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Kageyama is acting really weird.
Before this, Hinata wouldn’t have considered himself well-versed enough in Kageyama’s varying levels of weirdness to notice anything strange, but something’s definitely up.
He gets all skittish when Hinata whacks him bracingly on the shoulder during morning practice, and he barely says a word all day, even though Hinata purposely tries to lure him into at least six different arguments.
Worst of all, he doesn’t even retaliate when Hinata starts flicking breadcrumbs into his hair at lunch.
“What’s wrong with you?” Hinata finally asks, once he gets bored and realizes that uncontested crumbs hold no satisfaction.
Kageyama doesn’t appear surprised by the question. He stays quiet for a few more seconds, staring off into the distance in a way that might have been cool if not for all the bread in his hair. Hinata is on the verge of repeating himself before Kageyama speaks up.
“I’ll tell you later.”
“When?” Hinata demands.
“Later,” says Kageyama, the beginning of a snarl in his voice. It’s the most he’s sounded like himself all day.
Lunch ends not long after that, and Hinata spends the rest of his class time wondering what’s going on. At first he’d just assumed that Kageyama accidentally scared a cat on the way to school, but now he thinks something actually bad might have happened. What if someone’s harassing him? The thought fills Hinata with indignation. Harassing Kageyama is his job, and also sometimes Tsukishima’s.
By the time afternoon practice rolls around, Hinata’s come up with a number of possible scenarios, the least alarming of which is that Kageyama owes money to some burly guys who want to beat him up after school if he doesn’t come up with the cash. Daichi has them doing laps before he can ask about it, and after that he gets caught up in the rush of playing volleyball after an entire school day spent not playing volleyball.
However, Kageyama’s trapped expression as he waits for Hinata by the bike racks brings the situation right back to the front of his mind. As they set off down the street together, Hinata tries to think of the most tactful way to ask if he’s been scamming third years.
Kageyama ends up beating him to it, slowing to a stop underneath a streetlight after a few blocks of walking in silence. He looks so grimly resigned to his fate that Hinata opens his mouth without thinking.
“Listen,” he says. “Does someone wanna fight you? Are they really big? Maybe I can teach you some moves, or hide out on the sidelines until things get bad and then kind of bust in, you know, like pow—”
Kageyama gives Hinata a look of such intense disbelief that he forgets to put extra effort into deepening his frown, and then reaches out to slap him upside the head.
“No one’s trying to fight me, dumbass,” he says, shoving his hands into his pockets and glaring at the sidewalk.
“Jeez, fine,” says Hinata, rubbing the targeted area and giving him a reproachful look. “I was just saying you wouldn’t have to act all weird and quiet if someone was trying to fight you, because I’d help kick their ass.”
Figuring he’s risked enough bodily harm for one day, he decides not to pursue the subject any further, grabbing the handlebars of his bike and preparing to move on.
Kageyama, however, makes no move to keep walking. He’s giving Hinata the weirdest look yet in a day full of weird looks, like there’s some kind of intense struggle going on between his ears.
“Uh,” says Hinata, unnerved. “Do you wanna fight?”
Kageyama doesn’t answer. Instead, he moves forward and takes his hands out of his pockets, clapping them firmly against the sides of Hinata’s face.
“Shut up,” he says, voice kind of strangled, and his face is close, and then it’s really close.
For a few stunned moments Hinata thinks Kageyama is trying to headbutt him. Then he realizes that headbutting doesn’t involve this much mouth-on-mouth contact, and that probably they’re kissing.
At least, he thinks they might be. It feels more like some sort of complicated wrestling move, to be honest. Both of their mouths stay firmly shut, and Kageyama presses hard enough that Hinata can practically feel a bruise forming.
The kiss only lasts about four seconds until Kageyama pulls away, but he holds Hinata still for a moment after that and stares into his eyes like he has a question that desperately needs answering.
Whatever he’s looking for, he doesn’t seem to find it.
“Uh,” says Kageyama, bright red all the way to his ears. He drops his hands abruptly and speeds off down the street, somehow managing to be half a block away by the time Hinata even registers the loss of body heat.
— — —
Hinata has to think about it for a while, but after a few sleepless hours of tossing and turning, he’s more exasperated than anything else. Kageyama would go about something like this in the most baffling and unpleasant way possible, because Kageyama is a pretty baffling and unpleasant guy.
Well, sometimes he is. Hinata thinks about his blush and his panicked expression and his hands holding on carefully to the sides of Hinata’s face as he delivered the worst kiss of all time.
Then he thinks about how he might have felt if the kiss wasn’t horrible, and if Kageyama had stuck around afterwards for longer than a nanosecond. That’s a little more confusing, but he figures it out eventually, and after another half-hour of scheming he’s able to get to sleep.
The next morning, Hinata wakes up with a definitive plan of action in mind. Unfortunately, he also wakes up half an hour later than usual from staying up all night thinking about Kageyama, which means he has to wait until lunch to set the plan in motion.
