"Nacchan! Nacchan!" Shouyou bursts through the door, sweaty and breathless from the bike ride home. He kicks off his shoes and stumbles over the step separating the genkan from the hallway. Then, forgetting he hasn't announced himself, he adds, "Hellooo, I'm baaaack!"
No answer.
He checks the time on the kitchen microwave—ah, crap, it's been reset?—-and then takes out his phone to check that clock. It's late, but volleyball practice ended ahead of schedule because their teacher had to leave.
Shouyou deflates, fiddling with the microwave to set the clock. "Nacchaaaan," he whines to no one. Because Natsu isn't home to hear him. Her bike was in the front, so he'd assumed she was home before him, but that must mean she took the bus—
The door swings open. "Hellooo, I'm baaack!"
"Nacchan!" Shouyou scrambles back to the front of the house, still wearing his jacket and schoolbag. "It's official, I'm going to a training camp! The long-fated battle of the trash heap!"
Natsu's face twists up in confusion, clearly expecting a simple 'welcome home' instead of being bombarded with volleyball talk. "...What?"
"And welcome home," he adds, grinning. "I just got here. I think Takeda-sensei is going to bring us a new—oh, what should we do for dinner?" he asks suddenly, looking around as if dinner ingredients would magically appear before them.
Today is Thursday. Their mother was out of town for business until Monday, so Natsu was in charge of Shouyou and Shouyou was in charge of Natsu. The main challenge of this is feeding themselves, and maybe doing laundry too, but both Hinatas knew they were too lazy to get any laundry done unless they absolutely had no clothes left.
"Granny Kiho might like some company," Shouyou suggests. "We haven't seen her in a while." More importantly, Granny Kiho would feed them without question, solving the question of how to cook dinner.
His sister pokes out a tongue, toeing off her sneakers slowly. "I think her son is visiting, I saw a car in her driveway." Shouyou deflates. Granny Kiho, the neighbor they share a backyard with, can cook better than anyone he knows—but she also lives alone, and rarely gets family visits. They know better than to interrupt the limited time she gets to spend with her family. "How about… Udon? I'll cook if you can chop the vegetables properly," Natsu teases.
Shouyou sticks out his tongue too. It's not his fault he cut onions into slices instead of itty-bitty cubes last time, she should've told him how to cut them. "Yeah, yeah. Udon's good. But did you hear me? Battle of the trash heap!"
"I heard you. Sounds… unsanitary." Natsu smiles, unzipping her jacket.
"It's because we're crows and they're cats! But forget that part!" He begins to take off his jacket and school bag when he sees Natsu doing the same. "We have a rival school, how cool is that? I had no idea. Old Coach Ukai and Coach Nekomata go way back! I've never heard of Nekoma, but they're from Tokyo! Like Nohebi!" He's only heard of Nohebi Academy in Tokyo, because it was the team that beat Shiratorizawa's soccer team last year—Natsu went on a long rant about it and how her team's working hard to get a rematch.
His sister grins back. "That's awesome. Is this a Golden Week camp?"
"Yes!" Shouyou cheers, throwing his hands up. "Takeda-sensei arranged it! We're practicing in our gym, but we'll play Nekoma in Tsukinokizawa's court on Saturday!"
"Ooh, so you won't be that far," Natsu notes, "We have a trip for that week too, but they haven't announced the details. I think the Academy has a different semester system than Karasuno… You know, for a second I thought you were going all the way to Tokyo for training. But that won't happen 'till Nationals, ne?" She gives him a toothy, knowing grin.
Nationals . Shouyou thinks he might vibrate out of his socks. "Right! I can ask them about the Tokyo gyms! Uwahh , I don't know if Nekoma's been to Nationals recently. I should ask. But they sound strong!"
Suddenly Natsu's grin turns impish. "You know what team's definitely gone to Nationals for volleyball before?" she asks teasingly. "I mean, if I remember correctly they were in Tokyo just this January…"
Shouyou throws his jacket at her face, making her squawk. "Don't talk to me about that team, they're the enemy!" he declares. If he's being honest, Kawanishi seems okay, but Shouyou can't stand that Shirabu guy. And he never got to meet Goshiki! That was suspicious. Shouyou wasn't ready to be all chummy with them. "We can't be friends, Nacchan, no matter how much you like 'em!"
