Tape Wrinkles
Life's hard when you're an assistant Athletic Trainer and one boy keeps coming back practically every day complaining about one injury or other. The injuries weren't serious.
Monday afternoon. Hinata barges into the Athletic Training room, fresh with yet another injury from doing something, unsurprisingly from anything volleyball related. He breathes in the scent of what could be mistaken for paint thinner, tape, and a faint hint of bleach- a scent now very familiar to him.
"Another injury?" Takeda Ittetsu, resident Athletic Trainer, inquires, looking up from his computer and swivels around in his chair.
"Kind of?" Hinata answers, a bit embarrassed. "I mean, the swelling's gone down and… I iced it!" He adds.
"I'll be the judge of that. Hop up on the table and tell me what happened." Takeda takes out Hinata's folder full of the various injuries he got while playing volleyball and adds a new sheet to it.
He starts to touch the boy's ankle to check for signs of swelling and heat and finds none, much to his relief. Coach Ukai would have his head if the middle blocker was more injured than he said he was. He starts to gently turn the foot around in different directions, asking if any of it hurt too much, to which all the replies were negative with vigorous shakes of the boy's head.
"So, it was on Friday, right? And the ball was set really tight to the net and I thought I could get it so I jumped and got tangled up in the net and maybe…sorta…landed wrong." Hinata babbles while the Athletic Trainer looks at his ankle.
"Okay, so I got good news and bad news for you, so which one do you want to hear first?" Takeda asks as he finishes writing down his assessment notes on the sheet and clicks his pen.
"Bad news. Always the bad news first."
"Bad news is that you have to get your ankle taped and possibly take time off from practice. Good news is that you have to get your ankle taped and you can still play, with some adjustments for a while."
"Waaa- really?!" He can't tell if he's relieved or agitated. He's either had to sit out from practice for a while due to getting hit in the face when he didn't receive properly or holding an ice pack to the injury, but never something like this.
"Let's get the taping over with and see if you can get to practice, alright?" A pause. "Tobio, would you like to do the honors?"
Kageyama? He was here too? Shoyo stifles a gasp and nearly chokes. Him, here, out of all places. So that's where Kageyama went. He sneaks a glance at the far side of the room and finds his former teammate reclining on one of the examination tables, one leg hanging off the edge and swinging back and forth almost insolently.
He suddenly becomes self-conscious about his sneakers with its shoelaces fraying at the end, triple tied into knots. He doesn't understand why, when they've been teammates for about a year.
"Really? Are you sure?" Kageyama sits up and his voice sounds almost unsure, so different from his usual tone that Hinata does a double take. Where was his usual confidence?
"You said you wanted practice right? You can't practice on your classmates and me and not apply it to real people, you know." Takeda smiles, teasing his assistant.
"Oh, alright." The dark-haired boy mumbles and walks over to the counter, grabbing a bright orange roll of… something, two rolls of what appeared to be tape, a square made of Styrofoam-y material, and a can with the word "adhesive" on it.
"Move your other leg off the table, take off your shoe and sock and bring your lower leg to the edge of the table." Kageyama instructs him in one breath, setting the supplies down on the table.
"But my foot stinks and it's sweaty!" Hinata blurts out.
Kageyama gives him a look and sighs. "Are you stupid? Everybody has that problem. Just do it."
He strips off his sock and wiggles his toes, his embarrassment fading quickly. "Hey, what's that?" He points to the square.
"It's a heel and lace pad and one sticks to where your Achilles tendon is," the other places it on the back of his heel, "and the other goes to this little dip your foot makes when it goes like this," and uses his hand to push the foot upward with toes facing up to the ceiling.
"Right here," he elaborates, and points to a place where the foot and lower leg connect, on the opposite side of the heel. "It's to make sure the tape doesn't chafe your skin there later."
Hinata lets out a little yelp when something cold hits his skin. "What the heck?"
"Just a little adhesive to make sure the taping stays on." Tobio gives a little smile, although Hinata swore it was more of an evil grin than a smile.
"'A little'? My leg hairs should not be sticking to my skin like this. Speaking of skin, it feels unreal. And I'm like, 100 percent sure my leg hair will be ripped out later." He whines.
Kageyama rolls his eyes. "Dumbass, don't be so melodramatic," but he admits to himself that the other was right. His leg did look a little too shiny, but better safe than sorry, right?
"What's that?" Hinata points at the orange roll.
"Pre-wrap. It's like protection between the skin and the actual tape. Also, stop dropping your foot. You're going to mess up the taping." Kageyama pushes the foot back into the upward position from before and starts wrapping.
Hinata watches as the pre-wrap starts from the middle of his lower leg, under his foot in a figure eight and under his heel to go around the ankle once and to have it repeated once again for good measure.
