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Now, it wasn’t Shouyou’s intention to eavesdrop in on the conversation happening in the locker room, but as luck would have it, the changing area was 1. Ridiculously tiny to begin with, and B. It was never clear who anyone was ever talking to in there. Conversations often overlapped between the entire volleyball team, even if it was a conversation specifically about the condition of someone’s distant cousin.
Everyone
would have a say in it.
So Shouyou found himself peering up from his hands digging into his duffel bag, to watch Kageyama blink with a sort of blankness that he could only interpret as
‘I have no idea what is happening right now’.
Tanaka and Nishinoya had been loudly chatting about a girl they saw with Kageyama earlier, but he doubted Kageyama had even noticed. They were asking him now though, and Kageyama just looked at them wide eyed, his fingers evidently stuck in the buttons of his shirt he was trying to undo.
“Sorry, what?” He asked.
Called it.
Tanaka wiggled an eager brow at him. “Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me-” Kageyama opened his mouth, probably about to explain that he really
hadn’t
heard him, but Tanaka continued before he got the chance. “Spill the beans. I saw you walk off with that girl just before practice! You tryna steal all the ladies from us, huh?”
Nishinoya seemed to have forgotten he was midway getting changed, because his shorts were left unnoticed around his ankles. Shouyou wasn’t much better himself, and he shivered at the realisation he hadn’t put his shirt on yet. He pulled it out of his bag, wrestling it on overhead.
Nishinoya, ignorant to his pantless state, gripped his hand at his chest dramatically, his voice wet with emotion. “Is it true? Is our youngest finally surpassing us with relationship goals? We thought we could trust you.”
Shouyou got his head out of his shirt safely, and he found himself watching as Kageyama grimaced at their seniors. “There’s nothing to talk about. I turned her down anyways.”
Shouyou stuck his tongue out of his mouth a little, grossed out. Kageyama somehow got girls following after him a lot, for some reason. A couple of girls from the class beside him once told him it had something to do with his looks and stoicness, but all Shouyou could see was his constant scowling marking permanent wrinkles across his brow. Maybe he’d wake up stuck that way someday. Like a premature grandpa. Maybe his hair would turn silver. What if it came in streaks? Wait, that sounded kind of cool actually.
He snapped out of his thoughts at the satisfying sound of Kageyama hissing in pain, Tanaka having slapped at his back. Shouyou bit the innards of his cheek to stop laughing at the fact that Kageyama’s hand was still stuck on the button of his collar.
“You weren’t supposed to
actually
be getting confessed too!” Tanaka wailed. “What the hell man!”
“What?”
Kageyama still hadn’t caught on, giving up on his stuck button. His shirt hung loosely from around his collarbone like the world’s shittiest cape, as he turned to face Tanaka. “I didn’t even ask for it. It bothers me too, you know.”
“Maybe you should just glare at them like they’re children or something,” Shouyou muttered under his breath. He once watched a child who was waiting at the school gate for their older sibling burst into tears the moment Kageyama asked them where their parents were. Shouyou had been teasing him afterwards for weeks, envigored at the later admission that the same thing happened with animals too.
Then he realised that he was in the tiny locker room space, where everyone could
absolutely
hear him, and squawked when he saw Kageyama’s signature Death Glare honing in on him. Shouyou felt his back press against the locker, regretting his life choices.
Seemingly blind to Shouyou’s demise, Nishinoya laughed, finally remembering to pull up his shorts. “Yeah! If you’re not willing to respect the ladies who dare approach you, then at least let them know you’re unavailable! Allow our window to open, you know?”
Kageyama brought his glare back to the focus of his stuck button, probably trying to use the Death Glare on freeing him from its hold. Apparently its only weakness was fabric, because the button didn’t budge.
“It’s not fair,” Tanaka growled, “We have to work so hard just to get a lady to even
look
in our direction, and you get them following you around like - like -
sparkles
in a shoujo manga-” Yamaguchi snorted into his sleeve mid-leaving the changing room. “-What do they even see in you?”
Kageyama, brimmed with irritance, shrugged his shoulders hard enough to make his lame cape dramatically flutter around his sides, revealing the most annoyingly perfect row of abs Shouyou had ever seen on a person in real life. “Beats me,” Kageyama sounded completely disinterested.
