The sky was black by thetime second years Kageyama and Hinata locked the doors to the second gymnasiumbehind them. Ennoshita-san had given them a weary look when they had statedthey wanted to try a new type of set. Or maybe that was how their captain always looked. Kageyama wasn't sure he knew.
It was Friday night, so Kageyama felt no burning need to get home in a hurry as he and Hinata walked along the road before their paths diverged, the latter pushing his bicycle alongside him. They discussed their new attack — Kageyama pinpointing where they needed the most work and Hinata waving his arms like a moron in excitement at the newness of it. Until, of course, Hinata, dropped his bicycle and sent them both sprawling into the street.
As soon as he could tell Hinata was uninjured, Kageyama growled, "Dumbass! Is walking in a straight line so far out of your ability that you have to take me down with you?"
Hinata wrinkled his nose. "Shut up, Bakayama. I'm allowed to be excited with the Inter-high coming up."
Kageyama tried to come up with a rebuttal, but his chance came and went as he opened his mouth and closed it again. There was something about the way Hinata's overall lack of dignity that made him only half-heartedly rail against it. It was part of what made Hinata so indomitable: undefeated even in the face of self-inflicted failure.
Refusing the urge to brush the gravel clinging to Hinata's backside, Kageyama simply waited for Hinata to right himself before they walked on in an unusual, but not uncomfortable, silence.
It was about a half mile away from the school before Kageyama felt the first raindrop.
Simultaneously, they turned to look at each other before they both took off running. It only took a couple hundred yards before the skies opened up and they were both soaked well through their club jackets. Kageyama could feel his teeth chattering as he ran, but his momentum only seemed to work the chilly rain further into his clothing and skin and even his bones.
"Hinata," he said through clenched teeth. When Hinata ignored him, he shouted, "Hinata!"
They jogged along as Kageyama wondered if he would regret his next words. "My house is only a block away. You should come over until the rain stops." At Hinata's shocked expression (he had never been invited over to Kageyama's house, despite having issued several unanswered invitations to Kageyama), Kageyama colored and grunted. "Our new attack will be useless if you have pneumonia, stupid."
At that, Hinata's face split into a wide grin that Kageyama was sure put the streetlamps around them to shame. "I'll race you," he taunted before darting off in the direction of Kageyama's house. Kageyama didn't know how the other boy knew where he lived, briefly wondering if Hinata had followed him home at one point, only to brush off that idea in favor of the certainty of a warm meal, thanks to the generous takeout allowance his parents had left before departing for a week-long business trip to America. The curry place down the street knew his order as soon as he said his name.
Kageyama all but shouldered the door open while his hands fumbled with the keys, but soon, they were ensconced in the lingering warmth of the house as they dripped all over the tiled genkan floor. Dropping his backpack, Kageyama shed his sodden jacket and balled it up as he toed off his equally soaked shoes.
The slippers on the step, neatly inscribed with his name, felt warm and inviting on his feet. He sighed audibly until the wet plop of Hinata sitting on the floor met his ears. Raising a brow, Kageyama watched in borderline amusement as Hinata struggled to remove his shoes before lying back on the floor with a groan. He rambled something about his laces getting caught in his bike wheels and tying them too tight and cold fingers.
Shaking his head, Kageyama bent over and roughly wrenched Hinata's shoes off and pointed at a set of slippers that were embroidered with the word 'Guest'. "Those are yours," he said before stalking off to gather some towels and a change of clothes for them both.
When Kageyama returned to the genkan to throw a towel over the mess on the floor, he raised a brow at Hinata, who was sitting where Kageyama had left him, shivering and staring at the slippers. "They go on your feet, dumbass."
"W-won't your parents be angry you didn't ask to bring someone home?" Hinata said hesitantly.
Blinking in surprise at the question, Kageyama replied, "They're not home. They haven't been home all week, and won't be until next Friday."
Hinata gaped at him. "But — but how do you survive?"
Kageyama bit back a reflexive retort, only because he did not quite understand Hinata's meaning. His parents left him with plenty of money, he was within a ten minute walk of two restaurants and two convenience stores, and the house had a state-of-the-art alarm. As for housework, there was little washing up to do because he didn't cook, and he did his own laundry once a —
"Kageyama-kuuuuuuuuuun!" Hinata whined, snapping Kageyama out of his contemplation. He hissed, "What!"
