cool. It’s best after setter.”

After Hinata receives the ball, bumping it back into the air almost short of a miracle, Tobio watches as his sunset eyes latch on right onto Tobio’s own, the intensity of his unwavering even with the stakes held higher than they’ve ever been before. Do it, Hinata says. Give it to me.

And that’s exactly what Tobio does, watching as Hinata races up to the center of the court. Vividly, Tobio is reminded of that sunlit afternoon—the first time he’d ever set to Hinata, the memory flashing before his eyes with a warm sense of familiarity. It feels like that all over again, I’m here, and Tobio watches as Hinata slams the ball down, beaming as he lands back on the ground. He looks just like a flare of the sun, soaring so high that Tobio can’t help but grin back, feeling the success spread over him like a welcomed old friend.

And then Hinata Shouyou becomes Icarus.

His knees buckle, giving way as he falls to the ground, confusion written all over his face. Tanaka is the first to reach him, and Hinata tries sitting back up, his words coming out in little muddled mumbles, from stable to stumble. Tobio looks at the flush on his cheeks, and remembers the warmth of his hands. He recalls Hinata’s exhaustion from the night before, how easily he’d fallen asleep, and the ever-present pinkness on his cheeks.

In that instant, he understands.

“He probably has a fever,” Tobio says, looking directly at Hinata. “I didn’t think so much of it since he had been running around so much, but before, his hands were abnormally hot.”

“What are you talking about?” Hinata says loudly, already halfway enraged. The stone inside him hasn’t dropped yet, still sinking down and lower. “They were normal!”

Takeda doesn’t waste another moment before placing the back of his palm against Hinata’s forehead. His eyes widen in realization and worry, and he doesn’t need to say anything for Tobio to know he’s right.

“He’s been off since last night,” Tobio continues, and even if he doesn’t know what’s going to happen now, with Hinata getting taken off the court, it’s what needs to be done. “The first night he couldn’t even get out of the bath, but he was so high-strung all of yesterday. Normally after a match he would jump at eating, but he didn’t eat or rest until after the last match.”

Vaguely, Tobio wonders what this means about him, to have noticed so much about Hinata. But it makes sense, doesn’t it? Of course he’s going to notice these things. Hinata is his spiker. His friend.

“It’s like he’s had his switch always on,” he says, and Hinata’s lips wobble in denial. “So it wouldn’t be strange for him to run out of energy.”

There’s silence for a brief moment, everyone coming into terms for what it means now, maybe even wondering why they didn’t notice it earlier. Tobio wishes he’d pieced it all together sooner, maybe even from that first night. He should’ve said something.

“But it’s not like it hurts anywhere!” Hinata blurts out, coming to stand on his feet. Coach Ukai is quick to hold onto him, grabbing his arms. “I can still move! I can jump!”

Hinata’s eyes are wild and desperate. “I’m not injured!” he exclaims, but his voice is all wrong, hoarse and rough around the edges, each one like a sharp punch to the gut. He’s still trying to hold on. The stone keeps sinking. “I’m not injured!”

Tobio looks away as Takeda takes hold of Hinata’s hands, a gentle speech rolling right out of his tongue, coaxing tears of anguish and frustration out of Hinata’s eyes. You said you were going to win the gold medal some day, he says. And not just one.

“I’m sorry,” Hinata says, sniffing, head held low, eyes squeezed shut and hands clenched so tightly his knuckles are turning weight. It’s causing Tobio’s chest to ache in all the wrong ways. Yamaguchi helps Hinata up, allowing him to wrap an arm around his shoulders.

The stone hits rock bottom.

Tanaka tries to lighten up the mood with a joke, and even Tsukishima follows suit with a quick, harmless jab, and the rest of the second-years work fast to reassure Hinata that everything will be fine. Sawamura tells Hinata that they need him, and it’ll be hard without him, as honest as he always is, with the steadying and grounding words of a captain, but instructs him to rest up and eat well. Sugawara and Azumane remind him of the ginger fried pork waiting for him, and tell him to keep warm.

Heart thundering, Tobio steps forward. Now, more than ever, he needs the right words, the ones that will help push Hinata forward, to remind him that this is not the end just yet. Like what Takeda said—

This is also volleyball.

“I’ll be the one to stand on the court longest,” Tobio says, to remind him of their promise. The first one they ever made, with those pink skies beyond them, and it feels like then all over again, but stronger than before. Mightier and heavier, with much more importance. “I win this time too.”

Hinata wipes at his face, and the look he gives Tobio will stick with him for the rest of the years to come—the unyielding determination, the conviction that he, too, remembers what they said that day. That he understands that it isn’t over just yet. Not until they reach the top. There will still be a next time.

