The Shorter Half of the Oddball Duo

They ignored it at first. Those small occurrences where their favorite little spiker, Shoyo Hinata was talking to girls here and there. It all started on the last days of January. During lunch breaks, like a volleyball geek he was, Hinata would normally be on the second gym or an open space to practice receives against a wall. But this time around, the other members of the boy's volleyball club noticed that Hinata was spending more time of his lunch breaks in his classroom talking idly. Not that they had any problems with their orange-hair socializing, but it was so strange to see him doing less of volleyball.

It is normal to have friends outside of club activities after all. Still, day by day, it became somewhat more difficult to look at. At first it started something ordinary, like with having lunches together with those casual chit-chat. The next stage was walking together with Hinata and there is an apparent increase with encounters with girls, those 'hello, Hinata-kun' and those giggles that follows. The third stage included random instances where Hinata's hand, hair, or clothes were grasped followed by obvious excuses that their ginger-head would cast aside as accidents. It kind of irked them at sometimes Hinata himself would apologize.

"Sorry." Hinata would put on his most clueless smile. Then, the girl would nod her head and be on their way. They could have sworn that one time they heard a fangirly voice saying: "GYAH! I touched him."

This went on along with February and Valentine's Day.

"Guys, I think it's getting serious." Sugawara would say with obvious worry for Hinata.

"I think you're overreacting, Suga-san." Nishinoya patted his senior's back. "Besides, Hinata doesn't seem bothered by it."

"I guess."

At this time, Kageyama entered their club room and proceeded into emptying his bag full of Valentine's chocolates with a definitive 'tch' at the bench.

"You little scumbag. How much did you get? That's a crime against all men." Tanaka-senpai who seem to be upset that he didn't get that much snapped at Kageyama.

"You can have them if you want." Kageyama offered.

"So cruel... don't you know how much effort those girls did just to give you these chocoloates?" Nishinoya scolds. (He got a hefty some himself. But all obligatory.)

"I didn't ask them to do that." Kageyama as he picked up one and tried some out of guilt.

"Eh? Counting Valentine's Day chocolates, huh? Sounds fun." Sugawara joined them. "But it looks like Kageyama's the clear winner."

"Yeah, he's the type that's popular with the ladies." Their team captian, Sawamura followed suit, as he examined the pile of chocolates at the bench. "Yep, clear winner. But pick those up."

By the time the seniors were off to the second gymnasium, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi came in.

"How much did you two get?" Tanaka and Nishinoya seemed to be eager to count and compare the Valentine's chocolate of their teammates stayed, claiming that they would just help Kageyama with clearing up his chocolates.

"Chocolates you mean? Who cares." Tsukishima sighed apparently he seemed to be drained of energy for today.

"Tsukki got seventeen." Yamaguchi said helpfully. "And I got nine."

"Okay, now all that's left is Asahi-san's and Shoyo's." Noya said. Those remaining two took their time to get to the club room, so they went ahead to the second gym.

The day was just a normal practice day. Coach Ukai only gave them their assignments and they were left to do their own. Asahi came a bit later looking dejected. And his response when asked about today was:

"I didn't get any." (He didn't get as single chocolate, not even obligatory ones (not counting Kiyoko's), in his entire high school life)

"There- there- I didn't get much either." says the Captain. (He may or may not gotten a true-feelings chocolates this year though).

"By the way, what's keeping Hinata? It's almost time to go home." At that very moment, the door opened, revealing Karasuno's bright ray of sunshine himself. He looked spent, a rare sight as their daily training regime doesn't usually drain this much from a ball of energy that is Hinata. He was still in his school uniform dragging what seems to be a large sack of something. And that something would be very obvious by now.

"Sorry I'm late, but I can't get all of this to the clubroom and then I-"

"Hinata." Captain Daichi gave Hinata's shoulders a firm squeeze. "You're late. We expect you to come on time next time, okay? Guys we're done for today."

"Y-yes sir." Hinata tensed sensing that the captain was in a bad mood.

The other two third years followed with Suga sighing. "And to think I was worried."

Hinata concluded that something must have happened when he was gone and he decided to get help from the second years instead.

"Tanaka-san, Noya-san, could you help me with-"

"Hinata, you traitor!" Tanaka ran ahead weeping.

"Hinata... I'll be leaving now." Hinata? Since when did Noya-san ever call him Hinata? It's always Shoyo.

The other second years followed suit with Ennoshita reminded him that he was on cleaning duty. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi follwed them wordlessly.

"Kageyama and Yachi-san, what did I do?" Hinata asked. His two club mates looked at each other.

"Kageyama? Yachi?" Hinata tried again.

"No idea... must be busy with homework or junk. Anyway, how are you going to get all of those chocolate home?"

