Chapter 1

"One more!", the familiar voice shouted and you almost too happily complied to its request. The toss you sent flew high into the air, but not too high for the orange-haired middle blocker to actually hit it. In fact, you sent it with you typical pin-point-accuracy right into the palms of that demanding little boy with amazing jumping power and a stamina, that never seemed to get drained. You thought, if it weren't for the coach and the captain, that boy would be practising all night long, without ever getting tired. Actually, you could pretty darn well imagine him doing just that when he got home. Not, that you knew for certain, though. You had never been to Hinata Shouyous house and probably won't, ever.

"Oi! Bakageyama! Listen to me!", said boy claimed your attention again and effectively stopped you from spacing out on the court. "We are to clean up today!" Training was over, and the other members of your team already shuffled out of the gym, heading towards the club room to go and get changed. Cleaning was up to the first-years tonight, so only Hinata, Yamaguchi, Tsukishima and you remained, picking up all the stray balls and mopping the floor with huge swabs. Eventually, Yamaguchi and Tsukishima opted to carry away the posts of the net, and Hinata and you rolled up the net. Surprisingly, everything went smoothly, and not even that damned four-eyes gave any snide remarks, which you thought to actually be nice for a change of pace. You sighed, feeling tired, while you followed the other three into changing out of your smelly gym-clothes.

On your way home -you walked part of it with that orange-haired boy, as always- you found yourself enjoying his company. You had come to that silent understanding on walking home together pretty soon after you noticed that part of your ways towards your respective homes actually were the same. Not that you ever talked much, though. It was mostly Hinata, who rambled on an on about practice or his day in general, or even what his seemingly ridiculously funny little sister did the evening before. You only had to occasionally nod or hum in agreement. Hinata didn't ever expect you to say much, either. He seemed to understand that you would rather listen to his mindless babbling than talk yourself. It was weird, almost as if he could see right through you or even read your mind at times. You had to admit, sometimes it was downright scary, but mostly, it made it easier for you to communicate with him. You weren't very good with all that social-stuff and didn't know how to deal with people at different situations, but with Hinata around, it didn't seem to matter as much. Which is why you allowed him to be around you as much as he wanted. Well, on most occasions, anyway. At the usual crossroad you turned right without so much as a second thought, only waving a short good-bye over your shoulder. You could already hear Hinata pedalling his way up towards the hill. That chain on his bike really needed to be oiled! It squeaked so loud, you could hear him, even though he was almost fifty meters away already. On second thought though, it meant that he couldn't sneak up on you, not with his bike around, anyway.

Thinking about it, you couldn't stop a small, genuine smile creep up to your lips. Glad that nobody could see it and that you were alone on the street, you hastily forced it away, together with that damn blush that started burning on your cheeks. Why would you be wanting to be sneaked up upon by Hinata, by all means?! Irritated with yourself, you almost stomped the rest of your walk back home and cut off your mother quite briskly, when she asked if you were alright, since your face even now held quite a bit of redness from the blush earlier. Of course you were! Why wouldn't you be? Sure, you just had that weird thought about Hinata, but you were a sixteen year old teenage boy! You had every damn right in the world to act off sometimes! Maybe it was because it never really happened before today, which is why she asked now. Still brooding about what happened, at first you didn't notice your phone going off, ringing with a message from god-knows-who. You never gave your number to your team-mates, so it couldn't be them, and the folks from Kitagawa Daichi would never send you any, since they cut all ties they had with you, leaving you with actually only a handful of people to chat with now and then. Thinking about it, it probably was a text from your childhood friend, Tetsuya. Sighing, you put away your homework and started searching for your phone in your room. Finally obtaining the device, you unlocked it and scrolled to your emails.

"Hey Tobio! How have you been? I haven't heard from you, since you told me you were going to go to Karasuno for High School. You could have come to Seirin, too, you know? Our Volleyball team isn't as bad, it seems. You could have lived with me and my family, you know they like you.", it read. So it really was from Tetsu.

"Hey Tets! I'm fine, I guess. School is annoying as hell, but my new Team is really great. Most of them are quite skilled players, so I think we might be able to win the upcoming tournaments. Thanks, but you know my mother wouldn't have let me go. Even if it was to your place.", you replied.

And after that, messages were sent between the two of you within minutes of receiving a reply from the other, until you both had to go to sleep eventually. You had to admit, it felt great talking to Tetsuya again, even if it was just emailing each other. You told him about your team members and their antics -especially about Hinata- and Tetsuya would do the same. Apparently he got a pretty talented guy on his team, too, and was now striving for him to become on par with the other players of the generation of miracles. You never imagined there could be such a person, but it seemed like you were wrong with that. That being your train of thought you finally fell asleep, only to find a not-so-pleasant surprise when you woke up the next morning.