"Who said anything about being their friend?" Natsu laughs, dropping his jacket on the back of a chair.
He rolls his eyes, as if it isn't obvious. "You know we always end up with the same friends one way or another. I like your soccer team—especially Yoshi, she's funny—and you're cool with my volleyball team, but that's where I draw the line, because we're not rival teams!" He pauses. "Actually, no , you can't befriend Kageyama either. If you appropriate my setter it'll mean war."
Natsu, instead of protesting this ludicrous claim (who knew Shouyou would become territorial about the setter he vowed to defeat?), simply raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. It's horribly reminiscent of Tsukishima. "'Appropriate'? Wow, your vocabulary is expanding. I'm so proud , big brother."
She's mocking him. But unlike Tsukishima, Shouyou has no difficulty dealing with Natsu.
Shouyou looks her dead in the eye. "You brought this upon yourself," he declares, scooping up the volleyball he left behind the couch.
"Eh?" Natsu blinks, not expecting to see a weapon. "Oi, boke, don't spike a ball in the house—AHH!" Natsu shrieks and turns away when he serves the ball at her, smacking her in the back of the head. It bounces back towards him. "Ow! You're gonna break something!" She complains, but grabs a pillow from the couch and uses it as a shield.
"You drew first blood!" Shouyou hollers, raising the ball again. She blocks the ball this time, and punts it down the hall before he can grab it. "Don't bring my grades into this!"
"You can't take a joke, oh my god!" Natsu grabs him around the waist so he can't go after the volleyball. Shouyou twists around until she's the one in a headlock, mussing up her hair until it looks as crazy as Nishinoya's. She screeches, pushing harder against him.
"How can you be so nice and so cruel at the same time?!" Shouyou demands, losing his balance when Natsu hooks her leg over his calf and pushes. They fall onto the tatami mats in a heap of tangled limbs. Unfortunately, Natsu ends up on the bottom, squashed under her brother.
"It's an innate talent of mine," Natsu wheezes, and Shouyou rolls himself off her. Sensing disaster if they keep wrestling, she diverts his attention elsewhere. "I'm starving, are we making dinner or not?!"
"Roger that!" Shouyou springs to his feet, wrestling match abandoned and ignoring the dark look Natsu throws him. "Which vegetables need slicing?! Ninja Shouyou is here to defeat them!" Wisely, he chooses not to swing a knife around like he did last time they made dinner. But wouldn't it be cool to slice vegetables in mid-air?! Maybe next time he'll try it, when Natsu isn't scowling at him for wrestling in the house.
While Shouyou pulls out prep bowls and a cutting board, Natsu digs through the fridge for vegetables, trying to recall the recipe for curry udon noodles she found online. They managed it pretty easily last time when their mother supervised and Natsu dictated the instructions. Shouyou figures out which vegetables to cut or grate or slice, while Natsu boots up her laptop to find the curry recipe again.
"Ooh, wait!" Shouyou exclaims, nearly slicing off a finger in his excitement. "This is the one with fancy curry, right? Let me do it this time!"
She raises an eyebrow, skeptical and impressed in equal measure. "You wanna make the roux from scratch?" To be fair, it was a pretty clear-cut recipe. It was a recipe posted to a cooking forum, and there was a comment section to answer questions. "It takes longer, but okay. Try not to get food on the laptop."
Shouyou cheers, pumping a fist. "I can totally do it! It looked so easy when you made it," he insists, shuffling in front of the computer screen. Natsu is still a bit baffled by his enthusiasm, and therefore wary. Neither of them are great cooks, but Shouyou has a tendency to misread directions.
"Nacchan, you still have to help me though," her brother adds as an afterthought, eyes narrowed on the webpage. A divot forms between his eyebrows as he scans the screen, concerned. "This makes sense but it also doesn't? Simmer it 'till the cows come home?"
"That's just a weird idiom," Natsu frowns. "Don't read the blog post, it's too long. That's for the vegetables anyway. Read about the roux."
He nods warily. "Okay… But it says to braise the beef? Is that a dressing?"
"Why don't I handle the beef?" Natsu laughs. "It just uses a certain setting on the oven."
Shouyou still looks distressed. "Nacchan… How… how much is a dollop of butter? What is a dollop? You know I'm bad with weird vocabulary words. What if I mess this up? Then we don't have any dinner!"
