Chapter 7: Glow-in-the-Dark Star Stickers

"Maybe I'm alone in this,
But I find peace in solitude knowing,
If I had but just one kiss this whole room,
Would be glowing."

One week later and Tobio is lying on Hinata's bed, staring straight at the ceiling where there are a few glow-in-the-dark star stickers that are just beginning to light up, faintly illuminating the smudges on the ceiling around them. One of them is barely attached to the ceiling, peeling away at every point of the star except for one. Tobio suspects that that is why there are only three left: the others all fell down.

Beside him, Hinata is watching some game show that's beginning to assault Tobio's ears from all the audience's ruckus, fidgeting ridiculously. His left heel keeps nudging Tobio's shin, but each time the younger just ignores that it even happened and goes back to staring directly above him. He's answering all of the trivia questions that he knows in his mind as the show blares, getting a few right that he never thought he would. Sometimes Tobio voices the answer, and if it's right then Hinata gushes for at least two minutes about how 'I could've got that, Kageyama, if you hadn't of said it' and 'you ruined that question for me' and 'great, now I've missed the other questions'. Then there's a moment of silence before Hinata reluctantly admits that Tobio did well on getting the question right, then the routine just starts again.

Occasionally, Tobio tosses a beanbag up using his left hand, catching it in his right, but for the most part he just lies there. Thinking.

Well, that is until Hinata starts whining about wanting food, and within thirty seconds of him declaring this, Natsu also bursts into the bedroom demanding sustenance. Tobio consciously suppresses the thought that Natsu and Shouyou are so similar that if Natsu were only a few years older they'd probably be interchangeable, then sighs aloud.

He takes a leaflet for a pizza take-out off of the bill-board behind him, as he had done every night for the past seven days, Natsu crawling up onto the bed and snuggling between the two boys like a dog snuggling up to its owner. She leans over to Tobio's side more, obsessed with him ever since he had played Princess Fairy Magic Dress-Up Sports Tournament on Unicorns with her in the back garden on the first night he'd come over, the day after Hinata had broken his collarbone.

Natsu wasn't the only member of Hinata's family who loved him more than he deserved credit for; Hinata's grandfather was also particularly fond of the boy. When the man had stopped over the previous night to check in on his grandchildren, he'd initially been surprised to see the three of them snuggled together on the sofa in the lounge, Natsu laying across Tobio's lap as Hinata struggled with maths homework, brushing off Tobio's comments as he knew from experience that the other boy was no more skilled than he. Tobio had bowed upon seeing the man, offering to leave. Apparently those thirty seconds were enough.

"I want pineapple!" Natsu announces, pointing at the pizza in question.

"No! Ew – I hate pineapple. It's too weird on food. Let's get the meat feast with all the pork on it," Hinata counters, yanking the leaflet out of Tobio's hands and flipping it over. Tobio sits back and watches as the two of them argue, the leaflet going back and forth between ten chubby little pink fingers, and five long, slender, slightly bruised ones. He gets his phone out and calls the number of the take-out place, thankfully having memorized it quickly before it had been snatched from his hands.

He orders both pizzas, along with dough balls, lemonade, garlic bread and dip.

Hinata looks at him like he's grown an extra head.

Turns out Hinata hadn't realized that Tobio had been intending to pay for it. Also turns out that Hinata doesn't really like being bought things because apparently it makes him look like a girl. But he eats a hell of a lot of pizza when it comes anyway, and Tobio notes with sadness that he only manages to get one dough ball out of the fifteen he ordered.

Later they watch a film together (a film that is far too pink and far too full of mermaids for Tobio's liking) and Tobio migrates back to Hinata's bed as he tucks in his sister and ensures that she's sleeping. It takes four minutes alone just to get her into the bathroom. When Hinata finally joins him on the bed (c'mon, not in that way, Tobio) Hinata looks tired.

And Tobio wonders for a second if he'll say yes tonight.

The question doesn't come up for a while as the pair watch more shit TV and finish off the left-over pizzas. Hinata yawns, a signal for Tobio to help him change his shirt into a loose red one and make sure he takes off his socks because last night he didn't and he was wearing the same socks when he came into school earlier that day and Tobio was a little disgusted. And then the question comes: "Are you gonna stay over tonight?"