“Hinata Shouyou!” Hoshiumi yells from the other side of the court. “I’ll be waiting for you!”

And Hinata says nothing, just bows forward, and in that silence a million words are said—because this is just another chapter in the story, and he isn’t done rewriting everything, not yet. He will return, and he will play volleyball, and he will win. He’ll be back.

He’ll make sure of it.

Tobio watches as Yachi escorts Hinata out of the gym, and his chest feels heavy with what’s just transpired. He thinks of Hinata’s sunset eyes, and how’d they looked when they all realized it—his fire had blazed bright just to flicker and drown out, shadows cast around the spaces on his skin. The door shuts behind them, forcibly shutting down the sun.

But the game continues on.

Today, you are the defeated.

Which will you be tomorrow?

In the darkness of a still room, the door opens quietly. A sliver of light flows into the room, but the sleeping body remains undisturbed, eyes still closed.

Another shuffles in, sits by the bed without saying a word. Silently, he places a glass of milk by the bedside table, and hopes that it will still be warm by the time the other wakes. For a moment, he lets himself listen to the steady breathing, and thinks of the past.

As long as I’m here, you’re invincible.

A promise. An exchange.

After a few moments, he gets up, and leaves, careful not to make any other sound. The sleeping boy stirrs, sits up and finds the milk on the table, already understanding who’s come by. He takes it, feels the warmth in his hands, and sips at it before going back to sleep.

A little memory, a slip of time only for them to keep.

They’re eighteen meters apart, maybe.

Eighteen, if you took a ruler and measured it, counted the steps that stand in between them. It’s a wide gap, from one end of the gym to the other, where one’s sitting and the other’s standing. They don’t make eye contact, looking away from one another like a glance would be poison, and it’s a lot heavier than it should be, and none of them speak a word to bridge the space between them.

Perhaps there are just moments when words aren’t enough, and something else must take its place.

But first: Shouyou is standing, trying serve after serve, even after he keeps failing and botching up each one. Frustration grows like a wild beast that’s getting more difficult to control with each passing moment, and as the minutes trickle by, the worst outcome is that it will win anyway. But he is made of harder, sturdier things, and he’s weathered his fair share of tragedy, and he can still remember with detailed clairity what it had felt like to get pulled out of a game, just when things had been going so well. It builds up and up and up inside of him, until his chest feels heavy and the anger seeps out of him to heat his skin like burning fire, and he just knows that he has to do better, that he will can’t just sit by, and that he needs to do something to deserve that second chance.

He won’t let it happen again. He’ll keep playing games and he’ll win them all and he’ll reach the top and prove just to everyone how high he can go without falling. He imagines scars on his back just to testify that he’d nearly done it once, that he had climbed and nearly reached the heavens just to fall short of it. And he’ll be able to say that he already knows what it’s like to fall from the sky, and repeat that he’ll try again, again and again and again, until he’s made concrete of the clouds and knows his place in the sky. He’ll do it a million times over if that’s what it takes, because a fever is not an excuse but a lesson, and he knows better now. He knows when to be reckless, to reach for things even with the slim chance of happening, to try just for the hell of it and to see if they’ll be able to block it; but he’s also just learned to be careful, to care for himself as he would care for the sport, because there is no game if there are no players, and there’s only so far he can go before his body gives up on him, even if his mind can go even further.

So he’s trying. He’s trying, and he’s going to win, and he’s going to make it to the top. Because Hinata Shouyou does not go back on promises, and he has to be there if he wants to learn invincibility. He’s started from the ground so many times that the starting line has grown familiar like a second home, but to be able to fly he needs to learn how to fall—and fall he has. He’ll do better this time. He’ll get it right. He won’t let anyone down. He’ll prove it—to the world, and to himself.

He’ll show them all.

Then, eighteen meters over: Tobio is sitting by the wall, unsure of what he’s doing or where he’s supposed to go. All he knows is that his competitive spirit burns brighter than any sun, that it is on the same level as the boy whose palms are bleeding red and stinging with force of his continuous serves. That this competitive spirit of theirs is what got them here in the first place, and that he’d feared that the past few events would only cause the other’s to burn out—except he’s never been happier to be wrong, because it seems to only twist and turn into an inferno now, blazing brighter than before, and he doesn’t know how quite to approach it.

I win this time too, and it had been true, and it had been real. It had been part of their promise, of their tallied scores that rest on a sheet of paper on the club room (but it’s really only for formalities, when he thinks about it, because their little numbers are engraved on his chest like a tattoo under his skin; while he’s not all that academically bright, Tobio is better at remembering all the important things, and this is damn near the top of the list). He knows why he said those words, and so does Hinata, but there is something else that’s there. He doesn’t call it a setback, not quite, because it isn’t, and Hinata is a storm that seems to be running on frustration alone, and Tobio knows firsthand that doing so will only result poorly.

