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It took Hitoka some time before she noticed the odd pattern. The volleyball gym was old, poorly ventilated and generally miserable during practice no matter what time of year and so the doors were usually left open. But in the weeks since they’d come back from Spring Nationals, Kageyama had taken to closing them, despite — objectively speaking — seeming quite hot.
Sweating, pausing for water breaks, panting hard during drills. Hot. Not subjectively hot. He was subjectively hot too, Hitoka thought, tall and broad with a handsome face and really pretty eyes and a calmer, kinder demeanor (once you got to know him), but that wasn’t the point! He was hot, and he was actively cutting off air circulation in the gym, even going so far as to close the doors after someone else had reopened them.
She didn’t mind, personally — where she stood as manager was often right in the path of the draft, and late January in Miyagi got cold.
“Kageyama-kun,” she called out to him as he pushed the door closed, “are you cold?” He looked at her, startled. She waved a hand. “It’s just that you keep closing the doors…I was wondering why?”
He blushed to the tips of his ears, mumbled something and all but ran away.
Kageyama didn’t close the doors again after that, despite glancing over towards them every so often. Hitoka felt bad, on the off-chance she’d embarrassed him, and the scene replayed in her head the next few days.
But he must have been getting chilly, because he brought his track jacket — usually left in the club room, she presumed — to the gym, dropping it on the bench with a pointed look towards her.
It took her another week to notice that he never put it on.
“I think Kageyama-kun gets cold during practices, and I think he’s embarrassed about it,” Hitoka told Yamaguchi during lunch one day.
He paused, chopsticks mid-grab on a piece of chicken, and looked up at her. “What?” he asked.
“It’s just,” she put her own chopsticks down, leaving both hands free to articulate. “He used to close the gym doors all the time, and then I pointed it out to him and I think I embarrassed him, and now he brings his jacket to practice but he never wears it, so I think he’s embarrassed about being cold. And I don’t know what to do!”
Yamaguchi blinked at her and broke out into snickers.
“You think Kageyama gets cold?”
“During practice, yes! Maybe where he stands is in the draft too…” she trailed off, trying to mentally map the path of invisible wind from one set of doors through the gym to the others.
“Kageyama, the space heater? Getting cold?”
Hitoka pursed her lips into as much of a scowl as she could manage. “Then what other explanation is there?”
Yamaguchi burst into full-blown laughter. “I don’t know, Yacchan, why don’t you ask him yourself? So nice of you to care about Kageyama-kun!” She blushed — skin tingling with the rush of blood to her face — sending Yamaguchi into another peal of laughter.
She stabbed a gyoza, imagining it was Yamaguchi’s hand instead.
Hitoka touched Kageyama’s wrist as he dropped his jacket next to her on the bench, enough to get his attention but not enough to startle. Not that Kageyama startled, but she didn’t want to come off as too aggressive. She’d already embarrassed him enough, she didn’t want him feeling like she was attacking him either.
He looked at her, cheeks vaguely flushed already.
“Kageyama-kun, do you get cold during practice?”
He cocked his head. “Huh?”
“Do you get cold during practice? You used to shut the doors, and now you bring your jacket.”
His eyes widened as he looked at her before mumbling and turning away.
Something felt different about today though, beyond the extra-cold air coming in from outside. He kept glancing towards the bench, eyes darting from her to the jacket and back to her. She was mentally cheering for him to just take it, put it on, to not be ashamed! She rubbed her arms in solidarity — look, she wanted to yell, she was cold too!
He headed her way during a pause between matches. She smiled up at him as he finally took the jacket and —
Draped it over her shoulders.
“Kageyama-kun?” she asked, confused.
He blushed, avoiding meeting her eyes. “You’re cold,” he murmured. “Wear this.”
Shocked silence fell over the gym for only a moment before the rest of the team broke out into whoops and cheers.
“FINALLY!” Hinata yelled.
Hitoka spent the rest of practice in a bit of a daze. A warm daze, the jacket providing an extra layer of protection against the chill, but a daze nonetheless.
All those times he’d closed the door were for her? He’d been leaving his jacket on the bench for her?
Kageyama who was smarter than he seemed, shyer than he pretended and sweeter than most people knew, was doing all these things for her?
Practice ended and, as usual, Hitoka waited for her year-mates outside the club room, still wearing Kageyama’s jacket.
“Kageyama-kun,” she called when they’d all made their way down the stairs. Hinata nudged him in the ribs with a wolfish grin. She took a deep breath and tamped down her anxiety as best she could. “Can I s-see your hand?”
He held one out for her, face guarded. She took it between her own.
“You really are a space heater,” she whispered, absorbing the heat of his palm as she laced their fingers together. But she looked up at him with a small smile and a not-so-small blush, giving a squeeze before letting their arms drop.
“My hands are cold too, I hope you don’t mind.”