Going to practice the next day was actually fairly routine. Hinata had a lot of practice with avoiding unwanted gazes on his mark, even if over night it'd practically doubled in size. Tsukishima was eyeing him oddly though... But Yamaguchi always seemed to distract him before anything happened, that freckled angel.
After that, it was almost like he forgot his Mark had formed. Nishinoya popped out of the woodwork, dragging Asahi right behind, Ukai the younger agreed to be their coach, they met Nekoma, and the team grew exponentially. He even forgot to go get the weird quote on the ribbon translated. Everything seemed to rush by- except for Kenma. Something was very familiar about that name to Hinata...
It was only after they were on the bus ride how that he remembered why that name had stuck with him. It was printed in black ink just inside the crook of Kageyama's elbow. The Katakana matched perfectly with what Kenma had put in his phone. Hinata didn't understand why Kageyama hadn't told Kenma. Sure, Kenma seemed a little scared of Kageyama when he tried to approach, but surely he wanted to check if Kageyama was the one, right?
Kageyama was very quiet about it, and Hinata wasn't going to bring it up this early on into their friendship. For now he focused on gently nudging them together, a little text about Kageyama being nice for once to Kenma, mentions of the new game Kenma was playing to Kageyama... Man, he was sneaky. Like a ninja!
Those two would come together in time, but man. Waiting for them to wise up was taking all of Hinata's patience.
Time only seemed to slow down during the tournament when he finally met Oikawa again. Before the match against Aoba Jousai, Hinata pulled Kageyama aside for a talk that was long over do...
Although most of the team hadn't noticed, Oikawa was sulking.
Like, big time sulking.
The kind of sulking that led to moping about during practice or eating tons of ice cream when he'd usually be doing extra practice. And calling Iwaizumi at four in the morning about who he thought the newly formed Mark belong to. Not to say Iwaizumi didn't care about the volleyball stuff, but honestly he was more concerned with the four in the morning calls that were endless speculation.
Because really? He went on and on about it. He spouted faux poetic purple prose shit until the sun rose, and then sometimes all the way to school It was always the same.
"A phoenix right over his heart with words that meant "The Smallest Soar Highest"? What kind of person could have the soul of a phoenix and that dumb quote. What would you even describe them as? Powerful, certainly, to have something like that for a soul. But what else?" I dunno, maybe a it's not a phoenix, but a chicken on fire.
"The fire could symbolize passion, or rage, or the ability to consume somebody. But Phoenixes were usually healing creatures who sung sweetly and had a good sense of character. What about them led to that sort of duality?" Dude are you saying you want to be serenaded or...?
"But with the quote, maybe the person had a name with a kanji that could me "to soar" or "to fly" or something like that." The only person he'd met with a name like that recently was the spitfire from Karasuno. Urgh. Oikawa had a very different obsession with that guy, quietly staring and grinning like a fool. What the hell.
Ever since it formed Oikawa would wax on and on with these questions, and Iwaizumi knew that if he didn't grunt every five seconds Oikawa would start crying instead, the quiet kind that he really hated because it meant something really goddamn awful had happened. He could ignore anything else Oikawa did, but not those goddamn sniffles.
So he endured the mindless speculation until he finally thought of something that might shut him up.
"You know, the day your mark formed was the day we practiced with Karasuno. Maybe it was one of the first years, or hell, even the second or third years. We've never really talked to any of them before."
For a few moments, there was blissful silence. Iwaizumi had almost managed to drift off when the screech of sudden horrified realization echoed from both the cellphone and the house next door. Ah, well. At least Oikawa would stop being aimless with his speculations at four in the morning... He hoped.