He knows he should go over there. He should tell Hinata to stop, because it isn’t even practice hours, and no one else is in the gym except them. He’d come in just to think for a bit, to rest after class when Hinata hadn’t called him for lunch like he usually does, and it had not been less than ten minutes that Hinata himself had walked in. He’d glanced at Tobio, and his expression shifted—into something Tobio had only seen a handful of times before. It was a mix of determination and frustration, his eyes as dark as the setting sun on winter evenings, and Tobio hadn’t managed to get a single word out before Hinata picked up the ball and started serving.

He hasn’t looked at Tobio since.

And Tobio has seen this before. He’d seen it in Oikawa back years ago, and he’d seen it in himself after his team had left him in middle school. He knows what it’s like to have that frustration fester into something feral and deep, to nearly have it control you and overwhelm all of your other senses. It had felt like drowning, and he didn’t know which way was home, to safety and to land, and all the lighthouses seemed to evade him even when he was cast in an eternal night.

(And then, he thinks to himself, he’d met Hinata. He’d been following that light ever since.)

So he really should go over there and say something, but he’s been trying to come up with the right words to say for the last twenty minutes, and they’ve never been his strongest suit. He doesn’t even know if he’ll get through to Hinata—if he promises Hinata invincibility, will he even listen? Will the words be enough?

Shaking his head, Tobio decides that words aren’t what’s going to patch this all up. Words have never been the language that he and Hinata communicate best in. Even with that strange telepathy they seem to have going on sometimes, Tobio knows that it isn’t through any Japanese word that will get Hinata to listen to him.

There’s only one language they’ve both been proficient in from the start.

Tobio stands up, and crosses that divide—meter by meter, until it shrinks between his feet. Hinata doesn’t have seemed to have noticed him yet; he’s picking up another ball to serve. Tobio plants his feet on the ground, but doesn’t station himself immovable, keeping his toes light. He stands on the other side of the net, and waits.

And as Hinata runs up to serve the ball, Tobio meets him there.

With his receive, the ball falls to the spot where the setter would’ve been standing, and he watches as it bounces once, twice, before rolling away. Silence captures the gym once more, and Tobio swears that in the stillness, the air had turned palpable enough for him to grab it.

Tobio looks over to Hinata and finds that same expression, but there’s something else now—a flash of understanding. Hinata understands what he’s trying to say. Of course he does.

It’s volleyball, after all.

Tobio nods, and Hinata blinks, then his shoulders sag just slightly, the look on his face flickering into something a bit more mellow, like the time is moving backwards and the sun begins to rise up again in his eyes. I’m here, he tells Hinata, when he picks up another ball, aims it at him to receive. You’re not alone. Hinata bumps it back over to him, and he tosses it back—and they pass it again to each other, over and over, a cycle that flows between them. This is how they speak, it’s how their river runs.

And eventually, Tobio goes to cross whatever meters left between them, ready to tell Hinata that it’s enough for the day. This isn’t the end, not for the both of them, and definitely not for Karasuno. Even if the third-years graduate and team changes, they’ll still be here, partners, and they’ll do everything they can to make it to the top.

He opens his mouth to say it, Hinata shakes his head with a gentle smile, and it tells Tobio that he already knows.

His smile is a little less bright than usual but genuine all the same, and Tobio sees the gratitude in his eyes. The light comes back slowly, carefully, and it’s not as it once was, but it’s enough for now. Muted, but sharper. Knowing. Tobio nods in understanding, and they pick up the balls, one by one, before packing it away. And when they leave the gym, it is with lighter hearts and lungs, and the wind comes in to sweep the rest of their guilt away.

They still have so much more to go.

From: Hinata

what are your thoughts on pandas?

 

To: Hinata

Please go to sleep

 

To: Hinata

They’re big and look very soft

 

“I will now be handing out your tests,” Shouyou’s English teacher says, and the stack of papers in her hands stares right back at him ominously. “Please go over your scores. You may leave once you’ve received your paper.”

Shouyou’s foot taps relentlessly against the hardwood, fingers hooked around his table as he waits for the teacher to call out his name. Pulse quickening underneath his skin, he’s really hoping for a good score. He doesn’t want to disappoint Yachi again, and he’ll prove Tsukishima—that smug bastard—wrong this time around. Plus, he’s got a bet riding on getting high marks, and he’s not going to lose.

“Hinata-kun,” the teacher calls out, and Shouyou shoots straight to the front of the classroom, taking the sheet of paper from his hands. His eyes zero in on the red marking on the top right corner of his exam, and feels his heart thud in anticipation.