Shouyou wanted to cry. Tanaka was right, some people
did
have it too easy.
“Guys.”
Shouyou jumped in place, narrowly saving his bag from knocking over the bench. He meekly peered over his shoulder to see Sugawara and Daichi at the door, giving them an amused smirk. “You can have girl talk after practice, but you should be changed already.”
“My button’s stuck,” Kageyama finally confessed. Shouyou was almost proud of him for admitting his struggles. Until Kageyama resumed glaring at him, having heard the slightest sharp huff of his exhale that was supposed to mask his need to laugh.
“Raise your arms up, Yamayama,” he offered, raising his own arms overhead to demonstrate. “I help dress my little sister all the time! Up-up!”
“Fuck off!” Kageyama spat, aggressively tugging at his fabric. He looked like he was about to tear it in half. Shouyou wiggled his shoes on, tapping his heel properly into the footwear per each step of his foot out the door. He could hear Tanaka and Nishinoya yelp as they also rushed to finish changing, before a loud
ping
resonated across the room.
Behind him, Kageyama was locked in place, his shirt finally free from its grip around his neck, his top button clearly missing. There was an audible series of clinks of said button somewhere in the room, but it was seemingly lost from view.
Shouyou burst out with a cackle, and fled for his life before he could see the look on Kageyama’s face. He swore he heard him roar his name from within the room, but it didn’t matter because he was already down the stairs, pelting into the safety of the gym where everyone else was already waiting for them.
After the rest of them finally caught up to start practice, and a (probably) well deserved cuff on the back of his head by a passing Kageyama, Tanaka waved a fist at Kageyama jokingly from across the net.
“This isn’t over,” Tanaka sweared. “You can’t hoard the ladies forever!”
“That’s not it at all,” Kageyama argued, but he sounded rather defeated about it. “I don’t even
want
their attention. I’d rather they stopped coming to me altogether.”
Shouyou twisted his lips, contemplating. He didn’t like the attention, huh? Shouyou couldn’t particularly relate, but if it
truly
bothered him so much… He pulled his arm to stretch over his chest, feeling his shoulder pop, waiting for the practice match to begin.
He had some work to do.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Now, Tobio hadn’t
meant
to pull hard enough on his shirt to completely snap his now-forever-lost button straight from its stitches, but this was sadly not the first time this had happened to him, and the look of his mother’s face when he came home with a frayed collar said plenty enough.
But because of the heckles from a certain cackling gremlin and some rather…
lonely
senior classmates, Tobio had to go to school the following day with a safety pin keeping his uniform in place, until his mother could buy some spare buttons later. The metal chafed against his collarbone, grinding his admittedly short patience to a remnant of what it
could
be on a good day.
Today was not considered a good day.
The reasoning for this was because, as school traditions went, after denying a girl midway through her confessed feelings speeches directed at him, any and all of their immediate friends would start bringing weird attention to him for the following days to come. Tobio didn’t think it considered
bullying
per say, because he never got hurt by anything, but some whispers were a few too levels too loud to sound anything other than intentional to be overheard.
But words didn’t mean much to Tobio. He was a man of action. And because they never followed through on some of the bizarre things they’d say, Tobio was more or less unaffected.
So he was a little surprised when, before the homeroom class even began, yesterday’s confessor (whose name he doubt he was ever told) came charging straight up to him, brows tense and eyes sharp. Tobio just blinked at her, watching her approach. He hoped this wasn’t some sort of second attempt, or some kind of public scene where she’d yell at him for being insensitive. That hadn’t happened
yet,
but the idea had plagued his mind a few times before in past confessions.
The girl stood straight in front of him, and then bowed forward, her ponytail whipping over her shoulder at the swift action. Tobio stared wide eyed, caught off guard.
“I apologise for yesterday!” she yelled. Tobio grimaced, feeling the eyes of other students around them in the hall turning to watch the commotion.
“I had no idea!” she continued. “I wouldn’t have put you in such an awkward position if I had known.”
Awkward position..? Was she apologising for confessing to him? That was a first. Maybe she had finally read his body language, mulled over after a nights rest to put the pieces together of how uncomfortable confessions always left him.
“It’s - okay,” he offered, hand raising stiffly to try and… release her from her overly polite bow. Luckily, she sprung back up, her cheeks surprisingly red. It was probably from the insufficient blood circulation during a prolonged bow. He mildly wondered if she got a headrush on the way back up, her hair just a tad more frazzled now.