Kageyama isn’t at any of their usual spots, and Hinata wonders for a second whether he was so embarrassed about yesterday that he actually stayed home from school. That doesn’t seem like him, though, and Hinata is determined not to let him off the hook that easy, so he begins the search.
Eventually, Hinata finds him holed up by some stairs at the remotest possible corner of the school, eating lunch by himself.
It’s pretty sad to watch him chew on his sandwich all alone like that, but it’s also kind of perfect. Phase one of the plan had been to drag Kageyama off somewhere they could be by themselves, and here they are.
Hinata creeps further down the hallway, advancing on Kageyama’s unsuspecting form. He has earbuds in and he always plays his shitty music at excessively high volumes, so he doesn’t notice a thing until it’s too late.
The intent had been to catch Kageyama by surprise and then smoothly make out with him, but instead Hinata accidentally knocks over his bento and gets the cord of his earbuds tangled around both their necks.
There’s no time for damage control now, not when Kageyama could recover from the shock and kick his ass at any moment. If he doesn’t do this right away he might never do it at all, so Hinata screws his eyes shut and goes in for the kill.
Tinny guitars emanate from the headphones currently strangling him as Hinata breathes out through his nose, attempting to angle his head the way they do in the movies. This is way harder and weirder than he thought it would be, but at least it doesn’t hurt as much as last time.
Kageyama is surprisingly docile underneath him, maybe because he likes it and maybe because they’re precariously balanced at the top of a flight of stairs. He might even be kissing back. Hinata slips a hand around the back of his neck encouragingly, kisses the corner of his mouth and his bottom lip before planting one more dead center and sitting back on his heels.
Phase three of the plan had involved giving Kageyama a lecture on how you couldn’t just do that to someone and then speed off into the night with no explanations, but he’s feeling short of breath and short on words.
Kageyama wrenches the headphones loose and moves back into a sitting position. He’s breathing as fast as he does when they race to the gym, and he’s looking at Hinata like he just grew a second head.
“What the hell was that?” he asks.
“It’s what you did to me!” says Hinata. “Did you forget already?”
Kageyama doesn’t seem to have an answer for that, so Hinata presses his advantage.
“If that’s what you were acting so weird about, it’s fine,” he says, graciously reaching over to right Kageyama’s overturned bento. “I didn’t mind it or anything. I mean, it wasn’t that great, but I guess it’s one of those things where you get better the more you do it. Like receives!”
Hinata expects a long and repetitive string of insults then, or maybe an attempt on his life. Instead Kageyama’s face starts doing something complicated that Hinata doesn’t understand at all, until he realizes that Kageyama is smiling but trying to disguise it by also frowning really hard.
“Yeah, okay,” he says, and he doesn’t sound any different than normal but somehow he does at the same time. “Hurry up and give me some of your food before lunch is over,” he adds, raising his voice over Hinata’s groan of protest.
— — —
After that there’s no kissing for a while, which Hinata is fine with. He’s not sure either of them have the fortitude or pain tolerance to make out constantly. They do a lot more casual shoulder-bumping than usual, though, and that’s pretty awesome.
Most of their time goes towards preparing for their first practice match in a while, against a school in another city.
It’s a pretty grueling match, and the opposing team’s offensive attacks are no joke, but they manage to win the first set and reach match point for the second one before their opponents get to twenty.
Kageyama tosses to him, and Hinata knows they’re about to win before he even jumps. His calf muscles are burning and sweat is dripping into his eyes, but everything else fades away when the ball appears in front of him. Time slows down and he spikes with all his might, getting it past the one blocker who isn’t preoccupied with Asahi on the other end of the court.
Tanaka’s shirt is already off by the time Hinata’s sneakers hit the gym floor, and Kageyama is grinning savagely when he looks over at him. Hinata takes advantage of this rare moment of goodwill to bob around excitedly in Kageyama’s personal space with no fear of getting shoved out of the way.
He has to take a break while they tell their opponents good game and listen to what Daichi and Coach Ukai have to say about how they can improve, but he goes right back to it once they start cleaning up the equipment.
Kageyama raises no objections, letting Hinata orbit around him and babble excitedly about the game while they chase after volleyballs.
“Did you see how I aimed behind #7? Actually I was trying to get it to the right of #4, but I totally looked cool, right?”
“What? No,” says Kageyama, and tosses in a “shut up” for effect.
Hinata is pretty proud that he can distinguish Kageyama’s cursory “shut up”s from the ones where it would be in his best interest to stop talking immediately. Most people probably think they all fall into the second category, but there’s a certain subtlety to it.
Cheerfully ignoring him, Hinata looks over to where both teams are gathering by the door as they finish their tasks, getting ready to line up and say goodbye.
“Hey, we should—” he starts, and then Kageyama comes up to stand next to him and there’s an arm hooked roughly around his shoulders, pulling him up against Kageyama’s side for the split second that it takes him to drop a kiss on top of Hinata’s head.