The glowing red neon letters on your alarm-clock showed it was half past nine. You should have been at school over two hours ago! Damn! Did you forget to set up your alarm? No, you were certain you checked it yesterday. But why didn't it ring, then? You squinted at the letters in front of you, as if you could actually bring them to tell you, but nothing happened. Of course not. Sighing, you contemplated whether to go to school despite being three hours late, or stay at home all day. Going meant to be scolded by the teachers and the coach for missing out on morning practice, staying at home meant having nothing to do all day long. Sure, you normally never missed practice if your weren't actually ill, but today you really couldn't find it in yourself to get up and get going. Slumping back into your pillows and pulling the blanket back up over your head you chose to doze off a few more hours.

Having spent the day lazing about the house -your mother was away working since early morning and wouldn't be back until late tonight -it was a Friday, after all- you were sure nothing out of the ordinary would happen, when you checked the clock in the kitchen for the time. Half past five. Practice would be over soon. You sighed. You should have gone to school, after all, you thought, as suddenly the doorbell rang.

Curious as to who it could be at this time of the day, you wandered off towards the entrance, slowly pulling the door open. Only to be greeted by that familiar mop of orange hair and a cheerful voice. "Kageyama! I'm here to bring you today's papers and homework!", Hinata announced with his usual bright smile and jumped up and down in front of you, impatiently waiting for you to let him inside. You sighed, stepped aside and mumbled: "Come in, then. But make it quick!" Not needing to be told twice, Hinata literally jumped inside, took his shoes off and waited for you to lead the way to wherever you were going to take him. First you thought about bringing him to the living room, but you quickly abandoned that idea, instead settling for your own room.

"Why are you so early, anyway? Practice doesn't end before six usually.", you wanted to know while climbing up the stairs. "Yeah well, I asked the coach if I could leave earlier, since I had to deliver your homework.", was Hinatas reply, to which you found yourself nodding. It made sense, after all. In your room, Hinata searched his bag for the papers he had to hand over to you, while he asked the question you knew he would ask as soon as you saw him standing in front of your door. "Why haven't you been to school today? You don't seem to be ill." "I ...kind of... overslept.", you managed to grit out between tightly clenched teeth. You didn't like admitting it, especially to Hinata, but you weren't going to lie, either. The surprised look you got from him almost made you laugh out loud. He looked so completely at a loss for words, it really amused you to no end. Knowing that you had managed to put the boy who never shut up to actually stay quiet for more than two seconds sure felt somewhat great. "What? You look like a fish. Shut your trap!", you scolded him with a whack of the flat side of your hand to his head, which seemed to bring him back to reality. "And here I was thinking I would never see the day!", Hinata teased while rubbing the back of his head where you had hit him. "Oi!", you reprimanded him, and he finally returned to searching for the papers he was supposed to give you. Having finally found them, he handed them over to you with a small smile and you found yourself nodding while you looked them over. Great. This shouldn't be too hard. You should be able to do these on your own. Some teachers even left a few notes on the papers for you, giving extra advice on the problems.

"Thanks.", is all you could manage to say, but Hinata just smiled at you widely. "It's fine, really. But don't oversleep on Monday, too! Practice was boring without you!", he declared, to which you found yourself nodding yet again. Like hell you would oversleep on two school days in a row! But just to be on the safe side you would go out to buy a new alarm-clock tomorrow. Just in case, since you really didn't know what was wrong with the current one. The batteries were charged, the time ticked away and it was set. It just didn't ring when it should. You had tried it out several times today and it never worked. "Okay, that's great then! You need help with these?", Hinata wanted to know, to which you found yourself shaking your head. "Don't think so. Besides, you should get going.", you tried to get him to leave already. You didn't know what to talk to him about, anyway, and you sure as hell didn't want an awkward silence to happen. Though, on second thought, this was Hinata! With this guy around, could such a thing even be possible in the first place? Not sure about this, but definitively not wanting to wait around until it happened, you almost shoved him out of your room, before he was even able to react and sent him stumbling down the stairs. While he was shouting at you for being so rude and all, you still managed to see that familiar spark in his eyes, which meant he wasn't really mad at you, but just fooling around. Just like you were, actually, though you were a lot better at hiding the fact that you were having fun just now. It was like this most of the time, when Hinata was around, but you would never admit it out loud. Besides, you didn't have to, anyways, since Hinata could read you just fine and knew how you felt. Which is why he probably didn't mind being shoved around by you but went along with it.

Finally alone again, you started to get the papers done, since you sure as hell did not want to do them on your weekend. They were pretty easy, even for you, who had problems in most of his classes, so it didn't take you long until you were finished and went to sleep.