Don't Chapter 2

Hinata thought he would never be able to fall a sleep, however in the end his alarm clock had to rang him awake at 6:30 in the morning. He wondered if his dad was already awake. It was Friday, one of his days off, so he probably was still sleeping.

Hinata tiptoed towards the shower. He really didn't want to wake up his father. With all the beer he had been drinking last night, his dad would definatly have a hangover. So as quietly as possible he turned on the warm water and jumped in.

Hinata closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the hot water streaming over his body. However, he couldn't help but see flashes of the scene of last night.

Even though his right cheek — the one that got hit — didn't hurt anymore, he sometimes felt the need to softly touch is. Just to make sure it was okay.

Hinata tried to hold it in, he really did, but again, he couldn't help but let a few tears roll down his cheek. Why was he so weak? It wasn't that horrible what had happened. He only got a little slap in the face. Every kid gets slapped once in a while right? It was normal for a parent to punish their children. Hinata did get home late in the end, without giving a notice beforehand. He had deserved this. His dad had done nothing wrong. He had all the right to do it. Hinata should try to be a better son.

Yeah, he should try better. He was going to be a better son. And he was going to be a better big brother for Natsu. And while he was at it, he could as well try to be a better teammate for his volleyball team.

He froze when thinking about his team. What if they knew what happened? What would they think of him? Only thinking about it gave Hinata an overwelming feeling of shame. They would look at him differently. Hinata didn't want that to happen, he liked his place in the team.

What if Kageyama stopped giving him his tosses? No, Hinata needed it, he needed volleyball. He needed his teammates. He needed that safe space, where he could just be this happy childish version of himself.

So while drying himself with his towel, Hinata decided something. He was not gonna let the team notice a difference.

-Haikyuu-

"Okay guys, lets practice recievs." Coach Ukai yelled. "We are going to do it in turns, after you get 5 good recieves, the next one is up!"

Kageyama joined the queue and watched the rest of his team take turns in recieving. Nishinoya was the first one to go, and he got — of course — every ball that Ukai spiked towards him. It didn't surprise anyone when the libero ended it with his infamous rolling thunder.

What did suprise Kageyama, was that Hinata barely reacted towards his senpai's move. Untill now, Hinata always looked in aww whenever Nishinoya did one of his rolling thunders, but it seemed as if Hinata wasn't paying attention at all. Kageyama didn't know why, but Hinata's absend look in his eyes annoyed him.

After Ennoshite and Asahi it was Kageama's turn. He missed the third ball, but had all the others and after five correct balls he could go back in line. Hinata walked towards the court. Kageyama watched him carefully, even on court Hinata still had this vacant look in his eyes. He immidiatly missed the first ball, something that was not really that unusual for Hinata. He was after all terrible in recieving. What was unusual for him was how, …well Kageyama didn't really know what was strange about Hinata, but there was something wrong. Hinata moved different.

Hinata himself was noticing it too. The frustation was clear in the look of his eyes. After 12 balls, where he recieved three balls properly, Ukai stopped.

"Hinata, this is all for now. For the next time you need to keep your attention at the bal and go stand lower towards the ground. Stand a bit more on your toes so you can run faster if the ball ends up further away."

"Yes sir!" Hinata yelled and then turned back towards the team. It was clear that Hinata was annoyed by his own performace, a frown formed on his face.
Nishinoya patted his head — which looked a bit weird, since Hinata was taller than him.

"Don't worry about it Shoyo. I thought your receives looked awesome!" He said trying to cheer him up.

Kageyama didn't say anything to his little teammate. This wasn't like how Hinata normally was. Hinata would yell something like "one more" or "I am not gonna give up!" after the coach would stop the excercice like that. Now he just walked away.

During the rest of the practice Hinata seemed to be doing fine. He was more quiet than usual. It annoyed Kageyama. The fact that he was annoyed by the quietness of his teammate, made Kageyama even more annoyed. He was supposed to hate Hinata and his annoying shouting and giggling and jumping and Kageyama was supposed to find that not normal amount of energy that Hinata got irritating.

But now all of that was gone, it just didn't feel right. There was something going on with his teammate, but he didn't know what.

-Haikyuu-

Hinata was a bit nervous to go back home. A few of his teammates had plans to go back to Nishinoya's place again, but Hinata declined, it was time to visit his mother again.

