A knock at the door drew Suga from his book. He smiled, a warm fuzzy feeling blossoming in his chest as he bookmarked his page and walked to the door.
When he opened it, he saw exactly what he had expected—Noya, with his hair down and a bag slung over his shoulder. He really does look much shorter with his hair down, Suga thought as he let the libero in.
They headed to the bathroom, Noya's excitable chatter seeming to fill the small apartment. Suga had moved out of his parent's house a few months before, sporting multiple bruises, no self-confidence whatsoever, and several emotional scars. When he hadn't shown up for practice for a week and had avoided everyone at school, it had been Noya who had found out his address and helped piece Suga's mental health back together. He had just about flipped a table when he found out Suga was binding with bandages, and had immediately gone out and gone shopping for a proper binder with Suga. Thankfully, Noya didn't treat Suga any differently afterward. He was just Noya, and Suga was eternally grateful for that.
He had told the rest of the team, after a while, and no one had had even the slightest issue with it. As long as Suga was safe, they had said, they didn't care what gender he had been born. He was still the same old Sugawara Koushi they had always known and adored. Asahi and Diachi had been ready to go beat the life out of Suga's dad when they found out how he had been treated, but it didn't matter anymore. Suga was too happy to spare his asshole of a father any second thoughts.
Noya had tried to dye his hair on his own a few months ago—his mother usually did it for him—and had given himself serious bleach burn that had lasted for a good week. After that, Suga had offered to help, which Noya had readily agreed to. It made the setter smile to know how much Nishinoya trusted him.
Noya sat eagerly on the edge of the bathtub, bouncing a little. His roots had started to show pretty obviously—it was kind of hard to ignore an inch of dark brown amongst the little blonde tuft at the front of his head—so Suga had offered to re-bleach his hair that weekend.
They talked as Suga worked, and it was peaceful. Not calm, not by any stretch of the imagination - nothing was calm when Noya was involved, nor was anything quiet - but it was peaceful. Noya was sweet to Suga in a way that his family never was. Maybe it was just his way of being friendly, but it wasn't like Suga cared whether it was platonic or romantic. I wouldn't exactly be opposed to the idea of dating Noya, he thought as he sat down beside the libero to wait for the bleach to set properly. I mean, he is the one who took the time to help me feel okay again after everything.
Suga watched Noya carefully as he talked, noticing things that he usually didn't. Like the way his cheekbones were high enough to give him the impression of always smiling. Of course, with Noya, that was normally true anyway. There were actually a few freckles scattered lightly over the bridge of Noya's nose, so light that you couldn't really tell they were there unless you were as close as Suga was. His ears were almost disproportionately tiny, but Suga found them cute. Noya's eyes were a very pretty shade of golden brown, the sort of color that you could stare at forever and never remember right because it shifted and seemed to change every time you saw it. There were little gold specks in the libero's eyes, too... Eyes that were staring right at Suga with a very confused look to them.
Suga could feel his cheeks burning as he looked away, embarrassed that he had stared so long.
"Is everything alright, Suga? You were staring at me for so long I thought you had gotten paralyzed."
Suga scrambled for an answer, wracking his brain for a reasonable answer. "I—You—I mean— Would you go out with me?"
Oops. That was the last thing Suga had meant to say, but it had rolled off his tongue like it belonged there. Now they were both bright red, their stares burning resolute holes into the linoleum floor of Suga's tiny apartment bathroom. Suga glanced up, smiling a little at the way Noya kept patting his cheeks like he could disguise his blush as something else. He knew he wasn't any better, but he still found it cute to see the libero, usually so confident and full of almost too much personality for his tiny body, so flustered.
Noya glanced up too and their eyes met. There was a brief moment where they both froze, then they looked away again, their cheeks burning twice as bright as they had been beforehand.
"L-Like... go out with you, go out with you? As... more than friends?" Noya's voice was almost timid, but it still wasn't quiet. Suga was starting to think that it wasn't even physically possible for the libero to speak in a quieter voice than just below a shout.
"Yeah. Like, go out with me as boyfriends." The word felt foreign and strange in Suga's mouth, but somehow it was just right. It made Noya's cheeks go yet a darker shade of red, which was definitely a plus.
There were a few minutes of awkward silence in which Suga stared hopefully at Noya and the libero sat there fidgeting and blushing all the way to the tips of his ears. Finally, he nodded, hiding his face in his hands out of embarrassment. Suga resisted the urge to kiss Noya, cheer loudly, or both.
After Suga got the plastic wrap out of Noya's hair, washed it thoroughly to get all the excess bleach out, and dried it, he smiled and ruffled Noya's hair, which still wasn't spiked. Honestly, Suga liked it better when it was down, even if it did make the libero look about a foot shorter.
As Noya turned to walk out the front door, Suga glanced up and down the hall to make sure no one was watching and spun the libero around by the shoulder. Before Noya could get a word out, though, Suga's mouth was pressed firmly but almost hesitantly to his. Flustered, Suga pulled away after a moment, muttered a rushed goodbye, and shut the door. Inside, he slid to the floor, back against the wall, and grinned. Tracing where he could still feel the touch of Noya's lips, Suga could feel that there were good things to come in the near future.