Chapter 2:
Half and hour later, Hinata, Kenma, Kageyama, and Kageyama's bird are all sitting at the table. Rather, the bird is on Hinatas head. Kageyama didn't even hesitate to eat his food as soon as Hinata set it down in front of him, and Kenma's just watching the bird.
"This turned out okay! Hey, Hinata, make this again next Saturday, okay!" Kageyama says, looking much more like a ball of sunshine now compared to before when he was glaring at the parakeet.
"No! You have to help too if I make it again! I only did it to make you feel better!" Hinata yells across the table, and the bird flies from Hinata's bright orange hair to perch right on top of Kenma's much stiller head.
"EEH? I'll buy the ingredients next time, if you cook this again!" Kageyama's slapped his chopsticks to the table and is now yelling across the table, and Hinata's yelling back. Kenma watches the exchange with amusement, his head turning only slightly when the other person adds to the very loud conversation. It's very different from the few dinners Kenma and Kuro share. They're quiet like an elderly couple, with nothing left that needs to say. Kageyama and Hinata are exciting, and Kenma wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of their conversations, but he's plenty happy watching them.
Kenma lets them argue until Hinata tries to jump up and shakes the table, and then he pushes on his knee with his foot so he falls and sits back down. Hinata plays it off by eating his egg right away, and swallowing with his mouth in a downward frown.
"Eat." Kenma says softly, and the two of them glare at each other and go back to eating, Kageyama turning back into a happy sunshine the more he eats. The parakeet nibbles at Kenmas hair.
"Hey, can we all go to a movie later!" Hinata asks, and Kageyamas face falls.
"I have online class tonight." He grumbles, scooping the last of his curry into his mouth. Hinata voices his disapproval, but doesn't push it, and hunches over while Kageyama gets up to go get more food. Kenma pokes his knee with his toe.
"Hey, I'd still like to go with you." Kenma says, and Hinata perks up right away, his eyes wide open.
"Really?!" He asks loudly, leaning closer to Kenma with wide, excited eyes.
"Yeah."
An hour and a half later, they're sitting in the back of a dark theater, waiting through the previews. Hinata's actively eating popcorn and talking to Kenma about how excited he is, while Kenma pokes at the screen of his phone and glancing at Hinata to indicate he's still listening. When the movie starts, Hinata lets out a strangled noise of excitement and compensates by holding popcorn to Kenmas mouth and feeding it to him.
Kenma doesn't really mind that Hinata wanted to see a scary movie. Movies don't scare him, so he just turns the brightness on his phone all the way down and turns the volume off. Every time the monster was mentioned, Hinata would draw his knees up to his chest and make muffled, high pitched sounds of distress. Kenma glances over at Hinata when he lets out a yelp when the monster pushes open the door with his telepathy in the film, making low pitched growling sounds as it creeps closer to the protagonist.
Kenma smiles and taps pause on his game, freeing one of his hands to reach over and take Hinatas. Hinata's head snaps towards Kenma, their eyes locking before Hinata offers a blinding smile and interlocks his fingers with Kenmas, relaxing and letting his feet dangle over the lip of the seat.
"Ahh, how aren't you so scared!" Hinata says, before screaming with the rest of the audience and clinging to Kenmas hand so hard his knuckles turn white. Kenma squeezes back and settles into his chair, much more interested with watching Shouyo's reaction to the movie than the movie itself. It's in that moment that Kenma's glad that Hinatas such an airhead, so he doesn't notice that Kenma's watching him.
The movie goes on, and Hinata continues to scream with the audience, feed Kenma popcorn, and bouncing up and down in his seat with a mix of fear and excitement. Kenma slowly falls asleep, floating in between dreams and listening to Hinata. Without even trying, Kenma slides sideways in his seat, his head nestled at the junction between Hinata's neck and his shoulder. The smaller boy suppresses a blush and keeps a hand over his mouth to keep himself from squealing at the scary parts so he won't wake up Kenma.
The movie ends, and Hinata breaths quietly, partially in shock. He wonders why he keeps going to horror movies when they scare him so much. Next time he'll just go to a cute movie, Kenma would probably like that.
"Is it over?" Kenma stirs and lifts his head, rubbing at his eyes with the backs of his hands when a loud comment from a girl startled him awake. Kenma looks at Shouyo, and chokes on a laugh.
"What's with you?" He asks. Hinata's lips are pressed into a very fine line, and his eyes are wide, soulless, Kenma would so as far to say.
"That was so scary." Hinata says, the words very quiet, and Kenma notices with a fleeting blush that their fingers are still interlocked. Kenma stands, tugging on Hinata's hand to get him up on his feet. Hinata stands, awkwardly scooping up the still half full bucket of popcorn with his other arm and following Kenma out of the theater, apparently still too traumatized to make any comments yet. Kenma would worry, but he knows it will only take about a minute for Hinata to revert back into his regular squirrely self. Kenma guides Hinata out of the theater and into the cool, moist air.
"Did you like the movie Kenma?" Hinata asks, squeezing Kenmas fingers and peering up at the taller boy. Hinata's still eating the movie popcorn, and Kenma has fallen back a little so Hinata can lead the way.
"The special effects were cool." He says, and Hinata bounces on his toes a little, a bright smile on his face. There, back to normal.