Without another moment to waste, he bolts out of the classroom, zooming past the people surrounding the doorway. There are a few yelps while he shouts back apologies, not looking back. But he doesn’t need to make it too far to reach where he has to go, because it’s decided to meet him halfway.

Kageyama narrows his eyes, his own test held in his hand. “What did you get?” he asks. A part of Shouyou thinks it’s funny that they’re having a semi-showdown in the middle of a hallway, but nothing can quite beat their first meeting in terms of places to be when facing a rival.

Shouyou grins, triumphant. He holds out his paper to show Kageyama. “Eighty-nine.” He’s been getting a lot better at English lately, all thanks to Yachi and her wonderful tutoring sessions.

Then Kageyama’s face falls, and Shouyou knows he’s won. Huffing, Kageyama crosses his arms, and sighs resignedly, eyebrows pinched together. “Fine. You win this time.”

“What’d you get, huh? What’d you get, Kageyama?” Shouyou teases, stepping closer to circle around Kageyama. “Show me, show me!”

Kageyama scowls, a light flush coming to rest on his cheeks. “Eighty-two, alright? Messed up on the last part.”

“Aww, it’s okay, Kageyama-kun, not everybody can be as good as me,” Shouyou says, patting Kageyama’s arm in an attempt to fake-comfort him, trying to hold back his laughter. Grades are fair-game when it comes to making fun of each other for it, mostly because neither of them are too insecure about it. “Maybe I can tutor you next time!”

“No thanks,” Kageyama says without missing a beat. “Yachi’s a way better teacher than you are.”

“You wound me,” he says dramatically, placing a hand on his head for even more effect. Laughing, he faces Kageyama again properly, and bounces on his toes. “But anyway! I won! You know what it means, right?”

Kageyama rolls his eyes. “Tsk. Can I say no?”

“Nope!” he says cheerfully, rocking back and forth on his feet. “It means,” he continues on, grinning widely, “that you have to come over to my house this weekend!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kageyama says, waving him off with a hand. The other alternative was that they went over to Kageyama’s place, which Shouyou was excited about too, but he’d thought it would be pretty nice to have Kageyama over. They’re going to play some video games—this whole thing began because Kageyama admitted to never playing a single one, and Shouyou decided to take matters into his own hands—and eat some of the junk food he’s been saving up for special occasions. Maybe they can even play some volleyball after, of course, because it’s what ties them together before anything else. “I’ll come over.”

“I’ll give you directions so you don’t get lost,” Shouyou tells him, and oh, he’s already so excited! “It can be pretty far, so you should bring a bike.”

Kageyama hums in agreement. “Okay,” he says. “Can we go eat lunch now? I’m hungry.”

“Oh, right!” Shouyou says, grinning. “I’ll go get my lunch, and I’ll meet you there. Tree or rooftop?”

“Rooftop. The grass is full of snow,” Kageyama answers, nodding once, before turning around into the direction of his classroom.

Shouyou hurriedly goes back into his own, crosses and curves around the desks until he reaches his, with his other papers and pens strewn messily over it. He stacks them into a neat pile, tucks his pens into the corner, and grabs his bento box from under his table. His mom had wrapped it in a yellow sheet with little orange suns decorating them; it’s one of Shouyou’s favorites.

When he steps out of the classroom, Kageyama is already there waiting for him, leaning against the wall, his own lunch clutched in his hand.

“Someone’s excited,” Shouyou teases, looking at the frown on Kageyama’s face.

“I’m hungry,” Kageyama grumbles, and Shouyou laughs. They turn the corner to start climbing up the stairs, and Shouyou skips every other step, beating Kageyama to the top.

Pushing the door open, the cold air is there to greet him, numbing his nose slightly. He walks over to the side to find a dry spot, and sits down comfortably. There’s no one else here today, he notes, probably because winter is beginning to come in full force. Shouyou’s always been pretty good at keeping warm, though.

Kageyama sits down next to him, placing a milk carton down next to his lunch as he brings out his chopsticks. The wind blows against his hair softly, a chilly breeze, but the setter doesn’t really seem to be affected.

Pointing to Kageyama’s tomatoes, Shouyou says, “I can take those again, if you want.”

“Please,” Kageyama says, handing his off. It’s too bad Shouyou doesn’t have any carrots to trade him for, but it’s all okay, as long as they both eat well. “I’ve got some stuff to do in the morning, but I’ll probably be at your house by noon. Is that okay?”

“Yup!” Shouyou says, shoveling bites into his mouth. “Oh, I’m gonna kick your ass at Mario Kart, Kageyama. You’ll never see me coming.”

“It’d be more convincing without all the food in your mouth,” Kageyama says dryly, but there’s a light smile on his lips. He scoffs. “As if I’m ever gonna let you beat me at anything.”