Kageyama detaches himself and starts moving towards the door so quickly that the whole thing almost could have been a hallucination. Hinata bounds after him, practically glowing.
“Kageyama! What even was that! I’m all sweaty, wasn’t it gross?”
“Yes,” says Kageyama, frowning halfheartedly. “You looked cool,” he mutters a few seconds later.
Hinata feels like he could levitate. They haven’t talked about anything but how to tighten their defense in the past few days, but he thinks he definitely wouldn’t mind kissing more, if Kageyama wants to. Which he obviously does, if he’s going around doing it in public while Hinata’s hair is all sweaty.
He’s too jazzed to sleep on the ride back to Karasuno, instead constructing an elaborate daydream that involves sweeping Kageyama off his feet after their victory at nationals and making out with him dramatically as the crowd roars. Also, he’s a foot taller.
Kageyama himself passes out after two minutes and ends up snoozing with his head on Hinata’s shoulder, way less stingy with bodily contact in sleep than in waking.
Hinata glances around and sees Daichi leaning in to look at something on Suga’s phone while Noya and Tanaka drool on each other. Everyone else is either asleep or looking out the window with headphones on, so Hinata feels pretty safe in doing what he’s about to do.
Surreptitiously and with utmost care, he leans over and gives Kageyama a quick kiss right on top of his head. His hair is soft, and it’s not gross at all.
He’s still sleeping when Hinata pulls back to study him, or at least pretending very convincingly, so Hinata settles back into his seat and thinks of the phantom stinging in his palm and feels Kageyama’s quiet exhales against the side of his neck.
— — —
“Wow, this is so boring,” says Hinata, and lobs the mechanical pencil he’s been using to doodle all over his math notes right at Kageyama’s head to prove his point.
Kageyama catches the pencil without even looking up and uses it to draw some question marks around a particularly mystifying problem. Hinata feels resentful of Kageyama’s perfect reflexes, and also the fact that he isn’t being paid attention to at the moment.
They study together all the time, but usually that involves more video games and lazy arguments on Kageyama’s floor than actual schoolwork. This time they have a test tomorrow, and while Hinata decided to cut his losses days ago, Kageyama is still clinging onto a last shred of hope that he might have a chance if he glares at the textbook long enough.
“You’re never gonna pass,” Hinata informs him. “The truth hurts, but you need to accept it.”
Kageyama snarls and throws the pencil back with devastating accuracy, but Hinata neatly dodges it instead of letting things escalate. The last time they started throwing school supplies, Kageyama’s dad had walked in and taken a notebook to the face.
“Let’s go outside,” says Hinata. It’s too dark to get any real practice in, but not late enough that Kageyama’s parents will object, and he needs a change of scenery.
“It’s too cold,” Kageyama says grumpily, but he’s already closing the book.
It is indeed cold outside, and there isn’t room to do much out front. They end up having a race around the block, which turns into best two out of three when Kageyama refuses to accept defeat gracefully.
After the third lap, they flop back down in the grass outside Kageyama’s house, breathing hard.
“I won twice,” says Hinata, grinning.
“I know that,” Kageyama scowls.
“What's my prize?”
Kageyama doesn’t say anything. When Hinata looks over, he’s blushing and his mouth is set in a stubborn line.
On a whim, Hinata starts ripping up blades of grass and piling them on top of Kageyama’s hand, which is resting in between them.
“You’re ruining the lawn,” Kageyama says as the pile grows, but he doesn’t move to disturb it.
Hinata snorts. “Like you care about that.”
Kageyama looks at him then, really studies him in a way that feels both familiar and unfamiliar at once. Hinata stops picking grass, and both of them lean in at the same time.
Actually, Kageyama leans forward a little bit and kind of hovers, and Hinata wonders what the hell he’s doing. It clicks after a second, and he leans forward and hovers too, so they’re sitting practically nose-to-nose in the semi-darkness.
Then they both lean in. Kageyama tastes sharp, like the outside, and at some point he’d dislodged the grass pile so that he could rest his hands on Hinata’s shoulders. He keeps pecking Hinata’s lips really softly and then moving away for half a second and then coming back in to do it again, which is nice but also slightly frustrating.
The next time Kageyama starts to pull away, Hinata holds his face in his hands and chases after him, keeping their mouths connected in a move he hadn’t known he was capable of until he pulled it off. Kageyama makes a surprised noise, but he pushes back into it a little, too. This is definitely the closest they’ve come so far to a cinematic makeout.
Hinata doesn’t want it to end after they break apart, and he keeps glancing at Kageyama’s mouth without really meaning to, which leads him to believe that they should probably try to have some sort of conversation about this.
“So,” he starts loudly once they both have their breath back. “Are you ever planning on—”
“Yeah,” Kageyama interrupts. His face is red, but his voice sounds steady. “I just—let me think about it. What I’m gonna say.”
“Okay,” says Hinata. It sounds fair enough. There’s no rush, anyway. “But can we—”
“Yeah,” Kageyama says again, and this time there’s no hovering to speak of.