And Tobio debates the pros and cons of saying the 'yes' that he truly wants to say. Because all week his thoughts have been attacking each other like angry bees turning in on themselves. Because all week he's been thinking about Hinata Shouyou.

Hinata isn't his first crush, and he isn't his first love interest, but Tobio suffers a lot with his feelings this time, because somehow they're too real to be ignored, and they're too omniscient to be shrugged off. He struggles every day because he feels all of this intense... love... whenever he sees him. Desires to do stupid things like kiss his hair or hug him after they do a successful quick or to just whisper that he loves him when he gets antsy over a maths question overcome him every time Hinata invades his eyesight. And over the past few days it was getting really difficult.

The little pumpkin kept smiling at him in ways he hadn't before, eyes twinkling a little more than usual. They touched more, and whenever they sat together their hips would touch. Hinata sits on the bench by the side of the gym every single practice, and Tobio swears that he only really watches him. And then there's this.

This.

The fact that Tobio's feet keep guiding him to this door every day after school (Hinata usually in step with him, sometimes a bit ahead, but never behind) is enough to give him something to think about, but the biggest problem is by far this one little question. Because it's another one of those little desires that he's developed; to have Hinata rest his curls on his chest.

And he knows he's developed it because he has vibrant, perfect memories of Hinata sleeping on his shoulder on the way back from matches, every bump in the tarmac reverberating through both of them as though they were connected. Once, Hinata slept on his sofa after they'd been practicing till late, and Tobio had watched him breathing for too long.

Maybe it was also because Hinata talks in his sleep.

Well, he murmurs, really. Sweet nothings that never make sense, but every time he's sleeping Tobio tries to catch what he says. So far, he's never caught much that he could string together, but he always loves trying.

So fuck. This question is hard.

Tobio looks at Hinata, and those amber eyes blink closed for a split-second. His face is the picture of innocence. A little question with no real weight has just been asked, and he is just sitting, waiting.

He adjusts his position, wincing a little as he twinges his collarbone through the sling. (It's still quite sensitive after seven days, and the pain killers usually begin to wear off by this time. It's quarter to midnight, so according to the medication timetable Hinata should be asleep by now anyway. Tobio didn't like the way that he was just expected to wake up in agonizing pain, but then again, Hinata was supporting himself with five pillows now - yes, five – so Tobio wasn't too concerned.)

"No, I'll go home," Tobio answers at last, what feels like an eternity having passed between the two, when truly it had only been four seconds. Then Tobio watches as Shouyou bites his lip and grabs Tobio's wrist with his right hand – the only arm he can stretch out now.

This is different.

"Please, stay tonight," Hinata whispers, voice so soft and mellow that Tobio can't believe it's coming from the spiker. In that moment Hinata sounds lost, maybe a little confused, like he isn't in control of what he's saying. But then his grip tightens like he never wants to release Tobio from his grasp, and Tobio's index finger twitches.

His head bobs down in a nod before he can stop it from doing so, and it's not long before Tobio's kicking off his shoes and settling down on top of the blanket. (Then settling down beneath said blanket when Hinata complains that he can't get comfy because the sheets are too taught.) The last thing Tobio sees before he falls asleep are those three peeling glow-in-the-dark stars, one of them fluttering down to rest on his nose as his eyes close for the last time that day.

At two in the morning, Tobio is woken up by his phone vibrating in his pocket. He takes it out and reads that it's a message from Hinata: hey u up. Weird? Tobio wrinkles his nose because there's something undeniably unusual about that message that he can't quite place. Then he hears a light breathing next to him, remembers that he is in bed with Hinata, rolls over so that he's facing Hinata's side, and lightly slaps his shoulder.

Later, he would learn that Hinata had forgotten that his setter was sleeping next to him, had sent the message about two minutes earlier, swiftly falling back asleep after having sent it. It had taken a while to come through because the signal was appalling that night due to atmospherics.

Tobio would also learn that Hinata enjoyed clinging onto Tobio's clothes in his sleep, but the difference there was that he couldn't really blame that on atmospherics even if he wanted to.