“I’m serious!” she insisted. “I think - I mean it hurts that you couldn’t accept my- but to know you’d stay loyal - I think that’s a really great thing! So thank you, for being a good example! An-and sorry again!”
She turned tail and ran straight into the arms of her group of friends, who wrapped around her and muttered happy reassuring comments as they left to their homerooms, and all Tobio could do was watch them go, caught in a stupor. A lot of kids were still staring at him, but kept walking passed to get to where they needed, avoiding him like a poorly placed traffic cone.
Tobio was at a loss. What had
that
been about?
She mentioned loyalty, but the only thing Tobio was loyal to was volleyball. Unless,
that
was what she was talking about? Maybe she understood that his free time was dedicated solely to practice the sport, so he could make it as a professional athlete as his source of career. Was this a career move? Was she a sports fan? Tobio didn’t know for sure, but he’d definitely accept the apology.
So, the weird day started there, but then it started to get more… Irritating.
At first, Tobio thought the talking was people who had witnessed the loud awkward apology earlier that morning. He could at least hear his name in the mix of whispers. But then it was being paired with
“Seriously?”
and
“Yikes”
, and yet again, Tobio felt like he was missing a key element to what was happening around him.
Maybe the apology had been a ruse. Maybe the girl had turned around to save face, and then committed to the usual ploy of telling everyone how terrible he was along with some fabricated example as to why he was so terrible. As long as it wasn’t something incriminating enough to get him into trouble, Tobio reminded himself that he shouldn’t - that he
didn’t
care.
When class ended, and one of the boys at the back of his class blew a kiss at him before his friends began to laugh, Tobio was reminded that
this
was the reason he hated love confessions.
His laughter cut off abruptly when he noticed Tobio had stopped moving to just glare at them as intensely as he could, and he felt his mouth twitch with the beginnings of a smirk when they hurried to gather their things, suddenly leaving the classroom with urgency. He didn’t move from his spot until they were heading out of the door, and even remained stoic and in place when one of them sneered at him, “Stop staring at me you creep, go oogle your boyfriend instead.”
It wasn’t until they had escaped into the hallway that his words had computed. Tobio blinked blindly at the open doorway. His-
“Boyfriend?”
he asked aloud. At the desk beside him, a girl eating her bento choked a little on her food, and she hurriedly excused herself when he glanced her way. Suddenly, every remaining person in the classroom was looking everywhere
but
his direction.
What the fuck?
Had she - had that girl seriously gone so far to insinuate he wasn’t interested in her
because he was-
A loud rush of heat enveloped his eardrums, and Kageyama felt his heels hot as he stormed out of the room, suddenly wishing he knew more about people. What was she called? What class was she in? How would he describe her to ask where the
fuck
he could find her, because this was a step too far.
He barrelled past a crowd of students, shoulder clipping against one of them, and Tobio only realised it was Tsukishima when his annoying whiny voice cooed back at him, “Everyone get out of the way, the King’s on the march for his lover.”
His-!
Tobio swivelled around midstep, charging straight for Tsukishima.
“You!”
he growled out, annoyed that the lanky ass smiled only deeper at his approach. He shoved a pointed finger under his chin. “Explain.”
“My, how bossy,” Tsukishima fed off his pulsing anger like a leech, confidence oozing out of his pores and filling Tobio with the urge to punt his face in with a freshly pumped volleyball. “And so picky too. Never knew you only had a taste for men.”
“Tsukki!”
Yamaguchi sounded appalled, slapping softly at the boy’s shoulder. Tsukishima shrugged.
“I never said it was a bad thing. Was just a surprise is all. Guess Tanaka and Nishinoya will be pleased though.”
“Can someone explain what the fuck is going on?” Tobio bit out. “Who’s been spreading this about?”
“Your boyfriend,” Tsukishima replied.
“I don’t have a-
wait, a boy?” Whatever growing tension was building in his brow cut like a loose string, and it was making him a little dizzy.
A boy
was spreading this lie about? Not the girl? Was it an accomplice of hers, or someone else?
Tsukishima cocked his oversized brainy head at him. “Short Stuff,” he clarified.
Hinata!?