"I got you, buddy," Natsu snorts, patting his back. "Just use a chunk of butter, like two tablespoons. It's pretty forgiving." There were similar questions posted at the bottom of the recipe, where Shouyou could find all the answers, but she gets the feeling he hasn't scrolled down far enough for that.
"What am I being forgiven for?" Shouyou asks blankly. "It says that here too, at the bottom of the instructions. How can a recipe forgive me? What did I do?"
"I mean you can't mess this up easily, it'll still taste good with some mistakes or changes," Natsu tries again, exasperation creeping into her voice. "It's just a phrase. Seriously, don't you ever read?"
"What did I say about bringing up my grades?!"
Natsu rolls her eyes. "It's not my fault you're dumb." A pause. "No! Don't get the volleyball out! Shouyou! Stop complaining and watch the pot!"
Saturday arrives, and the Hinatas are bored . They both had practice at the crack of dawn, but no afternoon training scheduled, so they were both milling around Shouyou's room. Shouyou's has been hogging the portable fan lately, and at this point Natsu just decided she'll just have to study in his room until he gets fed up with her presence instead of fighting over it.
(Natsu used to have her own fan, but she knocked it over while trying to juggle a soccer ball.)
"Oho! Kageyama's coming over," Shouyou says eventually, tapping away on his phone.
"Really?" Natsu is surprised. Kageyama hasn't visited before. She's still a little unclear on whether or not he and Shouyou were friends. It was more of a love-hate relationship, from what Natsu could gather from Shouyou's rants. Right now he's sticking out his tongue and there's a slight grin on his face, so today that meant they were friends. "What for?"
Shouyou pauses, still looking at his phone. "Volleyball and stuff? Heh, maybe we'll try to study, and we'll see who's the real boke!"
"You're gonna play volleyball with two people?" Natsu asks doubtfully. "And in this heat?"
"We can still—pass the ball around! I want to try the receiving drill he's told me about, but Kageyama's kind of an idiot, he can't explain it properly in a text. I dunno, we'll figure it out."
Natsu thinks they could've done all that just by staying at the school gymnasium after the end of practice, but it was Shouyou's life, not hers. "Cool. How long is he staying?" If he stayed through the afternoon, it would make sense to offer him food too, like their mom would. Plus, Natsu was a little hungry already.
"Mm—If he wants to stay longer, we could all have dinner together, or like a late lunch, but... do we have food?" Shouyou wonders, also thinking ahead to their next meal.
Natsu huffs. "We'd have to make something again, because we ate all the udon," she mourns. After the success of Thursday night's dinner, curry udon returned for an encore for Friday's meal. And they'd made a lot of udon, too! But now they were a little sick of udon, and also didn't have much fresh produce in the house to cook anything fun.
Despite what their mother thinks, Natsu is just as irresponsible as Shouyou. Neither of them want to cook a meal from scratch today.
"Ugh," Shouyou groans, sharing her sentiment. He looks at his phone again. "Is it too late to ask Granny Kiho?"
Natsu shrugs. "There's still that blue car in her driveway—mom wouldn't want us to bother her."
"Aw man, Granny makes the best meals," Shouyou says mournfully. "She doesn't get visitors often, though, so I'm happy for her. We can pick something up from the store."
Natsu hums her agreement, flipping to the next page of her notes. "I don't want to think about it. We should just buy a bunch of—"
"—pork buns," Shouyou finishes the sentence instantly, looking hopeful.
"Heck yeah."
"Yes!" Shouyou high fives her.
Kageyama Tobio squints down at the directions on his phone, trying to make out the characters. The sun is beating down on his dark hair, and reflecting off the screen of his phone so brightly he can hardly read it. But the house should be right around the corner, so he forges on, glad that he thought to bring a water bottle.
Truth be told, he's a little nervous about visiting Hinata's home. When's the last time he was invited over to a friend's house? To anyone's house? Tobio doesn't think it's ever happened.
Are we even friends? Tobio can't even answer that. Hinata Shouyou is his rival-turned-teammate, the little spitfire with such ridiculous natural talent it makes him burn. His partner for the quick attack. He's mainly here to explain to Hinata how to do the solo receiving exercise, because apparently that idiot can't comprehend written instructions. But, well, he could've explained it at school too, so this was… maybe it was excessive to visit…
A message pops up on his phone. Are you coming or not? Hurry up, slowpoke!