"Never mind," Hinata grumbled as he tucked his now-bare feet into the guest slippers. Kageyama shrugged and handed Hinata a towel and a change of clothes: an old white T-shirt and his volleyball warm-ups from his first year of Kitagawa. He reckoned they were the only things he owned that would remotely fit his small teammate, as neither fit him anymore.
"The bathroom is the last door on the left past the living room," Kageyama directed as he started to mop up the mess on the floor before gathering the pile of soggy laundry. Hinata looked at his offering in surprise but did as he was told.
Once he was done, Kageyama rolled everything up into the towel and threw it into the washer before going off to change his own clothes. After he was done, he knocked on the door to the bathroom and said, "Just put your wet stuff in the washer. It's one door to your right."
Not waiting for a reply, he rang the curry restaurant down the street and ordered his usual, plus some for Hinata. While he had no idea what Hinata's favorite foods were, he did know the other boy was a human dumpster and would probably eat anything set in front of him.
Kageyama was flicking through the channels on the TV, huddled up against the kotatsu, when Hinata came out of the bathroom. He noticed that Hinata was looking around like he had never seen a house before. "What are you staring at?"
"Your house is huge!"
Scoffing, Kageyama retorted, "It's only because you're a midget. Now, sit down before you freeze to death and I have to find some other idiot to hit my tosses."
Hinata settled onto the floor next to Kageyama, who had decided that there was absolutely nothing on worth watching and nudged the remote towards his impromptu guest and mumbled, "You pick."
That was a mistake. It wasn't until forty-five minutes later and the takeaway had already arrived that Hinata had settled on a new anime that had come out, although it was one that Kageyama had noticed the commercials for — it was about volleyball! — and wanted to check out.
They ate in rapt silence as their eyes were glued to the TV. Kageyama could tell that Hinata was instantly in love with every character, even the emotionally constipated tsundere.
When said character popped up in the token Sad Background Story sequence, Hinata elbowed him and said, "Hey, that's you!"
Kageyama gave Hinata a sideways glare. "Is not, asswipe."
Hinata ignored the insult and turned his attention back to the anime. Kageyama fought the urge to smack the other boy when he saw tears forming during the plot climax. "Dumbass," he grunted as he violently stabbed a piece of pork with his chopstick.
Dragging himself out of the warm cocoon of the kotatsu, Kageyama cleared up the remnants of their meal. Curious, he poked his head through the kitchen curtains to see how the weather had progressed. He was surprised to see that the rain had not only continued, but was coming down in buckets. Frowning, he set the kettle to make tea and went into the living room to nudge the house phone at Hinata.
"The rain isn't stopping. You can, um, stay the night if your mom says it's okay."
Hinata let out a happy squeak as he manically dialed his phone number. After a loud, garbled conversation, Kageyama assumed that his mother had consented from the obnoxious exclamation that nearly exploded his ear drums. "Don't make me regret this, dumbass."
With a laugh, Hinata answered, "You need to learn some new words, Bakayama."
Ignoring the insult, Kageyama went back into the kitchen and finished making the tea. He gave a cup to Hinata and settled back into the warmth of the kotatsu before emitting a contented sigh. It was some time before he noticed that Hinata was staring at him. Again. Like an idiot.
"So, you're home alone for two weeks, and all you do is laundry, watch TV, and drink tea?" Hinata was looking at him like he had two heads.
If he thought about it, Kageyama could honestly say that he had never considered doing anything else. The only thing he did outside of school was volleyball. He had no friends at Karasuno outside of the team, and he had no friends at all from Kitagawa. Most of his neighbors were old, rich people who would pinch his cheeks and tell him to gain some weight.
"Whatever," he said finally before turning his attention back to his tea and the television, which was now playing reruns of Pokemon. It wasn't the greatest show ever made, but he had grown up with it and it was there.
Hinata must have had a similar disinterest in following along, as he filled the room with inane chatter that Kageyama filtered out after hearing the fourth story about Natsu's battles with bicycles and gravity.
A deep yawn shuddered from his chest as Kageyama stretched his limbs. He cast a weary glance at the clock, surprised when he saw that it was past eleven. He was usually in bed by ten.
"I'm going to bed. I'll pull out a futon for you."