"Weren't they! When she unhinged her jaw...I was like, woah!" Hinata keeps going, exclaiming about how scary the movie was, and how much Kageyama would have liked it.
"But I have all the time to spend with Kageyama, this was my special time for you!" Hinata says, and Kenma blushes, hoping that the dim light of evening hides his colored cheeks. They walk down the street to Hinata's little house, the smaller boy continuing his high praise of the movie. Kenma doesn't think he's learned anything from being scared, he'll probably go to another horror film soon and scare himself again.
Hinata holds open the front door, and stifles a yawn. They peek into Kageyama's room, finding him asleep, and tiptoe down the hall to Hinata's room.
"Do you want a shower?" Hinata asks, and Kenma shakes his head and gathers his pajamas out of his drawer in Hinata's dresser.
"No, I showered this morning. But I'll go brush my teeth and change." He says, and Hinata nods and turns to get his own pajamas out. Kenma pads down the hallway as quietly as he can, closing and locking the door to change. He opens it again once he's changed and squeezes a dollop of toothpaste onto his pink toothbrush. Hinata's head appears around the doorway behind him and he offers a small smile and steps into the bathroom next to Kenma, going through the same motions and the two brushing their teeth in the quiet silence together. Hinatas eyes are fixed on Kenmas face, and he's holding in a wide grin. Kenma knows Hinata's staring, but he knows he'll blush too hard if he meets his eyes, so he just watches himself, trying hard not to smile.
Kenma spits.
"I'm going to go do a little work." He says, and Hinata gives him a thumbs up. He rinses his toothbrush and retreats back to Hinata's room. While he's setting up his laptop he hears Hinata turn on the shower, and he settles down at the foot of bed, setting up his laptop and opening a half-finished program code. He types and unravels the letters and numbers, finding solace in the patterns and the language in the letters. It makes sense to him, and it feels more rewarding to work on these programs than it did to play volleyball. He loves the quiet, he loves the challenge of new ideas and knowing that he could be improving lives without having to come into contact with others unless he wants to.
At the moment, he loves working in Shoyo's room. The only thing that would make it better would be if Shoyo was actually there.
When Hinata pads into the room, a towel over his head, Kenma's chest tightens at the sight of him, wet orange hair flopping limply over his forehead. Hinata's quite the sight, in his faded Karasuno shirt and bird pajama pants, eyes half closed.
"I'm tired." He says, ruffling his hair with the towel and hanging it over the edge of his hamper, crossing the room to flop face down on the bed. Kenma types out another line of code and peers up at him over the edge of the bed, gold eyes wide and pupils dilated in the dim room.
"Go to sleep." Kenma says quietly, and Hinata turns his head to face him.
"Are you going to?" He asks, and Kenma shakes his head, pressing his lips tighter together.
"No, I'm going to type for a little while." He says, and Hinata crawls under the blankets, only his wild orange hair visible.
"Okay." Hinata says, his voice trailing off into a yawn. Hinata wiggles under the blankets to try and get warm, silently cursing Kageyama for keeping the house so cold. Hinata drifts off on the sound of Kenma's soft keyboard clicks, and makes a small disgruntled sound when he remembers the monster from the movie.
"Hey, Kenma?" Hint's voice sounds small and sleepy, and Kenma's golden head appears again, peeking over the foot of the bed.
"Yeah?" He asks. Hinata peeks out from under the blankets, strands of orange hair still sticking to his forehead. Kenma braces himself for a stupid question.
"Do you think demons are real?" Hinata asks, and Kenma has to stop himself from snorting. There it is, Hinatas dumb question.
"Not really." He replies, and Hinata huffs a soft breath and retreats back under the blankets. Kenma doesn't need Hinata to tell him why he's asking, he knows Hinata's scared. Work forgotten, he shuts his laptop with a click and climbs into the bed next to Hinata, the smaller boy sighing in contentment and shifts closer to Kenma, tucking his forehead under Kenmas chin.
"Your feet are cold." Kenma murmurs when Hinata curls his toes around Kenma's ankle, but he doesn't make any move to draw his legs away form Hinata. In a moment of courage, Kenma reaches out and wraps his arms around Shoyo, drawing the smaller boy into his side. Kenma marvels at how little Shoyo really is, tucked up against him with his toes curled around his leg. Hinata makes a small satisfied sound and takes a fistful of Kenma's shirt, tucking his damp head under Kenma's chin.
"Sorry." Hinata whispers, and Kenma tightens his grip on him. That inherent shyness that plagues him is gone, replaced by overpowering affection for Shoyo. Kenma grunts in response, and Hinata pulls away a little to look Kenma in the eye.
"Hey, do you want to go to my volleyball game tomorrow?" Hinata asks, drooping eyelids struggling to stay open. Kenma blushes at the sight of him, barely awake and still asking questions.
"Yeah." Kenma replies, and Hinata's eyes squeeze shut and he draws his shoulders up, grinning.
"Yaaay." Hinata says, trailing off into a yawn. Kenma swears he melts a little.
"Come here." Kenma says softly, and Hinata juts his chin out a little bit, giving Kenma the space to kiss his nose and lips once before hugging Hinata against his chest again.
"Now sleep."