Tobio scoffs. I'm right around the corner, moron, he replies.
He rounds the corner at last, finally picking up his head. There's another person walking from the other direction, but according to Tobio's phone, the smallish brown house with overgrown bushes belongs to the Hinatas, so—
"Do you live here?" someone asks abruptly, startling Tobio.
Pulling his eyes away from the engraved address and family name on the stone border of the property, Tobio finds himself looking at an alarmingly familiar face.
"You," Tobio blinks at the tall boy, wondering if he's seeing things properly. "Aren't you... Shiratorizawa's setter?"
The boy with straight, angled bangs frowns deeply at him. Tobio nervously realizes he's forgotten this student's name. Something with a 'sh' sound?
"And you're one of the Karasuno guys from the game. What's your name again?"
He straightens up quickly. "Kageyama Tobio. And, um, your name… is…?"
"Shirabu Kenjiro," he answers, still frowning.
"Shirabu-san," Tobio repeats carefully. "Um. So, why are you here? You don't live in the dorms?" Hinata's sister is a commuter student, and she's friends with Shirabu, but he never heard anything about them being neighbors .
"No, but I don't live around here," the second year answers stiffly. "I'm just… in the neighborhood today. Don't tell me this is your house," he adds, eyes drifting back to the front gate. "Number 33…. Hinata. ..?" He reads out the engraving, aghast. "This is—no, there's no way this is—"
"KAGEYAMAAA!" Hinata bursts out the front door, almost tripping over the front step. Tobio feels himself exhale a breath he didn't know he was holding in, relieved to see the familiar mop of orange hair. "FINALLY! You took ages to get here, did your brain get fried in the heat? You're not even wearing a hat!" The ginger boy howls, coming to a stop at the gate.
Then he spots Shirabu, and screams. "WHAT THE HELL?!"
Shirabu scowls. "What are you yelling for?"
"What're you doing here?!" Hinata yells again. "Did you follow Nacchan home? Did she invite you over?!"
"No," Shirabu says, horrified. "Why would I? What are you implying, you—"
But before he can get another word out, Hinata twists around and yells at his house, "NACCHAN, YOUR FRIEND'S HERE!"
"Stop yelling," Shirabu snaps, his face turning pink. He begins to back away. "I'm not here for Hinata! This is a mistake, I'm just—I'm not even here, forget you saw me—"
"Shouyou, what are you yelling about?" Natsu sticks her head out of a window, in clear view of all three boys. "Uwah—Shirabu-san, why are you here?!"
Shirabu, who's silently trying to slip out of sight, freezes at her words. He groans, and turns around as Natsu appears in the doorway, pulling on slippers. "Hey!" she greets him sunnily.
"...Hi, Hinata-san," he replies, unenthused.
"Hiya Shirabu-san," Natsu says again, at a loss for words. Then she looks at Tobio, holding up a hand to shade her eyes. "Oh, Kageyama-kun, how are you? It's really hot out here. Shouyou, invite him in."
"I was just about to do that!" Shouyou grumbles. "C'mon!"
"R-right," Tobio nods, sharing a look with Hin—Shouyou. "Thank you for having me." They unlocks the gate and Tobio follows Shouyou into the small, shaded house, while his sister remains at the gate.
Natsu looks at Shirabu expectantly. "Nice to see you," she offers curiously. "Why are you at my house?"
"I didn't know it was your house," he replies quickly, jamming his hands in his pockets. "My grandmother asked me to check on her neighbors. I'm visiting her this weekend."
She tilts her head. "Your… grandmother?"
Shirabu huffs, not meeting her eye. "She made it sound like there were a couple of elementary school kids home alone this weekend," he says pointedly. "Apparently you know her, Kobayashi Kiho-san? Your backyard connects to hers."
There's a loud thump from the front of Hinata's house, and then Shouyou shouts, "YOU'RE RELATED TO GRANNY KIHO? I KNEW IT!"
Another loud thump.
"Shut up, Hinata-boke! It's freakin' hot out here, open the damn door!"
"BAKEYAMA! I'm opening it, I'm opening it…!"
Shirabu scowls harder, even as Shouyou's voice fades. "Yes," he replies to both Hinatas sternly. "I'm her… uh, grandson. Kind of."