Since he had been seeing his mother a lot in the hospital, most nurses had started to recognize him. They were all very kind, and he never forgot to thank them for the care they had for his mother.

Although his mother tried to put on a smile, it was clear she had only gotten sicker. She was once full of energy and warmth. Now her skin was pale, her hair was frail and it felt like every day she was losing a lot of weight. Since his mother had lost a lot of appetite and eating cost too much energy they had given her a nasalgastric tube. The nurses were so kind to explain it to Hinata and he knew that it was only to make his mother better, but it looked scary. It was yet another tube added to her body.

Even though it was clear that his mother wasn't getting better at all, it was so nice to be with her. Her smile was full of love and warmth. She listened patiently to all his volleyball stories and giggled with him whenever he talked about some of his teammates shenanigans.

Hinata could have stayed there for hours, however one of the stricter nurses decided that it was time for his mother to get some rest and threw him out. It was annoying, but Hinata knew the nurse was right. His mom needed enough rest to get better and come home.

Hinata's hand touched the front door. It felt like his heart was pumping. He hadn't seen his dad since last evening. What would happen? Would his dad still be angry? Would he even remember what had happened?

Well, Hinata couldn't stay outside forever, so with all the strength he had, he pushed the door open. The hallway was empty, but he heard noise coming from the kitchen.

What was that? Hinata sniffed his nose. It smelled nice. Was someone preparing dinner? Who could it be? His dad? Hinata couldn't remember how long ago it had been since his dad had cooked for them. So maybe everything was alright.

Hinata took his shoes off and opened the door to the kitchen. He was surprised by the oh so familiar sight in front of him. It was like he had traveled a few months back in the past. When his mom and dad were still okay and Hinata took all the normal things for granted.

His dad was standing in front of the stove, while stirring in the pan. Natsu sat at the kitchen table, drawing something that could not be recognized with a few of her crayons. When Hinata walked in, both of them looked up.

"Shoyooo!" Natsu said happy, while jumping off her chair into his brothers arms. Hinata right away returned the hug.

"Natsuuu! Man I missed you last night. I know you probably had fun with your friends, but I can't live so long without my little sister, you know!" Hinata joked, while ruffling her orange hair. Natsu grinned.

"I missed you to Shoyo! I had so much fun at Mima's place! She has a reallyyy big family, with three brothers and sister. We played all evening!" Natsu let go of him and skipped back to her table.
"That's good to hear Natsu! I'm glad you had fun!" Hinata grinned and then looked back at his father. Even though the sight of him cooking had been a normal thing for almost fifteen years of his life, Hinata almost couldn't believe it was real. It was not even twenty four hours ago that his dad was sitting drunk and passed out in the living and now he was standing right here.

His dad noticed the shock on Hinata's face and sighed. He put a lid on the pan and turned around, so he could look his son in the eye.

"Shoyo, it is good to see you. Could we maybe talk for a bit in the hall way?" It was clear that his dad didn't want Natsu there for this conversation. Hinata nodded. He knew he should be more wary of this new good mood that his father seemed in. Hinata knew he shouldn't trust this "normal" situation just yet.

But Hinata was too eager for it, he needed this. Heneeded everything to be alright. This all seemed like a good step in the right direction.

So Hinata nodded eagerly and walked with his dad towards the hallway. When he was there, his dad sat down on the stairs and looked down. His happy mood was gone.

"I am sorry Shoyo."

What? Why was he apologizing.

"You don't need to…."

"Yes I do, Shoyo. When I woke up this morning, I first thought it was a dream, b-but then I realized it wasn't. I realized I really did hit you. I did, didn't I?" Hinata didn't know what to answer, so he just stared at his dad, who in turn looked down in defeat.

"The last few months had been hard. With your mom being sick and losing the job. All I did was dwell in self-pity and my own sorrow. I forgot that you and Natsu must have been hurting too, I forgot that you are just a kid. I am sorry Shoyo."

Again, Hinata didn't know what to say. His dad had never talked about his mom and what it meant to him that she was in the hospital. He hated seeing his father so full of sorrow and defeat.

"It's okay dad, we are all going trough some rough times!" Hinata meant it. Of course this wasn't easy for his dad. Hinata had a rough time as well, they were only humans after all.

"So you are not going to leave me after what I did?" Hinata's mouth fell open. That his dad would think that Hinata would do that.

"Of course not! We can get trough this together!" He said with a grin.

His dad smiled.

