He counts the days in orderly boxes, the calendar he has on his wall.
As much of a genius he is on-court, Kageyama will admit that his off-court activities are...hectic. Most of his day is spent in some way about volleyball, and though he remember meet days like the back of his hand, all other dates are a mystery to him.
So, the calendar: twelve months, a long scroll with the months stacked on top of each other in pairs. A gift from his such-and-such aunt in his first year of middle school that goes from a pile of papers to the second-most valuable thing he owns.
He can scribble down anything, any day, and it'll still be there when he comes back. All year long, he'll be able to see the days dwindle down to another event, and another, with all the days he's gone through marked with a simple slash through each respective box.
The sheer brilliancy of this is astounding to Kageyama. He has nothing to write on it besides volleyball, of course (doing the complete opposite of what his mother intended it for); but there is a certain amount of satisfaction he feels as he crosses off each day closer to a workshop, or practice match, or tournament.
Kageyama writes down the first day he's called 'king', towards the beginning of his second year, a brand new calendar. It's a powerful title, and he practically feels a crown resting on his head as he charges through match after match with his school's team. He's invincible and confident in his abilities, and every time he looks at the character scratched into the box, the three lines tied together by the vertical stroke, he can feel the weight of a kingly cape resting around his shoulders. Soft red velvet and white trim drift around him in his dreams, and in those hazy scenes there are mountains of teams daring to challenge the king, risers overflowing with people that cheer with every point he makes. He dreams, and practices, and goes on dreaming some more.
So Kageyama goes on through the rest of middle school like this, buying a new calendar for his third year, a simple and large one, where the first thing he does is flip a couple months forward, circling a date with the significance of being the first day of the middle-school volleyball tournament.
They don't win the tournament. He goes home, finds his old scroll of dates, the character he was once so proud of lying snug and complacent in a box. There's a hole marking that day now; he burns the scraps of paper in the backyard.
Never, never again, he vows. He will forfeit his crown for this betrayal, shed his dream-cape, bury the velvet and white under more practice, more improvement.
The rest of third year has two more dates he ends up writing in. The first is an entrance exam, later crossed out and the school name made illegible. The other is an orientation.
Karasuno High is where he decides on, ultimately. He can play volleyball there; that's the only factor he considers. They used to be good; with him, they'll be good again.
The first day of practice he circles; puts a star next to. This is his chance to redeem himself on the court. A new year; a fresh start.
A fresh start indeed. He crosses out that day, viciously; he scrawls the dumbass Hinata Shouyo's name next to it. The whole mess is the boy's fault, the reason why they have to somehow work together now. Kageyama's certain the universe is laughing at him; why else would he be from that day? Why else would he suddenly be strangled with his cape, blinded with his crown again?
Later, much later, he concedes that the orange-haired boy called him that in complete innocence. Hinata apparently had no idea of the revulsion he has for the title now; all he remembers is a match Kageyama remembers for the demon spiker, and the easy win.
That's alright, he supposes. He marks the box for three days later with the three-on-three match.
Thank goodness they win that one. Hinata's actually semi-decent compared to last year's tournament, and with Kageyama tossing spike after spike, they're back on the team.
The freak-quick is what he ends up thinking about during class. How powerful Hinata looked, high above the net, slamming the ball that Kageyama had set to him. Almost like the Small Giant, or Little Giant or whoever it was that he looked up to.
(He makes a note of it in the margins of the calendar; 'freak-quick Hinata Shouyo'. It gives him a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach to see his full name written out on the white, so he crosses out the 'Shouyo', keeping the surname. Freak-quick Hinata sounds less pompous.)
Later, during the winter break, there's a new notation in one of the boxes for late December: 'movies with dumbass'. They caught an action flick; Hinata really liked the fight choreography, and he explains it with his arms expressing the pwah! and fwoo! that Kageyama seemed to have missed.
During Golden Week of second year, he misses crossing out an entire week on the new calendar, due to another training trip. He doesn't mind too much; Hinata ends up talking his ear off for the entire bus ride, there and back, but there's some pretty decent practice matches that they use to hone their new quicks.