The yawn apparently infectious, Hinata rubbed his eyes and let out one of his own. "No use in staying up if you're asleep. Bad host Bakayama." The last word was caught in the midst of a mighty yawn, stretched within an inch of its life.
Too tired to give Hinata the whack upside the head he so richly deserved, Kageyama merely shrugged and padded into his room. There was one futon in the house, which had only been used a single time. He decided he didn't want to recall the point in his life when making friends had come a little easier to him —back before Kindaichi had correctly deemed him an egocentric asshole. Well, he was still an asshole, but even Ennoshita-san had commented on how well Kageyama was getting along with his teammates, both new and old, in comparison to his first year self.
At least, there had been one futon. He rummaged through his closet before moving on to the linen closet and finally the closet in his parents' room. His mother must have given it away once he had admitted to her that all his old friends hated him. Maybe she thought seeing it would bring back bad memories; maybe she just thought his closet looked like a dump. Either way, it was gone. His frown of frustration deepening, Kageyama wanted to shout when he realized what this meant.
He'd have to share his own bed with Hinata.
The idea of putting his klutzy tornado of a friend in his parents room, surrounded by his mother's extremely delicate jade figurines, was nearly as uncomfortable as the thought of Hinata kicking him in his sleep.
Trading in his desire to shout for a grunt, Kageyama poked his head into his room and said, "The futon is missing. If you kick me, I will break you in half."
Hinata stared at Kageyama a good, long while before the meaning of the words sunk in. When he finally made the connection, his nose wrinkled. "Same goes for you, Bakayama."
"Now who needs to learn some new words," Kageyama retorted out of habit.
Getting settled was an awkward affair. Kageyama usually slept with his back against the wall, but Hinata claimed he felt weird facing out into a strange room and wouldn't be able to sleep. Kageyama thought that was idiotic but was too tired to argue. Instead, he settled his own back facing the breadth of the room while Hinata was turned away from him.
If Kageyama thought about it hard enough, he could convince his sleep-fogged brain that this was just like training camp, an oni with his own personal kanabo lying next to him. It was like that, and in no way whatsoever did it resemble something else. That would be ridiculous.
So, so ridiculous.
Kageyama recalled seeing his alarm clock read half past midnight before he fell asleep. Hinata being out like a light did not help. While the other boy didn't exactly snore, he made slobbering sounds as he slept. As he desperately tried to find the peace of slumber, Kageyama made a mental note to wash his sheets the next day, as they would likely be caked in Dumbass drool.
The scarce light of dawn peeking through the crack between his curtains woke Kageyama. Something warm rested on his chest, save for a cool, wet patch on his stomach. He nearly launched himself out of bed when he looked down and saw that it was Hinata, who had sprawled himself on top of Kageyama's right arm and all over his upper body. He could feel his cheeks turn bright red as he realized what this would look like. At any moment, he expected someone to launch themselves out of the shadows to point and laugh at this absurdity.
Or worse — Hinata could wake up.
Filing that thought under Things That Need To Die, Kageyama gritted his teeth and hoped he would just go back to sleep. They could deal with this nonsense in the morning. He tucked his free hand under his head and closed his eyes, counting dancing volleyballs like one might count sheep.
As if sensing Kageyama's mind on his favorite thing, Hinata made a small whimpering sound and curled into his side even tighter. Glancing down at the boy draped over him, Kageyama felt something warm tighten in his chest. It was . . . cute. Stupid Hinata with his stupid red hair and his stupid drool and his stupid lack of personal space was just kind of cute.
The thought of Hinata being cute made a slight smile tug at the corners of Kageyama's mouth. He felt it linger as he shut his eyes and drifted back to sleep.
When he awoke the second time, Kageyama was very aware of the lack of a weight on his chest. He heard rather than saw Hinata heading to the bathroom, singing his moronic toilet song as he began his day. Kageyama's accompanying scowl felt a little more forced than usual this morning. He chalked it up to a bad night's sleep. There was no way there was some small thread of affection leeching into his heart. Stupid Hinata.
As Kageyama wearily made some rice and warmed the leftover curry, he noticed that Hinata gave no indication that he had, in any way, did something dangerously resembling cuddling.
As he added more chili powder to the curry than he knew Hinata could handle without drinking his weight in water, Kageyama smirked to himself.
What he doesn't know . . . .