"Well that's good to hear. Shall we go back? I made dinner." His dad pushed himself back standing and walked back to the kitchen where Natsu was still drawing. Hinata smiled, he knew that if he had faith in his father, everything would turn out alright. After all, his dad was the most awesome person ever!

-Haikyuu-

Nishinoya tried to walk as fast as possible trough the hallway of the school. If it wasn't for the teachers, he would probably be running to practice, but those annoying guys would just get angry at him. Nishinoya hadn't been able to stop fidgeting the last hour of class. Man, he just wanted to play volleyball! Sitting all day was boring.

Besides that, he still needed to do a lot of practice. Nishinoya always said he was the guardian of Kurasuno, that he would have everyone's back. In the end, at the fight against Aoba Josai, it hadn't been enough. Nishinoya hadn't been good enough. He never wanted to feel the way he felt when they lost ever again in his life. Next time they were gonna win!

So there he was, half walking-half running trough the hallway, so he could play volleyball again, when he suddenly bumped into someone.

It took him a few seconds to realize that this person was actually shorter than him — not just a little bit, but a lot shorter. It was a rare thing for Nishinoya to meet someone at high school who was smaller than him!

Nishinoya looked down when he saw that he hadn't bumped against a high schooler, but a little girl — she was probably around between the age of 7 to 9. Well that was disappointing…

"I am sorry little lady, can I help you with something. What is a kid like you doing at a high school? I can tell you, it is really dangerous here!"

"Why are you asking? Aren't you a middle schooler your self?" She innocently asked, her head tilted a bit to the right.

Nishinoya's pride couldn't handle that. He was glad that no one from his team was there to hear her say that, especially Tanaka would never let him live that down.

"I am not a middle schooler! I am in the second year of high school, can't you see!?" He yelled while pointing with his thumb towards himself. The little girl immediately shook her head, which was the last blow to end all of his pride.

Nishinoya shook his head. Whatever, this girl just totally didn't know how a real high schooler looked like.

"Well I am, but that doesn't matter. You still haven't answer my question to what you are doing here. Have you lost your babysitter or something?" Nishinoya said while looking around for some parent or something that was looking for her.

"I-I have no babysitter", she said, "And I was looking for my brother. Hinata Shoyo!"

Of course, that Nishinoya hadn't noticed it earlier. This girl was the resemblance of her older brother. She had a lot of bouncy orange hair, the same energy as her brother and on her face there was a big innocent grin.

"You must be Natsu! I know your brother, we are on the same volleyball team. I can help you find him, I am sure he is already on court practicing one of his weird quick!"

Natsu seemed to need a few seconds to decide whether to trust the libero or not, but nodded happily in the end. While walking trough the hallways they started to talk about volleyball and Hinata.

"I gotta admit, Shoyo is really awesome! But also a bit weird, especially when he is with Kageyama!"

"I know he is awesome. When he spikes he just goes like guaaaw and puwaaa", she said happy. Nishinoya couldn't help but laugh, she was just like Hinata.

"Hinata sure is good, but you know who is also awesome. The libero of the team, did he… ehh might ever tell you about him"? Nishinoya asked with a big smile.

"Hmm, I don't remember that he told me something about him", Natsu said.

"What, he didn't? I guess the libero just has to show more of his awesome thunder role"! Nishinoya couldn't hold himself in and made a quick roll in the hallway. The few students who were still in school gave him an annoyed look. He didn't even notice, 'cause all his attention was focused on Natsu.

The little girl had the exact same expression as her brother whenever Nishinoya did a rolling thunder.

"Cooool! I wanna learn that too!" She said eager. Nishinoya couldn't help but smile from ear to ear.

"I will teach it to you, but first up to Shoyo!"

Nishinoya opened the door towards the gym, with Natsu right behind him. The group had already started practice. It seemed that Daichi was leading the practice, 'cause neither Ukai nor Takeda were present. They were practicing serves. Of course Asahi and Yamaguchi where making some good serves, and Kageyama — who was irritating good at almost everything regarding volleyball — made a few good jump serves. Hinata however seemed to be struggling. Not that Shoyo wasn't always struggling with serves, it wasn't really his thing. But now he just seemed different. He didn't seem as concentrated on practice as normal.

