A Week of Kagehina
Day 1 (June 14): miracle - noun. one that excites admiring awe; a wonderful or amazing event, act, person, or thing.
A/N: Hello! This is my first entry for a week-long event, and I hope I can continue with my planned fics despite being sick. Hope you enjoy some Kagehina loveliness~
Tobio's mom always says that life is busy and fast but fun. He agrees with her—until lately. What the hell is fun in pretending that everything's okay when the love of your life is dating someone else?
It's only a little past seven and he's already in bed, asleep. Or at least pretending to be. He can hear his roommate shuffling around in the bathroom and sighs loudly, pulling the covers over his head. He hears the door creak open and quickly shuts his eyes.
"Kageyama!" Hinata finally emerges in fancy clothes, no doubt. Tobio isn't looking because he's busy pretending to be asleep. Plus, he convinces himself he doesn't want to know. "Seriously? You're sleeping? What a waste! I really wanted your opinion about how I look," Hinata mutters, and Tobio can hear the pout in his voice.
He has no doubt that Hinata looks good in anything. Saying that out loud to Hinata, though, is a different matter. It's a bridge he isn't ready to cross. Besides, why he is all dressed up tonight is the main reason behind Tobio's little faking act in the first place.
Thankfully, Hinata leaves him in peace after that. The last time he's sleeping—for real—Hinata almost gave him a heart attack when Hinata jumped on him and crushed his chest, demanding he stay awake for their movie night. He guesses the murderous expression he gave Hinata that night is more than enough to prevent a repetition.
Much to his frustration, it takes a while before Hinata is ready to leave. Finally, he hears Hinata happily calling out, "Good night, Kageyama! I'm going out now." Tobio doesn't reply, staying still until he hears the door slam shut.
Slowly, he peeks from under the covers to check if the area is Hinata-clear. It is. After waiting to make sure Hinata has walked a good distance, he kicks his sheets away and sits up. There is a loud bang, which makes Tobio scream.
"AHHH! You're awake!" Hinata shouts, pointing accusingly at him.
For a moment, Tobio is stunned into silence. Hinata has blasted the door open and is now pouting at him—but the thing that catches his eyes is what Hinata's wearing. His clothes are more stylish, screaming that he is going somewhere fancy and date-y. Tobio can feel his face getting warm so he turns away, picking up the pillow on the floor that fell from his shock.
"I just happened to wake up," he answers when he recovered. "What's your problem? Don't you have a date?" Tobio hopes the word date doesn't sound like a curse, like it is in his mind.
Hinata with someone else … he really hates it. What he won't do for a miracle.
"Ah, yeah." Hinata rubs the back of his neck. "But I forgot my wallet."
After taking that long preparing, he still forgot his wallet. What does Tobio expect? It is extremely just like Hinata. He goes to Hinata's table, picks up the brown leather, and tosses it smoothly to Hinata, who nearly drops the thrown item like the idiot he is.
"Thanks!"
"Get going, dumbass."
Hinata grins. "Now you're awake, tell me how I look." He proudly shows off his outfit by posing in different angles, very similar to when they first received their Karasuno volleyball jackets three years ago. Some things never change, Tobio thinks.
"You look stupid," Tobio deadpans. There is no way he's telling the truth.
Hinata's face falls. "Really? B-but Yachi-san helped me with—"
"Aren't you supposed to go? Look, it's almost seven thirty. Your girlfriend might worry." Again, he hopes that didn't come across badly.
Hinata nods but still looks dejected. "Right. Bye, Kageyama."
"Yeah, yeah." Tobio waves off-handedly.
Hinata closes the door slowly behind him, and Tobio waits for three—no, five to be sure—minutes before opening the door and checking the hallway to check if Hinata is really gone this time. Once he's sure, he locks the door and collapses against it, sliding down and gripping his hair.
He is such an idiot. Hinata is such an idiot. How can he agree on rooming with him in college? How can he even agree to go to the same college? When Hinata asked, with sparkling eyes and the most blinding smile in the whole universe, he simply found himself saying sure.