“D-dumbass!?”
Tobio choked out.
Yamaguchi blinked at them both. “Amazing,” he muttered, “they found a language they both understand.”
“Yeah,” Tsukishima continued, lips twitching with amusement. “Your little dumbass went parading around school all morning before classes, yelling to the skies and back that you were
together forever.”
“He said - WHAT-!”
Tsukishima barked out a laugh, which was only cut short by Yamaguchi jabbing an elbow into his side. “Tsukki that’s mean,” he scolded. “Don’t over-exaggerate. Kageyama, he didn’t
quite
say that, but he was on about-”
But as he glanced back, the space where Kageyama was standing mere moments ago was empty. He caught the heel of school shoes slipping on tile just out of sight around the corner, and sighed.
“
Aaand
he’s gone.”
Tsukishima grinned beside him. “They did this to themselves,” he defended himself. “I’m just enjoying what can be taken from this.”
“And what’s that?” Yamaguchi dared to ask.
“Another battle of idiots.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Now, if Shouyou had known he was about to get a serious case of impromptu cardio, he would not have opened and began to eat from his homemade bento. But because he was completely unaware of this impending doom, he was happy to stuff his face with his mother’s delicious cooking, trying not to spit rice flecks as he answered his friend’s questions beside him.
For some reason, everyone was really interested in Kageyama right now.
“So like,” His classmate Yuuto leaned over his desk beside him, ignoring his own lunch to question Shouyou more on the gossip that was his personal setter. “What’s he like, exactly? Is he good?”
It was bizarre, how now that Kageyama was no longer an interest to the ladies, that suddenly
everyone
wanted to befriend him. Maybe he was held on that weird pedestal his girl fans had made for him, to the point where not even the boys dared approach him. Maybe now they all wanted to be his friend, since Shouyou had made sure everyone knew Kageyama wasn’t on the Kingly throne everyone assumed he was.
“Man, he’s super good!” Shouyou whined around his chopsticks. “It’s so unfair, you know? He does everything perfectly from the get-go and it
sucks!
Like I’m glad we get to work together, but like - it makes me feel so much
worse
in comparison! It’s hard to keep up sometimes!”
Yuuto nodded thoughtfully, and the others in his class were giggling with each new thing he told them. It was cool, that they were now interested in learning more about Kageyama. Asking if he was good at things and such - it almost felt nice being able to talk about it, especially because now it allowed him to talk more about volleyball. Shouyou kind of felt like a gospel, sending the holy word of Kageyama being just a normal, grumpy person, available to approach for anything that wasn’t dating. Yeah. He was doing a great job.
But then, his disaster senses began to tingle. Shouyou made sure his chopsticks were absent from his mouth as he could feel the floor begin to vibrate under his feet, his attuned ears just managing to catch the sound of his desk legs trembling from impact. Was it an earthquake? A natural disaster? Suddenly, the rumble became audible, growing in dynamic as it came closer and closer.
Shouyou knew that sound. The sound of impending
doom.
He lunged out of his chair, bento forgotten on his desk. The doorframe to his classroom made a large cracking sound, as a hand caught it from impact, making several of his classmates shriek.
Shouyou made eye contact with the Grim Reaper himself.
“Ka-Kageyama?”
Kageyama’s eyes may have been blue, but Shouyou could see the fire igniting in his irises.
“You. Are. Dead!”
With his own glorified shriek, Shouyou pelted from his seat, his movement striking Kageyama to action, as he burst into the room. But Shouyou knew the layout of his homeroom like the back of his hand, and frog-leapt over two empty desks to side pass Kageyama’s approach. Kageyama slipped on the tiles turning around too fast, but Shouyou had already bolted out of the doorway, fleeing for his life.
For a moment Shouyou could only focus on the blur of narrowly dodging students down the hall, as he desperately searched for the nearest exit, before he heard the brief squeaks of soled shoes and
“Watch it!”
’s behind him, along with the rising thunder of steps, signalling that Kageyama was already hot on his heels. Shouyou managed to leap sideways out of the closest door heading to the school’s quadrons, and bolted out onto the track. His shoes crunched in the gravel beneath him but there were also stomps that didn’t match his own steps, and the steady heave of breathe that was too deep to be his own.
