When the sun stopped shining

Chapter 1 – A new morning

"Ossu Hinata." I said as I entered the room he was lying in. Like every morning, he was sleeping when I entered and didn't hear my greeting. After I had closed the door behind me I took off my jacket and put it on a chair. His new room still looked unfamiliar to me, but I slowly grew accustomed to it, it just would take some more time I kept on saying to myself. The next thing I did was opening the curtains so that some rays of sunshine could enter through the window, but unfortunately today the sun wasn't shining that brightly.

"How are you feeling? Better than yesterday, or…?" I tried talking to him again, but he still wouldn't answer me. I took a chair and put it next to his bed and then sat down on it. After waiting for a while I stood up again, put the tubes that were leading from his breathing mask to the machine aside and softly kissed him on his forehead.

"Good morning, my sunshine." I whispered to Hinata. I hoped that would wake him up, but I already knew it wouldn't.

Hinata was in a coma.

And this new room of his was a room for patients at the local hospital, Hinata's new home since almost 5 months ago, when he was involved in that accident. I shiver whenever I think back to that scene, it was terrible, I wanted to forget it. But I couldn't. And ever since then my thoughts were filled with guilt.

I was the one responsible for Hinata getting involved in that accident, and just shortly after we finally became a couple. Everyone kept on telling that it wasn't my fault, but it was. Indirectly though, but if I hadn't reacted like I did, it wouldn't have happened. And now the one I loved was lying in front of me, in a coma, and I could do nothing more than hold his hand and talk to him, knowing he wouldn't be able to respond.

I still remember the day I confessed to him, I don't remember any other day of my life where I was as nervous as then. I had a crush on Hinata for quite some time already, even long before I confessed to him. At the beginning, when we first met I never would have thought that I could fall in love with someone like him. We were acting like some kind of rivals, even though we entered the same high school and the same volleyball club. Sure, we had some kind of past from junior high, but that wasn't the main reason we didn't really get along at the beginning. But that changed, we became teammates after a while, also because of the help of the others. And after becoming teammates we ended up being friends as well. And slowly but surely those feelings of friendship started to get stronger, although, to be honest, I never thought I would like other guys, but I never had any romantic feelings, left alone romantic relationships with other people, so I didn't see it as something 'strange' how some people would think of it, I just accepted it.

The problem was though, that I didn't know if I should confess to him or not. How would he react? Maybe he'd be grossed out, I just didn't know, I never had to deal with those kind of feelings, I didn't know how to act. And suddenly asking him out would be too random. I came to the conclusion that I needed a plan. So one day I asked my big sister for some advice. She was the only one that knew about my feelings towards Hinata; I wasn't ready to tell other people yet.

"Advice? About how to ask him out? What for? A date?" she asked like I wanted her to do the most irrational thing she had ever heard of.

"Well… yes. I'd like your help." I answered her with a serious voice.

"So little Tobio is in love and wants help from his beloved big sister, am I interpreting this correctly?" she asked again.

"Yes you are interpreting this correctly, Sora. So, would you mind helping me?"

"I don't know lil' bro, what do I get from helping you out?"

"The conscious that you're a nice big sister who helped his little brother with his problems?"

"Hmm, I don't know if that's enough and…"

"I'll do your part of the chores for the next two weeks." her eyes widened all of a sudden, I knew she'd fall for that bait.

"Okay then, what is your problem?"

"Didn't I already tell you? I don't know what to do concerning Hinata."

"Why don't you just ask him out then?"

"Out of the blue?!"

"Why not? You'll have to start somewhere, if not you'll never know if the two of you could become a couple or not." I hated to accept it, but she was right.

"And how should I do that?"

"How should I know? Ask him if he's free next weekend and if he wants to hang out with you, do some stuff and… I don't know, you're the teenager here, not me."

"Sora you're 18."

"Don't change the subject."

"Okay, then I guess I'll try that out."

"Good boy, make sure to tell our parents when it's official, okay little Tobio?" she said as she patted my head.

"Don't call me little and stop doing that already, okay?" I said, removing her hand from my head.

"Haha, nope." she grinned while standing up and leaving my room. Well then, the next day was a Friday, my last opportunity to ask him. I was confident that I would manage to ask him.

The next day had come and I tried several times to ask him out, but I always messed up and it was already after school and we had to go to the clubroom. I packed my things and left the classroom, still thinking of a way to ask him.

"Oi, Kageyama, heading to the clubroom now?" I heard Hinata's voice from behind. I was so surprised to suddenly hear him that I almost dropped the books I was carrying.

