A/N: So, I realize that Hinata dunking is sorta (really) unreasonable, but I did some research, and the world record for the highest vertical jump is 5', I think, and Hinata is 5'4". Official basketball hoops are 10', so… handwavy author privilege, Hinata can dunk. Plus official volleyball nets are between 7' and 8' high, and Hinata can reach a foot past those for his spikes (maybe?).
About Hinata's last name: Apparently, there are two names for the color orange: daidaiiro (which is the native word for orange) and orenji (which is borrowed from America). I ended up going with the American version because it sounded nicer to me, as a last name (and was also easier to make a last name with).
Not beta-read, since none of my usually proofreaders have watched both of these. Title from Try Everything by Shakira. Also, I was thinking about writing a sequel where he meets the GoM again during his time at Karasuno? Let me know if you'd be interested in that.
Ah, I'm going to be late!
Hinata pedals furiously, making his way up the steep hill that leads to his elementary school. His breath comes out in small white puffs and the cold winter air ruffles his hair. He doesn't want to be late on the first day of third grade, but unfortunately, his mom was up late dealing with his newborn sister—who was so cute!—and forgot to wake him up.
"All right!" he hears someone cheer as he levels out at the top of the hill. He slows down to see what that was about, catching sight of a few people gathered around a TV in the window of a shop. He pauses to watch the game for a few moments, only to forget all about getting to school.
He watches the ball fly over the net, sees one person hit it with their arms and another hit it with their hands. And then he catches sight of the most amazing person of all. The teen on television takes a running leap, and Hinata could swear that he has wings, ones that help him fly higher than the three people who jump to block the ball from hitting the ground of the other side.
The commentator goes on, but all Hinata can do is replay that moment over and over in his mind's eye. Arms and fingers sweeping back like feathers, a jump that brings him into the sky.
"And now, we bring you footage from the Winter Cup, where Rakuzan has once again swept everyone away to claim the title of number one in the nation!"
Hinata is once again captivated, this time by bouncing balls and fast drives, by powerful dunks and arching three-pointers.
"Come on, Shou-chan, we're going to be late," Izumi pants from beside him, already beginning to pedal again.
Karasuno…
Rakuzan…
Over the course of the school year, Hinata decides to focus more on volleyball, if only because his mom tells him, "At least you won't seem as short!" (At this point, he's not quite the shortest person in his grade, but his doctor doesn't have high hopes for his future.)
Fortunately, the school has a volleyball team, if not one that's hugely talented. The players are laid back, the coach is nice, and Hinata enjoys himself. His enthusiasm for the sport spreads to the other members of the team and they begin practicing in earnest for the small tournament held in the town for junior players.
Despite this, however, they're still defeated in the first round by a team with a black haired boy who sees the whole court.
For the first time, volleyball makes him sad.
After his team loses against the freakishly strong elementary school with the scarily talented setter, Hinata decides to give volleyball a break, and turns to his other passion in life: basketball.
He practices basketball during the summer, familiarizing himself with the familiar-yet-unfamiliar grooves of a basketball. His strong legs help him here too, and he quickly realizes that dunks are his strong suit and that if anyone was worse than him at passing... well, let's just say that he'd be very, very shocked.
When Hinata goes over to Izumi's house to ask him to help practice, Izumi opens the door with his mouth open to protest, and a hand on his jacket. He's stunned when Hinata dips into a bow and asks him in a rush, "Please help me with basketball!" He knows that he mentioned offhandedly to Hinata at some point that he was planning to join his school's basketball club, and hopefully make it onto the team, but he hadn't expected Hinata to remember.
Instead of voicing this to Hinata though, he merely groans and starts slipping his arms into jacket sleeves, sighing hopelessly as a huge grin spreads across Hinata's face.
"Let's go to the courts."
The next year, Hinata's enrolled in a middle school called Teiko (his mom likes to marvel dramatically at how Hinata managed to get in at all, considering how much time he put into sports instead of schoolwork).
During the first few days of school, when Hinata walks past club members advertising various organizations, he almost falters when he notices the volleyball club's members, rubs his chest at the pain of the remembered loss, and even lapses long enough to grab one of the sign-up forms.
(He makes sure to take one of the basketball club's, too.)
After school, he wanders around the school's campus, marveling a bit at how much bigger the school is (in part because it's a middle school, but also because it's richer). He follows the sounds of bouncing balls on instinct, and eventually, he stands in front of the doors that lead to the basketball gym (because of course Teiko has separate basketball and volleyball gyms).