“My house, my rules!” Shouyou sing-songs, laughing as he dodged another one of Kageyama’s swipes at him. It’s basically a reflex by now. “Oh, you’ll also get to meet my sister!”

Kageyama’s eyes widen. In that instant, his expression changes from competitive to almost nervous—maybe even scared. “Your sister’s gonna be there?” he asks hesitantly.

“Yeah, duh,” Shouyou says, waving his chopsticks. “I’ll try to ask her not to bother us too much, but she can get kinda noisy sometimes.”

“I’m not—I’m not that good with kids,” Kageyama admits softly. Shouyou knows that the same thing is true for the setter and small animals, and that Kageyama wishes it weren’t, so he knows it’s one of the topics he isn’t really allowed to make fun of. “They find my face scary.”

“Natsu won’t be afraid of you, dummy,” Shouyou reassures him. “She’s my sister, remember? Hinatas aren’t scared of anything!”

Kageyama gives him a disbelieving look, but Shouyou doesn’t waver. “You were scared of me when we first met.”

Shouyou makes an offended sound. “That’s—that’s ‘cause I was really nervous! It was my first game!” he argues. “And besides, I’m not scared of you anymore, right? I got used to your face and that smile you do. It’s even getting better these days, you know! Like when you aren’t trying that hard.”

Kageyama flushes pink again, and he nods hesitantly. “Okay,” he says after a while. “But if she runs away, you’re not allowed to blame me, got it?”

“Definitely!” Shouyou says, grinning. “You’ll see, Kageyama. It’ll be fine.”

It is not fine.

Tobio thinks that Hinata is probably the biggest liar he’s ever met. Maybe he doesn’t know what fine means, or that you’re not supposed to lie to your friends to begin with, because this clearly isn’t fine. It’s the farthest thing from it, actually.

It’s not fine, because there’s a little girl standing in front of him when he had been expecting to see Hinata, not a smaller version of him, with little pigtails puffing out of her head and the same warm brown eyes. He had rung the doorbell hoping it would go smoothly, but it’s already starting off quite terrible.

He really should’ve tried harder on that test.

“Who are you?” she asks him, eyes narrowing in suspicion, her hands on her hips. It’s more threatening than Tobio thinks it should be.

“Uh, I—I’m Kageyama Tobio. Is Hinata—uh, Shouyou?—is Shouyou here?” Tobio manages to say, desperately looking around for a sign of another head full of orange hair. “He, um. He said I could come over.”

She squints up at him, before gasping, her eyes widening. “Are you the Tobio? Like the one nii-chan’s always talking about? That Tobio?”

Tobio flushes with the implication of her words. “Um…yes? I think so,” he says, and he figures that he should try his luck with a smile—it’s already going so terribly, what’s one more? He smiles, and he figures he must be doing it wrong, because Hinata’s sister takes a step back, but then her face changes into a bright grin, and that only makes Tobio even more confused. Maybe it’s a Hinata thing, to be able to smile like that.

“Yeah, it’s you for sure!” she says, her smile all toothy and sideways. “Nii-chan said that you look a bit funny when you try too hard to smile, but that’s just how your face is. Oh! Since you’re here, you could—”

“Kageyama! You’re here!” Hinata says, finally appearing by the doorway. His eyes light up at the sight of Tobio. “I didn’t think you’d come so early!”

“I told you noon, didn’t I?” Tobio says, feeling the relief wash over him. He’s gonna tell Hinata off later for leaving him to deal with his sister, but for now he’s just glad he’s here. He glances over at the little girl again, who’s gone back to staring up at him with wide eyes.

“This is my sister, Natsu,” Hinata says, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Natsu, this is Kageyama. He’s a setter on our team.”

“Nii-chan likes talking about you a lot,” Natsu says, as though completing her thought from earlier. “He says you give the bestest tosses! And that you’re his partner, and that—”

“Yeah, that’s enough,” Hinata says quickly, red on his cheekbones, clamping a hand over Natsu’s mouth. Kageyama smirks. “Okay, we can go ahead up to my room now. Natsu, you’ve got homework to do, right?”

“But I wanna play with Tobio-chan too!” Natsu whines. “I was gonna ask him if he wanted to have a make-over!”

Hinata stifles a laugh behind his mouth as he looks up at Kageyama. “Yeah, he’d like that, wouldn’t he?”

“I never said—”

“Maybe later you can try putting some of your hair clips on him,” Hinata says, that mischievous glint in his eye only sharpening when Natsu cheers in delight.

“I have so many new stickers I wanna try! Is it really okay, Tobio-chan?” Natsu asks, directing her attention to him. “Really?”