Even without the occasional training trip, missing a day or two gets more prevalent; he was always gone during the day and evening for volleyball practice, but now Hinata wants to practice til late at night. So Kageyama spends occasional Friday afternoons practicing spikes and sets with the decoy, staying the night at his house, and then more practice the morning after.
His crown and cape sit somewhere in a corner of his mind, gathering dust. The crows are strong now, the flock of them bonded as tightly as the days follow each other on the almost-pristine calendar he's taken down for now. He doesn't need it; Shouyo is enough volleyball to keep him updated months in advance.
Sometimes, he takes it out again, just to scribble down where Hinata dragged him to that day or week or however long ago it was. Phrases like 'fireworks festival' and 'park and ice cream' fill out the boxes and margins; every day has something scribbled in, sometimes several more. It could be as simple as 'bought a soda' or as big as 'won nationals', it doesn't matter. His days are spent doing things, all thanks to Hinata.
They're always together these days; same third-year classroom, same club activity (volleyball), and they occasionally go to each orher's place to plan strategy and practice their attack and defense patterns.
He still buys the wall scrolls; that won't change. But he keeps them all in a box under his bed, writing down the week-to-week events in the boxes. It's a journal more than a way to organize dates, a place where he writes whatever was most interesting or important in the boxes.
Hinata has seen the wall scrolls, and insists on what he calls 'helping out': drawing stars and volleyballs in the clean spaces, hearts around the couple-things, little decorations like that. Kageyama verbally acquiesces Hinata's claim of mastering colors and organization from Yachi, but in private he believes that Hinata just wants to make these for them, to make each day seem special and extraordinary. And with the decoy, it is.
'Became serious; dating' was an entry for the middle of third year.
'Same dorm' was written at the start of university classes. Both had decided on the same school, and their campuses had been close enough that the organizers had approved their request.
The calendar from two years later has a big 'moved into new apartment' scrawled across the span of a week or so; just the two of them, just the one bedroom. Neither of them are too disappointed by this point.
'Look at us now,' Hinata exclaims one day, bringing his hands down on the rickety table they eat at for emphasis. It's spring, and the mornings are still a bit chilly. Kageyama brings the mug of coffee to his mouth, sips at it as his boyfriend goes on. 'if I had told my middle-school self that I'd be dating my ultimate rival, he would've laughed at me!'
He has to laugh; that's probably too true. 'True. Well, today is the anniversary of us meeting for the second time; there's definitely going to be more.' Hinata nods, spreading his arms wide.
'Yeah, yeah, I know! I drew hearts around it on the calendar yesterday!' He gestures to the current one, pinned to the wall of the living area. 'My point is, we've gone through so much by this point—'
'—and you're glad to have met me, right? Dumbass, I knew that already.' Hinata pouts at him, but there's no real discontent behind it. He's grown quite a bit in the years since high school; Kageyama's only about two or three centimeters taller than Hinata now. Maturity-wise, he's still the same.
'Well, that too. But also..' he scrunches his nose, and the gesture is so adorable that Kageyama can't help but lean in to flick Hinata's nose. He yelps. 'Hey! No fair!'
The orange-head lunges across the table to try to do the same, Kageyama avoiding each attempt easily. The table protests loudly, creaking with every swipe Hinata makes. He smiles, and sets down his mug (on the ground, safer than the table) to grab Hinata's hand as he comes around for another try, wrapping it in his own.
It's too much of a bother to try and grab both hands, and so he's not too surprised when the free hand swoops in, flicking his forehead. Kageyama winces, looking up to glare at the other, but Hinata merely grins and puts his hand on top of Kageyama's. 'You know I love you, right?'
The sunshine smile is too much for Kageyama; his anger melts away every time. 'I love you, too.'
Hinata laughs. 'Come here, Bakageyama, and I'll give you a kiss.' And so he obliges.
The only witness, if it counts, would be the wall scroll. Kageyama lets Hinata fill in the day with hearts.
And that year, there's a final note in the margins of late April. It's scrawled in Hinata's chicken scratch, as he likes to describe it—but to the setter, it's the most beautiful script he's seen.
And quite simply, it reads as the following:
Kageyama Tobio is king of my heart.