Tentatively stepping closer to the door, he's startled when a ball flies towards him, sliding into a receiving pose on instinct. The ball hurts a lot when it hits him and its weight is the strange feeling of familiar-unfamiliar that he was working on getting rid of over the summer. It startles him so much that the ball goes flying past the blue-haired boy running up to him and back into the gym.
"My bad! Are you okay?" The boy rubbing his neck sheepishly is lanky and tall, and has ridiculously blue hair and dark skin. Hinata opens his mouth to call him a ganguro, but mentally chastises himself for being rude to a person he hasn't even spoken to before, and who clearly looks apologetic. Instead, he closes his mouth and briefly darts his gaze past the dark-skinned boy in front of him into the gym, where there are other players with equally ridiculously colored hair (though Hinata himself can't judge; people like to stare at his garishly orange hair too (it's not his fault his genes turned out like this, okay?!)).
The boy turns out to be surprisingly perceptive, and gestures for Hinata to come in. "You play?" he asks simply, and Hinata's torn between nodding and shaking his head.
He settles on replying, "I used to play volleyball, but I'm looking to start basketball this year." The blue-haired boy seems unfazed by this answer, and grins brightly.
"Welcome to the Teiko basketball club," he announces cheerfully. "I'll have the coach get you a form."
Hinata grins back and thinks that maybe basketball won't be so bad after all.
When he introduces himself for the first time to the first string players, the captain—whose name Hinata thinks is Nijimura—just sighs and mumbles to himself, "Great, now I've collected the whole rainbow."
"We've all got colors in our names though, and Hinatacchi doesn't," Kise points out with a pout.
Hinata grins maniacally, followed closely by an almost evil chuckle. They all stare at him as if they need to send him to an insane asylum before he tells them, "My mom's family name is Orenjiro, so you really do have all the colors of the rainbow!"
Nijimura just facepalms.
Hinata and Aomine get along like a house on fire (and Midorima mutters about them potentially committing that very crime when the two of them get especially rowdy), though Hinata gets along with pretty much everyone, even rival teams. (After meeting him a year later, Kise likes to joke that they have to first encounter Hinata's "I'm so nervous I could puke" face and go through what Kise calls his "Scary Intimidation" mode that Akashi silently but wholeheartedly approves of.)
"And then the ball goes swip from my hands and the net's like fwosh, and when the ball drops to the ground like bam after you make a shot, that's the best feeling." Midorima stares blankly at the utter nonsense spewing from the orange-haired teen. Then his stare becomes incredulous as Aomine nods emphatically and joins in the conversation.
Basketball idiots will be idiots, he thinks to himself, and continues practicing his three pointers.
Eventually, Hinata encounters Haizaki, and even with his easygoing attitude with just about anything that wasn't winning a match, Hinata decides that he vehemently despises him, and immediately resolves to do something about it. He deigns to annoy Haizaki as much as possible, and eventually, he quits, much to Hinata's satisfaction and everyone else's relief.
(Hinata never found out the real reason why Haizaki left.)
Basketball practice is just as hard, if not harder than volleyball practice, if only because Hinata isn't as experienced as some of the other players. Aomine makes him promise that he'll make it all the way up to the first string by the end of their first year, and Hinata counters him by betting that he'll make it there before the winter competition. He knows that he's spewing smoke, but it's worth it to watch Aomine laugh at him delightedly.
One day, Hinata overhears Momoi (who's very pretty, but also kind of scary when she starts getting technical about her stats) daring Aomine to go into the third gym (which still boggles Hinata's mind—Teiko has three gyms just for basketball. It's a huge change from his elementary school, which only had two multi-use gyms) because, supposedly, it's haunted.
Hinata immediately jumps on the challenge, and together, he and Aomine brave the third gym. They're also there to get some more practice in, but they both forget about that when they hear the ball bouncing, but don't see anyone.
Grabbing onto Aomine's arm (which he denies later on), he tentatively asks, "W-who's there?"
"Maybe there really is a ghost," Aomine hesitantly suggests.
"I am not a ghost," replies a voice out of nowhere.
Naturally, Hinata freaks out and almost jumps on Aomine, but Kuroko introduces himself in time, and all three of them bond over their shared love of basketball. Both Hinata and Aomine promise to come to the third gym to practice with him some more later, and Kuroko waves them off with a smile as Hinata and Aomine return to the first gym, and Kuroko goes to return the key.