“I’m sorry!” He wailed instinctively. “I’m sorry, I’m
sorry
, sorry Kageyama,
I said I’m sorry!
Stop chasing me!
Kageyama!”
Shouyou couldn’t look back - he
daren’t.
The briefest of distractions would make him lose ground and he would die at the horns of the charging bull behind him, murdered by Kageyama, the guy he spent all morning
trying to help!
He could barely make out the many faces of students watching them track around the school from the building’s windows, too busy realising that -
yeah hey wait a second,
why
was
Kageyama trying to skin him alive right now? He’d been helping him all day! What the
hell?
What was going on?
“Wha-what did I
do!”
He yelled over his shoulder, feeling less flighty and more angry. He didn’t deserve this kind of misery - running on a half filled stomach!
He
eep
ed when Kageyama’s breath hit the back of his neck. “You know full well what you did!” he spat, before something
hard
clipped Shouyou’s ankle - Kageyama’s ankle, hooking against his own - and he crashed forward without any sense of dignity, his face kissing gravel before getting crushed deeper into the grit as Kageyama fell just as disgracefully on top of him.
At least he had enough sense to roll off of Shouyou immediately, although with the pained hiss that came with it Shouyou assumed it was from landing on every boney edge of his own limbs, and Shouyou flinched his head away from the ground, flecks of stones imprinted across his face. He spat a couple out from his mouth, and tried to carefully brush the grit away from his eyes.
“What the hell was that for!?”
Shouyou spat once more into the ground, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees. Kageyama only managed to hoist his torso up by his elbows, one side of his face also littered with grit. He ignored it though, dragging his body towards Shouyou like some kind of absolute horror movie creature.
“I’m not wasting my breath,” Kageyama wheezed, clutching at Shouyou’s leg to pull himself up. “I’m gonna kill you anyways.” He managed to pull Shouyou’s leg out from under him, and Shouyou rolled with the loss of balance until he was belly up. Kageyama loomed over him with his hands at the ready, to probably tear his hair off of his head in the same manner that he ripped his shirt button. His arms shot out to catch Kageyama’s own, and they both struggled against each other, arms straining as they tried to push their palms away from each other.
“WaitwaitwaitwaitwAIT-!”
Each breath Shouyou took was a frenzy of words, just trying to find some kind of leeway to prevent his murder because
clearly something
was going on here? The last time Kageyama tried to actively murder him like this was when he had pants’d him by accident tripping on the way down the stairs, but there was nothing -
nothing
that instigated this! Shouyou was an innocent boy with innocent, volleyball shaped dreams! He didn’t want to die on his high school’s asphalt for a crime he never committed!
Kageyama managed to free one of his hands and resorted to swatting at Shouyou instead, who just flailed in place trying to stop any stray fingers from poking an eye out. He still yelped at each weak swipe though.
“Why would you,” Kageyama gasped, “-why the
fuck
would you tell the school that we’re
dating, dumbass!?”
Why would he - he told the school -
WHAT?
Shouyou caught his wrist again, but propped himself up on his elbows and shot up, barely avoiding colliding foreheads with Kageyama.
“What are you on about? I
never
said that!”
Kageyama growled but finally pulled back a little, sitting back on his heels, as he yanked his wrists out of Shouyou’s grasp. “You can’t lie about something this big, when the whole school is
up my ass judging me! You fucked up!”
Shouyou shook his palms out in front of him, desperately.
“No no no
there really
has
been a misunderstanding! I swear! I
never
said anything about da-
du-dating!”
Back stiff and expression clearly dubious, Kageyama finally rubbed a hand at the grit still stuck on his face. “Then explain how the fuck this happened already.”
When Shouyou realised Kageyama was no longer dead set on murdering him, he finally wiggled himself into sitting with crossed legs, still sore from landing in the dirt.
“Well, you were upset yesterday when Tanaka and Nishinoya were hassling you about girl things, and you said you didn’t like it right?” Kageyama just glared at him in silence, so Shouyou continued. “Well, I figured, if everyone knew you weren’t interested, then they’d stop bothering you with the confessions! So I thought, I could catch the most people in the morning, when everyone comes to school before class, so I said -
listen,
okay, I said to everyone -
‘Hey! Stop giving your love confessions to Kageyama! He’s unavailable! He can’t accept them! So stop that!’
and some guys laughed at me and stuff, but I am
a great and hard working teammate
Kageyama, and I took their jeers for you, so you wouldn't have to deal with that anymore! See! I never said anything about us, or you dating anyone, or nothing!”