Maybe he was injured and didn't tell it to anyone? Would Hinata do that? Nishinoya was sure that if he himself was injured, he probably wouldn't tell the team. They would just tell him to take it easy for a few days or even had him sit it out on the bench. Nishinoya would rather be injured on the court than healthy on the bench.

However, Nishinoya hadn't had a lot of time to worry about his Shoyo, because the moment Daichi came to him with an terrifying and angry face, Nishinoya knew there might be a change he was gonna get killed by the captain.

"Just a few days ago Hinata and now you are late too! Nishinoya, you better have a good reason for it!" Daichi said while crossing his arms.

"Well, there was this little girl…" Nishinoya wanted to point towards Natsu, who was just right behind him, but she was already gone. Confused he looked around, until he saw her standing at the side of the court staring intensely at her big brother. Then out of nowhere she jumped towards him.

"NIIII-SANNNN!"

"GUWAAAAAA"
BAM
They were both laying on the ground. Natsu on the top of Hinata. The whole team had stopped practice and stared at the two siblings.

Daichi right away seemed to have forgotten that he was angry at Nishinoya.

"Is that Hinata's sister"? The captain asked and Nishinoya nodded.

"I found her in the hallway, so I brought her here", he said, "They really do look alike, I mean did you saw Natsu's jump, I bet that if she would train in volleyball she could become as good as Shoyo".

Hinata — who seemed just as surprised as everyone — had already picked himself up from the floor.

"Ehhm, everyone this is my little sister, Natsu." He said while patting her on her head. The little girl — who hadn't been shy towards Nishinoya at all, suddenly realized that everyone was looking at her and backed down. She grabbed Hinata's hand and hid a part of her face behind Shoyo, who could only giggle at his little sisters sudden shyness.

"It's okay Natsu. They are all my friends. Don't you remember how I told you all about them." Hinata said, with a softness in his voice that Nishinoya — and no one else on their team — had ever heard. It was clear that Shoyo was very fond of his sister. Natsu nodded, but still didn't want to come out of her shell.

"What are you doing here anyway?" Shoyo asked. Natsu looked down.

"I-I wanted to visit mom, but I don't know the way to the hospital." She said. Silence filled the gym. Even Nishinoya himself didn't know what to say. Was Hinata's mother in the hospital? Was she sick? Did he tell anyone on the team about this? But no, a quick look around the room was enough to know that no one here knew that Hinata's mother was in the hospital. Everyone was waiting for Hinata to say something. He seemed a bit uncomfortable, but smiled anyway.

"Sure, we can visit her, but you have to wait until practice is over. Can you maybe wait there on the bench"? Natsu nodded, turned around and hopped to the bench. Hinata scratched his head.

"Sorry for this interruption, can we go one with the training." He said, while laughing a bit uneasy. His hands scratching the back of his head.

Daichi seemed to jolt awake by this sentence and suddenly clapped in his hands.

"That's right, lets go on everyone! We are gonna do service practice for ten more minutes, after that I want to play a practice match!"

Since Nishinoya would never have to serve during a match, he used the ten minutes to warm up and stretch. He did that on automatic pilot, while thinking about all what just happened.

Natsu was sitting on the bench. With big brown eyes she looked at everyone on the team — but her eyes were mainly focused on Shoyo, who had gone back to serving, as if nothing had happened before.

Nishinoya wondered how sick Shoyo's mother really was. If she really was staying in the hospital it couldn't be good right? How long would she have been sick? Was this the reason that Shoyo was off his game the last few days? Then why hadn't he mentioned it? Shoyo has never been someone who would try to hide his feelings. He always right away blurted out what was troubling him. That was what Nishinoya always liked about the guy. So why didn't Shoyo do it this time? Nishinoya respected his privacy, but he didn't like the feeling that Shoyo didn't trust the team with this.

The rest of the training was just weird. Everyone tried to act normal, as if nothing had happened. The practice match went okay, but no one was really playing at the top of their game — in the corner Ukai's frustration only grew bigger and bigger. The coach hadn't been there when the little scene between Shoyo and Natsu went down, so he didn't understand it. When he asked what was going on, now one gave an answer and you could see Hinata looking away.

After practice, in the clubroom, there was still a little of a weird mood among them. Nishinoya tried to act as normal as possible and made some jokes together with Tanaka to cut the tension. It didn't really work.

Especially Kageyama seemed annoyed — not that it was that weird, Kageyama always looked ready to kill someone — but it was clear that something was eating him up.