Tobio doesn't know anymore. These questions have been constantly bugging him ever since Hinata starts dating one of his college classmates, a girl. His life is thrown into absolute, literal chaos. He is giving extremely difficult tosses to Hinata during practice; he is snappier around Hinata; and, like what happened earlier, he is finding himself avoiding Hinata.
It took him a while, but he is pretty sure now that he has feelings for that dumbass.
These irritating feelings of his have been going on for years now. Ever since that three-on-three match, when Hinata called out his name for a toss, the way he sees Hinata became different. He thought it was normal. They were teammates after all, who were responsible for the main offense strategy of the team. Him memorizing Hinata's quirks was normal.
But is it still normal if he knows that Hinata has three kinds of smile—the strained smile when he's hiding something, the rare predatory smile when he's serious in a match, and the genuine, happy smile that can outshine the sun when he's having fun? Is it still normal if he knows that when Hinata wears shoes, he still stops to tuck them in properly like a ten-year-old? Is it still normal if he knows that Hinata never meets anyone's eyes if he's telling a lie? Is it still normal if—
The list is endless, and this does not look normal to Tobio anymore.
He groans out loud. He can't deny it. He's head over heels with Hinata—a guy who's already taken by a girl and will never, ever, be his.
Why is his attraction so hard to deal with?
Tobio expects Hinata to arrive sometime around midnight. In his previous dates—he hates those days—it was the time he usually arrived at. So he is skeptical, and somewhat pleased, when he hears the sound of keys clanking and the door opening and closing at around nine.
This is the first time he came home early. He feels like a miracle has happened. Maybe the gods of volleyball granted his wish.
Tobio is pretending to sleep again; it's a coincidence he found it difficult to sleep. He is about to continue lying in his bed in peace when he hears sniffling.
His breath hitches. Hinata's crying? That never happens—only during games when they lost. Apart from that, he has never seen or heard Hinata cry outside the court.
Hinata's bed creaks and the sniffling continues. Tobio contemplates if he should "wake up" and blame it to Hinata's sobbing. Guilt washes over him. How can he think about himself first when Hinata is bawling his eyes out behind him?
Before he can regret it, Tobio is sitting up and pushing the blanket off him and turning around. "Hinata, what—"
The words die in his throat.
There sits Hinata on the bed, his feet planted on the ground, his arms resting on his thighs, and his face buried in his hands. Tobio recognizes this. It's the posture of a break-up. Or that's what he thinks this is, at least.
After he spoke, Hinata has slowly looked up. "Kageyama?" He sniffles. "You awake again?" Then his crying turns into sobbing, and Tobio is left not knowing what to do but to listen to Hinata's misery and feel his heart burn.
He takes it back. He doesn't want a miracle. Seeing Hinata's devastated face is enough to fuck him for the rest of eternity.
"Kageyama," Hinata gasps. "I can't take it anymore!"
Somehow, this sets off warning bells to Tobio, and he is in front of Hinata in a flash, grabbing his shoulders.
"O-oi, what's happening to you? If this is about a failed date, I'm not going to mope with you," he says uncertainly. What should I do? Should I get him some water? The hospital?
"Stupid!" Hinata exclaims, and Tobio freezes, thinking it as a response to his thoughts. "You're so stupid, Kageyama-kun!"
"Wha—why are you calling me that all of a sudden, dumbass Hinata!" Tobio curses himself inwardly. Why am I angry with him now?!
Hinata stares at him and sniffs. "I'm not crying because I got dumped."
"Hah?"
"I—I was the one who ended things with her."
Tobio is speechless for a while. He notices that Hinata has calmed down a bit, so he withdraws his hands and simply stands before Hinata in a daze. Before he can stop himself, though, he is asking, "Why did you do that?" Crap, why did I say that?!
"I did that because—because, I was sick of pretending I liked her." Hinata looks down. "I never went out with her because I liked her. When she asked me out, I agreed even though I didn't like to."
"Hah? And you were calling me stupid just a second ago," Tobio says. Hinata merely keeps looking glumly at the floor. "Oi, Hinata, that was a pretty dick move. Why would you go through all that trouble?" He knows he has no right to say that when he himself is a huge masochist, but hearing Hinata forced himself into a relationship clouds his mind of anything save irritation.