He gulped for breath, suddenly feeling deflated. This was just cruelty on his part, Kageyama just glaring at him like some kind of evil public interrogation. When Kageyama finally did move, it was to drag his hand down his face.
“You, are a fucking moron,” he slurred against his palm.
“Excuse me!?”
Shouyou yelped. “I was
helping
you, you
jerk!”
“You’re so
stupid!”
Kageyama continued. “You know what that sounds like, right?”
“What what sounds like?” Shouyou pouted.
“That -
‘he’s unavailable’
- you telling everyone to leave me alone. You made it sound personal! Like it’s
you
who wants everyone to leave me alone!”
Shouyou squinted at him. “I mean - yeah? I
do
want them to leave you alone. I want them to stop because
you
want them to stop.”
“No you dumbass, it makes it sound like - like - no guy is this concerned about keeping people away from someone else’s relationship! You sound like it’s
personal!
Like
you’re
the reason people shouldn’t approach me!”
“Well then maybe
you
should be telling everyone you’re unavailable, then!” Shouyou argued. “Because from what I can see, these confessions bother you, and when you're bothered, you're distracted from doing your best at volleyball! And you can't be my rival if you’re not fully focused in our matches, right?”
Kageyama shook his head lightly. “You said it in a weird way, but whatever. I get your point.”
“Exactly!”
“But that doesn’t change the fact that everyone thinks we’re
together!”
Kageyama retorted, and, while that was true…
“Well…
I mean, we
are
together, right now,” Shouyou winced, gesturing at the space between where they sat.
“Not
physically
dumbass, they think we’re
together together
- in a relationship.”
Relationship, huh? Shouyou twisted his pout. “Don't we… have a relationship too?” he asked. “We’ve rivals.
Volleyball
rivals. And volleyball
partners.
That’s two relationships right there!” Kageyama scrunched his nose at him.
“Yeah but that's not -
dating
relationship. It’s different, they think we’re dating.”
Shouyou cocked his head at him. “I don’t get it,” he admitted. “I thought you
wanted
to be unavailable to confessions.”
“I do!”
Shouyou spread his arms out. “Well, now you are! Even if it's for the wrong impression, if everyone's just saying we’re in a relationship, then they’re not really saying anything
untrue.
We’re just in a volleyball relationship, and it doesn’t matter if they think different. When have you ever cared about what people say about you anyways?”
Kageyama ignored him. “So you’re saying I just - take this for what it is and make it work for me?”
“Yeah!”
Kageyama side eyed something in the distance, as if he was thinking hard. But then Shouyou noticed the many, many eyes watching them from the windows of the school, students watching them… Talk, on the floor. After wrestling. He hoped a teacher wasn’t on their way to scold them.
“Then… what about you?”
“Me?” Shouyou parroted, focusing back to Kageyama. He rolled a shoulder, looking surprisingly lost.
“Like - if everyone thinks you’re…
‘with me’,
won’t that ruin your chances with anyone else?”
Huh.
Shouyou was surprised. He didn’t think Kageyama would ever think about these kinds of things. Maybe deep down, under that tough exterior, he was a little self conscious about how people thought of him?
“I’m not really looking for anyone right now, though?” Shouyou admitted. He folded his arms and closed his eyes, to see if he could explain this in a way that didn’t make Kageyama feel bad for whatever reason.
“Right now, I wanna play volleyball. I can think about dating later, maybe. I dunno, it hasn’t crossed my mind yet.”
“Oh.” Shouyou opened his eyes to meet Kageyama’s who suddenly looked more interested. “So you’re like me then?”
Ah,
was Kageyama self conscious because he wasn’t interested in dating? Shouyou could understand that particular plight. He was perfectly comfortable joining in with his classmates doting on their crushes and what they wanted in a relationship, but Shouyou’s own views on romance was kind of on a constant hold. It felt like something future him could sort out. Maybe Kageyama’s antisocial tendencies made him think because he didn’t feel the same as the others in their classes, that he was a little more outcast than before.
“I guess so. But hey! That’s another relationship we share!”