Natsu examines his face for a moment, looking for some kind of familiarity. Kobayashi Kiho didn't speak much about her family besides to complain about how rarely they visited her. Natsu's mother probably knew more, but Natsu knew that Granny Kiho had two sons; one in Ishikawa and the other in Saitama. She's never met the Kobayashi boys, and Granny Kiho had no daughters or nieces.
"Ah! Are you Uncle Benji's son?" Natsu guesses at last. Benjiro was actually Kiho's nephew (or was he a godson?) and still lived in Miyagi. He also wasn't a Kobayashi, though Natsu had never thought to ask for his full name. Uncle Benji came by once in a while, and Natsu liked him because he would talk about soccer with her.
"...Yeah," Shirabu confirms, still looking like he's sucked on a lemon. "You call my dad Uncle Benji?"
Natsu nods, intrigued. "Well yeah, that's how he introduced himself—when I was six , Shirabu-san! I've lived here my whole life! How have we never met before?"
He shrugs. "I only visit her a few times a year." His face scrunches up further in annoyance. "This is weird," Shirabu states petulantly.
Natsu grins. "You're just embarrassed!"
"Shut up, Hinata," he says instantly, taking the same tone of voice he uses with Goshiki.
She resists the urge to tease him further. "Did Kiho-baachan invite us for dinner again?"
Shirabu sighs. "Yeah, she did. She says your parents are away this weekend and you two morons don't know how to feed yourselves."
"Oi, we're doing just fine," Natsu refutes, hands on her hips.
"Really? Good," Shirabu says swiftly, spinning on his heel. "I'll tell her you declined the invitation then, alright?"
"Shirabu-san," Natsu protests, following him out the gate. "Nuh-uh, you're not getting out of this that easily!" She steps around him and spreads her arms, blocking his path. "I've had Kiho-baachan's food before, and I've never refused an invitation from her! I just need to ask if it's okay for Kageyama-kun to eat with us too!"
"You're inviting that kid? What the hell," Shirabu exclaims. "You can't, that's so rude."
"Not if I ask first, it isn't," Natsu counters. "She loves feeding people. Especially Shouyou, he eats everything she puts in front of him. Kageyama-kun eats a lot too. She'll love it!"
"Hinata," Shirabu stares down at her. "Has it occurred to you that I don't want to eat a family dinner with you, your brother, and your brother's friend?"
"Why not?" Natsu demands. "What's wrong with that?"
"It—It'll be annoying," he snaps.
Natsu pauses. "...You think I'm annoying?"
"I—" he falters under her stare. "No, you're—tolerable," Shirabu decides. "But the other two are—"
"You don't even know them," Natsu argues, eyebrows raised. "You've only met them once. They even like volleyball like you do! Uncle Benji doesn't know much about it, he likes soccer, ne?"
"Shut up," Shirabu mutters. "Fine, I don't know them. Isn't that reason enough? I don't want to invite strangers into my home."
Technically it's Kobayashi Kiho's home, but Natsu dismisses that point for a better one. "Alright then, Shirabu-san. Then get to know them. Right now!"
"Right… now?" he repeats, horrified.
"Right now!" Natsu repeats with enthusiasm, pushing him backwards towards her home. "Shouyou! Kageyama-kun! Let's play volleyball with Shirabu-san! Two on two!"
"Yes!" Shouyou appears at the gate in the blink of an eye. "Two on two! KAGEYAMA!"
"I didn't agree to this," Shirabu hisses at her. "You don't even play, Hinata."
"Then you're gonna have to work a little harder with me, 'cause I'm no Ushijima Wakatoshi," Natsu shrugs. "But this is just for fun, so don't sweat it! Please?"
"But—but I don't want to!" Shirabu argues. He's not snapping at her though, he's whining , which means Natsu can still coerce him into playing without feeling too guilty about it. "I—I have homework to do, a-and—"
"You can do that later, but right now the backyard has shade, so we gotta play now," she insists. "It won't be a long game, I know you won't last." She begins to raise her voice so it carries. "It's pretty hot out here and you boys aren't used to playing in the sun—"
"What's that supposed to mean?!" Shouyou demands, already digging through a small storage shed for the net and playing oh-so-beautifully into her teasing. Yoshi was right. Boys are so predictable.
"I mean you're all pampered in your gyms with squeaky-clean floors and air-conditioning!" Natsu taunts immediately, grinning at the affronted look on Kageyama's face. "This is practically beach volleyball, which is WAY harder than whatever the heck you guys are doing indoors!"