Tobio shoots a pointed glare at Hinata before turning back to the little girl before him. He shifts his weight to his other foot awkwardly. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, sure. Later.”

“Yay!” she exclaims, beaming. She bounces on her toes, and the action is so familiar that Tobio can’t help but smile a little. And just like that, she runs off, and Tobio feels the tension loosen from his shoulders.

With Natsu gone, Tobio rounds on Hinata, narrowing his eyes, jabbing a finger to his chest, and says, “Dumbass, you said it would be fine!”

“Wasn’t it?” Hinata says, and he has the audacity to act all innocent—tilting his head in confusion, and raising an eyebrow. But Tobio knows the truth: Hinata probably meant for this to happen, that little gremlin bastard. “I thought it went pretty well.”

“She was glaring at me!”

“But she didn’t seem scared of you, did she?” Hinata points out. “She even wants to play with you! I call that a success, Tobio-chan.”

“Shut up,” Tobio says, and his chest feels warm all over again, but this time a bit stronger. He can’t pin it down, but it’s different when Hinata says his name.

(A little like it’s always meant to be there.)

Hinata claps his hands. “Okay! Come on, we can head upstairs, I already got the game set up and everything.”

Towing his shoes off and carefully setting them aside, Tobio follows Hinata as they round the hallway to find the living room. It’s very well-lived in, and he can easily imagine it as a place where someone like Hinata grew up, as bouncy and excitable as he is. Crayons are littered over the table, little origami pieces, and books stacked messily into a corner. The pillows are mismatched on the couch, only a kotatsu at the center, and there are several picture frames hanging on the walls. Tobio moves closer to get a good look at them, and finds Hinata in a lot of them. There are photos of him when he was a little kid, gap-toothed and lopsided smiles, climbing trees and playing games. There’s one where he’s carrying Natsu, matching twin grins and fiery red hair.

“You were so small,” Tobio comments, stopping on a photo of Hinata from his childhood, a summer afternoon on the beach. He’s holding a plastic red bucket in one hand, and a shovel in the other, stance wide as he stands tall and determined. He’s ankle-deep in the water, a swipe of sun lotion white across the bridge of his nose, all his freckles popping out and mapping out constellations on his cheeks.

“I think I was nine there,” Hinata tells him, a wistful smile gracing his lips as he imagines the memory. “I made the best sandcastles, you know!”

Tobio hums, and he lets his eyes linger on the photos for a little longer, thinking to himself that maybe Hinata’s eyes have always looked like that—with a little bit of the sunset in them. Then, finally having enough, he turns to Hinata. “You were okay-looking as a kid, I guess. Not ugly, at least.”

Hinata seems to brighten up almost instantly, not one to ever miss an opportunity of teasing. “Kageyama! You think I was cute?”

“I never said that,” he says, rolling his eyes. But his attempt is futile; Hinata’s grin is blown wide, and Tobio can feel the heat creeping up on his cheeks. He’s been really slipping up lately—saying things that end up as halfway vague compliments when he used to say nothing at all. Maybe it’s a side effect of Hinata-overexposure, who’s always giving out compliments like it’s as easy as breathing. “Let’s just go play already.”

Hinata laughs, but leads Tobio up the stairs, turning to the left when they make it to the top. There are three different closed doors, and another that’s swung open to reveal a bathroom. Hinata’s is the last that they pass by, at the very corner of the house.

“Ta-da! This is my room!” Hinata says as he twists the doorknob, pushing the door open. At first glance, Tobio already knows that the best word to describe is bright, and the second is messy. Clothes are piled by the corner, sheets of paper strewn over the desk and bed, and three volleyballs are tucked into a corner, ready to be used at any given moment. The bed is haphazardly made, an old stuffed toy of a crow resting in the corner. There are pictures on the wall here, too, with faces Tobio doesn’t recognize, and some he does.

There’s one of boys in a green uniform, Hinata standing proudly at the center, the number 1 emblazoned right on top of his chest. Tobio recognizes it—the team he’d gone against back at middle school. Hinata’s first team. There’s a couple more with Natsu in them, and some of Karasuno, too. Tobio’s surprised to find himself in more of them than he’d expected—one of him, Hinata, and the other first-years in the sun, three photos of the whole team (there’s one from Nationals), and another of just the two of them. It’s from their training camp in Tokyo; Tobio had been pulled to Hinata’s side for a photo on Hinata’s phone, and he’d done his best to smile while Hinata held up a peace sign and a wide grin. It doesn’t look too bad, really. Secretly, he feels a little touched that Hinata had liked it enough to put it up on his wall.

“I’ll just get it started,” Hinata says, flopping down onto a green bean bag on the floor. Tobio takes the blue one next to him, folding his legs together. Hinata hands him a controller, which Tobio looks at confusingly.