He yelped when Kageyama elbowed him, but it was rather lackluster for a Kageyama jab. He must have been forgiven. “Stop tallying it like some kind of score already!”
“But we have so many things in common, Yamayama!”
“Okay, fine, whatever,” Kageyama conceded, finally pulling himself onto his feet. He stood in silence for a few moments, then looked down at where Shouyou was still sat rather pathetically on the ground, and hesitantly offered him a hand. Shouyou grinned and accepted it, allowing him to hoist him up until they were stood side by side. From one of the windows, someone cheered, and there was a random offhanded clap. Kageyama released their hands swiftly, and used it to scratch awkwardly behind his head. Shouyou figured that was Kageyama talk for being embarrassed.
Cautiously, Shouyou asked, “So am I - forgiven?”
Kageyama sighed, and rolled his eyes, lowering his arm. “Sure.”
Shouyou’s grin began to sprout teeth, and he laughed at the sight of Kageyama pinkening slightly around his nose, when someone yelled,
“Fight!”
the same time someone else yelled,
“Kiss!”
“Come on,” Shouyou said, brushing away the clinging dust on his trousers and the unwanted jeers filtering in from the crowd. “I left my lunch in my classroom, and Yuuto probably stole my dumplings!”
He watched Kageyama follow suit, feeling self assured when Kageyama relaxed his shoulders, ignoring the unwanted taunts from the windows. “Yeah, okay.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Well this is disappointing,” Tsukki sighed. Tadashi was stood beside him off the court, watching as Hinata spiked another practice set with Kageyama. It hit the stationed plastic bottle perfectly, and he watched as they both even gave each other an aggressive high five.
“They’re getting along better than ever,” Tadashi admitted. He could have sworn Tsukki was pouting behind the rim of his drinking bottle.
“No idiot death battles,” he lamented.
“I’m surprised though,” Tadashi ignored him, watching them switch sides of the net to practice spiking from the left for a challenge. “They haven’t really brought up the rumours since they started. But they’re still going around, aren't they?”
Tsukki finished sipping his drink, placing it a little harshly against the bench. “They’re taking it
too
well. Now I feel sullied for talking to the King for so long, without any sorts of payment.”
Tadashi shrugged. Did Tsukki
really
need to try and start another oddball combo fight? They argued naturally at least four times a day. All they had to do was watch and wait, and the work would be done for them. Not that Tadashi
wanted
any oddball fighting, but he could admit - they were pretty funny most of the time. He still remembered reading the hand embroidered
‘SETTER’
stitched across the hem of Kageyama’s underwear the one day he got kegged by Hinata, and still had to bite back a giggle every time he thought about it.
But Tsukki wasn’t so easily satiated, and cupped a hand around his mouth, calling out, “Hey
King,
you sorted things out with your relationship?”
Hinata blinked over his shoulder curiously, and for a moment Tadashi felt bad. Did Hinata not realise he was being referred to as the boyfriend? He remembered his odd wording several days before, as he ran about telling the world that Kageyama was not available for dating. He knew
why
Hinata did it of course, but, well, Hinata was failing his vocabulary for a reason.
Everyone
had taken it out of context.
Kageyama, looking more irked at being called King than anything else, to Tadashi’s surprise,
shrugged.
“I mean, we had a talk about it, and-” he glanced over to Hinata, who smiled encouragingly at him. “-I guess things just started making sense. So - it’s sorted?”
Tadashi felt his brow raise above his hairline. Tsukki had his mouth open slightly in shock.
“Oh, uh, congrats,” Tadashi managed to blurt out, undergoing shock. To his utter shock, Kageyama relaxed at his words, giving him a tiny nod. Tadashi continued to watch in amazement as Hinata hopped over to pat Kageyama on the back, saying, “Good job! Good job!” before Kageyama swiveled on his heel and grabbed at Hinata’s hair, making him yelp.
Slowly, Tsukki turned to face him.
“Did that just happen?” He asked.
“I think so?” Tadashi answered, unsure. “I guess, maybe
we
misunderstood? I'll be honest - I didn’t really expect Kageyama and Hinata to be actually dating.”
There was the frantic pitter patter of steps, and Tadashi tried not to yelp when Sugawara charged through the gym’s doorway, gasping frantically,
“I’m sorry -
Kageyama and Hinata are what now
?”