"Beach volleyball…" Kageyama murmurs, ruminative, remembering what Natsu said after the Dateko game. Her monstrous stamina was helped by playing on sand. "But we're on grass, not sand."
"Grass volleyball," Natsu says cheerfully, thinking quick. "Have you watched tennis before? There's whole tournaments based around different terrain. Grass courts, clay courts, hard courts! I'm sure they don't use hardwood for every volleyball court either. You should learn to adapt!"
"There's synthetic courts too," Shirabu adds, unknowingly playing into Natsu's scheme. "Gym 1 at the Academy is a synthetic court… a lot of professional stadiums use it now too."
Kageyama stares at Shirabu, like he's only just remembered that Shirabu is on the best team in the prefecture. "Different courts..."
"Kageyama's on my team first," Shouyou declares, dragging the dark-haired boy aside to help set up one of the poles. "I'll show you who's pampered, Ms. Private School!" He switches to pointing at Shirabu. "And you! You're good enough to get recommended to the Academy, so show us what you're made of!"
Shirabu clicks his tongue, glaring at her brother. "What are you talking about?"
"You—for volleyball!" Shouyou splutters. "You were recruited for volleyball, weren't you?"
Shirabu straightens up to his full height, looming ominously. "No, I wasn't," he corrects the ginger boy. "I took the regular entry exam and then tried out for the team once I got in."
"Uwah! Shirabu-san, you're a walk-on!" Natsu hollers, eyes wide. "I had no idea! That's way harder than getting recruited!"
"Seriously?" Kageyama's jaw drops. Then his gaze turns steely. "You really are an elite," he mutters to himself. "Hinata!" He barks. Natsu and Shouyou both jump. "I—Hinata boke, not you, Hinata-san. Hold up the net properly."
Natsu snickers. Shouyou rolls his eyes, already working on the net. "You two have to call us different names, otherwise it's confusing!"
"Just call me Hinata and call him boke," Natsu advises with an impish grin. Kageyama nods. Shirabu just gives them all a deeply unimpressed frown.
"Hey! I'm also Hinata, that's not any better!"
"Hm. The dumbass has a point," Kageyama admits.
"Natsu-kun and Shouyou-kun," Shirabu settles on reluctantly, looking at Natsu for confirmation. "...Tendou already calls you that, so it's fine, right?"
"Works for me!" Natsu waves him off, beginning to stretch her legs. "Let's crush them, Shirabu-san. Shouyou is still terrible at receiving so just aim for him."
"NATSU YOU SUCK AT RECEIVES TOO!" Shouyou points at her, furious.
"And yet I can return more of 'em than you, how sad is that?" Natsu isn't sure this is still true, but if she says it with enough confidence, her brother will crumble under the pressure. It's very important to Natsu that she can still terrorize her twin once in a while.
Shouyou howls. It's music to her ears.
Shirabu surveys the far side of the backyard court with cool detachment. "This will be easy."
Kageyama starts sputtering in anger too. Natsu cackles, fist-bumping her setter. "Let's do this!"
Shouyou and Kageyama beat them. Seeing them up close, Natsu has to admit that Kageyama and Shouyou had a setter-spiker chemistry unlike any other. Even though they didn't pull off any quick sets in the yard, their partnership was a thriving, living thing to behold. Sshe could only imagine what it could grow into, given enough time.
"This sucks," Natsu declares, unfazed. "Shouyou, you always play with Kageyama, of course you're better. Switch places with me!"
Kageyama looks a little upset by this, but Shouyou agrees readily to switching up the teams. "You're on! Shirabu-san, don't worry, we can take 'em!"
"I'm not worried," Shirabu replies flatly.
"We're serving first!" Natsu holds the ball out to Kageyama with a grin. He takes it with a hesitant look, his mouth pressed into a thin, slanted line. "Just play, Kageyama-kun," she reminds him, the same way she reminded Shirabu. "I think we can beat them, but if we don't, feel free to blame it on me!"
This ends up backfiring on Natsu, because suddenly Kageyama scowls at her. "We're going to win," he says simply. And then Kageyama proceeds to do a full-blown jump serve in her backyard, overshooting the makeshift court by a long shot and landing it somewhere two houses over.
