Hinata licked his fingers, finishing the last of the meat buns they had ordered after a long day of practicing. Kageyama grimaced at the noises the shorter boy was making. He bit into his own meat bun to distract himself.

"You know," Hinata said, smacking his lips together, "I was talking with Tanaka and Nishinoya yesterday after you left about how setters seem to always be pretty."

Kageyama choked.

He tried punching himself in the chest to clear his airways as Hinata gave the same treatment to his back. Luckily spiker hands hit harder than most and the blockage finally broke free. Kageyama swallowed and took a few wheezing lungfuls of air only to cough them back out.

"Dude, are you ok?" Hinata said rubbing soothing circles on his spine.

Kageyama managed to get himself under some semblance of control and tried to breathe steadily. He looked at Hinata's bike which had been dropped to the street, the front tire spinning aimlessly.

"I'm…," Kageyama tried saying after swallowing, "I'm ok."

"Try to eat a little slower," Hinata said picking his bike up, righting it back to its position between them, "I won't always be here to save you."

"It's your damn fault it happened anyway!" Kageyama said shoving Hinata to the side nearly making him drop his bike again.

"What? How?!"

Kageyama bit his tongue. "Never mind."

Hinata flipped his nose upwards. "Hmmph, and here I was about to tell you something hilarious. Well, you can forget it now."

Kageyama desperately hoped so. They made it to the tall hill Hinata rode up and down every day. He took a few steps towards the incline before turning around to look at Kageyama curiously.

"Do you think Suga's pretty?"

"What the hell kind of question is that?" Kageyama asked. His heart was thumping so loudly in his chest he was sure he could feel the reverberations in his toes. Did Hinata just have a thing for setters in general? He wasn't sure he was equipped to even begin to unpack that.

Hinata took a step backwards and then another.

"Noya and Tanaka were saying last night that setters are all 'pretty boys'," he said making air quotes with one hand, "I don't really get it."

Kageyama shoved his hands in his pockets and looked off to the side hoping Hinata wouldn't figure out that he knew far too much. "I don't get it either," he said noncommittally, "Those two say a lot of things."

Hinata nodded before turning and hopping on his bike. "See you at school on Monday," he called behind him before beginning his trek up the hill.

He had disappeared around a bend before Kageyama let out his held in breath.

"Right."

0o0

This is by far the worst idea he's ever had and Kageyama can admit he's had quite a few. Trying to set a bowling ball once when he was a kid currently sat at the top of the list. However, as he stood outside the gates of Aoba Johsai high school, he was pretty sure this would easily take the top spot; even more so if it didn't work. He looked down at his phone just to double check the time.

Oikawa had said he would meet him at the front gates after he got out of classes and before he went into his team's volleyball practice. Kageyama was for the first time grateful that Daichi hadn't scheduled any practice for today. Something about upcoming exams they needed to be studying for, not that Kageyama had any spare time to be worrying about those. Maybe he would peruse some notes on the train back home.

He had been struggling for a solid week on how to deal with Hinata and his newly acquired information about him. His short friend hadn't really been acting differently, but Kageyama couldn't help but read further into his every action than he ever had before. He became hyperaware of every touch and every word that could possibly have a double meaning. Every time he caught Hinata's gaze on him he would snatch his eyes away and hope that Hinata wouldn't think he had caught Kageyama looking at him. It was exhausting and he hated how it was making him lose focus on volleyball, and anything that did that HAD to be a bad thing. All of this had led him to send a text he never thought he'd send.

"Tobio-chan!"

And he was already regretting it.

Oikawa was gliding over to him and Kageyama was having a hard time figuring out how he was doing that. Oikawa joined him at the entrance and leaned against the wall, a smug smirk already in place. He held out his phone so Kageyama could see the screen showcasing his message.

"I need your help," Oikawa quoted taking the phone back, "Never thought you would finally come crawling back to your senpai." He flipped his bangs in pride, sparkling all over the place. Kageyama wanted to slam his head into the wall.

"It's not about volleyball," he mumbled fisting his hands, "It's um…I need advice."

His upperclassman lost his glittery aura but kept the grin. "Advice that isn't about volleyball?" He asked, "Now this must be serious."

Kageyama gritted his teeth. "Trust me, you were my last option."

He had also been the only option since Kageyama had decided a hundred percent against asking anyone on the team in case he wouldn't be able to look them in the eyes the rest of the year, but Oikawa didn't need the ego boost. Oikawa crossed his arms, dark brown eyes bright as though he already knew.

"Well, let's hear it then," he said looking at his nails, "I'm a very important person and I don't have-

"It's about confessions."

Kageyama could practically hear the gears in the older setter's head come screeching to a halt as his eyebrows disappeared into his hairline and his eyes turned the size of planets. Since he was afforded a moment of silence and hadn't stopped to properly plan how to say anything he plowed on ahead.

"Someone likes me and it's messing up my concentration when it comes to volleyball and so I need to reject them but I don't know how since they haven't actually confessed to me yet and I figured since you reject lots of girls all the time you would know what to do."