"Hey, what's-"
"Figure eights and heel locks with half-width starting from your lower leg." Kageyama cuts in smoothly without missing a beat. He rips the pre-wrap and smacks it down on Hinata's leg.
"Was that really necessary? I'm injured! You could've made it worse!" He complains.
"Shut up." Kageyama adds a strip of tape around where he started the wrap and another where it wrapped around his foot. "Anchor strips," he says, before the other boy has a chance to open his mouth to ask.
Takeda comes over and assesses his assistant's work. "Nicely done," he comments, before looking more closely at the wrapping. "Just be careful not to do the pre-wrap too tightly next time."
Dammit, Kageyama thinks. He nods.
-x-x-
"Damn, this tape is hard to rip." He grumbles under his breath. He had been trying unsuccessfully to rip the white tape at least three times, while turning darker shades of red each time. The tape showed no signs of tearing, except for folding over a little more, making it harder and harder to rip.
"Having trouble over there?" The short middle blocker asks, cheekily.
"Absolutely not," Kageyama retorts before mumbling, "Stupid inferior tape." He walks over to the counter for a new roll of tape that would hopefully repair his crumbling dignity. He looks over at his teacher, hoping for some form of reassurance, and finds none. Takeda looked way too interested in updating Hinata's injury sheet, but Kageyama could tell it was already completed and the pen darted around without making any marks as it hovered a millimeter above the paper.
It was all on him now until it was over. He could ask for a pair of scissors, but in the world of Athletic Training, to use scissors spelled out defeat. He was not going to do that, not ever, and especially not today.
He unravels the new roll of tape and sticks it on the top anchor strip. He whispers "inside out insideoutinside out."
Hinata startles at the sound of frantic whispering coming from the other boy, whose lips were moving quickly. A prayer? An incantation? A curse? He decides to ignore it and ask questions later.
A combination of stirrup strips, heel locks, and figure eights to make a basket weave ankle taping leaves Kageyama sweating and his fingers shaking after tear after tear after tear of the tape, which mercifully spared him further embarrassment.
His teacher just then decides to walk over to look at his finished product. Takeda nods in approval and asks for the roll of tape before- he pushes up his glasses- he finishes off the taping with another strip of tape accompanied with a clean ripping sound.
"Finished!" He smiles at his assistant, who grimaces back. "That was a great job, considering it's your first real taping! And it only took you ten minutes!"
Kageyama flushes again with embarrassment. Ten minutes compared to his teacher's two. Behind him, he hears Hinata snickering, earning the latter a kick to the ass before having the door click shut behind him. It leaves him standing at the doorway, testing his injured ankle and the feel of the taping before he checks his cell phone and blanches at the time.
[Hinata comes back later to get it cut off his foot and howls in pain as it gets ripped from his skin. "My poor leg hairs!" He laments. He complains again at the amount of de-adhesive that is promptly sprayed on his leg and foot, rubbing the liquid vigorously away with a towel. "Are you sure you didn't use too much again? It smells like paint thinner."
Kageyama ignores the comment, but Hinata can see that his nose is wrinkled at the smell too.]
-x-x-
Kageyama sips his daily carton of milk, wrinkling his nose at how the taste of his drink and the smell of the room clashed. He just finished folding all the towels and taking inventory of the supplies for the past hour, his first chance to actually sit down a few feet away from him.
Before his posterior even had a chance to brush against the seat of the chair, the door bangs open.
"What happened to you this time?" He straightens up and scowls at his former teammate.
"I twisted my ankle when I fell over backwards. Crazy, right?" Hinata grins.
"Not really." He replies, deadpan.
"What do you mean, not really?" The other exclaims, a bit disappointed.
"When it's you, not a lot is surprising." He shrugs. "Although, it seems that you've been getting hurt more since I left."
"Oh."
"Sprain again, Shoyo?" Takeda asks as he comes into the room.
"Yup. Second time after a week."
"Can you walk?"
"Um…"
Takeda takes out another sheet and Hinata groans. Another day in the life. 20 minutes later, he shuts the door behind him and shows up approximately 1.5 seconds late.
-x-x-
"He smells like fresh baked laundry", Hinata thinks dazedly, as Kageyama passes by him. "I mean, fresh dried. Or is it fresh out of the-" He accidentally says out loud, and claps his hand over his mouth.
"Are you listening? This hip spica's supposed to help you move your leg forward and the other one's supposed to restrict that." Kageyama snaps his fingers in front of Hinata's face.
"Can you do both?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"You just need the one helping you move your leg forward. Having the other on your non-injured leg is just counteractive."
"Don't you need practice though?" Hinata asks innocently, batting his eyelashes.