"I know! I apologized to her," he wails, clutching his head. "I didn't mean to hurt her. It's just—"
"Just what?"
"I saw myself in her." He meets Hinata's golden eyes which are swimming with emotions.
"You what?"
Hinata nods, breaking the gaze again to look down. "I'm exactly the same towards the one I truly like. But then I realized earlier I really wasn't since I never had the guts to confess like what she did. Then I broke things off with her tonight."
"You—" Tobio releases a gust of air. "I can't believe you did that, Hinata."
"Me too. I'll never forgive myself for hurting her," he mumbles.
Never forgive himself for hurting her? This dumbass….
"That's not it." Tobio reaches out and grabs Hinata's shoulders, pulling him up. "Hinata, you hurt yourself, too, you know? You went out with her against your will."
"Not exactly against my will. I had a choice. I'm a free person after all." He shrugs noncommittally.
"Then why did you do that?" Tobio exclaims. What is this dumbass doing? Come to think of it, what is he doing too? Why does he keep pressing Hinata for answers?
Hinata opens his mouth to speak but thinks better and shuts it. He glances down with a frown. "I can't tell you."
"Hah? C'mon, tell me." Making him tell me why he broke up with his girlfriend will lead to the person Hinata likes. Why do I subject myself to this torture?
Why he said that, as well as all the other things before, Tobio never knows. He's now convinced of his morbid attachment to masochism.
Hinata frowns but suddenly looks determined when he meets Tobio's eyes. "Kageyama, please don't hate me," is what he says before launching himself to Tobio.
The air in Tobio's lungs expels at the impact, but his eyes are wide and his body has frozen in place when he realizes that Hinata is hugging him. "Wha-what are you doing it?" he chokes out.
"The person I like," Hinata says in a muffled voice, "is you."
"Hah?" Tobio replies unintentionally. It's his automatic reply to Hinata's ridiculous statements. Like right now. He's got to be kidding me.
He needs time to process everything. It's too much. What did he ask for again, a miracle? This is too much of a miracle.
A random thought occurs to him. Does it matter? The words he thought he will never hear from Hinata are just said. Yes, Tobio agrees, this is a miracle.
The hands fisted on his back loosen and before Tobio knows it, Hinata has pulled away. Hinata's head is bowed, his bangs hiding that pair of golden eyes Tobio's come to love. "You're probably disgusted, right?" Hinata says in a monotone before he can say anything. "I understand if you want me to—oomph"
Tobio has grabbed Hinata's head and has pressed it to his shoulder, glaring at the wall and gritting his teeth to contain the smile and the joy that's threatening to explode in him.
"Kageya—"
"Don't be ridiculous!" he exclaims.
Shit, I need to say it now.
"I like you too, you dumbass."
There's a sharp intake of breath, but Hinata stays silent. Tobio assumes he's speechless from shock, so he leaves him in peace, placing a hand to Hinata's hair to keep him on his shoulder. Tobio would be lying if he said he hasn't dreamed of this. And damn it, Hinata fits perfectly in his arms.
"When?"
"What?"
"When did you start liking me?"
Tobio sighs sharply. "I don't know exactly when. High school? I started liking you in high school."
"Me too," Hinata mumbles.
When Tobio glances down at him, Hinata has his eyes closed, wearing a smile that makes his insides turn into jelly. He buries his face in Hinata's wild orange hair, something he's been dying to do more than just mess around with in forever, and closes his eyes too. So soft.
"I wanna ask why you didn't confess, but I guess I understand," Hinata says. "Hey, can we—"
"Tsk, can we talk later?" Tobio snaps without an actual bite in his words. He has to stop snapping at Hinata soon. But right now, everything feels so surreal and embarrassing that he wants to get mad at Hinata for making him feel this way.
But there's no way he'll push Hinata away. Not anymore.
"Eh, why?"
"I just want to hold you for now," he murmurs.
He is so drunk on happiness that he hasn't noticed how he's hugging Hinata tightly if it weren't for the sharp, "Ow, tight!"
"Shit! Sorry!" He loosens his grip but never lets Hinata go.
Never.
A/N: Ahh! I hope it wasn't too cheesy. I'd love to hear some feedback!