When Akashi, Midorima, and Murasakibara show up at their joint practicing later, Hinata's not particularly surprised when Akashi declares Kuroko interesting, and promptly decides to move him up to the first string.
He resolves to himself that he'll quickly perfect the special dunk he's been working on so that way he can play with his friends in the first string too.
After Akashi shows Kuroko change his invisibility into misdirection, Hinata once again marvels at how efficient their team is. As they quickly defeat their opponents during tournaments, he can't help but feel exhilarated at the feeling of making a shot, of executing a successful play.
The day that Hinata decides to show Aomine, Kuroko, and the rest of his teammates his new dunk, the feeling in his stomach is almost as bad as the queasiness he feels when he's about to play on an official court. He hides in the bathroom clutching his stomach until Momoi knocks on the door, asking about his health in a worried voice.
Akashi decides to have a three on three between all of them, with Kise watching on the bench. By Hinata's request, he, Aomine, and Kuroko are on one team, and before they begin playing, Hinata tells Kuroko, "Whenever Midorima shoots one of his three-pointers, if I'm open, catch the ball and pass it to me, no matter where I am on the court." Kuroko looks at him questioningly, but Hinata just smiles at him reassuringly.
After Midorima shoots one of his high arc three-pointers, Kuroko's already waiting beneath the net. He passes as hard as he can to Hinata, who's just past the halfway mark, and miraculously, the ball ends up in his hands, and Hinata just moves towards the basket, dodging Murasakibara (and wow, who would have thought that would be possible?), and jumps. The ball swishes through the net and when he's back on the ground again, Hinata feels a wave of pride flow through his chest that's so strong, he feels like he could fly.
"That was amazing!" Hinata turns around to see Aomine's eyes wide with wonder. "Who woulda thought that a tiny person like you could dunk?" He begins to puff up with reflexive anger, but Aomine quickly douses it. "Great job, man." The dark blue-haired boy holds his fist and when Hinata meets it with his own, the grin on his face could rival the sun with its brightness.
The game continues on, but even with Aomine, neither Kuroko nor Hinata are particularly good at defense. And although they lose by a good margin, it doesn't hit him like he expected it to, and instead, Hinata laughs freely as all of them go and eat popsicles together on the way home.
Courtesy of his performance at the practice game, Kuroko begins practicing a new pass, one that sends the ball from one side of the court to the other. Aomine is ecstatic, even though Kuroko assures him that it's not anywhere near ready yet.
Hinata grins and promises to help Kuroko practice, but he can't help but notice the frown that lingers on Aomine's face for a fraction of a second. He brushes it off as some sort of weird facial twitch or sudden mood swing as teenagers are prone to getting, but something keeps nagging at him.
A few months later, Aomine stops turning up at practice, and Hinata figures it out.
"Nijimura-san is threatening to kick you off the regulars if you don't come to practice," he warns Aomine on the rooftops, wind ruffling his bright orange hair.
Aomine makes a horrible scoffing noise that is such a mirror opposite of the dejected noises his old-volleyball teammates did when they lost that Hinata is caught between feeling an echo of that pain from a year ago, and being overwhelmingly angry at this arrogant boy who doesn't quite remember what defeat tastes like. "If I don't come to practice, then maybe someone can catch up to me."
"There will always be someone stronger than you," he says softly, into the wind, and yet amazingly, Aomine manages to hear him, and actually sits up from his lazy sprawl in order to yell at him.
"And what then? What happens when I beat all of those people too, huh? What happens when I reach the top? Who's going to challenge me then? You?" Hinata's heart breaks when Aomine snarls the last word, and he has to fight back tears in order to say what he needs to.
He takes a deep breath and looks Aomine in the eyes, which seems to startle the other slightly.
"If I have to, yeah."
It only gets worse and it spreads to the other players too. Hinata looks in horror at the utter stranger in Akashi's place as he beats Murasakibara but still allows him to stop attending practice.
'This isn't basketball anymore.'
"You're not the only one on the court!" he yells at Akashi in desperation and flinches back when Akashi turns around, appraising him with cold and calculating eyes. Hinata nearly sighs in relief when the other dismisses him, returning to his observations of the first string.
'This isn't our basketball anymore.'