"Uhm… yes, of course. Where else should I be going to now? Airhead!" I said to him.

"No need to call me an airhead because of that, Bakageyama."

"Oi!" I didn't like it when someone called me that.

"Oh oh." Hinata started running away from me, he was laughing.

"Stop it!" I started running as well.

"No running in the corridors, Kageyama-kun." I heard from behind. It was my homeroom teacher.

"Yes ma'am." I said as I stopped running. Hinata was already out of my sight.

"Okay, good job for today, you can leave." Sawamura-san said to us after the training.

"Oooossu!" we all said in unison. That was the perfect time to ask Hinata before he went home, I had to take that chance.

"Y-yo, Kageyama, do you… got a second?" suddenly Hinata was standing behind of me.

"Don't startle me like that, airhead!"

"S-sorry, so… uhm… can I talk to you before you go home? O-only for a… for a minute." he said to me, he seemed nervous.

"Na… of… yes!" I couldn't decide between 'naturally', 'of course' and 'yes', so I ended up saying all three at once.

"O-okay!" he seemed somehow relieved with the answer I gave. What in the world did he want to tell me?

After having changed clothes I was waiting at our school's front gate. I had to ask him before going home, no matter what. After some minutes Hinata finally arrived.

"Thanks for waiting, so… listen… I'll k-keep this short. Uhm, Kageyama… do you… do you wanna hang out tomorrow?!" he had closed his eyes. Seemingly nervous he was waiting for an answer. I was perplexed, he asked the very same thing I wanted to ask him.

"H-haaaaaa?" I was visibly confused. I think I even blushed a bit.

"K-kageyama?" he slowly opened one eye after the other, still waiting for an answer.

"YES!" I said out of nowhere.

"Ahhh, okay I'm sorry I asked you and- what? Y-yes?" now Hinata was the perplexed one.

"Y-yes. Sure, why… why not? R-right?" I was nervous again.

"Y-yes, why… why not? We're fr… friends after all, haha, right?" we were both nervous and I didn't get why.

"Y-yeah. That's right. So, uhm… I-I'll text you later… about tomorrow… and s-stuff, okay?"

"O-okay Oh, look! Your sister is coming, I-I'll be going home now. See ya!" he said as he climbed on his bicycle and left. Shortly after Sora was standing at the gate too.

"Sora, why are you still here?" I asked my sister.

"I may have had club activities?"

"Oh, right."

"So, what were you talking with Hinata about? Huh? Huh?"

"He asked me if I wanted to hang out tomorrow." I said to her, still not really believing what had just happened.

"Ohoho, see? I told you."

"Y-yeah…"

"Come on, let's go home."

"Y-yeah…"

After arriving home and eating dinner, I went upstairs and entered my room. Then I sat down on my chair and took my phone out of my pocket and texted Hinata about tomorrow. After some minutes of texting we agreed on a time and a place, we'd be meeting at the entrance of the amusement park at ten o'clock in the morning. I knew it wasn't a date, but it surely felt like one. At least I thought that was what dates felt like, I never was on one before, so I didn't know. I decided to go to bed early so that I wouldn't be tired when I met Hinata the next day.

The next day I was already standing in front of the amusement park at half past nine, I was there 30 minutes before we actually agreed to meet. I was nervous, I wanted to make sure to be there on point. And I had promised myself that I would confess to him at the end of the day. I had to do it, no matter what his reaction should be.

As I was waiting for Hinata to arrive I noticed something that had happened the day before. How did Hinata know that Sora is my elder sister? I never told anyone that I had siblings, I didn't see the need to. I decided to ask him during the day. When I looked at my watch it was already ten minutes past ten. Hinata was being late, but then after five more minutes he finally arrived there and I suddenly noticed that I had never seen him in casual clothes, only in the school's uniform, in our school's track suits or in our volleyball uniform. I couldn't help but stare at him as he approached the entrance were I was standing. He was wearing a sleeveless shirt, shorts and a pair of sneakers. Also, he had some bracelets on both arms and was wearing a hat. I didn't know exactly why, but he looked extremely cute and I had to blush.

"H-hey Kageyama, sorry for being late, I overslept. Were you waiting for a long time already?" he apologized with a big smile on his face.

"N-no, totally not. I just got here some minutes before you, no big deal, haha." I lied to him, I didn't want to tell him the truth, whatever the reason for that was, I didn't know it myself either.

"S-so, shall we enter then?" he asked me.

"S-sure, why not?" I hoped that my nervousness would go away by itself, I didn't want to spend the day with Hinata while being nervous.