The screen lights up, and Tobio watches as Hinata presses a couple of controls. He helps Tobio pick out a character—he picks out Peach, because she looks like a winner, and Hinata closes his eyes and randomly mashes the buttons to land on a random character and explains he usually chooses depending on who he thinks is funniest-looking that day.

Hoping that button mashing will be enough, Tobio holds the control steady in his hands. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Hinata stick his tongue out, eyes focused with determination. It’s almost like a reflex by now—if Hinata is fired up, then so is he, and his heart begins to beat quickly in the idea of competition.

“I’m going to win,” Tobio states, mostly just to say it. He doesn’t have much experience in playing video games, but he does have experience in beating Hinata at things, so that should be enough, right?

He’s not completely wrong. In the end, he loses to Hinata in the first round, but gets a hang of it by the second. Hinata swore it was just beginner’s luck, but Tobio was determined to prove him wrong, which is how they ended up playing even more, with a final score of 13-12 in Hinata’s favor. Tobio thinks it’s unfair because the tiebreaker had been some freakishly hard and long rainbow-colored road that was nearly impossible to navigate, and Hinata kept throwing objects at him. Hinata kept yelling at him to stop cursing, too, because Natsu was home and the walls weren’t too thick. He tried to negotiate for another rematch, but then Natsu had thrown the door open and told them that they’d been playing for hours already, and that it was her turn to play now.

Which is how he finds himself now, sitting in the middle of Hinata’s bedroom floor, two pink star stickers on his left cheek and three clips in his hair.

“Do you want these heart stickers too?” Natsu asks him, sitting criss-cross in front of him, eyebrows furrowing at the sticker sheet in her hand. Her tongue sticks out in contemplation.

“Okay,” Tobio answers, and out of the corner of his eye he can see Hinata trying to stifle his smile with the back of his hand. He flushes pink, growing more and more embarrassed. “Shut up, idiot. I can hear you laughing.”

“No, I’m not!” Hinata says, but he’s grinning anyway, not trying to hide his amusement at all. At least Tobio isn’t the only one who looks completely ridiculous—Hinata’s got five colorful clips scattered around in his hair, a heart on the tip of his nose, diamonds on his cheeks, and stars all over his arms.

“I need to tie up your hair,” Natsu tells him just as she finishes placing heart stickers on his right cheek and forehead, picking out a bright blue ponytail. She curls her fist around Tobio’s middle part, tying it up to keep it out of his eyes. “There,” she says, patting his head. She beams. “Done!”

Hinata laughs as Natsu moves out of the way, sitting back to admire her handiwork. “Awww, Kageyama almost looks cute!” he teases, and Tobio tries to swipe at him, only for Hinata to dodge it perfectly. “Good job, Natsu!”

“He is cute!” Natsu exclaims with a bright smile. “Tobio-chan, please go sit next to nii-chan, I want to take a picture!”

“Oh, no,” Tobio says, horrified, as Hinata cackles, and he doesn’t waste another moment before bringing himself to Tobio’s side, bumping into his arm and squishing their sides together. “No, no, no, no.”

“Natsu, use my phone!” Hinata says, clearly enjoying every second of it as he tosses his phone over to his little sister. He’s like a little gremlin. Tobio doesn’t know why he even bothers.

“Smile!” Natsu says, holding up the phone. As the flash goes off, Hinata loops his arm around Tobio’s, catching the setter off guard, a heavy flush to his cheeks with all the embarrassment that the whole ordeal brought.

Hinata takes the phone from Natsu to look at the photo, laughing loudly once more at the result. “Oh my god, I love it, I’m going to make it my wallpaper.”

“What—”

“Nii-chan, I want a picture with Tobio-chan too!” Natsu says, and it’s her turn to sit next to him, bright eyes looking right up at him with a large grin.

“I hate this,” Kageyama mutters.

“No, you don’t,” Hinata says, snickering. “Okay, okay! Three, two, one! Smile!”

Ten more pictures later—three of which are of the siblings, four more of Tobio, and Hinata, another of him and Natsu, and two of all three of them—Tobio checks the time to see that he should probably get going soon. The sun’s already begun to set through the windows, bleeding pink and orange into the skyline. Daylight is a lot shorter now in the winter.

“But you just got here!” Hinata whines. His lips turn downward into a frown, but it’s not very convincing with all the stickers plastered onto his face.

“I’ve been here for six hours,” Tobio deadpans as he picks himself back up from the floor.

“You could stay for dinner?” he asks, voice a little hopeful.

Tobio feels warmth settle on his cheeks again. Having to meet Natsu was already so overwhelming, he’s not sure if he could deal with introducing himself to Hinata’s parents too. “I can’t,” he says, wincing slightly.

