So... I didn't really know how I wanted to translate "kami" here. It usually goes as "gods" but I don't like that. The other well known option is "spirits" but that makes me feel like I just put the two of them into a Tales Of Setting and that's now what I am going for. So, I'll just stick with kami. You guys probably know what it means anyways.

Enjoy!

Soon a weekend came around where there were no matches and Daiichi-sempai cancelled practice. After all the hard work they had put in, he had said, everybody needed two days off to see their families in the sunlight again for once and relax a bit.
While this was warmly embraced by Tanaka and Nishinoya ("Yusss... a day for gaming a ungodly amounts of food!") and on the other side of the spectrum not frowned upon by Tsukishima, a certain duo was most certainly not amused.
"Whaaaat?!", they cried in unison. " But..."
All complaints were instantly smothered by a glare from the captain. He was not having any of that, HE needed that weekend off, too.
Scared but still angry the two firstyears bowed their heads in (polite) defeat. But their conspirational glances at each other went unnoticed by Daiichi, who in all honestly did not really care. If volleyball was all the two of them could think of he was going to let them knock themselves out.

And so it should be.

The next morning a very cold Hinata was waiting in his tracksuit for a just a little late Kageyama. The redhead was standing at a crossroad on the outskirts of town where they had decided to meet on Saturday to practice. Since playing volleyball with only two people really is not that much fun and chasing after the ball is bound to get annoying after the um-teenth time, they settled for fitness and maybe a little strategy training later on.

Even though they were usually coming into summer around this time of the year, the hills and mountain covered in forests kept the damp sort of cold in. The kind that crawls up your feet once you leave the house and makes the morning breeze sting your cheeks. But once the sun climbed over the hills and filled the valleys slowly with light, like a bathtub being filled with water, the warmth would chase the chill away.

But the two of them had been ambitious again and decided to meet at 7 o'clock, so right now Hinata was jumping up and down, determined to keep his toes alive.

10 minutes past the full hour Kageyama turned the corner and greeted his friend with a mumbled "Oss."
To which Hinata only replied with a disgruntled nod, too cold to complain. Threats never sounded very convincing when spoken with chattering teeth anyway.

Silently the two of them started off into the general direction of the fields.

Quickly they fell into step next to each other, jogging away in a steady rhythm. Their loud breathing was nearly the only sound to be heard, a few birds chirping away but in the rice fields animals tended to be rare.

"Oi, Hinata", Kageyama asked after 20minutes. "You know where ...we are headed, right?"

He didn't really trust the redhead when it came to directions, once having gotten lost on his usual way back home from school because he got distracted by a squirrel.

"Yes, of course!", the smaller replied, only slightly offended. "I thought it would be nice ...*huff*... you know, because we have this match coming up with Nekoma … *huff*... to go to a shrine a ask for good luck. This one always was my grandfather's favourite. He ...*huff*... he said, he once saw the kami of the mountain there."

"Un.", came the only reply, Kageyama himself slightly out of breath.

Soon they turned right onto a path leading up a hill covered in thick forest. It was quiet steep and Hinata with his short legs and shorter steps good a few meters ahead of Kageyama, who was struggling to adjust his long stride to the climb.

Almost automatically he sped up until they were besides each other again, but now Hinata just had to speed up too and this as always escalated to a race up the hill both boys were eager to win.

In the end they never figured out who reached the shrine first because within sight of the shrine the tall setter stumbled over a root that stood out from the ground and fell on top of the little spiker, who was in front of him a that time.

"Bakageyama! Get off me, you ...!", Hinata yelled, his face nearly pressed into the mud. "You're heavy, move!"

"S-Sorry.", his friend quickly got up and helped him to his feet. Kageyama gave the redhead a quick once-over glance. He was covered in mud from his knees up to his chin, fortunately having saved his face from the same fate.

"Look what you did, loser. This time I win, just for this!", the redhead said and pointed at his mud-caked chest.

"I said I'm sorry!", a slightly blushing Kageyama replied. Blushing even more he started taking off his shirt.

"H-HEY, what are you DOING?", Hinata sqeaked, jumping back one step.
"I am giving you my shirt, you blockhead!", Kagayama ground out through clenched teeth but stopped undressing nonetheless. "I got it dirty after all."

"THIS IS NO FECKING SHOJO MANGA, KAGEYAMA!", Hinata yelped but could stop himself from laughing. "You are quiet a gentleman for a king - " "Stop calling me that!" "- but no way am I putting on your sweaty t-shirt." Instead he used his dirty hands to smear some dirt onto the front of the taller boy's shirt.

"There, we're even."

Kageyama's face shifted from shock to anger and finally settled for resignation.

"Alright...", he sighed, and then added a second thought. "What do YOU know about shoujo manga? Do you actually read that soppy stuff?"

Hinata stuck out his tongue and turned to walk the last few steps to the shrine.

"Natsu has lots of them and made me read some. They actually are quiet good reference."

Kageyama just snorted, following. "Reference for what? Diabetes?"

"No, Bakageyama!", the redhead shot back. "For girls, of course. How to ask them out and stuff. And what they like. They are mostly written by girls, you know."

The taller stopped in his steps, when his heart faltered for a beat. Why was he feeling so funny all of a sudden? Did he hit his head on something while falling? He shook his head dismissively.

Hinata was already standing in front of the little shrine.

I was basically just a faded out once red Torii-gate and one of the smallest stone altars Kageyama had ever seen with a just as tiny box for the offerings. Behind it was a beautifully twisted cedar tree with a rope wrapped around its stem once.

"You wanna pray?", he asked.

"Yeah, let's pray for the team.", the redhead answered solemnly.

The was a short pause.

"Did you bring any 5Y coins?", Hinata asked timidly.

The taller boy sighed in exasperation. "I didn't know we were gonna go see a shrine. Why didn't you pack some coins?", he said in a dangerously calm voice.

"Eh, yeah...", Hinata mumbled horrified and after a few seconds of fumbling through his pockets, he produced a 50Y coin instead. "Do you think, this will do? It has a hole in the middle and a 5 in the number? And it's worth more..."

"That is not what giving 5Y is about, idiot.", Kageyama replied and had to stop his hand from slapping the smaller one on the back of his head. "But who cares, whatever spirit this shrine is for probably will do anything just to get us to shut up and leave."

So Hinata tossed the coin into the box and it hit the bottom with a loud thud sound, apparently not many people came here. In unison, they bowed twice, clapped twice and then bowed again, hands in front of their faces and silently asked for a good game against Nekoma. When he was done, Kageyama bowed again and stepped back, waiting for his friend that was still quiet in prayer. What an unusual sight, he thought.

When said friend finally lifted his head, Kageyama couldn't stop himself from being nosey.

"What took you so long? If you ask too many things the spirits get annoyed."

Hinata turned around, ears red and said: "I asked to help me … et... a..." with his voice getting quieter and quieter as he went along.

"Spit it out.", the setter said, eyebrow nearly twitching, suddenly wishing for the same quiet weekend Daiichi-sempai had talked about the day before.

"I asked to helped me get a significant other.", he repeated, face heating up even further.

"Ts." Kageyama was suddenly very interested in his shoes. "Stop trying to be fancy, throwing words like "significant other" around when you don't know what it means."

"I know what it means.", the redhead protested. "I just think that it sound very middle-school to say girlf..."

And that was the very moment the sky opened up and out of the not so very blue any more it started pouring like there was no tomorrow.