We started by going onto the highest and fastest roller coaster. Luckily, I could handle roller coaster and that stuff quite well, so I had no problems. Not like Hinata, apparently. But according to him he wasn't scared of riding them, he just didn't do it that much, so he had to get used to them every time he went to an amusement park. I had to laugh when he explained it to me and from that point onwards I think I lost all my nervousness and could finally start enjoying the day with Hinata.

We probably got on every ride and spent the day with eating sweets, getting on rides, hoping that the sweets wouldn't find their way back out through our mouths, talking about lots and lots of things and laughing all the time. I was really enjoying myself, and Hinata seemed to like it a lot too, I had never seen him that happy, and I was very happy too.

It was almost 4pm when we decided to take a little break and sat down on a bench. That was my chance I thought to myself. I had to confess now, it was the perfect timing.

"Uhm… listen, Hinata. I have something to tell you." I broke the silence.

"Y-yes, Kageyama?" he slowly started to turn his head towards my direction. I took a deep breath and started talking again.

"See… I was really happy when you asked me to hang out, yesterday. In fact, I was about to ask you the same thing, but you were faster. And, well… it probably hasn't the same meaning as it has for me, because… you know… I, uhm, I really like you, Hinata. But, not only as a friend, I'd like to be more than just 'friends' with you… if… if you understand what I'm trying to say." I was talking with my eyes closed and only opened them after I made a little break to see how he had reacted to what I just said. When I turned my head to Hinata his face was redder than a tomato.

"Hinata! Are you okay? Do you have a heat stroke? Do you need to go out of the sun? Hinata?! Hinata!" I was holding his shoulders and shaking him, I didn't know what to do.

"Ah. What. AH. I'm okay. Okay." he finally said. I stopped shaking him, still holding him.

"Hinata, are you okay? Why are you so red? Hinata."

"I… you… what you just said…"

"Oh, right, I wasn't finished. So, basically, what I wanted to tell you… I'm in love with you, Hinata. And I wanted you to know it." I took another deep breath. I said it.

And suddenly I felt something around me. Someone was hugging me, Hinata was hugging me. I had to blush instantly.

"Ah, Hinata. What are you doing?! Let go of me, airhead!" I tried to pull his arms away, but he was hugging me with all his strength.

"Bakageyama!"

"H-haaa?!"

"Stupid Kageyama! You're always faster than me, you never give me a chance to be the first one. You're always the first one."

"Haaaa?!" I was so confused and still blushing because my crush I just had confessed to was hugging me, in front of hundreds of other people.

"What I want to say… I… me too."

"You what?"

"I want us to be more than just friends too, Bakageyama!"

"You… w-what?"

"I love you too, for crying out loud!" he said it out of the blue. I was speechless. I had not expected that to happen?! I was not ready for that. I hadn't included that in my plans. What was I supposed to do?!

"You… too? I… and you too? And… we?"

"Mhm!"

"D-does that mean we're a couple now?" that was the only thing that came into my mind.

"I-I guess so, if you want. I'd love to be y-your b… b-b… boyf… boyf-friend."

"O-okay. Me, me too. C-could you stop hugging me nonetheless? It is kind of embarrassing."

"Oh! Right! Sorry, haha." he stopped hugging me. We were now sitting next to each other, both remaining in silence. We clearly didn't know what to do.

"C-can I hold your hand though?" I asked him, still blushing.

"S-sure." he said while stretching out his hand into my direction. He was blushing as well.

We were holding hands.

"Hmm…"

"What?"

"I could get used to this."

"B-bakageyama!" he said while turning his head away, blushing even more than before.

"Haha, I'm sorry." I couldn't help but laugh and then Hinata joined me. We were both truly happy.

Then we spent the rest of the day at the amusement park, until it closed. After that we went home, we had promised to be texting with each other as soon as we would have gotten home. It was one of the most beautiful days I had ever spent.

"Haha, Hinata, remember when you almost had to puke after that one roller coaster?! You said you'd be okay, but you shouldn't have eaten the cotton candy before the ride." I was thinking back of our first date in the amusement park, still sitting next to Hinata, who was still lying on that hospital bed. I always told him stories of the past when I visited him, never giving up the hope that he could wake up from it. But of course, he didn't wake up that time either.

I was gently holding his hand whenever I talked to him, to make sure he knew I was there, that I'd be waiting for him. And it wouldn't matter how long it would take. I would be the one waiting by his side when he would wake up. There was always a new morning coming, and with every new morning a new hope arose that maybe he would awaken that day.