"Ugh, fine. Why not." Kageyama relents, and does both wraps, securing them in tape.
He turns around to put the tape back on the counter and when he looks back, he finds Hinata sprawled face down on the floor.
"What the hell did you do?" Kageyama asks in amazement, despite himself.
"I jumped and when your legs are supposed to go in different directions, this happens, apparently." The other groans, voice muffled by the concrete floor.
"Okay, first of all, why. And I swear I just turned for at least two seconds. Please tell me you didn't break anything."
Hinata sits up, face a little red from the fall, and shakes his head. "Nope, not a single scrat-", he starts before a trickle of blood starts from his nose. "Never mind."
"Can you go at least an hour without hurting yourself?" Tobio cries out, frustrated. "Is that too much to ask?"
"Yes." The other says before he grabs a tissue, balls it up, and ungracefully shoves it up the bleeding nostril.
He finds Tobio staring at him with his mouth open. "What?" He says, defensively.
And Tobio laughs, a rough, low sound that surprises himself as well as Shoyo. "Just lean forward a bit instead of tilting your head back." His voice catches on the last few words before he bursts out into laughter again, unsuccessfully trying to clamp his mouth shut.
Now it's Hinata's turn to stare. Kageyama's maybe laughed once or twice in volleyball, but never so freely. It was honestly fascinating and a little unnerving, just like his smile.
"What are you looking at?" Kageyama asks after the laughing fit is over.
"Maybe you shouldn't do that anymore..?" Hinata ventures. He finds himself in a headlock as he flails around to no avail.
-x-x-
"You should join again," Hinata says one day, as Takeda and Kageyama set up the gym for a game. The words hang there as he waits for a response. "Join volleyball. Again." He repeats, in case he might have been misunderstood or not heard. Takeda chooses this moment to go back to the Athletic Training room for "more supplies".
Tobio makes a noise that sounds like a mix between a sigh and a grunt.
"What's the point? We'll just lose again anyway. The team doesn't need me." He says flatly, and Hinata's anger flares up.
"Is this why you suddenly quit? What happened to you? Last time we both vowed to make it to Nationals and now you're like this? What happened to doing it for the team, with the team? Did you suddenly turn tail because we're no good or something?" He breathes a little heavily after spitting out the questions, and after catching his breath, he knows he'll regret this, but says it anyway.
"I guess you really are the King- even off the court- doing what you want instead of thinking about how your actions hurt others! You only care about yourself after all!" He sneers, and watches his words sting the other boy.
"Take it back! You don't know anything!" Kageyama hisses, eyes burning with anger. He steps forward menacingly and Hinata finds himself standing on tip-toe to look at him eye to eye. He sees anger, but also hurt in those blue eyes, and he wants to apologize. He knows that Kageyama is past his self-centered phase, but it angered him that he would give up after making that promise.
"What are you afraid of?" The orange-haired boy asks softly.
"Get out." Kageyama replies stonily.
"Go out where? I belong here, unlike you." Hinata finds some satisfaction in watching Kageyama flinch at the statement.
This was all his frustration coming out in one phrase at not seeing Kageyama racing around the corner to beat him to the gym, his disappointment when he didn't show up on the first day of the new season, or the next day either, or even the next week, his palm that didn't sting in that particular way or even became red like it did with Kageyama's tosses, their usual bickering in practice that Daichi scolded them for, the wholeness the team had.
"It's not your business anyway on why I decided to not come back. The real reason." Kageyama turns on his heel, his shoes emitting a screech on the waxed floor that makes them both flinch. "Good luck with the game."
Hinata doesn't respond.
-x-x-
After the confrontation, Hinata hasn't shown up, making it the first time in three weeks since he became injury free. Any leftover ankle tapings were done by Takeda as his assistant made himself scarce before practice started.
"Why don't you just tell him the real reason?" Takeda asks the prone figure of his student on the examination table.
"The real reason is stupid." Kageyama replies, voice muffled by the plastic cover.
"And what would that be, Tobio?" He says, gently.
"I wanted to learn from you." Silence.
"The real real reason."
"I was almost failing two subjects so I was advised to not play volleyball until I get my grades up." Kageyama mumbles.
"That isn't stupid, it was the better thing to do." He adds, "I know the way you look at them when they're practicing."
Kageyama sits up, surprised. "How?"
"You get this look on your face like you want to jump back out on court. You look jealous. And sad."
He feels his face grow hot and he grips the edges of the table. "Was I really that transparent?"
His teacher hums thoughtfully before speaking. "It's more of a body language thing, but I guess it was pretty clear on how you felt." Then he becomes embarrassed. "Ah, was that too forward of me?! I'm sorry, Tobio!"