Hinata’s face falls. “Oh.”

“But,” Tobio says, and he genuinely hates it, he hates how something in his chest stings at the thought of letting Hinata Shouyou down for reasons that aren’t even volleyball-related. This is dumb and stupid, and he doesn’t even owe Hinata this, but for some inexplicable reason he’s promising it anyway. “Maybe—maybe next time.”

Hinata’s face lights up immediately, stepping closer to Tobio. This close, he can see all of Hinata’s freckles, maybe even count them. “Really? You mean it? You’ll come over again?”

He takes a step back instinctively, holding his hands up in defense, his cheeks growing hotter by the second. Stupid Hinata, always making Tobio feel so weird all the time. “I mean—dumbass—that’s not—”

“Next week, then! You can come over next week!” Hinata says eagerly, bouncing, and his eyes are doing that sparkle thing again, and Tobio doesn’t understand it at all. He’s never really had anyone ask him to come over before, much less twice.

“That’s—don’t you think that’s too soon?” Tobio says, and he’s trying to be gentle, to not make it seem like he doesn’t want to go (because he thinks he does, even if he’ll get his ass kicked in video games and Natsu will be there again to put stickers on his face).

“Why not?” Hinata says, tilting his head in confusion. And Tobio doesn’t get how he doesn’t understand that things like these aren’t Tobio’s forte. “We can do our homework together this time. And Natsu seems to really like you. I doubt she’ll shut up about you now, so you should definitely come over.”

“She does?” Tobio hadn’t thought he made a good impression.

“Yeah!” Hinata answers. He pushes the door to his bedroom open, leading them into the hallway. “You were really nice about the whole make-over thing. It was really funny, obviously, but you didn’t need to let her do all that stuff if you didn’t want her to.”

Tobio shrugs. “I’m used to it,” he says. Then, without much thinking, he adds, “My sister’s a hair stylist. She liked to practice on me when we were younger.”

Hinata’s head whips around so fast that Tobio barely even has time to react before he’s yelling, “You have a sister?”

“Yeah,” he says, wincing a little at the volume, nose scrunching up.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Hinata demands, throwing his hands up in the air.

Tobio stands at a loss for words, because in truth, he’s not sure why he did in the first place. It’s not like Miwa is a secret or anything, it’s just not really something that comes up in conversations a lot, in his opinion. And as for his grandfather…well, Tobio doesn’t really like talking about it.

He shrugs, and decides to just say, “I didn’t think it was that important?”

“It’s important!” Hinata says just as they reach the bottom of the staircase. “Is she older than you? By how much? Do you have any more siblings? Are you the youngest? What’s she like? Can I meet her—”

“One at a time,” Tobio interrupts, already feeling a little dizzy. He swallows, pushing down the weird feeling in his stomach. He doesn’t get why Hinata wants to know so much, or why he’s going to answer his questions anyway. “Uh, her name—it’s Miwa. She’s eight years older than me, and it’s just me and her. She’s okay, I guess. It’s been a while since I last saw her, but she comes home to visit sometimes. So, um, no, you can’t meet her. And what the hell, why would you even want to?”

Hinata gives him a look, like the answer should be obvious. “Of course I want to meet her! You’re my friend, and she sounds so cool!”

Tobio feels another blush creep onto his cheeks. “Dumbass.”

Hinata ignores him, choosing instead to continue rambling on about how cool it would be to have an older sibling. In just a few moments, they reach the front door, and Tobio slips his shoes back on.

“So like I was saying,” Hinata says as he pulls the door open. The sun’s mostly set now, and the winter air makes its way towards them in a swift breeze. “You can come over again next week, but only if you want to.”

Tobio nods, taking his blue scarf from the rack and wrapping it around his neck. “Okay,” he says, because he needs to pretend to have at least a little bit of self-preservation left, even if he knows that the answer is definitely yes.

Hinata grins, like he already knows. His eyes flash with something brilliant, and in it Tobio can already see the image of a boy taking flight. “I’ll see you at practice, Kageyama! You better toss to me!”

Tobio rolls his eyes, but there’s a trace of a smile to his lips despite it all. “Then you better receive well first,” he tells Hinata. Stepping outside, he turns to Hinata one more time. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah!” Hinata says, and then the door closes, leaving Tobio to stand outside of the house.

Facing the evening sun, Tobio heads home with a warm, light feeling in his chest even in the cold. He’s not sure if it has something to do with Hinata, or the pork curry with egg he’s planning on making for dinner, but either way, he doesn’t mind it in the slightest. He kind of likes it, even.

Maybe if he’s lucky, it’ll stay there with him, close to his heart, and never leave.