"Really, Kageyama-kun?" Yachi commented.

The next day...

"Takeda-sensei was nice enough to drive me home with his car. That was so much chocolate.." Tanaka and Nishinoya heard the voice of their favorite kohai talking with Yachi on the corridors.

"We owe him an apology."

"Yeah."

That was their plan until they got to the gymnasium later. Arriving, they make out of the form of the shorter half of the oddball duo surrounded by girls and disabling him to practice. Tanaka and Nishinoya had an nonverbal agreement to proceed and try their hardest to ignore the ginger head. Kageyama followed them having lost his importance on the scene as apparently a setter was not needed at the moment.

Hinata who was at verge of suffocation noticed that his teammates were all taking a break on the benches watching him suffer.

"Captain! Captain!" His apparent complaints about the current situation has fallen in the deaf ears of his harem and his teammates.

Captain Sawamura gave him a beam. (The question of it having malicious intent depends on the observer.) "You seem to be having fun there, Hinata. We'll just going to have to take a break."

"Captain! Not you too, Kageyama!" Hinata called out amidst of the girls who wanted his attention.

"Who would have thought that our Hinata is popular with the ladies." Sugawara sighed like a doting mother would. "But shouldn't we intervene, now?"

"Nah, let's just say that it's kind of my punishment to him for yesterday. Anyway, if we're going to have 'fangirl' issues here I thought it would be because of Tsukishima or Kageyama." Daichi laughed.

"I wonder how that happened. I mean, yeah, I guess it's pretty amazing when you see him play volleyball. But this much?"

"Poor, Hinata-kun..." Yachi sighed knowing that more than half of this is her fault. But all she could do was keep quiet to herself for making that mistake. but she know she had to apologize for this later.

"Yachi-chan, you're one of the managers of the Boy's Volleyball Club, right?" Yachi, who was not used to being talked to that much, could pretty much guess by now what were the intentions of the girls that approached her. Yachi didn't listen to the prologue of their request and decided to wait for the bottom line: 'Please, introduce us to Kageyama.'

"Could you introduce us to Hinata-kun?" Yachi didn't expect that, and being taken by surprise she replied without much thought.

"Why him?"

The girls exchange glances. "What do you mean?"

"I expected Kageyama-kun."

"Oh, yeah." One of them said. "Yeah, Kageyama-kun's great and all but he looked a bit too scary to approach. Besides, doesn't Hinata-kun give you that refreshing aura?"

"Like sunny days, right?" Yachi pointed out surprising even herself when she realized. Her face glow a shade of red.

"Hinata-kun is much easier to approach."

"He's kinda cute too."

"Yeah, so what if he's short? Tall guys are overrated anyway."

For some reason Yachi felt herself blushing more from all the girls' comments.

"Oh, Yachi-san's crushing on him too?" That almost made her implode.

"No, I uh, I mean, yeah. I like him but not that way." Yachi said that but there was something nagging on the back of her mind. She just decided she consider him a very important friend. Half-baked feelings might just get in the way of everything. Yachi giggled at the thought.

"So you'll introduce us?"

"Eh?"

The first year manager just slapped her palm to her forehead.

"I'm really sorry. It's my fault."

"Don't worry, you didn't mean any harm." Sugawara assured her.

"Eh, you mean girls these days like shorter guys?" Nishinoya's shirt was grabbed from behind by the captain to prevent him for causing any more ruckus.

"Tch." Kageyama glared at the manager. Yachi yelped even though she's aware that Kageyama was just being a child (he still looked intimidating).

"Now, now." Sugawara mediated.

"Anyway, we got to stop this." Kageyama said flatly and proceeded to help Hinata. Yachi and the others followed him to make sure Kageyama don't go overboard. They could see Hinata attempted to practice his serves but his strained concentration prevented him to get the ball on the other side of the net much more to even hit any of the empty bottles on the other side. Nevertheless, the girls never failed to tease and cheer him on.

Kageyama approached the girls and the determination he had earlier seemed to disappeared. Still, it didn't deter him from his goal.

"Hey you're disturbing Hinata's practice. Be quiet if you want to stay or please leave." Kageyama was red-faced from multiple reason while saying this. It still gave him his desired effect. The girls silenced down and went to Yachi.

"That was harsh of Kageyama." Nishinoya commented. The rest of the team took this as cue to end their break and went to their drills.

"Definitely KageHina, don't you think so, Yachi-chan?" One of the girls whispered.
"Eh?"

Captain Sawamura and Sugawara who heard and understood what the girls meant just bit their lip and did not say anything.

End.

(A/N: The idea was from a friend and I'm writing by request. But I did enjoy writing it.)