"No, it was fine." Kageyama assures his flustered teacher. "You're right, I did want to go back really badly."
Don't worry, you'll be back there in no time, and then you'll leave me all by myself." He teases, "And you were such a good towel folder too!"
Kageyama grins. "I'll be leaving and all you care about are the towels?"
"Oh please, Tobio, you're more than just a mere towel folder. You've gotten better at ankle taping. It still takes you ages though."
-x-x-
Kageyama sneaks a glance around the gym before entering. His whole body vibrates with nervous energy as he inhales the scent of sweat and waxed floor. He picks up a volleyball left on the sidelines and bounces it once, twice, on the floor before spinning it around in his hands. There's no target that he can set to, but he could at least practice on the wall.
He throws the ball a few feet above eye level and starts to pepper. Receive, set, swing. He impulsively sets a quick to break the monotony of the three motions and launches it backwards. He hears a slap and thud as it hits the ground a few seconds after.
He turns to find Hinata looking at his hand and opens his mouth.
"Look. I'm sorry." He says the moment Hinata demands, "Why are you here?"
"Whatever. Just..whatever." Hinata says angrily. He turns around to leave just like Kageyama did weeks earlier but hesitates at the doorway.
"I lied. I do want to be with all of you."
Hinata runs back and grabs him by the collar, pulling him down to eye level. "Then what was the real reason?" He says, annoyed.
"I was failing Math and English." Kageyama mumbles, swatting at the other's hands.
"What? I can't hear you!" Hinata makes a show of cupping his ear with his hand.
"I said, I was failing Math and English!"
"Oh." And then he snorts. Which then turns into a snicker. Into full blown laughter that leaves Hinata bent over, wheezing.
"What?" Kageyama crosses his arms, frowning. This was no light matter, but apparently it was the joke of the century to the other.
"That's hilarious!" Hinata doubles over again, laughing. "And I thought I was worse than you!"
"Why, you-!" Kageyama reaches over and puts him in a headlock while grinding his fist into the other's head.
"Ow! Okay, I'm sorry!" He slips out of Kageyama's grasp and pats down his hair.
"First you're angry at me, and then you laugh at my problems?" Kageyama clenches his fists.
"I wasn't angry angry, just disappointed. I knew you would come around eventually." Hinata says with a fake air of superiority. I mean, you always watched us like you were starving. So I guess I can forgive you." He sighs loudly.
"I'm glad that that was the real reason. We all thought you were quitting forever. That you really hated to lose just like before." He shrugs, kicking aimlessly at the floor.
"Yes, well… Anyway, you forgive pretty easily for someone who avoided me for so long." Kageyama abruptly changes the topic.
"Excuse me? You were the one doing the avoiding. And I forgive easily because I'm nice, unlike you."
They bicker for a few more minutes until they lapse into an easy silence.
"When are you coming back?" Hinata asks.
"Next week. And why did you spike the ball? That set wasn't for you."
"Yeah well, I bothered you for even one set so long ago that it would be a waste if I let an unintentional one go." He smiles at Kageyama. "No one can set like you, anyway. Look, my palm's still red."
He sounded so unlike his usual boisterous self that Kageyama just blinks at his answer.
"Then how did you know I was in the gym? No one was here."
"I didn't know," Hinata says breezily.
"So-"
"I forgot to take my court shoes from the gym."
Kageyama just snorts. Typical.
-x-x-
Monday afternoon. An all too familiar figure opens the door and Takeda only needs to raise his eyebrows slightly before an explanation comes tumbling out from Hinata.
"The usual." As in, another sprained ankle.
The athletic trainer lets out a huff of laughter before grabbing yet another sheet to document the injury. After writing down everything, he motions for Tobio to start the taping.
"Damn," He curses, as he smooths down the final piece of tape.
"What happened?"
"I got some tape wrinkles."
"Don't worry about them," Takeda assures him. He glances back at the clock and sees that his assistant finished in four minutes instead of his usual ten. He smiles at the sight of Tobio fussing over the tape as Hinata fidgets impatiently.
"What's taking so long?" Hinata complains.
"Maybe if you stayed still instead of wiggling your body around as if you've never gotten your ankle taped before, we'd have been done a long time ago!" Kageyama growls as he throws his hands up in the air, frustrated. He decides not to bother anymore.
"Are we done now?" They both look expectantly at Takeda, who nods, smiling.
Hinata lets out a whoop as he jumps up from the table, followed closely by Kageyama, who looks back one more time at his teacher before leaving.
And the two race each other out the room, leaving the door slightly ajar as they yell to each other that the last one to the gym is a deflated volleyball and owes the other a bag of pork buns.
-End-