He took in a shaky breath and waited for the ridicule that he knew was to come. Instead, Oikawa just blinked at him for a while.

"Well?" Kageyama asked hating how uncertain he sounded, "Can you help me or not?"

Oikawa stood up straighter and put his hands on his hips.

"It's very good that you came to me," he said nodding sagely, "Left to your own devices I've no doubt you would've done something very stupid."

Kageyama was pretty sure he just got dissed but he wasn't about to ruin the only avenue he had for help by starting an argument. At least he wasn't being made fun of.

"Just… just tell me what I need to do."

"You said she hasn't actually confessed to you in person yet but you know of her crush anyway," Oikawa said fingers on his chin, "Is that right?"

"Right," Kageyama nodded, "I just so happened to overhear him telling someone else."

"I see."

If Oikawa noticed the pronoun change he didn't say anything which eased even more of the anxiety crawling around in Kageyama's skin.

"This is very easily remedied Tobio-chan," he said clapping his hands together, "You can't stop the confession before it happens but you can prepare for it which should free your mind from worrying about it."

"Prepare?" That actually made sense and he was honestly surprised he hadn't thought of it earlier. It was like volleyball. When there was a difficult game coming up you needed to ready yourself in order to meet the challenge.

"Yes! Listen to your senpai properly," Oikawa said pointing at him, "Write down your response ahead of time so you won't keep stressing about it. Keep it kind but firm. Tell them you appreciate them and are honored to hold their affections."

Kageyama was nodding to every word Oikawa said really hoping that he could remember it all. Should he have brought a pen for notes?

"Say something about why you can't accept their feelings but make sure they know it's not their fault in the slightest," Oikawa continued listing things on each of his fingers, "You could tell them you like someone else as well, unless they're crazy and one of those 'might stab someone' kind of people."

Would Hinata stab anyone over a rejection? Kageyama highly doubted it. Hinata could get very intense where volleyball was concerned and Kageyama loved seeing it since it meant he was being serious, but he had never considered him dangerous.

"And Kageyama," Oikawa said with an unusually serious tilt to his head, "Please try to be nice."

"Nice," Kageyama repeated knowing he was going to absolutely fail in that department, "Right."

Oikawa took his phone back out and looked at the screen.

"I have to go, my team is probably badly missing their captain," he said wistfully.

"Yeah, right," Kageyama muttered.

"What was that?"

"I said thank you," Kageyama said bowing both to show gratitude and to hide his smirk, "You've been really helpful."

"Oh to think my little Tobio-chan is growing up so fast!" Oikawa swooned and batted his eyelashes at him.

"Oy, Shittykawa! What the hell are you doing?" Came an angry voice from behind the tall brunette that Kageyama immediately recognized. "Practice started ten minutes ago!"

"Gotta go!" Oikawa said winking before running after Iwazumi who smacked him on the back of the head.

Kageyama felt drained after interacting with who Hinata called the Great King who was really more of a royal pain in the ass than anything else. At least he now had the steps needed to make a plan, the only thing left to do was implement them.

0o0

Kageyama stared at the blank sheet of paper in his notebook on his desk in front of him. He had made sure he had a pen with clear black ink, his phone was on silent and his bedroom door was locked even though no one was home. Nothing could distract him.

"Ok," he said to himself, "Kind but firm he said."

What was he supposed to start with? He was supposed to say he appreciated them and their feelings. Except he didn't. Those feelings were screwing with his head 24/7.

Hinata,

You suck at basic things but I like playing volleyball with you. I don't want your feelings but they're nice ones anyway.

He didn't actually think they were nice but he wasn't supposed to insult Hinata at all during this whole thing. It was better to be crushed on than brutally hated so it wasn't fully a lie at least.

So far, good start. What was next? He was supposed to explain why this whole thing would be a bad idea. That was easy there were too many of them.

Dating you would be troublesome and I wouldn't be able to play anymore. Being your boyfriend would be weird because you are weird.

Oh that's right, it's not supposed to be his fault. Scratch that last part out and try again.

Being your boyfriend would be weird but you're not as weird so that's ok.

Better.

And finally, tell them you like someone else. Kageyama didn't really like anyone else but he didn't want to risk not following Oikawa's instructions word for word.

I like volleyball more than I like you.

He remembered Oikawa telling him to be nice. He looked over what he had written so far. Being nice was hard especially when you really didn't want to be. Oikawa had rejected tons of confessions and yet somehow still had a huge group of fangirls who didn't hate him.

How was Kageyama supposed to do that? He really didn't want Hinata to hate him afterwards. Who else was supposed to hit his quick sets in games if Hinata wanted nothing to do with him? He would need to practice writing his plan down a few times so he would remember it properly when the time came. This wasn't about to be enjoyable at all. This was completely Hinata's fault whether his rejection said so or not.

He scribbled his pen viciously over the whole page knocking his water bottle over in the process. Water spilled over the paper, across his desk and into his lap. He jumped up knocking his chair over.

This was going really well.

*Chapter 4 10/15/22*