Shirabu and Shouyou stare, shocked. "I'll get it," Shirabu sighs, jogging after the stray ball. (It's entirely possible that he volunteers solely for the chance at some peace and quiet.)
"BAHAHAHAHA!" Shouyou bursts into laughter, collapsing onto his knees and clutching his stomach. "What was that?!"
"Shut up, Hinata!" Kageyama growls at him menacingly, but Shouyou continues to roll around, absolutely losing it.
Natsu, on the other hand, just turns to Kageyama with wide eyes. "You can jump serve?" she asks with surprise.
"Well," he grits his teeth, red-faced from his failure, "I can't aim it very well, so it's not really a weapon yet."
"Lots of power, though," Natsu points out. "And I know you went for Shouyou, it wasn't that far off-target."
Kageyama just grunts in reply as Shirabu returns with leaves in his hair, thoroughly unamused.
"New rule," Shirabu calls out. "No jump serves. I had to walk through a bush to get this thing."
"No way!" Natsu protests at once. "I'll get it next time it goes out of bounds—Kageyama, I wanna see another one," she says eagerly. "Shouyou won't be laughing when he's gotta actually receive a serve like that!"
Kageyama looks skeptical, but he agrees with a tiny nod. "Move up," he advises her in a clipped voice. "You're also bad at receiving."
"Hey!" Natsu complains, pretending to be outraged. "Just 'cause you're right doesn't mean you have to say it!"
Despite their rocky start, Kageyama and Natsu win against Shirabu and Shouyou—which pisses off Shirabu and Shouyou so much that they demand a rematch. Kageyama is nearly grinning by the end of the game, fully enjoying the competition. They almost lost the volleyball no less than eight times, because Kageyama keeps up with his poorly-aimed jump serves and the Hinatas really are terrible at receiving, but even that isn't enough to deter them from playing another set.
After the second set, Shirabu and Shouyou get sick of each other and they swap teams again. At last, it's Hinatas versus the setters. Natsu thinks that this match-up might be the best one yet.
Sure, Kageyama and Shouyou have great chemistry, but Natsu and Shouyou are loads better at teamwork than Shirabu and Kageyama. Natsu knows how Shouyou thinks, and he can guess how she'll move without speaking out loud. Their receives are sloppy, but the two of them happily run down the ball in every play to keep it in the air. Natsu's serves are crap, but she keeps aiming right between the two players and Kageyama and Shirabu keep miscommunicating over who should receive it.
Shirabu and Kageyama lose to Shouyou and Natsu, in the end, simply because they keep arguing over each other's sets. They're both so offended about the loss that they can hardly look at each other.
Still, Natsu thinks it all went pretty well, because Shirabu caves and lets Kageyama join them for dinner.
Shirabu's grandmother looks like she's on cloud nine when the four of them trundle into her home that evening, tired and extremely hungry. And luckily enough, all the food is prepared and waiting for them on Granny Kiho's dining room table.
"For the record, I don't like them," Shirabu mutters under his breath to Natsu, "But now I'm too tired to argue with you."
Natsu only laughs in reply. "But it was fun, right?" she asks hopefully. Natsu definitely saw Shirabu laugh when Shouyou (briefly) got himself stuck in a tree.
"Yeah," Shirabu mumbles reluctantly, "It was."
"That wasn't so bad, right?" Shouyou asks Kageyama quietly, walking him to the door. "Oh! And thanks for showing me that exercise!"
"Yeah," Kageyama says shortly, looking down. "No problem."
The silence stretches between them as Kageyama loiters on the sidewalk just outside the gate to Shouyou's house.
Shouyou tries to leave it at that, but he can't. "You should come over again sometime," he blurts out.
"I should?"
"Yeah." Shouyou nods furiously. "For—more volleyball tips. And maybe other things too. Sometime."
Kageyama stares at him for a long, unfathomable moment. "Okay," he nods. "Um... bye now."
"Bye!" Shouyou feels lighter as he says it. "See you on Monday!"
A/N: If y'all were wondering why Shouyou felt like he knew Shirabu—here it is. The missed connection. Shouyou saw Shirabu once or twice as kids, but Shirabu's just a hermit that never wanted to meet new people. Natsu can't believe she's not childhood friends with Shirabu when he was literally RIGHT THERE all along.
There's no real reason for this plot point, I just felt like it'd be funny so I wrote it lol.
