This was both an illogical and a deeply frustrating situation, Tsukishima thought to himself as he reached out to touch the mop of orange hair in front of him. It had been one of Those Days. Despite a practice match starting in ten minutes, Hinata had been bouncing up and down for the last half hour, skittering all over the place, never once standing still. He moved with all the grace of a frightened squirrel. It was like the stupid shrimp didn't need to conserve energy, as if he was energy, a source of kinetic power for the world to turn to should we ever burn through all the oil.
And it was today that Tsukishima noticed the way that each individual red lock on this ball of fire moved in strangely fluid motions, like solar storms. It was as if the normal laws of physics didn't apply and
he.
had.
to.
know.
He needed to figure out what the deal was with that hair.
For science.
Certainly not for his own curiosity at how nice it might feel, and absolutely not because of the weird lump that had been lodged in the back of his mind these past few weeks.
No.
Science.
And now Hinata was finally standing still for a second, rifling through his bag, so Tsukishima extended his fingers.
But the laws of averages were obviously stacked against him.
Hinata turned around unexpectedly.
He looked up.
He saw the large hand hovering over his head.
He screamed.
"Gaaaaaaah!" Wide brown eyes stared up at Tsukishima, deep pools of molten rock, big enough to drown a stegosaurus.
Tsukishima jolted back. Hinata twitched. He was moving erratically again, shifting from one foot to the other, an atom flying through space.
"Y... you wanna go!?" the small boy said.
"Calm down, you idiot. There's something in your hair," Tsukishima sighed, "Let me just..."
He reached out his hand again, but it was too late. Hinata made a loud wailing noise, like the mating call of a fox. He put both his hands flat on his head and ruffled them, a movement that made each of the orange hairs sway like willow branches in a strong gale.
"Is it a bug? Is it gone?," Hinata shrieked. By now, Sugawara-san had popped his head through the door, brow furrowed. The noise even attracted the other idiot.
"Dumbass, what are you shouting for?" Kageyama stormed in, shouting.
"Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff!" the little one shook his hair, strands looping and wagging in ways that mimicked an angry cat's tail. It was fascinating. But Kageyama was now yelling at him and Sugawara-san was making the kind of worried noises that would soon summon the captain.
Tsukishima sighed again. "Pretty sure it fell out by now," he said, pushing his glasses higher up his nose.
On cue, Sawamura-san marched into the changing room and made everyone disperse.
When the practice match finally started, Tsukishima found his focus wavering. Number 10 was still bouncing, just... everywhere, like a soundwave trying to travel through a canyon. His small body would coil and jump and fly, perpetually in motion. Tsukishima could not look away. It was irritating him to no end and he felt a headache come on.
Still, he could not ignore the fact that the ace on the other team was about to spike.
He pulled Hinata's shirt: "Three, two, one. Now!"
The both of them jumped up to block.
"One touch!"
It was a harder hit than anticipated. They came back down and Hinata, suddenly steerless in the face of gravity, fell into him. Tsukishima reflexively held out his hand and that's how he found himself with his fingers sunk deep into the redhead's hair.
It felt... soft. That was the only way to describe it. Surprisingly soft and springy, like fields of long grass in summer, but not really. Like the long fur on a Samoyed hound but... not.
Huh.
Tsukishima blinked at the realization that Hinata's hair was just that: hair.
He blinked again when Tanaka screamed his name.
The next moment, a ball hit him straight on the head.
"Tsukishimaaaaa! Are you dying?" He was lying on the ground, head really hurting now, throbbing like so many tectonic plates scraping together. He opened his eyes and the sun was staring down at him. The boy looked worried, his big dumb open face a mask of anxiety. Orange locks flowed around his head like eddies of water, moving and swirling in patterns you could easily get lost in.
Tsukishima groaned.