Just as Shoyo, Kageyama was someone who always said what was on his mind. Apparently this situation was not any different, the moment Hinata wanted to leave, Kageyama grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Y-yes Kageyama"

"Why didn't you tell me about your mother." The whole clubroom seemed to freeze. Kageyama really didn't know how to be subtle, he just straight on asked it like that. Not that Nishinoya had any right to talk about being subtle, but he liked to think he was better at it then the first-year setter.

After a few seconds the rest of the team regained themself and just went on with whatever they were doing before, pretending they were not paying attention at all to the conversation happening before them.

"Well, uh. It is nothing bad you know. She just needs to be in the hospital for a few days." Hinata said, while scrabbing the back of his head. It was clear to everyone that he was feeling uncomfortable.

"Is that why you were so off the last few trainings? You should have told us what was bothering you…dumbass." Man, Kageyama really just right on blurted everything out without thinking about it. Poor Shoyo.

Suga seemed to think the same thing and decided to step in. Both of his hands raised in the air as a gesture to keep peace.

"Well well Kageyama, if Hinata doesn't want to talk about his mother, that's fine. He's got all the right to keep things private." He said with his usual calm voice.

"Thanks Suga-san. But the thing is, there is nothing to tell. Seriously guys, my mother is fine, she just needed to stay in the hospital for a few days!"

"Well, that's good to hear!" Suga said.

Hinata grinned. "Yeah, so don't worry about it. I gotta go! Natsu is waiting for me. See you tomorrow." He walked out of the clubroom leaving Kageyama alone with a lot of frustration.

This frustration just kept growing and growing while walking home. The weather was a bit cold. Kageyama tried not to, but his mind kept wandering off to Hinata.

"Kageyama, wait!" He turned around. Nishinoya and Tanaka walked towards him. Did they follow him? That was just creepy.

"What?" He asked.

"Well, we were worried about Hinata's mom. He said it was no big deal, but Hinata has been acting so strange, so we wanted to help." Said the short libero enthusiastic.

"To help? There is nothing you can do right now. Even if his mom had some kind of horrible disease, what could you do. Make her better with your magical Libero powers"? Said Kageyama sarcastic, turned around and walked away. Of course Tanaka and Nishinoya weren't satisfied with that and stopped him.

"Aren't you curious what is wrong with Hinata's mom? Also, maybe we can't make her better, but we can support Hinata"! Said Tanaka. Kageyama sighed. He had to admit that he was curious about Hinata's mother. Besides that he was a bit worried about the little ginger spiker, in the Kageyama worried kind of way — not that he would ever say that out loud.

"Yes, I would like to know what is wrong with her, but how"? He said after thinking about it for a few seconds.

"We follow Hinata to the hospital, he can't be far away because he walks slow with his little sister on his back"! Said Tanaka while Nishonaya nodded happily.

That sounded like a horrible idea.

But Kageyama was tempted to do it. Part of it was because his curiosity. Hinata wasn't the kind of person to be secretive about stuff and this whole situation just felt off.

Kageyama didn't like the fact that Hinata had never told him about his mom. Hinata trusted him with 100% on the court, so Kageyama had assumed that would mean Hinata would also trust him - maybe not with a 100%, but at least a little bit - outside of court.

So if this way he could support Hinata while finding out what exactly was going on it was a win win situation right?

-Haikyuu-

So that was chapter 2! I hope you guys liked it!

Thanks for all the follows, favorites and comments! It is very nice to see people liking this story!

1SilverandGold1 gave me the good idea to find a beta-reader for my story to help correct the grammar and spellings mistakes, but I haven't found one yet, so for now just try to ignore the mistakes (I have dyslexia + English isn't my first language, so I am pretty sure I have skipped over a few mistakes).

Besides that, I am not sure if I am satisfied with this chapter, but I don't really know what I don't like about it. I guess you sometimes have those chapters in your story that feel off, but need to be there. But after re-reading it a few times, I din't know how ti fix it, so I just let it be. I hope I haven't made the characters to OC. That is also something I always struggle with while writing fanfiction.

But I gotta admit that I am happy I started writing again. I totally forgot how nice and relaxing it can be and I totally enjoy every bit of the proces (even though I am not always happy with the results) (+ it is very satisfying to know that people are reading your work and liking it).

Well that was all! lots of love! Stay safe and don't forget to comment what you thought about this chapter!

-xxx-

Maredith