"And yet, it doesn't matter, Shouyou. Teamwork isn't necessary for our victories and will only hinder their strengths," Akashi says, nodding towards where the rest of his teammates are practicing. "Did you know that they're starting to call us the Generation of Miracles?" he continues, almost pleasantly. A truly terrifying smile stretches across his face. "Isn't that wonderful?"
'Give me my friends back.'
Then the fated game against Meiko takes place.
Kuroko breaks.
So does the fragile relationship between Aomine, Kuroko, and Hinata, which has already been strained by the constant arguments and cold-shoulders that have occurred over the past few months.
Hinata has to curb his urge to curl his lip at Akashi, who has such a terrible smile upon his lips. Even his eyes glint differently in the light.
The rest of his teammates aren't faring much better. Kise just looks naively arrogant, which Hinata tiredly supposes is better than Aomine's recent cold indifference. Midorima has a look of such disdain upon his face and Murasakibara looks so bored, Hinata's almost able to spare some worry that he's going to fall asleep right on the court.
As he compares these faces to the expressions upon the other team's players, he starts to wonder if basketball really is better, or even as good as volleyball.
Is absolute victory better than defeat…?
After two more games like this, Hinata decides that he's going to quit the club. He can't stand the horrible expressions upon his teammates' faces, and frankly, basketball's starting to become a chore, which horrifies Hinata to his very bones when he realizes this.
He confides in Kuroko on a whim and is guiltily relieved when Kuroko admits that he's been thinking about it as well. After talking for a while, they both agree to play for the rest of the season, just to stick it out until the end of the year.
Neither of them makes it.
What happens when something you love… becomes something you hate?
Hinata quietly slips his resignation form onto the coach's desk, smiles bitterly when he sees a corner of Kuroko's buried under a couple of folders as well. He expects to feel as sense of loss similar to when he left volleyball, but it's more just a feeling of relief, which only serves to make him sadder.
He talks to his counsellor about applying to a different school (he had originally been excited to go to the same high school as Aomine, Touou, but now it just drags up a feeling of utter dread), and after he mentions offhandedly that he used to play volleyball, his counsellor eyes him and presses an information packet about a high school named Karasuno into his hands.
"You won't regret it," she promises with a glint in her eyes.
Hinata sizes up the paper in his hands with no small amount of wariness.
(He ends up loving it.)
He again spends a summer practicing for a sport that he hasn't touched in a while, though occasionally, during the school year, he had picked up a volleyball to toss to himself when he didn't feel so bitter about it.
After asking (that is to say, repeatedly bugging them until they gave in) the volleyball team at Teiko, they reluctantly agree to let him practice with them, on the condition that he doesn't disrupt their regulars' practice.
Hinata ends up finding out that he no longer remembers how to do anything besides spiking a quick on first tempo (which is a term he only vaguely remembers) and receiving (poorly). The club members berate him gently, and the captain not so much. He quickly improves, and soon the coach lets him tentatively join some of the practice games that they have between club members.
Hinata has so much fun, he wonders why he didn't just stick with volleyball in the first place.
On one occasion, he passes the first volleyball gym (seriously, how much money did this school have?!) as the regulars are practicing (for some reason, they practice separately from the rest of the club, which Hinata doesn't understand) and eavesdrops out of natural curiosity.
He wishes he didn't.
Why does victory matter so much?
After a few weeks, he makes a couple of friends with his natural friendliness and they practice with each other over the summer, tossing grins and balls at each other and slurping up cool popsicles as well.
Sometimes, he faintly wonders how Aomine, Kuroko, and the rest of them are doing.
He tries not to dwell on it for long.
Hinata enters Karasuno with a heart full of hope and has his wishes answered. His new teammates are lighthearted (except for that dumbass Kageyama, and maybe Tsukishima, but after being around the Generation of Miracles, weird anything is the norm for Hinata), fun to be around (except for Kageyama), and most of all, motivated (and with this, Kageyama has to be mentioned, because god, if Kageyama wasn't someone with something to prove, then Hinata'd give his entire cache of video games to Kenma (who reminds him vaguely of Murasakibara, if he squinted and tilted his head)).
He has things to learn and then that quick he develops with Kageyama is so fantastic, Hinata sometimes has to look at his hand after he spikes in order to remind himself that, yes, this is not a dream, and yes, he really did just hit that amazing toss from the dumbass.
He's happy beyond his wildest dreams.
(He's really got to thank that counsellor of his at some point.)